Letter to the Editor,
I’m writing this in response to “No CRAPS” “review” of the Senate. The purpose of the article is admirable, and I support giving a review of elected members and bodies. That’s a great idea for accountability and transparency, but Notolecta has, all too clearly, allowed his personal dislike of certain Senators get in the way of writing an objective article. The main features in the article are really just attacks filled with vitriol towards the Speaker, Senator Dhaka, and slightly Vinage. If you look at the words: Seymour and Dhaka have about 330 words written directly about them, Vinage has 98, and combined, Skizzy, Ogastein, and JGlenn get 91 words. So you have 40% of the article written about Seymour, Vinage, and Dhaka; about 30% of the article written about Dhaka and Seymour, while the last three; Skizzy Ogastein, and JGlenn have 9%. This is an extremely clear attack article, and nothing more. An objective review of Senators cannot be done when you it is largely about attacking two Senators.
I expect better journalism from a paper called “No CRAP”, but all they’ve done here is print crap. It’s a shame they’ve taken this path, too. Notolecta is a very smart man. I do not call that into question.
Last Senate voted on 7 bills, this Senate has voted on 6. The factual disconnect in the above quote is relevant. This Senate has also taken up a few bills that have just been dropped off or killed before going to a vote. So we haven’t done that much less. In terms of Confirmations they’ve had a roughly similar number of those as well. So comparatively they’ve done slightly less than the last Senate, but not nothing as the article would like to pretend. I have no issues with anything else in this paragraph besides the line about being removed by the MRA. Technically true, but there was a vote to remove Stamosian from Office which, by the time it was ended had 75% for the removal.
This portion bends the truth. The Senate wasn’t trying to blockade legislation or executive actions. This is facetious rhetoric. If the person who wrote this takes themselves seriously they need to look at the world again. You can’t say that the Senate is trying to blockade legislation or executive actions and then only cite one example. The Senate tried to veto an executive order. The Veto failed after the two main sponsors of it (North East Somerset and Seymour) switched their support to ‘abstain’. Perfectly valid example, but it doesn’t match up with the rhetoric at all. Notolecta uses the phrase “utterly absurd” and “grasping at straws”. I agree with them. It’s exactly what I’d use to describe the majority of this article. The fact that he can’t come up with any more examples to accompany this one is a stunning indictment.
Notolecta seems to have a very dogmatic narrow-minded view of what the Senate can handle. They are not the United States Senate. Where they can handle 3 votes in a day, our Senate can talk about 10 things and get the work done. They’re able to focus on many things, and have multiple focuses. He tells us they’re too useless, and says they’re not focusing on the issues, but doesn’t give an example as to what the issues are that they’re not handling adequately. Notolecta says both acts were dropped. This is not true. The Speaker clearly pushed through the Seals Act and had no intention of ever dropping them. The writer needs to make sure his facts are straight, he seems to be confused. Seymour has shown that he while he listens and hears the public, he isn’t always going to bow to their demands. Ironically his approval ratings are one of the highest in the Government, so apparently he’s doing something right. The connotations of this paragraph also try to make it sound like the Senate is doing dirty, dirty deeds behind the closed doors. If you look at the policies implemented this has been a very transparent Senate. The Speaker keeps a voting record pinned on the floor so everyone can see it. You can call it secrecy, but if a bill comes to a vote, you have the ability to look and say “This guy voted against something I support, I won’t vote for him.” They’re not planning world domination. This is one of the most transparent Senates.
The writer seems to not know the difference between “weather” and “whether”. I agree that there is a small disconnect between the people and the Senate. That’s not always unhealthy. Realistically, sometimes we, the public aren’t always right about what we believe. In many situations the body has to rise above the politics of the now. The Europeian Time Act was handily voted down, Seymour missed the vote because he was on vacation, and Dhaka was AWOL. Credit to the Speaker he has shown he wants his Senators to go on record for what they do. For accountability and transparency, that’s great. Does it take up some time and is it perhaps unnecessary to take some things to vote? Yes, but it allows the citizens to say “hey, you voted this way on this bill.” You are on record voting. Both of the CC acts named here were just dropped from the docket, period. All but one of the mentioned bills was killed in some form. You can’t portray a disconnect when all but one of your examples contradict your argument. It’s just an outright lie.
Notolecta’s assessment of Seymour is largely personal, and it’s fairly easy to tell. He includes nothing positive about anything he’s done, and only focuses on the things that are ‘easy’ to manipulate around and bash him. If you want to bash Seymour, do it fairly. Say that he shouldn’t have been the Speaker to begin with. We can all agree on that. Crist Seymour should not have been elected as the Speaker of the Senate to begin with, period, end of story. He served a portion of a term before he was elected to his first full term, and then in that full term he was elected as the Speaker? That is ludicrous and absurd. Anyone with a lick of sense shouldn’t have let him become Speaker, but we didn’t have much other choices did we? McEntire became the VP, and Somerset didn’t want to be the Speaker so it fell on the ambitious little queer from Florida. Much like Notolecta is doing with the Mayor’s Office, Seymour is doing it with the Speakership. Notolecta wants to become a Senator, and he’s using the Mayor’s Office to get there. Seymour is using the Speakership to get to the Presidency. If you look at his actions and leadership style, it is clear. If Europeia had political parties, he’d be a wonderful Majority or Minority Leader, he is absolutely wonderful at whipping votes but he has a personality that is very much more of an executive leader than what we need in the Speakership. NES and Seymour have been shown to have very good political acumen, and it would not surprise me if they worked together. The writer claims that Seymour slacks on his duties. Yes, something we can all agree with. He is a little late to close threads, open new readings, etc. but let’s look at the history of the Senate and we will see that it’s not uncommon to see readings extended, or the Speaker be late. The other things that, in fairness we should be focusing on is that Seymour is obnoxious. He is off-putting, he is callous, and he’s obnoxious. He has a temperament that is very unlike what the Speaker should be. Maybe that’s a good thing, because he has the attitude of “I am who I am, and nothing’s going to change that.”, but I don’t think that’s what we need as Speaker. Notolecta uses the term that Seymour has done rather poorly, but his approval ratings are one of the highest in the Government? So that is proof that this article is fairly subjective to the author’s personal dislike of the Speaker.
The article against West Dhaka is written rather oddly. I definitely agree with calling into question his voting record, but he doesn’t do that for Seymour and NES. Who have eerily similar voting records in the Senate. There’s a very odd lack of a reciprocal rubric for what Notolecta is writing about. It’s very subjective as to the only problems he has seen at the time with that person. Call more things into question with Senator Dhaka. Why did you change your votes so often? Why do you miss so many votes? Why do you rarely comment on bills, and when you do, why do they seem to be lacking in coherent debate to the topic? Again here he says that the Seals Act was decided to be useless by the majority of the Senate. As it was coincidentally passed by a… majority of the Senate? It’s almost like he’s bending reality just to have something to write about. Dhaka seems to be much like Stockdale “Who am I? Why am I here?” And let’s be honest and say that Dhaka wouldn’t have been elected into the Senate in any other event. He got lucky last election, and we all highly doubt he’ll get elected next term.
Notolecta’s coverage of Vinage is rather fair, but again he has his facts wrong. Vinage submitted and wrote the Seals Act, which was passed in a different form by the Senate. He calls Vinage’s bills useless. I think that’s an unfair characteristic of his bills, but I guess it takes one to know one. Regardless of what you want to say about Vinage, you have to give him credit for trying to do something. Notolecta complains that we’re not doing enough, then that we’re doing too many useless things, then that we’re not handling the issues; but when Vinage tries to do something, it is characterized as useless? That’s a bit of hypocrisy.
The last paragraph is so just absolutely pathetic. He barely covers the last three Senators. 91 words. It’s almost as if after his erratic rants towards Dhaka and Seymour that he ran out of oil to continue. He says that Ogastein has shown a great deal of dedication, when he’s missed votes recently and said he would be less active. Uh? Where’s his praise of Seymour for sending tons of telegrams? Where’s his praise of Vinage for being active in the Senate just like he praises Skizzy for being “involved in the discussions of all the Acts?” The last paragraph can't even remotely be classified as a fair or objective review, simply because it is not. You read it and you think "Oh wow, No CRAP prints CRAP."
I love the idea of giving a review of the Government, but it needs to be done by competent people who can look at the facts and say "okay, this is what was horrible, but give them credit for doing these good things" This article is too subjective to the writer's personal likes or dislikes. If you're going to hate on Seymour, hate on him for being an obnoxious queer. If you're going to hate on Dhaka, hate on him for being a puppet. If you're going to hate on Vinage, hate on him for acting like a 5 year old with crayons writing bills. If you're going to hate on Ogastein, hate on him for being a perfectly lubricated weathervane. Etc, etc, etc.
I’m writing this in response to “No CRAPS” “review” of the Senate. The purpose of the article is admirable, and I support giving a review of elected members and bodies. That’s a great idea for accountability and transparency, but Notolecta has, all too clearly, allowed his personal dislike of certain Senators get in the way of writing an objective article. The main features in the article are really just attacks filled with vitriol towards the Speaker, Senator Dhaka, and slightly Vinage. If you look at the words: Seymour and Dhaka have about 330 words written directly about them, Vinage has 98, and combined, Skizzy, Ogastein, and JGlenn get 91 words. So you have 40% of the article written about Seymour, Vinage, and Dhaka; about 30% of the article written about Dhaka and Seymour, while the last three; Skizzy Ogastein, and JGlenn have 9%. This is an extremely clear attack article, and nothing more. An objective review of Senators cannot be done when you it is largely about attacking two Senators.
I expect better journalism from a paper called “No CRAP”, but all they’ve done here is print crap. It’s a shame they’ve taken this path, too. Notolecta is a very smart man. I do not call that into question.
This term has been very unusual for the Senate. For starts we have seen a Senate that completed very little, passing only a restatement of the constitution, which was passed with convenient formatting present, and successfully motioning to adopt official seals. In addition only 3 Senators from the beginning are still in office, with two senator resigning for political reasons, one resigning for issues with real life after being elected in a bi-election, and the fourth resigning just hours before he was removed by the Mandatory Recruitment Act.
Last Senate voted on 7 bills, this Senate has voted on 6. The factual disconnect in the above quote is relevant. This Senate has also taken up a few bills that have just been dropped off or killed before going to a vote. So we haven’t done that much less. In terms of Confirmations they’ve had a roughly similar number of those as well. So comparatively they’ve done slightly less than the last Senate, but not nothing as the article would like to pretend. I have no issues with anything else in this paragraph besides the line about being removed by the MRA. Technically true, but there was a vote to remove Stamosian from Office which, by the time it was ended had 75% for the removal.
When one looks at the current Senate's legislative activities many things can clearly become evident. The first is that the Senate has been trying to blockade both legislation and executive actions, such as the attempted veto of EO 72 and the fact that most of the confirmations had at least one vote Nay.. EO72 is the worst of these attempts, as the Senate quickly stormed into a veto of EO72 in what seems to have been the Senate grasping at straws to keep and even gain some power over the Executive, with the main points against the EO being that the Senate should have to confirm the members of the EAAC and that the president didn't consult the Senate before issuing the EO, which is an utterly absurd thing for the Senate to have demanded.
This portion bends the truth. The Senate wasn’t trying to blockade legislation or executive actions. This is facetious rhetoric. If the person who wrote this takes themselves seriously they need to look at the world again. You can’t say that the Senate is trying to blockade legislation or executive actions and then only cite one example. The Senate tried to veto an executive order. The Veto failed after the two main sponsors of it (North East Somerset and Seymour) switched their support to ‘abstain’. Perfectly valid example, but it doesn’t match up with the rhetoric at all. Notolecta uses the phrase “utterly absurd” and “grasping at straws”. I agree with them. It’s exactly what I’d use to describe the majority of this article. The fact that he can’t come up with any more examples to accompany this one is a stunning indictment.
The nest is that the Senate has not been focusing on real issues, but instead attempting to pass pointless legislation such as a new Europeian Time Act and the Speaker of the Senate and Senate Seals Act (2011); both acts were dropped due to outcry against them from the public of Europeia. The Speaker of the Senate and Senate Seals Act was even motioned for UC just an hour after it was posted on the Senate for and before any discussion was held. This brings up another issue, which is the minimal amount of discussion held on Acts that were put forth in the Senate although it was revealed that this is because the discussion was being held in a private forum, and while a private forum for brief preliminary discussions is very useful, it becomes a problem when the Senate begins to work completely outside of the public eye.
Notolecta seems to have a very dogmatic narrow-minded view of what the Senate can handle. They are not the United States Senate. Where they can handle 3 votes in a day, our Senate can talk about 10 things and get the work done. They’re able to focus on many things, and have multiple focuses. He tells us they’re too useless, and says they’re not focusing on the issues, but doesn’t give an example as to what the issues are that they’re not handling adequately. Notolecta says both acts were dropped. This is not true. The Speaker clearly pushed through the Seals Act and had no intention of ever dropping them. The writer needs to make sure his facts are straight, he seems to be confused. Seymour has shown that he while he listens and hears the public, he isn’t always going to bow to their demands. Ironically his approval ratings are one of the highest in the Government, so apparently he’s doing something right. The connotations of this paragraph also try to make it sound like the Senate is doing dirty, dirty deeds behind the closed doors. If you look at the policies implemented this has been a very transparent Senate. The Speaker keeps a voting record pinned on the floor so everyone can see it. You can call it secrecy, but if a bill comes to a vote, you have the ability to look and say “This guy voted against something I support, I won’t vote for him.” They’re not planning world domination. This is one of the most transparent Senates.
The last thing you find if a great disconnect between the Senate and the people with most of the Senate's actions receive a large amount of criticisms. Among the acts that received criticisms are the Europeian Time Act (2011) and the Speaker of the Senate and Senate Seals Act (2011),which both received criticism for being unnecessary, the Veto of EO72, receiving numerous criticisms, and two acts attempting to give the City Council more power, which both received comments on the methodology they used to give power to the CC as well as many people questioning weather the CC needed more power.
The writer seems to not know the difference between “weather” and “whether”. I agree that there is a small disconnect between the people and the Senate. That’s not always unhealthy. Realistically, sometimes we, the public aren’t always right about what we believe. In many situations the body has to rise above the politics of the now. The Europeian Time Act was handily voted down, Seymour missed the vote because he was on vacation, and Dhaka was AWOL. Credit to the Speaker he has shown he wants his Senators to go on record for what they do. For accountability and transparency, that’s great. Does it take up some time and is it perhaps unnecessary to take some things to vote? Yes, but it allows the citizens to say “hey, you voted this way on this bill.” You are on record voting. Both of the CC acts named here were just dropped from the docket, period. All but one of the mentioned bills was killed in some form. You can’t portray a disconnect when all but one of your examples contradict your argument. It’s just an outright lie.
Notolecta’s assessment of Seymour is largely personal, and it’s fairly easy to tell. He includes nothing positive about anything he’s done, and only focuses on the things that are ‘easy’ to manipulate around and bash him. If you want to bash Seymour, do it fairly. Say that he shouldn’t have been the Speaker to begin with. We can all agree on that. Crist Seymour should not have been elected as the Speaker of the Senate to begin with, period, end of story. He served a portion of a term before he was elected to his first full term, and then in that full term he was elected as the Speaker? That is ludicrous and absurd. Anyone with a lick of sense shouldn’t have let him become Speaker, but we didn’t have much other choices did we? McEntire became the VP, and Somerset didn’t want to be the Speaker so it fell on the ambitious little queer from Florida. Much like Notolecta is doing with the Mayor’s Office, Seymour is doing it with the Speakership. Notolecta wants to become a Senator, and he’s using the Mayor’s Office to get there. Seymour is using the Speakership to get to the Presidency. If you look at his actions and leadership style, it is clear. If Europeia had political parties, he’d be a wonderful Majority or Minority Leader, he is absolutely wonderful at whipping votes but he has a personality that is very much more of an executive leader than what we need in the Speakership. NES and Seymour have been shown to have very good political acumen, and it would not surprise me if they worked together. The writer claims that Seymour slacks on his duties. Yes, something we can all agree with. He is a little late to close threads, open new readings, etc. but let’s look at the history of the Senate and we will see that it’s not uncommon to see readings extended, or the Speaker be late. The other things that, in fairness we should be focusing on is that Seymour is obnoxious. He is off-putting, he is callous, and he’s obnoxious. He has a temperament that is very unlike what the Speaker should be. Maybe that’s a good thing, because he has the attitude of “I am who I am, and nothing’s going to change that.”, but I don’t think that’s what we need as Speaker. Notolecta uses the term that Seymour has done rather poorly, but his approval ratings are one of the highest in the Government? So that is proof that this article is fairly subjective to the author’s personal dislike of the Speaker.
The article against West Dhaka is written rather oddly. I definitely agree with calling into question his voting record, but he doesn’t do that for Seymour and NES. Who have eerily similar voting records in the Senate. There’s a very odd lack of a reciprocal rubric for what Notolecta is writing about. It’s very subjective as to the only problems he has seen at the time with that person. Call more things into question with Senator Dhaka. Why did you change your votes so often? Why do you miss so many votes? Why do you rarely comment on bills, and when you do, why do they seem to be lacking in coherent debate to the topic? Again here he says that the Seals Act was decided to be useless by the majority of the Senate. As it was coincidentally passed by a… majority of the Senate? It’s almost like he’s bending reality just to have something to write about. Dhaka seems to be much like Stockdale “Who am I? Why am I here?” And let’s be honest and say that Dhaka wouldn’t have been elected into the Senate in any other event. He got lucky last election, and we all highly doubt he’ll get elected next term.
Notolecta’s coverage of Vinage is rather fair, but again he has his facts wrong. Vinage submitted and wrote the Seals Act, which was passed in a different form by the Senate. He calls Vinage’s bills useless. I think that’s an unfair characteristic of his bills, but I guess it takes one to know one. Regardless of what you want to say about Vinage, you have to give him credit for trying to do something. Notolecta complains that we’re not doing enough, then that we’re doing too many useless things, then that we’re not handling the issues; but when Vinage tries to do something, it is characterized as useless? That’s a bit of hypocrisy.
The last paragraph is so just absolutely pathetic. He barely covers the last three Senators. 91 words. It’s almost as if after his erratic rants towards Dhaka and Seymour that he ran out of oil to continue. He says that Ogastein has shown a great deal of dedication, when he’s missed votes recently and said he would be less active. Uh? Where’s his praise of Seymour for sending tons of telegrams? Where’s his praise of Vinage for being active in the Senate just like he praises Skizzy for being “involved in the discussions of all the Acts?” The last paragraph can't even remotely be classified as a fair or objective review, simply because it is not. You read it and you think "Oh wow, No CRAP prints CRAP."
I love the idea of giving a review of the Government, but it needs to be done by competent people who can look at the facts and say "okay, this is what was horrible, but give them credit for doing these good things" This article is too subjective to the writer's personal likes or dislikes. If you're going to hate on Seymour, hate on him for being an obnoxious queer. If you're going to hate on Dhaka, hate on him for being a puppet. If you're going to hate on Vinage, hate on him for acting like a 5 year old with crayons writing bills. If you're going to hate on Ogastein, hate on him for being a perfectly lubricated weathervane. Etc, etc, etc.
