Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, Doctor RJ, Magnifico, annetteboardman and Man Oh Man. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) wader, planter, JML9999, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse, ek hornbeck, ScottyUrb, Interceptor7, BentLiberal, Oke and jlms qkw.
OND is a regular community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing each day near 12:00 AM Eastern Time.
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From CNN: Hawaii: First state to prepare for nuclear attack
Mitsuko Heidtke shakes her head in disbelief after hearing that Hawaii is now the first US state to prepare for the possibility of a nuclear strike by North Korea. She lives on the island of Oahu now, but 72 years ago she was in Hiroshima, Japan.
Heidtke says she was 10 years old when she experienced firsthand the utter devastation and the terrible consequences a nuclear bomb can deliver. She is disturbed to learn that there is even a remote possibility of going through anything like that again in her lifetime.
But growing tensions between the United States and North Korea over North Korea's weapons program have led Hawaii to take action.
From the William J Perry Project: The President and the Bomb
Blair has insisted (in e-mail to me, and in our interview) that the whole “could the Secretary of Defense refuse an order” question was a red herring. The Secretary of Defense, he insisted, was completely dispensable with regards to the deployment of nuclear weapons. As I noted in my Post piece, there are several descriptions of the nuclear chain of command that imply that the Secretary of Defense is necessary, as the “conduit” (my term) between the political and military worlds. But is it true? Blair emphatically said no — but I never felt completely comfortable just taking his word for it. It’s not that I doubted Blair’s sincerity, but I’m a historian, I want a document to point to!
What’s tricky, here, is that there are clear instances where the Secretary of Defense’s job is defined as translating a presidential order into a military result. And there are places in the descriptions of various components of the US nuclear command and control organization where the uppermost political “unit” is the National Command Authorities, which is defined as the President and the Secretary of Defense. Which has led a lot of authors to insist that there is a big role there, of some sort. And even I entertain the possibility in the Post piece, and in the Radiolab piece (my specific interview was recorded some months ago). The reason is pretty clear — DOD Directive 5100.30 states:
The NCA [National Command Authorities] consists only of the President and the Secretary of Defense or their duly deputized alternates or successors. The chain of command runs from the President to the Secretary of Defense and through the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Commanders of the Unified and Specified Commands. The channel of communication for execution of the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) and other time-sensitive operations shall be from the NCA through the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, representing the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to the executing commanders.
Which seems to set up the Secretary of Defense as an essential part of the chain. The directive in question is not especially recent (the unclassified version of the directive dates from 1974), and it doesn't clarify exactly how important the Secretary of Defense might be.
But over the last few weeks, while working on this episode and my own further digging into the matter, I have become convinced that the weight of the open evidence points to the idea that Blair is correct — the Secretary of Defense is not just unnecessary, but not even in the nuclear chain of command. What convinced me?
From The Hill: Anne Frank Center notes 'alarming parallels' between Trump, pre-Holocaust Germany
The Anne Frank Center, a frequent critic of President Trump, suggested in a tweet Wednesday that there has been an escalation in "alarming parallels" between the present and Nazi Germany.
The nonprofit organization shared a bulleted list of items that seemed designed to show parallels between President Trump and Hitler's Germany.
In its list, the group said Trump creates his own media; exploits youth at a rally; endorses police brutality; demonizes people who believe, look or love differently; strips vulnerable people of their families, jobs and ability to live; and believes Congress should change its rules to give him more power