Shouldn't all people running for president or any high level office be required to pass a top

[Maraya1969]

secret security clearance before they can run? Shouldn't anyone who wants to hold office in this land FIRST be cleared through our intelligence agencies to find out if they are actually on our side or not?

The fact that Jarod Kushner was deemed a security threat and then was forced by tfg to get a security clearance says that there was something very wrong with allowing tfg to run for president in the first place?


Are we, the American people, subject to being taken over by another country or some evil enterprise just because they found a spy that is charismatic enough to fool enough people to be elected to the US presidency? Remember 1/2 of our population is below average in intelligence.

How many US enemies are looking for someone to run for the US president on their behalf? Maybe that sounds far fetched but trust me, if someone was to tell us about the tfg did a few years before he did it no one would have believed it either. But it happened.

That is quite frightening and it seems as if it may have already happened. If Trump was not a flagrant idiot who openly and blatantly ruined things that made people take notice and vote him out he would still be in office and we would completely fucked.

AND he didn't lose by a whole lot. What kind of Hell would be in for had he won?

[Demsrule86]

1. No, you can't do that...unconstitutional.

[Maraya1969]

4. By what provision in the constitution is this unconstitutional?

[NYC Liberal]

6. Article II, Section 1

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

Those are the only requirements for being president. Adding additional ones would requirement an amendment.

[ForgedCrank]

13. This does

actually raise a good question.
The Constitution outlines the minimum requirements if I am reading it as intended.
Would it in any way prohibit adding additional restrictions?
In other provisions in The Constitution, it is clearly stated when no laws can be applied with direct "shall not" type language, but I see none of that regarding requirements for the office.
Obviously, I'm not a legal professional so I'd be interested in hearing from one.

[brooklynite]

14. You can add all the restrictions you want...by changing the Constitution

[ForgedCrank]

16. But that

wasn't really my question.
My question was why? The Constitution doesn't specifically say that more requirements are not allowed.
While I may agree that allowing congress to do such things is pretty dangerous for a million reasons, what particular part of this prohibits them from doing so?

[brooklynite]

17. Precisely because the limitations would be "dangerous for a million reasons"....

The underlying premise of the Constitution is that freedoms exist unless constrained by the Constitution. The Constitution limits the ability to run for President only to those who are not natural born citizens, under 35 or haven't been a US resident for 14 year. Add to which, there isn't a Federal Election for President; there are 51 separate elections. The Federal Government has no ability to require a security clearance (or any other requirement) on those candidates (again, outside of the Constitutional limits).

[ForgedCrank]

19. I get all

that, what would prevent individual states from doing so?
Furthermore, what would prevent the federal gov. from denying an elected President access to classified materials?
I'm not arguing, I'm genuinely curious about the technical details of it.

[brooklynite]

20. How could an individual State require a criteria it couldn't implement?

And as Commander in Chief (Article II, Section 2) the President is presumed to have access to all classified material.

[ForgedCrank]

23. Nevermind,

I'll ask someone else.

[brooklynite]

24. You're welcome to not like my answer, but nobody else seems to be giving you one.

[ForgedCrank]

29. But that

wasn't my question.
I can "presume" you are a Constitutional lawyer or legal expert since you answered my original question. That doesn't make it so. Same thing with Article II Section 2. which is why I'm asking someone else if they can explain the technical reason to me that this requirement could not be in addition to the minimums.

[Celerity]

34. Brooklynite is spot on, so you can go find someone who will agree with you, but then

you simply have two people who are wrong.

[ForgedCrank]

38. See, I really

don't understand the hostility with some folks.
I know what the Constitution says.
I asked a simple question because I don't understand how this would be disallowed becasue we do that with other things, so I asked a technical question, what exactly is the barrier, where does it say extra requirements cannot be added. I can't find anything.
It says a lot of shit. such as shall not be infringed in 2A, but yet we can ALSO make more restrictive laws to better control that madness. How is this different?
I asked an honest question, so please, if you just want to call me stupid, please leave me alone.
damn man

[Celerity]

39. There was no hostility, nor aggression whatsoever in my reply. I also never called you stupid.

BTW, in effect, the current Supreme Court position is that while the Second Amendment confers a foundational right, that right is not absolute.

[KS Toronado]

40. I understand it's pretty hard to change the Constitution

One thing I've always felt would be beneficial to our voting is if the DNC & RNC could agree on some form of
standard background checks for everybody running for national public office. Plus a test to determine the
candidates expertise/abilities in several areas to be determined by an agreement between the DNC & RNC.
Honestly should one IMHO.

If we had a system in place like this, we never would have gotten tfg, plus we could prevent the next
idiot from taking office.

[jmowreader]

25. Other constitutional clauses have been extended

Until 1995 a person who wanted to exercise his freedom of speech by being a disc jockey at a small radio station needed an FCC radiotelephone operator’s license. Big stations that had an engineer to run the transmitter didn’t require licensed DJs, but in stations where the announcer’s workstation and the transmitter control panel were operated by one person, it was.

Given that, once the full scope of Trump’s treason is revealed the Republicans will probably work with us to establish some common sense rules within the Constitution, like the presidency can’t be your first elected office and you have to pass a security clearance investigation to run.

[NYC Liberal]

27. "Freedom of speech" is a broad, vague term

that can be interpreted in many different ways.

“35 years old, natural born citizen, and resident for 14 years” is extremely specific and there’s no room for interpretation other than perhaps the “natural born” part (and even then, that has much fewer possible meanings than “freedom of speech”).

[Demsrule86]

32. There are constitutional provisions naming the 'rules' about presidential qualifications.

You would need a constitutional amendment to change this

[global1]

2. I Hold The Repug Party Responsible For Tr**p.....

He should have been vetted from the get go and prevented from even throwing his name in the list of candidates.

He should never have been able to ride in their 'clown car' from the beginning.

We laughed back then about their 'clown car'.

Now we find out that it wasn't that funny.

[mn9driver]

9. This

The GOP became illegitimate when they failed to deny TFG their nomination based on any minimum standard of honesty or decency.

Before TFG their bar was pretty low. Then they decided to remove the bar entirely.

[former9thward]

12. No one can be denied the nomination in either party if they have the delegates.

The advocates of more democracy (who did not like the "smoke filled rooms" where nominees used to be chosen) pushed for primaries. So now we have primaries and anyone who gets enough delegates through the primary process will become the nominee. The parties have no effective power to deny anyone the nomination.

[global1]

15. I'm Saying They Should Have Never Let Him Run In The Primary Process In The First Place....

That's where he should have been screened out. Once he made it to the nomination - there is nothing they could do.

If they didn't want him to run in the primary - they could have found a way to eliminate him.

I would hope anyone running in a primary for either major party - that the party would be accepting that they could become president.

Tr**p was an embarrassment throughout their primary process. They could have fixed that by not letting him be a primary candidate. They should have some basic vetting process and some guidelines that they can use to let only those candidates that they would accept being their nominee and possible president.

I think it would have been relatively easy to disqualify him as a potential primary candidate.

[brooklynite]

18. Meanwhile, we ran Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard.

Explain precisely HOW you would have kept them out of the Primary.

[former9thward]

21. How would you legally do it?

The state's laws set the requirements to participate in a primary. The requirements are the same for both parities. If you meet the state requirements you can't be denied a ballot position.

[bluestarone]

28. A thought here. (because i'm not sure if this is possible)

Could the Senate, as a last resort, use the last two house impeachments AGAIN? To remove and PREVENT this scumbag from running in 24? I mean IF the rethugs really do NOT want him running in 24, could they? Maybe just threaten him with this?

[niyad]

33. Many of us were not laughing, we were trying to sound the alarm. Sometimes

when someone referred to him as a clown or a joke, my response was, "many dismissed hitler the same way, and look how that turned out."

I would rather have been wrong.

[SCantiGOP]

3. 35 years old and native born

And if we had that requirement, Trump’s administration would have declared Biden a security risk because of Hunter’s laptop.

[Maraya1969]

5. The secret service didn't declare Biden a risk and that is who I think should be making these

decisions. Not another political party or anyone associated with political party.

[SCantiGOP]

10. It's still way too dangerous

A current administration could put people in place that would ban candidates from other parties. You see it all the time in some countries, and Trump would have tried his best to use it here.

[sarisataka]

26. Just to make sure we are talking about the same thing

The Secret Service that we have repeatedly speculated was planning to take Pence and Pelosi out of the Capitol on January 6th and assassinate them?
The Secret Service that we have repeatedly criticized as being full of trump appointees?
The Secret Service that we feared for Biden's safety when he took office and were glad that it was a detail personally known to him?
The Secret Service that has been said here should be removed from the responsibility of Presidential security due to incompetence and questionable loyalty?

That is The Secret service that should decide who can run for president, correct?

[Hermit-The-Prog]

7. An informed electorate is supposed to do the 'clearing'...

Instead
$2 Billion Worth of Free Media for Donald Trump - The New York Times

I looked at 2 years of front pages. Trump's Muslim ban got far less attention than Clinton’s emails. - Vox

How False Equivalence Is Distorting the 2016 Election Coverage - The Nation

Last year, no candidate got more negative media coverage than Hillary Clinton - Vox

Les Moonves: Trump's run is 'damn good for CBS' - POLITICO

People who do not know how to find independent (not conglomerated) news sources will not get an accurate assessment of candidates.

[brooklynite]

22. Bearing in mind, "biased" newspapers have existed since the US was established.

The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

The Plattsburgh Press-Republican

If you had access to "the truth", so do other voters.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

30. Granted...

The links chosen point to analysis of the reporting, not the candidates. TV was the biggest offender in reporting very little on issues and mostly on appearances and noise. Post-election analysis confirmed that.

[patphil]

8. In theory it's a good idea, in practice it's impossible.

It's too easily manipulated by the current administration to cull out the most viable opponents, or at least wound their campaigns.
Look what Comey did to Clinton by just suggesting impropriety.

[SCantiGOP]

11. Agree 100%

That’s how some autocrats win their elections by 90%+; their viable opponents are in jail and prohibited from running.

[Meowmee]

31. We've already been through hell

A living hell with over one million dead.

The requirements to run for prez and for any office here, but especially prez are very flawed obviously. Yes obvioulsy they should be very stringent. Prez is treated almost like a king/ queen with immunity.

Also by thinking as many do here that the system is “so” perfect there is great resistance to change it even to stop something like this from happening. That is an immediate objection to changing anything like this, it can’t be done because it will ruin the so called perfect system for others.

[DFW]

35. If I could amend the Constitution, THIS would be my additional requirement to run for POTUS

Anyone filing to run for the office of President of the United States, Vice-President of the United States, U.S. Senator or member of the U.S. House of Representatives must pass the same test that any applicant for U.S. citizenship must pass before citizenship is granted.

Said persons will be given the test upon application to be a candidate for such office, and again immediately prior to taking the oath of such office. Failure to pass the test shall be the same standards for foreign applicants for citizenship. Failure to successfully complete the test will serve as an immediate disqualifier for either candidacy or taking office. Special elections shall be held for those seats in Congress suddenly vacant, and the Speaker of the House at the time of the election shall be interim President.

There is no justification for an incoming president knowing less about being an American citizen than a dishwasher from Guatemala who risked his/her life to get here and then worked his/her ass off to be able to pass the citizenship test.

**Though Republicans would scream bloody murder at the idea, they should really thank me. Such a rule would raise the average IQ of the Republicans in Washington by about 25 points.

[Maraya1969]

36. +1,000

[Celerity]

37. One sure (& legal) way to stop him from running: put him to death after a fair trial & conviction.

[Deep State Witch]

41. Clinton Wouldn't Have

One of the things that a lot of old white men that I used to work with in DoD complained about was that "Slick Willie" wouldn't have been able to get a security clearance. This is because of his admitted MJ use and extramarital affairs.