🚨THREAD🚨

With the President of the United States threatening actual war crimes and "disproportionate" attacks on Iran, now feels like a good time to remind everyone that, yes, we really did hand a volatile reality TV star the absolute power to use thousands of nuclear weapons.
Folks always insist this can't be how it works. They need to believe that someone — the Defense Secretary, the Joint Chiefs, or a general, somewhere, surely — has to sign off on it. Because the facts sound too obviously crazy to be real.

Allow me to burst that precious bubble.
Everywhere Trump goes, a locked briefcase follows. Inside it are the means to launch weapons that can destroy entire nations. At any moment he can open it up, flip through a black book of targets, pick up the phone, and tell the Pentagon which genocide on the menu he likes best.
The officer in charge of the National Military Commander Center (the “War Room”), who may not be any more senior than a colonel, will be on the other end of the line. A small group of senior advisors/commanders may or may not be patched in, depending on their availability.
This is where folks assume top brass has to agree. Nope, sorry! This is a "consultation" only to the extent that the President wants advice. He can end all discussion immediately. Sure, folks can refuse/resign, but a disobedient officer in the War Room will be instantly replaced.
Once given, the order must be verified. This is the ONLY “check” in the process. The War Room officer reads a challenge code, and the President reads the matching response on a little card he carries w/ him. Then, like magic, the order is imbued w/ full power of the presidency.
A verified order has presumption of legality; pressure to obey will be extraordinary. Executing officers in chain of command have no legal/procedural grounds to defy it no matter how inappropriate it seems. If the President's identity is confirmed, the order is considered legit.
The order then speeds through the system, encrypted in a message half the length of a tweet. This happens FAST. By the time it reaches its destination — launch officers in underground silos — only a few minutes will have passed since the President first opened the briefcase.
Five launch crews w/ 2 officers each, spread miles apart underground and overseeing 50-missile squadrons, receive these orders. The 20-something-year-old officers open their safes and make sure the War Room's codes match. If they do, they unlock the missiles and target them.
A launch key is inserted and then 3 cooperative launch switches are flipped by 2 officers. (The “2-man rule” is at the bottom of the chain, not the top.) Each crew flipping their switches generates a “vote” to launch. 5 crews = 5 votes. It takes 2 votes to launch the missiles.
To block the launch, 4 of the 5 crews would need refuse to obey what seems like a legitimate order from their Commander-in-Chief, without the benefit of any outside info.

If that mutiny is where you pin your hopes for all of human civilization, good fucking luck with that.
When the switches are flipped, the nuclear weapons will launch instantly.

The whole process, from the President opening the briefcase to city-killing missiles climbing into the sky, can take less than 5 mins. There are no take-backs. No way to stop or cancel a launched missile.
Bear in mind these weapons are 10-20x more destructive than the bombs dropped on Japan and travel at 22x the speed of sound. They'll obliterate target cities in 30 mins or less. Millions will be dead faster than the President can get his tiny hands on a Big Mac and Diet Coke.
I don’t blame you for refusing to believe. I wouldn't believe it myself had I not learned this directly from nuclear command-and-control experts, veteran launch officers, and the 4-star general who commanded all US nuclear forces.

But this is real. This is how it works.
This is the vast, terrible power we bestowed on Donald Trump. At the heart of our democracy is an undemocratic nuclear monarchy that holds the whole world hostage to one man's decision-making. Everything rests on the President's sound mind, good judgment, and emotional stability.
The system is bonkers — but it doesn't have to be. There's a bill in Congress *right now* that would prevent any president from starting a nuclear war on their own.

#NoFirstUse would make this scenario illegal and impossible. Hard to imagine anything more urgent or obvious.

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More from @derekjGZ

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Today in the US, more than 4000 children are hospitalized with #COVID19, which is double what we saw 2 weeks ago. At one Indiana hospital, half the kids went to the ICU and ~25% were put on a ventilator.

Tell me more about how Omicron is "like a cold" and "no big deal for kids."
Some folks on here chiming in with disbelief and demanding sources, as if it's not the easiest thing in the fucking world to pull up loads of credible reporting on this in less time than it takes to express your ignorance.

Here's one to get you started: theguardian.com/us-news/2022/j…
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Jan 8, 2021
With news breaking that Trump advisors say he's "unstable" and "out of his mind," now seems like a good time to remind everyone we really did hand this desperate psychopath the absolute power to use nuclear weapons and kill millions of people.

Here's how it would go down: Image
People always try to tell me this can't be how it works. They need to believe that someone — the Defense Secretary, the Joint Chiefs, or a general, somewhere, surely — has to sign off on it. Because the facts sound too obviously crazy to be real.

I get it, and I'm sorry, BUT.
Everywhere Trump goes, a locked briefcase follows. Inside it is everything he needs to launch weapons that can end all life on Earth. At any moment he can open it up, flip through a book of targets, pick up the phone, and order up whichever armageddon on the menu he likes best.
Read 17 tweets
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An old friend of mine is a doctor in the Midwest. She also heads up her county’s board of health.

Tonight, she met for 2 hours with colleagues at the local hospital to discuss contingencies as the #COVIDー19 pandemic escalates.

What she described knocked the wind out of me:
“Imagine 6 women, most of them moms, sitting around a table. One nursing a baby. All healthcare providers, making plans. Setting fear aside."

"We discussed things like what do we do when we we run out of hospital beds? Where can we put patients?"
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At @globalzero, we're taking the #CoronavirusPandemic seriously. For the next several weeks, that means:

✅ Mandatory telecommuting
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✅ Self-quarantine for 14 days after personal/household member trips to hotspots
Our team is used to working remotely, but it can be pretty isolating on a good day, let alone when you're practicing social distancing. So we've carved out 15 minutes every day to say hi and check in on each other via video. Also a weekly virtual happy hour ("beer thirty").
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Dec 21, 2018
1/ With Mattis and Kelly heading for the door and the myth of “adults in the room” evaporating, now feels like a good time to remind everyone that, yes, We The People really did hand a flailing, impulsive ignoramus the unadulterated power to end life on Earth as we know it.
2/ On a daily basis folks insist to me this isn’t how it works. They need to believe that someone — Sec Def, the Joint Chiefs, or a general, somewhere, surely — has to agree. Because the alternative sounds too insane to be real life.

Allow me to burst your precious bubble.
3/ Everywhere Trump goes, the nuclear briefcase follows. Inside it are levers to weapons made to wipe cities off the map. At any moment he can open it up, flip through its black book of targets, pick up the phone, and tell the Pentagon which armageddon on the menu he likes best.
Read 16 tweets

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