L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva is declaring that he will clear out the homeless encampments from Venice Beach by July 4. So, naturally, the local city council member, Mike Bonin, is furious, because he wants to build more homeless shelters near the beach, and to get more funding for programs, and to lecture his constituents on how they lack compassion for civil rights.
Bonin's rantings on Twitter are so unhinged that he would probably convince a disinterested observer that his own policy must be completely bonkers.
Residents are thrilled. This is also going to be an interesting fight for the media, because there is nothing L.A. journalists love more than a complicated dispute about jurisdictional boundaries involving claims of racism. The protagonists are so classic: a condescending "woke" white liberal versus a plain-spoken Latino sheriff who wears a cowboy hat. (As in, he literally wore a cowboy hat when he vowed to clean up the town.) Stay tuned here for updates as things happen.
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 ...
