Last week, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt visited the White House and had a brief meeting with Pres. Obama in the Oval Office. Many speculated that Angelina was there to discuss In the Land of Blood and Honey, as well as her work with the UNHCR. Many also speculated that Brad was there to discuss Make It Right NOLA. Some claimed that Brad and Angelina simply “dropped by” the White House while they were in town – which I don’t buy. You can’t drop by the White House unannounced, you know? The Secret Service doesn’t do uninvited guests. Well, Angelina and Brad made it through the Golden Globes red carpet without really discussing the White House meeting, but Angelina did discuss it with Extra over the weekend:
Angelina says that she had a one-on-one with Obama and: “We met on different issues. He went mainly to speak with Biden about New Orleans, and I went with the lead actress [of "Blood and Honey"] to speak about Sarajevo and our concerns with things going on… we spoke to them briefly and then we spoke a lot to the people underneath them, the ones kind of in the trenches.” Angelina said the meeting was “wonderful.” While Obama and Jolie talked, Brad had a sit-down with VP Joe Biden to discuss Make It Right NOLA. She also talked with David Petraeus, who she met years ago “in the field.” She said Petraeus “doesn’t belittle” her when she has questions – which is an odd statement. Do people in Washington EVER belittle her?
As you may remember, in 2009, Us Weekly (and other tabloids) claimed that Angelina Jolie totally hated President Obama. The reasoning was vague, but the gist was that Angelina is more conservative than anyone realizes and she’s a chip off of the ol’ block (the ol’ block being her crazy father). I bring this up because yesterday, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt were invited to the White House, and they accepted. They apparently met Pres. Obama in the Oval Office - you can see some long-distance photos here, shot through the Oval’s windows by photographers on the lawn. Angelina was wearing a black pencil skirt and a black turtleneck, and she looked pleased. Brad was wearing a suit and tie, and he looked hero-worship-y. Brad’s met Obama before – they discussed NOLA back in 2009. This is the first time Obama and Angelina have ever met, though. And apparently, it was a brief meeting – Obama was on his way to Chicago. Oh, here’s video! I like the guy saying, “Hey, that’s BRAD PITT!”
According to the Associated Press, Brangelina “dropped by” the White House (for real? I would think they were officially invited, right?) so that Angelina and Pres. Obama could discuss Angelina’s “work on preventing mass atrocities and combating sexual violence against women.” The night before, Angelina and Brad had done the red carpet for a screening of In the Land of Blood and Honesy at the Holocaust Museum (which, if you’ve never been to, you should really go – it’s a really comprehensive museum). While on the carpet, Angelina got a few questions about Obama and whether or not she hated him. When asked about the report that she hated the president, Angelina said, “Reported by who? By Us Weekly? You gotta read better papers!”
After Tuesday’s screening, People Magazine reports that Brangelina went out to dinner with some Washington power players, including Valerie Jarrett, one of Obama’s senior advisors. And Angelina even ate some solids! She had roast chicken, which sounds so good to me right now.
Following the Washington, D.C., premiere of her new film, In the Land of Blood and Honey, Angelina Jolie joined partner Brad Pitt for a celebratory dinner at Charlie Palmer Steak.
The couple – joined by 12 others, including President Obama’s senior advisor Valerie Jarrett – opted for Palmer’s $35.12 prix fixe Restaurant Week menu, and started with chopped salads of romaine, endive, goat cheese, bacon, cranberry and red wine vinegar. For entrées, Pitt chose the coulotte steak with sweet potato purée and braised greens, while Jolie savored the roasted chicken breast with buttered new potatoes and marjoram jus. Pitt, who was recently injured during a fall, indulged in the dark chocolate pavé with milk chocolate ice cream for dessert, while Jolie passed on the sweets.
According to an onlooker, the party of 14 stayed at the restaurant for two hours, and was “extremely pleasant and gracious to both fans and the staff.”
I suspect that it was Valerie Jarrett who got Angelina and Brad in to meet the president, right? It was less of a “drop by” and more of an invitation. I don’t know why that’s bugging me so much – I just don’t think Angelina and Brad are so full of themselves that they think they can just “drop by” the White House unannounced. There has to security clearances and background checks and a White House staffer has to formally escort you wherever you go. Anyway, I’m sure this was only the first meeting in a long line of negotiations in which Pres. Obama will gradually hand over power to Empress Zahara.
Oh that Matt Damon*. He usually just tells the same stories over and over again in his press tours, so it’s nice to see him very occasionally bitching about politics. I get the sense that he’d like to say stuff like this in every interview, but that he holds it in until it comes seeping out like steam from a boiling kettle. Remember when he called Sarah Palin “absurd, like a bad Disney movie” way back in 2008 before that was pretty much the accepted opinion about her? A quick glance at our archives reminds me that he’s also expressed discontent about Obama, whom he campaigned for, earlier this year and last year. So he does mete out his political opinions rather judiciously.
In a new profile in Elle, they seem to realize that the most headline worthy Damon is one that has a strong opinion. The bulk of the piece is just an overview of his life and career. There aren’t many quotes from Damon in the story, but the ones they do include at the end pack a punch. I wonder if he said a bunch of other stuff and they just left it out, or if they only asked him about Obama.
Is it mere coincidence that today, just down the Vancouver street from where Damon sits, the first day of Occupy Wall Street–offshoot wildfire has flared up over the border? “I’ve talked to a lot of people who worked for Obama at the grassroots level. One of them said to me, ‘Never again. I will never be fooled again by a politician,’ ” Damon says, his disappointment ringing with a now-familiar tone of wounded idealism. “You know, a one-term president with some balls who actually got stuff done would have been, in the long run of the country, much better.” Damon gestures in the direction, just out of sight over the tree line, of the sign-wielding picketers who are beginning to gather steam. “If the Democrats think that they didn’t have a mandate—people are literally without any focus or leadership, just wandering out into the streets to yell right now because they are so pissed off,” he says. “Imagine if they had a leader.” And, as on the day of that DC rally, it is momentarily possible to get swept up in the moment, to imagine—however ridiculously, whether in reality or coming soon to a multiplex near you—exactly that.
I don’t disagree with him, but I think it’s much more complicated than just blaming the President. I like angry/impassioned Matt Damon the best though. He’s the sexiest when he gets worked up about something. This guy has said multiple times that he’s not going to go into politics, but I don’t believe him. It may take another 10 to 15 years, but I expect to see him try.
*Note that I wrote that before I checked E! Online this morning and saw that they started their article on this story the very same way. Great minds.
Here’s Damon campaigning for Obama in 2008. He’s also shown in December and September of this year. Credit: WENN and Fame
Don’t shoot me, but I think Kim Kardashian looks really pretty (for her) in these photos. Kim attended the Huffington Post “Game Changers” event in NYC last night, and she was once again without her new husband on her arm. That’s the second red carpet event in two days that Kim has not had Kris Humphries on her arm. Does this mean that the marriage is already in shambles? Probably. Kim just wanted to BE married, and she went with the first dumbass who would have her. And seriously, Kris Humphries is an idiot. I don’t feel bad for either of them, but I do think it’s interesting that they’re already living separate lives.
Anyway, back to Kim in red. The difference between this look and her cat-faced panda look two nights ago is the hair – Kim looks infinitely better and less cat-like when she wears her hair down, or in some kind of loose style. And the red looks fantastic on her – I even like the cut of the dress, although… it does make Kim look heavier. Or maybe she’s actually heavier right now (because she’s pregnant?!?). Whatever it is, this girl is totally not a size 4. Embrace your real dress size, Kim!
Two more stories – when Kim was being a cat-faced panda at the Angel Ball two nights ago, I mentioned that she was paying tribute to her late father, Robert Kardashian. Page Six had some text of her speech, which was just kind of weird:
Kim Kardashian gave an emotional speech about losing her father to cancer at Denise Rich’s Angel Ball. The reality star told the crowd at Cipriani Wall Street about her father Robert who died aged 59, weeks after being diagnosed with esophageal cancer eight years ago, “Not a day goes by when I don’t think about him.”
She continued, “I wish we knew a little more about the disease,” she said. “My dad didn’t really want to tell anyone he was sick. He wouldn’t even tell his parents he was sick. He didn’t tell them until like a week before he passed away. He was the kind of guy [who] never wanted to go to the doctor to see what was wrong, because he hated doctors — sorry, all the doctors out there.”
I’m going to take a wild stab in the dark and say that maybe the point of Kim’s speech should have been early detection, right? Instead, she’s like, “He never saw a doctor, he hated doctors, please give money to these doctors, so that they can do research.” Weird.
Last story – President Obama doesn’t want his daughters watching Keeping Up With the Kardashians, or any of Kardashian-based reality programming. Michelle Obama admitted as much during an interview with iVillage (full interview here), saying that, “Barack really thinks some of the Kardashians — when they watch that stuff — he doesn’t like that as much… but I sort of feel like if we’re talking about it, and I’m more concerned with how they take it in — what did you learn when you watched that. And if they’re learning the right lessons, like, that was crazy, then I’m like, okay.” Hahaha, the “lesson” is “that was crazy.” That’s so funny.
I saw this video about an hour ago, and it has made my day. It is ridiculous!! You put Pres. Obama in England, amongst the royal family, and he turns into a Bush-style gaffe machine. Okay, here’s the set-up: The Obamas are in the midst of an official state visit to England, and England has pulled out all of the stops for them. The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh (and the prime minister and his wife) set up meetings and photo ops throughout the day yesterday, including the one with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (Will and Kate). Last night, the Queen hosted a major state dinner for the Obamas. Like with every state dinner, the visiting head of state is required to give a toast to his host, in this case, the Queen. What the president is NOT supposed to do is shout his toast OVER “God Save the Queen”. That would be like the Queen belching through “The Star-Spangled Banner”. So, here’s the video… I’ve already watched it five times and I laugh every time. The look that the Queen shoots the president is HILARIOUS.
The Queen is not amused. And she can turn presidents into humbled schoolboys with just an icy royal glare. CB and I were debating this – I find it hilarious, she kind of feels bad for Obama. It’s true that there’s a massive amount of protocol that goes along with these state visits, and it’s very easy for any leader to make a gaffe, and besides that, what does it hurt the Queen to have her royal protocols shaken up a bit? I do think Obama had the decency to be genuinely embarrassed, so there’s that. But he’s still the dude who shouted his toast OVER “God Save the Queen”. Which is hilarious.
In addition to this gaffe, look at how President Obama signed the Buckingham Palace guest book (courtesy of Gawker):
Oooooooooooh!!!! The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (Prince William and Waity Katy) met the Obamas TODAY, at Buckingham Palace. These are the first photos of Kate and Will since their honeymoon. If possible, Kate looks even THINNER? Did she eat anything on the honeymoon? Good Lord. Anyway, William and Kate couldn’t be bothered to invite the Obamas to their wedding, so this is the first time the Obamas and the Cambridges (meh on that name) are meeting all together. I like that the president and William are the same height – they’re both super-tall dudes. And I don’t like how twig-like Kate looks standing next to FLOTUS. Look at her! (UPDATE: More photos at the end of the post!)
Newlyweds William and Kate greeted the Obamas in the grand 1844 room of Buckingham Palace at the start of the US state visit to the UK. It was the first time Kate had undertaken a role as a member of the royal family since her wedding. There were no television cameras nor reporters in the room for the meeting.
A Clarence House spokeswoman said the couples spent around 20 minutes together, chatting informally.
William and Kate returned from their romantic honeymoon in the Seychelles at the weekend and made a special trip to the Palace to see the President and Mrs Obama. The American leader and his wife did not attend the couple’s recent wedding but the state visit has been seen by form of sweetener instead.
Mr Obama told how his country was fascinated by the Westminster Abbey service when he met the Duke’s father, the Prince of Wales, at the White House in Washington a few weeks ago.
William and Kate will be visiting the US during their first overseas tour as a married couple, which begins at the end of next month. The Obamas met the royal couple shortly after arriving at the Palace ahead of the formal ceremonial welcome in the gardens.
Kate, looking slim and tanned after her honeymoon, was pictured deep in conversation with Michelle Obama. Dressed in a pale coffee-coloured cap sleeved knee length dress, she held a black clutch bag as she chatted to the First Lady.
William, in a dark suit with a handkerchief in his pocket, gestured with his hands as he talked with President Obama.
Us Weeklysays that before meeting the Cambridges, the Queen arranged a private tour of Buckingham Palace for the Obamas, and the Queen also arranged a 41-gun salute by the Scots Guards, as well as a performance of The Star Spangled Banner. Nice. I think the Queen really likes the Obamas. Michelle especially, considering the two women had a touchy-feely moment during Michelle’s first trip to England.
The Obamas came to London after a brief stopover in Moneygall, Ireland, which is where President Obama became Barry O’Bama, the Irishman. He drank Guinness at a pub and he probably danced a jig.
UPDATE: Here are some additional photos of Waity & FLOTUS.
I haven’t been paying much attention to Donald Trump and his bid for the Presidency, because that moves an annoying entertainment figure into the realm of an annoying political figure, and we try to ignore those except in the cases of very obvious crossovers. (i.e. Sarah Palin.) So Trump has been spouting that “birther” nonsense to anyone that will listen, and Obama’s people actually responded and released his long form birth certificate. Prior to this there was an announcement in the local Hawaii paper and a “Certification of Live Birth,” which should suffice but was picked apart by people looking to find fault. It’s some complicated stuff, and if you’re interested you can read about it here, here and here, but the gist is that the conspiracy theorists were grasping at straws to try and say that Obama wasn’t born in the US and was therefor not qualified to be President. With crazy Trump at the helm, those theories gained more steam. Anyway Obama put out his long form birth certificate, which was filed away in Hawaii somewhere, and Trump is taking credit for it.
“I know that there is going to be a segment of people for which no matter what we put out, this issue will not be put to rest,” Obama said. “But I am speaking for the vast majority of the American people as well as for the press. We do not have time for this kind of silliness. We have better stuff to do. I have got better stuff to do. We have got big problems to solve.”
“We are not going to be able to do it if we are distracted, we are not going to be able to do it if we spend time vilifying each other … if we just make stuff up and pretend that facts are not facts, we are not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by side shows and carnival barkers,” the president declared earlier.
The document released by the White House differs from the one that Obama’s aides made public during the 2008 presidential campaign. Instead of a “certification” of live birth, this was a “certificate,” clearly recording that the president was born on Aug. 4, 1961 in the Kapiolani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu.
For years, Obama’s circle of aides had resisted calls to make the latter form public, noting that a certification is legally sound and what any citizen of Hawaii receives upon requesting documents of birth. And indeed, for some time, that explanation — supported by a a wide swath of other contemporaneous evidence – seemed to suffice.
But some who challenged the president’s citizenship remained unsatisfied, and in recent weeks they found a high-profile megaphone for their cause: business tycoon and presidential flirt Donald Trump. – Huffington Post
Donald Trump is already taking the credit for getting Barack Obama to go public with his birth certificate … saying, “I’m very proud of myself” … but adds, “We have to see if it’s real.”
Trump added, “I want to look at it, but I hope it’s true so that we can get on to much more important matters … he should have done it a long time ago.”
He continued, “I am really honored, frankly, to have played such a big role in hopefully, hopefully getting rid of this issue.”
As for the actual document, Trump added, “We have to look at it, we have to see … is it real? Is it proper? What’s on it? But I hope it checks out beautifully.” – TMZ
The people who don’t want Obama to be President aren’t going to accept this as fact, and as TMZ points out they’ll say there’s some conspiracy behind waiting so long to release it. As Kaiser told me about this issue, sometimes it’s better not to feed the trolls. Look at how Trump is gloating.
I taped Piers Morgan last night because I heard that Matt Damon would be on, but apparently Damon is on tonight, Thursday. Bret Michaels was on last night, and he was pretty interesting and his health stories are incredible, but he didn’t say much we haven’t heard before. Advance details of Matt Damon’s appearance have him saying that he’s not happy with the way President Obama is running the country. To be fair, it sounds like he was asked a direct question about it and he answered it, explaining that he was particularly dissatisfied with Obama’s education policy.
I’m not going to get into politics here, (apart from covering this story, which I’m sure I’ll get yelled at for anyway) but a lot of people would agree with him on both sides of the aisle for many different reasons. You can’t please everyone, as much as Obama seems to try. Damon is surely going to get a lot of press for this, just as he got a lot of coverage for being one of the first people to criticize Sarah Palin. Here’s more:
When CNN’s Piers Morgan asked actor Matt Damon if he was happy with the way President Barack Obama has been running the country and if Damon was “a fan” of the president, Damon answered “no.”
Damon and the cast of “The Adjustment Bureau” — Emily Blunt, John Slattery and Anthony Mackie — are Thursday evening’s guests on “Piers Morgan Tonight.” During the course of their conversation, Damon and Morgan covered Hollywood, politics, fatherhood and much more.
“He (Obama) misinterpreted his mandate,” said Damon. “He’s doubled down on a lot of things.”
“In his State of the Union he didn’t even say the word ‘poverty,’ ” said Damon. “You’ve got millions of people languishing in it.” Damon, who backed the Obama campaign in 2008, said he appreciates that the president is a “deep thinker.” The actor called Obama brilliant, but said he “definitely wanted more.”
When questioned about what he’d do about Afghanistan, Damon said, “I don’t think the mission there has been very well articulated. And I think it would help to kind of reframe the way we’re thinking about being there and why we’re there.”
Damon also said there has not been a meaningful reform of Wall Street. He said he believes that is “dangerous” and “shameful” and that the financial crisis is “just going to happen again,” because “they don’t make anything. They don’t build anything.”
Morgan asked about Damon’s well-known disapproval of Sarah Palin and the fact that he has spoken out against her since she was announced as John McCain’s running mate in 2008. Damon said he still feels it was reckless to have someone who was “a complete mystery to everybody” be “literally a heartbeat away from the presidency.” Damon also said he disagrees with Palin politically. “She’s not somebody who I would vote for.”
Damon said, though, that while he is passionate about politics, he has no political aspirations.
I’m really looking forward to seeing that tonight. Back in March of last year, Damon said that he was “disappointed” in Obama, but conceded that “politics is compromise.” He said “I’m disappointed in the health care plan and in the troop buildup in Afghanistan. Everyone feels a little let down because, on some level, people expected all their problems to go away. But real change comes from everyday people. You can’t wait for a leader.” What a difference a couple of years makes. Or not.
I was thinking of reporting this story earlier today but then decided to skip it until these new details came out. The gist is that a guy ran naked in front of an Obama speech in order to collect a $1 million payment promised by a billionaire website entrepreneur for a streaker to advertise his site. I’m not going to mention the website here, which is basically a competitor to Chat Roulette, because the jerk who runs it has refused to pay the poor soul who just got himself in a mess of trouble for nothing! You can watch the NSFW streaking video on this site if you’re interested. Here are the guy’s arguments as to why he doesn’t have to pay:
A billionaire who promised to pay $1 million to anyone who ran naked in front of President Obama plans to decide today whether to pay the streaker who tried to comply.
Juan Rodriguez, a 24-year-old New York man, was arrested on Sunday for his “commando-in-chief stunt” at a presidential rally in Philadelphia, the New York Daily News reports. He sported the name of billionaire Alki David’s website on his chest—one of the requirements of the dare.
David will decide today whether he will pay the money, ABC News reports. He is citing a couple stumbling blocks.
First, it’s unclear whether Rodriguez came within “earshot and eyesight of the president” and whether he shouted the name of David’s website six times—all conditions of his dare. Second, David told the Daily News, there is a Pennsylvania law that doesn’t allow anyone to profit from an illegal act.
Tasha Jamerson, spokeswoman for District Attorney Seth Williams, doesn’t agree with David’s interpretation of the state’s so-called Son of Sam statute, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. The law is applied only in murder cases, she said.
But Rodriguez may still be a loser, she told the Inquirer. “Once he goes to trial on Nov. 12, the judge might decide to impose a fine on him—of $1 million.”
So this guy put out a promise to pay a million dollars to anyone doing the stunt and is trying to weasel out of paying now that it’s been accomplished and his website has received a ton of free publicity! It gets worse – the website owner, Alki David, made an incredibly arrogant statement about why he wouldn’t pay up. He said “We’re waiting to hear from the president to see if he, in fact, saw Juan Rodriguez during the streaking challenge. As soon as we get confirmation, we will make the payment.” Are you kidding me? The White House has of course refused to comment and this guy knows Obama is never going to say anything about it. David also admitted that his site traffic has doubled since the incident. After visiting his site earlier today, I downloaded one of the apps they offered (which I refuse to describe but which had a decent service that I was looking for) but there’s no way I’m subscribing or paying for anything this creep is trying to sell now. I’m uninstalling it.
The streaker is a separated father of three from Staten Island who wants to use the money to pay for his kid’s education and to help his sister cover her medical bills. It looks like all he’s going to get out of it is a lot of embarrassment and legal costs.
Here’s that ass Alki David on 10/5/09. Credit: WENN.com
I’m just going to come right out and admit it: I like Pres. Obama, I want him to do well, and he really disappoints me at least once a month. This month’s disappointment is his appearance today on The View. You know why I’m disappointed? Because The View is f-cking horrible. It’s the genesis of decades of television programming aimed at the least common dominator. And by coming on the show, Pres. Obama seems to be indicating that he’s cool with this dumbing-down of America. When asked about why he chose to come on, he explained that Michelle watches. Ugh. Michelle, instead of The View, try PBS. That’s all I’ll say.
So, anyway – Pres. Obama spent the whole hour with the ladies, including the post-op Barbara Walters and the idiotic Elizabeth Hasselbeck. Since I didn’t watch the show, I don’t know what order these subjects came up, and I’ll just do the highlights:
*Obama wasn’t even invited to Chelsea Clinton’s wedding. He said: “It would be tough enough having one president at a wedding, you don’t want two presidents at a wedding… I think that Hillary and Bill, properly, want to keep this as a thing for Chelsea and her soon-to-be husband.”
Obama talks about race, and how he identified himself: He said he went through an identity crisis regarding his race. He eventually settled on “African American” because that’s how others perceived him: “If the world saw me as African American, then that was something I needn’t run away from, that’s something that I could go ahead and embrace.”
Obama addresses the tough time the country is facing:
“As much as you’ve been saying it’s tough for me, the truth is, it’s not tough for me. You know, I’ve got pundits on the news who might say things, but what the American people have gone through — losing jobs, seeing their home values go down, their 401ks declining — those are the people that I draw inspiration from because I get letters every night from them and I read them.”
Obama addresses the Shirley Sherrod controversy:
Sherrod was fired after Andrew Breitbart edited a speech Sherrod made to the NAACP about race – she was accused of anti-white bigotry, when she was just telling a story about the lessons in race and poverty she’s learned over the years. Obama said that he believed that the whole thing was a “phony controversy” created by the media He said: “There are still inequalities out there. There’s still discrimination out there. But we’ve made progress… A lot of people overreacted, including people in my administration.” Bullsh-t, Mr. President. Just own that everyone f-cked up, including you.
Obama talks pop culture:
He knew that Lindsay Lohan was in jail, but won’t say whether he thinks Mel Gibson should take anger management classes. Also: he doesn’t know who Snooki is. That’s already becoming a thing. And he think The Bieb is a “nice young man.”
Was it a good appearance? Was it even smart to do The View? Eh. I’m glad I missed it.
