A bunch of protesters barge into your house and stomp around, screaming. A self-declared “journalist” follows them in and broadcasts live from your home. He shows your children. He praises the protesters repeatedly.
Based on the crazy arguments my former CNN colleague Don Lemon is making about his own actions, this could happen to you. Learn about it in the new episode.
Lemon joined a group that raided1 Cities Church in St. Paul during a service. The demonstrators said a pastor there is a local ICE leader. That individual was not in the church at the time.
While insisting he was on the scene as a “journalist,” Lemon extolled the protesters and failed at the mission of providing the truth. Big things he managed to get wrong all at once:
The Constitution
The First Amendment
The rights of “journalists”
The Civil Rights Movement
Perhaps the most disturbing moment came when Lemon said, “I’m looking at a young man who’s in the corner. He’s frightened. He’s scared. He’s crying.” Then how great it is for you to be there with a camera and microphone, sharing this mayhem with the world. It’s worth noting that children are visible throughout all this.
Being a “journalist” does not automatically entitle someone to enter into a private space uninvited and take video. And the federal FACE law, which the political left usually supports, specifically bans physical obstruction that attempts to interfere with “any person lawfully exercising or seeking to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship.”
None of this justifies what ICE is doing. Those who wish to protest can do so in many places.
When media figures tell you it’s a good thing to barge into a church, everyone at every kind of religious institution or other private place is in a new kind of danger. (Cue the Hamas-worshipping mobs at synagogues.)
What does Big Media have to say about what Lemon did? Very little. Yet they poured time, energy and resources into going after Nick Shirley, another self-declared “journalist,” whose video about Somali immigrants and fraud in Minnesota drew the attention of the Trump administration. I dig into the hypocrisy in this episode.
More to come on this. Supporters: Share your thoughts and questions using the links below.
I looked up the Webster’s definition to ensure this term applies. It does. This was a hostile entrance.