Rittenhouse was used
By One and All
The chubby cheeked, teary, and utterly truthful teenager, Karl Rittenhouse, said he went to Kenosha, Wis., to defend the shopkeepers and put out fires but really, Rittenhouse packed his AR-15 semi-automatic rifle with the goal of intimidating Black Lives Matter protesters. He succeeded by killing three protesters and took a right wing victory lap when he was acquitted in a trial last week. Rittenhouse was acquitted not because a jury found him innocent but because the prosecutor could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Rittenhouse did not act in self-defense,
This precedent will empower future Rittenhouses to attend public gatherings, armed with powerful weapons to challenge, intimidate and injure their opponents.
Despicable as he is, Rittenhouse is not the real enemy here, but rather, as Bob Dylan would say, he is only a pawn in the game of those who would benefit politically and monetarily from Rittenhouse’s actions, from trump, to the NRA to Tucker Carlson and his bloodsucking crew at Fox News and the government’s failure to properly address and quell the violence that preceded the fatal incident.
The tragic, wholly avoidable events that unfolded the night of Aug. 25, 2020, in Kenosha are loaded with morality tales and lessons, none more obvious than the insanity that allows teenagers to carry automatic rifles into crowds at events that are nothing less than tinderboxes for the far right and far left. Rittenhouse’s fate was sealed the moment that he arrived at the scene, carrying his intimidating and powerful rifle in full view, daring anyone to challenge him.
Hardly experienced in weapons, Rittenhouse would soon be in a situation that went out of control. Matt P., who identifies himself as a gun owner, engaged in state/national gun policies and politics, and instructor said on Quora on June 11, 2019, that the AR-15 fires very, very quickly.
“For most people, with practice one can get 1–3 rounds off per second with 3 being the upper bounds for very experienced and practiced shooters. One round per second is typical of measured shooter and anyone can do that. Two rounds per second is easily achievable with practice,” Matt P. posted. Rittenhouse squeezed off four rounds, probably in less than two seconds, killing Anthony Huber and once the first shot was fired, there was no time for turning back.
Rittenhouse brought his rifle and was driven to Kenosha by his mother to intimidate Black Lives Matter protesters. Nobody was killed by the demonstrators, all the killing was done by Rittenhouse. The police didn’t do their job as they should have ordered anyone with a weapon to leave. They didn’t.
The fish rots from the head, so we start with trump, who had this to say on an “exclusive” Fox interview after the not guilty verdict was read. Trump, who knows less about the law then Barney Fife, proved the old adage, that just like assholes, everybody has an opinion. And the former president, as is his want, did not shy away from pouring gasoline on the fire to benefit himself.
“I think that it was a great decision,” Trump said. “I was surprised it had to go this far. Somebody should have ended it earlier. Frankly, the case should have never been brought.”
Trump called Rittenhouse the “poster boy” for “innocence based on self defense” and said that he was “very happy” with the verdict, “a lot of people were happy to see it.”
“God Bless America!” Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill., tweeted moments after the verdict. “Never surrender your Second Amendment right to defend yourself and your family.”
Miller is in her first term in Congress and she sparked outrage in January when she referenced Adolf Hitler in a speech and later apologized when faced with a move to force her to resign.
“Justice has prevailed for Kyle Rittenhouse. In America, we have trial by jury. Not by the media. Not by Hollywood celebrities. And definitely not by liberal blue checkmarks on Twitter,” Miller tweeted. “Americans have a Second Amendment right to self-defense, and we will never surrender it.”
Miller had made the Hitler reference at a “Save the Republic” sponsored in January by the conservative group “Moms for America.”
“You know, if we win a few elections, we’re still going to be losing, unless we win the hearts and minds of our children. This is the battle. Hitler was right on one thing: He said, ‘Whoever has the youth, has the future.’ Our children are being propagandized,” Miller said at the rally.
Given Miller’s history as a roaring trump apologist, it is impossible to consider her comments after the verdict as anything but political. In a statement she made on the House floor on Oct. 20, Miller said that “Today marks 9 months of the Biden Administration, and my constituents miss President Trump now more than ever. Under President Trump, we had a roaring economy, we were energy independent, our border was secure, and our enemies feared America’s resolve. The radical left is attempting to destroy our economy and the American way of life, but every crisis created by the Biden Administration is a reminder of how great it was to have a President who put AMERICA FIRST.”
Rep. Matt Goetz, R-Fla., who is under investigation for sex trafficking, said he will offer Rittenhouse a job in his office. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who is leading efforts to dismantle election protections in Wisconsin, said that “justice has been served.” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who recently attacked Big Bird for being a propaganda tool of the Democrats, tweeted that “the Rittenhouse verdict reminds us we have the moral & legal right to self-defense.” And former Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has just published a book about GOP politics and is considered a possible 2024 presidential contender, said the verdict “renews our faith in the jury system.”
Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., who also has offered Rittenhouse a job as a congressional intern, told supporters in a video that “you have a right to defend yourself” and advised them to “be armed, be dangerous and be moral.”
In November, Cawthorn said on the far-right network, OAN, that people in Washington are “trying to destroy Western civilization, trying to take all of our morality away from everyone, trying to make everyone genderless, sexless, and just absolutely Godless.”
“I realize that the American people are sick and tired of it,” Cawthorn said. “We want our country back, we want our culture back, and if you want to stand in the way of that, we will run you over.”
Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Color., boasts that she carries a handgun while she also adheres to various conspiracy theories and owns a Colorado restaurant named Shooters Grill.
“Today is a great day for the Second Amendment and the right to self-defense. Kyle Rittenhouse is not guilty on all counts! Glory to God!” Boebert said.
The far right wing and its on-line publicity machine, aligned in lock step with trump, bares much of the blame for what the teenager Rittenhouse had become. A popular meme is circulating among accounts associated with the far-right group the Proud Boys, showing Rittenhouse in a tuxedo offering a Champagne toast.
It was widely known that Rittenhouse benefited from fundraising tied to far-right interests that tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and that he flashed a hand sign appropriated by white supremacist groups while wearing a “Free as F — k” T-shirt and drinking in a Wisconsin bar after his arrest.
Rittenhouse supporters have been sending out campaign-style fund-raising emails, showing him as a victim and soliciting contributions to a fund set up by his family to cover his legal expenses.
Rittenhouse’s mother, Wendy Rittenhouse, wrote a fund-raising appeal that was issued on Tuesday. “This corrupt persecution has been extremely difficult, and I’m reaching out with an emergency request to help ensure it doesn’t bury us,” she wrote in the appeal. “We’re already expecting legal costs of about $110,000 for November, but if we can find 2,500 people to donate over the next 48 hours, we should be okay.”
Another email soliciting donations for the fund was signed by David A. Clarke, a former sheriff of Milwaukee County, Wis., and a former spokesman for a pro-Trump political action committee.
“Kyle was there that night, you better believe it. But instead of starting fires, he had a fire extinguisher trying to put them out. Instead of trying to hurt people, he had a medical kit offering first aid to anyone who needed it,” Clarke wrote.
Prosecutors also said they had evidence that Rittenhouse met for lunch after a hearing earlier this year with several high-ranking members of the Proud Boys, a far-right group known for street fights that the Anti-Defamation League characterizes as “misogynistic, Islamophobic, transphobic and anti-immigration,” with some members espousing “white supremacist and antisemitic ideologies.”
The media.
In a Fox News video promoting a “Tucker Carlson Originals” special on the case, Rittenhouse tells someone as he is apparently driven away from the courthouse: “The jury reached the correct verdict. Self-defense is not illegal. And I believe they came to the correct verdict and I’m glad that everything went well. It’s been a rough journey, but we made it through it. We made it through the hard part.”
Carlson’s crew has been embedded with the teen throughout the trial and the Fox News host will interview Rittenhouse on his Monday show. The documentary will air in December on the Fox Nation streaming service, Fox News said.
Carlson said on his show on Friday that “Rittenhouse wound up on the street in Kenosha in the first place with a gun for one reason: He was there because in the summer of 2020 the leadership of the Democrat Party endorsed mob violence for political ends. That’s why there were riots in Kenosha that night, because people like Kamala Harris supported those rights.”
Carlson said the acquittal was “a wonderful moment. Anyone who believes in impartial justice was vindicated.”
The NRA
Publicity about Rittenhouse can do nothing but help the cause of the NRA and the bottom line for gun makers, who market weapons like “The Ultimate Warmonger,” billed by Ultimate Arms as “the Ultimate 14.5 lb. Long Range shoulder fired Sniper rifle.” It shoots a 750 to a 900 grain bullet that is accurate up to two miles.
“The Warmonger 50 cal. BMG Sniper Rifle is currently available to the Defense Department only at this time,” said a statement on the Ultimate Arms website.
But not to worry because “another model of the Warmonger 50 cal. will be available for commercial use at a later time.”
Ryan Busse, a former gun industry executive who has turned policy adviser to the gun-safety group, “Giffords Law Center,” said that Rittenhouse is the perfect “avatar” of a customer the NRA and gun companies have been appealing to.
Only A Pawn in their Game, by Bob Dylan
A bullet from the back of a bush
Took Medgar Evers’ blood
A finger fired the trigger to his name
A handle hid out in the dark
A hand set the spark
Two eyes took the aim
Behind a man’s brain
But he can’t be blamed
He’s only a pawn in their game
A South politician preaches to the poor white man
“You got more than the blacks, don’t complain
You’re better than them, you been born with white skin, “ they explain
And the Negro’s name
Is used, it is plain
For the politician’s gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game
The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid
And the marshals and cops get the same
But the poor white man’s used in the hands of them all like a tool
He’s taught in his school
From the start by the rule
That the laws are with him
To protect his white skin
To keep up his hate
So he never thinks straight
‘Bout the shape that he’s in
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game
From the poverty shacks, he looks from the cracks to the tracks
And the hoofbeats pound in his brain
And he’s taught how to walk in a pack
Shoot in the back
With his fist in a clinch
To hang and to lynch
To hide ‘neath the hood
To kill with no pain
Like a dog on a chain
He ain’t got no name
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game
Today, Medgar Evers was buried from the bullet he caught
They lowered him down as a king
But when the shadowy sun sets on the one
That fired the gun
He’ll see by his grave
On the stone that remains
Carved next to his name
His epitaph plain
Only a pawn in their game.