Not to say I told you so, but I told you so: Ethics Alarms flagged Don Lemon as an unethical, biased, arrogant, preening disgrace as a journalist long before he was finally canned by CNN, and he has done nothing but live up to my assessment, indeed, show how restrained it was, since. See? I’m smart!
Over the weekend an anti-ICE mob stormed a church in St. Paul on the theory that one of the pastors was an ICE agent. I know, that makes no sense to me, either. They interrupted the service, chanting Renee Good’s name, “Hands up, don’t shoot” and other nonsense that had nothing to do with the service was shut down. Lemon was part of the mob.
The administration has been investigating the disruption at the church as a violation of the Face Act, a law that makes it a crime to physically obstruct or use threats of force to intimidate or interfere with a person seeking to participate in a service at a house of worship. It seems pretty clear that this is what the mob did, and that Lemon is as guilty and any of the thugs who did this.
Lemon filmed the event and claimed he was just there as a journalist. No, he’s an ex-journalist, as am I: I was on the staff of my high school newspaper. Lemon made his claim of being at the illegal intrusion as a reporter rather than a participant is weak, and made weaker by his comments on the podcast “I’ve Had It” with Jennifer Welch. “And there’s a certain degree of entitlement. I think people who are, you know, in the religious groups like that,” Lemon said. “It’s not the type of Christianity that I practice, but I think that they’re entitled and that that entitlement comes from a supremacy, white supremacy, and they think that this country was built for them, that it is a Christian country, when actually we left England because we wanted religious freedom. It’s religious freedom, but only if you’re a Christian and only if you’re a white male, pretty much.”
Doesn’t sound like he was in that church as an objective observer to me. Lemon is such an idiot. Listen to him in the clip above, implying that there is a Constitutional right to burst into a church, stop a service, and protest something that has nothing to do with the service or the parishioners at all.
A federal magistrate judge in Minnesota today refused to approve a criminal complaint against Lemon, apparently buying the lie that he was only acting as a reporter. Lemon has said in a video posted online that he was there as a journalist. “Once the protest started in the church we did an act of journalism, which was report on it and talk to the people involved, including the pastor, members of the church and members of the organization,” Lemon says in the video. “That’s it. That’s called journalism.”
Like Don Lemon would know what journalism is. Hint: giving your opinion and looking cute on camera isn’t journalism.
Lemon’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, who has never seen a Leftist jerk that he wouldn’t rush to defend, said, “Should the Department of Justice continue with a stunning and troubling effort to silence and punish a journalist for doing his job, Don will call out their latest attack on the rule of law and fight any charges vigorously and thoroughly in court.” Ooo! You give me chills when you talk tough like that, Abbe!
That is, of course, lawyer, zealous representation crap. What “job”? Nobody’s paying Lemon to be a reporter. He’s paying himself. Now watch all of those self-righteous protesters claim to be journalists. Hey, they all had cell phone cameras and recorders!
Ethics Alarms 
“Now watch all of those self-righteous protesters claim to be journalists. Hey, they all had cell phone cameras and recorders!”
If they have a podcast, that’s exactly what they will do. They will just make sure someone who broadcasts his opinion online is part of the mob.
Eventually, someone is going to bust into a mosque with an iPhone at the ready and watch the resistance spin!
“Listen to him in the clip above, implying that there is a Constitutional right to burst into a church, stop a service, and protest something that has nothing to do with the service or the parishioners at all.”
He thinks enforcing immigration laws is white supremacy; he thinks churches are bastions of white supremacy. To him, it’s the same thing.
While the Free Press is an innumerated right, journalists as a group possess no rights that are not also available to the average (or below average) citizen such as Lemon acting individually. Thus, Lemon’s claim to be a “journalist” is not on its face absurd, but must be evaluated on the specific facts of his participation.
Did Lemon have foreknownledge of the disruption not available to others? Did he help organize the disruption? Did he participate in the chanting during the disruption? I doubt that he refrained, but that could be my bias against him.
It could be plausible that he only had readily available knowledge of the protest and showed up to report on it. I’d imagine though if the disruptors publicized there intend, the church would have requested extra security or a police detail, so it is tough to believe that Lemon were acting on publicly available information.
If Lemon behaved professionally during the distruption, he has a plausible defense. Given his utter lack of professionalism, it is a doubtful one.
I agree. I think he knew about the disruption, participated in it and is using his past recognition as a journalist to play the part of an observer.
Of course, Lemon was in on it. I’ll bet he showed up in the same caravan of cars as the rest of the thugs.
Did he have prior knowledge? Seems likely. There is video of him meeting with the anti-I.C.E./BLM activists before they stormed the church.
As for his status as a journalist, as repellent as he is, he probably meets the minimum plausible definition as a journalist under the First Amendment and the FACE Act to shield himself from prosecution. He will throw his CNN cred around to say, “see, I am a journalist because CNN said I was a journalist!”
jvb
My favorite observation of Lemon is that this Christianity is only for white men.
Watching the video, I noticed that there were members in worship sitting in chair that appear to me(and my cis bias) to be women. So, they must actually be men crossdressing or women in transition or trans-men dressed as women to compassionately guide others on their sincerely felt trans journey.
Of course, this church and this Christianity is not the kind of church Lemon would go to or the “kind of Christianity he practices.” (Hey, Don! When was the last time you went to church?) He’s a secular Chistian. He’d go to one of those churches that features Gay Pride and Social Justice banners, not Faith, Hope and Charity banners and all the congregants have those “In this house” signs in their front yards and “Coexist” stickers on their cars’ bumpers. He’s a faux Christian. He’s attacking Christians who do not embrace the entire lefty catechism and orthodoxy.
Don Lemon and others do not understand that the right to protest means that citizens have the right for redress of grievances against the government and not other citizens. If it were the case that one could protest private citizens then the entire concept of bullying would be impossible and groups could make life miserable for any public servant or anyone with a different political ideology.
Imagine doxxing school teachers who espouse leftist ideology and then conservative groups start amassing outside their homes, yelling at their children, keeping them and their neighbors awake at night or just plan harassing them on a regular basis. The idea that they can do so because they are in a public space outside the home will not prevent civil or criminal charges. Conceptually mobs of protesters are an intimidation tactic no different than a burning cross in a public park in a black neighborhood.
Don Lemon and others do not understand that the right to protest means that citizens have the right for redress of grievances against the government and not other citizens.
My goodness, Chris, thanks for obliterating the nail on the head. Why isn’t that the first thing out of the mouths of everyone prosecuting these BLM assholes?
Ad absurdum argument incoming:
Imagine the scenario of a reporter embedding with some bank robbers. After all, it’s never been done and would be great reporting, right? Do you think the first amendment would defend that conduct? Could a journalist argue they’re just reporting when they know about the crime beforehand?
No? Then Lemon doesn’t get that excuse either. One does not have to participate materially in a crime to be an accomplice. If they know the plan and tag along, that’s good enough.
The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act, 18 U.S.C. # 248) passed in 1994 into federal law prohibits force, threat, or obstruction that prevents or interferes with people in worship services. So Lemon was quite wrong to say these protesters had the right to disrupt a worship service.
Some J6 people who claimed to be journalists were arrested. I would suspect that whatever plans they had/knew about were less concrete than what Lemon knew before they invaded the church. The J6 people were arrested, tried, and convicted while Lemon gets a pass.
It could be the denomination in question has a lay clergy, who also have regular day jobs. My church is like that. My father was a bishop (our rough equivalent of a pastor) for eight years while he was a dentist for his paying job.