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Justice for Jussie — 46 Comments

1. Fine, but will he get jail time? I seriously doubt it.
   Now, if NEO did something akin to this, she would be writing her blog from a deep. dark cell for a very long time.

2. Through it all…,

   he hung on to that sandwich.

3. I would wager that many people who have never suffered, think victimhood is heroic.

4. “probably he thought that he would become more famous, more sympathetic, more virtuous, and more heroic all at the same time as a result of his hoax. These things—the desire for money and the desire for appearing virtuous despite being exactly the opposite, as well as the desire to be part of a noble cause even if your actions are ignoble—can all co-exist….This could have ended up much much worse if he and the brothers hadn’t been so incompetent as hoaxers. What if they had succeeded? It could have done immense harm to blacks and whites and everyone in-between.”

   The propensity of leftists to lie, and lie, and lie — and think they can get away with it because someone else did — is baked into the cake, to coin a phrase.

   I just posted this comment to Sarah Hoyt’s blogpost on the same topic writ large, but it is relevant here as well, because lying even in small things corrupts all of civilization.

   https://accordingtohoyt.com/2019/02/21/malice-of-stupidity-now-scored-for-history/#comment-587039
   AesopFan | February 21, 2019 at 2:34 pm | Reply
   “Tell the truth and shame the devil. Be not afraid.” – Sarah
   …
   I just finished Peterson’s Rule #8: “Tell the Truth (or at least, don’t lie)” — and the Book Burning ethos follows directly from what he says there: small lies beget bigger lies beget shame to admit lies begets covering up lies begets totalitarianism in all its many varieties.
   He could have been describing the entire arc of the Kavanaugh-Covington-Smollett mindset of the Left (maybe he has a crystal ball?), but his major examples came from Communism and Nazi Germany and the rest of the 20th century genocides.
   He marshalls history, religion, philosophy, and psychology to demonstrate that lying eventually destroys not only the individual, but also society.
   His personal experiences, which he exposes forthrightly (as is appropriate in that chapter!), explain a lot of things: his stand against using laws to force people to speak things they don’t believe in; his very intent attention to interviewers and careful responses to what they ask or say; and his passionate (nearly vehement) lecturing style.
   “Tell the truth, or at least, DON’T LIE.”

5. This stupid loser spent $4000 and risked going to jail to orchestrate a hoax and yet got nothing to show for it, because the camera was facing the other side. If things went his way and he got video evidence things could have been lots more interesting. I actually think hiring two black men was a smart move, they could have painted their face white with make up and the police would be mistakenly chasing two white guys that didn’t exist and the case would have gone no where.

6. I hope some PAC will put together a montage of Kamala Harris at the Kavanaugh hearing, on the Covington Catholic kids, on Smollett, then concluding with her stuttering recollection in New Hampshire that there’s supposed to be something called “due process” in this country.

7. There has been some interesting speculation posted at AmericanThinker about the possible political implications. Jussie grew up in a family of hard-left political activists (his mother was friendly with Angela Davis and the Black Panthers), and he is acquainted with Kamala and Spartacus, who pushed through a completely unnecessary anti-lynching bill in the Senate at exactly the same time as the noose hoax was being planned and (very poorly) executed.

8. If the camera had been facing the other way and there was video showing two supposed Trump supporters beating him up as he had planned, the results could have been disastrous.

   I’m sure that the networks would have led every program with the video, and as with Rodney King and Ferguson, I can envision widespread rioting and looting before the truth became known.

9. He needs to do jail time, as a punitive measure to reduce the willingness of others who long for “victimhood chic”.

   We can identity it with the illogic of the Dems today, thru the “superiority of the victims: anybody who is inferior is a victim, and victims (inferiors) are now superior”.

   The biggest victims (inferiors) are the most superior. Primarily based on tribal identities: sex, race, sexual preference.
   Funny, being “American” is not yet seen as a “privilege” — of course, that’s one that is very easily given up. But for most people in the world, that’s the biggest privilege they aspire to become.

10. If the camera had been facing the other way this would have blown up even bigger so the deflation would have been that much more dispiriting to the left. All the other evidence would have still been available.

    He should do jail time. I don’t think this was just done for money. He has an activist background. He wanted to become part of the story, not just a line reader. I think that’s true of a lot of the Hollywood celebs who become activists. They are not satisfied with their day jobs, impersonating other people and reading other peoples’ lines. They want to BE the hero in the story, not just play one on TV.

    The O brothers are pretty awful at scamming for Nigerians but they were certainly not going to be getting scammed and taking the fall for an American.

11. If this hoax makes it past the grand jury, the criminal trial is unlikely to convict Jussie. BTW, I hope Jussie is not the name on his birth certificate.

12. Now I lied a lot but wow, never to this degree and never to this extent. Most of my dishonesty was to avoid punishment and embarrassment.

    Plus the irony if it is it’s an actor lying. It’s basically what an actor’s day job consists of, but this time instead of gaining fame, fortune and admiration, the actor gains a criminal record and possible jail time. Not exactly the red carpet of a premiere or awards ceremony dressed in a tailored tux with cameras flashing at you. Nope. Not even close.

13. There are more revelation at the bail setting presser by the police. Jussie has a case there because the brothers are in fact his drug dealers, he could argue that he was in fact attacked by the brothers due to money disputes resulted from drug transaction between them gone wrong and the check he wrote them was for the ecstasy not compensation for setting up a hoax.

14. All these saying circulating in the media that “Trump supporters don’t watch empire” make me feel ashamed of myself because I did watch the first season Empire and kind of liked it a lot. Hard for me to believe they were ever considering writing his character Jamal off the show based on what i have watched his character was like the principle protagonist, the good son in an bad family, the supposed black sheep of the family that ends up saving the family type character like Bobby Ewing, Michael Corleone or Jon Snow.

15. Parents should never let their children be child actors. Hollywood has a long history of many with huge problems. Jussie’s Wikipedia page says he starting acting at the age of five.

16. Parents should never let their children be child actors. Hollywood has a long history of many with huge problems.

    Good point.

    he could argue that he was in fact attacked by the brothers due to money disputes resulted from drug transaction between them gone wrong and the check he wrote them was for the ecstasy not compensation for setting up a hoax.

    I have been saying all along the letter is what is going to sink him. If the cops have the magazine with the letters cut out, he is toast. Plus the”white powder” which is terrorism.

17. He was getting 60k per episode. I doubt money was his primary motive, even if certainly in case of “success” his job would have been assured for years.

18. Mike
    hope Trump pardons Jussie, the most devastating and humiliating defeat that you can deal your enemy is to show them mercy. Make the person who hates you so much owes you a favor for the rest of his life is quite satisfying.

19. Dave…you win the thread…
    Awesome optics: “Trump Pardons Jussie”
    Trump will be remembered as the worst Hitler-racist-homophobe ever if he did that. Absolute ripper mate!

20. I can hardly wait to see his excuses and explanation of how he is a victim. I live in Virginia and the governor was caught red handed, or black faced if you will, and he is making all sorts of excuses for his behavior and claiming he is a victim. Democrats are such liars. Obama was always pulling the victim card and telling us he was just an innocent bystander.

21. Barry just saw all this bad stuff on the news. It was the first he’d ever heard of it!
    Whatever “it” was.
    And aside from all those times that Hillary emailed him about it.

22. BTW, I hope Jussie is not the name on his birth certificate.

    Birth Name: Jussie Langston Mikha Smollett

    Trivia:
    Brother of Jojo Smollett, Jazz Smollett, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Jake Smollett, and Jocqui Smollett. They all starred together as siblings on the TV series On Our Own (1994).

    He is the son of Janet and Joel Smollett. His father was Ashkenazi Jewish (from a family from Poland and Russia) and his mother is African-American.

    the actor gains a criminal record

    He already had a crime record. I forgot what it was. Barely a felony perhaps.

    I did watch the first season Empire and kind of liked it a lot.

    I watched about half of season one, and couldn’t get into it. I like Terence Howard and Taraji P. Henson is outstanding which is why I checked it out.

    hope Trump pardons Jussie,

    Ha! Good one Dave.

    He was getting 60k per episode.

    I heard $65K per episode. But … This is a wild guess, but Howard probably gets $500K per, and Henson maybe $300K per, or maybe much more.

    I also heard Jussie’s net worth was $500K. I’ll bet there are valets at places where Jussie parks his car that are worth more. Oh, the injustice!

    Child actors? Yup. The healthy survivors might be in the minority.

    Meryl Streep once played Margaret Thatcher and in her research discovered that PM Thatcher once had an all afternoon and night meeting with her top people. Thatcher interrupted the meeting at night and went into nearby kitchen and cooked food for everyone. Streep exclaimed that this was the most amazing thing, because she always utilizes a personal chef whenever she is working.

    Actors are often treated like demigods at work simply because it saves money. Dozens of people must wait through their down time.

23. I’m thinking, “The stocks and the pillory. We need to bring back the Stocks and the pillory.”

24. Justice, no. Social justice. Target his career, family, friends, neighbors, associates, and anyone in his diversity classes. There cannot be justice and unprincipled diversity or color judgments.

25. The most classic example on the relativity of wealth has got to be Raj Rajaratnam. A Wall Street hedge fund guy, he was worth around 1 or $1.5B. But the cool places and people he really wanted to associate with had somehow or other set a de facto threshold of $3B for entry into their sphere.

    So ‘ol Raj decided that insider trading was the quick way to double his wealth, and now he’s wearing an orange jumpsuit. Can you imagine this level of insanity or delusion?

26. The Smolletts have also been outspoken politically and, since their school years, devoted to causes like H.I.V./AIDS prevention and ending apartheid. They were raised in the orbit of the Black Panthers and, lately, have lent their voices to the Black Lives Matter movement. Their trajectory, from child stars to successful adults, is born of their family and its history of activism.

    “Their sense of justice is very strong, and it permeates everything that they do,” said Alfre Woodard, who has known Jussie and Jurnee since they were children; they worked with her at the nonprofit Artists for a New South Africa. “They’re like a model sibling unit. They look out for each other, all the time. And they all reach across and say, ‘O.K., I got my foot in this door; here, grab my hand, we’re going in together.’”

    [snip]

    n African-American from New Orleans, Ms. Smollett met their father, Joel Smollett Sr., a Russian-Polish Jew, in the Bay Area, where they campaigned for civil rights. “My mom was in the movement with Bobby Seale and Huey Newton, and one of her first mentors was Julian Bond,” Mr. Smollett said of the Black Panther founders and the civil rights leader. “To this day, Angela Davis is one of her dearest friends. We’ve spent Mother’s Day with Angela.”

    https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/13/arts/television/the-smollett-family-business-acting-and-activism.html

27. I was impressed with the Chicago police chief, a black man, at the press conference, pointing out that this kind of hoax makes it harder for people to believe actual racial incidents when they occur. It’s like the “me too” movement. If everything is rape, then actual assault and rape don’t make much news.

28. Diversity is a breeding ground for adversity. No color judgments.

    Social justice anywhere is injustice everywhere. One rule of law for everyone.

    Stop the warlock hunts and trials. No trial by press and sentence by mob.

    Also, end age discrimination. #HateLovesAbortion

    H.I.V./AIDS prevention and ending apartheid

    Apartheid was a political separation forced by a two-way conflict between the “Hutu”, “Tutsi” and South Africans. The Black Panthers suffered a similar progression, which continues to plague certain American communities, and many and perhaps most African communities.

29. If this was fiction, it would be a Coen brothers movie. He paid them with a check.

    A check. *smh*

30. Have you seen “Hail, Caesar!” by the Coens? It only involved actors, communists, and kidnapping. I thought it was pretty funny.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hail,_Caesar!

31. John Guilfoyle on February 21, 2019 at 5:39 pm at 5:39 pm said:
    Dave…you win the thread…
    Awesome optics: “Trump Pardons Jussie”
    Trump will be remembered as the worst Hitler-racist-homophobe ever if he did that. Absolute ripper mate!
    * * *
    https://www.jpost.com/International/Trump-launches-global-campaign-to-decriminalize-homosexuality-581162

    A report by The Jerusalem Post detailing the Iranian regime’s public hanging of a man based on a law against gays led US President Donald Trump’s administration to announce on Tuesday that it will be launching a campaign to end the criminalization of homosexuality across the globe.

    US ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell – who is the administration’s most high-profile openly gay official – told the Post on Tuesday that “71 countries criminalize homosexuality and eight will put you to death for being gay. The Trump administration is launching a new push with our European allies to end this human rights outrage.”
    Grenell is spearheading the international effort to stop the persecution of the LGBT community in countries that impose criminal penalties – including the death penalty – on homosexuals.

32. The Chicago Police commissioner made it out like Smollett case Chicago in a bad light which is dishonest. Smolett wasted Chicago police resources but it was Trump supporters who were supposed to be cast in a bad light.

33. Nice family, them Smolletts.
    But I always say that socialists are extremely capitalistic in their personal lives. Always want the best for themselves and their families at costs to others.
    Pigs, in other words.

34. Aesopfan…you got it…for a guy who is supposed to be Hitler-racist-homophobe, President Trump is doing a horrible job of it.

35. Smoll is getting 15,000 minutes of fame, nonetheless.

    Andy Warhol, eat your heart out.

36. Smollett’s defense is beginning to take shape. The check was a payment for drugs, not the attack, and anyhow, even if not true, it was “fake but accurate,” since so many hate crimes against gays take place all the time. Or so activists say.

    Presumably the police case is strong.

37. When he got back to the set he told everyone he really was assaulted. Which, of course, is true.

    No word whether or not he went on to further explain that HE paid for his own assault.

38. Okay…on to the next crisis-of-the-week.
    By this time Monday, the media will be all, “Jussie Smollett? Who dis?”
    And to anyone thinking that’s bigoted, it’s a direct lift from AOC about Joe Liebermann, “once a fiery liberal spirit” now totally superfluous to the Party he supported for decades.

39. AesopFan:

    Yes, indeed. Jussie isn’t useful anymore, not at all.

    By the way, I got your reference:

40. There has been some interesting speculation posted at AmericanThinker about the possible political implications. Jussie grew up in a family of hard-left political activists (his mother was friendly with Angela Davis and the Black Panthers), and he is acquainted with Kamala and Spartacus, who pushed through a completely unnecessary anti-lynching bill in the Senate at exactly the same time as the noose hoax was being planned and (very poorly) executed.

    j e: Bingo! I appreciated the Chicago Police Chief bringing the hammer down but I consider his reduction of Smollett’s motives to money inadequate and something of a cover-up.

    Far better for the left to write Smollett off as a selfish, greedy bastard than one of their own taking action “by any means necessary” for the Movement.

    The pushback from the left is that Harris and Booker were working on their pet anti-lynching bill since 2015, so Smollett’s hoax couldn’t have been the reason. But that ignores that the vote on the bill was upcoming and sailed through on the wings of Smollett’s attack.

    Likely Smollett had some dreams of sugarplum bucks dancing in his head, but the means he chose was predictably political for a black radical.

41. https://www.takimag.com/article/fake-noose/

    Fake Noose!
    by Steve Sailer
    February 20, 2019

    To you or me, Jussie’s tale probably sounds like just about the stupidest hate hoax yet. But that’s because we possess the conceptual category of “hate hoax.” So it’s easy for us to call up from our memories a long list of such instances that previously dominated the headlines (for example, in this year alone, Covington Catholic and poor Jazmine Barnes) and conclude that, wow, this one is even more self-evidently absurd than the UVA fraternity initiation gang rape on broken glass hate hoax that bedazzled the national press in 2014.

    In contrast, The New York Times, for instance, has never even printed the term “hate hoax.” Instead, there’s just an Epidemic of Hate perpetrated by what Tom Wolfe would call the Great White Defendants…and then there are forgotten random incidents that didn’t quite pan out. But to the prestige press there’s no such thing as a pattern of purported hate crimes routinely imploding embarrassingly.

    So, Smollett’s ludicrous yarn became national news, with leading Democratic politicians such as Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Cory Booker rushing to endorse Jussie’s grift.

42. The Free Republic has a good rundown on Smollett’s family activism for radical causes:
    _______________________________________________________

    “My mom was in the movement with Bobby Seale and Huey Newton, and one of her first mentors was Julian Bond,” Mr. Smollett said of the Black Panther founders and the civil rights leader.

    “To this day, Angela Davis is one of her dearest friends. We’ve spent Mother’s Day with Angela.”…”

    https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/13/arts/television/the-smollett-family-business-acting-and-activism.html

    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3729770/posts
    ____________________________________________________

    Smollett has continued his activism with as much focus as his career. His radicalism is a core aspect of his identity. The current confusion about his motivation — why ever would Jussy stage a hate crime? — is self-servingly naive.

43. What you reward, you get more of…

    https://www.yourcentralvalley.com/news/actor-jussie-smollett-pretended-to-be-his-brother-during-california-dui-arrest/1795109371

    CHICAGO (AP)

    A California misdemeanor complaint against Jussie Smollett shows the actor was accused of identifying himself as his younger brother in 2007 when a Los Angeles police officer pulled him over on suspicion of driving under the influence.

    The misdemeanor complaint filed in Los Angeles Superior Court in September 2007 says that Smollett gave the name of his brother, Jake Smollett, when he was asked by an officer. He also signed a false name on the promise to appear in court. Smollett also was later charged with false impersonation, driving under the influence and driving without a valid license.

    Court records show Smollett pleaded no contest to the reduced charge of giving false information, in addition to driving under the influence and driving without a valid license counts. The records show he later completed an alcohol education and treatment program and completed the terms of his sentence in May 2008.

    No details there on what was reduced, and his actual sentence, but it wasn’t enough to deter him from later illegal acts.
    Plus, he was clearly just as dimwitted then as he is now — and totally selfish.
    He risked his brother’s reputation and freedom then, just as he risked serious damage to anyone falsely accused of his “beating,” and caused actual damage to the Nigerian brothers (even though they are complicit and had a choice to decline his hate crime “production); plus damaging the reputations of the entire range of Trump supporters (the media and celebrities are already calling his charges “fake but accurate” — big surprise).

    AND he broke several of Jordan Peterson’s Rules for Living in the process.
    Hmmm. I wonder if those rules actually have good reasons for existing.

44. Well, at least we’ve all gathered a couple of important tips from the reported MO of mastermind Jussie Smollettt, and this whole sorry episode.

    1. Don’t save the paper source you cut your threatening hate mail, paste up letters from.

    2. Never pay your accomplices with a personal check.

45. Other hints–Evading responsibility for your actions can be a real, to coin a phrase, “trial.”

    But, if you can’t use Judge Judy’s favorite i.e. “the other dude did it,” or “the debbil made me do it,” you can always try, “I was on drugs at the time.”

46. “2. Never pay your accomplices with a personal check.”

    Charles Barkely got the point also. Very funny video.
    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/02/charles-barkley-on-point.php

    When AesopSpouse was in law school, one of the criminal law units was on stolen goods, as in how to recognize them, know if your client was dealing in them, etc.
    As one of the students was walking to his car that day, a man approached and offered to sell him “his” typewriter (it was some years ago), as he needed money in a hurry.
    The law student agreed, but asked if he could write a check, as he was short of cash. The seller obliged, and the transaction was completed.
    The law student took the typewriter directly to campus police, who identified the serial number on the still-attached inventory tag, contacted the buyer’s bank, and arrested the seller in the process of cashing his windfall.

    The professor referred to that incident in class for many years afterward.

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