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kyle rittenhouse
Judge the Far-Right by Their Hideous Heroes
Orban, Rittenhouse, and the right's infatuation with the darkness.
Dec 19, 2022
You can learn a lot about the people who make up a political party by identifying their heroes. So, who are the heroes of today's Republicans? If your first thought was Ronald Reagan, you're showing your age. Reagan was the answer of an earlier time, when we had a different, although not wholly dissimilar, Republican Party. Saint Ronnie, as he was sometimes called back then, was the patron saint of the GOP. Their answer to every question.
Republicans were very effective in pushing this sanctification, or perhaps whitewashing would be better term, of Reagan's record in office -- a process pushed along by the millions of dollars spent in the Ronald Reagan legacy project. Almost certainly the most overrated president in history, he is often listed as one of the top ten in published rankings.
The nightmare is already in motion -- all the classic signs of a dying democracy and a growing authoritarian influence are present.
This conservative adulation notwithstanding, Reagan has many sins to answer for. His presidency was marked by complete inaction during the critical first years of the AIDS epidemic, the Iran-Contra Affair, reversal of his predecessor Jimmy Carter's support of renewable energy technologies, thereby throwing away the planet's best chance to avoid the devastation of global warming, a doubling down on the GOP's politics of racial division, including popularizing the racist myth of welfare queens.
But at least he wasn't Donald Trump. He instigated no riots -- never directly threatened our democracy. And as a lot of people have noted, there would be no room for him in today's GOP.
Many Republicans today would, of course, name Donald Trump as their hero. And while there is evidence his hold on the GOP is weakening, it would be a mistake to underestimate the depth of his support among true believers.
For our purposes, however, Trump is old news. We knew exactly who and what he was years ago. To understand what's going on today in the GOP, we need to explore more recent inductees into the right-wing's pantheon of giants. We will look at two examples, both troubling.
President Viktor Orban, the Hungarian strongman, is a bona fide star in American conservative circles. In some ways, this isn't surprising. On the culture war issues they care the most about, he's a kindred spirit. He attacks so-called liberal elites, plays to conservative resentments, opposes immigration, attacks abortion and gay rights, and pushes "traditional Christian values." In short, he's their kind of autocrat.
There is still, of course, the inconvenient fact that Orban tore down a previously functioning democracy, effectively becoming a dictator. But Republicans seem troublingly untroubled by this. Presumably this is at least partly a matter of priorities. What's a little thing like destroying democracy as compared to having a powerful autocrat knocking liberals and spreading conspiracy theories about George Soros? For a lot of Republicans, especially those in the most extreme right, however, destroying American democracy isn't simply a method of achieving a greater purpose. It is the goal.
And it's far from comforting that the methods Orban employed to consolidate power are strikingly similar to things Republicans are pushing right now. Following the 2010 Hungarian election, Orban gained control of more than two-thirds of the seats in the National Assembly, giving him the power to rewrite the constitution and electoral laws in ways that made it virtually impossible for the opposition to win. It was done through extreme gerrymandering, rewriting campaign finance laws, packing the courts with cronies, seizing control of most media outlets, and changing the election process in ways that benefited him politically.
In the end, Hungary was left with only the shell of a democracy. They still hold elections, just not meaningful ones. Orban christened the process with the appropriately Orwellian name of "illiberal democracy," later changed to "Christian democracy."
It's difficult to view the similarity of current Republican tactics to Orban's rise without sensing a correlation, perhaps even a common goal.
Kyle Rittenhouse became a GOP hero for one reason only -- he killed people they didn't like. Taking it upon himself to travel across state lines, armed with a weapon of war, he inserted himself into a tense situation. He then used that weapon to kill two people and wound a third. The jury acquitted him of criminal responsibility. I can't argue with the verdict, since I didn't hear the testimony. There is, however, no question Rittenhouse is morally culpable in these shootings. He put himself into a highly volatile situation, heavily armed, when he had no legitimate reason to be involved. And two people died as a result.
This is not, however, how most Republicans seem to see it. They not only view Rittenhouse as a hero, they are happy to revel in this imagined heroism. Rittenhouse was the featured speaker at the far-right Turning Point USA's Americafest, where he was met by a standing ovation. A journalist reported he was treated like a rock star. Not wanting to be left out of the fun, far-right members of Congress pretended to compete for the honor of hiring him as an intern. Donald Trump posed for a picture with him.
The GOP has grown increasingly comfortable with political violence. The best known example, of course, is the ongoing right-wing effort to whitewash the January 6th insurrection -- redefining the murderous attack as legitimate protest. Trump continues to hint that if returned to the White House, he will pardon the rioters, the deaths of law enforcement officers notwithstanding.
And it isn't just the violence itself. Almost as troubling, is the right wing's increasingly casual attitude toward it. One particularly appalling example was when various right-wing political and media figures started cracking jokes over Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul, being attacked. An 82-year-old man was beaten with a hammer badly enough to require skull surgery, and they not only saw humor in the situation. They felt comfortable showing it in public.
We are living among the echoes of earlier dying democracies. In Orban's Hungary, we see the unsettling possibility of a very different America. Watching videos of the brutality of the January 6 assault, it is frighteningly easy to bring up the image of Brownshirts on the march in pre-World War II Germany. Experts on authoritarian movements are screaming from every rooftop. The nightmare is already in motion -- all the classic signs of a dying democracy and a growing authoritarian influence are present.
One out of the two major political parties is growing increasingly authoritarian. And given the cycles of American politics, we know someday almost certainly they will win. And they only need to win once.
The time to save our democracy is running short.
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Rise of Fascism Feeding Off a Meaner, More Violent United States
Violence is the cardinal characteristic, the logo, the brand identity of fascism. Every fascist movement in history has lifted itself to power on the scaffold of violence.
Jun 24, 2022
Blood alone moves the wheels of history.
-Benito Mussolini
"Have you noticed that people are getting meaner?" the villain asks in a Paramount+ promo for their new show Evil.
"What does it mean?" asks the "nice" character.
"It means," says the evil character with a note of triumph in her voice, "that your side is losing."
And here we are. The lede of an above-the-fold story in yesterday's Washington Post lays it out:
"In the past 24 hours, there has been an uptick in the number of violent threats against lawmakers on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and all lawmakers on the committee are likely to receive a security detail..."
We need to discuss the violence and threats of violence now endemic to the GOP, because they signal a hopefully reversible--but possibly terminal--slide into fascism.
Fascism is violence.
Its philosophy is rooted in violence: the domination of the many by a few, whether the main instrument of that domination is personal physical violence, the violence of great wealth or political power being used to destroy one's enemies, or unjustified violence inflicted by the state under color of law.
But at its core, fascism is rooted in physical violence, intimidation, and murder. It's war brought into politics and governance.
Violence like this has its own power and its own attraction.
The media is drawn to it, making it the most powerful recruiting tool a fascist movement has.
Insecure, frightened men (and the occasional woman) participating in fascist violence find a sense of agency, of individual power and meaning, a sort of orgasmic release from a life of ordinariness and political impotence.
And make no mistake: the GOP has become the party of political violence.
Democrats treat the violence associated with today's Republican Party as if it were coming from outliers, as if it's "a few bad apples," as if it's simply a troublesome weirdness on the extreme periphery of the conservative movement.
We see this in their response to the violence of January 6th, to the threats of violence directed at members of the January 6th Committee who are now getting security details, and to the frequent but scattershot violence that erupts across the country almost daily.
Democrats watch threats of violence against school board members; against nurses and hospitals treating Covid; against abortion providers; against racial minorities and queer people who Republican legislators declare--and try to put into law--are less than human or "aberrations" that must not be tolerated in a "free society."
The media continues to largely ignore those frequent moments when fascist-infiltrated police--the only group within our society who are legally authorized to use violence without consequence--overlook or overtly encourage the violence that breaks out when Americans dare stand up to fascist militias.
"It's the exception," the media notes, and moves on to the next story.
In fact, these displays of violence and the willingness to use violence are declarations. They are statements of purpose. They're spoken and executed with pride.
They are assertions by fascists that they intend to exercise violence and its power up to and including the ultimate: the power to take human life.
Republicans and their media lionize Kyle Rittenhouse for showing up at a Black Lives Matter protest and killing two protestors. They celebrate police violence with "thin blue line" flags, and wave the all-black US flag that signifies the willingness to kill one's political opponents.
They show up at protests heavily armed and wearing tee-shirts evoking General Pinochet with the slogan, "Free helicopter rides for liberals." Their leader said there are "very good people on both sides" after his fascists murdered a young woman named Heather Heyer.
Republicans running for office feature guns or imply threats to kill people in their television and online advertising. Eric Greitens is just the latest in a long list of GOP shooters glorifying assault weapons and implying political violence. This is Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie's Christmas Card:
These are all expressions of fascism.
When men like Rusty Bowers and Brad Raffensperger--who dared stop Trump's criminal attempts to steal the 2020 election--describe how they were and continue to be threatened with violence, elected Republicans fall silent.
Arizona House Speaker Bowers endured violent threats outside his home through night after night as his daughter lay dying: this kind of violence is devoid of compassion. It is evil.
Not a word from Ronna Romney McDaniel about the embrace of violence by the base of the Republican Party she leads, not a word from congressional Republicans about the violence their own fellow conservatives now face, not a word from Republican media other than to cynically mouth phony excuses and justifications.
Because violence is now their brand. They revel in it.
They boast of it in ways that are often misinterpreted as either hyperbole or jokes, like when Sharron Angle (and others) warned of "Second Amendment solutions" to Democratic efforts, or when Donald Trump said he could murder someone on Fifth Avenue and still get elected.
Their fascist followers know better: these are proud statements of their willingness to use or endorse violence, and carry explicit threats.
Holocaust survivor Hannah Arendt wrote in The Origins of Totalitarianism:
"[T]he propaganda of totalitarian movements which precede and accompany totalitarian regimes is invariably as frank as it is mendacious, and would-be totalitarian rulers usually start their careers by boasting of their past crimes and carefully outlining their future ones.
"The Nazis 'were convinced that evil-doing in our time has a morbid force of attraction,' ... and experience has proved time and again that the propaganda value of evil deeds and general contempt for moral standards is independent of mere self-interest, supposedly the most powerful psychological factor in politics.
"The attraction of evil and crime for the mob mentality is nothing new. It has always been true that the mob will greet 'deeds of violence with the admiring remark: it may be mean, but it is very clever.'"
When a nation goes fascist, it happens quickly. It takes people by surprise.
In 1919, Benito Mussolini started out with 300 armed volunteers, his Blackshirts. They began by terrorizing gay men, striking union members, and socialists; newspaper reports of their violence, beatings, and the occasional murder swept across Italy.
Over the next three years Mussolini's Blackshirt militia burgeoned to over 20,000 men, so when, on the last day of October 1922, he directly confronted King Victor Emmanuel III with the threat of violence, the king gave in, dissolved the government, and appointed Mussolini Prime Minister of Italy.
No campaign, no election, just three years of unrelenting violence and the threat of more violence.
Hitler rose to power on the wings of violence as well, first in the Beer Hall Putsch and later, when he became Chancellor, through his volunteer militia the Brownshirts terrorizing gays, Jews, and union members. Paul von Hindenburg thought Hitler would set aside the violence, as promised, if he was given the power he demanded. Hindenburg didn't understand fascism.
Violence is the cardinal characteristic, the logo, the brand identity of fascism. Every fascist movement in history has lifted itself to power on the scaffold of violence. And then continues to rule with violence.
Fascist media revel in the language of violence. They dehumanize the victims of their violence with words like "invaders" and "vermin" and "illegals."
To justify the violence at the heart of their movement, they squeal a phony claim to victimhood: They think Democrats are trying to take their tax dollars. They fear gays are trying to groom their children. They believe teachers are indoctrinating their youth in socialism. Violence, they say, is their only option.
Over the past two decades, as this fascist movement has arisen in America and taken over the GOP, more than three-quarters of all politically motivated murders have been committed by rightwing often-Republican-aligned terrorists.
Terrorism is fascism. Isis and Al-Qaeda are fascist organizations, just like the various militias that attacked our Capitol on January 6th and today stalk our streets from the backs of pickup trucks while brandishing assault weapons.
For the Republicans in Congress, this is not a problem until violence is threatened against one of their own; when a lone mentally ill man calls police to confess he's hallucinating voices telling him to kill Brett Kavanaugh, legislation is passed within days to protect the Court's justices.
Two years earlier, when "men's rights" advocate Roy Den Hollander murdered the 20-year-old son of Judge Esther Salas and was carrying detailed plans to kill Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor next, Republican Senator Rand Paul blocked legislation in the Senate to provide federal judges with that protection.
Not even one Republican objected to Paul's obstruction, and Mitch McConnell let it stand. Violence is their brand.
When violence is threatened against the few remaining non-fascist Republicans, theoretically members of their own tribe, that's just fine with the "base voter" fascists who now control the levers of power in the party. Just ask any of the Republicans who have testified before the January 6th Committee or who voted to impeach Trump.
Fascists justify their violence as necessary to protect their faith, their families, and the "identity" of their homeland. They will tell you it's the unfortunate last-ditch "necessity" provoked by the "others" who "threaten our way of life."
In reality, violence is not the fascist's final, last-gasp option: it's their first.
- It's their most powerful recruiting tool, showing, as it does, their dominance of society and society's institutions.
- It's how they cow dissent.
- It's the weapon that provokes action, and fascists are all about action.
- It creates chaos, and fascism needs chaos to tear down the existing structures of governance and law that they intend to replace.
The final cause to which fascist violence is directed is what Jefferson (and Hobbes) called bellum omnium in omnia: war of all against all. Every murderous act is designed intentionally to bring society closer to breakdown, so the fascists can openly kill their enemies--particularly people of color and "liberals"--in the streets of the nation.
It's why Tim McVeigh blew up the Oklahoma Federal Building in 1995, killing 168 people and injuring another 680. It appears to be what motivated both the Las Vegas shooter who killed 58 people and the Boston Bomber. It was claimed by the Buffalo killer of 20 people in a supermarket, and the 2019 El Paso shooter who murdered 23 people.
It's the story line of the two best-selling books within the militia movement, Camp of the Saints and The Turner Diaries. Each ends with mass slaughter leaving a nation of "pure" white Christian survivors, most holding well-used assault rifles as they stand atop piles of bodies.
Hannah Arendt noted in her 1969 essay "Reflections on Violence":
"[T]he danger of the practice of violence, even if it moves consciously within a non-extremist framework of short-term goals, will always be that the means overwhelm the end.
"If goals are not achieved rapidly, the result will not merely be defeat but the introduction of the practice of violence into the whole body politic. Action is irreversible, and a return to the status quo in case of defeat is always unlikely.
"The practice of violence, like all action, changes the world, but the most probable change is a more violent world."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently demanded that Republicans "take back their party." So far, they're not listening.
Every day that Republicans refuse to seize and root out the fascist violence now associated with their party is another day closer to a dystopia like the one through which Hannah Arendt lived.
It can happen here.
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'Literally Celebrating Killing People': Chris Hayes Segment Details Growing Right-Wing Bloodlust
With a standing ovation for Kyle Rittenhouse, a right-wing gathering this week displayed "one of the most ominous, despicable developments in our politics in recent memory," said the MSNBC host.
Dec 22, 2021
In under nine minutes, MSNBC host Chris Hayes on Tuesday night summarized the American right wing's transformation in recent years into a political movement that openly celebrates violence, zeroing in on America Fest 2021--a conservative gathering taking place in Phoenix this week where Kyle Rittenhouse was celebrated by influential Fox News hosts and received a standing ovation.
Eighteen-year-old Rittenhouse, who was found not guilty last month of homicide charges after he shot and killed two people and wounded a third at racial justice protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin last year, "received the rock star treatment" at the summit, where organizers lit up a pyrotechnic display and the audience of 6,700 chanted Rittenhouse's name as he walked on stage.
The spectacle was indicative of "one of the most ominous, despicable developments in our politics in recent memory," said Hayes on his MSNBC show, "All In With Chris Hayes." He called the emergence of violence, particularly gun violence, as a "core identity aspect" of conservatives in the United States.
Watch:
America Fest 2021, said Hayes, "is the kind of place where we are seeing a certain grim aspect of right-wing politics getting increasingly more pronounced. It is a sort of celebration and modeling of fundamentally aberrant anti-social violent behavior, like being a jerk. That's the Donald Trump MAGA model, of course."
"The celebration of violence is one of the most ominous developments in American politics and [something that has] been happening for a long time. But they are putting it now in full display."
But while Turning Point USA, the right-wing group that hosts America Fest, helped catapult to fame Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia)--who have targeted progressives including Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Marie Newman (D-Ill.) with racist and anti-LGBTQ invective--Hayes emphasized that the key to being treated as a hero by the right is "not just rhetorical."
"As you saw with the welcome for Kyle Rittenhouse," Hayes said, "they are literally celebrating killing people."
Fox News host Tucker Carlson, whose show is one of the highest-rated on the network, was filmed backstage at America Fest excitedly greeting Rittenhouse, telling the teen--who has also received internship offers from multiple Republican lawmakers--"We're fans of yours, as you know."
Hayes said, "What does that mean? There's literally nothing to be a fan of."
"Kyle Rittenhouse is a child who shot and killed two people and wounded a third," he added. "That's his body of work. That's it. You're a fan of that."
Beyond the star treatment bestowed on Rittenhouse at America Fest, Hayes highlighted a statement "laced with violent rhetoric" by Fox News personality Jesse Watters, who urged journalists to "ambush" White House medical advisor Anthony Fauci with interviews about the origins of the coronavirus.
"Now you go in for the kill shot. This is when you say, 'Dr. Fauci, you funded risky research at a sloppy Chinese lab, the same lab that sprung this pandemic on the world,'" Watters told the crowd. "Boom, he is dead. He is dead. He's done."
Fauci has faced death threats since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, during which he has urged people to take life-saving precautions like social distancing, mask-wearing, and getting vaccinated against the disease.
Watters' "words come in the broader context of everything being said and done on the right and they were spoken at this America Fest event where they are celebrating Kyle Rittenhouse's literal kill shot against two people," Hayes said.
At one point during the gathering, host and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was forced to quickly tamp down a question from an audience member who wanted right-wing leaders to let the public know when they "get to use the guns."
"That's not a joke... I mean, literally, where's the line? How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people?" the man said, repeating the lie pushed by former President Donald Trump about the 2020 election before Kirk hastily denounced his violent rhetoric.
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Hayes urged his audience to take the man's question seriously, noting that America Fest 2021 took place just weeks after the Public Religion Research Institute found that nearly 30% of Republicans believe "true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country."
The rhetoric at the gathering combined with "the fetishization of guns," the U.S. population's status as the most heavily armed country in the world, and "the celebration of violence is one of the most ominous developments in American politics and [something that has] been happening for a long time," said Hayes.
"But they are putting it now in full display," he added.
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True Measures of Justice Goes Beyond Verdicts in the Rittenhouse or Arbery Trials
Measuring progress solely by the outcome of trials risks both ignoring the importance of greater systemic change and compromising fairness in the criminal legal system.
Nov 25, 2021
Our country is in the midst of a modern-day reckoning with its identity and its history of racialized oppression. Triggered in part by the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many others, our communities are grappling with the long history of inequality and hatred that continues to rear its head--more recently, in what must be understood as the lynching of Ahmaud Arbery.
These individual acts of racialized violence, as well as violence taking place in the context of subsequent protests such as that in Kenosha, highlight pervasive issues of systemic racism and the need for sweeping, structural changes in all of our economic, political, and social systems. Black Lives Matter--from the cradle to the grave.
We knew, long before the Rittenhouse trial concluded, that those armed, overwhelmingly white groups are threaded through with anti-Black and anti-democratic sentiments that pose profound threats to our safety, and to democratic government.
As Black people, we are not just standing up for the right to live free from fear of vigilantism by racist mobs and a system of policing that does not value all lives equally. We are also standing up for the right to vote without discriminatory election practices; to send our children to schools that practice inclusive education and are free of discriminatory discipline and criminalization; to find housing and employment unimpeded by discrimination and algorithmic bias; to serve on juries; and to exercise our rights of free speech and assembly to demand justice.
Here at the ACLU, we are affirmatively dedicated to continuing to fight the long and good fight for these deep structural changes, including in our national litigation and advocacy work for systemic equality. Amidst that ongoing work, in the aftermath of the brutal killing of Ahmaud Arbery and in response to the rising up and demands of brave Georgians, the ACLU of Georgia joined hands with other organizations and helped change the state's citizen arrest law wielded by the defendants in this case.
We do this because it is our role, our duty, and our mandate to ensure that the individual rights and liberties of the Constitution apply to ALL of the country's people.
While all of this work progresses and deepens, we have closely watched high-profile jury trials unfold as individual actors faced criminal prosecution and juries convened to render verdicts. Just last week, Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted of all charges after shooting three men in Kenosha, Wisc., killing two of them, during protests against the shooting of Jacob Blake by police. Today, a jury in Brunswick, Ga. found all three of the men charged in the killing of Mr. Arbery guilty of murder and other charges.
We mourn the terror and trauma that the families of all of these victims of violence are facing, including Mr. Arbery's family. But measuring progress solely by the outcome of these trials risks both ignoring the importance of greater systemic change and compromising fairness in the criminal legal system, which itself is a core, founding principle for the ACLU.
Kyle Rittenhouse received protections that I wish my primarily Black and Brown clients had received when I served as a public defender. For example, the court granted Rittenhouse's attorneys' request that the government not be allowed to describe the men fatally shot and attacked by Rittenhouse as "victims." This request did not surprise me. My former colleagues and I routinely made similar requests to preserve the presumption of innocence for our clients. But what did surprise me was the fact that the court granted this request. Not once in my 23 years as a public defender were my clients afforded this same protection--and they should have been.
Our system is designed to provide everyone accused of a crime with the presumption of innocence. That presumption remains with the accused unless the government is able to prove otherwise, beyond a reasonable doubt. When we look to particular outcomes in criminal cases to send a message or set an example, we run the risk of unintentionally calling for a diminishment of procedural protections and further harming those disproportionately pulled into the system of criminal punishment: people from marginalized communities where systemic racism runs rampant.
The trials of accused individuals are not a proxy for solving wider societal problems. We don't need a conviction in Kenosha to know that it's a threat to many when actual and would-be militias roam the streets in a self-assigned mission to "keep the peace." We knew, long before the Rittenhouse trial concluded, that those armed, overwhelmingly white groups are threaded through with anti-Black and anti-democratic sentiments that pose profound threats to our safety, and to democratic government. And we didn't need a conviction in Georgia to demand and achieve systemic changes such that no resident of that state could be under the impression that vigilante justice is protected by state law.
The true measure of justice is not whether there are convictions or acquittals in either of these cases. Instead, the true measure of justice is in the work we are steadfastly doing today and in the days after verdicts are rendered. It is in the work to delineate what "racial justice" truly means; the work to root out racist violence in all of its forms; the work to end mass incarceration; the work to stand up in the streets for Black lives, for justice and equality, and to protect that right as the First Amendment guarantees.
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The Exoneration Club of America Welcomes Kyle Rittenhouse
We're a nonpartisan support group of fellow exonerated killers and accused criminals who prevailed against the “woke mob” of the liberal media, devious prosecutors, and hostile public once we had our day in court.
Nov 24, 2021
To: Kyle Rittenhouse.
From: George M. Zimmerman, president of the Exoneration Club of America (2013 to present).
Dear Kyle,
We've never met, but I'm thrilled to welcome you as the latest member of the Exoneration Club of America. You were nominated by our board for membership the minute your verdict was announced. Like the jurors at your trial, the vote was unanimous here at the club. You're one of us now, Kyle. Congratulations!
They're lionizing you as a hero when you and I both know that deep down, you're scared and wondering if you'll ever be able to sleep again without seeing the faces of those you killed in your dreams.
You've probably never heard of us, so let me explain how monumental this honor we've bestowed upon you is. We're a nonpartisan support group of fellow exonerated killers and accused criminals who prevailed against the "woke mob" of the liberal media, devious prosecutors and hostile public once we had our day in court. Like you, we've all had the pleasure of hearing the sweetest words that have ever been uttered by a jury: "Not guilty on all charges."
The ECA was officially started by half-brothers Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam in 1955. They were exonerated by an all-white jury for the lynching of Emmett Till, a Black 14-year-old Chicagoan who was kidnapped, tortured and murdered for allegedly whistling at a store clerk who was married to one of our founding members.
Here in the ECA, we do not pass judgment on the likely guilt or innocence of our members. The courts have already done that. All we can do is humbly defer to the wisdom of the judicial system. My job as the current president of the ECA is to make you aware of resources you'll need to navigate the rough days and sleepless nights ahead of you.
But before we get down to business, allow me to commend you for the gutsy decision to take the stand in your own defense at your murder trial.
During my 2013 trial for defending myself against Trayvon Martin, my lawyers refused to let me take the stand because they thought I would come off as unsympathetic. I beg to differ, since the jury was obviously on my side from the beginning.
To their credit, my lawyers put Trayvon's ghost on trial, knowing that most of the jurors would understand my very reasonable fear of being beat up and killed by an angry, muscular Black teenager who looked 10 feet tall on that dark and rainy night in Sanford, Fla.
I shot him because I knew that the law was on my side, just as it was on yours. I was standing my ground. You were defending yourself. Every other fact and circumstance is immaterial.
I remember those heady days after my acquittal on all charges. I was feted by Fox News, just as you are now. Along with several family members, I took a victory lap on "Hannity" and other programs that would have me. I was invited to gun shops and shooting ranges. I was a genuine hero in the eyes of a good portion of America because I refused to take any guff from an unarmed Black kid.
You're doing Tucker Carlson's show these days and weighing a lot of competing offers from various Republican congressmen to go to D.C. Not bad for a former high school dropout who is now taking online courses to become a nurse.
Rep. Matt Gaetz from down here in Florida tweeted that you "would probably make a pretty good congressional intern." This ignited a friendly rivalry with Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., who was recently censured by the House for creating a video cartoon in which he killed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
Mr. Gosar responded to Mr. Gaetz's tweet by offering to arm wrestle his Florida colleague to "get dibs for Kyle as an intern." Meanwhile, no one was more over-the-top in their admiration for you than Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., who proclaimed his passion for you on Instagram in all caps: "KYLE: IF YOU WANT AN INTERNSHIP, REACH OUT TO ME."
I didn't get those kinds of offers when I was acquitted of killing Trayvon Martin, so I admit to being a little jealous. I got lots of radio and television interview time, but those don't pay the bills after the notoriety fades. Oddly enough, being a symbol of American violence isn't very lucrative. The NRA and the GOP raised millions from my image while I was living in my car. There's something unfair about that.
You're probably too young to remember, but I had all sorts of hassles with the police within months of my acquittal. There was a notorious road rage incident, a divorce that left me drowning in debt, a bout of homelessness and accusations of domestic violence that dog me to this day. I was an insurance underwriter and wannabe cop the night I shot Trayvon. I haven't had any gainful employment since. Oh, and I don't want to be a cop anymore, either.
I tried various hustles. I tried to auction off the gun I killed Trayvon with, but that went bust. I tried my hand at painting but ran into copyright issues because of the images I copied. Admittedly, my subjects weren't very popular. I thought the nation was ready for limited-series Confederate flag paintings and Trayvon Martin portraits by yours truly. One critic called my work "murderabilia," which I thought was clever, but no one wants to pay me for my art.
This is just to warn you that fame is term-limited and that the folks carrying you on their shoulders today won't have any time for you a year from now. That goes for Tucker, Hannity and all of those Fox News phonies, too. They're lionizing you as a hero when you and I both know that deep down, you're scared and wondering if you'll ever be able to sleep again without seeing the faces of those you killed in your dreams.
I noticed that your lawyer, Mark Richards, has expressed disdain about the Republican congressmen--and Donald Trump Jr.--trying to profit from your image.
"They're raising money on [Rittenhouse's celebrity], and you have all of these Republican congressmen saying, 'Come work for me.' They want to trade on his celebrity, and I think it's disgusting," your lawyer said.
He's not wrong in being so contemptuous.
Most of the politicians that have been invoking your name are vultures and bottom-feeding opportunists who don't care that you might be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after killing two people and badly injuring a third. They want the fame that comes with being in proximity to you, but they couldn't care less about you or your conscience once deep remorse kicks in. They will have already moved on to another pliable culture warrior once your soul starts hurting.
Your lawyer is saying the same sorts of things in public my lawyer said after springing me. Your lawyer told CNN, "There's too many guns in society" and "I wish our society wasn't perceived as being so dangerous that people need to arm themselves."
I wouldn't go as far as your lawyer and say there are too many guns in society. America was built on the right to shoot people out of fear. That's a sacred American right that you'll have to pry from our dead, cold hands, right, amigo?
While I have you, I'd like to offer you the vice presidency of the Exoneration Club of America. Please think about it. I can't think of a finer person than you to become president of the ECA one day. I offered it to Bill Cosby a few months ago when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court threw out his conviction for sexual assault, but he called me a "racist" and turned me down flat. I must admit that coming from Cos, that hurt. I'm such a fan of his work.
I'm preparing exoneration packets for the three men in the Ahmaud Arbery murder trial in Georgia, but I suspect they're going to be convicted, which is too bad. I hear those Georgia boys are good workers. We could've used their enthusiasm around here.
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Rittenhouse's Acquittal Is an Endorsement of Critical Race Theory
Critical race theory is a body of brilliant investigations into the deep ways that racism is built into the core of our legal systems.
Nov 23, 2021
The acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse is a powerful endorsement of critical race theory. We all know that no one is teaching critical race theory in the K-12 system. The current discussions of Critical Race Theory (CRT) are the result of a tried-and-true right-wing strategy to create weird forms of cathexis where they link the name of something obscure with things that bother people at their core, to create lightning rods by which to channel toxic energy through the bodies of their followers, in ways that bond people to their to their death cult.
Critical race theorists have studied the ways that race is deeply imbricated into legal reasoning.
But in our rush to expose the dishonesty behind the vilification of CRT we might be passing up a golden opportunity to actually learn about it. In its right-wing boogeyman form, it amounts to nothing more than teaching the hard realities of our country's history of racism. But to those of us who have read it, critical race theory is a body of brilliant investigations into the deep ways that racism is built into the core of our legal systems.
The central insight of critical race theory is that law is not a set of rational principles and neutral practices that are applied to adjudicate our differences when things go wrong. Rather law is always wrapped up with a system of meaning and values, and it both reflects and constructs social relations. Critical race theorists have studied the ways that race is deeply imbricated into legal reasoning. They look at the origins of notions of property in the West, beginning at a time when Indigenous people were not seen to have a right to the land because they did not farm it "rationally." They look at the time when people with African ancestry not only did not have their property rights protected by law, but they themselves were property. They show ways that these racial practices were built into the system from the beginning, and how they persist to the present day.
Cheryl Harris begins "Whiteness as Property '' with a discussion of her family members who were born legally considered to be property. She goes on to explore how white people come to believe that their white privilege is a form of property that it is illegitimate to take from them/us. She ends the essay with this: "Whiteness as property has carried and produced a heavy legacy. It is a ghost that has haunted the political and legal domains in which claims for justice have been inadequately addressed for far too long. ...In protecting the property's interest in whiteness, property is assumed to be no more than the right to prohibit infringement on settled expectations, ignoring countervailing equitable claims predicated on a right to inclusion. It is long past time to put the property interest in whiteness to rest."
In recent years it has become almost impossible to win a legal case claiming that one has been discriminated against. Several Supreme Court decisions make it such that there needs to be proof of intent to discriminate. A few decades ago, it was enough to show statistically significant disparate outcomes. In her essay "Metrobroadcasting, Inc. vs FCC: Regrouping in Singular Times," Patricia Williams argues that "The idea that an egalitarian society can be achieved or maintained through the mechanism of blind neutrality is fallacious. Racial discrimination is powerful precisely because of its frequent invisibility, its felt neutrality.... Racism inscribes culture with generalized preferences and routinized notions of propriety. It is aspiration much as condemnation; it is an aesthetic. It empowers mere familiarity and comfort for the status quo by labeling that status quo as "natural."
Who is seen by the legal system as being fully human, who is seen as inherently frightening, who is seen as an innocent victim, and who can be empathized with, are all at play in every step of every legal proceeding.
Rittenhouse was acquitted of two murders and one maiming on the basis that he acted in self-defense. The jury was asked to think about the situation from his perspective. Of course he was frightened. Walking around an extremely unruly crowd that had gathered to mourn the maiming of Jacob Blake by a police officer, would be a frightening situation. If at least one juror could empathize with what brought Rittenhouse along with his loaded assault weapon to that scene, he was going to get acquitted. And what Rittenhouse brought was a sense that his property in whiteness was being taken away.
One way of understanding the current cathexis to the boogeyman of CRT is that many white Americans feel that their natural god given right to white privilege is being taken away from them by moves toward equality. The familiarity and comfort they/we have been granted for the past few hundred years is slipping away. As the saying goes "to a person used to privilege, equality feels like oppression." As many of us are fighting for an end to racism, as the demographic realities of our country make some white people feel that they are being "replaced," it is no wonder that there is a violent insurrection happening to protect white privilege.
Critical race theory shows us that there are multiple places in our legal systems that allow for cultural interpretations and historical systems of meaning to shape the outcomes of trials, arrests, court cases, and every aspect of our legal system. Who is seen by the legal system as being fully human, who is seen as inherently frightening, who is seen as an innocent victim, and who can be empathized with, are all at play in every step of every legal proceeding.
The critical race theorists are right that we cannot have equality before the law in a culture steeped in racism. No one is asking that second graders to read Kimberle Crenshaw, Patricia Williams, or Cheryl Harris. But their work, and the acquittal of Karl Rittenhouse, show how important it is that we fight for our children to be taught a realistic sense of how white privilege came to be seen as something deserving of protection by law.
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Kyle Rittenhouse Didn't Act Alone: Law Enforcement Must Be Held Accountable
The massive show of force from 40 law enforcement agencies in Kenosha didn’t make anyone safer.
Nov 21, 2021
For two weeks, we've heard trial testimony and seen evidence of the events that occurred on August 25, 2020 -- the night that Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed two people and injured another during a Black Lives Matter protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin. While Rittenhouse was not held accountable, he was not the only one whose conduct on that deadly night should be scrutinized. The actions -- and inaction -- of the Kenosha Police Department and the Kenosha County Sheriff's Department in the preceding 72 hours played a critical part in the tragic events that took place.
As we reflect on that night, we must remember what ignited these protests. Two months after the murder of George Floyd, on August 23, 2020, Kenosha Police shot a Black man, Jacob Blake, in the back multiple times, paralyzing him. Faced with this latest manifestation of law enforcement's systemic mistreatment and disregard for the lives of Black and Brown people, people took to the streets of Kenosha. Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth oversaw law enforcement's response to these protests, including the coordination of over 40 local, state, and federal agencies.
The day after Kenosha Police shot Mr. Blake, former city alderman and self-proclaimed commander of the Kenosha Guard Kevin Mathewson wrote a racially charged "call to action" inviting armed civilians to protect Kenosha from "evil thugs" the following day. The comments on his Facebook invitation, corresponding Reddit threads, and Infowars degenerated into racist threats to kill and maim protestors.
On the night of August 25, law enforcement not only failed to protect protestors calling for police accountability and more humane treatment of Black people, but actively put them in harm's way. Officers enabled and encouraged predominantly white, right-wing armed civilians and militia groups that night, creating a situation in which tensions escalated and people were killed.
Following the violence in Kenosha, an investigative team at the ACLU filed approximately 40 public records requests to local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies; reviewed more than 800 records and 50 hours of video footage; and conducted over 40 in-depth interviews with community members to better understand what happened in Kenosha and how we can avoid these tragedies in the future. Here is what we found:
Kenosha law enforcement was aware of the threats that these armed civilians and militia groups posed to protestors exercising their First Amendment rights. Mathewson asked Sheriff Beth and Kenosha Police Chief David Miskinis to deputize these armed civilians and militia groups, noting that more than 3,000 people accepted the online invitation to "protect" the city. In addition to this correspondence, community members in Kenosha contacted law enforcement with concerns for their safety after reading this online vitriol. Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security told local law enforcement that the Boogaloo Bois, a right-wing group with a history of violence, were planning an event in Kenosha on August 24. The Federal Bureau of Investigation also warned that the conflicting ideologies of protestors and these armed civilians and militia groups could "potentially be a flashpoint for violence" the next day.
Despite the obvious safety threats, law enforcement embraced the incendiary presence of armed civilians and militia groups. In a widely seen video, law enforcement thanked and even offered water to the armed civilians and militia groups attending the protests, as they instructed those protesting police brutality to leave. In text messages retrieved through our public records requests, after someone circulated a video of the Rittenhouse shootings, a Waukesha County Sheriff's Department officer commented "nice video" in a message to colleagues and added that he was "[l]istening to gunfire. Such a nice night."
In fact, it appears Kenosha law enforcement coordinated an effort to push protestors south on Sheridan Road, towards armed civilians and militia groups. Ryan Thomas Balch, an armed civilian affiliated with the Boogaloo Bois, was recorded saying on the night of the shootings, "Do you know what the cops told us today? They were like, 'We're gonna push them down by you, because you can deal with them, and then we're gonna leave.'" In an August 26, 2020 written statement, Balch added, "K[enosha] P[olice] D[epartment] made a conscious decision to abandon the people of Kenosha to people they felt justified in using machines and weapons of war against. And were going to piss them off and drive them at us and let the chips fall where they may."
The Kenosha County Sheriff's Department, led by Sheriff Beth, commanded law enforcement agencies to clear Civic Center Park and push protestors south towards the danger that lay multiple blocks from the park at the intersection of 60th and Sheridan. Multiple law enforcement officers documented their knowledge that armed civilians and militia members were concentrated in that direction, near 60th and Sheridan. Officers from various law enforcement agencies described the use of armored vehicles, foam bullets, tear gas, and flash bangs to herd protestors from the park toward the intersection, and to prevent the return of protestors to the park. After pushing the protestors south for over an hour, Kenosha law enforcement took a strategically timed break, consistent with Balch's description. These efforts were well documented in the records our investigative team obtained:
- 9:43 pm: The Kenosha County Sheriff's Department documented "gas being deployed in front of the courthouse, goal to push crowd south."
- 10:32 pm: Kenosha Police Department dispatched patrol to 58th and 8th to "keep crowd moving south on Sheridan."
- 10:40 pm: Three bearcats moved south from 56th on Sheridan.
- 10:44 pm: Law enforcement continued to push protestors down the road.
- 10:57 pm: Law enforcement took a break.
- 11:12 pm: The Waukesha County Sheriff's Department reported that protestors "have been pushed south and we are holding our position at the park."
- 11:40 pm: Bearcats from Racine, Walworth, Waukesha, and Sauk Counties held protestors at 60th and Sheridan, and noted a loud crowd at the gas station.
- 11:44 pm: An Oneida County bearcat moved to 60th and Sheridan.
- 11:50 pm: Rittenhouse shootings begin at 63rd and Sheridan.
The West Allis Police Department also described its actions:
At the request of tactical command, the armored vehicles and crowd control [o]fficers would direct the protestors south and hold or move the protestors south and back away north. Tactical command requested several times for this process to occur which led to the protestors being directed as far south as 60th St. & Sheridan.
Three important lessons emerge from this tragedy.
First, entrenched racism contributed to the events that unfolded. Make no mistake, the shooting of Jacob Blake and the related protests and fatalities stem from the deep-seated white supremacy that pervades our criminal legal system. Police officers brutalizing people of color who are protesting that very brutality and leaving people of color and their supporters at the mercy of armed white vigilantes is a pattern that recalls the origin of American police in slave patrols. These patrols sought to capture and return formerly enslaved people to the violence of enslavement, and their later connections to white supremacist agitation during the Civil Rights movement are echoed in the violence seen in Kenosha. In today's world, Black and Brown people are not only targeted by police and frequently treated as presumptively guilty, but white people brandishing weapons of war are given the benefit of the doubt and even encouraged by officers of those same police agencies.
Second, law enforcement must not be permitted to weaponize the presence of armed civilians and militia. Jacob Blake's shooting and the subsequent tragic, fatal shootings by Rittenhouse should usher in a significant wave of change, not only in Wisconsin but across the nation. Kenosha is not even the latest example of this pattern of police ignoring (at best) or facilitating (at worst) white mob violence: Following the January 6 insurrection, it was revealed that over 30 off-duty police officers attended the rally, and several joined the mob that stormed the Capitol. We must reexamine the roles and powers of police in American society, and listen to the communities of color in Kenosha and elsewhere that are calling for new approaches to public safety that protect all people, regardless of the color of their skin.
Finally, more officers and weapons do not increase safety. Law enforcement should play no role in protests, unless it is to protect our First Amendment rights, and they should not use violence to control the crowd or silence those they disagree with. Beyond the context of protests, there is little evidence that police effectively prevent or reduce violence, while there are many alternatives to policing that do make communities safer.
As our investigation illustrates, approximately 40 local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies responded to the protests in Kenosha, utilizing various forms of force against protestors. This massive show of force failed to keep people safe -- and in fact facilitated grave harm by pushing protesters into close proximity with Kyle Rittenhouse and other armed white civilians. The violence that night is a further reminder that well-resourced law enforcement agencies are failing to protect and even harming the communities they are sworn to serve. It's time to acknowledge this failure and invest in measures that actually keep communities safe.
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Kenosha Killer Kyle Rittenhouse's Republican Internship Offers Disgust Progressives
"GOP trolls in Congress are racing to offer an internship to a murderer. Because they haven't had quite enough violence in Congress yet."
Nov 19, 2021
Progressives recoiled in disgust Friday after at least three Republican U.S. lawmakers offered Kyle Rittenhouse congressional internships as relatives of the Kenosha killer's victims wept over his acquittal.
"They are sending a message to America that violence is not only acceptable, it's a resume booster for politics."
"Congressman Madison Cawthorn just offered Kyle Rittenhouse an internship. Congressman Matt Gaetz did the same," tweeted podcast host Heather Gardner. "They are sending a message to America that violence is not only acceptable, it's a resume booster for politics."
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) suggested an internship for Rittenhouse before the gunman was even acquitted.
On Wednesday, Gaetz--who is under investigation for possible sex trafficking of a minor--said on Newsmax that "Rittenhouse would probably make a good congressional intern. We may reach out to him and see if he'd be interested in helping the country in additional ways."
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.)--who on Wednesday was censured and stripped of his committee assignments for publishing an animated snuff video in which he murders Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)--said he would arm-wrestle Gaetz "to get dibs on Kyle as an intern."
Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) recorded a video of himself offering Rittenhouse an internship while urging viewers to "be armed, be dangerous, and be moral."
The internship offers outraged progressive activists.
"The Republican Party continues to enable, embrace, and embolden white supremacy and vigilante violence," tweeted Bend the Arc: Jewish Action. "Anything for power. This is their platform."
The youth-led Voters of Tomorrow tweeted, "Let us be clear: If you're offering a congressional internship to Kyle Rittenhouse today, we're coming for your seat."
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'Saddening, Infuriating, and Utterly Unsurprising': Rittenhouse Acquitted
The verdict, said the Huber family, sends the "unacceptable message" that armed vigilantes can "use the danger they have created to justify shooting people in the street."
Nov 19, 2021
Racial justice advocates reacted with outrage and a complete lack of surprise Friday after a Kenosha, Wisconsin jury found Illinois teenager Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty on all charges for killing two men and wounding a third during a 2020 protest against the police shooting of Jacob Blake, with some observers asserting that the verdict encourages vigilante attacks on protestors.
"Judge Bruce Schroeder presented a case study in how the judiciary upholds systems of white supremacy. And he's no anomaly."
Rejecting the prosecution's assertion that "you cannot claim self-defense against a danger you create," the nearly all-white jury acquitted Rittenhouse, who was 17 years old when he shot and killed Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum and wounded Gaige Grosskreutz with an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle on August 25, 2020.
"We are heartbroken and angry that Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted in his criminal trial for the murder of our son Anthony Huber," the slain 26-year-old's family said in a statement. "There was no justice today for Anthony, or for Mr. Rittenhouse's other victims."
"Today's verdict means there is no accountability for the person who murdered our son," the statement continued. "It sends the unacceptable message that armed civilians can show up in any town, incite violence, and then use the danger they have created to justify shooting people in the street."
Speaking outside the Kenosha County Courthouse after the verdict, Justin Blake, Jacob Blake's uncle, contended that "from day one, the judge had his hand on the scale."
"He didn't allow pictures. He didn't allow videotapes. He didn't allow. He didn't allow. He didn't allow," he said. "He was doing everything he could to allow this young man to leave the courtroom clear and free. It put blinds on the eyes of the jurors, and maybe because he did it, they didn't see the evidence how they could have seen it."
"He was doing everything he could to allow this young man to leave the courtroom clear and free," Blake added.
The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence said it could "not forget the root of this issue."
"Kyle Rittenhouse murdered two people during protests against the police shooting of Jacob Blake," the group continued, referring to the Black man shot seven times in the back and paralyzed by Kenosha cop Rusten Sheskey. No charges were filed against Sheskey, who remains an officer today.
"Jacob Blake has yet to receive justice," Brady Center added. "We must continue to fight America's systemic racism, which fuels police violence and white vigilantism."
Stosh Cotler, CEO of Bend the Arc: Jewish Action, said in a statement that "Rittenhouse's acquittal shows how the criminal justice system is designed to protect racist vigilantism."
"When Rittenhouse went to Kenosha last year he was continuing a long and ugly history in this country of white supremacists responding to multiracial movements for justice and civil rights with violence, and then claiming to be the victim," Cotler asserted.
"We saw this truth from the moment police allowed him to leave the scene after killing two people," he added, as well as "his brutal actions championed by politicians and pundits who routinely manufacture fear and division in order to hold onto power."
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) said in a statement that the verdict "is saddening, infuriating, and utterly unsurprising."
"It came at the end of a trial in which Judge Bruce Schroeder went out of his way to favor Rittenhouse in ways that would have been inconceivable were the defendant a Black person who had taken a semi-automatic rifle to a protest and killed two people," the group argued.
CCR continued:
After an aspiring militia leader invited "patriots" to combat "evil thugs," Rittenhouse, an Illinois, resident, was one of a group of heavily armed, pro-police paramilitaries who descended on the protests in Kenosha and to whom the local police provided their gratitude, support and encouragement.
Not surprisingly, Rittenhouse, with his link to the Proud Boys, has become a hero to white nationalists and many on the right. His racist vigilantism adds him to a long line of racist vigilantes, including George Zimmerman--Trayvon Martin's killer--and the three white men now on trial in Georgia for killing Ahmaud Arbery. Their actions are set against the backdrop of ongoing law-enforcement targeting and surveillance of Black-led organizing.
The People's City Council of Los Angeles said "white supremacy will do whatever it can to protect itself. Kyle Rittenhouse getting off should surprise no one."
"America is a racist, anti-Black country," the group added. "White supremacists around the country will now be emboldened to hunt down protestors."
Rashad Robinson, president of the racial justice group Color of Change, said in a statement that "Kyle Rittenhouse's acquittal doesn't just add insult to injury in this horrific case, it sends a dangerous and twisted message about how the legal system coddles white defendants accused of unconscionable crimes."
"For too long, the system--judges, lawyers, police officers--has accepted this as the norm, but we cannot tolerate this kind of negligence anymore; it's literally killing us," he continued. "Throughout the trial, we've seen the structural inequities within the legal system on full display."
"From dismissing the underage weapons charge to politicizing the straightforward facts of Rittenhouse's case, Kenosha County Judge Bruce Schroeder presented a case study in how the judiciary upholds systems of white supremacy," Robinson added. "And he's no anomaly. His behavior underscores how the entire legal apparatus perpetuates the existence of two criminal justice systems: one for white people and another for Black people."
U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) tweeted: "Kyle Rittenhouse is living proof that white tears can still forestall justice. A murderer is once again walking free today--our system is terribly broken."
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White Privilege: Where's Kyle?
It seems the courts have lost track of Kyle Rittenhouse, the punk who shot three people at BLM protests in Kenosha, WI last summer. Inexplicably out on bail, he was last seen at a bar drinking beer and flashing white power signs in a "Free As Fuck" t-shirt. Then he evidently moved without telling the authorities. It's a shocker, but it'd be way scarier if he'd been, say, running or sleeping or selling cigarettes or holding a cell phone or riding a bike without lights or wearing a hoodie or....
Feb 02, 2021
Good times. Photo is state's exhibit.
It seems the courts have lost track of Kyle Rittenhouse, the 18-year-old punk charged with multiple felony counts, including homicide, after he killed two people and wounded one with an assault rifle he brought to last summer's BLM protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin sparked by the police shooting of Jacob Blake. Being a white boy and all, Rittenhouse got swiftly out on bail after Trump-loving, riot-inciting, election-fraud-lie-spewing attorney Lin Wood - now under investigation for voting illegally in said election - raised $2 million to get him released. Kyle was so happy that, right after his arraignment on Jan. 5, he "demonstrated his carefree attitude," in the words of prosecutors, by high-tailing it to a local bar, drinking three beers - he was still 17 at the time but under the clearly wise tutelage of his mother - and getting his picture taken with a bunch of "Proud Boys" while flashing white power signs and wearing a "Free As Fuck" t-shirt because he's just that classy a guy. But when Kenosha detectives recently went to what was Rittenhouse's address, a man said he'd been renting the apartment since Dec. 15 and Kyle was nowhere in sight, having inexplicably declined to correct his address on a document he signed Jan. 22.
On Wednesday, prosecutors asked a judge to issue a new arrest warrant charging Rittenhouse with violating bail conditions; they also asked bail be upped by $200,000, noting it's rare for a homicide defendant to be left to roam free and they'd kinda like to know where he is. Rittenhouse's attorney countered in a motion that death threats have driven Rittenhouse and his wonderful mom into a "safe house"; he offered to give prosecutors the address if they'd keep it secret, but they refused. Online, some noted that at least good ole Kyle fits right into the "big tent" GOP of bigots, grifters, insurrectionists, neo-Nazis, liars and rapists. Many also argued that, while it's a tad alarming authorities let slip a hapless, homicidal, aggrieved, entitled, possibly delusional, heavily armed white thug, it would be way scarier if he'd been charged with, say, selling individual cigarettes or holding up a cell phone or playing with a toy gun or riding a bike without a light or turning a car without signaling or jogging or sleeping or babysitting or passing a baby or taking the subway or carrying a bag or nodding out in the Taco Bell drive-through or knocking on a door after running out of gas or stealing a bag of chips or having a mental health crisis or wearing a hoodie or, you know, living while black, so there's that.
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