Did you know that some people believe that President Obama was part of a super-secret project that involved time-travel and visiting Mars to establish America’s “territorial sovereignty” in the 1980s? Of course you didn’t, you were too busy trying to find his real birth certificate. That’s what one wacky conspiracy theory website “uncovered,” except, unlike most wacky conspiracy theories, this one got the White House to confirm whether it is true. The short answer: um, no.

CNN has published a short piece on the apparently time-honored political tradition of trying to defame sitting presidents with outlandish accusations. Given what some past presidents have had to put up with, the “birthers” are a comparatively tame lot.

The Associated Press reports that in a town-hall meeting with constituents on Sunday, Sen. David Vitter stated that he supports lawsuits from “conservative legal organizations” challenging President Barack Obama’s citizenship. So Sen. Vitter is a birther now?

Glenn Beck must have known before going on his weekly O’Reilly Factor segment that Bill O’Reilly was going to pick on him for being praised by the left for supporting Miranda rights for all US citizens. His usual pro-Constitution argument for Miranda, however, took a strange turn when he warned O’Reilly that there was something to the fact that “the usual suspects” against torture are suddenly in favor of increased security, like Regulatory Czar Cass Sunstein. “I don’t care about Cass Sunstein,” O’Reilly replied lazily, before asking: “So, what’s the conspiracy of the day?”

Even as the first whispers of immigration reform began to surface in the wake of Obamacare, it was obvious that Glenn Beck would take an uncommon approach to the subject. In fact, he has taken very little approach to it at all, because illegal immigration is only one in a four-step process to dilute the American voting pool with Marxists, felons, and Puerto Ricans.

It’s no secret that Glenn Beck’s cable show on Fox has lost a steady stream of advertisers in the last six months or so. The losses haven’t appeared to put a damper on Beck’s tone — if anything he’s become even more strident — nor his ratings (by a long shot). But one wonders whether this will hurt a bit: Now even the Church wants nothing to do with him.

Remember December 1999, when everyone started fearfully planning for the impending Y2K Armageddon? To Glenn Beck listeners– and, as of yesterday, viewers– that’s about to start happening all over again. Viewers got a first taste of the Survival Seed Bank’s “Crisis Garden” seeds last night during Beck’s program, where the ad argued that “non-hybrid seeds could become more valuable than even silver or gold” in the impending economic collapse.

This morning’s guest on Fox and Friends warned that the Constitution was under attack and that the two-party system was bleeding the nation dry. He made clear his disdain was equal for both the Bush and Obama administrations, and noted that he would only support politicians that are truly independent.

After a week where Rahm Emanuel became the subject of three of the paper’s major stories—two opinion pieces with opposing views and a front-page news item suggesting anonymous Washington insiders were upset Emanuel’s advice was not being taken—the Post has been taking fire from both sides for alternately undermining the President and attacking one of his top advisers.

Forget the Tablet and metered paywalls, here is an entirely new way to save journalism (or some faction thereof). Perhaps you are familiar with WorldNetDaily.com the “must-read website for anyone who hates Barack Obama.” According to the LA Times, the site is on track to pull in $10 million annually. Curious how they did it? One word: Birthers.

This week, the New York Times Magazine was dedicated to their newly traditional Year In Ideas thinkpiece. It’s always a fantastic collection of new discoveries, shifts in ways of thinking, and products that we’re likely to hear more about in years to come. It tries, in many ways, to be predictive; to isolate still-germinating concepts [...]

There has been no love lost between Andrew Sullivan and Sarah Palin to put it mildly. Sullivan has over the last year or so, appeared to lead the so-called Trig-birther charge, calling numerous times for Palin to produce evidence that Trig is actually her son. And today he responds to criticisms aimed at him in Palin’s new memoir Going Rogue.