All classification concerns access control. What is not always recognized is that in addition to any clearance to whatever level, there must be a "need to know" established by authorized parties. Just because you are cleared for "Top Secret" does not give you permission to access TS beyond your established need to know.

The SCI category is a further level of control, and can rightly be regarded as a higher classification level. It can cover information beyond intelligence sources and methods. (Been there, done that.) And there can be compartments within compartments.

There are other categories, e.g., Critical Nuclear Weapon Design Information (CNWDI) and NATO Confidential, Secret, and Cosmic Top Secret.

"I know a good cleaning lady. She's expensive. Really good. She cleans so good she makes everyone else look dirty."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1rhb8J2cCk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODgncMuS5Xg

Gerald Ford was never Speaker. He was minority leader and was appointed to replace Spiro Agnew, Nixon's VP. When Nixon resigned, Ford took over as president.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Ford

I'm saying that the current succession order is unconstitutional because neither Speaker nor President Pro Tempore are Officers of the USA and thus are not eligible to succeed. The Constitution is clear that in cases of Executive succession, Executive Officers would ascend, not legislative, which would violate the separation of powers doctrine. The original order, as set by federal statute, was correct. The current order contains multiple ineligible positions and if the Constitution were to be followed, should be skipped.

And no, we got Ford because he was VP, albeit appointed and confirmed to be VP after Agnew resigned. Yes, he was the only unelected POTUS, but then again, still representatively appointed by those who had been (allegedly) elected. But we've never had anyone other than VP ascend... unless... Mike Pompeo... well, that's a theory for another day

48 BC. Good 🍞

“The same political parties which now agitate U.S. have existed through all time.” Precisely. And this is precisely the complaint in the preface to the first volume of my defence. While all other Sciences have advanced, that of Government is at a Stand; little better understood; little better practiced now than 3 or 4 thousand years ago. What is the Reason? I say Parties and Factions will not Suffer, or permit Improvements to be made. As Soon as one Man hints at an improvement his Rival opposes it. No sooner has one Party discovered or invented an Amelioration of the condition of Man or the order of Society, than the opposite Party, belies it, misconstrues it, misrepresents it, ridicules it, insults it, and persecutes it. Records are destroyed. Histories are annihilated or interpolated, or prohibited Sometimes by Popes, Sometimes by Emperors, Sometimes by Aristocratical and Sometimes by democratical Assemblies and Sometimes by Mobs.

Aristotle wrote the History and description of Eighteen hundred Republicks, which existed before his time. Cicero wrote two Volumes of discourses on Government, which, perhaps were worth all the rest of his works. The works of Livy and Tacitus &c that are lost, would be more interesting than all that remain. Fifty Gospells have been destroyed, and where are St. Lukes World of Books that had been written?

If you ask my Opinion, who has committed all the havoc? I will answer you candidly; Ecclesiastical and Imperial Despotism has done it, to conceal their Frauds.

Why are the Histories of all Nations, more ancient than the Christian Æra, lost? Who destroyed the Alexandrian Library? I believe that Christian Priests, Jewish Rabbis, Grecian Sages and Roman Emperors had as great a hand in it as Turks and Mahomitans.

Democrats, Rebells and Jacobins, when they possessed a momentary Power, have Shewn a disposition, both to destroy and to forge Records, as vandalical, as Priests and Despots. Such has been and Such is the World We live in...

For John Adams' entire letter to Thomas Jefferson, see

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-06-02-0230

Pay close attention to the ending analysis of the Aristocracy