And Justice for All

In case you've been living under a rock, Kyle Rittenhouse was found not guilty on all five charges against him. We'll get into what those charges were, and we'll talk a bit about the media circus surrounding the case and the verdict, and how they continue to get the reporting wrong, what the left really wants from our justice system, and other things related to this case.

But first, just in case any of my liberal friends are reading this - and assuming that, if that's the case, you're probably not going to read the entire post - I thought I'd run through some of the fallacies propagated by the mainstream media, internet pundits and trolls (sorry, that was redundant), your liberal friends, and other misinformed people.

Before I do that, let me say that I watched most of the trial, and what I missed due to work, I picked up watching coverage - not what the talking heads had to say, but actual footage from the trial, played later in the day. And for further information, I followed my usual practice of going to credible source information - not news media sources or conspiracy theory blog sites, but verifiable sources - to determine the facts. Also, I'm not a lawyer, but I've been in a courtroom a few times, and I have a bit of experience with legal proceedings, including the rules of evidence, albeit not in a murder trial. So all that forms the basis of the clarification I present below. Here goes.

1. Kyle Rittenhouse did not cross state lines with a gun. He did cross state lines, but the gun was already there. Let's be specific. Rittenhouse lived (I use the past tense, because who knows where he's going to have to move now) in Antioch, Illinois, and went to Kenosha, Wisconsin the day of the riots at which he shot three people, killing two and wounding a third. Look up Antioch on google maps. I'll wait. You'll see that it's right on the Illinois-Wisconsin state line. As in, you could literally take one step from Antioch, and be in Wisconsin. Now, Kenosha is a bit further from Antioch: 21 miles, to be exact. So yes, Rittenhouse did cross state lines. He traveled a whole 21 miles, from Antioch to Kenosha.
2. What business did Rittenhouse have in Kenosha, if he lived in Antioch? He went there just to cause trouble, knowing there were protests going on, right? (More on the reason for those protests in a minute.) Wrong. Rittenhouse lived with his mother in Antioch. His parents are divorced. His father, grandmother, and aunt live in Kenosha. His best friend, who bought the gun in question, lives in Kenosha. He worked in Kenosha. Look, I live in Overland Park, Kansas. It's right on the Missouri border. As in, you could literally take one step from Overland Park, and be in Missouri. I regularly shop at a Target in Missouri, about a mile and a half from my house. My wife and I eat out in Missouri frequently, and we never drive far to eat out. My daughter lives in a town in Missouri that's about 21 miles from my house, about the same distance as Kenosha is from Antioch, and I drive to her house regularly. Does that seem odd? Should my crossing the state line into Missouri be questioned?
3. To continue with this theme: there were riots the night before the shootings, and Rittenhouse went to Kenosha that morning, to see what he could do to help the community. He was photographed helping clean graffiti off the walls of a local high school - graffiti that included obscenities that, if you're any kind of decent human being, you wouldn't want your high school kid reading when he or she went to school in the morning. He and his friends agreed to return that night to help protect local businesses from vandalism, and were invited to help by at least one local business owner who knew them. Rittenhouse picked up his AR-15 when he got there, for personal protection. He also carried a first aid kit - which he used to help some people during the riots.
4. Now let's talk about the reason for and nature of the "protests." Kenosha police had shot a young black man named Jacob Blake. The officers were responding to a domestic complaint from a woman who had accused Blake of sexual assault and criminal trespass; he was at her home again, and there was a warrant outstanding for his arrest on those charges. Blake was armed with a knife, and he resisted arrest before the police shot him. They shot him seven times. Did they need to shoot him seven times? That was ultimately up to investigators to decide, and you're certainly entitled to your opinion. But before you express it, make sure you know all the facts. As recently as yesterday, after the Rittenhouse verdict, major media outlets were still reporting that Blake was unarmed - which is factually false - and that he was killed by police - which is also factually false; Jacob Blake is very much alive today. So don't buy the ongoing media narrative that these "protests" were sparked by police shooting and "killing" an "innocent," "unarmed" man. Beyond those false claims, whether the force applied was excessive is a perfectly valid question. But consider this. In December 2020 - after the Presidential election in which Joe Biden was elected, and in a state and county controlled by Democrats - the Kenosha County District Attorney (whose office prosecuted Rittenhouse) announced that officers involved in the shooting would not be charged. In October 2021, the Justice Department - the Biden Justice Department, mind you - decided not to pursue federal civil rights charges against the officer involved in the shooting, following its investigation into the matter.
5. As for the nature of the "protests," buildings and cars were burned, dumpsters were set on fire and pushed at people, fireworks and bricks were thrown at police. In the videos presented as evidence in the Rittenhouse trial, one of the individuals that Rittenhouse shot is seen setting at least one dumpster on fire and pushing it towards people (although well before the shootings occurred), and during the time that individual was chasing Rittenhouse and threatening to kill him, people can be seen in the foreground bashing cars for sale in a dealer's lot with baseball bats. Dear reader, these were not protests or demonstrations. These were full-on riots, complete with fires, destruction and defacement of property, and assaults on police and others. And it's unlikely that Rittenhouse was the only person present that wasn't from Kenosha, or from Wisconsin; we know that the "protests" of 2020 regularly turned violent thanks to professional agitators from across the country who traveled from one flashpoint to the next with the express intent of fomenting violence.
6. Oh, here's a particularly silly one: Rittenhouse's mother didn't drive him across state lines. She was working.
7. Rittenhouse legally owned the AR-15 used in the shootings. Wisconsin gun laws are really weird. Rittenhouse was 17 at the time of the shootings. At that age, he could not legally own a handgun; he'd have to be 18. But he could own a rifle - as long as the barrel met a minimum length requirement. Weird, right? I guess they don't want young people owning Uzis, or sawed-off shotguns. (I'm testing your knowledge: Uzis are illegal in the U.S. anyway, for reasons I'll explain momentarily.) The AR-15 that Rittenhouse owned and carried that night met the minimum barrel length requirement, thus he owned and carried it legally. So let me repeat for those not paying close attention: he did not own the gun illegally. He did not even cross state lines with it (it was at his friend's house, and he picked it up there).
8. For the sake of all that is holy, and I hate having to explain this for the umpteenth time, an AR-15 is NOT an automatic weapon! Automatic weapons are illegal in the U.S. Automatic weapons are what those who get their gun knowledge from John Wick movies call "machine guns." (An Uzi is a variant of a machine gun.) A single trigger press releases a number of rounds that is only limited by the capacity of the magazine, or when you let go of the trigger. In other words, when you pull the trigger, the gun keeps firing rounds until you let go of the trigger or run out of ammo. An AR-15 is a semi-automatic weapon, meaning that each time you pull the trigger, it fires one round. When you let go of the trigger, it feeds another round, and you have to pull the trigger again to fire it. One trigger pull, one round. "AR" does NOT stand for "automatic rifle." It stands for "Armalite," which was the manufacturer of the original prototype for the rifle that numerous manufacturers have now copied. And you know what it's used for more than anything else? Hunting. Everybody I know who hunts wild boar in Texas uses an AR-15. They use them because they're cheap, reliable, accurate and easy to service. So please, please, PLEASE, stop saying that AR-15s are automatic weapons. Don't be an idiot.
9. Joe Scarborough of MSNBC - who is an idiot - claimed, among other things, that Rittenhouse fired 60 rounds. The magazine capacity of his AR-15 is 30 rounds, so that means that he would have had to have emptied his mag, reloaded, and emptied a second mag. He did not. I believe he fired eight rounds, if memory serves. That should be neither here nor there, except that a) Scarborough is sensationalizing (surprise; he works for MSNBC) and trying to make Rittenhouse sound like the Vegas shooter, and b) Scarborough pretends to be a journalist, whatever the hell that is these days, and should thus report more responsibly. (And if he were a responsible journalist, MSNBC wouldn't hire him.)
10. Rittenhouse is not a white supremacist. He shot three people. They were all white. One of the people he shot and killed was ostensibly a BLM protester, yet he was throwing the N-word around liberally, but Rittenhouse wasn't. Just because Joe Biden called Rittenhouse a white supremacist doesn't make it true. (Let's face it, Joe said that he was Vice President for 36 years, and that there were 550 companies in the Fortune 500.) But more to the point, prosecutors had Rittenhouse's phone - all of his contacts, all of his social media sites, all of the websites he'd visited. If there was a single link to a white supremacist, or to a site or page related to white supremacy, don't you think that would have been front and center in the trial and the media?
11. On that note, let's turn to the silly "white power" sign. If you fell for that 4chan hoax, look up, quick: somebody wrote "gullible" on the ceiling. The hoax is this: the traditional hand sign for "okay," with the tips of the thumb and forefinger pressed together to form a circle, and the other three fingers raised, is actually a clandestine sign for "white power": the three upraised fingers form a "W," and the circle formed by the thumb and forefingers, along with the wrist below, form a "P." Google it. 4chan trolls specifically came up with this hoax to bait liberals: the originator of the hoax urged followers to propagate it, arguing that liberals would fall for it because "Leftists have dug so deep down into their lunacy." He's not wrong. Other 4chan white supremacy hoaxes include drinking milk as a sign of white supremacy, and adopting the polar bear as a symbol. Feel dumb? You should.
12. Rittenhouse is also not a member of a militia, "self-proclaimed" or otherwise, as many media outlets have reported.
13. As to the question of whether Rittenhouse had any business being there that night - did anybody? Was there a need for anybody to be rioting in Kenosha that night? Had there been no riots, Kyle Rittenhouse would have been at home in Antioch, and two men would be alive. Think about that.

Kyle Rittenhouse was, at the time, a 17-year-old kid from Antioch, Illinois, who went to Kenosha, Wisconsin where his family and friends lived - a mere 21 miles away - out of concerns over violent and destructive rioting. He was with friends that night, and he was armed with an AR-15 that he legally owned, and also carried a first aid kit that he used to help people who needed it. He carried the AR-15 in case he needed it to defend himself. And as it turned out, he did.

He was first chased by a guy named Joseph Rosenbaum. Rosenbaum, sadly, had only hours earlier been released from a local hospital after a suicide attempt. He had a history of mental issues, and had served time in prison for molesting pre-teen children. While in prison, he had numerous disciplinary infractions. At the time of the shooting, he faced charges of domestic abuse and skipping bail. None of this is intended to imply that Rosenbaum deserved to die; he did not. It merely paints a picture of a very troubled 36-year-old with a history of disdain for the law.

As noted earlier, video from that night shows Rosenbaum lighting a dumpster on fire and pushing it toward people. He also confronted a number of people who were carrying AR-15s and other rifles, getting right up in their faces and yelling, "Shoot me, n*****!" He was accompanied by another man, who was armed with a handgun, and that man's wife (both of whom the prosecution chose not to call as witnesses, and one of whom the prosecution will be trying for arson in January related to the night of the riots). In other words, Rosenbaum was engaged in very aggressive behavior.

Video shows him eventually chasing Rittenhouse, and testimony revealed that he yelled, "I'm going to f***ing kill you!" During the chase, video showed that he threw a plastic bag containing something - we don't know what, because the prosecution failed to produce it at trial - at Rittenhouse. He eventually cornered Rittenhouse by some parked cars, and when Rittenhouse turned and raised his gun, Rosenbaum reached for it. The prosecution claimed he wasn't close to Rittenhouse, yet, oddly, then went on to note that he had gunpowder residue on his hand, indicating that it was on or near the muzzle of the gun when the second shot was fired. (The prosecution also argued that, after the first shot, Rittenhouse could have stopped firing, but the fact that Rosenbaum was still grabbing for the gun when the second shot was fired disproves that.) Another witness testified that Rosenbaum was lunging for the gun. Ultimately, four shots were fired in quick succession, and Rosenbaum died.

After chasing Rittenhouse. After threatening to kill him. After cornering him. After having shown no fear of people with guns earlier. After reaching for Rittenhouse's gun, even after being shot once.

After that shooting, Rittenhouse began running toward where the police were. He was going to turn himself in. He knew he had shot Rosenbaum in self-defense. But he also knew that turning himself in was the proper thing to do, and wanted to avoid any further conflict. However, the rioters had other ideas.

Several of them began shouting that he had shot Rosenbaum, and a few of them gave chase. Mind you, Rittenhouse was running away from them, toward the police. His gun was pointed down, in a safe position. He was not facing them, pointing his gun at them - just as he hadn't been facing Rosenbaum until he was cornered by him and had no other option.

This is key, so pay attention: at no point did Rittenhouse play the role of aggressor with anyone. Up to that point, Rosenbaum had chased and cornered him. He shot Rosenbaum in self-defense. Then, as he ran toward police to turn himself in, rather than let him do that - rather than let police handle the matter - a bunch of the rioters decided to chase him down and take matters into their own hands.

Which begs the question: who were the vigilantes?

Video shows one man catching up to Rittenhouse and hitting him in the head, knocking his cap off. Then another man knocks him down from behind. Another man ran in and kicked him in the face, spinning him around. Rittenhouse fired at that man, but missed. In the trial, that man is only identified as "jump-kick man," so referenced because he launched his violent kick by leaping off his left foot and striking Rittenhouse with his right.

Only after the trial ended did we learn his identity - which the prosecution knew all along, but withheld from the defense, the court, and the jury. His name was Maurice Freeland. He actually contacted the prosecution and offered to testify - in exchange for immunity on charges of DUI with an underage passenger, disorderly conduct and domestic abuse, and THC possession. The prosecution declined. Maybe because they were afraid that, under cross-examination, it would come out that, thirty minutes before he kicked Rittenhouse and was shot at, he posted on Facebook, "Let's kill that white boy." His soon-to-be ex-wife believes the statement referred to Rittenhouse, that Freeland had seen him on the scene. So who was the racist? Who was the would-be killer?

While Rittenhouse was on the ground, another man, Anthony Huber, struck Rittenhouse in the head or neck with a skateboard. The prosecution made jokes about the lethality of a skateboard as a weapon. Imagine having someone swing an 8" by 32" board at your head, further weighted by trucks and wheels. Huber also grabbed Rittenhouse's gun, and pulled it away from him. He had it strapped around his body, or Huber might have taken it from him. While Huber was pulling on it, Rittenhouse fired once, striking Huber and killing him. For what it's worth, Huber also had a history of violence, having served time in prison for choking his brother, and having been convicted of domestic abuse and disorderly conduct.

Finally, Gaige Grosskreutz approached Rittenhouse while he was still on the ground, and Rittenhouse shot him in the arm, wounding him. Grosskreutz was able to testify at the trial, but the prosecution probably should have done a better job of vetting their witness: he testified that he pointed a handgun at Rittenhouse before Rittenhouse fired, wounding him. Defense counsel: "It wasn't until you pointed your gun at him, advanced on him, that he fired, correct?" Grosskreutz: "Correct." An ex-marine who was at the riot to help protect property from the rioters picked up Grosskreutz' gun and checked the chamber, and found that there was a round in it. In other words, he was locked and loaded, and aiming at Rittenhouse. Grosskreutz further testified that, before he aimed the gun at him, Rittenhouse did not fire. He only fired when Grosskreutz brought the gun down and pointed it at Rittenhouse.

Grosskreutz also had a criminal record, including burglary, drunk driving, disorderly conduct, prowling, harassing an ex-girlfriend, hitting his grandmother in the face, and a number of sealed juvenile offenses. In addition, the concealed weapon permit for the loaded handgun he pointed at Rittenhouse was expired the night of the riots. Further, Grosskreutz had attended about 75 "protests" that summer, so if we're to question what Kyle Rittenhouse was doing in Kenosha that night, we should probably ask the same question regarding Gaige Grosskreutz. He claimed to attend these events - armed, but in his case, illegally - hoping to help people. Just like Kyle Rittenhouse. By the way, Grosskreutz is from West Allis, Wisconsin - which is more than 40 miles from Kenosha. About twice as far as Antioch. Did anyone question why he drove that far to be in Kenosha that night?

Note that everyone Rittenhouse shot, or shot at, not only attacked or threatened him, but had a criminal record and a history of violence. Again, that doesn't mean they deserved to die. But they were no strangers to aggression. It shouldn't surprise anyone that they attacked and/or threatened someone that night.

As for the charges, first let's talk about what Rittenhouse was charged with, then we'll address what he wasn't charged with, because - if you're liberal, and you're still reading this - that's what you're all worked up about.

In the case of Rosenbaum, he was charged with one count of first-degree reckless homicide. In the case of Huber, he was charged with first-degree intentional homicide. In Grosskreutz' case, he was charged with attempted first degree intentional homicide. He also faced two counts of first-degree recklessly endangering safety.

In each of the first three cases, the video evidence is clear: Rittenhouse acted in self-defense. Rosenbaum had threatened to kill him, was chasing him, had cornered him, and was reaching for his gun. Huber had struck him with an object that could certainly incapacitate or kill, and was also reaching for his gun, had a firm grip on it, and was pulling it away from Rittenhouse, attempting to take it from him. Grosskreutz was advancing on Rittenhouse, with Rittenhouse on the ground, and from a distance of three feet, was aiming a handgun at Rittenhouse when he fired, hitting Grosskreutz' gun arm and disarming him.

As for recklessly endangering safety, one of the cardinal rules of gun safety is to always be aware of what's behind your target. In the self-defense situations Rittenhouse found himself in, he didn't have the luxury of taking a lot of time to think about that. But the only bullets that didn't find their mark were those he fired at Freeland. Those were also fired in self-defense, and they may well have prevented Freeland from coming back and finishing the job he said he was going to do on Facebook.

Here's what Kyle Rittenhouse was not charged with:

• Being a white supremacist (he's not)
• Being a member of a militia (he's not)
• Being a vigilante (his behavior would suggest he wasn't; he ran away from his aggressors, not toward them, and if anything, three of them behaved as vigilantes - but in any event, he wasn't on trial for that, and I'm not sure there's even an applicable statute)
• Crossing state lines (not a crime)
• Crossing state lines with a gun (he didn't)
• Being driven across state lines by his mother (he wasn't)
• Illegally owning a gun (he didn't; the prosecution initially charged him with that, and it was dropped very late in the trial - more on that later)
• Owning an automatic weapon (again, don't be an idiot)
• Firing 60 rounds (don't be an idiot, Joe Scarborough has that covered)
• Being where he shouldn't have been (arguably guilty if it were a crime, but so was everybody present that night)
• Bad judgement (see previous point)
• Being out after curfew (also see previous point; the prosecution tried to include this charge initially as well, but the judge threw it out since everybody there that night was violating the curfew that had been put in place to quell the riots)

So that's it. At issue was this: did Rittenhouse murder or attempt to murder those men? Or did he act in self-defense? That's it, and that's all.

The jury did their jobs admirably, in spite of prosecutorial incompetence and misconduct, threats from the mob outside and the liberal media. Justice was served.

Media coverage of the verdict was predictable, and I'm not going to give it much further voice here. If you insist on watching MSNBC or CNN, you deserve to have your brain further addled by that drivel. I will allow myself the skewering of one MSNBC moron, but first let's look at just how professional that slimy organization is.

After a couple of days of jury deliberations, an MSNBC reporter was cited by police for running a red light near the courthouse. Why did he run a red light? To avoid getting left behind by the jury bus. Why? Because he was following the jury bus. Why? Because his producer in New York instructed him to follow the jury bus.

Do you have any clue just how wrong, how inappropriate, that is? This is jury intimidation. MSNBC claimed they had no intention of filming the jury. Really? Why even claim that? And why otherwise is it so important to stay that close to the bus, that you have to run a red light to avoid losing contact with it?

To his credit, the judge banned MSNBC from the entire courthouse for the remainder of the proceedings. But there should be further action taken.

After the verdict, I switched over to CNN and MSNBC, to watch the predictable melt-down over the decision reached by the jurors. On MSNBC, one talking head asked her three panelists, "What did this trial 'turn' on?"

The reporter on the scene in Kenosha actually gave an intelligent answer. He said it turned on 1) Rittenhouse's testimony, and 2) Grosskreutz' admission that he pointed his gun at Rittenhouse before Rittenhouse shot him.

Well, that was just too rational for the anchor, and she was having none of it, so she turned to her legal expert. Who proceeded to claim that the trial turned on ... the judge. Never mind that it was a jury trial; the judge didn't decide anything. No, she claimed the judge turned the whole case, on the basis of three assertions. I'll present them - and destroy them - below.

1. The judge didn't allow the prosecution to refer to those who were shot as "victims." Well, no sh*t. "Victim" is, legally speaking, a prejudicial term, in that it would prejudice the jury against the defendant. Why? A murder has victims. Self-defense does not. If I shoot you in self-defense, you're not the "victim" of self-defense, you're the person I shot in self-defense. If I murder you, you're the murder victim. Since the determination of guilt or innocence on the murder charge had not yet been made, the use of the term "victim" would presuppose guilt, violating the presumption of innocence until proven guilty that is a cornerstone of criminal law, and has been since we inherited our criminal justice system from the Brits. So for this idiot to whine that the judge disallowed the term to be used just shows that she's upset that he didn't allow the jury to be prejudiced against the defendant.
2. The judge did allow the "protesters" to be referred to as "rioters." Well, let's see - they spray-painted graffiti. They set dumpsters and buildings on fire. They damaged cars with baseball bats. They threw fireworks and bricks at police. They physically assaulted people. Peaceful protest, or riot? This "expert" may have believed that this prejudiced the jury against the riot - er, protesters. (Including Rosenbaum, who, again, set fire to a dumpster, and Huber, who assaulted Rittenhouse with a skateboard, and Grosskreutz, who pointed a loaded gun at Rittenhouse.) Or, you could simply view it as going where the facts take you.
3. The judge threw out the gun charge. Again, Rittenhouse owned the gun legally under Wisconsin law. It doesn't get any clearer than that. What's really odd is that he didn't throw it out until right before jury deliberations began, when all they had to do was measure the damn barrel on day one. The judge didn't seem to really understand the Wisconsin gun law, and admittedly, it is confusing. But the prosecution's case hinged on that charge - if Rittenhouse didn't own the gun legally, he couldn't use it legally in his own defense. And the judge waited until the end of the trial to even address the question of the charge. Had he addressed it at the beginning and thrown it out, there might have been no need to proceed with the trial. But again, apparently this "expert" took issue with the judge throwing out a charge that was, on the merits, baseless.

Of course, after the verdict, there were protests. Thankfully, they were peaceful, for the most part. Kenosha was unusually quiet. The only arrest was some woman writing on the courthouse steps with sidewalk chalk. Cue up "Sesame Street." In Chicago, of course, they broke into Neiman Marcus and stole stuff. In Portland, the protest became violent to the point that it was declared a riot - no surprise there. The biggest protest seemed to be in New York City, where a bunch of white kids marched across the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan. Most of them didn't even seem to know why they were there; it probably had a lot to do with whether or not they had jobs, and whether their Xboxes were working.

There's been a lot of talk since the verdict about how this sets back racial equality in the U.S. Curious, since Rittenhouse is white, the three people he shot were white, the defense attorneys and prosecutors were white, the judge was white, and I believe all but one of the jurors was white. One person I know believes that the media talking heads and politicos who are making these claims are extrapolating to the cause of the Kenosha "protests" to begin with.

Okay, maybe. But they forget that the vast, vast majority of the "protesters" who showed up last year in Minneapolis and Kenosha and Portland and Seattle and Chicago and Atlanta and New York and other cities were white, just like the kids in New York last night. I wonder how many of them are truly passionate about racial equality. I wonder how many of them have criminal records. I wonder how many of them purport to be there in the name of racial equality, while running around setting dumpsters on fire and yelling, "Shoot me, n*****!"

Or, it could have been, as claimed by some, that "if this had been a young black man, he'd have been found guilty." Perhaps that's true. I would note, however, that on that night in Kenosha, Freeland - a black man with a long rap sheet and outstanding criminal warrants - posted on Facebook, "Let's kill that white boy," then launched a violent kick to Rittenhouse's face. Rittenhouse fired at him in response. The outcome? Rittenhouse, a white kid, was charged with first-degree recklessly endangering safety, for shooting at Freeland. Was Freeland, a black man, charged with assault? Attempted murder, given his earlier threat? No. (And for the record, I'm not arguing that he should have been, I'm merely pointing out that maybe "the system" isn't always as inequitable as it's portrayed to be.)

I'm inclined to believe it's got just as much to do with those Leftist pundits' and politicos' current tendency to insert the words "racist" or "white supremacist" after about every fourth or fifth word that spills out of their incoherent mouths these days, to the point where those words may someday lose their meaning, which would be tragic, because real racism and white supremacy are indeed insidious - they're just not lurking behind everything that happens that the Left disagrees with.

The bottom line, though, is this: if you're liberal, you probably still believe that Rittenhouse is guilty. You didn't watch the trial, you don't understand the law, and you don't even care about the rule of law. Even if someone were to persuasively convince you that the rule of law had been followed in this case, you'd just argue that the law is unjust, and needs to be changed until you get your way. So keep believing what you want to believe - it's your right. Keep getting all of your knowledge from MSNBC.

And pray you never find yourself sitting on a jury bus, hoping to remain anonymous.