Last night, Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo put on quite a spectacle in their faux “banter” transition between Fredo’s Prime Time and Lemon’s…hell, I don’t even know if his show has a name. The subject was the much more stringent newsgathering environment on CNN, as opposed to that on social media or their favorite target, Fox News. The clip is via MRC and has been edited. I’m using it because I can’t find the whole exchange online, and there is no way in hell I’ll ever pay to get a CNN clip.

LEMON: Okay. So you know this when I’m fired up about. I’ve always been…I’ve always felt this way, that social media should be regulated. They should follow the same rules that we follow here in legacy media. You shouldn’t just be able to spread things about people that’s not true. It has a big influence on someone’s livelihood, their credibility, their career, even their lives. So I think it should be regulated. I’ve always thought that. I don’t think I should be able to go on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram and say whatever I want about Chris Cuomo whether it’s true or not.

A section has been cut here.

LEMON: The most egregious of it all, though, is what you said. The people who have the biggest platform on social media…

CUOMO: They’re all righties.

LEMON: They’re all righties. They’re – all of them are righties. And listen – and if you want to call it legacy media – even some of the conservative media they do the same thing. They have no – they have no real protocol. They have no real structure in what – they say what they want. They put headlines and things and write about things.

CUOMO: They say it’s opinion. This is all opinion.

LEMON: Most people…we would never even put it on, give it the light of day…

CUOMO: That’s because we have news accountability. That’s the “Fox farce.” Their whole nighttime lineup is entertainment.

LEMON: Fox and social media…then they shouldn’t put “news” behind it. Social media should do the same thing. They shouldn’t be able to put things out there and with, you know, face no consequences.

CUOMO: Because they know…[end of clip].

Ordinarily, low-hanging fruit like Don Lemon wouldn’t be worthy of notice. But his call for censorship of opinion journalism fits into a widespread, crypto-fascist campaign to get social media conglomerates like Facebook and Twitter, and Google to actively censor opinions that run contrary to the narrative the establishment would like to push. If you actually publish scientific journal articles that debunk what the assclowns at NIH and CDC are putting out, you get relegated to the Substack gulag.

That was the fate of Alex Berenson, who chronicled the lies and misinformation undergirding the government response to the Wuhan virus, the disregard of science by the public health nazis, and how the “pandemic” response was being used to attack civil liberties. New York’s governess governor, Kathy Hochul, is demanding that Facebook censor anything critical of abortion.

In that context, there is another critical medical issue that is the subject of rampant falsehoods and misinformation — and it is one that is equally dangerous to the health and safety of our communities if left unchecked. Each day, posts are liked and shared on your site that make false claims about abortion procedures and reproductive health legislation, and this misinformation has hit close to home. An analysis of Facebook engagement between January 1 and March 20, 2019, found that four of the top 10 stories receiving the most engagement on the platform were articles about the New York State Reproductive Health Act from anti-choice news sources that misrepresented the bill.

It is fashionable in some corners of the libertarian right and alleged right (like National Review, The Dispatch, and The Bulwark) to bleat about “muh private company,” whenever anyone objects to mega-corporations imposing speech codes on what have essentially become public utilities. In my view, Facebook limiting what you can say is indistinguishable from Sprint or Verizon bleeping out your personal phone calls if they disapprove of the content.

But let’s examine this insanity in detail. First off, one of the big differences between social media and CNN is that there is nowhere on social media where two credibly accused alleged sex offenders can get together and chat about how bad “legacy media” performs. Social media forces people like that out of business in short order. Don Lemon is currently facing a lawsuit from a waiter. This is Lemon in action…if you’ve just eaten, you might want to skip this because it is not for weak stomachs:

It’s been over two years since Dustin Hice filed an explosive lawsuit against Lemon – who is openly gay – accusing the “CNN Tonight” host of assault and battery at a bar on New York’s Long Island during the summer of 2018.

“[Lemon] put his hand down the front of his own shorts, and vigorously rubbed his genitalia, removed his hand and shoved his index and middle fingers into Plaintiff’s mustache and under Plaintiff’s nose,” according to the lawsuit, filed Aug. 11, 2019 in Suffolk County Court.

“Lemon intensely pushed his fingers against Plaintiff’s face under Plaintiff’s nose, forcing Plaintiff’s head thrust backward as Defendant repeatedly asked Plaintiff ‘Do you like p—y or d–k?’ While saying this, Mr. Lemon continued to shove his fingers into Plaintiff’s face with aggression and hostility,” the suit alleged.

I can’t imagine why this seduction routine didn’t work…

Fredo, himself, is mired in a sexual harassment lawsuit by a former colleague (see Chris Cuomo Accused of Sexual Harassment; Accuser Has Bizarre Email From Him Acknowledging Act):

“At the time, I was the executive producer of an ABC entertainment special, but I was Mr. Cuomo’s executive producer at ‘Primetime Live’ just before that,” she wrote. “I was at the party with my husband, who sat behind me on an ottoman sipping his Diet Coke as I spoke with work friends. When Mr. Cuomo entered the Upper West Side bar, he walked toward me and greeted me with a strong bear hug while lowering one hand to firmly grab and squeeze the cheek of my buttock.”

Ross said Cuomo told her, “I can do this now that you’re no longer my boss”, and did it “with a kind of cocky arrogance.” Ross said she told him he couldn’t, pushed him off her and revealed her husband was right behind her, and they quickly left the party, which was celebrating an ABC colleague’s departure.

And who can forget Fredo’s behind-the-scenes coaching of his big brother through a sexual harassment scandal of his own that resulted in him resigning as New York’s governor rather than being impeached and removed from office while interviewing his brother and covering his brother’s actions as governor? If Fredo didn’t have crap ethics, he’d have none at all. Please check out our coverage of Fredo’s antics.

WaPo Floats a Bogus Peter Doocy Narrative to Deflect From CNN’s Shameful Cuomo Media Scandal

Media Does Something Right, Releases Scathing Report on Chris Cuomo, CNN

Chris Cuomo Nabbed Yet Again, Embroiled With Brother’s Scandal

Watch as CNN Shamelessly Tries and Fails to Whitewash Chris Cuomo’s Role Advising His Brother Andrew

Gov. Andrew Cuomo Just Made Matters Much Worse for Little Brother Chris ‘Fredo’ Cuomo

Even CNN Employees are Speaking out Against Chris Cuomo for His Lack of Journalistic Integrity

CNN Responds to Chris Cuomo’s Latest Scandal and It’s Something

Lemon also claims that “legacy media” can’t just throw out unsubstantiated claims because of the impact on lives and careers. And yet, CNN was forced to pay a multimillion-dollar settlement to Nick Sandmann after the lies they spread about him over his being harassed by a stolen-valor shaman during the 2019 March for Life (see Attorney For Nick Sandmann Confirms Tom-Tom Beating Liar and Stolen Valor Cretin Nathan Phillips Will Be Sued and Fake News Takes a Punch to the Face: CNN Surrenders to Nick Sandmann’s Lawsuit). Needless to say, CNN, including Lemon and Cuomo, were actively involved in spreading various elements of the odious Steele dossier, a document that was concocted and paid for by the Clinton campaign.

As to Fox’s prime-time opinion line-up, I have much more faith in any of those hosts to accurately portray the facts upon which they are opining than I do of any CNN host to get the date of the show correct.

The real story is this. In the most recent ratings, Lemon and Cuomo were much closer to Newsmax than Fox.

Cable News Ratings Mon Sep 27

Primetime Average Demo | Total Viewers
1⃣@FoxNews 421,333 | 2,523,667
2⃣@MSNBC 198,667 | 1,539,000
3⃣@CNN 164,333 | 722,000
4⃣@Newsmax 19,000 | 163,000
5⃣@NewsNationNow 5,667 | 43,000 pic.twitter.com/zeHGgetuUD

— RoadMN 📈 (@RoadMN) September 28, 2021

CNN is not relevant in the news or opinion ecosystem. Literally, no one cares about CNN beyond its breaking news coverage, which is now obviously inferior to Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. CNN used the cover of the “pandemic” to pull the plug on its “airport” channel and save it from the ignominy of being forced to shut down that useless twaddle because no one cared. Lemon and Cuomo are poster things for why CNN is failing and why more and more people are turning to alternative sources for information. They aren’t trustworthy, they are highly partisan, and they constantly lie because that is who they are.