Saying twice, a court-martial is not “a vehicle to challenge political decisions,” last Thursday an Army judge ran a tank over Lakin’s Birtheristic hopes for connecting the charges against him with President Obama’s birth in Hawaii (or elsewhere, as Lakin wants to believe). Lakin’s defense had asked for Hawaiian officials to be deposed on the matter of the President’s birth certificate, which was denied by the military judge, Army Col. Denise R. Lind, who ruled, essentially, that Presidential ineligibility, even if that were the true case, is not a legal defense against the charges faced by Lakin. In addition to the birth certificate, Lakin’s defense had asked for school records which might include the birth certificate.
What are the charges and of which of them is Lakin guilty?
1-missing movement to Afghanistan
2-disobeying lawful orders
3-dereliction of duty
We know he is guilty of all of them, because he did those things, but also because, even before the video pimped by the GOP hacks at the American Patriot Foundation, on their site Safeguard Our Constitution, he told us, Lakin told us, he would be guilty of doing these things. And American Patriot Foundation saw to it that he told the whole world. At the same time, in press releases issued by American Patriot Foundation, Lakin says: “I am not guilty of these charges, and will plead ‘not guilty’ to them because of my conviction that our commander in chief may be ineligible under the United States Constitution to serve in that highest of all offices.”
Lakin’s case was not this crowd’s first venture into Birfistan. Margaret Hemenway, Executive Director, CEO and Vice President of Public Affairs for the American Patriot Foundation, who is also a contributing editor of Family Security Matters and worked in the Bush administration, was involved in her father-in-law’s failed Birther lawsuit, Hollister v. Soetoro, originally filed in late 2008. John Hemenway is registered agent for the American Patriot Foundation.
Founded in 2003 by former US Senator Bob Smith (R-NH), soon after his Senate term ended, the a 501(c)(3) group’s mission, which seems to change with the prevailing winds, was to support “the families of soldiers lost in war”–a project on which they spent no money, according to reports on GuideStar, except for $1000 in 2004 to American WWII Orphans Network. By then, the group’s purpose had changed to “foster[ing] patriotism and relevance to society.” For 2006, it changed again, retrospectively from 2010, when a three-year tax filing was made, to “interest in and respect for the US Constitution.”
Lakin’s civilian lawyer, Paul Rolf Jensen, is the foundation’s Chairman of the Board, President and General Counsel, with both his law office on the east coast and the foundation office conveniently located at 1101 Thirtieth Street, N.W., Washington DC, in Suite 500, one of those rent-an-address places. In 2003, Jensen was Secretary of the American Patriot Foundation and signed its IRS papers for that year, showing $28,000 in donations; $16,000 was spent on “office space, fundraising and organizational conference.”
After seven years with no IRS filings, on May 7, 2010, Margaret Hemenway, as Treasurer, filed for 2004, 2005, and 2006, showing no donations for those years. In 2006, the American Patriot Foundation transferred its assets, $11,000, leaving a zero balance, to the Everglades Foundation, at a time when Bob Smith was Executive Director there and his wife was Administrator. However, in 2009, Smith was still involved with American Patriot Foundation, starting a sub-entity called Americans for Accountability, which concerned itself with Democrat Tom Daschle’s income tax. Both Hemenway and Jensen had been staffers in Smith’s Senate office. In 2010, the American Patriot Foundation, without Smith, again started collecting donations and introduced, as its new and exciting project, LTC Terrence Lakin.
American Patriot Foundation refers to Jensen this way in their fundraising on Safeguard Our Constitution:
American Patriot Foundation’s Legal Defense Fund will pay for all of LTC Lakin’s attorneys fees and costs, and so we urgently need your tax deductible contribution. A noted civilian California trial lawyer has now been hired to be LTC Lakin’s lead counsel. It is expected these fees and costs will exceed $500,000 and therefore it is essential that LTC Lakin’s supporters come to his aid NOW.
Without mentioning that the “noted civilian California trial lawyer” has this ongoing leadership connection to American Patriot Foundation. An interesting thread on the military justice blog, CAAFLog, about the poor quality of Lakin’s civilian legal representation, has a comment from former JAG defense attorney, Charles Gittins:
I told LtCol Lakin that he was being badly advised when he called me to join his legal team. I gave him my (very) candid advice. I told him to seek opinions from other military justice experts if he was not willing to accept my advice. He is where he is for a reason. I am very sad for him. He has been deluded by a very incompetent attorney, who has done a disservice [to] our profession and military justice.
It appears Lakin shopped this around, then, and he still ended up with a “legal team” of Paul Rolf Jensen, who, with Margaret Hemenway, runs the American Patriot Foundation; and a military lawyer, whose advice Lakin is apparently not following, supplied by the Army. So what do they need a half-million dollars for exactly and why should donations to this legal fund be tax-deductible? It’s at least a curious situation and one I hope somebody more expert in this sort of thing addresses at some point.
Jensen is long associated with GOP Dirty Trickster, Roger Stone, as well.
This is the motley crew Lakin chose for his legal representation. It can only be because of a shared political agenda, since Lakin received a military lawyer gratis. It couldn’t possibly have been for the legal expertise. Jensen’s law practice is in dog bites, seat belt failure, and asbestos cases. While the days when General Washington would have had him shot at sunrise are behind us, on the advice of the American Patriot Foundation, Lakin has forged a straight path to years in prison, professional devastation, burned-over reputation, and a financial loss in salary and pension of something more than a million dollars; unless something radical happens, this is his future. What will happen to the people who led him there? Nothing. They will go on to the next schmuck, the next political op, the next adventure in disrupting a democratically elected government, and call it saving the Constitution.
Well, they make me sick. But Lakin likes them fine and that’s all that matters. He’ll just have to take what comes of it. No pity party for LTC Lakin. Save it for the family of the physician who had to go to Afghanistan in Lakin’s place or the soldier who died when Lakin might have made the difference. Save it for the proud military tradition, in this country, of respect, honor and obedience to civilian leadership, he has disgraced. Save it for the culture of good order and discipline in the armed services he has undermined. He wants to be a martyr to the Birther cause? Hey, schmuck, you’re a martyr!
Retired US Navy Commander, presently a military litigator in private practice, Phil Cave, was a guest on Reality Check blog talk radio and cleared up one confusing point being spread around right wing sites, concerning the judge’s use of the term “embarrassment.” Cave attended the Article 39(a) UCMJ pretrial motions hearing at Ft. Meade in Maryland on Thursday, covering the story for his blog, Court-martial.com.
The military judge DENIED all of the discovery requests and witness requests related to the birth controversy. This was not unexpected. But what was unexpected was the breadth and detail of the rulings, because of the obvious impact on the lawfulness motion. Clearly the findings and rulings anticipated the next motions session. At the end of the military judge’s reading of her findings, Jensen appeared beaten down. He seemed so affected that for some time he failed to stand when talking with the military judge on the record. LTC Lakin remained impassive as always. …
Basically the documents and witnesses are neither (at times she interspersed logically) relevant nor material. … The military judge found that Congress through its power to regulate the armed forces appointed the service secretaries and their service leaders to carry out functions such as order people to deploy, etc. She found there was substantial independent authority in law, regulation, and custom to support the issuance of orders in this situation. She gave passing reference to the de facto officer doctrine and focussed more on the political question doctrine as a justification for denial of discovery and witnesses on the strawman that the presidents status might be relevant in some fashion. …
The defense conceded that with the military judge’s rulings, the orders were otherwise lawful. With that this case is back to the standard case one sees where a Soldier has missed movement and disobeyed orders. …
At this point it seems LTC Lakin will be left to wriggle while his fate is decided in the normal course of business. No doubt there will be some who will try to continue the political aspects of the case but for all intents and purposes LTC Lakin is dead meat. The real question will be sentencing.
As is often the case, the misperception in Birfistan about the judge’s use of the word “embarrassment” in her ruling, stems from reporting on World Net Daily:
Jensen had argued that under U.S.C. Rule 46, a defendant put on court martial has the right to call any and all witnesses and obtain any evidence in his or her defense.
Lind, who took 40 minutes to read her decision to the court, disagreed.
She said opening up such evidence could be an “embarrassment” to the president, and it’s up to Congress to call for impeachment of a sitting president.
As Phil Cave explained on Reality Check, the judge was not talking about embarrassing the President in the sense of shaming him personally, and wasn’t even talking about the President. Rather, as a factor in the Political Question Doctrine, the Judiciary cannot embarrass itself, on one level, by issuing orders it could not enforce, since it is the function of another branch of government, Congress, to impeach a sitting president. Even if she had been talking about embarrassing the President, she would have meant the Executive Branch, because the term is used in the law in relation to other branches of government, not individuals. But in the context, it is Congress, with its specific charge by the Constitution, who would be “embarrassed.”
The Supreme Court has long recognized the principle of “nonjusticiability”: meaning that courts of law should decline to exercise their authority to decide matters where judicial intervention is deemed inappropriate. Based upon the Constitutional principle of separation of powers in the three branches of Government, judicial review of “a political question” is precluded where the Court finds one or more of the following:
a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department; or a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving it; or the impossibility of deciding without an initial policy determination of a kind clearly for nonjudicial discretion; or the impossibility of a court’s undertaking independent resolution without expressing lack of the respect due coordinate branches of government; or an unusual need for unquestioning adherence to a political decision already made; or the potentiality of embarrassment from multifarious pronouncements by various departments on one question.
Sullivan also commented:
It’s not that the evidence that LTC Lakin seeks is relevant but won’t be produced due to the political question doctrine. Rather, under the political question doctrine, it’s inappropriate for a court-martial to opine on the constitutional eligibility of the President. And because a court-martial can’t say the President is ineligible, no amount of evidence regarding the President’s eligibility would be admissible (and, hence, it’s not discoverable) because it couldn’t affect the case’s outcome.
Furthermore, the legal usage of “embarrass” has a different meaning than in common English: to obstruct or hinder or hobble. It’s not the Judiciary’s job, in other words, to get in the way of other branches of government doing their jobs. Legal scholar William R. Long wrote an amusing essay in 2005, in which he explored the use of the word “embarrass” as employed in law:
One of the most embarrassing things about language is when you think you know what a word means but then are repeatedly brought up against a different and unfamiliar usage of the term–a usage which turns out to be better attested than the usage you assumed was the “only one” there was. Well, I will take this out of the stratosphere and come right down to earth. I was embarrassed to learn that the way I used “embarrass” in conversation and writing, though correct, was so limited as to be misleading. …
“Embarrass” is derived from the French, where embarrasser means to “block” or “obstruct.” Thus, the first meaning in the OED, going back to 1683 is “to encumber, hamper, impede (movements, actions, persons moving or acting). “The Character of Ambassador, which would delay or embarrass me with Preparations of Equipage.” Or, from 1734, “Hannibal..ran to the assistance of his troops, who were thus embarrassed.” One might also say, in 19th century form, that the contours of the country would embarrass the enemy to a considerable degree. This doesn’t mean that it would make them feel ashamed of themselves; it suggests, rather that it would set up a road block, an impediment, a hindrance, a difficulty.
In a criminal case in the following term, the Court could say:
“This is a criminal case. The motion to advance is made on behalf of the United States, upon the representation of the Postmaster-General, in substance, that the questions in dispute will embarrass the operations of the government…” (91 US at 558).
Rather than focus on the word embarrassment readers should consider that the military judge was using different words to express the same prong of a political question doctrine analysis. The correct focus, as it was for the military judge, is the phrase, “or the impossibility of a court’s undertaking independent resolution without expressing lack of the respect due coordinate branches of government.” That’s what the military judge said along with an analysis of a number of other factors relevant to her application of the political question doctrine to the issues before her. This was all clearly in the context of her other statements that a court-martial is not a forum to raise and litigate political issues. Whether or not the president has properly served since 20 January 2010 is at this point clearly a matter for political discussion with no place in a military court-room.
Mere earthlings such as we, of course, are not conversant in such arcane legalistic folderol, so the confusion by non-lawyers is understandable, I think. However, you can bet your sweet bippie the myth that the judge in LTC Lakin’s court-martial pre-trial hearing said she didn’t want to embarrass President Obama will be with us until the end of time. Have the false claim emails started yet? I told my sister-in-law I would block her email address, if she sent me a single one more, so I don’t know.
Bearing in mind that Lakin’s crack legal team is calling Birther Alan Keyes as a constitutional law expert for the defense, someone you might think knows something about the Political Question Doctrine, his ignorance of the legal use of the term “embarrassment” is shocking:
She suggests that the evidence might be embarrassing to Obama. Since when is the embarrassment that may attend the discovery that a public official has sworn or acted dishonestly a lawful reason to suppress evidence tending to establish his official malfeasance? Since when does the mere possibility of such official embarrassment justify suppressing the constitutional rights of a person accused of a serious crime and liable, upon conviction, to onerous punishment?
Judge Lind’s words appear at the very least, prejudicial. However, they may also raise the possibility of serious malfeasance on her part. How has she reached the conclusion that the evidence in question may be embarrassing to Obama? Has she privily received communications to that effect? If so, why did she not publicly indicate the source or sources of these communications, so that Lt. Col. Lakin could claim his constitutional right to confront, in a proper hearing, the witnesses against him?
In the unlikely event this case, kept alive at this point (mainly to forestall Dr. Orly Taitz, Esq.’s paying the $20,000 she owes American taxpayers), ever reached the Supreme Court, given Mrs. Justice Thomas’s winger activities of late, would Justice Clarence Thomas recuse himself?
March 13, 2009 – Dr. Orly Taitz, Esq. “flew and drove thousands of miles” to Moscow, Idaho to deliver a suitcase of Birther documents to Supreme Court Justice John Roberts, where he was delivering a speech. She informed him there was “criminal activity going on in the Supreme Court of the United States.” That would be the same Justice Roberts who delivered the Oath of Office (twice) to the POTUS when came “The Day That Would Never Come.”
Chief Justice Roberts, more likely his staff, probably had a good laugh about the crazy peroxide blond in Idaho that time with her suitcase, but nothing ever came of it. Dr. Orly Taitz, Esq. has now submitted directly to Justice Thomas, according to her*, an “APPLICATION FOR EMERGENCY STAY AND/OR INJUNCTION AS TO THE sanctions”–he is justice in charge of the 11th Circuit, so it is certainly proper, unlike accosting a Supreme Court Justice with a suitcase. Nevertheless, I wonder if she is perhaps thinking she might have an ally in Justice Thomas’s wife.
Taitz posted to Virginia Thomas’s website for the mysteriously funded Liberty Central, (which benefited financially from Justice Thomas’s vote in the Supreme Court decision, Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission).
orly taitz
Member
I am a Constitutional attorney and need to talk to a staff member, please call me at 949-683-5411
Posted 5 days ago
Obviously this says nothing about Mrs. Thomas–who earlier in his tenure had given up conservative activism for fear of causing a conflict of interest for her husband–or any Birther proclivities she may or may not have, and there is nothing to say the return call was ever made. While I doubt Justice Thomas would recuse himself over this, it is the lost mind of Orly Taitz we concern ourselves with, and it does point to an improper attempt by an attorney to make indirect contact with the Justice who would be receiving her petition to SCOTUS. Thomas, if he felt any conflict over Taitz’s behavior–say if it turned out his wife or her staff did call Orly Taitz and were foolish enough to discuss this with her–could simply turn the whole thing over to another Justice of the court to handle, just for appearances sake.
This can’t be what Taitz wants, but she seems to be doing her damnedest to make it happen.
Seriously, yesterday she posted to her blog, concerning a videotape in which Thomas is joking around, as he does year after year after year, with Rep. Jose Serrano about the status of Puerto Rico, for crissake:
Justice Clarence Thomas at Congressional committee hearing is stating that the Supreme Court is evading the Eligibility issue.
Posted on | July 8, 2010 | No Comments
Taitz, of course, hasn’t met a judge yet she thinks should not recuse himself. (Serving Elena Kagan with a copy of this POS, in fact, Taitz in her petition then says Kagan should recuse herself, in the event she becomes a Supreme Court Justice.)
In the petition, she lambastes Federal Judge Clay D. Land in Georgia, who dismissed Rhodes v. MacDonald before levying the sanctions, insisting he should have recused himself when she asked him to.
October 13, 2009 – Having threatened sanctions on Dr. Orly Taitz, Esq. of $10,000 for misconduct in Rhodes v. MacDonald in September, Judge Clay D. Land doubled it to $20,000, after she filed to have him recused and the case reconsidered, when she was supposed to respond to a Show Cause Order for the first $10,000.
But Orly was afraid Judge Land might be, horrors, “impartial,” according to this SCOTUS filing:
When there was a clear indication of bias and Taitz requested recusal of Land, it was his duty to avoid impartiality or even appearance of impartiality and recuse himself.
Haha. We can’t have that.
She is really going after Judge Land here, too:
While Taitz appreciates Land’s fondness of Lewis Carroll, it is really important for Land to wake up from his slumber and sweet dreams about Alice in Wonderland and appreciate the fact that US military did not fall in the rabbit hole and is not looking for an adventure, but is currently in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting real Radical Muslim Terrorists, and it is important for the military officers, as well as the whole nation to know if the Commander in Chief is Legitimate, and where does his allegiance lie. While citizens of this country do not expect Caroll’s mathematical abilities to be exhibited on the bench, never the less, they do expect more than the Lilliput deductive reasoning and legal analysis…
She compares the American justice system to that of the Soviets:
Taitz was born and raised in the Communist totalitarian regime of the Soviet Union, where no one single attorney was ever able to get a judgment against the Soviet Rulers and the regime. No Constitutional attorney was able to uphold any Constitutional rights of Soviet citizens, as those rights were routinely violated by the regime and the judiciary. It didn’t mean that the legal actions by the Constitutional attorneys were frivolous. It simply meant that the whole country descended in the darkness of tyranny. Similarly, allowing sanctions by judge Land to stand, will signify beginning of tyranny in the United states of America and end to the Constitutional Republic which is the foundation of this nation. The question is as follows: “If the judiciary can sanction an attorney for bringing an action to uphold a Constitutional right, what is next? Will FEMA camps be turned into the next GULAG? Will we see a wave of political assassinations of dissidents, as were seen in numerous totalitarian regimes around the World, such as regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq or regime of Mahmud Ahmadinejad in Iran?” This is the most dangerous road a judiciary can take. When judiciary is pandering to an illegitimate dictator, who sits in the White House, using a Social Security number of another individual and not having a valid long form birth certificate, the country descends into tyranny.
And imposes more of her personal psychodrama to justify her paper terrorism:
Judge Land has stated that Taitz has resorted to political rhetoric. In reality, as the pleadings and transcripts have shown, Taitz has provided the court with the reasonable examples of members of the military following illegal orders. Taitz has provided the court with the example of three children, members of her husband’s family, who were killed in the Holocaust, when Nazi officers told these three young kids to dig their own graves, shot them and threw them into those graves. Judge Land called those statements “political rhetoric”, even though those were appropriate examples of consequences of members of the military following unlawful orders.
But our Orly is so brave:
If during the career of Thurgood Marshal, he would’ve encountered a judge like Clay D. Land, who would’ve fined him $20,000 for trying to protect the citizens’ constitutional rights, this would have put a stop to the civil right movement of the 50s and the 60s. Attorneys would have been scared, intimidated to represent the citizens who were trying to uphold their constitutional rights and someone like Barack Obama would have no chance of ever being anywhere near the ballot.
When she isn’t crying over Judge Land calling a Birther a Birther:
The decision and order by Judge Land shows clear bias. Judge Land has used a pejorative term “birther”, describing Taitz as the leader of the “birther” movement. It is not only not justified, but totally despicable that a Federal judge would use the technique of Saul Alinsky in trying to insult, assault and marginalize an attorney. Land used his color of authority to attack Taitz personally and, as one fighting for verification of eligibility.
And an eccentric an eccentric:
Land acted in a fashion unbecoming a judge, when he rudely tried to ridicule Taitz and assassinate her character. One of his statements was “perhaps an eccentric citizen has become convinced that the President is an alien from Mars, and the court should order DNA testing to enforce the Constitution.” Clearly there is a huge difference between actions of some eccentric person and attorney like Taitz bringing affidavits from licensed investigators and experts.” Affairs like Water –gate did not go unpunished. Obama-gate will not go unpunished. Land rudely called Taitz effords “antics”. In reality judge Land’s actions were antics. Massive fraud of American citizens perpetrated by Obama will be punished and history will not look kindly on judge Land’s antics and on any other judge who was aiding and abetting Obama’s massive fraud.
If Taitz thinks Judge Land disrespected her, I don’t know what she calls this:
Let’s imagine for a moment that someone, a janitor, decides to play a prank. He puts on a black robe and sits on the bench and signs an order for an officer to be deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, let’s say he signs such order when judge Land is on a bathroom brake. Say, such officer brings a complaint, that the order was illegal. Does it mean, that if the order seems to be legal on it’s face, it is actually legal, regardless of whether the person, who signed it, is actually a judge or a janitor playing a prank? Does an attorney for such officer supposed to be sanctioned $20,000 for merely bringing the claim to court and asking to evaluate it’s validity?
Or this:
Additionally Land assessed costs of litigation against the client. He never revealed, what was the amount of the costs and there is no record of Capt Rhodes ever paying those costs, so it was clear that a deal was made, whereby if Capt Rhodes decides not to pursue the appeal and if she dismisses Taitz as her counsel, costs against Cpt. Rhodes would be waived by Land and/or military. Not only this issue of costs showed bias against Taitz, and reason for disqualification under 28 USC §455 (a), it needs to be investigated by an independent counsel for purpose of Judicial Misconduct by Judge Land and violation of Taitz civil rights under the color of authority by Judge Land.
Accusing a Federal judge of collusion with, not only the Defense, but with her own client–that’s gotta go over well–but the truth is, as Orly Taitz knows as well as anyone, Capt. Rhodes fired her ass, having nothing to do with costs, but for her “reprehensible” and “unprofessional” conduct of the case. If Taitz had her way, then, Connie Rhodes, just returning from her tour in Iraq, would face an investigation brought about by a slander of her committed by her own attorney.
Taitz even threatens SCOTUS itself with felonies:
The fact that Judge Land refused to review any evidence, and attempted to intimidate Taitz with sanctions, assassinate her character and endanger her law license, means that he intentionally used his authority to aid and abet those crimes. If this court does not reverse such sanctions and does not order an independent investigation, this court will be guilty of aiding and abetting all of the felonies committed by Obama. This court will be guilty of misprision of multiple felonies.
Here is a laugh and a half, though, coming from her:
The whole world is looking at the United States in complete bewilderment, not understanding what mental disorder has afflicted US judges and US attorneys and other officials in allowing such insanity to go on for a year and a half now.
And blah, blah, blah, pancakes, for 26-50 pages, depending on format, which Jack Ryan Scribd has been kind enough to post, so nobody has to visit her malware-ridden website* to read it.
She already has the full brief on special!
Full brief with attachments is about 300 pages. We can have it copied, made in a book form, autographed and mailed to you for a minimum donation of a $100 or more. It will help cover our costs and fees and will help Dr. Taitz to continue fighting for your freedoms and for your children’s future.
Heh heh.
# Old Man
July 8th, 2010 @ 10:28 am
Lady Liberty, I want to buy ten copies for the Republican club at my retirement community. I read your blog posts to them every week and they love you. Can you give me a bulk discount?
# dr_taitz@yahoo.com
July 8th, 2010 @ 10:51 am
yes, 10% discount for 10 books
The crux of the matter is she doesn’t want to spring for the $20,000:
Sanctions assessed by Land constitute an irreparable harm to Taitz. Land not only assessed sanctions against Taitz and verbally assaulted and insulted her, but he also submitted his order to the CA bar with the clear intent to undermine her law license and take her livelihood away from her. If sanctions are not stayed and reversed, there will be an irreparable harm to the professional license of Taitz and her ability to earn livelihood.
What livelihood is that? Has she ever had a paying client?
October 4, 2009 – Dr. Orly Taitz, Esq. submits an unauthenticated affidavit in Rhodes v. MacDonald by a Birther who swears he saw AG Eric Holder in a coffee shop in Columbus, Georgia; of course, there to pressure Judge Clay Land, who had never met the man in his life. This was supposed to have happened during a hearing on Cook v. Good, on a day Holder was in Los Angeles promoting the Recovery Act.
The Coffee Shop Affidavit made a fresh appearance on Taitz’s website* this week, shortly before joining the SCOTUS appeal, and she had this to say about it:
2. dr_taitz@yahoo.com
July 7th, 2010 @ 6:41 am
This statement is not brought to show that Holder was definitely there, but there was a possibility, this man provided me with an affidavit, I had to submit it to court. Judge Land already used inappropriate language and remarks, he showed himself to be biased, it was his duty to recuse himself, yet he didn’t.
It was her duty as an attorney and officer of the court to substantiate that charge before frivolously filing the affidavit; that’s what Orly Taitz had to do and didn’t do. Judge Land, who should know, stated that he has never met the AG Holder, so there was no “possibility”; besides, Holder was covered by the media in Los Angeles that day. Why on earth would anyone expect a judge to recuse himself over common Birfer gossip he knows for himself is untrue?
And yet, here is false evidence being filed, again, this time with a petition to SCOTUS. Irreparable harm to the professional license of Orly Taitz? One can only hope the California Bar Association will wake the fuck up one of these days.
It was always clear that Dunn’s prior Florida voter registration did not bar him from running as a Republican in California–clear to anyone but Taitz and Barnett–for the simple reason that he had not voted in two sequential presidential elections in Florida and would have been an inactive voter of no party since 2005. Barnett had received a letter dated May 12 from from the Election Fraud Investigation Unit of the office of the Secretary of State saying so:
You questioned Mr. Dunn’s eligibility to run based on the conditions set forth in Elections Code 8001(a)(2). This section requires a candidate to not have been registered with any party except the one he/she seeks to be nominated from, within the preceding 12 months. The conflicting party evidence you cited was that Mr. Dunn was previously registered as a Democrat in the state of Florida. However, we contacted the office of the Duval County Supervisor of Elections and they reported that Mr. Dunn registered as a Democrat in 1999, but never voted. His Florida registration was subsequently cancelled in June 2005. Therefore, in March 2009, when Mr. Dunn registered as a Republican, he was not currently registered with any state and not affiliated with any party, in compliance with EC 8001(a)(2).
Exhibits concerning the investigation into Dunn’s eligibility can be seen here.
All part of the conspiracy against Orly, this finagling by Democratic state officials following the law, it did not stop Taitz/Barnett from trying to first keep Dunn off the Republican primary ballot altogether and then to stop his votes from being counted.
A footnote to the new Memorandum contained an additional reason, that a political party in another state does not qualify as a political party in a California election:
Moreover, Dunn’s past affiliation with the Florida Democratic Party does not qualify as
affiliation with a “qualified political party” as defined under the California Elections Code. Elections Code § 5100 defines a “qualified political party” as a party that fulfills any of the following conditions related to California elections:
(1) the party polled at least 2 percent of the vote in the last gubernatorial election;
(2) the total number of voters registered with the party on or before the 135th day before the election equals at least 1 percent of the entire vote in the last gubernatorial election; or
(3) the party filed a petition with the Secretary of State, on or before the 135th day before the primary, with signatures of voters equal to 10 percent of the state’s entire vote for the previous gubernatorial election. (Elec. Code § 5100.)
Barnett’s complaint does not present any facts showing that the Florida Democratic Party ever satisfied any of these requirements prior to the June 8, 2010 primary election. Therefore, the Florida Democratic Party is not a “qualified political party” as defined under Elections Code § 8001(b), and Dunn’s past affiliation with that party would not disqualify his candidacy for Secretary of State under any circumstances.
I can see why I would not have known this, or probably you might not have known it, but how on earth does a candidate for the very office charged with carrying out election law not have known it? She put the state through this waste of time and resources and induced chaos in the elections, for what? All for nothing, as usual, except in service to the manic narcissism of Orly Taitz.
–
Clarification: I have referred several times to Pamela Barnett as Orly Taitz’s campaign manager. That was accurate insofar as Barnett had the title of “campaign manager,” but only for Northern California. Taitz more recently has referred to her “campaign manager” as “Scott Hart of Hart political consulting,” who a few months ago received a warning on campaign violations. Hart & Associates is a slate mailing operation that does do political consulting, but the web site hasn’t been updated since 2008, it appears, so poor Orly’s name is not listed as a client.
Chris Mattews’ special “The Rise of the New Right” can be watched here–Orly is a blip.
In spite of all the attacks close to 400,000 people stood up, endorsed me and supported me with their votes. Many of my supporters are telling me that there are millions around the country, who support me and my work. I was always skeptical, however even if you look at yesterdays results and you assume that those are correct and there was no rigging of Diebolt and Sequoia machines and I got only 26% of some 1 million 400 thousand votes in the most liberal state in the nation, in the midst of vicious hounding by the likes of Olbermann, Maddow and Mathews, it is still a lot, being extrapolated to the whole country. It means that I might have 75 million followers nationwide.
Mathematically speaking, of course, she received about 12% of the votes cast for Secretary of State in the California primary, but Orly hallucinating is not exactly news to anyone.
Rep. Mark Kirk’s (R-Il.) false claim that he was named the Navy Intelligence Officer of the Year in the late 1990′s was made at a committee hearing before the YouTube era began, but the long arm of C-SPAN can reach back and bring it up as if it happened yesterday.
What is striking about Rep. Kirk’s assertion in the video is that it appears scripted and thought out, which belies Kirk’s recent defense that the false claim on his website — that was only removed last week after a Washington Post investigation — regarding the award was little more than an administrative oversight.
At the very beginning of Kirk’s testimony, he makes the claim, which he has since confessed is false: “I’ve been in office just one year. Before that I was a Navy Reserve Intelligence Officer–was the Navy’s Intelligence Officer of the Year in 1998,” Kirk said in a March 2002 House committee hearing.
Orly Taitz, the queen bee of the birther movement, sounds distraught. “I’m going through hell,” she says. The California dentist-lawyer had called to tell me about what she says is a campaign to scare her family so that she’ll abandon her quest to become California’s next Secretary of State. She says she’s endured death threats and an attempt to tamper with her car. But this time, she says, her opponents have gone too far. The final straw? An elaborate oil painting of a nude Taitz, legs splayed, giving birth to… a pancake.
First, a little back-story. For two years, Taitz has been demanding that California’s secretary of state request more evidence that President Obama is truly an American-born citizen. In March, she got herself on the ballot to run for the job in the Republican primary. But since declaring her candidacy, Taitz says that Obama supporters have been targeting her children—she has two in high school and one in college—via their Facebook pages with disturbing messages and images of their mother.
Exihibit A, says Taitz, is a series of paintings of her by Dan Lacey, the so-called “pancake painter,” who achieved minor celebrity during the 2008 presidential race for his numerous depictions of a naked, muscular Obama perched atop a unicorn. He’s also painted Sarah Palin, John McCain and Mother Theresa, among other famous figures, with a pile of pancakes atop their heads.
But Taitz doesn’t feel flattered to be in such company. She maintains that the painting titled Orly Taitz, Pancake Birther actually portrays her holding a placenta rather than a pancake. “This is really despicable,” she says, theorizing that one of her many political enemies put Lacey up to the work. But she says she’s more concerned about the effect the paintings are having on her children.
The Republican battle cry that crystallized the growing popularity of offshore drilling has dropped from view since the Deepwater Horizon rig sank last week and the well it drilled started shooting crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
As Democratic opponents of the oil industry stepped up their attacks and demands for a sharp turn away from drilling, Republican leaders in Congress have slipped out of rapid-response mode and are generally holding their tongues.
The National Republican Congressional Committee has issued at least 11 broadsides at Democrats since the rig sank in 5,000 feet of water. Most dealt with financial regulatory reform. None addressed the rig explosion or spill. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) has focused on jobs and health care in the nearly 20 statements he has issued in the past week without a word about the spill or loss of life, though at his on-camera news conference this week, reporters did not ask him about it.
A Nexis search turns up only four mentions of “drill, baby, drill” and Rudy Giuliani or Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who drove the slogan home during the McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. Three are liberal cable hosts mocking the slogan. …
But even as oil began to wash ashore in Louisiana wetlands, Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions for Winning the Future organization continued to solicit signatures for its “Drill here, Drill now, Pay less,” campaign in support of more domestic production in American waters. The slogan is pasted atop the group’s website above a staff-written spill update with a generally optimistic view, though it does note that the spill could damage the Gulf’s seafood industry.
