Scaramucci, Scaramucci, can you do the Drumfdango?

[infooverload]

Eh... this administration has had so many scandals, a sex scandal would get lost in the shuffle very quickly.
Hmmm.... I almost want to make a Trump Administration Scandal Bingo card.
As a side note, I've just finished rereading The Lord of the Flies. Wow, does it ever sound like this administration!

I also recently read Lord of the Flies, but for my money far more of a terrifying read in light of current events is Christian Nation. The book came out a few years back and the premise is Obama lost the 08 election. McCain has a stroke early into his term and Palin takes over. I have said Trump is basically a male version of Palin in his assault to the spoken word. The Daily Show has an ongoing President Apprentice who's going to be fired next.

[AnywhereButHere]

12 hours ago, mamallama said:

Remember when Biden was caught wispering "this is fucking huge" to Obama?  Many pearls were clutched that day.

Ha! I was talking about this to my husband last night. Biden's off the cuff remarks were vulgar and unacceptable, but a truly vulgar contortional impossibility suggested by one of their own is just him having an exuberant personality. Just another day under the "boys will be boys" presiduncy. 

 

Edited July 29, 2017 by AnywhereButHere

[AmazonGrace]

This is a funny read: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/28/opinion/mr-anthony-scaramucci-esqs-guide-to-workplace-etiquette.html

 

[GrumpyGran]

On 7/27/2017 at 7:49 PM, onekidanddone said:

In five...four...three..Fuck it I don't have time for two or one...

Found a good one made even better with Steve Earle

 

@onekidanddone, thanks so much for this! Awesome.

And hubby and I figured out yesterday, as we put Alabama in the rear view mirror, who Scary Moochie reminds us of. Al Pacino's character in Scarface! 

[AmazonGrace]

Isn't that special? Incidentally, Al Pacino plays Joe Paterno in a HBO special that Scaramucci is producing? 

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/anthony-scaramucci-executive-producing-hbo-movie-white-house-1025099

[GrumpyGran]

1 hour ago, AmazonGrace said:

Isn't that special? Incidentally, Al Pacino plays Joe Paterno in a HBO special that Scaramucci is producing? 

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/anthony-scaramucci-executive-producing-hbo-movie-white-house-1025099

So maybe he's trying on different movie roles when he's on camera to see how they go over. It would explain occasionally referring to himself in the third person. No real internal compass, other than a love of money and power.

[Rachel333]

I enjoyed The Onion factchecking Scaramucci's interview.

Quote

“I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own cock.”

TRUE: Scaramucci understands that true inner peace comes from accepting one’s flaws and only very rarely sucking oneself off.

 

[JMarie]

6 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

This is a funny read: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/28/opinion/mr-anthony-scaramucci-esqs-guide-to-workplace-etiquette.html

 

I really need to start doing Pilates. Imagine what I could do if I were as flexible as Bannon.

Edited July 29, 2017 by JMarie
removed extra quote

[AmazonGrace]

According to Page Six the soon-to-be ex-wife was nine months pregnant when she filed for divorce  and gave birth to a baby boy on Monday

http://pagesix.com/2017/07/29/scaramuccis-fed-up-wife-left-him-while-nine-months-pregnant/?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPTwitter&utm_medium=SocialFlow&sr_share=twitter

[GrumpyGran]

23 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

According to Page Six the soon-to-be ex-wife was nine months pregnant when she filed for divorce  and gave birth to a baby boy on Monday

http://pagesix.com/2017/07/29/scaramuccis-fed-up-wife-left-him-while-nine-months-pregnant/?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPTwitter&utm_medium=SocialFlow&sr_share=twitter

Whooooaaaa! It's got to be bad if you'll walk when you're 9 months pregnant. "I'd rather raise this baby alone than with a cocksucker like you!"

[Cartmann99]

Here's a quote from the article @AmazonGrace posted where Kellyanne Conway is talking about Scaramucci's reaction to not being selected to join Trump's White House earlier:

Quote

 

Conway says that loyalty helped get Anthony into the White House.

“Absolutely, and he didn’t whine about [being passed over], which goes a long way,” she said. “I think it’s oxygen for the soul to have him here.”

 

   Are Kellyanne and Sarah both doodling Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Scaramucci at their desks with pink glitter pens that have a heart on top?

What the hell?!?

[GreyhoundFan]

1 hour ago, Cartmann99 said:

   Are Kellyanne and Sarah both doodling Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Scaramucci at their desks with pink glitter pens that have a heart on top?

What the hell?!?

They could be sister wives. Can you imagine the hair-pulling?

 

This is a good, if scary, opinion piece: "Scaramucci learned his press tactics from Wall Street. They’ll only get uglier."

Spoiler

When Anthony Scaramucci took over as White House communications director, prompting the resignation of press secretary Sean Spicer, the initial reaction from Washington journalists was warily optimistic. Where Spicer was aggressive and hostile, Scaramucci would be “smooth ” and affable. He even blew a kiss to end his first press briefing. These looked like signs of a thaw. After all, officials and reporters in Washington may still joke around after a bad story or a slight; the hostility is often for show. Politics is communal and built on co-dependency.

Finance is different. It is individualist and zero-sum. As a reporter and editor covering Wall Street for 18 years, I studied the industry’s aggressive approach toward the press: Financiers, and the multibillion-dollar companies they work for, are friendly and charming as long as you see things their way, and they do everything they can to win reporters over. But when reporters don’t buy their line, the Wall Street answer is to get intransigent journalists removed from stories.

Scaramucci’s vulgar phone call to the New Yorker this past week was far more typical than his genteel first briefing was. If the Trump administration’s approach to the media was alarming before, importing the attitudes and practices Scaramucci learned in New York will only make things worse.  

Scaramucci, who ran a relatively modest firm in the enormous world of hedge funds, has proved himself adept at this style. President Trump reportedly liked that Scaramucci’s pushback about an inaccurate CNN story — complete with rumored threat of legal action — led to the departures of three veteran investigative journalists. Scaramucci pointedly called on a CNN reporter at his first briefing and a few days later said, on a hot microphone, that network boss Jeff Zucker “helped me get the job by hitting those guys,” referring to the unemployed reporters. To Trump, the fact that Scaramucci kneecapped three journalists in one swoop surely made him the kind of press guy he was looking for: effective in eliminating enemies. 

There’s every reason to believe that the White House team sees this as a model: It will not worry about the accuracy of what is published, only whether the tone is Trump-friendly. Of his new job, Scaramucci says, “It is a client service business, and [Trump] is my client.” Wall Street’s methods of fighting negative coverage are more extensive, brutal and personal than Washington’s. The reigning philosophy is: “I can win only if you lose.”

 

As a reporter at the Wall Street Journal during the financial crisis, I was boggled by the lengths to which hedge funds and banks would go to kill a story.

When a negative report was in the works, company representatives often called up the journalist writing it and tried to ingratiate themselves with a charming introduction and some light chitchat. The point was to humanize the people at the firm so that journalists would feel guilty reporting negatively about it. (This almost never worked.) Maybe they’d invite the journalist to an outing — a bank-sponsored tennis game, a classical music concert — or a party held by the firm to get the journalist “in the fold.” When a piece was in process, they’d follow up daily, trying to get a sense of who the journalist’s sources were and the direction of the story. The key at this point was to keep their enemies close.

For example, when I was reporting on an executive coup at Morgan Stanley, the bank’s representatives were in touch with me more often than I spoke to my own mother. “Why would your publication waste time on a story like this?” they’d ask. “It’s all going to blow over.”

My favorite of their techniques, used by two major investment houses, was to flatly deny a story that I knew was accurate. When I offered to call my sources to reconfirm, the response I received was: “That’s it? That’s your negotiation?” As a journalist, I didn’t see the truth as subject to negotiation. But Wall Street did; it’s all about what you can get.

When charm didn’t work, I saw or heard about firms wheedling, pleading, threatening, calling editors and even contacting media executives. Insults and obscenities were common. One troubled hedge fund’s foul-mouthed manager called me every day for a week with some new litany of abuse.

Other companies tried to co-opt aggressive reporters by offering them lucrative jobs (financial journalists cannot report on companies to which they have ties, including potential job offers — at the Wall Street Journal, we weren’t even allowed to be friends on Facebook with PR people). As I was reporting one critical story about a hedge fund, it had a friendly PR firm dangle opportunities in front of me. I had no interest, but I told my editor and handed the story to another reporter nonetheless. Some journalists took those jobs, working for companies they once covered. That’s the kind of trap that former Wall Street Journal reporter Jay Solomon apparently fell into; he was fired last month for allegedly trying to broker arms deals between his sources to strengthen the relationships.

Another company, alarmed at my front-page story about the impending failure of a multibillion-dollar merger, spammed me with off-the-record calls from executives and sicced around 50 investors on me. It took two weeks to clear out my voicemails. The volume of email was unspeakable.

If the full-court press failed, the next step was usually to call the reporter’s editor and complain that the subject didn’t feel he or she was getting a fair shake. The point was to undermine a reporter’s support within their organization, with a view toward neutralizing their reporting. Anything the reporter had said, even in a casual conversation, could be used as evidence of an ulterior motive. Refusing to finesse quotes was seen as biased intransigence. A powerful investor I interviewed insisted that the quote he gave me about a colleague — “He and I were in a lot of foxholes together” — be changed to: “As Winston Churchill once said, there is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at and missed.” When I declined, the firm’s PR person called me multiple times and sent nasty emails alleging that I had it in for the executive.

That was relatively mild. Every journalist who covers Wall Street knows that banks keep tabs on them, sometimes spoken of as “dossiers,” though they’re nothing fancy: reporters’ articles, backgrounds, editors, potentially revealing comments they may have made to the bank’s communications team. Financial firms have multiple people picking over journalists’ past work, looking for a word or phrase that could be interpreted as biased. In one case, a journalist who reported a tough story on a corrupt Wall Street executive spoke enthusiastically about the scoop in the newsroom. A colleague sitting nearby who considered that executive a valuable source denounced his co-worker — to the executive, who called the editor. The first reporter, whose writing about the executive won multiple awards, was taken off the story, ostensibly for the appearance of bias. In Washington, it would be as if Woodward and Bernstein were removed from the Watergate investigation because they were a little too excited to be breaking news.

These episodes didn’t always end with a trip to journalistic Siberia, but accusations of bias hurt editors’ faith in reporters, and when they accumulate, a reporter can lose institutional support. That “divide and conquer” approach puts reporters on the defensive about their behavior. It plants doubt — not just about their reporting but also about their reputations and abilities. 

And sometimes companies go much further. Hewlett-Packard paid a private investigator to go through the trash and the personal phone records of one of my former colleagues, Pui-Wing Tam. Overstock.com’s CEO created a fake Facebook account and sifted through the social networks of dozens of journalists and analysts, alleging that they were conspiring to lower his company’s stock price. A senior executive at Uber once suggested that the company compile opposition research on journalists who wrote critical stories. Microsoft once broke into the Hotmail account of a blogger while pursuing the source of internal leaks.  

The last technique I saw used against news organizations was threats, and this is what Scaramucci appears to have mastered with CNN. At different publications, I saw the names of Russian oligarchs removed from stories after threats of lawsuits. Once, an editor killed an entire investigation because the Koch brothers threatened a lawsuit if it went forward. In my first job, writing for a tiny finance trade publication, the treasurer of a multibillion-dollar company told me in an interview that the firm planned to raise money by selling bonds — then called back and threatened to sue if I quoted his on-the-record comment. (We printed it anyway; he never sued.) 

These companies are worth billions, and they work hard to protect every last cent. If they appear weak or wounded, rivals steal their business. Negative media coverage can lead to lost stock value, lost deals and lost face. Business is often a zero-sum proposition, and executives sometimes see their relationships with journalists that way, too.

This tactic clearly appeals to Trump — the president has threatened reporters with lawsuits and once sued a biographer for suggesting that he wasn’t a billionaire. A Trump ally, Silicon Valley mogul Peter Thiel, financed multiple lawsuits against the website Gawker, eventually forcing the site to close down.

Scaramucci is already showing signs that he won’t worry too much about whether stories are true before he attacks them. Less than a week after his kissy debut at the White House lectern, he blamed the press for capitalizing on “leaks” that were in fact on-the-record quotes he himself had made. Then he demanded an FBI investigation over how Politico obtained his financial disclosure form — which is public information . On Thursday night, he tweeted that he’d “made a mistake in trusting a reporter,” Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker, who had quoted his on-the-record comments about White House colleagues. “It won’t happen again.”

So forget the pleasant tone and the cheerful smiles that Scaramucci brought at first. The White House press corps now faces a much more aggressive, much more personal fight than the Beltway is used to. It’s not crazy to believe that a few more journalists may lose something beyond their access to the White House — they may lose their beats or even their jobs.  

It pays to be wary. On Wall Street, there’s a saying advising prudence to those who complain about crazy stock movements: “The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.” Maybe this White House can, too.

Yeah, "the Mooch" isn't going to get better.

[Cartmann99]

13 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

They could be sister wives. Can you imagine the hair-pulling?

Which unlucky member of our community would be tasked with doing the re-caps for Mooch & the Mesdames?  

[GreyhoundFan]

1 minute ago, Cartmann99 said:

Which unlucky member of our community would be tasked with doing the re-caps for Mooch & the Mesdames?  

I'm sorry, there's not enough rum...or vodka...or tequila for me to sign up for that mess. Rufus would have to appoint a martyr.

[GreyhoundFan]

Sadly, "the Mooch" is probably here to stay, just like cockroaches and ticks: "An evangelical leader’s suggestion to Trump: Wash Scaramucci’s potty mouth and fire him"

Spoiler

President Trump’s relationship with Bob Vander Plaats was rocky when the Iowa evangelical and political activist decided to endorse Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) for president.

...

Although Vander Plaats ultimately supported Trump in the November election, things heated up between the two again in the past week, this time prompted by a vulgar, profanity-filled tirade from White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci.

In an interview with the New Yorker, Scaramucci called the now former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus a “f—— paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac” and said that Priebus would be asked to resign very shortly amid a White House shake-up.

Vander Plaats, whom the New York Times called “an influential leader of Iowa’s Christian right,” heads the Family Leader, an evangelical group that advocates for political candidates and policy issues. Vander Plaats took issue with Scaramucci’s harsh language and went on Twitter on Friday to tell Trump that the new White House communications chief was the one who needed to go.

Vander Plaats tweeted that the president “must model and demand a higher standard.”

...

He also posted a letter to the president on the Family Leader website, titled “A time for confronting.”

Mr. President, it is time to look in the mirror, accept responsibility, apologize to the American people, and declare an end to this behavior immediately.

I suggest you lead by first washing out Mr. Scaramucci’s mouth with a bar of soap. After a thorough rinsing, strip his credentials and escort him personally off the White House grounds.

In the letter, Vander Plaats also called on other faith leaders to “fulfill your calling to be the prophetic voice to the king.”

There’s no guarantee President Trump will repent and change his ways. This said, it is still our duty to privately and publicly confront, so our testimony is not compromised to a culture that hungers for true hope.

He was not immediately available for comment Saturday.

Vander Plaats isn’t the only high-profile religious leader this month to call for others to confront Trump. After photos surfaced showing evangelical pastors laying hands on and praying over Trump, North Carolina-based pastor William Barber said those pastors were practicing “theological malpractice bordering on heresy.”

Barber, the leader of several protest movements that have targeted Trump and his policies, said in an interview with MSNBC’s Joy Reid, “When you can p-r-a-y for a president and others while they are p-r-e-y, preying on the most vulnerable, you’re violating the most sacred principles of religion.”

This quote made me laugh: "There’s no guarantee President Trump will repent and change his ways.". I'd say there is a guarantee that Agent Orange won't repent and change his ways. Why should he? He's "winning".

[Cartmann99]

7 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

This quote made me laugh: "There’s no guarantee President Trump will repent and change his ways.". I'd say there is a guarantee that Agent Orange won't repent and change his ways. Why should he? He's "winning".

How sad is it, that when I read the name Bob Vander Plaats, I can recall exactly which Freedom Liberty Jesus Purity Guns Faith Family Patriot group he belongs to? 

Trump got what he wanted from these people, and the conservative Christians who voted for him thinking he would suddenly "find Jesus" and promptly settle down and be Mr. Family Values, are complete and utter fools. Didn't they see the vulgar items being sold at his rallies? The comments Trump made at his rallies? Didn't they hear about the disgusting tape with Billy Bush on the bus? For some reason, none of that was enough to offend their delicate sensibilities, but now that Scaramucci has given an extremely crass interview to The New Yorker, they're slumped over their fainting couches?!?

We tried to warn these folks that Trump was going to take everything they claimed to hold dear and throw it in a dumpster, but they convinced themselves that Jesus wanted them to vote for Trump, so here we are.

Go cry in your beer somewhere else, Mr. Vander Plaats. You ignored us then, so we're returning the favor.

[nvmbr02]

Well, now. This may prove to be interesting.  

Full Huffington post story here, if you don't want to follow the twitter link

Here’s The Real Reason Anthony Scaramucci Hates Reince Priebus

Quote

After Trump’s victory, Priebus was named chief of staff, and Scaramucci, according to someone close to the transition, was assured that he was also in line for a big position within the administration. (Sources for this story requested anonymity to discuss the details of sensitive conversations.)

While preparing for his move into government, Scaramucci struck a deal — which is still under regulatory scrutiny — to sell his stake in his hedge fund, SkyBridge Capital, to Chinese conglomerate HNA Group and another company. He assumed that he’d be put in charge of the public liaison office, a job that Valerie Jarrett held in the Obama administration. He had it all mapped out, according to the White House adviser. He identified 2,500 influential business leaders across the United States and had come up with a clever name for them: Trump Team 2,500. He believed these people would help pressure Congress into supporting the president’s agenda.

 

Edited July 30, 2017 by nvmbr02

[47of74]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Sadly, "the Mooch" is probably here to stay, just like cockroaches and ticks: "An evangelical leader’s suggestion to Trump: Wash Scaramucci’s potty mouth and fire him"

  Reveal hidden contents

President Trump’s relationship with Bob Vander Plaats was rocky when the Iowa evangelical and political activist decided to endorse Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) for president.

...

Although Vander Plaats ultimately supported Trump in the November election, things heated up between the two again in the past week, this time prompted by a vulgar, profanity-filled tirade from White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci.

In an interview with the New Yorker, Scaramucci called the now former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus a “f—— paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac” and said that Priebus would be asked to resign very shortly amid a White House shake-up.

Vander Plaats, whom the New York Times called “an influential leader of Iowa’s Christian right,” heads the Family Leader, an evangelical group that advocates for political candidates and policy issues. Vander Plaats took issue with Scaramucci’s harsh language and went on Twitter on Friday to tell Trump that the new White House communications chief was the one who needed to go.

Vander Plaats tweeted that the president “must model and demand a higher standard.”

...

He also posted a letter to the president on the Family Leader website, titled “A time for confronting.”

Mr. President, it is time to look in the mirror, accept responsibility, apologize to the American people, and declare an end to this behavior immediately.

I suggest you lead by first washing out Mr. Scaramucci’s mouth with a bar of soap. After a thorough rinsing, strip his credentials and escort him personally off the White House grounds.

In the letter, Vander Plaats also called on other faith leaders to “fulfill your calling to be the prophetic voice to the king.”

There’s no guarantee President Trump will repent and change his ways. This said, it is still our duty to privately and publicly confront, so our testimony is not compromised to a culture that hungers for true hope.

He was not immediately available for comment Saturday.

Vander Plaats isn’t the only high-profile religious leader this month to call for others to confront Trump. After photos surfaced showing evangelical pastors laying hands on and praying over Trump, North Carolina-based pastor William Barber said those pastors were practicing “theological malpractice bordering on heresy.”

Barber, the leader of several protest movements that have targeted Trump and his policies, said in an interview with MSNBC’s Joy Reid, “When you can p-r-a-y for a president and others while they are p-r-e-y, preying on the most vulnerable, you’re violating the most sacred principles of religion.”

This quote made me laugh: "There’s no guarantee President Trump will repent and change his ways.". I'd say there is a guarantee that Agent Orange won't repent and change his ways. Why should he? He's "winning".

It wouldn't surprise me if Agent Orange told Vander Plaats to fuck off.  Agent Orange probably figures he got his thirty pieces of silver worth out of the fundies and doesn't have to listen to them anymore. 

That said, if Agent Orange wants to tell Vander Plaats that I'd tell him to get in line.  There are many, many Iowans in line ahead of him to tell Vander Plaats to fuck off.  If he and Steve King moved out of Iowa the state would be a thousand times better.

[AmazonGrace]

Stay classy, Mooch: 

 

[GrumpyGran]

1 hour ago, AmazonGrace said:

Stay classy, Mooch: 

 

Hahahahahha, OMG, these people! They just can't keep their mouths shut. This is great. Let's start talking about who's sleeping with who. Who really believes that Preibus is the only one who has a side piece?

Please, please, please Reince, tell us all about it. 

[fraurosena]

17 hours ago, JMarie said:

I really need to start doing Pilates. Imagine what I could do if I were as flexible as Bannon.

Um. I'd rather not, if it's all the same to you...        

[fraurosena]

Lawrence O'Donnel had some hard truths about Scaramucci. 

http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/lawrence-scaramucci-a-pass-fail-moment-for-trump-s-judgment-1011825219841

Short recap: he is NOT a White House employee, and won't be until the sale of his hedgefund to a Chinese company has been approved by the committee on foreign investment in the United States. Mnuchin, Kelly, Sessions, Ross, Mattis, Tillerson, Perry and Lighthizer are the current members of that committee. Of these members Tillerson and  Sessions, do not have any reason to be favorably disposed to approve. Not only that, but how will they justify the obvious conflict of interests that will inevitably occur when the Chinese get an 'in' to the presidunce because of Scaramucci being indebted to them?

In other words, it stil lies in the realm of possibility that Scaramucci will NOT be appointed in his coveted role.

 

[GrumpyGran]

On 30/7/2017 at 5:00 PM, fraurosena said:

 In other words, it stil lies in the realm of possibility that Scaramucci will NOT be appointed in his coveted role.

 

Well, this gives Trump an easy out, doesn't it? I wouldn't be surprised if Trump secretly encourages some of them to vote again the sale. Scary Mooch has already been an embarrassment and, worse, a distraction. Mooch may even be looking for a graceful way out. 

Edited July 31, 2017 by laPapessaGiovanna
Snipping quote

[fraurosena]

Graceful? Graceful ?

@GrumpyGran,I don't think either he or the presidunce would know what that the heck that is if it hit them in the middle of the face.

Edited July 30, 2017 by fraurosena

[GrumpyGran]

35 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

Graceful? Graceful ?

@GrumpyGran,I don't think either he or the presidunce would know what that the heck that is if it hit them in the middle of the face.

Ok, well not too humiliating. If Mooch has any sense at all, he'll read the handwriting on the wall, and I think there actually is handwriting on the wall in the White House now. A week ago, he was riding high and he got what he wanted. Priebus gets the boot. But them Trump pulls a Trump on him and hires a General to replace Priebus. Mooch thought he wouldn't answer to anyone but Trump. But Trump is constantly looking for ways to intimidate his staff and now he's going the military route. Nothing for Mooch to connect to there. Trump expects Kelly to turn the White House into boot camp.