So Don Lemon went on the Tom Joyner Morning Show to discuss Tuesday’s mayoral election and Stop-and-Frisk policy. Take a listen.
Let me get this straight: Don Lemon thinks that those who are opposed to stop-and-frisk should just grin and bear state-sanctioned violence and harassment because it’s better to be “safe and alive” than “politically correct”?
Don Lemon is a problem, and we will continue to call him out until he has a seat.
Also on today’s #TWiBRadio, #TeamBlackness discussed staging a hate crime to save on rent and I weighed in on Kanye West’s“creative genius” and how he thinks he can change history.
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And this morning on #amTWiB, The Morning Crew discussed electronically tracking autistic children, how successful women are making men feel bad, and the *SHOCKING* news that Brazil was spying on the United States. (Fun fact: everyone is spying on everyone.)
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Fuzzy
Not one thing of interest in this post unless you think NYC or “celebrities” are of any interest. Meh
Anya
Don Lemon is an asshole. I hope one day he experiences the humiliation of Stop and Frisk. What an immoral douchebag. He’s always quick to make an excuse for the victimization of blacks.
Speaking of Stop and Frisk, look at the king of Stop & Frisk pouting after Bill DeBlasio’s huge win.
fuckwit
@Fuzzy: If you don’t care about stop and frisk, that says a lot right there.
TooManyJens
@Fuzzy: If you think Stop & Frisk is confined to NYC, you’re mistaken.
jayjaybear
Funny…if I find a frontpage post uninteresting, I simply skip past it. I wasn’t aware that there was some sort of medical condition that compels one to read EVERY post. And then comment in order to make public and clear one’s disdain for the subject matter.
Mnemosyne
You know, I can kind of understand saying that protesting Stop & Frisk in the moment that you’re being stopped and frisked is probably not the best time to do it, or at least that you should lodge your protest as calmly and politely as you can. But saying that people shouldn’t, say, participate in public protests because maybe the police will retaliate against them? That’s what it sounds like he’s saying, and that’s fucked up.
scav
I’ve no doubt Don will co-sign my standing assumption that white men, especially white men of a certain age are likely self-absorbed whining mysognist homophobe bigots with mommy and daddy issues. I think my hit stats are actually slightly higher than stop and frisk, especially with a few other clues. Practice safe socializing out there, right?
Belafon
@TooManyJens: It’s much worse in New Mexico, though it’s not much better here in Texas.
Mullah DougJ
Don Lemon is the new Juan Williams, the designated black guy who endorses racist shit.
SarahT
@Fuzzy: @Fuzzy: Because no one outside of NYC could possibly be interested in discussing racist police tactics or male privilege or the overwhelming crappiness of TV “journalists”, right ? Ok, got it.
Gin & Tonic
I took a quick look at that Don Lemon hashtag on Twitter. Holy shit, that’s amazing.
Belafon
@jayjaybear: If you post ten comments, your eleventh one is free. Or something.
J.D. Rhoades
“It works to reduce crime” is not the end of the discussion about a police tactic or policy. Shooting defendants in the back of the head the day they’re charged would reduce crime, but that doesn’t make it something we need to be doing in America.
Joe Buck
Perhaps he thinks that if he wears an expensive suit at all times, his class privilege will make up for his lack of white privilege and someone else will bear the brunt of the frisking?
CarolDuhart2
What kind of crime is a policy of randomly stopping black and latino and alternative kinds of white men supposed to stop? Domestic violence, where the victim and perpetrator know each other? Bank Robbery? Not even drug dealing where people know each other. The truth is that it is simply a form of humiliation and harrassment no different than the “sundowner” stuff of times past.
It’s about “smoking weed while black”, which is itself a dubious statistic. It’s about making black men feel they have no freedom of the streets. It’s about justifying bloated police and surveillance budgets.
What has reduced crime? Some of it may be that reduction in lead poisoning as minorities increasingly move away from toxic wasted neighborhoods. It could be that with the growth of electronics, more men stay indoors and find other things to do. it could be the reintroduction of weed and its mellowing effects. Whatever it is, random stops certainly did nothing to help move it along.
Belafon
@Joe Buck: That worked out well for Forrest Whitaker. It also worked out so well for that NYPD officer in the Police SUV.
jayjaybear
It does kind of add evidence to my theory that your economic status will, USUALLY, override any considerations of your racial or sexual minority. Log Cabin Republicans, Herman Cain, etc…just because you’re a minority doesn’t mean that you actually IDENTIFY with the problems of that minority. Even so, it makes you a huge asshole if you don’t at least try to look at things from a standpoint other than atop your lofty bank account.
CarolDuhart2
@jayjaybear: Also, Don Lemon needs to remember that money also means he never has to worry about being treated poorly while out on the street, because he’s never really out on the street, From reserved parking space in the garage where he works to suburban home with his dedicated parking space, to shopping in enclosed mall or even a maid who does all the errands for him, he’s never in a position where he could be stopped and frisked.
Ash Can
@Fuzzy:
So what should we be talking about? The Kansas City Chiefs?
rikyrah
I’m so glad Black Twitter has lit Lemon’s ass up about this, because it seems there is no insult towards Black people that Lemon won’t excuse.
THAT is the problem that Black people have with his slave catching ass.
scav
@jayjaybear: Mmmm-yep. Class. issues. On the up side, those issues and allegiences are crawling out overtly and politically too. All the cross-cutting social allegiances and identities can be socially stabelizing but then . . .
@CarolDuhart2: So long as he hires the properly skinned shopper for all his high-end purchases, he should be good. If not, he might suffer a few delays in deliveries and queries on the legitimacy of his credit cards.
celticdragonchick
For anybody interested in Stop and Frisk…well…you will fucking believe this story:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/05/david-eckert-enema-colonoscopy-drugs-traffic-stop_n_4218320.html
aaand:
http://www.kob.com/article/stories/s3209305.shtml#.UnqQqeKYx3h
Eckert’s attorney, Shannon Kennedy, said in an interview with KOB that after law enforcement asked him to step out of the vehicle, he appeared to be clenching his buttocks. Law enforcement thought that was probable cause to suspect that Eckert was hiding narcotics in his anal cavity. While officers detained Eckert, they secured a search warrant from a judge that allowed for an anal cavity search.
The lawsuit claims that Deming Police tried taking Eckert to an emergency room in Deming, but a doctor there refused to perform the anal cavity search citing it was “unethical.”
But physicians at the Gila Regional Medical Center in Silver City agreed to perform the procedure and a few hours later, Eckert was admitted.
What Happened
While there, Eckert was subjected to repeated and humiliating forced medical procedures. A review of Eckert’s medical records, which he released to KOB, and details in the lawsuit show the following happened:
1. Eckert’s abdominal area was x-rayed; no narcotics were found.
2. Doctors then performed an exam of Eckert’s anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found.
3. Doctors performed a second exam of Eckert’s anus with their fingers; no narcotics were found.
4. Doctors penetrated Eckert’s anus to insert an enema. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.
5. Doctors penetrated Eckert’s anus to insert an enema a second time. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.
6. Doctors penetrated Eckert’s anus to insert an enema a third time. Eckert was forced to defecate in front of doctors and police officers. Eckert watched as doctors searched his stool. No narcotics were found.
7. Doctors then x-rayed Eckert again; no narcotics were found.
8. Doctors prepared Eckert for surgery, sedated him, and then performed a colonoscopy where a scope with a camera was inserted into Eckert’s anus, rectum, colon, and large intestines. No narcotics were found.
Throughout this ordeal, Eckert protested and never gave doctors at the Gila Regional Medical Center consent to perform any of these medical procedures.
“If the officers in Hidalgo County and the City of Deming are seeking warrants for anal cavity searches based on how they’re standing and the warrant allows doctors at the Gila Hospital of Horrors to go in and do enemas and colonoscopies without consent, then anyone can be seized and that’s why the public needs to know about this,” Kennedy said.
Rob in CT
Of course they will claim whatever they’re doing is working. Crime is way down. Of course, it’s way down all over the country, but they’ll count on others not knowing that. Heck, plenty of average people think it’s up, not down.
A brave administrator would cancel the policy and pray the crime decline continues (or at least doesn’t reverse), and then hammer that as proof that it’s not necessary to harrass the brown & poor in order to safeguard the public. That’s hard, no doubt because the police really want to believe that *they* are the reason crime fluctuates… not factors largely out of their control.
Gin & Tonic
@celticdragonchick: I hope those doctors lose their license to practice medicine. If you read the whole story, the warrant was valid until 10:00 pm, and they started prepping him for the colonoscopy at 1:00 am (the next day.)
Citizen_X
@Fuzzy: Piling on because you fully earned it: this is also another example of how national news media (i.e. “celebrities”) have completely insulated themselves from the problems of ordinary Americans.
Omnes Omnibus
@celticdragonchick: The Fourth Amendment problems with that story just tack up like cord wood. Unbelievable.
Citizen_X
@Gin & Tonic: And the warrant wasn’t valid in that county! (Only in the county where the hospital told the cops to piss off.)
I hope the doctors and cops involved end up in prison. I hope he ends up owning that damned hospital. I hope he wins every penny all those fuckers have.
Morbo
I can’t be the only one who at first confused Don Lemon for Don Cherry and WTFed. Please tell me someone else made that mistake.
scav
@Gin & Tonic: many members of the vaunted Caring ”First, Do No Harm” Profession are proving rather to gleefully leap onto the whole probing of orifices of others under cover of law with or without the police (military counts) actually watching. It’s not just for pregnant women (and off-shore terrorists) any more. Could probably work up quite the psychological profile of the enablers, if one believes that sort of thing.
Mnemosyne
@Gin & Tonic:
I also can’t get past the fact that when the x-ray, manual exam, and enemas produced no results, they kept escalating. I mean, when the results came back negative from the x-ray, wouldn’t a reasonable doctor say, Well, there’s nothing there, so you’d better release him.
Sugar Daddy
So you people want all this gun control, but you don’t want anyone enforcing it.
I get stopped and frisked every time I go to the airport. I don’t like it, but I accept that it is appropriate.
Omnes Omnibus
@Citizen_X: The one good thing in that story is the doctor at the first hospital who refused to participate. Oh, yeah, and the fact that Eckert never consented to any of it – makes the lawsuit easier.
Mnemosyne
@Sugar Daddy:
Too bad not everyone else on your side feels the same way. But I guess dead TSA officers are just the price we pay for FREEDOM!
Gin & Tonic
@Morbo: The only Don Cherry I’m aware of died almost 20 years ago.
Gin & Tonic
@scav: I get sensitive about this sort of thing and (perhaps naively) believe in the Hippocratic Oath. A long long time ago, in a galaxy far away, my father, a physician, was imprisoned for following the oath and refusing to do something he felt was unethical.
eric
@Omnes Omnibus: the problem is he is not a corporation, so i am not sure he has any rights left.
scav
@Mnemosyne: I’m reading the escalation as the growing sublimated realization that they really really fucked up on this one.
Belafon
@Sugar Daddy: As if this has anything to do with gun control. This is about blah people control.
And there are plenty of ways to enforce gun laws without violating the fourth amendment.
Mnemosyne
@scav:
Yep, probably. I don’t understand the urge to make things even worse rather than admit you fucked up, but it’s a very common impulse.
handsmile
@jayjaybear:
As both a racial and sexual minority, Don Lemon’s class consciousness must be working especially hard for him to discount the impact of historical and present-day police aggression on those communities.
What is the salary required for that level of denial? Or at least, his conviction that acquiescence will maintain the class privileges he currently enjoys?
scav
@Gin & Tonic: Pissed as hell too, especially as it’s usually the assholes that most cuddle the Caring Profession boilerplate while clutching the cash and insisting on instant social deference and obedience by nurses and all others in their vicinity. Good for your dad, that thing needs to be taken seriously.
eric
@Sugar Daddy: First of all, EVERYONE gets stopped and frisk and [eta:not] just darker looking folk. Or, i should say that is the way it is “supposed” to work but there have been allegations that TSA has targeted more “ethnic” looking folk. Second, the rationale for the airport is that the actual harm to be avoided is so catastrophic that the limited invasion into your rights is acceptable. Not everyone agrees with that calculus. But is certainly not the case that stopping and frisking EVERYONE at Times Square to avoid the sale of a dime bag is worth the whole sale violation of privacy rights.
shortstop
Please to also enjoy the hashtag #DonLemonOn.
Oh, and for those wondering how Don Lemon would react if he were stopped and frisked, he sued a Philadelphia store for racially profiling him. Which makes what he said this week exponentially more assholish, if that is possible.
Nethead Jay
That horrible story story out of New Mexico is really getting some legs, probably because of the sheer over-the-topness of it. So far I’ve seen it show up in 2 quite separate circles of mine. Hope it spreads far and wide and that that guy gets big victories over both the police and that medical place (btw, isn’t that the area that the General was in?).
Ripley
Ah, there’s the tell.
TooManyJens
@celticdragonchick: It looks like Eckert’s not the only one it happened to.
Eclectablog: After report of New Mexico man being abducted, sedated & raped by cops, another victim comes forward
Tone in DC
@Fuzzy:
So don’t read it.
scav
@Ripley: Well, for SugarDaddy, going to the airport is exactly the same as any of Us People stepping a foot outside our own doors.
eric
@scav: or going to Barneys
Ash Can
@Morbo: If it had been Don Cherry, Elon and co. would have been laughing too hard at his sports coat and tie to be able to post about it.
SarahT
@Ripley: BINGO.
NonyNony
@scav:
I suspect that there was also a large dose of the guy telling the cops that he refused to give them consent to search, and so they were bound and determined to find SOMETHING on him. Because clearly someone who denies he’s done anything wrong THAT much must be hiding something, right?
“Everyone is guilty of something” is the motto of far to many cops I’ve known over the years.
Tone in DC
@celticdragonchick:
That is fucking ridiculous. He and his lawyer are going to take that hospital and the police department for a lot of money.
handsmile
@shortstop:
That’s a great catch, but to be fair, Mr. Lemon was merely a general assignment reporter for a Philadelphia television station at that time.
He’s much more “Safe and Alive” now, now that he’s a CNN anchor.
Omnes Omnibus
@NonyNony:
And that is why this is always good advice. Ignore the fact that the guy is a professor at Regent; he is exactly right on this.
Ash Can
Am I the only one who immediately flashed back to Monty Python’s Upper-Class Twit of the Year sketch upon reading Sugar Daddy’s keyboard fart?
Violet
@celticdragonchick: That is horrifying. I was in that area of NM this summer. It’s very busy with a bunch of oil drilling. The whole area is booming. We ran into a police stop coming into one town after dark. They seemed somewhat embarrassed since we were obviously tourists. The police said they were checking for drunk driving. It was a Sunday and the workers were rolling back into town, so I could see why they picked that night. Still, it seemed over zealous. This story is scary and doesn’t surprise me at all, sadly.
Narcissus
I had no idea Don Lemon was such a big deal. I just thought he probably had some deal with the devil to still look 25.
Matt McIrvin
@CarolDuhart2:
Street mugging, most likely. That’s the kind that has the largest impact on tourism and the city’s image, and regardless of the reality of present-day New York or of how large a fraction of total crime this is, white visitors to the city imagine that getting mugged by a black, brown or scary-looking guy is an ever-present danger on the streets. And because it’s about what people imagine, it gets political support.
burnspbesq
@scav:
Do you have any other spectacularly stupid beliefs you’d like to tell us about?
celticdragonchick
@Gin & Tonic:
Yeah, I saw that also.
@Omnes Omnibus:
No doubt about that at all.
@Citizen_X:
I think a real case for sexual assault can be made on this story, particularly when you read the actual lawsuit and specific allegations that the officers deliberately and maliciously engaged in these things for sadistic humiliation and mocked him about it.
celticdragonchick
@scav:
I don’t think so. I believe this was deliberate sadism, since the victim had been the subject of a tense encounter some months earlier where officers felt the guy had been “rude”.
This was payback for not “respectin’ mah authoritah”, and the suit alleges as much.
ItAintEazy
@Omnes Omnibus:
Actually, when the police stopped me thinking I’m a black suspect that show two people, I tried not talking to the police for any reason at all, but they still arrested me.
Mnemosyne
@celticdragonchick:
It may have been on the part of the cops, but the cops weren’t the ones sedating the guy for an unnecessary colonoscopy — the hospital staff was. So that’s where I think the Oh shit we really need to find something or else we’re fucked mentality came in — not from the cops, but from the hospital staff who knew perfectly well that all of this was totally against medical ethics and medical practice no matter what the cops said.
kc
@celticdragonchick:
I saw that on Wonkette. Unfuckingbelievable.
I hope he OWNS that town, county, and medical center.
kc
@celticdragonchick:
Also, too, wtf is wrong with the magistrate who signed that warrant?
Mnemosyne
@kc:
It sounds like the cops went WAY beyond the warrant — as the story points out, the colonoscopy happened after the warrant had expired. So it’s very possible that they’ll end up with a pissed-off judge in addition to all of their other troubles, and you do not want to be a sheriff or sheriff’s deputies having to explain to a pissed-off judge why you exceeded the warrant he gave you.
kc
@Mnemosyne:
Ha . . . “Damn it, I just authorized a good anal probing, not repeat colonoscopies!”
kc
@Mnemosyne:
I just can’t even believe medical professionals went along with this.
Mnemosyne
@kc:
I’m horrified, but I can believe it. In defense of the medical profession, the first hospital they took the guy to refused to do it, so they drove to another one where presumably one of the cops had a buddy who would go along with it (or at least look the other way).
But, yes, that hospital should lose their accreditation over this.
ETA: The Joint Commission is not going to find this story funny. At all.
Yatsuno
@burnspbesq: Serious. I don’t think he was being.
@Ash Can: I hope JC kept the receipt. This one needs to go back to troll school or something. I’ve only seen two drive-bys and both were too obvious to be taken seriously.
Yatsuno
@burnspbesq: Serious. I don’t think he was being.
@Ash Can: I hope JC kept the receipt. This one needs to go back to troll school or something. I’ve only seen two drive-bys and both were too obvious to be taken seriously.
Julie
don’t miss #DonLemon…….the link is embedded in this sentence in the copy above:
Don Lemon is a problem, and we will continue to call him out until he has a seat.
really funny stuff!
Felanius Kootea
@Ash Can: I automatically thought of the other Don Cherry (deceased trumpet player; Neneh Cherry’s step-father). Just discovered the Canadian hockey commentator/former player today thanks to google.
Steeplejack
@Nethead Jay:
Yes, Stuck was in southwest New Mexico, although in (or closer to) Silver City, I think.
Matt
Would’ve been a much more convincing argument if Lemon delivered it after being cuffed and thrown to the ground. Ya know, for “safety”.