Deeply disturbing (Part Neuf)

[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?

[Oakvale]

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?

The only one I know of is Spamage.

[I Will Not Be Wrong]

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.

[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.

[I Will Not Be Wrong]

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.

[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.

[I Will Not Be Wrong]

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.

Not sure. All I know is that I am still asked by others in the Pacific to vote on bills, which is why I am here.
But yeah, you're right.
I shall move back to the Mideast.

[Cranberry]

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.

Not sure. All I know is that I am still asked by others in the Pacific to vote on bills, which is why I am here.
But yeah, you're right.
I shall move back to the Mideast.

I was Governor from July to Mid-August, I did appoint Outofbox in July I guess, but he has been no Councillor since the August elections, to my knowledge.

[Simfan34]

Outofbox is not a councilor, not since, what... June?

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Outofbox is not a councilor, not since, what... June?

lol

[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.

[Maxwell]

And a good chunk of that is legislation TNF has pushed over and over and over again, so 20 is even less.

[Dr. Cynic]

I will say that I never did have a talent for writing legislation, so any bill that I sponsored and wrote in my Senate term, there were about 5 of them or so, were generally not particularly lengthy or life changing. I anticipated being GM by this point though so that's why my Senate participation has been rather quiet. That and for a few other personal things. I haven't spent a lot of time on the forum. Fortunately after Thanksgiving, I'll have more time.

[bore]

Yeah, I've never really been a legislation writer, I much prefer to amend bills that come to the floor than write my own, but especially with me being speaker and being on the electoral commission, I'm not able to devote all my energy to writing legislation.

I will say that an amendment which I just introduced now allows a senator who's not TNF Deus or Windjammer's  bill to sail right to the front of the queue, so if anyone does want a bill on the floor, it will happen pretty quickly.

[Talleyrand]

I tend to agree with the statements made by Bore. A lot of Senators have proven themselves great not by writing the original legislation, but tweaking it directly on the floor. Not everyone can be a prolific legislation writer like TNF or Averroes, and that should be okay as long as they can find another niche for themselves in the Senate.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Yeah, I'd like to echo the comments my NE CJO Talleyrand and Senator Bore, the latter of whom's record proves that it is possible to be an excellent Senator while not authoring TNF-levels of legislation.  The truth is that it isn't too hard to tell who the good and active Senators are regardless of the quantity of the laws they author.  For example, I'm pretty sure that all but a tiny handful of people would that agree that Polnut has been a terrific Senator.  By the same token, it is easy to tell when people aren't doing a good job because they either do almost literally nothing once elected or you basically forget they are even Senators

Btw, BK was elected recently enough that there hasn't really been enough time yet to fully evaluate his service in the Senate during this term.  He seems to be reasonably active in the confirmation threads, however.  Cranberry has been rather busy being thrust into the Presidency during the Great Chaos, so he should probably be given the benefit of the doubt (especially since his Presidency was exactly what Atlasia needed when he took office).

[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

[Oakvale]

Perhaps we should just do away with elections entirely and assign Senate seats based on membership numbers!

[Gustaf]

Huh? Federal funds rate of 0.5%? I hope that is not as dumb as it sounds. Economist-Gustaf will otherwise cry many tears.

[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!

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

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.

[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!

[Oakvale]

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.

[SWE]

This wouldn't have happened if I was Senator