National Security
March 25, 2025 — Scott Johnson
The Scroll’s Park MacDougald has a good summary of the newsworthy elements in the “sorry, wrong number” event that somehow brought Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg inside the Trump administration’s planning to attack the Houthis. Goldberg posted his account in “The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans” (behind the Atlantic paywall). Goldberg himself has not spilled the secrets to which he was privy, only that he found himself on
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March 23, 2025 — John Hinderaker
The Democratic Party’s judicial attack on the Trump administration and the Executive Branch is centered on the federal district court for the District of Columbia. One of those judges, Ana Reyes, has issued a preliminary injunction preventing the Department of Defense from implementing the President’s executive order barring transgender people from military service. Judge Reyes, born in Uruguay, was appointed to the federal bench in 2023 by Joe Biden. Wikipedia
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December 30, 2024 — John Hinderaker
Earlier today, the Treasury Department notified the Senate Banking Committee of a “major incident” involving hacking of Treasury computers. The letter is embedded below. It says, in part: On December 8, 2024, Treasury was notified by a third-party software service provider, BeyondTrust, that a threat actor had gained access to a key used by the vendor to secure a cloud-based service used to remotely provide technical support for Treasury Departmental
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August 25, 2024 — John Hinderaker
One of my neighbors has a sign in their yard that says “Support Women! Vote For Dems.” I am sure they think this makes some kind of sense. They care about something–abortion, I suppose–but they apparently don’t care about the border, our economy, the national debt or the national defense. You know, the things that government actually is responsible for. Pretty much every day there are news stories that prompt
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April 3, 2023 — Elizabeth Stauffer
Many Americans were horrified that President Joe Biden allowed an enormous, high-tech Chinese spy balloon to float across the U.S. mainland in February, moving slowly over strategic military installations as it went, collecting data and sending it off to Beijing in realtime, before shooting it down over the Atlantic Ocean. Administration officials assured us they were able to jam the balloon’s data collection mechanisms to block it from receiving –
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February 13, 2023 — Scott Johnson
No sooner had we noted the “Balloon war of the worlds” yesterday morning than we had a close encounter of the fourth kind over Lake Huron. NORAD posted this statement on it at 2:42 p.m. yesterday afternoon. This morning’s AP story is here. U.S. Air Force General Glen VanHerck is the commander of NORAD. He held a briefing following the shootdown (audio below). He professed not to know what’s going
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February 12, 2023 — John Hinderaker
The U.S. Air Force shot down its third balloon in as many days over Lake Huron: US fighter jets shot down an unidentified object over Lake Huron on Sunday, marking the third time such action was taken in as many days and coming on the heels of last week’s Chinese spy balloon scandal. Sunday’s takedown is believed to have involved an object that was tracked by radar over Montana on
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November 1, 2022 — Scott Johnson
I started this series to document our movement toward the world of 1984. Big Tech has featured prominently in it. In Department of Homeland Security documents reviewed by the Intercept’s Ken Klippenstein and Lee Fang, we see the Biden administration going full Big Brother. Their story reporting on the DHS documents — some leaked, some obtained via Missouri v. Biden, some public — is “Truth Cops.” DHS has gone into
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April 5, 2022 — John Hinderaker
It is hard to think of a recent policy issue on which American public opinion has been so unified: just about everyone is pro-Ukraine, but hardly anyone wants American troops to fight on the ground. Despite this apparent consensus, various public figures, including Donald Trump, have been vilified as pro-Russia. It light of recent revelations about Russian atrocities, it is safe to assume that essentially no one–certainly no politician or
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October 29, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
China is developing a hypersonic missile designed to evade American nuclear defenses. This summer, it conducted two tests of that missile. The U.S. knew about the tests, but our military officials were silent on the subject until last week. After the Financial Times reported the Chinese tests, presumably based on a leak, our government finally discussed this development. Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley called it “very close” to a “Sputnik
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September 12, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
David Von Drehle writes that most of the time the war on terror “has felt like war only to the few, the deployed: the special operators, the contractors, the diplomats, the spies, the data analysts. . .the drone pilots. “For the rest,” he complains, “it has felt like mom’s birthday, finals week, the playoffs, just another April.” But when the enemy’s short-term goal is to terrorize populations and its long-tern
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August 24, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
John Bolton calls attention to one aspect of Joe Biden’s decision to choose defeat in Afghanistan — the implications for Pakistan. Bolton argues that “the Taliban’s takeover next door immediately poses the sharply higher risk that Pakistani extremists will increase their already sizable influence in Islamabad, threatening at some point to seize full control.” By the way, Pakistan has nuclear weapons. According to Bolton, the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, is
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January 29, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday, I wrote about how, at the urging of Nancy ( “the enemy is within”) Pelosi and Adam Schiff, the Biden administration placed Michael Ellis, the National Security Administration General Counsel, on administrative leave. I showed that Ellis, a family friend, is superbly qualified for the position; that there is nothing exceptional about the NSA GC having served in government in political roles prior to his appointment; and that there
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January 28, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Michael Ellis is a highly experienced, superbly qualified intelligence professional. He has a strong record of accomplishment in all three branches of government. Last year, Ellis, a family friend, was selected to be the general counsel at the National Security Agency (NSA). But now, after Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff demanded that he be removed, the Biden administration has placed him on administrative leave. The Washington Post and other left-liberal
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November 25, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Alejandro Mayorkas is Joe Biden’s pick to head the Department of Homeland Security. His nomination was expected to be confirmed. However, the nomination might already be in jeopardy. Sen. Tom Cotton tweets: Alejandro Mayorkas was found by Barack Obama’s Inspector General to be guilty of selling Green Cards to Chinese nationals on behalf of rich, democratic donors. He is disqualified from leading the Department of Homeland Security. Mayorka should, indeed,
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August 18, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Over the weekend, President Trump said he will “take a look” at granting a pardon to Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor. Snowden was charged with espionage in 2013 after disclosing a trove of highly confidential documents about U.S. surveillance programs. He fled the country and now lives in Russia. Trump explained: I’m not that aware of the Snowden situation, but I’m going to start looking at it. It seems
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June 20, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Judge Royce Lamberth, a federal district court judge in Washington, D.C., has denied the Trump administration’s request to block publication of John Bolton’s book. Judge Lamberth, a conservative appointed by Ronald Reagan, found that publication risks U.S. national security by disclosing classified information. However, he concluded that, as he said at oral argument, “the horse is already out of the barn.” Lamberth explained that the book’s details are now publicly
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