Free Republic

When one of the most famous black and gay men in America is not safe, the message is clearer than it has ever been.

If Love means never having to say you're sorry (it doesn't), then being a member of the media means never having to admit you were wrong (it does). I wouldn't write about the Jussie Smollett case and his conviction for lying about a hoax he perpetrated if it didn't reflect something seriously wrong in the culture. Smollett was convicted in Chicago last week of faking an attack by a supposed Trump-MAGA man he claimed uttered racist and homophobic slurs. Normally, I would ignore this story, along with other tabloid trash stories I don't care about, such as the Kardashians, Harry...

The White House admitted Friday there were “lessons learned” by President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris and their staffs after they rushed to condemn a faked hate crime orchestrated by actor Jussie Smollett during the 2020 presidential campaign. “I think there are lessons learned perhaps for everybody who commented on the time,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said when asked to comment on Thursday’s guilty verdict on charges leveled against Smollett for staging the fake hate crime and lying to the police about it.

A reporter asks about Biden and Harris’ tweets on Jussie Smollett.“Since the guilty verdict, are there any lessons learned here on rushing to judgement when a crime is alleged?”Psaki: “There are lessons learned, perhaps for everybody … including former president Trump.” pic.twitter.com/wtfzWnCart— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) December 10, 2021

Whenever fake hate crimes are exposed — and as my PJM colleague Victoria Taft points out, there are hundreds of them — the argument is always advanced that we shouldn’t pay attention to the exposé because it would make reporting of “real” hate crimes more difficult.We hear the same argument when a woman fakes a sexual assault. We have to treat the assault as real because not doing so would make women reluctant to report a rape.Why should this be so? In fact, exposing hoaxes doesn’t appear to deter anyone from trying again. Why should it deter anyone from reporting...

This did not wear well. On February 22, 2019, a story posted on Gentleman's Quarterly website was headlined: "The Racist, Homophobic Attack on Jussie Smollett Is America's Endgame. When one of the most famous black and gay men in America is not safe, the message is clearer than it has ever been." One of the most famous black and gay men? Count me among the multitudes who said, "Who is Jussie Smollett?" GQ.com, of course, referred to the alleged hate crime committed one winter night in Chicago against actor Smollett, coming back from Subway toting a tuna fish foot-long sandwich....

To risk others' death and national division for personal vanity is a sin too serious for punishment in this world alone. Jussie Smollett and Hillary Clinton have a lot in common. They both faked crimes in order to achieve personal glory. They continue to cause unnecessary and bitter division by refusing to take any responsibility for their actions. And neither of them is nearly as talented in their respective professions as each believes. It's a surreal thing to watch people who walk through life with such little regard for truth or virtue that they manage to seem even more haughty...

Embattled actor Jussie Smollett still faces a $130,000 lawsuit from the City of Chicago - and more legal trouble from the brothers he hired to attack him - after he was convicted of staging his own assault in a botched career move. The former Empire star dominated headlines in January 2019 after he claimed he was victimized in a racist, homophobic attack, but investigators soon determined his story was a hoax. The Chicago Police Department came to the conclusion after more than two dozen cops spent weeks investigating the bogus story, logging 1,836 overtime hours in the process, a July...

The guilty verdicts in the Jussie Smollett fake hate crime trial underscore just how radical Chicago State’s Attorney Kim Foxx has proven to be. She campaigned for office in 2015 advocating a radical brand of “criminal justice reform,” including no bail policies for almost every defendant and reduced sentencing, and during the riots last summer, her office adopted a “presumption of dismissal” for certain low-level charges. Then came the Jussie Smollett case and the inexplicable dropping of charges against the actor, despite other prosecutors in her office claiming they had a “slam dunk” of a case. Former Chicago Mayor Rahm...

Now that entertainer and Obama White House star Jussie Smollett has been convicted on multiple counts of faking an anti-gay, anti-black, anti-Trump hate crime against himself, what do we hear? We hear a predictable chorus from Woke Media World: Let it go. Forget it. Leave it alone. Yes, he’s guilty. And that’s a good thing. But let’s never speak of Jussie again. The mention of his name vexes us. Hush. Please, just let it go. Really? Let it go? Just forget about it? I ask you, cui bono, who profits by not speaking of Smollett again? Who profits by pretending...

CHICAGO, IL—People are protesting in the streets today after human rights groups revealed Jussie Smollett will be forced to share a jail cell with his racist attackers. "This is an outrage!" said Reverend Jesse Jackson. "Not only was Mr. Smollett attacked by hateful racist bigots who want to tear our country apart, but now he has to share a jail cell with them? This is cruel and unusual punishment. This is the kind of thing that happens in our white supremacist country. Send me money!" Criminal justice watchdogs also revealed that in addition to sharing a cell with his attackers,...

The Chicago police chief who arrested Jussie Smollett for staging a race-baiting attack on himself said Friday that he would have let the actor go free if he’d just apologized and admitted that he was lying early on. Eddie Johnson, head of the Chicago Police Department in 2019, wouldn’t have pursued charges against the “Empire” actor if he’d simply admitted he’d made it all up, he told “Morning in America.”

Thursday on Fox Business Network’s “The Evening Edit,” Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC) equated Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) to actor Jussie Smollett, who was convicted of five counts of felony disorderly conduct for faking a hate crime in Chicago. Bishop said because Schiff has been constantly pushing the narrative that Donald Trump colluded with Russia in the 2016 presidential election, that he was “the Jussie Smollett of Congress.”

Gutfeld!' panel reacts to the trial of Smollett who was found guilty on multiple felony counts of disorderly conduct in what prosecutors said amounted to false reporting to police about a hate crime

Jussie Smollett was found guilty Thursday of staging and falsely reporting to police that he had been the victim of a hate crime in Chicago three years ago. A jury in Cook County, Ill., found the former “Empire” actor guilty on five of six charges of felony disorderly conduct, according to the Associated Press. He was acquitted on one. Sentencing for Smollett, who was not taken into custody, will take place at a later date. His representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Smollett, who is Black and gay, told Chicago police in January 2019 that he...

Actor Jussie Smollett, the one-time star of the TV drama “Empire,” was found guilty on Thursday of staging a hate crime against himself in what prosecutors said was a bid to gain sympathy and bolster his career. Prosecutors said Smollett, who is Black and openly gay, lied to police when he told them that he was accosted on a dark Chicago street by two masked strangers in January 2019. Smollett said the men threw a noose around his neck and poured chemicals on him while yelling racist and homophobic slurs and expressions of support for former President Donald Trump.