The Guardian: Nancy Pelosi hands Donald Trump a lesson in the art of politics

He has come up with “Crooked Hillary”, “Little Marco”, “Lyin’ Ted”, “Crazy Bernie”, “Sloppy Steve” and “Cryin’ Chuck”. Donald Trump is the master of branding his opponents with crude names that somehow paint them into a corner. But so far one has eluded him: the woman he calls only “Nancy”.[...]

“One is she knows how to count votes. That’s how she got healthcare through, that’s how she got the speakership back and that’s how she’ll get impeachment through. She stays in touch with every one of the Democrats and most of the Republicans. She knows when she has to compromise and when to hold the line.

“Second, she knows how to take advantage of the process. She knows that every day the shutdown goes on, she and the Democrats gain and Trump and the Republicans lose. She’s going to deny him TV time: she really knows how to jab him with a needle.”[...]

As the stalemate continues, Pelosi seems to be winning in the court of public opinion. An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll found Trump’s approval rating stands at 39% approve, 53% disapprove, a seven-point net change from December. Pelosi’s favorability rating, meanwhile, is up 13% among Democrats since the midterms (59% to 72%) in Civiqs polls, with virtually no shift among Republicans.

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Deutsche Welle: Trump hasn't been all bad for the EU

Trump's stances have ensured European solidarity and progress in many areas. Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) among EU members in foreign and security policy, for example, would not exist as it does now without Trump.

Ever since Trump's election, the popularity of the bloc has been on the rise — at least on the continent's mainland. In Brussels, some may even say — behind closed doors — that Trump is the best thing that could happen to the EU. [...]

Instead, it is because even within the borders of the EU, Trump is garnering support among the population and politicians. They don't necessarily admire the president for his tantrums, insolence and insults, but they appreciate his disregard for political correctness and that he addresses truths often swept under the rug. [...]

Juncker's experience and cleverness make him one of the few European politicians who seem to have found a successful strategy on how to deal with Trump. In trade policy, he offers simple and clear compromises, the game of simple give and take that the "businessman" Trump can apparently make sense of.

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The Guardian: ‘We feel orphaned’: Polish city mourns Paweł Adamowicz

The murder of Adamowicz, a staunch defender of minority rights at a time of rising levels of hate crime and an ardent liberal critic of the ruling conservative party’s anti-immigrant politics, has provoked an anguished and often ill-tempered national debate about hate speech and polarisation in Poland’s deeply divided society. [...]

Adamowicz rose to prominence in 1988 as a law student at the University of Gdańsk, where he led a student strike in solidarity with workers striking in the city’s shipyard. “It was a period when people were tired of communism but they were also tired of fighting communism,” recalled Wojciech Szeląg, now a broadcaster, who participated in the strike. “It wasn’t a time of hope, it was a time you could paint only in grey. But I remember thinking that if people like Adamowicz were involved, it was worth it.” [...]

A committed Catholic with a background in conservative politics, he frequently defended his robust stance on minority rights in religious terms, incensing many on the Polish right, including elements of the Polish Catholic church. “In this festive season, I will try to explain to my compatriots in Gdańsk that the arrival of Christ was the very example of migration,” he told a meeting of the European Committee of the Regions in December 2016.

“It is very rare to challenge the church but it is even more rare to challenge the church on the basis of its own social teachings,” said Marta Abramowicz, an LGBT activist and co-founder of Poland’s Campaign Against Homophobia, who moved to Gdańsk from Warsaw in 2010. “He didn’t just support us, he supported us proudly and openly, he said that it was important that we were a part of Gdańsk.”

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The Guardian: The Tories now treat the nation as they have long treated the poor

In truth, universal credit was doomed from the start. The right failed to see the poor as they were rather than as they wanted them to be. People are losing tenancies and going without food not only because universal credit is underfunded but because it imposes delays of five weeks or more before it pays anything at all to claimants. The delays are a matter of deliberate policy. In 2010, rightwingers wanted poverty to be the result of chaotic lives, alcoholism, drug addiction and, above all, for this is was what got the religious right’s rocks off, the breakdown of traditional families. They blamed individuals, not the system. A month’s wait for money would make the feckless pull themselves together and learn to live like members of the respectable middle class, who must wait a month for their first salary cheques when they take new jobs. [...]

A second delusion flowed from the first: that the countries of the European Union would quail before the newly resurgent British as we awoke like lions from their slumber and scramble to meet our demands. This is what David Davis meant when he said British negotiators would be striking deals in Berlin rather than Brussels. As it is, the supposedly squabbling nations of the EU have held together, while the British political system has imploded. [...]

Now Norman sits in a “Conservative” party surrounded by immodest men and women who prefer to wreck the nation’s finances and threaten the peace in Ireland and the union with Scotland rather than consider, even for a moment, that they might be wrong. Whether the Conservative party can survive the loss of its Burkean tradition is a question that will worry only Tories. Whether Britain can is the only pressing concern for the rest of us.

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Atlas Obscura: How a Guatemalan Town Tackled Its Plastic Problem

Before 2016, San Pedro La Laguna was drowning in plastic pollution that was threatening the fragile ecosystem of Lake Atitlán. The dire need for change crystallized when a solid waste disposal processing plant that was expected to manage a decade of waste was halfway full within six months, mostly with single-use plastics. Rather than build a larger plant—which would’ve been an enormous financial burden on the town and further polluted the lake with debris—Mayor Mauricio Méndez decided to implement a stringent municipal law to encourage lasting, sustainable change. [...]

Villagers initially resisted, as they’d become accustomed to using materials that were now outlawed. To get rid of the single-use plastics already in circulation, leaders of the 13,000-person town went from house to house to talk with villagers about waste management. Residents were wary because they couldn’t afford to purchase biodegradable replacements. The government relieved the community members’ financial burden by collecting all plastic and styrofoam items and trading them for reusable or biodegradable alternatives, completely free-of-charge. [...]

Economic sanctions punish anyone who breaks the law. Individuals must pay 300 GTQ ($40)—a hefty amount considering Guatemala’s average lower-middle-class annual income is $1,619. Companies that use the banned materials face a fine of 15,000 GTQ ($1,940).

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