Berg, Joyce move to file amicus brief in Hollister
Hollister v. Soetoro
Attorney Philip J. Berg, Esquire and Lawrence J. Joyce, Esquire filed an emergency motion in the federal appeals court in DC today (November 24, 2009) requesting that the court permit them to file an amicus curaie (friend of the court) brief in the appeal of Hollister v. Soetoro. The normal time for filing amicus briefs has passed, but Joyce and Berg beg the court to grand an exception to the rules due to unforeseen circumstances.
What the motion reveals is a parting of the ways between attorney of record, John D. Hemenway, Esquire and Berg and Joyce. Joyce claims to have done all the work, and Hemenway largely got in the way and obstructed [my read of the text]. Joyce was extremely upset that Hemenway requested the Court to take judicial notice of Barnett v. Obama, the case filed by Orly Taitz, Esquire, in the California District Court. Joyce didn’t want her shenanigans tainting the appeal.
The motion is quite a soap opera (albeit not always the best grammar). I note that the word “Esquire” appears 57 times.
Hollister Appeal | Emergency Motion Re Amicus Brief (Berg & Joyce), filed Nov. 24, 2009 by Jack Ryan
Wow. After reading the entire thing, I just wanted to state a few points:
1. Why is it that Birther “lawyers” seem to spend more time having to file briefs about their internal “behind-the-scenes” soap-opera dramas of how they “manage” their cases than anything of contributory value to their cases?
2. I find it utterly laughable that most of the pleadings by “Lawrence and Phillip” here are because they are worried about their “reputations”….gee…a little late for that one…LOL! (And yes, after reading that tripe, I’m intentionally being disrespectful by not using their full names or their over-used “Esquire” titles…and yes, also because stating them as such sounds more similar to “Terrence and Phillip”, the farting Canadians of South Park, which seems to be a more apt comparison for them).
3. Well, this all just confirms what we’ve suspected about old Hemenway – HE’S SENILE!
The assertions in the application are simply NOT a proper basis on which to seek to file an amicus brief. It is so far off the mark as to the function and purpose of an amicus filing that it would be an utter waste of time to try to explain why.
Suffice it to say that if the Arizona Bar was short of evidence needed to discipline Mr. Joyce…. they have it now.
LOL! Yeah, I thought the same thing reading it. It is like having a “Darwin Awards” for bad lawyers…these are people who seem to do everything they can wrong to selectively remove themselves from the legal pool…
I have a theory on that: What leads intelligent people to such crankery is not their mistakes — everyone makes those — it’s their self-righteous and childish refusal to accept correction or compromise. They can unite in principle against a common perceived enemy, but the same character traits that made them kooks prevent them from cooperating.
In larger fringes such as the birthers, there’s a second tier of kooks who are pretty much the opposite. They don’t really have ideas of their own, so they buy whatever lines the alpha-kooks pitch. They’re much too weak to broker compromise when kook-on-kook fighting inevitably breaks out.
The only flaw with your “Darwin Awards” for bad lawyers pitch is that it wouldn’t be a book, but an encyclopedia-sized set.
Every birther lawyer is in this for the sake of their own egos. It is ridiculous that a dismissed lawyer would seek to file an amicus brief, over his former client’s objection, based on the assertion that he needs to protect his own professional reputation — not to mention unethical. (When a client changes lawyers, the former lawyers have no role and are expected to bow out gracefully – they don’t get to stick around and pee in the soup because they disagree with the new lawyer’s strategy). It would take a person with a very distorted and disturbed perception of their own role to commit the stuff that is in the latest motion to writing.
I think it’s fair to say that in most of these cases there is no client. They are straw men. Who is Hollister? A guy who retired from the Air Force in 1998. The basis for his case is supposedly that he is subject to being recalled. What are the actual chances that the Air Force would recall someone who retired over a decade ago? Zero. Yet we are supposed to believe that Mr Hollister sits up nights worrying about what it means if the President might not be who he prefers in that office. Yet 10s of thousands of actual soldiers are fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, untroubled by those concerns.
The lack of actual clients with actual grievances testifies to the fact that these cases are being fabricated out of whole cloth for the ego gratification of lawyers with nothing better to do.
Expelliarmus: It would take a person with a very distorted and disturbed perception of their own role to commit the stuff that is in the latest motion to writing.
Can you spell B I R T H E R?
I have a question.
My interpretation of, and study of Islam leads me to understand that adoption is forbidden in Islam as is changing the last name of a person from their father’s last name. (i.e. in adoption where the person adopted takes on the surname of the parents doing the adopting. The curiosity was peaked because I am an adoptive parent with some friends who are Muslims. When I was going through the process, they did not forbid me from adopting, but the whole topic made them quite uncomfortable so I did a little research into the topic and found that in Islam the practice is forbidden and that Mohammed actually gave up his own adopted son. It has alot to do with inheritances and family lines.)
So if this is true then how could Soetoro actually have adopted Obama, and changed his last name from Obama? Indonesia is an Islamic country. I highly doubt that their society would have allowed the western customs in adoption to have taken place due to them being contrary to Islamic law. There is no way in my mind that Soetoro could have ‘legaly’ adopted Obama. Perhaps in the school record he didn’t put Obama’s last name to prevent embarrassment and uncomfortable questions over raising a child that wasn’t biologically his own, but it doesn’t mean that he adopted Obama.
Is it just me, or is the birther community extremely careless in that they apply western customs and laws to a place where none existed? Berg etal simply need to do a little more research into this topic before they jump to conclusions and call him Soetoro on their lawsuit. To me that smacks of plain old ignorance–or maybe not wanting to know the actual truth because it would interfere with their own personal agendas.
What are others’ thoughts on this topic?
train111
You answered your own question by asking “is the birther community extremely careless”…Yes they are. This is no different that Mario and his Pakistan Travel Ban. Even after it has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he is wrong about that he still stubbornly stands by that ridiculous claim…
Very interesting — at a quick google glance, Islam says the child keeps the biological family name. Good find!
“An adopted child retains his or her own biological family name (surname) and does not change his or her name to match that of the adoptive family.”
“These Islamic rules emphasize to the adoptive family that they are not taking the place of the biological family — they are trustees and caretakers of someone else’s child. Their role is very clearly defined, but nevertheless very valued and important.”
“Call them by (the names of) their fathers; that is juster in the sight of Allah.(Qur’an 33:4-5)”
http://islam.about.com/cs/parenting/a/adoption.htm
I think you hit the nail on the head here.
..and successfully coined a new term, “alpha-kooks” in the process! LOL!
The only thing I think you are missing is that it is more than just their childish refusal to accept correction and compromise – it is their whole refusal to accept any reality or facts that doesn’t conform to their pre-disposed world view – and that is what makes them kooks in the first place.
Exactly right! The “birther lawyers” are just trying to advance their own misconceptions, prejudices and egos and manipulating those that are extremely gullible and/or mentally unbalanced to be their straw men.
These so-called “plaintiffs” are barely more than sock puppets for them.
As brygenon aptly defined them above, these cases are all about the ego of the “alpha kooks”, which results in throwing tantrums for control of their silly ideas and even sillier followers.
alpha-kooks it is……
I agree, apt analogy as well…..when you think about it, it’s really kind of frightening that the right has bred(inbred?) a whole generation or two of humans generally incapable of any critical thinking ability whatsoever…..Even the ‘intellectuals’ on the right aren’t generally all that smart. I guess when your whole platform derides the government’s ability the solve any problems, espouses complete fealty to capitalism in it’s worst, most self-serving form, and claims tax cuts as the solution to every problem, in addition to ‘gettin government out of your way’, you don’t really have to come up with any ideas of your own when you get into office.
There’s another real tip-off here. If the suit were really about Mr Hollister’s concerns over the C-I-C’s status as an NBC, they wouldn’t be trying to remove Biden as well. After all, even the looniest birther doesn’t doubt that he’s an NBC. So the “client” should have no problem with President Biden, should he?
Very interesting. It certainly blows up whatever shreds remain of Sven’s theories.
That was inserted into the Qur’an by Obama’s agent.
You can’t fool me.
Let’s see the DS-11 and completely embarrass me. And the DS-4080.
Why do you fear historical records?
So you know your theories are racist horsepucky and don’t even bother to defend them. Good to know.
I thought you claimed to have them. There is no need to further embarrass you my dear Sven
Did the same forms and form numbers exist 50 years ago? (No idea. But 1961 was a whole different era.)
The birther community understands nothing about dual citizenship, passports, international travel, etc. Why should that be different? 🙂
I left my DS-11 in my other suit.
Asking to see the historical records concerning the POTUS held in an agency controlled by the Executive Branch is not racist. If he was adopted and his name was changed, then it will be reflected in his passport records. If he had an unexpired US passport in 1981, then it will be reflected in his passport records. If he ever renounced his US citizenship, then it will be reflected in his passport files.
It is xenophobic to dismiss school records held for over 40 years in a foreign country. The record indicates he was born in Honolulu, HI and he is an Indonesian citizen. Why doesn’t Soetoro have enough respect for his country to prove he is a citizen of the U.S.?
I left a comment on your website and it never made it past quality control.
‘Sup wit dat, bro?
SvenMagnussen: The record indicates he was born in Honolulu, HI and he is an Indonesian citizen.
I have never seen it translated “citizen” but rather “nationality” which may or may not imply citizenship. The document is not rejected because it is Indonesian, but because the conclusion being drawn from it is contrary to law.
Not to mention that this is a red herring completely.
Sven should read a little ruling of the United States Supreme Court called Perkins v. Elg. Even if Obama somehow inexplicitly obtained Indonesian Citizenship at age 6 (or even age 10 when he moved back to Hawaii), it would not affect his U.S. Citizenship one bit. And considering that the U.S. Government would not take citizenship away from a citizen living in the United States for just having another citizenship (they allow Italian-Americans to have dual citizenship for life), it seems impossible that Obama, while living in the United States, would suddenly have his U.S. Citizenship taken away.
Complete Red Herring. Totally irrelevant. However, if it makes Sven feel better, let him wallow in his delusions.
Sven: You seem not to have gotten the message the first time, so I will ask everyone’s indulgence to repeat it for your benefit:
1. The Constitution states that the President must be a natural born citizen.
2. Barack Obama is President.
Therefore Barack Obama is a natural born citizen.
Nothing in any records could possibly alter that fact, so you are wasting time even speculating.
Isn’t there a turkey with your name on it somewhere?
They don’t want to understand. If they actually understood this law, they’d realize that they have absolutely no chance at this. They just make an statement that is both factually false, and would be impossible under the U.S. code, and then say, “This is the way it is.” They then repeat this claim, no matter how many times it is debunked on their own little websites…
I swear, if Obama said that the sky was blue, they’d convince themselves that the Sky was green just to disagree with him.
Some of my favorite:
“Senate Resolution 511 specifically states that you need 2 citizen parents to be a Natural Born Citizen.”
Actually, the Senate resolution says “… John Sidney McCain, III, was born to American citizens on an American military base in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936”. That must mean according to your logic, the only Natural Born Citizens are people who were born to American citizens on an American military base in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936. It says it in the resolution, therefore it must be true!
“So Mr. Jefferson was naturalized in France and there made a French citizen, and had he gone there would have been entitled to all the rights there of an adopted citizen, but he certainly retained all his relations to the United States, his rights and duties as a native citizen, and was in fact after such naturalization, elected President of the United States. ” Nathan Dane, A general abridgment and digest of American law: with occasional notes and comments, Volume 4, pg. 713 (1824)
Asking to see records is one thing. Making up fantasies about these records is another one.
And of course, under privacy law, you do not have the right to see the records,
Bummer..
He did. Even if you were correct that he was an Indonesian citizen, even though Indonesian law prohibited this, he would still have been, under US law a natural born citizen as he was born on US soil.
Born on US soil is the relevant factor, anything else is just irrelevant fantasies.
You lose, either way dear Sven and yet you continue to embarrass yourself. Why? Why are you making up stories ?
“Isn’t there a turkey with your name on it somewhere?”
No, Sven IS a turkey.
Sven: What possible relevance do historical records from 40 years ago have to anything anybody cares about? The historians 50 years from now can discuss them to their heart’s content. What strikes me as very weird and pathological is why do YOU care?
Barack Obama offered the nation his COLB. They felt it was sufficient to prove his citizenship, so more than 64 million people voted for him.
You want to invoke the whack-a-loon principle, that Obama has to prove his citizenship to the satisfaction of every person in the United States, no matter how whack-a-loon you, I mean they, happen to be.
They ALL do. Look how many of them cling to the claim of Indonesian citizenship and loss of US citizenship even AFTER they’re shown that there’s no way under US law OR Indonesian law it could have been done.
The most of a concession I’ve seen is someone saying he didn’t “lose it”, but he didn’t go though the proper proceedure to “reclaim it”, to which I said he didn’t HAVE to reclaim it.
SvenMagnussen says:
If he was adopted and his name was changed
Even if either or both of those things had occurred, it would have no effect on his status as a natural born citizen. Of course, there is no evidence that either ever happened.
If he ever renounced his US citizenship
As has been discussed ad infinitum, while he was in Indonesia Obama was too young to renounce his U.S. citizenship. But, for argument’s sake, even if we assume that it happened, how did he subsequently obtain a U.S. passport, register to vote, etc.? Is it your theory that at some point he renounced his renouncement?
It is xenophobic to dismiss school records held for over 40 years in a foreign country.
The supposed school records are not certified and have no raised seal. Whose handwriting is it? Why is there no signature? Why do birthers accept the Indonesian school records as authentic but reject Obama’s COLB?
The Sven Magnussen theories collapse under their own weight. Obama moved to Indonesia, where he was adopted, became a citizen of Indonesia and renounced his U.S. citizenship. He was then allowed back into the U.S. as a refugee at the age of 10. He then was registered at Occidental College as a foreign student. He transferred to Columbia, and in 1981 he traveled to Pakistan on either refugee travel documents or an Indonesian passport (although I don’t understand why Indonesia would have issued a passport to someone who fled that country as a refugee). He then graduated Columbia, enrolled at Harvard Law, and at some point managed to get a U.S. passport and register to vote, notwithstanding the fact that he had previously renounced his U.S. citizenship. Then he ran for president as a Democrat without his past citizenship renunciation becoming public, even though the State Department was run by Republicans who had access to all of his passport and citizenship records.
If Obama was able to accomplish all of that, he deserves to be president because he clearly is the smartest person in the world.