I thought that with the 2016 political silly season heating up, it would be handy to have a place for members to list useful apps/sites/etc....either mobile or browser plugins, that my help all of us be better informed. I ran across two of them just this morning at random. One of them is functioning just fine, and the other is having problems....at least for me, on My computer/browser.
- A twitter account with a twist..... It is https://twitter.com/congressedits. This account automatically tweets any changes made to Wikipedia originating from a congressional IP address. So if you have a twitter account and you "follow" this particular account, you'll be automatically notified anytime someone tries to edit a wikipedia page from a computer operated by someone in Congress......either congressperson, or staffer. Some of the changes are harmless..... like there's one there which is a simple edit to some information about the .338 Remington Magnum cartridge..... but also it will record attempts at political backstabbing and whitewashing.
- A browser plugin called Greenhouse for Chrome, Safari, Firefox...... http://allaregreen.us/. This plugin—WHEN IT WORKS—displays donor dollar information by hovering your cursor over a politician's name on a web page. In the snapshot below, I hovered my cursor over Boehner's name, and the popup show in the image is what came up. The data is fueled by OpenSecrets.org, a non partisan website dedicated to transparency in politics. Unfortunately, I could not get the plugin to install properly into MY browser, on MY computer.
- http://www.OpenSecrets.org, which I mentioned above. It does appear to actually BE nonpartisan......at least at first glance. They don't seem to care whose goose they're cooking, and so far I haven't seen any "spin" on the site.