Very Cool Toy
ProPublica is very cool. It’s is a non-profit newsroom for investigative journalism. It doesn’t do daily news – it allows its reporters to go deeply into a subject.
They have come up with a new tool to find out your congressmen and senator’s priorities. Using just your zip code, you can find out where your member of congress stands and what’s important to him, not just with his voting, but also his newsletters, emails, and relationships with other members of congress.
Here’s the technical information.
As they say, the more you know.
Thanks to S Gray for the heads up.
ProPublica does exceptional work, they are a nonprofit and rely on contributions to conduct solid investigations.
https://donate.propublica.org/give/141278/#!/donation/checkout
My birthday present last year was a nice contribution to ProPublica, it even came with a nifty T-Shirt!
1Thanks, JJ; I could play with that for a while.
Here’s a fun page. It shows all the senators, with columns showing numbers of bills sponsored and bills cosponsored, percent of votes against party and missed votes. There are 16 senators with 10-25% of votes against party. All but one of those are Democrats. (Rand Paul is the exception at 14.2%.) There are several whose votes against party are below 1%, all GOP. I’m envisioning Hoyer, our party whip, with a bigger whip…
https://projects.propublica.org/represent/members/115/senate
I’m not saying votes against party are always a bad thing, but when the other party votes in lockstep, “defections” can become a problem.
2The tool confirms what I already knew: Pete Olsen is a tool.
3The first several press listings for my senator, Al Franken, are about sexual harassment. Makes me sick. I’m so hugely disappointed in him. He grabbed a woman just 2 years ago at the state fair! Well f*ck you Al. Get out of here and allow Gov. Dayton to appoint a replacement. Goddammit.
Hundreds of thousands of us Minnesotans feel just crushed. We thought we could trust him, thought he was one of the good guys. Well f*ck Al.
For the women he molested this feeling of betrayal must be multiplied 1000 times.
4Joe Courtney (Conn.-2 D) Richard Blumenthal (Conn.-Sen. D) Christopher S. Murphy (Conn.-Sen. D)
3 wonderful guys, couldn’t be happier with them or their records. (P.S. They contact me about progressive causes, I don’t need to stalk them.)
5Yea I have Cornyn and Cruz, Twiddle Dee and Twiddle Dumbass, I know how they vote.
Thanks God I also have Al Green
Great tool, love ProPublica, their work is fantastic and their work with Frontline is amazing
6Both charges against Al Franken are bogus.
7Don’t be a lemming!
Here in Oregon, we have two US Senators (Jeff Merkley & Ron Wyden) who are awesome! Praise the lord and pass the biscuits! They make me proud to live in Oregon!
But I live in Oregon US District 2, where we have a Repugnant (Greg Walden) who is a stinking tRumpite and needs to be voted OUT next November. To help get than done, I shared the link to the ProPublica “research tool” with my local Democratic Party AND our local Indivisible organization via Twitter. They liked the link and shared it with all the Democrats and progressives in OR District 2.
So, on this Thanksgiving eve, I am thankful for JJ and all my progressive friends in my former state. Turn Texas Blue!
8Also see Project VoteSmart for detailed info of this sort on state as well as Fed legislators.
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