Pwnallthethings: still think it should go VP->SecState->SecDef->highest ranking military official. Because if you're suddenly 5 deep in the succession list, the US is at war, and the military are running the show anyway

folks gonna miss this from just the headline, but someone should point it out: the lack of live fact-checking by the moderators *was part of the agreement* by the campaigns. It's not just that CNN /didn't/ live fact check it. It's that they /weren't allowed to/.

Earlier this week, CNN's political director David Chalian said a debate “is not the ideal venue for a live fact-checking exercise." Moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash stuck to that model Thursday night, despite multiple falsehoods claimed during the debate.

CNN debate moderators didn’t fact-check. Not everyone is happy about it.www.washingtonpost.com CNN’s political director said earlier a presidential debate “is not the ideal venue for a live fact-checking exercise.” Jake Tapper and Dana Bash stuck to that.

I think the whole idea is overblown. The moderators shouldn’t “fact check” and argue back with the candidates. It’s not an interview. It’s not their role and they wouldn’t do a good job of it anyway. They did mostly fine. People just want somebody other than Biden to blame for how poorly it went.

FWIW I think the debate format /in general/ is pretty weak, and frankly voters would be far better served by the candidates doing long-form interviews by (ideally quite aggressive) interviewers

Been a while since I paid attention there, but the UK used to be really, really good at those type of "hostile interviews"

We should invent a version of Prime Minister’s questions

Yeah, hard to do without a parliamentary system

If we had a parliamentary system, worries about age would not be so bad, right? If the PM becomes too old, either everyone covers for her, or someone else becomes PM without waiting for 4 years.

Right. No confidence votes are reasonably common, and can be pretty quick, in parliamentary systems for very rapid no-election changes in leadership

Many systems have pretty established and speedy deputy PMs systems for indisposed, unreachable, or unavailable heads of government too so cabinet can continue to govern. People miss that cabinet government is key, The UK one seemed less than robust though... news.sky.com/story/domini...

Dominic Raab 'given five minutes' notice' to run country when Boris Johnson had COVID, inquiry hearsnews.sky.com Professor Dame Jenny Harries, who was deputy chief medical officer, also gave evidence - with messages showing her saying COVID patients would need to be discharged into care homes to stop the NHS get...

Honestly, the US system for this is probably one of the more robust

Like, tho VPs tend to do stuff to pass the time, and occasionally act on behalf of the US at foreign events or funerals etc, or to break ties in the Senate, essentially their only job is to be the person running the executive branch falls to if the President is incapacitated or dies

I like how John Adams attended the Senate every day. I’m not sure what he did, other than sit there in the presiding officer’s chair.

A jillion different reasons why it'd never be for me, but frankly that's what I'd do. Considerably more interesting than sitting around waiting for your friend and ticket-mate to drop dead

also it's actually useful for the President to have a very close colleague who really gets to live at the intersection of the legislature and the executive branch, and can carry real weight in both

America has a really robust succession system exactly one deep; after that it goes fucking insane

We need to cut the Speaker and Senate Pro Tem out of the line of succession.

I really don't love that you'd have a giant non-trivial question of eligibility barging in like the kool aid man in any national-crisis where you need to go 2+deep in the succession list

still think it should go VP->SecState->SecDef->highest ranking military official. Because if you're suddenly 5 deep in the succession list, the US is at war, and the military are running the show anyway

fuck no on that. No no no. No military in the chain of succession. It is so improbably so let's not politicize the military further. Keep them far away from the levers of power has been a good idea thus far.

Open to just terminating the list at the end and leaving it implied. But mainly just SecState->SecDef, and if you want to be fancy, AmbNATO or smth to have someone who will by default be intentionally far away in a crisis. Or drop from SecDef down to governors

but the main thing is ProTem and Speaker should not be on the list at all

The history of the list is pretty wild.

Apart from anything else, 2-deep in the list and you've flipped party and have a president with no executive branch experience period, and 3-deep and you potentially flip party (tho not currently) and the president is suddenly the oldest person in the senate. Like, both those two should not be there

even beyond the constitution dispute, those are bad choices for your list

If you do end up 5 deep or more, if you're Ds, you probably want Obama to step in and if you're Rs, you should probably want W to step in as interim POTUSes while the military does whatever it ought to be doing in response.

*ahem* Current Senate Pro Tem (Patty Murray, D-WA, b.1950) is not one of the 15 oldest members of the Senate.

Well, if we end up 3 deep in the next few months, we'll get a president that's eight years younger, so...

Idk about that; I think the recent experience in crisis suggests military don’t really have any problem following the House Speaker, which I think is preferable to having them follow Mr Senior General or whatever.

If we’re having it out in crisis the court won’t jump in to pick a winner if the fact of who is leading has already been resolved by who is taking orders from whom. And I don’t think that sort of fight can be avoided by resolving theoretical constitutional issues

Pence was also involved at key moments, though? And Congress needs to clean up the 25th, they can pass legislation for that. Throw it onto the pile of "structural things we need to fix ASAP in a trifecta"

Glad this was said clearly.

Alternately-- farther down in the succession ladder, you start selecting for people who were passed over for promotions, lost elections etc, since clearly the people in charge before failed in their most important task

Hallo everyone, I know the entire cabinet, president, and VP are all dead, but I used to run the department of education and it is my job now to

like, ok, yes, great theory, great, love it, love the principle to civilian oversight here, buuuuuuuuuuut when you're 16-deep in the succession list the people running the show is the most senior surviving person in uniform, let's not beat around the bush on this

I see we've got hot takes about Battlestar Galactica twenty years later

Might that not also be solved by standing orders without actually giving them formal supreme power? Norway and Sweden both had a "poster on the wall" during the cold war

I like that one of the "letters of last resort" options (tho undisclosed how often it is used) is "regroup under NATO command"

Commander Adama, is that you?

I think the design principle here is ‘let’s not make a mechanism that encourages a coup’

So say we all

Worked for her:

This is the pilot of Battlestar Galactica.

*24 countdown timer*

Battlestar Galactica, 2004.

All hail to MY President, Roslin

Had to click into see if this thread was about Battlestar Galactica.

Being a fan of sortition, I see this as a big plus!

But not so close as to encourage coups d'etats

Call it the Al Haig Principle

Given recent history it could also mean the threatened H5N1 pandemic happens under a Republican administration that collectively decides they can own the libs by French-kissing an emu

You and Alexander Haig

We kind of got uncomfortably close to that in 1865.

What could go wrong?

I don't think you should ever to go to the highest ranking military official. Civilian oversight of the military is always appropriate, even in the most dire circumstances.

You're probably right, but the assumption was telling that to a military man might go "...well he'll I've got *six* bullets on me right now..." Pq

Yeah

Post