Last night I sat down with Tim Pool and his crew to record three hours of discussion -- two for his livestream and one for his members-only forum. It was a great experience. One of the issues we addressed in the members-only portion was Occupy Wall Street.
Tim made his name as a journalist by streaming from the protest in Zuccotti Park in Manhattan -- the main Occupy site. He has long argued that conservatives -- including Andrew Breitbart -- made a mistake by dismissing the movement instead of listening to it.
Tim saw the protest -- at least until it was taken over by trust fund babies and professional left-wing activists -- as an important populist movement that challenged the union of political and financial power. It took Donald Trump to make conservatives listen.
I pointed out that Andrew Breitbart did, indeed, visit and listen to the Occupy protesters -- though he also made fun of them and the fact that they were undoing fundamental values, not just capitalism and law and order, but individualism itself (think: human microphone).
Perhaps Andrew's take on Occupy was also affected by the fact that the protest site we visited was in L.A., where unions were much more directly and visibly involved. It was an institutional-left set-piece. Perhaps it had been less so in the early days in New York.
Regardless, we agreed on a few points. 1. Conservatives should have listened to the populist critique, because their refusal to do so led the GOP to nominate Mitt Romney, who was an emblem of all that both left and right disliked about politics and the establishment.
2. Occupy Wall Street was, in fact, taken over by left-wing crazies who inaugurated an era of wokism. I think that was present at the outset, but Tim points out that it accelerated when people like Sean Hannity bashed the movement. Tribalism hurt political dialogue.
3. The "mic check" stuff really was creepy, as was the movement's descent into identity politics, in which white people were not even allowed to speak (this was years before Black Lives Matter). The crushing of individual liberty was something we all lamented.
This is my first broadcast from the new office and studio in Washington, DC, where I'll be for a couple of years my neighborhood back in L.A. cleans up -- and as we follow the Trump administration from a little closer up than usual.
Topics:
- The anniversary of the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump
- The escalating tariff battle with various different trading partners
- The future of the Middle East peace talks, and ongoing antisemitism
- The Jeffrey Epstein files and whether they mean anything at all
- The continued crisis of the Texas floods, and stories of heroism and survival
And more!
Special guests:
- James Rosen - Newsmax chief Washington correspondent
- Bob Price - Breitbart News Texas reporter, on the ongoing floods
- Robert Cahill - Trafalgar Polling, on a new alliance of reliable pollsters
- Rabbi Yaakov Menken - Coalition for Jewish Values - on Israel & antisemitism
Tune in: 7-10 p.m. ET, 4-7 p.m. PT
Call: 866-957-2874
This week’s portion tells the grand story of the prophet who tried to curse people of Israel and instead ended up blessing them.
I am reminded that these portions continue to be relevant anew, as this particular reading lent the title for Israel’s recent 12 Day War against Iran, “Operation Rising Lion.”
This week's portion includes the commandment of the red heifer -- one of the classic "irrational" commandments whose fulfillment is an expression of faith. It also includes the regrettable episode in which Moses strikes the rock.
I referred to this story in a wedding speech last night. Why was Moses punished for striking the rock in Numbers, when he struck the rock without incident in Exodus -- both for the purpose of providing water to the people?
The answer is that in the interim, the Jewish people had received the Torah, which is like the marriage contract between the people of Israel and God. In a marriage, you do not resolve things by breaking boundaries, but through love.
The additional reading, from Judges Chapter 11, is the story of Jephthah (Yiftach), a man whom the leaders spurn, but to whom they must turn to save the nation. The parallels to our present political circumstances are striking.
Shabbat Shalom and Happy Fourth of July!
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