Lords Of Chaos

 Vice President Mike "Intense" Pence recently spoke at Fort McHenry on a topic near and dear to his boss's heart (which is kept in a velvet-lined box in a lower drawer of his desk behind his bronzer): Law and Order. During this oration, the president's vice addressed the Department of Homeland Security officer who was “shot and killed during the riots in Oakland, California.” The time and place were correct, but the juxtaposition left many with the idea that Dave Patrick Underwood was murdered by left-wing radicals who were so radical in fact that they chose to execute a federal officer. 

Not so.

Officer Underwood was killed by Air Force Staff Sergeant Steven Carrillo, a member of the right-wing “boogaloo” movement. Not that this made it into VP Mike's speech. Instead, he was content to further the hate and fear of all things liberal in spite of the fact that Sergeant Carrillo "came to Oakland to kill cops" without any association to the groups who were rocking the streets of Oaktown. Nope. Sergeant Steve and his accomplice Robert Justus, whose name defies logic at this point, have been charged with both the death of Officer Underwood and the ambush and murder of Santa Cruz Sheriff's Deputy Damon Gutzwiller. Carillo posted this on social media the morning before the Oakland shooting: "Go to the riots and support our own cause. Show them the real targets. Use their anger to fuel our fire. Think outside the box. We have mobs of angry people to use to our advantage."

Something like this was, no doubt, writhing through the withered brain of young Kyle Rittenhouse when he picked up the call from the alt-right to travel to Kenosha to help keep order after protests broke out in that city in response to the police shooting of an unarmed black man, Jacob Blake. It should probably be pointed out that Mister Rittenhouse is seventeen and white. Which may be why Tucker Carlson, standing in for Mike Pence burbling on his Fox News show, "Are we really surprised that looting and arson accelerated to murder? How shocked are we that seventeen-year-olds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when no one else would?" Kyle Rittenhouse shot and killed two unarmed protesters and wounded another. I guess there are still a whole lot of things I don't understand about law and order. 

Or maybe it's not me at all. Maybe it has something to do with guns. 

I know. This is what your typical lefty would say. And I'll keep saying it until I don't have to anymore. And Donald Trump's shriveled heart souvenir has been pulled from that desk drawer and moved along with his bronzer back to Mar-A-Lago.