Notorious Extremist Weslin and Others Arrested at Capitol

Notorious anti-abortion activist Father Norman Weslin was among a dozen protesters arrested by U.S. Capitol Police outside House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's district office Thursday at a raucous protest against the health reform bill.

Notorious anti-abortion activist Father Norman Weslin was
among a dozen protesters arrested by U.S. Capitol Police outside House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi’s district office Thursday at a raucous protest against the health
reform bill.

According to video captured by protesters accompanying
Randall Terry, who leads the newly dubbed Operation Rescue Insurrecta Nex,
Weslin was initially seated inside Pelosi’s suite in the Cannon House Office
Building clutching a stack of papers in his lap. Meanwhile, anti-abortion
protesters shouted "kill the bill" slogans and ripped up pages of the
Democrats proposed health care legislation in the hallway.

Police arrested the demonstrators for disorderly conduct and
refusing to leave Pelosi’s secondary office around 2:15 p.m. EST.
Approximately, 100 people filled the concourse alternately shouting
anti-abortion slogans and demanding the police release the protesters.

While law enforcement futilely attempted to clear the
hallway of on-lookers, press and five bill supporters who donned hospital gowns
and faux plastic bare buttocks, Weslin suddenly appeared in the doorway and
stumbled across the office threshold.

The Catholic priest, dressed all in black, a clerical collar
and black rubber Crocs, fell hard on his back on the floor in the hallway. A Capitol
police officer attended to Weslin
and was soon joined by colleagues who
carried the uncooperative 78-year-old veteran protester outside.

During the hullabaloo, Pelosi was in the Speaker’s office
inside the Capitol and not in her California congressional district suite where
the protest took place.

Talking Points Memo reporter Christina Bellantoni captured
video of Weslin’s detention and escort into a waiting ambulance outside the
Cannon House Office Building. A crowd milling in the area following the
anti-health care reform Tea Party rally organized by House Republicans began
singing an off-key and lyric-mangled version of "God Bless America":

Then, they began heckling the police:

Weslin is best known as the founder of the Lambs of
Christ
,
a nomadic paleo-conservative network of activists that stage clinic
invasions and general mayhem goading police to arrest them.

The group has long been linked to violent extremists in the
anti-abortion movement. Early Lambs members include James Kopp, who is serving
a life sentence in the murder of Dr. Barnett Slepian, and Shelley Shannon, who
is imprisoned for a series of arson and acid attacks on clinics following her
1993 shooting of Dr. George Tiller.

This latest public folly marks nearly 80 arrests for Weslin.