Politics and Celebrity Collide

[mountaineer]

She's actively seeking too much air time not to be prepping for a political run - despite her utter lack of intelligence, experience or any other quality.

Chelsea Clinton talks ‘pressure’ to have kids
Page Six Team
October 9, 2013 | 4:28pm



Chelsea Clinton admits to talk show host Rachael Ray that her political parents, Bill and Hillary Clinton, are pressuring her to have a child.

In an appearance on “Rachael Ray” airing Friday, Clinton admits her parents have expressed “completely unapologetic” pressure, while the family of her husband, Marc Mezvinsky, is letting the couple plan children on their own time.

“My husband has 10 brothers and sisters, so we have 18, almost 19, nieces and nephews, so there’s not pressure from that side of the family,” Chelsea said.  “But from my parents there is completely unapologetic pressure. In private and in public. If one of my parents were sitting here, they would tell you without blinking an eye that it would make them the happiest thing on earth if I were to make them grandparents, and they would say it so effusively, and I would feel a little bit of pressure.”

Chelsea talked to Ray about her work with the Clinton Foundation’s Alliance for a Healthier Generation, as well as her life before Mezvinsky. When asked whether or not her first kiss was at the White House, the former first daughter admitted it was “in the boy who was going to become my boyfriend’s basement.  [Huh?]

“It was when I was living in the White House. I lived there from the ages of 12 until 20, so I would hope that somewhere in that time I would have had that right of passage,” Chelsea admitted. “But it was not actually in the White House.”

Right of passage? 
 Spelling and grammar are optional.

[mountaineer]

More from the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. diary, in which it turns out the Kennedys behaved *surprise!* boorishly after JFK Jr.'s death.

Kennedys feuded before bodies were recovered from JFK Jr.’s flight
By Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein
NY Post
November 3, 2013 | 4:09am

Environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. kept secret diaries that were found by his wife, Mary, who committed suicide last year in the midst of a contentious divorce. The Post, which was provided copies of the journals by a source, previously reported how the volumes detailed RFK’s “lust demons” while chronicling his sexual conquests with 37 women. Now, newly revealed entries show the family’s reaction to JFK Jr.’s death in 1999.

The tragic death of John F. Kennedy Jr. was marked by deep sorrow — and intense family bickering over the funerals before the bodies were even recovered, according to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s secret diary.

The journal’s entries in the aftermath of the July 16, 1999, plane crash that killed Kennedy, 38, wife Carolyn Bessette, 33, and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette, 34, provide a rare eyewitness account of the intensely private scene at the Kennedy compound and the petty, tense squabbling over whether Carolyn deserved the royal Kennedy treatment.

Kennedy reports on a heated meeting in New York City, three days after the crash, during which other Kennedy family members tell Ann Freeman, Carolyn Bessette’s grieving mother, that JFK Jr. would be buried in the family plot in Brookline, Mass., and “that they could do with Carolyn as they pleased.”

The heart-wrenching drama of JFK Jr.’s death was one of many private family moments Kennedy chronicled in thick, red journals reviewed by The Post.

In mid-July 1999, the family was coming together at their Hyannis Port, Mass., retreat for the wedding of RFK Jr.’s sister Rory Kennedy, the youngest child of assassinated Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.

RFK Jr.’s wife had visited JFK Jr. and Bessette a week earlier and Bessette told her that her husband was “so depressed” because he was fighting with his sister, Caroline, over furniture at the Martha’s Vineyard home that once belonged to their mother and had been left to them when Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis died in 1994. JFK Jr. was in the process of buying out his sister’s share in the Red Gate Farm estate.

Kennedy notes that “John confided to me also about how hurt he was by Caroline’s actions.” (Last spring, Caroline Kennedy, who is about to be sworn in as the US ambassador to Japan, put part of the estate on the market for $45 million.)

Kennedy also mentions JFK Jr.’s struggles with George magazine, which he co-founded, and the uproar caused when he invited Hustler publisher Larry Flynt to join his table at that year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Sen. Ted Kennedy had written nephew John a “disappointed letter” about the decision and “John was hurt by that because his family is so important.”

Kennedy doesn’t say anything about the marital troubles between John and Carolyn, strife that largely came to light after their deaths.

“Mary and I resolved we will go see them this weekend and spend a lot of time with them,” RFK Jr., now 59, wrote of his cousin, who was seven years his junior.

The couple stopped by JFK Jr.’s house in Hyannis Port before the wedding rehearsal dinner the next night, at 6 p.m., but he wasn’t there.

They went back at 9, 10 and 11:30 that night, Kennedy writes. A friend and the housekeeper were there and had prepared dinner expecting to eat together, but John and Carolyn were nowhere to be found.

“I wasn’t worried at all because anything can happen with John,” he writes.

But at 3 a.m., Kennedy writes, he was awakened by his sister Kerry, who said their cousin’s plane was missing.

“I knew then that John was dead,” he writes.

He looked over to the porch light burning at his cousin’s house and felt empty and sad.

The next day, Sen. Ted Kennedy announced Rory’s wedding had been postponed, as the press gathered at the compound.

“The water was 68 degrees so some people had hope they might still be alive but I had none,” Kennedy writes.

The bickering over the bodies began the next day, July 18, before they were even recovered.

The Bessette family was “very upset” about where the trio would be buried, with the girls’ mother preferring a plot in Greenwich, Conn., close to her home.

“Ann wants them close by and is terrified that the K family might try to spirit them to Brookline,” Kennedy writes.

The Holyhood Cemetery in Brookline is the resting place of Joseph and Rose Kennedy, the family patriarch and matriarch.

After more frantic phone calls, Kennedy says a meeting in New York City was arranged with Ann Freeman and Caroline Kennedy. Instead, Kennedy sent her husband, Ed Schlossberg, along with Vicky Reggie, Ted Kennedy’s wife, RFK Jr. notes.

“All the Bessette family knows that Ed hated Carolyn and did everything in his power to make her life miserable and . . . he bullied, bullied, bullied the shattered grieving mother,” he writes.

The relationship between Carolyn Bessette and her sister-in-law and brother-in law had long been frosty. By one account, Caroline Kennedy criticized Carolyn for being late to her own wedding in 1996.

The bodies were recovered on July 21, all still in seat belts.

In the end, the burial fight proved moot. The bodies were cremated, the remains placed in “Tiffany blue” cardboard boxes, and a burial at sea was planned.

The next day, July 22, Kennedy and other family members, including his uncle Ted, got into three vans, with a police escort, for the trip to Woods Hole, Mass. There they boarded a Navy cutter and rendezvoused with the destroyer USS Briscoe a mile off the coast. The ship took them out 20 miles off Gay Head, Mass., about a mile from the crash site.

“The water had more jellyfish in it than anyone had ever seen. When they let go of the ashes, the plume erupted and settled in the water and passed by in the green current like a ghost. We tossed flowers onto the ghosts. Some of the girls tossed letters from a packet they’d assembled from John’s and Carolyn’s friends. It was a civil violation but the Coast Guard let it go,” Kennedy writes.

He notes that the Navy band “played mournful music and we all cried like babies.”

The next day, July 23, Ted Kennedy delivered the eulogy for his nephew at the funeral at St. Thomas More Church on the Upper East Side. At the reception afterward, the senator led a choir in three songs “and danced his silly Teddy dances and sang loudly and beautifully and made everyone . . . love him,” RFK Jr. writes.

But when the choir sang a mournful song to conclude, the senator scolded the group and said a livelier number was needed.

“They closed with ‘Happy Days,’ ” Kennedy notes.

RFK Jr. did a brief reading for his cousin the next day at a service for Lauren Bessette in Greenwich, Conn.  Kennedy says he had been “trying to get through as a good soldier and making only positive comments and thoughts about Ed Schlossberg.”

But he recounted that his cousin Caroline’s husband was behaving like a dictator. At one point, he refused to allow RFK Jr. to deliver a eulogy for John and Carolyn at the St. Thomas More service.

“Kennedys don’t eulogize non-Kennedys,” Schlossberg told Carolyn’s sister, Lisa, RFK Jr. writes.

Lisa angrily responded, “Ed, do you make up these rules as you go along?” before slamming down the phone, Kennedy recalls.

A few weeks later, Carole Radziwill, the wife of JFK Jr.’s cousin and best friend, Anthony Radziwill, called to relate more of Schlossberg’s bad behavior.

“She says she wants to start an ‘I hate Ed Club.’ There would be many, many members. John & Carolyn would have certainly applied,” he writes.

On July 28, 1999, Kennedy learned that his cousin left him $250,000 in his will.

“I cried. I’ve lost such a good friend,” he writes.

[Rapunzel]

Seems Caroline and her brother were not as close as people were led to believe.

[Cincinnatus]

Seems Caroline and her brother were not as close as people were led to believe.

None of the PR about that dysfunctional gaggle ought be believed.

[mountaineer]

What a catch he is!

John Edwards moves on from Rielle Hunter with much younger woman

Disgraced Democrat John ­Edwards was spotted enjoying a lunch date with his reported new girlfriend — 35-year-old single mom Danielle King.

The 60-year-old attorney, who is said to have kicked baby mama ­Rielle Hunter to the curb over her recent tell-all book about their steamy, extramarital affair, was seen leaving upscale restaurant Panzanella, near his home in ­Chapel Hill, NC, on Oct. 18.

According to the National ­Enquirer magazine, he and the pretty blonde have been secretly dating for about a year.

King, who is a bit more than half Edwards’ age, wore a figure-hugging gray dress and heels for the liaison, while ­Edwards kept it casual in a polo shirt and jeans.

The new love interest works as a clinical coordinator at Duke University’s Cancer Care Research Program, the Enquirer said. King is said to have gotten close to Edwards and his two young children, and has become a fixture at the family’s idyllic, rural mansion.

King has even posted a picture of herself and Edwards’ son Jack on her Facebook profile page on the teen’s birthday.

“Happy Birthday, bud. I love you so so so so so much,” she wrote in the caption. “Thank you for being you and making my world, and ­everyone else’s, a better place.”

Although they are living ­together, the two arrived at the Italian eatery separately and were careful not to get too touchy-feely while enjoying their meal.  Onlookers said the two were “very smiley” and “engrossed in conversation” during lunch.

“They gazed into each other’s eyes as if they were the only two people on the planet,” one witness told the magazine.

Afterwards, Edwards bid Danielle goodbye and popped by a nearby supermarket to stock up on groceries.

The apparent romance suggests that his scandalous relationship with Hunter, who ruined his political career when their affair emerged after she gave birth to his daughter Frances Quinn, is firmly in the past.

Edwards, a former Democratic vice-presidential candidate, reportedly paid his paramour Hunter to live in a separate Chapel Hill home while he was running for office in 2008.  When his wife, Elizabeth, died in 2010 after a battle with breast cancer, Edwards had Hunter move into his family home.

Their relationship ended after her book about the torrid affair. But Hunter had second thoughts after publishing the tome.

“Instead of apologizing when I should have, I went on to hurt more people by writing a book,” she wrote in a blog post.

NY Post

[flowers]

Breck girl will never change.  He will soon dump this one too.

[mountaineer]

Page Six

Rocker Steven Van Zandt would vote for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for president — if Hillary Rodham Clinton isn’t running.

“I wouldn’t rule it out,” he told us last week. “I like him a lot, but Hillary also is gonna make a great president . . . If he waited eight years, I think he’d walk in with no problem.”

The E Street Band guitarist thinks Clinton can get things done.

“I think she’s very experienced,” he said. “It’s a very difficult time to be in the White House.”

 

[Lipstick on a Hillary]

Breck girl will never change.  He will soon dump this one too.

I'm not getting why this is even news.   So he had and dumped another girlfriend.  Is the guy supposed to be celibate the rest of his life? 

[Lipstick on a Hillary]

Here's a pretty scathing one about Caroline Kennedy (whom I have particularly loathed since she publicly dissed First Lady Laura Bush years ago) courtesy of the National Enquirer. 

EXCLUSIVE-CAROLINE KENNEDY DARK SECRETS



JOHN F. KENNEDY’s daughter CAROLINE has the image of a dignified lawyer and an all-Ameri­can princess. But behind that mask lurks a greedy phony who’s shamefully hawking her family’s mementos to the highest bidder!

That is the shocking accusation made by insiders who insist that the heiress’ staggering $278 million fortune isn’t enough to stop her from peddling historic items many feel should be in museums.

A Kennedy family insider told The ENQUIRER: “Clearly Caroline’s greed knows no bounds. She has
in­furiated family and friends. Frankly, they feel like she’s cashing in on the Kennedy family’s terrible tragedies and selling out Camelot.”

Just two years after her mom Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis died of cancer in 1994, Caroline put the former first lady’s personal posses­sions on the block, netting a whopping $34.5 million, says a source.

Now on the eve of the 50th an­niversary of her father’s Nov. 22, 1963, assassination, she’s selling the land around her mom’s Martha’s Vineyard getaway for a staggering $45 million!

The 55-year-old’s blatant cash-grab has led one source to fume: “She’s a shameless fake and huck­ster.”

Meanwhile, the Kennedy fam­ily insider told The ENQUIRER: “Her mother must be spinning in her grave. Jackie valued her privacy above all. Now her most personal items are in the hands of strangers to gawk at and pass around.

“It seems that Caroline doesn’t care at all about her family’s legacy and place in history.

“She has coldheartedly taken all the memorabilia and historic artifacts and sold them like a tacky garage sale. But this garage sale has raked in tens of millions of dollars. It’s just plain greed!”

Many believe she should be putting items in a museum where the Ameri­can people can see them instead of turning the historic treasures into cold cash, says a source.

“But everything is winding up as trophies for wealthy private collec­tors,” the insider notes.

“Caroline is held up as the perfect Kennedy, untouched by the many scandals of her cousins and uncles, and she plays into that image big-time.


“But she’s living a lie.”

Caroline’s first yard sale auction following her mom’s death netted $34.5 million, according to the “New York Post.”

Windfalls included a $100 hat box selling for $31,625, a $150 foot stool going for $33,350 and a $900 lamp fetching $48,875.

And two of JFK’s beloved rocking chairs sold for nearly $900,000.

Shamelessly, Caroline even sold the doors from Jackie’s White House dressing room, complete with their hinges, says the newspaper.

The auction, which took place with JFK Jr.’s reluctant consent, later sickened her brother, who died in a 1999 plane crash. The gold-rush left him wracked with guilt, revealed another source.

“The whole sale process is causing him a lot of anxiety,” a source said at the time of the original sales.

John just couldn’t get used to the idea of peddling family possessions to the highest bidder, says the source.

But that didn’t stop his sister.

She reportedly started tracking down all the memorabilia she could get her hands on. “Evidently $34.5 million wasn’t enough for her,” charges a businessman who owns a large Kennedy collection.

In 2005, Caroline auctioned off “old magazines, wicker baskets, a doorstop, chipped jars, a pair of tar­nished candlesticks” and a sugar bowl that fetched an outrageous $7,200.

Her aunt, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, felt Caroline was selling items that belonged to her own parents and grandparents. So JFK’s sister bid on the stuff to prevent it from going to strangers. Caroline claimed some of the auction proceeds would go to charity, yet she never “disclosed how much, if any, went there,” says a source.

And she is also accused of cashing in on her famous name by publishing several books, filled with other peo­ple’s work – like a collection of poems which she claimed were her mother’s favorites.

“Another book contained 13 essays by other writers, but with her name on the book jacket,” says a source. “To claim she’s an author under those circumstances is just a lie.”

But Caroline reportedly raked in $4 million for the books. Further adding to the furor, she even sold off record­ed interviews her mother gave after JFK’s assassination, says the source.

“Jackie ordered the tapes kept secret until 50 years after her death, but Caroline sold them only 17 years after her mother’s death,” the source notes.

Now, the mother of three grown kids is under fire for using her name and connections to nab an appoint­ment as U.S. Ambassador to Japan.

But one outraged source slammed Caroline as a “profit-minded serial holder of non-jobs.” Despite her law degree from Columbia University, she was never a practicing attorney. She even let her law license lapse twice. She’s more into dabbling than hard work, critics charge.

“Caroline is the best-known living member of America’s most famous political family, but she isn’t the kind of power-player other ambassadors were,” charges Clyde Prestowitz, president of the Economic Strategy Institute.

“She has no prior experience in government or business.”

And as The ENQUIRER has re­ported, her 27-year marriage to Ed Schlossberg, 68, is on the rocks. But she’s putting on a show of togetherness for the sake of her diplomatic post, says a source. Schlossberg was dead set against her foreign adventure, but Caroline took it and doomed her marriage.

[mountaineer]

Usually, I have no problem with anyone disposing of their own property - they're just things, after all -  however they choose, but not when it means going against other family members who might have some right to object. When you have no marketable skills, I guess you have to sell the furniture to fund your lifestyle!

What disturbs me most about this woman is being handed an important diplomatic post witihout a shred of experience or relevant knowledge, just her family name and kissing up to Obama. Of course, there's nothing new in that practice. Her Hitler-loving grandfather was ambassador to England, after all.

[Lipstick on a Hillary]

The thing that bothered me was that the Kennedy's claim to stand for helping out the underclass.  With all of Caroline's hundreds of millions she already has, I wonder how much of that money went to charity?   

Diana's sales of her belongings were donated.

[mountaineer]

What the heck, Weiner's moved from politics to celebrity, so here's a snippet from Page Six.

Sightings:  Anthony Weiner and wife Huma Abedin laughing loudly while shopping with son Jordan at the Union Square Whole Foods, where a spy says, “It was almost as if Weiner was trying to be audibly happy so everyone could hear” . . .

[mountaineer]

Former AG, governor and CNN personality sighting:

De Blasio staffer ‘shacking up with ex-boss Spitzer’
By Frank Rosario
December 22, 2013 | 9:05pm
NY Post

Bill de Blasio’s spokeswoman is shacking up with her married former boss — Eliot Spitzer.

Lis Smith, 31, who was hired by the mayor-elect in September as his communications director, has been hosting the hooker-happy former governor at her Soho pad, The Post has learned.

In an embarrassment to de Blasio on the eve of his Jan. 1 inauguration, his flack was caught twice spending the night with the tainted, 54-year-old Spitzer at her Thompson Street apartment building last week.

The ex-gov showed up late in the evening, once taking her for a romantic dinner and both times slipping out of her building at dawn, a Post reporter observed.

On Wednesday, Spitzer pulled up in a cab a couple doors down from Smith’s five-story walkup at around 10 p.m., wearing jeans, sneakers, a white hoodie and a grin as he walked to the building and rang the bell.

He was buzzed in — and didn’t emerge until 5:45 a.m. With bags under his eyes, he stopped briefly on Smith’s stoop to look at a newspaper that had been delivered before bolting through the predawn darkness to catch a cab near Prince Street.

Smith, a tall, dark-haired beauty, emerged a little after 10 a.m. smiling and looking fresh in a hot-pink coat.

On Thursday night, Spitzer showed up again, looking dapper in a long black overcoat and dress shoes as he walked to her door from Prince Street at around 10 p.m.

He went in and emerged an hour later with Smith, both of them darting about 20 feet into Le Pescadeux restaurant on the ground floor of her building.

Seated at a back table, the two held hands as they enjoyed a candlelit dinner.

The manager of the cozy French eatery described them as regulars who “have had almost everything on the menu by now. They come here that often.”

“The first time I saw Spitzer, I didn’t know if he was Eliot Spitzer or Anthony Weiner. Those two are like the same exact guy,” the manager said.
 
After leaving the eatery at around 12:30 a.m., Smith gave Spitzer a flirtatious look over her shoulder before the couple disappeared back into her walkup.

Spitzer took off early in the morning. Smith left hours later at 11, chatting on her cellphone.

Spitzer didn’t comment. His spokeswoman, Lisa Linden, didn’t deny his relationship with Smith.

“Lis Smith is a friend of Eliot’s, and he holds her in high regard,” Linden said. Smith didn’t return requests for comment.

Smith, a Bronxville native, was hired by Spitzer as a spokeswoman in July during his failed primary run for comptroller against Scott Stringer.

She was paid $30,000 according to a report filed with the Campaign Finance Board.

A former “rapid-response specialist’’ for President Obama’s campaign, she had been famous for sparking Twitter wars with political adversaries.

Her hiring by Spitzer came at the same time sources revealed to The Post that his wife, Silda, wanted a divorce and while he was angrily dodging questions about a rumored new mistress. Page Six had earlier reported that Spitzer moved out of his and Silda’s Fifth Avenue apartment.

Also in July, Smith was roundly criticized when the Spitzer camp tweeted a shot of him on the campaign trail, wearing the same tie he had worn when he resigned in disgrace as governor in 2008.

He stepped down after being exposed as “Client 9” of the Emperors Club VIP, a high-priced hooker ring.

Smith joined Team de Blasio in September, during the mayoral primary, and still works for him. It is not clear whether she will follow him to City Hall.

The Dartmouth grad apparently has a thing for bad boys. She dated former Missouri state Sen. Jeff Smith from 2005 to 2009, before he was locked up in a federal pen for obstruction after a probe of the state’s 2004 election.

Meanwhile, her family seems to approve of Spitzer. When Spitzer’s CNN show was canceled in July 2011, Smith’s mom — travel writer and retired lawyer Adrienne Smith — tweeted, “Sorry Spitzer’s gig ending on CNN. Most intelligent commentary on TV. Even better than Rachel [Maddow]. Hope he finds another home.’’ Her daughter retweeted the comment, with the response, “You tell em, Mom.”

[Cincinnatus]

In an embarrassment to de Blasio on the eve of his Jan. 1 inauguration, his flack was caught twice spending the night with the tainted, 54-year-old Spitzer at her Thompson Street apartment building last week.

Embarrassment? For any of these people? Why?

[mountaineer]

They're all beyond embarrassment. I'm reminded of Jeremiah 6:15.

[mountaineer]

Sorry, this is just kind of strange.

Aloha! Oprah celebrates Christmas in Hawaii with longtime love Stedman, best friend Gayle and her kids
By Daily Mail Reporter
PUBLISHED: 16:56 EST, 25 December 2013  | UPDATED: 10:22 EST, 26 December 2013


The former queen of daytime Oprah celebrated Christmas with her two favorite people - longtime boyfriend Stedman Graham and best friend Gayle King.

Oprah and Gayle, friends since 1976, have long laughed on rumors that they were lovers and Stedman clearly relishes both women's company.

King was able to get away from her busy job in New York at CBS to join her billionaire best friend on the island getaway, along with her two children Kirby and William.

Winfrey bought a hilltop home in Maui in 2003 with some of her billions and over time has parceled together a massive property. She now farms some of the 780-acre estate which has gorgeous views.

She jetted to the island paradise after visiting South Africa, where she has a school for girls. She stopped off in Paris on her way.

'Stopped in Paris to break up that loooong trip from S.Africa. Love this tree of lights at the George V hotel,' she said from France.

Oprah, who has no children of her own, is called 'Momma Oprah' by girls at her Leadership Academy and is close to Gayle's children.

Gayle divorced the kids' father in 1993.

[Cincinnatus]

I hope you are all appropriately ashamed. It is this sort of suffering your racism has caused Oprah.

Winfrey bought a hilltop home in Maui in 2003 with some of her billions and over time has parceled together a massive property. She now farms some of the 780-acre estate which has gorgeous views.

[mountaineer]

Madonna: Forgive me for using N-word
By Associated Press
Jan. 18, 2014



Madonna apologized Saturday for using a racial slur on Instagram to refer to her white son, seeking forgiveness a day after calling those who criticized her language “haters.”

On Friday night, the singer posted a picture of her 13-year-old son, Rocco, boxing and included the comment, “No one messes with Dirty Soap! Mama said knock you out!” She then added a variation of the N-word.

She quickly deleted the comment when outraged Instagram users berated her for the use of the word, and was initially defiant. But in a statement to The Associated Press on Saturday, a contrite Madonna said: “Forgive me.”

“I am sorry if I offended anyone with my use of the N word on Instagram. It was not meant as a racial slur. I am not a racist. There’s no way to defend the use of the word. It was all about intention,” she said. “It was used as a term of endearment toward my son who is white. I appreciate that it’s a provocative word and I apologize if it gave people the wrong impression.”

Besides Rocco, she has three other children, including Lourdes, David and Mercy. Mercy and David are black, adopted from the African nation of Malawi.

This is the second time this year that Madonna has offended people on Instagram. Earlier this month, she posted a photo of Rocco and his two young friends holding up bottles of liquor; she defended the post as a joke.

“No one was drinking we were just having fun! Calm down and get a sense of humor! Don’t start the year off with judgement!” she responded on Instagram.

[Chieftain]

Such a fine Citizen.....

 

[mountaineer]

Alec Baldwin says his 5-month-old daughter was randomly selected for TSA pat-down
The actor fumed on Twitter about the incident that occurred when he was traveling back to New York with his family from the Bahamas.
By Zayda Rivera  / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Monday, January 27, 2014, 5:20 PM


The TSA has found itself on Alec Baldwin's bad side.

"Flying from Nassau, Bahamas 2 NY," the 55-year-old actor tweeted Monday. "TSA 'random selects' my 5 month old daughter 4 a pat down."

As obscure as that may sound, Baldwin reassured his followers that, "I am not kidding. #travelinginUSisadisgrace"

The "30 Rock" star has been vacationing in the Bahamas with his baby girl, Carmen, and wife Hilaria Baldwin.

On Friday, in a much lighter mood, he tweeted a photo of his ladies in front of a pool and palm trees. ...

Read on

[mountaineer]

This is both pathetic and reprehensible.

Frail Ethel Kennedy attends daughter’s drugged driving trial
By Laurel Babcock and Bob Fredericks, NY Post
February 24, 2014 | 9:33am


A frail Ethel Kennedy showed up at the Westchester County courthouse this morning to support her daughter Kerry Kennedy on the first day of her trial on drugged driving charges.

Ethel Kennedy, the 85-year-old widow of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, was in a wheelchair and accompanied by an unidentified man and woman when she entered the courtroom shortly after 9 a.m.

Kerry Kennedy had hoped to avoid a trial, but her bid to have the case tossed failed last week after a judge denied her motion to have the case dropped because she supposedly took a sleeping pill by accident.

Even if Kennedy – the ex-wife of Gov. Andrew Cuomo – accidentally drugged herself with a sleeping pill, she broke the law if she kept driving after feeling the effects, prosecutors had argued.

Kennedy’s defense team had argued that since prosecutors admit they have no evidence that she intentionally took the sleeping pill Zolpidem instead of thyroid medicine that the charges should be dropped.

Kennedy, 54, was charged with drugged driving in 2012 after her car hit a tractor trailer on a highway in Westchester.

During jury selection, Acting Supreme Court Justice Robert Neary did not allow defense lawyers to ask potential jurors about their political affiliations, but said they can ask if they have any “strong feelings” about the Kennedy family.

In addition to character witnesses, the defense plans to call a Massachusetts pharmacologist, Dr. David Benjamin.

The prosecution’s witness list includes Elizabeth Stratton as an expert in Zolpidem.

Kennedy is also expected to testify.

Meanwhile, Robert F. “Bobby’’ Kennedy Jr., 60, asked for compassion for his misunderstood sister, a lawyer and professional human-rights activist.

“Kerry’s been instrumental in freeing political prisoners and dissidents from around the globe from imprisonment and torture,” Bobby told The Post’s Andrea Peyser.

He argued that political agitators all over the world could be locked up and tortured if his sister is convicted in Westchester County for being hell on wheels.

Africans might be tormented or killed for being gay, he claimed.

Character witnesses? She either drove under the influence or she didn't.

[mountaineer]

RFK Jr. goes to bat for sister ahead of trial
By Andrea Peyser
February 23, 2014 | 11:10pm


You’ve been warned: The fate of the planet hangs in the balance if Kerry Kennedy is convicted of drugged driving in a New York trial that gets under way Monday.

Robert F. “Bobby’’ Kennedy Jr., 60, called me the other day to plead for compassion for his misunderstood sister, a lawyer and professional human-rights activist born Mary Kerry Kennedy.

“Kerry’s been instrumental in freeing political prisoners and dissidents from around the globe from imprisonment and torture,” Bobby told me.

He argued that political agitators all over the world could be locked up and tortured if his sister, 54, is convicted in Westchester County for being hell on wheels. Africans might be tormented or killed for being gay.

If convicted of driving while ability impaired by drugs — a misdemeanor — she fears she’ll be barred from entering countries like Canada, New Zealand and Australia, and thus be unable to perform her important work.

Like her brother, Kerry is the child of slain Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. Their uncle was President John F. Kennedy. Kerry is also the ex-wife of Gov. Cuomo.

Last month, Kerry was on her way to meet her brother, a lawyer and environmental activist; their documentary filmmaker sister Rory, 45; and Bobby’s actress gal pal, Cheryl Hines, 48, at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah when she made an abrupt, globe-trotting ­U-turn.

Kerry received an urgent call from South African social-rights activist Desmond Tutu, who asked her to fly to Africa immediately. At Kerry’s request, the retired Anglican bishop and Nobel Peace Prize winner had set up a meeting between Kerry and the president of the African nation of Uganda, who supposedly was about to sign into law the so-called “Kill the Gays” bill.

So Kerry instead boarded a plane at JFK Airport and high-tailed it to Uganda’s capital city of Kampala, where, the story goes, she succeeded in saving the gays.

“You’ve changed my mind. We can’t go on executing people because they were born that way,” Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni told Kerry, according to a friend of hers.

Well, that’s one version of the story.

“She has freed hundreds of political prisoners from Uganda to Nigeria to Kenya and Mexico because she has access because of her name,” Bobby enthused, adding, “That doesn’t mean she’s above the law.”

Is Bobby loyal? Or delusional?

I haven’t a clue what this world-saving business has to do with the case of a privileged woman and a highway smashup. I do know that Kerry could have hurt or killed someone, even herself, when she got behind the wheel of her silver 2008 Lexus SUV on the morning of July 13, 2012, allegedly while under the influence of the sleeping pill Ambien. She did, in fact, crash the vehicle into a tractor-trailer truck on Interstate 684 near her home in the tony town of Bedford and then continued driving.

A highway patrolman finally found her slumped over her vehicle’s steering wheel, unable to walk or see straight.

Luckily, no one was injured.

Kerry initially told an officer that she might have mistakenly taken Ambien instead of her thyroid medication. Then, four days later, she stood outside the tiny Town of North Castle Justice Court in Armonk — the case has since moved to roomier quarters in White Plains — and announced that her doctors believed she suffered a “complex partial seizure” at the time of the wreck, caused by an earlier head injury.

Wrong.

Toxicology test results revealed that Kerry had ingested zolpidem tartrate, the generic term for Ambien. Her lawyers now contend that she innocently mixed up her pills.

Kerry is president of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. But how effective is she at righting planetary wrongs?

It turns out that Uganda’s gays never faced certain death. By the time an anti-gay bill had passed through the country’s legislative body in December, lawmakers had removed execution as punishment for certain homosexual acts and replaced it with penalties up to life in prison, still pretty harsh.

When Kerry and members of her crew met with President Museveni on Jan. 18, he told the activists he would not sign a “fascist” anti-gay bill into law.

Then he changed his mind. Museveni said through a spokesman on Feb. 14 that he intended to sign the bill “to protect Ugandans from social deviants.”

President Obama condemned the measure.

If convicted, Kerry could be sentenced to up to a year in jail, but a legal source said she’d likely be ordered by a judge to perform community service.

Kerry plans to testify in her own defense at trial, giving observers a glimpse into the mind of a globe-trotting do-gooder.

One who can’t own up to doing anything wrong.

[mountaineer]

Celebrity bits from Cindy Adams

Oprah dishes on her friendship with Gayle
By Cindy Adams, NY Post
March 12, 2014 | 11:44pm



Oprah: “I want to say officially how proud I am of my friend Gayle King.

“Back a lifetime ago, 1976, Baltimore. We were both on a local TV station. She was a production assistant. I was an anchor. We became friends, especially after a big snow storm. When she couldn’t go out, get home and didn’t have enough clothes, I said, ‘OK, you can have my underwear.’ But then I added, ‘And don’t return it.’

“When time came and things happened to me, I asked her to quit her job and come to my new Oprah magazine to help me. But the truth is, the whole time I felt guilty taking her away from TV because I know how much she loved it.

“And now she’s doing so well, and I’m thrilled for her. Mostly because at least she can have her own underwear.”

Alec’s naughty

More about America’s favorite pinup, Alec Baldwin: Berner High in Massapequa, LI, he ran for senior class president. Night before, he went into the school cafeteria with his father and hung a huge banner in bold letters: “S-E-X. Students Elect Xander (Alec’s nickname).” He won.

[mountaineer]

 
Johnny Weir splits with "husband," Victor Voronov.

...  Weir and Voronov were in court for domestic violence charges March 4, but the charges were dismissed.

[mountaineer]

I was wondering why we had a State Department.

Fergie goes for serious leather look as she lands in Washington for State Department event... but remains quiet about X Factor judge rumours

By James Leyfield , Daily Mail UK
PUBLISHED: 06:43 EST, 20 March 2014  | UPDATED: 06:44 EST, 20 March 2014 

She's recently been linked to one of the judging spots on The X Factor.

But Fergie had other work on her mind as she landed in Washington DC ahead of an event at the State Department looking very stylish in a leather jacket and leather-look trousers. ...

The star is in Washington for the launch of the Institute on Violence Against Women on Thursday heading at the State Department – which is responsible for international relations of the US - as she is a global ambassador for the Avon Foundation for Women. ...

Violence against women is serious business so it's important to wear serious leather. That way, people know you're really serious about it.