Russell Crowe may have ruined Les Miserables for some, but at least the actor isn’t shying away from the criticism. In light of Adam Lambart lambasting the cast vocals last week – Tweeting how the “score suffered massively with great actors PRETENDING to be singers” – the Oscar winner has now responded. And you may be surprised by Crowe’s retort. After a follower sent him Lambert’s critique, Crowe took to Twitter and… mostly agreed with the former American Idol finalist. “I don’t disagree with Adam, sure it could have been sweetened,” Crowe wrote. “[ Les Miserables director Tom] Hooper wanted it raw and real, that’s how it is.” Fair enough, those also irritating enough according to many. What did you think of Les Miserables ? Grade it now: A B C D F View Poll »
Worst. Negotiators. Ever. Donald Trump is slamming the GOP over the fiscal cliff deal that lawmakers reached in the last 48 hours, saying Republicans “may be the worst negotiators in history.” The real estate mogul’s harsh words concerned the last-minute compromise reached by V.P. Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). The U.S. Senate passed legislation to avert the fiscal cliff – a series of tax increases and budget cuts set to take place January 1 – on New Year’s Eve. The U.S. House passed the bill less than 24 hours later, despite the objections of about 150 Republican members who felt their side gave away too much. Trump, a Republican who’s not shy about criticizing Democrats or President Barack Obama, said “Republicans got nothing” in the fiscal cliff deal. Is that really accurate, though? Under the new agreement: Taxes will rise only for individuals making over $400,000 and couples making over $450,000, with the top rate increasing from 35 to 39.6%. Itemized deductions would be capped for those making $250,000 ($300,000 for couples). Taxes on inherited estates will go up to 40 percent from 35 percent. Capital gains tax rates will increase from 15 to 20 percent. Unemployment insurance would be extended for a year for 2 million people. The alternative minimum tax will be adjusted for inflation. While the first tax increases in many years are significant, the rates and tiers are under the threshold sought by President Obama in nearly all cases. With the support of the public and Congress, GOP leverage was minimized; also, there are further, more significant negotiations on the horizon. The deal does not address the federal spending cuts now set to take effect March 1, nor the long-range entitlement reform debate raging in Congress. Also, the delay was likely caused at least in part by House Speaker John Boehner’s effort to appease the conservative wing of his party and keep his job. All of this logic seems to be lost on the Donald … not that we’re surprised.
The online campaign urging Macy’s to Dump Trump is hitting the streets – billboard style. On Saturday, a mobile billboard attached to a truck began circling Macy’s headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio, as well as a nearby department store. In New York, another mobile billboard began circling the company’s flagship store in Herald Square. The goal? Get Macy’s to cut ties with Donald Trump. Dump Trump, a petition from the liberal group MoveOn (dot) org, has gained nearly 680,000 signatures since launching last month in a bid to get him fired. The petition charges Trump with making “sexist” and “racially charged” comments, which organizers say are against Macy’s social responsibility policy. Case in point: Trump’s election night Twitter tirade , in which he called America a sham democracy after President Obama’s win and urged a march on D.C. Earlier case in point: Trump’s nonsense about Obama’s birth certificate . “There is a gap between what Macy’s brand is and what Donald Trump’s brand is,” protest organizer Angelo Carusone tells The Hollywood Reporter . The billboards feature photos of a classic Santa Claus next to an angry-looking Trump, as well as the words “Bring back the classic Macy’s. Dump Trump.” The campaign is asking the retailer to stop carrying Trump’s line of clothing and fragrances and to stop using the billionaire real estate mogul in ads. “Macy’s says they are a cut above the rest. They appeal to everyone’s nostalgia. They inject themselves into our culture and our holidays,” says Carusone. “We don’t think [Trump] represents the values they espouse.” Carusone hopes the billboards will make Macy’s and the public see Trump as a liability, not an asset, especially if accompanied by protests at Macy’s events. If it’s working, the company has yet to admit as much yet. Macy’s has stood by Trump, saying through a spokesman, “Macy’s marketing and merchandise offerings are not representative of any political position.” NBC has also indicated it will stick with Trump as it prepares to launch another season of Celebrity Apprentice , which is apparently still on the air, in March.
Needless to say, McIlroy has some money to spend during the off-season, and according to GossipExtra.com, the 23-year-old#39;s going to spend it on a $10.9 million home in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. Rory McIlroy, the world#39;s No. 1 golfer and biggest earner on the PGA Tour this year, has signed a contract to buy one of Palm Beach County#39;s greatest houses. Several real estate sources tell me McIlroy, who won the PGA Player of the Year award this week, came close to the $10.9 million-asking
We’ll take seconds on that turkey but hold the side of Hep C please! LLS Rachel’s Gentlemen’s Club in Casselberry, FL kept up their annual tradition by offering free Thanksgiving meals to folks in need this past Thursday. We hear the dancers kept things G-rated for the kiddies in tow and Rachel’s fed roughly 400 people. The club gave out free Christmas trees to all visitors to! ‘Tis the season…we can’t hate on good charity. Images via youtube
That’s just an estimate too because the overall cost for Sandy’s destruction is expected to rise. According to The Huffington Post : Superstorm Sandy caused at least $29.4 billion in overall damage in New Jersey, according to a preliminary analysis released by Governor Chris Christie’s office Friday. The estimate of the damage caused by the storm, which ravaged the Northeastern U.S. coastline late last month, includes personal property, business, infrastructure and utility damage, Christie said in a statement. The statement said the preliminary cost estimate is “inclusive of aid received to date and anticipated from federal sources,” including the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Small Business Administration. Christie said it was a “conservative and responsible estimate” that could be revised higher, Christie said. Last week, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said he planned to ask the federal government for $30 billion in disaster aid for the state. Earlier this month, New York City Comptroller John Liu said the storm was costing New York City $200 million a day in lost economic activity, with that amount likely to top out at about $1 billion. “This preliminary number is based on the best available data, field observations and geographical mapping, and supported by expert advice from my Cabinet commissioners and an outside consulting company,” Christie said in the statement Friday. Christie said the estimate will be refined in the future to include impact on the next tourist seasons, real estate values and population shifts. The record-breaking “superstorm” blasted through eight Northeastern U.S. states on Oct. 30, killing dozens of people, battering coastal neighborhoods and forcing mass evacuations. The storm shut down the entire New York City subway system for days. Images via tumblr
Donald Trump is usually at home in the middle of controversy, but probably wishes he could extricate himself from this mess; over 470,000 people have signed a petition for Macy’s to fire him. While residents of 20 states petition to secede from the U.S., many more Macy’s customers are urging the retailer to cut ties with the real estate tycoon immediately. Hosted by SignOn (dot) org, the petition says Macy’s should axe Trump because he is sexist, racist, a denier of climate change science and not “socially responsible.” “The list goes on, but the point remains, Macy’s should dump Trump ,” it reads. Although the petition’s intro doesn’t mention it, The New York Times reported that the effort was sparked by Macy’s recently shooting a commercial with Trump. In the ad, Trump doesn’t believe Santa is real and tugs his beard to make sure – a knock at Trump’s obsession with President Barack Obama’s birth certificate . Trump attempted to insert himself into the 2012 election more than a few times, most recently with a lame PR stunt urging Obama to be more transparent. That, and general obnoxiousness, have caused his image to take a bit of a hit. By Tuesday morning, the Macy’s petition had gained upwards of 471,000 signatures, with the great hashtag #DumpTrump gaining popularity on Twitter. Hundreds of people were passing around the link to the petition in hopes of getting the department store to change its mind about its relationship with Trump. Macy’s had reportedly planned on expanding its line of Trump-related products (shirts and ties) and its partnership with his organization in general. How will the company handle this? It’s unclear, but as the Dump Trump campaign continues to go viral, they probably have to respond somehow.
Actor Daniel Day-Lewis was reticent playing U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in the now much anticipated film that opens this weekend beginning in limited release and heads out wide the following week. But after a long build-up before actually taking on the 16th U.S. leader, he reflected that he now feels “nourished” by the role and hopes Lincoln will “stay with him forever.” Both Day-Lewis and director Steven Spielberg made their only joint television appearance on ABC, which airs Friday evening on World News with Diane Sawyer and Nightline . “This seemed like such an important thing,” said U.K.-born Day-Lewis. “The last thing I wanted to do was to desiccate the memory of the most dearly loved president of this country.” Day-Lewis said that he became familiar with Lincoln while studying up on the Civil War and Spielberg recalled going to Washington, D.C. as a youth. “I think it might have been from the cards that you got with bubble gum,” Day-Lewis said. “That was a huge currency at the school where I was and there was a big series on the Civil War. … We were constantly swapping cards back and forth to try to get the completed set.” Added Spielberg: “All I saw was a giant. I never forgot that experience. … I felt he was looking directly at me.” Spielberg added that the found the idea of making Lincoln daunting, but said that Doris Kerns-Goodwin’s Team of Rivals shed light on a part of the President he had hoped to discover. “He was awkward to look at. His voice didn’t fit his stature, and he would just disarm a room with just a crazy story that had no relevance to the issue of why they were in the room to begin with,” he said. “There were so many odd, strange things about Abraham Lincoln that I think nobody knew how to pigeonhole him.” Spielberg said he had considered fully chronicling Lincoln’s life, but decided to narrow this portrait of him to the period when he struggled to pass the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which formally abolished slavery. “We didn’t have the real estate to really give an accurate Lincoln portrait,” he told ABC News. “It would have been like a greatest-hits album. You know, all those moments you read about in class — two minutes for that, five minutes for the Gettysburg Address, let’s do a little montage of the debates. I realized we had to take a position, our position, and get on with it. … I will certainly carry this with me.” Tommy Lee Jones Clip in Lincoln follows: Official Log-line: Steven Spielberg directs two-time Academy Award® winner Daniel Day-Lewis in “Lincoln,” a revealing drama that focuses on the 16th President’s tumultuous final months in office. In a nation divided by war and the strong winds of change, Lincoln pursues a course of action designed to end the war, unite the country and abolish slavery. With the moral courage and fierce determination to succeed, his choices during this critical moment will change the fate of generations to come. Watch the video on YouTube [Source: ABC News ]
Is the media grossly misreporting the taxes paid by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney? According to one review of his 2011 return , very much so. Mitt and Ann Romney ‘s 2011 adjusted gross income (AGI) was about $18.6 million, with their total federal income tax coming to $1.9 million, or 14.1 percent. This number is a bit misleading, however, when analyzing Mitt Romney tax returns . It implies the Romneys kept 85.9 percent of what they earned, which isn’t the case. First off, they clamed $4.6 million in itemized deductions, including $1.3 million in state and local income taxes and $215,000 in real estate taxes. That’s more than $1.5 million they never saw, and the generous couple also donated $1.3 million in cash and another $921,000 in securities. Another $2.21 million they did not keep for themselves. The Romneys earned $2.2 million in qualified dividends and $6.8 million in capital gains in 2011, income taxed at the favorable rate of 15 percent. While this rate seems low, it has been taxed at the corporate level first at a higher rate – 35 percent. The government has been paid twice, in other words. Finally, the Romneys paid $103,000 in foreign taxes, which has nothing to do with offshore accounts, but global investments taxed in their nation of origin. According to this analysis, on $18.6 million of productivity, they paid $10.8 million in taxes and gifts to charity, keeping just 42.1 percent of what they produced. Yes, this still makes them extremely wealthy, and no, it does necessarily make Romney any more (or less) qualified to be President of the United States. Viewed through a different lens, however, Romney’s generosity and tax burden is not the example of responsibility-shirking greed his opponents might like you to believe. U.S. Presidential Election 2012 : Obama-Biden Romney-Ryan View Poll »
Debo’s gotta pay while Wells Fargo is straight chillin’. Tommy Lister took a plea bargain after the IRS and FBI investigated into the fraudulent mortgage schemes he’d been doing. Tommy “Tiny” Lister, a character actor who has appeared in nearly 100 movies including “Jackie Brown” and “Beverly Hills Cop II,” has agreed to plead guilty to a mortgage fraud scheme that cost banks $3.8 million. The 54-year-old actor entered the plea agreement Friday, the same day prosecutors charged him with conspiring from 2005 to 2007 to buy homes he could not afford and to withdraw more than $1.1 million cash in home-equity loans that were not repaid. Prosecutors accused Lister and five other people — a real estate agent, a mortgage loan officer, a bank manager, an escrow officer and an accountant — of using falsified records to help Lister unlawfully acquire four homes for $5.7 million. Lister, who lives in Chatsworth, defaulted on the loans. Banks later sold them at a loss of more than $2.6 million, the U.S. attorney’s office said in a news release. Lister was also accused of sumbitting falsified W-2 forms and a fake pay stub in his application for the home equity lines of credit. He agreed to plead guilty in federal court in Los Angeles to conspiracy to commit mortgage fraud, a charge that carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. He has not yet entered a plea. We’re not saying he isn’t guilty as charged but it’s a shame that Freddie, Fannie, and all these other mofo’s can get away with thievery like this and we just bail them out. Source Images via WENN
