What Is the Violence in American Cities All About?
Victor Davis Hanson
So far, hundreds of police have been injured, dozens of people have been killed, and we have seen billions of dollars in property and collateral damage.
Ostensibly, many of the summer demonstrations were in protest over the gruesome detention and death of George Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody on May 25.
Yet three months later, few of those trying to burn down a Portland police precinct -- with police barricaded inside -- or looting the high-end boutiques of Chicago's Magnificent Mile, or indiscriminately beating up innocent pedestrians, appear to be driven by Floyd's death.
Apologists argue that the perfect-storm furor of June, July and August was the dividend of a collective six-month fear over the COVID-19 pandemic that has, as of this writing, killed nearly 180,000 Americans.
The unprecedented national quarantine and the sudden, self-generated recession of a once-booming economy certainly added to the tensions.
Millions of youths were sequestered in their apartments and basements, unemployed, without school, and worried over their career prospects. Many simply wanted to vent their rage at the world and almost everything in it.
The media romanticized the "summer of love" unrest and downplayed the violence. Newspapers ran bizarre photo essays on the chic garb at the protests -- umbrellas, leaf blowers, wooden shields, armor and colored bike helmets.
Some cite furor directed at President Trump, the tensions of an election year and the weaponization of almost every current issue by both political parties.
Still others claim the violence is mostly careerist-driven. Demands are made to fire ideological enemies and hire partisan friends. If the old guard is banished, then their lucrative billets can be snapped up by a new woke generation. Demagogues see political careers birthed with the bullhorn.
None of these explanations are mutually exclusive. But all reflect confusion over why often senseless vandalism has been directed at statues of Ulysses S. Grant and Frederick Douglass, and at the World War II Memorial.
Why do liberal authors and artists fear there is a new McCarthyite cancel culture that threatens to take out even progressive sympathizers?
Why do city governments defund police departments at the very moment vulnerable residents are most fearful for their safety?
Note that there are rarely demands from antifa for new statues, given that the protesters' own heroes are often more flawed than the historical figures whose statues they deface and destroy.
What, then, is going on?
As with most cultural revolutions that wish to start things over at "year zero," the violence is aimed at America's past in order to change its present and future.
The targets are not just the old majority culture but also classical statues and buildings, hallowed institutions, religious icons, the renowned names of streets and plazas, and almost every representation of tradition and authority.
For the majority of Americans who do not buy into the revolution, it all seems so surreal -- and hypocritical.
Only a despised, dynamic American economy allows millions to divorce from it for a summer of protest.
A ridiculed U.S. Constitution ensures that looters and arsonists have due process.
The Bill of Rights guarantees peaceful assembly and electrically amplified profanity rarely protected elsewhere.
Affirmative action; federally ensured and subsidized college grants and loans; and cheap smartphones, headphones and laptops all give youth choices unimagined in the past.
Those who signed up for the Jacobin Reign of Terror wanted violence, not a constitutional republic to replace the French monarchy.
The Bolsheviks were less interested in substituting an elected prime minister for the Russian czar than in grabbling power and murdering millions of their enemies.
Mao Zedong did not just hate the warlords, landlords, Mandarins and Nationalists. He wished to reinvent 1 billion Chinese in his own narcissistic image by first killing millions.
There is, of course, reason to oversee the police more effectively.
Universities are partly culpable for a collective $1.4 trillion in student loan debt.
Globalization eroded the middle class. Inner-city America is far too violent -- and far too neglected.
But these are not the apparent concerns of those who carry off shoes and phones in U-Hauls, kick the unconscious on the pavement, destroy art and sculpture, or seek to torch public buildings with public servants inside.
The point of the mob is to wipe out what it cannot create.
It topples what it can neither match nor even comprehend.
It would erode the very system that ensures it singular freedom, leisure and historic affluence.
The brand of the anarchist is not logic but envy-driven power: to take it, to keep it, and to use it against purported enemies -- which would otherwise be impossible in times of calm or through the ballot box.
https://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2020/08/27/what-is-the-violence-in-american-cities-all-about-n2575091
Monday, August 31, 2020
BLM Threatening Rand Paul Has Nothing to Do with Facts or Justice, But They’re Not Going to Like His Response by Nick Arama
Some on the left and in media like to pretend that there’s some kind of justification for the BLM riots.
“They’re upset about black people being killed by police” or “They just want reform.”
Bull. We passed that false argument months ago. The riots are about creating chaos and moving everything further to the left. That’s what they really want. So take them at their word, not how the Democrats or the media want to smooth it all over.
Because if it actually was about “justice,” facts would matter. It would matter in Minneapolis that the man committed suicide and was not killed by police. It would matter if the suspect resisted or had a knife as in the case of Jacob Blake. But it doesn’t matter, because it’s just an excuse to push their chaos which really has nothing to do with any of the people they ask you to name.
When the BLM surrounded Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and his wife on the way back to their hotel from the Republican convention at the White House, they were pushing, shoving and screaming “say her name,” referencing Breonna Taylor. You can see them shove the police officer with the bike into Paul.
Paul has been attacked/threatened multiple times by leftists, he sustained 6 broken ribs from an attack by his neighbor. He also was on the baseball field when the Bernie Bro tried to gun down GOP members of Congress. So no doubt he had flashbacks under the circumstances. Paul said the BLM folks also threatened to kill him. It was such chaos that one of the women in his party actually lost her shoe.
What made this so ironic was as they were harassing him, they demanded that he say Breonna Taylor’s name. Taylor was killed when Louisville police executed a no-knock warrant at her home and her boyfriend fired at the cops, they fired back, killing Taylor.
But it was Rand Paul who actually introduced “Breonna’s Law,” an effort to stop no-knock warrants.
From WHNT:
The Justice for Breonna Taylor Act bans federal law enforcement officers from carrying out a warrant “until after the officer provides notice of his or her authority and purpose” and blocks state and local law enforcement agencies that receive Justice Department funding from carrying out warrants that do not require the officer involved “to provide notice of his or her authority and purpose before forcibly entering a premises.”“After talking with Breonna Taylor’s family, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s long past time to get rid of no-knock warrants,” Paul, a Republican, said in a statement. “This bill will effectively end no-knock raids in the United States.”
But the BLM harassing and threatening him didn’t care that he did that, that he had actually done more than they ever did to “reform” a problematic issue.
But even if he hadn’t done any of that, it’s ridiculous that anyone would be harassed that way especially a U.S. Senator.
From Fox News:
“They were shouting threats to us, to kill us, to hurt us, but also threats saying shout, shouting ‘say her name,’ Breonna Taylor, and it’s like you couldn’t reason with this mob, but I’m actually the author of the Breonna Taylor law to end no-knock raids, so the irony is lost on these idiots that they’re trying to kill the person who’s actually trying to get rid of no-knock raids,” he said.Paul said he’s authored 22 criminal justice reforms with President Trump and former President Barack Obama, but the demonstrators were still yelling: “We’re not going to let you go alive unless you’ll say you’re for criminal justice reform.”
But they’re not going to like that he’s calling for an FBI investigation, indicating he thought a lot of the folks were likely from out of state and came across state lines to incite a riot.
https://www.redstate.com/nick-arama/2020/08/28/blm-surrounding-and-threatening-rand-paul-shows-this-has-nothing-to-do-with-facts-or-justice/“I believe there are going to be people who are involved with the attack on us that actually were paid to come here, are not from Washington, D.C., and are sort of paid to be anarchists,” he said. “This is disturbing because really, if you’re inciting a riot that’s a crime, but if you’re paying someone to incite a riot that person needs to go to jail as well.”“They were inciting a riot and they would have killed us had the police not been there,” the senator added.He slammed the Democratic presidential ticket for violence in Democrat-run cities.“It’s become so dangerous for us and I don’t hear Joe Biden or Kamala Harris saying one thing about the violence. This mob is their voters. This is the new Democrat party, and if we don’t resist this, the United States is going to become Portland. We’re going to become Chicago. All of these failed cities Democrats have run, the president said in his speech,” he said. “If we allow them to take over the White House, we are going to become Portland, the country will be on fire, we have to have law and order and we have to support the police. I can’t say that strong enough.”
To End Kenosha, Democrats Must Stop Infantilizing Black People
Men walk toward law enforcement with their hands up in Kenosha, Wis., on Aug. 24, 2020. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Commentary
One of the key explanations, perhaps the key explanation, for why U.S. cities are falling apart is that the Democratic Party has been infantilizing black people for decades.
For a variety of reasons, from what Shelby Steele described so clearly in “White Guilt” to Lyndon Baines Johnson’s Great Society that he famously said would keep the “n-words” voting for us (the Democrats) for decades, the Democrats have ignited a culture of victimhood and excessive welfare reliance among African Americans that led to the literal decimation of the black family to 25 percent two-parent homes today from 75 percent in 1965.
There were actually more two-parent homes among blacks than whites before this all started.
If you don’t see the causal connection between this familial decline and what’s going on in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and dozens of other places—how many of the rioters grew up with fathers in the home?—you are, in Andrew McCarthy’s words, “willfully blind.” (In the case of Kenosha, it’s possible that rioters were actually bused in.)
The patriarchal instinct behind all this is, in essence, racist.
I know because I participated in it myself during the civil rights movement when I was an ardent Democrat. Doing voter registration of black field workers, many of whom were illiterate, I registered them in the Democratic Party without asking their preference or even explaining the alternatives.
This was still the era of the Dixiecrats, and a greater percentage of Republicans than Democrats had voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but I, the Northerner, knew better. I was actually infantilizing them. (I was also breaking the law.)
We all saw this infantilization in action recently when Joe Biden made the idiotic statement that if you weren’t voting for him, you weren’t black. (Heavily criticized, he eventually walked this back.)
Even well-intentioned ideas such as affirmative action have more than slight overtones of infantilization, reparations yet more so. Imagine, for example, Armenians arriving in the United States circa 1920 to escape the massive genocide of their people, having to pay for events that occurred 75 years before their arrival. It’s absurd.
The Democrats are outraged, not surprisingly, by any suggestion that their reactionary identity politics is anything but “progressive.” (Few of them realize that the former Soviet Union practiced identity politics to the nth degree, with required internal passports identifying every one of its citizens as Tatars, Kazakhs, Abkhazians, Jews, and so forth.)
The extreme divisiveness emanating from this identitarian bias is obvious and, in turn, helps create … Kenosha.
Which leads us to one of the great mysteries of our time. Why hasn’t Biden himself strongly disassociated himself from the violence in our streets? Other than going through a spokesperson, the candidate’s own statements have been, at best, mealy-mouthed.
A true Sister Souljah moment, at least, would seem to be in order, but, no Bill Clinton, he just doesn’t seem to be capable of that so far.
Perhaps it’s because to do so would tacitly be admitting that the Dems’ approach to racial justice has been wrong. A whole elaborate, and financially lucrative, complex would be under threat. (Well, if not under threat, under question.) As H.L. Mencken reminds us, “It’s about the money.”
Or perhaps something psychological is going on, a kind of mass personality disorder. The Democrats have convinced themselves for years that they’re doing good for minorities, but nothing much has changed for these same minorities—Watts remained Watts—until the dreaded Trump came along and black and Hispanic unemployment went down to all-time lows.
How to explain it, other than that “Trumponomics,” as it’s called by Arthur Laffer and Steve Moore in their book, actually worked?
Meanwhile, many Democrats were all exercised about the frequent appearances of black people during the Republican convention, including, of course, Sen. Tim Scott who, with Trump, has been putting into action the old Jack Kemp “opportunity zones” idea, and the national debut of Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, a certain future star of the Republican Party, if he isn’t already, who, in his eloquent speech, made short work of identity politics.
How this will play out at the ballot box, we will soon see. But a significant black vote for Trump may force the Dems to reevaluate infantilizing African Americans. Or not.
Institutional Racism
Institutional racism and systemic racism are terms bandied about these days without much clarity. Being 84 years of age, I have seen and lived through what might be called institutional racism or systemic racism. Both operate under the assumption that one race is superior to another. It involves the practice of treating a person or group of people differently based on their race. Negroes, as we proudly called ourselves back then, were denied entry to hotels, restaurants and other establishments all over the nation, including the north. Certain jobs were entirely off-limits to Negroes. What school a child attended was determined by his race. In motion pictures, Negroes were portrayed as being unintelligent, such as the roles played by Stepin Fetchit and Mantan Moreland in the Charlie Chan movies. Fortunately, those aspects of racism are a part of our history. By the way, Fetchit, whose real name was Lincoln Perry, was the first black actor to become a millionaire, and he has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and, in 1976, the Hollywood chapter of the NAACP awarded Perry a Special NAACP Image Award.
Despite the nation's great achievements in race relations, there remains institutional racism, namely the widespread practice of treating a person or group of people differently based on their race. Most institutional racism is practiced by the nation's institutions of higher learning. Eric Dreiband, an assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, recently wrote that Yale University "grants substantial, and often determinative, preferences based on race." The four-page letter said, "Yale's race discrimination imposes undue and unlawful penalties on racially-disfavored applicants, including in particular Asian American and White applicants."
Yale University is by no means alone in the practice of institutional racism. Last year, Asian students brought a discrimination lawsuit against Harvard University and lost. The judge held that the plaintiffs could not prove that the lower personal ratings assigned to Asian applicants are the result of "animus" or ill-motivated racial hostility towards Asian Americans by Harvard admissions officials. However, no one offered an explanation as to why Asian American applicants were deemed to have, on average, poorer personal qualities than white applicants. An explanation may be that Asian students party less, study more and get higher test scores than white students.
In court filings, Students for Fair Admissions argued that the University of North Carolina's admissions practices are unconstitutional. Their brief stated: "UNC's use of race is the opposite of individualized; UNC uses race mechanically to ensure the admission of the vast majority of underrepresented minorities." Edward Blum, president of Students for Fair Admissions, said in a news release that the court filing "exposes the startling magnitude of the University of North Carolina's racial preferences." Blum said that their filing contains statistical evidence that shows that an Asian American male applicant from North Carolina with a 25% chance of getting into UNC would see his acceptance probability increase to about 67% if he were Latino and to more than 90% if he were African American.
In 1996, California voters passed Proposition 209 (also known as the California Civil Rights Initiative) that read: "The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting." California legislators voted earlier this summer to put the question to voters to repeal the state's ban on the use of race as a criterion in the hiring, awarding public contracts and admissions to public universities and restore the practice of institutional racism under the euphemistic title "affirmative action."
When social justice warriors use the terms "institutional racism" or "systemic racism," I suspect it means that they cannot identify the actual person or entities engaged in the practice. However, most of what might be called institutional or systemic racism is practiced by the nation's institutions of higher learning. And it is seen by many, particularly the intellectual elite, as a desirable form of determining who gets what.
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.
Sunday, August 30, 2020
California's All-Out War on Church Worship Intensifies With Bans, Fines, and Sending in Spies
California's All-Out War on Church Worship Intensifies With Bans, Fines, and Sending in Spies
California Governor Gavin Newsom and county leaders are escalating the state’s war on church worship services, dragging pastors into court and demanding thousands of dollars in fines for illegally singing and holding indoor worship services.
This stand-off is getting closer to a religious hot war, with some of the same tactics being used, such as sending “agents” behind enemy lines to “spy” on worship services.
The state is armed with Newsom’s no-worship order and subpoenas. One county even nailed a complaint letter to a church door. Even Martin Luther would see the folly of that move.
REVOLT: 1,200 Calif. Clergy Tell Newsom They’re Meeting in Person, With or Without Permission
In California during the Wuhan coronavirus, you can shop, eat out, riot, loot, and protest. But there are tough constraints on church worship. Churches can feed the hungry, but parishioners can’t take communion. Churches can house the homeless, but can’t sit six feet apart in the same pew with a neighbor.
Same Governor But Different Rules for Rioters and Worshipers
Liberty Counsel, a public service law firm, represents two churches being fined and penalized for opening their doors to worship. Founder Mat Staver says Newsom’s worship ban is clearly unconstitutional.
People can be housed overnight, but cannot hold a short worship service, Bible study, or meet for prayer. People can receive counseling to find work but cannot be counseled on finding eternal life.The same governor who encourages mass protests, bans all worship and is now fining churches for their right to assemble and worship. The same governor who says the church can meet for secular services, bans the church from having religious worship. This unconstitutional hostility against religious worship must end.
Newsom has issued a rule against singing and chanting – even during worship in private homes. Then, he outlawed church worship.
Church pastors say enough is enough.
The pastor of Godspeak Calvary Chapel in Ventura County, Rob McCoy, was in court on Friday and fined $3,000 for holding three socially-distanced worship services each Sunday on August 9 and 16.
9th Circuit Court: Allowing California Churches to Open Is a ‘Suicide Pact.’
McCoy and John and Jane Does from one to 1000 – his parishioners – were ordered by a judge earlier this month to cease holding worship services. They defied his orders.
McCoy was ready to go to jail on Sunday if need be.
Senator Ted Cruz sent a supportive tweet, letting California leaders know he’s watching.
County Sends in Spies to Santa Clara Church Spies
In Santa Clara, county officers sent in agents to spy on North Valley Baptist Church, according to documents the county gave to the court. That church has been fined $10,000 for illegally singing in two worship services. Singing.
Santa Clara County taped a four-page letter to the front door of the church announcing that the county was displeased with the singing.
They Keep Moving the COVID-19 Goalposts: Will the Next Step Be Masks to Protect From the Flu and the Common Cold?
In the letter, Santa Clara County accused the socially-distanced parishioners of… singing.
North Valley Baptist is failing to prevent those attending, performing and speaking at North Valley Baptist’s services from singing. This activity is unlawful. The county understands that singing is an intimate and meaningful component of religious worship. However, public health experts have also determined that singing together in close proximity and without face coverings transmits virus particles further in the air than breathing or speaking quietly. The county demands that North Valley Baptist immediately cease the activities listed above and fully comply with the Risk Reduction Order, the Gatherings Directive, the State July 13 Order and the State guidance. Failure to do so will result in enforcement action by the county.
Pastor Jack Trieber issued a statement Monday after being fined, saying he had obeyed the initial orders that the church and all of its ministries be shut down.
Church Pastor: I Beg You, Please Stop
The church runs a school, a college, a bus service, jail and prison ministries, a rest home ministry, Sunday school, and many other outreach efforts.
Treiber appealed to the local health director and the governor, saying that they are “out of bounds” in issuing the no-worship and no-singing orders.
You can’t make laws against the church. We have the right to worship. But more than the right to worship under the Constitution, we have a command from God.In the edict that came to us, we have tried to obey what has been written, the protocol. One of the things that was amazing that we were cited for was we’re not permitted to sing. So, Sunday morning a fine of $5,000 and Sunday night a fine of $5,000; they’re ratcheting everything up.This is America.To think a person can say you can’t sing in church! You cannot preach without a mask on. You cannot communicate with people.This is out of bounds. The fines are out of bounds.
The pastor discussed how the area is not a hot spot for coronavirus and that meeting outside, as the county allows him to do with 60 people, won’t work because of the bad air quality from the fires and the heat.
Church Pastor: You’re in Charge of Health, I’m in Charge of Spiritual Health
He had a message for the Santa Clara County health director.
We have a situation where the county health director said now I’m in charge of the health of the people, and God bless you, you’re not elected, but God bless you. I appreciate you. But I’m in charge of the spiritual health of the people of this city and this area and I’ve been trying to do it for 45 years.[…] I plead with you, back off.If you arrest me this week, and I know that is a possibility, that’s not my desire. My desire is to preach God’s word.I beg you, please stop.I beg you, look at the stats. Look at the science, Mr. Governor. There’s not a pandemic here. Yes, let’s be safe. Let’s be careful. But this area needs the church.
Pastors from all over the world have been praying and encouraging the Santa Clara church.
Delta Airlines Bans UBL Killer Rob O’Neill for ‘Not Sacrificing’ by Wearing Mask While Eating Cheese Puffs
Justin Cooper, the North Valley assistant pastor and professor at Golden State Baptist College, told students attending this fall that they should forget wishing they were born at another time in history.
God has you and I here for such a time as this. Often people say I wish I were born and then they give a date. I wish I lived back whenever it was. God wanted you here right now. You’re here on purpose, for a purpose and so am I.
In Los Angeles County on Monday, megachurch Pastor John MacArthur of Grace Community Church went to court for a fourth time to fight the governor’s ban on worship. The result of that hearing isn’t known yet.
Church Pastor Declares That County Rules Are ‘Nonsensical’
Previously, a judge negated a restraining order against the church, but LA County appealed in order to make him comply.
MacArthur issued a declaration on Monday, saying it’s clear that the county thinks it’s OK to let “congregants to gather to worship the Lord in parking lots, in parks, or perhaps beaches—but never in any church. From Grace Community Church’s perspective, this is nonsensical, and we view it as a direct ban on engaging in the worship which our faith requires.”
The Thomas More Society, a religious liberty law organization, represents Grace Community Chuch.
The church’s travails have captured the attention of the national media, including the satirical Babylon Bee.
Earlier in the month, the pastor greeted his flock by welcoming them to a “peaceful protest.”
Touche.
The Next Nick Sandmann? Defamed Covington Kid's Lawyer Takes Up the Case of Kyle Rittenhouse
The Next Nick Sandmann? Defamed Covington Kid's Lawyer Takes Up the Case of Kyle Rittenhouse
On Thursday, L. Lin Wood, one of the lawyers who represented Nick Sandmann, the Covington Catholic High School student defamed by many media outlets, announced he would take up the case of Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old boy who opened fire at Kenosha rioters — apparently in self-defense — and was arrested under suspicion for first-degree intentional homicide. As in Sandmann’s case, many media outlets and political figures have demonized Rittenhouse, with some calling him a “white supremacist” despite the lack of any evidence.
“Thanks to ALL Freedom Loving Americans who responded to requests for contact information on Kyle Rittenhouse. We have connected with Kyle’s family & help is on the way. Kyle will have excellent legal representation. We owe him a legal defense,” Wood tweeted.
“Many others will need your help in coming days. Stay strong. Continue to speak truth. Continue to demand justice under our Constitution. Continue to be fearless,” the lawyer advised. “Most important of all, continue to pray for your fellow citizens. Pray for our President. Pray for our country. And always, always, always [fight back].”
Armed Citizens Gear Up to Defend Businesses as BLM Rioters Burn Kenosha, Target Cops
Wait. Didn’t Kyle Rittenhouse shoot people?
On Tuesday night, Rittenhouse left his home in Antioch, Ill., and traveled 15 miles to Kenosha. He told reporters on the ground that he intended to defend property from the violent rioters who engaged in looting and arson across Kenosha following the police shooting of Jacob Blake. He ended up shooting three people and killing two, and police arrested him on suspicion of first-degree intentional homicide.
While many media outlets and commentators rushed to condemn Rittenhouse as a white supremacist and a murderer, a thorough investigation of videos from the scene suggests that when the 17-year-old boy opened fire, he did so in self-defense.
Rittenhouse, apparently inspired by some form of vigilante justice, should not have gone to Kenosha in the first place. However, it does seem he only shot the rioters in self-defense. Earlier in the night, the 17-year-old boy had provided medical assistance to rioters whom police hit with pepper spray. The New York Times analyzed Rittenhouse’s movements throughout the night and found that in both of the shootings, the boy was acting in self-defense.
The boy spoke with many journalists before the incidents, and said “he was protecting a local vehicle dealership together with several other armed men. He also offers medical assistance to protesters,” The Times‘s Christiaan Triebert tweeted.
The Times synchronized six livestreams, revealing that there were two separate shooting incidents, one and a half minutes apart, involving multiple gunmen.
At 11:19 p.m., rioters chase Rittenhouse into a parking lot. While the rioters pursue him, one throws something toward Rittenhouse and an unknown gunman fires the first shot into the air.
In the video, “Rittenhouse turns toward the sound of the gunfire as another pursuer lunges toward him. He then fires four times with his assault rifle, and appears to shoot the man in the head,” Triebert narrated. Contrary to my initial reporting from preliminary information, it appears Rittenhouse was not the first one to open fire, and he only pulled the trigger after getting pursued by an angry mob.
Also contrary to my previous reporting, this shooting did not take place at the dealership Rittenhouse said he was protecting but rather at a separate dealership about four blocks away. Police had prevented the 17-year-old boy from returning to the original dealership.
Police identified the man shot in the head as Joseph Rosenbaum, a white registered sex-offender who taunted armed black civilians, saying, “shoot me, n***a.”
“While fleeing from the scene, Rittenhouse is again chased by several people. He trips and falls to the ground and fires four shots as three people rush him. One person appears to be hit in the chest, while another, who is carrying a handgun, is hit in the arm,” Triebert tweeted. This second shooting, like the first, appears to be a clear case of self-defense.
Even in this second altercation, the 17-year-old boy was not the only one firing a weapon. “At the same time, we hear at least 8 gunshots from farther away. Mr. Rittenhouse gets up and begins walking north from the scene, and 8 more gunshots are heard from closer range. It’s unclear who fired the other gunshots.”
Leon Wolf, an attorney and managing editor at The Blaze, summed up the insanity of charging Rittenhouse with first-degree murder.
“Rittenhouse was being chased by a group of angry adults who were throwing things at him, and he hears a nearby gunshot. For all he knows, the shot might have been intended for him. As Rittenhouse was looking around attempting to locate the source of the sound, Rosenbaum charged him,” Wolf wrote. “If you, as a prosecuting attorney, are aware of these facts and come away with the conclusion that a first-degree murder charge is warranted, then you need to turn in your law license. Putting aside Rittenhouse’s clearly viable claim to self-defense, the facts of the case simply don’t fit that charge.”
Armed Civilian Tried to Stop Rioters From Destroying a Kenosha Business. Now He’s Been Arrested
A white supremacist?
Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) described Kyle Rittenhouse as a “17 year old white supremacist domestic terrorist,” claiming he “shot and killed 2 people who had assembled to affirm the value, dignity, and worth of Black lives.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) retweeted the accusation.
When Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) noted that “Innocent people, who had nothing to do with the police shooting in Wisconsin, are being targeted and terrorized by arsonists, vandals, looters, and rioters,” CNN host Ana Navarro-Cardenas responded with, “Marco, let me fix this for you: Innocent people, who had nothing to do with the police shooting in Wisconsin, are being targeted and terrorized AND MURDERED by white supremacist teen-agers with big-a** guns.”
There is no evidence that Kyle Rittenhouse was a white supremacist, however.
Triebert noted that the 17-year-old boy’s “social media profiles proclaim support for pro-police causes like the Blue Lives Matter movement and Humanize the Badge. Other posts show him taking backyard target practice, posing with guns and assembling a military-style semi-automatic rifle.”
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) told CBS News that it found “no indication from Rittenhouse’s social media footprint that he is connected to any extremist movements.”
As Triebert noted, Rittenhouse gladly helped protesters and rioters after police had hit them with pepper-spray.
While the teenager should not have gone to Kenosha looking for trouble, it seems he is neither a murderer nor a white supremacist.
The case of Kyle Rittenhouse involves many unanswered questions, but as of now, it really does seem strikingly similar to the story of Nick Sandmann, a teenager whose reputation was destroyed because he fit a narrative many left-leaning reporters were desperate to tell.
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