patrick.net

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/washed-up-tuesday-january-20-2026

CNN ran the developing story yesterday below the awkwardly worded headline, “Trump officials investigate protesters who interrupted Minnesota church service, targeting ICE official.” The short version is: disgraced podcaster and former CNN host Don “The” Lemon led a large group of furious BLM activists into a Minneapolis church on Sunday to terrorize the peaceful congregation. He is probably soon going to find out.

At one time, Don Lemon was woke journalism’s golden boy. Diversely intersectional —he is both black and gay— newcomer Lemon got his own CNN show in 2006. By the time the pandemic began, he was ensconced at the highest levels of salary and benefits at the network, making millions every year under his lucrative media contract. But then Lemon began savaging unvaccinated Americans. Yahoo News, September, 2021:

Don Lemon argues it's time to 'shun' anti-vaxxers
Thu, September 16, 2021

Less than a year later, CNN demoted the anchor, taking away his named show and assigning him to a mere panel. Don Lemon chafed. But the chafing didn’t last long. About a year after that, Lemon was summarily fired for inconvenient “me too” issues. Without notice. Don Lemon didn’t just fall from grace; he fell from grace, crashed through the floor, and tumbled through the first eight levels of Dante’s Media Inferno on his way to the very lowest level— where resentful, washed-up podcasters live. ...

This weekend, for some reason the former journalist thought it was a good idea to leave his home in New York and go to Minneapolis, to terrify young kids and retired people minding their own business and quietly worshipping at Sunday services. The plan, or scheme, started when documents were filed in a federal case two weeks ago, which included an affidavit from David Easterwood, who identified himself as a “regional director for ICE.”

Having obtained a name, two groups of local Black Lives Matter activists hunted Easterwood down, ultimately discovering he is some kind of assistant pastor at Cities Church in St. Paul. So Lemon and the BLM activists plotted to teach the church a lesson, for including an ICE employee in its pastoral staff. (No wonder ICE agents prefer wearing masks and not filing affidavits.)

If the activists planned to confront the doxxed ICE official, the plan backfired. As far as anyone knows, Mr. Easterwood —the outed ICE employee— didn’t attend church on Sunday. None of the many videos show him anywhere in sight.

The videos, virally spread on social media, show a large group of activists filling the church and screaming like lunatics at churchgoers, with bullhorns, including small children and elderly folks, repeatedly calling them racists, rapists, evil, white supremacists, and so on, and generally making asses of themselves.

Eventually, the church emptied out, and the protestors marched off down a nearby alley.

Questions abound. Why is Black Lives Matter making so much hay about the shooting of a white woman, or even about the government’s enforcement operations toward illegal aliens? Mission creep? How did Don Lemon even find out about the raid (much less think attending was a good idea)? He was involved from start to inglorious finish. The former anchor-turned-podcaster videoed himself in the car on the way, at a staging event before the activists raided the church, and inside during the chaotic frenzy that followed.

In the legal community, we call that “making evidence against yourself.”

Local police made no arrests. They’re not likely to, either. According to an exclusive published yesterday in the Daily Wire, the protestors included a well-connected staffer from the county attorney’s office, Jamael Lundy, who also happens to be a current candidate for a state senate seat. (Unsurprisingly, since it is Minnesota, after all, Lundy also ‘runs’ a Section 8 housing 501(c) funded by state and federal grants.) Lundy was the first connection to local authorities, which will become significant in a moment.

On his podcast yesterday, Lemon interviewed Minnesota’s Attorney General Keith Ellison —a Muslim— who defended the protestors. Ellison authoritatively insisted that the federal FACE Act doesn’t apply (he was wrong, as we’ll see shortly), and that protestors have a First Amendment right to yell at peaceful worshippers (wrong again). In other words, Minnesota’s top law enforcement officer created evidence of his own refusal to protect the church’s First Amendment right to religious expression.

Ellison also previously posted a picture of himself being interviewed by Don Lemon before the activists raided Cities Church. In other words, it looks like Ellison knew what was going down and participated in the conspiracy.

In the viral reaction and aftermath, DOJ officials Todd Blanche and Harmeet Dhillon both said that federal law enforcement was responding immediately and surging FBI agents into Minneapolis to investigate the so-called protest. Dhillon expressed some concerns that local federal judges —who recently barred ICE agents from arresting or even detaining ‘peaceful’ protestors who are impeding or following ICE— will refuse to go along...

It almost seems like Minnesota is trying to create the conditions where President Trump can lawfully invoke the Insurrection Act. The Insurrection Act (codified at 10 U.S.C. §§ 251-255) is a federal law that empowers the President of the United States to domestically deploy U.S. military forces and federalized National Guard troops under certain circumstances. It dates all the way back to 1807. It has been amended over the years, most notably to address civil rights enforcement.

The key relevant provisions are found in 10 U.S.C. § 253. The statute permits military deployment if there is an “insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy” that either (1) hinders the execution of federal or state laws such that a class of people is deprived of constitutional rights and the state is unable or unwilling to protect those rights, or (2) opposes or obstructs U.S. laws or impedes the course of justice.

The Cities Church invasion seems to check many of the Insurrection Act boxes. We see a conspiracy involving state officials who are unwilling to protect Christians’ constitutional rights. We see the hindrance of federal and state laws depriving a class of people (Christians) from their constitutional right to religious expression. The only question is whether one church invasion is enough— or perhaps enough when combined with the rest of the demonstrations that are literally getting people like Reneé Good killed.

If the local federal judges do refuse to issue arrest warrants, it will ironically make the case for the Insurrection Act stronger, by “impeding the course of justice.”

We are watching a game of chess. Courts have hamstrung Trump’s National Guard deployments, arguing that conditions on the ground weren’t bad enough to justify using the National Guard. Obviously, that logic signals judicial skepticism about invocation of the Insurrection Act. So the Trump Administration keeps surging resources into the area while letting the situation develop.

At some point, if not now, the Insurrection Act’s legal requirements will be met in a way that judges can’t possibly quibble with.

There is no doubt that the protestors, not least of all The Lemon, broke a wide array of federal laws. The two most often mentioned by DOJ officials and intelligent commentators are the FACE Act and —ironically, given yesterday’s federal holiday and the role reversal— the Ku Klux Klan Act. Let’s start with the FACE Act.

You might recall the FACE Act. Biden’s DOJ deployed it against peaceful protestors at abortion clinics. Contrary to Keith Ellison’s ignorant claims to the contrary, the statute explicitly protects places of religious worship, including churches, from certain kinds of interference. Under 18 U.S.C. § 248, it is a federal crime for anyone, “by force or threat of force or by physical obstruction,” to intentionally injure, intimidate, or interfere with (or attempt to do so) any person “lawfully exercising or seeking to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship.”

The Enforcement Act of 1871 (often referred to as the “Klan Act”), is divided into several sections. 18 U.S.C. § 241 (Conspiracy Against Rights) makes it criminally unlawful for two or more persons to conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States (or because of having exercised such a right). Penalties can include fines, imprisonment up to 10 years, or even life/death if aggravating factors (like bodily injury or death) are involved.

The FACE and Klan Acts are just two serious examples of the legal peril to these protestors, not to mention a laundry list of state-level crimes like trespassing and intimidation, which are unfortunately unlikely to be filed by state prosecutors, since those officials appear to be participants in the conspiracy. But the locals’ reticence to bring charges, and the Attorney General’s public declarations of bias, make the federal charges even stronger.

In other words, the more compromised Minnesota looks, the easier it is for DOJ to justify treating this as a classic civil rights case, where federal intervention is necessary because local authorities will not vindicate victims’ rights. ...

Now let’s look at the most widely claimed defense: the protesters’ First Amendment rights. It’s the dumbest argument they could come up with.

Put simply, the First Amendment does not permit trespassing in a private house of worship to make a demonstration.

While defenders of the protesters —including AG Ellison, who should know better— have invoked free speech and assembly rights, these protections are not absolute, and do not extend to entering or disrupting private property without permission.

The First Amendment does not require private property owners —including churches— to allow unwanted expressive activity on their premises. Private owners can set rules limiting speech and exclude people who violate them. If some joker refuses to promptly leave upon request, they can be removed and potentially charged with trespassing (a state crime). Churches are private property, not public forums. A worship service is a private gathering for religious exercise, itself protected under the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause.

The Supreme Court has consistently held that private property owners (like malls, homes, and businesses) can prohibit unwanted speech or demonstrations, even if the property is otherwise open to the public for other purposes, such as shopping or attending services. In cases like Hudgens v. NLRB (1976) and Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins (1980), the Court clarified that the First Amendment does not compel private owners to host protests (unless the property functions as a public equivalent, like in a company town).

Churches do not meet this threshold.

In short, what the protesters are relying on as their best defense is no defense at all.

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/washed-up-tuesday-january-20-2026

Yesterday, in closely related news, the New York Times ran a story headlined, “Trump Administration Asks Judge to Reject Minnesota’s Call to Block ICE Surge.” The story included a whirlwind of astonishing facts. First, the Minneapolis ICE operation, called “Operation Metro Surge,” now involves three thousand agents, who have reportedly made a staggering three thousand arrests just in the last six weeks, amounting to an unimaginable ten thousand arrests in Minneapolis since the operation started.

Second, the State of Minnesota has filed a novel lawsuit asking a federal judge to essentially evict ICE from the state. The lawsuit argues that the entire operation violates Minnesota’s sovereignty under the 10th Amendment, and that DHS’s “actions appear designed to provoke community outrage, sow fear and inflict emotional distress, and they are interfering with the ability of state and local officials to protect and care for their residents.”




She is AWFL

Judge Kate Menendez (Biden appointee) should have thrown the lawsuit out on supremacy grounds, but has so far made no rulings and has invited the DOJ to file a brief. She’s also the same judge who recently ruled that ICE can’t even question protestors who trail ICE agents in their cars.

Third, and possibly the most interesting, the Times reported that “on Friday, the Justice Department opened a criminal investigation into whether Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota and Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis had conspired to impede federal agents.” The BBC reported that the investigation relates to 18 U.S.C. § 372, a rarely used Civil War–era law making it a crime for “two or more persons” to conspire to prevent, by force, intimidation, or threat, any federal officer from discharging their official duties.

That kind of investigation allows DOJ to get hold of all Walz and Frey’s communications. It could be spicy.

Where all of this is going is unclear. But it feels like it is escalating toward some sort of climax. ...

The Minneapolis protests have become a microcosm of 2020’s “Summer of Love” BLM protests, which coincidentally started in the same city. It’s like the summer of 2020 never actually ended there.

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115926042315145030

Just watched footage of the Church Raid in Minnesota by the agitators and insurrectionists. These people are professionals! No person acts the way they act. They are highly trained to scream, rant, and rave, like lunatics, in a certain manner, just like they are doing. They are troublemakers who should be thrown in jail, or thrown out of the Country. The first to go should be Walz, and Fake Sleazebag, Ilhan Omar, who is supposedly worth over $30 Million Dollars, even though she’s never had anything but a Government job. Investigate these Corrupt Politicians, and do it now!

OK say the national guard is deployed and quell the ruckus, and say the goon squads quiet down for as long as the guards are there, good .... but does the insurrection act also allow arresting these fucks for their crimes already committed this whole time too?

Man approaches ICE agents with 9mm handgun. He FAFOs.


https://x.com/DHSgov/status/2015115351797780500?s=20

Dude went from being a non-passive observer - standing in the street, directing traffic while filming - to interfering with law enforcement, actually putting his hands on one officer. Not a good idea. This led to a takedown and resisting by the deceased.

TheAntiPanicanLearingCenter says

Man approaches ICE agents with 9mm handgun. He FAFOs.


https://x.com/DHSgov/status/2015115351797780500?s=20

https://x.com/TRobinsonNewEra/status/2015170221133144519

The long march back to Redardistan...

Footage shows Minneapolis suspect drawing his gun right before Border Patrol opens fire.

MolotovCocktail says

Footage shows Minneapolis suspect drawing his gun right before Border Patrol opens fire.

I can’t tell. Did this guy actually have a gun?

Just an FYI, people do not go out in -15 degree weather to protest and try to disrupt something if they are winning. If they are winning they sit in their warm homes and laugh at the losers out protesting in -15 degree weather.
https://x.com/unseen1_unseen/status/2014863229470613907?s=20

Like the guys in the cadaver bags during Covid unzipping themselves for a smoke.

Why would anybody call Don Lemon a journalist? That's an over-rate that is propaganda all by itself.

I also notice that the flying fingers of deafspeak for both Walz and Frey are flaming whatevers.

https://x.com/basedbandita/status/2015234525219967252?s=46

TheAntiPanicanLearingCenter says

If my sister got fat she might look like that Amanda nut case. She looked like Christina Applegate when we were kids, thus I never had a thing for Christina like my friends did. No, I'm nothing like Bud.

I think Ice is doing, "Pretti"-"Good" hahaha!

Pretti had a P320. I'm surprised he hadn't already shot himself. Those things fire for no reason and is why I never appendix carry my P365 even though it's probably just fine.

Ceffer says

Why would anybody call Don Lemon a journalist?

I call him a Propaganda Faggit.

Yeah, but sound really travels a lot farther in cold weather.

First goal is to protect the sanctuary state (SS) goals, and that is why they have a wide range of SS goons, gremlins and goblins as their Antifa-style rioters to protect those goals.

That means create chaos and to ensure the mainstream media promotes the narrative that ICE and immigration laws are illegal.

Consider how the Census count includes illegal immigrants as far as Congressional seats and federal funding for grants, etc.

Second goal is to keep the narrative going to help the Democrats in the midterm election so they can open investigations into ICE.

Also this leads to them hoping to win the White House so the President can tell DOJ to not protect the ICE agents (i.e., not recognize their qualified immunity) from murder charges.

There's a reason ICE was at 2614 Nicolett Street area today, where the shooting occured:



The Owner of "Quality Learing Center", Simon Aden also owns businesses at 2628 Nicollett in the same general complex

Page after Page of Somalian Muslim owners.
https://x.com/Llamar33401/status/2015203420072767522?s=20

MolotovCocktail says

True:

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/01/graphic-warning-insane-leftist-bites-finger-ice-agent/

Patrick says

Yeah, who's got low IQ now, LOL.

TheAntiPanicanLearingCenter says

This is 'tarded: simply carrying 1 spare magazine for a full-size SIG gets you waaaay over 30 rounds overall. And carrying a spare is a SOP for anybody carrying a semi-auto. Proves nothing.

Glock-n-Load says

MolotovCocktail says

Footage shows Minneapolis suspect drawing his gun right before Border Patrol opens fire.

I can’t tell. Did this guy actually have a gun?

Not when he was shot, apparently. Looks like he was already disarmed when the shots were fired. Here it looks like an ICE guy holding what was later posted as "the perp's SIG" with white scales and a dot.



https://x.com/td19blackhawks/status/2015252634421047553?s=46

Agreed that the optics don't look good on this, but he made himself an accessory to a crime by actively and violently impeding an operation to arrest a fugitive, so he already had committed a serious crime and in that moment there is no due process left. It would be better for ICE to declare certain areas as operation zones with curfew and special rules and give citizens some time to leave, esp. if they are armed. If they control the exits it's unlikely the fugitive(s) will escape successfully. Then they should swarm in and arrest anybody impeding them, using any force necessary. This is somewhat unorganized, getting no help from local LEO obviously doesn't help, so they should start by arresting frey and walz first.
What you're witnessing here is an actual insurrection.

mell says

Agreed that the optics don't look good on this, but he made himself an accessory to a crime by actively and violently impeding an operation to arrest a fugitive, so he already had committed a serious crime and in that moment there is no due process left. ... What you're witnessing here is an actual insurrection.

Isn't it what the leftoids said about the Babbit shooting almost word for word? Insurrection, no due process soup for you, yada-yada-yada?

Ashley Babbit was unarmed.

President DJT has been more patient than I am.... I'm loosing my patience !!!!

Patrick says

Ashley Babbit was unarmed.

So being armed is an automatic "no due process soup for you"? Bearing arms was a right in this country last time I checked.

RWSGFY says

mell says

Agreed that the optics don't look good on this, but he made himself an accessory to a crime by actively and violently impeding an operation to arrest a fugitive, so he already had committed a serious crime and in that moment there is no due process left. ... What you're witnessing here is an actual insurrection.

Isn't it what the leftoids said about the Babbit shooting almost word for word? Insurrection, no due process soup for you, yada-yada-yada?

She was unarmed and she was not violently impeding a LEO operation trying to arrest a fugitive. Leftoids assemble every day somewhere and protest, Babbit did the same. This cannot be compared with actively impeding a LEO operation while armed to the teeth.

RWSGFY says

Patrick says

Ashley Babbit was unarmed.

So being armed is an automatic "no due process soup for you"? Bearing arms was a right in this country last time I checked.

No, not the armed part, actively and violently impeding a LEO operation for a wanted fugitive which at this point has exhausted and forfeited their due process, become an accesoire to their crime. Being armed to the teeth and brandishing a gun will just get you killed sooner. If he was killed right after brandishing and pointing there wouldn't even be any bad optics, they only arise because he may have been disarmed before being shot, and there is debate as to whether he tried to pull out his gun and brandishing it. It's not the best optics, but this guy was out for blood and acted more than foolishly, risking and forfeiting his own life to protect wanted fugitives from being captured by LEOs. Wondering if these people don't have families, children and partners they are responsible for, instead of rioting armed in the street. Can you imagine the grief of their loved ones, what for.