TAS December Update

The following is a regional report compiled by the Allied States State Department.

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Allied States Conducts December General Elections
Written by Kastros, Allied States Secretary of State

Chancellor Election

CDland (RP) 23 (74.2%)
Andune (FAP) 8 (25.8%)

Senate Elections

Pepe (R3C) 14 (15.6%) incumbent
Arbor Mist (R3C) 14 (15.6%) incumbent
Zachary (R3C) 14 (15.6%)
Lewis and Daniel (R3C) 11 (12.2%) incumbent
Gregory (R3C) 10 (11.1%)
Lockland (FAP)10 (11.1%)
Bacilli (FAP) 9 (10%)
Britarvia (RP) 6 (6.7%)
Nosma Washington (LRP) 2 (2.2%)
Total Votes: 90

Delegate Challenge Election
TNR (FAP) 12 (54.5%) incumbent
Obito (RP) 2 (9.1%)
Pepe (R3C) 6 (27.3%)
Britarvia (RP) 2 (9.1%)

Bolded candidates won their respective elections.

During the December 2016 General Election in The Allied States, we saw elections for the Chancellor, Senate, and the first Delegate election since April. The Chancellor Election saw CDland of the Republican Party take on Andune of the National Grammar Party. Both well respected members of the region fought clean and respectable campaigns. Both candidates touted their vast experience in the region, however Andune stated his main goal was to rename the region and CDland stated his main goal was to bring a new life to the regional government. CDland would go on to win in a land slide taking 74.2% of the votes with the vote tally being 23 to 8.

The Senate election saw 9 candidates contesting 4 available Senate seats. From the Libertarian Reformist Party, we saw Gregory Drakan, Pepe Drakan, Arbor Mist, Zachary Drakan, and Nosma Washington run. Bacilli and Lockland ran on behalf of the National Grammar Party. Lastly, Lewis and Daniel ran on behalf of the Otaku Party and Britarvia Drakan ran for the Republican Party. Zachary Drakan, Lewis and Daniel, Lockland, and Pepe Drakan carried the most votes during the first round of voting; however, the first vote was thrown out by the Supreme Court of The Allied States. A mistake was made in the immigration office and a newcomer was granted citizenship during the election, which is unlawful according to the regional immigration code. The newcomer voted in the election and, because the margin separating the 4th and 5th place candidates was 1 vote, it decided that the results were too close to allow for the election to stand. In the Senate Election rerun Zachary Drakan, Pepe Drakan, Arbor Mist, and Lewis and Daniel were elected to the Senate, leaving Lockland, who won a seat during the first round of voting, without a Senate seat.

Incumbent Delegate TNR Drakan was challenged to an election by a petition started by Kastros. During the registration; TNR Drakan, Kastros, Obito Drakan, Britarvia Drakan, and Pepe Drakan signed up to run for Delegate. Shortly before the election, Kastros withdrew. TNR Drkan would narrowly edge out Pepe Drakan by two votes. However, this election was also thrown out by the Supreme Court of The Allied States. For this election, the Supreme Court determined that the election rules announced did not comport with regional law. The Supreme Court felt that it was best to restart the election in order to protect the rights of voters. In the Delegate Election rerun TNR Drakan would win again, this time by a much larger margin taking 54.5% of the votes.

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The Allied States is comprised of three states, which each have their own subforums, draft state constitutions, and elect state governments.

Buxton
Written by Obito Drakan, Governor of the State of Buxton

The past month in the State of Buxton has been very interesting. We have elected Obito to be the Governor of the State of Buxton once again after he returned from a short leave from the region, in which he ran uncontested and received the support of the entire state to lead it once again just as he did this past summer. Since the election, Governor Obito has been busy, successfully working out a deal with the State of the American West to annex half of its land, giving Buxton a gain of 6 additional counties: Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico and thus allowing the Great American Union to become an official state with the remainder of the land which Buxton did not annex from the American West. The State of Buxton has also begun its Presidential Parade, in which for the first time in the region's history, we discuss each of the 43 individual US Presidents, beginning with George Washington all the way to Barack Obama, with a new topic being made each day, leading up to the Inauguration Day of President-elect Donald Trump. The Presidential Parade has been a success, as citizens throughout The Allied States gather, in an unprecedented move by Governor Obito opening up the Presidential Parade to every citizen of the region, making this the first non-exclusive event that a state in The Allied States is hosting. The 2016 Buxton Awards have been announced, and five Buxton citizens will be honored for their contributions to the state: Honorary King Imperium Drakan, Governor Obito Drakan, Governor Gregory Drakan, loyal citizen since August 2015 Zachary Drakan, and loyal citizen since March 2016 JD Drakan. Yes, the State of Buxton is home to many members of The Allied States' House Drakan! In the coming weeks and months, Governor Obito has more plans for the the State of Buxton, most of which are determined by the fate of the possible Gov-Sim role play, and possible revamped States Military role play.

Holy Brittanian Empire
Written by Kastros, Emperor of Brittania

The Allied States. The Britannian Convention was started and the future of the Empire was discussed. Materia-Collectus was narrowly re-elected as Prime Executor. The Empire saw a spike in population, doubling its active population in just a few days. The House of Commons has seen some life, the first bill in many months has been submitted and Speaker elections are under way. The Lastly, the month of December also saw the establishment of the Imperial Party and Green Party.

Great American Union
Written by Christopher Habszollern, Patriarch of the Great American Union

GAU is the newest state in TAS, as such it offers a great opportunity for settlement, and building a culture. GAU has a new Constitution that expands the number of roles in the government. GAUs' head of state is Patriarch Christopher Habzollern. State Government is lead by Pepe Drakan as President. We would love to have you in the GAU. Let's build a state together!

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The Allied States hosts several private media companies, which produce radio and video shows. The following is a compilation of content created by citizens of the Allied States, accompanied by reviews written by Allied States Chief Justice JD Drakan, who also writes media reviews for his company, "Rotten Potatoes".

Hardball with Arbor Mist
Uploaded 12/20/2016, 10:27
Produced by Arbor G. Mist for The Allied States Polling Company

https://www.spreaker.com/user/9469421/hardball-w-arbormist-122016

Review by JD Drakan for Rotten Potatoes:

Summary: Arbor Mist returns in his series of Hardball, opting this time for a more condensed approach and without a panel.

Analysis: Arbor returns with his show Hardball, highlighting several key issues throughout the region. He starts off the episode talking about the FREA repeal and the ensuing refunds all government entities will be receiving as a result of this bill. It's no surprise he begins his show with this headliner, as we all knew Arbor has continually been against FREA from the start. He touches on the States next, first visiting the Presidential Parade in Buxton. This is one of Governor Obito's best ideas yet, and there has been continued increasing activity as a result. Arbor notes that we are on the 20th of 45 presidents. He moves to the HBE and briefly discusses the Obama recognition act sponsored by the newly minted (no pun intended) Green Party. Finally, the GAU needs a speaker, although he won't go into much detail about his home state. The CDland Administration's first gaffe is covered, where the state media request for Buxton was accidentally sent to the GAU, much to Arbor's chagrin. He also talks about his new social issues act, which as caused quite a divide in the senate. For these to be his specific issues and this to be his show, he is pretty good at keeping his opinion out of the reporting. Other shows i've listened to are much more biased and opinionated. Arbor addresses Reg's offer to be on the Regprentice in exchange for being on Hardball, saying that Reg was more than welcome and that he'd equally like to be on the Regprentice. He also invites anyone listening who may be interested in being on the next Hardball panel to contact him. He outlines his next show, in which he says regional leaders will be talking about 2017 and the things they need to do for success.

Opinion and feedback: Arbor's latest edition of Hardball is a bite we can actually chew. He was able to reduce his show times from in excess of half an our down to less than 11 minutes. Regionia commented that this was a copying of his own format on the Regprentice, where episodes are generally less than 15 minutes. We also see elements of the Regprentice and other media broadcasts (such as Evolve's Twenty Uno broadcasts) where there is music in the beginning and end of show. I hesitate to call this copying. I think it's advisable for media companies to look at each other, see what's working, and then adapt it to their own program. The shortened episodes make it so that consumers actually are interested in listening to the shows to begin with. I can say that there have been more than several occasions when I saw a podcast or video episode come out that was over half an hour long and didnt even bother to open it. There are several things I'd recommend all media companies, podcast or video, doing in the future in order to increase consumer-ship. Number one is to make a portfolio before you begin airing. You need to know what you're talking about. Going in with no agenda or going completely off topic for extended periods of time will lengthen the time of your episodes, which in my opinion is a bad thing, as well as make people become disinterested. Remember, you're there to talk about the region for the most part. Number two is I would write this portfolio down and post it with the episode briefly outlining what is discussed, and what times in the podcast it is discussed. That way if you're for example talking about a bill that's being debated at minute 5, maybe a senator only wants to listen to that piece. Allowing them to locate the interesting parts will increase your consumer base, even if it is only a select targeting. Overall the episode was good, I expect in the future panels will force the episode to last longer, which is okay so long as everything remains on topic. Arbor maintains a composed, quirky news reporter's guise, not allowing personal biases to affect his presentation of the information, and oddly talking about himself in the third person. We'll see how long that lasts.

Regprentice Ep. 5
Uploaded 12/20/2016, 14:08
Produced by Regionia for the Columbia News Network

https://www.spreaker.com/user/8127215/regprentice-ep-5

Review by JD Drakan for Rotten Potatoes:

Summary: Regionia continues his classic Donald Trump impression on the Regprentice while rolling out a new feature to the show.

Analysis: Reg begins, as always, in his spot on Donald Trump impression. One thing I like about the way he does his shows his he tells you what he's going to talk about for the whole show ahead of time. It let's me make mental notes of what I may or may not want to listen to. Reg introduces a new feature called Song of the Show, where he plays part or an entire song he is liking at the time of airing (more on this later). He also talks about the future of his show and the direction he wants it to go. On Ep. 4 of the Regprentice, he named Lewis and Daniel as Regprentice of the week. In this episode he briefly mulls over the idea of having a person of the episode vs a person of the week (hint, do person of the week). He also expresses his interest in travelling to other media shows as a guest, so long as the other media host agrees to appear on the Regprentice. I like this idea. Having coordinated inter-regional media gets different ideas talking at the same time. After this he samples his new show feature, playing a Frank Sinatra song for several minutes. (Gotta be honest here I skipped over it, not because I don't like Sinatra, but I'm listening to the Regprentice for regional news, not classic blues). When the song ends he touches base on the upcoming Christmas festival and events being planned currently by Secretary of Culture Greg. He seems to be initially reserved about it, but eventually he comes around to acknowledging the potential for activity, and offers to help Greg plan the event. One thing you've gotta give Reg credit for, he's all about activity. There's not much else to talk about as far as the region goes so he wraps the show up with a current event, particularly concerning the refugee crisis in Europe and its possible ties to the Berlin incident yesterday.

Opinion and Feedback: I've gotta say in all my time here, the Regprentice has caught fire to become one of my favorite podcasts. Regionia's Trump impression is A+, he's not usually attacking anyone, his intentions seem good, and they are consistently under that golden 15 minute benchmark. For me that's about my attention span as far as these go.You start making them 30-40 minutes and you'll find your consumer base is extremely limited. A couple of things to note. First off, I'll admit I'm not a fan of the new song feature. I don't really care about having a song in the podcast. I'm listening for Reg's perspective on the region and a damn good Trump impression, not the latest music trends. I'll skip right over it every time. It seems like filler for me. I think having the agenda at the beginning is a good step in the right direction, but I'll say what I wrote on Arbor's review: there needs to be a written portfolio attached with each episode so that consumers know what they do and don't want to listen to. Reg offers a biased approach, but he does it with the Trump persona and he does it well. Maybe it's because he's so much like Trump? I don't know for sure, but I like it nonetheless. A piece of advice for the next episode would be a more structured agenda. At the end it seemed to curtail into talking about current events because there was no more regional events to discuss. And as much as I like current events, I have actual news sources for those. Regional media should be, in my opinion, used exclusively for regional media. I think the reason why there might not have been much to talk about is because today marked the third consecutive day that a Regprentice episode was released. And as much as I love the Regprentice, I think the recent flurry of episodes may be fueled by the positive feedback the first few received. I'd suggest maybe limiting it to several times a week. Let some regional news build up for a few days, then have a good episode full of things to talk about. That way you don't need to add filler like the song feature or the current events at the end. You don't want to burn out your base. Give them something to look forward to by keeping it a bit more rare.

Thanks Kastros! Glad to see this. I hope CD and Ryan both find themselves in a productive term.

And have fun hosting the World Fair!