Politics and Celebrity Collide

[mountaineer]

 Limousine Liberal News:


Penn made ambassador for Haiti
Last Updated: 1:47 AM, January 16, 2012


Sean Penn was officially made an ambassador at large for Haiti on Saturday night for his relief work for the country, still reeling from the devastating earthquake two years ago. Penn was offered the job by the Haitian foreign minister Laurent Lamothe at the Cinema for Peace benefit at the Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills. “I do accept,” Penn said, adding it would be useful to “change being called hey you (bleep), to hey Mr. Ambassador!”

The event, which raised $5 million for Haiti, was attended by an A-list crowd including a very thin but happy-looking Demi Moore, Melanie Griffith, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Orlando Bloom, Mel Gibson, James Gandolfini and Hilary Swank. During the auction, singer Damien Rice spent $475,000 on Bono’s guitar while Roberts’ husband, Danny Moder, bid $50,000 on a trip to Haiti with Penn.

http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/penn_made_ambassador_for_haiti_e8wjm7PMM1To74kAdmzDjL#ixzz1jd53i3t4

[Oceander]

Maybe Penn should go try living as an ordinary Haitian for a while (that'd be the last we'd ever see of him; more's the pity that he'll never do that).

[mountaineer]

Maybe Barry has a secret Hollywood crush.  Big Hollywood reports:

Obama Celeb Wish-List: Most Powerful Man In World Sends Birthday Greeting to Sitcom Star

by Hollywoodland

President Barack Obama inherited a mess, or so we’re endlessly told by Obama’s celebrity backers. But the Commander in Chief apparently has enough time between fixing the economy, managing the war in Afghanistan and dealing with a near-nuclear Iran to send personal birthday greetings to a sitcom actress.

Obama fired off his best birthday cheer Jan. 9 to Zooey Deschanel, the adorable star of Fox’s “New Girl” sitcom:

"Michelle and I send our warmest wishes for a happy birthday … I hope your day is filled with love and laughter, and I wish you all the best for good health and happiness in the year ahead."

Sadly, Deschanel didn’t make the cut when it came time to crafting the president’s celebrity “surrogates” list, even though lesser lights such as Laura Breckenridge, Reagan Gomez and Eric Christian Olsen (“Dumb and Dumberer”) made the grade.

Deschanel is a star on the rise, no doubt. Perhaps this birthday missive will catapult her to not only greater fame but a higher rank on the president’s 2012 re-election campaign.

[Rapunzel]

oh brother!

[mountaineer]

Doofus.

Babes gravitate to ex-gov
Last Updated: 12:09 AM, January 24, 2012



David Paterson was living large on Friday night at Rare View Rooftop on West 26th Street, where he was surrounded by a bevy of beautiful women. [I don't mean to be insensitive, but how did he know?]

The ex-governor, in a dapper black suit and red tie, popped two bottles of Grey Goose at a reserved table. Paterson arrived solo, without wife Michelle, at 11:30 p.m., and stayed until past 2 a.m at the birthday party for fashion photographer Pierre Baz.

“He was surrounded by two or three women at his table the entire time,” a spy said. “People kept walking up to him and asking him to take a picture.” Paterson, who hosts an afternoon radio show on WOR-AM (710), had an aide with him at the club who chirped in his ear the name of each person.

“He seemed very shy,” our spy said. A rep for former gov said: “[He] was an invited guest in attendance at a birthday celebration for Pierre Baz. He spent time with a number of different guests.”

Despite him recently being seen in public less often with Michelle, the rep added, “He and his wife are doing well.”

Page Six

[mountaineer]

I was looking for a photo of that gawdawful ensemble Moochelle wore on Jay Leno's show, and stumbled upon this picture from last October when Obummer appeared on the program. Anyone else think the behavior of Jay's producer is just a little too "familiar"?


Jay must be thinking, "Geez, get a room!"

Now for Sasquatch:

OMG

[mountaineer]

Two items about little-watched cable news networks, from today's Page Six in the NY Post:

Anchors at play
  February 1, 2012

MSNBC anchors Lawrence O’Donnell and Tamron Hall have a romance spicing up off set. The single “Last Word” host, 60, has been quietly dating the pretty midday anchor and rising star at the network for months. The duo have kept their relationship low-profile in the studio but have been spotted canoodling at downtown haunts. O’Donnell, a “West Wing” producer who has a daughter with ex-wife Kathryn Harrold, was linked to actress Kerry Washington in 2008. MSNBC declined to comment.
_________________________________-

Waking up to TV tension
 February 1, 2012


A Lack of chemistry is already plaguing CNN’s new morning show “Early Start” as it attempts to gain footing one month after the launch. Hosts Ashleigh Banfield and Zoraida Sambolin “have expressed frustration about the schizophrenic nature of the show,” a source said. Another source said they just don’t gel — Banfield talks too much, Sambolin doesn’t say enough.

 Meanwhile, executives are looking to support Soledad O’Brien — who anchors the following morning show “Starting Point” solo, with a regular crop of panelists — and have expressed interest in adding conservative commentator Will Cain and CNN analyst Roland Martin to the cast. We also hear that executives are thinking about developing an 11 p.m. show. A network rep denies this, adding, “We couldn’t be more pleased with Soledad and the direction she is taking her program. Her newsmaking interviews and substantive panel discussions are the centerpiece of the program. Ashleigh and Zoraida are doing great.”

NY Post

[mountaineer]

Oprah finds her inner Jewishness. Or something.

Chutzpah Winfrey
A rare sitdown granted to Hasidic Web site
By MICHAEL STARR
Last Updated: 5:59 PM, February 10, 2012


Oprah Winfrey has discovered her inner Jewishness.

Winfrey, who rarely does interviews, sat for a TV chat with a Hasidic rabbi on the day last fall she immersed herself in Brooklyn’s Hasidic neighborhoods. The interview, produced by Oprah’s OWN network and posted Wednesday only on chabad.org, the Web site of the Lubavitcher sect, was a rare scoop for a site that deals mainly in religious practices.

“There’s more Hasidic Jew in me than I know,” says Winfrey — dressed in a modesty-preserving ankle-length skirt— at the end of the interview with Rabbi Motti Seligson, the Web site’s media liason.

“She was very real and very warm and easy to connect with,” Seligson told The Post yesterday. “What I really think was nice about this was [Winfrey’s] willingness to experience Hasidic life — as opposed to just going off stereotypes.”

Last October, Oprah took cameras into Hasidic homes in Borough Park, Crown Heights and a mikvah, a ritual bathhouse, in Brooklyn Heights as a part of her “America’s Hidden Culture” segment on her weekly “Oprah’s Next Chapter” show.

Seligson is briefly featured at the beginning of Sunday’s episode, in which Winfrey also visits the Ginsberg family.

In the interview, Winfrey says that her experience dispelled some of her misconceptions about Hasidic Jews.

“I have been perhaps, like most people who’ve walked down the street and seen Hasidic Jewish men, in particular . . . oftentimes wearing the hats and long beards and always found it somewhat formidable or intimidating,” she says.

“This experience has really confirmed and affirmed what I truly believe as one of my deep spiritual principles — that we’re all more alike than different.”

Winfrey also says she was “speechless” that, when she visited the Ginsberg family — and mentioned Mickey Mouse, Shrek, Beyoncé and Jay-Z to their kids — none of them recognized the references.

“They said they didn’t even care and weren’t even curious about it,” she tells Seligson.

“We live in a culture where seven-and-a-half hours a day are spent consumed by some electronic device . . . It’s amazing to me that, right across from Manhattan, there’s a whole world of children who aren’t doing that and who are happy, fulfilled and loved.”

“I had a few questions I wanted to ask her,” Seligson said yesterday, explaining innocently how he got the interview.

“I really wanted to hear about her experiences,” he said.

NY Post

[Rapunzel]

I don't think Oprah can decide what she is.

[mountaineer]

Samuel L. Jackson admits he's a racist, but that's a good thing.
---------------------
Politics of color
 February 11, 2012

Samuel L. Jackson said he voted for President Obama because of his color: “I voted for Barack because he was black. ’Cuz that’s why other folks vote for other people — because they look like them,” the actor says in an outspoken interview in the March issue of Ebony.

 Jackson sounds off on his feelings for Obama to writer Kevin Powell, saying: “That’s American politics, pure and simple. [Obama’s] message didn’t mean [bleep] to me. In the end, he’s a politician. I just hoped he would do some of what he said he was gonna do. I know politicians say [bleep]; they lie. ’Cuz they want to get elected.”

Repeatedly using the N-word, Jackson added that Obama’s philosophical presence had been universally appealing: “When it comes down to it, they wouldn’t have elected a [bleep]. Because, what’s a [bleep]? A [bleep] is scary. Obama ain’t scary at all. [Bleeps] don’t have beers at the White House. [Bleeps] don’t let some white dude, while you in the middle of a speech, call [him] a liar. A [bleep] would have stopped the meeting right there and said, ‘Who the [bleep] said that?’ I hope Obama gets scary in the next four years, ’cuz he ain’t gotta worry about getting re-elected.”

 Defending his repeated use of the taboo epithet, the “Pulp Fiction” Oscar nominee added, “[It] became a part of my vocabulary when I was born . . . Because it was used on me in my house, often . . . I know the word [bleep] as an admonishment, an endearment, a criticism and an invective. So I use it; I don’t run from it. I don’t have an issue with it or who says it. I always put it in the context of how it was used on me.”

Page Six

[mountaineer]

Ah, to be a limousine liberal!

Working on Maggie’s farm
Last Updated: 8:25 AM, February 12, 2012

Are Maggie Gyllenhaal and other Brooklyn boldfaces shirking their shifts at the clubby Park Slope Food Co-op?

According to sources, Gyllenhaal is one of the many celebs and VIPs in the stroller-heavy neighborhood who send minions to work the two-hour, 45-minute monthly shifts required to maintain good standing with the co-op and gain access to its organic quinoa, kale, black futsu squash, Mutsu apples and other produce.

Neighborhood blogs first reported that co-op members were sending nannies, cleaning staff and personal assistants to work their shifts. Annoyed residents say the practice is out of control among the co-op’s wealthier members.

 “Everyone in Park Slope is talking about the wealthy members of the co-op sending people in their place to do their shifts,” one groused. “[The co-op] doesn’t know how to do deal with it. The celebrities are sending other people. While Gyllenhaal has done shifts, she has also been sending somebody else to do her shifts.”

Another frustrated member told us: “I don’t have a cleaning lady or any staff to send. I had to hire baby sitters at night to take care of my kids while I did my shifts. It’s ridiculous!”

Other organic devotees say they’ve seen Gyllenhaal toiling away. “She definitely has done her own shifts,” one vegetarian spy said. “And she even brought her brother [Jake Gyllenhaal].” The source explained that Maggie Gyllenhaal does not “do her shifts on the floor,” but rather in “private areas” so as not to cause commotions, or spills, in any aisles.

But an insider said that “fancy members, like big actors,” can arrange “future time-off plans, or FTOP, so if they go on location, they can skip future shifts.”

A rep for Gyllenhaal told us, “She doesn’t have an assistant.” But when we asked if she was sending another stand-in, the rep said: “Who would go? She doesn’t have anyone in her employ except me, and I don’t do it.” A rep for the co-op told us, “We do not give out information regarding our members.”

http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/working_on_maggie_farm_xvdQggXZrKu2rBPNUijmiJ#ixzz1mB1Efpmh

I wouldn't know Maggie G. if I tripped over her, and it's a little hard to believe the very sight of her would cause commotions or spillages. 

[mountaineer]

Actor David Cross does cocaine in the White House, 65 feet from Obama.  I bet Obama is wishing he'd shared a little.

'How I snorted cocaine 65 feet from Obama': Comedian David Cross reveals he did drugs at White House event
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 3:37 AM on 21st February 2012


Comedian David Cross claims he snorted cocaine at a White House event, just feet away from President Barack Obama -- just so he could say he did it.

The 47-year-old funnyman, best known for playing Tobias Fünke in 'Arrested Development,' claims he was attending the White House Correspondents Dinner in 2009 when he did the drugs.

Cross has long been open about his history of drug use and abuse and hard-partying, but this claim is remarkable, even for him.

 He has made the statement previously in his stand-up shows, but it was never clear whether he was being serious or not. However, Cross dished details of the incident during an interview appearing in the March issue of Playboy magazine, due out later this week.

'It was a tiny granule of coke that I put on my wrist and said, “Watch this. I need a witness.” And then I ducked under the table and did it,' he said.

Cook claimed he was about 65 feet from the president at the event when he snorted the drugs.

'It wasn’t like I got high. The jolt was similar to licking an empty espresso cup. It wasn’t about that. It was just about being able to say that I did it, that I did cocaine in the same room as the president. I’m not proud of it, nor am I ashamed of it,' he told Playboy.

 He was at the dinner as a guest of his fiance, actress Amber Tamblyn. He says involving her in his drug use is his only regret from the incident. 'I was her date, her plus-one, and she got dragged through the mud because of what I did. She had nothing to do with it. She didn’t know I was going to do it,' he said.

'And because of that she’ll never be invited to the White House again. That’s not cool.'

Obama, himself, is no stranger to cocaine. In his book 'Dreams from My Father,' he admitted to smoking marijuana and doing 'a little coke' as a young man.

Daily Mail U.K.

[mountaineer]

Probably the first time he's changed his underwear in nine years ...

Old tux, new shoes
Last Updated: 11:50 PM, February 25, 2012

While stars are working on their red-carpet looks for tonight’s Oscars, schlubby director Michael Moore is going with a familiar one. “I’ll be wearing the same [tux] I wore when I won the Oscar nine years ago,” he tells The Post’s Billy Heller, referring to his Best Documentary Feature win for “Bowling for Columbine.” But at least the director and Academy board of governors member is splurging for some new garments, including a more comfortable pair of shoes “and a change of underwear.”

Page Six

[Rapunzel]

Unbelievable....... EOnline goes to PDiddy arriving... he gets out of his SUV and has some white guy with a roller rolling his tux to make certain there isn't any fuzz and while this is going on Diddy is primping in the window of the car while some hot blond in the car is taking his picture on her cell phone..., then he puts his foot up for the guy to check his shoes...... can we say giant ego?

[Oceander]

Samuel L. Jackson admits he's a racist, but that's a good thing.
---------------------
Politics of color
 February 11, 2012

Samuel L. Jackson said he voted for President Obama because of his color: “I voted for Barack because he was black. ’Cuz that’s why other folks vote for other people — because they look like them,” the actor says in an outspoken interview in the March issue of Ebony.

 Jackson sounds off on his feelings for Obama to writer Kevin Powell, saying: “That’s American politics, pure and simple. [Obama’s] message didn’t mean [bleep] to me. In the end, he’s a politician. I just hoped he would do some of what he said he was gonna do. I know politicians say [bleep]; they lie. ’Cuz they want to get elected.”

Repeatedly using the N-word, Jackson added that Obama’s philosophical presence had been universally appealing: “When it comes down to it, they wouldn’t have elected a [bleep]. Because, what’s a [bleep]? A [bleep] is scary. Obama ain’t scary at all. [Bleeps] don’t have beers at the White House. [Bleeps] don’t let some white dude, while you in the middle of a speech, call [him] a liar. A [bleep] would have stopped the meeting right there and said, ‘Who the [bleep] said that?’ I hope Obama gets scary in the next four years, ’cuz he ain’t gotta worry about getting re-elected.”

 Defending his repeated use of the taboo epithet, the “Pulp Fiction” Oscar nominee added, “[It] became a part of my vocabulary when I was born . . . Because it was used on me in my house, often . . . I know the word [bleep] as an admonishment, an endearment, a criticism and an invective. So I use it; I don’t run from it. I don’t have an issue with it or who says it. I always put it in the context of how it was used on me.”

Page Six

Great; don't let the door hitcha on the way out, little man.

[mountaineer]

“I voted for Barack because he was black. ’Cuz that’s why other folks vote for other people — because they look like them,” the actor says ...

So far, no presidential candidate has looked like me, but that didn't prevent me from voting for the one I thought would best preserve the republic.

[mountaineer]

Eliot Spitzer testing the waters?


Spitz puts toe in
Last Updated: 11:47 PM, March 9, 2012

Eliot Spitzer’s return to national politics with a fund-raiser at his Fifth Avenue home for Washington state gubernatorial hopeful Jay Inslee was a low-key affair. Sources tell us that wife Silda Spitzer was front and center at the party on Monday for Democrat Inslee. We’re told guests included billionaire John Catsimatidis and Spitzer’s lawyer friends, including J effrey Moerdler and his former Horace Mann pals, Ropes & Gray partner Jason Brown and trusts and estate attorney Herb Nass. Also there was Democratic lobbyist and consulting firm owner Tonio Burgos. Sources had speculated that fund-raising is also a chance for Spitzer to test the political waters without drawing too much attention.

Page Six

[Oceander]

So far, no presidential candidate has looked like me, but that didn't prevent me from voting for the one I thought would best preserve the republic.

Which just makes you a racist - in the eyes of the left, that is.

[Oceander]

Eliot Spitzer testing the waters?


Spitz puts toe in
Last Updated: 11:47 PM, March 9, 2012

Eliot Spitzer’s return to national politics with a fund-raiser at his Fifth Avenue home for Washington state gubernatorial hopeful Jay Inslee was a low-key affair. Sources tell us that wife Silda Spitzer was front and center at the party on Monday for Democrat Inslee. We’re told guests included billionaire John Catsimatidis and Spitzer’s lawyer friends, including J effrey Moerdler and his former Horace Mann pals, Ropes & Gray partner Jason Brown and trusts and estate attorney Herb Nass. Also there was Democratic lobbyist and consulting firm owner Tonio Burgos. Sources had speculated that fund-raising is also a chance for Spitzer to test the political waters without drawing too much attention.

Page Six

Again Eliot Spitzer?  Oy Vey!

[mountaineer]

CNN power duo separate
Last Updated: 12:50 AM, March 21, 2012

CNN political power couple John King — ruler of the dynamic data-crunching, touch-screen election map — and Dana Bash have split after less than four years of marriage.

 A friend of the couple told us: “ and John have been separated for the last several months. They continue to co-parent their young son and to work together . . . They ask that their privacy be respected during this difficult time.” They were married in May 2008 in Cape Cod, Mass., and King, who was raised Irish Catholic, converted to Judaism before the wedding (“I’m studying to convert and will consider inviting you to my bar mitzvah,” King told Page Six at the time).

We’re told that “Magic Wall” wizard King has no current intention of reconverting. Bash, a CNN senior congressional correspondent, gave birth to their son, Jonah, in June. Now, Bash and King are living in separate homes in Washington, DC. Friends say Bash has appeared on King’s show since the split. A CNN rep said, “We don’t comment on personal matters.”

Page Six

[mountaineer]

Schwarzenegger and Shriver postpone divorce proceedings:

Arnold Schwarzenegger is still working hard to charm back Maria Shriver and get back into the good graces of her powerful family. The former California governor made a speech at Audemars Piguet’s Royal Oak 40 Years exhibition gala in New York, repeatedly praising “my wife’s family” and especially the work done by his “amazing mother-in-law” Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who founded the Special Olympics and was a strong advocate for children’s health and disability issues before she passed away in 2009 at age 88.

 Sources tell us Schwarzenegger has been working hard to patch things up with Maria after she filed for divorce last July when he admitted fathering a son with their housekeeper. We revealed he and Shriver have tried therapy and delayed their divorce proceedings, setting the next court date for July 1, 2016 — more than four years away.

Schwarzenegger spoke Wednesday to a crowd at the Park Avenue Armory that included Patriots star Tom Brady, Ed Burns, Swizz Beatz, Tiki Barber, Prudential powerhouse Dolly Lenz, Olivier Audemars, François-Henry Bennahmias and Philippe Merk. Yesterday, the Governator swooped into Upper East Side eatery Nello for lunch, grinning at diners, and ordered gnocchi with truffles. Witnesses said other patrons, including Garlic NY Pizza Bar owner Sasha Berg, who was dining with real estate developer Jeff Burack, were dumbstruck.

One patron told us, “The restaurant went silent, apart from one person who cried, ‘What the [bleep]?’ It didn’t faze him that a large group of paparazzi was clamoring outside. Schwarzenegger chatted to his staff, enjoyed his dish and said hello to restaurateur Nello Balan.”

Page Six

[mountaineer]

Former 'ER' star Noah Wyle arrested in DC protest
By MICHAEL WEINFELD | Associated Press – 1 hr 9 mins ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former "ER" star Noah Wyle and more than 100 members of the group ADAPT have been arrested during a Capitol Hill protest to urge Congress not to cut Medicaid.

The protesters, many in wheelchairs, were handcuffed in the rotunda of the Cannon House Office Building.

Wyle and members of ADAPT say any cuts in Medicaid spending would force people with disabilities and the elderly out of their homes and into nursing homes to get the services they need.

[Rapunzel]

busy day on Page Six   

[mountaineer]

Bust comes between Calvins
 April 25, 2012

Calvin Klein’s younger boyfriend Nick Gruber was arrested after punching a man, also named Calvin, he took home after a party.

Gruber, the 22-year-old ex-porn star paramour of the 69-year-old fashion icon allegedly hit Calvin Swint, 20 — who’s believed to work as an intern for New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg — on the balcony of his Greenwich Street penthouse during a 4:20 a.m. fight yesterday.

Sources tell The Post’s Kirstan Conley that when cops arrived, Gruber flailed his arms to avoid being cuffed and shoved his hands into his pants. Police found cocaine in Gruber’s underwear when he was later searched.

Other sources tell Page Six that Gruber — who had an on/off relationship with Klein and was recently reconciled with him — has some explaining to do since “Calvin paid his rent two years upfront, and was just saying how happy he was in the relationship.” Klein is also sober.

Gruber was arraigned last night at Manhattan Criminal Court on a felony charge of possessing a stimulant and two misdemeanors — resisting arrest and assault with intent to cause physical injury.

But Swint told The Post he didn’t want to press charges: “I don’t want to be involved in any of this. We’re good friends, end of story.”

Swint added, “Everybody expects Nick to be somebody. He’s a great guy, he’s a funny guy — he’ll make it, he was talking about going to college. I’m absolutely not in a relationship with him. He’s like my brother, so if he was angry, I could understand why he could take it out on me. We all get depressed sometimes. I feel for him. No one else was on the balcony, just us. It happened, and then I left. I felt embarrassed . . . I’ve never been in a fight before. I went downstairs, and the doorman asked if they should call the police because my eye was bleeding . . . I’m sorry this happened.”

Klein’s rep couldn’t be reached. Gruber’s lawyer, Ben Brafman said he was “confident” the charges “will be dismissed.”
 http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/bust_comes_between_calvins_qrvHq2g2ufwCAVznBZWIWO#ixzz1t3EpsdLA

[DCPatriot]

Unlikely mingling: Lindsay is pictured next to former Presidential hopeful Rick Santorum at the star-studded bash


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2136823/Lindsay-Lohan-glams-White-House-Correspondents-Dinner-2012.html

The look on his face.....priceless!