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

    Problematic Women: DHS Secretary Bullied Out of DC Restaurant

    Melania Trump makes a surprise visit to a migrant detention center in Texas to meet with children who were separated from their families, Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle faces vicious attacks, The New York Times publishes fakes news about Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt’s daughter, and the pope calls abortion the “white glove” equivalent…
    Ginny Montalbano
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    • News

    Trump Talks VA Reforms: ‘Get Out of Here, You’re Fired’

    President Donald Trump regaled a large crowd in Minnesota Wednesday with tales of his achievements, a major one being reforms of the Department of Veteran Affairs. The president signed the Veteran Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act into law in late June 2017, correcting long-standing accountability issues and ensuring that those incompetent individuals who failed to adequately…
    Ryan Pickrell
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    • Opinion

    We Hear You: Climate Change, Wedding Cakes, Social Security, Planned Parenthood, and Transgender Soldiers

    Editor's note: Our interview with a straight-talking climate change skeptic captured a big audience, and this week's roundup begins with that. Unrelated question: Have you been pressured to participate in an LGBT Pride Month celebration at work? Tell us what happened by writing [email protected].—Ken McIntyre Dear Daily Signal: Thank you, thank you, thank you for…
    Ken McIntyre
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    • News

    Advocates for Disabled Warn Against AMA’s Softening Opposition to Physician-Assisted Suicide

    The American Medical Association’s decision this week to reconsider its long-standing opposition to assisted suicide doesn’t sit well with some advocates for the disabled. The AMA voted Monday by a margin of 56 percent to 44 percent to continue studying the issue, though without reaffirming that its current policy opposing assisted suicide would remain in place….
    Katherine Rohloff
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    • Opinion

    The Grim Consequences of Not Reforming Social Security

    Each year, the trustees of Social Security and Medicare issue their report delivering the news, invariably dismal, about the financial condition of the nation’s two largest entitlement programs. This year, in the report just issued, it’s worse than usual. Last year, the trustees forecast that Social Security and Medicare’s hospital insurance would have to start…
    Star Parker
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    • Opinion

    The Threat to National Security That Hardly Anyone Is Watching

    When I was elected in 2016, the national debt was nearing $20 trillion. The annual structural deficit—meaning how much more the federal government spends than it rakes in—approached $1 trillion. Now, the national debt exceeds $21 trillion. For many months, tax and regulatory reform has stimulated the economy, producing record federal revenue. Sadly, our deficits…
    Rep. Andy Biggs
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    • Opinion

    Remembering Frank Carlucci, Reagan’s Secretary of Defense

    Frank Carlucci III, who served under every president from Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan, died June 3 at his home in McLean, Virginia. He was 87. Carlucci, who dedicated much of his adult life to serving the American people and became well-known for his bravery, conservatism, and problem-solving approach, served as the 15th national security…
    Luc Sasseville
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    • News

    If Russia Invades, US Special Operations Forces Have an Unconventional Plan to Liberate the Baltics

    DOLASZEWO, Poland—In less than 72 hours, U.S. special operations forces transformed a nondescript reserve base at this village in the bucolic Polish countryside into the headquarters of a simulated, special operations war to liberate NATO’s three Baltic countries from a land invasion. Looking in from outside the perimeter wire, however, you’d never know it. Only…
    Nolan Peterson
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    • Opinion

    Pentagon’s New Transgender Policy Strikes Right Balance for Military

    More than 100 lawmakers have signed a letter calling on Defense Secretary James Mattis to rescind his recently announced transgender policy for the military, as USA Today reports. Mattis’ policy largely returns the military to the transgender policy in effect prior to 2016, when President Barack Obama enacted sweeping changes based on political considerations and…
    Thomas Spoehr
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    • Opinion

    Trump Official Affirms Commitment to NATO Allies in Major Speech

    President Donald Trump’s vision for European policy is a welcome change from the muddled approach taken by the Obama administration. That was the assessment of A. Wess Mitchell, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, in a sharply focused major policy address Wednesday at The Heritage Foundation. Mitchell’s speech came against a…
    Nile Gardiner
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    • News

    Obama Administration Allegedly Let Iran Access US Financial System Because It Was ‘Desperate to Get a Deal’

    The Obama administration secretly allowed Iran to access the U.S. financial system to convert assets to U.S. dollars, despite repeated assurances that it would not permit such transactions, a new Senate subcommittee report alleges. “The Obama administration misled the American people and Congress because they were desperate to get a deal with Iran,” Sen. Rob…
    Ryan Pickrell
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    • Opinion

    Here Are 5 New Signs Social Security Is Going Insolvent

    The Social Security Administration released its annual trustees report this week, and the prognosis is not good. Trust fund depletion—the date when Social Security’s reserves will be exhausted and the program will only be able to spend what it receives in payroll taxes at that time—is approaching at a rapid pace. This year, Social Security will…
    Romina Boccia
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    • News

    Opioids Are Now Behind 20% of Deaths Among Young Americans

    A new research study suggests opioid abuse in the U.S. is now responsible for 20 percent of deaths among young adults. The study, published Friday in the journal JAMA Network Open, reveals that young Americans are dying at a far greater pace than any other group. While 1 in every 65 adults in the U.S. suffered…
    Steve Birr
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    • Opinion

    Venezuela’s ‘21st-Century Socialism’ Is an Unmitigated Disaster

    The sham re-election of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on May 20 has made it clear that the humanitarian crisis in that country will only get worse. Maduro has been running a dictatorship since the election of the constituent assembly in July of 2017, and Venezuelans are suffering because of it. Many on the left have…
    Julia Howe
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    • Opinion

    Why Capitalism Is Morally Superior to Socialism

    Several recent polls, plus the popularity of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., demonstrate that young people prefer socialism to free market capitalism. That, I believe, is a result of their ignorance and indoctrination during their school years, from kindergarten through college. For the most part, neither they nor many of their teachers and professors know what…
    Walter E. Williams
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    • Opinion

    Pro-Amnesty Republicans Would Undermine Border Security and US Law

    With some Republicans pushing for a vote on amnesty for those brought illegally to the U.S. as children, Congress should remember why such policies hurt, rather than help. In addition to giving short shrift to other needed immigration reforms and being unfair to both Americans and legal immigrants, the current immigration efforts will likely only…
    David Inserra
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    • Opinion

    To Vietnam, Freedom of Expression Is a ‘National Security Offense’

    “In Vietnam, there is no such thing as a ‘prisoner of conscience,’ and there’s no such thing as people being arrested for ‘freely expressing opinion,’” Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang told reporters in April. The exact opposite is true. A recent report by Amnesty International listed 97 known prisoners of conscience in…
    Sang Hyuk Park
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    • News

    Trump Issues Commercial Space Policy Directive on Eve of Anniversary of JFK’s Space Program Speech

    President Donald Trump on Thursday signed a space policy directive, calling for “updating and refocusing” those policies in a bid to promote innovation and modernize American commercial space policy. The White House said the move “reforms America’s commercial space regulatory framework, ensuring our place as a leader in space commerce.” This is the second space…
    Ginny Montalbano
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    • Opinion

    Social Justice Warrior Accuses Conservative Women of ‘Appropriating’ Feminism—but We’re Not Having It

    Fake news, move over—there’s a new con (wo)man in town. It’s called fake feminism, and according to a woman on the left, conservative women are the culprits. Liberal feminist writer Jessica Valenti, author of books such as “Sex Object: A Memoir,” and “Why Have Kids?”, took to The New York Times Sunday to argue Republicans…
    Kelsey Bolar
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    • Opinion

    Senators Need to Stop Asking Judicial Nominees Their Personal Views

    On Thursday, in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s business meeting, Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, addressed efforts to force judicial nominees to express personal views on issues or cases in their confirmation hearings. Senators routinely press nominees, for example, to say whether particular Supreme Court precedents, such as Brown v. Board of Education or Roe v. Wade, were correctly decided….
    Thomas Jipping
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