Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) delivered a great speech on Monday evening at the Ronald Reagan presidential library here in California. The news headlines are focusing on the fact that he compared Donald Trump to Reagan, pointing out that both had a shared appreciation for (Democrat) Andrew Jackson and his approach to citizenship and foreign policy. (Jackson has now been all but canceled by the Democratic Party, the party he himself founded.) Cotton also issued a warning to Russia and President Vladimir Putin, declaring that the U.S. would never recognize an inch of what the aggressor might conquer in Ukraine.
But what was most interesting about Cotton's speech, to me, was how he embraced the most popular and effective parts of Trump's legacy, while carefully and explicitly departing from Trump in important respects. For example, Cotton called Trump's criminal justice reform policies a grave mistake that have contributed to the crime and chaos on America's streets today. He didn't blame Trump for...
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Topics:
- The state of the economy
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- The airstrike on the Venezuelan drug cartel
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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 ...
