The Political Whore

The latest to come flying across the News Desk here at PoHo Central, courtesy of Americans for Limited Government.

Credit: William Warren/ALG Features Syndicate

Will Farrell turned up on the Thursday edition of SNL, reprising his role as the strategerizer in chief. In this clip, Dubya meets with Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin and gives John McCain an uncomfortable endorsement. Interesting how with less than two weeks to go until the election, SNL is really out of material on the subject. Though amusing, this is the least of the Fey-Palin appearances. Still, it has its moments. Enjoy.

• Sarah Palin in Tampa on Sunday.
• What’s it sound like when you are a Congressman who is firing his mistress? Take a listen.
• Here’s the GOP death list, as obtained by DailyKos.
• You’d think that opponents of the anti-gay Amendment 2 could muster just over 4 in 10 voters to defeat the measure, but it is starting to look like you would be wrong…
• … and you can blame Obama and African-American voters.
• Regarding one Tampa neighborhood association: “Never have I observed the viciousness, sneakiness, name calling and just plain ugliness”
• AP giving in on its new, higher rates.
• The Rays win game two 4-2, even the World Series at one game a piece.
• Obama up seven in Florida.
• Alan Greenspan’s mea culpa.
• The Old Gray Lady squeezes in an endorsement of Barack Obama for President.
• Bullish on Bloomberg: NYC mayor wins right to run for third term.
• And today’s Florida teacher convicted of gettin’ it on with the kids hails from … Tampa!
• Bill Shatner unleashed.
• Those cutting edge antibiotics your doctor just gave you? They might be sugar pills.
• Going to Clearwater Saturday night? Beware the DUI checkpoint.

The activist-actor Kal Penn, best known for his roles on House and as Kumar in the Harold and Kumar films, is stumping on several Tampa Bay college campuses Friday to drum up support for early voting for Barack Obama.

Here’s the schedule from the Obama campaign:

TOMORROW, Friday, October 24

EARLY VOTE FOR CHANGE EVENT WITH KAL PENN

Florida Southern College

Tutu’s Cyber Café, Roux Library

111 Hollingsworth Drive

Lakeland, FL

9:45 AM

EARLY VOTE FOR CHANGE EVENT WITH KAL PENN

University of South Florida – St. Petersburg

Intramural Fields
140 Seventh Ave South

St. Petersburg, FL

12:45 PM

EARLY VOTE FOR CHANGE EVENT WITH KAL PENN

New College of Florida

Palm Court

Sarasota, FL

2:30 PM

EARLY VOTE FOR CHANGE EVENT WITH KAL PENN

University of Tampa

401 W Kennedy Blvd

Tampa, FL

4:15 PM

What is it about the incredible viral power of sticking McCain’s or Obama’s head on some dancers? One photo and one video are winging around the Internet, and one has a tie to Tampa Bay.

First, the photo. A few days ago, Tampa Bay musician, graphic designer and 2006 Best of the Bay winner Martin Rice sent over a Photoshopped shot showing Obama dancing with Sarah Palin (from a Dancing With the Stars photo) with the note, “Unfortunately, this is what the country wants.”

Dancing With the Candidates (credit: Martin Rice)

He sent it to three friends. Within days, the picture ended up all over the world, and on ABC News:

Read the rest of this entry »

The fourth in our election series look at who people in Tampa Bay are voting for, and why. You can join in and vote in our unscientific survey after the jump.

Brandy Stark, co-founder of S.P.I.R.I.T.S. in St. Petersburg, a paranormal investigative group

She’s voting for: Barack Obama.

Brandy Stark

Why? “Personally, this was a struggle for me as I am not overwhelmingly swayed by either candidate. My primary concern for this election is that Obama is untested and this is going to be a very hard learning curve. The U.S. is undergoing some very trying times. I feel badly for whoever gets into office, because there will be one heck of a mess to clean up. However, I think that we do need change, and though both parties have their issues, a party change is the first step. Deregulation, part of the Republican platform, has not worked too well if today’s economy is a reflection of the result, and I do believe in utilizing government programs to aid with education and other societal issues. In truth, I was really hoping for Hillary, and although she didn’t make it, I am hopeful that Obama will appoint her (and/or Bill) to cabinet offices or other positions where they may be of service to this country.”

What she would say to a McCain supporter: “I do believe that we have the right to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ This was a liberal thought in the time that it was written and is still a radical thought today. I have seen a rather strong trend towards the loss of individual rights in this country for a while now. I fear that McCain and Palin are far too conservative on what I believe to be moral choices and civil rights for my comfort. While they may not directly have an impact upon the laws of this land, they will appoint Supreme Court justices and others who will. Once something is enacted in government, it takes a very long time to repeal.”

Local candidate who most interests her: “Bill Heller. I worked at the University of South Florida (St. Petersburg) when he headed that campus. It was one of the most well-run campuses, and I felt quite content and valued there, [which was] a result, I believe, of the positive leadership that was in place at that time. Later, I walked alongside him in the charity fundraising Heart Walks; I’ve run into him as he volunteered at First Night; and he even was at my polling place for his first election. He is grounded, enthusiastic and tested (having survived the politics of higher education for years). I admire his dedication to the local community and his desire to help the greater populace of Florida.”

Read the rest of this entry »

John Stewart continues his fine work this election season with this bit on candidates pandering to baseball fans in Florida and Pennsylvania. What looks like a clear win for McCain soon turns into a draw, and it’s all thanks to Sarah Palin.

• Cheatin’ Tim Mahoney sees his campaign contributions dry up; just one in October.
• The Rays drop game one 3-2 to the Phillies.
• Palm Beach Post to lay off 300 printing plant employees, allow rival paper to print it.
• That $150K wardrobe puts a crimp in Palin’s “I’m just a gosh darn hockey mom” persona.
• Republicans pull the plug on funds for some wingnuts, including Tom Feeney in Orlando and the nutjob in Minnesota who said Obama held “anti-American” views.
• Democrats run up the score in early voting states.
• McCain flunks the job interview.
• Does Obama’s tax calculator crunch the numbers properly? Politifact says yes (mostly).
• Leaked memo: House Republicans expect to lose 34 seats!
• USF Lakeland homecoming king killed in accident hours after game.
• Mason-Dixon: McCain up by 1 point in FLA polling.
• Ticketmaster lays off hundreds; severance package levied a $10 “convenience fee.”
• Oprah tried to extort me! That’ll be $150 million, please.
• UFO’s over Turkey? You be the judge.

I got a call this afternoon from an old buddy from my consulting days, Neil Brickfield, a Republican party vice chairman who is running for County Commission in Pinellas. He won a very tough primary race and now faces an unknown Democrat who couldn’t even manage to get the liberal St. Petersburg TImes‘ editorial recommendation. Brickfield has raised nearly $90,000 to his opponent Paul Matton’s $10,000.

So you would think that in a GOP-dominated county like Pinellas, Brickfield wouldn’t have a worry.

You’d be wrong.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yes, it’s a bit harshly lit. And yes, Christine Jennings’ eyes don’t quite connect with the viewer as she reads the script. And she isn’t all warm-and-fuzzy looking. Aesthetics aside, however, this new TV ad gets away from the accusations-trading that has marked her challenge to incumbent Republican Congressman and gazillionaire car dealer Vern Buchanan by talking about the economic issues.

It went up this morning, and I already saw it on the Today Show earlier. The full script follows the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

We’re combining forces to bring you a more complete set of morning headlines in politics, media and pop culture. Joe Bardi’s Short List on the Daily Loaf and Wayne Garcia’s Morning Roundup in PoHo blog will now be combined, giving you even more news to start your day with.

Here’s a great idea. Too bad it’s illegal in Florida:

• “Guess what? I got a fever. And the only prescription is more cowbell.”
• Don’t the Rays remind you of … John McCain?!!?
• Per Joe Biden’s Seattle comment, a how-to on loin-girding.
• Is Matt Drudge off his game? (P.S. I’m calling for a boycott of Drudge Report. Who’s with me?)
• With Obama and the Dems on the verge of history, Newsweek reports America really is a conservative nation (no matter how we vote).
• Would it be horribly racist and stereotypical to say that this will most certainly lead to the first 7-Eleven on the moon?
• Who’da thunk that red dresses cost so damned much?
• St. Pete keeping its anti-protest plans secret. Lemme guess: a carton of box-cutters?
• Not only is Crooked Lawyer going to prison for a decade, he’s got a huuuuge friggin’ mole to contend with.
• They’re pretty stoked out in Lakeland to be getting a Five Guys.
• CQ now predicts that two Orlando area Republican congressmen, Keller and Feeney, are headed to defeat.
• The man who had his ass whupped by Sarah Palin in the veepstakes re-emerges with words of support for John McCain.
• GOP ad tries to tie Obama to 9-11 QB Atta.
• Amendment 2 opponents cry fraud against pro-vote advertisement.
• “Tampa, City of Hooters …”

[poll id="2"]

The third in our series asking the people of Tampa Bay who they are voting for in the Nov. 4 presidential election. And here’s the archive of our featured voters so far. Be sure to join in with your opinion by voting in the unscientific survey above.

Bob Kersteen, consultant, member of the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council and former St. Petersburg City Council member

He’s voting for: John McCain

Why? “He is the best prepared and has a long record/reputation for soliciting and receiving support from the other side of the aisle.”

What he would say to an Obama supporter: “[Obama] is a relative unknown who possesses little if any executive experience.

Local candidate who most interests him: Congressman C. W. “Bill” Young, “a strong supporter of MacDill AFB, which is a huge economic generator for the Tampa Bay Area. Bill also is very supportive of other projects such as the Tampa Bay Water Reservoir and other projects which would not have been possible through local/county/state funding sources.”

Holy moosecrap, just the story I have been dying to read. The LA Times has dug up what little info is known about a young Sarah (Heath) Palin in college. Don’t expect wild sex tales and panty raids:

“Looking at this dynamic personality now, it mystifies me that I wouldn’t remember her,” said Jim Fisher, Palin’s journalism instructor at the University of Idaho, where she graduated with a bachelor of science degree in journalism in 1987.

Palin, he said, took his public affairs reporting class, an upper-division course limited to 15 students. “It’s the funniest damn thing,” Fisher said. “No one can recall her.”

Photo from Los Angeles Times

Turns out that Palin wasn’t the life of the party, at the top of her class or an overachieving Type A-type — at least in college.

Read the whole story here.

For those who were away from their television sets Saturday night, here’s one of two appearances by Alaska Gov. and veep hopeful Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live this past weekend:

FLA is already drawing notice about its early voting as some screw-ups are reported. And Barack Obama flies to see his sick granny instead of campaigning. And say it ain’t so: UF’s Mr. Two Bits is calling it quits after this season?!? It’s Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2008. Now the headlines:

• Cheatin’ Congressman Tim Mahoney’s wife files for divorce.
• And the political media consulting firm caught up in the mess complains.
• Mel Martinez compares Obama’s tax plan to Castro’s Cuba.
• LAT plans redesign launch next week.
• Obama drew 40,000 to Orlando rally.
• Or 50,000, take your choice.
• McCain headed to rally in Sarasota.
• Todd Palin NOT headed to Pensacola (apparently there is no snowmobiling in the Panhandle, he found out at the last minute).
• Our idiot attorney general and his ongoing war against ex-felons trying to regain normal lives.
• The Rose Garden strategy a la Ginny Brown-Waite
• Here’s a Sarah Palin animation from former Tampa Tribune artist David O’Keefe:

[poll id="2"]

Here’s the second in our series asking the people of Tampa Bay who they are voting for in the Nov. 4 presidential election. And here’s the archive of our featured voters so far.

Rob Douglas, concert producer at Jannus Landing
He’s voting for: Obama/Biden

Rob Douglas

Why? “Obama, first and foremost, is thoughtful, articulate, even tempered and above all, intelligent! All traits that have been sorely lacking in D.C. for the last eight years. The way he has managed his campaign thus far is a good indication, I think, of how he would manage the country’s business. Ultimately, I believe Obama represents the future of our people and his opponent represents the past.”

What he would say to a McCain supporter: “I wouldn’t bother. Anyone supporting McCain is either an ideologue, incapable of critical thought or has a vested interest in the status quo. The choices and differences between the candidates are stark as are the stakes. It’s also inconceivable to me that anyone could still be on the fence about whom they were voting for. “

Local candidate who most interests him: “I am a registered Independent and I will vote as a Yellow Dog Democrat. I would like to see [Sarasota Congressman] Vern Buchanan get bounced out on his keister.”

Barack Obama began his tour of Florida this morning with a huge rally in Tampa, playing to an estimated 10,000 supporters at the House the Ruth Built for Spring Training, aka Steinbrenner Field on North Dale Mabry Highway.

Our online producer Stephen Hammill went and has a report over on the Daily Loaf blog.

How did FLA media cover? Some excerpts after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today we begin our series for Election 2008 in which we ask Tampa Bay: Who you voting for?

You can join in, too. Take our unscientific online survey here, and read the latest installment of who Tampa Bay is voting for after the jump:

[poll id="2"]

Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s top political and media headlines, with updates throughout the day:

• Obama barnstorms the Sunshine State.
• Hey, I’m not THAT Tim Mahoney.
• Early voting starts today.
• Will FLA screw up voting? (Sound familiar?)
• Lawyers rejoice! Tampa Bay Water could approve effed-up reservoir lawsuit today.
• Conservative blog: the polls could be wrong.
• Obama raises stunning $150 million in September.
• RNC demonstration charges against Kelly Benjamin dropped.

Yes, he’s real, and he’s shown here talking with Obama at a recent appearance:

We’re on live! Go down to comments and give us your thoughts and questions. And at any time, feel free to call “bullshit” and ask for a FACTCHECK. I will work my hardest and quickest to see what I can find out during the debate itself.

We just heard from state Rep. Michael Scionti here.

Here’s video of our interview with Rep. Michael Scionti:

And Hillsborough County Commission candidate Kevin Beckner stopped by to remind the crowd why they shouldn’t vote for incumbent Brian Blair.

The third and final round of the Barack Obama-John McCain debates is set for 9 p.m. at Hofstra University on Long Island.

I will be camped out at Tre Amici coffeehouse in Ybor City Wednesday to lead the troops in commenting and fact-checking the debates as we have Round 2 and the vice presidential. Just check back on PoHo blog sometime between 8:30 and 9 tonight.

All of today’s top political and media headlines, plus some other crap I find online that makes me laugh, complemented nicely with updates in the box to the right:

• Mahoney boinked a second one?
• Rays make Forbes list of Top 10 sports teams likely to RELOCATE!?!
• Jeb! defends Sarah.
• The flu is here.
• Crist: Yeah, I’m still, uhh, behind John McCain. Ummm, 100 percent. Like I have an option?
• The FLA GOP still be freakin’ about McCain’s slide.
• Our hack Attorney General in FLA is steamed, STEAMED I tell ya, about felons being on the voting rolls.
• Great Schleppers in FLA find that their grandparents are already voting for Obama.
• Krugman wins first posthumous Nobel Prize in Economics.
• Tampa Bay incumbents to constituents who want to see them discuss the issues on television: Fuck you!
• Justice John Paul Stevens to speak at UF. Road trip!!
• Big Sugar Jr. and its Everglades ethanol plant.
• Conservative icon mag National Review sees writer go south on McCain.
• John Cleese knows his Palins: Sarah is like a ‘talking parrot:’

something

• Rothenberg says Democrats will pick up 25-30 House seats in the election.
• John McCain was a keynote speaker for ACORN in 2006. Just one more reason not to believe the B.S. the GOP is saying about the advocacy group.
• Well, Tim Mahoney was ahead in his South Florida congressional race …
• … until this.
• 1,245 in Orlando mistakenly told they can’t vote. (Notice that the elections worker who admits the mistake here is the same one quoted in the above story on ACORN about how her office is upset at ACORN’s voter-registration errors.)
• South Florida congressional campaign volunteer dismissed after telling a caller not to vote for Obama because “he is a Muslim.”
• And the man who fueled that particular falsehood.
• Out of prison, former Broward Sheriff Ken Jenne lands a job as a consultant with a lobbying firm.
• A critique of conservative blogging as real journalism in the face of blog reports about Barack Obama’s “secret girlfriend.”
• If the Busansky campaign really is relying on headlines, then it is in biggggg trouble.
• The Trib’s Anwar Richardson (who last time he appeared in this column was flogging the incredible economic impact of Brett Favre’s imminent arrival in Tampa Bay) is at it again.
• Ringo is far too busy to sign autographs, so stop sending him shit.
• Is there anybody on the planet who doesn’t do Christopher Walken?

I love this guy. Thomas Friedman pimped him a few years back in his globalization followup, Hot, Flat and Crowded. Time called him the Hero of the Environment 2008. Now Van Jones — a Yale Law grad, social activist in Oakland, Netroots Nation keynoter and the hottest up-and-coming voice on creating “green-collar jobs — is out with his own book, The Green Collar Economy. It is a great companion to our Fix It Now series and the Green issue we printed in April.

Here’s the cover copy for the new book:

Provocative, personal, and inspirational, The Green Collar Economy is not a dire warning but rather a substantive and viable plan for solving the biggest issues facing the country–the failing economy and our devastated environment. From a distance, it appears that these two problems are separate, but when we look closer, the connection becomes unmistakable.

In The Green Collar Economy, acclaimed activist and political advisor Van Jones delivers a real solution that both rescues our economy and saves the environment. The economy is built on and powered almost exclusively by oil, natural gas, and coal, all fast-diminishing nonrenewable resources. As supplies disappear, the price of energy climbs and nearly everything becomes more expensive. With costs and unemployment soaring, the economy stalls. Not only that, when we burn these fuels, the greenhouse gases they create overheat the atmosphere. As the headlines make clear, total climate chaos looms over us. The bottom line: we cannot continue with business as usual. We cannot drill and burn our way out of these dual dilemmas.

Instead, Van Jones illustrates how we can invent and invest our way out of the pollution-based grey economy and into the healthy new green economy. Built by a broad coalition deeply rooted in the lives and struggles of ordinary people, this path has the practical benefit of both cutting energy prices and generating enough work to pull the U.S. economy out of its present death spiral.

Rachel Carson’s 1963 landmark book Silent Spring was the pivotal ecological examination of the last century. Now, rising above the impenetrable debate over the environment and the economy, Van Jones’s The Green Collar Economy delivers a timely and essential call to action for this new century.

And some video of Jones:

I echo the sentiment here that this kind of political speech is not cool. From a recent Sarah Palin private fundraising event:

via Wake Up America

Wake Up America decries the lack of MSM coverage of such hate speech against McCain-Palin and offers the above photo, which it said was e-mailed to the blog. The shot is fuzzy and taken by a camera phone. As for a lack of MSM coverage, I found it confirmed on ABC’s political blog and reported in the Politico.

It turns out that the duds are being sold online at a blog called Crucial Brutal. Here’s the model shot from the online store:

For sale: gender hate speech

There were good-size protests for Palin’s private fundraiser that day at a Philly hotel. Here’s the raw video (nausea warning: don’t watch this if you are feeling queasy, as the amateur cameraperson can’t hold the shot still for 2 seconds at a time):

And finally, I know just where you people are going in the comments so let me head you off at the pass: Just because John McCain has used the word cunt in the past doesn’t make it OK for you to use it now in reference to a woman politician.

Politics and media headlines on a Monday morning. What could be better than that? Daily updates in the box to the right, that’s what:

• Chicago considers forming a “gay-friendly” high school.
• Krugman wins the Nobel Prize for Economics.
• Weekend newspaper endorsements: Obama 15, McCain 0. (That gives Obama a two touchdown-plus lead.)
• 14 presidential candidates on the Florida ballot; getting on just takes a meeting you dub your “national convention” and 27 members in your political party. Trust me, the Whore Party will be ready for 2012, you betcha.
• Watch for McCain “push-back” on TV to start around Oct. 20, for early voting.
• The felon vote.
• Other than on Amendment 2, voters have little awareness of other constitutional amendments on the ballot.
• Newspaper web advertising revenue growth “slows to a crawl.”
• Tampa Tribune endorses two incumbents and Blair challenger Kevin Beckner.
• Another senseless Internet-related death.
• Yeah, there’s another tropical storm wayyyyy the hell out there.
• Democratic glee at the Republican dismay. It’s called schadenfreude.
• Kristol: McCain should fire his campaign.
• Washington politicians, lobbyists shielded Wall Street from liability for bad loans.
• The “Barack Osama” absentee ballot in upstate New York.
• McCain’s web-only Ayers ad is a “pants on fire” lie.
• McCain’s fans are turning on him; booing him for saying they didn’t need to be afraid of Obama:

(Editor’s note: here’s the latest from our RNC correspondent and Tampa Bay political activist and past candidate Kelly Benjamin)

— As of now, I’m still being charged with three ridiculous misdemeanors by the St. Paul City Attorney’s office: Unlawful Assembly, Obstructing Legal Process, and Disorderly Conduct — all of which I’m pretty confident I’m innocent of. I was all set to fly back to St. Paul and defend myself at my arraignment last week when I finally got a call back from the city attorney who is prosecuting my case. Reeking of “Minnesota Nice,” she advised me to hold off on flying up there so she could have more time to review my case and maybe even drop my charges. That was sincerely nice of her but I wish she would have told me that BEFORE I purchased another $350 roundtrip ticket. She didn’t have much to say about that. (Minnesota niced out I guess.) I postponed my court date and somehow managed to get a credit for my flight. Then I sent the prosecutor the video I was shooting right up to my arrest so she could see for herself that I was just sort of milling about peacefully when the cops chased me down and beat me up. She watched it and agreed that it didn’t look like I did anything illegal…”BUT“, she said, “you paused the tape.”

“Um, yeah, I think I pressed pause for a second or two by accident.”

“Aha! And how am I supposed to know that you didn’t break any laws while the tape was paused?”

“Well, I’m just not the kind of person that would do that…”

“Uh huh.”

(NOTE: This is not verbatim, just the gist .)

So now it’s a waiting game for me to see if the cops can come up with any evidence whatsoever to support their claim that I acted disorderly, obstructed their legal process, and/or assembled with others illegally (which I find particularly hilarious, seeing as Freedom of Assembly is one of those constitutionally guaranteed rights we supposedly enjoy).

But the most beautiful irony of the whole debacle, the one that puts a pretty red bow on top of this whole ugly mess, is that the court rescheduled my hearing in Minnesota for Nov. 4. Election Day.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s top political and media headlines, with updates throughout the day:

• Trib readers force paper to go back to having a separate sports section.
• Trib editor to staff: Our core audience loves the Trib, and St. Pete Times is no substitute for them.
• McCain, advisors differ on how low to sink in attacks against Obama.
• The GOP: a party on the edge of panic.
• McCain campaign report clears Palin of wrongdoing in Troopergate. Close the books on this one, folks.
• 800 Hillsborough residents caught in No Match, No Vote limbo.
• Brian Blair’s greatest video hits: don’t take food out of my babies’ mouths.
• McCain jumps on the ACORN-as-danger-to-our-nation bandwagon.
• So does the state GOP.
• Voter fraud by an Obama-affiliated group in Pinellas?
• Nice to know that campaign shenanigans trickle down even to the neighborhood association level.
• Say No 2 is up with its first television ad against the anti-gay Amendment 2:

Blogonia is just starting to light up with chatter about the extreme close-up that Sarah Palin got on the latest Newsweek cover. Here it is:

(PRNewsFoto/Newsweek)

GOP spin-ster Andrea Tantaros complained to Fox News:

TANTAROS: This cover is a clear slap in the face to Sarah Palin. Why? Because it’s un-retouched. It highlights every imperfection that every human being has. But we’re talking unwanted facial hair, pores, wrinkles. This is a gross slap in the face after Newsweek has done so many favorable covers of Barack Obama that make him look presidential…and were clearly retouched, flawless..

So now we in the Liberal Media have attacked her children, asked her tough questions AND failed to retouch her photographs to meet the high GOP aesthetic standards?

Our colleagues at the Washington City Paper have posted a hilarious and insightful parody of our bankruptcy filings. Here’s an excerpt:

6. The journalism/content of City Paper has also undergone a significant upheaval in the age of the Internet. Even before City Paper began placing its stories online, its journalists suspected that perhaps not a great multitude of readers were reading their work. Specific concerns clustered over the paper’s cover story, often a long piece of narrative journalism exceeding 5,000 words. Other questions about reader popularity attached to smaller news stories as well, which often related to landlord-tenant disputes, police misconduct, and, once, the rise of chai.

7. Web traffic numbers have confirmed the editorial department’s concerns. In early 2006, for instance, a City Paper staff writer began a written correspondence with a federal inmate named Thomas Sweatt, who was serving a life sentence for setting a series of fires in the Washington area. The letters continued for more than a year, as did a parallel investigation into the damage done by Sweatt’s fire-setting. The investigation turned up two deaths from Sweatt’s rampage that the public did not know about. The story would later win the Livingston Award. The paper posted the story, titled “Letters from an Arsonist,” on washingtoncitypaper.com on June 1, 2007, since which point it has attracted 5,748 pageviews. Meanwhile, an item on the paper’s blog titled “Obama, You’ve Got Something….” has attracted 10,128 pageviews in the past five weeks alone. The blog item was a commentary, written in a ranting style, on the appearance of a fragment of saliva on the face of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama during his 2008 convention speech.

You can read the entire pseudo-court document online.

Filed under Ch. 86 for news reorganization

The New Republic has been asking people “How will America change as a result of the economic downturn?” I was checking out yesterday’s entry by Michael Lind, a Whitehead Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation and director of its American Infrastructure Initiative, when I hit the following statement:

The emerging system might be called “lemon corporatism.” A managerial state dominated by oligopolies and monopolies, where government encourages employer paternalism as an alternative to public welfare spending, would resemble contemporary Japan and the dystopian America of “Rollerball.”

Priceless. The rest of the essay is also worth reading.

The McCain campaign is so desperate for something that works that it has Cindy out bashing Obama for voting against troop funding (something that her own husband did as well). Here’s today’s top political and media headlines from Tampa Bay, Florida and beyond. With the usual updated aggregatin’ in the box to the right, you betcha:

• Gut yuntiff to all our Jewish readers.
• Illegally purging voters in six swing states.
• John, John, you’re such a disappointment to me.
• Obama moves top strategists into FLA, sensing victory within reach.
• Did Karl Rove lie get it wrong in a WSJ piece by insisting that we have more swing voters today than in any campaign since 1968? You betcha.
• Condo buyers sue Skypoint in downtown Tampa to get their deposits back after learning of oil storage tanks found at the construction site and successfully cleaned up.
• Does this story lack an explanation or comment from the school system as to why it booted a kid with a Rayhawk? You betcha. C’mon Hillsborough schools, explain yourselves.
• Manny Machin, well-known Tampa lawyer, dies at 50.
• Do we continue to have idiots teaching our public schoolchildren in Florida? You betcha.
• Rock vs. McCain.
• Obama finds his voice on the economy.
• Another reason why the U.S. hates journalists.
• Yes, we’re watching the debates for entertainment, not for political purposes. How else do you explain the fact that the Palin-Biden debate topped the two presidential debates for ratings?

God bless this nation’s entrepreneurial spirit.

Here’s the new That One T-shirt, available for $19.95 (extra $2 if you want 2XL or 3XL).

Everybody is wearing this one

What a monumental screw-up at the Joe Biden speech at the Sun Dome in Tampa this morning. The guy that the Obama-Biden campaign brought in to introduce Biden is a Republican who went over to the Dem side for this election because of the tanking economy. Only problem is that Jim Piccalo Piccillo introduced Biden as … John McCain!

I rarely watch nighttime politi-gab shows – couldn’t pick Hannity out of a lineup, don’t even know Colmes’ first name – but nevertheless you pick up certain truisms. And way up on the list is that the cable shows on Fox News are bastions of right-wing doggerel.

Olbermann

So after the Obama/McCain face-off last night I was bouncing around looking for some post-debate comment, and not being game for Fox News’ bullshit, I ended up tuning into MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

I wasn’t expecting an attempt at objectivity – that’s never the point on these programs – but I was taken aback by what I got: an unmitigated, smug and condescending attack on John McCain.

No, I’m not pro-McCain; I’m solidly pro-Obama, but Olbermann’s opening rant was just as biased — albeit more glib and clever – than anything you might get from a right-leaning commentator. Now, I’m not saying that left-wing comment is intrinsically bad, I just didn’t like it in this context.

I was after some post-debate analysis, which I got a bit from NBC’s Brian Williams and company directly afterward. Olbermann brought on the experts, spewing loaded questions, breathlessly asking them if they saw what he saw: a doddering old hypocrite who fairly limped around the stage during the town-hall showdown.

To their credit, most of the guests gave Olbermann quizzical looks or shrugs and passed over his inflammatory assessments. They did generally agree that Obama was a clear winner, and that McCain didn’t make up much, if any, ground.

Olbermann continued to nitpick McCain’s miscues and blunders, while giving Obama a total pass.
I didn’t tune into MSNBC to get a dose of reassurance of how presidential Obama appeared and how cranky and off-kilter McCain came off. I wanted someone to give me a take that I didn’t already have.

Colmes

So I switched over to Fox News. And there I found a nebbishy guy in glasses bashing McCain and big-upping Obama in a square-off with a grinning, aw-shucks Fred Thompson. Not the kind of bias I expected. The guy badgering Thompson? I think it was Colmes …

I just checked Google Images: It was.

19.

(source: CNN.com debate transcript)

Issue: In last night’s second presidential debate, John McCain said, “My friends, some of this $700 billion ends up in the hands of terrorist organizations.” (source: CNN.com)

Facts: OK, we admit to initially being stumped by McCain’s assertion that the bailout plan, for which he suspended his campaign and went to Washington to urge lawmakers to pass, was secretly helping terrorist organizations. (Transitively, does that mean that McCain was supporting terrorist organizations? Of course not.)

But there is a possible indirect link between the bailout plan for bad mortgages and terrorism. This from Diane Francis of The National Post in Canada:

In fact, an Assyrian news website carried a story back in mid-2007 that FBI and other officials were concerned about a “growing trend of terrorist associations [involved] with mortgage fraud rings in the U.S.”
“In the past year [2007], several high-profile mortgage fraud arrests have been tied to federal terrorism investigations, most notably a ring busted up in Salt Lake City that is alleged to have direct ties to the late al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,” said the story.
Money was obtained from banks fraudulently then transferred to Middle Eastern bank accounts controlled by terrorists. These cases grind through courts.

The Assyrian news story began:

A man arrested in December at the Kansas City airport with $70,000 in his bulging pockets while trying to board a Southwest Airlines flight claiming the money was actually Muslim prayer books, a San Francisco mortgage company executive who went on the run from the FBI in November, seven people arrested in September in Salt Lake City with ties to al-Qaeda, and a co-defendant in the Sami al-Arian/Palestinian Islamic Jihad trial all have one thing in common — the growing trend of terrorist associations with mortgage fraud rings in the US.

(It must be pointed out that the Assyrian account lists Al-Arian co-defendant Sameeh Hammoudeh as part of this great mortgage fraud terrorism effort, a gross misrepresentation of the mortgage fraud charge he pleaded to in court. His fraud charges related to his concealment of his employment at the Islamic Academy, and not fraud in subprime mortgages. Oh, and Hammoudeh was not a terrorist, either.)

The UK, likewise, has suspicions that terrorists used bad mortgages:

An intelligence report by the Association of Chief Police Officers said that organised crime groups used mortgage fraud to generate income and launder money from the proceeds of their operations, such as drugs, human trafficking and prostitution.

“While there is no evidence to suggest mortgage fraud directly funds terrorist acts, this area of criminality has been encountered during investigations into UK-based terrorist groups,” it said. “Mortgage fraud can be used to finance infrastructure including safe houses.”

Given this tenuous link to terrorism (if that is indeed what McCain was referring to) and misimpression that either the bailout or Wall Street aided terrorists, we judge this statement to be Bullshit.