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Speaker 1: Just popping on because this is a huge moment for

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Speaker 1: those of us in independent media. The arrest of Don

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Speaker 1: Lemon is pretty chilling. The pharmacy and an anchor to

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Speaker 1: get some context was reporting on the protests in Minneapolis.

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Speaker 1: There was this high profile incident where some protesters went

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Speaker 1: into a church service. Don Lemon followed them in in

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Speaker 1: his capacity as a journalist. Even the videos have been

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Speaker 1: out there, his reports have been out there, even interviewed

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Speaker 1: the pastor. There's no doubt there were people very upset

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Speaker 1: with how that incident went down at the church, and

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Speaker 1: certainly because of previous instances where the president and his

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Speaker 1: supporters have not been big fans of Don Lemon. Of course,

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Speaker 1: everything gets quickly politicized, and everything is seen through this

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Speaker 1: prism of politics rather than the prism of the First Amendment.

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Speaker 1: And that's what I want to get at here. Look,

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Speaker 1: the First Amendment is there to protect speech we don't

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Speaker 1: like and speech we like. It's there to protect the

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Speaker 1: speech you agree with and the speech you don't agree with.

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Speaker 1: Freedom of the press is also the same way, and

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Speaker 1: you don't have to like Don Lemon to defend his

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Speaker 1: right to do what he did. You can love Don

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Speaker 1: Lemon and also defend his right to do what he did. Look,

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Speaker 1: one person's journalist is another person's activist. We've always had

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Speaker 1: this fight and dispute about because those that are political

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Speaker 1: actors don't like press that questions what they're doing and

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Speaker 1: any a lot of times you get political activists who

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Speaker 1: when they don't like something that's being reported, they automatically say,

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Speaker 1: you're not a journalist, you're an activist, and the accusation

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Speaker 1: comes from said activist. Right. So, but this is a

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Speaker 1: really chilling moment for an e penemedia, and this has

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Speaker 1: been a thing I've been very concerned about and to

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Speaker 1: be fully transparent and been working on various ideas so

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Speaker 1: that we can create some sort of independent cooperative to

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Speaker 1: create some legal defense. Don Lemon is somebody who's high

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Speaker 1: profile figure. He's got Abbi Lole, a terrific attorney, somebody

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Speaker 1: that anybody in Washington knows, if you're in trouble, call

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Speaker 1: Abbi Lole, which is pretty much the best advice anybody

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Speaker 1: can can take in Washington. And so Don Lemon's going

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Speaker 1: to be fine, He's going to get proper representation in

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Speaker 1: this case. Is this is open that this is such

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Speaker 1: a bullshit case, which look has me. I'll be honest,

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Speaker 1: I'm been of two minds on this was a part

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Speaker 1: of me that wasn't going to put out anything because

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Speaker 1: this feels like an intentional distraction by the Trump administration

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Speaker 1: to desperately feed their base something, to essentially feed them

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Speaker 1: some chum. And you don't like Don Lemon, So we'll

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Speaker 1: throw this out there and you guys can have a

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Speaker 1: little bit of fun with that. And you see some

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Speaker 1: of the some of the MAGA media puppets sort of

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Speaker 1: jumping on this and trying to and trying to you know,

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Speaker 1: dunk on Don Lemon or whatever it is. But this

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Speaker 1: is an important This is going to be an important

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Speaker 1: moment to win for independent media and for frankly for

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Speaker 1: freedom oppress as it is with so much corporate capitulation,

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Speaker 1: which is damage the credibility of legacy media. Right when

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Speaker 1: you have all these corporate owned media companies that have

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Speaker 1: all capitulated to the government, to the Trump run government

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Speaker 1: in various ways, I understand why so many people don't

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Speaker 1: trust where that comes from. But the one thing working

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Speaker 1: for a big corporateentity did provide journalists with some legal

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Speaker 1: protection as an independent it's much more difficult, and that

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Speaker 1: is something that a lot of us have feared, that

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Speaker 1: you could get sued out of existence, You could get

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Speaker 1: sued out of being able to even do this for

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Speaker 1: a living. So this is why there's so many of

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Speaker 1: us independents are speaking out on this regardless, and to me,

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Speaker 1: this is a great MRI. By the way, if you

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Speaker 1: want to find out if your favorite influencer, whether they're

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Speaker 1: left or right, if they're not standing up for Lemon's

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Speaker 1: right to do this, they're not interested in the First Amendment.

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Speaker 1: They're not a constitutionalist. So just keep that in mind.

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Speaker 1: There is no definition of of you know, there is

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Speaker 1: no place you register as a journalist. Okay, it is

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Speaker 1: simply in the First Amendment that you that you have

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Speaker 1: a right to a free press and the government can't

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Speaker 1: intrude on that right. And this is a government intrusion

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Speaker 1: attempting on that right to try to criminalize what he

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Speaker 1: was doing, and he was practicing journalism. And again I

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Speaker 1: accept the premise that this is subjective to some people,

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Speaker 1: that one person's journalist is another person's activist. Was Thomas

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Speaker 1: Paine a journalist or an activist? When he wrote common

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Speaker 1: Sense is Alexander Hamilton a journalist or an activist when

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Speaker 1: he helped co write all the Federalist papers. The point

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Speaker 1: is is that, yes, there's quite a bit of incredible

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Speaker 1: journalism that led to important activism. So it is hard

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Speaker 1: to disaggregate the two, and you shouldn't even try to

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Speaker 1: do it. And our founders didn't attempt to try to

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Speaker 1: do it. They simply put in this as a foundational

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Speaker 1: protection against tyranny, bottom line, right, that's why it's the

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Speaker 1: first Amendment, that both speech and freedom of the press

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Speaker 1: is sitting there in the first And yes, I know

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Speaker 1: some of you will say, well, also freedom of religion.

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Speaker 1: And there's there's some that are going to try to

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Speaker 1: make the case that what happened with this group and

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Speaker 1: what Don Lemon doing was impeding upon somebody's ability and

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Speaker 1: that that may be something that the activists who are

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Speaker 1: the actual protesters, they may have to deal with that.

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Speaker 1: And I'm not going to have a constitutional debate on that.

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Speaker 1: But Don Lemon was practicing journalism as he was doing it. Now,

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Speaker 1: if you want to hit him with a trespassing charge,

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Speaker 1: that's a separate conversation. But this he had every right

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Speaker 1: to do what he was doing there, He was covering

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Speaker 1: this protest, He was there as a journalist. And I

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Speaker 1: don't even think the trespassing charge has much has much

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Speaker 1: traction here, But this is an important case to make

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Speaker 1: sure it gets thrown out if for some reason it doesn't.

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Speaker 1: If for some reason this this somehow has taken that

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Speaker 1: that Don Lemon, being a journalist, committed a crime and

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Speaker 1: he's charged with something and convicted, that's a that's a moment.

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Speaker 1: That's a moment, that is that is an erosion of

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Speaker 1: of who we are as Americans and what America claims

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Speaker 1: it is and wants to be. So. But I'm I'm

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Speaker 1: really confident this is going nowhere. I think this is,

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Speaker 1: like I said, my hesitance for even adding to the

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Speaker 1: material that's out there is simply this feels like an

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Speaker 1: intentional distraction. Right. The president is having a disastrous month.

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Speaker 1: I think this is and I've written it earlier this week.

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Speaker 1: I think this is the month that it all it's

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Speaker 1: all starting like it is not going to get better, right.

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Speaker 1: Everything seems to be building and you know, getting worse

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Speaker 1: and worse and worse, and he's kind of in a

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Speaker 1: bad public relations spiral at a minimum, here where you've

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Speaker 1: got more members of his own party splintering from this.

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Speaker 1: You know, this month, we've seen more elected Republicans feel

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Speaker 1: comfortable pushing back at this White House. Right, there's just

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Speaker 1: all these chinks in the armor. It's just that it's

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Speaker 1: the the erosion suddenly seems to be accelerating. So this

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Speaker 1: feels like, you know, hey, throw the base something to

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Speaker 1: distract them so they're not so mad about the president's

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Speaker 1: irresponsible comments about the Second Amendment or the or what

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Speaker 1: Ice did do uh in the in the killing of

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Speaker 1: Renee Good and Alex Preddie. So you know, I think

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Speaker 1: we there's there's too much of this happens, which is

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Speaker 1: people want to rationalize violating somebody's constitutional rights because they

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Speaker 1: say somebody, well somebody isn't a pure actor or whatever

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Speaker 1: is it, you know, and you know, so just because

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Speaker 1: you don't like Don Lemon's politics, you're going to look

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Speaker 1: the other way when his constitutional rights are violated. And

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Speaker 1: so that's when I say the good news about this

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Speaker 1: incident is that it's an MRI to find out who

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Speaker 1: on the right, you know, who was really concerned about

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Speaker 1: speech during COVID, really concerned you know about you know,

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Speaker 1: the freedom. The people that argue with what James O'Keeffe does.

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Speaker 1: What James O'Keefe does is is more blurring the line

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Speaker 1: about you know, when he when he does his undercover

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Speaker 1: that stuff's borderline criminal at times with what he's doing

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Speaker 1: in some of these cases, but he's been protected in

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Speaker 1: some cases by the First Amendment as well. So the

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Speaker 1: point is is that our constitutional rights are there for

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Speaker 1: even people we don't like, for people we don't agree with.

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Speaker 1: And if you start looking the other way just because

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Speaker 1: well I don't like that guy Don Lemon, so who cares.

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Speaker 1: I've always wanted to see him in handcuffs or some

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Speaker 1: sort of that's a slippery slope, folks, because the next

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Speaker 1: time it could be you. And guess what, When you

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Speaker 1: take a video and you decide to post it on

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Speaker 1: social media and somebody comes after you, you have a

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Speaker 1: First Amendment right, and you're going to be glad that

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Speaker 1: First Amendment right gets upheld. If somebody comes after you

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Speaker 1: with a lawsuit, well, that's the same thing here. So

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Speaker 1: I do hope, I do think that's the one thing

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Speaker 1: we're going to get out of this is we're going

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Speaker 1: to find out who the hypocrites are particularly those in

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Speaker 1: the MAGA media world who have beaten their chest, particularly

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Speaker 1: during COVID and during the whole dispute, the manufactured dispute

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Speaker 1: about the twenty twenty election that Donald Trump was was

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Speaker 1: trying to stir. So it is if you think that

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Speaker 1: speech is protected, and you think all of those lies

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Speaker 1: are protected under the First Amendment, then you should be

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Speaker 1: outraged by what happened with Don Lemon. So we'll see

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Speaker 1: if we get that. But the other thing to think

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Speaker 1: about here is just remember just because you think someone's

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Speaker 1: an activist doesn't mean they're not practicing journalism. And yes,

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Speaker 1: some journalism turns into activism. We had some pretty important

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Speaker 1: journalism during our founding that now might look like activist journalism.

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Speaker 1: But I think it was a pretty good thing that

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Speaker 1: Alexander Hamilton wrote the Federalist Papers, and I think it

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Speaker 1: was a pretty good thing that Thomas Paine wrote Common Sense.

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Speaker 1: What was juvenile and chilling at the same time is

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Speaker 1: how the White House is celebrating the fact that they

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Speaker 1: have used the federal government to violate the First Amendment.

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Speaker 1: I'm pretty confident our court system is going to throw

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Speaker 1: this out pretty quickly. But the fact that it's got

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Speaker 1: this close is alarming. It's really chilling for those of

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Speaker 1: us in independent media who are trying to escape the

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Speaker 1: influence of this government corporate marriage. And so if this

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Speaker 1: goes the wrong way, our information ecosystem is in more

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Speaker 1: trouble than it's in at the moment. And we're already

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Speaker 1: in a lot of trouble with it as it is.

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Speaker 1: So we're gonna keep plugging away. And this is why

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Speaker 1: so many of us have to band together and have

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Speaker 1: each other's back, not just rhetorically but legally as well.

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Speaker 1: I'll see them abom