One of the more bizarre and rambling speeches we have seen in quite some time as Sarah Palin goes Galt. Let the waves of krazy wash over you as you try, and fail, to look away:
About an hour ago, Mike Kink, Policy Director and Special Counsel for the Senate Majority, tweeted that the Senate GOP caucus had yet to show up to start passing the budget bills.
Senate Minority has not yet shown up. 11:30....tick tick tick....two hours late....
Liz followed moments later with this post about the absence of Skelos' crew.
The Senate was supposed to be in session bright and early this morning (at 9:30 a.m.) to start passing budget bills. It's now 11:30 a.m. and the Democrats are all in place. The Republicans are nowhere to be seen.
The minority has been behind closed doors in a no-staff conference for hours now. There's no indication of when they might emerge and if they'll be ready to play budget ball at that time.
The Democrats have had enough, apparently. Travis Proulx, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith just showed up at the door of the DN office and said:
"We're gaveling in, we've been waiting on the Republicans for two hours. It's up to them whether they want to show up."
In other words, the Democrats plan to start passing the budget without the minority in the chamber to debate the bills.
It's an odd way to legislate, some might say. If you wanted to see what this all looks like, take a look at this video from less than an hour ago of a half empty Senate chamber.
President Obama has just sent a brand new email to folks in the 20th urging them to get out and vote for Scott Murphy and even providing a polling place finder link. The message was sent to those residents of the 20th who are on the Organizing for America and DNC lists.
Tomorrow, Tuesday, is the day to vote in New York's 20th Congressional District special election, and I need you to go vote.
I wrote to you last week to announce my endorsement of Scott Murphy because we need his kind of leadership and experience in Washington. It's going to be a very close race, and your vote could make all the difference.
Our movement for change has come this far because supporters like you stood up and made your voices heard every time it mattered.
With Scott in Congress, we'll work together to bring about solutions to our economic challenges and create new jobs in Upstate New York and across the country.
Having created over 1,000 jobs by starting successful businesses in clean energy and high-tech industries, Scott understands the potential we have to rebuild our economy and create a new foundation for prosperity.
That's the kind of partner I need in Washington. Please look up your polling place and vote tomorrow:
On the same day that independent polling shows Jim Tedisco's once healthy lead has become a 4 point deficit, the NRCC has slammed the panic button hard. How can you tell? Because their latest ad is one full minute of 9/11 and Osama Bin laden. For real:
Nothing spells flopsweat more than dragging up Osama Bin Laden in the closing days of a campaign. It's quite obvious they are freaking the hell out.
SEIU launched a new TV spot in the NY-20 race today. I guess it shouldn't surprise anyone that they are working the Obama endorsement as well. Not sure of the points on the buy, but I have a feeling that plenty of people in the district will be seeing this ad as well as the DNC's "Obama Supports Murphy" ad over the final weekend of the race.
It looks as if our critiques of the Senate's "One New York" program have been heard. This edition, episode 3, is simply a much, much better product. Take a look.
Also, notice that they have apparently ditched Vimeo, a tool they obviously had no idea how to use, for YouTube, which is damn near idiot proof. A good move, I'd say.
D-trip is launching a new TV ad in the 20th CD special election this morning. It's called "File" and it doesn't pull any punches, taking Tedisco to task for failing to support middle class tax relief while supporting a mortgage executive pal convicted of fraud.
One thing is for sure. You never want TV coverage of your campaign to begin with the words, "And finally, with his poll numbers tanking..." Jim Tedisco finally took a stand on the stimulus yesterday. Too bad for him, it was the wrong one. I guess he had to keep all those DC GOP House members that are writing him checks happy by also taking a firm stand against creating 76,000 jobs upstate and against the largest middle class tax cut in history.
This coverage of Tedisco's press conference in Albany yesterday is just brutal. The presser was originally called so that Tedisco and his Assembly colleagues could get their AIG outrage on, but quickly became, much to his fellow Assembly member's chagrin, the Jimmy Disco show.
Ouch.
Election Day is two weeks from today, folks. Two weeks from today...
Here come the big guns. Kirsten Gillibrand currently has a 78% approval rating in NY-20 according to Siena. This would appear to make her the most popular politician in the district. Here she is making the case for the man who would replace her.
With this race essentially neck and neck and Murphy's ads being generally well received, it will be interesting to see what effect this effort may have.
Back in 2006, I was working on the state Senate campaign of our very own NYBri. One day, I was riding up to SD-41 from NYC with a volunteer and we began to discuss this Keith Olbermann guy. He had just started doing his now mostly unwatchable "special comments" and we both marveled at how truly odd, how so very American, actually, it was that the one guy on national television who seemed to have the guts to say that the Emperor truly had no clothes was a washed up sportscaster on what truly had to be his last chance in the bigs.
Tonight, I watched a comedian shame the entire profession of journalism. It reminded me very much of the afternoon back in the summer of 2004 when that same comedian appeared on the now defunct CNN show "Crossfire." That day, Jon Stewart went on national television, into the very lion's den of hacktacular political theater of the day, and utterly destroyed Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala with simple, unvarnished truth.
Stewart performed such a service to the nation again this evening, reminding professional clown Jim Cramer that:
What it feels like to us, and I'm speaking purely as a layman, it feels like we are capitalizing your adventure by our pensions and our hard earned (money) and that it is a game that you know, that you all know what is going on, but that you go on television as a financial network and pretend isn't happening... I gotta tell ya, ya know, I understand that you want to make finance entertaining, but it's not a f#&@cking game...and when I watch that...I can't tell you how angry that makes me. Because what it says to me is that you all know.
If there is any justice left in the world, Jim Cramer's career as a professional cheerleader for crooks is over and CNBC will have lost whatever last shred of credibility they may have had left.
Scott Murphy's new ad pulls no punches, folks. Then again, the truth hurts.
On Wednesday, local businessman Scott Murphy's campaign for congress highlighted their new television ad that holds 26-year career politician Jim Tedisco accountable for refusing to support President Obama's economic policies and for rewarding one of his biggest campaign contributors with a $100,000 government job just for him at taxpayer expense...
"Whether it's taking credit for creating jobs that Democrats and Republicans said he didn't have a lot to do with or his refusal to support President Obama's economic recovery package that will save or create 76,000 jobs in Upstate New York, Tedisco seems to want to talk about anything other than providing voters with straight and honest answers on the economy.
"For too long career politicians in Albany and Washington - including Assemblyman Tedisco who rewarded one of his biggest campaign contributors with a $100,000 government job just for him at taxpayer expense - have provided special favors for their biggest contributors instead of creating jobs for the people and it's something that folks here are rightfully fed up with and that Tedisco needs to answer for.
Here's a new video from the Murphy camp. It's pretty funny, actually. Or, it would be funny if the folks of the 20th CD could afford to think of things like jobs, the economic crisis and reinvesting in America as "hypotheticals." I doubt they see such a simple question, one they absolutely deserve an answer to, as a "gotcha" question.
As we face the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, it should go without saying that the voters have a right to receive straight answers from candidates on President Obama's Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which will save or create 76,000 jobs in Upstate New York and is the largest middle class tax cut in American history.
Local businessman and congressional candidate Scott Murphy has spoken repeatedly about the need to put shovels in the ground and people back to work by supporting President Obama's economic recovery package, which career politician Jim Tedisco simply refuses to give a straight yes or no answer on.
It's gotten so bad that even Tedisco's hometown newspaper, the Schenectady Daily Gazette wrote, "Tedisco was still stonewalling - implying that it was OK for him not to weigh in on the question because it's already been settled, the legislation having been passed. Well, he's wrong." [ Daily Gazette, 3/1/09]
That is why today the Murphy for Congress campaign is putting out a video highlighting 26-year career politician Jim Tedisco's mastery of the two-step.
Tedisco has been hammered all across the district for weeks and rightfully so for using every excuse and political trick in the book for not being straight or honest with the voters on the defining issue in this campaign, President Obama's recovery package.
In this video, the public can see for themselves the extent of Tedisco political tricks and hypocrisy.
Yes, this is a moment of challenge for our country. But we've experienced great trials before. And with every test, each generation has found the capacity to not only endure, but to prosper -- to discover great opportunity in the midst of great crisis. That is what we can and must do today. And I am absolutely confident that is what we will do. I'm confident that at this defining moment, we will prove ourselves worthy of the sacrifice of those who came before us, and the promise of those who will come after.
