Well, they haven’t given up on their paranoid conspiracy theory that somehow one day old Barack Obama traveled to Hawaii from Kenya in 1961 to plant newspaper announcements in the local island papers, but they are taking employing a new strategy to prevent brown and black people from assuming offices of power, and they are going after a Republican darling, probably only because he is brown, but also probably to garner some bipartisan or nonpartisan cred.

Their new target is Marco Rubio.

[The Birthers] are not challenging whether [Sen. Marco] Rubio was born in Miami. [Ed. Note: He was.] Rather, they say Rubio is ineligible under Article 2 of the Constitution, which says “no person except a natural born citizen … shall be eligible to the Office of President.”

The rub is that “natural born citizen” was never defined.

The birthers rely on writings at the time of the formation of the republic and references in court cases since then to contend that “natural born” means a person born to U.S. citizens. Rubio was born in 1971 at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, his office said, but his parents did not become citizens until 1975.

“Marco Rubio was born a Cuban citizen via his parents,” screams a headline on a blog by birther Charles Kerchner, who obtained copies of the naturalization petitions by Rubio’s parents in May, igniting talk that is spreading across the Internet. […]

Kerchner said Rubio is no different from Obama, who even if he was born in Hawaii (which he doubts) was not born to two U.S. citizens. Obama’s father was a Kenyan national. The birthers say Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, whose parents are from India and were not citizens at the time of his birth, is also unqualified.

This new falsely created outrage dovetails to conservative attempts to repeal the Fourteenth Amendment to prevent what they call “anchor babies,” as well as to eliminate a little thing called “equal protection under the law.” Remember, Republicans love to discriminate, but I digress.

This new Birther angle also applies to President Obama, as he was born to a father who was not a U.S. Citizen. I wonder who many U.S. citizens alive today have at least one non-citizen parent.

The irony to all of this is what the Birthers use to support their argument is the treatise “The Law of Nations” by Swiss philosopher Emer de Vattel, which they say influenced the founding fathers. Say, how many founding fathers had non-citizen parents? I digress again. The treatise contains this passage:

“The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens,” Vattel wrote.

For a group that demands absolute adherence to the strict literal meaning of the words of the U.S. Constitution, and detests any hint of foreign influence so much that they would bar U.S. Citizens who were born in this country from the presidency because their parents are foreign, these racist whackjobs are going far afield of the U.S. Constitution to support their views.

The collateral damage of all this is Marco Rubio’s compelling origin story. We were all led to believe that Rubio’s parents were Cuban exiles driven from their homeland after Castro took power. The truth is, Rubio’s parents immigrated to the U.S. in 1956, four years before Castro took power. But that is another digression, isn’t it? I’m sorry, but when I talk about birther arguments, I get onset ADD.

Now, I wonder what will happen with all these racist teabaggers who went full on birther when it comes to Obama if Rubio or Jindal are the Vice Presidential nominees to Perry or Romney?

So now that DADT has been repealed for some time now, and now that we have gone some time with gay soldiers serving our nation openly and honorably without the apocalypse occuring or mass defections of straight homophobic soldiers, can all the right wing Christianist freaks like David Anderson admit that they are so very very hysterically wrong?

Hey, I am not asking the question. A Major on active duty is.

…. but I think I would freak out, flip the kayak and be mistakenly eaten by the whale… if I were in the same situation. Thank god there are no whales in the Indian River and Assawoman Bays.

Remember that Ohio passed an anti-worker and anti-union bill similar to Wisconsin’s effort. But in Ohio, instead of recall elections, they have a citizen ballot initiative where the issue of repealing or approving legislation is put to the voters. And opponents of the Republican effort to end all unions, otherwise known as SB 5, got that issue on the ballot. Public Policy Polling’s latest poll shows Ohio voters will be rejecting the evil Republican plan, 56% to 36%.

Apparently, you can have literally “mind blowing” sex.

Sex can trigger transient global amnesia, as can other physically strenuous activities. People in their 50s and 60s are the most likely to experience an episode, but strangely, most people with transient global amnesia have it only once. In most cases, the amnesia is anterograde, meaning people have trouble forming new memories. Sometimes, people also experience transient retrograde amnesia, forgetting some portion of their previous memories. In the case of the 54-year-old woman at the Washington, D.C., hospital, the last day was a fog, and she had been forgetful and confused since having sex. … In one case reported in 1964, a man lost his memory the moment he orgasmed, causing him to exclaim, “Where am I? What’s happened?”

Turning point for legal pot? Gallup poll: “A record-high 50% of Americans now say the use of marijuana should be made legal, up from 46% last year. Forty-six percent say marijuana use should remain illegal.”

And finally, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.) hosted a town-hall meeting this week, but asked the local paper not to publish a notice of the meeting for the public. Why not? Because the congresswoman didn’t want voters to come and say “whatever’s on their minds.” So who showed up? Her staff? Her supporters?

Like MJ said earlier…. our reality is a parody.

He is pro-choice. This is what he said on Piers Morgan last night:

No, it comes down to is, it’s not the government’s role — or anybody else’s role — to make that decision. Secondly, if you look at the statistical incidents, you’re not talking about that big a number. So what I’m saying is, it ultimately gets down to a choice that that family or that mother has to make. Not me as president. Not some politician. Not a bureaucrat. It gets down to that family. And whatever they decide, they decide. I shouldn’t try to tell them what decision to make for such a sensitive decision.”

That is the pro-choice position. Goodbye Herman Cain. Your fifteen minutes are up.

Ms. Homlish will be recognized as a Champion of Changeat the White House today for her efforts in helping victims of domestic violence, which include chairing the Delaware Coalition Against Domestic Violence. She will join 13 other professionals in the field in a discussion on the problem of domestic violence at 1 p.m.

Dear Mr. Limbaugh: Evelyn’s Appeal from Strongheart on Vimeo.

The politeness and respect of the salutation of “Mister” goes too far. He is not deserving of it.

Conflicting reports from various sources has former Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi either injured and captured or killed outright. Reports from Libya’s Interim Transitional National Council indicate that Moammar Gadhafi has been killed.

Al-Jazeera:

Abdelhakim Bel Haj, the NTC military chief, told Al Jazeera Arabic that news of Muammar Gaddafi’s death has been confirmed. Bel Haj is the military commander who led revolutionary forces into Tripoli. […] The body of Muammar Gaddafi is being taken to a top secret location in Libya for security reasons, NTC official Mohamed Abdel Kafi told Reuters.

This comes on the heels of Secretary Clinton’s just concluded visit to Tripoli to meet with the new government of Libya.

Republican reaction to the “12 Monkeys” reenactment in Ohio:

ZANESVILLE, OH (The Borowitz Report) – As dozens of escaped exotic animals terrorized the town of Zanesville, Ohio, the Rev. Pat Robertson raised eyebrows today by saying that “God allowed those wild animals to escape because he wanted them to find gay people and bite them.”

Rev. Robertson, who made his remark during a regular broadcast of his 700 Club television program, said that the Book of Revelation made explicit reference to “escaped lions, tigers and bears running around Ohio biting gay people” as a prelude to the Rapture. [..]

At a campaign stop in South Carolina, Texas Gov. Rick Perry said, “If the authorities are putting innocent creatures to death, I’m for it.”

And in Iowa, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn) told reporters, “We should ship those animals back either to the Congo or to Africa.”

This article is parody of course. But then again, no one would blame you if you thought it was real. Each Republican quoted here said something every similar recently. So what does that make the Republican Party?

From what location is this picture of the Chester-Marcus Hook refinery skyline and the Philadelphia skyline taken?

A new NBC News-Marist poll in South Carolina finds Herman Cain leading Mitt Romney among likely primary voters, 30% to 26%, followed by Rick Perry at 9%, Newt Gingrich at 6% and Reps. Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul at 5% each. The same polling outfit in Florida shows Herman Cain edging Mitt Romney among likely primary voters, 32% to 31%, followed by Rick Perry at 8% and Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich are at 6%.

I am still convinced Cain is a proxy for skeptical Perry voters will flock back to him at some point.

But then again, look at this Washington-Post Pew Research Center word association poll, and see what top three words come to the mind of the Republican primary voter with respect to the top three candidates:

Herman Cain: “999,” “Businessman,” “Good,”
Rick Perry: “Texas,” “Conservative,” “No”
Mitt Romney: “Mormon,” “Romneycare,” “Politician”

A new National Journal poll finds 59% of Americans either “completely agree or mostly agree” with the Occupy Wall Street protesters, while 31% mostly disagree or completely disagree.