There is crime in Chicago, plenty of it, so much that there’s no real need for fake crime for the cops to waste their time solving. However, that didn’t keep Jussie Smollet from his … what was it? … publicity stunt? … political theatre? I’ve stayed away from that story on the off-chance that it wasn’t a hoax, but it’s now fairly clear the only crime that may have been filing a false police report. Frankly, I’ve had more interesting things to deal with than yet another bit of poorly crafted fake news.

Other bloggers have written about it, and I recommend this piece by my podcast partner Stacy McCain and this one by Peter Ingemi.

Stacy goes through the facts of the story, beginning with the temperature in Chicago (-4 F) when the imaginary assault was supposed to have happened and noting how flimsy the tale was from the start.

Common-sense skepticism is our best defense against the myths created by what Trump likes to call the “fake news” media. Maybe next time, they’ll get away with it, but this latest debacle, coming on the heels of the Left’s debunked smear of the Covington Catholic boys, has only further eroded the credibility of the president’s enemies. It’s gonna be four below zero in Hell before we trust them again.

Peter makes the interesting observation that the Democrats’ racism appears to have become inverted over the last century. He compares Jussie Smollet’s claims and the Left’s reaction to them to those of Mayella Ewell and the reaction of the all-white jury in To Kill a Mocking Bird.

He knew his community, the solid Democrat liberal/Hollywood/Media left. He knew their prejudices and counted on him backing up his story because it fit everything they believed. … The adjectives might have changed in 70-100 years but the Democrat playbook remains exactly the same.

Read both of them all the way through.