May 21, 2008, - 12:27 pm

My Teacher, the Obama Superdelegate

By Debbie Schlussel
As a student at Southfield Senior High School, just outside of Detroit, I was involved in a lot of groups, one of which was Michigan Youth in Government. Our high school chapter was advised by Eric Coleman, a successful businessman who not only spent lots of time advising us, but graciously let us use his home–right on the Detroit border–for our meetings. The group learned about how Michigan government ran and what issues were key. I later ran for Michigan Youth Governor (and lost by one vote in a Southeastern Michigan “primary,” which foreshadowed my Michigan House of Representatives race, in which I lost by one vote).
Mr. Coleman built a contract janitorial service into a successful business and, years later, ran to be my County Commissioner. A wise and classy guy, Mr. Coleman’s politics could not differ more from my own. He’s very liberal, but also the nicest, most generous guy.

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My Former Teacher, Eric Coleman, Obama Superdelegate

And apparently, he’s also one of the much-courted Democratic Superdelegates. Yesterday, he committed to Barack Obama. Like I said, his politics could not differ more from my own, but I like Mr. Coleman and am glad to read about his political exploits. It’s also interesting to read about the over-courting of the superdelegates that he experienced:

As an uncommitted superdelegate, Eric Coleman got so many calls to his home and office he eventually stopped answering the phone.
Among the callers: Bill and Hillary Clinton and, just a couple of days ago, Vernon Jordan, a top adviser in the Clinton White House.
“It’s been unbelievable,” the Oakland County commissioner said Tuesday. “The phone has been ringing 12 to 16 hours a day, constantly. It’s been like, ‘Vote for Hillary or the world is going to end.’ Today, I had 27 e-mails from Clinton supporters asking for my endorsement.”
Coleman sat down with Barack Obama one week ago today, following an appearance in Sterling Heights. He indicated to The Detroit News that day that he would support Obama, but made a general announcement of his intentions Tuesday.
“We had a meeting of the minds,” Coleman said. . . .
After Coleman’s formal endorsement of Obama on Tuesday, Michigan has 15 still uncommitted superdelegates who get bombarded with calls, e-mails and letters from the Obama and Clinton camps, their supporters and national and local media — and sometimes even the Democratic presidential candidates themselves.

Knowing Mr. Coleman’s very liberal views, I’m not surprised he went with Obama, though he waited until almost the very end.
Still, it’s interesting to read about my former teacher.

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May 21, 2008, - 11:35 am

Because He’s a Joooo: How the Pentagon Persecuted David Tenenbaum

By Debbie Schlussel
**** UPDATE: Read the shocking exhibits and government reports about the Pentagon’s anti-Semitic campaign against David Tenenbaum ****
I remember well the case of David Tenenbaum. An Orthodox Jewish civilian employee of the military, he lives just a 1/2 mile from me. He belongs to the same synagogue as several members of my extended family.
When the Pentagon and feds trumped up charges against him and chose to raid his house on the Jewish Sabbath–and to embarrass him, purposely doing so at the moment throngs of synagogue congregants were walking home and passing by–it was a cause of disgust in our community. We knew he was not a spy for Israel, and it was made even more obvious, when the FBI seized his kid’s coloring books as evidence of “espionage.”

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The feds never prosecuted Tenenbaum because they had no case. And for years, he maintained–and we all knew–that they pursued him merely because he’s a Jew. He sued the government in vain to end this endless nightmare against him. The suit was thrown out in the name of the nebulous excuse of “protecting national security interests.”
But now, he and we have the evidence. The Pentagon admits that Tenenbaum’s being Jewish–especially that he was an Orthodox Jew–was the main reason they went after him. Interesting that they’ve never pursued a Muslim this way. Nada Nadim Prouty (a Druze spying on behalf of Muslim terrorist group, Hezbollah) is laughing all the way to the bank (as she writes her check for a $750 fine):

For the past 11 years, Army tank engineer David Tenenbaum has been trying to undo the damage the government did to him in four days in 1997, when he was accused of being a spy for Israel.
It started with a polygraph test administered February 13, where one interrogator yelled epithets about how they knew how to deal with Jews. The next day, Mr. Tenenbaum arrived at work and found his computer gone and his name erased from the classified e-mail system at the Tank Automotive and Armaments Command in Warren, Mich.
He was then asked to enter a conference room, where agents from the FBI informed him he should confess to the crime of espionage. When Mr. Tenenbaum learned he would not be arrested, he walked out of the room and to his Toyota Camry parked on the base outside of Detroit. A guard asked him for his badge and proceeded to use it to scrape away the parking decal on his windshield.
Then the Jewish Sabbath came and the investigators he met in his office the day before began ransacking his home and confiscated this amateur violinist and guitarist’s music books as well as the coloring books that belonged to his 4-and-a-half-year-old daughter.
The ordeal was complete on the following Monday. Mr. Tenenbaum read in the Detroit Free Press that he was an alleged spy and learned later that the FBI had forgotten to seal the court request for the Eastern District Federal Court of Michigan asking for a search warrant of his home. Some newspapers even began to call him the next Jonathan Pollard, the Naval officer who was sentenced to life in prison for stealing technology for Israel in 1986.
“It was like the twilight zone,” Mr. Tenenbaum said. The U.S. attorney ultimately declined to prosecute the case, stating in a letter that the government failed to produce enough evidence to warrant prosecution despite a thorough investigation. This month, new details emerged when an independent watchdog organization called the Project on Government Oversight published new internal documents relating to the Pentagon inspector general’s investigation into the handling of the Tenenbaum case.
Among the documents is a presentation laying out the inspector general’s findings. The presentation’s third slide says, >”Mr. Tenenbaum experienced religious discrimination when his Judaism was weighed as a significant factor in the decision to submit him for an increase in his security clearance.”

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David Tenenbaum

The investigation then went on to quote several Pentagon officials involved in the case against Mr. Tenenbaum acknowledging that his religion and his contacts in Israel were grounds at least in part for launching the investigation against him. A discrimination suit brought by Mr. Tenenbaum was thrown out of federal court after the government requested the judge acknowledge that the Army would need to disclose state secrets in order to mount its defense.
According to a sworn affidavit of Mr. Tenenbaum, when he took his first polygraph test in 1997, his questioner said to him: “I have done other Jews before and gotten them to confess and I’ll get you to confess too,” and, “I can tell you are lying by looking into your eyes.” . . .
A former chairman of the Defense Policy Advisory Board and a senior Pentagon official in the Reagan administration, Richard Perle, said, . . . “There is a wholly unjustified suspicion of Jews in sensitive positions, and especially Orthodox Jews.”
Internal Pentagon documents indicate a fight has now broken out between the Pentagon’s lawyers and the Pentagon inspector general that concluded the case against Mr. Tenenbaum exhibited the hallmarks of employment discrimination. That conclusion, a potential embarrassment for the Army, has yet to be published, in part because the Pentagon’s general counsel has launched its own investigation into the case, which the inspector general’s office complained was intended to undermine the findings of the report.
According to the inspector general’s presentation, “OGC objections centered on undermining evidence presented above as either ‘opinion’ or circumstantial (indirect) evidence.”
A spokesman for the Pentagon Thursday declined to comment for the story. . . . Mr. Tenenbaum said he is not surprised that the military would try to suppress the report.
“For almost 12 years I have been fighting for justice,” he said. He added that many of the security officials he regards as his tormentors have been promoted in the military. Meanwhile, he is still seen as something of a pariah in his office. He is no longer allowed to work on his favored project of designing armor for Humvees. In the interim, he has earned a doctorate in chemical engineering.
“For 11 years I have been waiting for vindication,” he said. “You have to imagine this, I was wrongfully accused of espionage. The punishment is either death or life in prison. I believe the only worse crime is assassinating a U.S. president.” He went on: “My father was a Holocaust survivor. He was the only one who survived. He passed away a year before this happened. Can you imagine him seeing his only son being singled out for the same reason he was, being a Jew?”

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Beware! There Are Jews in This Town!

How interesting that the feds, including the Pentagon, are bowing down to kiss the butts of anti-American Muslims so fervently, that saying things like “jihad” and “Islamofascism” is verboten. Yet this anti-Semitic stuff is the de facto M.O. and A-OK. How interesting that Islamists at the Pentagon get dedicated counterterrorism officials fired, and this kind of stuff happens to a guy just because he’s Jewish. Guh-reat priorities.
Like I said, Nada Prouty is laughing, as are other legit spies–spying for the enemy–who get away with it, while David Tenenbaum has been tormented by this abuse.
Given these reports, I hope the courts allow him to reinstate his original lawsuit, which was timely filed. Clearly, the only “state secret” here was that the Pentagon doesn’t like Jews a whole lot. And that’s hardly a secret.
But even if David Tenenbaum finally gets justice after 11 years or more, he will have to ask the same question that ex-Reagan Labor Secretary Raymond Donovan asked when he was cleared of charges:

Where do I go to get my reputation back?

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May 20, 2008, - 5:01 pm

Holiday Weekend Box Office: “Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” Review

By Debbie Schlussel
Let me start by saying that “Raiders of the Lost Ark” is my favorite movie (tied with “Blade Runner,” another Harrison Ford vehicle). And I didn’t think any of its sequels came close. That includes this latest one–27 years later. Too late. It debuts in theaters, Thursday.
When I wasn’t dozing off during yesterday’s Detroit movie critics screening of “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystall Skull,” I couldn’t help but notice that many of the plot points are similar to those in the two “National Treasure” films.
The myth of the lost, underground city made of gold and covered with water, the hidden tomb of treasures, even a giant round levered, pivoting floor that must be balanced by the person standing on it–all of these were in the “National Treasure” original and its sequel. Yet, those films were far more exciting and interesting than the new Indiana Jones sequel, though they pale in comparison to the original “Raiders” movie.

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Stodgy and gerontological Indiana Jones is now dull. His long-abandoned void has largely been replaced on the silver screen by Nicholas Cage’s starring role in the National Treasure movies. It’s true that those movies take place in present, which is not as exciting as World War II and–now, in this Indie Jones flick–the early years of the Cold War. True, Cage doesn’t have the level of good looks and machismo that Harrison Ford had in the early Indiana Jones movies. And instead of suavity and brilliance, he’s kind of a screwball.
But the 65-year-old Indie didn’t do it for me. Neither did the equally stodgy George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and, yes, Karen Allen, brought back–from her new, post-Hollywood life of knitting and selling Indian sweaters in Massachusetts–to co-star in this tired film.
And it wasn’t the title character’s chronological age that soured me. It was the old, tired, completely absurd quality of this latest script. There was no magic. It all just seemed manufactured. While this movie might have been great and novel in the ’80s, in 2008, it’s kind of old hat. And there were no cool scenes of Nazis faces melting because they took a prohibited look at the Ark–still a classic scene that stands the test of time from the original “Raiders.” There’s just no there, there.
The story starts out well enough. Indiana Jones is kidnapped by Russian soldiers who’ve snuck into America. They’re led by Russian agent Cate Blanchett, who does a terrible Russian accent that switches veers too many times back to an English accent. They’ve gone to the legendary Area 51 military base in Nevada. There they find a crystal skull they’ve been searching for. It’s the skull of an alien being. Legend has it that there’s a lost city of gold in Latin America, where other alien crystal skulls are located. Whoever unites all the skulls can possess magical powers, the story goes. When we see this 65-year-old swinging and climbing and jumping–all to thwart Russian commies, it’s almost believable.
My favorite scene in the whole movie comes next, when Indie escapes the Russians and finds himself in the middle of a nuclear testing site. The homes and the streets are populated by mannequins, and he saves himself from a nuclear bomb by packing himself inside a refrigerator. That was cool, but even that scene seems borrowed from the remake of “The Hills Have Eyes.” And it was all downhill from there, and that was like only 10 or 15 minutes into the movie. And at 2 hours, 4 minutes, the movie seemed to me like 4 hours, 2 minutes. I found it kind of slow.
We find out that Indie has a son with Karen Allen, his old girlfriend from the original Indie flick. Shia LeBeouf plays greaser Mutt (remember, it’s 1957, so the “Happy Days” dynamic abounds), but he’s kind of boring and too cutesy. If he’s being groomed to be “The Next Indiana Jones,” fuhgedaboutit. Harrison Ford, in his day, had a certain dynamic in playing the swashbuckling and appealing Indie. Women wanted to “date” him and men wanted to be him. Not even close with the geeky LeBeouf, who’s good in other movies, but seemed out of place and a formulaic insert here.
Don’t attack me for disclosing this non-spoiler about Indie’s son. It’s kinda obvious that he’s Indie’s son from when we first meet him. You don’t need to be Einstein or even Professor I. Jones, though everyone seems to get it but this archeological genius that this is his son. We see this “son he didn’t know about” gimmick in a lot of the lackluster tired franchises trying to make a comeback. Remember the awful “Superman Returns”?
The rest of the movie is a preposterous mishmash plot involving Indiana Jones, his ex-girlfriend, and their son, trying to thwart the Russians in their race to find the golden underground city in South America. There, amidst Mayan tribesmen, we also meet one of Indie’s old mentors who has gone nuts and who is the key to finding the gold city.
I don’t want to give any more away about this slow-moving, non-plot of a plot. But I will say this: the scene with the spaceship and the aliens was simply absurd. I was waiting for Richard Dreyfuss and his mashed potatoes (from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”) to make an appearance. It was that bizarre. It’s simply not a good idea to throw lucite outer space aliens into the mix of something that’s supposed to be a believable movie about history and an archeological adventurer.
And one of the last lines of dialogue about how the aliens are going to “the space between spaces” was just too much New-Age BS to keep me from bursting out in laughter.
As for the snakes (there is one prominently placed on the movie poster), you’ll only see one in this flick, and it’s hardly scary.
There’s nothing offensive or objectionable about this latest “Indiana Jones” installment. And the negative portrayal of Russian communists as thugs was accurate and welcome, coming from liberal Hollywood (waiting for a similar treatment on Islamic terrorists). It’s fine family viewing.
But it just wasn’t a great movie. And given how it started, with “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” they don’t have much to show for the 19 years they waited since the last sequel.
I liked the ending of the movie. It’s what was in between that and the strong start that didn’t impress me. “Crystall Skull” simply wasn’t even as good as the previous, inferior sequels to “Raiders.”

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May 20, 2008, - 3:48 pm

So, This is With Whom Obama Wants to Negotiate

By Debbie Schlussel
This is whom most Muslims in Dearbornistan openly support. This is also with whom Obama wants to negotiate and whose sponsor state, Iran, with whom Obama wants to negotiate. And it’s also whom President Bush enabled by doing nothing, by inviting Iran to negotiate with us in Iraq, and by sending Condi Clueless to fete Bashar Al-Assad:

For two and a half days, Hussein al-Haj Obaid lay on the floor of a darkened warehouse in west Beirut, blindfolded and terrified. Militiamen loyal to Hezbollah had kidnapped him at a checkpoint after killing his nephew right in front of him.

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Throughout those awful days, as his kidnappers kicked and punched him, applied electrical shocks to his genitals and insulted him with sectarian taunts, he could hear the chatter of gunfire and the crash of rocket-propelled grenades outside, where Hezbollah and its allies were taking control of the capital.
He returned to this northern village only after family members won his release just over a week ago by threatening the kidnappers with retaliation. By that time Mr. Obaid, a Sunni Muslim, had gained a whole new way of seeing his Shiite countrymen and his native land . . . .
Mr. Obaid was one of many Sunni men who drove to Beirut after hearing that Hezbollah was attacking the offices of his political patron, Mr. Hariri. On arriving in the city, he stopped at a checkpoint, where militiamen asked him where he was from.
He barely had time to answer, he said, before the men – who recognized him as a Sunni from his northern accent – opened fire on the car, riddling it with bullets and killing Mr. Obaid’s young nephew, Abdo.
Mr. Obaid got out and tried to run, but the men caught him and took him to a warehouse, where he endured two and a half days of torture. He took off his shirt to show a reporter the fresh scars.
“They gave me a hard, hard time, brother,” said Mr. Obaid, who speaks English with a strong Australian accent, a legacy of 13 years he spent in that country.
“They did not even ask for my ID card, they just hear my voice,” Mr. Obaid said. “They treated us like animals, like animals.” . . .
Before long, a sense of communal victimhood and rage spread. On the way to a funeral on May 10 for one of the young Sunni men killed during the battles, mourners walked in a procession while chanting, “Shiites are the enemies of God.”
As the pallbearers approached a store owned by a Shiite man, some mourners rushed in and urged the man to close it out of respect. He refused, and the mourners began smashing his windows with rocks and chairs. Enraged, the man got his AK-47 assault rifle and began firing into the crowd, killing two mourners and wounding others.
As terrified mourners ran from the scene, the funeral procession turned into a sectarian riot, with Sunnis angrily destroying every store owned by Shiites in the neighborhood.
At one point, as the rioters reached an abandoned juice shop, they stopped to eat kiwis, strawberries and carrots. But one angry mourner turned on them in rage.
“What are you doing?” he shouted. “You can’t eat these fruits, they are forbidden. They were bought with Shiite money.” . . .
When Hezbollah fighters drove up into the mountains, many of their Druse allies deserted them or even changed sides, preferring to fight alongside their fellow Druse against the Shiite invaders.

Yes, not only are Hezbollah and Shi’ites worldwide in a revival–thanks to Bush (and Paul Bremer and Dan Senor) for creating a contiguous Shi’ite crescent–but they are fighting with Sunnis and Druze and everyone else around Lebanon.
The “Religion of Peace” can’t even get along with each other. And we and Israel are supposed to make peace with them?!

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May 20, 2008, - 3:35 pm

Arkansas’ Democrat Guv Doesn’t Get It

By Debbie Schlussel
Although local and state politicians nationwide are finally cracking down on illegal aliens, since Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) “leadership” won’t, there are some boneheaded politicians that just don’t get it. And it will hurt them at the polls.
One of those is Arkansas’ Democrat Governor Mike Beebe, who pretends he’s tough on illegal aliens, but really isn’t. He’s opposing an important statewide ballot initiative that would get tough on illegal aliens and stop them from taking away state services from taxpaying Arkansas citizens. Dumb move:

Gov. Mike Beebe says that he “cannot support” a ballot measure that would require government agencies to verify that everbody seeking public benefits in the state is a legal U.S. resident.

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Un-Beebe-lievable:

Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe Opposes Crackdown on Illegal Aliens

Governor Mike Beebe says that he opposes a ballot measure that would require government agencies to verify that everbody seeking public benefits in the state is a legal U.S. resident. . . .
A group called Secure Arkansas is gathering signatures to place the proposal on the November ballot. . . .Jeannie Burlsworth, a chairwoman for Secure Arkansas, says she disagrees with the governor and believes the measure would help strengthen existing law. She said she was disappointed that Beebe was unwilling to lead on the issue of illegal immigration. She said a government agency asking for proof of citizenship is not increased bureaucracy, it’s just common sense.

I’ve already written about how cancer treatments for the indigent are in danger at certain Texas hospitals because illegal aliens are overloading the system. That will happen, in time, in Arkansas, if this measure doesn’t pass.
Similar initiatives have passed overwhelmingly in most localities where they’ve been on the ballot. And those who opposed them didn’t win election or re-election.

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May 20, 2008, - 3:16 pm

Your Day in “Religion of Peace” Divorce and “Full Ninja” News

By Debbie Schlussel
Supposedly the Islamic niqab (full face veil, but for eye-slits; or as I call it, “the full Ninja”) is too hide the Muslim woman’s face from men who are not her husband or immediately family members. Apparently, the site of women’s faces is so strong, that it immediately sets forth the uncontrollable sex (and rape) urges of Muslim men.
But apparently one Islamic woman keeps her face covered at all times, even in the presence of only her husband. For 30 years the woman was married and completely covered, without her husband ever once seeing her face. Since he lifted it up while she was sleeping, she now wants a divorce.
Yup, this is the “Religion of Peace” or at least the “Religion of the Ludicrous”:

A 50-year-old Saudi woman asked for divorce after her husband lifted her face veil while she was sleeping, local press reported.

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For 30 years, the wife said she never showed her face to her husband in conformity with the tradition of her native village near the south western Saudi city of Khamis Mushayt.
“After all these years, he tries to commit such a big mistake,” the wife told Saudi newspaper Al-Riyadh, after she left the house in total disbelief.
She said the husband apologized and promised never to do it again.
This is not the first case of husbands who have not seen their wives’ faces in decades.
In the past Al Arabiya has reported the case of Ali al-Qahtani, whose wife had been wearing the face veil for the entire ten years of their marrage. When he tried to take it off, she threatened to leave and only decided to stay after he swore never to try again.
Hassan Al-Atibi threatened to marry another woman if his wife didn’t show him her face. The woman nominated one of her friends who doesn’t observe this tradition as a possible new wife for him, saying this would be better than her showing her face.
And neither the husband or children of Om Rabea al-Gahdaray, 70, have ever seen her face. Al-Gahdaray says it is a family tradition, also followed by mother and sisters, which her husband accepted and never tried to change.

Apparently, this practice of never revealing your face to anyone and remaining Full-Ninjaed at all times is practiced by some Gulf States Muslim women.
With the number of Saudi student visas to America doubled and doubled again, I can’t wait until the women of Khamis Mushayt start imposing their religious rules on America, can you?
Gives a new meaning to “Desperate Housewives.”

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May 20, 2008, - 1:16 pm

Dumb Idea of the Day: I-Pods for Illegals–U.S. Census Publisher’s Clearing House Sweepstakes

By Debbie Schlussel
In the brilliant movie, “Idiocracy,” centuries have passed and America is so dumbed down that a prostitute and a mediocre desk grunt are the smartest people in the world. The President is a pro wrestler and there’s no more Congress. It’s now the “House of Representin’.”
Well, apparently, we need not go to Hollywood make-believe or even the remote year 2500. Because the U.S. Census Bureau is already deigning to act like the House of Representin’ in 2010
Yup, it’s almost that time again. In about a year and a half, the U.S. Census will be taken. Illegal aliens will be counted. And Muslim Arab agencies, like the Arab Community Center for Econonomic and Social Services, will send out Muslim, Arabic-speaking census takers to exaggerate the number of Arabs and Muslims around so that ACCESS and others can get more government funding.

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But the U.S. Census Bureau doesn’t think the exaggeration and inaccuracies in Census taking are bad enough. So, it wants to give out prizes and sweepstakes to encourage more lying and further incongruous counting the number of live humans in America. . . by giving prizes and coupons to illegal aliens and terrorists.
It reminds me of the liberal gun buyback and Midnight Basketball programs of the Clintonian ’90s. People were given concert tickets and cash for turning in guns (even though they still kept a private stash at home) and kids were given hoops sessions late at night to try to induce them from committing crimes and breaking the law. Neither of these things worked. And this prizes for Census participation idea is an even more absurd extension. The same idea has been floated to get millions of dummies in America to vote. Thankfully, we didn’t go that route.
Incredibly, the lawmaker most pushing for this “National Census Prize Lottery as Sponsored by Donald Trump’s “Stem Cell Apprentice” and E-Bay” is one of the most conservative members of Congress–Republican Oklahoma U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, known as “Dr. No” for his opposition to most spending. And the one who opposes the sweepstakes and prizes as not reflecting the original intent of the founders is one of the most liberal, Democrat Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney. On this rare occasion, she’s on the money; he isn’t:

Fill out your Census form and . . . win an iPod? A Starbucks gift certificate? Cash?
Doing your civic duty would literally pay off if the Commerce Department and Congress decide to dangle prizes to get people to answer Census questionnaires in 2010.
The Census Bureau is looking at ways to increase responses, including the use of prizes as an incentive, says spokesman Stephen Buckner.
It’s not the first time the idea has come up. The Census Bureau explored launching sweepstakes in the 1990s. It rejected the plan partly because of concern that it would cheapen the national population count mandated by the Constitution every 10 years. It’s not clear if using budget money to fund prizes is even legal.
Nevertheless, the concept is resurfacing for the 2010 Census because of concerns that the response rate may be hurt by mounting fear and suspicion of government, says Census historian Margo Anderson. More communities are cracking down on immigrants here illegally and the war on terrorism has prompted surveillance measures, including wiretapping. [DS: USA Today’s always gotta find a way to get that “woe are the illegal aliens’ and terrorists'” sob story message in there.] . . .
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., says offering prizes would be cheaper than chasing people who don’t return their questionnaires. . . .
A $1 million prize has been suggested but “something on the scale of a Starbucks coupon would be more appropriate,” says John Hart, Coburn’s press secretary.
Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-New York, a member of a House Census committee, says incentives would “turn the Census into a lottery ticket. . . . I doubt that this is what Thomas Jefferson had in mind.”

Right on, sister. This time, she gets it. Hard to believe she’s finally an “originalist.” At least, this once.

Ed Spar, executive director of the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics, opposes giving prizes to fulfill civic obligations.
“The Census is a national ceremony,” he says. “It’s for the American people.” . . . “We don’t know what kind of crazy biases it would enter into the data,” Spar says.

Funny, I checked my copy of the U.S. Constitution. And unless it’s been amended lately, the document still says:

Article I, Section 2:
The actual enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years.

Nothing in there about giving out free Chuck E. Cheese tokens or gift cards to Victoria’s Secret and Hair Club for Men in exchange for the required participation in the Census-taking.
Hell hath no fury like the day someone goes to the gas station with a square piece of paper bearing this message:

Whereas the holder participated in the U.S. Census, this Coupon entitles the holder to one free package of Trojan condoms.

Can’t wait ’til Ed McMahon and Bob Dole do the Census sweepstakes commercials.
Anyone can win. Oh, and someone please translate that into Spanish and Arabic.

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May 20, 2008, - 12:48 pm

Attention, Terrorists: Homeland Security Encourages You Become a Pilot

By Debbie Schlussel
Hey, terrorist-wannabes with no criminal record:
If you want to kill passengers and blow up planes in America, the TSA wants to make it easier for you. Just make sure you become a pilot . . . or steal his/her ID.
I’ve long criticized the absolute lack of screening of airport employees. It negates the entire purpose airport screening of passengers. You and I take our shoes off, walking on athlete’s foot-infected floors, and dump our orange juice and lip gloss, while Mohammed and Shahida, who work at the Duty Free Shop, can enter the airport without any screening or wanding at all. No checkpoints for them because they work at the airport. The same goes for when they take flights from the airport, which is why Orlando airport employees, last year, got machine guns and drugs on a flight to Puerto Rico.

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Easily Faked Badge of Death: Even Bin Laden’s Former Pilot Had an ID

Now, the deceptively-named Transportation Security Administration wants to do the same for pilots, allowing them to bring arms onto flights without any screening of who they really are or what else they are brining on board. I’m all for pilots having guns on flights, but this is a big mistake. And it puts a giant X on the backs of pilots.
If I were a terrorist, my target for next kill would be a pilot. I’d get his ID and could get my weapons on a flight, no questions asked:

The nation’s 75,000 airline pilots could avoid being screened for weapons before they board airplanes if a test starting shortly succeeds.
But critics including flight attendants fear that an armed terrorist posing as a pilot could get on an airplane if pilots don’t have to walk through metal detectors and have their bags scanned by X-ray machines.
At three test airports, pilots will skip passenger screening and go through separate checkpoints where a screener will check only their airline ID. The test, run by the Transportation Security Administration, will begin in early summer and could be copied around the country at a later date, TSA assistant administrator John Sammon said.
Pilots’ unions have been lobbying to skip airport screening, which they call unnecessary and “demoralizing.” The Air Line Pilots Association notes that pilots face extensive background tests, and that pilots wanting to do harm with an airplane would hardly need a weapon because they control airplanes.
Airport screening “has just worn on them,” said Pete Janhunen, spokesman for the Air Line Pilots Association, the largest pilots’ union. “You trust them to fly a multimillion dollar airplane, and yet a TSA inspector with little training, little experience has the ability to strip-search them for gels.”
Congress passed a broad anti-terror law last summer requiring the TSA to give pilots and flight attendants “expedited access through screening checkpoints.”
The Association of Flight Attendants says it doesn’t mind checkpoint screening – and that it must be done for everyone. “It shouldn’t be demoralizing for anyone to spend the extra few minutes (getting screened),” union spokeswoman Corey Caldwell said.
Sammon of the TSA said the upcoming test will guard against terrorists using a stolen or forged pilot ID, and could speed checkpoints for passengers.
In the three test airports, which have not been chosen, pilots would walk through “exit lanes” where passengers arriving on flights leave a concourse into an unsecured terminal. A TSA screener would check pilots’ airline-issued photo ID cards against a pilot database with photos. The screener would compare the ID photo to the database photo to verify a pilot’s identity.

Hmmm . . . Didn’t they see the movie, “Face/Off“? Apparently not.
And how closely do you really think TSA employees with McDonald’s salaries are going to look at faces on databases versus IDs and versus the actual face of the person walking through the checkpoint?
Here’s a hint: Not close enough.

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May 20, 2008, - 12:11 pm

A Nazi Murderer’s Good Life: Will We Finally Deport John Demjanjuk?

By Debbie Schlussel
Yesterday, the Supreme Court rejected the last appeal (I hope) of Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk to avoid deportation.
I’ve been following the story of Demjanjuk . . . since I began elementary school. He’s now 88 and still here, even though he was found out in the mid-’70s. He falsified applications (and lied about his Nazi past) to enter the U.S. in 1952, more than a decade ago, and to obtain American citizenship in 1958.
Demjanjuk–the wicked Ukrainian who prevented innocent Jews from escaping their deaths in the ovens and via the firing squads–has lived the good life in America for decades. He worked as an autoworker in Ohio, had a home in the suburbs, health benefits, a pension, a wife, a family, children, grandchildren–all the things his victims never had because they were sent to their untimely early deaths . . . murdered by his colleagues while he stood guard.

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John Demjanjuk:

Just One of Many Nazis Who Gamed the System for a Good Life in America

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Nazi Death Camp Guard John Demjanjuk Then (Third From Left)

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But, to give you an indication on how difficult it is to deport someone–even a known war criminal–Demjanjuk fought and appealed and tolled the end of his good American life for decades.
Demjanjuk has lived a full life. Even if he’s deported tomorrow, he will have lived a longer, fuller, and better life than he deserved.
And he will have proved how America’s courts–specifically, it’s complicated web of immigration and regular courts–failed to give the 11 million victims of the Holocaust whom John Demjanjuk and his Third Reich buddies murdered, any form of justice.
Question: Since the Supreme Court has issued a final “no dice” to Demjanjuk, how long before the man is deported?
Sad Answer: Don’t hold your breath. The other prob with the immigration system is that without “travel documents” issued by another country, we can’t send him away to anywhere, anytime soon. And no country wants to take him. Can you blame them?
Yes, this hardened Nazi murderer, John Demjanjuk, will probably die a free man in America and never suffer a day (but for the 6 months he spent in Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Detention and Removal facility–where he was still treated far better than his victims).
Throughout his legal odyssey, he’s fought with the U.S. and Israeli governments, Soviet intelligence, and his victims about whether he was “Ivan the Terrible” (the legendary evil Nazi guard and mass murderer) or “Ivan the Almost as Terrible”.
But one thing is for sure: throughout all this, John Demjanjuk was “Ivan Who Lived More than a Half Century of the Not so Terrible American Life With Impunity for His Crimes.”
And “Ivan the Nazi Who Gamed the U.S. System.”
Read my previous column on John Demjanuk:
* The John Demjanjuk Story: How “Deporting” a Nazi Takes Decades; Lesson on Greater Immigration Probs

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May 20, 2008, - 11:49 am

Obama & Tight Pants Make People Say Strange Things

By Debbie Schlussel
Is this a hint of what we’ll see come election day in November? Is Kim Minor the proto-typical “poll worker”? Are all polling places “Obama’s House”?
Remember all the hype about “rigged elections” and corrupt vote-counting in the 2000 and 2004 Presidential elections? Funny how none of those individuals are speaking out against Kim Minor, whose pants are too tight and gave her a sudden case of pan-Obama Tourette Syndrome or Mental Muffintop. The McCain campaign isn’t exactly pure on this either:

EVANSVILLE, Ind. — The poll worker who called a polling place “Obama’s house” in front of a television news crew apologized — then accused the local TV station of altering its footage to incriminate her.

Kim Minor also told the Vanderburgh County Election Board that her “tight pants” were partly to blame for the remarks broadcast by WTVW-FOX7 and posted on YouTube.
Afterward, Election Board members Tom Massey, David Shaw and County Clerk Susan Kirk voted 3-0 to turn over WTVW-FOX7’s unedited tape of the incident to the Vanderburgh County Prosecutor’s Office for investigation.
Bob Walters, news director of WTVW-FOX7, called Minor’s remarks “totally ridiculous” and her theory of videotape manipulation impossible for the local station.
Minor, a Democrat, and Republican poll worker Leon “Big Man” Collins, who called the polling place at Zion Missionary Baptist Church “McCain’s house,” told the Election Board that the incident on May 6 was not intentional. . . .
In WTVW-FOX7’s broadcast, Minor is shown saying, “This is (Barack) Obama’s house,” chanting Obama’s name and asking who in the polling place supports the Illinois Democrat. Collins says it is “(John) McCain’s house.”
When Minor asks who supports Obama, she looks over her right shoulder — where the tape shows the voting machines were stationed — and appears to be counting people.
“One, two, three, four, five,” she says, pointing around the room.
. . . .
Minor also told the Election Board that her remarks in the polling place could be attributed to her ill temper on a bad day. She said she had been annoyed when a poll worker under Collins’ charge left the church without authorization to get some food, when food was already available.
“My pants were too tight,” she said. “I mean, you know, they were, like, cutting into my side. And I couldn’t leave to go change my pants.”
“… Maybe a little stuff had built up in me, and that’s when I went too far.”

It reminds me of an old song my dad used to sing, Fats Waller’s 1941 hit, “Your Feets’ Too Big.” New Obama rendition: “Obama’s House: My Pants’ Too Tight.”

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