Thursday, August 28, 2014

Obama's DOJ Sues Minnesota City for Rejecting Islamic Center

OBAMA'S DOJ SUES MINNESOTA CITY FOR REJECTING ISLAMIC CENTER

by WARNER TODD HUSTON 28 Aug 2014, 6:39 AM PDT 245POST A COMMENT

The Department of Justice has announced that it is suing the small town of St. Anthony, Minnesota, after a two-year investigation into the town's denial of a permit to create an Islamic cultural center.

The DOJ claims that the north Minneapolis town broke a federal law when it rejected the center in 2012.

"An injustice has been done," U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger said on August 27. "I will not stand by while any religious group is subject to unconstitutional treatment that violates federal civil rights laws."

The DOJ claims that the city violated the law when it refused the Abu Huraira Islamic Center the right to create an Islamic cultural center in the basement of the St. Anthony Business Center. The DOJ cites a violation of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act that was enacted in the year 2000.

In his press conference, Luger said that if local voters rose up to force their politicians to allow the Islamic center to be established and follow his interpretation of the law he would consider withdrawing the lawsuit.

Lugar may be putting hope in the wrong people, however, as many voters actually spoke out against the center at a city council meeting in June of 2012.

But the city fathers insist that the decision to deny the permit is based solely on zoning issues and had nothing to do with religion.

"Religious uses of any type are allowed in the vast majority of the city," City Attorney Jay Lindgren said. "They are just not allowed in the roughly 5 percent of the city reserved for industrial uses. … An industrial zone is designed to create jobs and be an economic engine."

To buttress its case, the DOJ claimed that there were examples in the past of the city allowing some religious groups to use the zoned areas and also allowing non-industrial uses. But Lindgren said that the city has denied permits to religious sects other than Muslims in the past, proving, he said, that the town isn't discriminating against Muslims.

"The city will vigorously defend its actions," Lindgren insisted this week. "Doesn't matter whether it's a mosque, synagogue, church--none are allowed in the area intended for manufacturing and offices where jobs are put into place."

Marched to their deaths: Sickening ISIS slaughter continues as 250 soldiers captured at Syrian airbase are stripped then led to the desert for mass execution | Mail Online

Marched to their deaths: Sickening ISIS slaughter continues as 250 soldiers captured at Syrian airbase are stripped then led to the desert for mass execution

WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT
Startling footage of vast pile of bodies circulated today on social media
Men in only their underwear form a long line stretching across the desert
Islamic State fighter said men were from Tabqa air base, captured this week
Human Rights Watch described shocking video as 'another ISIS war crime'

By DAN BLOOM FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 09:18 EST, 28 August 2014 | UPDATED: 11:38 EST, 28 August 2014

428

View comments

Sickening footage appears to show Islamic State militants parading around 250 captured soldiers through the desert in their underwear before they are killed and their bodies piled on the bare earth.

An Islamic State fighter claimed the men were from the Syrian government's Tabqa air base which extremists seized on Sunday, handing them warplanes, helicopters, tanks, artillery and ammunition.

The video, which has not been independently verified, is too graphic to be published in full.

It begins by showing dozens of men being marched through the desert wearing only their underwear. It then fades to black, resuming with a pile of bloodied bodies stacked on top of one another.

Scroll down for video

WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT

+14

'Another ISIS war crime': Footage and photographs have emerged of Islamic State fighters marching more than 200 soldiers across the desert to their deaths in only their underwear after capturing Syria's Tabqa air base

+14

Horror: The video, too graphic to be published in full, fades to black before revealing a chain of men's bodies

+14

Slaughter: A separate image showed masked gunmen preparing to shoot seven men from the same air base. The chilling photograph was released by the Raqqa Media Center yesterday and tallies with other reporting

As the horrific footage progresses it pans slowly across a vast line of men who appear to be dead, and whose bodies have been laid out one by one.

The line forms a slow crescent across the desert, seemingly stretching to the horizon as militants stand beside it. Eventually, after more than a minute, the cameraman reaches the end of the line.

The precise death toll is uncertain and other sources put it at lower than 250, but at least 150 bodies are visible in the shaky video.

More...

Its description on Youtube said it showed the execution of Army officers and Nusayri people, a significant minority of Shia Muslims in Syria.

A caption to another version of the video said: 'The 250 shabeeha taken captive by the Islamic State from Tabqa in Raqqa have been executed.' Shabeeha is the Islamist name for soldiers loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

An Islamic State fighter in Raqqa told Reuters: 'Yes we have executed them all'.

ISIS forces prisoners to march to execution in underwear

+14

Marched: Earlier stills from the video showed men being paraded in their underwear and ordered to chant

Before they were killed, the men's captors chanted 'Islamic State' - to which they replied: 'It will remain'.

Islamic State won a week-long battle on Sunday to capture the Tabqa base, which is 25 miles from their Syrian stronghold in Raqqa.

Syria's authorities insisted at the time that their soldiers had 'successfully regrouped' - suggesting they were later hunted down by the militants and executed.

+14

The captured men were escorted closely by Islamic State militants dressed in black and waving flags

Despite heavy losses on the Islamic State side, the base's capture prompted fresh fears that the fighters have got hold of advanced military technology which will allow them to cement their self-declared regime.

Video footage has already suggested Islamic State fighters have drones which were used to shoot reconnaissance footage of an army base.

Today's reported mass killing also underscores how the group uses images of violence as much as violence itself to terrorise its opponents, as it sweeps further into Syria and Iraq.

Nadim Houry, deputy director of Human Rights Watch for the Middle East, described the video as 'another ISIS war crime'.

And yesterday a UN commission accused the extremist group of committing crimes against humanity in Syria, similar to those it has already committed in Iraq.

Yet the extremists are also in touch with modern ideas of PR, releasing glossy magazines in English which feature mutilated bodies to promote their cause in the West.

The Home Secretary has sounded fresh warnings over the radicalisation of young Brits, with authorities fearing around 500 have joined an array of jihadi groups in Iraq and Syria.

Extremists have declared a self-styled caliphate, a Sunni regime ordering its subjects to operate under an extreme interpretation of Sharia law.

It has opened up three fronts in the fighting in Syria, which is already home to a bloody and long-running civil war between President Assad's forces and anti-government rebels.

Today CNN claimed the militants in Iraq have also been burning oil wells near the town of Zummar, which is crucial because it is near a road which links Mosul to the Syrian border.

The network suggested fighters are attempting to 'cover their tracks' as Kurdish Peshmerga fighters draw closer.

+14

Captured: A resident of Tabqa waves the Islamic State flag on Sunday after militants seized the nearby air base

+14

Death march: Another video appearing to show the same march through the desert was put on social media

+14

There were chants of 'Islamic State', to which the men replied 'It will remain', their hands behind their backs

+14

Tormented: At one point the men appeared to be taunted by their captors as some turned towards the camera

The Islamic State extremists now control roughly a third of Syria, mostly areas in the north and east of the country, as the U.S. threatens air strikes similar to those already used in Iraq.

But the situation is complicated as Washington has claimed the Syrian government - embroiled in a bloody civil war - is part of the problem despite offering itself as a force against extremism.

French President Francois Hollande added today that President Assad, whose forces used brutal force to crush what began as a peaceful uprising three years ago, was no ally in the fight against Islamic State.

Today Syrian warplanes hit Islamic State targets in the eastern stronghold of Deir al-Zor and killed some of the group's commanders, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Observatory, run by a Syrian emigrant from his terraced house in Coventry, said the planes struck a building used as an Islamic State headquarters during a meeting of its commanders.

Syrian state TV reported that the army 'eliminated more than 10 terrorists' in an attack east of Deir al-Zor military airport, including two Islamic State leaders, and destroyed 14 armoured vehicles.

+14

Sprawling: An image of what is believed to be the air base, just south of the city of Tabqa, shows its long fence

+14

Arsenal: Campaigners say the base contained weapons and jets which may now be used by the militants

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

J. R. Miller - Take all the Tangled Threads! (Christian devotional)

Rogan: Obama's Strategy for Islamic State 'Makes No Military Sense'

How Britain Became a Global Exporter of Terrorism

Beast Confederacy Announced in Turkey - Armageddon News

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

United Nations Seeks US-based Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Specialists

Mac Slavo
June 24th, 2014
SHTFplan.com

Comments (471)

Read by 109,686 people

6840

733

9391

It’s no secret that the United Nations, with assistance from members of the Executive and Legislative branches in the United States, has been actively working to reduce Americans’ accessibility to firearms. In 2012 President Obama, along with then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, spearheaded a backdoor move that would have imposed gun control on the United States through foreign means by signing a global disarmament initiative known as the Small Arms Treaty. Though that attempt failed, mass shooting incidents at Sandy Hook and elsewhere have kept the pressure on gun owners with the President having made repeated suggestions that he would mandate gun restrictions through Executive Order should state and federal legislatures fail to act.

Given the rocky history between America’s gun owners and the United Nations, chances are that the push for disarmament will continue with more ferver than ever before. In fact, a recent job posting at the United Nations website suggests that the organization is not only working to get guns out of the hands of American citizens, they are actively preparing personnel to assist in what they call “disarmament, demobilization and reintegration” activities. And if that’s not bad enough, the duty station for this key U.N. Peacekeeping Operations department is New York city, suggesting that the organization believes such operations may be commencing in the United States at some point in the future.

If you’d like to join them in their efforts to confiscate firearms then you can apply directly at the United Nations Career Opportunities page:

Posting Title: Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Officer, P4

Job Code Title: DISARMAMENT, DEMOBILIZATION AND REINTEGRATION OFFICER

Department/ Office: Department of Peacekeeping Operations

Duty Station: NEW YORK

Work Experience: A minimum of seven years of progressively responsible experience in disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration or related area. Experience working within peacekeeping, peace-building or development programmes operations is desirable. Experience with small arms control, conflict/post-conflict crisis management, economic recovery is desirable. Experience coordinating multiple partner agencies, funds or programmes is desirable.

Languages: English and French are the working languages of the United Nations Secretariat. For the post advertised, fluency in English is required.

Full Listing / Video Commentary

According to the United Nations information page on ‘DDR’ operations, the New York post will involve various aspects related to the process by which a governing organization would confiscate firearms, all of which target what the U.N. calls “small arms.”

Disarmament is the collection, documentation, control and disposal of small arms, ammunition, explosives and light and heavy weapons from combatants and often from the civilian population.

Demobilization is the formal and controlled discharge of active combatants from armed forces and groups, including a phase of “reinsertion” which provides short-term assistance to ex-combatants.

Reintegration is the process by which ex-combatants acquire civilian status and gain sustainable employment and income. It is a political, social and economic process with an open time-frame, primarily taking place in communities at the local level.

The objective of the DDR process is to contribute to security and stability in post-conflict environments so that recovery and development can begin. DDR helps create an enabling environment for political and peace processes by dealing with security problem that arises when ex-combatants are trying to adjust to normal life, during the vital transition period from conflict to peace and development.

Ambassador Faith Whittlesey, a U.S. delegate to the UN Small Arms Conference, warned in 2012 that the organization’s intention is to eventually disarm all Americans in the name of peace.

“In New York, right here on our own shores, we’ve got a Trojan horse. They won’t accept U.S. firearms policy. They want to take the decision away from the U.S. electorate and undermine our Constitution.”

It would seem that the heavy militarization of domestic law enforcement agencies coupled with ‘Doomsday’ legislative actions and Executive Orders designed toseize Americans’ resources and firearms in the event of a declared emergency may be synchronized with the involvement of foreign troops and officials. In fact, a press release from The Ministry of the Russian Federation for Civil Defense and Emergencies confirmed in 2013 that America’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will be coordinate with foreign militaries and security teams during disaster operations on U.S.-soil:

Several documents signed during joint work of Russian Emergency Ministry and FEMA

The Russian Emergency Situations Ministry and the USA Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) are going to exchange experts during joint rescue operations in major disasters.

The document provides for expert cooperation in disaster response operations and to study the latest practices.

In addition, the parties approved of U.S.-Russian cooperation in this field in 2013-2014, which envisages exchange of experience including in monitoring and forecasting emergency situations, training of rescuers, development of mine-rescuing and provision of security at mass events.

It’s no secret that the US government has been preparing riot gear, guns, ammunition, and detention centers for a major calamity that will likely involve violence and widespread civil unrest. Should such an event ever take place the first order of business will include a declaration of martial law. And just as we saw during Hurricane Katrina, when the U.S. Constitution has been suspended gun confiscation is soon to follow.

“No one will be able to be armed. We’re going to take all the weapons.”
-New Orleans Police Chief

The majority of our service members who will be called upon in times of emergency may realize what is happening and refuse to negate their oaths to the U.S. Constitution when push comes to shove.

But foreign “peace keepers” deployed under the U.N banner will have no such convictions. They’re already here and they are getting ready… for you.

Please Spread The Word And Share This Post

Articles: Beaten to Death at McDonald's

August 21, 2014

Beaten to Death at McDonald's

By David Paulin

Other local residents -- the more cynical and world-weary, both whites and most blacks -- would have taken one look at the crowd and driven off, dismissing many of the young and posturing black males as thugs. But not them: innocent white kids from the suburbs. They presumed this was post-racial America -- and that they were in an easy-going college town.

Twenty minutes later, two of them were dead.

Incredibly, the race of the assailants was scrubbed from local news coverage; and utterly missing from tersely written wire-service stories about a Brazos County jury's whopping $27 million negligence verdict on July 30 against “University McDonald's” -- an outlet owned by the Oak Brook, Illinois-based fast-food giant. What the media considered unmentionablenevertheless loomed over a riveting seven-day trial, which came amid the growing phenomenon of black-on-white violence -- unprovoked attacks on whites and black mob violence like the so-called “knock-out game."

Chris Hamilton, lead lawyer of the small Dallas firm that humbled the corporate giant, was asked, during a phone interview, how many reporters had even bothered to inquire about the race of the assailants during the many interviews he gave.

“You're the only one,” he replied.

Race, of course, was irrelevant to the high-stakes negligence trial that revolved around McDonald's lack of on-site security and corporate responsibility. Yet shortly before the trial, Hamilton hinted at the issue of race -- suggesting that two very different worlds were colliding at University McDonald's during its after-midnight hours -- a mix that was potentially volatile. The upcoming trial, he told a local television reporter, was not only about seeking justice for his clients but about the public's need “to know what's really going on at McDonald's: what the risks are; what the dangers are of sending your kids there, particularly after midnight."

His extensive pretrial investigation -- numerous depositions, pathology reports, and an in-depth analysis of police records -- told a story that was heartbreaking and infuriating, and that until the trial had remained largely out of pubic view as the case was handled by College Station Police, Brazos County District Attorney Jarvis Parsons, and an asleep-at-the-wheel news media.

Apart from legal arguments over alleged corporate negligence, the high-profile trial offered a shocking view of how a thuggish black subculture flourished at University McDonald's. The blame could be laid squarely upon McDonald's black managers, and on the failure of higher-ups in McDonald's to ensure patrons, both black and white, were safe during late-night hours -- an increasingly lucrative market for the fast-food giant.

Beaten to Death

For the two young couples, the evening had started at a country-western concert at “Hurricane Harry's” in College Station's entertainment district; and afterward, just after 2 a.m. on Sunday, February 18, 2012 -- a quick trip to nearby “University McDonald's” as it's widely known.

Parking his Toyota 4Runner, Denton James Ward, age 18, stepped down from the big SUV with Tanner Giesen, then 19 years old. The two friends from Flower Mound, an affluent Dallas suburb, headed to the McDonald's bathroom; Ward wore his cowboy hat. The girls, Lauren Bailey Crisp and Samantha Bean, both 19, took the SUV to the drive-through.

Both inside and out, University McDonald's was bustling. But it definitely wasn't the usual daytime crowd –-- clean-cut and mostly white “Aggies” as A&M's students are known. Instead, up to 400 black males were loitering about the parking lot, a police officer later estimated. Inside, it was mostly a black crowd too: a large number of black males were loitering about, many without food. Some were shirtless.

This was the usual after-midnight crowd on Saturdays and Sundays at the 24-hour McDonald's. And unbeknownst to the two couples -- and many in College Station -- this McDonald's was a major late-night trouble spot.

Police were constantly responding to late-night fights, assaults, and disturbances among huge crowds that were mostly black – a problem one top police official called a “drain on resources.” Most of the reported incidents, some 200 in the three years preceding Ward and Crisp's deaths, involved black-on-black violence by gang bangers and, according to one police officer, members of black college fraternities. One police report described an unidentified man's head getting bashed against a curb. White patrons appeared to be especially susceptible and at risk -- and when they were attacked, the blows were particularly vicious. The hours of 2-to-3 A.M. on Saturdays and Sundays were especially volatile, with at least a dozen fights and assaults reported during those hours in the year preceding these deaths.

For Ward and Giesen, the trouble started seconds after exiting McDonald's front door. “You're in the wrong neck of the woods, cowboys,” Giesen recalled a young black male saying.

Unwittingly, they'd blundered into a highly-charged situation. Shortly before they'd arrived, two black males had gotten into a loud argument inside the restaurant. A gun was brandished. But manager Lindsey Ives, a black woman, didn't call the police. She told the men to take their dispute outside.

In an instant, a bloodthirsty mob was upon them.

A fist slammed into Giesen's face. Ward tried to break-up the altercation, according to trial testimony. Instead, he suffered a brutal mob stomping lasting several minutes. Some 20 young black males closed in -- mercilessly kicking and punching his head and body and even jumping on him after he fell to the ground, witnesses said. Giesen was knocked unconscious.

An athletic young man -- 5-foot-6 and 163 pounds -- Ward had a handsome face framed by a mop of rusty brown hair. But after the beating, one witness -- a retired U.S. Marine and one of a few white customers -- said Ward's face was “really messed up”; was “broken” and “mushy” and “just did not look natural.”

Bean and Crisp, both 19, rounded the corner of the drive-through to see the mob stomping. The horrified and frightened young women jumped out of the SUV screaming for it to stop. Crisp, Ward's girlfriend, even rushed into the melee, according to trial testimony. Blood poured from Ward's face. Some nearby good-Samaritans, including a few black females, helped the frantic teens lift their dates into the 4Runner's back seat; Ward was unable to speak or walk. Danisha Stern, a trial witness, then told them to “get out of there . . . it’s not safe.”

Immediately, the terrified girls took that advice -- rather than waiting for police. Bean, Giesen's date, took the wheel with Crisp occupying the front passenger seat. Speeding away, Bean made a frantic across-town dash for an emergency room. She worried somebody from the McDonald's mob might follow and run her off the road.

Ward was drifting in and out of consciousness. Blood was everywhere. Fearing he was slipping away, Crisp frantically climbed into the back seat, kneeling on the floorboard to do what she could -- pushing him back into his seat when he slumped forward. They had been dating three months. The girls were “freaking out,” Giesen recalled. “I remember lots of screaming and yelling going on.”

Then -- about 10 minutes after speeding away from University McDonald's -- Bean ran a red light. The 4Runner was hit broadside by a Chevy Silverado pick-up, and then spun violently and crashed into a light pole. Ward and Crisp were pronounced dead at the scene; Bean and the Silverado’s five occupants were uninjured. Police initially thought Ward and Crisp had died in the crash, and they had considered charging Bean. But pathologists at the negligence trial, both for the plaintiffs and McDonald's, agreed Ward was beaten to death -- the fatal kicks and punches delivered to the lower back of his head and chin.

The mob at McDonald's grew into a frenzy after the couples fled. A police officer arriving at the scene, five minutes later, grabbed his AR-15 assault rifle when he stepped out of his patrol car, fearing he was amid a full-blown riot. It was, he recalled, like “scenes that we have seen multiple times at that McDonald’s.”

Crisp, a dark-haired beauty from Dripping Springs, a suburb of Austin, wanted to be a nurse. She was a biology major at Blinn College as was Bean, a resident of College Station. Ward, also a student at the junior college, was set to transfer to Texas A&M the next year to study industrial engineering. He had an all-American background in high school: letters in football and baseball; Little League umpire; and a member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. He and Crisp were from large families.

Giesen was briefly treated at an emergency room; his abdomen bore a boot print. He now suffers bouts of amnesia due to brain trauma.

In College Station, nobody dared to ask if a "hate crime" had possibly occurred. But Stern, the black good-Samaritan, testified that the black mob had piled on Ward in part because he was white; or as she explained: "He was trying to save his friend or stop the attacks...targeted at his friend. And he was a white male so I guess any -- anything that was -- anybody that was not helping the fight, like, adding to the injury or whatever, was seen as an opponent or something, you know."

Police made only one arrest, charging Marcus Jamal Jones -- known to friends as "Plucky” -- in the mob attack. Without outdoor security cameras and uncooperative witnesses, it was no doubt hard to make a case. Last March, Plucky pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault and served a 90-day jail sentence.

Minutes after the mob attack, the 6-foot-2 Plucky entered the McDonald's without a shirt. “We was fight'en,” he was heard to say. Earlier in the evening, he'd said he was looking for a fight, witnesses reported.

Playing the race card

It was Plucky who introduced the word “nigg-r” into the case. After his arrest, he told police that seconds before Ward and Giesen were attacked, somebody had said “nigg-r.” But he admitted he didn't know who'd uttered the epithet, or even if the person was black or white. During the trial, he changed his story, claiming Giesen had uttered the epithet. But Giesen denied using a racial slur and identified Plucky as the person who'd remarked, “You're in the wrong neck of the woods, cowboys."

Interestingly, Plucky got a job with a McDonald's supplier, Mid-South Baking Company in Byran, Texas, three months before the trial -- and before his epiphany that Giesen was the person who'd said “nigg-r.”

Why was University McDonald's so popular among black gang bangers and black fraternity members? Carlos Butler, the outlet's black general manager, could take credit for that. An aspiring hip-hop artist, he hosted large hip-hop concerts attracting some 1,500 people -- and after those events many of the black hip-hoppers headed to University McDonald's.

Interestingly, Butler told a police detective he always had “a lot of security” at his hip-hop events.

Yet at University McDonald's, Butler had no off-duty police officer providing security -- even on nights that the hip-hop and gangsta crowd showed up in large numbers.

Cost for an off-duty cop -- a mere $100. Police had told Butler such a late-night security measure, in use at other nearby 24-hour outlets, could stop trouble before it started.

The all-white jury -- eight women and four men -- took only four hours to render their $27 million judgment: $16 million for Ward's parents; $11 million for Crisp's.

According to a recent article in The Eagle, a daily paper in College Station, the problems at University McDonald's persist. Lawyers for McDonald's have vowed to appeal. They are sticking to their argument that poor choices made by the two couples -- namely their underage drinking and Bean's reckless driving -- were responsible for Ward and Bean's deaths. McDonald's definitely took the negligence case seriously, though. During opening arguments, it had 12 lawyers at the defense table. Hamilton handled the contingency-fee case with two associates -- nearly 40 percent of the legal talent in a firm of eight lawyers. “They tried to bury us in paperwork and money,” he remarked.

Parents and relatives of Ward and Crisp attended the trial, but on Hamilton's advice sat outside the courtroom except when testifying about how the deaths of their children had affected them. They are not giving interviews. Hamilton, however, said they felt vindicated that the jury had rejected the blame-the-victim strategy of McDonald's lawyers. Marshall Rosenberg, lead lawyer for McDonald's, did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

The media's handling of this case was no surprise: political correctness rules in America's newsrooms. But imagine a hypothetical crime: two clean-cut black couples go into University McDonald's during the daytime – and are viciously attacked by a mob of whites. An international media circus undoubtedly would erupt. Big-time journalists from all over the world would descend on College Station to deal with the deplorable state of America's race relations caused by bigoted whites. President Obama would weigh in with a few comments about America's racial sins; and Attorney General Eric Holder -- just as with the Ferguson disturbances -- would travel to College Station, where Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would be leading protest marches.

But the narrative they're promoting is false.

It obscures where most of the hate is coming from. Crime statistics have long reveled the real problem: high levels of black-on-black violence, followed by black-on-white violence, and mob attacks -- and the latter two phenomena have been on the increase at an alarming rate, underscoring deep pathologies in a growing black-thug subculture -- even as liberals in the mainstream media and Washington are unwilling to acknowledge this fact.

The late Ray Kroc, the legendary McDonald's entrepreneur and CEO, must be rolling over in his grave over what's happening. The hood has expanded its turf in the America he loved – and now even hangs out under the Golden Arches.

Note: An earlier version of this article appeared at Front Page Magazine.

To the four clean-cut college freshman out on a double date, it had seemed like a typical McDonald's: spanking clean, well-lighted, and safe. It was in a good neighborhood too, right next to Texas A&M University in College Station -- a campus known for its friendly atmosphere and official down-home greeting: “howdy.”

Shortly after 2 A.M. that Sunday, they pulled into the parking lot of so-called “University McDonald's” and beheld a scene unlike anything portrayed in all those wholesome McDonald's television commercials. Before them, hundreds of young black males were loitering about, some without shirts.

Other local residents -- the more cynical and world-weary, both whites and most blacks -- would have taken one look at the crowd and driven off, dismissing many of the young and posturing black males as thugs. But not them: innocent white kids from the suburbs. They presumed this was post-racial America -- and that they were in an easy-going college town.

Twenty minutes later, two of them were dead.

Incredibly, the race of the assailants was scrubbed from local news coverage; and utterly missing from tersely written wire-service stories about a Brazos County jury's whopping $27 million negligence verdict on July 30 against “University McDonald's” -- an outlet owned by the Oak Brook, Illinois-based fast-food giant. What the media considered unmentionable nevertheless loomed over a riveting seven-day trial, which came amid the growing phenomenon of black-on-white violence -- unprovoked attacks on whites and black mob violence like the so-called “knock-out game."

Bill's Blogabout

BILL'S TWITTER PAGE

Thursday, August 28, 2014