By John Kass

The fake hate-crime trial of Chicago’s favorite little clown, Jussie Smollett, began this week in Chicago, in Cook County.

The county of Cook sits in the heart of America, a place of mass political dysfunction and corruption that is conveniently ignored by coastal media elites.  Cook County for decades has been run by a series of powerful, evil clowns, as taxpayers and refugees lucky enough to have fled the spiking, violent crime, continuous corruption and onerous taxes know all too well.

Yes, politicians treat those who remain like a bunch of chumbolones. But the people don’t call it Crook County for nothing.

Smollett, the entertainer, is the only clown who has been charged with crimes in this hate-crime hoax case.

But is Jussie the only clown in the drama? Oh, no. Heck no.

Liberal media carried his hateful water on their news networks and print, gushing their concern and fanning his angry race baiting flames to weaponize his claims for political purposes. And the allies of corrupt corporate legacy media–those Democratic politicians who championed him and used him, from the president on down–are now taking a rather low profile.

Media and the politicians really don’t want to be reminded of Smollett. These big, evil and rather powerful clowns hope you won’t remember their roles in the play.

But my problem is that I can’t help but remember. And isn’t it rather cruel and heartless of them to slink off and abandon Jussie in this, his time of need? So I ask them, and you, in the name of all that’s decent:

Where are the other big clowns in the Smollett case?

Don’t hide in the little clown car big boys and girls. Stand up,  you big clowns. Clown up!

As clowns go, Smollett, once the star of the “Empire” TV show, is a rather pathetic, diminutive clown, powerless, in the corner, staring at his shoes. He could have triggered racial violence, but now, in the grand scheme of things, he’s insignificant.

“John, don’t beat him up too much, he’s really nothing,” said a good friend who thought I might be too tough on Jussie.  “You wouldn’t spend two minutes talking to him. He’s more like a fart in the wind in an open field in December.”

Agreed. I should feel pity for him, but I don’t. Still, as clowns go, he’s powerless, kind of like those “little people” clowns at the circus, with their frantic movements and absurd pantomimes delighting kids of all ages under the big top of big media and big politics.

Yet he was king clown of all media once, for a while, wasn’t he? And why? Because of the big, (now hidden) clowns in media and politics who jumped to leverage him for power, to use his face and his claims that Republicans were racist homophobes for political advantage and blast it all over the corporate news.

Now Smollett is but a sad jester, frowning in the courtroom, the clown tears welling up inside, waiting their chance to spill out.

As most of you know,  Smollett’s claim to fame  was that he was a victim of a vicious anti-gay, anti-Black hate crime. And politics, race and supporters of then-President Donald Trump were all wrapped up in it together by corporate media. as if they were fish heads in what were once respectable newspapers.

Media gorged on it.

Jussie insisted his attackers wore MAGA hats and confronted him in the wee hours of a terrible frozen morning, just as he was carrying a tuna fish sandwich on account of his hunger. He said they put a flouncy noose around his neck and shouted mean things. And he kept the noose on as if it were a scarf just police might see how he suffered.

He told police he fought them off heroically, like some real tough guy—his cellphone in one hand and the tuna sandwich in the other– as epic a street fighter as was Chuck Norris in his prime.

The media believed him because they wanted  desperately to believe him. ABC’s Robin Roberts and CBS’s Gayle King wanted to believe him. They and others like them championed and defended Smollett. Why? Because Michelle Obama liked him. And, because he fit their, oh, what’s the word…political narrative?

At “the paper” I wrote columns about him and chief Cook County Clown, State’s Atty. Kim Foxx. This was in the days when I felt comfortable there, before the newspaper’s woke union defamed me for daring to criticize catch-and-release Foxx and her megabucks left wing campaign donor, George Soros.

In Smollett’s interview with Roberts, he bragged about his anti-Trump politics, saying that his MAGA attackers put the noose around his neck, and one shouted “This is MAGA country!!” Roberts was sympathetic.  Rather than challenge his claims, she acted as if he were some trembling Cub scout in need of hugs, and she was his den mother.

The conservative media watchdog group newsbusters.org highlighted much of the corporate media cheerleading under the headline “Morning, Evening Nets Spend Over 101 Minutes on Smollett Claims Before They Fell Apart”

I wish that liberal media watchdogs cared about him also. But they’re staying away from Jussie. Besides, they’re busy ignoring the now-failed and collapsing Russia Collusion hoax that brought Pulitzer Prizes to The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Chicago cops may have wanted to believe Smollett too, but then he started talking. His story fell apart, and they didn’t believe him anymore.

Smollett was originally charged with 16 counts of making the whole thing up, but Cook County State’s Atty. Kim Foxx mysteriously bathed Smollett in the waters of the Chicago Way and quietly dropped all 16 counts against him. But she forgot to mention was that she had private communications with another Smollett fan, former First Lady Michelle Obama chief-of-staff Tina Tchen who lobbied his case.

Foxx went out of her way to mislead the public. All of that came out too.

Tchen went on to fame as feminist champion and boss of “Time’s Up” –an advocacy group for sexual harassment victims—until recently. Then it became known that some of “Time’s Up” leaders worked behind the scenes in support of the notorious Democrat groper and former NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo. And Tina resigned.

Back when Smollett was beloved by media, when politicians boiled out of the clown car to defend him, candidate Joe Biden used him to campaign against “hate” as he reached to grab power.

Biden tweeted that “what happened” to Smollett must not be tolerated, demanding that “we no longer give this hate safe harbor; that homophobia and racism have no place on our streets or in our hearts. We are with you, Jussie.”

Of course, Joe. You’re so with him. Can you even remember his name?

And Vice President Giggles told us that Smollett is one of the kindest, most gentle human beings she’s ever met.

“This was an attempted modern-day lynching,” she tweeted. “No one should have to fear for their life because of their sexuality or color of their skin. We must confront this hate.”

A lynching? Not exactly, Vice President Giggles. Not even close.

But I do love it when Harris oozes sincerity, like that time she called Biden a racist during a presidential debate for opposing school busing. Later she oozed even more sincerity as she accepted his offer to become his vice president.

And since then she’s giggled her way into opinion polls that now show her even more unpopular (if that’s possible) than Biden himself. These days she girds her loins to battle with Mayor Pete for what’s left of the Biden administration. What are Democrats to do? If they abandon Giggles for Mayor Pete, they prove themselves racists by their own Identarian definition, no?

What of those two “thugs” who allegedly wore the MAGA hats and attacked poor Jussie as he held his tuna for dear life? What happened to them?

They weren’t white boys wearing stars and bars. They weren’t Trump supporters.  They weren’t white. They turned out to be two Nigerian brothers, bodybuilders, and extras on his “Empire” show. According to police, Smollett allegedly paid them off to aide in his scheme.

Since then, Smollett has been recharged by a special prosecutor for making  those phony police reports, which is why he’s back in court. But Foxx, who the special prosecutor said had misled the public, just skated away along the frozen Chicago Way.

Cook County Judge James Linn won’t allow cameras in his courtroom. Cameras would give Jussie a chance at more emoting, but cameras would make this trial even more excruciating for the big clowns who pretend it isn’t happening.  If cameras were allowed, voters would see the evidence and testimony as they did in the Rittenhouse trial. Politicians and media would face ridicule.

It’s almost as if Judge Linn wants to minimize media coverage. Obviously more media coverage would upset Foxx and her political patron, Cook County Board President Toni “Taxwinkle” Preckwinkle, and their own jester, Cook County Chief Judge Tim Evans, who is Judge Linn’s boss.

So, no cameras for poor Jussie.

But we’ve had cameras in murder cases, including the racially-charged Laquan McDonald case of a white cop convicted of murdering the Black teenager. But Smollett is a Black actor in a case about made-up racist, homophobic claims about white Republicans.

Where’s the “equity?”

Oh, never mind.

Either way, after all this was known and the hoax was exposed, after Foxx misled the public and was sweet-talked by Obama aide Tina Tchen, an amazing thing happened:

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who campaigned on “reform” and “transparency” endorsed Foxx for re-election. So did Gov. J.B. Pritzker, aka Gov. Commodius Maximus, and Foxx’s patron, Taxwinkle, the boss of the Cook County Democratic Party and all the other Democrats in Crook County.

In some other county, perhaps one not as crooked, what Foxx did could have led to her disbarment, or at least to charges of misconduct. And she’d be gone.

But in Cook County, the special prosecutor did a lay-down, Foxx played the race card and was re-elected with many Democratic hands. Democrats held held her high as she cooed with delight, just like a baby at a Christening.

Every Democrat voter who supported Foxx for re-election owns this too, including newspapers and other media that endorsed her for re-election, and woke pundits who continue to defend Foxx, even as violent crime increases.

What of some powerful forgotten clowns? I mean those white progressive suburban women with money, who no longer shop on Michigan Avenue because they’re afraid of the looters. Without them, Foxx and Taxwinkle would already be gone. But they’re still in the Democrat fold, influential and courted, what with their gentled spouses and the rest of the white suburban Chardonnay ANTIFA.

Clearly, no matter where you look, there are a lot of clowns in this one. There is not a clown car big enough to hold all the big clowns.

But ask yourself: What if the races were reversed? What if a white actor was found to have made up wild, false claims about Black, homophobic racists putting a noose around his neck? Would the corporate, legacy media ignore it? Would Democrats large and small ignore it?

No way. Not on your life. They’d be rolling in it, squealing with glee, happy as hogs.

Yet when Smollett’s claims  were revealed as a hate crime hoax, they all ran off to hide in their tiny clown car idling just off camera.

This week, as Smollett sits in court, you’d might think that if they had a shred of decency, they’d all own up. And they’d virtuously boil out of the clown car and stand with him, proudly, albeit clownishly, with their wigs and red noses, pantomimes and antics, as clowns are wont to do.

Unfortunately they won’t. The big political clowns in this case are laying low, hoping media forgets them. And big corporate media types who beclowned themselves and carried Smollett’s water really doesn’t want politicians to remind people.

So both species of clown creep past the obvious, silently, on little cat feet.

All this still leaves Jussie, the little clown, alone in the courtroom.

But without cameras inside the courtroom, without the big media and political clowns owning up to what they’ve done, well, here’s the thing of it:

We won’t be able to capture the tears of the little clown, when there’s no one around.

(Copyright 2021 John Kass)

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