-- 300LIVE: Ołdakowski on the Polish Fighting Symbol's Rainbow Sign: The PW Symbol Should Be Widely Used, If There Is No Brawlhttps://300polityka.pl/live/2018/08/01/

-- BIEŃKOWSKA TO REPLACE JUNCKER UNTIL THE END OF THE WEEK - as Florian Eder writes in POLITICO EUROPE: “Juncker is spending his last week in Brussels before taking some time off, but he has repeatedly made it clear that he wants the Commission open for business over the summer. The president has made sure there’s always a commissioner on duty at the Berlaymont to handle whatever crisis this August may bring (and we present a veritable smorgasbord of options below). Who’s in charge: According to an internal planning note that Playbook has seen, Commissioner Věra Jourová took the first shift on Monday and Tuesday, handing over to Elżbieta Bieńkowska for the remainder of this week. From August 4, Günther Oettinger is on duty. He’ll hand the baton to Tibor Navracsics for the week after. Pierre Moscovici will be last on permanence from August 18 to 23. So what will those who are on deck be doing while they’re home alone, aside from turning up?”

-- STEFAN SĘKOWSKI IN NOWA KONFEDERACJA ON THE HARMFUL MYTH OF SOLIDARITY: “30 years after the fall of ‘communism’, Solidarity veteran status still serves as a pass to high positions, even though it doesn’t translate to competence today. This myth should be transformed or, without regret, relegated to the BHP Hall of the Gdańsk Shipyard.”

-- SĘKOWSKI ON THE PRL GENERATION'S INABILITY TO BUILD INSTITUTIONS:“All of this does not help in creating what a stably functioning independent state needs: precisely, the rule of law. The generation that matured in the Polish People's Republic is also chronically incapable of creating strong institutions, the effects of which we have been observing for thirty years. This problem may be reproduced as long as the myth of 'Solidarity' remains alive in younger generations. It is responsible for an inherent distancing from state institutions, understood not as a common-sense and freedom-oriented principle of limited trust, but as a fundamental alienation from what regulates and creates frameworks for public life. It can be replaced by a belief in one's own moral superiority, leading to centralization. In this context, every protest and every form of it gains moral justification by its very existence: guardians of disabled people can occupy the Sejm hall for weeks, a student protesting in her own name and assuming the right to represent the entire community rises in the eyes of some to the role of a modern Anna Walentynowicz. Often, these protests take place under the white and red flag, although they are frequently aimed at securing a particular interest at the expense of the general public, as in the case of defending retirement privileges for miners in 2005, won through the destruction of others' property. Promoting Andrzej Lepper to the pinnacle of his political career was only possible thanks to the combination of reluctance to unequivocally condemn vandalism and brutality with short-sighted support for it by the opposition of the time.” https://nowakonfederacja.pl/szkodliwy-mit-solidarnosci/

-- PIOTR SKWIECIŃSKI ON SIGNALS FROM MOSCOW: “Official and semi-official Russian signals addressed to Poland in recent days have been appearing with a frequency that makes it impossible to ignore them any longer. I am referring to the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation's agreement to allow Polish prosecutors to visit Smolensk to examine the wreckage of the Polish Tu-154 aircraft on site. But also to the subsequent publications by the Regnum agency, which plays a rather significant role in the Russian media market, and which is nationalist and – let's emphasize this – consistently anti-Polish in its line, suggesting the possibility of some Polish-Russian agreement against Ukraine (and Belarus, treated as a state breaking away from Moscow's sphere of influence and the 'Russian world'), and even a joint partition of these countries. The author of one of these publications is Modest Kolerov himself – the head and owner of Regnum, a rather influential figure. This is important because it emphasizes the significance of a publication which, while remaining unofficial and non-binding, gains a certain kind of Kremlin stamp.” https://wpolityce.pl/m/polityka/406025-o-co-chodzi-syrenom-czyli-jaki-jest-sens-sygnalow-z-moskwy

-- KRYSTYNA NASZKOWSKA ON THE DIRE SITUATION IN AGRICULTURE:“It hasn’t been this bad in agriculture for a long time. (...) The grand plan to rescue agriculture and secure PiS's support in the countryside largely consists of reheated leftovers. Will the Prime Minister's words calm the farmers? We'll see in the autumn.” https://oko.press/tak-zle-jak-obecnie-dawno-w-rolnictwie-nie-bylo-plan-pis-narodowy-holding-spozywczy/

-- TYSON SHOULD NOT ENDORSE THE UPRISING - ŁUKASZ WARZECHA IN RZ:“Within those 20 seconds, my attitude towards using Tyson as a promoter of the Warsaw Uprising changed completely: it's simply a terrible idea. Regardless of the fact that some people who still consider the boxer an authority might have heard about the Polish uprising for the first time thanks to this film. Unfortunately, by associating this knowledge with a person who simply should not endorse the uprising.”

-- WARZECHA FURTHER ON TYSON: “I also started to recall Tyson's history at lightning speed – his extreme brutality in the ring, the typical behavior for this group of 'athletes,' more resembling brutal banditry than sport, his rape conviction, and, generally speaking, the image of a ruthless, brutal, and mindless machine for delivering beatings. Only then did the internet remind me that, on top of it all, Tyson is proud of a tattoo depicting Che Guevara, who represented an attitude diametrically opposed to the values that the insurgents defended.” http://www.rp.pl/Rzecz-o-polityce/307319911-Warzecha-Dwie-strony-tego-samego-kompleksu.html

-- CANDIDATES FOR THE CHILDREN'S OMBUDSMAN: “Sabina Lucyna Zalewska has been nominated for the position of Children's Ombudsman by a group of Law and Justice MPs, the Sejm Information Centre announced on Tuesday. Ewa Jarosz and Paweł Kukiz-Szczuciński are also running for the RPD position.” https://wpolityce.pl/spoleczenstwo/406037-znamy-kandydata-pis-na-rzecznika-praw-dziecka

-- TRZASKOWSKI VS TVP - Jacek Nizinkiewicz in RZ: “Trzaskowski announces that if TVP disseminates false information claiming he ridiculed insurgents, he will take legal action. He adds that his close family fought in the Warsaw Uprising.” http://www.rp.pl/Platforma-Obywatelska/307319905-Trzaskowski-kontra-TVP.html&cid=44&template=restricted

-- RIGHT-WING MEDIA ATTACK. SHOULD TRZASKOWSKI APOLOGIZE FOR KORDIAN? - Gazeta Stołeczna: “We also asked Rafał Trzaskowski for a comment. – We cannot allow manipulations and lies to be used, especially at a time like the anniversary of the Uprising's outbreak. For many years, August 1st was outside political disputes as something sacred, which is why I am sorry that another boundary has been crossed – states the candidate for the capital's mayor.” http://warszawa.wyborcza.pl/warszawa/7,54420,23739306,atak-prawicowych-mediow-trzaskowski-ma-przepraszac-za-kordiana.html

-- WPOLITYCE CITES A LETTER FROM A FORGOTTEN SOLDIER, MIECZYSŁAW CHOJNACKI, TO TRZASKOWSKI: “As a candidate for the mayor of Warsaw, a city that suffered so much during the German occupation, and in the first decade of communist rule, a UB torture chamber operated in almost every district, where on almost every street there are plaques honoring execution sites of Polish citizens, you should know how important and valuable is the sacrifice of one's life in the fight for the freedom of one's nation. (…) One cannot allow such an important issue as the sacrifice of one's life for the homeland to be used in political rivalry.” https://wpolityce.pl/polityka/406019-przeczytaj-co-o-spocie-trzaskowskiego-mysli-zolnierz-wyklety

-- TRZASKOWSKI, APOLOGIZE - headline in GPC. https://gpcodziennie.pl/95217-trzaskowskiprzepros.html

-- ADAM LESZCZYŃSKI, FOLLOWING THE CASE OF TRZASKOWSKI'S SPOT, ON THE NEGLECT OF LEAVING HISTORY TO THE RIGHT-WING BY THE CIVIC PLATFORM:“It is a great neglect on the part of Civic Platform governments that they left this matter to the right-wing, and often even supported its narrative – as President Komorowski did many times, for example, co-creating the cult of the 'cursed soldiers', for which, of course, no one on the right thanked him. This is one of the many neglects of this party, perhaps even worse than the VAT loophole, through which it diligently worked for eight years to build PiS's hegemony.”

-- LESZCZYŃSKI ON THE FACT THAT THE RIGHT-WING DOES NOT HAVE A MONOPOLY ON PATRIOTISM:“Today, we have only one thing left: not to be fooled. The right-wing does not have a monopoly on defining what is and what is not patriotism, and how Poles should experience their collective past. I apologize for this banality, but it must be stated before PiS's 'historical policy' completely brainwashes everyone and turns them into a coloring book with 'cursed' soldiers. http://m.newsweek.pl/opinie/hipokryzja-prawicy-hejtuja-trzaskowskiego-za-spot-sprzed-10-lat,artykuly,430854,1.html

-- DUŻY FORMAT REPORTERS ON THE DISCUSSION ABOUT THE SECOND MEANING OF THE TEXT ABOUT TRZASKOWSKI:“Our report on Rafał Trzaskowski, Civic Platform's candidate for mayor of Warsaw, has provoked extreme reactions. Few people treated it simply as a story about a person; instead, commentators, sweating and toiling like miners, rushed to dig for a hidden meaning. Some considered the text a eulogy, others a Trojan horse. There were so many analyses on social media that we don't even know who commissioned us and for what: from Civic Platform to improve the candidate's image or from an underground faction of the Democratic Union to destroy him (that theory also existed). It seems that in Polish politics, we have become so accustomed to talking mannequins wrapped in PR foil that a rather simple text about a person with their strengths and weaknesses causes shock, disbelief, and the wildest conspiracy theories.”

-- FURTHERMORE, Rafał Wójcik and Ludmiła Anannikova: “Thus, Przemysław Witkowski from 'Krytyka Polityczna' accused us of flattering the candidate for the capital's mayor. 'Of course, I might be mistaken in interpreting these sentences from the report, but I read them as unbearable, tiresome, sycophantic hagiography,' he wrote. Adam Leszczyński from OKO.press had a different opinion. 'The report suggests that the candidate is helpless, stressed, has no idea for the campaign, but has a parrot that says 'constitution',' he scoffed on Facebook. He also summoned Konrad Niklewicz, responsible for media relations in Trzaskowski's campaign team, and asked: 'How could you allow this?' Niklewicz timidly defended himself, stating that it was not him but the authors who decided what they wanted to write about, but his explanations were met with condescending disbelief.” http://wyborcza.pl/7,75398,23738975,tekst-wazeliniarsko-koniotrojanski-czyli-co-napisalismy.html

-- TRÓJMIEJSKA GW ON DISAGREEMENTS WITHIN POMORSKIE CIVIC PLATFORM REGARDING THE SUPPORT FOR ADAMOWICZ BY PLATFORM COUNCILLORS: “Gdańsk Civic Platform councillor Beata Dunajewska has been suspended by party authorities for deciding to run on Paweł Adamowicz's committee. A similar fate awaits other Gdańsk Civic Platform politicians who have decided to run on the incumbent mayor of Gdańsk's committee soon. – You cannot be in a party and run on a competing committee – states Agnieszka Pomaska, head of the Civic Platform in Gdańsk.” http://trojmiasto.wyborcza.pl/trojmiasto/7,35612,23738662,czystka-w-platformie-obywatelskiej-radna-beata-dunajewska-zawieszona.html#sondaz

-- BERLIN HAS NO RESERVATIONS ABOUT RUSSIAN RULE OF LAW - GPC: “Andrei Kovalchuk, the alleged organizer of cocaine smuggling through diplomatic channels, was transferred from Germany to Russia and placed in the Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention center in Moscow. German authorities did not take into account reservations about the rule of law in Russia or reports of torture in Russian prisons.” https://gpcodziennie.pl/95214-berlinniemazastrzezendorosyjskiejpraworzadnosci.html

-- BIRTHDAYS:Irena Wóycicka.