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Trump’s niece says Musk now ‘owns’ ex-president: ‘He’s always been up for sale’
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2024
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politics
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That alone should disqualify him from office. If you can't hold a security clearance, you shouldn't be able to run for any office, let alone POTUS.
They letchya do it when ur (pretend) rich
Even when the wealth is literally from foreign "investments" (bonus if obvious enemies) and criminal activity (tax avoidance, money laundering, fraud stocks, crypto, etc).
SCROTUS absolutely fucked us with Citizens United. "MoNeY = SpEeCh!?" Congress failed us by not passing campaign finance reform or any relevant laws. Americans failed us by being easily influenced by political ads and generally brain dead.
If they did this, Trump could just rescind clearance from all Dems. Unfortunately, this is up to the voters.
All compromised Dems? Sounds like a good idea. And I assume he would need to do it by proxy since he currently has only citizen powers.
I meant obviously while he was in office for the 2020 election. Just because it's too late now doesn't mean it's a good idea for the future.
Potentially letting a political rival decide who is compromised is obviously not a good idea no matter who is in charge to make that decision.
Well someone is already deciding based on the ability to get a security clearance. And if being "Don citizen" and not able to get a security clearance at all, how should that person be allowed an office that needs a Top Secret clearance level?
Also it shouldn't be up to Trump, or anyone he appoints (or that any president appoints).
So the question becomes who should that person be and how should they be assigned/appointed to that position and who has authority over them if they become corrupted?
Ultimately, that has to come down to the Executive (under the President), Legislative (confirmed like judges and subject to filibuster and the whole legislative process), maybe the Judiciary if you can find a way to wrangle that, which would put them under the authority of the Supreme Court, or appointed by direct election (which would 99% likely mean it just swings whichever way the President swings anyway).
That is the way our government works and none of these solve the problem of politicizing who gets clearances and who doesn't.
Traditionally, this is under the authority of the President and he doesn't ever get involved because why the fuck should he? But just like the Postmaster bullshit with DeJoy, the President can decide he's going to take direct control (by firing the old person and appointing someone amenable to his wishes).
The only protection we have is for the American people to look at their own candidate and say, "No, he's up to some bullshit and I will not support that." And far too many of us simply won't do that. Yeah, that skews right which means Republicans get away with more shit than Democrats do.
There is not a political solution to human nature.
There's no such thing as an impartial procews that includes humans. Biases will come out either consciously or subconsciously.
Why/ how? There is an application process and disqualifying criteria for a security clearance. The suggestion is that if you can't pass that process you should not be let in on any confidential information.
And a lot of the criteria are determined by regulation IIRC.
Meaning that the president can order the agencies to update the regulations, and say that in addition to communist party membership being disqualifying, Democrat party membership is now also disqualifying. (More likely a more plausible sounding reason would be picked but the result would be the same - exploiting a loophole to prevent your opponents from running against you.)
You think it is simple because Trump is so obviously not a good faith actor, but let's pretend he gets elected again (possibility). He declared everyone against him (not just Dems) enemies of the state and ineligible to hold office. This reminds me of Russia, oh wait he would like that.
Unfortunately our democracy hinges on whether or not we can convince our fellow citizens that freedom matters and to over vote. Winning by 51% isn't enough. In order to make effective change, the Dems would need to win and get a supermajority in the house and Senate. And THEN DECIDE to give up power to change our government to a STAR vote or ranked choice style. Some form of representation democracy so that our politians would have to negotiate properly. Citizens United needs to go along with the part of the judicial that was installed because of the fascist movement of the heritage foundation.
I just doubt this will happen. It is possible, but I'm not sure how. The left never has enough resources to play the decades long game. They(conservatives) were manipulating the media in the early 1900 to stop progressive movements. They delayed Teddy Roosevelt getting into office. After he did get in and people saw how effective and popular progressive movements were, they decide to work against it. They still are. They just bought all the media empires now, so it is easier.
The people ultimately in charge of that work serve at the pleasure of the President. He could simply fire people until someone does what he wants. Same thing he did with the Justice department. It also could be as simple as an executive order, but I really don't know that much about that level of the process.
Sadly, it doesn't work that way. The President has absolute authority over the process. In fact, someone can fail the security check and be refused security clearance and the president can wave his hand and give that person full clearance. How do I know? It's been done.
Which, by the way, he did. Intelligence agencies said Kushner should not have any level of clearance but Trump gave him clearance to everything.
It's 2019. Biden is running against Trump. Trump arranges for Biden's security clearance to be revoked. Trump is now running unopposed.