SALON

Tuesday, Oct 13, 2009 7:45 PM UTC

Quote of the day

Birther lawyer Orly Taitz and her supporters sure do liven up court rulings

By

Topics: Orly Taitz, Birthers, War Room,

There were a lot of classic moments in U.S. District Judge Clay Land’s order hitting Birther lawyer Orly Taitz with a $20,000 sanction. But there was one that stood out above all the rest, in part because it’s disturbing, in part because it sums up much of the Birther movement and in part because it was just funny.

At one point in his ruling, Land — explaining why President Obama’s eligibility for his post, or lack thereof, is not a matter for the courts — writes:

One can readily see the wisdom of entrusting the elected representatives of the people with the ultimate decision as to whether a President should be removed from office rather than litigating the issue in our courts. Although counsel’s present concern is the location of the President’s birth, it does not take much imagination to extend the theory to his birthday …. If he refused to admit publicly that he is older than the constitutional minimum age of thirty-five, should Ms. Taitz be allowed to file a lawsuit and have a court order him to produce his birth certificate? Or perhaps an eccentric citizen has become convinced that the President is an alien from Mars, and the courts should order DNA testing to enforce the Constitution.

Land isn’t kidding about that last part, apparently. In a footnote attached to that argument, he writes:

The Court does not make this observation simply as a rhetorical device for emphasis; the Court has actually received correspondence assailing its previous order in which the sender, who, incidentally, challenged the undersigned to a “round of fisticuffs on the Courthouse Square,” asserted that the President is not human.

The story doesn’t even end there. The person who wanted to fight Land apparently e-mailed Taitz herself to brag about it — and Taitz posted the e-mail to her blog.

“I have challanged Judge Land to a round of “Fist a Cuff’s” in the Couthouse Square, via E-mail… I told him that I might possibly beat some sense into him,” the e-mailer wrote Taitz. “The man has insulted Me,U and 1/2 the Citizenry of the United States, by tossing ur case and calling it ‘Frivolous’….No such thing as a Stupid Question, and I want to know who or what this thing in the Whitehouse is… I will let u know what Judge Land’s response is…”

Alex Koppelman is a staff writer for Salon. More Alex Koppelman.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 45 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations