Tag: national security

Summary

The Center for Immigration Studies unveiled a new database of national security vetting failures at a recent panel discussion. This database is the first known collection of preventable federal government vetting failures that enabled the entry of foreign nationals who threatened and harmed American national interests and public safety. The information collected in the database offers an opportunity to study and understand the failures, with an eye toward preventing such failures in the future.

The number of visa security failures already in the database illustrates the link between national security and immigration policy. To discuss this, the March 8 panel was comprised of individuals with experience in three institutions involved in vetting those coming to this country: intelligence, DHS, and the State Department.

View Podcast Archive


Summary

Allegations in a recent whistleblower lawsuit raise serious questions about the extent of fraud in the foreign student program and the ability of the federal government to provide proper oversight.

Member Post

 

For at least the foreseeable future, trying to apply deterrence to our international threats is apparently off the table. President Biden continues to pursue incoherent and feckless words and actions that send a confusing message, particularly to Russia, but to any regime that would exult in the demise of our position on the world stage. […]

Join Ricochet!

This is a members-only post on Ricochet's Member Feed. Want to read it? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

Member Post

 

The Wall Street Journal and other media reported Thursday that James Mountain Inhofe, 87, is retiring from the United States Senate by the end of 2022, well before his 6th six-year term ends in early 2027. This November, a special election coinciding with the general election will determine who fills his substantial shoes. Senator Inhofe […]

Join Ricochet!

This is a members-only post on Ricochet's Member Feed. Want to read it? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

Member Post

 

Did anyone else read a small article that I noticed in my local newspaper? It was titled: 11 People in Custody After Hours Long Standoff.  It tells how the Massachusetts State Police shut down a section of I-95 because of two cars that were stopped along the road, hazard lights blinking. The cars had apparently […]

Join Ricochet!

This is a members-only post on Ricochet's Member Feed. Want to read it? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

Member Post

 

Understand that to surrender even a tad of freedom, a touch of liberty, or a bit of property—whether to climate change, Covid, national security, the “common good” or “society’—based on the decree of a demented, illegitimate president, a narcissistic zealot like AOC, the descendant of a nepotistic lineage of privileged inbreds like Pelosi or Newsom, […]

Join Ricochet!

This is a members-only post on Ricochet's Member Feed. Want to read it? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

Member Post

 

An internal FBI memo warns there could be armed protests in all 50 state capital cities, including Washington, DC and could happen before, during or after Inauguration Day. Given our cynicism about “unnamed sources” the lack of any back-up information to this leak, how are we, as citizens, supposed to respond? Preview Open

Join Ricochet!

This is a members-only post on Ricochet's Member Feed. Want to read it? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

The Secret About Secrets: National Security Scams

 

Decades ago, Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote Secrecy: The American Experience about the high cost in real security of the routine abuse of classification systems for the real end of organizational prestige and keeping agency analysis out of critical review and oversight. President Trump just blew the whistle and threw a flag on a similar game being run by government agencies, claiming all manner of advanced American technology must be labeled “national security” sensitive and strictly restricted in export. President Trump points out that this actually puts our businesses and workers at a disadvantage, giving up markets to foreign competitors who can produce their own advanced products.

President Trump primed the pump with a tweet, than elaborated in one of his nearly daily press conferences, walking to or from Air Force One or Marine One. Here is the relevant excerpt, of remarks by President Trump, followed by the video:

Member Post

 

We already had warnings about the problems with our dependence on Chinese manufactured medications. Contamination, therapeutic non-equivalence of generic drugs; things like that. The active ingredients for virtually all generic drugs dispensed in the US are made in China, where surveillance of manufacturing is systemically and systematically corrupt. This is true even when the tablets, […]

Join Ricochet!

This is a members-only post on Ricochet's Member Feed. Want to read it? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

“Interagency Consensus” DIME Not Worth a Plugged Nickel on NATO

 

NATO at 70Everyone in the vaunted “interagency,” is well aware of the concept of the instruments of national power. The old Army War College acronym is “DIME,” for diplomatic, informational, military, and economic tools. You will notice that each tends to rest primarily in different departments, different agencies in the “interagency.” This would be why you need multiple agencies to coordinate rather than always operating “in their own lane.”

Just as Madison Avenue is best at selling Madison Avenue, so too the permanent bureaucracy and its affiliates, allies, patrons, and petitioners all affirm competent and selfless expertise in the face of all evidence. Indeed, the reverence for the “foreign policy consensus” evokes the British Parliament’s ritual prostration before the NHS. Thank God that we finally have a president who feels no such compulsion, the first such since Ronald Reagan.

H.R. McMasters showed real professionalism in his honchoing of President Trump’s National Security Strategy. He actually ensured the “interagency” worked to produce a coordinated draft that conformed to the Commander in Chief’s clear intent, where “ commander’s intent” is a military term of art for guidance that must be fully supported. This baseline document was actually published within the first year of President Trump’s administration.

Member Post

 

The Democrat-Deep State-Media Cover-Up that Protected the Russiagate Narrative — Revisiting the Awan Cybersecurity Scandal with Luke Rosiak Luke Rosiak is an investigative reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation where he broke arguably one of the biggest scandals in the history of the federal government — one the media refused to cover and the […]

Join Ricochet!

This is a members-only post on Ricochet's Member Feed. Want to read it? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

Member Post

 

For this week’s Big Ideas with Ben Weingarten podcast, my guest was Rich Higgins. Higgins, an expert in unconventional warfare and combatting terrorism with over 20 years experience at senior levels of the Defense Department, and early supporter of President Trump, served as director for strategic planning in President Trump’s National Security Council (NSC). Preview Open

Join Ricochet!

This is a members-only post on Ricochet's Member Feed. Want to read it? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

Member Post

 

I just came across this interview by The Epoch Times with Rosemary Gibson, co-author of the book China Rx: Exposing the Risks of America’s Dependence on China for Medicine, which outlines yet another very discouraging and horrifying example of our complete insanity on being dependent on China for our basic, critical needs: Interview: ‘China RX’ Author […]

Join Ricochet!

This is a members-only post on Ricochet's Member Feed. Want to read it? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

Judith Miller joins City Journal managing editor Paul Beston to discuss the life of Michael A. Sheehan, who passed away last month at age 63.

A 40-year veteran of the U.S. counterterrorism community, Sheehan served as a top official for the State Department, the Pentagon, and the New York Police Department. As a military officer on the National Security Council staff for Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, he urged officials to place greater priority on the growing threat of militant Islamist groups, especially al-Qaida.

Real Donald Trump Blunder? “Montenegro” Isn’t Montenegro.

 

No president is perfect, else we would allow unlimited terms. I support President Trump’s actions towards Russia, am not discomforted by the Helsinki summit, and believe the upcoming DC summit to be a good thing. I also recognize that the relentlessly hostile network and cable news media make the islands of apparently friendly forums attractive. With all those qualifications, I was jarred by the President’s response to Tucker Carlson on “Montenegro.” I am concerned because of history and because it is clear “Montenegro,” in Tucker’s agenda, is not Montenegro. A quick look at the map shows what I mean.

Member Post

 

Nicaragua is spiraling down because commie dictators gotta be commie dictators. But, it is not doomed to follow Venezuela, as there is a strong student movement for democracy. The population is unarmed, like the Democrats want to make Americans, but they are not collapsing in the face of being shot by government goons. President Trump […]

Join Ricochet!

This is a members-only post on Ricochet's Member Feed. Want to read it? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

Member Post

 

Today I’m launching a new podcast, Big Ideas with Ben Weingarten, and I’d like to ask for some help from the Ricochet community in making it as successful as possible.   Big Ideas with Ben Weingarten features compelling long-form conversations with exceptional thinkers and doers — primarily though not exclusively of a conservative/libertarian bent — on the most critical […]

Join Ricochet!

This is a members-only post on Ricochet's Member Feed. Want to read it? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.