The progress of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial has led to a great deal of criticism of the coverage of the mainstream media, which continues to downplay the weaknesses in the case. Yesterday, Judge Bruce Schroeder dismissed the sixth charge in the case. I recently wrote a column stating that the sixth count appeared to be based on a factually and legally inapplicable provision of Wisconsin law. I was mystified how the prosecutors could even secure the count in the first place. What is equally concerning is how Facebook intervened early to flag the questioning the charge and how Politifact declared such questions as presumptively “false” worthy.
What is most striking about the controversy is that it was started with just one random Facebook user on Aug. 27, 2020, writing “Carrying a rifle across state lines is perfectly legal, adding “Based on the laws I can find of this area at 17 years old Kyle was perfectly legal to be able to possess that rifle without parental supervision.”
Facebook then flagged the statement “as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed.” It went to PolitiFact’s Daniel Funke who declared it as presumptively untrue.
“The Wisconsin Department of Justice honors concealed carry permits issued in Illinois. But Rittenhouse did not have a permit to begin with, and he was not legally old enough to carry a firearm in Wisconsin …. Whether Rittenhouse violated Wisconsin law by possessing a firearm underage is the subject of ongoing litigation. But the Facebook post claimed that it was “perfectly legal” for the teenager to carry an assault-style rifle in Kenosha. At best, that’s unproven. At worst, it’s inaccurate. Either way, we rate the post False.”
The sixth count alleged the possession of a dangerous weapon by a person under 18. Under state law, minors are prohibited from such possession and this can constitute a Class A misdemeanor that carries a basic sentence of up to nine months in prison, a fine of up to $10,000, or both.
The problem is that the provision was facially inapplicable to this case.
Defendants are guilty of this offense if they possess a short-barreled rifle under Section 941.28. However, the prosecutors never put into evidence that this was a short-barreled weapon. Indeed, a police officer testified it was not. Rittenhouse used a Smith & Wesson M&P 15 with an advertised barrel length of 16 inches and the overall length is 36.9 inches. That is not a short barrel.
The only other way to convict under this crime is to show that “a person under 18 years of age who possesses or is armed with a rifle or a shotgun if the person is in violation of s. 941.28 or is not in compliance with ss. 29.304 and 29.593.” The defense conceded Rittenhouse was in violation of Section 29.593, which requires certification for weapons. However, he is not in violation of section 29.304, entitled “Restrictions on hunting and use of firearms by persons under 16 years of age.” As the title indicates, the section makes it illegal for persons under 16 to use firearms. Rittenhouse was 17 at the time and the prosecution has not challenged that fact.
The Politifact ruling shows how such determinations can be the result of one’s selection of “experts.” This was even more apparent in the Russian collusion investigation where media called upon the same experts who consistently supported an array of different criminal theories, often heralding “smoking gun” evidence against Trump.
However, the controversy particularly highlights Facebook’s use of “misinformation” to censor news and viewpoints. We have have been discussing how writers, editors, commentators, and academics have embraced rising calls for censorship and speech controls, including President-elect Joe Biden and his key advisers. Even journalists are leading attacks on free speech and the free press. This includes academics rejecting the very concept of objectivity in journalism in favor of open advocacy. Columbia Journalism Dean and New Yorker writer Steve Coll has denounced how the First Amendment right to freedom of speech was being “weaponized” to protect disinformation.
The result is that even a misdemeanor gun charge in a case in Kenosha must be flagged as potential misinformation in the management of information for the public.
Update: Politifact responded to the criticism:
The site insists that it was responding to the notion that it was “perfectly legal.” However, it was legal in the sense of not being a criminal act. The fact check simply declared such claims as false. It was not clearly false but, at best, a disagreement among experts. Again, I do not see how you can credibly argue that the possession was a crime. Politifact instead take a complaint by a Facebook user in suggesting that the criminal count was valid. Moreover, the legal analysis neglects to address fully the two basis for criminality in the possession of a small barrel weapon or the satisfaction of the two prerequisite statutory elements.
Facebook would have been censoring anyone claiming the earth was not the center of the universe back when such thoughts were considered heresy. Open debate and discovery of the truth crushed, the truth will be determined in advance on that platform based on their political leanings.
Good reason not to have a Facebook account.
How is it a public service when the liberal media are on the side of the destroyers of our civilization?
They should have their FCC licenses revoked.
What are the rioters angry about?
For violating a fellow rioter’s right to riot?
How can a rioter be considered the victim?
That’s nuts.
The property owners are the true victims.
Power to the people? No, thank you, not if the people are such idiots as these.
We need a benevolent dictator who can stuff this insanity back into
the Pandora’s box that is was released from.
Wow, how about when it really happens ???
Puhleeze Turley,
When are YOU going to condemn your network FOX for endorsing and spreading the Big Lie which led to the “desecration” of the Capitol as you described it and your call for Trump’s Congressional Censure for his “reckless” speech?
So far, crickets….
Lmao
“Take” Facebook “…for public use…” and operate it as a state-regulated monopoly utility until viable competition is established.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
5th Amendment
No person shall be…deprived of…property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Yes and maybe rename it Pravda while the government owns Facebook
Then America may finally decide to “correct,” with extreme prejudice, Facebook, the DOJ, FBI, CIA, NSA, DNI, NRO, DIA, JCS, DOD, AG, HUD, HHS, SSA, Labor, Energy, Education, Commerce, Homeland Security, etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseam.
Correct the entire unconstitutional communist (liberal, progressive, socialist, democrat, RINO) American welfare state.
Say, you may be on to something there.
NPR racist swipe at new Asian Boston mayor elect:
“Michelle Wu, an Asian American, is the first woman and first person of color elected to lead the city. While many are hailing it as a turning point, others see it as more of a disappointment that the three Black candidates couldn’t even come close”
Why are we funding Progressive propaganda??
FUNFACT:
American Founders’ racist swipe at immigrants:
Naturalization Acts of 1790, 1795, 1798 and 1802 (four iterations)
United States Congress, “An act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,” March 26, 1790
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That any Alien being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof
___________________________________________________________________________________
What the heck went wrong with the “original intent?”
Oh, yeah!
“Crazy Abe” Lincoln, that’s what!
Could Daniel Funke be Winston Smith’s supervisor?
It appears Facebook and Politifact arent the only ones in legal trouble. Yale Law School admins are being sued by 2 law students “of color” re: Amy Chua “narrative”. Interesting
Two Yale Law School deans, along with Yale Law School’s Director of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, worked together in an attempt to blackball two students of color from job opportunities as retaliation for refusing to lie to support the University’s investigation into a professor of color,”
From the lawsuit filed yesterday:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OHEL_f7n7NFchhnuLwvCA8UZ8bnxMAMg/view
“Two students sue Yale Law administrators for alleged retaliation in Amy Chua case
The students, both unnamed in the suit, argue the administrators kept them from obtaining fellowships and job opportunities after they refused to endorse a formal complaint against Chua.”
– Yale Daily News
” It went to PolitiFact’s Daniel Funke who declared it as presumptively untrue.”
PolitiFact is what people like ATS and Svelaz use to prove their arguments, but this shows PolitiFact to be nothing more than ideological hacks who are not to be trusted. Let’s remember this going forward. The fact checkers are nothing more than entities arguing for what they believe. They are not fact checkers.
Our country is in bad shape, and there are no mea culpas on the horizon. That is because “mea culpa” is a uniquely religious construct.
Kyle Rittenhouse is a domestic terrorist. Brett Kavanaugh is a rapist. Donald Trump won in 2016 only because he colluded with the Kremlin. Nick Sandmann, the boy from Covington Catholic High School on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, was an entitled white bigot. Mr. Trump said the neo-Nazis at Charlottesville were “good people.” Last year’s riots were mostly peaceful. Unarmed black men are routinely shot in huge numbers by police officers. The discovery of Hunter Biden’s laptop was a Russian plot.
Source: “Left-Leaning Media Seek a Misinformation Monopoly”, WSJ
“That is because “mea culpa” is a uniquely religious construct.”
Now you’re just grasping at straws.
“Mea culpa” is merely a Latin expression of moral responsibility — a concept that predates that formulation by some 1,000 years. It was, for example, amply discussed (and defended) in ancient Greece. See Homer, Plato, Aristotle, and numerous Greek dramatists.
Be honest. You are angry at God and all things religion because you were rejected by all of your peers in Catholic school, and you blame God because no one recognized your brilliance. Right?
You could try to articulate a mea culpa to your peers on here since many opine you are culpable in your stupidity. just saying.
Dominus vobiscum
😉
What’s the origin of the phrase ‘Mea culpa’?
The phrase originates in the Confiteor which is a part of the Catholic Mass where sinners acknowledge their failings before God. Confiteor translates as ‘I confess’.
It has a long history of use in English and was used by Chaucer in his Troylus as early as 1374:
“Now, mea culpa, lord! I me repente.”
To emphasize the point the phrase is sometimes strengthened to ‘mea maxima culpa’ – literally ‘my most grievous fault’. This also has longstanding use, as here in Watson’s Decacordon, 1604:
“Shall lay their hands a little heavier on their hearts with Mea maxima culpa.”
The Confiteor uses both ‘mea culpa’ and ‘mea maxima culpa’. In Latin:
Confiteor Deo omnipotenti….
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/mea-culpa.html
mea culpa (interj.)
Latin expression meaning “I am to blame, through my own fault,” a phrase from the prayer of confession in the Latin liturgy
https://www.etymonline.com/word/mea%20culpa#etymonline_v_12486
“Be honest. You [accept] God and all things religion because you [had a fanatical desire to be liked] by all of your peers in Catholic school, and you [praise] God because [they did].”
Such mockery is all that you deserve.
It was, for example, amply discussed (and defended) in ancient Greece. See Homer, Plato, Aristotle, and numerous Greek dramatists.
So much for your command of classical philosophy, but dramatist you have got that down pat. You and Chris Weber ought to get a tree to climb together and hurl insults at the world.
“So much for your command of classical philosophy . . .”
What on earth are you talking about?
There is a sophisticated analysis of moral responsibility, which is where the idea of “mea culpa” comes from, in both Plato and Aristotle. See, for example, the Protagoras and the Nichomachean Ethics.
You’re the one who turned this into an uncivilized discussion — with your irresponsible and vicious speculation into the psychological roots of my views on religion. (Not that it’s going to stop you, but that is an ad hominem attack — psychologizing.) I rewrote your toxic garbage to give you a taste of your own medicine. And then you have the audacity to accuse me of “hurl[ing] insults”?! Physician, heal thyself.
Just as with the radical Left, you and your ilk abandon reason and civilized discourse — which causes you to degenerate into malicious emotionalism.
sapere aude
Facebook is itBaybook in Pig Latin.
“Power corrupts and absolute power…”
Having won an astounding victory over truth in the Hunter Biden case (with few consequences), the left is determined to cement its position as THE purveyor of facts.
Democracy suffers when only one voice is permitted.
And remember that the worm always turns.
If balance is not restored, Republican majorities after 2022 may impose a regulatory standard that we may all regret.
How can you discuss this subject without discussing the “STRAW GUN PURCHASE” Rittenhouse made from his teenage buddy, Dominick Black? (who has been charged) The gun was illegally-obtained for sure. Surely you know this.
The testimony from Rittenhouse said he was told where the gun was at and he could come to the house and borrow it.
Ronald, was KY charged with a “STRAW GUN PURCHASE” (emphasis yours, for some unknown reason)? Now that we have that out of the way, do you have a comment on a) the fact that this moronic prosecution team brought a charge that was on it’s face incorrect, or b) the fact that FB and Politifact BANNED (emphasis mine to show how the left CENSORS what they don’t like) a correct and proper assessment of the charge and did do incorrectly? In other words, do you have a comment on the actual issues the good Professor raised?
PS. I know you are obsessed with KR and his gun, but do you have an issue with the ANTIFA thugs burning the city and attacking the kid with their own weapons? Or are you immune from violence by the left?
A political hack can call itself a fact checker, but it is still a political hack.
The straw purchase has nothing to do with the possession, and that’s how you can discuss this without mentioning it.
Whether or not Rittenhouse was legal to purchase the weapon (he was most certainly not) is not the same question as if he was allowed to possess the weapon in Wisconsin (he was). Black is being prosecuted for the straw purchase, and should (in my opinion) be convicted of that. Rittenhouse, on the other hand, did not violate WI statute 948.60, and the court dismissed that charge as a matter of law.