While stumping in his native Michigan today, Mitt Romney cracked a birth certificate joke. He told a crowd in the town of Commerce that he was born in a nearby hospital. Romney then added, "No one has ever asked to see my birth certificate, they know that this is the place that we were born and raised."

WhiteHouse.gov

Today on msnbc's PoliticsNation, Dana Milbank of the Washington Post told Rev. Al Sharpton, "If you just look at this as a political matter, it does him no good. If he wanted to be a birther, he should have done that back in the primary... I think that's why you see his campaign running from this. This goes in the gaffe category... His brain was not working when he did this."

Ultimately, reactions from political pundits have ranged from outrage to "meh." As Dave Weigel points out today in a post for Slate, the whole "birther" notion is so ridiculous to 99.99984579% of the country** that the President has often made jokes about it, himself.

You can buy an overpriced coffee mug from Team Obama's website with the President's birth certificate on it. The President's longform birth certificate is even posted to the White House website, as is President Obama's correspondence with Hawaii state officials showing his request to release said birth certificate.

So what do you think? Was Romney's joke a big deal or is the whole thing being overblown?

**I totally made up that statistic

MSNBC's own Rachel Maddow trekked over to Broadway from 30 Rock yesterday to sit down and talk politics with David Letterman. The Late Show host had several questions about the controversy surrounding Rep. Todd Akin's "legitimate rape" comments... and things even got biblical. Sort of.

Letterman also got political with last night's Top Ten List... the subject? "Top ten signs your congressman is an idiot."

In today's edition of "Off the Cliff" news, both President Obama and Mitt Romney laid out their respective economic visions in dueling stump speeches this afternoon. Their talk of America's economic future could not come at a more appropriate time.

A new report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office details exactly what going off the fiscal cliff would mean. Spoiler alert: recession!! (If you need a refresher on what going off the cliff entails, please to read this.)

The report states if we went off the cliff and stayed off the cliff, "Such fiscal tightening will lead to economic conditions in 2013 that will probably be considered a recession."

If you really want to go crazy with all 89 wonktastic pages of the report, it can be found in its entirety here. But what the CBO's analysis seeks to do is lay out the different sets of probable consequences of going off the cliff versus what the report calls "an alternative fiscal scenario." What's the difference?

I leave that to wonkier folk than myself. From the Wall Street Journal:

The CBO painted two starkly difference scenarios for next year, depending on what path lawmakers decide to take.

Under current law, the Bush-era tax cuts are scheduled to expire at the end of this year, raising tax rates on more than 100 million Americans.

These tax increases, combined with roughly $100 billion in planned spending cuts on military and other government programs, would reduce projected deficits from $1.13 trillion in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 to $641 billion for the year that ends Sept. 30, 2013.

That would reduce the deficit from roughly 7.3% of the nation's gross domestic product to roughly 4.0% of GDP, the CBO said, the largest one-year reduction since 1969...

If Congress were to postpone the tax increases and spending cuts, the deficit would shrink just slightly in the next fiscal year, to $1.037 trillion, or 6.5% of GDP.

If nothing changes (as in we go off and stay off the cliff), the CBO states "real GDP (will decline) by 0.5 percent between the fourth quarter of 2012 and the fourth quarter of 2013 and the unemployment rate (will rise) to about 9 percent in the second half of calendar year 2013."

That's bad.

Under the CBO's "alternate fiscal scenario" as explained above the CBO report explains, "The economy would be stronger in 2013: Real GDP would grow by 1.7 percent between the fourth quarter of 2012 and the fourth quarter of 2013, and the unemployment rate would be about 8 percent by the end of 2013, CBO projects."

That's better.

What will make the difference? Yeah, the CBO answered that question in its report, too. Buried in there is a big fat one sentence economic truth bomb. 

"Whether lawmakers allow scheduled policy changes to take effect or alter them will play a crucial role in determining the path of the federal budget over the next decade and the outlook for the economy."

And boom goes the dynamite.

Oh... and if the Off the Cliff movement needs a theme song (and what good movement doesn't?), I suggest this:

Talking Points Memo

Screengrab of Akin's website

Rep. Todd Akin's is far from dropping out of the Missouri Senate race. Despite pressure from the Republican establishment, including Mitt Romney, Akin asked conservative voters to support him and his pro-life stances with a picture of a fetus on his official-real-we-checked-it-out-for-serious campaign website. It also misspelled the word "you're."

The image and spelling mistakes have been scrubbed from the site as of this afternoon. Hats off to Talking Points Memo for taking the screengrab while it lasted. 

AP Photo/Jim Mone

An adviser to Ohio's Republican governor and county Republican party chairman is facing a lot of controversy for remarks he made about early voting in that state. Doug Preisse is the head of the Franklin County Republican Party which includes the city of Columbus. He's a close ally and political adviser to Ohio Republican Governor John Kasich. He also worked with Newt Gingrich's failed presidential campaign.

FranklinCountyGOP.org

Franklin Co. Ohio GOP Chairman Doug Preisse

Preisse is also the guy who said this about early voting in Ohio in an email to The Columbus Dispatch:

“I guess I really actually feel we shouldn’t contort the voting process to accommodate the urban — read African-American — voter-turnout machine,” said Doug Preisse, chairman of the county Republican Party and elections board member who voted against weekend hours, in an email to The Dispatch. “Let’s be fair and reasonable.”

He called claims of unfairness by Ohio Democratic Chairman Chris Redfern and others “bulls**t. Quote me!”

And quote Preisse the Dispatch did. Preisse had a vote on the issue of Ohio's early voting, and he decided against weekend early voting. Last week Ohio's Secretary of State decided against any weekend voting, but did tell the state's 88 election boards they were to keep hours until 7p.m. on weekdays during the final two weeks before election day.

Preisse also told BuzzFeed:

Democrats "are trying to say that I had somehow consciously constrained hours for that purpose," Preisse said. "No, I am saying the opposite, that I am asking the question, and I am indeed questioning how far this process of democratic, small ‘d’, democratic voting process should be contorted to favor a political operation. I don’t think we should go overboard in doing that."

Ohio's Democratic party has responded. Their chairman, Chris Redfern, told BuzzFeed, "Doug Preisse is carrying his friend John Kasich's water. Doug Preisse cannot walk back his racially charged comments directed at African-American Ohioans because it is what he believes."

Redfern also told The Columbus Dispatch that the actions of his state's attorney general are "borderline criminal."

Louis Vuitton/Annie Leibovitz

Ads featuring Olympian leaked online before Aug. 16th release

The agent for history's most decorated Olympian Michael Phelps says his client is not as risk of losing his Olympic medals from this summer's London Games after photos for a new Louis Vuitton ad campaign leaked early. Athletes were barred from plugging goods for companies that are not Olympic sponsors from July 18 until August 15.

These ads for luxury designer Louis Vuitton leaked online before their August 16 release date while the games were still ongoing. The wording of the International Olympic Committee rule was laid out by the San Francisco Chronicle:

Rule 40 states ”a competitor or a team may lose the benefit of any ranking obtained in relation to other events at the Olympic Games at which he or it was disqualified or excluded; in such case the medals and diplomas won by him or it shall be returned to the IOC.” In other words, Phelps could theoretically be stripped of his medals from London.

The Washington Post has the response Phelps' agent gave to the speculation that his client could lose his medals for this:

“He didn’t violate Rule 40, it’s as simple as that,” Carlisle said in a telephone interview. “All that matters is whether the athlete permitted that use. That’s all he can control. In this case, Michael did not authorize that use. The images hadn’t even been reviewed, much less approved. It’s as simple as that. An athlete can’t control unauthorized uses any more than you can guarantee someone isn’t going to break into your house.”

Louis Vuitton/Annie Leibovitz

When Jimmy Fallon breaks out his anchorman glasses for an edition of his fake news program, "Night News Now," it's always fun for those of us in the media. On Friday's Late Night, he was joined on "Night News Now" but a new consumer reporter: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). In addition to sharing the fact she loves Mario Kart 64, we also learned which is her favorite rolled up fruit snack.

Earl Gibson III/AP Photo

The Silversun Pickups (file)

Los Angeles alternative rockers, the Silversun Pickups, have a message for Mitt Romney's campaign: stop using our song.

The band's attorney sent Team Romney a cease and desist letter yesterday after the Pickups learned on Twitter that their song "Panic Switch" was used during a Romney campaign stop in North Carolina.

As for the idea of a candidate using a song called "Panic Switch" at a campaign stop, the Pickups' lead singer, Brian Aubert, issued this tongue-in-cheek statement obtained by the Associated Press:

"We don't like people going behind our backs, using our music without asking, and we don't like the Romney campaign. We're nice, approachable people. We won't bite. Unless you're Mitt Romney! We were very close to just letting this go because the irony was too good. While he is inadvertently playing a song that describes his whole campaign, we doubt that 'Panic Switch' really sends the message he intends."

The Romney camp responded with spokesperson Andrea Saul saying, "As anyone who attends Gov. Romney's events knows, this is not a song we would have played intentionally. That said, it was covered under the campaign's regular blanket license, but we will not play it again."

The Pickups, for their part, say they disagree with that license covering this kind of usage, hence the cease and desist letter.

This is certainly not the first (and unlikely to be the last) time musicians have asked conservative politicians to take them off their campaign stop playlists. Others musicians to make such demands include K'Naan, John Mellencamp, the Foo Fighters, Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, and Cyndi Lauper to name just a few.

One of the nastier fights of this sort happened between former Florida governor, Republican-turned-Independent Charlie Crist and Talking Heads frontman David Byrne. That bizarre incident led Crist to release this hostage-video-type statement on YouTube.

As for the song in question, "Panic Switch" -- it's fantastic. And you can hear it in the clip below.

Presumptive Republican vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan and others on the right have a complicated relationship with Russian-born writer and philosopher Ayn Rand. And those complications really show when you see Rand talking to Johnny Carson on October 22, 1967. The latest Rewrite took a look at Rand's appearance on The Tonight Show.

You can also click below to watch the entire half-hour interview where the two, with some help from Carson sidekick Ed McMahon, tackle politics, religion, American culture... and even a pesky fly that was buzzing around Johnny Carson's head.

Part 1

Part 2

In an exclusive interview with Natalie Morales of NBC's Rock Center with Brian Williams, Ann Romney defended her husband and his campaign for not releasing more tax returns. Mrs. Romney told Morales, "We have been very transparent to what's legally required of us. But the more we release, the more we get attacked. The more we get questioned, the more we get pushed. And so we have done what is legally required and there's going to be no more... tax releases given."

Ann Romney's choice of the word "transparent" to describe the Romney campaign doing "what's legally required" is likely to do more to reignite criticism against her husband than quell the flames.

We'll have more on tonight's edition of The Last Word.

The clip above is from the Kickstarter page for a mobile game called "The Crate Escape: Seamus Unleashed." The game, amazingly, is exactly what it sounds like. A smartphone/tablet adventure in which the player gets to be the Romney family's famous-for-getting-strapped-to-the-top-of-the-car pooch. Yes, really. In the game, your goal is to free Seamus from his crate and help him navigate obstacles as he rides atop the Romney's car.

I want to again stress that this is a real game that is really in the works. It is not a spoof of any sort.

And the newest amazing detail about this game is that the '80s band, Devo (yes, the guys in funny hats who sang "Whippet" "Whip It") have recorded a song to accompany the game called "Don't Roof Rack Me, Bro! (Remember Seamus)." The Washington Post reports that the song is being released later this month to coincide with National Dog Day. The song release will also come just before the Republican National Convention starts.

You can hear a preview of a full version of Devo's Seamus song on Amazon, here by clicking play, below. It's amazingly ridiculous in the best way possible.

Again, this is all completely true information.

ht @FixAaron

Colbert: “So daring! I mean, white, Christian and male? That’s a triple threat of not threatening to me.”

Awesome. Click the video for more.