On Meet the Press author makes case that without white supremacy there would be no President Trump.

Courtesy of Media Matters: 

CHUCK TODD (HOST): This is what you wrote about in the election, you were not subtle in pointing the blame directly at systemic racism and bigotry. And this is what you write: "The implications that systemic bigotry is still central to our politics, that the country is susceptible to such bigotry, that the salt of the earth Americans whom we lionize in our culture and politics are not so different than those same Americans who grin back in lynching photos are just too dark. Instead, the response has been an argument aimed at emotion, the summoning of the white working class, emblem of America’s hardscrabble roots, inheritor of it's pioneer spirit as a shield against the horrific and empirical evidence of trenchant bigotry." You've said even tougher words about this president. 

TA-NEHISI COATES: I have, yeah. 

TODD: You don't think he'd be here without white supremacy. 

COATES: No, no, I don’t. 

TODD: Explain that. 

COATES: Well, I think it's pretty easy. I mean, you have a political candidate who literally begins his presence or his campaign in birtherism. That was how it started. I don't think birtherism was a mistake and it wasn't a minority-held opinion – it wasn’t a small minority held opinion within the Republican Party. You had eight years of an African-American president, and if not majority to at least plurality of the Republican Party believed that Barack Obama was not legitimate because he was not born here. And Donald Trump saw that, played on that, and that was how he launched his campaign. I just don't think that was a mistake. And he's continued with that all the way through. You have a president who had no problem going on TV saying, "Someone can't judge me, a federal judge can’t judge my case because he's a Mexican," it doesn't get much more explicit than that. TODD: Solely a reaction to the election of Barack Obama? 

COATES: Yes. 

TODD: Do we have -- do we get Donald Trump without Barack Obama as president? 

COATES: I don't think so. I don't think without that reaction. That doesn't mean there weren't other factors contributing to a Trump presidency ultimately. I would argue that white supremacy is an indispensable factor. Which does not mean there weren't other factors that were there too. But I think if you take that on, no, no. I don’t think it’s a mistake we've never had a president who’s never held political office or never been an independent -- had a military posting or anything at all. No experience with the within the public sphere at all. To just hand it off like that. I think Trump is different. He's not Marco Rubio, he's not Mitt Romney, this is a very, very different thing. And I think 50 years from now, historians are going to ask themselves how this actually happened and I think the answer is going to be the reaction to Barack Obama's presidency.

This is one of those cases of hearing something, and even if you had not already been thinking it, you automatically know it is correct. 

The election of Donald Trump was ABSOLUTELY a racist reaction to President Obama.

There is no doubt about it.

And not only that but Trump KNEW that was where he was going to find his support.

That is why he keeps throwing out red meat to the racists.

Who else can be counted on to respond favorably to calling Mexicans drug dealers, restricting access to America from Muslim countries, defending neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, and suggesting that Puerto Ricans are lazy?

No, Coates is right.

Donald Trump is the president the white supremacists feel they deserve, and they hope that his presidency will wipe away the blemish that they feel the Obama presidency left on "their" country.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio returns, and he is still looking for Obama's birth certificate.

Courtesy of Mercury News:  

Fresh off a presidential pardon, America’s most infamous lawman is coming to California this week as part of an effort to re-enter the political arena. 

“Don’t think I’m going fishing,” Joe Arpaio, the 85-year-old former Maricopa County sheriff, said in an interview with the Bay Area News Group. “I am not going away.” 

Arpaio, whose hard-line immigration policies divided the country and led to his own criminal conviction, is speaking at a Republican fundraising dinner in Fresno on Friday, an appearance that has local police bracing for protests and some GOP officials staying far away. 

“Sheriff Joe” was thrust back into the national spotlight last month when he received a pardon from President Donald Trump. He was convicted of contempt of court earlier this year, with a judge finding that he had violated court orders to stop detaining suspected undocumented immigrants in Arizona’s Maricopa County, which includes metro Phoenix. The pardon saved him from a possible sentence of six months in prison. 

In an interview on Tuesday afternoon, Arpaio, who lost re-election in November after 24 years in office, said the Fresno event was an example of his renewed “mission” to fight for conservative ideas around the country. That includes, he said, his continuing (and widely debunked) effort to prove that former President Barack Obama’s birth certificate is fake.

My father used to say that there are some people "too mean to die."

Whenever I think of Arpaio that quote comes to mind.

It's like at 85 years old it is only pure hate that keeps him ticking.

He is a vile POS so it is no surprise that Donald Trump went out of his way to rescue him from a prison sentence.

Trump Organization removes any mention of the Donald's birtherism from his online biography.

Courtesy of The Hill: 

The Trump Organization has reportedly edited out a reference in President Trump's corporate biography that highlights his involvement in the birther movement, which aimed to prove the baseless assertion that former President Obama was not born in the United States. 

The controversial line read, "in 2011, after failed attempts by both Senator McCain and Hillary Clinton, Mr. Trump single handedly forced President Obama to release his birth certificate, which was lauded by large segments of the political community." 

The organization removed the line, which had been part of Trump's bio as early as August 2015, CNN's KFile reported Tuesday, pointing to a recent review of the Internet Archive. 

The change likely took place around the time of Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20, sometime between Jan. 13 and Jan. 24, according to the report. 

The removed birther line also echoed Trump's accusation on the campaign trail that Clinton had started the birther conspiracy during her 2008 presidential campaign. 

“Hillary Clinton in her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it,” Trump said in September 2016.

Of course that accusation was debunked quite a while ago, but factual inaccuracy is surely not the reason the Trump Organization would remove that statement from the biography.

However an attempt to revise history is a far more likely reason.

Trump is clearly trying to create distance between himself and his racist base, and believes that this well help to accomplish that.

Unfortunately for him those of us who deal in facts have long memories.

We will NEVER forget who he is, and what he has done.

Never.

That time Jared Kushner assured a coworker that Trump did not believe that birther nonsense but that "Republicans are stupid and they’ll buy it."

He doesn't really believe this, he doesn't really believe this, he doesn't really believe this.

Courtesy of The Independent:

During Mr Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign and throughout his presidency, multiple theories emerged falsely claiming he was not a natural-born American US citizen and it was therefore unconstitutional for him to become US President. Mr Trump was among those who pushed the “birther” conspiracy theory and consistently questioned former President Obama’s birthplace of Hawaii. 

The former New York Observer editor has now claimed that Mr Kushner, the former publisher of the paper, informed her that Mr Trump did not believe the “birther” lies he was peddling. 

“When I was the editor of the New York Observer, Kushner and I were going back and forth about how the paper should cover him,” Elizabeth Spiers wrote in a post on Twitter. 

“I told Jared that I was particularly appalled by his father-in-law’s birtherism stance, which I viewed as cynical and racist. 

“He rolled his eyes and said ‘He doesn’t really believe it, Elizabeth. He just knows Republicans are stupid and they’ll buy it’”.

Gee no wonder Fox News viewers flocked to Donald Trump, he disrespected them and manipulated them just like Roger Ailes did.

This is why I will no longer say that Americans are too smart to be fooled.

The truth is that a very large segment of the population is almost too stupid to stand upright.

I think this captures Trump's attitude perfectly.

Politico tracks down the person responsible for the "Birther" movement, and no it was not Hillary Clinton.

Andy Martin, self proclaimed "King of the Birthers."

Courtesy of Politico: 

After years of denying the legitimacy of Barack Obama’s presidency, it was only in the midst of his own presidential campaign that Donald Trump began falsely claiming Hillary Clinton was the true progenitor of the “birther” conspiracy theory claiming Obama was not born in the United States. 

But that’s swapping one discredited claim for another. Numerous fact checks, reports and interviews — in 2008 and 2011, when Trump revived the controversy — revealed that although some Clinton supporters circulated rumors about Obama’s citizenship, the campaign and Clinton herself never trafficked in it. 

“There has never been evidence that Clinton or her campaign started the birther rumors,” said Ben Smith, editor in chief of BuzzFeed, who as a POLITICO reporter in 2011 linked the origin of the “birther” movement to a fringe politician in Illinois. Some hardcore Clinton backers circulated the rumors in 2008, but the campaign itself steered clear. 

“As we reported, some of her supporters flirted with the idea in 2008 — but it has its origins in the fever swamps beginning in Illinois in 2004,” he said. 

In fact, birtherism, as it’s been called, reportedly began with innuendo by serial Illinois political candidate Andy Martin, who painted Obama as a closet Muslim in 2004. That spiraled into a concerted effort by conspiracy theorists to raise doubts about Obama’s birthplace and religion — and essentially paint him as un-American. 

In fact Martin was so proud of his attempts to question the legitimacy of the Obama presidency, that he referred to himself as "The King of the Birthers."

But ultimately it really doesn't matter.

Even IF the birther thing had been started with the Clinton 2008 campaign, which it was not, the fact remains that it was Donald Trump that pushed it into the national spotlight, and Donald Trump who refused to accept the legitimacy of Obama's birth certificate even years after it was produced for the media.

So for Trump to attempt to blame all of this on Hillary is incredibly pathetic and indicative of a man who simply lacks the character to take responsibility for his actions and his mistakes.

Donald Trump wants to put the whole "birther" thing behind him but here are some of his tweets AFTER President Obama produced his long form birth certificate which prove that should not be allowed.

The following are courtesy of Slate:

Let's take a closer look at that birth certificate. @BarackObama was described in 2003 as being "born in Kenya." http://t.co/vfqJesJL

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 18, 2012

.@BarackObama is practically begging @MittRomney to disavow the place of birth movement, he is afraid of it and (cont) http://t.co/eHvjlV0S

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 29, 2012

I want to see @BarackObama's college records to see how he listed his place of birth in the application.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 30, 2012

My @CNN interview with @wolfblitzercnn where I discuss @BarackObama's 'birth certificate' and why @CNN has low ratings http://t.co/PQwR5XUh

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 30, 2012

Congratulations to @RealSheriffJoe on his successful Cold Case Posse investigation which claims @BarackObama's 'birth certificate' is fake

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 18, 2012

Read this--@BarackObama's birth certificate "cannot survive judicial scrutiny" because of "phantom numbers" http://t.co/DIv9sLI2

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 23, 2012

An 'extremely credible source' has called my office and told me that @BarackObama's birth certificate is a fraud.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 6, 2012

Why do the Republicans keep apologizing on the so called "birther" issue? No more apologies--take the offensive!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 27, 2012

In debate, @MittRomney should ask Obama why autobiography states "born in Kenya, raised in Indonesia."

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 1, 2012

"@davidrhythmguit: @realDonaldTrump @Chuffman48 Mark Cuban accepts the fact that the President of the United States was born here." Doubt it

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 1, 2013

Why are people upset w/ me over Pres Obama’s birth certificate?I got him to release it, or whatever it was, when nobody else could!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 22, 2013

How amazing, the State Health Director who verified copies of Obama’s “birth certificate” died in plane crash today. All others lived

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 12, 2013

Always remember, I was the one who got Obama to release his birth certificate, or whatever that was! Hilary couldn't, McCain couldn't.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 29, 2014

Attention all hackers: You are hacking everything else so please hack Obama's college records (destroyed?) and check "place of birth"

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 6, 2014

"@futureicon: @pinksugar61 Obama also fabricated his own birth certificate after being pressured to produce one by @realDonaldTrump"

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 23, 2014

As you can see Trump continued banging this drum even after the President took the unprecedented step of releasing his long form birth certificate to the media.

And it is also clear that Trump never saw anything since that release which convinced him that Obama was born in Hawaii and not Kenya.

So what convinced him yesterday that Obama was born in America?

Or was he lying all the time about not being convinced?

That is certainly what Senator Elizabeth Warren thinks.

Let's be clear: @realDonaldTrump just admitted that he peddled fake conspiracy theories to attack the integrity of @POTUS.

— Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) September 16, 2016

And that is just it, either the guy is a conspiracy chasing buffoon who is easily manipulated by Right Wing "news" sites, or he is a lying POS who purposely faked this whole thing just to attract the lunatics and tin foil hat wearers that now make up the base of his support.

It is actually hard to determine which one of those is true, however it would seem that both  are disqualifying.

Donald Trump finally admits that President Obama was born in this country. Blames birtherism on Hillary Clinton. Update!

.@realDonaldTrump: "President Barack Obama was born in the United States. Period." pic.twitter.com/Ek0Jmk9Cfz

— POLITICO (@politico) September 16, 2016

Of course Trump's assertion that the birther nonsense was started by Hillary Clinton and her campaign has already been debunked.

So the question to ask is will this bring him more support? And will the racists and xenophobes who make up his base now become disillusioned with his campaign?

In my opinion this birther issue is part of what defines Donald Trump, and he can no more walk away from it then he can walk away from the fact that he wants to sleep with his own daughter.

Update: The New York Times weighs in: 

Donald J. Trump publicly retreated from his “birther” campaign on Friday, acknowledging that President Obama was born in the United States and saying that he wanted to move on from the conspiracy theory that he has been clinging to for years. 

Marking a sharp reversal from his previous position, Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, said in a campaign appearance that he was now satisfied that Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii. 

“President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period,” Mr. Trump said at his new Trump International Hotel. “Now, we all want to get back to making America strong and great again.” 

Mr. Trump also falsely accused Hillary Clinton of having first raised questions about Mr. Obama’s birthplace during the 2008 Democratic primary. 

“Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy,” Mr. Trump said. “I finished it.” 

During the 2008 Democratic contest, Mrs. Clinton’s senior strategist at one point pondered, in an internal memo that was later leaked, the ways in which Mr. Obama’s personal background differed from many Americans. But contrary to Mr. Trump’s assertion, neither Mrs. Clinton nor her campaign ever publicly questioned Mr. Obama’s citizenship or birthplace, in Hawaii.

Yeah nobody is buying Trump's attempt to blame Hillary for his campaign to discredit and humiliate our President. 
 

Ted Cruz forced to provide his mother's birth certificate to prove that HE is a natural born citizen of the US.

Courtesy of Raw Story:

Ted Cruz's presidential campaign has produced his mother's birth certificate after Republican rivals suggested Cruz might not be eligible for the Oval Office because he was born outside the United States. 

The campaign provided the certificate—showing his mother, then named Eleanor Darragh, was born in Delaware on November 23, 1934—to conservative news outlet Breitbart. The campaign's decision to release the birth certificate comes in response to a threat by Democratic U.S. Representative Alan Grayson of Florida to bring a lawsuit challenging Cruz's eligibility for the presidency if he becomes his party's nominee, an increasingly likely possibility. 

As New York business mogul Donald Trump has pointed out repeatedly in the past week, Cruz was born in Calgary, Canada. The U.S. Constitution sets three requirements for presidential hopefuls: They must be 35 years old, have been a resident of the U.S. for 14 years and be a "natural-born citizen" of the United States. But the founders did not explicitly define what was meant by "natural-born citizen," which leaves room for debate. 

But most constitutional scholars argue that anyone with at least one parent who was a U.S. citizen at the time of birth automatically inherits that parent's citizenship. Cruz has said that because his mother was a U.S. citizen when he was born, he is a natural-born citizen.

So to be clear here, President Obama, who WAS born in the United States, was pressured to provide his actual birth certificate to prove it, and yet the Right Wing refused to accept that as adequate proof.

And yet Ted Cruz, who actually WAS born in Canada, only has to provide his mother's birth certificate in order to prove he meets the requirements to be President?

Okay well I'm glad we straightened that out.

Donald Trump's core constituency revealed in Q and A. They're birthers.

Courtesy of Little Green Footballs:  

Audience member: We have a problem in this country — it’s called “Muslims.” We know our current President is one. 

Trump: Right. 

Audience member: You know he’s not even an American. Birth certificate, man! 

Trump: We need this question! 

Audience member: But anyway [laughter], we have training camps growing, where they want to kill us. 

Trump: Mm hmm. 

Audience member: That’s my question. When can we get rid of ‘em? 

Trump: We’re gonna be looking at a lot of different things. And you know, a lot of people are saying that, and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening out there. We’re gonna be looking at that and plenty of other things. 

Holy crap! It looks like Trump is still convinced that Obama is secretly a Muslim who does not have a valid American birth certificate, and is allowing secret Muslim training camps to be built in this country for the purpose of training terrorists to kill Americans.

Ooookay.


And his supporters are the same knuckle dragging dipshits who applauded his efforts to "prove" Obama had no valid birth certificate back in 2012.

Of course the Trump camp made a rather pathetic attempt at damage control.

Trump camp: "Mr. Trump was referring to the need to protect Christians religious liberties as his previous statement says and nothing more."

— Kailani Koenig (@kailanikm) September 18, 2015

Okay, what?

Second attempt.

Now NEW response: "To be clear, Mr. Trump's response to the question regarding training camps in this country was we will look into it."

— Kailani Koenig (@kailanikm) September 18, 2015

Once again, what?

Of course this whole thing is being compared to John McCain's 2008 town hall response to a woman who claimed that Obama was an "Arab."

Yet here we are in 2015 and Donald Trump is at the top of the polls.

That tells you something both interesting and very frightening about today's Republican party.

New poll reveals what everybody already knew, that Donald Trump's supporters are overwhelmingly racist.

Courtesy of Alternet:  

A new national poll released Tuesday has found that a majority of the Republican Party is living in a strange and dangerous political fantasyland. 

“Our new poll finds that [Donald] Trump is benefiting from a GOP electorate that thinks Barack Obama is a Muslim and was born in another country,” Public Policy Polling’s analysis said. “Sixty-six percent of Trump's supporters believe that Obama is a Muslim to just 12 percent that grant he's a Christian. Sixty-one percent think Obama was not born in the United States to only 21 percent who accept that he was.” 

Not only did PPP’s analysis find that Trump’s lead was growing—it is now 29 percent—it also found that the second most popular Republican is one who has not criticized other candidates: retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who has 15 percent. The rest of the pack is all under 10 percent: Jeb Bush (9 percent), Carly Fiorina (8 percent), Marco Rubio (7 percent), Ted Cruz and John Kasich (6 percent), Scott Walker and Mike Huckabee (5 percent). Walker has fallen the most, compared to last winter when he was leading. 

The biggest takeaway from the PPP pollis that a majority of the Republican Party’s base is living in a right-wing bubble where facts don’t matter—and it has become increasingly acceptable to publicly voice racist positions because the leading presidential candidate is modeling that behavior. 

Not only did PPP find that a majority of Republicans believe the birther lie—that Obama was not actually born in Hawaii—but 51 percent of all Republicans polled want to amend the Constitution to eliminate birthright citizenship, which is granted to any person born on U.S. soil. Of Trump’s supporters, 63 percent want to eliminate that right, and a majority said undocumented children should be deported. 

So these racists now have a standard bearer who is not only singing their favorite tune, but has now ridden to the top of the polls on the tsunami of their hatred.

And it does not does not appear that Trump is going away any time soon, as evidenced by the fact that he signed the totally non-legally binding pledge to not run as an independent if he loses the primary. 

Like I said the poll really reveals nothing new, but it does provide ammunition for people like myself when making the claim that the driving force behind the Republican party is NOT doing away with taxes and reducing the size of government as they claim, but rather doing away with the black and brown people.

Or at the very least putting them back in their place, whether that place is across the border, or back on the plantation where they belong. 

And Captain Comb-over has really done the country a service by bringing these wannabe KKK members to surface so that there is no denying their existence. 

President Obama demonstrates that Republicans are becoming a punchline even outside of America.

Courtesy of Politicususa: 

Part of what makes this a special evening for me is the presence of my family members who are here. My grandmother, Mama Sarah, who told me I had to come back to Kenya. And when she says you should do something, generally you have to do it. I’ve told this story before — the first time that I visited Kogelo, Auma and I and my brothers were there. Mama Sarah speaks Swahili and Luo, and I speak neither –and so Auma was serving as a translator. And I think about a half a day had passed before suddenly she turns to Auma and says something. And Auma starts laughing, and I say, what did she say? She says, he goes to Harvard; if he’s so smart, how come he can’t talk to his grandmother? Which was a good point. 

My siblings are here, aunts, uncles. And so, tonight, I welcome all of them to a somewhat unusual Obama family reunion. I suspect that some of my critics back home are suggesting that I’m back here to look for my birth certificate. That is not the case.

Did you hear that laughter in response to that joke? 

If your claim that President Obama was born in Kenya, is even uproariously funny to Kenyans, I think that is all you have to know about its validity.

And somewhat (But not really.) off topic, is Donald Trump still leading in the polls for the Republican nomination?

Donald Trump refuses requests to release his birth certificate. Can you say "hypocrisy?"

Courtesy of the Guardian:  

Presidential hopeful Donald Trump has refused to release his long-form birth certificate and passport records, despite demanding the same from Barack Obama during the 2012 election. 

The Guardian contacted the Trump campaign to request the birth certificate and passport records of the Apprentice host, but a spokeswoman refused to share the documents. 

In October 2012, Trump, a prominent figure in the “birther movement” – a loose affiliation of people who claimed Obama was born outside the US – accused Obama of being “the least transparent president in the history of this country” for refusing to release the very details Trump is now refusing to publish. 

Seriously? 

Every time I think this guy could not get any more clownish he goes and proves me wrong.

Ted "Rafael" Cruz hires lawyer to file papers renouncing his Canadian citizenship. Well I think we all know what THAT means.

Courtesy of Dallas News:  

The junior senator from Texas is still a Canadian. But he’s working on it, eh? 

Born in Alberta 43 years ago last Sunday, Sen. Ted Cruz was unaware of his dual nationality until The Dallas Morning News explored the issue in August. 

Since then, he said in a recent interview, “I have retained counsel that is preparing the paperwork to renounce the citizenship.” 

He expects to complete the process in 2014. That time frame jibes with predictions from Canadian legal experts.

Image courtesy of Mediaite

There is literally NO other reason for this dipshit to do this then to prepare the way for his run at the Presidency.

And to that I say, "More power to you Senator Cruz, I hope you win the Republican nomination."

I mean can you for one minute imagine how entertaining it would be to watch Hillary Clinton squash this little cockroach under her shoe?

It would be like watching a political snuff film.

However the best part might be watching the Right Wing dance around the giant pile of hypocrisy they will have to overcome in order to accept Cruz as their candidate after attacking Obama for years concerning their manufactured conspiracy about HIS birth certificate.

New Birther conspiracy theory just in time for Christmas, apparently the Kenyan Muslim's two daughters are aliens, or something like that.

This from the totally not insane website Fellowship of the Minds:  

I got an email this morning from FOTM reader Dave McMullen, asking why there aren’t baby pictures of Obama’s two daughters, Malia and Sasha. 

Wikipedia says “Barack and Michelle Obama have two daughters: Malia Ann, born on July 4, 1998, and Natasha (known as Sasha), born on June 10, 2001.“ 

So I did a Google Image search for Obama’s daughters. I couldn’t find any baby pics of Malia or Sasha; neither could Dave.

Holy crap on a cracker! There are NO baby pictures of Sasha and Malia on the interwebs? How is such a thing even possible?

Hmm, well not so fast because the soiree defecator over at Freakout Nation did his own Google search, and it turns out he actually knows how to use Google.

Bummer! And they had such a good conspiracy going there for a few minutes.

Sarah Palin's token black friend, Star Parker, claims that President Obama is turning us all into pro-gay European zombies. Because there's nothing crazy about THAT.

So Parker appeared in the above video being interviewed by Joseph Farah, founder of the batshit crazy World Net Daily, and said some rather insane things.

Here let Raw Story fill you in:  

Parker, author of the books Pimps, whores and welfare brats and Uncle Sam’s Plantation, is the founder of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE), a Christian ministry. She told Farah that dark times are coming under Obama administration. 

Parker said that “if young people start to distrust each other, we’re going to see more division. We’re going to see ourselves get separated and segregated again, not just when it comes to our ethnicity, but when it comes to our religion.” 

“I mean, what this president has done to damage the Christian community to where — and the laws,” Parker ranted, “that are coming out of places like the state of California and others, you know, in California where you’ve got the boy going into the girls’ bathroom.” 

“But the laws, um, the laws that are pushing homosexuality out into society,” said Parker, “when, when, when you have this type of vileness exalted, the wicked go on the prowl. That’s what the Proverbs says, is that if the wicked can now go on the prowl, people with the resources will now pull away, and so they become much more private.” 

She concluded, “So while you have ill activity now in the public square, you have those decent people and quiet communities becoming much more, you know, refined, and more closed. And that’s not healthy for us as a society because when you go start walking out in the public square and nobody talks to each other, that’s what they do in Europe. They’re just a bunch of zombies and we don’t want that as Americans.”

Damn that is some Sarah Palin worthy word salad!

So to be clear, and that is almost impossible considering the subject matter, what Parker is suggesting is that President Obama's attempts to create a less racially divided, less homophobic society, is destroying the country, because "decent" more "refined" people, ie Fundamentalist Christians, are feeling closed off.

At least I THINK that's what she is saying.

And my carefully considered response to that is, "About fucking time!"

I hope that having a more openly diverse population makes the bigots and religious hypocrites run into their little cookie cutter houses, close themselves off from the rest of us, and stay out of the public square permanently! 

Personally I can hardly WAIT until that happens, and we can take back our country from the judgmental religious bullies that have for too long made the majority of us feel unwelcome to participate in politics or have a voice in the direction of OUR nation.

It simply cannot happen fast enough in my opinion.

Republican Representative claims that Congress did not do enough to investigate President Obama's birth certificate, and claims the House has enough votes to impeach him. Update!

Rep. Farenthold with "friend."

Courtesy of TPM:  

Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-TX) told constituents at an event Saturday in his district that, although it would amount to a fruitless effort that could potentially damage the country, Republicans have the votes in the House to impeach President Barack Obama. 

Fielding a question from a birther at a gathering in Luling, Texas, Farnethold at first lamented that Congress didn't do more to investigate Obama's birth certificate. 

“I think unfortunately the horse is already out of the barn on this, on the whole birth certificate issue.” Farenthold said. “The original Congress when his eligibility came up should have looked into this and they didn’t. I’m not sure how we fix it.” 

“You tie into a question I get a lot, if everybody's so unhappy with what the President’s done, why don’t you impeach him,” Farenthold continued. “I’ll give you a real frank answer about that, if we were to impeach the President tomorrow, you could probably get the votes in the House of Representatives to do it. But it would go to the Senate and he wouldn’t be convicted.”

You know I kind of wish that the Republicans DID try to impeach the President. I don't think anything would drive Democrats to the polls quite like that.

As for the birther issue, when will they let that stupid idea go?

The President is serving his SECOND term, even if they were to somehow prove that he was not a natural born citizen (Which of course they can't) it would have NO impact whatsoever at this point.

Which brings me to the glaringly hypocrisy of those trying to pimp Ted Cruz as a potential presidential candidate in 2016. 

Unlike Obama, Cruz actually WAS born outside of this country to a father who was not a citizen and a mother who was. And yet, besides Donald Trump (Who essentially gave him the benefit of the doubt), there has not been a peep.

When asked Cruz has responded with "My mother was born in Wilmington, Delaware. She is a U.S. citizen. So I am a U.S. citizen by birth."

Well the President's mother, Ann Dunham, was born in Wichita, Kansas, so why would that NOT have automatically made HIM a US citizen as well?

As much as I dislike Cruz, and believe me I do, I kind of hope he runs just so we can really address this birther thing once and for all. As you know I REALLY enjoy calling the Republicans out on their hypocrisy and this seems like a gift wrapped opportunity to do so.

Update: Oops spoke too soon. It looks like Ann Coulter is also not totally convinced that Cruz is eligible to run for President.

Oh, this is going to get good!

Five previous scandals that were going to destroy President Obama.

"Really? They have ANOTHER scandal?"

Courtesy of The National Memo:  

Throughout the past week, revelations regarding the IRS’ targeting of Tea Party groups, the Department of Justice’s decision to subpoena the phone records of over 100 Associated Press journalists, and the Republican Party’s continued obsession with a supposed cover-up in Benghazi have left President Barack Obama on the defensive. As a result, many in the media are speculating that the president has been fatally wounded politically, and Republicans are openly discussing impeachment. 

This is not the first time they have predicted Obama’s demise, however. In fact, the president’s four-plus years in office have been littered with “bombshells” that were supposed to destroy his credibility, only to land with a thud when presented to the American public.

After that the author  presents the other "career ending" scandals that were heralded by the conservatives as signaling the death knell of this Presidency.

Fast and Furious.

Solyndra.

You Didn't Build That!

Obama's "Other Race Speech."

The Birth Certificate.

"Yeah maybe THOSE did not bring down the Muslim-in-Chief, but SURELY 'Umbrellagate' will finally drive the stake through the heart of this most corrupt Presidency in American history." Said the most ignorant closeted racists in the country.

No I don't think that these sad little conspiracy theories are going to result in impeachment or any significant damage to Obama's presidency, but they WILL continue to drive money into the campaign coffers of various Right Wing politicians so the real problem is that scandals do not have to be true, or even ultimately damaging, in order to have an impact on the politics in America.

I would only hope that for every dollar that goes into Mitch McConnell's campaign fund due to this kind of garbage, that two dollars go into the campaign fund of his opponent from people who are sick and tired of hearing about it ad nauseam.

Your feel good post of the day. Brooklyn judge slams birther for filing "frivolous" lawsuit, demands he repay court for wasting its time.

Christopher Earl Strunk not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed.

Courtesy of Little Green Footballs:  

A birther’s lawsuit was born of a crackpot theory. 

That’s what an irritated Brooklyn judge said in slapping a preeminent conspiracy theorist with a hefty bill for filing “a frivolous” suit and wasting the court’s time. 

Christopher Earl Strunk sought to have President Obama disqualified as a candidate. The author of some 20 other lawsuits — most of which have been dismissed — Strunk was ordered to pay $167,707 in attorney fees plus a $10,000 sanction for the 2011 lawsuit that named Obama, New York’s Board of Elections and a list of others as defendants.”If the complaint in this action was a movie script, it would be entitled ‘The Manchurian Candidate Meets The Da Vinci Code,’ ” wrote Judge Arthur Schack, calling the allegations, “fanciful, delusional and irrational.” 

When the judge dismissed the suit a year ago, he blasted birther arguments that contend Obama isn’t a natural-born U.S. citizen. 

Schack also mocked Strunk for claiming a “massive conspiracy to defraud American voters (that) was perpetrated by hundreds of individuals, at the behest of the Roman Catholic Church and especially the Jesuits.” He imposed the fees for three law firms that opposed Strunk’s lawsuits.

Well, that should put a smile on MY face for the rest of the day.

I loved this part, " If the complaint in this action was a movie script, it would be entitled ‘The Manchurian Candidate Meets The Da Vinci Code."

THAT is gold.

Birthers are now threatening to impeach Justice Roberts if he dares to swear President Obama in for a second term. Good luck with that.

Courtesy of HuffPo:  

The birther movement is now targeting Chief Justice John Roberts for impeachment if he swears in President Barack Obama for a second term later this month. 

Craige McMillan, a columnist for the conservative publication WND.com, wrote a piece last week asking Roberts to not swear Obama in, because, according to McMillan, Obama does not meet the Constitution's definition of a natural born citizen. In the piece, McMillan claims that Obama is not a citizen because his father was a citizen of Kenya and the United Kingdom, and that Obama cannot be "a natural born citizen" because his father was not an American citizen. Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was born and raised in Kansas by parents who were born in Kansas. 

McMillan wrote: 

Your failure to investigate these citizenship issues surrounding Mr. Obama at the time questions were raised during his first term places you in a terrible position. You are now confronted with a most difficult choice. 

Your own oath of office, sworn before God and the American people, requires you to uphold the Constitution. (If not you, then who?) If you now administer the oath of office for the presidency to a man who by his own admission fails to meet the natural born citizen requirement imposed by that Constitution, you have violated your own oath of office and are rightly subject to impeachment by any House of Representatives, at any time, now or in the future. 

McMillan then suggested that the outcome for the country would be "Illegal wars. Illegal debts. Illegal laws." The New Civil Rights Movement reported that the National Memo responded to McMillan's piece by noting that Obama has met all the qualifications for being a natural born citizen, including being born in Hawaii and his mother being born in Kansas.

You know I have heard of beating a dead horse, but damn these people take it to a whole new level!

Here is what the National Memo wrote in response to this lunacy:

It’s been proven over and over over again that the president was born in Hawaii. But let’s say for the sake of argument that he wasn’t… here are the requirements for American citizenship with one American parent and one foreign parent, if you’re born on foreign soil: 

If you are born abroad to one United States citizen and one foreign citizen, you may be considered a U.S. citizen if you meet the following requirements: 

• One of your parents was a U.S. citizen when you were born. CHECK 
• The parent who is a U.S. citizen has lived at least five years in the U.S. before you were born. CHECK 
• The parent who is a U.S. citizen must have lived in the U.S. for at least two years of these five years after his/her fourteenth birthday. CHECK 

Our laws are quite clear: If you spring from an American womb, you’re an American. Whether you’re born in Kenya, Panama or on Mars, if your mom was a born-and-bred, Kansas-cornfed American — like Stanley Ann Dunham Obama — you’re an American and thus eligible for the presidency. PERIOD. 

Now for the love of all that’s holy and lucid, stop it. 

By the way, the process for impeaching a Supreme Court Justice is not exactly a simple task, and there is actually NO chance this would ever make it pass the initial phase where the "articles of impeachment" were presented to the House of Representatives. After that, once the laughing had stopped, it would end up being filed away under "lost causes."