So looks like we’re in protest season again. Expect more, coming to a campus near you.
But what do the protestors really want? Do they actually expect Israel will disappear, “from the river to the sea”?
No. That’s not what it’s about.
(No need to attend class — I won’t have to pay my student loan anyway…)
Now any cop who has worked protests conducted by committed leftists — and there is almost no other kind of protest, really — knows that the demands are generally not remotely reasonable. “Defund All Police!” “Death to Israel!” “Socialism Now!”
Sure. Coming right up.
What many don’t realize, however, is that nearly all of this stuff is performative. While many are of course genuinely inspired by their own plight or that of their families — this is especially true of, say, the Palestinian and Ukrainian causes — a great many other demonstrators are there for more venal reasons.
For one thing: it’s their job. Professional activism is a genuine career path — in our blue cities, especially. Generally these protest leaders/organizers derive their funding from government and NGO’s (that get their funding from government and foundation donations). And it can be a pretty lucrative gig, rounding up the latest crop of uninformed co-eds to go fight the man.
Another factor to consider is the element of intimidation. This was very present at the DNC, where many of the protestors voiced warnings to Kamala Harris about what they expected of her were she to be elected. The implicit — and sometimes not-so-implicit — warning is, “we better get what we want November 5th.” And of course, their view of a possible second Trump presidency….
A final factor to consider is that, for many others, protesting is their social life. Working protests, you see people greeting each other, hugging, saying, “I haven’t seen you since that thing in D.C. six months ago!” It’s a form of networking, and it’s how progressives build their coalitions. (In NYC alone, there are thousands of non-profit “community groups” — all with their fists up and their hands out).
In the end, a main objective underlying all this (aside from supposedly “raising awareness”) is to sow chaos. The more chaos, the more hostile interactions with the police — and the more lawsuits. And you better believe they always have the lawyers on hand (often right beside them), ready to sue over any claim they can manage.
And they do this because they know the cities always settle — further funding these groups for next time.
And the cycle continues.
Ask yourself: Do all these affluent college kids really know Middle Eastern history? Have they been there? Do they even know that Hamas and Hezbollah are designated terrorist groups?
That the primary victimizer of Gazans has been Hamas? That the entity that turned Lebanon from “the Paris of the Mideast” to a war zone is Hezbollah?
As I’ve said on the air: Most of these kids couldn’t find Gaza on a map of Gaza. And whatever your position on Israel, the revolting use of October 7th as a day to protest that nation’s existence is all the proof you need of how ignorant these people really are.
And that chaos and profit is what they’re really after.
The Adams Trap
Another day — another resignation of a top government official here in NYC. At this rate, we’re going to be down to the Mayor and the dog-catcher.
We’ll be writing more on this soon — there’s too much to cover now (see this week’s Ops Desk Report, below, for further). But we highlight here one curious circumstance regarding the case against Mayor Adams:
In November of last year, when Adams had his phones taken by the feds, he told them that his personal phone (which he reportedly used for arranging all this travel, etc.) was home — and that he would deliver it to them the next day.
Which he did — while also telling them he changed the password to a six-digit number in order to ensure it wasn’t tinkered with by his staff.
Oh — and that now he forgets that password.
Reader, trust me when I tell you: If your plan was to truly piss-off a group of federal investigators, you couldn’t devise a better method. Consider: They could have followed him home and taken the phone. But they gave him the courtesy of a drop-off. And he pulled that stunt.
Now here’s the complication: Adams’s lawyer must be getting an earful on this. So he recently promised the judge, in court, that they would be producing the contents of that phone in full.
Begging the question: How? If he forgets the password, and the feds can’t get in (which they reportedly have been unable to do) — well then, how can Adams get in?
Only one way: If he was initially lying, and of course he knows the new password.
And therein the trap. Because if he does know the password, he was lying the first time. And unlike with cops, it’s a crime to lie to the feds in the course of an investigation. In sum:
§ 1001 is a crime punishable by up to five years imprisonment – and even eight years imprisonment under certain circumstances – to intentionally lie to or mislead federal agents, including officials from the SEC, DEA, FBI and the United States Attorney's Office.
Now ask yourself: Adams presumably should know this — he was a cop (of sorts) after all. Yet he risked this so as to protect that phone.
Begging the question: What is on that phone? And has it already been tinkered with, creating yet another potential charge (Destruction of Evidence)?
Indeed, one of Adams’s officials who’s been caught up in the case was just charged with exactly that — deleting Signal, a texting app, before turning the phone over to the feds.
And according to this official’s arrest document, Signal was the app the Mayor “encouraged” others to use (likely because it’s encrypted).
Are his Signal communications the reason the Mayor doesn’t seem to want to turn over his phone?
If so: the trap springs yet again. Because the same process the FBI used to charge this official with tampering can almost certainly be applied to Adams’s phone.
Indeed, Signal is owned by an American company — and while the contents of encrypted Signal texts may not be retrieved, data that demonstrates a phone did use Signal likely can be retrieved from the Signal company itself.
Meaning that, if Adams has not deleted anything yet, he dare not do so now. Because it will likely inspire a tampering charge.
Stay tuned.
The Ops Desk Report
This week:
FEMA’s out of money… and here’s why
The secretive ICE program that allows Mayorkas to import 30,000 unvetted migrants a month — while claiming border encounters are down
New York City’s indicted Mayor Adams — is it now a national security case?
And: The question from Brian Kilmeade I didn’t see coming…!
So click HERE (caution: firewall)
Welp, We Called It — And We Wish We Hadn’t
So now comes word that Viktor Bout, the so-called “Merchant of Death” Russian arms dealer, is back to selling arms to America’s enemies after being traded by the Biden administration to Putin for WNBA player Brittney Griner. Who’da thunk it?
Actually — we did.
From the December 22, 2022 Ops Desk:
Why did Putin want him so badly?
There is, first, the propaganda effect. Bout allows Putin to crow about “never leaving a man behind.” In light of Bout’s reported GRU connections (that is, Russian military intel), this is a good look for Vlad — especially as a former KGB officer himself, who runs his nation through his former KGB cronies.
And a time when the war in Ukraine is going less-than-perfectly, a propaganda win for the general public on his homefront doesn’t hurt either
But then there are Bout’s undeniable capabilities. He is a known money launderer and arms dealer, with global contacts. At a time when Russia desperately needs hard currency and is seeking alliances for weapons sales with the likes of Iran… well, you get the picture.
A last subtlety that Bout brings to the table: A maniacal hatred for the west, especially America. And you can’t imagine he feels much better about us after a dozen years in jail.
Personally, it seems all-but obvious that this entire thing was a Russian intel operation, well-executed. More on that next time.
I somehow feel we haven’t heard the last of Viktor Bout….
(Bout, being extradited to the U.S. from Thailand in 2010, two years after his DEA arrest)
Now, according to this Wall Street Journal report, Bout is indeed back to his old ways. In this case, by dealing arms to the Houthis, who are Iranian proxies wreaking havoc along some of the world’s most important shipping lanes.
Putin saw us coming on this one.
And finally….
Wait for it:
You thought you had a tough job…?