Talk Elections

Atlas Fantasy Elections => Atlas Fantasy Government => Topic started by: bgwah on December 15, 2011, 04:03:24 AM



Title: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (confirmed)
Post by: bgwah on December 15, 2011, 04:03:24 AM
have fun


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (debating)
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on December 15, 2011, 06:27:50 AM
Question: What is your vision of the office? What should be SoIA primary concerns?


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (debating)
Post by: tmthforu94 on December 15, 2011, 03:01:56 PM
Thank you President Snowguy for having confidence in me.

Politico, first, thank you for providing your insight on the US Presidential race - I completely agree with you that Mitt Romney has to win the GOP nomination.



My vision of the SoIA is to make it relevent. Consistant activity has always been a problem for this office. At this point, I have no electoral aspirations in Atlasia, and unless something completely unplanned occurs in real world, I will be fully committed to this position for at least the remainder of this term, if not beyond that.

As SoIA, my primary goal will be to work with the Game Moderator to help assist both regional and federal governments, such as working on completing the Mideast budget. I think one way to give a real boost to our regional legislatures is to actually give them issues to work on. I believe I have a very good relationship with Shua, so working with him won't be a problem for me. I also look to at least have a new story out each week, which will either reflect off real-world events, creating a new scenario, or creating an event based off a bill discussed/passed by the Senate or a regional legislature.

Sorry if this post was kinda scattered. ;) I'll be more than happy to answer any more questions.


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (debating)
Post by: Fmr. Pres. Duke on December 15, 2011, 03:35:13 PM
Let's confirm him. Because we have a help wanted sign up for this position, senators shouldn't let any petty past differences hold up tmth's confirmation.


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (debating)
Post by: Oakvale on December 15, 2011, 04:01:33 PM
Politico, first, thank you for providing your insight on the US Presidential race - I completely agree with you that Mitt Romney has to win the GOP nomination.

lol


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (debating)
Post by: Mopsus on December 16, 2011, 11:19:42 AM
Do you have any specific stories in mind, for if you do get confirmed?


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (debating)
Post by: tmthforu94 on December 16, 2011, 10:47:20 PM
Do you have any specific stories in mind, for if you do get confirmed?

Thank you for your question. Likely, in the next few days, I'll have a "strategy session" with Shua to form a gameplan on what we're going to do. I also plan to spend some time this weekend going through each regional legislature and coming up with a list of issues that are being discussed in each region, and from there, form stories to post for each region, as well as federal issues.

At the present time, I'm in a car traveling home from a basketball game (We won!!!), so I can't get you any of the specific ideas I have at home, but I promise you at some point this weekend, I'll get you some specifics.

Thank you.


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (debating)
Post by: tmthforu94 on December 18, 2011, 02:33:01 PM
Right now, I'd probably try and do a story about the potential court case in the Northeast about Simfan not being on the ballot. I would also do a Mideast story on a current bill which would raise the tax on marijuana, and would probably post a poll on where voters stand. I also plan on doing some more reading on the Right to Work bill being discussed in the IDS, and would post a story on that.



Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (debating)
Post by: Napoleon on December 18, 2011, 05:14:05 PM
Guess I'm voting against this nominee. Lovely.


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (debating)
Post by: bgwah on December 18, 2011, 05:29:47 PM
The 72 hour questioning period has ended. We're now voting on the nominee.



...aye


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (at final vote)
Post by: Napoleon on December 18, 2011, 05:42:15 PM
Remembering the whole GTO Ambassador thing and considering answers given in this thread, an unfortunate Nay.


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (debating)
Post by: Kaine for Senate '18 on December 18, 2011, 05:43:26 PM
Remembering the whole GTO Ambassador thing and considering answers given in this thread, an unfortunate Nay.

Absurd.  Tmthforu94 was an excellent GTO Ambassador; he played an important role in the internal working of the DoEA, as well as his work in expanding the GTO to include South Sudan and Somaliland.  Don't pretend this is anything other than a personal vote.


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (debating)
Post by: Napoleon on December 18, 2011, 05:51:58 PM
Remembering the whole GTO Ambassador thing and considering answers given in this thread, an unfortunate Nay.

Absurd.  Tmthforu94 was an excellent GTO Ambassador; he played an important role in the internal working of the DoEA, as well as his work in expanding the GTO to include South Sudan and Somaliland.  Don't pretend this is anything other than a personal vote.

I opposed expanding the GTO. That doesn't matter though. He said he would make that office relevant and didn't. This is the same old. I don't like the idea that the Northeast needs a SoIA story about a potential court case when Tmthforu has already shown his lack of knowledge regarding Northeast affairs. Give me a nominee who is willing to grind out the data. The Northeast needs a good and dedicated SoIA.


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (at final vote)
Post by: Hash on December 18, 2011, 08:04:36 PM
SoIA should just be abolished. Y'all kicking around a dead horse here.


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (at final vote)
Post by: tmthforu94 on December 18, 2011, 08:42:06 PM
Deleted my entire response. Nevermind.

Reject me, so Napoleon can have his way. Seriously. This is just a reminder why I started hating this game back over the summer.


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (at final vote)
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on December 18, 2011, 08:59:24 PM
Personally I despise    the nominee, but I see no valid political argument to vote against him.


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (at final vote)
Post by: bgwah on December 18, 2011, 09:28:49 PM
2-1 atm.

The Senate had been very active for a month or two there. Half of you disappeared rather abruptly... I guess it is the holidays.


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (at final vote)
Post by: Mopsus on December 18, 2011, 09:37:21 PM
Aye


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (at final vote)
Post by: tmthforu94 on December 18, 2011, 11:40:20 PM
I'm shocked people are going against Napoleons wishes. Even though there is almost no interest in this position and it would likely sit vacant for quite a while, that still would be better than putting a mean bully in there. Vacancy>>>>Tmth


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (at final vote)
Post by: Marokai Backbeat on December 18, 2011, 11:55:20 PM
Aye


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (at final vote)
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on December 18, 2011, 11:59:10 PM
Aye.


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (at final vote)
Post by: Marokai Backbeat on December 19, 2011, 01:16:42 AM
I want to vote for the nominee but he's not comporting himself very well.

Pointedly abstain.

Everywhere else on this forum, I really want to like you, but you are standing out in the Senate as much as beige wallpaper.


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (at final vote)
Post by: Napoleon on December 19, 2011, 01:24:24 AM
I want to vote for the nominee but he's not comporting himself very well.

Pointedly abstain.

Everywhere else on this forum, I really want to like you, but you are standing out in the Senate as much as beige wallpaper.

Didn't your stunning maturity cost you some confirmation votes before? ::)

I'd have voted Aye for this nominee until he posted his "ideas" regarding my region.


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (at final vote)
Post by: Fmr. Pres. Duke on December 19, 2011, 01:32:19 AM
Aye


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (at final vote)
Post by: Marokai Backbeat on December 19, 2011, 01:33:51 AM
I want to vote for the nominee but he's not comporting himself very well.

Pointedly abstain.

Everywhere else on this forum, I really want to like you, but you are standing out in the Senate as much as beige wallpaper.

Didn't your stunning maturity cost you some confirmation votes before? ::)

I'd have voted Aye for this nominee until he posted his "ideas" regarding my region.

It's not like Isaac is some sort of new face around these parts that we just don't know very well. We both know him, his history, and his positions on everything around here. This idea that there's some sort of shocking new revelations coming out about him in the eleventh hour that would obviously impede his ability to do the job of SoIA, is preposterous.

I would rather have someone in the position than no one in the position, and I think Tmth will do just fine. Hell, I would rather have a controversial SoIA just to make the position noticeable.

I've never cared about someone's attitude in these confirmation threads. Just their ability to do their jobs fairly and competently. Whether my "stunning maturity" cost me votes from people who, shockingly, already mostly disliked me in the past, doesn't matter. Brief though my time in the GM position was, I kicked ass in that job. Would you really have rather me not been there because I didn't kiss your hands or curtsey? Are you seriously willing to do the same thing here?


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (at final vote)
Post by: Napoleon on December 19, 2011, 01:42:06 AM
There were new revelations, namely, his idea to make a story about something that he has shown himself to be ignorant on. Ironically, I said just that in my previous post.

If the position is so unloved that a liberal president has to ask a conservative to be in charge of internal affairs, and that a Senate has to confirm because "no one else will do it" then I say abolish the damn thing. The position clearly isn't working as intended.



Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (at final vote)
Post by: Marokai Backbeat on December 19, 2011, 01:44:23 AM
Don't worry; we're certainly not at odds when it comes to abolishing the position.


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (at final vote)
Post by: 🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸 on December 19, 2011, 01:47:40 AM
This is frustrating.

I don't know why a regional election issue would be relevant one way or another to the SoIA position.  If there's a story from the SoIA on this, okay, but I don't see the need for it. What we really need is a more vibrant free press to discuss these things that you don't need a GM type to find out about.

If there's any concerns about what kind of stories the nominee would publish, is the GMs role relevant here?  Honestly I'm quite confused about whether I have a role to approve stories by the cabinet secretaries before they are posted. 

I think Tmth would do a good job here, if he still wants it. Unfortunately, there's no consensus about what SoIAs duties are in the first place, and wasn't addressed in the questioning before the vote started, so it's not surprising people don't see eye to eye.


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (at final vote)
Post by: MASHED POTATOES. VOTE! on December 19, 2011, 06:50:15 AM
Meh (read: aye)


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (at final vote)
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on December 19, 2011, 08:48:29 AM
I want to vote for the nominee but he's not comporting himself very well.

Pointedly abstain.

Everywhere else on this forum, I really want to like you, but you are standing out in the Senate as much as beige wallpaper.

Yes, well, I'm a full-time university student, I just finished finals, I'm not sleeping well, and I have a mousy personality in pretty much any context that can't be spun as academic, which is unlikely to change even if I start introducing legislation, which I intend to as soon as we get underway with our newly-elected members in January. Sorry.

I'm abstaining because this hearing has been completely ridiculous and childish. The nominee hasn't behaved notably worse than my colleagues and I certainly don't dislike him, so I won't vote no; the goings-on have failed to convince me that there is any reason for him to be SoIA, so I won't vote yes. I agree that we should abolish this position if it's such a damn hardship.


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (at final vote)
Post by: tmthforu94 on December 19, 2011, 09:04:48 AM
Nathan, you didn't say one word about any of this during the hearing. I would have been happy to have adressed your concerns.

I wouldn't just write about the pending court case as SoIA, but I can assure you I would have an unbiased opinion. I don't particularly stand one way or another on the constitutionality of it - I just stated my disappointment that someone who campaigned so hard won't be on the ballot.


Why don't you all just change your vote to Nay? Because having NO SoIA is a heckuva lot better than having Tmth as SoIA.


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (at final vote)
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on December 19, 2011, 09:08:26 AM
My concerns are with the way we, as a government, were behaving during the hearing. It didn't strike me as the sort of thing that could have been changed by the most junior Senator in the body asking for a halt to these asinine feuds that have been going for a lot longer than I have. It was also not a substantive concern that could be questioned about, since it had precisely to do with how the hearing was itself being done.

I agree with you substantively on the ballot access issue in question and I have no actual active objection to you becoming Secretary of Internal Affairs, which is why, as I said, I did not vote no. I hold nothing against you or anybody else involved in this outside the situation itself and my putting my dismay at this process on the record was not meant to imply otherwise.

I have however introduced legislation to abolish the office, which both Napoleon and Marokai have expressed a desire to do.


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (at final vote)
Post by: Napoleon on December 19, 2011, 09:09:06 AM
What pending court case?


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (at final vote)
Post by: tmthforu94 on December 19, 2011, 09:17:15 AM
The potential of a courtcase between Simfan and the Northeast.

Would it really be harmful, though, Nathan, in the meantime to actually give someone a chance at SoIA who wants to see it succeed? You could have said that was your original reason for voting abstain, instead of saying it was only because I wasn't comporting myself well.


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (at final vote)
Post by: World politics is up Schmitt creek on December 19, 2011, 09:21:10 AM
I'm sorry for how I phrased that. I should have made it clearer that I didn't think anybody was comporting themselves well. I was annoyed at you just because you were the nominee in question and the one being voted on, so sorry about that.

I think my annoyance at how this has gone is well and truly on the record by now so I will change my vote to Aye.


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (at final vote)
Post by: ZuWo on December 19, 2011, 09:29:22 AM
I don't know if it is legal for someone who is neither the appointee nor a Senator to write anything in this thread, but here's what I have to say anyway:

Give Tmth a chance, and judge him by the way he works. It's great to have someone who actually wants to do this job and is motivated to write stories that are linked to current regional and Atlasian-wide controversies.
Do not vote against Tmth for personal reasons (Senator Kalwejt who voted "aye" despite not being on good terms with the appointee shows that it is very well possible to distinguish between personal feuds and governmental matters) or because you want to abolish this position; you can still abolish this position at a later point in time. But as long as this position still exists you should do everything you can to find someone for the job.


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (at final vote)
Post by: bgwah on December 19, 2011, 11:12:45 PM
With Nathan's vote change, the nominee has 6 ayes and 1 nays, and has thus been confirmed.


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (confirmed)
Post by: tmthforu94 on December 19, 2011, 11:17:46 PM
Thank you to the 6 Senators who were willing to give me a chance, rather than let this position sit vacant for weeks. And to the 3 who didn't vote, ill just pretend you felt the same way. ;)

Finals end Wednesday for me, and that's when I hope to get down to business. I also hope you'll be able to excuse my absence Christmas weekend - no one would probably be around to read it anyways. ;)


Title: Re: Confirmation Hearing: tmthforu94 for SoIA (confirmed)
Post by: Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee on December 20, 2011, 11:52:03 AM
Would have voted Aye, for the record. :P


I do have a legitimate excuse though. I got a new computer finally and it is even slower on the internet then my old one (which I am using at present). I have been spending most of my time since Thursday trying to get the new one to operate faster and not just sit there. I got it to load a grand total of two pages on the Atlas forum yesterday morning before jamming and requiring a complete shutdown.

It's the Connection Stupids! :P And because it doesn't have the cookies downloaded it will be worse before it starts to get better and then only marginally so.