The City as Liturgy...

Everyone is blaming the Republicans, but it really just came down to John Foon. And his ability to work with the president and speaker Mike Johnson. If the president and the House Speaker couldn’t figure out what he needed, how were they ever gonna figure out what the actual normal people really wanted?

The attempt to go over the cell failed when the cell suddenly rose. Updraft/downdraft pressures drove the plane's speed into Mach Tuck. At that point, the plane cannot be flown, apparently.

Grok when asked, Is Dominik correct?: Yes on the contested, irregular power struggle at the Constitutional Tribunal; largely no (or heavily speculative/exaggerated) on the specific motives of forcing euro adoption, transferring gold to the ECB in Frankfurt, and opening borders to migrants under German pressure. What is actually happening at the Tribunal On 30–31 October 2026, government-aligned judges (including Anna Korwin-Piotrowska, elected by the current Sejm majority but not sworn in by President Karol Nawrocki) ordered a one-month suspension of PiS-appointed Tribunal President Bogdan Święczkowski and his deputy. They asserted control amid police presence outside the building, protests, scuffles, and Nawrocki’s mid-flight return from Senegal. He entered the building overnight, rejected the new judges’ legitimacy, and called it a forcible takeover of a constitutional body. Opposition figures (including PiS and Święczkowski himself) labeled it a “coup d’état.” Tusk and the government framed it as restoring the rule of law after years of PiS influence that EU courts had criticized as undermining judicial independence.⁠The Guardian⁠Politico This is the latest escalation in an 11-year dispute dating to 2015 over who counts as a valid Tribunal judge. Tusk’s coalition (in power since 2023) has refused to fully recognize the PiS-era court, stopped publishing some of its rulings, and tried to seat new judges. Nawrocki (elected 2025 with PiS backing) has refused to swear in several of them. European institutions have generally supported the view that the prior composition fell short of independent standards and that the Sejm has appointment power; the European Commission backed the parliament’s role in the latest crisis. Both sides’ claims of illegitimacy and irregular methods have some factual basis. Calling the events a straightforward “coup” is opposition rhetoric, but the process was highly contested, involved police, and occurred outside normal orderly procedures. It is a genuine constitutional crisis, not routine politics.⁠CNN Euro adoption and constitutional amendment Adopting the euro would require amending the Polish Constitution (especially Article 227, which gives the National Bank of Poland exclusive authority to issue currency and conduct monetary policy). Poland is treaty-bound under its EU accession to eventually adopt the euro once convergence criteria are met, but there is no fixed timeline, it is not in ERM II, and a two-thirds Sejm majority is needed for the constitutional change.⁠Wikipedia The current Tusk government is not actively pushing adoption. Finance Minister Andrzej Domański has stated (including in early 2026) that there is no strong economic case right now—Poland’s growth has outpaced most eurozone countries, the złoty has strengthened, public opinion is majority-opposed, and the government sees no urgency. Tusk himself has shifted from earlier pro-euro positions. A government-controlled Tribunal could theoretically clear or interpret legal hurdles more favorably in the future, which is a reasonable long-term concern for opponents, but there is no evidence of an imminent plan tied to the current crisis.⁠FT Gold reserves transfer to the ECB in Frankfurt This is incorrect. Poland’s National Bank has accumulated large gold holdings (recently reported around 550–670+ tonnes, exceeding the ECB’s own ~506 tonnes, with a target of 700). Most is held in London and New York, with a smaller portion in Warsaw. Eurozone membership does not require transferring national gold reserves to the ECB in Frankfurt. National central banks retain their gold; contributions to ECB capital and foreign-reserve pools are proportional and separate. Claims that Poland has “the largest” EU gold reserves are also false—Germany holds far more (~3,350 tonnes).⁠Euronews Borders and migrants under German pressure Tusk’s government has maintained (and in some cases intensified) border controls—on the Belarus frontier (where it claims sharp drops in illegal crossings and high interception rates) and temporary checks with Germany and Lithuania in response to German returns of migrants. It has highlighted reductions in visas and increases in deportations relative to the prior PiS period, and secured temporary exemptions related to the EU migration framework partly due to Ukrainian refugees. There are real frictions with Germany over returns and Schengen, and the opposition criticizes the government as softer than PiS rhetoric, but “opening the borders to migrants under German pressure” does not match the government’s stated and documented actions.⁠Brusselssignal Bottom line: Tarczyński accurately reflects a real, high-stakes institutional crisis and the opposition’s fear that a reconfigured Tribunal would make future pro-EU or government-favored policies (including on currency or migration) harder to block. The specific causal story—coup → constitutional change for the euro → gold shipped to Frankfurt → open borders on German orders—is largely political framing, exaggeration, or factually unsupported on the gold and immediate euro/border points. Polish politics has long been polarized between pro-EU reform and national-sovereignty camps; both sides treat the Tribunal as a key prize.

"Right" - Moral Agency. "Progressives" - Moral Luck. Basic Shape of our political debates...

Insightful

Rhenish Capitalism is the Way !!

Rock On !!

Ditto

An amazing man (and jazz musician).

John G. Trump was one of the people who invented Boston's tech economy, by serving as a crucial intermediary between scientific talent and VC Capital.