scandal Archives - Where Is The Outrage?

News Roundup: Severe Flooding, Snowden, Jobs, IRS

For the last four or five days we’ve had torrential rains with severe flooding which has been unrelenting. We are in a flash flood watch through Sunday evening.

It appears that both Venezuela and Nicaragua are interested in granting Edward Snowden asylum. I know that there have been some Americans who believe that Edward Snowden has done a great thing. They believe that Snowden has become the conversation over safety versus personal liberties. I would suggest, though, that there has been no conversation. Instead, we’ve had pundits yelling at each other without any real discussion over this topic.

The new jobs report is out. The economy picked up 195,000 jobs. We desperately need more. The economy has gained over a fifth of the jobs lost in the great recession. We’ve got a long way to go. (more…)

By ecthompsonmd|2013-07-08T21:43:39-04:00July 6th, 2013|Civil Rights, Economy, Environment, Foreign Affairs, Taxes|2 Comments

Sergio versus Tiger

Sergio Garcia

As many of you who follow my blog know, I picked up golf about three years ago. Prior to picking up a club, I called golf a stupid game which I really didn’t understand. Now that I’ve taken lessons and have played, it is still a stupid game which I really don’t understand, but I find enjoyable. 🙂 In golf, just like in many other sports, we look for something more. We look for something exciting. We look for something titillating. We couldn’t get enough of the Tiger Woods scandal. This brings me to two weeks ago at the Players Championship. Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia had words. Tiger Woods, who was some 50 yards away from Sergio, pulled a club out of his bag and that caused the gallery to gasp. This noise occurred right in the middle of Sergio’s backswing. The golf ball sliced to the left off into the woods (to be honest, that golf shot looked very similar to many of mine, except I don’t quite get that kind of distance). This simple incident caused the kind of petty back-and-forth that we regularly see in stupidly contrived reality shows like Survivor.

This brings us to the latest in the Tiger Woods/Sergio Garcia saga. Sergio Garcia was at a European tour awards dinner in London when he was asked by a reporter whether he would ever invite Tiger Woods over for dinner (I’m paraphrasing). Sergio Garcia said, “We will have him round every night. We will serve fried chicken.” Fried chicken? Really? You do not have to be a linguistic expert to understand that this is a problem. Tiger Woods, who really has no love for Sergio Garcia and who has had more than his own share of media fiascoes, was happy to take the high road and watch Sergio cause his own implosion. Tiger Woods stated through his Twitter account, “The comment that was made wasn’t silly. It was wrong, hurtful and clearly inappropriate. I’m confident that there is real regret that the remark was made. The Players ended nearly two weeks ago and it’s long past time to move on and talk about golf.” (more…)

By ecthompsonmd|2013-05-25T20:52:17-04:00May 23rd, 2013|Race, Sports|Comments Off

Scandal? (Update)

I know that there are some who feel that they are oh, so close to seeing the end of the Obama administration. These are the same people who thought that Mitt Romney was going to win the general election. This, of course, was in spite of overwhelming data suggesting otherwise. President Barack Obama is facing a trifecta of scandals. Let’s investigate each of the scandals separately.

Confused

Benghazi. This is the gift that keeps on giving. At long last it appears the conservatives actually have traction on this issue. Yet, there’s really nothing here. The administration initially stated that there were demonstrations before the Benghazi attack. This was wrong. The administration admitted their mistake. They came clean to the American people before the November election. Basically, an ambassador was in an extremely dangerous situation. He had an adequate security. We have a detailed report which clearly points the finger at the State Department. On top of that, we know that Secretary Clinton warned of budget cuts which could have serious ramifications. Today, the latest is that ABC News, which claimed that they had the original email trail of the talking points, really didn’t have the real trail. Jake Tapper blew the lid off of this false reporting by ABC News. (The White House has released more e-mails. We have seen these before, just in a different format.)

IRS scandal. Last night, President Obama accepted the resignation of acting IRS Commissioner Stephen Miller. I agree with the president. The IRS must be a nonpartisan organization. Those who are responsible for this craziness need to be singled out and punished. (more…)

By ecthompsonmd|2013-05-16T20:51:00-04:00May 16th, 2013|Obama administration, Party Politics|Comments Off