Every morning I wake up to additional evidence that America has lost its collective mind. Just a brief sample from the morning news:
- Obama finally got so fed up with the birther nonsense that he posted the long-form birth certificate that Hawaii normally declines to provide. As we might have guessed, that simply moved the target, with crackpots claiming it was never about the place of his birth, but the fact that his father was Kenyan. This, despite clear language in the 14th Amendment that makes any child born in the U.S. a citizen. We know the crazies are aware of that language, because they want to change it in order to deny automatic citizenship to children of immigrants. The Onion was right: next the “afterbirthers” will demand to see the umbilical cord. (Stephen Colbert has already called for Obama to release his grade school report card…but how do you satirize people who are already walking self-parodies?)
- John Yoo–author of the infamous Bush Administration memos–says the President doesn’t have the authority to require businesses bidding on government contracts to disclose their political contributions. According to Yoo, U.S. Presidents can authorize torture, issue Signing Statements that invalidate duly-enacted legislation (and by implication invalidate the Constitutionally-required Separation of Powers), but in his alternate universe, they can’t require people who want to do business with the government to provide information that might disclose improper influence-peddling.
- Donald Trump is still on my teevee.
I rest my case.