Tag Archives: Rachel Maddow

NO KINGS DAY! Sat June 14, mark your calendar now!

‘We Don’t Do Kings’: Mass Protests Planned to Counter Trump’s Birthday Military Parade

Common Dreams, By Jake Johnson, May 06, 2025

“Donald Trump wants to spend tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to throw himself a big fancy parade with tanks in the streets,” said one organizer. “This is straight out of the authoritarian playbook.”

Pro-democracy campaigners late Monday announced a nationwide “No Kings” day of defiance on June 14—the same day U.S. President Donald Trump plans to hold a birthday military parade more befitting a dictator than an elected head of state.

More than 100 “No Kings” events have already been registered across the U.S., with many more expected in the weeks ahead of the day of action.

See the full list of planned events and locations here (mobilize.us)

“Donald Trump wants to spend tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to throw himself a big fancy parade with tanks in the streets,” explained Ezra Levin, co-executive director of Indivisible, on Monday’s broadcast of The Rachel Maddow Show (see below). “This is straight out of the authoritarian playbook. He wants to project strength. He wants everybody to think that he is all-powerful. That he rules the world.”

“He doesn’t,” Levin added. “Real power is not in D.C. It’s distributed all across the country. And what we’re looking to do on No Kings Day is to say, look—Donald Trump does not own the flag. He does not own patriotism. In fact, we can all show up in opposition to a king in this country.”

The event’s website says the goal of the mass demonstrations is to show that “from city blocks to small towns, from courthouse steps to community parks, we’re taking action to reject authoritarianism.”

“In America, we don’t do kings,” the website states. “On June 14th, we’re showing up everywhere he isn’t—to say no thrones, no crowns, no kings.”

News of the latest mass mobilization against Trump and his far-right agenda came days after the U.S. Army confirmed plans for a parade on June 14—the Army’s 250th birthday and Trump’s 79th.

“The Army anticipates featuring 150 vehicles, 50 aircraft, and 6,600 soldiers,” The Washington Post reported, citing an Army spokesperson. “The parade will accompany a fireworks display and a day-long festival on the National Mall with military demonstrations, musical performances, and a fitness competition.”

The price tag for such festivities could be massive, with two unnamed defense officials telling NBC News that it could be as high as $45 million. In an interview that aired over the weekend, Trump called the potential cost “peanuts compared to the value of doing it.”

“We have the greatest missiles in the world,” Trump declared. “We have the greatest submarines in the world. We have the greatest army tanks in the world. We have the greatest weapons in the world. And we’re going to celebrate it.”

U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) said in a statement Monday that “this would be an unprecedented waste of money to please this self-absorbed con man, and the public should make clear it’s unacceptable.”

“The egotist-in-chief wants taxpayers to foot the bill for a military parade on his birthday,” said Cohen, the lead sponsor of legislation that would “prohibit the use of federal funds for a military parade in the District of Columbia intended for the personal celebration of President Donald J. Trump, and for other purposes.”


Jake Johnson is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.

RACHEL MADDOW: ND oil train safeguards too little, too late

Repost from MSNBC The Rachel Maddow Show
[Editor: You have to be patient at the beginning of this report – Rachel will take you through font size in the NYTimes 100 years ago for a pretty good reason.  Her sometimes roundabout and always repetitive hype proves to be well worth it.  She is one of very few who have reported on – and made understandable – the difference between oil stabilization and oil conditioning.  Hang in there….  – RS]

ND oil train safeguards too little, too late

Rachel Maddow and Wall Street Journal senior energy reporter Russell Gold discuss if new oil train safety regulations will be enough to prevent disasters like the derailment in West Virginia yesterday that caused huge explosions.

The Rachel Maddow Show, 02/17/15

Davis and “Uprail” Communities organize to oppose Crude By Rail

Repost from Cool Davis, Davis, California

Crude-by-Rail Opportunity for Written Comments

Workshop on How to Respond to the Draft EIR
Wednesday, June 18 from 7:00-9:00 p.m.
Fellowship Hall at Davis Community Church (421 D Street)
Instruction, brainstorming, and organizing our efforts
Refreshments!

The Draft EIR for the Valero rail terminal Project in Benicia (70,000 barrels of crude oil /day or one unit train of 100 cars over 1 mile) will be released for a 45-day public comment period on June 10, with a possible extension to 60 or 90 days for review.

Our city will comment and has invited surrounding jurisdictions to join them. Other organizations and concerned individuals are also invited to make written comments during the comment period. To inform yourself about the project and begin thinking how you might respond, some recommended resources are:

https://beniciaindependent.com It posts all the official documents related to the proposed project as well as a plethora of articles.

 http://www.sightline.org is also a terrific resource for the bigger picture of crude-by-rail and also coal and natural gas export. http://www.sightline.org/research/the-northwests-pipeline-on-rails/ and http://daily.sightline.org/blog_series/the-northwests-pipeline-on-rails/ This blog series is outstanding, although it is aimed at Washington and Oregon which are besieged by trains compared to CA so far.

• Natural Resources Defense Council letter on safety (30 pages) http://yolanoclimateaction.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/rail-safety-comments-final-group-letter.pdf

• Two reports by Forest Ethics,    http://yolanoclimateaction.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/off-the-rails-ultimate-nw-forst-ethics-report.pdf     and http://forestethics.org//sites/forestethics.huang.radicaldesigns.org/files/ForestEthics-Refineries-Report-Sept2012.pdf

• Document by Attorney General Kamala Harris on safety and health concerns http://yolanoclimateaction.wordpress.com/2014/01/23/kamala-harris-addresses-inadequate-eir-on-wespac-in-pittsburg/#more-107

• An article on liability which is an angle that may not be addressed in the DEIR, http://www.desmogblog.com/2014/03/17/record-year-oil-train-accidents-leaves-insurers-wary
Gov. Brown added $6.7 million to the Office of Spill Prevention & Response to handle accidents.  It won’t go far in a catastrophe.

• More on risk assessment for railroads and who will be responsible for liability. http://daily.sightline.org/2014/05/19/risk-assessment-for-railroads/

• Rachel Maddow’s May 2, 2014 broadcast, “Public Safety at risk by Oil Train Shipments” at http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show

Key areas for uprail responders will most likely include public safety, the hazards of spills in terms of the environment, the insistence on the Right-to-know laws, health risks, liability issues, and the true cost of oil in terms of climate change.  Benicia has to respond to all comments in their final EIR, so the more specific, thoughtful and numerous our comments, the better.  Different people can address different aspects.

Another opportunity for citizen response: The Phillips 66 Santa Maria refinery in San Luis Obispo County request for a rail spur for 5 oil trains of 88 cars per week expects to release their Draft EIR possibly in July.

Rachel Maddow: Disastrous record shows tank car hazard is decades old

Repost from MSNBC – The Rachel Maddow Show
[Editor: This is an incredible 18 minute report on the decades-long history of tank car failures, alerts by the National Transportation Safety Board … and inaction by the US Department of Transportation.  Enough!  – RS]

Disastrous record shows tank car hazard

Rachel Maddow  |  05/14/14

Rachel Maddow illustrates the safety shortcomings of the rail tank cars that are used to in large number to ship highly flammable material including Bakken crude oil, pointing to accidents, explosions, and toothless warnings going back over decades.