The Second Time Around

I don't have to tell you how hard the world is sucking at the moment, do I?

Inflation is taking off like a rocket with an inexhaustible fuel supply. A nation suffering from foreign conflict fatigue can't summon a better response to Vladimir Putin's barbarism than to endure higher energy costs.

And even as we sit poised to collectively turn our clocks forward in recognition of daylight savings time, the thermometer reads but eight-degrees this morning.

Joy.  

But then the news of Jussie Smollett's sentencing drops into your lap like a warm croissant and you are made glad. While Donald Trump isn't in front of a firing squad or in a maximum security prison for committing treason and inciting sedition, at least one turd—Jussie Smollett—has been flushed.

Being the lead actor in a hit TV series wasn't enough for Jussie. The empty maw of his want wouldn't close until Jussie had even more money and even more attention and even more of everything that celebrities wallow in once they become celebrities.

After a failed bid to heighten his influence on the show, Jussie got it in his head to stage a spontaneous hate crime. After all—it wasn't too much of a stretch, was it? As an actor, he'd seen directors put together dramas his entire career. He could do that, too.

Only he couldn't. He fucked up. Central to the case (at least in my eyes) was how an impulsive trip to an all-night sandwich shop intersected with a carefully-staged, pre-planned hate crime.

Hmmm. 

Yeah, that is one hell of a stretch.

Initially, it all went Jussie's way. Kim Foxx, our grandstanding Cook Country State's Attorney, invoked all manner of civic outrage as celebrities poured from the woodwork in knee-jerk support. One even had ties to a former president.

This while the Chicago Police Department earnestly investigated, racking up six-figures worth of overtime in the process.

Yeah, this was a great, big deal.

Then it got weird. As it became apparent things hadn't unfolded the way Jussie said they had, it all just disappeared. The case, the charges, everything. Gone. Like water on a Las Vegas sidewalk.

Foxx issued all sorts of officious-sounding babble that didn't explain anything. The feds took note and began an independent investigation.

This time, the charges stuck. Without the inaction of a Black SA seemingly only interested in decriminalizing crime and any and all Black people caught committing it, logic and objectivity triumphed.

Yes, Smollett provoked a powerful dislike in me. He is a shit. Among public figures, he is second only to president forty-five. Smollett is an inveterate narcissist, a congenital liar and a slavish attention whore.

Which would be fine if it didn't involve municipalities and hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars. Not to mention cheapening actual hate crimes and their victims.

So I offer thanks to the prosecutors and to Judge James Linn for cementing the end of this civic embarrassment in place—once and for all. It's a shame Judge Linn wasn't sitting on the bench for the Laquan McDonald and CPD trials.

With buy-in just short of a Trump-tard, Smollett's family are decrying his sentencing with every bit of mental illness they can muster. My favorite is the statement from Smollett's brother Jacqui, who claims Jussie is going to jail for being attacked.

Ugh-huh.

And how much Kool-Aid was required to embrace that, Jacqui?

Gas is trending towards five-bucks a gallon. Another miserable winter refuses to release its grip on northeastern Illinois. And the once-invincible Bulls have been exposed and now appear decidedly vincible.

But Jussie Smollett is going to prison.

Yay.