OpenCongress.org..

[Butterfly]

Saw the mention of the (national) GIVE Act in another thread.. It brought to Mind one of my *favorite* websites of late, OpenCongress.org (OC)..

The OC search engine never works at all for me so I use Google to search on "OpenCongress" plus whatever keywords are in the bill I want to see, like "GIVE Act" for example.. Once you're at the bill of choice, you can comment generically on the whole thing or comment line by line on each bill's text offering.. Just make sure you're in the right congressional session, such as 111 for the current one or your time ends up pretty much just wasted, unfortunately..

OC makes for one possible centralized place to gather and express thoughts on what is being, well, snuck through on us in untold numbers of ways.. If you want to test drive OC, right now techy circles are talking a lot about H.R.554 that would put bills online for *ALL* of us to read 72 hours before the House gets a hold of them....

If OC's not quite to your liking, it feeds off of GovTrack.us.. Maybe that one is a little more visually or cognitively friendly to some for whatever personal reasons..

Anyway, just thought I'd share since family value topics do come up there on a national interest basis occasionally.. Everyone have a safe night..

[Jim]

I'm registered with open Congress and love that site. Thanks for posting this and letting everyone know about these sites. they are priceless when studying whats going on in the "arena" of endless lawmaking!

[Butterfly]

Jun 21, 2009 17:22:06 GMT -5 Jim said:

I'm registered with open Congress and love that site. Thanks for posting this and letting everyone know about these sites. they are priceless when studying whats going on in the "arena" of endless lawmaking!

You're welcome.. Have been following them for a while myself now, too.. Each day it becomes a little more indispensable when it comes to helping others become aware of what is going on very often without our knowledge..

I think my own big, constant push with that whole thing is rapidly progressing to be "accessible government" with respect to plain language.. There is already a law that exists with respect to government paperwork.. It's time to push that everything having to do with government is not deliberately written in legalese such that citizens cannot decipher what is happening to their Rights..

PS.. COOL.. Wanted to find a related law to show I wasn't just.. "blowing smoke".. Turns out there's yet another new one out there right now:

H.R. 946 :: Plain Language Act of 2009

If that link doesn't work for some reason, give it a sec then try refreshing.. I posted on Twitter simultaneous with this and that might have something to do with it.. ;D

[Jim]

Thank you SO MUCH! for posting this "Plain Language Act" notice, I was unaware of this bill and it actually is quite interesting and important. It will leave loop holes in almost any bill if it passes. Thanks! I posted this on my blog.

[Butterfly]

Jun 27, 2009 9:36:12 GMT -5 Jim said:

Thank you SO MUCH! for posting this "Plain Language Act" notice, I was unaware of this bill and it actually is quite interesting and important. It will leave loop holes in almost any bill if it passes. Thanks! I posted this on my blog.

You're welcome again.. And thank you for over there..

Respectfully to and about them, this stuff just simply can no longer stop at our legislators' Fingertips.. "Nothing About Us Without Us" carries a whole new meaning these days in the realization of Web 2.0..