Oh My. What Can We Do?

       Whatever in the world is happening to America? On the one hand you have wildly extreme conservatives and in response you get liberals willing to fight against them. Who ever heard of liberals willing to fight about almost anything? For that matter who ever heard of so many people so filled with hate for a lone black man in a position of such authority? I wonder what these haters would have done if he had been a conservative? Would they have become liberals?
       I watched an interview the other day of Wayne LaPierre, the VP of the NRA. He was finding fault with the multiple polls that show over 90% of Americans favor background checks for gun purchases. First he claimed the polls were biased because of the wording. Then in the very next sentence he claimed the NRA's poll showed a majority was against background checks. Do you suppose the NRA's poll could have been biased?
       In a democracy where the majority is supposed to rule, and where a majority of Americans voted for democratic leaders, not just the president, in 2012, the Republicans hold a majority in both houses. Well actually the Republicans hold a majority in the House but hold enough minority seats to deny the Democrats the right to pass any legislation what-so-ever, in the Senate. Unless any party holds 61 seats in the Senate, they cannot get anything passed without the other party's permission.
       I realize that the filibuster is an old and established custom in the Senate, but when such a custom becomes a stumbling block for any legislation, not to mention appointment of badly needed federal judges, then it seems time to change that custom so as to allow for the work of the Senate to move forward.
       Have you looked at the shape of the congressional district you live in? Is it relatively square? Or does it look like a snake tied in knots? That's called gerrymandering. That means the party in control of your state's legislature has drawn the lines in order to provide for a super majority of party controlled districts where none existed before and should not now. But neither party wants to stop it. The minority hopes to be able to use it when they get back in power.
       That's what's happening in America. When people try to stop other citizens from voting, when killers are allowed to buy guns and gun trafficking is allowed, and presidential appointments are blocked because one lone person says no, there's a problem, multiple problems, and something needs to be done about them.