October 24, 2022 • 38 mins
EPISODE 60: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Did Trump steal the classified documents not for selling or espionage or kleptomania but as Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free cards? (4:06) New Washington Post reporting informs us that besides the document describing another country's nuclear capabilities, Trump took one about Iranian missiles, another about intelligence efforts against China, and materials that would expose U.S. intelligence methods or agents, or expose this country to retaliation. These are conceivably capital crimes and maybe he thought having the documents - or copies - was his insurance (6:11) Trump fixated again on leaks over the weekend (7:04) And proposed getting leakers to confess by threatening them with rape in prison (8:19) The fascination with the leak, not the crime, extends to Trump's prostitutes like Jonathan Turley who invoke the "No Electoral Interference" unwritten law, which died six years ago this Friday at the hands of James Comey (10:12) The FBI and DOJ should be worried about Trump's plans to send goon squads to voting stations, starting in Philly, and contesting every close election (11:00) The good news is: the 1/6 Committee decision to subpoena Trump gave Nancy Pelosi the chance to make ANOTHER great joke at his expense (and gave me a chance to make an even better one!)
B-BLOCK (15:31) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Eamon in New York. (16:30) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Tucker Carlson threatens a Congressman on behalf of his failson Buckley Carlson (is his nickname Buckles?), Antisemites above the 405, Kanye insists Adidas can't drop him - so we'll have to boycott other athletes associated with Adidas, Jenna Ellis joins the surge in antisemitism, why is Centcom still helping Saudi Arabia, and Boris Johnson goes away (24:55) IN SPORTS: Yankees swept, Padres send themselves home early, oooh boy the World Series is...a reunion of the 1980 NLCS? (27:16) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The Canadian Freedom Convey's impact on kids with cancer, competing with professional self-owner Matt Walsh-Blog and El Douche' himself for the honors.
C-BLOCK (30:13) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Ever watched a movie and there was a scene that seemed taken directly from your own life? It happened to me with "A Christmas Story." When Little Ralphie loses his mind and nearly kills the bully? I did that. But I had a reunion with the bully a scant 43 years later!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio.
Now that we know what at least two more of
(00:27):
the documents Trump stole ore, this vital question occurs to me.
What if he stole them as insurance, as insurance against prosecution.
What if he took the nukes document or now the
Iran document and the China document and the tradecraft documents.
What if he took them to keep him from going
(00:48):
to jail for January six or from being executed for espionage.
What if the idea was you let me go or
Putin gets these and Kim gets those. What if the
whole documents saga is not about his kleptomy any not
about his ego, not about giving them to Putin, not
(01:08):
about selling them, but about blackmail against the United States
of America. Even if we have recovered all the documents,
what if he has copies. What if he can create
a reasonable doubt about whether or not there's another box somewhere.
What if it isn't to give it to Putin or
sell it to the eyes bitter or because he needs
it to feed his ego. What if it is to
(01:30):
threaten us? This is a creature without any loyalties without
any belief that anything other than himself matters or really exists.
We know that a year ago he wanted his lawyers
to offer to return the product of his kleptomania in
exchange for all the documents pertaining to his two thousand
(01:52):
sixteen electoral conspiracy with Russia. What if the idea was
even bigger than that, you need these documents, then I
don't die or I don't go to prison. Because the
newest reporting from the Washington Post only adds to the
growing realization that theft, possession, and dissemination of any one
(02:13):
of these documents could easily be capital espionage. As always
with Trump, the zone is so flooded with Trump that
we can't see the trees for the forest on three documents,
but only this one is really bad. Where these two, well,
now this small pile is really bad. Soon you are
(02:35):
rationalizing the entire theft because not everything is fatal. Sure,
he fired a hundred and three bullets, but only three
of them killed anybody. The Post is now reporting that
one of the documents described quote a foreign government's military defenses,
including its nuclear capabilities. We knew that already, and now
(02:55):
the same paper says some documents quote included highly sensitive
intelligence regarding Iran and China unquote, at least one of
which quote describees Iran's missile program, and some of which
describes quote highly sensitive intelligence work aimed at China. That
is alarming enough on the face of it, But the
Post moves quickly to add that quote. If shared with others,
(03:19):
people familiar with the matter said, such information could expose
intelligence gathering methods that the United States wants to keep
hidden from the world. So he has at least one
document delineating what nuclear capability in other country does or
does not have, which is presumably not part of the
tranch the Post just revealed because they broke both stories
(03:40):
and presumably would have mentioned this was a document they
had already scooped everybody else on. He has something about
Iran's missile program. I'm guessing here sounds like information plucked
out of the Iran nuclear deal that he blew up.
He has something else about China that may or may
not be the same thing as highly sensitive intelligence work
aimed at China, And just as importantly, one or more
(04:04):
of these documents, or maybe another document, or maybe all
the documents reveal tradecraft, either human sources are compromised or
otherwise identified, or bugs or taps or satellite spying or
other hardware that other countries don't know about. Whatever the
mcguffin here is, as Hitchcock would have called it, Trump
(04:25):
could blow years of intelligence already accumulated and years of
intelligence yet to be obtained by just showing these documents
to the wrong person. There's an even more diaphanous consequence
the Post phrases that quote. In addition, other countries or
US adversaries could retaliate against the United States for actions
(04:46):
it has taken in secret. The subject of these documents
is clearly looming larger and larger for Trump. He brought
back his threat to sue the Pulitzer Prize Committee to
force it to take back its awards to the Post
and the New York Times, as if such a thing
was possible, or any court anywhere in the world would
(05:10):
bother and in an otherwise bland, repetitive and unusually self absorbed,
even for him, speech at his fascist rally in Texas
Saturday night, his lone jaw dropper was about leaks. He
prefaced this with a rant about all the leaks against him,
and then segued to the Roe V. Wade leak, as
if to pretend he wasn't really just talking about the
(05:32):
leaks against him, and he claimed to have found a
surefire way to identify the leakers, threatening suspects with rape.
You take the writer and or the publisher of the paper,
a certain paper, and you know, and you say who
is the leaker? National security? And they say, we're not
(05:53):
going to tell you this as okay, you're going to jail.
And when this person realizes that he is going to
be the bride of another prisoner very shortly, he will say,
I'd very much like to tell you exactly who that
liaquer it was built Zones. I swear he's a liquor
(06:15):
to try it against Trump's family too. The silver lining
in there is the usual Trump threat that's really a confession.
He invoked national security unsanely as it might have been.
The leak of Samuel Alito's draft opinion is not a
national security issue now. Stealing documents, Stealing a document that
quote describes Iran's missile program, or another document that details
(06:39):
quote highly sensitive intelligence work aimed at China, see, those
are national security issues. So Trump just said, if convicted
of stealing them, he should not only go to prison,
he should not go to solitary confinement. He is insane.
It is fascinating, though hardly surprising, that Trump and his
(07:01):
minions are obsessed with the leaks and not the crimes.
Jonathan Turley, who used to be a constitutional lawyer, used
to appear regularly on Countdown and was an almost preternatural
political neutral. But who's now migrating towards becoming Sydney Powell
with a higher voice winally wrote more leaks from the
Justice Department just before the mid term elections. Not a
(07:24):
wisp of concern over the use of such leaks to
influence not just the course of the case, but the election. Firstly, John,
try to overthrow the government and steal its secrets in
the same lifetime, and I'm afraid your guy loses the
benefit of the doubt on the leak front. But more importantly, John,
not a wisp of concern over the use of such
(07:45):
leaks to influence the election. Seriously, John Turley, where were
you on Friday October two thousand, sixteen, eleven days before
presidential election, when the FBI director publicly wrote on the
record that the Bureau had found new emails that quote
appeared to be pertinent to its bullcrap investigation of Hillary
(08:07):
Clinton's bull crap server use. Where were you on Sunday
November six, two thousand sixteen, two days before the election,
when Comy wrote another letter that fed Trump's conspiracy theories
and put the same bull crap story back on page one.
The unwritten rule about the Justice Department and its employees
at the FBI and how they cannot act in anyway
(08:29):
that might influence an election was erased for all time
on those two days. And whoever has been leaking to
the Washington Post, whether in the Justice Department or not,
has done nothing more than remind the country that the
unwritten rule was mindless in the first place, rarely observed,
and it is dead, long dead if there is any
(08:53):
reason for the FBI and d o J to hold
back now. And I told you last week that the
unheralded Bloomberg scoop suggests there would not be an indictment
before the new year. It would be the focus all
the Department's energy on stopping Trump cultists and right wingers
from turning the mid terms into a war game. Rolling
(09:13):
Stone reported yesterday that Trump and his militias want to
contest every even vaguely close election next month, and that
he is fixated on Pennsylvania, particularly Philadelphia. The presence of
violence is real, and frankly, the d o J and
the President need to take preventive steps like putting FBI
agents at polling places and maybe uniformed military at some
(09:35):
of them. More on this ahead and worse persons now
so much needed comic relief and thanks against Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
As you know, the January six Committee has subpoena Trump,
or tried to. All of his lawyers have said they
are not authorized to accept any such subpoena. He's ducking it.
This is almost certainly academic. Anyway, he would only testify live,
(09:59):
and he may be lying about doing that. Anyway, the
committee would only have him testify in closed session, and
either way, his lawyers would never let him say anything,
and he might just for that moment, be smart enough
not to say anything. But it gave Pelosi her now
weakly chance to kick Trump in his tiny genitals. She
(10:20):
does not think he will testify under any circumstances. She says, quote,
I don't think he's mad enough to show up, we'll see.
We'll see if he's mad enough to show up. That
line is worth the cost of the process. Server right there.
But of course everybody's missing this. The ducking issue is
(10:40):
easily resolved. You say you're having trouble getting him to
accept the document, accept his subpoena from the January six committee,
Well it's not a problem. Just tell Trump it's classified
and it doesn't belong to him. Then he'll grab it immediately.
And personally still ahead on countdown. Who those guys were
(11:14):
on the l a freeway overpassed with the Kanye was
right about the Jews signs and other warnings about the
burgeoning anti Semitism in this country. Meet Tucker Carlson and
his loser's son Buckley Buckley Carlson. Buckley looks stupid in
public again, so daddy has to rush to threaten somebody
(11:37):
to protect Buckley again. Buckley Carlson's mother would be a
mother Buckley, wouldn't she. And if you've ever been watching
a movie and suddenly there's a scene in it that
looks like it was taken directly from your life, well
it happened to me too. In the movie at Christmas, Carol.
That's saga which stretches just forty three years coming up
(12:00):
in Things I Promised not to tell. That's next. This
is countdown, you know, this is countdown with you know
Keith Olberman still ahead on Countdown, Sir. They're playing the
(12:20):
national anthem, Sir, Sir, sir, and a Christmas story. The
scene when Ralphie nearly kills the bully. Yeah, that was
actually me. First. In each edition of Countdown, we feature
a dog in need whom you can help. Every dog
has its day. Pit bulls get a terrible rap. Nine
(12:42):
out of ten of them are big MUSHes, pibbles like aman.
Aman was being abused, being beaten with some sort of
blunt instrument head I New York Bully Crew rescued him,
got him adopted, and now he's a nine year old
big mush. Problem is he's now beginning to have vision
problems because of those beatings. There is a mass on
(13:03):
the eyelid. Can be corrected by surgery, or they can
let it go and let him go blind. It's a
lot to do for one dog. Let's do it. If
you can contribute. Aimin will be in the pinned tweet
on my account for Dogs in Need Tom Jumbo Grumbo
on Twitter. Your donation, big or small, will be gratefully welcomed,
as will your retweet of the story of this big
(13:26):
mush and thank you for doing so. Both scripts to
the news some headlines, some insights, some snark, Dateline Washington
Axios reporting the Tucker Carlson has threatened the head of
the Republican House Campaign Committee, the Minnesota Congressman Tom Emmer,
(13:51):
over an anonymous quote. In a Daily Beast story that
came out last Friday, the GOP strategists supposedly said of
Emmer's rival for possible House whip, Congressman Jim Banks, quote,
deep down, he Banks dies to be liked by the establishment.
He hires Tucker Carlson's son, a twenty four year old kid,
(14:12):
to be his communications director. Axio says Tucker Carlson told Emmer,
if Emmer did not tell him, who said that about
his son, dear precious, fragile, little failed son, Buckley. That's right.
His son is named Buckley. Buckley. Carlson pray for Buckley.
(14:34):
If he didn't do that, Tucker would have to assume
it was Emmer himself who said it, and as we know,
Tucker can kill people by simply snapping his fingers. See,
I think this is worthy of a duel. Tucker. Hi,
I'm Tucker and this is my son Buckley. Buckley Carlson
is the same kid. Tucker was so desperate to get
accepted by Georgetown that eight years ago he turned to
(14:57):
a prominent Hoya alum to help get him in. The
alum's name was Hunter Biden. Hi, I'm Tucker and this
is my son Buckley, and this is my daughter Trump.
Let me get to you to meet my cousins. Over here,
she's hit date line four oh five Freeway, Los Angeles.
(15:18):
Banners hanging from a southern California over passed Saturday. Quote honk,
if you know Kanye is right about the Jews unquote perpetrators,
the so called Goyam Defense League, a couple of thugs
led by one John Minnedeo the second Pedaluma, California. We're
not sure if he was there above that sign, but
he's in charge of the Goyam Defense League. They got
(15:41):
away with this as opposed to say, you know, accidentally
falling from that freeway overpass, in large part because the
appropriate companies like the Gap and other platforms have not
rid us of Kanye West new clip of him servicing
boasting that his apparel partner, Adidas can't drop him no
matter what, And then Kanye said, what the what was
(16:04):
the thing about me and Adidas? It's like I can
literally say anti semitic and they can't drop me. I
could say anti Semitic things and Adidas can't drop me.
Now what. No, there's nothing wrong with him at all,
And I bet you're wrong about that, sir. Anyway, if
West isn't dropped, then the solution is to bankrupt Adidas
(16:27):
through boycotts and boycotting stores and boycotting vendors that carry
Adidas products, and boycotting the other celebrities associated with Adidas,
like Damian Lillard and Candice Parker from basketball, and Trey
Turner and Corey Seeger from baseball, and the entire Real
Madrid team from soccer. Of course, this won't erase anti Semitism,
(16:48):
and it won't shut up worms like Nick Fuente's, the
anti Semite who was defended just last month by the
crazy Congressman Paul Gozer of Arizona and at one of
whose hate fests. One of the speakers was Marjorie Trailer
Park Green. Fuente's in short, says, Jews hate Jesus and
therefore they must leave America. Do you think I'm exaggerating?
(17:11):
And sofar as that's your belief, then you have no
business being here, certainly have no business being anywhere near
the lovers of power if you believe that, Because who
do you serve? If you don't serve Jesus Christ, you
serve the devil, You serve Satan. I'm anti Semitic. Yeah, whatever,
you call me whatever you want. You hate Jesus, your
(17:32):
opinion doesn't matter to me. Call me what everyone? Do
you believe in God? Okay? Opinion discarded, opinion thrown in
the garbage and piste on. Oh I'm anti Semitic? Yeah,
I piss on your town. But you think I'm anti Semitic?
You think I care what anti Christ believes. While listening
to this mental amiba, you can take some small solace
(17:53):
that the same fascists who applaud him now, secretly or
otherwise would eventually turn on Puente's because his name is Puente's.
Welcome to the world. You have created it for yourself.
But the point is Trump's fascist movement has accelerated into
full throated anti Semitism faster than a lot of people expected.
(18:13):
It was only a week ago that Trump was tweeting
quote US Jews have to get their act together, and
adding before it's too late. Now, the ridiculous Jenna Ellis
has decided she gets to decide who's really Jewish and
who's not. Josh Shapiro, she wrote about, the Democratic nominee
for governor of Pennsylvania, is at best a secular jew
(18:35):
Ellis is a campaign advisor to the noted anti semit
Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee in Pennsylvania. And there are
two points here. And I say this as a gentile.
If you think it doesn't apply to you because you're
a gentile. See, that's exactly what the five million non
Jewish victims of the Holocaust thought too. And as to
Fuente's and John Mennedeto the second and Jenna Ellis and
(18:58):
Doug Mastriano and Kanye West, if you really think there
is a Jewish cabal controlling everything and everyone and it's
all powerful, shouldn't you guys go into hiding? Fast Dateline
Mace Arizona fascist vigilantes with the license plates on their
trucks covered have appeared at drop boxes in that community.
(19:18):
It has been suggested that it may be time in
that state, maybe also Nevada, to invoke Article Force section
for the Constitution, which reads quote, the United States shall
guarantee to every state in this Union a republican form
of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion
and on application of the Legislature or of the Executive
(19:38):
when the legislature cannot be convened, against domestic violence. In
other words, the elections in Arizona are threatened by domestic violence.
The drop boxes and the polling places need to be protected,
and not by fascists with long guns, but by the
National Guard. Dateline sent Calm. Despite the Saudiast collusion with
the Republicans to raise gas prices just before the election,
(20:01):
our cent Com is going ahead with a training site
in Saudi Arabia for anti drone technology. This according to
the Middle East website al Monitor, It's madness and Dateline
London no mo bo Joe Boris Johnson drops out of
his very short lived bid to return as British Prime Minister.
It looks like it'll be rishi Sunak so Boris can
(20:22):
repeat Napoleon's palindrome able was i ere i saw elba
and the British, who will have had two unelected prime
ministers in two months, we'll be able to look back
at the year as the year that first their monarch
and then their electoral system died. This is Sports Center. Wait,
(20:56):
check that not anymore. This is Countdown with Keith in sports.
The Yankees blew with three nothing lead, but then local
kid Harrison Bader hit his fifth homer of the postseason,
as many as he hit in the regular season, to
put them back ahead five four in the seventh, and
they blew that lead to and wound up getting swept
(21:18):
by the Astros. Houston goes to its fourth World Series
in the last six years in a rematch of the
National League Championship Series, which by itself pretty much eliminates
any remaining smidgen of distinction between the two leagues, and
the Phillies are going to their first World Series since
two thousand nine after the San Diego Padres coughed up
(21:39):
an eighth inning lead in Game five of their playoff
series yesterday. This pains me because Padres manager Bob Melbourne
is a good enough friend of mine that we have
written the Subway Back from the Ballpark together. But I'll
spend the winter wondering why his top reliever was sitting
on the bench in the bullpen while one of the
lesser guys was in there surrendering the season ending two
(22:00):
run homer to Bryce Harper, and why his breakout center
fielder Trent grish A bunted with his team down by one,
two on the ninth place hitter on deck, and two
outs left in the San Diego season. Anyway, the Phillies,
with the eleventh best record in baseball will play for
the crown, and we got to see baseball's four true outcomes,
(22:22):
homer's strikeouts, walks, and what is the point of the
regular season anymore? We also got the obligatory political campaign
tries to jump on the bandwagon, only to crash to
the ground. At six thirteen Eastern Time last night, Pennsylvania
State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta tweeted, quote before Dr Oz starts lying,
he's not a Phillies fan. At six pm, mem at
(22:45):
Oz tweeted, let's go Phillies. Next stop World series coming up.
Remember that scene in movie A Christmas Story where a
(23:06):
little Ralphie wigs out and nearly kills the bully. Yeah,
I kind of lived that scene, and then at a
reunion forty three years later, I ran into the bully.
Good times. First, the daily roundup of the miscreants, morons
and Dunning Krueger effects besimens who constitute today's worse persons
in the law Lebronze right wing troll Matt Walsh Blog.
(23:28):
Apparently Walsh Blog braid at some other jackasses in Nashville.
Then he tweeted he was leaving for his next stop,
and a singer named Courtney j tweeted, good idea to
leave Nashville. You are not wanted there. He retweeted her
and added a photo of an outdoor crowd, many holding signs,
and tried to insult her by adding these Nashville residents
say otherwise. And there's no evidence he ever looked closely
(23:51):
enough at the photo that he tweeted on several of
the signs quote protect trans kids on another, no room
for fascists in Nashville. Nice self ownage, Mr Walsh blogg
the renners up. Remember the so called Freedom Convoy in
Canada in January and February, where a bunch of softies
who were afraid of vaccine needles use their trucks to
(24:14):
block the streets of the capital to complain about whatever.
Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario confirmed to Canada's Global News
that as a direct result of that blockade, thirteen families
with kids who were there for cancer treatments had to
have those treatments to layter rescheduled. Nice work, boys, you
(24:34):
should showed those kids with cancer. Whose boss but our winner?
L Douche again from Saturday's rally in Robstown, Texas. As
soon as Trump began to talk about how great as
January sixth rally was, and he began to boast about
its size, and he began to say other things that
might be taken down and used against him in a
court of law. On Q, his supporters started seeing the
(24:58):
star spangled banner stopped him from incriminating himself. The group
was later identified as Negative forty Negative forty eight, of course,
is an offshoot of Q and on and as those
in the crowd who actually know the words to the
national anthem that they never sing joined in. Trump never
took off his cheap plastic Chinese made baseball cap. Donald I.
(25:24):
Can't take off the cap the hair is attached to it.
Trump Today's worst person in the world. She's the number
(25:46):
one story on the Countdown and my favorite subject, me
and things I promised not to tell as a preface.
Let me just be clear about this. I was never
a bully as a kid. I mentioned this in the
context of this question. Have you ever watched a movie
and there's a scene in it and you go all
pale because it really happened to you. Have you seen
(26:08):
a Christmas story? The movie TBS runs all day every Christmas.
Little Ralphie and the Red Writer bb gun and you'll
shoot your eye out. The scene where Ralphie completely loses
it and takes down the bully and bloodies him, swearing
a blue streak. Yeah, that was me. When I was
a kid in Hastings on Hudson, New York, I was
(26:29):
considered above average in intelligence. Clearly I have disproved this
nearly every day of my adult life, but they didn't
know that then. The main results of this assessment were
I was moved into a class with kids a year
older than me, sometimes two years, and I was still
bigger than they were, and I had no patience If
(26:51):
I was talking and they were not paying attention. I
got shovy, you know like today. Like I said, I
was never a bully. I just had a bugs bunny
concept of violence. So my folks had me talk to
a psychologist that I quickly caught on and I stopped
shoving or hitting or pushing or anything. In fact, the
advice was too good. The doctor turned me into a
(27:12):
little New Yorker Gandhi. When the day came in the
fourth grade, as it does for all kids, at some
point that somebody else shoved me, I did nothing. I
had been taught by the doctor, no shoving Keith. This
quickly deteriorated into the inevitable situation in which I got bullied.
(27:32):
This went on for most of a school year, and
no matter what my folks said, no matter how frustrated
I got, I would not hit back. But this was
also the same year that I became a baseball fan
and a baseball card collector. And as the fourth grade ended,
literally the next to last day of class, some kid
sold me his entire baseball card collection, maybe a thousand cards.
(27:56):
Maybe it cost me two dollars. They were in a
big paper shopping bag, and after a trip to the bathroom.
I returned to my desk to discover that the bag
had been stolen. As this penultimate school day ended, and
we all filed out of the classroom down several flights
of stairs to the building exit, which opened onto the flat,
beautiful Tar Macadam playground. My main antagonist, the lead bully,
(28:20):
the scut Farcas of my fourth grade, shouted up from
maybe six or seven steps below me on the stairs. Hey, Keith,
what do you think of my baseball card collection? He
then held the bag of my cards aloft. Suddenly, my
own rage and my opportunity merged into one shining moment.
(28:47):
The bully was now on the ground floor landing of
the school, moving towards the door that opened onto the playground.
But I was still on the stairs, six or seven
steps up, and it dawned upon me that now those
stairs made me at least two ft taller than this
guy was, and that gravity had become my accomplice. I
(29:08):
literally threw myself forward off the stairs. I landed on him,
my knees connecting with his chest. The force of my
leap pushed us both through the open door. We hit
the playground with a thud. Him on his back, me
on his chest, with my knees and the full weight
of my body pinning down his elbows and upper arms.
(29:29):
The most he could do was slap at me without
aim or force. This is basically the visual of the
Ralphie beats up the bully scene in a Christmas story,
only there was no snow because it was June and
I went to town. All that nice pacifist deep programming
went out the window. The bully had stolen my baseball cards.
(29:55):
I punched him repeatedly, even as a serene clarity overtook me.
I was displeased, but I was not blind with anger.
At As I was contemplating this, suddenly I felt the
large hands under my arms of the gym teacher, Mr. Hood.
Mr Hood lifted me off the bully and said something,
And I said, matter of factually, why did you do that?
(30:18):
I'm not finished yet. I shook him off, and to
my surprise, he fell into some low hedges. I turned
back to the bully, who was still soupine on the beautiful,
freshly resurfaced playground. I assumed the same posture I had before,
but instead of hitting him now, I simply grabbed his
head and began to lift it up and then pound
(30:38):
it down, Lift it up and then pound it down,
lifted up, and then pound it down. I became aware
at this point that the entire fourth grade had formed
a gasping semi circle around us, And now I thought,
of them, I'm a giver. He bullied them too, boys
and girls alike, and we had, as I figured out
(31:01):
at that moment, eight years and one day left of school,
to deal with this bully. It would be easiest. I
concluded that if I ended his bullying right there, so
I kept pounding his head into the tarm academ surface
so he'd never forget, or maybe forgot a lot. And
(31:21):
then I felt four large hands under my arms. Mr
Hood had finally disentangled himself from the shrubbery, and my
mother had appeared somehow, just as in the movie, they
were finally able to overpower me. Since my folks had
spent the year trying to get me to do what
I had just done, they were cool with all this,
I believe. We went to get some ice cream. Somehow
(31:43):
I didn't even get punished for pushing the gym teacher Mr. Hood, So,
now that I think about it, from that day, on.
Mr Hood always looked warily at me, and then he
transferred to another school. Mm hmm. The next day, the
last day of fourth grade, I walked into my classroom,
Mrs Wolf's class, really not thinking about the previous days
(32:04):
dry run for a movie scene. All the boys in
the class were huddled in a far corner of the
room whispering. After I sat at my desk, the one
who had collaborated the least with the bully and his toadies,
Tom Charlapp, came over and said, huh, Keith, I thought
you might like these, and he handed me a stack
of baseball cards. I was very moved. I said thank you, Tom,
(32:29):
and soon, to my bewilderment, every one of the other
boys brought me tribute baseball card Tribute. Some of the
cards were still unopened in the packs and had clearly
been obtained that morning at a local candy store. Of course,
I had now been removed from some kind of cosmic
(32:50):
precursor to the film At Christmas Story, and I had
instead been placed in some kind of cosmic precursor to
the film The Godfather, the scene of his daughter's wedding.
Needless to say, there was no more bullying, although as
always there's a PostScript. I left that school after the
seventh grade. But twenty years after that class of kids graduated,
(33:14):
a girl I had stayed friendly with she was with
me in college, invited me to what was there and
kind of my reunion, and it was transcendent. I also
made the thirtieth anniversary, and in Saturday, October twelve years ago, yesterday,
I went to the thirty fifth anniversary. It was held in,
(33:36):
of all places, a restaurant in my hometown, across the
street from a two story building once owned by my dad,
where my grandmother and grandfather once lived. It was a
Saturday night in October. It was frosty, misty, the first
night that truly hinted at the inevitability of winter. And
I was half an hour early, and I sat there
(33:57):
on a bench between the restaurant and the municipal parking lot,
and my whole youth replayed itself in front of my eye,
some sadness, mostly happiness, mostly eager anticipation of seeing these
friends of my youngest youth once more, And then out
of the distance, his familiar skinny form, irregularly illuminated by
(34:20):
the street lights, walking towards me out of the fog
was the bully Keith, big hug. You really made it
some small talk, all a bit warm, completely in keeping
with the o Henry quality of the fog and the
chill in the air and the reunion. And then he said, hey,
you know what. I told my mother that you were
(34:42):
gonna be here supposedly tonight. And she said, son, maybe
you shouldn't go. And I said, why not, ma? And
she said, well, you and Keith had some problems when
you were kids, fourth or fifth grade. And I said,
I had no idea what she was talking about. Did
we have problems, do we have a fight or something?
(35:04):
Time stood still. What do you say to him? It
felt like I considered the options for several minutes. In reality,
it was just a few seconds of hesitation. At that long,
it dawned on me. I won that battle in nineteen
sixty seven. This was now. There was no reason to
(35:26):
read litigate this. If he was faking not remembering it,
I should go along with him and also fake not
remembering it. If he really didn't remember, it was possible
that this was because I kept pounding his head against
the playground surface. In June seven, I'm sure we had
(35:47):
a fight, I said, finally, I mean every kid in
that class had a fight. I mean in the fourth grade.
I fought Brian Reuben one day, and then I fought
with him against Gordon Craig and Ricky Western the next day.
So what he smiled? I smiled. Another figure emerged from
a newly parked car. Hey, look, it's kats In Stein.
Let's go inside. I'll buy both of you guys a drink.
(36:11):
We had a great time, and I never brought up
the fight. But truth be told, it did take all
of my self control to not ask one question of
everybody I saw, and that one question would have been, Hey,
anybody know whatever happened to that Jim Teacher, Mr Hood,
(36:47):
last fight I ever started? Well until now, anyway, I've
done all the damage I can do here. Since you've
listened this far, helped me out spread the word. Tell
somebody about the podcast, get them to subscribe if you can.
Here are the credits. Most of the music, including our
theme from Beethoven's Ninth, was arranged, produced, and performed by
Brian Ray and John Philip shou Ale, who are the
Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by John Phillips,
(37:09):
Chanelle gar guitars, bass and drums by Brian Ray, who
also heard on the gar produced by t k O Brothers.
Other Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by No
Horns allowed. The sports music is the auld Woman theme
from ESPN two, and it was written by Mitch Warren
Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. And no, there are no
(37:30):
lyrics musical comments from Nancy Fauss. The best baseball stadium
organist ever our announcer today was Richard Lewis, and everything
else was pretty much my fault. Let's countdown for this
the si fifty seventh day since Donald Trump's first attempted
coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.
Arrest him now while we still can a new episode tomorrow.
(37:51):
Until then, I'm Keith Alderman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night,
and good luck. M h Countdown with Keith Alderman is
a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from
I heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
(38:15):
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio.
Now that we know what at least two more of
(00:27):
the documents Trump stole ore, this vital question occurs to me.
What if he stole them as insurance, as insurance against prosecution.
What if he took the nukes document or now the
Iran document and the China document and the tradecraft documents.
What if he took them to keep him from going
(00:48):
to jail for January six or from being executed for espionage.
What if the idea was you let me go or
Putin gets these and Kim gets those. What if the
whole documents saga is not about his kleptomy any not
about his ego, not about giving them to Putin, not
(01:08):
about selling them, but about blackmail against the United States
of America. Even if we have recovered all the documents,
what if he has copies. What if he can create
a reasonable doubt about whether or not there's another box somewhere.
What if it isn't to give it to Putin or
sell it to the eyes bitter or because he needs
it to feed his ego. What if it is to
(01:30):
threaten us? This is a creature without any loyalties without
any belief that anything other than himself matters or really exists.
We know that a year ago he wanted his lawyers
to offer to return the product of his kleptomania in
exchange for all the documents pertaining to his two thousand
(01:52):
sixteen electoral conspiracy with Russia. What if the idea was
even bigger than that, you need these documents, then I
don't die or I don't go to prison. Because the
newest reporting from the Washington Post only adds to the
growing realization that theft, possession, and dissemination of any one
(02:13):
of these documents could easily be capital espionage. As always
with Trump, the zone is so flooded with Trump that
we can't see the trees for the forest on three documents,
but only this one is really bad. Where these two, well,
now this small pile is really bad. Soon you are
(02:35):
rationalizing the entire theft because not everything is fatal. Sure,
he fired a hundred and three bullets, but only three
of them killed anybody. The Post is now reporting that
one of the documents described quote a foreign government's military defenses,
including its nuclear capabilities. We knew that already, and now
(02:55):
the same paper says some documents quote included highly sensitive
intelligence regarding Iran and China unquote, at least one of
which quote describees Iran's missile program, and some of which
describes quote highly sensitive intelligence work aimed at China. That
is alarming enough on the face of it, But the
Post moves quickly to add that quote. If shared with others,
(03:19):
people familiar with the matter said, such information could expose
intelligence gathering methods that the United States wants to keep
hidden from the world. So he has at least one
document delineating what nuclear capability in other country does or
does not have, which is presumably not part of the
tranch the Post just revealed because they broke both stories
(03:40):
and presumably would have mentioned this was a document they
had already scooped everybody else on. He has something about
Iran's missile program. I'm guessing here sounds like information plucked
out of the Iran nuclear deal that he blew up.
He has something else about China that may or may
not be the same thing as highly sensitive intelligence work
aimed at China, And just as importantly, one or more
(04:04):
of these documents, or maybe another document, or maybe all
the documents reveal tradecraft, either human sources are compromised or
otherwise identified, or bugs or taps or satellite spying or
other hardware that other countries don't know about. Whatever the
mcguffin here is, as Hitchcock would have called it, Trump
(04:25):
could blow years of intelligence already accumulated and years of
intelligence yet to be obtained by just showing these documents
to the wrong person. There's an even more diaphanous consequence
the Post phrases that quote. In addition, other countries or
US adversaries could retaliate against the United States for actions
(04:46):
it has taken in secret. The subject of these documents
is clearly looming larger and larger for Trump. He brought
back his threat to sue the Pulitzer Prize Committee to
force it to take back its awards to the Post
and the New York Times, as if such a thing
was possible, or any court anywhere in the world would
(05:10):
bother and in an otherwise bland, repetitive and unusually self absorbed,
even for him, speech at his fascist rally in Texas
Saturday night, his lone jaw dropper was about leaks. He
prefaced this with a rant about all the leaks against him,
and then segued to the Roe V. Wade leak, as
if to pretend he wasn't really just talking about the
(05:32):
leaks against him, and he claimed to have found a
surefire way to identify the leakers, threatening suspects with rape.
You take the writer and or the publisher of the paper,
a certain paper, and you know, and you say who
is the leaker? National security? And they say, we're not
(05:53):
going to tell you this as okay, you're going to jail.
And when this person realizes that he is going to
be the bride of another prisoner very shortly, he will say,
I'd very much like to tell you exactly who that
liaquer it was built Zones. I swear he's a liquor
(06:15):
to try it against Trump's family too. The silver lining
in there is the usual Trump threat that's really a confession.
He invoked national security unsanely as it might have been.
The leak of Samuel Alito's draft opinion is not a
national security issue now. Stealing documents, Stealing a document that
quote describes Iran's missile program, or another document that details
(06:39):
quote highly sensitive intelligence work aimed at China, see, those
are national security issues. So Trump just said, if convicted
of stealing them, he should not only go to prison,
he should not go to solitary confinement. He is insane.
It is fascinating, though hardly surprising, that Trump and his
(07:01):
minions are obsessed with the leaks and not the crimes.
Jonathan Turley, who used to be a constitutional lawyer, used
to appear regularly on Countdown and was an almost preternatural
political neutral. But who's now migrating towards becoming Sydney Powell
with a higher voice winally wrote more leaks from the
Justice Department just before the mid term elections. Not a
(07:24):
wisp of concern over the use of such leaks to
influence not just the course of the case, but the election. Firstly, John,
try to overthrow the government and steal its secrets in
the same lifetime, and I'm afraid your guy loses the
benefit of the doubt on the leak front. But more importantly, John,
not a wisp of concern over the use of such
(07:45):
leaks to influence the election. Seriously, John Turley, where were
you on Friday October two thousand, sixteen, eleven days before
presidential election, when the FBI director publicly wrote on the
record that the Bureau had found new emails that quote
appeared to be pertinent to its bullcrap investigation of Hillary
(08:07):
Clinton's bull crap server use. Where were you on Sunday
November six, two thousand sixteen, two days before the election,
when Comy wrote another letter that fed Trump's conspiracy theories
and put the same bull crap story back on page one.
The unwritten rule about the Justice Department and its employees
at the FBI and how they cannot act in anyway
(08:29):
that might influence an election was erased for all time
on those two days. And whoever has been leaking to
the Washington Post, whether in the Justice Department or not,
has done nothing more than remind the country that the
unwritten rule was mindless in the first place, rarely observed,
and it is dead, long dead if there is any
(08:53):
reason for the FBI and d o J to hold
back now. And I told you last week that the
unheralded Bloomberg scoop suggests there would not be an indictment
before the new year. It would be the focus all
the Department's energy on stopping Trump cultists and right wingers
from turning the mid terms into a war game. Rolling
(09:13):
Stone reported yesterday that Trump and his militias want to
contest every even vaguely close election next month, and that
he is fixated on Pennsylvania, particularly Philadelphia. The presence of
violence is real, and frankly, the d o J and
the President need to take preventive steps like putting FBI
agents at polling places and maybe uniformed military at some
(09:35):
of them. More on this ahead and worse persons now
so much needed comic relief and thanks against Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
As you know, the January six Committee has subpoena Trump,
or tried to. All of his lawyers have said they
are not authorized to accept any such subpoena. He's ducking it.
This is almost certainly academic. Anyway, he would only testify live,
(09:59):
and he may be lying about doing that. Anyway, the
committee would only have him testify in closed session, and
either way, his lawyers would never let him say anything,
and he might just for that moment, be smart enough
not to say anything. But it gave Pelosi her now
weakly chance to kick Trump in his tiny genitals. She
(10:20):
does not think he will testify under any circumstances. She says, quote,
I don't think he's mad enough to show up, we'll see.
We'll see if he's mad enough to show up. That
line is worth the cost of the process. Server right there.
But of course everybody's missing this. The ducking issue is
(10:40):
easily resolved. You say you're having trouble getting him to
accept the document, accept his subpoena from the January six committee,
Well it's not a problem. Just tell Trump it's classified
and it doesn't belong to him. Then he'll grab it immediately.
And personally still ahead on countdown. Who those guys were
(11:14):
on the l a freeway overpassed with the Kanye was
right about the Jews signs and other warnings about the
burgeoning anti Semitism in this country. Meet Tucker Carlson and
his loser's son Buckley Buckley Carlson. Buckley looks stupid in
public again, so daddy has to rush to threaten somebody
(11:37):
to protect Buckley again. Buckley Carlson's mother would be a
mother Buckley, wouldn't she. And if you've ever been watching
a movie and suddenly there's a scene in it that
looks like it was taken directly from your life, well
it happened to me too. In the movie at Christmas, Carol.
That's saga which stretches just forty three years coming up
(12:00):
in Things I Promised not to tell. That's next. This
is countdown, you know, this is countdown with you know
Keith Olberman still ahead on Countdown, Sir. They're playing the
(12:20):
national anthem, Sir, Sir, sir, and a Christmas story. The
scene when Ralphie nearly kills the bully. Yeah, that was
actually me. First. In each edition of Countdown, we feature
a dog in need whom you can help. Every dog
has its day. Pit bulls get a terrible rap. Nine
(12:42):
out of ten of them are big MUSHes, pibbles like aman.
Aman was being abused, being beaten with some sort of
blunt instrument head I New York Bully Crew rescued him,
got him adopted, and now he's a nine year old
big mush. Problem is he's now beginning to have vision
problems because of those beatings. There is a mass on
(13:03):
the eyelid. Can be corrected by surgery, or they can
let it go and let him go blind. It's a
lot to do for one dog. Let's do it. If
you can contribute. Aimin will be in the pinned tweet
on my account for Dogs in Need Tom Jumbo Grumbo
on Twitter. Your donation, big or small, will be gratefully welcomed,
as will your retweet of the story of this big
(13:26):
mush and thank you for doing so. Both scripts to
the news some headlines, some insights, some snark, Dateline Washington
Axios reporting the Tucker Carlson has threatened the head of
the Republican House Campaign Committee, the Minnesota Congressman Tom Emmer,
(13:51):
over an anonymous quote. In a Daily Beast story that
came out last Friday, the GOP strategists supposedly said of
Emmer's rival for possible House whip, Congressman Jim Banks, quote,
deep down, he Banks dies to be liked by the establishment.
He hires Tucker Carlson's son, a twenty four year old kid,
(14:12):
to be his communications director. Axio says Tucker Carlson told Emmer,
if Emmer did not tell him, who said that about
his son, dear precious, fragile, little failed son, Buckley. That's right.
His son is named Buckley. Buckley. Carlson pray for Buckley.
(14:34):
If he didn't do that, Tucker would have to assume
it was Emmer himself who said it, and as we know,
Tucker can kill people by simply snapping his fingers. See,
I think this is worthy of a duel. Tucker. Hi,
I'm Tucker and this is my son Buckley. Buckley Carlson
is the same kid. Tucker was so desperate to get
accepted by Georgetown that eight years ago he turned to
(14:57):
a prominent Hoya alum to help get him in. The
alum's name was Hunter Biden. Hi, I'm Tucker and this
is my son Buckley, and this is my daughter Trump.
Let me get to you to meet my cousins. Over here,
she's hit date line four oh five Freeway, Los Angeles.
(15:18):
Banners hanging from a southern California over passed Saturday. Quote honk,
if you know Kanye is right about the Jews unquote perpetrators,
the so called Goyam Defense League, a couple of thugs
led by one John Minnedeo the second Pedaluma, California. We're
not sure if he was there above that sign, but
he's in charge of the Goyam Defense League. They got
(15:41):
away with this as opposed to say, you know, accidentally
falling from that freeway overpass, in large part because the
appropriate companies like the Gap and other platforms have not
rid us of Kanye West new clip of him servicing
boasting that his apparel partner, Adidas can't drop him no
matter what, And then Kanye said, what the what was
(16:04):
the thing about me and Adidas? It's like I can
literally say anti semitic and they can't drop me. I
could say anti Semitic things and Adidas can't drop me.
Now what. No, there's nothing wrong with him at all,
And I bet you're wrong about that, sir. Anyway, if
West isn't dropped, then the solution is to bankrupt Adidas
(16:27):
through boycotts and boycotting stores and boycotting vendors that carry
Adidas products, and boycotting the other celebrities associated with Adidas,
like Damian Lillard and Candice Parker from basketball, and Trey
Turner and Corey Seeger from baseball, and the entire Real
Madrid team from soccer. Of course, this won't erase anti Semitism,
(16:48):
and it won't shut up worms like Nick Fuente's, the
anti Semite who was defended just last month by the
crazy Congressman Paul Gozer of Arizona and at one of
whose hate fests. One of the speakers was Marjorie Trailer
Park Green. Fuente's in short, says, Jews hate Jesus and
therefore they must leave America. Do you think I'm exaggerating?
(17:11):
And sofar as that's your belief, then you have no
business being here, certainly have no business being anywhere near
the lovers of power if you believe that, Because who
do you serve? If you don't serve Jesus Christ, you
serve the devil, You serve Satan. I'm anti Semitic. Yeah, whatever,
you call me whatever you want. You hate Jesus, your
(17:32):
opinion doesn't matter to me. Call me what everyone? Do
you believe in God? Okay? Opinion discarded, opinion thrown in
the garbage and piste on. Oh I'm anti Semitic? Yeah,
I piss on your town. But you think I'm anti Semitic?
You think I care what anti Christ believes. While listening
to this mental amiba, you can take some small solace
(17:53):
that the same fascists who applaud him now, secretly or
otherwise would eventually turn on Puente's because his name is Puente's.
Welcome to the world. You have created it for yourself.
But the point is Trump's fascist movement has accelerated into
full throated anti Semitism faster than a lot of people expected.
(18:13):
It was only a week ago that Trump was tweeting
quote US Jews have to get their act together, and
adding before it's too late. Now, the ridiculous Jenna Ellis
has decided she gets to decide who's really Jewish and
who's not. Josh Shapiro, she wrote about, the Democratic nominee
for governor of Pennsylvania, is at best a secular jew
(18:35):
Ellis is a campaign advisor to the noted anti semit
Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee in Pennsylvania. And there are
two points here. And I say this as a gentile.
If you think it doesn't apply to you because you're
a gentile. See, that's exactly what the five million non
Jewish victims of the Holocaust thought too. And as to
Fuente's and John Mennedeto the second and Jenna Ellis and
(18:58):
Doug Mastriano and Kanye West, if you really think there
is a Jewish cabal controlling everything and everyone and it's
all powerful, shouldn't you guys go into hiding? Fast Dateline
Mace Arizona fascist vigilantes with the license plates on their
trucks covered have appeared at drop boxes in that community.
(19:18):
It has been suggested that it may be time in
that state, maybe also Nevada, to invoke Article Force section
for the Constitution, which reads quote, the United States shall
guarantee to every state in this Union a republican form
of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion
and on application of the Legislature or of the Executive
(19:38):
when the legislature cannot be convened, against domestic violence. In
other words, the elections in Arizona are threatened by domestic violence.
The drop boxes and the polling places need to be protected,
and not by fascists with long guns, but by the
National Guard. Dateline sent Calm. Despite the Saudiast collusion with
the Republicans to raise gas prices just before the election,
(20:01):
our cent Com is going ahead with a training site
in Saudi Arabia for anti drone technology. This according to
the Middle East website al Monitor, It's madness and Dateline
London no mo bo Joe Boris Johnson drops out of
his very short lived bid to return as British Prime Minister.
It looks like it'll be rishi Sunak so Boris can
(20:22):
repeat Napoleon's palindrome able was i ere i saw elba
and the British, who will have had two unelected prime
ministers in two months, we'll be able to look back
at the year as the year that first their monarch
and then their electoral system died. This is Sports Center. Wait,
(20:56):
check that not anymore. This is Countdown with Keith in sports.
The Yankees blew with three nothing lead, but then local
kid Harrison Bader hit his fifth homer of the postseason,
as many as he hit in the regular season, to
put them back ahead five four in the seventh, and
they blew that lead to and wound up getting swept
(21:18):
by the Astros. Houston goes to its fourth World Series
in the last six years in a rematch of the
National League Championship Series, which by itself pretty much eliminates
any remaining smidgen of distinction between the two leagues, and
the Phillies are going to their first World Series since
two thousand nine after the San Diego Padres coughed up
(21:39):
an eighth inning lead in Game five of their playoff
series yesterday. This pains me because Padres manager Bob Melbourne
is a good enough friend of mine that we have
written the Subway Back from the Ballpark together. But I'll
spend the winter wondering why his top reliever was sitting
on the bench in the bullpen while one of the
lesser guys was in there surrendering the season ending two
(22:00):
run homer to Bryce Harper, and why his breakout center
fielder Trent grish A bunted with his team down by one,
two on the ninth place hitter on deck, and two
outs left in the San Diego season. Anyway, the Phillies,
with the eleventh best record in baseball will play for
the crown, and we got to see baseball's four true outcomes,
(22:22):
homer's strikeouts, walks, and what is the point of the
regular season anymore? We also got the obligatory political campaign
tries to jump on the bandwagon, only to crash to
the ground. At six thirteen Eastern Time last night, Pennsylvania
State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta tweeted, quote before Dr Oz starts lying,
he's not a Phillies fan. At six pm, mem at
(22:45):
Oz tweeted, let's go Phillies. Next stop World series coming up.
Remember that scene in movie A Christmas Story where a
(23:06):
little Ralphie wigs out and nearly kills the bully. Yeah,
I kind of lived that scene, and then at a
reunion forty three years later, I ran into the bully.
Good times. First, the daily roundup of the miscreants, morons
and Dunning Krueger effects besimens who constitute today's worse persons
in the law Lebronze right wing troll Matt Walsh Blog.
(23:28):
Apparently Walsh Blog braid at some other jackasses in Nashville.
Then he tweeted he was leaving for his next stop,
and a singer named Courtney j tweeted, good idea to
leave Nashville. You are not wanted there. He retweeted her
and added a photo of an outdoor crowd, many holding signs,
and tried to insult her by adding these Nashville residents
say otherwise. And there's no evidence he ever looked closely
(23:51):
enough at the photo that he tweeted on several of
the signs quote protect trans kids on another, no room
for fascists in Nashville. Nice self ownage, Mr Walsh blogg
the renners up. Remember the so called Freedom Convoy in
Canada in January and February, where a bunch of softies
who were afraid of vaccine needles use their trucks to
(24:14):
block the streets of the capital to complain about whatever.
Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario confirmed to Canada's Global News
that as a direct result of that blockade, thirteen families
with kids who were there for cancer treatments had to
have those treatments to layter rescheduled. Nice work, boys, you
(24:34):
should showed those kids with cancer. Whose boss but our winner?
L Douche again from Saturday's rally in Robstown, Texas. As
soon as Trump began to talk about how great as
January sixth rally was, and he began to boast about
its size, and he began to say other things that
might be taken down and used against him in a
court of law. On Q, his supporters started seeing the
(24:58):
star spangled banner stopped him from incriminating himself. The group
was later identified as Negative forty Negative forty eight, of course,
is an offshoot of Q and on and as those
in the crowd who actually know the words to the
national anthem that they never sing joined in. Trump never
took off his cheap plastic Chinese made baseball cap. Donald I.
(25:24):
Can't take off the cap the hair is attached to it.
Trump Today's worst person in the world. She's the number
(25:46):
one story on the Countdown and my favorite subject, me
and things I promised not to tell as a preface.
Let me just be clear about this. I was never
a bully as a kid. I mentioned this in the
context of this question. Have you ever watched a movie
and there's a scene in it and you go all
pale because it really happened to you. Have you seen
(26:08):
a Christmas story? The movie TBS runs all day every Christmas.
Little Ralphie and the Red Writer bb gun and you'll
shoot your eye out. The scene where Ralphie completely loses
it and takes down the bully and bloodies him, swearing
a blue streak. Yeah, that was me. When I was
a kid in Hastings on Hudson, New York, I was
(26:29):
considered above average in intelligence. Clearly I have disproved this
nearly every day of my adult life, but they didn't
know that then. The main results of this assessment were
I was moved into a class with kids a year
older than me, sometimes two years, and I was still
bigger than they were, and I had no patience If
(26:51):
I was talking and they were not paying attention. I
got shovy, you know like today. Like I said, I
was never a bully. I just had a bugs bunny
concept of violence. So my folks had me talk to
a psychologist that I quickly caught on and I stopped
shoving or hitting or pushing or anything. In fact, the
advice was too good. The doctor turned me into a
(27:12):
little New Yorker Gandhi. When the day came in the
fourth grade, as it does for all kids, at some
point that somebody else shoved me, I did nothing. I
had been taught by the doctor, no shoving Keith. This
quickly deteriorated into the inevitable situation in which I got bullied.
(27:32):
This went on for most of a school year, and
no matter what my folks said, no matter how frustrated
I got, I would not hit back. But this was
also the same year that I became a baseball fan
and a baseball card collector. And as the fourth grade ended,
literally the next to last day of class, some kid
sold me his entire baseball card collection, maybe a thousand cards.
(27:56):
Maybe it cost me two dollars. They were in a
big paper shopping bag, and after a trip to the bathroom.
I returned to my desk to discover that the bag
had been stolen. As this penultimate school day ended, and
we all filed out of the classroom down several flights
of stairs to the building exit, which opened onto the flat,
beautiful Tar Macadam playground. My main antagonist, the lead bully,
(28:20):
the scut Farcas of my fourth grade, shouted up from
maybe six or seven steps below me on the stairs. Hey, Keith,
what do you think of my baseball card collection? He
then held the bag of my cards aloft. Suddenly, my
own rage and my opportunity merged into one shining moment.
(28:47):
The bully was now on the ground floor landing of
the school, moving towards the door that opened onto the playground.
But I was still on the stairs, six or seven
steps up, and it dawned upon me that now those
stairs made me at least two ft taller than this
guy was, and that gravity had become my accomplice. I
(29:08):
literally threw myself forward off the stairs. I landed on him,
my knees connecting with his chest. The force of my
leap pushed us both through the open door. We hit
the playground with a thud. Him on his back, me
on his chest, with my knees and the full weight
of my body pinning down his elbows and upper arms.
(29:29):
The most he could do was slap at me without
aim or force. This is basically the visual of the
Ralphie beats up the bully scene in a Christmas story,
only there was no snow because it was June and
I went to town. All that nice pacifist deep programming
went out the window. The bully had stolen my baseball cards.
(29:55):
I punched him repeatedly, even as a serene clarity overtook me.
I was displeased, but I was not blind with anger.
At As I was contemplating this, suddenly I felt the
large hands under my arms of the gym teacher, Mr. Hood.
Mr Hood lifted me off the bully and said something,
And I said, matter of factually, why did you do that?
(30:18):
I'm not finished yet. I shook him off, and to
my surprise, he fell into some low hedges. I turned
back to the bully, who was still soupine on the beautiful,
freshly resurfaced playground. I assumed the same posture I had before,
but instead of hitting him now, I simply grabbed his
head and began to lift it up and then pound
(30:38):
it down, Lift it up and then pound it down,
lifted up, and then pound it down. I became aware
at this point that the entire fourth grade had formed
a gasping semi circle around us, And now I thought,
of them, I'm a giver. He bullied them too, boys
and girls alike, and we had, as I figured out
(31:01):
at that moment, eight years and one day left of school,
to deal with this bully. It would be easiest. I
concluded that if I ended his bullying right there, so
I kept pounding his head into the tarm academ surface
so he'd never forget, or maybe forgot a lot. And
(31:21):
then I felt four large hands under my arms. Mr
Hood had finally disentangled himself from the shrubbery, and my
mother had appeared somehow, just as in the movie, they
were finally able to overpower me. Since my folks had
spent the year trying to get me to do what
I had just done, they were cool with all this,
I believe. We went to get some ice cream. Somehow
(31:43):
I didn't even get punished for pushing the gym teacher Mr. Hood, So,
now that I think about it, from that day, on.
Mr Hood always looked warily at me, and then he
transferred to another school. Mm hmm. The next day, the
last day of fourth grade, I walked into my classroom,
Mrs Wolf's class, really not thinking about the previous days
(32:04):
dry run for a movie scene. All the boys in
the class were huddled in a far corner of the
room whispering. After I sat at my desk, the one
who had collaborated the least with the bully and his toadies,
Tom Charlapp, came over and said, huh, Keith, I thought
you might like these, and he handed me a stack
of baseball cards. I was very moved. I said thank you, Tom,
(32:29):
and soon, to my bewilderment, every one of the other
boys brought me tribute baseball card Tribute. Some of the
cards were still unopened in the packs and had clearly
been obtained that morning at a local candy store. Of course,
I had now been removed from some kind of cosmic
(32:50):
precursor to the film At Christmas Story, and I had
instead been placed in some kind of cosmic precursor to
the film The Godfather, the scene of his daughter's wedding.
Needless to say, there was no more bullying, although as
always there's a PostScript. I left that school after the
seventh grade. But twenty years after that class of kids graduated,
(33:14):
a girl I had stayed friendly with she was with
me in college, invited me to what was there and
kind of my reunion, and it was transcendent. I also
made the thirtieth anniversary, and in Saturday, October twelve years ago, yesterday,
I went to the thirty fifth anniversary. It was held in,
(33:36):
of all places, a restaurant in my hometown, across the
street from a two story building once owned by my dad,
where my grandmother and grandfather once lived. It was a
Saturday night in October. It was frosty, misty, the first
night that truly hinted at the inevitability of winter. And
I was half an hour early, and I sat there
(33:57):
on a bench between the restaurant and the municipal parking lot,
and my whole youth replayed itself in front of my eye,
some sadness, mostly happiness, mostly eager anticipation of seeing these
friends of my youngest youth once more, And then out
of the distance, his familiar skinny form, irregularly illuminated by
(34:20):
the street lights, walking towards me out of the fog
was the bully Keith, big hug. You really made it
some small talk, all a bit warm, completely in keeping
with the o Henry quality of the fog and the
chill in the air and the reunion. And then he said, hey,
you know what. I told my mother that you were
(34:42):
gonna be here supposedly tonight. And she said, son, maybe
you shouldn't go. And I said, why not, ma? And
she said, well, you and Keith had some problems when
you were kids, fourth or fifth grade. And I said,
I had no idea what she was talking about. Did
we have problems, do we have a fight or something?
(35:04):
Time stood still. What do you say to him? It
felt like I considered the options for several minutes. In reality,
it was just a few seconds of hesitation. At that long,
it dawned on me. I won that battle in nineteen
sixty seven. This was now. There was no reason to
(35:26):
read litigate this. If he was faking not remembering it,
I should go along with him and also fake not
remembering it. If he really didn't remember, it was possible
that this was because I kept pounding his head against
the playground surface. In June seven, I'm sure we had
(35:47):
a fight, I said, finally, I mean every kid in
that class had a fight. I mean in the fourth grade.
I fought Brian Reuben one day, and then I fought
with him against Gordon Craig and Ricky Western the next day.
So what he smiled? I smiled. Another figure emerged from
a newly parked car. Hey, look, it's kats In Stein.
Let's go inside. I'll buy both of you guys a drink.
(36:11):
We had a great time, and I never brought up
the fight. But truth be told, it did take all
of my self control to not ask one question of
everybody I saw, and that one question would have been, Hey,
anybody know whatever happened to that Jim Teacher, Mr Hood,
(36:47):
last fight I ever started? Well until now, anyway, I've
done all the damage I can do here. Since you've
listened this far, helped me out spread the word. Tell
somebody about the podcast, get them to subscribe if you can.
Here are the credits. Most of the music, including our
theme from Beethoven's Ninth, was arranged, produced, and performed by
Brian Ray and John Philip shou Ale, who are the
Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by John Phillips,
(37:09):
Chanelle gar guitars, bass and drums by Brian Ray, who
also heard on the gar produced by t k O Brothers.
Other Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by No
Horns allowed. The sports music is the auld Woman theme
from ESPN two, and it was written by Mitch Warren
Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. And no, there are no
(37:30):
lyrics musical comments from Nancy Fauss. The best baseball stadium
organist ever our announcer today was Richard Lewis, and everything
else was pretty much my fault. Let's countdown for this
the si fifty seventh day since Donald Trump's first attempted
coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.
Arrest him now while we still can a new episode tomorrow.
(37:51):
Until then, I'm Keith Alderman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night,
and good luck. M h Countdown with Keith Alderman is
a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from
I heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
(38:15):
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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