Kori Schake, Daniel Bongino, Austin Berglas & Rep. Louie Gohmert

on Aug 5, 2011

As the dust settles from Congress’s debt compromise, questions remain about the fate of our national defenses.  Kori Schake, Research fellow at the Hoover Institution, explains why she is less concerned about the debt deal, at least in its first phase.  “Requiring two to three percent in cuts in defense is manageable,” she says, however, it is the second tranche that requires cause for concern, with the potential of triggering automatic cuts leading to a hollow military.  Schake discusses President Obama’s “fundamentally reckless” approach that fails to realize the consequences of gutting defense.  “We don’t get to choose when our enemies decide to challenge us,” says Schake, as she recognizes the importance of staying strong in the eyes of our adversaries.  Schake also describes the disenfranchisement of our youngest Veterans who face an unemployment rate double that of the rest of the nation, and how the Hiring our Heroes program of the Chamber of Commerce seeks to address their concerns.

Next, Daniel Bongino explains why he left a life as a Secret Service Special Agent to run for Senate in Maryland.  “It’s time for normal folks, who have lived lives of real consequence, to get off the couch and get onto the football field,” he says.  “I’m just a normal guy fed up with politics as usual,” leading him to challenge career-politician Ben Cardin.  A career law enforcement officer, Bongino shares his views on national security, views shaped by traveling to 27 countries.  He debunks the perception of America’s poor standing in the World, and offers his perspective on the defense budget and why we have to be “rocked-ribbed with Israel,” our strongest ally in the Middle East.  Bongino also explains why the U.S. is a force for good and how “if we don’t have a Country to defend the rest of the issues are irrelevant.”

Coordinating Supervisory Special Agent Austin Berglas, then educates us on the inter-workings of the FBI against cyber crime.  Berglas, head of the Cyber Branch of the New York FBI office, says that as people become more and more connected on the Internet, the more vulnerable they are to cyber threats.  “If everything is accessible to the Internet, it’s accessible to the bad guys as well,” he says, as even the FBI has been shown to be susceptible to hackers as of late.  Berglas explains the “Deterrent effect” in battling cyber warfare, and also the blurring lines between state-sponsored strikes and individual hackers on a worldwide stage.

Finally, Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert takes time from his August recess to give us his take on the debt deal in Washington, one he calls, “disastrous.”  “This bill is about national security,” he says, noting that because of base line budgeting there were no cuts, “we simply made decreases in the amount of future increases.”  Rep. Gohmert asserts that the deal is gambling with our defenses, the equivalent of a King betting half his castle wall in a medieval poker game.  Gohmert resisted the false choice of raising taxes against cutting our security forces in half by voting against the deal, and explains why his fellow Republicans should have done the same.  The Vice Chair of Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security, also comments on the Administration’s foolhardy outreach to the Muslim Brotherhood, commenting, “we are asking those bent on our destruction to help us against those bent on our destruction.”

 

From Today’s Show Prep

Helping Veterans

The Labor Department has just released statistics showing that young veterans have a worryingly high rate of unemployment.  Veterans aged 18-24 are unemployed at the rate of 28 percent.  Nearly three in ten of the young men and women who have risked their lives for us cannot get a job. The rate of unemployment for veterans compares unfavorably to the already high rate for young Americans generally, which is 18%.  Both rates have increased substantially in the past year, but that of veterans much more (nearly double) than that of their civilian counterparts, jumped from 18.6% last year to 28.3% this year. But young veterans are three times more likely than the average American to be out of a job.  In fact, even disabled veterans are more likely to be employed than young veterans (disabled veteran unemployment is 18.6%).

Out Come the Long Knives for Defense

The 2010 Joint Forces Command planning guidance, called the Joint Operations Environment, warned that our debt is not only a strategic liability, but unless brought under control will crowd out all discretionary spending — including defense — as debt service payments dominate. The question is how much, and what, to cut. Here we ought to be intensely skeptical of debt hawks telling the Department of Defense what to cut. The Simpson Bowles Commission is not ideally suited to make the determination of whether manned aviation is a continuing requirement for war fighting.

Frontlines: The New York FBI and the Cyberthreat

As technology has evolved, so has the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in our role as the principle investigative agency in the fight against cybercrime, protecting the United States against cyberbased attacks and high-technology crimes in virtually every facet of society.
 As both an intelligence and law enforcement agency, we can address every facet of a cybercase, from the collection of intelligence on subjects in order to learn more about their networks, to dismantling those networks and prosecuting the perpetrators.
 In response to this trend, in August 2009 the FBI’s New York Office created the first Cyber Branch in the Bureau.