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

    Pentagon’s $80 Billion in Unspent Funds Shows Need for a Better Budget Process
    Inside Defense magazine recently reported that the Department of Defense returned $80 billion to the Treasury in canceled funds over the past six years. That has drawn charges from some corners of Congress that the Pentagon has more money than it knows what to do with. If only. While $80 billion is indeed a startling…
    Frederico Bartels
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  • opinion

    Democrats Vote Against Trump’s Judicial Nominees Far More Than Republicans Did Against Obama’s
    The Senate has confirmed Neomi Rao to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. She’s exactly the kind of impartial judge that we need across the judiciary. That makes 91 judges overall, and 36 to the federal appeals court, since President Donald Trump took office. Whatever those numbers mean on their own, the…
    Thomas Jipping
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  • opinion

    Young People’s Embrace of Socialism Shows Why We Shouldn’t Lower the Voting Age
    The left really wants to give kids the right to vote. This idea is so popular on the left that a majority of House Democrats voted in favor of lowering the voting age to 16. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., endorsed the idea as well. Why would Pelosi and others on the left want to…
    Jarrett Stepman
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  • news

    Kirstjen Nielsen Says DHS Will Continue to Enforce the Law Despite Democrats’ Opposition
    Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said her agency will continue to enforce immigration laws, despite facing heavy opposition from congressional Democrats. “Well, two things. One, I would say we’re a law enforcement agency. So we enforce the law,” Nielsen said Thursday on “Fox & Friends.” “You know, I said it before, but I…
    Nick Givas
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  • opinion

    Class Warfare Only Benefits Elites, Politicians
    Some Americans have much higher income and wealth than others. Former President Barack Obama explained, “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.” An adviser to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who has a Twitter account called “Every Billionaire Is A Policy Failure,” tweeted, “My goal for this year is to get a…
    Walter E. Williams
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  • news

    Half of Young Americans Want to Live in a Socialist Country
    Half of young Americans would rather live in a socialist country, according to a new poll. The Harris Poll found that 49.6 percent of millennials prefer living in a socialist country. Pew Research Center defines millennials as those born between 1981 and 1996, ages 23 to 38 in 2019, and Gen Z, those born between…
    Rachel del Guidice
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  • news

    On Hill, Homeland Security Officials Describe Emergency at the Border
    Changing immigration laws could reduce the inflow of illegal border crossers by almost two-thirds, a top border security official testified Wednesday at a Senate hearing. Kevin McAleenan, commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the Border Patrol should be able to detain families as a unit, which is prohibited…
    Fred Lucas
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  • opinion

    Socialism Is a Rigid Ideology That Always Ends in Tyranny
    Q: What did socialists use before candles? A: Electricity. It’s an old joke, sure. But it’s no laughing matter. Just ask the people of Venezuela. The socialist regime there nationalized the electricity sector a dozen years ago. Today, blackouts in the once-prosperous Latin American nation have become routine. Electricity isn’t all that’s in short supply. Gasoline is scarce in the…
    Lee Edwards
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  • news

    Illegal Border Crossings Hit 10-Year High as Officials Warn of ‘Breaking Point’
    The U.S. border with Mexico is at a “breaking point,” Trump administration officials say, with arrests of illegal immigrants surging to record levels. In February, border agents arrested more than 66,400 people for entering the country illegally, the highest number recorded since 2008. “This situation is not sustainable,” Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan…
    Kelsey Bolar
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  • news

    ‘People Are Starting to Realize Just How Dangerous the Socialist Agenda Really Is,’ Says Former NY Lawmaker
    Former Rep. Claudia Tenney, who represented New York’s 22nd Congressional District in the 115th Congress, spoke to The Daily Signal at the Conservative Political Action Conference last week. Tenney narrowly lost re-election to Rep. Anthony Brindisi, D-N.Y., last November. An edited transcript of the interview is below. Rob Bluey: Looking back on your time in…
    Robert B. Bluey
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  • opinion

    China Is Poisoning America With Fentanyl
    Fentanyl is now the leading cause of fatal drug overdoses. In 2017 alone, 49,000 Americans lost their lives to fentanyl.  What is the source of the synthetic opioid, abuse of which leads to this senseless loss of life? China is the principal culprit. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has identified China as the primary source…
    Peyton Smith | Hans von Spakovsky
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  • news

    ‘Put Socialism on Trial,’ Larry Kudlow Urges
    Larry Kudlow, director of the president’s National Economic Council, called Thursday for putting socialism “on trial”—and convicting it. “I want you, and everybody in this room and your friends and your neighbors, I want you to put socialism on trial, that’s what I’m asking,” Kudlow said, speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference just outside…
    Fred Lucas
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  • news

    Mark Meadows Hails American Dream Over Socialism of Green New Deal
    Americans have to look no further than Venezuela to see the harms of socialism, the chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus told conservative activists gathered Thursday morning at the Conservative Political Action Conference. “I think it was a young Bernie Sanders who was talking about it’s good to be in line to wait for…
    Rachel del Guidice
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  • opinion

    Venezuela and the Myth of Kinder, Gentler Socialism
    Venezuela is a socialist country. Venezuela is also a dictatorship. Currently, Venezuela has fallen into open violence and complete chaos, with the strongman Nicolas Maduro ordering troops to open fire on those attempting to bring humanitarian aid into the country. Yet, strangely, Maduro still has his defenders. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the leading declared Democratic…
    Ben Shapiro
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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 | James Di Pane
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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 | Thomas Spoehr
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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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