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When people realized we now had 20 citizenship approvals, people got on their horses and started racing each other.
True story.

The big news today is that, for once, the Admins actually listened to our concerns and corrected a problem they made for us. When 167 Senators had been elected, they'd each been given six approvals for the Citizenship module. When that was corrected, the Admins didn't bother to correct the Citizenship problem. We'd estimated that we were supposed to get 21 or 22 passes each, but 20's better than nothing.

The top priority will still be helping those who traveled overseas to aid our smaller allies in their time of need, as part of anti-PTO forces, but at least now there's hope that other people will be able to get citizenship before next Congressional term, too.

So to celebrate the new increased number of passes, I manually went through, one by one, a gigantic (looked like at least 100 names) list of anti-PTOers that Senator Killing Time had put up and posted those who still hadn't been granted American citizenship. There were something like 10 names on that list, so Senator Bradley Reala offered to handle it.

There are names of anti-PTOers not on that gigantic list that I plan to take a look at and grant citizenship on an on-sight basis. After that, I will grant citizenship to the patient folks that I'd already checked out and approved before being re-elected.



I was appointed Congressional Whip today and, to celebrate that, took an hour or so out of my day to write up and send out a mass-mailing to all our Congressmen and Congresswomen. Topics included signing up for donation proposals, committees, citizenship news, and more.

It's a list of 46 names, what with Adam Griffin quitting on us today and fleeing to Chile. I don't normally single people out, and I know I'm practically inviting flaming from him by linking to his most recent article there, but this just bugs the heck out of me.

Among other qualified candidates who were pitted against high-rhetoric, low-filling candidate Adam Griffin, Sheriff Yoda was running in Georgia. I'm not alone in Congress in thinking we would've liked to have him here. And couldn't Adam have at least offered his proposals to use in Donations before he left? Or grant citizenship to anti-PTO forces returning from abroad first? Or said something to us in Congress before going to Chile? He had us worried he'd been hacked!

At least he donated his five Congressional gold to the Flying Unicorn Squadron. I can't disagree with that. Flying Unicorns rule and the FUS is an important, underfunded program.

What else has been going on in Congress? Plenty. And you know what that means...? More pretty flowery borders than you can shake a stick at! Cos that's how I roll, dawg. Taxes, budget reserves, military companies, infrastructure, skill 0 job hubs, talk of embargos, domestic programs, sign-ups, donations, and record-keeping.



There's a debate on whether or not to raise the Housing VAT tax. I'm against it, but there are good arguments to be had either way. The primary argument for it is that only newbies who don't understand the black market will buy it with tax, so it's essentially a "noob tax" that takes money from those who might otherwise not spend it at all or die with the money still on them. Turns out, in eRep, you really can take it with you!

The primary argument against raising the Housing VAT tax is that the Housing industry is hard enough to survive in, particularly because of the prevalence of the black market, and it's an important industry for which we can't afford to make things worse. On top of everything else, after all, it trains the workers who make our Hospitals and Defense Systems.



We're talking about saving gold in a reserve for use in military operations. I was initially against it, since I figured ALL of our money serves that basic purpose, but I'm beginning to see that if PEACE attacks us again, they're going to do it with a huge gold reserve and we should have one, too.



Now that we're not constantly engaged in domestic battles, infrastructure debates have come into full swing (and expect that they will continue to be prevalent after committee assignments are handed out and I raise the question of when we should be placing a Q5 DS in California) and there's even been movement on the United States Skill 0 Job Hub.

Concerning that, Senator ligtreb runs Fort Harlot and Senators Aldric Harper and Slippyfist Clark have offered to help him out. They'll be sending out welcome messages with useful information out to the employees. Senator Slippyfist Clark is a beneficiary of this system in the past who's now made it all the way to Congress.



On the military company front, the plan for the Airborne has been submitted to the President for financial approval. Following that, plans include to expand to the Army and, later, Mobile Infantry.



Our in-game votes on proposals have begun to be tabulated in spreadsheets we're all to fill out, put together by Deputy Speaker of the House Tiacha. I've already filled out all the spreadsheets that are up so far.



In a strange repeat of history, the proposal of whether or not to renew the embargo on eUK was up for debate. Last time, we wanted to do it but couldn't because Presidential negotiations were holding it up. Then, wham, eUK decides to slap us with an embargo first, making our job easier. They once again made our job easier here by declaring war on eNorway; because we have an open war with them, the embargo is now automatic. Thanks, eUK.



There's already been a topic of Scheduled and Emergency Donations Sign-Ups, set up once again by Senator wapu (who also came up with the idea last Congressional term). It's helped to unite us and give us something to do while waiting for Committee Assignments to be handed out. Congress became a little less hectic after that, which was the desired effect after all, proving that the joint idea between Senators wapu and myself to start it up again was a good one.



Meals on Wheels notified us of some goings-on. They're reporting that they're doing a great job, if they do say so themselves. But seriously, things seem to be going very well with Meals on Wheels at the moment and they are responding to everyone who gets in touch with them.

Senators Darkflight and Aldric Harper offered to help out with the program and White House Press Secretary (Emerick asked me if I wanted to be this once) mjdiv offered to write of Meals on Wheels in the next White House Briefing.

They won't need funding for a while cos they've got roughly 80 gold worth of USD and gold and, in addition to that, at the end of the week Senator -- err, former Senator -- Habraka Abrivianius will be donating a Q1 food company to them with approximately 2500 Q1 food in it. It's been estimated that it's enough to take care of approximately 833 applicants (3 pieces of food per person) without having to spend a dime!



In other domestic government program news, the new USA Welcoming Committee is now open. Read what they're all about, as well as the latest updates, by clicking on the link, including Se...former Senator Habraka donating a Q1 Gift company to the program.

Habraka also bugged us about donating foreign currencies (I previously mentioned how his pestering led to RUB being donated to the CBO) and asked about certain MPPs, but it doesn't look like anything will happen on the MPP front and it's probably better not to mention the countries by name, since they're not exactly the biggest countries and we all know how PEACE GC likes to PTO and/or wipe out anyone with whom we even have coffee or say hi to on the street.



Senator Aldric Harper has volunteered to propose the next donation, tonight, after the current one runs out, after I pointed out that I thought it would be a good idea. Yes, see, Aldric does the actual work, I just make suggestions on when and where things should go. Much like real life work for me, too, hah.

Well I think that just about covers all of the important developments. If I've forgotten something important, something I said I'd update you on but didn't, let me know. Now, on to the voting record!



Voting Record - Term 2 Day 4

Proposal: New Citizen Message
Proposed by: Gaius Julius
Description: Do you agree on the text used by the president to welcome new Citizens in your country?
Voting Choice: Yes
Result: 40 Yes, 3 No
Details: Initial indications seem to be that neither BBC code nor HTML code will work. eRep fail. This means that the New Citizen Message will have to be re-worked. I like the wording of this one, though.

Proposal: Donate
Proposed by: Astra Kat G
Description: Do you agree to transfer 99999 USD from the country accounts to Congressional Budget Office?
Voting Choice: Yes
Result: 42 Yes, 0 No
Details: 42 is the answer to life, the universe, and everything. Now if you wanted a more specific answer, you should've asked a more specific question.

Proposal: Donate
Proposed by: Cynic Grim
Description: Do you agree to transfer 8457 RUB from the country accounts to congressional budget office?
Voting Choice: Yes
Result: 42 Yes, 0 No
Details: Toldja so. 42.



If you'd like to voice your opinion in a public poll on the October ePOTUS race, check this out.

It seems the budgetary plan is to encourage an exchange rate of 0.025 gold per USD. Apparently, this is where it was pre-war and it's expected to remain that way unless we get reduced down to a few regions again. Having a higher exchange rate is a good thing for many reasons according to our economic experts, but the short answer it that it allows more gold to go to our troops and less to be lost to the Admins.

Speaking of the Admins, I know we complain about them a lot, but when our 50000 USD was stolen, it was returned, relatively swiftly. Other countries who have been in similar situations this past month weren't so lucky, so we should count our blessings.

Blessings, America,
~ Katherine "Astra" Gallagher