Sunday, November 19, 2017

Response to the LA Times editorial "The Nuclear Football Code"

I’m appalled that the LA Times doesn’t support common-sense bills prohibiting the President from launching a preemptive first nuclear strike without Congressional authorization (“The Nuclear Code Football,” 11/19/18). A nuclear war isn’t a football game. If the President launches a first-strike nuclear attack against, say, North Korea, hundreds of thousands of innocent people would die immediately; and millions more would doubtless die as a result of retaliation by the North Koreans and probably the Chinese. Our Constitution expressly forbids the President from starting any war without Congressional authorization. Our founders would be horrified to learn that Congress allows the President, a fallible human being, to initiate a war that could end human life on this planet. I’m glad my Representative, Judy Chu, co-sponsored the bill prohibiting the President from launching a first nuclear strike. It would be even better if we began a process to ban nuclear weapons altogether.

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