Over the weekend we’ve been following a story here in Clark County about a local couple who appear to be the target of racist vandalism simply because they dared to put a Barack Obama yard sign in front of their home. The Columbian ran a small item on Friday night:
Someone scratched the words “White Power” on a car belonging to a Vancouver family who recently posted an “Elect Obama” sign in their front yard.
On Sunday, Frank Wastradowski, who lives northeast of Southwest Washington Medical Center, noticed the vandalism on the side of his wife’s 1993 Plymouth. The letters, likely scratched with a key, were about 8 inches tall.
“It’s a hate crime and it’s time we get past racism,” he said.
Wastradowski said he won’t take the sign down, adding, “That’s my freedom of speech.”
Now KPTV-12 in Portland has a story up about the incident, and we learn that the words “I’m gay” were also scratched into the car. Since the KPTV story features Karen Wastradowski, Frank’s wife, one can only conclude that the vandals were quite intent on displaying their vast stupidity for the world to see.
There are a couple of things worth noting here. Yes, Clark County has its share of unrepentant bigots. Earlier this year the son of a Battle Ground city council member was charged with cyberstalking over virulently racist emails sent to a black council member and other community members. So while vandalism is not exactly an unusual thing during the summer months, it’s also not acceptable to just shrug off racist defacement of private property as “just kids being kids.” They learned it somewhere.
A small ad-hoc group of us here is working on setting up a donation fund for the Wastradowski’s so they don’t have to drive around in a car that says “White Power” on it. My fellow blogger Aneurin at Politics is a Blood Sport has been following the story here and here. Aneurin has talked to Frank Wastradowski, and unsurprisingly the couple did not have full coverage on the car (nothing against 1993 sedans, of course.) We’re working on some details about how to set the fund up and to do it in a way that will aid the Wastradowskis rather than just make a partisan statement.
In a larger sense, if someone can’t place a yard sign for a major party candidate in front of their home without this sort of thing happening, we don’t really have much of a democracy. At this point we are hoping some local Republicans will also come forward and denounce this attack and perhaps throw in a small donation as well.
As things progress I’ll keep HA readers up to date. It might be easy to ignore a relatively small and stupid act of vandalism, but the Wastradowski’s need to know that the community won’t tolerate this sort of thing and will take positive actions to counteract it.
And one other thing, which is in the “gee, that’s kind of curious” file, is that Frank Wastradowski used to be the campaign treasurer for former state Senator Don Carlson, R-Vancouver. There’s no way to know if the vandals knew that, unless someone is caught, but it’s still pretty ironic.
why go to Clark county? We saw how “tolerant” liberals defaced a shoreline resident’s house multiple times because he dared have a Bush/Cheney sign in his window back in 2004. The punks even drew a large swastika about 4 feet square on the side of the house.
Yup, Liberal intolerance on display yet I can guarantee little David Gold Stain didn’t cover it. Afterall, this hate site perpetuates this type of action with all the hatred of Republican’s it spews. KIRO thought it was bad enough that they canned his sorry arse followed by Erin Hart and everyones favorite neo-fascist the late Mike Webb.
@1
why go to Clark county? We saw how “tolerant” liberals defaced a shoreline resident’s house multiple times because he dared have a Bush/Cheney sign in his window back in 2004.
Post up a link to that one.
I think Wittle Wicky D did it. He hates, he has a very limited vocabulary, and he has time on his hands.
Wicky @1,
FYI, I’m subbing for Dave Ross this Friday on KIRO. So I guess I’m not all that bad.
@3 “I think Wittle Wicky D did it.”
Then I say we Gitmotize the little goatfucker ’til he fesses up.
@1, @2
Found it:
http://www.komonews.com/news/archive/4165946.html
Did they ever find the culprits?
@ 2 ~ Story is in link below. I drive by this house every day on my commute and saw the resulting multiple times of vandalism first hand. I don’t believe anyone was ever caught.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....sm07m.html
Again we see why right wingers’ kids turn out to be prison inmates. Their answer to everything is = “Well you guys did it 23 years ago too!”
So we can assume you right wing ass licks support this racist act. If so – be a man. Drop your testicles down out of your sack and show up here with your name, address, phone number and email and say it. Tell us that’s what you think. Anything short of that and you’ll go to bed knowing your a weak punk who rides the dicklick express.
@7
So are you saying that that’s worse than what happened in Clark County? I’m still not clear about your point.
#8: Bye Bye GOP is again stating nonsense that is totally off subject!
Wrong is wrong. The question here in Clark County is whether people are just going to go “oh well” or are they going to stand up and let this couple know that they find what happened reprehensible?
And offers are being made to Republicans to join in to make this effort non-partisan, and maybe would-be vandals on all sides might get the message. It’s one thing that the usual absurd sign wars take place, scratching racist comments onto someone else’s car is a totally different thing.
Actually everything I am saying is ON topic and everything you right wing ass licks say is OFF topic. You want to deflect here like you do everywhere. Facts are facts. The KKK wing of your party has been busy. You dick licks better reign them in OR WE FUCKING WILL!
5
Excellent idea. Let’s declare him an enemy combatant, deny him the right to a trial, and just hold him indefinitely. Given that he is a threat to freedom and a terrorist-supporter (after all he loves Bush and Cheney), he should not bitch about our methods.
By the way 1023 year old Flip Flop McSame has just been outed as lying in his latest anti-Obama ad. The visuals were all trumped up by the Pentagon – no surprise there.
LMAO!! Little Rickie Dumbass chimes in on a post about his “Stormfront” bros!
I am Republican – I am a racist NAZI. Hail Hitler!
I hope you guys are kidding when you say that RickyD is the same guy as Puddy – because that would be just a little too weird for words.
@7 – I wonder how he would feel if he were black and were called a nigger. Or a homosexual and called a queer or a fag. Why doesn’t he get over it.
Lee @ 9
Both actions are inexcusable. That being said, I would say that having your house vandalized is a worse form of terrorism than having your automobile vandalized.
Rick D and Puddylick are indeed the same person. In fact most of the right wing posts here are actually made by Puddylick. If you can search the archives we outed him several times using as many as 19 names. That’s how sick the asslicking bitch is.
@20 Did anybody ever meet Puddy? Isn’t he supposed to be black?
Oh yeh, it’s OK for the Libs to come onto private property and deface everything they can get their hands on, but when it happens to them oh thats a completely different story.
But I just love it whenever I see a Prius running around with all the hate Bush, clean up the universe, etc, worn out bumper stickers hard glued to the paint job from years of sun like badges of honor.
Leave em on until next year and try and pull them off..
I suppose they can always hang a seattle plastic 20 cent bonnet over their head when they walk into Shucks asking for touch up paint.
How’s that Prius battery holdin out?
Run over any deaf people lately?
Jon,
I don’t know how involved it gets, but if you could set up the fund with Paypal option, I think you would get a larger response.
Please do keep us posted, will you?
I suspect that gs has a few issues requiring resolution.
I give gs a measly 160 points based on the Wing Nut Meter scoring system:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyo...../53/555231
Marvin, on the other hand, racked up an even 500 points with one of last week’s posts.
gs, you simply must try harder! Marvin’s kicking your butt.
@23–
Yes, PayPal is a good idea and we are sorting out some other preliminary and needed steps first.
Will definitely update/post as warranted.
John,
Please let me know as well.
For those who wouldminimize this incident, let me remind you that the Clark Co Republicans Party also posted hate literature in re Sen. Obama. When challenged on this, they took the post down but refused to identify the perp or say that she had been fired.
WADR to the Shoreline story, lets just get one thing clear:
hate does not justify hate but the history of this sort of thing directed at liberals and minorities in the USA is a hell of a lot more scary than the rare event going the other way.
The real crime in Clark Co, however is that the Rep party when it had a chance to do some good, failed.
shame
BREAKING NEWS! Uneducated rural Republicans don’t like blacks! Or Jews! Or gays!
Tune in at 11 for more breaking news…the sun expected to rise tomorrow!
This has to be the stupidest post I have ever seen on this blog.
@22
Um, who said that they were ok with “Bushnazi” being spraypainted on the side of someone’s house? I’ve gone over all the comments and I don’t see anyone saying they were ok with that. In fact, I see at least 2 posters who indicate that they disapprove of both incidences of vandalism.
Byebyegop: you’re giving the rest of the universe an inaccurate image of the intelligence of humanity. Please stop before you pull a neuron.
@29 That post earned you a pathetic 5 points on the Wing Nut Meter. Hell, the average lib post scores better than that.
No we dont mind gays I like blacks/or afrian ameriacans as well as native americans as well Jews are the last link to Hell. I think you have us all wrong. By the way as far as the gays…we do love the “gays” but hate the lyfestyle they have chosen.
@1 The only link I can find is this one:
http://www.komonews.com/news/archive/4131001.html
On the other hand, we know wingnuts make up shit all the time. You can’t trust anything they say.
@5 You should at least avoid eating goat cheese for a while.
@22 “Oh yeh, it’s OK for the Libs to come onto private property and deface everything they can get their hands on, …”
No, it’s not OK, and none of the liberals posting here has ever said it is.
Nor are any of the liberals I know remotely capable of doing such a thing.
I doubt the house vandalism was done by anyone in the neighborhood. That guy has been there for years and years, and no one ever bothered his house before. It’s probably the work of outsiders.
And how do we know some rightwinger didn’t do it to make liberals look bad? This type of activity usually is associated with skinhead gangs.
@28 Rural is a good place for them. We’ve got to warehouse them somewhere. Preferably as far away from other people as possible.
@32 Welcome back, Chuckie! You’ve been gone a long time … just get out?
No as I said before I was semi retired….But if enough money goes under my nose yes I had to help our boys in Iraq. Been busy..
@34 I’ll never eat goat cheese again as long as I live. Good lord, the very thought.
Well, if there’s one thing we learned about the Dems in the primary, it’s that white working class people vote for Hillary and black people vote for Obama. WV and NC are prime examples of that.
So it doesn’t surprise me that much when we see this kind of racism committed by Democrats on other Democrats. After all, if Liberals have taught us anything it’s identity politics.
Wow, first it was lynching blacks, then forcing japanese into internment camps, now who are the democrats wanting to warehouse?
Old democrat habits die hard.
#32
Thanks for proving the point about uneducated Republicans. :) “Lifestyle they’ve chosen”? ROLFMAO. Damn that’s shows such a childlike view it would be REALLY funny if you didn’t have the right to vote. Your politics and religion are chosen lifestyles. Gays are born that way. No one in the known history of the world has EVER been born with the mutant superpower to “pick” what makes them horny, what gives them an erection or wet dream in the middle of the night. You know for a fact that YOU didn’t “decide” to be straight, but yet you think all gays had this power. Or are you saying you DID used to get erections looking at men, and dream sexually about them, but then one day just “decided” to change it so forever more you were only sexual turned on by women? LOL. You should find a scientists and show them this ability that they’ve never seen before. I know I know…you don’t believe in science, evolution, science, math, physics or chemistry, so it’s a sad moot point. Sadly it will always be true that dumb people can vote.
#41
Did you just admit Republicans are racists homophobic scumbags? You’re saying the dumb violent KKK types (lynching blacks) are ‘old democratic values’….dude, that implies they’re now CURRENT Republican values. Yes the KKK used to be aligned with the southern Democrats in the past (pre civil rights). You might have not noticed the parties switched positions on this a in the 60s (bit over simplified, but still). The KKK are now Republicans. Which is worse? That these dumb violent hicks USED to be Democrats, or that after decades of the civil rights movement they find their CURRENT home with the Republicans?
No self respecting member of the KKK will vote for the gay friendly, Jew controlled (giggle) Democratic party. Don’t think so? Go to rural Alabama now and go to a Klan meeting with an Obama sticker on one car, and a McCain sticker on another, and see what happens. :)
Yes, Democrats (especially in the south) used to be HORRIBLY racist. That’s sad and embarrassing. But it’s WORSE for the Republicans, because that’s THEIR constituency now. That’s nothing to brag about dude.
What a bunch of racists. I quess you can’t expect much from typical white people.
@1
why go to Clark county? We saw how “tolerant” liberals defaced a shoreline resident’s house multiple times because he dared have a Bush/Cheney sign in his window back in 2004.
Post up a link to that one.
hehehehee
Another shiny example of a librul’s memory span. Of course libs can’t get a story straight from the day before let alone a couple years back. Why bother.
Someone scratched the words “White Power” on a car belonging to a Vancouver family who recently posted an “Elect Obama” sign in their front yard.
Man that is racist. It kind of makes you wonder if they are running for the US Senate in West Virginia as a democrat.
Could be, but if it is they should be caught and have it explained to them why that isn’t a cool thing to do and they should pay for the damage.
As the race gets tighter and McCain pulls ahead you will see more and more of this kind of crap from democrats defacing property and blaming the repubs. It’s the thug way you know from the party of thugs.
@1
I don’t recall Goldy or any of the other bloggers on here ever excusing away that sort of behavior on the part of the left.
This is a partisan site. Goldy and everyone else has always been upfront about that too.
@48
Nice try.
#16
I do not think you are a very good Nazi, because anyone who has ever watched “Patton” or “Seinfeld” knows it is “Heil Hitler”, not “Hail Hitler”.
Remember Jerry’s joke about the “Heil Five”?
If Marvin wasn’t such a coward and would tell us where he lived, I would key his car with the word “PEDOPHILE.”
And based on his performance here on HA – he wouldn’t do anything about it.
He’s never once denied it here. So why would we care what you as a pedophile think Marvy?
@ 52 ~ Thanks for proving my point @ 1 there nazi-boy, BiBiGroper.
@40
I think you raise a legit point here.
Why the rush to judgement that it was a Republican that did this?
A little google-foo will show that HRC won the most votes in the recent primary. There were more Democrat voters than Republican voters in Clark Co…
I think that this is a case of young punk fools (not party affiliated) that did this..
“At this point we are hoping some local Republicans will also come forward and denounce this attack and perhaps throw in a small donation as well.”
Remove Republicans and insert citizens or neighbors.
These punks need to learn a lesson. I hope they’re caught.
re 48: Yeah! Like when Clement was running for governor of Texas and the Democrats broke into the Republican offices and stole sensitive information!
Most of the racists in the South used to be “Democrats”…up until the 1960’s.
Now, those who were around that long who are still racist call themselves “Republicans”.
What they really are is assholes.
@54
Good point.
It’s worth noting that Jon, in the original post, did not jump to such conclusions.
There’s also precedence for individuals to fake attacks on themselves in order to generate attention and sympathy, although I tend to think that’s unlikely here.
@57
yes I agree. It is highly, highly unlikely they would do this to themselves.
IMO any situation like this needs to be met head on, in a unified way as a community, and the message is that it won’t be tolerated….
So a half literate moron in Clark County comitted a petty crime and may or may not be a Republican.
Senator Obama went for 20 years to a rascist church whose pastor regularly practiced hate speech. Sorry, that is until it’s reported. Then he dumps his friends and church. (I know liberals don’t ‘do’ logic but rascism works 2 ways.)
His oldest friends are former unrepentant terrorists from the 60’s who bombed buildings in this country.
His current friends are white collar criminals.
For those of you drinking the Kool-aid, think Peter Rezco, who helped him buy his house.
I know you liberals will use vulgar language to respond to this, because you’re incapable of actual response to a real argument. Sometime between the knee and the jerk though you might consider thinking about these things some time.
Your candidate is a dyed in the wool opportunistic politician with all the negative connatations that implies. He can’t hold an opinion in the face of polls that militate against it. He flip-flops like a landed salmon. He’s inexperienced and incompetent. The nation deserves better, and couldn’t get worse, in a president.
I get it, you hate President Bush. To tell the truth I don’t much like him. The most liberal and incompetent member of Congress is not a good answer even so.