By Debbie Schlussel
. . . You’ll Loooove Barack Obama’s Supreme Court:

Thomas C. Goldstein is co-head of the litigation and Supreme Court practice of the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP and a founder of Scotusblog.com. He said he thinks Sen. Barack Obama will nominate a woman and probably a minority:
“Men need not apply. If Barack Obama can’t improve on the Harriet Miers debacle, then he should give up on judicial nominations entirely.”
Goldstein’s choices, in order of likelihood, and comments:

Obama S. Ct. Justice/Michigan Dem Gov. Jennifer “Gran-HO” Granholm
with Her Ally, Hezbollah’s Muslim Imam Hassan Qazwini

1. Sonia Sotomayor, 54, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. Would be the first Hispanic justice.
2. Diane P. Wood, 58, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. The strongest intellect; the oldest.
3. Elena Kagan, 48, dean, Harvard Law School. The youngest; has the respect of conservatives for her Harvard faculty hiring.
4. Leah Ward Sears, 53, chief justice, Georgia Supreme Court. African American.
5. Jennifer M. Granholm, 49, governor of Michigan. Political experience and a former state attorney general. A Clinton supporter; stood in for McCain running mate Sarah Palin in Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s debate preparation.

Yes, not only did Jennifer Granholm–or as we like to call her, “Gran-HO”–preside over an increasingly rapid decline of Michigan, but her legal credentials are an issue. Sources say that she spent most of her time as an Assistant U.S. Attorney on maternity and sick leave.
And then there’s that issue, news of which I broke on this site: Federal Judge Gerald Rosen confirmed to me that while Granholm was an Assistant U.S. Attorney, she stole his official stationery and forged his name to a letter which she sent.
Would love to see her answers to Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee on this: impersonating a federal official, forgery, theft, etc., etc., etc. Just what we need on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Oh, and by the way, she’s a pan-Islamist. Granholm, while Michigan Attorney General, was investigating and raided ACCESS, the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services, for Medicaid fraud–for its role in bringing pregnant Muslim aliens into America and giving them fraudulent Social Security numbers to get Medicaid to cover the births of their Islamist anchor babies. (Her successor, Mike Cox, has also pandered to ACCESS and screwed up the investigation, on which he’s since put the kabosh. He’s running for Governor, after all.)
But, at the time, Gran-HO was running for Governor and wanted the Arab vote. So she failed to prosecute ACCESS and made its chief, Ismael Ahmed, head of her transition team. Then, she appointed Ahmed head of the Michigan Department of Human Services, which oversees Medicaid. Yup, she anointed the fox head of the henhouse to screw Michigan taxpayers.
Oh, one other thing: Other than Arnold Schwarzenegger, Granholm is the only Governor who has been a contestant on “The Dating Game”, when she was trying to become an actress. GUH-REAT candidate for the Supreme Court.
As much as I’d love to dump her from Michigan, G-d help us if she’s on the Supreme Court.

By Debbie Schlussel
When the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 to give Guantanamo Bay Islamic terrorists habeas corpus rights to challenge in U.S. courts their detentions (one of the many Supreme Court decisions Sarah Palin couldn’t identify in the Katie Couric interview), I warned that this would lead to Gitmo terrorists being released to freedom on U.S. soil. Several liberal websites ridiculed me for it and said it was preposterous that this would ever enable terrorists to land on U.S. soil.
But I was right.
Brett Winterble of the Covert Radio Show sends this story about how Federal Judge Ricardo Urbina is considering exactly that–releasing Uighur (“Wee-Gurs”–Chinese Muslims) Gitmo terrorists onto U.S. soil. (Not that you should care, but even though the headline is “Holy Shi’ite”, Uighurs tend to be Sunni Muslims, FYI.)
Fed Judge Ricardo Urbina: HE . . .

HEARTS Them . . .

Alhamdillullah [praise/thank allah] for the stupidity of the American “justice” system, meaning justice for Muslim extremists, but for you–not so much:

A federal judge is considering whether to order a group of detainees held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay released into the United States, in what would instantly become a landmark legal decision in the years-long battle over the rights of terrorism suspects there.
The men, a small band of Chinese Muslims who have been held for nearly seven years, are no longer considered enemy combatants by the U.S. government, but they are caught in a well-documented diplomatic bind. Unlike other captives, they cannot be sent to their home country because Beijing considers them terrorists, and they might be tortured. The government released five of the detainees, known as Uighurs (pronounced “WEE-gurz”), to Albania in 2006, but no other country wants to risk offending China by accepting the others.
The Uighurs’ attorneys argue that the men have been confined for too long on flimsy evidence and pose no security threat to the United States. The lawyers want them released into this country — most likely into the Washington area, where there is a Uighur community — suggesting that authorities could supervise them much as they monitor criminal defendants released pending trial. Later, the government could find the Uighurs another home, the lawyers say.

“Later.” Uh-huh. They will NEVER leave. There will be no “later” except the later of when they and the other Muslims in our midst get the Muslim State of America they’ve been jonesing for, a century or so from now.

At a hearing in August, U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina spoke at length about the case’s complex issues and hinted that he was intrigued by the detainees’ proposal.
“I don’t understand why that would not be a viable option,” he said.

Intrigued by terrorists being welcomed openly from Gitmo into our midst? He doesn’t understand why this isn’t viable? Helloooooooooo . . . . .?

Urbina is scheduled to hold a hearing Tuesday that will examine whether he has the power to order the release of at least five of the Uighurs. Their attorneys have filed court papers asking Urbina to also consider releasing 12 other Uighurs who remain in custody. . . .
Much of the debate in court has focused on whether he can order such a transfer [of the Uighurs to the U.S.]. The Uighurs’ attorneys say that recent Supreme Court decisions demand such a move. . . .
In 2001, most of the Uighurs now in Guantanamo Bay were living in camps in Afghanistan until U.S. airstrikes drove them into neighboring Pakistan. They were captured there and turned over to U.S. authorities.
The government has asserted that the Uighurs were members of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement and trained at camps affiliated with the Taliban or al-Qaeda. The Bush administration designated ETIM a terrorist organization in August 2002, after the Uighurs were taken into custody.

Yup, guys who seven years ago were living in terrorist training camps are great candidates for living in the U.S. Now, I understand why Judge Urbina is intrigued and thinks this is a viable option: He’s an IDIOT.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, Hizzoner Urbina was nominated to the Federal bench by William Jefferson Clinton. (Before that he was a public defender and professor at Howard University. Shocker.)
Well, I guess we now need a new policy toward terrorists overseas. Actually, it’s not so new. It’s called: TAKE NO PRISONERS!
Cases like these are why it’s important for Sarah Palin–and others–to be aware of Supreme Court decisions she disagrees with. And FYI, since John McCain has always been against Gitmo and ditto for Barack Hussein Obama, one wonders what their responses to this will be. I hope they’re asked at tomorrow night’s debate.
But don’t worry, they won’t be.
***
Here’s an appropriate theme song for what Judge Urbina is doing:

By Debbie Schlussel
It’s one thing to criticize Sarah Palin’s knowledge or lack thereof on important issues. That’s legitimate. Also legitimate is whether we should embrace the Mr. Mom paradigm.
But to claim she’s not a good mother because her baby was on the stage at Thursday Night’s Vice Presidential debate?! HUH?
Talk about nit-picking.
That was Barbara Walters’ whine against Palin on today’s edition of the ABC anti-male hag-fest known as “The View.”
To be fair, normally Marxist Whoopi Goldberg vigorously defended Palin’s decision. And there was also the usual lame, failed try by clueless faux-conservative/genuine-airhead Elisabeth Hasselbeck.

Barbara Walters And the Euthanasia of Common Sense
But someone should have said: HUH? Baba Wawa, did you actually read your own last book about your own relationship with your own daughter, a gazillion husbands, and several lovers you outed? Should you really be lecturing any other mother on how to raise her kids? When is too late to have your baby stay up on the night of the debate of her life? Why don’t you have a prob with Syrian terrorists the way you do with a baby staying up late?
Ridiculous.
There are valid concerns about Palin. This ain’t one of ’em.
It’s also interesting to note that Baba Wawa had no prob spending the Fourth of July with Syrian terrorist-in-chief Bashar Assad and his wife, Asma. The Assads butchered tens of thousands and continue to do so, brutallly repressing human rights while they allow every Islamic terrorist group to operate from Syria.
Walters had no problem with that and serving as an apologist for Syrian tyranny and terrorism, but she has a problem with a baby staying up late on one night of its life. Priorities, schmiorities.
Funny, I never heard Baba Wawa whine to any of the parents of young children who’ve graced the show–Meredith Vieira, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, and Sherry Shepherd–about how they’ve warehoused their kids in childcare while they spouted idiocy daily. That’s more troublesome than whether a baby was up late one night in it’s life.
Wawa adopted her daughter as a baby, but apparently too late for the many late-night crying sessions that many parents have with babies. Yes, Baba, many babies are up late on more than a few occasions in their lives.
Attacking a candidate because her baby was up late? That’s just stupid. I can’t wait for the ad:
Paid for by Sleepy Babies for Obama-Biden.

By Debbie Schlussel
The two most important rights we have are enunciated in the First and Second Amendments.
And one of the things I do like about Sarah Palin is that of all the four candidates on the two major Presidential tickets, she’s the only one who really gets it and is spot on, regarding the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Unlike Palin, John McCain has not always been so solid on this issue, as long-time Second Amendment supporters know. But he’s a heckuva lot better than Barack “Bitter Gun-and-Religion Clingers” Obama.
That’s why I found myself scratching my head a month ago when I took a day-long course required in Michigan to obtain a Concealed Pistol License (CPL), also known as a permit to Conceal and Carry a Weapon (CCW).
Most of the class and most of the instructors were Black. Out of 17 people in the class, only five were White. At least one of the Black gun-owners in the class was wearing an Obama T-Shirt. And during the break, I heard many of the Black classmates talking about their excitement for Barack Obama and his chances at winning the Presidency.

Don’t they know, I wondered, that this is the guy–Obama–who called people like them “bitter” and that they are not gun-owners but gun “cling[ers]”? Don’t they know, I thought to myself, that Obama is completely opposed to the ultimate reason for this class, which is the right to conceal and carry a weapon for protection?
This was before the Palin selection as McCain’s Veep choice, but still, it’s indisputable that McCain is far stronger on solid Second Amendment rights than Obama, who seems to believe the Bill of Rights skips from One to Three.
Yes, there is a significant disconnect between Black gun-owners, especially those who seek CPLs, and the man many of them will vote for based on common skin color, but not common degrees of safety and security.
In all fairness, I must note that the terrific head instructor and owner of this excellent firearm academy, Rick Ector of Rick’s Firearm Academy–who is Black–told me that he will hold his nose and vote for McCain because of the Second Amendment. I give him a lot of credit for being true to his principles and an independent thinker.
Incidentally, if you live in the Detroit area, I highly recommend Rick’s Firearm Academy. I learned a lot, and so did experienced long-time gun-owners in the class. Here’s video of Rick Ector’s instruction.

By Debbie Schlussel
Last week, I wrote about my problem with early voting. People in Ohio and several other states voted before even the first Presidential debate.
I decried this for several reasons, among them 1) that we need common American civic experiences, like election day in November; 2) that people should wait to see what happens in the next month before they vote; and 3) I don’t think we need to make voting easier for people who can’t take the time to go to the polls in November. (Plus, it’s rife with opportunities for fraud.)
Remember, we want to keep the dummies out of the polling both, not ease their entry into them or bringing the polling both to their pot fumes-filled dorm room.

Some readers thought I was over-reacting. But watch this video report from CNN’s island of semi-reasonable liberals amidst Marxism a/k/a Lou Dobbs’ Show. Check out the early voters, including the one in the knit hippie hat, etc. Looks like he just got out of the Hendrix concert. Think there’s any question for whom that stoner is voting? Yeah, we really need to make it easier for these people–most of whom are stupid and Obama supporters–to vote. I can just smell the pachouli emanating from the screen:

(And, yes, Lou Dobbs is, indeed, a liberal. A populist liberal. Yes, he’s good on immigration and was great on the ports deal, but on everything else–healthcare, etc.–he’s a statist. I know. I once had to debate him on, of all places, the thankfully-defunct “Montel” show.)

By Debbie Schlussel
No comment necessary (just 50 seconds, well worth it–but you gotta watch ’til the end for the pay-off):

Actually, there is a comment warranted. If you were married to Michelle Hussein Obama, you would, indeed, remember that day . . . as “Nakba Day” (“Nakba” is Arabic for “Catastrophe”).

By Debbie Schlussel
Two entertaining–but way too long–videos, except for the unfair/unfunny Queen Latifah comment about Palin at the beginning of the second video. The Barney Frank impersonator is spot on (first video, the funnier and more on-target of the two, in my view).

By Debbie Schlussel
Since I’ve been critical of Sarah Palin’s ignorance over the last few weeks, I will also acknowledge that she held her own in the Vice Presidential Debate, last night, other than the ten times that she said “nuke-yuh-ler.” Reminds me of someone else, currently in the White House.
She gave great answers and knew her stuff on everything, except the Mid-East, on which she knew so little, she didn’t notice or attack a gaping mistake by Joe Biden about Hezbollah. Joe Biden was actually to the right of her on Israel, Lebanon, and that region of the Mid-East, and he actually knew more of what he was talking about.

Biden, Palin Both Clueless on Hezbollah, Condi Clueless, Israel
Except the Hezbollah stuff. He claimed that at one point Hezbollah was kicked out of Lebanon. I was wondering what the heck he was talking about, since Hezbollah, from its start in the early ’80s, has always had a significant presence in South Lebanon, though it now dominates much more of the country. I think it’s safe to say I know more about Lebanon than any American blogger not of Lebanese descent, and I just couldn’t believe he said that.
To be fair, Sarah Palin didn’t dispute what he said because she’s even more clueless about the Mid-East and hasn’t a iota of knowledge about Hezbollah, or she would have corrected him in her rebuttal. She didn’t because she’s ignorant of the Mid-East and doesn’t know better about Hezbollah. Lucky us: wrong vs. ignorant, regarding the heart of Islamic terrorism.
Palin’s answer on how she supports a two-state solution in Israel and how she applauds Condoleezza Rice’s pressuring of Israel and apartheid housing policies for Jews in Israel, should tell you something. For all her alleged “pro-Israel” stances and all the gushing by Republican Jews over that, her expressed view on Israel, last night, is actually no different than George W. Bush’s and Barack Obama’s.
Palin claimed that we’ll never allow a second Holocaust, yet she supports the means to help that happen: giving Islamic terrorists Jewish people’s homes for a country. Hello . . .? This is what happens when you have ignorant people running, who are well coached. Coaching can only do so much, not teach you Mid-East history or the long-term goals and methods of jihad.
And let’s face it. None of this is her position, because she doesn’t know much about the Mid-East. It’s the John McCain position, which she was coached to parrot. And that’s bad news, but not surprising to me, since I’ve long noted it on this site.
As I’ve warned and warned and warned, John McCain is gonna be no great shakes on Israel, the Mid-East, Islam, and terrorism. Palin says that pressuring Israel to make “peace” (ie., amputate more pieces of land) with the Palestinians will be a top priority and that she and McCain want to continue in Rice’s step.
Is this really what you want? How is this different from Bill Clinton? From Madeleine Albright?
It isn’t. Israeli Esser Agaroth isn’t impressed. He’s rightfully disturbed.
No matter who is President–as Palin made clear, last night–Islamic terrorists will be rewarded with a state. So much for her continued claims to Katie Couric and Charles Gibson that they would fight Islamic terrorists around the world.
Also, as Biden pointed out, Bush’s policy of free elections to usher in HAMAS and more power for Hezbollah in the Lebanese government has been a predictable disaster, one which Bush pursued . . . in the name of giving Western legitimacy to barbaric Third World terrorists.
Palin has repeatedly insisted that she and John McCain want to spread democracy around the world including the Islamic world, as she told Katie Couric. And she couldn’t rebut Joe Biden on this, because democracy in the Mid-East does not work (except in Israel, which is basically a Western island).
Palin also espoused the BS position of both Obama and McCain, and Bush and Clinton and Bush before them, of moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. As I’ve noted before, this is a big lie. She isn’t the first to tell this lie or the last. It will never happen. Every single candidate elected to the White House, since Reagan, has promised this, but not a single one has lifted a finger to movie the embassy to Israel’s capital. In fact, each has opposed it. McCain-Palin and Obama-Biden will be no different. Don’t be a sucker for this throwaway line of fertilizer.
The bottom line is that neither Palin nor Biden were honest on the Mid-East. Both of their running mates will pressure Israel and create more disasters there in the name of negotiation and peace deals and free elections which elect Islamic extremists.
We expect that from the Democrats. We expect better, but don’t get it from the Republicans.
Either way, Israel is screwed. The so-called “two-state solution” is actually a one-state solution, with that state ending up, eventually to be a Palestinian State, with no Israel left.
Don’t forget, both Biden and Palin–especially Palin–see nothing wrong with Condi Clueless’ outrageous Israel suicide plan. Both praised her.
Like I said, there’s almost no difference in the choice we have in a month.

By Debbie Schlussel
Took me a while to post my movie reviews, today, because the two biggest movies–at least, in my mind–involved one movie that didn’t have screenings (to keep out biased liberals), “An American Carol”; and another which excluded me from screening it because it is extremely liberal and they didn’t want a good conservative with reason (me) to review it, “Religulous”. Because of the Jewish Holidays, etc., I was unable to screen most of the other new releases out this weekend, but will try to see them and post reviews, later. I did see “Blindness” and “Fireproof.”
* “An American Carol“: This was not screened for movie critics, who are mostly liberal and would savage it, so I paid to see it, this afternoon. The studio was stupid in not sending me a screener, so I could have posted this very favorable review earlier. I liked it a lot.

I was shocked with how good it is. I expected it to me stupid, since conservatives aren’t known for their sense of humor and most attempts come off as stupid exercises in ideology. But this wasn’t that. It was hilarious. Yes, some of the jokes and gags were stupid, but most weren’t. I found myself laughing in humor–and also in agreement–with this movie more than I do many mainstream major movie comedies.
The plot: It’s the Fourth of July, and a goofy grandfather, Leslie Nielsen, is telling his grandchildren a fairy tale about the grinch who stole Independence Day. Only it’s not a grinch. It’s Michael Moore, er . . . “Michael Malone.” And it’s a true story, not a fairy tale.
Moore/Malone wants to eliminate the Fourth of July and has enlisted a number of liberal groups to do it with him. Meanwhile, Islamic terrorists want to recruit Moore to do a terrorist movie for them, to make it easier to recruit jihadists. Moore’s nephew is in the military and wants Uncle Mike to understand why what he’s doing is harming America. It takes three ghosts of characters past–John F. Kennedy, General George S. Patton, and George Washington–to teach Michael Moore, er . . . “Malone” a lesson. Yes, it’s a take-off of Scrooge or “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
There are so many funny, oh-yeah, yes-yes-yes! moments in this movie, I laughed out loud a lot and so did the other people in the theater.
Surprisingly, a lot of B-list celebs made cameos in the movie, in addition to the starring role played by Kelsey Grammer (Gen. Patton). The list includes Paris Hilton, Kevin Sorbo, Gary Coleman, David Alan Grier, Jon Voight, James Woods, and Dennis Hopper (thought he was a big lib, but I guess I’m wrong).
The movie does a great job of skewering everything from ACLU lawyers to Rosie O’Donnell (the actress playing her is a dead-ringer and spot on) to MoveOn.org to Hollywood . . . and, of course, Michael Moore and his “Sicko” documentary. The best two parts are when Rosie O’Donnell shows a documentary about radical Christian terrorists on the “O’Reilly Factor” (yes, that’s a downer in the movie–the repeated presence of blowhard and pseudo-conservative Loofah/Falafel champ O’Reilly); and when we are shown the famed HOLLYWOOD sign in the Hills changed to an “ALLAHU AKBAR” sign and signs for “Victoria’s Burka” lingerie stores.
The ending was kinda sappy and not believable. I would have preferred the “Team America: World Police” ending for Michael Moore. But this’ll do. The only other negative is the repeated jokes about how he’s only a documentarian, not a feature film maker. But documentaries have their place, when they’re done accurately and correctly and illuminate an important issue or subject. That’s the point–what Moore makes isn’t documentary, it’s propaganda.
If anyone from the producing team of “An American Carol” is reading this review, please, I beg of you, send me the prop poster of Michael Moore/”Malone’s” movie, “Die You American Pigs.” (His other movies are “Shame on You, America,” and “America Sucks a Big One.”) It’s funny seeing Moore in the poster with a keffiyeh around his neck and an AK-47 in his arms. It’s what we know Moore is really about. If only he’d admit to it in real life.

Let’s hope that “Carol” is just a start for movies like it and a prelude to a lot more. You don’t have to be a conservative to love this movie, just a proud American. Funny and worth the money.
FOUR REAGANS

* “Religulous“: Though most other Detroit-area movie critics were invited to this screening, I was specifically excluded, and I think we know why. They knew I’d hate it. And guess what? I did.
This movie mocks all religion and goes with the Rosie O’Donnell theorem that Judaism and Christianity are morally equivalent to Islam and Islamic terrorism: that we’re all equally extreme and deadly. Um, how many Jews or Christians directed planes into tall buildings recently? He doesn’t address that because it would get in the way of his faulty thesis that Judaism and Christianity are as responsible for contemporary bombings and acts of terrorism as Islam is. Anyone who believes that BS must provide the evidence and Bill doesn’t have any.
Maher begins by saying that he’s not atheist, but agnostic. He doesn’t know what exists. But it’s a fraudulent premise: Anyone who knows anything about Bill–whom I know and dislike–knows that he’s an avowed atheist and has been for some time, though he just won’t admit to it. He’s against religion, and, in case you couldn’t figure it out, he basically lets you know at the end what he thinks of all religion.
Part of the problem is that Maher was born to a Jewish mother and Catholic father who confused him and weren’t truly committed to anything. We meet his mother and sister and learn about his early religious life.
And Maher perpetrates more fraud on the people in this movie. At the Trucker’s Chapel, he tells the Christian truckers that they’re smart people and that’s why he can’t understand why they believe in Christianity. But he’s lying. He thinks they’re dummies, just as he does everyone else in the movie who is a person of faith. He has smug contempt for them.
Then, there’s his choices of interview subjects. Maher chooses the most extreme and ridiculous representatives of Judaism and Christianity in order to mock them. An example: He interviews Yisroel Dovid Weiss, the outcast Orthodox Jewish Rabbi who hangs with Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and is believed to be on his payroll. I call Weiss “Hezbollah’s Rabbi.” Every segment of Judaism has basically excommunicated him, but now I have him–thanks to Bill Maher–as my pseudo-representative of religious Judaism. And Bill knows better. Yet, he chooses to perpetuate this fraud anyway.
The people I respected most in this movie are the ones who pointedly declined to participate–the Mormons (although two former Mormons of course obliged to trash their faith) and a Christian trucker at the Trucker Chapel. They passed the IQ test. They knew that no matter what they said, it would be a casualty of Bill Maher’s editing and fall to his cutting room floor.
Bill Maher used to claim to be a libertarian, but libertarians wouldn’t be at war with me for my beliefs and out to tell me what to think. They’d leave me alone. Bill Maher doesn’t do that. He’s out to get rid of our beliefs and change us. Maher is just as much a zealot against religion as many of the more civilized examples of religion that he sets out to ridicule and discount. In fact, he’s more zealous.
The only good parts of the movie were when Maher interviewed Muslims, because as we all know, they endorse violence. And support for violence is the mainstream of that religion. A couple of corrections to the movie: A Muslim cleric in Amsterdam says Islam means “peace.” Wrong. It means submission. The know-it-all Maher didn’t correct him.
Also, the imam of the Dome of the Rock mosque, built on top of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem talked about how Mohammed allegedly descended from that very spot on a horse and claimed the Koran says so. But the Koran says nothing of the sort, and in fact, neither Jerusalem nor the Dome of the Rock are mentioned a single time in the Koran. I’ve written about how the story got changed in 682 CE, for political reasons, by an Islamic leader, Abd Al-Malik, the Ummayad Caliph, because he didn’t have access to Saudi Arabia for his Islamic population to make the hajj (the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca). Maher doesn’t know this either, because he’s actually more of an ignoramus than his arrogant persona will let on.
Bill once told me on ABC’s “Politically Incorrect” that Keith Richards–who admitted to snorting his father’s ashes–has had a much better life than me because he smoked endless pot and slept with endless groupies. That’s how Bill Maher measures life and he lets us know it when an evangelical at the Trucker’s Chapel says he left a life of drugs and sleeping around to become a good Christian. And we can’t have that.
Maher notes that America has the most believers in creationism and religious Christianity of any Western industrialized democracy, but he fails to show why that’s bad. It’s America’s strong evangelical Christian heritage and continuing religious Christian ethos that is the reason we haven’t yet fallen to Islamic invasion and Islamists’ values the way all of the other countries he listed, have. He doesn’t tell you that, though. Shocker.
(For the record, I myself believe in both evolution and Creation as it is described in the Bible. It’s the view of several noted Jewish Biblical commentators that a “day” in Genesis might mean several million or a billion years. I don’t believe the theories are incompatible, and there are several notable books by Jewish Biblical scholars about how evolution proves the Bible.)
Yes, there are some funny parts, at which I laughed. As we all know, Bill Maher is not just completely rude and obnoxious, he’s a quick wit. But so what? The movie stank under the weight of his dripping arrogance.
Incidentally, when I came out of the movie, there was a man from the atheist Center for Inquiry manning a propaganda table and passing out literature, right outside the particular theater, but inside the movie theater building itself. I’ve e-mailed theater owner Mark Cuban to find out if he allows this kind of politics in his theaters. Strangely, there were no tables manned by Christians. I wonder why. Actually, I don’t wonder. It’s a safe bet they weren’t invited.
***
BTW, don’t forget my previous column, “Bill Maher Passes Gas in America’s Face“. Remember, he wanted the price of gas to go up so high it would be prohibitive for the average American. Another one of his great theories.
TWO-AND-A-HALF MARXES


* “Blindness“: A plague of complete blindness starts to strike people at random. But it’s contagious. One of those struck is ophthalmologist Mark Ruffalo, after one of his patients comes down with it.
Soon, he and all of his patients are quarantined to an old hospital ward to fend for themselves. His wife, Julianne Moore, can see and mysteriously doesn’t go blind (the movie curiously never explains why), but she fakes it to go with him to the ward.
The patients must deal with filth and squalor as they try to live and perform normal human functions with no sight and no-one to care for them. And gangs and brutality develop.
This movie began as a different, interesting movie. But it degraded into a violent, disgusting doomsday movie without anything of interest to go along with it. The two scenes of mass rape and torture lost me and ruined the movie.
Although the movie ends on an up note, that doesn’t excuse the wanton, gratuitous violence that didn’t help the story. Violence and blood has its place in more interesting doomsday movies, like “28 Days Later,” but this one is far inferior and very unworthy of your ten bucks.
THREE MARXES

* “Fireproof“: This independent Christian production was well-made, given the shoestring budget. I respect religious Christians and understand why Christianity was pushed in this movie, even though I don’t believe in it. However, I think filmmakers would have been more successful with their message, had it been more subtle.
Kirk Cameron plays a fireman who is having problems in his marriage. His wife doesn’t love him anymore and is interested in someone else. He uses a book, “The Love Dare”, to try to bring his marriage back together. At first, it’s very frustrating.
I could have done without all the fighting and yelling, but that’s was a major element of the story. Also, the story ended a little too neatly and sort of defied belief.
ONE-AND-A-HALF REAGANS

By Debbie Schlussel
I congratulate Detroit’s all-news radio station WWJ-AM for firing reporter Karen Dinkins for wearing an Obama T-shirt while covering an Obama rally for the station. I’m frankly surprised the station had the guts to do the right thing in the face of completely improper behavior by a supposedly impartial reporter. She is Exhibit A for legitimate conservative complaints that the mainstream media is biased and controlled by liberals with an agenda.
But I am more than a passing observer.
I know Karen, as she attends many of the Detroit movie critic screenings which I also attend. She’s very nice, a very good reporter, and I like her personally.
However, she’s been very much in the tank for Barack Obama for a long time, and it’s not just limited to a T-shirt. Recently, movie star Dennis Quaid was in town to promote his racially-charged movie, “The Express.” I was not among those invited to do interviews with him, but she was. At a recent screening, I asked her what he had to say. Her first answer was, “Oh, he’s really excited about Barack Obama. I asked him what he thinks about him, and he said he thinks Barack Obama adds a new, exciting energy to the race. He likes h im a lot.”

Karen Dinkins: Good Reporter, But Keep the Politics Away
It’s true that Dennis Quaid–who in March, noted he was torn between McCain and Obama–is now entirely in the tank for Obama and appeared at a celebrity fundraiser for the Democratic nominee, a few days ago. But what does this have to do with reviewing a movie or reporting on it? It’s true that “The Express,” which I haven’t yet seen, is about racial integration of a college football team decades ago, but I still think it shows a reporter’s bias if she’s reporting on a movie and uses the interview with the star as a reason to promote a certain Presidential candidate.
Conservative reporters would never get hired in the first place. And if they did, we’d never know they were conservative reporters because they’d never get away with any of this . . . well before the T-shirt.
And Karen’s politics are definitely to the left–fine, if she keeps them out of her reporting. After we watched “Traitor,” the moral equivalency Don Cheadle movie about a Black man who is a Muslim undercover counterterrorist operative, I expressed disappointment that an FBI agent character says that Christians are terrorists just like Muslims because of the Klan. I said the Klan has been marginalized and is nothing like Islamic terrorism, which enjoys significant support throughout mainstream Islam. She expressed strong disagreement, saying the biggest problem facing America was not Islamic terrorism but the Klan.
So, I’m not surprised, with that point of view, that Karen Dinkins wore an Obama T-shirt while covering an Obama rally. To her, it’s simply no big deal because this is the type of thing her CBS-owned station has allowed for a long time. And that’s the problem.
Again, I like Karen, and she’s a good reporter. I feel bad for her that in this very tough Michigan economy she is out of a job, and I wish her success in getting another one soon, because she is such a nice person. But she should know better. She has a right to her far-left politics, but not while pretending to be an impartial observer delivering the news.
She will probably be hired again soon in the Detroit market, and hopefully will have learned her lesson about mixing partisan politics with delivering news. Oil and water go together better.