This Kid Made an App That Exposes Sellout Politicians

With US politics swimming in so much corporate money that it's pretty much an oligarchy, it can be hard to keep track of which particular set of lobbyists is trying to milk more cash out of health care, fossil fuels, and other very important issues from one week to the next.

But thanks to 16-year-old Nick Rubin, keeping track of just how much politicians have sold out has become a lot easier. He created Greenhouse, a new browser plug-in that operates under the motto "Some are red. Some are blue. All are green." The plugin aims "to shine light on a social and industrial disease of today: the undue influence of money in our Congress." It sounds like a bit of a lofty aim for an app, but it's actually pretty simple and effective [...]

This Kid Made an App That Exposes Sellout Politicians

Okay, this is all kinds of awesome to me. This new free app for Chrome, Firefox and Safari allows you to view a complete breakdown of any politicians' campaign contributions by simply scrolling the mouse over their name whenever it shows up in any article across the web.

In my opinion this is the power of technology at its finest-- free, simple to use, and slicing through the crap: in this case, that crap would be today's political circus. I feel like a lot of what politicians get away with is honestly not THAT far removed from our line of sight, and the more we create tools like this for the masses to give everyone a sense of clarity via exposure of anything going on behind the scenes, the better chances we have at waking up, and joining forces to break down the system that enslaves us.

As a side note, this also gives me a renewed hope in our younger generations. As much crap as we all talk about how ruined they are, this sixteen year-old put together something AMAZING!!!

What do you guys think?

a reply to: solarjetman

Bloody marvelous!

When is it coming to Canada?


F&S&

Man I applaud this kid! It is going to be nonpartisan and factual in its implementation. He is looking for ideas on how to expand its abilities and one I can think of is linking the voting history of the politician so we don't have to go to the .gov website.
Bravo for bringing this one to ATS

a reply to: solarjetman

I would rather like something like that for here in Britain too, on both the party, and individual levels. Because of the different structures in place in my nation, it might be a different set up than the one for the US, but I still think it would be handy.

To be honest, I think that if it was possible to do, I think an app like that should be mandatory for all phones sold, in a nation which has a democratically elected government, just so that we can all have immediate access to this sort of data on our prospective leaders and ministers. I must say, I am very impressed at the fact that the young fellow who put this app together, could have chosen to do anything with his time, and his capabilities, and chose to unmask the cretins with it!

Jolly good show!

a reply to: solarjetman
VERY BAD IDEA!!
Talk about sheep.
If people kept their finger on the pulse and talked to their reps or took appropriate action, this app would not be needed.
But it is easier to just let an app do all of the work, never mind, nothing here to see...

I'm still of the opinion that politicians should be forced to wear jackets with the corporate logos of their sponsors on them.

but this is a great idea too

We will be able to use the app to see how many politicians voted to have the app banned .

atta boy!

all I need to say

originally posted by: Psykotik

originally posted by: g146541
a reply to: solarjetman
VERY BAD IDEA!!
Talk about sheep.
If people kept their finger on the pulse and talked to their reps or took appropriate action, this app would not be needed.
But it is easier to just let an app do all of the work, never mind, nothing here to see...

You're an idiot. Its not that easy to keep track of them (and they want it that way).

First off, STAR to you for proving my point and using an adhom out of the gate!
Just how many politicians do you have to keep track of??
You have 1 president, 2 senators, 1 congressman, 1 governor and maybe a mayor!
Not very hard to keep track of IMHO, but if difficult for you...

a reply to: g146541

While I empathise entirely with your position, and agree that people should be more proactive in figuring things out for themselves, I am also aware that people are about as motivated at the moment as your common or garden corpse, and it will take significant, and lengthy efforts to change that.

However, if there is an app for it, then you can bet your bottom dollar that there are people who, some of them for the first time, will be able to make informed choices during the next election cycle, as a result of this app. Now, those people who do not do as you suggest, and make themselves familiar to their local representatives, and other political figures, and ask probing questions of their own, these people who prefer to sit about in their underpants drinking lager...

They were not going to examine their representatives, or anyone who might wish to have that honour in the future, any more closely than I examine the contents of the digestive processes of a fly I have just swatted. In fact, in my case, many people would not even put in that much effort! Since these folk were not going to be doing their due diligence anyway, I like the idea that despite their laziness or mental decrepitude, they will no longer have an excuse when they choose a crap candidate.

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: g146541

While I empathise entirely with your position, and agree that people should be more proactive in figuring things out for themselves, I am also aware that people are about as motivated at the moment as your common or garden corpse, and it will take significant, and lengthy efforts to change that.

However, if there is an app for it, then you can bet your bottom dollar that there are people who, some of them for the first time, will be able to make informed choices during the next election cycle, as a result of this app. Now, those people who do not do as you suggest, and make themselves familiar to their local representatives, and other political figures, and ask probing questions of their own, these people who prefer to sit about in their underpants drinking lager...

They were not going to examine their representatives, or anyone who might wish to have that honour in the future, any more closely than I examine the contents of the digestive processes of a fly I have just swatted. In fact, in my case, many people would not even put in that much effort! Since these folk were not going to be doing their due diligence anyway, I like the idea that despite their laziness or mental decrepitude, they will no longer have an excuse when they choose a crap candidate.

Exactly. People OUGHT to be doing a lot of things, but are either simply too lazy or don't have the time for them... for instance most of us could be eating healthier food, but how many of us actually follow through on that every day? Any tool that makes it easier to tackle these things can only be good.

In fact, this should actually be useful for those who already DO track this kind of stuff, because as a time saver it frees up time to explore other connections deeper into the money-politics rabbit hole that weren't previously feasible to look into.

wow this does sound great. a kid made it. wow

Of course, if this plugin blows up, a potential ironic twist could be that lobbyists throw money at this kid to fudge their stats a bit... haha.

a reply to: solarjetman
Exactly!!!

Who watches the watchers?
TrueBrit did bring up a good point that it would make a useful entry tool for first timers.
But there are many laws introduced that are nothing what they sound like.
First look at the bill before reading "the patriot act", I would have said I would sign it.
Then you read the bill and there is not a damn thing about it patriotic.
So the app say so and so voted for xyz, but it actually promotes abc.
You still gotta pay attention to the rats, they hate the public eyes on them.

People are lazy though and need to be told how and when to do everything, then whine about freedoms lost...

It's a good idea if the information is put into the system in a truthful, objective, and nonpartisan manner. Otherwise you just get more crap.

Also, will this include some major money diners like labor unions or will just focus on evil corporations? It's seems the designer already has an agenda, but time will tell.

Many thanks to this kid! It is genius, simply that. I think the best part about it being an app is that is will be used by the younger generations! This is something that will be a game changer in the future, given that it is allowed to move forward and does not become corrupted with bogus data.

The younger politicians are aware that the times are changing, not to say that they are not going along with the program, they most certainly are, but will these kinds of trends you can bet your ass they will start to be a little bit more hesistant before they take any and all the money they can.

If only someone could devise an app that tracks blackmail we might be able to get to the source of our problems in Washington!

a reply to: NavyDoc

Also, will this include some major money diners like labor unions or will just focus on evil corporations? It's seems the designer already has an agenda, but time will tell.

Or

You could have clicked on the link and gone to the app page.

So as you can see it lists Unions. So what is the agenda?

BTW I downloaded it for Chrome but I can't seem to get it to load. Maybe that's a bug that needs to be fixed.

originally posted by: g146541
a reply to: solarjetman
VERY BAD IDEA!!
Talk about sheep.
If people kept their finger on the pulse and talked to their reps or took appropriate action, this app would not be needed.
But it is easier to just let an app do all of the work, never mind, nothing here to see...

If people quit voting for Democrats and Republicans this app would not be needed.

This app froze up my firefox. I had to uninstall it. It did not work.