Forgive me -- I know that there is a civil war of sorts brewing between "moderate" and "progressive" [sic] Democrats, but I can't take it seriously. They are going to reach a deal, because they are not going to lose the opportunity to spend trillions of dollars on their political donors and patrons. They are incompetent, which is why they failed to meet their own deadlines; and they are dishonest, which is why Joe Biden promised Republicans that the $1.2 trillion "infrastructure" bill excluded everything that he later included in the $3.5 trillion "reconciliation" bill. They are also radical, which is why Biden has now tacked his campaign slogan -- "build back better" -- onto the $3.5 trillion agenda, as if he had run as a socialist, which is what he actually turns out to be.
But none of this matters. We don't have $3.5 trillion, or even $1.2 trillion, to spend. Democrats are claiming that the bill will cost net "zero," which is absurd, and shows just how little they care about "truth over lies," another Biden slogan. The idea seems to be that taxing billionaires and "trillionaires" (we have none of the latter) can cover the cost, somehow. But even if raising taxes on the rich could, theoretically bring in something like several hundred billion dollars -- at best, if you assume economic growth (which is slowing down) and minimal tax avoidance by high earners (ha ha ha -- just ask Biden about filing as an S-corp to avoid paying his "fair share." ) -- we still won't cover $3.5 trillion. We won't even manage to do it if we raise taxes on the middle class (inevitable).
This is just a debate about how much debt to leave to future generations -- or how quickly to push us toward default. For Democrats, it's worth it: the goal is to hook the population on entitlements that will be too politically difficult to remove, so that when default does come, its own constituencies are protected and it's the private sector that has to pay the price. Of course, once the private sector can't produce, there's less revenue... see also, almost the entire Third World, and the history of socialism everywhere that it has been tried.
This week's show will be slightly different from the norm: we'll focus on clips and topics, rather than guests -- and that, hopefully, will mean more input from the callers (unless you are all watching football on opening weekend).
Topics:
- The state of the economy
- The fight against crime
- The midterm election fight
- The struggle for peace between Russia and Ukraine
- The airstrike on the Venezuelan drug cartel
- The attempt to sink Kennedy
- The war in Gaza
- The case against Harvard
- The Trump presidency
Tune in: SiriusXM Patriot 125, 7-10 p.m. ET / 4-7 p.m. PT
Call: 866-957-2874
This week's Torah portion includes several laws about conduct in civic and personal life, the common theme of which is boundaries -- setting bounds to what one may do at home, at work, and even in the battlefield.
One noteworthy passage concerns Amalek, the evil nation that attacked the Children of Israel as they made their Exodus from slavery to freedom. Deuteronomy 25:17-19 commands Jews to obliterate Amalek's memory.
The South African government accused Israel of genocide on the basis of a story about Amalek in the Book of Samuel, in which King Saul was commanded to wipe out the entire evil Amalekite nation.
Because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quoted this week's portion -- "Remember what Amalek did to you" (25:17), the South African government claimed he was commanding soldiers to commit genocide.
It was an absurd and malevolent misreading of the Bible and of Jewish tradition. The commandment, as observed by Jews today, is to remember the evil of Amalek and fight ...
