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

    Why the Military Is Losing the Battle for the Best, Brightest Cybersecurity Talent

    What do GPS satellites, F-35s, and the new Department of Veterans Affairs health care records management system have in common? The latest Defense Department annual assessment of cyberthreats has found disturbing weaknesses in each of these systems. Furthermore, Robert Behler, director of the Defense Department’s Operational Test and Evaluation, claimed that the Pentagon’s cybertesting was…
    Elias Gavilan
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    • Opinion

    How the 2020 Defense Authorization Act Will Determine the Fate of Defense Strategy

    Will the Trump administration be able to continue rebuilding our military? That depends in large measure on whether Congress passes the National Defense Authorization Act for the upcoming fiscal year. In his inaugural hearing as the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., delivered a message of committee unity and commitment…
    Frederico Bartels
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    • News

    What a Judge’s Ruling on Drafting Women Means for Military

    A federal judge’s ruling that women must be included in a potential military draft is based on incomplete information, an advocate for military readiness says. The Obama administration rejected a field test by the U.S. Marine Corps that found all-male units performing simulated ground combat tasks outperformed gender-mixed units 69 percent of the time, said…
    Fred Lucas
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    • Opinion

    Why Gender Dysphoria Must Remain a Bar to Military Service

    In normal usage, “discrimination” is an ugly word. But discrimination has two meanings. The first and more familiar definition is “the treatment of a person or particular group of people differently, in a way that is worse than the way people are usually treated.” Discrimination of that sort is clearly unacceptable. The second, less common…
    Thomas Spoehr
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    • Opinion

    Military Members Should Fight Dangers Abroad, Not in Their Own Homes

    Despair filled the eyes of the mother next to me in the Senate committee hearing room as she showed me a picture of her son. She explained he will need lifelong medical care because she was unknowingly exposed to lead paint and mold in her home during her pregnancy. To my surprise, she wasn’t living…
    Megan Rohn
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    • Opinion

    Medicare’s Financial Condition Is Getting Worse. Here’s What Trump and Congress Can Do.

    The financial condition of Medicare—the huge program that covers over 58 million beneficiaries—is deteriorating. The president and Congress are legally required to address the problem this year. For the taxpayers, it’s essential that they slow the growth in Medicare spending. For the beneficiaries, they can improve the program’s overall performance, benefit structure, and financial condition…
    Robert Moffit
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    • News

    Trump Says Venezuela Crisis Marks ‘Twilight Hour of Socialism’

    The movement for freedom in Venezuela reveals that the “twilight hour of socialism has arrived in our hemisphere,” President Donald Trump said Monday night in a speech in Miami. “The Venezuelan people have spoken, and the world has heard their beautiful voice,” Trump said in his remarks at Florida International University to an audience that…
    Fred Lucas
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    • Opinion

    Frank Talk at the Munich Security Conference

    MUNICH—The annual Munich Security Conference opened Friday with the largest U.S. delegation in the five decades of its history. The conference has grown into one of the leading forums for discussion of international issues.  Included in the list of participants for the 2019 conference are numerous heads of state, among them German Chancellor Angela Merkel,…
    Thomas Spoehr
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    • Opinion

    Socialism Has Already Hurt America

    President Donald Trump was principled and politically astute to address, in his State of the Union, the horrors taking place now in Venezuela, and then to declare: “Tonight we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country.” Venezuela is indeed a poster child for what happens when a nation’s economic machinery falls…
    Star Parker
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    • Opinion

    California’s High-Speed Rail Failure Shows the Insanity of Green New Deal

    Even California can’t apparently support high-speed rail. Just a few hundred miles of high-speed rail in California was well on its way to exceeding $100 billion in costs by the time of completion. As a result, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Tuesday that the state will be massively shrinking the project. “Let’s be real,” Newsom, a…
    David Ditch
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    • Opinion

    The Constitution Rejects the Premise of Judicial Supremacy. So Should All Americans.

    Americans today are inclined to accept, without thinking much about it, the idea of judicial supremacy.  We think that the federal courts—and especially the Supreme Court—have an extensive discretion to decide for us the big questions of public policy that come before the nation.  After all, the Supreme Court has taken upon itself the authority…
    Carson Holloway
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    • Opinion

    Podcast: Social Justice Challenges America’s Founding Ideals

    Social justice—you’ve probably heard the term. It’s a buzzword, but it’s also an ideology. When you peel back the layers, it becomes quite clear that this new social justice ideology stands directly against America’s founding principles—things like blind justice and equality before the law. Noah Rothman writes about all this in his new book “Unjust:…
    Katrina Trinko
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    • News

    8 Takeaways From Acting AG Whitaker’s House Judiciary Committee Hearing

    Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker doesn’t expect to remain in the job for more than another week, as the Senate is expected to confirm nominee William Barr for the position. Whitaker has been in the office long enough, however, to be sharply grilled by Democrats—and a pair of Republicans—at a House Judiciary Committee hearing Friday….
    Fred Lucas
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    • News

    Sen. Mike Lee Slams Senate Judiciary Democrats for ‘Wildly Inappropriate’ Questions on Religion

    Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee condemned the Senate Judiciary Democrats on Thursday for questioning judicial nominees’ religious beliefs before the committee. Democratic Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono denied ever instituting a religious test and scolded Lee for what she believed was censuring her. “You can’t openly, publicly question a nominee about that nominee’s religious beliefs, about…
    Molly Prince
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    • News

    Trump Honors 3 D-Day Veterans During State of the Union Address

    During his State of the Union speech, President Donald Trump honored the service of three veterans who served in World War II. “On D-Day, June 6, 1944, 15,000 young American men jumped from the sky, and 60,000 more stormed in from the sea, to save our civilization from tyranny,” said Trump. “Here with us tonight…
    Joshua Q. Nelson
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    • Opinion

    4 Key Issues in Neomi Rao’s Judicial Confirmation Hearing

    The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday held its first judicial confirmation hearing of the year for Neomi Rao, who is President Donald Trump’s nominee for the vacancy left by new Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Rao fielded questions from senators about her college writings, whether…
    Elizabeth Slattery
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    • News

    Meet Trump’s State of the Union Special Guests

    President Donald Trump will put personal faces on the many policy issues his administration has been tackling this year with the guests he’s invited to his second State of the Union address Tuesday. Below is a list of the guests and their stories, drawing upon the information the White House provided. Debra Bissell, Heather Armstrong,…
    Courtney Joyner
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    • News

    Democrat Senator Asks Judicial Nominee to Answer Whether Gay Marriage Is ‘Sinful’

    Sen. Cory Booker asked judicial nominee Neomi Rao during a hearing Tuesday if she believed same-sex relationships were “immoral.” “Are gay relationships, in your opinion, immoral?” Booker, D-N.J., asked Rao, who is nominated to be on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. If confirmed, Rao would replace Brett Kavanaugh,…
    Ginny Montalbano
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    • Opinion

    Maxine Waters Promises More Big Government in Her Financial Services Agenda

    Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., recently outlined her agenda as the new chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee. Unfortunately, a continued misdiagnosis of the most recent financial crisis stoked her calls for perpetuating heavy government involvement in the housing market and further intrusion into other financial sectors.  The hints of bipartisanship outreach on several matters,…
    Joel Griffith
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    • Opinion

    Today’s Venezuela: Where Socialism Meets Authoritarianism

    Many on the left have for years cheered Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, as heroes of “21st-century socialism.” Ironically, however, the undeniable downward spiral of Venezuela’s economic freedom and the far-reaching suffering of its people have put the true meaning to those “hero” claims: Socialism and corruption have destroyed Venezuela. In…
    Anthony B. Kim
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