John Avlon, editor-in-chief of the Daily Beast, explored the roots of the birther movement in his book Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe Is Hijacking America. Avlon described a posting on the PUMA website with the heading "Obama May Be Illegal to Be Elected President!" He wrote that a Clinton volunteer in Texas, Linda Starr, played a key role in spreading the rumor.

Starr connected with Pennsylvania attorney Philip Berg in August and Berg followed up by suing in federal court to block Obama’s nomination. The suit was thrown out repeatedly on the grounds that Berg lacked standing and the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately refused to hear his appeal.

There is no record that Clinton herself or anyone within her campaign ever advanced the charge that Obama was not born in the United States. A review by our fellow fact-checkers at Factcheck.org reported that no journalist who investigated this ever found a connection to anyone in the Clinton organization.

Was the sarcasm tag REALLY necessary in my post?

...you're getting yourself tied up in knots about facts and reality. Tsk, tsk...when you learn. Over here in TrumpLand, we know truth is the simply the last thing we said. It's so much easier than knowing facts, taking responsibility, or accepting accountability. And we know it's so much easier for the TrumpLand media to accept because they never have to deal with facts, responsibility or accountability either. See...everyone wins.

(just in case it's necessary)

He is such an asshat.

I guess Donald was still talking about it after then but I thought that the "issue" was definitively settled- to the extent that it mattered to most people in the first place- in 2011 or 2012 when Obama released his long-form birth certificate.

It's still been floating out there, like a turd in a toilet bowl. This is the first time that The Donald said in public that Pres Obama was born here. All along, when asked, he would always say something like "I don't know." His quote of late has been "I don't talk about that any more." This was an atttempt to flush the floater, but I suspect it won't be successful.

It's far from over. There are millions of pissed off voters that are convinced that it has been nothing more than an attempt to de-legitimize Pres Obama, with racist undertones.

It won't be "over" until racism is eradicated. I don't see that happening any time soon. At best, perhaps we can convince these cockroaches to duck back under cover.

Not only that but he got millions in free advertising for that Hotel to boot.

"we got played" indeed.

Bahwhahahaha. We're so screwed.

I'm not buying it.

He just jumped onboard.