By Debbie Schlussel
**** SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE ****
The country that funds Islamic terrorism–and produced 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers–is also the country that can’t “rehab” Islamic terrorists. Shocker. More terrorists released from Guantanamo Bay have returned to terrorism. Shocker #2.

Eleven Saudis who were released from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and then passed through a Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists are now believed to have fled the country and joined terrorist groups abroad, Saudi officials said Tuesday.
The 11 former detainees include two who were already identified last month as members of a Yemeni terrorist group. Their names were on a list of 85 wanted terrorism suspects made public Tuesday by the Saudi Interior Ministry.

Saudi 9/11 Flag By David Lunde/Lundesigns

The announcement further underscored the difficulties faced by the Obama administration as it prepares to close the Guantanamo detention center. All told, 14 Saudis now appear to have rejoined terrorist groups after their return from Guantanamo, including the 11 living abroad and 3 who were rearrested in Saudi Arabia after their return.
Any perceived weaknesses in the Saudi program – widely viewed as a successful model – could pose problems for the return of the remaining Guantanamo detainees.

A program in which eleven “rehabees” are off the wagon is viewed as a “successful model”? Hello . . .?

Almost half of those are Yemeni, and their return depends in part on Yemen’s creation of a rehabilitation program based on the Saudi one. . . .
Last month, American counterterrorism officials confirmed that Said Ali al-Shihri, a Saudi who was released from Guantanamo in November 2007, had become the deputy leader of the Yemeni branch of Al Qaeda, and that he was suspected of being involved in a deadly attack on the United States Embassy in Sana, Yemen’s capital, last year. Shortly afterward, Mr. Shihri appeared in a propaganda video alongside another former Guantanamo detainee, identified as Abu Hareth Muhammad al-Awfi.

It’s kind of funny that a country that backs terrorism also claims to be in the rehab business against it. Gee, I wonder what affirmation they say at Terrorismaholic Anonymous meetings.

Allah, give me the power to kill the Evil Zionists and Great Satan Westerners I can, and the ability to accept the mere suffering of those I cannot.

There’s no such thing as jihadi rehab. The only way to dump jihad is to leave Islam. And that’s the basic thread of Saudi life. So, is jihad.
**** UPDATE: Bill Warner has more on the Saudi list and who these people are.

By Debbie Schlussel
And now for the latest, “Men: The New Women” alert . . . .
So, this morning when I opened up the USA Today sports section, this picture, below, was staring at me. I thought it was a story about women’s basketball until I read the headline and the caption of the story.
This is B.J. Mullens who plays on the Ohio State men’s basketball team. But look at him–specifically his eyebrows. They’ve been shaped and sculpted into a woman’s eyebrows. All the masculinity has been waxed out of them. I mean, the guy looks like a cross-dresser or female impersonator who took the day off.
Yes, I know this guy is seven feet tall and very masculine. But getting his eyebrows done that way just took the wind out of his testosterone sails. He looks like a chick. It’s one thing to eliminate the beastly-looking unibrow, but guys, here’s a tip: Don’t do this (unless you’re in between “re-assignment” surgeries).

Dude Looks Like a Lady: OSU Hoops Star B.J. Mullens
More of B.J. Mullens’ girlie-man brows:


Musical accompaniment:

By Debbie Schlussel
While gay activists continue violence and whining over their loss of gay marriage in a democratically enacted California ballot initiative, gay marriage unfortunately continues to make gains.
And it even includes American officials recognizing foreign countries’ gay marriages in American states where gay marriage isn’t recognized.
A New York County Surrogate (which is apparently an estate or probate judge in New York) issued a decision recognizing a Canadian same-sex marriage in an estate matter. It’s the second time New York has recognized Canadian gay marriage as legal–even though New York itself does not legally recognize gay marriage:

New York County Surrogate Kristin Booth Glen issued a decision on January 26 recognizing the Canadian same-sex marriage of J. Craig Leiby and the late H. Kenneth Ranftle.

Contrary to a ruling issued last year by Queens County Surrogate Robert Nahman, who expressed doubt about whether a Canadian same-sex marriage would be recognized in a New York probate proceeding in the absence of a ruling on the question by the Appellate Division for the 2nd Department, in which Queens County is located, Surrogate Glen expressed no such reservation, even though the [sic] there is similarly no ruling yet by the Appellate Division for the 1st Department, which includes Manhattan.
Rather, applying established principles of New York marriage recognition law and citing the 4th Department’s decision from last February 1 in Martinez v. County of Monroe, Glen concluded, “Mr. Leiby is decedent’s surviving spouse and sole distributee,” so there was no need for formal notification of Ranftle’s surviving siblings about the pending probate proceeding regarding the will he left. Glen signed the probate decree, allowing Ranftle’s last will and testament to go into effect.
In last year’s Martinez case, an Appellate Division panel unanimously ruled that Monroe Community College must recognize the Canadian marriage of one of its employees and accord her lesbian spouse health benefits.
The potential impact of this first decision by an elected New York surrogate recognizing a same-sex marriage contracted out-of-state is huge.

Say good-bye to marriage–and American sovereignty–as we know it. Apparently, Canada now gets to decide which marriage is legit in America.
Then, there’s the issue of gay divorce. One of the myths we’re constantly told by gay marriage propagandists is that gay relationships are stronger and gays stay together longer than heterosexual marriages, 50% of which end in divorce. Well, we knew it wasn’t true. And now we’re seeing the proof.
Exhibit A is the divorce of Julie and Hillary Goodridge, lesbian activists who were one of seven gay couples who filed the lawsuit that led to Massachusetts legalizing gay marriage in 2004. They married the first day that gay marriage in the State became legal and have a 12-year-old adopted daughter.
No word on who will get custody of the cat, the WNBA season tickets, the Dinah Shore Classic trip, the sensible, comfortable shoes, and the battery-operated male organ simulator.

By Debbie Schlussel
It gets tiresome. Not only will we continue to see a steady diet of Obama family covers on celeb magazines, we’ll continue to get a steady diet of PR BS about them.
I already told you about the recent US Magazine cover featuring ridiculous romance “secrets” and extremely obvious, sappy marriage advice from the Obamas. Now, the latest US cover–in addition to featuring “Jumbo Jessica” (their and the NYPost’s name, not mine) Simpson’s weight gain features baloney about how down to earth the Obamas’ tastes and lifestyle are. “MICHELLE OBAMA’S keeping it real,” screams the headline. We’re told there’s no nanny, that they use pottery barn decor and J. Crew fashion.

But it’s complete fertilizer. I already told you how the Obamas are spending $55,000 per year to send their kids to one of America’s most prestigious private schools and how their kids eat organic tartlets, cheese and crackers, and roasted Atlantic salmon for lunch. Even before moving into the White House, the Obamas have had their own private gourmet chef for the last two years. Hey, US Magazine, this is “keeping it real”?
As for the alleged “Pottery Barn decor,” I already told you how Michelle Obama is wasting $100,000 of taxpayer money on one of America’s most exclusive interior decorators to redo the White House residence, which was just redone four years ago. Sorry, but that ain’t Pottery Barn decor. And as for the J. Crew fashions, I’ve already told you and you’ve no doubt learned on your own about Mrs. Obama’s gazillion dollar haute couture from Narciso Rodriguez and Isabel Toledo. She occasionally wears J. Crew as a pretense to make her seem like one of the people. It’s rare.
Even her kids–for one time wardrobed in J. Crew coats–have special buyers who buy high-styled designer clothes for them at exclusive boutiques, such as a purple silk tunic Malia, the older Obama daughter, wore to a pre-Inaugural youth event featuring the Jonas Brothers. Again, NOT keepin’ it real.
The Obamas are entitled to spend their money as they please (and apparently a whole lot of your money, too, unfortunately). But, please, quit telling us how down to earth and what regular Joneses they are.
They live like Rockefellers, not Smiths. They are not “just like us.” They are elites.

By Debbie Schlussel
Seven years ago, this week, Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was murdered by Islamic terrorists.
His slaughter was brutal. He was beheaded, and his limbs were cut off like chicken parts. Before that, he was forced by Islamic terrorists to talk about being a Jew.
We all remember this (though the mainstream media sanitized what Islamic murderers actually did to him), and it is a tragedy. But there is at least one man who still doesn’t get it: Daniel Pearl’s father, Judea Pearl.

For some reason, Daniel Pearl’s murder has been elevated above those of 3,000 Americans murdered on 9/11, even though the 3,000 were innocent victims on American soil minding their own business. Pearl, on the other hand, was an extremely left-wing, nominal Jew whose reporting repeatedly gave exposure to and legitimization of Islamic terrorists.
Daniel Pearl was killed not minding his own business on an airplane or in an office building, but putting himself at risk chasing more Islamic terrorists to tell their story. But he was a mainstream media reporter–and for one of America’s most prestigious newspapers–so his life, in the mainstream media’s eyes, is far more important than common-folk Americans who conduct America’s commerce and raise families.
And Judea Pearl–in the seven years since his son’s death–has sought to legitimize this same legitimization and appeasement of terrorists, even if he won’t admit it.
In the years since his son’s death, Dr. Pearl has focused on “promoting cross-cultural understanding.” That is the stated purpose of the Daniel Pearl Foundation he set up.
To that end, he raises money for the Seeds of Peace camp, founded by Yasser Arafat’s favorite biographer. The whole idea of the camp is the moral equivalence of terrorism’s victims and its perpetrators. Islamic terrorists’ kids tell off Israeli leftists’ kids for several hours, and then they go canoeing or play volleyball together. Significant numbers of graduates of the Maine camp have become Islamic terrorists and homicide bombers, who kill Jews in Israel. The camp’s most famous grad, Adam Shapiro, founded ISM (International Solidarity Movement), a group which sheltered British Al-Qaeda bombers the night before they blew themselves–and many innocent victims–up at a Tel Aviv bar. (The group was also caught sheltering an Islamic Jihad terrorist.)
A Wall Street Journal reporter friend of mine was aghast, during a visit to Seeds of Peace, when he watched counselors remain silent as Palestinian Muslim campers told Jewish campers that the Holocaust never happened. The Jewish campers, since their parents are leftists and didn’t teach them anything, didn’t have a clue how to respond or even know for sure if the Muslims were wrong. The counselors told the WSJ reporter that they could not intervene because “all viewpoints are legitimate and there is no right and wrong” at Seeds of Peace.
Imagine Osama Bin Laden’s kids and kids of some of those who died on the 9/11 planes and in the towers being sent to summer camp together and being told their causes are equal–or that the terrorists’ cause is superior, and that there is no right and wrong. Raising money for this camp is just one of the many detrimental activities in which Judea Pearl has been involved, in the name of memorializing his slain son.
Would he send his grandchildren to a camp where they made arts and crafts with his son’s killers’ grandchildren, after his son’s slaughter was legitimized in a two-hour long forced dialogue?
Then, there is the series of awards Judea Pearl gives out. Emblematic of the type of recipient, father Pearl gave the Daniel Pearl Award for Courage to Kevin Sites, a Yahoo reporter who did a series of written and video reports called “In the Hot Zone.” But it might better have been called, “In the Dhimmi Zone.” Sites is a vehemently anti-Israel reporter, who frequently attacked Israel for the plight of Palestinians who’ve been living in Lebanon for decades (and the Lebanese won’t let them have the rights of citizens or live outside refugee camps). Sites work is a non-stop, one-sided attack on Israel for every malady in the Middle East. If this is Daniel Pearl Courage, who needs it?
By giving out this award, Dr. Pearl might as well have been giving aid and comfort to those of the same Islamic ideology that killed his son. In giving Sites the award, Dr. Pearl made this ignorant pronouncement telling us that “the hatred that took his son’s life . . . is not between Muslims and Westerners.”:
It’s not between Jews and non-Jews or Muslims and non-Muslims. The fault line does not go along geographical, nationality or religious lines. It goes between those who boast in killing innocent persons for the purpose of transmitting a political message, and those that are repelled by such a practice.
Um, no. It’s Islam, stupid.
But it doesn’t end there.

The Judea Pearl/ Akbar Ahmed Dog & Pony Propaganda Show
Dr. Pearl set up a series of “dialogue” forums, in which he and Islamic propagandist Akbar Ahmed, get paid big bucks (allegedly at least $10,000 each per appearance) to travel the country making speeches about how Islam isn’t extremist and that we can all get along. For an idea of how “we can all get along,” Ahmed excused honor killings when he was on Oprah, claiming they had nothing to do with Islam. Then, there is his year-long video series, “Journey Into America,” in which Dr. Ahmed whitewashed extremist Hezbollah mosque Islamic Center of America, and gushed over Sheikh Hamza Yusuf. Here’s some background on Hamza Yusuf, from my 2004 column on Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam:

Yusuf was under [FBI] investigation [after 9/11] for this speech two days before the attacks: “This country is facing a terrible fate. … This country stands condemned. It stands condemned like Europe stood condemned because of what it did – and lest people forget that Europe suffered two world wars after conquering the Muslim lands.” Unfortunately, President Bush invited him to the White House, where he was when FBI agents knocked on his California door.
At a 1995 ISNA [Islamic Society of North America] conference, Yusuf delivered this speech: “The Jews would have us believe that God has this bias to this little small tribe in the Middle of the Sinai desert and all the rest of humanity is just rubbish. I mean that this is the basic doctrine of the Jewish religion and that’s why it is a most racist religion.”

Judea Pearl’s speaking tour partner thinks this guy is just swell.
After all of this, Judea Pearl had the nerve to write in The New Republic:

Moral relativism died with Daniel Pearl, in Karachi, on January 31, 2002.

It did? Wake up, buddy. Dude, you’re one of the top moral relativists. And you make good coin for doing it.
In today’s Wall Street Journal, Judea Pearl wrote an op-ed that is partly completely clueless and where it is in the know, completely hypocritical.
In the piece, “Daniel Pearl and the Normalization of Evil,” he claims:

Neither he, nor the millions who were shocked by his murder, could have possibly predicted that seven years later . . . this ideology of barbarism would be celebrated in European and American universities, fueling rally after rally for Hamas, Hezbollah and other heroes of “the resistance.” Or that another kidnapped young man, Israeli Gilad Shalit, would spend his 950th day of captivity with no Red Cross visitation while world leaders seriously debate whether his kidnappers [DS: HAMAS] deserve international recognition.

Huh? He is shocked–shocked!–that Muslims around the world actually do what they’ve done for centuries and what their sheikhs tell them to do at mosques and on Islamic law shows on Al-Jazeera. Many of us–myself and many, many others–warned for years of exactly these very predictable things (I’ve been writing about the dangers of Islam since I was a teenager and about my undercover exploits since 1998), while Dr. Judea Pearl was busy running around the country for the last seven years regurgitating false fantasies about dialogue with and understanding of Islam (for $10K a pop), raising money for moral equivalency summer camps for kids, and giving out award to pan-jihadist internet reporters. That he thinks these things post-9/11 (not post-Daniel Pearl), which had already happened pre-9/11, are such a shock, just shows how out of touch this guy, Judea Pearl, is.

Those around the world who mourned for Danny in 2002 genuinely hoped that Danny’s murder would be a turning point in the history of man’s inhumanity to man, and that the targeting of innocents to transmit political messages would quickly become, like slavery and human sacrifice, an embarrassing relic of a bygone era.

Dr, Pearl, you’ve been watching to many Coca-Cola commercials (“I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony . . .”) and Rodney King videos. Who the heck thought this guy’s murder was a turning point for anything positive? It was just another announcement of Islam’s evil to non-Muslims, specifically Jews and Westerners–a death knell this guy’s own father just refuses to hear.
In his column, he goes on to lament that:

The media have played a major role in handing terrorism this victory of acceptability. Qatari-based Al Jazeera television, for example, is still providing Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi hours of free air time each week to spew his hateful interpretation of the Koran, authorize suicide bombing, and call for jihad against Jews and Americans.

Guess who did one of the first, most sympathetic Western media interviews with Qaradawi, declaring this extremist a “moderate” who takes the “middle path”?
I’ll give you a hint: His name was Daniel Pearl and he reported for the Wall Street Journal. And he was the same guy who set out to meet Al-Qaeda terrorists to give their side of the story. Their side of the story, which he hadn’t planned on, was his body chopped into several parts.
In the past, Dr. Pearl also said:

Danny was the first that was abducted and targeted not for what he wrote or what he intended to write, but for what he represented in the eyes of these extremists. And then that started a trend.

No, your son’s death was not the start of a trend. It was a news-hyped blip on a long-standing trend that has gone on for centuries. He never heard of Leon Klinghoffer? Or Robert Dean Stethem? Etc. Their killers were Muslims. They were murdered for being Jewish–in Klinghoffer’s case–and American.
In the pre-death video, Daniel Pearl was specifically required to say he was a Jew and a Zionist. And his killers were Muslims.
It’s that simple. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist–or even a computer scientist, like Judea Pearl–to figure that out.
Maybe one day, he will figure it out. But I don’t share the fantasies and dreams about Dr. Pearl that he has about Islam.
Daniel Pearl’s dad asks in his WSJ piece,

When will our luminaries stop making excuses for terror?

To him, I ask:
WHEN. WILL. YOU?

By Debbie Schlussel
It’s bad enough that with the most anti-Israel candidate for President ever (with plenty of anti-Semitic minions and associates), 77-78% of Jewish-Americans voted for Barack Obama. It’s even worse to note that, in fact, the Jewish vote for John McCain could have been significantly higher, had Jewish Republicans actually mounted a modicum of a decent campaign against Obama. Whose fault is it that they didn’t? Well, the top Jewish Republican in America, that’s who.
In the past, I’ve exposed Matt Brooks, the troublesome dictator of the Republican Jewish Coalition for what he is:
* a man who regularly promotes anti-Semites, enemies of Israel and America, and open supporters of Islamic terrorism as RJC speakers and Republican candidates;

Matt Brooks: Top Jewish Republican Livin’ It Up
* a man who pays himself an exorbitant salary of about $500,000 per year, twice what the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre pays himself;
* an all-around–and very round–creep and do-nothing slacker.
Well, I was wrong. Our friend, Joe Gelman of Neocon Express, is very familiar with the ways of Matt Brooks, as he’s also experienced Matt’s predilection for Islamic terrorism supporters over pro-Israel Republicans. And Joe’s investigation has uncovered that Matt Brooks not only loves supporters of Islamic terrorism, but that he pays himself over $700,000 (not the older $500,000 figure I uncovered)–almost three times what the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre and AIPAC’s Howard Kohr pay themselves (and almost six times what Ira Forman of the National Jewish Democratic Council is paid). This is money people donated to get more Jews to vote Republican, not to make Matt Brooks’ bank account as fat as his physique.
And wait, there’s more. Joe has discovered that Matt sees himself more as a pro poker player than a Jewish Republican . . . on the Jewish Republicans’ dime.
Joe brought these interesting facts to the attention of a certain prominent Jewish Republican Congressman. You gotta read Joe’s very interesting, hilarious, entertaining post keepin’ it real about Matt Brooks. Regardless of your religion, it’s a fun read.
Brooks has got to go. Years past due. And now, I think because of Joe’s excellent work, Matt Brooks’ Bar Mitzvah years as RJC chief are about to end.
Shalom, Matt. No More Knishes For You.

By Debbie Schlussel
I’m glad the Super Bowl, and thus, the NFL season (minus the Pro Bowl), is over. That’s because I’m sooooo tired of the political correctness and liberalism of the National Football League, these days.
Take the latest. The No Fun League issued an order: “Thou shalt not utter war metaphors.” It sounds like the Department of Homeland Security and FBI telling agents they can’t use the words, “jihad” or “Islamic terrorist.”
Yes, politically correct speech isn’t just the case in government and newspapers. It’s in major league sports, too.

In a little-discussed shift in recent years, the NFL has moved away from depicting its games in military terms. While the league continues to embrace the military as an entity, inviting Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of Central Command, to make the Super Bowl’s opening coin toss and having the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds perform a pregame flyover at Raymond James Stadium, the NFL no longer endorses using military terminology to describe its contests.
It is inappropriate, league officials say, to do so at a time when American forces are fighting two wars halfway around the globe.

PUH-LEEZE. We’ve been fighting those two wars for the last several years, and the league never said anything about it before. That isn’t the real reason for this sudden, ridiculous anti-war prohibition.

“It’s a matter of common sense,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said as he stood outside the stadium the other day.
The same is true at NFL Films, an arm of the league that perpetuated for decades the image of football as controlled warfare by producing movies glorifying the game’s violence with phrases like “linebacker search and destroy.” In recent years the company’s president, Steve Sabol, ordered all allusions to war be removed from its new films.
“I don’t think you will ever see those references coming back,” he said. “They won’t be back in our scripts, certainly not in my lifetime.”
The sport that once saw itself as the closest thing in athletics to the military no longer holds to this once-cherished notion.

Well, that’s because you have disgraceful thugs like Santonio Holmes populating the NFL versus the mostly honorable men in the U.S. military. So, maybe they have a point.
Still, the anti-war stuff is really over the top. And this is part of it. Welcome to the Obama/MoveOn.org NFL. Hey, maybe George Soros can buy an NFL team. He could call it the California Kapos (since, according to David Horowitz’s book and a 60 Minutes interview, he admittedly evicted Jews from their homes, turned them in to the Nazis, and send them to their deaths).

By Debbie Schlussel
This can’t be a mistake. It’s a very sad story, but then some smart aleck did something really inappropriate (but funny). I give this anchorwoman a lot of credit for keeping her demeanor and not cracking up. I feel sorry for the family of this girl, Molly Bish, and hope they find out for certain who murdered her. This smart aleck who posted the graphic should get fired. (Thanks to my friend, the great, hilarious comedian Mitch Fatel–of Tonight Show fame–for the tip):

By Debbie Schlussel
As I told you last night, Super Bowl MVP Santonio Holmes is a criminal thug, three-time babydaddy who beats women, and illegal drug user and former drug dealer who likes to, um, expose himself.
But Disney didn’t have the discretion to exclude him from its traditional post-Super Bowl ad. Well, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, since they’re talking to porn star Paris Hilton about playing Tinkerbell. Here’s the sad ad (I think I can hear Walt Disney turning over in his grave):

By Debbie Schlussel
It used to be that companies actually cared about the morals clauses in their endorsement deals with pro athletes and enforced them. But, sadly, we’re in a new era: the end of “Just Say No to Drugs.”
Michael Phelps’ corporate endorsers are standing by their famous illegal drug user, including companies like Speedo, which send a message of fitness and good health to consumers of their product. I guess fitness and good health now includes a little weed toking. Way to go, Speedo.

At least one marketing expert doesn’t expect Phelps’ popularity to suffer.
“I think consumers and marketers will cut him some slack because it’s ‘only’ marijuana, something that it seems like other professional athletes get arrested for every five minutes – not that that condones it,” said Bob Dorfman, executive creative director at Baker Street Partners in San Francisco and author of The Sports Marketers’ Scouting Report.

Official Health Mechanism of the U.S. Olympic Swim Team
Twenty years from now they’ll be saying, “Cut him some slack because it’s ‘only’ coke or crack.”

Speedo, which has sponsored Phelps, 23, since he was 15 and paid him a $1 million bonus for his record eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics, released a statement Sunday calling Phelps “a valued member of the Speedo team and a great champion.”
The U.S. Olympic Committee said it was “disappointed” in Phelps. “Michael is a role model,” the USOC said in a statement, “and he is well aware of the responsibilities and accountability that come with setting a positive example for others. In this instance, regrettably, he failed to fulfill those responsibilities.”
Phelps’ eight golds set him up to earn millions in endorsements. “I can’t see any marketers dropping him,” Dorfman said.

That’s sad. I’d admire a company that said, “We’re dumping Michael Phelps because we think he sends a bad message to kids.”
But, like I said, the era of “Just Say No to Drugs” is apparently over.
Capitalism without limits means companies with no morals unless we–the consumers in the marketplace–force them into morality. And we’ve been very lazy in that category. That’s why we’re at this point.
Here’s the list of Michael Phelps’ sponsors:
* Speedo
* Visa
* Omega (watches)
* Subway (Is that really oregano sprinkled on that sub?)
* Kellogg’s (I guess you eat more of this after pot-smoking, so it’s a good partnership.)
* PureSport
* 505 Games
* Mazda (in China only–I wonder if this will stick, since the Chi-Coms are far tougher on illegal drug use.)