By Debbie Schlussel
Nope, there’s not a lot to be thankful for at the movies, this week. To cash in on Thanksgiving crowds, the new releases all open tonight. Ironically, the best two would normally be the worst in a good week (which this isn’t)–a tie between a hard-to-believe Denzel Washington thriller and dumb, stoner Jack Black movie. Though I dissed it, none of these movies is better than the new James Bond film. That’s how bad this week’s box office fare is:
* “Deja Vu“–Denzel Washington stars as an ATF agent in this thriller about a terrorist attack on a ferry boat carrying military personnel in New Orleans.
As usual, Hollywood’s chosen terrorist is NOT a Muslim. Nope. He’s a Timothy McVeigh carbon copy, played by Jim Caviezel. Because Muslims would never blow up anything in America and they’d never kill our military men, right? And because there have been so many Tim McVeighs that have committed terrorist attacks in the last ten years, right?

Aside from that, this movie is a little hard to believe, even if you suspend your beliefs in the name of science fiction. Washington’s ATF Agent Carlin collaborates with an FBI unit headed by the now very pudgy Val Kilmer (dude got huge!) to investigate the bombing of the ferry and the murder of many military members and their families, as well as a beautiful woman who wasn’t on the boat.
The part that’s hard to believe is that the FBI has a satellite system that can go or see inside any building, any room, anywhere, back in time four days. Sort of like a remake of Timecop. If you’re against the Patriot Act, then you can’t like this movie or cheer for finding the terrorist murderer. This movie is the Patriot Act on mega-steroids plus.
Time travel movies are a mixed bag, and this isn’t the best one. Not the worst either, though. Washington is usually a good actor because he’s playing himself, and he’s a likable guy. And this performance is no different, even though it’s a weak story.
Entertaining enough, if hard to believe. And, please, how many Timothy McVeigh terrorists do we need in movies. Check out this novel idea, Hollywood: THEY ARE MUSLIM.
Some morbid stuff makes this one not suitable for weak-of-stomach young kids.
* “Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny“–Possibly the dumbest, most moronic movie I’ve ever seen, but so much so, it’s actually entertaining and somewhat funny. And utterly mindless. You or I could have written something better, though. That’s how bad. Liked it better than star Jack Black’s recent “Nacho Libre” (from which I walked out, mid-film).
Black and his real-life “Tenacious D” rock group partner Kyle Gass play two losers who dream of becoming rock stars. To get there, they need to get the “pick of destiny”–a Satan inspired pick that every successful rock star in history has used to reach the big-time.
This movie probably had a $5-$10 million budget at best. And it shows. Big-time. Lots of has-been stars, like Meatloaf, make cameos. This metal hair guitarist movie would have been far more appropriate in, say, 1982. Right now, it’s just a dated pile of sometimes humorous, always amateurish, celluloid silliness.
Every other word is a swear word and there’s a scene with a weird maneuver with a male member, so not for kids. You wouldn’t want to addle their brains that way, anyway. Watching this is probably the equivalent of doing two hours of drugs. No telling how many brain cells were wasted.
* “The Fountain“–Oy. The guy who wrote this must have done more drugs than Jack Black did when he wrote “Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny.” And it just so happens the guy that wrote (and directed and produced) this crummy waste of time, Darren Aronofsky, did so for his fiancee and mother of his kid, Rachel Weisz. The far-left actress sure knows how to pick horrid films, including last year’s dreadful “The Constant Gardener.”
This long, boring new-age snorer features three parallel stories involving Hugh Jackman and Weisz. The main story is about a scientist/veterinarian who is trying to find a cure for his dying wife. The other stories are about a warrior trying to find the fountain of youth for the Spanish queen. The third is a bizarro new-age hairless man who lives in a bubble with a magic true growing in it while they travel through space.
Sound bizarre? It is. Skip it, or you’ll regret the $10/2-hour “investment.”

* “Bobby“–Yes, unfortunately, this two-hour version of “The Love Boat”/”Hotel” with lots of fighting couples, mean and sleazy White people, and classy, oppressed minorities, is released nationwide today, after limited release, last week. Fighting, drug and alcohol abusing, oppressive White hotel guests and employees mixed with RFK campaign worker characters and some footage of RFK makes for one long, dull, boring movie. YA-A-A-AWN. If you’re an aging leftist hippie from the ’60s who did too many drugs, you’ll love this. No-one else will. Read my full review, from last week.

By Debbie Schlussel
Glorified “Plainclothes” Police?
Uh-oh. Things are so bad at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)–the agency charged with enforcing federal immigration and customs laws–that Newsweek has now demoted its agents. Sort of.
Under the “leadership” of Julie L. Myers a/k/a “The ICE Princess,” Newsweek’s Mark Hosenball calls the mostly hard-working dedicated ICE Agents:

“Homeland Security’s plainclothes investigation bureau.”

Not even a mention of Immigration or Customs. Not a good thing.

On Thanksgiving, A Diversity of Turkeys
(Julie Myers Bag Lady by David Lunde/Lundesigns)
That tells us one thing. Under The ICE Princess, ICE has become something of a joke to the press, including Hosenball, that cover it. But the silver lining is that–as we wrote here first–Hosenball reports that The ICE Princess may be on the chopping block along with John Bolton (can’t we keep him and lose her?):

Other Bush aides given recess appointments could face similar fates [as Bolton]. . . . Other recess appointees who need Senate approval to keep their jobs beyond the end of next year include Julie Myers, head of Homeland Security’s plainclothes investigation bureau . . . . Emily Lawrimore, a White House spokeswoman, said: “President Bush is encouraging members of the Senate to confirm these highly qualified individuals as soon as possible.”

Highly qualified? Puh-leeze, get off the crack pipe.
Desperate But Not Serious
We’ve heard from so many disappointed and demoralized ICE agents, including those who’ve gone above and beyond their supervisors and e-mailed The ICE Princess personally. Some are agents who’ve faced discipline for improper behavior and don’t like it. That she responded to all of them and sought meetings with them tells us one thing: She’s desperate to be liked and drowning over there.
ICE supervisors can only be upset that this fake “general” (more like, general’s niece) at the top has broken rank and show no confidence in any of her staff. Not a way to do biz in any organization. Remember Jimmy Carter insisting on doing the White House tennis court scheduling, himself?
It’s an ICE Thanksgiving, Charlie Brown
Since this is Thanksgiving Eve, we couldn’t help but notice that our favorite Thanksgiving special was on Monday Night and that a top ICE official made a cameo. We watched, “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving,” and wouldn’t you know it, ICE Director of Investigations Peppermint Patty a/k/a Marcy Forman-Friedman was a co-star.

It was just like her angry, shouting sessions with top-ranking agents, too. Peppermint Patty invited herself and her friends to Charlie Brown’s house for Thanksgiving Dinner. Then, she proceeded to yell at everyone at the table because she didn’t like the dinner being served by Snoopy. Everyone left as soon as possible. We hear that goes on at the ICE Palace all of the time. Sometimes, life imitates art imitates life.

ICE Investigations Chief Peppermint Patty a/k/a Marcy Forman-Friedman
“Meltdown” Redux & Re-Evaluation
And finally, one ICE agent sent us a detailed response to the “Meltdown” ICE expose we wrote about recently (and recommended). He makes a lot of good points, so we recommend everyone read these valid criticisms:

I just wanted to rebut a few statements from the Meltdown article.
* “No human-trafficking cases, no major drug syndicates exposed, no counterterrorism arrests.”
Not true. I know for a fact that ICE responds to human smuggling cases all of the time. ICE will receive calls from family members of victims who are being held hostage in Phoenix. ICE agents then proceed to locate the house where they are being imprisoned until a smuggling fee is paid. Once the house is located, ICE agents will make entry, arrest usually multiple armed subjects, and free scores of victims (or pollos as they are referred to).
* “Mistrust of ICE isn’t limited to state entities like DPS. A government audit last year found that the Border Patrol was passing more and more tips to the FBI, DEA or even local police instead of ICE.”
Also not true. Border Patrol has a Memorandum of Understanding with DEA that requires them to notify DEA of a drug seizure, not ICE. This policy stems from the Department of Justice days and predates the creation of DHS.
This could change in the future. Most DEA agents I know would love to give this responsibility over to ICE because they have enough going on to keep them busy.
* “Four months after that, the INS pounded nails in its own coffin by approving visas for 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta and another hijacker.”
Not true. INS never issued visas. This responsibility belongs to the
Department of State. The State Department issued the visas, so of
course INS is going to let them into the country without a problem.
Just goes to show how much the reporter knows. The two agencies who had little or nothing to do with 9/11 (INS & Customs) took the biggest hit. Why? Because the State Department and FBI have the most political clout.
* “But the main reason they can’t is that only the feds have the power to properly identify foreigners. State and local police can’t access the computer databases that hold the names and personal data of tens of millions of foreigners who have had some contact with immigration officials.”
Not true. Local and State law enforcement officers can call the Law
Enforcement Support Center’s 24 hour hotline to obtain information as
to the immigration status of a suspect. If that suspect is determined to be illegal, the LESC can refer the caller to the appropriate local ICE OI [Office of Investigations], DRO [Detention & Removal Operations], or Border Patrol office, depending on the circumstances, for further assistance.
* “After a neighbor calls in a suspected drop house, for example, police call ICE. If it deigns to answer the call, it then counts all the people arrested at the house as its arrests. If a case is generated against a suspected smuggler at the scene, that also counts as ICE’s prosecution.”
Would it be better if the neighbor called ICE first? It isn’t ICE’s
fault that the call came in to the local police department first and they in turn pass it on to the appropriate authority, in this case ICE. Most people call the police first because either they aren’t informed as to what ICE is and what they do or they feel that people are being held against their will, which could possibly fall under the locals’ jurisdiction.
All illegal aliens arrested on scene are considered an administrative arrest. This is uniquely different than a criminal arrest. If some of the parties on scene are determined to be involved in alien smuggling, they will be arrested criminally and charged in federal court. Upon the suspects’ release, they would then face their administrative immigration charges in immigration court. There is a difference and it is not “double-dipping.”

Finally, we’re hearing rumors from a few ICE agents that Congress will be considering splitting ICE up again, in the next Congress. If that happens and the split is a Customs/Immigration split, that would be a good thing.
Something to wish for over the Holidays.
I wish all of the many faithful ICE agent readers (& all other readers) of this site a VERY HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

By Debbie Schlussel
A quick couple of updates on my column, this morning, about the Saudis and how we groveled to them over their convicted rapist/slaveholder here:
The AP article on the Girl of Qatif–gang-raped by seven men and then sentenced to 90 lashes for it (more lashes for being raped than that to which one of her alleged rapists was sentenced)–is par for the course in Saudi Arabia and much of the Islamic world. It’s nothing new, but an example of why they can’t understand why we would actually support the victim and sentence the rapist.
That’s why I always say we can’t call this a “clash of civilizations.” That would fallaciously assume that they are a civilization.
Also, reader Robert writes:

Debbie,
Allow me to disagree, slightly.
Every opportunity to expose the West to the insanity of Muslim ‘thinking’ should be welcomed and exploited.
Several of the points you made today reinforce that.
How many Americans realized, until the trial, that the crimes he and his wife were convicted of constitute traditional behavior in (Arab) Muslim majority countries?
One of his own children, who lived the ‘good life’ in the Aurora home while the Indonesian girl was enslaved there, wailed at the trial, “What did he do wrong?”
You may note, too, that not one iota of concern, in any article I’ve read about this, has ever been expressed by ANY Saudi for the maid.
One of the most absurd features of this entire episode is the popular belief in Saudi Arabia that, though the maid is also a Muslim, that the trial must have been based upon some anit-Muslim bias. Incredible!
In this case, I’m hoping the lessons learned, and passed on, by the AG will outweigh the cost of the trip.
Robert

Unfortunately, Robert, the AG learned no lessons. He called this pandering world-tour “the adventure of a lifetime.”

By Debbie Schlussel
While Americans celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow, Saudi Arabians already had theirs over the weekend.
Tomorrow, we eat turkey. Over the weekend, the Saudis had us begging to eat crow over a man named Turki.
In an utter display of American weakness and shame, Colorado Attorney General John Suthers traveled to Saudi Arabia to apologize. Apologize for the American justice system and virtually everything else that America stands for.
Suthers went to Saudi Arabia to apologize for the conviction of Homaidan Al-Turki. Just before Labor Day, Al-Turki was sentenced to 27 years to life in a Colorado prison for keeping a slave and raping her, among other crimes.

Extremist Makeover: Homaidan Al-Turki & Wife Sarah, Before & After
Al-Turki, from a prominent Saudi religious family, was in Denver seeking his Ph.D. at Colorado University. He and the extremist Muslim bookstore he maintained were subjects of a federal terrorism probe. This summer, he was convicted of sexually assaulting his Indonesian housekeeper, whom he and his wife–also convicted–kept as a slave. The Al-Turkis’ abuse of this fellow Muslim went on for five years. They brought the 24-year-old woman to their home in Aurora, Colorado to serve as their cook, maid, nanny, and apparently “marital aid” (or in this case, also, “marital aide”).
Mr. Al-Turki was convicted of felony counts of unlawful sexual contact by use of force, theft, and extortion, and misdemeanor counts of false imprisonment and conspiracy to commit false imprisonment. He and his wife confiscated the woman’s passport and kept her prisoner.
When it was time for Al-Turki–like any other American resident convicted of any crime–to ask for the mercy of the court, he chose a different tack: chutzpah. Al-Turki’s statement to Judge Mark Hannen at sentencing was simply stunning:

Your honor, I am not here to apologize, for I cannot apologize for things I did not do and for crimes I did not commit. The state has criminalized these basic Muslim behaviors. Attacking traditional Muslim behaviors was the focal point of the prosecution.

No, upholding American laws against slavery, false imprisonment, and rape was the focal point of the prosecution. But that’s something that our State Department–and apparently Colorado’s chief law enforcement officer–now don’t understand.
In an unprecedented move, the State Department flew Attorney General Suthers to Saudi Arabia to personally explain–and apologize for–Al-Turki’s conviction to Saudi King Abdullah. Yes, U.S. taxpayers paid for this outrageous trip, though now Suthers is claiming Abdullah decided to reimburse the tab.
Suthers flew 19 hours to answer to leaders of another sovereign nation for enforcing the laws of Colorado. And apparently, he contracted a rapidly infectious case of Stockholm Syndrome during his stay, calling his pander-tour “the adventure of a lifetime.”
Monday, he lectured the media that King Abdullah et al simply can’t understand “that an Indonesian maid was considered a competent witness in our courts.”
He also instructed that Abdullah and company were upset that they couldn’t just buy their way out of it and pay off the maid. “They didn’t understand how that wasn’t possible here,” Suthers said.
Suthers said that, under Saudi law, four eyewitnesses are needed to prove a rape case. Memo to Suthers: You are the Attorney General of Colorado, not Saudi Arabia. The four witnesses is taken from Islamic law, since Saudi Arabia is a theocracy. We are not. And that should be the end of the story.
Our “friends,” the Saudis can’t get over Al-Turki’s conviction. Saudi state-run media, under King Abdullah’s complete control, continues to portray the Saudi slavemaster in America as the victim of a judicial system biased against Muslims.
This is the same judicial system that failed to convict Islamic Jihad frontman Sami Al-Arian, despite six-months worth of overwhelming evidence. The same judicial system that failed to convict Saudi national, Sami Omar Al-Hussayen, of terrorism, despite his creation and oversight of terrorist-related websites calling for planes to fly into buildings . . . well before 9/11.
The same judicial system that agonized for over a year on the fate of Zacarias Moussaoui, and spared his life despite his prior knowledge of the impending murder of 3,000 Americans. The same judicial system that overturned–on the flimsiest of reasons–solid convictions of Al-Qaeda terrorists who comprised the Detroit terror cell. The same judicial system that has now indicted the valiant and innocent prosecutor of that terror cell. The same judicial system that overturned the NSA wiretaps of suspected Al-Qaeda terrorists.

2 Turkeys: Colorado Attorney General John Suthers & Fellow Cooked Bird
If anything that system has bent over backwards in favor of Muslims, to no avail in the Muslim world.
But that’s not the point. Our judicial system is not perfect. It is, however, the fairest in the world. And we chose it. We need not apologize for it to anyone, much less the bloated self-anointed king of a totalitarian state. We need not apologize for it to the man from whose country 15 of 19 hijackers emanated.
We have many foreign nationals convicted in America, every single day. But American taxpayers don’t send officials to foreign lands to “explain” why each was found guilty.
The Saudis understand our legal system very well. They did not just discover America. The Saudi government pays for the best legal eagles for its nationals in America, whenever they are accused of crimes. The Saudis funded an absurd website comparing Al-Turki to the Statue of Liberty (strangely, the site’s English version was removed). This sudden summons of a top American law enforcement official to “explain” is absurd and degrading. More absurd is that U.S. officials complied and went along with the act.
Can you imagine the U.S. sending a state Attorney General to explain to Hitler why we allow Blacks and Jews to serve as witnesses in our courts and why enslaving and raping them for five years is a crime?
In those days, America did not apologize for being just. These days, America just apologizes.
Colorado Attorney General Suthers is the latest emblem of those endless apologies to those who hate us. He can write his political epitaph with it.
Tomorrow, it’s doubtful Suthers will be eating turkey like the rest of us. He’s still digesting all the Saudi crow he consumed.

By Debbie Schlussel
And now for the latest edition of “Reading Women’s Mags So You Don’t Have To–See What Your Wives/Daughters/Girlfriends Are Reading”:
Marie Claire has done it again. The magazine which equates our female soldiers with female Islamic terrorists; the magazine which claims that Islamofascist TV broadcasts are liberalizing the Arab world (Ha!); the magazine which hates Christianity and loves women’s lib–that magazine suddenly has selectively, yet again, discarded its feminist ethos to show us what it hopes will be a new fashion trend.
It’s lovely how women who think they’re so liberated they’ll cheer anything anti-American, are embracing their future enslavers. Don’t let the cover of December’s Marie Claire fool you. Inside are not photos of Ashley Judd’s breasts, like on the cover. Instead, lurking inside is a 13-page spread of Islamofascist fashion . . . and an article cheering a lawyer for Gitmo terrorists. Yes, this mag is full of chic . . . or full of something that sounds similar:

Check out the New Islamofascist face masks. All the rage in Dubai. SEXY. Will Come in Handy for Muslim Women’s Pro Hockey Team.
Sexy to you? This Outfit Available in Mourning-Your-Homicide-Bomber-Son Black, Mourning-Your-Honor-Killed-Daughter Black, or Just-Plain-Jihad Black.
Check it Out–They Eat At McDonald’s (Halal), So They’re Just Like Us. And, Oh, Yeah, “Death to America. Death to Israel. Allah Hu Akbar.” (I Love Eating A Burger Through a Scarf, Too. Don’t You?)
Wow, They Ski & Wear Chanel, So They Must Be Civilized. “We Support Bin Laden.”
Muslim Women Get to Drive . . . At Least, in This BS Magazine (But Not in Many Muslim Countries)
She Dresses Like Jackie O When She Visits the Mosque. Well, Then, It Must Be a Religion of Peace.
No Way! The Olsen Twins Converted to Islam?
Check Out Our Accessories. An IPod, Silver Space-Age Boots, and Sunglasses Seductively in Her Mouth–Well, That Settles It. With Acccessories Like These, They’d Never Support Jihad. Would They?
FYI, the “model” in the middle of the above photo is Samar Breitem, who is “half-Palestinian” and lives in Dubai. She tells Marie Claire that she loves Levi’s. That’s the problem. They love Levis, but hate Levi Strauss. They love Baskin Robbins, but hate Baskin and Robbins. All of them, after all, were “evil Zionists” a/k/a Jews.
By the way, the photos were shot in Dubai, home of the new anti-Jew apartheid. No Israeli passports or passport stamps allowed (unless you’re a Muslim, then it’s okay). Not a peep from the libs that run Marie Claire.
And, last but not least, here’s “Gitmo’s Girl,” Kristine Huskey, who’s depicted in Marie Claire drinking cocktails and having a ball of fun in glam outfits, all while representing Gitmo’s Islamic terrorists. Formerly parading around M-TV videos in purple lingerie, now she’s shilling for terrorists . . . and quite clueless about it, saying:

I sometimes have this nightmare that my clients will get released and go join al Qaeda.

Uh, here’s a clue: They already joined. That’s why they’re at Gitmo, honey. But odds are, they’ll rejoin once you get ’em sprung from there, as many released Gitmo detainees have.
What does she care? She’s too busy sipping a martini (and posing for a silly women’s mag). Cheers to You, Terrorists . . .

By Debbie Schlussel
At least one of this site’s fair-haired readers took offense to my posts against the new blond James Bond actor, Daniel Craig, and those he inspired to bleach/frost their hair. Wrote he:

You like dark haired guys, we get it, enough already. Even though you say you aren’t meaning to offend real blonde guys, the way you go about it seems to say that you are equating blonde hair with femininity.
You could just as easily make the false assumption that women with blonde hair (dyed or natural) are dumb bimbos. If blonde isn’t your taste (on men that is, considering you dye your hair blonde), which is obvious, that’s fine. Just stop equating men with blonde hair as being less masculine. It’s really stereotypical and a false assumption.

Blond Former Tennis Pro Jim Courier

Just ask yourself, “What would Brian Bosworth think?” Take care and Happy Holidays.

(With all the steroids he took, I’m not sure Brian “The Boz” Bosworth has any hair, blond or otherwise, left.)
Actually, I think there are plenty of very masculine and attractive men with blond hair, like Howie Long (formerly of the NFL’s Raiders and now with FOX NFL Sunday), who until a few years ago, was a blond, and former tennis pro Jim Courier. And, even though he’s an extreme lefty, Robert Redford was very hot in his day. Very masculine as “Butch Cassidy” (or was he “the Sundance Kid”?).
Please note that my comments about masculinity and fair hair were limited to the new James Bond, Daniel Craig, and the men who’ve been inspired to bleach and/or frost their hair in response.
No, I do not equate blond hair with femininity or exclusively find dark haired men attractive. I assure you, dear readers, I am not a “hair-ist” or “hair pigmentist,” the only terms I can come up with for discrimination based on hair-color. And I apologize to those blond readers of this site who got offended. There are plenty of very masculine men with blond hair. If Daniel Craig were more believable and less girlie as Bond, his hair color would have nothing to do with it. In my view, James Bond, is meant to have dark hair.
And real men are not meant to frost their hair (sorry, but any guy who frosts or bleaches his hair I gotta question). Or to be so sensitive when I write about an actor’s hair color.
So, my apologies to you male, fair-haired readers who got there by birth. Do not take offense to my critique of the new James Bond. It does not apply to you.
****UPDATE: To the reader who questions my mention of Jim Courier, you are right. I changed my mind on him after I happened on this pic. Bleccch! for a lot of reasons. (And he’s not blond, either.) Not hot.

By Debbie Schlussel
Today’s Wall Street Journal has a special section, “The 50 Women to Watch 2006.” They’re all business leaders in various large companies. And two of them are questionable choices:
* Christina Gold: She’s the Chief Executive of Western Union, who is turning a blind eye to all of the money illegal aliens are sending out of this country through her company. And she turns a blind eye when fake ID is used and her employees take bribes to send the money anyway. And she turns a blind eye, when millions are sent out of this country to illegal alien smuggling conglomerates back in Mexico and elsewhere.
But now that Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard has frozen a lot of that money, Ms. Gold’s vision is suddenly 20-15. She’s now funding an illegal alien lawsuit against Goddard, seeking to unfreeze their money. But she can’t be honest about it. She funneled the money through a pro-illegal alien interest group, calling it a donation. Uh-huh.

Western Union CEO & Illegal Alien Enabler Christina Gold
If this is how women get ahead in the biz world, who needs them there? This is hardly the type of woman anyone should be celebrating. She’s enabling the criminal violation of our immigration enforcement and money transfer laws. And ICE Princess, Julie L. Myers, is helping her, by opposing Goddard’s efforts. Sad very sad.
* Jane Friedman: She’s President & Chief Executive of HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide, of which Judith Regan’s ReganBooks is an imprint. That means she was among the vetters of the now-cancelled O.J. “If I Did It” book. If only she’d said no, much earlier.
Women to celebrate . . . or women to ignore?

By Debbie Schlussel
This ran, a week ago or so, on Mad TV. Although it goes a little far, it shows us the perils of quotas and oversensitivity regardless of ethnic heritage, but especially for members of the “favored” groups. It goes on a bit long and a bit overboard (like with the sandwich and cereal), but the pay-off is at the end. From YouTube:

By Debbie Schlussel
Why do we have so many illegal aliens in our midst? And why does it seem that the agency charged with enforcing immigration laws is such a mess?
Since Friday, plenty of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have been sending me the link to “Meltdown: The Phoenix Branch of ICE is Exhibit A of this Country’s Failed Border Policies,” by Ray Stern in the Phoenix New Times. It is recommended reading for all of my readers.
The article repeats a lot of what I’ve written here about the disaster that is ICE and how non-sensical it was to combine the former INS Office of Investigations with the former U.S. Customs Office of Investigations and put an unqualified runaway-bride lookalike at the top to “run” things. (We love the photo of her that they use, posted below.)

The ICE Princess Cometh . . . & Hopefully Goeth . . . Very, Very Soon
But it is a well-written, extensive piece that well summarizes most of what is wrong with ICE. It’s interesting that ICE Agents who came from both the former-INS and former-USCS sent me this piece. The article attacks agents from both former agencies, a little bit unfairly. I can understand the frustration of agents on both sides. The merger of their agencies should have never happened, and the current structure is aimless with a clueless, connected girl at the top, Julie L. Myers a/k/a “The ICE Princess.”
Every day, I get e-mails from good, experienced agents from both former agencies telling me they’re throwing the towel in. They’re frustrated and demoralized. They simply can’t take it anymore–either deciding to retire early or transfer to another agency. It’s sad to hear that because it means America will only be less safe than it already is, with these good people gone.
In the Detroit office of the Special Agent in Charge of ICE (Brian Moskowitz a/k/a “Abu Moskowitz”), I’m told that more and more of the legacy senior INS agents are retiring or moving over to the Detention and Removal Operations division to escape the ICE structure and the low moral of Abu Moskowitz. One agent’s story, Mark Pilat’s, was even profiled in Newsweek, this summer. He went down at least a paygrade and at least $10,000 per year in salary to get away from the intransigent Moskowitz lair. Federal agents from several agencies in Detroit have relayed his legendary story, which is no longer unique
There are only three to five legacy INS Agents left in Abu Moskowitz’s Detroit office, with the rest from the old Customs. It’s hard to enforce immigration laws, when your most experienced investigators concerning those laws are all gone. Institutional memory is important.
There are only three to five legacy INS Agents left in the SAC Detroit and it is virtually becoming a Customs Office again.
I have a few disagreements with the piece. Stern writes that it’s the mission of the agency to tackle terrorism. Wrong. Though the ICE Princess and other top officials constantly tell new agents that they’ll stop terrorism, they won’t. As I’ve written here several times, in 2002, Tom Ridge and John Ashcroft signed a Memorandum of Understanding, giving all terrorism cases away to the FBI and making it the lead agency on all terrorism cases.
That might explain why the FBI was the lead agency in an Iranian smuggling case the article mentions. It might have been terrorist-related. And the FBI can take any case away from ICE, anytime, if it deems it to be a terrorism-related case. Thank Ridge and Ashcroft for that, instead of blaming ICE agents trying to do their job.
The article claims that ICE agents don’t play well with the FBI on counterterrorism task forces and in counterterrorism cases. That might have something to do with the fact that the FBI has a history of ineptness on these cases, and, yet, remains the lead agency on terrorism matters. In contrast, prior to the agreement signed by Ridge and Ashcroft and the creation of ICE, U.S. Customs had Operation Greenquest and did a phenomenal job of stopping terrorist money laundering and weapons smuggling, something of which the FBI was always jealous. All of that is over and gone now.
And ICE wiretaps of terrorist money-laundering were not approved because of FBI hubris. A top respected ICE Special Agent in Charge, Joe Webber, retired over it. And terrorists connected with Al-Qaeda and Islamic Jihad continued to operate and conduct business in Texas because of FBI turf wars against ICE. This isn’t a matter of snobbery against the FBI, as Stern implies, but of one agency that used to stop terrorist money-laundering cold now being overruled every step of the way by a giant, bloated bureaucracy (the FBI) that allowed 9/11 to happen and continued to do nothing here.
Given that, it’s hard to understand the quotes from Neville Cramer, a former high-ranking INS agent, who thinks the FBI should take over the job of immigration. I know Neville and have read his entertaining book, “Fixing the INSanity,” which is still apropos, even though there is no more INS. But giving the FBI the responsibility for immigration enforcement, when that agency can’t even do the terrorism job it’s usurped, is a huge mistake. If you think 20 million illegal aliens in our midst is bad, FBI incompetence and bureacratic tortoise-speed moves would rapidly raise that number to 40 million.
Overall, though, I recommend this article, as it is a good summary on the problems facing ICE. I don’t agree with the conclusion because I think Alonzo Pena will do a markedly better job in working with Arizona authorities than his predecessor Roberto Medina did. The problem lies at the top, The ICE Princess. When the “boss” at the top is replaced with someone else who actually knows immigration law, maybe things will improve.
The best solution, though, would be for ICE to disband and return the old INS to the way it was. Ditto for the old U.S. Customs Service. Creating the agency in the first place was a mistake that must be undone, if we’re ever to have any hope of addressing the illegal alien rising tide and the money-laundering by terrorists.
Morale and enforcement of immigration law will remain at an all-time low at ICE until that happens.

By Debbie Schlussel
While pretentious British comedian (and friend of Madonna) Sacha Baron Cohen is making millions off the “Borat” “film,” those innocent, good-hearted Americans he tricked into being in his movie aren’t faring so well.
The success of “Borat” has spurred a bidding war on his future movies, and he’s raking up. But then there are people like Jim Sell, Dharma Arthur, and Joe Behar–all taken advantage of and paid a pittance to be the butt of Cohen’s “jokes.” The November 27th issue of People details what happened to the innocents you see in the highly over-rated movie:

* Jim Sell–A car salesman at Criswell Automotive in Gaithersburg, Maryland, he used to sell 35-40 cars a month. But after Borat wasted hours of his time, Sell isn’t selling because he’s become the butt of a national joke. He says he’s only sold 3 cars in the last month.

* Dharma Arthur–The producer, er . . . EX-producer, at WAPT-TV, in Jackson, Mississippi, lost her job after booking Borat for an interview on her newscast, believing he was a legitimate foreign journalist. She wrote to Newsweek:

Because of him, by boss lost faith in [me]. A man who [causes] so much harm . . . is lauded as a comedic genius.

* Joe Behar–With his wife, he owns the Four Seasons Kosher Bed & Breakfast in Newton, Massachusetts, at which Borat stays before running out in disgust at “the Jewish cockroaches.” Now, people think the B&B has cockroaches and don’t want to stay there. The cockroaches (“Jewish spies”) were superimposed onto the film through special effects.
* The people of Glod, Romania–They’re not happy either. They had to play Kazakhs in the humiliating beginning of this silly movie, but were only paid a few dollars each. They, too, feel taken advantage of by multi-millionaire scammer Sacha Baron Cohen.
* Civil War antique shop owners–“Borat” deliberately smashes $400 worth of their wares, and doesn’t pay them back for about half of it. These are clearly not rich people. There’s hardly a run on Civil War antiques.

Now that he is rolling in dough off the backs of these good people, what will Sacha Baron Cohen do to restore the lives of those he ruined? What will he do to get Ms. Arthur her job back? Or Jim Sell and Joe Behar their lost business and reputations back?
Absolutely nothing. He’s rich, and the joke’s on them and you. “How Borat Screws America” would have been a far more apropos title for this movie.