• Aren’t jokes supposed to be funny? Mitt Romney’s son Matt was on the campaign trail for his dad the other day when he made an Obama birth certificate joke, in reference to Mitt’s own tax return issues. The joke, and we quote: “I heard someone suggest the other day that as soon as President Obama releases his grades and birth certificate …then maybe he’ll do it.” This was so toxic that Matt joined Twitter just to apologize for the joke:

I repeated a dumb joke. My bad. RT @emilyrs Romney’s son Matt made an Obama birth certificate joke on the trail in NH

— Matt Romney(@Matt_Romney) December 30, 2011

• » Worst reason to join Twitter ever? Perhaps. Most people quit Twitter over saying something stupid. source

• President Obama’s decision to release his long-form birth certificate is a reminder of the handicaps under which rational people labor when confronting the irrational.
• Wendy Kaminer at The Atlantic • Giving us some perspective on this birth certificate madness. Obama has both reason and empirical evidence on his side, but those are useless against an opponent who rejects reason and empiricism. source

• rhetoric Donald Trump has been stoking the Birther fires lately, repeatedly questioning President Obama’s place of birth (and, by extension, the legitimacy of his presidency).
• result Fox News has given Trump his own weekly segment, “Monday Mornings With Trump.” We mean “given” in the literal sense; Fox says that Trump isn’t being paid. source

• » Fun fact: In announcing Trump’s new gig, Fox amusingly referred to the billionaire TV star as “The Donald.” Admittedly, this nickname format rolls off the tongue much better with Trump than with other 2012 contenders (The Mike, The Mitt, The Newt, etc).

• zing! Donald Trump, in a bid for political attention, has wholly embraced the Birthers, going so far as to release his own certificate. “It took me one hour to get my birth certificate.” Way to one-up the President!
• oops… What he released is not his real birth certificate, but rather one issued by the hospital, which is EXACTLY what Obama did. There’s something on that certificate Trump doesn’t want us to see! source

• 3:1 the ratio which the birther lady lost by (O RLY?) source

• This dude thinks he’s all clever, trying to get out of his job as an army doctor by playing the birther card. He even has a (really annoying to the point you want to punch him) lawyer protecting him from answering questions. If he just wanted to be lazy and not do anything, he should’ve considered another field of work, like sitting on his butt, eating Cheetos and playing Xbox all day.

• Man, that Orly Taitz video sure takes on a hilarious new context based on these images, which essentially confirm that the Obama Kenyan birth certificate was a forgery by an anonymous blogger designed to make the birthers look stupid. source

• 42% of Republicans think Obama was born in the U.S. source