We’ve recently signed on TalkPAC, an organization dedicated to defeating the “Fairness Doctrine”, to our suite of advocacy solutions. By implementing our API, they’ve been able to send out over 100,000 letters (via email & fax) to their members’ representatives. Along with them, we’ve also signed on NoMoreTaxation, an organization intent on decreasing the tax burden on the American Citizen.

We’ve also begun working on an offline solution to the problem of citizen apathy disengagement called CitizenCamp. Think of this as an offline (think “real world”) tool to get the citizenry educated and involved in the political process. Such items as how to create an election initiative or proposition, best practices in effecting political change, and a slew of others will be on the agenda. We’ll also be looking to you, the citizens of this fine country, for ideas on making government more transparent and accessible. FreedomSpeaks, along with some other socially conscious partners, will be sponsoring events to achieve this goal. So be on the lookout for a CitizenCamp near you. Oh, there will also be food and drink served at all CitizenCamps – good times abound!

A revolution has begun America. It’s time to wake up the neighborhood!

The current regime of Senators and Congressmen(women) need an attitude adjustment. I read recently that there is on OpenCongress' Blog that there is a Senator blocking the nomination of the watchdog protecting our $700 Billion bailout of the financial industry. Why would this person want to remain in secrecy? My guess is that he's got some big banking lobbyists backing him up.

The report goes on to say that Senator Jim Bunning is the one that is suspected of blocking the vote. He's quoted as saying, "I wonder why taxpayers should have to pay $50 million to a watchdog who will have nothing to watch."

Maybe someone should write this guy a letter and "encourage" him to get off his high horse and start representing the people that elected him. It's attitudes like this that upset so many Americans. He's basically said that we should just "trust" the financial community with the $700 Billion. Yeah right. I'm going to settle for some accountability and transparency.

Normally, I'm quite elated when I'm right about things (which would explain my typically 'happy' demeanor). This time, however, it's a bit different. I've been reading some numbers regarding the voter turnout for the 2008 Presidential election, an election that has lived up to the historic proportions predicted.

From what I can find, voter turnout in 2004 (George W. Bush v. John Kerry) was 125 Million (my sources are listed at the bottom). In 2008, my sources indicate the same number for voter turnout – 125 Million. This would mean that the voter turnout actually decreased due to the 6.1 million increase in eligible voters in 2008. It's of considerable note as well how I calculate the percentage. I am basing voter turnout on total eligible voters from the entire US population, regardless of voter registrations.

So while I am happy to have participated and voted in this monumental Presidential election, this data only further reinforces my notion that people still really don't care. "Transforming Civic Engagement" is one of the foundations for why I created FreedomSpeaks. Can we as a nation ever get to a voter turnout of 65% or even 75%? I can't answer that question, but I am confident FreedomSpeaks can be a significant factor in getting us there.

Sources: http://delicious.com/DotNetAllDay/turnout

For all of you that joined FreedomSpeaks and Causecast last night, thank you for making it a truly memorable event. We voted, and then we partied late into the night. And we got to watch President Elect Barack Obama give his acceptance speech on monster 10' screens. Thanks again everyone. It was great to see the people taking an interest in the political process again. I hope we can keep that momentum for future elections!

My friend Kurt Daradics & Baron Miller are having their monthly MOTM tonight. They’ve asked me to present my site, FREEDOMSPEAKS.COM and I’m honored by their invitation. The night will start off with drinks and networking, followed by my presentation, some Q&A, and finally some more networking. I hope to see everyone there. It should be a great night. More info follows:

When: Tonight, October 28th @ 8:00 PM
Where: Suki 7 in Westlake Village, CA
Who’s Going? Everyone who’s cool…

Be sure to bring a stack of your business cards!

I read a post on a voting system report being sealed. This seems pretty simple to me. If it has anything to do with our government (barring, of course, national security), it should be made COMPLETELY transparent and available for inspection/accountability. Why on earth do these voting machine companies want to make their technology proprietary? Government systems should be built on the premise of open source, and this is a perfect application of that.

This madness has got to stop. Feel free to write your representative on this! I know I will.

An interesting event happened last night around 6 PM. I saw an unusual amount of activity on FREEDOMSPEAKS.COM and thought I may have a potential spammer on my hands. I was pleasantly surprised to find that not only was it not a spammer, buy my site had become the target of a quite intriguing blog post by WONKETTE.COM. The story poked fun at the Senator, making light of the fact that he didn’t have any friends on my site. If you follow the comments on WONKETTE.COM, I think you’ll find (as I did) the comments are pretty amusing. Some might say that it isn’t right that we add fodder to the fire of a political scandal, but politicians are fair game in my books. More often than not, they tout themselves as pillars of society. We all know that that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

So, I’d like to give a shout out to the WONKETTE.COM. One final thought. Now that Senator Larry Craig has over 20 friends, what do we do about Senators Obama, Clinton and McCain? They don’t even come close! Maybe Senator Craig should be running for president.

This is it America. It’s your time to speak out and be heard. You already know why – stay tuned on how.