I have been slightly under the weather for the last couple of days which contributed to my general lethargy. Slowly starting to feel better. I need to water the gardens no matter how I feel. What rain we had wasn't enough to do the plants any good. Thankfully, I am retired and don't have to go to a job and try to function no matter what.

Well, the so-called skinny repeal of the ACA failed when John McCain voted no joining two other GOP senators and all Democrats. Again I am struck by how much the Republican program resembles the falling domino kind of sculpture--you know, where the first domino starts a chain reaction of falling dominos to create a pattern. Some of those are awesome but, of course, if the first fails to start the cascade or if a domino along the way doesn't fall right the whole thing flops. Well, repealing (and, maybe, replacing) the ACA was the first domino. The administration depended on the "savings" from the ACA, mainly in the form of reducing taxes for the wealthy, to give them room to tackle the budget and then to tackle tax reform.

A second comment on the Repthuglican antics on ACA repeal and (probably not) repeal. As each vote came along there seemed to be a growing color of desperation permeating the Repthuglican senators. They wanted anything they could be stretched and spun into a "win." They wanted that no matter how many are hurt, how few benefit, how much economic harm is caused or how many of their rules and procedures they have to break. The Repthuglican Party is a party without ideology, without principles, without honesty. Murkowski and Collins are the only Republican senators. I appreciate McCain's vote which was crucial but I wish he would live up to his "maverick" label.

I think a suitable punishment for this jerk is to be force fed everything he contaminated. As an aside, I checked the dates on the original story. It is over a month and a half old. It never made our TV news and we aren't that far away.