As of Thursday, the U.S. has officially hit its debt ceiling, meaning that the Treasury Department is now using what's known as extraordinary measures in order to avoid defaulting on the debt that we already owe. Now in the event we were to actually default on our debt, that would be catastrophic. In fact, catastrophic would be an understatement. It would trigger a severe recession, jobs would be lost, it affect payments to Social Security and much more. And Republicans have been pretty open about the fact that they're willing to play a dangerous game of chicken with Democrats and put the full faith and credit of the United States on the line in order to force Democrats to acquiesce to their harmful agenda. And if you've been watching this show, you already know exactly what they want to do. Some Republicans are supporting Republican buddy Carter's so-called fair tax bill, which would eliminate the IRS and all federal income taxes in lieu of a national 30% sales tax, which their corporate donors would love, I'm sure. And that's just one idea, one of the horrible things that they want to do. But it seems like the idea that's gained the most traction is cuts to Social Security and they're trying to exploit the debt ceiling showdown to get what they want. And these Republican thieves want to take money from you, had the support of at least one Democrat. Now, before I tell you who, just take a wild guess as to who that is. As Kenny Stansel of Common Dreams explains, during a Wednesday interview with Fox Business at the ruling class's annual gathering in Davos for the World Economic Forum, Manchin suggested that members of both major U.S. political parties, quote, worked together on solving the nation's so-called debt problem. No, thanks. Although Manchin didn't explicitly demand cuts to Social Security and expressed opposition to GOP calls for privatization, he singled out the program for intervention, saying that Congress should be able to solidify it. Stansel continues, what's especially concerning to progressives is that the corporate backed lawmaker is the co-author alongside Senator Mitt Romney of the Trust Act, a bill that would enable Congress to create bipartisan rescue committees for the nation's trust fund programs, including Social Security and Medicare and give the panels 180 days to develop legislation that restores solvency and otherwise improves each measures put forth by the bipartisan committees would be fast tracked for four votes in both chambers of Congress with no amendments allowed. Yeah, it's going to be a hard pass for me on that. Now, the legislation that Manchin is pushing is modeled after the notorious Simpson-Bowles Commission and Senator Bernie Sanders took to Twitter to explain what happened the last time one of these commissions was proposed. So quote, the last thing we need is another commission to propose cuts to Social Security and Medicare. The last time we had one, it proposed cutting Social Security benefits for middle class seniors by up to 35 percent and cutting tax rates for billionaires. We must instead expand Social Security. Now, let's be very clear here, Manchin knows exactly what he's doing here, but it's not the only proposed change to Social Security aside from straight up cuts. Senator Ron Johnson, for example, has proposed shifting Social Security from part of our mandatory budget to our discretionary budget. So that way, Congress has to approve the amount spent on it from year to year. There's also been suggestions from Republicans like Rick Allen to raise the retirement age, which is nothing more than a thinly veiled cut. Some have just outright admitted that they support cuts to Social Security in order to, quote, balance the budget. But let me be very clear here, Social Security legally cannot contribute to the federal deficit.  Now, the most nefarious way that Republicans try to sell these cuts to voters is under the pretense of a concern for the program's long term solvency, meaning that they'll have to suggest some type of change. It's necessary. They have to do something in order to keep Social Security fully funded because they care. But I think it's evident by now that they don't care. They're literally just concerned for holding. And fortunately, voters aren't buying it. A data for progress poll conducted in September of 2022 found that voters overwhelmingly reject Ron Johnson's idea to renew funding for Social Security annually. Also, they'd rather pay more into Social Security as opposed to having their benefits reduced. And finally, 90 percent of all voters want the program to exist 10 years from now. Now, do you think these Republicans are dumb? I mean, many of them are dumb. But do you think that they don't know that? I should phrase it that way. They know Republicans know this, which is why they're constantly trying to disguise cuts to Social Security as necessary reforms in order to extend the program's solvency. And it's why they also have to utilize debt ceiling showdowns to rush through changes that they know would be unpopular. But in an interview with Brian Tyler Cohen, Bernie Sanders explained that there's something these Republicans can do if they wanted to prove to these constituents that they really do care about the longevity of Social Security and they don't just want to cut it. Is that not saying up nice worrying about the solvency of Social Security? If they were, they would do exactly as supporting the legislation that I've introduced. And again, right now you make $10 million a year. I make $140,000 a year. We both pay the same amount of money into Social Security because there's a cap on what can be paid. Lift that cap. We can expand, we can protect the solvency of Social Security for 50 years and expand benefits, which is what I want to do. That's not their thing. Look, their thing is they are anti-government. They believe that corporate large corporations should run the world. It's not just Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. It's public education. It's transportation. You name the issue. They want to move toward privatization. That is the agenda of many of them, give power to large corporations, weaken the ability of the American people to determine their own future. And he's exactly correct. That's neoliberalism in a nutshell, though. The outsourcing of government responsibilities to private corporations who can profit off of what should be services designed to benefit the public good. Now, the good news is that Bernie Sanders possibly got mansion to acquiesce because after Bernie Sanders put him on blast with that tweet we just read, well, he changed his tune. HuffPost reporter Igor Bobic explains mansion on CNN says there should be no cuts to those now getting Social Security and Medicare and rejects the idea of raising the Social Security retirement age. He instead suggests raising the taxable wage cap for employees paying into the program. Bobic continues the taxable wage cap just jumped up to one hundred sixty thousand two hundred dollars up from one hundred forty seven thousand dollars for twenty twenty two on January 1st. Manchin said on CNN he believed it was one hundred fifty to one hundred fifty five thousand dollars in West Virginia. They're paying one hundred percent of that tax in wealthier areas. They're paying very small percentage of that tax. Now, even though Manchin cannot be trusted, he's correct here. Warren Gunnals, the majority staff director for Bernie Sanders explains if Bernie Sanders Social Security bill was signed into law last year, Elon Musk would have paid two point nine billion dollars more in taxes. No one making more than two hundred fifty thousand dollars or less would have paid a penny more in taxes. Benefits would have gone up by twenty four hundred dollars a year. And Social Security would be solvent for seventy five years. Exactly. Now, to be fair, Manchin didn't necessarily rule out this policy in the first place, but when you advocate for a bipartisan compromise, when Republicans are explicitly calling for cuts to Social Security, it's kind of hard to fathom that a neoliberal corporatist like Manchin would even be entertaining Bernie Sanders proposal. But here we are. He got backlash. Bernie Sanders called him out. And we have, if not a reversal, at least a clarification at a minimum. Now, I can't say with certainty that Bernie Sanders got Manchin to buckle specifically, but what I can say is that Bernie Sanders has consistently been a thorn in the side of any politician which tried to cut Social Security in either party, for example, back in 2012, when Obama betrayed voters by endorsing cuts to Social Security by changing how the cost of living adjustments were made, there was fierce opposition from grassroots activists. But also there was a small group of senators who were vehemently opposed to Obama's proposal and the individual who led the charge was none other than Senator Bernie Sanders. Let's listen. In 2008, he said that he would not cut Social Security. We want the president to remember what he said and not go back on his word. And once again, Bernie Sanders is doing everything he can to name and shame any politician who's aligning with Republicans to betray the American people. Now, I should also note that this entire debt ceiling crisis is a choice. The bar on cap is a dumb, made up thing that doesn't even need to exist. But it is a useful tool for politicians to create this sense of urgency. So politicians in both parties, to be fair, can rush through bills that would be extremely unpopular. And I should clarify that they know that these bills would be extremely unpopular, but this whole debt ceiling showdown is a pretty useful excuse. I mean, they could just say I had to support this terrible policy in order to avoid a recession. Oh, my God, my hands were tied. I was so stressed out, but Congress can literally just abolish the debt ceiling and never have to have this conversation again. But this is America and that would make too much sense. But either way, it's good to know that there's at least one politician who will go to bat for the American people on this issue. Social Security is a lifeline to Americans and it's our money. We paid into this program and we do not consent to any politician from either party stealing from us, period.


Parents should not complain, my child is hooked to the cell phone. Parents should make themselves so interesting, they must be more interesting than the social media on the phone.


The Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, or TAPS, needs a few good men and women to assist with their good grief mentor camp in the Washington, D.C. area. TAPS mentors will help military children who have lost a parent or sibling get through a tough time during a weekend retreat over Memorial Day. The free three-day two-night camp is filled with traditional and military-themed camp activities, as well as grief education and emotional support. All activities are led by an experienced and trained grief facilitator, and each child is matched with a volunteer. Potential mentors have to go through a background check and must be able to attend the entire weekend. For more information or to volunteer, go to TAPS.org or call 1-800-959-TAPS. From the Defense Media Activity, I'm Petty Officer James Stolpec.


I think my presentation is called something like Reflections on Military Professionalism and I speak to you highly conscious of the fact that I am no longer a member of the military profession having been out of the army now just about as long as I was a serving officer. So I qualify at best as a sympathetic observer of your profession, at least I hope by the time I get to the end of the talk you'll think I'm a sympathetic observer. In that regard, I'd like to suggest that a core issue confronting your profession today is to honestly assess the collective performance of the armed services and of the national security establishment more broadly over the past three plus decades and especially since 9-11. Now such an assessment is not a comfortable thing to undertake, it's never easy to honestly evaluate an enterprise in which you are deeply invested.  They've screwed things up too much and don't want to admit it. So here's one sympathetic outsider's perspective on what such an assessment on your part might entail and let me begin by offering some context for that assessment. For well over 30 years now, dating from the promulgation of the Carter Doctrine back in 1980, the United States military has been engaged, has been intensively engaged in various quarters of the Islamic world and an end to that involvement is obviously nowhere in sight. Many of you, I have no doubt, have experienced that involvement at first hand. But tick off the countries in that region in the greater Middle East that U.S. forces in recent decades have invaded, occupied, garrisoned, bombed or raided and aware American soldiers have either killed or been killed. Since 1980, that list includes Iraq and Afghanistan, of course. But also Iran, Lebanon, Libya, Turkey, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Gutter, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Pakistan and now Syria. The list just keeps getting longer. To judge by the various official explanations that have come out of Washington over those years, the mission of the troops dispatched to these various quarters has been to defend or deter or liberate punishing the wicked and protecting the innocent while spreading liberal values and generally keeping Americans safe. But what are we to make of the larger enterprise in which the United States has been engaged for well over three decades now? What is the nature of the military struggle that we are waging? I think the seldom stated premise underlying this war can be simply stated. With disorder, dysfunction and disarray in the Islamic world perceived to pose a growing threat to vital U.S. national security interests, the adroit application of hard power we profess to believe will enable the United States to check those tendencies and thereby preserve the American way of life. Choose whatever term you like. Police, pacify, shape, control, dominate, transform. Back in 1980, President Carter launched the United States on a project aimed at nothing less than determining the fate and future of the peoples inhabiting the Ark of Nations from the Maghreb and the Arabian Peninsula to the Persian Gulf and Central Asia. Since World War II, American soldiers had fought and died in Asia. And even when the wars in Korea and Vietnam ended, U.S. troop contingents continued to garrison that region. In Europe, a major U.S. military presence dating from the start of the Cold War signaled Washington's willingness to fight there as well. But prior to Carter's watershed 1980 statement, no comparable commitment toward the Islamic world existed. And now, of course, that was all starting to change. Only in retrospect does this become clear, of course. At the time when President Carter declared the Persian Gulf a vital national security interest, that was the literal meaning of the Carter doctrine, he himself did not intend to embark upon a war, nor did President Carter anticipate what course the war was going to follow, its duration, costs, and consequences. Like the European statesmen who 100 years ago touched off the cataclysm that we know today as World War I, Carter merely litifused without knowing where it led. But look closely enough and the dots connect. Much as, say, the Berlin Airlift, the Korean War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and even the invasion of Grenada among many other events, all constitute episodes in what we call the Cold War, so to seemingly disparate events such as the Beirut bombing of 1983, the Black Hawk down debacle of 1993, and the Iraq invasion of 2003, among many others, all form part of a conflict that we might call America's War for the Greater Middle East. Acknowledging the existence of that larger conflict, seeing America's War for the Greater Middle East whole provides a start point for evaluating the overall performance of the United States military during this enterprise. Let me state plainly my own assessment of that war. We have not won it. We are not winning it, and simply pressing on is unlikely to produce more positive results next year or the year after. So what's gone wrong? Why has victory defined as conclusively achieving the political purposes for which we fight? Why has victory proven so elusive? After all, ours is by any measure the best and most capable military in the entire world. Well here are a few preliminary thoughts which taken together define what I believe is the crisis confronting your profession. First, the center of gravity. Devised by the German philosopher Klauswitz, the phrase center of gravity as I think you probably know refers to that factor upon which a war's outcome ultimately turns. The center of gravity could be the enemy army or its capital. It could be some critical resource or a piece of valuable terrain. Correctly identifying the center of gravity does not, of itself, guarantee victory. But at least you have an inkling of how a war might be or even whether it can be won. Yet even today, it's not at all clear that the United States has correctly identified the center of gravity in this conflict. The war for the greater Middle East began in the desert with President Carter's failed 1980 attempt to free the Americans held hostage in Iran. And since then, the war has featured campaigns in other remote and desolate places. That said, Americans ought to have learned by now that in their war for the greater Middle East, the key terrain is urban. In this contest, outcomes turn on what people think and believe. What matters most is not killing adversaries, U.S. forces know how to do that, but influencing populations. People constitute this war's center of gravity. And here the United States labors under massive disadvantages that we ought to acknowledge. When American soldiers venture into this key urban terrain, they do so as alien intruders. They arrive in cities like Baghdad and Kabul as heirs of a Western civilization that has seldom acted to further the well-being of Muslims. Further, U.S. efforts are unavoidably tainted by the prior actions of Europeans who in attempting to incorporate their Middle East into their own empires made such a hash of things. Like it or not, we are the successors of those imperialists. The so-called West may be an artificial construct, one that has long since outlived its usefulness in my view, but having for decades declared that we are part of that West, we cannot suddenly divorce ourselves from its deservedly unsavory reputation throughout much of the Islamic world. Washington's insistence that U.S. intentions today differ from and are more benign than those of, say, Great Britain a century ago, invites only ridicule and incredulity. This is especially the case when we stride into Iraq or Afghanistan arm in arm with our British cousins. To our ears, the phrase Anglo-American conjures up glorious memories of a partnership forged to free a continent gripped by slavery. Back in June 1944, General Eisenhower summoned the Anglo-American forces under his command to embark upon what he unabashedly referred to as a great crusade. When George W. Bush in an unscripted moment referred to the Iraq war as a crusade, he was alluding to those memories. But residents of the Islamic world will inevitably assess Anglo-American purposes somewhat differently. Furthermore, their own collective memory includes repeated encounters with crusades. Those that their forebears experience and that remain part of their shared consciousness drew their inspiration not from a desire to free, but from a determination to conquer. And this poses a dilemma that the officer corps itself ought to grapple with. Second point, the role of technology. As the Cold War was winding down and the war for the greater Middle East was heating up, leading members of the US National Security Elite, very much including influential members of the officer corps, persuaded themselves that technology was transforming the very nature of war. I'm referring here to the so-called revolution in military affairs. I'm actually not sure if that's still a term it's commonly used. Fast computers and precision-guided munitions promised to enhance, by orders of magnitude, the efficacy of force. And since technological superiority was ostensibly an American strong suit, this high-tech approach to warfare promised to endow US forces with a decisive edge against any and all adversaries. Well, the United States has now fully tested that proposition, trying various approaches in various places. And except in the narrowest tactical terms, it has proven to be utterly false. As a means to pacify or control or liberate or transform, in over the past three decades we've professed to do all these things, the preferred American style of warfare possesses limited utility when applied to the greater Middle East. The ongoing campaign against ISIS offers only the most recent illustration of this point. Precision airstrikes can destroy specific targets. For example, all the US manufactured equipment that ISIS has captured from the Iraqis. But as Pentagon leaders candidly acknowledge, air power alone will not accomplish the announced mission of defeating and destroying this latest enemy. That will require boots on the ground. Yet boots are hard to come by. Apart from a handful of militant politicians and pundits too old for military service, few Americans have much stomach for undertaking another large-scale ground campaign. The disappointments of our last Iraq war are still too fresh. And as for would-be allies, some are reluctant to dive in, others possess little by way of effective capabilities. So we are left with this strange circumstance of the world's most powerful military doggedly doing what it does best, even when what it does possesses only modest relevance to the problem actually at hand. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld once touched off a minor furor by remarking that, quote, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want. Well, 30-some years into the war for the greater Middle East, the army, or more broadly the military establishment that we have, has still not adapted itself to what fighting that war entails. Each of the services remains deeply invested in a model and an identity that might be appropriate to some war, but not to the one we find ourselves fighting. Seems to me that this is a problem requiring sustained military professional attention. Third point, strategy. In present-day Washington's strategy, defined here as the principled application of power to achieve objectives of first-order importance, strategies become a lost art. Any strategy worthy of the name sees around the curve. It expands the range of plausible and affordable options. In short, it creates choices. What passes for a U.S. strategy in the war for the greater Middle East has been almost entirely reactive. Rather than principled, it has been opportunistic. It has repeatedly failed to anticipate second-order consequences. Instead of creating choice, it has fostered the sense that the United States really has no alternative but to press on, vaguely hoping the persistence will produce a different result. And again, the campaign against ISIS illustrates this point. Now sometimes, surely in war, doggedness can be a virtue, but sometimes it's a sign of stupidity. And in this case, I submit that the latter applies. Where is the debate over strategic alternatives? In academic circles, it may exist, as the writings of Richard Betz or Barry Pozen or Stephen Walt or John Miersheimer, among others, may testify. But in Washington, no such debate exists, which is an astonishing fact, given the paltry results achieved over the course of three-plus decades trying to bring the greater Middle East to heel. Now during the Cold War, the United States made many costly mistakes. That said, the concept of containment did provide at least a basic framework for sound strategy. 30-some years after it began, we cannot make a similar statement regarding America's war for the greater Middle East. In lieu of strategy, we have platitudes recited to justify a seemingly endless list of costly and inconclusive military campaigns. And yet feasible alternatives do exist. For example, what supposedly endows the Persian Gulf with such huge importance is the concentration of world oil reserves in that region. Ensuring access to that oil is what promoted the US to embark upon its war for the greater Middle East in the first place. But what if, as appears to be the case, the United States stands on the brink of something approximating energy self-sufficiency? Should that not affect the reigning perception that the American way of life is somehow tied to the fate of Saudi Arabia and its oil-rich neighbors? Shouldn't that emerging fact create options? It should, but thus far, policymakers seem to be oblivious to that possibility. This too, I submit, is an issue that should engage the attention of the officer corps. Fourth point, national security apparatus. I refer here to the sprawling network of institutions that emerged in the aftermath of World War II and that have grown ever since like topsy. Today, that network centers on the Department of Defense and the so-called Intelligence Committee, yet it also includes select congressional committees, think tanks, advocacy groups, lobbies, defense contractors, certain academic programs, and even specialized publications. All of them devoted to the proposition that national security must remain priority number one to say that this network exists chiefly to perpetuate itself, maybe slightly unfair, but only slightly. In his recent memoir, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates complains about the unresponsiveness of the national security bureaucracy, even when called upon to meet the pressing needs of troops during wartime. In his time, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld made the same point. Here is Rumsfeld speaking to Pentagon employees on, please note the date, September 10, 2001, quoting Rumsfeld now. The topic today, he said, is an adversary that poses a threat, a serious threat to the security of the United States of America. This adversary is one of the world's last bastions of central planning. It governs by dictating five-year plans with brutal consistency, he continued. It stifles free thought and crushes new ideas. It disrupts the defense of the United States and places the lives of men and women in uniform at risk. Rumsfeld continues. Perhaps this adversary sounds like the former Soviet Union, but that enemy is gone. Our foes are more subtle and implacable today. You may think I'm describing one of the last decrepit dictators of the world, but this adversary is closer to home. It's the Pentagon bureaucracy. Well, wildly wrong and misguided in so many ways, on this one point at least, Rumsfeld was right. And nothing that has occurred in the years since to reduce the salience of his critique. The national security apparatus suffers from a seemingly irreversible sclerosis. Of course, things look different to those who labor within the bottles of that apparatus. Their efforts to streamline and to achieve greater efficiency are ostensibly always underway. Not long ago, Secretary of Defense Hegel announced plans to reduce the size of his own staff. At present, the office of the Secretary of Defense has 2,400 employees, some office. Hegel's senior staff currently includes a deputy secretary, an executive secretary, five undersecretaries, six deputy undersecretaries, 15 assistant secretaries, and five principal deputy assistant secretaries. Hegel's plan is to reduce OSD staffing by 200 spaces. Oh, and he's given his people until 2019 to figure out how to do that. Don't hold your breath. Military professionals, I would argue, should be first in line in declaring this sort of over-bureaucratization to be utterly unsatisfactory and should demand real reform. Fifth point, generalship. In any war, larger, small, superior generalship does not alone guarantee a successful outcome. If it did, Richmond, Virginia might today be the capital of an independent nation. Yet competent generals increase the odds of coming out on top while inept ones can all but single-handedly turn a potentially winning hand into a losing one. At their worst, bumbling senior military officers may actually aid and abet the enemy. The American Civil War lasted as long as it did for several reasons, but prominent among those reasons was the quality of leadership under which the army of the Potomac suffered when commanded by the likes of Irwin McDowell, George B. McClellan, John Pope, Ambrose Burnside, and Joseph Hooker. We should not presume that present-day US military leadership is all that much better. Daniel P. Bolger, a recently retired three-star US Army general, is about to come out with a book called Why We Lost. It's his account of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. He served as a general officer in both. We Lost, Bolger argues, with an honesty rarely seen, in large part due to the inadequacies of the senior officers charged with waging those wars. It's an argument that deserves serious consideration. Taken as a whole, the performance of senior US officers during the decades of America's war for the greater Middle East has been decidedly mixed. And this is true even with regard to that elite group of top commanders sometimes referred to as savior generals. Operation Desert Storms, H. Norman Schwartzkoff, along with more recent worthies such as Tommy Franks, David Petraeus, and Stanley McChrystal, were once mentioned in the same breath with George S. Patton. With the passage of time, however, their achievements, the achievements that earned them wide renown, have lost their luster. Today, Operation Desert Storm seems less like a historic victory than as an opening act to a chapter in US military history that most Americans would prefer to forget. Why? Well, not least because of massive errors of judgment by Schwartzkoff himself in negotiating the terms of the ceasefire that brought Desert Storm to a conclusion. No one thinks of Tommy Franks as the liberator of Baghdad as they did ever so briefly a decade ago. His failure to plan for phase four of that operation was a monumental blunder. As for Petraeus' famous surge in Iraq and the Afghan equivalent engineered by McChrystal, whatever they once appeared to achieve has since become unstuck. Whatever Senator John McCain might persist in claiming, the United States did not win the Iraq War. It merely bequeathed to the people of Iraq, a war that the United States fecklessly began but failed to finish. A similar outcome is likely in Afghanistan. We will leave. The war there will continue. And as demonstrations of superior general ship, General Patton will be decidedly unimpressed. The armed services know how to grow lieutenants and captains, by which I mean O1s and O3s. But their apparent inability to do the same when it comes to identifying, developing, and selecting officers for the very top jobs is troubling. And the officer corps itself ought to ask why. Sixth point, the US military system. The intensification of the war for the greater Middle East after 9-11 revealed hitherto unsuspected defects in America's basic approach to raising its military forces, notwithstanding the very considerable virtues of our professional military, notably durability and battlefield prowess, the existing system ought to rate as a failure. Here are the problems with that system. It encourages political irresponsibility. It underwrites an insipid conception of citizenship. It's undemocratic. It turns out to be exorbitantly expensive, and it doesn't win. Dishonesty pervades the relationship between the US military and American society. Rhetorically, Americans support the troops, but the support is seldom more than skin deep. In practice, the American people subject the troops that they profess to care about to serial abuse. As authorities in Washington commit US forces to wars, that are unnecessary or ill-managed or unwinnable, or in sort of a trifecta, all three, the American people manifest something close to indifference. The bungled rollout of a health care reform program might generate public attention and even outrage by comparison a bungled military campaign elicits shrugs. Now certainly, our reliance on professional soldiers has relieved citizens of any responsibility to contribute to the nation's defense. But is that actually such a good thing? Back in the 1970s, when Vietnam induced Americans to abandon the tradition of the citizen soldier, President Richard Nixon responded by creating a standing army. That's at least what the founders would have called the all-volunteer force. And in their day, in the founder's day, standing army was a term of opprobrium. An army consisting of professionals rather than citizens, they believed, was at odds with the principles animating the American Revolution and infused into documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Well, the shadow of Vietnam lingers even now, albeit with ironic implications. Americans today seem intent on making amends for sins committed or you've said to have been committed back when supporting the troops had become optional. Today, blaming the troops for the wars that they were sent to fight has become all but unthinkable. Thank you for your service, trips off American lips as easily as have a nice day. And with this little real meaning, the theologian and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer had a phrase for such posturing. He called it cheap grace.  And it's time for the officer corps itself to consider whether the all-volunteer force actually serves the country's interests. Seventh point, the political economy of war. The second order consequences of relying on professional soldiers are likewise unfortunate. Washington's appetite for waging war in the greater Middle East has exceeded the willingness of young Americans to volunteer for military service. This has created a gap, too much war, too few warriors. And this gap has created an opening for profit-minded so-called private security firms to flood the war zone. As you probably know, in both Iraq and Afghanistan, contractors ultimately outnumbered uniform military personnel taking on tasks once performed by soldiers. That is to say, contractors inserted themselves into a sphere that was once exclusively yours. And the results have fallen well short of being satisfactory. The recent conviction of several former employees of the notorious Blackwater for murdering Iraqi civilians in cold blood is but one indicator of the problem. But the issue goes beyond simply contractor misconduct. Waste and corruption have occurred on a colossal scale, so much so that the Pentagon literally is unable to say where all the money went. War has always created opportunities for some people to make money. America's war for the greater Middle East today has become primarily a means to make money. And that's unconscionable. And I suspect at least some of you agree with that. Why permit such things to persist? Now, I don't mean to imply that the officer corps somehow exercises jurisdiction or sovereignty over each of these matters. That's certainly not the case. But if you agree with me that America's war for the greater Middle East has not gone well, then I submit that these are the sorts of issues that demand sustained and critical professional attention. Well, I'll stop there, and I look forward to your questions and comments. Thank you very much. Sure. Andrew, let me just start with this. I think we're about the same age. So one of the reasons that a Vietnam War ended was because it was a draft E. Force, I think, because the realities of the war were palpable to almost every American family. And that made the political will to deal with it rise. So can you talk a little? Is this the fundamental problem that we have in all volunteer force? You can treat them like the French Foreign Legion and send them somewhere because they affects such a small portion of the population? Well, I think that's part of the issue. Many people now have made this point to include some retired general officers. General McChrystal, I think, has come out posing questions about whether the all volunteer force makes sense. General Eichenberry, the retired Army three star, wrote an article in Foreign Affairs questioning the system. It does, it seemed to me, reduce constraints on civilian decision makers in Washington as they evaluate questions of what's worth fighting for. Because politically, they have, in the last couple of decades, made those decisions without taking fully into account how the American people are likely to react. Now it's not just a question of who's doing the fighting and the dying. It's also the question of who's doing the paying. When the George W. Bush administration committed the United States to what in those days we call the global war on terrorism, one of the most striking things about the entry into that war was the conscious decision made by the civilian leadership not to mobilize the country. When you think about the US military history, we have always, at a minimum, increased the size of US forces as we embarked upon what was perceived to be some large-scale military enterprise. That was true in the War of 1812. It was true in the Mexican War, certainly in the Civil War, even in the Spanish-American War, in 20th century wars. When you go to war, you raise up more forces. More often than not, when we went to war prior to the post-911 period, there was also a decision made by civilian leaders to impose a requirement on citizens to pay for that war, or at least to pay for some of that war. How? By increasing taxes. On occasion by putting curbs on the production of consumer goods so that the ongoing, the day-to-day American way of life was subordinated to. The larger requirement to ensure that the American way of life next year and 10 years from now would prevail. When you think about what happened after 9-11, none of that occurred. The assumption, I think it was an assumption driven by excessive confidence in what the revolution of military affairs was going to be able to deliver in terms of effective force, the assumption was that the existing force basically was, in terms of size, was adequate to the task that came. The existing, remember, the administration was very clear this was a global war. Global war on terrorism wasn't some pundit's invention. That was what the president said. And the president said at the time it's going to be a long war. He didn't say we're going to win the global war on terror in six weeks, or two months, or a year. So a global war that was going to be a long war, and yet we didn't expand the size of the armed forces. Why? Because we thought that the armed forces could be absolutely assured of achieving victory whenever committed. That was the assumption that existed back in 2001. Again, in many respects, I think, was an assumption that derived from this unfortunate infatuation with the revolution and military affairs. But the other thing that the Bush administration did not do, it did not require the American people to make any sacrifices. The administration cut taxes rather than raising taxes. The administration was quite adamant in insisting that the American people should continue to live the way they lived, as if there were no war. And for the most part, that's what the American people did. Was the consequence of that? Well, one of the consequences, of course, was massive increases in indebtedness that at least some economists argue, I'm not an economist, at least some economists argue, contribute to the current prospect of a sustained period of economic stagnation. Not so much for your generation, but for the young people that are coming out of college right now, that they can look forward to a period of low growth, high unemployment. We'll see if that turns out to be the case. That's the argument as one of the consequences of having simply run this war on Red Inc. All of that, I think, in one way or another, stems from the conviction dating from the post-Vietnam period that the citizen-soldier concept had outlived its usefulness and that embracing the model of a standing army was the way to go. I think in retrospect, that proposition deserves to be critically reexamined. OK, we're open to questions from the floor, please.


This paper discussed the achievements of in vitro modeling of the blood-brain barrier, BBB, and provided an overview of the research area. It described the BBB's structure, function, and importance for the central nervous system, and outlined criteria for evaluating BBB models in vitro. It then discussed various techniques used to develop BBB models, including primary cultures versus cell lines, monocultures versus multicultures, and models on a chip, 3D models, and microfluidic models. Finally, it highlighted the potential benefits of these models for advancing neuroscience and the pharmaceutical industry. This article was authored by Andre Locke, Agnieszko Nuck, and Anna Katarzyna-Wadowitz.


Hello, and welcome to the weekly market update with me, David Madden. Today's date is Monday, the 30 June 2019, and the time has just gone 12.01 British summertime. It's been a fairly negative start to the European session. Essentially, it's got the same old story over the last few days and weeks whereby fairly high trade tensions across the world, largely with the US at the center of it, has actually really continued to weigh on global sentiment. We're a bit lower on major European markets today, but we're certainly off the lows of the session. There's obviously a few factors going on in relation to global trade tensions. In the last few days, the Chinese levies on $60 billion worth of US goods, they've kicked in. China's now looking at launching an investigation into the American delivery company FedEx over allegations that FedEx deliberately rerouted goods that were destined for China, for the company Huawei, which were supposed to be right in China, but wound up in the US instead. As the investigation going on for that, this could be construed as an attack on an individual US company just as how the US have strict restrictions on Huawei, the Chinese tech giants products that could be seen as going to tit for tat. In relation to the US and Mexico, the trade tensions are still running high there over President Trump's threatened high tariffs on Mexican imports in relation to migration. This comes not too long after Mexico and the United States and Canada all agreed a new trade deal, a replacement to NAFTA, but of course President Trump is still bold on his head with his threats. That's the way the global sentiment. Speaking of President Trump, I actually arrived in the UK today and tensions are in some quarters a bit high. Given that President Trump has known to kind of actually weigh in on domestic affairs of other countries, we might hear some commentary from President Trump in relation to who we think should take over as Tory leader and in turn likely to be the next Prime Minister of the UK. He's already made a comment saying that Boris Johnson would make a good Prime Minister. The last time he visited the UK, he'd no problem telling people what he thought in relation to the UK's handling of Brexit negotiations and what about the future. So it's likely we could hear similar comments from President Trump. So things to kind of watching out for, we could be the speculation that the US could threaten a narrower sharing of intelligence with the UK in relation to the UK's relationship with Huawei. Keep an eye out for any comments about potential trade deals down the line once the UK actually leaves the European Union because President Trump, because the UK post-Brexit Britain will want to be striking trade deals around the world. And obviously what we're looking for a good deal with the US, so we could hear some commentary from President Trump in relation to that. These are all the kind of big issues of what's going on. So I'll take a look now at some of the major markets starting off with the FTSE 100. Global equities have a fairly similar theme whereby the FTSE 100 hit a multi-map high in April but since then we've had a lower low, a lower high and another lower low. And this could be the sign, this could be the beginning of a further move to the downside in the FTSE 100 and also global equities as well. Ultimately what we remain south of this red line here, the tourney moving average on the FTSE 100 and that comes to play at 7164. While we remain south of that we could see further downward pressure around it. We could be looking back toward this area here, the late February low in around 7040 and the move below that might bring the psychology important 7000 metric into play. Move to the upside and the FTSE 100 could run into resistance in around the tourney moving average or also this yellow line here at the watered moving average which comes into play essentially in around 7200. So not only is it a big psychological number but also we've seen a few occasions that metric did manage to act as support recently so it could act as resistance in the near term. And the moves beyond that, we really would need to be taking out the mid-may highs of around 7372 in order to make it more confident that the recent downward trend has ended and we're looking at a resumption of the wider upward trend that has been in place between between late December and April. I take a look now at what's going on over in Germany on the Dax. Similar to the FTSE, the Dax hit a multi-move high in early May and now we're seeing the lower low, lower high and another lower low. So we're pretty much hovering nearly very close to the Daxes. Tourney moving average which comes to play at 11621. If we can hold above that we could look at actually kind of potentially moving higher and which would be in theme with the wider trend of 2019. And if we can move higher from this area, we could be looking at heading up towards this blue line here, the fifth moving average which is just shy of 12,000, 11,985. And we can see on a few occasions there thereabouts that metric did manage to act as support on the way down. So it might act as resistance in the near term. And if you know, we have north of 12,000, then keep a line for this area up here in around 12,300 and 18 or so, the mid-May high. But if the market does manage to have a size of break below the tourney moving average, that'll be, you know, obviously, further multi-move lows and you know, obviously, you know, yet again another lower low. So we could be looking at heading down towards this area here in around the kind of 12,000, 11,400. It did manage to act on a few occasions as support in early 2019. So it could do a support again in the near term. Take a look now at the Dow Jones. So coming off the highs of late April or early May, you know, demonstration where I've seen a lower low, a lower high and another lower low. So we're at you know, multi-move lows and the Dow Jones. And if you can, and you can see it has been on the MACD indicator on the MACD histogram, there's been a fairly steady increase in negative momentum. So as the market's moving lower, that's been confirmed by the steady increase in negative momentum. So they can press a lower from here. We could be looking at trying to get in this area here in around the kind of port, psychology port, 24,000. But if you didn't manage to have a bounce back in the Dow Jones, we could be looking at heading back up towards this red line here, the Trinity Moving Average, which comes into play in around 25,420. And you also notice that this trend line kind of almost effectively kind of coincides with Trinity Moving Average.  So if you take a trend line from the lows of February 2018 to the lows of April and also May 2018, you get this line along here. We can see that acted as resistance and support in early 2019. So the possibility of that metric might be important again, especially as it can essentially overlaps with the Trinity Moving Average. And it's only really if you have a kind of a size or a break below above that trend line, which also coincides with the Trinity Moving Average. So if you have a size break above that, because then we become more confident that the kind of at the recent negative move has come to lend at the more medium term, upward trend is continuing. So if you press on higher from here, we could be looking at targeting this blue line here, the Trinity Moving Average, which comes to play at 25,992. It is a very, very similar situation on the S&P 500. By coming off of the highest hour set in early May, we give the lower low, a lower high, and yet again another lower low. So a steady increase in negative momentum. So if you kind of press on lower from here, we could be looking at targeting this area here, one of the early May lows in around 2722. And sure we've got beyond that, we could be looking at it towards the psychological important number of 2700. Similar situation whereby if you do have a bounce back in the S&P 500, resistance might come into play from this red line here, the Trinity Moving Average, which comes to play in around 7772 and also coincides with the trend line. And if you take a look, if you draw a low between the lows of February 2018, sorry, apologies, the lows of February 2016 and the lows of November 2016, we get this trend line along here. We can see that that metric was respected on a few occasions in the 2018 and also 2019. So if the metric is important in the past, it makes it more likely it'll be so in the future. So given the fact how that trend line is kind of in around the same area as the Trinity Moving Average is likely to be important. So while we remain south of it, it's like it's likely that that outlet should remain negative, but if you can have a size move back of it, that could be a sign that the recent negative trend has come to an end. So if you press on higher from here, we could really get targeting this area here in around 2840. Now we've talked about how some of the major global indices equity markets have been printing multi-month lows, given the uncertainty. But one of the areas, one of the markets which has been benefiting from this uncertainty and fear in relation to trade has been the gold market. So we see the gold market press on higher today, as it did on Friday, and we see the gold market now back at levels not seen since date March. And we're currently in around 1316, the gold market. And if you could hold up on the psychology important 1300 mark, it's likely we could be looking at re-testing the kind of middle late, middle late march highs of 1324. And if you go beyond that, we could look at any toward this area here in around 1340, or potentially up towards the kind of the February highs of in around 1346. Any move to the downside in gold are likely to find support from the kind of psychology important 1300 mark are pressing this blue line here, the fifth the moving average, which comes into play at 1287. And we can see that metric managed to access resistance in mid April, and also act as kind of both support resistance and support very recently. So once you get a metric has been has been important in the past, makes it more likely it will do so in the future. Turning attention now to what's going on in the in the oil market, it's turning up a Brent crude. So Brent crude, like global equities, has had a fairly similar move by between late December and about April May. It's a fantastic run. But since then, we see the markets turn over. So the wider picture, you know, go the oil market is very much upwards on the year. But as you can see here from the highs that were created on Brent in late April, we've had a lower low, a lower high, a lower low, a lower high. And so we've got a nice series of lower lows and lower highs. And that's still intact. So we could potentially lose further ground on the oil market. And Brent could find support from this area here, they got a psychology point 60 bucks per barrel area. If you do manage to press on lower from there, we could be looking at targeting this area here in around 57 spot 50. But if you do manage to have a bounce back in the oil market, resistance might come into play from this yellow line here, the water moving average, we can see that actually has support in the early part of 2019. And a few occasions, the market didn't quite get as low there, but nearly there bounce back as a support only in the last few weeks. So keep an eye out for 67 spot 57. And also kind of the 68 region and the charity moving average comes into play at 68 spot 92. So that entire block means a 68 spot 92 down to 67 spot 57. That region might act as resistance to any bounce backs in Brent. Take a look now at WTI. WTI service formation had a great one for the first month of 2019.  So very recently, this the trend in WTI has been very much at the downside. And if you can press on lower from here on WTI, we could be targeting this area here in around the kind of mid January lows of it around 50 spot 36. So between the 50 spot 36 to the psychology port and 50 bucks per barrel, they might act as support should we continue to see further losses on the Brent all market. Also at the WTI market rather, and if we move lower from there, the next area, potential area for support could be around the kind of 48 dollars a barrel mark. We can see that there was some consolidation from the 48 dollars mark in early January. So once again, it might be important in the near term, similar scenario, if you have a bounce back in the WTI market, the one or the moving average in 58 spot 44, up to the 20 moving average, the red line at just shy of 60 bucks per barrel that might act as positions. Take a look at our currency pairs. So Euro dollar continues to be in a fairly obvious downward trend, a series of lower lows and lower highs. There appears to be decent support from this area here in a one spot 1110. But if you do break below that, we can then be looking at that down towards the kind of psychology, psychology port and one spot 10 metric. Any move to the upside in your dollar are likely to run to resistance from this blue line here, the 50 moving average, which comes into play at one spot 12 or five, there they're about. We can see that on a few occasions in the last few weeks and months, the 50 moving average managed to act at resistance. So keep an eye out for that. But if you do have a size of the move above the 50 moving average, we could be looking at targeting this region here in one spot 1322. I take a look now at the British pound versus the US dollar. I mentioned President Trump is in town, so keep an eye out for any comments he has to make on the state of British politics or the relationship between the UK and the European Union or the potential, the new relationship between the UK and the US post Brexit. So keep an eye out for that. We could see volatility in the pound over that. The pound has had a terrible run the last few weeks. We can see you know, quite a few losses in recent weeks and the fact only on Friday would be fallback to 11, not seen since that, since early January. So if the negative run on the pound continues, we could really get targeting this area here in around one spot 2476. But if you do have any kind of move to the upside or kind of snaps back in the cable British pound versus US dollar, it could run into resistance from this area here in around one spot 28. I take a look now at the week ahead. The week ahead article can be found on our website. If you're going to see us in markets.com under news and analysis, you will find the weekend article and looking ahead for the week in terms of corporate and economic announcements. Ayo world portfolio results tomorrow. Tomorrow and Wednesday, we have the Reserve Bank of Australia in straight decision, Australian GDP and also retail sales coming out between what cross Wednesday, Tuesday, Wednesday. We first quarter figures from salesforce.com tomorrow and Tuesday. On Tuesday and Thursday, we have Eurozone inflation and also the European Central Bank meeting. The ECB are launching a new round of track liquidity at the back end of this year. So hopefully get more details on that. On Wednesday, we fully are figures from workspace, the non-listed company. On Wednesday, we have an update from the page book which gives a snapshot of the state of the US economy. On Friday, we have the all important non-farm payrolls report. We are holding a live webinar of the non-farm payrolls report. So please feel free to sign up for that. On our platform, cmcmarkers.com, this is under the learn section. You can see the webinars and seminars page. And also on Friday, we have the Canadian jobs data. So we would like to see volatility in the US dollar and Canadian dollar. And also keep mine on Friday and trees in May is stepping down as leader of the Conservative Party. So keep an eye for political headlines in relation to who is likely to be the next Tory leader and in turn British Prime Minister. Have you any comments to make on this video or any of the other videos we've made here at CFC Markets? Please feel free to leave a view on the interviews. And that's all for this week. Thank you very much.


Welcome to the ITU Studio here at GSR23, the Global Symposium for Regulators being held in Shamar Shaikh in Egypt, where I've got the great pleasure of being joined in the studio this morning by Dr. Cosmos Lakisen Zava Zava, who is the director of the Telecommunication Development Bureau for ITU. Dr. Zava Zava, welcome to the studio. Thank you. Thank you, Matt. Now, we have a record number of participants here at GSR this year. Congratulations. Thank you. I wanted to ask you, what is unique about this particular edition of GSR?  People couldn't travel, they couldn't meet, they couldn't debate physically. And it all makes a difference. And in the interim, technology was galloping and needed people to sit down and discuss burning issues. So we are excited about the presence of so many. It's a record-breaking GSR. And in terms of the outcomes of GSR, the principal outcome is the new set of best practice guidelines. Why are they important? When you drive, you need GPS to know where you are going. The regulators need reference materials. And it is a result of wide consultation to make sure that there is harmonisation, there is a shared vision going ahead. So it is quite critical. And it is important for the regulators. Now, at this GSR, you launched the Digital Regulation Network Initiative. Could you tell us a little bit more about it? Absolutely. You can't work in a silo. The digital world is an open world. And it's important for people to be sharing good practices and the best practices across regions, across the globe. And it's important for people to be learning from each other. And this will include also twinning for capacity building and helping each other. You can't do it alone in this world, particularly in the digital world. You need to be cooperating, collaborating. That's what we are talking about, collaborative regulation. So it's quite important and regulators take them quite seriously. So what is the interesting most about this year's GSR? This year's GSR has been very innovative. There are a number of new features. We have managed to put a human face to regulation. First of all, we have included new topics such as saving lives, image and telecommunications, the role of technology. The role of technology also in creating a green digital is quite important. We are discussing the issues of spectrum and the issues of metaphysics and many other such topics which are very important for the world. But most importantly, I think we have emphasized the need to include regulators from other sectors. Because if we say at the center of everything that we do, there is digital, we need a conversation with the other sectors. So multi-disciplinary, multi-sectoral, multi-players, we need to have a conversation. And we are very happy because we also created a new segment which includes ministers, and I call it a triple play, the conversation between policymakers, regulators and industry. We should not forget our private sector and industry because they are the ones who invest and connect the world and bridge the many devices that we have, urban, semi-urban, peri-urban, remote areas, etc. Finally, you are no stranger to the telecommunication development landscape. You have been with the telecommunication development bureau for many years. But this year your telecommunications development bureau director. And I just really wanted to ask you how, first of all, congratulations once more. But how has your time been so far? Excellent. It couldn't be better. I think we are trying to innovate as much as we can. We are getting great response from the membership because we are member-driven. Industry is embracing us. We are forging many partnerships and we are implementing many projects that are impactful on the ground. So I am excited. I have a burning desire to impact the world and attach people's lives and I think we are doing exactly that. Thank you very much indeed for being with us in the studio. We look forward to catching up with you again very soon indeed. Thank you very much for having me. Thank you very much as well for being with us. Remember that we have plenty of more interviews on the ITU YouTube channel as well as podcasts on our podcast channels too. And for further information visit www.itu.int. Thank you very much indeed.


to the Think Tech Hawaii Studios for another episode of Security Matters. We've got one of the industry's most progressive guys with us today. Darnell Washington joins me from Secure Experts. Darnell, how you doing, man? Good to see you again. Hey, Andrew, everything is great. It's been a long time since you've had a chance to meet up at all the various conferences and events that we usually speak at. How are you doing? Yeah, I know. I know. Doing well, man. It's been interesting. Everybody's been going through some changes, but you've got some pretty big news here. You've sort of leveraged, I think, some of this, let's call it downtime to stay busy and bring this, you know, work with the CMNCAB to get engaged with cybersecurity for our industry. Let's talk just a little about where we came from. You and I were talking about that just briefly before we came on air, you know. You remember when we were telling everybody, someday you're going to be audited. You better get your cybersecurity act together. Well, that day has finally come. That's right. Well, what I basically said was that the day for systems integrators to kind of hide away from compliance and hide away from meeting compliance and regulatory objectives, that their time has finally ran out. Now that there's regulations and that we finally have T in the fact that the cybersecurity maturity model certification, which has come up, it's been a long time coming. But from the times that we were talking, both with some of the agencies that we were talking about with PSA and the Security Industry Association, a lot of the manufacturers weren't prepared to invest in the resources to be able to harden into security requirements. And they said that unless there was a funding source or some form of a carrot and a stick for compliance, that they weren't going to move the needle at all in doing what we've been talking about for ages of what was even the right thing to do. So now in January 30th of this year, then the teeth finally came out and they said that we're going to get bit if they don't do it. So we've seen a whirlwind of change, but it's long been overdue and with the supply chain issues. And we're talking about the IoT and cloud security COVID actually amplified a lot of the requirements and the need for this to mature and to come by that. Yeah, for sure. And I neglected to let you give your bio, man. Sorry about that. We just jumped right in because we always do. Give our audience, take some time, give them a little bit of your background and secure experts, some of the stuff that you guys have been doing as much as you care to share. I know we don't give it all away on social media anymore, but just give our audience a sense of kind of your background and get us up to speed. Sure. So secure experts, we're a 20 year old company. We formed in February of 2001, even before 9 11, because we saw the need for cybersecurity requirements as far as, you know, as everything being connected, we kind of can say we had a vision that cybersecurity was going to be very dominant in the marketplace. And as analog started turning the digital and everything started growing into the area where everything was connected, we saw the need for us to being able to make sure that cybersecurity was paramount throughout the evolution of processes as they were being more embedded in the critical infrastructure, national security, public safety, and even into home and entertainment areas. So then what we also saw was we saw that the attackers were looming for a really big tape and our efforts to try to slow down all of the cybersecurity impacts from nation state attackers and ransomware and all this, everything has come to be really self evident by all the ransomware and the data breaches that took place. But as far as by my background, I'm a instructor for most of the cybersecurity terminologies and its certifications, such as the CISSP. But recently, we've developed a lot of training programs that have been used for the Department of Defense and for the Department of Homeland Security. And we started working with them to develop specialized platforms for cameras and network connected devices. And our specialty has been in assessing companies and ensuring that their hardware did not expose vulnerabilities that could be exploited. So I've been in the business now for about 30 years. And if I haven't seen it, it hasn't been seen. We've talked about this before. Andrew, you know I know. I know. It's so fun. So the the training stuff that brings us up. Let's talk a little bit about this licensed partner publisher. So the CMNC was an advisory board or accreditation board, right? They rolled out several different sort of options to engage with the cybersecurity maturity model certification program. And I think that you're this LPP, this licensed partner publisher, you're sort of at the top tier. And I believe you'll be able to offer all of those types of services that fall under it. But tell us about building out this training program, the initial licensed partner publisher. What's that about? And you know, what will be that? What will we learn from that, you know, that foray? It's all brand new. But you know, getting into that with CMNC. Yes. So one of the things that we've been fortunate about as far as with secure experts is that when you're developing the strategies for when you're developing the learning objectives, as far as what does the market really need? And what's the best method to being able to train people from different market sectors, regardless of whether you're in aviation, public safety, national security, law enforcement, transportation, whichever your market sector is, what are the training objectives? What is it that the Department of Defense and what does the world need in the area of security? So they come up with this bucket of objectives of what do they want people to learn? And then what secure experts, because we've been seen as being very visionary in the market, and had so much of a diverse level of experience across all walks of the market sectors. And what they said was they want for us to transform these objectives into usable, actionable mechanisms to being able to train people from all walks of life, from all different skill sets of levels, to be able to comprehend and understand how they can actually learn how to not only protect, but these are the people who are actually going to go out there and assess these organizations to see whether they meet the objectives. So what we're really doing is we're going to be training the trainers to train the people who are going to be assessing the environments. So it's a tough standard and tough part of me, but we've been in the business long enough to have a good level of understanding. But to wrap it all up, really what we're doing is we're taking the training programs and the objectives for the trainers and the people who go out to evaluate over 300,000 systems integrators and companies in the defense industrial base. We're going to develop the training curriculum that they're expected to know and that they'll be tested on to ensure that they can appropriately evaluate these agencies regardless of whatever they do to make sure that they have the proper security controls in place. Do you think that, I mean, because it's so, you've mentioned how disparate it is and how different these environments are, right? So do you think that there will be latitude on the part of these assessors? Like you'll be given them sort of the bedrock training that they know what they're looking for, I guess, out of a company that they're assessing. But will they be given latitude, you think, to allow certain types of mitigations or controls that maybe someone's homegrown or something like that? I can't imagine all the different ways people try to do security. You know, I'm sure you've seen all different things in your time, right? So I'm just kind of wondering how that'll work, you know? Well, Andrew, one of the, and that's a very good point. Let's me know that you're part of the school of the discipline because it is the latitude that creates a lot of subjection to, you know, whether an evaluation is correct or not. Our goal is to make it as minimal as possible for them to have any latitude. And what they have when you're doing security assessments is that there's one called a compensating control. That if you don't meet the control very specifically, there's got to be something else that you have up your sleeves that's equally or more greater that mitigates what that control is. But my goal, and I think the goal of secure experts and the CMMC is to offer as little wiggle room and as little latitude for subjectiveness. But because we have so many different disparate environments and the markets to go for, our goal is to define the appropriate testing strategies and the platforms to being able to provide accurate assessments. And one of the benefits why I believe that secure experts is going to be such a formidable benefit to the CMMC is that we have experience and training at the manufacturer and the product level where we actually can look under the hood of a chip or an IP based camera and access control system or a lot to determine whether these controls meet the NIST or the UL standards where a lot of the other CMMC training organizations or the people will be assessing these environments. They won't have the skilled personnel and resources that have that depth of level of understanding to assess an environment at some of the higher maturity level models like the maturity level threes, the levels fours and level fives where we're fully competent and capable and have performed a lot of the assessments for a lot of the PSA members and the CIA members already. So we have a really good past performance in being able to do that. So to wrap up what you said, we want to make sure that there's this little wiggle room as possible during the processes of the assessments. And really, that just comes from a lot of experience and a good way to be able to teach it across a variety of different personnel and resources. Do you know if there will be like, what would you call it, like a shout out? Like let's say I'm doing an assessment, you know, and I've been trained, I know what I'm doing and someone's offering me this compensating control and I'm like, man, I don't know if that's going to do it or not. Will there be a way for, or is there a mechanism in place for people that are going through an assessment, you know, to get some help defining something maybe so that the assessor could say, yeah, that is good. I've checked with so-and-so and as long as you're doing it this way, that'll work out. You know, it's interesting to me, yeah. Yeah, they have a role for the CMMC, which is a practicing professional, someone who can advise customers as to whether they think that these guidelines are going to be done. It's going to be a formal process that you can have a CMMC certified professional that can go to talk to those people along with the certified assessors. So there's a whole work stream of individuals that can assist, but once you get to the level of the assessor, that's the point where secret experts will be defining the very tight curriculum requirements and the restrictions for how to be able to evaluate. But secret experts is always available to provide guidance and input to the community if there is a question or if there's something they're unsure about. We appreciate shout-outs. Yeah, there's like a level of it. I forget what they call them, RPO or RDO, like they're not the certified assessors, but they're, I think people that are going to try to help companies get ready for their certification. Those are just certified professionals, yes, certified professionals. And those people cannot actually do the assessment themselves because that's called a C3, a certified third-party assessment organization, C3PAO. And those are the bodies who can have people that work under them or consultants that can guide the industry in being able to meet the objectives, understand their requirements, and to prepare them for assessment. Awesome. And then if the, so like, so is the idea going to be that you get your assessment done and then it goes back to the AB for like approval and then they issue you a certificate? And is that, and so then that's something like that I'll be, have to give to my contracting officer correct, like I would have to demonstrate that I have this certification from the CMMC AB. This is an interesting process.  So as you do that, you will register with the CMMC and then they will assign and you will select someone from the marketplace. Of course, hopefully secure experts, right? Yeah. That's right. So once you select us, then we will have certified assessors once they do release the teams of the people who are authorized to perform those assessors. And then we will report independently to the CMMC of what certification level that your organization has been able to apply for and has achieved. And then when the DOD has proposals that are coming out, what they will do then is they will then only issue proposals and RFPs to those organizations that have already achieved that CMMC certification level. So you won't have to produce everything. The assessors will go directly with the CMMC to provide what level of certification you've been able to achieve. And they're not going to publish your CMMC level. But if you don't have a CMMC certification level, you won't be able to receive an RFP. Wow. So that would be something to be listed in SAM or somewhere. There will be, or there's going to be some inventory where they can go look at the companies that could perform on a contract that meets the level that's required. Well, they actually said that they're not going to publish this list. They'll only be issuing the proposals to those organizations that have met that. That way there won't be people who can profess that they've been certified at this level and all that. It's basically an area that will give the Department of Defense an opportunity to identify who their whitelisted vendors are going to be. So the advice that we have to all of our customers currently now that we know that we've been kind of indoctrinated and Andrew, I think we can say we're on the island, right? Now that we're on the island, that what our goal is is to being able to prepare the customers as best as we can now so that if there are things that they need to put in place before the actual training curriculum in the training program comes that we can give them a little bit of a quick start program to being able to assess their current compliance level so that if there are any gaps they can make these modifications. But one of the things that you said earlier in our conversation was that as we start to look at when and what are those requirements and when we need to do those things, there's a lot of work to be done. But once that heavy lift is done, just understanding where you sit in the posture is the very important part. Awesome. Yeah, so I want to get back into the curriculum. We got to pay some bills. We'll take a break for about one minute and we'll be right back with Darnell Washington. Sounds good. Security matters. We are talking with Darnell Washington, the secure experts and we're deep diving. We're getting behind the curtain of the CMMCAB, the Cyber Security Maturity Model Certification Accreditation Board has rolled out its licensed partner publishers, among the first 11 with secure experts. And Darnell Washington is with us today just trying to give us a feel for the background of what's going to happen with this program as it rolls out.  And now that in the defense industrial base, anyway, our path is clear, you know, moving forward. And I kind of think this is going to roll out across all of the national infrastructure protection plan sectors, you know, all 16 of our Homeland Security sectors over the coming years, once the dibs kind of has this up and running.  How far away are we from having, you know, enough people out there to certify 300,000 dib companies? It's going to take us a little while. Well, yeah, the timeline is, it's supposed to be a five year process. But the first initial certifications, and here's the interesting part, they're going to be looking for those companies that have been in the initial round. It's the first come to the market is going to be in the first quarter of 2021, when the first training content is going to be delivered. We're working behind the scenes to develop the curriculum, but we've already been provided with the objectives from the CMMC.  But our goal is to develop the content. And then actually once that information, that content has been reviewed by the CMMC, then Secure Experts has authorized to then publish that content to those companies. And what once we publish the content, it will go to training organizations, then to assessors, and then to organizations, so that they'll be able to determine what their maturity model is currently. But as far as for the rollout, they said that the first levels that they think that are going to be the most important are going to be the levels one through three. They said that approximately 60% or to 60 to 65% of the organizations that have products that support the defense industrial base don't have that high sensitivity level that require CMMC level three, level four, and level five. And three, four, and five are more of those that are more involved with citywide surveillance, national security and intelligence, and global security. But if one of the things that you said about in the United States, the entire world is looking at the CMMC as the certification model. So what's happening is that even organizations that are not even in the United States, other continent, are looking at this as a model for us to be more in part with the European Union and a lot of the general data protection regulations. So the CMMC has a great vision of being a global standard and security experts is fortunate to be able to say that we are one of the inaugural teams that are designing the content to support such a large, vast area. But with our depth of knowledge, we really do feel confident that we're going to be able to make it then and to bring these things in. So from January of next year, and the whole process of the delivery of the content before everyone can really get on board. And when this machine will really start kicking, I think it's going to be probably the middle of next year before we're really starting to pump up the strategies and the initial companies are going to start getting certified. And with the partners that are going to come on board, it's going to be so important for them because as the attack vectors change, the new people, they're going to create new ways to infiltrate and to attack the cybersecurity framework and how to adapt. So training is going to be evolutionary as well. What might be one of the objectives that might be required to be certified at the original level, there may be a new version that has to be adaptable and flexible because cybersecurity is never going to just stay static. It's always going to be a dynamic, ever-changing environment. So that's one of the reasons why I think that secure experts working and the content development as a licensed publishing partner gives us the first view into what's happening in the world and how we can best protect the world and the United States from the cybersecurity threats that we face. Yeah, I'm glad you missed it because there's this idea that I had my mind just because you know how we update devices, we'll get a firmware update and a training program especially like this around cybersecurity and the way a business is operating on the period of their assessment, how do we know they're operating like that two weeks later or two months later or six months later? I was wondering if we were going to see the idea of a bit of continuous monitoring. I heard that mentioned in the FedRAMP spaces, you know, kind of wrapped around the the CMMC programs that are coming out with some of those FedRAMP providers. Do you think that a program like this could benefit from continuous monitoring or do you think it would kind of be too much of a burden on the, you know, the small businesses and the folks that have to maintain the cert? Periodic audits and continuous monitoring is an essential element of the CMMC program. It's not just the check box but they are pushing all the models to be able to undergo. For example, for CMMC level three, four and five, you do have to have an in-place continuous data monitoring and model in place to support whether those patches have been applied and whether those take place and security experts actually have continuous data monitoring systems and solutions and offerings that are currently in place to monitor customers' environments especially now that they're not evolving a single office. We now have remote third-party telecommunications providers. We've got work that's being done off-premise from remote environments so our threat landscape has expanded so the reason and the requirement to have continuous data monitoring is even more important than ever. So the CMMC has got that that process that's already embedded and built into those. Wow so that's so the higher levels then are probably probably somebody who's kind of got their own shop, their own home bake shop, small business. Maybe you think they can even do this stuff on their own or do you think they're going to need some some serious help from third parties? They're going to need some help from third parties. A lot of people they think that they can do it themselves but like they say the cost of being an amateur can be very expensive. And what happens is that when things are tested and have very rigorous requirements from a third-party assessor it's pretty much cut and dry as far as whether you're in compliance or not and what happens is just the process of redoing something that you've already done because you thought you did it right. You know you don't see Dennis operating on their own teeth you know. That's a good example. A lot of those things going on place but the main thing that we've always talked about is a lot of the core functionality and the foundation elements of cyber security Andrew have been knowing what you have in your environment making sure that your devices are patched. A lot of the real basic things that we've been talking about for five years Andrew that these are the core you know basic ground zero approaches and by being able to support these third party organizations at accomplishing the you know the level zero then getting to level one and you know getting to the level where they can at least identify their assets that are inside their IT environment. Then those are always good frameworks but the NIST cyber security framework was foundational and the NIST 800-171 which is the requirement for protecting confidential and unclassified information for non-federal environments those are the guidelines that these organizations should be following right now and we can say that these are things that are sometimes ambiguous to people who aren't trained and that's why third party assistants will help them along the lines of making sure that they can be compliant. Yeah for sure let's talk just a little bit before we close up we got a few minutes left about the DFARC causes I know the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulations recently got updated. What do you think the greatest impact was from from those sort of changes that we had for you know let's just say for the for the tier one and then maybe the tier three and four I think they're a little bit different but what's your take on it? Well the main thing of course was that people were able to self-certify they were able to say yes I'm in compliance with these things and then a couple of years ago they started hitting these organizations with the False Plains Act where they were disbarring them they were taking assets from their company they were freezing and making sure that they could not conduct business so that was the first thing that they added to third party certification but the next thing that I thought was the challenge was how are they going to be able to start evolving progressive to know when you move from a level one what's the difference between the level one to level two and the level three the areas that we really focused on was Andrew and you'll hear from me from me first every organization should have started at level three levels one and two have never really been acceptable they were always the basics that were just equivalent of saying you should lock your door at night but it didn't talk about anything about having an alarm system or a camera or anything on your house it never provided you with the appropriate level of protection that you should have had it's like a car without brakes you know that's the level so if we're finally getting to the level where we really should be this presents an opportunity for us to reach a cyber forward strategy that we should have been a long time ago and now that the CMMC has brought teeth to the game where it's enforceable and people can start moving forward I think that these organizations should start building and looking at the level three as their entry level to protect their appropriate environment to the level that I think that they should be I love it Darnell I agree a hundred percent people it's time to pay attention don't settle for the bottom of the basement when it comes to cyber security shoot for level three to CMMC's great guidance if you don't know what to do you don't know how to start and if you haven't started call Darnell over to secure experts and get some help get some guidance they'll be rolling out this curriculum for us next year well I'll get our hands wrapped around what's root what this is going to look like when the assessor walks in the door there won't be any reason not to be prepared but you got to start now it's not a really easy lift. Andrew I gotta let you know it's not just me we have a whole team of folks you know you got Desiree all the rest of the team there's a whole army behind secure experts to make this stuff happen. I definitely couldn't do it all myself a little bit. I'm ambitious but I know. Awesome thanks so much Darnell I really appreciate you spend your time with us today take care of yourself watch your hands wear a mask I'll talk to you soon sir all right thank you very much take care