Jussie smollett

Thursday

Neal Pollack

Jussie Smollett’s conspiracy theory

Like a cold sore that pops up when your immune system is busy elsewhere, or a text-thread chain that you thought had concluded, Jussie Smollett has returned to the conversation. He has a new single from Rowdy Records, a movie (which he directed, co-wrote, and stars in) on Tubi, a role in the Fox reality series ‘Special Forces’ that airs in September and he features in a Netflix documentary, The Truth About Jussie Smollett? that airs later this month. Now he’s doing interviews as well. In a chat with Variety’s Tatiana Siegel this week, Smollett claims that the alleged hate-crime at the hands of two MAGA-hat wearing, noose-holding, bleach-splashing white guys he experienced in 2019, later revealed to the world as a hoax, was, in fact, not a hoax.

Jussie Smollett

Wednesday

The Spectator

Santos kicked out of Congress

The House of Representatives kicked out its only Jew-ish member today, sending George Santos into the pages of history as one of only a handful of House members to be booted from the body. Former congressman Santos had an eventful second wedding anniversary yesterday, as he held a feisty, fiery press conference to proclaim his innocence — but declined to ask any of his colleagues to defend him against the latest charges. This third attempt at expulsion proved to be the charm for Santos’s foes, who rode the wave of an almost-comedic House Ethics report that alleged Santos spent donor dollars on everything from OnlyFans subscriptions (which he somewhat denied) to Botox (which he basically confirmed).

jussie smollett
Amber Duke

Is Jussie Smollett the worst hate crime hoaxer of all time?

Former Empire actor Jussie Smollett appeared in court for the first time this week to defend himself against allegations that he fabricated an elaborate hate crime for attention. Chicago prosecutors say Smollett wasted police time and resources by sending them on a wild goose chase against his alleged attackers — resources which surely could have been better used elsewhere, given the city's astronomical murder rate. Early details shared during the trial don't help Smollett's case. Prosecutors showed the jury surveillance video of an alleged "dry run" of the orchestrated attack. The video, taken a day before the incident, shows Smollett walking around the area with the Osundairo brothers.

Wednesday

Cockburn

Watch the Jussie Smollett hate hoaxers re-enact the ‘crime’

Is this the best video to grace the internet today? Cockburn thinks yes. Check out Abel and Ola Osundairo, the Nigerian brothers who allegedly perpetrated a fake hate crime against Empire actor Jussie "Juicy" Smollett, re-enacting how they carried out the staged attack: https://twitter.com/foxnation/status/1635332394159939593 The clip is from Fox Nation's new documentary on the Jussie Smollett hate hoax crime, Anatomy of a Hoax — and is pure comedy. The Osundairo brothers previously testified that Jussie paid them to stage an anti-black, anti-gay attack against him so that he could gain sympathy and clout on social media. Jussie told police that he was physically attacked by two white men wearing "Make America Great Again" hats who recognized him from the show Empire.

Osundairo brothers re-enact Jussie Smollett hate hoax (Screenshot: Twitter)

Friday

Amber Duke

Surprise! BYU found no evidence of racial slurs at volleyball game

All signs point to the BYU-Duke volleyball incident being just another hate crime hoax. Add it to the list with Jussie Smollett's run-in with MAGA hat-wearing, bleach-pouring racists outside a Chicago subway, Bubba Wallace's terrifying encounter with a noose in a NASCAR garage, or a Colorado Rockies fan's injudicious shouting of a racial slur at a black batter. Duke University volleyball player Rachel Richardson claimed after a match against Brigham Young University two weeks ago that a member of the BYU student section was repeatedly calling her the N-word while she was serving. The only problem? There's no evidence it ever happened. BYU provided an update on its investigation into the incident on Friday.

byu duke volleyball rachel richardson

Thursday

Amber Duke

A volleyball player’s hate crime accusation falls apart

Duke University volleyball player Rachel Richardson claimed that she was the target of racial slurs during a match against Brigham Young University this past weekend — but her story seems to have less evidence than the rape allegations once leveled against members of her school's lacrosse team. It was actually Lesa Pamplin, Richardson's godmother, who first made the accusation on Twitter. She claimed that Richardson was called the N-word "every time she served. She was threatened by a white male that told her to watch her back going to the team bus. A police officer had to be put by their bench." Richardson later confirmed the alleged incident in her own Twitter statement.

byu duke volleyball rachel richardson

Wednesday

Teresa Mull

The white guilt in your coffee

How do you take your coffee? With cream? Sugar? A splash of white shame? “The unbearable whiteness of coffee” is the click- and race-baiting headline of a Fast Company article that’s making the internet rounds (my innocent online purchase of Chemex coffee filters must have prompted this suggested guilt trip). I really didn’t want my most sacred morning ritual — and bright spot of many afternoons, for that matter — to be added to the list of things I shouldn’t enjoy because it’s racist. So I poured myself a large mug of fortifying Joe — potentially my last — and gripping it tightly, read the dreaded article and did some digging.

coffee

Saturday

Stephen L. Miller

The media will never apologize for going all in on Jussie Smollett

No one forced mainstream media outlets and cable news channels to go all in on Jussie Smollett’s fantastical tale of being mugged in subzero temperatures at two o’clock in the morning by two mysterious MAGA-hat-wearing perpetrators in January 2019. “The Racist, Homophobic Attack on Jussie Smollett Is America's Endgame” cried GQ in one of several instances of the mainstream press abandoning all journalistic ethics (again) or skepticism in favor of political confirmation bias. Once again they handed a giant bat to Donald Trump and others on the right who were accused of being second-hand enablers of the Smollett attack — and now, rightly, they’re being smashed for it.

jussie smollett

Friday

Roger Kimball

Silence of the Jussie Smollett defenders

Some people say that the only certainties in life are death and taxes. Nonsense. There is also the certainty that in America circa 2021 anti-black racist events are hoaxes perpetrated by left-wing whites or, more often, by blacks themselves. Right now, the world is mesmerized by the case of Jussie Smollett. Until he faked the “racist” attack on himself back in 2019, no one you knew had heard of Smollett. Now he is famous, not for being an actor, but for being a race-baiting hate monger. The fake-news, enemy-of-the-people, Trump-hating media slobbered all over that story. So did the slimy Democratic politicians sup daily on fifty-seven varieties of “racism” because they think it buys votes.

jussie smollett

Friday

Chadwick Moore

Hey Elleniot, aren’t you a bit too old for this?

Americans found themselves divided into two camps this week — the mildly skeptical and the fervently disinterested — when the actress formally known as Ellen Page announced she was a boy called Elliot and, in fact, always has been a boy.In the proclamation, posted to Instagram, Page not only came out as transgender — meaning she was born one sex but identifies as the other — but also as non-binary — which means she actually has no sex. Yes, it makes no sense. But try not to think too much about, she clearly hasn’t either.You’re forgiven if you might be hesitant to rewrite the science textbooks for a 33-year-old actress so gullible she wept on national television over the Jussie Smollett hate crime hoax.

elleniot ellen elliot page

Wednesday

Chadwick Moore

Jussie Smollett, reigning queen of the gaslight

MAGA country’s most famous resident wants his C-list career back. And some of the most despicable cretins on the left have stepped up to help him.Perhaps you didn’t catch the news last week; that alone is telling. Muslim activist Linda Sarsour co-signed, along with other left-wing agitators, an open letter accusing the Chicago Police Department of fabricating charges against Empire actor Jussie Smollett after Smollett staged a hate crime against himself in 2019.The letter was also signed by longtime Communist party member Angela Davis and actor Danny Glover (who apparently isn’t ‘too old for this shit’.

jussie smollett

Saturday

Anonymous

Confessions of the secret suburban Trump moms: Virginia

Suburban women are understood to be one of the most crucial demographic groups in the presidential election on November 3. Many pollsters currently predict that President Donald Trump will lose due to his unpopularity with that category of voters. But have the Democrats really reclaimed the suburbs? Or are there more likely Republican voters than the polls suggest? The Spectator tracked down a series of so-called 'closet Trump' voters, women from the suburbs who would never publicly voice their support for the President for fear of recrimination in their social circles. These are their stories. Northern VirginiaI have always thought of myself as someone who is honest with others.

suburban trump moms

Monday

Ben Sixsmith

Could Tom Wolfe have invented the Jussie Smollett story?

The case of Jussie Smollett is, among other things, an accidental tribute to the life and work of Tom Wolfe. Wolfe, who died last year, annoyed progressives with his portrayal of white guilt and black radicalism in Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, and the contempt he expressed for identity politics and fashionable attitudes in other works. Wolfe, who coined the term the ‘Me Decade’, delighted in mocking cultural narcissism. He argued that America was full of ‘status spheres’ in which politicians, artists, activists and others jockeyed for cultural capital. One of his favorite targets was fashionable victimhood.

jussie smollett

Wednesday

Jesse Longman

The whitewashing of Jussie Smollett

Justice is blind. But, as it turns out, she’s not unwilling to negotiate. If it buys her some silence, she’ll play ball.Yesterday, Jussie Smollett was exonerated by the District Attorney for the state of Chicago. Like Trump, the celebrity victim has been cleared of all charges, though not cleared of wrongdoing. Whatever that means. Dead or alive? It’s Schrödinger’s cat.No one knows what to say exactly because the truth may be too damaging. After all, who knows what happens when you jail a young black gay celebrity? How much abuse would he endure? And if they do kill him, what will happen to our prison system? How much will all of this cost? Oh Jesus, make it go away!Or that’s what I figure happened. Closed doors won’t answer.

jussie smollett

Tuesday

Daniella Greenbaum Davis

The privilege of Jussie Smollett

There are many details and facts in the Jussie Smollett saga that we don’t yet know. And because the Cook County State’s Attorney announced today that they are dropping the charges against the actor, there’s a good chance that we never will. But there are some things we do know: Smollett had originally told the police that he was a victim of what clearly sounded like a hate crime. Per his story, two people attacked him, yelled homophobic and racist sentiments, screamed ‘this is MAGA country,’ and even tied a noose around his neck. After weeks of investigation, Chicago police determined that Smollett had in fact hired two acquaintances to stage the attack and was a victim of nothing besides his own misguided agenda.

jussie smollett
’michael avenatti’s
Jacob Heilbrunn

Michael Avenatti’s delusions of grandeur

His fans are relieved. He’s getting off scot-free. I’m referring of course to Jussie Smollett, the Empire actor whose charges were dropped today in Chicago. It’s a good week if you’re in the crosshairs of the law — unless, of course, you’re Michael Avenatti, the quondam lawyer for Stormy Daniels who got busted, if that’s the appropriate word, for trying to shake down Nike for a cool $25 million. In Greek, Nike means ‘victory’ but Avenatti looks to be going down to a nasty defeat. The slick talking lawyer had delusions of grandeur all along, reckoning first that he could bring down Trump with a lawsuit, then viewing himself as presidential timber. He’s the one that got felled by law enforcement.

Saturday

Dominic Green

Jussie Smollett’s journey from dehab to rehab

Jussie Smollett is a long way from rehabilitation. In fact, he has a long way to go before he reaches full dehabilitation. That’s a real word, and I’m willing to hire two Nigerian bodybuilders to prove it while wearing MAGA hats. Dehabilitation is the process of becoming estranged from family, friends and society, usually because of something disgusting like leprosy, or filing false reports of racist and homophobic assault to the police. Smollett is now in dehab, but his apology to the cast of Empire suggests that he thinks he’s moving into rehab. This means he hasn’t yet understood the mess he’s in. This is America. There can only be rehab after dehab.

jussie smollett dehab

Friday

Roger Kimball

Jussie Smollett, and the strange alchemy of egalitarian despotism

One of my favorite observations made by F. A. Hayek concerns the semantic detonations of the word ‘social.’ Especially pernicious, he noted, was the conjunction of the word ‘social’ with the word ‘justice.’ ‘Much the worst use of the word “social,”’ he wrote, and ‘one that wholly destroys the meaning of the word it qualifies, is in the almost universally used phrase “social justice.”’ There are, Hayek continued, other instances of this sort of ‘semantic fraud.’ Consider the phrase ‘People’s Democracy.’ The one thing you can be sure of about states describing themselves thus is that they are totalitarian, not democratic.

jussie smollett

Wednesday

Godfrey Elfwick

I am holding an open audition for my attackers

Jussie Smollett told authorities he was attacked on January 29 by two men who were ‘yelling out racial and homophobic slurs.’ He went on to claim that one attacker had put a noose around his neck and poured an unknown chemical substance on him. Since this was first reported, so-called ‘evidence’ has emerged to suggest that the attack was possibly staged, with Smollett knowing his ‘attackers’ before the event, and that he even went so far as to pay them. Now, the drama surrounding this seems a complex one, but it’s really very simple. Even if he did stage the attack himself, it’s still valid. Jussie Smollett is a busy man. He does not have time to wait around idly for genuine homophobic racists to jump him in the street.

godfrey elfwick empire jussie smollett attackers