Throughout 2020, we were instructed that protests are the voice of the voiceless. On January 6, 2021, conservatives learned that there was an asterisk to the rule; namely, that it doesn’t apply to conservatives. Today, congressional Democrats tried to add a new asterisk to the rule: Democrats in Congress—that is, people who sit in the world’s most powerful political body and have the ear of the media—are considered voiceless if they protest against ICE.

It’s all very confusing, of course, but the bottom line is that the rules don’t apply to them.

Here’s footage of what happened at the ICE facility in Newark. The first tweet is incorrect insofar as it says that the congresscritters were arrested. It was just the mayor:

Axios, a Democrat platform, had more details:

The mayor of Newark was arrested Friday outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility where law enforcement scuffled with a group of protesters that included three House Democrats.

Why it matters: The Department of Homeland Security is alleging the lawmakers “stormed” the facility, a characterization the lawmakers' offices are disputing.

• Footage of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka's arrest obtained by Axios shows a clash between law enforcement and a group of demonstrators including Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.), Rob Menendez (D-N.J.) and LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.).
• The lawmakers said they were attempting to investigate ICE's controversial reopening of the Delany Hall facility to house detained migrants.

The footage would seem to support DHS’s take on the matter. Tricia McLaughlin, a DHS spokeswoman, framed it nicely:

These members of Congress storming into a detention facility goes beyond bizarre political stunt and puts the safety of our law enforcement agents and the detainees at risk.

McLaughlin also added a warning that Democrats in Congress would do well to heed:

Members of Congress are not above the law and cannot illegally break into detention facilities. Had these members requested a tour, we would have facilitated a tour of the facility. This is an evolving situation.

DHS also published a tweet about what happened, including letting Americans know the lovely people these Democrats are fighting to keep in America:

When I read about the Democrats going all insurrectiony for illegal aliens who bring blight to every community they touch, all I can think of is Sally Field’s famous statement when she won her Oscar in 1985: “I can’t deny the fact that you like me. Right now, you like me.” Except when Democrats say it to the American people, it’s “I can’t deny the fact that we despise you. Right now, we despise you.”

Here's the really important thing: You cannot have a functioning constitutional democratic republic in which the lawmakers get a pass when they break the law. If they want to go the path of civil disobedience, fine, but the whole point of legitimate civil disobedience is that you are willing to be martyred to make your point. These showboaters just want to have the fun of a televised scrimmage to rile up their base, while then walking away without consequences.

Thankfully, it looks as if the DOJ intends to prosecute:

The problem is that so many of these prosecutions take place in jurisdictions in which the jury pool is 100% Democrat. Until a prosecutor can convince these jurors that this double standard is unfair to them, they’re going to let their politicians get away with it, just as the OJ jury was so dazzled by his black skin that they let a man who had completely abandoned and practically disavowed the black community get away with murder.

Image: X screen grab (cropped)