Profiles in Right-Wing Lunacy: Alphonso Jackson

Last week, Alphonso Jackson, then Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) spent his last day in office. Forced to resign amid numerous scandals of impropriety, the public is now beginning to see the dirty underbelly of Jackson's tenure at HUD, a tenure marred by politicization, corruption and disturbing egomania.




Jackson, a longtime buddy of George W. Bush, was appointed HUD Secretary in 2004. In a break from the Bush crony tradition, Jackson had actually worked in the public housing arena prior to coming to HUD. Jackson, however, soon established himself as a true Bush loyalist, and attempted to run his department with a political bent. As early as 2006, Jackson was accused of awarding housing contracts on the basis of political affiliation and loyalty to the President. (On a side note, the idea of an African-American Republican has always struck me as odd. The fact that a black American would join the party of Richard Nixon, David Duke, Tom Tancredo and Bill O'Reilly truly baffles the mind. But that's a discussion for another time.) He once rescinded a contract offer because the contractor didn't like President Bush. In Jackson's own words, "Why should I reward someone who doesn't like the president?"


Jackson also was the focus of an FBI investigation into allegations he improperly awarded contracts to his friends and business associates, including awarding a lucrative housing contract to a golfing buddy. Of course, this was all taking place as the United States quickly found itself in the midst of a debilitating mortgage crisis that is fueling a nationwide recession. Amid all the controversy surrounding Jackson, he announced his resignation on March 31, 2008, not surprisingly to focus on "personal and family matters."


Now that he has resigned, we are beginning to learn more about Alphonso Jackson, the man, and it isn't pretty. Most notably, Jackson has shown himself to be an alarming egomaniac, which is all the more amusing in light of his disgraced departure from public service. On April 13, the Washington Post reported that he had submitted an "emergency bid" of $100,000 in taxpayer money to have a portrait of himself commissioned. In addition, the walls of the HUD headquarters' lobby, until very recently, were entirely covered with 20 large color photographs of Secretary Jackson.

To put this is perspective, we had a girl at my office a couple of years ago that had a single 8x10 framed photograph of herself adorning her cubicle. We all thought she was a narcissistic nutcase, and that was just one photo.

If that weren't enough, on April 16, Jackson threw himself a lavish going away party (at tax-payer expense), attended by over 1,000 HUD employees. The disgraced secretary is described as "honorable" on the cover of the event program, modestly graced this time with just four photographs of Jackson.

So, in Alphonso Jackson, we have a Republican who believes that government is a way to help his friends get rich. He believes the government should reward political loyalty and punish political criticism. He headed a government agency that did virtually nothing to regulate the predatory lending practices that have spelled disaster for homeowners and investment banks alike. And he believes that HUD should allocate precious time and resources to paying homage to Alphonso Jackson. Jackson is the poster boy (no pun intended) for why America can't afford another incompetent, crony-laden administration, and why the more seats Democrats win in November, the more abuses like those of Alphonso Jackson will come to light.

Profiles in Right-Wing Lunacy: John Yoo

It seems as though with each passing week, Americans are learning more and more about the disturbed conservative mind of John Yoo. Currently the quintessential fish-out-of-water (he teaches law at UC Berkeley), Yoo worked in the Department of Justice under George W. Bush when the legal underpinnings of unitary executive rule were being established. As it turns out, Yoo - then a fairly low-level DOJ staffer - authored several influential memos supporting the legality of torture, unitary executive power and the suspension of habeas corpus. Because of the far-reaching scope and questionable legality of these memos, Yoo is currently facing charges of war crimes while the National Lawyers Guild is calling for Yoo to be fired and disbarred.

Some of Yoo's greatest hits:

Torture

In 2002, Yoo helped author the now infamous "Torture Memo," which was essentially a liberal interpretation of the interrogation techniques allowed by international law. The memo defined the illegal practice of torture as "equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." It also stated that the infliction of such pain must be intentional. Such narrow definition of torture opened many loopholes with which the U.S. could conduct a host of "enhanced interrogation techniques." So when the President says the United States "does not torture people," he is technically right, because his administration has exempted itself from international treaties and the Justice Department has worked to redefine torture to legalize what interrogators were already doing.

Habeas Corpus

Keeping with the unprecedented idea that combating terrorism was primarily a military operation, Yoo has argued that the 4th Amendment need not apply to counter-terrorism efforts. This memo concluded that, "the Fourth Amendment [has] no application to domestic military operations," essentially stating that even U.S. citizens under the protection of the constitution are not immune to illegal search and seizures, as long as the country is engaged in any kind of "War on Terror." Of course this is a frightening conclusion. Simply put, the president can determine what is considered terror, who can be considered an enemy combatant, and when and how the military should be used. This leads to a remarkably brash definition of presidential powers, which will be described next.

Unitary Executive Power

Yoo is a proponent of consolidated executive power during wartime. Yoo stated in a 2001 memo:

In both the War Powers Resolution and the Joint Resolution, Congress has recognized the President's authority to use force in circumstances such as those created by the September 11 incidents. Neither statute, however, can place any limits on the President's determinations as to any terrorist threat, the amount of military force to be used in response, or the method, timing, and nature of the response. These decisions, under our Constitution, are for the President alone to make.

Yoo also stated in a 2005 debate that no treaty could prevent the President from authorizing enhanced interrogation techniques, including crushing the testicles of a detainee's child. According to Yoo, the authority to torture "depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that." So, in essence, the President is above the law. Yoo believes there is no law that can limit Presidential powers during wartime, and that the legality or illegality of an interrogation technique is determined solely by what the President thinks.

We can now start to see the neoconservative mindset come into focus. If presidential powers increase when the nation is at war, it's no wonder that the United States has been at war for all but one year of the Bush presidency. And the "Global War on Terror" isn't so much a single operation, but an infinite campaign to somehow eradicate something that can never fully be eradicated. It would be akin to the President declaring that as long as there is crime to fight in the U.S., the president alone can determine how to define crime, how to deal with criminals and which parts of the constitution he needs to adhere to. Like crime, there always has been, and always will be throughout history, acts that could be defined as terrorism.

It would be interesting to hear how Yoo, who has also been a visiting scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, feels about unitary executive power when a Democrat is in the White House. Luckily for us, Yoo has in fact contradicted himself numerous times to fit his political agenda du jour, as Salon's Glenn Greenwald documented last July. Yoo has flip-flopped on presidential use of the military, use of executive privilege and FISA laws. If a Democrat wins the presidency in 2008, expect Yoo to moderate his views on executive power to fit his own political agenda.

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If John Yoo's sick totalitarian view of constitutional government weren't enough to cement his place among the insane, he recently delved into the world of election politics, the results of which are equally troubling.

In a March 24, 2008 Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal, Yoo blasted the Democratic Party's use of superdelegates in the nomination process:

That the 2008 Democratic nominee for president will be chosen by individuals no one voted for in the primaries flew for too long under the commentariat's radar. This from the party that litigated to "make every vote count" in the 2000 Florida recount, reviled the institution of the Electoral College for letting the loser of the national popular election win the presidency, and has called the Bush administration illegitimate ever since.

ThinkProgress highlighted Yoo's hypocrisy, as one who would criticize a party's "undemocratic" nomination process while at the same time espousing totalitarian views of the executive office.

More troubling than Yoo's hypocrisy, however, is his startlingly vapid argument. As simple as it may seem to most, Yoo fails to grasp the fact that primary elections do not elect a president. In fact they are not really "elections" at all, but a nomination process, a process that is much more democratic than most other democracies around the world and more certainly democratic than at earlier times in our nation's history. Primary elections were not seen in the United States until the 20th century, and before that relied completely on congressmen and political bosses to nominate a presidential candidate.

Yoo makes the fundamental error of conflating a primary election (a method by which a political party has determined it will nominate it's candidate) with a national election. Yoo claims that the "delegate dissonance wasn't anything the Framers of the U.S. Constitution dreamed up. They believed that letting Congress choose the president was a dreadful idea." The problem with Yoo's analysis is the notion that the founding fathers had some concept of political primaries. They barely had knowledge of political parties, and certainly didn't lay down any foundation as to how parties nominate their candidates.

In addition, one could easily argue that the Democrat's is a more democratic nominating process than that of the Republican Party. The RNC employs a "winner-take-all" system similar to the electoral college in the general election. By allocating delegates based on a percentage of popular votes won, the Democratic nominating process is more representative of the general public than the Republican system. For example, let's say a state has 10 delegates at stake in the primary. In the Democratic Party primary, if Candidate A wins 60% and Candidate B wins 40%, then Candidate A wins six delegates to Candidate B's four. In a Republican primary, Candidate A wins all ten delegates. The Republican system is one that says, essentially, "Get on board with the leading candidate, or your vote won't count." Doesn't sound very "Democratic" to me.

Yoo is correct that the superdelegate system does have the ability to stymie the hopes of a more populist candidate. In close primary elections, as we have this year, the idea is that the superdelagates are there to help cast a deciding vote for the more "mainstream" candidate. This year, we would have to assume that candidate is Hillary Clinton, and the populist is Barack Obama. If the superdelegates are here to overrule the will of the common Democrat in favor of someone whom they feel is more of a Washington "insider" (Clinton), then, I would not care for that kind of system.

It's not that Yoo is incorrect in noting that certain flaws exist in the superdelagate system. It is the fact that he somehow believes primary elections should be governed by the the same standards as general elections that completely invalidates Yoo's position. Yoo's column, while not unusual by WSJ's standards, is special in its purely partisan scope and utterly untenable premise. From what we have seen from Yoo thus far, it is safe to assume that the Op-Ed was less an educated critique of the Democratic nominating process than a petty partisan jab at what is perceived as a divided party.

Score One For McCain!

"Like, McCain totally has foreign policy skills"

As Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama continue to battle for the Democratic nomination, John McCain is busy locking up key endorsements. This week, McCain secured the much-sought-after endorsement of quasi-celebrity Heidi Montag. Montag, a "star" of MTV's scripted reality series The Hills, was quoted in Us Weekly magazine, espousing her preference for the aging politician. "I'm a Republican and McCain has a lot of experience," she stated.

You may be asking yourself, "Who the %@*$ is Heidi Montag?" True, scripted reality television may be a harbinger of the Apocalypse. Sure, a spoiled, Paris Hilton wannabe may not possess any real political clout. But let's not diminish the importance of this endorsement.

First, the Montag endorsement has shown a real breadth of support for McCain's candidacy. Now, he's got the senior vote and the youth vote. He's got the support of those that decry the political influence of the "Hollywood Elite," and, well, a Hollywood elitist. And while some viewers will naively dismiss scripted reality shows like The Hills and it's predecessor Laguna Beach as contrived, disingenuous garbage, centered around spoiled rich assholes you couldn't care less about, that couldn't be further from the truth. Montag is really a crossover sensation, and The Hills can potentially appeal to both reality TV and dramatic TV viewers. That's a very large demographic group, and with Montag is his corner, McCain has it all but locked up.

But in all seriousness, are we really that surprised that this flavor of the week, soon-to-be coke fiend is a Republican? Now if a young Hollywood star like Ellen Page were a Republican, that would be absolutely shocking. But Heidi Montag, not so much. She's rich, she's from Orange County, and she dates this douchebag:

Enough Said.

Now I'll admit that I don't really see Montag's announcement as a valuable "endorsement," but I'm going to have some fun with this anyway. Montag, 21, strikes me as someone who is a Republican because her parents are Republicans. A telltale sign that one is not particularly politically aware is when they are under 30 and vote for a Republican. When I was 18, I voted for Bob Dole, for Christ's sake. Why? Because my parents were Republicans and I didn't know any better. The fact that her basis for the endorsement was because "I'm a Republican," indicates the shallow depth of analysis Heidi Montag has to offer this election cycle.

While McCain will certainly take any vote he can get from anyone under the age of 60, I'm not so sure the Montag endorsement is all that great for McCain. First, it is an endorsement from someone who doesn't have the slightest credentials with which to make an endorsement. Something tells me Montag's not super excited about staying in Iraq for the next 100 years or privatizing social security. Secondly, if there's one thing typical Americans can do without, it is rich, spoiled, overexposed, talentless trust fund socialites. If I was an undecided voter and Heidi Montag (or Nicole Richie, Kim Kardashian or whomever), preferred one candidate, I'd vote for the other guy. Finally, it's not like this is an endorsement that will resonate with any key voting bloc. Ironically, most people interested in who Heidi Montag would vote for are too busy paying attention to people like Heidi Montag to even vote in the first place.

The Times They Are A-Changin'

This week, cable news channels severed ties with two right-wing hosts when Tucker Carlson and John Gibson were let go by MSNBC and Fox News, respectively.

Tucker Carlson is an annoying media figure for several reasons. First, he's the kind of newsperson that claims to be non-partisan, while at the same time referring to himself as "the most right-wing person I know." Secondly, that stupid bowtie. After years of being known essentially as "that douchebag with the bowtie," Carlson felt the need to announce on his show in 2006 that he was moving to the more conventional necktie. Now, his choice of neck apparel is no longer a high priority. Carlson will be replaced by David Gregory, MSNBC announced this week.




John Gibson has a long history of bigotry. Among his most notable outlandish remarks are his statement that non-Christians were "following the wrong religion," and that Hillary Clinton had made "a deal with Al Qaeda." He defended his network's incessant coverage of the Anna Nicole Smith story, accusing journalists who covered real news like the Iraq War of "news-guy snobbery." Recently, Gibson got into hot water for mocking the death of actor Heather Ledger. On March 12, 2008, Fox News Channel announced it was replacing Gibson's "The Big Story" in favor of "election-year programming." That could very well be the case, as for the first time in years, CNN's election coverage has garnered more viewers than Fox, continuing a general ratings slide indicative of Fox's alignment with the floundering Republican Party.


I found the following to be an interesting observation on how things are going in this country politically. After September 11th, Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect on ABC, and That's My Bush, a satire of formulaic sitcoms starring the current President airing on Comedy Central, were both taken off the air. While Bush got the axe due mainly to financial concerns, it would have been difficult to imagine a show lampooning the White House to be successful in late 2001. On the other hand, Maher's program was cancelled almost entirely due to comments Maher made about U.S. foreign policy in the aftermath of 9/11.

Today, roughly six years later, Bill Maher is back on the air in a similar format on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher. The show is currently in it's sixth season and has been nominated for seven primetime Emmys.

Similarly, Comedy Central is airing a new Bush-centered comedy, Lil' Bush. The show has received mixed reviews, but is now airing it's second season of episodes. While the show is lighthearted in nature, the light in which the title character and his "pals" are painted is quite scathing.

So making fun of Bush in America has been a real roller-coaster ride:

2001 (pre-9/11): Acceptable

2001 (post-9/11): Not Acceptable

2002 through 2007: Criticism of Bush appropriate, but not exactly comical

2007 to the present: Acceptable. He's a horrible president and we've just accepted it.

Who's That Nice-looking Young Man?

I was surfing the web the other day, and I ran across this advertisement on You Tube, of all places. It's an ad featuring a clip of John McCain from what appears to be at least 25 years ago.

Immediately, I thought, "Wow.... John McCain is advertising on You Tube and he's using a much younger image of himself. What kind of an idiots does he think we are?" Then I realized that there are probably a lot of Americans who have never heard of John McCain, have never seen a picture of him, or do not know that he will be 72 years old by the time the election rolls around. In fact, according to a recent Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll, eight percent of registered voters had never heard of John McCain, in spite of the fact that he has spent the previous 6 months winning the Republican presidential nomination.

I certainly wouldn't put it past the McCain people to appeal to young potential voters (like those on You Tube) by placing ads featuring a more "alive-looking" version of Senator McCain. It's all about PR, and while placing ads of a 40-something McCain is not necessarily a dirty trick, it's pretty clear what their intentions are. With "change" being the political message du jour, the image of a stale old white man is probably not going to resonate with young voters. For those of you in the eight percent, here is what McCain actually looks like now:

Don't get me wrong. I'm certainly not suggesting that one's appearance should trump substance. I just think it's more than a little sneaky to show a picture of younger McCain on a website frequented by young potential voters. And while I don't agree with McCain on many issues and would not vote for him, I also think age is an issue. Young people have every right to vote for a younger candidate, just as older voters typically vote in higher numbers for the older candidate. Also, let us not forget that not too long ago the United States had a president in Ronald Reagan that many have suggested had symptoms of Alzheimer's Disease while in office. Again, I think age and appearance are certainly much less important than policy issues. That said, if Republicans are going to promote McCain's youthful appearance and attack the Democratic candidate for his/her lack of experience (and they will), Democrats have every right to use McCain's age against him.

GOP in '08: A One Trick Pony

"Terrorism...Terrorism...Terrorism...Terrorism..."

For months I have been predicting that the GOP will run a "campaign of fear" in 2008. From Rudy Giuliani's September 11 mantra, to the "Nuclear Iran debacle", the Republican candidates have made it clear that global terror will be a central issue in the the November election.

This idea was reinforced this week with the release of a new poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. The poll surveyed Americans on which political party, Republicans or Democrats, they believed would do a better job on a variety of issues. Of the twelve key issues, Republicans were seen as more favorable to Democrats on just one issue: Dealing with the terrorist threat at home. Despite a massive PR campaign by Republicans to paint Democrats as soft on terror, or even in bed with the terrorists, Republicans enjoyed a mere 45% to 38% advantage over Democrats on this issue. In comparison, Democrats held at least a ten percentage point lead on Republicans on nine of the twelve issues, including 25% or greater advantage on five issues.

On the environment, Americans favored Democrats to Republicans by a margin of 65 percent to 21 percent. As commanding an advantage as that appears to be, it does beg the question: Who are these 21% who think Republicans are stronger on the environment? That is the one issue in which Republicans have been proud of their failures. VP Dick Cheney has a habit of basing entire energy policy legislation on the recommendations of corporate energy lobbyists (here, here and here). But I digress...

In the Pew survey, even issues that the GOP and much of the media have touted as Republican strongholds have gone to the Dems. For example, in spite of liberals and their "War on Christmas," "Homosexual Mafia,", and "Partial-Birth Abortion" and conservatives trumpeting their "Culture of Life," and "American Values", Democrats even hold a ten point edge when it comes to "Improving morality in this country." While Conservatives like to appeal to the public with claims of lower taxes and derisive labels such as "Tax and Spend Democrats" and "Taxachusetts," Americans still view Democrats as stronger on the issue of taxes.

It appears the Republicans are beginning to understand that going to bat with one issue is going to be an uphill climb. If John McCain lives to be the Republican nominee, he will have to do three things:

1) Convince America that terrorism is the Number One issue in the 2008 election. It can't be seen as a secondary issue because Democrats win on any other issue. With the economic bubble beginning to burst, this is looking like a more and more difficult task with each passing day.

2) Overcome the public's gradual disillusionment with fear-based politics. Hillary Clinton was sharply criticized for her fear-mongering ad aimed at Barack Obama. You can bet that any fear-based pitch McCain dishes out will put the Clinton ad to shame. Personally, I think Americans are fed up with hearing about how they are going to die if they don't choose a particular candidate. And I hope they are tired of terrorism being used for political gain.

3) Distort and re-word the issues where Republicans are weakest. McCain has already started to do this. In an attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of undecided and less-informed voters, he has, on his official campaign website, disguised many key issues, hoping the public won't recognize them as strong Democratic issues. "Morals and Values" have become "Human Dignity." All immigration policy (which is an unbelievably complex issue) is lumped under the tough-guy heading "Border Security." His antiquated gun-control stance is nicely gift-wrapped in a package called "Protecting Second Amendment Rights."

I'll give it to McCain on one Issue: The Environment. Not that he's stronger on the environment than Democrats, because he's not even close. It's his attempt to make the environment a Republican issue that is, well, mildly hysterical. In his opinion, we should protect our national parks, not out of a desire to preserve nature or the future of our planet, but because it "is a patriotic responsibility." Later, he somehow manages to get "U.S. national security" into a discussion about his environmental policy, proving he will beat that drum even when it's not appropriate to beat it. And if it weren't enough to employ fear-mongering, McCain closes his statement on the environment with some good old fashioned religious pandering. Calling on Americans to be "caretakers of creation," McCain attempts to infuse just a touch of religious fundamentalism where, again, it could not be more further removed from the topic at hand.

So I have briefly outlined what the GOP's campaign strategy will be in 2008. Republicans are not stupid. They study polling data and they know which issues are winners, which are losers, and which issues just need a little change of context to be seen as favorable. Good luck with that.

Debbie Schlussel: TV Critic, Moron

Right-wing blogger and hate-monger Debbie Schlussel has been a frequent source of inspiration here at Down With Righty. To sum up her career, Ms. Schlussel is a far right bigot with perhaps the most unfortunate Midwest accent in recent memory. (Check her out) She HATES Muslims, so much so that her blog is more religion than politics. Nearly every post is about some alleged Muslim "terrorist" or some "liberal" organizations' attempts to give Muslims special rights. In Debbie's warped mind, every Muslim with any money is funding al-Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah. This is a person for whom referring to Barack Obama by the popular "Barack Hussein Obama" has become too tiresome. She has since adopted the truncated "B Hussein O," being sure to preserve in full the name most useful for Republican hate-mongering.

To this point, Ms. Schlussel has only been detected on my radar for her extreme political views. This week, however, she tried her luck as a TV critic, but the results were the same. In the midst of the a presidential campaign, a collapsing economy, and heated debates over waterboarding and wiretapping, Ms. Schlussel took time to gloat over the potential cancellation of a TV show. The show, "Aliens in America" centers around a white, American family and their live-in Pakistani exchange student. Despite generally favorable reviews from the likes of Entertainment Weekly and Salon.com, the sitcom, like most television programs, faces an uncertain future.

After a Detroit News article warned of the show's possible demise, Schlussel was quick to affirm her suspicions: Americans will not tolerate a show with a positive Muslim character.

She went on to claim that the show was "anti-American" propaganda where "Americans are a lesser life form and Muslims are G-d's gift to humanity."

So much is wrong here that I hardly know where to begin....

First, her assessment of the show is hardly accurate. The show is in no way anti-American. Since 9/11, Americans have generally viewed Muslims with greater hostility. Despite a heightened awareness of the religion, Americans are still largely ignorant about Islam. Highlighting these facts in a television show does not constitute anti-American propaganda. In an almost comical twist, Schlussel, the anti-Muslim activist, attacks the show for - of all things - portraying Americans as anti-Muslim. These Hollywood types have some nerve!

Secondly, what was it that Mark Twain said about the rumors of his demise? Despite Schlussel's claims that the show is "a big flop," "tanking," "faltering,"and "on life support," things are not nearly that bad. In fact, the show has simply not yet been renewed for next season. Before the WGA strike, the show was gaining in the ratings and receiving positive reviews. The show's future is simply up in the air, as is the case with most television shows. This is an especially uncertain year for TV because the writer's strike shut down production on most shows and killed any momentum any new shows may have gained.

Aliens' Raja (Adhir Kalyan) and Justin (Dan Byrd)

Perhaps the most disgusting element of Schlussel's post is the sick joy she oozes while bashing a sitcom for it's positive Muslim element. It's one thing to revel in the misery of others, but doing so because of xenophobic racist hate is extremely disturbing. And in case Ms. Schlussel isn't aware, many, many TV programs face the threat of cancellation every season despite the fact that very few feature a Muslim protagonist. In fact, just last season, the following shows were all cancelled:

3 lbs
7th Heaven
All of Us
Andy Barker, P.I.
Angela's Eyes
Big Day
Close to Home
Creature Comforts
Crossing Jordan
Day Break
Deadwood
Drive
Falcon Beach
Grease: You're The One That I Want!
Happy Hour
Help Me Help You
Identity
In Case of Emergency
Justice
Kidnapped
Lovespring International
Raines
Reba
Rome
Runaway
Show Me the Money
Six Degrees
Smith
Standoff
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
Thank God You're Here
The Black Donnellys
The Class
The George Lopez Show
The Great American Dream Vote
The King of Queens
The Knights of Prosperity
The Nine
The O.C.
The Real Wedding Crashers
The Rich List
The War at Home
The Wedding Bells
The Winner
Traveler
Twenty Good Years
Vanished
Veronica Mars
What About Brian

So what's the point? Simply put, a lot of shows get cancelled every year. "Aliens in America" is not only NOT cancelled, but is currently airing new episodes. Even if it were to be cancelled, it would be very unlikely to be due to Islamophobia, as Ms. Schlussel has suggested.

So let's see.... Debbie Schlussel is a conservative who enjoys attacking Muslims and Hollywood. She makes false, ill-informed statements and takes comfort in the misery of others. Sounds like your garden variety Righty. How very uninspired and unoriginal, Debbie. Perhaps it's time someone did us all a favor and cancelled you.