Orly Taitz, the lawyer and de facto leader of the “Birther” litigation, has filed a motion to withdraw from further representation of Dr. Connie Rhodes after Rhodes accused her of filing new papers in Rhodes v. MacDonald without her approval and after she agreed to be deployed by the military. Taitz is also facing a possible $10,000 fine from United States District Court Judge Clay D. Land, who previously dismissed the action. Taitz declared in one filing: “This case is now a quasi-criminal prosecution of the undersigned attorney.” She is already facing a California bar complaint and Rhodes is promising to file a new complaint against her for her “reprehensible” representation.
The latest development in this unraveling case began when Rhodes learned that Taitz had filed a motion to stay deployment after she had decided to forego further litigation. She then proceeded to fire Taitz by sending a remarkable letter from Office Max on the advice of “Tim who works in the District Clerk’s office.” She stated in the fax:
September 18th, 2009
To the Honorable Judge Land:
Currently, I am shipping out to Iraq for my deployment. I became aware on last night’s local news that a Motion to Stay my deployment had been entered on my behalf. I did not authorize this motion to be filed. I thank you for hearing my case and respect the ruling given on September 16th, 2009. It is evident that the original filing for the TRO and such was full of political conjecture which was not my interest. I had no intention of refusing orders nor will I. I simply wanted to verify the lawfulness of my orders. I am honored to serve my country and thank you for doing the same.
With that I said, please withdraw the Motion to Stay that Ms. Taitz filed this past Thursday. I did not authorize it and do not wish to proceed. Ms. Taitz never requested my permission nor did I give it. I would not have been aware of this if I did not see it on the late news on Thursday night before going to board my plane to Iraq on Friday, September 18, 2009.
Furthermore, I do not wish for Ms. Taitz to file any future motion or represent me in any way in this court. It is my plan to file a complaint with the California State Bar to her reprehensible and unprofessional actions.
I am faxing this as was advised by Tim, who works in the District Clerk’s office. I will mail the original copy of this letter once I have arrived in Iraq.
Respectfully,
CPT Connie M. Rhodes, MD
I am a bit curious that all of this case appears to have been a surprise to Rhodes despite endless coverage in the papers and cable shows. It is curious that she never acted to sever representation before this time.
In her Motion for Leave to Withdrawal as Counsel, Taitz suggests that her client is lying to the Court.
She states that she not only has a (rather obvious) conflict with her former client but may present evidence that is embarrassing to her:
The undersigned attorney comes before this Court to respectfully ask for leave to withdraw as counsel for the Plaintiff Captain Connie Rhodes. The immediate need for this withdrawal is the filing of two documents of September 18, 2009, one by the Court, Document 17, and one apparently by Plaintiff Connie Rhodes, which together have the effect of creating a serious conflict of interest between Plaintiff and her counsel. In order to defend herself, the undersigned counsel will have to contest and potentially appeal any sanctions order in her own name alone, separately from the Plaintiff, by offering and divulging what would normally constitute inadmissible and privileged attorney-client communications, and take a position contrary to her client’s most recently stated position in this litigation. The undersigned attorney will also offer evidence and call witnesses whose testimony will be adverse to her (former) client’s most recently stated position in this case. A copy of this Motion was served five days ago on the undersigned’s former client, Captain Connie Rhodes, prior to filing this with the Court and the undersigned acknowledges her client’s ability to object to this motion, despite her previously stated disaffection for the attorney-client
relationship existing between them. This Motion to Withdraw as Counsel will in no way delay the proceedings, in that the Plaintiff has separately indicated that she no longer wishes to continue to contest any issue in this case. In essence, this case is now a quasi-criminal prosecution of the undersigned attorney, for the purpose of punishment, and the Court should recognize and acknowledge the essential ethical importance of releasing this counsel from her obligations of confidentiality and loyalty under these extraordinary circumstances.Respectfully submitted,
By:_________________________
Orly Taitz, DDS, Esq.
California Bar ID No. 223433
FOR THE PLAINTIFF
Captain Connie Rhodes, M.D. F.S.
SATURDAY, September 26, 2009
“Quasi-criminal prosecution”? The judge had ordered Taitz to “show cause” why a sanction should not be imposed in the case. He had previously told Taitz that he would consider sanctions if she filed similar claims in the future. After the denial of the Motion to Stay deployment, Land said that the latest filing was “deja vu all over again” including “her political diatribe.” He notes:
Instead of seriously addressing the substance of the Court’s order, counsel repeats her political diatribe against the President, complains that she did not have time to address dismissal of the action (although she sought expedited consideration), accuses the undersigned of treason, and maintains that “the United States District Courts in the 11th Circuit are subject to political pressure, external control, and . . . subservience to the same illegitimate chain of command which Plaintiff has previously protested.”
Then the kicker:
The Court finds Plaintiff’s Motion for Stay of Deployment (Doc. 15) to be frivolous. Therefore, it is denied. The Court notifies Plaintiff’s counsel, Orly Taitz, that it is contemplating a monetary penalty of $10,000.00 to be imposed upon her, as a sanction for her misconduct. Ms. Taitz shall file her response within fourteen days of today’s order showing why this sanction should not be imposed.
I am frankly not convinced that sanctions would be appropriate for filing for a motion to stay deployment per se. At the time of his order, Land did not presumably know that the filing was made against the wishes of the client. If Rhodes was interested in appealing Land’s decision, which is her right, a stay is a standard request. However, the fact that the filing may have been made after Taitz was terminated as counsel and after she was told that Rhodes was abandoning the case is more cause for possible sanctions. Moreover, the low quality and over-heated rhetoric of the filing can support such sanctions. Her filings appear more visceral than legal. In demanding reconsideration of the Court’s earlier order, she used language that does cross the line:
This Court has threatened the undersigned counsel with sanctions for advocating that a legally conscious, procedurally sophisticated, and constitutionally aware army officers corps is the best protection against the encroachment of anti-democratic, authoritarian, neo-Fascistic or Palaeo-Communistic dictatorship in this country, without pointing to any specific language, facts, or allegations of fact in the Complaint or TRO as frivolous. Rule 11 demands more of the Court than use of its provisions as a means of suppressing the First Amendment Right to Petition regarding questions of truly historical, in fact epic and epochal, importance in the history of this nation.
She also (as noted by Land in his later order) essentially accused Land of treason, as she has in public statements:
Plaintiff submits that to advocate a breach of constitutional oaths to uphold the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, is in fact a very practical form of “adhering” to those enemies, foreign and domestic, and thus is tantamount to treason, as Defined in Article III, Section 3, even when pronounced in Court. The People of the United States deserve better service and loyalty from the most powerful, and only life-tenured, officers of their government.
Taitz is also facing a California Bar complaint, here. Ohio lawyer (and inactive California bar member) Subodh Chandra wrote the bar, stating “I respectfully request that you investigate Ms. Taitz’s conduct and impose an appropriate sanction. She is an embarrassment to the profession.” For that complaint, click here.
A complaint by a former client would likely attract more attention by the Bar. These are now serious allegations including misrepresentation, false statements to the Court, and other claims that will have to be addressed by a Bar investigation. This could take years to resolve — perhaps just in time for Obama’s second inauguration.
The only charlatan here is you, bdatroll.
Or haven’t you read that memo yet? What’s the matter? Don’t want yet another thrashing about being as credible as a steamy pile while the boss is watching?
You simply avoid the topic and copy paste more drivel about how oil is not that bad guys. Weak.
So how much does one get paid for selling out credibility without so much as whimper? I certainly hope you are a paid professional troll and not just an amateur. Be a shame if you made yourself a clown and had nothing to show for it but the red nose and big shoes.
I’ll be back, on my lunch break, only got 30 minutes. My boss has been looking over my shoulder all morning.
yes drill sargent
cus you told me to drill sargent
Buddha/Gyges/Slarti:
Whenever I have taken random data for a report, say strut deflection for a support of excavation project, I don’t add or deduct numbers to massage the data. Although this is not rocket science and I am reporting actual data from monitoring using electronic strain gages.
If I have one strain gage reading that does not seem in line with analysis I would check into why that number was not in line with the others and the predicted axial shortening of the strut. I would not make the data fit, I would leave it on my graph with a note that tried to explain the anomaly. Once I had done an analysis of the data, I may decide to discard that data point or I might normalize it to some sort of mean. But it would be explicit as to what I did and why I did the correction.
The whole thing seems fishy to me at this point, not saying it smells yet but . . .
Even liberal members of parliment in Australia know the gig is up.
ABC news reports that five frontbenchers from Australia’s opposition Liberal party have resigned their portfolios rather than follow their leader Malcolm Turnbull in voting with Kevin Rudd’s Government on a new Emissions Trading Scheme.
The Liberal Party is in turmoil with the resignations of five frontbenchers from their portfolios this afternoon in protest against the emissions trading scheme.
Tony Abbott, Sophie Mirabella, Tony Smith and Senators Nick Minchin and Eric Abetz have all quit their portfolios because they cannot vote for the legislation.
Senate whip Stephen Parry has also relinquished his position.
UN scientists turn on each other: UN Scientist Declares Climategate colleagues Mann, Jones and Rahmstorf ‘should be barred from the IPCC process’ — They are ‘not credible any more’
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/4100/UN-scientists-turn-on-each-other-UN-Scientist-Declares-Climategate-colleagues-Mann-Jones-and-Rahmstorf-should-be-barred-from-the-IPCC-process–They-are-not-credible-any-more
Al Gore’s new book had a problem – no big hurricanes since Katrina to put in the book to look “threatening” to the USA. Any imagined link between hurricanes and global warming has evaporated.
Solution: the artists airbrush.
Ryan Maue, hurricane expert from Florida State University writes:
Anthony,
Not a lot of hurricanes here
The cover opens and closes half and half — so you only see one hurricane…as in the press release photo or the one on Amazon.
But this is the real picture sequence from the book which I looked at Borders today and took cell-phone pictures, original (before the retouching by some “artist”) Note all of the Arctic ice and the size of the Florida Peninsula…
and the final product:
Now with 4 scary hurricanes – hey where’s the ice?
WUWT?
A midget Southern Hemisphere cyclone is off the coast of Florida, another hurricane is sitting on the equator off the coast of Peru — and the Arctic Ice is gone (perhaps it is summer) and the Florida Peninsula is half gone
There are other differences I am sure you can find — but the hurricanes are just nonsense…
Ryan
Here’s the book cover:
Nonsense? No more like scaremongering, especially when it has been shown time and again that there is no hurricane to global warming linkage, and we are at a 30 year low.
Mr. Gore, you are a charlatan.
This May Be the Nail in the Coffin to Global Warming Junk Science—
Renowned statistician and software engineer Eric S. Raymond (ESR) says the global warming “hockey stick” graph data was “hard-coded” or purposefully “fudged.”
Dr. Michael Mann, who co-authored the famous graph of temperature trends dubbed the “hockey stick graph,” was implicated in Climategate this week. Mann’s controversial work has been challenged in the past.
Today, Reboot Congress reported this stunning news- that the “hockey stick” was fudged.
On his blog Eric Raymond (ESR) comments:
krygny Says: Wait just a second. Explain this to me like I’m 12. They didn’t even bother to fudge the data? They hard-coded a hockey stick carrier right into the program?!!
ESR says: Yes. Yes, that’s exactly what they did… Of course, they now claim that crucial primary datasets were “accidentally” deleted… After reading some of the emails about evading FOIA2000 requests… accidentally, my ass.
Byron if you don’t have Climatedepot.com in your favorites you need to. Climategate started off as a walk and is in full sprint mode. This looks to be more now that a whistleblower released the info than a hacker. BBC had the info for a full 30 days and did nothing.
Remember it’s not Warming Globe anymore it’s Climate Change. Why? cause the Globe hasn’t Warmed since 1998 which is proof that the Climate Changed.
http://www.ems.psu.edu/sites/default/files/u5/Mann_Public_Statement.pdf
University Reviewing Recent Reports on Climate Information
Professor Michael Mann is a highly regarded member of the Penn State faculty conducting research on climate change. Professor Mann’s research papers have been published in well respected peer-reviewed scientific journals.
In November 2005, Representative Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) requested that the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) convene a panel of independent experts to investigate Professor Mann’s seminal 1999 reconstruction of the global surface temperature over the past 1,000 years. The resulting 2006 report of the NAS panel (http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11676) concluded that Mann’s results were sound and has been subsequently supported by an array of evidence that includes additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions.
In recent days a lengthy file of emails has been made public. Some of the questions raised through those emails may have been addressed already by the NAS investigation but others may not have been considered. The University is looking into this matter further, following a well defined policy used in such cases. No public discussion of the matter will occur while the University is reviewing the concerns that have been raised.
Reduced to drive by trollery.
Now that’s funny. What’s the matter? Boss looking over your shoulder today?
Byron we don’t need smoking guns just the facts.
Stephanopoulos: ClimateGate Complicates Copenhagen for Obama
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/11/29/week-discusses-climategate-obamas-copenhagen-trip
GEORGE WILL: It raises the question of — we’re being asked to wager trillions of dollars and substantially curtail freedom on climate models that are imperfect and unproven. And the consensus far from being as solid as they say it is, and the debate as over as they say it is, the e-mails indicate people are very nervous about suppressing criticism, gaming the peer review process for scholarly works and all the rest. One of the e-mails said it is a travesty, his word, it is a travesty that we cannot explain the fact that global warming has stopped. Well, they shouldn’t be embarrassed about that. It’s a complicated business, and that’s why we shouldn’t wager these trillions.
Mike S,
Okay, you’ve convinced me that you are correct in how to deal with racists and bigots. I still find ad hominem distasteful, but your arguments (and Buddha’s) show that it is sometimes pertinent and necessary to reasonable debate to address a person’s character and previous actions. Well argued, sir.
Byron,
I second what Buddha said about massaging data and fraud. I would also like to add that the reference to the ‘Nature trick’ is referring to one of the most respected scientific journal and the term ‘trick’ in this sense almost certainly refers to a data analysis technique rather than fraud.
Byron,
This might help, the issue you’re talking about is addressed in the 7th paragraph, but the whole thing’s worth the read:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack/
And what Mike said.
Byron,
Quite simply as an engineer, you should have a better understand of statistics to consider THAT a smoking gun. Seriously. There is a line between massaging data and fraud. It’s not that I approve of massaging data either when its purpose is to obscure accuracy, but you know as well as I do that some problems are not solved until you model them in different ways. That is the nature of science. Poor wording? Oh yeah. Smoking gun? Not even.
Buddha expounded clearly and eloquently on ad hominem but I would like to add a comment. We see on the TV “News” shows Karl Rove and Pat Buchanan called upon as commentators on the President, Health Care and other issues of the day. The “journalists” interviewing them, or putting them on “discussion panels” make little reference to their past history and current loyalties and so what they say is viewed as equivalent to others who are perhaps less biased. The same is true when there are “experts” presented for the Heritage Foundation, AEI, or some of the foreign policy institutes that abound in D.C.’s “Village.” These people are presented as “credible” and their commentary is treated as if unbiased.
In dealing with the positions stated by people such as this it is my personal belief that ad hominem attacks are not only reasonable but necessary. My reason is that without understanding an individual’s biases, simply dealing with the position, someone countering the argument is at a loss strategically. This is because the tactic with all of these people lately is to make statements rife with wording and suppositions that are flawed, yet to counter their argument one would have to literally parse every word and phrase used in those suppositions. A person doing so appears to be a “nitpicker” and yet if they don’t the false wording and premises take on the appearance of fact.
This has occured recently when David Broder, the purported “Dean of Washington Correspondents” wrote a column criticizing President Obama’s taking time to judge what to do in Afghanistan. His position was the President should make an immediate decision, whether or not it was the correct one. This became accepted wisdom within the D.C. “Village” and thus the media, reinforcing Dick Cheney’s contention that the President was “dithering.” Since Broder has a long history of making such “pronouncements,” to me it seems perfectly reasonable to attack his credibility by pointing out his long history of being wrong and then to go further and attack his personal credibility as a pundit.
Bringing this argument back to this venue, if someone in their writing has exposed themselves as a bigot, made false statements/claims, repesents a knee jerk viewpoint meeting all the qualifications of a troll, how do we seriously engage with them? As I’ve stated before my personal belief is that it is reasonable to go for the jugular without common courtesy. Some others may see it differently.
IPCC AR4 Report:
http://nativeborncitizen.wordpress.com/2009/11/29/copenhagen-an-ugly-picture-of-truth/
Climate email update:
here is one that looks rather like a smoking gun:
“I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”
Phil Jones
I will assume that hide the decline means hide the decline in temperature.
If someone else has any analysis I am all eyes.
Let shine a light on that timely definition.
Ad Hominem is indeed an impeachment attack and generally not polite. Tactically speaking, it’s usually a bottom of the drawer tool. There is an exception.
The defense being that attacks against character are permitted if they are both truthful and relevant to veracity of your opponents assertions. This assumes that truth is your goal and not simply victory at any cost for your side of choice. When evidenced by past and current acts, destroying the credibility of the speaker is perfectly acceptable since the object opened the door to the characterization of his past and previous acts. In this case by explicit bigotry and being a confessed troll with all the attached baggage. His actions opened to door to the charges. bdaman’s words and actions damn his credibility. Nothing else. Like I’ve said before, I’m just drawing arrows with a highlighter.
It’s not a personal attack if what you are describing is bias and unreliability of a declarent that is based on documented behavior. In that context, it’s not an error. It’s factual. It’s error correction, not error creation. Ad hominem attacks are like most logical tools – they have more than one function. If it’s a lie being used solely to smear, that’s another matter. That’s seeking to manipulate the system and obscure truth. To be clear, bdaman is both a bigot by his express actions and a troll by express admission. For these reasons, he should not be taken as credible. If he didn’t want people saying, “Don’t listen to that monkey, he flings poo” then he shouldn’t have been throwing poo.
There is a difference between accurate, provocatively predjudical and “my feelings are hurt”. If Reinhardt Heydrich was trying to espouse how his views benefit all when all the evidence pointed to him being the engineer of genocide, it’s perfectly acceptable to point out his employment record with the Third Reich. Because it happened. I’m sure he might have had his feelings hurt if you called him a monster. Is it prejudicial? No, it’s relevant to the speakers veracity in re his extraordinary claims. Doesn’t mean it’s not a personal attack but it is true and relevant. True is not always convenient. But it is true.
The same goes for bdaman. He’s a proven what he is himself. If it’s ugly and used against him, he has no one to thank but bdaman – or his masters in case he’s just swallowed too much raw powdered kool-aid.
Just to be clear.
Description of Ad Hominem
Translated from Latin to English, “Ad Hominem” means “against the man” or “against the person.”
An Ad Hominem is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument. Typically, this fallacy involves two steps. First, an attack against the character of person making the claim, her circumstances, or her actions is made (or the character, circumstances, or actions of the person reporting the claim). Second, this attack is taken to be evidence against the claim or argument the person in question is making (or presenting). This type of “argument” has the following form:
Person A makes claim X.
Person B makes an attack on person A.
Therefore A’s claim is false.
The reason why an Ad Hominem (of any kind) is a fallacy is that the character, circumstances, or actions of a person do not (in most cases) have a bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim being made (or the quality of the argument being made).
Example of Ad Hominem
Bill: “I believe that abortion is morally wrong.”
Dave: “Of course you would say that, you’re a priest.”
Bill: “What about the arguments I gave to support my position?”
Dave: “Those don’t count. Like I said, you’re a priest, so you have to say that abortion is wrong. Further, you are just a lackey to the Pope, so I can’t believe what you say.”
yes drill sargent
cus you told me to drill sargent