By Debbie Schlussel
I guess I shouldn’t be amazed at the number of slacker ignoramuses who are up in arms about my frank review cutting down the absolute crap they worship a/k/a “Watchmen“, coming out in theaters late tonight. The e-mails they send me and the comments they make about how “deep,” “edgy” and “profound” this vile piece of trash (which is none of these) is, reminds me of the blind statements of followers of Jim Jones. And we all know what happened after they drank he purple Kool-Aid. If only this movie could achieve that result, it would be the most fantastic exercise in natural selection ever conducted in America.
But sadly, there is no instant cure or sudden death for “Watchmen” Fanatic Derangement Syndrome. You can read some of the so infected and diseased in the comments section of my review. But I’ve received a ton of vile, obscene, and just plain stupid and obnoxious e-mails because I dared call this trash wrapped in the guise of a high brow graphic novel what it is: pure garbage.

Oh, and by the way, to all of you slacker Watchmen defenders and fanatics–who resemble the many respondents on “Jay Walking,” yet are suddenly the self-appointed intellectual lights of our world–grisly is grisly, and gratuitous, graphic violence serves no positive or useful purpose in our society, even if you read it first in a comic book. You’re a bunch of dummies with no moral compass, but liking this stupid comic book which pretends violence and the depraved is “edgy” or “sophisticated,” makes you feel smart. When you’re actually quite stupid. But now, with this movie, you’ve got pretentious stupidity. You don’t realize you’re still just as dumb, your IQ just as low and probably lower.
And, yes, you future citizens of “Idiocracy,” it’s a comic book. Quit your pretentious drivel about this being important because it’s a “graphic novel.” Memo to the creators of Richie Rich and Archie: You missed your calling. If only you’d called your product a “graphic novel” and added scenes of Archie raping Betty and Veronica and Jughead sawing off Reggie’s Arms, you’d be in businesss. Dummies.
It’s frankly hilarious to read the arrogance of the ignorami, telling me I don’t have “cultural literacy” because I don’t like a movie based on a comic book promoting rape, torture, and brutal killing. Here’s a tip to you clueless wonders: You can’t have culture literacy when there ain’t culture. Just like I’d be wrong to call this a clash of civilizations, because then we would be wrongly assuming that there is civilization on your end.
While most of the e-mails are vile and stupid–and simultaneously so pretentious and self-important–it’s obvious they’d be best saved for open poetry reading night at the local college coffeehouse. That’s the only place where your fertilizer has willing consumers (and at at the box office on Friday, where I’m sure this crap will be a huge hit for you pretentious geeky slacker losers with no life and absolutely no sense of decency or class).
You keep writing me these deranged e-mails, which include statements about how I “don’t understand the background” and that it was exactly the same in “the graphic novel.” Get a clue: That I didn’t first look at a comic book picture of a rape scene before seeing the same in a movie is a distinction without a difference. That you did, is a distinction with merit, i.e., that you’re an idiot who spends valuable time and money on idiocy and depravity. You are what you eat.
And you are no better than the lumpenproletariat lowlifes at the Coliseum who orgasmically watched and cheered when Christians were forced to fight animals. You are no different, and you are essentially chomping at the bit to go see the modern-day version, tonight. With people like you populating America and dominating pop culture offerings, I have no doubt that soon enough we will return to the days of the barbaric live human versus beast shows. You salivate at the chance to watch barbarism tonight. That’s who you are.
Why not just watch “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”? At least that was honest about what it is and didn’t march under this ridiculous banner of being highbrow when it’s really just crap.
Poor Hitler. If only he’d made Mein Kampf into a comic book instead of an actual written screed. Then, the ovens of Auschwitz and the human lampshades would be all the rage and cool of kitsch. Silly me, for not understanding that close-ups of sawing off someone’s arms and dogs chowing down on a six-year-old girl are so much high culture because they were in a comic book first. Idiocy. And, oh, it’s a disgusting comic book that TIME Magazine liked. Therefore, it must be the end all, be all. Tell it to Ariel Sharon, who knew something about the “truth” and “accuracy” of TIME. Oh, wait, I’m assuming something really big here: that you “Watchmen” ignoramuses actually know who Ariel Sharon is or what his deal was with TIME. And that would be truly clueless.
And to those imbeciles who claim–blindly–that this outrageous movie is not marketed to kids, pray tell who is the target audience of “American Idol” on which several trailers ran this week. Yup, “American Idol”–no way that’s a kids show or that kids who see it won’t want to go see this horrible movie. Only if they market it on Sesame Street are they marketing it to kids, right?
Not that if it weren’t marketed to kids, that would make this crap smell any better.
Still, I’ve gotten many e-mails like these from parents, who attest that they thought this was a superhero movie and that their kids have been bombarded with the marketing for this grotesque movie:

Debbie,
I cannot recall how I got pointed to your review of Watchmen, but thank you for your review! Ever since the trailers came out my son, 15 1/2 wanted to see the movie. No he has not read the novel or comics, but something about this movie made me research it more. Let’s just say I had a bad feeling. I greatly appreciate your detailed review of this movie. We are not going to see this movie and it became a great teaching point.
Michael

Uh-huh, not marketed to kids, right? His son just found out about the movie and wants to go see it . . . by accident?
While I’m not surprised to find out that many of those who’ve written their deranged, undue outrage that I deigned to tell the truth about this trash and insult their low-class cultural sensibilities (or rather non-sensibilities), voted for Barack Obama and are liberals, I am surprised that anyone would claim this is a conservative movie.
It was originally written–per the author’s own declaration–as an attack on Ronald Reagan. Reader Christopher summarizes it in this letter:

Ms Schlussel,
First THANK YOU for the article on Watchmen.
I wanted to add that you are dead right on the slant of this movie. The writer’s original intention as declared by him in a 1987 interview in The Comics Journal was for this have an anti-Reaganism theme. He feared directly attacking President Reagan because he figured it would make people not want to read.
I think this is absolutely a golden opportunity to hammer home the point that mass media influences matter. People are actively ignoring even the stated goal of the author himself for the sake of “a good time’… This is how we get the fouled up pop culture.
You have a better opportunity than I to present this side of the story to people so please consider looking into what I said here and decide if you think it’s worth while to write more about.
Again thank you,
Christopher

Bottom line: If you’re a “Watchmen” fan, there’s something sick about you. You’re sick if you enjoy watching wanton rape, torture, and murder, no matter what the background for it is. I don’t care if it first appeared in a warped comic book paraded with a high-brow euphemism for comic book.
I don’t give a crap if it’s meant to show that “the world is dark” and that “superheroes have problems and are everyday people, too,” which have been among the insipid, vapid excuses I’ve received from empty-headed Watchmen fanatic who mindlessly repeat the phony talking points that make them feel smart.
Guess what? We know there are bad people and that people are everyday people with problems. If you don’t know that, and you think a movie like this is necessary to make the point, you’re even more warped and stupid than I originally diagnosed.
And maybe your sister should be fed to dogs and your mother raped and your brother should have his arms sawed off (as they do in this snuff/torture-porn movie). You know, just to make the point.
But we’ll be sure to depict it in a comic book first, just to make it “high-brow.” And get the money of the mindless “Watchmen” fandom sheeple.

By Debbie Schlussel
**** UPDATE, 03/05/09: Watchmen Derangement Syndrome Takes Hold; Movie Continues to Be Marketed to Kids ****
If you take your kids to see “Watchmen,” you’re a moron.
If you see it yourself, you’re also probably a moron and a vapid, indecent human being. The movie arrives in theaters at Midnight, Thursday Night. It’s rated “R”–which should kinda sorta be a hint–but it really deserves an “NC-17,” at the very least. And plenty of clueless parents brought their young kids and kept them there for the entire almost three hour “experience” at the screening I attended.
Yes, I know, it’s being heavily marketed as a superhero movie, with action figures for your kids. But that–and the heroic-looking movie trailer–are a big, fat lie. And that’s where real parenting comes in . . . like actually investigating the movie before you take or send your kids to see this garbage.
In fact, as a movie critic who sees most new releases, I haven’t seen a more violent, depraved movie in years (not to mention a longer, more boring movie with a more preposterous and silly plot). This movie makes the graphic bloodshed of the recently released “Friday the 13th” look like “Cinderella.”

This really isn’t a superhero movie at all. In fact, there was little “superheroing” until after the second hour of this nearly three-hour exercise on defining deviancy down. Some on the right are claiming this is a conservative movie because it’s made by some of the same people as “300” (read my review). But this is no “300.” (And that wasn’t for kids either, but this is far much less so.) A few lines of dialogue by the character “Rorschach” deriding “liberals and intellectuals” doesn’t excuse the nearly three hours of poison here. In fact, the movie kind of has a peacenik-themed ending and “message” regarding nuclear weapons. If this move is “conservative,” who the heck needs liberal?
There were so many disgusting, violent, morbid, grisly scenes and acts of killing, I had to start writing them down, lest I forget. And that’s in addition to the rape scene between superheroes (complete with violent beating of a female superhero) and an explicit sex scene between two other superheroes. Oh, and don’t forget another superhero’s swinging computer-generated penis frequently in your face on-screen.
In just the opening credits of this mindless celluloid claptrap, there’s a lesbian take-off on the famous photo of a woman kissing a sailor in Manhattan who is returning victorious from World War II. The lesbian make-out scene, featuring a “superhero,” is bad enough. But then, we see cops looking over their naked, bloodied, dead bodies on a bed, with the words “LESBIAN WHORES,” written in blood on the wall.
Mommy, mommy, what’s a lesbian? What’s a whore? And remember, this is just the opening credits.
The “plot” of this movie–if you can call it a plot–is that there were costumed superheroes in the ’40s and beyond. They grew old, but some of them didn’t. Then a new crop of costumed superheroes with special powers cropped up, some of whom were related to the older ones and some who still remained from the older group. But they all retired. Now, a superhero known as “The Comedian”–who is also a rapist and shot a Vietnamese woman who was pregnant with his kid (all of which we see depicted on-screen)–is murdered, and some of the superheroes, the “Watchmen,” get back together to find out who did it.
At the same time, the Soviets are about to nuke America. It’s 1985 and Nixon is President. We’ve won in Vietnam. Oh, and Henry Kissinger has a Russian accent. And Ronald Reagan is thinking of running for President in 1988. Wow, isn’t that cool that they got it wrong on purpose? I’m so amazed at this “high-brow art” of deliberately getting dates and timelines wrong, you know, just to be “artistic,” and get the drooling of the critics. That is sooooo genius. Like way totally cool.
Maybe if I make a movie about how Eisenhower was President in 1972, we “lost” World War II, and Bin Laden was gonna bomb the World Trade Center then, I’ll be cool, too. . . so long as it’s “dark” and I include a bunch of rape, torture, explicit sex scenes, and extremely graphic killings, and oh, write a “graphic novel” a/k/a comic book about it, first.
In the midst of this stupid story, we’re treated to the following:
* Dogs fighting over, tearing apart, and eating a six-year-old girl–we’re shown them chowing down on and tearing apart the remaining leg and leg bone, with the sock and shoe still on the bone as the dogs wrestle over it;
* A close up of man repeatedly getting an axe-blade driven through his skull while he’s being butchered;
* At least two very graphic scenes of naked superhero “Dr. Manhattan” vaporizing people to just blood, limbs, and guts hanging from the ceiling or spread in the snow;
* Many scenes of Dr. Manhattan’s computer generated penis swinging about;
* A kid biting a giant, bloody chunk of flesh out of another kid’s face–he grows up to be “Rorschach,” one of the superheroes’ compatriots;
* A man’s hands and arms being sawed off with an electric saw–we’re shown the bloody stumps and the bloody sawed off limbs in close up shots;
* A man with vat of hot french fry oil deliberately thrown over his head–we literally see him fry, and he ultimately dies, we’re told (no kidding);
* Many, many scenes of people’s hands, arms, fingers being broken in half or crunched by the “superheroes”;
* Cops being set on fire and burning to death by superhero compatriot “Rorschach;”
* Superhero “The Comedian” (a bad Robert Downey, Jr. look-alike) brutally beating and raping another superhero–tis movie concludes that the rape was a good thing b/c the slutty superhero had a slutty superhero daughter from him;
* Superhero “The Comedian” shooting and killing a Vietnamese woman because she’s pregnant with his kid;
* Superhero “The Comedian” being thrown off a roof of a tall building–we see his body hit the ground and the blood flow out;
* Two superheroes have an explicit sex scene in a spaceship–she’s on top, then he’s on top, awesome–you can teach your young kids multiple sexual positions before they even reach puberty, by taking them to see this (there’s a less explicit sex scene between the slutty superheroine and another superhero not long before that).
And these are just the highlights, plus superheroes hurling obscenities–great for the kiddies. There’s so much more–along with horrible make-up, bad acting, and terrible computer generated images (including the penis). Not to mention, a bad, extremely slow, and boring script.
Yup, this is the garbage that Rupert Murdoch’s Fox and Warner Brothers and Paramount are marketing toward your kids. All of these studios have a piece in this movie. And even thought the budget was just $100 to $125 million, because of a long legal battler between WB and Fox, the legal fees and pay-out make it such that they must recoup at least $200 or 300 million and make a profit. To do so, they are pimping the movie to all niches, especially your young kids.
But just because shameless whores and crack dealers of Hollywood deal this stuff out, doesn’t mean you have to buy it and poison your kids’ minds with it.
Remember the morons I told you about who took their kids to see the latest “Friday the 13th,” last month? Well, they were back with their kids at a Monday Night screening of this horribly depraved, whacked out movie.
Remember the White single mother who told me her ten-year-old son could see it because “he knows it’s not real and he knows the difference between right and wrong”? Well, she was back with her ten-year-old, and they waited in line for at least two hours with their free pass to get in to this screening, I’m told. I saw them walking out at the end.
Her son is going to grow up to be messed up. Don’t do the same to your kid.
And do yourself a favor, too. Save the ten bucks and the three hours of your life you’ll never get back. And the nightmares of some guy’s bloody, sawed-off arms and hands still clinging to the doors of a jail cell.
I don’t just worry that this is the new superhero movie being marketed to your kids today. I worry about the ones that will be even more depraved a decade from now.
G-d help this country (minus Hollywood).
FOUR MARXES PLUS

By Debbie Schlussel
**** SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE ****
The big pop culture story around America revolves around another show I make it a point not to watch, ABC’s “The Bachelor.” Why is this show still on? Oh, yeah–free labor in the form of skanks and himbos who voluntarily make out on TV for base American voyeurs with nothing better to do. To the people that watch this show, I wonder, why do you care about any of these people? Is your life that empty that you must watch these nobodies engaged in stupidity?
Apparently, the latest “Bachelor,” Jason Mesnick–a divorced father, broke up with the one skank to which he was engaged, and asked the other skank he dumped to come back to him. This all took place on national TV, last night and the night before. And all the low-lifes in America who watch this garbage are upset. I mean, how dare a guy who goes on a show with 25 women voluntarily joining his harem on national TV, actually treat these women like members of the harem that they are? The nerve.

Shocker: A Reality TV Himbo Treats Skanks Like Skanks
Attention, girls: You go on a national TV show to make out for the cameras and “share a fantasy suite” (euphemism) with a guy you barely know, along with 24 other skanks just like you, then that’s how you’ll be treated. Act like a ho, get treated like one. Not sure why people are all up in arms about a himbo guy dumping someone on a show that always results in a himbo guy dumping someone. The women who go on this show deserve whatever they get. And so do the mind-numbed Americans who watch it.
The people I really like on this dumb reality show are the parents of the dumped girl, “Melissa.” They refused to participate in “The Bachelor” show, on which the “semi-finalists”‘ (semi-finalists to become losers) parents and family meet the prospective “fiance.”
Those parents have class, and they love their daughter more than she loves herself. And–shocker!–she got dumped and hurt on national TV, just like they probably feared.
Father–and mother, in this case–know best. But not the father who was the latest ABC “Bachelor.” If I were his son, Ty, I’d be embarrassed.
If you go on this show, you’re a moron. And you deserve to be treated like one.
**** UPDATE: Reader Ari writes this excellent, hilarious analysis:

About the Bachelor, you forgot to mention a few things:
First off, he was a weepy girlie-man. He must have broken down crying about six times that I saw.
Second, he gave a terrible reason why he dumped the one girl and took the other. Normally, I wouldn’t comment on this kind of thing. If he had said that he dumped the first one because her toenails were too short, or her voice was annoying, or that she scratches her ear too often, I wouldn’t comment. All of those are dumb reasons. But they are not worthy of comment. If he wants to be superficial, he can give a superficial reason.
Instead he gave a reason that sounds, at first glance, as if it’s not superficial. But it’s really the most superficial reason of all. He said he needs to follow his heart. WHAT A TERRIBLE REASON. People follow their hearts entirely too much in this society. Entirely. They need to follow their brains more often. You think you love another woman more? Well get over it. Guess what, there are billions of other women in the world. I guarantee he’s going to want to sleep with a few thousand of them in the future. He’s a guy. That’s a guy’s nature. But you have to be a MAN, and not follow your heart. That will always lead you astray. Pathetic.
Now, I bet you’re wondering why I watched this crap. I don’t want to go into that right now, but I had a pretty good reason to do so.

By Debbie Schlussel
If you have a teen daughter or female relative, you’re probably aware of “America’s Next Top Model,” the “reality show” on the CW network, produced and hosted by narcissist Tyra Banks. The show should really be entitled, “America’s Next Free Live Meat for Tyra’s Bank Account,” since none of these girls ever becomes a top model . . . or even a minor showroom clothes hanger.
The show begins its 12th season tonight, and with ratings waning, they’re trying a new tack. In promos for the show that have been running for weeks, Tyra and friends have been promoting contestant Monique and her 9/11 truther views. The promos show her saying that she believes the U.S. government was behind 9/11, so that we could go to war.
Been there, heard that. Just because the new face repeating this old tripe isn’t as ugly as Rosie O’Donnell doesn’t make it any more valid. If Tyra Banks had any decency (and we all know she does not), she’d tell producers she doesn’t want a 9/11 truther on her show, and that would have been the end.

Tyra Banks: Shameless New Expert on 9/11 Truther Marketing
But this desperate TV show, the ratings of which are on the decline, needs something to get “us” (not me or you, but them) interested again. Not that I watch this vapid show–it’s a tad out of my demo, not to mention stupid and a waste of time–but they have no problem polluting your daughters with this dumb conspiracy theory with no basis, wrapped in the candy coating of a wannabe model wearing haute couture. They’re milking it as much as possible.
Beware.
I’ve already noted on this site about how Tyra’s idea of “Black history” was a 10th anniversary repeat of her pose in a bikini in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. But, using false conspiracy theories about 9/11 to market her non-Top Model Show–it’s a new low.

By Debbie Schlussel
**** SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE ****
I’m not sure why everyone’s so afraid of housing the Guantanamo Bay Islamic terrorists after they’re released by the saintly Barack Obamessiah from the beachside dwellings.
You see, these are just innocent men of the “Religion of Peace” who like to write poetry, read Harry Potter, lounge on La-Z-Boys, and were wrongly accused. Right? I mean that’s what we’re being told and have been told for years. And, presumably, all these people who don’t want them in their neighborhoods must have agreed with the Obama view of the terrorists when they voted for him. Or maybe they just couldn’t be bothered to make sure their views and Obama’s jibed. And, after all, the Republicans gave us a candidate who wanted to shut down Gitmo, too. So, it wasn’t a selling point.
Now, at least four state legislatures–Indiana, California, South Carolina, and Texas–have passed laws prohibiting these peaceful men of the Mohammedan faith from entering their states. And three separate bills in the U.S. Congress seek to bar Gitmo detainees from prisons in certain states or deny funding for them in any federal prison.

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
Why all the fuss, if these are such innocent men?
Why won’t the nice people of Leavenworth, Kansas–who have far more hardened criminals than these nice, gentlemanly Al-Qaeda bodyguards and Taliban explosives technicians–let these poor, downtrodden men in? I don’t get it. These people are harmless, cute, and cuddly, with their natural Persian rug chest hair sweaters and charming scowls no different than that of our own Oscar winners. And that nice book that really doesn’t say to kill non-Muslims . . . in the carefully edited English translation.

Leavenworth residents are bristling over idea of Gitmo transplants
LEAVENWORTH, Kan. – Mayor Lisa Weakley can’t think of a single good reason the federal government should transfer detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the Army’s Fort Leavenworth in this city of 35,000.
She can, however, list many reasons why this community – even though it’s famed for its prisons and has the Defense Department’s only maximum-security facility – should not be their next home, starting with worries about the threat of terrorism.
“Is it really a bad thing not to want it in your backyard if you’ve got a really good, solid explanation?” she asks. “We have geographical challenges, security concerns and economic concerns. These are different types of prisoners than we’re used to.”
President Obama fulfilled a campaign pledge when he signed an executive order Jan. 22 requiring the closure of Guantanamo within a year. Detainees who can’t be released, returned home or sent to another country will be moved to a U.S. detention facility. Pentagon officials studying potential destinations have visited Fort Leavenworth, the Navy brig in North Charleston, S.C., and Camp Pendleton in California.
The Kansas Legislature, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and the state’s U.S. senators all object to sending them here.

Hmmm . . . the same Sebelius who supported and campaigned for Obama and just took a cabinet appointment in his administration. Anyone see the disconnect?

It’s almost impossible to find anyone here who thinks it’s a good idea. “Nobody wants them here,” says Mo Jones, 32, who owns Mo-Cuts Barbershop across Metropolitan Street from Fort Leavenworth. “We know their history. They’re terrorists.”

Ya think? Who’d you vote for, Mo?

Curtis Hammond, 56, who worked at the federal penitentiary here for 20 years, worries detainees would instill in American prisoners “their ways of thinking and their religious beliefs.”

But wait, I thought their religion was the “Religion of Peace.” They’d never behead or honor kill anyone. Fly planes into buildings? Boy, you have a great imagination. Would never happen.

Mike Martinez, 60, a manager for an area company, says, “If they can’t be charged with something and tried, they ought to let them go.”

Yeah, I don’t need to ask for whom this genius voted.

Phil Urban would like the detainees to stay at Guantanamo. “If we do bring them here on U.S. soil, that changes their legal status,” which might result in their release. If they have to be relocated, though, says Urban, 62, a music store owner, “Fort Leavenworth can handle them as good as anybody else.”

Whoa. Someone actually gets it. Sounds like an “Evil Zionist Empire” card holder to me.

Attorney General Eric Holder heads a task force that is studying the status of the more than 200 detainees. Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd says it’s “far too early” to know what it will advise.

Ha, he was the incompetent Julie Myers’ spokesman at ICE before he graduated to “Americans are cowards” man.

A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken Jan. 30-Feb. 1 found that half of Americans disapproved of Obama’s decision to close the Guantanamo prison; 44% approved.

Where’s the Gallup Poll on how many of ’em voted for liberals in Congress?

Fort Leavenworth abuts the northern edge of Leavenworth and is more like an extension of the community than a separate place. Anyone can drive onto the 8-square-mile post after showing a driver’s license and a vehicle security check.
Easy access to the fort would end if Guantanamo detainees end up there, says Leavenworth Police Chief Pat Kitchens. He worries the town could become a target of terrorists angry about detainees’ imprisonment. “Terrorists don’t target military installations. They target local populations,” Kitchens says. He has 66 police officers and figures he’d need more if detainees end up here.
Securing the fort could be a challenge. The Missouri River is its eastern border. Railroad tracks on fort property are used by about 50 coal and freight trains a day. The city leases part of the fort’s airport for use by private planes.
Steve Jack of the Leavenworth County Development Corp., warns that if detainees come here, some countries might refuse to send officers to the Command and General Staff College, ending a valuable cultural exchange and eliminating diplomatic allies for the nation.

I repeat the same question: For whom did Lisa Weakley, Mo Jones, and the rest of the “Islamophobe whiners” in this article vote? ‘Cuz that’s how the Democratic party views you–as Islamophobe whiners. And I’m not just talking President. Like I said, there wasn’t much choice on this issue atop the ballot. But how much you wanna bet they pulled the D lever all the way, voting down the line for the end of Gitmo?
“Not In My Back Yard”? People, you welcomed it in your front door by giving liberals a clean sweep of Congress in November. Don’t blame it on anyone but the image in your mirror when terrorists start boarding in your hood.
I can’t wait to see Ahmed and Mohammed, formerly of Gitmo, hanging at the Leavenworth franchise of Khalid’s Falafel Hut. I mean, this is what America is all about, right?
The land of opportunity . . . no matter how many people you planned to blow up.
**** UPDATE–Reader Sean writes:

Just thought I’d let you know that I COMPLETELY agree with the Mayor of Leavenworth, KS. My wife and I lived there for 3 years, and both of our sons were born at St. John’s Hospital right there in town. The post itself is a bucolic, historical place. Aside from the military prison, it is home to the Army’s Command and General Staff College and the Combined Arms Command. The town of Leavenworth itself if more like Mayberry RFD than something you’d see near DC or the Pentagon. And I mean that in a good way. Moving the terrorists there will not only make the post a nightmare for access AND a target for terrorists, it will be a collecting spot for every Code Pink nut-job and Sean Penn wanna-be who want to protest how “evil” we are for holding these guys. It would ruin the post, the town, and probably the surrounding towns like Lansing and Platte City, MO which would become staging areas for these nuts.
But that’s probably okay with the folks in DC and Chicago and LA. After all, Kansas is “flyover country.”

Well, of course, I agree with her, too. I just wonder where all these people were during the Presidential campaign, voicing these concerns to the two major party nominees bent on closing down Gitmo.

By Debbie Schlussel
To those who mindlessly repeat the same FOX News talking points that airheads like Sean Vannity and “The View”‘s Elisabeth Hasselbeck constantly tout, I have news for you: things are not working in Iraq.
They’re not working, unless you count the virtual elimination of most of the country’s Christian population by its Shi’ite rulers a good thing. They’re not working, unless you consider Iran finishing the completion of its Shi’ite crescent of a Hezbollah-supporting Islamic empire a good thing. Yes, there’s relative “calm,” but that means nothing.
I warned that we should not have democratic elections and hand this country over to Iranian-backed Shi’ites, and instead should have turned it over to a pro-U.S. Shah-like dictator. But instead we opted for this “democracy” (the same kind that put HAMAS and Hezbollah in power).

Iran’s Rafsanjani & Ahmadinejad Solidify Their Grip on “Liberated” Iraq
Now, we see the results as Iran gets its hands deeper into and its control stronger over Iraq. Yesterday, former Iranian President Akbar Hashem Rafsanjani–an ally of the late Ayatollah Khomeini and no enemy of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the ayatollahs who run Iran–announced he will fund and assist in Iraq’s reconstruction. Rafsanjani is one of Iran’s most influential and powerful politicians and religious leaders. He’s not pledging the help just ‘cuz. He’s doing it to solidify the latent unity with Iran that Iraq has developed and will continue to embrace more and more openly. Rafsanjani said he visited Iraq to strengthen Iran-Iraq religious, political, and economic ties. Not a good thing.
**** UPDATE: And as reader “I Am Me” reminds me, I wrote about how Argentina issued a warrant for Rafsanjani’s arrest as he was the primary Iranian mastermind and funder of the Hezbollah bombings and mass murder at the Jewish Community Center and Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires in the mid-’90s. ****
Bush helped clear Iraq out for the Iranian Shi’ites and helped put them in power. And now they are openly biding their time until the takeover is complete.
And most of those supposedly in the know are just plain clueless on this. Take FOX News’ Neil Cavuto. I remember when he whined to and cajoled me for criticizing Dearbornistan Shi’ites for supporting Hezbollah by saying that these same Shi’ites supported Bush against Saddam Hussein. No kidding, Neil. They’re Shi’ites. They want power all over. Not sure how this makes them good people. It just makes them smart and focused people, er . . . barbarians.
Smarter and more focused than us, and certainly more so than the Bush and Iraq amen crowd leaders, such as Cavuto.
With all due respect to our brave and courageous soldiers who went over there (including my own cousin), we did not liberate Iraq. We took it from one inhumane tyrant and gave it to another, both of whom are our enemies. It’s like the ending of “Lord of the Flies.” And we helped awaken the Shi’ite revolution of which Hezbollah is an important component. The new boss isn’t the same as the old boss. He’s far worse, with more serious, far-reaching implications.

By Debbie Schlussel
For a couple of weeks, I’ve been getting e-mails from readers and others upset over the $900 million Barack Obama is giving the Palestinians, with correspondents asking me why I haven’t written in protest about it.
To those readers and e-mailers I ask, where were you for the billions we gave them under Bush and Condi Clueless? This isn’t new. It’s more of the same. To be fair, many readers in the later Bush years (after two elections in which they voted for the guy and told me how great he was, but wasn’t) did finally realize that on this issue the Republicans in the White House weren’t different than the Democrats. But I notice that the cries and protests are louder now.
To those, I ask, “why”? Why was it okay to prop these people up for the last eight years? These barbarians, these savages. Why was it okay for Bush to hold Israel back from responding to the homicide bombings of 2001, while he sucked up to the Muslim compatriots here? Why was Israel pressured into giving up Gaza and many portions of Judea and Samaria? And where were your protests when Saint Sarahmessiah praised this baloney at the debate with Joe Biden? Did you hold her feet to the fire? No. Many of you blindly cheered her on and want her to become President.

Gazillions for Them: Hillary/Barack Continue the Condi/Bush Trend
And as long as you continue to do this, why do you ask more of the Democrats–ask from the Democrats that which you simply haven’t demanded from the Republicans? That’s one of the things I admire about American Muslims and liberals: they demand everything and whine and cajole whether it’s their guy in power or “our” guy. On our side of things, we often, instead, say, “Our guy, right or wrong.” I got a lot of this on Bush post-9/11, when I asked why we were in an “anti-terrorism” coalition with Sudan.
For daring to ask this, I had ignoramus Salem radio talk show host Mike Gallagher speak all day long on his show about how I’m a Jew and how I should be strapped to a missile into Afghanistan. For daring to ask this, Gallagher question my patriotism and that of my parents, whom he also stressed are Jews. Our patriotism? Mike Gallagher, who’s never done anything for this country but sit at a desk, eat, and talk through a microphone, versus my dad who was drafted and served during Vietnam and for several years in the U.S. military. Right after 9/11, this Gallagher cretin urged on his website for listeners to send me death threats. And with his show-long discussions of how I’m a Jew and how I should die, I got e-mails with the same anti-Semitic death threats.
That passed, and people woke up to the real Bush, eventually, though they didn’t do much to demand change from him on this issue.
For daring to ask and to criticize those on “our” side, I’ve now come under fire yet again with vile attacks, many of them obscene and anti-Semitic from the Sarahmessiah crowd. The same people are the ones who now ask why Obama is sending nearly $1 billion, when they didn’t ask so loudly or, many of them, even at all, for the last eight years, as George W. and Condi Clueless sent several billion and brought us to this point. They had eight years and they blew it. And now they’ve set the standard for Barack and Hillary to continue the downward spiralling course of amputating Israel and funding the cancer being amputated. You simply can’t expect from Obama that which you didn’t expect from Bush (and could have gotten, had you been as vocal with “your guy”).
Like George W-messiah worship passed, so too will this. But still, you must demand the same on aid to Gaza from ALL Presidents, as in “Don’t send it.” We gave gazillions to rebuild Gaza, and Hezbollah-conrolled South Lebanon–post-Hezbollah war, and to UNRWA . . . all under Bush, to the silence of most alleged conservatives. Do you recall the Bush corporations set up with hundreds of millions to bail out Palestinian mortgages and to help Palestinians start businesses? I complained about them here. Conservatives did . . . nothing.
Remember, Hillary and Barack didn’t invent the conferences to raise money for the Palestinians and other uncivilized Muslims. That was a trend started by Condi Clueless and the even more clueless George W. We could have protested louder to stop the trend then. Now, it’s too late. We are howling at the wind, a wind who campaigned on doing this and is now doing it.
And then there are the Eastern European nations who either fought or finally threw off the yoke of Communism. They are essentially our allies in the cold war and countries we should help now to avoid them being taken over by Islamic extremism (while we don’t try so hard to avoid the same, ourselves).
But instead, they are getting no money, while the Republicastan of Gaza and the related fiefdom of Munich Massacrestan, headed by Mahmoud Abbas in the Palestinian Authority, are getting $5.2 billion, far more than the $2.8 billion the Great Palestinian Unwashed sought.
The contrast is stark. As the Wall Street Journal reported yeseterday, European Union leaders rejected a call by Hungary to bailout the Eastern Europe Bloc.
But Angie Merkel and her fellow Eurotrash are joining Barack and Hillary in donating gazillions to barbarians nowhere near their borders.
And that’s the bottom line:
Throw off the yoke of Communism and become Westernized, zero bucks.
Throw off respective HAMAS and Fatah rivals off buildings and kill Jews and Westerners, priceless.
But we’ll give you $5.2 billion–including $900 million from the Bush/Condi-primed and Barack/Hillary-ready Americans–as a start.
Reward our enemies, screw our friends. Not the kind of thinking Machievelli was exactly rooting for.

By Debbie Schlussel
One of the not so mysterious mysteries is what happened to Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who risked his life to save thousands of Jews from the Holocaust. Instead of going into the safe, wealthy banking life of his family, this University of Michigan architectural school grad instead volunteered to work with America to save thousands of Hungarian Jews, and apparently lost his own life in the process.
Although no one knows for sure what happened to Raoul Wallenberg, sightings and other accounts indicate that he was captured by the Soviets and likely died in one of their prisons. If he were alive today, this heroic, saintly man would be 96.
This weekend, the Wall Street Journal’s Joshua Prager wrote an extensive feature on the Wallenberg family’s search for his whereabouts. Although the article was very long, there were some interesting items in it.

Raoul Wallenberg, a Hero If There Ever Was One
For instance, that Wallenberg’s mother, Maj, and stepfather, Fredrik Von Dardel, devoted their lives and resources in the search for Wallenberg and eventually committed suicide after years of stonewalling by the Swedish government, itself.
The Swedes, apparently, were more concerned about maintaining “neutrality” and being in good standing with the Communist Soviets than in rescuing one of their most courageous citizens. Disgusting. What good is a country’s faux-neutrality, if it means doing nothing against Nazis, then later doing nothing to free your most brave citizen?
Also, interesting and of note is the letter written by Albert Einstein, a friend of Wallenberg’s half-brother Guy Von Dardel, to the Soviets on behalf of Raoul Gustav Wallenberg. The letter is very . . . Einsteinian.
Guy Von Dardel and Nina Lagergren promised their mother they would search for their brother until the year 2000, but they’ve continued their quest on and off over the years, even though they, themselves, are both now elderly.
I always wondered what got Wallenberg interested in his brave work. The article provides some background:

Raoul’s paternal grandfather, Gustav, groomed the multilingual Wallenberg scion for a banking career and dispatched him to business posts in South Africa, then Palestine.
There, in a kosher boarding house in Haifa in 1936, the Swedish Lutheran met a German Jew whose brother had been murdered by a Nazi. He soon read Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf twice, his half-sister recalls.
On Jan. 22, 1944, the United States established the War Refugee Board, an agency intended to protect the endangered populations of Europe. The board asked the Swedish foreign ministry, which staffed a mission in Budapest, to suggest a candidate to run an office there. Word reached Mr. Wallenberg.
Hired by the U.S. and granted diplomatic status by Sweden, Mr. Wallenberg, 31, arrived in Budapest on July 9, 1944. The Nazis had already deported more than half of Hungary’s 750,000 Jews, nearly all to Auschwitz in Poland, where most were killed. Slight, balding and colorblind, Mr. Wallenberg used safehouses, counterfeit passports and bravado to safeguard thousands who remained.

And finally, there is the detail that most surprised–and sickened me: That Raoul Wallenberg’s niece, the daughter of his half-sister, Nina Lagergren, is married to Kofi Annan, the anti-Israel–and frankly, anti-Semitic–food-for-oil scammer and former UN chief.
I think Mr. Wallenberg is turning over in his grave on that one. Ditto for the fact that Mr. Annan did nothing to help free his wife’s heroic uncle.
An interesting read. And I am certain of one thing:
If he is dead, Raoul Wallenberg is in Heaven. If he is alive, he is on deck to go there. He gave up everything to help so many, and he lost everything for doing so.
The Swedes may have forgotten Wallenberg when they could do something to save him, but many of us will never forget him.

By Debbie Schlussel
In an amazing feat on Friday, basketball fan Rhett Brown makes this shot from mid-court using the girlie-man WNBA style of underhanded shooting. In a sign of the times, though, teams are getting cheap. It used to be that if you made a shot like this, you won $500,000 or even $1 million. Brown only won $77,777, and after taxes (in Obama’s new higher tax brackets), who knows how much of that he’ll actually get to keep.

Another view:

By Debbie Schlussel
Over a year ago, I told you about Barack Hussein Obama’s Nation of Islam staffers and connections in an exclusive story (which was later plagiarized in its entirety by WorldNutDaily thief Aaron Klein). Still, Obama claimed he disavowed Farrakhan and then, Farrakhan laid low. Well, it was all part of the plan, the Nation of Islam loons now admit.

In a speech days after the election, Farrakhan acknowledged that he then purposely laid low, keeping his praise quiet, so as not to affect Obama’s chances at winning the presidency.
It was a move many attending the weekend conference in Rosemont said they understood.
“Minister Farrakhan didn’t take offense,” said Audrey Muhammad, who edits “Virtue Today” magazine, geared at women in the movement. “We understand how politics work.”

Ishmael Muhammad, the movement’s national assisting minister, claimed Farrakhan’s words were twisted.
“He did not want to say anything the media could use to hurt his (Obama’s) chances to become the president,” Muhammad said. “They want to keep demonizing Farrakhan, despite the good he does.”
And they’ve added new members in the form of Snoop Dogg, criminal rapper T.I. (whose pre-federal prison “Farewell Tour” I told you about last week, and about whose Muslim status I correctly surmised), and ’80s one-hit wonder Doug E. Fresh. If you buy Snoop’s or T.I.’s products, you’re funding Nation of Islam anti-Semitism and hate. Snooop donated $1,000 to NOI at the annual Farrakhan NOI “Saviour’s Day” confab in Chicago.

He spoke for three hours in a rousing keynote address, often interrupted by standing ovations. Religious leaders, including the Rev. Michael Pfleger, as well as rappers Snoop Dogg and Doug E. Fresh also attended, sitting on the stage behind Farrakhan, nodding and clapping.

More:

Rapper Snoop Dogg made an appearance Sunday at the Nation of Islam’s annual Saviours Day convention, praising Minister Louis Farrakhan and revealing that he is a member of the movement.
Snoop, whose real name is Calvin Broadus, gave a $1,000 donation to the Nation and said he will always seek the minister out.
The rapper called himself the “leader of the hip-hop community” and said it was his first Saviours Day event. He told followers that he would share the information he gathered with other musicians.
“When you get a speech from Minister Farrakhan it’s about a mirror, it’s about looking at yourself,” the rapper later told The Associated Press. “It’s about seeing yourself and what you can do to better the situation … We’re doing a lot of wrongs among ourselves that need correcting.”
When asked by the AP if he planned to convert and become a member of the Chicago-based Nation of Islam, Snoop said he already is.
“I’m already in the Nation, that’s why I’m here,” he said. “I’m an advocate for peace. I’ve been in the peace movement ever since I’ve been making music. My whole thing is not about really trying to push my thing on you. It’s just about the way I live, and I live how I’m supposed to live as far as doing what’s right and representing what’s right. That’s why I was here today.”
The rapper did not elaborate on when he’d joined the Nation. Messages left for Nation of Islam officials were not immediately returned Sunday.
During the speech Sunday, Snoop sat on stage behind Farrakhan clapping and nodding.

So much for Farrakhan’s sole “redeeming” quality (which isn’t redeeming at all in the face of his blind hatred and Black supremacy), often cited to me by his Black supporters–about Black morality, conservatism, and values. Does “former” drug dealer and pimp Snoop Dogg elicit thoughts of morality and values to you?
Since he’s now allegedly a comic Muslim (which is how real Muslims see the Nation of Islam cartoon, which they only use for their common hatred of Jews and Christians), does this mean that Snoop will stop his “Gin and Juice” drinking?
Don’t count on it.
Funny, this doesn’t look Islamic to me (well, actually it does–Islamic hypocrisy, of which there is much) . . . [WARNING: suggestive and semi-nude Snoop Dogg video cover]

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