Orly Taitz has gotten her hand slapped by the latest judge to have to deal with one of her frivolous and poorly written lawsuits. This time the judge didn’t just dismiss the case, he actually filed an opinion^†. The case and all its claims were dismissed, of course, but additionally the plaintiff is required to pay defense expenses, and Orly Taits has been warned that filing another lawsuit in that court will lead to sanctions. I am reading the opinion now, and there are some tasty bits worth sharing. For those of you wanting just the very best bits, those are in bold.

The Court observes that the President defeated seven opponents in a grueling campaign for his party’s nomination that lasted more than eighteen months and cost those opponents well over $300 million. Then the President faced a formidable opponent in the general election who received $84 million to conduct his general election campaign against the President. It would appear that ample opportunity existed for discovery of evidence that would support any contention that the President was not eligible for the office he sought.

Plaintiff’s challenge to her deployment order is frivolous. She has presented no credible evidence and has made no reliable factual allegations to support her unsubstantiated, conclusory allegations and conjecture that President Obama is ineligible to serve as President of the United States. Instead, she uses her Complaint as a platform for spouting political rhetoric, such as her claims that the President is “an illegal usurper, an unlawful pretender, [and] an unqualified imposter.” She continues with bare, conclusory allegations that the President is “an alien, possibly even an unnaturalized or even an unadmitted illegal alien . . . without so much as lawful residency in the United States.” Then, implying that the President is either a wandering nomad or a prolific identity fraud crook, she alleges that the President “might have used as many as 149 addresses and 39 social security numbers prior to assuming the office of President.”

Plaintiff alleges that the document [Obama's Hawaiian birth certificate] “cannot be verified as genuine, and should be presumed fraudulent.” In further support of her claim, Plaintiff relies upon “the general opinion in the rest of the world” that “Barack Hussein Obama has, in essence, slipped through the guardrails to become President.” Moreover, as though the “general opinion in the rest of the world” were not enough, Plaintiff alleges in her Complaint that according to an “AOL poll 85% of Americans believe that Obama was not vetted, needs to be vetted and his vital records need to be produced.”

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. 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.

Plaintiff’s complaint is not plausible on its face. To the extent that it alleges any “facts,” the Complaint does not connect those facts to any actual violation of Plaintiff’s individual constitutional rights. Unlike in Alice in Wonderland, simply saying something is so does not make it so.

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. 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.

Plaintiff has demonstrated no likelihood of success on the merits. Her claims are based on sheer conjecture and speculation. She alleges no factual basis for her “hunch” or “feeling” or subjective belief that the President was not born in the United States.

A spurious claim questioning the President’s constitutional legitimacy may be protected by the First Amendment, but a Court’s placement of its imprimatur upon a claim that is so lacking in factual support that it is frivolous would undoubtedly disserve the public interest.

This won’t stop Orly (or any of the other Birthers out there filing lawsuits). She’ll have a new Kenyan birth certificate in about a month or so, and a new client to represent who is just as crazy as she is. Judges are starting to get thoroughly annoyed by her taking up space on dockets though, and I can’t imagine it will be too long before she faces some consequences of some sort.

Anyway, I found it entertaining, and I thought I’d pass on some of the tastier pieces I particularly enjoyed chewing on.

1. † PDF file of judges dismissal to be found here. [↩]

Having now read the full text of Obama’s speech for school kids, I feel sorry for any kid who doesn’t get to hear or see it … and as I suspected, all the crying and hand-wringing about socialist brainwashing I’ve been seeing on the TV is, in fact, delusional. Not that I ever thought it wasn’t delusional, insane, and stupid. Yes … stupid.

Of course, this doesn’t mean there won’t still be hand-wringing and crying on TV about the President of the United States trying to brainwash children with his socialist agenda, parents refusing to allow their children to see or read the speech, or bloggers around the country twisting this speech into something it isn’t. These things will still be going on, because some kinds of crazy have no cure.

Behind the cut, the full text saved for posterity.
Continue reading →

I have way too many tabs open in my browser, and I am never going to get to rant about them all, so it must be time for a link dump!

A whole lot of people in Austin have been griping about the new water restrictions, and one of their big talking points –aside from the fact that a brown lawn is lowering their property values– is “When they stop watering the golf courses, I’ll abide by the law myself!” Elsewhere in the world, that argument might make sense, but here in Austin almost all the golf courses water with reclaimed gray water and therefore are allowed to water when they like. Those that don’t use gray water have to abide by the rules, and the difference is actually obvious. I already knew this, which is why you don’t hear me griping about the golf courses watering whenever they please, but apparently very few people who love to have green lawns (and likely golf, seeing as they are aware golf courses are watering all the time) don’t seem to be aware of the truth of the situation. Interesting to note that no one has commented on that particular news story. Maybe they have been shamed into silence.

Did you know that 60% of the people on this planet are lactose intolerant and can’t digest milk? I certainly can. I’d die without my dairy products.

Thank you all, and welcome to the White House, and thank you for coming. I want to congratulate all of you from John A. Holmes High School in Edenton, North Carolina, on your great achievements this year and on your upcoming graduation. And a special greeting to Rob Boyce, the principal of this fine school.

As you know, my remarks are being broadcast live over radio and television to high school students throughout the country. While I was in Tokyo at the economic summit, I found myself thinking about all of you, and I decided that when I got back it’d be good to report to you — share some thoughts that I’ve been having about the future.

Even Ronald Reagan sent an evil “indoctrinating” broadcast into America’s schools! Yes, it was apparently such a non-event it took me this long to find anything about it online.

A fire chief in a tiny Arkansas town gets shot in a courtroom over a speeding ticket. I can’t write storylines this good.

That thinned out the tabs a little. Maybe I’ll get to more of them after I run to the grocery store for weekend supplies.

1991: President George H. W. Bush speaks to the school children of America about the value of getting an education and staying in school, and it was mostly seen as good.

2009: President Obama plans to speak to the school children of America about the value of getting an education and staying in school, and it’s …

“As the father of four children, I am absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama’s socialist ideology. The idea that school children across our nation will be forced to watch the President justify his plans for government-run health care, banks, and automobile companies, increasing taxes on those who create jobs, and racking up more debt than any other President, is not only infuriating, but goes against beliefs of the majority of Americans, while bypassing American parents through an invasive abuse of power.

“While I support educating our children to respect both the office of the American President and the value of community service, I do not support using our children as tools to spread liberal propaganda. The address scheduled for September 8, 2009, does not allow for healthy debate on the President’s agenda, but rather obligates the youngest children in our public school system to agree with our President’s initiatives or be ostracized by their teachers and classmates.

“Public schools can’t teach children to speak out in support of the sanctity of human life or traditional marriage. President Obama and the Democrats wouldn’t dream of allowing prayer in school. Christmas Parties are now Holiday Parties. But, the Democrats have no problem going against the majority of American people and usurping the rights of parents by sending Pied Piper Obama into the American classroom.

The Democrats have clearly lost the battle to maintain control of the message this summer, so now that school is back in session, President Obama has turned to American’s children to spread his liberal lies, indoctrinating American’s youngest children before they have a chance to decide for themselves.”

–Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer, 9/1/09

The introduction to this screed on their web site is priceless:

Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer today released the following statement condemning President Obama’s use of taxpayer dollars to indoctrinate America’s children to his socialist agenda.

First off, drop it with the “socialism” already. If the Republicans truly believe Obama is a socialist, they need to get out into the world a little more and meet some actual socialists. Obama is not a socialist.

Secondly, it usually takes a little more than a single 15-20 speech near lunchtime to indoctrinate anyone, let alone 8th graders who will likely not be paying any more attention than necessary to get through any discussion the teacher has planned afterward … if they pay that much attention to it.

Finally, Obama is the duly elected President of the United States. He won the election, and I’d have to guess that many parents of school-aged children voted for him. It’s not like a small, armed band of Democrats stormed the White House and took the office by force during a coup d’état. He won the majority of votes, so in the end, it doesn’t matter if he was a socialist, he gets to talk to war veterans, school children, and anyone he really wants to talk to. It’s not like anyone is being forced to watch or listen to anything he says, not even at the schools.

Sadly, there are a lot of ignorant parents out there outraged that the President of the United States would dare to speak to their child in a short speech during school hours, so they are keeping their kids home from school that day.

UPDATE: Here’s a link to a nice collection of outrage about Obama’s planned speech.

Is there anyone in the Republican Party anymore who isn’t insane?

Chest bumps. High fives. Hugs and handshakes. Glen Cove Middle School students Ali Slaughter and Hannah Seltzer say that’s what friends do on the first day of school. But when students in the Nassau community return to school next week, the superintendent will be urging abstinence. Everyone from the tiniest tots to the biggest high school football players will be asked to limit skin-on-skin contact in an attempt to prevent the spread of swine flu when it re-emerges this fall.

Glen Cove isn’t the only school deciding the best way to limit the spread of flu is by keeping students from touching each other. It just happens to be the most recent example I’ve run across. It’s a completely silly plan, of course, because someone is just as likely –if not more so– to catch the flu by touching desks, chairs, doors, sinks, toilets, walls, hand rails, and all the other millions of non-porous surfaces to be found at schools and elsewhere^†.

There are really only two ways to avoid catching the flu (or anything else): never leave your house or wash your hands after touching anything (or anyone) in your environment.

I am far more grossed about about touching the handle of a shopping cart than I am touching any human on the planet. I am convinced the super-bug that will kill us all will be born on the handle of a shopping cart.

1. † And don’t even get me started on the utter grossness of paper money and coins. You really don’t want to know, and I do have stories I could tell. Let’s just leave it at this: you can catch things from handling money. This is actually one of the top reasons I use my debit card for everything. I used to be locked in a small room with large quantities of cash on a daily basis, and if that experience taught me anything, it’s that money is disgusting. [↩]