The problem comes when a public school’s IT department is deciding whether to go with a FOSS option, or a commercial OS. As the IT team has full control over the FOSS OS, the school will be held liable as the OS provider. They will select a commercial OS to avoid liability under these idiot laws.

I agree, he likely won’t be able to hold MAGA on his own.

However, it’s also likely that this is his only chance at the presidency. If he comes to that same conclusion, he may very well take his shot.

IIRC, a few swing states have signed on. I’d count them as red for these purposes. But yeah, to make this work, they’re going to need several red states that they aren’t going to get.

Nothing in here about a commission.

There certainly is, you’re just not understanding what role that commission will perform. The commission is the “some other body” that Congress may provide to serve in lieu of the heads of the executive department.

A Congressional majority could just announce the President unfit and kick power over to the VP immediately.

No, actually, they can’t. Incompetence is not an impeachable offense. They would have to hold what is effectively a criminal trial in the Senate. They would have to find him guilty of something beyond a reasonable doubt. That’s the evidentiary standard they would have to meet.

With the 25th, they merely have to indicate they have lost faith in his ability to perform the job. That’s it.

His tweets threatening nuclear war with Iran are not enough to impeach him. He technically has the authority to make those threats. He can’t be impeached for those threats.

Those same tweets are a perfectly valid justification for removing him under the 25th.

Yeah, the only way the compact survives is if it would not have affected the outcome of an election. If it will have an effect, every red state in the compact will have legislation on the governor’s desk by election day, calling for the immediate withdrawal from the compact, before the EC meets. That legislation will be wildly popular among the voters of those states.

The compact presumes that the individual states officially publish their popular vote count prior to the EC vote count. An unaffiliated state (or multiple states) can unilaterally declare that they will not officially publish their popular vote count until after the EC meets. The members of the compact cannot provably know the popular vote count; they cannot provably know that they will be casting their votes for the winner of the national popular vote, as required by the compact.

That theoretical possibility is sufficient justification to overturn the whole compact.

Further, if there is every a scenario where the compact actually changes the outcome of an election, any state that would be forced to switch its EC vote will see their populace pushing for immediate withdrawal from the compact, before the EC can even meet. They will have legislation drawn up and ready to sign on election day, releasing their electors from the requirements of the compact.

As a theoretical exercise, the compact is interesting. As a practical alternative to the EC, it utterly fails.

Yes. The 25th explicitly requires the involvement of the VP.

It could be argued that the Speaker of the House could do it if the VP position were vacant, but the 25th does not explicitly consider that situation.

Much less.

Nobody likes Vance. He was tapped for VP because he posed no apparent threat to 47. He can’t hold the MAGAt personality cult together.

And why he doesn’t. And since he needs to be involved in any 25th amendment action, he gets to decide whether to do it before or after January 20th.

Impeachment is a claim of malfeasance. 25th is a claim of simple incompetence. The standards of evidence in an impeachment are effectively similar to that of a criminal trial: guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

The standards of evidence in a 25th amendment action are “reasonable belief”.

To impeach him for, say, threatening nuclear annihilation, prosecutors would have to prove that threat was illegally beyond his authority to issue that threat. Which would be difficult, because the president does, indeed, have the power to use nuclear weapons. Congress is free to refuse to act, or to drag their feet for months before acting.

To invoke the 25th amendment, Vance merely has to say that the president is not acting reasonably.

Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

This “other body” is the commission they are talking about.

That is not completely accurate:

Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Congress can, indeed, create a commission that serves as a substitute to the cabinet for 25th amendment purposes.

A red state refuses to publish their voter tally.

Every blue state in the compact chooses to ignore that state.

Since they can’t know the true popular vote count, every red state in the compact has cover to refuse to cast blue EC votes as required by the compact.

If you and your state overwhelmingly votes for candidate A, yet your state’s EC votes are cast for Trump’s third term, you (or people like you) are going to demand your state withdraw from the compact.

If the compact ever actually affects an election, it will be scrapped in a hot minute.

A person presumed to possess the legal capacity for consent cannot have sex with a person presumed to lack that legal capacity. The teenager is not restricted; the adult is restricted.

When a camera is added, the law becomes inconsistent. The minor lacks the capacity to legally engage in sex, but is now (potentially) culpable in their own exploitation if they video themselves.

What are you doing, Step-MP?

Flavor causes cancer.

Term limits in SCOTUS would increase the current president’s power to exert influence in the court. That sounds great, until we realize that about half the time, the president is a complete asshole who shouldn’t be in charge of a McDonald’s franchise, let alone the country.

To reduce a president’s undue influence on the court, we need to strictly limit the number of justices they can add per term. If three justices reach their term limits, and two others die or retire, the president is flipping five justices. That’s a terrible idea.

What we could do is eliminate the fixed size of the court. Eliminate the requirement that the court must consist of 9 people. Instead, the president appoints two justices per term, shortly after their first and third years in office. The court’s size will likely fluctuate between 10 and 15 justices.

To further remove political influence, we could introduce a means of replenishing the court without political grandstanding. Should the court membership fall below 5 members due to some kind of disaster or tragedy, (or should the president fail to appoint or the Senate confirm a presidential appointment, or should too many members of the current court have a conflict of interest and not be eligible to hear a case) appellate court justices are elevated to the supreme court in order of seniority.

Vance is going to need that new, impeachment-ready Congress in place before his coup, or his coup will fail.

Bingo.

Vance is going to want to be seen as leading the coup, not being handed the job. But it’s not happening for another 10 months. First, he needs a new Congress, one who is already itching for impeachment. And if he’s waiting for Congress, he’s going to wait another three weeks: so long as he only takes half of Trump’s term, he remains eligible for two full terms himself.

Vance will exercise Section 4 of the 25th after January 20th, 2027.

As an initial theory, it’s solid.

But then we start asking if this is the best way to do it. Are there alternative ways of achieving the same - or better - safety margins? Could we reduce the risk of deep-water ditching by avoiding flight over deepwater? Could we restrict the distance from shore that aircraft are allowed to fly? Could we require additional redundancy (third, fourth engines, larger fuel reserves) for aircraft flying beyond glide distance to land? (We do both of these. Single engine planes require passengers and crew to be prepared to ditch before leaving glide range to land. Twin engine planes are restricted by ETOPS. Both are strictly limited on how far they can fly from shore.)

Adding a third engine and 30 additional minutes of reserve fuel would achieve at least the same degree of safety against ditching, and vastly improve safety in all sorts of situation where a detachable cabin would not be beneficial. Do we improve a wide variety of safety measures, or do we have a reason to focus on this one particular type of incident?