[SPEAKER_01]: Axis Mooney.

[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to one nation, indivisible.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Andrew L.

Sital, a constitutional attorney and the author of the founding myth and American crusade.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is a podcast about religion, the law, and the battle for Americans.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we'll be separating church and state defending freedom and equality and fighting Christian nationalism.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you haven't already signed up for our weekly bonus content and add free listening at access monday.uslfgthokes.

[SPEAKER_01]: Books, I wanted to provide you a quick little update because I recorded this episode on Friday, late afternoon after work and it and kind of a lot has changed since then both in Minneapolis and with what we were talking about in this episode, which was the face act prosecutions for the people who entered the church, the ice church to protest.

[SPEAKER_01]: murder of Alex pretty by ice agents in Minneapolis on Saturday.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we did not cover that in this episode.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we were living in just horrific times.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was making lunch for five kids.

[SPEAKER_01]: And just put a pizza in the oven, cutting up vegetables and had one of those kind of two minute breaks [SPEAKER_01]: stupidly logged on to social media to just see what was happening in the world and watched our government murder a citizen disarm him and shoot him as he was lying on the ground [SPEAKER_01]: And we're seeing the administration, the regime, do the thing that it does.

[SPEAKER_01]: These murders cheered as they walked away, they fist-pumped and clapped.

[SPEAKER_01]: They acted like the bullies they are, knowing that they're not going to face believing that they're not going to face any kind of accountability or consequences for their actions and that is something that we cannot allow to stand.

[SPEAKER_01]: candidate running for office in the future to make a central part of their pillar.

[SPEAKER_01]: Essential pillar of their platform.

[SPEAKER_01]: Excuse me.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we're not going to cover that murder fully in this episode.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I also want to add on a little bit about the face act prosecutions that has come to light over the weekend, which I did not cover in this episode.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we'll tag that on at the end.

[SPEAKER_01]: Folks, we're going back to Minnesota today to cover a couple of developments out of there that I have not seen covered enough.

[SPEAKER_01]: I want to talk about the altered photo that the White House posted and why and what that really reveals again about this Maga White Christian Nationalist movement that we are facing.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I also want to talk about the face act, FACE face act, prosecutions that have been promised and the arrests that were made in service of that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because I don't think people realize how dangerous that is and that it is in all probability going to be successful.

[SPEAKER_01]: But let's start with the White House posting in altered photo of Nakima, Levy Armstrong, as she was arrested for allegedly protesting this church service, which again, we're gonna get to that more in the next block.

[SPEAKER_01]: The White House posted in altered image of her arrest.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's Photoshopped or more likely given the timeline and AI-faked image of the arrest.

[SPEAKER_01]: And most major media outlets have analyzed and concluded that the image, the White House posted, is fake.

[SPEAKER_01]: And there's good evidence.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going to link to the Guardian story about this in the show notes, and I recommend that you check it out.

[SPEAKER_01]: The Guardian also has this cool tool in their article that lets you, it's got the photo super imposed over each other and lets you slide between the real and fake marriage to see that it was very clearly deliberately altered.

[SPEAKER_01]: and so here's what the guardian says quote the guardian overlay the white house photo with the gnome photo and that's the photo that Christy gnome originally published that shows what actually happened at the unaltered photo [SPEAKER_01]: The Guardian overlaid the White House photo with the known photo and found that the law enforcement agents in both pictures line up exactly, confirming they are the same image.

[SPEAKER_01]: There are other similarities between the photos.

[SPEAKER_01]: An unidentified person can be seen in the same place behind the arresting agent and the arresting agents arm appears to be behind Armstrong's back and exactly the same position.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the photos are the same, so we know it was altered.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's very clearly altered in the Guardians.

[SPEAKER_01]: Cool tool on their article will help you understand that.

[SPEAKER_01]: How is it altered is truly, truly shocking and depressing and depraved?

[SPEAKER_01]: There are a few things worth mentioning, I think, that first is the agent who was arresting Armstrong has their face blurred out in both photos.

[SPEAKER_01]: because they are utter cowards.

[SPEAKER_01]: The second, and this is the obvious change.

[SPEAKER_01]: The Trump White House's fake image depicts Armstrong crying.

[SPEAKER_01]: Tears are streaming down her face.

[SPEAKER_01]: Her mouth is held, a gap, open, you know, kind of this stunned, tearful, pitiful look that they have given her that she does not have in the original image, which shows a calm, defiance.

[SPEAKER_01]: Armstrong is a black woman.

[SPEAKER_01]: and the Trump White House's fake image depicts her with darker skin than she has.

[SPEAKER_01]: So this is a black woman being marched out by authorities.

[SPEAKER_01]: who are effectively masked right given the pixelation.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is not a good look.

[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, the masking of agents echoes some pretty horrific moments in American history.

[SPEAKER_01]: We'll get to those at a moment.

[SPEAKER_01]: But worse, Trump's White House wasn't content with this showy arrest.

[SPEAKER_01]: They needed embarrassment and pain and misery.

[SPEAKER_01]: Pain and misery inflicted upon a black woman and [SPEAKER_01]: They needed a picture that showed the cruelty that they value so much was working, was in force.

[SPEAKER_01]: And Armstrong didn't give them that.

[SPEAKER_01]: she gave them that calm defiance in the original photo.

[SPEAKER_01]: So Photoshop or AI did.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this really goes back to Adam Sarwar's article and just which cut through so much of what we are seeing that the cruelty is the point.

[SPEAKER_01]: The cruelty is the point.

[SPEAKER_01]: The cruelty is the point behind altering this image.

[SPEAKER_01]: Trump's White House was repeatedly asked about altering the image and a deputy dip-shed press secretary responded to quote the memes will continue it has that flavor of the beatings will continue until morale improves and I think that is what it was meant to evoke which again is in keeping with the cruelty is the point but these are the meaning this is not a meme this is propaganda this is not a meme this is a lie [SPEAKER_01]: they want their white Christian base to know that they are punishing black and brown America for existing, cruelly punishing them, cruelly and publicly punishing them.

[SPEAKER_01]: And as I was looking at this photo and in particular the slider of the two photos on the Guardian website, an image popped into my head of New York City, black and white [SPEAKER_01]: with a flag flying outside of building in the crowd below, you know, in fuzzy out of the depth of focus.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's a picture of the NAACP headquarters and the flag that they used to fly outside of their New York City office in 1920s and 30s that read.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you can see this clearly in the photo.

[SPEAKER_01]: A man was lynched yesterday.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if you've ever read [SPEAKER_01]: accounts of those lynchings, the lynchings that took place across this country, and mostly across the American South, and the NAACP says that from 1882 to 1968, there were 4,743 lynchings that occurred in the U.S.

4,743 lynchings.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you've ever read any of those [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, chilling does not even begin to cover their truly barbaric and inhumane, collective and public violence that showed the worst angels of our nature.

[SPEAKER_01]: What is about Wilkerson calls a culture of cruelty and the euphoria of hate?

[SPEAKER_01]: And Wilkerson's book cast is one of those books that [SPEAKER_01]: The really change is how you see the world and I'm going to link to it in the show notes.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll link to the NAACP history and everything I'm talking about.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's going to be a lot of links in the show notes that you should check out.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's one of those books that changes how you see the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I have it actually in my list of books that will change the way you think on bookshop.org.

[SPEAKER_01]: And Wilkerson recounts several stories, [SPEAKER_01]: And I was reminded of the book when I was researching this episode and the fake photo, because there was some stuff, horrific stuff in Wilkerson's book that I did not know about, you know, I most people know that lynchings happened, but they don't understand how horrific they truly were, and I don't think I understood.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think I understand the full extent now, but I certainly didn't understand much until I read Wilkerson's book.

[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't realize how proud everybody was to be a part of it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Children were let out of school, families attended crowds, sometimes numbered in the tens of thousands.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this is the detail that stuck with me, souvenirs were popular.

[SPEAKER_01]: souvenirs like sever to ears and fingers.

[SPEAKER_01]: And for those not lucky enough for authoritative for close enough to get a body part, photographers would just shut photographers would set up shop at the site of the brutal murder and they would produce postcards that people could [SPEAKER_01]: and send to their family.

[SPEAKER_01]: In the mail writing jokes about this wantingly cruel murder on the back of the postcard for everybody to read.

[SPEAKER_01]: These were photos of murder of brutal murder openly confessing to it.

[SPEAKER_01]: not just confessing to it celebrating it because it showcased that culture of cruelty.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the difference here strikes me, the difference between the photo, the White House is altered [SPEAKER_01]: in the cruelty of what they are doing and what I learned about the lynchings in Wilkerson's book cast strikes me as a difference of degree, not of kind.

[SPEAKER_01]: So let's take a quick break and then we'll get into why, why the Trump regime set its sights on Armstrong in the first place.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to start as I listen, if you're not reading him and meant to friendly atheists, news, uh, it's on sub stack now, you're missing out.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going to start by quoting him and in some of what he found about the facts of this, [SPEAKER_01]: This case, the article is entitled, The Anti-Is protest at a Minnesota church was a justified review of the pastor's cruelty.

[SPEAKER_01]: Again, cruelty is the point.

[SPEAKER_01]: And of course, I will link this in show notes.

[SPEAKER_01]: And by, listen, again, if you're not reading heaven, you should be subscribing.

[SPEAKER_01]: You should be supporting his work.

[SPEAKER_01]: He is awesome.

[SPEAKER_01]: He is prolific.

[SPEAKER_01]: He has been doing this [SPEAKER_01]: probably 20 years, he sold his soul on eBay, and one of the iconic moves of all time, eBay changed its rules to prevent that after him, he wrote a book about it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Love him and I trust his reporting, I know.

[SPEAKER_01]: that when it comes to getting the facts right, he goes the extra mile, and he's always willing to correct himself when he doesn't.

[SPEAKER_01]: Hemant writes, hemant explains what happened at this protest, and some of you have probably seen the video by now, you know, Don Lemon gotten involved, and to some degree, and that there was a huge backlash.

[SPEAKER_01]: Here's how Hemant describes it, quote, a group of about three dozen activists in Minneapolis, where in Ice Age and Murdered [SPEAKER_01]: Interrupted services at a southern Baptist affiliated city's church in Saint Paul on Sunday morning, they stepped into the building to yell ice out and just for Renee good again, I'm sure some of you see the videos by now having continues this that's not just a random church that would have been pointless this was a church that employees David Easterwood the acting director of a local ice field office as a pastor.

[SPEAKER_01]: the Christians in that church dealt with a minor inconvenience.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's nothing compared to the horror that's been inflicted on the entire lives of people in that community, in part because a pastor at the church is personally leading a group of law-breaking armed government-backed mercenaries.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the heavens quote, and I'm just going to pause it because that last part is important.

[SPEAKER_01]: Ice is wantonly trampling the law.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean that we've just seen that they are claiming on their own authority that they don't need warrants, even though the constitution says, yeah, you're fucking do, ice is a lawless entity, [SPEAKER_01]: Easterwood by all accounts wasn't even at church Sunday morning, but he doesn't deserve a moment of calm anywhere he goes for the rest of his life, and the people in that congregation should be ashamed of their own complicity and ISIS campaign of terror by continuing to attend to that church.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's essentially what one protest organizers said.

[SPEAKER_01]: Again, go read Hammond as [SPEAKER_01]: the ice pastor deserves no peace, not a moment of peace or calm or rest.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this is kind of one of those where rare instances where I agree with Jesus.

[SPEAKER_01]: You all remember the story of him flipping tables because the money changers were set up in the temple.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there are times where I really like the biblical Jesus, the character, and this is kind of one of them, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: but it's also, you know, there's also some like, you know, I don't know, it's kind of got some big zealot vibes to write their dirty, my holy place.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's a sentiment that can get out of hand quickly and can lead to abuse, right, if you're doing it for the purity of your sanctuary.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, that can cut a couple different ways, but other times you've heard me talk about the story of the woman taking an adultery I pocket love that story Really really fascinating and interesting and Not originally part of the Bible That was in addition.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was a cool story that some scribe added later on.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was like that sounds like Jesus sounds like JC Let's give him the credit [SPEAKER_01]: But Jesus was like also, it was kind of a dick sometimes, too, if we're being honest.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right, like, there's the time where Jesus sends his apostles out with certain instructions in Matthew 10.

[SPEAKER_01]: Don't imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth.

[SPEAKER_01]: I came not to bring peace, but a sword.

[SPEAKER_01]: I've come to set a man against his father, a daughter against his mother, and a daughter and law against her mother and lawyer, enemies will be right in your own household.

[SPEAKER_01]: earlier in Matthew 10, Jesus tells them not to preach outside of their co-religionists in verses 5 and 6.

[SPEAKER_01]: Shortly after, I mean, he seemingly, he's got this seemingly wise statement and you know, kind of, [SPEAKER_01]: lifted.

[SPEAKER_01]: It sounds great about not judging others less we be judged.

[SPEAKER_01]: But Jesus also, you know, it's right after that, like in people who don't follow him to dogs and pigs, unholy and unworthy, quote, do not give what is holy to dogs and do not throw your pearls before swine.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's that story when Jesus sends his 12 apostles out to convince people that he was God.

[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't send them out to everybody, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: He says, don't go to the Gentiles or the Samaritans.

[SPEAKER_01]: Go to the Laws sheep of Israel, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: He's not a really an equal opportunity.

[SPEAKER_01]: Preacher.

[SPEAKER_01]: And there's one story, both Matthew and Mark tell.

[SPEAKER_01]: But woman who was not an Israelite who has a sick daughter, and she asks Jesus, hey, can you cure my could?

[SPEAKER_01]: My kid, my, I've got a sick child, [SPEAKER_01]: And Jesus ignores the woman.

[SPEAKER_01]: His disciples, urge Jesus to send the woman away, but she persists.

[SPEAKER_01]: And finally, Jesus chides the woman again, says, you know, it's not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs.

[SPEAKER_01]: In other words, the miracles, those are for my people.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, they're from my followers, not for dogs who worship other gods.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's not until the woman professes her faith in Jesus until she calls Jesus Master and Lord for the third time that he relents and says, woman, great as your faith.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then he deans to save that innocent sick child because the mother converts into Claire's her obedience to and believe in him.

[SPEAKER_01]: So you know, like, I don't know.

[SPEAKER_01]: Not always.

[SPEAKER_01]: the picture of the moral leader in teacher.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like if I could heal as a kid, I would just do it.

[SPEAKER_01]: The point is, [SPEAKER_01]: I've straight, but the point is that Jesus is a moral teacher, but he clearly doesn't get it right all the time, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: And I actually think that makes him a more interesting literary character, and also less likely to be a divine being.

[SPEAKER_01]: He gets something's right, he gets something's wrong, he's kind of good, he's kind of not good.

[SPEAKER_01]: He kind of blows it on some easy moral questions.

[SPEAKER_01]: But in this case, like Wood Jcb protesting the church, at which the preacher was aligned with the state paramilitary force that's suppressing the community, I kind of think he would be protesting.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think he would be aligned with that church.

[SPEAKER_01]: That was aligning itself with the state paramilitary force.

[SPEAKER_01]: which brings us to the Bruhaha afterwards, which again, hemant details, I'm gonna cut to the chase.

[SPEAKER_01]: Basically, the Department of Justice is going after these protesters for violating the Face Act.

[SPEAKER_01]: the face FACE face act which stands for freedom of access to clinic entrances face freedom of access to clinic entrances act it was passed in 1994 and this was proposed and debated and amended around the time that they were the just freedom of restoration act was being debated.

[SPEAKER_01]: So check out American Crusade for more on that monstrosity.

[SPEAKER_01]: But this was a time when abortion clinics were being vandalized at mob and attacked and fire bombed hundreds of thousands of anti-abortionists were sometimes outside.

[SPEAKER_01]: Doctors were targeted, they were murdered in August of 1993.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right as this was all happening, Dr.

George Tiller, who provided abortions with shot outside of his clinic five times.

[SPEAKER_01]: He survived only to be murdered later.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, so abortion clinics were under assaults, and that was part of what's happening and why this act came into being.

[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, there's a Senate report on it, which notes that from 1977 through 1993, [SPEAKER_01]: 36 bombings, 81 arson's, 131 death threats, 84 assaults, 2 kidnappings, 327 clinic invasions, and 1 murder at clinics that provided reproductive care, abortion clinics, play in parenthood clinics, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: So there was an organized assault on these clinics, the army of God was one of the groups that was behind this.

[SPEAKER_01]: And [SPEAKER_01]: Congress wanted to step in and do something to protect people's right to access that kind of care.

[SPEAKER_01]: So they passed this law and the operative text for us is in addition.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, and I'm gonna read it.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna ignore the clinic language for now and I'll explain why this reads the way it does in a second But section A2 of the face act says Whoever quote by force or threat of force or by physical obstruction [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so that's one element, force threat of force or physical obstruction, intentionally injures intimidates or interferes with or attempts to injure intimidate or interfere with.

[SPEAKER_01]: So interfere with any person lawfully seeking, excuse me, with any person lawfully exercising or seeking to exercise the first amendment right over the just freedom added place of worship.

[SPEAKER_01]: So there's there's a couple elements there.

[SPEAKER_01]: You have to have the force thread of force or physical obstruction, they have to injure intimidate or interfere with that's the second element, the third is someone who is seeking to worship and then forth at a place over the just worship.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, and it also.

[SPEAKER_01]: allows for a civil action to be brought against anybody who who does that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so this begins as a simple idea and the same language is mirrored for clinics.

[SPEAKER_01]: Chris right Christian extremists would would form mobs outside of these health clinics.

[SPEAKER_01]: The mobs were actively preventing people from exercising their own rights.

[SPEAKER_01]: And as I wrote a whole book about called American Crusade and as we've talked about on this podcast all the time.

[SPEAKER_01]: We all have limits on our rights.

[SPEAKER_01]: And our rights are limited by the rights of other people.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's part of equality.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can't have equality if your rights trumped my rights, we have limits on speech and on religion and all of our rights.

[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody's religious freedom is not an excuse to violate my right of personal property, for instance, or of bodily autonomy, for instance.

[SPEAKER_01]: So this was a bill that was simply trying to, and perhaps in a convoluted way, kind of explain those lines of being charitable.

[SPEAKER_01]: Your religion, your right to assemble, and to protest does not include the right to violate the rights of others, or to prevent them from exercising their rights.

[SPEAKER_01]: To do so, would make you superior in the eyes of the law.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're talking Christian supremacy here.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is what we mean when I constantly am talking about weaponizing religious freedom and the intent, the intent was not to protect houses of worship and those exercising their religious freedom and houses of worship.

[SPEAKER_01]: The whole point of this bill, the whole point of this law was to protect clinics which were under assault.

[SPEAKER_01]: Religious freedom was smuggled in by an amendment that was proposed by Oran Hatch Center, Oran Hatch of Utah, who is a villain in so many stories.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it was actually pretty late in the process.

[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't until the third reading of [SPEAKER_01]: third version of the Senate bill after after hatchet actually voted against the bill in committee.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it was pretty late in the process when this was added on and Ed Weiwen, who is a just loud obnoxious Christian nationalist at the National Review online at our oh [SPEAKER_01]: and who was a hatchstaffer at the time claimed credit for the amendment to the face act.

[SPEAKER_01]: He claimed credit in 2023 because at hatch purposes this amendment to include houses of worship, mirror that language.

[SPEAKER_01]: It gets a voice vote in past.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's no real debate, though apparently the Catholic Church was excited.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can imagine why.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it's never really been used to protect the A2, A1 is the clinic language, A2 is the language that mirrors that, but it's about houses of worship.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's never really been used for that.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's because houses of worship and Christians are not under assault in this country.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's no threat of them being persecuted or they are the fucking majority still.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's not...

[SPEAKER_01]: This is rare what happened in Minnesota.

[SPEAKER_01]: Extraordinary circumstances.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's never really been used to do anything other than protect clinics and in fact Senators crews Ted Cruz and Mike Lee to just terrible people that would be great if they went away.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's cold in Texas as I'm recording this.

[SPEAKER_01]: So maybe Ted Cruz is actually somewhere in Mexico, the senator from Cancun, as Melissa Murray coined on the strict scrutiny broadcast one time.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I know I remember doing a split take when she said that.

[SPEAKER_01]: I spit coffee all over my computer monitor.

[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, I've lost my trade of thought, no, Senator from Cancun and the Senator from Utah in 2016, they complained to the D.O.J.

[SPEAKER_01]: to the Red Allenge they run over this letter.

[SPEAKER_01]: basically saying, you'll never use the face act to protect houses of worship and they don't say what is being protected from in the letter which is relevant because there is no threat to it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And listen, the face act has, the face act has been in the sights of the Christian Nationalist legal movement for a while.

[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, one of the things that Donald Trump did back at the beginning of Trump 2.0 was too pardon a bunch of the people who had invaded clinics and had been prosecuted successfully under the face act.

[SPEAKER_01]: He gave them pardon, even though they had an effect.

[SPEAKER_01]: I wrote about this for Americans United and I'll include that only to that article in the show notes as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: But Trump pardon them and then announced these pardones at the prayer breakfast last year and by the way, the prayer breakfast is right around the corner.

[SPEAKER_01]: I believe it's February six and and he talks about the reason that he knew [SPEAKER_01]: pardoned Paula, Paula, Paula Harlow was because of this anti-Christian bias that exists in our legal system, which is just not the case.

[SPEAKER_01]: Trump says she was sentenced to years in prison for peacefully praying outside of a clinic, which is totally not true.

[SPEAKER_01]: Her actions were not peaceful, and they were not outside of a clinic.

[SPEAKER_01]: She helped plan and execute a forceful blockade of a reproductive [SPEAKER_01]: excuse me, in October 2020, during not only the rob to a presidential election, but when COVID cases had top 9 million nationally.

[SPEAKER_01]: In the middle of a pandemic, they are invading a health clinic.

[SPEAKER_01]: One of her co-conspirators booked a sham point, and then when they were given access, the co-conspirators was given access to the clinic, Harlow, and the others forced their way in, and what was described as, quote, melee ensued, [SPEAKER_01]: Harlow fell on the clinic manager, shoved an employee into a waiting room chair.

[SPEAKER_01]: She and nine others blockaded the clinic doors using their bodies, furniture ropes, locks and chains, which we have some records of the meetings, which Harlow had advocated for doing just that.

[SPEAKER_01]: They actually live streamed.

[SPEAKER_01]: This assault on the health care and on the patients who are exercising their most basic rights, they shut the clinic down for two and a half hours.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and of the prosecution, Harlow, you know, she's paraded around on Fox and you've stalking about it, so doing credible honor, um, and so she was sentenced to 24 months for this, this high honor.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and there's also a bit about the, the Trump lying about the judge mocking Harlow's Christian faith, which is just not your, again, go, go read the article.

[SPEAKER_01]: But the point is that [SPEAKER_01]: Look, these protesters are in a bite.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maga and Christian Nationalists, they have hated the face act for a long time.

[SPEAKER_01]: And not least because it's never been really used to protect churches because that's never really a thing or a need that exists.

[SPEAKER_01]: But what is going, I believe that the legal movement on that side now sees this as a chance to reshape and rewrite the face act to center their churches.

[SPEAKER_01]: to protect the catholic church from protests by survivors, to protect ice churches from anti ice protesters to protect Christian nationalist churches like like Greg locks and like those crazy patriot churches that you see in Tennessee and and mega churches that are run by Paula White and Joel Austin from any kind of protest or dissenters.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is going to be another attempt by them to weaponize religious freedom to elevate the right kind of Christian for special protection.

[SPEAKER_01]: All while other cases are making their way through the courts to undermine the original intent of the face act.

[SPEAKER_01]: original intent, which is something that Christian Nationalists lawyers are normally so hardy for.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're going to morph the phase act into something else entirely.

[SPEAKER_01]: I hope these protesters have great lawyers, y'all.

[SPEAKER_01]: I am not optimistic about this.

[SPEAKER_01]: In this climate with these judges and this DOJ, [SPEAKER_01]: I am, I am nervous for them, especially as the court, as the case works, it's way higher and higher through the courts.

[SPEAKER_01]: Less worried about it at the district court though, but I am worried about this a lot y'all seriously.

[SPEAKER_01]: Again, this is another chance for the Christian nationalist lawyers in the captured court to reach that end goal of white Christian nationalism.

[SPEAKER_01]: Hopefully, you know by now what I'm talking about, but Christian nationalism is a threat to every single person who is not the quote right kind of Christian, a conservative white, heteronormative Christian man.

[SPEAKER_01]: Christian nationalism is bent on inequality, favoritism, or that word that I know some people in this movement don't like, but privilege.

[SPEAKER_01]: Christian nationalism seeks privilege in the true sense of that word.

[SPEAKER_01]: I've often written about how it's Christian nationalism is a permission structure for evil for Christian supremacy, for white supremacy, for Republican policies that hurt people.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a license to harm, because it's a license to a certain assume that superior role that plays above the law.

[SPEAKER_01]: In the end goal, in the end, they want a society that says that conservative white, hetero-normative Christian men are the in-group, that the law protects, but does not bind.

[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody else.

[SPEAKER_01]: probably everybody listening to this podcast.

[SPEAKER_01]: All of us will be the out group, the others, which the law binds, but does not protect.

[SPEAKER_01]: And look, I mean, this is, folks, that is, that is the theme of every dystopian novel or authoritarian regime.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you boil it down, that is, that is their angle.

[SPEAKER_01]: The chosen few are protected by the law, but not bound.

[SPEAKER_01]: All others are bound, but not protected.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's where we're headed.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think what happened at this church, well, I absolutely support the goals and ends is going to be turned against our legal movement and weaponized.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I am very worried of who would be keeping eye on it.

[SPEAKER_01]: We keeping tabs will keep you in the loop as the case moves forward.

[SPEAKER_01]: Hopefully it gets dismissed.

[SPEAKER_01]: Hopefully we can or hopefully it continues on until we have a new.

[SPEAKER_01]: a new administration in place, especially at DOJ, that has some semblance of non-partness and ship, but I'm worried y'all.

[SPEAKER_01]: So a little more about the Phase Act prosecutions from the update Andrew, which is me.

[SPEAKER_01]: The administration was seeking several indictments under the face act, eight specifically.

[SPEAKER_01]: Three of those went forward and that included the arrest that we just covered in this episode.

[SPEAKER_01]: But five of them did not go forward and included in those was the indictment of the on lemon.

[SPEAKER_01]: Or excuse me, the arrest warrant for Don Lemon, the arrest warrant, not indictments or arrest warns.

[SPEAKER_01]: For Don Lemon and for his producer, [SPEAKER_01]: And we learned over the weekend that some crazy stuff was happening, because when the magistrate judge, so magistrate judge is sort of like the lowest level that judge in a federal court, they're below the district court judge.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're district court judge, but they kind of handle like the day-to-day basic stuff, like arrest warrants.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the magistrate judge refused to sign off on the arrest warrant for five of the people involved in that church protest, the, [SPEAKER_01]: administration was pissed off about that and took it to the chief judge at the district level and chief judge is like you know you can't really appeal this kind of thing let me just take a look and he asks around and we know this because he's got several letters that he's put together [SPEAKER_01]: And he says, yeah, you know, this is not typical.

[SPEAKER_01]: I haven't heard of this happening.

[SPEAKER_01]: This kind of appeal that you're trying to do right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: I will look at this more closely and I will rule on it on Tuesday, the day that this episode is dropping January 27th.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that is not good enough for the administration.

[SPEAKER_01]: So they file an appeal up to the eighth circuit, the circuit court, under seal.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so the chief judge gets this [SPEAKER_01]: letter from the clerk at the eighth circuit and says, hey, you've got to respond to this thing in two hours.

[SPEAKER_01]: He can't even see the documents that the administration has filed.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's it's it's it's crazy and Steven Blatic over at one first street has has covered this well and has copies of the two letters on his substeck.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can go look.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the judge is, you know, being forced to respond to this stuff in an hour or two hours and doing so blind.

[SPEAKER_01]: And as Vatic points out, the eighth circle did the right thing and agreed with him, except for one judge at Trump appointing him, Gross, who was a nightmare.

[SPEAKER_01]: But they should have slapped the administration around over this, and they didn't, which is troubling.

[SPEAKER_01]: The administration was arguing that if the courts did not provide an arrest warrant for these folks immediately, that it constituted a national emergency because it was going to lead to all kinds of protests and violations at churches over the weekend, which, as we know, didn't really have been churches and synagogues.

[SPEAKER_01]: They were sure to include, which again didn't really happen.

[SPEAKER_01]: on these face-hack prosecutions we'll see where they end but I will do a better job of covering the ins and outs of the procedure in future episodes because again as we just learned things are happening so fast here and there's been no real briefing on the substance of the law.

[SPEAKER_01]: All we know is this is kind of unprecedented right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: These sort of face act prosecutions that we're seeing are unprecedented and that was the main thing that I wanted to cover in this episode We will cover the details of the rest of that in future episodes and the predi murder and no I've not forgotten about the tank Commandments hearing all that we will cover again in future episodes.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks, y'all [SPEAKER_01]: This has been one nation indivisible, I'm Andrew Sidal, until next time.