the Jussie Smollett incident - what say you wordforge?

Barkley cracking jokes about Smollet on 'Halftime Report', Shaq can't keep a straight face.

And he's off the show for this season according to CNN.

Barkley and Shaq both making fun of Smollett? Call the FBI we have two more "hate crimes" to report! Fucking TRUMP encouraging this shit, no doubt.

Jesus Christ you are a moron.

I am astounded that this Smollet incident has blown up - dude filed a false report, police figured it out, he was arrested. Justice served. The Right just uses it as a distraction from the very real Alt-Right terrorist attack that was planned right near DC. They are using it to make the claim that because this incident was fake, they are all fake. Right wing terrorism is on the rise and one faked incident can't diminish that.

"I am astounded that this Smollet incident has blown up - dude filed a false report, police figured it out, he was arrested. Justice served. The Right just uses it as a distraction from the very real Alt-Right terrorist attack that was planned right near DC." - The Brew

well riddle me this Batman - if "the right" are using it as a distraction why are both the left and the right stopping to rubberneck at this train wreck?
Why aren't the left leaning media warning their followers to stop paying attention to the Smollett story? Why aren't the left leaning media digging into the thwarted terrorist attack full steam ahead?

And define "the right" please. Some on the right or just a few are using this as a distraction?

Check Fox news, the Smollet case went from 0% coverage to 100% once it was discovered it was a hoax. It went from against their narrative to for their narrative. The same is true of other right wing media outlets. I do put on conservative talk radio on to see if there is any interesting discourse, but it has been ALL SMOLLET ALL THE TIME this week. Then you see the same talking points on facebook and other social media. I would define the right as the people accepting and pushing those narratives.

Now I can't really comment on the left leaning media since I mostly listen to NPR and I don't even recall even hearing about the Smollet story at all. I have heard about the Coast Guard story there. CNN is absolute trash (though I wouldn't call them left or right leaning).

Out of curiosity, how the hell did you think he was going to get a slap on the wrist for this? Police dont like to be jerked around, least of all in Chicago.

If he'd done this in Los Angeles, that may have been the case, but celebs who do crimes outside the Hollywood bubble usually do time.

NPR has maybe mentioned the story a handful of times but then again, they're a news organization, not infotainment. They have many other stories their audience cares about. Unlike the right-wing outlets, they're aware of the fact that people lie but that oppression still exists in spite of the liars.

I wonder if our detective squads scrutinized Susan Baker's infamous sob story about the black guy who stole her car with the kids in it this closely.

I listen to NPR daily. Yes they were talking about Smollett.

I did. "Some black dudes stole my kids" another one of the things that make antennae twitch. White woman says that...she's guilty.

I was wrong once though. This happened just down the road from me. I drive by where the body was found fairly often. The father didn't try to blame anyone (although there was a mysterious "jogger" involved), but non-verbal autistic kid out-runs father in a park and disappears only to turn up dead in a creek two miles away? Dad did it. I had no doubt.

Apparently not though.

When Jaycee Lee Duggar went missing in 1991 and the last person to see her was a stepdad who'd just moved the family to the area for a new job and swears a black van stopped as she crossed the street to snatch her up, it's not hard to understand why he was considered suspect #1 in the eyes of America.

Fair enough, I probably missed it then. Couldn't have been very pervasive then.

Let's not forget JonBenet Ramsey. Everyone assumed her parents did her in. Turned out not to be so.

Did it? The impulse buy tabloids in the grocery store checkout say otherwise.

Hmmmm, last I heard a dude had confessed to it.

https://www.rollingstone.com/cultur...-murder-gary-oliva-confession-letters-778025/

I guess he never confessed to LAW ENFORCEMENT anyway.

There's never been any conclusive evidence for a conviction.

My opinion is someone in that family did it and covered it up. But the police are right not to arrest because they cannot piece together a motive or pin down any conclusive evidence. Same for Casey Anthoney, loony sociopath that she is.

Given how they tracked the brothers it seems to me the cops should be able to do better than that on murders. I actually have to agree somewhat with @Dayton3 here. This much effort to catch a guy who beat himself up and they cannot catch a murderer? Where are the priorities in that police department? People are dying and they make this the priority to dig through every camera record around and track the brothers?

I was wrong once though. This happened just down the road from me. I drive by where the body was found fairly often. The father didn't try to blame anyone (although there was a mysterious "jogger" involved), but non-verbal autistic kid out-runs father in a park and disappears only to turn up dead in a creek two miles away? Dad did it. I had no doubt.

Apparently not though. - MAOHS

Yes I remember hearing about that. Yes a lot of people were pointing their fingers at the dad.
Weird a lot of autistic kids are fascinated with water. About ten years ago here at Fort Gordon my son and I were leaving the post and the gate guards were checking outgoing cars.
They almost never do that. They wouldn't say why either. On the radio on the way home we heard that a child was missing from Fort Gordon!

Later on that day we found out the tragic news. A family with an autistic daughter had just got stationed at Fort Gordon in one of the housing areas adjacent to a lake. The daughter loved the lake when the family would take walks. One day the daughter snuck out and.........yep. They found her body in the lake. They put up a little flower memorial on the bank of the lake where they found her body. It was kind of spooky fishing there by myself when it started to get dark, thinking a young girl died right there where I was fishing.

In defense of local law enforcement in the JonBenet Ramsey case, that was the ONLY murder in that city the whole year. So it isn't like the police force was a well honed machine in dealing with homicides.

Chicago is much like Baltimore in one regard: witnesses don't like to cooperate with the police. Most murders occur in neighborhoods where people have a mistrust of police. Also factor in people are afraid of bad guys (murderers or friends of murderers) finding out they cooperated with the police. Often that shoots down (no pun intended) any chance of finding the suspects from the git-go.
Luckily here in Augusta most of the witnesses have no problem talking to the police when it comes to murder. That's one plus about living here.

I don't recall anyone here attacking the law enforcement in that case such that they NEEDED defending.

No one here but back in 1996 I remember lots of media criticism over what was seen as the clumsy handling of the case by law enforcement at that time. Note, that what really got the public attention in 1996 was not the murder of Jon Benet Ramsay itself but all the material that came out of her at toddler beauty pageants and what people saw as her mothers exploitation of her as a "pageant mom"

Yes, but the police say they tracked the brothers through camera footage and the cab and ride share vehicles they had footage of them entering. Some of the footage came from them getting front door camera footage. It seems like the solid evidence for their locations and identities came from them following and tracking them through electronic means which makes your idea poor (AKA black people living in bad neighborhoods) people not snitching, because black people do not snitch, in the realm of stupid things white racists say. No one had to snitch if the police track them with cameras and commercial transportation records along with credit card information.

Why can't that be done on other crimes? How is it that we can track these two guys on a night with very few people outside using street cameras and identifying them from vehicle to vehicle back to their home on murder, rape, and assault charges? How is it that cities can be so far behind on processing rape kits, but they can spend hours and hours tracking these guys for a victimless crime? What about real crimes with real victims? It is not like this occurred in a city with little to no crime. The area is a mess with all sorts of crime, and it would seem to me that they could do a lot better on some really devastating criminal acts if they put this much effort into catching some people who did something worse than paying people to beat them up.

But I see it is good enough for you that other crimes plague black and poor neighborhoods because according to you they deserve it because they do not snitch.

From what I've heard it was Smollett's obvious awareness of the street cameras that caught the interest and inspired the suspicions of police in the first place. I guess if you're an actor you're always going to be looking for the camera.

This would make no sense. If he was aware of the camera locations over all he would have had his friends avoid being caught on camera all the way back to their house. Do think about what you are saying. He was not a master criminal considering he paid them with a check. If he did spot the camera he was too stupid to know which way it was facing if he wanted the crime to be caught on camera.

I am glad that street cameras hel catch people today. The Boston bombers were identified by all the cameras around and caught quickly because the authorities spotted them. In this case I am glad Smollett was caught by the police doing their job because we can have more faith in them doing their job. But when hearing about low conviction rates for much more serious crimes the question of what motivates the cops to do this much investigation comes to mind. I wonder if a black man making them look lazy and worthless because they could not find his attackers was what actually motivated them to put this much effort into a bullshit crime they would have normally left unsolved.

It is clear they do not put this much effort into solving much worse crimes around the city and that could be one of the reasons the crime rate is through the roof, and possibly a reason smallett thought he could pull a fast one because the cops would not put the effort into solving the crime.

One would think that by alleging a hate crime against a somewhat well known actor (double hate crime if you consider black and gay) that for the police it would be all hands on deck.

Police like to win high profile cases as much as anyone.

post # 984 Tererun totally misses the point yet again. But true to form she manages to twist what I said around through her special type of pretzel logic into making me out to be a racist.
She never fails to disappoint.

"From what I've heard it was Smollett's obvious awareness of the street cameras that caught the interest and inspired the suspicions of police in the first place. I guess if you're an actor you're always going to be looking for the camera." - Dayton

Oh he'll be "looking for the camera" for a long time because nobody will hire his ass now! Just kidding.....you might catch him on COPS or Locked Up Abroad now and then.

From what I remember the police were skeptical of Susan Smiths claims from the beginning given she claimed she had been carjacked in the middle of a major intersection and no one seemed to have witnessed it. I remember the father of the boys was also skeptical immediately of her claims as just after she reported the boys taken she asked her ex husband if he minded her dating the rich guy she was interested in

I have to wonder - was this guy so brainwashed that he actually thought the police wouldn't investigate this?