I'm still not sure if its a punch or a slap at the phone. The differences is the intent to harm the person or the phone. That has nothing to do with the possible bigotry.
No, he did not attempt to hit him, but, it did get heated pretty quickly. Had it not stopped it easily could have turned physical.
The victim says it was a punch, which hit him in his right shoulder. He also says that afterwards he shoved a female friend of his, then pulled a knife on them.
Importantly, this was on a public street with multiple witnesses, specifically right outside a bar in downtown SLC. I seriously doubt he's just making all that up. He also admits he wasn't injured which tends to bolster his credibility further.
To me, what that says is that because there have been false accusations that he is tainted and not willing to just believe.
It seems reasonable to learn from past events. We just learned about this incident, and details are completely one sided, as well as sparse. That is the reason I would not take a stance here.
What I see is logically consistent from him. Now, to be logically consistent for me, I would say that my perception of him being consistent does not prove or disprove him being biased or bigoted. What I can say is that from his actions I would not be willing to give a motive to him in terms of what we have discussed.
Nope, Smollett making something up has nothing to do with whether another person is making something up. That's absurd. Unless you subscribe to some notion that a member of one "tribe" making something up means we should be skeptical of every allegation from the same tribe. Look, the Jew lied! We must now be skeptical of everything any Jew says. Whatever else that is, it is completely illogical.
If anything, the publicity surrounding Smollett and the trouble he is in would be a disincentive for others to fabricate this sort of thing, especially in the short run. Otherwise, I don't see any relationship between the two, nor do I understand how one person's credibility affects the credibility of another just because the two both happen to be gay and/or liberal.
Like I said before, any allegation of anything can be fake. Doesn't matter what it is. You act as if a case like Smollett tells us something we didn't know - that a hate crime allegation might be fake just like anything could be, and now we should all have heightened skepticism of all such allegations. No, what the Smollett case says is to call each case on its own facts and don't assume it's true or false based on your political leanings.
This case doesn't have the same facts as the Smollett case, not even close. You should be his lawyer and argue to the jury that "Jussie Smollett" makes it more likely the victim is lying here. I'm sure that will go over really well.