By Debbie Schlussel

Syria is still on the State Department terrorist list.  It’s still host to the alphabet soup of Islamic terrorist groups–HAMAS, the PFLP, Islamic Jihad, etc.  It’s the chief enabler, in tandem with Iran, of Hezbollah in Lebanon.  Syria participated in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine Beirut barracks, which murdered 241 of our soldiers while they slept.  The Assad kingdom allows the most Al-Qaeda terrorists through its borders and into Iraq to blow up our troops.  And the country remains host and sanctuary for Nazi war criminal Alois Brunner and Jamil Gashey, the only surviving perpetrator of the Munich Olympic massacre of the Israeli Olympic Team.  And don’t forget the Syrian nuclear facility the Israelis blew up and the military equipment the Syrians bought from North Korea.

Bill Miller, Barton Biggs, Steven Galbraith: Syria’s Newest American Whores

All of those things are no biggie to Bill Miller of Legg Mason Capital Management, Barton Biggs, managing partner of Traxis Partners, a New York hedge fund, and Steven Galbraith, a partner at Maverick Capital, a $11 billion hedge fund.  They led a group of investors to Syria and Lebanon, looking for ways to invest in Syria and further enable the country’s extremism without any conditions.  On Detroit’s famed Eight Mile Road, we have people just like them.  They’re called prostitutes.

Late last year a group of big-name investors—including Bill Miller of Legg Mason Capital Management and Barton Biggs, managing partner of Traxis Partners, a New York hedge fund—spent a week in Syria and Lebanon. They met with top political leaders, local businesspeople, and were feted with elaborate dinners with the cream of society. . . .

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By Debbie Schlussel

My review of “Avatar” is drawing a lot of traffic, today–and a lot of “classy” C-word, S-word, and F-word hate comments directed at me (many I’ve had to delete).  And I was wondering why.  Lo and behold, Los Angeles Times movie writer Patrick Goldstein has posted his latest written tirade against me (he’s written several–details here, here, and here–and I always enjoy reading . . . and laughing at them).

Dated today, Goldstein’s headline is “Right Wingers Launch New Attack on ‘Avatar.'”  (Emphasis added.)  In his newest screed against me, he writes:

It seems as if the more money “Avatar ” makes at the box office (it’s now officially the second-biggest-grossing film of all time), the more incensed its critics on the right become. The best example? Die-hard right-wing blogger/columnist/anti-Islam crusader Debbie Schlussel has now weighed in on the Jim Cameron blockbuster.

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By Debbie Schlussel

I learned the other day that the editors of WE Magazine for Women named DebbieSchlussel.com as one of its “101 Women Bloggers to Watch in 2010.”  I have no idea how or why they picked me or what the criteria were.  And I have a feeling the views expressed on this site do not jibe with the goals of WE Magazine.

Normally, I don’t like to win “women’s” awards because I feel they are feminist affirmative action prizes for the undeserving who can’t compete with men and need to rely on gender.  This blog breaks stories and makes news regardless of gender and doesn’t use sex/gender as a reason for anything.  And the traffic figures and demographics of this site show it is popular among all strata and genders, regardless of the gender of the person who writes it (me).   Also, my view is that this site has been breaking news, being cited all over the mainstream media, and having effects on businesses, movies, politics, political races, and countries since it became a full-time blog in 2005 and before then when it was not.  This was a site to watch from 2001-2009 . . . and in 2010, too.

Still, to whoever recognized us, thanks.  And to my many male readers, don’t let the chick stuff scare you off.  As a men’s rights advocate, I try to ignore it (but for this brief mention).

By Debbie Schlussel

While I dislike Nevada U.S. Senator and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as much as the next conservative, the political correctness and intellectual dishonesty over his comments, coming from the right, is absurd.

Was Harry Reid Really Wrong? Would We Vote for President Camacho?

Yes, Reid’s comments about Barack Obama, as reported in “Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime,” a new book by two mainstream media reporters, weren’t smart.  But were they untrue?  And should he be attacked with the same political correctness and intolerance from the right that we always denounce from the left?  Oh, and by the way, if conservatives are going to accept the reporting by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, then they must also accept the book’s reporting–hardly a surprise–that Sarah Palin was a complete ignoramus, basically a dummy (no shocker, given that the woman barely graduated with a journalism degree after six years at six different colleges and couldn’t name the magazines or newspapers she read).

According to the book, Reid said that Barack Obama could become the first African-American president because he was “light-skinned” and because he did not speak with a “Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

Since Senator Reid reportedly apologized, I assume the quotes are correct (as the Palin stuff likely is, too).

But, while the use of the word “Negro” and making the statement at all were not wise, is what he said really false? Is it really that objectionable?  Would Americans, today, really vote for a guy like President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho in the movie, “Idiocracy“?  No, they wouldn’t.  And that’s not a bad thing.  Here’s a video from “Idiocracy.”  Do you really think Harry Reid is wrong, and this guy, below (played by actor Terry Crews) could be Prez?  I sure hope not.  And it’s not racist to say so–though perhaps not the way Reid said it. I wouldn’t want a President of any race who can’t speak English correctly and is culturally low-class. Would you?

I would vote for the darkest-skinned Black man with the right views and qualifications in a heartbeat. Former UN Deputy Ambassador Alan Keyes comes to mind, and I supported Bishop Keith Butler in the Michigan U.S. Senate Republican primary (which he lost).  But most liberals would not.

And, if we were intellectually honest, we’d admit most of us wouldn’t vote for this guy . . . yet:

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By Debbie Schlussel

. . . to watch “Holy Land Hardball“–a funny and charming documentary about the Israeli Baseball League–on the MLB Network, tonight, at 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time. As you’ll recall, I told you about this earlier in the week–details & trailer videos here.

By Debbie Schlussel

There’s nothing particularly spectacular at the movie theater, this weekend.  Not even close.  In fact, they’re pretty much all skipworthy.  “Daybreakers” was not screened for Detroit-area movie critics, so I didn’t see it (thus, no review).

*  “Leap Year“:  This formulaic, predictable rom-com (romantic comedy) stars Amy Adams as a professional Boston woman, who has been dating a weaselly-looking cardiologist (Adam Scott, who weirdly looks like Liza Minnelli) for four years without getting a marriage proposal.  Frustrated by that, she plans to travel to meet him in Dublin, Ireland, where there is a tradition of women proposing to their men on a leap year’s February 29th.

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By Debbie Schlussel

****  SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE  ****

A couple of days ago, Egyptian Muslims did a drive-by shooting of Coptic Christians in Nag Hammadi, Egypt, who were celebrating Coptic Christmas.  Seven were killed (including a Muslim security guard), and nine were wounded.  The story is tragic and instructive in the absolute intolerance of Muslims for Christians in Muslim nations (and non-Muslim ones).

Coptic Pope Shenouda III: His Anti-Semitic Sermons Rival Those of Muslim Clerics

That said, I deliberately, heretofore, chose to ignore it.  Several readers–including some Copts–asked me why I didn’t write about it.  Well, as I’ve noted before, it’s an unfortunate but true fact that most Christians in the Middle East sided with Muslims against the Jews (not just against the Israelis).  And among the most viciously anti-Semitic Christians in the Mid-East are the Copts.  At ten percent of the Egyptian population, they historically not only supported Egypt against the Jews and Israel, but the Copts participated in Egyptian Muslim pogroms against Jews, supported the expulsion of nearly the entire Jewish Community of Egypt, and even participated in looting and seizing Jewish property before and after the expulsion was complete.  And, although they are mostly found in Egypt, in every other Middle Eastern nation in which they have a small presence, Copts have consistently participated in persecuting the Jews.  It’s not by accident.  They are simply following the openly anti-Semitic teachings of Coptic Pope Shenouda III.

As I noted on Christmas Eve, despite the hatred and persecution of Christians by Muslims, the Christians in the Middle East–with the exception of some factions of Maronite Christians in Lebanon–bet against Israel and the Jews.  And they picked the wrong side.

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By Debbie Schlussel

Some might say great minds think alike.  But that’s only if they independently think alike.

Original minds come up with original ideas.  Feeble, lazy minds copy them 10 days later.

Schlussel, December 30, 2009:

HUH?!: Why Is Hillary Clinton Escaping Flight 253 Blame?

Michelle Fraudkin, ten days later (today)–and still getting it wrong:

Why is the State Department getting an UndyBomber pass?

Sadly, it’s not the first time she’s done it. It’s her SOP.  She even regurgitates my nicknames.  You’ll find little (if any) original reporting or ideas there.

By Debbie Schlussel

Below is a great video report that appeared on NBC Nightly News, a couple of nights ago, about the network’s late Soviet correspondent, Irving R. Levine.  Stationed in Moscow, the Soviets repeatedly pressured him and tried to blackmail and extort him into working as a spy for them.  But, to his credit and incredible integrity, he consistently resisted the KGB and showed courage and integrity. Levine, who died in March of last year, served in the U.S. Army during World War II and showed a fortitude few would show today.

And the story begs these questions:  how many of today’s network correspondents have similarly been pressured and blackmailed by Muslims and their governments and even their terrorist groups?  And how many had the courage to resist, the way Irving R. Levine did?  Unfortunately, I’d bet there are many in the back pocket of these enemies–we see their sympathetic reports–and few with the courage and will to do the right thing. Sadly, they are neither patriots, nor impartial reporters.  And many appear to have been on the jihadi payroll for years.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

By Debbie Schlussel

Like I said, yesterday, it’s absolutely no coincidence that there have been so many of these passenger threats, disruptions, and “testing the system” by Arab Muslims on flights in the last two months.  I warned you this would happen when US Airways was forced to settle with the Flying Imams.

Here’s the latest incident, with the unruly passenger referring to 9/11 and threatening the crew, though we don’t know yet his ethnicity or religion:

An unruly passenger was escorted off a Pittsburgh-to-Paris flight after the plane was diverted to Canada late Thursday night.

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