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You are here: Home / Politics / Tedisco demolition night

Tedisco demolition night

by DougJ|  April 23, 20099:03 pm| 33 Comments

This post is in: Politics

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The race in NY-20 could be over by tomorrow:

But the numbers are challenging Republican Jim Tedisco’s chances. With fewer than 1,000 paper ballot unopened, Democrat Scott Murphy’s lead is about 400 votes.

[….]

Republican challenges make up a majority of the remaining challenges, with at least 300 because of residency. But it appears those votes may not even matter.

If there is a concession Friday, Capital News 9 will carry any speeches by Jim Tedisco and Scott Murphy.

Tedisco likely would have won if he’d been allowed to come out in favor of the stimulus package. Back in the saddle again.

Update. But not before they challenged Sam Seder’s vote:

We can now add another illustrious name to the list of absentee voters whose ballots in the NY-20 special election have been challenged by the campaign of GOP candidate Jim Tedisco: Sam Seder, the liberal talk-radio host with Air America!

Sam posted a message on Twitter yesterday: “NY20th race Tedisco challenged my absentee ballot. 4 days before the election I was jury foreman for a trial in NY20th. Challenge Fail.”

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Reader Interactions

33Comments

  1. 1.

    robertdsc

    April 23, 2009 at 9:06 pm

    Great post title.

  2. 2.

    Ash Can

    April 23, 2009 at 9:07 pm

    LOL @ ur title!

  3. 3.

    TenguPhule

    April 23, 2009 at 9:12 pm

    Republican challenges make up a majority of the remaining challenges, with at least 300 because of residency. But it appears those votes may not even matter.

    cue the WATB lawsuits until the end of time.

  4. 4.

    MikeJ

    April 23, 2009 at 9:23 pm

    So is Steele toast?

  5. 5.

    WereBear

    April 23, 2009 at 9:25 pm

    This is pretty extraordinary.

    Upstate NY is heavily Republican; small town, independent, outdoor types predominate, reminiscent of what is common out West.

    And having such a single party condition has led to lazy thinking and poor candidates. Tedisco waffling on the stimulus made me figure he was in trouble. This area was once a manufacturing powerhouse, from the first mills on the many rivers.

    Now? I can’t do better than quote the late, great, Donald E. Westlake:

    The towns are still quaint with architecture from long ago; but only because there is no money for new ones.

  6. 6.

    r€nato

    April 23, 2009 at 9:39 pm

    It appears the voters of NY-20 have forgotten the lessons of 9/11.

    The next time we are attacked by terrorists, they’ll regret having voted for another terrorist appeaser who’s afraid of giving an al-Qaeda terrorist a gentle baptism terror terror terror.

    /wingnut

  7. 7.

    Michael D.

    April 23, 2009 at 9:42 pm

    If I may, again, please go here and help me out.

  8. 8.

    AhabTRuler

    April 23, 2009 at 9:49 pm

    @Michael D.: What are you trying to accomplish, arguing with fools?

  9. 9.

    r€nato

    April 23, 2009 at 9:54 pm

    Michael, I love ya man but I’m not going to go over there and help you argue with commenters. It’s bad enough that I allow myself to be baited into arguing with Atanarjuat and Thick As A Brick Bill.

  10. 10.

    AhabTRuler

    April 23, 2009 at 9:55 pm

    I mean, there are better windmills to tilt at.

    I also think that in the ‘post-memo’ world, the word torture is unavoidable.
    George Bush got his simple dichotomy: you are either for torture or against it. Americans like simple choices.

  11. 11.

    Seebach

    April 23, 2009 at 9:59 pm

    I think we should all stand behind Dick Cheney and demand that all torture memos be released.

  12. 12.

    The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge

    April 23, 2009 at 10:05 pm

    Re: the update.

    These fuckers are really having what my late, lamented mother would have called a “shit hemorrhage,” aren’t they?

    I mean, the most basic impulses of self-preservation are out the window, they don’t care how anything looks, it’s just elemental poo-flinging with them 24/7.

  13. 13.

    MikeJ

    April 23, 2009 at 10:06 pm

    I think we should all stand behind Dick Cheney and demand that all torture memos be released.

    Agreed. And I am definitely going to the next teabagging event with a sign that says, “Demand Government Accountability: Jail John Yoo”.

    (Man I wish they’d keep their momentum rolling and have more rallies.)

  14. 14.

    r€nato

    April 23, 2009 at 10:07 pm

    @The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge:

    When a person dies, all the muscles in the body relax and they shit/piss themselves. I’d like to think that’s what the GOP is doing here. They are in their death throes, it’s gonna get stinky and messy for a while and then we’ll clean up and move on.

  15. 15.

    JGabriel

    April 23, 2009 at 10:08 pm

    Michael, I read through the whole thread, and discovered at the end of it that one had to log in to respond. I really have no desire to inflate Dean Esmay’s number of registered users, so I’ll pass. But feel free to copy and paste this, if you so desire:

    Back in the Revolutionary War, the British would capture Colonials and torture them, for information, for punishment, or just for the fun of it.

    Back then, there were people, like you, who thought we should respond in kind. But the general leading our armies, a guy by the name of George Washington, said, “No. We will not torture. We will not sink to their level.” Or something to that effect, if not those exact words.

    By the way, Washington became our first president, and is colloquially known as “the father of our country”.

    Anyway, the tradition that we, as a country, are above torture, lasted for 225 years. Until George Bush and Dick Cheney came along. And decided we were no longer above that.

    They have brought shame to this country. And anyone who supports their anti-American, pro-torture position should be equally ashamed.

    So tell us, why do you hate George Washington and America and what she stands for?

    .

  16. 16.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    April 23, 2009 at 10:09 pm

    Panic at Tedisco.

    That is all.

  17. 17.

    J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford

    April 23, 2009 at 10:13 pm

    @robertdsc:

    Great post title.

    As the Official Chicago White Sox Fan of Balloon Juice, I agree! Truly inspired.

  18. 18.

    r€nato

    April 23, 2009 at 10:17 pm

    @kommrade reproductive vigor: win.

  19. 19.

    Bill Teefy

    April 23, 2009 at 10:17 pm

    @Michael D.: Every time I am about to counter some troll I re-read their comment and realize that its pointless. First. A couple of you are better at it than I. Second, a few of you are willing to go a few more rounds than I. Finally the Troll-Stars comments of late have devolved into sputtering something along the lines of, “I know you are but what am I?” Followed by, “Pelosi*!!!”

    So I certainly can’t spend the time visiting minor blogs to do battle.

    The Republicans have descended into the 8th and 9th rings, or circle diagrams if you will, of hell. If the paid leadership and Limbaughs and O’Reilly’s cannot gin up enough half-baked-logic to defend them, what chance do those self-appointed defenders of their idiocy have?

    Try not to feed the starving beast. To think what was once a mighty dragon is now such a sad little dog.

  20. 20.

    GregB

    April 23, 2009 at 10:18 pm

    Dick Cheney is demanding that all of the torture memos that he did not destroy should be released in the name of openess.

    -G

  21. 21.

    DougJ

    April 23, 2009 at 10:20 pm

    Panic at Tedisco.

    I would have gone with that, but others have used it already.

  22. 22.

    MikeJ

    April 23, 2009 at 10:24 pm

    I would have gone with that, but others have used it already.

    *Everybody* has used it already.

  23. 23.

    JGabriel

    April 23, 2009 at 10:28 pm

    Bill Teefy:

    The Republicans have descended into the 8th and 9th rings, or circle diagrams if you will, of hell.

    That explains this: Tenth Circle Added To Rapidly Growing Hell.

    .

  24. 24.

    SGEW

    April 23, 2009 at 10:28 pm

    @Michael D.: I’m sorry Mr. D., but I think I’ve expended all my mojo.

    I think that all this time that I’ve spent debating torture (on ethical, political, diplomatic, and legal grounds) hasn’t helped my mental health very much this last week. There really was a visceral difference when those memos were released, somehow . . . it’s less abstract now? People who are arguing against me now have to more or less come right out and support honest-to-god torture? The only argument left to them is pure utilitarianism?

    Actually (besides the above, which is true), I think that I may have crossed some line, somehow. I mean, I’ve been debating torture for years now, in law school, in legal forums, online, on the street, in bars, everywhere . . . but the OLC memos in full were somehow the final straw for me.

    I think it was the bugs. It’s too close to the rats in room 101. The image of Ralph Steadman’s portrait of George Orwell (from the illustrated Animal Farm) where Orwell’s neck is encaged and his throat is being savaged by rats, and he has the saddest look on his face, like he’s so god damned sorry that the world is the way it is . . . it keeps on coming up, and I want to fucking puke or cry or both. The power of art, I guess. It’s a fucker.

    So, yeah. Instead of trying to reason with torture supporters I’m finding myself quoting fucking Bible verses at them, or writing impassioned emails to David fucking Brody calling for him to be a Christian, or simply begging people to have compassion for their fellow human beings. I’m getting desperate, I think. So I won’t be much help.

    When will Obama’s new health care plan give me therapy for having to live in a country that tortures people?

  25. 25.

    Nicole

    April 23, 2009 at 10:29 pm

    Michael D, I enjoyed reading your comments over there, but yeah, those kind of people aren’t the least bit interested in silly things like facts and ethics. They’ll just keep counterattacking with, “But Clinton lied about a blow job!” because they are incapable of re-examining their positions on anything. John Stuart Mill said it best:

    “I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.”

    (I know, I know, Republicans are not Conservative, etc. etc. But I doubt any of those mental giants you were attempting to debate over there identify themselves as liberal)

  26. 26.

    SGEW

    April 23, 2009 at 10:31 pm

    Also:

    a guy by the name of George Washington, said,

    “Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to complain of our copying the brutal example of the British Army in their treatment of our unfortunate brethren.”
    – General George Washington

    It’s written on my wall.

  27. 27.

    JGabriel

    April 23, 2009 at 10:39 pm

    “Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to complain of our copying the brutal example of the British Army in their treatment of our unfortunate brethren.” – General George Washington

    SGEW, thank you.

    .

  28. 28.

    OriGuy

    April 23, 2009 at 11:12 pm

    Has this been mentioned recently?

    In 1926, the Mississippi Supreme Court called the water cure [aka waterboarding] torture. No qualifiers. No hedging. Just plain, good ol’ fashion torture . . . and therefore a forbidden means for securing a confession. These men were hardly a group I’d call *activist* or *liberal* and certainly not bent on subverting our country in the name of coddling criminals.

    In a case called Fisher v. State, 110 So. 361, 362 (Miss. 1926), Mississippi’s highest court ordered the retrial of a convicted murderer because his confession was secured by a local sheriff’s use of the water cure.

    The state offered . . . testimony of confessions made by the appellant, Fisher. . . [who], after the state had rested, introduced the sheriff, who testified that, he was sent for one night to come and receive a confession of the appellant in the jail; that he went there for that purpose; that when he reached the jail he found a number of parties in the jail; that they had the appellant down upon the floor, tied, and were administering the water cure, a specie of torture well known to the bench and bar of the country.

    But we all know that in 1926, Mississippi was a hotbed of soçialist liberal facists.

  29. 29.

    AhabTRuler

    April 23, 2009 at 11:15 pm

    soçialist

    Brilliant! The cé cédille saves the day!

    Shøes! Awesome!

  30. 30.

    low-tech cyclist

    April 24, 2009 at 6:41 am

    Sam posted a message on Twitter yesterday: “NY20th race Tedisco challenged my absentee ballot. 4 days before the election I was jury foreman for a trial in NY20th. Challenge Fail.”

    Boy howdy, Sam packed a lot into 140 characters, didn’t he? (Still had a few left over, by my count.)

    I can finally say I’ve seen a Twitter post worth reading!

  31. 31.

    Amy

    April 24, 2009 at 9:40 am

    Losing because of absentee ballots is an indication that the Republicans do not have their basic sh*t together. This is a fundamental task of the political party — to run an absentee ballot operation.

    So, not only did they lose a race in a strongly Republican district because their message is awful, but they don’t even have the basic mechanisms organized.

    As a Democratic, I have to say – Steele is fabulous. Go baby!

  32. 32.

    Dork

    April 24, 2009 at 9:53 am

    If there is a concession Friday

    Concession by a Republican? Ha ha! Also, there may be a lunar and solar eclipse on Friday, I may win the lottery thrice by tonite, and a stripper may actually be serious when she says she wants my phone number.

    All of them are equally possible, in theory.

  33. 33.

    Don

    April 24, 2009 at 4:22 pm

    Yet another good fiscal reason for enabling more freedom: ditch these moronic voting restrictions so we can stop spending time and money arguing over them. Who cares what reason, imagined or real, that someone cast an absentee ballot?

    Our metric for votes need to be: (a) Were you able to cast the vote you wanted? and (b) Did you only do it once?

    Attempting to parse people’s reasons for choosing to vote before the actual election DAY – an idiotic time constraint if ever there was one – is anti-freedom and, we now see, a giant time and money suck.

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