Democracy Now! Top US News & World Headlines — December 5, 2019

'No Choice but to Act': Pelosi Asks Congress to Proceed with Trump Impeachment

The US Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has announced the House will proceed with articles of impeachment against Donald Trump. 'The president leaves us no choice but to act,' she said. 'Sadly but with confidence and humility, with allegiance to our founders and a heart full of love for America, today I am asking our chairman to proceed with articles of impeachment' Nancy Pelosi on impeachment: Trump 'leaves us no choice but to act'

Pelosi asks committee to proceed with articles of impeachment against Trump »

Mocked Abroad and Assailed at Home, Trump Returns to Face Impeachment

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Two days in London on the world stage provided him no respite.

WASHINGTON — When times turn tough, presidents can hop on Air Force One to escape the country for a while and stride purposefully across the world stage. But the world stage was not so friendly this week for President Trump, who landed back in Washington on Wednesday night to confront a grim couple of weeks ahead.

Mocked by peers behind his back at a NATO meeting in London, Mr. Trump abruptly canceled a news conference and bolted early, only to fly home to a capital in the throes of judging whether he is fit for office. After hobnobbing with the queen, the president now faces the daunting likelihood that by Christmas he will become the third president impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors. » | Peter Baker | Wednesday, December 4, 2019

The Guardian View on Trump and Johnson: A Toxic Alliance

THE GUARDIAN: The prime minister kept a calculated distance from the US president at the Nato summit because he knows their similarities play badly with voters

AUS president’s low-key exit from a Nato summit, skipping the traditional press conference, would once have been perceived as a snub to the host government. But Donald Trump’s departure from London will come as a relief to Boris Johnson. Mr Trump is a fan of Brexit and praises the prime minister as the man to deliver it, but his presence in the country was an electoral hazard for the Conservatives.

Some British voters admire Mr Trump, or find him entertaining, but more do not. It is no recommendation for the Tory leader to be liked by a man notorious for dishonesty, ignorance, narcissism and chauvinism.

The US president did one favour for his British counterpart. He claimed no interest in the NHS as a subject of post-Brexit trade talks. That helped rebut a Labour campaign attack, although the veracity of the denial is as doubtful as everything else Mr Trump says. » | Editorial | Wednesday, December 4, 2019

BoJo, Billy Bunter's posh brother, is going to turn this country into a vassal state of Trump's America. Voters should avoid him like the plague. – Mark

Biden Lays Into Trump

He May Be a Clown, But the Threat Boris Johnson Poses Is Deadly Serious

THE GUARDIAN: His plans would be called autocracy anywhere else – don’t be distracted by his buffoonery

Constantly inconstant, Boris Johnson is faithful in at least one area: generating outrage. That he does as naturally as a dog cocks its leg at a lamppost.

This week, he has used the bodies of those murdered at London Bridge as props for his election campaign. Last week the 55-year-old dodged a Channel 4 debate on climate change, sending instead his dad and his wingman, Michael Gove. And then there are his many columns, spitting at gay men (“tank-topped bumboys”), single mums (“uppity and irresponsible”) and black people (“smiling piccaninnies”).

I would go on, but equally so might you – and we both know what typically comes next. The performative pearl-clutching, the saucer-eyed wailing: “How could he?” The sound and rote fury on social media and rolling news, followed by a satisfied, full-bellied silence as grateful journalists wait for their next steaming dollop of Boris buffoonery. » | Aditya Chakrabortty | Thursday, December 5, 2019

Trump Calls Trudeau ‘Two-faced’ after NATO ‘Gossiping’ Video

Today the Nato summit for the first time discussed a potential threat from China - and declared outer space a new operational domain. But planning for the future was overshadowed by tensions in the present. Donald Trump cancelled his press conference and went home early, calling the Canadian Prime Minister two-faced, after Mr Trudeau and other NATO leaders were caught on camera apparently mocking him. Our Foreign Affairs correspondent Jonathan Rugman reports.

What's the joke? Mugged off Trump sulks his way through Nato summit »

The Guardian View on Boris Johnson’s Poverty Plan: Spread It Widely?

THE GUARDIAN: Mr Johnson once thought ‘destitution on a Victorian scale’ might be a good thing. With Tory policies he may yet deliver such a dystopia

Did Boris Johnson watch Channel 4’s documentary Growing Up Poor? He should have. The film is a seminal moment in television which has made people talk about the crisis of destitution that is hiding in plain sight in the UK, and how dreadful it is. In the programme, childhood dreams of being an actor or a solicitor jarred with tales of chronic poverty. There were bleak scenes of Dickensian hardship, as families living in squalor or with hungry children at a food bank explained how these situations had been precipitated by everyday catastrophes of bereavement, domestic violence and mental breakdown. The damaging trade-offs being made – of whether to eat or heat – are a shameful indictment of a country as wealthy as ours. » | Editorial | Tuesday, November 3, 2019

Author André Aciman: 'I Wrote about Gay Love, Not Realising I Was Taking On the Taboo'

André Aciman is an author and academic, renowned for his novel 'Call Me by Your Name', which was turned into a hugely successful film in 2017 and has been hailed as a modern gay classic.

UK Election: Halt US Trade Talks until NHS Off Table, Corbyn Tells Johnson

THE GUARDIAN: Labour leader calls for break in talks unless pharmaceuticals excluded from negotiations

Jeremy Corbyn has urged the prime minister to break off trade talks with Donald Trump until any reference to pharmaceuticals is struck out of Washington’s negotiating objectives.

As the US president prepared to fly in on Monday evening to attend the Nato summit alongside other world leaders, Corbyn wrote to Boris Johnson to urge him to give fresh reassurances about NHS privatisation.

The Labour leader has repeatedly accused the prime minister of preparing to sell off the NHS, and Labour activists at recent rallies have taken up a chorus of “Not for sale! Not for sale!” » | Heather Stewart, Political editor | Monday, December 2, 2019

Holocaust Survivors : The Families Who Were Not Meant to Live

Allowing Predatory Private Insurance to Exist Is Insanity

Why should the healthcare industry allow for predatory private insurance companies to put a price on American lives?

Can Angela Merkel Save Her Grand Coalition? | Inside Story

Germany's Social Democrats elect new leaders, putting at risk Angela Merkel's coalition government.

Germany's Social Democrats, or SPD, have chosen two leaders who want to leave Angela Merkel's grand coalition. Many of their party members say they want to focus on rebuilding support in the opposition.

The coalition between Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats and the SPD was formed last year. The SPD's new leaders ran on a joint ticket with a promise to re-negotiate the partnership deal on issues of spending and climate policies. Its party congress is expected to decide by next week - on whether it will continue to support Merkel. But should the SPD decide to leave, the Chancellor has the option of leading a minority government or forming a new coalition with smaller opposition parties. A snap election is also in the cards.

So, where does this leave Germany and Europe?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan | Guests: Thorsten Benner - Director of Global Public Policy Institute;. Julien Hoez - Managing Director of Vocal Europe; Matt Kvortrup - Author, 'Angela Merkel: Europe's Most Influential Leader'

The Queen’s Mother in Law – Documentary

America Is Not the Land of the Free But One of Monopolies So Predatory They Imperil the Nation

THE GUARDIAN: Its growing economic crisis is in contrast to a thriving and newly innovative Europe

Tomorrow, President Trump arrives in London for the annual Nato summit. Despite the boasting and the trappings of superpower status, he is an emissary from a country whose economy and society are in increasing difficulty, and whose global leadership is under challenge not just from the usual suspect, China, but from Europe. With the unerring capacity to be wrong that defines the Brexit right, Britain is about to decouple itself from a continental economy beginning to get things right, and hook up with one that is palpably beginning to fail.

This is not the conventional wisdom. The EU is sclerotic, undynamic, stifled by quasi-socialist red tape, and hostile to insurgent startups. It is so degenerate it cannot even defend itself – as Trump will undoubtedly remind its leaders over the next two days. The US is the mirror opposite. A free trade agreement post 31 January with the US is the number one strategic policy aim for Brexit Britain – unshackling the UK from the declining old, and embracing the English-speaking, dynamic new. Best be nice to “the Donald”.

Except the latest research demonstrates the reverse is true. Britain is about to make a vast mistake. In the recently published The Great Reversal, leading economist Thomas Philippon of New York University and member of the advisory panel of the New York Federal Reserve, mounts a devastating attackon the conventional wisdom, so perfectly embodied by the witless Boris Johnson. The news is that over the last 20 years per capita EU incomes have grown by 25% while the US’s have grown 21%, with the US growth rate decelerating while Europe’s has held steady – indeed accelerating in parts of Europe. What is going on? » | Will Hutton | Sunday, December 1, 2019

How Princess Alice Saved an Entire Family from the Nazis

THE OBSERVER: Prince Philip’s mother remembered for sheltering Jews in wartime Athens

At the foot of the Mount of Olives, opposite the eastern wall of the old city of Jerusalem, lies the grave of one of the most eccentric – if sometimes overlooked – British royals.

Princess Alice, Prince Philip’s mother, and also a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria, is remembered for many things. Born deaf at Windsor Castle, she lived a life of regal glamour – married to a Greek prince – but also extreme frugality, and spent two years at a Swiss asylum after a schizophrenia diagnosis. Later in her life, the “Princess of Battenberg” established an order of nuns, giving away all her possessions before dying on 5 December 1969.

The 50th anniversary of that date will come on Thursday amid a resurgence in interest thanks to Netflix’s The Crown. In the third series, the royal is seen during her final years as a chain-smoking nun seeking funds for the poor. But a key episode of her life, for which she is lovingly remembered in Israel and among many Jewish people, is overlooked by the TV drama. During the second world war, Princess Alice sheltered the persecuted Cohen family from the Nazis and their sympathisers, including some of her own children. » | Oliver Holmes | Sunday, December 1, 2019

Dominic Raab in Danger of Losing Seat to Lib Dems, Poll Suggests

THE OBSERVER: Tactical voting could lead to big upsets at constituency level, according to study by Deltapoll

Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, is in danger of providing this election’s “Portillo moment”, after a poll in his constituency suggested that he was at risk of losing his seat.

The Deltapoll survey of Raab’s Esher and Walton constituency indicates he now only holds a five-point lead over the Liberal Democrats with less than two weeks before voting. Yet Raab had a massive 23,298 majority at the last election. The fact the foreign secretary faces a close race shows there could be big swings in some seats, and means Raab is vulnerable to a so-called “Portillo moment” – a reference to the shock defeat suffered by Michael Portillo in the Labour landslide of 1997. » | Michael Savage, Political editor | Saturday, November 30, 2019

Brexit: Johnson ‘Will Have to Call Second Referendum If He Fails to Win Majority’

THE OBSERVER: With Opinium poll showing his lead narrowing, academics warn PM could need support of minority parties for Brexit deal

Boris Johnson could be forced into holding a second referendum on Brexit next summer if he fails to win a majority in the House of Commons but remains as prime minister, according to a new report by academics at University College London.

The detailed analysis of how a referendum could be triggered, how long it would take, and how it would work concludes that a second public vote – in which the options would most likely be Johnson’s deal versus remaining in the EU – would be very much on the cards if the Conservatives are denied a majority, or are returned with only a very slender one, on 12 December. » | Toby Helm and Michael Savage | Sunday, December 1, 2019

Donald Trump: Is There Anything Sadder Than a Chump Who Thinks He’s a Champ?

THE GUARDIAN: The president’s Rocky fantasy doesn’t project power – it just reveals his insecurities

Oh dear. Was President Trump’s tweet of his head digitally added on to the body of Rocky Balboa/Sylvester Stallone rather too psychologically revealing? The image seemed to say everything you needed to know about Trump’s delusional self-image. Well, I say “needed”. How much does anyone need to know about any man – world leader or regular Joe – who mistakes male heft and musculature for true power?

Before we begin, a minor quibble: the tan of Rocky’s body isn’t an exact match for Trump’s face. The former says “Italian-American”; the latter whispers: “Overzealously applied mortuary makeup that does little to dispel the question marks over Trump’s health sparked by his recent unscheduled ‘medical check’.” But I digress – it’s the internal monologue that counts. The Trump/Rocky hybrid is saying: “Behold my might! This is the real Trump – not that old guy, so flaccid and orange he’s starting to resemble a morally corrupted Winnie the Pooh. NO, A THOUSAND TIMES NO! This toned boxing-gloved Adonis is the true Trump: buff, invincible and intriguingly homoerotic.” » | Barbara Ellen | Saturday, November 30, 2019

The Changing Face of the USA Today: Young People Gravitate to Socialism as Capitalism Keeps Failing Them

According to a new round of Gallup polling, Socialism is now as popular among Millennial voters as Capitalism. The main reason for this, which the poll did not get into, is that this age group has seen nothing but failures from capitalism for most of their lives, and they want a better system. Capitalism, in its current form, is not working for any age group, but older voters are still able to look back fondly at what once was. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins explains what’s happening.