Welcome to List Service with Kira Davis, the weekly podcast for VIP subscribers that runs down the most interesting stories of the week from the RedState presses.

Unfortunately, this week I’ve been diagnosed with strep throat and speaking is difficult right now. Not ideal for a non-stop talker! So this week we’ll have to settle for a blog list. Same great stories, minus the great voice orating them.

I thought I would focus on wrapping up some of the biggest news of the week from the Rittenhouse trial. Our writers have been doing fantastic work, analyzing coverage and staying on top of how the lunatic progressives are framing the proceedings. So here are some of the top stories of the week from our incredible RedState staff.

1.Dennis Santiago analyzes the prosecutor’s underhanded efforts to introduce excluded testimony/evidence and incriminate Rittenhouse by virtue of his own, constitutionally-guaranteed silence.

Prosecutor Binger at first gets himself into some legal hot water attempting to infer that Rittenhouse’s silence is incriminating. The judge slaps the prosecution’s face hard on this ploy, pointing out that is a serious breach of a defendant’s right to remain silent. Something that is never to be trifled with. The breach is fiery enough that Rittenhouse’s attorney threatens to call for a mistrial due to prosecutorial overreach.

Santiago thinks the prosecutor was mistaken to make a lot of hay over Rittenhouse’s choice of weapon.

Binger next tries to infer that Rittenhouse’s choice of the AR-15 as his firearm was a provocative act, therefore disqualifying privilege. The two go back and forth about the choice of the weapon and Kyle’s understanding of the lethality of the weapon, which in my opinion the prosecutor overly inflated to the point of injuring his own credibility as a technical argument.

He goes on to say that the defendant was clearly confused by the line of questioning trying to connect his video game habits to the incident.

This is clearly an attempt to invoke Wisconsin law 939.49 (2)(c), inferring that Kyle created an excuse to cause harm. But Rittenhouse’s responses to Binger are such that Kyle is clearly confused and does not follow the line of argument that the prosecutor is attempting. In my opinion, a juror watching this exchange would believe this ploy failed as well.

Santiago’s conclusion is basically that the prosecutor is tripping himself up around every corner. When I read analysis like this, I must agree.

2.Nick Arama covers the judge’s obvious outrage at the prosecutorial conduct laid out in Santiago’s previous article.

But the judge was also disturbed with the prosecutor for trying to use evidence which the judge said he had excluded and he chastised the prosecutor for not even asking. “Don’t get brazen with me!” the judge shouted at Binger.

Arama tells us that even if there were a legitimate reason for bringing it up, the proper conduct would have been to ask for a sidebar. And then of course the unthinkable happens…the judge has a patriotic ringtone on his phone! The horror!

Even if Binger thought that if it were anywhere in the realm of what the judge said, he should have had a side bar and asked permission from the judge to enter any questionable evidence. But he didn’t which is why the judge wasn’t believing he was acting in good faith. He just wanted to enter the evidence and he wasn’t going to let the ruling stop him. That’s basically what the defense was saying in arguing for a mistrial with prejudice because the prosecutor was allegedly acting improperly with purpose to prevent an acquittal.

So we’ll have to see how the judge comes decides on that motion, but it’s very clear that he’s had enough of Binger and all his tricks. Meanwhile, you know how far down the rabbit hole some in the liberal media have been going when they lose their minds over the judge having “God Bless the USA” as the ringtone on his phone because President Donald Trump has played that at his rallies. Obviously, conspiracy! How dare anyone like that song or the USA! That’s where we’re at with how they are reporting on this trial.

Arama sums it up perfectly. This is where we are folks. Does it make you think that maybe all those complainers had a point about the state of our criminal justice system?

3.Speaking of which, Jeff Charles points out the hypocrisy of the “criminal justice reform” crowd when it comes to the Rittenhouse trial.

People on both sides – including myself – have pointed out that showing up while the riots were in full swing wasn’t exactly the best idea one could have had. In fact, if I’d done something similar at his age, my Mom would have beaten me so badly I’d have come out of it speaking Chinese with a Scottish accent.

However, those on the left taking issue with Rittenhouse’s armed presence at the riots don’t have a leg to stand on. Why? Well, Breitbart News’ Alana Mastrangelo made an excellent point on Twitter when she wrote:

Leftists ask why Kyle Rittenhouse felt that he had any business in Kenosha.

Meanwhile, I’m wondering why people felt they had any business rioting, looting, assaulting, threatening, and setting things on fire in Kenosha.

Charles rightly points out that it’s possible to disapprove of Rittenhouse’s presence at the riots while at the same disapproving of the riots, period. The one thing the left doesn’t seem to care about in this trial is all the rioting and destruction of black neighborhoods.

Conservatives who question Rittenhouse traveling to Kenosha are still condemning the riots themselves. They recognize that two things can be true at once: Rittenhouse should have stayed home and the riots should never have happened.

Unfortunately, when you’re dealing with people motivated purely by partisan politics, they are unable – or unwilling – to look at an issue objectively.

I’m with Jeff Charles – this is purely partisan and it’s no wonder we can’t have any productive conversations when some people are so blindly sold out to a single narrative.

4.Contributing editor Bonchie expresses some shock at Kyle Rittenhouse testifying at his own trial. But the move could backfire if prosecutors push too hard on the vulnerable defendant.

After Rittenhouse broke down, the judge called a recess and we are still waiting to see what the prosecution does. Given how terrible their case has been so far, you can bet they are going to press this last opportunity as hard as they can. But that could backfire if they only end up making Rittenhouse look more sympathetic to the jury.

Bonchie says what I’ve been thinking. Clearly this kid has been deeply affected by the experience – as you would expect someone in this situation to be. He’s not a cold-blooded killer. He’s a boy who got in way over his head and found himself face-to-face with danger.

Regardless, I think it’s clear that 1) the evidence supports the claim of self-defense and 2) that Rittenhouse is not some vicious white supremacist who showed up to murder people. He is clearly affected by what happened and has no intention of killing anyone when he drove the 20 minutes from his hometown to Kenosha that evening.

Whether he “should not have been there,” a common refrain from his detractors, is irrelevant. We should not be sending people to jail to learn non-criminal lessons nor does that standard apply to anything else. This is a developing story and as soon as the questioning from the prosecution concludes, RedState will be there with an update on what transpired.

5.And finally, another great observation from Sistah Toldjah, pointing out serial jerker Jeffrey Toobin’s jerky observations about Rittenhouse.

Regardless, Toobin is still out there sharing his thoughts on the case (and thankfully nothing more than that), posting this tweet last night wondering “what the verdict would be” in the Rittenhouse trial if the defendant were black.

But Sis has an idea:

For starters, if Kyle Rittenhouse were black and the circumstances behind the trial were exactly the same as they are for the actual Kyle Rittenhouse, CNN and their legal analysts and commentators like Toobin would actually be urging people to listen to all the evidence presented before casting judgment.

This is exactly the opposite of what CNN types like Toobin and fellow legal analysts like high-profile South Carolina Democrat attorney Bakari Sellers, also a former state co-chair for Kamala Harris’ failed presidential campaign, are doing. Sellers openly mocked Rittenhouse earlier this week for crying during his testimony, tweeting that “He went with the ugly cry to win this Oscar. Gives me Tropic Thunder vibes.” This from a man who describes himself as a proponent of “criminal justice reform.” Think about it.

These are the same people who lose their minds when anyone says that babies come from women.

Sadly, as we’ve seen with many liberals whether they are legal analysts or not, Rittenhouse’s race has indeed impacted their judgment of this case to their discredit, suggesting that racism is the motivation for some believing the way they do about Rittenhouse. That’s the elephant in the room that no one wants to discuss, but it’s there nevertheless and I have no qualms about calling it out.

I second this emotion. I also implore conservatives to understand that complaints about the criminal justice system and bias from prosecutors aren’t always grievances. We can see that there are prosecutors with agendas and they are often aided by a bias media. Perhaps we should all take the complaints a bit more seriously.

Not Toobin’s, of course. He’s gross.

And that concludes our list for this week. I’m sure my voice will be back next week and we’ll get back to the regular podcast. Thanks for your patience.

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