PrairiePundit

 Newsmax: President Donald Trump has ordered that a new group of elected officials who used their office in a weaponized capacity against him have their security clearances removed. Days after former President Joe Biden's security clearance was revoked, Trump ordered the revocation of former Secretary of State Antony Blinken's clearance, citing his role in orchestrating the "Dirty 51" letter. The infamous letter, signed by 51 intelligence officials, claiming the Hunter Biden laptop story contained "all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation, first appeared in Politico, a publication that's garnered headlines the past few weeks for its haul of government aid. Blinken, along with the 51 intelligence officials, will have their security clearances revoked, Trump told the New York Post in an exclusive interview. ... This along with the Russian collusion hoaxers were bogus allegations against Trump and his supporters that the media facilitated.  T...

 Newsmax: President Donald Trump said Friday that he's revoking former President Joe Biden's security clearance and ending the daily intelligence briefings. Trump made the announcement on social media shortly after arriving at Mar-a-Lago for the weekend. “There is no need for Joe Biden to continue receiving access to classified information. Therefore, we are immediately revoking Joe Biden’s Security Clearances, and stopping his daily Intelligence Briefings,” Trump wrote. “He set this precedent in 2021, when he instructed the Intelligence Community (IC) to stop the 45th President of the United States (ME!) from accessing details on National Security, a courtesy provided to former Presidents.” ... There were probably other reasons for terminating the briefings including the fact that Biden has a severe case of dementia and was never totally in charge near the end of his presidency. 

 Headline USA: Fearless Trump Plans Outdoor Rallies Despite Fake News Claims 'No one can ever be allowed to stop or impede free speech or gathering...' I suspect that Trump likes the outdoor rallies because they make it easier for large crowds to see and hear his speeches.   The Secret Service will likely need to have more people to protect Trump. 

 Conservative Brief: Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, who served in the Trump administration, is warning that Joe Biden is now America’s “greatest threat.” During an interview with Fox News host Mark Levin, Ratcliffe spoke about Biden’s disastrous handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the chaos that has ensued in the aftermath. “So my question to you is, what has Joe Biden done to America’s national security?” host Mark Levin asked. “Well, Mark, to your point, first on Afghanistan, I hope that it’s just something that has an impact for decades, I hope it’s not centuries. It’s the most profound loss for the United States certainly in our lifetime,” Ratcliffe began. “But one of my concerns there, and this goes to your larger question about what has Joe Biden done to our national security, he has very clearly harmed it, but in so many respects beyond Afghanistan. But this most recent, most painful, most colossal, epic failure in Afghanistan has l...

 Fox News: NATO announced Monday that it will send fighter jets and ships to eastern Europe as tension with the alliance and Russia hit a fever pitch due to the possibility of a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Denmark will sail a frigate to the Baltic Sea and send four F-16 fighter jets to Lithuania. Spain is also sending ships to join NATO naval forces in the region and is considering sending fighter jets to Bulgaria, the statement read. France said it is willing to send troops to Romania, and the Netherlands also said it will send two F-35 fighter aircraft to Bulgaria in April. The moves come as tension in the region is increasing by the day. ... NATO's message came a short time after a lawmaker from Moscow warned the U.S. against positioning troops in eastern Europe. "NATO will continue to take all necessary measures to protect and defend all Allies, including by reinforcing the eastern part of the Alliance. We will always respond to any deterioration of our security environ...

  Epoch Times: Over 12,000 Air Force Personnel Poised Not to Meet COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate Deadline The mandates also pose a threat to public safety around the country as first responders are laid off in droves from already short-handed law enforcement offices hurt by the Democrats defunding the police fiasco. 

  Fred Felitz: The Only Way Back To Deterrence Is Firing Biden’s Entire National Security Team   America needs experts who can reverse the damage Biden is doing to our national security and will stand up to future unsound and dangerous decisions. There appears to be no one on his staff willing to strongly question Biden's bad decisions.  That also goes for the top commanders of the military.  See, also: Fourteen Elected Republicans Demand Biden Admin Resignations over Deadly Afghan Extraction

Washington Post: State Dept. questions more than 100 former Clinton aides about emails Investigators have spoken to as many as 130 people in recent weeks, including senior officials who reported directly to Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state, as well as others whose emails were at some point relayed to her inbox, according to current and former officials. Why didn't anyone in the department blow the whistle on her use of an unsecured server to store classified material?   Are whistleblowers just there to trap Republicans?

Michael Bloomberg: Google’s decision not to renew a contract to develop artificial intelligence for the Defense Department was a victory for the employees who had protested it. It was also a defeat for U.S. national security, patriotism, and the cause of limiting civilian casualties in war. The program, officially named the Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team but known in the Pentagon as Project Maven, uses machine-learning software to interpret video images and could improve the accuracy of drone strikes, among other things. Last month, around a dozen Google employees quit their jobs and thousands of others signed an open letter demanding the company exit the program because it “stands in direct opposition to our core values.” But the program’s software, which tags things like buildings or suspicious human activity on digital maps, is intended in large part to help the military avoid accidentally striking noncombatants and civilian infrastructure. It is also being expande...

Washington Post: Democrats say Trump lacks legal authority for preemptive strike on North Korea Amid questions over whether the White House is considering a risky “bloody nose” attack, a group of senators plans to warn the president about the potential consequences of military action. This is another example of why Democrats cannot be trusted on national security.  They have such poor judgment and understanding of the laws of warfare.  A nation is allowed a preemptive strike against an adversary when that adversary has threated to attack it or annihilate it.  North Korea has made such threats repeatedly.  It is similar to the situation that Israel was in before what became known as the Six Day War.  A coalition of Arab states had made it clear they intended to annihilate Israel.  Israel did not wait to absorb the first blow.  It attacked and crushed the Arab armies arrayed against it.

Niles Gardiner: When Donald Trump was elected America’s 45th president in November 2016 the world took a collective deep breath. This was a man derided by his critics as an isolationist, woefully out of his depth on foreign policy matters, and imbued with a supposedly dangerous and reckless nationalism. European leaders queued up to condemn the new leader of the free world in the court of international opinion. But a year into his presidency Trump’s actual record has been far more effective than his detractors predicted. “America First” has not resulted in a U.S. withdrawal from the world. Far from it. The White House’s new National Security Strategy (NSS), unveiled by Trump himself in December, was loudly attacked by Vladimir Putin’s regime as an aggressive statement of intent on the world stage by the U.S. administration. The first NSS since 2015, it outlines the big-picture strategic thinking of the Trump presidency and, in marked contrast to the previous Obama-era document, pla...

Paul Bedard: President Trump became the first national leader to call for protecting the U.S electric and communications grid against an electromagnetic attack like one practiced in North Korea. Deep in his new national security strategy released this week, he made good on a campaign promise to move quickly to make the fixes that proponents have long called for. Two of the chief advocates, William R. Graham and Peter Vincent Pry, executives of the nation’s first Congressional EMP Commission, said in a statement, “President Trump understands, even if everyone in his administration does not, that ‘strategic stability’ and ‘longstanding strategic relationships with Russia or China’ are best maintained — not by a policy of mutual vulnerability — but by a policy of ‘Peace Through Strength.’ Protecting the nation from all missile threats and EMP should be the cornerstone of a ‘Peace Through Strength’ policy.” The duo claim that protecting the grid would not be expensive and could done f...

Noah Rothman: The members of Barack Obama’s administration in exile have become conspicuously noisy of late—even more so than usual. Former CIA Director John Brennan accused Donald Trump and his administration of engaging in “outrageous,” “narcissistic” behavior typical of “vengeful autocrats” by threatening proportionate retaliation against countries that voted to condemn the United States in the United Nations, as though that were unprecedented. It is not. James Clapper, Obama’s director of national intelligence, all but alleged that the president is a Russian “asset.” Perhaps the most acerbic and incendiary series of accusations from the former Democratic president’s foreign-policy professionals were placed in the New York Times by Obama’s national security advisor, Susan Rice. In her estimation, America has abdicated its role as a “force for good.” It's no coincidence that these overheated condemnations accompany abundant evidence that the Trump administration is finding it...

streif: ... While Trump didn’t create the environment, he and his national security team are owed credit for seeing how the environment created by Obama’s fellating of various Iranian mullahs could be used as a way to lance the perpetual boil of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic anger that has prevented any rapprochement between Israel and most of the Arab world. Iran has made major inroads into turning Hamas into a cub scout variety of Lebanese Hezbollah. The Palestinian Authority pretends it is in charge but it doesn’t have the strength, the ferocity or the weaponry to face down Hamas when nut-cutting time arrives. Saudi Arabia and much of the rest of the Arab world are seeing the Iranian threat as being much more of a real and present danger than Israel. The administration saying that the unrest in the Middle East is not a byproduct of Israel’s existence should be a hint to the Palestinians, along with the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and approval of Israel increasin...

David Goldman: In a speech later today, US President Donald Trump will propose a shift in US national security strategy more profound than any proposed by his predecessors since Ronald Reagan. According to a preliminary copy of the president’s 2017 National Security Strategy obtained by the Asia Times, Trump envisions a radical upgrade in the US industrial base, large-scale support for scientific and technical education, and rebuilding of infrastructure, in response to China’s economic and strategic challenge. In so many words, Trump’s 67-page summary of national security policy declares that America is a frog that will not be boiled. No doubt the report will be portrayed as war-like, although that is not its intention. “Competition does not always mean hostility, nor does it inevitably lead to conflict – although none should doubt our commitment to defend our interests. An America that successfully competes is the best way to prevent conflict. Just as American weakness invites cha...

NY Times: Yates Said Flynn Could Be Blackmail Target In her Senate testimony, Sally Q. Yates said that in the first days of the Trump administration, she told the White House counsel that Mr. Flynn was susceptible to Russian blackmail. She provided no evidence of any blackmail attempt.  The Obama administration's reasons for not liking Flynn revolve mainly around his actions as head of the DIA where his analysis of the threat of radical Islam conflicted with those of the President.  It is hard to see how a phone call to the Russian ambassador recorded by the NSA would be the subject of a blackmail attempt.  It is not clear why she was not asked directly if there were any evidence of a blackmail attempt.

Washington Post: Susan Rice: The White House’s falsehoods endanger national security This has to be one of the most ironic op-eds in recent memory.  Rice is an intellectual lightweight who appeared to be promoted based on her willingness to tell lies to push Obama's bad policies and mistakes.  She blatantly pushed to lie about a video supposedly being responsible for the terrorist attack on the Benghazi compound and made the utterly ridiculous statement about a deserter who was traded for Taliban terrorists in one of many dumb deals done by Obama.  It is hard to imagine a more imperfect messenger for this theme.

NY Times: Trump Chooses Army Strategist to Be National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, a widely respected military strategist, is seen as one of the Army’s leading intellectuals. The choice continues President Trump’s reliance on high-ranking military officers to advise him on national security. McMaster is a mart guy who has been a thoughtful military leader and strategist.  He was an early adapter to the counterinsurgency strategy that was eventually used to defeat al Qaeda in Iraq.  He knows first hand what a disaster Obama's retreat from Iraq was for Iraq and the US allies in the Sunni dominated region.

Daily Caller: House conservatives want to investigate three IT employees, all brothers, suspected of compromising the networks of Democrats on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Conservative Republicans — disappointed in House Democrats for hushing up the issue and in the media for failing to widely report the story — hope the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (HOGR) will examine how House Democratic offices allowed the potential breach in national security information. The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group was first to identify suspects Abid, Imran and Jamal Awan, who are under a U.S. Capitol Police criminal investigation for their use of congressional IT systems and alleged theft and over-billing of computer equipment. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs Committee Members Compromised By Rogue IT Staff) “I’m for an investigation — I hope to do it,” Ohio Republican Rep. Ji...

Washington Free Beacon: A senior adviser to Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) who played a critical role in crafting his national security agenda—including efforts to stop the Iran nuclear deal and designate the Muslim Brotherhood organization as a terrorist entity—has been tapped by the Trump National Security Council to serve as senior director for strategic assessments, a role that encompasses the fight against terrorist forces, the Washington Free Beacon can exclusively reveal. Victoria Coates, a top Cruz aide and his longtime confidante, has departed the senator's office to serve as senior director for strategic assessments in the new White House NSC, a role that will see Coates managing long-term threats to the United States. Coates worked for former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry before joining the Cruz office in 2013. She also is an art historian who recently published a book on the history of democracy. Coates' experience with Cru...