Al Halbert has been sending me emails about the Voeltz v. Obama case in Florida. He seems to think that Larry Klayman did a wonderful job at the hearing yesterday. It just takes too much time to engage in substantive email arguments with folks arguing the same subjects that we do here on the blog. Of late, I’ve been sending Al short responses, the last of which was the title of this article, “Judge Lewis will explain it to you” in the context of why there can be no election contest when there was no election yet in Florida.
I could address the same response (different judge) to Jerry Collette, who has filed yesterday his final Motion in Opposition to the Defense Motion to Dismiss in Collette v. Obama (embedded at the end of the article). Jerry is scheduled to be on Reality Check Radio tonight, and I hope I will be able to call in. However, I really don’t want to argue his case or the definition of “natural born citizen.” We’ve done that in email, and here on the blog. To me the interesting thing is not the lawsuit (which will be dismissed like a hundred others), but rather the question of why someone sees themself as that person who should file the suit.
Three are many points in the Collette MTD, and I’m not gung ho enough to dig into them all (I try just to say stuff for which I have authoritative sources). I will say one thing, that there seems to be an essential lack of understanding on the part of Mr. Collette of how the court rules on a motion to dismiss. I got this part of my “legal education” reading court decisions on motions to dismiss, in particular from Judge Surrick in Berg v. Obama et al. When deciding a motion to dismiss, the court considers the plaintiff’s factual allegations as true (unless they are really wacko). Collette, however, spends 4 of his 24 pages attempting to provide evidence that Barack Obama was foreign-born and that the birth certificate is a forgery. He needn’t have done that; the court will assume that they are true for the purpose of deciding the MTD.
FL 2012-06-18 Collette v. Obama Motion in opposition to Motion to dismiss amended complaint
Hey Doc, I am not finding the embedded Motion in Opposition. Is it just me/my laptop?
Collette’s word salad motion is one of the worst written, poorly formatted pile of BS we’ve seen in a while. And with Orly around, that’s saying something.
The man is truly delusional. Should be fun on RC tonight.
Dangit Doc, do you have to give them ideas? From now on, every MTD produces a Whirled Nut Daily headline: “THE COURT CONSIDERS OUR ALLEGATIONS AS TRUE!!!!”
I think Doc was referring back to the “Latest from Collette” posting … maybe?
http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2012/06/latest-from-colette/
Collette’s final motion is at:
http://doityourselfballotchallenge.org/court-docs/opposition2mtd.pdf
Thanks, JPotter.
Intellectual honesty demands confronting distortions with truth, even knowing that those truths will be in turn distorted. Withholding truth will only clear the way for untruth, and cheat the uninformed.
WND has ripped plenty of tidbits from here and elsewhere. Some from me, I am proud to say. 😀 Their whole gig is riffin’, not a bit of originality!
While the trial court treats the factual allegations in the complaint as true for purposes of a motion to dismiss, the court is constrained to the four corners of the initial pleading. Locker v. United Pharm. Group, 46 So.2d 1126, 1128 (Fla. 1st DCA 2010). Collette’s opposition strays far beyond those four corners and much of it will therefore be disregarded. His real problem, however, is that whether a complaint is sufficient to state a cause of action is an issue of law, W. R. Townsent Contracting, Inc. v. Jensen Civil Constr., Inc., 728 So.2d 297, 300 (Fla. 1st DCA 1999), and Jerry’s complaint under this standard utterly fails to sufficiently plead any cause sounding in election law or tort. The defendants’ motion hammers this and Jerry ignored it in his opposition, effectively conceding the matter.
I was just testing to see if folks were paying attention. Yeah, that’s what it was. Uh-huh. You wouldn’t ever think the Doc was getting forgetful in his old age. No. Never think that.
He will be surprised.
I hope the discussion is informative.
It is an amazing slow motion clown car crash. It is almost Orlyesque in its heady concoction of deceit, untruths and irrelevance. Collette fails completely to address his primary target, the Motion to Dismiss, but executes the classic birther dung heap strategy – “look judge, my pile of manure is so high you’ve got to believe there’s a diamond ring hidden in there! and, hey, if you won’t dig for it, you’re a traitor!”
Any quoting of Arpaio’s fecal affidavit and the mendacious Cold Clown Potatoes’ image “experts” should be automatic grounds for dismissal in my view, but all in all it’s probably better that the courts listen before saying “NO!!”
One day more for Collette in court, then the whinging will start.
Doc, I didn’t include that evidence for the purpose of the opposition to dismiss. It was to discredit the defendants’ statements that my positions are baseless.
Um Jerry? I am not a lawyer, but I’m pretty sure that judges require you to say why the defendants’ statements about your positions are wrong. Not addressing them is the same as “conceding the point.”
“Collette, however, spends 4 of his 24 pages attempting to provide evidence that Barack Obama was foreign-born and that the birth certificate is a forgery. He needn’t have done that”
Yeah, well, that was to be expected, wasn’t it?
The “Gifted Legal Mind” strikes again.
Except that your positions ARE baseless. When the judge dismisses your case, don’t say you weren’t warned several (many) times.
By the way, I think your statement that if the case is dismissed the court will go down in obscurity with 100+ other cases is a great statement and I’m sure the judge will take very kindly to it. 😛 (that’s called SARCASM, in case you don’t recognize it.) Your “obscurity remark” presented a false dilemma which I’m sure the judge will note right away.
I’m pretty sure that the job of judges in cases like this isn’t to stand out from the depths of obscurity, but rather to correctly determine how to apply the law.
Jerry tries to make it sound as if going against the opinion of 100+ previous judicial decisions is an admirable action. LMAO!
Jerry, like Orly, believes that re-arguing the “evidence” in response to a MTD will somehow sway the court. It’s “Yes, your honor, legally I haven’t a leg to stand on, but – FORGERY! CONNECTICUT SSN! USURPER! VATTEL!”
I would laugh if that wasn’t so incredibly, freaking pathetic.
I have always thought that there is a great deal of “magical thinking” involved in birtherism.
The idea is that if you say the right words FORGERY! CONNECTICUT SSN! USURPER! VATTEL!, at the right time, in the right order while making the right body movements, then the forces of the universe will give you what you want.
The one who comes right out and does it with no embarassment is that crazy Texan on youtube.
What is it with Birthers and fonts? Please tell me that this is due to OCR on scanning an original document and not intentionally changing fonts in the middle of a sentence.
If you give the Judge a headache for just trying to read this, he will not thank you for that.
Every night before bed the glassy-eyed birther bigot whispers “usurper” three times into a cracked bathroom mirror.
Any . . . dark night . . . now.
Jerry, don’t take this the wrong way, but you are an enemy of decent taxpayers. Why do I say that? Simple: In these times of strained local budgets, court systems are under severe stress. I heard last week that the Los Angeles County courts have laid off over 150 staffers I’m sure that Florida courts are not flush either. So people with real injuries-shattered bodies, ruined llves- will have their cases delayed because you and your ilk clog the court system with your junk lawsuits. Everything in your ridiculous arguments has already been litigated in other states and decided on the merits, starting with Ankeny in Indiana, moving to Georgia, Illiinois, New Jersey and so on. Absoultely nothing distinguishes your tired, absurd, “case” (or Klayman’s) from those. Nor is it even remotely possible that you will obtain a different result.
Take pity on the poor taxpayers and on those who have urgent need to have their cases heard and stop. I hope you are hit with costs sufficient to bankrupt you (no ill feelings intended, of course).
Unfortunately, you might as well be talking to a brick wall.
Sadly, the few die hard birther bigots left actually think they are patriots and heroes rather than delusional buffoons.
Really, what happened to facts and the weight they deserve?? It is totally PATHETIC that Collette is trying to appeal to Judge Lewis’s ego or his imagined desire to be in the history books.
Collette has absolutely no grasp of law or of rules of evidence. He seems to think that he is on Broadway in a show or something and the judge is s fellow actor.
This is a court of law, with rules of evidence and not a high school play. Collette is going to lose. And what really kills me is the birther complaint “we aren’t heard on the merits of the case”. Yes you have. That was the case when Orly lost to the empty chair. No defense was offered, no cross examination, just an empty table and chair. The judge still ruled in the president’s favor. Of course, that was because of the conspriracy that has now stretched over decades, involved hundreds of people and is completely impossible to have managed.
Soon, very soon, these cases are going to go away when costs begin to be assessed for filing trivial shit.
But did he get the product placement ‘money shot’ correct? Or is that for the actual hearing like the other day?
Yeah, the WND cameraman must have snoozed. Where was the tight zoom and the obligatory voiceover: “That’s right, Real Americans! The gospel according to Jerome Corsi, Where’s the Birth Certificate?, still available at an Amazon near you for about two-fiddy!” [*tooth bling on Klayman*]
Since there are so many experts on bigotry at this site, can someone explain why so much of the fiction in “Obama’s” “autobiography” consists of fabricated racial incidents and grievances?
Thank y’all.
Ignore the troll.
“…of the fiction in “Obama’s” “autobiography” consists of fabricated racial incidents and grievances?”
could you point to an example of this, or did you pull it out of thin air? (or rear end)
Chef doesn’t need to pull; things just fall out on their own.
Can someone explain why “Chef” has so often intimate relations with farm animals? I don’t wish to argue the issue, I’m only asking for an explanation as to why it is so.
I have withheld comment on Collete’s motion and his site. Falls under my mercy rule. But I must note this one point … he asserts entitlement to monetary damages! Is this a birther first? (Probably not, but am not sure)
Dude! Like, totally premature!
[My emphasis added to his #53]
This was written by that Risenhoover nut regarding the Voeltz Florida case:
” . . . unless the Dems know something we do not know about a pending Convention coup d’etat by former President Clinton announcing support for his wife to become the Natural Born Nominee (though birth in Arkansas, a former rebellious unconditionally surrendered state may not convey the undisputed, undivided, unitary allegiance necessary for natural born citizenship).
☞LINK
like this one?
Talk like that triggered The Fourth Great Birtherschism, leading to the rise of the Southern Birther Convention ….
Seriously, that guy is asking for a van Irion smackdown.
With a cane.
On the floor of the Senate.
Or a random DC street corner. Got to take what you can get when you’re a birther.
JPotter: “I Am Entitled to Prove Money Damages …
53. Dismissal of this remedy, at this stage of the case, is way premature.
Dude! Like, totally premature!
[My emphasis added to his #53]”
collete discussed that tonight on the radio show though he sorta dismissed it as “incidental” to his case and said he would take $1 –
the radio broadcast is worth listening to – Doc was terrific, as usual, and i got to hear “G” & “GeorgetownJD” – ALSO GREAT!!!! though collete said he’s “not a birther”, ANYONE who believes the conspiracies, assertions by tim adams & that “mistaken” literary agent from 1991, etc and NOT what has been ruled on in court and verified by hawaii IS a birther
Thanks, Donna for the reminder! Listening now. Another odd bit is his creative reading of “any injury” 😉
Yeah, it really was a GREAT episode of RC radio tonight! Several more important family and community obligations caused me to miss much of the first hour and a few other snippets, so I’ll definitely have to find the “quiet time” to re-listen to the entire broadcast again.
What I did hear from the Doc, RC, Thomas Brown, “Noisewater”, GeorgetownJD, etc. was ALL an excellent exchange with Mr. Collete.
The KEY to such a successful dialogue was the willingness and sincerity of Mr. Collete in doing his best to respond as honestly and openly as he could be, from his personal perspective.
Yes, he is a “birther”. Whether he views himself as one or not, he most certainly is by general definition. However, so far he has demonstrated himself to be one of the most courteous, responsive and responsible communicators of his POV of anybody I’ve encountered over these long 4 years.
While he admittedly has not “dived into these issues” as broadly or deeply as many of the hard-core “true believer” birthers out there, he is certainly amongst that category of birthers who sincerely buy into the premises of Birtherism. So I put him in the category of those who internally think they are being “well-intentioned”, even though I strongly see mounds of evidence that discredit their POV and positions. Where he comes across as disingenuous in some of his positions, it appears that he is not actually intending to be disingenuous, but only failing to put in the effort to think his positions all the way through and grasp where the holes in those premises can come across to others as disingenuous.
He certainly is a welcome relief from the true con artists, grifters, and willful trolling liars that lead, infect and spur on most of Birtherism in the first place.
I for one sincerely thank Mr. Collete for his participation and also wish to extend that gratitude to RC for hosting Mr. Collete and to all of the rest of the callers who contributed to such an excellent discussion.
I really hope that Mr. Collete will not only return here to continue these discussions, but will also come back as a guest on RC’s show again in the near future!
Somebody in another thread here called this a “Cargo Cult mentality”. I had to look it up, but it truly fits. (As in: natives building runways so the planes will come back.)
It’s a common crank pattern. I’ve noticed this in many people who spent their lives fighting the courts. They think they lose their cases because they don’t use the same “magic words” that lawyers use, and once they’ve discovered such words (examples may include “upon information and belief” or, from German legalspeak, “proof by certificate and legal inspection” – “Urkundsbeweis und Inaugenscheinnahme”, two words that hardly anyone ever uses outside courts), they’ll become part of the “magic circle” and benefit from the same voodoo as real lawyers and, ultimately, win a case.
And of course you will see them use these terms over and over again, as if the sheer number of “invocations” will make the argument stronger.
So Jerry now that you had a chance to be informed on several things missing in your research have you gone back and looked into them?
If you ever get the chance and you haven’t already, see Mondo Cane (1962). From IMDb: Nominally a documentary, this film combines a number of unrelated sequences (both real and staged) — including a South Pacific “cargo cult”, the ritual slaughter of a bull, tribal dances and rituals, and a visit to an ornate pet cemetery — all focused on the lurid, sensational, and eccentric (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057318/)
It’s a series of seemingly non-sequitur sequences (some are obviously staged) meant to shock you on the bizarre nature of the practices of different cultures. The interesting takeaway is that what may be shocking or strange to anyone from one culture is the norm elsewhere. It puts the concept of normal in perspective.
More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondo_cane
I saw this film in a course on comparative religion at a Methodist university. The best part was the reaction of my classmates.
new filing in voeltz
SECOND AMENDED COMPLAINT CONTESTING NOMINATION AND ELECTION OF BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA