We’ve recently seen evidence of the Israeli intelligence service’s (“Mossad”) skill in penetrating their enemies’ operations; from spectacular, “James Bond”-style coups like Operation Grim Beeper to, incredibly, apparently penetrating the heart of Iran’s anti-Israel intelligence efforts up to senior leadership levels.

Mossad has developed, over almost 80 years of fighting for Israel’s survival, an almost superhuman reputation.

As with much of Mossad’s history, it’s an awe-inspiring display of what intelligence people call “fieldcraft – the nuts and bolts of running intelligence and clandestine unconventional warfare operations.

But I’m going to suggest there’s a group whose fieldcraft makes Mossad look about as subtle as a P Diddy houseparty.

And they are (we are told) operating among us even as we speak.

The Phantom Menace: We are told in one breath that American “white supremacists” are a mass of pasty, addled losers with sub-90 IQs, living in their parents basements, who live in their parents basements, stock shelves at Dollar General and have permanent Cheeto-dust stains on their fingers and the t-shirts that stretch to try to cover their obesity-stretched frames.

Indeed, some of the times they’ve come out into the open, they’ve seemed to fit that stereotype:

And yet since then, the record has been a little more muddled.

Much of the Minnesota DFL establishment leaped to trying to blame “white supremacists” for the Minneapolis riots of 2020.

And while this was obviously true, a few chilling facts remain:

• Although here in the Midway, and as far as I saw East Lake Street and Uptown, were coated six inches deep in graffiti, I don’t recall seeing a single swastika or “14 Words” reference.
• Although the Allianz soccer field sits in the middle of an area that was heavily burned, looted and vandalized, and was (and is) protected by not so much as a shrubbery, there wasn’t so much as a Sharpie mark on it.
• For all the official ballyhoo, Minnesota’s elite media has apparently found no evidence that they were around in any significant numbers.

So apparently the mouth-breathing incel defectives destroyed two neighbhorhoods – and then disappeared without leaving so much as a footprint.

Which brings us to today. 

WIthout A Trace: We are the most videotaped society in history. People record the the most mundane of life’s activities. And if there’s something exciting – a car crash, a fight, someone acting out in some way – it seems almost inevitable that someone will break out their phone and start recording .

So when a series of WNBA stars started complaining about the wave of racism accompanying the surge of people actually becoming interested in the league – perhaps the most “niche” of all sports…:

“The WNBA is a competitive league with some of the most elite athletes in the world,” read the statement. “While we welcome a growing fan base, the WNBA will not tolerate racist, derogatory, or threatening comments made about players, teams and anyone affiliated with the league. League security is actively monitoring threat-related activity and will work directly with teams and arenas to take appropriate measures, to include involving law enforcement as necessary.”

and describing what they’ve encountered…:

“We’ve seen a lot of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia throughout the course of our country,” [Connectict Suns coach Stephanie] White said. “Sport is no exception, and it’s unacceptable. The thing that frustrates me the most is that we — I say we because I work in television as well — what we in the media have to do a better job of (is) not allowing trolls and social media to become the story. I feel like we have allowed trolls in social media to frame the narrative of what the story is. We have to do a better job. I applaud our team for maintaining their professionalism.”

Now, I have little doubt that there’s bad behavior in the hellscape of online and social media fandom. Social media doesn’t just foster bad behavior, it rewards it.

But some of the WNBA players say they’re encounting open racist behavior, at games, in public, in the open.

And yet in a society, and sport, where it’s hard to go to a concession stand without someone doing a TikTok, with stands full of people for whom women’s hoops is as much an ideological commitment as a sport, there doesn’t appear to be any video evidence of this kind of behavior. And we know how important that is, legally speaking.

So – are White Supremacists a bunch of doughy retrograde losers? Or operatives who do their work and dissappear into the ether without leaving a trace?

Or both?

John Kerry – who came waaaay too close to becoming President, and that’s after acknowledging what a disappointment Dubya was in retrospect – accidentally told the left’s truth:

“our First Amendment stands as a major block to be able to just, you know, hammer it”

It’s disheartening how many Democrats consider that a bug rather than a feature.

Paul Gazelka’s book Lifting the Veil is available right here.

Today’s music list:

IT appears our Vice President and possible future President has a dog in the fight:

Semi-side issue: I’m a little amazed at the number of Democrats who’ll chant with a straight face “the Democrats don’t support open borders!”.

Few things have made me cringe quite as hard as “White Dudes for Harris” – the bunch of man-buns, ex-celebs, non-profit staffers and other walking caricatures that showed up on a struggle session on Zoom over the summer…

…to a fairly universal “ick”.

Why ,yes – I thought the whole thing was cloying and patronizing.

How cloying and patronizing?  You know when Tim Walz puts on his Elmer Fudd costume and grabs his entourage of photographers and social media dinks and waddles around the fair taking pictures of himself eating donuts and hugging piglets? 

 That cloying and patronizing.

But “they” were just getting started:

“Every time you go online, it’s the same story – the people who are paying me to read this script telling people like me that I suck. Well, if you vote for Kamala Harris, because reasons we’ll give you someday, maybe, then maybe you and I don’t suck”.

Whoever wrote this has never met an actual male of any race.

“Klan” leaflet with “German”-style type appearing “according to a pastor” in Springfield Ohio:

“Stamped Self-Addressed Envelope?”

Berg’s 20th Law governs:

All incidents of “hate speech” not captured on video (involving being delivered by someone proven not to be a ringer) shall be assumed to be hoaxes until proven otherwise.

Now, let’s take bets on how long it takes for the story to come out as a hoax. 

Closest without going over?

(And that German-style font?   Isn’t it just amazing how “white supremacists” are mouth-breathing cretins who also love to slip in sly historical illusions via graphic presentation?

FIve’ll get you ten she’s a teacher

Someone’s gonna get discovered alone in an apartment full of cats after drinking too much boxed wine:

Harris, unburdened by what is, has a plan to deal the border.

Or so we’re told:

Thing is, she is in power now.  She and “President” Biden could do all of this today.

How, “unburdened by the facts that have been” are Democrat voters?

Now that Tim Walz is enjoying the first of his fifteen minutes, it’s high time we revisit some of his greatest hits.

Here’s Gwen Walz – who seems more and more like a Jill Biden character lately, and that’s not a good thig – talking about her, uh, odd perspective on the 2020 riots:

As someone who didn’t need to leave any windows open to smell the smoke – it came from three blocks away – I want to make sure this clip sees a nice, wide audience. 

(SCENE:  Mitch BERG is at a kitchen store, recycling some Nespresso pods.  Too late, he notices Avery Librelle.)

LIBRELLE:  Merg!

BERG:  Hey, Av…

LIBRELLE:  Shut up.   JD Vance’s real name is John David Bowman. 

BERG:  It was the name he was born with.  He changed his name to his maternal grandparents name, “Vance”, when he was married. 

LIBRELLE:  Don’t care.  Republicans are so diligent about never using new identities, so you should make sure you “deadname” him. 

BERG:  Go ahead. Give it a try.

(SENATOR VANCE walks past, looking for a wok). 

BERG:  Go for it.

LIBRELLE:  (Mildly flustered).  Senator Bowman!

VANCE:  (Looks at LIBRELLE.  Then BERG.  BERG shrugs, rolls eyes.  VANCE nods, walks on).

BERG:  Nobody cares what someone wants us to call them.   It’s being berated about it out of nowhere.  Want to name yourself “Fido”, knock yourself out.  Just don’t yap at me for not assuming you’re a dog, or threaten to destroy my career for not affirming that you’re really a dog.  Seem reasonable?

LIBRELLE:  No.

BERG:  Because of course not.  Hey (hands LIBRELLE the bag of used capsules) don’t let these spill, OK?  For the good of the environment?

LIBRELLE: (reluctantly takes bag) Uh….

But BERG is already gone…

And SCENE. 

British climate protesters who blocked the London beltway get seriously slammed in court:

Obstructing a highway is not simple political expression, and it is far from “peaceful protest.” It involves the physical obstruction of others’ freedom of movement. It is also disruptive and potentially tortious conduct that can have severe consequences. In this case, those seeking to “just stop oil” have done little to advance their cause (traffic congestion results in worse fuel economy and increases emissions), but and managed to cause significant harm to others. From the BBC report:

The action resulted in chaos on the M25 over four successive days, causing nearly 51,000 hours of driver delays, the court heard. The protests closed parts of the motorway in Kent, Surrey, Essex and Hertfordshire.

People missed flights, medical appointments and exams. Two lorries collided, and a police motorcyclist came off his bike during one of the protests on 9 November 2022 while trying to bring traffic to a halt in a “rolling road block”.

Prosecutors alleged the protests led to an economic cost of at least £765,000, while the cost to the Metropolitan Police was put at more than £1.1m.

The activsits and their allies also sought to disrupt the trial, but to no avail.

Wonder if Mary Moriarty is paying attention?

Chaya Raichik, of the account “Libs of TikTok”, and her seven-digit collection of followers, have gone scorched earth on social media accounts that cheered last weekend’s assassination attempt on former president Trump:

I get the urge. Perhaps more than most. I’ve had at least one job get tanked because some (very “progressive”) management found out about my alter ego life (which I have never, not once in 20 years, mentoined in a workplace. I don’t talk about politics at work – and yet I know of one contract job that didn’t get extended, notwithstanding the fact that I saved the project I was working on (long story for another time) because someone googled up some portion of my shadowy talk-radio existence and complained.

And that’s just the once I know about.  I have suspicions about other jobs. 

It was fine as far as it went – I found better jobs.  But I’m not going to say I was never angry about it. 

I never had the time, bandwidth or following to act on it like Raichik even if I had.   And Raichik has certainly endured plenty of harassment herself.  And the two of us aren’t alone.

Of course, on the right the “cultural memory” of the left’s social oppression is pretty hot and current; “cancellation”, including losing jobs, having professional license challenged, and other active harassment over quesitoning and refusing the Covid vaccine; losing jobs over photos in MAGA caps, having kids harassed because their parents were open conservatives. 

And it is a little disturbing to see some people – doctors, nurses, teachers – not only cheering on the assassination, but actively wishing the same on half the population.   It’d be great to help them recognize how stupid and evil they are being.

But this? 

This is pretty much the definition of “punching down”.

I’ve had a policy on this blog from the beginning; I don’t go after peoples (non-elective) day jobs – and I am absolutely hands-off their families. 

Does that make me a better person than those that don’t have those scruples?

Yes.  Absolutely.

Has it deterred people going after me, my job and family?  Well, not all of them.  I don’t have the means to scorched-earth them all.  WIth some, its irrelevant.  With others?  Karma’s a bitch.  But I’m the one that has to live with myself. 

ENTIRE LGBT COMMUNITY: “Don’t you dare use tired stereotypes of “Groomers” and “Chicken Hawks” to refer to our community! We do not target children!”

ALSO THE LGBT COMMUNITY: (referring to a proposal in the California Assembly that would make soliciting a minor for prostitution a felony):

I’d normally fill in a pithy punch line here, but there truly is none.

Joe Doakes, no longer from Como Park, emails:

Biden says Americans do not need firearms to resist government tyranny because we don’t have F15s so can’t win anyway.

Biden surrendered to the Taliban.  How many F15s did they have?

Asking for a friend

Joe Doakes 

Ooh, I can answer that! None!

Lots and lots of other stuff – enough to resist a pretty good-sized government, in fact.

Joe Doakes, no longer from Como Park emails:

In Murthy v. Missouri, the Biden administration was accused of unconstitutional infringement of free speech by pressuring social media to suppress stories unfavorable to the administration.  A lower court found it was the most blatant act of censorship in American history. 

The Supreme Court sidestepped the issue in cowardly fashion and reversed. The court did not say the government’s action was constitutional,  it said citizens have no standing to challenge the unconstitutional action.

 There’s no such thing as “standing” in the Constitution, it is strictly a made-up rule  that courts use to get rid of nuisance cases they don’t want to hear.  It’s a convenient way to avoid making hard decisions. Minnesota courts have used it to rule that ordinary citizens have no standing to challenge the governor’s Covid lock down order, even though it cost them their livelihood or landed them in jail. There is simply no legal remedy for those acts. 

Imagine that Biden stays in the race so  Democrats have to steal the election to keep the Bad Orange Man out of power.  Imagine that the courts act for this instance as they did in 2020 denying that individual citizens have standing to challenge the result and refusing to hear the merits of the election fraud case. What’s the remedy?

 If the court is correct citizens have no peaceful remedy within the constitutional system for unconstitutional government action, then the only remedy available is the one the founders exercised: insurrection leading to revolution.

Plenty of rope in the hinterlands and plenty of lamp poles in Washington. No wonder the elites are terrified.

Joe Doakes

One hopes they are.

Ask not “why is Hollywood endlessly rebooting old movies ideas” . That one’s obvious; Big Hollywood has almost not good new ideas, and comic books are reaching a state of diminishing returns.

The real question is, how will modern morés bastardize their victims – in this case, Fistful of Dollars?

Let’s get our predictions on the board.

The protagonist will be a woman.

Instead of a revolver, she’ll practice some anachronistic martial art. Or maybe use a longbow.

The villains – Mexicans in the original – will be white males.

The townspeople will be plucky single mothers whose white male husbands ran off with saloon floozies (but for a few Latino families and at least one anachronistic black one).

Others?

While listening to the debate last week, I did hear one line that I fully expected Big Left’s chattering classes to try to exploit: Trump noted that illegal immigration would heavily impact “black jobs”.

And that brought out the heckling class:

Do you notice a pattern?

It’s a diverse crowd of hecklers. Some of them are upper middle-to-upper-class media figures:

Or parts of the political class, either those who’ve made it…

…or are working on breaking in:

And some who just won’t go away:

And more who are attached to the system like barnacles to a ship that needs a drydocking:

Or highly accomplished professionals:

Or upper-middle-class academics:

Etc, etc.

Of course, it’s as selective as every other lefty chanting point, both in terms of their own rhetoric…

…and the fact that none of them are part of the group whose jobs are being taken by illegals.

Every Democrat, for the past 24 hours or so:

SCOTUS: You can’t just throw your rival in prison because you don’t like him.

DEMOCRATS: So you’re saying we can drop bombs on him?

SCOTUS: You really can’t even charge your rival with a crime because his presidency made you mad.

DEMOCRATS: Got it. So we can incinerate his house with him in it?

SCOTUS: The Constitution protects officials from being terrorized with lawfare for official actions they undertook while in office.

DEMOCRATS: Ah. Makes sense. So we can officially assassinate everyone we don’t like?

SCOTUS: Prosecuting a politician because you don’t like his politics would destroy our country, and we’re not going to allow it.

DEMOCRATS: Roger that. So what you’re saying is: we are officially allowed to eliminate Trump and the Supreme Court as long as we, like, say it’s official and stuff?

While I wish I could claim it, it’s actually Sean Davis’s bit.

And it’s been all over social media this past day or so.

At first blush, the question might seem to be “why do so many Democrat chanting heads have so much trouble with the phrase ‘”‘presidents have immunity from criminal prosecution for acts that are within the ambit of their executive authority'”?

But of course it’s not. The “elite” among the chanting heads know perfectly well that the SCOTUS just made a fairly moderate decision, remanding the case back to the lower court to sort out what behavior is public and what is private.

But that interpretation – the correct one – is too pollyannaish.

The Democrats, now that they’re committed to running the senile, doddering Biden – need to come up with some way of dragging the corpse across the line.

Panicking people by claiming this ruling gives a president absolute power, in a cycle where the Democrats only campaign hook is “ORANGE MAN LITERALLY HITLER” is the purpose.

“BUT!”, Democrats respond, “this lays the groundwork for unquestioned power!”

George Washington was offered a crown and the ground floor in a hereditary aristocracy.

Abraham Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus.

Woodrow Wilson used the “Sedition Act” to imprison political foes.

FDR trampled the Constitution in pursuit of socializing swathes of the American economy, and unilaterally imprisoned innocent Japanese-American citizens.

FDR, Truman, Ike, JFK, LBJ and Nixon to various degrees all used the FBI and CIA to spy on domestic opponents.

Obama used the military to extrajudicially murder an American citizen, used Federal law enforcement to try to discredit American gun stores and owners (leading to the death of an American border patrol agent and many Mexicans), sicced the IRS on the Tea Party, and used the FBI to spy on the Trump campaign.

And, oh yeah, Biden has set a politicized DOJ on his own political opponent – part of a pattern of corruption in the institutions that those institutions aren’t even being coy about.

The “roadmap” has always been there; the President already has unlimited power, if they want to use it – especially with the logarithmic growth in executive-branch power since the Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson administrations.

A president needs power to do the job to which they’ve been elected; deciding how much power, and keeping that power in check, has always been the job of a free people and its institutions.

Apparently, Hamas doesn’t want support from “Queers for Palestine”:

Still waiting to see how “white supremacy” is to blame.

We were told that Joe Biden is so on top of things, he can type in different languages on different iPhones at the same time.

Remember this?

The most credible people ever – dare I say, our “best and brightest” – assured us that Joe Biden at 82 is like Chuck Norris at 40:

And then came Thursday night:

And it took about four hours for all of that “Joe Biden is a modern titan!” to vanish down the memory hole:

Bear in mind, that the Democrat establishment is panicked about their candidate’s electoral viability.

Not the fact that he’s the guy with “the football”.

Not the fact that America’s enemies, who’ve been feasting on America’s diminishing potency, have got to be looking at the fact that America is led by a senile man, his power-mad Edith Wilson-style wife, and a coterie of useless Ivy League political staffers and grifters, and seeing that the shelf date might just end in 2025, not 2029. And maybe planning accordingly:

U.S. military bases in Europe were put on a heightened state of alert over the weekend as installations urged vigilance among their members. At U.S. European Command headquarters in Stuttgart, the Army garrison on Sunday issued a communitywide alert that the force protection threat level was elevated to condition “Charlie” until further notice. Similar directives were sent to other bases in Germany, including the Army’s Rheinland-Pfalz and Ramstein Air Base, which together form the largest U.S. military community overseas. The Rheinland-Pfalz garrison alert includes Baumholder and outlying installations in Romania and Bulgaria. Aviano Air Base in Italy also rose its condition level to Charlie, and other installations in Italy introduced enhanced security measures. The Charlie threat level “applies when an incident occurs or intelligence is received indicating some form of terrorist action or targeting against personnel or facilities is likely,” according to the Army’s website.

Read more at: https://www.stripes.com/theaters/europe/2024-06-30/us-military-bases-germany-terrorism-threat-14342506.html
Source – Stars and Stripes

I have a sneaking suspicion Iran and its proxies, and Red China and theirs, are seeing a six month opening to make hummus or kimchi while the sun shines on a world where the keepers of Pax Americana have taken an ice cream break.

Some are saying “I told you so”:

And they – we – are right, because that same media that ran interference and told us not to believe our lying eyes, is trying to gaslight us in the other direction:

So what options do they have?

Pulling the plug on Biden may not be as simple as just having him step aside, even if he releases the 99% of the convention delegates currently committed to him:

That brings us back to [Bill Maher’s proposal, in the post linked] of simply handing the nomination to the nearest white male while overlooking Biden’s current running mate, the black woman Biden selected to be the next in line. The center-Left part of the party might — might — go along with that idea out of desperation. The progressive Left, as Matthews astutely points out, would go into an utter meltdown. Harris’ allies don’t want to win by giving up any power at all. 

And in a real sense, they’d be correct to oppose it. Harris may not have been on the primary ballots this year, but Biden won 99% of the delegates with Harris explicitly remaining on the ticket. Newsom never even bothered to enter the race. If Biden pulls out, those delegates may be released in a legal sense, but Harris and her progressive allies have a very good argument that primary voters endorsed her as well as Biden. And you’d better believe that the same progressives that are conducting Occupy operations on college campuses and highways to support radical jihadi terrorists in Gaza will show up in much more force if Democrats pull a back-room switcheroo that leaves Harris without a seat when the music ends. 

And you’d better believe the center-Left knows it, too…having anointed her as capable of being One Heartbeat Away in not one but two presidential cycles now, Democrats can’t just toss her into the garbage now. How do they explain her being competent enough to be Biden’s backup but not to run in his place?

Long story short – the Dems may have no choice but to triple down on gaslighting the public. They can count on it working with 33% of the population, anyway.

To: All of Congress
From: Mitch Berg, Obstreporous Peasant with kids, grandkids
Re: Your (pl) Cowardice

Political Weasel Class (Democrat and GOP)

So I’ll start with the low-hanging rotten fruit: Eric Swalwell continues to pay dividends on China’s investment:

We’re headed toward a $50 Trillion debt. Already our debt service costs more than defense, and will soon start to suck money way from it. No matter – soon it will outstrip Social Security and Medicare.

No system can survive this. This is Venezuela-level irresonsibility.

And none of you Democrats, and precious few Republicans, are taking this seriously.

Swalwell is a cartoon – but no better than most of you, when you get right down to it.

Someone’s gotta be the first to tackle this thing, because it’s definitely going to tackle us.

That is all.

There’s really no other word to describe what happened in Los Angeles on Sunday:

Nothing small or isolated about it.

I’m old enough to remember when Jews feared the right in America. But barely.

This guy…

…looks like a skinhead reliving his “glory days” from the ’80s. That the modern “Palestinian” movement allies with them tells you something.

And the mayor of Berlin…er, Los Angeles had a predictable response:

Of course, that’s scarcely worse than what POTATUS is doing.

The closest thing to good news?

Apparently The New Kristallnacht isn’t polling well outside LA, Dearborn and, probably, south Minneapolis.

To: Jason Chavez, Minneapolis DSA/DFL councilbeing
From: Mitch Berg, Obstreporous Peasant
Re: Punching

Councilbeing Chavez,

You tweeted this on Wednesday:

Let’s talk about the term “uprising”.

It usually connotes a group of subjugated, beaten-down people, “rising up” against their oppressors.

Good examples of uprisings that fit some variant of that definition:

• The Boston Tea Party – indigenous people rose up against colonialism
• The Sobibor Uprising – people escaped from colonizers who had started the job Hamas is trying to finish.
• The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising – actual genocide victims attacked actual practitioners of genocide.
• The Storming of the Bastille – Musical theatre fans attack critics

Each of these uprisings have a few things in common: the people doing the uprising were being actively oppressed by those up against whom they rose; the targets of their attacks were the actual oppressors; tax authorities, the SS, the monarchy.

In May of 2020, people who considered themselves oppressed (we’ll accept that for sake of argument) “rose up” and destroyed…

…hundreds of businesses, extremely disproportionately owned by immigrants, people of color, people in the neighborhood. Oh, the Third Precinct got destroyed – after a couple of days of generalized looting and arson, seemingly almost as an afterthought, to give the “uprising” some window-dressing sense of political virtue other than “looting and burning cafes owned by first-generation Americans”.

I may be just an obstreporous peasant, but I think “downrising” might be a better term.

That is all.

I’ve got leftist acquaintances who chuckle derisively every year about the “War On Christmas”.

I meet them halfway. The war isn’t just on Christmas, of course; it’s on everything that builds a stable, functional society

Especially families.

The “hild-free”/movement is one of modernity’s more galling little affectations. Not so much the people who just decide they don’t want to have kids – although I have questions – much less the ones that can’t.

No, I’m talking about the ones that take affirmative pride at disdaining all thing child: having them, putting up with them in public, making any allowances for them or their parents in any way.

It’s not just their dubious social skills; to be intentionally “child-free” is to say “when I’m too old to take care of myself – financially, socially and literally – I’m going to give the job to your kids and grandkids”. The burden in insurance premiums, social overhead and literal time (CNAs don’t grow on trees) will come from the children and grandchildren of the people they’re condescending to today.

Of course, like every other harebrained notion, they’ve got their carefully-curated “Facts” – which in this case Jordan Peterson was good enough to flense for us:

Answer #5 in particular grabbed me:

Much of modern culture seems to mistake a dopamine for purpose and meaning – and among millennials and Zoomers, it shows.

Filed under “things you didn’t know anyone ever needed:

Minneapolis City Council to follow in 3…2…