Do y’all remember Christina Pushaw, who served as press sec/social media attack-Lhasa Apso for FL Governor Ron DeSantis until she was mysteriously banished to the permanent DeSantis campaign’s “rapid response” team? (Some say the governor’s wife/closest advisor was behind the abrupt reassignment, but Tallahassee gossipmongers love a puerile “cat fight” story, so I’m skeptical.)
Anyhoo, Pushaw is the gorgon who mainstreamed the “groomer” smear, got herself suspended from pre-Musk Twitter for dispatching swarms of flying monkeys to harass and threaten an AP reporter and was forced to take down tweets featuring blatant antisemitic conspiracy theories involving the Rothschilds.
Basically, Pushaw is MTG with a master’s in international relations from Johns Hopkins (and possibly opposable thumbs, given her dexterous tweeting). She seems to be a true believer since she auditioned for the press sec gig by punching down on DeSantis critics from the pages of far-right journals and writing gushy paeans to DeSantis’s leadership that were excessive enough to make Kim Jong-un blush.
As press sec, she tweeted thousands of times per month, frequently amplifying creepy culture war figures like the gross Libs of TikTok ghoul, and this continued in her present role. But Pushaw’s signature move is to swoop in with the fury of 10,000 demonic Canada geese on anyone who calls out her boss, and no DeSantis critic is too inconsequential to attract her furious and indignant attention on such occasions.
There’s a glaring exception now, as noted by Peter Schorsch at Florida Politics:
Until recently, few questioned whether Christina Pushaw was anything short of a loyal warrior. Love her or hate her, Pushaw never shied from throwing a punch on behalf of Gov. Ron DeSantis.
At least not until the Governor became the most hated enemy of a certain former President…
But like a death eater as nervous as anyone about Voldemort’s possible return, Pushaw can’t bring herself to say Trump’s name.
Who knows? Maybe Pushaw also is thinking of life after DeSantis.
Sounds about right. According to the Florida Politics article, the Trump campaign’s rag-tag army of low-rent social media “influencers” have repeatedly tried to bait Pushaw. But, like her chickenshit boss — and perhaps at the behest of her chickenshit boss — Pushaw dares not speak directly of He Who Must Not Be Named. Let’s hope they all keep it up because this strategy will totally work.
Open thread.
smedley the uncertain
One?
Eunicecycle
@smedley the uncertain: I think the proper way is “frist?”
Mustang Bobby
I remember thinking that Ms. Pushaw was the trailer-park version of Kellyanne Conway, but I know people who live in trailer parks, and they’re nice people.
WaterGirl
@Eunicecycle: Frist was oh so years ago.
Baud
That’s how I want to be treated.
oatler
‘Tallahassee gossipmongers’
O to be a frog in that puddle.
cope
So many awful people. As I age into irrelevance, it seems to me more and more likely that the reason “intelligent” life in the universe seems so diluted is that at some point, technology advances to the point that individuals in a society can have their voices and views and opinions and wants and hates amplified so highly that a small minority of them can bring down the whole shebang. My 2¢.
Suzanne
These people are all terrible and I deeply enjoy watching them turn on one another. Moar plz.
Alison Rose
LOL ew.
Alison Rose
@Baud: Oh great, our troll problem is gonna get so much worse once your campaign gets going.
cmorenc
“Pushaw” was, in the vernacular of my grandfather’s small-town eastern N.C. gentrified sense of manners, a PG-rated euphemism for “Shit” used as a cuss word, cause the real word they meant was too coarse for folks wanting to clearly distinguish themselves and their status from the ways of redneck white trash. (Although if they actually wrote the word, probably would have written it as “Pshaw” without the ‘u’). This same sort of sensibility was why my dear grandmother (who was unapologetically, but politely racist, like most small eastern NC white folk 50-60 years ago) – always said “nigrah” instead of the N-clang word, because the direct N-clang word was the vernacular of redneck white trash
How ironically fitting is the name “Pushaw” for the lady in question.
smintheus
Or more like He Who Must Be Obeyed.
Baud
@Alison Rose:
Just be obsequious and you’ll be fine.
Bill Hicks
Thank you Betty for another great post. Why aren’t you gloating over this like me: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-03-30/disneys-lawyers-outmaneuvered-desantis-control-disney-world
It is worth a post just to help drive news traffic. Always a good idea to let everyone know that he is a pathietic failure
Baud
@Bill Hicks:
We talked about that in the comments. I thought BC or AL already did a post on it.
smintheus
@Mustang Bobby:
I get really tired of people mocking those who live in trailer parks, as if being poor was a disgrace. The only people I’ve known who lived in trailers were good, friendly, down to earth.
Betty Cracker
@Bill Hicks: Gloated about that yesterday here!
Bill Arnold
@Mustang Bobby:
She’s not; she’s intelligent and has a creepy, Russia-associated international backstory. I don’t use creepy lightly, or often. She creeps out my intuition.
kalakal
She’s got form for being quiet about embarrassing stuff.
She forgot all about being an agent for a foreign government until the Feds reminded her. Still what’s a little matter of breaking the law like that to her and Honest Ron
Jinchi
I don’t see Desantis having a viable path in electoral politics outside of Florida. His best hope for the Republican nomination is that Trump gets taken off the board and evn then, his campaign of vindictive grievance and culture war is toxic outside of the deepest red states in America.
Betty Cracker
@smintheus: Personal experience tells me bad people are distributed across all socioeconomic groups. In fact, I’d wager an objective character study that pitted the residents of Palm Beach’s oceanfront mansions against folks in a random Boca trailer park would conclude that those in the humbler abodes are more generous and kind in all the ways that count. Though naturally each location would have its share of sex pests, gun nuts, conspiracy-addled weirdos and abusive jackholes. It’s the human condition!
West of the Rockies
She’s got a weird mouth, sort of an AI version of a mouth, to go with eyes that are three vodkas away from Bachmann territory. The crazy is palpable.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
It’s a fun game trying to guess which jackals fit within each category.
West of the Rockies
Hey, is Steve from Mendocino still around? I’ve not bumped into him here for a spell.
Baud
@West of the Rockies:
I don’t know, but your question reminded me how much Debbie would have appreciated Trump’s indictment. It’s been about 9 months since we’ve seen her.
Princess
I always thought Pushaw gave off big “I’m schtupping the Governor and am therefore untouchable” energy so the theory that his Dollar Store Jackie O wife made him toss her out seems entirely plausible. The fact that she seems to have a job now where she’s paid to not open her mouth makes it even more likely.
Elizabelle
@Baud: I miss Debbie.
And: forget her name, but the Colorado jackal, who is a theater director/journalist and had a dog named Luna, at one time.
She has not been around for a long time, although I might have missed her.
And: Martin. Come back, Martin.
Geminid
@Jinchi: I don’t think culture war issues are very powerful among the general electorate, and they might not be that powerful in the Republican primary electorate either. To make a crude dichotomy, they’re coffee table issues, not kitchen table ones. I’m not sure DeSantis thought this through.
Overall, DeSantis doesn’t seem like he is prepared for this race. Maybe he thought Trump was sinking, and wanted to get out in front as a sort of default choice. But his high early profile has not helped him yet.
Eljai
It always befuddles me how a person can get admitted to a select university like Johns Hopkins and have the emotional maturity of a poo-flinging monkey. I guess I’m going to stop apologizing for attending an affordable but less esteemed community college.
There go two miscreants
@smintheus: I agree with you. And many of them would be less poor if the corporate owners/operators of the trailer parks were decent people. Fred “Slacktivist” Clark has written about that aspect several times.
(Edited slightly.)
feebog
Betty, wasn’t Pushaw recently outed as an unregistered foreign agent?
delphinium
@Elizabelle: Am guessing you mean Miss Bianca? I haven’t seen her around for about a month or so, but I don’t read all the threads so might have missed her in one.
SFAW
@Baud:
I’m trying for all of them. Jes’ gotta get me a AR-15 to complete mah Bingo card.
Mike in NC
DeSantis only hires the best people! Imagine the cabinet he could assemble. More cartoonish criminals than you could find at ComicCon.
Roger Moore
Count me among those who think it’s the boss who’s dictating this. It’s way too important for a flunky to make that kind of decision on her own. Also, if the boss were unhappy that she wasn’t talking about HWMNBN, he could always replace her with someone who was willing. That she’s kept her job says to me the boss is OK with the strategy.
RaflW
Delete
Baud
@delphinium:
She last posted on March 8.
https://balloon-juice.com/2023/03/08/acts-of-kindness-facing-the-challenges/#comment-8783232
UncleEbeneezer
Happy Transgender Day of Visibility!
Looking forward to posts by PlanetEddie or SisterGoldenBear today :)
Here’s a good article on why it’s important for everyone (including us Cisgender People) to celebrate Trans Joy:
Roger Moore
@Jinchi:
But winning the deepest red states is key to winning the Republican nomination, so maybe he’d be good in that case.
delphinium
@Baud: Thanks.
RaflW
On my phone, so formatting sucked. Tried to riff on Hotel California (‘Hotel Mar-a-Lago’), because I think of these lines and how Republicans can’t just use the many opportunities to finish off Donald’s political career.
“And in the master’s chambers
They gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives
But they just can’t kill the beast”
Not one of these self-promoting opportunists is willing to stab, even. And the better chance was at the second impeachment!!
Gin & Tonic
@Bill Arnold:
This. I think there’s a lot going on there.
craigie
Right, just the way that hiding under the covers keeps the monsters away. Which I guess is the appropriate level of maturity for these people.
PJ
@Eljai: Short of being institutionalized, when has any kind of emotional instability or maturity, or tendency towards cruelty or hatred, played any role in college admissions? Most of the Republicans pushing the most horrible, damaging policies of the last 40 years attended elite colleges.
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
I think there would be a few differences between people in trailer parks and ones in mansions:
I think the second one is the biggest factor. Society treats the ways poor people express their inner asshole as reprehensible, while we’re much more forgiving of the ways rich people do.
OverTwistWillie
Was Ken Griffin the money behind this shitshow fail parade?
His 2022 candidate and campaign for Illinois Gov went hilariously wrong, It might be best if he kept to VC smash and grabs.
Betty Cracker
@UncleEbeneezer: I’m hoping the entertainment industry steps up on this issue more. I really enjoyed the HBO Max series “Somebody Somewhere,” which had a positive portrayal of a trans character.
There’s nothing remotely preachy about the series — just people living as themselves in our BJ birdman Albatrossity’s Kansas backyard (though I’m told it’s actually filmed in another state).
Season 2 drops next month!
Another Scott
Driftglass – Someday your prints will come.
rofl.
Cheers,
Scott.
rikyrah
Uh huh![]()
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Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) tweeted at 6:28 PM on Thu, Mar 30, 2023:
Dan Bongino on NYPD’s stop-and-frisk policy that ensnared half a million innocent Black people in one year: “Brilliant strategy.”
Dan Bongino on 1 rich white guy (Trump) being indicted: “I don’t really feel right right now living in this police state.”
https://t.co/Rq20k98d3K
(https://twitter.com/keithboykin/status/1641583155688931328?t=Hkr0kforsDhcKdvM5m-uMA&s=03)
Betty Cracker
@OverTwistWillie: He’s not the only one, but yes!
Bugboy
@Betty Cracker:
Palm Beach County Resident here. Any trailer park in Boca Raton (assuming the City hasn’t outlawed such a thing) would be considered a “resort”…
Eljai
@PJ: Sadly, you speak the truth.
Betty Cracker
@Bugboy: I’m Gulf Coast trailer trash, and it shows. ;-)
WaterGirl
@Baud: Do we all have to fit into one of those categories? So hard to choose!
Anonymous At Work
Do you really think that Pushaw’s inability to use TFG’s name in one of her 12000 evil daily Tweets is an accident or is going unnoticed by DeathSantis? She’s “following orders,” like any underling of DeathSantis (or Orban or some other types).
UncleEbeneezer
@Betty Cracker: Sex Education has a character who realizes they are non-binary. It shows some of the challenges of navigating that realization in adolescence/high-school, but still allows them to have a mostly good/fun life with a lot of peer and parental support. They’re just another character and not just the trans character, if that makes sense. It’s also a really hilarious and incredibly moving show
And in less-scripted venues, Great Brittish Bake Off and Great Pottery Throwdown both had Transgender contestants recently who were very well supported and celebrated by the show. The dance/voguing show Legendary on HBO is also chock full of Transgender contestants, so you get to see a lot of them living their best lives and having all kinds of fun.
Roger Moore
@Eljai:
I find this completely unsurprising. Most universities look most heavily at things like test scores and high school grades, and emotional maturity doesn’t necessarily turn up in those numbers. Even to the extent they depend on recommendations, well connected kids can always find someone to sing their praises no matter how awful they are*. And a lot of spoiled, asshole kids have the skill of hiding it from authority figures who might hold it against them, so they can get by interviews and the like. It’s only when they’re the ones with the power that they let the asshole show.
*This, of course, is one of the reasons universities depend less on references than they used to.
RaflW
@feebog: Yep. Wish the DOJ had just pressed f–king charges.
“A spokeswoman for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) this week registered as a foreign agent of a former president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, belatedly detailing work she performed for the politician between 2018 and 2020.
The spokeswoman, Christina Pushaw, made the disclosure following contact from the Justice Department, according to her attorney, Michael Sherwin. She began her work in 2018 as a volunteer in the post-Soviet country, Sherwin said, and was ultimately paid $25,000 over the course of two years. She received her first payment, of $10,000 in October 2018, in cash, according to her filing. She stayed for free for six weeks in an apartment owned by a Saakashvili associate in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital.”
jonas
@Eljai: People who are focused and disciplined enough to score high in the kind of metrics Ivy League and other elite schools look for are usually one of two things: really, really smart or psychopathic assholes
ETA: basically what Roger Moore said
jonas
Seems legit…
Frankensteinbeck
@Roger Moore:
And that’s clearly part of his strategy, maybe its core, although I also think he’s getting off on the sadism. His problem is that he’s weak. Jeb! could out-debate DeSantis. It’s all elementary school bully shit with Republicans, and DeSantis is the kid whose idea of a comeback is, “Nuh-uh. Ask my mommy. She’ll tell you I don’t wet the bed anymore.”
lowtechcyclist
@Another Scott: Took me a couple of seconds to get the joke.
After that, LOL.
OverTwistWillie
@Betty Cracker:
That Illinois campaign was a disaster. The messaging was micro-targeted by and for Ken Griffin. Team DeSantis exploding on the launchpad has a very similar look and feel.
When the polling went to shit, he pulled the money, even though the campaign team were running with what he wanted.
citizen dave
@Betty Cracker: This is happy news. My wife really likes this show, and occasionally asks whether there are any new episodes. I love it too, so real, so midwestern, yet with the queerdo (I learned a new word today) element. Murray Hill is super funny, and he/she also stars in the Amy Schumer comedy Life and Beth.
https://www.intomore.com/culture/icons/somebody-somewhere-love-letter-queerdoes-everywhere/
Hey I was thinking about how Jimmy Carter (DOB 10/1/1924) was alive as the convictions in the Teapot Dome Scandal were happening (last conviction 1929; President Harding died before facing prosecutorial consequences), became President after Tricky Dick, and now has lived to see the first in (hopefully) a line of trials for the Orange Stain…
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: I believe you are talking about Miss Bianca.
She last posted on March 9.
PBK
@WaterGirl: Germy hasn’t been around in a long while. I miss them.
smintheus
@Betty Cracker:
I agree with that. I find that people who live in close proximity to others tend to be more agreeable and mindful of others, whether it’s trailer parks or in dense city neighborhoods (at least those that aren’t controlled by criminal gangs). People in rural areas and gated communities often haven’t learned how or refuse to get along with other people. I ache to roam at liberty in the countryside but I prefer to live in a city environment where people are more decent.
Gin & Tonic
@jonas: If I understand correctly, she went to grad school there – Johns Hopkins SAIS. That’s one of the grad schools my son applied to and was accepted at. He’s not a psychopath, but I don’t think it would have mattered if he was, as they don’t look at any social/emotional characteristics at all. GRE score, undergrad transcript, letter(s) of recommendation, that’s it.
Gin & Tonic
@Gin & Tonic: Made me think – that’s the same grad school Sergey Cherkasov, the russian spy posing as a Brazilian attended. So much for their admissions vetting process.
Roger Moore
@Frankensteinbeck:
It seems to me that what they want most is someone who will go after their enemies, and DeSantis has a really impressive record of hating the right people and abusing his power to hurt them. Maybe they’ll be more turned off by him looking weak in comparison to the other candidates. I’m clearly not a good judge of what matters to Republican voters.
Roger Moore
@Gin & Tonic:
That’s not entirely fair. Being fooled by a state-level actor doing their best to help their guy get into the system doesn’t necessarily say that much about their ability to catch random assholes.
Betty Cracker
@citizen dave: It’s a terrific show, and it’s refreshing in that it also features characters who aren’t young, thin or conventionally beautiful or handsome who are nonetheless portrayed as smart and funny and interesting in their own right. I mean, wow, what a concept! ;-)
Elizabelle
@delphinium: @WaterGirl:
Yes. It is Miss Bianca. Thank you. (I was just remembering the “Miss” part … can remember her full ‘nym now by associating her with Amir K’s beloved and now late cat; Scully’s predecessor.)
Come back, Miss Bianca, too.
Burnspbesq
@RaflW:
Does anybody know whether all her Bank Secrecy Act filings were made timely and correctly? IRS could turn her into the second coming of Manafort.
Roger Moore
@Burnspbesq:
Why do I have a suspicion the payment was actually $9,999 dollars rather than $10,000? I know the reporting limit is $10K, and lots of people think they can get around it by structuring their payments so they never have a single payment that exceeds the limit.
Gin & Tonic
@Roger Moore: Yeah, whatever, I’m not interested in being “entirely fair.”
West of the Rockies
I’m single-wide trash with hopes of going double.
Ken
Save some venom for the manufacturers as well. I’ve spent some time fixing them (on church work trips, mostly) and remember various shocks.
Like, flooring made out of particle board (not even pressed wood). Joists made from what looked like random offcuts of 2x4s that were nailed together to make longer pieces. Plumbing made out of clear tubing or garden hose. All of this, mind you, factory original.
Mai Naem mobile
@feebog: yes. She worked for Shashakivilli in Georgia. There’s always some kind of Russian/former Soviet republic connection with any GOPr who is working for a potential POTUS. I guess it’s because that’s where the easy laundering $$$ are.
lowtechcyclist
@Ken:
Good Lord, that’s horrible. They know the people who will be living in these trailers have no resources to demand even basic quality, and are blatantly taking advantage of that.
Bugboy
@Betty Cracker: Oh, we do have some really nasty trailer parks here, but any trailer parks on the beachside, or anywhere near Boca are definitely neat as a pin. In my day job I have to keep track of the nasty ones, because they are always breeding mosquitoes…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
It is a little pat, OTOH it might explain the DeSantis outfit’s recent and IMHO extremely strained efforts to suddenly portray Casey (Tacky O, as some FL twitter wag put it) into a combo of Jackie K and (dare I say it?) Hillary Rodham Clinton (“his smartest advisor!” “two for the price of one!”
ETA: Betty C and other Gators: Is this as recent as it seems to me?
StringOnAStick
@smintheus: It’s funny but we’ve had friends living the 1-5 acre ranchette lifestyle outside of Denver, and there’s no place to wander if you want to go for a walk. It’s all fenced off so you have to walk in dirt roads and take your chances with all the drivers speeding because their commute takes too long. We’ve found over and over that living in neighbourhoods with open space and parks means you can ramble right from your front door. Our ranchette friends have to drive several miles to get to where they could go for a walk
John Revolta
Well, put me in with @Bill Arnold: and @Gin & Tonic on this one. There’s definitely something going on with her that bears watching.
cain
When I look at this woman’s pictures – I just get a deep sense of being tragically unhappy.
rikyrah
@Geminid:
Not for lack of trying by the MSM.
cain
@smintheus: Kind of reminds me of the Andy Griffith show – the rural people don’t seem that friendly. Plus it normalizes people shooting at the law! WTF..
rikyrah
@UncleEbeneezer:
I agree with this. Seeing family support their trans family…..there’s a lot of this society that wants for families to turn their backs on them. They are offended that their families defend them as ferociously as they do.
John Revolta
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I don’t remember her being out in public all so much until the last year or so. She had cancer before that so that may be a factor but the Jackie O (or rather K) outfits just seem so calculated. Long gloves in FL LOL
The Moar You Know
@John Revolta: I get an off-the-charts kink vibe from her.
Barry
@Eljai: “It always befuddles me how a person can get admitted to a select university like Johns Hopkins and have the emotional maturity of a poo-flinging monkey. I guess I’m going to stop apologizing for attending an affordable but less esteemed community college.”
Remember that that attitude is now career-enhancing.
Uncle Cosmo
Hey! I’m a JHU graduate (BA Physics) and I resemble that!
Boocoo late to the thread as always, but anyway:
“The Hop” has always been something of a parvenu outside of the med school. I recall that when I was a senior, a spoof edition of the Hopkins News-Letter snarked that Johns Hopkins and its sorta-“sister” institution Goucher College (~10 miles north in the Baltimore suburbs) had each been rejected for membership in the Ivy League and Seven Sisters, respectively, as they had “neither the academic credentials nor the snob appeal” to qualify. (And still don’t. They just set their tuition and fees as if they did. ;^p)
NB Hopkins’ SAIS (which some believe stands for School of Arrogant Insufferable Shitheels) is in DC, 50 miles from the other campuses (campii?); most Hoppie grads, undergrads, public and private ($$$) health stoonts rarely if ever encountered either its faculty or its clientele. In fact, during my sojourn there, the closest most of us came to “international relations” was JHU President Lincoln Gordon**, former US Ambassador to Brazil and a key player in the American-backed Castelo Branco military coup that deposed President João Goulart in 1964.
** After touring the Homewood campus as the trustees wooed him, “Linc the Fink” famously remarked, “It’s nice, but it’s not Harvard.” Little wonder he resigned the Presidency after less than 4 years after a “no confidence” vote of the senior faculty (most of whom were also proctologists’ wet dreams).
RaflW
@Burnspbesq: Oh, that would be interesting. IRS is far less likely to just say ‘catch up with the filings and it’ll be ok’.
Mustang Bobby
@smintheus: Which is what I said at the end of the post. Thank you.
Rob
“the fury of 10,000 demonic Canada geese”
YIKES! I know the fury of 1 ordinary Canada goose is quite a lot.