FBI Spilling Water on the iPhone is Just a Strait Cover-Your-Tracks Move

This has to be the most transparent attempt I have ever seen to deflect attention so they can use this hack on other iPhones without running afoul of Apples lawyers.

Calling the accident “one of the biggest embarrassments in F.B.I. history,” bureau spokesman Harland Dorrinson told reporters, “There’s no way to express how bad we feel about what happened to that phone.”

Walking reporters through the mishap, Dorrinson said that shortly after the iPhone was unlocked, “There were a lot of high-fives, which led to the unfortunate spilling of the water.”

The water spilled directly on the phone so that no one can ever see what the hackers used to access the phone. Cover-your-tracks 101. I'm sure the hack they used on the phone died when the water splashed on it. Very convenient of that happening as well. Now everyone has a laugh at the FBI while they continue to crack whatever they need in terms of iPhones.

While ISIS is murdering people in Belgium Trump and Cruz fight it Out About Their Wives

This is a serious time for serious people. This is not serious.

Donald Trump has shared an unflattering photo of Sen. Ted Cruz's wife, the latest wrinkle in a feud between the two Republican presidential candidates.

The photo was part of a tweet that the GOP frontrunner shared on Wednesday night. The tweet read, "A picture is worth a thousand words," and it featured a photo of Cruz's wife, Heidi, next to a picture of Trump's wife, Melania.

Yeah, and these two guys want to have their finger on the button? Hillary can measure the drapes for the White House already.

Lindsey Grahm's Has a Great Idea: Don't Nominate Anyone Hold Just hold onto the Congress and Go at Hillary in 2020

I really like this idea.

His endorsement of Cruz? Tepid.

“He’s not completely crazy,” Graham said of Cruz. “Partially crazy?” Noah asked. Graham fired back: “That works in Washington.”

Noah later plays a clip for Graham in which he’s asked if he’d prefer Cruz or Trump. Graham’s response: “It’s like being shot or being poisoned. What does it really matter?”

He finishes: “I’m saying my party is completely screwed up … if it were up to me, we wouldn’t nominate anyone. We’d start all over again.”

Sounds like a good plan. Trump will end up costing Congressional seats or whats worse for the GOP establishment win the Presidency. Cruz is un-electable and insane and Kasich cannot win without some smoke-filled-room screw-job. So they pretty much have nobody to run against Hillary.

Just pack it all in and maybe some anger will drain out of the country so that they can put someone decent up on 2020. The GOP used to be a pretty well-oiled machine but Trump has destroyed all that in 2016.

Belgium Tells ISIS where to go with help of Burger King Ad

I did not know the national symbol of Belgium was fries. In any case it isn't a time to get scared it is a time to get pissed off.

The ad, which dates to 2008, shows a fry made to look like a raised middle finger, Mashable reports.

The image is being shared widely on social media after two separate explosions Tuesday morning at Brussels-Zaventem Airport and Maelbeek metro station, which killed more than 30 people and injured hundreds.

ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attacks, according to the Amaq Agency which is known to be affiliated with the terrorist group.

Fries are a national symbol in Belgium, which is likely why the Burger King ad has resurfaced and gained traction online since the attacks.

Here is the ad:

Trump Wimps out on a yet Another Fox News Debate: Cements Scared Little Baby Status

For a big, bag real estate tycoon that will bomb ISIS and wants to punch and shoot people on 5th avenue he is a serious wimp when it comes to Megyn Kelly.

The U.S. Republican presidential debate scheduled for next week in Utah has been canceled, host Fox News said on Wednesday, after party front-runner Donald Trump told the network he would not participate.

Trump, who has clashed with Fox News throughout his campaign, told Fox in an interview on Wednesday he would not appear at the event, scheduled for Monday, because he thought the Republicans had "had enough debates."

What a wimpy little child. He knows he would have his brand hurt by tough questions so he is going to skate to the nomination. Just like a bully to hit and run like that.

Obamas Supreme Court pick Merrick Garland graduated from Harvard Law? Disqualified

Well I'm rejecting him sight-unseen.

If he is appointed, Garland would give the court five graduates of Harvard Law School: John G. Roberts, Anthony M. Kennedy, Stephen G. Breyer and Elena Kagan. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg attended Harvard Law but transferred to Columbia Law School, where she graduated. Three justices are Yale Law School alums: Clarence Thomas, Sonia Sotomayor and Samuel A. Alito Jr.

You cannot have 5 justices that all graduated from the same school. There is no diversity in opinion if they all took the same classes and had the same professors. It is not the Supreme Court of Harvard it is the Supreme Court of the entire-US. If Obama actually cared about diversity and income inequality and such he would appoint someone from any other law school that is not Harvard or Yale. It is just that simple.

Marco is Done: Trump Wins Florida

Well, it looks like getting in the mud with Trump cost him the election.

Trump won the other big prize of the night: the Florida primary. That resounding win helped force Marco Rubio out of the race after failing to unite the Republican establishment against Trump.

"America is in the middle of a real political storm, a real tsunami and we should have seen this coming," Rubio said in Miami on Tuesday night in a speech that served as a thinly-veiled rebuke of Trump's campaign tactics. "While we are on the right side," he said, "this year, we will not be on the winning side."

Well get back to the Senate and start crafting some bills and doing the work that Florida sent him there for. Then he needs to get ready for 2020 when Hillary runs for her second term. He will be older and wiser and have some actual accomplishments under his belt.

Jay Bilas's NCAA Tournament Selection Plan is Genius: Kills all that Bracketology and Last 4 In/Out Noise

Here is the plan:

• Tournament selection committee would meet prior to the conference tournaments and rank the top 68 at-large teams. 
• Teams that win conference tournaments receive automatic bids. If that team is not one of the 68 teams, the lowest-ranked team in the field of 68 is knocked out.

This would prevent Monmouth from getting knocked out of the tournament by Tulsa or whomever just because they lost their tournament championship game. There will still be subjectivity after the automatic bids are passed out but it will be fairly minimal.

The best part is you can get rid of all that Last 4 In/Last 4 Out crap that you have to listen to around this time. They had a running thing on ESPN about it and it was totally worthless because Monmouth got jobbed and Tulsa somehow snuck in there. Now we would have a field of 68 and lets say Monmouth and St. Bonaventure are on that list then they are in. If Michigan or Tulsa don't make the list they are out. Very simple and without a ton of drama. 

Bill Ackman lost $1.09 Billion in one day on one stock. #Wowjustwow

That is an unbelievable one day hit.

Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman vowed to take a "much more proactive role" at Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX) amid a stunning stock decline that cost him more than $1 billion in a single day.

The drug company's stock closed down 51% to $33.54 a share Tuesday on disappointing financial news, including a warning that a late filing could lead to bond defaults that may hurt the company's ability to borrow money. The loss shaved a whopping $35.50 off each share.

For Ackman's Pershing Square entities, which own 30,711,122 Valeant shares, that translates to a paper loss of $1.09 billion.

If they can get through the bond default risk and finally issue their annual statement their stock might be worth buying at these levels. It isn't like Lumber Liquidators (LL) who is fighting the US government on the formaldehyde in their Chinese made wood. This is a company that was making billions before they got into trouble with their captive drug retailer Philidor that they have since shuttered.

Now the GOP wants a Third Party Candidate?: In Other Words President Hillary Clinton even if She is Indicted.

There is some serious Trump derangement disorder in the GOP.

Fagen said it is possible but unlikely that a Republican with "enormous stature" like 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney or House Speaker Paul Ryan would be put forward if Trump enters the Republican National Convention without the required number of delegates to lock up the nomination.

A more likely possibility is that a Republican governor steps up and runs on a third party ticket, she said. "I think there's a scenario where if he's the nominee, one of these governors looks at the race and says, 'Why not? Why not run as an independent? This is not my Republican Party anymore.'" 

So they would have Trump and some Governor (Kasich?) split the voters right down the middle? That was the nuclear scenario if they robbed Trump in the first place. Trump would run as an independent and Hillary would win. Instead Trump will get the nomination the GOP runs some third party Governor and Hillary will win. So instead of the Trump's third-party nuclear option we would instead get the GOP-third party seppuku option. And these guys want all the levers of power? It's almost like a false flag to get Hillary elected.

FBI Raises Stakes Against Apple: Might Demand Source Code and the Electronic Signature for the iPhone

Wow I thought we were living in a Representative Republic and not some sort of dictatorship where the FBI demands corporate secrets just because they cannot crack an iPhone.

But in a court filing on Thursday, the FBI said that if can't require Apple to create the weakened software, it may demand access to what it described as Apple's "crown jewels" instead. Source code is the list of programming code instructions used to create the software that runs the iPhone. The code controls everything from the background colors on the screen to the most critical security protections the phone has. Apple's secret signature is a digital "key" required to update software on all iPhones

Remember Apple has committed no crime and has only refused to cooperate in something that will weaken their product and make them renege on their promise to consumers. There is no idea that anything on the iPhone will be actionable at all. Depending on what app the terrorist used the info could be long gone already. Instead the FBI is getting heavy handed using ancient laws to compel a private company to give up all the goods.

Yeah Rubio is Toast: He Shouldn't have Gotten in the Mud with Trump

I have to agree with this assessment.

But unlike Virginia, Florida is a winner-take-all primary, meaning he must defeat Trump to capture all 99 delegates. If he loses, even his supporters concede there's virtually no path to the GOP nomination for Rubio. Some think it's already too late.

"It's over," said one dejected GOP senator who wants Rubio to win.

Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, a Rubio supporter, said he still is banking on his colleague to pull off a win in Florida. But he was uncomfortable at Rubio's attacks on Trump.

"I probably would have stopped at, 'He wants to make the country orange.' That was pretty good," Flake said, referring to Rubio's joke about Trump's physical appearance. Asked about Rubio's "con artist" attacks on Trump, Flake said, "I don't know about that."

I don't think Rubio will win Florida so its pretty much over for the last real "establishment" candidate that could win left in the campaign. It was nice to see him punch back but staying above the fray usually pays more dividends. Especially with a bombast like Trump. Rubio would have looked like the adult in the room even though he is only 44. 

Now he has to lose gracefully and move on to other things because guys like him and Paul Ryan are the real future of the GOP. He now needs to put his head down and create good legislation and have a list of real accomplishments to challenge Hillary in 2020. Maybe do some bipartisan things because rock-ribbed Conservatism has pretty much been destroyed by Trump. Maybe they will finally understand that they are only 30% of the electorate and shrinking fast.

Wow Senators Really Hate Cruz #LoseCruz

It seems that the Senate is not a good place for Ted Cruz. No wonder he wants a job promotion so badly.

After interviews with a dozen Republican senators on Tuesday, there is still no one willing to publicly say they are on Ted Cruz's side, The New York Times reports. To date, Donald Trump and John Kasich both have the endorsements of a current senator, and Marco Rubio has raked in the support of more than a dozen of his peers. Despite years in the Senate, Cruz is still looking at a big zilch.

Yesterday the National Review reported that Cruz was "set to unveil endorsements from more than four senators this week" only to issue an update saying, "The report was erroneous. As of this writing, the campaign has no pending Senate endorsements to announce."

In other words they probably were going to put some words into the mouths of four Senators but they caught wind of it before the Cruz scum-bags could print it.

I bet it was something like "Ted Cruz... is a person... that cannot...be underestimated" says the Senator from some-damn-place when they actually said "Ted Cruz is a terrible person that cannot be trusted and who's massive ineptitude and stupidity cannot be underestimated."

The Sun Sentinel is Right in not Endorsing Anyone in the GOP race: “the kind of person who should be running is not in the race.”

I have to agree with this sentiment.

In an editorial published Friday, the paper’s editorial board argues that businessman Donald Trump, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz are unqualified to be president of the United States. Though Ohio Gov. John Kasich would be the best of the remaining candidates, the editorial continued, he does not have a chance of securing the party’s nod.

“We showed our cards a year ago, before the extraordinarily large field of Republican candidates shaped up,” the editorial reads. “We favored the adult in the room, Jeb Bush, a smart, experienced and principled conservative. But the nation wasn’t ready for another Bush, and our former governor wasn’t ready for the anti-establishment edge in today’s Twitter-fueled campaign era.”

Yeah Jeb had that Bush name that is poison in todays landscape. They want an angry unqualified plumber to fix the pipes instead of someone who has been doing if for years. Oh well the "President from Goldman-Sachs" Hillary can cut a deal to not get indited she has a great chance.

If the Donald is held up Against a REIT Index he Looks Even Worse: 57% Underperformance

This makes him look like an even worse businessman then he claims.

Calculation: An investment of $200 million in 1976 in the FTSE NAREIT All Equity REITs Index would have compounded to $23.2 billion by year-end 2015. This is considerably above Mr. Trump’s recent self-reported net worth of approximately $10 billion. Mr. Trump has underperformed the real estate market by approximately $13.2 billion, or 57%. - See more at: http://www.texasenterprise.utexas.edu/donald-trump-wealth-investments-underperform#sthash.OemHeZVH.dpuf

Calculation: An investment of $200 million in 1976 in the FTSE NAREIT All Equity REITs Index would have compounded to $23.2 billion by year-end 2015. This is considerably above Mr. Trump’s recent self-reported net worth of approximately $10 billion. Mr. Trump has underperformed the real estate market by approximately $13.2 billion, or 57%. 

So if you took that $200 million inheritance and bought that index you would have had $23 billion instead of his $10 billion? That's if he did absolutely nothing and let his cash grow while he played golf and maybe peeled a billion off to buy a sports team or something. That is pretty shocking. That shows how bad he is at actually managing that money. If I were an investor at Trump Inc. I would fire the CEO if he were trailing the average by such a wide margin. 

Wait, Trump Cannot Even Beat an S&P 500 Index Fund? Now that is Pretty Sad

I was told (by Trump) that he is a great business success. However if he just bought and held he would have been even richer.

In 1976, Trump told the New York Times that he was worth $200 million. Had he put that money in an ordinary fund based on the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index, the kind that many people use to save money for retirement, he'd have $12 billion today. That is more than the $10 billion he has claimed he is worth. Bloomberg estimates his wealth at $2.9 billion.

So if he just took that 200 million and invested in an S&P 500 Index fund he would have been up an extra $2 billion. If his net worth is actually $2.9 billion that is a fairly poor rate of return on investing $200 million over 40 years. I guess going bankrupt a number of times does that. In any case I can understand why he is so thin skinned when it comes to his net worth. He couldn't even beat a buy-and-hold strategy.

GOP Scrambles to Stop Trump: Um Guys its Over; Hillary Will be the 45th President of the United States

Unless she is indited of course then maybe all bets are off. In any case the GOP establishment is running scared.

In a flurry of conference calls and meetings, top Republican donors and strategists laid plans for a multimillion-dollar assault on the front-runner in a series of states holding contests on March 15. Ground zero is Florida, where home-state Sen. Marco Rubio, the leading establishment candidate, is going all-in to defeat Trump, who leads in the polls there. 

Maybe they should simply let Trump go and get behind the 2020 nominee to head off Hillary's second term. If they go to a brokered convention Trump will run as a third party and Hillary would win anyway. That pledge he signed is just a piece of toilet paper to the Drumpf.

In any case I guess it will be historic to see the first female President. She is owned by Wall Street so the market will be up during her term. So that means bank stocks and brokerage houses will prosper under her reign and patronage. She might really be the President from Goldman Sachs.

However, I wonder if she would be quick to make a deals with the GOP Congress? They don't seem to hate each other like Obama and the current Congress so it might be possible. She is pretty warlike so ISIS would have to watch their backs. 

Well Chris Christie sounds just like a Teen Girl Now that he is no longer relevant

I think he may have damaged his career if Trump doesn't win the Presidency. Here he is sounding like a petulant teen at a press conference.

One reporter told Christie that he and, he assumed, other reporters in the room had some off-topic questions and began to launch into a question, but was immediately shot down.
“No, I won’t permit you to. I told you that there’s going to be only on-topic questions today. So, permission denied,” Christie said.

He silenced another reporter immediately afterward: “That’s an off-topic question. I think you understand that I’m answering on-topic questions today." Asked why he wouldn't take questions on anything else, Christie replied, "Because I don’t want to.”

“Anything else on topic?” Christie asked repeatedly. “Anything else on topic?”

"Because I don't want to" sounds like a teen girl telling her parents why she doesn't want to take off all that make-up. What a blow-hard clown. It will be nice to see him disappear now that he is no longer relevant on the national stage.