Did the 1980 & 1995 referendums still happen ITTL?L'infobox:
Cast
Catherine De Léan as Valérie Goulet (new character)
Patrick Huard as Thomas Rougeau
Macha Grenon as Geneviève Lafontaine
Melvil Poupaud as Marc-André Fortin (new character)
- I came up with the province-wide vote totals before I calculated the seat-by-seat results (using the OTL results from 2018 since the provincial popular vote more closely matched this elections' than 2022), so you can imagine my bafflement when I realized that CAQ won a majority on 31% of the popular vote. An utterly bonkers result, proving that Canada in The West Wing universe is, after all, still Canada.
- I had to create the character of Goulet at the last minute once I realized that the actor who played Jean-François Lincourt (Michael Côté) had died this past May.
- The note next to Lafontaine's name explains that AQ has two spokespeople (one male and one female) leading the party and that Lafontaine was designated as the party's candidate for premier had the party (somehow) managed to form the next government.
- They're not shown here, but the Conservative Party of Quebec, who in the last OTL Quebec election won 12% of the vote, won only 3.84% of the vote *here*. I ultimately got that number from the last OTL pre-lockdown poll taken in early 2020, since the party really got a shot in the arm (haha) from being the party that catered to people who opposed lockdowns, mandatory masking and the COVID vaccine.
- I actually used regression analysis to get the totals for both the PQ and AQ using the trends for the PQ's vote share from OTL 2007-2022 & for the AQ, Québéc solidaire's trend from 2012 to 2022. The Liberals' was simply the average swing each OTL provincial Liberal government got when they sought a second term from the Quiet Revolution onwards applied to TTL's 2019 result.
2018 Presidential Election
- Thread starter Marky Bunny
- Start date
Tuesday October 3rd, 2023
Conservatives confirm identity of MP arrested
The Conservative party has taken the unusual step of naming the MP arrested in the early of this morning at a hotel in Blackpool during the annual party conference. With Prime-Minister Michael Duggan due to close the conference on Wednesday, the party clearly didn't want continued speculation to over shadow the speech, Party Chair Tamwar Malik released a statement just after 16:00 hrs this afternoon.
"In consultation with Lancashire Police, I can confirm that the Conservative MP who was arrested this morning, was Louise Fletcher, the MP for Fylde. She remains in custody, whilst Police investigations continue". Mrs Fletcher is 47, and has been an MP since 2011, and is currently serving as Minister of State for Employment at the Department of Work and Pensions.
Lancashire Police also released a further statement asking for people "not to speculate on the events of the arrest on Social Media".
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Yes.
You can tell the thread is fiction because when the OG writers had Sellner get deposed by Gelsey, it was a buttoned-up affair and she was seamlessly installed to replace him mid-Congress.
Well, fiction or that the people writing it in the summer of 2010 had yet to experience the spectacle of a post-2008 House GOP being given the reins under a Democratic presidency.
BREAKING: Deal reached to end filibuster, avoid "nuclear option"
Tuesday, October 3rd, 2023
The "Gang of Fourteen" has reportedly reached an agreement that will end the filibuster of Judge Ronald Lin's nomination to the United States Supreme Court, and which will keep the Democratic majority from using the "nuclear option" to alter or abolish the filibuster.
According to a statement released by the group's representatives, Robert Cantina (R-AK) and Nicole Kershaw (D-CA), the deal involves all 14 senators (seven from either party) agreeing to vote "yes" on every cloture motion and against any changes to the filibuster during the current Congress. With Democrats holding a slim 51-49 majority in the Senate, this deal means that the party will be able to overcome almost any potential filibuster, with all seven Republicans being obligated to vote to close debate and non-signatory Daryl Lukins (R-OK) having publicly pledged to overcome any filibuster, regardless of the bill or nomination being debated.
The trade-off for Republicans includes taking the possibility of filibuster reform off the table until at least January 2025, and, pending White House approval, the 14 members each being given the chance to name the nominee for the next federal district court vacancy in their state.
Both Cantina and Kershaw said that the gang's negotiations with the White House over the future judicial nominations, including a potential second Supreme Court vacancy during the current Congress, are still ongoing.
A second cloture motion will be presented to the Senate tomorrow. Five Republican members of the "Gang of Fourteen" voted against cloture on Friday, which saw the Democrats fall four votes short of reaching the 60-vote threshold needed to stop debate on Lin's nomination.
Wednesday October 4th, 2023
Fletcher charging over shadows Duggan conference speech
The decision by Lancashire police to charge MP Louise Fletcher following her arrest with her husband in early hours of Tuesday morning overshadowed Prime Minister Michael Duggan key note address to the party conference.
Fletcher, the MP for Fylde, and Minister of State for Employment at the DWP, has been charged with two accounts of sexual assault, one count of attempted sexual assault, resisting arrest, and assaulting a Police officer. Her Husband, Charles, has been charged with the same, as well as procession of a Class A drug namely Cocaine. Both have been released on bail and not remaindered into custody.
Fletcher announced through her solicitor that she "denied the charges". There have already been calls for her resignation not only from the government and from Parliament. The Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Leslie Maddox called for Fletcher to be sacked "I cannot see how the Prime Minister can allow her to stay on in the Government". Many Conservative MP's said that both per position as a Minister and an MP where "stretching credibility". One unnamed Conservative MP said the "PM has to sack her".
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Senate filibuster defeated, Lin nomination will be voted on tomorrow
Wednesday, October 4th, 2023
The six-day filibuster of Judge Ronald Lin's nomination to the United States Supreme Court ended today with 11 Republicans joining all 51 Democrats to end debate on Lin's nomination, setting up a final confirmation vote in the most contentious Supreme Court nomination in decades.
By a 62-38 vote, two more than the 60 votes required for a cloture motion to succeed, the Senate voted to end debate on Lin's nomination after Republicans begun a continuous filibuster of Seaborn's second nominee for the nation's highest court on Thursday. Six Republicans who voted against cloture in a vote taken last Friday this time voted for it, with five defectors having joined the "Gang of Fourteen" agreement that sought to preserve the filibuster after multiple high-profile invocations that have polarized public opinion on the tactic.
Carlin Cassidy (R-PA), the only Republican who was not a member of the "Gang of Fourteen" who switched his vote, said that Lin deserved an "up or down" vote.
"All possible issues worth debating about this nominee appear to have been exhausted," Cassidy said, explaining his vote change on the Senate floor, "We can no longer delay exercising our constitutional responsibility to either reject or consent to the president's nomination."
Unlike a filibuster, only 51 votes (or 50 with Vice President Bobby Tyler's tie-breaking vote) are required to approve Lin's nomination. Democrats currently hold 51 seats, with 18 Republicans having previously voted for Lin to take his current position as a federal circuit court judge in 2019.
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Wednesday, October 4th 2023
Nigeria's Tainegbe nominated to be next UN Secretary-General
New York— Foreign minister Kwame Tainegbe of Nigeria was nominated today by a unanimous vote of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to become the next Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN).
Tainegbe, who would be the second Secretary-General from Africa, emerged after a series of straw polls among UNSC members, with each of the five permanent members (the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia and China) each being able to veto potential candidates.
"There were many exceptional and qualified candidates," Brazilian ambassador José Figueiredo, current UNSC president, said. "But we have a clear favorite and his name is Kwame Tainegbe."
Several candidates were proposed to succeeding Renata Barrica, who is standing down in January after ten years heading the world's largest international organization. With the unspoken convention in recent decades of rotation among the different UN regional groups, candidates from Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe were viewed as the only ones who would garner both approval by a majority of UNSC members and avoid a veto from any of the five permanent members. Besides Tainegbe, Ivica Kalinić of Serbia, Akilagpa Mensah of Ghana, Kalin Tsetsov of Bulgaria, and Osvaldo Yglesias of Costa Rica were regarded as the most likely contenders to replace Barrica, although the four other candidates all drew at least one veto from a permanent UNSC member in the final straw poll.
Tainegbe, who served as Nigeria's ambassador to the United Nations before becoming his country's foreign minister in 2015, will need to be confirmed by a vote from the United Nations General Assembly. However, no candidate nominated by the UNSC has ever been rejected by the assembly. If he is confirmed, Tainegbe will serve for a five-year term starting in 2024.
Senate confirms Lin as first Asian-American justice
Thursday, October 5th, 2023
The United States Senate today confirmed Ronald Lin to be the first Asian-American Supreme Court justice.
By a vote of 57-43, the upper chamber approved Lin's nomination, making him the newest justice on the nation's highest court. Six Republicans joined all 51 Democrats in voting to confirm Lin.
Lin, who has served as a federal judge for four years on the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, was nominated by President Sam Seaborn after the death of Associate Justice Jackson Hoyt, a member of the court's conservative bloc. With his rulings showing that Lin would likely join the court's liberal wing and shift the balance of the court away from the right, Senate Republicans engaged in the first filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee since 1968, when Associate Justice Abe Fortas' elevation to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was derailed before ultimately being withdrawn by President Lyndon B. Johnson.
"With this vote, my friends in the Senate have reiterated the promise of this country as a land of opportunity," Seaborn said in remarks after the vote. "That no matter your background, you can rise to the highest levels of success. That success will be the result of years of hard work, dedication and enduring the legacy of injustices committed by past generations. That is exactly what Justice-designate Lin has managed to do."
Coming to America as a child immigrant from Taiwan, Lin will be the first justice born outside the United States since Felix Frankfurter, who served from 1939 to 1962. His presence also will make the court the most diverse in its history: in addition to having a third of its membership be racial or ethnic minorities, for the first time in the court's history, less than half of the justices will be white men.
With Lin expected to have a judicial philosophy similar to Franklin (Seaborn's first appointment to the court) and other members of the court's liberal wing, his replacement of the conservative Hoyt is expected to move the court leftwards. The current swing justice in most cases, right-leaning moderate Judi Rand, is expected to be replaced in that role by moderate justice Edward Appleton.
Lin speaking briefly at the White House after his confirmation (photo by Ke Huy Quan)
Friday October 6th, 2023
Fletcher resigns from the government
Louise Fletcher has this morning resigned from her position as Minister of State for Employment at the DWP, The MP for Fylde had been under increasing pressure to resign following her arrest and charging for sexual assault charges following an incident at a Blackpool hotel during the Conservative party conference in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
Fletcher, is also coming under increasing pressure to resign her seat in parliament which would force a by-election in what is regarded as a safe Conservative seat, with a majority of 15,092 at the June general election.
Saturday October 7th, 2023
New claims emerge against Fletcher
New claims of inappropriate behavior by Louise Fletcher, just a day after she resigned from the government as Minister of State for Employment at the DWP, have emerged.
The fresh allegations printed in several of today's newspapers stretch back over several years. Fletcher - who represents the constituency of Fylde- says "denies the charges of sexual assault" following an incident at a Blackpool hotel last Tuesday and has no intention of resigning as an MP. The Conservative party is coming under increasing to withdraw the party whip from her, which would mean she would sit in the House of Commons as an independent MP.
Prime Minister Micheal Duggan had appointed her to the role, which is the number two Minister in the DWP during the reshuffle following the general election in June.
Work and Pensions Secretary Martin Greenwell told the BBC that he and the Prime Minister had not been aware of "specific allegations" against her at the time of the appointment. He added she had not spoken to the Prime Minister himself , but had been given the assurance by "from the Number Ten press office".Speaking to the BBC, he said the appointment "went through a vetting process as normal".
In fresh allegations this today, the Times reported Mrs Fletcher had placed her hand on the inner leg of a male Tory MP in a bar in Parliament in 2017. The newspaper reported she also made unwanted advances towards a different male Tory MP in 2018 while in his parliamentary office, and towards a female Tory activist in Fylde around July 2019. The MP involved in the alleged incident in 2018 contacted Number Ten before Mrs Fletcher was promoted after the general election passing on details of what he said had happened to him and voicing his concerns about her being appointed to the role. The Daily Mail carried allegations she had made advances against an individual in 2015, and that a female Tory staffer had tried to prevent his advances towards two young men at the Conservative Party conference. The Independent carried allegations from an unnamed female Conservative MP that Mrs Fletcher groped her on two separate occasions in December 2022 and in June this year during a general election campaign event. A young male Tory campaigner staffer claimed he was groped by Fletcher and her husband in a hotel bar following a rally during the election campaign.
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October 8, 2023
Indiana Gov. Stillman says he wants Madison Pope at more Colts games, says reports of awkward encounter "overblown"
INDIANAPOLIS -- Indiana Governor Matthew Stillman says he may not like her politics, or listen to her music, but he wants Madison Pope back at Lucas Oil Stadium to cheer on her rumored beau's Indianapolis Colts.
"I think it's a great thing," Stillman told ESPN after reports came in about a reportedly awkward conversation the two had when Stillman visited Pope and the family of Colts star tight end Trevor Blalock in their luxury booth. "Indianapolis is a small-market team, and we're coming back off a rough season [in 2022]. Getting more attention from non-football fans and a national media spotlight is a great opportunity to show people how Colts fans support their team."
The pop superstar broke her silence on political issues last year, speaking at the Democratic National Convention and attacking Republican nominee Alan Duke's homophobic remarks and what she described as Duke's belief that it was "okay to push people around, and to hate people just because they are different." Stillman, who was reportedly considered by Duke to be his running mate before declining very early on (Duke would go on to choose retired general Lloyd Pendleton), is still regarded as a conservative Republican who in the past has opposed same-sex marriage and backed a bill that would ban critical race theory in Indiana schools.
"It was awkward," one person who was in the booth told ESPN. Pope, a North Carolina native, had been clearly briefed beforehand on Stillman's politics and was reportedly polite but frosty towards the Indiana chief executive, who reportedly is mulling a presidential run in 2026. Stillman, however, did not appear to have known that Pope had publicly expressed little interest in football before her unconfirmed romance with Colts tight end Trevor Blalock began around the start of this NFL season.
"He asked if she was a [Carolina] Panthers fan," the source said. "It was a little awkward with everyone overhearing her explaining what everyone else already knew, even Carol [Blalock, Trevor Blalock's mother]."
Stillman disputes that account.
"I had a very nice, brief conversation with Ms. Pope," he said. "I'm aware that we disagree on some political issues, but nothing of the sort came up in the brief time I met with her and some of the other friends and families of Colts players."
Blalock, who is inactive for today's game against the Tennessee Titans with a sprained thumb, said he thought the NFL was "overdoing it" with coverage of Pope at Colts games, but the press coverage would not distract him on returning to the action.
"I'm focused on being back on the field when we go Jacksonville [in Week 6]," he said on his podcast The Blalockdown co-hosted with his sister Jade, a retired WNBA player who serves as head coach for the Delaware Blue Coats, the G League affiliate of the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers.
"That's where I need to be, and as a performer, I think [Pope] knows that."
In the first four games of the season, the nine-time Pro Bowler has hauled in 17 receptions for 122 yards (averaging 7.1 yards per reception) and recorded one touchdown. Kylen Granson will start in his place.
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OOC: Yes, this is TTL's version of the Travis Kelce-Taylor Swift romance.
Dallas Morning News
"It's Real to Them Damn It"
The Story of two of professional wrestling's most powerful fans
by Shannon Brees
Sunday, October 8th, 2023
Dallas, Texas-
It was on a warm Christmas Night in 1982, when John Hoynes, then a Dallas-based attorney, took a young John Edwards to “the matches” for the first time at Dallas’ Reuion Arena. This night, however, was no ordinary Saturday Night card, this was World Class Championship Wrestling’s Christmas Star Wars Supercard, which was to be headlined by local hero, Kerry Von Erich, challenging NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion, “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair, in a No-Disqualification Steel Cage match; a rematch from August bout in which they drew. 12,000 screaming fans packed out the Reunion Arena to watch their hero finally win the big one. But on this night it was never to be. To prevent any interference or cheating from Flair, who also held the moniker of “The Dirtiest Player in the Game”, Kerry’s father and promoter, Fritz Von Erich, pulled out all of the stops. In addition to steel cage, Kerry would be protected both inside the cage and out, as the Freebirds, close friends of the Von Erich Family, would watch his back: Michael “P.S” Hayes as a special enforcer inside the cage, and Terry “Bam Bam” Gordy outside, guarding the key.
As the match began, all seemed to be going well; earlier in the night, Kerry’s brother David had aided the Freebirds in becoming the inaugural NWA World Six-Man Tag Team Champions. Towards the end of the fight, Von Erich trapped Flair in his family’s trademark submission hold, the Iron Claw, forcing Flair to his knees. After several minutes, Hayes became convinced that Flair’s foot was touching the bottom ring rope and called for Kerry to break the hold. As the match was no-dq, Referee David Manning refused to force Kerry to break it, so Hayes did so himself. Realizing he had made a mistake, Hayes then struck Flair, knocking him to the mat. When Hayes encouraged Von Erich to make the pin and win the Worlds Championship, Kerry refused, stating that wasn’t how he was going to win. Hayes, enraged at Von Erich, went to leave the cage, and when Von Erich tried to stop him, he was met with the steel cage door being slammed in his face by Gordy. The bloodied Von Erich dropped to the mat, where Flair covered him and Hayes counted a fast 3-count, allowing Flair to retain the title. The arena erupted. According to reports from the Dallas Police Officers providing security that night, it was officially a riot. Objects ranging from beer cans, to folding chairs, to shoes, batteries, spit cups, began to fill the ring as the fans demonstrated their disgust for the Freebirds turning on their longtime friends.
This was John Edwards first wrestling experience, as John Hoynes would later recall in an interview with WWE Home Video in 2009; “I watched a 4-year-old kid grab some guys beer can towards the ring and yell every bad word he knew, and several he really shouldn’t have.”
Last year, Edwards gave his own account of what he remembers from that night during an appearance on Busted Open Radio: “I remember it like it was yesterday. I was devastated. I was so angry. In an instant I hated Michael Hayes, I hated Terry Gordy; he wasn’t even there but I hated Buddy Roberts too. I hated Georgia, the Confederate Flag; but from that moment, I was hooked.” According to both Hoynes and Edwards, they would be regular attendees of the matches at the legendary Dallas Sportatorium. “I guess I was lucky. My mom worked hard to keep a roof over our heads; she was always so tired at the end of the week. John was an old family friend who offered to take me. He always tried to make time for it, even after he was elected to the House. Years later, when John’s son, Van, was old enough, he started going with us too. We were there right until the end.”
The relationship between the “Two Johns” as some have joked on social media, has always been as curious as it is mysterious. Some have claimed that Hoynes is a relative of Edwards’ mother, Helene, either a cousin or sibling. Others sources claim that Hoynes is John Edwards’ Godfather, though that seems unlikely given that Hoynes is a practicing Methodist and Edwards is Catholic. And the while the true origin of their friendship is unknown, there is one common trait they share: personality. Both Hoynes & Edwards have been described (and often accused) of behaving like professional wrestlers.
On the campaign trail in 1998, John Hoynes paraphrased Ric Flair on several occasions, saying “I'm John Hoynes! The stylin', profilin', pork-barrel cuttin’, budget balancin’, kiss-stealing, wheelin' n' dealin' son of a gun! If you don't like it, learn to *love* it!”
Following his retirement in politics, Hoynes took a job with WWE, as a brand ambassador and later Executive Vice President of Global Outreach, joking “Always the Vice President, never the President.” Following last months merger with UFC, Hoynes has since been appointed to the Board of Directors of TKO holdings, representing WWE.
Even more so than Hoynes, John Edwards has frequently been described by both his defenders and detractors. Republican Senator Rob Buchanan of Virginia, a frequent critic of Edwards, has described Edwards as “behaving like a professional wrestler who stopped growing up at 13.”
While nearly all others seem to avoid controversy, Edwards embraces it, frequently sparring with critics on social media and on television. In 2019, John Edwards & Taylor Reid went viral during an episode of the Taylor Reid Show when Edwards and Reid went back & forth debating the Civil Rights Act of 2019. The viral moment came when Edwards accused Reid of not actually caring about Gay marriage one way or another, stating, “you don’t give a rat’s ass about gay marriage, you’ll only opposed to it because you get paid to by that tiny little Australian man who’s made his fortune dividing this country for profit.” Edwards is well known for “firing with both barrels” during arguments, which has led to him being reprimanded by the President on more than one occasion.
“John is a hot-head, there’s no other way to describe it. He’s passionate about what he believes in and has no problem telling you off if you disagree with him. Sometimes, like during the Abby Bartlet debacle, that’s a strength, other times, like when he got into a twitter fight with the two wrestlers, it comes across as childish,” said former White House Deputy Press Secretary Katy Clement, who was a Deputy Communications Director along side Edwards. “More than once I remember John writing something, and watching Mark Sterns ask him, ‘So who said this on Raw last night?’. John Edwards loved pro wrestling, and it showed.”
One of Edwards’ defenders and biggest fans, retired pro wrestling manager, booker and promoter, Jim Cornette, has described Edwards as, “Someone who oozes charisma. He’s a natural heel. He’s Gorgeous George, Harley Race, Gino Hernandez, Jerry Lawler and MJF rolled into one. He love’s pissing off the GOPanzees and those conservative crackpot Neanderthals.” Edwards is oft quoted by Cornette on one or both of his weekly podcasts, where Cornette, a self-described Democratic Socialist, would talk about something Edwards had done to upset Republicans or Conservatives. In 2019, following his viral debate with Taylor Reid, Edwards had promised Cornette via twitter that he would make an appearance on The Jim Cornette Experience to talk about the CRA. To date, Edwards has never appeared on the podcast, but the two did meet in August 2021 at the funeral of Cornette’s former charge and long-time friend, Bobby Eaton.
Much like Hoynes, Edwards has made no secret of his fandom. On April 8th, 2019, while filling in for Cassie Tatum during the morning press briefing, Edwards began the briefing by announcing that the previous night at WrestleMania 35, Kofi Kingston had won the WWE Championship. A year later in 2020, Edwards jokingly told the White House Press Corps that the Secret Service had confiscated his sword, a reference to Drew McIntyre’s Championship win the night prior. In 2021, Edwards tweeted out “love it.” in response to a bill that was introduced in the Kentucky Legislature that would legally define professional wrestling as a sport.
Edwards has also been frequently spotted at pro wrestling shows, most famously at the 2022 WWE Hall of Fame induction ceremony when he was on hand to witness John Hoynes’ induction in the celebrity wing of the Hall of Fame. Edwards was among those who physically restrained the anti-oil protestor that attacked Hoynes on stage during the event. A lawsuit was filed against Edwards, Hoynes’ son Van and several wrestlers for assault, but was dismissed due to the complainant having been committing a crime at the time of the incident. Edwards was later seen at ringside with Hoynes & Cassie Tatum the following two nights for WrestleMania 38.
Edwards & Tatum were also in the crowd for the 2022 edition of All Elite Wrestling’s Winter Is Coming, where both were called out by name by World Champion Maxwell Jacob Friedman, who said “Careful Johnny, she’s just like your mother: a whore!” mimicking that late-Terry Funk. To Edwards’ and Tatum’s credit, they took it all in stride, with Edwards being seen laughing at the reference. In the match that ensued, a camera shot caught Edwards holding up a sign that read “Absolute”, in support of MJF’s challenger, Ricky Starks.
TBS, which broadcasts AEW Wednesday Night Dynamite, issued an apologies to Tatum and the Edwards (As they seem to have to do after nearly every MJF promo at this point), but Mrs. Edwards stated through an attorney that she didn’t need one. “While I didn’t get the reference, my son clearly did. And if he and Claire aren’t upset over it, then I don’t see why I should be.”
While Edwards did that Mr. Friedman’s words in stride, he hasn’t always, he hasn’t always. In 2020, when then-AEW World Champion Chris Jericho, who is known for his support of far-right politics, mentioned Edwards on his podcast, Edwards a was reportedly livid. “He was pissed,” Katy Clement recalls. “He grabbed a stapler and threw it at one of the windows, yelling profanities.”
Jericho’s comments referenced how Helene Edwards raised John as a single mother, stating “If Dusty Rhodes was the son of a plumber, what’s Johnny Boy? The son of a… I don’t know.”
On his podcast at the time, Jim Cornette stated that he thought it was over the line. “I’ve known Chris for years, he’s a great wrestler, sure fire hall of famer. I hate his politics, but this isn’t about politics.” Following the MJF incident, Cornette contrasted the two, defending MJF. “It’s about context. For me, it was always about my parents. Mama Cornette was a television character, an unseen one, but a character nonetheless. My character was as a spoiled mama’s boy. Till the day she died…hell even now, you can say whatever you want about Mama. It doesn’t bother me. But when it comes to my father, that’s an entirely different story. It might be the same way for John. MJF made the comments in a Terry Funk voice, to someone who obviously understood the reference, and he did so in the context of a heel promo to draw heat. Jericho’s comments back then were just a blatant shot at someone’s mother. It was on a podcast, and he got nothing from it. It didn’t draw any money, sell a single ticket, or attract any new viewers. It was never designed to, and he wasn’t trying to; that’s the difference.” Edwards has never publicly addressed the comments from Jericho.
For both Edwards & Hoynes, pro wrestling seems to intertwine with politics quite often, and at times it has been bipartisan. In 2018, Edwards defended Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson when the latter admitted to voting for Arnold Vinick in 2006 and Glen Allen Walken in 2010. “Hell, I voted for Vinick,” Edwards confessed during an appearance on CNN.
Last year, Hoynes criticized his idol, Ric Flair, for stating that he couldn’t make appearances on Fox News anymore because, “ever since Seaborn took over, the IRS has been all up on my ass about my taxes.”
“Ric, my apologies for @POTUS interrupting your tax evasion” Hoynes tweeted. Hoynes was also roundly criticized for not speaking out against his employer and long-time friend, Vince McMahon following the latter’s exit from WWE last year under a string of sexual misconduct allegations, nor his abrupt return earlier this year.
In the case of Edwards, his love of pro-wrestling seems infectious, as it seems to pass to those around him. During his entire tenure in the Seaborn Administration, Edwards has been present for WWE’s Tribute to the Troops, always bringing someone along with him. In 2022, President Seaborn addressed the crowd, all active-duty US Army personnel, in a pre-recorded video, and both White House Chief of Staff Will Bailey and Secretary of Veteran’s Affairs Kate Harper were present as well. According to Pro Wrestling Journalist Dave Meltzer, Edwards has a standing invitation to take part in the Tribute to the Troops, but has been unable to; with Meltzer stating that his sources in WWE tell him that Edwards was forced to decline due to legal concerns from the White House Counsel’s office. Meltzer also stated that the idea was for Edwards to run in during a United States Championship match between Champion and fellow Army Veteran Bobby Lashley and Austin Theory, that would see Edwards prevent Theory from cheating and knock him down with a right hand. Following the match, Theory would prevent Edwards from leaving, until Theory was to be laid out by a spear from Lashley, following which, Edwards would apply the Figure Four Leg Lock to Theory.
But perhaps the most impact Edwards’ fandom has had, is on Press Secretary Cassie Tatum, who has frequently seen at wrestling events with Edwards, as well as on her own, having been photographed at Friday Night Smackdown last year when then-Smackdown Women’s Champion Liv Morgan posted the photo of the two backstage, with Tatum sporting a Becky Lynch, “The Man” t-shirt. However, according to some, Tatum hasn’t always been a fan of pro-wrestling.
“I don’t think Cass was a fan of pro-wrestling before she met John,” remarked Clement. “But then again, if your around John for more than 10 minutes, he’s to mention wrestling, which seems to be one every night of the week,” she added. “It got annoying at times; you’d start praying that something would come up to distract him.” Clement also stated that while she never took an interest in it, she does remember the day that it was obvious that Tatum was. “It was early January in 2020. We were gonna be in Georgia with POTUS, and Cassie got John tickets to some wrestling show in Atlanta. It was a really small thing, there were only like 1000 tickets or so. She told me that she had set several alarms to remind her when they went on sale. It seemed like a lot to through for wrestling, but she got them. And that’s when I realized, she was hooked.”
“I never understood pro wrestling,” remarked Suzanne Hoynes. “I never will. But to John, it was everything. Same thing with my son, who for years kept saying that he was going to go to wrestling school when he was old enough.” Thankfully, according to the former Second Lady, he never did. Mrs. Hoynes also stated that for as long as she’s known John Edwards, he was always a huge wrestling fan, remarking that when Edwards was in high school, his jersey number was 48 because that was the year the National Wrestling Alliance was founded, and in baseball it was 10 to represent the NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship belt, nicknamed the 'Ten Pounds of Gold'. That boy has always loved wrestling.”
While many may never understand professional wrestling, that doesn’t matter to John Hoynes and John Edwards. To quote the 2015 short film, “Wrestling Isn’t Wrestling”, where Hoynes made a cameo appearance portraying wrestler and fellow Texan John Bradshaw Layfield, “wrestling isn’t wrestling. And yes, we know it’s not real. Neither is ER, Friends or Game of Thrones.” What matters to John Hoynes and John Edwards, is that it’s real to them. It’s a special bond that they share and have passed along to others.
Though, who better to explain that than the man himself. In a 2019 interview with ESPN, Edwards explained his love of professional wrestling. “To anyone who thinks I’m crazy, understand this. On October 29th, 1985, a seven-year-old John Edwards watched Dusty Rhodes deliver the “Hard Times” promo. On that night, I looked around for my mom, who wasn’t there, because he was working a second job to keep a roof over our heads. She would come home every night, dead tired. And then, she’d get up the next day and do it all again. So on that night, when Dusty Rhodes started talking about hard times, I knew hard times, I grew up in hard times. So when told everyone to reach out, and know that his hand was touching our hands, that meant everything to me. It gave me something to believe in. it gave me hope, and I you better believe it was real to me.”
Tuesday October 10th, 2023
Conservatives remove whip from Fletcher
The Conservative party has confirmed that it has withdrawn the party whip from Louise Fletcher, the MP for Fylde, who has been at center of sexual abuse allegations since her arrest at a Blackpool hotel during the parties annual conference a week ago.
Mrs Fletcher who has been charged and released on bail, denies the charges, but since the incident several male's and females have contacted the national press and the Conservative party about her behavior and that of her husband.
The decision today means that she will no longer sit in the House of Commons as a Conservative MP, meaning the party have lost a seat, meaning that they now have 300 seats in parliament. The decision is bound to bring on her further pressure for her to resign the seat which would force a by-election.
Wednesday October 11th, 2023
Noble & Pullman clash in heated Oregon gubernatorial debate
Four weeks from polling day in the most interesting and closest of the five "off year" gubernatorial debates, two of the three women hoping to replace outgoing Republican Governor Walter Collins in January, Republican Amber Noble and Democrat Kristin Pullman clashed in what is the only planned TV debate between the candidates in Salem, Oregon last night.
Polls have the two candidates basically locked together in a tie (within the accepted margin of error), the debate was seen as make or break for either candidate. Pullman the State Senate Majority Leader remained calm and poised for most of the debate as Noble, the former TV news presenter who has been endorsed by the likes of controversial Georgia Congresswomen Patty King and former Democratic Cheyenne mayor now turned radio host and conspiracy theorist John Tomaricho.
The decision of Oregon Republican Senator Curtis Ryan decision to vote for the confirmation of Ronald Lin to the Supreme Court last week was attacked by Noble who said he was a "RINO" and she repeated the claims by many on the right that he had taken "money from the Chinese government" and he was being put in place by "George Soros, to help turn us into a Communist state". Such was the bizarre nature of the debate Ryan, was defended by the Democratic candidate, Pullman saying "Senator Ryan, did the right thing, he listened to the evidence and made his own decision of what was right for this state, and his country".
Noble claimed that the only way she would lose the election on November 7th, that if it was "rigged by the Democrats, George Soros, and many in her own party", and the all mail-in voting used by the state "was open to mass fraud" when pressed by the moderator if she (Noble) would be prepared to "accept defeat and concede" if she lost, she replied "I will look at what happens, if I think the election was rigged, I will fight it all the way". Pullman replied that to say the election would be fixed or rigged was "simply nuts".
The other issue which was dominated the debate, was LGBT+ rights, with Noble attacking Pullman's own sexuality saying "she wants to turn your kids gay, they will be brainwashed into turning gay" adding calling same sex marriage "evil" claiming that she would ban it in the state by "executive order", a clear lie Pullman pointed out and then hit back "you may disagree with my sexuality, you may hate me and my partner, but don't lie with such offensive, that I am planning to turn children gay, it offends me, and frankly it should offend any decent person".
Pullman did well enough in the face of Noble's repeated attacks, with Pullman hitting out at the end saying Noble wanted to tell the people of Oregon who "was to blame for things they believed right or wrongly where wrong, it's the Communists, it's the gays, I want to work with everyone for a better state".
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I know Curtis Ryan was mentioned as a possible contender in 2026. Him voting for Ronald Lin's confirmation probably means he isn't running.
Senators Ryan, Buchanan and Rojas are possible contenders for the nomination from the six Republican's that voted for Lin's confirmation. Senator's Moore, Stacey, and Willkins are not in the running.
A monster of a head-cold messed my week up, so here are these infoboxes, a few days later than I was planning to post them:
Tsala Gasarwa is a British Member of Parliament from the Labour Party who represents the constituency of Glasgow South. Born in Equatorial Kundu, Gasarwa and his family fled the country during the Kundunese genocide, arriving in the United Kingdom in 2002 and settling in Scotland. Gasarwa studied at the University of Glasgow and became a solicitor before being elected to the Glasgow City Council in 2018. He won the 2023 by-election for Glasgow South, holding the seat for the Labour Party in the final by-election of the 2018-2023 UK Parliament. He retained the seat on a reduced majority in the 2023 general election held three months later.
Ronald Lin is an American lawyer and jurist who has served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States beginning in October 2023. Immigrating to the United States as a child from Taiwan, Lin was raised in California. Graduating summa cum laude from Stanford University and receiving his Juris Doctorate from Yale Law School, he briefly entered private practice before joining the Department of Justice, rising to become assistant United States Attorney for the Central District of California. There, he attracted the attention of California's senior senator, Sam Seaborn, who made Lin one of his first nominees for the federal bench upon becoming President of the United States in 2019. Lin was easily confirmed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and four years later, following the death of Associate Justice Jackson Hoyt of the Supreme Court, Seaborn nominated him again to fill the seat. His nomination, which was viewed as likely to tip the balance of the court to the liberal bloc, was delayed by a filibuster by Senate Republicans before he was confirmed by a vote of 57 to 43 to become the first Asian-American to sit on the Supreme Court and the first justice born outside of the United States since Felix Frankfurter.
Madison "Maddy" Pope is an American singer-songwriter and producer who is known for her musical versatility, songwriting skills, artistic reinventions and influence on popular culture. A native of North Carolina, Pope began her professional career as a songwriter at age 13 in 2003, before releasing her self-titled first album in 2005, breaking onto the scene and quickly becoming one of the most popular female country musicians. Following her first two albums, Pope began to move towards pop and rock, with her third album Break Through (2010) marking her debut as one of the world's premier pop musicians. Pope has released six albums since Break Through, with the most recent being Starlights (2023). She has won numerous awards and accolades, and was ranked second in Billboard 200's all-time list of top women artists being Barbra Streisand. Having sold 200 million albums worldwide, she is one of the best-selling musical artists of all time. Outside of music, Pope has been known for her support of LGBT rights and advocating for the rights of girls and women in society.
Kehinde "Kwame" Tainegbe is a Nigerian lawyer and diplomat who is serving as the Foreign Minister of Nigeria and is the Secretary-General-designate of the United Nations. Born to a Yoruba family in colonial Nigeria, Tainegbe attended Georgetown University in the United States and got his legal education at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom before returning to his home country to practice law in Lagos. Tainegbe also worked to both increase the country's literacy rates and to raise the literacy rate among girls in the conservative Muslim north of the country as an informal government negotiator between Lagos and state governments. His diplomatic skill was recognized and he was appointed as his country's permanent representative to the United Nations in 2009. Following the election of Babatunde Dobo in 2015, Tainegbe was named foreign minister, becoming one of the most influential and respected diplomats in western Africa. He continued in the role under Dobo's successor, Yemi Okoye, took office in 2023. He was named to succeed Renata Barrica as Secretary-General of the United Nations beginning in January 2024, and will become the second African to lead the international organization.
-----------------------------Cast
Travis Kelce as Trevor Blalock (new casting)
Ncuti Gatwa as Tsala Gasarwa
Ke Huy Quan as Ronald Lin
Taylor Swift as Madison Pope
LeVar Burton as Kwame Tainegbe (new casting)
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Trevor Blalock is a professional American football tight end in the National Football League (NFL) for the Indianapolis Colts. After playing college football at the University of Cincinnati, Blalock was drafted by the Colts in the 2012 NFL Draft. He is regarded as one of the best tight ends of all-time and has won numerous accolades during his playing career, including nine Pro Bowl selections, being voted onto four first team All-Pro selections and being named to the NFL's 2010s All-Decade Team. He holds the single-season records for receptions and reception yards by a tight end, and is one of only five tight ends to have accumulated 10,000 receiving yards. Outside of football, he co-hosts The Blalockdown podcast with his sister Jade, covering topics from sports to pop culture.
Tsala Gasarwa is a British Member of Parliament from the Labour Party who represents the constituency of Glasgow South. Born in Equatorial Kundu, Gasarwa and his family fled the country during the Kundunese genocide, arriving in the United Kingdom in 2002 and settling in Scotland. Gasarwa studied at the University of Glasgow and became a solicitor before being elected to the Glasgow City Council in 2018. He won the 2023 by-election for Glasgow South, holding the seat for the Labour Party in the final by-election of the 2018-2023 UK Parliament. He retained the seat on a reduced majority in the 2023 general election held three months later.
Ronald Lin is an American lawyer and jurist who has served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States beginning in October 2023. Immigrating to the United States as a child from Taiwan, Lin was raised in California. Graduating summa cum laude from Stanford University and receiving his Juris Doctorate from Yale Law School, he briefly entered private practice before joining the Department of Justice, rising to become assistant United States Attorney for the Central District of California. There, he attracted the attention of California's senior senator, Sam Seaborn, who made Lin one of his first nominees for the federal bench upon becoming President of the United States in 2019. Lin was easily confirmed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and four years later, following the death of Associate Justice Jackson Hoyt of the Supreme Court, Seaborn nominated him again to fill the seat. His nomination, which was viewed as likely to tip the balance of the court to the liberal bloc, was delayed by a filibuster by Senate Republicans before he was confirmed by a vote of 57 to 43 to become the first Asian-American to sit on the Supreme Court and the first justice born outside of the United States since Felix Frankfurter.
Madison "Maddy" Pope is an American singer-songwriter and producer who is known for her musical versatility, songwriting skills, artistic reinventions and influence on popular culture. A native of North Carolina, Pope began her professional career as a songwriter at age 13 in 2003, before releasing her self-titled first album in 2005, breaking onto the scene and quickly becoming one of the most popular female country musicians. Following her first two albums, Pope began to move towards pop and rock, with her third album Break Through (2010) marking her debut as one of the world's premier pop musicians. Pope has released six albums since Break Through, with the most recent being Starlights (2023). She has won numerous awards and accolades, and was ranked second in Billboard 200's all-time list of top women artists being Barbra Streisand. Having sold 200 million albums worldwide, she is one of the best-selling musical artists of all time. Outside of music, Pope has been known for her support of LGBT rights and advocating for the rights of girls and women in society.
Kehinde "Kwame" Tainegbe is a Nigerian lawyer and diplomat who is serving as the Foreign Minister of Nigeria and is the Secretary-General-designate of the United Nations. Born to a Yoruba family in colonial Nigeria, Tainegbe attended Georgetown University in the United States and got his legal education at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom before returning to his home country to practice law in Lagos. Tainegbe also worked to both increase the country's literacy rates and to raise the literacy rate among girls in the conservative Muslim north of the country as an informal government negotiator between Lagos and state governments. His diplomatic skill was recognized and he was appointed as his country's permanent representative to the United Nations in 2009. Following the election of Babatunde Dobo in 2015, Tainegbe was named foreign minister, becoming one of the most influential and respected diplomats in western Africa. He continued in the role under Dobo's successor, Yemi Okoye, took office in 2023. He was named to succeed Renata Barrica as Secretary-General of the United Nations beginning in January 2024, and will become the second African to lead the international organization.
-----------------------------
Travis Kelce as Trevor Blalock (new casting)
Ncuti Gatwa as Tsala Gasarwa
Ke Huy Quan as Ronald Lin
Taylor Swift as Madison Pope
LeVar Burton as Kwame Tainegbe (new casting)
- I figured that it's easier to just cast Kelce as TTL's version of himself than go looking for an actor who could fit the bill.
- A lot of his bio comes from splitting the difference between Kelce and his brother Jason, an offensive lineman for the Philadelphia Eagles:
- Jason was born in North Carolina, Travis in Ohio- Blalock is born in West Virginia.
- Jason was drafted in 2011, Travis in 2013- Blalock in 2012.
- Jason plays for Philadelphia, Travis for Kansas City- Blalock plays in Indianapolis.
- Blalock is Travis Kelce's mother's maiden name.
- Blalock is still a sure-thing Hall of Fame tight end (like Kelce, he's only one of five tight ends to accumulate over 10,000 receiving yards), but his stats are actually just a smidge worse than OTL Kelce's if you factor in that he's played one more season than Kelce has. That's due to him not having a dude who has already put together a Hall of Fame career before he's 30 throwing the ball to him for the past five seasons.
- We'd already cast the incoming Doctor way back in March, but I'm just now getting around to his infobox.
- Gasarwa's backstory is obviously derived from Gatwa's own, although instead of fleeing a genocide in Rwanda, he fled the genocide in Equatorial Kundu.
- Gasarwa's name is essentially Ncuti Gatwa's name equivalent in Tswana, the native language of the late Zakes Mokae, who played Kundunese President Nimbala in the show. In Kinyarwanda, ncuti translates to "friend" (in Tswana, "friend" is tsala) and "Gatwa" appears to be derived from a local name for the Twa people ("Gasarwa is an ATL equivalent for the Tsala name for the San people).
- Now that Lin is on the court, I can pull back the curtain to reveal that Seaborn getting to appoint a second justice to the Court early in his second term was not something we had planned to have happen.
William Hurt (the actor who played Jackson Hoyt) died in the March 2022 and caught us flat-footed, because by then, we'd already planned to have Alan Duke be the Republican nominee on the way to getting his clock cleaned in the general election. We were already halfway through the GOP primaries and quickly realized that if we had decided to retire Hoyt, it would have basically been TTL's version of what the Scalia vacancy was for the GOP in 2016 and provided a reason for a lot of those who disliked or distrusted the loudmouth, bigoted and frankly slightly insane nominee to stick by the Republican ticket. We would have had to drop all of our plans for Andrew Long to be a more successful and follicly blessed Evan McMullin.
Naturally, rather than throw away all of our hard work to make the election OTL 2016 with the numbers filed off, we decided to delay Hoyt's death by a year or so. I did try to lay the groundwork during that time by planting bits about Hoyt's ill health up until we pulled the trigger on the Supreme Court vacancy storyline. - When I originally included Lin in the list of candidates for the first Supreme Court vacancy under Seaborn (which went to Olivia Emmett Franklin), I was basically writing him to be TTL's version of Goodwin Liu. When we decided on Lin and I picked Quan to play him, I realized that I had to rewrite the character slightly to account for Quan's slight accent pegging him as someone who isn't a native English speaker (he moved to the US at around seven, so it's just noticeable enough to require explanation); instead of being a Taiwanese-American whose parents immigrated to the US, Lin would have to be a first-generation immigrant himself.
- Lin's middle name is shared with his actor's name in Mandarin (Quan was born in what was then South Vietnam, but his family is ethnically Chinese) using the Wade-Giles transcription that was more widely used in Taiwan at the time of Lin's birth.
- I didn't realize it when I made this box, but Lin ITTL is the only justice to be in an interracial marriage (Lin's wife is Latina/Hispanic). Back in the day, Tim Thomason gave Henry Staub (Morgan Freeman)'s wife the first name of Nadia, which seemed to imply that she was white. However, I had Staub get married when he was 30 when I made his infobox, which unfortunately meant that it was before interracial marriage was legalized in Virginia. So I guess she is/was black?
- Pope is, obviously, based on Taylor Swift but with a little Miley Cyrus thrown in. Hence her hailing from North Carolina instead of Swift's Pennsylvania.
- The name "Madison Pope" was meant to hint at who the character was based on before her actual appearance at the 2022 DNC:
- "Taylor" is a presidential surname that is used as a girl's name, so I went with another presidential surname used as a girl's name.
- "Swift" is the surname of a famous 18th century satirist from the British Isles, "Pope" is the surname of another famous 18th century satirist from the British Isles.
- Pope's alias of "Sara Gorvell" is a reference to Swift initially being credited for co-writing a song ("This Is What You Came For") under the pseudonym of Nils Sjoberg.
- It was incredibly fortunate for us that a beloved Enterprise crew member who famously played an African remained uncast, allowing us to make him the new Secretary-General.
- Burton's ancestry helped us make the character a Nigerian. He disclosed that he had taken a DNA test that revealed that many of his ancestors came from the Hausa people of Nigeria. (The same article reveals that, Mark Sterns' ancestors apparently came from northern Cameroon).
- All three names are references to Burton's work:
- Her first name (Kehinde) is the Yoruba equivalent of his Roots character's first name.
- "Kwame" is the name Tainegbe goes by rather than his first name, which he shared with a paternal uncle. It's not said in the write-up, but he was named after Kwame Nkrumah, who led Ghana to independence a year before Tainegbe was born and was a major figure for anti-colonial and pro-independence sentiment in Africa at the time. Since his parents were Yoruba speakers, they named him "Kowame" because Yoruba syllable structure does not allow for the "kw" combination. The UNSG-designate, however, chose to go by the original name after attending college abroad.
Out of universe, this name comes from the character Burton voiced in Captain Planet and the Planeteers. - It may not look like it, but "Tainegbe" is a roundabout reference to Geordi LaForge: "Geordie" is a nickname for someone hailing from the Tyneside region of England, and "Tainegbe" is the Yoruba equivalent of "Tyneside" (Tain is the Yoruba approximation of "Tyne" plus egbe "side").
- Tainegbe's wife's name is a reference to LaForge's love interest in Star Trek: The Next Generation (the original scrip for Star Trek: Nemesis apparently would have had her be LaForge's wife and attend the Riker-Troi wedding with him, but Brahms' actress was unavailable so the character was cut).
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Tuesday October 17th 2023
Fletcher resigns as MP.
This afternoon the independent MP for Flyde Louise Fletcher announced she had made the decision to resign as an MP.
Fletcher who until two weeks ago had served as a Minister of State of the Department of Work and Pensions was detained at the Conservative party conference along with her husband on a charge of sexual harassment. Last week the party whip was withdrawn requiring her to sit as an independent MP.
In a brief statement, Fletcher explained that her decision to resign was out of a desire to “serve the community of Flyde one last time.” “My constituency deserve an MP they can trust and an MP of the party they put their faith in at the last election. Therefore, I have decided to tender my resignation effective immediately.”
Fletcher’s decision will mean a by-election in the Lancashire seat. At the last election Fletcher was elected with a majority of 15,092.
I love popping back in to check on this thread every few months to see how many "episodes" I get to catch up on lol. Props to Mark, Caedus, and all the others who continue to carry the torch on this project. Bravo. #WhatsNext