Fucking With The Football
That would be the nuclear football, the one that a President of the United States can use to destroy all human life on the planet with by pushing some buttons. It turns out there is a second one, a backup, one that is kept near the backup President. That would be the Vice President.
So CNN has put out a report that Tyler Cowen has picked up on and put as one of his daily news stories on Marginal Revolution, although barely commented on and not getting much attention on most media. The story in fact sort of does not quite play up how serious it is. It focused on how people at DOD did not know how serious the situation was, without in fact playing up how serious it was.
The problem is that while there has been a lot of attention paid to how former President Trump continued to tweet negatively about his own VP, Mike Pence, even after hearing that Pence had been evacuated from the Senate chambers with a mob having entered the Capitol. Trump’s concern was how Pence had let him down by not engaging in an unconstitutional act to try not to recognize the certified state electoral college vote results. This tweet was read to the crowd outside, and the mob chanted over and over “Hang Mike Pence!” We have now all seen this.
But probably the most dangerous part of this whole episode, I mean even probably worse than that Trump might have overturned the election and turned the US into a lifetime dictatorship run by him, is that when the mob was within 100 feet of Pence, the backup nuclear football was with him, carried by a Secret Service agent.
Now, if the mob had been a bit faster and caught Pence, certainly that Secret Service agent would have resisted vigorously, probably to the extent of giving up his life. But if the mob had succeeded in obtaining that nuclear football, well, maybe there are limits on the ability of a random person getting that object that keep them from destroying all human life on this planet. But even short of that, there is no doubt that one of these people could have brought about very serious trouble. This story needs more reporting, not how mean Trump was not to stand up for his VP who was following the law to certify the electoral college votes that would bring about the end of Trujmp’s presidency.
Barkley Rosser
Trump took his football with him back to Mar-a-Lago, so the codes to nuke the crap outta Russia in his football had to be deactivated when Biden took office..
Rjs
I hope you mean they were deactivated when Trump took office. I can’t imagine there is anything in that “football” that could all by itself start a nuclear war.
Nuclear football – Wikipedia
“…
Contents[edit]
In his 1980 book Breaking Cover,[2] Bill Gulley, the former director of the White House Military Office, wrote:[3]
According to a 2005 Washington Post article, the president is always accompanied by a military aide carrying a “football” with launch codes for nuclear weapons.[4] A separate 2005 article described the football as a metal Zero Halliburton briefcase.[5] Another 2005 article described the football as a leather briefcase weighing about 45 pounds, and included a photo of an aide carrying such a case.[3] A small antenna protrudes from the bag near the handle, suggesting that it also contains communications equipment of some kind.[3]
Operation
If the president (who is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces) decides to order the use of nuclear weapons, they would be taken aside by the “carrier” and the briefcase would be opened. A command signal, or “watch” alert, would then be issued to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The president would then review the attack options with the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and decide on a plan, which could range from a single cruise missile to multiple ICBM launches. These are preset war plans developed under OPLAN 8010 (formerly the Single Integrated Operational Plan). Then, using Milstar, the aide, a military officer, would contact the National Military Command Center and NORAD to determine the scope of the pre-emptive nuclear strike and prepare a second strike, following which Milstar/Advanced Extremely High Frequency or Boeing E-4Bs and TACAMOs would air the currently valid nuclear launch code to all operational nuclear delivery systems.[6] Where a two-person verification procedure would be executed following this, the codes would be entered in a Permissive Action Link.[citation needed]
Before the order can be processed by the military, the president must be positively identified using a special code issued on a plastic card, nicknamed the “biscuit“.[7] The United States has a two-man rule in place at nuclear launch facilities, and while only the president can order the release of nuclear weapons, the order must be verified by the secretary of defense to be an authentic order given by the president (there is a hierarchy of succession in the event that the president is killed in an attack). This verification process deals solely with verifying that the order came from the actual president. The secretary of defense has no veto power and must comply with the president’s order.[7] Once all the codes have been verified, the military would issue attack orders to the proper units. These orders are given and then re-verified for authenticity. It is argued that the president has almost sole authority to initiate a nuclear attack since the secretary of defense is required to verify the order, but cannot veto it.[8][9][10]
The football is carried by one of the rotating presidential military aides, whose work schedule is described by a top-secret rota (one from each of the six service branches). This person is a commissioned officer in the U.S. military, pay-grade O-4 or above, who has undergone the nation’s most rigorous background check (Yankee White).[11][12] These officers are required to keep the football readily accessible to the president at all times. Consequently, the aide, football in hand, is always either standing or walking near the president, including riding on Air Force One, Marine One, or the presidential motorcade with the president.[12]
The operational plan for nuclear strike orders is entirely concerned with the identity of the commanding officer and the authenticity of the order, and there are no safeguards to verify that the person issuing the order is sane. Notably, Major Harold Hering was discharged from the Air Force in late 1973 for asking the question “How can I know that an order I receive to launch my missiles came from a sane president?”[13]
There are three nuclear footballs in total; two are allocated to the president and vice president, with the last being stored in the White House.[14] The practice to also provide an aide with a football to the Vice President, to whom command authority would devolve if the President is disabled, began with the Carter administration.[15] In presidential transitions, the president-elect does not receive the actual nuclear code card until after the nuclear briefing, when normally “he meets with the outgoing president at the White House just before the actual inauguration ceremony. The code card is activated electronically right after the president-elect takes the oath at noon”.[16]
In the event that the outgoing president is not present at the inauguration – as happened in 2021 when Donald Trump did not attend the inauguration of Joe Biden but stayed in Florida – he or she keeps one football, which remains active until 11:59:59 AM on inauguration day. After that point, the now-former president is denied access to the football and the codes are automatically deactivated. The aide carrying this football returns to Washington DC. In the meantime, the incoming president will receive one of the spare footballs at the pre-inauguration nuclear briefing as well as a “biscuit” with codes that would become active at 12:00:00.[17]…
Ron
that sounds a little more complicated than just some maga hat getting hold of the football and pushing a button.
still. it scares me that we would even have such a thing in the hands of, say, a trump.
Coberly,
Yes sir, totally agree.