There is a surprising silence around the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson. Perhaps that's just because the first day is devoted to opening statements rather than questions; perhaps that's because it's a liberal replacing another liberal, and it will not affect the current balance of the Court; perhaps that's because she's the first black female nominee, and so her confirmation is assured in a way that it would not be for another nominee.
It's also possible that she's met the bar for qualifications, and that Republicans have other irons in the fire. There may be more qualified judges, but Supreme Court justices are rarely the most qualified judges. They're the most qualified who have a reasonably good chance of staying on the bench the longest. I'm sure there are good judges who never get a chance because they started later.
She's very likable; she has a beautiful family; she mentioned God in her opening statement. And she's radical in some of the most destructive ways. But she'll be on the highest court soon, and she'll likely be there for a very, very long time.
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
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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 ...
