A Press Pass In Not A Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free Card
For more than half of my life I’ve carried a press pass.
I have one now.
That pass has gotten me into press conferences, past police barricades, into movie premiers and inside private homes heavy with grief.
It never allowed me to commit a crime.
It was made very clear to me from the first pass I was issued (yes, those old photos are hideous) that the card merely identified me as a member of the press. I was required to obey all laws and politely object if I believed the government was interfering with my ability to report the news. I couldn’t cross the threshold of private property with my pass unless I was invited.
That press pass was NOT a get-out-of-jail-free card.
The first amendment, which protects the rights of freedom of the press, keeps the government from censuring and interfering in the publication of news.
Period.
Nowhere in the First Amendment is there language protecting members of the press from prosecution if they engage in a crime. Especially not if that crime is interfering with the First Amendment rights of other to exercise their religion.
Despite efforts by the left to turn disgraced former CNN anchor Don Lemon - and now YouTuber Lemon - into a victim, it is clear that he knowingly crossed a line from observer of agitators violating the rights of Americans to worship God, to a participant in the illegal acts on Sunday, January 18th.
The only victims on that day in St. Paul, Minnesota, were the church members and their terrified children who were prevented from worshipping.
This midwit Lemon foolishly claimed - on tape - that the First Amendment protected the rights of lunatics to invade a church service and terrorize the worshippers.
“Trauma” is part of the point of protesting, he proclaimed smugly.
Lemon’s a fool. And so is anyone defending him.
In fact, from the tapes he released, it is clear that Lemon was fully aware of plans to invade an unsuspecting church full of Sunday worshippers and disrupt their service. He coyly turned the cameras away when details of the illegal plan were being discussed and he joined the action once the anarchists were inside.
Notice his use of the word WE.
There is ample evidence that Lemon was informed of the illegal protest in advance and once emails and text messages are subpoenaed by prosecutors we’ll know the full extent of the conspiracy and his role in it.
The indictment claims he blocked a worshipper from leaving the sanctuary. He was trespassing. The pastor asked him and the rest of the maniacs to leave. Lemon refused, arguing that they had the right to be there.
The entire mob of agitators clearly violated the FACE Act of 1994, which the left loves because it creates a special category of protection for abortion clinics. That act makes it easy to jail nuns and grandmothers who gather at the entrances to pray for the unborn babies. What lefties forget is that same act gives places of worship that same special protection from disrupters and intimidators.
Like abortion clinics, churches are private property. No one has a right to burst in and disrupt the service, which is exactly what Don Lemon did.
Just saying you’re a journalist doesn’t make you one, Don.
Would lefties defend me if I joined - as a journalist, to document the action - a group of protesters invading a mosque at Friday services, trying to inflict trauma on unsuspected Muslims? Would they leap to my defense if I joined a group of pro-life grannies - again, as a journalist - as they tried to disrupt the ghoulish procedures being carried on inside?
Absolutely not. In fact, the left cheered when independent journalists were imprisoned for joining in the January 6th riots.
Ironically, this arrest is the best thing to happen to Don Lemon. After his firing from CNN in 2023 he’s been nothing more than an irrelevant YouTuber.
Suddenly, he’s back in the full embrace of America’s radical left. He should have a job with MSNBC - MSNow - any moment.
Question is, will he be able to carry out his duties from a federal prison?
