Brigantine NJ, October 31, 2012; REUTERS/Larry Downing
At the news conference today, Mr. Obama said, “When you see neighbors helping neighbors then you’re reminded what America’s all about. We look out for one another and we don’t leave anybody behind.”
Judge Andrew Guilford, US District Court, Central District of California, sounds like he has had about enough of this vintage Birther v. Birther extravaganza, which traveled to his fair courtroom all the way from Pennsylvania.
The Court is now considering what action it should take so that the limited resources of this Court – and taxpayer dollars – might not be further wasted in this case. Possibilities include a published opinion outlining all the misconduct that has occurred, orders prohibiting certain attorneys from further representation in this matter, and dismissals of claims.
Justice, sometimes it burns.
Courtesy of Bad Fiction.
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Concerning a Hearing on Demurrer – Writ of Mandate for Dummett v. CA Secretary of State Debra Bowen, held on October 26 in the Superior Court of California, County of Sacramento, here is the Minute Order Adopting Tentative Ruling:
The demurrer therefore is sustained without leave to amend. Judgment of dismissal shall be entered in favor of respondents.
The successful demurrer relied on earlier, nearly identical Birther challenges, Noonan v. Bowen and Keyes v. Bowen, both of them also losers. Conclusion: “The Secretary of State has no mandatory duty to make a factual determination as to whether President Obama is eligible to hold or run for office of President of the United States.”
In Dummett, the State argued:
Here, the Court should make the same determination it made in Noonan. Nothing in the latest opposition brief compels a different result. Indeed, in large part the opposition appears to have been “copied and pasted” verbatim from the unsuccessful opposition in Noonan.
Noonan was brought by Pamela Barnett of the Obama Ballot Challenge collection of coconuts, representing herself, because no lawyer would have her. Petitioner Edward C. Noonan was represented by Gary Kreep.
The Dummett challenge was brought by John Dummett, represented by Gary Kreep and his heir apparent, Nathaniel Olesen. Their Opposition was filed on October 12. Olesen advised Dummett following the hearing:
After Gary and I presented our arguments the judge took the matter under submission instead of affirming the tenative. This means that we won the hearing and the case will continue. …
I guess not.
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RC Radio 10-30-2012 with Loren Collins
9 PM EDT/6 PM PDT
Call (347) 324-5546
Atlanta attorney Loren Collins, the author of the new book Bullspotting, and debunker of the movie “Dreams from my Real Father” by Joel Gilbert will be RC’s guest. Please visit Loren’s fine blog Barackryphal to read his series of articles that blows holes through Gilbert’s claims.
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Most Americans have never heard of the National Response Coordination Center, but they’re lucky it exists on days of lethal winds and flood tides. The center is the war room of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, where officials gather to decide where rescuers should go, where drinking water should be shipped, and how to assist hospitals that have to evacuate.
Disaster coordination is one of the most vital functions of “big government,” which is why Mitt Romney wants to eliminate it. At a Republican primary debate last year, Mr. Romney was asked whether emergency management was a function that should be returned to the states. He not only agreed, he went further.
“Absolutely,” he said. “Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that’s the right direction. And if you can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better.” Mr. Romney not only believes that states acting independently can handle the response to a vast East Coast storm better than Washington, but that profit-making companies can do an even better job. He said it was “immoral” for the federal government to do all these things if it means increasing the debt.
It’s an absurd notion, but it’s fully in line with decades of Republican resistance to federal emergency planning. FEMA, created by President Jimmy Carter, was elevated to cabinet rank in the Bill Clinton administration, but was then demoted by President George W. Bush, who neglected it, subsumed it into the Department of Homeland Security, and placed it in the control of political hacks. The disaster of Hurricane Katrina was just waiting to happen.
Photo: Associated Press
EXCLUSIVE: Romney Campaign Training Poll Watchers To Mislead Voters In Wisconsin
Mitt Romney’s campaign has been training poll watchers in Wisconsin with highly misleading — and sometimes downright false — information about voters’ rights.
Documents from a recent Romney poll watcher training obtained by ThinkProgress contain several misleading or untrue claims about the rights of Wisconsin voters. A source passed along the following packet of documents, which was distributed to volunteers at a Romney campaign training in Racine on October 25th. In total, six such trainings were held across the state in the past two weeks.
One blatant falsehood occurs on page 16 of the training packet, which informed poll watchers that any identification cards from a voter “must include a photo”, despite the fact that Wisconsin’s voter ID law has been blocked by multiple state judges for this election.
The training also encouraged volunteers to deceive election workers and the public about who they were associated with. On page 5 of the packet, Romney poll workers were instructed to hide their affiliation with the campaign and told to sign in at the polls as a “concerned citizen” instead. As Kristina Sesek, Romney’s legal counsel who just graduated from Marquette Law School last year, explained, “We’re going to have you sign in this election cycle as a ‘concerned citizen.’ We’re just trying to alleviate some of the animosity of being a Republican observer up front.”
The Defense filed today in the US District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, Jackson Division:
10/29/2012 59 Joint ANSWER to Complaint ( Taitz First Amended Complaint) by Barak Hussein Obama, Obama for America, Nanci Pelosi.(Begley, Samuel) (Entered: 10/29/2012)
In which they said, aside from the word “deny”: “The complaint consists entirely of immaterial, impertinent, and scandalous matter, has been filed for an improper purpose, and should be stricken pursuant to FED.R.CIV.P. 12(f).”
It comes down to this:
WHEREFORE, PREMISES CONSIDERED, President Barack H. Obama, II, Representative Pelosi, Democratic Leader of the United States House of Representatives, and Obama For America respectfully request that their foregoing Answer and Affirmative Defenses to Plaintiffs’ First Amended Complaint be received and they hereby move the Court to dismiss Plaintiffs’ claims, with prejudice, to assess all costs of this action to Plaintiffs, and to grant Defendants all such further relief as is deemed just and proper.
Defendants further respectfully request that this court assess attorney’s fees against Plaintiffs pursuant to the Mississippi Litigation Accountability Act of 1988, FED. R. CIV. P. 11 and/or 28 U.S.C. § 1927, for a wholly frivolous, unreasonable, vexatious and malicious complaint.
THIS the 29th day of October, 2012.
Respectfully submitted,
BARACK H. OBAMA, II
NANCY PELOSI
OBAMA FOR AMERICA
However, an interesting introduction is the charge against Taitz of “unclean hands”:
The clean hands doctrine is a rule of law that someone bringing a lawsuit or motion and asking the court for equitable relief must be innocent of wrongdoing or unfair conduct relating to the subject matter of his/her claim. It is an affirmative defense that the defendant may claim the plaintiff has “unclean hands”. … The defendant must show that plaintiff misled the defendant or has done something wrong regarding the matter under consideration. The wrongful conduct may be of a legal or moral nature, as long as it relates to the matter in issue.
It will be interesting to see what the “unclean hands” involves. I have an immediate suspicion, but no knowledge of the Defense’s thinking. The smearing of reputations of political opposition through exploitation of the courts, maybe. But those are just my wild ass guesses.
When asked about the concept as it relates to Taitz, lawyers at the Fogbow replied:
Raicha: Taitz is not bringing this complaint in good faith. She brings her frivolous complaints purely for political purposes, knowing she has neither standing nor evidence. That’s unclean hands.
TexasFilly: Well, take your pick. There are hundreds of acts by Taitz alone that constitute unclean hands. She is seeking injunctive relief, a remedy that lies in equity. Unclean hands make that remedy unavailable to her (and it’s unavailable for a multitude of other reasons as well).
It all suddenly gets a lot more interesting.
U.S. Set to Sponsor Health Insurance
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration will soon take on a new role as the sponsor of at least two nationwide health insurance plans to be operated under contract with the federal government and offered to consumers in every state.
These multistate plans were included in President Obama’s health care law as a substitute for a pure government-run health insurance program — the public option sought by many liberal Democrats and reviled by Republicans. Supporters of the national plans say they will increase competition in state health insurance markets, many of which are dominated by a handful of companies.
The national plans will compete directly with other private insurers and may have some significant advantages, including a federal seal of approval. Premiums and benefits for the multistate insurance plans will be negotiated by the United States Office of Personnel Management, the agency that arranges health benefits for federal employees.
Walton J. Francis, the author of a consumer guide to health plans for federal employees, said the personnel agency had been “extraordinarily successful” in managing that program, which has more than 200 health plans, including about 20 offered nationwide. The personnel agency has earned high marks for its ability to secure good terms for federal workers through negotiation rather than heavy-handed regulation of insurers.
John J. O’Brien, the director of health care and insurance at the agency, said the new plans would be offered to individuals and small employers through the insurance exchanges being set up in every state under the 2010 health care law.