By Debbie Schlussel
As I’ve recounted on this site previously, I once sat next to Michael Moore at a showing of one of his movies, “The Big One,” which rails against America’s corporations and their CEOS (kinda like his next movie will do).
When the movie was over, he asked me what I thought, and I asked him why he’d rail against CEOs, and yet he was wearing a Detroit Tigers hat and a Chicago Bulls shirt. I reminded him that sports teams are the corporations who most soak taxpayers for their stadiums, etc., and yet they provide mostly seasonal jobs which pay well below market value. Plus, their clothes, which he was wearing, are not made in America, but overseas by the people he complained are paid less than a dollar a day. Moore’s response was that he’s a hypocrite and not consistent, and he seemed proud of that. So, it’s no surprise that it’s more of the same, since he has hundreds of thousands of dollars in corporate stock holdings and he’s at it again, with yet another flick–this time, attacking Wall Street. Over the weekend, he unveiled this extremely obnoxious “trailer” for his next movie to movie audiences in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Yuck.

The untitled movie comes out in October. Gee, I wonder how Michael Moore bought and sold stocks without Wall Street. Oh, yeah, he didn’t avoid Wall Street. But, yet, they’re baaad, very bad.
The “Team America: World Police” guys had exactly the right idea with this self-righteous hypocrite.

By Debbie Schlussel
The most outrageous comment I’ve heard yet about the Iranian elections is one uttered by Michigan’s Communist U.S. Senator Carl Levin on a Detroit radio station, this morning.

Well, more people voted in the Iranian elections than in the U.S. elections. They had a higher turn out in Iran. 80%.

HUH? HUH?! HUH????!!!!
This U.S. Senator is comparing the United States with a totalitarian regime and somehow implying that they are better, more democratic, more committed to free elections. . . because they had a higher percentage of turnout (a forced-by-the-totalitarian-state turnout) at the polls of a fake election run and orchestrated by a theocracy? Absurd. Ludicrous. Ridiculous.

Say Nice Things About Senator Carl Levin & Mir Hossein Moussavi
The whole Iranian election scene is a farce. Even more of a farce is the pandering by all of the cable news networks–CNN, FOX News, MSNBC, etc.–to the supporters of this radical Mir Hossein Mousavi who lost, as if they are some sort of liberty and freedom movement, some semblance of moderation. They are anything but.
On the other hand, the news coverage–on the left AND on the right and all over the mainstream media–pandering to these Iranian supporters of Moussavi is incredibly, jaw-droppingly ignorant–acting as though, if Moussavi had “won,” it would somehow be a legit election and somehow this guy would actually be the “moderate” they pretend that he is, but isn’t.
Moussavi is every bit as committed to development of Iran’s nukes–a program HE started–as Ahmadinejad. He is every bit as anti-Israel and committed to attacking Israel as Ahmadinejad. And, like Ahmadinejad, he was picked as a candidate for this election by the Ayatollahs who run Iran and who would run Iran no matter what. And only an ignoramus would ignore the fact that Moussavi was part of the Iranian “revolution,” which brought the Ayatollah Khomeini back to power from exile in France and which brought our embassies and plenty of Americans to a hostage situation consisting of over a year in captivity.
Any protest or outrage over the victory or loss of either Ahmadinejad or Moussavi on the part of the West is like America being upset that one HAMAS candidate lost to another HAMAS candidate who has Tourette’s Syndrome.
Calling Moussavi a “reformer” or “moderate” reminds me of when, about a decade ago, a cornucopia of “learned,” “astute” (but actually completely clueless and ignorant, per usual) American political analysts called then-Iranian President (and now “Supreme Leader” and Ayatollah) Ali Khamenei a “moderate” and a “reformer,” but he never turned out to be that. And they said the same about Iranian ex-President Mohammad Khatami. In fact, both turned out to be radicals with a nice smile, which anyone could have figured out, since they were installed by the Ayatollahs.
While most of CNN’s reporting predictably didn’t recognize the truth about Moussavi and his “reformer” followers (who are anything but), at least CNN’s website does:

He also was a hard-liner whom the Economist described as a “firm radical.”
He, like most Iranians in power, does not believe in the existence of Israel. He defended the taking of hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Iran in 1979, which led to the break in ties between the countries.
He was part of a regime that regularly executed dissidents and backed the fatwa against British author Salman Rushdie.
And as late as April, he opposed suspending the country’s nuclear-enrichment program but said it would not be diverted to weapons use.
“I wouldn’t go as far as (call it) a ‘Velvet Revolution,'” Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, said of the phrase many are using to describe the rallies in Iran.
“At the end of the day, Moussavi has been more involved and been there from the very beginning of the revolution in a way that Ahmadinejad never was,” Parsi told “CNN Newsroom” on Sunday. “Moussavi was one of the founders of the revolution.”

And while an Iran with Moussavi atop of it, would be no different than an Iran with Ahmadinejad at the top in terms of policy and radicalism, it might have been more dangerous. That’s because Moussavi thinks all of the same things as Ahamadinejad, but he’s not prone to stating these nutty views out in the open. We would be stuck negotiating with a kinder, gentler face of a man who is, privately, every bit as committed to the idea of Holocaust denial and Holocaust cartoons.
So, I don’t really care what happened over the weekend in the fake Iranian elections. To me, it’s the equivalent of two competing ants pissing. I couldn’t care less.
If anything, I’m glad the guy with the perpetual truth serum–who tells us exactly what they’re thinking about the Jews, Israel, nukes, and America–is the guy that’s still in there.
He’ll make it much tougher–and far less palatable to the American and Western public–for Barack Hussein Obama to sit at the table with him.

By Debbie Schlussel
So, last night, I was briefly relaxing and watched “Million Dollar Password,” the revived game show on CBS, hosted by Regis Philbin. It’s among the few shows on TV I watch anymore, since there’s so much crap. (Shows I like include “Mad Men” and “Damages,” but I’m cable-free, so I catch up with DVDs.)
Philbin asked the contestants to tell what they do for a living and a little about themselves. One contestant, a guy, was brilliant. He was the youngest kid ever to graduate high school, college, and grad school, and he’s a professional poker player. I was rooting for this guy, especially when I heard Amber, the chick, describe her profession:

Well, Regis, I’m an education associate for a company that builds playgrounds. So, really, I’m a play worker.

Huh? What the heck is a “play worker”? It sounds like another word for hooker or call girl or sex worker. And why do you need an “education associate” for playgrounds? Playgrounds are supposed to be fun, not educational.

Gee, I wonder how she escaped a look by Stanley Bing.
Sorry, but with America closing plants by the tens of hundreds and producing almost no products on our own soil, and yet having jobs where people are “education associates” for playground companies and “play workers,” it’s no wonder, our economy is down the tubes.
Until and unless we produce things, instead of just consuming them, and produce real concrete jobs–instead of BS “play workers”–we will continue to sink.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, it figures: the brilliant poker player did not get to go on to play the game. He was beaten out by Amber, the play worker, who got much easier clues (gee, I’m sure there’s no affirmative action in play here, right?–that’s another column, which I’ve written in the past many times).

By Debbie Schlussel
Yet another Obama memoir is set to be published soon by Simon and Shuster. But it’s not the autobiography of Barack Hussein Obama. It’s that of his half brother George Hussein Onyango Obama, 27, a Kenyan resident. Yes, this is the Obama half-brother who told reporters he lived on less than a dollar a month. The book deal is worth six figures, reports say.
Still, it sounds like an echo chamber. We’ve heard it all before.
* Son of Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. . . . Check;
* A History of Illegal Drug Problems . . . Check;
* Overcame poverty and crime . . . Check;
* Became a community organizer and advocate for the poor . . . Check;

Obama 1/2 Bro George Hussein Onyango Obama
Gets Gazillion Dollar Book Deal to Retell Same Old Obama Tale
* Middle Name: Hussein . . . Check;
* Muslim . . . Check;
* Born in Kenya . . . Check;
* Raised by his mother and a stepfather . . . Check. Oh, wait, Barack Hussein Obama was mostly raised by his racist, “typical White people” grandparents, while his selfish mother earned her graduate degrees.
Well, it’s still basically the same story.
Like I said, same old story, different first name.
At least the guy won’t have to live on less than a dollar a month anymore, since his stingy, selfish brother won’t help him.
I’m a little confused about the “overcame poverty” part since his quote to Vanity Fair about living on less than a dollar a month, was late last year. I guess that chapter will be entitled: “Overcome Poverty: Get a Book Deal After Your Stingy Bro Gets Elected Prez.”
Wonder what he’ll call the book. I have two suggestions: “The Audacity of Hope,” and “Dreams From My Father.”
Or: “The Audacity of Nope: How My Prez Bro Wouldn’t Give Me a Dime & I Turned it Into a Six-Figure Book Deal.”
Sadly, he’s chosen the title “Homeland,” which, if President Obama wrote it, would also be about Kenya.

By Debbie Schlussel
No, I didn’t forget that not only is today Flag Day, but it’s also the 234th birthday of the United States Army. My own father proudly served several years as a Captain in the U.S. Army, the Army National Guard, and the Army Reserves. And many other members of my family were Army men.

Here’s what I wrote on a previous U.S. Army B-day:

That’s right, the Army is older than our country, founded on June 14, 1775, when soldiers banded together in the Continential Army, an all-volunteer force to fight for America’s independence in the Revolutionary War.
I am especially a fan of the Army because my Dad served in the Army during Vietnam and my Great Uncle Maurice was a career Army man who served during World War II, was the Army’s chief medical officer for the South Pacific after Pearl Harbor, and became head of Veterans’ Services for the South Pacific under the Veterans Administration.

I salute all of the U.S. Armed Forces. But, today–on the Army’s birthday–I salute all of our brave Army members, especially those serving in war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan. Read about U.S. Army military history. Also, read more about the U.S. Army’s Birthday.

Read reader and blogger, retired Army veteran Robert John Mallernee’s post on the U.S. Army Birthday. He also has a ton of video of different greetings by officials and others celebrating this birthday, elsewhere on his site.

By Debbie Schlussel
**** SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE ****
It’s Flag Day, Today. And whether or not you believe the whole Betsy Ross story is true, what counts is what our flag stands for. It stands for America, for freedom, and for the men who died so we could have it and continue to have it.
My favorite flag story, this year, is the story of Jeff Olsen, a tremendously patriotic Chicago area trash collector who, out of his own sense of patriotism, voluntarily rescues hundreds of damaged and/or discarded American flags which were improperly discarded. Since 2005, he’s saved more than 250 flags. For his patriotic efforts, he was honored by the American Legion.

As any avid patriot knows, damaged flags aren’t supposed to be thrown out in the garbage. They’re supposed to be disposed of in a dignified way (usually burning)–as specified in the US Code, Title 4, Chapter 1, Sec. 8(k). This is usually done by your local American Legion Post. (More info at the USA Flag Site.)

Here’s part of my Flag Day entry from 2006:

Happy Flag Day, America! Proudly, we have the most beautiful flag of any nation in the world. Our flag has been through a lot, but it is still waving strong and free. . . .

Here are some interesting facts about the old Red, White and Blue:
* The flag was adopted by the U.S. as our official flag on June 14, 1777 by the Second Continental Congress.
* George Washington originally wanted six-pointed stars (like the Jewish Star) on the flag. But Betsy Ross convinced him to go with the five-pointed stars, according to the Detroit Free Press.
* Wearing the flag (like this jerk, below) is a violation of U.S. Code, Title 4, Chapter 1, Section 8(d), which states:

The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery.

Got that, Kid Rock?
Here are two of my favorite pictures of the flag:

Iwo Jima, 1945

World Trade Center, Post 9/11 Attack, 2001
Happy Flag Day. Forever May You Wave.

**** UPDATE: Reader OldScouter wanted me to let you know that most Boy Scout Troops will also accept flags for proper disposal.

By Debbie Schlussel
A couple of new movie releases that aren’t bad, at this week’s box office, and one awful New Age dud.
* “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3“: This is a remake of a 1974 movie, starring Walter Matthau, Martin Balsam, Robert Shaw, and Hector Elizondo. This incarnation stars Denzel Washington and John Travolta.
I watched the original, last night, and while I liked that, I liked this one much better. It’s fun, fast-paced, exciting, and heart-pounding. John Travolta is good as a villain, and he plays the bad guy in this story about several crooks who hijack a New York subway train, demanding a ransom of $10 million to release the hostages.

Washington plays the schlubby subway traffic controller who negotiates with him. Travolta gives New York City officials an hour to get him the money before he starts killing one hostage a minute.
Travolta claims he’s not a terrorist, but in fact he is. And the Mayor insists on negotiating with him against his advisors’ unanimous advice. It gets from bad to worse, and reminded me of Barack Obama’s desire to negotiate to the Ahmadinejads and HAMASniks. When his “negotiations” with a madman clearly don’t work, his advisors tell him, “you entered his world, now exit it.”
Yes, much of the movie is predictable, but it’s still entertaining and fun to watch. If I had any reservations with it, it’s the obvious things. Primary among them are the many scenes we’re shown of NYPD officers’ motorcade rushing to get the money across Midtown New York in the middle of the afternoon, with the motorcade hitting cars and ** Spoiler Alert ** cops getting severely injured or killed. In the meantime, hostages are killed because of the delay.** End of Spoiler ** Anyone who’s ever been to New York knows that New York traffic at that time of day (and most of the day) is heavy and slow. Why didn’t they just take a helicopter and land on top of a nearby skyscraper? Plus the villain is from Wall Street (more politics of envy class warfare brought to you by the fabulously wealthy in Hollywood).
I could have also done without the digs at Rudy Giuliani (though the original version of this movie was far harsher on then-New York Mayor Abe Beame). The New York Mayor is played by James Gandolfini, who is styled as a fat version of Giuliani (with the bankroll of current Mayor Michael Bloomberg), cheats on his wife, and is a jerk. And he says he doesn’t want to be like Rudy Giuliani in making a speech to calm New York.
But, overall, I liked it.
One other thing: as an attorney, I don’t think a man’s admission, under duress, that he committed a felony–a statement made under the threat of killing people–would necessarily be admissible in court, and if it was, that it would be considered any sort of valid admission.
Note that this movie is not for young kids. It’s bloody and violent and full of f- and s-bombs.
TWO-AND-A-HALF REAGANS

* “Imagine That“: Eddie Murphy is back in his latest comeback attempt vehicle. And it’s not bad. Like most kids’ movies, this is predictable and slightly corny. But, unlike most kids’ movies, it has a storyline that adults can enjoy, and I did. It’s also mildly funny (though some of Murphy’s standard humor from the ’80s seems kind of dated and stale now). I laughed quite a few times. And it’s very cute.
Murphy plays a investment advisor in a brokerage firm, who is in the process of divorcing his wife. His cute (actually, a little too cute) seven-year-old daughter has a security blanket of which she refuses to let go. She talks to three imaginary princesses and a queen via the blanket.
Murphy is competing with a sleazy, oily colleague–who says he’s an American Indian–for advancement at the firm. Soon, Murphy learns that his daughters’ imaginary friends give him brilliant investment advice and predict which companies and stocks will succeed and which will fail.
Even though the man is only 1/32nd American Indian (something we find out at the end), the movie is very offensive and negatively stereotypical in the way it portrays American Indians, and the Native American organizations would be rightfully upset with this movie. You can bet Hollywood would NEVER make fun of Muslims or Arabs this way . . . at least not now in our new post-9/11 uber-tolerance of all things Islamic.
The thing I really liked about this movie is that, unlike many Hollywood offerings, it ultimately shows a competent, loving father spending time with his daughter. Because of that, he finally gets his priorities in line, if at first, he didn’t appreciate his father role.
TWO REAGANS


* “Away We Go“: This is one of the absolutely most awful movies of all time. You know a movie is going to be bad when it starts out with two people in bed during oral sex discussing how one of them “tastes.” Had I walked out them, I’d have been smart, but I was required to watch the whole thing to review it.
This long, boring exercise in New Age BS to the nth degree features an interracial boyfriend and girlfriend (Maya Rudolph and John Krasinski). Rudolph is pregnant and, since they have no friends and not much family, they go on a road trip to choose a place to live and raise their kid. Most of this involves people even more New Age and bizarre than they are and other crazy people in midlife crises.
The only mildly amusing part of this movie was a scene mocking another New Age couple (including homely America-hater Maggie Gyllenhaal), who were so outrageously off the deep end, even pretentious lefties in Hollywood could make fun of them.
Sitting through this was extremely painful. I imagine they force you to watch this over and over in hell. And I think it’s great, um, “programming” for the detainees at Gitmo before the camp gets closed. Watching this truly is torture.
FOUR MARXES

By Debbie Schlussel
It’s amazing that so many still don’t get that this religion is barbaric, backward, and the very definition of uncivilized.
They make a teacher get a DNA test to prove she’s not a man. Outrageous. Talk about sexism. This religion has the market cornered on that.

A classroom assistant has quit her job at a strict Muslim girls’ school after parents launched an email campaign claiming she was a man.
Shifa Patel, who dressed traditionally in a hijab and full-length robe while at work, had to submit herself to a humiliating medical examination after the petition demanded she prove her gender.

Al-Islah Muslim Girls School (& Mosque) Forced Teacher to Prove Gender

The headteacher at Al-Islah Muslim Girls’ School in Blackburn, Lancashire, even sent a letter to parents reassuring them that Ms Patel was female in an attempt to quash the growing discontent.
But police had to be called in when an angry mob of parents gathered at the school gates demanding that she be sacked.

First, Danish cartoons, then the Pope’s comments about Islam, and now a chick teacher they claim is a man. Yup, the Religion of Perpetual Outrage.

The assistant then took the decision to save the school and herself from any more grief and tendered her resignation.

Um, she should’ve taken that step the minute she was asked to take the gender test. But, sadly, she gave in to these barbarians. Dumb.

The hate campaign is believed to have begun when photographs of Ms Patel with short hair and wearing a shirt and trousers were copied from internet site Facebook. These were then circulated by email.
A distraught Ms Patel, whose age is not known, said: ‘I have irrefutable medical evidence that I’m a woman.
‘The people who have done this to me have hurt me so badly. I will never forgive those who did this to me and spread these lies.’
In some of the photographs circulated, Ms Patel is pictured next to acting head teacher Fatima Patel. . . .
Al-Islah Muslim Girls’ School is privately-run and has nearly 200 students.
It occupies the first floor of a red-brick mosque in Blackburn.

Sickening. But that’s Islam. And most of the right is more worried about a David Letterman joke about Sarah Palin and that the bim Miss California got fired.
Priorities.
Thanks to Rodrigo Veleda for the tip.

By Debbie Schlussel
**** SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE ****
Jerusalem is the official capitol of Israel. It is part of the country, and yet America still won’t recognize it, choosing to have the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv.
That’s old news.
But things have gotten worse. As reported by Yisrael Medad of My Right Word, the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem refuses to put Israel on the American passports and other documents of Americans born in Jerusalem . . . any part of Jerusalem. I guess that Western Wall is of the “Muslim” Temple? I guess it’s the City of “Dawud”? Instead, a non-existent country, “West Bank” is on their passports and birth documents.

Israeli Soldiers Recapture the Western Wall & Liberate Jerusalem
Writes Yisrael:

The United States Consulate General in Jerusalem, which is where all American citizens residing in Jerusalem, east and west, as well as Judea and Samaria come to for consular services cannot have “Israel” appended to the name of the city “Jerusalem” if their child is born in Shaare Zedek, Bikkur Cholim, Misgav Ladach or the two Hadaash hospitals. Jerusalem as a sovereign part of Israel is not recognized.

Read the rest here and his follow-up here, as Yisrael has done a lot of work and investigation into this.
Sadly, that’s the State Department for you: a bunch of scumbag pan-Arabists and pan-Muslims who hate Israel and will never miss an opportunity to manifest that hatred in policy.
But as I’ve written about extensively, in “Whose Jerusalem?” Jerusalem has always been a Jewish city, always the capitol of the Jewish people, and the Muslim claim to it is phony and made up.
**** UPDATE: Carl in Jerusalem notes that three years ago, he wrote about how the U.S. Embassy expunged “Jerusalem, Israel” from a death certificate of someone–a relative of his friends–who died in Jerusalem, and reminds me that I also wrote about that very same story, as reported by Michael Freund of The Jerusalem Post.

By Debbie Schlussel
Since it’s Friday, it’s Free Chocolate Friday. As regular readers know, every Friday through the end of September is Free Chocolate Friday, meaning that under Mars’ “Real Chocolate Relief Act” promotion, you can get a coupon for a free Mars chocolate candy bar. Yes, free does not always mean healthy. But while there may be no such thing as a fre lunch, there is a free Snickers bar or M&Ms package or Twix, etc. . . .
Go here for the details and link to free chocolate.