“Kyle Rittenhouse found not guilty after fatally shooting two in Kenosha unrest”, the Guardian reluctantly reports.
Good. Not because it makes Guardian reporters cry, but because Mr Rittenhouse was quite clearly acting in self defence.
Most relevantly, scroll down this piece by Nellie Bowles, formerly of the New York Times, writing in the Substack account of Bari Weiss, also formerly of the New York Times, shedding light on what and when readers of that publication got to hear about the Kenosha riots:
A note on Kenosha in light of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial: Until quite recently, the mainstream liberal argument was that burning down businesses for racial justice was both good and healthy. Burnings allowed for the expression of righteous rage, and the businesses all had insurance to rebuild.
When I was at the New York Times, I went to Kenosha to see about this, and it turned out to be not true. The part of Kenosha that people burned in the riots was the poor, multi-racial commercial district, full of small, underinsured cell phone shops and car lots. It was very sad to see and to hear from people who had suffered. Beyond the financial loss, small storefronts are quite meaningful to their owners and communities, which continuously baffles the Zoom-class.
Something odd happened with that story after I filed it. It didn’t run. It sat and sat.
Now it could be that the piece was just bad. I’ve sent in bad ones before, and I’ll do it again. A few weeks after I filed, an editor told me: The Times wouldn’t be able to run my Kenosha insurance debacle piece until after the 2020 election, so sorry.
There were a variety of reasons given—space, timing, tweaks here or there.
Eventually the election passed. Biden was in the White House. And my Kenosha story ran. Whatever the reason for holding the piece, covering the suffering after the riots was not a priority. The reality that brought Kyle Rittenhouse into the streets was one we reporters were meant to ignore. The old man who tried to put out a blaze at a Kenosha store had his jaw broken. The top editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer had to resign in June 2020 amid staff outcry for publishing a piece with the headline, “Buildings Matter, Too.”If you lived in those neighborhoods on fire, you were not supposed to get an extinguisher. The proper response — the only acceptable response — was to see the brick and mortar torn down, to watch the fires burn and to say: thank you.
Update: Within the last few minutes Bari Weiss herself posted this commentary on the case: “The Media’s Verdict on Kyle Rittenhouse – Why so many got this story so wrong.”
Here is what I thought was true about Kyle Rittenhouse during the last days of August 2020 based on mainstream media accounts: The 17-year-old was a racist vigilante. I thought he drove across state lines, to Kenosha, Wisc., with an illegally acquired semi-automatic rifle to a town to which he had no connection. I thought he went there because he knew there were Black Lives Matter protests and he wanted to start a fight. And I thought that by the end of the evening of August 25, 2020, he had done just that, killing two peaceful protestors and injuring a third.
It turns out that account was mostly wrong.
[…]
This wasn’t a disinformation campaign waged by Reddit trolls or anonymous Twitter accounts. It was one pushed by the mainstream media and sitting members of Congress for the sake of an expedient political narrative—a narrative that asked people to believe, among other unrealities, that blocks of burning buildings somehow constituted peaceful protests.
Another update: Glenn Greenwald tweets, “Just look at how many people were radically deceived about this case – and still are! – including people paid to follow and “report on” these matters for a living” and illustrates his point with a hilarious screenshot of the Independent‘s front page of a few minutes ago. Somebody must have told them, they’ve since corrected it. But, c’mon man, imagine the Independent‘s reporters of all people relying on the Independent as a source.
Thank God! I was so worried the jury would let the state railroad him. The media’s behavior has been disgraceful.
This is what Rozina Sabur, WASHINGTON EDITOR of The Telegraph choose to write.
For a start those hit were white too. So what is Rozina trying to make readers think?
“Mostly wrong” ??
Understatement of the year.
If Bari Weiss thought all that stuff after taking the trouble to inform herself about Rittenhouse. And if she didn’t bother to inform herself before running her mouth off ( in print ), nothing else she thinks or writes down, is worth a damn.
How could you watch the coverage of the streets on fire, yet still write the sentence; “killing two peaceful protestors” ?
Congratulations to Mr Rittenhouse.
PS. I have no idea who Bari Weiss is, and after reading that extract, no inclination to find out, either.
Just like the protests were “mostly” peaceful …
In other breaking news, water is mostly dry.
She is a journalist who spectacularly resigned from the New York Times citing as her reason for resigning its cravenly selective reporting of any story that might possibly make the left wing Twitter mob angry. People who were once deep within the media “blob” but have rebelled against it, like Weiss and Glenn Greenwald, should be listened to with great attention, even if we disagree with some of their political opinions. We want more to do what they did, right?
Rittenhouse arguably violated the US Constitution, as the surviving person he shot almost lost his right to bear arms.
There’s an idealistic teenage boy inside me who hopes that this verdict and the responses of some journalists will turn the tide against evil but there’s a cynical man inside me who also knows that this was a battle the left don’t mind losing, and they only have to be lucky once.
I just saw a disgraceful comment on Breitbart, modified to save blushes:
Reporters got it wrong like people on dating sites get their own weight and age wrong.
On the topic of ‘The Independent’, which ceased to be a printed newspaper about five years ago and now exists only online, it might be relevant to point out that its principal owner is, according to Wikipedia, “Russian oligarch and former KGB Officer Alexander Lebedev.”
With all the media narratives about Russian expertise in disinformation it’s a little odd, to say the least, that ‘The Independent’ generally gets a free pass when other media outlets with Russian owners, such as the RT news channel, are rarely mentioned without extensive ‘health warnings’ about their ownership. Maybe ‘The Independent’ is excused its Russian links for its predilection for taking a pro-Blob, ‘woker-than-thou’ stance in pretty much everything it publishes.
Glenn Greenwald’s tweets just confirm me in my opinion that the modern British and especially American diets lead to delusional insanity.
G.G.’s moving to Brazil might account for his return (at least partial) to sanity.
As for Bari Weiss:
If she was delusional in August 2020, and does not admit now to having been not just wrong, but delusional, then she has some way to go.
NB: I write this without hostility towards Bari Weiss.
I am happy to welcome people to reality.
But i shall not turn a blind eye to people not fully accepting reality.
Snorri,
Can you do me a favor and remind me what your main view on diets is? What should I be eating and what is commonly being consumed by Americans that should not be?
Would appreciate it.
Just your daily reminder that the Fake News Media is an Enemy of the American People.
The media scum constitute a grave national security threat.
“Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty on all counts!”
People who didn’t watch the trial – “This is unbelievable! White supremacy! Biased judge!”
People who watched the trial – “It took the jury nearly 4 days?”
But beforehand, I presume, made a good living toeing the New York Times line ?
So, while one swallow is welcome, it doesn’t make it summer.
Radio News (Classic FM) this morning reported Joe Biden’s comments concerning the acquittal of Rittenhouse of murdering Rosenbaum whom they reported as being a Black Right’s Activist at a protest for Black Rights, and that Black communities were disturbed by the verdict.
Hands up all those who think Rosenbaum was Black upon hearing this?
No mention that Rosenbaum was White, and as for Black Rights Activist, he had served 10 years in prison after conviction for sexually molesting children, he was homeless, he had that day been released from hospital after attempted suicide and was said to suffer from bipolar disorder – so obviously an upstanding, stable member of the community. Overlooked too was the small detail of his unprovoked attack on Rittenhouse.
Biden’s comments included his sorrow at the jury verdict as indicating that politics is interfering with the American system of blind justice.
Sleepy, Creepy Joe has a gift for irony.
Isn’t it bizarre that the BLM/Antifa types embrace the Rosenbaums and the Hubers of this world as their champions? Are they acknowledging that their ideology welcomes and supports violent criminal psychopaths? Were Rosenbaum and Huber even connected to BLM/Antifa or were they predators exploiting the violence and unrest as cover to perform violent criminal acts? Watching the videos, it is reasonable to conclude that Rosenbaum and Kaminsky targeted Kyle Rittenhouse for a beat down, in part because Rittenhouse attempted to put out a dumpster fire, but just as significant, because Rittenhouse was isolated and alone. My own conclusion is that Rittenhouse would be dead, brain damaged, or maimed if he had not defended himself.
By the way, I’ve lived in places where I have crisscrossed city, county, and state lines, multiple times a day, every day, to shop, go to school, go to work, go to appointments, hang out with friends and family as do millions of other Americans.
The corporatist media did not cover the BLATANT and malicious Prosecutorial misconduct
(suborning perjury, with holding of exculpatory evidence, evidence tampering, violating 5th amendment protections, badgering and harrassment of the state’s own witnesses) that riddled the Rittenhouse trial. Somehow, this never made it into their “reporting”, though it would have bolstered their claim that the American criminal justice system is broken. Odd, that.
I watched most of the trial on Rekieta Law, a channel on Youtube. It was composed of a dozen lawyers, who dropped in and out of the live stream, commenting from the perspective of their specialties. It was an eye opener.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFVRNsMPvAw
Shlomo:
I am happy to oblige.
But first, let me note that there are degrees of insanity. Americans have exceptionally high consumption of seed oils and refined sugars (world leaders in consumption of HFCS by a wide margin, i believe). But i have found seed oils, and of course sugar, on supermarket shelves in every country where i have shopped in supermarkets.
Not to mention that seed oils are the fats of choice in restaurants and university cafeterias.
Let me also note that, for me, this is work in progress. For instance, i have discovered only a few months ago that ale and wheat beer contain much more gluten than lager, and as a consequence i have stopped consuming them.
I’ll summarize my views under 4 headings, in follow-up comments.
There is a suggestion that some potential witnesses may have been charged and their cases held over until after the Rittenhouse trial, just so they couldn’t be called as witnesses in the Rittenhouse trial.
Given how many of the prosecution witnesses, undermined the prosecution case, just imagine what those the prosecution didn’t want to call might have done.
They also didn’t produce Gaige Grosskreutz, phone records. Which surely may have been of relevance to the case. And possibly prejudicial to the prosecution case that Grosskreutz was an innocent bystander, unwittingly caught up in the affair.
Interesting isn’t it, that his ‘buddy’ a seasoned vet, disappeared just as Rittenhouse gets into the melee?
The guy who allegedly fired the first shot, Joshua Ziminski, wasn’t available as a witness. His testimony might have been further evidence that Rittenhouse was trying to disengage to deescalate the situation.
Regarding Rosenbaum, who was a convicted child molester, this thought struck me: many folks think of such people as absolute scum who really don’t deserve to live, regardless of what the state laws say.
Well, Rittenhouse just did what they always wished they could do.
One final thing: if you find yourself on the same side as a child molester(Rosenbaum), a woman beater(Huber), and an assaulter(Gross-whatever), you may want to consider that there’s something wrong with your side.
Leftoids are insane AND criminal. We need to keep driving home this fact.
APL
It’s been noted many times by people all over the internet that, if there hadn’t been so much video from that night to back up the eye witness testimony, Kyle Rittenhouse would have been doomed to spend his life in prison. The videos and images were largely provided by the Independent and free lance journalists who were on the ground in Kenosha.
This highlights the weirdest piece of evidence, and that is the video that was aired on Fox News and dropped off to the Kenosha prosecutors. This is the same video that was not provided in its original form to the Defense, and not until the last minute. It’s origins were not vetted or authenticated. Was it from a public or private source? There is no question that it was enhanced and cropped. The individual, who is responsible for that video, is “unavailable”. Per the prosecution, this video of a Rorschach blob, purports to show Rittenhouse lifting his weapon. The claim that Rittenhouse flashed his weapon supposedly supports the accusation that Kyle provoked the assault by Zaminsky and Rosenbaum, undermining the self defense claim. Yet, note that Rittenhouse was not charged with brandishing a weapon.
What do you think of BLM culturally appropriating German on German crime?
Yes, I know that Kyle is also of Hispanic decent despite his surname.
Bari Weiss reminds me of communist defectors I have read. Often, such people can tell you much about the horrors of life under communism, and have a sincere distaste for political lying acquired from having to live in fear of the power of a lie – and also have a whole mass of unexamined leftwing assumptions which entered their minds long before being denounced (or whatever) woke them up from their society’s brand of wokeness. Only gradually and partially do these layered older lies get re-examined in the light of the information available now they are out of the bubble.
Weiss’ clear understanding that Kyle is legally innocent on the weapons charge (and all others) contrasts with her old-layer-unthink gun-control attitudes. Late in an earlier post (from the 17th), she writes:
It may one day occur to her that (since she agrees the media and prosecution were wrong to accuse Kyle’s gun of ‘provoking’ the attack) those rioters (angry that Kyle was putting out the fires they were starting) would have attacked him whether he was armed or not. The sole difference is that without his rifle he would have been killed. (That the pedo would have killed him is, I submit, obvious. The wife-beater might have been content with beating Kyle until he was no longer in any condition to put out fires. What the guy carrying the concealed – until he drew it – weapon would have done to Kyle if Kyle had not had a rifle must remain a matter for conjecture. And we have yet to hear from ‘jump-kick man’ – or any who, given that Kyle was armed, chose to focus their rage elsewhere.)
Meanwhile, like other defectors, Weiss may continue to have a genuine distaste for ‘lying for the cause’, may inform us of what life was like amongst those who did so, and may share insights derived from that experience. She may also, every now and then, be prompted to reexamine old opinions she’s retained from the days when she was the kind of person the NYT would hire.
Related to my comment above, but interesting to me in its own right, is my opinion that Kyle’s legal open-carry, as against e.g. Grosskreutz’s concealed carry (illegal in that area without permit he did not have, IIUC), is in and of itself an argument Kyle was thinking about defending himself, not about being a vigilante.
Suppose Kyle had gone to Kenosha intending to gun down a few violent rioters. Would he want to carry a weapon openly, so he’d be sure to be captured with it on much video and therefore have any investigators looking for the shooter see he was carrying an appropriate-looking weapon, or would he have said to himself that, given what he was planning to do, the additional infraction of not conforming to local law on carrying need not detain him? It’s like those signs ‘Gun-Free Zone’ outside schools – if someone is going there intending to break the laws against mass shootings, can disobeying the sign be expected to trouble their conscience greatly?
I thought I’d mention this FWIW (and for any critique anyone wants to offer) as AFAICS (but I could easily have missed it) it was not overly presented in the trial/coverage.
In the same spirit, does anyone know what precisely the web’s sundry “If he was black, then he’d have been convicted!” tweeters/posters mean:
– that he was guilty (and a black man who did the like would have been – justly – convicted)?
– that he was innocent (but a black man who did the like would have been – unjustly – convicted)?
Such as I have seen (doubtless only a minuscule fraction of all there are) do not seem clear on that point.
Yep, those good ol’ Trusted Sources™. I wonder what else they’re lying about.
Precisely. And it’s interesting to speculate what the story of the last year or so would have been then. My guess, given the “coverage” of the other people killed by “protesters” is that there simply wouldn’t have been one, and the name “Kyle Rittenhouse” would be as internationally famous as “James Scurlock” and “David McAtee”.
In the years to come Rittenhouse, tired of the endless publicity and seeking quiet anonymity would change his last name to Reese. A short time later he would meet a man named John Connor…
Niall: Or perhaps
If he had been black he would have been justified in shooting people but would have been punished
But since he was white he had no right to shoot people and should have been punished but will not be
Which is perhaps cynical but may not be wrong.
I wouldn’t normally reference a Jimmy Dore video – one of those secret pleasures, you would be ashamed to tell your friends about – but he asks the exact same question, and arrives at the conclusion, “everything”.
Wonderful evisceration of TYT as a bonus too.
Apologies for staying off-topic, but i promised a full reply to Shlomo Maistre about my views on diet and brain damage.
Item #1: seed oils.
Fortunately, i already have commented on Samizdata about this item:
here;
and here;
and HERE with lots of links.
As you will see, all comments are from the same thread. You might want to check out my other comments in the same thread.
— Other items tomorrow.
@ “exasperated”:
“Yes, I know that Kyle is also of Hispanic descent despite his surname.”
See also: Retired singer, Linda Ronstadt.
Both RT (Mr Putin’s boys and girls) and even GB News, talked about “protestors” and “protests”. And pretended it was something to do with race (Mr Blake is black – but the idea that a man of any skin colour would have been allowed to use a knife to steal a car and kidnap children is absurd)
The town was under attack – by looters and burners, most of them WHITE. Many towns and cities were attacked in 2020 – large areas were looted and burned and many people killed (some burned alive).
Yet the police in these towns and cities were ordered to stand back – even when their own police stations were burned. That meant that the only defence these towns and cities had was people such as 17 year old Kyle Rittenhouse – who SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN THE ONLY LINE OF DEFENCE. He should never have been in that position – in the town in which he was employed (by a business owned by two brown men – which came under attack from a largely WHITE mob of looters and burners) and in which is father and his grandmother live
Who gave those orders? Who gave the orders to the police to allow the forces of evil (for that is what they were) to loot and burn?
Find out who gave those orders (clue – Democrats gave those orders) and you will know who the real criminals are, and you will know why they gave those orders in so many towns and cities.
Any person who says “I do not accept your laissez faire economics of cutting government spending and so on, but I am a liberal because I support basic Civil Liberties”, but failed to support Kyle Rittenhouse – his basic right of self defence, is-a-liar.
Mr Joseph Biden has been rightly condemned for his evil statement (even though the statement was most likely written by the totalitarians who control this senile puppet – rather than by Mr Biden himself) in which he said “including myself” when talking about people being “angry” about an innocent man being acquitted – not “angry” that an obviously innocent man was prosecuted, but “angry” that he was not convicted.
However, there was also something else that was radically wrong with the statement of Mr Biden – his claim about what “unites” Americans.
It is obvious that nothing “unites” Americans – it is blatant dishonesty to claim otherwise.
The two sides are clearly drawn – in the United States and other lands.
This is one problem I have even with Mr Tucker Carlson – he sits on much of the film footage of the 2020 attacks on towns and cities. He has shown some of it – but a lot of it he, and others, refuse to show.
He says it is “divisive” to show certain things (such as deaths in the 2020 attacks on towns and cities) – but the division has already occurred, and it can not be undone.
A person is on one side or the other – and they deserve to see the full footage of the looting and the burning (including what happened to human beings) so that they can make an informed choice.
People need to know what Marxist Antifa and Marxist Black Lives Matter, and the Democratic Party, which enabled these groups (it ordered the police to stand aside, it shares FUNDING with these groups, and it encouraged their looting and burning for political reasons – even if its own vision of world Collectivism is NOT technically Marxist), really are.
“It is obvious that nothing “unites” Americans – it is blatant dishonesty to claim otherwise. The two sides are clearly drawn – in the United States and other lands.”
At the risk of introducing Brexit into a discussion about Kyle Rittenhouse and justice being done (which on the evidence presented to the jury, it was–if you have served on a jury you will know that the emphasis is always on, in essence, ‘If you are uncertain of the evidence presented by the prosecution, then your verdict is not guilty’) then this never-closing division of sides today is very real. In a discussion I once had with ardent Remainers, who were arguing for a government of “national unity” in the light of the vote I pointed out that those who voted to leave weren’t going to change their minds, and those who voted stay weren’t either. It was a hopeless illusion that ‘unity’ would somehow, magically, smooth it all out, especially when both ‘left’ and ‘right’ were in favour of staying in the EU. As I said then to these people, the only unity that works is one side surrendering all beliefs and aspirations to the other side, and I wasn’t going to wave a white flag. In short, a verdict is binary.
Once this illusion is exposed that ‘unity’ is all we are lacking, and often it is only the arrogant speaker who believes they have the answer by trusting them alone, only then is reality can be established. The reality of the 2020 rioting, and the tragedy not only of the breakdown of law and order and the negligence of elected officials but also of small businesses–some owned by black people–being smashed and lives ruined, needs examining. As long as our media operates under illusion and refuses to be honest, then we are ill-served and well as ill-informed.
Snorri,
Great, thank you! Looking forward to items 2, 3, and 4. Appreciate it
Thank you, Shlomo, for letting me know that you are still looking at this.
I see that i made a mistake yesterday, because i did not link directly to my comment on that thread in which i specifically addressed mental health.
Direct link to the article that i mentioned in said comment.
Stephan Guyenet is a great source of info on diet.
Here is another good article written by Guyenet one day earlier.
And here is another, written a few days later.
These articles do not specifically address *delusional* insanity, i must admit; but when i see a country with a large consumption of seed oils electing a demented crook as POTUS, i cannot help wondering about a link.
More to follow.
I see that my previous comment is in moderation purgatory. Meanwhile…
Item #2: refined sugars.
I should think that there is a consensus that refined sugars are “bad for you”.
I cannot remember any specific evidence that they are specifically bad for the brain, but i act on the principle that anything that is bad for physical health, is also bad for mental health.
In any case, there IS evidence that carbohydrates in general are bad for the brain. And for me, there is also evidence from self-experimentation: when i started cutting down on carbs, it was like a mental fog gradually lifting from my mind. (But keep in mind that you should take supplements of potassium and magnesium if you reduce your carb intake.)
@The Wobbly Guy
“One final thing: if you find yourself on the same side as a child molester(Rosenbaum), a woman beater(Huber), and an assaulter(Gross-whatever), you may want to consider that there’s something wrong with your side.”
https://youtu.be/OpZ8EkK3eWY
Items #3 and #4: cereal grains and segregation dieting.
Following up on my previous comment (9:15 pm), i am no longer afraid of carbs: i often eat a kilo of oven-baked potatoes for dinner. What i avoid:
* refined sugars, see previous comment;
* cereal grains, especially wheat and others containing gluten (I occasionally eat rice with lentils, or rice/corn cakes with cheese);
* balanced meals: my view is that (most) carbs should be eaten within a narrow window every day, and (most) proteins within a non-overlapping window.
See my comment on the topic of segregation dieting.
–Why do i think that it is better to avoid refined sugar, gluten, and balanced meals, rather than just avoiding carbs?
For one thing, because it allows me to have a more balanced DIET (as distinct from balanced meals) including more veggies.
As for brain function, i did not notice as much of an improvement from avoiding SELECT sources of carbs, and a segregation diet, as i did when i cut down on carbs altogether; but there seems to be no decline, and possibly some improvement.
It’s going to get interesting. 50 miles from Kenosha tonight, a car with three black fellas just drove at high speed through – along – a Christmas parade route in Waukesha, Wisconsin (a mostly-white suburb of racially troubled Milwaukee) killing many and injuring many more – sounds like mostly kids and eldsters.
No one yet has any ideas of who they were or why they did this, but there are many claims that this was in revenge for the verdict, and the usual nuts are calling for a mass arming of whites against blacks. This is going to get ugly.
Now, back to your regularly-scheduled program . . .
Snorri Godhi – thank you for the information and explanations. Appreciate it.
And I am going through the links you provided. Thanks again
1 kilo of baked potatoes for dinner just for one man?! Wow, isn’t that like 2.2 pounds? I eat a lot but that’s a LOT. And I do not mean that in a negative way – I have long suspected that a big appetite is a sign of good health when channeled towards the right diet and foods.
” a car with three black fellas ”
Just heard the report on this on R4 Today programme. The interviewer had a local journalist on this and he asked specifically if anything was known about the driver – interviewee said nothing known.
I’m inclined to believe you Bobby…
And here we go:
“https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2021/11/22/waukesha-attack-suspect-identified-was-released-on-cash-bail-two-days-ago-n479792”
So at 7am, BBC was very deliberately concealing this.
Someone captured his Facebook entries right before they disappeared:
https://twitter.com/MrNukemCocaine/status/1462660666041458692
It IS going to get ugly.
Yes, but keep in mind that when i eat 1 kg of potatoes, i eat ONLY potatoes (usually with olive oil, salt, and thyme).
Oh, OK, i also drink beer. But when i eat carb-rich vegetables, i try to limit the beer.
Then, with the weapon he had to hand ( a rifle, – effective for longer range ), he’d have hardly optimized his plan by running around the streets. He’d have been up on the roof with the rest of the people the prosecution said were using laser sights to identify their targets.
The prosecution made much of the laser sight being an intimidating thing. Well, yes. On occasion I’ve noticed a laser dot on my person, after watching all those Hollywood films you pretty much have an ingraned reaction. But it occrurs to me that people on the roof shining laser sights onto …. rioters, may just as easily, have been a means to surpress the more extreme riotious nature of the assembly, by the authorities.