They must have figured it out after filing, as Dummett then got on the ballot as a write-in(or at least attempted to IIRC). I think the judge called it attempting to create evidence or sumpin'.

And just think -- if they ever overcame the standing hurdle, they would finally get to score an evidentiary triumph like Orly did in Atlanta!

Well, sort of. He only filled out the form for write-in candidacy after the defendants pointed out they lacked standing because they were not candidates. The judge even said he'd have been slightly - slightly! - more sympathetic had he done so in advance of the case (although I'd argue still a lack of standing).

Still up at LLF:

You can't lower someone's chances when they're zero.

But gsgs will
give it a shot if
you want him to.

I now have a link list of John Dummett's greatest hits up at my blog on the right hand side of the screen.

Nice job! It's a good reference manual on Venn Aryan too.

Thx.

Mebee this is gonna be Orly's next move - - - Its not fair that all those other republicans ran for the CA senate seat cause they hurt my chance of winning... and it it the GOP's fault cause they didn't endorse me me me me me...

Venn Aryan speaks:

A bit more at the link http://libertylegalfoundation.org/2107/ ... y-lawsuit/

Now wait just a minute. You just spent the rest of the page telling us what a terrible ruling the judge made then you say an appeal would be futile? Aren't appeals supposed to be for incorrect rulings? It sounds like to me the money machine has dried up and after three defeats Venn Diagram is looking to exit.

Another possible explanation for Aryan's apparent reluctance to appeal is that he knows he blew his argument that Dummett had standing because he submitted the paperwork to enter Dummett into TN's fall election too late (or filed the case too early). The argument isn't a winner anyway, but he can't even make the competitive standing argument on appeal since Dummett was clearly not a candidate for anything in TN when FAC was filed.

Note the outright lie about the court refusing to let him amend the complaint to show Dummett's candidacy. He never asked for leave to amend the complaint. I think he's lying to cover his ass so that his hatriotic followers don't see that he fucked up this indispensable part of his litigation strategy.

Setting aside the fact that Venn's pitches to the public are facially disingenuous, his actual performance was a case study in terrible lawyering.

One of the trendiest mantras currently plastered on every signpost and bridge throughout birtherdom is the grossly over-simplified belief that an opposing candidate for president automatically has standing to challenge presidential eligibility. This -- the unwashed birthers claim -- is established precedent by virtue of the 9th Circuit's ruling in Drake v. Obama.

Ignoring for a moment a few "technicalities" about the application of precedent (e.g., that an opinion by the Ninth Circuit is not binding in the Sixth), Venn Aryan fell far short of building upon Drake (as well as other prior case law, some of which is cited internally) to demonstrate that his clients were entitled to "competitive standing".

So what were the 9th's actual holdings in Drake with respect to competing candidates? In a nutshell, the panel held that the claims of the candidate-plaintiffs in that case (Keyes, Drake and Lightfoot) failed because their complaints were filed after the election of President Obama. (“Plaintiffs’ competitive interest in running against a qualified candidate had lapsed.”)

What the birfers latched onto were a few convenient lines in the discussion of how competitive standing might apply in a case timely brought by a candidate threatened with the substantial injury of losing an election that might otherwise be won. And in fairness, the 9th does suggest that under the right set of circumstances, the court might recognize "competitive standing" to sue an ineligible candidate. But is it as simple as saying, "Hey, I have my own campaign button and I haven't lost the election yet"?

That appears to be Venn Aryan's misconception. And relying on his sophomoric view, he did little to develop a plausible set of circumstances under which Dummett and/or Volodarsky would suffer a cognizable concrete injury. What he ignored altogether was this inconvenient footnote in the Drake opinion:



And that's why the the so-called "precedent" that Aryan relies upon is nothing more than an inchoate exposition of a competitive standing analysis written for the purpose of teeing up the dismissal for untimeliness. The 9th noted that, for the purposes of the case before it, the panel did not need to address the totality of circumstances that might convey competitive standing.

A competent lawyer advancing the competitive standing theory would not have taken a snippet from Drake and claimed that it was a slam-dunk precedent for finding competitive standing on the part of virtually anyone who claimed to be a candidate or filled out an FEC form, or whatever.

A competent lawyer would have looked to all of the case law supporting the existence of competitive standing and argued that his clients met all prongs of the test (if, that is, it was possible to do so on behalf of his bogus candidate-clients). Foremost among the missing prongs was a plausible articulation of how his plaintiffs would suffer actual concrete injury and this guy didn't come close.

Sure he's disengenuous but, IMO, he also isn't very bright.

Thanks Piffle! That citation of the Barnett/Drake appeal has been bothering me all week because it was not as I remembered it. The court said that just being a candidate was not enough. The candidate would have to show that they were competitive. The ruling said that since the Barnett case was filed after the President was sworn in that they didn't even need to address whether any of the alleged candidates were "competitive".

You nailed it.

Tanks, RC

Adding: The trial court (Carter) actually dismissed a little too glibly on the basis of "anyone can see that da bums didn't have a snowball's chance" (I'm paraphrasing ) and so the court of appeals "corrected" slightly by finding that the late timing was the shorter and surer logical path. Neither ruling left a clear roadmap for an improbable candidate to perfect a competitive standing claim to contest eligibility.

But any way you want to look at it, the analysis still centers on bringing a plausible concrete injury claim. That is, pleading "competitive standing" is not a magical incantation conveying a presumption of injury.

DOCKET UPDATE!!



"Sounds Like" to me it could have been more but defendants screwed up their Rule 11 request.

But hey, it's at least one FRIDAY SMACKDOWN!!

link shortly

The section 1927 sanctions are probably the same as what Rule 11 sanctions would have been. So there is probably no harm no foul.

I hope Du-May and Irion enjoy paying the sanctions. Maybe they can get Orly Taitz and Jonathan Levy to take an appeal for them on the issue. Taitz and Levy are experts on the issue.

Now the donors to Liberty Legal Foundation will see their hard-earned $$$$$ go to pay legal fees for defending against this crap.

The judge has ordered this money to come directly out of Venn Aryan's pocket:

As much as I'm pleased Irion will have to spend some of his grifter birther bucks on attorney fees, I wish Dummett had to share in these sanctions. Perhaps after a couple of hits of this order he'd figger out what it's really going to cost he and his family to be a lyIng seditionist asshole.

It's about time someone other than the taxpayer has to pay for this lunacy.

Frankly, I'm delighted to see a judge award Section 1927 sanctions because I've long been of the opinion that this approach is a better tactic than Rule 11 to discourage frivolous birther suits. The principal disadvantage, as I see it, is that 1927 sanctions will not generally reach the wallets of the parties. (That is, except to the extent that the parties stand in the shoes of an attorney. But that's another matter.)

All in all, I see this as an important ruling because it holds that the threshold "standing issue" -- which has been resolved against birther litigants time after time -- is so well settled that most future birther plaintiffs place themselves in immediate jeopardy of being sanctioned upon filing their suits in federal courts regardless of whether there is additional litigation misconduct. Furthermore, those bringing suits with no plausible basis for standing cannot, with confidence, assume that a 21-day safe harbor protects them from having the door slammed in their faces very soon after filing.

To my way of thinking, this is a devastating result for Birthistan because of the breadth of the ruling's potential applicability as persuasive authority throughout the federal (and perhaps even state) courts.

YMMV.