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

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.

That’s definitely the kind of thing you say when you don’t care what the public reaction to a verdict might be

remember this whole thing started because a Black man was concealed carrying and just got executed on the spot

sorry, I did not get this right. he got shot 7 times and is now paralyzed, but he is still actually alive.

Referring to the tweet btw

Richards makes an apparent reference to the Jacob Blake shooting.
"Other people in this community have been shot seven times and it was found to be ok," he said. "My client shot someone four times."

— Stacy St. Clair (@StacyStClair) November 15, 2021

holy fuck can't believe this is the guy who's gonna win

I think that's right. If you shoot someone 4 times it's ok, 6 is no good, and 5 is a push.

is this a common practice? seems weird

#KyleRittenhouse - The defendant pulls the alternate juror names out of the tumbler. WATCH LIVE on @LawCrimeNetwork https://t.co/F5PcHwSZ0O pic.twitter.com/n4fqHEojm5

— Cathy Russon (@cathyrusson) November 16, 2021

not the lottery itself but the defendant picking the names themselves?

i have never seen this lottery occur but it does make sense for the jurors not to know until the end if they are alternates. i guess why not have him pick them out?

why not have him pick them out? because it just adds to the mountain of things that make this trial look like a biased kangaroo court, even if it doesn't actually make a difference. But I think at this point it's pretty clear that the judge prefers that path to the alternative, he's clearly getting a kick out of trolling the libs

i don't understand the question maybe. can he see the names or something?

please please please be a middle-aged white man

wow what a coincidence that all the middle-aged white men have one corner dog-eared

also everybody who isn't a middle-aged white man got mysteriously removed and thrown away

wow

what a coincidence

wow

seems that the defendant has chosen a middle-aged white man. Trump voter. Gun owner.

what a coincidence

wow

This is uncomfortably reminding me of stories I've read of Civil Rights-era lynching trials in the south. Where it's mostly just an eye-rolling inconvenience for the defendant who knows he's ultimately gonna walk.

is there somewhere that says more about the pieces of paper in there?

I’ve sat through some 50-odd civil trials (never criminal) in the last 18 years and while I’ve def seen the jurors not know they were the alternate until it was time to deliberate, Ive never seen the defendant get to rummage through a tumbler of names.

maybe this is a criminal thing? Or a Wisconsin thing?

is there somewhere that says more about the pieces of paper in there?

Let me save you some time. There are 15 of them and 14 of them say "your free 2 go lol"

one of them says "okay we hafta drag this out another couple hours, sorry :~("

oh ok thanks

it looks like a wisconsin thing to do it afterward. i just went and found the part of the video on youtube and they let both sides look at it and put the paper in there in open court so i still don't understand why this is a problem, i guess.

like there are ample problems here and it seems like the randomest most inconsequential things are being highlighted

or at the very least, we're choosing to react without digging deeper. and if you point out some of these takes are bad, you're considered pro-Rittenhouse (not here, but among some of my friends)

i do appreciate your contributions itt harbl

well i want to be clear that i hope he dies

I think that's very clear from your posts. and your hope otm

i do appreciate your contributions itt harbl

i do appreciate your contributions itt harbl

― Cool Im An Situation (Neanderthal), Tuesday, November 16, 2021 4:09 PM (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

well i want to be clear that i hope he dies

― certified juice therapist (harbl), Tuesday, November 16, 2021 4:15 PM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

You are both OTM!

I had just never send it before and was just wondering tbh

At a family gathering last night a family friend and a relative defended Rittenhouse and it nauseated me, ruined my evening.

the amount of ire that this stokes is just insane; I posted my argument on a FB post that the defense is essentially arguing that Gaige should've killed him first, and in response I got one "typical lib moron" and one "I wish Rittenhouse had murdered you too". And these are from people I have mutual friends with!!

That’s frightening stuff.

feel like we need to do what Jay and Silent Bob did and fly to these people's houses and punch them in the face, and then just go home.

someone's gotta kickstart this

I mean I'm sure I've mentioned this before but the amount of gloating and threatening everyone on the right does when it's revealed that the media may have gotten something factually wrong about them is so fucking sickening, as though they aren't constantly wrong about everything and doubling down every time they get challenged. Although I'm not so sure the media got the Rittenhouse story all that wrong - he did shoot 3 people, killing 2, and he was allowed to return home afterwards. The only real error they made is that apparently the barrel size of the rifle was long enough that a 17 year old could legally carry it for some reason

Meanwhile, some comic relief.

And this, everyone, is the greatest video of all time: pic.twitter.com/Kf3jHXUliQ

— Jay Lawrence (@jaylawrence91) November 16, 2021

you's on first

being vigorously discussed on the heavily trafficked Abbott and Costello thread

Almost as cringe as Laura's Nazi salute to Trump

2022: the year Abbott and Costello make a cultural comeback?!

and who says conservatives aren't funny?!

I grew up in courtrooms (my dad was the court commissioner in our county). I’ve watched judges in hundreds of trials. I’ve rarely seen a judge who’s so consistently incapable of controlling his emotions and biases as the judge in the #KyleRittenhouseTrial.https://t.co/BHadht09hV

— John Nichols (@NicholsUprising) November 16, 2021

I have a GOP aunt and uncle (doesn't everyone)? They're old (aren't they all?) and I never see them, but my mom met them for lunch yesterday and my aunt was apparently ranting about the Rittenhouse trial, from the ... wrong side. So my mom, trying to find common ground, slightly changed the subject and said "You know who should be on trial? His mom, for driving him up there with an assault weapon." And my aunt was apparently totally taken aback, because she had no idea he was driven up there by his mom. I think even the average educated person really has no idea what's going on half the time, and for the ones that are being miseducated, misinformed, it's just that much worse.

(BTW, GOP Aunt greeted my mom with some variation of "almost didn't recognize you because you were wearing a mask, those things don't even work," and my MD mom responded with "they most certainly do work! There are piles of research. Why do you think there was no flu last year?" And GOP Aunt mostly just muttered something about nobody doing any traveling.")

I know that this is what table and Neanderthal were getting at upthread but the fucked up thing about the self defense claim is that he’s essentially arguing he was afraid of his own weapon. If I get into a fistfight on the street and keep walloping the guy until his brains come out I am pretty sure I will be charged with murder, even if he “started it”. Whereas Rittenhouse can argue “I thought he was gonna steal my gun and kill me with it” and apparently that’s valid enough to use that very same weapon to kill someone

The thing I keep going back to is that all these violent Antifa thugs roaming the streets aren’t actually killing people. There was only one Antifa murder in the last 40 years - just recently in Portland, where the victim was a Proud Boy who pepper sprayed him. Instead of getting a trial he was killed on the spot by police. Trump would later brag about it in an interview.