1) The ICRC donation for Ukraine has been made, not that I communicated about it.

2) I am rather backlogged on sending out purchased stamps and coins, sorry

3) Received party fees so far for this election are from the FreeDems, RCT, and Independent Monarchist.

4) My snail address for anybody who needs to send a check/cash for a party fee is is 645 Moondale Drive, El Paso, TX 79912

5) It would, in fact, be a relief to me to pass off the Burgermeister and related stamp/coin job to someone else. I'm having anxiety issues every time I deal with it (thus lack of communication and backlogs), and medication is just not working like it should. So, if you guys line someone up, I'll ship the stamps and coins, send the PayPal password along, and transfer the Ally account balances. (The relevant email addresses should be redirectable to the new person by the website management.)

This is not a positive request to be replaced. I'm willing to muddle along. But I'm definitely going to be muddling through this anxiety stuff, so I'm not remotely going to object to being relieved of the responsibility.

Per The 55th Cosa Budget, disbursements require notifying the Ziu at least 14 days in advance.  And the renewal dates on our hosting plan and domain name are July 23rd.

I am accordingly informing the Ziu that I do intend to disburse the budgeted funds to those ends in order to renew our hosting and domain name.

I've received two of the three fees from our newly-elected Senators:

Martì-Paír Furxhéir has PAID IN FULL.
Breneir Itravilatx has PAID IN FULL.

I still need one from/on behalf of Ian Tamoran.

The fee is US$5, and payable via PayPal to treasury@talossa.com or stamps@talossa.com; both are addresses on the same PayPal account. Arrangements other than PayPal can be made, that's just the one that's easiest for me to process.

While the votes haven't been officially certified, all the ballots from Benito were cast with PSC verification from different IP addresses, so I foresee no invalidations.

Further, one vote was cast for BENITO, which under custom and precedent is a vote of PRESENT, three were cast PRESENT directly, and all the others were cast for the NPW, so the only possible change to the outcome would be if all four NPW votes were invalidated. The NPW won all eleven seats in the Assembly, and should appoint its members accordingly.

Since they have unanimous control and, with the just-ratified change in the Benitan constitution, they can name their party head Maestro, I suspect we'll have a Maestro as soon as he notices this post.

The following proposal to amend the Constitution of Benito, having been unanimously passed by the Assembly and Senate, is now up for referendum. The referendum vote opens immediately and shall close at the same time as the upcoming Cosa election.

The proposal is as follows:

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Whereas, in Benito as currently constituted, the Arvitieir Prima has a whole bunch of power on the provincial level, while the Noval Representanteu (Senator) doesn't have any, and

Whereas, the logical Maestro of the province currently is the same guy who is the current Noval Representanteu (Senator);

It is so resolved that

Article 23 of the Provincial Constitution, which currently reads:
"So that no conflict of interest may occur, or that no one individual may take over the province in a hostile attempt, no-one may hold more than one of the offices of Maestro, Viceré, or Noval Representanteu simultaneously. The Viceré also may not hold seats in the Provincial Chancellery."

shall be amended to read:
"So that no conflict of interest may occur, or that no one individual may take over the province in a hostile attempt, no-one may hold more than one of the offices of Maestro, Viceré, or Arvitieir Prima simultaneously. The Viceré also may not hold seats in the Provincial Chancellery."

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The Free Democrats of Talossa fee has been received for the 56th Cosa Election.

PAID FEES:

The Free Democrats of Talossa have PAID IN FULL.

Well, the Assembly just passed a constitutional amendment, which would come on over here for consideration, but by rule the first thing the Senate has to do each session is elect a speaker.

The people currently entitled to serve in the Senate are, I believe:

    @Iason Bitxichë Taiwos
    Tric'hard Carschaleir
    @Flip Molinar
    @Istefan Perþonest

Per the rules in the Constitution, then, one of us makes a motion of the form "That Senator X do take the Chair as Speaker", and then, since it's a motion, there's two days' voting.

I accordingly move that Senator Perþonest do take the Chair as Speaker, and vote in my own favor, like the arrogant power-seizing fiend I am.

I should have run this through a while back, when it first occurred to me, but better late than never.

---

Whereas, in Benito as currently constituted, the Arvitieir Prima has a whole bunch of power on the provincial level, while the Noval Representanteu (Senator) doesn't have any, and

Whereas, the logical Maestro of the province currently is the same guy who is the current Noval Representanteu (Senator);

It is so resolved that

Article 23 of the Provincial Constitution, which currently reads:
"So that no conflict of interest may occur, or that no one individual may take over the province in a hostile attempt, no-one may hold more than one of the offices of Maestro, Viceré, or Noval Representanteu simultaneously. The Viceré also may not hold seats in the Provincial Chancellery."

shall be amended to read:
"So that no conflict of interest may occur, or that no one individual may take over the province in a hostile attempt, no-one may hold more than one of the offices of Maestro, Viceré, or Arvitieir Prima simultaneously. The Viceré also may not hold seats in the Provincial Chancellery."

---

Comments, concerns, questions?

Citizenship Petition for Nicholas Richard Burman

WHEREAS it has been more than a fortnight since Nicholas Richard Burman first posted on Wittenberg and in that time he has demonstrated an active and genuine interest in Talossanity, and

WHEREAS Nicholas Richard Burman desires citizenship in the Kingdom of Talossa and by all indications it appears that he would be a loyal and dedicated citizen and a credit to this nation if he obtains a grant of citizenship, and

WHEREAS I, have communicated via Zoom with Nicholas Richard Burman last Thursday as a private Talossan citizen, so


THEREFORE I, Istefan Éovart Perþonest, petition the Secretary of State to issue a grant of citizenship to Nicholas Richard Burman, as specified by law.

While in general I feel that the best way for me to interact with Fiôvâ's governance is entirely at the request of the elected government, I note that Fiôvâ currently doesn't have one.

So, since I do have the power to appoint an Acting Capitán for the province under Article V of Fiôvâ's constitution, and given the extended vacancy in that office, I'm wondering if I should appoint one.

(Not that I have any candidates in mind. Incidentally, did y'all ever notice you didn't specify that the Capitán had to be either a Fiôvân or a Talossan in your Constitution, and so I could appoint, say, Donald Trump as Acting Capitán? You know, that might actually convince someone to volunteer to be elected Capitán . . .)

The certified election results are:

FREEDEMS   3
NPW   3
LEAGUE OF CENTRE CONSERVATIVES   1
PRESENT   2

Votes for PRESENT, of course, are not used for allocating seats, so seven votes were cast for seats. Since everybody else who cast votes cast them for parties, there are no issues of interpretation. We accordingly can go right ahead and use Hare-Niemeyer as usual:

Party Calculation Seats
Free Democrats                        3/(7/11) = 4 seats, 0.7142857 remainder
New Peculiar Way                      3/(7/11) = 4 seats, 0.7142857 remainder
League of Centre Conservatives 1/(7/11) = 1 seat, 0.5714 remainder

With two seats remaining and a two-way tie for largest remainder, the final distribution is:

Free Democrats, 5 seats
New Peculiar Way, 5 seats
League of Centre Conservatives, 1 seat.

Parties, name your BLAssemblymen.

Another month, another interest rate cut on the national treasury account, from 1.00% to 0.80% APY, effective tomorrow.

Which again looks to be part of an industry-wide decline in rates.

This is a placeholder indicating that yes, I'm aware we need to do this, I'm awaiting certified election results.

The image advertising the Royal Bank and Post online store on the homepage is not currently linkified.

The Free Democrats of Talossa fee has been received for the 55th Cosa Election.

PAID FEES:

The Free Democrats of Talossa have PAID IN FULL.

So, an Ally savings rate drop is happening for the third month in a row.  As of July 8th, we go from 1.10% APY to 1.00% APY.

Yeah, that's from 1.50% to 1.00% in three months.  But all the other places offering "high-yield" savings accounts are dropping their rates, too, so there's nowhere obvious to run to.

Anyway.  It's not a crisis, and I don't think there's anything sensible we can do about it, but now you're all up-to-date.

Per The 54th Cosa Budget, disbursements require notifying the Ziu at least 14 days in advance.  And the renewal dates on our hosting plan and domain name are July 23rd.

I am accordingly informing the Ziu that I do intend to disburse the budgeted funds to those ends in order to renew our hosting and domain name.

Another month, another cut on the interest rate  Ally's now down to 1.10% APY.  Which is consistent with what everyone else is doing; Varo's down to 1.21%, for example.  As goes the Federal Reserve guidance, so go the banks . . .

In reaction to the US Federal Reserve's recent actions in cutting interest rates, Ally Bank is cutting the interest rate on the Kingdom's savings account from 1.5% to 1.25% effective tomorrow (following up a previous cut from 1.6% to 1.5% on March 13).

1.25% is still a solid rate for a savings account (better than the current yield on 20-year Treasuries), but I've done a little bit of shopping around other possibilities as a result, and am somewhat tempted by Varo.  I'm going to see if they cut their rates soon, or stick to the 1.61% they're currently quoting on their website.

The system wants me to include a secret code when I send a private message.  I don't know of one.  Help?