What type of projects should, and should not, be in an infrastructure bill?
I'd ask two questions:
1. What kind of "profit" will it have?
2. How many jobs will it produce?/What will it do to raise GDP?
Projects that score high (and high enough to meet my spec) will almost all be projects that employ a fairly unique highly paid team, and provide a quasi-monopoly service. If private industry could do it and doesn't it's unlikely to meet my spec. If the government could charge for it and not make huge profits it probably wouldn't pass either.
Hoover Dam, I-10 and Houston Intercontinental Airport meet my test. A bunch of levees for New Orleans don't. JerryWorld doesn't. The Houston Convention Center doesn't. A new tunnel between New Jersey and Manhattan would. A high speed rail from nowhere California top nowhere California would not. The first wind tunnel did.
People are unwisely focusing on the sex just as they did in the Monica thing. The more important issues are the legal ones. First on the list, I will guess, is whether there was an illegal in-kind campaign contribution, and whether this question will be addressed by the FEC or by Mueller.
The 60 Minutes show raised the legal questions, but didn't tell us anything we didn't already know. And I didn't expect they would. The show was worthless.
What is the statute of limitations on stealing land?
Throughout history some group has taken land from another group. If we can identify 47 groups which have had the land, and we know there are probably more,which one is the rightful owner? Is there some date where if you owned it on that date it's yours, even if some group owned it before then?
Who owns the West Bank? Israelis or Palestinians? What about Texas? What about Jerusalem? What about the Alsace-Lorraine? Or Latvia? Or Poland? Or England? What about Massachusetts?
I'll say 65 years. If you "stole" it over 65 years ago it's yours. Less than that it's not. So the Saxons can't claim England. The Huns can't claim Germany. But the Palestinians can claim the West Bank.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_territorial_disputes
There are seven Senate races which are toss-ups, and probably the only ones truly in play. These are:
Arizona
Florida
Indiana
Missouri
Nevada
North Dakota
West Virginia
I would like to see the Dems make gun control a big issue in each race.
The gun control issue is good for Dems to run up the score in Nancy Pelosi's district. It isn't good for the Dems in North Dakota and West Virginia. None of the seven states are good places to advocate gun control. And Florida, Arizona and Nevada have had high profile shootings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_judges_appointed_by_Donald_Trump
The overall progress has been good but there is still a long way to go to fill the vacancies before we get a new legislature. There is an outside chance that the Dems take the Senate. If they do I think there won't be any confirmations. I'm anxious to see whether the vacancies can get filled in time.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2018/senate/2018_elections_senate_map.html
44
Democrats *
Toss Ups 7
Republicans
49
36 Safe or Not Up
6
2
7
1
3
45 Safe or Not Up
51 Seats Needed For Majority
Likely Dem
PA: Casey (D)
WI: Baldwin (D)
MI: Stabenow (D)
MN2: Smith (D)
VA: Kaine (D)
NJ: Menendez (D)
Safe Dem Seats
Leans Dem
OH: Brown (D)
MT: Tester (D)
Toss Up
IN: Open (D)
NV: Heller (R)
MO: McCaskill (D)
FL: Open (D)
AZ: Open (R)
ND: Heitkamp (D)
WV: Open (D)
Leans GOP
TN: Open (R)
Likely GOP
MS1: Wicker (R)
MS2: Hyde-Smith (R)
TX: Cruz (R)
Safe GOP Seats
I think this list looks pretty good and the toss-ups get split. GOP holds Senate 52-48.