we're speaking up now to try to prevent that catastrophe from unfolding. >> thank you so much. i appreciate it. >> that is all in for this evening, the rachel maddow show starts right now. >> thanks, chris. thanks to you at home for staying with us this hour. this is one of those days in the news when there is a lot going on. just in domestic news, a lot going on. son of the famous civil rights leader, jesse jackson, jr. was sentenced to two and a half years in federal prison today for taking campaign money and spending it on himself. his wife will also do a year in prison because of the tax fraud side of what they plead guilty too. now that the federal defense of marriage act has been dismantled by the supreme court, the pentagon announced the new rules for service members who want to marry their same sex partners. in north carolina today where republicans just passed and

signed the most draconian new voter suppression law in the country. that state's democratic u.s. senator asked the justice department to look into that new law and consider intervening in north carolina to stop it. florida's governor is suing georgia's governor saying georgia is stealing florida's water from a river the two states are supposed to share. the republican party is holding its annual summer meeting in boston, which they probably scheduled back when they thought mitt romney would be president by now. in domestic news and domestic politics today. we'll get to some of that over the course of the next hour. this is one of those days, when the overwhelmingly most important news in the world is not happening here, it's happening in the streets of another country's capitol city. in this case, it's happening in cairo, the other major cities of egypt where the new government of egypt, which is actually the

military, attacked what can be described as the other side in that country. it was 2011 when a popular uprising in the streets overthrough the dictatorship of hosni mubarak. he had ruled egypt for three decades, sustained and diverse street protests drove him to the brink. and then it was the military, the most powerful institution in that condition the that pushed him over that brink and out of office. for about a year and a half, the military held power while the country prepared for its first truly free elections in a generation. in those elections, it was the conservative religious muslim brotherhood that won its majority and the presidency. installed mohammed morsi as head of state in the most populous country in the middle east. and it did not turn out well. dissatisfied with morsi's governance. newly empowered egyptians gave

him just 12 months and three days in power before they turned to the streets again to overthrow their government again for the second time in two years. the military and the protesters in the streets ousted mohammed morsi and the military took control of the country once again. it is the military now that is in charge. and this time, the egyptians in the streets protesting against those in charge are the supporters of morsi. supporters of the muslim brotherhood president, who was just ousted from office six weeks ago today. after a long and occasionally wild and determined protests, morsi supporters trying to get him back in power, maybe. the military government moved against them today with lethal force. it started at dawn, security forces moving in to clear with force two separate pro morsi sit-ins in cairo, that action set off a wave of violence all over the city.

>> egypt is unraveling. it's hope of democracy obscured behind tear gas and bullets. at first light, egyptian security forces which ousted the elected president six weeks ago moved in to finish the job. and break-up two camps of protesters who demand the former president be reinstated. bulldozing into one at cairo university. it was over quickly. but at the other protests, they held fast. security forces fired on them, with tear gas. and then automatic weapons. >> egyptian security forces here are firing into the side streets. the front line positions between protesters, security forces, all over cairo. and this one looks like it's about to get very ugly. >> 37-year-old customs broker guided us through the streets warning of government gunmen. already two journalists had been killed.

>> even if you want take cover, take the picture. >> there are snipers trying to shoot? >> yes. >> he came here because he believes his vote was stolen. >> we're fighting for principle, for the president we elected. okay? doesn't matter -- >> they showed us a field hospital, chaotic and grim. >> it's impossible to know how many people have been injured let alone killed today. this man was shot in the upper thigh with a live round. some of the injured are being taken to ambulances and hospitals. others are just being treated on the ground. >> there is more to the story. police uncovered ammunition hidden in coffins in a protest

camp. video shows demonstrators armed and firing. protesters pushed an armored vehicle off a bridge. five soldiers were inside. today may be just the beginning. islamic extremists who backed the muslim brotherhood burned churches and attacked government buildings nationwide egypt's military backed government today chose to try to crush the muslim brotherhood, it's unclear if the iron fist will work. >> nbc's richard engel reporting in some cases some dire circumstances in cairo today. this here is video from today showing protesters setting a cairo police station on fire. outside of cairo in southern egypt, about half a dozen churches were reportedly attacked and burned. there was fighting in all the major cities in egypt and almost a dozen provinces today. people were killed in suez and in alexandria where according to the news agency. hundreds of promorsi protesters marched through the city carrying clubs. as in the capitol city tear gas

was fired and there was plenty of gunfire. this afternoon, the interim military government declared a curfew and a state of emergency that is expected to last for one month, they say. during which time there will be no right to a trial or to due process of law. egyptians lived under a similar state of emergency that was declared by hosni mubarak, that state of emergency lasted for 34 years. also today, as if to underscore a nation under military rule. the egyptian government named new governors. of the 25, 19 of the new governors are generals. either police generals or army generals. and several of the ones who aren't generals are mubarak loyalists from the old regime. the vice president of egypt mohammed al varaday resigned today in protest against today's crackdown. covering this most important story in the world right now is

dangerous on the ground. among an overall death toll today, widely reported to be in the hundreds. said by the muslim brotherhood to be in the thousands. journalists are also being injured in killed. mick dean was a veteran cameraman for sky news. shot and killed today in cairo. the rest of his sky news team was uninjured. a journalist with gulf news was also killed today. she was not even on an official assignment covering the protest, she was home visiting her family and she was killed. a british reporter tweeted he was getting arrested and harassed. arwan damon was delivering this report today when she had to dodge gunfire in the middle of her report. she and her entire team were unharmed. you saw the kind of circumstances under which richard was reporting today. this most important story in the world today is a hard thing to

cover. doing that hard work for nbc news is richard engel who joins us live from cairo. thank you for being with us after an incredibly intense day. >> thank you, my pleasure. and you gave an incredible summary, one of the most important things to realize, is that more people died today outside cairo than the ones who were killed in the clashes in the city itself. and i think that says a great deal about the muslim brotherhood, about the support of islamists in rural areas. i think it's an indication that we're going to have a long story ahead of us here. >> to that point, is it your sense that there are uniform political scisms and dynamics in this country that aren't just in cairo or are throughout egypt. is this a situation we've seen in some other environments where some of the country is pro islamist and part of the country is not? >> there is a campaign right now against the muslim brotherhood, have you to understand that the

muslim brother hood has a long history. this is the party of the president that was just ousted, mohammed morsi, the group that was leading the campaign today to protest the group that did most of the dying today. the muslim brotherhood has been fighting for power for 85 years. it was crushed under sadat, it was crushed under mubarak, finally when the united states threw hosni mubarak under a bus. there were the elections, and the muslim brotherhood finally came to power. the military didn't like it, it never liked it, it waited until morsi was so unpopular that people were out on the streets, and came out and said we are acting to help the people, and now with that emergency law that has just been passed, i think we're going to see the government and the military and the police force really go after the muslim brotherhood in a big way. the muslim brotherhood has some

supporters, it has a core group of several million. now after so much blood on the streets, the muslim brotherhood has a campaign describing itself as a martyr for islam. it will have more supporters. >> what do you think happens next. if this campaign as you describe it is sustained, i mean the declaration of emergency today they said was for one month. we'll see how long it actually lasts. and if the muslim brotherhood is strengthened by being seen as the victim of state violence today. what happens here, does this continually escalate? what do you think happens over the next few weeks? >> well, i think it becomes -- over the next few weeks, i think it becomes a very dangerous place to become -- to be a muslim brotherhood leader. they're going to be arrested, they can be tried with treason or terrorism.

or any of these national security charges very easily, because of the normal judicial process being suspended. it could force a group of islamists, perhaps a splinter group from the muslim brotherhood or a group of radicals to become an insurgency in this country. and then i think that's a real possibility, traditionally in hardline areas that we've already seen lashing out in violence, attacking churches like you mentioned earlier. i think that is certainly to come where you have a hardline insurgency coming in certain rural areas. and the brotherhood going into a confrontational mode. >> when you were out in the streets today in cairo, like in your reporting there, we saw that man who was shot in the leg, it was very nearby you. one of the things i was wondering, who was providing medical care. was there any government presence? were the emergency police out in

the streets today? >> these were field hospitals, so it was mostly just civilians volunteering, trying to put pressure on wound. that field hospital was very grim. the person i was talking to was shot by a live round in the upper thigh. other people were shot in the head. there was another field hospital around the corner from there, that i stumbled upon, i didn't know it was there. i saw personally maybe ten or 15 bodies on the street. people didn't know exactly what to do with them. they were just laid out wrapped in blankets and they were waiting to be collected by relatives. eventually ambulances were coming and taking people out. they were doing so at great risk, there was a lot of gunfire. so yes the social services were sort of working, but most people were at least for the initial

part of care helping themselves. >> with two reporters that we know killed today, many more harassed and accosted. >> four. >> four killed today? is it your sense that -- >> two foreign, working for foreign agencies and two local egyptian reporters, bloggers. that's the latest word here. >> is it your sense that journalists are being targeted or are they just getting caught up in what's a big messy sprawling conflict? >> it's a very -- it's very hard to know. when we spoke to people today, including the one i interviewed in the piece you showed from nightly news earlier, the -- they certainly believed, egyptians believed that journalists were being targeted, that we were being shot at deliberately, and actually as we were doing our reporting tonight, we took a pretty direct shot at us. we were walking at a single

shot, went into the cement wall just a few inches above our heads. it felt very much like somebody was trying to shoot at us. i can't prove that, i don't know. people did believe that journalists were being shot at. but i can't know the intention of somebody who was firing an unseen person who was firing a weapon at us. and there were a lot of bullets firing around. >> chief foreign correspondent richard engel, please stay safe. thank you for joining us. there's a lot of other news in the world today, including some unexpected and unexpectedly kind of hilarious heroism against al qaeda of all people. that's ahead.

the boys used double miles from their capital one venture card to fly home for the big family reunion. you must be garth's father? hello. mother. mother! traveling is easy with the venture card because you can fly any airline anytime. two words. double miles! this guy can act. wanna play dodge rock? oh, you guys! and with double miles you can actually use, you never miss the fun. beard growing contest and go! ♪ i win! what's in your wallet?

i win! because what you dont know can hurt you.urance, what if you didn't know that it's smart to replace washing-machine hoses every five years? what if you didn't know that you might need extra coverage for more expensive items? and what if you didn't know that teen drivers

are four times more likely to get into an accident? 'sup the more you know, the better you can plan for what's ahead. talk to farmers and get smarter about your insurance. ♪ we are farmers bum - pa - dum, bum - bum - bum -bum ♪ the h.j. heinz company is based in pittsburgh pennsylvania. it's better known to people who eat as the heinz ketchup company. heinz has a suggestion box. for suggesting how to make things better at heinz. it's had that suggestion box for a long time. a place where employees could slip a piece of paper into a box to make suggestions about how to make the company a better place. this photo shows a woman at heinz in the early part of the last century slipping a suggestion into a box that is labelled female. because apparently the suggestions had to be segregated

by gender. during world war ii, the u.s. government used propaganda posters to drum up support for the war. they also used them to solicit suggestions from the general public on how the united states should go about winning the war. how to have a speedy victory to be a 100% production soldier, you must submit an accepted suggestion. these days, the suggestion box looks more like this. if you're browsing ebay, maybe looking to see if the virginia governor's rolex has turned up or something. you can send them that suggestion online. hear's where you can make your suggestions for how to improve things at the apple corporation. don't worry online customer your anonymity is here by promised. asking for suggestions on how to improve things is an old idea

that's lasted for a long time, because it is a good idea for all kinds of organizations. still, though, it was a little unsettling to see the organization behind this, which popped up yesterday among the bazillion tweets. a guy writing in arabic, tagging a bunch of his buddies. he introduces a twitter #that he's telling others to use. suggestions for the development of jihaddy media. so this is a guy writing from a pro al qaeda perspective. using twitter to essentially put out the suggestion box. use this # and post your creative suggestions for how to help the jihaddy al qaeda cause. he posted that yesterday and it startsing working, last night that # starts getting some pickup. this guy is suggesting a

biweekly tv show to discuss jihadi events and religion in general. in just a matter of hours there are hundreds of tweets popping up. all making suggestions for how to improve al qaeda's media efforts. the al qaeda online suggestion box is working. but then about 13 hours into it, this guy, j.m. burger gets the party started in a different way. when he posts in english what is going on, he translates what they are doing and explains, basically, how they're using this #in arabic. and he suggests to the whole internet that everybody start copying and using that # in arabic to send al qaeda our own suggestions for how they can improve. essentially he's saying, let's stuff the suggestion box. let's make it impossible for these al qaeda guys to find any sincere suggestions from people

who really wish them well. let's find those good ideas impossible to find. amid the tidal wave of mochrie that everyone else should start trolling them with. instead of just ideas of twice weekly jihadi television shows, that #starts turning up things like this, have you considered creating a boy band? don't forget to enable location in your tweets. also the helpful, people are really into cats and unicorns, you guys. keep apples from browning by soaking them in sprite or lemon juice. two words, taco tuesdays. buzz feed rounded up a bunch of the best of these today. need a suggestion for the development of jihadi media, i hear porn is pretty popular with the kids these days. every organization since the dawn of middle management has used the whole suggestion box idea to try to improve what they do. al qaeda can't even do something that boring now without getting

trolled mercilessly by everyone who hates them online. >> well done internet trolls. well done. >> one of the best and most constructive uses of internet trolling i've ever seen. hey, it's me, progressive insurance. you know, from our 4,000 television commercials. yep, there i am with flo. hoo-hoo! watch it! [chuckles] anyhoo, 3 million people switched to me last year, saving an average of $475. [sigh] it feels good to help people save... with great discounts like safe driver, multicar, and multipolicy. so call me today. you'll be glad you did. cannonbox! [splash!] [ agent smith ] i've found software that intrigues me. it appears it's an agent of good. ♪

[ agent smith ] ge software connects patients to nurses to the right machines while dramatically reducing waiting time. [ telephone ringing ] now a waiting room is just a room. [ static warbles ] [ telephone ringing ] now a waiting room is just a room. "stubborn love" by the lumineers did you i did. email? so what did you think of the house? did you see the school ratings? oh, you're right. hey babe, i got to go. bye daddy! have a good day at school, ok? ...but what about when my parents visit? ok. i just love this one... and it's next to a park. i love it. i love it too. here's our new house... daddy! you're not just looking for a house. you're looking for a place for your life to happen. [ female announcer ] pop in a whole new kind of clean with tide pods. three chambers. three times the stain removal power. pop in. stand out.

chalky... not chalky. temporary... 24 hour. lots of tablets... one pill. you decide. prevent acid with prevacid 24hr.

people who are from new york or live in new york tend to think of their being two distinct eras of the new york city times square. old times square when it was

super seedy and grimy and your parents would be alarmed if they knew you were there, and new times square, which is super brightly lit, fun for the whole family. thanks in part to giant consumer companies to a giant outdoor mall with traffic. between awesomely sceezy times square and now, there was a third times square. blackout times square, this is it, in which the only lights, those that were guiding bewildered motorists and fire engines. a hot august night when what on earth became electricity, 50 million people in america, eating their ice cream as fast as possible. ten years ago tonight, good times. and it turns out, thanks to a lot of stuff nobody noticed, we have come a long way since then toward keeping the lights on. and that story is coming up, stay with us. i think farmers care more about the land

than probably anyone else. we've had this farm for 30 years. we raise black and red angus cattle. we also produce natural gas. that's how we make our living and that's how we can pass the land and water back to future generations. people should make up their own mind what's best for them. all i can say is it has worked well for us. glass on floors. daily chores. for the little mishaps you feel use neosporin to help you heal. it kills germs so you heal four days faster.

neosporin. use with band-aid brand bandages. car insurance companies say they'll save you by switching, you'd have like, a ton of dollars. but how're they saving you those dollars? a lot of companies might answer "um" or "no comment." then there's esurance. born online, raised by technology and majors in efficiency. so whatever they save, you save. hassle, time, paperwork, hair-tearing out, and yes, especially dollars. esurance. now backed by allstate. click or call.

i don't miss out... you sat out most of our game yesterday! asthma doesn't affect my job... you were out sick last week. my asthma doesn't bother my family... you coughed all through our date night! i hardly use my rescue inhaler at all. what did you say? how about - every day? coping with asthma isn't controlling it. test your level of control at asthma.com, then talk to your doctor. there may be more you could do for your asthma. do you know any 9-year-olds? specifically it's a little bit sensitive of a question.

do you know anybody who was born on may 14th, 2004 in the northeast whose parents lived in new york city maybe? i don't mean to imply anything untoward but nine months before may 14th, 2004, which happens to be 10 years ago tonight, all sorts of people in new york city had no choice but to find one another in the dark. >> this is an nbc news special report. here is brian williams. >> good day once again, from like all office buildings in midtown manhattan, what is an increasingly warm interior of our headquarters at 30 rockefeller plaza in new york, where we're in the midst of a colossal blackout in the eastern united states north into canada. that is the scene at this hour. here are some of the major cities we are reporting blacked out at this hour, it's been this way as far as we can tell from

the start of this at around 4:14 eastern time. it is now just seconds after 6:00 eastern time. that is a remarkable scene unfolding right now in new york. that is the wehawken ferry across the hudson river from the manhattan west side over toward new jersey. those are commuters flooding into the ferry entrance. new york city officials are trying to prevent any kind of panic in the streets. and so far they are doing a good job of it, from all the reports we are getting in. >> around 4:00 in the afternoon on august 14th, 2003, out of nowhere, almost the entire northeast section of this country lost power. it happened right around the time that most people who had been working all day in 90 degree heat were starting to get on trains and buses and subway cars to go home. >> commuter trains stopped. new york subway service came to a complete halt. leaving an estimated 350,000

riders stranded on the tracks. many trapped underground for several hours in steamy temperatures up to 90 degrees. all new york city airports closed as did toronto, ottawa and cleveland. flights were diverted and passengers waited for planes that didn't take off. >> the area affected by this was just ginormous. power went off across the northeast at the start of the evening rush hour, it did not come back on a few minutes later or a few hours later, it stretched on and on and on and on into the night for tens of millions of people. >> let's take a look at new york city. somewhat illuminated skyline of new york right now. new york's largest metropolitan center had been without power for almost five hours. >> let me show you what it looks like behind me. some of the buildings, brian, pan up to the one that has a few lights on it. some of the buildings have

sporadic lights, probably generators. look over to the left. if you can see the massive black shadow, that is 30 rockefeller center, almost not a light to be scene anywhere. >> the thing that caused all that chaos ten years ago tonight was a tree in ohio. a single overgrown tree branch in ohio. it tripped some circuit breakers in the area. that rerouted the power to a different nearby line that in turn overheated itself and itself shrunk down into another tree tripping another circuit. the world of electricity is interconnected and mysterious, within about a half hour of those two rogue tree limbs touching lines in ohio. power utility operators started to get indications that something was about to be very seriously wrong. within about another half hour, the ohio region was totally blacked out, and that pinch point in the power grid starting with one tree limb and then a second tree limb ultimately

started a cascading rolling failure that shut down 265 power plants. 508 generating units. including 10 nuclear power stations. all of that happened in the span of eight minutes. by 4:15 p.m. outages had cascaded across ohio, michigan, pennsylvania, new york, vermont and parts of canada. parts of ontario blacked out. 50 million people without power, the largest outage in north american history. power was not fully restored for 48 hours. all because of what started with that one tree. it became a huge problem what happened with that one tree because of the shocking vulnerability of this electrical grid that we've got. which we started building in the 1800s with wires and wooden poles. ten years after that giant blackout of the whole northeast, question, of course, is, could

it happen again? and the answer is maybe, but it is in fact probably less likely now. since then our country decided to try to fix it, at least we decided to spend a bunch of money trying to fix the problem. after the blackout, utility companies spent a lot to maintain what they've got per mile of line, transmission line, they've been spending nearly three times what they spent in the ten years before the blackout. the federal government also stepped up, five days before the '08 presidential election. then senator barack obama came on this show and name checked the u.s. power grid as something that maybe we ought to focus on more as a country. >> i think we have to rebuild our infrastructure. you look at what china's doing right now, their trains are faster than us, their ports are better than us, they are preparing for a very competitive 21st century economy. and we're not. one of the most important infrastructure projects we need is a whole new electricity grid. if we're going to be serious

about renewable energy, i want to be able to get wind power from north dakota to population centers like chicago. >> on something like the electrical grid, that's an issue of american resilience, even against the threat of terrorism. a lot of times when you look at counter terrorism officials, the things they game out are an al qaeda attack on the electrical grid. at this point a snowstorm is an attack on our electrical grid. five days later, barack obama won the presidency. i'm still waiting for my follow-up interview. four months after he signed the presidency, he signed the american recovery and reinvestment act otherwise known as the stimulus. the bill included $4.5 billion. hundreds of advanced grid sensors and meters that help power companies monitor the entire system. that spending as part of the stimulus is part of why a 2003 style blackout is probably less likely today. yes, there may still be rogue tree limbs in ohio, they are less likely today to shut down everything up to ontario in terms of power for two days at a time. now that we are not doing that sort of spending any more, now

that we, instead are in this budget cutting, belt tightening mood, are we now in a position to backslide? have we shored things up well? could things get worse? or are they likely to get better in the future? joining me now is science editor of boingboing.net. thanks very much for being with us. >> thanks for having me on. >> so is the electric grid in better shape than it was ten years ago? have we improved it in substantive ways? >> yeah, we definitely have. the big thing is these things called phaser measurement units. which are little boxes in a server farm somewhere. they really improve our ability to understand what's going on the grid as a whole and prevent those kind of cascading blackouts before they happen. the issue is, that you have these people that are working behind the scenes 24 hours a day, seven days a week, trying to make sure that the balance

between electric supply and electric demand is almost perfectly maintained. and in order to do that, they have to see the big picture. in 2003 it -- they weren't getting updated with that nearly as quickly as they needed to. so if you have a power plant go offline in arizona, you can see the effects of that in canada in less than a second. but in 2003, the grid controllers were only gets a big picture update every 30 seconds, there's a big lag time in what they're missing. >> have we brought things up to state of the art? are we best in the world? are we behind other countries that are still doing it better? how much progress do we need to make in order to be truly resilient? >> we need to make a lot of progress, thanks to those measurement units. we're up to the point where we now get updated on the big picture every ten seconds. it's not where we want to be. we want to be closer to three or two. and it's really hard to say whether we're best in the world, because what i found is that

everybody's grid is screwed up, but they're all screwed up in their own special way. so we have problems, but everybody else's grids have different kinds of problems, because they all sort of evolved. nobody sat down and designed the things. they just sort of came together and were left with these mistakes or weird decisions people made 60, 70 years ago, but still affect what happens to us now. >> there are broad philosophical divisions in american politics about infrastructure in general, about whether or not, as a country we should be investing in things that make other forms of commerce and private activity possible. things like transportation. things like internet access, things like electrical grids and who should do that work, whose responsibility is it and how long should we think. the president talking about trying to dramatically increase broadband access for schools.

in terms of this specific issue, though, looking back at that blackout ten years ago, policiwise, is there something specifically that we ought to be investing in right now, that we ought to be doing as policy, that we haven't done yet, that would really shore us up well? >> well, the problem is, that there's lots of different things that we need to be doing to shore up the grid. it's not just one problem, it's ten or 12 different problems and they all kind of intersect and interact with each other. we've done some things over the past 30 or 40 years that have been good in some ways policiwise, but left us with holes in others. so we've deregulated the electrical industry in a lot of places which means we don't have as much of a monopoly system to be beholden to, which is good. on the other hand it means you have all these little companies that are all in charge of little tiny chunks of the grid.

and we're in a place where there's not really -- in a lot of places, anybody who has a big incentive to care about what happens in the long term. you know, 30 or 40 years down the line. so it's kind of hard to say if there's one thing you have to do, but there's a lot of different things we have to do, and we need to pay more attention to the infrastructure than we have been. >> hearing the president in 2008 making the exact same case then is kind of heartening, i feel like he's got his eyes on the prize there, actually getting it done and approaching it as a federal priority, that is a different story. author of before the lights go out, maggie, thanks so much for being here. i appreciate your time tonight. >> thanks for having me on. >> i was going to wish a happy blackout anniversary. it's not something we should celebrate. do you remember getting a disappointing grade on a test and telling your parents it's not the end of the world. ahead a test we're failing could actually mean the end of the

world. when you realize you need to switch to verizon, it's a reality check. i had my reality check when i'd be sitting there with my friends who had their verizon phones and i'd be sitting there like "mine's still loading!" i couldn't get email. i couldn't stream movies. i couldn't upload any of our music. that's when i decided to switch. now that i'm on verizon, everything moves fast. with verizon, i have that reliability. i'm completely happy with verizon. verizon's 4g lte is the most reliable and in more places than any other 4g network. period. that's powerful. verizon. get the nokia lumia 928 for free. could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. yep, everybody knows that. well, did you know the ancient pyramids were actually a mistake? uh-oh.

geico. fifteen minutes could save you...well, you know.

picasso painted one of his master works at 56. doris taerbaum finished her first marathon at 50. not everyone peaks in their twenties. throughout their lives. passion keeps them realizing possibilities. an ally for real possibilities. aarp. find tools and support at aarp.org/possibilities.

imagine if you will the year is 1964, just a couple years after the cuban missile crisis, and stanley kubrick's classic

satire called "dr. strangelove" or how i learned to stop worrying and love the bomb, that movie brought new meaning to the words, nervous laughter. a communication breakdown, plus one reckless major t.j.kong means the end of the world. >> target in sight. where is major kong. >> what about major kong?

[ explosion ] >> something about the long cut there as he rides the missile all the way to the ground before that -- the moral of the story, do not goof around with nuclear weapons. that's a relatively simple moral to the story that has not been learned. coming up next on the show tonight is an equally absurd and preposterous story from right now about missile silos this time in real life. this is a doozy, stay with us. [ male announcer ] this is kevin. to prove to you that aleve is the better choice for him, he's agreed to give it up. that's today? [ male announcer ] we'll be with him all day as he goes back to taking tylenol. i was okay, but after lunch my knee started to hurt again. and now i've got to take more pills.

♪ yup. another pill stop. can i get my aleve back yet? ♪ for my pain, i want my aleve. ♪ [ male announcer ] look for the easy-open red arthritis cap. mayo? corn dogs? you are so outta here! aah! [ female announcer ] the complete balanced nutrition of great-tasting ensure. 24 vitamins and minerals, antioxidants, and 9 grams of protein. [ bottle ] ensure®. nutrition in charge™. the last thing i want is to feel like someone is giving me a sales pitch, especially when it comes to my investments. you want a broker you can trust. a lot of guys at the other firms seemed more focused on selling than their clients. that's why i stopped working at my old brokerage and became a financial consultant with charles schwab. avo: what kind of financial consultant are you looking for? talk to us today.

if you have high cholesterol, here's some information that may be worth looking into. in a clinical trial versus lipitor, crestor got more high-risk patients' bad cholesterol to a goal of under 100. getting to goal is important, especially if you have high cholesterol plus any of these risk factors because you could be at increased risk for plaque buildup in your arteries over time. and that's why when diet and exercise alone aren't enough to lower cholesterol i prescribe crestor. [ female announcer ] crestor is not right for everyone. like people with liver disease or women who are nursing, pregnant or may become pregnant. tell your doctor about other medicines you're taking. call your doctor right away if you have muscle pain or weakness, feel unusually tired, have loss of appetite, upper belly pain, dark urine or yellowing of skin or eyes. these could be signs of rare but serious side effects. is your cholesterol at goal? ask your doctor about crestor. [ female announcer ] if you can't afford your medication, astrazeneca may be able to help.

[ female announcer ] if you can't afford your medication, i'm bethand i'm michelle. and we own the paper cottage. it's a stationery and gifts store. anything we purchase for the paper cottage goes on our ink card. so you can manage your business expenses and access them online instantly with the game changing app from ink. we didn't get into business to spend time managing receipts, that's why we have ink. we like being in business because we like being creative, we like interacting with people. so you have time to focus on the things you love. ink from chase. so you can. okay, the nuclear football is the presidential brief case that has its own 24-hour military escort who follows the

president around everywhere. if president obama ever wanted to unleash nuclear warfare, he would turn to that military escort, open up the nuclear football brief case thingy, give the command, to launch the world-altering nuclear bomb or missile. if president obama ever decided to do that, said missile could very well be launched from here, lovely north dakota. if you are lucky enough to be a part of the air force's missile wing in north dakota, part of your job is storing and maintaining and ultimately being ready to launch the inter-continental ballistic missile. the ones who take care of those nuclear missiles are at the air force base in great falls,

montana, and cheyenne, wyoming. those are the three spots, we built them by the thousands to point at the soviet union back in the day, while the soviet union built thousands of their own to point back at us. they may not still seem like the most pressing national security priority anymore now that the soviet union does not exist, but we never got rid of these things. and with hundreds of them still around and ready to go, somebody has got to keep them around and ready to go. they have got to be cleaned and maintained and kept track of. and occasionally moved around the country. so we employ u.s. air force personnel to take care of that. on august 29th, 2007, one of the air force's weapons handling teams at minot, north dakota, was tasked with the decommissioned nuclear weapons down to their base in louisiana. the missiles were not supposed to be shipped with their live

nuclear warheads, the warhead part was supposed to be taken have you the missiles and replaced with dummy weights for balance. but in august, 2007, instead of picking up the missiles with the dummy weights on them, the minot crew did not see what they were supposed to be doing. they didn't follow the procedures they were supposed to be following. and oh, yes, accidentally, without meaning to, without knowing that they had done it, they loaded onto that louisiana-bound air force bomber six missiles tipped with live nuclear war heads. half a dozen nuclear warheads, each with roughly the capacity to cause hiroshima times ten were sent up into the air on a cross-country domestic american flight without anybody knowing they were there. happily the plane had no trouble in flight. and because nobody knew to worry

about the -- you know, jeez, it just seemed like a normal flight, that b-52 and the six live missiles sat unguarded on the tarmac for nine hours after the plane landed before the ground crew realized they had accidentally become a nuclear-armed outpost without clearance and without anybody following the procedures you need to follow to protect the nuclear weapons. well, in the wake of that incident in 2007, the secretary of the air force and the chief of staff both lost their jobs, as did a number of lower-level commanders. minot had a number of its nuclear operations suspended. and when they first tried to win did not help matters when they failed their inspections. elsewhere, they failed the inspection in 2008, which was the year after the accidentally flying the bombs to the louisiana thing. they failed inspection in 2008 and in 2010, and they failed

again, another nuclear inspection. in minot, they did win back the right to handle the nuclear weapons, once they accidentally lost them in shreveport. they earned the equivalent of a d letter grade, which you remember from school is not failure but really is not good. after that d-grade inspection, the deputy commander of minot's operations group complained publicly that the united states was suffering from a rot in the nuclear weapons handling force. that was his word. rot. 17 officers removed from launch control duty. they were temporarily stripped of their authority to launch number weapons. then in june, the air force relieved from duty the commander

in charge of training the nuclear crew at minot, and now, this week, it is the base in montana that is reportedly failing again. it is one thing to be a part of something that does not matter. if we screw up in cable news, or fishing or something, that is bad. but not the end of the world. handling nuclear weapons is something that you just can't keep failing at. but we do. the chairman of the armed services committee had a spokesperson gave a statement for him after this latest failure saying "two troubling inspections in a row at two different missile wings is unacceptable." but what does he say the solution is to this unacceptable problem? he says the air force should recommission itself from the top down to a new mission. and ensure a daily focus on the military mission to our nation's security. refocus on the centrality of that mission? really? how central is it? the idea if we could focus on how central the power of nuclear

bombs is to our everyday national security now. yeah, why can't we just wake up every morning, knowing it is our nuclear bombs, our hair-trigger nuclear missiles pointed at the soviet union that are central to american national security in this century, today. either we convince ourselves of that and hope that minot becomes the new a-game top of the class performers in the u.s. military because everybody is so psyched that military bombs are the future of the security, that may start to have a conversation about just not having quite so many of these bombs laying around to baby-sit anymore. when your nuclear weapons handlers are failing consistently, something really needs to change. there is a lot of places that can endure failure, nuclear weapons handling is not one of those areas. that does it for us, we'll see you again tomorrow night. now it is time for "the last word" with lawrence o'donnell, thank you for joining us.

the egyptian government announced the state of emergency tonight. >> the missions between the protesters. >> we begin with the violence in cairo. >> the egyptian forces used live ammunition and security gas. >> it began with the police breaking up the protesters. >> you have the resignation of the vice president. >> this is already an embattled interim government. >> now we have a state of emergency. >> this is the scenario panning out. >> it has already been a busy morning. lots of breaking news, the