Deeply disturbing (Part Neuf)

[Adam Griffin]

Pursuant to Executive Order 1 by President Lumine, the following executive orders have now been rescinded:

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[Adam Griffin]

Indeed, several of the past Executive Orders address crises that are over or mandate things that are going to be done regardless of the situation. Averroes Nix's Executive Order N°18, DemPGH's Executive Order N°6 and Cranberry's Executive Order N°2 do refer to ongoing events, but that will be dealt with in a more efficient manner once the cabinet is confirmed. It should also be noted that the Order of the Gold and Silver Star can only be taken away by the Senate and  that as far as I'm concerned I cannot cancellate the pardons of another President.

Perhaps I'm not following on Averroes #18, but wouldn't these fines begin to go into effect in 2015, had they not begun to come into compliance by September? Also, has the SoEA issued any updates on the situation in the Middle East to warrant the lift of the travel ban? I'd also be quite interested in how the humanitarian crisis relief went in the Midwest; usually these sorts of things don't resolve themselves in a mere month.

I also italicized/asterisked the Gold/Silver Star EOs for that reason, but since the law doesn't specify that the award may be revoked only by the Senate, I felt this was unclear.

[Adam Griffin]

And it just keeps piling up!

[Adam Griffin]

What does "strategically delayed" mean in this context? Do you think Cynic would fail a vote for GM right now?

Putting one forward and not the others would give it all away, no? Pretty sure at least a couple of those would definitely fail with the current Senate makeup (assuming it were to do its job properly).

[Adam Griffin]

Griffin:

So good to see you active again!

[Adam Griffin]

Eh, just tonight.

Well that's a shame.

Trying to move away from the needless fight, yes, the idea was to wait until the reforms. That said, taking too much time before having the cabinet can be a problem, so I am talking to the Vice-President regarding that issue.

That said, to suggest that there's the delay is motivated by the election is simply ludicrous, so I would suggest dropping that argument.

We then call on the administration to immediately open nomination hearings for all of its cabinet nominees. Of course, by the time they all conclude at this point, the election will be over...

EDIT: We commend the administration for finally moving forward with the nomination process after one week of uncertainty, instability and doubt.

[Adam Griffin]

RIP PACIFIC



It has come to my attention that the Pacific Government has been silent for a grand total of 11 days. Not a peep from a single Councillor or the Governor, despite the fact that there is currently a vote open to consolidate the power of the current regime by allowing these Councillors to serve for four-month terms (although nary a single Councillor has voted on it yet). The current Governor also didn't log in at all for nearly 10 days (until just a couple of days ago).

With no specific expulsion procedure in the Constitution for inactivity of officers (other than generic recall provisions) and the Council on the verge (assuming it can show up) of doubling the length of its term, this is deeply disturbing!

[Adam Griffin]

Who all are even Councillors now? I'm assuming the Wiki is not up-to-date, and therefore Devin, Superique and Never are not Councillors anymore?

[Adam Griffin]

Hmm, so actually I am a registered Federalist, and I have decided that I will stay that way.
I also promise to vote on every future bill.

It appears that Potus2036 and Spamage are the only two Councilors. I can't find a record of where you were appointed; Nix was elected as the third Councilor in October and there was no mention of you being appointed in Simfan's office.

[Adam Griffin]

Hmm, so actually I am a registered Federalist, and I have decided that I will stay that way.
I also promise to vote on every future bill.

It appears that Potus2036 and Spamage are the only two Councilors. I can't find a record of where you were appointed; Nix was elected as the third Councilor in October and there was no mention of you being appointed in Simfan's office.

Appointed under Cranberry.

When he was Governor? We've had elections since then.

[Adam Griffin]

A quick glance at the Senate Noticeboard reveals some deeply disturbing findings:

While we currently have a total of 7 bills on the floor that have been introduced by members of the Federalist Party, the Democratic-Republican Party, The People's Party and the Labor Party, we are sorely lacking further participation in the pending queue when it comes to our Senators:

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A total of 20 pieces of legislation are in queue at the moment, with only 3 Senators being responsible for their introduction. A Senate cannot properly function with such lackadaisical participation. I highly encourage Senators JCL, Yankee, Polnut, Bacon King, Bore, and Cranberry to help balance out this dynamic by scouring their brains for huge problems that we face as a country, and acting upon them. We'll give Dr. Cynic a pass since he is soon to be confirmed as GM.

[Adam Griffin]

Deeply disturbing data has just been brought to light, showing a deeply disturbing trend.

This data tells us that the game has not been this unequal in terms of at-large Senate representation since at least Dissolution (considering the dynamic that was in place before Dissolution, it is very likely that this level of inequality hasn't existed since far before that).

For the first time in several years, more Atlasians lack representation in the At-Large Senate class than are represented by members of their own party/group.

Below are three deeply disturbing charts/datasets:

• The first one shows which parties held seats after every election, and how many (20% = 1 seats, 40% = 2 seats, and so on)
• The second one shows what percentage of the game each party that held seats comprised (in terms of voters)
• The third chart shows the percentage of the game that had a member of their party/group elected to the Senate after each election, and the deeply disturbing percentage of the game that did not

[Adam Griffin]

The decripit and corrupted power structures of Labor-Federalism have collapsed before our eyes. Is this new equilibrium not merely an inversion of the equally unrepresentative period of their dominance?

There'll be no inversions here! Quite the contrary: starting out, we see that over 70% of voters were represented in the at-large system via the Old Duopoly; only once Dissolution began did more and more voters go without representation. At the first peak of the new “two-party” system in terms of its size relative to the electorate (in early 2013), more than 80% of voters had representation.

Sidenote: Even when TPP had 5 or more Senate seats then, the representation of various groups in the game was still quite thorough. If you break it down by party, Whigs/Federalists are the ones who have consistently held a disproportionate advantage in terms of at-large representation for nearly three years (save for one term in 2013). Labor, in contrast, held a disproportionate advantage for only about a third of the time covered here, from August 2013-August 2014.

Only once we began to see splinter movements re-emerge in the middle of 2013 (Progressive Union, NM-AM, Democratic-Republicans, etc) did the share of voters without representation increase once again. As the former faded, after Xahar left the Senate and as the two major parties began to grow in size relative to the electorate once again, voters' representation in the at-large system increased yet again, of course.

Lately, however, the deeply disturbing concentration of at-large Senatorial power in the hands of a few has only pushed the number of Atlasians without representation to historic heights. A majority of Atlasians now go without representation in this class – something that potentially has never occurred before, and something even the more effective Old Duopoly never managed to inflict upon the country!

Representation is most representative when the duopoly is unleashed, and not the other way around! If anything, we need to put our foot on the gas and accelerate that dynamic in order to reverse these deeply disturbing trends!

[Adam Griffin]

In other words, many Atlasians (presumably including a number of Laborites and Federalists) are so fed up with the corrupt Labor-Federalist duopoly that they aren't blindly voting for anyone their party nominates (or at least are doing so less often).  In what world is that a bad thing?  The most disturbing thing about this is the idea that anyone would be disturbed that The People are voting for candidates based on their merits instead of based on their party affiliation. 

Here's a radical idea for any party bosses who find this disturbing: If you don't like the election results maybe you should spend more time crafting a platform and message that appeal to enough Atlasians for you to develop a winning coalition and less time complaining about how voters aren't mindlessly supporting anyone their party nominates.

The current imbalance isn't backed up by election results...

[Adam Griffin]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The rounds of deeply disturbing news just keep rolling in, this time: in the form of an unexpected impeachment proceeding for one of our Senators!

ARTICLE OF IMPEACHMENT AGAINST SENATOR BACON KING

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Having failed to post a singly post in the Fantasy Government for seven consecutive days (his last post: November 24, 2014, 05:17:45 pm), an article of impeachment shall be automatically placed before Senate in accordance with Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution and thus considered accordingly

Best regards,
Senator Windjammer

Wow, nobody saw that coming! Deeply disturbing, indeed!

[Adam Griffin]

That is disappointing. Oh well, we have procedures for a reason. BK needs to step up, or resign.

But looking over the odd collection of half-baked 'attacks' in this thread (the effect of most being that any future criticism of something genuinely awful the President does will likely be dismissed by many as just another hackish attack) one can't help thinking though that Griffin, far from thriving in 'retirement', increasingly resembles an old man slipping into senility, losing control of his bowels in the street as people politely pretend not to notice. Deeply disturbed indeed.

LOL

[Adam Griffin]

More deeply disturbing developments from the Pacific are now coming to light, in the same mold as the ones discovered earlier this month.

Governor Simfan has been effectively MIA from his duties as Governor for approximately ten days. After posting nothing for five days, a leave of absence was requested during the holidays. That leave of absence ended four days ago, but still we see no activity whatsoever in the Pacific Government or from the Governor.

In addition to this, the GM Independence Act voting booth, which was opened on November 1st, has yet to be closed and the results have yet to be certified by the Governor.

The last action taken by the Council was approximately one week ago, on November 24th, when Former Chief Justice Ebowed was confirmed as Pacific CJO.


While Councillor Averroes has recently introduced multiple pieces of legislation, none of them have been brought to the floor. It has been four days.

In addition to this, the following two bills – passed by the Council and landing on the Governor's desk on November 1 – still await the Governor's signature or veto:

Governor, the following two bills have passed the Council and await your signature or veto.

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Such deeply disturbing trends seem to now be the status quo in the Pacific with the current leadership.

[Adam Griffin]

But remember, Griffin's "retiring" from Atlasia

I've always said that I'm retiring from party politics. If you consider this "party politics", then you're sorely mistaken. I'm merely in the same boat as many other people who remained active but no longer had to maintain any elected responsibilities (I'm coining this condition "Napoleon Retirement Syndrome"), in part because I acknowledge that I do not have the time or dedication to give to any elected office right now, and therefore won't seek one. Speaking of retirement, when is your next unscheduled deregistration?

In short I think what we're all saying here is that we'd appreciate constructive criticism as opposed to... concern trolling, the latter of which this rather appears to be.

Oooh, oooh! Let me try:

Do the fycking job you decided to run for in the first place, or get the fyck out of the job. It's not my job to coddle you or tell you to do your job; if anything, it's the people who elected you's responsibility and your own.

With all due respect Adam please don't be such a prick

I spent literally four days straight preparing my girlfriend's grandmother's house for thanksgiving, then there was thanksgiving and black friday, then I was able to spend time with my brother for the first time in a year. It's a holiday- I don't see what I did wrong, especially considering we allow Supreme Court justices to go half a year without posting. I didn't realize it had been a whole week but come on dude who would pick Atlasia over family

Certainly you know better than to say what's in bold there; obviously comparing the two branches in such a way is a terrible and reckless comparison.

And in regards to both Simfan and BK, one must merely ask: how little are others who play the game's free time worth in ya'll's eyes? The assertion that neither of you literally could be bothered to jump in for a week because of holiday stuff and school is, well, a bit much. Practically everyone on here has one or both of those responsibilities right now as well; I suppose had they taken the same approach, the entire game would have just ground to a halt! But this is a recurring issue with both of you, so I frankly take all of this with a grain of salt.

Furthermore (BK), you made a total of 16 posts on the forum during the time in question, including some that would have taken more than just a minute or two to type out. Ditto for Simfan, who made a comparable number of posts during the same time, many in much more detail. I think the reality is that y'all just didn't consider this particular board of much interest.


But those who are guilty of massive and repetitive inactivity (and those who support them) can continue to spend many times more energy attacking me and my motivations as they do apologizing for what they did and addressing the situation if they so choose, and I'll just keep humming along and bringing these transgressions - you know, the ones that actually impact game play more than anything else - to the attention of voters.

[Adam Griffin]

Another round of deeply disturbing news has come to my attention: this time, in the form of unawareness of recently-passed statute, Senate feet-dragging and Senate vacancies!

In April, I recall digging through statute after (some instance I can't remember) and finding out that we had a hole in statute and constitutional provisions for what to do when a Senate vacancy occurred shortly before the end of the term. I came up with an idea to fix this, and then-Senator Talleyrand introduce legislation (shortly before I was inaugurated as Senator) to address the situation.

In early May, the Senate approved The Proportional Representation Act Fix of 2014, which consisted of two parts. The first was a constitutional amendment (approved by voters), which tied the cut-off for special elections to the end of the term (instead of the previous month's election for the new term). The second was statute, signed into law by then-President Duke, to allow/clarify that major parties could appoint replacement Senators if a member of their party/Senator were to resign their seat less than five weeks before the election.

Recently, Dr. Cynic was confirmed as GM to replace an otherwise failing and inactive institution. Sadly, this confirmation hearing took more than one month - despite the fact that there were no controversies surrounding the nominee. While reforms to the GM office were occurring during this time, I see no reason why the Senate could not move to confirm the nominee as quickly as possible anyway.

Dr. Cynic decided to become an independent two weeks or so before his confirmation to avoid any criticisms as a potential partisan GM, and I can applaud the sentiment. Unfortunately, we will now have a Senate vacancy for the remainder of the term because multiple entities failed to remember or take advantage of the Proportional Representation Act Fix of 2014. Deeply disturbing!

Had Dr. Cynic simply remained a member of TPP until his confirmation was complete and then resigned/became an independent, TPP Chair Polnut would have been able to appoint his replacement. Because the switch to independent occurred before this, however, and because he was an independent at the time of resignation, this seat shall remain vacant for the remainder of the term (because the resignation took place less than 35 days before the end of the term, and the final revision to the act doesn't specify that a special election can occur for Senators who resign and aren't members of major parties: a potential idea for improvement of the existing statute/constitution).

There are multiple angles to address here:

1) The first would be the Senator/GM in question. Now, in his defense, Dr. Cynic was not active during the time that this statute and amendment were being passed, and would have less than ample knowledge of its existence. On the other hand, it is worth saying that the first use of the PRAF of 2014 was done by me when I resigned my seat a few weeks early in August - and Dr. Cynic was who I chose to replace me in the Senate. I do not recall precisely if we discussed the particulars of the legislation before he was appointed, so he can't really be blamed. At any rate, blame shouldn't really be foisted upon him, in part because...

2) The Senate and the administration spent way too much time trying to confirm him. Had the Senate acted to confirm a perfectly-competent GM in a reasonable time-frame - instead of diddling about and waiting on an amendment that ultimately wasn't going to abolish the office in question - Dr. Cynic would have been confirmed as a GM - as an independent - before the five-week window, and a special election would have been called.

3) The Party of the former Senator also can be scrutinized for not being aware of this recently-passed legislation. I was perplexed when I saw this all unfolding, and wondered to myself how no one else in the People's Party was aware that they were potentially losing a free Senate seat for the remainder of the term, especially when the debate on the bill occurred so recently. I saw it as merely a possibility at first, expecting rather that the Senate would confirm Dr. Cynic well within the time frame for a special election to be triggered and that it wouldn't be an issue. Unfortunately, this all dragged out so long that I forgot about it and, had Dr. Cynic been a member of TPP at the time of confirmation/resignation, TPP would have been able to appoint that seat, so my initial worries actually did manifest.

Because of the combination of these events, we will now have an unnecessary vacancy in the Senate (combined likely with several other inactive Senators) for the remainder of the term, which is of course deeply disturbing. Particularly with respect to election law, we all must do a better job at knowing what is on the books and utilizing them to ensure that situations like these don't occur in the future.

[Adam Griffin]

The Party was well aware that Cynic's confirmation would create a vacancy if he was an independent at the time of his resignation, and at least two people made him aware of this via private message.

Then why exactly did this unfold in the way in which it did? It was my understanding that Cynic left only because of the perceived conflict of being GM, and not because of any other issues.

[Adam Griffin]

So it is now somehow our fault, as a party, that Cynic decided to switch - even though multiple sources in the party made him aware of it, and he made this decision to stay as an independent on his own.

Holy Christ, you're more desperate to attack us than your party's only governor is for a First Gentleman.

Merely asking questions here. As I clearly laid out, there are multiple pieces of the puzzle. It's not all about you.

[Adam Griffin]

I'll leave it to the people who were involved in those conversations to explain their result.

That said, the possibility that Cynic's confirmation would leave a Senate seat vacant for nearly a month was the subject of considerable angst among members of our party for several weeks, and our leadership did everything that they could to prevent it from happening.

Well, at the very least, I'm glad to hear that others were aware of the developments. I was sorely disappointed to see this happen after it appeared no one noticed and after we worked to minimize the chance of this occurring.

[Adam Griffin]

Allow me to speak for my decisions here. This is my POV of everything that went down. Make what you will of them:

I was going to register as an independent no matter what as GM, because I believe the office shouldn't be involved with party politics. When I registered as an independent, I was messaged by multiple people, who I will not name because they have a right to the privacy of our conversations making me aware and asking if I was aware of it. I explained that I was aware and I received an understanding and fair reply. There were no hard feelings. No feuding.

Now, why did I register as an independent early? Here's the deal on that from my perspective: My confirmation was being slowed so that a Senator could be appointed. I spoke with the President over this and made my displeasure clear. The office of GM has always been most important to me and I wanted to get started at it as soon as I possibly could. In order to break the stalemate and because I was going to do it anyway, I registered as an independent to speed up the process and get the confirmation process going. There would be a special election rather than an appointed Senator, but I felt it needed to be done. Now, here's where it goes a little bit awry and my displeasure was pretty evident:

The confirmation process was smooth to start with. However, through whatever reason, it was heavily delayed even before the start of the holiday. I should've been at this job at least a week before I was actually confirmed and in the confirmation thread, I and several other Senators made no secret how pissed and impatient they and I were becoming. Also, I felt stuck in a limbo as a sitting Senator. I had no idea when I'd be confirmed, so how could I focus on working on and debating legislation if I could be confirmed at any time and would it create a conflict of interest? Those were the questions I was asking myself internally and it went on longer than it should have.

It's not my desire to lay blame at anyone over this situation. Not the leadership of TPP, not the President, not anyone. I've explained my action over that as best I can and my feelings of the time. Now, I could've gone back and re-registered with TPP to avoid all this, but I didn't because then I'd have to re-register again as an independent as I intended to do anyway. To have done so would have made me both feel and look ridiculous. I had hoped to be confirmed in time for a special election, but I wasn't.

Now, my job is to make the office of GM, which has been dysfunctional for years, work as best I can. That is what I intend to do... Unless my statements here have pissed everyone off and I'm fired tomorrow.

...Wow. This brings up a lot of questions for sure, but I'm too tired right now to try to really delve deep.

So basically, your nomination was being slowed down (for a month, no less) by your party and/or the administration because they were in fact acutely aware of this, and wanted to make an appointment rather than have a special election? Man, I had no idea at the time how right I might have actually been...

[Adam Griffin]

These deeply disturbing facts simply speak for themselves:

[Adam Griffin]

Part Dix coming soon!