Today seems like a “good” day for a re-do of my 2017 nuclear football thread.
Jokes about Trump and the nuclear codes are well-worn. But most people don’t realize how it all actually works, so I’m going to explain.
Warning: you will find this thread distressing.
“strongly and powerfully”
TACO by proxy.
Art of the Deal
When I first posted my nuclear command & control thread on Twitter in 2017 I was told to, basically, chill the fuck out. Doesn't seem so crazy now.
bsky.app/profile/acit...
and the best we can hope for is that dozens of lower-level military officers will say “no, sir, I will not turn that key”.
This, to me, is the most dangerous part of an unhinged, madman president. He has the unilateral power to order the death of millions (or more) of people around the globe, to set civilization back millennia, to set into motion a chain reaction that could extinguish us entirely..
If SecDef refused to verify the order, POTUS could just fire him and order Acting SecDef to verify order. And he can keep firing people until a successor verifies the order.
So, remember the “two-man rule” we talked about earlier? It doesn't exist at the command level.
#3 is very important, and is commonly misunderstood.
The Secretary of Defense must VERIFY the president’s order (that is, verify that it is an authentic order originating from the President), but has no legal authority to override it.
To order a nuclear launch, three things are needed:
1. POTUS, for launch codes and selection of attack plan;
2. The “football”, more formally referred to as the Presidential Emergency Satchel;
3. Verification from Secretary of Defense.
(Fun fact: Reagan’s card fell out of his jacket and onto the emergency room floor the day he was shot.)
This card - aka ‘the biscuit’ - has several codes on it. POTUS has to *memorize* where on the card the correct code is. (He must memorize the *location* of the code, not the code itself.)
For example, it's not possible for the commanding officer of a nuclear submarine to launch its missiles some night in a drunken rage.
Now let’s talk *command*. The launch codes are called “gold codes” and they change daily. They are on POTUS’s person, like a credit card.
Control are the men and women who follow the orders, from the Secretary of Defense to COs/XOs to the personnel who physically turn the launch keys.
There is a “two-man rule” in place throughout the *control* apparatus, although realistically it takes many more than two.
Keep two concepts in mind. There’s *command* and *control*. They are exactly what they sound like. Command is the authority to order a nuclear attack - see “National Command Authority”.
Today seems like a “good” day for a re-do of my 2017 nuclear football thread.
Jokes about Trump and the nuclear codes are well-worn. But most people don’t realize how it all actually works, so I’m going to explain.
Warning: you will find this thread distressing.
“Constitutional law [is predicated on] the assumption that those who occupy public office will subordinate self-interest to larger obligations of service. It does not compel compliance so much as it presupposes it. Against a bad man, it has no obvious recourse.”
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/22/o...
It is so insane to me that these people take an oath to preserve and protect a document they have never read, and certainly do not understand.
How anyone at this point could think anything within their remit has a “grand strategy” is beyond me.
Trump keeps saying affordability is a “made-up word”, blissfully unaware that every word is a made-up word.
1. He never has
2. Commander-in-Chief
none of those things are constitutional rights
Speaking as a guy who’s been in this industry since the ‘90s: there is a very specific type of tech founder whose brain has certain important areas that are extremely underdeveloped. I don’t know much about these two, but this affliction disproportionately affects the ones you hear about the most.
I realize it’s extremely unlikely, but imagine this scenario: Trump endorses Cornyn, but Paxton marches on and beats Cornyn anyway.
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
“We get paid to give advice - especially when it's unwelcome. That's why generals cost more than soldiers.”
I wrote a thing about what loyalty actually means in leadership and communications.
citrano.com/principal-vs...
#communications #leadership
“Little seems to keep Carlson awake, except for the demon that lives in his home and, according to Carlson, has physically attacked him on several occasions in the wee small hours.”
www.telegraph.co.uk/books/non-fi...
In light of the #Crypto crash now underway, the only safe haven is my old Trump memecoin. It's worthless and you definitely shouldn't buy any. But many people are saying, with tears in their eyes, “Sir, it's the best rugpull ever” and you can upset the President with a just few $$.
$btc #bitcoin
in for 20
Exactly. What good does it do to amend a document that these milksops don't care about?
