Tidbits From THE WEEK's Week

 The following items are taken from THE WEEK of January 22, 2021.

#Jonathan Last, in the 'Bulwark,' says: "Despite no evidence of significant fraud, about half the GOP's congressional delegation voted to overturn the presidential election --even after the sacking of the U.S. Capitol."

#"The GOP could really collapse," said Ross Douthat of The New York Times. "The implicit bargain of the Trump era required traditional Republicans to swallow a measure of insanity in exchange for a hold on power."

#"Trump should be criminally prosecuted?" questioned Randall Eliason of The Washington Post: "This  behavior seems to fall comfortably within the legal definition of several crimes, including 'rebellion and insurrection,' 'seditious conspiracy,' and 'incitement of a riot.' "

#David Yalle-Bellamy of Bloomberg.com says: "But a self-pardon has weak legal foundations that fly in the face of the Founders' intention to curb any official's 'absolute power'. In fact, a self-pardon might increase the chances that Trump is prosecuted.' "

#Greg Sargent of The Washington Post.com says: "Trump's presidency will soon be over, but the Capitol siege was 'a propaganda coup' that could energize far-right extremists for a long time to come. "

#Konstantin Kosacher of Roosiyskaye Gazeta (Russia), says: "Now U.S. voters are crying fraud and injustice, and besieging government buildings. Americans have 'tasted the fruits of good and evil,' and their virginity cannot be restored."

#The Times (U.K.) wrote: "It's not as if they were unaware of the dangers. Many Republican leaders loudly denounced Trump as a budding authoritarian during his 2016 run for office, only to go on to aid his campaign to overturn 2020s election results."

#"Viewpoint" by Timothy Snyder, historian in The New York Times, writes: "Trump has presented himself as the single source of truth. His use of the term 'fake news' echoed the Nazi smear (Logenpesse), 'lying press'; like the Nazis, he referred to reporters as 'enemies of the people.' " "Trump lied at a pace perhaps unmatched by any other leader in history. To believe in all of them was to disbelieve everything else."

#David Frum, "The politics of perpetual victimhood," has this to say: "Since Barack Obama was elected president, a political philosophy that once emphasized personal responsibility has degenerated into a sour collection of grievances and delusional claims of persecution. But if the conservative world is to pull itself out of the moral wreck into which it has been led by Trump, its leaders will have to reckon with their descent into a politics of fear, resentment, and infamous deceit."

#"The pandemic windfall." "The fortunes of the 659 U.S. billionaires grew by more than $1 trillion, making the elite group's wealth double that of the bottom 50 percent of Americans -- 165 million people. Meanwhile, just 12 million jobs of the 22 million lost last spring have been recovered, and more than 400,000 small businesses have closed for good." 

"Tent encampments of homeless people dot cities across the U.S., and in the week before Thanksgiving,  26 million adults said their households were short on food."  

"About 84 percent of the stocks owned by U.S. households are held by the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans."

#"United Kingdom: What has Brexit delivered?" (Dominic Grieve in 'Independent.co.uk') "While no new tariffs will be slapped on the $400 billion of goods we export annually to the Continent, our departure from the EU single market means the U.K. firms will now have to complete reams of customs paperwork, expected to cost some $10 billion a year." 

#Martin Vander Weyer in  'The Spectator': "The deal [with the EU] doesn't cover the service sector, which makes up 80 percent of our economy and 50 percent of our exports. Financial services firms' access to EU markets now depends on compliance with the different requirements of each member state."

#('The Guardian') "The legacy of Brexit could well be the disintegration at the cost of losing much of our country. That would be a terrible price to pay."

#"Pandemic vices: The battle against our new bad habits": "Chronic stress, such as that created by a pandemic, floods the brain with cortisol, hormones that inhibit functions of the prefrontal cortex -- the decision-making part of the brain that helps us resist the urge for immediate gratification." "Psychologists also say that  women are more likely than men to turn to alcohol when coping with issues." 

#"Bytes: What's new in tech." " 'More than 400 engineers and other workers at Google formed a union in January, following years of increased  employee activism,' said Kate Conger in The New York Times. 'It is a so-called minority union, representing a small fraction of Google's workforce, with the intention only to give structure and longevity to activism at Google.' "

#"Some day you may wish to return." "In 2018, Nigeria actually overtook India to become the world leader in desperately poor people, with 87 million people living on $1.90 a day, compared with India's 71 million."

#THE CLOSER: Akash Kapur, "Top of the World," The New Yorker, January 25, 2021. - "Many  millions of people now visit the Himalayan region in a typical year. Some four thousand climbers have attempted to summit Everest in each of the past four decades, a fifty percent increase over the period when [Jon] Krakauer wrote his book. Yet the mountains occupy one of the most politically fraught corners of the world, marked by contested borders and roads, and great power rivalries that are likely to shape international relations the rest of the century."

"According to a recent report, more than a third of Himalayan glaciers may melt by the end of the century, even assuming dramatic reductions in global carbon emissions."