SNOWDEN: Down with the Evil CIA!

One excerpt:

Our glittering nation of laws observes this year two birthdays: the 70th anniversary of the National Security Agency, on which my thoughts have been recorded, and the 75th anniversary of the Central Intelligence Agency.

The CIA was founded in the wake of the 1947 National Security Act. The Act foresaw no need for the Courts and Congress to oversee a simple information-aggregation facility, and therefore subordinated it exclusively to the President, through the National Security Council he controls.

Within a year, the young agency had already slipped the leash of its intended role of intelligence collection and analysis to establish a covert operations division. Within a decade, the CIA was directing the coverage of American news organizations, overthrowing democratically elected governments (at times merely to benefit a favored corporation), establishing propaganda outfits to manipulate public sentiment, launching a long-running series of mind-control experiments on unwitting human subjects (purportedly contributing to the creation of the Unabomber), and—gaspinterfering with foreign elections. From there, it was a short hop to wiretapping journalists and compiling files on Americans who opposed its wars.

In 1963, no less than former President Harry Truman confessed that the very agency he personally signed into law had transformed into something altogether different than he intended, writing:

“For some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government. This has led to trouble…”

Read the rest here…

The Elliot Resnick Show: Can Charedim Be Zionists?

SEPTEMBER 21, 2022 – ELLIOT RESNICK – EPISODE 14

Show Notes

Black-hat Jews founding an illegal settlement in the West Bank?  Gathering to thank Hashem on Yom Yerushalayim?  Both have occured thanks to a relatively new organization – Kedushat Tziyon – headed by Rabbi Yehuda Epstein who argues that charedim in the past gave their lives for Eretz Yisrael and should strive today to create a true Torah state in the Holy Land.  In this interview, Rabbi Epstein also discusses two charedi visionaries: Isaac Breuer and Rabbi Akiva Yosef Schlesinger.

Listen to the interview over here…

מאמר חדש: מצות אהבת השם

המאמר בחלקו הראשון [גדרי המצוה עמ’ 5-1] נכתב באופן המתאים יותר למעיינים, ואילו חלקו השני [דרכי קיום המצוה למעשה עמ’ 10-6] נכתב באופן השווה לכל נפש. ניתן ללמוד כל חלק בפני עצמו.

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Reprinted with permission.

Comparing Monarchies and Republics

Imagine being told that you could only live in one country for the rest of your life, prevented from emigration or even travel. You can’t choose the place itself, but in this admittedly implausible Alan Partridge-like thought experiment, all you can decide is whether it’s a monarchy or republic. What do you go for?

Continue reading Ed West here…