Let's talk about Jussie Smollett, because I know you want to talk about that. Now I tweeted a very, I think I tweeted a controversial opinion. I'm going to repeat it. But unlike a lot of things I say, I am not going to try to change your mind. So I'm going to give you an opinion this time free of persuasion. So I'll just take the persuasion off. Because when you disagree with me, and I know you will, I'm going to say that's fine. I think your disagreement is well supported.

Okay, so I'm okay with a light penalty for Jussie Smollett. Now I'm going to make the argument for why the light penalty is the right one. And remember I told you that if your argument is that it should be a harder penalty, I'm not going to disagree with you. I'll just make the case and then you can decide for yourself. So we don't need to disagree on this. You're welcome to your opinion and I will respect it in this case especially.

Here's the first consideration: nobody got hurt. Secondly, now indirectly you could say there were cases that didn't get solved. But I'm not sure that you can directly find the problem there. I think it would be true of everybody. Every case that the police work on takes resources away from more important cases. So the fact that the resources were wasted, if you could say that, on the smaller case is not that different than any other low-priority case where they use resources. So yes, there's a problem there. He did use resources. But he's also forfeiting some amount of money that at least would go partially toward that. So I'd say the resources argument is not the strongest one, but it's real. There were real resources.

Now there was a real crime, right? It just happens that Smollett himself might allegedly, according to the police, is the one who committed the crime. But there was a real crime. So when the police investigate a real crime, are they wasting their time? Because the only way that the police could determine this Smollett was the problem and not the accused attackers, the only way they could get to the bottom of that is by putting resources toward it and investigating the fake story until they knew the real crime.

So I ask you this: did Chicago police waste their resources? I say it depends how you look at it. Because what did they do? They investigated a real crime and they found the perpetrator. If the police investigate a real crime, in this case the real crime is Jussie's hoax. They didn't know they were investigating it, but that's how it turned out. So in a way the investigation was productive because it found an actual crime and it tried to prosecute it. But the judge had a different idea.

All right, so the argument about the wasted resources is not as clean as you think it is. Right there you could argue there are some wasted resources, but not so wasted that they wouldn't have otherwise made a difference. And there was a real crime and they really used those resources against it.

The next issue is that Smollett is not like regular people in a number of ways. But the important way that I'm going to talk about is that he's famous. Now the way most people are talking about that is, wait a minute, he's getting special treatment because he's famous. It appears clear that that's happening. So I'm certainly not going to argue that somebody didn't put their finger on the scale. I'm not going to argue that somebody powerful didn't get to the judge. It seems obvious that there's something sketchy going on, right?

So let me completely agree with you that we probably got to this verdict in a way that doesn't feel comfortable to any of us watching it. So that part is real. Probably. We may never know, but probably there's something there. So I don't want to discount that.

But I would say that one difference that he has is that he's a public figure. Now if somebody who is not famous perpetrated a hoax and let's say they got a light sentence, all right? So let's say nobody got hurt, police wasted a little bit of time, perpetrator pays a fine which at least partially covers the work of the police, and then there's a penalty but it's not very high. But let's say it's an unknown person. And let's say the unknown person is completely clear the way it looks like Jussie Smollett will be cleared, in the sense of technically having a criminal record. What would be the ongoing effect to that unknown non-famous person? If that person got the same non-penalty as Jussie Smollett, they would have no criminal record. And when they went to apply for a job, nobody would ever know what happened, right?

So a non-famous person, if that non-famous person got the same non-prosecution as Smollett, it would just completely wipe the record clean. It would be like it never happened. It wouldn't affect them for the rest of their life. But Smollett is famous. He can have his technical criminal record expunged and yet every place he goes from now on, they're all going to know his alleged criminal activity. So by virtue of his fame, this non-penalty is actually a pretty big freaking penalty. He has a real life penalty outside of the legal penalty. But his real life penalty is going to be pretty big.

Now some of you are saying, you know, he'll still get work and he will. He'll still have probably an above-average life. But this is going to sort of hang with him forever. All right? It's never going to go away.

So here's the point. You can't compare a Smollett to a non-famous person because the non-famous person would have no lasting problem from this. He does. Now we don't know if those problems will be greater than the benefits he gets from being famous. Who knows? But definitely there's some lasting problems.

And then here's, I'm going to make you my most non-obvious statement. The United States is definitely, at least in the political realm, we seem to be at each other's necks. And you know the left and the right seem to be hating on each other. People are talking about violent revolutions. I think there's no chance of that. I wouldn't worry about that at all. But people are talking about it.

If you want to bring down the tensions, somebody kind of has to go first. Somebody has to go first. In other words, if everybody just keeps ratcheting up, it's like you did this, I have to do this, I have to match you. It doesn't get better. So maybe this is a case where Trump supporters can say, look, the story itself is all we need, right? Just knowing that this was a hoax is a big benefit to Trump supporters. You don't really need to put your boot on this one person's neck and just keep it there forever. You don't really need to, because you got everything out of this that you need.

So I do not argue this Smollett should get a lesser penalty than other people. I do argue that this particular crime, since there was no violence, oh and here's the other factor. One of the reasons that you punish people is that you don't want them to repeat the crime. But the weird part about this crime is it's unrepeatable. It's an unrepeatable crime, at least by Smollett. And I don't think anybody could look at this situation and say, well Smollett really had a good result so I think I'll do a hoax too. Nobody can look at that and say it worked.

So if you're worrying about discouraging other people from trying a similar hoax, I would say that the Smollett story already does that. It didn't work. He just embarrassed himself, etc. So it probably has the effect of diminishing future crime. There's no chance in the world this Smollett would do this same crime again.

And here's the even harder part. Just think about this. I haven't heard anybody say this. If someday in the future a real crime happened to Jussie Smollett, and I hope that doesn't happen. I want to be very clear. I'm not suggesting it. I'm not trying to incite it. I'm just making a point. Someday Smollett may be in a case where he needs the police to believe him. There might actually be a real crime that he is a victim of. I mean, aren't most people the victims of crime eventually? You know, most of us are victims of one crime or another. I think most of you have had to call the police at one time in your life. Who the hell is going to believe anything that Jussie Smollett tells the police? So the next time he needs the police, that might not go so well for him. I don't know if they're even going to believe it anyway.

So that's the argument why I'm personally not bothered by a light sentence. I think it might be better for the country if we say, look, what you did looks pretty bad to us. Nobody got hurt. You got embarrassed. I hope everybody learned their lesson. Let's not make this worse than it needs to be. Let's be understanding about whatever it was that caused that. It's hard to understand.

Here's my last point. Would Jussie Smollett have done any of the things he did without the influence of the illegitimate media? If somebody is hypnotized or brainwashed into doing the thing they do, does the legal system treat them exactly the same as if they came up with the idea on their own? Look at the Patty Hearst story. Patty Hearst was kidnapped and allegedly brainwashed into becoming a bank robber by the Symbionese Liberation Army. And I believe she got off because the argument was that she had literally been brainwashed.

Has Jussie Smollett literally been brainwashed by the media? Undoubtedly. There isn't the slightest chance that he was not literally brainwashed by the media. Now that's not a full defense, but it should have an impact on how much you penalize somebody anyway.

Those of you who say, let me be very clear, those of you who say the law is the law and it looks like it wasn't followed in this case, you should have a significant penalty for that. I respect that opinion. So you don't need to argue with me because I'm already saying that is a solid opinion that he should be punished harder than he was. I'm not going to disagree with you. I'm just going to explain the counterargument. That's all. Do with it what you will.