The pattern: in the Floyd case and others, early propaganda vs. later evidence

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s striking how often it happens. First there’s the inflammatory incident – hyped to the skies, completely dominating the MSM and the national discourse, sparking accusations and breast-beating and mea culpas, firings, arrests and charges, and of course demonstrations and riots.

And then slowly the truth comes out. It doesn’t usually reach most people who already have become convinced of the truth of the original story (or who wish to use that original story for their own purposes even if they know it’s false). But it reaches quite a few.

I’ve said these things before. But the reason I’m writing still another post on the subject is this: most of these cases reveal the truth quite early on. And yet it’s only people on the right who notice this and write about it. I’m certainly not the only one, but for example, when the Floyd case first happened, I never called it murder and from the start I knew that Floyd might have died of something like a heart attack. See this for my very first post about the death of George Floyd, written on May 28:

At this point, quite a bit of video has surfaced in the death of George Floyd, and the police’s actions look bad. It’s mostly one officer with his knee on Floyd’s neck for many minutes; they rest stand by. The four involved have been fired. My guess is that they are guilty of, at the very least, gross negligence. But I know from previous experience that it’s always best to wait for autopsies and more information before coming to firmer conclusions. But even if Floyd died of a heart attack or something of that sort, the police can be held responsible if they were acting wrongly.

In the ensuing weeks, I was amazed and astounded at how many people on the right rushed to judgment, calling the death of Floyd a murder, calling Chauvin a heartless coldblooded psychopathic murderer, saying that no one who wasn’t incredibly stupid or evil could watch that video or hear about the events on it and believe Chauvin and the police not guilty, and on and on and on. Even people I respected hopped right on that bandwagon.

But it was untrue. The autopsy was the first bit of doubt that surfaced, and the drug reports came next. On this blog, there were plenty of early comments about the strong possibility of a fentanyl OD; for example, see this by “expat”, which also points out that Scott Adams did a podcast on the topic of a possible (or even probable) overdose. And that was written on June 5.

Ever since the drug report on Floyd came out, it was clear that an OD was a very real possibility. And yet the media ignored it, and we don’t even have to ask why. It’s obvious why. In that way, they are partly complicit in the violence because their withholding of the facts encouraged the riots. It is a disgusting but not unfamiliar purposeful dereliction of duty on their part.

The Floyd transcript came out in early July, and it was almost universally ignored. I analyzed it here on July 18. The transcript made it more and more clear that the police actions were consistent with Minneapolis police protocol at the time for subduing a person under the influence of drugs, that they were concerned for his health and were actually trying to protect him and others while they waited for the ambulance to arrive, and that he probably died of a heart attack secondary to the drugs he had taken.

This was not a difficult call, either. It was obvious – or should have been – to anyone studying the record. And yet the myth goes on.

Now we learn something else that is quite disturbing, as if the rest wasn’t already disturbing enough:

But video that came out later showed that Floyd had been complaining of inability to breathe when he was standing up and walking around, long before he was on the street. And it emerged that the toxicology report associated with his autopsy found that he had at least double the dose of fentanyl in his blood that is normally considered lethal, along with other drugs. And shortness of breath is notoriously a symptom of fentanyl poisoning…

But now there is a new bombshell: on Tuesday, prosecutors who have charged Derek Chauvin with murder released a document that suggests that he had nothing to do with Floyd’s death, which in all likelihood resulted from a drug overdose. Not only that, prosecutors have known that fact for months. Former state and federal prosecutor George Parry has the story.

This is from the Parry article:

At 7:30 p.m. on May 31, 2020, prosecutors “met” online with Dr. Andrew Baker, Chief Medical Examiner of Hennepin County, to discuss Floyd’s toxicology report.

So there they were, staring at the just-received and damning toxicology report that blew to smithereens the whole prosecution theory that the police had killed Floyd. To their undoubted dismay, Dr. Baker, the chief medical examiner, had to concede that at 11 ng/mL, Floyd had “a fatal level of fentanyl under normal circumstances.” He also conceded that the fentanyl overdose “can cause pulmonary edema,” a frothy fluid build-up in the lungs that was evidenced by the finding at autopsy that Floyd’s lungs weighed two to three times normal weight.

This is consistent with Officer Kueng’s observation at the scene that Floyd was foaming at the mouth and, as found at autopsy, that his lungs were “diffusely congested and edematous.”

In other words, like a drowned man, Floyd’s lungs were filled with fluid. And that was the obvious and inescapable reason why Floyd kept shouting over and over again that he couldn’t breathe even when he was upright and mobile.

The memorandum ends with Dr. Baker’s devastating conclusion that “if Floyd had been found dead in his home (or anywhere else) and there were no other contributing factors he [Dr. Baker] would conclude that it was an overdose death.”

Parry goes on to ask the questions that probably occurred to you, as well: why did the prosecutor wait to release this information, when it might have helped quell the riots? Would it have even mattered to the mobs of protestors? And why didn’t prosecutors drop the charges? The answers to the first and last question probably boil down to a combination of fear and corruption. The answer to the second is probably “no.”

John Hinderaker doesn’t think Chauvin can get a fair trial. That’s my feeling, too, but I wonder. I thought the same for Darren Wilson, and a grand jury refused to indict him. I thought the same for George Zimmerman, and he was acquitted. Of course, those cases occurred in 2014 and 2013, which seems like ancient history now. The country feel a lot more damaged these days. But maybe, just maybe, more people have actually gotten fed up with propaganda and lies.

The Republican Party reinvents itself

The New Neo Posted on by

I don’t know how many people watch conventions. But I do know that, if a lot of undecideds watched the RNC this year, a large percentage would have to be impressed.

I don’t usually watch more than a minute or two of these boring and formulaic events, and I don’t think the GOP has been known for ground-breaking innovation in that regard; au contraire. But for whatever reason – being forced to break the mold because of COVID and/or civil unrest, the input of Trump, or something else – the meta-message of this convention was that this was not your father’s GOP. This was a party of energy and fresh ideas, a party that’s actually inclusive rather than merely rhetorically so, and one that embraces the American dream that most people here still share.

The word “refreshing” keeps coming to mind, and that is not a word I usually think of when I think about the Republican Party as a political entity. The other word is “sincerity,” which is what all the personal testimonials of the non-politicians conveyed. The convention was heavy with them; they formed a high proportion of the speakers, and they were uniformly moving, inspiring, and eloquent.

I didn’t plan to watch more than a few minutes on the first night. But when I tuned in, I found to my surprise that I was also drawn in. I probably watched at least half of all four nights, and that is exceptionally unusual for me. I can’t imagine that anyone with an open mind who happened to watch wouldn’t be pleasantly surprised at what he or she saw and heard.

NOTE: And here’s an interesting piece by a former NeverTrumper:

Thursday night… President Trump did what he does best; he spoke to a crowd. There was joy and optimism and patriotism. Instead of fear there was pride. For me, he was no longer the lesser of two evils but a man I dearly hope will remain our president.

It is fashionable these days for former Republicans to gang up and sling dirt at Trump. This is supposed to be meaningful because supposedly they are conservatives. Well, two can play at that game. If their abandonment of Trump is meaningful then so is my embrace. And the difference? They represent a tiny, dying breed of think tank technocrats; I represent a vast constituency of Americans who have come to see the power of his leadership.

I believe that Donald Trump will win reelection, though I warn you, as I said above, I’m wrong a lot. But it doesn’t matter. Even if he should lose he has changed the GOP, he has changed conservatism, and he has changed me. We will not play defense anymore. Those of us who love America will fight for its values and ideals. I thank Donald Trump for helping me find the courage to be a part of that fight. Here’s to four more years.

Not just a mob, but an ignorant one

The New Neo Posted on by

Why were the “protestors” (aka mob) allowed to get anywhere near the site of the convention speeches? Were there just too many of them to stop? Or was it a failure of police planning?

At any rate:

And then there’s the virtual Twitter mob:

Protestors harassing Paul and his wife screamed about Breonna Taylor, demanding that he “say her name,” all while ignoring the fact that it was Paul himself who introduced the “Justice for Breonna Taylor Act,” which prohibits law enforcement from using no-knock warrants.

While the mob was clamoring for Paul, who later said in an interview on Fox News that it was “horrific” and that he feared for his life, he expressed his gratitude to the DC Police Department for protecting him and his wife for “literally saving our lives from a crazed mob.”

You can click on the link and see scads of tweets saying no big deal because he wasn’t physically harmed. They have no idea of the dangers to themselves of what they’re shrugging at, or what it can lead to, or how it represents a break with the civil order Americans rely on.

David Axelrod – remember him? – seems like a dinosaur among that crowd, pointing out the possibility of the optics backfiring:

The RNC: Day 4

The New Neo Posted on by

10:20 PM:

I’ve never enjoyed a convention before, but I’m enjoying every bit of this one, and I’ve watched at least a portion of all four nights. Kudos once again to the producers: great pace, setting, and speakers. I caught three who were extremely moving: Ann Dorn, widow of David Dorn, whose speech was so raw it was hard to watch; Alice Johnson, who was given clemency by Trump after 22 years of prison; and the parents of Kayla Mueller. The balance between the political speakers and the personal testimony has been so effective and unusual.

Washington has not changed Donald Trump – Donald Trump has changed Washington! says Ivanka. Well, he’s certainly changed the Republican Convention.

Jacob Blake unarmed – except for that knife under on his car floorboard on the driver’s side

The New Neo Posted on by

[Please see ADDENDUM below for clarification.]

I’ve read several articles about Blake’s knife, and the reporting doesn’t make the situation at all clear. Earlier reports said that eyewitnesses had stated that police were yelling at Blake to drop the knife [see ADDENDUM below], and I even saw some screenshots of him allegedly with a knife in his hand. That sort of thing is absent from current stories and I have no idea whether the initial reports were correct or not.

In addition, many of the most recent articles articles reporting on the presence of the knife first state that the knife was found “on the scene” – which could mean a lot of different things – and later add that it was found under [correction: “on”] the floorboard of the driver’s side of the car. I’ve yet to see an article in the MSM that clearly states the possible significance of the floorboard finding – which is that, when shot, Blake had just opened the driver’s side door and was bending over and reaching down.

In other words, one can conclude it was highly possible that he was going for the knife. Knives can be very very deadly, and he had already shown his willingness to fight with police. In addition, it’s possible and even probable that by that point the police were well aware of Blake’s arrest record – which is alleged to have included “one felony count of resisting arrest causing a soft tissue injury to a police officer and one misdemeanor count each of carrying a concealed weapon, carrying a firearm while intoxicated, endangering safety-use of a dangerous weapon, and disorderly conduct.”

Another thing the articles don’t make clear is what was going on to cause the police to be called in the first place. The Blake family lawyer – the seemingly ubiquitous Ben Crump – has reported that Blake was shot “after he tried to break up an argument between two women.” But that part of the story seems to have evaporated as though it had never been uttered. Now what we see is this sort of thing:

DOJ officials said Kenosha police were dispatched to a residence near 28th Street and 40th Avenue after a female caller reported that her boyfriend was present and was not supposed to be on the premises.

During the incident, officers attempted to arrest Blake, 29.

Dots, unconnected. It seems reasonable to come to the preliminary conclusion that Jacob Blake may indeed have been the boyfriend in question. I will add that my guess is that the woman making the call was the same person who had been involved in reporting the incident or incidents for which there was a warrant out for Blake’s arrest, and that this is why police attempted to arrest him after the recent call – either that, or because he was acting aggressively, or at the very least violating a restraining order.

I could be wrong, of course. But such speculations are certainly not a stretch.

More from the article about the knife:

During the investigation following the initial incident, Blake “admitted that he had a knife in his possession,” officials said.

DCI agents recovered a knife from the driver’s side floorboard of Blake’s vehicle. A search of the vehicle located no additional weapons.

The part about Blake’s admission concerning the knife is a curious passage. When did he admit he had a knife? What does “in his possession” mean? Did he tell the police there was a knife in the car? Is that considered “possession”? Is that why they were trying to tase him and then to wrestle him down? Did he say he was going to get it anyway? Did he threaten to harm them with it?

Not only is that article murky, but I’ve read several others that are even more unclear. I believe that this is apparently because the Wisconsin DOJ statement itself was vague on these points. But what about some reporters doing some independent investigation? Surely there are ways to find out a few more things?

Not many people seem to understand the danger posed by a person who gets hold of a knife and acts quickly, especially when close:

Most inexperienced people do not have appropriate respect for knives and other edged weapons because they are surrounded by them,” said Grissom, who has been in law enforcement for 28 years and a police trainer for nearly 25. “A firearm is only deadly in one direction: wherever the muzzle is pointed. If I can keep the muzzle off of me, it can’t hurt me. Once in close quarters, a knife is a far more efficient weapon than a firearm.”

Beyond that, he said, most people are experienced in the use of a knife.

“Anyone who has ever cut a steak, chopped ice or opened a box with a sharp object is completely proficient in killing another human being with a knife,” Grissom said. “Age and training are almost irrelevant with a close-quarter edged weapon attack.”

Because of the threat posed by a knife, it is classified by law as a deadly weapon just like a firearm. And, Grissom said, there is no hard and fast rule for the distance at which a knife is dangerous.

“There is no ‘magic distance’ that a knife-wielding assailant becomes less of a threat,” he said. “A knife is obviously a contact weapon, so in order for it to be effective an assailant must close within the weapon’s effective range. Many officers were/are taught a very general ’21-foot rule’ based on some research attributed to Dennis Tueller from Salt Lake City.”

That rule says it takes between 1.5 and 2 seconds for an officer with a duty-style holster to draw and present a gun. Meanwhile, it takes an aggressive assailant armed with a contact weapon – knife or club – the same length of time to cover 21 feet and use it on the officer.

As such, officers are taught to keep distance, he said. A suspect charging with a knife, then, presents a real threat.

“Officers are generally trained to create distance and/or put obstacles between themselves and an assailant they know possesses a contact weapon,” Grissom said. “Many officers receive training in knife defense tactics, but these tactics are designed to be used to protect oneself from a spontaneous attack with a previously undetected weapon.”

I believe that in Blake’s case the officer already had his weapon unholstered. I’m not sure whether that matters at all. And yes, it’s legal to possess a knife in a car or even on one’s person. But it’s not okay to go for one when you’re resisting arrest.

The police had always used a taser, to no avail. They had also physically grappled with him, and failed to restrain him. Now he was defying their verbal orders and walking purposefully toward the car and reaching in and bending down. Not only that, but there were children in the car. A split-second decision had to be reached. It’s so very easy to be a Monday-morning quarterback, but most of the people opining have no idea what it’s like to be in the position of these police officers. I certainly don’t, and I’m glad of it.

ADDENDUM: Several commenters have pointed out something that adds another dimension to my speculation about what happened with the knife. I initially had read in some article or other that the knife was found under the floorboard (or maybe under the floormat?), which indicated to me that Blake had hidden it somewhere for emergencies and was reaching for it when he was shot. That made it confusing when I also read that initially people had reported that the cops were shouting for him to drop the knife. But then I realized that the DOJ had actually indicated that the knife was found on the floorboard (“recovered a knife from the driver’s side floorboard”), which suddenly made a great deal more sense. It also – as several commenters pointed out – made it possible to imagine that Blake had been carrying the knife all along and dropped it on the floorboard when shot. I believe the latter is the proper interpretation.

The game plan of the MSM in not showing the evidence that would tend to support a self-defense argument for Rittenhouse

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “Edward” writes:

From what I saw in these videos, there is an excellent self-defense argument for Rittenhouse. I hope that ALL the videos are played IN THEIR ENTIRETY to the jury when it goes to trial. The fake news is trying to “Covington” him with selected partial clips (their favorite technique).

And commenter Richard Aubrey responds:

Other than having a corrupt judge, I can’t see how the videos can be kept out of the trial, presuming there is one.

I agree that they would have to show the videos in a trial. But a trial happens long after the fact, and there’s propaganda value in showing carefully-edited clips now.

Here’s the game plan: keep from the public those parts of the videos that might tend to exonerate Rittenhouse, controlling the narrative and setting a widespread public perception that he’s a murderer. That might cause even more riots, which the left seems to want, as well as discouraging bona fide self-defense on the part of the rioters’ targets.

Then, once the whole “narrative” is set in stone in the minds of most of the public, the following reactions often occur: DAs (even ones that are not Soros-funded) feel they must throw the book at the culprit in order to calm things down, jury pools have become biased and/or may be frightened about the possible repercussions of any “not guilty” verdict, and if said not guilty verdict is nevertheless rendered the resulting riots are even more extreme because much of the public feels that justice has not been done. That also adds to the general disgust for the court system, and the left believes that can only aid them as well.

So the left calculates that it’s win/win/win for them – except for the possibility of backlash against the riots, which they don’t seem to have originally factored in.

De Blasio’s war on the elitest institution of indoor dining in restaurants

The New Neo Posted on by

Only kulaks and worse dine in restaurants, don’t you know? At least, according to Commissar de Blasio:

At his daily press briefing, De Blasio was asked why public school students who return to classrooms this fall will eat their lunch inside while restaurants can’t reopen indoor dining.

“I don’t think there’s a similarity at all,” de Blasio said.

“We have an imperative — a legal imperative, a moral imperative, an educational imperative– to give kids the best education we can. We know that means having at least some time in person,” he said.

“Versus indoor dining, which is obviously a very optional activity, which some people do a lot who have the resources and others can’t do at all because they don’t have the resources,” he said.

De Blasio’s suggestion that eating inside a restaurant is only for people with thick billfolds ignores the thousands of cheap diners, fast-food eateries and pizza joints across the five boroughs catering to cost-conscious New Yorkers…

De Blasio reiterated Tuesday that he has no concrete plan to resume indoor dining because it’s too high-risk an activity in the age of coronavirus…

New York City is the only state region that still does not permit some indoor dining, while it is allowed in neighboring suburban counties like Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester.

Dr. Jay Varma, the mayor’s senior adviser for public health, also weighed in…

“We know through experience everywhere around the world and also from the United States that indoor dining is a very high-risk activity and there’s reasons for that,” Varma said, pointing to the lack of masks while eating, proximity to other people and duration spent indoors.

Where to begin? I suppose the first thing to state is that indoor dining is New York’s lifeblood, that it’s hardly confined to the wealthy, and that colder weather is coming soon. I can only conclude something that’s already been clear for quite some time, which is that destroying the economy of NYC is one of de Blasio’s goals as mayor. Although that sounds like a nonsensical sentence, it’s typical of leftist thinking, in which the idea is the equality of misery. As Churchill said (no wonder they deface his statue):

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

That’s it in a nutshell – and de Blasio and our other resident socialists and Communists, Marxists and leftists, call them whichever name you favor – clearly prefer the equality of misery and are willing to do everything in their power to bring it about. COVID has given them a lot of power, and they are making sure they use it as fully as possible.

I will also point out that people who live in Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester, where indoor dining is allowed, travel to NYC regularly. Therefore, even if an indoor dining ban worked, they could be carrying illness to NYC anyway.

And lastly, to Dr. Varma: oh really? “We know through experience everywhere around the world and also from the United States that indoor dining is a very high-risk activity”? Where is the research on that? This sort of thing (from June) is all I could find, and it’s weak correlative sauce at best.

The three men who were shot in Kenosha

The New Neo Posted on by

A few facts about the men, and a few more about the presentation of those facts.

First we have Andy Ngo, who lists their names, photos, and a bit about their lives. I have no idea whether the information at the link is completely correct, but Ngo has been reporting on Antifa-related riots for many years and generally knows what he’s talking about.

Then we have the official word in a Milwaukee paper, which unlike Ngo doesn’t mention anything about possible criminal histories but does agree with his report that the man shot in the arm was with “the Milwaukee-based social justice group the People’s Revolution Movement.”

And the NY Post adds that the “People’s Revolution Movement” is “a radical Black Lives Matter faction.” BLM has many affiliated factions that are hyper-radical for which BLM acts as a more politically acceptable front, something I previously discussed in this post.

All three men and Rittenhouse are white, as far as I can tell.

And here’s an interesting analysis from Newsbusters on the coverage of the Kenosha shootings so far, and how the MSM tends to omit mention of the self-defense aspects.

If you’re watching night 3 of the RNC…

The New Neo Posted on by

…here’s a thread for you.

I have to say I’ve been impressed by whoever organized this thing. The challenge was immense, but the pace has been crisp. Most of the speeches are mercifully short, too, which I appreciate. The format – in which you don’t usually know who the speaker is at the outset or what he or she is going to focus on – makes for a guessing game that keeps your interest, and there’s a surprising lack of repetition because most of them focus on a single topic. Without a huge crowd in a big hall interrupting and cheering constantly, the evening moves quickly yet smoothly, and the outdoor setting gives it a certain romantic elegance. Fort McHenry was an inspired choice, too, allowing Mike Pence to say, “Our flag is still here.”

For now.

One surprise for me was Kayleigh McEnany’s speech. She stepped up to the podium, looking beautiful as ever, and instead of talking about politics she told the story of how she was diagnosed with the BRCA gene and chose to have a preventive mastectomy at a very early age. The other speakers were too numerous to mention, but the one who particularly stood out for me was Clarence Henderson, a man whose name I’d never heard before, but whose photo I’d seen long ago:

Henderson knocked it out of the park as far as I’m concerned, because he highlighted the history of the Republican Party in terms of civil rights for black Americans. My favorite part was this:

Two are killed in Kenosha, 17-year-old arrested

The New Neo Posted on by

[See UPDATE below.]

The story so far:

lllinois police have arrested a 17-year-old after two people were shot to death during another night of Black Lives Matter protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Kyle Rittenhouse, of Antioch, Illinois, was taken into custody Wednesday in Illinois on suspicion of first-degree intentional homicide…

Two victims in the shooting, a 26-year-old Silver Lake resident and a 36-year-old Kenosha resident, died following the shooting.

A 26-year-old West Allis resident suffered non-life-threatening injuries.

Police said their investigation is ongoing. They do not know if both of the people killed were killed by the same person.

Video footage may indicate a self-defense situation for the second killing, but even if that’s the case, I’m not sure that Rittenhouse wouldn’t be charged with murder anyway. That’s the way things have been going these days. Here’s one description of the video:

Cellphone video circulated on social media showing a young, White male running down the street with a long gun, as he was chased by demonstrators from behind. He fell to the ground, and someone tried to grab his weapon and came at him with a fly-kick. The individual then opened fire in the middle of the street, and screams could be heard from the frantic crowd.

As usual, this is just a fragment of what occurred. I’m waiting for more information and for the fog to clear before I give an opinion on what may have actually happened and why.

As usual with these things, the British Daily Mail has more information than the American papers. It’s not always correct, but in the past I’ve generally found the British source to be more reliable as well. Here’s what it’s adding at the moment:

–The arrest of the teen came hours after video emerged of him walking up to police with his hands in the air and his rifle slung across his body just moments after the shooting
–He was apparently allowed to walk by despite members of the crowd yelling for him to be arrested because he had shot people, according to witness accounts and video footage
–Footage from earlier in the night appeared to show the teen guarding a local car shop with a group of armed militia members
–Another video showed police thanking an armed group, of which the teenager appeared to be part of, and offered them water…

Much of Rittenhouse’s Facebook page is devoted to praising law enforcement, with references to Blue Lives Matter – the movement that supports police. He also can be seen holding an assault rifle in several photos…

Witness accounts and video show that the shootings took place in two stages: The gunman first shot someone at a car lot, then jogged away, stumbled and fell in the street, and opened fire again as members of the crowd closed in him.

Police apparently then let the young man walk past them with a rifle over his shoulder with his hands in the air.

…As for why the gunman was allowed to leave, Sheriff David Beth on Wednesday portrayed a chaotic, high-stress scene, with screaming, chanting, nonstop radio raffic and ‘people running all over the place’ – conditions that can cause ‘tunnel vision’ among law officers.

Rittenhouse [was] identified in court papers as a lifeguard at a YMCA in Lindenhurst, Illinois…

It is not yet clear what happened in the lead up to the initial shooting but police fear it may have stemmed from a conflict at a gas station between ‘self-styled militias’ defending local businesses from looters…

So we have very little idea about the first shooting; the second seems to have been the result of a chain of events in reaction to the first. I’m surprised that more of this sort of thing hasn’t happened already. The situation is a powder keg that has been allowed to become extremely dangerous. I note, also, that many of the witnesses or victims (plus Rittenhouse himself) mentioned or quoted in the article do not appear to live in Kenosha. If this is typical, it’s as I suspected.

[ADDENDUM: From some of the comments in a thread at RedState:

…[A]pparently there were two separate shootings by this guy – one when he’s first confronted in the dealership parking lot and another after he’d run a ways into the street. The second one appears clearly to be self defense, the first one is ambiguous from the video and will require more evidence -e.g. additional video, testimony from eye witnesses, etc.

…[in] the first shooting in the parking lot he’s already been running away from a pursuer before turning and firing shots after the pursuer throws something at him. That also seems like a pretty strong case of self-defense, though not quite as strong as the shooting a few seconds later of people actually attacking him lying on the ground.

It’s two separate incidents. [Rittenhouse] killed the first guy after [the first guy] threw the Molotov cocktails at him. The other two were shot during his retreat running down the street. One of those died as well.]

UPDATE:
Here’s an analysis at RedState by shipwreckedcrew. It concerns both shootings. An excerpt:

As is almost always the case, the “hot takes,” which hit Twitter in the first minutes after an incident such as this, are almost always wrong…

The first fact you see from the video is that the shooter was chased by the person he shot, and as they passed through the parking lot of the boarded-up gas station, the “victim” threw something at the shooter. There are reports that the item thrown was an unlit “Molotov Cocktail,” but you can’t know for sure from the video.

It seems like the shooter points the rifle at the “victim” at that point but does not fire. He instead turns to run again, and the “victim” continues to chase him. At that point, you hear the gunfire start, but you can’t see what happens. You hear a single shot, then four shots in rapid succession followed by three more shots in rapid succession. It seems like there is only one firearm, but I can’t be certain from the audio.

[There] is a video that supposedly shows the car lot being vandalized a few moments before the first shooting incident…

The shooter was apparently attempting to protect this business, and the “victim” was one of the individuals in this group damaging cars. I have seen Twitter comments claiming that the “victim” and others were preparing to start lighting some of the cars on fire when the shooter stepped in to intervene. What happened during that initial intervention is not recorded on video anywhere that I have found, but that confrontation ended with the “victim” chasing the shooter out of the car lot and down the street. That is where the YouTube video at the top first captures the two, leading directly to the first shooting in the gas station parking lot where the “victim” was killed.

The nature of that first confrontation in the parking lot is important to the overall event. If the shooter was threatened with violence, and then chased down the street to the gas station, he very likely has a strong case for self-defense. The “victim” is the aggressor, and the nature of their initial confrontation will establish the extent to which the shooter can claim he feared serious injury or death if he had not defended himself in the way he did. The actions of the “victim” in the car lot will also be significant. If there is video of him engaging in violent acts of vandalism that the shooter observed, the case for self-defense improves as well.

Again, under Wisconsin law, the shooter had not committed any illegal act by being present on the streets of Kenosha carrying a loaded long-gun…

As for the second shooting episode, the shooter is clearly attempting to get away from the people who are pursuing him. Who all those people were will be difficult to establish with certainty, but there are numerous videos with audio that captured what they were yelling.

This is the video that has been most widely circulated…

There seems to be little question about whether the shooter had anything to fear from those pursuing him. One individual managed to catch up to him and appears to try to hit him in the back of the head with some object. He evades that person and continues to run down the street, but then seems to stumble and fall. You can clearly hear someone yell, “Get his ass” at that point. The shooter gets himself into a seated position facing back at the people pursing him. The closest pursuer manages to run over the top of him, with both of them going down, but the shooter maintaining possession of his long gun. At that point, at least three different pursuers closed in on him from three different directions — all closing to within approximately 10 feet of him. A second individual attempts to grab the long-gun away from the shooter, but he still has the shoulder strap around his body.

It is hard to tell from the video, but it seems like the second individual is shot as a result of the long-gun discharging while they both have their hands on it, with the muzzle pointed at the second individual. He “runs” only a couple steps before he goes down in the street, and he does not move again during the remainder of the video while he is in the frame of the camera.

The shooter fires a few more shots as the people who were pursuing him all scatter in different directions.

There’s much more at the link. Shipwreckedcrew is a lawyer who’s quite knowledgeable about these things. I suggest you read the whole thing.

A few more thoughts on the RNC so far

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve said many times that I don’t like political speeches. But so far I’ve listened to a lot more of this year’s RNC than usual, and that’s a surprise to me.

One reason – probably the main reason – I’m watching it is that I’m enjoying the speeches of the non-politicians. For the most part, they’re eloquent, and their stories are actually interesting – more interesting than most speeches by politicians. They also speak with the conviction of sincerity.

Another reason I’m watching more than I expected is that I like the message. It’s a refreshing throwback to a time when both parties talked about America as a great place of opportunity and energy. Everyone knew that there was suffering here, too, as well as injustice. But we were striving and we were trying and for the most part we were actually getting it right.

Note my emphasis on the word “both” in the above paragraph. Yes, those of you who aren’t “of a certain age” like me may not realize that a message like that was the norm for many years. But it was, and no one questioned it. That’s what the word “again” is about in Trump’s campaign slogan.

Joe Biden can speak of himself as a lightbringer and curse the Republican darkness, and the MSM can echo the message, but I think that anyone actually watching the RNC with an open mind would have to see that Biden and company have the polarities reversed.

Fentanyl and George Floyd

The New Neo Posted on by

The fact that it’s highly likely that George Floyd died of a fentanyl overdose is old news. A lot of us put two and two together quite some time ago – in particular, the levels of fentanyl and other drugs in Floyd’s system, as well as the police videocam transcript and video – and have concluded the most likely cause of death was not the actions of the Minneapolis police.

Now, nearly three months after Floyd’s death, we get this news as part of the court filings connected with the defense of one of the police officers charged:

New exhibits filed in the George Floyd case against four former Minneapolis police officers suggest that the Hennepin County Medical Examiner found a “fatal level” of fentanyl in Floyd’s system…

Upon reviewing the blood test, it was incidentally noted in a Microsoft Teams meeting that this level of fentanyl can cause pulmonary edema as Floyd’s lungs were reportedly two-to-three times their normal weight during autopsy.

“[Baker, the county head medical examiner] said that if Mr. Floyd had been found dead in his home (or anywhere else) and there were no other contributing factors he would conclude that it was an overdose death,” the June memo read.

And then there’s this:

New exhibits filed in the case against the four former Minneapolis Police Officers accused of murdering George Floyd suggest the Hennepin County Medical Examiner thought George Floyd’s fentanyl levels were at a potentially “fatal level”, but his and other medical examiner’s findings showed he died of a combination of factors.

Six pieces of evidence were filed in the case Tuesday one day after former officer Tou Thao’s attorneys requested the release of the full autopsy reports from the Hennepin County Medical Examiner, the Armed Forces Medical Examiner and the private medical examiners hired by George Floyd’s family.

The Armed Forces Medical Examiner filed a memorandum agreeing with the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s final conclusion that Floyd’s death was a homicide, saying, “His death was caused by the police subdual and restraint in the setting of severe hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, and methamphetamine and fentanyl intoxication.”

As a friend of mine used to say, clear as mud. Meaning: that’s not coming to a conclusion, that’s just listing every single possible factor. “In the setting of…” might mean the precipitation of a heart attack from fear. It doesn’t seem to mean asphyxiation. And if the fentanyl dose was a fatal one, wouldn’t that be the most likely cause?

It’s the same circles we’ve been running around in since the beginning. And the press has been singularly unhelpful in getting at the truth, as usual. But that’s by design. They aim to inflame rather than to soothe or to seek the truth.