CHATTER AWAY: Overnight Open Thread

Tonight we have a political Florida Man story:

When Hallandale Beach Mayor Keith London said “sphincter bleaching is a very up and coming business,” during the City Commission’s budget discussion Monday night, he may have been right. But whether he thought anal bleach had anything to do with public safety budgets — the topic being discussed — remains unclear.

Why London thought it relevant, much less appropriate, to accuse a female commissioner of making her living from bleaching her own anus is even more baffling. “Was it getting my sphincter bleached, is that what I earned my income for?” London said to Commissioner Anabelle Lima-Taub, as the two exchanged personal attacks. “No that would be you.”

A pony-tailed commissioner-turned-appointed-mayor, London has a history of inappropriate remarks. In 2017, he told Broward investigators that a fellow commissioner was a “migrant worker.” He wasn’t. Earlier this year, London was recorded asking a city employee if he “sucked d—” while in prison. London was appointed to head the commission in January after longtime Mayor Joy Cooper was arrested and charged with money laundering. The FBI said she had accepted illegal Russian campaign donations during a sting operation.

Lima-Taub’s mother owns a local spa that offers skin bleaching treatments among other services, but she says she doesn’t work there.

More from the Associated Press:

Florida’s penchant for the weird and strange — often manifested in new ways of criminal behavior (think chasing people through a store with a live alligator) — is so prevalent it’s created a cottage industry of chroniclers and followers.

“Florida politics has always been as weird as Florida in general, but this year has seen a Twilight Zone level of campaign screw-ups, oddball candidates, post Republican Trumpers in all their lunatic glory, edge cases, easily debunked fraudsters and a cavalcade of stupid,” said Rick Wilson, a GOP consultant whose hostility toward the president he recently channeled into a best-selling book. “The political subspecies of ‘Florida Man’ is in full glory.”

Ah yes, Florida Man. The now revered meme and trope about bizarre incidents in the Sunshine State often spreads across the internet faster than a startled palmetto bug in the middle of the night. It does not on most days refer to those men and women who have sought public office.

And yes, there’s video of the sphincter spat.