By Debbie Schlussel
So now condom ads will be on prime time TV. Yet, cigarette ads are banned. What’s the difference? Yes, I know–smoking causes cancer, but kids using condoms, which don’t always work, may lead to other illnesses, like AIDS. And do we really need kids who watch “American Idol” and might be very young to see these ads? It’s not like everyone else doesn’t know about condoms. Think about it. If this is about free speech for the condom industry, why isn’t “big tobacco’s” right to free speech as sacred as “big (or small) condom’s” right? And then there’s the uncomfortability factor. Do you enjoy seeing tampon or Levitra, Cialis, and Viagra ads during your shows? Bob Dole as the ED poster child. Who would be the new spokesman for condoms? Bill Clinton as the new “Trojan Man”? I can just see it now: “My name is Bill Clinton, and you know me as former President of the United States. I want you to know about a product that has come in quite handy in my marriage to Hillary and all of my relationships. That’s right, whether it was Miss America or Juanita Broaddrick, Eleanor Mondale, or Monica, condoms have helped me to keep Chelsea an only child. Streisand? Well, yeah, her, too. I didn’t want a kid with that kind of schnoz, if you know what I mean.”

By Debbie Schlussel
What’s the difference between the WNBA and Danica Patrick?
For one thing, she looks like a woman, and they don’t.
Then there’s Title IX–affirmative action for useless women’s sports no-one cares about, like water polo and crew (a/k/a “You Gotta Regatta Lesbiatta”).
WNBA players had Title IX to succeed, but are in season nine of extreme failure. Danica Patrick–the rookiette race-car driver who came in forth at Sunday’s Indy 500–didn’t have Title IX. They don’t have it in racing. The IRL only has that amazing non-governmental program, called, “The Free Market.” And unlike the WNBA, Patrick competes against the men on their own turf. And succeeds.
That’s the lesson of the last week in sports: Feminism is phony. Sports are showbiz. Good-looking women get endorsements. Women who look and act like men don’t. Women who succeed against men on their own turf get respect. Women who constantly whine about equality–yet need their own, separate, unequal league to succeed–don’t get respect.

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By Debbie Schlussel

What’s the difference between the WNBA and Danica Patrick?

For one thing, she looks like a woman, and they don’t.

Then there’s Title IX–affirmative action for useless women’s sports no-one cares about, like water polo and crew (a/k/a “You Gotta Regatta Lesbiatta”).

WNBA players had Title IX to succeed, but are in season nine of extreme failure. Danica Patrick–the rookiette race-car driver who came in forth at Sunday’s Indy 500–didn’t have Title IX. They don’t have it in racing. The IRL only has that amazing non-governmental program, called, “The Free Market.” And unlike the WNBA, Patrick competes against the men on their own turf. And succeeds.

That’s the lesson of the last week in sports: Feminism is phony. Sports are showbiz. Good-looking women get endorsements. Women who look and act like men don’t. Women who succeed against men on their own turf get respect. Women who constantly whine about equality–yet need their own, separate, unequal league to succeed–don’t get respect.

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EXTENDED BODY:
Take a look at the raven-haired, petite Patrick with her long tresses. Then, look at the 7’2″ Margo Dydek of Connecticut’s WNBA team – if you dare. Which one would guys rather date? Which one would most young girls rather be like when they grow up?

Hint: They aren’t making a scale version of Dydek Barbie anytime soon. Dyslexic young girls might unscramble the letters of her surname and get the right idea of what the WNBA is really about.

That’s the image from which the WNBA is desperately trying to get away. But it’s stuck with it like white on rice (apologies to low-carbers).

When the “season” started over a week ago, the “league’s” website featured a story about WNBA players’ prom memories. But despite trying to push hetero-friendly experiences, like prom, an article featuring WNBA-er Anna DeForge was right below it.

Significance? DeForge’s lesbian relationship with her then-WNBA Coach, Nancy Lieberman was profiled in a controversial 2001 Sports Illustrated article. Makes you forget all about the carefully selected WNBA prom “queens,” doesn’t it? Or wonder about the gender identity of their dates.

Coach Lieberman was apparently “coaching” DeForge as much off the court as on, leading other players on the team to complain about her extraordinary amount of playing time. The WNBA website stresses (twice) that DeForge “loves kids.” It doesn’t tell you that if she ever has any, they’ll likely be conceived in-vitro.

Then there’s that little incident when WNBA player Latasha Byears was investigated for allegedly sexually assaulting her L.A. Sparks teammate. No charges were filed, but last November, Byears sued Sparks operator/Lakers owner Jerry Buss, claiming her quick dismissal demonstrates “bias against lesbians” by Buss.

It’s more than enough to scare off the young girls and families the WNBA desperately wants as fans. But, after eight seasons, still can’t get.

This season, the Detroit Shock, then-team for Lieberman and DeForge, has the slogan, “The Detroit Shock. It’s personal.” The WNBA runs promo ads, saying “The WNBA. You’ll fall in love for the first time. Or fall in love all over again.” Given the context of the Lieberman-DeForge-Byears antics and relationships rife throughout this “sports league,” these are hardly endearing to moms and dads thinking about taking little Susie to a WNBA game. Not to mention, the population of the sparsely-attended WNBA games. Looking for straight people is like playing “Where’s Waldo?” Osama bin Laden has more camels.

In 2002, Bill Clinton attended a New York Liberty game (dragged by Hilary and Chelsea). He hasn’t been back since. Wonder why? No Hawaiian Tropic bikini contestants–or even Monicas–within a three-mile radius.

Danica Patrick, on the other hand, is straight and engaged to be married . . . to a MAN.

Hmmm . . . The feminine, successful Patrick versus a league whose biggest star is nicknamed “Claw” (Chamique Holdsclaw), but is female (we’re told). Which would you want your daughter to be like? Danica Patrick or the WNBA’s Kara Braxton, the 6’6″, 22-year-old unwed mother, who was kicked off her college basketball team after several suspensions. She’s one of two baby-mommas to Cincinnati Bengals’ Odell Thurman, who allegedly beat her.

Well, at least Braxton can spell. Her son’s name, Aelani, is pronounced “Juh-LAH-ni.”

So desperate to make you think they’re like all the girls, this season’s WNBA runs ads featuring 6’2″ Taj McWilliams-Franklin saying, “I play to buy shoes,” as if she’s some “Sex & the City” chick yearning for Manolo Blahniks. Do they really make Manolos for men? And speaking of shoes, there’s injured player Swin Cash’s http://www.wnba.com/voices/dear_swin_1.html advice column, with questions about whether pink shoes are still in. Here’s a tip: If you wear a size 14 shoe, but you’re supposed to be a chick, pink might not be the color for you.

I’ve written–and appeared on ESPN–about the WNBA almost every season (here, here, here, and here). And every season, this Waste of National Broadcast Airtime–this Weird Nuisance Brought on America–gives me new material. They’ve tried Playboy centerfold contests. They’ve tried glamour shots. They’ve tried it all, to make you think they’re the Anna Kournikovas of pro hoops. But no dice.

No-one mainstream is paying attention to the WNBA. To paraphrase Confucius, if a tree falls in a forest, but no-one noticed, did it really happen? So why am I paying attention?

Because WNBA players are bad role models for young girls, the audience the league is targeting. Because real basketball (read: NBA) fans, forcibly subsidize the failing WNBA through increased ticket prices, as do NBA sponsors (strong-armed by the NBA to sponsor the infinitely inferior WNBA).

Yes, I write about the WNBA like it’s going out of style. The problem is that it hasn’t. Yet.

By Debbie Schlussel

Ann Coulter says Katie Couric is “the affable Ava Braun” of daytime TV.

But Couric’s got nothing on Oprah Winfrey.

Oprah is the affable Joseph Goebbels of daytime talk . . . of chick magazines . . . of Oprah seminars—and every other medium in which the self-anointed high priestess of the religion of Oprah has her hands.

Through all of these, Oprah preaches “how to be your best self” and “live your best life.”  Unfortunately, a predilection for radical Islam and excusing terrorists is a prominent element of Oprah’s “best self.”

Cheating husbands don’t get off as easy as Islamic terrorists, murderers, and torturers in Winfrey’s world.

Take “O” Magazine, Oprah’s monthly print version of self-conceit.  Like every other month, the cover of the June issue of “O” features Oprah—for the gazillionth time.    Unfortunately, also for the gazillionth time, the inside of the glossy mag features Oprah’s unique brand of understanding and empathy for terrorists and radical Islam.

Last month, Oprah’s “O” asked readers to understand “The Heart of a Destroyer,” Mohammed Atta.  You remember him—the Al-Qaeda ringleader of the 9/11 hijackers who murdered 3,000 Americans.

But that’s not exactly the way “O”’s “reading room” wants you to remember him.

Beneath a picture of young Mohammed and his smiling sister on the Egyptian beach, “O” exhorts you to read a book that “sets out to understand the hearts and minds of the men behind the photos” of the 9/11 hijackers, a group of “lonely, exiled young men.”

But the fatherless and motherless children who lost their parents to Atta—hey aren’t lonely, are they?

The book, “O” tells us, “is a simultaneously passionate, compassionate, and dispassionate book that [doesn’t] indict Islam.”  Just what we need—the CEO of the Oprah Book Club urging America’s women to have compassion for Mohammed Atta.  On the next Oprah, “Stupid Talk Show Hosts and the Terrorists Who Love Them.”  (Or is that, “Brave Terrorists and the Stupid Talk Show Hosts Who Love Them”?)

I think Stedman’s starting to get jealous.

To add insult to injury, the latest issue, “O”’s June 2005 edition, demands that we understand the pain and turmoil of Yusra Abdu, a teen-age Palestinian would-be homicide bomber, fiancée of Hani Akad, leader of Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist group.  Akad’s group, funded by Libya (one of “O” Mag’s “Five Places to See in Your Lifetime”), murdered 27 children and injured 134 when they attacked a Jewish school in Ma’a lot, Israel.  Note the map of hate and swastika in the group’s May 22, 2005 Syrian-based newsletter.

But in Oprah’s world, Muslims aren’t terrorists, and terrorists aren’t Muslim (more on that, below).  Instead, “O” calls Akad “a charismatic and young rebel.”  “O” describes the cold-blooded, hateful Abdu and Akad as “a Shakespearean tragedy.”  Yes, in Oprah’s world, Islamic terrorists aren’t terrorists.  They’re James Deans, Romeos, and Juliets.

And it’s not their fault that they’re homicide bombers. Or Islam’s fault.  “O” quotes Saudi-funded Islam apologist John Esposito blaming not Islam, but the desperate “context” of their lives.  Reality:  Most Palestinian homicide bombers, like the 9/11 hijackers, come from wealthy families, but they hate Jews, Christians, and Americans.  That’s the “context.”

Incredibly, super-heroine Oprah calls this psychobabble-ish, understanding-the-world’s-Islamic-terrorists sob-story, “Rescuing the World’s Girls, Part Five.”  And some people actually have the nerve to say Savioratrix Oprah is conceited.

And what is Oprah’s solution?  That’s easy.  Donate to Oprah’s Angel Network, “which is awarding a grant to one or more programs that work to prevent Palestinian children from becoming suicide bombers.  No thanks.  Or donate to UNICEF, “which runs summer camps and trauma programs for Palestinian children.”  No, actually, UNICEF helps UNRWA (both UN agencies) propagandize future Islamic terrorists from cradle to grave.

What about Israeli children’s trauma?  How about donating to some Israeli children who are victims of Palestinian terror and need prosthetic limbs, even face implants—because half of their faces were blown off at the Dolfinarium Disco in Tel Aviv?  Not a word about them in “O.”  They simply don’t exist.

Oprah’s agenda isn’t new.  Her unique understanding of Islamic terrorists is manifest in:

• A post-9/11 “Islam 101” show —a pandering presentation featuring Jordanian Queen Rania Al-Abdullah.  Rania claimed she doesn’t have to wear a hijab head-covering and that honor-killings of raped women doesn’t really happen in her country.  Of course it doesn’t, since “her country” is a swanky Fifth Avenue New York apartment in the US, where she mostly lives.

• A September 2004 show, discussing the terrorist massacre of children in Beslan, Russia, on which Oprah banned the use of the word Islamic, saying the terrorists “came from the mountains.”  (Okay, so they were Mountainese terrorists, not Islamic ones.)  Oprah stated that the Beslan massacre was “a watershed because terrorists never before killed children.”  Remember those murdered Jewish kids in Ma’alot (and throughout Israel) by the DFLP?  I’m sure they’d disagree with the “Queen of Daytime Talk.”  If they were still around.

• An episode on which a guest claimed Jews practice ritual sacrifices of babies.  Oprah:  “I want to make it  clear that this is one Jewish person, so don’t go around now, saying to people, you know, ‘Those Jewish people, they’re worshipping . . . .’  This is the first time I heard of any Jewish people sacrificing babies, but anyway – so you witnessed the sacrifice?”

• Ignoring the mass-murder, rape, torture, and slavery of Black Christians by Sudan’s Arab Muslim government, despite repeatedly teasing a group of Colorado children (who bought some Black Christian slaves’ freedom) that they’d be on her show.  She told them the issue was “too complicated.”

• Refusing President Bush’s invitation to serve our country by touring Afghani girls’ schools on his behalf.  The normally vocal Oprah had “The View’s” Star Jones speak on her behalf, saying the Bush White House “used” her.

• Repeated fundraising for “Women to Women, International,” a Muslim women’s charity that claims it stops honor killings, but whose spokeswoman denies that honor killings have anything to do with Islam.  Right.

Over the past year, Oprah and her publicity team have pushed Oprah’s latest weight loss—to loud, gushy media acclaim.  Oprah, girlfriend, if only you could have gained the weight of a conscience.

The next time we need someone to “Rescue the World’s Girls,” keep Oprah out of it.

The Detroit News and its star reporter, David Shepardson, got caught with their pants down. .
But no-one noticed. No-one, except me–which lead to Detroit News Editor and Publisher Mark Silverman and his minions racing to hush the story and bury it, looking for some silent way to cover-up their very large, very exposed rears.
They printed Shepardson’s phony story about a terrorist, and I exposed it, last week. Shepardson ran with it, without even a modicum of fact-checking (easily done with a quick phone call to local Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesman, Greg Palmore).

Read the rest of this entry »

By Debbie Schlussel

The Detroit News and its star reporter, David Shepardson, got caught with their pants down.  They ran a fake story.

But no-one noticed.  No-one, except me—which lead to Detroit News Editor and Publisher Mark Silverman and his minions racing to hush the story and bury it, looking for some silent way to cover-up their very large, very exposed rears.

They printed Shepardson’s phony story about a terrorist, and I exposed it, last week.  Shepardson ran with it, without even a modicum of fact-checking (easily done with a quick phone call to local Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesman, Greg Palmore).

But no-one noticed.

The rest of Detroit and America’s journalism community was obsessed with other false information, some more innocuous and all less deliberate and agenda-infused.

First, there was the Detroit Free Press, competitor to The Detroit News (and partner in its joint operating agreement).  Star columnist, sportswriter, author, and radio host Albom was caught in April, writing about basketball players who said they’d attend their alma mater’s game in the NCAA playoffs.  They didn’t show up, and Albom’s pre-written, rushed column ended up being wrong.

The hysteria to lynch the very successful, media-ubiquitous Albom was incredible.  But a Free Press investigation was done, and Albom was cleared—after a near-anal exam investigation showed no other falsehoods, but some unattributed and altered quotes.

Some Free Press reporters and a whole lot of other journalists around the country are angry at what they call “the Mitch Albom treatment.”  They claim he got off easy.

Unfortunately, the biggest gloaters are the rival Detroit News and its own fabricator, star reporter David Shepardson.  Incredibly, there was no “Mitch Albom treatment,” no apology to readers, no suspension, or anything else for Shepardson.    No negative treatment for Shepardson—even though, according to Homeland Security/ICE spokesman Palmore, the false story I exposed is only one of several fabricated by Shepardson and run in the News.  (Palmore declined repeated requests to identify the other Shepardson stories he alleges were fakes.)

In fact, at posting time for this column, Shepardson’s phony article remains on the News’ website, minus any retraction or correction—more than a week after I exposed the hoax (though, I’m sure, as soon as this column wends its way to The Detroit News, they will get around to it.)

Instead and incredibly, Shepardson is the AUTHOR(!) of an article critical of Albom and of the Free Press investigation of him.  The irony is Camryn Manheim thick.  It’s like having John Gotti write an article claiming Al Capone was a mobster.

But that didn’t stop fabricator Shepardson from writing this about Albom:

“The issue matters to more than those who work in the downtown Detroit office that houses both The Detroit News and the Free Press. At a time when public trust in the media is low, credibility is a treasured commodity.”

Hello?!

Again, where is the News’ investigation of Shepardson?  Don’t hold your breath.  Instead, Shepardson quotes Detroit News Editor and Publisher Silverman pontificating about a News’ “ethics policy” for reporters—one that apparently either doesn’t apply to Shepardson or doesn’t proscribe fake stories.  Nice.

Then, there is Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff, whose source on alleged Koran toilet-flushing at Guantanamo Bay suddenly retracted—after publication.  I know Isikoff.  Full disclosure:  about a month ago, he bought me dinner.  But the underwhelming salmon didn’t buy my high opinion of him.  Isikoff is a skilled, conscientious journalist, whose devotion to getting the story right is matched by few.  I know of big-time stories he wanted to write but didn’t for that reason.  Others, like his Monica Lewinsky story, were iced by Clintonista editors.

To blame Isikoff for the reaction of the Muslim world to the now-false story is absurd.  Non-Muslim Bibles, houses of worship, and other religious icons are destroyed in the Muslim world every day—all without a wimper from us in the West and without an Isikoff story as purported impetus.

Remember Joseph’s Tomb, destroyed by Palestinians?  How about the Al Aqsa Mosque—desecratingly built on top of the holiest site in Judaism, the Jewish Temple Mount in Jerusalem?  Remember the Omayyad Masjid—the Damascus, Syria mosque where Pope John Paul II famously took his shoes off and kneeled?  Forcibly “upgraded” from a church.

In “response” to Isikoff’s article, HAMAS rioted and protested in Gaza.  Because everyone knows that, but for a Michael Isikoff article,  HAMAS has always been a peaceful ladies’ afternoon tea-fest.  They never engage in violent activity.  Puh-leeze.  Instead of self-flagellating about “why ‘they’ hate us,” it’s time we ask why we tolerate and pander to them.

Finally, there is Jack Lessenberry of Detroit’s Metro Times.  Every major city has a Metro Times (MT)—a free, far-left, “pimp-and-ho” paper, so named for its main source of ad revenue (“White bi-female seeking Lacto-ovo equally bizarro for erotic polo”).  MT is up in arms about Mitch Albom, too—echoing the News’ critique of the Free Press investigation.  Ditto for MT’s star wacko-left columnist, Lessenberry.

Problem is, just like David Shepardson, Lessenberry fabricated.  And just like Shepardson, his fabrications were far worse than Albom’s, because they relate to the War on Terror.

Ismael Ahmed, chief of Islamic welfare agency ACCESS (which has strong terror ties), blames me for losing his bid to become University of Michigan Regent.  In his zeal to pander to Ahmed and attack me, Lessenberry described Ahmed’s Army “hitch in Vietnam” to show that Ahmed is a “A Real American” and defame me as a “vulgar . . . creature” who tells “lies.”  Lessenberry again presented Ahmed’s lie as fact in another column:  “He enlisted and was sent to Vietnam”.

Problem is, Lessenberry and Ahmed made it up.  (It’s a lie Ahmed’s lawyer, Shereef Akeel, repeated in a threatening letter, trying to silence me.)

If Ismael Ahmed ever went to Vietnam, it was as a tourist.  His military record shows his service was mostly spent at Fort Knox—perhaps bravely guarding the gold.  At least Dan Rather “tried” to verify the details of Bush’s military service (and HE was forced to resign).

The fabricated Vietnam record is bad enough.  But Lessenberry also plagiarized unverifiable quotes against me from a “progressive” website, presenting them as his own work.

Incredibly, Lessenberry is a journalism professor at Wayne State University, where his course must be entitled, “Do as I say, NOT as I do 101.”

Whose work deserves real concern—Mitch Albom and Michael Isikoff, whose mistakes were not deliberate (and one was about basketball)?  Or others, who lie about important issues regarding terrorism—aiding and abetting those on the wrong side?

David Shepardson, The Detroit News, and Jack Lessenberry:  POT. KETTLE.  BLACK.

By Debbie Schlussel

“Former Terrorism Suspect is Deported:  Moroccan  . . . Was Forced to Leave,” screamed a sympathetic headline in Gannett’s Detroit News, last week.

Problem is, the deportation of alleged Detroit terror cell member Ahmed Hannan never happened.  Hannan is still here.

And other details in the apocryphal article by Detroit News reporter David Shepardson were also wrong or made-up.  The May 3, 2005 article claimed that Hannan—who planned to blow up U.S. tourist sites and a U.S. Air Force Base in Turkey—was deported two weeks before the article ran.  Yet, he’s still here.  The article also reported that Hannan’s teeth were knocked out in a jailhouse fight, “last month.”  But the fight happened on February 10, 2005, three months ago.

Had Shepardson done the least amount of real reporting –ie., fact-checking with the jail and the federal government, in whose custody Hannan remains—he would have discovered the truth.  But Shepardson relied exclusively on alleged terrorist Hannan’s lawyer, Jim Thomas, for the entire story, and never checked a thing.  (By the way, the sob-story Detroit News headline about Hannan being “Forced to Leave”?  Hannan pled guilty to a federal crime.  Should he be allowed to stay?)

Why is David Shepardson’s phony story cause for concern?  Because Shepardson is The Detroit News’ primary reporter on the domestic War on Islamic Terror, in the heart of Islamic America.  He is the News’ primary reporter on Federal law enforcement, the Justice Department, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit.  His stories get picked up and run all over America via the Gannett News Service wire.

Yet, neither Shepardson, nor his editors, did even the most basic fact-checking or research for this and, we can assume, most of his articles.  We can also assume that countless other stories written by Shepardson—and probably those by other Detroit News reporters with the same “editors” as Shepardson—are simply phony, fabricated, flat-out apocryphal.

Incredibly, just last month, Shepardson and the Detroit News earned a First Place in Investigative Reporting for this phony coverage from the parent Gannett Company.  And it garnered Detroit News Publisher and Editor Mark Silverman a Gold Medal from Gannett, honoring The Detroit News as one of the company’s seven best newspapers, and a President’s Ring, as one of Gannett’s best editors.  (Ironically, Gannett considered Silverman for Editor in Chief of USA Today, to clean things up from that paper’s Jack Kelley fabrication scandal, but wisely didn’t choose him.)

“The Detroit News can be counted on for authoritative, compelling and significant coverage in its community and  . . . of issues that had impact far beyond,” the Gannett award judges proclaimed.  No, at this point, The Detroit News can be counted on for fabrication, however compelling it may be, and that’s about it.  Unfortunately, the issues it covers—the issues David Shepardson covers—do have impact far beyond.

And that’s the problem.  Unfortunately, this fake story by David Shepardson and The Detroit News, is emblematic of the paper’s slanted—and, we now know, phony— award-winning coverage of terrorism and the paper’s gymnastics in bending over backward to radical Islamists—a policy instituted by Editor Silverman (more in a future column).

Shepardson’s stories are ruled by that agenda.

Shepardson—when not apparently fabricating stories out of whole-cloth—repeatedly trumpeted the party line of terrorists’ lawyers and a jealous U.S. Attorney’s office in Detroit that never wanted star prosecutor Rick Convertino to win the terrorism convictions of four men tied to Bin Laden.  The men possessed over 100 Wahhabi’ist tapes preaching the murder of innocent Americans, Christians, and Jews and lived at the apartment of Nabil Al-Marabh—on the FBI’s most wanted list.

Convertino’s Justice Dept. colleagues never wanted him to win because then-U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Collins, had political aspirations and was building his base with the most radical elements of the Islamic community, who paid for the terror suspects’ commercial driving lessons—with OUR tax money!  Collins, his office, and even the U.S. Attorney General’s office in Washington—after sabotaging Convertino’s trial throughout—sought to overturn his convictions.

With Shepardson’s help, they ultimately succeeded.

Shepardson’s agenda governed not only how he covered (and fabricated) stories, but also, how he deliberately ignored major stories.  Shepardson knew about, but chose not to report that:

• Terrorist lawyers, Richard Helfrick and Miriam Siefer, stole official stationery of then-Chief Federal Judge Lawrence Zatkoff, forging his signature on an accusatory letter to another attorney;

• Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm (former Michigan Attorney General), when she was Assistant U.S. Attorney, stole official stationery of terror trial Judge Gerald Rosen, forging his signature on a letter;

• Terror Judge Rosen recently allowed terror suspect Karim Koubriti, under indictment, freed to attend a National Lawyers Guild dinner honoring his lawyer, Siefer.

I know that Shepardson knew of the first two stories because I learned of them from a third party, to whom Shepardson told them.  I know they are true because Judge Rosen confirmed their veracity to me in a lengthy telephone conversation, while delivering veiled threats to me not to report the stories.

Shepardson is friends with Judge Rosen, who is believed to be an unnamed source in many of Shepardson’s stories during and about the terror trial,  all of which are negative regarding Convertino.  That’s probably the reason he chose not to cover these stories.  It might be the reason why Shepardson has failed to cover the glaring improprieties of Judge Rosen’s behavior during the trial and afterward, a time during which he lunched with Shepardson and improperly discussed the case with him and many media sources (including myself, U.S. News & World Report, and AP).

When Gannett’s jewel, USA Today, fell victim to reporter Jack Kelley’s fabrication, the paper’s top officials were fired along with Kelley.  What’s good for the goose is good for the  . . . Detroit News.

(Read more about The Detroit News phony terror trial coverage, here and here.)

By Debbie Schlussel

Mark Twain said, “History tells us that the truth is not hard to kill, but a lie told well is immortal.”

“Kingdom of Heaven,” Ridley Scott’s extremely boring movie version of the Crusades, is Twain’s words in action.  Scott is serial killer of truth—giving immortality to 1,000 lies—in this propaganda film.

The wannabe-epic is being panned for its lack of accuracy by a host of Islam experts, like Robert Spencer.  Crusades expert Jonathan Riley-Smith says it’s basically “Osama bin Laden’s version of History.”

But the folks at HAMAS-front group CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) and ADC (American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee) just love “Kingdom.”  That  speaks volumes, since both groups never met an Islamic terrorist group they didn’t like.

Perhaps Scott is doing penance for having the chutzpah to make “Black Hawk Down,” about which they still whine incessantly.

But one needn’t be versed in the history of the Crusades to see that this Riefenstahl-esque drama is agenda-laden fiction.

Here’s the Cliff’s Notes version:

Christian Crusaders are crass, violent murderers.  They lie, sleep around with multiple women, and father multiple illegitimate, abandoned children.  They are stupid, foolish,  power-hungry,  and vengeful.  They are boors warring for land, not principles, and kill fellow Christians—even priests—over nothing.

Muslims, especially Saladin, are honorable, devout, decent, peaceful people.  They just  want to be left alone and only attack when attacked upon.  They are wise, honest, kind, generous, and even offer Christians safe passage.

The cinematography shows Muslims in prayer, though not as religious zealots.  No such scenes for the Christians (or Jews), who are shown mostly drinking, sleeping around, and killing—they’re the religious zealots in this film.

One of “Kingdom’s” Crusade leaders declares:  “To kill an infidel is not murder.  It’s the path to Heaven.”  Gee, I know a religion that proclaimed and practiced that from time immemorial through today—and it’s not Christianity.  Hint:  It begins with an “I,” ends with an “M,” and has an “S-L-A” in the middle.  Nick Berg videos, anyone?

Balian’s father, Godfrey, a top knight of the Crusades, utters classy lines like this gem:  “I once fought for two days with an arrow through my testicle.”  I’m not making it up—that’s actually a line in “Kingdom.”  (Liam Neeson, who plays Godfrey, is son-in-law to  pro-Palestinian activist/actress Vanessa Redgrave.  And maybe that’s analogous to such a bodily obstruction.)

Saladin exhibits no such crude behavior.  But he gives his Crusader enemies ice and drink in the desert, nice chap that he is.

One Crusade leader declares, “At first I thought we were fighting for G-d, but we were only fighting for wealth and land.”  Saladin’s, on the other hand, is noble.

“No-one has claim, all have claim” to Jerusalem, declares Orlando Bloom’s Crusader knight Balian, in a nod and a wink to today’s Palestinian agenda to make the city “universal.”  Please note:  Jerusalem is mentioned many more times in this movie than it is mentioned in the Koran (whence it is mentioned exactly zero times).

Saladin is depicted shedding tears over dead Crusaders, in contrast with a Crusade patriarch who declares about Christian deaths, “It is unfortunate about the people, but it is G-d’s will.”

Here’s a “Kingdom” reality check.  The “chivalrous” Saladin was as intolerant and sadistic as they come.  His principal secretary and historian, Imad ad-Din (who was gay) describes their view that “while several circles of hell prepared to receive Christians . . . the several ranks of heaven joyously anticipated the Muslim dead.”

Unlike his portrayal in “Kingdom,” Saladin:

• Personally beheaded many of the Crusaders living in and around Jerusalem, and watched while his soldiers cut the bodies to pieces to satisfy their lust for revenge;

• Sent poisoned wine and flour to a Greek leader to distribute to Crusaders;

• Fought violently with rival Shi’ite Muslims, dissecting one of their leaders, and keeping his hands and head as trophies (Saladin, a Kurd, was a Sunni);

• Persecuted Jews and Christians, denying them even the basic dignity of riding on horses or mules, requiring they ride in humiliation on donkeys and painful pack saddles.  “Kingdom” shows Saladin allowing them to ride on horses.  But even his own physician, the scholar Maimonides (a Jew forcibly converted to Islam) was forced to ride a donkey to and from Saladin’s palace.  (Saladin stoned and blinded a Jewish doctor for daring to ride a horse, according to “Saladin and the Jews,” by E. Ashtor-Strauss.)

• Sowed the seeds for Muslim Crusades, resulting in the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews and Christians.

That’s the other interesting point “Kingdom” conveniently omits.  At the time of Saladin, the 12th Century, there were Muslim Crusades in Spain and North Africa.  This century-long massacre of Jews and Christians by the Berber al-Mohad Muslims (or al-Muwahideen), which began in 1113 AD, doesn’t exist in “Kingdom.”  Yet it was so bad that “Sephardim” (Oriental Jews, primarily from Arab countries), who were once the majority of the Jews, were almost wiped out and remain a small minority, today.  By the end, there were no churches or synagogues (or open Christians or Jews) anywhere in Western Islam.

Where is Ridley Scott’s epic about that?

It was so horrific that Saladin’s physician, Maimonides, wrote, “We were dishonored beyond human endurance. . . .  This people, the Arabs . . . never did a nation molest, degrade, debase, and hate us as much as they. . . .  No matter how much we suffer and elect to remain at peace with them, they stir up strife and sedition.”

“Kingdom’s” phony quote about Christian enthusiastically killing infidels?  Here’s a real one from Saladin’s time, uttered by a Muslim historian:  “It is permitted to kill the unfaithful or reduce them to slavery for opposing themselves to the true faith. . . .  There were no Christians to be seen.”

It’s no coincidence that half the major Muslim actors in “Kingdom” also played terrorists in “The Hamburg Cell.”  One of them, Alexander Siddig (who played 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed), is the nephew of a former Sudanese Prime Minister, who oversaw the wholesale Muslim torturous slaughter of Sudan’s Black Christians.  “Kingdom’s” version of events is Al-Qaeda’s and Sudan’s excuse for their contemporary, bloody terrorist crusades.

Remember, Wallid Shatter, the indignant Muslim Secret Service agent who had a tantrum when he was refused an American Airlines flight?  He was reading “The Crusades Through Arab Eyes.”

Why was he reading this book, and why do “American” Islamist groups love this movie?  Because “Kingdom’s” version of the Crusades is their justification for the continuing terrorism and hate displayed by millions of Muslims worldwide against the rest of us.  And they don’t want to move on.

Attention Muslims & Ridley Scott:  The crusades happened a thousand years ago.  Get over it.

By Debbie Schlussel

The last time I wrote about Jeff Spicoli a/k/a Sean Penn, he sent me an e-mail calling me the c-word.

In the past, Penn reportedly shot reporters with a squirt gun filled with his urine, so I got off easy.  Classy guy.

I critiqued Penn’s absurd interview in the thankfully defunct Talk Magazine.  It was just months after 9/11, and Spicoli was deluded from smoking too much pot, again.  He didn’t just insist that President Bush, Rupert Murdoch, Howard Stern, and Bill O’Reilly were as bad as Osama Bin Laden and Hitler.  They were worse.

Since then, as we now know, Penn transformed himself into failed emissary to Iraq—a Baghdad Spicoli a la Hanoi Jane.

But now Penn’s gotten smarter.  His propaganda doesn’t work when he’s playing himself in real life.

So he’s turned to the silver screen to do it for him, in “The Interpreter,” debuting in theaters today.  The United Nations is the setting, but it’s also the main star of the film.  Penn and Nicole Kidman are merely the co-stars.

As for promoting the U.N., Leni Reifenstahl (Hitler’s propagandist) couldn’t have done better—even if it’s hard to believe Spicoli as Secret Service Agent.  (When he tries to fake crying, all you can hear is his yearning for “tasty waves and a cool buzz.”)

Just when the U.N.—the bizarre confab of Third World republics and America haters—is getting its due in the media, Director Sydney Pollack comes to the rescue.  “Interpreter”  portrays this fraudulent former League of Nations as the idealistic body it never was and nothing close to the International House of Bozos it’s been for at least half a century.

Kofi Annan is one smart cookie.  After months and months of exposes on the U.N. chief and his son for their scandalous roles in the Oil for Food scam, this long two-hour campaign commercial comes to the rescue.  That explains why Annan gave Pollack—via 9/11 Comissioner and former Democratic Senator Bob Kerry—unprecedented access to the U.N. to film this love letter to Banana Republic Hate-fest Central.

At a meeting with Annan, Pollack promised Anna that “it would not be a movie that exploited the U.N. or the subject of terrorism.”

What he really meant was, “I will portray this august, heavenly institution as a bastion of principle, completely divorced from reality”

Instead of whoring itself out for money in exchange for propping up dictator Saddam Hussein and his barbarism, “Interpreter’s” U.N. is a great hall of freedom and democracy from beginning to end.  Bonus:  The falsely-named International Criminal Court —an illegitimate star chamber used to attack the U.S. and Israel and promote despots—is hailed in this movie, too.

Moviegoers are treated to snippet after snippet of U.N. delegates pontificating on freedom and human rights, as opposed to the hate-America and –Israel speeches you’d really hear there.  And—surprise, surprise—a lot of those speeches are translated from French.  No word on whether pro-Saddam Spicoli and Pollack got Oil for Food fringe benefits from the implicated French in exchange for image repair.

“Interpreter’s” plot entails terrorists allegedly trying to murder a head of state.  Originally, those terrorists were from a fictional Middle Eastern country, according to the Wall Street Journal.  But, after 9/11, the PC police took over, and the terrorists were transformed into Black Africans.

“We didn’t want to encumber the film in politics in any way,” kowtowed producer Kevin Misher.  Plus, director Pollack promised Kofi Annan that he wouldn’t “exploit” the subject of terrorism.  In this case, “exploit” apparently has the new meaning of “tell the truth.”

Translation:  We couldn’t actually portray terrorists as Arab Muslims, so we decided to portray them as Blacks who blow up buses in New York.    “After 9/11, such an occurrence [blowing up buses] was authentic on every level in the U.S.”

Because everyone knows that Arab Muslims never blew up anything in New York  (attention 3,000 misted people).  They never tried to assassinate any leaders either (hear that, Anwar Saddat?).  The Blacks did it, right?  So much for “authenticity.”  But don’t bet on Hollywood liberals Pollack and Misher being accused of racism.

Also, unlike real life, the U.N. actually does something about the despotic world leader at issue and helps depose him.  Because, as we know, it was the U.N., not the U.S. military, which deposed Saddam Hussein through Oil for Food, “dialogue,” and “diplomacy.”  And, just as in the movie, the U.N. deposed the Black African leader who is committing  ethnic cleansing in his country.

Too bad that in real life, the Muslim African president of Sudan has virtually erased its entire Black Christian population without the U.N. doing a damn thing.

U.N. and “Interpreter” minions are so thrilled with the final product, they want to make a “West Wing” TV version of the U.N.  Gee, I can hardly wait.

Pollack would have been better off to remake his “Three Days of the Condor” with a U.S. government-Muslim cabal.  Given strong White House ties to Islamists Grover Norquist and Suhail Khan, and White House visits, at their instruction, by Islamic Jihad founder and leader Sami Al-Arian, that would have been a lot more believable than this propaganda piece for pere and fils Annan.

Pollack longs to be like great director Alfred Hitchcock, who also did a U.N. movie, 1959’s “North by Northwest.”  He one-ups the late Hitchcock who was refused U.N. access for his film.  And then he rubs Hitchcock’s face in it, making a Hitchcockian cameo as Penn’s Secret Service boss.

To paraphrase Senator Lloyd Bentsen in the 1988 Vice Presidential debates, I never knew Alfred Hitchcock.  He wasn’t a friend of mine.

But Sidney Pollack, you’re no Alfred Hitchcock.

By
The last time I wrote about Jeff Spicoli a/k/a Sean Penn, he sent me an e-mail calling me the c-word.
In the past, Penn reportedly shot reporters with a squirt gun filled with his urine, so I got off easy. Classy guy.
I critiqued Penn’s absurd interview in the thankfully defunct Talk Magazine. It was just months after 9/11, and Spicoli was deluded from smoking too much pot, again. He didn’t just insist that President Bush, Rupert Murdoch, Howard Stern, and Bill O’Reilly were as bad as Osama Bin Laden and Hitler. They were worse.
Since then, as we now know, Penn transformed himself into failed emissary to Iraq–a Baghdad Spicoli a la Hanoi Jane.
But now Penn’s gotten smarter. His propaganda doesn’t work when he’s playing himself in real life.
So he’s turned to the silver screen to do it for him, in “The Interpreter,” debuting in theaters today. The United Nations is the setting, but it’s also the main star of the film. Penn and Nicole Kidman are merely the co-stars.

Read the rest of this entry »