Last time we paid attention to Adam Kokesh, former co-protestor Medea Benjamin was saying “The thing about Adam is he’s a publicity hound. He loves the attention. He’s got a huge ego.” (This was before Ms. Benjamin re-established her own bona fides heckling the President on Thursday.)
Now, according to Dell Cameron reporting for the political types at Vice, Kokesh’s latest Totally Awesome Not At All Impractical Performance Stunt, calling for “1,000 people to march across the Potomac on July 4 carrying loaded rifles”, may possibly have hit a wee minor snag:
Last week, I spoke to activist and libertarian talk show host Adam Kokesh. Less than 24 hours later he was taken into custody by federal agents…
Adam’s latest agenda is probably his most controversial to date. A couple of weeks ago on his talk show Adam vs The Man, Kokesh announced his plans to celebrate Independence Day by marching into the nation’s capital with 10,000 followers, all of whom would be armed with loaded firearms…
Because there’s enough malware on my aging desktop already, I’m not gonna explore whether the WaPo underestimated Kokesh’s call to arms or Vice overstated his enthusiasm by a factor of ten.
… The day after our conversation, Adam was arrested at “Smoke Down Prohibition,” a public protest for the legalization of marijuana that takes place every month in Philadelphia… Before last Saturday, no arrests had ever been made at one of these events, despite the fact that police were always present and laws were broken every time.
There are several videos on YouTube that document the moments before and during Adam’s arrest. In one of the clearest videos, Adam isn’t sparking up. He continues talking into the microphone while everyone else is flicking their Bics. Within seconds, the police move in and Adam yells, “Everybody get closer. Show some love. Come on, we’re going to make it difficult for the police here.” That didn’t work out so well…
According to Lucas Jewell, Adam’s podcast manager, the arrest is in direct response to the upcoming Independence Day march, not the Smoke Down Prohibition demonstration. “They walked by a big black guy with dreads smoking a blunt and snatched Adam when he hadn’t done anything illegal.” The fact that Adam was originally taken to a local jail but then picked up by agents and transferred to a Federal detention facility has only fueled this theory….