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Thankfully, we haven’t heard a lot from rapper Eminem in a good while. But now he’s back in the news, and it’s a great little taste of karma (for him, not us). He got in a fight with a child in his charge over her slutty clothes, apparently.
After recently wrapping a video shoot with 50 Cent in Michigan’s old Ionia State Prison, the sheriffs were called to Em’s estranged wife Kim’s home in Macomb Township, a Detroit suburb.

Eminem Hypocrisy: Hangs with, Promotes Women Like This;
Then Complains About Niece’s Clothing
It seems that Marshall Mathers (Eminem’s real name) got into a fight with his niece, of whom he is legal guardian, and he tapped her on the head. In the police report,

the niece said Mathers threatened to kill her and that after “poking me in the head” he appeared to raise his hand as if to strike her.

The story was mostly about how Em won’t be charged. But buried deep in the Detroit Free Press story is the reason Eminem got into a fight with her.
Eminem said he and his 13-year-old niece

were arguing over the girl’s “school clothing.”

Hmmm . . . he raps to your sons and daughters about gang-raping his ten-year-old sister and murdering and chopping up his wife. Some of his videos and those of the rappers in “D-12” that he bankrolls rap endlessly about sluts and hos in slutty clothes, whose likenesses are also featured on their videos. And don’t forget that Eminem and the slutty woman he has sex with in the middle of an auto factory in his movie, “8 Mile.”
Yet, now he’s in a fight with his teen niece, whom he’s raising, about her “school clothing.”
Ain’t karma grand?

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**** UPDATE: Please Click Here to Donate to these Brave, Patriotic Native Alaskan Americans, so they can have heat this winter from us, NOT Chavez (Thanks to reader Miira.) ****
They’re desperately poor. And desperately cold. And they’re Aleuts a/k/a Eskimos.
Yet, the Native Alaskans of Nelson Lagoon, St. Paul, and St. George, Alaska rejected free oil they desperately need for heat because the oil was offered by Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez’s Citgo.
More from AP:

Scores of Alaska’s Eskimo and Indian villages say they have no choice but to accept Chavez’s offer, but others would rather suffer.

No Snow Job: Some Aleutian Eskimos Just Said NO to Hugo Chavez

“As a citizen of this country, you can have your own opinion of our president and our country. But I don’t want a foreigner coming in here and bashing us,” said Justine Gunderson, administrator for the tribal council in the Aleut village of Nelson Lagoon. “Even though we’re in economically dire straits, it was the right choice to make.”
Nelson Lagoon residents pay more than $5 a gallon for oil – or at least $300 a month per household – to heat their homes along the wind-swept coast of the Bering Sea. About one-quarter of the 70 villagers are unemployed.
The donations to Alaska’s native villages have focused attention on the rampant poverty and high fuel prices in a state that is otherwise awash in oil – and oil profits. In 2005, 86 percent of Alaska’s general fund, or $2.8 billion, came from oil from the North Slope.
The Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, a native nonprofit organization that would have handled the heating–oil donation on behalf of 291 households in Nelson Lagoon, Atka, St. Paul and St. George, rejected the offer because of insults Chavez has hurled at Bush.
Dimitri Philemonof, president and chief executive of the association, said accepting the aid would be “compromising ourselves.”
“I think we have some duty to our country, and I think it’s loyalty,” he said.

While many Native Alaskan villages did accept the free Citgo oil, these three villages have guts and moral fortitude. They know the oil was offered to them as a PR tool against America. But it takes tremendous principle to reject it, since they are poor and in dire need of heat.

A spokesman for Gov. Frank Murkowski, John Manly, said the governor thinks Chavez’s donations are a ploy to undermine Americans’ faith in their government.

Exactly.
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Meanwhile, today’s Wall Street Journal reports that Chavez’s Venezuela has a huge, growing deficit because his spending on social programs is fast outpacing gains from oil sales. And he continues to give “soft loans” to favored industries and cronies. Some populist.
**** UPDATE: Reader Kevin of Alaska writes to say that AP is wrong and that the Alaskan Aleuts are NOT “Eskimos”:

Debbie, long time fan and faithful reader -uncritically a fan.
Slight info correction in recent post. Aleuts are very different than Eskimos. So Aleuts a/k/a Eskimos isn’t a solid statement. The three main groups of Indigenous Peoples here are:
The Aleuts from the Pacific Western South & Aleutian Islands- a coastal people spread around somewhat by Russia’s tenure as landlord;
Athabascan much taller folks from the interior and southern Canadian coastal areas;
and the Eskimos usually from the North west coast and Arctic regions.
Apaches and Cherokees and Mohawks all from different areas and they’d all have cultural and family allegiance to their individual historic roots. So do the various Alaskan groups.
Thanks for your constant vigilance, honesty and unbending stand for real values.
As always, my regards as a loyal reader and fan,
Kevin
Kenai, Alaska

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**** UPDATE: I forgot to start this out with the most important part: This is the story of doing the job some Americans just won’t do. The Arizona Attorney General is doing the job against Western Union that one American, , head of ICE (Immigration & Customs Enforcement), just won’t do–investigating the pay scheme that gets illegal aliens smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico. Stopping the money flow will aid in stopping the illegal alien flow. END UPDATE ****
How do illegal alien smugglers get paid? They get money wired to them in Mexico from others here in the U.S. . . . VIA WESTERN UNION.
That’s right Western Union is the legal Hawala (Islamic money transfer system) for illegal aliens, only in this case it’s not necessarily Muslim.

Today’s Wall Street Journal (subscription only) has a very interesting article about something we’ve been hearing about. Western Union makes millions in the illegal alien trade, and it’s not just from aliens wiring money back to relatives back in Mexico. A lot of it is from relatives or employers of illegal aliens here wiring the money to Mexico to the heads of smuggling cartels, once they determine that their smugglee is here.
According to the Wall St. Journal, the brave person doing the crackdown is a State official and predictably, Western Union is upset over this loss of a huge source of its revenue. A few excerpts:

In late September, Arizona General Terry Goddard moved to block electronic payments to traffickers obtaining warrants to seize all Western Union money transfers of at least $500 going to the Mexican state of Sonora, directly south of the Arizona border, and originating in 29 U.S. state–including California, New York, Florida, Illinois and Georgia. . . .
In court filings, Western Union called Arizona’s use of the warrants a “threat of incalculable damages.” The crackdown is harming innocent people, whose money is being held indefinitely, Western Union says. “May of the people are just frightened,” Chief Executive Christina Gold said in an interview. “Some of them don’t speak Engllish and are not sure what’s going on.”

Uh, Christina and Western Union, ya think the fact they don’t speak our language is a hint they ain’t legal?
The Journal also reports that Western Union clerks were caught taking bribes in exchange for accepting fake IDs from a recipient and

[an Arizona] audit found that in certain outlets more than half of the recipients of money transfers used fake Social Security cards to pick up funds.

So what Does Western Union say? Basically, screw you, America:

Western Union says there isn’t much it can do about money tranferred legally over its network but that may be part of an illegal enterprise. “We are not . . . law enforcement agents,” Western Union said in a statement.

And Western Union whines Arizona laws restricting money transfers are “exceedingly strict.” as they should be.
Western Union moved $42 billion around the globe, last year, and takes a good cut of what it moves. But apparently, that’s not enough. Western Union was just spun off from its parent company, and it’s desperate to get its share price up. More of what I’ve been writing about with regard to capitalism without limits. Western Union is bummed out that since the Arizona AG has been enforcing the law,

money transfers year-to-date between the U.S. and Mexico grew only 3% compared with a year earlier.

Arizona officials estimate that 95% of illegal aliens crossing the border contract with smuggling cartels in Mexico, charging $1,600 per alien they bring over the border. When their friends or employers wire payment to Mexico, they are released to their custody.

Over a two-month period in early 2005, $28 million was wired from the U.S. to Sonora . . . . The Arizona Attorney General says $19 million–or 67% of the total–was wired to just eight Western Union agents [out of 201 licensed in the area] in five Mexican cities . . .–all “launching pads on or near the Arizona border where groups of immigrants gather to cross illegally.
In the Sonoran city of Altar, a bustling town 50 miles south of Sasabe, a border village that is a popular crossing point, one Western Union customer received $68,000 in 34 payments over a two-month period, or $2,000 every two days. “The apparent brazen activity of pick-up operators in northern Sonora is no doubt due to the complete lack of law-enforcement investigation of wires sent to those locations,” states an affidavit sworn by Daniel Kelly, a financial cimres investigator with the Arizona Department of Public Safety.
Spurred by those findings, Mr. Goddard, that state Attorney General, early this year began ordering Western Union to fingerprint recipients, demand multiple forms of identification and take other precautions. Frustrated that transfers to coyotes appeared to be shifting outside Arizona, Mr. Goddard moved to begin seizing transfers from other states in September. Western Union responded by seeking court relief.
“It’s gone from ‘amicable’ and ‘in discussions’ to bringing this to court,” says Mr. Goddard, who adds he still hopes to negotiate a settlement with Western Union.

We hope Western Union doesn’t just get to pay a few mill, Wal-Mart style, and get away with it. Arizona allowed Western Union to pay $3 million to end a state probe regarding agents who accepted fake or illegible ID cards.
**** UPDATE: Reader T.S. writes:

Dear Deb,
If you divide the $28 million sent to Mexico for the $1,600 per head fee for smuggling you get 17,500 more illegal aliens committing crimes, lowering wages and voting in liberals in a 2 month period. Those are impressive numbers.
Keep up the good work.

Yes, negatively impressive, unfortunately.

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Well, you have to give Reuters kudos where kudos is due. On the other hand, every broken clock is right, twice a day.
The New York Times reports that Joe Maguire, who wrote a is now jobless. (We wrote , Friday.)
He was a news editor at Reuters, which finally got a clue that it might be just a tad inappropriate to have an author of such a book as an “impartial” editor.

“Brainless” Author Joe Maguire Now Jobless
Reuters, which originally granted Maguire permission to write the anti-Coulter book, saw the light:

A company statement pointed to Reuters’ principles of “integrity, independence and freedom from bias.’ The statement reads: ‘Our editorial policy and The Reuters Trust Principles are prominently displayed for all to see on www.about.reuters.com. Mr. Maguire’s book will soon be available. Both speak for themselves.”

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We often hear the empty whines of the left that GOP office-holders are “chicken-hawks”–that they want everyone else to fight and die in their wars, while they allegedly don’t serve.
Well, no-one can say that about Missouri State Rep. Jason Brown, who represents Platte County, Missouri. On a one-year tour of duty in Iraq, Brown, a staff sergeant in the Army Reserve, was shot in the lung by a sniper during a patrol near Baghdad, Thursday. Like many reservists serving in Iraq, he is a small business owner with a family.
Bad news for liberals and Democrats: Brown is in very good condition and is running for re-election.

Missouri Republican State Rep. Jason Brown Wounded Serving in Iraq
We hope he wins. He sounds like a true patriot who puts his money–and life–where his mouth is.
More on him here, here, and here.

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There’s a lot of hype about Elizabeth Edwards, wife of John Kerry running mate and liberal Democrat Presidential hopeful John Edwards, and her book, “Saving Graces,” about going through breast cancer treatment. The book is a best-seller.
And, one can’t help but note, it’s the perfect never-ending campaign commercial for her husband. I’m sure John Edwards’ appearance on Oprah, recently, had nothing to do with his rumored re-run for President in 2008. Nah. He would never use breast cancer to run for office. And his wife would never help him milk the issue with gullible women who watch Oprah all over America. Right?
I’m quoted in Sunday’s (yesterday’s) Buffalo News in a story about the book:

A calculated move?

Heartfelt Breast Cancer Book or Useful Edwards 4 Prez Campaign Tool?

So why go public with their story now? Edwards said the time was right, and she was finally ready.
But some political observers see the book as a more calculated move.
“She’s playing the game,” said Dr. Gil Troy, an expert on political couples whose books include “Hillary Rodham Clinton: Polarizing First Lady.” “These are the new rules of the game for the political spouse. You can’t be a 1950s housewife anymore. She comes off as someone who’s struggled, who’s suffered.
“She’s a critical part of the Edwards comeback strategy.”
And Debbie Schlussel, an up-and-coming conservative pundit and blogger in the Ann Coulter mold, went even further, calling the book itself “very political.”
“It’s a campaign strategy [by John Edwards],” said Schlussel, an attorney who lives in Detroit. “I think it will boost his standing with women and mothers who have dealt with breast cancer or seen it – everybody knows somebody who has been stricken with breast cancer. It’s also a way to cover up that [John Edwards] – as a trial attorney – has been part of the problem with rising health care costs in this country.
“It’s a very effective campaign strategy,” said Schlussel. “And nobody can attack somebody with breast cancer.”

Breast cancer is a devastating, frequently fatal disease–which also strikes men. But, the fact is that John Edwards’ multi-millions in lawsuit verdicts contributed greatly to the cost of health care for the rest of us in America. The average woman doesn’t have the gazillions Mrs. Edwards does to get every treatment (several NOT covered by HMOs) available that the rest of us can’t afford. Her husbands’ lawsuits didn’t make those treatments more possible for the rest of us. Nope, those lawsuits made effective treatment more expensive and less available.
Don’t be fooled by this smokescreen book and John Edwards’ pronouncements on Oprah about his and his wife’s fight against breast cancer. When it comes to your fight, he made America’s women more vulnerable.
And so do the thousands of other medical malpractice plaintiffs’ lawyers like him around America who voted for him and gave generously to his and Kerry’s campaigns.
Preying on America’s breast cancer victims and those with family histories of the disease is simply shameless.

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With all the questioning of Republicans about “who knew what when?” this past week, we thought we’d ask a “who knew what when?” about the inappropriately surnamed Madeleine Albright. The woman acted as if all was solved, when it was not.
What did she know about North Korea and Kim Jong Il’s missiles and when? Well, these excerpts from this PBS Jim Lehrer interview with the dimwitted then-Secretary of State on October 30, 2000, might give us a clue of “who knew what when” and how clueless she acted despite knowing then:

JIM LEHRER: Did you accomplish what you set out to accomplish in North Korea?

Uh-oh: Chico’s Spokesmodel Thought She Was Secretary of State

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: I did, because I wanted to obviously meet with Kim Jong Il, a leader with whom no American official had met. President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea had met with him. But I had a chance to meet with him and talk with him, as it ended up, for almost 12 hours — six official hours and then various dinners and performances. And the point was to try to see how we could significantly reduce the threat from the missiles that the North Koreans have been producing. And I think that we have been, in a step-by-step way, been able to open some doors. The work that I did is now going to be followed up by meetings with technical experts, and we’re going to take it step by step.
JIM LEHRER: What did he say about the missiles?
MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: Well, he’s basically prepared to look at some kind of an exchange in terms of this idea that he actually originally had raised with [Russian] President Putin about if we would launch some peaceful satellites for him instead. But he basically, I think, is prepared to take some important steps. We have to test it. We have to make sure that these aren’t just words. But I think it’s very important, Jim, to put this into context. You know, we were at war with North Korea 50 years ago. Since then we have considered it among the most dangerous places in the world. We have 37,000 troops on the Korean Peninsula. It’s a remnant of the Cold War, and if we have an opportunity to break this last barrier, I think it will be a very important step forward, and we need to keep pursuing on a very careful way.
JIM LEHRER: What’s the state of intelligence on the missiles and what North Korea has, what threat they pose to Asia and even to the United States?
MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: I think we have pretty good intelligence on it that obviously I can’t discuss, but….
JIM LEHRER: A serious problem?
MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: Well, I think we have thought we had a problem with their potential of the nuclear programs and through the agreed framework that we worked out in ’94, we were going to freeze their fissile material programs. And now we have had a missile test moratorium with them for the last months. And we want to now make sure that we can significantly reduce the threat in a more permanent way.
JIM LEHRER: And you came away after these 12 hours with Kim believing that he wants… he will do that?
MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: Well, this is what we have to test. I mean, I think that the information on him was kind of scattered, and it wasn’t until Kim Dae Jung went and said that he had some very important discussions with him and found him to be somebody that he could talk to, that was rational, pragmatic. I found the same thing. Basically, you know, we’ve had such weird stories about him, but it turns out that we had very good discussions.
JIM LEHRER: Where did those stories come from, that he was an irrational man who you could never have the kind of conversation you just did?
MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: Well, I think this is a hard thing to assess, Jim. I think that it’s conceivable that there were periods that this was what he was like. But it has been six years since his father has died. He is in charge of what is called kind of a hermit kingdom. And we had… he listened very carefully. He didn’t lecture me. I went through all my talking points with him. And he gave rational answers. And he seems pragmatic. Now, I think that he clearly has some very serious economic issues, and I think it’s worth us probing and testing.

Guess, what, Madeleine? It’s official: Your little test is over. But Kim Jong Il’s tests only just begun.
Thanks to Ruth K. for the tip.

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Well, I’m sure relieved to note that the Bush Administration has their script straight. This morning, White House Spokesman Tony Snow and President Bush both called North Korea’s testing, last night, of Taepodong-2 Missiles, “a provocative act.”
But, as we’ve noted, Condoleeza Rice back in June when they tested missiles then. And where did it get her? Nowhere. As we noted then, calling it a “provocative act,” is a bit of an understatement.
What one sees in a porno flick is “a provocative act.” Testing missiles that can easily reach our shores is an ACT OF WAR.

Provocative Act; Act of War (Taepodong-2 Missile)
Time to treat it accordingly, instead of using euphemisms best reserved for XXX movies, not missiles with deadly consequences.
This is not “Fatal Attraction.” It’s just fatal.
Staying on message doesn’t help if the message is a weak and empty one. Referring it to the useless U.N. is a cop-out–as it has been on Iraq, Iran, Sudan, etc., etc., ad nauseam.

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If we had any guts and had any intention of sending North Korea’s Kim Jong Il a message, instead of , we would have shot its Taepodong-2 missiles down, back in June when we could see them and had the chance to do so.
I’ve said it before. I’m saying it again. From my :

Then, there is North Korea. Competing with Ahmadinejad in the over-Viagra-ed department, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il is test-launching long-range Taepodong-2 missiles capable of reaching the U.S.

An Allegory for Real Life: “” Kim Jong Il Test Missiles and Feeds Empty Western Tough Talkers to His Pet Shark

So what do we do in response? Secretary Rice warns that the testing of such missiles would be a “provocative act.” Wrong. A Paris Hilton video is a “provocative act.” This is frightening–an act of war, infinitely more serious. Calling it a “provocative act” is not exactly boot-quake inspiring verbiage. It won’t do a thing. It certainly won’t stop North Korea from pursuing its missile practice.
We must shoot their missiles down to show them we mean business. There is no other way.
Ronald Reagan had it right. Peace through strength. Not through pillow talk. The world respected his tough behavior. The world laughs at our current wimpishness.

Israel had the right idea when, in 1981, it took out Iraq’s Osirak Nuclear Reactor. We should have taken a page from their playbook and shot the missiles down.
We didn’t. And we look weak. Because we are.
No guts. No glory. And no survival.

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Someone please remind me again why the Transportation Security Administration expanded after 9/11 and took over airport screening functions, etc.
Every day is a new non-excellent adventure with the TSA. , baggage screeners who support Al-Qaeda ( and ). Just what is right with this agency? Hard to tell.
Richard Skinner, Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security, issued a scathing 42-page report, yesterday, saying that more than 5 years after the 9/11 attacks, the TSA cannot secure the nation’s airports, transit systems, and other vital operations.

Skinner reported that the TSA has inadequate plans to keep itself runing in a terror attack, disaster, or emergency, and that the TSA’s ability to perform “essential functions” during and attack or other emergency is “at risk” and “could be impaired or fail.”
And this is the agency that is supposed to oversea airport and flight security. Don’t bet on it. Why is this still the case more than 5 years after the terrorist attacks using planes?
Read the DHS Inspector General’s report on the TSA’s unpreparedness (portions have been redacted from public view–though probably the whole thing should have been).