What doesn't $328,835 (the cost was likely much higher) buy you? Photos of the world's most famous plane scaring the hell out of New Yorkers.

The $328,835 snapshots of an Air Force One backup plane buzzing lower Manhattan last week will not be shown to the public, the White House said yesterday.

"We have no plans to release them," an aide to President Obama told The Post, refusing to comment further.

The sole purpose of the secret photo-op, which sent thousands of New Yorkers running for cover, was to take new publicity shots of the presidential jet over the city.

"The photos . . . are classified -- that's ridiculous," Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., said.

I don't know if they are officially classified but I'm guessing there are several FOIA requests making their way through the system at this very moment.

Obviously this was an embarrassment for Obama but how does stonewalling the photos mitigate that? It's not like most people don't already know what happened. Release the photos, take the one day hit and move on. But no, Obama will simply try and pretend this didn't happen ("These aren't the photos you are looking for, move along.") thus dragging it out for days until the damn things are released.

Of course The Enchanted Media (tm) can't be moved to actually ask Him about the incident directly. That might be...uncomfortable for everyone. Can't have that.

Quality comment snark from "C. Jordan"

Perhaps the photos were ruined by people running for their lives in the background?

Posted by: DrewM at 06:06 AM | Comments (205)
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I've been mulling this since yesterday. It's a more refined version of the federalism amendment Randy Barnett proposed last week. There are ten proposed amendments, and I can't excerpt them all so go take a look. I really like most of the suggestions, with the exception of these a few:

Article [of Amendment 4] — [Recision Power of States]
Upon application of the legislatures of two thirds of the states, any law, regulation or order of the United States shall be rescinded.

No and no. You want to change legislation, you elect different people to Congress. Letting a majority of states do an end-run around the entire system of federal governance is a big mistake. For example, if this amendment had been law, it's entirely possible that two-thirds of the states would have ended the Iraq War in 2006 and rescinded the War on Terrorism AUMFs.

There are some powers that we, as a People, have committed to a national government. Those powers should remain with the national government. The national government and the state legislatures have different interests. Tying them so closely together, actually making the national government no better than a puppet for highly contested issues is not what the founders had in mind and it does not "restore the balance" to government, as Barnett's preamble states.

Moreover, if Barnett's first and second proposed amendments are passed, the national government's current overreach will have ended and there'd be no need for this one. At most, if you want to give state legislatures a bit more say in Congress, repeal the Seventeenth Amendment and give them back the power to select Senators.

Similarly, the eighth proposed amendment, the balanced budget/line item veto, seems ripe for abuse. Fortunately, it seems unnecessary if the amendments rescinding the income tax and curtailing federal power pass.

What do you guys think? Barnett writes that this is still a work in progress. Do you have suggestions or modifications you want me to forward to him?

Oh, one more thing: I would like to see the Tea Party movement start to adopt this type of concrete proposal. This shouldn't just be about protesting futilely while President Obama drives this country over a cliff. Now is the chance to make revolutionary changes in our system of governance. Start with the proposal now and as things get worse (which I cynically expect them to, especially after cap and tax) many more people are likely to think, "Huh, maybe we can do something about it."

That's party of the beauty of this proposal. This isn't rocket science to explain. No income tax. No death tax. No federal meddling in state affairs. Term limits. No judicial activism.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:29 AM | Comments (86)
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In an effort to support American journalist Roxana Saberi, some faculty and students at Northwestern started a hunger strike Friday.

I'm sure the Iranians were duly impressed and awed with this stern action by the Northwestern faculty and students. There's nothing like hunger strike to put the fear of god in your enemies(¹). When the 2nd wave of vicious rants and action alerts hits those Iranians they won't know whether to shit or go blind. They'll fold like a cheap suit and be begging for mercy in no time.

¹ Its a little known fact of WWII history that Ike deployed the dreaded hunger strike very effectively against the Nazis prior to the Normandy invasion. Our whole invading force starved itself for a month prior to the invasion to protest the Nazi occupation. This deteriorated Nazi morale so badly and pumped up our forces so much that all we had to do was walk ashore to no resistance. All that shooting and dying shit was made up in Hollywood just like the moon landings were. I know this is all true since I heard it from Jon Stewart.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 04:20 AM | Comments (38)
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Ah, well, tomorrow is another day. By which I mean, It's partay time! We can have beer for breakfast on Cinco de Mayo, right? And lunch? And in the office all afternoon? Yes?

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:05 AM | Comments (39)
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Drew M. points me to the continuing dust-up between the Chrysler creditors and the Obama Administration and asks about the Fifth Amendment questions they've raised. I missed this story earlier in the day, so it may be old already, but it bears repeating.

Zombie-Chrysler has teamed up with the unions and the Obama Administration to deprive the individuals and institutions who hold Chrysler's debt of their due. They would like the Bankruptcy Court to reorganize the company (by means of bankruptcy sale) into what they're calling "New Chrysler" free and clear of their obligations to pay back the creditors. This type of thing is usually referred to as "debt restructuring", but in this case the more appropriate description would be "Chavez says this isn't your property anymore, puta."

So far the creditors have refused to be cowed by Obama's threats and very public scolding for their lack of patriotic sacrifice. This morning they really started to fight back with a brief eleven-page filing in the bankruptcy proceedings (PDF). Why is it so short? Because they had no more than 15 hours to assemble it.

On Sunday night the debtors (that would be Zombie-Chrysler with the Obama Administration pulling the strings) moved to proceed with the bankruptcy sale. They dropped a 290-page filing under cover of darkness, the object of which is to wipe out the creditor's secured liens. This was an attempt at robbery.

Some background (and this isn't my area of expertise, so this is just general stuff; DWL). Bankruptcy is set up to determine in what order individuals involved with a failed enterprise get paid out of what remains. This is called the "estate" and is usually real property, capital improvements, left over stuff like that. And the Bankruptcy Code is essentially a method of sorting the parties and determining who gets to stand at the front of the line. Secured creditors--like the creditors I've been referring to above--stand at the very front of the line.

That's where the Obama-directed, Chavez-inspired sale motion comes in. They want to move the secured creditors behind certain unsecured creditors (the unions) and thus deprive the creditors of their property. Because if there's one certainty here, it's that there isn't enough money left in Chrysler to pay everyone who's standing in line.

The creditor's motion is straightforward. Probably owing to the very short time they had to prepare it, it doesn't engage in legal analysis so much as simply throw objections at the bankruptcy judge with some caselaw cited so he can work it out himself. That doesn't mean they're wrong.

Ed concentrated on the constitutional claim--that the Obama plan is unconstitutional under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Several people have asked if the 1935 case the creditors cite is still good law. It is. In fact, the holding is at the core of Takings jurisprudence. In the words of Justice Brandeis:

"[T]he Fifth Amendment commands that, however great the Nation's need, private property shall not be thus taken even for a wholly public use without just compensation. If the public interest requires, and permits, the taking of property of individual mortgagees in order to relieve the necessities of individual mortgagors, resort must be had to proceedings by eminent domain; so that, through taxation, the burden of the relief afforded in the public interest may be borne by the public."

To the extent the President suggests that he can simply ignore property rights--even if the TARP says he can (which is unclear)--he is incorrect.

Like I said, this isn't my area so I don't know if this is a slam-dunk. Takings law has drifted over the years into arguments over whether a taking deprives the owner entirely of his property, with some courts suggesting that in certain circumstances partial takings aren't protected by the Fifth Amendment. I don't know whether the proposed robbery leaves the creditors with nothing or merely less, and I don't know if that matters when we're talking about dissolving liens rather than regulatory taking. Maybe the Bankruptcy Court will reach the constitutional issue and we'll find out.

But I doubt it. As interesting as it would be to have it on the record that the President ignored the constitution in order to attempt a robbery, the Bankruptcy Court doesn't have to go that far. The creditor's motion describes statutory reasons for disapproving the sale: it doesn't comply with the Bankruptcy Code. Unless Congress wants to try and make this thuggery legal by altering the Code, the Court has ample opportunity to stop it without discussing the constitutional problem.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 09:45 PM | Comments (273)
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Move over, Minnesota, we've got our own ridiculous candidate to run. Stormy Daniels is a Baton Rouge native who is mulling a run for David Vitter's Senate seat (don't worry, the link is only to her Wikipedia page, that someone has lovingly updated to reflect her political ambitions).

Politico reports that she will begin a listening tour across Louisiana beginning tomorrow. more...

Posted by: Open Blog at 08:42 PM | Comments (51)
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Notice: Posted by permission of AceCorp LLC. Please e-mail overnight open thread tips to xgenghisx@gmail.com. Otherwise send tips to Ace.

Posted by: Open Blog at 06:57 PM | Comments (232)
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If true, it makes no sense on several levels.

Thwarting Iran's nuclear program is conditional on progress in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, according to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

Israeli TV reports said Monday that Emanuel made the comments in a closed-door meeting the previous day with 300 major AIPAC donors.

It's not clear to me what the hell this is supposed to mean.

Is he saying that if Israel does what Obama wants and negotiates with the Palestinians then Obama will reward them with action on Iran? Or is he saying that if Israel makes progress toward a deal that in and of itself will induce Iran to give up its nuke program?

Neither one of these makes any sense and both are dangerous in their own way.

If Obama is blackmailing an ally, we'll that's, I don't know what the hell that is. Morally bankrupt, strategically inept, dangerous to American security are a few thoughts that come to mind.

If it's some pie in the sky idea that Iran will be deterred from its nuclear and regional goals in service of the Palestinians (or some regional "super deal"), it's strategically inept, dangerous to American security and naive as all hell.

My guess is now that this has leaked out there will be 'clarifying' statements tomorrow. It's not the first time Obama will have hastily back tracked from something said at AIPAC.

Also...will an improvement in Israeli-Palestinian relations mean Iran will stop attacking Iraq?

Posted by: DrewM at 03:59 PM | Comments (79)
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Just so you know -- that is not the famous ginormous .50 cal round you'd see in a .50 cal machine gun, or a .50 cal Barret sniper rifle. It's the same caliber, but not the same huge length of that round (less length = less gunpowder = less velocity = less power).

But still, pretty cool, and enough to get the left pretending they know about guns and then gasping hysterical over Sarah Palin, as usual.

Thanks to Arthur.

Oh: The AR-15 chambered for the .50 cal "Beowulf" round, as seen on Future Weapons.

Bear in mind, though, that every weapon noted on Future Weapons is awesome and the most powerful weapon in the world.

Palin's Appeal... Allah ponders it. She's agreed to work with a new Republican group, the National Council for a New America, to push issues. And gain cachet, of course.

Part of Palin's Appeal... First there are the obvious ones: she blazes through a camera like a superstar, she's charming, she's got most of the conservative credentials, she's daring enough to say things (Drill Baby Drill) that the pantywaist political class won't.

And a big obvious one: The media's attacks on her were so deranged and nasty we became emotionally invested in her, and adopter her as an honorary, fake "member of the family."

Plus charisma. Did I mention that?

But she has a particular kind of charisma. All parties are riven by factional interests. There is no rational, genuine, honest way to appeal to all of those factions simultaneously. Many are inconsistent and incompatible. You can't satisfy the libertarians on social issues while satisfying the social cons.

Or can you?

Some people can satisfy both... somehow. Barack Obama, for example, could satisfy the far left with his Marxist, Chamberlainesque rhetoric while appeasing the moderates not with his actual positions, but with his temperament, which seems moderate, even if his positions are in fact fairly radical. He offers one faction concrete policy and the other side... well, nothing but a soothing manner that appeals to them, at least on a dispositional level.

Palin is kind of like that: There's something brassy, earthy, and, well, undeniably sexual about her that makes her seem like a libertarian. On the other hand, she's got the right positions and right background and right level of piety to satisfy social conservatives.

Which is she really? I'm not altogether sure. Both, neither, a little from Column A and a little from Column B.

That ability to fuse what should be logically incompatible and bring factions which should otherwise be at war with each other under the same standard is a crucial one for any successful politician.

I don't know if Palin can still do that -- the chattering classes and self-annointed elites seem to despise her -- but no one should underestimate how important that talent is.

Romney, as I've noted before, not only lacked this X Factor, he had the opposite problem,an anti-X Factor: Moderates didn't like him because he seemed too socially conservatives and social conservatives branded him a moderate or liberal.

Whereas Palin seemed to be from both camps, Romney seemed to be from neither.

And thus an otherwise excellent politician loses because he lacks that indefinable X Factor.

Posted by: Ace at 01:33 PM | Comments (88)
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Or, rather, paying a bonus for registrations, some of which turned out to be fraudulent.

Hope and change? Doubtful. ACORN staffers are constantly being arrested, and yet the organized crime family goes on.

Does Scott "Tsk, tsk" Levensen weigh in? Oh, you betcha!

This recent attack by the Nevada Secretary of State and Attorney General is the latest in an ongoing assault designed to blame the victim and prioritize media grandstanding above the pursuit of justice.

From the time ACORN first suspected that some of its employees had tried to defraud ACORN by turning in bogus forms, ACORN repeatedly called its suspicions to the attention of election officials and requested that they investigate immediately.

Our policy all along has been to pay workers at an hourly rate and to not pay employees based on any bonus or incentive program. When it was discovered that an employee was offering bonuses linked to superior performance, that employee was ordered to stop immediately.

It is unfortunate that the Secretary of State canÂ’t distinguish the victim from the villain.

As Otter said, what a shame, that a few bad apples should spoil a good time for everyone...

Posted by: Ace at 01:02 PM | Comments (6)
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