Report: Nigerian Brothers ‘Flipped,’ Help Cops in Jussie Smollett ‘Hate Crime’ Hoax

Posted on | February 16, 2019 | Comments Off on Report: Nigerian Brothers ‘Flipped,’ Help Cops in Jussie Smollett ‘Hate Crime’ Hoax

Gateway Pundit notes that the local CWB Chicago news site has produced outstanding coverage of the Jussie Smollett story. Their latest report indicates that Nigerian brothers Abimbola “Abel” Osundairo and Olabinjo “Ola” Osundairo were released by cops Friday after two days of interrogation because they are cooperating with the investigation, which is now focused directly at Smollett himself:

CWBChicago has learned that federal investigators sat in as Chicago police interrogated the Osundario brothers for two days after the men were taken into custody at O’Hare airport on Wednesday evening. The Osundiros flew into the airport minutes earlier, returning from a trip to Nigeria that began hours after Smollett reported being attacked.
The brothers, who have a relationship with Smollett and served as extras on his TV show, saw their status with police evolve from “potential persons of interest” to “potential suspects” to being “unable to leave” custody because investigators had “probable cause that they were involved in a crime” to being set free in the course of 48 hours.

Smollett has reportedly “lawyered up,” hiring big-name defense attorney Michael Monico, and signs indicate Jussie’s in big trouble:

Federal investigators have been looking into the origins of a hate letter that was mailed to Smollett from the southwest suburbs about a week before he reported being attacked. The mailing, which contained a white powder that reportedly turned out to be Tylenol, mentioned Smollett by name and included anti-black and anti-gay slurs as well as a stick figure bound in a noose. Its return address was “MAGA,” a reference to President Donald Trump’s 2016 “Make America Great Again” slogan. Many of the elements of the letter were reflected in the details of the attack that Smollett gave to police.
The actor has been outspoken about his displeasure with Trump, most recently telling Good Morning America that he believed that his opposition to Trump may have been a motivating factor for his purported attackers.
“I come really, really hard against 45,” he said. “I come really, really hard against his administration and I don’t hold my tongue.” . . .
Standing outside Area Central Police Headquarters Friday night, the Osundairo brothers’ lawyer dropped hints that the road ahead may be rough for Smollett.
“My guys are walking home. They are not charged,” Gloria Schmidt said before indicating that the Osundairos had information about the Smollett case that was shared with police after some “coordination.”
And, she pointed out, “I’m not part of Jussie’s defense.”

Do I need to connect all the dots to draw you a picture here? That “hate letter” was sent through the U.S. Postal Service, and I’m sure there’s a federal law that could make that a felony. Everything we’ve learned so far points toward Smollett attempting to stage a hoax that would make it seem he was attacked by Trump supporters. and you can bet money the Chicago FBI is under heavy pressure to solve this case. You see, this is not just a Chicago police case. Maybe the cops (or their Democrat bosses at City Hall) don’t want to bring any charges against Jussie, but because this was investigated by the feds as a potential “hate crime,” it’s not up to Chicago P.D. Lying to an FBI agent? You can go to prison for that. Obstruction of justice in a federal investigation? Witness tampering? Attempting to destroy evidence? Yeah, the feds have lots of ways to send you to prison, if they want to, and I’m thinking our new Attorney General William Barr might want to see maximum prosecution in a case like this.

“O, what a tangled web we weave . . .”

Category: Chicago, Crime

Aurora Massacre: Convicted Felon Kills Five After Being Fired From Job

Posted on | February 16, 2019 | 1 Comment

We can expect the media to quickly forget this story:

The gunman who killed five people and injured five police officers at a factory in Aurora, Ill., had been laid off and was “way too stressed out,” his mother said.
Gary Martin, 45, was shot dead by police while rampaging through Henry Pratt Co., a manufacturing plant in the suburbs of Chicago. He killed five people and wounded five police officers. His mother Felicia Martin told WGNTV: “My heart goes out to all the victims and their families.”
Martin was convicted in Mississippi in 1995 of felony aggravated assault and was imprisoned. The Sun-Times reported that the charge stemmed from his stabbing a woman in 1994. He was convicted of lesser offenses In Illinois, including illegally altering car speakers and squealing his tires. He was also sued by a landlord.
ABC 7 reported that Martin “was told Friday he was being fired from the company where he had worked for about 15 years as an assembler” and opened fire during his termination meeting, continuing to shoot throughout the plant. Martin’s family told local reporters that he was laid off.

The usual suspects make the usual irrelevant arguments:

The rote denunciations of “gun violence,” blaming “the gun lobby” and demanding that Congress “take action,” obscure the reality that it is already against the law for felons to have firearms, and the NRA is completely OK with such laws. We don’t know how Martin got the firearm he used in Friday’s massacre, but if he had been caught with a gun at any time prior to this shooting, he would have been sent to prison under Illinois law (720 ILCS 5/24-1.1), “a Class 3 felony, with a mandatory minimum 2 year prison sentence.”

When a mass shooting like this takes place, CNN goes into 24/7 coverage mode in the hope that the gunman will be a MAGA-hat-wearing Trump supporter or a “far-right white nationalist” of some kind. Because the Aurora massacre was committed by a black man, however, we can expect this crime to be quickly forgotten by the anti-Trump media machine.

Category: Crime, Illinois

In The Mailbox: 02.15.19

Posted on | February 16, 2019 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: And Just Like That, The Smollett Story Begins To Unravel
EBL: Amazon Chose Wisely
Twitchy: Trump Retweets Epic Music Video Of SOTU And Left Has Legendary Meltdown
Louder With Crowder: Amazon Cites Occasional Cortex, Other Democrats For “Never Amazon” In New York
According To Hoyt: Compassion
Monster Hunter Nation: HK – Because You Suck And We Hate You (a classic MHN post since Larry’s on a book tour)
Vox Popoli: “Total Capitulation”

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Power: A Strategy To Save The Liberal International Order
American Thinker: Only The Latest In A Long Line Of “You’re Gonna Die” Con Men
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Hot Stuff Friday
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For February 15
CDR Salamander: Education For Seapower – Sound Diagnosis, Unsound Prescription, also, Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: Non-Tweets Under The Fedora, also, One Sentence On The President’s Emergency Declaration
Don Surber: Hispanics Put New Mexico In Play For Trump
Dustbury: You’re On Rancid Camera
First Street Journal: When You Hate Capitalism So Much You Don’t Care About Job Losses
The Geller Report: Address Records Show Rep. Omar Lived With Her First Husband Throughout Marriage To Apparent Brother, also, Bernie Called Omar To Offer Support After Antisemitic Tweets
Hogewash: The Collusion Wasn’t With The Russians, also, Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day
Hollywood In Toto: Happy Death Day 2 U – Make It Stop!
Joe For America: Stone Counterattacks Mueller In Court – Files Motion To Force Special Counsel To Prove No Collusion With CNN
JustOneMinute: Away We Go
Legal Insurrection: ISIS Brings Knife To a Gunfight, Gets Shot, also, SCOTUS Agrees To Hear Census Citizenship Case The PanAm Post: Trump Should Do More To Take In Venezuelan Refugees, Asylum Seekers
Power Line: How Dumb Is Occasional Cortex? also, Showdown In El Paso – A Footnote
Shark Tank: Rep. Waltz Votes To Avoid Government Shutdown
Shot In The Dark: Democracy Dies In Emergency
STUMP: Chicago & Illinois Corruption Followup, also, On NY Corruption – The Failed Amazon Bribe
The Political Hat: Red Pandas, Penguins, & Same-Sex Marriage
This Ain’t Hell: The Continuing Scandal At The LA VA Office, also, MARSOC Officer Fred Galvin, Accused Of Killing 19 Civilians, Vindicated
Victory Girls: Smollett Story Collapses Along With Liberal Virtue Signaling
Volokh Conspiracy: Short Circuit – A Roundup Of Recent Federal Court Decisions
Weasel Zippers: Twitter Locks Account Of Journalist Who Asks Awkward Question About AOC’s BF/Staffer, also, Trump Asks Angel Moms To Stand Up In Response To Acosta’s Accusation He’s Manufacturing Border Crisis
Megan McArdle: Myopic Green New Dealers Need To Look Beyond America For Climate Cure
Mark Steyn: A Cockwomble Reaches For The Hockey Stick, also, The Wall And The Bill

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Amazon Warehouse Deals

Category: Linkagery

‘Get Woke, Go Broke’? Marvel Movie Star Brie Larson Lashes Out at White Males

Posted on | February 16, 2019 | 1 Comment

Evidently hoping to match the success of D.C.’s Wonder Woman, the Disney/Marvel franchise decided to make a movie of Captain Marvel (you can read the background of the character here) with 20-something blonde Brie Larson in the title role. Unfortunately for Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, his star is a feminist who makes a habit of insulting white men, to the point that she’s made it rather obvious she doesn’t want any white men to buy tickets to this movie.

The trouble began at an award ceremony last June, when Larson complained about lack of diversity among film critics, saying she doesn’t care about the opinions of “a 40-year-old white dude.” Then in an interview with Marie Claire this month, Brie Larson said: “About a year ago, I started paying attention to what my press days looked like and the critics reviewing movies, and noticed it appeared to be overwhelmingly white male. So, I spoke to Dr Stacy Smith at the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, who put together a study to confirm that. Moving forward, I decided to make sure my press days were more inclusive.”

So, if you’re a white guy, Brie Larson hates you so much she doesn’t want you to be allowed to write about her movies. Except of course, white guys will write about it anyway, and one of them, Matt McGloin, says “the Captain Marvel movie looks to be in big, big trouble, unfortunately”:

Back in January, following the NCAA trailer, it was reported that Captain Marvel was projected to have a massive $160 million opening weekend with some estimates even offering $180 million.
However, the bad news for Kevin Feige and Captain Marvel is that those projections have now dropped upwards of 80%, as it is reported the flick may only open around $100 million.
The latest projections come from Deadline, with the site offering Captain Marvel will now open in line with other Marvel origin films, but won’t come anywhere near Black Panther‘s $202 million. . . .
There is also a huge problem with Brie Larson who has been spinning Captain Marvel as a feminist movie, essentially isolating the audience, and she even recently came out against white males for some reason. . . . It’s never a good thing to split the audience or insult them. Do they not want white males to go see the movie?

We shall see . . .

(Hat-tip: Kirby McCain on Twitter.)

Category: Movies

Report: Two Nigerian Brothers Arrested in Jussie Smollett ‘Hate Crime’ Hoax UPDATE: Released Without Charges

Posted on | February 15, 2019 | Comments Off on Report: Two Nigerian Brothers Arrested in Jussie Smollett ‘Hate Crime’ Hoax UPDATE: Released Without Charges

Abimbola “Abel” Osundairo, 25, and his brother Olabinjo “Ola” Osundairo, 27, have been identified as the “persons of interest” taken into custody by Chicago police in connection with last month’s alleged “hate crime” against Empire actor Jussie Smollett:

Two brothers being questioned in the Jussie Smollett case are now under arrest, police said.
Obabinjo Osundairo and Abimbola Osundairo were arrested Friday in connection with an alleged attack on the “Empire” actor. The men were identified by their attorney, Gloria Schmidt.
At least one of the men worked on “Empire,” police said.
Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said authorities had probable cause to believe the men committed assault and battery against Smollett. But they had not been charged as of Friday afternoon.
Guglielmi would not comment on a possible motive.
Meantime, two sources with intimate knowledge of the investigation told CBS Chicago Investigator Brad Edwards the attack on Smollett was potentially orchestrated by the actor himself, and involved two other men.
But police say while there is no evidence documenting the alleged attack, there is also no evidence to say it is a hoax. They say Smullett is being cooperative at this time and continues to be treated as a victim, not a suspect.

More background on the suspects:

Court records show that one was charged with attempted murder in a 2011 stabbing that occurred in the 4200 block of North Ashland. That is less than a block from the home that police raided Wednesday night, and recovered personal effects including cell phones, a source said.
The one brother reached a plea deal with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to aggravated battery and was sentenced to two years of probation and was ordered to pay a $674 fine. His attorney in that case did not respond to interview requests. . . .
Both men, who are two of five siblings, previously played football at Quincy University, according to the college’s athletics website.
At least one of them went to high school near the home police raided, according to Quincy.
It is unlikely that the two were given scholarships to play, though. Court records show both men filed for bankruptcy in September 2016 and owed more than $120,000 in student loans.

Smollett had claimed he was attacked by two white Trump supporters who shouted homophobic and racist slurs and, “This is MAGA country.”

There were obvious reasons not to believe this story: Even if white racist homophobes were roaming the streets of Chicago in search of gay black men to terrorize, (a) why would they choose this actor and (b) why would they do it on a night when the temperature was below zero? Basic common sense suggested something was wrong with this story, but I guess basic common sense is not a job requirement for journalists.

Here’s some of that GQ article by Joshua Rivera:

Whiteness in 21st century America has an endgame, and it is this: to divest itself from the shame of its power, while working to revive the fear it needs in which to thrive. And there is work being done, work done by panels of respectable-seeming men and women on cable news networks dismissing the red MAGA hat as innocuous, work done by politicians who continue to openly lie about the danger immigrants pose to Americans while choosing to ignore that almost all violent extremist crime is committed by right-wing terrorists, by the refusal to acknowledge that bigotry is alive and well, perpetrated by racists and homophobes targeting people like Smollett, criminals who have no qualms in sharing what motivates them. Hate needs to sign its work. That’s how hate persists.
The assault of Jussie Smollett is not an isolated incident.

A fake hate crime is not an isolated incident? Whatever. Much like journalists, a lot of big-name Democrats don’t have basic common sense:

The liberal narrative, that America is full of racists and homophobes who routinely inflict violence on helpless minorities, is so deeply entrenched in the minds of Democrats and journalists (but I repeat myself) that they will instantly believe even the most improbable story, so long as it conforms to that narrative. Many liberals still believe that the 2016 Pulse nightclub massacre was a homophobic “hate crime,” despite the fact that the shooter, Omar Mateen, identified himself as an ISIS “soldier.” Muslim jihadists can commit terrorist atrocities in America and expect liberals to blame right-wing homophobes, and Jussie Smollett can have two Nigerians beat him up in Chicago and blame Trump.

UPDATE: Plot twist:

Chicago police on Friday night released two persons of interest without charging them in the alleged hate attack on “Empire” star Jussie Smollett.
“Due to new evidence as a result of today’s interrogations, the individuals questioned by police in the Empire case have now been released without charging and detectives have additional investigative work to complete,” Chicago Police said in a tweet Friday night.

We don’t know what this means. We must wait and see.

Category: Chicago, Crime, Racism

McCabe’s Weird Anti-Russia Paranoia Reveals ‘Deep State’ Cult Mentality

Posted on | February 15, 2019 | 5 Comments

There was a lot of weird craziness in Andrew McCabe’s 60 Minutes interview, including the hare-brained scheme to secretly record President Trump’s conversations and invoke the 25th Amenidment, but perhaps nothing was more revealing than when the fired FBI official said this:

“I was speaking to the man who had just run for the presidency and just won the election for the presidency. And who might have done so with the aid of the government of Russia, our most formidable adversary on the world stage,” McCabe said of the meeting with President Trump. “And that was something that troubled me greatly.”

This is paranoia. However much one may loathe Vladimir Putin, Russia is not “our most formidable adversary on the world stage.” That distinction properly belongs to China, rivaled only by Iran. So we must ask, why did Russia loom so large as an enemy in McCabe’s mind?

Let’s talk a bit about geopolitical reality: China is an economic rival to the U.S., and has been making military moves in the South China Sea. In any long-term military/diplomatic strategy, protecting America’s allies and interests against Chinese aggression is a major consideration. Meanwhile, the regime in Iran is a destabilizing force in the Islamic world, sponsoring terrorism, threatening Israel, and working to obtain nuclear arms.

Given the seriousness of these geopolitical threats, why would McCabe speak of Russia as the greatest “adversary” to America?

In a word, Brussels.

America’s elite foreign-policy establishment considers the European Union our major partner in global hegemony, whereas Putin views the E.U. as an anti-Russian conspiracy, principally led by Germany, to limit Russia’s traditional sphere of influence in eastern Europe. For centuries — long predating the Soviet era — Russia has coveted maritime access to the Mediterranean via the Black Sea and the Bosphorus. It was this Russian geopolitical ambition which, in World War I, made the Ottoman Empire an ally of the Germans, and more recently led to Russia’s seizure of the Crimea. Recall that World War I began when Serbian nationalists assassinated the Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand. Because Russia and Serbia were allies (both being Slavic nations), this set in motion the crisis that led to a German ultimatum, Russia’s mobilization and, because France and Russia were allies, brought the Western powers into the war against Germany. The passage of a century — the rise of Bolshevism in Russia, Nazism in Germany, a second World War and then the long Cold War standoff that ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union — have rearranged the situation in Europe, but Russia’s geopolitical interests remain. And guess what? This does not make Russia “our most formidable adversary,” because none of this necessarily harms U.S. interests, and there is no reason why Americans should consider themselves obligated to maintain the Brussels-led European status quo.

This obsession with preserving the European Union explains why the same people who hate Trump also oppose “Brexit,” because a re-assertion of British sovereignty threatens the E.U.-centric mentality of the elite, in quite the same way that Trump’s “America first” approach offends those who want to see the U.S. “lead from behind.” Even though Andrew McCabe was never elected or appointed to any post that would require him to have an opinion on U.S. foreign policy, it is obvious that the former deputy FBI director had absorbed the establishment elite’s worldview, including their paranoid fear of Russian influence.

While there is no evidence to justify the “Russian collusion” narrative (which originated as an excuse for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 defeat), it does appear that President Trump is skeptical of the foreign-policy establishment’s E.U.-centric worldview, including their anti-Russia fears. And the attitude of Andrew McCabe exemplifies the cult mentality of the “Deep State” opposition to Trump’s presidency. It cannot be, according to federal bureaucrats like McCabe, that the American people have a right to reject the establishment’s policy preferences by electing as president a man who does not share the establishment’s views. Believing that voters were wrong to elect Trump, these “Deep State” operatives believed Trump’s presidency was illegitimate, and from that belief originated all their scheming and manipulation to sabotage Trump’s presidency.

Category: Corruption, Donald Trump

Democrats Against America

Posted on | February 15, 2019 | Comments Off on Democrats Against America

Why don’t Democrats want to defend the country against invasion?

Democrats running for President were quick to blast President Donald Trump’s expected declaration of a national emergency on Thursday, saying the “dangerous” “fake emergency” at the border will bring the country closer to “a dictatorship.”
Julian Castro, the former San Antonio mayor who was President Barack Obama’s Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary, said Trump’s intention to declare a national emergency at the border is “appalling” and would “amount to an abuse of power that should be immediately challenged in the courts.”
“This is a #FakeEmergency from top to bottom,” he added. . . .
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) said Trump’s declaration would set a “very dangerous precedent” that would bring the country closer to “a dictatorship.” . . .
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) blasted Trump’s “vanity project” as “ridiculous” while Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) said it would be an “outrageous abuse of power” and a “waste of taxpayer money.” . . .
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) accused Trump of throwing a “temper tantrum” for his “ridiculous wall” while Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) said “Trump’s inability to follow through on a campaign promise is not a national emergency.”

It’s remarkable that Democrats consider $5 billion for border protection a “waste of taxpayer money,” when the same Democrats endorse the “Green New Deal,” which would spend untold trillions of dollars to build high-speed rail, solar-power farms and windmills.

Category: Uncategorized