October 20, 2025 • 54 mins
SEASON 4 EPISODE 26: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (2:00) SPECIAL COMMENT: Can we? Involuntarily? Any way you can think of?
I don’t know the answer, I suspect not, not even after the video he put out in which he proudly covers America in, uh, crap. A video he thought was some kind of flex, as opposed to reality, that it is the confirmation of everything that was being protested at No Kings, everything that defines Trump as president, as leader, as human being – sort of: a crapshow with a crown and he has to wear an oxygen mask and the MAGAs are standing below just hoping to catch some of it maybe with their mouths! Trump crapping on America – the only thing he’s good at – and in the limited coverage it gets in the media they sanitize it for your protection, literally not referencing WHAT it was flying in Trump’s Freudian video, his confession, the climax of his life.
After that, let me say it again: Trump is insane and unchecked he will kill us all because nothing matters to him BUT him. He’s insane, he’s psychopathic, he’s murderous, he’s vile, he’s deranged, he’s damaged, he’s dysfunctional, he’s – on top of everything else there he is discharging himself all over New York and No Kings and America and my final thought was, if that AI video were real, and he really got rid of all that crap: what WHAT would he be left to THINK with?
THAT PLUS the amazing under-coverage of the largest American political protest since 1970, and Trump him whoring and stalling for Putin again in Ukraine, and Trump’s Eternal Middle East Peace falling apart, and Curtis Sliwa stuffing Andrew Cuomo in a locker - it was glorious.
B-BLOCK (30:00) ANOTHER SPECIAL COMMENT: You saw ESPN's Stephen A. Smith (who isn't trying to run for president but is humiliating himself, doing everything he can to make other people try to convince him to) appearing on the farcical News Nation's farcical "town hall" on the government shutdown? And a guy in the audience gets up and says he's an air traffic controller but because of 'them' he now has to deliver food to make ends meet? And Smith starts ranting and in solidarity with the people storms off the show because...I dunno why? Something about this story (in fact a couple things) just don't add up. Let me give you some hints.
C-BLOCK (48:00) MONDAYS WITH THURBER: "Meet Birdey Doggett" is not his best known story. It is one of his best to hear read aloud. On a day when I'm under the weather and need a little cheering up myself - enjoy.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Is
(00:24):
there a way we can get Trump involuntarily committed to
a psychiatric institution. No, Seriously, I don't know the answer.
I suspect the answer is no. Not even after the
video he put out in which he proudly covers America
(00:44):
in shit from the air, which he thought was some
kind of flex as opposed to being the confirmation of
everything that was being protested at No Kings. This AI
video of him and the jet which defines Trump as president,
as leader, as father, as human being, sort of a
(01:12):
shit show with a crown, and he has to wear
an oxygen mask, and the magas are standing below as
it rains down upon them, just hoping to catch some
of it, maybe with their mouths. Trump shitting on America
the only thing he is good at. And in the
(01:37):
limited coverage it gets in the media, they have sanitized
it for your protection, literally in the New York Times,
not referencing what it was flying out of the airplane.
In Trump's Freudian video, in his confession in the climax
(01:58):
of his life on this earth. After that, let me
say it all again. Trump is insane and unchecked. He
is going to kill us all because nothing matters to
him but him, and nothing about him matters to him. Besides,
(02:19):
what is happening right this moment. He's insane, he's psychopathic,
he's murderous, he's mass murderous. He's a terrorist, he's vile,
he's deranged, he's damaged, he's dysfunctional. He's on top of
everything else. There he is discharging his inner self all
(02:42):
over New York and all the No Kings protesters and
all over all of America. And my final thought was,
if that AI video were real and he really got
rid of all that shit, what what would he be
(03:03):
left to think with? So is there a way we
can get Trump involuntarily committed to a psychiatric institution. I
appreciate it's probably a slippery slope anyway, certainly is after
(03:28):
that video. But in a scenario in which Trump does
that promulgates that thinks that is the response after America
holds its largest political protest since Earth Day in nineteen seventy,
when the best estimate now seven million of US took
(03:52):
to the streets at No Kings, with no violence, no terrorists,
no anti americanism, no arrests in New York, no arrests
in Chicago, one arrest in Los Angeles, a handful in Denver.
Complementary posts from the heads of the police department in
the key cities. After that call and response No Kings
(04:21):
followed by no shit, we have to explore all options. Now,
is there a way we can get Trump involuntarily committed
to a psychiatric institution, because frankly, if we bid him out,
we could make billions. The man is insane. If he
(04:45):
had not been insane before putting out that video, if
he had been healed at Lord's Saturday morning and then
he put that video out, it would be clear he
had gone insane a second time. No, no, no, no,
he was better this morning. Say now he's re insane. Meanwhile,
(05:12):
No Kings gets no coverage from the political cognizanti. By
midday yesterday, the entirety of the protest was just hanging
on to a tiny spot on the front page of
The New York Times and other publications and other websites,
saved in most cases by being most shared on most sites,
which still is not a clue. Even Trump responded to
(05:38):
No Kings and the majority of newspapers and news organizations
failed to do so sufficiently. It was not just the
lead story yesterday and should be today. It should be
the only story. It is America grabbing all of that
from the AI video and shoving it back up Trump's ass.
(06:05):
In the New York Times, No Kings was just barely
ahead of police break up Lego theft ring recovering hundreds
of beheaded figurines. The story was dwarfed by Times analysis
(06:25):
of how the Democrats are flailing. It's twenty twenty five
and Democrats are still running against Trump. Then there's a
story about Trump commuting the sentence of George Santos, because
that's entirely a normal thing. Then a Democratic mayor who
thinks cities are handling Trump wrought not one piece about
It's twenty twenty five and the New York Times ownership
(06:47):
is still terrified of Trump and carrying water for him
or something else of a liquid nature for him, and
not realizing we live on a precipice because of him. Democrats.
I don't know strike that Americans organized and conducted the
largest political protest in this country in fifty five years
(07:12):
without one significant negative moment, but the anti Trump message
bores American news media. It bores the New York Times
because there are the times Trump isn't dropping ai shit
storms on them. They live in the Hamptons. The case
(07:34):
was dismissed. The Washington Post underplayed it. They even took
Trump almost entirely out of the story of Marco Rubio's
promise quote to betray informants to get Trump's prison deal
with l Salvador to secure US access to President Nayabucl's
notorious Seacot prison, Rubio agreed to turn over several ms
(07:56):
thirteen leaders central to a long running Justice Department investigation.
You know, they did the moral equivalent of shoe ing
prisoners who had just surrendered. And it was all Rubio,
not Trump. That was Rubio's idea. That's why he's in
the headline Trump's prison deal all. But it's all Rubio.
(08:18):
I'm not defending Marco Rubio here. Marco Rubio is the
stuff that came out of Trump's plane. But it's Trump's plane. Politico,
which is also the stuff that comes out of Trump's plane,
didn't even mention no Kings in its daily newsletter headline
(08:38):
round Up yesterday, never mind not mentioning Trump's shit jet.
Confess you thought I had been finished using the four
letter version of this, hadn't you As disgusting as that
video was, It is, in fact, the greatest thing Trump
(08:59):
has ever done in a way I am sitting here
applauding him. It is greater than all the other accomplishments
of his life. His thorough corruption of the government, his
opening of a Pandora's box, which turned out to be
full of millions of other Pandora's boxes, His greasy, chintzy,
(09:21):
falling apart apartment buildings, his ludicrous personal appearance, his eternal
peace in the Middle East that has already fallen apart.
His crimes, his craft, his grift, his Espionage Act violations,
his liability for assaults, his convictions, his makeup, his hot
and cold running lying. Of all the things Trump has
(09:42):
ever done, nothing has ever been greater than that video.
It is the embodiment of the last decade in America.
It is Donald Trump's America. It is Donald Trump. And
(10:04):
he is so crazy. He posted that video himself, thinking
the video expressed some kind of triumph. He's not just crazy,
He's he's that shit crazy. He in fact is something
(10:24):
new to this earth. He is, as the video showed,
he is Trump shit crazy. You may have noticed the
(11:00):
scratch in my voice and a little cough earlier. I'm sick,
So what you're hearing now is the last of what
I've been able to concentrate long enough on to write.
I can talk with some discomfort, but that's my problem,
not yours. The writing not so much. So let's enjoy
instead the adventure of me ad libbing my way through
(11:24):
the other headlines and through an entire second segment devoted
to one story rather than worse persons, but going through
all this with slightly less than a clear head. Fasten
your seat belts, and if you look out the left
window of the Trump shit jet, you'll see why it's JD.
(11:50):
Vance in the vice presidential mini shit copter. The other
thing about that video is that it represents in its
own way Trump's policy on the quote narco terrorists quote
and the kinetic strikes unquote by the Secretary of brill
Cream taking place off Venezuela in the Caribbean. As the
(12:15):
news story reads, the US released the two survivors of
Thursday's military strike on a suspected drug vessel. Thank you
for putting in suspected. Half of the media in the
world just says, oh, yes, that has to have been
narco terrorist because there's no evidence one way or the other.
And why would the President of the United States lie
about that. It's a minute that ends in a number.
(12:37):
That's why the two survivors were released to their home countries,
Ecuador and Colombia. President of Colombia says US government officials,
this is a separate strike. Have committed a murder and
violated our sovereignty in territorial waters. Fisherman Alejandro Caranza had
(12:57):
no ties to the drug trade and his daily activity
was fishing. The Colombian boat was a drift and had
its distress signal up due to an engine failure. The
president of Columbia, who we of course threw out of
the country because he dared to criticize Trump at the
UN even though we don't own the UN. Sorry we
(13:17):
threw him out, He now says Trump murdered Alejandro Caranza.
The US government murdered Alejandro Caranza, and that in fact
the boat was sitting there having had engine failure. It
was literally a sitting duck. It was even a more
innocent target than we have previously presumed. I mentioned earlier
(13:39):
the idea of shooting prisoners who have just surrendered on
the battlefield. This is the next step beyond that sitting
there engine failure kill them. The New Republic added this.
The other day. President Trump announced that he had bombed
yet another boat allegedly carrying drugs in the Caribbean Sea.
(14:00):
He's now struck six twenty seven dead bombings widely denounced
as illegal, probably because they are. New York Times reports
the head of the military Southern Command, Alvin Holsey, is
stepping down amid unclear circumstances. Not Admiral Halsey, but Alvin Holsey.
You would think we would want to retain somebody whose
(14:21):
name was that close to Halsey's. Meanwhile, much of this
country continues to believe that Trump almost saved Ukraine. Oh,
he came so close, We almost saved Ukraine. And then
he changed his mind almost Maybe next time.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
It's a.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Stall. It has been nothing but a stall. The whole
thing has been a performance, dating back to the session
in the Oval office, with the media there and JD.
Vance trying to act tough as they browbeat Zelenski and
Zelensky to his credit did not kick Trump in the balls.
It's a stall. He has tried every different angle to
(15:05):
buy Putin another couple of weeks because Trump is Putin's whore.
I'll repeat that for those in the back. Trump is
Putin's whore. And apparently somehow Putin waded through Trump's brown liquid,
as the New York Times would call it, and got
(15:26):
through to him with this message. Just keep doing different
things that make it look like you're about to force
me to do something else. This time it was Tomahawk missiles.
In a phone call last week with Trump, Russian President
Putin demanded Kiev surrender control of the Dunetsk region as
a condition to ending the war in Ukraine. This is
(15:47):
according to the Washington Post. During the Friday meeting with Zelensky,
Steve Whitkoff, the forty two IQ guy that Trump has
decided is the Middle East envoy reportedly pressed the Ukraine
delegation about seeding Donetsk, and Trump is to meet with
Putin in Hungary in the coming weeks. I will have
(16:09):
a nightly prayer vigil that they all stay in Hungary forever.
So the theory here is Trump was going to give
Zelensky tomahawks instead, he's going to give Putin Dunnetsk. But
he almost did it. Let's give him a Nobel Peace
(16:30):
Prize for almost doing the right thing as opposed to
the completely wrong thing. Because it's Trump. And if the
world does not end because of something he's done and
the sun rises in the morning, well that was restraint.
The fellow on CNN Van Jones is about to say
(16:52):
that this is the day Trump became president. Another report
from the Washington Post, Putin got his relationship with Trump
back on tracking one phone call. I'll bet he did,
dashing the prospect of the US imminently granting long range messing.
Blah blah blah. It was the latest swing, writes Robin
(17:12):
Dixon of the Washington Post in Trump's back and forth
positions on the Russian Ukraine War that often changed following
contact with Putin. No, it wasn't, Robin Dixon. It's an act.
It's a stall for Putin. My god, I am a
semi retired former SportsCenter anchor and the one time field
(17:33):
reporter for the Nicket Night nineteen eighty six celebrity retired
TV star Golf Open, and even I can figure this out,
and it seems as if not one political or governmental
writer in this country can figure it out. Just me
(17:56):
so to the media experts, to the expert experts who
believed Trump was coming around this time on Ukraine, even
though each previous time you thought that now he was
just stalling as Putin's horror, Oh, it turned out this time,
Oh he was just stalling. What was he doing last time?
(18:16):
Just stalling? What will he be doing next time? Oh,
he might be seriously negotiating. He's going to put pressure
in Putin this time, one hundred and forty seventh time.
Is the charm to all of you who still think
that this is not a stall, He is not Putin's whore,
and you did not just fall for it again, go
(18:37):
f yourselves and quit your jobs. I don't feel well,
and I'd like to end with the funnies at least
this segment before we move on to one long telling
of one really really weird story involving somebody trying to
go from the sports world to the political world, who
(19:00):
I've discussed before, talking about a phony, talking about fooling people.
I do want to end this segment with a couple
of laughs. I have a delightful audio clip to play
for you. And you might not have seen this because
it's from the mayor's debate here in Fun City, the
(19:21):
New York mayoralty debate Zoran mom Donnie who is leading
in double figures in the worst of his polls over Cuomo,
and Curtis Sliwa, who took off his hat. And apparently
all this time Curtis's problem was his little red beret
was on too tight because once the circulation started going
(19:44):
in his brain again, Curtis bless him dunked on Andrew
Cuomo owned him dunked. The subject is standing up to
Trump demanding money or allowing ice in, or any of
(20:05):
the other demands that Trump will make of the Mayor
of New York, including Cuomo, who he has in his
back pocket. Trump this is has a prosecution of Cuomo
in his back pocket, but he would never ever pressure
Cuomo into doing what he wanted rather than what's good
for the city of New York. And Curtis Sliwa, on
this topic, picked up what Mario Cuomo's son said and
(20:30):
stuffed it down his throat. This is one of the
great political sound bites of all time. Listen carefully and
listen carefully for one guy in the back, adding the
bond mo at the very end, I give you Curtis
Sliwa when he's not wearing the hat that's cutting down
his circulation in his brain. I said to him, don't
(20:52):
you dare, We don't need it.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
And he backed down and he will again, so that
proves a good religit. Wait, the president is going to
back down.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
To you, angew Cuomo.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
I know, yeah, you think you're the toughest guy.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
But let me tell you something.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
You lost your own primary, right, you were rejected by
your Democrat. You have a difficult understanding what the term
don't is. You're not gonna stand up to John Can.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
I agree with Curtis Here, Cuomo is thinking, to paraphrase
Bart Simpson. Now Slee was scoring off me. Oh that
is it. My god, you lost your own primary. You
don't know the meaning of the word no, Oh, my god.
(21:41):
Curtis Slee was authenticity cartoon character to politician in a suit.
Absolutely validated by that one remark. He's now just an
unsuccessful candidate for mayor. He's not a clown. There can
be growth in old age, I'm hopeful. And what makes
(22:02):
mom Danny a great and intuitive politician who will rise
as far as his place of birth will permit him,
because he was not technically born in this country and
kind not run for higher office. Although I haven't checked
the Constitution since I came in here to record this,
maybe that's changed so Milania can be the Trump successor.
(22:22):
I had forgotten about somebody trying that. What makes mom
Donnie a great intuitive politician is if you heard his
voice in there, he said only I agree with Curtis.
He got out of the way. If mom Donnie had
said that about Sliwa something similar, Cuomo would have tried
(22:45):
to come in and bigfooted and claim the moment for
his own. I think Sliwa would have done the same
if mom Donni had said that, or Cuomo had said
that about Mam Donni. But Mam Donnie's political skill, the
unteachable political skill that has put him in this position
at this age, with this level of experience, and with
(23:05):
the gigantic baggage that he's carrying. Even in New York.
Some of the stuff he's carrying to the Mayor's office
to Gracie mansion is a little heavy, and people are going, yeah,
I know about that, but listen to him, he's actually
gonna do the job. The sense that he's going to
do the job is an intuitive political skill that is
(23:27):
summed up by the fact that as this car wreck
is happening to Cuomo courtesy of Sliwa, he stands in
the back and simply says, with a big smile on
his face, I agree with Curtis, and then you can
see him buttoning his lip or putting the zipper across
his lips. He is an intuitive political genius. Lastly, it
(23:51):
let me circle back to no Kings because I should
cover it twice since everybody else covered it. Nuns my
favorite two signs, well, probably about twenty signs, all of
them the same way, the same phrase, one of them
in a street sign somebody was carrying no Foe king
(24:11):
way once again, words to live by. And then the
last one. And I think this should be printed up
on a T shirt given to every Democratic congressman and senator.
I'm beginning to see little glimmers of hope in Jeffreys.
Maybe he will take this advice and print this up
(24:32):
and give it to every member of the Democratic House Caucus,
because there's nothing much else for him to do at
the moment, maybe even once in a while. I think
Chuck Schumer would do this. Chuck Schumer wouldn't do this.
Chuck Schumer would do this. Somebody in Chuck Schumer's office
might do this. Somebody in Chuck Schumer's Office's grandson might
(24:55):
do this. There is a new expansion of the acronym
GOP that showed up on a sign at one of
the No Kings protests GOP Guardians of the Pedophiles. Oh, oh,
(25:18):
I want every Democrat in the House wearing that on
a T shirt by Thursday. I shouldn't have tried that, Okay,
As I said off the cuff here, I do want
to talk about something very curious that happened with one
(25:39):
of these how should we call him? Clown celebrities? Who's
doing the Oh? I don't want to run for president.
I'll never run for president, but if there's nobody else,
he's hoping that people will draft him to run for president.
And he decided to make headlines by walking off a
public television stage in protest of some average American guy
(26:04):
pleading for help from the TV audience. And the story
don't add up, and not everybody noticed. In fact, very
few people notice the story just don't add up. I'm
not going to say who this clown celebrity who wants
to be talked into running for president is, but his
name rhymes with sneeze and k stith. That's next.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
This is goddam as promised in lieu of the worst
persons in the world.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Let me tell you a story about which I have
some doubts. I don't know what the truth is here,
and I'm not going to claim to even offer percentage
chances as to what is true and what may be
a stunt, however, or to say it correctly as the
person I'm talking about would say it. However, last Wednesday
(27:07):
night the News Nation Network, which is by itself a fraud.
It is a right wing operative of the Sinclair Broadcasting family.
It is posing as a neutral it is posing as
a news operation. It is, as I've mentioned many times,
the nick at night for newscasters. Chris Cromo has a
(27:30):
show there. A guy who got fired from Fox named
Vittert had a show there. Dan Abrams had a show there.
Ashley Banfield has a show there. One of the ABC
World news anchors who ran into trouble, she had a
show there. I don't know who has shows there, because
fortunately this is not a very widely watched network, but
(27:50):
it is premised on the idea that it is telling
you that these people are telling you just the news,
that it's neutral and fair and no, we can't say
balance because that would make you think it's about like
a Fox, which it is. It's right wing, only they
(28:11):
are not honest enough to say we're a right wing network,
so they are in the last ring of hell. Last Wednesday,
they held a town hall about the shutdown. And during
this town hall, which was conducted at the Kennedy Center
in DC, itself a suspicious locale right now, the Kennedy
(28:31):
Center in the District of Columbia. The panel over the
air two hour special included from Congress Madeline Dean and
Roe Conna, Jim Jordan, Senator John Fetterman, Bill O'Reilly, that's right,
he's still alive, Chris Cuomo, that's right, he's still on television,
(28:53):
and Stephen A. Smith from ESPN. I have talked about
Stephen a lot because it doesn't surprise me that he
is as News Nation is pretending not to be a
right wing network, he is running for president while pretending
not to be running for president because he doesn't want
to face the embarrassment when people go, are you kidding me?
(29:15):
He thinks there will be a draft Stephen A. Smith
motion and movement, and he believes he needs to be
ready for it and exposed. And so as he continues
to go on ESPN and fill hour upon hour about
sports and saying nothing in the process, a remarkable skill
for which he is extraordinarily well paid and deserves every
(29:38):
penny of it. As he does that, he sidelines in politics,
offering perhaps so far anyway, the shallowest point of view
on politics that I have heard absolutely anywhere. I mean,
it's it's it's amazing. Let me interrupt with two ancillary
(30:00):
facts about Jack Chris Junior before we go back to
the narrative. The two ancillary facts are there is a
social media profile for this guy, as there is for
almost all of us these days, whether we like it
or not, and it lists him as air traffic controller
and pilot. And then there's the second thing, which is
(30:21):
that at ESPN dot com there is a profile, usually
in the kind of profile that is reserved for players,
former players, college players of all sports. You may have
one if you ever played. Normally, statistics would be there,
data trades, teams played for in this case, it's just blank,
(30:42):
but there is one four at ESPN dot com, a
profile of Jack Chris Junior. Just two little hints to
keep in the back of your mind as I resume
the narrative, which I will right now. Well, all of
these elements about which I had doubts came together last
(31:02):
week when News Nation held it it's town hall for
two hours in Washington. And I keep emphasizing in Washington
to see if you can get ahead of the storyteller here.
A good detective story or good mystery always allows the
possibility of the reader or listener to get out ahead
of the narrator and the characters. You may solve it
(31:24):
before they do. I'm going to give you that chance here.
Listen carefully to this story. At this event about the
shutdown and how it's hurting ordinary people. There were only
vague and veiled accusations that it's all the Democrats fault.
That's the News Nation trick to make it seem as
if it's not a right wing network. They don't scream
(31:46):
about how the Democrats are to use recent descriptions communists terrorists,
the devil. I mean. Several people call Democrats demonic and
their main evidence was, well, democrats and demonic each start
with the same first three less Unfortunately this works with
(32:07):
a lot of the people who believe in this crap
in any event. To get back to the point, at
one point in this town hall in Washington, d C.
A man stood up and asked a question and told
a story. His name was Jack Chris Junior, and he
said that when he gets off work from his sixteen
(32:29):
year long job at air traffic Control in Dallas, Texas,
he now has to drive for door Dash because because
of the slightly democratic cause shutdown, he's not getting paid
as an air traffic controller. Just to pay for his
daughter's tuition, he has to deliver food. A man with
(32:50):
a tense, intense, important, highly skilled life and death job
of air traffic controller has to then deliver food to
make ends meet. Which point Stephen A. Smith freaked out.
This is why he said, you have so many Americans
(33:11):
excuse my language, so pissed off at Washington, because somehow,
some way you get to have these conversations, engage in
specific elements of it to talk about what we need
to do to get things better. Well, that's the problem
with Stephen A. Smith. If you ever wrote down what
he said about sports, it would make no sense whatsoever,
(33:33):
just as that did. Why they're so pissed off, because
we can have specific anyway. Our debt is thirty seven
point eight trillion. Somehow, some way, the taxpayer has been
paying this, this throwing money. Because we all look at
our check and it's been going to the government, and
you're supposed to be doing something constructive and productive enough
(33:53):
to make sure that we don't have that kind of deficit.
It isn't happening. As a translation, I'll point out Stephen
does not know what the deficit is. Nearly everything that
he's addressed thus far in politics is, as I said before,
as shallow analysis as anything possibly could be. But the
deficit is more shallow than all the other things are
(34:14):
shallow combined. He's not understanding that the issues cannot simply
be sort of fiddlebustered the way he would who's the
number two guard on the Oklahoma City thunder on which
he could spend three hours saying things like, somehow, some way, however,
(34:36):
the taxpayer has been paying this, been throwing money because
we all look at our check, and it's been going
to the second string guard on the Oklahoma City Thunder.
He went on to say, I don't think Washington understands
how ticked off we truly are. A young man walked
up to the microphone and said that he had to
leave here to go and work on door dash to
help pay for his daughter's tuition. Meanwhile, everybody up here
(35:00):
getting paid, but he ain't. A government shut down is
going on right now. A man has to work on
door dash when he's really an air traffic controller that
we applauded. And we're up here talking about how much
some money is going to cost, and the only person
that don't have a check coming is him. You know
what I'm going to do. I'm going to take a break,
(35:21):
At which point Steven Smith got up from his chair
at the Kennedy Center in Washington and walked off, or,
as the News Nation account of The News Nation town
Hall put it, the scenario prompted panelist Steven A. Smith
to walk off the stage in disgust, or perhaps according
(35:44):
to script, Okay, did you catch it? I didn't put
too many of one clue in here, but I put
about sixteen of the other clue in this. First off,
it's News Nation, so you should doubt that Bill O'Reilly
was there. Therefore, you should doubt that Chris Cuomo was there.
(36:06):
And it's Bill O'Reilly, Cris Cuomo, Times News Nation plus
Stephen A. Smith. If you're not doubting, you're not breathing.
But my biggest concern is about this air traffic controller.
I imagine that there is some other explanation for this. I
looked again and again to make sure that the details
are correct. I don't understand what the other possible explanations are,
(36:31):
but maybe there is one. And if so, I apologize
to him, and to Stephen and to News Nation, to
everybody in this equation except O'Reilly. But here's the thing.
The air traffic controller Jack Chris Junior says he has
been working for sixteen years at Air Traffic Control in Dallas, Texas,
(36:53):
and now has to deliver door dash just to pay
for his daughter's tuition. And Steven A. Smith made a
big studied I'm so pissed off, I'm walking off the
set here. Apart from the audience benefiting from that, who
would know the difference? First of all, But secondly, wait,
a minute. Anybody noticed something inconsistent about this story? Where
(37:19):
have I said now sixteen times? This town hall took
place the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Where does Jack
Chris say? He works as an air traffic control Dallas,
but he has to work because you can't not work,
but he's not getting paid, so he has to drive
(37:40):
for door Dash in Washington. I mean, Stephen A. Smith said,
a young man walked up to the microphone and said
that he had to leave here to go to work
on DoorDash to help pay for his daughter's tuition. So
he's working in Dallas, and then at the end of
the workday in Dallas he what flies to Washington to
(38:03):
deliver door day or even if there's some muddle here
in Steven A. Smith's mind, Oh fat chance of that.
But even if there's some muddle in Steven A. Smith's mind,
he's in Dallas, and he's driving in Dallas, and he's
an air traffic controller in Dallas, and yet somehow he
is at the Kennedy Senator in Washington. Either he found
(38:28):
his own way to Washington paid for that with money
that he doesn't have because of the shutdown. That is
kind of the Democrats ball or or what. They flew
him there to tell this story, so they knew in
advanced the story he was going to tell. This man's
(38:48):
story was not a surprise to the people at News Nation,
which immediately raises the possibility that his story was not
a surprise to the people who were on stage, like
Chris Cuomo, Bill O'Reilly and Steven A. Smith, who and
walked off to show how much a man of the
(39:08):
people he is. I am suggesting that perhaps this was
not as ad libbed an ad lib as it seemed
a gesture of frustration. Oh, Stephen A. Smith cares about you?
Scenario prompted panelist Stephen A. Smith to walk off the
(39:32):
stage and discust. I do notice in all of the
News Nation commentary on this, and it was covered in
other publications like The Hill, there was an element of
he responded to this and was so thrown by that
he was responding in some way to the surprise of this,
And that's not what News Nation says. It just prompted
(39:54):
him to walk off the stage the way a prompter,
like something written on the prompter would prompt you to
walk off the stage. I'm just saying, I like Steven
I worked with him at ESPN before they fired him,
and as somebody who came back to ESPN after quitting
(40:18):
and after having a contract run out and worked three
separate times there. I admire anybody who goes back to
work there. It means that there was a connection and
the audience wanted you, and the employers were happy to
have you back one way or the other. I admire him.
I used to know him in the local New York
(40:38):
news media when he was working at the ESPN New
York station, and we once were at a New York
Knicks game together along with the president of ESPN, and
had had a very good conversation and he didn't play
me at all, and he didn't try any of the
big steven A. Smith stuff. And I like him, but
I do think this ends. And first off, it's a
(41:00):
violation of every tenant ESPN has had since it went
on the air in nineteen seventy nine, to which I
subscribed at all times, which was not not to mix
politics and sports on the air in a high profile way.
In other words, I was when I was a television
political commentator. My ESPN work was radio only. I didn't
(41:22):
go on TV and when I was on ESPN doing TV,
I did not do any politics at all anywhere else,
I just did sports. This is something else. And I
think this ends up with Stephen not getting the presidential
nomination of whichever party he's seeking it from, because I
can't tell. And it does not get with him becoming
(41:45):
a prominent political commentator, because even this lack of depth
will not resonate with the dumber audiences that cover or
are interested in the coverage of politics. And I wonder
if it ends up with him losing his job at ESPN,
or at least his influence at ESPN, or at least
his prominen city ESPN, because if he's now involved in
(42:07):
things like a fake oh, hold me back, I don't.
I don't really want to ever run for president, but
if there's no other choice, I guess I'll be forced
to do it. Well, then maybe I'll consent to it.
Maybe if he's doing that, that's bad enough. Many men, though,
have done that before, and some women. But the panelist
(42:30):
walks off after it turns out that the audience member
is a sixteen year veteran of air traffic control in Dallas.
But he's got to go do his door dash job
now just to pay for his daughter's tuition because of
this damn democratic shutdown of the government. Except the guy
(42:51):
is in Washington, d C. At the moment, but he's
from Dallas. If Stephen had knowledge a forethought of this,
Good night, Stephen A Smith, a little Thurber when we
come back. I believe the first time I ever heard
(43:18):
James Thurber read aloud, it was by William Windham, the
great actor who did so much serious stuff, drama, comedy.
He's a Star Trek Original series key figure. He did
a lot of great acting in so many different roles.
And he did a special on PBS when I was
(43:38):
in college in which he performed as James Thurber, narrated
some of the drawings, recited from memory, many of the
short stories and many of the longer ones too, And
I later had the pleasure of telling him that he
was my inspiration for reading James Thurber aloud, and we
corresponded about how to possibly improve some of the diceier
(44:00):
parts of some of the Thurber stories and make them
useful for twenty first cent for America. Mister Wyndham died
about ten years ago, and I lament him still. I
recorded on tape His Thurber Special on PBS, and I
still have it, not videotape, audiotape, a cassette. We didn't
have home videotape, although I'm proud to say he sent
(44:22):
me a copy of a DVD of the performance, and
one of the stories he reads, or in fact recites,
I will now read for you it is. I like
it very much. It's not considered part of the great
canon of James Thurber, but I think it's terrific. And
it's called Shake Hands with Bertie Dogget by James Thurber.
(44:46):
John Bertie Dogget, known as Bertie to the few people
who speak to him, must be fifty three now, but
he wears his years with a smirk, and he has
as bad a practical joker as ever. Other American cutups
in the Grand Tradition began to disappear in October Night
twenty nine, and they are as hard to find now
(45:07):
as Bison. But Dogget's waggishness has no calendar. You must
have run into him at some party or other. He's
the man whose right hand comes off when you try
to shake it. The late George Bancroft once pulled that
gag in a movie but that was so long ago.
The picture must be a cherished item in the Museum
of Modern Arts Film Library even now, when everybody else
(45:31):
was running the gamut of bomb fear from A to H.
Birdie Dogget was at Grand Central with one roller skate,
which he managed to attach to the shoe of a
man sleeping on a bench. When the fellow woke and
stood up, he described a brief, desperate semi circle clutched
a woman shopper about the knees, dragged her and her
(45:53):
bundles to the cold floor, and was attacked by her
muzzled Scottie Dogget, as always, was the first to lend
a hand, helping the woman to her feet, and then
turning to the man, where the hell's your other skate?
He demanded, sharply, that's what caused all this trouble. He
took his skate off the victim's foot and disappeared into
(46:13):
the crowd that had begun to gather. What's the matter
over there, a small man asked him apprehensively. Dogget shrugged, Uh.
They found a woman with a ticking package, he said.
The other man turned and left the station, missing the train.
He had told his wife he would take. Doggett's pranks
usually have the effect of involving people on their far edges,
(46:36):
one or two of whom have been divorced as a result.
A publisher I know thinks dogget would make a good story.
I disagree, because I don't think there's anything good about
the fellow, but I have done some checking up on
him out of force of habit. His father, the late
Carol Lamb Dogget, was a Methodist minister, and his mother
(46:57):
was a witch, born Ata June Birdie. When her son
was only ten, she taught him how to set stranger's
umbrellas on fire. After an April shower, she would sally
forth with the little Hellion. They lived in Dayton in
search of a citizen with a floppy umbrella. After an
April shower, Dayton men lower their umbrellas without bothering to
(47:19):
roll them. Missus Dogget would hunt until she found a
man waiting for a street car, his umbrella sagging open
at his side. She would then surreptitiously fill the umbrella
with paper, several dozen kitchen matches, and perhaps one or
two ping pong balls. As the street car approached, she
would drop a lighted match into the umbrella. Now, hell
(47:43):
hath no dismay like that of a gentleman whose wet
umbrella suddenly bursts into flame. Instead of rolling the thing
to smother the blaze or simply throwing it away, nine
out of ten men, according to Dogget's statistics, will flail
it around in the air, thus increasing the conflict. Many
(48:06):
of Missus Doggett's victims were arrested for disturbing the peace
or for arson. Bertie Doggett has never been much interested
in the exasperating paraphernalia of the trick and puzzle shops.
He still uses the wax hand, and he has tried
out dribble glasses, whoopee cushions, the foul smelling stuff you
(48:27):
put on chair bottoms to make people think they've just
sat on a lighted cigarette, and other such juvenile props,
but they never got a real hold on his fancy.
He likes the elaborate rib involving a lot of people,
the more the better. He will take a sack full
of cold poached eggs to some crowded Fifth Avenue store
(48:48):
at Christmas time and slip them one at a time
into the pockets of shoppers husbands, and he dreams of
bumping into a woman visitor in the ancient glass and
crystal room of some museum, dropping an ordinary table tumbler
on the tile floor, and sweet God, lady, you have
broken the sacred chalice of King Alexander and making her
(49:13):
believe it. He has pulled this gag over and over
since nineteen twenty four, but never successfully, with the result
that he has appeared sixteen times in Jefferson Market Court
alone on charges of disturbing the peace, jostling, and molestation.
What dogget probably enjoys more than anything else is following
(49:34):
a couple of women along Fifth Avenue or Madison, keeping
discreetly out of sight but well within earshot, until he
hears one of the two ladies call the other by name.
He says that women are fond of using each other's
full name, as in Marriam Shirtle. I never heard of
such a thing in all my born days. As soon
(49:57):
as miss Shirtle let us say has thus been fully identified,
Doggett will walk briskly ahead for several blocks and then
retrace his steps. This soon brings him face to face
with his quarry, upon whom he will pounce with a
delighted why Miriam Shirtle, fancy meeting you here uncross those
lovely eyes and tell me I have been a young
(50:19):
woman he wants accosted like this in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, asked
him to her house for cocktails in the hope that
some member of her family would know who he was,
but nobody was home. His hostess turned out to be
a bore, so Bertie put knockout drops in her second martini,
and after she had passed out, he stole a marble
(50:40):
plaque of kitchener from her mother's room and he went away.
The next day it arrived at the Shirtles, beautifully wrapped
and bearing a card with the simple legend Married Christmas
from the President of the United States. John Bertie Doggett
married a tapioca brain one afternoon twenty years ago, possible
(51:04):
because he had lost a bet nobody knows. He took
her to his house and told her to wait in
the living room while he went upstairs and quieted his
two great danes. He put a record of a dog
fight on a phonograph he kept in his bedroom and
slipped quietly out the back door. At three in the morning,
he showed up in the living room with two match players,
(51:26):
lou Gettling and Vic Talbot. Who's this disconsolate female? Talbot
demanded fairly, using an incurable antipathy to games of chance
and cunning, The bride drew herself up stiffly. I am
Missus John Berdie Doggett, she said, striving for a outeur.
(51:49):
The name will not sustain. I forgot about her wind Doggett.
After all, we haven't been married twenty or thirty years.
I've only been married eleven hours, Missus Doggett, the former
ann Queeley, went home to her mother, Missus Paul Coueleie,
and never saw Bertie again. I join her in the
(52:09):
fervent hope that he may someday choke on his candied
dice and pass forever out of our consciousness. He is
a hard man to forget, though. I never start to
get out of a chair no matter where I am,
without glancing at my shoes to see if I am
wearing one roller skate and feeling in my pockets for
(52:30):
old cold eggs. I've done all the damage I can
do here. Thank you for listening to this unfocused edition
(52:53):
of the program. Due to illness and other issues, most
of our Countdown music was arranged, produced and performed by
Brian Ray and John Phillip shaneil. Our musical directories of
Countdown produced by TKO Others Mister Ray on guitars, bass
and drums, Mister Chanelle handling, orchestration and keyboards. Now our
satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best baseball
stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. The Oldraman theme from ESPN two,
(53:17):
written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Is
the sports music. Other music ranged and performed by the
group No Horns Allowed. Everything else was as always my fault,
including what happens when I just sit here and ramble.
Maybe I'll walk off the stage now and protest. That's
countdown for today. Day two hundred and seventy four of
(53:38):
America held hostage, just one and eighty nine days until
the scheduled end of Trump's lame duck and lame brained
term unless he is removed sooner by MAGA or the
Psychopathy Test or Tile and All or No Kings or
who knows. The next scheduled countdown is Thursday. I expect
(53:58):
to have written that one in advance till then. I'm
Keith Oldraman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck,
(54:22):
and I agree with Cardiff's Countdown with Keith Olderman is
a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Is
(00:24):
there a way we can get Trump involuntarily committed to
a psychiatric institution. No, Seriously, I don't know the answer.
I suspect the answer is no. Not even after the
video he put out in which he proudly covers America
(00:44):
in shit from the air, which he thought was some
kind of flex as opposed to being the confirmation of
everything that was being protested at No Kings. This AI
video of him and the jet which defines Trump as president,
as leader, as father, as human being, sort of a
(01:12):
shit show with a crown, and he has to wear
an oxygen mask, and the magas are standing below as
it rains down upon them, just hoping to catch some
of it, maybe with their mouths. Trump shitting on America
the only thing he is good at. And in the
(01:37):
limited coverage it gets in the media, they have sanitized
it for your protection, literally in the New York Times,
not referencing what it was flying out of the airplane.
In Trump's Freudian video, in his confession in the climax
(01:58):
of his life on this earth. After that, let me
say it all again. Trump is insane and unchecked. He
is going to kill us all because nothing matters to
him but him, and nothing about him matters to him. Besides,
(02:19):
what is happening right this moment. He's insane, he's psychopathic,
he's murderous, he's mass murderous. He's a terrorist, he's vile,
he's deranged, he's damaged, he's dysfunctional. He's on top of
everything else. There he is discharging his inner self all
(02:42):
over New York and all the No Kings protesters and
all over all of America. And my final thought was,
if that AI video were real and he really got
rid of all that shit, what what would he be
(03:03):
left to think with? So is there a way we
can get Trump involuntarily committed to a psychiatric institution. I
appreciate it's probably a slippery slope anyway, certainly is after
(03:28):
that video. But in a scenario in which Trump does
that promulgates that thinks that is the response after America
holds its largest political protest since Earth Day in nineteen seventy,
when the best estimate now seven million of US took
(03:52):
to the streets at No Kings, with no violence, no terrorists,
no anti americanism, no arrests in New York, no arrests
in Chicago, one arrest in Los Angeles, a handful in Denver.
Complementary posts from the heads of the police department in
the key cities. After that call and response No Kings
(04:21):
followed by no shit, we have to explore all options. Now,
is there a way we can get Trump involuntarily committed
to a psychiatric institution, because frankly, if we bid him out,
we could make billions. The man is insane. If he
(04:45):
had not been insane before putting out that video, if
he had been healed at Lord's Saturday morning and then
he put that video out, it would be clear he
had gone insane a second time. No, no, no, no,
he was better this morning. Say now he's re insane. Meanwhile,
(05:12):
No Kings gets no coverage from the political cognizanti. By
midday yesterday, the entirety of the protest was just hanging
on to a tiny spot on the front page of
The New York Times and other publications and other websites,
saved in most cases by being most shared on most sites,
which still is not a clue. Even Trump responded to
(05:38):
No Kings and the majority of newspapers and news organizations
failed to do so sufficiently. It was not just the
lead story yesterday and should be today. It should be
the only story. It is America grabbing all of that
from the AI video and shoving it back up Trump's ass.
(06:05):
In the New York Times, No Kings was just barely
ahead of police break up Lego theft ring recovering hundreds
of beheaded figurines. The story was dwarfed by Times analysis
(06:25):
of how the Democrats are flailing. It's twenty twenty five
and Democrats are still running against Trump. Then there's a
story about Trump commuting the sentence of George Santos, because
that's entirely a normal thing. Then a Democratic mayor who
thinks cities are handling Trump wrought not one piece about
It's twenty twenty five and the New York Times ownership
(06:47):
is still terrified of Trump and carrying water for him
or something else of a liquid nature for him, and
not realizing we live on a precipice because of him. Democrats.
I don't know strike that Americans organized and conducted the
largest political protest in this country in fifty five years
(07:12):
without one significant negative moment, but the anti Trump message
bores American news media. It bores the New York Times
because there are the times Trump isn't dropping ai shit
storms on them. They live in the Hamptons. The case
(07:34):
was dismissed. The Washington Post underplayed it. They even took
Trump almost entirely out of the story of Marco Rubio's
promise quote to betray informants to get Trump's prison deal
with l Salvador to secure US access to President Nayabucl's
notorious Seacot prison, Rubio agreed to turn over several ms
(07:56):
thirteen leaders central to a long running Justice Department investigation.
You know, they did the moral equivalent of shoe ing
prisoners who had just surrendered. And it was all Rubio,
not Trump. That was Rubio's idea. That's why he's in
the headline Trump's prison deal all. But it's all Rubio.
(08:18):
I'm not defending Marco Rubio here. Marco Rubio is the
stuff that came out of Trump's plane. But it's Trump's plane. Politico,
which is also the stuff that comes out of Trump's plane,
didn't even mention no Kings in its daily newsletter headline
(08:38):
round Up yesterday, never mind not mentioning Trump's shit jet.
Confess you thought I had been finished using the four
letter version of this, hadn't you As disgusting as that
video was, It is, in fact, the greatest thing Trump
(08:59):
has ever done in a way I am sitting here
applauding him. It is greater than all the other accomplishments
of his life. His thorough corruption of the government, his
opening of a Pandora's box, which turned out to be
full of millions of other Pandora's boxes, His greasy, chintzy,
(09:21):
falling apart apartment buildings, his ludicrous personal appearance, his eternal
peace in the Middle East that has already fallen apart.
His crimes, his craft, his grift, his Espionage Act violations,
his liability for assaults, his convictions, his makeup, his hot
and cold running lying. Of all the things Trump has
(09:42):
ever done, nothing has ever been greater than that video.
It is the embodiment of the last decade in America.
It is Donald Trump's America. It is Donald Trump. And
(10:04):
he is so crazy. He posted that video himself, thinking
the video expressed some kind of triumph. He's not just crazy,
He's he's that shit crazy. He in fact is something
(10:24):
new to this earth. He is, as the video showed,
he is Trump shit crazy. You may have noticed the
(11:00):
scratch in my voice and a little cough earlier. I'm sick,
So what you're hearing now is the last of what
I've been able to concentrate long enough on to write.
I can talk with some discomfort, but that's my problem,
not yours. The writing not so much. So let's enjoy
instead the adventure of me ad libbing my way through
(11:24):
the other headlines and through an entire second segment devoted
to one story rather than worse persons, but going through
all this with slightly less than a clear head. Fasten
your seat belts, and if you look out the left
window of the Trump shit jet, you'll see why it's JD.
(11:50):
Vance in the vice presidential mini shit copter. The other
thing about that video is that it represents in its
own way Trump's policy on the quote narco terrorists quote
and the kinetic strikes unquote by the Secretary of brill
Cream taking place off Venezuela in the Caribbean. As the
(12:15):
news story reads, the US released the two survivors of
Thursday's military strike on a suspected drug vessel. Thank you
for putting in suspected. Half of the media in the
world just says, oh, yes, that has to have been
narco terrorist because there's no evidence one way or the other.
And why would the President of the United States lie
about that. It's a minute that ends in a number.
(12:37):
That's why the two survivors were released to their home countries,
Ecuador and Colombia. President of Colombia says US government officials,
this is a separate strike. Have committed a murder and
violated our sovereignty in territorial waters. Fisherman Alejandro Caranza had
(12:57):
no ties to the drug trade and his daily activity
was fishing. The Colombian boat was a drift and had
its distress signal up due to an engine failure. The
president of Columbia, who we of course threw out of
the country because he dared to criticize Trump at the
UN even though we don't own the UN. Sorry we
(13:17):
threw him out, He now says Trump murdered Alejandro Caranza.
The US government murdered Alejandro Caranza, and that in fact
the boat was sitting there having had engine failure. It
was literally a sitting duck. It was even a more
innocent target than we have previously presumed. I mentioned earlier
(13:39):
the idea of shooting prisoners who have just surrendered on
the battlefield. This is the next step beyond that sitting
there engine failure kill them. The New Republic added this.
The other day. President Trump announced that he had bombed
yet another boat allegedly carrying drugs in the Caribbean Sea.
(14:00):
He's now struck six twenty seven dead bombings widely denounced
as illegal, probably because they are. New York Times reports
the head of the military Southern Command, Alvin Holsey, is
stepping down amid unclear circumstances. Not Admiral Halsey, but Alvin Holsey.
You would think we would want to retain somebody whose
(14:21):
name was that close to Halsey's. Meanwhile, much of this
country continues to believe that Trump almost saved Ukraine. Oh,
he came so close, We almost saved Ukraine. And then
he changed his mind almost Maybe next time.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
It's a.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Stall. It has been nothing but a stall. The whole
thing has been a performance, dating back to the session
in the Oval office, with the media there and JD.
Vance trying to act tough as they browbeat Zelenski and
Zelensky to his credit did not kick Trump in the balls.
It's a stall. He has tried every different angle to
(15:05):
buy Putin another couple of weeks because Trump is Putin's whore.
I'll repeat that for those in the back. Trump is
Putin's whore. And apparently somehow Putin waded through Trump's brown liquid,
as the New York Times would call it, and got
(15:26):
through to him with this message. Just keep doing different
things that make it look like you're about to force
me to do something else. This time it was Tomahawk missiles.
In a phone call last week with Trump, Russian President
Putin demanded Kiev surrender control of the Dunetsk region as
a condition to ending the war in Ukraine. This is
(15:47):
according to the Washington Post. During the Friday meeting with Zelensky,
Steve Whitkoff, the forty two IQ guy that Trump has
decided is the Middle East envoy reportedly pressed the Ukraine
delegation about seeding Donetsk, and Trump is to meet with
Putin in Hungary in the coming weeks. I will have
(16:09):
a nightly prayer vigil that they all stay in Hungary forever.
So the theory here is Trump was going to give
Zelensky tomahawks instead, he's going to give Putin Dunnetsk. But
he almost did it. Let's give him a Nobel Peace
(16:30):
Prize for almost doing the right thing as opposed to
the completely wrong thing. Because it's Trump. And if the
world does not end because of something he's done and
the sun rises in the morning, well that was restraint.
The fellow on CNN Van Jones is about to say
(16:52):
that this is the day Trump became president. Another report
from the Washington Post, Putin got his relationship with Trump
back on tracking one phone call. I'll bet he did,
dashing the prospect of the US imminently granting long range messing.
Blah blah blah. It was the latest swing, writes Robin
(17:12):
Dixon of the Washington Post in Trump's back and forth
positions on the Russian Ukraine War that often changed following
contact with Putin. No, it wasn't, Robin Dixon. It's an act.
It's a stall for Putin. My god, I am a
semi retired former SportsCenter anchor and the one time field
(17:33):
reporter for the Nicket Night nineteen eighty six celebrity retired
TV star Golf Open, and even I can figure this out,
and it seems as if not one political or governmental
writer in this country can figure it out. Just me
(17:56):
so to the media experts, to the expert experts who
believed Trump was coming around this time on Ukraine, even
though each previous time you thought that now he was
just stalling as Putin's horror, Oh, it turned out this time,
Oh he was just stalling. What was he doing last time?
(18:16):
Just stalling? What will he be doing next time? Oh,
he might be seriously negotiating. He's going to put pressure
in Putin this time, one hundred and forty seventh time.
Is the charm to all of you who still think
that this is not a stall, He is not Putin's whore,
and you did not just fall for it again, go
(18:37):
f yourselves and quit your jobs. I don't feel well,
and I'd like to end with the funnies at least
this segment before we move on to one long telling
of one really really weird story involving somebody trying to
go from the sports world to the political world, who
(19:00):
I've discussed before, talking about a phony, talking about fooling people.
I do want to end this segment with a couple
of laughs. I have a delightful audio clip to play
for you. And you might not have seen this because
it's from the mayor's debate here in Fun City, the
(19:21):
New York mayoralty debate Zoran mom Donnie who is leading
in double figures in the worst of his polls over Cuomo,
and Curtis Sliwa, who took off his hat. And apparently
all this time Curtis's problem was his little red beret
was on too tight because once the circulation started going
(19:44):
in his brain again, Curtis bless him dunked on Andrew
Cuomo owned him dunked. The subject is standing up to
Trump demanding money or allowing ice in, or any of
(20:05):
the other demands that Trump will make of the Mayor
of New York, including Cuomo, who he has in his
back pocket. Trump this is has a prosecution of Cuomo
in his back pocket, but he would never ever pressure
Cuomo into doing what he wanted rather than what's good
for the city of New York. And Curtis Sliwa, on
this topic, picked up what Mario Cuomo's son said and
(20:30):
stuffed it down his throat. This is one of the
great political sound bites of all time. Listen carefully and
listen carefully for one guy in the back, adding the
bond mo at the very end, I give you Curtis
Sliwa when he's not wearing the hat that's cutting down
his circulation in his brain. I said to him, don't
(20:52):
you dare, We don't need it.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
And he backed down and he will again, so that
proves a good religit. Wait, the president is going to
back down.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
To you, angew Cuomo.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
I know, yeah, you think you're the toughest guy.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
But let me tell you something.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
You lost your own primary, right, you were rejected by
your Democrat. You have a difficult understanding what the term
don't is. You're not gonna stand up to John Can.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
I agree with Curtis Here, Cuomo is thinking, to paraphrase
Bart Simpson. Now Slee was scoring off me. Oh that
is it. My god, you lost your own primary. You
don't know the meaning of the word no, Oh, my god.
(21:41):
Curtis Slee was authenticity cartoon character to politician in a suit.
Absolutely validated by that one remark. He's now just an
unsuccessful candidate for mayor. He's not a clown. There can
be growth in old age, I'm hopeful. And what makes
(22:02):
mom Danny a great and intuitive politician who will rise
as far as his place of birth will permit him,
because he was not technically born in this country and
kind not run for higher office. Although I haven't checked
the Constitution since I came in here to record this,
maybe that's changed so Milania can be the Trump successor.
(22:22):
I had forgotten about somebody trying that. What makes mom
Donnie a great intuitive politician is if you heard his
voice in there, he said only I agree with Curtis.
He got out of the way. If mom Donnie had
said that about Sliwa something similar, Cuomo would have tried
(22:45):
to come in and bigfooted and claim the moment for
his own. I think Sliwa would have done the same
if mom Donni had said that, or Cuomo had said
that about Mam Donni. But Mam Donnie's political skill, the
unteachable political skill that has put him in this position
at this age, with this level of experience, and with
(23:05):
the gigantic baggage that he's carrying. Even in New York.
Some of the stuff he's carrying to the Mayor's office
to Gracie mansion is a little heavy, and people are going, yeah,
I know about that, but listen to him, he's actually
gonna do the job. The sense that he's going to
do the job is an intuitive political skill that is
(23:27):
summed up by the fact that as this car wreck
is happening to Cuomo courtesy of Sliwa, he stands in
the back and simply says, with a big smile on
his face, I agree with Curtis, and then you can
see him buttoning his lip or putting the zipper across
his lips. He is an intuitive political genius. Lastly, it
(23:51):
let me circle back to no Kings because I should
cover it twice since everybody else covered it. Nuns my
favorite two signs, well, probably about twenty signs, all of
them the same way, the same phrase, one of them
in a street sign somebody was carrying no Foe king
(24:11):
way once again, words to live by. And then the
last one. And I think this should be printed up
on a T shirt given to every Democratic congressman and senator.
I'm beginning to see little glimmers of hope in Jeffreys.
Maybe he will take this advice and print this up
(24:32):
and give it to every member of the Democratic House Caucus,
because there's nothing much else for him to do at
the moment, maybe even once in a while. I think
Chuck Schumer would do this. Chuck Schumer wouldn't do this.
Chuck Schumer would do this. Somebody in Chuck Schumer's office
might do this. Somebody in Chuck Schumer's Office's grandson might
(24:55):
do this. There is a new expansion of the acronym
GOP that showed up on a sign at one of
the No Kings protests GOP Guardians of the Pedophiles. Oh, oh,
(25:18):
I want every Democrat in the House wearing that on
a T shirt by Thursday. I shouldn't have tried that, Okay,
As I said off the cuff here, I do want
to talk about something very curious that happened with one
(25:39):
of these how should we call him? Clown celebrities? Who's
doing the Oh? I don't want to run for president.
I'll never run for president, but if there's nobody else,
he's hoping that people will draft him to run for president.
And he decided to make headlines by walking off a
public television stage in protest of some average American guy
(26:04):
pleading for help from the TV audience. And the story
don't add up, and not everybody noticed. In fact, very
few people notice the story just don't add up. I'm
not going to say who this clown celebrity who wants
to be talked into running for president is, but his
name rhymes with sneeze and k stith. That's next.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
This is goddam as promised in lieu of the worst
persons in the world.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Let me tell you a story about which I have
some doubts. I don't know what the truth is here,
and I'm not going to claim to even offer percentage
chances as to what is true and what may be
a stunt, however, or to say it correctly as the
person I'm talking about would say it. However, last Wednesday
(27:07):
night the News Nation Network, which is by itself a fraud.
It is a right wing operative of the Sinclair Broadcasting family.
It is posing as a neutral it is posing as
a news operation. It is, as I've mentioned many times,
the nick at night for newscasters. Chris Cromo has a
(27:30):
show there. A guy who got fired from Fox named
Vittert had a show there. Dan Abrams had a show there.
Ashley Banfield has a show there. One of the ABC
World news anchors who ran into trouble, she had a
show there. I don't know who has shows there, because
fortunately this is not a very widely watched network, but
(27:50):
it is premised on the idea that it is telling
you that these people are telling you just the news,
that it's neutral and fair and no, we can't say
balance because that would make you think it's about like
a Fox, which it is. It's right wing, only they
(28:11):
are not honest enough to say we're a right wing network,
so they are in the last ring of hell. Last Wednesday,
they held a town hall about the shutdown. And during
this town hall, which was conducted at the Kennedy Center
in DC, itself a suspicious locale right now, the Kennedy
(28:31):
Center in the District of Columbia. The panel over the
air two hour special included from Congress Madeline Dean and
Roe Conna, Jim Jordan, Senator John Fetterman, Bill O'Reilly, that's right,
he's still alive, Chris Cuomo, that's right, he's still on television,
(28:53):
and Stephen A. Smith from ESPN. I have talked about
Stephen a lot because it doesn't surprise me that he
is as News Nation is pretending not to be a
right wing network, he is running for president while pretending
not to be running for president because he doesn't want
to face the embarrassment when people go, are you kidding me?
(29:15):
He thinks there will be a draft Stephen A. Smith
motion and movement, and he believes he needs to be
ready for it and exposed. And so as he continues
to go on ESPN and fill hour upon hour about
sports and saying nothing in the process, a remarkable skill
for which he is extraordinarily well paid and deserves every
(29:38):
penny of it. As he does that, he sidelines in politics,
offering perhaps so far anyway, the shallowest point of view
on politics that I have heard absolutely anywhere. I mean,
it's it's it's amazing. Let me interrupt with two ancillary
(30:00):
facts about Jack Chris Junior before we go back to
the narrative. The two ancillary facts are there is a
social media profile for this guy, as there is for
almost all of us these days, whether we like it
or not, and it lists him as air traffic controller
and pilot. And then there's the second thing, which is
(30:21):
that at ESPN dot com there is a profile, usually
in the kind of profile that is reserved for players,
former players, college players of all sports. You may have
one if you ever played. Normally, statistics would be there,
data trades, teams played for in this case, it's just blank,
(30:42):
but there is one four at ESPN dot com, a
profile of Jack Chris Junior. Just two little hints to
keep in the back of your mind as I resume
the narrative, which I will right now. Well, all of
these elements about which I had doubts came together last
(31:02):
week when News Nation held it it's town hall for
two hours in Washington. And I keep emphasizing in Washington
to see if you can get ahead of the storyteller here.
A good detective story or good mystery always allows the
possibility of the reader or listener to get out ahead
of the narrator and the characters. You may solve it
(31:24):
before they do. I'm going to give you that chance here.
Listen carefully to this story. At this event about the
shutdown and how it's hurting ordinary people. There were only
vague and veiled accusations that it's all the Democrats fault.
That's the News Nation trick to make it seem as
if it's not a right wing network. They don't scream
(31:46):
about how the Democrats are to use recent descriptions communists terrorists,
the devil. I mean. Several people call Democrats demonic and
their main evidence was, well, democrats and demonic each start
with the same first three less Unfortunately this works with
(32:07):
a lot of the people who believe in this crap
in any event. To get back to the point, at
one point in this town hall in Washington, d C.
A man stood up and asked a question and told
a story. His name was Jack Chris Junior, and he
said that when he gets off work from his sixteen
(32:29):
year long job at air traffic Control in Dallas, Texas,
he now has to drive for door Dash because because
of the slightly democratic cause shutdown, he's not getting paid
as an air traffic controller. Just to pay for his
daughter's tuition, he has to deliver food. A man with
(32:50):
a tense, intense, important, highly skilled life and death job
of air traffic controller has to then deliver food to
make ends meet. Which point Stephen A. Smith freaked out.
This is why he said, you have so many Americans
(33:11):
excuse my language, so pissed off at Washington, because somehow,
some way you get to have these conversations, engage in
specific elements of it to talk about what we need
to do to get things better. Well, that's the problem
with Stephen A. Smith. If you ever wrote down what
he said about sports, it would make no sense whatsoever,
(33:33):
just as that did. Why they're so pissed off, because
we can have specific anyway. Our debt is thirty seven
point eight trillion. Somehow, some way, the taxpayer has been
paying this, this throwing money. Because we all look at
our check and it's been going to the government, and
you're supposed to be doing something constructive and productive enough
(33:53):
to make sure that we don't have that kind of deficit.
It isn't happening. As a translation, I'll point out Stephen
does not know what the deficit is. Nearly everything that
he's addressed thus far in politics is, as I said before,
as shallow analysis as anything possibly could be. But the
deficit is more shallow than all the other things are
(34:14):
shallow combined. He's not understanding that the issues cannot simply
be sort of fiddlebustered the way he would who's the
number two guard on the Oklahoma City thunder on which
he could spend three hours saying things like, somehow, some way, however,
(34:36):
the taxpayer has been paying this, been throwing money because
we all look at our check, and it's been going
to the second string guard on the Oklahoma City Thunder.
He went on to say, I don't think Washington understands
how ticked off we truly are. A young man walked
up to the microphone and said that he had to
leave here to go and work on door dash to
help pay for his daughter's tuition. Meanwhile, everybody up here
(35:00):
getting paid, but he ain't. A government shut down is
going on right now. A man has to work on
door dash when he's really an air traffic controller that
we applauded. And we're up here talking about how much
some money is going to cost, and the only person
that don't have a check coming is him. You know
what I'm going to do. I'm going to take a break,
(35:21):
At which point Steven Smith got up from his chair
at the Kennedy Center in Washington and walked off, or,
as the News Nation account of The News Nation town
Hall put it, the scenario prompted panelist Steven A. Smith
to walk off the stage in disgust, or perhaps according
(35:44):
to script, Okay, did you catch it? I didn't put
too many of one clue in here, but I put
about sixteen of the other clue in this. First off,
it's News Nation, so you should doubt that Bill O'Reilly
was there. Therefore, you should doubt that Chris Cuomo was there.
(36:06):
And it's Bill O'Reilly, Cris Cuomo, Times News Nation plus
Stephen A. Smith. If you're not doubting, you're not breathing.
But my biggest concern is about this air traffic controller.
I imagine that there is some other explanation for this. I
looked again and again to make sure that the details
are correct. I don't understand what the other possible explanations are,
(36:31):
but maybe there is one. And if so, I apologize
to him, and to Stephen and to News Nation, to
everybody in this equation except O'Reilly. But here's the thing.
The air traffic controller Jack Chris Junior says he has
been working for sixteen years at Air Traffic Control in Dallas, Texas,
(36:53):
and now has to deliver door dash just to pay
for his daughter's tuition. And Steven A. Smith made a
big studied I'm so pissed off, I'm walking off the
set here. Apart from the audience benefiting from that, who
would know the difference? First of all, But secondly, wait,
a minute. Anybody noticed something inconsistent about this story? Where
(37:19):
have I said now sixteen times? This town hall took
place the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Where does Jack
Chris say? He works as an air traffic control Dallas,
but he has to work because you can't not work,
but he's not getting paid, so he has to drive
(37:40):
for door Dash in Washington. I mean, Stephen A. Smith said,
a young man walked up to the microphone and said
that he had to leave here to go to work
on DoorDash to help pay for his daughter's tuition. So
he's working in Dallas, and then at the end of
the workday in Dallas he what flies to Washington to
(38:03):
deliver door day or even if there's some muddle here
in Steven A. Smith's mind, Oh fat chance of that.
But even if there's some muddle in Steven A. Smith's mind,
he's in Dallas, and he's driving in Dallas, and he's
an air traffic controller in Dallas, and yet somehow he
is at the Kennedy Senator in Washington. Either he found
(38:28):
his own way to Washington paid for that with money
that he doesn't have because of the shutdown. That is
kind of the Democrats ball or or what. They flew
him there to tell this story, so they knew in
advanced the story he was going to tell. This man's
(38:48):
story was not a surprise to the people at News Nation,
which immediately raises the possibility that his story was not
a surprise to the people who were on stage, like
Chris Cuomo, Bill O'Reilly and Steven A. Smith, who and
walked off to show how much a man of the
(39:08):
people he is. I am suggesting that perhaps this was
not as ad libbed an ad lib as it seemed
a gesture of frustration. Oh, Stephen A. Smith cares about you?
Scenario prompted panelist Stephen A. Smith to walk off the
(39:32):
stage and discust. I do notice in all of the
News Nation commentary on this, and it was covered in
other publications like The Hill, there was an element of
he responded to this and was so thrown by that
he was responding in some way to the surprise of this,
And that's not what News Nation says. It just prompted
(39:54):
him to walk off the stage the way a prompter,
like something written on the prompter would prompt you to
walk off the stage. I'm just saying, I like Steven
I worked with him at ESPN before they fired him,
and as somebody who came back to ESPN after quitting
(40:18):
and after having a contract run out and worked three
separate times there. I admire anybody who goes back to
work there. It means that there was a connection and
the audience wanted you, and the employers were happy to
have you back one way or the other. I admire him.
I used to know him in the local New York
(40:38):
news media when he was working at the ESPN New
York station, and we once were at a New York
Knicks game together along with the president of ESPN, and
had had a very good conversation and he didn't play
me at all, and he didn't try any of the
big steven A. Smith stuff. And I like him, but
I do think this ends. And first off, it's a
(41:00):
violation of every tenant ESPN has had since it went
on the air in nineteen seventy nine, to which I
subscribed at all times, which was not not to mix
politics and sports on the air in a high profile way.
In other words, I was when I was a television
political commentator. My ESPN work was radio only. I didn't
(41:22):
go on TV and when I was on ESPN doing TV,
I did not do any politics at all anywhere else,
I just did sports. This is something else. And I
think this ends up with Stephen not getting the presidential
nomination of whichever party he's seeking it from, because I
can't tell. And it does not get with him becoming
(41:45):
a prominent political commentator, because even this lack of depth
will not resonate with the dumber audiences that cover or
are interested in the coverage of politics. And I wonder
if it ends up with him losing his job at ESPN,
or at least his influence at ESPN, or at least
his prominen city ESPN, because if he's now involved in
(42:07):
things like a fake oh, hold me back, I don't.
I don't really want to ever run for president, but
if there's no other choice, I guess I'll be forced
to do it. Well, then maybe I'll consent to it.
Maybe if he's doing that, that's bad enough. Many men, though,
have done that before, and some women. But the panelist
(42:30):
walks off after it turns out that the audience member
is a sixteen year veteran of air traffic control in Dallas.
But he's got to go do his door dash job
now just to pay for his daughter's tuition because of
this damn democratic shutdown of the government. Except the guy
(42:51):
is in Washington, d C. At the moment, but he's
from Dallas. If Stephen had knowledge a forethought of this,
Good night, Stephen A Smith, a little Thurber when we
come back. I believe the first time I ever heard
(43:18):
James Thurber read aloud, it was by William Windham, the
great actor who did so much serious stuff, drama, comedy.
He's a Star Trek Original series key figure. He did
a lot of great acting in so many different roles.
And he did a special on PBS when I was
(43:38):
in college in which he performed as James Thurber, narrated
some of the drawings, recited from memory, many of the
short stories and many of the longer ones too, And
I later had the pleasure of telling him that he
was my inspiration for reading James Thurber aloud, and we
corresponded about how to possibly improve some of the diceier
(44:00):
parts of some of the Thurber stories and make them
useful for twenty first cent for America. Mister Wyndham died
about ten years ago, and I lament him still. I
recorded on tape His Thurber Special on PBS, and I
still have it, not videotape, audiotape, a cassette. We didn't
have home videotape, although I'm proud to say he sent
(44:22):
me a copy of a DVD of the performance, and
one of the stories he reads, or in fact recites,
I will now read for you it is. I like
it very much. It's not considered part of the great
canon of James Thurber, but I think it's terrific. And
it's called Shake Hands with Bertie Dogget by James Thurber.
(44:46):
John Bertie Dogget, known as Bertie to the few people
who speak to him, must be fifty three now, but
he wears his years with a smirk, and he has
as bad a practical joker as ever. Other American cutups
in the Grand Tradition began to disappear in October Night
twenty nine, and they are as hard to find now
(45:07):
as Bison. But Dogget's waggishness has no calendar. You must
have run into him at some party or other. He's
the man whose right hand comes off when you try
to shake it. The late George Bancroft once pulled that
gag in a movie but that was so long ago.
The picture must be a cherished item in the Museum
of Modern Arts Film Library even now, when everybody else
(45:31):
was running the gamut of bomb fear from A to H.
Birdie Dogget was at Grand Central with one roller skate,
which he managed to attach to the shoe of a
man sleeping on a bench. When the fellow woke and
stood up, he described a brief, desperate semi circle clutched
a woman shopper about the knees, dragged her and her
(45:53):
bundles to the cold floor, and was attacked by her
muzzled Scottie Dogget, as always, was the first to lend
a hand, helping the woman to her feet, and then
turning to the man, where the hell's your other skate?
He demanded, sharply, that's what caused all this trouble. He
took his skate off the victim's foot and disappeared into
(46:13):
the crowd that had begun to gather. What's the matter
over there, a small man asked him apprehensively. Dogget shrugged, Uh.
They found a woman with a ticking package, he said.
The other man turned and left the station, missing the train.
He had told his wife he would take. Doggett's pranks
usually have the effect of involving people on their far edges,
(46:36):
one or two of whom have been divorced as a result.
A publisher I know thinks dogget would make a good story.
I disagree, because I don't think there's anything good about
the fellow, but I have done some checking up on
him out of force of habit. His father, the late
Carol Lamb Dogget, was a Methodist minister, and his mother
(46:57):
was a witch, born Ata June Birdie. When her son
was only ten, she taught him how to set stranger's
umbrellas on fire. After an April shower, she would sally
forth with the little Hellion. They lived in Dayton in
search of a citizen with a floppy umbrella. After an
April shower, Dayton men lower their umbrellas without bothering to
(47:19):
roll them. Missus Dogget would hunt until she found a
man waiting for a street car, his umbrella sagging open
at his side. She would then surreptitiously fill the umbrella
with paper, several dozen kitchen matches, and perhaps one or
two ping pong balls. As the street car approached, she
would drop a lighted match into the umbrella. Now, hell
(47:43):
hath no dismay like that of a gentleman whose wet
umbrella suddenly bursts into flame. Instead of rolling the thing
to smother the blaze or simply throwing it away, nine
out of ten men, according to Dogget's statistics, will flail
it around in the air, thus increasing the conflict. Many
(48:06):
of Missus Doggett's victims were arrested for disturbing the peace
or for arson. Bertie Doggett has never been much interested
in the exasperating paraphernalia of the trick and puzzle shops.
He still uses the wax hand, and he has tried
out dribble glasses, whoopee cushions, the foul smelling stuff you
(48:27):
put on chair bottoms to make people think they've just
sat on a lighted cigarette, and other such juvenile props,
but they never got a real hold on his fancy.
He likes the elaborate rib involving a lot of people,
the more the better. He will take a sack full
of cold poached eggs to some crowded Fifth Avenue store
(48:48):
at Christmas time and slip them one at a time
into the pockets of shoppers husbands, and he dreams of
bumping into a woman visitor in the ancient glass and
crystal room of some museum, dropping an ordinary table tumbler
on the tile floor, and sweet God, lady, you have
broken the sacred chalice of King Alexander and making her
(49:13):
believe it. He has pulled this gag over and over
since nineteen twenty four, but never successfully, with the result
that he has appeared sixteen times in Jefferson Market Court
alone on charges of disturbing the peace, jostling, and molestation.
What dogget probably enjoys more than anything else is following
(49:34):
a couple of women along Fifth Avenue or Madison, keeping
discreetly out of sight but well within earshot, until he
hears one of the two ladies call the other by name.
He says that women are fond of using each other's
full name, as in Marriam Shirtle. I never heard of
such a thing in all my born days. As soon
(49:57):
as miss Shirtle let us say has thus been fully identified,
Doggett will walk briskly ahead for several blocks and then
retrace his steps. This soon brings him face to face
with his quarry, upon whom he will pounce with a
delighted why Miriam Shirtle, fancy meeting you here uncross those
lovely eyes and tell me I have been a young
(50:19):
woman he wants accosted like this in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, asked
him to her house for cocktails in the hope that
some member of her family would know who he was,
but nobody was home. His hostess turned out to be
a bore, so Bertie put knockout drops in her second martini,
and after she had passed out, he stole a marble
(50:40):
plaque of kitchener from her mother's room and he went away.
The next day it arrived at the Shirtles, beautifully wrapped
and bearing a card with the simple legend Married Christmas
from the President of the United States. John Bertie Doggett
married a tapioca brain one afternoon twenty years ago, possible
(51:04):
because he had lost a bet nobody knows. He took
her to his house and told her to wait in
the living room while he went upstairs and quieted his
two great danes. He put a record of a dog
fight on a phonograph he kept in his bedroom and
slipped quietly out the back door. At three in the morning,
he showed up in the living room with two match players,
(51:26):
lou Gettling and Vic Talbot. Who's this disconsolate female? Talbot
demanded fairly, using an incurable antipathy to games of chance
and cunning, The bride drew herself up stiffly. I am
Missus John Berdie Doggett, she said, striving for a outeur.
(51:49):
The name will not sustain. I forgot about her wind Doggett.
After all, we haven't been married twenty or thirty years.
I've only been married eleven hours, Missus Doggett, the former
ann Queeley, went home to her mother, Missus Paul Coueleie,
and never saw Bertie again. I join her in the
(52:09):
fervent hope that he may someday choke on his candied
dice and pass forever out of our consciousness. He is
a hard man to forget, though. I never start to
get out of a chair no matter where I am,
without glancing at my shoes to see if I am
wearing one roller skate and feeling in my pockets for
(52:30):
old cold eggs. I've done all the damage I can
do here. Thank you for listening to this unfocused edition
(52:53):
of the program. Due to illness and other issues, most
of our Countdown music was arranged, produced and performed by
Brian Ray and John Phillip shaneil. Our musical directories of
Countdown produced by TKO Others Mister Ray on guitars, bass
and drums, Mister Chanelle handling, orchestration and keyboards. Now our
satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best baseball
stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. The Oldraman theme from ESPN two,
(53:17):
written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Is
the sports music. Other music ranged and performed by the
group No Horns Allowed. Everything else was as always my fault,
including what happens when I just sit here and ramble.
Maybe I'll walk off the stage now and protest. That's
countdown for today. Day two hundred and seventy four of
(53:38):
America held hostage, just one and eighty nine days until
the scheduled end of Trump's lame duck and lame brained
term unless he is removed sooner by MAGA or the
Psychopathy Test or Tile and All or No Kings or
who knows. The next scheduled countdown is Thursday. I expect
(53:58):
to have written that one in advance till then. I'm
Keith Oldraman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck,
(54:22):
and I agree with Cardiff's Countdown with Keith Olderman is
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Keith Olbermann
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