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EMP Awareness Day

Ten years ago this week, a tree branch fell on a power line in upstate New York and up to 55 million people in North America had no electricity for several days. If something that grave could happen by accident, what would be the repercussions if someone deliberately set out to take down the nation’s grid? The frightening truth is that an enemy could inflict catastrophic harm by detonating perhaps just a single nuclear weapon high above our country and unleashing what is known as Electromagnetic Pulse (or EMP). But, even in the absence of such an attack, intense solar flaring – like that going on now – could have a similar effect. Hats off to the Heritage Foundation for marking this anniversary with National EMP Awareness Day. Find out more at StopEMP.org.

Releasing Jihadists

Prisons are topping the news lately – usually concerning dangerous jihadist inmates being turned loose and the likelihood that they’ll resume their efforts to attack and kill people like us.President Obama wants to repatriate jihadists from Guantanamo Bay. Al Qaeda has enabled hundreds of terrorists to return to the fight with a series of successful jailbreaks around the world.And today, at the insistence of our government, Israel may do the same with the latest in a series of releases of murderous Palestinians. These are not political prisoners. They’re people who believe it’s God’s will that they kill infidels. It’s insanity to think they won’t do more of it. Giving them that chance – ostensibly to promote a “peace process” – will produce more innocent victims, not peace.

Farewell to the Judge

On Saturday, we lost a truly great American. The man Ronald Reagan rightly thought of as his Top Hand, William P. Clark, passed away at his beloved ranch in California’s Central Coast after a long and debilitating illness.Judge Clark, as he was universally known thanks to his time as a senior jurist in California, was quite simply the finest human being I have ever had the privilege to know. He was also one of the most consequential.In his role as the National Security Advisor during the early years of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, Bill Clark crafted and implemented the strategy that took down the Soviet Union and freed hundreds of millions enslaved by its evil empire. His example proves how much of a difference an individual can make. Farewell Judge and thanks.

It's Time for Fuel Choice

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.Yemen’s government narrowly averted this week an al Qaeda attack on its oil infrastructure. If the jihadists had succeeded in taking off-line Yemeni oil exports, the world price per barrel would almost certainly have spiked, costing American and other consumers still more at the pump. Our dependency on imported oil for roughly 12 million barrels per day is clearly reckless. That’s especially true since the OPEC cartel keeps cutting back its supply to keep prices artificially – and exorbitantly – high. The answer to both problems is to exploit our windfall finds of natural gas here at home by introducing “fuel choice” into our transportation sector. Legislation called the Open Fuel Standard Act has just been introduced to enable such choice. Urge your representatives to co-sponsor it – and begin providing us with energy security.This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute. Learn more at SecureFreedom.org.

Moscow Rules

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.Republicans as well as Democrats applauded yesterday when President Obama pulled the plug on a September summit meeting with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. The stated justification was retaliation for Putin’s contemptuous grant of a year-long asylum to NSA turncoat Edward Snowden. Such diplomatic theater may be intended more to confuse the American people, however, than punish the Kremlin kleptocrat. After all, President Obama is still going to attend another Putin-convened event in St. Petersburg. And next week in Washington, the U.S. Secretaries of State and Defense will still be making concessions to their Russian counterparts. Is such official double-dealing simply evidence of the kind of “greater flexibility” Barack Obama promised Putin after the 2012 election? President Obama needs to come clean with the American people – and play hardball with Vladimir Putin. This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute. Learn more at SecureFreedom.org.

Extortion 17

This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.Two years ago, 31 brave Americans – including seventeen special operators of the Navy’s fabled SEAL Team Six, the unit that killed Osama bin Laden – were shot down as they came to the aid of embattled comrades in Afghanistan. Several factors surely contributed to so disastrous an end to the mission code-named “Extortion 17.” It was hastily planned. It employed an aging helicopter not equipped for special forces operations. And no authorization was given for suppressing fire essential to safely approaching a “hot” landing zone.Loved ones of the fallen suspect another factor, however. Was the mission compromised, thanks to leaks from so-called Afghan or Pakistani “allies”? The families of the lost heroes of Extortion 17 deserve an answer. So do the rest of us, on whose behalf they made the ultimate sacrifice. This is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute. Learn more at SecureFreedom.org.