Observations of past and present events. Narratives are not intended to indicate an order of significance. Depending on the individual reviewer or organization, summaries may have a different order of importance. In time each of the items below will be expanded.

(a). U.S. Capital Attack – On January 6, 2021, President Trump claimed the election had been stolen and mounted legal challenges in several states that he had lost. More than 2,000 entered the capital, many of whom occupied, vandalized, looted, and assaulted Capitol Police. Wikipedia.

(b). Congressional Baseball Game – On June 14, 2017, the FBI, federal, state, and local law enforcement partner agencies investigated a shooting at the Eugene Simpson Stadium Park. The mass shooting occurred during a practice session for the annual Congressional Baseball Game in Alexandria, Virginia. Wikipedia.

(c). San Bernadino – On December 2, 2015, a terrorist attack consisting of a mass shooting and an attempted bombing occurred at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernadino, California. ATF conducted traces on the weapons and has determined that they were purchased by the shooter from federal firearms licensees. No evidence that the weapons were purchased unlawfully.

(d). Fort Hood – On April 2, 2014, a mass shooting spree was perpetrated at several locations on the Fort Hood military base near Killeen, Texas. Four people, including the gunman, were killed while14 additional people were injured.

(e). Boston Marathon Bombing – On April 15, 2013, two terrorists planted two homemade pressure cooker bombs which detonated near the finish line of the race, killing three people and injuring hundreds of others, including 17 who lost limbs. The attack took place during the annual race.

(f). Fort Hood – On November 5, 2009, a mass shooting took place. A U.S. Army major and psychiatrist, fatally shot 13 people and injured more than 30 others. It was the deadliest mass shooting on an American military base.

(g). Oklahoma City Bombing – On April 19, 1995, perpetrated by two anti-extremists, killed at least 168 people, injured more than 680 others, and destroyed more than one-third of the building, which had to be demolished. The blast destroyed or damaged 324 other buildings within a 16-block radius. Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building,

Observations of past and present events. Narratives are not intended to indicate an order of significance. Depending on the individual reviewer or organization, summaries may have a different order of importance. In time each of the items below will be expanded.

(a). New York Twin Towers. September 11, 2001 (9/11). Attorney General John Ashcroft blames Clinton-era FBI, CIA. The 9/11Executive Summary. The Commission Report.

Review of THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT titled: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States. The commission consisted of eight senior members (senators, governors and lawyers), and eighty commission staff in support of the effort. The most significant statement in the executive summary is that another attack is expected. Reasons for this are stated problems with foresight, planning and support.

Although there was an overall sense of discomfort that “something” was occurring, the ability to identify, track and impede unknown events was not supported by FBI (domestic), CIA (international) security efforts. Reasons stated were insufficient resources, inability to share information between the entities and ineffective tracking of alien movement within the United States.

Although a significant number of personnel were assigned to create the Commission Report, it reads as a summary. The main Commission Report is significantly more detailed with respect to FAA procedures, however, could not accurately track the hijacked aircraft.

Additional sections of both the summary and main report were superficial regarding real data. Tracking movement of terrorist members was essentially nonexistent. There was advanced indication that significant members of the group were known to be present on the east coast and west coast, routinely moving between locations. The fact that there were groups was unknown prior to the terrorist attack.

As stated, the Executive Summary indicates additional attacks are expected within the United States. The inability to track alien movement today is far more difficult given the growth in millions of aliens, documented and undocumented, entering the country. Are there terrorists entering the country?

Current efforts to control alien entry and movement does not appear to have improved, and may be interpreted as aiding alien movement, and potential terrorists.

(b). World Trade Center Bombing. Occurred on February 26, 1993. Later investigation revealed that Yousef’s Trade Center plot was far more sinister. He wanted the bomb to topple one tower, with the collapsing debris knocking down the second. The attack turned out to be something of a deadly dress rehearsal for 9/11. With the help of Yousef’s uncle Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al Qaeda would later return to realize Yousef’s nightmarish vision.

(c). War in Ukraine. Ongoing international conflict between Russia, alongside Russian backed separatists, and Ukraine, which began in February 2014. Following Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity, Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine and supported pro-Russian separatists fighting the Ukrainian military in the Donbas war. The first eight years of conflict also included naval incidents, cyberwarfare, and heightened political tensions. In February 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

(d). Afghan War. Biden administration’s decision in April 2021 to pull out all US troops by September 2021 without leaving a residual force, were the two critical events that caused the collapse of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). Following the deal, the US dramatically reduced the number of air attacks and deprived the ANSF of a critical edge in fighting the Taliban insurgency, leading to the Taliban takeover of Kabul on 15 August 2021.

(e). EgyptAir Flight 990. October 31, 1999 The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) recorded the captain excusing himself to go to the lavatory, followed 30 seconds later by the first officer saying in Egyptian Arabic “Tawkalt ala Allah,” which can be translated as “I put my trust in God.” A minute later, the autopilot was disengaged, immediately followed by the first officer again repeating the same Arabic phrase which can be also translated as, “I rely on God.” Three seconds later, the throttles for both engines were reduced to idle, and both elevators were moved 3° nose down. The first officer repeated “I rely on God” seven more times.

(f). Pam Am Flight 103. Shortly after 19:00 on 21 December 1988, while the aircraft was in flight over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, it was destroyed by a bomb that had been planted on board, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew in what became known as the Lockerbie bombing. Large sections of the aircraft crashed in a residential street in Lockerbie, killing 11 residents. With a total of 270 fatalities, it is the deadliest terrorist attack in the history of the United Kingdom, as well as its deadliest aviation disaster.

(g). Beirut Barracks Bombings. Early on a Sunday morning, October 23, 1983, two truck bombs struck buildings in Beirut, Lebanon, housing American and French service members of the Multinational Force in (MNF) Lebanon, a military peacekeeping operation during the Lebanese Civil War. The attack killed 307 people: 241 U.S. and 58 French military personnel, six civilians, and two attackers.

Observations of past and present long-term issues. Narratives are not intended to indicate an order of significance. Depending on the individual reviewer or organization, summaries may have a different order of importance. In time each of the items below will be expanded.

(a). Border Security: Homeland Security’s mission is to protect U.S. borders from the illegal movement of weapons, drugs, contraband, and people, while promoting lawful entry and exit. Key findings about U.S. immigrants are rapidly becoming outdated. Immigration appears to be used as a political issue by all sides without any indication of rectification.

The failure of economic science is a main contributor to the problem. To be addressed under the Issue Summary for the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

(b). FBI Cyber Strategy: Security is a complex and rapidly changing subject. In essence, it is a fulltime 7/24 function to safeguard citizens, businesses and government from becoming victims. Consult their website for current information and how to report cyber-crime. Additionally, the link Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency is applicable. Cyber Crime – Credit Cards and Fraud.

(c). Bureau of Economic Analysis; BEA provides current data on the status of the economy, which may seem to the general reader, to be an obscure mystery of how the economy functions. Economics is a highly complex issue. There are thousands of economists at work in government, business and academia. The following is a very limited explanation of the topic.

Fundamentally, economists look for, and recommend, the least cost approach to producing products and providing services. In that regard, automation and robotics have proven to be more efficient than labor. That may appear to provide least cost, and therefore lower prices for the consumer, be they individuals, organizations or the government.

The least product and service cost approach is a fallacy and has led to a negative trade balance with more dollar value of products and services imported than exported. The negative trade balance is over $17 Trillion and is a main cost driver of the higher national debt. It does not consider cost impacts to the environment, lost labor income, taxes and fees not paid as a result of automation.

The loss of taxes and fees also drive the need to borrow to upgrade the infrastructure (roads, railroads, waterways, bridges, airports . . . etc.). It has been suggested that automation in the form of robotics should be taxed to partially make up for the loss of taxes and fees.

In reality, the efficiencies of automation create a REAL excess in the labor market. This excess can be expressed in terms of lower income service sector jobs.

Still, the open border concept is importing millions of lower skilled workers. The result of this combination of automation, lower skilled and lower paying service jobs, and increase in availably of workers as a result of excessive immigration, is leading to increased homeless and immigrants seeking government support, and eventually higher taxes to the citizens.

The real picture of unbalanced trade with foreign markets will, over time, result in imported products and services to effectively be more expensive than domestic production.

Profiteering by members of congress, business and finance markets indicate the driver of these issues may be acts performed for the benefit of self-proclaimed adversaries of the United States. In that event, they may have unintentionally acted as agents on behalf of an enemy state.

However, the result of highly unbalanced international trade is a complex issue which appears to be deeply rooted and leading to aggression toward the United States and other democratic nations via profits earned through excessive exports to these markets.

(d). Education – The Nation’s Report Card Data indicate outcomes in mathematics and reading for grades 4 and 8 continues to decrease. Although assessment of effectiveness of distance education ranked high, it reflects teacher confidence in their mastery of the process, not student outcomes.

U.S. Department of Education USA Facts must be evaluated carefully. Student-to-teacher ratios have decreased from 26.89 students per teacher in 1956, to 15.9 students per teacher in 2020. However, mathematics and reading scores are lower in 2020 than they were in 1956, averaging around 40 percent of expected outcomes. This situation existed prior to COVID-19.

Comparison of U.S. students to international outcomes places U.S. students in the middle-of-the-pack, nearly thirty (30) points behind Chinese students which rank highest on test outcomes. Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Day: Global Lessons for the U.S. Education System and Economy: Published on Dec 8, 2018.

It appears that with offshoring of manufacturing, the U.S. has become a consumer-focused, service sector market, while China is a design, engineering and manufacturing environment.

(e). Law and Order – U.S. Department of Justice. The average citizen and many in government are unaware of the responsibilities of the department. The organization structure is quite cumbersome. The expectation created is that the Attorney General is knowledgeable of everything that takes place, whenever and wherever it occurs.

The legal system has ridged procedures when it comes to decisions and following actions. It seems somehow unusual that institutions of higher learning considered dropping courses on the constitution or dropping the subject to the status of an elective course.

As a result, high school and college students increasingly demonstrate failure to adhere to the rule of law. The point is that the intensity of criminal activity of every definition is increasing. As before, the data require close scrutiny. When group violence of all kinds is ignored, the data in the above references are not included that data. Effectiveness of the legal system reflects the failure of the education system. Accountability appears to be too difficult to address. FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting System (UCR).