October 30, 2023 • 59 mins
SEASON 2 EPISODE 63: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) BULLETIN: Details are sketchy because of an online systems failure (who names their system after the AMC Pacer?) but Sunday evening Judge Tanya Chutkan REINSTATED her Gag Order against Trump - presumably because of his threats to Mark Meadows and his misconduct in the New York gag order case - and Trump has acknowledged online that it has been reimposed. (8:47) The remainder of this bulletin is a repeat of Friday's Episode #62 and if you've heard it there's no reason to continue to listen. Although you'll have a damn good time if you do! SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump threatens the New York judge, while Jack Smith goes not for a stronger gag order but something closer to a Hannibal Lecter mask.
“This is judicial misconduct, coupled with prosecutorial misconduct, and somebody from the state of New York must step in and stop this complete and total miscarriage of justice,” unquote. BECAUSE Trump had earlier suggested that New York’s GOVERNOR should “get involved” and because he capitalized the word “State” in State of New York, he kept one foot in that shadowy region in which he’s lived that life and his attorneys could argue that he was NOT asking “somebody from the state of New York” to “step in and stop this” by attacking somebody like the judge or the district attorney.
The rest of the filing shows that Trump IGNORED the New York Gag Order, IGNORED it again, was called to the witness stand to explain what he said, LIED ABOUT IT – PERJURED HIMSELF – and has proven to be unrestrainable even with the Gag Order as presently constituted. Jack Smith isn’t telling the Judge that Trump has violated her GAG ORDER. He is telling her that Trump has violated the ORIGINAL CONDITIONS under which she did NOT jail him until the trial starts. To resume the quote. “Accordingly, the court should modify the defendant’s conditions of release by making compliance with the Order a CONDITION or by clarifying that the existing condition barring communication with witnesses about the facts of the case, INCLUDES indirect messages made publicly on social media or in speeches.”
Plus, Trump's faint grip on sanity seems to be slipping and the tell on that is: he has reverted to the genuinely unfathomable dog analogies that he fell into during the most stressful times of 2015-2016. When Trump starts claiming dogs get fired, he's about to lose it.
And Speaker Mike Johnson, Day 2: For a man who spent twenty years advocating for sending gay people to prison for having sex, advocating for sending doctors to prison for providing family planning, advocating for a national abortion ban, advocating for fewer laws against guns, advocating for more laws against divorce, advocating for gutting of the entire societal safety net, advocating for disenfranchising minorities and entire states, advocating for using the constitution to destroy the constitution, advocating for the forced conflation of church and state, advocating for a conservative group that makes employees swear an oath to Jesus, advocating against transgenderism, advocating against men wearing women’s clothes, advocating against women wearing MEN’S clothes, advocating restrictions against Muslims, advocating against federal disaster relief, advocating for more oil and gas and against science that has proved we are all going to be KILLED by more oil and gas, advocating for that idiot Amy Coney Barrett since he met her in 1988, advocating for a limit of three terms in the House and then running for this one – his FOURTH, and advocating for the overthrow of the duly-elected government of the United States throughout the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021. For a guy who has done nothing but comment on everything, all the time, and always wrong… so far… he sure has been Speaker of The House Mr. No Comment.
B-Block (31:08) IN SPORTS: Oh boy. The World Series. The 7th best regular season team versus the 12th best. I have never been less interested. Here's a shock: after legal sports gambling websites become the primary sponsor of all North American sports league, a player is suspended for half a season for...using one. And the brilliant idea from England's Tottenham Hotspur: give each player in its team history their own "legacy number." (35:08) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: President Duda of Poland may be trying to Trump the last election. E-Bikers should be saving the planet; instead they're menacing New Yorkers. And I do not pretend this isn't a crass idea. I think we should name the mass shootings after the politicians and propagandists who have enabled them. So Lewiston, Maine, should be named after Speaker Johnson or Susan Collins or Sean Hannity.
C-Block (44:35) BULLETINS WITH THURBER: A story I have not previously read you, to which almost everyone can relate. How science and swimming almost kept him from graduating in "University Days."
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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. This
is a Countdown bulletin podcast. And let's all congratulate Donald
Trump on talking himself into yet another gag order for
reasons that border on the hilarious. As of Sunday evening,
(00:27):
it was still unclear if Judge Tanya Chutkin had broadened
or clarified her gag order against Trump in the election
subversion trial in Washington, or more importantly, if she had
perhaps specifically threatened Trump with jail time if he violates
the gag order. But we know this much, she has
reinstated her gag order on Trump in this case. His
(00:50):
attorneys had convinced Chutkin to temporarily lift that cone of
silence from over him about the Washington trial while they
appealed it and tried to convince her to cancel the
gag order outright, and late Friday night, they had expanded
their filing to position Trump's ability to martyr himself as
the key campaign issue with the American public unquote. Smith's
(01:13):
office replied overnight Wednesday, not only opposing a permanent removal
of the gag order, but insisting that Trump had begun
to seriously threaten and endanger witnesses at trial, like his
former chief of staff Mark Meadows, and that Chutkin had
to reverse the temporary reprieve and Sunday evening she did
exactly that. Nice work Dementia Jay in an irony befitting
(01:38):
the topic and the online mosh pit in which Trump
has done most of his threatening. The court system that
gives lawyers and reporters and the public access to the
findings of almost any court's decision. The new Trump gag
order was itself gagged. The online system PACER public access
(01:58):
to court electronic records was showing only the order itself
and not the accompanying opinion. So we know Judge Chutkin
had something more to say about Trump and to Trump
and to Jack Smith and to the public. And as
of recording time, we don't know what the hell. It is.
A gag order so broad it has accidentally gagged the judge,
(02:23):
But it isn't hard to guess why she decided what
she decided. Quote. I don't think Mark Meadows would lie
merely forgetting immunity against prosecution parentheses persecution by deranged prosecutor
Jack Smith. Trump began last Tuesday, but when you really
think about it, being hounded like a dog for three years,
(02:45):
told you'll be going to jail the rest of your life,
your money, and your family will be gone forever, etc.
He's barely two sentences into his insane gurglings, and he
has implied Meadows lied, that Meadows was threatened, that Meadows
was bribed, that Meadows was hounded for three years, even
though three years ago today Trump was still president and
(03:07):
the election was still a week away. Quote. Some people
would make that deal, but they are weaklings and cowards
and so bad. And there's the added implied threat against
Meadows in that, and all because of news reports that
ran the gamut from describing a full Meadows flip against
Trump to some limited testimony forced by court order to
(03:28):
ongoing negotiations between the Special Council's office and Meadows attorneys
about a full negotiated plea deal. There were few more
things Trump could have squeezed in there that would have
also violated the original Chutkin gag order, except perhaps if
he had threatened to burn down Meadows's house, as the
(03:50):
Special Council also noted in his filing, long before Jack
Smith or the judge began to treat the concept of
a gag order seriously. There were the original terms of
Trump's release on bail after his indictment. Making content attacked
with a probable witness was forbidden in those original terms,
whether the contact was direct and secret or via some
(04:13):
public medium, and Chutkin was no doubt further influenced by
how Trump tried to get around the other gag order
He's got running at the moment, the one the New
York State Judge Arthur Engern imposed to protect his court
staff after Trump docks the court clerk, then was ordered
to delete that post, then was discovered to have left
an image of that post up, then made a veiled
(04:35):
disparaging reference to the clerk to the media, then took
the stand at the judge's insistence and promptly perjured himself
and insisted, no, he wasn't talking about her, the clerk,
He was talking about Michael Cohen. Moreover, on Saturday, Trump
again attacked Judge Ngron online three separate times, calling him crazed,
(04:58):
among other things, and again insisting, in that vague stochastic
way of his that quote this radical Trump hater must
be taken off this case, which is just fuzzy enough
in terms of composition to allow Trump to again lie
and claim he is not trying to get one of
his more psychopathic cultists to physically attack Engron on Trump's behalf.
(05:22):
It continues to amaze me that this judge Andngron has
not expanded his gag order in the New York case
to include not just court staff but everybody involved. If
he had, Trump would already be doing twenty five to life.
I have said this before, and I will say it again.
Our other American pro democracy institutions have collapsed under the
(05:43):
weight of something new and of somebody so devoid of
human qualities that he can break any law or norm,
or even just custom without the slightest hesitation or guilt.
The last line of defense in this country is the judiciary.
What Chutkin has done is not just to reimpose a
gag order that is, by itself the only practical way
(06:06):
of controlling a diseased animal like Trump, but also she
has indicated to his lawyers and even to him, if
he can faintly make out the sound of anything besides
the voice of his own vast, pulsating, undulating ego, that
if you play with fire. This judge is going to
(06:26):
make sure that you are the one who gets burned
once the online system comes back. That is, there is
a second irony here that I want to mention in
this bulletin edition. This is from one of Trump's campaign
stops Saturday at the Republican Jewish Coalition hearing in Iowa.
It is about three stumbles shy of a full Jackie Gleason,
(06:50):
Ralph Cramdon, Humana Hamana, Humana.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Colleges and universities will purge the anti Semitism and pro terroritist.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
What you're doing the terrorism boy, If I had a
dollar for every time I said that. There is the
contrarian position about the various gag orders against Trump that
during a time when his mental incapacities are obviously accelerating,
a gag order keeping him from saying stuff like that
might actually help him. At eight forty Eastern Sunday night,
(07:24):
Trump revealed online system failures or not that they have
managed to let him know that the gag order is
back in effect. Quote, the corrupt Biden administration just took
away my First Amendment right to free speech. Then switching
to all caps not constitutional? Make America great? Again. If
Chutkins's decision does nothing else, it has at minimum cut
(07:47):
down on the interminable length of Trump's posts. That one
is just twenty words. Thank God for small blessings. The
rest of this bullet in edition of the Countdown podcast
is a repeat of Friday's. So if you've heard that
and you wish to bail out right now, I wouldn't
(08:08):
blame you. I'll be back with a full new edition
at the usual hour Monday night and Tuesday morning, or
another bulletin if the Court Documents Access System PACER gets
plugged back in. Did you ever drive in an AMC
pacer or drive one yourself? The automobile from American Motors
in the seventies. My mother had a pacer. She once
(08:30):
managed to lock herself and my sister out of the
pacer while it was still running and the keys were
still in the ignition and they were in the parking
lot at Yankee Stadium. Why on earth would you give
a vital court reporting system the same name as that thing?
(09:04):
Once again, Dementia J. Trump is providing hints and foreshadowings
and augurs that he is about to finally lose all
control of his mind. Meanwhile, Jack Smith has clearly graduated
from demanding that they put a gag order on Trump
to instead demanding that they put something on him that
(09:25):
more resembles a Hannibal lecter mask Trump under a gag
order in a New York courtroom, two violations of which
have been used to argue for the immediate reinstatement of
another gag order in a Washington courtroom, a gag order
which could go back into effect as early as tomorrow.
Has now attacked the New York judge three separate times online,
(09:46):
and in one of the attacks, he may have issued
yet another stochastic call for violence against the judge. Quote.
This is judicial misconduct coupled with prosecutorial misconduct, and somebody
from the state of New York must step in and
stop this co compleet and total miscarriage of justice unquote.
(10:09):
Because Trump had earlier suggested that New York's governor should
get involved, and because he capitalized the word state when
he wrote state of New York, he managed to keep
one foot in that shadowy region in which he has
lived his life, and his attorneys could argue that he
was not asking somebody from the state of New York
(10:29):
to step in and stop this by attacking somebody like
the judge or the district attorney or both. But Trump's
rage inside that New York courtroom this week was worse
than initially reported. Those inside it with him now say
he pounded his fist on the defense table and got
bright red. And perhaps the full measure of how rapidly
(10:51):
his already minimal self control seems to be cracking was
underscored just before one pm Eastern yesterday when he attacked
a reporter, not so much for what she had written,
but for what she did not write. Quote Maggot Hagerman
of the failing New York Times wrote almost her entire
(11:11):
fake story today about the Trump hating judges gag order
they love to silence me, rather than the racist attorney general,
star witness choking like a dog on the witness stand,
Perry Mason. There is so much ass in that sentence
(11:32):
that it is hard to sort it all out. But
from a psychological viewpoint, there is little that could be
ever more telling than Trump attacking a writer who has
often been, even post coup, astonishingly deferential to him, and
who has been brutally attacked, including by me here metaphorically speaking,
of course, for being so deferential to him. Moreover, the
(11:56):
article that drove him to this most insane of a
series of insane posts is pretty dull, pretty even handed,
pretty hard to criticize. Any Trumpist who actually bothered to
read Maggie Haberman's piece in The New York Times yesterday
would be hard pressed to figure out why Trump would
have gone so crazy. And that's because since the court
(12:21):
hearings began to dominate his schedule, Trump has ever increasingly
shown more and more signs of his evil but still
strategic public pressure against prosecutors and political opponents and others.
He's shown that that is dissolving into pure petulance, maggot,
and then calling Haberman Hagerman on I guess the premise
(12:45):
that's substituting a G for the B in her name
means we're supposed to pronounce that hag The parenthetical reference
to Perry Mason in there, that's a callback to an
earlier post, ten or twenty posts before, and anyway, it's
a reference to a television show that had its last
special episode on April tenth, nineteen ninety five. The reference
(13:09):
to the star witness choking because he doesn't know how
to spell choking. These are easy tells, clear signs of
Trump under stress, and the real tell is in the
phrase that should have read choking like a dog. That
is the second reference in twelve hours to dogs doing
(13:31):
things dogs don't do choking. The other one is lying.
Trump has a fraud relationship with canine analogies. In the
stress of the twenty sixteen campaign, at his lowest moments,
when it looked as if he would lose by ten
points or perhaps be replaced on the ticket in a
special maneuver by the Republican Party, he repeatedly made references
to people being fired like a dog, or thrown off
(13:55):
TV like a dog, or begging for money like a dog.
And he made these references with the confidence of a
moron speaking a languae whige, a foreign language. He doesn't
really understand. The next dog I see begging for money
will be the first in the history of the planet.
More on this shortly, but back to the main point.
(14:18):
Trump just threw some more chaff submarine countermeasures into this mix.
His lawyers last night filed a motion that he is
not guilty of elections subversion because there are classified government
assessments that he's going to produce at trial quote relating
to foreign influence activities that impacted the twenty sixteen and
twenty twenty election, to establish that he acted at all
(14:42):
times in good faith and on the belief that he
was doing what he had been elected to do, which
I guess means he's going to call as a surprise
witness Q. While Judge Tanya Chutkin deals with this nonsense,
I am still unconvinced that either she or Judge Arthur
Engern will actually jail Trump for violating gag orders, although
(15:05):
my hopes for chut Can are significantly higher. But I
am just as firmly convinced that that is exactly what
Jack Smith and his team of prosecutors in the federal
election subversion case are now pushing for. Trump's ambulance. Chasers
appealed the chut Can gag order to a different court
at As Judges do. Chutkin gave him a temporary suspension
(15:27):
of that gag order. His attorneys then immediately asked for
an even longer suspension. The Office of the Special Council
replied late Wednesday night early Yesterday morning, demanding that Trump
be regagged immediately, and Trump's lawyers, you know, the future
witnesses against him in some other courtroom, and the jurisdiction
far far away. They had till Saturday morning to reply.
(15:51):
The focus of the Smith argument is obviously Trump's all
purpose posts about Mark Meadows, part insult, part dismissal, part
not at all veiled threat, but most importantly dove tailing
with the argument Smith and his group have repeatedly made
to Judge Chutkin. It contained not just intimidation of a witness.
(16:12):
It contained an attempt to poison the jury pool by
impeaching a witness and insisting the prosecution was corrupt to
quote that Smith filing. The defendants targeting included insinuating that
if the reporting were true, the chief of staff had
lied and had been coerced, and the defendants sent a
(16:33):
clear public message to the chief of staff intended to
intimidate him. And then in the footnotes, the ghostbuster streams
crossed the bid to restart the Washington gag, cited Trump's
ignoring of the New York gag. Quote. Defense counsel also
assured the court that the defendant's post targeting the court
(16:55):
staffer had been quote dealt with by the court in
New York, that assurance turned out to be mistaken. Unquote here,
the word mistaken is a very, very polite euphemism. The
rest of the filing shows that Trump ignored the New
York gag order, ignored it a second time, was called
(17:15):
to the witness stand to explain what he said, lied
about what he said, perjured himself, and has proven to
be unrestrainable even with the gag order as presently constituted.
What Jack Smith and his staff are setting up is
something stronger. As I said earlier, it is less a
gag order than it is a Hannibal Lecter mask. Here,
(17:37):
they write, the defendant has capitalized on the court's administrative
stay to, among other prejudicial conduct, send an unmistakable and
threatening message to a foreseeable witness. In this case, unless
the court lifts the administrative stay, the defendant will not
stop his harmful and prejudicial attacks. In addition, to the
(17:58):
extent that the defendant's public message directed to Mark Meadows,
with knowledge that it would reach him, is not already
covered by his release conditions, it is an intentional end
run around them. On quote, let me translate that. In
other words, Jack Smith is not telling the judge that
Trump has violated her gag order. He is telling the
(18:20):
judge that Trump has violated the original conditions under which
she did not jail him until the trial starts. To
resume the quote. Accordingly, the court should modify the defendant's
conditions of release by making compliance with the order a condition,
or by clarifying that the existing condition barring communication with
(18:44):
witnesses about the facts of the case includes indirect messages
made publicly on social media or in speeches. Again, in short,
a mask over his face and a straight jacket legally anyway,
I'm afraid Trump in a a real mask and a
(19:06):
real straight jacket is just too much to hope for
for now. The quick follow up now on this the
second full day of the reign of Speaker Mike Johnson.
For a man who spent twenty years advocating for sending
gay people to prison for having sex, advocating for sending
(19:29):
doctors to prison for providing family planning for women, advocating
for a national abortion ban, advocating for fewer laws against guns,
advocating for more laws against divorce, advocating for gutting the
entire social safety net, advocating for disenfranchising minorities and entire states,
advocating for using the Constitution to destroy the Constitution, advocating
(19:53):
for the forced conflation of church and state, advocating for
a conservative group that makes its employees swear an oath
to Jesus, advocating against transgenderism, advocating against men wearing women's clothes,
advocating against women wearing men's clothes, advocating restrictions against Muslims,
advocating against federal disaster relief, advocating for more oil and gas,
(20:16):
and against science that has proved we're all going to
get killed by more oil and gas. Advocating for that
idiot Amy Cony Barrett since he met her in nineteen
eighty eight, advocating for a limit of three terms in
the House and then running for this term his fourth term,
and advocating for the overthrow of the duly elected government
of the United States throughout the end of twenty twenty
(20:38):
and the beginning of twenty twenty one. For a guy
who has done nothing but comment on everything all the
time and has always been wrong so far, Mike Johnson
sure has been Speaker of the House. Mister no comment
can you clarify your sana and his brief view twenty
(21:00):
twenty election was stolen surgist, yes or no? Just for
the record service, do you in trust his excuse me?
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Do you sent to pursue a national abortion man as.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Speaker sir in your you know you're gonna have to
say something sometime soon. Sparky two other Johnson notes Echelon
Insights not exactly a liberal outfit. Did a crash poll
on public reaction to the News Speaker five hundred and
(21:38):
ninety four US adults. They say favorable thirty one percent,
unfavorable fifteen percent, heard of him but have no opinion
twenty one percent. But the big winner is never heard
of him thirty four percent. Compare this to Congressman Ted
Jones favorable eighteen percent, unfavorable, just twelve percent heard of
(22:01):
him but have no opinion nineteen percent. That is a
statistical tie with Speaker Johnson, and again the big winner
for Congressman Ted Jones never heard of him fifty one percent.
There is no Congressman Ted Jones, the news Speaker of
the House, the leader of the Republicans in Congress. He's
doing slightly better than an imaginary congressman, and lastly from
(22:27):
the House. I am stealing this joke from Twitter user
your Canadian girlfriend at your Canadian GF. Representative Lauren Bobert
tweeted a photo of herself wearing too much makeup on
the packed House floor, beaming alongside Speaker Johnson. Congratulations on
becoming the next Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.
You assume office at a critical time for our nation.
(22:49):
Pray the Lord guides you. Blah blah blah blah blah,
to which your Canadian girlfriend observes quote not the first
time she stroked a Johnson in a crowded room. Wow,
and now is referenced earlier. Since the subject is topical
(23:12):
and podcasts can be infinity long. This is an all
new episode, by the way, including a Thurber story I
have not read you previously, plus sports plus Worst Persons,
which is mostly about the main shooting and how we
should name these shootings after the politicians who have enabled them.
Since the subject is still front of mind, let me
repeat what I first analyzed on October three, twenty sixteen.
(23:36):
This insane the word is meant literally, this insane inability
of dementia Jay Trump to process the concept of dogs.
When he talks about dogs, he clearly is unaware that
anybody likes dogs. When he analogizes with dogs, he says
things that make less sense than usual, even for him.
(23:57):
When he invokes dogs, something fragile in his brain is barking.
It is saying to us, it is close to the
breaking point, and we are here again, as we were
seven years ago this month when I first said this quote.
Until one has loved an animal, wrote the journalist and
(24:18):
author Anatole France, a part of one's soul remains unawakened.
There is no evidence Donald Trump has ever loved an animal.
If Trump has ever in his life had a pet,
wrote Gail Collins of The New York Times, his campaign
doesn't know about it. There's some question, in fact about
whether he's even had an animal friend. In fact, none
(24:42):
of the books about Trump, including his own, refer to
a pet dog. The co author or ghostwriter of the
Art of the Deal, Tony Schwartz, told me he never
heard Trump reference a pet as adult or child. Google it,
fact check it, do a nexus Lexis search on it,
and you come up blank. Save for an apparently apocryphal
(25:02):
story about him. Tweeting asking for prayers for a labrador
named Spinny. There were no tweets, no entreaties, and for
all we can determine, no Spinny. A man running to
lead a nation of three hundred and twenty four million people,
and while we're at it, seventy eight million dogs and
seventy six million cats. And there are solid reasons to
believe he has never had a dog. But it's worse
(25:27):
than just that, isn't it. Quote July twenty fifteen. I
hear that sleepy eyes Chuck Todd will be fired like
a dog. October twenty fifteen. Wow, great news. I hear
Eric Erickson of Red State was fired like a dog.
December twenty fifteen. Glenn Beck got fired like a dog.
(25:47):
January twenty sixteen. Union leader refuses to comment as to
why they were kicked out of the ABC News debate
like a dog. Twelve days later, Brent Bozell, one of
the National Review lightweights, came to my office begging for
money like a dog. Huh when was the last time
he saw a dog begging for money in somebody's office?
(26:11):
February twenty sixteen. Wow, was Ted Cruz disloyal to his
very capable director of communication. He used him as a scapegoat.
Fired like a dog, all right? Which is it a
go to her dog? March twenty sixteen, Eric Erickson again
got fired like a dog from Red State. Eleven days
after that, David Gregory got thrown off of TV by NBC,
(26:33):
Fired like a dog. June twenty sixteen, Mitt Romney had
his chance to beat a failed president, but he choked
like a dog. What the hell is wrong with this
guy about dogs? Fired like a dog? Have you ever
fired a dog? He's also tweeted that the Egyptian president
(26:53):
Mubarik was dropped like a dog, that Reverend Jeremiah Wright
was dumped like a dog, that Mark Cuban was thrown
off television like a dog, that Kristen Stewart cheated on
Robert Pattinson like a do And worst of all, he
said that during a Republican debate he saw Senator Marco
Rubio sweating like a dog. Dogs don't sweat. In theory,
(27:16):
they could get fired, they could get cheated on, they
could beg for money, or they could get dropped, dumped,
kicked out, or thrown off television. But physically they cannot sweat.
Donald Trump has no knowledge of this, no understanding of this.
There's no evidence that he's ever had a dog, no
evidence he understands even the kinds of basics that people
(27:40):
who do not have dogs still know about dogs. What
the hell is he for, Mars? If so, could he
go back and I'll add in twenty sixteen when he
said Romney choked like a dog, unlike this week about
(28:01):
Michael Cohen. In twenty sixteen, Trump's belled choked correctly naming
the mass shootings after people like, say Senator Susan Collins.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
That's next. This is countdown. This is Countdown with Keith Olberman.
This is Sports Center. Wait, check that not anymore. This
(28:40):
is Countdown with Keith Olberman.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
In Sports World Series starts tonight, the team tied for
the seventh best record in the game, the Texas Rangers,
hosting the team with the twelfth best record in the game,
the Arizona Diamondbacks. Baseball has managed to develop a layoff
(29:05):
system in which ten of the eleven best teams in
the regular season can be eliminated. Sadly, the teams taking
the field Arizona and Texas, they are not the best
teams in the game. Or in either league. I do
not know what they are playing for anymore. The whole
(29:26):
thing is just a really sad lie now, thank you,
(29:46):
Nancy Faust. Just to make it worse, the Arizona Diamondbacks
are expected to become the first team to despoil the
World Series by wearing uniforms with advertising patches on the sleeves.
And if you're the advertiser, you should be asking for
your money back because as which as I know, I
sound like the captain of team old man yells at cloud. Hey,
(30:10):
you kids, get off my lawn. I'm gonna go back
to my prediction. Way. Do you see how many people
do not watch this World Series nationally? The series has
only once dipped below ten million viewers per game. That
was in the COVID season the token World Series of
twenty twenty. The peak was forty four million viewers per
(30:30):
game for the Yankees and Dodgers. In nineteen seventy eight. Yes,
a different entertainment world, there were only three TV networks.
On the other hand, the population was thirty three percent
smaller than it is now. Guess which one of those numbers,
ten million or forty four million a game? This series
is going to come closer to They have reduced the
(30:50):
World Series to this simple formula. Is my team playing
no see an x spring? Who would have ever thought this?
As gambling sites become one of the leading advertisers, maybe
the leading advertisers in all of sports. A pro athlete
has been suspended for violating his league's rules against gambling
(31:11):
on sports. I know a shock. Shane Pinto of hockey's
Ottawa Senators will sit for forty one games after one
of the sites reported to the NHL that he had
a gambling account with them. There is some evidence that
Pinto did not actually do the gambling in question, but
somebody else was using his account improperly and talk about
(31:33):
the chickens coming home to roost. The first hockey team
to have put an ad on its helmets for a
gambling site yep, Pinto's Ottawa Senators, and the worst on
this is clearly yet to come. Lastly, also on uniforms,
Brilliance from the British soccer club Tottenham Hotspur. It has
carefully researched the eight hundred and seventy nine different players
(31:54):
who performed for the team since it began play in
eighteen ninety four. It has determined in which order they debuted,
and it has now assigned each of them legacy number.
Stanley Briggs, center half of their first eighteen ninety four
Spurs team, is number one, and Alejo Vliz, who just
(32:15):
joined them this year, is number eight seventy nine. So
when their next new player debuts, there will be a
small number eight eighty on the back of his jersey
below the collar. Imagine an American team in any sport
doing this. It is that rarest of ideas, something that
actually salutes the players, cherishes the history of the game,
(32:36):
and lets the team make some more money selling more
replica uniforms, only maybe leave the ads off them. This
time still ahead on this all new edition of Countdown
(33:08):
Fridays with Thurber, and I've never yet met anybody who
will not shudder with recognition about something in James Herber's
reminiscences about how he almost did not graduate because of
science and swimming. The first time I have ever read
to you University days first time for the daily roundup
(33:29):
of the misgrants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who
constitute today's worst persons in the world. The Bronze President
Dudah of Poland. The anti fascist candidate Prime Minister Donald
Tuisk upset the ultranationalist quote Law and Justice Party and
has the only prospects for forming a coalition to now
rule the nation. Yet the President has refused to name
(33:52):
Tusk as prime minister. The President now says he will
not open parliament until the eleventh of next month, and
he may not have named prime minister even then. There
are grim suspicions in Poland that somebody is trying to
pull up Trump there to reappoint the fascist and then
either stage violence or create some diversion to keep the
Democratic Coalition and Tusk out of office. The runner up,
(34:16):
Mayor Eric Adams of New York. This is not about
his delusion of being anointed by God. I'm letting that
pass today. This is about the dangers of e bikes
in this city or any other city. People have died
here because the batteries of e bikes have caught fire
in apartment buildings. People have been grievously wounded here because
(34:36):
the police do nothing about e bikers riding up on
sidewalks or ignoring all traffic lights and laws and driving
in the opposite direction of the traffic and now now
though they've gone too far. Wednesday night, a friend of
mine's dog and another dog were being walked on the
west Side. They were walking east on forty seventh Street
on the sidewalk, which is for walking out of nowhere.
(34:59):
An idiot on an e bike on the sidewalk going
west into them, the walker and the two dogs. Happily,
the injuries to the dogs and the walker were minor.
The e biker those swore at them as he drove away,
and two cops witnessed the entire event and did nothing.
(35:20):
Maybe the lead story is here. There were two cops
standing on forty seventh Street alert the media. The nightmare,
of course, is that e bikes are central to fighting
climate change, but something like this happens daily here because
the city is not designed for e bikes or enforcing rules,
and people are coming to hate e bikes here, and
(35:42):
the people who drive e bikes here so recklessly that
when the city acts instead of enforcing regulations against e bikes,
it's going to have to flat out ban them. So
these idiots are endangering lives and endangering dogs, and then
they will endanger lives again by ruining one means we
have of helping to not extinguish life on the planet.
(36:06):
Get on this, Mayor Adams, pretend God told you to,
but our winners, and we will drop the music for this.
It is a tie. Speaker Mike Johnson, hours after his
election a mass shooting in Maine, for which he has
now offered prayers. Johnson voted against background checks, He's voted
(36:29):
against protecting domestic violence victims from gun possession. He's voted
against the bipartisan Safer Communities Act. But he had time
to meet ten days ago in his House office with
women for gun rights to, as he put it, then
discuss the safeguarding of our Second Amendment rights. Mister speaker,
(36:49):
shove your Second Amendment up your ass. It does not
say anything about ownership of guns. If it did, it
would have the word own in it, you fatuous Christo
fascist idiot. I'm going to suggest some thing now that
might be grotesque. It might be callous, It might hurt
some of those directly affected by these shootings, or it
(37:12):
might steer the society out of its spiral towards collective
suicide by gun. I think we should name each mass
shooting after a politician who's inactivity, negligence, or acceptance of
bribes from the NRA has made them at least a
symbolic accessory before the fact to the latest carnage. I
(37:33):
think we should not call this one the Lewiston, Maine
mass shooting. I think we should call this one the
speaker Mike Johnson mass shooting, or the Senator Susan Collins
mass shooting. The senator from Maine voted against renewing the
assault weapons ban, and she voted against the ban on
high capacity magazines that allow mass shooters to fire their
(37:56):
weapons of terror even faster. She has contributed to the
fact that while gutless, heartless Republicans like herself always respond
to a man shooting like the Speaker Mike Johnson mass
shooting by invoking mental health. Maine does not have background
checks on all gun sales, nor a red flag law,
nor does it stop domestic abusers from getting guns, nor
(38:18):
does it have a waiting period. Senator Collins has not
learned her lesson she had the gall to show up
to a news conference in Lewiston last night. Or we
could also call this one the Sean Hannity mass shooting.
A long time ago, I was friendly with this fatuous idiot.
He used to express bewilderment to me that people took
(38:40):
what he said or what I said seriously. It's only television.
At some point though, he started believing his own delusions.
After the shooting Wednesday night, interviewing Nicky Hayley, well there's
a combined IQ that's still under one hundred, Hannity actually
suggested that everybody should have a plan to confront a
(39:03):
mass shooter. Quote, I have a personal security plan. I
train in Mick Marshall arch. In other words, Sean Hannity
thinks this is the matrix and he's going to kick
the AR fifteen out of the Mike Johnson mass shooter's hands.
I'm guessing ultimately nobody on the right will do anything
(39:25):
about any of this until they are literally all standing
over the body of somebody like Sean Hannity and commenting
on how it looked like he was in some sort
of jiu jitsu stance when that guy put the six
inch diameter bullet hole through him, And maybe even then
they still won't do anything about it. Speaker Mike Johnson,
(39:48):
Senator Susan Collins, Sean Hannity useless, wasted human beings, today's
worst persons in the world. This is thing James Thurber
ever wrote to a novel, was the story of his childhood,
(40:10):
somewhat exaggerated, or, according to his family, almost completely exaggerated.
It was called My Life and hard Times. In it
are stories like the night the bed fell and such
as that. But my favorite, perhaps of all of his
stories from his supposed youth, is called University Days. There's
(40:32):
a lot of well you'll hear, there's a lot of
stuff in university Days. And so I presented to you
for the first time on Fridays with Thurber University Days
by James Thurber. I've passed all the other courses that
I took at my university, but I could never pass botany.
(40:54):
This was because all botany students had to spend several
hours a week in a laboratory looking through a microscope
at plant cells, and I could never see through a microscope.
I never once saw a cell through a microscope. This
used to enrage my instructor. He would wander around the laboratory,
(41:14):
please with the progress all the students were making and
drawing the involved and so I am told interesting structure
of flower cells until he came to me. I would
just be standing there. I can't see anything, I would say.
He would begin patiently enough explaining how anybody can see
(41:35):
through a microscope, but he would always end up in
a fury, claiming that I could too see through a microscope,
but just pretended that I couldn't. It takes away from
the beauty of flowers anyway. I used to tell him,
we are not concerned with the beauty in this course.
He would say, we are concerned solely with what I
may call the mechanics of flowers. Well, I'd say, I
(42:01):
can't see anything. Try it just once again, he'd say,
And I would put my eye to the microscope and
see nothing at all, except now and again, a nebulous
milky substance, a phenomenon of maladjustment. You were supposed to
see a vivid, restless clockwork of sharply defined plant cells.
(42:23):
I see what looks like a lot of milk. I
would tell him. This, He claimed was the result of
my not having adjusted the microscope properly. So he would
readjust it for me, or rather for himself, and I
would look again and see milk. I finally took a
deferred pass as they called it, and waited a year
(42:43):
and tried again. You had to pass one of the
biological sciences or you couldn't graduate. The professor had come
back from vacation brown as a berry, bright eyed, and
eager to explain cell structure again to his classes. Well,
he said to me cheerily when we met in the
laboratory first hour of the semester. We're going to see
(43:03):
cells this time, aren't we, Yes, sir, I said. Students
to right of me, and to left of me, and
in front of me were seeing cells. What's more, they
were quietly drawing pictures of them in their notebooks. Of course,
I didn't see anything. We'll try it, the professor said
(43:24):
to me gently, with every adjustment of the microscope known
to man. As God is my witness, I'll arrange this
glass so that you see cells through it, or I'll
give up teaching in twenty two years of botany. I
(43:46):
he cut off abruptly, for he was beginning to quiver
all over like Lionel Barrymore, and he genuinely wished to
hold on to his temper. His scenes with me had
taken a great deal out of him. As an editor's
note here, if you don't recognize the name Lionel Barrymore,
if you've ever seen the movie It's a Wonderful Life,
(44:07):
mister Potter, the evil financier in the wheelchair that was
played by lime old Barrymore, who used to quiver all
over back to Thurber. So we tried it with every
adjustment of the microscope known to man. With only one
of them did I see anything but blackness or the
(44:27):
familiar lacteal opacity. And that time I saw, to my
pleasure and amazement, a variegated constellation of flex specks and dots.
These I hastily drew. The instructor, noting my activity, came
back from an adjoining desk, a smile on his lips,
his eyebrows high in hope. He looked at my cell drawing.
(44:49):
What's that, he demanded, with a hint of squeal in
his voice. That's what I saw, I said. You didn't,
You didn't, You didn't, he screamed, losing control of his
temper instantly, and he bent over and squinted into the
microscope his head. That's your eye, he shouted. You fix
(45:09):
the lens so that it reflects you've drawn your eye.
Another course, that I didn't like, but somehow managed to pass.
Was economics. I went to that class straight from the
botany class, which didn't help me any in understanding either subject.
I used to get them mixed up, but not as
(45:32):
mixed up as another student in my economics class who
came there direct from a physics laboratory. He was a
tackle on the football team named Balentsowitz. At the time,
Ohio State University had one of the best football teams
in the country, and Balentsuwitz was one of its outstanding stars.
In order to be eligible to play, it was necessary
(45:53):
for him to keep up in his studies, a very
difficult matter, for while he was not dumber than an ox,
he was not any smarter. Most of his professors were
lenient and helped him along. None gave him more hints
in answering questions or asked him simpler ones than the
economics professor, a thin, timid man named Bassum. One day,
(46:18):
when when we were on the subject of transportation and distribution,
it became Belentsowitz's turn to answer a question. Name one
means of transportation. The professor said to him, No light
came into the big tackle's eyes, just any means of transportation,
(46:39):
said the professor. Bealentswitz sat staring at him. That is,
pursued the professor any medium agency or method of going
from one place to another. Blentsowitz had the look of
a man who is being led into a trap. You
(47:01):
may choose among steam, horse drawn, or or electrically propelled vehicles,
said the instructor. I might suggest the one which we
commonly take in making long journeys across land. There was
a profound silence in which everybody stirred uneasily, including Balentuwitz
(47:26):
and mister Bassum. Mister Bassom abruptly broke this silence in
an amazing manner. Chew, chew, chew, he said in a
low voice, and turned instantly scarlet. He glanced appealingly around
the room. All of us, of course, shared mister Bassom's
(47:46):
desire that Balentulitz would stay abreast of the class in
economics for the Illinois game, one of the hardest and
most important the season, was only a week off. Too. Too, too,
some student with a deep voice moaned, and we all
looked encouragingly at Balentsuwitz. Somebody else gave a fine miation
of a locomotive letting off steam. Mister Bassom himself rounded
(48:08):
off the little shell. Ding Dong, ding dong, ding dong,
he said hopefully. Balentsowitz was staring at the floor now
trying to think. His great brow furrowed, his huge hands
rubbing together, his face red. How did you come to
(48:32):
college this year, mister Blentowitz, asked the professor. Chuff chuff, chuff, chuff,
chuff chuff. My father sent me, said the football player.
What on, asked Bassom, Getting loans, said the tackle in
(48:53):
a low husky voice, obviously embarrassed. No, no, said Bassim.
Name a means of transportation? What did you ride here
on train? Said Bealentsuwitz. Quite right, said the professor. Now,
mister Nugent, will you tell us if I went through
(49:16):
anguish in botany and economics for different reasons. Gymnasium work
was even worse. I don't even like to think about it.
They wouldn't let you play games or join in the
exercises with your glasses on, and I couldn't see with
mine off. I bumped into professors, horizontal bars, agricultural students
swinging iron rings, not being able to see. I could
(49:39):
take it, but I couldn't dish it. Out. Also, in
order to pass gymnasium, and you had to pass it
to graduate, you had to learn to swim if you
didn't know how. I didn't like the swimming pool. I
didn't like swimming, and I didn't like the swimming instructor,
and after all these years, I still don't. I never swam,
(50:04):
but I pass asked my gym work anyway by having
another student give my gymnasium number nine seven eight and
swim across the pool in my place. He was a quiet,
amiable blonde youth number four seven three, and he would
have seen through a microscope before me if we could
have gotten away with that. But we couldn't get away
with that. Another thing I didn't like about gymnasium work
(50:25):
was that they made you strip the day you registered.
It is impossible for me to be happy when I
am stripped and being asked a lot of questions. Still
I did better than a lanky agricultural student who was
cross examined just before I was. They asked each student
what college he was in, that is, whether arts, engineering, commerce,
(50:45):
or agriculture. What college are you in? The instructor snapped
at the youth in front of me, Ohio State University,
he said promptly. It wasn't that agricultural student, but it
was another, a whole lot like him, who decided to
take up journalism, possibly on the ground that when farming
went to hell, he could fall back on newspaper work.
(51:07):
He didn't realize, of course, that that would be very
much like falling back full length on a kit of
carpenter's tools. Haskins didn't seem cut out for journalism, being
too embarrassed to talk to anybody and unable to use
a typewriter, but the editor of the college paper assigned
him to the cow barns, the sheep house, the horse pavilion,
and the animal husbandry department. Generally, this was a genuinely
(51:32):
big beat, for took up five times as much ground
and got ten times as great a legislative appropriation as
the College of Liberal Arts. The agricultural student knew animals,
but nevertheless his stories were dull and colorlessly written. He
took all afternoon on each of them, on account of
(51:53):
having to hunt for each letter on the typewriter. Once
in a while he had to ask somebody to help
him hunt. C and L in particular, were hard letters
for him to find. His editor finally got pretty much
annoyed at the farmer journalists because these pieces were so uninteresting.
See here, Haskins, He snapped at him one day, why
(52:15):
is it we never have anything hot from you on
the horse pavilion Here? We have two hundred head of
horses on this campus, more than any other university in
the Western Conference except Purdue, and yet you never get
any real lowdown on them. Now shoot over to the
horse barns and dig up something lively. Haskins shambled out
and came back in about an hour. He said he
(52:38):
had something. Well tart it off, snappily, said the editor,
something people will read. Haskins sent to work, and in
a couple of hours brought a sheet of typewritten paper
to the desk. It was a two hundred word story
about some disease that had broken out among the horses.
Its opening sentence was simple but arresting. It read, who
(53:00):
has noticed the sores on the tops of the horses
in the animal husband building? Ohio State was a land
grant university, and therefore two years of military drill was compulsory.
We drilled with old Springfield rifles and studied the tactics
of the Civil War, even though the World War was
going on at the time. At eleven o'clock each morning,
(53:22):
thousands of freshmen and sophomores used to deploy over the campus,
moodily creeping up on the old chemistry building. It was
good training for the kind of warfare that was waged
at Shiloh, but it had no connection with what was
going on in Europe. Some people used to think that
there was German money behind it, but they didn't dare
(53:42):
say that or they would have been thrown in jail
as German spies. It was a period of muddy thought
and marked I believe the decline of higher education in
the Middle West. As a soldier, I was never any
good at all. Most of the cadets were glumly indifferent soldiers,
but I was no good at all. Once General Littlefield,
(54:07):
who was commandant of the Cadet Corps, popped up in
front of me during regimental drill and snapped, you are
the main trouble with this university. I think he meant
that my type was the main trouble with the university,
but he may have met me individually. I was mediocre
at drill. Certainly that is until my senior year. By
(54:30):
that time I had drilled longer than anybody else in
the Western Conference, having failed at military at the end
of each preceding year, so that I had to do
it all over again. I was the only seniors still
in uniform. The uniform, which when new had made me
look like an interurban railway conductor, now that it had
become faded and too tight, made me look like Bert
(54:52):
Williams in his Bellboy Act. This had a definitely bad
effect on my morale. Even so, I had become, by
sheer practice little short of wonderful at squad maneuvers. One day,
General Littlefield picked our company out of the whole regiment,
tried to get it mixed up by putting it through
(55:14):
one movement after another as fast as we could execute them.
Squad's right, squad's left, squad's on right into line, squad's right,
about squad's left front into line, et cetera. In about
three minutes, one hundred and nine men were marching in
one direction, and I was marching away from them at
an angle of forty degrees all alone. Company halt. Shouted
(55:37):
General Littlefield, that man is the only man who has
it right. I was made a corporal for my achievement.
The next day, General Littlefield summoned me to his office.
He was swatting flies when I came in. I was silent,
and he was silent too. For a long time. I
(55:59):
don't think he remembered me or why he had sent
for me. But he didn't want to admit that. He
swatted some more flies, keeping his eyes on them narrowly
before he let go with the swatter. But not up
your coat, he snapped. Looking back on it now, I
can see that he meant me, although he was looking
at a fly. But I just stood there. Another fly
(56:23):
came to rest on a paper in front of the
General and began rubbing its hind legs together. The General
lifted the swatter cautiously. I moved restlessly, and the fly
flew away. You startle them, barked General Littlefield, looking at
me severely. I said I was sorry. That won't help
the situation, snapped the general with cold military logic. I
(56:45):
didn't see what I could do, except offered to chase
some more flies toward his desk, but I didn't say anything.
He stared out the window at the faraway figures of
co Ed's crossing the campus towards the library. Finally he
told me I could go, so I went. He either
didn't know which cadet I was, or else he forgot
got what he wanted to see me about. It may
(57:07):
have been that he wished to apologize for having called
me the main trouble with the university, or maybe he
had decided to compliment me on my brilliant drilling of
the day before and then at the last minute decided
not to. I don't know. I don't think about it
much anymore. University Days by James Thurber. I've done all
(57:44):
the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening.
Any similarity to my University Days is purely coincidental. Countdown
has come to you from the Vin Scully Studios at
the Old Woman Broadcasting Empire in New York. If you
know anybody who does not listen to this podcast, please
tell them how wonderful it is. And if you're still
listening at this point, you must think it's wonderful. Countdown
musical director is Brian Ray and John Phillips. Schanel arranged, produced,
(58:06):
and performed most of our music. Mister Shanelle handled orchestration
and keyboards, Mister Ray was on the guitars, the bass,
and the drums, and it was produced by Tko Brothers.
The other music, including other Beethoven tunes, were arranged and
performed by No Horns Allowed. The sports music is courtesy
of ESPN, Inc. It was written by Mitch Warren Davis,
and we called the Olderman theme from ESPN two. Our
(58:28):
satirical and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Fauss, the
best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was my
friend Richard Lewis of Ohio State University, and everything else
was pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this
the oney twenty fifth day since Donald Trump's first attempted
coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.
(58:49):
Convict him now while we still can. The next scheduled
countdown is Tuesday. Bulletins as the news warrants till then
on Keith Oulderman, Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and
good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio.
(59:18):
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. This
is a Countdown bulletin podcast. And let's all congratulate Donald
Trump on talking himself into yet another gag order for
reasons that border on the hilarious. As of Sunday evening,
(00:27):
it was still unclear if Judge Tanya Chutkin had broadened
or clarified her gag order against Trump in the election
subversion trial in Washington, or more importantly, if she had
perhaps specifically threatened Trump with jail time if he violates
the gag order. But we know this much, she has
reinstated her gag order on Trump in this case. His
(00:50):
attorneys had convinced Chutkin to temporarily lift that cone of
silence from over him about the Washington trial while they
appealed it and tried to convince her to cancel the
gag order outright, and late Friday night, they had expanded
their filing to position Trump's ability to martyr himself as
the key campaign issue with the American public unquote. Smith's
(01:13):
office replied overnight Wednesday, not only opposing a permanent removal
of the gag order, but insisting that Trump had begun
to seriously threaten and endanger witnesses at trial, like his
former chief of staff Mark Meadows, and that Chutkin had
to reverse the temporary reprieve and Sunday evening she did
exactly that. Nice work Dementia Jay in an irony befitting
(01:38):
the topic and the online mosh pit in which Trump
has done most of his threatening. The court system that
gives lawyers and reporters and the public access to the
findings of almost any court's decision. The new Trump gag
order was itself gagged. The online system PACER public access
(01:58):
to court electronic records was showing only the order itself
and not the accompanying opinion. So we know Judge Chutkin
had something more to say about Trump and to Trump
and to Jack Smith and to the public. And as
of recording time, we don't know what the hell. It is.
A gag order so broad it has accidentally gagged the judge,
(02:23):
But it isn't hard to guess why she decided what
she decided. Quote. I don't think Mark Meadows would lie
merely forgetting immunity against prosecution parentheses persecution by deranged prosecutor
Jack Smith. Trump began last Tuesday, but when you really
think about it, being hounded like a dog for three years,
(02:45):
told you'll be going to jail the rest of your life,
your money, and your family will be gone forever, etc.
He's barely two sentences into his insane gurglings, and he
has implied Meadows lied, that Meadows was threatened, that Meadows
was bribed, that Meadows was hounded for three years, even
though three years ago today Trump was still president and
(03:07):
the election was still a week away. Quote. Some people
would make that deal, but they are weaklings and cowards
and so bad. And there's the added implied threat against
Meadows in that, and all because of news reports that
ran the gamut from describing a full Meadows flip against
Trump to some limited testimony forced by court order to
(03:28):
ongoing negotiations between the Special Council's office and Meadows attorneys
about a full negotiated plea deal. There were few more
things Trump could have squeezed in there that would have
also violated the original Chutkin gag order, except perhaps if
he had threatened to burn down Meadows's house, as the
(03:50):
Special Council also noted in his filing, long before Jack
Smith or the judge began to treat the concept of
a gag order seriously. There were the original terms of
Trump's release on bail after his indictment. Making content attacked
with a probable witness was forbidden in those original terms,
whether the contact was direct and secret or via some
(04:13):
public medium, and Chutkin was no doubt further influenced by
how Trump tried to get around the other gag order
He's got running at the moment, the one the New
York State Judge Arthur Engern imposed to protect his court
staff after Trump docks the court clerk, then was ordered
to delete that post, then was discovered to have left
an image of that post up, then made a veiled
(04:35):
disparaging reference to the clerk to the media, then took
the stand at the judge's insistence and promptly perjured himself
and insisted, no, he wasn't talking about her, the clerk,
He was talking about Michael Cohen. Moreover, on Saturday, Trump
again attacked Judge Ngron online three separate times, calling him crazed,
(04:58):
among other things, and again insisting, in that vague stochastic
way of his that quote this radical Trump hater must
be taken off this case, which is just fuzzy enough
in terms of composition to allow Trump to again lie
and claim he is not trying to get one of
his more psychopathic cultists to physically attack Engron on Trump's behalf.
(05:22):
It continues to amaze me that this judge Andngron has
not expanded his gag order in the New York case
to include not just court staff but everybody involved. If
he had, Trump would already be doing twenty five to life.
I have said this before, and I will say it again.
Our other American pro democracy institutions have collapsed under the
(05:43):
weight of something new and of somebody so devoid of
human qualities that he can break any law or norm,
or even just custom without the slightest hesitation or guilt.
The last line of defense in this country is the judiciary.
What Chutkin has done is not just to reimpose a
gag order that is, by itself the only practical way
(06:06):
of controlling a diseased animal like Trump, but also she
has indicated to his lawyers and even to him, if
he can faintly make out the sound of anything besides
the voice of his own vast, pulsating, undulating ego, that
if you play with fire. This judge is going to
(06:26):
make sure that you are the one who gets burned
once the online system comes back. That is, there is
a second irony here that I want to mention in
this bulletin edition. This is from one of Trump's campaign
stops Saturday at the Republican Jewish Coalition hearing in Iowa.
It is about three stumbles shy of a full Jackie Gleason,
(06:50):
Ralph Cramdon, Humana Hamana, Humana.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Colleges and universities will purge the anti Semitism and pro terroritist.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
What you're doing the terrorism boy, If I had a
dollar for every time I said that. There is the
contrarian position about the various gag orders against Trump that
during a time when his mental incapacities are obviously accelerating,
a gag order keeping him from saying stuff like that
might actually help him. At eight forty Eastern Sunday night,
(07:24):
Trump revealed online system failures or not that they have
managed to let him know that the gag order is
back in effect. Quote, the corrupt Biden administration just took
away my First Amendment right to free speech. Then switching
to all caps not constitutional? Make America great? Again. If
Chutkins's decision does nothing else, it has at minimum cut
(07:47):
down on the interminable length of Trump's posts. That one
is just twenty words. Thank God for small blessings. The
rest of this bullet in edition of the Countdown podcast
is a repeat of Friday's. So if you've heard that
and you wish to bail out right now, I wouldn't
(08:08):
blame you. I'll be back with a full new edition
at the usual hour Monday night and Tuesday morning, or
another bulletin if the Court Documents Access System PACER gets
plugged back in. Did you ever drive in an AMC
pacer or drive one yourself? The automobile from American Motors
in the seventies. My mother had a pacer. She once
(08:30):
managed to lock herself and my sister out of the
pacer while it was still running and the keys were
still in the ignition and they were in the parking
lot at Yankee Stadium. Why on earth would you give
a vital court reporting system the same name as that thing?
(09:04):
Once again, Dementia J. Trump is providing hints and foreshadowings
and augurs that he is about to finally lose all
control of his mind. Meanwhile, Jack Smith has clearly graduated
from demanding that they put a gag order on Trump
to instead demanding that they put something on him that
(09:25):
more resembles a Hannibal lecter mask Trump under a gag
order in a New York courtroom, two violations of which
have been used to argue for the immediate reinstatement of
another gag order in a Washington courtroom, a gag order
which could go back into effect as early as tomorrow.
Has now attacked the New York judge three separate times online,
(09:46):
and in one of the attacks, he may have issued
yet another stochastic call for violence against the judge. Quote.
This is judicial misconduct coupled with prosecutorial misconduct, and somebody
from the state of New York must step in and
stop this co compleet and total miscarriage of justice unquote.
(10:09):
Because Trump had earlier suggested that New York's governor should
get involved, and because he capitalized the word state when
he wrote state of New York, he managed to keep
one foot in that shadowy region in which he has
lived his life, and his attorneys could argue that he
was not asking somebody from the state of New York
(10:29):
to step in and stop this by attacking somebody like
the judge or the district attorney or both. But Trump's
rage inside that New York courtroom this week was worse
than initially reported. Those inside it with him now say
he pounded his fist on the defense table and got
bright red. And perhaps the full measure of how rapidly
(10:51):
his already minimal self control seems to be cracking was
underscored just before one pm Eastern yesterday when he attacked
a reporter, not so much for what she had written,
but for what she did not write. Quote Maggot Hagerman
of the failing New York Times wrote almost her entire
(11:11):
fake story today about the Trump hating judges gag order
they love to silence me, rather than the racist attorney general,
star witness choking like a dog on the witness stand,
Perry Mason. There is so much ass in that sentence
(11:32):
that it is hard to sort it all out. But
from a psychological viewpoint, there is little that could be
ever more telling than Trump attacking a writer who has
often been, even post coup, astonishingly deferential to him, and
who has been brutally attacked, including by me here metaphorically speaking,
of course, for being so deferential to him. Moreover, the
(11:56):
article that drove him to this most insane of a
series of insane posts is pretty dull, pretty even handed,
pretty hard to criticize. Any Trumpist who actually bothered to
read Maggie Haberman's piece in The New York Times yesterday
would be hard pressed to figure out why Trump would
have gone so crazy. And that's because since the court
(12:21):
hearings began to dominate his schedule, Trump has ever increasingly
shown more and more signs of his evil but still
strategic public pressure against prosecutors and political opponents and others.
He's shown that that is dissolving into pure petulance, maggot,
and then calling Haberman Hagerman on I guess the premise
(12:45):
that's substituting a G for the B in her name
means we're supposed to pronounce that hag The parenthetical reference
to Perry Mason in there, that's a callback to an
earlier post, ten or twenty posts before, and anyway, it's
a reference to a television show that had its last
special episode on April tenth, nineteen ninety five. The reference
(13:09):
to the star witness choking because he doesn't know how
to spell choking. These are easy tells, clear signs of
Trump under stress, and the real tell is in the
phrase that should have read choking like a dog. That
is the second reference in twelve hours to dogs doing
(13:31):
things dogs don't do choking. The other one is lying.
Trump has a fraud relationship with canine analogies. In the
stress of the twenty sixteen campaign, at his lowest moments,
when it looked as if he would lose by ten
points or perhaps be replaced on the ticket in a
special maneuver by the Republican Party, he repeatedly made references
to people being fired like a dog, or thrown off
(13:55):
TV like a dog, or begging for money like a dog.
And he made these references with the confidence of a
moron speaking a languae whige, a foreign language. He doesn't
really understand. The next dog I see begging for money
will be the first in the history of the planet.
More on this shortly, but back to the main point.
(14:18):
Trump just threw some more chaff submarine countermeasures into this mix.
His lawyers last night filed a motion that he is
not guilty of elections subversion because there are classified government
assessments that he's going to produce at trial quote relating
to foreign influence activities that impacted the twenty sixteen and
twenty twenty election, to establish that he acted at all
(14:42):
times in good faith and on the belief that he
was doing what he had been elected to do, which
I guess means he's going to call as a surprise
witness Q. While Judge Tanya Chutkin deals with this nonsense,
I am still unconvinced that either she or Judge Arthur
Engern will actually jail Trump for violating gag orders, although
(15:05):
my hopes for chut Can are significantly higher. But I
am just as firmly convinced that that is exactly what
Jack Smith and his team of prosecutors in the federal
election subversion case are now pushing for. Trump's ambulance. Chasers
appealed the chut Can gag order to a different court
at As Judges do. Chutkin gave him a temporary suspension
(15:27):
of that gag order. His attorneys then immediately asked for
an even longer suspension. The Office of the Special Council
replied late Wednesday night early Yesterday morning, demanding that Trump
be regagged immediately, and Trump's lawyers, you know, the future
witnesses against him in some other courtroom, and the jurisdiction
far far away. They had till Saturday morning to reply.
(15:51):
The focus of the Smith argument is obviously Trump's all
purpose posts about Mark Meadows, part insult, part dismissal, part
not at all veiled threat, but most importantly dove tailing
with the argument Smith and his group have repeatedly made
to Judge Chutkin. It contained not just intimidation of a witness.
(16:12):
It contained an attempt to poison the jury pool by
impeaching a witness and insisting the prosecution was corrupt to
quote that Smith filing. The defendants targeting included insinuating that
if the reporting were true, the chief of staff had
lied and had been coerced, and the defendants sent a
(16:33):
clear public message to the chief of staff intended to
intimidate him. And then in the footnotes, the ghostbuster streams
crossed the bid to restart the Washington gag, cited Trump's
ignoring of the New York gag. Quote. Defense counsel also
assured the court that the defendant's post targeting the court
(16:55):
staffer had been quote dealt with by the court in
New York, that assurance turned out to be mistaken. Unquote here,
the word mistaken is a very, very polite euphemism. The
rest of the filing shows that Trump ignored the New
York gag order, ignored it a second time, was called
(17:15):
to the witness stand to explain what he said, lied
about what he said, perjured himself, and has proven to
be unrestrainable even with the gag order as presently constituted.
What Jack Smith and his staff are setting up is
something stronger. As I said earlier, it is less a
gag order than it is a Hannibal Lecter mask. Here,
(17:37):
they write, the defendant has capitalized on the court's administrative
stay to, among other prejudicial conduct, send an unmistakable and
threatening message to a foreseeable witness. In this case, unless
the court lifts the administrative stay, the defendant will not
stop his harmful and prejudicial attacks. In addition, to the
(17:58):
extent that the defendant's public message directed to Mark Meadows,
with knowledge that it would reach him, is not already
covered by his release conditions, it is an intentional end
run around them. On quote, let me translate that. In
other words, Jack Smith is not telling the judge that
Trump has violated her gag order. He is telling the
(18:20):
judge that Trump has violated the original conditions under which
she did not jail him until the trial starts. To
resume the quote. Accordingly, the court should modify the defendant's
conditions of release by making compliance with the order a condition,
or by clarifying that the existing condition barring communication with
(18:44):
witnesses about the facts of the case includes indirect messages
made publicly on social media or in speeches. Again, in short,
a mask over his face and a straight jacket legally anyway,
I'm afraid Trump in a a real mask and a
(19:06):
real straight jacket is just too much to hope for
for now. The quick follow up now on this the
second full day of the reign of Speaker Mike Johnson.
For a man who spent twenty years advocating for sending
gay people to prison for having sex, advocating for sending
(19:29):
doctors to prison for providing family planning for women, advocating
for a national abortion ban, advocating for fewer laws against guns,
advocating for more laws against divorce, advocating for gutting the
entire social safety net, advocating for disenfranchising minorities and entire states,
advocating for using the Constitution to destroy the Constitution, advocating
(19:53):
for the forced conflation of church and state, advocating for
a conservative group that makes its employees swear an oath
to Jesus, advocating against transgenderism, advocating against men wearing women's clothes,
advocating against women wearing men's clothes, advocating restrictions against Muslims,
advocating against federal disaster relief, advocating for more oil and gas,
(20:16):
and against science that has proved we're all going to
get killed by more oil and gas. Advocating for that
idiot Amy Cony Barrett since he met her in nineteen
eighty eight, advocating for a limit of three terms in
the House and then running for this term his fourth term,
and advocating for the overthrow of the duly elected government
of the United States throughout the end of twenty twenty
(20:38):
and the beginning of twenty twenty one. For a guy
who has done nothing but comment on everything all the
time and has always been wrong so far, Mike Johnson
sure has been Speaker of the House. Mister no comment
can you clarify your sana and his brief view twenty
(21:00):
twenty election was stolen surgist, yes or no? Just for
the record service, do you in trust his excuse me?
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Do you sent to pursue a national abortion man as.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Speaker sir in your you know you're gonna have to
say something sometime soon. Sparky two other Johnson notes Echelon
Insights not exactly a liberal outfit. Did a crash poll
on public reaction to the News Speaker five hundred and
(21:38):
ninety four US adults. They say favorable thirty one percent,
unfavorable fifteen percent, heard of him but have no opinion
twenty one percent. But the big winner is never heard
of him thirty four percent. Compare this to Congressman Ted
Jones favorable eighteen percent, unfavorable, just twelve percent heard of
(22:01):
him but have no opinion nineteen percent. That is a
statistical tie with Speaker Johnson, and again the big winner
for Congressman Ted Jones never heard of him fifty one percent.
There is no Congressman Ted Jones, the news Speaker of
the House, the leader of the Republicans in Congress. He's
doing slightly better than an imaginary congressman, and lastly from
(22:27):
the House. I am stealing this joke from Twitter user
your Canadian girlfriend at your Canadian GF. Representative Lauren Bobert
tweeted a photo of herself wearing too much makeup on
the packed House floor, beaming alongside Speaker Johnson. Congratulations on
becoming the next Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.
You assume office at a critical time for our nation.
(22:49):
Pray the Lord guides you. Blah blah blah blah blah,
to which your Canadian girlfriend observes quote not the first
time she stroked a Johnson in a crowded room. Wow,
and now is referenced earlier. Since the subject is topical
(23:12):
and podcasts can be infinity long. This is an all
new episode, by the way, including a Thurber story I
have not read you previously, plus sports plus Worst Persons,
which is mostly about the main shooting and how we
should name these shootings after the politicians who have enabled them.
Since the subject is still front of mind, let me
repeat what I first analyzed on October three, twenty sixteen.
(23:36):
This insane the word is meant literally, this insane inability
of dementia Jay Trump to process the concept of dogs.
When he talks about dogs, he clearly is unaware that
anybody likes dogs. When he analogizes with dogs, he says
things that make less sense than usual, even for him.
(23:57):
When he invokes dogs, something fragile in his brain is barking.
It is saying to us, it is close to the
breaking point, and we are here again, as we were
seven years ago this month when I first said this quote.
Until one has loved an animal, wrote the journalist and
(24:18):
author Anatole France, a part of one's soul remains unawakened.
There is no evidence Donald Trump has ever loved an animal.
If Trump has ever in his life had a pet,
wrote Gail Collins of The New York Times, his campaign
doesn't know about it. There's some question, in fact about
whether he's even had an animal friend. In fact, none
(24:42):
of the books about Trump, including his own, refer to
a pet dog. The co author or ghostwriter of the
Art of the Deal, Tony Schwartz, told me he never
heard Trump reference a pet as adult or child. Google it,
fact check it, do a nexus Lexis search on it,
and you come up blank. Save for an apparently apocryphal
(25:02):
story about him. Tweeting asking for prayers for a labrador
named Spinny. There were no tweets, no entreaties, and for
all we can determine, no Spinny. A man running to
lead a nation of three hundred and twenty four million people,
and while we're at it, seventy eight million dogs and
seventy six million cats. And there are solid reasons to
believe he has never had a dog. But it's worse
(25:27):
than just that, isn't it. Quote July twenty fifteen. I
hear that sleepy eyes Chuck Todd will be fired like
a dog. October twenty fifteen. Wow, great news. I hear
Eric Erickson of Red State was fired like a dog.
December twenty fifteen. Glenn Beck got fired like a dog.
(25:47):
January twenty sixteen. Union leader refuses to comment as to
why they were kicked out of the ABC News debate
like a dog. Twelve days later, Brent Bozell, one of
the National Review lightweights, came to my office begging for
money like a dog. Huh when was the last time
he saw a dog begging for money in somebody's office?
(26:11):
February twenty sixteen. Wow, was Ted Cruz disloyal to his
very capable director of communication. He used him as a scapegoat.
Fired like a dog, all right? Which is it a
go to her dog? March twenty sixteen, Eric Erickson again
got fired like a dog from Red State. Eleven days
after that, David Gregory got thrown off of TV by NBC,
(26:33):
Fired like a dog. June twenty sixteen, Mitt Romney had
his chance to beat a failed president, but he choked
like a dog. What the hell is wrong with this
guy about dogs? Fired like a dog? Have you ever
fired a dog? He's also tweeted that the Egyptian president
(26:53):
Mubarik was dropped like a dog, that Reverend Jeremiah Wright
was dumped like a dog, that Mark Cuban was thrown
off television like a dog, that Kristen Stewart cheated on
Robert Pattinson like a do And worst of all, he
said that during a Republican debate he saw Senator Marco
Rubio sweating like a dog. Dogs don't sweat. In theory,
(27:16):
they could get fired, they could get cheated on, they
could beg for money, or they could get dropped, dumped,
kicked out, or thrown off television. But physically they cannot sweat.
Donald Trump has no knowledge of this, no understanding of this.
There's no evidence that he's ever had a dog, no
evidence he understands even the kinds of basics that people
(27:40):
who do not have dogs still know about dogs. What
the hell is he for, Mars? If so, could he
go back and I'll add in twenty sixteen when he
said Romney choked like a dog, unlike this week about
(28:01):
Michael Cohen. In twenty sixteen, Trump's belled choked correctly naming
the mass shootings after people like, say Senator Susan Collins.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
That's next. This is countdown. This is Countdown with Keith Olberman.
This is Sports Center. Wait, check that not anymore. This
(28:40):
is Countdown with Keith Olberman.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
In Sports World Series starts tonight, the team tied for
the seventh best record in the game, the Texas Rangers,
hosting the team with the twelfth best record in the game,
the Arizona Diamondbacks. Baseball has managed to develop a layoff
(29:05):
system in which ten of the eleven best teams in
the regular season can be eliminated. Sadly, the teams taking
the field Arizona and Texas, they are not the best
teams in the game. Or in either league. I do
not know what they are playing for anymore. The whole
(29:26):
thing is just a really sad lie now, thank you,
(29:46):
Nancy Faust. Just to make it worse, the Arizona Diamondbacks
are expected to become the first team to despoil the
World Series by wearing uniforms with advertising patches on the sleeves.
And if you're the advertiser, you should be asking for
your money back because as which as I know, I
sound like the captain of team old man yells at cloud. Hey,
(30:10):
you kids, get off my lawn. I'm gonna go back
to my prediction. Way. Do you see how many people
do not watch this World Series nationally? The series has
only once dipped below ten million viewers per game. That
was in the COVID season the token World Series of
twenty twenty. The peak was forty four million viewers per
(30:30):
game for the Yankees and Dodgers. In nineteen seventy eight. Yes,
a different entertainment world, there were only three TV networks.
On the other hand, the population was thirty three percent
smaller than it is now. Guess which one of those numbers,
ten million or forty four million a game? This series
is going to come closer to They have reduced the
(30:50):
World Series to this simple formula. Is my team playing
no see an x spring? Who would have ever thought this?
As gambling sites become one of the leading advertisers, maybe
the leading advertisers in all of sports. A pro athlete
has been suspended for violating his league's rules against gambling
(31:11):
on sports. I know a shock. Shane Pinto of hockey's
Ottawa Senators will sit for forty one games after one
of the sites reported to the NHL that he had
a gambling account with them. There is some evidence that
Pinto did not actually do the gambling in question, but
somebody else was using his account improperly and talk about
(31:33):
the chickens coming home to roost. The first hockey team
to have put an ad on its helmets for a
gambling site yep, Pinto's Ottawa Senators, and the worst on
this is clearly yet to come. Lastly, also on uniforms,
Brilliance from the British soccer club Tottenham Hotspur. It has
carefully researched the eight hundred and seventy nine different players
(31:54):
who performed for the team since it began play in
eighteen ninety four. It has determined in which order they debuted,
and it has now assigned each of them legacy number.
Stanley Briggs, center half of their first eighteen ninety four
Spurs team, is number one, and Alejo Vliz, who just
(32:15):
joined them this year, is number eight seventy nine. So
when their next new player debuts, there will be a
small number eight eighty on the back of his jersey
below the collar. Imagine an American team in any sport
doing this. It is that rarest of ideas, something that
actually salutes the players, cherishes the history of the game,
(32:36):
and lets the team make some more money selling more
replica uniforms, only maybe leave the ads off them. This
time still ahead on this all new edition of Countdown
(33:08):
Fridays with Thurber, and I've never yet met anybody who
will not shudder with recognition about something in James Herber's
reminiscences about how he almost did not graduate because of
science and swimming. The first time I have ever read
to you University days first time for the daily roundup
(33:29):
of the misgrants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who
constitute today's worst persons in the world. The Bronze President
Dudah of Poland. The anti fascist candidate Prime Minister Donald
Tuisk upset the ultranationalist quote Law and Justice Party and
has the only prospects for forming a coalition to now
rule the nation. Yet the President has refused to name
(33:52):
Tusk as prime minister. The President now says he will
not open parliament until the eleventh of next month, and
he may not have named prime minister even then. There
are grim suspicions in Poland that somebody is trying to
pull up Trump there to reappoint the fascist and then
either stage violence or create some diversion to keep the
Democratic Coalition and Tusk out of office. The runner up,
(34:16):
Mayor Eric Adams of New York. This is not about
his delusion of being anointed by God. I'm letting that
pass today. This is about the dangers of e bikes
in this city or any other city. People have died
here because the batteries of e bikes have caught fire
in apartment buildings. People have been grievously wounded here because
(34:36):
the police do nothing about e bikers riding up on
sidewalks or ignoring all traffic lights and laws and driving
in the opposite direction of the traffic and now now
though they've gone too far. Wednesday night, a friend of
mine's dog and another dog were being walked on the
west Side. They were walking east on forty seventh Street
on the sidewalk, which is for walking out of nowhere.
(34:59):
An idiot on an e bike on the sidewalk going
west into them, the walker and the two dogs. Happily,
the injuries to the dogs and the walker were minor.
The e biker those swore at them as he drove away,
and two cops witnessed the entire event and did nothing.
(35:20):
Maybe the lead story is here. There were two cops
standing on forty seventh Street alert the media. The nightmare,
of course, is that e bikes are central to fighting
climate change, but something like this happens daily here because
the city is not designed for e bikes or enforcing rules,
and people are coming to hate e bikes here, and
(35:42):
the people who drive e bikes here so recklessly that
when the city acts instead of enforcing regulations against e bikes,
it's going to have to flat out ban them. So
these idiots are endangering lives and endangering dogs, and then
they will endanger lives again by ruining one means we
have of helping to not extinguish life on the planet.
(36:06):
Get on this, Mayor Adams, pretend God told you to,
but our winners, and we will drop the music for this.
It is a tie. Speaker Mike Johnson, hours after his
election a mass shooting in Maine, for which he has
now offered prayers. Johnson voted against background checks, He's voted
(36:29):
against protecting domestic violence victims from gun possession. He's voted
against the bipartisan Safer Communities Act. But he had time
to meet ten days ago in his House office with
women for gun rights to, as he put it, then
discuss the safeguarding of our Second Amendment rights. Mister speaker,
(36:49):
shove your Second Amendment up your ass. It does not
say anything about ownership of guns. If it did, it
would have the word own in it, you fatuous Christo
fascist idiot. I'm going to suggest some thing now that
might be grotesque. It might be callous, It might hurt
some of those directly affected by these shootings, or it
(37:12):
might steer the society out of its spiral towards collective
suicide by gun. I think we should name each mass
shooting after a politician who's inactivity, negligence, or acceptance of
bribes from the NRA has made them at least a
symbolic accessory before the fact to the latest carnage. I
(37:33):
think we should not call this one the Lewiston, Maine
mass shooting. I think we should call this one the
speaker Mike Johnson mass shooting, or the Senator Susan Collins
mass shooting. The senator from Maine voted against renewing the
assault weapons ban, and she voted against the ban on
high capacity magazines that allow mass shooters to fire their
(37:56):
weapons of terror even faster. She has contributed to the
fact that while gutless, heartless Republicans like herself always respond
to a man shooting like the Speaker Mike Johnson mass
shooting by invoking mental health. Maine does not have background
checks on all gun sales, nor a red flag law,
nor does it stop domestic abusers from getting guns, nor
(38:18):
does it have a waiting period. Senator Collins has not
learned her lesson she had the gall to show up
to a news conference in Lewiston last night. Or we
could also call this one the Sean Hannity mass shooting.
A long time ago, I was friendly with this fatuous idiot.
He used to express bewilderment to me that people took
(38:40):
what he said or what I said seriously. It's only television.
At some point though, he started believing his own delusions.
After the shooting Wednesday night, interviewing Nicky Hayley, well there's
a combined IQ that's still under one hundred, Hannity actually
suggested that everybody should have a plan to confront a
(39:03):
mass shooter. Quote, I have a personal security plan. I
train in Mick Marshall arch. In other words, Sean Hannity
thinks this is the matrix and he's going to kick
the AR fifteen out of the Mike Johnson mass shooter's hands.
I'm guessing ultimately nobody on the right will do anything
(39:25):
about any of this until they are literally all standing
over the body of somebody like Sean Hannity and commenting
on how it looked like he was in some sort
of jiu jitsu stance when that guy put the six
inch diameter bullet hole through him, And maybe even then
they still won't do anything about it. Speaker Mike Johnson,
(39:48):
Senator Susan Collins, Sean Hannity useless, wasted human beings, today's
worst persons in the world. This is thing James Thurber
ever wrote to a novel, was the story of his childhood,
(40:10):
somewhat exaggerated, or, according to his family, almost completely exaggerated.
It was called My Life and hard Times. In it
are stories like the night the bed fell and such
as that. But my favorite, perhaps of all of his
stories from his supposed youth, is called University Days. There's
(40:32):
a lot of well you'll hear, there's a lot of
stuff in university Days. And so I presented to you
for the first time on Fridays with Thurber University Days
by James Thurber. I've passed all the other courses that
I took at my university, but I could never pass botany.
(40:54):
This was because all botany students had to spend several
hours a week in a laboratory looking through a microscope
at plant cells, and I could never see through a microscope.
I never once saw a cell through a microscope. This
used to enrage my instructor. He would wander around the laboratory,
(41:14):
please with the progress all the students were making and
drawing the involved and so I am told interesting structure
of flower cells until he came to me. I would
just be standing there. I can't see anything, I would say.
He would begin patiently enough explaining how anybody can see
(41:35):
through a microscope, but he would always end up in
a fury, claiming that I could too see through a microscope,
but just pretended that I couldn't. It takes away from
the beauty of flowers anyway. I used to tell him,
we are not concerned with the beauty in this course.
He would say, we are concerned solely with what I
may call the mechanics of flowers. Well, I'd say, I
(42:01):
can't see anything. Try it just once again, he'd say,
And I would put my eye to the microscope and
see nothing at all, except now and again, a nebulous
milky substance, a phenomenon of maladjustment. You were supposed to
see a vivid, restless clockwork of sharply defined plant cells.
(42:23):
I see what looks like a lot of milk. I
would tell him. This, He claimed was the result of
my not having adjusted the microscope properly. So he would
readjust it for me, or rather for himself, and I
would look again and see milk. I finally took a
deferred pass as they called it, and waited a year
(42:43):
and tried again. You had to pass one of the
biological sciences or you couldn't graduate. The professor had come
back from vacation brown as a berry, bright eyed, and
eager to explain cell structure again to his classes. Well,
he said to me cheerily when we met in the
laboratory first hour of the semester. We're going to see
(43:03):
cells this time, aren't we, Yes, sir, I said. Students
to right of me, and to left of me, and
in front of me were seeing cells. What's more, they
were quietly drawing pictures of them in their notebooks. Of course,
I didn't see anything. We'll try it, the professor said
(43:24):
to me gently, with every adjustment of the microscope known
to man. As God is my witness, I'll arrange this
glass so that you see cells through it, or I'll
give up teaching in twenty two years of botany. I
(43:46):
he cut off abruptly, for he was beginning to quiver
all over like Lionel Barrymore, and he genuinely wished to
hold on to his temper. His scenes with me had
taken a great deal out of him. As an editor's
note here, if you don't recognize the name Lionel Barrymore,
if you've ever seen the movie It's a Wonderful Life,
(44:07):
mister Potter, the evil financier in the wheelchair that was
played by lime old Barrymore, who used to quiver all
over back to Thurber. So we tried it with every
adjustment of the microscope known to man. With only one
of them did I see anything but blackness or the
(44:27):
familiar lacteal opacity. And that time I saw, to my
pleasure and amazement, a variegated constellation of flex specks and dots.
These I hastily drew. The instructor, noting my activity, came
back from an adjoining desk, a smile on his lips,
his eyebrows high in hope. He looked at my cell drawing.
(44:49):
What's that, he demanded, with a hint of squeal in
his voice. That's what I saw, I said. You didn't,
You didn't, You didn't, he screamed, losing control of his
temper instantly, and he bent over and squinted into the
microscope his head. That's your eye, he shouted. You fix
(45:09):
the lens so that it reflects you've drawn your eye.
Another course, that I didn't like, but somehow managed to pass.
Was economics. I went to that class straight from the
botany class, which didn't help me any in understanding either subject.
I used to get them mixed up, but not as
(45:32):
mixed up as another student in my economics class who
came there direct from a physics laboratory. He was a
tackle on the football team named Balentsowitz. At the time,
Ohio State University had one of the best football teams
in the country, and Balentsuwitz was one of its outstanding stars.
In order to be eligible to play, it was necessary
(45:53):
for him to keep up in his studies, a very
difficult matter, for while he was not dumber than an ox,
he was not any smarter. Most of his professors were
lenient and helped him along. None gave him more hints
in answering questions or asked him simpler ones than the
economics professor, a thin, timid man named Bassum. One day,
(46:18):
when when we were on the subject of transportation and distribution,
it became Belentsowitz's turn to answer a question. Name one
means of transportation. The professor said to him, No light
came into the big tackle's eyes, just any means of transportation,
(46:39):
said the professor. Bealentswitz sat staring at him. That is,
pursued the professor any medium agency or method of going
from one place to another. Blentsowitz had the look of
a man who is being led into a trap. You
(47:01):
may choose among steam, horse drawn, or or electrically propelled vehicles,
said the instructor. I might suggest the one which we
commonly take in making long journeys across land. There was
a profound silence in which everybody stirred uneasily, including Balentuwitz
(47:26):
and mister Bassum. Mister Bassom abruptly broke this silence in
an amazing manner. Chew, chew, chew, he said in a
low voice, and turned instantly scarlet. He glanced appealingly around
the room. All of us, of course, shared mister Bassom's
(47:46):
desire that Balentulitz would stay abreast of the class in
economics for the Illinois game, one of the hardest and
most important the season, was only a week off. Too. Too, too,
some student with a deep voice moaned, and we all
looked encouragingly at Balentsuwitz. Somebody else gave a fine miation
of a locomotive letting off steam. Mister Bassom himself rounded
(48:08):
off the little shell. Ding Dong, ding dong, ding dong,
he said hopefully. Balentsowitz was staring at the floor now
trying to think. His great brow furrowed, his huge hands
rubbing together, his face red. How did you come to
(48:32):
college this year, mister Blentowitz, asked the professor. Chuff chuff, chuff, chuff,
chuff chuff. My father sent me, said the football player.
What on, asked Bassom, Getting loans, said the tackle in
(48:53):
a low husky voice, obviously embarrassed. No, no, said Bassim.
Name a means of transportation? What did you ride here
on train? Said Bealentsuwitz. Quite right, said the professor. Now,
mister Nugent, will you tell us if I went through
(49:16):
anguish in botany and economics for different reasons. Gymnasium work
was even worse. I don't even like to think about it.
They wouldn't let you play games or join in the
exercises with your glasses on, and I couldn't see with
mine off. I bumped into professors, horizontal bars, agricultural students
swinging iron rings, not being able to see. I could
(49:39):
take it, but I couldn't dish it. Out. Also, in
order to pass gymnasium, and you had to pass it
to graduate, you had to learn to swim if you
didn't know how. I didn't like the swimming pool. I
didn't like swimming, and I didn't like the swimming instructor,
and after all these years, I still don't. I never swam,
(50:04):
but I pass asked my gym work anyway by having
another student give my gymnasium number nine seven eight and
swim across the pool in my place. He was a quiet,
amiable blonde youth number four seven three, and he would
have seen through a microscope before me if we could
have gotten away with that. But we couldn't get away
with that. Another thing I didn't like about gymnasium work
(50:25):
was that they made you strip the day you registered.
It is impossible for me to be happy when I
am stripped and being asked a lot of questions. Still
I did better than a lanky agricultural student who was
cross examined just before I was. They asked each student
what college he was in, that is, whether arts, engineering, commerce,
(50:45):
or agriculture. What college are you in? The instructor snapped
at the youth in front of me, Ohio State University,
he said promptly. It wasn't that agricultural student, but it
was another, a whole lot like him, who decided to
take up journalism, possibly on the ground that when farming
went to hell, he could fall back on newspaper work.
(51:07):
He didn't realize, of course, that that would be very
much like falling back full length on a kit of
carpenter's tools. Haskins didn't seem cut out for journalism, being
too embarrassed to talk to anybody and unable to use
a typewriter, but the editor of the college paper assigned
him to the cow barns, the sheep house, the horse pavilion,
and the animal husbandry department. Generally, this was a genuinely
(51:32):
big beat, for took up five times as much ground
and got ten times as great a legislative appropriation as
the College of Liberal Arts. The agricultural student knew animals,
but nevertheless his stories were dull and colorlessly written. He
took all afternoon on each of them, on account of
(51:53):
having to hunt for each letter on the typewriter. Once
in a while he had to ask somebody to help
him hunt. C and L in particular, were hard letters
for him to find. His editor finally got pretty much
annoyed at the farmer journalists because these pieces were so uninteresting.
See here, Haskins, He snapped at him one day, why
(52:15):
is it we never have anything hot from you on
the horse pavilion Here? We have two hundred head of
horses on this campus, more than any other university in
the Western Conference except Purdue, and yet you never get
any real lowdown on them. Now shoot over to the
horse barns and dig up something lively. Haskins shambled out
and came back in about an hour. He said he
(52:38):
had something. Well tart it off, snappily, said the editor,
something people will read. Haskins sent to work, and in
a couple of hours brought a sheet of typewritten paper
to the desk. It was a two hundred word story
about some disease that had broken out among the horses.
Its opening sentence was simple but arresting. It read, who
(53:00):
has noticed the sores on the tops of the horses
in the animal husband building? Ohio State was a land
grant university, and therefore two years of military drill was compulsory.
We drilled with old Springfield rifles and studied the tactics
of the Civil War, even though the World War was
going on at the time. At eleven o'clock each morning,
(53:22):
thousands of freshmen and sophomores used to deploy over the campus,
moodily creeping up on the old chemistry building. It was
good training for the kind of warfare that was waged
at Shiloh, but it had no connection with what was
going on in Europe. Some people used to think that
there was German money behind it, but they didn't dare
(53:42):
say that or they would have been thrown in jail
as German spies. It was a period of muddy thought
and marked I believe the decline of higher education in
the Middle West. As a soldier, I was never any
good at all. Most of the cadets were glumly indifferent soldiers,
but I was no good at all. Once General Littlefield,
(54:07):
who was commandant of the Cadet Corps, popped up in
front of me during regimental drill and snapped, you are
the main trouble with this university. I think he meant
that my type was the main trouble with the university,
but he may have met me individually. I was mediocre
at drill. Certainly that is until my senior year. By
(54:30):
that time I had drilled longer than anybody else in
the Western Conference, having failed at military at the end
of each preceding year, so that I had to do
it all over again. I was the only seniors still
in uniform. The uniform, which when new had made me
look like an interurban railway conductor, now that it had
become faded and too tight, made me look like Bert
(54:52):
Williams in his Bellboy Act. This had a definitely bad
effect on my morale. Even so, I had become, by
sheer practice little short of wonderful at squad maneuvers. One day,
General Littlefield picked our company out of the whole regiment,
tried to get it mixed up by putting it through
(55:14):
one movement after another as fast as we could execute them.
Squad's right, squad's left, squad's on right into line, squad's right,
about squad's left front into line, et cetera. In about
three minutes, one hundred and nine men were marching in
one direction, and I was marching away from them at
an angle of forty degrees all alone. Company halt. Shouted
(55:37):
General Littlefield, that man is the only man who has
it right. I was made a corporal for my achievement.
The next day, General Littlefield summoned me to his office.
He was swatting flies when I came in. I was silent,
and he was silent too. For a long time. I
(55:59):
don't think he remembered me or why he had sent
for me. But he didn't want to admit that. He
swatted some more flies, keeping his eyes on them narrowly
before he let go with the swatter. But not up
your coat, he snapped. Looking back on it now, I
can see that he meant me, although he was looking
at a fly. But I just stood there. Another fly
(56:23):
came to rest on a paper in front of the
General and began rubbing its hind legs together. The General
lifted the swatter cautiously. I moved restlessly, and the fly
flew away. You startle them, barked General Littlefield, looking at
me severely. I said I was sorry. That won't help
the situation, snapped the general with cold military logic. I
(56:45):
didn't see what I could do, except offered to chase
some more flies toward his desk, but I didn't say anything.
He stared out the window at the faraway figures of
co Ed's crossing the campus towards the library. Finally he
told me I could go, so I went. He either
didn't know which cadet I was, or else he forgot
got what he wanted to see me about. It may
(57:07):
have been that he wished to apologize for having called
me the main trouble with the university, or maybe he
had decided to compliment me on my brilliant drilling of
the day before and then at the last minute decided
not to. I don't know. I don't think about it
much anymore. University Days by James Thurber. I've done all
(57:44):
the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening.
Any similarity to my University Days is purely coincidental. Countdown
has come to you from the Vin Scully Studios at
the Old Woman Broadcasting Empire in New York. If you
know anybody who does not listen to this podcast, please
tell them how wonderful it is. And if you're still
listening at this point, you must think it's wonderful. Countdown
musical director is Brian Ray and John Phillips. Schanel arranged, produced,
(58:06):
and performed most of our music. Mister Shanelle handled orchestration
and keyboards, Mister Ray was on the guitars, the bass,
and the drums, and it was produced by Tko Brothers.
The other music, including other Beethoven tunes, were arranged and
performed by No Horns Allowed. The sports music is courtesy
of ESPN, Inc. It was written by Mitch Warren Davis,
and we called the Olderman theme from ESPN two. Our
(58:28):
satirical and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Fauss, the
best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was my
friend Richard Lewis of Ohio State University, and everything else
was pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this
the oney twenty fifth day since Donald Trump's first attempted
coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.
(58:49):
Convict him now while we still can. The next scheduled
countdown is Tuesday. Bulletins as the news warrants till then
on Keith Oulderman, Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and
good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio.
(59:18):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
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