What in Sam Hill is going on? Donald Trump revoking security clearances of the assorted also-ran ex-ghouls who used to be officials in what the government and beltway media would have you believe is the “best and brightest’ intelligence community in the world. They said that fifty years ago -it wasn’t true then and it isn’t true now. Those in danger of losing their pot of gold (aka their security clearance} include two admitted perjurers, an Obama apologist who was willing to publicly lie about the administration’s dirty dealings in Libya and an army general who uses his security clearance to shill for big, fat government contracts for the defense industry. There is however a real threat to Americans who don’t have security clearances and powerful friends in D.C. It’s all spelled out in the 2012 NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) sections 1021, 1022. Back in 1942, also in the midst of war (six less than the U.S. is involved in today) FDR, like Obama, considered a “man of the people” detained over 120,000 Japanese-Americans without charge or trial in military concentration camps. Think history can’t repeat itself? Read this article, and don’t think it can’t happen again.
Want to gloat a little? Run don’t walk to “Suspicious Angels Gets It Wrong.” That’s right, we are confessing that our overly optimistic hope that Neil Gorsuch would grow a moral vision consonant with democratic values flew in the face of our recognition of how an increasingly authoritarian, billionaire-run government, with leaders from both sides of the aisle profiting by our endless war strategy chooses justices who know the game and how to play it. We make up for our egregious faux pas by shining the light on departing Justice Arthur Kennedy, not swing-justice Kennedy, but right-wing Justice Kennedy appointed by the right’s lodestone, Ronald Reagan and never forgetting for a moment whose beat he was marching to. What does it all come down to? Democracy sold to the highest bidder and a Supreme Court willing to sanctify the transactions which include installing a president, legalizing voter suppression laws and dealing a death-blow to the U.S. union movement. Abortion rights are probably their next target. Justice takes on new meaning when democracy is corrupted by wealth and power. One thing for sure – the U.S. has left its democratic “cred” in the dust and the corporatist warmongers now control both politics and policy.
As propitious moments go, this is the perfect time to remind our readers of the perils of having your DNA analyzed by one of the rapidly multiplying genealogical research firms. Before you make this potentially life-changing decision, be sure to read this article for a no-holds-barred look at the pros (not many) and cons (lots and lots) of succumbing to the genealogical companies’ siren song.
Unfortunately, for 12 million people (mostly Americans), this warning comes too late. Their DNA is now co-owned by one of the four or five largest players in “genealogical research.” No doubt about it, business is booming. More people took genetic ancestry tests last year than in all previous years combined. Ancestry.com, the largest genealogy company, announced that it had tested more than seven million people, including two million during the last four months of 2017.
How did these eager beavers entice so many otherwise careful consumers into their spider’s web? The old-fashioned way—advertising.
More than a felt need of consumers, the evidence indicates that the testing boom has more to do with the prodigious sums these companies are dumping into advertising. In 2016, Ancestry.com spent $109 millions on TV and other media spots. 23andMe, a smaller company, doing business at the same lemonade stand spent $21 million.
This is big business. Considering the amount of money swirling around, the stakes are high. Corporate behemoths are after your DNA and it’s not altruism that’s driving the aggressive marketing. It’s profits. Once your DNA is permanently ensconced on the database of any one of these companies, profit-making opportunities abound.
Even the Feds might come calling (probably already have). When it comes to the government’s involvement in the DNA collecting of for-profit genealogy firms, one curious little “coincidence” comes to mind. The largest genealogy company in the world is located in Utah. The NSA (laughingly referred to as the “intelligence community”) has spent the past two years building the $1.7 billion Utah Data Center where gargantuan amounts of your data in the form of emails, phone calls, google searches and other sources will be stored. Once the supercomputers are rolled in, it will be all hands-on-deck, about 200 technicians roaming around the one million square foot facility dealing with what used to be considered private and personal information. Not in today’s national security-obsessed America.
Hmm…a million square feet of space waiting for purloined information and the largest DNA-data base company practically on the doorstep. Reason to worry? Read “Hijacking Your DNA: It Could Cost You Your Freedom” and decide for yourself.
That big snore you hear in exceptional-land signals the end of the road for Russia-gate. When asked, only 1% of the America public believe the Russian caper was a major problem. The enemies most Americans care about are skyrocketing health costs, stagnant wages, life-time student loans, rising interest rates, crumbling infrastructure and the climate change-caused rain and fire destroying huge swaths of the “homeland.” Russia-gate has fallen out of the top ten. Even predictions of a coming Armageddon aren’t cutting much ice. This sorry state of affairs prompted leaders of America’s intelligence agencies to hold a group sing-a-long touting “new evidence” that “Russia continues to engage in malign operations” (as per usual no evidence to support that claim). if you read last week’s article American Paranoia: They’re Out to Get us, you know that even scaredy-cat Americans aren’t buying the hype. To find out how D.C. elites and their media buddies hope to reverse the Russia-gate death spiral, don’t miss American Paranoia Part 2: American “Innocence” Vs. A World of Enemies.
The drum beats getting louder. The wolves circling the tree for the final assault. The president under fire. The plot against America repeated on an endless loop out of every media, congressional, and pundit hidey-hole. Even the ‘party of the people’s liberal cadre have joined the hue and cry. It’s “likely” the Russians have something to do with Donald Trump. (Jeff Merkely) “Russia interfered in our elections & attacked our democracy” (Elizabeth Warren). This isn’t the first time the intelligence community has had “high confidence” that someone was out to get us. Who can forget the Iraq WMD caper when everyone (who was anybody) knew that we were in the crosshairs of a dangerous demagogue. That was then, this is now and the stakes are considerably higher, the threat of nuclear war considerably graver. Games of chicken have a nasty habit of turning on their creators. We try to distinguish the forest from the trees in this article.
