Conservative Project Veritas auteur James O’Keefe, last seen upsetting deceased veterans’ widows, has published a new undercover “investigation” that he claims shows “the ease in which individuals may register to vote for themselves or others without identification requirements of any kind” in Minnesota. Progressive blogger Brad Friedman explains why, even if true, it hardly matters. Mediaite explains that it isn’t even true.

Joe Hildebrand, a columnist for Rupert Murdoch‘s News Corp. in Australia, has come under fire for a series of tweets that mock the mentally handicapped, the “retarded,” the Irish, and blondes. It all started with a tweet about airport personnel, but Hildebrand’s reaction to criticism of his remark escalated into a full-on “politically incorrect” display of shamelessness that had one colleague calling him “a disgrace.”

On the heels (but not too closely on the heels) of Monday’s call by GLAAD that CNN analyst Roland Martin be fired for tweets he made during Sunday’s Super Bowl, the network has announced that Martin has been suspended. Martin initially explained the tweets, which GLAAD said encouraged violence against gay people, as tweaking soccer fans, but the network disagrees. In a statement released minutes ago, CNN says “Roland Martin’s tweets were regrettable and offensive.

On Tuesday night’s The Young Turks, host Cenk Uygur went the eff off on President Obama over what he sees as administration signals of a compromise on the religious employer exemption to the Affordable Care Act’s Preventive Services Mandate. Loudly calling it like he sees it, Uygur said that President Obama “doesn’t have the guts” to fight conservatives on the issue, and that “his natural instinct” to “run for the hills” kicks in whenever he’s challenged a little bit.

On Tuesday night’s Countdown, fiery host Keith Olbermann delivered one of his trademark Special Comment™ segments on the roiling controversy surrounding the Susan G. Komen breast cancer charity’s decision to de-fund, then maybe re-fund, Planned Parenthood‘s screening services. He compared the incident to McCarthy-era “witch hunts,” and said that Komen founder and CEO Nancy Brinker had “dishonored both her sister’s memory, and this essential cause.”

After a week off due to a bout with bronchitis, Countdown host Keith Olbermann returned to the air Monday night, to the center of the Current TV universe, and to the black backdrop that seems a fitting stand-in for the star’s reportedly tumultuous relationship with his employer. According to a new report by Newsweek, that relationship may be hanging by a thread, and with it, the future of Current’s plan to become the left’s answer to Fox News.

On Tuesday morning’s Starting Point, host Soledad O’Brien led yet another discussion of the Obama administration’s decision to give non-church religious employers one year to comply with the Preventive Services Mandate, which some claim is an “attack on religious liberty.”

O’Brien did a good job of challenging that false premise, but allowed guest Rep. Marcia Blackburn (R-TN) to slip in the lie that the mandate covers the “abortion pill.”

The influence of independent expenditure groups like PACs and SuperPACs has become a major factor in this year’s presidential election. Consequently, the news that President Obama has decided to encourage donations to the Priorities USA Action SuperPAC is dominating political news today, with handwringing on the left and the right about the President’s prior vocal opposition to outside groups. Philosophically, he’s just taking a page from Ronald Reagan‘s book.

Friday’s encouraging jobs report has resulted in predictable agita from Republicans, who are scrambling to figure out how to sell themselves, in an improving economy, to sane America. On Monday morning’s Fox And Friends, Eric Bolling conspiratorially asked “Are they playing around with the numbers?”

The liberal blog Raw Story is accusing Fox and Friends of “inventing” a conspiracy around the jobs report, but that’s not true; Bolling simply neglected to credit the inventor of this silliness, Rep. Allen West (R-FL).

While Clint Eastwood‘s stirring “Halftime In America” ad for General Motors has been the feel-good success story of the annual Super Bowl Look-At-Me Advertising Pageant (and Football Game)™, another car commercial is engendering more negative feelings. Chevrolet‘s post-Mayan Apocalypse entry “amusingly” posits that drivers of Chevy pickups stand a better chance of surviving such a catastrophe than Ford customers. Apparently, that’s a claim that can be challenged, says Ford.

It’s the day after Super Bowl Sunday, so the media is busy wringing every last drop of hype out of its annual High Holy Day, dissecting ads, gasping at MIA‘s middle finger and Madonna‘s near-faceplant, and this: Gisele Bundchen, wife of losing Patriots QB Tom Brady, was caught on tape saying, through a barrage of Giants fans’ heckling, that “My husband cannot f**king throw the ball and catch the ball at the same time!”

In case watching 53 year-old Madonna gyrate her way through a high-octane Super Bowl halftime show last night had you feeling not-so-bad about your own advancing years, Monday morning brings the re-sobering news that Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose is 50 years old today. Welcome To The Dayroom, we got free coffee, Parcheesi, and most of a chess set!

The lie that emergency contraception is the same as the “abortion pill” RU-486 has just completed the jump from the minds of Republicans like Michele Bachmann, to Fox News opinion programming, to the broader mainstream media. On Sunday morning’s This Week, host George Stephanopoulos sat mute as columnist George Will repeated the lie that the Obama administration’s Preventive Services Mandate would force religious employers to “provide…abortion-inducing drugs.”

On Saturday mornings’s Up with Chris Hayes, journalist and MSNBC contributor Karen Hunter challenged The New York Times‘ Jodi Kantor over her motivation for writing the buzzed-about tome The Obamas. Hunter leveled a highly-charged criticism at Kantor, mentioning her “seven figure” payday, and wondering “What was your motivation for doing it?”

Kantor’s response seemed to be leading to a crackling exchange, but host Chris Hayes swooped in and changed the subject.

There’s good news and bad news for Republicans in January’s jobs report. The good news is, Mitt Romney was right: the economy is getting better. The bad news is that the better-than-expected news is going to make it that much harder for Republicans to unseat President Obama in November. In January, the US economy added 243,000 jobs (more than double what was expected), and the unemployment rate fell to 8.3%.

On Thursday night’s edition of Current TV’s The Young Turks, host Cenk Uygur blasted CNN’s Erin Burnett (again) in a segment called “Sh*t Erin Says,” accusing the OutFront host of “right-wing talking points and scaring retired people” during an interview with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI). At issue was Burnett’s suggestion that an increase in taxes on capital gains and dividends would hurt retirees, when such income is overwhelmingly made by millionaires.

There are actually a couple of odd things about the Mitt Romney gaffe that recently surfaced on the newly-Ben Smith-run Buzzfeed. In the brief clip, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney claims that “we (Americans) are the only people on Earth that put our hand over our heart during the playing of the National Anthem.”

The claim itself is weird (and false) on its face, but what’s equally weird is that he’s been making it for months.

Starting Point anchor Soledad O’Brien gave former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney a helping hand into some hot water the other day when she elicited Romney’s now-famous “I’m not concerned about the very poor” remark. On Friday morning’s Starting Point, O’Brien and her panel challenged Gov. Romney’s later assertion that he “misspoke,” and that his remarks were simply a “slip up on a word.”

On Wednesday evening’s Hardball, host Chris Matthews convened an infuriatingly one-sided panel to discuss the Obama administration’s recent decision not to permit an exemption for some religious employers to the contraception mandate. The Washington Post‘s Melinda Henneberger and Melissa Rogers of the Brookings Institution took turns trashing the decision, and the point of view of doctors, nurses, teachers, etc., who would be marginalized by such an exemption was not represented.

Last month, MSNBC announced that regular contributor and fill-in host Melissa Harris-Perry would be getting her own weekend show, to follow Up with Chris Hayes. Today, the network announced that Harris-Perry’s show will be eponymous, which, I have learned, does not mean it will protect you from deadly bee stings, but rather, that her show will be called Melissa Harris-Perry, and it debuts Feb. 18 at 10 am.

On Tuesday night’s The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, First Lady Michelle Obama snuck in a stealth shot at former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney‘s singing skills. Asked by Leno what she thought of Gov. Romney’s recent rendition of America The Beautiful, the First Lady replied, with a laugh, “It’s a beautiful song,” adding that “it is America’s song, and it’s a song that’s mean to be sung by every American.”

On NBC’s Today Show Wednesday morning, host Matt Lauer underscored just how nasty this 2012 Republican primary campaign has gotten, and how quickly, when he asked former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to confirm whether he had received a congratulations call from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich following Romney’s victory in the Florida primary. Romney revealed that Gingrich did not call last night…or after Romney victories in Iowa (apparent victory, anyway) and New Hampshire.

In an appearance on CNN’s Starting Point Wednesday morning, RNC chairman Reince Priebus tried out a little condescension and confrontation on host Soledad O’Brien, and was met with curt impatience. Asked if the nasty Republican primary race could damage the eventual nominee, Priebus passive-aggressively accused O’Brien of “spinning,” while a visibly annoyed Soledad O’Brien pressed him to get to the point, and later challenged him on his comparison of President Obama to cruise ship villain Captain Francesco Schettino.

About a month ago, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told supporters that his failure to get on the Virginia Republican primary ballot was the result of what he called “fraud” by one of his campaign’s signature collectors, who turned in 1,500 bogus signatures. Now, progressive blogger and broadcaster Brad Friedman is reporting that the Virginia Attorney General’s office and the State board of Elections have confirmed that they are investigating the incident.

Risin’ up, straight to the…courts? CBS news is reporting that former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is being sued for using anthemic Rocky III theme Eye of the Tiger at campaign events for the past few years. While the suit is news, I’m still trying to wrap my head around a guy named “Newt” using a theme song whose title begins “Eye of…”

A company owned by one of Survivor‘s founding members filed suit against Gingrich on Monday, seeking an injunction barring the candidate from using the song, plus damages “to be determined by the court.”