Thursday night, Lawrence O’Donnellbrought up a Los Angeles primary ballot measure — a possible law that would require porn stars to wear condoms while filming in Los Angeles — and found a way to work in the GOP field of candidates, suggesting that the two groups were similar in not wanting to be burdened with any more regulations.

A Boston-area Fox affiliate news team, flanked by investigative reporter Mike Beaudet ambushed high school teacher Kevin Hogan over his past adult film career. Beaudet tracked down Hogan, and began peppering him with personal questions about his porn filmography. “I want to talk to you about your film career. You starred in some pretty interesting movies!” Beaudet said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hogan replied. “You don’t know what i’m talking about?” Beaudet replied incredulously. “Does the school know that you’re a porn star?”

Porn star and notorious reader Sasha Grey appeared Wednesday on The View to defend herself from critics who lambasted the adult film actress for reading to children. “I think there was a lot of sanctimonious media firestorm thrown at me,” Grey exclaimed. “However, I’ve always gone after what i want and I will continue to do that.”

If you were cruising for some old Sesame Street clips the last two days, you probably noticed that the show’s official YouTube page was down. That’s because, earlier on Sunday, the site was hacked, and clips of XXX movies were interspersed with the Muppets. The clips were up, according to The Next Web, for about 22 minutes before Google shut down the page, citing the Community Guidelines policy that prohibits graphic content.

Best story ever alert!

Imagine you’re Alex Torres, a California man. You want to get the attention of Howard Stern, but how? Lets see…you’re a porn star as well as a skydiving instructor, you own a camera, and your friendly with the skydiving school’s pretty receptionist. Is there any possible way to use all those elements together. Hmmm…

It is difficult for a commentator like Rachel Maddow to explain the current climate in the Republican Party, so last night she went to explanation by way of analogy. There was a time when KKK leader David Duke won a Republican primary– against incumbent Republican governor of Louisiana Buddy Roemer. Roemer is running in 2012 for President and, yes, Duke is considering it, too. This, Maddow argues, is a product of the same Republican “crackpottery” that brought us the infamous Iowa pledge Rep. Michele Bachmann signed yesterday.

…Because she’s so good at lying! Barum-ching! But “seriously,” TMZ has reported that Vivid Entertainment president Steve Hirsch recently called Casey Anthony‘s lawyer, the shy and withdrawing José Baez, suggesting that his client might benefit from a future career in having sex on camera. Sure, why not.

Jon Stewart was eager to unload a series of porn-related jokes given the news that a stash of pornography was found inside Osama bin Laden’s compound. And he was able to pump one out, suggesting that with so much porn, “even before Navy seals shot out his eye, Osama bin Laden was probably going blind anyway.” Yet an avalanche of more current news dampened Stewart’s parade.

Upon the capture and death of Osama bin Laden, the good folks at Red Eye made one concrete prediction about the ramifications of the raid: whatever happens, there were “clearly huge amounts of porn” in the bin Laden compound. Not ones to waste a victory, Greg Gutfeld and crew celebrated by guessing movie titles, hiding their laptops and debating the merits of amateur versus professional porn.

On Monday, May 2nd, many New Yorkers awoke expecting their beloved bearer of ridiculous headlines, the New York Post, to come up with an insanely entertaining cover to celebrate the death of Osama bin Laden. They came up with “Got ‘Em!”, which is basically the equivalent of waking up to a box of sweaters on Christmas day. But, oh, did they make up for it today.

The inevitable Osama bin Laden porn scandal has launched a thousand giggles within the news community, and even Lawrence O’Donnell couldn’t keep a straight face discussing the matter. On The Last Word yesterday, O’Donnell made “the official position of this show” that the pornography found on the compound was definitely bin Laden’s, and repeatedly deadpanned his shock that the Al Qaeda leader had hoarded illicit materials.

Sometimes, the news Gods deliver great stuff on Fridays. Reuters is reporting exclusively that among the items found in Osama bin Laden‘s compound in Pakistan was “a stash of pornography.” The report, which cites “current and former U.S. officials,” said the porn consisted of “modern, electronically recorded video and is fairly extensive.”

The nature of the pornography–and who may have obtained it or viewed it–remains unclear. Reuters says officials familiar with Islamic militants say finding porn “is not uncommon.” It’s previously been documented that bin Laden used modern video equipment to watch videos of himself.

No need to have the “I’m researching a book” excuse at the tip of your tongue. The New York Public Library says yes, by all means, go ahead and use their public computers to check out porn. A desperate ploy to get porn-loving but computer-less New Yorkers to visit the library? More a First Amendment deal, the library tells the New York Post. “Customers can watch whatever they want on the computer,” said Brooklyn Public Library spokeswoman Malika Granville, describing the anything-goes philosophy that’s the rule at the city’s 200-plus branches.

How does a smut safe zone coincide with, say, storybook reading hour for kids? Not so well, say critics:

Motel 6 may promise to “leave the light on for you,” but how many hotels will willingly give up porn for you? Evidently, that’s just what Marriott Hotels did for Mitt Romney following years of criticism the former (And future?) presidential hopeful faced for being on the hotel chain’s board.

The other day, while writing a post discussing a TV show that seeks to find a middle ground between pornography and reality television, I loudly (perhaps too loudly) announced to our obliging (perhaps too obliging) office that I would rather watch 20 minutes of the worst porn than one episode of any reality series. Instantly, people started sending me links and videos and I was forced to retract my statement after watching just seconds of one. Instead of disregarding it completely though, I downgraded it to this: I respect any porn star more than any reality TV star. I then thought it would be interesting to examine why.

Yes: it’s true: Geraldo At Large has somehow, inexplicably managed to land the interview of the century, if by “century” you mean “1992″: “Long Island Lolita” Amy Fisher, the New York native that captured America’s heart and Joey Buttafuoco‘s wallet before shooting down and attempting to kill his wife, Mary Joe. Here’s everything you need to know about her new porn movie, Deep Inside with Amy Fisher.

Jerry Lewis has been hosting his MDA Telethon for 45 years, and that’s something that deserves an enormous amount of praise.

But he’s also lovably loopy, occasionally going off on a PG-13ish rant that appears slightly out of place with the rest of the show’s tone. This was his moment yesterday, involving “porno tapes.”

It may be a months-old story, but with the SEC porn memo findings back in the news, The Daily Show took on the juicy details with full team coverage.

Jon Stewart led off the discussion, followed by correspondent Samantha Bee (and a cardboard cutout of CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo).

It was one of the biggest stories of last week, an irresistible metaphor-made-real. While Wall Street was having its way with the US economy, employees of the Securities and Exchange Commission were literally playing with themselves. What wasn’t widely reported, though, was that the story was several months old, and was revived by opponents of financial reform, who thought it would be an effective counter to news of the SEC’s fraud complaint against Goldman Sachs.

Well this could have doubled as today’s Chyron of the Day: “Report: SEC Staffers Surfed Porn During Financial Meltdown.”

Yes, the Associated Press has obtained a memo detailing all the porn SEC employees have been looking at, especially as the financial crisis really heated up.

While doing image search after image search to satisfy the Power Grid’s voracious appetite for photos, we here at Mediaite came upon a rather titillating discovery: a surprising number of media professionals seem to have an odd connection to another seedy profession: pornography!

EXCLUSIVE – CNBC’s porn special – yes, a CNBC porn special – is ready for its Wednesday premiere, but not everyone is turned on. “Porn: Business of Pleasure,” will give viewers who normally want to know about things like oil futures “an unprecedented behind-the-scenes look inside the multibillion dollar pornography business.”

According to multiple sources, one sponsor was so turned off it wanted out.