I think this is a message most if not all American’s can get behind right now. Regardless of if you are on the right, left, center, Democrat or Republican, I think we can all agree the system is not working very well and all it is doing is pitting everyone against each other.

Rather there is real conviction behind Rep. Reichert or just the need for a good sound bite, I applaud the message.

We have a recently upgraded the site and changed the layout just a bit. The upgrade should make the site more stable and make a few things easier to do. We have upgraded the level of Facebook integration on the site as well. Hopefully this will make it easier for people to comment and share articles with friends. My goal is to start getting tools and content on the site faster. I have a few tools in the works now I have been focusing on. If you have any ideas for the site please let us know on our Facebook forum.

Understanding what is going on in Congress has become a serious undertaking which frustrates and confuses most people. Listening to the news is hardly a reliable source of information any more as mainstream news outlets either put their slant on the information or don’t even bother to report it. I have been spending some time finding, learning and using a few tools which makes this a manageable process. I will be talking about these tools in a few parts, starting with the basics and then going deeper.

The most important thing to keep in mind when you start to follow congress is to keep it simple at first. Learn who your congressmen are (you have 2 Senators and a Representative). If you put your zip code in the “Representatives and Senators” tool to the right we will look up your congressmen (if you get more then three back it is probably because your zip code is split between two or more representatives and we need your full zip code). Once you understand who your congressmen are just work on understanding what they are doing. These are the people you have direct control over come election time.

One of the best tools I have found in tracking congress is the OpenCongress.org website.  This site has a lot of information on it, but lets stay focused on the first step. First register on this site so you can track the information you care about. Once you register you can go to the home page and towards the bottom you will see this:

Here you can type in your zip code and get a list of your congressmen. Once you type your zip code and click “Show Me” you should see your list of congressmen. You also already start seeing some stats about them like OpenCongress user approval rating for the person, how many bills they sponsored and how often they vote with their party.

Now if you click on the name of one of your senators you will go to their details. On the person’s details page there is a lot of information and things you can research. Don’t get to overwhelmed by this page, lets focus on just a few things here. First note that you can on the right hand side select to track your congressmen and  you can add your own approval rating. There is also a button here to write the senator. This will take you to your congressmen’s website to fill out their contact form. If you click on the “Track with MyOC” button this person will be added to your tracked items. Now anytime you come back to this site and login all you need to do is look at your tracked items and you can see the items which are important to you.

It is key to remember that these are the people your votes help to elect so start with understand who they are and what they are doing. This effort really only takes an hour or two a week. It is a sacrifice required for us to start controlling congress. Compared to the men and women leaving their families for a year at a time to serve our country it is a pretty small sacrifice.

There is a lot more we can follow and research to make sure the people we elect are doing things we agree with. If we can understand what our congressmen are doing throughout the year we can help influence decisions. On top of all this come election time your decision will be easy, because you will know what they have been up to. You will not need commercials, news or pamphlets to try and sell you on the goods. You will have followed them in action and know if you like what they are doing or not.

Start following your congressmen by just reviewing what is on the “Overview” tab of their details page. This will help you understand what type of bills they are sponsoring and how often. In another post we will talk about how to see what bills congress is considering and way to track how your congressmen voted on that bill.

For now just take the first step and start getting your feet wet.

There seems to be a serious misunderstanding of rights and privileges among American people today. If you have not read this article on the subject I highly encourage you to do so.  I recently read an article on Fox News which called this to my attention again. It was about the Children Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). This act deals with the issue of when websites must identify whether or not a person is of legal age to interact with their site. I don’t want to get into the details of this act in this article. Instead I want to focus on the issues of free speech brought up in the article. This quote from the article concerns me.

"I have a constitutional right to go post comments anonymously on the Washington Post's website”

My first question is what constitutional right is he speaking of? I have to assume the right to free speech but I worry the author of this quote does not really even know what right he is referring to. We too often hear this statement today about an array of different things people think they have a right to. Since the right to free speech is the most applicable here lets stick with that one. First let us look at the first amendment which gives us this right.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, …”

While the issue in question is indeed about a law congress has passed and is now trying to update, the first quote needs to be analyzed further because it really is a non sequitur. Politicians, the press and the general public often use non sequiturs to make an argument for something they are either for or against. 

The person in the first quote is trying to make the connection that because free speech is protected as a constitutional right that this law, the COPPA,  is naturally anti his right to free speech. Is the ability to make a comment on a website a constitutional right? The Washington Post website is a privately created and run service. Because the Washington Post pays for and creates its website service it should be able to control who uses it and makes comments on the site, like paying customers, since the Washington Post is the one providing the service. Therefore you don’t have a “constitutional right” to make comments on the Washington Post website any more then you have a constitutional right to come into my house and tell me how you feel about me.

Now if the government steps in and regulates who the customer of this service can be or what information you have to collect about the user; does that infringe on our freedom of speech? This is where the question really gets interesting. Now the government is regulating to a business that in order for someone to make a comment on your site you need to collect certain information about the person. The first amendment says nothing about anonymous free speech. I think this is an interesting case study for the first amendment and we shall get into that topic another time. First and foremost it is important we understand we don’t have a constitutional right via the first amendment to write or type our opinion via any medium available to us as implied by the first quote. Once we understand this we can have an important discussion on how government legislation effects our freedom of speech.

Freedom of speech is a very important part of the American fabric and it is important we protect it. This does not mean however that freedom of speech is an overarching right we have across all types and forms of communication. Just because it is a form of communication does not mean it is protected by the first amendment. Instead, the first amendment protects us from Congress taking or limiting this freedom. It is important it is not used to enforce companies to act a certain way.

A few years ago I was able to take a trip to the Philippians. One of the things I was most excited to do on that trip was visit Corregidor Island and the WWII Manila American Cemetery and Memorial.  It was sobering to be there among the 17,202 brave heroes buried there. There is also over 36,000 names written in limestone in the center of the memorial of those still missing.

On this Memorial Weekend I wanted to take a moment and express my thanks to the over 1.3 million American’s we have lost in our wars throughout the years. 

These brave men and women had the courage to answer the call and paid the greatest price for a reward they could not savor, but its great importance and value they understood. The fight for freedom has waged on for centuries and the fight is rarely understood today by any whom have not tasted the bitterness of losing their freedom. I honor and respect those who still understand why this is a prize worth fighting and dying for.

The birth of this great nation started with the loss of 25,000 great men, who fought for this freedom by  crossing the Delaware in the middle of winter, many with  no shoes on their feet, to change the tide of war and gain this freedom.

There is a saying in this generation, “War does not determine who is right, only who is left.” I disagree with this statement. I believe the statement should be,  “War does not determine who is right, only the rights of who are left.”

I pray we will someday see the end of war, but I honor those who have taken up the fight that I might be free of tyranny and live free, unafraid of a ruler who oppresses and enslaves.

May we always remember these great sacrifices and take with grave seriousness our obligation to protect and hold on to these rights, when we consider giving up any of the many freedoms we have inherited through the blood of our great fallen. For once these freedom are given up, they seldom are regained without paying another heavy price in blood.