First, if Pyongyang is allowed to acquire nuclear arms as well as the capacity to deliver them over long distances with ballistic missiles South Korea will no longer be the only nation at risk from a devastating, short-notice North Korean attack.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Center for Security Policy | EXCERPTS OF REMARKS BY FRANK J. GAFFNEY, JR. AT A CATO INSTITUTE FORUM ON NORTH KOREA

The cumulative effect of these and other changes in law that would follow from a failure to reenact the Patriot Act will be to put the Nation at greater risk of terrorist attack.

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This statement, so redolent of the anti-military sentiments of the counterculture, neglects a crucial fact: Our troops are asked to go into harm's way so that a great many other peoples' lives, and the nation's interests, will not be put at risk.

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"Too big to fail, " too many jobs at stake, too much of the nation's manufacturing capability at risk are among the considerations that will justify government intervention on a massive scale.

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The FBI said the threat level for those states and the nation as a whole remains at "yellow, " or "elevated, " the third of five levels of risk according to the government's newly devised threat alert system.

CNN: Sources: al Qaeda linked to bank threat

Sometimes the State of the Union address can be an opportunity for a president to take a risk, to set out an objective for the nation that might be controversial or might look impossible at the time, but which challenges Congress and the citizens to repair broken parts of society.

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