They wanted to have their organizing shindig at the Victory American Grill, but the Colorado Minutemen had to change locations at the “last minute” when the downtown Denver establishment reported boycott threats and “pressure from illegal-alien supporters.”
The national group, which was organized as a citizen’s militia to patrol the southern borders (of Mexico, not Colorado) has long had members in the Centennial State – just last year Republican state representatives Dave Schultheis, Jim Welker and Bill Crane joined them for some high-publicity patrolling in the Arizona desert. But last week the Minutemen announced they are formally organizing chapters here, in Denver and Colorado Springs. It’s unclear exactly what they intend to accomplish, given that, as indicated above, there is no foreign border in Colorado. But on their website, members sure were peeved about having to move their first organizing meeting to Greenwood Village.
“The Minutemen remain committed to educating the public, and peacefully exercising our First Amendment rights in full compliance with the letter and spirit of the law. We will not be swayed by intimidation tactics nor baseless hate speech. We regret that the Victory American Grill was the victim of such a smear campaign. We are also very disappointed at their decision to cancel our reservation with just two days’ notice.”
Yes, let’s talk about “baseless hate speech.” The Minutemen hate it, just hate it, when organizations, like the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Anti-Defamation League and the Latin American Research and Service Agency,just to name a few, denounce them as racists and tie them to white supremacist groups like the National Alliance.
But, notably, their organizing meeting occurred just after two “town hall meetings” that Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez called to talk about illegal immigration, in which federal officials declined to participate.
The Denver Post reported that at one of the meetings, a woman in the crowd, Shirley Ortega Beamer, “urged Beauprez to work for legal changes that would revoke the identification documents of illegal immigrants before they are deported.”
“We have got to take the political backbone to say we will implement a shoot-to-kill order,” Beamer was reported saying, “prompting cheers from the crowd of about 100 people gathered in the Aurora City Council chamber.”
No word on whether Beamer is a member of the Colorado Minutemen. But we’re still waiting for the the new group to officially denounce this sort of baseless hate speech targeting undocumented immigrants.
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