"I fall to pieces"

Koch network warns of ‘McCarthyism 2.0’ in conservative efforts to harass professors
(Washington Post)

Push-back from the moneyed right

     Leaders of the donor network led by billionaire Charles Koch say they want college students to study Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin and Mao Zedong. They also want them to read Alexis de Tocqueville, Adam Smith and Friedrich Hayek.
. . .
     Speaking to donors at their retreat in the Rocky Mountains this week, [John Hardin, the director of university relations for the Charles Koch Foundation] and other Koch officials went out of their way to criticize groups on the right that are pursuing a more confrontational approach on college campuses. Hardin said it’s not just liberals who are shouting down conservative speakers and trying to crowd out ideas they don’t like. He specifically faulted Turning Point USA, a pro-Trump student group, that has created a “Professor Watchlist” website to identify liberal faculty members.
. . .

     Sarah Ruger, the director of Free Speech Initiatives for the Charles Koch Institute, called the site an example of something that “keeps [her] up at night.”
     “It’s truly McCarthyism 2.0,” she said, referring to the 1950s red-baiting of the late senator Joe McCarthy (R-Wis.). “It’s a platform that exists to put the names and the profiles of self-identified progressive professors out there and encourages conservative students to intimidate them. … If there’s anything political tribes can agree on today, it’s that they all want to censor someone. They just disagree on who should be silenced. That’s entirely antithetical to who we are.”
. . .
     — It’s not just Turning Point USA that they’re worried about. Hardin decried a law enacted by Arizona in April, which says public colleges “may restrict a student’s right to speak, including verbal speech, holding a sign or distributing fliers or other materials, in a public forum.” He also criticized a proposal by a Republican state legislator in Phoenix to pass a bill that would ban faculty members at public universities from teaching classes that advocate for “social justice.”
     Hardin also strongly criticized draft legislation that has been circulated by the Goldwater Institute. The libertarian think tank in Arizona has received support from the Koch network in the past to oppose civil forfeiture laws. But network leaders are angry about the group’s support for mandating that public universities suspend students if they twice interfere “with the expressive rights of others,” whatever that means. The draft legislation says students must then be expelled on the third “offense.” Hardin expressed alarm about bills that have been introduced by conservatives from Wisconsin and South Carolina to Nebraska and Michigan, which are modeled on the Goldwater Institute proposal.

Trump and McCarthy's Roy Cohn: creepy pals

. . .
     -- Most Republican lawmakers treaded carefully Tuesday after Trump ripped into the Koch network on Twitter, seeking not to alienate either the president or their party’s biggest donors. Robert Costa and Sean Sullivan report from Capitol Hill: “On Monday, GOP senators privately deliberated about the path the Koch network has charted and its implications … In a private meeting at the Capitol, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) recounted his visit to the Koch conference to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other GOP senators and aides, and described the frustration he encountered over Trump’s trade policies and conduct … Some senators in the meeting struggled to make sense of the Koch network’s new strategy of limiting its work for GOP candidates. ‘These guys want to change the direction of the country. They don’t understand how hard that is,’ McConnell said.”
     Trump loyalists, meanwhile, ripped into Koch leaders for publicly complaining about the president’s trade war, nativist immigration policies and massive increases in federal spending....

Republicans abuzz over Schmidt's divorce from GOP
(Politico)
     The onetime McCain strategist won’t comment on his talks with potential 2020 Democrat Howard Schultz.
     By BEN SCHRECKINGER, ELIANA JOHNSON and DANIEL LIPPMAN

Anti-Trump conservative
abandons GOP

     Questions about [Steve] Schmidt’s future began to swirl in June when he announced his departure from the GOP in a series of tweets embracing the Democratic Party. It was a rare act of defiance in a party that has mostly fallen in line behind President Donald Trump — one that has many Republicans talking about what exactly Schmidt plans to do next.
     Working for a Schultz campaign would complete Schmidt’s decade-long process of estrangement from the Republican Party after spending much of his career at its highest levels.
. . .
     The speculation began in earnest in July, when Schmidt, who served as chief strategist to John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, abruptly stepped down as vice chairman of public affairs at the PR firm Edelman after eight years on the job.
. . .
     Schmidt’s moves coincided with Shultz's announcement of his retirement from Starbucks, effective June 26. Schultz’s retirement has fanned speculation that he will run for president as a Democrat in 2020, a prospect with which he has openly toyed as he mulls his post-Starbucks future.
. . .
     Before there were never-Trumpers there was Schmidt, who publicly expressed regret at his role in bringing Sarah Palin onto the 2008 Republican ticket, a fiasco that presaged the party’s turn toward reality-show populism.
. . .
     After the Palin experience, Schmidt became an early critic of the Republican Party’s drift generally, and the influence of Trump specifically.
     "Birtherism is a fringe issue that's way out of the mainstream, and it's disturbing when you see people you ... have some level of respect for, whether it's members of Congress or even Donald Trump, falling into that category," he told CNN in 2012.
. . .
     Last week, Schmidt described Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) as complicit in the Russian election attack….

I don't know just what you're tryin' to do
You told me that your love for me was true
I don't understand my love, please tell me what to do
If you really want me to, I'll go.