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I apologize for not keeping up properly the last couple of days. Wednesday night, I came down with some symptoms that were suspiciously COVID-like and they laid me out that night and all day Thursday. It was not COVID-19, but a norovirus - one of those nasty stomach bugs.
Stellar weight loss program, I might add, but it does a number on you.
Before I go on to the topic of the morning, I do want to mention that this particular stomach bug had me laid up and, consequently, doing a lot of reading on the subject. As it turns out, norovirus and rotavirus - both viruses that cause stomach bugs in adults (the former) and children) the latter - vaccine trials are underway. This is a fascinating development in medicine because these bugs seem to pop up completely at random. They don’t have a season.
I don’t think I’ve had a stomach bug in a few years, but this one absolutely crushed me. So if there is a chance to avoid this in the future, I’m very much down with that scientific progress. It appears some companies are raking in the research grants necessary, and it may be closer than you think.
Anyway, the topic of the day.
I’ve been torn on the issue of Kyle Rittenhouse since he first went to Kenosha and shot three people, killing two. Not that I think he’s a murderer, mind you. It’s been fairly clear that the shooting was in self-defense. But I have always thought Rittenhouse, an 18-year-old, should not have been in that position in the first place. It’s clear he wanted to help, and that he didn’t want to kill anyone, but he should not have been there.
That he was taken there by his mother, had a gun there waiting for him, and decided to play vigilante should have us as a society stop and try to figure out where we went wrong, because that is a situation that should not be the case. But Kenosha, and several American cities, were literally on fire while the media covered them as “mostly peaceful protests.” Politicians told law enforcement to stand down. Small businesses were being burned down and there was no relief. Someone should have stepped in. When no one did, a child decided to.
The media’s reaction to the Rittenhouse trial, though, is just as horrifying as the fact that he was there at all. There are several reporters, anchors, and activists (that Venn diagram has a lot of overlap, incidentally) who have declared that Rittenhouse is guilty. They have gone full Nancy Grace over Rittenhouse and you never, ever go full Nancy Grace.
They lost their minds on Wednesday when the judge in the Rittenhouse trial went off on the prosecution for violating Lawyering 101 in multiple instances. They decided that the judge was propping up white supremacy, that he was an activist judge, and that he had to go. Their real problem, not that they’ll ever admit it, is that the prosecution has absolutely failed to make its case. They have not come anywhere close to proving that Rittenhouse is a murderer, which infuriates the media class.
That the prosecution has utterly collapsed is apparently the fault of the judge, the media has declared. Rittenhouse, barring some shocking turn of events, will be found not guilty. The protests will return, cheered on by the activists who run CNN, MSNBC, and every other mainstream outlet. More American cities will burn.
But at the end of the day, there is young man, barely an adult, who took two lives. He will be forever changed by that fact. He should not have been in that position. But the rush to condemn him a murdered is a huge failure of our society.