By Debbie Schlussel
It’s well known that the Democrats are in the forefront of the push to restore relations with Castro Communist Cuba. And unfortunately, now that they are in the leadership, rumors are that this will be pushed through.
Here’s the latest from today’s Wall Street Journal “Washington Wire“:

ACTIVISTS SEEKING end to Cuban trade embargo say Democratic control of Congress improves chances. Twelve groups seeking new policy write Rangel and Sen. Baucus, incoming chairman of Senate Finance Committee.

Disturbing, as with basically everything else, now that Pelosi/Reid are running the show.

By Debbie Schlussel
Today is the 231st birthday of the United States Marine Corps. We’re very grateful of the service of the USMC in protecting our country (with the exception of the intellectually-challenged Lt. Josh Rushing, who now works for the Terrorist News Network, Al-Jazeera).
In honor of today’s Marine Corps birthday, the National Museum of the Marine Corps opens, today, in Triangle, Virginia (officially open to the public, this Monday, November 13th). It’s located adjacent to the Marine Corps base in Quantico.
From an ad in today’s USA Today:

This living Museum will, for all time, attest to the Corps’ honor courage and commitment in service to our Nation.

Sounds very cool. Happy Birthday, USMC! Here’s to 231-plus more years. Semper Fidelis.

By Debbie Schlussel
Just got back from seeing, “Casino Royale,” the new James Bond movie, the 21st installment. My reaction:
Bring back Sean Connery . . . . Bring back Roger Moore . . . . Bring back George Lazenby . . . . Bring back almost anybody (but not Timothy Dalton or Pierce Brosnan). This new dude, Daniel Craig, just doesn’t cut it. He’s DULL. No charisma, no charm, no suavity and debonaireness.
Too old and haggard looking. And he’s way too thin (scrawny) and small (hair’s too short and ears stick out, too–like Alfred E. Neuman). Very blah. Not sexy. Nice eyes, but nothing behind them. Would Ian Fleming fancy this guy playing Bond? Doubtful.

James Bond is meant to be tall, dark and handsome. Not small, blonde, and nebbishy. Jeans, a biker shorts swimsuit? James Bond wouldn’t be caught dead in Daniel Craig’s “Casino Royale” everyman mallwear.
And the plot . . . oy. James Bond, MI-6 Secret Agent, is fighting the enemy in a boring poker game. Puh-leeze. There’s a reason “The World Series of Poker” is not an action adventure spy movie. It’s a yawner.
I predict Daniel Craig will last about as long as Dalton. As in not very. He’s just not hot. Ironically, both leads, Craig and French Actress Eva Green got had their biggest roles to date in Islamist movies, he in “Munich” (playing Steven Spielberg’s phony version of a Mossad agent uttering outrageous statements Mossad agents would never utter, but in which he, ironically, looked more like James Bond–beefier and with better hair) and she in “Kingdom of Heaven.”
Gotta say I agree with (the new, female?!) “M”‘s line in the movie: “I miss the Cold War.” I do, too. Because without it, James Bond is boring. And out.
Stay tuned for my complete review when the movie comes out.
****
Fave DebbieSchlussel.com James Bond flick: “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,” starring George Lazenby, the one and only time he played Bond. Also liked, “From Russia With Love,” “Goldfinger,” and “Dr. No.”
Fave DebbieSchlussel.com James Bond: George Lazenby, with Sean Connery a close second.
Fave DebbieSchlussel.com James Bond villain: Blofeld (full name: Ernst Stavro Blofeld), as played by Telly Savalas (Blofeld was also played by Donald Pleasence and Max Von Sydow).

George Lazenby as James Bond & Telly Savalas as Blofeld

By Debbie Schlussel
It’s no secret that several years ago–after Islamists protested outside–Detroit Edison, now known as DTE Energy, started hiring Arabs and Muslims in an affirmative action ploy meant to please the pan-Arabist Jesse Jackson of Detroit, Ismael Ahmed.
Now, some of those employees are letting me know that they, too, support Hezbollah, along with Michigan’s pro-Hezbollah Judge-elect David Turfe. Nice to know. Too bad, I can’t get electricity from another company. DTE Energy has a monopoly. Read this e-mail message I just got from DTE Muslim Arab employee Wanda Kabbani. I think Thomas Edison is turning over in his grave:

— Wanda Kabbani kabbaniw@dteenergy.com wrote:
Subject: you
From: Wanda Kabbani kabbaniw@dteenergy.com
To: dschlussel@yahoo.com
Date: Thu, 9 Nov 2006 13:22:29 -0500
Good Morning Debbie:
No matter what you say DAVID TURFE MADE IT. TOO BAD FOR YOU NO MATTER WHAT YOU SAY
HA HA HA

Haha–real funny. For those who like burqas, maybe. DTE Energy . . . Home of Sharia Electricity?

By Debbie Schlussel
Strange but true. In Barbados, giant snails emerge from the ground at night, destroying crops. They eat 500 different plants and crops and transmit meningitis.
Hmmm . . . They’re turban-shaped and from Africa/Mid-East. Just like another problematic party we have invading in North America. They came here sneaking aboard a cargo ship in 2000.
Animals imitate humans.

By Debbie Schlussel
It’s sad that Ed Bradley is no longer with us, because he was fair a lot more than most other liberals in the Mainstream Media. Not Fair Enough. But Fairer.
With most of the Mainstream Media, you can count on them to be unfair 97-100% of the time. With Bradley, the percentage was considerably lower (though not low enough).
Unfortunately, like that of the rest of the “60 Minutes” gang, one could always count on Ed Bradley’s reports on Israel and the Palestinians to be 100% biased and 100% anti-Israel. (Occasionally, though, he did a good piece against a Muslim extremist country or person.) Ditto for his awfully one-sided pieces on border and illegal alien issues.

That said, however, many of Bradley’s reports on other issues were fantastic and remarkably fair by any standard. Bradley’s piece on affirmative action at The University of Michigan and the Supreme Court lawsuit against it was spectacular and breathtaking.
Bradley treated my friends, Jennifer Gratz (then, the lawsuit Plaintiff and now head of the successful campaign to end affirmative action in Michigan) and Michigan Professor Carl Cohen, with fairness and respect–something they weren’t used to from most of the media. And he portrayed them fairly and objectively.
I’ll never forget when he asked then-Michigan Law School Dean Jeffrey Lehman to say why he needed affirmative action diversity at the law school. Lehman’s statement:

Well, we need Black students because they can talk about sentencing for crack cocaine use.

Yes, in Lehman’s view, being Black means having a connection with crack. That Bradley chose to keep that in his report was refreshing, showing us the true racist nature of affirmative action’s liberal supporters.
Most recently, there was his last big report on “60 Minutes,” his incredibly cogent and ire-inducing report on the legal lynching of the Duke lacrosse players who are alleged to have raped a stripper, and the flimsy “case” against them.
Both of these stories involved issues of race. However, but for being able to see Bradley’s skin color on the air, he never allowed his ethnicity to get in the way of doing a fair report. Unless you count his unfairness on the Mid-East.
And that’s better than I can say for most of the Mainstream Media. That’s why I will miss Ed Bradley.

By Debbie Schlussel
We hear there is good news and bad on the immigration front as a result of the Dem takeover of Congress. Rumors are that Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff a/k/a “Mr. Burns” and Immigration Chieftess Julie L. Myers a/k/a “The ICE Princess” are next on the chopping . . . er “resigning” block (though her boy, baseball fan and evil Costanza John Torres, unfortunately, is not).
The bad news: People even less committed–if that’s possible–to national security and immigration enforcement may fill their very small shoes. And Guest Workers Amnesty is now a certainty. All because the man at the top, El Presidente Bush, will sign the bill instead of using the only proxy he has for cojones–the Presidential veto.
Stay tuned. More info later. The only thing blocking Illegal Alien Amnesty was the Republican House. Now that’s gone. Welcome to the complete death of border security.

(ICE Valley Girl by David Lunde)

By Debbie Schlussel
It’s unfortunate that pseudo-conservatives and Republicans alike continue to pimp us on aging liberal pop star, Bono. Talk show host Laura Ingraham repeatedly slobbered over the guy on several occasions, which she brags about on her site–more than once (even though she wrote, “Shut Up & Sing,” she apparently thinks it’s okay if Bono Doesn’t Shut Up & Sing). President Bush and Chief of Staff Josh Bolten did the same.
But not me. I’ve never bought his emperor-wears-no-clothing-but-does-wear-expensive-ugly-tinted-sunglasses-act.
While they saw a guy who wanted us to forgive the debts of poor countries afflicted by AIDS, I saw him for what he is: a guy who wants us to forgive money owed to us by terror-host states like Sudan. While they see a charitable guy (with our tax money, not his money), we see a guy who doesn’t spend a dime of his own on the poor, but spent $1,700 on a first-class airplane ticket for his favorite hat. He wants to spend your American taxes, but just relocated U2’s publishing company from Ireland so he doesn’t have to pay his taxes. Americans comprise the most generous nation in the world, yet that’s not enough for stingy, personal penny-pincher Bono.

“Lovin’ You is Easy Cuz’ You’re Beautiful. La, la, la, la, la . . .”
Just after 9/11, Bono told New Yorkers to have compassion for Muslims because “they go to church, too.” Uh, no, Dude. They go to extremist mosques that preach hate.
But, now, we hope Bono’s latest action will finally free the blind from their blinders and see this left-wing punk for what he really is: yet another Susan Tim Sarandon-Robbins Jolie-Pitt Sheehan.
At a Tuesday Night U2 concert in Brisbane, Australia, Bono brought a kid on stage

during Sunday Bloody Sunday, joining in the “no more” chant after Bono had called for David Hicks to be brought back to Australia “to face fair trial here”.

Another account:

U2, who will be in Sydney at the weekend, opened their Australian tour in Brisbane on Tuesday night with Bono lecturing the crowd. He called for the return of Guantanamo Bay prisoner David Hicks to “face fair trial here”.

David Hicks is Australia’s John Walker Lindh, an Australian convert to Islam and Al-Qaeda terrorist who is being held at Guantanamo Bay. He trained at an Al-Qaeda terrorist training camp in Afghanistan for at least six months. Hicks guarded a Taliban tank at Kandahar airport and traveled to Konduz in northern Afghanistan to join Taliban engaged in combat against US-led forces. He intended to kill coalition combatants in Afghanistan between September and December 2001, and aided al-Qaeda and the Taliban in the context of armed conflict.
This is the kind of guy Bono has taken up as a cause. One wonders, given that, where the money he is raising–through his “Red” campaign at the Gap–will be going. Don’t buy any Gap Red and risk playing Russian roulette with your clothing dollars.
Fortunately, Australian Prime Minister John Howard has the cojones that Bush lacks with Bono–on both Gitmo Terrorist Hicks and debt forgiveness to Islamist African despots. He told Bono to “talk to the hand”:

JOHN Howard isn’t going to be told what to do, even by “high grade” Irish entertainers.
That was the Prime Minister’s warning yesterday to U2 frontman Bono, who had suggested the two should have a meeting to talk about foreign aid.
Mr Howard objected to “preconditions” set by Bono before talks could go ahead.
“I’m happy to see anybody but I notice in something he said there was a precondition attached. I don’t accept preconditions from anybody,” Mr Howard said.
“I thought I heard him say that unless I am prepared to commit in advance to certain things there was no point in seeing me,” he said.
“Well, I don’t commit in advance to businessmen and I certainly don’t do it to, much and all that he is high grade, Irish entertainers.” . . .
[Bono’s] prime project is getting aid for struggling nations and Bono said he would only meet Mr Howard if he was serious about bringing Australia’s contribution from 0.3 per cent of GDP to 0.7 per cent.

If only Howard could come here and run our country. Or give some private tutoring to the one who’s “running” it, now.
Thanks to reader Linda P. for the tip.

By Debbie Schlussel
Remember how, last year, the mere mention of Christmas was out at Wal-Mart, Macy’s, and Target?
Well, this year, Holiday Season Political Correctness is out. Buh-bye.
Wal-Mart and Macy’s, at least, have learned their lesson. They heard you, and they are bringing Christmas back in a big way, Wal-Mart plans to announce today. From USA Today:

Wal-Mart will put “Christmas” back into the holidays this year, the retailer plans to announce Thursday.
A year after religious and other groups boycotted retailers, including Wal-Mart (WMT), for downplaying Christmas, the world’s largest retail chain will have an in-your-face Christmas theme this year.

“We, quite frankly, have learned a lesson from last year,” says Wal-Mart spokeswoman Linda Blakley. “We’re not afraid to use the term ‘Merry Christmas.’ We’ll use it early, and we’ll use it often.”
Wal-Mart told about 7,000 associates of the plans at a conference last month and “was met with rapturous applause. … We know many of our customers will feel the same,” says John Fleming, Wal-Mart’s executive vice president of marketing.

Among the things Wal-Mart will feature:

* A TV ad trumpeting Christmas will air for the first time next week. Wal-Mart also will air TV ads along with the Salvation Army mentioning Christmas.
* The name of the department with Christmas decorating needs will change from The Holiday Shop, which it was for the past several years, to The Christmas Shop.
* Store signs will count down the days until Christmas, and Christmas carols will be piped throughout the season.
* About 60% more merchandise will be labeled “Christmas” rather than “holiday” this year over last.

So, Wal-Mart apparently has the Christmas thing down. Now, if only the store could stop using illegal aliens (details here and here). Then, I’d recommend you shop there.
But not until then.
As for Macy’s, its execs learned their lesson, too:

Macy’s, the largest U.S. department store chain, plans to have “Merry Christmas” signs in all departments. All of Macy’s window displays will have Christmas themes. At New York’s Herald Square, the theme will be “Oh, Christmas Tree.”
“Our intention is to make every customer feel welcomed and appreciated, whether they celebrate Christmas or other holidays,” spokesman Jim Sluzewski says. . . .
The Catholic League, one of the groups fighting what it calls the Christmas Wars, says a member alerted it that Macy’s was pitching a “Happy Hanukkah” gift card but not a “Merry Christmas” one.
After he was contacted by the group, Sluzewski determined a production “glitch” meant the Merry Christmas gift cards were available everywhere but in its Western region, where there were plenty of Happy Hanukkah gift cards.
“We are correcting the problem,” Sluzewski says. “Of all the cards to have a glitch with.”

One odd thing, though:

As at Wal-Mart, Macy’s employees are encouraged to consider wishing customers holiday greetings that are appropriate to their race or religion, including Happy Kwanzaa or Feliz Navidad.

Does this mean they will greet all Blacks and Hispanics with these respective greetings? Sounds a little bit bigoted. How about just a blanket, “Merry Christmas”? As a Jew, I would not be offended by that. This is supposed to be a Christian country, after all.
The only major retailer left is Target, which refused to recognize Christmas at its stores, last year (details here, here, here, and here.) Let’s see if they change their policy. While Wal-Mart is partnering with and promoting the Salvation Army, this season, Target grinches continue to ban the group.
It’s “Merry KwanzRamadaNukkah” at the Bull’s-Eye Chain, where the preferred religion starts with an I, ends with an M, and has an S-L-A in the middle.

By Debbie Schlussel
See, I’m not the only one. In today’s Wall Street Journal op-ed page, Melik Kaylan (a British Turk) says basically the same thing I said a week ago about “Borat.”