Republicans don't really control the federal government

So what is a Republican?  Really.   A real Republican votes for measures (Obamacare repeal!) important to the party.  There is a shortage of real Republicans in DC these days.  We have a lot of RINOs, who call themselves Republican but believe in Democrat policies like tax and spend.  They actually like robbing their constituents of  as much tax as they can get away with, and then using their ill gotten proceeds to buy votes in their districts with pork barrel spending.  And we have a lot of just plain weirdos, like John McCain and Rand Paul and Susan Collins who stick it to the party every time they can, just because they can.  And we have the "House Freedom Caucus", a bunch of "Republicans" from safe districts, who will bolt the party at the drop of a hat, for any reason at all, or no reason.
   As we have seen on Obamacare repeal, these people cannot be depended upon to vote for crucial bills.  In the Senate the Republicans have only 52 members and four or five of them are undependable weirdos.  Things are a little better in the house, but not much. 
   Rather than saying  "The Republicans control the government."  it would be more realistic to say, "The weirdos have enough votes to stop anything."

Girl and Boy Scouts of America??

Just heard about this on the TV.  Apparently the Boy Scouts have announced that all ranks of scouting are now open to girls as well as boys.  The Girl Scouts of America have objected to what they see as a grab for their membership.  Actually, a co-ed scouting program sounds like a good idea in many ways.  Maybe the leadership of both the Boy and Girl Scouts can get together on this.  Or maybe not.   Stay tuned.  

Forgiving Debt would Hurt Puerto Rico ??

Headline of an op ed in today's Wall St Journal.  Author is a John Tamny,  director of Center for Economic Freedom at Freedomworks, editor of RealClearMarkets, and author of "Popular Economics".  He has some credentials, although the name is new to me.  His arguments make little sense to me, even after re reading the piece several times.  He says "By erasing Puerto Rico's debt, Mr. Trump would be handing the territory's political class more money to spend inefficiently."  Let's be real here.  Fixing up after Hurricane Maria needs lots and lots of money.  Puerto Rico doesn't have any money at all.  There are only two ways for Puerto Rico to get the needed money, borrowing it, or getting it as a free gift from mainland taxpayers.   Lenders are scarce on the ground.  It's obvious to real people (but perhaps not to dumb as rocks Wall St bankers) that Puerto Rico doesn't have the money to ever pay off the $93 billion in debt they have already racked up.  Those lenders won't get paid back, not ever.  New loans won't get paid back either.  Lending to Puerto Rico is just plain charity, loans that won't get paid off are charity, not banking. 
   The other source of money to fix up the hurricane damage is for the US Congress to appropriate the money out of  federal tax revenue, or by selling some more T-bills, or both.  This is charity, and there is a decent chance that the Congress will feel charitable and will cough up the money, especially if the MSM and the Democrats get on board with the idea.
   The concept of "forgiving" Puerto Rico's debts is just psycho-babble.  They don't have the money, they will never have the money, and the lenders are never gonna get paid.  For that matter Puerto Rico declared bankruptcy a couple of months ago,  which means they won't pay anyhow, even if they had the money, which they don't. 

Decertifying the Iran Deal?

TV newsies have been talking about it.  But they say "decertifying" isn't like canceling the deal.  If so, why do we care?  It may be a way of expressing disapproval of the deal, but if it doesn't do anything, why does it matter? 

US Immigration reform

The TV tells me that the Trump administration has laid some 70 changes to current immigration law on Congress today.  Of course the TV newsies don't bother to list just what these changes might be.  They did manage to say that the Democrats oppose them, no reasons given. 
   For myself,  I like the idea of a DACA program.  People who were brought into the US as children, who have stayed out of trouble with the law, graduated high school or college, who have served in the armed forces, who are gainfully employed, and who want to stay in the US, sound like good and decent citizens to me, and more good and decent citizens make America stronger.  We need all the good and decent citizens w can get.
   I think anyone who served in the armed forces and received an honorable discharge ought to be offered citizenship if they lack it.  For that matter foreign nationals who worked with US forces as interpreters ought to be offered citizenship.
   America can take in a lot of immigrants, but there is a limit.  I'd set that limit at 1% of the current population, which is like 3 million immigrants a year.
    Since a lot of people want to come to America, we can be picky about who we let in.  Make a list of desirable characteristics,  young, educated, married, married with children, English speaking, no matter how poorly, parents already in the US, healthy, valuable skills, and many more.  Assign a point value to each desirable characteristic, and we let in the 3 million with the top scores.  Everyone else gets to try again next year.

Un diagnosed mental illness.

That's what one TV commentator said about the Vegas shooter.  And, it's kinda true by default.  We believe anyone who would shoot 500-600 innocent strangers to be mentally ill.  A week of investigation has failed to find (or at least report on TV) any sort of motive, history, or association that would give a motive, or suggest some kind of mental illness.  So, we figure he must have been acting out a horrible mental illness when he opened fire, and no investigator has found any evidence of mental illness before the shooting.  On the other hand, they have reported that he had been buying a lot of guns, legally, for a year before, which surely suggests that what ever it was, it started back when he started buying all the guns. 
   And this is really unusual.  In all the previous awful cases, the shooter had given clear signs of mental illness or some kind of dreadful political fanaticism.  Unfortunately these signs were ignored until it was too late.  In this case alone, we haven't seen any signs of mental illness or political craziness after a week of investigation. 

Smart Phones bad for you

Thus sayeth the Wall St. Journal this morning.  They cite some studies, but do not get down to the nitty gritty such as how large was the sample, how did they measure increase of stupidity of subjects. There were some vague and subjective statements, using the blandest of language. 
   Me, I'm an old fogey, I don't have a smart phone.  I do have a laptop that will do anything a smart phone will, and I pack it along when I travel.  The laptop has a real QWERTY keyboard and a mouse, which the smartphones lack, and I find essential.  I do notice that my smartphone equipped children tend to whip them out during discussions and pop up information to support their points of view. 
  And I an old enough to remember all the things teachers and parents said against television back when it was just coming in.  My buddy Dewey Walsh's family had a 21 inch B&W TV back in the late 1940's.  I do remember watching Howdy Doody and Hopalong Cassidy on it.  My family didn't get a TV until 1956. 
   Could it be the people railing against smartphones are the same sort of people who railed against TV?