Rumors have been swirling that 89-year-old John Paul Stevens will be retiring from his position as Supreme Court Justice, due in large part to statements Stevens made both in today’s New York Times article and a recent interview in Washington Post. Though Stevens has not made any declarations about leaving immediately and has acknowledged the difficulties of filling a Supreme Court seat before midterm elections, CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin (who interviewed Stevens for the New Yorker) believes that the Justice will do so before his 90th birthday…which is coming up in less than three weeks.

St. Louis Tea Party activist and budding citizen journalist Andrew Sharp talked to Fox’s Neil Cavuto about his run-in with Democratic Representative Phil Hare, during which the young man got the Congressman to say on camera that he cares more about the lives of people than finagling over the finer points in the Constitution as it applies to the health care reform bill. “Jackpot baby!” Sharp says off-camera. After the Cavuto video, watch Hare’s response, in which he calls his own response to the “gotcha-type” journalism “out of context.”

Bill Maher, not really known for being the most moderate of liberals, spoke with Jay Leno on The Tonight Show about the passing of the health reform bill. Leno should have known what he was getting himself into when Maher started off his reply with “Dems win!” and then went on to thank all the entire Tea Party (which he called “tea baggers”) for being so crazy that America decided to go with “the calm Black man.” Except that “America” didn’t vote on the health care bill, Congress did. So…

Singer/songwriter Erykah Badu has come under fire recently for her latest music video “Window Seat,” which shows the African-American songstress stripping down around the site of JFK‘s assassination. Along with being charged by the Dallas police for a misdemeanor in public nudity, “Window Seat” has also been pulled off of YouTube, despite the fact that all the R-rated portions were blurred out in the video.

Jack Cassells is a Florida urologist who has put signs up outside his office urging patients who support Obama to go seek treatment elsewhere. Florida Dem. Congressman Alan Grayson has never been one to shy away from controversy, and last night he told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that since many Obama supporters in his district are African-American, this was akin to violating the Hippocratic Oath to “do no harm,” regardless of a person’s race.

The day of reckoning is finally upon us: Will the iPad live up to the hype, or will those overnight lines that have been forming around virtually every Apple store in the country be all for naught? Luckily, The New York Times has nothing better to do on this gorgeous Saturday either, and has devoted the day to chronicling customers’ experiences through a liveblog: a systematically updated entry that is usually reserved for award ceremonies and prime time television dramas.

Megyn Kelly is a bad ass. There, I said it. While debating with Bill O’Reilly on the finer points of Westboro Baptist Church v. Matthew Snyder‘s father (where the fallen marine’s funeral was interrupted by members of the church holding “God Hates Fags” posters), Kelly took the unpopular side that legally, Westboro may have not done anything illegal. O’Reilly disagreed. Things got heated.

…of which “the bondage-themed strip club” is just one of many, many more this week. After all the damage control the left has had to do over the sex scandals of Eric Massa/John Edwards in the past several months, you’d think that MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann might have a little more sympathy for an RNC pamphlet which accidentally directed viewers to a phone sex-line. But it’s not to be: “Maybe it wasn’t a typo,” the host smirked while reading off Politico’s description of one outraged donor’s accidental phone call to a “nasty girl.”

Tonight on The O’Reilly Factor, was it a slip of the tongue or purposeful prose that caused Bill O’Reilly to say President Barack Obama was “converted” to Christianity by Rev. Jeremiah Wright? Judge for yourself after the jump.

Today, Scott Roeder was sentenced to life in prison after shooting Dr. George Tiller, a Kansas late-term abortion doctor, in last May. Roeder took the opportunity of his public appearance to read off a statement condemning the courts for the hypocrisy in “a man is allowed to speak openly and freely at his sentencing but not…at his trial.” He defended his actions and the process by which he came to believe he was justified in the murder, which he claimed made “Wichita is a far safer place for unborn babies.”

The Daily Show is never going to miss an opportunity to take a swing at Sarah Palin or John McCain, and the recent reunion of the two while McCain struggles to maintain is position in the Arizona senate is prime picking. Jon Stewart does raise a good point though: “No matter what Sarah Palin is saying about John McCain, she can’t help but make him look bad. Just by sitting next to her…he’s just sitting there in her radiant aura.” While Stewart is poking fun, there’s little doubt that at this point Palin is the star of the show and McCain comes off as not the man who plucked her out of obscurity, but merely the object of her latest of her endorsement.

Fox is having some problems with their Sarah Palin special tomorrow, namely that two of the segments stars, LL Cool J and Toby Keith, have claimed that their interviews have been lifted from year-old videos they did for the station, and that they were unaware they’d be featured on Palin’s new program. Which makes the former Alaskan governor an absurdly easy target for Keith Olbermann tonight, albeit a little unfairly.

The Obama administration may be following due process for repealing the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Policy,” but that doesn’t mean it’s happened yet. And for Congressman Barney Frank, an openly gay politician, the White House hasn’t been clear enough in their time line for the repeal…or if it even plans to take legislative action at all. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs gets a little bit snippy as he answers The Advocate‘s senior White House correspondent, Kerry Eleveld‘s questions about the president “ducking” this (possibly) historic precedent of allowing openly gay members into the armed forces.

Amidst the recent PR disasters that the Tea Party movement has endured of late (accusations of shouting slurs at Democratic Congressmen and and throwing money at a sick man,) a new face for the movement appears to have emerged from the most unlikely of places. Meet Pam Stout, the well-spoken, middle-aged woman from Idaho, who appeared as a guest on CBS’s Late Show with David Letterman.

The mere fact that both Sarah Palin and her grandson’s father Levin Johnston are both getting reality shows says more about the transformation of American politics into pop culture spectacle than we ever could. So we’ll just have the MSM speak for itself, courtesy of Newsweek.com.

Monday’s shocking revelation for most people wasn’t that Menudo singer Ricky Martin was a “fortunate homosexual,” but that the 90s pop icon was coming out of the closet now, years after his turn in the American spotlight. Then we found out he was pitching his autobiography, and that made a little more (business) sense. But there was at least one person for whom Martin’s sexuality was a total “surprise”: as Stephen Colbert said on his Comedy Central program, “I knew he was livin’ la vida loca…just not that loca.”

Yesterday a video emerged on the Internet that had the perfect elements for a viral sensation: the last scene in an apparent grade-school production of Brian DePalma‘s Scarface. Instead of cocaine, lil’ Tony Montana had a mountain of popcorn. Instead of swearing, the tiny Michelle Pfieffer in a blond wig screamed “Fudge you, Tony!” At the end, an audience of proud parents clapped. As some outraged individuals pointed out, we’ve heard of putting your kids on a theater track early, but a tiny tots Scarface was more ridiculous than Rushmore‘s high-school production of Serpico. And, as it turned out, just as movie-magic fabricated.

When news broke yesterday of Republican donor Eric Brown‘s (allegedly) $1,900 bill to the RNC for a lesbian bondage strip club session, can you blame the MSM for jumping on the story like a pack of ravenous wolves? Sex, the political party associated with family values, and early reports the GOP Chairman Michael Steele was personally involved (though he was on a plane)? It’s better than the Eric Massa-massage scandal two weeks ago! Lets watch the feeding frenzy, courtesy of Newsweek.com.

Sitting in for Campbell Brown on CNN, Rick Sanchez offered insightful argument during a segment with Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson and Jordan Marks, Tea Party activist and head of Young Americans For Freedom. After debating whether or not RNC politicians have played a hand in the recent ugliness that some Tea Party members have expressed towards Democratic congresspeople, Marks pulled out a line we’ve been hearing a lot lately: How can the GOP be racist, when our Chairman Michael Steele is black? Watch Sanchez’s response below.

Phoebe Price was a 15-year old Irish immigrant who hung herself in January after years of threats and taunts from classmates in her South Hadley, Massachusetts high school. Now nine of those bullies are being charged by local prosecutors for violating Price’s civil rights, as well as stalking and criminal harassment, as well as two charges of statutory rape. NBC’s Chief Legal analyst and Mediaite founder Dan Abrams weighed in on the issue this morning on Today.

Much better than the inevitable John Boehner/“No You Can’t” viral mashup (that we totally called, by the way), this music video about RNC Chairman Michael Steele‘s bondage club spending scandal – created by the people over at KatieHalper.com – will forge the slogan “Drill baby drill” and Fat Joe/ Lil Wayne‘s “Make it Rain” stuck in your head for the rest of the week. Which isn’t to say the vid isn’t full of misinformation, but like any good parody song, is pretty entertaining and ingratiatingly catchy.

Because logging on to your Facebook app from your smartphone wasn’t easy enough already, now Yahoo (slogan: We’re still pissed at Google about YouTube) has teamed up with Mark Zuckerberg‘s social-networking site so you can update your status from your email. Synergy!

There is a precedent for everything, but sometimes it’s nice to slip back into the familiar. So since this is the first time Keith Olbermann has done a “Worst Person” on Countdown since his father’s death three weeks ago, it’s oddly comforting that he would bestow the title on Bill O’Reilly. All is right in the world. Well, except for the whole “Bill O’Reilly reading Playboy on a plane thing.”

This weekend was a big headline maker for Sarah Palin, who not only got to switch the dynamic between herself and former presidential candidate John McCain, but went on to lead a rally in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid‘s Nevada hometown as well. But after all that the McCain camp said about Palin post-election, isn’t it a little bit odd that the senator would be willing to take backstage to Sarah’s homegrown stardom? Newsweek.com takes a look with their Daily Obsession.

President Barack Obama spoke to approximately 2,500 assembled American servicemen and women today at Bagram Air Base during his surprise trip to Afghanistan. Obama met earlier with President Hamid Karzai to address issues such as drug trafficking, and cracking down on insurgents.