The twin visits come less than a week after President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden made stops in Kenosha and underscore Wisconsin's central role in the Nov. 3 presidential election.
Biden's campaign announced on Friday that Harris, a U.S. senator from California, would visit the state Monday but did not provide any other details about the trip. Her visit continues a long tradition of national Democrats campaigning in Milwaukee on Labor Day.
Pence was last in Wisconsin the week of the Democratic National Convention when he and Trump made separate stops in the state to highlight their willingness to come here as most Democrats steered clear of the convention because of COVID-19.
Contact Patrick Marley at patrick.marley@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @patrickdmarley.
A woman who had been banging on street light and trolley poles with a metal object is taken into custody on the night of Saturday, Aug. 29, at Kenosha's Civic Center Park.
PETE WICKLUND, Lee Newspapers
KENOSHA — A class-action discrimination lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal court by four people who were arrested for breaking Kenosha’s curfew during protests, alleges that their rights were inappropriately infringed upon while pro-police demonstrators were allowed to “roam” without harassment by law enforcement.
The lawsuit points out that more than 100 protesters were arrested “for violating the County imposed curfew order, yet in spite of the presence of pro-police protesters and militias, NOT A SINGLE PRO-POLICE demonstrator has been arrested” for violating curfew.
The lawsuit alleges that the Kenosha Police Department and the Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department used the curfew “to silence the voices of those who peacefully demonstrate against police brutality while allowing pro-police activists and militias to roam the streets without fear of arrest.” Unrest unfolded in the city after the Aug. 23 shooting of Jacob Blake by a Kenosha police officer.
(CNN)A professor of African and Latin American studies who portrayed herself as Black has now revealed she has been lying.
Jessica A. Krug, an associate professor at George Washington University, has written extensively about Africa, Latin America, the diaspora and identity, all while claiming her own Black and Latina heritage. But in an article published on Medium.com on Thursday, Krug revealed the truth: She is White.
"To an escalating degree over my adult life, I have eschewed my lived experience as a white Jewish child in suburban Kansas City under various assumed identities within a Blackness that I had no right to claim: first North African Blackness, then US rooted Blackness, then Caribbean rooted Bronx Blackness," she wrote.
Krug acknowledged in her post that she had no right to claim these identities, saying that "doing so is the very epitome of violence, of thievery and appropriation, of the myriad ways in which non-Black people continue to use and abuse Black identities and cultures."
KENOSHA - Joe Biden accused President Donald Trump of breathing life into racist movements Thursday as he visited this city shaken by shootings and unrest and privately talked with Jacob Blake and his family.
Biden said he spoke by phone to Blake, a Black man who was shot by a city police officer Aug. 23, an incident that sparked protests, as well as lootings and arson.
Biden said Blake, who has suffered paralysis from the waist down, was released from the intensive care unit.
"He talked about how nothing was going to defeat him, how whether he walked again or not he was not going to give up,” Biden said.
"What I came away with was the overwhelming sense of resilience and optimism that they have,” he said of Blake's family. “His mom said a prayer and she said, ‘I’m praying for Jacob and I’m praying for the policeman as well. I’m praying that things change.’ If you think a little bit about where we are right now, it’s been a terrible, terrible wakeup call. ...
It was the Democratic presidential nominee's first campaign appearance in Wisconsin this year and came just two days after Trump's visit to Kenosha. He made his stop even though Democratic Gov. Tony Evers didn't want the presidential contenders to visit the city as the community tries to reunify.
Biden also stopped in Wauwatosa, where he held a small roundtable discussion on schools.
The U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Wisconsin announced Thursday that two Missouri men have been arrested and charged with illegal firearms possession related to protests in Kenosha.
According to the criminal complaint, Michael M. Karmo, 40, and Cody E. Smith, 33, were charged with illegal possession of firearms after being arrested Tuesday at a hotel in Pleasant Prairie.
A law enforcement agency alerted the Kenosha Police Department to the two men, and Kenosha police alerted the FBI that Karmo and an unidentified male were traveling to Kenosha to "look and 'pick people off.'"
The FBI arrested Karmo and Smith in the parking lot of La Quinta Hotel and Inn, 7540 118th Ave., in Pleasant Prairie.
Law enforcement searched the car and found an AR-15, a 12-gauge shotgun, 9mm handgun and a "homemade silencer-type device," the complaint says.
A 1991 Harley-Davidson Sportster, foreground, attracts its share of attention during the custom bike show at the Harley-Davidson Museum on Sunday. The event was part of the 2019 Milwaukee Rally presented by Harley-Davidson and its dealerships.
Michael Sears/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
In a summer defined by canceled events, one end-of-season party is still happening — the annual Milwaukee Rally Labor Day weekend at area Harley-Davidson motorcycle dealerships.
The reunion of sorts for Harley-Davidson motorcycle riders draws crowds to Milwaukee ever year. While around 100,000 descend upon the company's hometown in anniversary years, attendance is smaller and less predictable in off years like this one.
In many ways, the Milwaukee Rally 2020 will be just like other years. Motorcyclists will ride into town. Five dealerships will welcome riders with parties, show off fancy new bikes, and host live music to celebrate the company's 117th anniversary.
But these are no ordinary times. The coronavirus, which has killed more than 1,100 in the state, continues to spread. Health officials continue to discourage gatherings of any kind that could spread the virus.
Marking the first visit to Wisconsin by a Democratic presidential nominee in nearly eight years, former vice president Joe Biden met with a small group of Kenosha residents and local officials to deliver what he has described as a message of hope and healing.
Justin Blake, uncle of Jacob Blake, protests outside the Grace Lutheran Church where Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden is scheduled to hold an event Thursday, Sept. 3, 2020, in Kenosha, Wis. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
Morry Gash
The southeast Wisconsin community has witnessed at-times violent protests in response to the Aug. 23 police shooting that left Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, paralyzed from the waist down. Last Tuesday two protesters were shot and killed and a third wounded allegedly by a 17-year-old from Illinois who had traveled to the city to protect buildings alongside other armed counterprotesters.
While President Donald Trump earlier this week pushed for "law and order" — including additional funding for local police — to clamp down on protests, Biden focused on the need to address racial injustices and create accountability among police departments.
Biden condemned riots and looting, but also described the ongoing protests by groups like Black Lives Matter as a reason for optimism that change can take place.
"I think the country is much more primed to take responsibility, because they now have to see what you see, what you've experienced," Biden during a conversation with about 40 people at Kenosha's Grace Lutheran Church.
"I can’t guarantee you everything will be solid in four years, but I can promise you one thing, it will be a whole heck of a lot better," Biden said.
It’s increasingly clear to even the average American that if riots come to your neighborhood, you’re on your own. The message received is increasingly be this:
if your plan is to wait until the police show up to provide "protection," be prepared to wait a long time.
Consequently, as violence appears to surge in America's cities, millions of Americans have become first-time gun owners.
Government Officials Aren't Keeping Us "Safe"
There are two trends at work which are making Americans doubt government law enforcement is reliable and effective.
On the one hand, the public is witnessing nightly displays of looting, rioting, and general civil unrest.
At the same time, many police officers don't appear particularly able or willing to defend the public against looters and rioters.
Homicide rates in New York, for example, have surged among accusations of a "police slowdown." A number of police departments (including those in Los Angeles and Atlanta) are rumored to be using strategies such as the "blue flu" in which police personnel pretend to be ill as a negotiating tactic for obtaining political favors from lawmakers. But even when police personnel are able, there are not enough of them in most cases to truly address ongoing nightly violence in many cities. And in some cases, elected officials, like in Portland and Chicago, appear uninterested in confronting rioters with much enthusiasm at all.
It easy to see how ordinary Americans could look on current events with increasing alarm. On August 29, a man was allegedly murdered by at least one protestor among the many who have been protesting, rioting, and looting in Portland for more than three months. Two weeks ago, a truck driver sustained serious injuries, also in Portland, when he was attacked by a group of “protestors” while reportedly attempting to help a woman who was being robbed. Last week in Kenosha, protestors were seen attacking a teenager who had been attempting to protect businesses from looting and vandalism. The teen reportedly opened fire in self defense. In Washington, DC, a mob threatened restaurant patrons, and in Minneapolis, dozens of businesses have been burned and looted.
According to new estimates from the National Shooting Sports Foundation, using the FBI’s National Instant Background Check System, “there were over 12 million guns bought in the first seven months of 2020—up more than 70 percent over the same time span in 2019. This number is likely to include nearly 5 million first-time gun owners so far this year.”
Moreover, as noted in an unsigned editorial at the Wall Street Journal,
The FBI’s most recent gun-sale figures are stunning. They show that in July the bureau carried out 3.6 million background checks, the third highest month on record. [T]his translates to 1.8 million gun sales for July 2020—a 122% increase over July 2019. The 12,141,032 gun sales through this July is just shy of the 13,199,172 sales for all of 2019.
Statistically, it remains unclear that life for the average American is much more dangerous this year than it was over the past five years. After all, in 2014, the homicide rate in America hit a 51-year low. But the American public has never been one to sit back and conclude everything is fine just because homicides are relatively low.
After all, gun purchases were already surging even before the apparent killing of George Floyd touched off a wave of protests followed by riots and looting. Gun purchases that had been fueled by general uncertainty and anxiety over the Covid-19 panic soon became gun purchases fueled by far more immediate fears of violent crime.
Also notable is that many new gun owners are outside groups known as the usual suspects, when it comes to gun purchases. The NSSF reported that 58 percent of the new firearms purchases were by black men and women, while “women comprised 40% of first-time gun buyers.”
Millions Aren't Buying the Usual Pro-Gun-Control Claims
Needless to say, these trends are going very much against the grain of the usual narrative employed by gun control advocates; a narrative that generally employs several main tenets we’ve seen many times. They include:
Government police agencies provide better protection than a private firearm ever could.
If you’re in danger, it’s best to call 911 and then wait.
If you buy a gun, the gun is more likely to kill someone you love, rather than stop a criminal.
America would be safer if fewer people had guns.
People who buy guns are mostly just rightwing hayseeds. Hillary Clinton calls these people "deplorables."
And while opponents of private gun ownership rarely say this explicitly, the sum total of their narrative is this: only police and military personnel should own guns. The basic idea here is that private gun owners cannot be trusted, and that government officials will keep us safe. But as so often occurs when there are riots—as happened in both Ferguson (in 2014) and Kenosha (in 2020) police officers and other government "public safety" personnel mostly just protect government property. The private sector must just fend for itself.
