Kyle Rittenhouse’s lawyer…
…threatens to sue Joe Biden for defamation.
As well he should.
Have you noticed how Democrats seem to love unjustly smearing white teenaged boys these days? Just ask Nick Sandmann.
The thing that makes me most angry about this phenomenon is that half the country or more probably believes these defamatory lies, and the MSM pushes the lies as well.
Lin Wood is certainly to be commended, and he along with a few other courageous souls (Sidney Powell and Harmeet Dhillon come to mind) are of great value in demonstrating that not all lawyers are leftists of dubious sanity and even more dubious ethics, but the disgraceful performance by Chris Wallace in last night’s debate will have confirmed for many of the credulous and ill-informed that it is not Antifa/BLM looters, rioters, and thugs who are responsible for all the chaos in our streets over the last several months, but the almost entirely mythical “right-wing extremists” imagined by Wray at the FBI and Wolf at DHS.
One may suspect that Wray is more concerned about “right-wing extremists” because one example (Timothy McVay) may have been activated by excesses and incompetence of the Federal Government (Branch Dividians, Ruby Ridge). And his bumbling and incompetence when confronting Antifa/BLM is a blind spot. Funny that those left wing extremists have mostly had free reign until about a month ago.
This is how reality bites you in the butt. “White supremacy” is the boogie man used to both keep black voters in line and justify the moral superiority of white elites. Those white elites, both Democrat and Republican, have created/bought into the fantasy that there’s this hidden army of KKK/Aryan Nation violent bigots out there just waiting to start a race war and the first line of defense against them is rich, privileged, powerful, and morally elevated white elites.
Anything that happens gets processed through that fantasy, from BLM riots to Islamic terrorism. That’s how they saw Nicholas Sandmann and it’s how they see Kyle Rittenhouse.
And you can get away with indulging in fantasy when it comes to generalized campaign rhetoric. When you start applying it to actual people…well, that’s what lawsuits are for.
Mike
The way to fix this is to revise the “Sullivan vs. NYT” case. We need to move to more of a British model where you don’t have to show intentional motive. Allow for treble damages and then you will see people becoming more polite or have stronger basis to make statement.
You can limit free speech somewhat. Note you can’t shout “FIRE” in a movie theater.
Justice Thomas has mentioned this in passing in recent cases. There is a growing appetite to tackle this. I think he would get a sympathetic ear from Kavanaugh.
The defense of Sandmann and now Rittenhouse is of utmost importance.
Two young men who have taken a stand against the left. They deserve public support.
The cops of Minneapolis, Atlanta, Kenosha, and now Louisville must have the unwavering support of their unions. The public must stand with them as well.
Wray is more concerned about “right-wing extremists” because he is part of the Deep State. His behavior in any case with political overtones makes his willingness to act upon his bias perfectly clear.
Who is stopping DJT from canning Wray (or Haspel, see
https://meaninginhistory.blogspot.com/2020/09/sean-davis-gina-haspel-is-personally.html )?
Mitch, Lindsey, Rubio….?
You have to give Wray enough rope and enough time to hoist his own petard.
“enough rope and enough time to hoist his own petard”
🙂
Great mixed metaphor!
Re white supremacists, I find it *curious* that the Boogaloo Bois appeared on the scene just as antifa needed an example of right wing extremism. Maybe a false flag operation, maybe just a happy (for antifa) coincidence.
I’ll be watching reports to see if the Biden team is wise enough to take this down and apologize. Perhaps they can privately ask their propaganda arms, CNN and the WaPo, how much they had to pay Sandmann.
Remember when I wrote that the main sewer was the enemy? That likely sounded paranoid to conservatives still sleeping off of their fake news pills.
The way to fix this is to revise the “Sullivan vs. NYT” case. We need to move to more of a British model where you don’t have to show intentional motive. Allow for treble damages and then you will see people becoming more polite or have stronger basis to make statement.
If I recall, tehre’s a class difference as a member of the House of Lords can’t be sued for some things by the peasants, only by their “peers”.
Sullivan doesn’t apply to the Rittenhouse case, I think, since he’s not a public figure.
What is regrettable is that Sullivan prevents Trump from suing Biden and “news” media for repeating the obvious lie that he declined to condemn white supremacists in that event on Tuesday night, when he clearly did condemn them, as he has done numerous times in the past, including in the press conference about Charlottesville.
This type of lie is particularly insidious, because there is a germ of truth in it. Do white supremacists exist? Are there some organizations that promote such views? Well, of course, the answer is yes. But, these are relatively minor, and they are not the ones who are currently burning down cities!
I am not known for quoting the Bible, but this one is particularly apt:
“Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.”
What is regrettable is that Sullivan prevents Trump from suing Biden and “news” media for repeating the obvious lie that he declined to condemn white supremacists
I believe it doesn’t prevent him from suing, it’s just a higher standard, malice, which ought to be easy to prove.
Also, as to Rittenhouse, I believe there have been cases where an individual has been deemed a public figure because of the notoriety from the slander, as ridiculous as that is.
“Great mixed metaphor!”
It’ll be a walk in the cake!
credited to Dikembe Mutombo
I can’t figure out why RICO laws have not been applied; this would implicate those who plan, finance and organize the riots.
The democrats have become the party of hate; hate the USA, hate white folks, hate capitalism, hate everything about the USA.
Their whole purpose apparently is the attainment of power; that’s it.
“Who is stopping DJT from canning Wray”
I don’t know that answer but I’ve seen speculation that RINOs in the Senate have failed to support the President sufficiently.
1) have confirmed judges but have NOT confirmed key nominations
2) have warned Trump NOT to dump certain appointees
3) have NOT gone out of session for 3.8 years thus preventing “recess appointments”
Off topic, but speaking of mixed metaphors, this is one that was included in a brief by an attorney in a legal proceeding: He (the opposing attorney) is chasing a red herring up the wrong tree.
This case may be harder to win than was the Sandman case: that case involved specific misstatements of fact, not only a characterization of the individual.
David Foster, in politics, facts are immaterial, the law is of no consequence; all you have to do is make the charge stick in public opinion. In this case, just make it last until November 4th.
As to any actual legal outcome, as we know it all depends on whether you can find a sympathetic Judge. The current General Flynn debacle demonstrates that nothing matters more than the Judge’s prejudices.
TimK, the red herring are following the path of the amphibians and crawling onto the land now. 🙂 Question is: are they tasty when pan-fried? I suspect they turn out uncomfortably chalky, and with lots of bones, too.
“as ridiculous as that is.” – Jimmy
As that guy who originated the petard-hoisting party didn’t say, but would have if he had only thought of it in time, “The law is an ass.”
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/the-law-is-an-ass.html
“This proverbial expression is of English origin and the ass being referred to here is the English colloquial name for a donkey,” – which seems appropriate in the context.
This is what The Bard did write, which is also apropos the subject.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogberry
As for the original proverb, one may certainly hope that it will apply to the Democrats in a variety of situations.
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/hoist-by-your-own-petard.html
Defamation would be hard to prove in this case. It’s not as easy as the Sandermann case.
First, the image of Kyle is one second in a 50 second commercial that in the beginning is the question by Wallace to Trump about white supremacists and militias. In the ad Kyle is not mentioned by name. His photo is used in a montage of other photos so the ad is not exclusively him or even about him.
Second, Kyle was traveling around that night with a Boogaloo Bois militia. Therefore, one can rightly assume he is part of their militia even for one night because he is running with them. His lawyers initially said he was a ‘Minute Man’ referring to militias from the Revolutionary war.
Third and most important to this case is what’s called ‘limited purpose public figures’ that apply to those who have become widely known due to fatal shootings. There are court cases about this. This one from the defamation case George Zimmerman had against NBC:
Fatal shootings constitute public controversies and those responsible for them thereby become limited purpose public figures for purposes of news reports about such incidents. As the Utah Supreme Court has explained, “[o]ne who takes a life under any circumstances cannot be expected to escape public scrutiny.” Madsen v. United Television, Inc., 797 P.2d 1083, 1085 (Utah 1990), overruled on other grounds by O’Connor v. Burningham, 165 P.3d 1214 (Utah 2007). “Clearly, killing another person is a matter of public interest” and constitutes an action that causes the perpetrator, whether or not he is guilty of a criminal offense, to become a public figure.” Berry v. NBC, 480 F.2d 428, 431 (8th Cir. 1973).
Considering he is facing five charges – reckless homicide, recklessly endangering safety, intentional homicide, attempted homicide, and recklessly endangering safety – any claim that defamation will harm him is a drop in the bucket.
You can only tell young white men that their mere existence is an affront to all that is good and proper for so long without expecting and deserving a tremendous backlash.
Montage:
Do tell. Boogaloo Bois of Kenosha? Funny they don’t seem to be mentioned in any of the analysis of the Kenosha videos.
Have you been in contact with Saint Skateboard of Kenosha, or did the Portland Antifa Assassin give you your talking points from Hell?
Yes, in my neck of the woods extremely low info citizens lean on the thought of Boogaloos to comfort themselves that the Left is blameless.
It’s not just young white boys. They’re doing the same thing to Trump, since the debate: “Will you categorically condemn White Supremacists…..”
It’s not as if Trump has never done this. In fact he did if from Day 1 at Charlottesville, in the earlier sentence that is ignored while the later one ..good people on both sides… is cynically rolled out at every opportunity, complete with “veins bulging” mis-directions.
I think reporters believe that if they put this issue out front often enough, even if it’s de-bunked each and every time, the pure repetitiveness will convince people that there’s something to it. Smear by Association, that old hack’s chestnut.
Of course they don’t know that many of us know, that as professional journalists they are paid to remember all these facts, and sometimes, as biased hacks they’re even paid to pretend they don’t know about them. We’re on to you, boys. You’re only fooling that reflection in the mirror.
On the question of Trump answering the question:
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/09/30/fact-check-transcript-trump-condemn-white-supremacists/
https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2020/10/01/fox-news-john-roberts-loses-temper-at-critics-of-his-white-supremacist-questions/
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2020/10/01/trump-i-condemn-all-white-supremacists-i-condemn-the-proud-boys/
The President said, in several places, that he didn’t even know who the Proud Boys were, but he condemned them anyway.
Can the Proud Boys sue Trump for defamation?