A man who brought a Rep. Ron Paul sign to a Newt Gingrich rally is now suing the former House Speaker and his security team for, among other things, assault. Eddie Dillard, it was reported last week, arrived at a Gingrich event in Florida and was deemed to be too close to the stage where Gingrich was speaking, sporting a “Ron Paul” sign. He told reporter campaign security staff told the crowd to step on his toes.

Obviously, we as a culture are on the brink of collapse. Where, at one point, American creativity was personified by Mark Twain and the invention of jazz, now we have Kim Kardashian and the invention of vajazzling. Basically, we are finished. All we need is that last push, that one last event to send us flying over the edge and into the pit of own making. And, recently, news has surfaced that NBC has elected themselves as the ones to put American society out of its misery. However, at the last minute, the network has changed its mind, opting to postpone our creative death till another time.

Yes, they’ve decided to pull the episode of Fear Factor where contestants drank donkey semen.

In a revelation as stunning as finding out the true identity of Banksy, Randal, the creator of the ubiquitous Honey Badger viral video sensation has been tracked down by TMZ.

30 Rock star and Upstate New York hero Alec Baldwin received an apology from regional supermarket chain Wegmans for taking down his commercials after customer complaints over his airplane incident. “We regret ending the Alec Baldwin holiday commercials one week earlier than planned in response to a couple of dozen complaints. We have decided to run the commercials again, effective immediately.”

Herman Cain isn’t having the best Halloween, with sexual harassment allegations swirling around him, but a paparazzo from CelebrityQandA.com got some fun moments with him on his way into a campaign appearance, and gave Cain a chance to speak on the important issue…of bringing Godfather’s Pizza to D.C.

TMZ tracked down the guy who hurled profanities at Bristol Palin in West Hollywood. Stephen Hanks was unrepentant for his tirade against Palin, in fact, he “felt good to get it off his chest.” Hanks just happened to be at the bar, and didn’t realize he was being videotaped. He denied he was an actor or a plant, just a person who was very passionate about his beliefs. He said he thought the Palins were “dangerous” and “trash from Wasilla.”

Larry Flynt‘s got $1 million for your secrets, assuming your secrets regard Rick Perry‘s sex life. TMZ reports that the Hustler magazine publisher has taken out ads in various newspapers asking, “Have you had a gay or straight sexual encounter with Governor Rick Perry?” and offering a handsome bounty for a good scoop.

Tareq Salahi has contacted the press to alert them that his wife, Michaele, has been missing for more than 24 hours and he fears that she has been kidnapped. He explained to TMZ that she called him last night from an unknown number last night and said she was going to her mothers. Thinking that odd, he contacted the mother who said she had no knowledge of the plan. He explained that he was going to the press because he doesn’t feel the local police are taking the matter seriously enough.

When Steve Jobs stepped down as Apple CEO this past week, it became clear just how much he meant to so many people. Some respected him as a brilliant innovator, some saw him as a sign that America could still lead the world, and some acknowledged just how much easier his products had made their lives. Therefore, it’s unsurprising just how saddened many people were to see a photo posted on TMZ yesterday that purports to show a gravely ill Jobs looking frail and needing support to walk. It’s also unsurprising, however, considering just how secretive Jobs always kept the specifics of his illness and its effects, that many are now debating whether or not the photo is real.

There are very few things Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek could add to his resume that would make him even more beloved in the eyes of Americans, and yet he has outdone himself– this weekend, Trebek embarked on some hardcore crime-fighting, and while he tore his Achilles tendon, the culprit who broke into his hotel room and stole some money and jewelry was nearly immediately caught.

Yesterday, we brought irrefutable proof that travelling sucks for everyone with the sad story of a United States Governor forced to sleep on an airport floor just because the rain decided to get all icy for a bit. Yes, our country’s leaders also have to face the indignities of air travel, be they delays, long lines, or stores trying to sell bottled water for $5. To further prove this thesis, we give you former Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld who had to undergo one of those annoying TSA pat-downs everyone’s so worked up about.

During an appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe today, NBC’s Chuck Todd offered an interesting take on the News of the World phone hacking scandal and the possible implications it has for certain media outlets on this side of the pond. Will similar publications in the States, he wondered, face the same sort of scrutiny as News Corp. head Rupert Murdoch‘s NOTW has?

And this is probably where the whole shirtless politician thing should end. TMZ has shared with the world a photo of a bathing suit clad Newt Gingrich reclining in the sun on his vacation to the island of Mykonos (you know, the vacation that convinced his senior staffers to bail out on Gingrich’s campaign). As The Atlantic Wire describes the shot, “Newt Gingrich in a bathing suit looks pretty much exactly like you’d expect. Let’s just put it this way: He’s no Anthony Weiner or Chris Lee.” Indeed.

In the usual absence of any real, meaty (not a pun, thank you) political stories each summer, it’s usually something completely absurd, wild and/or scandalous that captures the attention of the media and the general public. Summer of ’11 has, so far, been a Summer of Weiner. The so-called “Weinergate” scandal has been the gift that keeps on giving, as far as many media outlets have been concerned, and it’s interesting to see how each has managed to put its own spin on the story. Let’s take a look at how they (and, yes, we) managed it, shall we?

The news of former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s extra-marital tryst – and the child born as a result of the affair – has brought up questions about how news outlets should handle reporting on the people who end up being “collateral damage” in gossip stories, and to what degree these individuals’ identities should be considered relevant and newsworthy.

The Daily, for instance, published a story today – titled “Conan Jr. the beer-barian” – about the boy’s MySpace profile, immediately inspiring questions like “Why?” and also “MySpace?” The post shows the boy as an aggressively normal American teen, albeit with one with an apparent aversion to spellcheck.

You can always count on TMZ to – if one may be permitted to weave a particularly unsavory metaphor right about now – lift the motel linoleum out from under a dead hooker’s decaying body to go after the juicier aspects of a headline-spewing story. The news organization’s founder, Harvey Levin, recently crafted a series of Tweets taking CNN to task for holding a hypocritical stance when it came to reporting the identity of the former housekeeper with whom Arnold Schwarzenegger had an extra-marital affair and, up until this month, a secret child. And Levin was able to do this not because TMZ has a strict ethical code revered by the media and public at large, but because, by staying true to its own unique code, TMZ has been able to own this story.

TMZ’s Harvey Levin has been taking CNN to task over Twitter this afternoon, drawing attention to the network’s changing stance on whether and when to name the housekeeper with whom former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had a child (known alternately as the “baby mama”). Levin, whose own news organization has been on the receiving end of criticism over issues with celebrities’ privacy, accused CNN of having no “moral compass” for changing their original take on the issue.

The story of the mother who gave Botox injections to her eight-year-old daughter has just veered off a cliff into the tabloid bizarre zone. According to a post this morning on TMZ, the “Botox Mom,” Sheena Upton, now claims everything about the story was fake. Upton, who signed a deposition, says a British tabloid, The Sun, approached her and asked her “to play the role of Kerry Campbell” for a story called “I Give My 8-Year-Old Daughter Botox.” Updated with statement from ABC News.

You know, sometimes people hating the president so much that they refuse to even believe he’s even an American can lead to good things. It’s rare but it happens. Take for example the family of Dr. David A. Sinclair who had no idea until a few hours ago that his name was on President Obama’s birth certificate. Ivalee Sinclair, the doctor’s widow, woke up this morning to discover that her late husband was the one who delivered the future leader of the free world. Talk about a nice surprise. TMZ interviewed her today and it’s clear that this was quite a charming little surprise.

Life imitating art? Shortly after playing a troubled, abusive New Orleans cop in Bad Lieutenant, actor Nicolas Cage has been arrested today in the same city for two counts of domestic abuse and disturbing the peace, TMZ reports. TMZ is also displaying a weary photo of the actor they are calling a “mug shot,” though no word on whether this is an official photo.

Mostly missed, in an hourlong interview with Sean Hannity that produced buzzworthy soundbites about Katie Couric and Dancing with the Stars, was former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin‘s unprompted response to the uproar surrounding daughter Willow’s recent Facebook misadventure.

While Palin correctly points out that the national media should not have exploited the musings of a 16 year-old, the balance of her response reveals important things about Sarah Palin, not as a parent, but as a media critic and human being. Not only does she undermine her claims of media “lies” by making stuff up herself, she also displays a disturbing attitude about the use of the word “faggot.”

Seeking to make hay out of Willow Palin‘s Facebook misadventure, among other things, Bonnie Goldstein, Editor of Politics Daily’s “Woman Up” blog, writes that the Palin teens “lack supervision,” and that “Sarah Palin may want to budget a companionable nanny for the older children.”

While we predicted that some would level this attack, it seems counterintuitive that a blog devoted to women’s issues would not only see the Palin kids as fair game, but would then perpetuate the sexist notion that parenting is the sole purview of the mother. Todd Palin’s name never comes up.

TMZ is reporting that Willow Palin, 16 year-old daughter of former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (and sister of newly-minted Dancing with the Stars champion Bristol Palin) struck back at a critic of her mom’s TLC show by calling him “f*ggot,” along with a string of other obscenities. The incident is being widely reported on the internet, and while Miss Palin’s word choice is, indeed, homophobic, it would be unfair to label her a “homophobe.” If anything, the lengthy exchange illustrates the lack of thought that goes into this kind of name-calling, and presents an opportunity to get these kids thinking, instead of fighting back.

Read the full, uncensored exchange after the jump.

So the whole Charlie Sheen debacle this week is about to get just a little sleazier.

You see, that “escort” locked in the bathroom isn’t an escort at all. She’s a porn star, Capri Anderson, and as she gets lawyered up, get ready for her to step into the media spotlight!

In an incident that’s being widely reported on the internet, 16 year-old pop superstar Justin Bieber was accused of assaulting a 12 year-old boy during a game of Laser Tag on Friday. Most news accounts of the incident indicate that, according to the Laser Tag facility’s staff, Bieber was singled out and cornered by a group of players, and that Bieber accidentally struck the boy in an attempt to get away. However, TMZ is reporting that the 12 year old who made the assault accusation called Bieber “faggot,” and that Bieber did not strike him.