Suppose it wasn't Don Lemon but just some random amateur with a podcast or social media account. Would the same rules apply?

"The only thing Don Lemon is guilty of is being used by the Trump Administration to distract from the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti."

He couldn't have made it easier for them if he intentionally tried.

Technically, anyone who writes in a diary is a journalist. For exanple, Ashley Biden.

" You need to actually "journal" the event and the present your story to the public somehow."

Does social media count?

Come to think of it, he does look a bit like a werewolf ...

The first time I heard about Thylacines was from a werewolf horror movie from the 80's called The Howling III.

The part about it being race based as some groups on the right believe is definitely a conspiracy theory, and comments by radical leftists help to fuel those conspiracy theories (see Cea Weaver, amongst other Mamdani appointees).

Corporations have long been happy to replace native workers with cheaper foreign and immigrant labor, and now they'd like to replace all of the above with AI. So in that sense, Replacement Theory is real.

"Of course I hope for replacement theory, I hope we can sweep this country of fascists and racists with immigrants."

Funny how she says that as if immigrants are any less likely to be fascists or racists. Lest we forget, Adolph Hitler was an immigrant ...

"Notice that Lemon says he is "gonna follow them". IOW, he wasn't part of the operation and/or participating in it, but was following the operation and reporting on it. He wasn't chanting with the protesters the way did Horn:"

Trump made a lot of CYA statements on Jan6-21, too, and also technically didn't join in with the protest. He also made a number of slipups, just like when Lemon said "after 'we' do this operation..." The people making excuses for Lemon's behavior are starting to come across as just as nonsensical as those make excuses for Trump's.

^^ for *no* discernably good reason

"Because once you actively committing a crime your status as a journalist disappears."

The question isn't whether it disappears, but whether it was relevant in the first place. Whether one is a journalist or a religious practitioner or a speaker, it's been established that individuals' rights reach a limit when they begin infringing upon other's constitutional rights.

Whether or not Lemon actually crossed that line, it certainly looks like he at least came very close to it for discernably good reason. Like I said, he might have been set up. Either way, he's unwittingly given Trumpers a lot of ammunition to distract and push the envelope even further with their police state tactics.

"If we decide anyone with a camera is a journalist and anyone filming in the Capitol on 1/6 was a journalist, that also means anyone recording ICE anywhere in the country today is a journalist. Alex Pretti was a journalist."

Sure, why not?

Lemon did something stupid that he deserves to be prosecuted for.
The Trump admin is maliciously prosecuting people to intimidate the press.

Both of these statements can be true, and both can be rightly condemned.

"I didn't do that, though. Check your premise."

You're not explaining yourself clearly, then. Are you saying that anyone who broke the law on January 6th should be immune from prosecution if they're a "journalist"? If they had all pointed at each other and said "I'm not with these guys", would that absolve them? Or are you saying that Lemon is not immune from prosecution? Otherwise, it looks like you are applying different standards.

"So dishonest, even after it's been spelled out. You call anyone a journalist if they feed your confirmation bias. That's a fundamental problem."

It looks like he's trying to construct a reductio ad absurdum argument, and it's backfiring on him just like it does when most people on this site attempt to do that.

Anyway, putting aside the definition of "journalist" (the 1st Amendement doesn't specify someone has to be a professional journalist any more than someone has to be a professional speaker for Freedom of Speech to apply), journalists aren't immune from prosecution if they break a law just like someone can't claim they're immune if they commit a crime while "practicing their religion".

"Not what Lemon did. How that for a comparison?"

If you're going to demand that J6 rioters be held responsible for any federal laws they knowingly violated (and you should), then you can't hold others to a different standard just because it's a different law they may have broken.

A bigger question is what exactly did Lemon achieve by going in with the criminals that couldn't have been done without disrupting a religious service? Couldn't they have confronted the pastor when he was walking on the street or somewhere else? Basically, all he's done is helped Trump distract from what his ICE thugs have been doing.

"Again, Trump's DOJ going after individuals based on politics instead of the law of the land."

All the more reason why what Lemon apparently did is really dumb. It's possible he was set up, and he walked right into it.

"How about if ICE is murdering an American citizen?"

Suppose a reporter gets a tip that ICE is planning to murder someone. Should they just tag along so they can cover the reactions, not warning anyone in advance?

More context:

"These are resistance protesters that are planning an operation that we're gonna follow them on. I can't tell you exactly what they're doing, but it's called Operation Pull-Up, and it's Nekima Armstrong, and she has been doing this since George Floyd, Dante Wright, and others, where they surprise people, catch them off-guard, and hold them to account. So that's what we're doing here, and then after that, after we do this operation, you'll see it live. These operations are surprise operations, again I can't tell you where..."

"News reporters going to where the news is happening?!?"

Where do you draw the line? If a group of protesters decide to rob a bank, should a reporter just tag along, or should they take a step back once they realize something illegal is going on? How about if they're storming a restricted government area?

It's possible that Lemon didn't know in advance the operation he was covering was going to involve barging inside the church during a service, but it was really poor judgement call on his part to follow them inside.

"3) Remove contaminated clothing"

Be careful what you wish for...

"the reaction from the MSM"

Are we still pretending that Fox isn't MSM?

Did we ever find out how this thread was able to circumvent the character limit for its title?

"she's just a narcissist who is hoping that a shallow 'I'm not Trump' campaign will be viable again."

Frankly, Biden (either Joe or Hunter) have a much better chance of being elected than Harris.

I've seen a number of people describe Mamdani as a "left-wing version of Trump". Some people apparently think that's what's needed in order to defeat him. Be careful what you wish for...

Maher is right that the US is not a Communist country, but it could be when Trump gets through with it...

The comments about Mamdani start at around 7:20, for those of you with restless leg syndromes.

"Which is fine... It's a belief system. He's allowed to believe it, and people are allowed to vote for it. But if liberals deny it, like he's just going through a goth phase, they're going to lose more elections."

"This is the 'pendulum never lands in the middle' problem I'm always bitching about. Really, the choices we get here are either the worst version of crony capitalism or communism? Either a side deal for the Trump family every time he does business overseas, or the lady who says, 'Impoverish the white middle class.'? Oh yeah - there's a great campaign slogan for you."

#46- that particular poster has a history of day drinking, so take everything he says with a grain of alcohol. :-D