Week in Review: Nancy Pelosi, Kay Hagan, and more

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was spotted at a news conference on the budget compromise on Thursday.

Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) participated in a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Thursday.

On Wednesday, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash), presided over a Senate Veterans' Affairs hearing with Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki on the fiscal 2012 budget request.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano waits as she gets ready to testify at the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security hearing on Wednesday.

Week in Review: Busy week for Hillary Clinton, Lisa Jackson and Secs. Napolitano, Sebelius

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano testifed this week before the House Committee on Homeland Security on a hearing on Understanding the Homeland Threat Landscape for the new members of Congress.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and  the Governor of Washington Chris Gregoire participated in a health care round table discussion on Wednesday in Seattle.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson also testifed on Congress this week. She participated in a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Energy and Power Subcommittee to discuss The Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011 and its effect on the Clean Air Act's regulation of greenhouse gases.

 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hosted Panamanian Vice President at the State Department on Thursday afternoon.

Photo of the Day: Women at the table, Hillary Clinton

Getty and AP

In the first two photos, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sits at the monthly meeting of Cabinet members with President Obama today. She also spoke today during the annual meeting of the President's Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons and was also joined by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis.

As I often say when you bring women to the table, great things can happen. This past week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton played a big role in the crisis in Egypt. She spoke on all the top morning shows on Sunday and was the first Obama administration official to speak publicly about the violence erupting in the country earlier in the week.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano travels to Afghanistan

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano traveled to Kabul, Afghanistan today to meet with troops and visit with custom agents and border officials.

More from AFP:

US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano arrived in Afghanistan for talks with Afghan officials and to spend the New Year's holiday with American troops, her office said. A statement issued from Washington said Napolitano arrived early Friday in Kabul with US customs and border security officials to help provide civilian assistance to local officials.While in Afghanistan, she will meet with senior US and Afghan officials on border security issues. "For several years, the Department of Homeland Security has been contributing personnel to help bolster security in Afghanistan," Napolitano said in the statement.

Politicalgirl: Headlines - National Security

By now everyone knows about the attempted terrorist attack on a Northwest flight headed to Detroit on Christmas Day. It's been almost two weeks since the thwarted attack, and the administration is still trying to figure out what went wrong. Here are some of the major headlines.

Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security, has come under fire from Republicans for saying that "the system worked really smoothly" the Sunday after the failed Christmas attack. However President Obama has said that he has faith in her and her ability to lead the department. Maureen Dowd, an outspoken opinion writer from the New York Times, wrote an interesting piece on her on Sunday.

Also over the weekend, TSA ordered tougher screening for 14 countries that started Monday at midnight. Passengers leaving the countries headed toward the US will have to go through secondary screening like pat-downs, full body screening, and inspection of carry on bags. The 14 countries include Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria who are listed as state sponsors of terrorism. Additionally, Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen are classified as countries of interest.

The US and Britian embassies have closed in Yemen because of security threats. *Just learned that France, Germany and Japan have also closed their embassies as well. I think we will be hearing alot more about Yemen in the coming months as a new training ground for terrorism as news that the local Al Queda group in Yemen trained Umar Abdulmutallab, the suspected Christmas Day bomber.

President Obama has a high level meeting with all of his intelligence advisors Tuesday that will include discussions on what went wrong on Christmas Day and the new changes being implemented to circumvent more terrorism threats.

I always skirted over foreign affairs in favor of women's history and presidential biographies, however with all the recent news I'm finding myself wanting to learn more and more about foreign policy. As our world becomes smaller and smaller national security will continue to dominate our headlines. With the recent attempted plot, it's really becoming clear to me the deep hatred that so many individuals have for the US. I, like many others thought the threat was limited to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran yet we are seeing additional countries being added to the list. I really hope in the future that we not only focus on the above countries, but smaller countries that have Al Queda forces in them as well. With so much money focused on the 2 wars we have forgotten that Al Queda's threat and influence is spreading and isn't limited to just one location. xoxo, politicalgirl