Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Washington, D.C., July 18, 2023 – A set of highly secret emergency action plans kept inside the closely guarded “Football” that traveled with the President at all times and that would give the federal government sweeping emergency powers were of “doubtful legality,” “badly out of date,” and “even illegal,” according to top government officials whose views are memorialized in declassified records posted today by the National Security Archive.

Since the late 1950s, U.S. military personnel traveling with the President have carried a special case known variously as the “satchel,” the “black bag,” the “emergency actions pouch” and, as it is perhaps best known, the “Football.” Epitomizing presidential control of nuclear weapons, the Football and the military aides who carry it enable the President to make decisions about the use of nuclear weapons in the event of a sudden military crisis.

While the existence of the Football has been known since the 1960s, reliable details about its contents have been relatively scarce. During the Cold War, and possibly later, they included proclamations and executive orders known as Presidential Emergency Action Documents (PEADs) for use in a national emergency. Edward A. McDermott, who led the federal Office of Emergency Planning in the 1960s, said the purpose of the documents was “to clothe the President with formal emergency powers,” although he said some were of “doubtful legality,” perhaps because they included the suspension of habeas corpus, a declaration of martial law, and the authorization of mass arrests and arbitrary detentions.

Today’s posting by the National Security Archive includes several documents about the contents of the PEADs and the Carter administration’s efforts to revise directives considered “badly out of date.” The President’s second cousin, Hugh Carter, Jr., who played a leading role in White House emergency planning, said he was “concerned that the entire PEADs series is obsolete given the total devastation which could be expected from a thermonuclear attack.” By 1980, the PEADs had been revised and updated and were ready to be placed in the President’s “emergency portfolio.”

Also included in the posting are documents on the Carter administration’s arrangements to assign a Football to Vice President Walter Mondale, with one permanently stationed at his residence. This was in keeping with Mondale's substantive and innovative role in national security policy. It remains unclear whether the four vice presidents who held the office between Johnson and Mondale were assigned Footballs, but so far there is no evidence to suggest that they were.

The posting also includes excerpts from interviews conducted by William Manchester while researching his book, The Death of a President (New York: Harper and Row, 1967), which shed light on the Football arrangements during the Kennedy administration. General Chester Clifton, one of the White House military aides who was with Kennedy in Dallas on the day he was assassinated, explained that a military aide was always near the President because the Football included "emergency war orders.”

According to Captain Tazewell Shepard, Naval Aide to President Kennedy, the military aides had responsibility for the contents of the Football “whenever and wherever the President goes.” The exception was when the President was in Washington, D.C., in which case the satchel stayed at the White House and did not “chase him around.”

More: Presidential Nuclear "Football" From Eisenhower to George W. Bush

You always hear about the ‘nuclear football.’ Here’s the behind-the-scenes story



The Race to Make Hollywood’s First Atomic Bomb Movie


Post-atomic Oppie & Gen. Groves, Los Alamos, Oct 16, 1945:



The Army-Navy "E" Award was a honor presented to companies during World War II whose production facilities achieved "Excellence in Production" ("E") of war equipment. The award was also known as the Army-Navy Production Award. The award was created to encourage industrial mobilization and production of war time materials. By war's end, the award had been earned by only 5% of the more than 85,000 companies involved in producing materials for the U.S. military's war effort.


So, while the stepford Biden administration has been busy emptying out NATO forces stockpiles of conventional weaponry, the nuke arms has been building. Regardless if you believe nukes are real or not, one has to question why & where exactly is all that money going?

France's nuclear arsenal has changed little for a decade, but major upgrades are underway and budgets are increasing.

The possibility of using the nuclear weapon first is assumed: our doctrine is neither that of no first use nor that of the sole purpose, according to which nuclear weapons are only addressed to the nuclear threat . . . Nuclear deterrence does not seek to win a war or prevent losing one” (Burkhard  2023; our translation).

Concerning the implications of the Russia-Ukraine war for the role of nuclear weapons, Burkhard said: “The war in Ukraine confirms the strategic value of nuclear deterrence and its moderating effect in any conflict involving one or more nuclear powers. Everyone has also noted a great restraint on the part of the Russian forces vis-à-vis NATO . . . The other lesson to be learned from the Ukraine war is of course the return of the balance of terror by the threat of force, a customary action during the Cold War” (Burkhard  2023; our translation).

France typically conducts four air-based nuclear exercises each year, known as “Poker.” These exercises are intended to simulate a strategic air raid and are conducted in the skies above France (see Figure 1). The “Poker” exercise involves a majority of France’s nuclear-capable Rafale aircraft, which carry simulated air-sol moyenne portée-amélioré (ASMPA) air-launched cruise missiles (Air & Cosmos International 2022; Service de l’Information Aéronautique 2022). The most recent “Poker” exercise was conducted in March 2023, and included nuclear-capable Rafale air-craft from both the Forces Aériennes Stratégiques (FAS) and the Force Aéronavale Nucléaire (FANu) (Marine Nationale 2023).

French nuclear weapons, 2023

Or maybe it's reboosting a secret nuclear money laundering network.


Someone here has history with the VW bug...

"TEDDY ESCAPES, BLONDE DROWNS" July 18-19, 1969:



The "blonde," as the NY Daily News headline writer put it, was Mary Jo Kopechne. R.I.P.

Mary Jo Kopechne (July 26, 1940 – July 18 or 19, 1969) was an American secretary, and one of the campaign workers for U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign, a close team known as the "Boiler Room Girls". In 1969, she asphyxiated when a car driven by U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy left a narrow road on Chappaquiddick Island and overturned into Poucha Pond after leaving a party. According to reports, Kennedy left the party at 11:15pm. Kopechne's body and the car were not reported until the next morning, approximately nine to ten hours later.

Anne Beatts [1947-2021] & Phil Socci [1953-2002] created the infamous Chappaquiddick-inspired VW parody ad. It appeared in "The National Lampoon Encyclopedia of Humor" (1973). VW sued and a settlement was quickly reached.

VW responded with a $30 million damage suit against Lampoon, charging violations of trademark and copyright laws and defamation. Last week Lampoon agreed to withdraw all unsold copies of the magazine by Nov. 15 (450,000 were printed), to destroy the plate of the ad, and to run Volkswagen's statement on the incident in the magazine's January issue. It seemed only fitting that the Lampoon, which has thrived on necrological humor, would at last find itself forced to kill one of its own items.

Lampoon's Surrender (Nov 12, 1973)

John Curran's 2017 film CHAPPAQUIDDICK (IMDB) is excellent and worth seeing (Bob Shrum former speechwriter for Ted Kennedy & director of USC Center for the Political Future, trashed it, so you know it hit a nerve). Jason Clarke as Ted Kennedy and Kate Mara as Mary Jo Kopechne give great performances.








"Yo ho, yo ho ho, a pirate’s life for me!"


How Harlan Crow Slashed his Tax Bill by Taking Clarence Thomas on Superyacht Cruises