According to the National Priorities Project, military expenditures are 54% of the budget. The next biggest line item is 7%. And there are a whole bunch of 7 percents. So in short, we have a military budget surrounded by a lot of footnotes. This is not serving us well.

Why should the Democratic and Republican parties be in charge of the debates, especially at a time when the largest block of voters has repudiated the Democratic and Republican parties? Why are they still in charge?

We know that from the GI Bill after the Second World War, where Congress found that for every dollar we put in as taxpayers into free higher education for returning GIs, we got back $7 for every dollar invested. An enormous return on our money in public benefits and improved revenue.

If you're working as secretary of state but half of your emails are about your own private business, since when is secretary of state such a leisurely job that half of your time and half of your email are spent on your own private business? There's something really wrong with that picture.

If past behavior is any indication, we're in a lot of trouble with Hillary Clinton in the White House, as well, who has promised to start a no-fly zone in Syria, which amounts to a declaration of war against Russia.

We have missiles - nuclear missiles - on hair-trigger alert. We should be in the business of nuclear disarmament right now, which neither of these candidates [Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton] are talking about.

In an election like this one [in 2016], not only are voters dissatisfied, but where the foundations of our economy, our democracy, our ecosystem, and international war and peace are really crumbling and are really at grave risk for failing in many ways, we need desperately to have an honest public conversation about both the track record of where we've been, what are the critical problems we are facing and what it will take to solve them.