Since the religious reich views Rittenhouse as some kind of hero, this is exactly like a church picnic.
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So… after the breathless reports of riots and violence and those evil Antifas threatening to burn the courthouse down and all that violence that somehow vanished whenever a camera turned that way, did Portland burn down last night in a paroxysm of violence or what?
Or was it, like, an obvious if half-hearted attempt by the PPD to invent a crisis so they could, I don’t know, shoot everyone and claim self defence or something, which nobody ended up biting?
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Just a normal Friday night around here 
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I’m going with option B.
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The popo declared a riot when people started attacking a gate.
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A gate! Next thing you know, they might have a snack on private property!
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Courthouse in Real Vision:
Courthouse in Fox-o-Rama:
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I mean honestly, it’s kinda cold and kinda rainy (aka, fall in the PNW) up here. That pretty much stops the people who are out for the more sporty kind of confrontational gatherings we see more of in the summer. So what we get are the peaceful marches and chants with hecklers on either side, and then everyone goes home at like 6.
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They weren’t unarmed though. Gaige Grosskreutz, the one who was shot in the arm, was aiming a pistol at Kyle when he was shot. That came out only when he was on the stand giving testimony (he’d previously lied and said he was unarmed):
(There’s lots of condensced versions of his testimony if you’re curious but don’t have time for the full version).
Victim #2 was beating Kyle over the head with a skateboard. Victim #1 was unarmed but was chasing Kyle and throwing things at him, which also makes a strong case for self defense. I hate this Kyle kid too and I have no doubt he was driving trollies and looking for trouble, but unfortunately that’s not a crime. I’m worried about the precedent here both in terms of escalating the “cold civil war” to outright armed conflict, but also in terms of the tribalism that prevents people from honestly assessing this event.
And I also agree that this judge was anything but impartial by the way, but I don’t think it was a significant factor in the case, the fact that all three shooting victims were violently attacking him, one with a gun, is significant enough.
So, he shot and killed an unarmed man for yelling at him and throwing stuff, then he shot and killed an unarmed hero who was trying to stop an active shooter, and then a good guy with a gun shows up and gets shot too?
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No, for chasing him and eventually cornering him. On what planet is chasing someone not grounds for self defense? I’m sorry, but you have to deal with the laws as they are, not as you wish they were. I wish there was some law to put Kyle in jail too, but the facts are that people were trying to assautl Kyle, even if you and I think they were justified, and Kyle defended himself in ways that were perfectly legal. As the case affirmed. And that “good guy with a gun” lied about having a gun until confronted with evidence to the contrary while he was on the stand. It’s remarkable footage, I really recommend watching it. Absolutely nothing he said was in the least bit believable after that.
You’re joking, right?
I mean, by your own logic, victim three had every right to point a gun at Rittenhouse. Who gives a fuck if he lied about it? Rittenhouse was the aggressor and victims two and three were exercising their rights to self defense.
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it was.
everything from not allowing rittenhouse’s stated intentions for going to kenosha, to allowing him out on bail, to not punishing him when he violated the terms of his release, for not allowing that information into the trial, his influence over the selection of the jury, his interrupting of the prosecution - yelling at them in front of the jury ( even tho the judge was in the wrong ), to giving 38 pages of sentencing guidelines that the jury had to navigate within, to throwing out the gun charges instead of letting the jury decide for themselves.
oh and the whole can’t use the word victim but can use the words rioters and looters
at evey point he telegraphed his admiration for rittenhouse and his disdain for the prosecution, and he set rules to help the defense. he absolutely had a finger - and possibly both hands - on the scale
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This kid’s ride to freedom was on a Slip 'n Slide covered in vegetable oil.
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the irony (?) of the line of argument presented is that any one of those victims could have killed rittenhouse and claimed self defense. yet they showed the restraint he didn’t
the defense of white supremacy therefore puts people in the position that murder is okay, but restraint is not. ( the exact same argument brought out to protect police. )
it asks us to all be armed and shoot each other to death, let force itself be the decider under the law.
it’s rotten and amoral. and if it is actually legal, all the worse for us and civil society
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He was running away from all three people.
@gatto: Agreed, the judge was a travesty and should be called out for it and condemned. No argument there. But I don’t think he changed the significant facts of the trial, which is that all 3 of the people Kyle shot were pursuing him, two of them with weapons (and yes a skateboard is a weapon when it’s being smashed over someone’s head). It’s always been a scary fact of self defense situations that someone can provoke another person into an assault, after which it’s perfectly legal for them to assault them back “in self defense”. That’s just the law of the land, for better or worse. All the factors you mention have to do with provocation, which don’t change the facts of the case. Unfortunately.
I challenge anyone to watch the testimony of Gaige Grosskreutz, posted above, and come to any conclusion other than that it is, at the very minimum, much more complicated than “a good guy pursuing a bad guy with a gun”. The guy lied about having that gun until shown pictoral evidence to the contrary while he was on the stand. It’s amazing stuff, give it a watch sometime.
Again, no argument there.
NONE of this would have happened if Kyle had not traveled across state lines to “defend”, with a gun he was legally not allowed to buy or carry.
The outcome of this case is like a bank robber getting off with self-defense after a brazen heist where he laid out his plans to assault folks who tried to stop him on social media beforehand.
ETA: …with a gun he was not allowed to own or carry. 
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The victims always get put on trial for their own shootings.
Greedo shot first, but it was in self defense because Han was putting him in a corner.
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Surely this little factoid cannot retroactively make the defendant’s actions lawful
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