Donald Trump intends to create martial law in American cities just to prevent 2026 voters who oppose his policies from going to the polls

We tape Rachel Maddow to replay when Morning Joe turns to soft news. Rachel Maddow was on fire in this program, as is well reported in the Boston Globe❗  #RachelMaddowStrong❗

Rachel Maddow slams Trump’s National Guard deployment in D.C. as an ‘authoritarian takeover’

Echo report by Alyssa Vega in the Boston Globe

Augut 11, 2025:  MSNBC network host Rachel Maddow slammed Donald Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in Washington, D.C., as an “authoritarian takeover” that she says has little to do with combating crime in the nation’s capital.

Trump announced Monday (August 11) that he was putting the D.C. police department under federal control and deploying about 800 National Guard troops after asserting the district has been overtaken by “bloodthirsty criminals” and “drugged-out maniacs.”

Maddow, who lives in Western Massachusetts, opened Monday night’s episode of “The Rachel Maddow Show” by citing data that show D.C.’s crime rates have dropped in recent years.

“You think it’s really about crime? You think it’s really about being tough on crime?” Maddow said of the deployment.

“Let’s be generous here. Maybe it’s not really just a generic tough-on-crime thing. Maybe it’s specifically because it’s D.C., which is the seat of the U.S. federal government,” Maddow said. “Maybe [Trump’s] just really sensitive about protecting the federal government.”

“Jan. 6❓ (Insurrection❓) No, forget about that. He’s just sensitive about it now. Maybe that’s it,” Maddow said, referencing the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.  At the White House Monday, Trump did refer to recent incidents of violence in D.C., including the June 30, fatal shooting of a 21-year-old UMass Amherst student who was interning for a Kansas congressman. 

(Maine Writer- do you suppose "guns" had anything to do with this murder of an innocent student❓ Ya' think❓

The president has also taken to social media about the assault of a former DOGE employee in the district earlier this month.

But Maddow noted how Trump has yet to comment on the shooting that took place outside the headquarters of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta on Friday, killing a police officer. No one at the CDC was injured.
The suspect, Patrick Joseph White, who died during the incident, had blamed the COVID-19 vaccine for making him depressed and suicidal.
On her show, Maddow also cited Trump’s deployment of roughly 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines in Los Angeles in June following protests over his immigration crackdown.
“When Donald Trump sent troops to Los Angeles this summer on the absurd pretext that some kind of war was on, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and other L.A. officials didn’t just protest against it and try to stop it. They also warned the country that, ‘Yeah, he’s doing this to us first, but it’s going to be you next,’” Maddow said.
She continued by calling Trump’s deployment of the National Guard as an “attempted authoritarian takeover where our authoritarian leader just starts trying to turn our own military to face us, the people of this country.”
“The questions that are equally important in response to that right now are, number one: What will the troops do about that❓ And number two: What will we do❓” Maddow said.
On Tuesday, Maddow posted on Instagram from an episode from last week saying that after six months of Trump’s second term Americans now “live in a country that has an authoritarian leader in charge.”
“We have a consolidating dictatorship in our country,” Maddow added.  (Maine Writer: In my opinion, Donald Trump wants to order martial law in all American cities where he knows 2026, mid term voters will vote against him and his right wing maga authorian policies.)

#DemocratsMustDOSomething❗

In the dangerous era of Trumpzi-Putinism: Who will be America's version of Alexei Navalny?

Dead Last: Authoritarian rule always entails corruption. With Donald Trump in office, watch your wallet. By Rachel Maddow

If nothing else, it was an insult to historians.

At the change of each Administration, C-SPAN conducts a broad survey of Presidential scholars, asking them to rank every Commander-in-Chief across ten aspects of leadership. The 2021 survey, published less than six months after the January 6th mob attack on Congress, ranked Donald Trump among the worst Presidents in U.S. history. Never before had a modern President had his name down in the dregs among feckless forgotten Whigs (poor William Henry Harrison’s term lasted only thirty-two days) and impeached scoundrels like Andrew Johnson.

Given the shocking, violent end of Trump’s first term, that scalding snap judgment in 2021 was no surprise. The following year, the Siena College survey of Presidential scholars also listed Trump among the worst Presidents ever. In this past June’s debate between Trump and President Joe Biden, Biden cited another academic survey—the 2024 “Presidential Greatness Project”—in which a hundred and fifty-four scholars and historians ranked Trump dead last, even below James Buchanan, whose disastrous Presidency dragged the nation into the bloody maw of the Civil War.

Two hundred and forty-eight years is a long throw for a constitutional republic, and throughout the course of it we’ve had our share of stinkers in the Oval Office. Still, when hundreds of experts in multiple surveys put a man in strong contention for the title of the Worst President in the Nation’s History, it says something about our respect for expertise that we decided to give the man another go.

Even if history hasn’t been a guiding light for voters in this election, it may yet offer some hints about what to expect next: in short, watch your wallet. If history is a guide, it might be worth remembering that America’s most ambitious and accomplished demagogues have also all been crooks.

In 1939, the U.S. Justice Department sent prosecutors to Louisiana to clean up the Huey Long political machine, which was still chugging along four years after Long’s murder. Part of Long’s legacy in the state was a magnificent Louisiana grift that became known as the “hot oil” scam. Long’s puppet governor and the bagman who used to collect Long’s cash bribes from state contractors each took a personal financial cut of every barrel of off-the-books (so-called “hot”) oil produced in the state.

One middleman testified about sending an express-mail package of forty-eight thousand dollars in one-thousand-dollar bills to Long’s bribe collector. The governor admitted that in his one term in office he pocketed almost five hundred thousand dollars (more than ten million in today’s dollars). The governor and the bagman went to prison, but the judge hearing the hot-oil case expressed doubt about whether any of the lower-level functionaries who had been press-ganged into the scheme really had a choice. “It is a matter of general and common knowledge that the state of Louisiana was more or less under a dictatorship,” he said.

If there was a rival for Long’s oratorical skill and demagogic power in the nineteen-thirties, it was Father Charles E. Coughlin, whose tens of millions of weekly radio listeners were treated to his frequent harangues against the “filthy gold standard,” which he ascribed to Jews and communists. Coughlin instead preached the virtues of what he called “Gentile silver.” (Throughout the 1930s, Charles E. Coughlin was one of the most influential men in the United States. He was a Catholic priest in the metro Detroit Michigan area who became politically active. Foreshadowing modern talk radio and televangelism.)

Although Coughlin never betrayed any personal stake in this line of pseudo-theological monetary invective, a U.S. Treasury audit in 1934 found that, alongside entities like Chase National Bank of Manhattan, one of the largest single holders of silver in the United States was an unmarried secretary in Royal Oak, Michigan: Miss Amy Collins. Collins turned out to be Coughlin’s secretary.

Coughlin’s office soon released a letter in Collins’s name, insisting that the purchase of those half a million ounces of silver was her own idea, pursued at her own initiative, and that “Neither Father Coughlin nor any other officer except myself”, had anything to do with it.

One of the underappreciated demagogues of the second half of the twentieth century was Vice-President Spiro Agnew*, whose meteoric rise from local Maryland politics to the White House was aided more than anything by admiration, among Nixon’s advisers, for his relentless invective against protesters and civil-rights groups. As Nixon’s Vice-President, Agnew developed his own zealous national following by training rhetorical fire on the press and, when he fell under criminal investigation, on the legal system.

In 1973, Agnew, facing the prospect of a forty-count felony indictment, was allowed to plead nolo contendere to a single count and escaped all the other charges in exchange for his resignation. Because Agnew’s nolo count was a tax-related charge, it’s sometimes forgotten that the bill of particulars against him described not run-of-the-mill tax fiddling but the sitting Vice-President of the United States literally taking envelopes full of cash at the White House and stuffing them into his desk.

In our own time, Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation has done more than anyone, anywhere, to remind us that authoritarian rule always entails thievery. Three years ago, as Navalny voluntarily returned to Russia after surviving an assassination attempt, he released a film titled “Putin’s Palace,” revealing evidence that the Russian leader had a secret billion-dollar Black Sea lair, which Navalny called “the biggest bribe in history.” (The Kremlin denied that the palace belonged to Putin.)

After Navalny’s death in an arctic Russian prison earlier this year, his foundation released a follow-up video, which showed hidden-camera footage of the inside of the palace, including plush bedrooms, a gaudy chapel, and a dirty construction trailer used by workers at the site. On a wall above a filthy toilet, someone had scrawled, “Lyokha [Alexei], you were right!”

The banner headline of Navalny’s leadership was his insistence that opponents of Putin’s regime must not be afraid. If Navalny himself could deny the regime his fear, as their persecution of him relentlessly escalated, then surely no one else should lend the regime their fear either. But the core of Navalny’s work against Putin was exposing his thievery from the Russian people.

Dictators and demagogues are thieves—here, there, always, and everywhere.

If history is allowed a word in this moment, let it be informed by the visionary antifascist and anti-authoritarian leaders of our time, but also by our own squalid experience with this kind of guy, the guy we’ve just put back in the White House. He starts the new gig while being legally barred from serving as an officer or a director in any New York corporation or from taking out loans with New York banks, and while the longtime C.F.O. of his company, convicted of tax fraud and perjury, is still adjusting to life outside jail. Here is a man who took time out of his Presidential campaign to launch not only a line of watches and sneakers and commemorative coins but also a new cryptocurrency scheme in which his partners are the self-proclaimed “dirtbag of the internet” and the entrepreneur behind Date Hotter Girls, L.L.C.

Let’s not be surprised about where this is heading.

We’ll shout down our own fear, yes. But we’ll also expose and humiliate thieves. History is here to help. Historians may or may not have the ear of the electorate, but the history of this era, at least, will be told. And, if past is prologue, it’s likely to be lurid. ♦

Published in the print edition of the November 18, 2024, issue, with the headline “Too Many Crooks.”

Spiro Agnew (1918-1996)

*My personal experience with Spiro Angew.  As a native Marylander who lived in Baltimore city and in Baltimore County, where the former Vice-President was once the county commissioner, before he became the state's governor. My mother was a widow who was trying to raise three children as a single parent.  She wanted to be a school crossing guard because the job allowed her to be home when her children were not in school.  At that time, in the 1960s, the school crossing guards were like an extenstion of the police department and they were selected based on recommendations and other good character qualifications.  But, when Spiro Agnew became the Baltimore County Commissioner, he fired my mother because she was a registered Democrat!  Fortunately, the undertaker, the man who buried my father, was a Maryland Republican.  He personally took my mother's petition to keep her job directly to Agnew, explaining how our family depended on my mother being able to care for us at home while working to earn more money.  At the time, me and my two siblings were too young to work.  Indeed, Mr. Brooks Bradley prevailed and Agnew revoked his decision so my mother kept her job.  But Agnew's horrible decision to fire my mother solely because she was a registered Democrat created nearly as much grief as experiencing the untimely death or my mother's husband and our father.  

Republicans show up for rapture fest in Milwaukee looking like fascism wrapped in the flag carring a cross

Republican rapture fest in Milwaukee is a perfect example of American fascism redux

Echo interview published in Vanity Fair interview with Charlotte Klein

Rachel Maddow: So the origin story for this is that I was sort of flummoxed during the rise of Trumpism and the Republican Party that it also seemed to be coincident with a real upsurge in Holocaust denial and crazy conspiracy theories that I used to associate with the very far fringe right, and not at all with electoral politics. And so when this new movement is rising in electoral politics, why is Holocaust denial now becoming a more mainstream thing? And that’s what started me down this path, trying to find, what are the earliest instances of American Holocaust denial and where did they come from?

It is helpful to me in terms of understanding where we are. And history does accumulate, it doesn’t just recur. It piles up. And so seeing what we’re standing on is really helpful. And knowing that the country has been deeply alarmed about factually unhinged, antidemocratic forms of right-wing extremism in electoral politics—it’s good to know that we can take some lessons from the people who fought it.

JMO but when unqualified J.D. Vance, a former Corporal in the U.S. Marine Corps, likened Trump to Hitler, the narcissitic wanna be dictator and Republican cult leader probably took the lable as being a compliment! 

Donald Trump uses law enforcement for a hypocritcal photo-op during visit to police officer's wake

The problem(s) with Trump (tRumpti-Dumpty!) pitching himself as a law enforcement ally: Although he called deceased veterans "losers and suckers", Donald Trump desperately wants to be seen as an ally to law enforcement. The suspected felon's record makes his pitch demonstrably ridiculous. An echo opinon published on the Rachel Maddow blog by Steve Benen. 

Donald Trump finds himself in a precarious situation continuously fighting allegations of wrongdoing while defended by Mike Pence, Paul Ryan, Ivanka and Jared. (KYO Gallery)

NEW YORK CITY Officer 👮Jonathan Diller* (our condolences 😔😢) was gunned down during a traffic stop. The 31-year-old officer leaves behind a wife and 1-year-old son.

Diller’s wake was held yesterday on Long Island, and Donald Trump thought it’d be a good idea to attend. The New York Times reported:

Afterward, as rain poured down outside, Trump said the officer’s death was a horrible tragedy and, as he often does on the campaign trail, broadly called for a crackdown on violent crime without mentioning specific policies. “The only thing we can say is maybe something is going to be learned,” Mr. Trump said. “We’ve got to toughen it up. We’ve got to strengthen it up.”

The report added that before the former president spoke to reporters, “a line of police officers, some uniformed and some in tactical gear, were deliberately posed behind him.”

It was a familiar sight: “The former president often takes pictures with the police who accompany his motorcade on the campaign trail, and his aides regularly share videos of the interactions on social media to highlight the officers’ support.”

None of this is especially subtle. The presumptive Republican nominee wants to be seen as “tough on crime” and a “strong” ally of law enforcement. His partisan allies are eager to feed the narrative: House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (Ohio State's child abuse cover-up, i.e. "Gym-Jim Jordan), a Trump acolyte, declared via social media yesterday, “No one Backs The Blue more than President Trump.”

As a matter of election-year politics, the message makes sense. As a matter of reality, this is demonstrably ridiculous.

For now, let’s not dwell on the irony of seeing a man currently facing dozens of criminal counts push a “tough on crime” message, though it’s likely Trump was the only accused felon at yesterday’s wake.

Let’s instead consider the Republican’s record. (hypocrite~❗)

• While in the White House, Trump repeatedly lashed out at those he described as “dirty cops,” as part of a larger offensive against federal law enforcement.
• Trump also attacked law enforcement with conspiracy theories, condemned common law-enforcement tools, undermined the judicial system by abusing his pardon powers, and urged law enforcement to enforce his political vendettas and help Republicans win elections. 
• Indeed, the then-president (former guy!) made it painfully clear during his tenure that he saw law enforcement as a political weapon he can wield at his convenience.
• After his 2020, defeat, Trump’s posture toward law enforcement managed to get worse, as he condemned law enforcement “fascists” and equated the FBI with “the Gestapo.”
• Perhaps most notable of all is Trump and January 6. The former president hasn’t just promised day-one pardons for insurrectionists, many of whom violently clashed with police officers, he’s also facing civil suits from officers who sustained injuries during the riot the Republican instigated.
• As recently as November, Trump also appeared to express support for prosecuting members of the Capitol police. 
• Months earlier, the presumptive GOP nominee also lashed out at the officer who shot Ashli Babbitt as a “thug” and a “coward” who deserves to be vilified.

To see Donald Trump as some kind of ally to law enforcement is to look past everything we know about Donald Trump.

*Governor Hochul Directs Flags to Half-Staff to Honor Fallen NYPD Officer Jonathan Diller:  “New Yorkers are in mourning over the loss of Officer Jonathan Diller, a heroic young man who dedicated his life to public safety and serving the people,” Governor Hochul said.

Maine's good riddance to Paul LePage

Kick the LePage administration out and don't bother to return!

Maine's now "former" Governor Paul LePage has left Maine with a message about his ghostly return if he sees the state's fresh and new administration going too far astray for his draconian policies.

Ex-Governor Paul LePage: "Slip out the back Jack"*

Thank you Rachel Maddow for reminding us just how horrible the LePage leaership was as the state edured his cruel policies. She neglected to mention that Maine lost population and job growth stagnated while he was in charge of government. This echo of a 2016 Portland Press Herald editorial is the proverbial kick in the pants, as Maine slams the door behind the failed LePage administration.

Like the ghost of Marley, the LePage legacy will bear the burden of the chains and yokes that rattled Ebeneezer Scrooge to his core when the macabre spirit visited to warn him of his errant ways.

A link to this video is here

To re-echo the underlying message about the political agony felt by tens of thousands of Maine citizens over the past 8 years, I'm posting the Portland Press Herald editorial apology to the world as reported in Maddow's video segment aired on January 5, 2019, MSNBC. This editorial apology is a classic example of ending the old and predicting the new, in 2019. Seldom do editorials get to create prophesy and be so correct:

Our View- Message to America: Sorry we gave you LePage published in the Portland Press Herald  in Maine on August 26, 2016

Dear America: 

Maine here. Please forgive us – we made a terrible mistake. We managed to elect and re-elect a governor who is unfit for high office.

He has a gruff exterior and blunt way of talking that some of us find refreshing, but he has shown again and again that he governs by grudge, and uses his power to beat up on people who cannot fight back.

You probably heard about the latest episode. He was asked about the toxic racial environment that he created in the state with insensitive statements about people of color. The questioner, an entrepreneur from New York, wondered how he could ever bring a business here.

This should have been an easy one for the governor: Maine is a state where more people hit retirement age than graduate from high school, and our traditional industries are shedding jobs. 

Maine desperately needs new businesses and young people – of all races – who would be willing to move here to work.

The question was an opportunity for the governor to undo some of the damage that he has caused by giving members of minority groups around the country the impression that Maine is a white state where no one else is welcome.

Instead, the governor repeated one of his worst libels: That Maine’s drug crisis is the fault of black and brown transient thugs who come here not only to sell their poison but also to take advantage of “white Maine women.” It’s a matter of fact that heroin comes to Maine from other states – they don’t produce it here – but the governor is adamant about identifying the drug runners by race, leaving it to his audience to fill in the blanks of why that might matter.

This was not a slip of the tongue. He has said the same thing before, denied saying it, and then said it again before the latest incident. This time, he offered it as proof that the racial divide in Maine was not his fault – that it was the fault of black and Hispanic criminals that he keeps track of in a three-ring binder on his desk.

LePage knows that his words are widely understood to mean that he thinks that the color of their skin makes some people more likely to commit crimes. Rather than clarify or withdraw those statements, he repeats them.

We wish we could say that he is the only one in the state who feels that way. When LePage makes these comments, some of our fellow Mainers applaud him for defying what they consider to be oppressive political correctness.

But as a famous Mainer once said: “Rejecting the conventions of political correctness is different from showing complete disregard for common decency.”

Those words were written by Sen. Susan Collins in her denouncement of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. Like Trump, LePage is a repeat offender.
It would be nice to think that Le-Page would reflect on what he says and learn from these incidents, but he appears to be completely incapable of change. He will probably blame the media again for any embarrassment he suffers, but everyone has heard the tape and knows what the governor said.

On the bright side, America, Le- Page isn’t going to be governor forever, and when his successor takes office in 2019, Mainers of all political parties will have to work together to fix the damage he has done to our reputation. 

We hope that this person will be a leader who will welcome people of all races to live in Maine, and invest in our wonderful state.

Until then, please accept our apology. We’ll try not to do it again.

*You just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don't need to be coy, Roy
Just get yourself free
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don't need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free

Maine is "Free at last, free at last.  Thank God Almighty, we are Free At Last!"

White House staff ~ departing litany

Rachel Maddow, moderator of The Rachel Maddow Show, is keeping score for the "You're Fired" Trump administration. Hope Hicks is the latest in the dreary litany of "You're Fired" (or to resign immediately ~ haha!) names.

Senator and Vice-Presidential candidate Tim Kaine: "Donald Trump would be the ‘You’re fired!’ president".

Yup, Senator Kaine got that right!

Anybody who allows their names to be aligned with Donald Trump will go down in history as collaborators in an illegal administration. They'll be painted with the brush of this tyrant and his failed leadership.  In my opinion, the only reason the senior cabinet officials stay on are because they are at the end of their careers and are hoping to prevent an international catastrophe led by their incompetent and illiterate boss.

White House staff are working for an incompetent and intellectually irresponsible Donald Trump.  Indeed, it's highly likely the staff morale in the White House is toxic.

Cognitive Test given to Donald Trump ~ test sample:
NAMING

TEST: Name each animal.

RESULT: One point for each
Lion
Rhinoceros (or rhino)
Camel (or dromedary)

This complete Montreal Cognitive Assessment is available on line so there's a very high probability that Donald Trump had someone give him the test in advance of taking it again at the physical exam.  

Hiroshima remembered and memorialized

Nuclear football never far from US president, even in Hiroshima
Rachel Maddow explains what the nuclear football is, and its corresponding "biscuit" and notes that when President Barack Obama makes his historic visit to Hiroshima, Japan, the nuclear football will not be far from hand. Excellent commentary at this link:  http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/nuclear-football-never-far-from-us-president-693905987804

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial (Genbaku Dome) was the only structure left standing in the area where the first atomic bomb exploded on 6 August 1945. Through the efforts of many people, including those of the city of Hiroshima, it has been preserved in the same state as immediately after the bombing. Not only is it a stark and powerful symbol of the most destructive force ever created by humankind; it also expresses the hope for world peace and the ultimate elimination of all nuclear weapons.

Hiroshima (CNN)- Barack Obama, on Friday, became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima, where he called for a "world without nuclear weapons" during his remarks at the city's Peace Memorial Park.

Obama said that "71 years ago on a bright, cloudless morning, death fell from the sky and the world was changed."

"A flash of light and a wall of fire destroyed a city, and demonstrated that mankind possessed the means to destroy itself," the President added during his address at the site of the first nuclear bombing.

Obama was not expected to apologize for the U.S. action to hasten the end of World War II and he did not during his 20-minute-long remarks.

"Why do we come to this place, to Hiroshima? We come to ponder the terrible forces unleashed in the not so distant past. We come to mourn the dead ... their souls speak to us and ask us to look inward. 

To take stock of who we are and what we might become."
In the Hiroshima museum's guest book before his speech, the President wrote that he hoped the world will "find the courage, together, to spread peace, and pursue a world without nuclear weapons.‎"

(We can only pray for this courage to prevail.)

History:  The United States with the consent of .....

The United States, with the consent of the United Kingdom as laid down in the Quebec Agreement, dropped nuclear weaponson the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, during the final stage of World War II. The two bombings, which killed at least 129,000 people, remain the only use of nuclear weapons for warfare in history.

In the final year of the war, the Allies prepared for what was anticipated to be a very costly invasion of the Japanese mainland. 

This was preceded by a U.S. firebombing campaign that obliterated many Japanese cities. 

The war in Europe had concluded when Nazi Germany signed its instrument of surrender on May 8, 1945. 

The Japanese, facing the same fate, refused to accept the Allies' demands for unconditional surrender and the Pacific War continued. Together with the United Kingdom andChina, the United States called for the unconditional surrender of the Japanese armed forces in the Potsdam Declaration on July 26, 1945—the alternative being "prompt and utter destruction". The Japanese response to this ultimatum was to ignore it.

In July 1945, the Allied Manhattan Project successfully detonated an atomic bomb in the New Mexico desert and by August had produced atomic weapons based on two alternate designs. 

The 509th Composite Group of the United States Army Air Forces was equipped with the specialized Silverplate version of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, that could deliver them from Tinian in the Mariana Islands.

On August 6, the U.S. dropped a uranium gun-type atomic bomb (Little Boy) on the city of Hiroshima. American President Harry S. Truman called for Japan's surrender 16 hours later, warning them to "expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth". Three days later, on August 9, the U.S. dropped a plutonium implosion-type bomb (Fat Man) on the city of Nagasaki. Within the first two to four months of the bombings, the acute effects of the atomic bombings killed 90,000–146,000 people in Hiroshima and 39,000–80,000 in Nagasaki; roughly half of the deaths in each city occurred on the first day. During the following months, large numbers died from the effect of burns, radiation sickness, and other injuries, compounded by illness and malnutrition. In both cities, most of the dead were civilians, although Hiroshima had a sizable military garrison.

On August 15, six days after the bombing of Nagasaki and the Soviet Union's declaration of war, Japan announced its surrender to the Allies. On September 2, it signed the instrument of surrender, effectively ending World War II. The bombings' role in Japan's surrender and their ethical justification are still debated.

Iowa Caucus 2016- No winner just five victories

Five presidential candidates split their supporters in the February 1st, 2016 Iowa Caucus. 

There was no clear winner but maybe five loosers, depending on your point of view. A lot of attention for no clear outcome.

.

Democrats split their caucus support.

First of all, a caucus is hardly an election. Rather, it's a grass roots meeting where registered voters select delegates who will vote for a presidential candidate. Iowa has inflated the importance of it's first in the nation caucus to a process totally out of proportion to its actual significance. Nevertheless, since the outcome of the 2016 Iowa caucus was highly hyped, the perception of a "winner" was anticipated. Except, guess what? There was no winner. Instead, the Republican caucus goers split their support three ways, while the Democrats divided their support (statistically) right down the middle. Of course, looking at the caucus jug as "half full" the outcome could also be assessed as having five winners because the three Republcians nearly equaled each other in percentage of support while the Democrats were staatistically tie.

So, here's the dilemma? 

1.  Were there five loosers becasue no one candidate received a clear majority of support? 

2.  Or were there five winners, because each of the candidates equaled their party competitors in percentage of support?

In other words, the Iowa caucus proved absolutely nothing.  In my opinion, it's ridiculous for any of the lead candidates to claim they either "won", or "placed" or "showed". Obviously, a ton of money and energy was spent (wasted) in Iowa to reach a "non-conclusion" about who voters will support when they vote for President in November.

Republican caucus goers divided their support nearly equally three ways.

As Rachel Maddow said, the Iowa Caucus 2016 produced four victory speeches. Only Donald Trump was the outlier. Although Trump lost just because he didn't receive the highest percentage of support; but, in fact, his supporters prevented a clear Republican winner.

There must've been a time in the not so distant past when the Iowa caucuses were held in neighborhood barns, in the days when results were telephoned into party headquarters,without much  attention to the hoopla around the process. Frankly, it's time to return to those good old days, because, clearly, the Iowa Caucus was an event not worth the hoopla created about the ambiguous outcome.  

Here are the non-winning results worth noting:

Republicans

Senator Raphael "Ted" Cruz   28 %

Donald Trump                         24 %

Senator Marco Rubio              23 %

Democrats (still counting)

Secretary Hillary Clinton        50 %

Senator Bernie Sanders           49 %

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder is deep in polluted political water- Flint River

Well, here's another fine mess Republicans have gotten their constituents into! Flint River elevated blood lead levels in children, leading to irreversible health effects.

In a reactionary attempt to save money in the Flint, Michigan city budget, the move from using Detroit's water to, instead, a cheaper  resevoir from the Flint River, has caused the population to be exposed to dangerous lead ingestion. Children are especially sensitive to the life long toxic effects of lead exposure.

Flint River in Flint, Michigan

FLINT (AP) —  Republican Gov. Rick Snyder is promising action this week in response to Michigan's Flint water crisis and says the consequences of switching to the "Flint River" as a resevoir in 2014 weren't "fully understood."

Blood samples show significant levels of lead in Flint children, likely because corrosive water from the Flint River is agitating lead in old plumbing systems.

Snyder spoke to reporters Wednesday after introducing a new Supreme Court justice. He acknowledged that lead levels have increased. The governor says "tangible action items" are coming.

The switch to the Flint River occurred when an emergency municipal manager appointed by Snyder was running Flint.

The city's schools have urged students to avoid fountains and instead carry bottled water. Doctors last week urged Flint to stop using the river.

Now, as a result of the poisioning, the Flint Mayor declared a state of emergency about the lead levels.

The mayor of Flint, Michigan says her city is experiencing a "man-made disaster" after a 2014, switch to a new water source.

She says the city's usage of water from the Flint River elevated blood lead levels in children, leading to irreversible health effects.

In a televised interview on The Rachel Maddow Show on Tuesday, Mayor Karen Weaver called her choice to declare a state of emergency "the only step we could take at this point," adding that the city is seeking state and federal funds in light of health problems of the city's children.

The Flint River is a 78.3-mile-long river in the Flint/Tri-Cities region of Michigan in the United States. It flows through the counties of Lapeer, Genesee, and Saginaw. The cities of Lapeer, Flint, Flushing, and Montrose are along its course. Wikipedia

Weave said  "We know that Flint is not in a position to bear this burden alone, and we are asking and looking for state and federal assistance. And the only way that we were going to happen was to declare a state of emergency, and hopefully that gets it to the county which will get it to the state where the governor can make it federal."

But it's not clear that Genesee County will support Mayor Weaver's request for federal disaster aid, which is a crucial step in elevating the issue to the federal level.

The Flint Journal-MLive reported Tuesday.County board Chairman had initially said "that there's no need for the state of emergency" because "nothing more can be done." He later told the same publication that the issue will receive a "full hearing" in front of the Genesee County Board of Commissioners on January 4.

The Wall Street Journal explained the problem began when Flint switched to a new water source:

"The city of nearly 100,000 residents has been battling a water crisis for months after it became increasingly clear that switching its water source to the Flint River in April 2014 caused lead levels in drinking water to rise. The temporary switch was part of a cost-cutting move away from Detroit's water system before Flint could begin receiving water from another authority in 2016.

The city stopped using the Flint River as its water source in the fall, after the extent of the contamination became apparent."

High levels of lead are especially harmful to children and pregnant women, and can cause "learning disabilities, behavioral problems and mental retardation," the World Health Organization says.

A study conducted by a local medical center released in September showed that 2.1% of children 5 and under had elevated blood lead levels before the switch to Flint River water, compared to 4.0% after the switch.

Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a doctor in Flint who discovered the elevated lead levels, told NPR's Michel Martin in October that the health impact on these children will be permanent:

Moreover, the damage is done. Lead is an irreversible neurotoxin, so once you are exposed, you're exposed. 

It crosses the blood-brain barrier. It impacts cognition and behavior and mental health and lifetime, you know, potential, so the damage is done. So the other thing - our research entirely underestimates the risk because lead in water disproportionally affects infants on formula.

Michigan Radio gives us a sense of just how destructive this water is. "Flint's water was so caustic; it was damaging car parts at one of General Motors' engine plants," reporter Lindsey Smith said Tuesday in a documentary about Flint's water.

A Flint resident cries out during the filing of a class action lawsuit against city and state government officials Monday, Nov. 16, 2015.  JAKE MAY/MLIVE.COM /Landov

Four families have filed a class action lawsuit against the city and state. Attorneys are "hoping to sign up tens of thousands" more to seek damages for their health problems.

And the situation is still dangerous for Flint residents, the city's mayor says. The problem with the new water source was that it was damaging and corroding the water pipes, releasing lead into the water. Mayor Weaver told Rachel Maddow that even though the city has switched back to their original water supply, "when the water comes through, the lead leaches out—and that's why there's still a problem with lead."

It seems to me, all Republicans have failed everything related to science, like "Lead = a chemical element Pb and dangerous to ingest".  Moreover, Republicans are especially inept when applying basic science to public health. In other words, citizens who pay taxes in salaries for public officials to keep them safe and for the infrastructure used to keep water clean, should be able to fire the people who have contributed to a public health drinking water disaster, like in Flint, Michigan. 

Yes, Republican Governor Rick Snyder is deep in political hot water and he should be impeached.

Democratic forum-debate and why is the South so Republican?

At the November 6, presidential "debate-forum", nicely hosted/moderated by Rachel Maddow, in South Carolina, the former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley was why Republicans are so dominent throughout the Southern states?  In other words, it's hard for a person to identify as a Democrat in Southern states and, consequently, more difficult to win elections, unless the candidates are registered Republicans.

Governor O'Malley represented a "southern state", said Maddow. Obviously, Maryland is geographically on the southern side of the dividing US Mason Dixon line. 

As a native, I grew up in Maryland and lived for most of my formative years in Baltimore and Baltimore County, so I was unhappy to see my home state identified with the political demographics of the American south. When I grew up, Maryland was considered to be a "border" state meaning it was neither northern or southern. Also, Maryland was one of the original 13 American colonies and the first Catholic settlement established by the influence of Britian's Lord Baltimore. 
Nevertheless, it was posed to Governor O'Malley to explain how it is the American South has become so overwhelmingly Republican.

At one time, prior to the Civil Rights Movement against segregation in the 1950s and 1960's, the American southern states were predominantly Democrat. It's been reported, when President Lyndon Johnson signed The Civil Rights Act in 1964, he knew the political consequencesof the law, but he underestimated the generational impact.  

"We have lost the South for a generation,” is what Johnson was reported to say. Unfortunately, the Southern political response has gone on for much longer than Johnson could've imagined. Here we are in 2015, and the South is entrenched in fundamentalist right wing Republican politics. Regardless if the story about Johnson's quote is true or not, the fact is, a reaction to Johnson’s act of courage, turned the south Republican.

Perhaps, Maryland 40 years longer than the others to join the South because Governor Martin O'Malley's successor turned the state's leadership Republican.

But, I've seen Maryland go briefly Republican in the past. Governor Spiro Agnew was a prime example.  Governor Robert L. Ehrlich was a one term Republican.  Now, the recently elected Republican Governor Hogan appears to be a one termer as well, because he's been diagnosed with a malignant illness. After issuing an executive order, reducing the toll on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, it appears Governor Hogan hasn't been well enough to launch much political momentum.

I believe the South is predominantly Republican because our nation abandoned these states after the Civil Rights Act became law.  

In fact, few if any had the political gutzpah to create an environment where the civil liberties of Negroes was protected and their social institutions were supported.  In fact, the Civil Rights Act was a band aid to a help heal a terrible racial divide in the South; but after the scab was ripped off the wound, there were few interventions to create confidence and trust among those who were highly skeptical of the US governmnents' enforcement of this law.  

It may be too late in our generation to turn the South around and create confidence in the government's Civil Rights inverventions on behalf of protecting people against racial discrimination.  

Yet, we must applaud Rachel Maddow for asking the salient quesiton and for giving this important issue a forum for discussion at the wonderfully moderated Democratic forum/debate. There were a lot of supportive people in the South Carolina debate audience. Indeed, "hope springs eternal".

Bridgegate is a "bridge too far" for Governor Christie

MSNBC pundit Rachel Maddow was a trailblazer in launching the Bridgegate scandal on her weeknight news show. Now, the scandal is likely taking down the entire Chris Christie presidential campaign and may eventually lead to more controversy.

A Bridge Too Far was a historical telling of the failed attempt to capture several bridges on a road to Germany in World War II.

The Newark, New Jersey, Star-Ledger reports how Governor Chris Christie has created his own "bridge too far" metaphor with the failed attempt to capture the GOP presidential nomination. In fact, the Bridgegate scandal is Christie's  "Bridge Too Far". 

In other words, Christie's self destructive scandal about the George Washington Bridge lane closure has foiled his presidential ambitions.

In fact, it seem likely Governor Christie will quit the Presdential Campaign.  He  missed his opportunity in 2012, and now the "Bridgegate" scandal is a situation he just can't bridge.

Tom Moran reports in "The Week", May 15, 2015:

Chris Christie would like everyone to believe his "Bridgegate" scandal is now behind him. (But) don't believe it for a second. Federal prosecutors last week announced that David Wildstein, one of the Christie cronies involved in creating the massive, three-day traffic jam, on the George Washington Bridge, to punish a local mayor, had pleaded guilty to conspiracy. Two other Christie aides, Bridget Kelly and Bill Baroni, pleaded not guilty to nine criminal counts.  So, why was Chrstie selling this as a victory?  He was ecstatic that U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said, "Based on the evidence that is currently available to us, we are not going to charge anybody else." But, the word "currently" is a very important part of that sentence. Prosecutors now have Kelly and Baroni in "an iron vise," and can threaten them with years in prison if they don't testify against Christie. Fishman slyly noted that it was "not uncommon" for indicted people to make plea deals, and compared his investigation to a running TV series. To find out what happens next, the prosecutor said, "You have to wait for a whole 'nother season."  In other words, (Bridgegate) isn't over yet.

Julie's note- maybe Bridgegate isn't over yet, but Christie's ambitions to be a presidential candidate is in the terminal lane.

Bridgegate is Christie's "Bridge Too Far".

Finally somebody brave enough to tell Jeb Bush that his campaign is flawed

Jeb Bush insults Iowa Republicans 

Jeb Bush is the son of the 41st President George and brother of the 43rd President George-2. He needs a reality check. Like the fabled emporerer who was finally told he had no cloths, the presumptious Jeb Bush needs to hear the obvious. His campaign to win the GOP presidential nomination for 2016 is flawed.

Leading the reality check is Rachel Maddow, the MSNBC pundit and television journalist, as reported in Salon.com.

Jeb Bush picked an interesting moment to announce that he would not be attending this year’s Iowa Straw Poll on Monday. 

For unknown strategic reasons, Jeb Bush made this decision public while in the midst of being slammed by media outlets of all flavors for an embarrassing “misunderstanding” of a question about the Iraq War. 

Perhaps to deflect attention from the flub, Bush declared he would pass on Iowa to attend an event in Atlanta instead. It’s a move that’s already ticked off Iowa Republicans — and caught even Rachel Maddow by surprise.

Calling Bush’s announcement “a big one-finger salute” to the Iowa GOP, Maddow didn’t quite criticize the decision so much as express sheer bewilderment at the move. But the MSNBC host wouldn’t call it clever campaigning, or entertain the idea that it might be a way of dealing with the snafu over the Iraq War question. Rather, it’s just bad politicking.

“Jeb Bush, by all accounts, is supposed to be the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination for 2016,” Maddow exclaimed. “Jeb Bush not only has terrible numbers with likely Republican voters, Jeb Bush is, surprisingly, running a terrible campaign so far!”

“He is running a campaign so terrible,” she added, “that even his would-be friends in the conservative media seem unable to save him from himself at this point.”

Julie's note- Jeb Bush is clearly not demonstrating leadership. Obviously, he's running like an heir apparent, when his ability to communicate has been challenged since the outset of his "exploratory" campaign.

Brian Williams is a wanna be Iraq war victim without serving

Let's have Richard Engel and Rachel Maddow co-host NBC News.

Many journalists, since the Greek writer Homer described the Trojan Wars, have become famous by reporting about wars.  

NBC television journalist Brian Williams apparently wants to become a famous war reporter, but he must begin by telling the truth, first.  Unfortunately, Williams created a myth  about his war experience while he was reporting from Iraq.  

Now that Williams is being held accountable for reporting about being involved in a helicopter attack that didn't happen, at least not like he described it, he's retracting his story. He says, somehow, he became confused about the information.  

This is just another example of how I've blogged, for months about how Brian Williams is reporting entertainment news rather than behaving like a journalist.  

Two recent examples of his inability to get the news right was when he reported on the live NBC broadcast musical "Peter Pan" as though the television program, starring his own daughter, was a regal coronation. Under the title of ludicrous news was a recent report about how automatic dish washers are more effective if the water spray hits dishes sideways, or something bizarre like that...as though we're going to climb into a cycle to find out for ourselves.  

Now, Williams is finally admitting to creating war news. He's being held accountable, by those who were there, for his myth about involvement in a helicopter attack in Afghanistan, but he made up most of the story.  

Obviously, Williams is a "wanna be" war correspondent, who wants to be  famous, just because he can make up a good story.  

I'm the wife of a real war hero who served twice in Vietnam. My husband was with the US Seabees MCB71 and on the USS Intrepid. Frankly, I'm offended by the wanna-be war myths created from those who yearn to be among the brave, by creating myths.

Brian Williams had a chance to serve his country in the US Military.  I don't know him personally, but every American who is qualified to serve in the military has a chance to do so, if they choose.  Williams probably passed on his chance but now wants to be a hero, nonetheless.  Well, he can't. 

It's truly time for NBC to find a real journalist to lead the news team. The network needs somebody who cares more about the people they're reporting about than their own ego.

I don't know  who created the quote but it's a mantra among journalists:  "Don't create the news, just report the news".

I vote for foreign NBC news journalists Richard Engel and MSNBC pundit Rachel Maddow to co-host NBC nightly news.

Here's the mythology story, created by Brian Williams, reported from The Daily Beast.

Brian Williams’ War Story Is FUBAR

The claim that his helicopter was hit by an RPG in Iraq blew up in his face. Now the NBC anchor is busily apologizing to salvage his reputation—and career.

The Brian Williams Apology Tour has begun—and who knows where it will end?

The NBC Nightly News anchor publicly apologized three times Wednesday—during his regular broadcast, in a Facebook post, and in Stars and Stripes—after the military-focused newspaper published a damning story that Williams and NBC have been claiming falsely “for years” that, during the 2003 Iraq invasion, he was aboard a U.S. Army helicopter that was hit and forced down by rocket-propelled grenades.

“The story actually started with a terrible moment a dozen years back during the invasion of Iraq,” Williams told viewers during last Friday’s broadcast of the top-rated NBC Nightly News, “when the helicopter we were traveling in was forced down after being hit by an RPG.” Video accompanying the story showed a severely damaged helicopter, its skin pierced by an RPG, and strongly suggested that Williams had been a passenger on the combat-hobbled aircraft.

Williams has told the story of being hit by enemy fire at least twice on national television, most recently during Friday’s Nightly News segment about a retired Army sergeant who protected him and his NBC colleagues in the war zone. ButStars and Stripes reported that contrary to Williams’ tall tale, his Chinook helicopter was miles away when an entirely different chopper took enemy fire.

The Nightly News story focused on honoring retired Sgt. Tim Terpack, who, as Williams’ guest at a New York Rangers hockey game last Thursday, was introduced by the Madison Square Garden announcer with the erroneous anecdote and received a standing ovation from the crowd as the two men hugged.

Williams quickly retracted the story after Stars and Stripes confronted him with testimony from the crew of the 159th Aviation Regiment’s Chinook that actually was downed by rockets and small-arms fire; service members who were on the scene at the time also took to Facebook after Friday’s broadcast to contradict the Williams account.

“I would not have chosen to make this mistake,” Williams told the newspaper, adding that he was sorry. 

“I don’t know what screwed up in my mind that caused me to conflate one aircraft with another.... No, we never came under direct enemy fire to the aircraft.”

In a remorseful Facebook post, Williams wrote: “I spent much of the weekend thinking I’d gone crazy. I feel terrible about making this mistake....”

And in his apology on Wednesday’s Nightly News broadcast, Williams pleaded with viewers to trust his good intentions, cut him slack for his love of the U.S. military, and forgive his faulty memory: “[I]n an effort to honor and thank a veteran who protected me and so many others following a ground-fire incident in the desert during the Iraq War, I made a mistake in recalling the events of 12 years ago. It didn’t take long to hear from some brave men and women in the air crews who were also in the desert.... This was a bungled attempt by me to thank one special veteran, and by extension, our brave military men and women—veterans everywhere—those who have served while I did not. I hope they know they have my greatest respect… and also now my apology.”

Unfortunately for Williams, this is not the first time he has made “this mistake” on network television. On the March 26, 2013 episode of CBS’s Late Show With David Letterman, he told the host (at the 3 minute, 50-second mark): “Two of our four helicopters were hit by ground fire, including the one I was in.”

“No kidding!” Letterman exclaimed.

“RPG and AK-47,” Williams elaborated.

“What altitude were you hit at?” Letterman asked.

“We were only at 100 feet doing 100 forward knots...”

“What happens the minute everybody realizes you’ve been hit?” Letterman asked.

“We figure out how to land safely—and we did,” Williams answered. “We landed very quickly and hard...”

Stars and Stripes left open the possibility that Williams also misreported the incident initially on March 26, 2003, but it turns out that back then, at least, he never claimed to have been aboard the attacked chopper—during two different broadcasts on that date. Television news analyst Andrew Tyndall dipped into his videotape library and screened the Nightly News segment in which Williams said “he was in a convoy of helicopters, one of which got hit,” Tyndall told The Daily Beast.

NBC News, meanwhile, unearthed a March 26, 2003, Dateline segment in which Williams reported: “On the ground, we learn that the Chinook ahead of us was almost blown of the sky.”

Whether Williams’ Chinook was flying in close formation with the chopper that was hit—as his NBC reports imply—or was traveling as much as an hour behind it—as Stars and Stripes’ witnesses contend—remains a matter in dispute. “Williams arrived in the area about an hour later on another helicopter after the other three had made an emergency landing, the crew members said,” Stars and Stripes reported.

The Williams claim to have been under fire recalls 2008 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s false assertion that, as first lady in March 1996, she came under sniper fire during a trip to Tuzla, Bosnia. “I remember landing under sniper fire,” Clinton said during a speech. “There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base." 

CBS News video of Clinton’s arrival showed no such thing; instead she alighted on the tarmac and greeted a welcoming child who offered her a poem.

Needless to say, the standards of veracity and accuracy demanded of a network news anchorman are much higher than those expected of a politician. Clinton ended up in a world of hurt for her Bosnia fabrication, and Williams, at least for the near future, might suffer a similar hard landing.

“The actual lie is a trivial one,” Tyndall said, noting that it has zero public policy or political implications. “But the motive for the lie is really damning. Telling fibs to make yourself seem braver than you are? Why would you do that? The actual consequences of the lie are minimal, but the moral problems the lie raises are massive.”

Tyndall, however, said Williams can recover. 

“But it all depends on how much is mobilized against him and how contrite and forthcoming he is in response to it. This is not fatal, but it’s really bad.”