National Security News

The Daily Signal provides reports on national and homeland security issues, including military readiness, intelligence operations, border protection, and global conflicts. Featuring news, analysis, and commentary, this section explores how security policy decisions affect America’s national defense and freedom.
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    • Opinion

    Fact-Checking DHS Chief’s Dishonest Statement on Border Crisis

    Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas released a factually challenged and misleading statement Tuesday about the crisis on the border. As specialists in immigration policy at The Heritage Foundation, we’re going to correct the record here on eight of Mayorkas’ erroneous claims in a comprehensive response. (The last name after each section identifies which of us…
    Chad Wolf
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    • Opinion

    China Hikes Defense Budget Again as US Weighs Flatlining Pentagon Spending

    Trying to preserve a veneer of democratic legitimacy, the Chinese government goes through the political theater of a meeting of its rubber-stamp Congress every March. As part of the process, Beijing releases the figure that will be spent on its military for the year. The Chinese fiscal year runs from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31,…
    Frederico Bartels
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    • News

    Pentagon Prepared to Extend National Guard’s Presence at Capitol

    The Pentagon is prepared to extend the National Guard’s presence at the U.S. Capitol for an additional two months, defense officials said Tuesday. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is expected to give final approval, though Pentagon officials told The Associated Press that final details were still being discussed. Capitol Police requested last week that the National Guard continue to provide…
    Andrew Trunsky
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    • Opinion

    Let’s Be Clear: ‘For the People Act’ Would Benefit Leftist Politicians, Not the People

    Almost a year after its initial passage, the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives has once again passed HR 1, the For the People Act. However, there’s one major difference this year—this misleadingly named bill is no longer dead on arrival in a Republican Senate or White House. Now that leftists hold the reins of power, Democrat…
    Rep. Brian Babin
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    • Opinion

    Why ‘Social Cost of Carbon’ Is Most Useless Number You’ve Never Heard Of

    On his very first day in office, President Joe Biden issued an executive order resurrecting the Obama-era social cost of carbon, intended to quantify the economic impact of climate change.  The administration on Feb. 26 issued an interim estimate reporting that these damages are approximately $51 per metric ton of carbon dioxide emissions. Dubbed by…
    Kevin Dayaratna
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    • Opinion

    Rare Earth Elements Aren’t That Rare, but They’re Vital to National Security

    For one-third of the price of one F-35 Lightning II, the Pentagon made a key investment to ensure its supply of rare earth elements. The Department of Defense earlier this month announced that Lynas USA LLC was awarded a $30.4 million technology investment agreement under Title III of the Defense Production Act. With that award,…
    Maiya Clark
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    • Opinion

    Privatizing Social Security Would Help Families Become Better Off

    A recent Reuters headline read, “Yellen, Rice tout economics as key to fixing American inequality.” According to Susan Rice, President Joe Biden’s new domestic policy adviser, “The evidence is clear, investing in equity is good for economic growth.” Our new Treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, says, “I believe economic policy can be a potent tool to…
    Star Parker
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    • Opinion

    Call Transportation Bailouts What They Are: More Welfare for Labor Unions

    Congress is moving full steam ahead on ramming through a bloated, wasteful, and debt-exploding $1.9 trillion legislative package. Although it’s supposedly justified by the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the spending is designed to appease progressive ideological causes and politically connected interest groups. A prime example is the $57.5 billion currently earmarked for various parts of…
    David Ditch
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    • Opinion

    Socialism Delivers Misery

    People hate America’s big disparities in wealth. It’s a reason why, among young people, socialism is as popular as capitalism. The Democratic Socialists of America want a country based on “freedom, equality, and solidarity.” That sure sounds good. But does socialism bring that? My new video debunks several myths about socialism. One reason for socialism’s…
    John Stossel
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    • News

    4 Things to Know About Biden’s Pick for Homeland Security Secretary

    The Senate is set to vote Tuesday on President Joe Biden’s choice to lead the Department of Homeland Security. Alejandro Mayorkas, who has kept a high, occasionally controversial political profile in California and Washington since the 1990s, is the son of Cuban immigrants. Mayorkas, 61, is an alumnus of Beverly Hills High School who graduated…
    Fred Lucas
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    • News

    Biden Orders End to Private Prisons in Package to Achieve ‘Racial Equity’

    Denouncing what he called “systemic racism that has plagued our nation for far, far too long,” President Joe Biden signed executive actions Tuesday aimed at “racial equity,” including a measure to end the use of private prisons to hold federal inmates.  “We are in a battle for the soul of this nation and the simple…
    Fred Lucas
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    • Opinion

    Americans Should Condemn Political Violence in All Forms

    As law enforcement pursues those responsible for the riot Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol, authorities are arresting and charging individuals from extremist groups such as the Oath Keepers. Meanwhile, on Inauguration Day, Antifa and Black Lives Matter continued their riots, violence, and destruction in Portland, Seattle, and Denver. Let’s be clear: There is no…
    James Carafano
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    • Opinion

    EU’s New Investment Deal With China a Blow to Transatlantic Alliance

    The European Union and the People’s Republic of China reached a comprehensive agreement on investment Dec. 30, and it has already elicited a storm of disapproval from advocates of transatlantic cooperation in both the U.S. and Europe. For good reason. Instead of forging a common course of action on the China challenge, Brussels used it…
    Walter Lohman
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    • News

    Twitter Purges Over 70,000 Accounts Sharing ‘Harmful QAnon-Associated Content’

    Twitter has reportedly purged over 70,000 accounts from its platform for sharing “harmful QAnon-associated content.” The social media website began cracking down on Twitter activity after rioters supporting President Donald Trump stormed the United States Capitol on Wednesday, committing acts of vandalism and postponing the certification process as members of Congress were forced to evacuate the building. …
    Mary Margaret Olohan
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    • Opinion

    Some Realtors Fear Association’s ‘Hate Speech’ Ban Is Built on a Slippery Slope

    In what some consider one of the most far-reaching social-policy moves in the corporate world, the National Association of Realtors—called the nation’s largest trade organization—has revised its professional ethics code to ban “hate speech and harassing speech” by its 1.4 million members. Under the new policy, real estate agents who insult, threaten, or harass people based…
    John Murawski
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    • News

    House Homeland Security Chairman Wants Capitol Rioters Placed on No-Fly List

    The chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., on Thursday urged the Transportation Security Administration and the FBI to place certain members of the Capitol mob on the no-fly list. “Given the heinous domestic terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol yesterday, I am urging the Transportation Security Administration [TSA] and the…
    Jake Dima
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    • Opinion

    Our Hopes for 2021 Won’t Be Fulfilled by a Politician, but by Us

    COOK FOREST, Pennsylvania—It has just finished snowing here, and the forest looks magical, draped in white. It takes on a silvery blue shine under the blue sky that emerged after the storm finished leaving its mark. The silence is soon broken by the crunching of snowshoes off in the distance. Southwest of here, a handful…
    Salena Zito
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    • News

    Boy Saves Video of Teen Girl Saying Racial Slur, Posts It Online to Teach Her ‘a Lesson’

    A high school student held onto a 2016 video of a young girl saying a racial slur, then posted it online after she had chosen to attend her dream school, The New York Times reported. “I wanted to get her where she would understand the severity of that word,” 18-year-old Jimmy Galligan told The New York…
    Mary Margaret Olohan
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    • Opinion

    Shaming ‘Lockdowns for Thee, but Not for Me’ Politicians

    Leyna Bradley is a 21-year-old server at Tradesman’s restaurant and bar in Philadelphia, one of several major American cities that have recently prohibited indoor dining at restaurants in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus. The move by the city is not without consequence. Bradley, a student working her way through college, says,…
    John Cooper
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    • Opinion

    Politicians and Corporations Join to Condemn Pornhub, Protect Children

    After a thorough and explosive investigative story about depictions of child abuse and nonconsensual sex on the Canadian-based website Pornhub, the response from corporations and legislators in the U.S. has been swift and effective thus far. Nicholas Kristof’s piece “The Children of Pornhub,” published in The New York Times on Dec. 4, is frightening and…
    Nicole Russell
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