When this country was founded, of the three branches of government, Congress was held in the highest esteem. The top of the Capitol building is higher than any other building in DC. It - and particularly the House of Representatives - is considered to be the "people's House". The Representatives are meant to represent the desires of their constituents in the nation's government. The current crop of Representatives, though, seem to be curiously tone deaf to the desires of the electorate, and bull-headedly determined to impose the ideology of their party and their corporate benefactors on the country.

When they swept into power after last year's elections, it was common knowledge that a combination of disatisfaction with unemployment, and ennui among Democrats were the main factor. Why, then, have they completely ignored the jobs issue?

Despite polling evidence that less than 20% of Americans favor denying abortion under any circumstance, the Republicans are pushing through a bill that would do just that to poor women on Medicaid:

This will not pass the Senate, nor the President's pen. Why bother? So they can have a campaign commericial about it?

Despite polling which shows that most people would like to see MORE added to the new Health Care Reform Law, (even with their mistaken notions about it, thanks to negative and false media coverage), the Republicans are attacking the law again by defunding the state insurance exchanges, a cornerstone to forcing competition between insurance companies (ie: forcing a "market-driven" approach, something Republicans SHOULD support). Like the abortion bill, this will go nowhere in the Senate, so it is once again a waste of effort while they do nothing to improve the jobs situation.

This is occurring on state levels too. Wisconsin is once again on the forefront of buyer's remorse as a new voter ID bill makes its way through the state congress:

Is there a voter-fraud problem in Wisconsin? No - for Republicans, the problem is poor people voting for their opponents. This is a transparent attempt to stop them from even getting to the polls.

As I mentioned in Wednesday's blog, the Republicans are getting an earful from their constituents, including the architect of the conservative plan to eliminate Medicare for the budget Paul Ryan (R-WI) (just what was in the water in Wisconsin last year?). Will they pay attention? Will they notice the polling that says 64% of Americans favor raising taxes on the rich to help balance the budget?

I am not optimistic. If the angry voters and the polling don't get through to them, it's going to be a long two years. If only they'd stop talking long enough to listen...