Debbie Schlussel

Schlussel was born in Detroit, Michigan to a family of Polish Jewish descent. She received a BA from the University of Michigan and later earned a JD and MBA from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Schlussel graduated from Southfield High School in 1986. In 1990, Schlussel ran for the Republican nomination for the 4th District (Oakland County) of the Michigan House of Representatives. She was defeated by Barbara Dobb by a single vote from around 8500 cast.

Schlussel claimed voter fraud led to her defeat, making allegations of impropriety against the family of her opponent and the judge who ruled on the issue. The judge previously represented her opponent in a criminal matter. In 1998, she lost in the same district (now renamed the 39th) against Marc Shulman.

Schlussel has alleged that American politicians, including the late former Republican Senator Fred Thompson and former Democratic President Barack Obama, have connections with radical Islam, In October 2001 she alleged that President George W. Bush was connected to the Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR). CAIR later sued Schlussel of trademark violation when she used their acronym in a web-domain directing readers to Islamophobic webpages. In 2005, she accused Morgan Spurlock (who produced the documentary series 30 Days and film Super Size Me) of an unbalanced representations of Islam.

In September 2003, a New York Post column by Schlussel reported that Imad Hamad was a former member of the terrorist group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Hamad's FBI award was revoked, however, FBI Director Robert Mueller stated that the change had nothing to do with Schussel.

In July 2007, Robert Mustaq John, a Muslim immigrant and resident of the Bronx, New York, was sentenced to four months in federal prison for sending Schlussel an anti-Semitic death threat featuring a picture of Daniel Pearl being beheaded and telling Schlussel she would be next. John pleaded guilty in the case, United States of America v. Robert Mustaq John, Case No. and Docket No. 06-CR-854.

In 2007, she stated that atheists are intolerant of Christians, and that American Muslims are no more moderate than those in the Middle East; that blog post of hers was read aloud on The Rush Limbaugh Show.

On May 7, 2008, Mohamad Fouad Abdallah, a resident of Dearborn Heights, Michigan, pleaded guilty in United States Federal Court to sending Schlussel anti-Semitic death, rape, and torture threats in the name of Hezbollah. He admitted in his plea agreement to sending Schlussel obscene e-mail messages because she is Jewish. He was sentenced to eight months in federal prison (Abdallah, Case Number 2:08-cr-20223)

The New York Times described her in 2010 as, "a kind of all-purpose film critic, political commentator and Web opinion spinner." Her columns (mainly about politics) have been published in the New York Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, and The Jerusalem Post, amongst others. She was a talk show host at radio station WXYT-FM, then known as WKRK, in Detroit from 2002-03.

In 2011, she was listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as one of 10 people in the United States' "Anti-Muslim Inner Circle".

On May 30, 2012, Schlussel wrote a blog post commenting about a speech by President Barack Obama, in which he mistakenly used the phrase "Polish death camps" referring to the German death camps in occupied Poland. She said Obama owed no apology for his remark, and she criticized