To keep America safe we need to have a government (including military and police) that works as it should as well as a society that works for all; and to stop destabilizing the world while putting America – the 99% disenfranchised economically, politically, and socially – first. Getting there is not rocket science; it requires a Grand Strategy and intelligence with integrity.
The last modern Grand Strategy review was conducted at the direction of President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953 – Project Solarium. Everything since then, including our Quadrennial Defense Reviews and our National Military Strategy, has been a mélange of platitudes devoid of holistic analytics, true cost economics, or devotion to the public interest.
None of the candidates have a coherent national policy matrix in part because they don't want one — their staffs are not designed to actually create coherent national policy that addresses all threats and needs in the context of a grand strategy on one side and a balanced budget on the other.
What we have now is platitudes and theater — no one, least of all the media and particularly singling out the progressive and conservative media, is holding the candidates accountable for being serious.
Below the fold are snap-shots of what an honest evidence-based policy conversation should consider, for each of the following:
Economic Issues: Budget & Economy, Government Reform, Social Security, Tax Reform, Technology & Infrastructure, Welfare & Poverty
Social Issues: Abortion, Corporations, Education, Families & Children, Health Care, Principles &Values.
Domestic Issues: Civil Rights, Crime, Drugs, Environment, Gun Control, Jobs
International Issues: Eneregy & Oil, Foreign Policy, Free Trade, Homeland Security, Immigration, War & Peace
The National Security Agency (NSA) has “all” of Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails and the FBI could gain access to them if they so desired, William Binney, a former highly placed NSA official, declared in a radio interview broadcast on Sunday.
William Binney has suggested that the NSA likely has all of Hillary Clinton's emails – even those that were deleted – and the FBI could have gotten ahold of them; Binney floated that someone at the NSA could be behind the Democratic National Committee hack that embarrassed Democrats last week; the motive would be to get back at Clinton for leaking ‘Gamma material' – the most highly sensitive material – via her private email server
The accounting errors and manipulated numbers, though obviously problems in their own right, highlight a far greater problem for the Defense Department than only bad recording keeping and wasteful spending habits. In reality, they are a representation of the poor decision-making, and lack of oversight and accountability that plague our nation’s government as a whole.
The Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Financial Management & Comptroller) (OASA[FM&C]) and the Defense Finance and Accounting Service Indianapolis (DFAS Indianapolis) did not adequately support $2.8 trillion in third quarter journal voucher (JV) adjustments and $6.5 trillion in year-end JV adjustments.
Cannabis is a Schedule I drug in the United States. That means the government has designated the plant as having no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. No accepted medical use? There are scores of studies that say differently. Rick Simpson is a medical marijuana activist, and he has been on a crusade of healing. He considers Cannabis to be the most medicinally active plant that humans can use on this planet. Marijuana has been shown in some cases to effectively treat numerous types of cancer, improve immunity, and fight anxiety and pain.