The more the merrier

It's been a long time since I enjoyed any VA benefits; I was eligible for 36 months of educational benefits but I only used nine of them to finish college and a very short stint of grad school.  I don't know what benefits are available right now but I understand that the VA is a mess, with the hospitals being in particularly bad shape.

One benefit I remember is that your first mortgage was guaranteed and that you could buy a home with almost no money down with reasonable interest rates.  Mr. Beagles might know more about that than I do and I suspect that policies have changed over the decades.  The money to pay for all those good benefits may no longer be available; I don't know.

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Uncle Ken's One Big Happy Party proposal is intriguing but what sense does it make?  There doesn't seem to be any difference to me between one party and no party at all but I have to give it more thought.  Until then I will stick to my preference of The More The Merrier system with multiple parties, more than the current two party system.  I don't like the binary nature of only two parties where you are forced to decide between these guys and those guys; life and politics aren't like that.

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I don't know what to make of the recent Armistice Day observations in Paris but it looks like the Europeans are showing some spine, with Macron being the most vocal.  It's not a good thing if the Europeans feel that their biggest threats come from China, Russia, and the US.  Maybe they're just being paranoid but a lot of the last two big wars were fought on French soil so they have a vested interest.  I'd be paranoid, too.

Having the US clumped together with those guys as a threat to Europe is unsettling but there may be something to it.  According to the AP, fifty nations and over 150 tech companies pledged yesterday to do more to fight criminal activity on the internet.  Three nations did not sign the pledge: China, Russia, and the US.  Kind of makes you wonder, doesn't it? 

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Just spit-balling now, but I wonder if Pence is warming up in the bullpen.  The loss of the House to the Democrats will be fatal to Trump but the new people won't be sworn in until January and a lot could happen until then.  Instead of backing down Trump doubles down on everything; it didn't take him long to dump Sessions and more heads are expected to roll soon including Kelly, one of the few adults left in the room.  Trump is the kind of guy who would declare Martial Law if he thought he could get away with it.  What a world we live in.