> we don't seem to be able to do anything about it. I thought that, with our democratic structures, it would be really easy "to do" a lot about it, but you see

> we don't seem to be able to do anything about it. I thought that, with our democratic structures, it would be really easy "to do" a lot about it, but you seem right: I don't get it and have been guessing that > It's always just a massive kickback scheme, is correct. A first problem is some basic vote counting: A politician does something, e.g., a "kickback scheme", that pleases < 10% of the voters by essentially stealing from > 90% of the voters. Soooo, at the next election, the politician should lose by at least 9 to 1, but apparently not and I'm wrong and the politician, correct? Uh, maybe the politician partitions the voters into 10 parts, has 10 schemes, and for each of the 10 steals from the other 9 to please the one, and everyone is happy even though everyone gets stolen from 10 times? My guess was, if a good majority, 80%, maybe as low as 55%, of the voters would write their Members of Congress objecting to the scheme, then Congress would STOP it, in a few minutes. But, nope. Apparently tough to get > 20%, maybe > 5%, of the voters to write their Members of Congress about even a "brazen" scheme. In simple terms, Congress is awash in powers, e.g., that massive one, "power of the purse". So, I have to believe that in any 10 minutes, Congress could have gasoline under $2 a gallon and falling, but Congress declines to do that. The blame is the media that wants eyeballs for ad revenue and, thus, creates divisions, grabs people emotionally, avoids exposing the schemes??? Or the voters are "apathetic"?? Politics is goofy, inscrutable, and the media is right? Uh, ABC, CBS, CNN, ... WaPo are short on money so are not really "right"? Back to something that makes sense.