Confirmation Hearing: Potus 2036 for SoEA/SecState

[Adam Griffin]

My concern is your activity levels. As someone who served as a President with a foreign policy focus and in the office you wish to be placed in, I am deeply concerned about your quite considerable and unannounced absences.

What pledge will you make to either ensure regular activity, and what you will do in the event that you cannot satisfy activity requirements.

Senator, nothing I can say will excuse the inactivity in the Mideast. There is nothing I will be able to tell you that will make you think it was any less of a bad thing than it was. All I can tell you is that I will be an active Secretary.

So what do you have to say about being MIA from the Pacific Council since November 1st?

[Adam Griffin]

My concern is your activity levels. As someone who served as a President with a foreign policy focus and in the office you wish to be placed in, I am deeply concerned about your quite considerable and unannounced absences.

What pledge will you make to either ensure regular activity, and what you will do in the event that you cannot satisfy activity requirements.

Senator, nothing I can say will excuse the inactivity in the Mideast. There is nothing I will be able to tell you that will make you think it was any less of a bad thing than it was. All I can tell you is that I will be an active Secretary.

So what do you have to say about being MIA from the Pacific Council since November 1st?

I've tried to keep things active, but the broader region wasn't and isn't interested in debate or involvement. I brought up a bill on abortion, one of the most divisive issues, and the only discussion on it were the opening statements I gave.

Mr. Griffin, I understand it's a great, quick way to score cheap political points in this hearing. But let's not misrepresent the issue. I am not responsible for the region's inactivity. I've attempted to bring up lightning rod, hot topic issues, and no one will engage with me. Where is the Pacific Labor party when I'm proposing a law to ban polygamy and incest? Or when I'm fighting for the right to life? Where is the opposition?

You're not responsible for the region's inactivity at all? So you're telling the Senate that two of the pending pieces of legislation that had been up for a vote for almost two weeks - Amendment to the Revised Rules of Order and More Governing, Less Campaigning Amendment - were not your responsibility at all? It most certainly was your responsibility to vote on these two items; you can't say that "nobody wanted to engage me with me" is a sufficient excuse for you not to at least provide two, one-word responses to indicate your stance. In fact, one of those two pieces of legislation would have likely passed, depending on your own vote.

And in case you haven't noticed, I'm retired from party politics, so you can stop the whole "Labor = Griffin" shtick right now. To answer your rhetorical question, though: Labor seems to have 3 or 4 members left in the Pacific right now, almost all of whom are not active players and haven't been for ages. As it stands today, TPP is the "left-wing" party in the Pacific and the Federalist Party is the "right-wing" party, so you shouldn't be asking that question to me or my party.

[Adam Griffin]

My concern is your activity levels. As someone who served as a President with a foreign policy focus and in the office you wish to be placed in, I am deeply concerned about your quite considerable and unannounced absences.

What pledge will you make to either ensure regular activity, and what you will do in the event that you cannot satisfy activity requirements.

Senator, nothing I can say will excuse the inactivity in the Mideast. There is nothing I will be able to tell you that will make you think it was any less of a bad thing than it was. All I can tell you is that I will be an active Secretary.

So what do you have to say about being MIA from the Pacific Council since November 1st?

I've tried to keep things active, but the broader region wasn't and isn't interested in debate or involvement. I brought up a bill on abortion, one of the most divisive issues, and the only discussion on it were the opening statements I gave.

Mr. Griffin, I understand it's a great, quick way to score cheap political points in this hearing. But let's not misrepresent the issue. I am not responsible for the region's inactivity. I've attempted to bring up lightning rod, hot topic issues, and no one will engage with me. Where is the Pacific Labor party when I'm proposing a law to ban polygamy and incest? Or when I'm fighting for the right to life? Where is the opposition?

You're not responsible for the region's inactivity at all? So you're telling the Senate that two of the pending pieces of legislation that had been up for a vote for almost two weeks - Amendment to the Revised Rules of Order and More Governing, Less Campaigning Amendment - were not your responsibility at all? It most certainly was your responsibility to vote on these two items; you can't say that "nobody wanted to engage me with me" is a sufficient excuse for you not to at least provide two, one-word responses to indicate your stance. In fact, one of those two pieces of legislation would have likely passed, depending on your own vote.

And in case you haven't noticed, I'm retired from party politics, so you can stop the whole "Labor = Griffin" shtick right now. To answer your rhetorical question, though: Labor seems to have 3 or 4 members left in the Pacific right now, almost all of whom are not active players and haven't been for ages. As it stands today, TPP is the "left-wing" party in the Pacific and the Federalist Party is the "right-wing" party, so you shouldn't be asking that question to me or my party.

Of course I'm partially responsible for the way the region is. I share the blame with 23 other citizens of my region. I said I would accept write-in votes in the Council election because no one else filed to run. The citizens didn't even know there was an election in order to declare their intent. So, Mr. Griffin, before you attempt to paint me as some sort of reaper of regions, let us all remember that this problem runs deep and has been there for a while. I said I would fill a seat on the Council because no one else declared. That hardly comes with a mandate. I've attempted to bring up controversial legislation, at the expense the a hope of returning to electoral politics, in order to drum up activity. It's not popular being pro-life or pro-monogamy in this game. But that couldn't even attract the attention of the region.

Yeah, I never said you were a "reaper of regions"; please don't take your role in all of this so seriously or make it sound so grandiose. The point is that you were a member of the Council, and you were inactive for two weeks. You still are a member of the Council to my knowledge, and still did not weigh in on any of the pending pieces of legislation, even while you were addressing concerns in this thread.

This isn't about 23 other people. It's not about other regions. It's about the fact that there were two pieces of legislation up for a vote for two weeks and you as a Councillor did not even vote on those. It'd be a different story, all of this, had you simply cast votes on the pending legislation and then had nothing else to vote on or debate due to everyone else not doing their jobs, either. That's not the case. There were two pieces of legislation; all you had to do was say "Aye" or "Nay" and you didn't even do that. This is merely about a proven track record of you abandoning the basic functions of the jobs you sign up for in the game, and nothing else.

[Adam Griffin]

I hope all of the Senators who voted Aye are fine with the inevitable public shaming that will come when this nominee drops out of sight for the third time in the span of just a few months as an officeholder.