By Debbie Schlussel
The only movie I recommend, this weekend, is “Iron Man.” It’s a great movie, made less so by its message that defense contractors/weapons-makers are evil and that Islamic terrorists work at their behest. HUH?!
* “Iron Man“: This is a well-made movie, one of the best superhero movies I’ve seen in the last several years. But the message–while true to the Iron Man comic book series–is the usual one Hollywood loves to promote, ie., that defense contractors are evil, war-mongers who kill innocent people and enable despots to do so (rather than defending free people, which their weapons mostly do).

And while I loved scenes in which Iron Man sets Islamic terrorists on fire and also blows some of them up–I applauded and cheered them as did the rest of the audience, that is lessened when we discover that the terrorists are working with an evil defense contractor exec. Do we really believe that execution videos, like the one we saw of Nicholas Berg, are really done at the behest of, say, General Dynamics or Northrup?
Robert Downey, Jr. plays Tony Stark, a brilliant single, immature, playboy billionaire CEO of a high tech weapons making company. He is well-cast in this role, originally modeled on Howard Hughes in the comic book. His loyal assistant, Pepper Pots, is dully-performed by Gwyneth Paltrow, who has a quiet, unrequited crush on him.
The story: Downey, captured by Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan, is kept alive with an implanted, visible electromagnet, which prevents shrapnel from damaging his heart and killing him. While in captivity, he builds the prototype Iron Man uniform powered by the electromagnet, which enables him to escape. After he’s freed, he decides he will no longer make weapons because they kill innocent people. His evil co-founder doesn’t like that and fights him. Meanwhile, Downey, as Iron Man, flies around killing Islamic terrorists and saving innocent people.
The movie starts out too slow, with too much emphasis on all the big-boy toys and expensive accoutrements that Downey has. But it quickly improves into an exciting action film. The technology and gadgetry on display here is well done. Iron Man is cool, exciting, and heroic. But the peacenik, anti-weaponry message is a turn-off. Ditto for the claim that Islamic terrorists are only as bad as they are because they work in tandem with evil defense execs.
Still, we’re making progress. In a stunning, exciting, big-budget movie, the terrorists are finally Muslims. It’s a start.
My other objection to the movie is that at the end–and this is not a spoiler–he tells a press conference full of reporters that he’s “Iron Man.” Aren’t superheroes supposed to keep their identities secret? Would love to see how they forget this in the upcoming two sequels of the trilogy of “Iron Man” movies scheduled to be made.

* “Made of Honor“: I hated this movie, possibly the most annoying chick flick I’ve ever seen. It was almost a carbon copy of “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” only way worse and with a ton of tasteless, graphic oral sex jokes and other groaners. Blech.
Patrick Dempsey plays a playboy who finally realizes that his female best friend is the woman of his dreams. But he waited too long, and now she’s marrying a millionaire Scotsman. She asks him to be her “Maid of Honor.” He agrees, so he can try to sabotage the wedding. You know what happens–sooooo predictable. And slow and boring. A guy being a “maid of honor”? ‘Nuff said. Skipworthy, big-time.
* “The Life Before Her Eyes“: This bizarre, New Age melodrama was way too confusing, not to mention, pointless. Flashbacks and flash-forwards are confusing and repetitive . . . and unnecessary. Due to a scheduling miscommunication, I came 20 minutes late to the screening and missed nothing. Two best friends, a slut and a devout virgin are caught in a Columbine-style high school massacre. One lives . . . or does she? We see he life now, 20 years later. Or do we?
Not worth your time. Skip it.

By Debbie Schlussel
**** SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE #2 – Free Press Editor Stephen Henderson displays more ignorance and shows more true colors; Now, Islam is a “race.” ****
**** SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE – Free Press Editor Stephen Henderson shows his true colors ****
Some of you may have seen “my” Op-Ed column in today’s Detroit Free Press. I say “my” in quotation marks because it is NOT MY WORK. I DID NOT WRITE IT. Had I seen the draft of what ran, I’d have said, “DON’T run it.” But I did not get that chance.
This whole experience has been very enlightening to me, because it shows me just how much the Freep sees itself as the protector of Islamic terrorists and “former” Islamic terrorist Imad Hamad. It’s eye-opening. I also shows me the extent to which Free Press editors will go–they lied and made up allegations about me–to keep my opinion from getting exposure. Sorry, guys (and gals), but the Internet isn’t owned by you, and you can’t stop me.

Detroit “Free” Press: On Guard For Islamic Terrorists, Imad Hamad, & U.S. Attorney Stephen Murphy for 100-Odd Years
I can say, without qualification, that I’ve never ever submitted a comment to the Free Press website. I don’t do that. I comment on THIS website. But many of my Detroit-area readers have posted my work or links to it in the comments section of the Free Press site. I have nothing to do with that, and it’s beyond my control. The pan-Islamist Free Press news editors don’t like that. You can’t have another point of view than the one they express that “Islam is peace,” etc. But the reason my many Detroit readers–without my involvement or encouragement–post my work or links to it on the Freep site is that they’re sick of the Islam co-opted “news” they get from most Free Press reporters.
I feel bad for Stephen Henderson, because I believe he’s a good guy who tried to do the right thing. He does try to put in all points of view on his op-ed page. But the PC forces at his paper over-ruled him and put him between a rock and a hard place in running my work. That’s standard practice, apparently at the Free Press, and for the Mainstream Media, and why I’ve had to have my work on what’s going on in Detroit run in other papers, like the far more read/far more prestigious Wall Street Journal and New York Post–both more open to many points of view.
And then, there’s the standard practice at the Free Press. In February, for example, Detroit Free Press Reporter Dan Cortez initially reported on the Freep website that Michigan State Police detectives and federal agents said that a giant food stamp fraud ring they foiled was likely tied to Hezbollah and that they were investigating that. Those two paragraphs were removed from the story by Detroit Free Press editors Theresa Mask and Ritu Sehgal to protect to the Detroit Muslim community and hide this from readers. And not a single name, of the 18-21 Muslim food stamp fraud ring members, was mentioned in the story.
When I asked Mask and Sehgal why they did this, both responded, “I don’t have to answer that. I’m an editor for the Free Press. I don’t have to tell you why we removed it.” Both hung up. Complaints to their boss, Detroit Free Press Editor Jeff Taylor, their boss, were dismissed. He said the issue “is far more complicated than you think.” Um, not really. Whenever they tell you it’s “complicated,” that’s an elitist exercise in camouflaging something that’s actually very simple. They just want the protesting “little people” to forget about it and go away.
Henderson says that Detroit Free Press editors tell him that Hamad says I’ve been “stalking” him. That’s interesting to me, since I’ve never in my life contacted the guy, yet I have many unanswered, creepy e-mails sent to me from Imad Hamad, in which he begs me to meet with him and/or have a “dialogue” with him. While I never responded, he didn’t get the message and kept sending ’em. Someone at the Freep desperately needs to consult a dictionary on the definition of stalking. I’ve been stalked by Hamad, NOT the other way around. Writing about and exposing an Islamic terrorist, which is not stalking. If reporting the facts is “stalking,” the Freep editors can rest assured that they are NOT “stalkers,” especially not editors Mask, Sehgal, and Taylor.
Here’s the e-mail sent to me by Stephen Henderson, Deputy Editorial Editor of the Free Press explaining the PC-whitewash of Islamic terrorism from my piece:

From: Henderson, Stephen shenderson600@freepress.com
Sent: Thursday, May 01, 2008 5:19 PM
To: Debbie Schlussel
Subject: edited column.
Hey Debbie, there have been some late changes to your column that I need to explain.
We think that, given your recent rather personal run-ins with Imad Hamad on our forums [DS: Again, this never happened. I DON’T comment on Free Press forums. I comment HERE on MY site. But, now, it’s official–the Freep is the official guard for Imad Hamad.], it’s probably not a great idea to have you commenting on “Islamic terrorists” in your Fieger piece. Frankly, it will only cause you grief and detract from the excellent point you’re making about the frivolity of campaign finance laws. Without those comments, you can’t even rationally be accused of being anti-Arab or anti-Muslim; any detractors will have to focus on your arguments alone.
I’m sorry for that, and sorry for the late notice, but it’s better, in our judgment, to have you avoid commenting on that issue for us.
So I had to do a little surgery with your piece . . . I think it hardly reads any different..

Um, “a little surgery”? More like a heart transplant. No, make that a mastectomy.
To say I’m PO’d is an understatement. But it is instructive, just how occupied by PC and Pan-Islamism the Detroit Free Press pages and leadership is. I abided by the 650-word limit and sent the piece in, early Monday Morning. Then, at 5:19 p.m. yesterday, I was sent a completely different version, which I never saw or approved. I first read it, along with you, this morning.
Compare what I sent the Free Press, with the completely terrorism-whitewashed BS they ran. Here’s what I, in fact, wrote, which was set to run until 5:19 p.m. The deleted parts are in bold:

By Debbie Schlussel
Who is a bigger threat to America–Geoffrey Fieger or Islamic terrorists?
If you listen to the feds downtown, the answer is the former.
While soldiers are dying overseas and crime is at its highest levels in Detroit, we are focusing on the extremely dangerous . . . sub-rosa campaign contributions by Fieger to a failed Democratic Presidential candidate?
When FBI agents raided Fieger’s offices and his employees’ homes, they outnumbered FBI agents who searched for Osama Bin Laden in the caves of Tora Bora. While the U.S. Attorney’s Office has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars prosecuting Fieger, Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse finds that U.S. Attorney Stephen Murphy III–a Bush nominee to the federal Bench–has one of the country’s lowest rates of pursuing terrorist cases referred to him by federal law enforcement agencies, and an even more paltry rate of convictions in the few cases pursued.
Yet, confidential informants and furtively taped conversations at the Fieger law offices surpass the energies in any local federal terrorism case pursued to date. Fieger was pursued with far more vigor and faces far more time in prison than Nada Nadim Prouty, a Hezbollah spy in both the FBI and CIA.
As a conservative, I could not disagree more with Fieger’s politics and career achievements–representing Dr. Death and expanding America’s litigation explosion. But I appreciate the trial going on at the federal court building as a waste of federal firepower–a politically–motivated burn of resources that won’t achieve much for the citizens of the Eastern District of Michigan, regardless of outcome.
Fieger and law partner Ven Johnson are accused of violating federal campaign finance laws and the $2,300 limits they impose on donations per Presidential candidate per cycle. The Justice Department claims that Fieger illegally reimbursed employees for donations to John Edwards to get around the limits.
It’s not the first time U.S. Attorney Murphy squandered federal tax dollars on this kind of prosecution. Amongst the accusations leveled at Carl Marlinga–who was ultimately acquitted–were allegations that Marlinga induced some contributors to launder campaign contributions through family members to get around federal limits for his Congressional run.
But these laws are inconsistently applied and anachronistic. That’s why Fieger’s donations aren’t a hot-button issue. Talk radio is not exploding with callers angry about what Fieger and Johnson allegedly did. Wealthy Americans routinely skirt campaign finance limits by legally donating thousands more through their under-aged children. Also legal are the myriad independent expenditure campaigns, which spend millions for and against candidates, whose donors’ identities are often murky and unknown until after the election. The same goes for millions of dollars in free campaign publicity Oprah Winfrey gave Barack Obama on the campaign trail, in her magazine, and on her daytime talk show–worth well over the $2,300 limit.
No-one’s indicting Winfrey. So, why is the government going after Fieger? Wouldn’t it be better if we did away with campaign finance limits? Not that I will ever be able to give anything approaching $2,300 to a candidate. But campaign finance limits drive wealthy donors underground, encouraging them to hide donations through third parties. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
Now, more than a decade into the internet age, with instant candidate campaign finance reporting, it’s time to do away with Byzantine, anachronistic campaign finance limits and equally backward prosecutions. If Geoffrey Fieger wants to donate over $100,000 to a candidate, let him. So long as there’s full reporting, campaign opponents can always use that information against the willing recipient.
Campaign finance rules began after insurance executive W. Clement Stone donated $2 million to Richard Nixon’s re-election effort in 1972. Jealous politicians and the loyal opposition balked. And now here we are.
I’m not sure it’s so bad if a candidate is “bought,” so long as there’s full disclosure of who’s doing the buying.
Prosecuting Fieger is just “bad priorities.” It’s the litigation equivalent of digging for Jimmy Hoffa.

That this version didn’t run is absurd. But, sadly, I couldn’t avoid the PC-police at the Detroit Free Press. And, as I noted, it’s not the first time the Detroit Free Press has whitewashed Islamic terrorism out of what you read.
The Detroit Free Press’ slogan is “On Guard for [100-odd] Years.” Needs to be changed to:

On Guard for Islamic Terrorists and Imad Hamad.

**** UPDATE: Earlier today, above, I wrote that Detroit Free Press Stephen Henderson was a good guy, but based on his responses to some of my readers, I’ve re-evaluated that assessment. While he was nice to me and told me he wanted to write the piece as is, it appears that he was either not telling me the truth or has changed his story as a stuck response to readers. Either way, instead of defending his paper’s absurd PC, pan-Islamist editorial censorship policies, he’s attacking me.
Here’s an exchange between Henderson and a righteously disappointed reader:

Stephen Henderson:
Deputy Editorial Page Editor, Detroit Free Press

Sent: Friday, May 02, 2008 2:06 PM
To: Henderson, Stephen shenderson600@freepress.com
Subject: Gutting D. Schlussel op/ed
I didn’t think papers changed writers op/ed’s anymore.
It’s why your industry is a slowly dying one. Too bad, papers used to be about getting information out without bias.
Not anymore!
Good day!

***

From: “Henderson, Stephen” shenderson600@freepress.com
Date: Fri, 2 May 2008 14:12:13
Subject: RE: Gutting D. Schlussel op/ed
Are you joking? You obviously know nothing about the newspaper business.
EVERY op/ed is subject to editing. Every one. Debbie’s was changed less so than any I’ve touched in the past three weeks.
She is whining about three grafs that were excised, essentially to protect HER from charges that she has some wanton anti-Arab bias that infects everything she writes.
That’s what editors DO, my friend, always have, and always will.

Nice elitist, patronizing response. Very defensive, too. Interesting way of elevating a profession that ain’t rocket science and telling my readers they “just don’t understand.”
Um, no, Stephen, editors EDIT. They don’t editorialize, unless they, themselves, are writing an editorial or commentary. What Henderson and his editors above did was change the point of view of what I wrote. That’s NOT editing. That’s writing, in my name, something I didn’t say, because they don’t want people to read what I really wrote.
Hey, Stephen, whatever happened to those “Sunshine Week” editorials you wrote about the public’s right to know everything? As we now know, they were total BS and complete hypocrisy.
One other thing, my writing is NOT anti-Arab. I’ve praised many Arabs on this site. I write about Islamists, something Henderson would know if he had even the slightest interest in accuracy, which he apparently does not.
Hilarious that a guy who is the deputy editorial page editor of a major newspaper in the heart of Islamic America, still–6.5 years after 9/11–doesn’t know that there is a difference between Arabs and Muslims. Hello . . . ?
Still, good to know that he and the Freep see themselves as the guardians of all things Arab. Best to see anything they “report” in that vein, ie., propaganda and advocacy, NOT journalism.
**** UPDATE #2: Hmmm . . . getting more and more examples of responses to readers from an angry Stephen Henderson, op-ed page editor for the Detroit Counterterrorism-Free Press. Boy, was I ever wrong in my assessment that he was a good guy. Thought I was a good judge of character, but you know what they say about exceptions to every rule.
Now, I’m a “racist.” Islamic terrorism is a race? Since when? What color are they? Playing the race card–the 2nd to last refuge of a scoundrel; the first refuge of Louis Farrakhan, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson . . . and Detroit Free Press op-ed page editor Stephen Henderson.
Oh, and now Henderson is saying that all terrorists are Arabs. I wrote in the piece about Islamic terrorists. Again, the dude needs a clue on the diff between Arabs and Muslims, which living in the Detroit area is really like knowing how to read at a first-grade level. And again, Arabs–whom I do NOT attack on my site and whom I’ve praised (Michael Monsoor, Mayor Allan Monsour, Brigitte Gabriel, Edward Masry, etc., etc., etc.)–are a “race”? What an ignoramus.
It’s all in this exchange yet another reader, Joe, had with Henderson. Joe says, “Debbie, he claims to be saving you from yourself. Helluva nice guy.” Yup, Joe has him pegged. I love his face, all two of them:

From: Joe
Sent: Friday, May 02, 2008 4:45 PM
To: Henderson, Stephen
Subject: Debbie Schlussel
Mr. Henderson,
Nice two face you have there, sir. Shmooz Ms. Schlussel, hijack her story and mold it to fit your taste. That should sell papers. You are a discredit to the paper you for. Guys like you are murdering a dying industry.

***

From: Henderson, Stephen shenderson600@freepress.com
Subject: RE: Debbie Schlussel
To: Joe
Date: Friday, May 2, 2008, 4:48 PM
Hijack?
We excised THREE grafs on a topic that, frankly, she has NO credibility on. [DS: Um, he wishes I had no credibility.]
Her piece got the lightest editing of ANY I’ve touched in the last three weeks. What a whiner.
Everyone knows she’s anti-Arab. . . they would simply have disregarded her very, very strong points about the First Amendment and political prosecution if that other stuff had stayed in.
That is one of the paramount roles of an editor: to save authors from themselves, when necessary. [DS: I don’t need saving, but when I do, I’ll ask for Prince Charming, not Prince of PC.]
Sorry you think that is “murdering” a “dying” industry. You’re just wrong.
As a point of example, take a look at the comments underneath her piece on our website:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/articleAID=/20080502/OPINION02/805020337/1068/OPINION#pluckcomments
No one is trashing Debbie for her well-known racist rants; they’re arguing the merits of her argument in the piece. That’s not an accident, and owes entirely to the editing we did.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Stephen Henderson
Deputy Editorial Page Editor
Detroit Free Press
313-222-6659

So much for Henderson’s dumb “We Changed Debbie’s Opinion Column to Save Her From Her Opinion on Islamic Terrorists, So No-One Would Attack Her On That” Defense. Check out the Free Report From Thursday, which reported on what I wrote about Ali Jawad’s ties to Hezbollah. No comments there attacking me in the way he claims (not that I can’t handle it if they did–what am I, a powder puff?):
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080501/NEWS15/805010438/1008/NEWS
***

From: Joe
Sent: Friday, May 02, 2008 5:31 PM
To: Henderson, Stephen
Subject: RE: Debbie Schlussel
Maybe the readers that take exception to what she writes about are from the vast Islamic extremist bastion of Dearborn. Maybe they are too blind to assess the threat around them and the importance of the case for our national security. I guess if a lot of people that want more lenient sentences for guilty helpers of terrorist write enough comments in your paper, it just shows the clientele that has become your audience. I’m not one of them. I’m not a sheeple. Your credibility with your extremist supporters is obviously intact. She has gone undercover into mosques and community centers, risking her life for her country. That is credibility.
Her work is on display everyday and credits sources. Just because she’s Jewish doesn’t mean she’s without credibility.

***

From: Henderson, Stephen shenderson600@freepress.com
Subject: RE: Debbie Schlussel
To: Joe
Date: Friday, May 2, 2008, 5:32 PM
HA! Debbie’s detractors are the extremists???? Best laugh I’ve had all week.
And being Jewish has nothing to do with her credibility. Being a bigot does.
Stephen Henderson
Deputy Editorial Page Editor
Detroit Free Press
313-222-6659

***
Joe’s last e-mail to Stephen Henderson sums it up for me:

From: Joe
Date: Fri, May 2, 2008 at 5:38 PM
Subject: RE: Debbie Schlussel
To: “Henderson, Stephen” shenderson600@freepress.com
Boy your living up to the 2 face nick name. On her site she claimed, at first that you were probably not the one to carve up her work because you seemed like a nice guy. Slow day at the dying paper today, huh? You got right back to me in like 95 seconds. There has to be more important anti terror stories out there to expose. Guess that’s not your main priority these days. Good job.

Although I did not ask Joe or the other reader who wrote Henderson to write, I think the letters and the responses they got are enlightening, especially to me. Henderson was dishonest with me and played good cop/bad cop, claiming that he did not agree with the views of his fellow liberal Freep editors about my writing. But, with the plethora of immature, baseless name-calling about me, which he’s very unprofessionally engaged in with my readers, he’s betrayed that claim. And I just have one name to call him: liar.
Joe got the better of this guy and pointed out why the Freep and other mainstream newspapers are losing their appeal and their circulation is nosediving.

By Debbie Schlussel
Sorry, guys. This photo is real–not photoshopped. Yup, star quarterback (retired) John Elway is carrying a purse. No word on whether it’s Chanel or Prada. Also, no word on whether he’s now shaving his legs or renting “Beaches.” But, apparently, he is, indeed, into this season’s fashionable citrus colors in purses.

By Debbie Schlussel
Earlier today, a reader made the misinformed comment that the Jews “willingly” went to their slaughter at the hands of the Nazis, “without even trying to fight back.” That couldn’t be farther from the truth. There are many books (like “They Fought Back,” by Yuri Suhl), documentaries, etc. that document the Jewish resistance efforts. My own great-uncle died in the resistance, fighting the Nazis.
Since it’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, I’m happy to present this trailer of “Defiance,” starring the hot Daniel Craig (“James Bond”) as one of the Bielski Boys, three Jewish brothers who lived in the forest, set up a militia, saved 1,200 Jews, and killed hundreds of Nazis. They also destroyed lots of Nazi weapons and munitions. There were among many other groups of Jewish partisans and resistance fighters who did, in fact, fight back–and kill–lots of Nazis. The movie comes out in December.

You must understand that there was strict gun control in Nazi Europe. Jews were not allowed to own guns to defend themselves. Those that did, did so illegally. But many did fight back.
I’ve written about many of these Jewish militias and spoken about it, including twice at the National Rifle Association annual convention (until I was banned by Islamist NRA board member, Grover Norquist). My own grandfather, the late Isaac Engel, Blessed Be His Memory, a Holocaust survivor and Rabbi by training, proudly owned several guns and used them to protect himself and his business in a bad area of suburban Detroit. He always recounted several instances of when the guns saved his life, including when he was a “shoichet,” a kosher slaughterer.
My grandfather told me of Jewish efforts to form an underground army fighting Nazi tyranny and how his brother–my great-uncle–lost his life fighting in such an effort. My grandfather and my late father, H.L. Schlussel, MD, would also recount how on the eve of the Holocaust, the late Zionist leader Vladimir “Ze’ev” Jabotinsky visited Europe from his home in then-Palestine. “Yiddin Learnin Shissin!”–Jews Learn to Shoot!–he would tell them in Yiddish. And he told Jews to get guns, the only way to protect themselves. But when he came back to Europe, Jabotinsky lamented that Jewish efforts to learn to shoot and to obtain guns were too little, too late.
But that wasn’t the case for all. There were the heroic Bielskis, portrayed in “Defiance.” And there were so many other courageous Jewish efforts of resistance as depicted in the blue Jewish stars on this first photo from the brochure, “Holocaust And Resistance,” which documents 79 instances in which Jews resisted and/or killed Nazis.

This second photo also documents Jewish resistance efforts and is from the Partisans section of “Encyclopedia Judaica”. The encyclopedia documents the efforst of Jewish Partisans, like the courageous Robert Gamzon, founder of the Jewish Maquis which aided in the fight against the Nazis. Gamzon’s group helped the Allies in the landing on French shores, attacking the restreating German forces and capturing an armed Jewish train.

Gamzon’s group was part of the Organization Juive de Combat (OJC)–Organized Jewish militia–which carried out 1,925 actions, including 750 instances of sabotaging Nazi trains, destroying 32 Nazi factories, and blowing up 25 bridges. It also executed 152 Nazis and Nazi-allied soldiers and agents, including a German spy. In 175 other actions, it killed 1,085 Nazis, and blew up seven German planes, 286 trucks, and more than 2,000,000 liters of gasoline.
Jews comprised 15-20% of the French resistance, and 2,000 Jews were in the Slovak partisan movement. That’s aside from the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, and many other Jewish partisan groups and Jews who participated in other resistance groups.
Jews did, indeed, fight back against the Nazis. They were brave and courageous. And “Defiance” shows just one group–the Bielski Brothers–who saved lives and slowed the Nazis from their final solution.
I can’t wait to see it.
Read more about the heroic Bielski Brothers in “The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Saved 1,200 Jews and Built a Village in the Forest” and “Defiance: The Bielski Partisans.”

By Debbie Schlussel
**** UPDATE: ABC News’ Jake Tapper corrected the items I identified. Thanks, Jake. ****
Both ABC News and the Detroit Free Press have picked up on the story I ran Tuesday about John McCain swiftly dumping Hezbollah agent and federal convicted insurance defrauder Ali Jawad from his campaign, after I notified his people about it.
The Free Press story, by political reporter Dawson Bell, is excellent and accurate. Nothing to say about it, other than I urge you to read it. Bell is a longtime, no-nonsense political reporter for the Free Press, and he consistently delivers the goods in his hard news and investigative reporting on the political scene.

MSM Do Good Job of Picking Up on Story:
McCain Dumps Hezbollah
Then, there’s ABC News Chief Political Correspondent Jake Tapper’s piece, which–while overall, a good summation–contains a few important inaccuracies. He did spell my surname wrong. It’s SchLussel, not Schussel–an easy and frequent mistake with a name far more tricky than “Smith.”
In general, I think Tapper is an excellent reporter and researcher, but he incorrectly wrote about Ali Jawad:

In 1997 he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor insurance fraud. Prosecutors accused him of submitting names of non-employees to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan to receive health insurance benefits and claims. He received two years of probation and he paid approximately $6,000 in fines and restitution.

In fact, in USA v. Makki et al, Jawad was ordered to pay at least $252,331.08 for submitting false insurance claims. While some of that was assessed against Jawad personally, the majority of it was assessed against his small company, Armada Oil, through which he committed the insurance fraud of which he was convicted. As CEO and one of two owners of Armada Oil, he was responsible for this amount of insurance fraud and it came out of his funds. As we all know, a small company is a non-human entity, and does not make the decision to commit insurance fraud. The person running the company, Jawad, does, and he did it through his company, Armada Oil. His associate Michael Mustapha Makki–who apparently took part of the fall for him–was sentenced to 8 months in prison and about $75,000 in fines and restitution.
Moreover, the insurance fraud apparently included myriad false insurance claims for cash, not just enabling non-employees to receive health benefits as Tapper reports.
Read his article, too.
Glad this story is getting out there, as I doubt you’ll see any Republicans taking money from Ali Jawad, again. Democrats . . . well, that’s a different story. I doubt we’ll be seeing John Dingell, John Conyers, or Cynthia McKinney turning away repeat donations from criminal convict and Hezbollah agent Jawad.

The Hezbollah Love Boat Has Taken a Detour:
Hezbollah Love Boat & Crew (Cruise Director Julie in Burqa)

(Hezbollah Love Boat Images by David Lunde)

By Mayer Busak/ Translated from Hebrew by H.L. Schlussel, MD, Z”L
[Note From Debbie: Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. This article, “My Father, Of Blessed Memory,” originally written in Hebrew by Holocaust survivor Mayer Busak in Israeli newspaper HaZofe in 1991, was translated into English by my own father, of blessed memory, H.L. Schlussel, MD. With the permission of Mr. Busak, my father translated this very moving, sad article about the days in the camps and submitted it for publication to a few different Jewish magazines. He was, sadly, rejected. After my father passed away in September, I was cleaning out his office and found the article, along with a 1991 rejection letter from Commentary Magazine. Silly them.
Although my father was a religious man and Torah scholar, he recognized–and lamented–that the horrors of the Holocaust caused some to lose their faith (though many others survived because of their faith). My father wanted more than anything for the world to read this article, as did its author, Mr. Busak. And I know of no better way to both honor that wish and remember the millions of victims of the Nazis than to print this exclusive English language translation of the article, herein.]

My father, of blessed memory, owned a large metal tool store in the city of Krakow, in Poland. But every day, before he opened his store, he would go, in the early hours of the morning, his Tallis [Jewish prayer shawl] and Tfillin [leather Jewish prayer item] sack under his arm, for morning prayers at his house of study.
And when my father, of penetrating eyes, wrapped himself in his Tallis, his pale, Nazarite face wreathed in his black, brown beard beamed with joy at Dvekus [Jewish concept of clinging to G-d].
I will not dwell here on the great suffering and travail that came to my father during the time of the German conquest, about the loss of my brother and sisters, on my mother being sent off to a factory for the manufacture of chemical weapons. I just want to present a few episodes from my father’s last days in the Plashov concentration camp in which we were together.
My father worked in the metal shop in the camp and I in the carpentry shop. We lived in separate cabins. These were the type of large, wooden building that is always enveloped with darkness and mist. In every cabin, there lived about 500 men, that slept in four-tiered bunks made from boards. Between the rows of scaffolding supporting the bunks, there was a narrow passage way.
Every morning before I went out to formation that took place in the central square of the camp, in which the prisoners stood to be counted with their blocks, I would come to my father’s cabin to see how he was. I also did this in the evening after work. My father spoke little during the days of the war. From the time that my mother was sent off from the Plashov camp, he actually became mute. Then, one evening, I noticed that for the last few days, my father had been humming and singing a melody that I remembered from the old days, from that distant house of prayer. But the words of the melody were hidden from me, as if they had sunk into the depths of the dark mist. I asked him what this melody was. Instead of an answer, he just waved his hand.
One evening, when I was standing next to his bunk, somebody approached and told the following:
“This morning after the night shift came back from work, the SS man, Green, came into the cabin. He saw Shlomo [Solomon] Goldblatt standing wrapped in his Tallis next to his bed on the end of the row of bunks. The German drew his pistol, he took Goldblatt to a pit near the cabin and shot him . . . It’s anarchy . . .” finished the narrator. “I tell you, it is all anarchy.” When he finished, the person that had told us of the incident stood quietly in his place, as if waiting for my father’s response. But my father did not say a word.
The next morning when I came, as was usual, to my father’s bed, the cabin was still enveloped in mist and silence. My father stood next to his wooden bad wrapped in his Tallis and sang and hummed his melody. Suddenly, I remembered. This was the melody from the Yom Kippur prayer that tells about the angels singing praise and asking each other, “Who dwells on high?”
One day, to my astonishment, it was as if my father smashed his silence, and he said:

Among the salesmen from the factories that used to come to my office, at the store, there was one that would always bring up matters of religion in the conversation. During the last period before the war broke out, he would tell about the atrocities in the German concentration camps. In general, he would then add, “and you are a religious man, a believer. Tell me, if He [G-d] exists, why does He permit it. Why doesn’t He become involved?” . . . And there were arguments. Yes there was a world of arguments, he in his world and I in mine. . . Yes, it was a world of arguments . . .

And again, my father sank into the silence. Finally, I dared and I asked, “What are you thinking about?”
He answered, “The question of our first father [Abraham] gnaws at me . . .”
I did not know which question he meant.
This happened the night of the Seder of 1943. It was clear that for the Jews of the camp, this was just a date only for recalling memories. It was impossible even to dream about the Passover Seder feast. As usual, I approached the bunk of my father. And behold, from a bundle of old clothes that was sitting on the boards of the head of his “bed,” my father took out matzoh [unleavened cracker traditionally eaten on Passover in lieu of bread, which is forbidden during the holiday] wrapped in a white shirt, which he had washed in the wash cabin of the camp. He gave it to me and he said, “East and recite the blessing, ‘who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to eat matzoh.'”

I was astonished. – Where did he get matzoh? Then I noticed that the one gold tooth that he had in his mouth was missing.
I asked, “What happened?”
I was afraid that one of the SS men had knocked his tooth out with a blow.

I pulled it out, I sold it. I had the opportunity to send some money with one of the gentiles, to mother. From the rest, I bought a little flour from the camp bakery. I baked a few matzohs on the range in the metal shop and divided them among a few people.

He did not taste the bread ration that was distributed to the Jews every day in camp. He traded them for a few pieces of potato, and he lived on them all the days of Passover. [DS: Jewish law prohibits eating bread on Passover.]
On the 15th of Iyar [month on the Jewish/Hebrew calendar], a “selection” took place among the prisoners of the camp. In the central square of the camp, twenty thousand Jews were stood in their block – men, women, old people, and children. They were commanded to undress and to pass, one by one, by the tables that were set up in the corner of the square. Next to the tables stood the SS men. As each of the naked prisoners passed next to the tables, they stated their number. The SS man took out a card from one of the boxes that were sitting on the table, and cast a glance at the passing individual. With his pen, he made a mark on the card and returned it to the box.
In camp, there was talk that those who had been marked would be sent away soon.
A week after this, the prisoners of camp were called early one morning to formation in the central square. Nobody knew for sure what the reason for the formation was at such an early hour. Just about all of them took with them their bowl and plate in which they received their daily ration of thin soup. Who knew! Perhaps, they would be sent to another camp, and there they would need them. This time, the Jews did not have to undress. With an announcement of the names and numbers, people were separated from their blocks. About 2,000 men and women, young and old, were separated and marched in lines to the freight cars of the train that waited near the camp. That very day, the train arrived at the crematoria in Auschwitz.
The next day, my father’s “bed” was empty. Only the bundle of his few clothes were left in its place and next to it, his spoon and bowl. But the Tallis in which he wrapped himself every morning was not there. It appeared he had taken it with him.*
Suddenly, there flashed within me the question of Abraham:
“Can the Judge of the Whole World not do justice?”
[* Jewish males are buried in their Tallis (prayer shawl).]

By Debbie Schlussel
Clarence B. Jones was both Martin Luther King, Jr.’s personal attorney and close adviser.
He says that King would have been appalled at the anti-Semitism espoused by many of today’s most prominent Black leaders. He has a book coming out, “What Would Martin Say,” co-written with Joel Engel.
Here are some important excerpts of a great column in today’s Wall Street Journal that was taken from the book and is written by both Jones and Engel (it was not properly credited in the byline). If only this were in the Final Call or even the Michigan Chronicle (a Black Michigan newspaper). Or, more necessary, the newsletter of the Trinity United Church of Christ, Barack Obama’s church:

I can say with absolute certainty that Martin abhorred anti-Semitism in all its forms, including anti-Zionism. “There isn’t anyone in this country more likely to understand our struggle than Jews,” Martin told me. “Whatever progress we’ve made so far as a people, their support has been essential.”
Martin was disheartened that so many blacks could be swayed by Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam and other black separatists, rejecting his message of nonviolence, and grumbling about “Jew landlords” and “Jew interlopers” – even “Jew slave traders.” The resentment and anger displayed toward people who offered so much support for civil rights was then nascent. But it has only festered and grown over four decades. Today, black-Jewish relations have arguably grown worse, not better.
For that, Martin would place fault principally on the shoulders of black leaders such as Louis Farrakhan, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson – either for making anti-Semitic statements, inciting anti-Semitism (including violence), or failing to condemn overt anti-Semitism within the black community.
When American cities were burning in the summers before he died, Martin listened to any number of young blacks holding matches blame Jewish landlords or Jewish store-owners in the inner city – no matter that Jews were a minority of landlords and store owners. He asked them, Who else might have bought the buildings that we lived in and rented us apartments? Who else was willing to come in and open stores and sell us the things we needed? Where were these Negroes with money who’d abandoned their communities? And if blacks had bought those businesses and buildings, would they have charged less for rent and bread?

Like I said, too bad this is in the Wall Street Journal, which the audience that most needs to read this isn’t reading.

By Debbie Schlussel
Perhaps Ginnah Muhammad, the woman suing in federal court for the “right” to wear a full-ninja face covering (a “niqab”), should be spend a few days in jail for contempt. Ditto for her terrorist lawyer Nabih Ayad.
As I wrote earlier today, yesterday the pair told U.S. District Judge John Feikens that Muhammad has worn the full face veil since she was ten years old and that she only removes it while in the sole company of women. Muhammad is fighting Hamtramck, Michigan Judge Paul Paruk’s wise decision only to allow her to testify with her face uncovered.
But she lied. Reader Alex found this recent photo of Muhammad with her face willingly exposed in mixed company:

Ginnah Muhammad Minus the Full Ninja
Alex writes:

I thought you might want to put this on your article of Ginnah Muhammad, photographed in mixed, male and female, company clearly visible in the background. This waste of taxpayers’ money clogging up our court system is ridiculous.

Exactly. Time for contempt proceedings. And monetary sanctions.

By Debbie Schlussel
With yesterday’s decision by a county judge in the Detroit area to make public a draft of a motion by an attorney for fired police officers, more text messages between the Mayor of Detroit, Kwame Malik “The Kingpin” Kilpatrick and his then-chief of staff/girlfriend, Christine Beatty, have emerged.
The texts (read all of ’em here) are like the script of a bad Chris Rock movie, er . . . they’re like the script of a Chris Rock movie. Or maybe a more obscene version of an “In Living Color” skit. Some of them are pretty graphic sexual references, which I won’t post here. But here’s one, um, “highlight,” with the Pimp Daddy Mayor and his girlfriend calling each other various forms of the N-word . . . the same N-word he allegedly buried, last year, at a silly “funeral”. A classy pair, these two (a classy trio, with his equally low-class wife):

Christine Beatty: My baby wanted to see you. I was just trying to make it happen before we went to the dentist.
Kwame Kilpatrick: Come on momma.
Beatty: Thanks for that.
Kilpatrick: I enjoy that. I might be there [sic] stepdad one day.
Beatty: Why might? What happened to “not yet”? LOL. One of my theme songs for you just came on. “Love of my life.”
Kilpatrick: The “might” is on you!
Beatty: LOL. Nigga, I already claimed it! KCK 2012. You told me that you would be my boyfriend everyday until I was your wife. Are you renigging?
Kilpatrick: Hell no! Don’t start none. Won’t be none niggette! LOL
Beatty: I look forward to it. It’s official, I need a night. How about you? You don’t need to answer now. Enjoy the game.
Kilpatrick: S—. I need it real bad.
Kilpatrick: My nigga! I love you, you know that.
Beatty: Yep! Ditto! You know that?

This one is a text message from girlfriend Christine Beatty about the only White member of the Detroit City Council, Sheila Cockrel:

Why is Sheila always looking for a scandal with us? That bitch ain’t right!

Remember, all this stuff was written in text messages on Detroit city-owned pagers. It’s not private e-mails and communications. It’s like writing these on your company e-mail.
Tres stupid.

By Debbie Schlussel
**** SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE: Niqab Woman Exposed As a Fraud ****
Over the past couple of years, I’ve been following the Detroit-area case of Ginnah Muhammad, the Muslim woman who wears a niqab (the full Ninja female Muslim covering, with only eye-slots exposed). The full story is here and here.
Ms. Muhammad refuses to remove her gear in court, and therefore, Judge Paul Paruk–who presides over the largely Muslim Detroit suburb Hamtramck a/k/a “Hamtramckstan”–delivered a verdict against her in a small claims lawsuit. Paruk correctly ruled that he would have no way of judging the honesty of Muhammad’s testimony, since he could see no facial expressions whatsoever. She declined to testify without her complete covering.

Ginnah Muhammad in her Niqab, w/ Terrorist Lawyer Nabih Ayad
Incidentally, the suit involves damage to a car Muhammad rented, which she claims was done to it by thieves, so her the level of honesty of her testimony is important.
Yesterday, Muhammad was represented in federal court by perennial terrorist lawyer Nabih Ayad, whose family is in Hezbollah and who openly supports the group. Through Ayad, Muhammad to U.S. District Judge John Feikens that she could have testified without her full-Ninja tablecloth disguise if she were allowed to do so before a female judge.
But this is America. We do not segregate our judges by gender. They are not assigned cases by gender. That may happen in Greater Barbaria, but not in the New World. Judge Paruk is the only judge presiding over Hamtramck’s district court legal affairs. It is unreasonable, and frankly, unconstitutional, to insist that certain matters–namely those involving full-Ninja-outfitted Muslim women–be heard only by female judges.
What’s next–Klansman insisting they wear their full hooded regalia and testify only in their white sartorial splendor or only be heard by fellow Klansman, if they must remove it? No, that’s not a stretch. If a Muslim woman suddenly has a right to choose either the gender of the judge she wants or to remain in non-Koran mandated extremist costume that she claims is religiously necessary, then why not the Klan?
Moreover, Muhammad claims she’s been allowed to be photographed for her Michigan driver’s license minus her niqab, by a female Michigan Secretary of State employee. But that negates the whoel reason to wear a niqab in the first place and refuse to remove it in court. Her picture, showing her face, is not only on her driver’s license for all–yes, all men, too–to see, but is accessible by plenty of male members of law enforcement when necessary to see it. And she has to show it to even enter the U.S. federal court building, where security is staffed by MALE members of the U.S. Marshal Service. If they can see a photo of her full face, then a judge can see it if she wants to testify in court.
Again, this is America. We must decide whether we will remain the United States of America, where immigrants are supposed to absorb into our culture. Or whether we are aiming at the new identity of the Islamic Caliphate of America, where we must change our centuries old traditions to bow down to Allah and his chosen ingrate newcomers.
So far, it’s been the latter. Judge Paul Paruk deserves special kudos for doing the right thing, upholding the integrity of his courtroom, and bucking the trend.
Here’s hoping the usually sensible Judge Feikens does the same. He can issue a written ruling either way, or issue no decision and let Judge Paruk’s decision stand.
Either way, the litigation jihad and the continued imposition of sharia on our legal system continues in full force. Thanks to our government and spineless politicians, we can only slow the progression, er . . . regression.
Some previous postings on this:
* Islam v. Judge Paruk: In Litigation Jihad, Frivolous Niqab Lawsuit Ignores Basic Law
* Judge Paruk vs. The Niqab
**** UPDATE: Reader Alex points out that Ginnah Muhammad, the niqab wearer who claims she’s worn the niqab since age ten and can’t expose her face is lying. While she’s suing in federal court, over a judge’s decision not to allow her to testify without her face showing, Alex found this photo of her with her face exposed in public (far more recently than when she was aged ten). Liar:

Ginnah Muhammad Minus the Full Ninja
Alex writes:

I thought you might want to put this on your article of Ginnah Muhammad, photographed in mixed, male and female, company clearly visible in the background. This waste of taxpayers’ money clogging up our court system is ridiculous.

AMEN, brother!