I find it especially galling to read the sneering comment from the richest man in the world that, quote, ‘we spent the weekend feeding said into the … - Angus King

Our framers understood this. They were deep students of history and also human nature. And they had just won a lengthy and brutal war against the abuses inherent in concentrated governmental power, George III. The universal principle of human nature they understood was this — power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That's a universal principle, all over the world throughout history.

I had no intention of getting back into politics. I was teaching at Bowdoin and happily retired from politics.

Jefferson said the states are the laboratories of democracy. But the problem is, nobody reads the lab reports. We've got every state trying to reinvent everything. I was struck even more so after this trip how little exchange there is among states that are coping with exactly the same issues.