By Debbie Schlussel
One of my favorite old school actors is Paul Newman, who died yesterday of cancer at 83. A great American with tremendous talent on-screen and great generosity off-screen is gone.
Yes, Newman had left-wing politics, some of which was reflected in his more contemporary movies. But unlike today’s talentless Hollywood hacks, he rarely expressed his views and, in fact, rarely gave interviews. And when he did express his views, he was far more subtle and muted than the comparably amateurish contemporary actors, like Sean Penn and George Clooney, who openly embrace our enemies. An aberration is the debate Newman and Charlton Heston had regarding the nuclear freeze. Video is posted below–Heston kicked his butt (based on the incomplete video available), but both demonstrated class.

Aside from his six decades in film, he was a tremendous philanthropist and donated over $250,000,000 in charity to cancer hospitals, camps for kids with illnesses, and other worthy causes from the sale of his various “Newman’s Own” food products. (Read the “Newman’s Own” tribute to Paul Newman.) And he was one of those very cool race car drivers, too.
My favorite Paul Newman films are “Cool Hand Luke” and, of course, Leon Uris’ “Exodus“, a movie that would never be made today, given the domination of Muslim whining and conniptions that dominate the Hollywood agenda.
But there are so many Newman films I loved. To name a few: “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof“, “Hud“, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid“, “The Sting“, and the great hockey comedy, “Slap Shot.”
Paul Newman was not ashamed of his role as the courageous Ari Ben Canaan, the Zionist hero of “Exodus” who seizes a cargo ship and smuggles 600 just-liberated Holocaust survivors to then-Palestine (when the Palestinians had names like Ari and Shlomo, not Ahmed and Yasser), despite British refusal to let them into the country. The movie was based on real-life events, the acts of Israeli hero Yossi Harel (and others), and the actual ship, “The Exodus” (which my father told me was a Boblo Boat from Detroit–Boblo was a now-defunct amusement park on Boblo Island in the Detroit River). Newman was proud of the movie and a supporter of Israel.
Paul Newman was the hunk/hottie of his day, but far more dignified and well-behaved than today’s versions.
Newman was also proud of his Jewish heritage. Born to a Jewish father and gentile mother in Cleveland, he went to high school with many of my Jewish Cleveland friends’ granparents and older relatives. And he identified as a Jew and with the Jewish people, given today’s increasingly anti-Semitic atmosphere worldwide.
From Israel’s Ha’Aretz:

Otto Preminger, who directed the 1960 epic [“Exodus”] on location in Cyprus and Israel, said he chose Newman because he wanted an actor of Jewish origin who didn’t look Jewish.
The actor was born in Cleveland, Ohio on January 26, 1925 to an affluent family. His Jewish father Arthur owned the city’s largest sporting goods store, which his Catholic mother Theresa, born in Slovakia, helped run.
In a 1980 interview with TIME magazine, Newman said he identified himself as Jewish, stating, “it’s more of a challenge.”

Paul Newman’s charm, handsome blue eyes and visage, and tremendous acting talent, class, and charity will be missed. His death serves as a reminder of the almost-completed changing of the guard in Hollywood and the movie biz from class, taste, dignity, morality, and patriotism to the continuing escalation of the ultimate in garbage, barbarism, himbo-ism, skankiness, and America-hating traitorism.
Paul Newman, Rest In Peace. A true acting legend–and a Great American–is gone.
***
Paul Newman’s death reminds me of an unfortunate story my dad told me, when I told him we saw “Exodus” at school. In addition to Newman, the movie also stars the late Sal Mineo. My dad said he once saw a patient who told him, “They tell me I have this disease–I’m Sick of Sal Mineo or something.” What she, unfortunately, actually had was Sickle Cell Anemia.
***
Cool Hand Luke v. Ben-Hur/Moses
Here’s the debate between Paul Newman and Charlton Heston on the nuclear freeze. Heston wins it based on the limited video available in both Parts I and II. And America won, because we didn’t follow Newman’s advice–our not doing a nuclear freeze helped bring down the Soviet Union:

Can’t imagine Clooney, Alec Baldwin, or Penn having an intelligent, educated, civil debate like this with, say, Tom Selleck or Jon Voight. They would sneer at the conservative for sure.
***
Watch the “Exodus” trailer:

Gotta Love the exploding toilet.
***
A nice, brief report on Paul Newman, followed by a couple of montages:

By Debbie Schlussel
Of the new releases out this week, I did not screen “Miracle at St. Anna,” but will try to post a review of that, later. Here’s what I did see:
* “Eagle Eye“: Two strangers (Shia LeBeouf and Michelle Monaghan) get calls on their cellphones ordering them to do things as part of a terrorist plot, or they’ll be killed (or their relatives). The plot appears somehow tied to his dead twin brother, a dead soldier. The plot against America is taking place after America relied on faulty evidence to strike a funeral in Afghanistan to get a terrorist leader (yeah, terrorist leaders would nevah evah be at Islamic funerals in Afghanistan, right?).
Soon, people all over the country are getting the call to participate in the terrorist plot. The FBI is onto it, as is military intelligence, both of whom chase the two main characters around the country. That’s the movie. I made it sound oodles more exciting than it actually is.

At first this movie seemed exciting, but it’s really just a waste of time. While it’s about a terrorist plot against America, here’s a hint: the “plotter” isn’t exactly human. And the fictional aspect of it doesn’t ring true–you don’t suspend your beliefs for this movie. I fell asleep during an extended action scene that went on way too long and wasn’t exciting, and I fell asleep again. Both times, I missed nothing.
Not exciting. Just slapped together. Only mildly entertaining, mostly boring and empty dressed up in exciting music and empty action scenes. Ho hum.
ONE REAGAN

* “The Lucky Ones“: Despite Mr. Susan Sarandon a/k/a Tim Robbins as one of its stars, this movie about three Iraq war veteran U.S. Army soldiers who return home after injuries is not an anti-war movie. It actually could have been a good movie, as it shows how soldiers are greeted–by family and total strangers–when they come home.
But what started out as promising degraded into mocking of religious Christians, middle America, and people with Southern accents–all of which are embodied in one very dumb female soldier. It also degrades into very stupid sexual escapades and jokes regarding one of the soldiers’ injuries–his penis was hit by a piece of shrapnel and he’s not sure it will still “function”. Was this really necessary? No. Nor was this boring movie.
Mostly a waste of time. Skipworthy.
ONE MARX


* “Nights in Rodanthe“: Another chick flick from the makers of “The Notebook.” It could have been worse, but also could have been better.
A woman and mother (Diane Lane) who is contemplating divorce because her husband cheated on her spends the weekend tending to her friends’ inn on a Southern coastal beach. A mysterious but semi-arrogant doctor (Richard Gere) is the only guest. He’s there to patch up things with the family of a patient that died. Soon they fall in love.
Nothing objectionable about the movie, just nothing great about it. Plus, been there, seen that. An okay movie as far as chick flicks go. But it plays cheap emotional tricks at the end.
ONE REAGAN

* “The Duchess“: I already saw this movie earlier in the year. Then, it was called, “The Other Boleyn Girl.” Different figures in British history, same old story–a young girl (Kiera Knightley), an ancestor of Princess Diana Spencer, is married off by her mother to the Duke of Devonshire. She, therefore, becomes Duchess. But the Duke is cold and unloving and merely wants her for the purposes of bearing a male heir, which she has trouble doing. Soon, the Duke takes her best friend as a lover and they are forced to live together. Meanwhile, the Duchess is having an affair with her real love, the commoner Charles Grey, who becomes Prime Minister of England. And she bears his kid.
Tired of these stories about greedy British parents of old marrying up their kids to royalty they don’t love, while they love another. It gets old. Nice clothes and set design. Cool wigs. Not much else. Mostly miserable. Could have done without the gratuitous lesbian scene, too. Blechhhh.
ONE REAGAN


* “Choke“: Look at the poster for this movie, above. It should tell you everything. The title of this movie is what you should do before setting foot in a showing of this horrid piece of celluloid trash. A loser who works at a colonial-style tourist attraction is addicted to sex and attends sex addicts anonymous meetings–having sex with members in the bathroom. Meanwhile, he visits his “mother” (a woman who kidnapped and raised him) who has Alzheimer’s at a mental facility. Pointless and extremely disgusting and creepy.
Skip at all cost.
they film the “dialogue” at “The Pink Pony”?
FOUR MARXES PLUS

By Debbie Schlussel

After 9/11, America asked its resident Muslims to help us fight Islamic terrorism on our soil, but–despite their repeated claims of loyalty to America–few answered the call.

One of those who did risk his life and started informing the U.S. government on terrorist-related criminal activities within the Islamic community was a client I’ve represented since May. For his good work for America, my client was outed, had a death fatwa (Islamic religious decree) put on his head, and was framed for a crime he did not commit.

Wayne County (Michigan) prosecutors, based in Detroit, continued to prosecute my client despite exculpatory evidence showing he was innocent and that his accuser was lying. And the U.S. government–eager to please the most extremist, pan-terrorist Muslims in America–turned its back on my client. His Immigration and Customs Enforcement handler also turned his back on my client.

On Hezbollah: Judge Thomas Jackson Doesn’t Get it . . .

But the Jury Did

(Thanks to David Lunde/Lundesigns for Assistance w/Photo)

But I did not. In what would have easily been a $15,000-25,000 case, I chose to defend my indigent client–who lost everything because of the Hezbollah-backed false charges–pro bono (free of charge). I am not a wealthy person by any stretch of the imagination, but this is something I believe in. And I put my lack of money where my mouth is.

On Tuesday, after a day-and-a-half trial, my client–we’ll call him “Haidar”–was acquitted in 25 minutes by a very bright and intuitive jury.

A man named Ali Taleb–a Hezbollah terrorist wanted in Lebanon for kidnapping and murder–and his fellow gang of Hezbollah thugs from and liars from Dearbornistan showed up in court to falsely accuse my client of Felony Illegal Possession of a Firearm and Felony Assault with a Firearm.

And, despite a stubborn and unprofessional judge–Judge Thomas Jackson–who did everything in his power to exclude evidence that would prove my client’s innocence and who mocked, laughed at, and repeatedly ridiculed and belittled me and my client in front of the jury during the trial, we managed to overcome the frame-up job. It certainly restored my faith in our jury system. Thank G-d for it.

My client was falsely accused of driving his car by the complainant’s business, pulling out a gun, and threatening to kill the complainant. A gun was never recovered because it never happened. It was all made up by a Hezbollah agent who didn’t like my client’s opposition to Hezbollah and the fact that my client’s wife was Jewish and found out that my client was a confidential informant to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

About my client’s accuser, Ali Taleb: He comes from South Lebanon, where his entire immediate family is deeply involved in Hezbollah. Ali Taleb made tapes of my client denouncing Hezbollah and Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah and sent them to Hezbollah. Because of this, my client cannot return to Lebanon and has a death fatwa (Islamic religious decree) against him.

Taleb has repeatedly threatened to murder my client and still calls him and his wife at all hours of the night with threats and heavy breathing. Because of this and Taleb’s death threats, my client had to quickly close up his successful body shop business, sell his expensive equipment worth thousands for pennies, and escape to another state. Taleb and his buddies are still trying to find out where that is.

Several years ago, before all of this, it began when Taleb found out my client’s wife is a Jew (she is from an Arabic country and has an Arab Muslim father). Taleb was repairing my client’s wife’s Jeep Liberty and sabotaged the steering column, so that it wouldn’t work when she drove it. When my client discovered this, he asked Ali Taleb why he did this. Ali Taleb, in an anti-Semitic tirade against Jews, asked my client how he could marry a “dirty Jew”. He then said, “Come on, let’s kill her and collect the insurance money. She’s a Jew. We should kill her.”

One of Ali Taleb’s brothers, Hussein Taleb, was a top Hezbollah terrorist, who was killed in a Hezbollah terrorist operation by rival terrorists. Hussein Taleb was originally a terrorist for Harakat Amal (the Amal Militia) terrorist group, but then switched to Hezbollah–the terrorist group that murdered hundreds of Americans and Jews–where he became a top operative. To get back at him, Harakat Amal killed Hussein Taleb while he was committing a Hezbollah terrorist act. Today, though, Amal has merged into Hezbollah, and all of the Harakat Amal members are big-time Hezbollah supporters.

Another one of Ali Taleb’s brothers, Faraj Taleb, was killed in 1992 as he tried to rob a business that conducts the exchange of foreign money. A female teller shot him.

Then, there is Ali Taleb, himself. Originally, he was involved in security for Nabih Berry, head of Harakat Amal and Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament. Berry–who is on America’s no-fly list–is one of Hezbollah’s key men in the Lebanese government, and he served as Hezbollah’s spokesman/negotiator when it hijacked TWA Flight 847 and tortured Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem to death.

Taleb, himself, admits that he was a terrorist for Harakat Amal (now part of Hezbollah), and that there was a warrant issued for his arrest in Lebanon in 1983, for masterminding the kidnapping of Hassan Ezzedine, a top Hezbollah operative and right-hand man to Imad Mughnieh–the late chief of Hezbollah’s terrorist operations.

On the second day of trial, as I was about to put my client on the stand before closing arguments, the prosecutor, Assistant Wayne County Prosecutor Raj Prasad, showed me a translated Lebanese newspaper article discussing the kidnapping and the warrant for Ali Taleb’s arrest–a document never served on me as required by the discovery order in this case. Prosecutor Prasad said he was going to introduce it to “prove” that Ali Taleb was not a Hezbollah terrorist. I told him to go for it. The article proved Taleb was a member of a rival terrorist group, committed kidnappings for the group, and is now part of Hezbollah, since the rival terrorist group–Harakat Amal–is now part of Hezbollah. Sadly, he did not end up using the article, and Judge Jackson refused to allow me to call Taleb as a witness or introduce the article into evidence. Yup, the judge in a criminal case refused to allow the defense to call the complainant. It’s simply unheard of.

Ali Taleb is also wanted in Lebanon for the 1989 robbery murder of two people, according to Lebanese intelligence sources. He shot and killed a man and his wife in Shayah, in the Hezbollah stronghold of South Beirut, while he was robbing them.

Ali Taleb worked with the CIA. Yes, this is the kind of scum with whom the CIA worked and continues to work. Since there were arrest warrants for him in Lebanon, he fled the country and went to Sierra Leone, where many Hezbollah-allied Lebanese Arabs live and have businesses. Lebanese intelligence sources say the late Jamil Said, a pro-Hezbollah multi-millionaire who liked Taleb, got Taleb a diplomatic visa from the government of Sierra Leone, from which he traveled to Canada. Taleb also worked with a shadowy figure, Jamal Hamdan, who now lives in the U.S. and is believed to be one of the Achille Lauro hijackers who murdered wheelchair-bound American citizen Leon Klinghoffer.

In Canada, Ali Taleb sought asylum. While waiting for the Canadian government to make its decision, Taleb lived in Montreal, from which he ran an alien smuggling business. He charged Arab Muslims and others $3,000 to smuggle them over the Northern New York border into the United States. (Among those he smuggled were my client, his wife, and two daughters. After being smuggled through a forest, finding themselves on a remote, empty, snowy road, my client and his wife were picked up by Border Patrol agents and soon sought asylum because they opposed Hezbollah and my clients’ wife is Jewish.)

Eventually, the Canadian government rejected Ali Taleb’s request for asylum and ordered him deported. Canada was aware of the warrants for Taleb’s arrest, his involvement with Harakat Amal and Hezbollah, and the kidnapping and murder charges against him.

So guess who took Ali Taleb in, when even Canada dumped him like yesterday’s garbage?

Yup, Ali Taleb has been living in the United States since 1992 with his family. Although he is apparently not a U.S. citizen, he’s lived here freely, despite his criminal and Hezbollah past and present.
Aren’t you glad that we allow this terrorist trash–trash rejected by Lebanon and Canada–to come live in our midst?

This was my client’s accuser, but the jury didn’t get to hear most of this, since Judge Thomas Jackson refused to let me bring it in.

I was lucky he even let me ask a few questions about Hezbollah. Barely. Thank Heaven for small favors. But it wasn’t such a favor. Every time I mentioned Hezbollah, Judge Jackson rolled his eyes, laughed, sighed, or otherwise mocked me, in full view and hearing of the jury. I felt like George Bush debating Al Gore in 2000, where know-it-all Gore was doing the same thing. It was completely improper and prejudicial to my case.
(A sidenote: Judge Jackson is an audio-separated-at-birth voice double of actor Morgan Freeman. They sound exactly alike, except that Morgan Freeman–while not wearing a robe and without college and law degrees–can actually pronounce the word “ask”. No, Judge Jackson, the word is not the same as the one for a wooden shaft with a giant sharp metal blade at the end.)

Judge Jackson kept lecturing me–both in front of the jury and away from them–that Hezbollah has nothing to do with the accusations in this case. But it had everything to do with it.

From his auto body shop in Detroit, Taleb has been engaged in mass cases of insurance fraud, and my client informed authorities about it (they did nothing). As my client testified on the stand, Taleb and his Hezbollah associates have been faking crashes of cars, so they can trump up alleged repairs and collect insurance money. Some of the profits apparently go to Hezbollah.

Ali Taleb has a long history of filing false police reports and making phony criminal accusations against those with whom he disagrees. In 2006, for instance, Ali Taleb made the exact same allegations against Zein El-Abidine Charaf-Eddine, one of Taleb’s alleged partners in insurance fraud. (They had a falling out when Charaf-Eddine refused to share the insurance fraud check with Taleb.)

Taleb told police that Charaf-Eddine drove by Taleb’s business in his car, pulled out a gun, and threatened to kill Taleb. Same exact fact pattern. Wayne County prosecutors charged Charaf-Eddine (in Case Number 06-1317), but eventually had to drop the charges because Taleb wasn’t credible. Taleb also filed, but then withdrew, a police complaint in 2005, making the same allegations against my client.

But Judge Jackson refused to allow me to bring this evidence–about the same false accusation Taleb made against another of his enemies and how the case was dropped–before the jury. And he refused to let me call the prosecutor in that case, Thomas Beadle, to testify about why he dropped the case.

Judge Jackson also refused to allow me to bring up at trial another false police report Taleb filed against my client. The day my client’s preliminary exam was supposed to be held, Ali Taleb saw his client had a tough Jewish lawyer (me) and was upset that I also obtained permission for my client to move out of the State of Michigan. So, he filed a phony complaint with police that my client located him in the middle of traffic and got out of his car and threatened him. One problem: My client was at a gas station all day long waiting to get paid for a car he sold the owner, and we had a witness–actually several witnesses–who were with him. Judge Jackson barred all of this from being presented in front of the jury.

But just in case he had, the prosecution suddenly brought a new witness to testify that he saw my client threaten Taleb in the middle of traffic. That witness was not in the police report, because he was never there. It was made up. That “witness”, Hussein Barakat, was also the “witness” in the false Zein Charaf-Eddine case.
This is life in America’s Hezbollah ‘Hood. And that life spread to the courtroom. Just before the second day of trial began, Judge Jackson informed us that one of the jurors reported that he/she had been approached by one of the witnesses regarding the case. It was apparently Ali Taleb or one of his thugs, trying to persuade them to find my client guilty.

On the stand, Ali Taleb lied through his teeth–the usual Muslim “taqiyyah” (permitted Islamic deception of infidels). He said, “I hate Hezbollah,” when we know that he’s one of Hezbollah’s most vocal cheerleaders on the streets of Dearbornistan. He also said about Jews, “I love them. They’re wonderful people.”
Oh, and by the way, he had a translator, even though he spoke perfect English.

Taleb’s friend, and apparent partner in insurance fraud, Ali Abdel Sater–who spells his surname in a gazillion different ways to confuse law enforcement and other authorities–was his only corroborating witness. He claimed he saw the events in question. He also claimed, under oath, that he spoke with police as Taleb’s translator. But when I questioned the police who responded to the complaint and went to the scene of the alleged incident, they testified that Ali Taleb spoke to them in English and that they never spoke with anyone else or had a translator.

A little about Ali Abdel Sater: My client testified on the stand that Abdel Sater not only engages in insurance fraud with Ali Taleb, but that he helps “steal” people’s leased cars so they can get out of leases. My Lebanese intelligence sources tell me that he owns a restaurant/cafeteria/ice cream parlor in the Bekaa Valley, a Hezbollah stronghold. All of the employees are Hezbollah members, and all of the profits from the eatery go straight to Hezbollah. Abdel Sater is not U.S. Citizen, and sources say he does not even have a Green Card. He did marry an American woman to try to get a Green Card.

As I said, Taleb’s false police complaints and similar charges against others were barred by Judge Jackson. I was able to get some of the insurance fraud stuff in, but only because I put my client on the stand–and even then, Judge Jackson stopped me in the middle of that line of questioning.

Putting a defendant on the stand is not usually done in criminal defense cases, and it’s generally a mistake. But in this case, my client was so credible, so courageous in his willingness to denounce Hezbollah and terrorism, and had so many death threats and so much persecution from Taleb, I felt his testimony would help seal the deal on my case.

Fortunately it did. Like I said, the jury took only 25 minutes after a day-and-a-half case to acquit my client. Thank G-d for this intelligent and sagacious jury. I had tears in my eyes when the jury read the verdict.
After the trial, I wanted to go outside the courtroom with my client and his family and thank the jury and ask them what sealed the acquittal. But I didn’t get that chance because the smug Judge Jackson chose to keep us in the courtroom and lecture me. He was upset that we won this case. It was clear he wanted us to lose. And he was upset that in my closing argument, I shoved one of his many denigrating comments about me in his face.

During the trial, when the Judge cut off my examination of my witnesses and barely allowed me to put on a case, he said, “This is NOT the trial of the century!” in front of jurors. So, in my closing argument, I began by saying:

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, you heard a comment from the bench that this is not the trial of the century. But for my client, who has already lost everything because of these politically-motivated and ethnically-bigoted false charges and who stands to lose his freedom, this IS the trial of the century. For his family, who stand to lose their father and husband of four kids and one on the way, this IS the trial of the century. And if you or I were up there on the stand or at the defense table, defending ourselves against these false charges, this would be the trial of the century.

(I also asked jurors not to let Middle Eastern, old world values and thuggish charges and persecution of moderate Muslims take over America’s courtrooms. And they didn’t disappoint.)

Judge Jackson apparently didn’t like that, and he didn’t like that I tried to get the Hezbollah stuff in–and, above all, that it resulted in a win. Instead of thanking the jurors and speaking with them, I and my client were treated to a post-trial, on-the-record lecture from the Judge about how he was correct in making his inappropriate “trial of the century” comment and how I didn’t try the case properly (hmmm . . . the jurors found my client not guilty of two charges in 25 minutes of deliberations; yet I didn’t “try the case the right way”?!) and how “six years from now when you get more trial experience, you’ll thank me.” I have plenty of trial experience, and I won’t be thanking you, Judge Jackson. Bet on it.

I sat there with a blank stare instead of responding with the groveling “thank you, Your Honor” that he wanted and expected. I was not going to thank this guy who sneered at and mocked me for the entire trial and did everything in his power to try to make me lose this case and make my client lose his freedom.

A few words about other goings on at the trial:

One of the biggest hindrances in this case was my client’s ICE handler, Special Agent Jason Brumley. Despite my client’s hard work for ICE at risk to his life and family members’ lives, ICE gave “Haidar” and me the shaft. My client enabled Brumley and other ICE agents to seize hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal drugs and break a giant international auto theft ring tied to Hezbollah.

For all of that, “Haidar” was repaid by ICE with Special Agent Brumley lying to prosecutors and dissing my client. Oh, and refusing to testify in court–ICE opposed my subpoena at the last possible minute and refused to allow Brumley to testify.

Based on my client’s treatment by ICE and the rest of the U.S. government, I would advise all future Arab Muslim clients not to work with the agency as informants . . . unless they’re prepared to be jammed up, lose their freedom, and have thousands for a lawyer. They treat good, decent informants (like my client) like criminals and terrorists, while top ICE officials repeatedly fete Muslims and Arabs who are terrorists and/or support them like good, decent people.

When I first called Special Agent Jason Brumley, he informed me that he knew Ali Taleb to be a bad guy and a criminal involved in insurance fraud and all kinds of other illegal activity. Brumley told me that his office knew that Taleb had been an illegal alien smuggler and that they once worked with Taleb as an informant. He said it was very brief because his office learned “how dirty” (his words) Ali Taleb was and knew he was continuing to be involved in criminal enterprises.

Agent Brumley also told me that my client, “Haidar”, was a good informant and gave him information that led to ICE seizing huge illegal drug shipments. He told me he would vouch for my client and certainly wouldn’t vouch for Ali Taleb. But when I relayed this to prosecutors and they called Agent Brumley, he changed his tune entirely. Brumley claimed he never said anything bad about Ali Taleb and told prosecutors that he didn’t trust my client.
I told my client never to work with ICE again and certainly not Brumley. It simply wasn’t worth it. Brumley called me and was very angry and changed his story yet again, saying he would call prosecutors and “repair” what he said. But it was too late. He jammed up my client, his informant, and I hope the few other Arabs and Muslims considering working with him read this and reconsider. You’ll be betrayed. The guy–ICE Agent Jason Brumley–cannot be trusted. How many other ICE agents treat their informants this way? How many times does ICE fight subpoenas, preventing its agents from answering questions that would bolster their informants against trumped up charges and leaving them to fight the case alone? Meanwhile, Brumley’s boss, Julie L. Myers, fetes top Hezbollah and HAMAS agents–including “former” Islamic terrorist Imad Hamad–over plates of falafel.

This is how we treat the Muslims and Arabs that help us–let their whole lives be trashed–versus our kowtowing to and Ramadan Iftar dinners for the most extremist Muslims we can find in America. It’s sickening. And it’s why we’re losing the domestic fight against Islamic terrorism.

Outside of the courtroom, Ali Taleb, his gang of lying Hezbollah thugs, and other Muslims called me “Sharmoutah Yehudiah” (Jewish whore) and “Kalbeh Wooskhah” (filthy bitch). Ali Taleb shouted, “How does she know about Hezbollah?” And his lying Hezbo buddy, Ali Abdel Sater declared, “If he’s acquitted, I’m leaving the country.”

To that, I say, “Yaala, Zbali“–Get going, garbage. And don’t let the door hit your Hezbollah-infected butt on the way out.

Then, there were the prosecutors on the case. At the several hearings before the trial, the original prosecutor was a young woman named Andrea Hutting. Even though she has been a lawyer for only three years, she treated me with extreme disdain and like I was a total dummy. I was repeatedly bitched out by this arrogant, insubstantial person, who refused to drop the case even though she was made aware of the evidence that Ali Taleb had made the same phony accusations against others, including in the Charaf-Eddine case that her own office dismissed. She also bitched me out because I didn’t know the name of the secretary in the prosecutor’s office. I’m supposed to know the name of someone’s secretary, with whom I’ve never dealt? And for this, I should be repeatedly chewed out by a 20-something dummy-ette? It was absurd. Who wants to deal with a woman who consistently acts like she has an extreme case of perpetual PMS?

She apparently couldn’t handle me anymore because she gave the case to another young prosecutor, Raj Prasad, also only a lawyer for about three years. He, too, treated me like a total dummy. But that worked for me, so I went with it. His opening and closing statements were so slick, glib, smug, and arrogant, along with his behavior, that the jury wasn’t buying. My style in court is direct and blunt. I get to the point. I don’t talk about science fiction and “CSI”, like the prosecutor did. Jurors don’t want to feel like they’re being treated as naive rubes.
Prosecutor Prasad apologized to jurors for me putting my client’s 13-year-old daughter on the stand. But he should have apologized to her for putting her father in jail for three days on false accusations, and for putting him in the position where we had to have her testify as a witness. It was chutzpah. But what really bothered him was that she was a great witness–very sincere and very credible, and she had an impact on the jury.

“Haidar” is one of the lucky ones. Lucky to keep his freedom and be there for his four children and the upcoming birth of his fifth. But not so lucky, since the death fatwa (Islamic religious decree) over his head remains. He cannot return to Lebanon to see his mother. Some of his brothers and one of his sisters told him they want to slit his throat.

And he’s lost everything. Under the stress, “Haidar’s” wife miscarried the child to which she was about to give birth. He had to shut down his successful auto body shop and sell thousands of dollars of equipment for pennies on the dollar, so he and his family could pick up and move to another state, while the complainant in this case, Ali Taleb, tried to continue to carry out his threats to kill my client.

For several weeks, my client and his four kids lived in a homeless shelter. Now, he and his pregnant wife work at a fast-food restaurant chain franchise for a tiny fraction of what he used to earn.

We won my client’s freedom, but what we didn’t win in court was the deportation of this terrorist thug and his gang. They continue to rule the roost in Dearborn and the Detroit area . . . because incompetent prosecutors and judges and federal agents continue to let them.

“Haidar’s” victory in court on Tuesday is a tiny drop in a sea of poisonous waters.

We need a sea change. And, sadly, it doesn’t appear in the cards.

Ali Taleb, Ali Abdel Sater, and their gang remain free in our midst–on America’s streets–to make more of these charges against innocent people. And to make more inroads for Hezbollah.

I’m told that Ali Taleb and Ali Abdel Sater are now worried that, because of the trial, federal and state authorities know about their terrorist activities. They’re worried and are talking of leaving the country.
Unfortunately, they have no reason to be worried. We know the feds–who’ve long known about them and have done nothing–will continue to do nothing.

But It would be great if they started packing. Up next, my client is considering suing them.

***

Even though I tried this case entirely on my own, I want to thank two great criminal defense attorneys whom I consulted and who gave me great advice that I used at trial: Rick Convertino/strong> and Michael Alan Schwartz.

***

Here’s a special salute to Ali Taleb, Ali Abdel Sater, and all the Hezbollah thugs who showed up in court–Imad Beydoun, Hassan Barakat, etc.–to frame my client:

Artwork by David Lunde/Lundesigns

You are all girlie men. Oh, and you’re mnyook, too.

By Debbie Schlussel
You’ve probably already seen the TV trailers for “Body of Lies.”
The movie debuts in theaters in a couple of weeks (October 10th), and at least they got the title right. I haven’t screened it yet for review, but based on what I’ve read and based on the comments of writer/director Ridley Scott, that’s what this movie is: a Body of Lies. A Body of anti-American, sympathize-with-the-terrorists Lies.
Ridley Scott is a talented director. He is the man behind one of my favorite movies, the great “Blade Runner,” and a few other decent films.
But he is also the guy who made, “Kingdom of Heaven“–the Islamic propaganda film glorifying Saladin and lying about history.
Now, he’s yet again decided that making great movies gives you leeway to make horribly anti-American ones to “make up for it”:

Leonardo DiCrapio’s Muslima Girlfriend Golshifteh Farahani in “Body of Lies”

Based on the novel by Washington Post correspondent David Ignatius, Lies tells the story of two CIA agents, played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe, searching for an Islamic terrorist. DiCaprio’s character takes a more sympathetic worldview as he travels the Mideast; Crowe’s character is a single-minded agent running the war from his laptop in suburban Washington, D.C.

Translation: Dicrapio’s “more sympathetic worldview” means he loves Muslims and isn’t so crazy about America–so he’s the hero. Crowes’ “single-mindedness” means that he actually gets it about Islam–so he’s the bad guy.

Scott pulls few punches in the film, in terms of both action and polemics. In one scene, a terrorist torturing an American says, “Welcome to Guantanamo.”
“Of course it’s a political film,” Scott says. Ignatius “has this great knowledge about what makes the Arab tick and what makes us tick, and how we misinterpret and underestimate each other.”
Scott says he wanted to make a film that is as morally conflicted as his views about the Iraq war.
“Should we have gone in?” he says. “No, I don’t think so. Are we going to get out soon? No. Now we’re up to our necks. To leave now would be terrible.”
[Scott] says that many of the earlier war-related films were “kind of jingoistic.”
Those movies intimate “that we are right and they are wrong,” Scott says. “No one’s ever totally right or wrong. What makes a difference is there are a lot of reality checks in this film.”

Wrong. Americans have shown–with the bombing of several such movies, “Lions for Lambs”, “In the Valley of Elah”, “Redacted”, “Rendition”, etc.–that they don’t buy this moral equivalency BS.
So sad that Ridley Scott didn’t get the message and has chosen to produce yet another anti-American, pro-Islamic terrorist film that will hopefully die at the box office.
If this movie–which sounds like a “Munich” clone–does succeed, it will probably be because of star power, not content and message.
FYI, in this movie, DiCrapio’s love interest is a devout Muslim in a hijab (Muslim headscarf). I guess Hollywood is trying to tell us something about who is hot and what is sexy. Don’t bother.
She is played by Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani–who proudly lives in Iran and is very protective of her extremist country and its Shi’ite Islamic extremism:

Farahani had insisted in her contract on wearing the Islamic headscarf or a wig in the film in order to respect Iran’s law, which requires every post-pubescent woman to cover hair and bodily contours in public.

In real life, DiCrapio’s girlfriend is far-left Israeli model and draft-dodger Bar Refaeli, who bragged about her draft-dodging.
Can’t decide which of his girlfriends–on-screen or real-life–I dislike more.

By Debbie Schlussel
A number of readers ask why I use a hyphen in the word “G-d”. It’s something I’ve explained occasionally on this site, but for new readers, I am happy to explain again.
As a religious Jew who attended a private Jewish elementary school, I was taught by my parents and teachers never to use the name G-d in vain. In that light, we were always taught never to write out the full name, whether in Hebrew or English. We were always taught to use hyphens or dashes and/or abreviations.
That’s why I spell the word “G-d”. Rest assured, it’s entirely out of respect–NOT diminution or denigration–for the omniscient, monotheistic power greater than us all.

By Debbie Schlussel
Yesterday, I traveled to the U.S. border from Canada by car, twice. Twice I was asked several questions by Customs and Border Protection guards, who looked over my ID and other documents proving I’m an American. I was glad to see them doing their job because I want our country to be secure and because I know I have nothing to hide.
But Muslims aren’t glad when our authorities do their jobs to protect our borders. And the reason can only be that they don’t want our borders to be secure, that they want more of their fellow Third-World Middle Easterners who wish us harm to easily penetrate our borders. They do have something–a lot of things–to hide.
They’ve proven it time and again with absurd lawsuits, from the six flying imams to this. But, yesterday, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals slapped them down, ruling that a post-9/11 rule requiring visitors from two dozen Arab and Muslims countries and North Korea to register with the Department of Homeland Security. It was part of the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS), meant to improve immigration enforcement:

New York-based Second Circuit Judges Remember
Who Blew Up Another Building Not Far From Theirs

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it did not quibble with the fact that the program selected countries that were predominantly Muslim.
“One major threat of terrorist attacks comes from radical Islamic groups,” the court said. “The Sept. 11 attacks were facilitated by violations of immigration laws by aliens from predominantly Muslim nations. The program was clearly tailored to those facts.”

Right on.

The appeals decision came in response to challenges by five men who claimed their constitutional rights were violated when they were ordered deported. The court upheld the constitutionality of the program and upheld four of the deportation findings. Another case was returned to the Board of Immigration Appeals for further proceedings.

In case you were wondering, the plaintiffs–all Muslim Arab aliens seeking to enter America, but not wanting to play by the rules–were: Mohamed Rajah, Said Najih, Saade Benjelloun, and Samir Emile El Zahr.
Read the complete decision of Mohamed Rajah et al v. Michael B. Mukasey et al here.
That’s the good news.
The bad news: The decision may be a moot point. The government, kowtowing to those who hate us, gave in anyway.
Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) voluntarily withdrew the program under its own political correctness, easily giving way to the whines of the followers of Mohammed.
That’s why when I heard about President Bush’s speech to the U.N. on Tuesday, telling the forum that it doesn’t do enough to fight terrorism, I thought:
Hey, Georgie. Look In The Mirror.
In any event, I’m glad to see the courts recognizing the threat and identifying it specifically–namely, Muslims–without worrying about being branded with the race or bigot card. Kudos to Second Circuit Appeals Court Judges Ralph K. Winter, John M. Walker, Jr., and Guido Calebresi for having the guts to stand up for America and issue such a wise decision.
If only our government followed suit instead of cowering to every whine.
Memo to Muslim aliens who want to enter America: You don’t wanna play by our rules, then don’t come.
Or whine and file a lawsuit, and someone will give in. Count on it.

By Debbie Schlussel
Is President Bush, in his last days in office, losing it . . . or at least forgetting something? Are his speechwriters and teleprompters forgetting?
Yesterday, I had to make a last-minute road trip to Buffalo, New York (from Detroit) and back, which is why I didn’t post anything new after my trial finished. More details on the trial and the road trip, later today.
On my way back last night, I was listening to an ABC Radio broadcast of President Bush’s address to the nation regarding the economic and financial crisis.
At the conclusion of his speech–unless ABC Radio cut him off and it didn’t sound like it–President Bush simply said, “May G-d Bless ya.” There was none of the usual, “G-d Bless America.” The omission–at least, to me–was glaring. Why was that omitted?

Hopefully just an oversight, but the President uses teleprompters for his addresses to the nation, so whoever wrote that speech either deliberately didn’t put it in, or forgot something important. And President Bush has addressed the country plenty of times. He shouldn’t have forgotten that. (Plus, I didn’t learn anything new from the speech. Did you?)
First, they got rid of “The American Way” from Superman movies, and now “G-d Bless America” is gone. What’s next?
Well, at least the President asked G-d to bless us (“ya”). Just not U.S.

By Debbie Schlussel
As you probably noticed (several readers did–and thanks for watching my spelling back!), I unwittingly typoed the word “Mississippi” on my site this morning. Sorry for that, but I was in a hurry to get to court to finish my trial to which I alluded, yesterday.
I just got back from the “NOT GUILTY” verdict (that took the jury 25 minutes to reach) and celebrating with my client and his family.
As I noted, the case involved something I believe in. My client is a Muslim who is not religious and who publicly denounced Hezbollah, likes Israel, and worked undercover for the government as an informant. And he is married to a Jewish woman. Because of all these things, he was framed by a gang of Hezbollah thugs–one of whom was a Hezbollah terrorist, and gullible prosecutors bought into it.

Happily, I got my client acquitted, but the case demonstrates everything that is wrong with how America treats the few moderate, pro-American Muslims and how they treat the serious terrorist supporters and enablers.
More on that later in an extensive column. Suffice it to say, I’m very proud. Today was a great day in the war against Islamic terrorists on our soil, but sadly, only a blip in our usual political correctness.
I was lucky to have such a great and intelligent jury. Stay tuned for more.

By Debbie Schlussel
A story that was atop all four major newspapers I read this morning was this one:

* Immigration Slows In Face of Economic Downturn (Wall Street Journal Headline)
* Fewer Immigrants Crossing Borders (Detroit Free Press)
* Immigration Boom Slows with Economy (Associated Press)

While it’s a tiny silver lining in bad economic times in America, I don’t see why we’re supposed to be happy that it takes severe economic suffering at the hands of the economy to stop serious economic suffering at the hands of illegal aliens taking American jobs.

Why is it that a bad economy–NOT ICE (Immigration & Customs Enforcement)–must do the job of stopping the illegal alien problem in our midst? Maybe we should hire the former execs at Lehman Brothers to take over ICE. I hear they’re looking for jobs. (Full disclosure: My cousin, Cookie Rabin Lehman, married one of the Lehmans–but that was when the original Lehmans were running the show at their investment house, and they knew what they were doing.)
And then there’s this latest indication that ICE still doesn’t care about doing its job. A number of demoralized ICE agents (which seems to be every single ICE agent, save the few in top management positions at ICE headquarters and select Special Agent in Charge slots) have contacted me, upset that the illegal aliens they rounded up in Mississippi were released into the Great American Abyss in anticipation of the hurricane.
Here’s a sampling of what I’ve been hearing from agents:

Several, if not all, of the illegals rounded up in the Mississippi worksite raids a few weeks ago were let go due to concerns over housing them in the face of a hurricane and not having power. Also, there are more and more of these phony show worksite raids happening, all for the cameras. Each one is handled worse than the last. ICE bureaucrats at headquarters in Washington are hijacking each of the cases from the case agents and running the enforcement actions as they see fit, not as the case agent who investigated it sees fit–all for positive media coverage and spin. Then the aliens are largely released. This is the ICE M.O.

Hmmm . . . every time there’s an impending natural disaster, we need to release lawbreakers and criminals onto America? Funny, I didn’t see the non-alien prisons sending criminals free.
ICE . . . Your tax dollars at (make)work.
***
On another note: The ICE Princess a/k/a Julie L. Myers, the incompetent chieftess of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, announced the guilty plea of a Muslim alien smuggler based in Mexico.
But this raises two points:
1) Why should we care about this, if ICE agents are forced to do stupid worksite alien raids and then release all aliens captured? Why should we care about this, if ICE just releases aliens anytime an impending hurricane is about to arrive?
2) I thought we were told that no Islamic terrorists came into America through Mexico. Think all of this guy’s smuggled Muslim aliens have the best of intentions for America? If you do, I have some land in the Sahara desert to sell you. Aliens came from places like terrorist state Sudan and the United Arab Emirates, where the 9/11 hijackers all had bank accounts.

Thanks, America, for Letting Me Sneak in, Stick & Stay
More:

A Ghanaian man pleaded guilty today to charges of conspiracy and alien smuggling in connection with his role in smuggling East Africans into the United States. . . .
According to plea documents, Mohammed Kamel Ibrahim, a/k/a “Hakim,” 27, a native of Ghana and naturalized citizen of Mexico, admitted he operated an alien-smuggling organization in Mexico that moved unauthorized aliens across the southern U.S. border since as early as 2005. Based in Mexico City, Ibrahim’s organization was part of an elaborate smuggling pipeline that specialized in smuggling aliens from East Africa. Spanning multiple continents, the smuggling network included recruiters in Africa, smugglers in South and Central America, a corrupt embassy employee in Belize, and transporters, guides and money collectors in Mexico. At various times, the network’s smuggling routes included the countries of Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Kenya, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, Cuba, Brazil, Bolivia, Panama, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico.
Ibrahim admitted that in 2006 he began working with Sampson Lovelace Boateng, a Belize-based alien smuggler and document provider. According to plea documents, between June 2006 and February 2007, Ibrahim admitted he and Boateng conspired to smuggle unauthorized aliens to the United States by providing the aliens with fraudulently obtained Mexican visas. These documents, which Boateng obtained through a corrupt employee of the Mexican embassy in Belize and sold for $500 each, enabled East African aliens to travel into Mexico and reach a point where they could be smuggled across the southern U.S. border by Ibrahim’s Mexico City-based organization, according to information in plea documents. After housing the aliens for several days or weeks in Mexico, Ibrahim admitted he smuggled the aliens to the United States by various means, including by concealing the aliens for more than 12 hours in the sleeper compartments of commercial buses. By the time they reached the United States, aliens paid Ibrahim and Boateng smuggling fees totaling approximately $5,000, according to plea documents. In pleading guilty, both Ibrahim and Boateng admitted to smuggling between 25 and 99 aliens into the United States.
Plea documents show that Ibrahim and his co-conspirators used a number of legitimate services to carry out the alien-smuggling conspiracy. The organization received payments via money transfers, sent fraudulent travel documents through commercial shipping services and conducted business by e-mail. . . .
“With a network that included East Africa and South and Central America, Mohammed Ibrahim was willing to bring anyone into the United States for profit,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Friedrich.

Kudos to the hard-working ICE agents who caught Mohammed Ibrahim.
But what good is it, unless you deport all of the people you know he smuggled in . . . instead of releasing them from detention facilities, every time there’s a hurricane coming?

By Debbie Schlussel
NBA gazillionaire Shareef Abdur-Rahim, formerly with the Sacramento Kings, announced his retirement from pro basketball. I, for one, am not too upset that this hoops star is going away. In fact, I wish he’d go completely away, especially from America’s kids.
Abdur-Rahim, born into a devout Muslim family, has been using his status in the NBA (and accompanying wealth), as a platform for and tool in the Islamic propaganda and proselytizing machine. He’s been actively spreading the false “Islam is peaceful and likes all peoples of all colors” baloney.
And Abdur-Rahim and his father, a Muslim cleric, stood by and supported convicted cop killer Jamil Abdulllah Al-Amin a/k/a H. Rap Brown, a former Black panther turned Muslim cleric and CAIR activist. Abdur-Rahim’s father is his (Brown/Al-Amin’s) imam in prison.

And remember Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf a/k/a Chris Jackson, the NBA player who refused to stand for America’s National anthem? Abdur-Rahim and his father think that Abdul-Rauf is a “role model.”
Oh, and Abdur-Rahim likened legitimate criticism of Islam to the attacks on Pearl Harbor. HUH?!
Abdur-Rahim appeared on the Islamic hip-hop show, “The Deen Show”, which won’t condemn Hezbollah and HAMAS and their terrorist attacks. The show, which actively seeks Islamic conversion of Americans, features a host trying to act “ghetto” in his speech patterns, while weaving in Arabic and Islamic propaganda. Abdur-Rahim appears at about 6:20 into the video, but watching the whole thing will show you what bozos and frightening creatures are involved in this movement for a Muslim America, people with whom Abdur-Rahim is active.

Abdur-Rahim’s foundation, the Future Foundation, gives money to the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. Let’s hope he only gives them money and doesn’t use this as a window to spread his Islamic ideology to inner city boys and girls across America.
It’s no loss to see Shareef Abdur-Rahim leave the NBA. It’s just one less giant paycheck for the jihad.
Aleikum Salaam, buddy. And don’t let the door hit you . . . .