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Tag: Don Lemon

  • Megyn Kelly Argues With CNN Anchor Over Publicizing Name of Umpqua Community College Gunman

    Fox’s Megyn Kelly got into a heated debate on Thursday night with CNN anchor Don Lemon. The two argued over whether or not TV journalists should publicize the name of the gunman who killed at least 10 people and wounded several more at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon earlier in the day.

    Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin pledged not to name the shooter, and Megyn Kelly agrees with him. Don Lemon, however, feels otherwise.

    “[Authorities] know who the shooter is,” he said. “We have named it, Chris Harper Mercer, 26 years old.”

    Don Lemon understands why the sheriff refused to name the shooter, but feels that, “unfortunately we … must identify him because that is our job.”

    Megyn Kelly took to Twitter to praise Sheriff John Hanlin.

    The host of The Kelly File also condemned Don Lemon in a subsequent Tweet.

    The CNN host stuck to his belief, but explained that he understands how Megyn Kelly feels. He doesn’t want to give the mass shooter any more TV time than necessary.

    Who do you believe is right in this situation? Do you side with Megyn Kelly or Don Lemon?

  • Don Lemon Apologizes For Comment To Bill Cosby Rape Victim

    Several women have recently come forward to accuse actor Bill Cosby of raping and/or sexually harassing them when they were young women. Some of these women claim that Cosby threatened them or tried to pay them off to keep quiet.

    One of these women, Joan Tarshis, recently talked about her awful experiences on CNN and while talking about it was hard enough, she also had to put up with the insensitive comments of CNN anchor Don Lemon.

    Tarshis shared her story from 1969 when she claims that Cosby forced her to perform oral sex on him. He had tried to have vaginal intercourse with Tarshis but she told him she had an STD to try to change his mind. While he didn’t push the intercourse, he did make her perform oral sex.

    After hearing her story, Lemon chimed in to inform her that she could have stopped the oral sex too.

    “You know, there are ways not to perform oral sex if you didn’t want to do it,” he said.

    “I was kind of stoned at the time, and quite honestly, that didn’t even enter my mind,” Tarshis replied. “Now I wish it would have.”

    Viewers weren’t happy about the comment and voiced their opinions on social networks and forums, criticizing Lemon for being so inconsiderate and disrespectful.

    Tarshis said that she didn’t feel that the comment was insensitive or disrespectful, but Lemon released an apology anyway.

    “A word about my interview last night with Cosby accuser Joan Tarshis: As I am a victim myself, I would never want to suggest that any victim could have prevented a rape,” said Lemon. “If my question to her struck anyone as insensitive, I am sorry as that was certainly not my intention.”

    Tarshis accepted the apology and even defended Lemon during her second appearance on CNN.

    “I didn’t take it that way,” she said. “I was just kind of shocked, but I didn’t think he was saying, ‘Oh, you could have presented this if you had just fought back.’ I thought it was more of a good-natured, ‘Why didn’t you just do that?’ rather than saying, ‘You could have stopped this if you had just done that.’”

    “But quite honestly,” Tarshis continued, “I felt [Lemon] and I didn’t know each other, but…this is the second interview [we’ve done] together and he had kind of horsed around back stage before. He ran in late. We kind of like each other. And I just thought it was kind of maybe something he might not have said on air, [it] might have been seen as good taste to do it on air, but I certainly don’t think that he meant anything malicious by it at all…It was very casually done. It was almost like we were together at a restaurant and saying ‘Why didn’t you do this, hey girlfriend.’”

    Do you think the comment was inappropriate?

  • Don Lemon Suggests Bill Cosby Rape Accuser Could’ve Fought It Off by Biting His Penis

    If you clicked on this after reading the headline and thinking there’s no way that actually happened, well, prepared to be surprised.

    CNN talking head Don Lemon pressed a seriously troubling line of questioning during a Tuesday night interview with new Bill Cosby rape accuser Joan Tarshis. Earlier this week, Tarshis became the latest in a string of women to come forward alleging comedian Bill Cosby sexually assaulted them in the past. In a recent essay, Tarshis recounts numerous instances of alleged rape dating back to 1969.

    She appeared on CNN Tuesday night to discuss her allegations with Lemon, who took the interview to a very strange place.

    “I don’t mean to be crude, ok, because I know – and you said this last night – that you lied to him and said ‘I have an infection, and if you rape me, or if you have intercourse with me, then you will probably get it and give it to your wife.’ And you said he made you perform oral sex,” said Lemon.

    “Right,” said Tarshis.

    “You, you know – there are ways not to perform oral sex,” said Lemon.

    “Um, I was kinda stoned at the time and quite honestly, that didn’t even enter my mind,” said Tarshis. “Now I wish It would have.”

    “Right, meaning the using of the teeth, right,” Lemon asked, “as a weapon.”

    “Yes – I didn’t even think of it,” said Tarshis.

    “Yeah, biting,” said Lemon.

    You can watch the interchange below:

    As you might expect, this isn’t going over well.

    No word from Don Lemon on what could have possibly motivated him to ask a woman why she didn’t bite Bill Cosby’s penis when she was (allegedly) raped at the age of 19.

  • Lauryn Hill Speaks Out Against Ferguson By Dedicating ‘Sketch’ Version of ‘Black Rage’

    Lauryn Hill is using her music to voice her outrage over the situation in Ferguson, Missouri, through a new “sketch” version of her song Black Rage.

    Since its release, the song has been played more than 85,000 times.

    A take on the Rodgers and Hammerstein song My Favorite Things from the musical The Sound of Music, the remix was dedicated to the protests in Missouri following the fatal police shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown.

    The song describes “all these kinds of things” that lead to unrest similar to that which is erupting in Ferguson in the past few weeks over police brutality.

    “Black rage is founded on draining and draining, threatening your freedom to stop your complaining,” Hill sings. “Poisoning your water while they say it’s raining, then call you mad for complaining, complaining.”

    Hill joins other hip-hop artists who are supporting protesters in Ferguson.

    Rapper Nelly, who hails from St. Louis, joined protesters as they marched, and hip-hop star J. Cole, visited the city and released the song, Be Free, in memory of Brown.

    “As an artist I wanted to put my money where my mouth is,” rapper and activist Talib Kweli told CNN‘s Don Lemon. “I’m supported by the community that’s been brutalized. I have a son that’s Mike Brown’s age.”

  • Bill Cosby: African-American Men Should Love Kids

    For the past few months, CNN Anchor Don Lemon has courted controversy with several segments pegged to his general agreement with comments by Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly, aimed at solving problems within the black community. On Saturday night’s edition of CNN Newsroom, Lemon continued that controversial trend with comic legend Bill Cosby, no stranger to controversy, who has also felt the heat of controversy on the subject.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vwqad_ohno

    Cosby has also stirred controversy by airing grievances against his community, but neither Lemon nor Cosby have backed away from their criticisms. In Saturday night’s interview, Lemon asked Cosby to reflect on the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, and what kind of African American leaders are needed now.

    “I think it has to come from the universities,” Mr. Cosby began. ” I think, women, strongly because when you see 70%, in research, that says they are the leaders of the household, what we need is for people to realize I want to raise my kid. I want to go back and get my three kids. I want to take on that responsibility. I want to love my children.”

    He added that one of the sights he’d like to see more of is what he saw at the recent Essence Festival, “walking around to see, yeah, to see a black male with his child on the shoulders and holding.”

    He also encouraged young people who might not be able to go to a prestigious college to “go to community college. Okay, you backed up and didn’t do well. You quit school but now you find you need that high school credential. Go to the community college.”

    Cosby related the idea of personal responsibility to his own experience, adding that “At age 19 and a half, I knew I didn’t want to do certain things. It is not what they weren’t doing to me, it’s what I wasn’t doing. It’s a very simple thing.”

    Later in the interview, Mr. Cosby talked about what he sees as an overemphasis on medicating juvenile inmates, versus counseling. “If you drug these people, and then you release them, and there’s no prescription for them to get to take to do the same thing, and they go back to the same place,” he said, adding “Now, about this time, this is when you hear the no-groes jump up and say ‘Why don’t you talk about the good things?’”

    “Because the good things happen to be taking care of themselves pretty well,” he answered. “We are trying to help those genius’, those not genius’, people who deserve, because they are human beings on this earth, in the United States of America, we are trying to get them in a position so they will understand and want to.”

    When Lemon asked “Why is it so hard for some people to get that message, to hear that message, to receive that message, and without lashing out?”, he replied, “Well, it’s because they feel, I think they feel embarrassed,” and related a story about Sammy Davis, Jr. “We were in playing in a routine, and I told him I knew something. He said no you don’t. I said yes, I do. I said it. He said no, that’s not the way it goes. I said the same thing louder. He said, ‘Bill, saying it loud don’t make it right.’”

    “And so, every loud voice you hear yelling about something,” he explained, “and saying ‘Well you just — you lost us. You became a millionaire,’ the reason why I’m giving you this information is because I was living in the projects. I was not taking care of myself in terms of managing my education, and once the door opened and I saw quote, unquote, the light, I started to become very successful.”

    Image via wikipedia commons