Having reviewed the depressing small population of Ethics Heroes in this Ethics Wreck in Part I, I’ll largely leave the determination of which of the following ethics miscreants should be designated as dunces, villains or fools (or all three) to you. In this, I take my lead from the Saturday Night Live game show, “Geek, Dweeb or Spazz?”

However, there are some easily identified Ethics Villains, beginning with

1. The President of the United States, who signed this official statement:

While the verdict in Kenosha will leave many Americans feeling angry and concerned, myself included, we must acknowledge that the jury has spoken. I ran on a promise to bring Americans together, because I believe that what unites us is far greater than what divides us. I know that we’re not going to heal our country’s wounds overnight, but I remain steadfast in my commitment to do everything in my power to ensure that every American is treated equally, with fairness and dignity, under the law.

I urge everyone to express their views peacefully, consistent with the rule of law. Violence and destruction of property have no place in our democracy. The White House and Federal authorities have been in contact with Governor Evers’s office to prepare for any outcome in this case, and I have spoken with the Governor this afternoon and offered support and any assistance needed to ensure public safety.

Ethics verdict: Despicable and inexcusable.

• What’s Biden “angry” about? Nobody should be “angry” that a jury did its job, and nobody who paid attention to the trial can be “angry” that a jury couldn’t find Rittenhouse  guilty after the prosecution’s botched case. Anger implies wrongdoing. The President of the United States should never, in any case, express an opinion about a jury’s decision.
• Does anyone think Biden followed the case carefully, or watched it unfold? His comment is a deliberate pander to the worst of the Democratic base, and does as much to encourage violence as anything Trump said after the election.
• Moreover, Biden is personally responsible for much of the confusion and anger over the case, having twice called Rittenhouse, falsely, a “white supremacist.”
• Then he has the gall to say that he promised to “bring Americans together” after he deliberately enabled the race-baiters in Kenosha, and that he believes that every American is treated equally, with fairness and dignity, after he poisoned public opinion against Rittenhouse.

Biden’s not just a weak and addled President. He’s a two-faced, mean-spirited creep.

The rest of the Rittenhouse Rogues Gallery members who can be comfortably designated as Ethics Villains:

2. Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D- NY), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee

Go ahead, tell me again with a straight face that Democrats haven’t embraced totalitarianism. Now jurors, judges, lawyers and defendants have to worry that if the verdict in a fair trial doesn’t fit into the ruling party’s ideological agenda and please its constituency, they will face Federal investigations and threats of “consequences.” Nadler called for the Justice Department to review the Kyle Rittenhouse case after a jury found Rittenhouse not guilty on all charges. If lackey Merrick Garland could be sicced on concerned parents by a bunch of race-obsessed school boarsd, do you think he’ll show some spine in the face of a demand by a ranking Democratic Congresman

Nadler, who has been one of the worst, most hypocritical and hyper-partisan House members in U.S. legislative history, blathered, “This heartbreaking verdict is a miscarriage of justice and sets a dangerous precedent which justifies federal review by DOJ. Justice cannot tolerate armed persons crossing state lines looking for trouble while people engage in First Amendment-protected protest.”

Well…

• Then pass a law, asshole. You don’t get to make up crimes that make your constituency happy.
• Rittenhouse, like every other American without a criminal record, can cross state lines at will, and “looking for trouble” is a subjective and vague standard. (Don’t try to put it in your new law.)
• Rittenhouse did NOT carry a weapon across state lines. Nadler, as a U.S. official, is obligated to get his facts right and not spread inflammatory information. Either he was inexcusably negligent, or he deliberately adopted the Big Lie. Knowing Nadler, I wouldn’t put it past him.
• People were rioting. This is more gaslighting from Democrats, taking their cues from their Big Lie-spreading news media. You know…

3. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and its Chair, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.), whose outrageously false and inflammatory statement I noted last night.

4. Congresswoman and African American “Squad” member Ayanna Pressley, who tweeted,

Pressley was one of the women President Trump unwisely said should “go back where they came from.” That would be, I suppose, in Pressley’s case, Hell:

• Again the false narrative about crossing state lines with a gun! Has her party sent out a memo?
• He shot and killed two men and wounded another (all with records of violent criminal activity) who were engaged in rioting, which does not “affirm” anything.
• It was self-defense, according to the jury that was present at the whole trial viewed the videos and observed the witnesses.
• It is not the proper role of House members to weigh in on state jury verdicts.

5.California Governor Gavin Newsom (D), who tweeted,

I’d remind Newsom that in the glass house that is California, where the message was sent that a black celebrity can brutally murder his white wife and her friend and get away with it by playing the race card, throwing such a rhetorical rock is absurd. But never mind that:

• The real message is that in America today, despite the best efforts of Democrats, anti-white racists and the news media, a citizen unjustly vilified can still get a fair trial.
• “Weapons built for the military.” Shameless.
• “Shoot and kill people” is textbook deceit. In America, it is legal to shoot and kill people that you reasonably think are trying to kill you.
• All defendants in cases where they are accused of crimes that the prosecution cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt are supposed to “get away with it.” That’s intentional, and protects everyone.
• What happens in a Wisconsin trial is none of the Governor of California’s business..

6. The American Civil Liberties Union (and this is why everyone should stay off Twitter, which clearly provokes early inset senility) which tweeted this disgraceful thread…

The ACLU might be the worst villain of them all. As Robby Souve archly noted at “Reason,” “The ACLU thinks Kyle Rittenhouse’s civil liberties got too much protection.” The tweets represent a total betrayal of the what are supposed to be the core values of the organization, plus…

• Rioters, not “protesters.”
• Third tweet: There was no evidence that Rittenhouse “made a conscious decision” as he traveled to Wisconsin—which is his right—to injure or shoot anyone. That’s a lie.
• 4th and 5th tweets: once again, the false smear that Rittenhouse is a white supremacist. What do militia groups have to do with Rittenhouse?
• 6th tweet: Ugh. Bottom of the barrel innuendo.
• Yet another deliberate miscasting of Jacob Blake and his shooting. He was shot in front of his children that he was apparently in the process of kidnapping! Blake’s race was irrelevant; a white man engaged in Blake’s conduct would also have been shot.
• Concludes Soave:

One might have expected that an organization dedicated to the preservation of civil liberties would not so cavalierly take the side of prosecutors against the concept of self-defense. In the past, the ACLU has done terrific work shining a light on prosecutorial misconduct—the tremendous power the state has to stack the deck against defendants. The ACLU purports to believe that all people, even the guilty, deserve due process protections. The organization is evidently outraged by the verdict: Is the ACLU outraged that the prosecutor tried to argue that Rittenhouse exercising his Miranda rights was evidence of his guilt?

I’m going to reluctantly cut off the “villains” list at six. The final section will present the rest.

Oops! Sorry, I can’t let THIS pass…

7. “The Independent”

No further commentary is necessary after this tweet by the alleged news organization..