Random News and Notes 22 January

On January 19, about three dozen activists disrupted a Sunday worship at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, targeting a pastor who also leads ICE’s local office.

This morning, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the arrests of civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong and school board member Chauntyll Louisa Allen on charges related to the church storming. She called it a coordinated attack on a house of worship. Those arrested are facing charges under the FACE Act.

Expect more arrests related to this incident in the near future.

Minnesota AG Keith Ellison said the protest did not violate the law.

Alexander Stubb is the president of Finland. At a forum at the WEF meetings in Davos he said that Europe could defend itself without US help. Almost immediately he tried to walk that back.

It gets worse. In the original comment, Stubb laid out how he thought the Euros could defend themselves. Part of that was the use of US manufactured equipment like the 64 F-35s the Finns just bought. Is he delusional enough to think that we would continue to support them? The Finns, and most other F-35 users cannot do regular maintenance on the 5th gen fighters by themselves. They require US help.

There has been running commentary in this space about one Mahmoud Khalil, pro-Pal activist and anti-American dumbass, since his story first broke. Most recently, it was regarding the appeals court ruling that a district court in New Jersey did not have jurisdiction over the case. Well, there is news breaking today that the DHS is planning on shipping him to Algeria.

Among other things, Khalil lied on his student visa and permanent residency applications, was actively involved in the anti-semitic riots at Columbia University and is (or was, it makes little difference legally) a member of a proscribed terrorist supporting organization.

I hear Algiers is really nice this time of year. . .

The little ‘man’ running France decided to act like a tough guy today. Emmanuel Macron announced the French Navy’s seizure of the Grinch, an Aframax tanker flagged to Comoros and listed on EU, UK, and US sanctions for carrying Russian oil in violation of post-2022 restrictions. Commandos boarded the vessel west of Spain under UN maritime law, guided by UK intelligence, after it passed through the Strait of Gibraltar following unreported transfers near Turkey.

M/T Grinch is suspected of being part of Russia’s shadow fleet and was flying a false flag at the time of her seizure. The ship now heads under escort for inspection in Marseille.