Now we know. The mystery may be solved. This video explains the possible Christie connection to the George Washington Bridge and the mysterious shutdown of many of its lanes…for days.
To Chris Christie, it is all a political game.
Tag: scandal
Well, it was starting to feel as if this day would never come, but the highly anticipated Scandal has returned!
I remained spoiler free for the debut episode of Season 3, so I went into tonight’s show with no idea what to expect for the Season Premiere.
I’m going to keep this one brief as I’m way too excited just to have the show back on my TV screen again.
But to make sure Scandal has returned back to its scandalous levels of drama, I made a list to see if the Season Premiere measures up to what we’ve come to expect from this over-the-top Scandalmania.
Let’s begin shall we:
- WTF moments such as Daddy Dearest heading B613 and all 3 players in the love triangle (Olivia, President Grant, and Mellie) working together to resolve the affair for the media-hungry – Check
- President Grant still in love/lusting over Olivia Pope – Check
- Huck and Harrison coming to the rescue and being their regular Captain-Save-a-
WHORE-Olivia selves – Check
- The obligatory It’s been handled (hee!) – Check
- Mellie’s ever plotting and running around the White House – Check
- Olivia making an appearance on the Best Dressed List (She was rockin’ that white coat) – Check
- Olitz still steaming up my TV screen up with their red hot chemistry- Cheeeeck
- Cyrus and his wondrous one-liners, The Lord didn’t fill out his voter registration card!! Oh Cyrus, you devil you – Check
- Discovering President Fitzgerald “Fitz” Grant III (yes, him) was the one to leak Olivia Pope’s name to the media??? – Double Whammy Check
- And of course a cliff-hanger ending that only leads to more questions – What exactly is in that folder??? – %#$^% CHECK!
Oh, and I must give props to Daddy Pope. He was bringing it with the,
First Lady?? First Lady?? Do you have to be SO mediocre??
And let’s not forget,
You’ll get on that plane over hell or high water. And let me be clear that I am hell AND high water.
Daaang Daddy.
He was reading Olivia Pope all episode long. Now we know where she gets it from…. – Check
Sigh. Oh yes,
My show is back.
MY.SHOW.IS.BACK!! – CHECK.
Now, I know if you’re a Scandal fan, I don’t have to ask if you saw the Season Finale last night, “White Hats Back On”. Last night, Scandal delivered in so many ways and left us with a OMG..WTF?? cliffhanger that would undoubtedly keep us coming back for more in Season 3.
So let’s hit on some key characters and WOW moments from last night’s Season Finale.
1) Billy Chambers – We should have learned from the classic soap operas, that if we don’t see a dead body, then we we can never assume that the character is ‘really most sincerely dead‘. So, Billy Chambers came ready to inflict some comeuppance on the people who ‘destroyed’ his life and turned him into a murderer (so he says). And he’s partnered up with Mr. White Hat himself, David Rosen?? Can’t be! I really can’t deal with this betrayal from David. More on that Later…
2) Quinn – Wow, we have baby Huck on our heads now. While Huck is recuperating and transitioning away from his torturing days, here comes Quinn to pick up right where he left off. Of course this sent Huck right back into his little scary “752” corner. Not good.
3) Governor Reston – I guess he’s still mad that he scandalously lost the election 4 years ago. The Governor has gone so far as to join forces with the murdering and undead Billy Chambers in attempts to blackmail President Grant so that he can be on the ticket for the next election. Power is one helluva drug.
4) Jake – I just don’t know how to feel about this guy. A part of me loves this character because he has become so devoted to Olivia, but I also despise him a little because he is a serious threat to my Olitz. I’m so confused and conflicted. Damn you, Shonda!!! Anyways, as expected, he saves Olivia’s life (again) while putting his own life on the line and putting himself into that tiny hole of torture. Just find a happy place, Jake.
5) Mellie – Girlfriend is the true definition of a woman scorned and I can sympathized with her desire to win here, but the biggest problem most of us have with her plight is that she doesn’t love Fitz; She only loves the power that comes with him and just winning. Yet, I must give props to Bellamy Young who plays this character to the tee. You just love to hate her.
6) President Grant – Oh man, I was feeling me some Fitz last night. Taking ownership and control of the Defiance group who got him in this mess to begin with, putting Mellie in her place, and never wavering from his decision of choosing Olivia to become his First Lady. His speech to Mellie while in the hospital was deliciously good. But really Fitz, putting your head in Mellie’s lap ever so gently and humbly?? I can’t drink this Kool-Aid for one second. Nope.
7) Cyrus Beene – I’m telling you, Jeff Perry needs a nomination for his acting on this show. The escalation of earnest and desperation which ultimately leads to Cyrus’ heart attack was acted so perfectly! No surprise that even with a failed heart, he is still gunning full-steam ahead. Cyrus just doesn’t stop until the job gets done because he is ‘the only grownup in the room.’ But, I was relieved that he didn’t betray his friends, except for that sex-tape part and the ‘your boyfriend is a murderer‘ part. Not cool, Cy. Not cool.
8) David Rosen – This one had my head tripping from last week when we saw him exchange evil trade-offs with Billy Chambers and last night, we continued to see how he was playing Olivia Pope and her associates to gain access to the Cytron card. But, I should have known better. David Rosen stays true to his character. He loves truth and justice and the reveal of how and why he was really in cahoots with Bill Chambers was so so satisfying. Now, my David is US Attorney and well-deserved my friend. Brilliant chess game. Just Brilliant. White hats all around!
9) Olivia Pope – What??? Fitz finally gives you everything you have been dreaming and hoping for and you give it all up. What??? I mean I know this had to happen to ensure more Olitz longing and fascination for next season, but it was still hard to witness, especially that Fitz on his knees and in Mellie’s lap thing. Yes, I’m still talking about it!! And now Olivia Pope’s face is going to be all over the news, tabloids, blogs, etc… I’m stressed just thinking about it.
10) Dad??? – Yesssss, I know most of us reacted with the the ‘Are you **** kidding me??, Huh??, OMG!!, What the h…?! You know, any variations of those reactions were fitting here. I did not see that coming. AT. ALL. So many questions now. Did Daddy Pope try to get her killed? Did he leak her name out to the press as the mistress? Does his daughter even know that he is in charge of B613? What is going on??
Overall, fantastic episode and once I think I have it all figured it, I realize that I don’t know what in the Olivia Pope’s name is going on!! Sigh, I love this show, and I can’t wait for more.
See you guys next season!!!
Okay, so last week I talked about The Walking Dead and all its glory, but now I must give mention to my true TV guilty pleasure and that is the uncompromising Shonda Rhimes’ tv creation, Scandal.
The show is celebrating its 1 year anniversary today, April 5, 2013 and has attracted quite a bit of a cult-like following.
Why are so many flocking to this show?
Well, one big reason revolves around a small, little word:
Olitz
And if you’re a fan of this show, then you already know what that means, but let me digress for a bit and give you a bit of a backdrop on this crazy mayhem of a TV show.
Scandal is featured in Washington, DC where politics leads itself to some simple, complicated, and veering all the way to the absolutely bizarre and insane happenings of a scandal.
People who wake up one day and find themselves in a mess they could never venture out of without a media catastrophe occurring to completely ruin their elitist careers.
This is where Olivia Pope, played by the illustrious Kerry Washington, and her team of Pope & Associates (Gladiators in Suits) come in to ‘fix’ the situation and manage a crisis that has gone unhinged. Most weeks we get to view a scandal that Olivia Pope and her team rescues with leaving the clientele as unscathed as possible (sometimes, not always) that often include some twisty turns to keep you guessing until the end.
Yet, the bigger storyline that has everyone on pins and needles is the story that revolves around Olitz. Yes, Olitz. You see, Olivia Pope once was a White House Communications Director before forming her crisis management team. A position that had her working very closely with the current President Fitzgerald Grant(Tony Goldwyn). A man who captured her heart while helping his campaign and run for presidency.
As you may have already guessed, the two developed a striking tortured love saga that becomes quite the messy triangle due to the fact that the President is of course married to Mellie (Bellamy Young) with children. Granted his marriage is more of a business, political arrangement with no love lost between the two, and Mellie will stop at nothing to remain in political power and that includes tolerating an illicit affair of her husband with a woman she hates.
And as Ewww as the affair sounds when written, it is this relationship between Olivia and Fitz that has everyone tuning in wondering what will happen next with those two and the crazy world they both have to manage with no consolation. From the first episode that we meet Olitz, the two characters express a chemistry (HOT!) that is rarely captured on a television show and people are mesmerized by it. It also helps that creator and writer of the show, Shonda Rhimes, delivers these awesome roller coaster rides as we go through scandals that pepper not only Olivia Pope and her team, but just the worlds of all those involved with Olivia and the President.
This show is not for everyone. You really have to take a bit of your own personal morality out of the picture when watching this because no character is purely black or white. They all have various shades of grey that they must accept which makes this show fascinating as there is no real Good Guy. Just a bunch of people trying to do a little bit of good, if it allows, to save the day.
This show has it all and with a strong cast like Jeff Perry who plays Cyrus, (the President’s right-hand man), Joshua Malina as David Rosen, (the US attorney always losing out to Olivia Pope), and the remaining team of Pope & Associates that really help to bring home a deliciously scandalous viewing pleasure.
Categories
We Were Supposed To Be Passed This
On Saturday, it was exposed that a Miami area clinic was being investigated for ties to steroids but details were not clear. Tuesday morning, the picture became much, much clearer. According to an in depth article that was three months in the making published in this morning’s Miami New Times, Anthony Bosch was the head of Biogenesis of America, a clinic which had a list of clients that included several notable MLB players. Most notably, Alex Rodriguez is said to be a client of Bosch’s and although Rodriguez had already admitted to using steroids during his career, he assured the MLB Commissioners Office that his use was limited to 2001-2003. Evidence acquired from the investigation into Biogenesis of America is suggesting that A-Rod was lying. There is evidence that suggests A-Rod was using PEDs in 2009 after his admission to using band substances and during the Yankees’ World Series run as well as in 2010, 2011 and 2012.
The other players that have been named so far are Melky Cabrera, Gio Gonzalez, Bartolo Colon, Nelson Cruz, Yasmani Grandal and even former University of Miami star pitcher Cesar Carrillio. The implications are said to be well founded and if proven true, MLB would be well within their rights to suspend all players involved. Alex Rodriguez is looking at a bad situation since it seems he lied during an official investigation by MLB. According to the agreement between the MLB and MLBPA, the league does not need a positive drug test to suspend a player for breaking the drug policy. They just need proof of an infraction. MLB may be able to treat each season as a different infraction and possibly ban A-Rod for life. It is a far fetched situation but if the commissioner finds it necessary to make an example out of him it could end up happening.
Alex has completely destroyed his legacy. By admitting to using steroids early in his career and being found to use them late in his career, there is little doubt that he has used PEDs for most if not all of his play. He will never be the “clean” player to break the all time home run record or even break the record at all. He will never realize his dream of owning a professional baseball team, MLB would never allow it. He likely blew his chance at the Hall of Fame after being viewed as a first ballot Hall of Famer. If the Yankees succeed at voiding A-Rod’s contract and no other team wants to take a risk on him, A-Rod may never reach his 3,000 hit.
Alex is denying the allegations in a statement he put out today. The statement said; “The news report about a purported relationship between Alex Rodriguez and Anthony Bosch are not true, Alex Rodriguez was not Mr. Bosch’s patient, he was never treated by him and he was never advised by him. The purported documents referenced in the story — at least as they relate to Alex Rodriguez — are not legitimate.”
The Yankees then released a statement of their own. After the team supported him in ’09 during his first steroid scandal, it was interesting to see which direction the organization would go. The statement read as follows; “We fully support the Commissioner’s Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program, This matter is now in the hands of the Commissioner’s Office. We will have no further comment until that investigation has concluded.” There was no mention of A-Rod at all. It seems the Yankees are done supporting him.
I tuned in last night like many others, to see if I could forgive a man who used to command much of my respect. Lance Armstrong had a great chance last night to own it all. Oprah gave him the platform to take the bull by the horns and fess up to everything he was guilty of. That’s what I expected of him last night and I think that’s what Oprah expected. Sadly, Armstrong let us all down.
He admitted to using banned substances for every single Tour De France victory and for the first 15 minutes of the interview it seemed like this was going well. Then Armstrong took a weird turn, telling Oprah he never pressured a single teammate to do the things he was doing because he “never outright told them to use PEDs.” Oprah tried to make a point that Armstrong was the leader of his team and since he was so open about his steroid use, when he told a teammate that he wanted them to step up and do better, this pressure to take PEDs was implied. Oprah’s point was met by an argument over semantics. Armstrong conceded that he was supposed to lead by example but then pushed the fact that he never said the words “do steroids” so he was not guilty of pressuring anyone.
That was not the only time Armstrong claimed innocence based on semantics. Oprah asked him while he was doping, if he realized he was cheating. He answered with a clear and firm “no.” Oprah was blown away so she pushed the topic. “How could you not realize you we’re cheating?” Oprah asked. Armstrong then explained that he had looked up the definition of cheating and that it was defined as gaining an unfair advantage over an opponent or foe. He said that he never did that. Armstrong’s argument is that everyone else was on performance enhancing drugs so he never gained an unfair advantage.
Lance Armstrong struck me as a cheating spouse who was only owning up to what they were caught doing instead of owning the whole situation. I didn’t see his confession as genuine. Maybe it was just a sad attempt to stay relevant but he has attacked so many people for accusing him of things he really did that if he is not going to own everything and apologize to every person he sued, this whole interview is moot.
The topic of his ex teammate’s wife came up. Betsy Andreu had told people that she heard Armstrong tell a doctor that he had done a whole list of banned substances. Armstrong not only sued her for this but he called her a “crazy whore.” Andreu was under the impression Armstrong called her a “crazy fat whore.” Armstrong made a point of saying that he did call her a crazy whore but that he never called her fat. So I guess that makes it all better.
Armstrong didn’t lose all my respect by doing all the things he did. He lost my respect last night when he somehow confessed but still took almost no responsibility for what he did. He claimed it was all on him but everything he said last night leads me to believe that he still doesn’t see anything wrong with what he did.
Before I end this post, I’ll leave you with this final point. Mark McGwire used steroids to prolong a career of high production. A career where his home run and RBI totals were always high as long as he was healthy. Roger Clemens is without a doubt, one of the best pitchers to ever grace the mound. He used steroids when he saw his career starting to decline. He used them to keep an already very successful career going. Lance Armstrong would have been a nobody if he didn’t take PED’s. That’s the difference between him and every other great athlete that cheated. He built his career on lies.
Words of wisdom coming from David Axelrod, the top strategist and adviser to President Obama, suggesting that the more Newt Gingrich leads in the polls, the more scrutiny he’ll get. And with scrutiny, the skeletons come falling out!
Discussing the GOP primary electorate, Axelrod said, “All the energy is on the side of the Tea Party folks. And Gov. Romney comes from that other tradition of the Republican Party. And ya got to give him credit for trying. He’s done everything but light himself on fire for the last eight weeks trying to win.”
Then Axelrod turned to Gingrich–who has resurrected his candidacy after nearly tanking earlier in the year.
“Now Newt is back. Last week you all left him for dead at the checkout counter at Tiffany’s and now he’s back, a lion in winter,” Axelrod quipped. “That’s L-I-O-N by the way, I don’t want to stir up any trouble here.”
The Obama team has been tying Gingrich to the Tea Party movement, and Axelrod reinforced this messaging at the briefing.
“In certain ways [Gingrich] fits the role for this, because as we pointed out earlier in the week he is the original tea partier. You know, he brought that kind of politics to Congress in the early 90s, he led three government shut downs in order to try and roll back environmental protection…roll back the Department of Education and education programs, he wanted to cut Medicare, he wanted to give more tax cuts to the wealthy. He was really a forerunner of what we see today.”
Axelrod also noted that Gingrich has a long record that will be scrubbed and scrutinized.
“So the question is, can he sustain this over time?,” Axelrod said.
“I told my colleagues yesterday a bit of homespun wisdom that I got from an alderman in Chicago some years ago when one of his …colleagues wanted to run for higher office and he was really dubious. He said, ‘just remember the higher a monkey climbs on a pole, the more you can see his butt.’ So, you know, the Speaker is very high on the pole right now and we’ll see how people like the view.”
Just what you need – a vision of Newt’s monkey butt. Hope you’re not having dinner. 🙂