Reason Morning Links: State Secrets Rejected, Economy Shrinks, More Flyover Flap

- U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit rejects Obama administration's state secrets claims, reinstates detainee lawsuit.

- GDP shrinks an unexpectedly high 6.1 percent in first quarter of 2009.

- FAA memo indicates feds knew the NYC flyover could set off panic and residual 9/11 jitters, but White House Military Office ordered it anyway, and threatened NYC police and political officials if they informed the public about the photo-op. Washington Post reports Military Office director Louis Caldera may be fired.

- Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Penn.), once thought to be in trouble, expected to cruise to reelection now that he has switched parties.

- U.S. officials trying to take the swine out of swine flu.

- Military prepares for the release of a new round of photos depicting detainee abuse.

Comments

[Brandon]

9:29?

I was beginning to wonder if swine flu* had made it to DC.

*The flu formerly known as swine flu?

[? Libertarian]

Re: Specter

If being despised by the constituents that put you in office (36% job approval among Republicans) still isn't enough to de-trench incumbents, the fight is further lost than I had thought.

Term limits remain one of the issues that make up my composition as ? pragmatist.

[Nikola T]

Sounds like a crisis... better grab your wallet.

[P Brooks]

White House Military Office ordered it anyway, and threatened NYC police and political officials if they informed the public about the photo-op.

STATE SECRETS!

How hard is it for all you leftard bedwetters to understand? If the American people know where Air Force One is, the terrorists win!

[Xeones]

If the Air Force One flyover doesn't prove to the zombobamautomatons that the beloved rulers don't give a fuck about the concerns of the ruled, i don't know what would.

[Richard]

Does this mean that only pigs can use the s-word now?

[Nikola T]

They put the cost of that little joyride at about $320,000, but they're not even considering the cost in lost productivity of workers leaving their posts, calls flooding 911, energy spent on cleaning up and investigating this mess...

It's a good thing Obama challenge all of his cabinet members to go through their budgets and eliminate any waste. We really needed a newer photo.

[Zeb]

I am very puzzled about the Israeli objection to using the term "swine flu". What the hell to dietary restrictions have to do with naming a disease? Are Jews forbidden from acknowledging the existence of swine?
Reminds me of the people in England who wanted to change the three little pigs to avoid offending Muslims.

[High Every Body]

FAA memo indicates feds knew the NYC flyover could set off panic and residual 9/11 jitters, but White House Military Office ordered it anyway, and threatened NYC police and political officials if they informed the public about the photo-op. Washington Post reports Military Office director Louis Caldera may be fired.

So they moved on from threatening CEOs and are working on local government. Unamazement.

[? libertarian]

You're right, X, about how fun it is to say that word.

[J sub D]

The flight by the VC-25, a modified Boeing Co. 747, and two F-16 fighter jets cost $328,835, Air Force spokeswoman Vicki Stein said.

Ya think that the governemnt could have found some cybernerd to photoshop it for a grand?

This debacle displays once again how government cavalierly pisses away tax money at every fucking level.

I doubt anyone gets canned over the fiasco.

[High Every Body]

Is "More Flyover Flap" the first mention by a Reason editor of this days old event? Have seen a few comments, but not a mention by the champions nemisis of Obama.

[Xeones]

I know, fraction dude, right? It's probably the only thing that could bring any joy to a Balko-started thread.

[Fluffy]

The flyover incident is an example of why the Fluffy campaign for President's model budget would include a 75-90% cut in expenditures for "White House Promotional Activities".

Even if no one had been scared, it is absurd that functionaries who want a new photo of Air Force One can blithely order $320,000 operations to get one.

The massive "court ceremonial" expenditures and "security" expenditures that now surround the office of President have obviously helped create an Imperial aura about the office, and that is precisely what the office must not have.

[PantsFan]

The outbreak of swine flu should be renamed "Mexican" influenza in deference to Muslim and Jewish sensitivities over pork, said an Israeli health official Monday.

Mexican officials said they're more concernced about their own citizens sensitivities - to death.

[J sub D]

U.S. officials trying to take the swine out of swine flu.

"This is not a food-borne illness, virus. It is not correct to refer to it as swine flu because really that's not what this is about," Vilsack said.

Wow! That's a load off my mind. I thought swine flu cause little piggie fetuses to develop in your bloodstream and this was a symptom.

[The Angry Optimist]

The Democratic Party has to be dumb as bricks to take Arlen Specter. If I put myself in the place of say, Obama, why should I believe that Specter is ever going to vote with me? The guy's going to turn 80 soon, and if I'm the Ds, I have to be thinking "this guy can sit in his potentially last term and block the shit out of everything we do...and what am I gonna do about it."

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania is Blue Enough that the Ds should put some "rising star" who can sit in the seat for the next thirty years.

[robc]

The massive "court ceremonial" expenditures and "security" expenditures that now surround the office of President have obviously helped create an Imperial aura about the office, and that is precisely what the office must not have.

I guess its time to bring out John Adams's suggestions for honorifics for the president. Anyone have a list? I guess I can google for them.

[P Brooks]

This debacle displays once again how government cavalierly pisses away tax money at every fucking level.

They have cut their budgets to the bone.

To the BONE, Mister!

Everything the government does is essential, and don't you forget it. There's a gentleman from the Ministry of Love who would like to have a word with you.

[robc]

His Highness the President of the United States of America and Protector of their Liberties

Notice the use of "their" and not "its". USA was still a plural at the time.

[P Brooks]

functionaries who want a new photo of Air Force One can blithely order $320,000 operations to get one.

That stuff doesn't "cost" anything.

Think, "Eighteen year old college girl with Daddy's credit card." You show people the card, and you get stuff.
Bill? What's a bill?

[High Every Body]

They would have burned those flight hours anyway. It should count as a stupid stunt, not a "waste" of money. They have to train anyway, they just did it in the wrong place in the wrong manner.

[Mike M.]

Even if no one had been scared, it is absurd that functionaries who want a new photo of Air Force One can blithely order $320,000 operations to get one.

Yeah, no kidding. Haven't they ever heard of PhotoShop?

Honestly, the whole thing just doesn't make sense to me.

[High Every Body]

And for the question not asked in a while: Where would you rather live, Manhattan or Gaza?

[dbcooper]

I am very puzzled about the Israeli objection to using the term "swine flu". What the hell to dietary restrictions have to do with naming a disease? Are Jews forbidden from acknowledging the existence of swine?
Reminds me of the people in England who wanted to change the three little pigs to avoid offending Muslims.

http://food.theatlantic.com/nutrition/as-israel-ignores-swine-flu-reality.php

Apr 29 2009, 8:15 am by Jeffrey Yoskowitz
As Israel Ignores Swine Flu Reality, Global Risk

As the realities of the spread of influenza from hog to human have come to light, and questions are raised about the integrity of agricultural practices at Smithfield Foods in Mexico and other factory farms throughout the world, the ultra-Orthodox Israeli Deputy Health Minister seems to be foolishly fixated on the fact that Jews should not eat pork.

After two potential cases of swine flu were discovered in Israel, and two Israelis who had just returned from Mexico with flu-like symptoms were quarantined, the Deputy Health Minister, Yakov Litzman, took the next logical step: he renamed the virus. "We will call it Mexican flu. We won't call it swine flu," Litzman declared. He chose to identify the virus with its alleged country of origin instead of pigs because pigs are not religiously permissible to eat, reports the Associated Press.

The fact that swine flu is a respiratory virus and that the consumption of pork is not linked to transmission of the flu is beside the point for the Health Ministry. Pork is a negative Jewish symbol, and no matter the form it takes, whether juicy pork chop or deadly virus, certain ultra-Orthodox leaders don't even want to hear of it in their country.

Litzman's renaming of the new flu virus would just seem out of place and random if it had been in any other country, but in Israel--where pigs are raised on Arab lands and pork shops are firebombed out of certain neighborhoods--pork is highly politicized. Even the word for "pork" in Hebrew, chazir, is so reviled that it goes by many euphemisms: "white meat," "other meat," and "white steak."

Apparently the name for the potentially devastating pandemic that stems from what seems to be a "a nasty mash-up of swine, avian, and human viruses," according to Tom Philpott of Grist, is too offensive to certain religious Israeli ears.

The Health Ministry's re-branding effort is the latest in a religious assault on pork consumption in the Holy Land. The raising and selling of pork was largely outlawed in 1962, though committed secularists and pork-eaters exploited the legal loopholes to indulge in the 'forbidden' flesh. An underground pork economy developed, and as the rift between secular and religious widened in Israeli society over the years, pork consumption slowly grew. Religious leaders in the Knesset in the past thirty years have put forth various bills to outright ban the pork trade, to no avail.

The influx of about one million immigrants from the former Soviet Union during the 1990s boosted the market for pig meat. The pork trade has since boomed. It is still mostly illegal to raise pigs in Israel except in certain Christian Arab zones, though over thirty industrial farms are in operation and new pork restaurants and treyf-selling stores have continued to sprout. The new Israeli pork culture has frustrated many ultra-Orthodox Israelis who ignore the existence of the industrial pig operations and instead choose to contest the shops that sell the white meat, and those who eat of it.

As a result of the government's failure to officially recognize the legitimacy of many of the country's pig farms, industrial hog farming goes highly unregulated. According to a source at one factory farm in the Israel's Negev, the desert swine operation takes its cues from European regulators, complying with stringent regulations out of their farm's particular commitment to quality. Most producers aren't nearly as responsible.

Completely unrelated to eating pork though the flu might be, a swine pandemic by any other name is still porcine in origin. By refusing to recognize the source of the problem and regulate irresponsible farm practices in Israel, future swine viruses could emerge from Israel, and could wind up bearing an Israeli moniker--a much more humiliating prospect.

[Drip, Drip, Drip]

"I am very puzzled about the Israeli objection to using the term "swine flu". What the hell to dietary restrictions have to do with naming a disease? Are Jews forbidden from acknowledging the existence of swine?"

As a vegetarian, I am offended by both swine and bird flu. I propose we go with Kohlrabi in Cream Dill Sauce Flu. It sounds delicious!

[Drip, Drip, Drip]

"and this was a symptom"

Wow! Jay Leno is one kinky MFer.

[Fluffy]

They would have burned those flight hours anyway. It should count as a stupid stunt, not a "waste" of money. They have to train anyway, they just did it in the wrong place in the wrong manner.

I understand what you're trying to say, but if we consent to analyze expenditures in this way, no use of a "standing asset" by government could ever be considered frivolous.

It would mean that if the President ordered the entire military to go into the woods near their bases to find him butterfly specimens, it wouldn't be a waste of resources because "those guys were going to be drawing salaries no matter what they were doing". Or if the attorney general ordered all DOJ lawyers to drop what they were doing and write him research papers on the Code of Justinian, it wouldn't be a waste because even though it's stupid, it's still legal work of a sort.

[John]

They are like kids with their dad's credit card. They are going to borrow until they can't borrow anymore and then tax until the entire economy dies and then tax some more. What the fuck do they care he country goes down in flames, they got theirs.

The economy shrank 6% last quarter and no one seems to care. I am increasingly pessimistic about the future of this country. The public really doesn't seem to care what happens as long as they get the emotional satisfaction of voting for a black man.

[The Angry Optimist]

J sub D - Lions fans don't get to make fun of the Hogettes. Them's fighting words.

[R C Dean]

If I put myself in the place of say, Obama, why should I believe that Specter is ever going to vote with me?

Because he already does about 90% of the time?

On the flyover, why did they need a new photo at all? Don't they already have one of the same plane over New York?

Who else was on the plane? Was this a junket for campaign contributors?

Was this a distraction, intended to chew up a news cycle so something else got backgrounded?

WTF was really going on? It almost certainly isn't what they are telling us. Obama has already flat-out lied about this, when he said "we" found out about it when everyone else did. No fucking way does the absence of one of the two Presidential planes not require the knowledge and cooperation of a big chunk of the White House.

[J sub D]

Re: P Brooks | April 29, 2009, 10:00am

LLOL (Literally LOL).

[J sub D]

They would have burned those flight hours anyway. It should count as a stupid stunt, not a "waste" of money. They have to train anyway, they just did it in the wrong place in the wrong manner.

Retired military here.
I call bullshit.
No offense intended.

[y]

http://www.blacktulip.nl/tulip.html

[? libertarian]

The economy shrank 6% last quarter and no one seems to care.

I used to play Tropico on PC. If your economy shrank from one year to the next, the voice-over advisor would interrupt and basically tell you that you were disturbingly incompetent.

When (oh when!) will that silky Latino voice come booming across the White House PA system?

[John]

It is a common and mistaken assumption in government that, since we are paying people anyway, all labor is free. Bullshit. First, thos F 16s could have used those flight ours to actually train rather than cruising around Manhattan guarding the Obama Flyer.

[iustus]

hey! don't mess with Justinian!
the codex justinianus is in many ways superior to YOUR decadent, bureaucratic empire's ultra-byzantine regulations.

[Mad Max]

'write him research papers on the Code of Justinian'

Hey, what's stupid about that? A bit of legal history might give these DoJ lawyers some perspective - especially since the Justinian Code has influenced many modern laws.

Better than spending time thinking up rationalizations for "enhanced interrogation."

[Mad Max]

(Incidentally, wouldn't it be a *good* thing, from the anti-pork perspective, to associate pigs with a deadly virus? Shouldn't they be *harping* on the pig connection?)

[J sub D]

J sub D - Lions fans don't get to make fun of the Hogettes. Them's fighting words.

Yes. We do get to make fun of the hogettes. While nothing takes the place of making fun of the pussy cats (every season this effin' century below .500), but we make time to mock the Redskins, Steelers, Broncos and, most important of all, the Dallas Brokeback Mountain Cowboys.

[The White House]

Because we can.

What was the question again? Not that it matters.

[P Brooks]

If we could get the Presidential Suit to really, really, really focus his energies on the optimal usage of the White House tennis courts, I think we'd see a prompt and significant benefit in all aspects of American life.

[bigbigslacker]

My guess is the new owners demanded photographic evidence of their new plane and city. The Chinese know a shoped photo when they see one.

[Atanarjuat]

http://www.blacktulip.nl/tulip.html

One of the hosts is named "Onno Tang".

[roy]

bigbigslacker
"My guess is the new owners demanded photographic evidence of their new plane and city. The Chinese know a shoped photo when they see one."

you win

[jsh]

It is a common and mistaken assumption in government that, since we are paying people anyway, all labor is free.

One of my liberal friends makes the same argument about taxes. Since its a given they will exist, you can't say you were specifically forced to pay for any program she favors.

She is, however, forced to pay for things she opposes, which we all know is wrong.

[Fluffy]

Actually, now that the Code of Justinian has been brought up, I was musing the other day on how our society accumulates laws, regulations, and legal precedents, and I started to wonder if one silver lining for societies that were less stable than ours and possessed less institutional memory is that it was possible for those societies to periodically rationalize their legal systems using a straightforward "Gordian knot" method.

One down side of having a civilization that never falls or is never subject to internal convulsion is that nothing ever winnows down your set of laws or serves to slow its rate of growth.

[High Every Body]

I understand what you're trying to say, but if we consent to analyze expenditures in this way, no use of a "standing asset" by government could ever be considered frivolous.

Incorrect.

Stated differently, perhaps I need a club?

IF they added flight hours to the flying hour program then that is extra and, in this case, a waste. Flying skill is perishible and the AIr Force Pilots need to maintain proficiency.

If this was done within the existing flying hour budget then it was not a waste, but it sure was a stupid stunt.

[Bowers v. Hardwick]

"One down side of having a civilization that never falls or is never subject to internal convulsion is that nothing ever winnows down your set of laws or serves to slow its rate of growth."

Oh, I don't know.

[Fluffy]

Incorrect.

Stated differently, perhaps I need a club?

IF they added flight hours to the flying hour program then that is extra and, in this case, a waste. Flying skill is perishible and the AIr Force Pilots need to maintain proficiency.

If this was done within the existing flying hour budget then it was not a waste, but it sure was a stupid stunt.

Right. I understood you the first time. But I don't think you understood my point/question, so I'll restate it:

Is it really your opinion that, since the pilots would have logged flying time anyway, there is no use of that flying time that could be considered a "waste"?

If Obama decided to order every Air Force pilot and naval or marine aviator to do trick flying over the White House for the amusement of his children, would that be a waste of government resources, or would you just say, "Well, they were going to be flying anyway"?

[High Every Body]

Is it really your opinion that, since the pilots would have logged flying time anyway, there is no use of that flying time that could be considered a "waste"?

Apparent your false assertion that you understood me is being used as a "fact".

I did not say ANY flight time, I was talking about the specific type of flying that they were doing.

Must I get out the damn Aircrew Training Manual and show you that straight and level, turns and flying at that altitude are normal training? For the fighters doin an intercept, it is normal training? For the groun controllers, it is normal training?

I already said it was a stupid stunt.

If I applied your "logic" then any flight not involving an attack mission is a "waste".

[The Angry Optimist]

Because he already does about 90% of the time?

Uh, not really. He only has a 20% from NARAL. He got Alito and Roberts through. He's also just about totally against gun control.

[R C Dean]

Interesting, TAO. Now that he has to mollify a Dem constituency and has publicly stated his fealty to the Democratic program on principle, I wonder if his stance on gun control will change.

[oldtimer]

Couldn't they train with the Prez on board ? I learned to drive with my dad in the shot gun seat.

[High Every Body]

Couldn't they train with the Prez on board ?

Certain maneuvers you used to be prohibited from doing with anybody other than the flight crew onboard.

[bigbigslacker]

Isn't it dangerous to have a fighter jet anywhere near Air Force One? What if the pilot is some nut job who believes in the 10th amendment? Or do they screen for that. And how could they? These yahoos vowed "to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." Most enemies are not both "foreign and domestic", but Obama is. If satan didn't have his back, I'd be worried for Obama'ssafety.

[High Every Body]

bbs,

LOL

[High Every Body]

Did you note what our president said in Strasbourg? "I think that it is important for Europe to understand that even though I'm now president and George Bush is no longer president, al-Qaeda is still a threat. We cannot pretend somehow that because Barack Hussein Obama got elected as president, suddenly everything is going to be okay."

Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you very, very much. Thank you ever so much. Gee.

There's an expression I heard some years ago that I like very much: "Get over yourself."

[JW]

Ya think that the governemnt could have found some cybernerd to photoshop it for a grand?

This debacle displays once again how government cavalierly pisses away tax money at every fucking level.

I doubt anyone gets canned over the fiasco.

My office overlooks the Potomac river and the White House helicopters fly up and down the river several times everyday, all day. I don't think the Obamacy is traveling that often and no one in the administration seems all that upset by the cost.

[Tym]

It's a good thing Obama challenge all of his cabinet members to go through their budgets and eliminate any waste. We really needed a newer photo.

True, like they couldn't have just took a photo of Air Force 1, the Statue of Liberty, and Photoshopped them together.

[P Brooks]

I don't think the Obamacy is traveling that often

Diversionary tactics; you fill the air with "Marine Ones" so the terrorists don't know which one to shoot their Stingers at.

duh

[Gilbert Martin]

"? Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Penn.), once thought to be in trouble, expected to cruise to reelection now that he has switched parties."

Which is the one and only reason for his switch.

All his prattling rationalizations about his reasons for switching are just a big load of bullshit.

[CJ]

What was the carbon footprint of that flyover? Aren't we worried about the green gas effect, or is that considered clean energy, not depedent on oil?