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Earlier this week, The Daily Show decided to take on the Tucson Unified school board and their decision to outlaw Mexican-American studies in their classrooms.

Here's more from the LA Times on the board's decision -- Mexican American studies: 'Daily Show' segment strikes a nerve:

After that stint on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” the Tucson Unified school board is probably wishing it had hired a media consultant before trying to explain its position on the district’s controversial Mexican American Studies program.

Normally, when people are featured on a television show, they call family and friends and let them know the time and channel. That might not be the case for board member Michael Hicks, who appeared in a segment about the ethnic studies controversy.

The Tucson school board voted to end the program after Arizona's education chief had ruled the district in violation of a controversial state law banning classes designed for a particular ethnic group or that "promote the overthrow of the U.S. government."

Defenders of the Mexican American Studies program have said it does no such thing. Some board members said they voted to discontinue the program under duress because the legislation allowed the state to withhold funding from the district unless it complied with the law.

The law and the board's vote -- and protests by Latino students -- have prompted fiery discussions in Tucson and across the state. Into that atmosphere stepped Hicks when he explained his vote on "The Daily Show."

"My concern was a lot of the radical ideas that they were teaching in these classes," Hicks is quoted as saying.

"Telling these kids that this is their land, the whites took it over and the only way to get out from beneath the gringo — which is the white man — is by bloodshed."

The segment quotes him as saying he has never gone to any of the classrooms and based his opinions on "hearsay."

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Authorities are investigating a possible hate crime after a sign honoring a civil rights hero was defaced in St. Louis.

The Missouri Department of Transportation removed the sign marking "Rosa Parks Highway" because it had been spray-painted with the letters "KKK," which is an abbreviation for the Ku Klux Klan white supremacist group.

St. Louis County Police dispatched their crime scene unit to investigate early Friday morning.

According to KSDK, the Ku Klux Klan had at one time sponsored the Adopt-A-Highway litter control program on that stretch of Interstate 55. But their sign was taken down after lawmakers dedicated the road to Parks.

(H/T: Think Progress)

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During a very long and very contentious interview with presidential hopeful Herman Cain, who's out trying to sell his new book, and who had some not so kind words for the protesters on Wall Street this week, MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell took Cain to task for a portion of that book where he claims that he was too young to have participated in the Civil Rights movement. Cain didn't take too kindly to O'Donnell's next question.

O'DONNELL: Where do you think black people would be sitting on the bus today if Rosa Parks had followed your father's advice?

CAIN: My father was not giving Rosa Parks advice. Here again Lawrence, you are distorting the intent of what I said. I was a high school student. The college students were doing the sit-ins. The college students were doing the Freedom Rides. If I had been a college student, I probably would have been participating. But if you're a high school student in the 10th or 11th grade, you're under eighteen years of age, you didn't need to get arrested and be in the middle of that.

That was the intent of what I said, relative to me not being involved. Now, I was impacted by that on a daily basis, simply because I was living in Atlanta, GA when all of this was going on. It was not prudent... this is what my dad meant... it was not prudent for a high school student to be in the middle of what was going on in terms of those demonstrations. And thanks to Rosa Parks, yes, she struck a chord with a lot of people that helped to lead to the desegregation of the buses, as well as she was a big part of the whole Civil Rights movement. And we are all very grateful to her, for that.

After putting Cain on the defensive when O'Donnell pointed out that he was not in high school that entire time and was in college from 1963 to 1967 at the height the Civil Rights movement, and when some of the most important demonstrations were going on, Cain accused O'Donnell of distorting what he wrote in his book.

CAIN: Lawrence, your attempt to say I sat on the sidelines is an irrelevant comparison that you were trying to deduce from that particular point in time.

O'DONNELL: It's in your book...

CAIN: Now Lawrence, I know what's in my book. Now, let me ask you a question. Did you expect every black student and every black college in America to be out there in the middle of every fight? The answer is no. So for you to say “Why was I sitting on the sidelines?”, I think that is an inaccurate deduction that you are trying to make. You didn't know Lawrence what I was doing with the rest of my life. You didn't know what my family situation may have been.

Maybe, just maybe I had a sick relative, which is why I might not have been sitting in or doing the Freedom Rides. So what I'm saying Lawrence is, with all due respect my friend, your deduction is incorrect and it's not logical. Okay?

Maybe he had a sick relative? Maybe? What, he's not sure? Or maybe... he's just lying through his teeth and the reason he didn't participate in the protests is exactly what he wrote in his book as Lawrence pointed out here and not because he was in high school and not because some imaginary relative he never wrote about before that maybe... got sick.

Cain also decided to double down on his remarks about his belief that being gay is a choice before this portion of the segment ended.

Cain is tied with Mittens as the GOP frontrunner right now. I expect Romney's sending Lawrence O'Donnell some flowers and chocolates after this interview which you can watch all three parts of in their entirety as MSNBC's site here.

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Glenn Beck makes Keith's Worst Persons award for attacking unions and then comparing himself to Rosa Parks and Mahatma Gandhi. Apparently he's not too happy with the SEIU and MoveOn.org for going after his advertisers and for teaming up with Brave New Films for putting this together -- Glenn Beck Attacks Progressives...And You?:

Over the past year, conspiracy theorist Glenn Beck has been one of the most vocal opponents of health care reform (and SEIU, for that matter), and progressives have suffered the majority of his irrational, fear-mongering attacks.

But now, a new interactive video put together by SEIU, MoveOn.org and Brave New Films allows you to share Beck's special brand of crazy with your friends and co-workers. To check it out for yourself and make your own Glenn Beck conspiracy, click here: http://beck.cnnbcvideo.com/?rc=seiu.

Runners up for Keith's Worst segment, John "Wingnut" Avlon for comparing Code Pink to the Hutaree Militia and Rush Limbaugh for this item from Media Matters -- Rush declares jobs report "a sham" by pushing myth that "most of the job growth is Census".