From this Thursday's Hardball, former RNC Chairman and now unfortunately for anyone who watches the network, MSNBC contributor Michael Steele, decided to get into a spat with Chris Matthews over whether CPAC 2013 ought to be inviting the likes of birthers like Donald Trump to speak at the conference rather than those from the Republican party who might actually have a chance of winning a national election. Steele's response was basically to dismiss all of Trump's birther talk and attempt to paint it as ancient history.

That was so last month, don't you know. Al Cardenas, chairman of the American Conservative Union which runs the event defended their choice of speakers as well, but I'm with Matthews on what we're likely to hear from The Donald when he takes the stage:

Matthews surmised CPAC’s theory was, “invite the noisemakers and snub the people who might actually lead you out of the wilderness.”

If you look at the scheduled speaking times, CPAC’s priorities are clear. Sen. Ted Cruz is allotted 33 minutes of speaking time, Sarah Palin has 16 minutes, and Donald Trump gets 14 minutes. Down at the bottom are Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan with 11 minutes a piece.

Matthews asked former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele if Trump’s conservative message at CPAC could be overshadowed by all of his birther talk about President Obama.

“I think that characterization can be put behind Donald Trump…Let’s see what the man says tomorrow,” said Steele, telling Matthews that no one’s talking about the birther issue “but you. You’re the only person bringing it up.”

“You know why?” Matthews said. “Because people who think that the president is an illegal immigrant shouldn’t be talking out loud almost anywhere.”

Cardenas said Trump was invited because he’s a “successful businessman” who can reflect on the realities of today’s economy. “I think he’ll be a positive influence on the youngsters here.”

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Anyone who is a regular reader of this site is probably already familiar with Donald Trump's threat to sue Bill Maher over his joke where he asked flame thrower and birther for proof that he was not the result of his mother having sex with an orangutan. Well, now that Trump followed through on his threat, Maher responded during his New Rules segment on HBO this Friday evening, and let's just say, the results weren't pretty for Trump.

Maher took Trump apart and opened up the segment with this:

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Attention junkie Donald Trump is doing his best to take advantage of Bill Maher poking fun at him on Jay Leno's show this week, where he decided to one-up Trump's birtherism with President Obama. Sean Hannity actually had this clown on for the better half of his show Thursday evening and Trump repeated some of the same remarks he made on Extra the previous day: Trump will ‘probably sue’ Maher after proving mother didn’t have sex with orangutan:

Real estate mogul Donald Trump is threatening sue HBO comedian Bill Maher over a bet over whether the billionaire’s mother had sex with an orangutan.

During an interview with NBC’s Jay Leno earlier this week, Maher had mocked Trump’s absurd offer of $5 million if President Barack Obama could prove he was a U.S. citizen. Maher said that he would donate $5 million to the “Hair Club for Men” or “Institute for Incorrigible Douchebaggery” if Trump produced evidence to counter the claim that he “had been the spawn of this mother having sex with an orangutan.”

“The other night on Jay Leno’s show, he made an absolute offer, I made an absolute acceptance,” Trump explained to Extra on Wednesday. “I sent him documentation and he owes me $5 million, which I’m going to give to charity.”

Trump repeated his threat to sue Maher and also told Hannity that HBO should fire the comedian immediately for insulting him:

Hannity said there would be far more outrage if anyone but Trump had been the target of Maher’s barbs. Trump called Maher “insulting” and said he was shocked by the “horrible things” Maher was saying about his parents. He sent a letter directly to Maher with his birth certificate demanding the five million dollars, which he joked that Maher may or may not have. There has been some question over whether Maher would be legally obligated to pay up, but Trump assured Hannity that his lawyer is confident of their case.

But on the subject of the double standard, Trump agreed that there is only minimal outrage because the insults were directed at him. He told Hannity that if he ever said anything similar about Obama, “you would be fired immediately.” He said that more people should be outraged about Maher’s statements, bragging that his lawyer won him five million dollars before and he’ll do it again.

Apparently the entire concept of comedy and satire is lost on these two. You've got to give it to both of them for having that feigned victimhood routine down pat, though. Heaven forbid that mean old comedian was picking on Trump. It's not like he's ever said anything hateful or disrespectful to deserve it!

Hannity was also pushing him about whether he's going to run for president again and he didn't rule it out, so I guess we've got an early scoop: The next Republican presidential primary is going to be just as big of a clown show as the last one.

Here's Maher on Leno's show earlier this week for anyone that missed it.

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After Donald Trump extended his offer to President Obama that he would donate $5 million to charity if the President releases his college records and passport application, Stephen Colbert responded in kind, and also extended his offer to teabag the Donald for charity.

Here's one more reason to send some money to Tommy Thompson's opponent for the Senate in Wisconsin, Tammy Baldwin -- Wisconsin Senate Candidate's Son Says We "Have The Opportunity" To Send Obama Back To Kenya:

Jason Thompson, the son of former Governor and Wisconson Senate candidate Tommy Thompson, speaking this morning at a brunch attended RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said that “we have the opportunity to send President Obama back to Chicago — or Kenya.” A woman in attendance then chimed in “we are taking donations for that Kenya trip.” A spokesman for Thompson did not immediately return a request for comment.

The Thompson campaign since apologized for his son's behavior, but the damage is done. Somehow I don't think it's going to help Thompson with independents to have his kid out there making birther jokes. Here's the link to the Act Blue page for Senate.

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Okay, let me get this straight. Apparently, according to Politico's John Harris, running ads against Mitt Romney for things that are true, like the fact that he is out of touch with most Americans and their struggles and that his time at Bain Capital just reinforces that, is somehow "personal," but Romney running lying ads about President Obama supposedly gutting welfare work requirements, calling him a "food stamp president" and diving into birtherism is somehow either not "personal" or it's not even worth mentioning during this segment on The Chris Matthews Show.

Here's Harris responding to Matthews asking him about their recent article: Verdict is in: Obama levels more personal attacks.

MATTHEWS: You know I thought John that Bill Clinton gave a heck of a punching kind of speech. He had every one of the Republican points, punched back at them. And the question is, how negative are they going to get? You say they're running... in your recent piece at Politico, you say that the Obama campaign is running a personal assault on whether this guy Romney is even qualified to be president.

HARRIS: The essence of what Obama's doing is to say Mitt Romney is just at a personal level not credible as a potential president of the United States because of his personal values – too greedy – his personal experience is too disconnected from the concerns of average Americans.

I'm not trying to give a Good Housekeeping seal of approval to the Romney campaign. They too are running an intensely negative campaign. It's not based so much on Obama's personal characteristics, his values, or that he is somehow, in some sort of fundamentally way... fundamental way, corrupt. Where as, the Obama people are calling Romney a charlatan, suggesting that he might be a felon because of how he's handled the Bain issue as Stephanie Cutter did. That's aimed at tearing him down personally.

But I don't have any sympathy for Romney. That's what he did in the Republican... he did that to Santorum and he did it to Gingrich.

The Politico article does admit that there are a bunch of personal attacks that have been waged against President Obama from others on the right, but they ignore or lie about the fact that many of them have come directly from the Romney campaign and they also give Romney a pass for not doing more to refute those on the right who have been happy to push those lies or to stand up to the extremists in his own party.

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Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus may have canceled the first day of the party's convention due to weather, but he couldn't evacuate in time to escape the wrath of Hurricane Chris.

The party chairman found himself on Monday weathering a blistering rant from MSNBC host Chris Matthews about how Republicans were playing the "race card" with birther jokes and falsehoods about ending work requirements for welfare.

"That cheap shot about 'I don't have a problem with my birth certificate' was awful," Matthews said of GOP hopeful Mitt Romney's Friday embrace of the birther notion that President Barack Obama was not born in the U.S. "It is an embarrassment to your party to play that card."

"This stuff about getting rid of the work requirement for welfare is dishonest, everyone has pointed out that it's dishonest," he continued. "And you are playing that little ethnic card there. You can play your games and giggle about it, but the fact is, your side is playing that card. You start talking about work requirements, you know what game you're playing, everybody knows what game you're playing. It's a race card."

"And this thing about birthers -- yeah, if your name's Romney, you were well born, you went to prep school, you can brag about it. And this [Barack Obama] guy, he's got an African name, he's got to live with it. ... This is absurdity! Making fun of this guy's birth certificate issue when it was never a real issue, except on the right wing."

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough tried to give Priebus some cover, defending Romney as simply "misfiring badly" with the so-called birther joke. But the RNC chairman decided to take Matthews on.

"You got your monologue in, so congratulations," Priebus quipped to Matthews. "You're loaded up, you got it out. So, good for you. The fact of the matter is, is he's from Michigan, he was born in Michigan, he was making the point that I was born in Michigan. And you know what? We've gotten to a place in politics that any moment of levity totally frowned upon by guys like you just so that you can push your brand."

"It just seems funny that the first joke that he's ever told in his life is about Obama's birth certificate," Matthews pointed out.

"I think Obama's policies have created a sense that, for whatever reason, he's looking for guidance, as far as health care is concerned, as far as our spending is concerned, as far as these stimulus packages are concerned -- he's looking to Europe for guidance," Priebus explained.

"What?" Matthews exclaimed. "Where do you get this from? This is insane! ... What's this got to do with Europe and the foreignization of the guy. You're doing it again now! You think he's influenced by foreign influences? You're playing that card again."

"I'm not going to get into a shouting match with Chris," the RNC chairman said, dismissing the MSNBC host with a wave of his hand.

"Because you're losing, that's why," Matthews shot back.

"No, I'm not losing," Priebus insisted. "I'm not going to sit here and take shots."

"Cheap shots about how Obama being a foreigner is the thing your party's been pushing," Matthews noted. "[Romney surrogate John] Sununu pushes it. Everybody pushes it in your party."

"It's garbage," Priebus replied. "Garbage."

"It's your garbage," Matthews concluded.

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Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus on Sunday said he supported presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's joke about President Barack Obama's birth certificate because the race needs "levity."

Speaking to a large crowd of supporters in Michigan on Friday, Romney had come the closest yet to personally embracing the so-called birther movement’s theory that President Barack Obama is not a U.S. citizen.

"I love being home in this place where Ann and I were raised, where both of us were born,” the former Massachusetts governor said. “Ann was born at Henry Ford Hospital, I was born at Harper Hospital.”

“No one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate,” he added. “They know that this is the place that we were born and raised.”

During a Sunday interview on CNN, host Candy Crowley asked Priebus if it was helpful for Romney to suggest that Obama was not a citizen.

"You know what? I think it's a nothing," the RNC chairman replied, pointing out that Romney had repeated acknowledged that the president was born in Hawaii.

"But why even bring it up?" Crowley wondered. "When you bring it up, you put it out there and you're a high-profile guy, you're about to be the Republican nominee, and people think this is just playing to that group."

"That wasn't what he was doing," Priebus insisted. "He's making the point, 'I'm from Michigan, I was born here.'"

"And you know what? Have we really gotten to the point we can't have any levity at all in politics? I mean, we've gotten to a place in politics that is just ridiculous. No one can say anything that's remotely humorous. You know, the president makes jokes about this all the time."

(h/t: Talking Points Memo)

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After Mitt Romney decided to go full birther this Friday at a campaign stop in Michigan, it appears CNN's Jim Acosta isn't the only one who needs to be called out for conflating Romney's racist "joke" and President Obama making fun of Romney putting his dog on his roof.

Andrea Mitchell was playing the same game as Acosta in the clip above while discussing Romney's race baiting, which she pretended she didn't know was race baiting. Here's more from Gawker who took Acosta to the woodshed over this: Mitt Romney Reduced to Pointing Out His Whiteness to Voters:

Ha, ha, "Everyone knows I'm a real American, due to my white skin! No one would ever ask to see my papers, because I am white!" [Crowd cheers.]

Theoretically this is too obviously racist to count as a "dog whistle," and yet people seem to not notice that Romney is basically pointing at his skin and winking:

The "dog on roof" stuff is jokes about something that Mitt Romney actually did. The birther stuff is made-up paranoid racist conspiracy theories attacking the very legitimacy of Obama's presidency. They are not the same "stuff."

No they are not.

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Apparently the wingnuts are so desperate to detract from the fact that Mitt Romney is having a really bad news cycle from refusing to release his tax returns, that they're willing to throw the birtherism nonsense out there instead as a distraction.

The more Donald Trump keeps this nonsense up and keeps pushing this birther conspiracy theory, the more there's an argument to be made that the man should be barred from the airways completely without huge banners running across the screen underneath his likeness telling the viewers that whatever you're watching here is utter bulls**t and you take this liar seriously at your own peril.

What was astounding about this segment on Fox is that after letting Trump tout this conspiracy theory as to why there is supposedly something to see in the President's college records and attempt to explain, poorly, why he thought this was a fair response to Romney not releasing his tax returns, host Greta Van Susteren did something you almost never see on Fox. She told her audience Trump is full of it.

Here's the Snopes post on Trumps' birther nonsense. And here's now Van Susteren ended the segment after repeatedly trying to get Trump to justify the claims about the money being spent for supposed and unsubstantiated cover ups while interviewing him.

VAN SUSTEREN: Now during our interview, Donald Trump said Obama spent $4 million to keep his records secret. Now, we did try to confirm his claims, but we were unable to.

Or in other words, the guy I was just letting spew lies in the interview you just watched is full of crap, but I wasn't willing to call him out for it while I had him on the air. Bravo Greta. Why bother if you're going to let him go unchallenged while you had a chance to refute him? And before anyone else answers, that was a rhetorical question we all already know the answer to. I expect hell to freeze over before we'll ever see the likes of Van Susteren answer it honestly on the air.