HALF-FULL REPORT 02/04/11

This has been a week both sobering and thrilling, depressing and hopeful, serendipitous and its antonym.  (Serendipity is finding something where you least expect it.  Strangely, there is no word expressing its opposite:  not finding something where you most expect it.)

In other words, it’s a truly half-full week.  Might as well look at why it’s half-empty first.

This is not going to be easy, because it involves conservatives who are friends and whom I admire – yet who have allowed their limbic brain to be paralyzed with fear and shut down their prefrontal cortex.  I am ashamed of them.  I hope they soon regain their capacity for rational and moral thought.

I am referring to the host of conservative pundits in print, the Web, on talk radio and TV news – no names here, it’s easy to figure out who they are – who are so freaking out in support of Mubarak they want to see Mubarak’s thugs commit mass slaughter on the demonstrators in Cairo peacefully demanding freedom and democracy.

They have gone so morally insane that they seem to actually want Tiananmen Square-style bloodshed in Tahrir Square.  Why aren’t conservative leaders proclaiming their support for freedom and democracy in Egypt, proclaiming their solidarity with the protestors, and are instead siding with Mubarak’s thugs?  This is beyond disgusting.

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That’s the anti-serendipity – finding support for fascism and 82 year-old dying dictators among those who normally support freedom.  Where is that something we least expect to find there?  The White House. 

The New York Times reported last night (2/03) that the US is demanding that "Mubarak resign immediately and turn over power to a transitional government headed by Vice President Omar Suleiman with the support of the Egyptian military."  That is exactly the right thing to do.  I am in shock.  For once I am in praise of Obama.  He’s had a spasm of pro-American rationality.

Mubarak has to be removed from power immediately.  It is the only thing that will defuse the crisis – for the longer he stays, the more time it gives the Iqwan and forces of Islamic Darkness to take over the crisis.

All those two million folks you see on Tahrir Square are chanting, "The people and the army are one."  Egyptians admire their armed forces.  If the generals side with them and toss Mubarak out, they will be heroes, and the Iqwan‘s chance to seize power will be gone.  Further, those generals are pro-American, they’ve been trained in the US, their relationships with our military is solid and long-standing. 

Further again, they want nothing to do with politics, and are reluctant in the extreme to conduct a military coup removing Mubarak with armed force.  This hesitation allowed Mubarak to send in throngs of thugs against the democracy demonstrators (and international journalists).  That completely tears it. 

One way or another, Mubarak has to go and right now.  If the US is seen as pulling this off, the Egyptian Revolution has far less of a chance to go Anti-American.

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 It’s not that the Islamic Disaster scenarios of the Right cannot happen.  Of course they can.  It’s that fear of them has caused the folks fixated on them to lose their moral bearings – and lose sight of the leverage we have to prevent them.

One example is our (and Israel’s) capacity to export these democracy rebellions to effect regime change in Syria and Iran – as outlined earlier this week in The Opportunity of Egypt.  Another example is wheat.  Yes, wheat.

Egypt is the world’s largest importer of wheat, and the world’s largest per-capita consumer of wheat.  The US is Egypt’s main supplier of wheat.  Wheat is our oil. No country in the world can compete with us in the amount of wheat we can produce for export.

Arab countries have held us hostage to their oil for a long time.  Now they, especially Egypt, can be hostage to our wheat – and our corn, for we supply 80% of Egypt’s corn imports.

How’s this for a two-fer?  Eliminate all US Gov’t wheat and corn subsidies (including all ethanol subsidies) – which has to be done anyway for budget deficit control – but to ease the farmers’ pain, subsidize wheat and corn exports to narrowly targeted countries such as Egypt on the basis of US national security interests.

The purpose is to make Egypt dependent on America for food (undercutting any competitor on price).  Don’t make war on Israel, don’t sponsor Palestinian terrorism, don’t terrorize Coptic Christians or Egyptians in general with sharia medievalism, don’t let the Iqwan seize power would be the message to any post-Mubarak government tempted to do any of this – or a US wheat/corn embargo would cause food riots bringing down your government in a New York second.

Then, of course, there’s the biggest leverage of all – a Sword of Damocles suspended above Egypt called the Aswan Dam.  It’s why Egypt can never have a war with Israel, for it would be literally suicidal for Egypt to try and win it.  Nuke Aswan and the flood waters gushing out of Lake Nasser would wash Egypt away.  Aswan is Israel’s ultimate ace in the Egyptian hole.

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After I got back from a trip to Egypt in March of 2005, I wrote Cleopatra Was A Blonde.  It’s worth re-reading now.

At the time, Mubarak was promising to hold an actual election.  He reneged, suprise, and here’s where we are now.  Yet the bottom line I stressed in 2005 remains true:  "A free democratic Egypt is the doom of radical Islam."

One reason is the difference between mud-brick and stone.  Elsewhere in the Arab world, their ancient civilizations were built of mud-brick — which vanished along with memories of their pre-Islamic history.  But Egypt’s was made of stone which has endured. 

The enduring stone monuments of Ancient Egypt are constant reminders to Egyptians of their 5,000 years of history, reminders that they are much more than just Moslems and much older than Islam.

The Egyptian heroic cry for freedom is something to be welcomed, not terrified of.  I am ashamed of those conservatives who don’t have the courage to do so.

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What else is depressingly half-empty this week?  Republican budget cuts.  Nanoscopic budget cuts so small you need a scanning electron microscope to see them.  $32 lousy billion?  That’s it?  Out of a $1.5 trillion deficit and a $3.8 trillion total federal budget?  Are you House Republicans out of your minds?

Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan obviously is out of his when, in announcing 0.8% in cuts he proclaims, "Washington’s spending spree is over."  Even the New York Times is ridiculing him.

In response to Ryan’s cuts, which the New York Times derided as "miniscule," Little Harry Reid angrily denounced them as "draconian," and "unworkable."  Lots of other Dems chimed in.  It’s another clear reminder of how dangerously deranged the Dems are.  This whole episode reminds us how dangerously lily-livered Republicans can be.

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We can start to fill up the glass now, by first noting that Newt Gingrich has become a whore – or Professor Cornpone as the Wall Street Journal is calling him – for becoming a lobbyist for ethanol subsidies.  This is good news because it kills any chance whatever of his attaining the presidency.

The same can be said of Balsa Rick Santorum who has become an idiot whore.  The Pennsylvania press is laughing that his "nascent presidential campaign has died with a whimper fueled by a pander" to the ethanol scammers.  This makes his presidential timber of "balsa wood, not oak."  Goodnight, Newt.  Goodnight, Rick.

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The HFR is singing Oh, Susana! this week.  Do you recognize her?

She looks like the friendly Mom next door, but she’s the new Governor of New Mexico, Susana Martinez.  On Monday (1/31), she signed an executive order rescinding sanctuary status for criminal illegal aliens initially given them by former governor Bill Richardson.

Naturally, the state Dems are vitriolically denouncing her.

Martinez is the first Hispanic woman governor in US history.  If she were a Leftie Democrat, the Enemedia would lionize her as another "wise Latina" like Sonia Sotomayor.  But she’s a Conservative Republican, so the press ignores her.

When she was inaugurated on January 1^st, she gave a moving inaugural address which the press didn’t report – as it condemned politicians who act "as though taxpayer money belonged to them, not to you, the taxpayer."

Keep your eye on her.  Oh, Susana!

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OK, here we go, filling up our HFR glass to the brim.  There’s no doubt who’s the HFR Hero of the Week is:  Federal Judge Roger Vinson.

Rarely in US judicial history has there been a more clearly reasoned , more eloquent defense of our actual Constitution (rather than what the Left pretends it is) than his landmark decision overturning ObamaCare on Monday (1/31).

Here is the full text of Judge Vinson’s ruling in State of Florida v. US Dept. of Health & Human Services.  Two tastes:

"It is difficult to imagine that a nation which began, at least in part, as the result of opposition to a British mandate giving the East India Company a monopoly and imposing a nominal tax on all tea sold in America would have set out to create a government with the power to force people to buy tea in the first place."

Consequently:

"If Congress can penalize a passive individual for failing to engage in commerce, the enumeration of powers in the Constitution would have been in vain for it would be difficult to perceive any limitation on federal power."

Thus, Vinson ruled, as did Judge Henry Hudson on December 13, that the "individual mandate" of ObamaCare is unconstitutional.  Hudson left the rest of the 2,000 page law stand.  Vinson did not.

"I must conclude that the individual mandate and the remaining provisions are all inextricably bound together in purpose and must stand or fall as a single unit. The individual mandate cannot be severed," he declared.  Since ObamaCare does not contain a severability clause, he ruled:

"Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire act must be declared void."

Further, since his declaratory judgment "is the functional equivalent of an injunction," the federal government is enjoined from implementing it unless and until his ruling is overturned on appeal to the Supreme Court.

That is, it is now against the law for the federal government to continue to enforce any provision of ObamaCare.

The day after the ruling (2/01), Wisconsin‘s attorney general, J. B. Van Hollen, proclaimed that his state is "free of any obligations" imposed by ObamaCare, since after the Vinson ruling, "for Wisconsin, the federal health care law is dead."

Wisconsin is one of 25 states that joined Florida as a plaintiff in the suit, so expect a number of other plaintiff states to follow Wisconsin’s lead. Utah has just announced (2/02) it is "no longer bound" by ObamaCare.  Florida Governor Rick Scott says he "has no intention wasting time and money implementing a now-defunct law."

Judge Roger Vinson has struck one of the greatest blows for constitutional freedom of our lifetimes.

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And Zero’s reaction?  He ignored Vinson’s ruling and said implementation of ObamaCare would "continue apace," as if the ruling was never made.

We now have an outlaw government, with a "lawless president," as Rush noted.

This lawlessness was compounded yesterday (2/03) by U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman finding the Obama Administration in contempt of court for continuing its Gulf deepwater-drilling moratorium after the policy was struck down.

Add to this the hundreds of ObamaCare waivers given to unions and companies that have donated to Dem campaigns.  This week we learned that 500 more such waivers covering 2.2 million employees were granted in December alone – from 222 to 729.

Then consider that even liberals like Mickey Kaus are calling for Republicans to hold hearings and expose Zero’s incredible corruption and "Putin-like" crony corporatism.

Put all this together and you see a compelling case building for impeachment.  Real impeachment for real high crimes, not for lying about birth certificates or boffing interns.

The case has to be built much higher with a solid foundation before the American people will accept another impeachment trauma.  But it is building because the offenses are in fact lawless, corrupt, and criminal.

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Want to take a break and have some fun?  Go to Google, enter "Prophet Mohammed" in the Search box, then click on the Images link in top bar tray.  Up will come 111,000 mocking cartoons, reverent paintings, and historical renditions of Ubul Qassim (his real name – "Mohammed" was not a name in 7^th century Arabia but a title, meaning "praised one").

It’s fascinating, enlightening, and funny.  Moslems see no humor in it at all and are suing Google for blasphemy.

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That’s it for this week.  Tomorrow I’m off to Africa.  I’ll be reporting in as often as I can.  Miko will be securely holding down the TTP fort, and the HFR will be in Jack Kelly’s capable hands until I return in early March. 

Have a great Super Bowl weekend.  Perhaps I should take advantage of it and tell the one joke I know that has relevance to at least one of the teams in SB XLV.

Two guys are talking in a bar when the subject of Green Bay, Wisconsin comes up.  "Green Bay?" one of them snorts derisively.  "The only thing ever to come from Green Bay are the Packers and ugly hookers."

The other fellow explodes.  "What?!?  My wife is from Green Bay!"

The first guy blinks and quickly responds, "Really?  Well, what position does she play?"