CITIZEN ALERT v1.35RED ALERT

We have our first CITIZEN RED ALERT! When you see a red alert it means you're going to be be called to participate in your own government. Imagine that! If you refer back to CITIZEN ALERT v1.5 you will see the ground rules for participating in my little experiment and what it takes to BE A CITIZEN.

One of the rules for BEING A CITIZEN means that you have both your Senators and your representatives phone numbers programmed into your cell phone. Now is the time to call your Senators.

Call them up, you'll end up talking to a staff member for like 30 seconds. Tell them you're one of the Senators constituents and you want them to vote FOR S. 2590 The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006. Tell them you think it's a wonderful idea and you personally want a searchable data base, you've wanted one for a long time, and you'll use it everyday.

This will be a Google like website where all of Congress will be held accountable for the pork they tag on to different legislation. No more hiding anymore. You'll be able to look up and see exactly you wants $65 million for their state so their friend can build a duck pond or some idiotic thing like that. All the pork will be searchable with their names right there beside it.

What is pork?

pork Informal. appropriations, appointments, etc., made by the government for political reasons rather than for public benefit, as for public buildings or river improvements.

S. 2590
The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006

S. 2590 would direct the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to oversee the creation of a single comprehensive searchable Web site that would include information on all federal grants, contracts, and other funding awarded to public and private organizations.


UPDATE 8/31/06 5:11pm PST

Today I called both my Senators here in California and found out that neither of them, Boxer or Feinstein, has officially taken a position on the S. 2590. I informed their staff that I had taken a position on it and that they should consider agreeing with me. All Citizen Alert Readers, now is the time to call them up and get them to make a public statement in support of transparency in our government.

In further news on this bill, all the scuttlebut around the blogs has been who has been holding up the bill from the floor. Some Senator put a "secret hold" on the bill and hadn't revealed himself. How this is even possible, I don't know. Bloggers everywhere were contacting their Senators and asking them point blank if they were indeed the "Secret senator" that was holding up S. 2590.

This afternoon I received a newsletter from Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist throwing his support behind the bloggers and urged Republicans and Democrats to fess up if they put a hold on the bill. What I didn't approve of was the way he went about it in his newsletter. I've subscribed to his updates for sometime and he LOOVES to throw the word obstruction around when he talks about the Democratic Party.

Frist wrote:

Unfortunately, when I attempted to bring this legislation to a vote before the August recess, it was blocked. It is deeply ironic that bipartisan legislation dedicated to transparency in government has been obstructed by the least transparent possible means.

Now, if you didn't know any better, you'd think he's just talking about Democrats. Then back on August 29th he wrote:

I am calling on all members, when asked by the blog community, to instruct their staff to answer whether or not they have a hold, honestly and transparently, so I can pass this bill. And I encourage Minority Leader Reid to do the same.

Well, today the secret is over. The "secret senator" holding up the bill was in fact Sen. Ted Stevens a REPUBLICAN from Alaska! The same Ted Stevens who last year proposed a $223 million "bridge to nowhere" connecting Alaska's Gravina Island - population 50 - to the mainland.

Now, if my time line is correct in how I received this news, then Bill Frist's update on the bill being obstructed came AFTER CNN announced that the "secret senator" was Stevens meaning Frist just left that little tidbit of info out and led you to believe it was the Democrats.


On a side bar note: You will see in my sidebar that I have started TEXT ADVERTISING for Citizen Alert. If you'd like to be a CITIZEN ALERT Sponsor, click on the link and you will see that the rates are very cheap.

I'm looking for publishers of political books, music artists, record labels, non-profits, animal rescues and other things I think are cool and people should know about.

Click the link and advertise! If you're a friend of mine, you don't even have to go by the published rates just put in a cheap bid and I'll put you up to get the ball rolling.