CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, MARCH 11, 2014, OR THEREAFTER
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, MARCH 11, 2014, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“APPEAL
COURT COMMENTS ENCOURAGE BIRTHERS”
For years, those who claim President
Barack Obama was born in Kenya or someplace other than the Hawaii hospital
indicated on the birth certificate issued by that state’s officials have
claimed their effort is neither political nor racist, but merely purist.
But now the woman who has carried the
birther torch in more devoted fashion than anyone has revealed a political
motive: She says she hopes a case now before the federal Court of Appeals for
the Ninth Circuit will “influence the fall election and get more Republicans
elected.”
Of
course, the case now avidly pursued by Orly Taitz, the Orange County lawyer,
dentist and real estate agent often called the “Birther Queen,” does not
involve Obama directly. But Taitz, planning a run for state attorney general,
believes a wisecrack by one of three judges hearing it might cause other
jurists to take her claims more seriously.
This case involves Peta Lindsay, the
2012 candidate of the national Party for Socialism and Liberation, who tried
two years ago to get onto the California ballot as the candidate of the Peace
and Freedom Party. California Secretary of State Debra Bowen refused Lindsay a
ballot slot because she was under – far under – the Constitutional minimum age
for a president, 35. Lindsay was born in 1984.
Taitz told the judges that
because Bowen scrutinized Lindsay’s candidacy enough to determine her age made
her ineligible, Bowen should also have investigated whether Obama’s birth
certificate, Social Security and draft cards were forgeries, as she and other
birthers have claimed for more than five years.
Taitz argued that it was a violation
of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection provisions for Bowen to
investigate Lindsay and not the birther claims about Obama. Bowen’s lawyers
responded that Obama’s qualification was covered by the “political question
doctrine,” because he was the nominee of a major party, rendering it
unnecessary for her to check those claims.
Responded Alex Kozinski, a Ronald
Reagan appointee to the appeals court and a noted judicial eccentric, “What if
your party were to run a dog for president of the United States? Would the
secretary of state be obligated to put a dog on the ballot, too?”
The three-judge panel, which also
included Diarmuid O’Scannlain, another Reagan appointee and one of the Ninth
Circuit’s most consistent conservatives, inquired of lawyers on the case what
might have happened if the secretary of state were a birther.
Those comments encourage Taitz to
believe her claims, previously tossed out of several federal courtrooms, may at
last be taken seriously. She hopes the Ninth Circuit panel will remand the
Lindsay case to a lower court with an instruction for a legal discovery process
investigating the forgery claims. The timing of any ruling in the Lindsay case is
uncertain.
Taitz does not believe such an
investigation would cause Obama to be impeached or disqualified. But she
claimed “It will influence the fall election and it will discredit all the
critics of us birthers.”
Of course, if the appeals panel were
to make such a ruling, a request for a rehearing before an 11-member panel of
Ninth Circuit judges sitting en banc would quickly ensue and be granted. Any
such panel of the famously liberal court would be highly likely to reverse a
pro-birther ruling.
Not that Taitz believes any of this
could lead to a reversal of the Electoral College vote, even though she has
named that group, which only exists for a day or so every four years, as a
defendant in some of her lawsuits.
“But I am sure that if we ever have
discovery and are able to prove that his Social Security card, for example, is
false, it would be bigger than Watergate and he would be forced to resign,”
Taitz said. “Yes, (Vice President) Joe Biden would then become president and
immediately pardon Obama, like Gerald Ford did for Richard Nixon. But that
would also guarantee the next president would be a Republican.”
All of which means a few possibly idle
remarks by a couple of appellate judges have exposed birthers as purely
political and partisan, while also raising their hopes to new highs.
-30-
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, go to www.californiafocus.net.
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, go to www.californiafocus.net.
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