By Debbie Schlussel
I’m sure there’s not a single person with an average IQ or above that believes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Chieftess Julie L. Myers’ a/k/a The ICE Princess’ hilarious claim that she could not tell that an ICE employee was wearing make-up and in blackface upon wearing a racist costume she praised at the holiday party she hosted (and in a costume contest which she judged . . . hello?).
No-one is that stupid, are they? We all know she was aware of this and made up this totally unbelievable lie in a pathetic attempt to save her nomination as ICE chiefatrix, now that she’s been caught with her pants down. But, reading this e-mail from an ICE eye-witness makes it even more outrageous:

Debbie,
This statement is patently false, as I am sure the DHS investigation will show:

The ICE Princess:
Once You Go Blackface, You Never Go . . . Back to ICE Leadership?
(Julie Myers Diet Coke by David Lunde/Lundesigns)

“Most people in the room didn’t realize he was wearing make-up at all,” she said.
I work at ICE Headquarters and saw this guy walking towards our building as I walked past him on the side walk. I could tell from 50 yards away that it was a heavy bronzing make-up, much less while viewing him in a room. That Myers and her cronies found this costume “original” is disgusting. I thought, given our area in DC, that he might not make it to his destination without a beating. I couldn’t believe it when I later found it was the same guy. Not even a color-blind person would be unable to tell that he was wearing make-up. That, and a dreadlocked wig and prison stripes, were only meant to infer a black Jamaican criminal. It’s nice that they found that so humorous.
Now this guy is going to get hammered, and rightly so. But Myers and her crew found it funny. I didn’t find it funny when I saw this guy walking in the street, and I didn’t even know about the costume party or that he was walking towards ICE. It was a cruel and simple-minded caricature, and nothing about it was original.

It’s incredible that likely the MOST important national security issue facing our nation–IMMIGRATION–is entrusted to someone with such a lack of maturity, discretion, and–above all–integrity.
They lynched Clarence Thomas over a scorned woman who made up obscene Coke can jokes. Robert Bork got Borked over nothing.
And this woman may get away with this?! . . . . . .???!!!. . . . .???!!!
Since she is now an open fan of the Religion of Beheading, er . . . “Peace”, she should understand the phrase:

Heads Must Roll.

By Debbie Schlussel
You know those new voter ID laws that go into effect in a number of states, today? Well, they’re completely phony. They have NO teeth. Impotent.
I went to vote, this morning, under Michigan’s “new” voter ID law. I put new in quotation marks because the law’s been on the books for at least eleven years, but because of NAACP and ACLU lawsuits and appeals, it was never enforced . . . until today. A recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld Michigan’s law requiring identification to vote at the polls as Constitutional.
But unbeknownst to most, the law doesn’t actually require ID at all. It requires that if a voter doesn’t have ID, he or she can sign a statement saying they don’t have any. Like no-one is going to lie on that one.

In other words, the law that the NAACP and ACLU were fighting against and many of us were fighting for, is completely meaningless. A waste of time. It doesn’t really require a thing.
Check out the notic I got at the voting booth, this morning. The front side says you must provide ID to vote. But . . . the back side says you don’t. You can just sign and claim you don’t have one.
The Front of This Voter Document Looks Strict . . .

But Not Soooo Fast. Check Out This Part on the Flip Side . . .

Clearly, a lot of taxpayer resources and time were wasted fighting for nothing. Well past time for us to finally get serious and enact laws that REALLY do something about voter fraud.
This doesn’t cut it.

By Debbie Schlussel
A number of outraged ICE agents have been sending me this item picked up by all the major cable news networks about a certain Halloween party and interesting “costume.”
Liberal then-Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder called Ronald Reagan,”The Teflon President,” because she felt no criticism stuck to him.

Jungle Fever: The ICE Princess Loves the Blackface
(Julie Myers Diet Coke by David Lunde/Lundesigns)
Not that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Chieftess Julie L. Myers a/k/a “The ICE Princess” is worthy of any comparison to the GREAT Reagan (she wouldn’t be fit to lick his shoes), but she might be called the Teflon Immigration Princess. After all, despite horrendous incompetence, immaturity, millions of illegal aliens laughing at her, multi-millions in waste on Tommy Lasorda confabs and stuffed monkey trinkets, a top crony and personal ICE attorney who used his position to try get his drug dealer brother-in-law out of a federal indictment, etc., the idiots in the Senate (regardless of party) still kiss her butt and gush over this real-life Veruca Salt.
But her latest huge gaff may turn the tides. Seems the ICE Princess hosted an official ICE Halloween costume party (I thought that was for kids–see Mitch Albom’s excellent column on that) and gave special praise to a racist costume. This is in addition to her violating an Equal Employment Opportunities decision requiring her to discipline her top aide, Marcy Forman-Friedman a/k/a “Peppermint Patty”, after it was determined that Ms. Forman-Friedman blatantly discriminated against a very qualified Black Customs inspector who wanted to be an ICE agent, telling him she would see to it that “your Black ass” will never get the job. And then there was the ICE Princess galavanting to Black majority city Detroit on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, requiring agents to work on the federal holiday and fetch her Diet Coke.
But this latest takes the cake:

The Department of Homeland Security will investigate a Halloween costume party hosted by a top immigration official and attended by a man dressed in a striped prison outfit, dreadlocks and darkened skin make-up, a costume some say is offensive, the department’s secretary said. . . .
Julie Myers, head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and host of the fundraising party, was on a three-judge panel that originally praised the prisoner costume for “originality.”
Myers later apologized for “a few of the costumes,” calling them “inappropriate and offensive.” She said she and other senior managers “deeply regret that this happened.” [DS: Uh, yeah. Now, that she got caught with her panties down, she’s sorry. Riiiight. Crocodile tears.]
A department photographer photographed Myers with the man, but the images were deleted after the costume were deemed offensive[DS: How convenient], ICE spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said. [DS: I will have coffee with the first person who e-mails me one of these photos.]
Between 50 and 75 people attended the party, which was a fundraiser for the Combined Federal Campaign, a federal government collection of charities.
Nantel said one employee, whom she declined to identify, was wearing a black-and-white striped prison outfit, dreadlocks and a skin “bronzer” intended “to make him look African-American.” But, she said, it was not immediately apparent that he was wearing the make-up.
“Most people in the room didn’t realize he was wearing make-up at all,” she said. [DS: Uh-huh. And most people didn’t realize Kojak was bald. Why didn’t the people in the room at the roast get to say the same about Ted Danson when he posed in Blackface?]
“It was unintentioned. The employee did not mean to offend although there were some employees that were rightfully offended by it,” Nantel said.
Myers and the other judges “noted his costume for originality.”
“There were a couple of people who were offended,” Nantel said. “When it was confirmed through a conversation with the employee that he was wearing make-up,” Nantel said, the employee was counseled and Myers sent out a note to employees apologizing.
In a November 2 email to ICE employees, Myers wrote, “It is now clear that, however unintended, a few of the costumes were inappropriate and offensive. While we were all thrilled to be a part of the CFC fundraising effort, I and the senior management at ICE deeply regret that this happened.”
She reminded all employees to be compliant with the department’s diversity training requirement. [DS: Hint: Real diversity doesn’t mean a dumb, incompentent princess chick atop your agency. Did she go through the training?!]
Myers has served as head of ICE since January of 2006 but is still awaiting Senate confirmation.
An ICE congressional liaison said ICE officials briefed congressional staffers about the costume party this week as a courtesy. But at least one congressional staffer said they approached ICE after receiving an anonymous fax about the incident.
Myers called House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Mississippi, about the incident and is expected to meet with him before the end of the week, a Thompson spokeswoman told CNN.
Myers also contacted the National Association of African-Americans in the Department of Homeland Security. In a letter to NAADHS members, the group’s vice president, Sjon Shavers, said the group “appreciates (Myers) reaching out to us so quickly in order to keep us apprised of the matter and we commend her on moving so swiftly toward appropriate corrective action.”
As head of ICE, Myers heads the law enforcement agency charged with enforcing immigration law inside the United States. It is the second largest investigative agency in the federal government, with more than 15,000 employees, including 6,000 investigators.

Predictably, Myers’ secret lover Michael “Serpenthead” Chertoff stuck by her, yet again. She could murder someone and he’d “support the actions” this idiot-ette has taken.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff “supports the actions that Assistant Secretary Myers has taken,” DHS spokeswoman Laura Keehner said. “We do not tolerate inappropriate behavior at DHS.”

But this tolerated racism at DHS is costing you, the taxpayers, mucho bucks. Ulysses Hudson, a Homeland Security intelligence analyst in Florida, was awarded a $2.5 million judgment, last week, for racist acts perpetrated on him and, then, retaliation, by DHS officials. That’s on top of the couple hundred thou the Black ICE agent applicant was awarded from your money because of Peppermint Patty’s “Black ass” comment and tactics.
Frankly, both Myers and her eternal protector (what the heck does she have on him?), the Serpenthead, need to go. This cannot be tolerated any longer.
If only Myers had gone to the party in her real-life, everyday costume. Now, that would have been real originality. . .

(Julie Myers’ Hezbollah ICE by David Lunde/Lundesigns)
Or better yet, a great costume for her would be as an immigration enforcer, since she’s never been that, yet (or ever).
Here’s some of the tons of e-mails I’ve been getting from “Myers'” agents at ICE, and–even more important–regular taxpayers who are damned sick of her antics:

WTF? Forget about the costume. How can anyone at her level be so naive not to know there is nothing but heartache at the end of this road? She agrees to be a judge for a Halloween party at WORK? OMG what a moron. Yet nothing she does seems to matter….go figure?

***

Myers Halloween Issues . . . Another Lapse of Judgment. wow – what more can you say…..?!?

***

Another Day at ICE. More proof of Cluelessness by our ICE “leadership”

***

What I find troubling is that folks are giving Myers credit for ‘responding so quickly with corrective action,’ but seem to be overlooking that initially Myers herself thought the costume was ‘original.’ We can assume she was amused by it. This is symptomatic of the racial intolerance and discrimination that pervades senior leadership at ICE. Have we forgotten about Marcy’s discrimination in Houston? What ‘corrective action’ did Myers take as a result of that (hint: none). Why are there so few female leaders in ICE OI (because top ICE official/name redacted doesn’t like women in law enforcement and Marcy doesn’t like any women who she views as competition)? Why is it that [two top ICE officials – names redacted] and others have had open, extra-marital affairs with female subordinates but nothing was done? Yet, this is the type of “leadership” that the Senate is about to bestow upon ICE as having done a ‘good job’…

DS: Actually, I think there are too many incompetent women atop ICE. Not that there’s not enough.
***

How about the Halloween party the ICE princess threw????Racist. Fund Raiser??? Was Black Ass — there???

***
And my personal fave:

While Rome Burns . . .

If the ICE Princess is confirmed after this, you’ll know that not only do no Senators care about immigration enforcement, but Black leaders–esp. those in Congress–do not really care about racism.
BTW, where are Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson on this? It’s right up their alley. They could protest, strong-arm some more inner city and Black college internships at ICE and declare The ICE Princess a bona fide Martin Luther King, Jr.-ette.

By Debbie Schlussel
I have been offline for a while due to computer problems, which should be resolved shortly. Sorry for the absence, and thanks for your continued readership. Lots of interesting things coming up. Stay tuned.

By Debbie Schlussel
Here’s the last of the three videos I shot a couple of weeks ago (so the heavy makeup is still the same–sorry). The videos have been getting a lot of views–THANKS!–and I plan to do more. If you’ve seen this video when I first posted it on YouTube, please note that I changed it and reposted (it now has some long lost footage of Fred Thompson “in action”). It’s about Fred Thompson and his top pan-Islamist campaign official. As you know, I broke the story on Spencer Abraham’s disturbing past and his equally disturbing alliance with Fred Thompson in a column on this site:

As always, please let me know what you think of the video and, of course, its content (except the usual Fredhead phony objections).

By Debbie Schlussel
In the spirit of Laurie David’s (and Sheryl Crow’s) insistence that we limit our toilet paper usage to one-square per visit, I bring you dumb environmental activist recommendations and experiments of the week:
* Julia Roberts stirring toilet-soup made of used diapers:
In order to promote her soon-to-be-released likely flop, “Charlie Wilson’s War” (which denounces our involvement with the Afghanistan Mujahideen against the Soviets), Julia Roberts got USA Today to do a gushing piece, today–“Julia Roberts: The Greening of a Superstar.” In it, Ms. Roberts tells us how she contributes less to the world’s garbage:

“We make a lot of garbage. How can we make less garbage? This is our plight. I use Seventh Generation (chlorine-free, non-toxic) diapers for Finn and Hazel, and then I was turned on to the (plastic-free, flushable) gDiapers” for Henry. “It is flushable, but you’ve got to stir that thing! If you don’t really break it all the way up, it doesn’t go all the way down,” advises the multimillion-dollar leading lady.

Um, who really believes this prima donna is running to her bathroom every time one of her three young kiddies makes a doody and is stirring diapers in her toilet until they break up into pieces? If anyone is actually doing this–and I highly doubt it–it’s a personal assistant or her servant-husband.
Stirring diapers in a toilet bowl? You keep doing that, Julia. But no thanks.
Question: Since there’s lots of garbage created, each time they eat–much less make a move–on movie sets, did Julia Roberts stir the set garbage in her toilet . . . “to break it up” and make less garbage?
You keep lecturing us little people, “Pretty Woman.”
Oh, and don’t forget: This is the same woman who in 2000 said:

Republican falls between Reptile and Repugnant in the dictionary.

FYI, Roberts falls between Roach and Rodent in the dictionary.
* “Don’t flush if it’s yellow“:
Fans at Saturday’s University of Georgia homecoming game were asked not to flush the toilet . . . if it was #1 they were releasing. More info than I needed, but the slogan, “Don’t flush if it’s yellow,” was posted on signs in bathrooms all over the stadium, in an effort to conserve water.
Not really a new concept, since passengers were forced to do the same on the planes that the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacked in 1970. You don’t exactly want to have to behave like hostage of Islamic terrorists when you’re at a football game.
Gee, I’ll bet the smell in there was just lovely. Gee, I have an idea for a new perfume: “Eau d’Hillary.”
* NBC Sports goes dark for a few minutes, expects you to go dark for a lifetime:
Last night, during the last minute of the kickoff show for NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” broadcast and during its Half-time and Post-game shows, the studio went dark to do its part for the Green movement. Yup, I love watching my sporting events with 25% of normal visibility, too. Thrilling. NBC Sports says this is an attempt to get us to turn out our lights, too. Hey, NBC, I’ll happily do that, so long as you do it the entire season, for the entire show, on all of your television shows, instead of as a few-minute BS publicity stunt. What’s good for the goose, is good for NBC, right?:

NBC’s studio show will deliberately go dark for the last minute of the show ‚Äî before fully lit coverage of Dallas-Philadelphia kicks off at about 8:15 p.m. ET ‚Äî and stay dark during the halftime and postgame studio shows.
“We’re thinking of having Cris Collinsworth wear a miner’s helmet with a light,” says show producer Michael Weisman, seemingly serious. “And have candles. Or maybe Glow Sticks.”
Weisman knows how this all sounds. “We’re opening ourselves up for ridicule and sarcasm,” he says. “It might be perceived as a stunt. But with 20 million people watching, some might say, ‘Let’s go turn out the lights in rooms we’re not using.’ “
Which is not something you’d expect NBC parent General Electric‚Äî founded by light bulb creator Thomas Edison – to be advocating.
But starting at 8 p.m. ET Sunday, NBC and its various cable channels begin a week of “green-themed” programming, weaving in environmental angles to all its shows.
To address that NBC “edict,” Weisman says, FNA will show satellite shots of U.S. cities “to show all that electricity being used,” turn its onscreen logos green and include Bob Costas talking to Matt Lauer, who’ll be near the north pole to report for NBC’s Today show next week. Says FNA analyst Jerome “The Bus” Bettis: “This week, I’m the hybrid bus.”

Gee, how much energy does Jerome Bettis’ gazillion-square-foot mansion use? Bob Costas? Matt Lauer? When they downsize, then I’ll consider doing something.

By Debbie Schlussel
For the past couple of months, people all over the Dearbornistan area have been asking me about Mario Fundarski and the anti-Semitic Swastika/Israeli flag (and Saudi, Lebanese, and Palestinian flags) and banner high atop his house, visible from one of the Detroit area’s major thoroughfares, Telegraph Road (near the intersection with Van Born Road).
I’ve seen the flags for myself, as it was not far from my late father’s office, which I spent the last four months cleaning out.

Watch the Video to get the “full picture”:

The flags have also been the subject of several news stories on Detroit local TV. They try to portray Fundarski as a nut, but he is anything but. Neo-nazi groups are posting pics and videos (including the one above) of Fundarski’s banners and flags all over the net. And, likewise, the other new Nazis–the Muslim and Muslim Arab communities–take him seriously as an ally, so we all must take him very seriously as an enemy.



I’ve been on the trail of Mr. Fundarski for over a decade, as he’s lived in each of the Detroit area’s three counties and run for office (and lost) from each of the communities in which he’s lived (and he once came up to me at a Jewish community event and tried to shake my hand and harass me). Each time his literature was not just about Israel and “Palestine,” it was blatantly anti-Semitic. His literature spoke of how we must “stop the Jews” and their political influence. That openly anti-Semitic statement when he ran for Congress was so appealing to Arab Muslims in town–who claim they are “not anti-Semitic, just anti-Israel”–that they endorsed him for office.
Fundarski was endorsed by the Muslim-dominated Arab American Political Action Committee (AAPAC), of which the most prominent of 11 members include “former” Islamic terrorist Imad Hamad, Wayne County Prosecutor Abed Hammoud, Arab-American News editor and publisher Osama Siblani, convicted felon Neal AbuNab a/k/a Nael AbuNab, and Holocaust-denier Lola Elzein (who threatened to rape, torture, and kill me, my parents, and granparents). All are open supporters of Hezbollah and HAMAS.
Although no-one can stop Fundarski on this due to free speech laws (the First Amendment), the City of Dearbornistan Heights has cited him on violations of city ordinances regarding signs and banners only because neighbors have complained about the eyesore.
This is, after all, Dearbornistan Heights–home to the second most concentrated population of Lebanese Shi’ites and Hezbollah supporters outside of the Middle East, so the content really wouldn’t offend too many there.
And whaddya know?–Fundarski lucked out in drawing the Hezbollah Judge–David Turfe–to hear his case. As I’ve noted Turfe is a Hezbollah supporter and I watched him campaign at a Hezbollah rally in summer 2006 at the Bint Jebail Cultural Center, named for Hezbollah’s South Lebanese stronghold. At the rally, his father, Hajj Mohammed Turfe, Founding Chairman of the center, which is known as the “Hezbollah Social Club”

gleefully and repeatedly spoke of how “only a few thousand Jews will survive Armageddon.” This mantra, repeated often throughout the event, got raucous, deafening applause and cheers.

In case you were wondering, Fundarski is not Polish, as his surname would suggest. He changed it from Fundaro. And he changed his middle name to Nesr, Arabic for eagle, in honor of the anti-Semitic love he gets from the Arab Muslim community.
I love how Detroit-area Anti-Defamation League (ADL) chieftess Betsy Kellman is all up in arms about Fundarski’s flags, since she’s arguably more anti-Semitic than he is. She told a friend of mine in a phone conversation that she believes Orthodox Jews will incite violence against Muslims in the Detroit area and start riots. When my friend asked why she’d say that, she replied, “Well, you know how they [Orthodox Jews] are.” When the friend asked her to elaborate on what she meant by that, she declined. It’s incredible this organization is condemning Ann Coulter (or Fundarski, for that matter). Kellman need to clean their own house of this vermin-ette. She reminds me of light-skinned Blacks who are racist against dark-skinned Blacks.
Also, I’d love to know where Kellman was when her Islamist friends Hamad, Hammoud, Siblani, etc. at the Arab American PAC–with whom she’s very tight and always having “dialogue” over falafel–endorsed Fundarski for Congress, with his openly anti-Semitic campaign lit. Where she demand they condemn him? Don’t hold your breath. Frankly, I think she should be consistent and “dialogue” with him, too. After all, if she treated him the way she treats Hamad, Siblani, Hammoud, and Elzein, she would say he’s not anti-Semitic and that we just need to understand him, look beyond our “differences,” and get along. You know–like Rodney King used to say.
Kellman told the Dearborn Press & Guide she’s “speaking out” on the flags and banner because

People call us when they’re offended by something.

That’s funny. I called her when Lola Elzein of the Arab American PAC sent me anti-Semitic, Holocaust-denying torture, rape, and death threats to myself, parents, and grandparents. Believe me, I was offended. I still am.
And Kellman did nothing.
That was almost as offensive.
ADL’s Kellman says that Fundarski’s banner and flags are not about the free speech rights that she enjoys under the First Amendment because

This isn’t about the First Amendment – it’s about human decency.

Hmmm . . . like the human decency of her statements about Orthodox Jews and her silence when my and my family’s lives were threatened by a member of an extremist Islamist organization with whom she’s friendly?
Uh, sorry, this is exactly about the First Amendment . . . and how our enemies within and their enablers and their supporters take advantage of it because they know they now have too many who not only tolerate their extremism, but support it wholeheartedly. That includes the phony posturer atop the bogus ADL.
Stay tuned for details on how easy the Hezbollah judge is on Mario Fundarski. A pox on all of their houses, especially Fundarski’s house.

Dearbornistan Heights: Michigan’s Hezbollah Judge David Turfe
To Decide Swastika/Israeli Flag Case

By Debbie Schlussel
**** UPDATE, 11/04/07: I added a paragraph I forgot to put in on Friday (scroll down). ****
Today is the 90th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, in which Lord Balfour declared a Jewish State in “Palestine”. Carl in Jerusalem has the complete details on this important document in Jewish, Israeli, and Mid-East history, including the actual document.
Last night, in honor of the Balfour anniversary, the Detroit chapter of the Zionist Organization of America hosted former Israeli Prime Minister (and perhaps, the next Israeli Prime Minister) Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu a/k/a Binyamin (Benjamin in Hebrew) Netanyahu.

Bibi was his usual charismatic self, and his strong speech made all of the important points about how Israel made horrendous decisions in giving Iran three fronts–essentially, three states–1) in South Lebanon, with Israel’s boneheaded move to abandon it in 2000; 2) in Gaza, with Israel’s boneheaded move to abandon it in 2005; and 3) if Israel gives the Palestinians a state in the so-called West Bank, also, in Israel’s ongoing boneheaded moves.
He used a great example of a famous scientific experiment in which an invisible glass pane is put in the middle of an aquarium. On one side, a big, predatory fish. On the other, a small fish–the prey. The big fish keeps trying to go into the other side of the aquarium to eat the small fish but finally gives up because he figures out the glass pane. But, as Netanyahu points out, Israel does not have the luxury of the glass pane keeping its predatory enemies out. And in fact with the Iranian fronts in South Lebanon and Gazastan, Israel has essentially lifted the glass pane, only to be devoured.
**** UPDATE: Problem is that Netanyahu, while being the best of the recent Israeli Prime Ministers (but for Yitzchak Shamir, who totally stuck to his guns against Muslims and U.S. demands for concessions to them), was far more soft in office, including at Wye, when he was planning to give away almost everything in the Wye Accords (thankfully rejected by Arafat). If only Netanyahu the Prime Minister were as strong and principles as Netanyahu the non-Prime Minister. ****
The most important thing I saw or heard at last night’s event, however, was the absolute lack of security and the presence of a Shi’ite Muslim who very likely supports Hezbollah on the staff of the caterer at the synagogue where the event was held.
There was such a huge crowd at the sellout, I had to park on the Detroit-area synagogue’s lawn, as did many others. When I went to park, a private security guard told me the Secret Service wanted that distant part of the lawn free. I thought to myself, if anyone is going to prevent harm to Netanyahu, it won’t be the Secret Service, it will be the Israelis. But going inside, it became clear I was wrong. No-one was going to prevent harm.
No walk-through metal detectors. They–private security–barely checked me and didn’t my check purse. They wanded my chest and arms. That’s it. I could have easily had a gun or bomb strapped to either of my legs. Then, they didn’t even take tickets. Anyone off the street could have walked in and sat down at the event, as one of my friends did (she did not yet obtain the ticket I got her). During the speech, anyone could have taken a clear shot at Netanyahu from at least one side of the stage (stage left), which was completely unguarded and shielded by a giant videoscreen around which anyone could have snuck and taken a clear shot of Netanyahu. The lack of security was startling, and I felt unsafe. If this is the way the Secret Service protects dignitaries, um, good luck.
Finally, at the end of the event, the kosher caterer, Paul Cohen of Quality Kosher Catering, told us that he has a Lebanese employee who “has been able to pick up a few words of English here and there in the few years he’s been here.” I asked if the employee was a legal alien. He did not respond. Then, I asked the man’s name. He said the man’s name is Ali Chami (can also be spelled, “Shami”), and he is apparently from Dearbornistan. The fact is, the Chami/Shami family is a well-known Shi’ite from South Lebanon, from the Hezbollah stronghold of Bint Jbeil. They are all strident Hezbollah supporters.
So, you tell me: How safe is it to employ a Shi’ite from Hezbollah country who barely speaks English and whose family is well-known for their support of the terrorist group . . . in a Jewish, kosher catering company? Did the Secret Service do a background check? Don’t bet on it. It would be very easy to poison the food we ate afterward and some ate at the banquet before. And it would have been very easy for this man to have set off a bomb or shot at Netanyahu.
Looks like the U.S. Secret Service and the Orthodox Jewish kosher caterer needed to hear Netanyahu’s message about the fish and the glass pane . . . and the Iranian bases in our midst, more than the largely secular Jewish audience for his speech.
Some people never learn.

By Debbie Schlussel
Due to scheduling conflicts, I did not get to screen a few of the debuts this week (will review those later), but did see these big releases:
“American Gangster“:

Jew gangsters, Mick gangsters, whatever kind you want. Since the beginnin’ of time, they been bleedin’ Harlem dry.

That’s the line uttered in his defense by late ’60s/early ’70s Harlem heroin drug kingpin Frank Lucas (played by Denzel Washington) in “American Gangster” when he’s finally caught. In other words, every ethnic group has thug mobsters who take advantage of poor Black people in Harlem. Now, it’s better ‘cuz it’s a Black thug mobster taking advantage of poor Black people in Harlem.

And that’s kind of the theme in this movie: The new “civil rights”–the new Black capitalism–is that the Blacks have caught “up” to the evil white guy criminals. No longer disrespected by White Italian mobsters, they work for the Black Frank Lucas. Well, bully for him. But it’s hard to take the message of this well made, entertaining movie.
The difference between “American Gangster” and every White mobster movie–aside from race/color/ethnicity–is that in those movies, many of the mobsters who enjoyed the good life got it in the end. Or they suffered tragedy. The glamor life of crime was not a happy tail.
But not so in “American Gangster”. In fact, in this movie, it’s basically almost three hours of the good life. A life of crime is portrayed as a good thing. Washington’s Frank Lucas has Harlem penthouses, country mansions, brags of owning five homes, and he’s married to the gorgeous Miss Puerto Rico. He’s a man of power and the object of respect–so much of both of these that he can walk up to a rival in the Harlem street, shoot him in the head dead, and walk away with no tattling, returning to an afternoon lunch with his brothers.
There’s no showing of the tragic consequences that a life of crime–albeit a high-class life of crime–brings. In fact, the movie ends shortly after Lucas is arrested, and the only consequence we “see” is a note posted on the screen that Lucas was sentenced to 70 years in prison (of which–and the movie does not note this–he served only 8). Now he has a movie glorifying it all, and Denzel Washington got him a new home. Not bad for years of murdering lots of innocent Black people and hooking far more of them on your highly addictive illegal drug. In “Goodfellas,” everyone got theirs and Henry Hill had to live the rest of his life as a loser in Witness Protection. Not the case for Frank Lucas’ story, “American Gangster.”
Is glorifying the gangster life of crime really the message Black America–to which this movie is being heavily marketed–needs? Someone must think so, since they’ve even included real life criminal thugs in the movie. Rapper T.I., a convicted felon, is about to go back to prison for violating probation and posessing a weapon. He plays one of Frank Lucas’ brothers in the movie. But I wish people would see his life onscreen and how he’s going back to the bighouse for a few years of new male girlfriends and despair.
The rest of the Hip-Hop world is pimping this movie, too. Jay-Z has a new “American Gangster” album out next week. Hip-hopper RZA, also in the movie, says of Frank Lucas (in real life, not on-screen):

In the Black community, he is the man. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t see him kind of as a hero of the people.

Hero? If this is the Black community’s hero, it’s no wonder so many Black men are in prison and so many Black communities are in despair. But no worries, in Jay-Z’s album, he blames the drug trade in Harlem headed by the Black Frank Lucas on “oppression”:

Anywhere there’s oppression / The drug profession / Flourishes like beverages / Resfreshing, sweet taste of sin.

And finally there’s Universal Pictures Chairman Marc Shmuger, who says he did “Gangster” because

The hip-hop generation reveres the gangster culture–you see it in the lyrics of songs, fashion, style, and cultural choices.

Great. So, he’s gotta contribute to this societal decay and take his cut, too.
And then, there’s the Vietnam War. Gee, and I thought we were there to fight the Vietcong and Communism. But what do I know about that. After all, to Frank Lucas and this movie, the real reason we were there was to smuggle the finest heroin out of Southeast Asia in the coffins of dead American soldiers. Yup, all that and revisionist history in this movie.
Oh, and the good guy in this movie? (Besides Frank Lucas, the good-guy heroin pimp.) Russell Crowe plays Richie Roberts, the honest White cop who’s on the trail of Lucas. He’s an honest cop who refuses to take any of the $1 million he found and turns it in. But we’re told that cops don’t do that and that cops who do are persecuted by the rest who are mostly dishonest and on the take. Figures. Cops–bad, drug kingpin–GUH-REAT!
And even Det. Roberts isn’t such a great guy. Figures. Unlike the honest, decent Black heroin kingpin and killer Lucas, Roberts is a lousy husband and father, who neglects his son and sleeps around with every stewardess, er . . . flight attendant he can find. Nice.
And–oh, yeah–the only reason he catches Frank Lucas–the only reason Frank Lucas is caught–is because Lucas wears a flashy chinchilla coat and hat to a boxing match, because his new hot wife insists. This is against his coda that you shouldn’t dress flashy. He admonishes the garish dress of one of his brothers:

The loudest one in the room is the weakest one in the room.

Oh, I see. If you dress more demurely, then you’re strong and your life of crime will succeed. Sorry, but the fur coat is not why criminals ultimately get caught. They get caught because they do bad things to people, and it comes back to them.
Too bad you won’t see that in the almost three hours of this well-made movie with horrible messages.
Read my previous work on “American Gangster.”
{Note: This is just the first of other movies coming out soon glorifying drug kingpin gangsters from Harlem in the ’60s and ’70s. The next one out, next week, is “Mr. Untouchable,” about Harlem drug kingpin and gangster Leroy “Nicky” Barnes, the “Black Godfather.”)
“Bee Movie“: Jerry Seinfeld was everywhere–including in Detroit–doing interviews (will write about my interview experience with him, later) and promoting this well-animated film in which he plays a bee, Barry, who sounds and acts a lot like Seinfeld. He wants to see the outside world before he spends his life at work on honey at Honex. So he goes out with the Pollen Jock bees and ends up meeting Vanessa Bloome (Renee Zellweger), a human florist. He breaks cardinal bee rule #1: Never talk to humans. And he falls in love. But can this interspecies relationship work?
Also, in the human world, he sees that humans are marketing and selling honey–including Ray Liotta brand honey (Seinfeld had to find a way to sneak his actor buddy into the movie)–and gets enraged. Only bees should be allowed to market honey, so Barry sues the human race, with Oprah Winfrey playing judge. If he wins, will this change vegetation and the human world forever?
There are a lot very cute jokes and funny lines in the movie, and the animation is top notch. Seinfeld and company worked for four years on this. It’s a movie you’ll enjoy and can take your kids of all ages to see. There are jokes your kids won’t get, but you will. And overall, it’s entertaining and likeable. If I had one hang-up it’s the Jewish-centric jokes I heard like three times. Best of them:

You’re dating someone? Is she Beeish? You know you’re parents will be upset if she’s a Wasp.

“Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead“: Possibly the worst and most depressing movie of the year. I like Sidney Lumet and his movies, but this is an exception. In his other films, there is usually good versus evil. In this one, it’s all evil. Everyone’s in a contest to see who can be the most abhorrent. And there’s an unrelated gratuitous sex scene at the beginning that simply has no purpose.
The plot: Two brothers–Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke–need money, so one of them pitches robbing their parents’ jewelry store. The other agrees and the whole plot goes horribly wrong. Lots of death and destruction. And they and their whole lives and families are dysfunctional. Drugs, adultery with a brother’s wife, violence, killing, blood, tragedy, and unhappiness–this movie has it all.
Two hours of excruciating torture watching this movie about uninteresting, horrible people we don’t like or care about doing horrible things to other people and killing and hurting. Marisa Tomei co-stars in this boring, horrible mess.
Skip at all cost. You were forewarned.

By Debbie Schlussel
The ever-failing, incompetent “leadership” at the Department of Homeland Security has a brilliant new plan. Be on the lookout for small boats. And license them, so we can create a new, useless bureaucracy.
Do they have any idea how many small boats there are? Millions owned by Americans alone (that’s aside from those owned by foreigners)–17 million, to be exact. The fear is that a small boat could be used to launch a nuclear attack or lethal explosion at a U.S. port. Glad they only just discovered this, since it was a plotline on “24” like two seasons ago. Guess they’ve never heard the phrase, “Life imitates art.”
17 Million of These Aren’t the Threat . . .

THIS is the Threat.

Anyway, the problem here is that the feds want a national, federal ID for all small boat operators. How that’s gonna help us? I’d love to know. Are they going to pore over the 17 million IDs looking for Muslims? No, they aren’t because that wouldn’t be right. Islam is peace, don’t you know (it means “submission”). And I guess they think boat IDs will be–for some magical reason–immune to counterfeiting, unlike every other license granted in America.
Plus, I’m sure the terrorists won’t get smart and use large boats–longer than 100 feet–to mount attacks. By law large boats must have security plans and transponders that relay their positions to the Coast Guard. But, hey, it’s not like that will stop one of them from attacking. Until it’s too late.
There’s an easy solution here: If you see a small boat operated by a Muslim, an Arab, a Middle-Easterner, etc., that’s where you should be looking. But–oh no!–we can’t profile. We gotta, instead, create a whole new Small Boat ID Bureau in Homeland Security because Michael Chertoff’s bloated, ineffective agency and its wasted budget are not big enough.
Nope, don’t profile small boat owners and save America from a possible destructive attack. Let’s create a new ID bureaucracy, instead.
Only in America.
More from USA Today:

The nation’s 17 million small boats are facing increased scrutiny from the Homeland Security Department, which fears they could be used in a nuclear attack or a lethal explosion at a U.S. port.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said this month that he had ordered agency leaders to “raise the protection level with respect to small boats.” Attacks this decade by terrorists ramming bomb-filled speedboats into a U.S. battleship and a French tanker are worrisome, Chertoff said.
The Coast Guard is seeking a new federal requirement that all boat operators carry identification wherever they are on the water so it can build a database of boaters found in restricted areas. The agency also wants to require state boating courses to teach security protocols such as avoiding cruise-ship terminals and military facilities.
Although new mandates would apply to operators of state-registered boats – usually those with an engine – the Homeland Security Department is focused on protecting major ports near large cities. . . .
The Domestic Nuclear Detection Office plans to test next year whether sensors on buoys and boats can detect radiation from a nuclear or radiological bomb on a small vessel. “This represents a serious vulnerability,” Director Vayl Oxford said. “The consequences would be so extreme.”
Next month, the Coast Guard will give Chertoff a plan to better oversee recreational boats and small ferries and fishing boats with “additional surveillance, monitoring and information systems,” said Dana Goward, director of the Coast Guard’s Maritime Domain Awareness program. “We need to know more about who’s out there.”

Taxpayers, get ready to open your wallets some more for Chertoff’s boondoggles. But you won’t be buying any measure of security. We must profile, instead.
It’s not the small boats, it’s who’s in them. And, sadly, our government isn’t scrutinizing that.
Big (ineffective) Government Smoke and mirrors, my friends.