The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Let’s Discuss the Media’s Shameless Dishonesty in the Kyle Rittenhouse Case

Posted on | November 11, 2021 | Comments Off on Let’s Discuss the Media’s Shameless Dishonesty in the Kyle Rittenhouse Case

Everybody is now talking about the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, and the judge’s “don’t get brazen with me” eruption at the prosecutor, but there is a larger story that is being overlooked — namely, the media’s role in bringing about this politically motivated prosecution which they are now misreporting to their audiences. After watching CNN (so you don’t have to) on Tuesday, I turned the TV Wednesday to MSNBC and was struck by the fact that nowhere in their commentary did they mention that Joseph “JoJo” Rosenbaum was a convicted child rapist who had just been released from a psychiatric ward the day he was killed in the Kenosha riot.

This is the most important fact in the whole case.

Rosenbaum was a hardened criminal who spent more than a decade in Arizona prisons. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and after he showed up on the third night of rioting in downtown Kenosha, immediately confronted the armed men guarding the used car lot.

Readers of this blog are familiar with these facts, because I reported them within a week of the shootings in Kenosha:

Sex Offender Joseph Rosenbaum Taunted
Armed Civilians: ‘Shoot Me, N–r!’
— Aug. 28, 2020

 

Kenosha: Anthony Huber Was a Felon,
and Jacob Blake Was Dangerous
— Aug. 30, 2020

As I summarized it at the time:

It was, of course, Andy Ngo who first reported Rosenbaum’s sex offender status, and Ngo further reported that both of the other two rioters shot by Kyle Rittenhouse also had criminal records. Anthony Huber, 26, who attacked Rittenhouse with a skateboard and was fatally shot, “has a criminal history that includes charges of battery & repeat domestic abuse,” Ngo reported. Gaige Grosskreutz, 26, who was seen on video pointing a pistol at Rittenhouse before being wounded in the arm, is “a member of the People’s Revolution Movement,” Ngo reported, and “has a criminal record that includes being intoxicated & armed w/a gun.”
Now, let’s ask what should be an obvious question: What are the odds that a guy opens fire at a mass gathering and all three of the people he shoots turn out to have criminal records? Doesn’t this tell you something about who is engaging in these “mostly peaceful” protests?

These facts were known, and widely reported in local media, in addition to conservative web sites. But if all you know about the news is what you get from CNN and MSNBC, you don’t know these things.

Perhaps the media think they are justified in ignoring Rosenbaum’s heinous criminal history because they don’t want to “blame the victim” — but JoJo Rosenbaum was the aggressor in this incident.

That’s crucial to understanding what Kyle Rittenhouse did, but social media companies have joined the effort to suppress this crucial fact, banning anyone who defends Rittenhouse. In a now-banned YouTube video from August 2020, analyzing the then-available evidence, one commentator explained how Rosenbaum got himself shot to death:

“That’s the ultimate ‘play a stupid game, win a stupid prize.’ You’re running, chasing somebody down. The person you’re chasing has a rifle. What did you expect?”

Everything we’ve learned about the case since then only confirms the verdict I delivered at the time: “Nobody would have gotten shot had it not been for the aggressive stupidity of convicted sex offender JoJo Rosenbaum. Once he had collected his stupid prize, the rest of the rioting mob decided they should join in on the stupid game of chasing the guy with the rifle.” Anthony Huber and Gaige Grosskreutz didn’t know what had happened (i.e., that Rittenhouse had shot Rosenbaum in self-defense) and chased Rittenhouse in the belief that the teenager was attempting to flee, when in fact Rittenhouse was trying to get back to where the police were. This all occurred during a breakdown of law and order, a riot in which Huber and Grosskreutz were participants, which had overwhelmed the ability of police in Kenosha. There were no police in the vicinity of the intersection of Sheridan Road and 63rd Street, where the criminal maniac Rosenbaum attacked Rittenhouse.

This morning, I turned the TV over to MSNBC and Morning Joe is full of hand-wringing about the prosecution’s failure in the case — they are literally trying to play the race card, saying that Rittenhouse would have been treated differently if he were black. But there was no element of race in the case — all three people who got shot by Rittenhouse were white, and in each incident, Rittenhouse fired in self-defense. In America, everybody has the right of armed self-defense; it’s in the Constitution and, while MSNBC audiences may not realize it, black defendants are often acquitted (or never face charges) in similar cases.

If I’ve got a gun, and you get shot after you attack me, it doesn’t matter that you were unarmed in the attack. That’s how the Second Amendment right to bear arms helps to prevent violence. You’re less likely to be assaulted if your would-be attacker has to consider the possibility that his attack may result in his own death. What happened in Kenosha, however, was that JoJo Rosenbaum — who, I remind you, had just gotten out of a psych ward that morning — did not behave as any sane person would behave. Like, if you or I happened to find ourselves in the middle of a riot, our first impulse would be to get someplace safe. If, during this hypothetical scenario, we encountered someone with an AR-15, the last thing we would have done (because were are not crazy) would be to shout obscene threats, charge after them, and try to grab their rifle.

Hey, did I mention that JoJo Rosenbaum was crazy?

Rosenbaum’s fiancée, Kariann Swart, testified Friday that Rosenbaum had been released from a hospital the day of his death, and was dropped off in Downtown Kenosha. Although it is not being shared with the jury, Rosenbaum had been in the hospital for mental health treatment after a suicide attempt. . . .
In her testimony, Swart said Rosenbaum walked to the hotel where she was staying. The couple had been homeless during portions of their relationship, at one point living in a tent, but had recently been staying in a hotel room. She estimated it would have taken Rosenbaum an hour to walk from the transit center where he had been dropped off by hospital personnel to her hotel. . . .
“We were talking about things we needed to work on in our relationship.” She said he seemed excited and happy, and was talking about changes he wanted to make in his life. “When he left he said he would see me in the morning.”
Not shared with the jury was why Rosenbaum, who had bipolar disorder, was not able to stay with Swart. He was out on bond for domestic battery, and had a no contact order with Swart. She told him to stay away from the area where there had been rioting.
“I did explain to him that things had gotten bad the last few days because he had not been in town the last few days and I did tell him explicitly not to go downtown,” Swart said.

“He was out on bond for domestic battery.”

Do you think anyone watching CNN or MSNBC knows any of this? Certainly, they’re not going to get it from CNN or MSNBC. As I have previously said, nobody would have gotten shot that night if not for Rosenbaum’s deranged behavior. Rosenbaum was out on bond for beating his girlfriend, and violated a no-contact order by going to see her after he got out of the psych ward. She “explicitly” warned him to stay away from the riot downtown, but JoJo went there anyway.

How many times have I told you? Crazy People Are Dangerous.

No one watching coverage of the Rittenhouse trial on MSNBC or CNN is going to learn these important facts about Rosenbaum, which are being excluded from the courtroom because they are not directly relevant to the legal question of Rittenhouse’s guilt or innocence. But if the jury is not allowed to hear testimony on these matters — Rittenhouse didn’t know anything about Rosenbaum, and therefore this could not have been a factor in his decision to pull the trigger — it is certainly crucial to understanding the context of what happened that night.

The same authorities who allowed “mostly peaceful protesters” to take over the streets of Kenosha — the shootings happened on the third night of riots in the city — were also responsible for a criminal justice system that failed to keep Joseph Rosenbaum behind bars. For that matter, the pretext for this riot, the Kenosha police shooting of Jacob Blake, was further evidence of systemic failure by the authorities:

The cops involved in the shooting of Jacob Blake — which touched off a fresh wave of angry, anti-police sentiment across the country — were attempting to arrest him for violating a restraining order stemming from an alleged sexual assault, The Post has learned.
Blake, 29, was forbidden from going to the Kenosha home of his alleged victim from the May 3 incident, and police were dispatched Sunday following a 911 call saying he was there.
The responding officers were aware he had an open warrant for felony sexual assault, according to dispatch records and the Kenosha Professional Police Association, which released a statement on the incident on Friday.

Why wasn’t Jacob Blake already behind bars? If we are to take liberals seriously when they talk about “violence against women,” shouldn’t something be done about the way perpetrators like Jacob Blake are being turned loose to terrorize their victims? But instead, now we have liberals implicitly arguing for a catch-and-release policy for domestic abusers, and demonizing cops as “racist” because one of the perps got shot.

The reason liberals are able to engage in such self-contradictory beliefs — violence against women must be punished, but don’t keep domesetic abusers in jail or send cops after them, if they happen to be black — is because the mainstream media won’t point out the contradictions and, in many cases, the media refuse to even acknowledge the relevant facts.

Viewers of CNN and MSNBC are never confronted with evidence or logic that would contradict the preferred liberal narrative of events. Joe Scarborough this morning was ranting about Rittenhouse being “aggressive,” simply because the kid was carrying a rifle, as if firearms possession does not deter aggression. The entire rationale of the Second Amendment — the ability of armed citizens to preserve the peace — was central to the events in Kenosha. The armed citizen not only is able to defend himself as an individual, but this ability also extends protection to others, by deterring would-be aggressors. Why do you think burglars and thieves generally avoid rural areas of “red” America?

In rural America, nearly every homeowner has firearms, and the thief from Baltimore would be a fool to seek victims in Carroll County. The violent crime rate in Baltimore is 18.76 (per thousand residents) compared to 3.76 in Westminster, the Carroll County seat.

The deterrence effect of firearms possession is very easy to understand — criminals prefer unarmed victims — which is why JoJo Rosenbaum’s mental health issues and criminal record are crucial to explaining what happened in Kenosha. Rosenbaum clearly saw Rittenhouse was armed, but evidently underestimated Rittenhouse’s ability to use his weapon effectively. Oops! Too bad for you, JoJo. You guessed wrong.

CNN and MSNBC viewers will not be informed about this essential context, because the Democrats who run those networks don’t want their audiences to be fully informed. Whenever facts contradict the liberal narrative, the facts will be ignored. Sic semper hoc.

Is it any wonder that CNN and MSNBC are losing the ratings contest?

 

“A convicted child rapist called Joseph Rosenbaum was released from a mental hospital, then went directly to join the mob that was burning downtown Kenosha. Once he got to the riot, Rosenbaum saw Kyle Rittenhouse and immediately threatened to kill him. Rosenbaum then chased Rittenhouse and tried to pull the gun from his hands. When he did that, Kyle Rittenhouse shot him. So Joseph Rosenbaum died as he had lived, trying to touch an unwilling minor.”

I believe the appropriate word for this is, “Heh.”




 

Category: Crime, Media Bias, Wisconsin

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