I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I greatly appreciate it when local newspapers cover local birther events. This time it is the Brownsville Valley Morning Star’s coverage of the Taitz v. Johnson hearing yesterday by reporter Emma Perez-Treveño.
The reporter’s posts on Facebook yesterday provided some information on how the hearing progressed. The longer version (paid) of the article provides a little more information including the following (via The Fogbow):
Regarding her request for a travel ban, Hanen said that everyone needs to keep in mind what is within the province of the court, and what is within the province of the United States Congress and the Executive Branch. Noting that while he might or not agree with a ban, she might have to show him where he would have authority to issue one, and referred to the well-known saying that, “judges are appointed, but they are not anointed.”
“If you want to go there, you are going to have to show me,” Hanen told Taitz. Taitz told Hanen that he has the right to issue a writ of mandamus to force Burwell to issue an order of quarantine. But Hanen pointed out that the law authorizes, but does not mandate that Burwell issue such orders.
“Why are we here if you find there is nothing you can do?” Taitz asked Hanen amid his observations. “We are here because you filed a lawsuit,” Hanen told her. “I’ll let you question the witness Dr. Taitz, not me,” he added.
Taitz told Hanen that he was refusing to consider the threat of injury to her. “Show me case law,” Hanen told her. “Does the case law provide that? What is the likelihood that it can happen? There is no certainty with Ebola or that you would be affected by it,” he continued. It was noted that the threat must be actual or imminent, not conjecture or hypothetical. “You’re going to have to show me that it’s not hypothetical,” Hanen told her.
Taitz herself did not testify at the hearing, but her “expert witness” Vera Dolan did. The government stated that “a cough is a symptom, not a diagnosis” and Taitz doesn’t know what caused it, and even if she did catch a respiratory infection from one of the immigrant children, that child could have caught it in the United States.
Taitz should go to law school and learn about this stuff.
I personally think that Judge Hanen is out of line holding this hearing at all, until after the question of standing has been settled. Without standing, he has no jurisdiction. But then, I haven’t gone to law school.
The irony is that while northers bitch and moan about cases being dismissed for just minor details such as standing and subject matter jurisdiction, they are the things that prevent the Courts from being what the birthers accuse them of being.
So if Orly does not follow up with the submission of a medical diagnosis showing she is sick at all, does that open her up to perjury charges?
Why do I read this and the picture of the “Bring out your dead” scene in MONTY PYTHON & THE HOLY GRAIL comes to mind?
Hehehehe! It’s never a good day to be Orly.
No. For one thing, she has not testified under oath about this stuff. She has an obligation to be truthful in court papers, but lying in court papers would subject her to possible sanctions from the judge (which, as we know, won’t happen here because she’s made of Teflon), not criminal proceedings. Also, not providing proof of her claims doesn’t necessarily mean what she said isn’t true. It just means she can’t prove its true. If this case makes it past a motion to dismiss, she would at some point have to demonstrate that she had the respiratory illness she claimed to have had, but it won’t make it to that stage.