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.
Filter articles by
  • 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
    Read More
  • 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
    Read More
  • 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
    Read More
  • 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
    Read More
  • 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
    Read More
  • 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
    Read More
  • 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
    Read More
  • 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
    Read More
  • news

    Judicial Watch Sues State Department, USAID for Documents on Funding to Soros’ Foreign Campaigns
    Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit against the Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development for records on funding awarded to George Soros’ Open Society Foundation-Albania, the conservative nonprofit watchdog announced Wednesday. The suit was filed May 26 after both government agencies failed to respond to Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act requests. The…
    Ethan Barton
    Read More
  • news

    Wasserman Schultz Admits Hill IT Security Violations, Blames House Administrators for Not Stopping Her
    Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whose office equipment U.S. Capitol Police seized in a criminal investigation into congressional network security violations, admitted she violated official information security policy and blamed the House’s chief administrative officer for not stopping her. In a May 17 appropriations hearing on Congress’ administrative budget, Wasserman Shultz said she had…
    Luke Rosiak
    Read More
  • news

    VA Chief Says Senate Must Act So He Can Fire ‘Terrible Managers’
    Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin said Wednesday the civil service appeals process prevents the agency from firing “terrible managers,” and that the Senate must act to reduce the impact of the Merit Systems Protection Board and excessive government employee union-backed due process requirements. “Just last week we were forced to take back an…
    Luke Rosiak
    Read More
  • opinion

    Successful US Missile Defense Test Shows How Essential This Program Is
    The United States Missile Defense Agency has accomplished a historic feat. On Tuesday, the agency successfully intercepted an intercontinental ballistic missile in an important test utilizing its ground-based midcourse defense system. The ICBM—mocked up to resemble a missile capable of carrying a nuclear payload similar to the ones that North Korea is feverishly pursuing—was launched…
    Scott Erickson
    Read More
  • opinion

    Solving the Physician Shortage Crisis
    With the health care debate currently dominating headlines, many Americans may be unaware of a more subtle issue that is affecting the U.S. health care system. That issue is an increasing shortage of medical professionals. An analysis by the Association of American Medical Colleges estimates that by 2030, America will likely experience a shortage of…
    Kevin Dayaratna | Sarina Singh
    Read More
  • opinion

    I Grew Up in Chavez’s Socialist Venezuela. Here’s What I Think About the Current Crisis.
    Venezuela’s air is thick with tear gas and its streets are stained with the blood of its youth. The South American nation has been reduced to a battlefield as government forces brutally pummel protestors. For the past 50 days, Venezuelans throughout the country have taken to the streets in anti-government uprisings. With approval ratings in…
    Ricardo Pita
    Read More
  • opinion

    America’s Social Fabric Is Eroding. Government Must Avoid Feeding the Problem.
    Our nation, today, faces very real economic challenges. Economic growth during the recovery has been meager and uneven. The U.S. economy has become less dynamic and innovative in recent decades. We miss the strong productivity growth America enjoyed in the mid-20th century and the unusually large wage gains it brought. However, in historical and comparative…
    Sen. Mike Lee
    Read More
  • news

    Ex-CIA Chief’s Testimony Fails to Move Trump Russia Probe, Watchdog Groups Say
    Former CIA Director John Brennan told Congress Tuesday he was aware of “intelligence that revealed contacts” between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russians, giving Democrats new momentum in alleging collusion. “It raised questions in my mind, again, whether or not the Russians were able to gain the cooperation of those individuals,” John Brennan says. Still,…
    Fred Lucas
    Read More
  • news

    Sources: Democratic Aide Suspected of Major Security Breach Under Government Protection in Pakistan
    A criminal suspect in an investigation into a major security breach on the House of Representatives computer network has abruptly left the country and gone to Pakistan, where her family has significant assets and VIP-level protection, a relative and others told The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group. Hina Alvi, her husband Imran Awan, and his brothers Abid and Jamal…
    Luke Rosiak
    Read More
  • news

    Veterans Claim They Were Duped Into Lobbying for Saudis
    With all the worry about Russian influence over U.S. elections it’s easy to overlook the many foreign interests working to impact U.S. policy every day–through paid lobbying. American lobbyists have made billions working for foreign entities. Who’s paying whom for what is subject to federal disclosure laws. But the system may not always work as…
    Sharyl Attkisson
    Read More
  • news

    EPA Official Invites Left-Wing Environmental Group to Agency for Talk on Science
    An official inside the Environmental Protection Agency invited an activist group currently locked in a lawsuit with the Trump administration to the agency’s office for a discussion about scientific integrity, according to documents obtained by the Washington Examiner. Francesca Grifo, the EPA's scientific integrity official, sent an invitation earlier this month to the Natural Resources Defense…
    Chris White
    Read More
  • news

    2 Republicans Battle in Razor-Tight Runoff Primary Ahead of South Carolina June Special Election
    In South Carolina’s hotly-contested primary runoff for Mick Mulvaney’s old seat, it looks like the Republican candidates are headed for a recount. Two GOP candidates, Ralph Norman and Tommy Pope, were running to fill a seat vacated by Mulvaney, who now serves as director of Office of Management and Budget. Norman received 50.3 percent of…
    Rachel del Guidice
    Read More