HALF-FULL REPORT 10/02/09

It’s pretty obvious that the HFR Hero of the Week is the author of  Going Rogue.

With her book going to #1 on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble within hours of the mere announcement it would go on sale in seven weeks (11/17), it’s also obvious by now that Sarah Palin has become a conservative phenomenon the only comparison to whom is Ronald Reagan. 

That’s not the Olympian icon Reagan has become for his presidential accomplishments – but the former governor and presidential candidate who ended up obliterating an incumbent president 489 to 49 in electoral votes in 1980.

Palin is now acknowledged to be "the hottest brand name in politics."  She is the comet flashing across the sky, while Zero is a shooting star flaming out while plunging to earth.  She is everything he is not, which can be summed up in two words:  for real.

She’s as genuine as he is phony, as honest as he is deceitful, as pro-freedom as he is pro-fascist, as experienced in the real world as he is ignorant, as American as he is un-. 

The left is in a hysteria of hate towards her because she is their greatest threat.  While most of the left can only indulge in childish schoolyard insults, the savviest among liberals – like Willie Brown, who ran the California legislature and city of San Francisco as his private fiefdoms – now realize that Palin is a "political genius."

Palin has, observes Willie Brown, "the best political instincts I have ever seen."

How ironic that we have that ultimate RINO, John McCain, to thank for Sarah Palin.   Providence works in unfathomable ways. Without McCain we wouldn’t have Sarah.  Without McCain’s defeat we wouldn’t suffer Obama, but without that suffering we won’t have Sarah for redemption.  Providence, it seems, still cares for America.

***
Just what does Palin mean by "going rogue"?  She clearly means it to be a theme of her life, and a theme that could be applied to America at large:  advocating individual liberty and responsibility, thinking for oneself, going off the reservation of political correctness, not being reflexively obedient to bureaucratic authority.

Such a theme, were it to gain real traction nationwide, would doom "progressivist" liberalism, culturally and politically.  It might already be catching on in a number of state capitals.  A New York Times story this week (9/28) could have been entitled  States Going Rogue!

It’s about state governments from Minnesota to Arizona moving to block various parts of ObamaCare.  In Minnesota, for example, State Rep. Tom Emmer – who is running for governor in 2010 – asks the critical question:  "Where in the U.S. Constitution does it say the federal government has the right to provide health care?"

For Emmer, this question is "the essence of the debate."  If there is no such enumerated right in the Constitution, then ObamaCare is unlawful, illegal, and unconstitutional, period. 

Tom Emmer, and growing numbers of state politicians across the country, is going rogue.

***
The question of the day – as in right now, Friday October 2^nd – is, will Ireland go rogue?

Last year, the Irish had the courage to retain their sovereignty and freedom by voting no on signing the "Lisbon Treaty" which converts all member states of the European Union (EU) into administrative districts of a gargantuan anti-democratic bureaucracy in Brussels.

It sounds Kafkaesque, but Ireland is the only EU member out of 27 where the people are allowed to vote on their sovereignty.  All other 26 have their governments vote for them.  So the infuriated EU bureaucrats forced the Irish government to again have its citizens vote on the Lisbon Treaty – and that vote is taking place today.

Liberal anti-democratic fascism, EU style.

The Irish have been deluged with endless threats, political and economic, from their own media and government, and from those from all over Europe.  It looks like they will succumb.

Champagne will flow in Brussels, but when they sober up, the EU bureaucrats may realize their goal of having all of Europe at their command is still not reached.  The Lisbon Treaty must be ratified by all 27 members without a single one voting no.  Aside from Ireland, there remains one holdout. 

That would be the Czech Republic, led by Europe’s most heroic leader Vaclav Klaus.  The treaty has been approved by the Czech parliament, but the text of the approval requires Klaus’ signature and presidential seal for final ratification.  He’s not signing.

Klaus sent his prime minister Jan Fischer to Brussels (9/17) to explain that "a constitutional challenge" (launched by Klaus) had to be resolved before final ratification – which could take up to six months.  The Eurocrats were so purpled with rage they almost physically assaulted Fischer.

Klaus’ strategy is to delay signing (the courts will likely compel him to sign in the end) until the British elections next spring.  Gordon Brown’s Labor Government forced through British ratification last year.  But the Brits viscerally despise the Brown regime, which is going to be electorally destroyed.

David Cameron’s Conservative Party will be swept into power, and he has made a public referendum on the Lisbon Treaty a central plank in his election campaign.  The Brits never had a chance to vote on Lisbon; Labor in Parliament forced it against their wishes.

An EU Member cannot rescind its ratification after Lisbon has full ratification from all 27 members – but it can before.  So if Klaus can delay until Cameron is PM, the Brits will vote no overwhelmingly and Lisbon and Brussels are toast.

Vaclav Klaus knows all about going rogue.  He is a soul-mate of Sarah Palin.

***
It will be nonetheless interesting to see how Palin finesses the "rogue" theme, the romantic outlaw vs. a real outlaw, standing up for freedom and questioning authority vs. anarchic criminality.  For it wasn’t that long ago when the most common use of the term "rogue" in public discourse was applied to the most dangerously despotic regimes on the planet, "rogue states."

Venezuela, Iran, and North Korea are governed by rogues in the worst sense of the word.  The most dangerous, the one most necessary to eliminate, is Iran.

The recent disclosure than Iran has a second uranium enrichment plant – and in the so-called "holy city" of Qom (holy to Moslem crazies bent on murdering infidels so why should anyone else consider respecting it?) – is absolute confirmation the Mullahs are building nuclear weapons.

While the Norks built a breeder reactor with 1940s technology to make plutonium – "Fat Man" that was dropped on Nagasaki was a plutonium bomb – the Mullahs have gone for 1980s uranium cascade technology, which allows for pure dumb atomic bomb design.

The big publicly-known plant at Natanz was for "enrichment" of uranium, which naturally contains 0.7% of the U-235 isotope, to the 7% needed for power plant nuclear fuel.

But you can’t make a bomb of that 7% stuff – you need to get it to 90%.  For that, you need only 1/10^th the number of cascades – making them easier to hide in secret so no one knows you’re making bombs.  That’s the one at Qom.  It’s buried deep – so deep that probably only nerve gas dropped with penetrator weapons down the ventilation shafts could do the job.

Plus the urban location means a lot of civilian casualties, regardless of whether anyone cares about blasting an ersatz "holy" city.

Which means the Israelis now must shift their strategy from an attack on the Mullahs’ nuclear facilities to an attack on the Mullah regime itself.  There is a term for this.  It’s called a Decapitation Strike.

Wipe out the Presidential Palace, the HQ of the Al Quds and Pasdaran forces, the Basiji offices, the command-and-control centers, collapse the regime, incapacitate it from reasserting its authority.  The Mullah regime would be history in 24 hours.  During the resultant anarchy until a new government is formed (or governments, as Iran may well break apart), commando teams can be inserted to demolish the nuclear facilities on the ground.

I know this is being considered – but will Bibi give the final thumbs up?  Only Bibi knows.

***
We close this week with two Honorable Mentions in the hero-of-the-week department.  One is my buddy Trent Franks (R-AZ) having the stone cold moxie to call Zero "an enemy of humanity."  Thanks, Trent, for telling it like it is:

The second is TTP’s own Jack Kelly, who on Fox News explained to Greta Susteren and a national television audience just what French President Nicolas Sarkozy really thinks of Zero:  that the American president is "incredibly naïve and grossly egotistical."

After the broadcast, I asked a friend of mine who is personally close to Sarkozy for confirmation.  He replied that the quote is accurate:  "It’s all true.  A combination of jealousy – his left-wing wife [Carla Bruni] loves Obama – and fury at Obama’s weakness has led to this eruption."

Kudos to Jack Kelly!