We live in strange times, my friends, as the liberal left continues to turn toward socialism and antisemitism in some strange repeat of not a century ago.

Hate is in the air, both literally and in the sense of aura surrounding the act.  Television “news” networks, sensing an opportunity to race bait you into watching a commercial break, have been working overtime in recent days, attempting to downplay their once exuberant belief in the story of Jussie Smollett.

Smollett, an actor, has now been implicated in at least one hate crime hoax, in which police say the television star paid two on-set extras to racially harass him for his own publicity.

Smollett has been arrested on charges of filing a false report, yet CNN’s Don Lemon seems to still find the actor a victim…somehow.

During his opening monologue, Lemon told his viewers that the story was “personal” since he and Smollett had been acquaintances and were in constant communication since the alleged incident and that Smollett told Lemon what he said had happened to him, which he admitted raised lots of questions.

He stressed that while Smollett is “innocent until proven guilty,” he still “squandered the good will of a whole lot of people” if his story wasn’t true.

“He even lied to a lot of people… including me. And that’s not cool,” Lemon said to his viewers. “He squandered the good will of very high-profile people who one day may be running this country like Kamala Harris and Cory Booker and people like President Trump.”

But then came a perspective that perhaps crossed the line for many viewers.

Lemon insisted that Smollett has already “lost the fight in the court of public opinion,” but he hesitated to blame him for that defeat.

While the accusations are far, far different, this “court of public opinion” is in fact the same figurative judicial institution that condemns Brett Kavanaugh still to this day.

Worse still, this puts Don Lemon squarely in the corner of a near-serial hate crime hoaxer.

There are very, very few things in this world that are more despicable than hate crimes or hate speech, but faking one for attention is certainly on that short, short list.

That’s exactly what actor Jussie Smollett is being accused of this week after police interrogated two extras from the set of Empire, who claim that the actor paid them a significant amount of money to “attack” him, yelling racial and homophobic slurs.

Smollett’s credibility is falling apart, and police would like to have another word with the actor ASAP.

Now, evidence of Smollett’s premeditation is coming to light, and it doesn’t look good for the Fox actor.

Empire actor Jussie Smollett “concocted” a “staged attacked” against himself after receiving a racist letter addressed to him failed to evoke a “bigger reaction,” a source tells CBS 2.

“When the letter didn’t get enough attention, he concocted the staged attack,” one source told CBS 2’s Brad Edwards, who reported “other sources corroborated that information.”

A letter contained “white powder” was delivered on January 22 to a Chicago set where Empire was filming in the days leading up to the alleged staged assault. In a statement to CNN, Chicago police spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi confirmed a HAZMAT team scrambled to Cinespace Studios, where the program was being shot, after the letter was found.

It is only with the sharpest of hatreds that someone could stitch together a diabolic piece of propaganda such as this, and Smollett’s future in the industry isn’t looking too good.