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Day 8 was the final day of testimony in the Rittenhouse trial.  The Prosecution used five days, the Defense, only 2.5, probably because the Prosecution all but made their case for them, and of course, they didn’t have Binger on their side to waste time.  After the Defense rested, Judge Bruce Schroeder sent the jury home until Monday, 11-15-21.  The SMM Rittenhouse archive is here.  You might also, gentle readers, take this link to a October, 2020 article, Self-Defense In a Reimagined World, which discusses many of the issues raised by this trial.   You might also want to take this link to an October 2021 article, You’re On Your Own, 2021, which also discourses on many related issues.  You may find them enlightening and helpful.  Also useful is this Andrew Branca article, discussing the gun charge in detail.

And former Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard had this unquestionably true observation:  

That, and if Rosenbaum wasn’t a lunatic intent on arson and murder, none of this would have happened either.

Day 8, 11-11-21: 

Dr. John Black

Witness Dr. John Black:  Unlike what one might expect, Black’s testimony was relatively brief: a bit less than an hour.  He was limited to testifying only on technical issues.  The Prosecution has been trying to suggest Kyle had endless amounts of time to make shoot/don’t shoot decisions.

Yet another epic Prosecution facepalm…

Black shattered that nonsense.  Kyle had seconds, even fractions of seconds, to make decisions, while under deadly attack.  Black, also an expert in video issues, was very helpful in laying a foundation for what was shortly to come.

KPD Officer Brittany Bray

Witness Brittany Bray:  Bray is the KPD officer who collected expended brass, and one live .40 S&W round, presumably from Grosskreutz’s Glock, at the scene.  Direct examination was very brief, just testimony about collecting a Glock cartridge and AR casings.  Binger keeps trying to claim Kyle “racked”—cycled the bolt to clear a malfunction and/or chamber a fresh round—the AR at some point when Grosskreutz charged him. Kyle testified he did not do that, nor does any of the video show it.  With an AR in particular, it’s a distinct and easily observed motion.

Binger got Bray to testify that “racking” an AR will eject either a live cartridge or expended brass, but if the chamber is empty, nothing would be ejected.  He’s apparently going to try to argue Kyle did rack the bolt, which again, Kyle said he didn’t, and video doesn’t show it either.  Keep in mind Kyle fired the rifle for the first time only earlier that day.  Given the very fast time frames involved, it’s a virtual certainty if he did have a malfunction, he would not have been able to recognize, diagnose and clear the weapon in the time available.

Bray was easy on the eyes, but contributed nothing to the Prosecution’s non-case.  Her testimony took less then 10 minutes.

Drew Hernandez

Witness Drew Hernandez:  Hernandez is a journalist who also does social media work.  He was there that night filming with a cell phone and a body camera. He long ago provided video footage to the Prosecution and Defense. I’ll let Breitbart.com summarize his testimony:

Freelance journalist Andrew ‘Drew’ Hernandez testified Thursday in the murder trial of Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha, Wisconsin, that the defendant tried to ‘deescalate’ a conflict between rioters and armed guards watching a local business.

Hernandez, who traveled the country documenting the Black Lives Matter riots of 2020, was called as a defense witness and said that Rittenhouse had been successful, for that moment, in defusing tension between the two groups on August 25, 2020.

Hernandez said that Joseph Rosenbaum, who charged Rittenhouse and was the first person Rittenhouse shot that evening, later became agitated when he saw someone put out a dumpster fire that rioters had been trying to use to obstruct the road. After that point, Hernandez said, the rioters identified the individual who had used the fire extinguisher with the volunteer guards. They then turned their attention away from police and toward the guards, who had gathered at a nearby gas station.

He testified that Rosenbaum ‘led the charge into the gas station’ and that he became ‘physically aggressive,’ shouting, ‘Shoot me, [N-word], shoot me, [N-word]’ to provoke a fight with the guards, who had gathered at the gas station. The court then watched Hernandez’s footage of the encounter, which corroborated his testimony and his recollection of events.

Later, Hernandez added, he saw Rosenbaum trying to light another fire, this time with his face partly concealed by a T-shirt. Kyle — or a person with ‘purple gloves’ — then put out that second fire and asked ‘if anyone needs medical.’

He then saw Rosenbaum charge Rittenhouse from behind and saw and heard a firearm discharge — not from Rittenhouse [that would have been Ziminski]. When Rittenhouse turned around, Hernandez testified, he saw Rosenbaum charging toward him. Asked by defense attorney Corey Chirafisi if he had seen Rittenhouse acting aggressively that night, Hernandez replied, ‘In no way, shape, or form.’

‘The first time I saw Kyle, he actually deescalated the situation,’ Hernandez confirmed. He also said he had not seen Rittenhouse point his firearm at anyone.

ADA Binger tried to say Hernandez was biased against BLM rioters(?!), causing Judge Schroeder to shut him down with: “This is not a political trial.”  Hernandez obviously didn’t like Binger.  Because I couldn’t see the jury, I don’t know that this in any way hurt his testimony, if for no reason other than Binger is very, very unlikeable.  In any case, his testimony strongly reinforced not only Kyle’s, but that of essentially every other eyewitness. His testimony took less than 40 minutes.

James Armstrong

Witness James Armstrong: Armstrong, as I’m sure you may recall, is the State’s “imagery” expert who didn’t seem to know very much about his business.  He was there to introduce this photo—courtesy of Andrew Branca—which is supposed to establish Kyle pointed his rifle at Ziminski before Rosenbaum ambushed him, which is supposed to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, Rittenhouse is guilty of every charge, and forget all that evidence of innocence nonsense.  Who you gonna believe, us or your own lyin’ eyes?  The photo:

Remember, Kyle testified he didn’t point his rifle at Ziminski.  He saw Ziminski with a gun, Ziminski stepped toward him, Kyle dropped a fire extinguisher and took a step back, and Rosenbaum happened.  Yesterday, looking at the imagery, Kyle testified he thought his right shoulder might have been a little raised, but he didn’t point his gun at Ziminski.  Even if he did, considering Ziminski was advancing on him and obviously armed, so what?  Perhaps, gentle readers, you have better eyes than I do, but I can’t make anything out of this photo—the one at the left is merely an enlargement of the photo at the right.

And arguing about that comprised most of the testimony of the day.  What it came down to is Armstrong could not affirm that in enlarging what was already a blurry image, he did not alter the color or other content.  He had to agree with the Defense that in enlargement, the software added new pixels and he couldn’t say how they would affect the image, and he had no idea what that would do to colors.  Amazingly, Armstrong admitted he never compared, side by side, the original and enhancement to see what was different!  Things then degenerated to even greater farce.  Consider this from Branca:

At this point Judge Schroeder asked to take a look at the images himself.  When he looked these over at the bench, he clearly couldn’t make much out of them, so he then asked to be shown the drone video footage from where the images had been captured, which he watched standing before a giant 4K television from a few inches distance.

Keep in mind taking a still from low-resolution drone camera video would further reduce resolution, thus Judge Schroeder obviously wanted to see the highest possible resolution image: the original video.

Here followed a humorous sequence of events in which the judge watched the relevant portion of the drone video, apparently saw nothing obviously useful, and said, ‘Again.’ And then ‘Again.’ And ‘Again.’ And ‘once more.’

I suggest to all of you that if these ‘enhanced’ images and the video from which they were taken were as obviously decisive as the State would like to believe—and would like the jury to believe—it doesn’t take multiple viewings to come to that conclusion.

In the end, the judge still seemed unconvinced that he’d seen what the State claimed the images and video to show, and walked back to his bench shaking his head.

Schroeder did eventually let the jury see the images, but Armstrong was not allowed to tell them what they were supposed to represent.  Were I a juror, I would be more likely to see clouds, a doggie or a horsey than Kyle pointing an AR-15 at anything or anyone recognizable.  Keep in mind this reproduction is not quite as clear as the original, but the difference isn’t so great as to make the original still—not the video–any more coherent.  You’ve seen the images, gentle readers; what do you see?

The court will be in session again tomorrow—Friday, 11-12-2–at 1000, without the jury, to argue over jury instructions, and particularly the instructions over the gun possession charge, and I’m sure Binger will have another whining argument about something.  Again, take the link to view the testimony video from today, and also the link that deals with the possession charge.

Before we go, let’s have another look at the increasingly deceptive, woke and desperate media coverage of the case, beginning with this from Brietbart:

CBS News deleted a November 11, 2021, tweet declaring Kyle Rittenhouse a murderer, even though Rittenhouse’s trial is ongoing and the verdict on his August 25, 2020, actions has not been reached.

Apparently CBS is blind and deaf, as they would need to be to declare Rittenhouse a murderer, or perhaps they haven’t been following the trial at all, such minimal “journalism” being unnecessary to maintain the narrative, which is obviously “too good to check.”  True to form, MSNBC is also getting in on the act:

This judge is, Willie, this judge is an absolute joke. He’s been a joke from the beginning,’ [Joe] Scarborough declared. ‘The prosecution has tried to get in just basic evidence that would go to the character of the defendant. The t-shirt that he was wearing after he got out saying he was free as you know what and, you know, sitting there basically taking great pride in the fact that he killed people and that he was out. As far as, again, going to his character that he beats up teenage girls. The prosecution tried to get that in just, again, to go to his state of mind. But of course, [he] has him crying on the witness stand like he’s some poor babe in the woods, and he just happened to cross state lines break gun laws, illegally carry around an AR-15 and shoot three people and killed people.’

‘And this judge, again, it’s absolutely disgusting the way he’s conducting himself on the stand there. He is obviously playing for the audience — a certain audience,’ he concluded.

Which one would expect of the D/S/C media when a judge, for a change, isn’t a blatantly leftist partisan.  Even Merriam-Webster—yes, the dictionary people(?!)—attacked Kyle’s emotional breakdown during his testimony:

One of America’s oldest corporations thought it necessary to pile on to an 18 year-old boy reliving the most traumatic event of his life.  That should boost their credibility.  This apparently in response to LeBron James, a pustule on the posterior of an already pustule covered NBA, who also attacked Kyle’s honest emotion.  I suspect James, and most other people famous for being famous didn’t actually see the video, but in any case, The Babylon Bee had righteous fun with James:

Steven Crowder had my favorite retort.  I’d only quibble with “might be”:

Yesterday, Judge Schroeder’s phone rang, and the ringtone was Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless The USA.”  The wokeverse immediately took this to be a sign of racism, white supremacy and unconscionable bias:

Normal Americans thought: “good for him,” and were reassured the trial would be fairly conducted.  After all, shouldn’t a judge believe in the Constitution and the rule of law, hence, the USA?  Then Judge Schroeder made a little joke about an ordered lunch, and D/S/C’s went berserk:

Of course, such ankle biters manufacture their own reality and demand everyone else live in their nightmarish hellscape.

Final Thoughts:  Unless there is anything you absolutely need to hear, I’ll have a “normal” article for Saturday—this is not the “all Rittenhouse, all the time” blog–and of course, Sunday Funnies by around noonish on Saturday.  I’m also planning an article on the political lessons of this trial.  More Tuesday—there won’t be anything to report on Monday.