A president for the tinfoil hat crowd: Huckabee has his finger on America’s (electromagnetic) pulse

[DonViejo]

A president for the tinfoil hat crowd: Mike Huckabee has his finger on America’s (electromagnetic) pulse

Would-be president Mike Huckabee is very concerned about a science-fiction attack on the United States

SIMON MALOY

Mike Huckabee kicked off his 2016 presidential campaign yesterday in quintessentially Huckabee-ish fashion. His speech from Hope, Arkansas, was by turns folksy, preacher-like, populist and combative. Huckabee had some pointy words for the other politicians in and around the 2016 race, but there was one line from the foreign policy portion of his speech that caught my attention. “We face not only the threats from terrorism but also the threat of new kinds of dangers,” Huckabee said, “from a cyberwar that could shut down major financial markets, to threats from an electromagnetic pulse from an exploded device that could fry the entire electrical grid and take this country back to the Stone Age in a matter of minutes.”

Oh dear. Here we go with the electromagnetic pulses again. The “exploded device” Huckabee mentioned is a nuclear weapon that some nefarious actor – Iran, North Korea, al-Qaida, ISIS, [insert other international villain] – has managed to detonate in the atmosphere high above the United States. The nuclear blast sends gamma rays flying in all directions, which produce high-energy electrons, which create an electromagnetic pulse that will damage electronic systems. According to the Federation of American Scientists, to create an EMP that would affect the entire country, the malefactor in question would have to detonate a “large device” some 400-500 kilometers over Wichita – roughly the altitude at which the International Space Station orbits earth.

This isn’t what you’d call a “likely” event, but it’s nonetheless on Huckabee’s mind. He’s actually been on the EMP fearmongering beat for a long time. A few years ago he gave a speech to EMPACT – the country’s leading EMP preparedness nonprofit – in which he invoked the Holocaust to warn that measures must be taken now to prevent an EMP-related tragedy. Since he’s running for president and using that platform to bring up EMPs, let’s dive into the weird world of conservative electromagnetic pulse mania.

more
http://www.salon.com/2015/05/06/a_president_for_the_tinfoil_hat_crowd_mike_huckabee_has_his_finger_on_the_electromagnetic_pulse/

[Jefferson23]

1. lol Recommended for the comic value.

[Buzz Clik]

2. Huckabee will be blowing the dust off Reagan's Star Wars defense.

Be afraid

[bananas]

3. EMP is a very real problem, whether from nukes or solar flares

It's finally getting some attention by FERC and NRC, but probably not enough.
I haven't followed it for a while, here are some older threads.

2013: Feds Want Power Grid Plans for Solar Flares
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014496745

2013: NRC to consider solar flare petition by Foundation for Resilient Societies
IEEE: "Hundreds of Fukushimas"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/112732094

2013: A question about EMP
http://www.democraticunderground.com/122823686

2011:
Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x313974

2008: New York nuclear plant shutdown triggered by digital camera
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x154025