Apologies for the tweet-heavy post, but former McCain staffer/current Lincoln Project guy Steve Schmidt dismembered BOTH of my despicable U.S. senators on Twitter yesterday, and the brief feud is too amusing not to share. It begins when Schmidt rips Rubio for a typically lightweight and hypocritical tweet about the Democratic National Convention:
I was just thinking about you. Your Father fled Castro’s tyranny with nothing but the clothes on his back. He tended bar in the back of the room and watched you rise to the heights of political power within one generation. Only in America. Of course, the origin story was an https://t.co/PXXoGqqZKQ
— Steve Schmidt (@SteveSchmidtSES) August 18, 2020
assault and Trump is attacking our 231 year old tradition of free and fair elections. At long last we know the type of man Marco Rubio is. He is no friend of liberty. He is an apparatchik at heart. A self interested enabler and a collaborator with the indecency he once denounced.
— Steve Schmidt (@SteveSchmidtSES) August 18, 2020
Rubio is the type of man who would have stayed in Cuba ?? in 59. He is the type of ambitious young man who would have sensed new opportunities. He is the type of man who would have gladly held Castro’s coat if it helped him rise, just a little. @ProjectLincoln
— Steve Schmidt (@SteveSchmidtSES) August 18, 2020
Rubio is such a smarmy fucking fraud, and in just a few tweets, Schmidt rips the bark right off that grinning, Bible-tweeting non-entity, pointing out that Rubio’s entire political persona is a big fat lie. In that last tweet, Schmidt levels the crowning insult, pointing out that Rubio would have been Fidel Castro’s toady under the right circumstances. Trust me, in South Florida, those are fighting words!
But there’s never any fight in craven Marco, who goes full cineplex in his mewling reply, attempting to emulate Schmidt’s tone while projecting the state of his (Rubio’s) guilty conscience onto Schmidt. This just gives Schmidt another opening to knock Rubio’s fucking lights out (below the fold)
It’s a hard truth to face. You are a timid and frightened man. You have the spirit of a collaborator. You have turned your back on all that you once claimed to have believed . You have stood silently by as Trump has wrecked the country with his incompetence and malice. https://t.co/L2RCg2gTc0
— Steve Schmidt (@SteveSchmidtSES) August 18, 2020
But it gets even better when Florida’s other Republican senator, Rick Scott, tries to save his lil’ buddy’s bacon by crying foul about the Castro insult, which just gave Schmidt an opportunity to curb-stomp that calculating reptile too:
Senator, I don’t hate anyone. I do have a seething contempt for you and your colleagues who have been silent enablers of the profound damage Trump has done to this country. You have been faithless to your oaths as Trump has desecrated the Presidency and sundered the American https://t.co/6hxpHSNZT1
— Steve Schmidt (@SteveSchmidtSES) August 18, 2020
our election process. You were silent when Trump rewarded Putin after the Russians paid blood money for dead Americans. You were silent about Trump’s staggering corruption and his ceaseless racial animus. You were silent as Trump destroyed the Conservative movement by fusing
— Steve Schmidt (@SteveSchmidtSES) August 18, 2020
It with White Nationalist extremists. Now you are silent as the Q conspiracy spreads deeper into the Republican Party. Whatever it is you call yourself, Conservative doesn’t fit. You are a foot soldier and a principless factotum in a cult of personality. @ProjectLincoln.
— Steve Schmidt (@SteveSchmidtSES) August 18, 2020
Well! That shut both of their big mouths as they seemed to have simultaneously realized they’d brought sporks to a Howitzer fight. The usual slate of wingnut whiners popped up in Schmidt’s timeline to meep about the unfairness of attacking the (nonexistent!) character of these (characterless!) Trump sycophants, but Schmidt shut them down in short order too.
Anyhoo, Schmidt is who he is, but I enjoyed it immensely! Open thread!
Jeffro
I caught some bits and pieces of it yesterday, but seeing it all laid out like this is really making my morning, Betty! Thanks!
WaterGirl
perfect.
different-church-lady
Remind me to never piss of Steve Schmidt.
different-church-lady
@WaterGirl: I mean, she’s way too good for us, right?
Ken
@WaterGirl: Sporks are more dangerous than people think.
What I’m wondering is whether the QAnon cult will turn on Rubio? He did sign off on that Senate Intelligence Committee report, or in QAnon terms, betrayed Dear Leader.
guachi
It’s the obvious cravenness from so many Republicans that can’t be escaped.
Schmidt went on to correctly note that Rubio is the kind of guy who would have worked with the Vichy French.
eclare
Thank you Betty! When Steve gets going he is en fuego.
Bill Arnold
I’m taking notes on Schmidt’s insult craft. He is demonstrating some competence here. Many of these factotums have thin skin and these sorts of insults are allowed on social media platforms.
Nicole
I am not a Steve Schmidt fan, but that was pretty epic.
Anyone seen the wailing from the Squidbillies voice actor who got himself fired for spouting some really bigoted and vulgar things online about Dolly Parton? And after the usual “sorry if anyone was offended” non-apology, he is outraged, OUTRAGED, that his bosses held him responsible for his behavior and fired him.
Gravenstone
An undertone with Schmidt’s assertion that Trump is to blame for wedding “Conservatism” with White Nationalist extremists is the fact that the White Nationalists have always been a part of Conservatism. Trump just brought in some of the less self restrained sorts who (like him) don’t know how to keep the quiet parts quiet. So he upset that particular apple cart for them.
scav
Going back to the very original, in what timeline isn’t Drump a (b-rate) (reality-show) actor & celebrity?
Oh has his sainted Reagan shrine started to melt like the Wicked Witch of the West too? Odd that.
waspuppet
I’m not so sure he hates conservatives, but assuming he does, that’s exactly why his opinion is meaningful. The levels of identity-based entitlement of people like Scott and Rubio is off the charts.
Benw
Rubio and Scott and Trump are the culmination of the “Conservative movement” that Steve helped build, not destroyers. He can f right off too
Jeffro
@scav: c-list, I think, but ymmv
L85NJGT
Sadly, but predictably, the DNC disrespected AOC by putting her on TV for sixty seconds, so now I have to make a principled vote for a bi-polar celebrity candidate whose wife just left him.
Anonymous At Work
On Schmidt, I think John Steinbeck said it best, “I wondered whether he ever knew that no gift will ever buy back a man’s love when you have removed his self–love.” (East of Eden, referencing Hearst, but still)
terry chay
@Gravenstone: One might think Republican Conservatism and White Nationalism have been dating since 1968 and finally tied the knot in 2016. what has happened since is we know knows who wears the pants in the family.
Baud
@terry chay:
They are friends with benefits.
WaterGirl
@different-church-lady: I count our blessings with every Betty Cracker post.
NoraLenderbee
@Benw: Preach it. This is exactly what he helped to create, collaborated with, abetted. He’s outraged now that the leopards are eating *his* face.
Scout211
Open thread? Can maybe a front pager post a safety check for BJ Californians?. We’re in a crisis here with fires everywhere, evacuations happening and a record heat wave with rotating power outages. That’s all on top of our corona virus numbers.
pacem appellant
@Betty Cracker: Something seemed off to my classically trained mind, so I looked up “factotum” (’cause the Latin is fac + totum “do everything” and I don’t think the plural would be “facitetotum”) and lo, the dictionary says it’s uncountable. So “factotum” is its own plural. And know you know (what you didn’t want to know)!
MattF
There are varied and subtle gradations among the Never-Trumpers. Schmidt has abandoned the Republican Party (wrote a book entitled It Was All A Lie), and seems to be somewhat at sea politically. Not sure who his friends are, but he’s identified The Enemy, which is a plausible place to start.
zhena gogolia
Welcome to the fight. This time I know our side will win.
pacem appellant
@Scout211: They just announced that the Santa Cruz mountains are being evacuated. We’re safe here, but it’s miserable outside. Hot, ashy, humid, and smoky. Hard to breathe, but we’re safe inside. (Very inauspicious for the first day of school) How are my Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay jackals doing?
James E Powell
@terry chay:
American conservatism has always been connected with and in some ways an expression of white supremacy. The specifics evolved over time as successive waves of European immigrants were first excluded, then included in the “white” majority.
The big change since the 60s has been that the Republicans became the party of white supremacy.
Laertes
Holy cow. That one’s going to land on Waveland avenue.
I’d seen the original bit, and Rubio’s mewling response, while hate-reading some conservative sites. I hadn’t seen Schmidt’s crushing follow-up. Thanks very much for linking that.
KithKanan
@Scout211: Safe but smoky here in SLO. Temps hit 105 yesterday and didn’t cool off below 80 overnight. I expect the same today. Between the heat and the smoke it’s very hard to get work done here at home – my poor portable AC unit (that I count myself extremely lucky to have) is doing the best it can, but that’s only so much.
Another Scott
On the lighter side, …
(re – Donnie saying on T not to buy Goodyear because the company banned his stupid red hats.)
Cheers,
Scott.
Roger Moore
@Gravenstone:
The worry of people like Schmidt is that in the Good Old Days®, the ultra-rich used white supremacists to maintain their grip on power. Under Trump, the white supremacists are fighting the ultra-rich for control over the party, and it’s threatening the ultra-rich’s grip on power.
Baud
CNN is getting hip to the hypocrisy.
WaterGirl
@Scout211: Do mean basically a post that says “Californians, check in and let us know you’re okay”?
zhena gogolia
WereBear
@MattF: No, that would be Stuart Stevens with the book, It Was All a Lie.
Schmidt was the guy who managed McCain’s campaign with Palin.
Calouste
Steve Schmidt should read some history books. I won’t say there haven’t been free and fair elections in the US, but it ain’t the majority of them.
dmsilev
@Roger Moore: Yeah, well, the Weimar-era industrialists thought they could control Hitler and use him, and we all know how that story turned out.
WereBear
I will say this: the Never-Trumpers were smart enough to know Trump spelled D-O-O-M. And got out early.
Scout211
For PG&E customers, today’s schedule for rotating outages (if needed) were just posted on their site.
1K-1S 5:00 pm.
2K-2S 6:00 pm.
Hot, hot, hot. No sun, just yellowish skies with ashes falling. Red flag conditions later today.
David Fud
Steve Schmidt needs to have a tweet smack down in Georgia. We need a lot of curb stomping here to get the point across that the loser stink will be stuck on these Trump sycophants forever. Besides, there are two Senate seats and one illegitimate governor here that need to be tweet-smashed as the scum that they are. I am looking forward to the resources that Biden is putting into play in Georgia to give us a chance to throw off the yolk of these principless factotums in a cult of personality.
Scout211
@WaterGirl: Yes, please? If possible.
japa21
@Scout211: I have a nephew in the the SCU Lightning Complex zone. He, his wife and their dog evacuated to my brother’s house last night along with her parents. They have a couple horses but didn’t have time to evacuate them but left the pen open for them, hoping they could get to safety.
They have basically been working on the house they live in for 3 years and are just getting close to finished. She was telling my brother that the flames were 100 feet high.
MattF
@WereBear: Thanks for the correction. I guess I have trouble distinguishing among white guys.
surfk9
@Scout211: Here in Lodi it is smokey as hell and hot. It was 79 degrees at 6:30 this morning. Closest fire is in Vacaville
Spider-Dan
This is why the Berners hate the Lincoln Project so much. Schmidt et al have attacked the GOP more ferociously in the last six months than the Berners have in the last 4 years, and it’s plainly obvious to everyone that this is winning a lot of applause from the Democratic base.
Turns out that bashing Republicans is more popular among Democrats than bashing Democrats. Who woulda thunk?
WaterGirl
@Scout211: I’ll finish eating my lunch and then put something up.
Baud
@Spider-Dan:
Yes. It’s telling.
lee
@MattF: I’ve seen bits and pieces from that book.
I think part of his anger is that he was one of those being lied to when he thought he was someone on the inside.
taumaturgo
@dmsilev: The story turned out very well, thank you for the following proven Nazi collaborators of the time. 1. IBM 2. Volkswagen 3. Coca Cola 4. Hugo Boss 5. Associated Press (AP) 6. Kodak & 7. Bayer among others.
Scout211
@surfk9:
We aren’t that far from you. Our closest fire is south of Valley Springs, the Salt Fire. This morning, it was 1500-2000 acres, up from 200 acres yesterday. 10% contained. I read that CalFire brought in their super tanker—a 747–to drop retardant.
Betty Cracker
@pacem appellant:
Muphry’s Law is real! :)
Sister Golden Bear
@Scout211: I’m safe from the fires, but a number of friends have been evacuated from the various fires surrounding the Bay Area.
And while the air quality is better than last night, it’s still in the “unhealthy” to “very unhealthy” range thanks to all the smoke. In my neighborhood it’s been as bad as the 2018 fire season with the Camp Fire, etc.
Thankfully I hadn’t yet been hit by the rotating blackout by Murdercorp (aka PG&E), crosses-fingers.
The one bit of good news is that I’m now able to use the AC again because the re-roofing is finished. Although I’m not sure whether it makes sense to run it, since it’ll be bring the outside air in.
FYI, here’s a detailed map for monitoring air quality.
Roger Moore
@Scout211:
I think we’re a bit better off here in the LA area. The air is smoky, but the fires seem to be contained to the mountains, and I think we’ve escaped the rolling blackouts so far. It’s supposed to cool off a little bit today- it’s only supposed to get to 100°F- so it’s possible the worst of this heat wave is behind us.
burnspbesq
@L85NJGT:
Tell me you’re being facetious, and not mind-blowing your stupid.
lee
@taumaturgo: Huh. Learn something new every day. I didn’t know the AP had that on them.
Scout211
@WaterGirl:
thank you. You can see that it is needed. Lots of bj ers that are affected already commenting here.
Betty Cracker
@Scout211: Jesus! Stay safe, y’all, and feel free to use this thread to safety-check one another until one is posted for that purpose.
bemused
@Gravenstone:
The despicables will exercise their idea of free speech and whine like babies when there are consequences, not fair! They’re stupid and nasty.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Conservative on Conservative violence is something I fully endorse. But it is interesting that Schmidt has pretty well reasoned critic of Ruibo and all Ruibo can do is whine Schmidt is the bigger sell out than Ruibo is.
Baud
@bemused:
Please be respectful. The preferred term is “deplorable.”
Baud
Another Scott
@Sister Golden Bear: The AC shouldn’t be bringing in outside air unless you have a “fresh air” vent on the unit open. Otherwise, it should just recirculate the air in your home.
Good luck to you and everyone else out there!
Cheers,
Scott.
Sister Golden Bear
Oh, and if today wasn’t enough of a shitshow, I just found a friend who had Covid antibodies for several months (her housemate was sick and under strict quarantine at home, but she herself never seemed to fall ill) was just in the hospital for three days with Covid, although she’s now home and recovering.
Admittedly, she’s a social worker who’s been regularly in the field in high-risk areas (e.g. homeless camps where Covid is raging), but it’s still sobering.
Roger Moore
@Calouste:
This. This ties back to one of Biden’s comments about how the US has lofty principles that we haven’t always lived up to. I think that’s a really good summation of the situation. The key question is how you respond once you see that. Some people have responded by remaining in denial and attacking anyone who would prick their bubble. Others become cynical and declare the principles dead and Americans hypocrites for pretending to care about them. Biden proposes the right solution: acknowledge our failures and work to fix them.
lamh36
Saw it happening live and thought of ur righteous contempt of lil Marco and started to tag ya ?. Glad ya saw it
burnspbesq
As temporary allies go (don’t have any illusions about where he’ll be after 1/20/21), Schmidt ain’t bad.
Chyron HR
Phew, put down the monster manual, Steve.
WaterGirl
@Scout211: Okay, lunch is over, so the thread will be up in a few minutes. Once it’s up, maybe you guys who have checked in here can copy your comments to the new thread so folks who haven’t been on this one can see the updates from you guys?
NoraLenderbee
San Jose, CA. Very smoky and some ash falling. And hot as hell. We’re fine. The fires are in areas where we hike and bicycle regularly–and they seem to be everywhere. We had to cancel our planned training hike in Pescadero Creek park. We’re going to try Montara Mtn instead, and avoid driving on roads that the firefighters might need.
There’s a feeling of apocalypse. The fires are closer and more numerous than they’ve ever been. It feels like we’re surrounded (tho we aren’t).
I took 2 weeks vacation, planning to garden, hike, etc. Sheesh. The house is going to get cleaned, I guess.
Sister Golden Bear
@Another Scott: It’s a portable AC unit, with vents that go into the window. But I realized you’re probably correct.
Miss Bianca
@Benw: Hey, my take on it is – he helped build it: it’s only meet, right, and proper that he do his bit to help tear it down. Particularly when he does it so entertainingly.
Ken
No, it’s a character class. Level 1, lickspittle; level 2, toady; level 3, asskisser; level 4, minion; level 5, factotum; …
Miss Bianca
@Spider-Dan:
It’s certainly more popular with *this* Democrat!
WaterGirl
@Scout211: It’s up!
I kept it pretty simple, so please let me know if there’s anything i should add.
dogwood
@MattF: “It Was all a Lie” was penned by Stuart Stevens not Steve Schmidt. It’s the only one of these anti-Trump books I’ve read, and I would recommend it. He’s a good writer. The book works on a couple of levels. It tells the unvarnished truth about about the sins of the party long before Trump parachuted in, and it’s a mea culpa that doesn’t ask for pity or forgiveness. I get the sense that he hasn’t forgiven himself for his part in creating the nightmare.
glc
https://whatever.scalzi.com/2020/08/19/the-big-idea-thomas-levenson/
Ruckus
@Scout211:
Most of the fires are in lightly populated areas, possibly very close to them, like the one about 5 miles from me. On the other subject, COVID, there is, or was nearly 40 million of us and a lot of them seem to be no smarter than a similar % of the rest of the country.
Ruckus
@James E Powell:
Sorry, republicans have been the party of white supremacy for longer than 60yrs.
catclub
@terry chay: White Nationalism have been dating since 1968 and finally tied the knot in 2016. I would say Reagan 1980 in Mississippi announced the engagement. The knot was tied around jan 20 2009.
Ruckus
@Ruckus:
Well I see I haven’t kept up on the fire(s) progress. Last I heard it wasn’t that bad. Things can turn ugly in a hurry around here fire wise. I apologize for sounding so cavalier. Hope everyone is OK.
MattF
@dogwood: Yes, I’ve been corrected on that. The embarrassing part is that I’ve read most of that book. Oh, well.
James E Powell
@Ruckus:
Before the 60s, the Democratic Party was the party of Jim Crow.
Kristine
@different-church-lady:
We are not worthy.
bemused
@Baud:
I should have used degenerate/s.
Ksmiami
@Enhanced Voting RTechniques: Rubio is political vaporware- the closer you get to him, the less there is.
Miss Bianca
@glc: so cool! thanks for the link!
That’s two BJ authors who have appeared on Scalzi’s blog recently. I call that a heartening trend!
Bill Arnold
@Spider-Dan:
Have the Berners ever attacked the Republican Party and/or Donald J. Trump? I mean wholeheartedly, not also attacking the Democrats in a both-sides-are-bad way? (A link to a good example would be helpful.)
Marcopolo
Last night was “Rising Stars” night at the DNC, and the 17 folks they highlighted were great but I am here to tell you there are a hell of a lot more amazing young Democratic candidates and new D legislators to showcase. Here’s another one, FL House Rep. Anna Eskamani a first termer from FLHD 47 (home of the Pulse nightclub). Click through for her 2018 campaign bio video. It is great. I would not be surprised to see her running for FL statewide office by the end of the decade.
The future of our party is so darned bright I need sunglasses. Anyone else out there have an amazing young Democrat they’d like to highlight
Edited to add, and then you have the future of the Republican party, illuminated by candidates like Laura Loomer (who won her FL primary last night) and Madison Cawthorn, whose dream vacation was visiting Hitler’s castle. I kid you not.
Kathleen
@L85NJGT: I read she got 5 minutes but article may have been wrong because I thought nominators all had 60 seconds.
dww44
O/T. I subscribe to the New Yorker’s daily newsletter. The subject line of today’s email is “The Shaky Unity of the Democratic National Convention“. The email opens to a photo of Joe and Jill Biden with the subtext underneath of “The Democrats are still (relative to Republicans) the party of the future, but their vision now belongs to leaders far younger than their Presidential nominee.” Author of the piece is Benjamin Wallace Wells, with whose name I was vaguely familiar. Googled him and saw that he’s affiliated or was with the Hoover Institution. Had to read no further.
This kind of stuff just pisses me off as this isn’t just a divergent opinion, it’s one intended to paint and cement the wholly unjustified view writ large that Dems are in Disarray. It’s the exact sort of piece that R voting relatives (always, even to the extent of believing and saying, yes Trump is arrogant but never owning up to his other glaring deficiencies) will circulate among themselves and copy to the 2 liberals in their midst, mostly me, just to get me riled up. But, then, they do believe they are wholly right in their world view.
Gvg
Well I’d like to mention my local long term democratic sherif lost her primary yesterday decisively and I think it was because she endorsed Rick Scott in 2016 plus defended too many things police do recently. She has been winning easily for about 20 years and was generally popular before. I had thought well of her until recently. The new primary winner is a black guy who has been a state legislator for 12 years but before that was a cop and lieutenant in a nearby town so it’s not a radical change. I think Sadie Darnel misread the community. IMO this isn’t the time for democrats to be supporting corrupt republicans.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Anonymous At Work: He and Nicole Wallace have Sarah Palin on their consciences, but the scales seem to have fallen from their eyes now. God, that man can wordsmith. Lovely to see.
Yutsano
@dww44: Would you look at that? The Washington Post has almost the same article! Seems like the MSM is fomenting another The Narrative. And as we know, The Narrative cannot ever be questioned.
artem1s
Well, maybe, just maybe, Schmidt isn’t a GOP toady who will show his true colors the minute Dolt45 is out of the white house. Yet how many of his accusations could be thrown back at him if we were talking about enabling the corrupt and incompetent W administration? Never forget these LP members spent 30 years enabling this behavior in the GOP long before Trump got anywhere near the WH.
MattF
@dww44: It’s trolling. And yeah, it’s out there. Fuckem.
Miss Bianca
@Gvg: You had a long-term female Democratic sheriff? Man, I’m trying to even imagine such a thing out where I live.
Totally agree with you about now not being the time – if there ever was one – for Democrats to stop being apologists for crooked Republican pols and bankrupt policies.
Betty Cracker
@Gvg: My county is redder than a baboon’s arse, so the primary is basically the general election. Seriously, there wasn’t a single Democrat to vote for on my primary ballot, so I had to pick the least-worst Republicans (the overwhelming majority of those are women).
The good news? They won, across the board. Two of the most awful Trump-humpers were ejected from the BOCC, and the open supervisor of elections seat was kept out of the hands of the worst Trump sycophant in the county. So I got that going for me!
Gvg
@Miss Bianca: yes and she was the only woman sheriff in the state so it kind of was sad to vote against her. She had been voted president of the state sheriffs organization though so I guess she was kind of interest captured.
she first gained community recognition 30 years ago when she was the family victims advocate while the Gainesville murderer was being hunted. She did a good job and stayed prominent so when the republican sheriff retired to be a state senator, she won election.
i hope the new guy remembers his constituency is the voters not the police.
bemused
@Betty Cracker:
Baby steps are frustratingly slow but steps vs stationary.
Betty Cracker
@Gvg: I graduated from UF a couple of years before the serial killer began his spree. He murdered one of his victims in my former apartment. I learned this by seeing an evening news clip about the case that showed my ex-landlord on the witness stand, and the shot then cut to an external view of the apartment I’d lived in. That was one creepy-ass feeling, let me tell you!
@bemused: True. My family has lived in this benighted swamp for seven generations, so sometimes I just think about how much it has changed since then — that helps me feel the forward motion instead feeling like we’re standing still. :)
James E Powell
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan):
I don’t want to defend either of them or McCain for picking Palin, but I do wonder if they really knew about bad she was. Not that it would be any excuse, but maybe their vetting just did not go deep enough.
Betty Cracker
@James E Powell: I saw an interview with Wallace where she said she and Schmidt definitely did not know how terrible Palin was and were constantly surprised and horrified at Palin’s ignorance, poor character and laziness. By all accounts, the Palin pick was a Hail Mary that is a textbook example of how not to pick a running mate.
Jesse
@Gravenstone: That’s a good point.
I’d add that this points out the unreliability of Lincoln Project actors going forward. I feel just as much schadenfreude as you do whenever they toot out their latest bomb. But notice that Schmidt does disavow the conservative movement. He just thinks that it’s been soiled beyond repair by Trump and his foot soldiers.
This isn’t John Cole’s thinking back in the day. There, John looked at what was going on and that it was F’ed up. I don’t think Schmidt would say that American conservativism is F’ed up.
I’ll
redactor
The distressing thing is that most Dems suck at this kind of smash mouth politicking. We can’t outsource this kind of thing to apostate Republicans forever.
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
@dogwood: I just finished a similar book, “Speer, the Final Judgment”. Funny how some things veer between topical and timeless.
Miss Bianca
@redactor: eh, I don’t know. AOC seems to be pretty good at it.
Darkrose
@dmsilev: I keep being reminded of “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” in the film version of Caberet, when Michael York says to his friend as they’re fleeing the impromptu Nazi rally, “You still think you can control them?”
OGLiberal
@Betty Cracker: Kristol, another big name Never Trumper, was the original Palin champion. He’s also claimed a bit of ignorance and/or being fooled but, whatever the case, it’s likely Schmidt and Wallace trusted his word. (still will never full forgive them) Or, he knowingly foisted that mess upon them because they wouldn’t let McCain pick Lieberman.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/24/conservative-pundit-bill-kristol-explains-how-sarah-palin-helped-pave-trumps-path-to-the-white-house.html
Doug R
Ted Cruz stepped in, Schmidt let him have it too:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1296151125754863616.html
debbie
Schmidt’s fury is palpable! The tweets may be light on hyphens, but that there are no typos is damn impressive!
J R in WV
@lee:
That’s bullshit. Taumaturgo makes stuff up all the time, no link, no common sense. That’s why all of his posts are cute little icons for me.
J R in WV
@Sister Golden Bear:
Those units have two fans, one moves air from outside to cool the hot side of the refrigerant coil, and the other fan moves the room air across the cold side of the refrigerant coil to cool your room.
tokyokie
The best part of of Schmidt skewering then roasting those assholes like GOP-ke-bobs is all he did was tell them the truth. Sort of like the Dustin Hoffman character in Little Big Man baiting Custer into attacking at Little Big Horn by telling him exactly what would happen if he did so.
J R in WV
@Doug R:
Folks keep using uncomplementary and inaccurate nicknames for Senator Cruz.
His name is Rafael Eduardo Cruz, please, and he was born in Canada… dunno how he qualifies for a presidential run?!!!
WaterGirl
@Doug R: Wow, that was a thing of beauty. The man can write.