"National Security Directive-1" What the hell? A short

Listen, there has been a simple pattern for my entire lifetime. When Nixon and Ford issued presidential directives, they we called National Security Decision Memoranda or NSDMs.
When Carter took office, he renamed those documents "Presidential Directives." This kicked off a process in which Republican and Democratic Presidents used different naming conventions for presidential directives. It was childish, sure. But so what?
Republicans always started with "National Security." So, naturally Reagan changed it back:
National Security Decision Directives (Reagan)
National Security Directives (GHW Bush)
National Security Presidential Directives (GW Bush)
National Security Presidential Memoranda (Trump)
Democrats, by contrast, never ever used "National Security."
Presidential Directives (Carter)
Presidential Decision Directives (Clinton)
Presidential Policy Directives (Obama)
Maybe this reflects the tension between Democrats, who construe security broadly to include things like climate change, and Republicans who like to complain that Democrats think everything is a national security issue. More likely, it's like a dog meeting a fire hydrant.
Now, that pattern is broken. Biden went with the George HW Bush-era "National Security Directive." Biden could easily have picked Presidential Decision Memoranda (PDM). He didn't. Maybe from now on, Presidents will all use "NSD" no matter his or her political party.
A second pattern is also over. The first documents were usually about the organization of the NSC system. For most Presidents (Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Clinton) there were actually two documents -- one outlining the process and another renaming the series of directives.
Dedicating a whole document to naming your directives and abolishing the name of your predecessor's directives always seemed a little petty to me. George HW Bush got by with one organizational decision, as did George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
But the thing is, the first decisions were always about the process that would result in the substantive decisions to follow.
Donald Trump broke this patter -- his first directive, NSPM-1, is "Rebuilding the U.S. Armed Forces." The organizational decision was relegated to NSPM-2. Now, Biden has done the same, clearly preferring the symbolism of putting his #COVID19 response first.
This may be a trend -- The president will use the first "decision" to convey something symbolic about his or her administration, not waste it explaining how many sub-PCs will be established. I get it. Still, process matters. Logically, it should come first.
What does it all mean? Well, nothing. Nothing at all! These patterns were just little bits of Washington color that a brightened the place up, like bureaucratic cherry blossoms. I like them because I learned them young in life. Without them, DC just seems a bit grayer.
After four years of Donald Trump, I guess I can live with that. /end
PS: I would be remiss if I did not mention that @saftergood maintains an online repository of all these documents.
https://t.co/eF7W3Snvzh

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The Government is making the same mistakes as it did in the first wave. Except with knowledge.

A thread.


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This strategy failed. It is impossible to 'cocoon' the vulnerable, as Covid is passed from younger people to older, more vulnerable people.

We can see this playing out through heatmaps. e.g. these heatmaps from the second


The Government then decided to change its strategy to 'preventing a second wave that overwhelms the NHS'. This was announced on 8 June in Parliament.

This is not the same as 'preventing a second wave'.

https://t.co/DPWiJbCKRm


The Academy of Medical Scientists published a report on 14 July 'Preparing for a Challenging Winter' commissioned by the Chief Scientific Adviser that set out what needed to be done in order to prevent a catastrophe over the winter
Oh my Goodness!!!

I might have a panic attack due to excitement!!

Read this thread to the end...I just had an epiphany and my mind is blown. Actually, more than blown. More like OBLITERATED! This is the thing! This is the thing that will blow the entire thing out of the water!


Has this man been concealing his true identity?

Is this man a supposed 'dead' Seal Team Six soldier?

Witness protection to be kept safe until the right moment when all will be revealed?!

Who ELSE is alive that may have faked their death/gone into witness protection?


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Review crumbs on the board re: 'gold'.


#SEALTeam6 Trump re-tweeted this.
2017 https://t.co/kiqQoWR57e


https://t.co/W18nqFlLru


The GOP got rid of the SCOTUS filibuster so they could jam through three fringy right-wing Alito clones, including one right before the election, but sure thing, bud.

“Uh, actually, they got rid of the SCOTUS filibuster because Harry Reid did it first for something totally different! I am very smart!”

No. Knock it off.

Here’s the thing about the “But Harry Reid...” excuse:

1. McConnell was holding up Obama nominees, some *for literal years* without a vote.

2. Had he *not* done that, Trump would have inherited *even more* vacant seats.

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