I was on the care2petition.com website today and noticed that of the top 5 petitions, 3 are messages to Congress, and 2 have to do with business and trade.

Messages to Congress: "New Congress: Act now on Energy and Global Warming",

"Tell Congress: Stop Starving Our Food Safety System",

and "Get Your Members of Congress on the Punch Clock".

These are interesting and though-provoking, and the first two far exceeded their goals with regard to signatures. If this many people actively care, I'd bet good money they're also willing to vote.

Is anybody listening? We must remember that for all the hoopla surrounding the presidential election, there are members of Congress also up for re-election, and we need to be checking their records.

Of one thing I am certain: Americans want representatives who will do the job for which they've been hired, and if they're not, then they can be fired, like anybeody else. Ask Jim Talent, from MO. He lost his seat in the last election, and freshman senator Claire McCaskill has rapidly been making a name for herself. I want to see more of that!

It's not just the president who makes policy - our elected representatives are just as important, and while they've been really good at voting themselves midnight raises, and setting up the best retirement and health programs in the world, I have yet to see how they're helping us, the ones who are paying their wages.

Much as I'd like to, the economy is not ENTIRELY Bush's fault - Congress has let him get away with SO MUCH! Torture, treason, the loss of American rights and freedoms in the name of "the war on terror", back-door draft combined with horrific care of our Veterans, Haliburton's inadequate - and illegal - accounting still garnering them contracts, drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge in spite of fossil fuels adding to global warming...my God, the list goes on and ON!

Like that new Coke commercial, "C'mon people - WAKE UP!"