ProPublica and the New York Times report that our National Security Agency has cracked (or deliberately undermined) internet encryption methods around the globe. I guess it's not surprising -- not even the amount of corporate cooperation is surprising. Sadly, the JERNALISTZZ IZ TRAITORZZZZZ!!!!! screeching won't be a surprise, either. (And n.b. that the government spokeshack whines about "the road map they give to our adversaries about the specific techniques" yadda yadda yadda when the article doesn't actually tell us which encryption methods our government could break.)
Ho hum, the Cato Institute concludes that the "welfare system provides such a high level of benefits that it acts as a disincentive for work" by screwing around with the science. In all the ways you'd expect, too -- they assume every poor person gets every conceivable benefit they could get without proving that poor folk actually get them, and they also assume that zero working people get government help, which everyone who knows other human beings knows isn't true. But look at the bright side: maybe Cato's "research" will piss off Newt Gingrich, Welfare Slayer.
In other news, Dylan Matthews informs us that over half of federal housing subsidies go to households making over $100,000 annually, rather than folks who really need it. The right will tell us this is indisputable documentary evidence that government doesn't work, though it's more like evidence we should fix our housing assistance programs. After all, it isn't particularly conservative to throw up your hands whenever something goes wrong.
Finally, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) suggests that this whole Syria thing is a big distraction from really important stuff like the Benghazi "cover-up." I'd hoped to like Republicans a bit more once our Democratic President wanted to start a war of his own, but they're just as insufferable now as they've always been. The enemy of my enemy my ass.
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