Glenn Greenwald:

Simon Johnson:

Top people in the Obama administration now begin to understand what they have wrought.  The body language becomes uncomfortable when you bring up this topic and they are eager to discuss alternative ways forward.

But we are entering a new, more global era of state capture, and the US government (or, more precisely, its credit) was handed over – rather meekly – during the past 12 months.

"When, in countries that are called civilized, we see age going to the workhouse and youth to the gallows, something must be wrong in the system of government."
Thomas Paine, 1792 - The Rights of Man

I went to see the Thomas Paine exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery. If you are in DC, you should go see it. It is a tiny exhibit, only one room.

Although Paine has his portrait painted several times, few of the oil paintings survive, an interesting data point.

Anne Applebaum on Roman Polanski:

He did commit a crime, but he has paid for the crime in many, many ways: In notoriety, in lawyers' fees, in professional stigma. He could not return to Los Angeles to receive his recent Oscar.

Richard Cohen on Cap Weinberger:

Based on my Safeway encounters, I came to think of Weinberger as a basic sort of guy, candid and no nonsense – which is the way much of official Washington saw him,” Cohen wrote. “Cap, my Safeway buddy, walks, and that’s all right with me.”