Politics

Last Thurssday, the Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair General Joseph Dunford testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC). The topic? The President’s defense budget request for next year.

The nearly three-hour hearing covered everything from the fight against ISIS in Syria to NASA’s research and development projects. But what was remarkable, other than senators using valuable time with Secretary Carter to broker pet projects, was the evident reevaluation of threats to the U.S.

Ross Douthat takes Paul Ryan to task for not being more aggressively hostile to Trump:

Yet when he’s asked about the threat that Donald Trump obviously poses to “who we are,” the speaker — despite his admirable willingness to condemn specific Trumpian outrages — can’t bring himself to make a counterendorsement, or voice explicit opposition to Trump’s progress. “I have to respect the primary voter,” he says. “It’s not my decision, it’s their decision.” And, “We’re going to have to work with whoever our nominee is.”

The New York Times reported over the weekend on the desperate lengths to which some anti-Trump Republicans are prepared to go. If they are unable to stop Trump’s nomination, some Republicans are thinking about launching an independent presidential bid for the general election:

It’s probably fair to say that there are more question marks swirling around the 2016 US presidential election than any race for The White House in recent memory.

Most attempts by Western countries to “export democracy” to the Middle East and Africa usually fails due to the fact that Western democracy is flawed.  German newspaper Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten (DWN) says that establishing democratic order alone is not enough to ensure social and political stability in foreign countries. Sputniknews.com reports: In early 1990s, many African countries established formal democracy. They started to organize elections and make a show of sticking to democratic principles, but in fact have been far away from the real division of political power.