Republicans may want to just keep away from open mikes for a while. After a ranking Republican in California was caught describing in disgusting detail sex with a lobbyist, Republican Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio) was caught whispering to a constituent that she agrees that President Obama is not a legitimate president due to his birth.
On the tape, a clearly unhinged supporter is insisting the Obama can’t be a president because of his birth. Schmidt is heard saying “M’aam, m’aam. I agree with you, but the courts don’t.”
It still beats relations with a lobbyist, but Schmidt is in the unenviable position of stating either than she believe Obama is a foreign-born, constitutional pretender or say that she will say anything to constituents.
Kinda off topic but to back up my post
1, September 16, 2009 at 1:45 pm
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE58H17S20090918
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9AP7M1G4&show_article=1
We know the president has now delayed the decision to send more troops to Afghanistan, this after the top military brass requested to send them. The decision was made after Sen Kerry basically said the administration has no plan.
Now a probe has begun into the death of four marines because apparently someone, and I’m not going to speculate who, has changed the rules of engagement. The marines requested mortar fire and were denied. This comes after two more soldiers died over the idiot NY Times reporter.
My point, this issue of whether or not the president is the president needs to be conclusively decided. If not and he makes the decision to send more troops, there will be more cases. A certain number or percentage will not want to go no matter what. This will be their excuse. Look at the answers Rhodes gave Judge Land when he questioned her. The matter needs to be settled.
Professor Paglia at Salon now a birther.
First of all, I reject the idea that the ‘birther’ campaign is motivated by racism. There may be racism among it, but there are legitimate questions about the documentation of Obama’s birth certificate. I’m sorry, I’ve been following this closely from the start. To assume that all those signs about the birth controversy were motivated by racism, that is simply wrong.
Paglia said the fact there was little racism in the campaign against Obama is evidenced by the fact he “was elected by white people.”
Criticism of Obama, instead, is coming because of the “strategic failures he is making in pushing this very important issue of health care reform.”
Unquote
Should be half black.
Thanks for the comment
Mike what is the Hebrew word for lightning? What is the Hebrew word foe heights? Now go read the book of Isaiah. Ironically the only complete scroll of all Dead Sea Scrolls.
“Judge Land should be impeached. The amount of money spent has nothing to do with the allegations presented.”
The answer is as it has always been on this issue. It is the work of a small, but vocal percentage of Americans, that are appalled that a Democrat, much less an African-American, is the President. These people do not believe in our Constitution, but only in their own thirst to keep in power those they support. They are uniformly a dishonorable lot: Liars about military service like Jimmy B., or pretend Black bigots like bdaman. That they call now for the judge’s impeachment and denounce him as a traitor, shows that there is no rational argument to be won. They are bigots, haters and authoritarians. They are the real un-American traitors and I suspect they are far too stupid to even understand their own feckless treason.
Slartibartfast, sorry, but I missed your post yesterday. In general, the Iqbal decision stands for the proposition that in considering a motion to dismiss a complaint, the court is entitled to consider the inherent plausibility of the allegations of fact. The problem is that “plausibility” is a factual determination. The function of the court in ruling on a motion to dismiss is to determine whether the factual allegations, if proven, entitle the plaintiff to relief under some recognized legal theory. In performing this function, a court is supposed to assume that the allegations are true.
We generally regard as implausible that which does not square with our experience. But the implausible occurs every day in real life. We see constant examples of the implausible on this site. Permitting a judge to permit his views of plausibility to inform his decision on a motion to dismiss may enable him or her to reduce a case load, but it also improperly erodes the authority of the trier of fact (either the jury or the judge in a bench trial) to determine facts. In short, I believe the decision represents a further erosion of the function of the jury, a process which has been going on for years and which I believe harms our system of jurisprudence.
I finally figured it out: Orly is obviously the long lost Gabor sister (checkout the eye make-up) and hell bent on her own sitcom stardom. It’s going to be called “Green Advocacy,” and its going to co-star Andy Card as “Oliver.” Harriet Myers plays “Ralph Monroe” the hapless female painter, and of course Karl Rove reprises the role he was meant to play, “Arnold Ziffel.” The “Mr. Haney” role is up for grabs, but I want it to go to Alberto Gonzalez. “Brownie” is “Hank Kimball,” hands down.
Thanks, billy, I needed that: very dryly understated.
I’m signing off for the evening to read my public library copy of Dan Brown’s the Lost Symbol. It is totally unbelievable — he has the Redskins in a playoff game and actually scoring a touchdown.
lol
Hmmmmm, smell that son? Insanity in the morning . . . smells like . . . disbarment. mespo and I were just chuckling about Judge Land’s decision in another thread, but the treason thing is just too much.
This is so much more entertaining than a train wreck.
Vince,would you care to elaborate on this topic?
Orly just keeps on giving.
Taitz now wants Judge Land tried for treason: “somebody should consider trying [the judge] for treason and aiding and abetting this massive fraud known as Barack Hussein Obama.”
Interviewed by Justin Elliott at Josh Marshall’s TMP, she brushed off the possibility of sanctions. “I’m not afraid of sanctions. Because I know this is not frivolous. I know this is extremely important — the most important issue in this country today.”
Justin asked Taitz what she will do next with the Rhodes case, which was filed and tossed out in another district before it was refiled with Land. “This is the decision of Connie,” she said. “I will be talking to her and making a decision.”
And if Rhodes is open to continuing the fight, would Taitz go along?
“Oh absolutely, absolutely,” she said. “Listen, Nelson Mandela stayed in prison for years in order to get to the truth and justice.”
She said “Judge Land is a typical puppet of the regime — just like in the Soviet Union.”
http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/09/birther-orly-taitz-compares-self-to-mandela-judge-treason.php?ref=fpblg
[all the above is taken, mostly verbatim, from the article by Justin at TPM]
Mike A,
Could you briefly summarize the Iqbal decision and why it is bad law for those of us without the fortitude to look it up for ourselves?
BIRTHER,
Dude. Wow. That’s gotta hurt.
Bdaman,
It is patently unrealistic to think that there is anything that President Obama could do that would cause people like BIRTHER to give up their irrational beliefs. And given the fact that all of these cases have been basically laughed out of court, why should he even try?
Vince,
Thank you for posting a reference to this on the “Retired Major General” thread. I would have been very sorry to have missed this. 😉
No, bdaman, it would not stop the legal challenges. Half the birthers would claim that any released long form was a forgery or, if valid, somehow inadequate because of the witnesses or something else. The others would claim Obama need two citizen parents, or was disqualified by his father’s Kenyan citizenship. The Kerchner case would not be dropped, because lawyer Apuzzo is ensorceled by the French writings of de Vattel and believes that Obama cannot be a natural born citizen because of this fathere. Denofrio will never give up on his unfounded theories of dual citizenship.
So nothing is going away. The birthers are hell bent on attacking and destroying Obama, and have said so. Look at the link I again posted to Tonchen’s site.
I need to ask a legal question here. If the President was to release his original long form BC in one of theses cases wouldn’t any other case that came after be immediately thrown out?
There could be no more legal challenges other than a remote dual citizen at birth issue. Would that not satisfy all or most interested parties which happens to be the Divided States of America.
After reading the text of the order, it vindicates everything that has been said on this thread regarding the rules of evidence, requirements for authentication of a document and the burden of proof. The only cause for concern in the opinion is the reference to the Iqbal decision in the court’s review of the allegations in the complaint. Iqbal is bad law and I fear that it will be used frequently in the future to toss out cases having at least facial merit.
WoW, that Judge Land had some pretty strong words. It really does show Taitz has zero court room and legal experience. The problem is, is that regardless of Judge Lands rule, the problem still remains. East Coast, West Coast. I feel for Judge Land, being from Georgia and after Former President Carters made his comments yesterday.
It is amazing to see where all this is headed. The anti-war crowd has now begun to chant, NO MORE TROOPS to Afghanistan. The Iranian Regime has now been linked to blowing up the largest building in the world and Israel is ready at a drops notice. Obama will have to make a decision. If the administration decides to send more troops, you haven’t seen the last one of these cases.
I promised you things were going to heat up and Judge Land used the fire extinguisher. Up next Judge Carter.
Now back to work.
There was also a lot of argument here about the admissibility of the Kenyan “certificate.” Mike Appleton argued that it could not be admitted under the Rules.
BIRTHER thought it should be admitted.
The judge refused to let it in. No “original certificate of authentication from the government agency that supposedly has official custody of the document” was ever produced.
QUOTE
One piece of “evidence” Plaintiff’s counsel relies upon deserves further discussion. Counsel has produced a document that she claims shows the President was born in Kenya, yet she has not authenticated that document. She has produced an affidavit from someone who allegedly obtained the document from a hospital in Mombasa, Kenya by paying “a cash ‘consideration’ to a Kenyan military officer on duty to look the other way, while [he] obtained the copy” of the document. (Smith Decl. ¶ 7,
Sept. 3, 2009.) Counsel has not, however, produced an original certificate of authentication from the government agency that supposedly has official custody of the document. Therefore, the Court finds that the alleged document is unreliable due to counsel’s failure to properly authenticate the document. See Fed. R. Evid. 901. 10 UNQUOTE
Birther, so now Judge Land should be impeached. You’ve got me there. Despite a quick review of applicable law, I have not come across any scholars who include “pointing out the obvious to a lawyer who should know better” in a list of impeachable offenses. Perhaps you could share some of your educated views on that as well.
There was a lot of argument about the burden of proof. Judge Land dadressed this point, and got it right: “Finally, in a remarkable shifting of the traditional legal burden of proof, Plaintiff unashamedly alleges that Defendant has the burden to prove his “natural born” status. (Id. ¶¶ 136-138, 148.) Thus, Plaintiff’s counsel, who champions herself as a defender of liberty and freedom, seeks to use the power of the judiciary to compel a citizen, albeit the President of the United States, to “prove his innocence” to “charges” that are based upon conjecture and speculation. Any middle school civics student would readily recognize the irony of abandoning fundamental principles upon which our Country was founded in order to purportedly “protect and preserve” those very principles.”
The burden was on Rhodes and Taitz.
The “champion of liberty” wanted to use the judicial power to compel a citizen to prove his innocence of charges based on conjecture and speculation.
Why are you still arguing about this?
Birhter-GIVE IT UP, YOU ARE NOT GOING TO PREVAIL.
he is the Pres. and we will find out after he is out of office whether he was born in the US or not. If he was then fine, if not put him in jail along with anyone that was aiding him in this supposed sham.
I just don’t think it is, it would be too big a story and could not be contained. The amount of money that would be available for his “real” birth certificate would be astronomical. You don’t think people have thought about breaking into the HI vital statistics and record keeping to get at it? Why haven’t they? Maybe they have and found the real thing, ever think of that?
Spend your time on something else, this is a waste. Vince has cleaned your clock on this issue.
Regards,
Birther:
1. I have made no comments on the handling of quo warranto proceedings or their evidentiary standards. If you will recall, in the exchange between Ms. Taitz and Judge Land, she expressed puzzlement over the idea that she had the burden of proving the authenticity of her latest forgery. You (and others) have argued that the document she submitted was properly authenticated and that the president somehow became obligated to put on some sort of defense, a truly absurd position for a lawyer to take.
2. I can count. If the dismissal order was entered on July 16th, the deadline for the notice of appeal was September 14th, calculated as follows:
July 17-July 31 15 days
August 1-August 30 31 days
September 1-September 14 14 days
Labor Day doesn’t figure into the calculation for any purpose. The failure to timely file the notice was malpractice.
3. I’m sure Prof. Turley has better things to do than to become involved in a counting dispute.