Secure Freedom Minute

Half-a-world apart, two imminent conflicts are on the cusp of going critical. Communist China apparently is prepared to have Hezbollah – the foreign legion of its Mideast proxy, Iran – engage in a full-on war with Israel. And the Chinese military is itself now physically attacking Philippine vessels at a place called Second Thomas Shoal.
 
The United States has a direct interest in both of these crises. Our allies are under assault by their mortal enemies – and ours. Our priority should be on deterring further violence from being inflicted on America’s friends. The most sure way to accomplish that is for the United States to stand firmly alongside them.
 
Instead, the Biden administration has done everything possible to appease Iran’s mullahs and undermine Israel. And instead of visibly demonstrating solidarity with the Philippinos, it has been largely AWOL. 
 
Brace for impact.
 
This is Frank Gaffney.

The arsonist tag-team of Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin are busily striking sparks into Asian tinderboxes. The Russian dictator’s current visit to North Korea comes amidst relentless provocations by Kim Jong-un against the South that could precipitate conflict there at any time. 
 
Meanwhile, Communist China is provoking a fight with the Philippines, clearly testing our treaty commitment to defend that key ally.
 
Should either, let alone both, of these acts of strategic arson precipitate actual conflagrations, the CCP may calculate that – together with ongoing ones in Ukraine and the Middle East – the time is right to seize Taiwan. If so, count on thousands of Chinese military personnel Joe Biden has let into this country lighting us up, as well.
 
An invaluable webinar at 2 p.m. ET today will examine what we must do about all this. Join us at presentdangerchina.org.
 
This is Frank Gaffney.

Team Biden is feverishly trying to deflect attention from its appalling record on border insecurity. It would have us believe that Joe Biden: is committed to keeping illegal aliens out of the country; has just taken important steps to do that; and is being thwarted by Republican failure at the insistence of Donald Trump to enact “bipartisan” legislation that would have made all the difference. 
 
This is but the latest evidence of two attributes of the Biden presidency: First, from the get-go, this administration has systematically destroyed our borders, deliberately allowing in at least ten million unvetted foreigners – many of them unaccompanied, fighting-age males. And second, it thinks Americans are too stupid to understand that reality. 
 
Biden is even expected to announce today that he’ll prevent via executive action the deportation of a half a million illegal aliens.  
 
Hold him accountable.
 
This is Frank Gaffney.

Scott Perry is one of the most formidable members of the U.S. House of Representatives. I am proud to call him a cherished personal friend.
 
Scott has devoted much of his life to public service as a Pennsylvania legislator and a combat pilot in the Army National Guard who retired after nearly four decades in uniform as a Brigadier General. 
 
He is, in short, exceedingly well equipped to serve on the House Intelligence Committee, to which he was appointed by Speaker Mike Johnson earlier this year.
 
The U.S. intelligence community is in need of serious congressional oversight as it has been weaponized against those Team Biden deems to be its political enemies. 
 
Committee Democrats fear that Scott Perry knows too much about this phenomenon. Actually, that and the rest of his lifetime of experience, make him a brilliant choice for the job. 
 
This is Frank Gaffney.

Today is Flag Day and an appropriate occasion to reflect on the diminished presence of warships and other vessels proudly displaying ours on the world’s oceans – and an ominous consequence: Freedom of the seas is being increasingly threatened by the presence instead of hostile powers’ navies and what amount to pirates in strategic choke points and waters. 
 
Today, from the Panama Canal to the one in Suez to the straits of Taiwan, Hormuz, Malacca and the Bab el Mandeb, our own and others’ commercial and national security interests are at risk.
 
An important webinar this afternoon will examine the role and implications of the Chinese Communist Party’s burgeoning fleet, dual-use shipping companies, controlled ports and proxies in enabling free maritime movement for “friends of China,” but not so much for the rest of us.   
 
Join us at PresentDangerChina.org.
 
This is Frank Gaffney.

What’s the single most debilitating of Joe Biden’s betrayals of America? Candidates include: destroying our borders, eviscerating our energy security, feeding inflation and enabling “global governance.” 
 
A particularly insidious contender is the prospect that Team Biden will end the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. Every American will suffer from, for example, its wonton printing of more greenbacks to pay for excessive government spending. 
 
Its proposed use of seized Russian financial assets or the interest they generate to pay for Ukraine’s defense further reduces confidence in holding dollars. And now the administration has allowed a fifty-year “petrodollar pact” with Saudi Arabia to expire, encouraging purchases of oil in Chinese and other currencies.  
 
There’s a race on to find gold-backed alternatives to the devaluing dollar. Our states could start minting them. If we don’t, it’s a matter of time until others do. 
 
This is Frank Gaffney.