Don Lemon speaks to the media after being released from custody in Los Angeles. (Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images)
On a sunny Friday afternoon in Los Angeles, Don Lemon emerged from a federal courthouse to a throng of supporters and members of the media as the sound of news helicopters whirred overhead. Wearing a tan double-breasted jacket and glasses, the journalist addressed a sea of cameras and sign-holding supporters gathered outside the facility to hear his first remarks since federal agents placed him under arrest Thursday night in the lobby of a Beverly Hills hotel.
“I have spent my entire career covering the news. I will not stop now,” Lemon declared. “In fact, there is no more important time than this very moment for a free and independent media.”
The extraordinary moment came after a federal judge ordered Lemon to be released without bond after Donald Trump's Justice Department sent a team of officers from the Department of Homeland Security to arrest the 59-year-old journalist for his coverage of an anti-ICE protest at a Minnesota church, in a profound escalation of the administration’s assault on press freedoms.
What began as a verbal “fake news” taunt against journalists has metastasized into something far darker…
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‘Melania’s’ Empty Infomercial
Melania Trump in "Melania." (Photo courtesy Muse Films/Amazon MGM Studios)
On Friday morning, in one of those “not all heroes wear capes” moments, I dutifully schlepped to a local theater to catch “Melania”—no press screenings were scheduled—along with 17 other brave souls, most of whom appeared eligible for Social Security.
The intention was to set aside money, politics and the musty aroma surrounding the deal with Amazon MGM—which committed a jaw-dropping $75 million to the acquisition and marketing campaign—and try to judge the propaganda, ahem documentary, on its merits: whether director Brett Ratner’s fly-on-the-wall access to the normally press-shy first lady delivered anything unexpected, or at least insightful and new.
Narrowly focused on the 20 days leading up to and through the inauguration, “Melania” promises—to quote Melania Trump’s greeting-card-style narration—to chronicle her “transition from a private citizen to the First Lady.” But the result fails to yield almost any unguarded moments, so intently focusing on its subject as she walks through venues in high heels as to approximate the feeling of a 104-minute perfume commercial, with a bit of a foot fetish for good measure.
Opening with an aerial view of Mar-a-Lago, more than anything “Melania” features…
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