Jussie Smollett’s case ignited a firestorm.

In a nation that prides itself on the maxim of innocent until proven guilty it was shown once and for all that is not true for every American and never has been. I don’t know what happened to Jussie Smollett that night, neither do you. We know the various stages of the story that have been presented. We know how quickly victim turned to guilty party and how unacceptable the police chief, the Mayor, the police union found the dropping of the charges and expungement of the record. A move that was initiated by the people would have to try to the case. It’s possible the evidence fell apart. It’s possible that the initial ranting accusations made by that same police chief (don’t know if that is his correct title, that isn’t relevant to this discussion) might have so poisoned the well that Smollett couldn’t reasonably be expected to get a fair trial. We don’t know.

What we do know is that a man was released and the charges against him weren’t just dropped, they were erased. That made a statement. And then, after that, as I said, he was once more declared guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by the law even though he was innocent in the eyes of the law, and somehow he was escaping justice because he didn’t go through a trial. This despite that whole “all of the charges had been dropped” thing and the “innocent until proven guilty” thing. Right or wrong, guilty or innocent, our system say innocent until proven guilty and the need of the system to drop every ounce of it’s might on one Jussie Smollett when it couldn’t release even the videotape of a young man’s violent murder at the hands of a police officer speaks of a very broken system. I know fully well that people could very well “come for me” for even intimating that Jussie Smollett deserves a modicum of decency because “he escaped justice” by using “power and privilege”. Note there is no evidence of such a thing happening other than the charges being dropped and further expunged. Was he treated differently. Maybe. Would a gay black man, attacked the way Jussie Smollett described have made the news if he wasn’t the person he was. Would there have been an investigation? How far would it have gone? Did the police use more resources because of who Jussie Smollett was? If so, why?

One thing we do know. The media has picked up that narrative and made their decision that Smollett is not worthy of the time of day. He has been tried in the court of public opinion, declared guilty, and thus his being trashed in the declaration of his charges being dropped cannot be questioned. We know of other cases, with other faces where the perceived value of the “target” makes it media toxic to simply say that is just not right. Oh, and Donald Trump, yeah that Donald Trump, has called on the DOJ and the FBI specifically to look into these charges so that for sure Jussie Smollett will feel the full weight of the law to ensure that he is guilty and he is punished to the full extent of the law. And he has to pay for the investigation and I’m sure if he was tried and found guilty or found innocent he would be charged for the cost of the trial. He’s rich and entitled and right here and right now this one person must pay for a “rigged system” that is tilted for the rich and famous. He can’t get off because he is black and gay. He must be treated more harshly because he is those things. That was said straight out.

Another case came to a moment of inflection in this very same time period. You can hear the voice echoing now as if in an endless echo chamber “no collusion, no obstruction, no colluuusssion”…

In that case, there has been two years of evidence that we’ve all seen in plain sight. A meeting in Trump tower that was about dirt from the Russian government to help “your father” become President. Lying about it. Over and over and over and over again. Donald Trump lied to us about that meeting. Just like he lied to us about Trump family business dealings with Russia. He literally lied that no one in his campaign had had any contacts. When they had many and they all lied about them. Trump lied when he said they were doing no business with Russia. He tried to laugh that off by saying an MOU isn’t binding (it establishes a business framework), we didn’t have a site in mind (they did), we didn’t have an architect (they did). That also ignores who is buying real estate from them.

I’m just picking and choosing here. The list of contacts with Russia. The questions about Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, China. It’s not just Russia.

Kushner tried to setup a back-channel with Russia. Oh, and if Russia is to ordinary for you let’s try selling nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia with no particular safety frameworks in place. A deal put in place with at least Michael Flynn involved in selling the approval, but that deal is going forward. And we don’t know who bailed Kushner out of 666…

But back to Russia. So within months of Sessions being fired the Mueller report has been wrapped up and the new Attorney General provided a 4 page summary of the report. Proclaiming that Donald Trump had not been proven conclusively to have actively conspired with the Russian government in several specific acts. As best as I can tell the reasoning explained by Mueller was that there was no dirt on Hillary so the campaign didn’t get dirt on Hillary so there was no clear conspiracy. So Trump was “cleared” by Trump’s new Attorney General President protector William Barr of that conspiracy. No Collusion.

On the other charge of obstruction of justice. Trump was neither cleared nor charged. Very specifically he was NOT exonerated. And so AG Barr cleared Donald Trump in the exact way he said he would in his audition memo.
And so the media then did exactly what they were expected to do, proclaimed that the “Mueller report” had cleared Trump, great week for Trump, etc, etc. Only now are they beginning to question that they are proclaiming a lot of victories without actually seeing a full sentence from the report, much less the report itself. And so many questions have not been answered. Just imagine, if all of the indictments, Individual One, Trump tower meeting, Trump tower Moscow, attempts to remove sanctions, had come out at one time. Pair that with all of the firings. What if they had all happened at once. Would there be a stronger reaction or would it still be Trump’s base doesn’t care so nothing to be done.

Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were tried and declared guilty by Donald Trump for the crimes of expressing worry privately that someone who was under a counterintelligence investigation might become President while still under investigation. They made the mistake of expressing their dismay at everything that is Trump on work phones though I suspect that firing might have been the result even if they texted on personal devices. The person installed as President made sure the people who found Hillary innocent and were investigating him were driven out of the DOJ/FBI. As a side benefit, the people he had fired were many of our most experienced Russia experts.

So in one case, charges were dropped, expunged, but there was no attempt to protect the person involved. In fact, he was eviscerated and declared guilty by way of not having a trial. They keep saying it in fact, if he was innocent he would have gone to trial to prove he was innocent, despite the fact that given a choice between we’ll drop all charges and erase the case and go to trial, we’d all take the drop the charges motion. Can you imagine the argument, well you say you’re going to drop all the charges but I don’t want you to. Instead I want to have a trial to prove that I’m innocent of the charges that you want to expunge. How is that even a thing to consider? But I heard it on Fox, today.

At the same time, the same people who hold Jussie Smollett guilty by way of not having a trial are loudly proclaiming Trump’s “innocence” based on a 4 page summary of a 400 page report. They are saying because Mueller “punted” on obstruction he wanted the person who he knew would declare Trump not guilty to make that determination. It makes no sense. Just like there being no conspiracy and no explanation when we know Trump Jr. took that meeting and they didn’t report it. When the FBI came to the campaign and said hey the Russians are trying to mess with the election, specifically they are working to help the Trump campaign and hurt the Clinton campaign so if you have any connections or they make any contact or anything weird happens let us know the Trump campaign said nothing. Not only that, they denied any connection with the Russians. Remember, puppet, puppet, you’re the puppet, no puppet, no puppet…

Why do I connect these two? I recognize they are extreme cases. In one case, the person is not charged and declared guilty. In the other, it is specifically said that Trump was not exonerated and he is declared loudly and frequently innocent. An enemies list is released for the people who Trump has decided covered him too critically. There is barely a hiccup at the release of that list. After all, it’s just Trump.

Oh and Trump still wants to investigate Hillary. No investigation should be allowed for Donald Trump but lets go after Hillary again. Because her being completely exonerated cannot be allowed to stand. No justice allowed. Guilty until proven guilty. Dropped charges, expungement, you are guilty. If you’re white well we have to protect your reputation. A charge of rape will spoil your whole life. Impact on the girl’s life? What are you talking about?

No justice for all, as it was in the beginning so it is today. When they say again. They mean the founding. When only they had power. But that is not the ideal of this country. We are better than this.