The Political Whore

Penn Jillette asks: Hey Al Gore, if we have global warming, why is it snowing in Vegas?

• Pew: Internet overtakes newspapers as primary news source.
• Harold Pinter, playwright and Sondheim lyric reference, dead at 78.
• Eartha Kitt, singer of “Santa Baby,” dies on Christmas day.
• The slagging of Caroline Kennedy continues as her Senate chances are in doubt.
• Another argues: Why not Caroline?
• Haley Barbour on GOP’s hope for a comeback: “When you’ve had the White House for eight years, you become a very top-down party. We Republicans are clearly better as a bottom-up party.”
• “If you spend your life teaching people in media about social media, about conversational publishing and genuine online community, you will spend a good percentage of your time being told you are wrong.”
• Who shot Rudolph?
• The weird, twisted and conspiratorial death of GOP consultant Michael Connell.
• NASA: “Massively dysfunctional.”

Ever wonder what the department store lingerie scene in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation would play like in German? Yea.

• Cheney admits OK’ing waterboarding.
• Cockamamie scheme to lease Alligator Alley to private interests is put on hold.
• How to cut $2.3 billion from the state budget without laying anyone off.
• Stop driving right up my ass, or the FHP will target you over Christmas.
• Friendship Trail proponents aren’t giving up.
• Fewer Christmas shoppers = less crime at the malls.
• Obama’s “success tax.”
• The battle for green jobs in Obama’s economic stimulus package.
• Check out Congress’s 2008 voting scores.
• Oh, and Obama and Rahmbo did nothing wrong with Blago. At least that’s what they say.

It’s a Mike Gravel (’memba him?) Christmas, from Red State Nation in 2007

• Buddy Johnson: “Waaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!”
• The Friendship Trail hiking-biking-jogging bridge is closed entirely; engineers warn of possible collapse.
• Our buff president-elect.
• … And his Hawaiian vacation.
• The letter from FLA lawyers pissed at how Charlie Crist is politicizing the judicial nomination process.
• … And could, of course, sue.
• Franken ahead by 48 votes in Minnesota.
• Saudi court rules that 8-year-old girl cannot divorce her 58-year-old husband. She has to wait until puberty to leave him.
• Amazing spread of Greek riot photos.

Credit: REUTERS/John Kolesidis

Back when it was Christmas in America …

• The Brinks of Tampa give $150,000 to Obama inauguration.
• $1.6 billion of the bailout money went to execs and their bonuses.
• Top 10 newspaper industry stories from E&P.
• Deggans’ readers’ Media Top 10 for 2008. (here’s his Top 10 TV shows.)
• Controversy about and love for biomass.
• Orlando sheds Disney image for new rep: Murderland.
• Sansom not the only legislator to cash in on relationship to FLA colleges.
• Conservative talk radio reloads, readies for Obama administration.
• Trying to save The Rocky online.
• “I don’t understand how putting content on the Web would do anything but help destroy our paper.”
• Out in Left Field defends Obama’s choice of Rick Warren.
• And a gay man tells us why gay marriage is the wrong issue.
• John Lennon loved him some nipples.

And we want a light-rail system here in Tampa Bay??

• Lex quits.
• The bong tax.
• An inaugural invocation from a homophobe?
• Heading to a showdown with the Seminoles over gambling in FLA.
• Tampa lawyer looks for re-form tobacco “dream team” to stop raids on Lawton Chiles Fund.
• Deep Throat is dead (the source, not the sex act.)
• The Jewish angle on Bernie Madoff.
• Minnesota Senate count update: Coleman leads Franken by two votes.
• Caroline Kennedy not much of a voter.
• Buddy Johnson: I was expected to show up in front of county commissioners to explain my $2.3 million request? Really?
• A Hillsborough School Board member asks: give me stories about good students for Christmas.

Can Peruvian antiriot troops be far behind for the Zoo?

Hey, PR firms out there, the Lowry Park Zoo definitely could use your assistance. This from TBO:

Lowry Park Zoo has hired at least half a dozen sheriff’s deputies to keep out those not authorized to attend today’s private meeting between the zoo board and its embattled president.

Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio had asked for a public meeting, but as news reporters and photographers arrived this morning, they were guided to a side entrance and away from a conference room set up for board members. The board has more than 35 members.

Lowry Park Zoo will be billed for the security costs, said Ken Orill, who works in security at the zoo.

My political tie-in for this video trailer for the upcoming 10-DVD Neil Young Archives Vol. 1? There is, of course, a clip of Nixon:

• The Florida House starts in on the bad budget news.
• Speaker Sansom still ain’t talking.
• … but the college that hired him is: it wants more money from the Legislature.
• Politico’s guide to the RNC chairman race.
• Bye-bye news from Washington.
• The US Sugar deal isn’t done quite yet.
• A new Jacksonville GOP leader, and calls for the resignation of the Republican chairman in Fort Myers.
• Troubled Tampa Without Walls Church makes “donor alert” list.

From the TCPalm website (which covers small dailies down in Stuart and Port St. Lucie):

Port St. Lucie police seek warrant for alleged beater of genital smeller

The story, by a reporter I met back in the 1980s when he was a grad student at UF, tells a sordid tale of suspected infidelity, genital CSI’ing and (finally) violence:

PORT ST. LUCIE — Police are seeking an arrest warrant for a man accused of hitting his wife after she asked to smell his penis to determine whether he was cheating with another woman, according to a police report released Wednesday.

The 37-year-old victim told investigators her husband of three years punched her face and kicked her arms and legs Monday night after she accused him of having an affair.

The victim said she told her 25-year-old husband as he used the restroom “to display his penis to her so that she can smell it,” the report states.

h/t to my buddy Sean

SantaBush?!?:

• Hillsborough elections honcho Johnson tells the county commission he overspent his budget by $2.3 million.
• South Florida water board OK’s deal with U.S. Sugar.
• Study: The media keep people stupid about health care.
• Pam Iorio “stunned” by how lax the Lowry Park Zoo board was/is.
• “Post-partisan my ass;” GOP requests info on Holder’s role in Elian affair.
• Tierra Verde invasion annexation heads to mediation.
• Another voice against more billboards in Tampa.

Blago refuses to step down, I refuse to step up, and Obama plays it cool:

• Columbo has Alzheimer’s.
• Lowry Park Zoo CEO says he was actually doing good when he got all those cut-rate animals and structures and developed his own private zoo on the side.
• Charlie Crist’s deal with US Sugar is nearly in the shitter.
• Obama says Go Gators!
• NOW the local parties think the youth vote counts for something.
• Slash and burn at the special session in January.
• The cost of smokes appears to be heading up.
• More South Florida political corruption.
• Sarasota legalizes (wait for it) spitting.

This morning’s top political and media stories in Tampa Bay, Florida and beyond:

• The Tampa Tribune’s bizarre front-page: We’re not dead! “By organizing the paper as we have, we’ve been able to preserve more space for local content. The Times, which clings to traditional sections as being more important to readers than local news, is stuck with a format that requires reducing local content.”
• Obama’s NASA transition team looks at how to retire the space shuttle in 2010 and what comes next.
• The right-wingers in Tallahassee see a silver lining.
• GOP in-fighting in Fort Myers.
• One paper says the US Sugar deal “not assured;” another says it could be finalized today.
• No change at the top for Florida political parties.
• The speaker of the Florida House of Representatives has no credibility left.

Happy Thanksgiving! Keeping it short today, gotta run off and make some buttered toast and popcorn …

• It’s a Madge and A-Rod Thanksgiving!!
• BayWalk in foreclosure.
• 27-year-old named chief speechwriter for Obama White House.
• Bush’s and Obama’s thoughts on Thanksgiving. (Bush has thoughts?!?)
• Macy’s Parade on two networks.
• Coleman extends his lead over Al Franken.
• C’mon, if a Bee Gee can’t smuggle a little doobich on the plane, who can?
• Lawyer tasered at Tamp Code Enforcement Board hearing.
• “Your corn is sweeter, your potatoes are starchier and your turkey is much, much bigger than the foods that sat on your grandparents’ Thanksgiving dinner table.” Thanks, science.
• Lawsuit about early primary date seeks class-action status.
• Elections officials sued for not offering ballot en espanol.
• Tampa Bay’s Sarah Palin defends herself.
• Al Jazeera’s citizen journalism experiment.
• Hillsborough civic leader Bob Bondi dies at 74.

Bill Maher is worried that an Obama administration isn’t going to very funny. After seeing this video of Obama roasting his now Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel back in 2005, I think we might see a few laughs ahead.

• Rahm Emanuel outlines the early ambitions of the Obama administration.
• In the fight against al-Qaeda, no international border shall be respected.
• China gets into the stimulus plan action.
• California churchgoers greeted by Prop 8 protesters on Sunday.
• What happened at the Seminole Hard Rock stays at the Seminole Hard Rock.
• MGM adds American Gladiators (among other things) to YouTube.
• The Titans remain the NFL’s lone unbeaten team.
• #1 at the box office: Madagascar 2.

Thank God NBC finally got around to posting “Giraffes!”, the hilarious skit/mini-movie that ran on last weekend’s Saturday Night Live. That was the same night as the “John McCain on QVC” skit. That was very funny. This is so bizarre it’s transcendent.

• Our long, county-wide nightmare is over.
• “Sanity returns to the county.”
• Would you believe Obama’s agenda includes “Getting America back on track?”
• Obama can thank the Youth Vote, I-4 corridor, red counties, black voters, foreclosures, Hispanics for his FLA victory.
• Hillsborough GOP turmoil.
• Looks like gay marriage proponents and black people in California need to have a conversation.
• “She didn’t know the nations involved in the North American Free Trade Agreement. … She didn’t understand … that Africa was a continent and not a country.”
• Smoke up Michigan and Massachusetts.
• October consumer spending number digs six foot hole, climbs in …
• … Upon hearing the news, the Dow quickly followed suit.
• Is that Santa Claus or is it still Halloween?
• Hottest Bond girl? If you answered Grace Jones, please turn in your penis.

CNN went all Star Wars on viewers election night with Princess Leia stand-in Jessica Yellin reporting via hologram. (Where was Admiral Ackbar??) Help us Barack Obama, you’re our only hope!

• Yes, Sarah Palin went rogue on John McCain.
• Come on Hillsborough, this is ridiculous.
• The software that screwed Hillsborough voting already screwed three other FLA counties.
• Election day was ugly for supporters of gay marriage.
• Next move in the modern civil rights battle: Lawsuits.
• It’s all over but the recounting.
• What’s up in North Carolina and Missouri?
• 4 red FLA counties gave Obama his victory.
• Youth vote turned out for Obama.
• “Why Ralph Nader is an asshole.”
• Newsweek keeps things upbeat with “horror stories” from previous presidential transitions.
• “Nation Finally Shitty Enough To Make Social Progress.”
• R.I.P. Michael Crichton.
• You heard the one about the woman who ran a mile with a fox chewing on her arm?

Last night, Sen. Barack Obama defeated Sen. John McCain and was elected the 44th President of the United States. He then delivered the following speech to the incredible crowd in Chicago’s Grant Park. Here’s looking forward to the next four years …

• Election wrap: Here, here, here and here.
• Even more election wrap: Here, here, here and here.
• The Washington Post on how Obama pulled it off.
• And now the hard part …
• Bushism of the year: “What an awesome night for you, your family and your supporters.”
• Can the Dems get to 60 Senate seats?
• One place the Dems got slaughtered: Pinellas County.
• Hillsborough County’s vote count screws the pooch.
• Florida to LGBT couples: Fuck off. The view from South Florida.
• Our projection: Beckner beat Blair.
• So much for the Democrats’ down-ballot efforts in Pinellas.
• The Diaz-Balart bros. hang on to their GOP congressional seats in Miami.
• The beginning of the end for Leavitt at USF football?

Tonight’s the night! After two frickin’ years of Barack and McCain, Hillary and Huckabee, “bitter” and “you betcha!,” it’s finally election day. Get out there an vote! Your country needs you. In the meantime, here’s NBC’s great Chuck Todd on what to look for after the polls close.

• Your polling location: For Hillsborough residents, for Pinellas residents.
• Got voting questions? Here’s the answers.
• Bring on the sports metaphors: The candidates turn up on Monday Night Football.
• If McCain’s going to win, this is how.
• If Obama loses, “It would mark the biggest collective error in the history of the media and political establishment.”
• It’s election day: Free coffee and donuts for everyone!
• Instant nostalgia: The New York Times remembers Election ‘08.
• R.I.P. Obama’s Grandmother. Madelyn Dunham.

You’ve got to hand it to John McCain: The Senator’s appearance on this weekend’s Saturday Night Live was by far the funniest appearance by any candidate this election season. (Note to Hulu: Post “Giraffes” now!)

• Real Clear Politics has it Obama up 4 in Florida; Obama up 6 nationally.
• Robo-PPP poll has Obama up 2.
• Some of our knuckle-dragging Tampa Bay neighbors express their racist political beliefs.
• Carl Hiassen: “Deliver us from scandal, Lord.”
• Sure, we got Buffett, but Cleveland got The Boss.
• It all comes down to this …
• Predictions anyone? Put yours in the comments.
• November surprise: Obama’s aunt gets deported. And who leaked this info anyway?
• Is Gov. Charlie about to take a step to the left?
• The Bucs pull one out in overtime, defeating the lowly Chiefs 30-27.
• Netflix finally goes live on the Mac.
• R.I.P.: Studs Terkel.

Ron Howard wants Barack Obama to win so badly that he was willing to complete sacrifice his dignity and make the following video. Way to go, Opie. Happy Halloween everyone!

• New poll puts Obama up 7 in Florida.
• Obama’s infomercial scores in the ratings.
• Meanwhile, Barack pays a visit to Sarasota.
• The head of Hillsborough’s Republican Party should stay off the computer…
• …and learn how to craft a better apology.
• 23% of Texans think Obama is a Muslim.
• Live from New York, it’s John McCain on SNL.
• Tampa’s Friday downtown farmers market launches today.
• Florida Democratic Party has uncovered a vast right-wing conspiracy.
• Obama’s chief of staff: Rahm Emmanuel?
• Vote naked!
• Reviewing the season launch of 30 Rock.
• Exxon/Mobile’s record profits get the candidates sparin’.
• The Big Three soon to become the Big Two.
• Don’t forget to turn back the clock this weekend.

Barack Obama aired his half-hour “Obama Infomercial” as the candidate called it on last night’s Daily Show. (Time called it a “mini-convention six days before the election.”) The production leaned heavily on tug-at-the-heartstrings profiles of “real Americans” and some very specific policy proposals. In case you missed it:

• Florida gets much love as the candidates crisscross the state.
• Millions vote early, immediately smash televisions…
• …but not necessarily the Youth Vote.
• Bill stumps with Obama in Kissimmee. Three words we enjoy in any sentence: Bill, stumps and Kissimmee.
• McCain to LAT: Screw your journalistic principles, gimme that damned Obama video.
• Larry King was in town yesterday? I knew there was a reason I felt really icky all day.
• One of the 2,466 keyboardists who ever played with Jerry Garcia is dead.
• The worst part is that I had a ticket for game 6.
• There you go again, Sarah Palin.
• Can someone explain how the U.S. faces deflation after the Fed has created all this money?
• Trouble ahead for Facebook?
• 15 technologies that are about to change everything.
• God help us all: The Beatles go digital with their own edition of Rock Band.

Palm Beach, Fl. Fifth-grader and aspiring reporter Damon Weaver interviews Joe Biden, asking the veep candidate what it is that a VP actually does. He likes Biden’s answer enough to declare them officially “homeboys.”

• Florida early voting sites to stay open longer each day to better disenfranchise the citizenry.
• Q Poll: Obama ahead by 2 points in statistical tie.
• LAT-Bloomberg: Obama up by 7.
• Obama cuts McCain’s lead to just 2 points in McCain’s home state, Arizona!
• … but the McCain campaign says the race is tightening. Rrrrriiigggghhht.
• Our daily “Nearer My God to Thee” Media update: Time Inc. will lay off 600 workers; Gannett to cut 3,000.
• Enjoy those big gains from yesterday Dow fans. They should be gone by this afternoon.
• Tonight’s half-hour Obama ad will not run on CNN, but will lead into the World Series on Fox.
• Speaking of which: Game 5 resumes tonight — if it doesn’t snow!
• Rate cut! Rate cut! Rate cut!
• The credit crunch finally hits the cards.
• Christian Science Monitor to dump the print paper and go Web-only (mostly).
• Consumer Confidence disappearing faster than your employer’s match of your 401(k).
• Ralph Nader rallies 150 troops in Ybor City.

A senior moment for the GOP presidential candidate. It’s George Schultz. George P. Schultz, John.

• Postponed!
  
• The clock is running out on John McCain.
• Sure, Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens is guilt as sin, but can he still win?
• The week in smears ahead.
• The director of Deep Throat is dead.
• The Gov is still confident about McCain and the Rays.
• Does the press have performance anxiety? I’m not sure, but I’m worried …
• Broward County cities face billion-dollar pension shortfalls. It is a Democratic county, after all.

Meet Vlad and his pal Boris. These gentlemen are from Russia (perhaps) and they have prepared a musical ode to Sarah Palin. Quote the musicians: “Hello Sarah Palin we wrote this song for you because we see you from Russia! Plz respond to our emails!! We like to hear from you!!”

• Sarah Palin hits Tampa, announces the election isn’t over yet and that her clothes are actually hers. (Sure they are, Sarah. Sure they are.)
• Palin’s favorability among women falls 17 points.
• Bradenton Herald to launch new website to better integrate print and online news and advertising blah blah blah.
• Newark daily paper to cut editorial staff by 40 percent by end of blah blah blah.
• Crist ties with Tom Ridge for fifth most important politician not running for president; Palin comes in third; page 1 Monday editor for USA Today comes in second.
• Isiah’s son: Dad didn’t OD, sis to blame.
• Bono: He just may have found what he was looking for.
• The Phillies bludgeon the Rays 10-2, take a 3-1 lead in the World Series.
• The endgame is upon us.
• What’s got I’m-a-dinner-jacket under the weather?
• “I fear the worst is yet to come.”
• “Sex addiction: not just for men.” That’s what she said.
• Jennifer Hudson’s horrifying weekend ends with a $100K reward for the return of her missing nephew.
• High School Musical 3 is the big fish in this weekend’s box office pond.

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.

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 …”

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.

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:

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.

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?

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:

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:

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?

Working off that post-debate drinking game hangover? Here’s your political and media headlines for Wednesday, and that ought to do the trick. Along with some Aleve and another shot of Frangelico. With updates throughout the day in the box to the right:

• “That one.”
• And “that one.”
• No knockout.
• Fact-checking the debate: AP, Palm Beach Post, Annenberg, ABC News, and PolitiFact.
• Need a debate transcript? Host a staged reading of it in your office for lunch today.
• A transgender victory in Georgia politics and courts.
• Scientology to help Amy Winehouse?
• A shakeout in the auto dealer industry is a-comin’; 700 dealerships could bite the dust.
• One closed dealership is sued by a former worker.
• Hey, didja know that Latinos are going to play a key role in Florida’s election? Yeah.
• The review is in for CL Editor David Warner, appearing in Stageworks’ “The Chosen:” He “could not have been more authentic as a fervent Zionist and equally impassioned man of letters.”
• Dylan’s latest bootleg.
• Don’t drive through Lee County on I-75 with an Obama bumpersticker:

Did I just see a tease with Gilbert Gottfried giving The Today Show’s Ann Curry tips on how to be a stand-up comedian?!? Strange days indeed. Plus all the political and media headlines, with updates throughout the day:

• Al-Arian loses bid for appeal in Supreme Court.
• First he got bounced from a Bill Young campaign event; now write-in sheriff’s candidate Greg Pound has been bounced from a Palin rally.
• The big FLA swing for Obama.
• A guilty plea in the Wellcare Medicare scandal.
• 160 jobs gone in Plant City.
• Florida Clergy for Fairness.
• The real impact of the anti-gay Amendment 2.
• The do or die fatigue.
• Sarah Palin had a middling-size crowd (at best) in Clearwater yesterday. Though I’m guessing it will be larger than Joe Biden’s Wednesday.
• In Palin’s Estero stop, lots of terrorist-baitin’ and Husseinin’ goin’ on, you betcha.
• Hey, didja know that the I-4 Corridor is an election battleground?
• Prepping for Yom Kippur.
• Siegfried cranks a brewski.
• What’s worse: consorting with a past violent anti-war activist, or consorting with a fatcat banker who wrecked the savings and loan industry and cost taxpayers billions in the 1980s?