Orly, Alice in Wonderland, and AOL

“Man gives every reason for his conduct save one,
every excuse for his crimes save one,
every plea for his safety save one;
and that one is his cowardice."
- George Bernard Shaw
Irish literary Critic, Playwright, Essayist; 1925 Nobel Prize for Literature
1856-1950

The brave man inattentive to his duty,
is worth little more to his country
than the coward who deserts in the hour of danger.
- Andrew Jackson
Seventh President of the United States
1767-1845

To be afraid is the miserable condition of a coward.
To do wrong, or omit to do right from fear,
is to superadd delinquency to cowardice.
- David Dudley Field
American Jurist
1805 - 1894


Yesterday I read the decision in Rhodes v. McDonald, United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia, Columbus Division, Case No. 4:09-CV-00106(CDL).

Why read this 14 page Court Order from Georgia? The suggestion from a friend was that I read it because it was so very funny, a "hoot". And...oh, yes, it WAS. It really, really was.

What the heck is 4:09-CV-0016? It is one of the latest court decisions in the continuing 'adventure' those of us who are NOT birther fanatics find so inexplicable on the part of what is largely the extreme political right. In this case, it entertains, as it informs.

Plaintiff Army Captain Connie Rhodes tried to sue Colonel Thomas McDonald, the garrison commander of Fort Benning, et al, so that she could avoid being deployed to Iraq, citing as the grounds for her suit that President Obama is not properly the President. She claims those orders are unconstitutional, and sought a restraining order, a request which was dismissed and deemed frivolous.

What makes this so entertaining, although I assume that was unintentional, is the details, and ohhhh my, is there a devil in these details. This suit, one of many, was considered so exceedingly frivolous that the attorney - our Mrs. Doctor Orly Taitz, Esq., sometimes realtor - was addressed directly at the end of the very first paragraph of the order dismissing the suit thus, "Further, the plaintiff's counsel is hereby notified that the filing of any future actions in this court, which are similarly frivolous, shall subject counsel to sanctions. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 11 (c)".

The document goes on to elaborate that Taitz is the self-proclaimed leader of the birther movement, and then gets to this part,"Her modus operandi is to use military officers as parties and have them allege that they should not be required to follow deployment orders because President Obama is not constitutionally qualified to be President." So, the court identifies Orly Taitz as deliberately USING members of the United States military to serve her own political purposes. This is from the first paragraph on page 2 of the order. It gets better, it continues, "Although counsel has managed to fuel this "birther movement" with her litigation and press conferences, she does not appear to have prevailed on a single claim." A footnote documents that this court had previously dismissed a similar claim, Cook v. Good that was brought on behalf of a reservist; the Court Order also indicates that the Rhodes case was first filed in Texas where it was no better received before trying it out in Georgia.

On page 3, the Court addresses the short form birth certificate provided by the President, and in a footnote at the bottom of page 3, the court addresses President Obama's Presidential campaign, information from the Federal Elections Commission, and the formal position of Congress on the status of the President of the United States as an eligible citizen for the office by virtue of being born in Hawaii. Page 3 goes on to elaborate how Captain Rhodes had a substantial part of her medical schooling paid for by the army, in exchange for her commitment to serve in that same army.

Page 4 goes on to elaborate that Captain Rhodes began her service in July 2008, and had no problem continuing that service under President Obama, right up until she received deployment orders in September 2009. The Court Order observes that she simply doesn't want to comply with orders sending her to Iraq or anywhere else that would put her in harm's way. She does not seek to leave the Army; she wants her conscientious objection simply to keep her on American soil.

The Court Order continues with the nuts and bolts of the legal matters, until we get to page 7 of 14, where it states, "First, Plaintiff's challenge to her deployment order is frivolous. She has presented no credible evidence and 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." The court order continues further in the paragraph to state with what appeared, to me at least, to be blatant derision of Ms. Taitz by the court, where on page 8 it states, "Then, implying 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 the President." My favorite part of the 14 pages is mid-page 8, where the Court addresses an item brought by Ms. Taitz in support of her contentions on behalf of Captain Rhodes, where it states, "Moreover, as if 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 produced." I looked up that Poll, Ms. Taitz is dishonest and inaccurate; it was 58%, and is not considered in any way a scientific poll, not that those kinds of polls are something I would expect a court to consider anyway. Or a teacher, if I was writing an essay or a term paper; I'd expect a low grade, heck, I'd expect an 'F' for submitting that.

The document continues "Finally, in a remarkable shifting of the traditional legal burden of proof, Plaintiff unashamedly alleges that the Defendant has the burden to prove his "natural born" status." The final sentence of page 8, which continues on page 9, states in perhaps the most telling statement from the court about the values of the "birther movement", "Any middle school civics student would readily recognize the irony of abandoning fundamental principles upon which our Country was founded in order purportedly to "protect and preserve" those very principles." So much for the 'birthers' understanding our government, knowing our constitution, and espousing the values of this country.

I particularly enjoyed the sense of the Court's feeling expressed in a scathing opinion of Orly Taitz' arguements and proof, near the end of page 9, "Unlike in Alice in Wonderland, simply saying something is so does not make it so." I've always enjoyed Lewis Carroll's work.

The pages go on and on to delineate the failures of Ms. Taitz legal arguments and documents entered in support of those arguments, but one of the most interesting of those comments is the footnote at the bottom of page 10, which addresses again in quite scathing terms the observations on yet another of the bogus Kenyan birth certificates, at too great a length to quote here. There are still 4 more pages of the order, which includes a passing reference to the Terri Schiavo litigation.

I enjoyed the top of page 13, the first full sentence, "Although close proximity to any combat zone certainly involves personal danger, Plaintiff, somewhat disingenuously, claims that fear is not her motivation for avoiding her military duty. She insists that she would have no qualms about fulfilling her duties if President George W. Bush were still in office. The Court cannot find from the present record that deployment to Iraq under the current administration will subject Plaintiff to any threat of harm that is different than the harm to which she would be exposed if another candidate had won the election." In other words, apparently the Court is not persuaded by Captain Rhodes' assertion that she is not, simply, a coward. To have allowed herself to be used by someone with the dubious competence and motives of Orly Taitz also suggests she is a fool. Such demonstrations of courage and patriotism, such devotion to the foundation principals on which our country was founded; those patriots on the right political fringe must be so very proud.

And then there is the end of page 13, following over into page 14, which we might term the beginning of the end of the Court Order, the end of this case, and the end of similar cases if we are lucky as a country, " 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."

I was curious Ms. Taitz professional credentials. I looked it up; she was admitted to the bar in California, where one is not required as a condition of membership to the bar to have attended an accredited law school, and where one can do their law degree course work by correspondence school. I have checked where Taitz got her law education, it is from Taft Law School, and it is a correspondence school, although it has to have even so, an ethics class requirement. I'd like to suggest that Orly Taitz would even be an embarrassment to one of those correspondence schools that ask you to draw a turtle or a pirate, from the back of a matchbook cover or a glossy newspaper insert ad. I now know from having inquired, what the disbarment process is, in the state of California where she is licensed, where not one but two complaints have been filed - and I've read them both, cover to cover. I'd like to know why something so egregious has taken so long, and still has no conclusion. But then, I'd like to know what color the sky is on the planet she is from too.

And now, despite the warning to Ms. Taitz about sanctions should she persist with frivolous law suits in this court, yes, Orly Taitz has filed yet another one. And yes, this one is just as funny as the preceding filing. Undeterred, Ms. Taitz has recruited more of her 'clients' to provide her with fodder after this one is finally tossed out for good.