Author: Patrick

Short Bio: I started blogging about politics in 2006, as a populist, skeptical left of center type, with a blog called simply, "The Populist." I suspect, but cannot prove; that my blog might have been hacked by some evil neoconservatives. I cannot prove that at all and also too, around the same time. Hackers from China where attacking wordpress blogs. I believe either the Neocons or the Chinese got my site. I don't know honestly know which. Either way, by 2007, I began to see that I really did not fit within the Democrat Party and liberal circles and after my blog was hacked; I created a blog called "Political Byline" and I kept writing; first as a Centrist and then as a Conservative Populist For my long bio, see the "About Me" section on this blog.

White House shrugs off threat of retaliation from Assad

The absolute arrogance of this White House is astounding:

The White House on Monday shrugged off Syrian President Bashar Assad’s thinly veiled threat of retaliation if the United States goes ahead with military strikes against his country.

Assad told CBS news that there will be “repercussions” for any American attack, ominously warning “you should expect everything.”

Asked about those comments, Deputy U.S. National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told Yahoo News “it’s not in his interest to escalate with the United States, because that only invites greater risk to him.”

But what about the 1988 Lockerbie bombing? Agents of Libyan strongman Moamer Kadhafi were convicted of that attack, which came not quite three years after American warplanes struck Tripoli. And Syria has been a regular on the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism since 1979. Is that a concern?

“We’re prepared for every contingency,” Rhodes replied, before repeating: “It’s not in his interest to escalate. That would only invite greater risk for him.”

via White House dismisses Assad retaliation threat – Yahoo! News.

I seem to remember when President Bush was in the White House, that he too had the same sort of arrogance; as if to say, “we’re going to do what we damned well please and we don’t give a flying flip what anyone thinks about it.” The sick part is, that Obama White House is doing the same very thing. This is not what the Democratic Party voted in, this is not what all those Obama supporters voted for; they voted for change and this President is playing the “Business as usual” game.

I can tell you this; if Obama does go ahead with a strike, and it explodes into an all out war, that it will be the end of the Democratic Party for a very long time. This sort of using the Military as a pawn in a chess game, does not sit well with the American people at all. Especially seeing that we just came out of eight long years of war in Iraq. Especially when you have members of the MIlitary suffering from the after effects of war. It is insane to do what Obama is doing; especially seeing that this rebels have the backing of Al-Qaeda.

I believe that President Obama is making a terrible mistake and that the Al-Qaeda terrorists have laid for him a trap and he is walking right into it. The problem is that he is taking America itself, over half of which do not support this horrific action, right into the trap as well.

 

Sad Story: the price of war

I had an idea about this blog posting and decided to scrap it, as it sounded too angry.

However, this story here, which comes via the LA Times, is about the human cost of war.

Quote:

One night her husband thought he was back in Iraq and tried to kick down the door of their home on Garden Gate Lane. He shouted something in Arabic she didn’t understand. As a cavalry scout in Baghdad, he had crashed through countless doors on nighttime raids. The “hard knock,” he called it.

She clutched their infant son, afraid of her husband for the first time. She wouldn’t let him in. He stared at her through the glass panes. Didn’t he recognize her? He shoved, elbowed, punched. The lock began to buckle. The glass shattered.

It was February 2012. The war, her own small piece of it, had come rolling down the block the month before, in the form of a 22-foot Penske moving truck. Her newlywed husband was at the wheel, having crossed the country from Ft. Riley, Kan.

Candace Desmond-Woods told herself everything would be fine, now that he was out of the Army. Their lives as husband and wife would really begin in this white-fenced rental home in Irvine, a master-planned city where every manicured block was an argument against uncertainty.

The war would crash through her careful plans in a hundred ways, large and small. She watched it empty her refrigerator and shut off her gas. She came to feel like one of its strangest casualties, a widow with a living husband.

The heart rending video is here.

This is why on this blog, I have always advocated against war. Not because I hate the military, not because I hate Jews, not because I am an anti-zionist, not because of anything — but the above story linked. War is not a game, and our Military is not a damned pawn in some sick game of war chess. It is a real thing, with real people who really get hurt; physically and mentally.

The sick part is that we might just be making the same insane mistake again in Syria. This time with a liberal Democrat in office.

My prayers are with this man, his wife and family. Because he does need it and badly. As do our elected officials in Washington DC, who seem to think that the United States Military is their own personal Military.

 

I think he means neocons

Seen over Lew Rockwell’s site:

I speak of course of American “evangelical” Christians who the Republican Party is apparently whipping up into a frenzy to support a war in Syria.  Referring to the Old Testament, these phony-baloney, Mercedes-driving preachers inform their flocks that Jesus Christ needs their human help in the form of committing mass murder and mayhem in Syria before he can return to earth.  These are the same people who nearly booed Ron Paul off the stage at one of their conventions for reminding them that Jesus is known as The Prince of Peace.

The good thing is that these people are not longer the majority in the Republican Party. Bush’s eight good years saw to that; the neocons are still there —- they are just a small, but very vocal and funded minority — as they should be.

Jobs? What Jobs?!?!

(H/T Insty)

Saith Megan McArdle:

The unemployment rate has fallen, but keep the cork in the champagne bottles: it’s falling because people are just giving up looking for work. The share of the population that is either working, or looking for work, has fallen to a 35-year low. The economy created just 169,000 jobs last month, barely more than we need to keep up with population growth. It’s nowhere near enough to absorb the people who have been out of work for months or years — what Karl Marx called the reserve army of the unemployed. No wonder fast-food workers are demonstrating for higher wages; jobs designed as supplementary income for kids, or housewives, are now being taken by breadwinners who can’t find anything else.. . .

Here’s the really bad news: The weak economy may be accelerating the rate at which older workers exit the labor market. Thanks to changes in Social Security benefits (and the entry of women into the workforce), labor force participation rates among those over 55 have been trending upwards since the 1990s. But since the recession, that progress has plateaued. Older workers are actually less likely to be out of work than their younger counterparts (probably in part because they’re clinging to jobs in order to make up big losses in their retirement accounts). But if they do end up out of work, they have a much more difficult time finding new jobs.

That doesn’t just bode ill for the present; it also promises lower growth for the future. There is no ray of sunshine to be found in this jobs report. The best thing you can say about it is that it wasn’t worse.

Fun part is, we got three more years of this crap. 🙄

Of course, it’s pretty damned hard to get even get a job; when you have racist blacks accusing whites of racism and making up stories to get you fired —– and have companies afraid of lawsuits.  Something that I know all about. 😡

 

Debate this

This liberal blogger here seems to think that my cousin getting murdered is funny.

I’m thinking a nice blog swarm is needed here. 😡

Update: Besides mocking my dead cousin, this liberal, whom I assume is black, made this statement on his blog:

 I wuz robbed. Farewell, Unca Cletus

That right there is a racist statement. Calling a white person Cletus or Roscoe; which is a reference to the 1980’s show, “The Dukes of Hazzard”, is nothing more than an underhanded swipe at me, for being a white person. It is another way of calling me a stupid white redneck.

Nice to see that the Democrats are still living up to their historical reputation of being nothing, but a bunch of racist bigots. It was that whites were bigoted against blacks. Now, it has changed, it is the blacks which are bigoted against the whites. Same hatred, different players.

 

Quote of the Day

Liberalism has been driven by its disdain for America’s middle class that emerged from the large wave of immigration in the early 19th century and the success it has had in the business sector, entering the professions, and raising incomes. Liberalism has a deep distrust of “the masses” while claiming to represent them.

Liberal ideology produced Lyndon Johnson’s failed “War on Poverty” and embraced environmentalism with its doomsday predictions, none of which has come true. It explains President Obama’s rejection of American exceptionalism. “Liberal interests never reexamined their assumptions, even when faced with social and political failure. They never asked why, despite the vast sums expended, poverty had become worse rather than better.”

At the same time, in the latter half of the last century, liberals invented a laundry list of “rights” you will not find in the Constitution such as women’s rights, gay rights, children’s rights and even the Gaia concept of the Earth’s right to be protected against human activity.

“It was attitude and intentions—not outcomes—that matter to liberals,” says Seigel.

Liberalism is the ideology of intellectuals who looked down on the masses that became America’s middle class and produced the greatest economy the world had ever known. Now they exist to live parasitically off of it.

The great frustration of conservatives is the inability to have a rational debate or discussion with liberals. They don’t make sense. It is the curse of liberalism.

Did the White House plan the Syrian Chemical Attack?

I usually hold this sort of reports in high suspicion. But, knowing this white house; anything is possible. I dont know

This comes via Global Research: (H/T Pamela Geller)

There is a growing volume of new evidence from numerous sources in the Middle East — mostly affiliated with the Syrian opposition and its sponsors and supporters — which makes a very strong case, based on solid circumstantial evidence, that the August 21, 2013, chemical strike in the Damascus suburbs was indeed a pre-meditated provocation by the Syrian opposition.

The extent of US foreknowledge of this provocation needs further investigation because available data puts the “horror” of the Barack Obama White House in a different and disturbing light.

On August 13-14, 2013, Western-sponsored opposition forces in Turkey started advance preparations for a major and irregular military surge. Initial meetings between senior opposition military commanders and representatives of Qatari, Turkish, and US Intelligence [“Mukhabarat Amriki”] took place at the converted Turkish military garrison in Antakya, Hatay Province, used as the command center and headquarters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and their foreign sponsors. Very senior opposition commanders who had arrived from Istanbul briefed the regional commanders of an imminent escalation in the fighting due to “a war-changing development” which would, in turn, lead to a US-led bombing of Syria.

The opposition forces had to quickly prepare their forces for exploiting the US-led bombing in order to march on Damascus and topple the Bashar al-Assad Government, the senior commanders explained. The Qatari and Turkish intelligence officials assured the Syrian regional commanders that they would be provided with plenty of weapons for the coming offensive.

Indeed, unprecedented weapons distribution started in all opposition camps in Hatay Province on August 21-23, 2013. In the Reyhanli area alone, opposition forces received well in excess of 400 tons of weapons, mainly anti-aircraft weaponry from shoulder-fired missiles to ammunition for light-guns and machineguns. The weapons were distributed from store-houses controlled by Qatari and Turkish Intelligence under the tight supervision of US Intelligence.

These weapons were loaded on more than 20 trailer-trucks which crossed into northern Syria and distributed the weapons to several depots. Follow-up weapon shipments, also several hundred tons, took place over the weekend of August 24-25, 2013, and included mainly sophisticated anti-tank guided missiles and rockets. Opposition officials in Hatay said that these weapon shipments were “the biggest” they had received “since the beginning of the turmoil more than two years ago”. The deliveries from Hatay went to all the rebel forces operating in the Idlib-to-Aleppo area, including the al-Qaida affiliated jihadists (who constitute the largest rebel forces in the area).

Several senior officials from both the Syrian opposition and sponsoring Arab states stressed that these weapon deliveries were specifically in anticipation for exploiting the impact of imminent bombing of Syria by the US and the Western allies. The latest strategy formulation and coordination meetings took place on August 26, 2013. The political coordination meeting took place in Istanbul and was attended by US Amb. Robert Ford.

More important were the military and operational coordination meetings at the Antakya garrison. Senior Turkish, Qatari, and US Intelligence officials attended in addition to the Syrian senior (opposition) commanders. The Syrians were informed that bombing would start in a few days.

“The opposition was told in clear terms that action to deter further use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime could come as early as in the next few days,” a Syrian participant in the meeting said. Another Syrian participant said that he was convinced US bombing was scheduled to begin on Thursday, August 29, 2013. Several participants — both Syrian and Arab — stressed that the assurances of forthcoming bombing were most explicit even as formally Obama is still undecided.

The descriptions of these meetings raise the question of the extent of foreknowledge of US Intelligence, and therefore, the Obama White House. All the sources consulted — both Syrian and Arab — stressed that officials of the “Mukhabarat Amriki” actively participated in the meetings and briefings in Turkey. Therefore, at the very least, they should have known that the opposition leaders were anticipating “a war-changing development”: that is, a dramatic event which would provoke a US-led military intervention.

The mere fact that weapon storage sites under the tight supervision of US Intelligence were opened up and about a thousand tons of high-quality weapons were distributed to the opposition indicates that US Intelligence anticipated such a provocation and the opportunity for the Syrian opposition to exploit the impact of the ensuing US and allied bombing. Hence, even if the Obama White House did not know in advance of the chemical provocation, they should have concluded, or at the very least suspected, that the chemical attack was most likely the “war-changing development” anticipated by the opposition leaders as provocation of US-led bombing. Under such circumstances, the Obama White House should have refrained from rushing head-on to accuse Assad’s Damascus and threaten retaliation, thus making the Obama White House at the very least complicit after the act.

Meanwhile, additional data from Damascus about the actual chemical attack increases the doubts about Washington’s version of events. Immediately after the attack, three hospitals of Doctors Without Borders (MSF: médecins sans frontières) in the greater Damascus area treated more than 3,600 Syrians affected by the chemical attack, and 355 of them died. MSF performed tests on the vast majority of those treated.

MSF director of operations Bart Janssens summed up the findings: “MSF can neither scientifically confirm the cause of these symptoms nor establish who is responsible for the attack. However, the reported symptoms of the patients, in addition to the epidemiological pattern of the events — characterized by the massive influx of patients in a short period of time, the origin of the patients, and the contamination of medical and first aid workers — strongly indicate mass exposure to a neurotoxic agent.” Simply put, even after testing some 3,600 patients, MSF failed to confirm that sarin was the cause of the injuries. According to MSF, the cause could have been nerve agents like sarin, concentrated riot control gas, or even high-concentration pesticides. Moreover, opposition reports that there was distinct stench during the attack suggest that it could have come from the “kitchen sarin” used by jihadist groups (as distinct from the odorless military-type sarin) or improvised agents like pesticides.

Some of the evidence touted by the Obama White House is questionable at best.

A small incident in Beirut raises big questions. A day after the chemical attack, Lebanese fixers working for the “Mukhabarat Amriki” succeeded to convince a Syrian male who claimed to have been injured in the chemical attack to seek medical aid in Beirut in return for a hefty sum that would effectively settle him for life. The man was put into an ambulance and transferred overnight to the Farhat Hospital in Jib Janine, Beirut. The Obama White House immediately leaked friendly media that “the Lebanese Red Cross announced that test results found traces of sarin gas in his blood.” However, this was news to Lebanese intelligence and Red Cross officials.
According to senior intelligence officials, “Red Cross Operations Director George Kettaneh told [them] that the injured Syrian fled the hospital before doctors were able to test for traces of toxic gas in his blood.” Apparently, the patient declared that he had recovered from his nausea and no longer needed medical treatment. The Lebanese security forces are still searching for the Syrian patient and his honorarium.

On August 24, 2013, Syrian Commando forces acted on intelligence about the possible perpetrators of the chemical attack and raided a cluster of rebel tunnels in the Damascus suburb of Jobar. Canisters of toxic material were hit in the fierce fire-fight as several Syrian soldiers suffered from suffocation and “some of the injured are in a critical condition”.

The Commando eventually seized an opposition warehouse containing barrels full of chemicals required for mixing “kitchen sarin”, laboratory equipment, as well as a large number of protective masks. The Syrian Commando also captured several improvised explosive devices, RPG rounds, and mortar shells. The same day, at least four HizbAllah fighters operating in Damascus near Ghouta were hit by chemical agents at the very same time the Syrian Commando unit was hit while searching a group of rebel tunnels in Jobar. Both the Syrian and the HizbAllah forces were acting on intelligence information about the real perpetrators of the chemical attack. Damascus told Moscow the Syrian troops were hit by some form of a nerve agent and sent samples (blood, tissues, and soil) and captured equipment to Russia.

Several Syrian leaders, many of whom are not Bashar al-Assad supporters and are even his sworn enemies, are now convinced that the Syrian opposition is responsible for the August 21, 2013, chemical attack in the Damascus area in order to provoke the US and the allies into bombing Assad’s Syria. Most explicit and eloquent is Saleh Muslim, the head of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) which has been fighting the Syrian Government. Muslim doubts Assad would have used chemical weapons when he was winning the civil war.

“The regime in Syria … has chemical weapons, but they wouldn’t use them around Damascus, five km from the [UN] committee which is investigating chemical weapons. Of course they are not so stupid as to do so,” Muslim told Reuters on August 27, 2013. He believes the attack was “aimed at framing Assad and provoking an international reaction”. Muslim is convinced that “some other sides who want to blame the Syrian regime, who want to show them as guilty and then see action” is responsible for the chemical attack. The US was exploiting the attack to further its own anti-Assad policies and should the UN inspectors find evidence that the rebels were behind the attack, then “everybody would forget it”, Muslim shrugged. “Who is the side who would be punished? Are they are going to punish the Emir of Qatar or the King of Saudi Arabia, or Mr Erdo?an of Turkey?”

And there remain the questions: Given the extent of the involvement of the “Mukhabarat Amriki” in opposition activities, how is that US Intelligence did not know in advance about the opposition’s planned use of chemical weapons in Damascus?

It is a colossal failure.

And if they did know and warned the Obama White House, why then the sanctimonious rush to blame the Assad Administration?

Moreover, how can the Obama Administration continue to support and seek to empower the opposition which had just intentionally killed some 1,300 innocent civilians in order to provoke a US military intervention?

Yossef Bodansky, Senior Editor, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs

There are a good number of things that I could write here; but, seeing this White House’s track record under Obama, I think all of you know what I want to say. Basically, it is this; I rule nothing out under this President at all.

Oh and also, This is not about race at all. Not talking This is about wanting to prevent the United States of America from going into another war that is simply unneeded. I think that all people and bloggers of all political stripes can appreciate that.

Others: American Power, CANNONFIRE, Liberal Values, No More Mister Nice Blog and The Gateway Pundit

Dana Perino is wrong and so are the atheists

What I am referring to is this little display here.

 

…and of course, the atheists responded in kind. You can head over to gateway pundit to see all of that silliness. 

As much as I know that this is going to do absolutely nothing for my credos as an American Nationalist, I have to tell the truth. The truth is my friends is that what Dana Perino said is absolutely wrong and bit ignorant coming from someone of her ilk.

For Dana Perino to say, “If you don’t like it, leave!” is the Christian American moral equivalent of radical Islamists saying “Convert or Die!” It smacks of religious theocratic intolerance towards those who choose not to be of some sort of a faith.

As I have repeatedly stated on this blog, I happen to be a libertarian-minded Conservative, who just happens to be a Christian as well. However, I am not one of those types who preaches intolerance towards anyone who disagrees with my religious beliefs. I am one who truly believes in individual liberty and part of that means tolerating those who are not of a faith of any kind.  

Now as for the atheists who vented their spleens at Ms. Perino, they too are wrong and they also seem to have an intolerance towards those who happen to think that this lawsuit is idiotic at best.  Therefore, basically, one could say that both sides of this rather moronic conflagration are both wrong, when it comes to tolerance towards those who disagree.

As for the lawsuit, and Beckels ignorance towards the history of the words, “Under God” in the pledge. Here is the history via Wikipedia:

Louis A. Bowman, an attorney from Illinois, was the first to initiate the addition of “under God” to the Pledge. The National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution gave him an Award of Merit as the originator of this idea.[14][15] He spent his adult life in the Chicago area and was Chaplain of the Illinois Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. At a meeting on February 12, 1948,[14] Lincoln’s Birthday, he led the Society in swearing the Pledge with two words added, “under God.” He stated that the words came from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Though not all manuscript versions of the Gettysburg Address contain the words “under God”, all the reporters’ transcripts of the speech as delivered do, as perhaps Lincoln may have deviated from his prepared text and inserted the phrase when he said “that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom.” Bowman repeated his revised version of the Pledge at other meetings.[14]

In 1951, the Knights of Columbus, the world’s largest Catholic fraternal service organization, also began including the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance.[16] In New York City, on April 30, 1951, the Board of Directors of the Knights of Columbus adopted a resolution to amend the text of their Pledge of Allegiance at the opening of each of the meetings of the 800 Fourth Degree Assemblies of the Knights of Columbus by addition of the words “under God” after the words “one nation.” Over the next two years, the idea spread throughout Knights of Columbus organizations nationwide. On August 21, 1952, the Supreme Council of the Knights of Columbus at its annual meeting adopted a resolution urging that the change be made universal and copies of this resolution were sent to the President, the Vice President (as Presiding Officer of the Senate) and the Speaker of the House of Representatives. The National Fraternal Congress meeting in Boston on September 24, 1952, adopted a similar resolution upon the recommendation of its president, Supreme Knight Luke E. Hart. Several State Fraternal Congresses acted likewise almost immediately thereafter. This campaign led to several official attempts to prompt Congress to adopt the Knights of Columbus’ policy for the entire nation. These attempts were eventually a success.[17]

In 1952, Susan Anald wrote a letter to President Truman suggesting the inclusion of “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. Mr. Langmack was a Danish philosopher and educator who came to the United States in 1911. He was one of the originators of the Prayer Breakfast and a religious leader in Washington, D.C. President Truman met with him along with several others to discuss the inclusion of “under God” just before “with liberty and justice”.[citation needed]

At the suggestion of a correspondent, Representative Louis C. Rabaut of Michigan sponsored a resolution to add the words “under God” to the Pledge in 1953.

Rev. Dr. George MacPherson Docherty(left) and President Eisenhower (second from left) on the morning of February 7, 1954, at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church

Prior to February 1954, no endeavor to get the Pledge officially amended succeeded. The final successful push came from George MacPherson Docherty. Some American presidents honored Lincoln’s birthday by attending services at the church Lincoln attended, New York Avenue Presbyterian Church by sitting in Lincoln’s pew on the Sunday nearest February 12. On February 7, 1954, with President Eisenhower sitting in Lincoln’s pew, the church’s pastor, George MacPherson Docherty, delivered a sermon based on the Gettysburg Address titled “A New Birth of Freedom.” He argued that the nation’s might lay not in arms but its spirit and higher purpose. He noted that the Pledge’s sentiments could be those of any nation, that “there was something missing in the pledge, and that which was missing was the characteristic and definitive factor in the American way of life.” He cited Lincoln’s words “under God” as defining words that set the United States apart from other nations.

President Eisenhower had been baptized a Presbyterian very recently, just a year before. He responded enthusiastically to Docherty in a conversation following the service. Eisenhower acted on his suggestion the next day and on February 8, 1954, Rep. Charles Oakman (R–Mich.), introduced a bill to that effect. Congress passed the necessary legislation and Eisenhower signed the bill into law on Flag Day, June 14, 1954.[18] Eisenhower stated “From this day forward, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural school house, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty…. In this way we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America’s heritage and future; in this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country’s most powerful resource, in peace or in war.”[19]

The phrase “under God” was incorporated into the Pledge of Allegiance June 14, 1954, by a Joint Resolution of Congress amending §4 of the Flag Code enacted in 1942.[18]

On October 6, 1954 the National Executive Committee of the American Legion adopted a resolution, first approved by the Illinois American Legion Convention in August 1954, that formally recognized the Knights of Columbus for having initiated and brought forward the amendment to the Pledge of Allegiance.[17]

That, Mr. Beckel is the facts. Also too, I felt that Bob Beckel’s swipe at the female to his left was classless and uncalled for. Whether or not he was joking with her, it was uncalled for and he should apologize to her for that.

In closing: This Nation would be a better one, if everyone would just learn to tolerate others. I am not referring to people that do stuff like this here; I am referring to those who are different than we are, when it comes to personal beliefs.

Don’t dare call it a hate crime

Because those so wonderful black people would never, ever, attack a white man for absolutely nothing, right? Right??!?! Surprise

Think again. Angry

The Video:

The Story via CBS New York

  NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — It came out of nowhere. A man allegedly went on a rampage in Union Square on Wednesday afternoon and left a complete stranger brain-dead in the process. Police said that the attack may have been a hate crime. Friends of Jeffrey Babbitt, 62, were shocked to hear about the random act of violence that left the gentle, retired train conductor in a coma, CBS 2′s Dave Carlin reported on Friday. “I don’t believe that. I don’t know why that happened. He is very nice,” Igor Sapozhnikov said. Babbitt was minding his own business as he walked through the crowd near the chess boards in Union Square when a man made a hateful announcement and began his rampage, witnesses said. “He said ‘the next white person who walks by I’m going to [expletive],’” one woman said. “His fist went in and the man’s head bobbed and he hit the ground and you could hear his skull hitting the ground.” The man continued his rampage before demanding to see police officers. “He stood there and hit two more people and asked for the police to come,” Michael Benson said. Stunned witnesses counted a total of three people attacked. The suspect, Lashawn Marten, 31, remained at the scene until police arrived.

Here’s the real kicker:

  Because of Marten’s alleged comments about targeting white people the incident could result in hate crime charges in addition to felony assault charges, according to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. “Obviously our Hate Crimes Task Force is involved in aspects of that case,” Kelly said.

And the really sad part:

  Babbitt was taken to Bellevue Hospital. Family and friends said that he is in a coma and has been declared brain-dead. His 92-year-old mother, Hedda, was by his side. She shared a Sheepshead Bay apartment with her son. He was her primary caregiver.

Every damned time I read this sort of stuff. I reminded of what kind of Country that I really live in. Of course, I too, and my family have been victims of black on white crime. So, it is not a shock to me at all.

Others: Scared Monkeys, neo-neocon, Weasel Zippers, The Gateway Pundit, NewsBusters,iOwnTheWorld.com, Mediaite, The Last Refuge and Gothamist