Messages obtained by New York Magazine show the Democrat mocking free healthcare, dismissing the Epstein files as a “nothing burger,” and calling Democrats hypocritical for their outrage at the killing of nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. Fetterman has been a thorn in his party’s side on a host of issues.
In January, according to the report, Fetterman sent staffers an article about how annual healthcare costs for a typical working American family are nearly $4,000.
“How should it cost? Free?” he wrote. “I don’t understand what affordability it is.”
Also in January, as the Trump administration was dragging its heels about releasing the Epstein files, Fetterman messaged a staffer: “Epstein was a nothing burger. Worst pics I’ve seen were from Clinton lol.”
Fetterman has been sounding more like a Republican, staffers say. Fetterman has been sounding more like a Republican, staffers say.
Then, after federal agents repeatedly shot Pretti in the back during anti-ICE protests, Fetterman complained that Democrats shouldn’t be taking his side because they had objected when Kyle Rittenhouse “brought a gun to a protest,” as Fetterman characterized it.
“Kyle Rittenhouse brought a gun to a protest,” Fetterman, 56, texted a staffer. “He was roundly condemned for that. Why are now democrats defending the nurse it was legal to carry. Both legal weapons. Square that.”
Unlike Pretti, though, Rittenhouse actually fired his gun. He shot three men—two fatally—during civil unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in August 2020 after the shooting of Jacob Blake by a police officer. Rittenhouse was charged with two counts of homicide and one count of attempted homicide, among other charges. He was found not guilty.
Pretti’s killing, the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office determined, was a homicide.
Fetterman’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.
Archived at https://ghostarchive.org/archive/s6iC8
NYMag article archived at https://ghostarchive.org/archive/7ayBq
Also didn't Rittenhouse illegally transport his gun across state lines or am I miss-remembering.
He did but the key difference is that one of them killed a bunch of people with the gun they brought to their protest and the other just was carrying and was shot dead by ice guys.
Another difference is that one was a handgun and the other was some sort of ar16 looking thing, but if the guns were switched and the guy filming Ice was carrying an AR he borrowed from another state. Id still be thinking they shouldnt have tackled him and shot him in the back just because he had his phone out
Plus one
That charge was dropped as the weapon was supposedly actually stored in Kenosha, Wisconsin at a friend's property where he retrieved it, so there was no interstate trafficking. There was also a possession charge dropped, as the long gun he carried didn't fit into the short barreled rifle ban for minors.
However...Rittenhouse was a minor, attending a protest that he was ideologically opposed to, armed with a weapon to stand guard over property that was not his, crossing state lines to do so, and had made comments about longing to shoot thieves/protesters earlier that month online. That's a lot of stupid things to do. He was attacked by someone likely attempting to harm him and steal his weapon and defended himself with deadly force which they judged warranted under the circumstances, and I tend to agree that it was justified for the first shooting.
But then he fled the scene. Others, attempting to make sure that he didn't get away with shooting someone without even being ID'd attempted to stop him. Citizen's arrest is legal in Wisconsin when you witness a misdemeanor or have knowledge of a felony and reasonable belief that they committed the felony. While force to perform a Citizen's arrest is limited to self defense only, the guy was still carrying a weapon that he'd already shot someone with and fled the scene.
Keep in mind, that people are not expected to be all-knowing. Their actions are judged based on the knowledge they had at the time and reasonableness of their judgement and conclusions based on that knowledge. They have every reason to think he still posed a threat. Everything they did to him, following him, trying to grab him, attacking him the skateboard and pulling a gun are all defensible in these circumstances with the knowledge they had.
That same grace was afforded to Rittenhouse too though, meaning his actions following the first shooting were judge through his knowledge and the reasonability of his judgements from there. He was attacked physically with a skateboard as a weapon (which can easily kill someone) and used deadly force again in defense. Then someone pulled a gun on him and pointed it toward him, so he fired and injured that guy too. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that both of them were acting in self defense at that moment, and had the other guy shot Rottenhouse, I doubt he would have been convicted for that either.
My problem with the outcome isn't the specific instances where he reacted to immediate danger as they are at least arguably justified from his perspective. It is that he created the environment for that danger in the first place with his own immature choices and then actively avoided accountability. He stood as an antagonist to a protest carrying deadly force that the protesters, by an large, were not. He immediately fled after the first shooting without trying to make clear he was only defending himself. He made no attempt to contact the police during, immediately after, or even the next day. His mother had to drive him to the police after he told her what had happened. This paints the picture of a kid who wanted to be a vigilante, got into a bad but predictable situation that forced him into making a very adult choice for which he then ran from the consequences until forced to confront it.
And that's if the details of his story are all true.
It's not a dissimilar situation to the killing of Treyvon Martin. Everyone was acting in their own defense at the time the killings happened. But only one person in each situation put people in that position of needing to defend themselves. I think their should be legal consequences for that sort of negligence.
Yes