Sometimes, I just don’t know what to think.

The California secretary of state should refuse to allow the state’s 55 Electoral College votes to be cast in the 2008 presidential election until President-elect Barack Obama verifies his eligibility to hold the office, alleges a California court petition filed on behalf of former presidential candidate Alan Keyes and others.

The legal action today is just the latest is a series of challenges, some of which have gone as high as the U.S. Supreme Court, over the issue of Obama’s status as a “natural-born citizen,” a requirement set by the U.S. Constitution.

WND senior reporter Jerome Corsi even traveled to Kenya and Hawaii prior to the election to investigate issues surrounding Obama’s birth. But his research and discoveries only raised more questions.

The biggest question is why Obama, if a Hawaii birth certificate exists, simply hasn’t ordered it made available to settle the rumors.

Oh, you mean like the copy that FactCheck.org saw?!?

Recently FactCheck representatives got a chance to spend some time with the birth certificate, and we can attest to the fact that it is real and three-dimensional and resides at the Obama headquarters in Chicago. We can assure readers that the certificate does bear a raised seal, and that it’s stamped on the back by Hawaii state registrar Alvin T. Onaka (who uses a signature stamp rather than signing individual birth certificates). We even brought home a few photographs.

Honestly, I can’t even put enough words together.

I don’t think I have, so let’s dip into that well again.

I have a long-standing beef with O’Reilly, and most of it has nothing to do with politics. His politics rile me, that’s for sure, but what eats at me is that he seems to think he’s this bare-knuckle champion of the “folks” from a hard-scrabble childhood that clawed his way to the top thanks to his uncompromising integrity and brutal honesty.

Take this recent interview he did. Like so many he does, one of his favorite things to talk about in this interview is his tough childhood in blue-collar Levittown. For the moment let’s ignore that his own friggin’ mother disputes that claim, as per a Dec 13th, 2000, interview with the WaPo. The point is that he likes to talk about rough his childhood was. For evidence, he says the following (emphasis mine):

“As I read through this, you had a pretty comfortable life in Levittown,” Smith said. “Dad had a job.”

“I don’t know if my life in Levittown was, now it is. We lived in a little box house with no air conditioning,” he said. “I mean, it wasn’t real comfortable in the middle of August when it was 112°. All right? And I was sweating. And I was eatin’, you know, fish sticks and stuff. They weren’t delicious, Harry. (laughs) So I don’t, I’m not, you know …”

Dear god. No air conditioning? Fish sticks? It’s amazing poor little Billy survived!

When Bill O’Reilly talks about his rough childhood, that’s what he’s referring to. Being sweaty and eating fish sticks. You know what I called that? Summer. O’Reilly’s also 59 years old, he was born in 1949. I didn’t have an air conditioner in the house until I was 20 and that was one of those window units (which admittedly makes the room damn chilly), and my family car didn’t have AC until I was nearly old enough to drive it. I don’t think any of my relatives had air conditioning back then. Not even the ones in Louisiana. He might as well lament his lack of a cell phone or wireless internet.

As for fish sticks, isn’t that one of those foods we all look fondly on? Fish sticks, pudding pops, macaroni and cheese, corn dogs? The guy’s listing off things that are typical of middle-class, suburban, happy childhoods as evidence of how he came from the bottom. He’s not talking about living on welfare or not having a car, being unable to afford food or having the water rationed. It just blows my mind.

Is there anyone who takes this moron seriously any more?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7×0YyLDono[/youtube]

He was on welfare, but is mad about paying into it. He complains about higher taxes, but doesn’t pay them regardless. And this idiot thinks he’s going to write a book and run for Congress? Good luck.

Oh this is just too much. The snarky blog comments I expected, but a full-blown FEC complaint over the fact that he used his campaign jet to fly to Hawaii to see his grandmother before she died? God damn.

“Obama for America violated federal law by converting its campaign funds to Senator Obama’s personal use,” the release stated. “Senator Obama recently traveled to Hawaii to visit his sick grandmother. This was the right thing for any grandson to do — at his own expense — but it was not travel that his campaign may fund.”

At issue was whether the trip should have been paid for with campaign funds, based on the law that forbids candidates from using such funds to pay for personal travel. The Obama campaign said the trip had been vetted with lawyers beforehand and was allowable. The Republicans argued that, because Obama did not campaign during the quick journey to Hawaii, it should not have been a campaign expense.

I have an idea. Since the campaign was privately funded, have Obama offer to cut a check for any donors who think “visiting your grandmother shortly before she dies” was an improper use of their money. And then let me see the list of who demands a refund so I can use my private funds to fly to their houses and slap them in the mouth.

This one’s a doozie.

“If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations,” Palin told host Chris Plante, “then I don’t know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media.”

I’m not even sure how to properly mock all the stupid in that sentence. Which do I go after? That she doesn’t seem to understand how free speech works, or that she completely forgot the freedom of the press part? I’m at a loss.

Yes, this is a picture of Christians praying at a golden calf on Wall Street.

I don’t know where to go from here. They’re praying… to a golden calf. Have none of these people read the damn Bible?!?

Probably one of the oddest ascensions in politics of the campaign season has been “Joe the Plumber”. He started off as some guy that chatted with Obama about taxes (”chatted” here means “asked a question and then listened for five minutes”), and one debate later he became some kind of small-town hero, to the point that he’s floated the idea of running for Congress and shows up on FOX News periodically to offer “commentary”.

McCain, desperate for some way to appear connected to the middle class, has latched onto Joe the Plumber like a barnacle, completely ignoring the fact that none of his policies would actually benefit the guy. Then, we have this statement from McCain in response to Joe’s bizarrre claim that Obama would bring death to Israel:

While he’s clearly his own man, so far Joe has offered some penetrating and clear analysis that cuts to the core of many of the concerns that people have with Barack Obama’s statements and policies. … [T]here is good reason to question the judgement that Obama would bring to the Oval Office.

Penetrating? Clear analysis?

Everyone wants to be a scrappy underdog that injects a big fat dose of realism into politics. Stories like Harry Potter and Rudy have us all convinced that while everyone else spends their lives working toward something, we all have some inherent ability that will rocket us to the front of the pack, showing all those stuffed shirts what we’ve learned down here in the real world.

Unfortunately, things just don’t work that way. There is nothing in “Joe’s” comments that shows he has anything resembling a good understanding of these issues. When he asked about Obama’s tax plan, it was confrontational but not educated. John McCain had done the same by pushing the “penalty” idea of Obama’s plan without knowing ahead of time what the answer was. It might explain why the pair of them have naturally drifted toward one another.

McCain’s camp is somewhat right, though, in that Joe’s “analysis” gives voice to the concerns people have. The error is in assuming those concerns have any merit. A lot of people are also concerned that Obama has Bin Laden on speed dial and will make an executive order enslaving white people. That doesn’t mean they should be legitimized by public broadcast.

…crap like this just isn’t cool.

The outdoor decor features a mannequin dressed as Palin, wearing a red business suit, eyeglasses and brunette beehive wig, hanging by a noose off the chimney. Right above her, a devilish John McCain emerges from the chimney with paper flames surrounding him.

Some neighbors say it’s just wrong to depict a vice presidential candidate that way.

Chad Michael Morisette, who lives in the house, told CBS 2 News that the effigy would be out of bounds at any other time of year, but it’s within the spirit of Halloween.

“It should be seen as art, and as within the month of October. It’s Halloween, it’s time to be scary, it’s time to be spooky,” Morisette said.

Uh, no.

First of all, holiday aimed at children + politics = stupid idea. I didn’t want to see that stupid “ACLU Nativity Scene” two years ago and I certainly don’t want your dumb ass thinking there’s anything “spooky” about hanging a mannequin of Sarah Palin beyond what kind of screwed up brain thinks doing this is a good idea.

Here’s a tip, free of charge: if you can’t explain the joke, then it’s not a joke. Now, a huge paper-mache head of Vladimir Putin peeking over the house at Sarah Palin? That’d be awesome. This? It’s just tasteless. I mean, sure, it’s not as bad as plotting to actually do it, but it’s not much better.

There’s one piece of huge advice that most people need to understand: if you’re going to make something up, cover all your bases.

A McCain volunteer made up a cockamamie story about being mugged, beaten, and having a “B” carved on her cheek at an ATM because she had a McCain bumper sticker. It’s probably the dumbest thing I’ve heard in a while, made no less so by the fact that the “B” was backwards, as though carved in a mirror. And, unsurprisingly, it turns out she did make it up.

Police say a campaign volunteer confessed to making up a story that a mugger attacked her and cut the letter B in her face after seeing her McCain bumper sticker.

At a news conference this afternoon, offiicals said they believe the woman’s injuries were self-inflicted.

Ashley Todd, 20, is now facing charges for filing a false report to police.

In light of that, I’m deferring to John Moody, Executive VP at FOX, who wrote the following:

If Ms. Todd’s allegations are proven accurate, some voters may revisit their support for Senator Obama, not because they are racists (with due respect to Rep. John Murtha), but because they suddenly feel they do not know enough about the Democratic nominee.

If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain’s quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting.

For Pittsburgh, a city that has done so much to shape American history over the centuries, another moment of truth is at hand.

McCain may be able to claim that he doesn’t directly condone such actions, but his angry, divisive, and downright racist campaign has fostered the atmosphere that led to them.

EDIT: I agree with Paul once again. The fact that the B was backwards was just a dead giveaway. My guess is she had a legitimate incident of some kind and then scratched the B into her cheek herself. In the mirror. Forgetting that in the mirror, things face the OTHER way.

So everyone’s favorite Razorite PaulM (who by now should probably be on my payroll) shot me a link to an LA Times article going into the whole problem with McCain/Palin’s “Real America” BS. It’s a great read, and I’m glad to see that major media outlets are picking up on it.

The GOP code isn’t hard to crack: There’s the America that might vote for Obama (a suspect America populated by people with liberal notions, big-city ways and, no doubt, dark skin), and then there’s the “real” America, where people live in small towns, believe in God and country, and are … well … white.

The divisive GOP rhetoric we’ve been hearing lately is hardly new. But with each passing year, the “real” America of GOP mythmaking bears less and less resemblance to the America most Americans live in.

About 80% of Americans live in metropolitan areas, not small towns. A third of us are ethnic and racial minorities, but that’s changing: Already,nearly 45% of children under 5 are minorities. Although 88%of us believe in God, 70% think that religions other than our own are equally valid routes to truth. And while 59% of us think that wearing an American flag pin is a decent way to show patriotism, even more of us (66%) think that protesting U.S. policies we oppose is a good way to show patriotism. These days, more than half of us say we prefer the Democratic Party to the Republican Party.

I touched on this earlier, but it all comes down to the way the Republican Party sees things versus the way the Democratic Party sees things (at least as has come out in the 2008 campaign season).