Knowledge is power and we need that power

[Jo March]

I am a big believer in collecting knowledge of any kind. I have always loved trivia and collect little bits of things that no one really cares about except me.

In our battle to bring about election reform, VOTE (Voters for Open and Transparent Elections) has a great opportunity to collect information that will help us take our country back.

Think about how powerful and effective we could be if we were able to query for a specific bill at any given time and see who sponsored it, what the bill is about and when it is coming up for vote. I'm not talking about having to go to many different sites. I'm saying that we could go to one site and get this information.

We need to gather this information and hold on to it because knowing what is going on underneath that Capitol dome will make or break this country.

I'm talking about something bigger than just a media blaster or a way to send out letters to our Elected Officials. I'm talking about a tool that will allow us to track the things that are important to us and take action on those items.

We need this knowledge. We need to know what the right is up to. I have seen some sneaky little alliances already. Being able to show what is really going on will help us defeat those who wish to pervert our Constitution into something unrecognizable.

Knowledge is power. We need that power.

Join VOTE today and help us gather the following:

*Elected Officials in every state with contact information, district offices, committee memberships and voting records
*Progressive groups and their contact information (not just the website address) - we want to network with those who are working for the same goal
*Media contacts - we need addresses, phone numbers, who owns the media outlets

No piece of information is too small. Sometimes it's the small things that bring the mighty down.

Arnheim
Proud V.O.T.E. member
Join us: [e-mail]

[NickiWitch]

1. Thank you! *kick* N/T

[bettyellen]

9. kicking......

[pk_du]

2. A large chunk of this is available on just a few sites.....hold on

www.house.gov has links to.

How they voted: http://clerk.house.gov/legisAct/votes.html

What the bills/sponsors are: http://thomas.loc.gov/

Reps by State: http://www.house.gov/house/MemStateSearch.shtml

House member directory: http://clerk.house.gov/members/index.html

House Committe Info : http://www.house.gov/house/comm_search.shtml



Similar info for Senate available at : www.senate.gov


Info on Bills/Sponsors at www.thomas.loc.gov is somewhat tedious reading but very enlightening.

[Jo March]

7. See, we need this information in a format that we can import

into a database. This is what slows us down, having so many sites to go to so we can find the information.

Thank you for the links. We will use them to mine the data we need.

This is great. :)

[Goldeneye]

3. I'll work on wisconsin

should we add contact info for local dem parties, green parties, and pda meetups?

[Jo March]

5. Yes, yes, yes! We won't be a scheduling site but we

need to be able to have this info available too.

Great idea!

:yourock:

[mordarlar]

4. I am ready :D

we cannot wait for someone to come on the TV and say Ok poeple lets do this or that. We have to take the action for ourselves.


Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little. -- Edmund Burke

This country belongs to the people and whenever they shall grow weary of their government they can exercise their constitutional right to amend it, or revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it. -- Abraham Lincoln

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. -- Frederick Douglass

All that is essential for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke

The hottest seats in hell are reserved for those who, in time of great moral crises, choose to do nothing. -- Dante Alighieri

Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct. -- Thomas Carlyle

The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people -- Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis

In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated, and scorned. When his cause succeeds however, the timid join him, for then it cost nothing to be a patriot. -- Mark Twain

I love agitation and investigation and glory in defending unpopular truth against popular error. -- President James A. Garfield

Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent ... the greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding. -- Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis,
Olmstead vs. United States, United States Supreme Court (1928)

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important. -- Bertrand Russell

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world: indeed it's the only thing that ever has! -- Margaret Meade

God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... And what country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure. -- Thomas Jefferson, November 13, 1787, letter to William Stephens Smith, quoted in Padover's Jefferson On Democracy

Let them call me a rebel and I welcome it; I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of demons should I make a whore of my soul. -- Thomas Paine.

The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism.... It should be the highest ambition of every American to extend his views beyond himself, and to bear in mind that his conduct will not only affect himself, his country, and his immediate posterity; but that its influence may be co-extensive with the world, and stamp political happiness or misery on ages yet unborn. . -- George Washington.

http://www.fortliberty.org/quotes/quotes-activism.shtml

[Jo March]

6. I am ready too, mordarlar

I am tired of waiting for other people to wake up. I am sick of hearing, "The pedulum will swing back to the left." I am sick of hearing, "Just get more people out to vote."

We have to act NOW. If not now, we may never get to act.

[mordarlar]

8. Well spoken

[darkworkz]

10. yes! n/t