Monday is trash pickup day at my house, and also today the Supreme Court announced dumping of birther lawsuits, most notably an appeal from the Supreme Court of Alabama in McInnish v. Chapman. Also denied was Rudy v. Lee (with amicus brief by Herb Titus).
CERTIORARI DENIED
H/t to gorefan.
Because of the holiday, the next pick-up will be on Tuesday.
And to think that Helen Tansey claimed that Rudy v. Lee was “SCOTUS Shattering.”
http://beforeitsnews.com/obama-birthplace-controversy/2014/08/scotus-shattering-8-prominent-groups-target-obamas-natural-born-citizenship-bills-signed-2481282.html
Next up is the Voeltz petition, which will be denied a week from today.
There is some delicious irony in the fact that SCOTUS has redesigned its website. Now when you do a docket search, at the bottom of the page an image of the preamble to the Constitution appears. Emblazoned across each search are the words WE THE PEOPLE.
http://www.supremecourt.gov/Search.aspx?FileName=/docketfiles14-73.htm
SCOTUS will report Voeltz’s denial next Tuesday. Monday is a holiday. đ
Klayman also had two non-birther-related petitions lose today, for a total of three losses today. And he has another non-birther-related petition (his Facebook case) that’ll lose next Tuesday as well, which will bring his loss total up to five for this term.
Thanks. I had forgotten about Columbus Day.
Klayman cares more about publicity than winning, at least on birther cases.
AFAIK, Klayman did not publicize anything about taking his birther cases to SCOTUS.
He doesn’t have to do it himself.
http://beforeitsnews.com/obama-birthplace-controversy/2014/09/alert-atty-klaymans-4-cases-at-supreme-court-obama-atty-responds-to-arpaio-related-case-2482096.html
http://www.birtherreport.com/2014/03/attorney-klayman-responds-alabama-case.html
http://www.birtherreport.com/2014/09/alert-atty-klaymans-4-cases-at-supreme.html
Did anyone notice Orley asked her clueless followers to call the Dallas hospital and demand to know if the Ebola patient has any brain activity? So, as a dentist she’s never heard of HIPAA? I think I need another glass of wine.
Forget HIPAA. Has the woman ever heard of common decency???
The fact that he received publicity about the case does not mean that he cares about publicity more than winning. To make a plausible argument that supports this assertion, I think you would need to show he made some effort to get publicity for his cases. AFAIK, the only reason we know about these two SCOTUS cases is because I came across them on the SCOTUS docket and posted about them on the Fogbow. Klayman and whoever else knew he was filing these cases kept quiet about them. I don’t think that is something that someone would do if he were more interested in publicity than winning.
I don’t know why Klayman files so many ridiculously frivolous cases, but I follow him pretty closely and I know that he files a lot of crap without publicizing it.
Van Allen helpfully also notes that the feds waived response in this mess that he had filed.
Maybe he has paying clients who are willing to finance his legal follies. It was obvious to anyone who can read that there was no chance that SCOTUS would grant cert in the McInnish case, and it is just as clear in the Voeltz case.
An ethical attorney (which of course Klayman is not) would have advised his clients that a SCOTUS appeal would be a fruitless waste of money.
Some of the inmates at Gerbil Report are absolutely livid over this.
Feels good, man.
Maybe one of you lawyer types would like to comment:
In regards to Rudy v. Lee, the guy who wanted a refund of his patent application fee because Obama was ‘ineligible’ to sign a bill into law:
I thought there was no requirement for a president to actually sign a bill into law. Once a bill is passed by Congress, a president has so many days to either sign or veto a bill, or it becomes law automatically. I would think that unless an ‘eligible’ president vetoed a law, it would become law automatically after the given time frame.
You make a good point, but the lower court never addressed it. The lawsuit was dismissed because it asked to court to resolve a political question over which the court had no jurisdiction.
http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Rudy-Order.pdf
You are generally correct. A bill passed by Congress automatically becomes law if the President does not sign it within ten days, provided that Congress is in session. If Congress adjourns during that ten-day period and the President does not sign it, the failure to sign it is called a “pocket veto” and the bill does not become law.
I am not a lawyer, but the larger point is that, if a President were proven to be ineligible, that would not cause a law he signed to disappear, due to the de facto officer doctrine.
It would be a different matter if it were proven that a President had not been elected, or Congress had not accepted the result, or the President had not taken the oath of office.
Birthers seem to believe that their “magic reset button” would only invalidate laws which they disapprove of, such as Obamacare. They don’t like it when they are reminded that it also would mean that the Bush tax cuts expired in 2010.
I suspect that the argument could be, and in fact would be made, that if the President were ineligible then the laws would still be valid and in force since it would be as if he simply did not sign them and they became law without his signature.So much for birfer wet dreams. The President does not originate or initiate legislation, the Congress does, so if Congress passed the law and the President is ineligible then it would still become law without a signature. There is no constitutional requirement for the President to sign any legislation, only that which he vetos. Laws do go in to effect because they President signs them, they go in to effect because Congress passed them and the President didn’t veto them.
I disagree completely.
You approach a fundamental flaw in your argument but stop short of addressing it: what about the laws that the President DID veto? Do they now magically become law too?
No they don’t.
The acts of the President, whether Executive action or bills approved or vetoed, will stand even if the President is later found to be ineligible due to the de facto officer doctrine; not because of failure to sign or whatever.
The United States is NEVER without a President no matter what the circumstance. When Kennedy was shot, Lyndon Baines Johnson became acting President, automatically and without further positive action by anyone. When Kennedy was pronounced dead, Johnson instantaneously became actual President, hours before he took the Oath of Office.
During the Watergate hearings, various talking heads kept referring to the situation as a “Constitutional Crisis”. Hogwash. If anything, it was a “Constitutional Triumph”.
The U.S. has had exactly two “Constitutional Crises” in its history (IMO).
One: The “Articles of Federation” were a disaster and had to be completely replaced and
Two: The debacle over Slavery and the Civil War it engendered.
There have been many “Constitutional Problems” and Presidential Succession in extreme circumstances has not always been clear, but fortunately it has never been tested before the issue had been noticed and fixed.
I think Notoral Dissent was addressing the fact that even if the birthers were correct in everything else (that Obama is ineligible *and* that the de facto officer doctrine does *not* apply), laws signed by Obama would still stand.
Within that hypothetical “what-if” world, however, Biden would be President but he did not sign those laws, so that is irrelevant w.r.t. the question whether the birthers’ conclusion would be correct even if you assumed their assumptions were correct.
Again, within that “what-if” scenario, they probably would, but that’s not what the birthers want. đ The point was showing that birthers will never get what they want, even if you are extremely generous in accepting their claims as true.
Under that premise, the two bills that Obama vetoed (and were not overridden) would become law.
I admit I did not consider the ‘de facto officer’ aspect when I posted my original comment. But I think the Magic M nailed it when he said that even if the birthers were correct in their assumptions (Obama was ‘ineligible’ and the ‘de facto officer’ doctrine did not apply), they still wouldn’t get the result they wanted.
And though I did not discuss the veto aspect, given the ‘what-if’ scenario there would be a basis for suing to enact a law that the ‘president’ had vetoed. That is, if they could prove they were harmed by the veto.
But, as others here have said, its all hypothetical since the de facto officer doctrine does apply.
Yeah, no matter how you slice it, its a lose-lose scenario for birthers. Though the one true outcome will be Obama bowing out after his successor is sworn in on January 20th, 2017, and whatever birthers are left will be wailing and gnashing their teeth about how he “got away with it”.
Keith, please do not interpret what I said and particularly do not interpret them to include things I did not say. I specifically did not say anything about laws vetoed simply because they take the argument in the ridiculous to an even further extreme, the primary argument is bad enough. I was simply speculating that the null and void argument was not valid, and it isn’t. The de facto officer doctrine more than handily covers it in my opinion, but my hypothesis covers the silly assumption otherwise for those who want to argue that de facto doesn’t.
Sorry, Andrew, you are wrong. On January 21, 2017, all birthers will celebrate the fact that due to their diligence and untiring efforts they prevented Pres. Obama from being elected to a third term. It will be a win.
My bet is more on birthers claiming Hillary can’t legally be President in 2017 because a usurper cannot legally hand over the presidency, or something. After all, the 20th Amendment says “the terms of their successors shall then begin”, but how can Hillary’s term begin if she’s the successor to a usurper, in other words, not a successor to a real President?
And I also predict that birthers will come up with something 100 times loonier than that.
No. 14-145
Title:
In Re Michael Voeltz, Petitioner
v.
Docketed: August 11, 2014
~~~Date~~~ ~~~~~~~Proceedings and Orders~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Aug 7 2014 Petition for a writ of mandamus filed. (Response due September 10, 2014)
Sep 9 2014 Waiver of right of respondent Kenneth W. Detzner to respond filed.
Sep 10 2014 Brief of respondent Barack Obama in opposition filed.
Sep 12 2014 Waiver of right of respondent Florida Election Canvassing Comission to respond filed.
Sep 24 2014 DISTRIBUTED for Conference of October 10, 2014.
Oct 3 2014 Reply of petitioner filed. (Distributed)
Oct 14 2014 Petition DENIED.
I think your purpose escaped me altogether; I guess that noise I heard was your post going over my head, not the owl that has taken up residence in our backyard.
I read it as you putting up a rather ‘novel’ explanation of your own on why laws would not be validated, not a hypothetical argument the birthers might make.
I certainly didn’t mean to offend and I apologize for the misreading.