Jeffrey Toobin is one of the more obnoxious talking heads on CNN. He lost his job at the New Yorker for masturbating while on a company Zoom call, much to the shock and horror of his colleagues. He was suspended by CNN but returned today. I don't really care about Toobin's professional fate; the New Yorker is an awful rag anyway, whose pretentious writers are now on strike or something; and CNN's credibility can hardly be dented any further. The one interesting note is that Toobin was one of the villains of the Weinergate saga, which took place almost exactly ten years ago, and which my old college Larry O'Connor memorably recalled this week. When Andrew Breitbart suggested that he had evidence Weiner was involved in sexting young girls, Toobin called the claim "outrageous," which to my mind sounded like he was trying to help Weiner develop a claim for defamation. We all know how that turned out.
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 ...
