Ma'am, you should learn a bit about politics in a democracy. First off, demanding ideological purity - as you seem to be doing here - is a surefire way to LOSE. Why? Because democracies are designed to work with *compromise*. Without compromise, unless you have every branch of government in your pocket, you get *nothing*.

That's why it's likened to "sausage-making" - ugly as hell while it's being made, but it tastes pretty good when it's ready for the table.

Please understand - I'd dearly love for us all to have universal health coverage. As retired military, I have what is by definition socialized medicine, and it's great. I wish everyone had it.

But we simply didn't have the votes in Congress to get it passed in 2009. Too many "blue dog" Democrats were from red states, and would not vote for it. So instead of getting the whole loaf, we had to take the half loaf. But it was either that half loaf, or nothing at all.

And that's the key: your ideologically pure thoughts may sound so wonderful to you, but no matter how wonderful your ideas may be, you have to win elections FIRST. If you don't win elections first, what happens? Nothing. At least, nothing good.

And one last thing: when it comes to Pelosi's ripping Trump's speech, you sound as if you were more offended by that than you were of Trump's idiotic rant that was supposed to be his SOTU address. What Pelosi did was political theater...and it's sometimes crucial. It was political theater when Kennedy went to Berlin and dared the USSR to do anything about it. It's political theater every time a president goes to visit the troops. It was political theater when a senator brought a snowball into the Senate and claimed it was proof that global warming didn't exist.

As much as we all despise politics, it's important...and political theater is an indelible part of it.