Well-Armed Citizenry

The absolute key to making a democracy work is knowing what the fuck is going on in the first place. A well-informed citizen is well-armed. And myself, I loves me the mental image of Congresscritters staring down the barrel of a savvy constituent.

Since the MSM refuse to do their fucking jobs, it's up to us. Ordinary people, doing extraordinary work, and making democracy happen.

We've emerged with a strong voice in elections via sites like Daily Kos. We keep up-to-date on goings-on through blogs like The Washington Monthly, Think Progress, and Talking Points Memo. We take action through Act Blue and Firedoglake. And we have unprecidented access to our upcoming President via Change.gov. But until now, we haven't had a friendly, easy-to-use site dedicated to keeping us up on legislation before it hits the ground running fast enough to knock us over.

That's why I'm thrilled with this discovery:

For those who want to keep a closer eye on what happens in our nation's Capitol, Kagro X is ruling the roost over at Congress Matters -- where we hope to do for the legislative process what we've been doing to the electoral one: democratizing it. Remember, once legislation hits the floor of the Senate or House, it's usually too late for us to do anything about. That's why the lobbyists hang out in the committee rooms, not the floor. Our goal with Congress Matters will be to keep a better eye on what's happening in those committee rooms, identify pressure points, so we can direct our activism at the right time and place. The site should prove immensely important in 2009.

Magnífico.

Forewarned is forearmed, my darlings. I intend to put Congress Matters to good use, and I hope you do the same.