The list of major American corporations caught in tangled webs of personal, financial, and business links to China, Russia, and other autocracies is … - Anne Applebaum

Of all the different kinds of damage done by the Second World War, the hardest to quantify is the psychological and emotional damage. The brutality of the First World War created a generation of fascist leaders, idealistic intellectuals, and expressionist artists who twisted the human form into inhuman shapes and colors in an attempt to convey their disorientation. But... the Second World War entered far more deeply... Constant daily violence shaped the human psyche...

That moment has passed. Nearly two decades later, I would now cross the street to avoid some of the people who were at my New Year's Eve party. They, in turn, would not only refuse to enter my house, they would be embarrassed to admit they had ever been there. In fact, about half the people who were at that party would no longer speak to the other half. The estrangements are political, not personal. Poland is now one of the most polarized societies in Europe, and we have found ourselves on opposite sides of a profound divide,

I don’t think Hunter Biden’s business relationships have anything to do with who should be president of the United States. So, I don’t find it [Hunter Biden's laptop] to be interesting. (April 6, 2022)