Birthers all wet
I commented that I expected a flurry of ballot challenges just in time to get ahead of reports of a flurry of ballot challenges. The election is just weeks away, so the courts and state elections commissions are having to expedite the process. Several prior cases were dismissed because they were premature, Obama not having been officially names as the Democratic Nominee yet.
First we noted Joe Montgomery’s later withdrawn objection in Kansas, plus Orly Taitz on the scene. Next it was three challenges in Illinois, all overruled by the Illinois State Elections Board today. Now another comes to light (filed Sept. 3) in Vermont by by H. Brooke Paige. Paige is was a Republican candidate for the US Senate from Vermont who lost in the primary. Most disturbing to me is that Mr. Paige is a fellow Lutheran.
Paige v. Condos
Paige says on his campaign web site:
For years Vermonters have sent radical Socialist and "Liberals" to Washington, embarrassing our great state with plans and schemes designed to bankrupt Vermont and America.
I suppose Paige (photo right) is expressing his dislike for “radical Socialists” by trying to keep Barack Obama off the ballot in Vermont. Paige is representing himself in his lawsuit because he was “unable to secure competent Vermont counsel.” According to rather interesting narrative in supporting documents, no Vermont attorney will willing to represent Paige.
The 24-page complaint (embedded at the end of this article) indicates Paige is a follower of the Prussian/Swiss jurist Emerich de Vattel. It is unusual in a birther lawsuit citing Vattel to explicitly state the edition from which they take their text, but in this case Paige says that it is from 1797, 10 years after the Constitution was drafted. He doesn’t mention, however, that the phrase “natural born citizen” did not appear in the earlier English translations available to the framers.
Paige tells us that he had previously consulted with birther attorney Mario Apuzzo at length. The present complaint shows a rather clear derivation from Apuzzo’s arguments. (I didn’t check whether it is just copy and paste.) That’s a bad sign because the courts have already told Apuzzo that his legal theory is without merit.
Paige cites the following as authority for bringing suit:
- § 4711. Declaratory judgment
- Vermont Rules of Civil Procedure 57 (declaratory judgments — under Rules of Civil Procedure VII. Judgment)
- Vermont Rules of Civil Procedure 65 (injunctions – under Rules of Civil Procedure VIII. Provisional and Final Remedies and Special Proceedings)
[Doc scratches his head]
One of the problems that birthers have with these lawsuits is showing that the defendant, in this case Secretary of State James Condos, has a duty determine a candidates eligibility and to keep ineligible candidates off the ballot. Paige writes (Paragraph 104):
The Secretary of State has the power and authority to refuse to qualify a presidential candidate who has filed documentation with the State of Vermont seeking to be placed on the primary and general election ballot to be voted upon by Vermont voters when the constitutional eligibility of that candidate is objected to by a Vermont citizen…
However, he makes no citation of law at this point.
The second hurdle, of course, is that Paige’s theory is a collage of losers and misrepresented sources consistently rejected by every court to date that has looked at it. To someone who approaches this document trusting, it looks pretty impressive, but it’s all bunk under the microscope. I can see how someone like Paige could get misled, particularly someone disposed to see socialists running the government.
See for yourself:
And another birther lawsuit springs up in its place, this time in Vermont.
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20120917/NEWS03/309170021/Former-GOP-Senate-candidate-sues-to-get-Obama-off-Vermont-ballot-over-birth-eligibility?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE%7Cs
It seems that our old friend Mario Apuzzo has been whispering sweet nothings into the ear of failed Republican Senatorial candidate, H. Brooke Paige.
The courts can never make a ruling that Obama is somehow ineligible. The ramifications of such a ruling the courts believe would too much for this country. For this reason, no court is willing to seriously consider Obama’s eligiblity.
He looks like a much less pleasant looking Ed Asner.
I should add that all of the photos on his campaign web site display the same costume; it must be some sort of a trademark. I didn’t pick it to make him look silly.
Whatever helps you sleep at night.
But based on that insider video of Romney that got wide play today, I think you better hunker down for 4 more years of Obama.
Looks like you’re up a creek without a paddle. See you in 2016!
And lets face it, only one man will ever make a pork pie hat look cool, and that’s Carl Kolchak!
And of course LOL @ John’s weak sauce crap.
Every time birthers get the smackdown, he’s here spouting the EXACT. SAME. EXCUSE. every time!
Paige looks like Mr Haney from Green Acres.
When the birther lawyers start talking about Vattel, would it be a bad thing if the judge hearing the case said “Excuse me, who is Vattel?”
That’s a straw boater.
Gee, John, we knew you couldn’t comprehend history or the Law, but we only just now understand that you imagine yourself to be a mass mind-reader! No wonder facts don’t impress you!
Your statement seems to apply quite accurately to Birthers however. Look:
The Birthers can never accept a ruling that Obama is somehow eligible. The ramifications of such a ruling the Birthers believe would too mortifying for every Birther. For this reason, no Birther is willing to seriously consider Obama’s eligiblity.
Then again, I don’t think anyone here is in the least bit surprised that it would be “raining ballot challenges”.
That was quite predictable and in fact, repeatedly predicted on this board.
What is equally predictable, is that these will all fall flat and fail as frivolous, just as all the other nonsense nuisance Birther cases before them.
All of these rapid fire challenges, brings a strange, yet accurate parallel to mind!
Japanese Defense Force: Never mind that attacking Godzilla with ordinary weaponry failed utterly every single time we’ve tried, it’s SURE to work this time! What can possibly go wrong?
Birthers: Never mind that attacking President Obama with all these frivolous lawsuits failed utterly every single time we’ve tried, it’s SURE to work this time! What can possibly go wrong?
Maybe what the birthers are missing are phoned in clips of Raymond Burr explaining that its all been tried before.
So you finally understood that this is explicitly Congress’ domain?
> The Secretary of State has the power and authority to refuse to qualify a presidential candidate
All fine and dandy, but the objector does not argue he has a *duty* to do so (and cannot, of course). So that’s why it will fail, again.
Another thing is that from reading his filing, I can already hear the elections board (or, later, a judge) asking “but you knew all this in 2008 already, so what has changed?”.
And yet another thing is that parts of his explanation why he couldn’t find a lawyer read like boilerplate birther propaganda – a judge calling the issue “fascinating”, a lawyer denying to take the case because he “fears for the future of his practice” etc.
I don’t remember typical pro se clients going on at length in their filing about why they don’t have a lawyer. Trying to preemptively explain away why no sane lawperson touches this crap with a ten foot pole? Trying to turn this into typical birther propaganda (“Everyone thinks it’s explosive, but everyone is afraid.”)?
Vermont does have the only federal representative who clearly identifies himself as a socialist, Senator Bernie Sanders. Rather than seeing him as an embarassment, most Vermonters are proud as punch of Bernie, who won his Senate seat by a wide margin, after having won many terms in the House and as Mayor of Burlington, also by overwhelming margins. Even most Republicans in vermont admire Bernie. Bernie, by the way, is no great fan of the President, whom he considers a sold-out tool of Wall Street.
Vermont will have single-payer health care starting in 2014.
He does not like the “radical socialists” and “liberals” from his state so I assume he wants to get rid of the Department of Education and the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities along with various science related government program. With his fealty to the almighty alter of Vattel, he may want to read a little bit more, with particular attention to Chapter 11.
Reminds me of my 2009 article:
http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2009/01/dr-orlys-new-high-profile-partner/
“Most disturbing to me is that Mr. Paige is a fellow Lutheran.”
We’re stuck with Orly Taitz, Phil Berg and the neocons.
OTOH, we have Bernie Sanders, Ben & Jerry, and Myron Cohen.
Also Meyer Lansky. [bada-bing]
The Mormons have Willard Romney and Glenn Beck, who raped and murdered a girl.
LMAO!
The DNC sent out a convention highlights reel, that ended with Obama and Biden signing candidacy forms. They’re rubbing our faces in it … again!
Has Orly gotten ahold of this yet? Has the “brilliant legal mind”? The video is surely on YouTube now, giving it that consummate stamp of authenticity birthers crave. I expect it to show up in a ballot challenges soon. Beirfers, don’t let me down!
Funny! That must have been shortly before I found this blog, because I don’t recall seeing it before.
I didn’t recall that article either. But it could just be that I’ve forgotten it over the course of all the articles I’ve seen here over the past 4 years. But it sure made me LOL this morning. 😉
So huge KUDOS to Doc C’s cleverness and precience!!!
Poor John… there there, it will all be okay.
lol that guy Paige looks straight out of the 1920’s… unsurprisingly, since that’s roughly the time period he and his ilk want to take us back to.
LOL! Agreed…
…although quite a few of them clearly wish to take us back either decades or even centuries further back than that…
They want to take us back to William Jennings Bryan and the gold standard.
Some wish to take us back to the Middle Ages…or even worse…
Now you see the violence inherent in the system!
Help! I’m bein’ repressed!
I’m depraved because I’m deprived. http://www.westsidestory.com/lyrics_krupke.php
Paige has been turned down. “The court has been presented with a radically insufficient basis on which to issue a temporary or even a preliminary injunction.” Radically insufficient. I like that one.