This is a labor of love and loathing. Yes, it’s long, but it’s by way of a two-fer, and out of necessity I’ve even had to blow by a hella lot of the second essay.  Shall I offer prizes to those who finish?  ;  )

First: ‘Silencing the Whistle: The Intercept Shutters Snowden Archive, Citing Cost’;  The closing of The Intercept’s Snowden archive will likely mean the end of any future publications, unless Glenn Greenwald’s rather absurd promise of finding “the right partner … that has the funds to robustly publish” is fulfilled, Whitney Webb, mintpressnews.com