February 9, 2024 • 40 mins
SERIES 2 EPISODE 120: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: OK which atrocity do you want to get enraged about first?
The fact that yesterday I began by saying “today we begin to find out if we still have a Constitution” and turns out, sorry, I guess we don’t – and the three liberal justices are complicit in that?
Or, the fact that a partisan hack appointed by Trump managed to turn his nothing-burger investigation of Biden and the returned documents into Christmas-For-The-Fascists by inserting unwarranted, unjustifiable, indefensible opinions about the president’s memory into it and THAT’S the headline and oh by the way where is the goddamned Attorney General on this?
William Rehnquist's former clerk, Rod Rosenstein's former deputy, and a contributor to The Federalist has enough nerve finding nothing to prosecute but throwing into his report what sounds like a medical opinion about the President's memory but which is really just another Conservative law-breaker whipping out his schlong and putting it on the political scale. But how does the Attorney General let that document leave his department without demanding that irrelevant, unprofessional, indefensible section not be removed?
Fire Merrick Garland. Now. Between this and his negligence in waiting two years to appoint a special prosecutor of Trump, he will bear the second most blame if Trump again seizes power.
Meanwhile at the Supreme Court, disaster as Elena Kagan posits that enforcing the 14th Amendment gives one state the right to decide who the president will be, and Ketanji Brown Jackson falls for the "President is not really an OFFICER" fabrication. The analyst Elie Mystal thinks the vote could be 9-0 for Trump, in which case Kagan, Brown, and Sonia Sotomayor need to resign from the court.
B-Block (23:17) IN SPORTS: Ex-coach Tommy Tuberville blasts Biden's memory and says he needs cues from reporters and 30 seconds later he can't remember the names of the teams and players in Sunday's Super Bowl and needs cues from a reporter. And the Oakland/Las Vegas A's saga worsens, while invoking the Oakland/Denver A's saga of 1977-80. (27:20) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Sarah Palin is back! And can now see Russian propaganda from her house. If every GOP accusation is actually a confession, Charlie Kirk and Marjorie Taylor Greene's theory of anti-impeachment GOP'ers being blackmailed with pedophilia is SOME confession. And of all the idiotic takes on the Robert Hur investigation of Biden, THE dumbest is by Mr. Astead W. Herndon of The New York Bothsidesist Times and CN-Bothesidesist-N.
C-Block (34:32) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: Since this podcast is one of five nominees for the best politics podcast at the upcoming iHeart Podcast Awards, it's fitting to read Thurber's great story of what happened when a rookie went on radio:
"How To Relax While Broadcasting."
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Okay,
Which atrocity do you want to get enraged about? First?
(00:25):
The fact that yesterday I began by saying, today we
begin to find out if we still have a constitution.
It turns out, sorry, I guess we don't. And the
three liberal justices are complicit in that. Or the fact
that a partisan hack appointed by Trump managed to turn
his nothing burger investigation of Biden and the returned documents
(00:46):
into Christmas for the fascists by inserting unwarranted, unjustifiable, indefensible
medical opinions about the president's memory into it. And that's
the headline. And oh, by the way, where's the goddamned
Attorney General on this? You now already know which troscity
(01:06):
I'm going to enrage you about. First, Honest to God,
let me start at that second point. Where did we
get this asshole? Merrick Garland? I mean bending over too
far backwards only so you can fall flat on your
face week after week and month after month and year
after year is one thing. But to let the special
(01:29):
counsel you named to do a bullshit investigation into some
bullshit misplaced papers, misplaced and return papers, seven million documents,
couple of hundred witnesses, and investigation lasting year. Not only
no charges, but even this political whore Robert Hurr, felt
compelled to contrast it to Trump's treachery and probable espionage
(01:51):
by noting that Biden cooperated fully and reported the missing
papers himself and returned everything, and there was no evidence
with which to make a case that he deliberately kept anything.
To let your appointee then inject his opinion of the
president's memory as if he were a doctor, and I
mean doctor. Hell, this guy should not be a lawyer,
(02:12):
and turn this report into a hammer with which he
sneaks up behind the President of the United States and
hits him in the back of the head while he's
not looking. What the hell kind of attorney general are you? Garland?
Merrick Garland would never have had the requisite courage, about
as much courage as a dog needs to pee on
a fire hydrant, to charge Trump for trying to overturn
(02:35):
the election and overthrow the government and done who knows
what to the duly elected president he would have had
to get rid of somehow, Garland would never have done
that if Trump hadn't also stolen classified documents so secret
that most investigators and prosecutors had to get special clearance
just to know what their names were. Garland should have
(02:56):
appointed a special council to prosecute Trump for January sixth,
within ten minutes of his confirmation, but instead he waited
nearly two years. Now entirely because of Merrick Garland, we
are racing the clock to put the greatest criminal in
American history in jail rather than back in command of everything,
including the Justice Department, where one of the first people
(03:19):
he would try to crucify would be Merrick Garland. Nice work, idiot.
And now this, and now a document comes out of
Merrick Garland's Justice Department questioning the president's memory. Is the
document from a doctor? Is the document from a non politician?
(03:40):
Is the document full of context? Like Trump keeps forgetting
the president is Biden and not Obama or Hillary Clinton?
And he says by Bama Clinton was president in twenty
twenty and not him, and showing a picture of e
Gene Carroll who he raped. By the way, Trump identifies
her as his second wife, Marla Maples. Oh, and when
(04:03):
he actually had to answer the questions of a special
counsel Robert Muller. Trump said I don't recall, or I
don't remember or I cannot recollect thirty times, and Trump
Junior said it fifty four times. And Pence didn't recall
whether or not they told him beforehand about his role
in the fake elector scheme. Oh in, the Speaker of
the House Mike Johnson just celebrated his birthday by calling
(04:26):
Israel iran. Because everybody makes that mistake, and because Johnson
making that impossible to rationalize error, must be proof that
the Speaker is an elderly man with a poor memory,
an elderly man at age fifty two. Because not having
every fact right off the top of your head at
all times is a reason for a Justice Department employee
(04:48):
to put his schlung on the political scale and try
to throw the election to the guy who plans to
be a dictator. Thank you, Merrek Garland, resign or flee
the country. You have just out, Bill Bard, Bill Barr,
Merrick Garland, shameful, incompetent, gutless, dilettante, shaking, shrinking sheep in
(05:17):
sheep's clothing. And as to this, special council and Special
is a brand name mister Her having spent a year
desperately searching for a crime and finding none, and having
to say he has found none. Mister Her, the William
(05:38):
Rehnquist law clerk, and the special assistant to Christopher Ray,
and the top aide to Rod Rosenstein, and an appointee
of Dementia J. Trump, and a contributor to the Federalist Society.
And oh, by the way, he's not a doctor, but
he plays one in Department of Justice documents, mister Her
has violated an amazing number of ethical minimums. I mean,
(06:01):
even for a lawyer, even for a Republican. He has
gone so above and beyond his rights that disbarment procedures
should begin against him today. I understand that there is
a silver lining built into this fiasco if the Biden
campaign will simply grab it, and that silver lining is
(06:24):
those Interior poll numbers last October overwhelmingly showed that if
voters think both Biden and Trump are considered old, those
voters will vote for Biden by sixty one percent to
thirteen percent. I get it. I get it. This might
(06:45):
help me calm down by Monday or Tuesday. And I
get it that as desperately as nine out of ten
reporters could not have dreamed there could possibly be such
a wonderful both sidesest shield to protect themselves and their
editors against Trump and the far right. As a Biden
(07:08):
DOJ document claiming Biden is elderly with a poor memory,
the shiny object chasers of our hapless political media will
in fact grab on to something new by next Monday
or Tuesday. And I understand that Biden's best play here
is not just to do the super Bowl interview Sunday,
(07:31):
after all, but then I don't know, do it do
it while? Do it while he's bicycling, or while he's blindfolded,
or while he is simultaneously translating his own answers into Spanish.
And I understand that Biden's play after that is to
order his people to take the gloves off, and not
only from behind the scenes destroy this claude Robert Hurr,
(07:53):
but to make sure that every day until the election
they put out meme after meme and guest after guest,
and interview after interview, and story bait after story bait
in which somebody rom minds America that Donald John Trump
has dementia and personality disorders and he is a trader
who read our war plans out loud to some publishers.
(08:15):
And he is a racist, and he is a dictator
waiting to happen. And he is a compulsive liar, and
he is a rapist. And I understand that to have
Merrick Garland fire Robert her today, and then to have
(08:37):
Biden himself fire Merrick Garland today, that would be to
exacerbate this system and turn a dumpster fire into an inferno.
But god damn, how I wish Biden could do both
of these things today. Hers malfeasan's in this case may
end only one way, with him appointed to the Supreme Court.
(08:59):
If a Republican regains the White House. Hell, if that's Trump,
her might go a pardon at a spot on the
Supreme Court. Which reminds me the entire Mitch McConnell dance
about Merrick Garland eight years ago. This now makes no
sense to me whatsoever. Why did Mitch McConnell oppose his nomination.
(09:23):
Merrick Garland would have been a reliable conservative vote on
the Supreme Court, only better than a conservative making conservative
votes on the Supreme Court. He would have dressed it
up and furrowed his brow in such a way that
while issuing conservative opinions, he could have pretended he was
a liberal, you know, like Elena Kagan. Ellie Mistahal, the
(09:48):
Supreme Court expert of the nation on whose judgment I
rely thinks that after yesterday's oral arguments in the Fourteenth
Amendment case Trump v. Anderson, that Kagan could vote for Trump,
and so do my Ore might vote for Trump, and
Tanji Brown Jackson will vote for Trump. That after their questions,
(10:09):
the vote could be nine nothing for Trump and against
you know, the Constitution of the United States, the fourteenth Amendment.
Kagan and Soda, my Or and Jackson cannot stop a
religious nut, a hapless chief justice, a crooked old man,
and three Trump employees from giving him this verdict. But
(10:29):
if it is unanimous, if Kagan and Sodamayor and Jackson
don't oppose and don't write a searing descent, they should resign.
Because what they did yesterday made me wonder if I
could somehow demand to see proof that they did not
get their law degrees out of boxes of cracker jack.
(10:50):
I mean, I half expected a statement from one of
the justices like this quote. I think that the question
that you have to confront is why a single state
should decide who gets to be president of the United States,
Because that's exactly the kind of thing I believe Brett
Kavanaugh says while drunk. Except that was not said by
(11:12):
Brett Kavanaugh. It was Elena Kagan who said that a
single state deciding who gets to be president. Seriously, Madam Justice,
it isn't a single goddamn state deciding this. Just because
the officials and the attorneys from one state have more
intelligence and guts than you do, that doesn't mean they
(11:32):
are deciding who's president. The state of Colorado is not
deciding who's president. You are deciding a case. The Supreme
Court is deciding this, and you, Justice Kagan, are on
the Supreme Court. Doesn't that say so on your letter head?
And by the way, it's not even really you Justice
is deciding it. It's the Constitution, the fourteenth Amendment. It's
(11:55):
there in black and white, and you have a bathtub
full of evidence about the actual debates that went on
in real time before it and the meaning of every
word in it. But you say, whyan's Colorado deciding who's president?
Rather than saying Colorado is giving the Constitution the chance
to decide who's eligible and who is ineligible to be president.
(12:20):
And while mister mss Stall says Sodamayor did make points
on behalf of the Constitution and you know, not letting
traitorous presidents run again. The Tanji Brown Jackson also shamed herself.
She bought into the entire nonsensical argument that because the
(12:42):
list of people in the Fourteenth Amendment who are said
to take oaths as officers of the United States does
not explicitly include the President of the United States, and
the president is not an officer, therefore Trump was not
an officer. Therefore Trump did not violate the fourteenth Amendment. Therefore,
whatever the Amendment says, it's not saying it about him.
(13:08):
There was more intellectual fervor at a model United Nations
I attended in the year nineteen seventy four, Antonin Scalia
said the president was an officer of the United States.
He wrote it down. He wrote it down and sent
it to two conservative scholars who had said he was not,
and he told them they were wrong. And now Scalia
(13:32):
seems likelier to vote against Trump than Katanji Brown Jackson does.
And Scalia is dead right now and in hell Ohen.
Just last year, some lawyers told the court in New
York that the criminal charges against Trump should be moved
to federal court because, wait for it, he was a
federal officer. The lawyers were Trump lawyers. Trump, through his lawyers,
(13:59):
said he was an officer of the United States. But
Katanji Brown Jackson isn't shoe. And if that isn't bad enough,
I haven't even mentioned the conservatives arguments here, and the
worst of them was about whether Trump was actually involved
in an insurrection. Pope Samuel Alito, the first said Trump
(14:25):
never engaged in an insurrection. John Roberts, who's called Justice
John Roberts because I think he changed his first name
to justice, because he sure isn't running this court. John
Roberts said that if they ruled against Trump, every Republican
state would start defining insurrection as one thing, and every
Democratic state would start defining it as another, and soon
(14:49):
you'd have to find one definition. And uh, hey, Johnny,
good idea. Why don't you go do that and start
on the list with uh insurrection being trying to stop
the peaceful transfer of power via armed rebellion. So Roberts said, Basically,
he's not sure January sixth was an insurrection. And as
(15:09):
soon as the Supreme Court adjourned yesterday, you know who
said January sixth was an insurrection? Trump did. Trump said
January sixth was an insurrection. He said it twice. Listen carefully,
and the one thing I'll say is they kept saying
(15:30):
about what I said right after the insurrection.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
I think it was an insurrection, was.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
My Nancy Melosi? Jesus H. Christ. Trump thinks it was
an insurrection, and of course he attaches his insane bullshit
to it about Pelosi. But Trump thinks it was an insurrection.
Sam Alito doesn't no to answer my question. We don't
(16:01):
have a constitution anymore, Ellie, miss Staal, it's going to
be nine nothing, and they're going to say, well, true,
that disqualification clause in there that does not require a
criminal trial. The Constitution is all powerful and that clause
is self executing. But individual states do not have the
(16:22):
power to enforce because, as Ellie put it, quote reasons,
this point doesn't matter what the reasons are. They're like
Merrick Garland. They are only there just so this suit
of clothes has something to hang on and does not
fall to the floor in a heap. But if you're
(16:46):
planning ahead, your options for why the Supreme Court votes
nine nothing or maybe eight to one. I still have
hopes for sona mayor are. One that the president is
not an officer, or in Trump's case, that he was
not an officer or a gentleman. Two that maybe he
wasn't a officer, but Trump didn't engage an insurrection. Three
(17:09):
that maybe he was a bad boy, but January sixth
itself was not an insurrection, even though Trump now says
it was an insurrection. Four that you can't disqualify a
candidate without a law defining insurrection and who could violate it?
And or five that Judge Gabby Kagan is right Colorado
(17:32):
doesn't get to choose the president because we can't live
in a country in which one state chooses the president.
And if it's that last one, Clarence Thomas will just
smile quietly to himself and say, that's right, m Effers.
I'm the only one left who ruled on Bush vigor
(17:56):
when one state, Florida, chose the president. And sadly, in
our new Trump Trials theme there it turns out that
(18:18):
cell door appears to be closing on you and me.
Also of interest here there is a New York Times
reporter who claims that the good news in Robert Hurri's
medical evaluation of Joe Biden is that it will end
the gentleman's agreement under which reporters never brought up President
(18:39):
Biden's age. And my only guess is that that reporter
is high as a kite. But before the break, I
have to offer something upbeat. I mean, the naked incompetence
of Merrick Garland and the spinelessness of the justices of
the Supreme Court might be bad, but how about that.
(19:00):
Nominating committee for the iHeart Podcast Awards twenty twenty four
to be is edited south by Southwest in Austin, Texas
on the eleventh of next month. Five nominees for the
Best political Podcast pod Save America, NPR Politics, CNN Inside Politics,
The Ben Shapiro Show, and Countdown with the Keith. I
(19:26):
can't pronounce the rest of it. Countdown with Somebody, Yes,
you can vote. Yes, it's on the iHeart website. I'm
not going to give you an address here on audio.
Just google iHeart Podcast Awards and no, I'm not gonna win.
I never win these things. It's just an honor to
be nominated. And when I say honor, I'm lying. This
(19:50):
is countdown. Nominated for a prestigious award.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
This is countdown with Keith Olberman. This is Sports Senate. Wait,
check that not anymore.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
This is countdown with Keith Ulberman in Sports Dateline, Washington,
Capitol Hills, Senate Gallery ex Crappy Football Coaches Division. If
you think Tommy Tuberville does not know what he's doing
in the Senate, take comfort. He is not even finished
(20:42):
not knowing what he's doing in football. Went on a
right wing propaganda network bashing Biden's memory, and literally seconds later,
Tubby could not remember the names of the teams or
the quarterbacks in the Super Bowl.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
He can't remember names, he can't care on a conversation.
He has to listen to the press corps to give
him hands about what he's talking about. We're really bad
trouble when it comes to Joe Biden, and hopefully we've
only got ten twelve more months with him.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Well, do you want to make a pick in the
Super Bowl or not?
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Well, San Francisco has got the best defense, Obviously, the
best quarterback is going to be on the side of
the of Kansas City Chiefs, but they got a running
back in San Francisco is pretty dang good.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Can't remember names, needs hints from the press. Cracker, asshole,
nice work coach. By the way, it's Joe Montana of
the Niners versus Lenn Dawson of the Chiefs. Why don't
you go make a bet on that coach and stop
wasting everybody else's time? Dateline Oakland or Las Vegas, Nevada
(21:53):
or both. The move of Baseball's Oakland A's to Las
Vegas is so messed up that even Baseball Commissioner Rob
Manfred has noticed. A day after the mayor of Black
Vegas said the A's plans in his town made no sense,
the commissioner said, the team and the sport need clarity
in the next few weeks. Or he's still Rob Manfred,
(22:15):
so he didn't say or have the second half of
that sentence mapped out. He made vague references to having
the A's have to play some or all their home
games in Sacramento, maybe with a goal of finally being
ready to go to Vegas by opening day of twenty
twenty eight in a stadium that would be built by
then in a place where at this exact moment they
(22:36):
have a big old hotel that's still there. If you
think this with the homeless A's, this can't go on forever,
wrong again, Connie mack Breath. In late nineteen seventy seven,
the man who had brought the A's from Kansas City
to Oakland, Charles O. Finley, made a deal to move
the team to Denver, and for the next three seasons,
(23:00):
the Oakland A's were basically thought to be about to
move to Denver to be the Denver A's during the
winter during the season of nineteen seventy eight, during the
next winter, during the season of nineteen seventy nine, during
the winter after that, during the season of nineteen eighty,
with Finley as the owner, with Finley selling the A's
to somebody, with Finley selling the A's to businessman Marvin Davis.
(23:22):
This went on so long, so unresolved that when it
started I was a junior in college, and when it
finally ended, I was about to start my new job
with my second radio network. And if history really repeats itself,
note well it ended in August nineteen eighty with the
(23:43):
A's staying in Oakland, still ahead on countdown. Well, hell,
(24:09):
I got nominated for a major award, and as I've
said previously, I don't win the awards. I'm like, oh
since nineteen eighty five, just in the Emmys. So let's
devote Fridays with Thurber to his greatest short story about
what it's like when a novice goes into a broadcasting
studio for the first time, How to relax while broadcasting
(24:30):
next first time. For the daily roundup of the miss grants, morons,
and dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's worse parsons
in the world Lebron's worse. I may get emotional here
because an old friend of worse persons is back. Yes,
it's Sarah Palin, and I'm happy to say that woman
(24:53):
is still an idiot, and still an idiot about Russia.
She's posted the graveside meme the two guys throwing the
V for victory fingers while crouch down next to the
freshly dug gray that tasteless thing. This time the grave
is marked quote fake news, and the guys are putin
and his favorite American not really useful idiot, Tucker Carlson
(25:16):
I can see Russian propaganda from my house, I'm happy
to say. Sarah Palin also attended a fascist conference last week,
in which the sign behind her gave the date as
February Thirth February thirth a three with a T and
an H after it. That woman is still an idiot.
The runner up worser Charlie Kirk and Marjorie Taylor Barney
(25:40):
Rubble Indictable Green. They examined Mike Johnson's failure to get
the majorcas impeachment vote passed, and they deduced that there
was only one possible explanation that the three Republican NO
voters were from blackmail victims. Marjorie, do you think these
people are being blackmailed by the intel agencies? They might
(26:01):
have had relations with certain people and pictures in common.
Do you think that they're currently being blackmailed?
Speaker 4 (26:09):
You know, I have no proof of that, But I again,
I can't understand the vote. So nothing surprises me in Washington,
DC anymore. Charlie, Literally nothing surprises me because it doesn't
make sense to anyone, right, Why would anyone vote, know,
why would anyone protect may Orchis unless they're being bribed,
(26:31):
Unless there's something going on unless they're making a deal.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Nothing surprises Marge anymore except that the sun comes up
on the same side every day. Blackmail about pedophilia. You
say pedophilia blackmail, will remember Charlie Kirk and Marjorie. Politics
is ugly, and so am I Green. It is well
established that every Republican accusation is actually a confession. But
(26:59):
the winner the worst, osted W. Herndon emphasis on the
oss of the New York Times. Now there are a
lot of people who could have won this award for
this same reason, but mister Herndon's entry stood below the rest, succinct,
lacking morality, both sizest and mostly untrue and dishonest. After
(27:22):
the Special Council's political attack on President Biden's memory, which
had no business being in his report, which is in
there because the Special Council, a Republican, was trying to
help Trump and the Republicans because it restarts a right
wing and fascist talking point that they have trotted out
every day since Joe Biden declared his candidacy for the
presidency April twenty fifth, twenty nineteen, every god damned days
(27:46):
since in three months, it'll be five years. Every god
damned day with this, This buffoon. Herndon of The Times
posts Biden's age is very clearly the most important non
Trump issue in this elect Polling says so, voters say so.
It's just the wh Select DC, which I assume he
(28:07):
means White House and District of Columbia have had a
sort of a gentleman's agreement for the last year. To
pretend like it's not maybe that ends now, bullshit, You're
an idiot. It is one thing to point at Joe
Biden and say old, as if Trump would not be
(28:29):
seventy eight and a half if he sees his power
next January. It's one thing to do that, mister Herndon,
like your ability to supply context is less than that
of a talking seal, And it's quite another to point
at him and say old and then claim you are
the only one willing to say that when every other
goddamned reporter at the goddamn New York Times and every
(28:52):
other goddamn reporter in Washington and New York and anywhere
else has been hitting this again and again every day,
every hour, like they invented it, minus the context, minus
Trump mistaking egen care for Marlow Mapers, or forgetting what
year it is, or forgetting who Joe Biden is, and
to say there has been a gentleman's agreement to somehow
(29:13):
minimize this. Do they pay you or are you a
volunteer for that job? Because you ain't worth shit. Pal. Firstly,
there are no gentlemen among political reporters. Each one of
you would sell your spouse to be Carl Bernstein for
ten minutes. Secondly, if there is a gentleman's agreement to
pretend like it's not, it ain't working. And I guess
(29:36):
only you, Osted w Herndon of The New York Times,
You are the only moron who signed up for it,
Osted w Herndon, Oh yeah, he's also a contributor for
I want to guess CNN naturally two days worst person
(29:57):
in the world? Did I add f you to the
number one story on the Countdown? And it's Friday and
the weekend edition, so that means a little more James
(30:19):
Thurber for you. James Thurber had many full time jobs.
He was a street reporter for the Columbus Dispatch and
later the New York Post, and he was an editor
of The New Yorker Long before he was a writer
or cartoonist there, and people kept trying to make him
into a radio star, leading to a short story which
(30:39):
is understandably one of my favorites. A lot of it
speaks of broadcasting in another world and of course another century.
But it is amazing how much of what you will
hear now is still true today. From the May fifth,
nineteen thirty four edition of The New Yorker, How to
Relax while Broadcasting by James Thurber. The evening I went
(31:05):
up to the studios for my first radio broadcast. I
got off by mistake, at the sixteenth floor instead of
the seventeenth. I decided not to wait for the elevator,
but just run up the stairs to the seventeenth floor,
because elevators in broadcasting buildings are always crowded with small
Italian musicians carrying cellos. And furthermore, when the up sign
(31:27):
above the elevators in these buildings lights the operator of
the car that stops where he usually says down, and
before you can think, you find yourself on the first
floor again without any way of getting back up, because
you surrendered your pass to the man at the desk
in the lobby the first time. You went up. I
walked to a door on the sixteenth floor marked stairs,
(31:48):
and stepped out into a cold, dark staircase shaft and
walked up one flight. I found that the door on
that floor wouldn't open. It was after seven o'clock in
the evening and the door had been officially locked. I
hurried back down to the sixteenth floor and discovered that
the door there had locked behind me too. I began
(32:08):
to beat on it and kick it from far off.
A faint voice came to me, finally saying, got that out.
The only thing to do was walk down fifteen flights
to the main floor, which I did, but the door
out into the lobby was also locked, and nobody answered
my screams and poundings. Screaming and pounding is not radio,
(32:35):
as the broadcasting people say. I went down into the basement,
which was dark and gloomy, and hunted for the elevator shaft.
I found it, but there was no bell to push,
so I sat on an old chair until the car
came down. The operator was surprised to see me and
asked me for my pass. I told him I didn't
have a pass. He thought awhile, and then asked if
(32:57):
mister Hayman knew I was down there. I said I
didn't think so. He was pretty much alarmed by that,
but he took me up to the seventeenth floor after
warning me never to come down to the basement again
without a pass. There was nobody on the seventeenth floor
who understood my case, although the people I talked to
(33:17):
were patient and courteous. They said the seventeenth floor was
entirely given over to the business department and had no
studios or microphones. What I probably wanted was the twenty
seventh floor. Up there, I found some people I had
met before, but they were pretty busy and seemed to
think it was the wrong night. I sat down in
a chair, and presently a man came up to me
(33:39):
and asked me if I was mister Ttherer. I said
I wasn't sure, and he said to follow him. I
was shown into an office where there were some officials
I knew and some friends of mine. One of the
officials was denying the story somebody had been telling about
a man who fell dead in front of the microphone.
(34:00):
It seems he had merely had a stroke. In a
little while, I was led in a solemn march to
a small and lonely studio, heavily draped and silent. I
took out a cigarette but saw a sign saying no smoking,
so I put the cigarette away again. Some men in
(34:20):
the glass in control room began to look at me.
I could see their lips move, but I couldn't hear anything.
A man tiptoed into the room where I was and
shook hands with me, and tiptoed out again. He never
came back. I walked over to a regular microphone, such
as I had talked over once or twice before and
(34:41):
had got used to. But somebody led me away from
that said I was to talk over a table microphone
because it would help me to relax. This turned out
to be a table about the size of a card
table with a microphone set innocently in its center, face up,
more or less like an ashtray. Its studied simplicity caused
(35:02):
me to tighten up slightly, and I mentioned this to
a man. Be it your ease, he said. I stood
over the table, grasped its edges firmly, and leaned down
toward the microphone. Someone grasped me no, no, he said,
you just sit down at the table. As if you
were sitting in a chair at any table and talk.
(35:23):
I sat down, trying to remember how I sit in
a chair at a table, especially a card table, at
which nobody else is sitting. Relax, said someone with a
note of command. I slumped back in the chair and
placed on the table the papers I was going to
use and began fussing with them. Sh somebody hissed, don't
(35:44):
rustle them. This is a very highly sensitized mic which
picks up every slightest sound. It would sound like a
waterfalls if you rustled them. I began to drum my
fingers on the tabletop, but a courteous official put his
hand on mine and stopped. That tapping would sound like
(36:05):
recrossing a bridge to your listeners. He explained, just take
it easy. I leaned back in my chair and adjusted
my tie, doubtless giving the effect of someone trying to
take a leather belt away from a bulldog. In a moment,
an announcer came in and said we were all ready
to go. Okay, I said, standing up, let's get out.
(36:29):
He smiled with calm assurance and said no, He meant
that we were about to start the program. Everybody but
him tiptoed out of the room. I sat down at
the table again. I could see them all watching me
from the control room. Somebody in there raised his hand
sharply and let it drop sharply. I expected to hear
the faint hiss of lethal gas escaping into the chamber,
(36:50):
but instead the announcer started to talk. I creaked nervously
in the chair at this, and the listeners heard, along
with his calm announcement, the sound of a buckboard falling
over a cliff. Finally, he pointed a finger at me.
I sat bolt up and began to talk to the ashtray.
(37:10):
When it was all over, everybody tiptoed whisperingly into the
room and congratulated me on being only five seconds too slow.
Not bad for a beginner. The record is one five
hundredth of a second. I got up and started it
out of the room, but a man followed me and
took me by the arm. Where are you going, he asked,
(37:33):
Let's all go out and get a drink. I said,
but you haven't got time, he said, All this has
just been the rehearsal. I must have tightened up horribly
at that, for he said soothingly take it easy. You
got plenty of time to relax in he looked at
his wristwatch. You got four minutes how to relax while
(37:58):
broadcasting by James thurber So. I've done all the damage
I can do here. Thank you for listening. Send this
(38:19):
award nominated podcast to somebody who hasn't heard it and
would like it. And again that's asking a lot. Somebody
who'll subscribe to it. Liking it is optional. Send it
to mister Herndon of The Times Countdown. Musical directors Brian
Ray and John Phillip Shanelle arranged, produced, and performed most
of our music, including our brand new Trump Trials theme
(38:41):
ninety one trombones. Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass
and drums, Mister Shanelle handled orchestration and keyboards, and it
was produced by TKO Brothers, which is the two of
them and basically me. My job in producing the music
is to copy it. Other music, including some of the
Beethoven compositions, arranged and performed by No Horns allowed. The
sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two by
(39:04):
Mitch Warren Davis, courtesy of ESPN Inc. Our satirical and
pithy musical comments are by Nancy Fauss, the best baseball
stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was my friend Stevie
van Zandt and everything else was pretty much my fault.
So that's countdown for this the two hundred and seventy
first day until the twenty twenty four US presidential election
and the twenty eighth day since dementia j Trump's first
(39:28):
attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.
Use the fourteenth Amendment, I mean file it again. If
he gets elected. Use the fourteenth Amendment, the Insurrection Act,
the justice system, and the mental health system to stop
him from trying to kill us all yet again while
we still can. The next scheduled countdown is Tuesday. Bulletins
(39:51):
as the news warrants till then, I'm Keith Oldrimman. Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
(40:11):
Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Okay,
Which atrocity do you want to get enraged about? First?
(00:25):
The fact that yesterday I began by saying, today we
begin to find out if we still have a constitution.
It turns out, sorry, I guess we don't. And the
three liberal justices are complicit in that. Or the fact
that a partisan hack appointed by Trump managed to turn
his nothing burger investigation of Biden and the returned documents
(00:46):
into Christmas for the fascists by inserting unwarranted, unjustifiable, indefensible
medical opinions about the president's memory into it. And that's
the headline. And oh, by the way, where's the goddamned
Attorney General on this? You now already know which troscity
(01:06):
I'm going to enrage you about. First, Honest to God,
let me start at that second point. Where did we
get this asshole? Merrick Garland? I mean bending over too
far backwards only so you can fall flat on your
face week after week and month after month and year
after year is one thing. But to let the special
(01:29):
counsel you named to do a bullshit investigation into some
bullshit misplaced papers, misplaced and return papers, seven million documents,
couple of hundred witnesses, and investigation lasting year. Not only
no charges, but even this political whore Robert Hurr, felt
compelled to contrast it to Trump's treachery and probable espionage
(01:51):
by noting that Biden cooperated fully and reported the missing
papers himself and returned everything, and there was no evidence
with which to make a case that he deliberately kept anything.
To let your appointee then inject his opinion of the
president's memory as if he were a doctor, and I
mean doctor. Hell, this guy should not be a lawyer,
(02:12):
and turn this report into a hammer with which he
sneaks up behind the President of the United States and
hits him in the back of the head while he's
not looking. What the hell kind of attorney general are you? Garland?
Merrick Garland would never have had the requisite courage, about
as much courage as a dog needs to pee on
a fire hydrant, to charge Trump for trying to overturn
(02:35):
the election and overthrow the government and done who knows
what to the duly elected president he would have had
to get rid of somehow, Garland would never have done
that if Trump hadn't also stolen classified documents so secret
that most investigators and prosecutors had to get special clearance
just to know what their names were. Garland should have
(02:56):
appointed a special council to prosecute Trump for January sixth,
within ten minutes of his confirmation, but instead he waited
nearly two years. Now entirely because of Merrick Garland, we
are racing the clock to put the greatest criminal in
American history in jail rather than back in command of everything,
including the Justice Department, where one of the first people
(03:19):
he would try to crucify would be Merrick Garland. Nice work, idiot.
And now this, and now a document comes out of
Merrick Garland's Justice Department questioning the president's memory. Is the
document from a doctor? Is the document from a non politician?
(03:40):
Is the document full of context? Like Trump keeps forgetting
the president is Biden and not Obama or Hillary Clinton?
And he says by Bama Clinton was president in twenty
twenty and not him, and showing a picture of e
Gene Carroll who he raped. By the way, Trump identifies
her as his second wife, Marla Maples. Oh, and when
(04:03):
he actually had to answer the questions of a special
counsel Robert Muller. Trump said I don't recall, or I
don't remember or I cannot recollect thirty times, and Trump
Junior said it fifty four times. And Pence didn't recall
whether or not they told him beforehand about his role
in the fake elector scheme. Oh in, the Speaker of
the House Mike Johnson just celebrated his birthday by calling
(04:26):
Israel iran. Because everybody makes that mistake, and because Johnson
making that impossible to rationalize error, must be proof that
the Speaker is an elderly man with a poor memory,
an elderly man at age fifty two. Because not having
every fact right off the top of your head at
all times is a reason for a Justice Department employee
(04:48):
to put his schlung on the political scale and try
to throw the election to the guy who plans to
be a dictator. Thank you, Merrek Garland, resign or flee
the country. You have just out, Bill Bard, Bill Barr,
Merrick Garland, shameful, incompetent, gutless, dilettante, shaking, shrinking sheep in
(05:17):
sheep's clothing. And as to this, special council and Special
is a brand name mister Her having spent a year
desperately searching for a crime and finding none, and having
to say he has found none. Mister Her, the William
(05:38):
Rehnquist law clerk, and the special assistant to Christopher Ray,
and the top aide to Rod Rosenstein, and an appointee
of Dementia J. Trump, and a contributor to the Federalist Society.
And oh, by the way, he's not a doctor, but
he plays one in Department of Justice documents, mister Her
has violated an amazing number of ethical minimums. I mean,
(06:01):
even for a lawyer, even for a Republican. He has
gone so above and beyond his rights that disbarment procedures
should begin against him today. I understand that there is
a silver lining built into this fiasco if the Biden
campaign will simply grab it, and that silver lining is
(06:24):
those Interior poll numbers last October overwhelmingly showed that if
voters think both Biden and Trump are considered old, those
voters will vote for Biden by sixty one percent to
thirteen percent. I get it. I get it. This might
(06:45):
help me calm down by Monday or Tuesday. And I
get it that as desperately as nine out of ten
reporters could not have dreamed there could possibly be such
a wonderful both sidesest shield to protect themselves and their
editors against Trump and the far right. As a Biden
(07:08):
DOJ document claiming Biden is elderly with a poor memory,
the shiny object chasers of our hapless political media will
in fact grab on to something new by next Monday
or Tuesday. And I understand that Biden's best play here
is not just to do the super Bowl interview Sunday,
(07:31):
after all, but then I don't know, do it do
it while? Do it while he's bicycling, or while he's blindfolded,
or while he is simultaneously translating his own answers into Spanish.
And I understand that Biden's play after that is to
order his people to take the gloves off, and not
only from behind the scenes destroy this claude Robert Hurr,
(07:53):
but to make sure that every day until the election
they put out meme after meme and guest after guest,
and interview after interview, and story bait after story bait
in which somebody rom minds America that Donald John Trump
has dementia and personality disorders and he is a trader
who read our war plans out loud to some publishers.
(08:15):
And he is a racist, and he is a dictator
waiting to happen. And he is a compulsive liar, and
he is a rapist. And I understand that to have
Merrick Garland fire Robert her today, and then to have
(08:37):
Biden himself fire Merrick Garland today, that would be to
exacerbate this system and turn a dumpster fire into an inferno.
But god damn, how I wish Biden could do both
of these things today. Hers malfeasan's in this case may
end only one way, with him appointed to the Supreme Court.
(08:59):
If a Republican regains the White House. Hell, if that's Trump,
her might go a pardon at a spot on the
Supreme Court. Which reminds me the entire Mitch McConnell dance
about Merrick Garland eight years ago. This now makes no
sense to me whatsoever. Why did Mitch McConnell oppose his nomination.
(09:23):
Merrick Garland would have been a reliable conservative vote on
the Supreme Court, only better than a conservative making conservative
votes on the Supreme Court. He would have dressed it
up and furrowed his brow in such a way that
while issuing conservative opinions, he could have pretended he was
a liberal, you know, like Elena Kagan. Ellie Mistahal, the
(09:48):
Supreme Court expert of the nation on whose judgment I
rely thinks that after yesterday's oral arguments in the Fourteenth
Amendment case Trump v. Anderson, that Kagan could vote for Trump,
and so do my Ore might vote for Trump, and
Tanji Brown Jackson will vote for Trump. That after their questions,
(10:09):
the vote could be nine nothing for Trump and against
you know, the Constitution of the United States, the fourteenth Amendment.
Kagan and Soda, my Or and Jackson cannot stop a
religious nut, a hapless chief justice, a crooked old man,
and three Trump employees from giving him this verdict. But
(10:29):
if it is unanimous, if Kagan and Sodamayor and Jackson
don't oppose and don't write a searing descent, they should resign.
Because what they did yesterday made me wonder if I
could somehow demand to see proof that they did not
get their law degrees out of boxes of cracker jack.
(10:50):
I mean, I half expected a statement from one of
the justices like this quote. I think that the question
that you have to confront is why a single state
should decide who gets to be president of the United States,
Because that's exactly the kind of thing I believe Brett
Kavanaugh says while drunk. Except that was not said by
(11:12):
Brett Kavanaugh. It was Elena Kagan who said that a
single state deciding who gets to be president. Seriously, Madam Justice,
it isn't a single goddamn state deciding this. Just because
the officials and the attorneys from one state have more
intelligence and guts than you do, that doesn't mean they
(11:32):
are deciding who's president. The state of Colorado is not
deciding who's president. You are deciding a case. The Supreme
Court is deciding this, and you, Justice Kagan, are on
the Supreme Court. Doesn't that say so on your letter head?
And by the way, it's not even really you Justice
is deciding it. It's the Constitution, the fourteenth Amendment. It's
(11:55):
there in black and white, and you have a bathtub
full of evidence about the actual debates that went on
in real time before it and the meaning of every
word in it. But you say, whyan's Colorado deciding who's president?
Rather than saying Colorado is giving the Constitution the chance
to decide who's eligible and who is ineligible to be president.
(12:20):
And while mister mss Stall says Sodamayor did make points
on behalf of the Constitution and you know, not letting
traitorous presidents run again. The Tanji Brown Jackson also shamed herself.
She bought into the entire nonsensical argument that because the
(12:42):
list of people in the Fourteenth Amendment who are said
to take oaths as officers of the United States does
not explicitly include the President of the United States, and
the president is not an officer, therefore Trump was not
an officer. Therefore Trump did not violate the fourteenth Amendment. Therefore,
whatever the Amendment says, it's not saying it about him.
(13:08):
There was more intellectual fervor at a model United Nations
I attended in the year nineteen seventy four, Antonin Scalia
said the president was an officer of the United States.
He wrote it down. He wrote it down and sent
it to two conservative scholars who had said he was not,
and he told them they were wrong. And now Scalia
(13:32):
seems likelier to vote against Trump than Katanji Brown Jackson does.
And Scalia is dead right now and in hell Ohen.
Just last year, some lawyers told the court in New
York that the criminal charges against Trump should be moved
to federal court because, wait for it, he was a
federal officer. The lawyers were Trump lawyers. Trump, through his lawyers,
(13:59):
said he was an officer of the United States. But
Katanji Brown Jackson isn't shoe. And if that isn't bad enough,
I haven't even mentioned the conservatives arguments here, and the
worst of them was about whether Trump was actually involved
in an insurrection. Pope Samuel Alito, the first said Trump
(14:25):
never engaged in an insurrection. John Roberts, who's called Justice
John Roberts because I think he changed his first name
to justice, because he sure isn't running this court. John
Roberts said that if they ruled against Trump, every Republican
state would start defining insurrection as one thing, and every
Democratic state would start defining it as another, and soon
(14:49):
you'd have to find one definition. And uh, hey, Johnny,
good idea. Why don't you go do that and start
on the list with uh insurrection being trying to stop
the peaceful transfer of power via armed rebellion. So Roberts said, Basically,
he's not sure January sixth was an insurrection. And as
(15:09):
soon as the Supreme Court adjourned yesterday, you know who
said January sixth was an insurrection? Trump did. Trump said
January sixth was an insurrection. He said it twice. Listen carefully,
and the one thing I'll say is they kept saying
(15:30):
about what I said right after the insurrection.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
I think it was an insurrection, was.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
My Nancy Melosi? Jesus H. Christ. Trump thinks it was
an insurrection, and of course he attaches his insane bullshit
to it about Pelosi. But Trump thinks it was an insurrection.
Sam Alito doesn't no to answer my question. We don't
(16:01):
have a constitution anymore, Ellie, miss Staal, it's going to
be nine nothing, and they're going to say, well, true,
that disqualification clause in there that does not require a
criminal trial. The Constitution is all powerful and that clause
is self executing. But individual states do not have the
(16:22):
power to enforce because, as Ellie put it, quote reasons,
this point doesn't matter what the reasons are. They're like
Merrick Garland. They are only there just so this suit
of clothes has something to hang on and does not
fall to the floor in a heap. But if you're
(16:46):
planning ahead, your options for why the Supreme Court votes
nine nothing or maybe eight to one. I still have
hopes for sona mayor are. One that the president is
not an officer, or in Trump's case, that he was
not an officer or a gentleman. Two that maybe he
wasn't a officer, but Trump didn't engage an insurrection. Three
(17:09):
that maybe he was a bad boy, but January sixth
itself was not an insurrection, even though Trump now says
it was an insurrection. Four that you can't disqualify a
candidate without a law defining insurrection and who could violate it?
And or five that Judge Gabby Kagan is right Colorado
(17:32):
doesn't get to choose the president because we can't live
in a country in which one state chooses the president.
And if it's that last one, Clarence Thomas will just
smile quietly to himself and say, that's right, m Effers.
I'm the only one left who ruled on Bush vigor
(17:56):
when one state, Florida, chose the president. And sadly, in
our new Trump Trials theme there it turns out that
(18:18):
cell door appears to be closing on you and me.
Also of interest here there is a New York Times
reporter who claims that the good news in Robert Hurri's
medical evaluation of Joe Biden is that it will end
the gentleman's agreement under which reporters never brought up President
(18:39):
Biden's age. And my only guess is that that reporter
is high as a kite. But before the break, I
have to offer something upbeat. I mean, the naked incompetence
of Merrick Garland and the spinelessness of the justices of
the Supreme Court might be bad, but how about that.
(19:00):
Nominating committee for the iHeart Podcast Awards twenty twenty four
to be is edited south by Southwest in Austin, Texas
on the eleventh of next month. Five nominees for the
Best political Podcast pod Save America, NPR Politics, CNN Inside Politics,
The Ben Shapiro Show, and Countdown with the Keith. I
(19:26):
can't pronounce the rest of it. Countdown with Somebody, Yes,
you can vote. Yes, it's on the iHeart website. I'm
not going to give you an address here on audio.
Just google iHeart Podcast Awards and no, I'm not gonna win.
I never win these things. It's just an honor to
be nominated. And when I say honor, I'm lying. This
(19:50):
is countdown. Nominated for a prestigious award.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
This is countdown with Keith Olberman. This is Sports Senate. Wait,
check that not anymore.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
This is countdown with Keith Ulberman in Sports Dateline, Washington,
Capitol Hills, Senate Gallery ex Crappy Football Coaches Division. If
you think Tommy Tuberville does not know what he's doing
in the Senate, take comfort. He is not even finished
(20:42):
not knowing what he's doing in football. Went on a
right wing propaganda network bashing Biden's memory, and literally seconds later,
Tubby could not remember the names of the teams or
the quarterbacks in the Super Bowl.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
He can't remember names, he can't care on a conversation.
He has to listen to the press corps to give
him hands about what he's talking about. We're really bad
trouble when it comes to Joe Biden, and hopefully we've
only got ten twelve more months with him.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Well, do you want to make a pick in the
Super Bowl or not?
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Well, San Francisco has got the best defense, Obviously, the
best quarterback is going to be on the side of
the of Kansas City Chiefs, but they got a running
back in San Francisco is pretty dang good.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Can't remember names, needs hints from the press. Cracker, asshole,
nice work coach. By the way, it's Joe Montana of
the Niners versus Lenn Dawson of the Chiefs. Why don't
you go make a bet on that coach and stop
wasting everybody else's time? Dateline Oakland or Las Vegas, Nevada
(21:53):
or both. The move of Baseball's Oakland A's to Las
Vegas is so messed up that even Baseball Commissioner Rob
Manfred has noticed. A day after the mayor of Black
Vegas said the A's plans in his town made no sense,
the commissioner said, the team and the sport need clarity
in the next few weeks. Or he's still Rob Manfred,
(22:15):
so he didn't say or have the second half of
that sentence mapped out. He made vague references to having
the A's have to play some or all their home
games in Sacramento, maybe with a goal of finally being
ready to go to Vegas by opening day of twenty
twenty eight in a stadium that would be built by
then in a place where at this exact moment they
(22:36):
have a big old hotel that's still there. If you
think this with the homeless A's, this can't go on forever,
wrong again, Connie mack Breath. In late nineteen seventy seven,
the man who had brought the A's from Kansas City
to Oakland, Charles O. Finley, made a deal to move
the team to Denver, and for the next three seasons,
(23:00):
the Oakland A's were basically thought to be about to
move to Denver to be the Denver A's during the
winter during the season of nineteen seventy eight, during the
next winter, during the season of nineteen seventy nine, during
the winter after that, during the season of nineteen eighty,
with Finley as the owner, with Finley selling the A's
to somebody, with Finley selling the A's to businessman Marvin Davis.
(23:22):
This went on so long, so unresolved that when it
started I was a junior in college, and when it
finally ended, I was about to start my new job
with my second radio network. And if history really repeats itself,
note well it ended in August nineteen eighty with the
(23:43):
A's staying in Oakland, still ahead on countdown. Well, hell,
(24:09):
I got nominated for a major award, and as I've
said previously, I don't win the awards. I'm like, oh
since nineteen eighty five, just in the Emmys. So let's
devote Fridays with Thurber to his greatest short story about
what it's like when a novice goes into a broadcasting
studio for the first time, How to relax while broadcasting
(24:30):
next first time. For the daily roundup of the miss grants, morons,
and dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's worse parsons
in the world Lebron's worse. I may get emotional here
because an old friend of worse persons is back. Yes,
it's Sarah Palin, and I'm happy to say that woman
(24:53):
is still an idiot, and still an idiot about Russia.
She's posted the graveside meme the two guys throwing the
V for victory fingers while crouch down next to the
freshly dug gray that tasteless thing. This time the grave
is marked quote fake news, and the guys are putin
and his favorite American not really useful idiot, Tucker Carlson
(25:16):
I can see Russian propaganda from my house, I'm happy
to say. Sarah Palin also attended a fascist conference last week,
in which the sign behind her gave the date as
February Thirth February thirth a three with a T and
an H after it. That woman is still an idiot.
The runner up worser Charlie Kirk and Marjorie Taylor Barney
(25:40):
Rubble Indictable Green. They examined Mike Johnson's failure to get
the majorcas impeachment vote passed, and they deduced that there
was only one possible explanation that the three Republican NO
voters were from blackmail victims. Marjorie, do you think these
people are being blackmailed by the intel agencies? They might
(26:01):
have had relations with certain people and pictures in common.
Do you think that they're currently being blackmailed?
Speaker 4 (26:09):
You know, I have no proof of that, But I again,
I can't understand the vote. So nothing surprises me in Washington,
DC anymore. Charlie, Literally nothing surprises me because it doesn't
make sense to anyone, right, Why would anyone vote, know,
why would anyone protect may Orchis unless they're being bribed,
(26:31):
Unless there's something going on unless they're making a deal.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Nothing surprises Marge anymore except that the sun comes up
on the same side every day. Blackmail about pedophilia. You
say pedophilia blackmail, will remember Charlie Kirk and Marjorie. Politics
is ugly, and so am I Green. It is well
established that every Republican accusation is actually a confession. But
(26:59):
the winner the worst, osted W. Herndon emphasis on the
oss of the New York Times. Now there are a
lot of people who could have won this award for
this same reason, but mister Herndon's entry stood below the rest, succinct,
lacking morality, both sizest and mostly untrue and dishonest. After
(27:22):
the Special Council's political attack on President Biden's memory, which
had no business being in his report, which is in
there because the Special Council, a Republican, was trying to
help Trump and the Republicans because it restarts a right
wing and fascist talking point that they have trotted out
every day since Joe Biden declared his candidacy for the
presidency April twenty fifth, twenty nineteen, every god damned days
(27:46):
since in three months, it'll be five years. Every god
damned day with this, This buffoon. Herndon of The Times
posts Biden's age is very clearly the most important non
Trump issue in this elect Polling says so, voters say so.
It's just the wh Select DC, which I assume he
(28:07):
means White House and District of Columbia have had a
sort of a gentleman's agreement for the last year. To
pretend like it's not maybe that ends now, bullshit, You're
an idiot. It is one thing to point at Joe
Biden and say old, as if Trump would not be
(28:29):
seventy eight and a half if he sees his power
next January. It's one thing to do that, mister Herndon,
like your ability to supply context is less than that
of a talking seal, And it's quite another to point
at him and say old and then claim you are
the only one willing to say that when every other
goddamned reporter at the goddamn New York Times and every
(28:52):
other goddamn reporter in Washington and New York and anywhere
else has been hitting this again and again every day,
every hour, like they invented it, minus the context, minus
Trump mistaking egen care for Marlow Mapers, or forgetting what
year it is, or forgetting who Joe Biden is, and
to say there has been a gentleman's agreement to somehow
(29:13):
minimize this. Do they pay you or are you a
volunteer for that job? Because you ain't worth shit. Pal. Firstly,
there are no gentlemen among political reporters. Each one of
you would sell your spouse to be Carl Bernstein for
ten minutes. Secondly, if there is a gentleman's agreement to
pretend like it's not, it ain't working. And I guess
(29:36):
only you, Osted w Herndon of The New York Times,
You are the only moron who signed up for it,
Osted w Herndon, Oh yeah, he's also a contributor for
I want to guess CNN naturally two days worst person
(29:57):
in the world? Did I add f you to the
number one story on the Countdown? And it's Friday and
the weekend edition, so that means a little more James
(30:19):
Thurber for you. James Thurber had many full time jobs.
He was a street reporter for the Columbus Dispatch and
later the New York Post, and he was an editor
of The New Yorker Long before he was a writer
or cartoonist there, and people kept trying to make him
into a radio star, leading to a short story which
(30:39):
is understandably one of my favorites. A lot of it
speaks of broadcasting in another world and of course another century.
But it is amazing how much of what you will
hear now is still true today. From the May fifth,
nineteen thirty four edition of The New Yorker, How to
Relax while Broadcasting by James Thurber. The evening I went
(31:05):
up to the studios for my first radio broadcast. I
got off by mistake, at the sixteenth floor instead of
the seventeenth. I decided not to wait for the elevator,
but just run up the stairs to the seventeenth floor,
because elevators in broadcasting buildings are always crowded with small
Italian musicians carrying cellos. And furthermore, when the up sign
(31:27):
above the elevators in these buildings lights the operator of
the car that stops where he usually says down, and
before you can think, you find yourself on the first
floor again without any way of getting back up, because
you surrendered your pass to the man at the desk
in the lobby the first time. You went up. I
walked to a door on the sixteenth floor marked stairs,
(31:48):
and stepped out into a cold, dark staircase shaft and
walked up one flight. I found that the door on
that floor wouldn't open. It was after seven o'clock in
the evening and the door had been officially locked. I
hurried back down to the sixteenth floor and discovered that
the door there had locked behind me too. I began
(32:08):
to beat on it and kick it from far off.
A faint voice came to me, finally saying, got that out.
The only thing to do was walk down fifteen flights
to the main floor, which I did, but the door
out into the lobby was also locked, and nobody answered
my screams and poundings. Screaming and pounding is not radio,
(32:35):
as the broadcasting people say. I went down into the basement,
which was dark and gloomy, and hunted for the elevator shaft.
I found it, but there was no bell to push,
so I sat on an old chair until the car
came down. The operator was surprised to see me and
asked me for my pass. I told him I didn't
have a pass. He thought awhile, and then asked if
(32:57):
mister Hayman knew I was down there. I said I
didn't think so. He was pretty much alarmed by that,
but he took me up to the seventeenth floor after
warning me never to come down to the basement again
without a pass. There was nobody on the seventeenth floor
who understood my case, although the people I talked to
(33:17):
were patient and courteous. They said the seventeenth floor was
entirely given over to the business department and had no
studios or microphones. What I probably wanted was the twenty
seventh floor. Up there, I found some people I had
met before, but they were pretty busy and seemed to
think it was the wrong night. I sat down in
a chair, and presently a man came up to me
(33:39):
and asked me if I was mister Ttherer. I said
I wasn't sure, and he said to follow him. I
was shown into an office where there were some officials
I knew and some friends of mine. One of the
officials was denying the story somebody had been telling about
a man who fell dead in front of the microphone.
(34:00):
It seems he had merely had a stroke. In a
little while, I was led in a solemn march to
a small and lonely studio, heavily draped and silent. I
took out a cigarette but saw a sign saying no smoking,
so I put the cigarette away again. Some men in
(34:20):
the glass in control room began to look at me.
I could see their lips move, but I couldn't hear anything.
A man tiptoed into the room where I was and
shook hands with me, and tiptoed out again. He never
came back. I walked over to a regular microphone, such
as I had talked over once or twice before and
(34:41):
had got used to. But somebody led me away from
that said I was to talk over a table microphone
because it would help me to relax. This turned out
to be a table about the size of a card
table with a microphone set innocently in its center, face up,
more or less like an ashtray. Its studied simplicity caused
(35:02):
me to tighten up slightly, and I mentioned this to
a man. Be it your ease, he said. I stood
over the table, grasped its edges firmly, and leaned down
toward the microphone. Someone grasped me no, no, he said,
you just sit down at the table. As if you
were sitting in a chair at any table and talk.
(35:23):
I sat down, trying to remember how I sit in
a chair at a table, especially a card table, at
which nobody else is sitting. Relax, said someone with a
note of command. I slumped back in the chair and
placed on the table the papers I was going to
use and began fussing with them. Sh somebody hissed, don't
(35:44):
rustle them. This is a very highly sensitized mic which
picks up every slightest sound. It would sound like a
waterfalls if you rustled them. I began to drum my
fingers on the tabletop, but a courteous official put his
hand on mine and stopped. That tapping would sound like
(36:05):
recrossing a bridge to your listeners. He explained, just take
it easy. I leaned back in my chair and adjusted
my tie, doubtless giving the effect of someone trying to
take a leather belt away from a bulldog. In a moment,
an announcer came in and said we were all ready
to go. Okay, I said, standing up, let's get out.
(36:29):
He smiled with calm assurance and said no, He meant
that we were about to start the program. Everybody but
him tiptoed out of the room. I sat down at
the table again. I could see them all watching me
from the control room. Somebody in there raised his hand
sharply and let it drop sharply. I expected to hear
the faint hiss of lethal gas escaping into the chamber,
(36:50):
but instead the announcer started to talk. I creaked nervously
in the chair at this, and the listeners heard, along
with his calm announcement, the sound of a buckboard falling
over a cliff. Finally, he pointed a finger at me.
I sat bolt up and began to talk to the ashtray.
(37:10):
When it was all over, everybody tiptoed whisperingly into the
room and congratulated me on being only five seconds too slow.
Not bad for a beginner. The record is one five
hundredth of a second. I got up and started it
out of the room, but a man followed me and
took me by the arm. Where are you going, he asked,
(37:33):
Let's all go out and get a drink. I said,
but you haven't got time, he said, All this has
just been the rehearsal. I must have tightened up horribly
at that, for he said soothingly take it easy. You
got plenty of time to relax in he looked at
his wristwatch. You got four minutes how to relax while
(37:58):
broadcasting by James thurber So. I've done all the damage
I can do here. Thank you for listening. Send this
(38:19):
award nominated podcast to somebody who hasn't heard it and
would like it. And again that's asking a lot. Somebody
who'll subscribe to it. Liking it is optional. Send it
to mister Herndon of The Times Countdown. Musical directors Brian
Ray and John Phillip Shanelle arranged, produced, and performed most
of our music, including our brand new Trump Trials theme
(38:41):
ninety one trombones. Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass
and drums, Mister Shanelle handled orchestration and keyboards, and it
was produced by TKO Brothers, which is the two of
them and basically me. My job in producing the music
is to copy it. Other music, including some of the
Beethoven compositions, arranged and performed by No Horns allowed. The
sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two by
(39:04):
Mitch Warren Davis, courtesy of ESPN Inc. Our satirical and
pithy musical comments are by Nancy Fauss, the best baseball
stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was my friend Stevie
van Zandt and everything else was pretty much my fault.
So that's countdown for this the two hundred and seventy
first day until the twenty twenty four US presidential election
and the twenty eighth day since dementia j Trump's first
(39:28):
attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.
Use the fourteenth Amendment, I mean file it again. If
he gets elected. Use the fourteenth Amendment, the Insurrection Act,
the justice system, and the mental health system to stop
him from trying to kill us all yet again while
we still can. The next scheduled countdown is Tuesday. Bulletins
(39:51):
as the news warrants till then, I'm Keith Oldrimman. Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
(40:11):
Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.