-- IN CBOS, 45% FOR PIS, 22% FOR KO, 11% FOR LEWICA, 6% FOR PSL-KUKIZ: https://wyborcza.pl/7,75398,25488212,sondaz-cbos-pis-na-czele-ko-daleko-w-tyle.html -- PIS IS TRULY A STATE OF MIND - FRAGMENT FROM DONALD TUSK'S BOOK IN GW: “A visit to Warsaw. I enter the building of the Chancellery of the Prime Minister. For the first time since leaving for Brussels, so I'm a little emotional, but a very cold welcome acts as a sobering agent. Minister Waszczykowski pauses for a moment, wondering whether to shake my hand. PiS is truly a state of mind.” -- TUSK ON THE RESULTS OF THE LAST ELECTION: “It seems my predictions have been confirmed. And not just mine. PiS clearly wins the election, but Kaczyński is subdued, he doesn't look like a winner. He already understands that this might be his last victory, that something is already jamming in the machine he created, and that he will be increasingly dependent on his ‘side dishes’ – Ziobro and Gowin. Schetyna also has no reason to rejoice. PO and Nowoczesna have lost a few percent compared to the previous elections. However, the fate of the Senate is being decided. A victory will give the entire opposition some hope and new instruments. The Left also receives the results without enthusiasm; they are decent, but they were expected to be better. Perhaps only Kosiniak-Kamysz feels great relief. For him, these elections are a real do or die.” -- TUSK ON A CONVERSATION WITH KACZYŃSKI: “When, a long time ago, I asked Kaczyński, then the leader of Porozumienie Centrum, if he didn't see how mediocre people surrounded him, he replied with a smile: ‘For me, the party is a tool for tidying up Poland, and even a dirty rag can wipe away a lot of dirt.’ That’s his political philosophy.” -- TUSK ON THE PERIPETIA OF TALKS WITH OBAMA: “President Obama calls. When the White House approached this phone call proposal in the morning, my Belgian secretary, strictly adhering to her calendar, replied that it wouldn't be possible today as I already had a meeting scheduled with Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission. They should try another time. They were stunned. Fortunately, someone overheard this conversation and quickly rectified the blunder. A similar situation occurred in Poland when I was prime minister. Obama called me at eight in his time. The duty officer answered and politely informed him that it was two in the morning and at this hour the Prime Minister was sleeping. Americans are not accustomed to such treatment, but they swallowed it somehow. They called the next day around noon. Obama is aware that he couldn’t have wished for a more pro-American President of the Council. Perhaps that's why our conversation was very cordial.” https://wyborcza.pl/7,75517,25484159,donald-tusk-szczerze-fragment-ksiazki.html -- PLATFORMA DEBATE IN QUOTES: https://300polityka.pl/live/2019/12/07/ -- SENATE MARSHAL TOMASZ GRODZKI ON TWITTER: A very interesting debate in the presidential primaries in PO. Jacek Jaśkowiak was very good, but Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska, in my opinion, was SENSATIONAL. Prepared, motivated, precise, full of energy. The format of the President of the Republic of Poland! https://twitter.com/profGrodzki/status/1203273983996649472?s=20 -- TWO INJURED, ZERO KILLED, LOTS OF WORK TO WIN AGAINST DUDA - MICHAŁ DANIELEWSKI AGATA SZCZĘŚNIAK IN OKO: “During today’s debate, the candidates differed among themselves on details: Kidawa-Błońska was a bit softer, Jaśkowiak a bit tougher; she was more inclined towards dialogue, he was prepared for a fight; the Marshal was slightly conservative in terms of customs, the President slightly more liberal. Beyond that, they essentially agreed on everything. We didn't hear a single brilliant statement, not a single idea that will be discussed in the media for the coming weeks. Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska proposed several debates in a broad, cross-party format: on climate, healthcare, the army (Defense Pact). But without any specifics. (...) The debate also showed that both candidates still have a lot of work to do to effectively compete with Andrzej Duda. If they were to meet the incumbent president in a television studio today, they would be exposed to a knockout. At the same time, Kidawa-Błońska was more provocative. She countered some of Jacek Jaśkowiak's statements. The Mayor of Poznań had no comeback!” https://oko.press/po-debacie-w-po-dwoje-rannych-zero-zabitych-przed-kidawa-blonska-i-jaskowiakiem-duzo-pracy-zeby-wygrac-z-duda -- THE DEBATE WAS SUPPOSED TO AMAZE, BUT IT DIDN'T - PAWEŁ WROŃSKI IN GW: “One can say about the Saturday debate of the PO contenders in the presidential election what a student of Gałkiewicz from Gombrowicz's 'Ferdydurke' said. The one whom Professor Bladaczka forced to admire Słowacki. The debate was supposed to amaze, but it didn't. It was supposed to captivate, but it didn't. Perhaps the reason was that the organizers did not allow for direct confrontation between the candidates by asking each other questions, and this is the salt of such skirmishes.” -- KIDAWA SHED THE BURDEN OF A CANDIDATE NOMINATED BY SCHETYNA - WROŃSKI CONTINUES: “Thanks to her clash with Jacek Jaśkowiak, Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska shed the burden of being a candidate nominated by the party leader – Grzegorz Schetyna. Competition with Jaśkowiak, who is identified with the Schetyna faction, gives her the quality of a candidate who earned her nomination. And the fact that her opponent is considered more progressive, added to her traits as a more centrist, and even slightly conservative, candidate. Jacek Jaśkowiak still has minimal chances – as the decision will be made by the National Council on December 14 – and he presented himself as an interesting, progressive candidate on the Polish political scene, and even if he loses, he might be a candidate for its future leadership.” -- PRIMARIES WERE A SUCCESS AFTER ALL - WROŃSKI CONTINUES: “PO as a party has succeeded, because although it captured the attention of a part of society for a few minutes, it maintained the conviction that it is the most important opposition force and its candidate has the greatest chance of defeating Andrzej Duda. And in the end, Grzegorz Schetyna, sitting in the front row, should be satisfied, as he did not applaud both candidates but invented this concept of limited primaries.” https://wyborcza.pl/7,75398,25488641,debata-kidawa-blonska-jaskowiak-schetyna-powinien-byc-zadowolony.html -- IWONA SZPALA AND MACIEJ ORŁOWSKI IN GW ON THE DEBATE: “It seems, however, that the audience liked Kidawa's performance more. 'Gosia prepared well,' said Platform activists in the corridors, and after the debate ended, the shouts of 'Kidawa!' were significantly louder than 'Jaśkowiak!'” https://wyborcza.pl/7,75398,25488525,debata-kidawa-jaskowiak.html -- PATRYK SŁOWIK FROM DZIENNIK GAZETA PRAWNA ON TWITTER: “Oh my, in the #PresidentialPrimaries debate, they can't even give a concrete answer to such a simple question as where the candidates would like to go for their first foreign visit. In short - everyone should come, and one should go everywhere.” https://twitter.com/PatrykSlowik/status/1203264478747475970?s=20 -- ŁUKASZ ROGOJSZ FROM GAZETA.PL ON TWITTER: Instead of a comment on #DebataPO, I am currently writing an official letter to @Platforma_org regarding the return of 1.5 hours of my life. ¡No pasarán! https://twitter.com/Lukasz_Rogojsz/status/1203275398840225792?s=20 -- DOMINIK UHLIG FROM GAZETA WYBORCZA: It should be noted that the primaries in PO are the first elections in a long time where someone from Platform wins. https://twitter.com/dominikuhlig/status/1203273504310861824?s=20 -- ON THE RIGHT'S ALLERGY TO YOUNG PEOPLE FROM THE CLIMATE STRIKE - MICHAŁ SZUŁDRZYŃSKI IN RZ: “I don't understand the allergy that a large part of our right-wing has towards these young people. Especially since they might share at least a few points with environmentalists. Participating in the strike is an expression of deep disagreement with the liberal-democratic order that has prevailed in the world in recent years, which our native right-wing should find appealing. Calls to protect nature can be found even in John Paul II's first encyclical, 'Redemptor Hominis.' The smog plaguing Polish cities and villages is not a left-wing invention, but a problem that needs to be solved. There can be more points of contact. But our right-wing has proven more than once that it prefers to get indignant and look for enemies rather than think about building and strategy.” https://www.rp.pl/Plus-Minus/312069999-Michal-Szuldrzynski-Ekologia-i-katastrofizm-czyli-kto-nie-slucha-mlodych.html -- ROMAN GRACZYK ON JUDICIAL DUAL AUTHORITY: “And implementation would mean, on the one hand, that the so-called KRS would refrain from new appointments, and judges already appointed by it would refrain from ruling, and on the other hand, that the government and the parliamentary majority would undertake legislative initiatives to restore the legal status from before 2016. But there's no sign of that happening. For example, Deputy Minister of Justice Sebastian Kaleta stated: 'Today, these judges [who favorably comment on the Supreme Court's ruling - RG] say that EU law is above the Polish constitution.' I recall that for the last four years, the opposition and some judges wore T-shirts saying 'constitution.' The Minister clearly hasn't noticed that the entire dispute is precisely about how the new regulations relate to the Polish Constitution, and the EU institutions have deemed these regulations inconsistent with both EU law and the Polish Constitution. So, it seems we are facing a legal war in politics, and a period of dual authority in the courts.” https://fakty.interia.pl/opinie/graczyk/news-dwuwladza-sadownicza,nId,3373508 -- GALOPUJĄCY MAJOR ON THE FLOWS WITHIN ONLY TWO SILOS: “For weeks we've been reading about the wave of Zandbergism, about Adrian Ragnar Lodbrok, about Magda Biejat Lagertha, about the Vikings from Razem conquering Poland, causing the entire right-wing to sob in panic. The only problem is that this doesn't translate into polls. And it can't translate because it simply doesn't. Poland is divided not into three, as the Left would like, but de facto into two large blocs. And voter flows only occur within these blocs. Therefore, when PiS has problems with Bańas, support for Konfederacja grows, and when Platforma has problems with… let's say, with everything, the Left's support grows.” -- JAŚKOWIAK WOULD BE A THREAT TO THE LEFT - MAJOR CONTINUES: “The first conclusion is that Jacek Jaśkowiak's candidacy would be the greatest threat to the Left. He possesses two significant advantages from the perspective of the common electorate of PO and the Left. Firstly, he is credible in his fight for civil liberties, in his anti-clericalism, and – most importantly – in his ostentatious opposition to PiS. Secondly, he understands social security more in terms of philanthropy than raising taxes, and thus exactly like the sympathetic liberals who have recently voted for the Left. In this sense, Jaśkowiak is like Biedroń without a tax increase, hence the dream candidate for those 'leftists' who will go to the freedom parade but won't pay even 10 zloty more in taxes.” -- GRZEGORZ, STAY, FOR THE GOOD OF THE LEFT - GALOPUJĄCY MAJOR CONTINUES: “Every supporter of the true Left should pray, whether to God or to the context that Peter Sloterdijk aptly calls psychosocial, that Grzegorz Schetyna continues to be the leader of Platforma. Since Schetyna took leadership, he has managed to lose all elections, united the quarreling Left, and even allowed himself to be defeated in his hometown of Wrocław. Now, again to the Left's advantage, he is blocking PO politicians who would much more easily be able to position the party for an egoistical ‘fajnopolak’ who hates Kaczyński and ZUS and loves the Iron Lady with Sir Winston Churchill.” https://krytykapolityczna.pl/felietony/galopujacy-major/schetyno-zostan-zrob-to-dla-lewicy/ -- IN SCANDINAVIA, RAZEM WOULD BE JUST SLIGHTLY TO THE LEFT OF CENTER - MACIEJ KONECZNY IN CONVERSATION WITH PIOTR WITWICKI IN RZ: “In Scandinavia, the Razem party would be situated just slightly to the left of center. In most Western European countries, it would constitute normal social democracy. Simply put, the Polish political scene is dramatically tilted to the right. We are the ones acting as the European norm here, not Prime Minister Morawiecki. If one looks at the post-war history of the West, the neoliberal model of capitalism, which Poland has fallen so much in love with since 1989, is an extreme. Fortunately, this is changing. The young are entering the stage. For example, in the USA, subsequent studies show that the majority of young people prefer socialism to capitalism.” -- IF LIS ATTACKS US, IT MEANS WE'VE DONE SOMETHING RIGHT - KONECZNY CONTINUES: “When Tomasz Lis attacks us, I feel that we must have done something right. We derive a lot of joy from these entries. If someone wants to do democratic politics honestly, they won't please everyone. We say honestly: we are leftists and we represent that hard-working majority that doesn't sleep on piles of money. If we want to make the Polish tax system fairer, we will certainly anger a few powerful people. We don't like the situation where teachers or nurses pay proportionally higher taxes than Tomasz Lis. A handful of privileged people benefit from this unfair system, while there is always a lack of money for healthcare and schools. Poland has some of the largest inequalities in Europe. We have gone from a relatively egalitarian society to one that, in terms of inequality, is somewhere between European and Russian standards. Huge inequalities have a fatal impact on many aspects of our lives, from democracy to health. The rich already live several to a dozen or so years longer in Poland than the poor. A chasm quickly forms between people, which will be very difficult to bridge.” https://www.rp.pl/Plus-Minus/312069992-Maciej-Konieczny-W-Skandynawii-Razem-znalazloby-sie-troche-na-lewo-od-centrum.html -- MEDIA BIAS NO LONGER BOTHERS US - DR MIKOŁAJ LEWICKI IN CONVERSATION WITH MICHAŁ SUTOWSKI IN KRYTYKA: “We are certainly witnessing the democratization of discourse. The world has become pluralistic, and one cannot claim, for example, that right-wing media are some antipodes of the mainstream – their influence on the political agenda is the same as others. At the same time, people are more confronted with the situation of political engagement – an agony where conflicting interests clash.” -- LEWICKI ON THE ATMOSPHERE IN EDITORIAL OFFICES SIMILAR TO BROKERAGE HOUSES: “Of course, and when every broadcaster tries to do it, it's easy to fall into chaos or an information overload, and clickbait inflation increases. The life of a broadcaster and content distributor resembles a continuous stock market speculation: betting on ever higher stakes and hoping not to be the last one to 'pump' a topic. I think that before the publication of another scandal, the atmosphere in editorial offices is similar to that in a brokerage house before an important listing.” -- LEWICKI ON AUTHORIZATION POINTS IN MEDIA: “Exactly: we don't have authorities, but we have authorization points. This is a rather dispersed group of people or institutions – it could be our high school friend who publishes interesting articles on Facebook and is sensitive to new information. But it can also be new media outside the mainstream. For example, for former and current recipients of 'Gazeta Wyborcza,' TVN, or 'Polityka,' Oko.press is such an authorizing medium. Because it is perceived as reaching for sources, confirming facts, and at the same time being close to their political stance. As a rule, media users are constantly looking for new sources of information and authorization, i.e., confirmation of the credibility of what reaches them. But they do so somewhat blindly.” https://krytykapolityczna.pl/kraj/raport-media-politycznosc-mikolaj-lewicki-michal-sutowski/ -- PROF. LEOKADIA OKRĘZIAK IN CONVERSATION WITH JAKUB MAJMUREK ABOUT A SYSTEM DOOMING PEOPLE TO LOW PENSIONS: “The system created in 1999 dooms people to low pensions, because, in fact, it was consciously shaped that way. The previously applicable defined benefit system, in which the state commits to providing an acceptable pension level, was replaced by a defined contribution system, operating on an individualistic principle: your pension will be as much as your contributions to the system dictate. It was this change that turned out to be a sophisticated, camouflaged way to reduce pensions by over half without provoking social protests. Society was constantly convinced that as a result of this reform, pensions would not only not fall but would significantly increase. Such reforms are possible only in countries where democracy does not function properly. People only realized the true consequences of this reform after many years.” https://www.tvn24.pl/magazyn-tvn24/nie-mamy-dzis-zadnych-gwarancji-na-pieniadze-na-przyszlosc,247,4274 -- 2 YEARS AGO Beata Szydło resigned from the office of Prime Minister, submitting the cabinet's resignation, which President Andrzej Duda accepted and designated Mateusz Morawiecki as Prime Minister. -- BIRTHDAYS: Andrzej Czuma, Adam Kwiatkowski, Tomasz Jędrzejczak, Witold Pahl, SUNDAY: Katarzyna Sławińska, Marek Pol, Jacek Michałowski, Tomasz Lenz, Joanna Kos-Krauze, Michał Królikowski.