-- AMERICAN PROSECUTOR: KWAŚNIEWSKI LOBBIED IN THE US FOR YANUKOVYCH FOR CONVICTED MANAFORT - writes wyborcza.pl: "The former president was allegedly part of a group of influential politicians cooperating with lobbyist Paul Manafort. 'They seemed to express only independent assessments of the Ukrainian government's policy, while being paid by Ukraine,' stated the prosecutor accusing Manafort of financial fraud."

-- KWAŚNIEWSKI'S NAME APPEARS IN SEVERAL THREADS: "Information concerning Kwaśniewski appeared in an investigation report submitted to a Washington court on Friday by special prosecutor Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election. He accused Donald Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, of financial fraud. This occurred during the time Manafort worked in Ukraine for President Viktor Yanukovych and his Party of Regions. The lobbyist pleaded guilty. Mueller is not bringing any charges against Kwaśniewski. The former Polish president's name appears only in a few threads of the special prosecutor's report."

-- KWAŚNIEWSKI IN A STATEMENT TO GW: "I met Manafort when he was an official advisor to Yanukovych. Together with Pat Cox [another member of the European Parliament mission to Ukraine], we tried to influence Yanukovych through him to release political prisoners. I met with him in 2012-13. It ended before the Vilnius summit, when it was clear Ukraine would not sign the association agreement. Yanukovych was in favor of signing this agreement, and Manafort strongly supported it. I had no formal contact with Manafort, and I did not receive any money from him."

-- WHAT GUZIAŁ PRESENTS AS A CANDIDATE FOR WARSAW VICE-MAYOR - 300LIVE: https://300polityka.pl/live/2018/09/15/

-- PIOTR ZAREMBA SUGGESTS DWORCZYK WOULD REPLACE BŁASZCZAK - as written in RZ: "Opinions on the sense of acquiring these frigates were divided. It's hard to say what motivated Prime Minister Morawiecki to block this at the last minute. The interests of the shipbuilding lobby? The remarks of some military technology experts? Or a growing dislike for Błaszczak, whom the head of government would like to replace with the head of his chancellery, Michał Dworczyk?"

-- ZAREMBA ON HOW EVEN THE VETO ON RIO SHOWS DUDADE IS MANAGING TO DEFEND HIMSELF: "It's also worth noting that even if the president did not avoid lapsus, his scout-like straightforwardness allows him to ultimately defend himself. The time will come to assess his impact on reality. For example, did his veto on regional audit offices prevent PiS from attempting to limit local government powers? He gave a clear signal: I am with the local government officials."

-- ZAREMBA ON DUDDA'S LONELINESS: "At the same time, as a politically lonely individual, condemned to equivocation and politeness, he may seem like a grateful victim for attacks, as if in substitution for the entrenched, fully armed PiS camp. And who, given the weakness of his support base, will help him repel the attack then?"

-- WŁODZIMIERZ CZARZASTY ON POLITICS AS HUNTING BUFFALO, THAT BOTH OLDER AND YOUNGER ARE NEEDED - says in an interview with OKO.PRESS (Szczęściak, Pacewicz, Leszczyński, Kocejko): "In North American tribes, the council of elders knows when the buffalo will come. When the buffalo come, the younger warriors have the strength to shoot their bows. You cannot build a party solely on the young or solely on the old. Poland is neither young nor old. I can list six characteristic points of my electorate in a second, because it is my electorate. I am vying for it and will take care of it. If someone wants to break the law, break the Constitution, be a political bandit, let them vote for PiS. If someone wants to vote for someone who gave Poland the Constitution, and currently all parties are defending it, let them vote for SLD."

-- CZARZASTY ON HAVING 23 THOUSAND PEOPLE: "Two and a half years ago, this party was supposed to fall apart. Currently, we have twenty-three thousand paying party members. I am fielding over twenty thousand candidates for councilors, eighty candidates for mayors in presidential cities. I have mobilized all former MPs, meaning all the best cadres. I was recently in a bind and said: 'all hands on deck'. We were at 2 percent, today we have what we have. We are the only extra-parliamentary party with stable ratings and third place in polls for half a year."

-- IF YOU CAN'T HANDLE RACHOŃ, DON'T GO: "I am a politician. 700,000 people watch public television programs. I made a decision: 'if they invite you, please accept.' I believe you have to talk to a journalist; either someone is prepared for the conversation, or they are not. I would have managed in the 'Woronicza 17' program and ridiculed the stupid theses. I know how to do it. I'm good at it. I'm not arrogant, I'm just good at it. If someone can't handle it, they shouldn't go. But an important point: zero hypocrisy. Opposition politicians went to Rachón for two years, every week."

-- CZARZASTY ON NOWACKA AND PIECHNA: "I will not put Paulina Piechna in an awkward situation. She resigned from Inicjatywa Polska, saying about Barbara Nowacka, 'you broke the standards that were important to me.' It's hard for me to tell Ms. Piechna: 'If you've called out what Barbara Nowacka did by name, come to me for a month and a half before the elections, leave Jan Śpiewak.' That would be awkward. I can make such a proposal the day after the local elections. I know her well; she was Leszek Miller's deputy for four years. She was a young face, along with Krzysiek Gawkowski, in SLD. I don't want to put her in an awkward situation."

-- IF YOU DON'T HAVE A FACE, YOU DON'T HAVE A LOGO - CZARZASTY ON NOWACKA: "She ran under the slogan 'no ego, no logo' in 'Gazeta Wyborcza.' If you don't have a face, you don't have a logo. That's true. I want to summarize what Piechna, Lewandowski (Tomasz, Deputy Mayor of Poznań – note OKO.press), Marta Lempart, and many people from 'Let's Save Women' have said. Nowacka collaborated within SLD not with me, but with Leszek Miller; she collaborated with Janusz Palikot. She couldn't, despite the subsidy she still receives, maintain Janusz Palikot's party; she left it. She couldn't build Inicjatywa Polska, she couldn't integrate the left. It's untrue – I will defend both Zandberg and myself – that Zandberg's and Czarzasty's egos were so great that it was impossible. We stated in writing – we did it deliberately: 'okay, we're entering teams, four teams, secular Poland, history, everything.' There was no response, no further meeting. There was no proposal. Now Barbara said about me: 'I will not cooperate with a man who was Magdalena Ogórek's campaign manager.' I was never Magdalena Ogórek's campaign manager! There's a limit to lies, hypocrisy, there's a limit to justifying one's actions."

-- CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATIC CAPITALISM VALUED NOWACKA AT THREE ONES: "Capitalism, brutal, Christian democratic capitalism, valued Inicjatywa Polska at three ones: one in Warsaw, the second for the regional assembly, the third promised to Barbara Nowacka for the Sejm. That's it. That's how things are valued, the market. I wouldn't sell any idea for two ones and one in presumption."

-- CZARZASTY ON NOWOCZESNA - PÂTÉ SPREAD ON SCHETYNA'S SANDWICH: "Nowoczesna is already talking about it, already a month and a half before the elections, right? Okay, but we're not talking about pâté spread on a sandwich eaten by Schetyna, but about serious parties."

-- NOWACKA DEFENDS HERSELF IN GW: SHOULD I MAKE RIGHTEOUS YOUTUBE VIDEOS? - as she says in an interview with Agnieszka Kublik and Iwona Szpala: "You have to believe in something, trust someone. I can be super-idealistic, swear that I'll never join anyone, that I won't shake Czarzasty's hand, Schetyna's hand, Lubnauer's hand. Well, I won't give anyone my hand. I'll shake my own hand. And I'll get 2 percent, so all that will be left for me is to make righteous YouTube videos. I want to bring Inicjatywa's progressive program into people's real lives. Of course, compromises are not super pleasant and comfortable, ego hurts, but that's politics. I'm not aiming for pleasure, I want to be effective."

-- MARCIN KĘDRYNA ON DUDDA'S CAMPAIGN - THAT WAS THE MOOD ONLINE - SAYS TO MARCIN MAKOWSKI ON WP: "It's difficult for me to speak on behalf of the Campaign Staff or Law and Justice. I will only say that I witnessed practically the entire online presidential campaign of Andrzej Duda. And bots were not used in it. I'll say more. For me, even paid promotion of content became pointless after a certain point. That was the mood online. I shouldn't say this, because if I decided to check it in business, I would lower my value, but I'll say it. A lot of the things that appeared online during the campaign, whose authorship is attributed to the Campaign Staff – were invented by internet users. We could only applaud and share them. Our competitors spent a terrible amount of money on an ineffective social media campaign, and I have the impression that they still find it easier to invent outlandish stories than to admit: yes, we were weaker. Our candidate was weaker. We were fooled by subcontractors. And to look for our Paweł Szefernakier."

-- THEY WOULD BE BILLIONAIRES - JACEK KARNOWSKI MOCKS THE THESIS THAT DUDA WON THANKS TO 40 THOUSAND FOR THE INTERNET: "President Andrzej Duda is again under heavy fire. This time we are to believe that for PLN 40,000, he made the nation laugh at Bronisław Komorowski and choose change. If that were really the case, 'Wyborcza' journalists shouldn't write an article about it; they should gather the knowledge of how it's done and sell it to the world. They would be billionaires!"

-- THE EU IS AN OBJECT WITH RELIGIOUS CHARACTERISTICS FOR ITS FOLLOWERS - KARNOWSKI FURTHER: "The hysteria caused by this statement confirms what we have known for quite some time: the European Union is an object with religious characteristics for its followers. It is not a rational choice, a cool analysis, a cost-benefit calculation; no, it is a kind of loving infatuation that precludes even discussion of the project's advantages and disadvantages. This is, moreover, a phenomenon characteristic of the peripheries: neither Germans nor French think of the Union that way. They see it as a political tool to achieve their goals, but not as something to replace Germany or France."

-- POLEXIT IS FICTION - KARNOWSKI'S CONCLUSION: "The above post does not signify support for 'Polexit.' The claim that the PiS camp wants to leave the Union is simply fiction from people who – being believers – are incapable of understanding politics even slightly nuanced."

-- TOMASZ KRZYŻAK AS AN ANGEL OF POLISHNESS ON PO'S WORRYING COURSE TO THE LEFT: "It's going its own way, and it has invited not only Katarzyna but also the initiative-driven Barbara to join the journey. This clear turn to the left is extremely worrying. It means not only distancing from a large group of voters but, above all, from us. While some of its moves could be understood, this is very unclear. Of course, in a sense, it can be seen as a preemptive move against Robert's temporary haven in Słupsk, but in the long run, it will bring no benefits. Besides, all over the continent, there is a withdrawal of nations from liberal concepts. Jarosław the Just senses this quite well, but Grzegorz does not."

-- JAKUB BIERZYŃSKI IN CONVERSATION WITH AGNIESZKA KUBLIK ON KURSKI'S INEFFECTIVE PROPAGANDA: "That's why Jacek Kurski's propaganda is completely ineffective. And that's the president's problem. He tries to convince his party colleagues who gave him this job that his activities still make sense for the party. But they don't, because it turns out that a leading national station with a broad offering for a gigantic audience has the same political effectiveness as the niche TV Trwam!"

-- BIERZYŃSKI ON POLSAT'S TURN TOWARDS PIS: "And that's why the change in Polsat's news program line was so important for PiS. It was achieved very skillfully. It is known that Zygmunt Solorz has very complicated and extensive relations with the state in regulated markets, such as the telecommunications market, which involves frequency licenses and permits. Or the energy market – it is known that he is trying to sell unprofitable power plants from the Pątnów-Adamów-Konin group to the state. And recently he bought a large yacht. A helipad, 40 high-paying jobs for maintenance, docking in Cannes. You have to pay for that with something, right?"

-- BIERZYŃSKI, ON FEARING TVP'S SUBTLETY: "I was very afraid that TVP would be done subtly, that the propaganda would be hidden, it would only smuggle a certain message, because that gives the power to persuade the unconvinced. Fortunately for the democratic camp, Jacek Kurski used a hammer and chisel. He started hitting the watch and completely destroyed it."

-- CALLING ONESELF THE TOTAL OPPOSITION WAS A TOTAL MISTAKE - BIERZYŃSKI FURTHER IN GW: "Kaczyński consciously provokes the opposition and creates this moral fervor because he knows that it leads to pure negation. And pure negation is tiring and numbing. People start to say: well, the opposition always criticizes and criticizes everything. And calling oneself the 'total opposition' was a total mistake. Right from the start, they stuck a label on themselves: 'I'm against it.' If you're against it, why ask you, when we know the answer? What will you do, since you're always against it?"

-- "THE LADY WITH BLOND HAIR" - RADOSŁAW MARKOWSKI ON THE PRESIDENT OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL TRIBUNAL IN AN INTERVIEW WITH WIADOMO.CO: "I proposed this two years ago, because the electorate needed to be prepared for it. Now it's too late. I also think that unfortunately, we have lost the great semantic battle for language during this time. Journalists talk about the President of the Constitutional Tribunal, but this lady with blond hair is no president; there is no Constitutional Tribunal at the moment, only the building of the CT remains. There is no National Council of the Judiciary, only usurpation. This is the language that should have been used from morning till night."

-- MARKOWSKI ON THE LEFT-GREEN-SOCIALIST BLOC: "After what Barbara Nowacka did, we must turn to all other small parties and associations that want to achieve something on their own, that if they don't fit into the centrist-liberal bloc led by PO, they should organize themselves into a left-green-socialist bloc. Individually, these parties will either not enter parliament or will have no influence in it, disproportionately increasing the parliamentary strength of those that are in it. The procedural anomaly that occurred in 2015 resulted in 18.6% of eligible Polish voters supporting the coalition centered around PiS in fair and equal elections transforming into a 51% parliamentary majority for this party. Such a disproportionality of results almost never happens in proportional systems. This is simply bad for democracy. Elections are meant to adequately translate voters' will into the political strength of the parties representing them. This party had the right to govern the country, but within the constitutional order."

-- PIS COUNCILLOR CONCEALED A WATCH IN HIS ASSET DECLARATION - SE: "For three years, Krzysztof Ciebiada (50 years old), a member of the Law and Justice Program Council, vice-chairman of the Łódź Voivodeship Sejmik, omitted an exceptionally expensive Breitling watch from his asset declaration. In the upcoming local elections, the councilor will be running for re-election from the first position on the PiS lists in the Sieradz constituency."

-- BIRTHDAYS on Saturday: Marcin Mastalerek, Katarzyna Adamiak-Sroczyńska, Jerzy Ciszewski, Grzegorz Osiecki, Janusz Krasoń, Tomasz Jastrun, Adam Giersz, Magda Żakowska, and the author of Stan Gry, SUNDAY: Janusz Rewiński, Samuel Pereira.