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Ed covered this earlier this morning but there have been some updates since then, starting with the name of the 26-year-old man who was lurking near Justice Kavanaugh’s home. He is Nicholas John Roske of Simi Valley, California.

According to an affidavit submitted by an FBI agent, Roske arrived at Kavanugh’s house in a cab around 1 am this morning. He was dressed in black and immediately was noticed by two US Deputy Marshals who were guarding the property. Roske walked away and later he called 911 and gave them his name and said he’d come from California to kill a specific Supreme Court Justice. Police were dispatched to Kavanaugh’s home and when they arrived they found Roske who was still on the phone. He had a backpack on him that was full of tools that could be used for a break in plus weapons.

Roske was carrying a suitcase and backpack filled with a tactical knife, a Glock 17 pistol, two magazines, ammunition, pepper spray and zip ties, the FBI said.

Roske also had on hand a hammer, screwdriver, nail punch, crowbar, pistol light and duct tape, the affidavit said.

As for why he was doing this, there’s not much mystery about that. He believed killing Kavanaugh would give his life purpose.

The affidavit said Roske was upset about the leak of the Supreme Court opinion related to abortion rights, an upcoming gun control case and the school shooting last month in Uvalde, Texas.

“Roske indicated that he believed the Justice that he intended to kill would side with Second Amendment decisions that would loosen gun control laws,” the FBI agent wrote. “Roske stated that he began thinking about how to give his life a purpose and decided that he would kill the Supreme Court Justice” after breaking into his home. Roske planned to kill himself as well, the affidavit added.

CNN’s story leaves out an important part of the sentence above. From the affidavit: “Roske stated that he began thinking about how to give his life a purpose and decided that he would kill the Supreme Court Justice after finding the Justice’s Montgomery County address on the internet.”

I suppose it’s possible someone else had posted it but it seems most likely this is a reference to Ruth Sent Us, the group which posted a map with addresses for six of the Justices last month. As I pointed out at the time, Ruth Sent Us claimed they didn’t provide complete addresses but that was a gimmick designed to give them plausible deniability. In fact, they had also posted TikTok videos which identified each home. In several cases they made sure the house number was visible in the videos. They’ve also been tweeting out messages like this one calling for the “punishment” of just one “corrupt theocrat” on the Court.

Is that a peaceful message? Maybe but it’s not hard to see how calling people theocrats and “fascists” might play in some minds.

Of course people have a right to protest peacefully but less than 24-hours after a man showed up to murder someone, maybe take it elsewhere for the night? But apparently not. The protest at Kavanaugh’s house tonight is still on. They may disagree with violence but I guess they don’t mind capitalizing on it a bit.

Finally, before we move on, let’s not forget that Ruth Sent Us isn’t the only group/person using this sort of apocalyptic language about a SCOTUS decision. Elected Democrats have been leaping in front of cameras to express their anger, some of them predicting consequences.

Do I think Sen. Schumer wants to see Justices murdered? No, I don’t but I do think we’ve spent decades having a “national conversation” about troubling political rhetoric, a conversation from which Democrats always excuse themselves with the media’s help.

This is a pretty clear case of the “climate of hate” leading to bad consequences. Will the left show outrage? Will there be 100 think-pieces about this tomorrow as we all know there would be if this had happened at Sotomayor’s house? Will anyone argue that the left has been building up to something like this since the confirmation hearings? That the red capes taken from a dystopian novel were present at his confirmation and are now present outside his house. That the leak of the draft decision was obviously going to result in threats? Will anyone try to connect the dots from the left’s specific hatred of Kavanaugh since 2018 to this deranged person?

Or will we instead get a “Republicans seize on assassination attempt” headline that makes the reaction the story instead of making the story itself the story. The climate of hate only ever seems to function in one direction as far as most media outlets are concerned. It’s hard to believe this time will be any different.

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