instruction:
Your task is to extract the thesis of an opinionated news article by selecting some of its text segments. The thesis is a summarization of what the author wants to persuade the reader of. Your answer should consist of segments of the given text. Note that you are not allowed to combine different sentences.
question:
Obama's State of the Union fantasy world: We need a real national security strategy, VA reform. Here's a prediction: expect a narrative to emerge in certain media outlets in the coming days that Tuesday night's State of the Union speech was a grand return to form for President Obama . The elite, east-coast intelligencia line will be that the beleaguered lame duck president--facing a hostile, conservative Congress--regained his momentum with renewed energy and purpose . How Obama Got His Groove Back , Washington- style . Groove aside , the fact remains that Obama's next-to-last State of the Union address did not substantially address two of the most pressing issues currently facing our nation and that matter most to its military veterans: the lack of a clear United States national security strategy-- to include the crisis facing our military-- and the inability of the VA bureaucracy care to deliver timely health care to millions of our veterans . But you wouldn't know it by listening to Tuesday night's State of the Union address . President Obama is living in a fantasy world . The president says that we're "stopping ISIL's advance." But in reality, his campaign of airstrikes have not been successful , and ISIS controls more territory in Iraq and Syria today than ever before . He also boldly claimed that "we're slashing the backlog that had too many veterans waiting years to get the benefits they need," but this statement too just doesn't match up with reality . Today, nearly 250,000 veterans are still stuck in the VA claims backlog and another 290,000 languish in the appeals process . Is that still "too many," Mr  President? Unfortunate events will likely force the president's attention to these issues in 2015 -- just like ISIS did in Iraq and Phoenix did for the VA in 2014 . However ,  President Obama could be proactive and get ahead of these issues by pursuing the following four agenda items :. 1 \. Articulate a real national security strategy . The president's plan for"leading from behind"-- and that national security and foreign policy boils down to "don't do stupid stuff"-- is no substitute for a real strategy, as deteriorating situations in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Ukraine and elsewhere prove . Likewise, denying the nature of the enemy we face("ISIS is not Islamic") only muddies the water further , emboldening our enemies and confusing our allies . President Obama also touted ending the 14 year-long war in Afghanistan , but "ending" is different than"winning." His telegraphed withdrawals have pulled us out of conflicts before they're resolved , creating power vacuums in Iraq- and soon in Afghanistan- that leave America more vulnerable . And incredibly, for the first time since 9/11, the president failed to even mention the Taliban or Al Qaeda  - both of which are far from "on the run" as he proclaimed in 2012 and are advancing and actively challenging the West . 2 \. Get serious about fixing defense spending . Instead of cutting fat, the president's ill-conceived defense budget sequester has slashed into the muscle of our military force . The administration should strive to replace defense sequestration, by implementing serious and commensurate acquisitions and compensation reforms . Reforming these areas will reduce Pentagon budgetary pressures caused by massive weapons system cost-overruns and exploding personnel costs, allowing for a more strategic allocation of war-fighting resources . In order to live within a fiscally responsible reality, and most importantly maintain the world's most capable military, the administration and Congress must get serious about real DoD spending reform . His address last night didn't even mention sequestration . 3 \. Develop and implement a plan to tackle the national debt . Respected military leaders like Marine General James Mattis, Admiral Mike Mullen, and many others recognize that the biggest long-term threat to our national security is our massive national debt . At more than $18 trillion and growing, the debt is on track to double under President Obama . It is absolutely vital to the fiscal, economic, and military strength of our country that we have a serious plan to get our debt under control through reductions in spending and significant reforms across the government . 4 \. Implement more accountability and choice at the VA . The VA reforms passed by Congress last year were a good first step, but will not address the deeper, systemic culture problems at VA . In the next Congress, the president should champion even deeper reforms at VA to bring accountability for poor performing employees throughout the department and to expand health care options for veterans outside the VA system . These basic principles would not only address a campaign promise the president has failed to deliver on("fixing the VA") but would show that he is finally serious about improving veterans' access to the quality health care they earned . What the president misses, and even defies, in his latest list of proposals is that Americans don't think government isn't doing enough . They think government does too much, that most of what it does, it does poorly , and that it doesn't attend to the issues that matter to them . Focusing on the four agenda items above would send a message that the president is finally serious about governing in his last two years in office . It's probably too much to ask for Obama to change his approach at this stage in his presidency -- but it's essential if he wants to avoid a legacy of division, defiance and neglect . And if the president continues on his current course? Well, the items listed above will become part of a compelling agenda for his potential successors as they take to the campaign trail for 2016 .
answer:
The elite, east-coast intelligencia line will be that the beleaguered lame duck president--facing a hostile, conservative Congress--regained his momentum with renewed energy and purpose


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Where does your tax money go? To many people overseas, the United States government is viewed as an aggressive empire of military bases, drones, and special forces that transcend national borders . But to big corporations, the US government is a patsy that gives away trillions of dollars of natural resources, tax revenues and public assets to grasping giant companies and industries . The US has an unsurpassed record of transferring what belongs to all Americans to a few giant business interests . Unlike any other country, the federal government, under the 1872 Mining Act, gives away hard rock minerals (eg gold, silver, platinum, molybdenum) discovered on federal lands that belong to the American people, to the foreign or domestic companies that find these minerals . In 1986, for example, a gold company found over $9bn worth of gold under federal land in Nevada . The company bought rights to that gold for $5 per acre(less than $6,000 total) without having to pay any royalties on the mined gold back to the Department of Interior . For over 100 years, valuable minerals worth hundreds of billions of dollars have been given away to the mining industry for $5 or less per acre . Once these mines are exhausted, the law only requires companies to do little to clean up their toxic waters and waste . As for other natural resources on federal land such as timber, grazing fields, oil, gas and coal, the companies pay very low fees to the government to obtain these valuable natural resources . The public airwaves belong to the people . Yet ,  under a law passed in 1934 by the radio lobby (sustained later by the television industry), the broadcasting stations control their licensed portion of the broadcast spectrum 24/7 for free . As tenants they pay nothing to the Federal Communications Commission , which represents the landlords , who are the people . These free licenses allow radio and television stations to exclusively decide who gets airtime and who does not . Entertainment and advertisements now make up over 90 percent of the broadcasting time of these very profitable commercial stations, using our public airwaves . For many decades, the federal government has used taxpayer-funded research and development as hand-outs for private industries in the US . For instance ,  the research and development of the Pentagon has resulted in technologies that built the aero-space, computer and containerisation industries . It was the Pentagon that funded the basic and applied research that led to the creation of the Internet . The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has transferred, for free, many diverse technologies that were developed through taxpayer-funded research and development to the transportation, detection and medical service industries . The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has funded many of the major pharmaceuticals which, under contracts known as CRADA agreements, are given away to large drug companies . The anti-cancer drug, Taxol, was developed with $31m of taxpayer funds by the National Cancer Institute and, after clinical testing, given away to Bristol- Myers-Squibb under a monopoly marketing agreement . The biotechnology industry was formed out of free NIH research programmes . Without a century of freely transferred research and development investments by the US Department of Agriculture, pesticide, herbicide and other chemical industries would not be where they are today . At the state and local level, companies and their consulting firms put the location of new factories, warehouses or large retail stores up for bidding by the states and municipalities . It becomes a race to the bottom by states and municipalities competing against each other to create the most "business friendly environment" with incentives like tax breaks, cash donations and other subsidies to convince companies to locate to a community called corporate welfare or crony capitalism . These deals amount to governments paying companies to make money while depleting their public tax base that pays for schools, public works and other public services . Recently, Tesla, the electric car company, put the location of a proposed one billion dollar factory to produce lithium ion batteries up for bid . Texas, California, Arizona, and Nevada offered large giveaways in incentive subsidies . Nevada won, offering a package worth at least $1bn that included tax vacations, cash reimbursements of expenses and even a cash bonus for signing . Similarly ,  professional sports businesses have routinely demanded taxpayer- funded stadiums and ballparks as a condition of either staying in a city or relocating to another . Many billions of dollars have been spent to make these rich football and baseball giants even richer . This is money that could have been spent to create and improve neighbourhood recreational facilities for participatory sports and healthy exercise . Under those corporate subsidies, the taxpayers are paying far too much (sometimes between $100,000 to $200,000 per job) for their governments' race to the bottom during these bidding wars . There are many thousands of similar corporate subsidy programmes , which are not regularly reviewed by the federal government . Instead ,  Congress just lets them continue on indefinitely without regulatory standards, cost-benefit tests or sunset provisions , which is exactly what these corporate lobbyists are paying for with their ample campaign contributions to these indentured legislators . The most profitable companies in the world make demands for such subsidies . Some years ago the former CEO of Intel Corporation, Andy Grove, testified before the Senate urging continuation of the generous tax credits given to computer companies like Cisco, Microsoft, Google, and Apple . These are companies with staggering profit margins, year after year . Grove was candid when he told the Senators that his industry was not very eager to spend money to do basic research . What these companies do, he noted, is apply the research to their products and services . He called on the government to take this responsibility by extending tax credits (big checks) from the Treasury to pay companies to do such basic work . The unfairness of all these giveaways is inducing a Left-Right alliance that opposes such giveaways . The Left calls this corporate welfare , while the Right calls it crony capitalism . Thus far, the politicians from both the Democratic and the Republican parties have not wanted to make these giveaways debatable issues in their electoral campaigns or the subject of thorough congressional or state legislative hearings . The time is coming for a Left-Right public coalition to go operational and exert political demands for reform of this gigantic largesse , while many other necessities of the people are subjected to cruel, austere cutbacks .
answer:
To many people overseas, the United States government is viewed as an aggressive empire of military bases, drones, and special forces that transcend national borders But to big corporations, the US government is a patsy that gives away trillions of dollars of natural resources, tax revenues and public assets to grasping giant companies and industries


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In the UK, we also can't breathe. A member of the "United Friends and Families Campaign" spoke to protesters about some of these cases, including that of a 40-year-old mother, Joy Gardner . Her only relation to Eric Garner, he explained, is that she, too, couldn't breathe after 13 feet of tape was wrapped in at least seven complete turns around her head . She fell into a coma and was pronounced dead four days later . Azelle Rodney, 24, was killed in 2005 . He was shot six times within two seconds of police officers ramming the vehicle in which he was travelling . His body was then left on the pavement for 16 hours - not unlike Mike Brown in the streets of Ferguson . Only after nearly 10 years of campaigning led by Rodney's mother, Susan Alexander, is an officer now facing a murder charge . Among those who addressed protesters was Marcia Rigg, the sister of Sean Rigg . He died in police custody at the entrance to Brixton police station in 2008 after a violent arrest . Despite being clearly unwell, he had been handcuffed and left dying on the floor . A police officer, filmed on CCTV, said that he was "faking it" . Christopher Alder died while in police custody at Queen's Gardens Police Station in Kingston upon Hull . Having been taken to the station with a head injury, he was unresponsive when he was dragged from a police van . He lay on the floor of the custody suite for 11 minutes, CCTV footage shows, gasping for breath, with his hands cuffed behind him and his trousers round his ankles . A pool of blood formed around his mouth . Instead of being given medical attention, five police officers stood around commenting that he was "right as rain" and his agony was "just a show" . They even made monkey noises . Four years earlier in 1994, Shiji Lapite died after being placed in a police van in east London . A post-mortem found that Lapite had died of asphyxiation, suggesting that police officers had used a chokehold . But while the inquest into his death recorded a verdict of unlawful killing , the Crown Prosecution Service declined to prosecute the officers involved . In fact ,  no officer has been convicted over a death in police custody since 1969 , when the two Leeds police officers responsible for the death of David Oluwale, were found guilty of assault . Negative experiences of police treatment are a consistent feature of the lives of many people, especially those who are young, black and come from the working class . Families often suffer not just the initial news of the deaths of their loved ones in custody, but a concerted media campaign from the police smearing the reputations of the victim in the following weeks . The family of Mark Duggan weren't even informed of his death, instead finding out from TV news . And these deaths represent only the worst and most painful cases of police violence . Many "lesser" incidents go virtually unreported . Even when these are recorded- as was a London police officer's threat that "if you say one more fucking word, I'll smash your fucking Arab face in" to a 16-year-old teenager in 2005- officers never face serious charges . Since the Macpherson report of 1999, which famously pointed to "institutional racism" within the Met, there has been little evidence of structural or far- reaching change in the way the police are held accountable . As in other European countries, especially France, anger at the police in the UK has repeatedly boiled over into riots . The police killing of Duggan in 2011, which sparked the riots of that summer, is the clearest recent case . Eighty-five percent of participants in those riots who were questioned by the Reading the Riots study said policing was an "important" or "very important" factor in why the riots happened . They pointed to long histories of being subjected to humiliating stop-and- searches and beatings by the police , who were often described as operating like a "gang" . The common view is that there is little point in attempting recourse via the official police complaint procedures . This was confirmed by a recent investigation by Channel 4 Dispatches , which showed that just one percent of allegations of racism by members of the public against the police in England and Wales were upheld over an eight year period . And yet ,  despite our knowledge that experiences of police violence have led to riots, the reaction of successive British governments has been to implement ever-harsher policing, especially in black and working-class communities . This coincides with a continued police clampdown in Muslim communities that has generated widespread anger for its methods, including the manufacture of evidence against Muslim suspects and long imprisonment periods for writing Facebook posts . We demonstrated on December 10 not only to show solidarity with those in the US, but also to point to the similar struggles for justice that we are facing here in the UK . In the late evening, dozens of protesters were corralled in the cold for over an hour before being arrested, loaded onto two buses commandeered for the purpose, and driven to various police stations around London . Many were kept in the cold for hours before being led to holding cells . Many were released miles from home in the very early morning . There can be little doubt that this tactic of mass arrests, which is becoming more prominent, is aimed at dissuading future protest . Those arrested are given "interview" dates well into the future - often with stringent bail conditions - and warned about commenting publicly before this date . They are, as such, effectively gagged . There is no small irony in this response to a demonstration about police violence . But we have little intention of remaining silent . After decades of campaigning led by affected families, the movement for police accountability is developing new tactics and involving a growing number of young people who are determined to be the generation that sees change . Along with our friends in the US, we adopt Garner's words to the police as our slogan . This stops today .
answer:

A member of the "United Friends and Families Campaign" spoke to protesters about some of these cases, including that of a 40-year-old mother, Joy Gardner