Joe Money, Joe Problems: the November 2021 U.S. Politics Thread

I mean it's like a bunch of third graders inventing a cuss word in order to get away with cussing in front of the teacher except that they're ultimately doing no such thing. But given their hard refusal to kowtow to social convention over the past x number of years, I warily applaud the effort.

*whispers to a kid 2 desks over in 3rd grade*

"......pssst!....do you have a.... carwash!?!"

*entire class breaks down in uproarious laughter

I'm still not sure what the Brandon thing is and really don't give a fuck. I've seen a few bumper stickers here and there which is all I really need to know.

it means fuck joe biden, it's a meme from a crowd chant a couple weeks ago, then a pilot said it, now mitch mcconnell and ted cruz and the rest are in on it because if they don't say fuck joe biden and wink at the camera, they're not true conservatives

Chris McDaniel posted it on Facebook, spelled out in deer feces.

I was savagely owned.

yeah, basically a NASCAR reporter is interviewing a driver named Brandon while the crowd chants "Fuck Joe Biden"

Reporter: Listen to your fans, they're chanting "Let's Go Brandon."

big xp
Half of them would find something wrong with the other half, and it'd be back to business as usual.

Uh

KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — Judge at Kyle Rittenhouse trial dismisses charge of possession of dangerous weapon.

— Michael Tackett (@tackettdc) November 15, 2021

laws don't matter anymore

Um, I think they do if you're not white

I mean, let's be real: no matter what the law says, no matter how any of this is construed, this case is exactly the sort of thing that illustrates the moral rot at the center of the society that these fascist, white supremacist Christian loonies want to build, nay enforce, upon the rest of us.

yes, important caveat. although you can also obey those and get arrested or be arrested for violating non-existent laws.

it wouldn't meet the dangerous weapon statute in my state either but good of abcnews to not explain anything

xxpost and sadly but absolutely 100% otm :(

i'm sorry associated press. most of the updates on this are completely useless.

buncha people who don't know what a mistrial is on twitter rn

So based on what I’m reading it’s because the AR 15 is technically too big to be considered a “dangerous weapon”? Please tell me that’s something Twitter made up and not the actual reason why

I'm not finding these updates.

Judge drops Count 6 against Rittenhouse

Judge Bruce Schroeder on Monday has dropped the sixth count facing accused Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse, which was possession of a dangerous weapon by a person under 18 – a misdemeanor

The defense, according to the Associated Press, argued that Wisconsin’s statute had an exception that could be read to clear Rittenhouse. That exception involves whether or not a rifle or shotgun is short-barreled.

After prosecutors conceded in court Monday that Rittenhouse’s rifle was not short-barreled, Judge Bruce Schroeder dismissed the charge.

This dismissal was made pursuant to the “void for vagueness” doctrine, whereby criminal statutes violate due process if they are not sufficiently clear so that citizens can reasonably understand what is criminally prohibited. https://t.co/7rMjxtTmW4

— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) November 15, 2021

by updates i'm referring to the original tweet. i found the statute to be confusing when i looked at it but it seems to only ban the carrying of rifles and shotguns that are not sawed off (so yes, "too big" may apply) or otherwise illegal.

thanks!

void for vagueness is the dumbest way you could put it. even as confusing as it is you can tell. it's meant to allow the carrying of rifles and shotguns. like almost every state allows that as far as i know. these tweets are meant to make people mad when i think there will be plenty of other shit to be mad about in the end which is why i'm not paying attention to this case right now, to the extent possible!

wait a minute, it was dismissed because of the *shorter* barrel size?

should be "longer" i think? because short-barreled shotguns are generally illegal under federal law

Has to be a typo. If he was carrying an NFA unregistered short barreled rifle, he’d be facing a federal charge already. Even if it was registered it couldn’t be registered to him.

I would guess that his AR-15 was the proper length for the judge to decide it should be treated like a deer rifle under the law.

i think that is exactly what happened, which is why this is really not newsworthy

it's really shitty knowing there are horrible judges like this one and worse presiding over cases against minorities and disadvantaged people right this minute across the country

The thing about this case is that Rittenhouse does appear to have a pretty legit self-defense argument; although it's not really clear what started the altercation it doesn't appear like he was the aggressor. All 3 people he shot attacked him first. Of course, all this does is underscore how stupid the "self defense" argument can be, especially when one party has a deadly weapon and the other does not, as Rittenhouse waving this big stupid rifle in everyone's face as a "counter protestor" is inherently threatening. Like, look at what happened with Gaige Grosskreutz (the 3rd guy, who was shot but survived) - apparently the story is, he puts his hands up, Rittenhouse reloads his rifle, then Gaige points his gun at him and starts to charge him, at which point he gets shot. Which...idk, fair enough, but by that logic doesn't Gaige have the right to shoot him on the spot? He knows Rittenhouse is the active shooter, he thinks he's reloading to fire at him, and apparently he believes that Kyle tried to take a shot at him already (though I don't think that's been proven)...in other words, isn't shooting him exactly what a "good guy with a gun" is supposed to do? How could he know that Rittenhouse shot the other two in self-defense in that moment? How does he know that the two people he shot, who were unarmed, were not planning to murder him but instead take his big stupid gun away? The whole thing is so goddamn stupid. Even without this fucking judge putting his thumb on the scale.

yeah, that would be the real story. and if cases were routinely covered like this reporters would know what they were doing and wouldn't be trying to make headlines out of mundane crap! xp

even fucking dumber because this whole shit started because a police officer decided to waste a black man on the spot for telling him he had a concealed carry and paid virtually no price for it! gah! fuck this dumb country!

So the takeaway is that if you're going hunting for black people and/or liberals, this is approximately the length of gun to use. Thx

The thing about this case is that Rittenhouse does appear to have a pretty legit self-defense argument; although it's not really clear what started the altercation it doesn't appear like he was the aggressor.

Only in this absolutely wretched shitstain of country would he have a "legit" claim on self defense. I know that's basically what you're saying, but it's also worth saying that this shouldn't be legitimate and that he was obviously the aggressor, because he was. Period.

I mean this is where the sides differ isn't it? a guy parading the streets with an AR-15 with the explicit intent of keeping BLM protestors in check is actually very legal and very cool, and if anyone feels threatened by this guy and acts on that then in the eyes of the law it's ok to gun them down. only in the fucking land of the NRA, where "defending yourself" literally means murdering someone with a machine designed explicitly to instantly kill people. and the thing is, if Gaige had gunned him down instead of trying to disarm him, he'd be making this exact argument himself! how the fuck is this a good thing?

To me, crossing state lines as a minor with a weapon that you shouldn't legally have means that you are the aggressor, period. That's also objective reality.

I mean, basically what I'm trying to say is what has been said over and over again and that is that we're essentially fighting against people who don't understand reality because they're blinded by white supremacy and religion and bellicose propaganda, so they exist in a perpetual state of fear even tho *they're the ones that have all the power*.

it does make me a bit angry how even non-gun nuts have allowed us to warp the definition of "self-defense". if you bring a gun to a protest, you're not the victim even if one of the protesters reaches for your gun. they couldn't reach for something if you never brought it. also, why don't you have a duty to retreat - you have the lethal weapon, they don't. they retreat, you can still shoot them. you retreat, the situation diffuses.

yes, I know Rittenhouse "ran away" but he was never in any danger of being shot. the purpose of retreating is de-escalation. he had no interest in de-escalating. he just wanted his chance at a starring role in Shane

a weapon that you shouldn't legally have

didn't the judge just strike that idea down?

No, the judge struck down the 'dangerous weapon' charge. In Wisconsin a minor still can't be in possession of a firearm alone IIRC.

But Rittenhouse did not have a permit to begin with, and he was not legally old enough to carry a firearm in Wisconsin.

In Illinois, concealed carry applicants must be at least 21 years old. Since Rittenhouse is 17, he would not qualify for a permit. In Wisconsin, it is legal for adults to carry firearms in public without a license if the gun is visible. However, to open carry, you must be at least 18 years old.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/aug/28/facebook-posts/did-kyle-rittenhouse-break-law-carrying-assault-st/

xp that's wrong, my bad, Wisconsin doesn't have separate statutes for possession of a firearm (in general) by a minor and 'possession of a dangerous weapon' apparently.

not legal to carry a firearm generally if under 18 but legal to have a rifle or shotgun

it all leads to this place where Gaige Grosskreutz has to decide in an instant whether the correct decision is to A) murder Rittenhouse, B) trust that Rittenhouse, who he knows is the active shooter who has killed twice already, is not going to shoot him, or C) try to disarm Rittenhouse and potentially end the violence there. He chose C, got his arm blown off, and now the defense is appearing to make the argument that the correct thing to do was to just shoot him on the spot!

Whether the judge threw it out or not is immaterial, in a certain way, because you know that the judge would not have thrown it out if a young Black man were being tried. In this way, it's still illegal, just not for poor little combination cumwad-shitstain because he's a good little white boy who wanted to kill some bad people, which is his right because he's a good little white boy.

who knows if that situation even gets tried in the first place, remember this whole thing started because a Black man was concealed carrying and just got executed on the spot, which the court later decided was 100% legal

do you guys think that when black people go to court they just automatically never get charges thrown out because all judges as individuals are that transparent about it, or that there is more of a problem (you could even say a systemic one) with what sorts of things are criminalized/what defenses are and aren't allowed, and who experiences constant police presence in their lives

because that statute is like extremely clear in that respect (if confusingly written otherwise) and i'm not sure why the prosecutors even tried it

Rittenhouse's lawyer says he's glad his client shot Rosenbaum, arguing if Rosenbaum had succeeded in wrestling away Kyle's gun; "I don't for a minute believe he wouldn't have used it against somebody else. He was irrational and crazy."

— Natasha Korecki (@natashakorecki) November 15, 2021

thank god Rittenhouse was there, someone could've been killed!

oof

sure, I've known Black people who've had charges thrown out by judges, for good reason. But denying the systemic issues is obviously foolish, as I know you agree. I just think it's obvious in this case that this little turd of a human is getting treated with kid gloves.