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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    • News

    Homeland Security: Russia Targeted 21 States in 2016, Changed No Votes

    Russians hacked or attempted to hack into election systems in 21 states, Department of Homeland Security officials confirmed to a Senate panel Wednesday, but stressed this didn’t affect any election outcomes. “All the way through the Cold War up to our most recent election, in my opinion they have tried to influence all of our…
    Fred Lucas
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    • Opinion

    The Left Spent at Least $32 Million on 4 Special Elections. And They Still Lost All of Them.

    Sometimes, politics boils down to narratives. This was the case in Tuesday’s special election in Georgia, where Republican Karen Handel defeated Democrat Jon Ossoff to take a House seat previously occupied by Tom Price—now the secretary of health and human services. The election became a nationalized proxy war between Republicans and Democrats, drawing intense news…
    Jarrett Stepman
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    • Opinion

    How to Resolve Tangled Relationship Between Congress and Homeland Security

    With homeland security being such a national priority, one would expect Congress and the Department of Homeland Security to have a well-organized relationship. Unfortunately, that is not the case. On Wednesday, the House Homeland Security Committee marked up a bill that would reauthorize the Department of Homeland Security for the first time since 2002, when…
    David Inserra
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    • Opinion

    We Hear You: Put Blame for Opioid Epidemic Where It Belongs

    Editor’s note: Our five-part series by Josh Siegel about the opioid epidemic and its devastating effects in one poor New Hampshire county generated ardent responses from readers. Here are some of them.—Ken McIntyre Dear Daily Signal: The first  part of Josh Siegel’s series on the opioid crisis in Coos County, New Hampshire, struck a chord with me (“This…
    Ken McIntyre
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    • News

    Trump Administration Keeps Obama LGBT Policies at Pentagon, Other Agencies

    The Defense Department recently held an LGBT Pride Month event, while the Army conducted transgender sensitivity training, moves that baffled retired Army Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin and some other conservatives. “Every dollar we spend on social engineering is one dollar less we are spending on defense,” Ken Boehm says. They had expected that the new command, under…
    Fred Lucas
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    • Opinion

    What the Treasury’s New Recommendations Would Mean for Financial Reform

    This week, in response to President Donald Trump’s February executive order, the U.S. Treasury released the first in a series of reports examining the U.S. financial regulatory system. The report identifies policies that would improve federal financial regulation in a manner consistent with the Trump administration’s seven core principles. Treasury incorporated a wide range of…
    Norbert Michel
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    • Opinion

    These 2 Solar Companies Want Special Treatment. Here’s Why That Would Harm Green Technologies.

    In recent weeks, two U.S. manufacturers of solar energy components—Suniva and SolarWorld—have petitioned the U.S. International Trade Commission to impose tariffs on the imports of various products used in the production of solar panels. Such an initiative has been rightly condemned by the solar industry itself. Such a tariff would benefit Suniva and SolarWorld for…
    Charles Busch
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    • Opinion

    Mattis Is Punting the Military Buildup to 2019

    Secretary of Defense James Mattis has news for Congress and for the nation: The military buildup will have to wait until next year. Mattis delivered that message in a back-to-back series of appearances before Congress, one of them taking place in a rare prime-time hearing on Monday night. During both testimonies—which were delivered before the…
    Frederico Bartels
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    • News

    EPA Cleared in Agency-Caused Environmental Disaster, Despite Official’s Admissions

    A government watchdog reported Monday that the Environmental Protection Agency committed no wrongdoing in an environmental disaster, but the auditors ignored crucial inconsistencies in officials’ stories. The EPA breached Colorado’s Gold King Mine on Aug. 5, 2015, resulting in an estimated 3 million gallons of toxic pollution being dumped into a river that provides drinking water…
    Ethan Barton
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    • News

    VA Secretary Says This Bureaucratic Fix Could Help Prevent Veteran Suicides

    The Department of Veterans Affairs and Defense Department soon will have the same medical data, ending a turf battle between the agencies to achieve what Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin said will be “seamless” information sharing on veterans’ health. Shulkin said having an electronic health record, or EHR, that follows a veteran from the time he…
    Fred Lucas
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    • News

    A Short History of Special Counsels and Presidents

    James Comey managed to play a role in appointment of the two most recent special counsels to investigate possible wrongdoing in a presidential administration. And both cases featured leaks to the press. Comey, ousted as FBI director by President Donald Trump, admitted last week in testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee that he leaked a…
    Fred Lucas
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    • Opinion

    With Army Stretched Too Thin, Military Buildup Should Begin Right Now

    Testifying in front of the Senate Appropriations’ defense subcommittee last Wednesday, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley was characteristically blunt. When asked, he told the assembled senators that in his opinion, the Army does not have enough soldiers to accomplish the missions it has been assigned. Acknowledging that Secretary of Defense James Mattis is…
    Thomas Spoehr
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    • Opinion

    Making the VA Accountable Again

    In 2014, the public learned from whistleblowers that government employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Phoenix, Arizona, kept “secret waiting lists” to hide long waits for care at their facilities. Dozens of veterans died waiting for care as a result. Since that watershed, there has been a torrent of revelations about misconduct…
    Sen. Mike Lee
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    • Opinion

    Let’s Help Military Families by Adopting a ‘GI Bill’ for Their Children

    President Donald Trump made helping the “forgotten man” a key theme of his presidency from the get-go. The challenge for Trump is how to aid the forgotten man by shrinking the programs and institutions that left him behind to begin with while moving toward policies that will help him thrive in the 21st century. One of…
    Jarrett Stepman
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    • News

    Meet the First Responders Who Encounter Death by Opioid Overdose

    COLEBROOK, N.H.—Sally Zankowski is who comes when it’s too late. She’s there to define, investigate—and make sense of—another sudden death owed to opioid overdose in New Hampshire’s poorest and most remote county. Zankowski, 55, is the medical examiner for Coos County, which has the highest combined death rate due to drugs, alcohol, or suicide in…
    Josh Siegel
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    • News

    6 Crimes Special Counsel Might Pursue in Trump-Russia Probe

    What ousted FBI Director James Comey tells Congress could set the tone for what his predecessor, now the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, looks into. “Comparisons to Watergate are way over the top,” Ron Hosko says. But, barring any new bombshells when Comey testifies Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee, legal…
    Fred Lucas
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    • News

    How a Family Doctor Works With Police to Combat a Rural County’s Opioid Epidemic

    COLEBROOK, N.H.—Bruce Latham, a lanky, self-employed doctor, occupies a unique position in the depths of rural New Hampshire’s opioid drug addiction crisis. As part of his practice in Colebrook, a town of 2,300 in Coos County, Latham responds to pain by prescribing opioid painkillers. He says he empathizes with patients’ propensity to become addicted to…
    Josh Siegel
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    • News

    This Doctor Prescribed More Addictive Opioids Than Anyone Else in the State. Now He Tries to Overcome the Drug Crisis.

    COLEBROOK, N.H.—Inside a dimly lit room at the largest health care provider in New Hampshire’s least populated county, a circle of drug addicts talk about how to recover. In this private setting a reporter agrees not to publish the addicts’ names, but most people in and around Colebrook, a decaying town of 2,300, know who…
    Josh Siegel
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    • News

    In New Hampshire’s Poorest County, One Opioid Addict Helps Another Choose Life Over Death

    BETHLEHEM, N.H.—They came to be addicted to drugs in different ways, but ended up in the same place. Steven Blaisdell, 26, a stocky, shy son of a mailman, was first prescribed pain medicine—the opioid OxyContin—as a teenager after he flipped over his four-wheeler and broke his left femur in half. Over the past 14 years,…
    Josh Siegel
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    • Opinion

    US Missile Defense Technology Has Reached a New High. Why the US Must Keep Expanding Its Edge.

    North Korean threats to strike the U.S. have hit a new obstacle. On Tuesday, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency conducted a successful test of the ground-based midcourse defense system. The test presents a seminal point in the development of the system because for the first time ever, it managed to shoot down an intercontinental-range ballistic missile…
    Michaela Dodge
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