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When it comes to illegal aliens seeping in, which do you think is a bigger problem at America’s southern border–a lack of real commitment and resources to stop the hemorrhaging . . . or an aggressive weed?
Well, most of us who know anything would say the former. We know that the President and the Republicans are more beholden to big business that wants cheap labor and that the Dems are more beholden to the future consituency of that cheap labor.
But for Michael Chertoff and the Department of Homeland Security, they think it’s a weed that’s the problem. And–gosh darn it–they’re going to stop those illegal weeds from growing into the country and obscuring our borders.

Is Carrizo Cane the Real Reason Aliens Are Swarming Our Borders?
While we can’t deny that the Carrizo cane plant–which grows stalks up to 18 feet-helps illegal aliens hide from plain view, the plant is not the problem. It’s the least of the problems. The probelm is that Congressmen and bureaucrats who pretend they care about stopping our illegal alien problem are gung ho to stop the weed, but not so gung ho to actually stop the aliens hiding behind them or to prevent them from getting instant amnesty.
That’s why the Department of Homeland Security is paying the Department of Agriculture $1.5 million per year, according to USA Today to get rid of the cane plant. Bugs from Spain are the only supposedly sure cure to kill new shoots and mature stalks.
I’m sure that the Ag Dept. will be very successful at killing the weeds, far more so than we ever will be in stopping illegal aliens. And that’s the problem. They are focusing on these minimal tangents to make us think this is an incremental step in the right direction to stopping the alien problem. But stopping the plants is really just a drop in the bucket.
I’m all for doing anything that will make it harder for aliens to hide and for Border Patrol agents to do their jobs. But I’d bet that $1.5 million that once they eradicate those weeds, the unsecure border problem at America’s southern limits and the illegal alien problem within it . . . won’t change one bit. The progression of both these problems won’t be slowed–weeds or no weeds.
It does, however, makes for a nice science experiment. And a nice export (the bugs) for Spain.
Calling all horticulturists and entomologists. You, too, can get your piece of the bloated Homeland Security/”safe” borders pie.
Gee, I wonder who the Ag Dept. will contract with to put the bugs on the plants? Hmmm . . . maybe those people who “do the jobs that Americans just won’t do.”

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If a tree falls in a forest, but no-one was there to hear it, did it actually make a sound?
If a substandard, pretend basketball league holds a draft but no-one noticed, did it really happen?
Yup, yesterday, that Weird Nuisance Brought on America, that Waste of National Broadcast Airtime, held a draft. Several people with women’s chromosomes (allegedly), brush cuts, lots of muscles, and at least 6’7″ in height were chosen to handle a striped circus ball at sideshows in empty stadiums across America.
What is the sound of one hand clapping?

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Uh-oh. Hollywood powers that be plan to remake “The Hardy Boys.” Yet again.
The classic kids’ detective books about teen brothers Frank and Joe Hardy have been transformed onto TV and movie screens in various incarnations
since the 1950s.
But this time, guess whom they’ve chosen to play the sibling detectives? Not exactly a macho two-some: Tom Cruise and Ben Stiller (Owen Wilson was reportedly in the running, too). They’ll play “The Hardy Men” on the silver screen. Yuck.

Nuh-Uh: Meet the New “Hardy Boys”
I used to love watching that show as a young kid in the ’70s. I begged my parents to stay up to watch that and its companion Nancy Drew series on ABC. (A commenter says the show “Jumped the Shark” when David Gates and Bread appeared on the show.) But, now, come to think of it, the 1970s version wasn’t exactly very macho, either.
The girlie-man look really doesn’t stand the test of time. . .

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When I heard Nancy Pelosi was meeting with Syrian leader Bashar Assad, this week–and heard all of the conservatives and Republicans hemming and hawing about it, you didn’t hear a word of protest from me.
That’s because those conservatives and Republicans are hypocrites. They’ve said nothing to protest any one of the many, many meetings California Republican Congressman has had with Assad–many of which I’ve written about over the years. And unlike Pelosi, Issa has gushed so much about Assad, you’d think he was Monica Lewinsky leaving one of her Oval Office sessions with Bill Clinton.
And I figured, given the news that Pelosi was meeting with Assad, that we’d soon hear from Jihad Darrell–the crybaby Congressman who raves over Hezbollah–again. Well, Jihad Darrell did not disappoint. The Jihad’s fave Congressman, Issa, met with Assad the day after Pelosi did along with other GOP Congressmen.

Jihad Darrell’s Crying Game:
Pro-Hezbollah Rep. Darrell Issa Hangs with Syria’s Bashar Assad
Hmmm . . . where are all of my fellow conservatives yelling and screaming about this the way they did with Pelosi? I hear crickets chirping. Ditto for the sounds coming from the White House, also critical of Pelosi.
No-one should be meeting with Assad. No-one from America should be going to Syria. Period.
If a country is 1) on the State Dept. terrorist list, 2) harbors and welcomes every terrorist in the book, including the only living Munich terrorist, 3) allows insurgent terrorists to come in and out of Iraq to kill our troops, and 4) foments international assassinations of officials of a neighboring country it is trying to run through an Islamic terrorist group that murdered hundreds of Americans (Hezbollah), we frankly should NOT be there visiting them–regardless of whom our “visitors” are, unless they are assassins. Not Condi, not Nancy, not Jihad Darrell, not other GOP Congressman, period. None of them.
Syria is home to several fugitives, including Nazi war criminal Alois Brunner, Hamas political director Moussa Abu Marzook, Islamic Jihad chief Ramadan Abdullah Shallah and Jamil Al-Gashey, the only surviving perpetrator of the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre–all wanted and/or indicted in the United States. However, Assad refuses their extradition. Absolutely no reason for us to “dialogue” or whatever BS term they are using, this week, with him.
Read , and you’ll see he’s far worse than Nancy Pelosi will ever be–as hard as she’s trying to top him.

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You already know about Michael Chertoff crony, the unqualified, incompetent Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
And you know about her crony, . . . sort of. As you’ll recall, last year, I , a former Assistant U.S. Attorney for whom Myers created a taxpayer-funded position as her personal attorney inside ICE. She created this position, despite the fact that ICE already spends millions of dollars on an army of lawyers–the ICE Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA)–who are at her beckon call.
Many ICE agents complained about Baker, who was making their job difficult and getting in the way. As one agent told me then:

(Julie Myers Baglady by David Lunde/Lundesigns)

I’m not sure exactly what he is doing, but he is supposedly pissing off a lot of people. I’ve heard him referred to as a “f—ing idiot.”
What a waste of money! I guess she’s [The ICE Princess] not getting the service she wants from the ICE Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA).

We didn’t know why he was there–other than to provide employment for a Julie Myers friend and crony at the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars to U.S. taxpayers–money that should have been spent on immigration enforcement.
We wondered what Baker’s experience–in the area of Indian casinoes and Indian tribe sovereignty–would bring to ICE and why a special position was created for him. The only thing “special” he brought was an embarrassing story in the New York Observer’s Love Beat about how his bizarre fiancee snagged him. “A Lincoln fetish”? Attention ICE lawyers, this is how you, too, can get a promotion. That . . . and being chummy with the boss-atrix.
However we learned in late February that, less than a year on the job, Baker abruptly left ICE. And quietly the ICE organizational chart was “amended” on January 29, 2007 (reportedly, the day after Baker exited) to delete his newly-created, wasteful crony position. Here’s the Spanish version of the chart that they forgot to “amend” (with Baker’s name still on it). (“ICE: Se Habla Espanol.”) I’m sure it will soon be taken down (as soon as The ICE Princess reads this).
Here’s what ICE sources tell me:
Allegedly, Baker’s relative (supposedly, his brother-in-law) was arrested by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) for a federal drug offense. Allegedly, Baker tried to interfere in the case and “call in a favor” on behalf of his relative. If true, this is obstruction of justice–as Baker, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney should know. (He, himself, participated in the indictment of leaders of the Norte Valle Columbian Drug Cartel.) Allegedly, the proper authorities at ICE and Homeland Security were contacted and Baker was forced to resign.
I’ve contacted ICE spokesman Marc Raimondi with the following questions, but he hasn’t responded–not even with a denial or vague plausible deniability statement:

From: Debbie Schlussel writedebbie@gmail.com
Date: Mar 27, 2007 6:29 PM
Subject: Press Inquiry . . .
To: marc.raimondi@dhs.gov
Marc:
Please respond to the following questions:
1) Why did Wayne Baker suddenly leave ICE and his position as Julie Myers’ personal counsel in January?
2) Is it true that he was forced to resign because he tried to get a DEA/USDOJ criminal case against a relative dropped? Was the relative his brother-in-law? If not, who was it?
3) Why did Julie Myers hire Wayne Baker in the first place? Why could she not rely on ICE’s army of lawyers for that purpose? Does she feel they are not competent enough for her?
4) On what issues did he provide legal advice? How much was his annual salary at ICE?
5) Please provide current contact information for Wayne Baker.
I look forward to your response.
Regards,
Debbie Schlussel

Again, no response from Raimondi or anyone else at ICE. No denials. Nothing. Why did Julie Myers create a special position for this man, Wayne L. Baker, working for her personally? And why hasn’t she fallen on the sword for going out of her way for a man who allegedly goes out of his way for family members involved in federal crimes?
Of note, I learned the other day that a Miami ICE official about whom I’ve written–who vouched for an drug dealer to get a job as a border inspector–has been served with a target letter for his involvement in that matter. (Tastelessly, the ICE Office of Professional Responsibility, allegedly served with the man with the letter in front of everyone at an ICE official’s retirement party.)
It would seem to me that if that ICE official has to face the music for vouching for someone who is no good, certainly the rotten fish at the top of ICE–Julie Myers–should face the music for doing the same, especially since she created a wasteful special position for that man.
So, again, why did Julie L. Myers create a special personal legal counsel position for Wayne L. Baker? And then, why did he leave? And if the allegations about his interfering in a federal drug case on behalf of a relative are true, why was he merely fired?
Frankly, that’s obstruction of justice. But apparently you only get charged with that if you’re .
But if you’re a crony of Julie Myers, well then, it’s a completely different story . . . .
If you know more about this story and the name of the alleged relative, please contact me.

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Since I’ve written about the many airport — including a Northwest Airlines ticket agent whose husband is an Al-Qaeda terrorist–this latest news out of Chicago is not shocking to me. What is shocking is that the TSA, airports, and airlines continue to give jobs to Muslims without nary a background check into their pasts.
Until he was arrested in 2004, Sami Khoshaba Latchin worked for years as a gate agent at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport–one of the largest and most trafficked airports in the country. But, at the same time, he was also a sleeper cell recruiter for Saddam Hussein. But for documents seized by our soldiers in Iraq in 2003, we’d never know, and he’d continue working at O’Hare. Because, after all, we can’t discriminate against Muslims or Arabs. Or even do a cursory background check, years after 9/11. That would be wrong. Right?
Latchin is now on trial. More from the Chicago Tribune:

Sami Khoshaba Latchin: Spied for Saddam in U.S. for 11 Years

Federal prosecutors began laying out their case Tuesday against a Des Plaines man accused of being an officer for the Iraqi Intelligence Service under Saddam Hussein.
Sami Khoshaba Latchin worked for years as a gate agent at O’Hare International Airport, but he was really a “sleeper spy” recruiting operatives to gather information on groups opposing Hussein’s regime from inside the United States, prosecutors said.
Secret documents that fell into American hands after the 2003 invasion of Iraq point to Latchin as an Iraqi operative, first in Greece and then in the Chicago area, Assistant U.S. Atty. James Conway told jurors.
“There’s a spy in this room,” he said.
Before his arrest in 2004, Latchin had been planted in the U.S. as a long-term operative, directing collaborators and awaiting further instructions from Baghdad, Conway said.
He is charged with lying on documents to obtain American citizenship, lying to the FBI, and being an unregistered foreign agent in this country.
He might have remained in his position if the paperwork outing him had not surfaced overseas, Conway said.

And whose fault is that? Oh yeah, ours. Because we’d never have looked into his background. What a joke.

Conway showed . . . documents that refer to a “Sami Khoshaba” and some of his directives. Khoshaba was described as being in “public affairs” for the Iraqi government, which was code for the intelligence service.

“Intelligence”. That’s not really a word one can legitimately use to describe anything having to do with America’s airport security. And this is yet another glorious example. Not the exception.
More from the Chicago Daily Herald:

[Assistant U.S. Attorney Conway] also said phone records will show Latchin communicating with his Iraqi “handlers,” or spies who managed his activities. Several times, phone records show Latchin communicating with handlers and then almost immediately getting on a plane to meet them in foreign lands, Conway said. In one case, Latchin met with a handler in Amman, Jordan, where he received $24,000, even signing a receipt for the money with his code name or symbol “Abu Sarmad” and sending $15,000 of it back to his U.S. account via wire transfer.

This man, Latchin, has been a U.S. citizen since 1993, but he could easily become one, had he applied in 2007. The fact is now, like then–and it’s actually worse now, according to officials who work on this–. They are or much else.
Saddam may be gone. But there are plenty of others who aren’t. And their spies are here, unfettered, just like Latchin.
Good luck, America. We’ll need a lot of it.

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Citing UK teachers’ outrageous and disgusting decision to censor the Holocaust from school curricula to appease “offended” Muslims (call it ethnic cleansing on behalf of Muslims), the always sharp La Shawn Barber asked me:

Do you know if anything like that is happening in the US, Michigan especially?

Here is my response to La Shawn:
Here in Michigan (and throughout the U.S.), Muslims pretend to embrace the Holocaust to put up the ruse that they are not anti-Semitic. In fact, they often mention the Holocaust to attack Israel and compare it to the Nazis.

Two Symbols, Same Deal
I know they are lying about their (feigned) concern for the Holocaust, and I frequently get hate-mail, including from prominent Muslims here in town (like ), denying the Holocaust (and other prominent Muslims refuse to disavow it). The Muslims here in the U.S. are much smarter PR-wise—or find it necessary to be so, because they have not yet reached the critical mass that they have in Britain.
But in time, it’s coming here. Get ready.
As La Shawn’s question implies, no the Muslims in the U.S. are–contrary to popular myth–no less extremist or any more moderate than their Eurofascist brethren. They just haven’t reached the level of population (yet) to exert the same extremist demands.
But they will. And we’d better be prepared. Following Britain’s road paved with capitulation will be our death.
My grandmother was forced to wear the yellow star (the least of the Nazi horrors that happened to my grandparents). Will I soon have to? Don’t bet against it.
Reader Ari writes:

The badges the nazis made the Jews wear. They were originally a MOSLEM invention (from the Middle Ages).

Read La Shawn’s entry on this very important news story.

(This is a photo of my grandmother and her friends, before they were either sent to their deaths, to Bergen Belsen concentration camp, or to some other horrible fate. As you can see, they were forced to wear the yellow stars and, expectedly, none of them are smiling. They were slave labor seamstresses, forced to sew and repair Nazi uniforms and clothes (as well as clothes of dead Jews, to be reused by live Germans). Then, they were sent to the camps. (My grandmother is third from the left, middle row.))

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Andrew Anthos was 72, and he died in Downtown Detroit. But Anthos was also gay. And his family and every gay and liberal activist in town called his death an anti-gay hate crime murder. Ditto for all of the media reports based on not even one shred of evidence.
They all wanted us to believe that anti-gay murderers are swinging from the lampposts on every street in the Detroit area.
But it turns out–after the autopsy–that Anthos was neither the victim of an anti-gay hate crime or even murder at all. In fact, Anthos died of a degenerative spinal disease that developed over many years and resulted in an arthritic spine that finally gave out.

They Can’t Handle the Truth:
Andrew Anthos Died of Arthritis, NOT an Anti-Gay Hate Crime
Sadly, Anthos’ family–wanting to claim that he died a martyr for gay rights–and gay rights groups–wanting to use his death as a crusade for special statutes for gays–and even two prominent (read: liberal) Detroit media columnists don’t want to believe it.
The two columnists, Desiree Cooper and Susan Ager a/k/a “Susan Angry,” have written columns saying, respectively, that it doesn’t really matter how this man died and that this means we should still rally for gay rights because he was a victim of hate anyway, because part of the fiction must be the truth that he lived (huh?); and that even though it’s a myth, we should still believe that the myth is possibly truth.
And the prominent Michigan gay rights group has offered a reward leading to information on the “real killer” (Attention: O.J. Simpson’s mirror), despite the fact that the “real killer” is arthritis.
Yes, for the liberal rights-pimps, it’s hard to take the news that sometimes a death is just a death by natural causes. And not the crusade-starter they really wished it was.
And that’s almost as sad than the death of this man.
As Jack Nicholson’s Col. Nathan R. Jessep said in “A Few Good Men“:
You can’t handle the truth!

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To all of my Jewish friends and readers, I wish you a Happy Passover.
To all of my non-Jewish friends and readers, I will be out of blog-commission from Tonight until Wednesday Night, as I celebrate the Jewish holiday of Passover. Though, if time permits, I will try to have a few things for my webmaster to post in my absence.
Thanks to the many of you who have sent me Passover good wishes and greetings.
As you may know, Passover is the celebration of the Jewish people’s freedom from slavery in Egypt. For the first two nights, beginning tonight, we have a special ceremonial dinner, called a “Seder,” which means “order.” We eat several foods to symbolize the bitterness and sadness of slavery and the joy of freedom from it.

Passover Matzoh
The entire holiday is eight days. Throughout, we do not eat leavened bread and various other products containing ingredients that traditionally could be used for flour. For instance, no rice, corn, or certain beans and vegetables, nothing containing corn syrup, etc. Instead, we eat a flat, cracker-like bread called “matzoh,” which symbolizes the bread of oppression, as well as the fact that the Jews–escaping slavery and ultimately entering Israel (40 years later)–did not have time to have their bread raise, as they left for the desert with it on their backs. It is not a holiday for low-carbers.
The holiday is also nicknamed in Hebrew “Z’man Cherutaynu,” which means the “Time of Our Freedom.” It is especially auspicious that, as Islamists increase in their power and influence throughout the world–and wish to assert it on the rest of us (Jew and non-Jew alike)–we celebrate the freedom of the Jews (and Jesus’ ancestors, too) from those who preceded the Islamists in Egypt.
The Jews survived their enslavers in Egypt. And G-d-willing, we will all survive the Islamists worldwide, including on our American shores and far within them. If only we have the will. The Jews had the will. They wandered in the desert for 40 years.
Does America–do Westerners who do not want our world to become greater Islamia–have the will?
Will our descendants be able to celebrate a “Passover” of freedom from the slavery of Islam? We shall see. But right now, it doesn’t look good. There are far too many “Abdullahs” (the name means slave of Allah) coming to our shores and being born within them.

Passover Seder Plate
There is so much more to the holiday, but that is the “Debbie’s Notes” version. It is a great educational experience for both kids AND adults. For more details read about it here, here, and here.

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Tonight marks the inauspicious debut of the 10th installment of ABC’s vapid and pointless “The Bachelor.” Not that we should care.
But what makes this bachelor different is that while our troops are fighting, getting seriously maimed, and dying on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, U.S. Navy Lieutenant Andy Baldwin, M.D. will be jumping into hot tubs and making out with multiple bimbos vying for the chance to be chosen to be dumped a week after the show concludes. It seems a bit unseemly.
Since active duty military personnel must get permission to participate in television shows and other publicity-garnering activities like this, one wonders who his commanding officer is and why the military PR handlers allowed this. It’s just plain inappropriate.

“The Bachelor”/Navy Officer Andy Baldwin
One wonders how Baldwin got several months off of active duty to both star in “The Bachelor” but also participate in auditions leading up to it and the publicity tour he is now on to promote it. Reportedly, Baldwin is on leave from the Navy to do the show. But how does a man on active duty get leave for months to participate in a televised, low-class concubine pageant, while soldiers can’t get a few days to see their families and get blown up in greater Islamia?
If military powers that be approved this leave because they thought it would bring positive attention to the U.S. Navy, they’re mistaken. Everyone on this show is there for one reason: the ridicule of the lumpen proletariat viewing public–the few that still watch this time-wasting show. If this is supposed to be some sort of in-your-face nose-thumb at Bin Laden, it ain’t working (and it hasn’t even aired yet).
This edition of the show produced by hooker Heidi Fleiss’ relative (executive producer Mike Fleiss) calls itself, “The Bachelor: Officer and a Gentleman.” Sorry, but a man who is lucky enough to serve stateside (Baldwin is stationed at Pearl Harbor), but flaunts it on TV–while other soldier/doctors are in the desert sewing up the nearly-dead and ripped-to-shreds soldiers fighting over there–is no gentleman at all.
The real gentlemen are the ones risking–and all too frequently, giving–their lives for us and for Andy Baldwin to cavort in a hot tub. I can’t help thinking of all of those soldiers’ mothers and wives who are wondering why our military allows this guy time off to live in a mansion and participate in a bimbo-fest, while their sons and husbands are “over there.”
The guy on tonight’s “The Bachelor” is no gentleman, just an embarrassment. . . and–dare I say it–a himbo.
“The most dramatic rose ceremony ever”? No. Just a waste of national broadcast airtime.