Hi everyone-
Agitators led by black activist Nekima Levy Armstrong stormed into the Cities Church in St. Paul. Armstrong had sussed out that David Easterwood, one of the pastors there, is also the acting director of ICE's St. Paul field office. Armstrong spoke to Don Lemon outside the church. He was alerted by the activists as to their plans and invited along to document it, which he did. He asked Armstrong, "Why are you doing this?"
"This is Operation Pull Up," she said, "more of a clandestine operation. We show up somewhere that is a key location. They don't expect us to come there. We disrupt business as usual. So that's what we're about to go do right now."
Inside the church, she and her collaborators are screaming, "ICE out!" And Armstrong spoke again into Lemon's mic, saying "Demanding justice for Renee Good and letting them know that this will not stand. They cannot pretend to be a house of God while harboring someone who is directing ICE agents to wreak havoc upon our community and who killed Renee Good and who almost killed a 6-month-old baby. Enough is enough. I am a reverend on top of being a lawyer and an activist, so I come here in the power of almighty God."
Everything she said is wrong. People get to work for the federal government without being hounded out of church by activists who don't like the federal government. The Department of Homeland Security, which operates ICE, has 260,000 employees. Will all of them be forced out of their homes and churches?
Lemon tried to interview the pastor who was delivering a sermon that day. "This is unacceptable. It's shameful. It's shameful to interrupt a public gathering of Christians in worship." Lemon tried to engage the pastor in further conversation, apparently not realizing that the safety of the church had been violated. The pastor kept saying he had to tend to his family and the parishioners.
Lemon brought up the First Amendment, as though the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances means breaking up church services. Maybe he forgot about the freedom of religion part. The pastor made Lemon look like a fool and asked him to leave as Lemon kept saying Jesus would embrace all these protesters or whatever. Lemon stuck his mic in some other faces too and made a pageant out of the whole thing.
AG for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon said the government was looking at charging the agitators with violations of the FACE Act, which prohibits "intentionally injuring, intimidating, or interfering with, or attempting to injure, intimidate, or interfere, any person by force, threat of force, or physical obstruction exercising or seeking to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship." Sounds about right.
Minnesota state senator and failed Minneapolis mayor candidate Omar Fateh posted a photo of himself alongside two other men in the Cedar Riverside neighborhood with the caption "Cedar Strong. White Supremacists aren’t welcome here. We protect our own." The implication, of course, is that he and his cronies are forming some kind of private security force to keep people out of the neighborhood, which is (of course) completely out of control. It's not at all legal to have private security in a public place to keep people out with whom you believe you disagree.
"This is not just about resistance here, in Minneapolis," Mayo Jacob Frey said on Sunday morning. "It's about love. We are showing something far more powerful and consequential here which is love. We are standing up for one another. You've got neighbors helping neighbors. You've got people coming together and uniting in this beautiful way." The protests have grown more violent and tribal with each passing day and by Wednesday it will be two straight weeks of this mayhem.
Libby