Securing America with Frank Gaffney Podcast

Sen. Ron Johnson, Ron Crews, Fred Fleitz, and Amb. Roger Noriega

Sen. RON JOHNSON (R-WI), incoming Chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs:

• Johnson’s commitment to dedicate time as Chair of HSGAC to securing America’s electrical grid
• Exploring the three main dangers to the grid: terrorism, cyber attacks, and ecological disasters
• What is the likelihood that the Senate will pass a Critical Infrastructure Protection Act in the new Congress?
• Implications of Obama’s assent for an Authorization for the Use of Military Force to "degrade and defeat ISIL"

Chaplain (COL) USAR (Ret.) RON CREWS, Executive Director for the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty:

• The historical roots of religious freedom in the U.S. military, and where things stand today
• Social engineering by the Obama Administration of America’s armed forces
• Details of the investigation of former Army Ranger and current Chaplain Joseph Lawhorn, who shared his personal battle with depression during a suicide prevention class
• Chaplain Crews’ testimony at a Congressional hearing on the double standards that exist in the military when it comes to religious freedom

FRED FLEITZ, former CIA Intelligence Analyst:

• Senate Intelligence report damning the CIA’s enhanced interrogation program
• What effective non-partisan intelligence oversight looks like
• Impact of shrinking support from foreign intelligence services on U.S. HUMINT
• President Obama's drone strikes

Amb. ROGER NORIEGA, former U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States:

• Bipartisan legislation sanctioning Venezuelan officials involved in the crackdown on student-led protests
• Will the new sanctions--along with an ailing economy--help lead to regime change in Venezuela?
• Details of the terms and conditions of the Guantanamo Bay prisoner transfers to Uruguay
• The latest in the Colombian peace process

Rep. Pete Sessions, Aviv Regev, Michelle Van Cleave, Diana West

Rep. PETE SESSIONS (TX-32), Chairman of the House Rules Committee:

• Successful passage of the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act in the House
• Has Iran penetrated U.S. electric grid control systems?
• The wide-reaching implications of the executive action on amnesty
• Why funding the government to avoid a shutdown is having a direct impact on Congress' leverage from power of the purse

1st Lt. (Res.) AVIV REGEV, star of the new documentary “Beneath the Helmet: From High School to the Home Front”:

• An inside look at “Beneath the Helmet,” which explores the challenges of Israeli teens during their mandatory service in the Israel Defense Forces
• The diverse melting pot of the Israeli “People's” Army
• Re-surging threats from Hamas and other anti-semitic actors
• Possible U.S. sanctions against Israel over land settlements

MICHELLE VAN CLEAVE, Nation Counterintelligence Executive under President George W. Bush:

• The Senate’s newly-released CIA torture report
• Is interrogation as a way of obtaining intelligence falling to the wayside?
• The CIA's need for human intelligence
• Implications of the DNI's establishment of a new center meant to combine security and counterintelligence functions

DIANA WEST, author of “American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character”:

• Are Danish street gangs serving as a proxy force for enforcing Shariah law?
• French police "No-Go" zones in certain predominantly Muslim neighborhoods
• Founder of the Dutch Party for Freedom under assault regarding his comments about the Netherlands' Moroccan minority

Claudia Rosett

CLAUDIA ROSETT, Journalist-in-Residence at The Foundation for Defense of Democracies:

PART ONE:

• North Korean opposition to the upcoming Sony Entertainment Comp. film, “The Interview”
• The rising cyber warfare and nuclear capability of the Kim Jong-un regime
• Is the United States underestimating North Korea and their ability to follow through on threats?

PART TWO:

• The U.S. backing away from sanctions on Iran while the Islamic Republic continues its illicit nuclear program
• Iran’s reinforcement of its objective to annihilate Israel
• Operation Cleaver and Iran’s ability to launch cyber attacks against the U.S. electrical grid

PART THREE:

• Is the Obama Administration trying to a cement a legacy through the Iranian nuclear negotiations?
• Valerie Jarrett’s influence in dictating national security and foreign policy direction
• The Chinese communist party in peril
• China’s strategic interest in the U.S. economy despite their often anti-western global activity

PART FOUR:

• Probability China will act militarily towards the U.S. and its allies in the Pacific
• The Chinese Communist Party’s despotic quest for complete state control
• Putin’s aggression amid toughening sanctions and worsening domestic economic conditions
• The role the United Nations has played in the rise of a new hostile axis of nations

Rep. Peter Roskam, Kiron Skinner, Gal Luft, Gordon Chang

Rep. PETER ROSKAM (IL-6), incoming House Ways and Means Committee Oversight Subcommittee Chair:

• Secret U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations
• Newly disclosed Iranian cyber attacks on U.S. critical infrastructure
• Is the U.S. going to sanction Israel for settlement construction in the West Bank?
• Debating the future of Guantanamo Bay
• Unanswered questions about a House Intelligence Committee report on the 2012 Benghazi attacks

Dr. KIRON SKINNER, Glenn W. Campbell Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution:

• Predicting the doctrine of Secretary of Defense Nominee Ash Carter
• Is there a more hawkish future for U.S. nuclear weapons policy?
• Using Reagan's NSDD-75 as a template for battling radical Islamist ideology

Dr. GAL LUFT, Co-Director of The Institute of the Analysis of Global Security:

• Saudi Arabia’s manipulation of oil prices and the implication for American energy producers
• How the world—and America—should combat the volatile oil market

GORDON CHANG, author of “The Coming Collapse of China”:

• International legal action against Chinese violations of the Law of the Sea Treaty
• Reports that the Obama Administration may offer China a space arms control treaty
• Xi Jinping's move to further consolidate power by arresting China’s internal security czar, Zhou Yongkang
• Chinese and North Korean connections to the recent Sony Entertainment hackings
• Updates on the Hong Kong democracy protests

Elaine Donnelly

PART ONE:

ELAINE DONNELLY, founder and president of the Center for Military Readiness:

• A look at the DoD’s annual report on sexual assaults in the military
• Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's bill to take sexual assault cases out of the jurisdiction of local commanders

PART TWO:

• Debate over the connection between the repeal of "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" and increasing male-on-male sexual assault rates in the military
• Former General Counsel of the DoD Jeh Johnson’s survey of the impact of openly gay service members
• Is the military ready to accept transgender individuals in its ranks?

PART THREE:

• LGBT law and policy in the U.S. military
• The Administration's support for women serving in direct ground combat units
• Will gender-diversity metrics endanger standards for an all-volunteer force?

PART FOUR:

• The role of women in the 21st century American military
• Possible impacts of the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act on America’s servicewomen
• Implications of socially engineering the military

Rep. Doug Lamborn, Bill Roggio, Rep. Vicky Hartzler, Fred Fleitz

Rep. DOUG LAMBORN (CO-5), member of the House Armed Services Committee:

• Reaction to the House's unanimous passing of the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act
• The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel
• The proposed HR-5727 method for protecting U.S. allies with free trade agreements
• The State Department’s push to exclude the Pentagon from a space arms control agreement

BILL ROGGIO, managing editor at “The Long War Journal”:

• The Taliban's resurgence in Helmand province and Kabul in the wake of Afghanistan troop withdrawals
• Implications of recent al-Shabaab attacks in Somalia and Kenya
• The strategic significance of the rise of the Houthis in Yemen
• Credible sources indicating Iran is conducting air strikes on the Islamic State in Iraq
• Extremist training camps for children in Syria?

Rep. VICKY HARTZLER (MO-4), member of the House Armed Services Committee:

• Public concern over national security evidenced in the midterm election results
• The correlation between sequestration and military readiness
• How to reform the budget without weakening the armed forces
• Implications of closing Guantanamo Bay

FRED FLEITZ, former CIA intelligence analyst and Senior Fellow at the Center for Security Policy:

• Congressional resentment towards the seven month extension of the Iranian nuclear talks
• How far can Iran currently go in building a nuclear weapon?
• Iran's role as an informal member of the the coalition against the Islamic State
• The Director of National Intelligence's decision to merge counterintelligence activities with security

Rep. Mike Pompeo, Diana West, Rep. Mike Kelly, Jim Hanson

PART ONE

REP. MIKE POMPEO (KS-04), member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence:

• Explaining the language towards Guantanamo Bay in a potential National Defense Authorization Act
• ISIS' threats against the families of U.S. service members
• Why the newly established National Counterintelligence and Security Center hurts the intelligence community
• NSA contributions to counterterrorism efforts

PART TWO

DIANA WEST, author of “American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character”:

• Contrasting the Michael Brown case to that of former Army Ranger Lt. Michael Behenna
• Patterns of the military justice system under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama
• Will permanently closing Guantanamo Bay lead to a resurgence of extremists on the battlefield?
• The President's response to calls to designate CAIR and the Muslim American Society as Muslim Brotherhood fronts

PART THREE

REP. MIKE KELLY (PA-03), member of the House Committee on Ways and Means:

• America's role in sustaining free and open internet access for users worldwide
• Prospects for the Defending Internet Freedom Act
• Ways of developing a meaningful policy towards dealing with Ebola and countering infectious diseases

PART FOUR

JIM HANSON, former Army Special Operations Technical Weapons Sergeant:

• China's increasing ability to take down America’s power grid
• Ramifications of the National Defense Authorization Act on the United States military
• How the recent FBI and DHS warning to military personnel and their families will affect the moral of America's troops
• The upshot of an Ash Carter nomination for Secretary of Defense

Trent Franks, Michael Segall, Francis Rooney, Andy McCarthy

Rep. TRENT FRANKS, co-chairman of the Congressional EMP Caucus:

• Positive prospects for the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act as it passes the House
• A plan for raising awareness and preempting EMP threats to America’s infrastructure
• Why the Administration’s use of executive action fundamentally changes the nature of the political process

IDF Lt. Col. (Ret.) MICHAEL SEGALL, Senior Political Analyst at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs:

• Iran’s masterful deceit of the West
• How Iran is supplying smuggled weapons to Gaza via Yemen and North Africa
• The unfolding plot by Palestinian extremists to wage jihad against Israelis in the West Bank

FRANCIS ROONEY, former U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican:

• Thoughts on Pope Francis' recent trip to Albania and Turkey
• The Pope’s response to the persecution of Christians by the Islamic State and other jihadist groups
• An attempt to forge a new partnership between Pope Francis and Bartholomew I of the Eastern Orthodox Church 

ANDY MCCARTHY, author of “Faithless Execution: Building the Political Case for Obama’s Impeachment":

• Racial profiling's role in public perceptions of Officer Wilson’s culpability in the death of Michael Brown
• Grading the legality of President Obama’s executive action on immigration
• Questions arising from the House Intelligence Committee’s recent Benghazi report
• Legal challenges of transferring Guantanamo detainees

John Stovall, Joseph Humire, Gordon Chang, Christian Whiton

JOHN STOVALL, Director of National Security and Foreign Relations at the American Legion:

• Where the U.S. military stands after downsizing, sequestration, and social experimentation
• Is the U.S.'s all-volunteer military overburdened?
• The future of the VA after its highly-publicized scandal
• Controversy over the possibility of illegal aliens in the armed services

JOSEPH HUMIRE, co-editor of “Iran’s Strategic Penetration of Latin America” and Executive Director of the Center for a Secure Free Society:

• Iran’s growing military footprint in South America
• Venezuela and Bolivia's expression of affinity for a relationship with Iran
• Assessing the fragility of Iran’s heavily sanctioned economy in the midst of plummeting oil prices

GORDON CHANG, author of “The Coming Collapse of China”:

• Significant gains made by Taiwan's opposition party in a recent election
• Recent development’s in Hong Kong protests
• North Korea’s outrage against the upcoming film “The Interview” and hacking of Sony Pictures

CHRISTIAN WHITON, author of “Smart Power: Between Diplomacy and War”:

• The U.N. General Assembly's referral of North Korea to the International Criminal Court
• Predicting North Korea's next move in its “cycle of aggression,” and Chuck Hagel’s recent trip to the Hermit Kingdom
• A presidential confession on executive amnesty
• How Russia, Venezuela, and Iran have been affected by plummeting oil prices