Lumine/Rpryor for President/Vice-President (Defense Policy)

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Inactivity reins still on several places of our Republic. We carry on with a model of gridlock in Congress, as the bicameral system slows things and complicates them despite the hard work of many accomplished people in Nyman.

Lumine I like and respect you, but this is really unfair to the hard work of Scott, PiT, myself and the rules changes that NeverAgain, myself and PiT worked hard on.

I realize you are opposed to the bicameralist system, but we passed the CR in less than a week. The Budget Process and Control Act in 3 weeks. There are processes for simultaneous consideration of bills now The last 3 VPs in a row have been actively engaged in the proceedings of Congress and their work has kept bills flowing, passing through both chambers and on to the President.

This may have been accurate six months ago, but it is not the case now. In the Fourth Congress, one bill was put on my desk. In the Fifth Congress, over a dozen was placed on DFW's desk.


You complain of a seeming move to the left, but I would note that we have regionalized healthcare regulations with a bill that is very similar to on you helped me, shua and Duke write in 2014 (though this one now is more conservative with a regional opt out for the public option). The surest path to a real leftward slide is to return to a unicameralist system or worse a Parliamentary system where there would be no checks on a Labor majority and stuff like single payer would slide through with ease just like what happened in 2009 with Fritzcare. And it took 5 years to change that I would note, I was there for all five.

I would bring to mind the TNF bills, especially the attempt to nationalize power, which only failed because together we Garlanded the VP nomination as you will recall, until after the next election. Had the VP not been vacant, it would have passed. Under a bicameralist system, such obstructionism of the VP nomination would not be rendered necessary as a desperate last stand of free marketers to stave off socialism.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I realize you are opposed to the bicameralist system, but we passed the CR in less than a week. The Budget Process and Control Act in 3 weeks. There are processes for simultaneous consideration of bills now The last 3 VPs in a row have been actively engaged in the proceedings of Congress and their work has kept bills flowing, passing through both chambers and on to the President.

This may have been accurate six months ago, but it is not the case now. In the Fourth Congress, one bill was put on my desk. In the Fifth Congress, over a dozen was placed on DFW's desk.

     I've been VP for less than two weeks and Congress has already passed seven bills and resolutions under my watch. Bicameralism absolutely has what it takes to work as a system; it just needs active people in charge. If we abolish game mechanics that have only struggled due to the inactivity of some past officeholders, then we are only lowering standards when what we should be doing is rising to the occasion ourselves.

Yes and a lot of mistakes were made when Congress was getting started, that produced the string of horrible Congresses in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th terms.  

We restored the pre-reset Noticeboard, we started linking and signing off on chamber votes and started engaging in simultaneous consideration of bills, which we did for the Budget Control Act and Healthcare (which passed relatively quickly, once the bill itself was written, though Scott's thread did remain dormant for 8 months, the actually bill we passed was finished in early August. The House thread reflects this).

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Also, in terms of getting that budget thing going, it really would have been a big help if you had created Noticeboard threads for the first and second Congresses as VP, because it is making digging up revenue/expense generating bills problematic. It took ten minutes to collect them all from Goldwater's and PiT's threads covering twice as many Congresses.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

* Though I make no guarantees when Yankee inevitably storms in at 1 AM and starts with his 1,000 word quote-storms

September 25, 2017, 01:38:26 am

Eh, who cares

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

A constitutional amendment which will eliminate the House of Representatives, and work extensive reform into the Senate to turn it back into a Unicameral System, which nonetheless continues to respect both the representation of the regions and the will of the general electorate. I propose expanding the Senate to eleven members, with six Senators elected as they are by the regions and five Senators elected in At-Large seats, allowing us to lose six government offices to make government smaller and more efficient (which on by itself is a consistent, key conservative principle) while respecting the duality of a Congress which is nonetheless more efficient by using a single chamber.

My fellow Atlasians, is it really such a bad idea?[/justify]

[/quote]

I find it rather disturbing that you intentionally set up the inequity of 5 and 6 with Regions coming off slightly better off in the deal by 1. Surely you can spare 1 extra office to 1) make them both equal and 2) improve the quality of At-Large Elections.

On the last note I would make a point that STV works far better at higher numbers and tracks far more closely with the Popular Vote with numbers higher than 5. But the elimination of the People's House, replaced with permanent minority bloc of "At-Large" Senators, with a low number that long proved ineffective, will distort the voice of the people and would shut out a lot of people. I am all for regional rights and representation, but the government has to be responsive to the people as well.

It takes 20 votes to win an At-Large Senate seat with 5 offices. It takes 12 to win election for a 9 member House. This will prove most dire on conservatives like Rfayette and independents generally, like Poirot, who fell 5 short and would have instead been 14 votes short of getting into office with 5 seats. More moderate figures like yourself and myself, would do just fine, which I would note according to your argument contributes to the echo chamber consensus.

Frankly Lumine, I think this is a proposal in search of a justification. Unicameralism won't solve the vapidness, hollow debates or "echo-chamber" consensus. You seem to have forgotten the biggest thing here. You served 4, 4.5 Terms in the unicameral Senate. I served 20. There was a hell of a lot of echo chamber consensus, especially all the times the left or center-left had 8 Senators and just mowed us down with only myself and 1 At-Large Senator (for a while Hagrid), giving voice to any opposition. Or in the case of 2009, myself and Jedi being the only votes against single payer healthcare. We barely got them to even consider the fact that they should implement some kind of administrative agency. These problems dominated the unicameral system for years. The only reason you think otherwise is because your experience is from 2014, which occured with a split 5-5 Senate and occured with a highly motivated, partisan and extreme Laborite policy wonk dominating discussion and uniting the opposition. This was rare!

The bulk of the Senates I served in were majority center-left. There were only 5 or 6 Senates with a center-right majority during the entire 6 years and 8 months I served there (which was 40 Senates by the way). And nothing would change that with your system. Because those 6 seats would split 4-2 Labor barring a shift in Lincoln. and the At-Large would split 3-2 Labor or Fed. Assuming they split towards the Feds./You have 5 Federalist and 7 Laborites. If it goes the other way, 8-4 Labor.

Regions are now more left leaning then they were under the old system, because of consolidation, it is hard to break through for a Conservative. And I doubt you are planning to reverse consolidation along with it? Regions almost always elect Moderates. Even when we had 5 Region Maps that was the case, until Labor came dominate a majority of the Regions. Someone like Rfayette could have gotten elected as Senator from the IDS or Mideast in a very close election, but would have a very hard time getting elected even in the Southern Region today.

I am sorry Lumine, but the people who will get screwed six ways to Sunday in your proposal are the Conservatives. The Moderates will be fine and the Left will be laughing right to the bank. And there will be plenty of echo-chamber consensus to go around. The reason we agreed to consolidation, the only reason we agreed to it, was because bicameralism was offered in exchange.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

My friends, the fact is as follows. The early months of Bicameralism were a disaster, and I doubt you’ll find many Atlasians to tell you otherwise. Gridlock, lack of clarity and coherence, a very odd role for the Vice-Presidency (which I criticized from the start) followed each other as efficiency was very much not accomplished.

The early months of bicameralism were a disaster because 1) Tmth wrote a rules package that had some flaws in it, including a contra-constitutional provision on the role of the Vice President, Which Clark not really wanting to be Speaker in the first place, copied almost verbatim for the house and 2) You as Vice President didn't assert your constitutional rights and demand it be fixed. You also didn't create Noticeboard threads for the First and Second Congress, which had long been the VP's job pre-reset, dating way before Mar 2013 and VP's starting to administer slots. Such threads would have at least kept track of who passed what and provided some order to the chaos. I found this very disappointing watching from the outside, that no one in Congress or the Administration took any leadership on this matter and yes that includes Leinad as well.

The solutions I came up with drew upon stuff we had done before and completely new ideas and together beginning with my term as VP and the pressure I put on Congress, then as President finally when we got the rules rewritten, reversed the tied and made bicameralism functional from an administrative statement. Something you and a bunch of others said I would fail at and frankly, you were all wrong.  

And yes we disagree up and down on the Vice Presidency, but like it not, direct involvement in the Congressional administration has been and indeed the only instances where we have had consistently active Vice Presidencies. Goldwater, while imperfect was far better at it if for no other reason then he tried, I was there to mentor him and finally, he didn't resist his constitutional role.

From March 2013 - July 2014, and from Mar 2017 until now, the Vice President has been active. It has also worked to changed the dynamics in both cases from selecting VPs based on political calculations to selecting VPs based on who will be active and can run a chamber. Whatever you think about Jambles, he was selected in part because he ran a regional legislature and DemPGH knew from having been VP under that new arrangement, how important it was. Both Labor and Fed tickets have former successful Senate PPTs as their running mates. When I started in March, only Truman, Windjammer and myself knew how to make bicameralism work. Now there are a number of people who could be VP, PPT or Speaker and not let the place fall apart.

No offense Lumine, I like you a lot and agree with you a lot but on Congress and VP we are going to have to agree to disagree. I trust your answer is to just abolish it, like abolishing the House. Frankly, I think it is a mistake jsut to keep cutting offices to chase a moving target. You will cut yourself out of game, but we have always differed on this philosophy even as far back as 2013 when you backed consolidation and I opposed it at that point. My preference was always to bring more people in and get them engaged in the process, as opposed to constantly downsizing to chase the activity glut at any given point.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Why not reducing the number of representatives instead of abolishing it?

I actually supported the last attempt at this, but I wasn't a member at the time.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Man you are trying to make this difficult for me Lumine.


Anyway congrats to Rpryor on his selection. 

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

My dear friend Oakvale, a former candidate for President, inspired me and many other Atlasians to fight for what we believe in. Even though he has left the race, Oakvale's message of radical change has not died out. We need to shake up the Atlasian system.

We need to stand up for those Atlasians who feel disenfranchised by backroom dealings, IRC cabals...

Is this satire or something? You kind of supported the original IRCabaler here! You have to admit, as someone who was most fervent in nuking Bacon King's confirmation in 2015, as you yourself were, that this is pretty ridiculous to the point of being surreal.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

When Labourite supreme Adam Griffin admits that fhtagn's position as a Federalist is due to getting her feelings hurt, this should scare any actual conservative.

You mean like voting for President Griffin's reelection in a close two way race between two rather ideologically opposed candidates, would?
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=229638.msg4920630#msg4920630

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

When Labourite supreme Adam Griffin admits that fhtagn's position as a Federalist is due to getting her feelings hurt, this should scare any actual conservative.

Wait ... you admit that Adam Griffin is an insufferable lefty hack and then simultaneously expect us to take his butthurt slander of an opposing party leader at face value, when he is clearly trying to split the rightwing vote? Why should any rightwinger listen to him? Hell, I've had him on ignore for years. If anything, the fact that he's emerging from his cave to sow discord suggests he's peeved that the conservatives might elect a (half)queer woman of colour president and discredit the idiotic trope of only the left being tolerant. I mean, its pretty fuking awful to suggest that the only reason a woman can obtain the presidency in atlasia is by being a slut, which is what Adam Griffin did. Adam Griffin's condemnation is practically an endorsement to a conservative.

The comments by Adam on the previous page were disgusting and I would trust that both Lumine and Rpryor, as the respectable statesmen that they are would thoroughly disavow such statements rather then crediting them with legitimacy and citing them for campaign purposes.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Also I do owe Rpryor an apology for something I said during my "enthusiastic walk" the other night. I said he didn't attend a single NSC meeting while Vice President and my appointed Chair of the NSC.

I was incorrect.

He attended, once!

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Needless to say, it's disappointing and distressing to see we are not engaged as we should to win this war as early and decisively as possible.

Yes, well we tried to get you into the Senate for a reason. Elections do have consequences.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Lumine, I am sad to say that I must revoke my 2nd preference endorsements due to the vp pick, although I should've known this would've happened given rpryor tries to beg and steal his way into every possible position. If you had a chance of winning before, it is now down to 0.0% flat. Rpryor has been wholly inactive for several months now, I mean he wasn't even active as VP. BTW, what either of you probably don't know is that the position of VP is vastly different than back in January, if you are an inactive VP now you WILL be forced out. The position of VP is basically just as much, if not more work than either the Speaker of the House or the Senate PPT now, you must be heavily involved in congress.

Yes, if Rpryor conducted himself as VP as he did in my administration, he would probably be impeached now.

And Lumine will find it hard to turn back the clock to a time when the VP did nothing in time for that to not be the case.

This is what PiT does on a daily basis:
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=271890.msg5819868#msg5819868

3 House Slots (Senate originated Bills), 3 Senate Slots (House Originated Bills), Any and all confirmation hearings, Tracking all bills passed in both Houses, verifying each bill passing both houses with a signature, before finally presenting them to the President for signature or veto.

This is a daily demanding job. That is why both the Labor and Fed tickets, have current/former PPTs on them. Like it not, this is the constitution and the law as it is now, and disagreement with it, doesn't and will not excuse incompetence until said law is changed.

We aren't turning back the clock to when the VP was inactive and pointless and Lumine pinned for its abolition once Nix pillaged the job of the responsibilities I had given it in 2013. The VP has a purpose now, it is not a place for inactive has-beens to retire to anymore. It is a job for active, Chamber Administrators: Speakers and PPTs and regional legislative Speakers.  

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Oh, and to those trying to give poor innocent rpryor a hard time for voting for me in October 2016, it's important to remember that I won like one-third (or more?) of the conservative vote in that election. It was an absolute barnstorming, shit-slamming, domination election among a 60% conservative electorate.

And the Federalists lost in large part because they ran a generic candidate who nobody really asked for and who was far too much of an ideological wishy-washy to keep the party in check. Live and learn!

You didn't run for President in October 2016. Blair and I did!

You are confusing October 2015 which I didn't cite, with February 2016, which I did. and confusing Cris with Leinad.

You only beat Leinad by like 5 votes in that February 2016, the right was largely unified. I think the dementia is kicking in there old man. 

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Yankee opposes me having voted for Adam Griffin, yet supports a President who voted for NeverAgain in February? That's what I call:

I cannot see the picture, I get something about third party hosting disabled on Photobucket. What is this what even is this? Can I fix this error somehow? I have seen it a lot.