Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Happy Checkers Day!

"Dogs are winners." - Roger Sterling. MAD MEN on CHECKERS. Nixon's famous speech was broadcast Sept 23, 1952.



Vice Presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon delivered his televised Checkers Speech. Or, as Nixon always referred to it: "The Fund Speech." The @Variety review was titled "Just Plain Dick." R.I.P. Checkers [1952-1964].




Richard Nixon's "Checkers" Speech - Sept 23, 1952: As a candidate for vice president, Richard Nixon gives a televised address to the public after being accused of accepting illegal gifts. Nixon provides a detailed account of his and his family's finances to remove any suspicion. The title of the speech refers to the Nixon's family dog, Checkers, who was a gift but one which Nixon declines to return.

I am sure that you have read the charge and you've heard that I, Senator Nixon, took $18,000 from a group of my supporters.

Now, was that wrong? And let me say that it was wrong—I'm saying, incidentally, that it was wrong and not just illegal. Because it isn't a question of whether it was legal or illegal, that isn't enough. The question is, was it morally wrong?

I say that it was morally wrong if any of that $18,000 went to Senator Nixon for my personal use. I say that it was morally wrong if it was secretly given and secretly handled. And I say that it was morally wrong if any of the contributors got special favors for the contributions that they made.
And now to answer those questions let me say this:

Not one cent of the $18,000 or any other money of that type ever went to me for my personal use. Every penny of it was used to pay for political expenses that I did not think should be charged to the taxpayers of the United States.

It was not a secret fund.
Full "Checkers" Speech Transcript

Sept 23, 1949: Pres Truman announces the First Atomic Explosion in the USSR.


The American Presidency Project

The NSC-68 report of 1950 will call for a massive increase in military spending as well as hydrogen bomb development. The Truman Administration almost tripled defense spending as a percentage of the gross domestic product between 1950 and 1953 (from 5 to 14.2 percent).


"Some of the scenes that follow may distress you." THREADS aired for the first time on Sept 23, 1984 on BBC 2. "Made in and with the cooperation of the people of Sheffield." You can watch the somber talking head intro here:






It aired for the first time in the United States on January 13, 1985, on WTBS, thanks to station owner Ted Turner III.


Sept 23, 1992: at the Nevada Test Site, the United States conducted "Divider" a low-yield underground (1,115 ft) nuclear weapon test (less 20 kt). Bipartisan legislation imposing a 9-month moratorium signed by Pres. George H.W. Bush 9 days later made this the last full-scale US test—so far.

Operation Julin was a group of 7 nuclear tests conducted by the United States in 1991–1992. These tests followed the Operation Sculpin series, and were the last before negotiations began for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

Shot Hunters Trophy was Lawrence Livermore's last nuclear test and the second to last nuclear test conducted by the United states. Its purpose was to evaluate the radiation hardness of space and high altitude systems, such as optics, sensors and materials for the Strategic Defense Initiative, and the hardness of Sandia detonators. The test consisted of a 850-foot (260 m) HLOS pipe and "stub pipes" to simulate different nuclear battlefield environments.

Hunters Trophy included the experiment Hydroplus. The Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA) developed a means of verifying non-standard nuclear tests using ground peak stress and velocity at several ranges from a possible detonation point using computer hydrocodes. These codes required calibration data which was gathered at Hunters Trophy. Further Hydroplus experiments were conducted in shot Distant Zenith of Operation Sculpin.

Between July 1945 and September 1992, the United States conducted 1,054 nuclear weapon tests (including 28 joint tests with the United Kingdom), 210 in the atmosphere, 839 underground, and 5 underwater, involving 1,149 individual detonations (63 tests included more than one device).

The now heavily-pockmarked Nevada National Security Site (formerly the Nevada Test Site) sits on the traditional lands of the Western Shoshone Nation, land the US government does not own, but which it illegally took and contaminated in contravention of the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley.

The site has also sparked controversy. More than 536 demonstrations were conducted at the site between 1986 and 1994, leading to almost 16,000 arrests. Astronomer Carl Sagan, singer Kris Kristofferson and six Democratic congresspeople were arrested, according to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas’ Historical Archives.
Las Vegas Review-Journal

For more details on US nuclear weapons testing, see this 2015 official Department of Energy chronology, United States Nuclear Tests: July 1945 through September 1992 (129 pg PDF listing all 1,054 bOOms)

For more on the history and lethal legacy of US nuclear testing in Nevada, the Pacific Proving Grounds (Bikini and Enewetak Atolls, Christmas Island, and Johnston Atoll), and many other locations, see this 2022 article with spectacular photos in NatGeo:

U.S. nuclear testing's devastating legacy lingers, 30 years after moratorium or the Archived copy.


Although the United States has not exploded a nuclear device underground in more than 30 years, the nuclear weapons laboratories have never given up hope that testing madness could one day resume. Russian and Chinese scientists have not forsaken testing either...


Exclusive: Satellite images show increased activity at nuclear test sites in Russia, China and US (Sept 23, 2023)


A real tweet from stepford Biden:



-Sky rocketing fentanyl deaths.
-Open borders.
-Inflation.
-High gas prices.
-Increased crime.
-Suppression of free speech.
-loss of individual liberties.
-increased suicide.
-home values tanking / Homelessness rising.
-savings accounts declining.
-Pending WWIII.
- On & on, etc.

And Biden wants to talk "ticket service fees." Pathetic!

Meanwhile, more invasion: "The Homeland Security Department is granting protections to nearly half a million Venezuelan immigrants who came to the U.S. before July 31 in a move that will allow them to legally work and apply for protection from deportation."
Just the News


Illustrations from "Destinies, Winter 1981 (Vol. 3, No. 1)" accompanying the story "Shall We Take a Little Walk?" by Gregory Benford. Interior artwork for the issue as a whole is credited to Rick Sternbach, Broeck Steadman, Janet Aulisio, and Steven Fabian.

Destinies, Winter 1981 (PDF)


And now for tonight's episode... "Clown of Death" (S4E20) Karl Malden in THE STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO, A QM Production.