Eighteen-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse is on trial for fatally shooting two men and wounding a third. He traveled to Kenosha, Wis., to protect local business owners and provide medical aid after two nights of destructive riots. Rittenhouse, who was trained as a lifeguard, brought a medical kit and an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle.
Within 48 hours of the chaotic events, he was charged with two counts of homicide, one count of attempted homicide, recklessly endangering safety and illegal possession of a dangerous weapon by a person under the age of 18. The gun charge was later dropped, but the politically ambitious district attorney, a Democrat, overstepped reason and acted in his own political self-interest to charge Rittenhouse so quickly.
In all that I have seen (a gun pointed at his head, etc.), Rittenhouse acted in self-defense and had no ill intent. One of his attackers, Joseph Rosenbaum, was a child molester, and one of the other guys had a felony charge.
According to a statement from Kenosha Police, of 175 people arrested in Kenosha during the looting and riots, 102 live outside the community. None are in jail now.
Black Lives Matter protesters, largely white, millennial, liberal college brats and most of whom were not from Kenosha, soon realized they were no longer in a Seattle or a Portland full of hipsters, grunge bands and spineless citizens. They were in Wisconsin, filled with open gun-carry folks of German descent.
They do not like looting in Wisconsin. And to be fair, it is much easier to loot today than when I was young. In my day, a color TV weighed about 600 pounds and was the size of a Mini-Cooper.
The hyper-political prosecutor weaponized the immense powers at his discretion to make an example out of Rittenhouse and others like him. Yet an unarmed woman, Ashli Babbitt, was shot by a Capitol policeman on Jan. 6, and no charges were filed. No wonder we do not trust government prosecutors. We have a government that advertises on billboards for folks to report "hate crimes" and to turn in anyone associated with the Jan. 6 "insurrection." How about this? Prosecute all real crimes - do not advertise for certain ones.
Yes, one person pointed a gun at Rittenhouse, and another dolt hipster hit him with a big skateboard. I guess there is a lesson here for hipster-leftist millennials: Never bring a skateboard to a gunfight.
The rioters and looters in Kenosha caused massive damage to other people's property. Families put their lives' work into their businesses, and in one night the angry mob ruined them.
Rioters even burned the Kenosha public library. Why burn a library? A public library is now a sacred place where winos and indigents sleep and watch porn.
When asked about Kenosha and things going up so quickly in flames, President Joe Biden became angry and said, "Her name is pronounced Kamala!"
Right after she said she couldn't comment on the murder trial of 18-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, White House press secretary Jen Psaki declared on Monday that Biden disavows "vigilantes patrolling our communities with assault weapons." She said nothing about his stance on people who loot and burn businesses and marauders who intimidate Kenosha's citizens; I can only assume he is being told what to say on those crimes by his handlers at MoveOn.org.
If convicted, Rittenhouse could be sentenced to a two-picture deal starring opposite Alec Baldwin.
To celebrate a not-guilty verdict, local grocery stores in Kenosha are giving away now expensive turkeys to all citizens who can outrun their store security guys.
Contact Ron Hart, a syndicated op-ed satirist, author and TV/radio commentator, at Ron@RonaldHart.com or Twitter @RonaldHart.