The seemingly constant decline in people's ability to trust, work with, compromise, tolerate, listen too, sympathize, understand, or (add your own here) each other continues to hamper all of us.

            Let's face it – we all share, at least, a bit of the guilt for our nation, state, county, and municipalities to be in the "state of hate" that we seem to be in.

            From a senseless murder of a young, soon-to-be college student a couple of weeks ago to a road-rage incident, to last week's horror of four murdered young men in lower Bucks County, the violence is getting closer to our front doors.

            Drugs, including one used as an elephant tranquilizer, continue to be a high priority for finding solutions to addiction and getting people help to fight their addiction. 

            Steps are being taken to treat addiction as a disease and remove the stigma that those who abuse drugs don't matter.  For many, it is a disease and the source in too many cases is prescription drugs.

            Elected officials, and those who want to be one, often focus on one or two targets for their talents and forget about the other bad legislation that harms more than it helps.

            Repeal and replace of the Affordable Health Care Act is all but dead.  It already died in Congress and an attempt to repeal it without replacing it will fail in next week's supposed action.

            Attempts to fix the Affordable Health Care Act have been nearly non-existent.  There is good and there is bad – keep the good and fix the bad.  Sounds much simpler than "my way or the highway."

            Our Commonwealth now has a budget with an expense side but a little lacking on the income side.  How can that be a balanced budget?

            Egos and self-gratification seem to be the main drivers for many of the issues that bring some (too many) elected officials in conflict with those they govern.

            Attention elected officials – everybody has a bias towards something.  For many of us, it's the truth.  If you won't tell us the truth, we will seek it out elsewhere, publish it, and cite our sources when necessary.  Unlike social media, who puts the burden on the public to discern what's true, we accept the responsibility.

            The people really do have a right to know and elected officials have a responsibility to provide timely information.  Ignoring the press just invites us to research other sources and, perhaps, find out more than you were willing to share in the first place.

            That's a bonus to the people.

            A wise, old elected official once said to a young, newly elected one, "If you don't give the people information, they may get disinformation."  So you see, those in the seats of power are partly to blame for "fake news" and social media helps to get out, incorrectly, what you won't share.

            Some facts are displeasing.  We report them without fear or favor.