Whitney
Regular Member
Keep your eye on the ball. There is a lot of talk about secession and general dissatisfaction with the current state of the Union.
Query me this, Why do we as a nation now know more in two or three days about the affair of Patraeus and his sleazy girlfriend than we do about Fast and Furious in which we gave the bad guys the weapons that killed our own border agent(s).
We know more about this affair than we do about the total misled and mismanaged debacle in Benghazi in which our ambassador and his aides were killed. It is time finally (way past the time in my opinion) but none the less, it looks like we are at least going to pretend to get to the bottom of who knew what.
The problem here, the two heads (Clinton and Panetta) who are and were in charge of this mess, are coincidentally on travel to Australia until the end of investigation. Hmmm!
I am pretty dissatisfied also so I put together a quick primer to help folks who want to focus some energy on congress. Some links may not work as they are search queries.
>>>>>.If you know this stuff already, please pass this primer along to anyone you feel may benefit.>>>>>>>>>>>>
The following link http://thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas.php will take you to the Thomas Home Page, daily congressional activity and pending legislation in Congress.
You can search bills and view congressional calendars. You can even see how your representative voted on current legislation.
Here is a quick primer to get you started.
Over on the left side of the Thomas home page click the link Bills, Resolutions.
We are going to search for a specific house resolution, named “H.CON.RES.107”
The resolution is currently in the “House” as opposed to the “Senate” you can determine this from the capital H; and it is a CONcurrent RESolution number 107.
You should see a box bordered by a blue outline pretty much centered up on your display, at the top of the box is a menu;
Click the link for Search Bill Text
Now right below the orange “search” “clear” buttons there is a box to enter search criteria. In the drop down box , ensure “Word/Phrase is selected because that is what we are going to search for.
Enter CON RES 107, below the box click the radio button “include variants (plurals, etc.)”. Which Bills? “All bills”; From Where? “House Bills Only”, When? All (2011-2012)”.
Now click the bottom “search” button.
You see this is a very broad search and the results are numbered by relevance. You can narrow the search much like the Google search engine, this is satisfactory for my demonstration.
We are interested in item number one in the list, click on the link [H.CON.RES.107.IH] associated with item 1, not the PDF link.
Here’s the beef.
What I want to demonstrate is how to find the originator, supporters, and status of the bill. Click on the Bill Summary & Status link it will take you to the details of this particular legislation.
Reading from the top you can see this bill was introduced by Rep Jones, Walter B., Jr and it has 12 Cosponsors or supporters.
The bill was referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary where it will sit until the committee chairperson acts on it.
This is where we the people come in, click the Committees link and you will be taken to the committee status page where there is yet another link for House Judiciary. There are the 995 bills the House Judiciary committee must decide to act on. Click on the “Next Page” link and you will get a sense of how the bills are organized, H.CON.RES.107 is item 885. If you have not read the bill or the summary by now please stop and read it now.
So what can you do with all this …stuff?
Go back over to the THOMAS Home page; over on the left side right below the blue shaded area are three links;
House of Representatives, Senate, and U.S. Code.
Click the House of Representatives link, then when you get to the house page, click the Committees link at the top of the page. You are now at the page listing all the House Committees reviewing legislation.
Since our bill is in the Judiciary committee click the Judiciary link in the left column, take a moment to mouse over the menu items at the top of the page, now click the About Us link at the top of the page.
You will see a brief description of the duties of the Judiciary. If you click on the Committee Members link you can see who will be reviewing our bill. It is also interesting to look at Subcommittees, this is where the rubber hits the road so to speak.
Is your representative on the Judiciary Committee? Each one of those folks has a website link below their picture.
Encourage your representative to cosponsor a bill by using the link provided at the House Directory of Representatives. You can search for your representative by State or by Last name. You are provided a phone number, committee assignment, and if you click their name you will be taken to the local district web site where and email or contact link is provided.
Use these tools to follow legislation, let your congress hear you, you can make a difference.
If you want some help getting started, or composing correspondence send me an email, I would be happy to help.
~Whitney
The key to Freedom is the ability to be able to defend yourself and the tools for that are guns.
Query me this, Why do we as a nation now know more in two or three days about the affair of Patraeus and his sleazy girlfriend than we do about Fast and Furious in which we gave the bad guys the weapons that killed our own border agent(s).
We know more about this affair than we do about the total misled and mismanaged debacle in Benghazi in which our ambassador and his aides were killed. It is time finally (way past the time in my opinion) but none the less, it looks like we are at least going to pretend to get to the bottom of who knew what.
The problem here, the two heads (Clinton and Panetta) who are and were in charge of this mess, are coincidentally on travel to Australia until the end of investigation. Hmmm!
I am pretty dissatisfied also so I put together a quick primer to help folks who want to focus some energy on congress. Some links may not work as they are search queries.
>>>>>.If you know this stuff already, please pass this primer along to anyone you feel may benefit.>>>>>>>>>>>>
The following link http://thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas.php will take you to the Thomas Home Page, daily congressional activity and pending legislation in Congress.
You can search bills and view congressional calendars. You can even see how your representative voted on current legislation.
Here is a quick primer to get you started.
Over on the left side of the Thomas home page click the link Bills, Resolutions.
We are going to search for a specific house resolution, named “H.CON.RES.107”
The resolution is currently in the “House” as opposed to the “Senate” you can determine this from the capital H; and it is a CONcurrent RESolution number 107.
You should see a box bordered by a blue outline pretty much centered up on your display, at the top of the box is a menu;
Click the link for Search Bill Text
Now right below the orange “search” “clear” buttons there is a box to enter search criteria. In the drop down box , ensure “Word/Phrase is selected because that is what we are going to search for.
Enter CON RES 107, below the box click the radio button “include variants (plurals, etc.)”. Which Bills? “All bills”; From Where? “House Bills Only”, When? All (2011-2012)”.
Now click the bottom “search” button.
You see this is a very broad search and the results are numbered by relevance. You can narrow the search much like the Google search engine, this is satisfactory for my demonstration.
We are interested in item number one in the list, click on the link [H.CON.RES.107.IH] associated with item 1, not the PDF link.
Here’s the beef.
What I want to demonstrate is how to find the originator, supporters, and status of the bill. Click on the Bill Summary & Status link it will take you to the details of this particular legislation.
Reading from the top you can see this bill was introduced by Rep Jones, Walter B., Jr and it has 12 Cosponsors or supporters.
The bill was referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary where it will sit until the committee chairperson acts on it.
This is where we the people come in, click the Committees link and you will be taken to the committee status page where there is yet another link for House Judiciary. There are the 995 bills the House Judiciary committee must decide to act on. Click on the “Next Page” link and you will get a sense of how the bills are organized, H.CON.RES.107 is item 885. If you have not read the bill or the summary by now please stop and read it now.
So what can you do with all this …stuff?
Go back over to the THOMAS Home page; over on the left side right below the blue shaded area are three links;
House of Representatives, Senate, and U.S. Code.
Click the House of Representatives link, then when you get to the house page, click the Committees link at the top of the page. You are now at the page listing all the House Committees reviewing legislation.
Since our bill is in the Judiciary committee click the Judiciary link in the left column, take a moment to mouse over the menu items at the top of the page, now click the About Us link at the top of the page.
You will see a brief description of the duties of the Judiciary. If you click on the Committee Members link you can see who will be reviewing our bill. It is also interesting to look at Subcommittees, this is where the rubber hits the road so to speak.
Is your representative on the Judiciary Committee? Each one of those folks has a website link below their picture.
Encourage your representative to cosponsor a bill by using the link provided at the House Directory of Representatives. You can search for your representative by State or by Last name. You are provided a phone number, committee assignment, and if you click their name you will be taken to the local district web site where and email or contact link is provided.
Use these tools to follow legislation, let your congress hear you, you can make a difference.
If you want some help getting started, or composing correspondence send me an email, I would be happy to help.
~Whitney
The key to Freedom is the ability to be able to defend yourself and the tools for that are guns.