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Orly Taitz

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Orly Taitz
BornAugust 30, 1962
Chişinău, Moldavian SSR[1]
Alma materHebrew University, Taft Law School
Occupation(s)Lawyer, Dentist, and Real Estate Agent
Known forFiling lawsuits challenging Barack Obama's eligibility to serve as President of the United States
SpouseYosef Taitz
ChildrenIsaac Taitz[2]
Benjamin Taitz[3]
another son[4]
Websitewww.orlytaitzesq.com
www.drtaitz.com

Orly Taitz (born August 30, 1962[1]) is an Orange County, California-based dentist and lawyer[5][6] who is a leading figure in the "birther" movement which challenges whether Barack Obama is a natural-born citizen eligible to serve as President of the United States; in addition, she promotes a number of other conspiracy theories both related and unrelated to Obama. She runs a non-profit organization called the "Defend Our Freedoms Foundation".[7]

Biography

Taitz was born to a Jewish family in Chişinău, Moldavian SSR,[4] (present day Moldova) and emigrated to Israel in 1981.[1] During her residence in Israel, Taitz completed a dentistry degree at Hebrew University.[1] In 1987 she met her husband Yosef when he visited Israel. After he proposed, she emigrated to the United States where they married in Las Vegas.[4] She later received her law degree from Taft Law School which "specializes in 'distance learning law programs to qualified students around the world'",[8] and subsequently passed the California bar exam.[9] She obtained a real estate broker's license from the State of California that expired in February 2008.[10]

Taitz currently lives in Laguna Niguel, California,[11] and owns dental practices in nearby Mission Viejo and Rancho Santa Margarita.[4] A photo caption accompanying a 1990 Los Angeles Times article identified Taitz as a volunteer at the Share Our Selves dental clinic in Costa Mesa.[12] She has three sons,[4] holds a second degree black belt in Taekwondo, and speaks five languages: English, Hebrew, Romanian, Russian, and Spanish.[5][13][14]

Before her national news exposure, Taitz had previously been personally involved in 22 lawsuits in Orange County civil court.[9] Most of the cases involved "accusations of dental and medical malpractice" and breach of contract suits.[9] She was quoted in the Orange County Register in 2006 supporting Israeli military actions against Hamas and Hezbollah,[15] and downplaying the impact of the espionage trial of two American Israel Public Affairs Committee staffers.[16]

Taitz said that she lost relatives in the Holocaust, and that her grandmother witnessed the Kishinev Pogrom.[9][13]

In an August 2009 interview, Taitz said "You know I never ran for office, but I would not exclude this as a possibility".[13]

2008—2009 legal/advocacy activities

Taitz alleges that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and that he falsified his Selective Service papers and his application to the Illinois bar.[17] Regarding Obama, Taitz has said: "I believe he is the most dangerous thing one can imagine, in that he represents radical communism and radical Islam: He was born and raised in radical Islam, all of his associations are with radical Islam, and he was groomed in the environment of the dirty Chicago mafia. Can there be anything scarier than that?"[18]

Other Obama-related conspiracy theories Taitz has repeated include:

  • A number of homosexuals from Obama's former church have died mysteriously.
  • Obama has dozens of social security numbers, and his passport is inaccurate. Taitz claims that a person who was cooperating with the FBI in connection with Obama's passport died mysteriously, "shot in the head".
  • A Kenyan birth certificate with the name "Barack Obama" is authentic.
  • Obama's first act as president was to donate money to Hamas, which she claims will be used to build Qassam rockets.
  • Obama or someone connected to him has made threats to Taitz's life, including vandalizing her car.[9]

Taitz also has advanced or supported a number of other conspiracy theories not directly related to Obama, including: that Goldman Sachs runs the United States Treasury,[18] that Baxter International has developed a bird flu vaccine that kills people,[18] that Representative Alcee Hastings and the House of Representatives are planning to build at least six labor camps,[18] that Hugo Chavez owns the software that runs American voting machines,[9] that FactCheck is untrustworthy because of its links to the Annenberg Foundation,[9] and that Fox News is partly owned by Saudi Arabia.[18] Taitz has also advocated numerous Internet-related conspiracy theories, including complaints about alleged PayPal attacks and the previous deletion of her Wikipedia entry and allegations that Google improperly flagged her web page as an attack site and suppressed search results for her name.[9]

Lawsuit on behalf of Keyes

In November 2008, Taitz filed a lawsuit on behalf of independent presidential candidate Alan Keyes, suing California's secretary of state for allegedly failing to ascertain Obama's eligibility for president before placing him on the ballot. The case is still pending as of August 10, 2009 [1]

California election injunction

Taitz filed an emergency injunction to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2008 on behalf of libertarian vice presidential candidate Gail Lightfoot, urging the court to stop the certification of California's 2008 election results. The court declined to hear the case.[1]

Cook v. Obama

Main article: Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories

Taitz represented Stefan F. Cook, a Major in the United States Army Reserve, who challenged his order to be deployed to Afghanistan because of his claim that Obama is not a legitimate president. The case was dismissed when the Army Reserve recalled his order to deploy.

Philip J. Berg lawsuit

On May 4, 2009, Taitz and her organization, "Defend Our Freedoms Foundation", were sued by Philip J. Berg, another prominent figure in the Birther movement, accusing Taitz and her organization of harassing Berg's supporters. The allegations included a claim that Taitz uses "JS Kit" software, which "tracks" and "hacks" computers and individuals that visit her websites and blogs. Berg also alleges that, when Taitz filed a lawsuit on behalf of Alan Keyes against Obama, she plagiarized Berg's work. In addition, Berg claims that "Defend Our Freedoms Foundation" does not have a proper Federal Tax Identification Number, that Taitz claimed Obama's "thugs" were stealing money from her supporters by making fake e-mail addresses and encouraging people to send PayPal donations to them instead of her real e-mail address, and that she falsely complained to the government that her own websites had been hacked.[7]

Barnett vs. Obama: Scheduling Conference

On September 8, 2009, a U.S. District judge set a routine scheduling conference for October 5 2009.[19] A scheduling conference is a preliminary proceeding and does not involve any determination on the merits. At the hearing, the court will hear arguments on the Department of Justice's motion to dismiss the entire lawsuit.

Rhodes vs. Macdonald

In September 2009, Taitz was retained by Connie Rhodes, an Army doctor with the rank of captain. Rhodes sought a restraining order to prevent her forthcoming deployment to Iraq. Rhodes had retained Taitz as counsel. In the request for a restraining order, Taitz argued the order was illegal since Obama was illegally serving as president. On September 16, federal judge Clay D. Land rejected the motion and denounced it as frivolous. In his opinion, the judge noted that Rhodes hadn't previously raised any objections to orders she'd received from Obama since he'd been sworn in. He noted that while she seemed to have "conscientious objections" to taking orders from Obama, she didn't seem to object to serving under him "as long as she is permitted to remain on American soil." Land then upbraided Taitz for using military officers as pawns to further her claims that Obama was not qualified to be President. He also expressed astonishment at Ms. Taitz' apparent misunderstanding of American judicial fundamentals, saying that she was trying to make Obama "'prove his innocence'" to 'charges' that are based upon conjecture and speculation." [20]

Within hours of Land's decision, Taitz told the left-leaning news site Talking Points Memo that she felt Land's refusal to hear her case was an act of treason.[21] Two days later, she filed a motion to stay Rhodes' deployment pending rehearing of the dismissal order. She repeated her treason allegations against Land and made several other intemperate statements, including claims that Land was aiding and abetting purported aspirations of "dictatorship" by Obama.[22] Land rejected the motion as frivolous and ordered her to show cause why she should not be fined $10,000 for abuse of judicial process.[23] A few hours later, a letter bearing Rhodes' signature arrived claiming Taitz filed the motion without her knowledge or consent, and asked Land to remove Taitz as her attorney of record in the case.[24]

California Ethics Complaint

Following the Rhodes v. Macdonald decision, and Taitz's subsequent comments regarding Judge Land, allegations that Taitz had violated her ethical obligation as a California attorney surfaced. Because of Taitz's demeaning comments regarding Judge Land, attorney Subodh Chandra filed an ethics complaint with the State Bar Association of California arguing Taitz had violated her ethical obligation as an attorney.[25]

Activities in Israel

Taitz has also actively promoted her theories in Israel, where she claims that "the vast majority" of the population supports her views [citation needed]. She has appeared on the Channel 10 nightly news show "London and Kirschenbaum", was the subject of a feature on Channel 1 TV, and filmed a video for the far-right-wing website Arutz 7. Israel's Russian language media, such as Channel 9 and Vesti, the country's largest Russian-language newspaper, have also given attention to Taitz.[13]

Media reactions

Taitz first received media attention in connection with Obama eligibility questions in late 2008.[26]

Taitz was interviewed by co-hosts David Shuster and Tamron Hall on MSNBC on August 3, 2009. Various media outlets called her appearance an "implosion",[27] or that "she turned into barking Bessarabian goo on camera".[9] Taitz repeated her accusations that Shuster was "a brownshirt" in a phone interview the following week.[9]

Media descriptions of Taitz have ranged from "a pert, peroxide blonde in her late 40s"[4] and "a cross between Paul Revere and Joan of Arc"[28] to "Carol Kane-lookalike".[8] She has been called "Queen Bee of people obsessed with Barack Obama's birth certificate" and "The Queen Bee of Birferstan".[6] Less flatteringly, she has been called a "professional whack-a-doodle".[29] Meghan Daum of the Los Angeles Times suggested that August is "the time when bizarre personalities and ideas find their way into the mainstream media. This year, it's Orly Taitz and the 'birthers.'"[30] The Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies included Taitz in a list of people who have "espoused beliefs they claim are rooted in fact and have a rational justification, but actually are motivated by ideology or emotion".[31]

In popular culture crossovers, Salon suggested Taitz as a possible replacement for Paula Abdul on American Idol, indicating she might be "the most entertaining 'Idol' judge yet",[32] while The Faster Times suggested Taitz as a community lecturer who "could teach the CIA a thing or two about forgery".[33]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Fletcher, Dan (August 10, 2009). "2 minute bio: Orly Taitz". Time Magazine. Retrieved 2009-08-10.
  2. ^ "30 Graduate From Tarbut V'Torah". Orange County Register. June 5, 2007. Retrieved 2009-08-13.
  3. ^ "Taitz vs Haas". Orange County Superior Court case 06CC03941. March 9th, 2006. Retrieved 2009-08-13. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ^ a b c d e f Hoffman, Alice (July 28, 2009). "In Doubt's Shadow: Soviet Jewish Emigré Orly Taitz is the 'Queen Bee' of the 'Birther' Movement". Tablet Magazine. Retrieved 2009-08-11.
  5. ^ a b Taitz, Orly. "Dr. Orly Taitz Esquire". Retrieved 2009-08-11.
  6. ^ a b Kornhaber, Spencer (June 17, 2009). "Meet Orly Taitz, Queen Bee of People Obsessed With Barack Obama's Birth Certificate". OC Weekly. Retrieved 2009-08-11.
  7. ^ a b Berg, Philip J. "Taitz, Hale Complaint 05 04 2009". Scribd. Retrieved 2009-07-27.
  8. ^ a b Lemons, Stephen (August 6, 2009). "KFYI's Barry Markson Eats Birthers for Breakfast, and Orly Taitz's Online Law Degree". Phoenix New Times. Retrieved 2009-08-11.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Winant, Gabriel (August 13, 2009). "What Orly Taitz believes". Salon. Retrieved 2009-08-12.
  10. ^ State of California Department of Real Estate License Status Check for Orly Taitz, license no. 01410896. Retrieved 2009-09-16.
  11. ^ Coker, Matt (July 23, 2009). "Daily Show's Jon Stewart Eviscerates Birthers, Orly Taitz, Lou Dobbs and Especially Congressman John Campbell". OC Weekly. Retrieved 2009-08-11.
  12. ^ Hernandez, Greg (November 18, 1990). "Filling Need: Dentists Volunteer at Costa Mesa Clinic to Care for Those Who Cannot Pay for Treatment". Los Angeles Times. p. T1. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved 2009-08-13. (Registration required)
  13. ^ a b c d e Hartman, Benjamin L. (August 18, 2009). "Orly Taitz: Obama Policies are 'Clear and Present Danger to Israel'". Haaretz. Retrieved 2009-08-18.
  14. ^ "Arianna Huffington". The Colbert Report. 2009-07-28. Comedy Central.
  15. ^ Martindale, Scott (July 24, 2006). "Showing their support for Israel". Orange County Register. Retrieved 2009-08-13.
  16. ^ Fingerhut, Eric (March 8, 2006). "Trial Doesn't Worry Many AIPAC Delegates". Washington Jewish Week. Retrieved 2009-08-13. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |coauthor= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  17. ^ Kennedy, Wally (July 27, 2009). "Lamar lawmaker, House leader from Joplin at odds on matter". Joplin Globe. Retrieved 2009-08-11.
  18. ^ a b c d e Richardson, John H. (August 11, 2009). "What Really Happens When You Demand the President Produce His Birth Certificate?". Esquire. Retrieved 2009-08-11.
  19. ^ "Order Setting Scheduling Conference'". September 8, 2009. Retrieved 2009-09-08.
  20. ^ Rhodes vs. Macdonald CASE NO. 4:09-CV-106, Middle District of Georgia(CDL)
  21. ^ Justin Elliott (September 16, 2009). "Birther Orly Taitz Compares Self To Mandela, Wants Judge Tried For Treason". Talking Points Memo.
  22. ^ Motion for stay of Connie Rhodes' deployment
  23. ^ Justin Elliott (September 18, 2009). "Judge Clay Land v. Orly Taitz, Part II". TPM Muckraker.
  24. ^ Alan Riquelmy (September 19, 2009). "Letter signed Capt. Connie Rhodes says she never OK'd appeal, says Rhodes will file complaint against attorney Orly Taitz". Columbus Ledger-Enquirer.
  25. ^ TPM (September 17, 2009). "Complaint to California Bar, Re: Orly Taitz (Sept. 17, 2009)". Talking Points Memo.
  26. ^ Madden, Mike (December 8, 2008). "The Born Conspiracy". Salon. Retrieved 2009-08-13.
  27. ^ Orr, Jimmy (August 3, 2009). "Birther leader Orly Taitz implodes on MSNBC". The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 2009-08-12.
  28. ^ Camden, Jim (August 16, 2009). "Obama Citizenship 'settled' for McMorris Rodgers". The Spokesman Review. Retrieved 2009-08-16.
  29. ^ Wise, Tim (August 13, 2009). "Sick Heil!". CounterPunch. Retrieved 2009-08-13.
  30. ^ Daum, Meghan (August 6, 2009). "When it Comes to Rational People, August isn't so Hot". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2009-08-12.
  31. ^ Treder, Mike (August 7, 2009). "Creationism, Birtherism, Singularitarianism, and Other Fantasies". Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. Retrieved 2009-08-12.
  32. ^ Salon staff (August 5, 2009). "Should Orly Taitz replace Paula Abdul?". Salon. Retrieved 2009-08-12.
  33. ^ Lerner, Mason (August 8, 2009). "Chuck Norris Doesn't Lecture — Why Should Michael Vick?". The Faster Times. Retrieved 2009-08-12.
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