Join the new world

Congressional Elections is days away and I'm announcing my running for Alabama!

First off, for anybody who hasn't read any of my articles, you may be wondering why the name of my paper is The American Joker. That's because I put jokes and funny pictures in my articles! I saw that there were too many newspapers only reporting about PTOs, world events, the economy, etc. and thought that the eRepublik world needed to lighten up a little bit. I'm not saying that those things aren't important, it's just that if they're reporting on that stuff then why should I report on it too? So as a tradition at The American Joker there will be a funny picture at the end of the article so please read on!

Platform

Positions I've held/Organizations I'm associated with:
1) The Airborne, USAF, and Pony Express
2) Project: Meet the party and Project: 40 (volunteering for the party)
3) Citizen Mentorship Program
4) Colonel in the USAF

My main goals:
1) Keep new citizens involved
2) Keeping citizens informed
3) Keeping our military strong
4) Keep preventing PTOs of our allies
5) Keeping and making allies abroad
6) Q5 Hospital
7) Taxes (even import taxes)

Keep new citizens involved

This is crucial to the future of the eUSA. Those of us who are high up in our skills and strength are very important to the country but what if we had more people with higher skills and strength? It would constantly increase our power on the world stage. I know investing in our new citizens is a long term process but in the end it all pays off. I was once a new citizen only months ago and now I'm at level 18! Programs such as the Welcoming Committee and the Citizen Mentorship Program do a great job at helping new citizens. Keep up the great work!

To show how dedicated I am to new citizens, I signed up for the Citizen Mentorship Program. There’s no worse feeling than not knowing what you’re doing. This eWorld is much like the real world (with some exceptions) and the real world doesn’t play nice. Like the real world, there’s trickery, scams, and greedy people who want money and power.

As a way to help new citizens, I’m willing to donate gifts as well as food to get their wellness up and help them get off to a good start here in eRepublik. So far I've been donating to two citizens: Zachary Paul and James Noble. I hope that more citizens contact me.

A friend of mine, Ligtreb, put it best in one of his articles:

Active people help us in wars.
Active people help our economy.
Active people help our government.
Active people help our society.

Keeping citizens informed

As a way to keep the people of Alabama informed as to what I’m doing in Congress, I will be presenting a weekly article stating how I voted for each proposal that week.

Although I can’t state publicly everything that’s going on in the government, I will try my best to keep everybody updated on events. Of course I can’t state everything that’s going on. A well-known example is the invasion of Russia a couple of months back. If Congress had leaked out information about the invasion then we wouldn’t have stood a chance at all! But by keeping it a secret, along with a coordinated effort worldwide, we were able to stand a better chance.

Keeping our military strong

As a member of The Airborne, I have seen the importance of a strong military. Believe me, the money we’re spending isn’t going to waste. C.G. was a HUGE success! The battle was INTENSE! (link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY7WJtRptDk&eurl=http://). I'm proud to say that I participated in the last minutes of the battle (I'm in the video!).

Fighting in the battle wouldn't have been possible without some help and I would like to address this in a separate article.

Communication is very well coordinated and we’re out fighting practically every day. Along with helping our allies the military helps citizens rank up. I have recently ranked up to Colonel and now I’m able to deal about 10 to 20 more damage every time I attack. This will help me to better defend the eUSA in the case of a real war.

If you’re new to eRepublik, the Training Division is the place for you: http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=cHRRSUFEbFdjSHVYNG4zN2t2S0phTHc6MA

If you have 4 strength and are moderately active then the Mobile Infantry is where you should be: http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=ci1XbGoxZDctN1AzaHFuVXdPLU9EZFE6MA..

If you have 6 strength, are close to Corporal rank, and are active in eRepublik the Army is right for you:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=cC1RejQwOFdZbTIzbDFMQmFhX2RaTGc6MA.

If you have 8 strength, an army rank of Lieutenant, and am willing to be an active soldier then sign up for The Airborne:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=cmxhLV9obDZBUk4xZ2xJM3dEcHRDX1E6MA..

I like that the branches of the military supply us with weapons but I would like to see the ability to request higher quality weapons if somebody in the military has the money to be able to pay for the higher quality weapons. I realize how big of a task this would be for the QM but I believe it would be well worth it. This would help us rank up even quicker and make the military even more prepared in case of a real war on our home front.

Keep preventing PTOs of our allies

Our allies are possibly the most important thing to our country. They’re there for us and we’re there for them but not when they’re PTOed. That’s why I joined the USAF so that I could have the opportunity to defend our allies against PTOs as well as even having the opportunity to PTO one of our enemies.

In the last Presidential Elections our enemies tried to PTO Spain and I’m proud to say that I put my vote towards Spain to prevent that from happening. Unfortunately we weren’t able to PTO either Indonesia or Ukraine.

That’s why we need more USAF members! Here’s the link: http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=cjF1WUtYcjcwVF9mSWVHVkRmQ2FaQUE6MA..

Keeping and making allies abroad

As I said before, our allies are possibly the most important thing to our country. We need to keep our allies close to us so we don’t get destroyed. Now even though Atlantis has fallen, we are still allies with some former Atlantis nations and I want it to stay that way. At the same time we need to look for new allies especially if some new countries start popping up. Peru, Greece, and Israel are great examples and I'm sure more countries will either be liberated or created in the future so we need to stay on top of that because we can't let more countries join PEACE. Only together can we defend and ever have the chance to defeat PEACE.

Q5 Hospital

Now before I say anything, I like to keep a level head on issues that face us. Even though I am a proud Alabamian, I would have to say no to a Q5 Hospital. We have a strong 136 people in the state of Alabama and a medium wood region but I don't find this a good enough reason to have a Q5 Hospital. But it's not my opinion that matters; it's your actions that dictate where the Q5 Hospital goes. How is this so? The American Health Foundation (AHF) is taking donations towards buying a Q5 Hospital and if we, the people of Alabama, donate a large amount of the money needed then we could likely get the Q5 Hospital!

Here's the link to the AHF org: http://www.erepublik.com/en/organization/1538535

Taxes

Taxes in general are good for our nation because it goes to help the eUSA and the functions of government which includes our military. Without taxes we wouldn't have a working military and would therefore be susceptible to PEACE takeover.

Concerning import taxes, there's been much debate after Congress lowered the import tax to 1% on some commodities. Now, coming into this issue with a level head, I believe that we need to look at the different options. We can't let foreign companies influence our market (to make this happen we would need to increase the import tax) but at the same, we don't have high regions for some commodities (therefore needing foreign companies to import their commodities which would favor a lower import tax).

I promise that while I'm in Congress that I will address this issue and solve it to the best of my ability. I'm sure that within the next month we will see the consequences, whether good or bad, of lowing the import tax to 1% and if the consequences are bad then I will push for a moderate increase in the tax. Going from one extreme to another is never good.

Now a funny picture:
http://www.funny.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Funny.woa/wa/funny?fn=CKM0H&Funny_Pictures=Chuck_Norris

Vote for Chris Willson, the right man for the job!