Secure Freedom Minute

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

Tucker Carlson has lately been admirably “saying the unsayable” about the so-called Black Lives Matter movement – warning of its revolutionary agenda and decrying its totalitarian intimidation tactics that have, to date, largely suppressed resistance.

It was tremendously heartening to hear Tucker announce last night that one such recent monologue was the most watched show on television that day – sports, entertainment and other news programming included.

The message is clear: We know something is terribly wrong – the greatest country in the history of the world is being relentlessly attacked, rhetorically, physically and psychologically. The perpetrators seek its destruction. And those who want no part of that have been shocked by the lack of push-back and, in its absence, the rapid advance of this revolutionary agenda.

Enough. Recall Lee Greenwood’s beloved anthem “I'm proud to be an American.” It’s time we show it.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

Many Americans have been shocked by the recent, seemingly spontaneous and “fundamental” transformation of their beloved country. Fueled by a pandemic and widespread disorder, sweeping changes in public policy, our economy and lives are undermining our freedoms and security.

Amidst this turmoil, some senior retired military officers have denounced President Trump’s efforts to restore order as a threat to the Constitution, rather than an effort – per oaths both he and they have sworn – to defend it.

We are reaping the whirlwind sown by our failure to prevent the decades-long “march” of Marxists through our various institutions. Millions of students educated by them, businesses influenced by them, politicians tied to them and officers promoted by them are on the march, literally as well as figuratively. The rest of us will not recognize, or be welcome in, the transformed nation that’s their intended destination.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

President Trump is scheduled to hold a rally at the end of the week in Tulsa, Oklahoma. While he’s in town, Mr. Trump should make a point of visiting with Major Travis Yates, a local police commander who last week published a wrenching warning to all who love this country.

In an essay that appeared in LawOfficer.com, Major Yates wrote, “I used to talk cops out of leaving the job. Now I’m encouraging them. It’s over, America. You finally did it. You aren’t going to have to abolish the police, we won’t be around for it.”

Major Yates exemplifies the title of his book, The Courageous Police Leader. To hear such an officer saying we have so demoralized, undermined and exposed to attack our law enforcement personnel that they won’t continue to serve, demands immediate presidential and national attention – and urgent corrective action.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

Four months ago, America lost Philip Haney, a brilliant former public servant trained in categorizing bugs and following them to their nest. He combined those skills with a deep knowledge of the Koran, Sharia and Arabic to ferret out jihadists for the Homeland Security Department.

Phil was found dead in California with a bullet wound to the chest. The local coroner quickly declared his death a suicide. But, the authorities subsequently said an investigation was still underway, including by the FBI. To date, all we have heard is crickets.

Phil Haney was preparing to come out of retirement to rejoin DHS. He had many enemies who wouldn’t have wanted that to happen. Phil warned that he might be murdered and that it would be made to look like a suicide.

We need to know if that’s what happened, and at whose hands. 

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.      

The Second American Revolution has begun. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that it will end like the first – with our people living in the freest, most secure and most prosperous nation ever.

Essayist J.R. Nyquist recently called to mind, for example, the French revolution in 1792, which was inspired by ours, but quickly went in a very different direction. Faced with violent mobs, the government ordered its security forces to submit. When they “took a knee,” many of them – and countless others – were murdered by the revolutionaries.

Americans committed to the hard-won freedoms we inherited now confront large numbers of peaceful protestors unwittingly enabling revolutionary groups set on overthrowing our Republic. It starts with defunding the police and submitting to other demands out of Chairman Mao’s playbook, a reality too few are willing or able to acknowledge.

We must not go there.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.      

President Trump recently intervened to protect federal employees from having their savings involuntarily invested in Chinese Communist Party companies that have undisclosed risks. Those risks could include simple fraud and/or material problems like being sanctioned by the US government, involvement in human rights abuses or building deadly weapons for use against Americans.

Hard left Democratic Congressman Gerry Connolly supposedly represents lots of military personnel and civilian government workers in Northern Virginia. Yet, he’s launching an investigation aimed at reversing the President’s decision.

Fortunately, President Trump issued a memorandum yesterday intended to spare all US investors such material risks by ensuring they have to be disclosed and the companies audited just like their American counterparts.

Gerry Connolly deserves to be rebuked for his indifference to our national security and his own constituents’ interests, and Donald Trump deserves our thanks for attending to them.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.      

Thirty-one years ago, the world was shocked to witness on its television screens the sort of evidence about the true nature of the Chinese Communist Party that had long been available, but not so readily accessible. The People’s Liberation Army was caught in the act of massacring by some estimates 10,000 peaceful protestors seeking freedom from the CCP’s tyranny.

To its lasting shame, the Bush ’41 administration responded by sending a secret mission to Beijing to assure the Chinese Communists that it would be business as usual.

Far from punishing them for Tiananmen Square – and countless millions of other crimes against humanity, American officials, corporations and Wall Street financiers have for three decades enriched, empowered and emboldened the CCP, transforming it into the existential threat to freedom that it is today.

We cannot afford to persist in such immoral recklessness any longer.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.      

Amidst the pandemic, and now the viral infection of rampaging mobs, freedom has been under severe assault. Notably, churches and other houses of worship have been shuttered. Religious services have been considered by authorities to be non-essential, in some cases, a risk to public health.

And overseas, COVID-19 has become a new pretext for persecution of Christians and other believers.

So, it was heartening to see Donald Trump yesterday – amidst his other responsibilities and many distractions – addressing the urgent need to safeguard religious freedom. The President issued an executive order making protection of this foundational liberty a priority for U.S. government personnel and resources.

The order included two measures that our Save the Persecuted Christians coalition has long believed can make a real, systemic difference: holding the persecutors accountable and imposing real costs for their crimes against humanity. Praise the Lord!

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.      

Every public official in America has sworn an oath to defend our Constitution “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Yet, it’s long been taboo even to acknowledge that we may have domestic enemies. Today, such willful blindness is not only untenable. It can be fatal.  

Night after night, we’ve witnessed such enemies operating under the banner of seditious entities like the Marxist-anarchist Antifa. They have violently exploited legitimate protests to sow chaos and endanger public safety.

It’s particularly troubling that Minnesota – the state first afflicted with such attacks – has as its top law enforcement officer Attorney General Keith Ellison, a man with a long history of publicly associating himself with Antifa, other radical leftist and Muslim Brotherhood operatives.

We must be clear-eyed about the reality that we do have enemies, foreign and domestic – and protect our country and Constitution against them all.

This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.      

On Friday, President Trump denounced the Chinese government for systematically violating its international obligations, including with respect to Hong Kong’s autonomy. He also decried the CCP’s economic warfare against our country and its threats to our vital security interests.

The President assigned part of the blame for such unacceptable Chinese behavior though to his predecessors, who successively failed to stop it. Worse yet, they allowed, if not actually encouraged, American investors to underwrite it.

Mr. Trump has tasked a Presidential Working Group to evaluate how to protect U.S. investors from “hidden and undue risks” associated with investments in CCP companies. Our country must also be protected.

But ending Americans’ financing of our enemy is unlikely to be championed by panel members like its chairman, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, who have relentlessly practiced, or at least supported, it.  

Get a second opinion, Mr. President.

This is Frank Gaffney.