With political prognosticators increasingly convinced of a Republican takeover of Congress this fall, the highest ranks of the GOP have done their best to present a united front to voters.
In successive interviews this week, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) -- the caucus member seen as his philosophical antagonist -- both stressed that there won't be a battle for the leader's post in the next congressional session.
"First of all, I already have the votes to be re-elected as Republican leader, and will be re-elected," McConnell told ABC's "Top Line." Bolstering that claim, DeMint told the National Review that same day that he wouldn't challenge the Kentucky Republican in a leadership contest.
Not everyone, however, is sold on the idea that electoral gains will smooth the frictions inside the GOP.
"Right now, there is no coherent philosophy leading the GOP establishment other than anti-Obamaism," said Craig Shirley, a longtime party strategist. "And while that may be an effective organizing theme for a political party whose 'War Room' mentality has dominated it for the past ten years, it is hardly a governing set of principles."
"Assuming November goes as expected," Shirley added, "the GOP will shortly thereafter descend into a brawl that will resemble the bar scene from 'Star Wars'. One side will claim the election is a vindication of Bush's big government conservatism while another side, the Reaganites, allied with the Tea Party movement, will more astutely see the results as a repudiation of both Bush's and Obama's embrace of big government."
Long a skeptic about Republican leadership during the Obama presidency, Shirley's concerns about Republican disunity aren't entirely rare within the party ranks. The purge of not only moderates but the fiscally un-conservative that has defined this election cycle seems destined to morph into a philosophical battle over the direction of the GOP once the new class of members is seated.
The pop star gets into character as a VERY sexy Statue of Liberty for the new issue of ‘V,’ which celebrates New York!
Lady Gaga is doing what she does best and showing off her amazing body in super sexy lingerie for the new issue of V Magazine, celebrating all that is great about New York City! Among those joining Gaga, made to look like the Statue of Liberty, are Marc Jacobs, Chloe Sevigny, and Mark Ronson to name a few. Needless to say, this is one incredibly good looking bunch of New York residents!
Take a look at the photos above and tell us what you think of this new spread HollywoodLifers!
BFFs, HollywoodLife.com spoke with Jon Gosselin’s leadership coach Dr. Sylvia Lafair, minutes after she hung up with Jon. She tells us that Jon completely denies extorting his ex-wife Kate Gosselin for money and that he NEVER filed a claim with Child Protective Services!
Jon Gosselin is “devastated,” says his leadership coach, Dr. Sylvia Lafair, over the accusations made by his ex-girlfriend Hailey Glassman, 23 — that he extorted his ex-wife Kate Gosselin for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
We told you earlier today that RadarOnline.com spoke with Hailey, who alleges that Jon, 33, would often call Kate, 35, on speakerphone and threaten to go to authorities with proof that she was an unfit parent and had abused their 9-year-old daughter Mady. But Jon’s leadership coach and President of The Country Place Retreat in PA, Dr. Lafair says after speaking with Jon, she can tell HollywoodLife.com that this is completely untrue.
“Jon has moved on and he hasn’t spoken with Hailey in well over a year,” says Dr. Lafair. “Claims with CPS were never filed, and there is no CPS in PA, it’s called Children and Youth Services. Jon is very saddened and frustrated because he is working in the best interests of his children. These are incendiary statements made by someone who Jon had a brief relationship with a long time ago.”
Sylvia is absolutely right in at least one aspect of this drama. The organization in PA that acts as CPS is called the Office of Children Youth and Families. In the state of PA you are able to either go directly to this office or you can call a local hotline anonymously called ChildLine and report a parent.
But Dr. Lafair goes on to tell HollywoodLife.com that Jon does NOT want his children to be on either of Kate’s new TLC reality shows, Kate Plus 8 or, Twist of Kate!
“Jon wants his children to have a camera-free and undocumented life,” Dr. Lafair reveals adamantly. “He wants his kids to live and have the kind of normalcy that kids need. He doesn’t want his kids to come to him when they are teens or adults and say he didn’t try to protect their privacy. This is one of the things he wants to do. He wants to protect his children and he is in the process of trying to figure out how to do that, but that’s all I can tell you right now.”
We reached out to Kate lawyer Cheryl Young who told HollywoodLife.com “no comment.”
NEW YORK — Lindsay Lohan wants your respect.
In the upcoming issue of Vanity Fair, the 24-year-old actress acknowledges making mistakes in the past and "dabbling in certain things."
But in a July interview with the magazine before she served 14 days in jail followed by 23 days of inpatient rehab, she defended her actions, saying she was young and curious and was associating with the wrong people.
"So many people around me would say they cared for the wrong reasons," Lohan said. "A lot of people were pulling from me, taking from me and not giving. I had a lot of people that were there for me for, you know, the party."
Lohan says she used to get her news from tabloids, which she now calls "scary and sad."
"I would look up to those girls ... the Britneys and whatever," she said. "And I would be like, I want to be like that."
Despite everything, Lohan is confident in her acting abilities and future: "I don't care what anyone says. I know that I'm a damn good actress."
She says she'll do whatever it takes to fix her party-girl image.
"I want my career back," she said. "I want the respect that I had when I was doing great movies. And if that takes not going out to a club at night, then so be it. It's not fun anyway."
She also addresses issues with her father, Michael Lohan, saying, "I think my biggest focus for myself is learning how to continue to get through the trauma that my father has caused in my life."
Lohan talks about the mixed signals of seeing her father in court crying over her but then speaking to the media afterward.
Nancy Jo Sales, who wrote the article, says Lohan got emotional when talking about her younger sister Ali's presence in the courtroom. Lohan described seeing her sister cry as heartbreaking.
Lohan has a busy schedule ahead of her. She's required to comply with outpatient rehab, which includes two psychotherapy, two behavior therapy and five 12-step sessions a week.
Her next movie, "Machete," directed by Robert Rodriguez, hits theaters on Sept. 3.
She also has an apparel line, 6126, for which she designs clothes and signs off on decisions.
The October issue of "Vanity Fair" hits newsstands in New York and Los Angeles on Thursday and nationwide on Sept. 7.
THESSALONIKI, Greece — Police say break-ins at two fur farms have set more than 50,000 minks on the loose in northern Greece.
A statement from local police says the break-ins occurred Friday and Saturday near the city of Kastoria, which is the center of Greece's fur industry.
Regional TV channels showed farm employees chasing the animals with fishing nets on Monday.
The National Fur Breeders' Association says most of the released animals are likely to die in the late-August heat. It says the cost to the farm owners could pass euro1 million ($1.27 million).
No group has claimed responsibility for the incident. But an animal rights group, calling itself the "Hawks of Reprisal," said it was responsible for a similar break-in last year.
HAVANA — Fidel Castro says al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is a bought-and-paid-for CIA agent who always popped up when former President George W. Bush needed to scare the world, arguing that documents recently posted on the Internet prove it.
"Any time Bush would stir up fear and make a big speech, bin Laden would appear threatening people with a story about what he was going to do," Castro told state media during a meeting with a Lithuanian-born writer known for advancing conspiracy theories about world domination. "Bush never lacked for bin Laden's support. He was a subordinate."
Castro said documents posted on WikiLeaks.org – a website that recently released thousands of pages of classified documents from the Afghan war – "effectively proved he was a CIA agent." He did not elaborate.
The comments, published in the Communist Party daily Granma on Friday, were the latest in a series of provocative statements by the 84-year-old revolutionary, who has emerged from seclusion to warn that the planet is on the brink of nuclear war.
Castro even predicted the global conflict would mean cancellation of the final rounds of the World Cup last month in South Africa. He later apologized for jumping the gun. Last week, he began highlighting the work of Daniel Estulin, who wrote a trilogy of books highlighting the Bilderberg Club, whose prominent members meet once a year behind closed doors.
The secretive nature of the meetings and prominence of some members – including former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, senior U.S. and European officials, and major international business and media executives – have led some to speculate that it operates as a kind of global government, controlling not only international politics and economics, but even culture.
During the meeting, Estulin told Castro that the real voice of bin Laden was last heard in late 2001, not long after the Sept. 11 attacks. He said the person heard making warnings about terror attacks after that was a "bad actor."
Castro stepped down due to ill health in 2006 – first temporarily, then permanently – and handed power over to his younger brother Raul. He has remained head of the Cuban Communist party but stayed out of view for four years after falling sick before returning to the spotlight in July.
Castro did take exception with one of Estulin's major theses: that the human race must move to another habitable planet or face extinction.
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Want to know how Lea Michele gets blemish-free skin and other star beauty secrets? Read on!
Don’t you sometimes envy the stars, the way they seemingly glide across the red carpet and make beauty look so easy? Well, what you don’t know is that a LOT of preparation goes into making those stars look all shiny and gorgeous. Here are some secrets weapons of the stars that help them look effortlessly beautiful:
We’re all crazy about Lea Michele and her gorgeous complexion but want to know a little secret? She fights blemishes just like all of us (we are all human after all) and the way she gets her perfect skin is the same way the Kardashian sisters stay pimple-free: their Perfect Skin system! Because, let’s face it: acne on the red carpet could be tragic, people.
This year’s Golden Globes showed us that it can (and does) sometimes rain on the red carpet and frizzy hair on stars with gorgeous hair like Blake Lively is just a no-no. This year, look for the beauty industry’s latest breakthrough product, Avon Lotus Shield, to protect anyone and everyone from the elements. It’s a personal favorite of mine, I’m not going to lie: a product that actually causes moisture to keep its original droplet form and roll off your hair without penetrating the hair shaft. And the results last three days!
Cellulite is something that ails even the thinnest of stars, but Victoria Beckham has a little treatment she swears by that uses Karin Herzog Silhouette and Tonus B-12 creams. They help break up and release the fats that cause cellulite. Judging from the looks of her, I’d say the results are pretty major.
Lip injections can be costly (not to mention painful – yikes) and look unnatural. Here’s a little secret of stars like Michelle Tractenberg, Tyra Banks and Cindy Crawford: Huge Lips Skinny Hips lip gloss. It’s a lip plumping gloss that includes an ingredient to curb your appetite. It keeps the pouts of our svelte starlets looking luscious as well as stopping them from diving into dessert trays at the after parties.
Lastly, those sky-high stilettos are painful (can I get an amen, ladies?) and standing in them for hours can be enough to bring even the strongest woman to her knees in anguish. Stylists like Robert Verdi swear by it for clients like Eva Longoria Parker and Kathy Griffin: the Foot Petals Women’s Stiletto Stylist Kit. Place these pads at the ball of the foot, under the instep, across the back strap – wherever that shoe ails you and you can walk for miles.
Don’t get me wrong. The stars are naturally gorgeous but everyone can use a little help now and again to make glamour look easy. Feel free to steal a few of these secrets for your yourself. It’s our little secret.
WASHINGTON — The military's flagship hospital has acknowledged it mishandled two packages of radioactive material in May, possibly exposing staff and patients to elevated radiation levels.
Spokesman Chuck Dasey said Thursday that Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington doesn't dispute the allegations made by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The commission said the packages sat beneath a lobby counter for nearly two days after they were delivered.
Dasey says the hospital has since reinforced its nuclear medicine safety program and retrained staff on the proper handling of radioactive material.
The packages contained radioactive material used to treat and diagnose ailments such as cancer and heart disease.
NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said no harm has been reported from the incident.
Don’t you just love Katy Perry’s bindi-inspired mani?
Katy Perry loves to play around with fun, totally crazy manicures. Usually, like her long, sharp, purple glitter mani she wore in Malaysia, her styles aren’t exactly anything you and I could wear in real life. However, this subtly embellished manicure she wore to the Late Show With David Letterman in NYC on Aug. 24 is totally cute and wearable! Katy wore light pink nails that were accented with bindi-inspired gold and turquoise dots. On her pinky, she added a bit more sparkle with a gold hue. I love that upon first glance you wouldn’t notice the added bling but upon further inspection you see how intricate and pretty her nails are. Would you ever try out a style like this?
GENEVA — Swiss death penalty advocates can start collecting signatures for a referendum on whether to restore capital punishment in the Alpine republic after almost 70 years, the government said Tuesday.
An announcement in the federal bulletin said the documents submitted by campaigners meet formal legal requirements.
The group now has until Feb. 24, 2012, to collect the 100,000 signatures needed to call a popular vote on reintroducing the death penalty for murders involving sexual abuse, the announcement said.
Switzerland eliminated capital punishment from its criminal statutes in 1942. The last civilian to be executed in Switzerland was beheaded in 1940. The death penalty remained part of Switzerland's military law until 1992, though the last executions took place by firing squad in 1944.
Authorities have yet to examine whether the death penalty would be constitutionally legal and in line with Switzerland's international obligations, including the European Convention on Human Rights.
Government spokesman Andre Simonazzi said if parliament finds that capital punishment would breach the Swiss constitution or international treaties it can block the referendum from taking place.
The proposal to reinstate the death penalty has drawn criticism from all sides of the political spectrum and comes less than a year after Switzerland made headlines worldwide by voting to ban the construction of minarets.
A spokesman for human rights group Amnesty International in Switzerland, Daniel Graf, said reintroducing capital punishment would put Switzerland at odds with a general trend around the world to abolish the death penalty. The only country in Europe that still practices the death penalty is Belarus, he said.
"I don't think many people will support this proposal," said Graf. "In Switzerland, there is a broad consensus across party lines that the state shouldn't kill and must respect basic human rights."