Because we're all about solutions here, Micah Lee at The Intercept shows you how to create an iPhone passcode that could "defeat the FBI's backdoor strategy." Long story short: set up a random, 11-digit passcode (versus the four-digit passcode you likely use now), and because the FBI would have to input passcodes directly into your iPhone, and because doing that takes time, and because adding extra digits to your passcode vastly increases the number of possible passcodes, it could take the FBI, literally, over 100 years to crack your iPhone. Just don't use, like, your birthdate in your passcode, because then it won't take a hundred years.
It gets worse for Democratic House Rep./U.S. Senate candidate Alan Grayson: not only did Mr. Grayson operate a hedge fund, which would seem largely at odds with his populist image, but until recently his children had holdings in an Eritrean gold mining corporation using essentially slave labor -- thus casting doubt upon his fervent denunciations of "free" trade deals with repressive countries on the House floor. Mr. Grayson's declarations that he simply didn't know seem, well, unlikely -- as always, the question isn't how many details a man can be expected to know, but whether he should know if his business arrangements depend on evil, particularly if they take place in a country that hasn't held elections in almost a quarter-century.
Ho hum, Ted Cruz's tax "reform" plan would shift yet more of the tax burden off rich folks and onto working families. Mr. Cruz's plan would get rid of payroll taxes (and thus not pay for Social Security and Medicare, I would think) and corporate taxes, and would institute a flat 10 percent income tax and a confusing 16 percent "business flat tax," all of which would, in another non-surprise, add at least $800 billion to the national debt every year. But I suppose Mr. Cruz will keep going on about "reduc(ing) record-keeping and reporting requirements," like that's the thing we're all going to talk about when we're all sitting around the fire with nothing to eat.
Georgia passes one of them there anti-gay "religious freedom" bills, and a Decatur-based telecom corporation announces it'll leave the state as a result. I wish 373K the best of luck in their move, particularly when religious bigots start calling them "job-killers" -- or worse, I suppose, given that 373K's co-founder and CFO are gay.
A right-wing group that used to demand that George W. Bush's judicial appointees get an up-or-down vote, now wants the Senate to block any Obama Supreme Court nominee, saying that "(t)he Supreme Court has a vacancy and your vote in November is your only voice." Again: that's utter rubbish -- any American citizen has a voice, anytime, about anything; any American can communicate their will to their Reps and Senators anytime, about anything. I'm getting tired of having to repeat this, but I'll keep doing it as long as I have to, because duty is duty.
Finally, Donald Trump complains about the treatment he gets at Republican Presidential debates. He's probably right that the GOP "stacks" the audience to applaud at the dumb things the other candidates say (versus the dumb things he says!), but complaining about that when you've just won big in two primaries makes you sound like a whiner, not a winner. It sure is a good thing his eventual Democratic opponent will make that a central message in the general election! I kid, of course -- calling out the other side's whining is too uncivil for them.
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