70 yrs ago today, the Soviet Union conducted its first nuclear test at the arctic archipelago of Novaya Zemlya, a 3.5-kiloton shallow underwater explosion to assess the effects of a nuclear torpedo on 30 ships and submarines, similar to the US Crossroads BAKER test at Bikini Atoll on July 25, 1946.

Two dramatically lit images of the White House Military Office Marine Corps aide carrying the ~45-pound Presidential Emergency Satchel (aka the “Football”) last night as Trump departed Mount Vernon, Virginia, after speaking at a dinner hosted by Ben Carson’s nonprofit American Cornerstone Institute.

The White House Military Office Marine Corps aide is on “Football” duty for Trump’s trip to Glendale, AZ, to attend Charlie Kirk’s memorial service. The ~45-lb. satchel trails Trump 24/7, enabling him alone to authorize using any of our ~1,770 deployed nuclear weapons—up to 900 on alert—at any time.

The White House Military Office Marine Corps aide totes the “Football” to Mount Vernon, VA, for Trump’s speech to Ben Carson’s 501(c)(3). The ~45-lb. satchel accompanies Trump 24/7, enabling him alone to authorize the use of any of our ~1,770 deployed nuclear weapons—up to 900 on alert—at any time.

Am I the only one getting this vibe from der Trümp?

Cold War historian @conelrad6401240.bsky.social has resurfaced a January 23, 1971, Associated Press photo showing President Richard Nixon exiting Army One following by White House Military Office aide Brigadier General James D. Hughes carrying the Presidential Emergency Satchel (aka the “Football”).

Even if Trump’s out-of-left field assertion about the utility of Bagram Air Base were true (and it’s not), we already target China’s nuclear weapons production facilities and operational bases with our prompt and invulnerable nuclear-armed SLBMs and ICBMs. Why would we need aircraft to attack them?

“You finally really did it! You MANIACS! You spiced it up! Damn you! God damn you all to hell!”

Remember back in 2018 when Mike Pompeo, Trump’s hyper-partisan, ethically-challenged second secretary of state, rebranded it the Department of Swagger and was widely ridiculed for doing so? Good times.

“A wide range of specialists in domestic and international law regulating the use of force have argued that Mr. Trump and Pete Hegseth … are giving the military illegal orders and causing Special Operations forces to deliberately target civilians … in violation of murder laws.”

Who the hell does Hegseth think he is? Oh, right. (Defense journalists—and the organizations that employ them—do not obey in advance such a blatantly unconstitutional order.)

Tune in to @tcmtv.bsky.social Saturday at 4:00 PM EDT to watch “Fail Safe,” the second and less-well-known film from 1964 dramatizing the colossal risks of relying on the threat and ability to start a nuclear war at any time to—in theory—forever prevent the outbreak of such a catastrophic conflict.

45 years ago today at about 3:00 AM, the highly-volatile liquid fuel of a nuclear-armed Titan II ICBM exploded inside underground launch complex 374-7, 3.3 miles north-northeast of Damascus, Arkansas, and approximately 50 miles north of the capital of Little Rock, destroying the missile and silo.

Today in 1957, the United States conducted RAINIER—its first contained underground nuclear explosion—899 feet below Rainier Mesa at the northern end of the Nevada Test Site, testing a W25 warhead used in the Genie antiaircraft air-launched missile. The yield of the explosion was 1.7 kilotons.

A rare sighting of a “Football” handoff with the president in view: Yesterday evening at London Stansted Airport, as Trump departed the United Kingdom, the White House Military Office Air Force aide gave the Presidential Emergency Satchel to the Army aide for the return flight to Washington, DC.

Donald Trump, the first US president to work on commission, a “tribute” to his deal-making “genius.”

The White House Military Office Air Force aide was on “Football” duty for Trump’s arrival at Chequers, the UK PM’s country home, this morning. The ~45-lb. satchel follows Trump 24/7, enabling him alone to authorize the use of any of our ~1,770 deployed nuclear weapons—up to 900 on alert—at any time.

THREAD: 70 years ago today, a specially-modified B-36 bomber—the NB-36H—made its first test flight out of Carswell Air Force Base, Texas, carrying (but not powered by) an operational 1-Megawatt air-cooled nuclear reactor. It would make 46 more flights over Texas and New Mexico through March 1957.

The White House Military Office Air Force aide was on “Football” duty for Trump’s elaborate arrival ceremony at Windsor Castle this morning. The ~45-pound satchel follows Trump 24/7, enabling him alone to authorize the use of any of our ~1,770 deployed nuclear weapons—up to 900 on alert—at any time.

Via @penguinsix.bsky.social: Trump is committing wanton arborcide in order to “beautify” the White House. Does he have the legal authority to construct a massive ballroom? What about the necessary historical reviews and approvals? Bulldozed through in the name of “progress”? Nothing matters anymore.

The White House Military Office Army aide is on “Football” duty for Trump’s flight to London and a state visit Wednesday at Windsor Castle. The ~45-pound satchel follows Trump 24/7, enabling him alone to authorize the use of any of our ~1,770 deployed nuclear weapons—up to 900 on alert—at any time.

45 yrs ago tonight at Grand Forks AFB, North Dakota, the number five engine on the right wing of a B-52H on ground alert caught fire during a drill. The B-52H was loaded with 8 Short-Range Attack Missiles (each armed with a 170-200-kiloton W69 warhead) and 4 B28 bombs (70 kilotons to 1.45 Megatons).

Tonight in 1969, “Laugh-In” awarded its Flying Fickle Finger of Fate to the Pentagon and Congress for wasting $9 billion on six canceled nuclear weapons programs: the B-70 bomber, the nuclear-powered airplane, the Snark and Navaho cruise missiles, the Dyna-Soar spaceplane, and the Skybolt ALBM.

Tonight in 1961, season three of “The Twilight Zone” began on CBS with “Two.” Written and directed by Montgomery Pittman, it tells the story of two wary soldiers from opposing sides—the sole survivors of a global thermonuclear war five years earlier—who encounter each other in a rubble-strewn city.

The White House Military Office Space Force aide was on “Football” duty for Trump’s return from his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey. The ~45-pound satchel follows Trump 24/7, enabling him alone to authorize the use of any of our ~1,770 deployed nuclear weapons—up to 900 on alert—at any time.

Today in 1954, the Soviet Union—for its ninth nuclear test—staged a live-fire nuclear wargame about 600 miles southeast of Moscow near the village of Totskoye. At 9:33 AM (local), a 40-kt atomic bomb exploded 1,150 feet in the air between two groups of soldiers, some just 2 miles from the blast.

Today in 1987, the tragic and deadly radiological accident in Goiânia, Brazil, began when two young male scrap hunters unwittingly stole a highly-radioactive teletherapy source assembly from an abandoned cancer clinic, later extracting it, puncturing it, and selling it to a junkyard for roughly $25.

“We neither needed nor wanted your ‘help.’ But seeing as y’all will be invading—uh visiting—the Home of the Blues anyway, please drop by city hall so we can help make your time here as productive as possible.”

The White House Military Office Space Force aide was on “Football” duty for Trump’s trip to New York City to watch the Yankees vs. Tigers. The ~45-pound satchel follows Trump 24/7, enabling him alone to authorize the use of any of our ~1,770 deployed nuclear weapons—up to 900 on alert—at any time.

On September 11, 2001, US Strategic Command was—by sheer coincidence—one week into its annual Global Guardian nuclear command and control exercise. Strategic bombers had been armed with some 36 nuclear weapons, ICBMs and several SSBNs were on alert, and three E-4B airborne command posts were aloft.

Today in 1986, a Soviet SS-N-8 SLBM test-launched from a Delta II nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea flew more than 1,500 miles off course, sending its dummy warhead into China. An unidentified Pentagon official told Newsweek the “glitch” was “the sort of thing that could happen to anyone.”

OTD in 1966, French President Charles de Gaulle observed the 120-kiloton Betelgeuse nuclear test at Mururoa Atoll. Due to de Gaulle’s reported impatience, the balloon-tethered test proceeded despite warnings of adverse winds, showering Western Samoa, Fiji, and the Cook Islands with radioactive rain.

Today in 1996, the United Nations General Assembly approved the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty on a vote of 158-3. Bhutan, India, and Libya all voted no. All five declared nuclear-weapon states (the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China) pledged to sign the treaty.

Nuclear fracking, anyone? Today in 1969, in the second of three Project Plowshare experiments (RULISON), a 40-kiloton nuclear device was detonated in a 8,425-foot shaft near Grand Valley, Colorado, to stimulate the flow of natural gas. The gas was—surprise!—too radioactive to sell.

Emperor Trumpus Maximus, feasting while Ukraine burns.

I guess I don’t watch enough broadcast TV anymore, but this is the first time I’ve seen one of these tests (though I’ve heard plenty over the radio). For a moment, I was transported back to the early 1980s and the older, more intrusive Emergency Broadcast System alerts, wondering if this was “it.”

80 years ago today, one month after “Fat Man” devastated Nagasaki, selected journalists visited the TRINITY site in New Mexico (where the first atomic test had occurred seven weeks earlier) with key Manhattan Project officials to show that stories of lethal radioactive fallout in Japan were a hoax.

Instead of rice, perhaps the guests tossed shredded copies of the Constitution? (Also of note, Oliver North is nearly 82 and Fawn Hall just turned 65.)

Maybe if the protestors return with a big, beautiful, golden tent Trump will leave them alone.

Whereas our government has essentially collapsed yet it continues to wreak havoc on its citizens and residents in a zombified form.

Today in 2006, the Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty opened for signature in Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan (the ex-USSR’s primary test site). When it entered into force on March 21, 2009, it created the world’s fifth nuclear-weapon-free zone, the only one bordering two nuclear weapon states.

Today in 1962, the Soviet Union flight tested a nuclear-armed R-14U (SS-5) intermediate-range ballistic missile over populated areas from a launch site in Siberia to the arctic archipelago of Novaya Zemlya, ending in a 1.9 Mt explosion. This official film documents test preparations and execution.

Today in 1968 at Mururoa Atoll in the South Pacific, France conducted Procyon, its second thermonuclear weapon test. The device was attached to a tethered balloon about 2,300 feet above the lagoon and the yield was 1.28 Megatons. This test produced significant amounts of highly radioactive fallout.

The White House Military Office Navy aide is on “Football” duty for Trump’s trip to New York City to attend the US Open Men's Singles Final. The ~45-pound satchel follows Trump 24/7, enabling him alone to authorize the use of any of our ~1,770 deployed nuclear weapons—up to 900 on alert—at any time.

President Lyndon Johnson’s controversial “Daisy” ad—implying his (unnamed) Republican opponent Senator Barry Goldwater would start a nuclear war—first aired tonight in 1964 on NBC. Although broadcast only once as a paid political advertisement, TV news programs frequently replayed and discussed it.

Relatedly, a classified assessment for the NSC in Feb. 1950 reported just 16 well-targeted atomic bombs could “most seriously disrupt” any US retaliatory attack. A classified Sept. 1960 study posited as few as 9 accurate Soviet ICBM warheads (8 Mt ea.) would kill all essential US decisionmakers.

Only an opportunist like Trump would propose this unique solution to pay for his unfathomably expensive Golden Dome missile shield pipe dream: lease sizeable parts of Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, near San Diego, California—including very large and pristine coastal parcels—to private developers.

KURTZ: Did they say why, Willard, why they want to terminate my command? ... WILLARD: They told me that you had gone totally insane, and uh, that your ... methods were unsound. KURTZ: Are my methods unsound? WILLARD: I don't see any method at all, sir.

Today in 1979, the massive concrete dome on Runit Island at Enewetak Atoll was completed, entombing 4,700 cubic meters of radioactive debris and more than 83,000 cubic meters of contaminated soil scraped off neighboring islands—the dangerous residue of 43 US nuclear tests from 1948-58.

Stop taking Invokana and consult your doctor if you experience a nuclear detonation.