April 26, 2024 • 45 mins
SERIES 2 EPISODE 165: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Justice Samuel Alito should wake up tomorrow in Gitmo. Or in a hospital prison ward being examined for illness, mental or otherwise.
He and the other Conservative members of the Supreme Court are as dangerous to the future of this country and its citizens and its freedoms and its representative form of government, as any terrorists who have ever lived. If presidents knew they might be prosecuted for little things like trying to overturn a valid election and illegally staying in office, Alito told the lawyer representing Jack Smith, they would be way more likely to try to overturn a valid election and illegally stay in office. So, if you want to preserve democracy, you CAN’T prosecute a former president for trying to overturn a valid election and illegally staying in office.
THAT is the constitutional position of the leading justice on the Supreme Court, the ones Trump’s sheep follow, echoing almost word-for-word, things that the mad traitor Trump has posted on his social media feed about persecutions and retributions and retirements. This is Samuel Alito telling you that the way to insure peaceful transitions of power is: you can’t prosecute a lame duck president who partially – and nearly FULLY – disrupted the peaceful transition of power.
It sounds like something Joseph Heller CUT from his novel Catch-22 as too stupid to be useful as political satire.
And it just went downhill from there. They asked Trump's lawyer if assassination of the opposing presidential candidate or a military coup might be considered a president's "official acts" and he said yes.
Ultimately, what the six conservatives on this destructive, fascist court hinted at yesterday, was how far they would go to prostitute themselves to rule FOR Trump in any case that comes before them. We’ve already seen them erase the clear mandate in the 14th Amendment because they felt it would deny American democracy the right to vote itself out of existence. We have now heard them try to cobble together any bullshit they had in their brains to immunize Trump for his countless crimes. But we have also been forewarned that if a case comes before THIS court relative to THIS election, they will figure out what is best for Trump and make up the reasons why.
They WILL.
After yesterday, you and I now KNOW this.
ALSO: The gag order Trump keeps violating in New York will require another hearing with Justice Merchan. But not until next Wednesday. Because we all know we have all the time in the world. On the other hand, Trump addressed all his many legal cases late yesterday and sounded terrible. Breathless. You know how old he sounded? 206!
B-Block (24:50) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: For the first time they all come from one newspaper, for misdeeds revealed in one article. They are New York Times Washington Bureau Chief Elizabeth Bumiller, writer Peter Baker, and publisher A.G. Sulzberger, and they are the vindictive little shits who could help cost us democracy. Because as Politico reports, Sulzberger has ordered the paper to fixate on Joe Biden's age as payback for Biden refusing to give The Times a one-on-one interview. Apparently Sulzberger thinks when Trump comes to round up the liberals, intellectuals, and reporters, everybody at The Times will be issued a pass.
C-Block (38:50) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: Deliberately chosen to have nothing to do with Trump or politics or The Times, his wonderful story of a loathed practical jokester: "Meet Birdey Dogged."
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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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. Just
as Samuel Alito should wake up tomorrow in Gitmo or
(00:26):
in a hospital prison ward being examined for schizophrenia or
brain tumors or something, he and the other conservative members
of the Supreme Court are as dangerous to the future
of this country and its citizens, and its freedoms and
its form of representative government as any terrorists who have
ever lived. I knew the Alito Court hearing, and we
(00:51):
can't call it the Roberts Court. We were reminded yesterday
Roberts is an impotent frontman. This is the Alito Court.
I knew the Elito Court hearing was going to be bad,
and I tried to convey that yesterday, but I honestly
did not believe and would not imagine it would be
that bad. If presidents knew they might be prosecuted for
(01:11):
little things like trying to overturn a valid election and
illegally stay in office, Alito told the lawyer representing Jack Smith,
they would be way more likely to try to overturn
a valid election and illegally stay in office. So Alito said,
if you want to preserve democracy, you can't prosecute a
(01:32):
former president for trying to overturn a valid election and
illegally stay in office.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
What is required for the functioning of a stable democratic society,
which is something that we all want. I'm sure you
would agree with me that a stable democratic society requires
that a candidate who loses an election, even a close one,
(01:59):
even a hotly contested one, leave office peacefully. If that
candidates is the incumvent.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
That is the constitutional position of the leading justice on
the Supreme Court, the justice that Trump's sheep on the
Court follow. That is Alito echoing, virtually word for word
things that the mad Trader Trump has posted on his
social media feed about persecutions and retributions and even retirement.
(02:28):
This is Samuel Alito telling you that the way to
ensure peaceful transitions of power is you can't prosecute a
lame duck president who partially and nearly fully disrupted the
peaceful transition of power. It sounds like something Joseph Heller
cut from his novel Catch twenty two for being too
(02:51):
stupid to be useful as political satire. It is also
a blackmail threat. Here's a crazy thought, sam Alito. If
you are actually worried about some sort of cycle of
presidents prosecuting the expert presidents that they have defeated in
large part because the ex president was corrupt and incompetent
and disloyal to the country and a criminal and tried
(03:14):
to overthrow the democracy. How about you get your side, Sam,
how about you get you and your fascists to stop
supporting psychotic criminals like Donald Trump. Or if you just
can't dismiss the glorious idea that the ends that our
Republican power do justify the means, namely the utter blasphemy
(03:37):
of a Trump presidency, what about instead getting Trump to
sign some sort of document in which he forfeits I
don't know, fifty billion dollars if as president he tries
to persecute Joe Biden. Or maybe Sam, you could break
this cycle that you have conjured out of thin air
by you know, addressing the fact that you, Sam Alito,
(03:59):
are personally backing America's hitler. As these six evil, corrupt, partisan, useless,
anti democracy gangsters on the Supreme Theocratic Court flailed around
yesterday looking for an excuse, any excuse to bury the
evidence against Trump and to fix the upcoming election so
(04:20):
that he again seize power. I found myself wishing that
they would follow Liz Cheney's plea in the New York
Times that they issue a nearly immediate order, but not
in order to eliminate forever the argument that there is
presidential immunity, but instead to affirm and establish that there
is presidential immunity, so that President Biden could immediately arrest
(04:45):
the lot of them and Trump and Trump's henchmen. Because
what the six conservatives on this destructive fascist court hinted
at yesterday was how far they would go to prostitute
themselves to rule for Trump in any case that comes
before them. We have already seen them erase the clear
(05:07):
mandate in the fourteenth Amendment because they felt it would
deny American democracy the right to vote itself out of existence.
We have now heard them try to cobble together any
bullshit they had in their tiny brains to immunize Trump
for his countless crimes. But more importantly, we have now
(05:27):
been forewarned that if a case comes before this court
relative to this election, these justices will figure out what
is best for Trump and then make up the reasons
why they will. You and I may have assumed this,
(05:48):
but after yesterday, you and I now know this. This
is the Trump attorney John Sower, whom Alito and Clarence
Thomas and Roberts and the three Trump stenographers were clearly
applauding and encouraging and siding with yesterday. And this is
mister Souer explaining to Justice Sonya Sotomayor that you can't
(06:09):
prosecute a former president for any official act. And yeah,
you know what, Trump ordering the assassination of the guy
running against him for president. Yeah, that could be an
official act. So you couldn't prosecute Trump for assassinating the
other guy.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt
person and he orders the military or orders someone to
assassinate him, is that within his official acts for which
he can get immunity.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
It would depends on the hypothetical. But we can see
that could well be an official He.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Could again the temptation to say, hey, scotus, go ahead,
establish presidential immunity right now. John Sower's theory that assassination
of the opposing candidate is an official act of the
president and did thus not subject to prosecution. Let's give
(07:07):
that some legs. On the bright side, a political assassination
ordered by Trump, that would be only one dead guy. Right,
It's not like Trump ordering a military coup to keep
him in office and thus killing civilians along with civilian
government in America. It's not like you want us to
declare that Trump ordering a military coup to keep him
(07:30):
in office and thus killing civilians and civilian government in
America is also an official act. Oh sorry, that is
Justice Kagan with Trump attorney John Sower.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
How about it if a president orders the military to
stage a coup.
Speaker 5 (07:48):
I think that, as the Chief Justice pointed out earlier,
where there is a whole series of you know, sort
of guidelines against that, so to speak, like the UCMJ
prohibits the military from following a plainfully unlawful act. If
one adopted Justice Alito's test, that would fall outside. Now,
if one adopts, for example, the Fitzgerald test, and we advanced,
that might well be an official act. And he would
(08:09):
have to be, as I'll say, in response to all
these kinds of hypotheticals, has to be impeaching convicted before
he can be criminally prosecuted.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
So a president and I'm dropping the pretext here Trump's
attorney is talking about Trump, Alito is talking about Trump,
Sodamaiora and Kagan are talking about Trump. So Trump could
have ordered Joe Biden assassinated and not be subject to
any criminal prosecution for doing it. And he could have
(08:36):
imposed a military dictatorship, and after some kind of you know,
a civil warish thingy, he could have been deposed and
not killed in the process. And when the newly restored
civilian government of the United States of America went to
put him on trial for doing all this, oh sorry,
that was an official act of a president. You can't
put him on trial just for overthrowing the democracy and
(09:00):
establishing a coup in a military dictator Again, just rule
all this into existence now, and let's get all of
it out of the way, because with this Court certainly
going to delay any ruling on this until July third,
then thus postpone even the emulsified remains of Jack Smith's
case getting to a jury before the election. I can't
(09:21):
think of any other way to stop these Supreme Court
bastards from continuing to act as Trump's magic wand whenever
he needs one, and I cannot think of any length
they would not go to after this election to protect Trump.
And oh, by the way, remember the idea that June
thirtieth or July third was itself an optimistic date for
(09:44):
a ruling of any kind in this case by the
Supreme Court. Remember the premise that these whores could make
it even worse and delay the whole thing for months
more beyond that, well into twenty twenty five, by use
of remand remand sending it back to Judge Tanya Chutkin
and making her run the charges against some kind of
(10:04):
checklist of maybe this is an official act, maybe this
is an official act. And then she rules, and then
Trump appeals to the DC Court of Appeals, and then
it goes back to the Supreme Court six months from now.
Guess which one of the terrorists in Robes got to
turn that rumor into reality. Yes, the first paralegal ever
(10:29):
appointed to the Supreme Court, Amy Coney Handmaid's tail.
Speaker 6 (10:35):
Barrett, you say, even if the court were inclined to
recognize some immunity for former presidence official acts, it should
remand for trial because the indictment alleges substantial private conduct.
And you said that the private conduct would be sufficient. Yes,
the Special Council has expressed some concern for speed and
wanting to move forward. So you know, the normal process
(10:55):
what mister Sour asked would be for us to remand
if we decided that there were some official acts community
and to let that be sorted out below. It is
another option for the Special Council to just proceed based
on the private conduct and drop the official conduct.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
That's great, amy break the case in half and just
drop all those official acts from the prosecution. So now
when Judge Chuckkin somehow says yes, this charge and this
one and this one and this one and this one,
they're not official acts. They're private acts. So Trump can
be prosecuted on these. Trump can then start new lawsuits
(11:35):
over each decision she makes and keep the case in
the courts until the year twenty one hundred, when you
Christo fascists are carrying around his stuffed body and claiming
that even though he was born one hundred and fifty
four years ago and is now dead, he's still president
because he's just that good at it. To be fair.
(12:00):
The Barrett idea, sorry, the idea they had Barrett express.
It's clear Barrett has never had an idea in her
life other than how to express more enthusiasm when she says,
we've been sent good weather. The idea Barrett expressed contains
the only germ of a sliver of a chance, of
a possibility that there will be any kind of Trump
(12:21):
presidential election subversion trial before the election. The Special Council's
Office lawyer seemed to be completely ready to proceed with
a case that only pertains to Trump's personal acts, so
long as his official acts could still be used as evidence.
I mean, what the hell. One conviction on one charge
(12:44):
could be enough to put Trump behind bars, at least
until Alito figures out a new scam. It's almost as
if Jack Smith saw this coming. I hope to god
he did, because I did not. As I said, I'm
now over here in the declare there is presidential immunity,
and have Biden send Trump in the Alito six to
(13:04):
get Moke camp own by the way, go in grace.
And now, to summarize the nightmare at the Supreme Court yesterday,
let's turn to our special legal analyst.
Speaker 7 (13:16):
The US Supreme Court had a monumental hearing on community
and the immunity having to do with presidential immunity, and
I think it was made clear. I hope it was
made clear that a president has to have immunity. You
don't have a president.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
For monumental immunity, an immunity having to do with immunity immunity.
Do you see what happens? Do you see what happens
when you keep him from falling asleep in court? In
(13:56):
that court? It started yesterday with the prosecution demanding he'd
be found in contempt for remarks about Cohen and Pecker,
and I aiming the jury remarks he literally made on
the way into court minutes earlier, and then the entire
subject of the gag order, and even some kind of
metaphorical warning shot from Justice Meyrshan. The subject just vanished,
(14:20):
never came up again all day at one hundred Center Street,
though Mershawn now says he will conduct another hearing into
the gag Order and its violations next Wednesday, because, as
any judge would obviously conclude from what was said at
the Supreme Court yesterday, what's the rush? There was a
(14:42):
lot of Pecker testimony about buying and selling stories and
Trump refusing to reimburse him for the bribe. Karen McDougall,
and yes, that was a lot of talk about Trump
stiffing Pecker, and all Trump's defense has, by the way,
is that Pecker met with prosecutors on August two, twenty eighteen,
(15:03):
but he does not run remember the exact date. Therefore,
something perhaps most interesting from the courtroom was a text
by then National Inquirer editor in chief Dylan Howard to
an unidentified relative, which the prosecution read. It was sent
(15:24):
the night Trump was elected. Quote, He's just been named
president elect. At least if he wins, Dylan Howard writes,
I will be pardoned for electoral fraud. You may have
heard that. Before the trial resumed in Manhattan yesterday, Trump
had another one of these spontaneous interactions with real people.
(15:49):
Like at the bodega last week in Harlem, it turned
out to be entirely staffed by members of Young Republicans
for Fascism. This time it was construction workers at Park
and forty ninth who just happened to be wearing Trump merch. Badly,
most media, especially the news operations in New York, did
(16:10):
not recognize that this was an astro turf event, even
with them all wearing hats with Trump lettering on it.
Even after the Fox Morning Show team foolishly asked, it's
not very bright. Reporter on the scene, Alexis McAdams, how
all these construction workers found out about Trump being there?
(16:32):
And she let the cat out of the bag, and
she explained it had been pre arranged by the Trump
campaign and all the guys you saw on camera had
been vetted. By the way. If that reporter's name Alexis
mccadams of Fox News, If that sounds familiar, Remember the
Bentley that went airborne at the International Bridge at Niagara
(16:54):
Falls just after Thanksgiving and Fox reported it had sources
who had confirmed it was a terrorist act and the
car was full of explosives, and then they began to
speculate that it was a Hamas attack the US. The
Fox reporter who had the sources confirming it was terrorism
and a car full of stuff. Oops, it was really
just a bad driver in a horrific accident. That reporter
(17:15):
was Alexis McAdams and she still works there. There was
news of a third Trump case yesterday. He will not
get a new trial in the second Egene Carol case.
The eighty million dollar award, at least not from Judge
Lewis Kaplan. Honestly, we have to number all the court
cases I have lost track in Trump adjacent legal news.
(17:38):
Plea deal for ex marine John Perez, who was stalking
former FBI lawyer Lisa Page. This is an example of
the results of trump stochastic terrorism. Last December, this Perez
showed up at least four times at Lisa Page's home,
once interacting with her son. This was after the FBI
had assured Page that he was no threat to her.
(18:01):
She is still outraged and she should be. The yel
they made with this guy only bans him from the
DC area for the next six months and insists that
he goes to therapy six times. A polling note, the
swing towards Biden is so big that even five thirty
eight dot com has begun to sit up and take notice.
(18:24):
It's average of national polls, it says, is now tied.
A month ago, it was Trump plus two. The state
by states still has Trump ahead in the swing states.
But if you think Trump is not panicking, you are
wildly mistaken. He posted a graphic late yesterday after court
Trump crushes Biden in Pennsylvania and beneath it Trump forty
(18:45):
seven percent, Biden forty six percent, forty seven to forty
six is crushing only if you are panicking. And to
tie all this together, for years we I have wondered
when Trump would hit what marathoners call the wall, that
(19:09):
moment in the race when your stamina meets age and
exhaustion and pain and gravity and you discover, to your dismay,
oh look, gravity works. This was defendant Jay Trump as
he reached the cameras after the day ended in court
(19:32):
in New York yesterday. And you know how old he sounds.
He sounds two hundred and six.
Speaker 6 (19:38):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
Everybody today was breathtaking.
Speaker 7 (19:42):
This room is on.
Speaker 4 (19:43):
What went on was breathtaking.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
And breath taking. You bet your ass. Trump's words may
not be planned, and they are hardly logical, but never
think they are random. He said it a couple of
times he was having trouble breathing. It might be another
(20:05):
explanation for that, however, other than the possibility that the
proverbial sand is running out in his hourglass. Next time
you hear Trump complain that the trial keeps him off
the campaign trail, CNN is reporting that he spent the
day off from the trial Wednesday playing golf in New Jersey.
(20:34):
Also of interest here. Never before, Never before have all
of the medallists in Worst Persons come from one newspaper
and earned their spots because of one article about that
one newspaper. The New York Times is not going to
go out of business if you cancel your subscription, but
(20:54):
it just has given you three more reasons to cancel
it anyway. Clueless scumbags, unaware that their pomposity could cost
us democracy. The New York Times scumbags. That's next. This
is countdown.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
This is countdown with Keith old Woman.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Still ahead of us on this initiative. Countdown Fridays with
Thurber and without Trump, and without politics, and without anything
resembling Trump or politics. Thurber's quiet, subtle condemnation of a
practical jokester from Hell. Meet Bertie Doggett. Next first, still
(21:58):
more new idiots to talk about. The daily round up
with the miscreants, morons and dunning kruegerfecs specimens who constitute
today's worst persons in The New York Times. And as
I teased, something special, all the winners today come from
the same newspaper, Your New York Times. And they come
(22:19):
from the same article about the same newspaper a piece
by Eli Stokels in Politico. I am a daily critic
of Politico, but occasionally it does catch lightning in a bottle,
and very deftly. In fact, this fits in with this
week's Thurber story. It's subtle and you never really notice
the knife drawn, let alone plunged. Politico lets the New
(22:42):
York Times destroy itself on one topic. The piece is
about why the Times has what is obvious to everyone
else accept people at the Times a grudge against President Biden,
and why it is actually slanting its coverage against him,
even though other parts of the newspaper appear to be
(23:04):
awareasionally that the democracy is at stake, and any gratuitous
criticism of Biden, like the Times weekly piece on how
old he is or its weekly stupid column by Maureen Dowd,
how that increases the chances that we'll have, you know,
a dictatorship next January. I have said here repeatedly that
(23:26):
it is clear that the people who run the New
York Times think they will somehow be issued passes that
will keep them from going to the Fred Trump Memorial
media re education concentration camp with the rest of us.
I mean, they really simultaneously perceive the threat, and yet
they don't seem to remember they would be among the
(23:49):
first or second group of people to be punished or persecuted,
or prosecuted or literally rounded up. Because whatever petty, childish
complaints they have about how Joe Biden deals with them,
and however Biden and the White House really feel about
The Times, guess what Trump and his monstrous fascists really
(24:09):
don't like The Times and would like to see its
building burned to the ground. The Stokels piece for Politico
points out episodes in which the White House might have
been nicer, or more generous, or fed the Times unimaginably
large opinion of itself a little more. But mostly it
just lets key Times people hoist themselves with their own petards.
(24:33):
And the three who are the biggest petards are our
worst person's medalists today, the bronze worse. Elizabeth but Miller, Washington,
Bureau chief of The New York Times. I know you've
never heard of her. I've heard of her. People in
the business have heard of her. She's Northwestern, she's Columbia journalism.
(24:54):
She was the White House correspondent, So in Times land
she's a Hall of Famer and one day in March
twenty twenty three, somebody at the Times DC bureau screwed up.
It wasn't a regular White House reporter, so when he
asked a Biden administration spokesman for a quote late one
night on a story, the spokesman emailed one back on background,
(25:16):
meaning you could say it was from the administration, but
you could not say who personally said it. It's silly,
stupid kind of rules, like the way figure skating used
to start with school figures, where the skaters had to
prove that they could trace figure eights into the ice
before they could actually dance. But these guys still have
(25:36):
the journalistic equivalent of school figures. They still performed these
stupid rituals, and the Times guy screwed it up. He
wrote a seven instead of an eight. He printed the
spokesman's name, he attributed the quote that was supposed to
be on background. While the White House got pissed it
asked to speak to the Times White House editor, and
the same guy who screwed up the quote now screwed
(25:57):
up again and gave them the wrong phone number, not
the number of the Times White House editor, but the
number of the Times Washington Editor her honor, Queen Elizabeth B. Miller.
According to Politico, bue Miller quote express dismay that the
issue had been escalated to her level, was reluctant to
(26:18):
alter a story that had already been online for over
twelve hours. When the White House tried to bring up
another concern with the story, bu Miller just hung up.
As Political explains, there have been bad feelings ever since,
bad feelings at the Times. The Washington bureau chief of
the Times is so important that when she felt like
(26:40):
the problem and the person calling about the problem from
the White House were beneath her, she hung up on them.
And the Times is mad at the White House because
the Washington New York Times bureau chief hung up on
the White House. They're not being realistic about what we
do for a living. Politico quotes Elizabeth bu Miller is
(27:02):
telling them, you could be a force for demachocracy, liberal democracy.
You don't have to be a force for the Biden Whitehouse.
I think the technical term for that is ass clownery.
When exactly do you plan to start being a force
for liberal democracy? Elizabeth ask clown? B Miller The runner
up worser Peter Baker. I don't know how many times
(27:25):
I've mentioned Peter Baker here and in other venues. I
know he hasn't noticed because my podcasts are not available
to him up there on his high horse. He is
one of those Times guys, not just from the Times,
but he's one of the ones at the Times who
withheld news of the Trump administration debacles until he could
(27:46):
get a book deal. He also once insisted that Joe
Biden's job had been made more difficult by quote a
tough column by David Ignatius. Well, that's a good way
to start to assess Peter Baker. He thinks stuff written
by long forgotten pontificators in the Times is what makes
life difficult for the president of the effing United States.
(28:10):
Not fascism or Trump or insurrections or the Supreme Court
or Putin or the Republicans, or North Korea or climate change. No, no,
David Ignatius is making life difficult for Biden anyway. The
Politico piece has two wonderful vignettes reemphasizing how clueless and
(28:30):
condescending Peter Baker is. It's Baker who's written most of
the Biden age stories. He told Politico quote. Every White
House I've covered complains about our coverage. It comes with
the territory. But because of Trump, there's this new assumption
that the New York Times and other media are supposed
to put their thumb on the scale and take sides,
(28:52):
and we don't do that. I am reminded suddenly of
my favorite TV news promo of all time. The BBC
ran this for year. It featured their Washington bureau chief,
arrogant and disconnected from reality as Peter Baker is, and
as she walked through the streets of DC, condescendingly insisting
(29:14):
that the BBC could be trusted and nobody else could
because the BBC had never taken sides in any election,
or story or war. These words appeared as giant sculptures
behind her on the streets she traversed. The first time
I saw this promo, I burst out laughing. I actually
wrote somebody I knew at the BBC and said, are
(29:35):
we sure about this? The BBC never took sides in
any war? How about that one war when it was
sending out secret coded messages to British troops in the
newscasts and secret coded messages to resistance fighters around the
world in their music shows. I mean, you know that
(29:56):
Big War what is it called the Big War with Hitler?
Where Hitler was specifically sending bombers to London to blow
up the bill the BBC was in the BBC was
an actual written Hitler target. What was that World War something?
What was it called that they took the side? What
was it? Come on, come down? World War World War
twelve twelve something with a two in it? Did you
(30:20):
take sides in that one? They eventually killed the promo? Well,
I hope you damn will did take sides in that promo.
And Peter Baker because of Trump, there's this new assumption
that the New York Times and other media are supposed
to put their thumb on the scale, take sides, and
we don't do that. Hey, guess what, you're wrong. You
don't have to treat other people fairly if they're trying
to kill democracy and kill the constitution and kill free
(30:44):
pres and oh, by the way, kill you, Peter Baker.
This isn't a game. We don't do that. We don't
put our thumb on this not a scale. These guys
were at the Supreme Court yesterday insisting assassinations and military
coups were all part of their president's official duties. You
think wiping out The New York Times is going to
take more than half a day under President Dictator heil
(31:07):
Hitler Trump. And oh, by the way, Baker, nobody is
asking you to put your thumb on the scale. They're
asking you to take it off the scale and to
stop doing unethical, unjournalistic things like covering up Donald Trump's
malfeasance in office and keeping it out of your goddamned
newspaper until you get your book advance. And by the way,
(31:30):
it isn't your thumb you've put on the scale, Peter Baker,
it's your schlung. Zip it up, boy. But our winner,
the Times boss, the publisher Ag Sulzberger, who got The
Times for free. The newspaper writes Politico carries its own
singular obsession with the president, aggrieved over his refusal to
(31:53):
give the paper a sit down interview that publisher Ag
Sulzberger and the other top editors believe to be its birthright.
It gets worse last May, when Vice President Kamala Harris
arrived at the newspaper's Midtown headquarters for an off the
record meeting with around forty Times journalists, Salzburger devoted several
(32:14):
minutes to asking her why Biden was still refusing. In
Salzburger's view, according to two people familiar with his private
comments on the subject, only an interview with a paper
like The Times can verify that the eighty one year
old Biden is still fit to hold the presidency. Unquote.
(32:37):
If that's true, Ag Salzburger thinks the Times is, you know,
like the Supreme Court, but the ps to resistance. In
the entire political piece about Ag Sealzburger is an anonymous
quote about this publisher who got The Times for free,
and about which, once they've read it, the Times is
(32:58):
likely to launch I don't know, a six month, eight
hundred and eighty seven million dollar internal investigation quote. These
Biden people think that the problem is Peter Baker or
whatever reporter they're mad at. That day, one Times journalist
said it's Ag. He's the one who is pissed that
(33:19):
Biden hasn't done any interviews and quietly encourages all the
tough reporting on his age. Oh man, cancel your Time subscriptions.
I did, and I've been a subscriber since nineteen sixty nine,
and the New York Times can go f itself. Ag Selzberger,
(33:41):
publisher of the New York Times. Remember, Ag, if Trump wins,
at least as they march you off to the camps
alongside me and all those Biden press aids, you can
go to the gulag happy knowing that you sure showed
Joe Biden two days worst person. And I believe the
(34:34):
first time I ever heard 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
(34:55):
on PBS when I was in college in which he
performed as James Thurber, narrated some of the drawings, recited
from memory, many of the short story 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
(35:15):
improve some of the diceier parts of some of the
Thurber stories and make them useful for twenty first century 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.
(35:37):
We didn't have home videotape, although I'm proud to say
he sent 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 Doggett by James Thurber.
(36:04):
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 nineteen
twenty nine, and they are as hard to find now
(36:25):
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
(36:49):
was running the gamut of bomb fear from A to H.
Bertie 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
(37:11):
bundles to the cold floor, and was attacked by her
muzzled Scottie Dogged, 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
(37:31):
the crowd that had begun to gather. What's the matter
over there, a small man asked him apprehensively. Doggett 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
(37:53):
far edges, one of 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
they're 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,
(38:14):
and his mother was a witch. Born at a 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
(38:36):
bothering to 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,
(39:01):
hath no dismay like that of aman 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 conflagration. Many of
(39:24):
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 put
(39:45):
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 sackful of cold
poached egg eggs to some crowded Fifth Avenue store at
(40:06):
Christmas time and slipped 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 sobbing. Sweet God, lady, you have
broken the sacred chalice of King Alexander and making her
(40:31):
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 doug Ittt probably enjoys more than anything else is
(40:52):
following 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 Miriam Shirtle, I never
heard of such a thing in all my born days.
(41:14):
As soon as missus 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
(41:35):
been a young 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
(41:58):
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 Merry Christmas
from the President of the United States. John Bertie Dogget
married a tapioca brain one afternoon twenty years ago, possibly
(42:22):
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,
(42:44):
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 Bertie dogget she said, striving for a outeur.
(43:07):
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 Kheley, went home to her mother, Missus Paul W. Coeley,
and never saw Bertie again. I join her in the
(43:27):
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.
Speaker 4 (43:47):
Pockets for old cold eggs.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
you for listening. Countdown. Musical directors Brian Ray and John
Phillip Schanel arranged, produced, and performed most of our music.
Mister Ray was on guitars, bass and drums, Mister Shanelle
handled orchestration and keyboards, and it was produced by Tko Brothers.
Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions, arranged and
performed by the group No Horns Allowed. Sports Music is
(44:28):
the Olderman theme from ESPN two. It was written by
Mitch Warren Davis and it appears courtesy of ESPN Inc.
Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Fauss.
The best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was
my friend Jonathan Banks from Breaking Bad and everything else
was pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this.
The one hundred and ninety fourth day until the twenty
(44:51):
twenty four presidential election, the one two hundred and seventh
day since Dementia J. Trump's first attempted coup against the
democratically elected government of the United States. Use the not
regular given elector objection option, use the Insurrection Act, use
the justice system, use the mental health system to stop
(45:12):
him from doing it again. While we still can and
before the Supreme Court stops us. The next scheduled countdown
is Tuesday, Boltons as the news warrants till then, I'm
Keith Olderman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.
(45:41):
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. Just
as Samuel Alito should wake up tomorrow in Gitmo or
(00:26):
in a hospital prison ward being examined for schizophrenia or
brain tumors or something, he and the other conservative members
of the Supreme Court are as dangerous to the future
of this country and its citizens, and its freedoms and
its form of representative government as any terrorists who have
ever lived. I knew the Alito Court hearing, and we
(00:51):
can't call it the Roberts Court. We were reminded yesterday
Roberts is an impotent frontman. This is the Alito Court.
I knew the Elito Court hearing was going to be bad,
and I tried to convey that yesterday, but I honestly
did not believe and would not imagine it would be
that bad. If presidents knew they might be prosecuted for
(01:11):
little things like trying to overturn a valid election and
illegally stay in office, Alito told the lawyer representing Jack Smith,
they would be way more likely to try to overturn
a valid election and illegally stay in office. So Alito said,
if you want to preserve democracy, you can't prosecute a
(01:32):
former president for trying to overturn a valid election and
illegally stay in office.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
What is required for the functioning of a stable democratic society,
which is something that we all want. I'm sure you
would agree with me that a stable democratic society requires
that a candidate who loses an election, even a close one,
(01:59):
even a hotly contested one, leave office peacefully. If that
candidates is the incumvent.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
That is the constitutional position of the leading justice on
the Supreme Court, the justice that Trump's sheep on the
Court follow. That is Alito echoing, virtually word for word
things that the mad Trader Trump has posted on his
social media feed about persecutions and retributions and even retirement.
(02:28):
This is Samuel Alito telling you that the way to
ensure peaceful transitions of power is you can't prosecute a
lame duck president who partially and nearly fully disrupted the
peaceful transition of power. It sounds like something Joseph Heller
cut from his novel Catch twenty two for being too
(02:51):
stupid to be useful as political satire. It is also
a blackmail threat. Here's a crazy thought, sam Alito. If
you are actually worried about some sort of cycle of
presidents prosecuting the expert presidents that they have defeated in
large part because the ex president was corrupt and incompetent
and disloyal to the country and a criminal and tried
(03:14):
to overthrow the democracy. How about you get your side, Sam,
how about you get you and your fascists to stop
supporting psychotic criminals like Donald Trump. Or if you just
can't dismiss the glorious idea that the ends that our
Republican power do justify the means, namely the utter blasphemy
(03:37):
of a Trump presidency, what about instead getting Trump to
sign some sort of document in which he forfeits I
don't know, fifty billion dollars if as president he tries
to persecute Joe Biden. Or maybe Sam, you could break
this cycle that you have conjured out of thin air
by you know, addressing the fact that you, Sam Alito,
(03:59):
are personally backing America's hitler. As these six evil, corrupt, partisan, useless,
anti democracy gangsters on the Supreme Theocratic Court flailed around
yesterday looking for an excuse, any excuse to bury the
evidence against Trump and to fix the upcoming election so
(04:20):
that he again seize power. I found myself wishing that
they would follow Liz Cheney's plea in the New York
Times that they issue a nearly immediate order, but not
in order to eliminate forever the argument that there is
presidential immunity, but instead to affirm and establish that there
is presidential immunity, so that President Biden could immediately arrest
(04:45):
the lot of them and Trump and Trump's henchmen. Because
what the six conservatives on this destructive fascist court hinted
at yesterday was how far they would go to prostitute
themselves to rule for Trump in any case that comes
before them. We have already seen them erase the clear
(05:07):
mandate in the fourteenth Amendment because they felt it would
deny American democracy the right to vote itself out of existence.
We have now heard them try to cobble together any
bullshit they had in their tiny brains to immunize Trump
for his countless crimes. But more importantly, we have now
(05:27):
been forewarned that if a case comes before this court
relative to this election, these justices will figure out what
is best for Trump and then make up the reasons
why they will. You and I may have assumed this,
(05:48):
but after yesterday, you and I now know this. This
is the Trump attorney John Sower, whom Alito and Clarence
Thomas and Roberts and the three Trump stenographers were clearly
applauding and encouraging and siding with yesterday. And this is
mister Souer explaining to Justice Sonya Sotomayor that you can't
(06:09):
prosecute a former president for any official act. And yeah,
you know what, Trump ordering the assassination of the guy
running against him for president. Yeah, that could be an
official act. So you couldn't prosecute Trump for assassinating the
other guy.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt
person and he orders the military or orders someone to
assassinate him, is that within his official acts for which
he can get immunity.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
It would depends on the hypothetical. But we can see
that could well be an official He.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Could again the temptation to say, hey, scotus, go ahead,
establish presidential immunity right now. John Sower's theory that assassination
of the opposing candidate is an official act of the
president and did thus not subject to prosecution. Let's give
(07:07):
that some legs. On the bright side, a political assassination
ordered by Trump, that would be only one dead guy. Right,
It's not like Trump ordering a military coup to keep
him in office and thus killing civilians along with civilian
government in America. It's not like you want us to
declare that Trump ordering a military coup to keep him
(07:30):
in office and thus killing civilians and civilian government in
America is also an official act. Oh sorry, that is
Justice Kagan with Trump attorney John Sower.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
How about it if a president orders the military to
stage a coup.
Speaker 5 (07:48):
I think that, as the Chief Justice pointed out earlier,
where there is a whole series of you know, sort
of guidelines against that, so to speak, like the UCMJ
prohibits the military from following a plainfully unlawful act. If
one adopted Justice Alito's test, that would fall outside. Now,
if one adopts, for example, the Fitzgerald test, and we advanced,
that might well be an official act. And he would
(08:09):
have to be, as I'll say, in response to all
these kinds of hypotheticals, has to be impeaching convicted before
he can be criminally prosecuted.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
So a president and I'm dropping the pretext here Trump's
attorney is talking about Trump, Alito is talking about Trump,
Sodamaiora and Kagan are talking about Trump. So Trump could
have ordered Joe Biden assassinated and not be subject to
any criminal prosecution for doing it. And he could have
(08:36):
imposed a military dictatorship, and after some kind of you know,
a civil warish thingy, he could have been deposed and
not killed in the process. And when the newly restored
civilian government of the United States of America went to
put him on trial for doing all this, oh sorry,
that was an official act of a president. You can't
put him on trial just for overthrowing the democracy and
(09:00):
establishing a coup in a military dictator Again, just rule
all this into existence now, and let's get all of
it out of the way, because with this Court certainly
going to delay any ruling on this until July third,
then thus postpone even the emulsified remains of Jack Smith's
case getting to a jury before the election. I can't
(09:21):
think of any other way to stop these Supreme Court
bastards from continuing to act as Trump's magic wand whenever
he needs one, and I cannot think of any length
they would not go to after this election to protect Trump.
And oh, by the way, remember the idea that June
thirtieth or July third was itself an optimistic date for
(09:44):
a ruling of any kind in this case by the
Supreme Court. Remember the premise that these whores could make
it even worse and delay the whole thing for months
more beyond that, well into twenty twenty five, by use
of remand remand sending it back to Judge Tanya Chutkin
and making her run the charges against some kind of
(10:04):
checklist of maybe this is an official act, maybe this
is an official act. And then she rules, and then
Trump appeals to the DC Court of Appeals, and then
it goes back to the Supreme Court six months from now.
Guess which one of the terrorists in Robes got to
turn that rumor into reality. Yes, the first paralegal ever
(10:29):
appointed to the Supreme Court, Amy Coney Handmaid's tail.
Speaker 6 (10:35):
Barrett, you say, even if the court were inclined to
recognize some immunity for former presidence official acts, it should
remand for trial because the indictment alleges substantial private conduct.
And you said that the private conduct would be sufficient. Yes,
the Special Council has expressed some concern for speed and
wanting to move forward. So you know, the normal process
(10:55):
what mister Sour asked would be for us to remand
if we decided that there were some official acts community
and to let that be sorted out below. It is
another option for the Special Council to just proceed based
on the private conduct and drop the official conduct.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
That's great, amy break the case in half and just
drop all those official acts from the prosecution. So now
when Judge Chuckkin somehow says yes, this charge and this
one and this one and this one and this one,
they're not official acts. They're private acts. So Trump can
be prosecuted on these. Trump can then start new lawsuits
(11:35):
over each decision she makes and keep the case in
the courts until the year twenty one hundred, when you
Christo fascists are carrying around his stuffed body and claiming
that even though he was born one hundred and fifty
four years ago and is now dead, he's still president
because he's just that good at it. To be fair.
(12:00):
The Barrett idea, sorry, the idea they had Barrett express.
It's clear Barrett has never had an idea in her
life other than how to express more enthusiasm when she says,
we've been sent good weather. The idea Barrett expressed contains
the only germ of a sliver of a chance, of
a possibility that there will be any kind of Trump
(12:21):
presidential election subversion trial before the election. The Special Council's
Office lawyer seemed to be completely ready to proceed with
a case that only pertains to Trump's personal acts, so
long as his official acts could still be used as evidence.
I mean, what the hell. One conviction on one charge
(12:44):
could be enough to put Trump behind bars, at least
until Alito figures out a new scam. It's almost as
if Jack Smith saw this coming. I hope to god
he did, because I did not. As I said, I'm
now over here in the declare there is presidential immunity,
and have Biden send Trump in the Alito six to
(13:04):
get Moke camp own by the way, go in grace.
And now, to summarize the nightmare at the Supreme Court yesterday,
let's turn to our special legal analyst.
Speaker 7 (13:16):
The US Supreme Court had a monumental hearing on community
and the immunity having to do with presidential immunity, and
I think it was made clear. I hope it was
made clear that a president has to have immunity. You
don't have a president.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
For monumental immunity, an immunity having to do with immunity immunity.
Do you see what happens? Do you see what happens
when you keep him from falling asleep in court? In
(13:56):
that court? It started yesterday with the prosecution demanding he'd
be found in contempt for remarks about Cohen and Pecker,
and I aiming the jury remarks he literally made on
the way into court minutes earlier, and then the entire
subject of the gag order, and even some kind of
metaphorical warning shot from Justice Meyrshan. The subject just vanished,
(14:20):
never came up again all day at one hundred Center Street,
though Mershawn now says he will conduct another hearing into
the gag Order and its violations next Wednesday, because, as
any judge would obviously conclude from what was said at
the Supreme Court yesterday, what's the rush? There was a
(14:42):
lot of Pecker testimony about buying and selling stories and
Trump refusing to reimburse him for the bribe. Karen McDougall,
and yes, that was a lot of talk about Trump
stiffing Pecker, and all Trump's defense has, by the way,
is that Pecker met with prosecutors on August two, twenty eighteen,
(15:03):
but he does not run remember the exact date. Therefore,
something perhaps most interesting from the courtroom was a text
by then National Inquirer editor in chief Dylan Howard to
an unidentified relative, which the prosecution read. It was sent
(15:24):
the night Trump was elected. Quote, He's just been named
president elect. At least if he wins, Dylan Howard writes,
I will be pardoned for electoral fraud. You may have
heard that. Before the trial resumed in Manhattan yesterday, Trump
had another one of these spontaneous interactions with real people.
(15:49):
Like at the bodega last week in Harlem, it turned
out to be entirely staffed by members of Young Republicans
for Fascism. This time it was construction workers at Park
and forty ninth who just happened to be wearing Trump merch. Badly,
most media, especially the news operations in New York, did
(16:10):
not recognize that this was an astro turf event, even
with them all wearing hats with Trump lettering on it.
Even after the Fox Morning Show team foolishly asked, it's
not very bright. Reporter on the scene, Alexis McAdams, how
all these construction workers found out about Trump being there?
(16:32):
And she let the cat out of the bag, and
she explained it had been pre arranged by the Trump
campaign and all the guys you saw on camera had
been vetted. By the way. If that reporter's name Alexis
mccadams of Fox News, If that sounds familiar, Remember the
Bentley that went airborne at the International Bridge at Niagara
(16:54):
Falls just after Thanksgiving and Fox reported it had sources
who had confirmed it was a terrorist act and the
car was full of explosives, and then they began to
speculate that it was a Hamas attack the US. The
Fox reporter who had the sources confirming it was terrorism
and a car full of stuff. Oops, it was really
just a bad driver in a horrific accident. That reporter
(17:15):
was Alexis McAdams and she still works there. There was
news of a third Trump case yesterday. He will not
get a new trial in the second Egene Carol case.
The eighty million dollar award, at least not from Judge
Lewis Kaplan. Honestly, we have to number all the court
cases I have lost track in Trump adjacent legal news.
(17:38):
Plea deal for ex marine John Perez, who was stalking
former FBI lawyer Lisa Page. This is an example of
the results of trump stochastic terrorism. Last December, this Perez
showed up at least four times at Lisa Page's home,
once interacting with her son. This was after the FBI
had assured Page that he was no threat to her.
(18:01):
She is still outraged and she should be. The yel
they made with this guy only bans him from the
DC area for the next six months and insists that
he goes to therapy six times. A polling note, the
swing towards Biden is so big that even five thirty
eight dot com has begun to sit up and take notice.
(18:24):
It's average of national polls, it says, is now tied.
A month ago, it was Trump plus two. The state
by states still has Trump ahead in the swing states.
But if you think Trump is not panicking, you are
wildly mistaken. He posted a graphic late yesterday after court
Trump crushes Biden in Pennsylvania and beneath it Trump forty
(18:45):
seven percent, Biden forty six percent, forty seven to forty
six is crushing only if you are panicking. And to
tie all this together, for years we I have wondered
when Trump would hit what marathoners call the wall, that
(19:09):
moment in the race when your stamina meets age and
exhaustion and pain and gravity and you discover, to your dismay,
oh look, gravity works. This was defendant Jay Trump as
he reached the cameras after the day ended in court
(19:32):
in New York yesterday. And you know how old he sounds.
He sounds two hundred and six.
Speaker 6 (19:38):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
Everybody today was breathtaking.
Speaker 7 (19:42):
This room is on.
Speaker 4 (19:43):
What went on was breathtaking.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
And breath taking. You bet your ass. Trump's words may
not be planned, and they are hardly logical, but never
think they are random. He said it a couple of
times he was having trouble breathing. It might be another
(20:05):
explanation for that, however, other than the possibility that the
proverbial sand is running out in his hourglass. Next time
you hear Trump complain that the trial keeps him off
the campaign trail, CNN is reporting that he spent the
day off from the trial Wednesday playing golf in New Jersey.
(20:34):
Also of interest here. Never before, Never before have all
of the medallists in Worst Persons come from one newspaper
and earned their spots because of one article about that
one newspaper. The New York Times is not going to
go out of business if you cancel your subscription, but
(20:54):
it just has given you three more reasons to cancel
it anyway. Clueless scumbags, unaware that their pomposity could cost
us democracy. The New York Times scumbags. That's next. This
is countdown.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
This is countdown with Keith old Woman.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Still ahead of us on this initiative. Countdown Fridays with
Thurber and without Trump, and without politics, and without anything
resembling Trump or politics. Thurber's quiet, subtle condemnation of a
practical jokester from Hell. Meet Bertie Doggett. Next first, still
(21:58):
more new idiots to talk about. The daily round up
with the miscreants, morons and dunning kruegerfecs specimens who constitute
today's worst persons in The New York Times. And as
I teased, something special, all the winners today come from
the same newspaper, Your New York Times. And they come
(22:19):
from the same article about the same newspaper a piece
by Eli Stokels in Politico. I am a daily critic
of Politico, but occasionally it does catch lightning in a bottle,
and very deftly. In fact, this fits in with this
week's Thurber story. It's subtle and you never really notice
the knife drawn, let alone plunged. Politico lets the New
(22:42):
York Times destroy itself on one topic. The piece is
about why the Times has what is obvious to everyone
else accept people at the Times a grudge against President Biden,
and why it is actually slanting its coverage against him,
even though other parts of the newspaper appear to be
(23:04):
awareasionally that the democracy is at stake, and any gratuitous
criticism of Biden, like the Times weekly piece on how
old he is or its weekly stupid column by Maureen Dowd,
how that increases the chances that we'll have, you know,
a dictatorship next January. I have said here repeatedly that
(23:26):
it is clear that the people who run the New
York Times think they will somehow be issued passes that
will keep them from going to the Fred Trump Memorial
media re education concentration camp with the rest of us.
I mean, they really simultaneously perceive the threat, and yet
they don't seem to remember they would be among the
(23:49):
first or second group of people to be punished or persecuted,
or prosecuted or literally rounded up. Because whatever petty, childish
complaints they have about how Joe Biden deals with them,
and however Biden and the White House really feel about
The Times, guess what Trump and his monstrous fascists really
(24:09):
don't like The Times and would like to see its
building burned to the ground. The Stokels piece for Politico
points out episodes in which the White House might have
been nicer, or more generous, or fed the Times unimaginably
large opinion of itself a little more. But mostly it
just lets key Times people hoist themselves with their own petards.
(24:33):
And the three who are the biggest petards are our
worst person's medalists today, the bronze worse. Elizabeth but Miller, Washington,
Bureau chief of The New York Times. I know you've
never heard of her. I've heard of her. People in
the business have heard of her. She's Northwestern, she's Columbia journalism.
(24:54):
She was the White House correspondent, So in Times land
she's a Hall of Famer and one day in March
twenty twenty three, somebody at the Times DC bureau screwed up.
It wasn't a regular White House reporter, so when he
asked a Biden administration spokesman for a quote late one
night on a story, the spokesman emailed one back on background,
(25:16):
meaning you could say it was from the administration, but
you could not say who personally said it. It's silly,
stupid kind of rules, like the way figure skating used
to start with school figures, where the skaters had to
prove that they could trace figure eights into the ice
before they could actually dance. But these guys still have
(25:36):
the journalistic equivalent of school figures. They still performed these
stupid rituals, and the Times guy screwed it up. He
wrote a seven instead of an eight. He printed the
spokesman's name, he attributed the quote that was supposed to
be on background. While the White House got pissed it
asked to speak to the Times White House editor, and
the same guy who screwed up the quote now screwed
(25:57):
up again and gave them the wrong phone number, not
the number of the Times White House editor, but the
number of the Times Washington Editor her honor, Queen Elizabeth B. Miller.
According to Politico, bue Miller quote express dismay that the
issue had been escalated to her level, was reluctant to
(26:18):
alter a story that had already been online for over
twelve hours. When the White House tried to bring up
another concern with the story, bu Miller just hung up.
As Political explains, there have been bad feelings ever since,
bad feelings at the Times. The Washington bureau chief of
the Times is so important that when she felt like
(26:40):
the problem and the person calling about the problem from
the White House were beneath her, she hung up on them.
And the Times is mad at the White House because
the Washington New York Times bureau chief hung up on
the White House. They're not being realistic about what we
do for a living. Politico quotes Elizabeth bu Miller is
(27:02):
telling them, you could be a force for demachocracy, liberal democracy.
You don't have to be a force for the Biden Whitehouse.
I think the technical term for that is ass clownery.
When exactly do you plan to start being a force
for liberal democracy? Elizabeth ask clown? B Miller The runner
up worser Peter Baker. I don't know how many times
(27:25):
I've mentioned Peter Baker here and in other venues. I
know he hasn't noticed because my podcasts are not available
to him up there on his high horse. He is
one of those Times guys, not just from the Times,
but he's one of the ones at the Times who
withheld news of the Trump administration debacles until he could
(27:46):
get a book deal. He also once insisted that Joe
Biden's job had been made more difficult by quote a
tough column by David Ignatius. Well, that's a good way
to start to assess Peter Baker. He thinks stuff written
by long forgotten pontificators in the Times is what makes
life difficult for the president of the effing United States.
(28:10):
Not fascism or Trump or insurrections or the Supreme Court
or Putin or the Republicans, or North Korea or climate change. No, no,
David Ignatius is making life difficult for Biden anyway. The
Politico piece has two wonderful vignettes reemphasizing how clueless and
(28:30):
condescending Peter Baker is. It's Baker who's written most of
the Biden age stories. He told Politico quote. Every White
House I've covered complains about our coverage. It comes with
the territory. But because of Trump, there's this new assumption
that the New York Times and other media are supposed
to put their thumb on the scale and take sides,
(28:52):
and we don't do that. I am reminded suddenly of
my favorite TV news promo of all time. The BBC
ran this for year. It featured their Washington bureau chief,
arrogant and disconnected from reality as Peter Baker is, and
as she walked through the streets of DC, condescendingly insisting
(29:14):
that the BBC could be trusted and nobody else could
because the BBC had never taken sides in any election,
or story or war. These words appeared as giant sculptures
behind her on the streets she traversed. The first time
I saw this promo, I burst out laughing. I actually
wrote somebody I knew at the BBC and said, are
(29:35):
we sure about this? The BBC never took sides in
any war? How about that one war when it was
sending out secret coded messages to British troops in the
newscasts and secret coded messages to resistance fighters around the
world in their music shows. I mean, you know that
(29:56):
Big War what is it called the Big War with Hitler?
Where Hitler was specifically sending bombers to London to blow
up the bill the BBC was in the BBC was
an actual written Hitler target. What was that World War something?
What was it called that they took the side? What
was it? Come on, come down? World War World War
twelve twelve something with a two in it? Did you
(30:20):
take sides in that one? They eventually killed the promo? Well,
I hope you damn will did take sides in that promo.
And Peter Baker because of Trump, there's this new assumption
that the New York Times and other media are supposed
to put their thumb on the scale, take sides, and
we don't do that. Hey, guess what, you're wrong. You
don't have to treat other people fairly if they're trying
to kill democracy and kill the constitution and kill free
(30:44):
pres and oh, by the way, kill you, Peter Baker.
This isn't a game. We don't do that. We don't
put our thumb on this not a scale. These guys
were at the Supreme Court yesterday insisting assassinations and military
coups were all part of their president's official duties. You
think wiping out The New York Times is going to
take more than half a day under President Dictator heil
(31:07):
Hitler Trump. And oh, by the way, Baker, nobody is
asking you to put your thumb on the scale. They're
asking you to take it off the scale and to
stop doing unethical, unjournalistic things like covering up Donald Trump's
malfeasance in office and keeping it out of your goddamned
newspaper until you get your book advance. And by the way,
(31:30):
it isn't your thumb you've put on the scale, Peter Baker,
it's your schlung. Zip it up, boy. But our winner,
the Times boss, the publisher Ag Sulzberger, who got The
Times for free. The newspaper writes Politico carries its own
singular obsession with the president, aggrieved over his refusal to
(31:53):
give the paper a sit down interview that publisher Ag
Sulzberger and the other top editors believe to be its birthright.
It gets worse last May, when Vice President Kamala Harris
arrived at the newspaper's Midtown headquarters for an off the
record meeting with around forty Times journalists, Salzburger devoted several
(32:14):
minutes to asking her why Biden was still refusing. In
Salzburger's view, according to two people familiar with his private
comments on the subject, only an interview with a paper
like The Times can verify that the eighty one year
old Biden is still fit to hold the presidency. Unquote.
(32:37):
If that's true, Ag Salzburger thinks the Times is, you know,
like the Supreme Court, but the ps to resistance. In
the entire political piece about Ag Sealzburger is an anonymous
quote about this publisher who got The Times for free,
and about which, once they've read it, the Times is
(32:58):
likely to launch I don't know, a six month, eight
hundred and eighty seven million dollar internal investigation quote. These
Biden people think that the problem is Peter Baker or
whatever reporter they're mad at. That day, one Times journalist
said it's Ag. He's the one who is pissed that
(33:19):
Biden hasn't done any interviews and quietly encourages all the
tough reporting on his age. Oh man, cancel your Time subscriptions.
I did, and I've been a subscriber since nineteen sixty nine,
and the New York Times can go f itself. Ag Selzberger,
(33:41):
publisher of the New York Times. Remember, Ag, if Trump wins,
at least as they march you off to the camps
alongside me and all those Biden press aids, you can
go to the gulag happy knowing that you sure showed
Joe Biden two days worst person. And I believe the
(34:34):
first time I ever heard 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
(34:55):
on PBS when I was in college in which he
performed as James Thurber, narrated some of the drawings, recited
from memory, many of the short story 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
(35:15):
improve some of the diceier parts of some of the
Thurber stories and make them useful for twenty first century 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.
(35:37):
We didn't have home videotape, although I'm proud to say
he sent 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 Doggett by James Thurber.
(36:04):
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 nineteen
twenty nine, and they are as hard to find now
(36:25):
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
(36:49):
was running the gamut of bomb fear from A to H.
Bertie 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
(37:11):
bundles to the cold floor, and was attacked by her
muzzled Scottie Dogged, 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
(37:31):
the crowd that had begun to gather. What's the matter
over there, a small man asked him apprehensively. Doggett 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
(37:53):
far edges, one of 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
they're 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,
(38:14):
and his mother was a witch. Born at a 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
(38:36):
bothering to 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,
(39:01):
hath no dismay like that of aman 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 conflagration. Many of
(39:24):
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 put
(39:45):
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 sackful of cold
poached egg eggs to some crowded Fifth Avenue store at
(40:06):
Christmas time and slipped 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 sobbing. Sweet God, lady, you have
broken the sacred chalice of King Alexander and making her
(40:31):
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 doug Ittt probably enjoys more than anything else is
(40:52):
following 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 Miriam Shirtle, I never
heard of such a thing in all my born days.
(41:14):
As soon as missus 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
(41:35):
been a young 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
(41:58):
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 Merry Christmas
from the President of the United States. John Bertie Dogget
married a tapioca brain one afternoon twenty years ago, possibly
(42:22):
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,
(42:44):
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 Bertie dogget she said, striving for a outeur.
(43:07):
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 Kheley, went home to her mother, Missus Paul W. Coeley,
and never saw Bertie again. I join her in the
(43:27):
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.
Speaker 4 (43:47):
Pockets for old cold eggs.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
you for listening. Countdown. Musical directors Brian Ray and John
Phillip Schanel arranged, produced, and performed most of our music.
Mister Ray was on guitars, bass and drums, Mister Shanelle
handled orchestration and keyboards, and it was produced by Tko Brothers.
Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions, arranged and
performed by the group No Horns Allowed. Sports Music is
(44:28):
the Olderman theme from ESPN two. It was written by
Mitch Warren Davis and it appears courtesy of ESPN Inc.
Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Fauss.
The best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was
my friend Jonathan Banks from Breaking Bad and everything else
was pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this.
The one hundred and ninety fourth day until the twenty
(44:51):
twenty four presidential election, the one two hundred and seventh
day since Dementia J. Trump's first attempted coup against the
democratically elected government of the United States. Use the not
regular given elector objection option, use the Insurrection Act, use
the justice system, use the mental health system to stop
(45:12):
him from doing it again. While we still can and
before the Supreme Court stops us. The next scheduled countdown
is Tuesday, Boltons as the news warrants till then, I'm
Keith Olderman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.
(45:41):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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