It is for the above reasons, Glüc, that I wish and will be trying to move more activity off Facebok and back onto Witt. A prospective citizen should not have to find or penetrate opaque and publicly unknown Facebook groups just to become active. We need and ought to have a central avenue; it would make immigration, naturalization, and assimilation so very much easier.

For the uninitiated:

QuoteBroosking is the act of recruiting a prospective citizen of Talossa into a particular political party. It is widely regarded as unethical, though it is not illegal. To speak to a prospective citizen about Talossan politics before he or she is granted citizenship, especially in a way that would tend to colour the prospective citizen's opinion about one party or another, is considered to be broosking and is strongly frowned-upon.

In any case, I say to Muhammed and any other prospective citizen: Please reach out if you'd like to be introduced constructively (i.e., without bias) to the various circles of Talossa. I would be more than happy to help, and can do so without poisoning your well to my own political leanings.

Having authorized the relevant section...

The referenced sentence is in response to this clause in Section 5 (the part which you quote is actually Section 6): "The election of a Seneschál shall be the sole and exclusive business of the first Clark of every newly seated Ziu..."

In other words, the second Clark may have bills, the standard Vote of Confidence, resolutions, and so forth, whereas the first Clark may be only, exclusively, and solely the election of the Seneschal without introduction or consideration of any other matter. (Well, except that the Senate may, if it chooses, complete its election of the Mencei or other matters, hence the "...any of their business for which the consent of the Cosâ or the King be not requisite".)

As for the Seneschal staying in power: Incorrect. See Section 8:

QuoteThe Seneschál shall appoint a member of the Government to be the Deputy Prime Minister, who shall be known otherwise as the Distáin. The Distáin shall act in place of the Seneschál in case of absence or disability of the latter, and shall become the Seneschál in case of death, removal or resignation. The Ziu may establish by law the procedures and standards in order to determine the absence or disability of the Seneschál, as well as the manner or conditions by which the Distáin shall be appointed.

If a Seneschal is absent, dies, or yadda yadda yadda, then the Deputy takes over. Furthermore, the Ziu may set standards by law so that the Distain doesn't just become the Senescahl on a whim.

It's a new paradigm, and certainly we will need to be making some changes to the law in order to avoid constitutional crises in the future.

In either case, I will support this bill and plan to vote for it.

I do think,however, that we should still introduce a separate bill that rewrites/consolidates the applicable parts of El Lexhatx. I guess it's another thing to add to my growing list...

And again...

Quote1) Do you want to receive information about or from elections, political parties, political campaigns, and candidates?
2) Do you want to receive information from accredited news outlets, such as newsletters or magazines?
3) Do you want to be contacted or reachable otherwise via email by other citizens?

That type of force and intimidation also requires that ballots be public or available for scrutiny. Here in Talossa, and elsewhere in the Western World, ballots are secret; a political machine or terrorist group can cajole and threaten all it wants, but it won't succeed if it can't know or spoil voters' ballots.

I reiterate again: if a citizen of Talossa cannot be bothered to vote, especially in consideration that it is made so easy and convenient, then they have already effectively renounced their citizenship. I stand by compulsory voting, I stand by the three-strikes rule and, without amendments to this bill, I will vote against it for those reasons.

I support this completely. May I offer the following amendment?

QuoteWHEREAS, pop-tarts are a fruit filling surrounded by a pastry crust; and,

WHEREAS, the same can be said of empanadas, which are available at the vendor of our national cuisine, Taco Bell: now,

THEREFORE, pop-tarts are hereby defined as an empanada for all purposes of law and governance; and,

FURTHERMORE, empanadas shall be an acceptable adjunct to the established national cuisine of Talossa; and,

FINALLY, an empanada of good and verifiable quality, if available to the host at fair and reasonable costs, shall be furnished freely and in sufficient quantities to the attendees of any sitting, meeting, organization, or assembly of any national governmental organ, including the Ziu or the Cabinet.

This is a casual and friendly reminder that this particular bill will need to be rewritten in consequence of the new Judiciary Amendment. The relevant section thereof is:

QuoteSection 5.

A Judge shall remain on the Cort pü Inalt for the duration of their term, until they choose to retire, or, as prescribed by law, until such time as the Ziu shall remove him or her from their seat or until he or she can no longer perform their duties on account of incapacitation.

In the event that a sitting Judge of the Cort pü Inalt acts in a manner that offends the Ziu in the Judge's official and individual capacity, or is found guilty or has pleaded guilty to a crime in Talossa, a member of the Ziu may move for a Notice of Reprimand, which shall set forth an individual charge with the stated punishment contained therein, which shall not exceed removal from his or her seat as Judge.

To impose the sanction of removal, a Notice of Reprimand must receive, in addition to requirements of other legislation, two-thirds support in the Cosa and majority support in the Senate.

It seems that we may still set by law a requirement that judge be "active", however we choose to define it, and that we may still remove them for inactivity; however, we will need to change the mechanism.

I intend to clark this again. May other members comment and explain their opposition? I am more than happy to make compromises/amendments so that this passes (for example, giving MCs a number of votes equal to their seats, rather than one vote per member).

I oppose this bill completely.

The Mençéi should not have control over the Clark, because the Clark serves the entire Ziu and not just the Senäts; therefore, the Clark should be administered by an impartial third party, such as... the Secretary of State. Plus, an ultimately partisan officer (we are only fooling ourselves if we think that the next selection of the Mençéi won't be political) should just not be in charge of The Hopper.

I also adamantly stand by my sentiment that the current official duties of the SoS are not so overwhelming or cumbersome that a careful officeholder could not undertake them. The duties are tedious and thankless, but not overwhelming; a person must simply be thorough and consistent. There is a fixed, easy schedule of ministerial tasks that take maybe an hour of work per week... perhaps up to three hours if legislative activity is particularly busy in a month.

This bill decentralizes the duties of the SoS in favor of creating more bureaucracy and more jobs to fill. That is the opposite direction which we should take.

If I were to stand for reelection, and if I were reelected as Senator, I would be happy to pay this fee.

I am evidently not so cheap and unpatriotic as my colleague from Maricopa; one would think that a Senator of Talossa should be honored and grateful to support his country financially.

To be extremely clear: There is no clarity on the matter. The Chancery has to complete this for us, by provincial law, or we have to break the law. It's cut and dried.

I personally would like to wait, in hopes that a successor SoS will do what his predecessor stubbornly and obnoxiously refused to do.

If we are to follow both the letter and the spirit of the law, then we are unfortunately dependent on the SoS (incumbent or successor) to fulfill the very basic task of saying: "FreeDems 1 seat, LCC 7 seats, start of Nimlet [arbitrary date here]". If we don't care about the law - a bit of a hypocritical stance - then we could just do this ourselves.

In either case, I own up to and apologize for this debacle. I did not foresee a refusal by the SoS to comply with the OrgLaw or, more importantly, a very simple and very basic administrative task.

We will definitely want to amend the Constitution (if a new Nimlet can be formed) so to avoid this situation in the future.

Quote from: Eðo Grischun on August 01, 2020, 10:28:36 AM

Quote from: Béneditsch Ardpresteir on August 01, 2020, 09:31:27 AM

Quote from: Glüc da Dhi S.H. on July 16, 2020, 04:47:16 PM
Getting worried that there might be a bit of an unfairness in the system in that parties can use (and are using) the electoral database to advertise their senate candidates, but senators not affiliated with a party do not have access to the same resources.

Perhaps the law (and the privacy settings in the database) should be changed to allow senate candidates access to the electoral database.

Especially, since the present Government of Talossa wants to fleece individual Senate candidates to the tune of half the party registration fees for the Cosa.

If you feel this is a fleecing, I wonder how bad you're going to take it when we introduce the mandatory Witt membership fee next term.  Plus the 2% mandatory tax for citizens who earn more than $10,000 (USD) per annum to start our welfare programme for retired old growthers.

Just wait till he hears about the Ministry of Justice's new initiative: defendants in lawsuits or criminal prosecutions will have to pay $10 USD just for the privilege to be heard in Cort.

Hi, sir. Have you connected with anyone on Facebook, and have you decided upon a political party which you would like to join?

When I first immigrated almost three years ago, I found a substantially greater area of communication in several Facebook groups (for better or for worse) and, once I joined a political party, I suddenly had access to an active and responsive network of Talossans.

Quote from: Txosuè Éiric Rôibeardescù on July 28, 2020, 11:21:29 AM
But doesn't that's show a fundamental problem within our society? We only respond to hard attacks from each other? Tearing each other down and the country down with it?

...says he somehow unironically who continues to undertake hard attacks at other citizens.

We can agree that it's problem, but the agreement is meaningless without affirmative action. Lobbying metaphorical grenades at the FreeDems (or, more generally, at any political opponent) does nothing else than "tear each other down and the country down with it".

To be very clear: I'm calling you a hypocrite at the same time as hoping that your appeal for decency will come back around like a boomerang and wake you up with a smack.

I'm going to own up that I mistook you for someone else, but the larger point still stands: the FreeDems are not boogeymen, much like the RUMP weren't, and it's becoming tiresome to see people mistake political disagreement for personal attacks.

The FreeDems' efforts to "republicanize" Talossa is not a personal affront to anyone's rights or decency, and republicanism has as much as a place in our civil discourse as monarchism. May the voters decide which they want.

My submission for the caption contest:

"It was in that moment when the doctor realized that she had gone to med school and taken out umpteenth dollars in loans for this."