Here, you’ll love the latest:
“This is a whitewash of justice,” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said (standing in front of a wall of cops at his press conference)
Rahm doesn’t get out of of bed unless there’s something in it for him. And now he’s taking the side of the police over the prosecutor? I’m very, very confused now.
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It’ll really annoy the right people, anyway.
Dam! My right wing loony tRumpanzie boss is going to be cranky this week.
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If nobody knows what really happened, did it happen at all?
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True; it’s a superficial one that doesn’t impact my life directly.
Smollett’s bridges with the Black & LGBTQ communities are still burnt, though.
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Will his lawyer get such swift justice of his own?
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Now he needs to tweet, “TOTAL AND COMPLETE EXONERATION.”
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Yeah, whatever’s happened, it’s not been good for Smollett or those impacted by his actions (or… lack of actions). But the damage is done and the clusterfuck at least isn’t adding more harm to it.
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That seems even more baffling–if Foxx was going to go against the police on this, why the hell did she overcharge so ridiculously in the first place instead of seeking an appropriate charge? And this situation where he’s claiming actual innocence with the police, mayor’s office, and prosecutors insisting that their version of facts is actually correct is the worst of all possible worlds. Nothing is determined by an actual finder of fact in a trial, nothing is aired publicly, and we’re left with competing narratives rather than any actual justice. Bleh.
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And that use of the term “whitewashing”…that’s an odd choice of words. I know it can mean that, but it also means something totally different in film and tv. Every additional event in this story just adds to the “this makes no sense at all!”
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You think so? I can see the alt-right clinging to this event and recirculating it from now until the death of the sun anytime one of “them or theirs” is accused of anything relating to a hate crime or racism. But I’m cynical.
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I can’t speak for all Chicago cops, but I once had a number of friends and acquaintances on the force, and hoo-boy, a lot of them really hated black people and were proud of how they got away with fucking them over, hurting them and destroying their lives. In my opinion, it seems likely the State’s Atty found extreme fabrication and fuckery on the part of the PD and they’re all trying to make it go away.
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everything about this case is soooooo chicago. what a screwed up town.
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Not to mention that shit show of a press conference the police superintendent gave a few weeks ago, where he clearly had already convicted Smollett. Maybe the prosecutor just believed that had completely tainted the case, and the best way out was to just drop it. But then, why not give the superintendent and the mayor a head’s up? I dunno. Again, nothing about this makes sense.
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The thing is, I didn’t even call it! When the news hit that he was attacked, I thought it was terrible that he was attacked. Then when the news hit that he’d been arrested I thought it was terrible that he’d stage an attack. Now that the news has hit that the charges have been dropped I think it’s terrible that the police did whatever the hell they did that was wrong, because it sure as hell looks like they did something wrong.
I think I’m behaving in a completely rational way: accept things for what they appear to be but change your mind in the face of new evidence. I think another, arguable rational way to behave is to be super skeptical of all news stories the day they come out and take a “wait and see” approach.
What I find really dubious is being super skeptical of the black guy getting beaten up, feeling it is so important to be skeptical than you have to tell others people to do it, and not super skeptical of the black guy getting arrested. There were people practically gloating in the Smollett-was-arrested thread that they had it right. This ought to be a real look-at-yourself-in-the-mirror moment for anyone who did that.
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Foxx is a friend of Smollett’s family. She recused herself but her office still handled the case.
Yeah this keeps getting weirder.
Wasn’t Smollett’s lawyer is involved in the extortion charges against Avenatti that came out the other day too?
Dismissed/dropped charges don’t really mean “cleared” either.
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Oh gee, the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police sent a letter in support of the police?
That guy, Kevin Graham, also thought the Chicago police should investigate themselves, when they were the ones who were caught making false police reports.
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i’m prognosticating gladiatorial games before 2020
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Ad-homming the source of the criticism doesn’t invalidate the criticism. Given that Foxx was friendly enough to be exchanging texts with Smollett’s family members about her efforts to help him then a special prosecutor doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.
That’s not what he did there.
An “ad hom” would be a fallacious accusation irrelevant to the actual topic at hand; it’s a fact that the CPD is historically corrupt as fuck.
Everyone involved in this case is untrustworthy.
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