We should all give thanks to U.S. District Judge Clay D. Land of Columbus for showing that there are still a few sane people left in the United States.
Land, who was hearing yet another of the frivolous “birther” lawsuits filed by lawyer/dentist Orly Taitz, not only threw out the complaint Wednesday, he issued a blistering, 14-page ruling that was so explosively worded it probably launched Taitz into yet another alternative universe.
Taitz was representing a Ft. Benning captain who claimed she could not be legally deployed to Iraq because Barack Obama is supposedly not a native-born American and thus cannot legitimately issue orders as commander in chief. Land would have none of that. Here are some excerpts from his ruling:
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. Moreover, she cites no legal authority supporting her bold contention that the alleged “cloud” over the President’s birthplace amounts to a violation of her individual constitutional rights. Thus, for these reasons alone, she is not entitled to a temporary restraining order . . .
Plaintiff does not seek to be discharged and apparently is willing to follow all orders from her military command except for any order that deploys her to Iraq. 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 was 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. A substantial threat of irreparable harm related to her desire not to serve in Iraq under the current President simply does not exist . . .
Counsel has filed numerous lawsuits in various parts of the country seeking a judicial determination as to the President’s legitimacy to hold the office of President. The present action is the second such action filed in this Court in which counsel pursues her “birther claim.” 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. 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. . . .
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.” Acknowledging the existence of a document that shows the President was born in Hawaii, Plaintiff alleges that the document “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” . . .
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.
Let it be noted that Clay Land is not some wild-eyed liberal activist who is “legislating” from the bench. He was a Republican member of the Georgia Senate before deciding not to run for reelection in 2000. He was appointed to the federal bench by George W. Bush.
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