December 5, 2023 • 48 mins
SERIES 2 EPISODE 84: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Here's an idea. What if - instead of waiting for Trump to manipulate our system and get elected again and use The Insurrection Act against AMERICA, we just used it against him - today?
It's not like he's not guilty of... you know... INSURRECTION.
B-Block (28:03) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Deadline nears on Ukraine $: How could the GOP be anti-gun? Witness tampering in the Georgia Trump case (with singing). The online Mehdi Hasan petition exceeds 15,000. Trump calls Jimmy Carter "The First Lady" and never even notices. (33:13) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: COP28 actually put a UAE Oil Sultan in charge and they're all shocked he denied fossil fuels are killing the planet. Trump Diapers now on sale. And Christian Ziegler is not only in huge legal trouble, but the other woman was only really interested in his Missus.
C-Block (38:36) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I guess because I'm suggesting using The Insurrection Act to SAVE America rather than leaving it for Trump to use to DESTROY America, I want to tell the saga of "A Christmas Story" and how Little Ralphie finally figured out how to defeat the bully, Scut Farkas (by invoking the insurrection act!)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. In retrospect.
Our mistake was to leave the prosecution of Trump and
(00:26):
his insurrectionist traders to civilian authorities. We didn't do that
when Pierre Beauregard opened fire on Fort Sumter in eighteen
sixty one, and we didn't do it when Confederate agents
tried to set fire to the city of New York
in eighteen sixty four, And we didn't do it when
John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln in eighteen sixty five, and
for that matter, we didn't do it when John Brown
(00:47):
tried to seize the arsenal at Harper's Ferry in eighteen
fifty eight. And as much as it sounds like crazy
QAnon fever dreams of military tribunals and summary executions and
body doubles, it is unavoidably clear that President Biden should
have sworn his public oath of office at noon on Tuesday,
(01:10):
January twentieth, twenty twenty one, said thank you, made his speech,
and invoked the Insurrection Act, and detained Trump before he
could leave Washington, and rounded up maybe a dozen leaders
of the plot to overthrow the election and the government,
and given the actual cowardice of the people like Trump
and Bannon and Jeffrey Clark and Meadows and the others,
(01:31):
and how easily they would have been subdued and placed
in a stockade or a brig The President would have
then been able to have terminated the Insurrection Act within
a couple of hours. Tops. I mean, this is what
Trump is planning for January twentieth, twenty twenty five. It is.
(01:51):
It may not involve detaining President Biden or other prominent
figures whose disappearance might trouble even our Supreme Religious Court,
but the use of the Insurrection Act to quell not
you know, insurrections, but peaceful protest, the use of the
(02:13):
Insurrection Act to enable Trump to send tanks down Upper
Whacker Drive, to terrify Chicago or just terrified democracy. All
of it to be set into motion the day he
again seizes power. This is one of Trump's most well
publicized plans for his renaissance. I mean, like every other
(02:35):
extra constitutional thing he did, it kind of gets buried
behind the coup attempt. But on June first, twenty twenty
Trump came about as close to doing it as you
could without doing it when he had National Guard troops
along with police officers of various stripes, shoot tear gas
and rubber bullets and flash bangs at Black Lives Matters
protesters in Lafayette Square outside the White House so he
(02:59):
could get to a photo op. That was the Insurrection
Act in action, in fact, in everything but name, Trump's
lackeys were evoking, if not invoking, the Act after they
lost the election. We know that Trump's lackeys are still
dreaming of using it against civilians. This is not some
(03:23):
last choice. Swallow hard, prepare for years of atonement, await
the judgment of history use of this weapon that we
as a nation have just left there for the day
when true crisis springs. Internally, the Insurrection Act is Donald
Trump's wet dream, and God knows if he can do it,
(03:46):
he will do it. So certainly, detaining Trump on January twentieth,
twenty twenty one would have been messy. It would have
been extraordinary. It would have been shattering. On the other hand,
so was the Civil War. On the other hand, so
(04:08):
have the almost three years since January sixth been messy,
extraordinary and shattering. And three years after the Civil War
shooting stopped. One of the leading pro insurrection congressmen was
running for the Democratic nomination for president, and that General Beauregard,
who had fired on Sumter, was campaigning to build the
(04:32):
Lincoln Memorial, and the Confederate Vice President Stevens had been
elected to the US Senate, and golly, when they rebelled
against the duly elected government of the United States and
attacked United States federal facilities, we didn't say, Hey, you know,
they shouldn't do that, let's arrest them. Trump tried to
(04:52):
overthrow the government. His mob was armed. He did not
send it into the Capitol with written orders because he
didn't need to. He knew what he wanted. They knew
what he wanted. They gave it to him. And I'm
going to go out on a limb here, and I'm
going to guess that, just like me, you have always
(05:13):
assumed that if you ever suddenly became insane and disloyal
enough to try to break into and take over the
capital of the United States during the certification of the
Electoral College vote in order to break the two hundred
and thirty two year history of the peaceful transfer of
(05:34):
power and put the guy who lost the election in
as president, you like me, would have expected to be
greeted by you know, machine guns. But the new president,
bless him, thought this was fixable by less extreme means,
(05:55):
and you cannot blame him for that. It reflects an
optimism and the belief in all Americans that sadly, has
always been undeserved by some multi digit percentage of all Americans.
I always think of Lincoln's second Inaugural Address as one
of the most poignant and saddest events in American history.
(06:18):
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness
in the right, as God gives us to see the right,
let us strive on to finish the work we are in,
to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him
who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow
and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and
cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with
(06:43):
all nations. Poignant, sad, heartbreaking, eternal, and naive. Forty one
days later, some of the people to whom he offered
malice toward none and charity for all, arranged to shoot
and kill him. I mean, the Trump cult already expects
(07:08):
they will be arrested detained, disappeared. And it's not merely
that they already expect Biden now or later to do
something like invoke the Insurrection Act. They already blame him
as if he already done it. On Saturday, the Pizzagate
psycho Mike Cernovitch posted on Twitter x that you have
to buy a blue check mark from Elon Musk because
(07:29):
quote X premium, it's the last stand before the Marxists
genocide you and everyone you love. This was then reposted
by Ashley Saint Clair, the Dead Eyed Little Operations director
of the Babylon b an online publication that mistakenly claims
(07:50):
to be funny. She added quote, I don't think many
understand how serious this battle is. This is the last
realistic shot we will have in our lifetime to preserve
free speech and feed the system the most accurate version
of humanity unquote. And if you think that word salad
(08:12):
didn't make any sense, whatso effing ever? Wait, there's more.
Her reposting was replied to early Monday by Musk, who
added greatly to the exchange of ideas the marketplace of
ideas by writing, quote, yes, unquote, they really are throwing
(08:36):
around terms like genocide and more immediately, they are handing
out signs at one of Trump's rallies over the weekend
in Iowa, signs reading quote, Biden attacks democracy. And while
it is good news that Biden's argument that Trump is
trying to impose authoritarianism is resonating so profoundly and disturbingly
(08:58):
within Trump's diseased mind and clearly within internal Trumpian polling,
that Trump has now resorted to his traditional tack of
accusing the rightful accuser, it is still jarring to hear
Trump say, quote, Joe Biden is not the defender of
American democracy. Joe Biden is the destroyer of American democracy.
(09:19):
This campaign is a righteous crusade to liberate our republic
from Biden and the criminals and the Biden administration unquote.
And to say that without even a Trump crowd that
has as much interest in preserving democracy as it has
in eliminating fossil fuels, With that Trump crowd listening to
that and not bursting into laughter, that's how paranoid they are.
(09:44):
That's how lost they are. That's how much they expect
to wind up in I don't know, a real Twitter jail.
Trump is turning the tables a Trump advisor told the
Washington Post, we are not going to allow Joe Biden
and the Democrats to gaslight the American public unquote. Now
(10:05):
we don't know which Trump advisor managed to say that
without dissolving into laughter of his own, because, according to
the Post, the paper agreed to let whoever that was
speak on the condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized
to speak publicly, because a lot of journalists still can't
help themselves, and they will gladly grant anonymous status to
(10:26):
let Trump people lie on Trump's behalf about Trump in
order to end the democracy and put everybody who works
with the Washington Post in effing jail. Anyway, I have
brought this whole matter of Biden invoking the Insurrection Act
(10:48):
because the danger Trump has posed to this country openly
since two thousand and fifteen, more realistically, since nineteen eighty nine,
when he defended the Chinese Communists at tianan Men Square
and he tried to get the Central Park I've executed
even though they were innocent. That danger is now so
(11:11):
extreme today that yesterday even the New York Times sat
up and took notice. I know the Times, why a
second Trump presidency may be more radical than his first.
Donald Trump has long exhibited authoritarian impulses, but his policy
(11:34):
operation is now more sophisticated, and the buffers to check
him are weaker now seriously on the front page, near
the other Times breaking news stories, Lindbergh lands at Paris,
Napoleon defeated at Waterloo.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
I know it's even in the Times after only thirty
four years, although the story quickly dropped on the page
to a position below an article about how Republican donors
want Chris Christy to drop out and back Nikki Haley instead,
because we really need to know now before any primaries,
(12:16):
who's going to finish second in the last ever Republican
primary race before our Hitler ascends.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
To permanent power. Anyway, apparently this Trump guy has been
using violent and authoritarian rhetoric, Buffy, and there's growing alarm
in comparisons to historical fascist dictators. And he's dehumanized his
adversaries as vermin who must be rooted out. Why he
(12:45):
could mean people we know and like, like Ainsley and Spaulding.
And he said some of those nice immigrants who worked
there at the club, they're poisoning the blood of our country,
and Bronwin says he also said something mean about that
nice general Millie, you know, Lacy's grand uncle's godfather's classmate
at Princeton. Seriously, The New York Times devoted twenty four
(13:08):
hundred and ninety seven words to gully The Dangers of Trump,
written by and I mean with bylines from Charlie Savage,
Jonathan Swan, and Maggie Haberman, and Savage is cool, He's
always been real, but bluntly, Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman
have spent the last eight years treating Trump as if
(13:30):
they didn't live here, or maybe as if he didn't
live here, but whichever way, they've been treating him as
if he'd never do any of that to them. My
point is even the Times, same day the Liz Cheney
(13:51):
book tour started, same day, The Atlantic devoted its entire
issue to the Trump threat. The same day, most of
the nation became aware that Trump's Georgia lawyer basically told
the court that if he's reelected, you'll find a way
to postpone the trial until twenty twenty nine. Had a
lot of us thought yeah, right, only until twenty twenty nine.
(14:13):
The same day Semaphore News pointed out that Megan Kelly
was dead in the media water three years ago, and
then a bunch of ex Glenn Beck lunatics threw a
bunch of money at her and built her a studio
and gave her a fascist video and podcast platform, and
tomorrow she's going to co moderate a Republican debate, and
(14:34):
the promo for her doing that shows her sitting back
to the camera and then she spins around. I swear
the first time I saw it, I thought it was
a reboot of Tails from the Crypt And all this
even though her podcasts in her shows don't make anybody
but her any money, which underscores that there is an
extraordinary right wing media machine here churning out literally dozens
(14:58):
and dozens a fascist and racist and authoritarian propaganda programs
and networks and call in shows and interviews and bullshit,
while the liberal media consists of the Washington Post still
wedding Trump spokesman Lie off the record, and political reporting
(15:20):
that ABC News political director Rick Klein did a walk
through at st Anselm College in New Hampshire yesterday because
ABC really wants to hold its own Republican debate before
the primary next month. Wait, Saint Anselm one. That where
CNN let Trump end its credibility and destroy Caitlin Collins'
(15:40):
career last spring. But thank god they have new management
at CNN. And oh, by the way, the same story.
CNN is now trying to get GOP approval for its
own debate, and the liberal media machine it's ABC News
and doing republican debate, CNN doing republican debate in Washington
Post letting Trump spokesman speak off the record while lying.
(16:04):
The liberal media machine still thinks it is anchored by MSNBC,
which buried many Hassan and the gutless Rachel Maddow still
didn't say a damn thing about it on her show
last night. Rachel Woodoo, and that democratic mouthpiece The New
York Times, after just thirty four years, finally let cricket
(16:26):
and Hubble and bitsy in on the horrible truth about
this man Trump. Here ultimately is the point. I am delighted.
Judge Chutkin has written a searing forty eight page rejection
of Trump's belief in the divine right and absolute immunity
of presidents, and that the DC Court of Appeal said
(16:47):
the same thing in its ruins on the rights of
congressmen and law enforcement officers to sue Trump over January sixth,
and then I keep remembering, Hey, Alito and Thomas and
Roberts and spauld In, Kavanaugh and Corky Gorsuch and Bronwin
Cony Barrett. I remember them, and somehow I just don't
think any of this is going to survive the Supreme Court.
(17:08):
And I'm not so certain that even any of the
convictions would survive the Supreme Court. And where shit, I'm
not exactly certain that the people who Leonard Leo owns
and the people who Harlan Crow owns aren't right now
looking for ways to help Trump stall at the Supreme Court,
just because Thomas and Alito are going to hear a
(17:29):
case today that could ban before it was even enacted,
any kind of wealth tax. See, there's one thing Trump
and I agree on, and that is yep, Justice Department
should have started this years ago. Should have started his
prosecution on the afternoon of January twentieth, twenty twenty one.
I don't know if you can tell yet, but I am,
(17:50):
for the first time not really optimistic about November fifth,
twenty twenty four. And so what I'm wondering now is this.
We know Trump plans to end democracy. We know he
has plans to ethnically cleanse the country. We know he
(18:11):
has plans for concentration camps. We know he has plans
for mass deportations. We know he has a plan for
a complete purge of government employees to be replaced by
those loyal only to him first and America last. We
know he has plans for violating, if not trying to invalidate,
parts of the Constitution like birthright citizenship. And we know
he has plans for using the Department of Justice to
(18:32):
put people he doesn't like in jail. Oh, and we
know he has plans about that little issue of the
military suppression of public protests. Because we know he has
a plan in place to invoke the Insurrection Act, and
there's not a damn thing we can do about any
of it. Well, there is one thing. Who can invoke
(18:59):
the Insurrection Act? Which guy in the government is allowed
to invoke it? What does it say who gets to
decide that the Insurrection Act, which we did not reform
even after Trump threatened to use it against Black Lives
Matter in the week after George Floyd was murdered We
(19:23):
didn't change it because we all just hoped everything would
go back to normal once Trump lost and went away.
Who has control of invoking the Insurrection Act?
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Right, the president? Who's the president again? I mean, what
would they do to Joe Biden if he invoked the
Insurrection Act today? Impeach him? After yesterday? When James comer
(19:57):
at his echo chamber of one thousand Jonathan Turley's only
each is dumber than the original. Jonathan Turley produced the
smoking gun Hunter Biden's illicit, corrupt, illegal, criminal, unconstitutional repayments
to his dad for loan and least payments on hunters
Ford truck thirteen one hundred and eighty dollars each, three
(20:21):
payments of thirteen hundred and thirty dollars each, four thousand,
one hundred and forty dollars, but the most corrupt four
one hundred and forty dollars in human history. Trump gets
up in a public place at least once a week
and calls for rooting out vermin from America and deporting
(20:42):
millions from America, putting them in camps, and sending scumbags
into well inner cities to threaten voters. And he talks
about terminating the Constitution, and he urges his thugs to
kill a federal prosecutor and a federal judge and a
state attorney general, and to states judges and the judge's
(21:06):
clerk and the judge's wife and the judge's son, and
Robert de Niro. And that's just this past week. You
want to make a bigger case for invoking the Insurrection
Act now and detaining Trump for trial by the military
based on every public threat and every public incitement to
(21:30):
revolution that he has made while not president. You want
to do it chronologically or alphabetically. How do you think
the odds are that you could read it aloud in
less than twenty four hours? I mean, it would take
you twenty four hours to read it aloud. It's not
(21:50):
like he's guilty of trying to overthrow American democracy or
anything today, Yet the Insurrection Act is going to be
used against Americans by a president of the United States.
We are approaching the time when this issue simplifies and
(22:15):
clarifies itself into this. Do you want that Act invoked
by a madman who is mentally deteriorating, who is trying
to institute an authoritarian state with him as absolute dictator.
Or do you want that act invoked by a statesman
(22:35):
who would use it to defend the Constitution, and who
actor its use would advocate for congressional modification of it
and any other act that the next Trump might try
to use against America. Which would you like? Because I
think now since twenty fifteen we have been overthinking this.
(22:56):
We are near the point at which you and I
have a powerful law in our hands. We hesitate to
use it because, correctly, we don't think that's what America
is supposed to be. Unfortunately, there is a madman running
at us bearing a gun, a tiki torch he bought
(23:18):
at a chain store, a machete, and a tank, and
a couple of million armed people behind him, And as
early as January twentieth, twenty twenty five, that powerful law
that you and I have right now in our hands,
we might have to turn it over to him. Now,
do we use the law against him to save the
(23:44):
nation or do we wait and give him the law
and let him use it to kill us times up
correct answer is Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, Lincoln ignored Supreme
Court rulings. Lincoln invented emergency powers, Lincoln curtailed the First Amendment.
(24:08):
Lincoln emancipated the slaves without any precedent. Lincoln declared martial
law in Maryland and put the mayor of Baltimore into
Fort McHenry and Fort Monroe for fifteen days. And he's
considered our greatest president. And if you don't think we
are near all of that, only the shooting hasn't started yet.
(24:29):
Ask Muffy what she read in the Times yesterday. I mean,
what are they going to do? Impeach him? Also of
interest here, Trump is still going nuts nutsier quickly. And
it's so bad that he screwed up one of those
(24:51):
lines I mentioned about Biden being anti democracy. Screwed it
up so badly that nobody actually has any idea what
he meant to say. Also, he claimed Jimmy was the
first lady. That's next. This is Countdown. This is Countdown
(25:11):
with Keith Alberman host. Scripts to the news, some headlines,
some updates, some snarks, some predictions. Dateline, Capitol Hill, It's showtime.
The White House Director of Management and Budget, Shalanda Young,
(25:34):
has written to the Speaker, the House Minority Leader, the
Senate Majority and minority leaders, and the message is simple quote.
I want to be clear, without congressional action, by the
end of the year, we will run out of resources
to procure more weapons and equipment for Ukraine and to
provide equipment from US military stocks unquote. What amazes me
(25:55):
about Republican opposition to backing Ukraine as it, to use
an old Republican phrase, fights the Russians there, so we
don't have to fight them here is not their pro
Russian stance, but the fact that the GOP is actually
positioning itself as anti gun Dateline, Atlanta. Kanye West's former
(26:18):
publicist Trump Georgia defendant Trevian Cootie still has not been jailed,
even though she threatened witness and Georgia election worker Ruby
Freeman on Instagram. According to Midas dot Com, she promised,
there's a woman sitting somewhere who knows that I'm going
to f her whole life up when this is done.
Cootie also says she practiced her mugshot pose for two hours.
(26:42):
If you have seen the photograph, you know she should
have practiced it for twelve hours. Oh, Nancy, can again witness?
Can witness? Can I divinate a witness? Cana terrize A winner,
(27:09):
Thank you, Nancy post dateline thirty rock. The online petition
to get made a Hassan reinstated to cross the fifteen
thousand signature plateau last night. Long piece in the Washington
Post yesterday about MSNBC's silencing of Hassan and its rapid
collapse into the simple, unquestioning reading aloud of press releases.
(27:32):
If you want to sign this petition, it's stand with
medi dot com. That's stand with mehdi. I assume you
know how to spell dot com dateline trump Land. He
says Liz Cheney was wrong. Kevin McCarthy did not go
to see him after he lost the election because he
wasn't eating. It was because he was eating too much
(27:56):
define too much, too much for a human or too
much for Trump. He also misspelled Kevin. It's Robert de Niro.
He attacked Drudge. We're putting a picture up that's a
silhouette of him wearing a crown. He attacked the college
football playoff format, and that already damaged brain full of
cheese with slid even further off the cracker. And I
(28:20):
have to tell you, Jimmy Carter, as you know, a
first lady went to the funeral of Rosslyn God. It
was a beautiful event, by the way, everybody was very nice.
First Lady Jimmy Carter, right, you are dementia, Jay Trump.
And then of course there was this we've been waging
an all out war an American democracy. You look at
(28:40):
what they've been doing. Now what he said there, we've
been waging an all out war on American democracy, and
what he meant to say there are both in dispute.
Rather incredibly, snopes dot com first insisted Trump had not
said We've been waging an all out war on American democracy,
but rather that he'd said we've been waging an all
(29:00):
out war in American democracy, which you know, I guess,
I mean he has brain damage. Anything's possible, but what
would that mean. Then, having taken a lot of abuse
for this, snopes dot com then revised its finding and
insisted that whatever he actually said, he meant they've been
(29:21):
waging an all out war, and thus Snopes is sticking
by its claim that Trump, who has waged an all
out war on American democracy, did not mean to say
We've been waging an all out war on American democracy.
Idiots still ahead of us on countdown for some reason today,
(30:02):
I am reminded of the movie A Christmas Story in
which Little Ralphie finally figures out how to destroy the
bully invoke the Insurrection Act no, but invoked the clenched
fist of insurrection acts next in things I promised not
to tell first time for the daily roundup of the miscrants,
(30:22):
morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens, who constitute two days
worst persons in the world Theron's worse. The organizers and
participants of COP twenty eight, the climate change equivalent of
the world's firefighters holding a convention to decide whether or
not they should try to stop fires. Who would have
thought that having an oil executive from the United Arab
(30:45):
Emirates who is a sultan as president of this year's
summit might have proved unproductive? Quote. I accepted to come
to this meeting to have a sober and mature conversation.
I'm not in any way signing up to any discussion
that is alarmist, said Sultan Algebrat to suggestions that you know,
you got to phase out fossil fuels or we all die.
(31:07):
There's no science out there or no scenario out there
that says that the phase out of fossil fuel is
what's going to achieve one point five degrees. Please help
me show me the roadmap for a phase out of
fossil fuel that will allow for sustainable socioeconomic development, unless
you want to take the world back into caves, better
caves than all of us are dead, Sultan, this idiot
(31:30):
Algebra's response to the ensuing controversy. He denied he said it.
They played him the video of him saying it. He
then said he'd always followed the science, and he accused
the media of just taking one statement out of context. Yeah,
I hear you out of context. Pal, You imply just
once that we have to keep using fossil fuels so
you personally can make more money and then all of
(31:53):
us die. You say that once and people think you
might mean it? What kind of world are we living in?
Runners up worser Public Square, the online shopping site backed
by Moron Junior and Kimberly Gilfoyle and Kelly Loffler and
Blake Masters Remember Kelly Loffler. Politico reports they are selling
(32:16):
the usual family items to the Maga crowd. Christmas present
wrapping paper boxes to keep your guns in and of course,
every Life brand diapers a Trump Maga website selling conservative diapers.
Sometimes the jokes are so obvious you don't even have
(32:37):
to say them aloud. Telepathy man, but the winner the worst.
Christian Ziegler still not charged, still insisting he will not
resign as chairman of the Florida Republican Party, even as
details from the police report come out. He and the Missus,
co founder of Moms for Liberty, chairwoman of the Sarazona
(32:58):
County school Board, arch conservative Bridget Ziegler, Bible Thumper, they
were seeing a woman on the side and they were
setting up the October three way over at her house
as one does, when Bridget decided she wasn't into it
that day, so the other woman canceled too, and she
(33:18):
says Christian Ziegler went over to her house anyway and
raped her and confirmed the police that he videotaped it,
although he says, everybody say it with me now, the
sex was consensual. Texts among the parties came out, and
the alleged victim turns out to have canceled on Christian
Ziegler by writing to him quote, sorry, I was mostly
(33:40):
in for her. Well, Bridget Ziegler is a member of
the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District. She's supposed to make
people feel welcomed in Florida. Christian Ziggler. I wonder if
they're going to kick him out of that Bible class
he teaches two days. Worse person in the world got
(34:06):
at She's the number 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.
(34:30):
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 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
(34:53):
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 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
(35:16):
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 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
(35:38):
to a psychologist, and 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 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.
(35:59):
I had been taught by the doctor, no shoving, Keith.
This quickly deteriorated into the inevitable situation in which I
got bullied. 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
(36:21):
grade ended. Literally the next to last day of class,
some kid sold me his entire baseball card collection, maybe
a thousand cards. 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
(36:43):
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, 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
(37:05):
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. The bully was
now on the ground floor landing of the school, moving
(37:26):
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 feet taller than this guy was,
and that gravity had become my accomplice. I literally threw
myself forward off the stairs. I landed on him, my
(37:48):
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. The
most he could do was slap at me, without aim
or force. This is basically the visual of the Ralphie
(38:12):
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 d programming went
out the window. The bully had stolen my baseball cards.
I punched him repeatedly, even as a serene clarity overtook me.
(38:34):
I was displeased, but I was not blind with anger.
As I was contemplating this, suddenly I felt the large
hands under my arms of the gym teacher, mister Hood.
Mister Hood lifted me off the bully and said something,
and I said, matter of factly, why did you do that?
I'm not finished yet. I shook him off, and to
(38:56):
my surprise, he fell into some low hedges. I turned
back to the bully, who was still soupine on the beautiful,
freshly recent 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
it down. Lift it up, and then pound it down,
lift it up, and then pound it down. I became
(39:19):
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
at that moment, eight years and one day left of school,
(39:40):
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 Tarmacadam's surface, so
he'd never forget, or maybe forget a lot. And then
I felt four large hands under my arms. Mister Hood
had finally disentangled himself from the shrubbery, and my mother
(40:04):
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, I didn't
even get punished for pushing the gym teacher, mister Hood,
so now that I think about it, from that day on,
(40:24):
mister Hood always looked wearily at me, and then he
transferred to another school. The next day, the last day
of fourth grade, I walked into my classroom, Missus Wolfe's class,
really not thinking about the previous day's dry run for
a movie scene. All the boys in the class were
huddled in a far corner of the room whispering. After
(40:47):
I sat at my desk, the one who had collaborated
the least with the bully and his toadies, Tom Scharlap,
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, and Zune.
To my bewilderment, every one of the other boys brought
(41:09):
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 precursor
to the film A Christmas Story, and I had instead
been placed in some kind of cosmic precursor to the
(41:31):
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, a
girl I had stayed friendly with, she was with me
(41:51):
in college, invited me to what was there and kind
of my reunion, and it was transcended. I also made
the thirtieth anniversary, and in twenty ten, Saturday, October twenty third,
twelve years ago yesterday, I went to the thirty fifth anniversary.
It was held in, of all places, a restaurant in
(42:13):
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 on a bench between the restaurant
(42:34):
and the municipal parking lot, and my whole youth replayed
itself in front of my eyes, 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 the street lights, walking
(42:57):
towards me out of the fog, was the bully, big hug.
You really made it. Some small talk, all of it warm,
completely in keeping with the oh 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 gonna be here supposedly tonight.
(43:19):
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? Time stood still. What do you say
(43:45):
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
twenty ten. There was no reason to real litigate this.
If he was faking not remembering it, I should go
(44:06):
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 nineteen sixty seven. I'm sure we had a fight,
I said, finally. I mean every kid in that class
had a fight. I mean in the fourth grade. I
(44:27):
fought Brian Rubin one day, and then I fought with
him against Gordon Craig and Ricky Wester the next day.
So what he smiled? I smiled. Another figure emerged from
a newly parked car. Hey, look, it's Katzenstein. Let's go inside.
I'll buy both of you guys a drink. We had
a great time, and I never brought up the fight.
(44:50):
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 won't have been Hey, anybody know
whatever happened to that Jim teacher, mister Hood. I've done
(45:19):
all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening.
If you know others who are not yet listening, advise them.
Tell the others countdown has come to you from the
Vin Scully Studios at the Older Women Broadcasting Empire in
New York. I mean, it's just a coincidence that I
told the story today about beating up the bully. Downtown
(45:40):
Musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillips. Shanelle Arrange produced
and performed most of our music. Mister Shanelle handled the
orchestration and the keyboards. Mister Ray was on the guitar
as the bass and the drums produced by TKO Brothers.
I will not reveal the name of the bully. It
was some conversation, though no all kids have fights, and
(46:04):
in this one I left you completely. On the other hand,
it was the last fight I ever started. Other music,
including some of the Beethoven compositions, were arranged and performed
by No Horns Allowed. The sports music courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
And it was written by Mitch Warren Davis and we
call it the old Wrin theme from ESPN two. What
do you think of this new way of closing the
(46:25):
show in which I just sort of riffed on what
we've already talked about. I mean, there must be a
reason we decided not to alter the insurrection Act. And
if there's any man who means insurrection, it's Donald Trump.
And if you're going to see it used on offense
against US or in defense by US, I don't think
(46:48):
there's any choice here. Our satirical and fifthy musical comments
are by Nancy Fauss. The best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer today was my friend Richard Lewis. Everything else
was pretty much my fault. That's countdown for this, the
one thy and sixty fourth day since demand should jay
Trump's first attempt at coup against the democratically elected government
(47:08):
of the United States, Convict him now or use the
Insurrection Act against him now while we still can. The
next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bolton says, the news warrants
till then. I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night,
good Insurrection Act, and good luck? Can again a witness?
(47:42):
Can witness? Can I devindate a witness? Cannatris a winness?
Thank you? Nancy Faust. Countdown with Keith Oulderman is a
production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
(48:03):
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts,
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. In retrospect.
Our mistake was to leave the prosecution of Trump and
(00:26):
his insurrectionist traders to civilian authorities. We didn't do that
when Pierre Beauregard opened fire on Fort Sumter in eighteen
sixty one, and we didn't do it when Confederate agents
tried to set fire to the city of New York
in eighteen sixty four, And we didn't do it when
John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln in eighteen sixty five, and
for that matter, we didn't do it when John Brown
(00:47):
tried to seize the arsenal at Harper's Ferry in eighteen
fifty eight. And as much as it sounds like crazy
QAnon fever dreams of military tribunals and summary executions and
body doubles, it is unavoidably clear that President Biden should
have sworn his public oath of office at noon on Tuesday,
(01:10):
January twentieth, twenty twenty one, said thank you, made his speech,
and invoked the Insurrection Act, and detained Trump before he
could leave Washington, and rounded up maybe a dozen leaders
of the plot to overthrow the election and the government,
and given the actual cowardice of the people like Trump
and Bannon and Jeffrey Clark and Meadows and the others,
(01:31):
and how easily they would have been subdued and placed
in a stockade or a brig The President would have
then been able to have terminated the Insurrection Act within
a couple of hours. Tops. I mean, this is what
Trump is planning for January twentieth, twenty twenty five. It is.
(01:51):
It may not involve detaining President Biden or other prominent
figures whose disappearance might trouble even our Supreme Religious Court,
but the use of the Insurrection Act to quell not
you know, insurrections, but peaceful protest, the use of the
(02:13):
Insurrection Act to enable Trump to send tanks down Upper
Whacker Drive, to terrify Chicago or just terrified democracy. All
of it to be set into motion the day he
again seizes power. This is one of Trump's most well
publicized plans for his renaissance. I mean, like every other
(02:35):
extra constitutional thing he did, it kind of gets buried
behind the coup attempt. But on June first, twenty twenty
Trump came about as close to doing it as you
could without doing it when he had National Guard troops
along with police officers of various stripes, shoot tear gas
and rubber bullets and flash bangs at Black Lives Matters
protesters in Lafayette Square outside the White House so he
(02:59):
could get to a photo op. That was the Insurrection
Act in action, in fact, in everything but name, Trump's
lackeys were evoking, if not invoking, the Act after they
lost the election. We know that Trump's lackeys are still
dreaming of using it against civilians. This is not some
(03:23):
last choice. Swallow hard, prepare for years of atonement, await
the judgment of history use of this weapon that we
as a nation have just left there for the day
when true crisis springs. Internally, the Insurrection Act is Donald
Trump's wet dream, and God knows if he can do it,
(03:46):
he will do it. So certainly, detaining Trump on January twentieth,
twenty twenty one would have been messy. It would have
been extraordinary. It would have been shattering. On the other hand,
so was the Civil War. On the other hand, so
(04:08):
have the almost three years since January sixth been messy,
extraordinary and shattering. And three years after the Civil War
shooting stopped. One of the leading pro insurrection congressmen was
running for the Democratic nomination for president, and that General Beauregard,
who had fired on Sumter, was campaigning to build the
(04:32):
Lincoln Memorial, and the Confederate Vice President Stevens had been
elected to the US Senate, and golly, when they rebelled
against the duly elected government of the United States and
attacked United States federal facilities, we didn't say, Hey, you know,
they shouldn't do that, let's arrest them. Trump tried to
(04:52):
overthrow the government. His mob was armed. He did not
send it into the Capitol with written orders because he
didn't need to. He knew what he wanted. They knew
what he wanted. They gave it to him. And I'm
going to go out on a limb here, and I'm
going to guess that, just like me, you have always
(05:13):
assumed that if you ever suddenly became insane and disloyal
enough to try to break into and take over the
capital of the United States during the certification of the
Electoral College vote in order to break the two hundred
and thirty two year history of the peaceful transfer of
(05:34):
power and put the guy who lost the election in
as president, you like me, would have expected to be
greeted by you know, machine guns. But the new president,
bless him, thought this was fixable by less extreme means,
(05:55):
and you cannot blame him for that. It reflects an
optimism and the belief in all Americans that sadly, has
always been undeserved by some multi digit percentage of all Americans.
I always think of Lincoln's second Inaugural Address as one
of the most poignant and saddest events in American history.
(06:18):
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness
in the right, as God gives us to see the right,
let us strive on to finish the work we are in,
to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him
who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow
and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and
cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with
(06:43):
all nations. Poignant, sad, heartbreaking, eternal, and naive. Forty one
days later, some of the people to whom he offered
malice toward none and charity for all, arranged to shoot
and kill him. I mean, the Trump cult already expects
(07:08):
they will be arrested detained, disappeared. And it's not merely
that they already expect Biden now or later to do
something like invoke the Insurrection Act. They already blame him
as if he already done it. On Saturday, the Pizzagate
psycho Mike Cernovitch posted on Twitter x that you have
to buy a blue check mark from Elon Musk because
(07:29):
quote X premium, it's the last stand before the Marxists
genocide you and everyone you love. This was then reposted
by Ashley Saint Clair, the Dead Eyed Little Operations director
of the Babylon b an online publication that mistakenly claims
(07:50):
to be funny. She added quote, I don't think many
understand how serious this battle is. This is the last
realistic shot we will have in our lifetime to preserve
free speech and feed the system the most accurate version
of humanity unquote. And if you think that word salad
(08:12):
didn't make any sense, whatso effing ever? Wait, there's more.
Her reposting was replied to early Monday by Musk, who
added greatly to the exchange of ideas the marketplace of
ideas by writing, quote, yes, unquote, they really are throwing
(08:36):
around terms like genocide and more immediately, they are handing
out signs at one of Trump's rallies over the weekend
in Iowa, signs reading quote, Biden attacks democracy. And while
it is good news that Biden's argument that Trump is
trying to impose authoritarianism is resonating so profoundly and disturbingly
(08:58):
within Trump's diseased mind and clearly within internal Trumpian polling,
that Trump has now resorted to his traditional tack of
accusing the rightful accuser, it is still jarring to hear
Trump say, quote, Joe Biden is not the defender of
American democracy. Joe Biden is the destroyer of American democracy.
(09:19):
This campaign is a righteous crusade to liberate our republic
from Biden and the criminals and the Biden administration unquote.
And to say that without even a Trump crowd that
has as much interest in preserving democracy as it has
in eliminating fossil fuels, With that Trump crowd listening to
that and not bursting into laughter, that's how paranoid they are.
(09:44):
That's how lost they are. That's how much they expect
to wind up in I don't know, a real Twitter jail.
Trump is turning the tables a Trump advisor told the
Washington Post, we are not going to allow Joe Biden
and the Democrats to gaslight the American public unquote. Now
(10:05):
we don't know which Trump advisor managed to say that
without dissolving into laughter of his own, because, according to
the Post, the paper agreed to let whoever that was
speak on the condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized
to speak publicly, because a lot of journalists still can't
help themselves, and they will gladly grant anonymous status to
(10:26):
let Trump people lie on Trump's behalf about Trump in
order to end the democracy and put everybody who works
with the Washington Post in effing jail. Anyway, I have
brought this whole matter of Biden invoking the Insurrection Act
(10:48):
because the danger Trump has posed to this country openly
since two thousand and fifteen, more realistically, since nineteen eighty nine,
when he defended the Chinese Communists at tianan Men Square
and he tried to get the Central Park I've executed
even though they were innocent. That danger is now so
(11:11):
extreme today that yesterday even the New York Times sat
up and took notice. I know the Times, why a
second Trump presidency may be more radical than his first.
Donald Trump has long exhibited authoritarian impulses, but his policy
(11:34):
operation is now more sophisticated, and the buffers to check
him are weaker now seriously on the front page, near
the other Times breaking news stories, Lindbergh lands at Paris,
Napoleon defeated at Waterloo.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
I know it's even in the Times after only thirty
four years, although the story quickly dropped on the page
to a position below an article about how Republican donors
want Chris Christy to drop out and back Nikki Haley instead,
because we really need to know now before any primaries,
(12:16):
who's going to finish second in the last ever Republican
primary race before our Hitler ascends.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
To permanent power. Anyway, apparently this Trump guy has been
using violent and authoritarian rhetoric, Buffy, and there's growing alarm
in comparisons to historical fascist dictators. And he's dehumanized his
adversaries as vermin who must be rooted out. Why he
(12:45):
could mean people we know and like, like Ainsley and Spaulding.
And he said some of those nice immigrants who worked
there at the club, they're poisoning the blood of our country,
and Bronwin says he also said something mean about that
nice general Millie, you know, Lacy's grand uncle's godfather's classmate
at Princeton. Seriously, The New York Times devoted twenty four
(13:08):
hundred and ninety seven words to gully The Dangers of Trump,
written by and I mean with bylines from Charlie Savage,
Jonathan Swan, and Maggie Haberman, and Savage is cool, He's
always been real, but bluntly, Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman
have spent the last eight years treating Trump as if
(13:30):
they didn't live here, or maybe as if he didn't
live here, but whichever way, they've been treating him as
if he'd never do any of that to them. My
point is even the Times, same day the Liz Cheney
(13:51):
book tour started, same day, The Atlantic devoted its entire
issue to the Trump threat. The same day, most of
the nation became aware that Trump's Georgia lawyer basically told
the court that if he's reelected, you'll find a way
to postpone the trial until twenty twenty nine. Had a
lot of us thought yeah, right, only until twenty twenty nine.
(14:13):
The same day Semaphore News pointed out that Megan Kelly
was dead in the media water three years ago, and
then a bunch of ex Glenn Beck lunatics threw a
bunch of money at her and built her a studio
and gave her a fascist video and podcast platform, and
tomorrow she's going to co moderate a Republican debate, and
(14:34):
the promo for her doing that shows her sitting back
to the camera and then she spins around. I swear
the first time I saw it, I thought it was
a reboot of Tails from the Crypt And all this
even though her podcasts in her shows don't make anybody
but her any money, which underscores that there is an
extraordinary right wing media machine here churning out literally dozens
(14:58):
and dozens a fascist and racist and authoritarian propaganda programs
and networks and call in shows and interviews and bullshit,
while the liberal media consists of the Washington Post still
wedding Trump spokesman Lie off the record, and political reporting
(15:20):
that ABC News political director Rick Klein did a walk
through at st Anselm College in New Hampshire yesterday because
ABC really wants to hold its own Republican debate before
the primary next month. Wait, Saint Anselm one. That where
CNN let Trump end its credibility and destroy Caitlin Collins'
(15:40):
career last spring. But thank god they have new management
at CNN. And oh, by the way, the same story.
CNN is now trying to get GOP approval for its
own debate, and the liberal media machine it's ABC News
and doing republican debate, CNN doing republican debate in Washington
Post letting Trump spokesman speak off the record while lying.
(16:04):
The liberal media machine still thinks it is anchored by MSNBC,
which buried many Hassan and the gutless Rachel Maddow still
didn't say a damn thing about it on her show
last night. Rachel Woodoo, and that democratic mouthpiece The New
York Times, after just thirty four years, finally let cricket
(16:26):
and Hubble and bitsy in on the horrible truth about
this man Trump. Here ultimately is the point. I am delighted.
Judge Chutkin has written a searing forty eight page rejection
of Trump's belief in the divine right and absolute immunity
of presidents, and that the DC Court of Appeal said
(16:47):
the same thing in its ruins on the rights of
congressmen and law enforcement officers to sue Trump over January sixth,
and then I keep remembering, Hey, Alito and Thomas and
Roberts and spauld In, Kavanaugh and Corky Gorsuch and Bronwin
Cony Barrett. I remember them, and somehow I just don't
think any of this is going to survive the Supreme Court.
(17:08):
And I'm not so certain that even any of the
convictions would survive the Supreme Court. And where shit, I'm
not exactly certain that the people who Leonard Leo owns
and the people who Harlan Crow owns aren't right now
looking for ways to help Trump stall at the Supreme Court,
just because Thomas and Alito are going to hear a
(17:29):
case today that could ban before it was even enacted,
any kind of wealth tax. See, there's one thing Trump
and I agree on, and that is yep, Justice Department
should have started this years ago. Should have started his
prosecution on the afternoon of January twentieth, twenty twenty one.
I don't know if you can tell yet, but I am,
(17:50):
for the first time not really optimistic about November fifth,
twenty twenty four. And so what I'm wondering now is this.
We know Trump plans to end democracy. We know he
has plans to ethnically cleanse the country. We know he
(18:11):
has plans for concentration camps. We know he has plans
for mass deportations. We know he has a plan for
a complete purge of government employees to be replaced by
those loyal only to him first and America last. We
know he has plans for violating, if not trying to invalidate,
parts of the Constitution like birthright citizenship. And we know
he has plans for using the Department of Justice to
(18:32):
put people he doesn't like in jail. Oh, and we
know he has plans about that little issue of the
military suppression of public protests. Because we know he has
a plan in place to invoke the Insurrection Act, and
there's not a damn thing we can do about any
of it. Well, there is one thing. Who can invoke
(18:59):
the Insurrection Act? Which guy in the government is allowed
to invoke it? What does it say who gets to
decide that the Insurrection Act, which we did not reform
even after Trump threatened to use it against Black Lives
Matter in the week after George Floyd was murdered We
(19:23):
didn't change it because we all just hoped everything would
go back to normal once Trump lost and went away.
Who has control of invoking the Insurrection Act?
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Right, the president? Who's the president again? I mean, what
would they do to Joe Biden if he invoked the
Insurrection Act today? Impeach him? After yesterday? When James comer
(19:57):
at his echo chamber of one thousand Jonathan Turley's only
each is dumber than the original. Jonathan Turley produced the
smoking gun Hunter Biden's illicit, corrupt, illegal, criminal, unconstitutional repayments
to his dad for loan and least payments on hunters
Ford truck thirteen one hundred and eighty dollars each, three
(20:21):
payments of thirteen hundred and thirty dollars each, four thousand,
one hundred and forty dollars, but the most corrupt four
one hundred and forty dollars in human history. Trump gets
up in a public place at least once a week
and calls for rooting out vermin from America and deporting
(20:42):
millions from America, putting them in camps, and sending scumbags
into well inner cities to threaten voters. And he talks
about terminating the Constitution, and he urges his thugs to
kill a federal prosecutor and a federal judge and a
state attorney general, and to states judges and the judge's
(21:06):
clerk and the judge's wife and the judge's son, and
Robert de Niro. And that's just this past week. You
want to make a bigger case for invoking the Insurrection
Act now and detaining Trump for trial by the military
based on every public threat and every public incitement to
(21:30):
revolution that he has made while not president. You want
to do it chronologically or alphabetically. How do you think
the odds are that you could read it aloud in
less than twenty four hours? I mean, it would take
you twenty four hours to read it aloud. It's not
(21:50):
like he's guilty of trying to overthrow American democracy or
anything today, Yet the Insurrection Act is going to be
used against Americans by a president of the United States.
We are approaching the time when this issue simplifies and
(22:15):
clarifies itself into this. Do you want that Act invoked
by a madman who is mentally deteriorating, who is trying
to institute an authoritarian state with him as absolute dictator.
Or do you want that act invoked by a statesman
(22:35):
who would use it to defend the Constitution, and who
actor its use would advocate for congressional modification of it
and any other act that the next Trump might try
to use against America. Which would you like? Because I
think now since twenty fifteen we have been overthinking this.
(22:56):
We are near the point at which you and I
have a powerful law in our hands. We hesitate to
use it because, correctly, we don't think that's what America
is supposed to be. Unfortunately, there is a madman running
at us bearing a gun, a tiki torch he bought
(23:18):
at a chain store, a machete, and a tank, and
a couple of million armed people behind him, And as
early as January twentieth, twenty twenty five, that powerful law
that you and I have right now in our hands,
we might have to turn it over to him. Now,
do we use the law against him to save the
(23:44):
nation or do we wait and give him the law
and let him use it to kill us times up
correct answer is Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, Lincoln ignored Supreme
Court rulings. Lincoln invented emergency powers, Lincoln curtailed the First Amendment.
(24:08):
Lincoln emancipated the slaves without any precedent. Lincoln declared martial
law in Maryland and put the mayor of Baltimore into
Fort McHenry and Fort Monroe for fifteen days. And he's
considered our greatest president. And if you don't think we
are near all of that, only the shooting hasn't started yet.
(24:29):
Ask Muffy what she read in the Times yesterday. I mean,
what are they going to do? Impeach him? Also of
interest here, Trump is still going nuts nutsier quickly. And
it's so bad that he screwed up one of those
(24:51):
lines I mentioned about Biden being anti democracy. Screwed it
up so badly that nobody actually has any idea what
he meant to say. Also, he claimed Jimmy was the
first lady. That's next. This is Countdown. This is Countdown
(25:11):
with Keith Alberman host. Scripts to the news, some headlines,
some updates, some snarks, some predictions. Dateline, Capitol Hill, It's showtime.
The White House Director of Management and Budget, Shalanda Young,
(25:34):
has written to the Speaker, the House Minority Leader, the
Senate Majority and minority leaders, and the message is simple quote.
I want to be clear, without congressional action, by the
end of the year, we will run out of resources
to procure more weapons and equipment for Ukraine and to
provide equipment from US military stocks unquote. What amazes me
(25:55):
about Republican opposition to backing Ukraine as it, to use
an old Republican phrase, fights the Russians there, so we
don't have to fight them here is not their pro
Russian stance, but the fact that the GOP is actually
positioning itself as anti gun Dateline, Atlanta. Kanye West's former
(26:18):
publicist Trump Georgia defendant Trevian Cootie still has not been jailed,
even though she threatened witness and Georgia election worker Ruby
Freeman on Instagram. According to Midas dot Com, she promised,
there's a woman sitting somewhere who knows that I'm going
to f her whole life up when this is done.
Cootie also says she practiced her mugshot pose for two hours.
(26:42):
If you have seen the photograph, you know she should
have practiced it for twelve hours. Oh, Nancy, can again witness?
Can witness? Can I divinate a witness? Cana terrize A winner,
(27:09):
Thank you, Nancy post dateline thirty rock. The online petition
to get made a Hassan reinstated to cross the fifteen
thousand signature plateau last night. Long piece in the Washington
Post yesterday about MSNBC's silencing of Hassan and its rapid
collapse into the simple, unquestioning reading aloud of press releases.
(27:32):
If you want to sign this petition, it's stand with
medi dot com. That's stand with mehdi. I assume you
know how to spell dot com dateline trump Land. He
says Liz Cheney was wrong. Kevin McCarthy did not go
to see him after he lost the election because he
wasn't eating. It was because he was eating too much
(27:56):
define too much, too much for a human or too
much for Trump. He also misspelled Kevin. It's Robert de Niro.
He attacked Drudge. We're putting a picture up that's a
silhouette of him wearing a crown. He attacked the college
football playoff format, and that already damaged brain full of
cheese with slid even further off the cracker. And I
(28:20):
have to tell you, Jimmy Carter, as you know, a
first lady went to the funeral of Rosslyn God. It
was a beautiful event, by the way, everybody was very nice.
First Lady Jimmy Carter, right, you are dementia, Jay Trump.
And then of course there was this we've been waging
an all out war an American democracy. You look at
(28:40):
what they've been doing. Now what he said there, we've
been waging an all out war on American democracy, and
what he meant to say there are both in dispute.
Rather incredibly, snopes dot com first insisted Trump had not
said We've been waging an all out war on American democracy,
but rather that he'd said we've been waging an all
(29:00):
out war in American democracy, which you know, I guess,
I mean he has brain damage. Anything's possible, but what
would that mean. Then, having taken a lot of abuse
for this, snopes dot com then revised its finding and
insisted that whatever he actually said, he meant they've been
(29:21):
waging an all out war, and thus Snopes is sticking
by its claim that Trump, who has waged an all
out war on American democracy, did not mean to say
We've been waging an all out war on American democracy.
Idiots still ahead of us on countdown for some reason today,
(30:02):
I am reminded of the movie A Christmas Story in
which Little Ralphie finally figures out how to destroy the
bully invoke the Insurrection Act no, but invoked the clenched
fist of insurrection acts next in things I promised not
to tell first time for the daily roundup of the miscrants,
(30:22):
morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens, who constitute two days
worst persons in the world Theron's worse. The organizers and
participants of COP twenty eight, the climate change equivalent of
the world's firefighters holding a convention to decide whether or
not they should try to stop fires. Who would have
thought that having an oil executive from the United Arab
(30:45):
Emirates who is a sultan as president of this year's
summit might have proved unproductive? Quote. I accepted to come
to this meeting to have a sober and mature conversation.
I'm not in any way signing up to any discussion
that is alarmist, said Sultan Algebrat to suggestions that you know,
you got to phase out fossil fuels or we all die.
(31:07):
There's no science out there or no scenario out there
that says that the phase out of fossil fuel is
what's going to achieve one point five degrees. Please help
me show me the roadmap for a phase out of
fossil fuel that will allow for sustainable socioeconomic development, unless
you want to take the world back into caves, better
caves than all of us are dead, Sultan, this idiot
(31:30):
Algebra's response to the ensuing controversy. He denied he said it.
They played him the video of him saying it. He
then said he'd always followed the science, and he accused
the media of just taking one statement out of context. Yeah,
I hear you out of context. Pal, You imply just
once that we have to keep using fossil fuels so
you personally can make more money and then all of
(31:53):
us die. You say that once and people think you
might mean it? What kind of world are we living in?
Runners up worser Public Square, the online shopping site backed
by Moron Junior and Kimberly Gilfoyle and Kelly Loffler and
Blake Masters Remember Kelly Loffler. Politico reports they are selling
(32:16):
the usual family items to the Maga crowd. Christmas present
wrapping paper boxes to keep your guns in and of course,
every Life brand diapers a Trump Maga website selling conservative diapers.
Sometimes the jokes are so obvious you don't even have
(32:37):
to say them aloud. Telepathy man, but the winner the worst.
Christian Ziegler still not charged, still insisting he will not
resign as chairman of the Florida Republican Party, even as
details from the police report come out. He and the Missus,
co founder of Moms for Liberty, chairwoman of the Sarazona
(32:58):
County school Board, arch conservative Bridget Ziegler, Bible Thumper, they
were seeing a woman on the side and they were
setting up the October three way over at her house
as one does, when Bridget decided she wasn't into it
that day, so the other woman canceled too, and she
(33:18):
says Christian Ziegler went over to her house anyway and
raped her and confirmed the police that he videotaped it,
although he says, everybody say it with me now, the
sex was consensual. Texts among the parties came out, and
the alleged victim turns out to have canceled on Christian
Ziegler by writing to him quote, sorry, I was mostly
(33:40):
in for her. Well, Bridget Ziegler is a member of
the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District. She's supposed to make
people feel welcomed in Florida. Christian Ziggler. I wonder if
they're going to kick him out of that Bible class
he teaches two days. Worse person in the world got
(34:06):
at She's the number 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.
(34:30):
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 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
(34:53):
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 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
(35:16):
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 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
(35:38):
to a psychologist, and 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 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.
(35:59):
I had been taught by the doctor, no shoving, Keith.
This quickly deteriorated into the inevitable situation in which I
got bullied. 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
(36:21):
grade ended. Literally the next to last day of class,
some kid sold me his entire baseball card collection, maybe
a thousand cards. 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
(36:43):
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, 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
(37:05):
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. The bully was
now on the ground floor landing of the school, moving
(37:26):
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 feet taller than this guy was,
and that gravity had become my accomplice. I literally threw
myself forward off the stairs. I landed on him, my
(37:48):
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. The
most he could do was slap at me, without aim
or force. This is basically the visual of the Ralphie
(38:12):
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 d programming went
out the window. The bully had stolen my baseball cards.
I punched him repeatedly, even as a serene clarity overtook me.
(38:34):
I was displeased, but I was not blind with anger.
As I was contemplating this, suddenly I felt the large
hands under my arms of the gym teacher, mister Hood.
Mister Hood lifted me off the bully and said something,
and I said, matter of factly, why did you do that?
I'm not finished yet. I shook him off, and to
(38:56):
my surprise, he fell into some low hedges. I turned
back to the bully, who was still soupine on the beautiful,
freshly recent 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
it down. Lift it up, and then pound it down,
lift it up, and then pound it down. I became
(39:19):
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
at that moment, eight years and one day left of school,
(39:40):
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 Tarmacadam's surface, so
he'd never forget, or maybe forget a lot. And then
I felt four large hands under my arms. Mister Hood
had finally disentangled himself from the shrubbery, and my mother
(40:04):
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, I didn't
even get punished for pushing the gym teacher, mister Hood,
so now that I think about it, from that day on,
(40:24):
mister Hood always looked wearily at me, and then he
transferred to another school. The next day, the last day
of fourth grade, I walked into my classroom, Missus Wolfe's class,
really not thinking about the previous day's dry run for
a movie scene. All the boys in the class were
huddled in a far corner of the room whispering. After
(40:47):
I sat at my desk, the one who had collaborated
the least with the bully and his toadies, Tom Scharlap,
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, and Zune.
To my bewilderment, every one of the other boys brought
(41:09):
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 precursor
to the film A Christmas Story, and I had instead
been placed in some kind of cosmic precursor to the
(41:31):
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, a
girl I had stayed friendly with, she was with me
(41:51):
in college, invited me to what was there and kind
of my reunion, and it was transcended. I also made
the thirtieth anniversary, and in twenty ten, Saturday, October twenty third,
twelve years ago yesterday, I went to the thirty fifth anniversary.
It was held in, of all places, a restaurant in
(42:13):
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 on a bench between the restaurant
(42:34):
and the municipal parking lot, and my whole youth replayed
itself in front of my eyes, 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 the street lights, walking
(42:57):
towards me out of the fog, was the bully, big hug.
You really made it. Some small talk, all of it warm,
completely in keeping with the oh 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 gonna be here supposedly tonight.
(43:19):
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? Time stood still. What do you say
(43:45):
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
twenty ten. There was no reason to real litigate this.
If he was faking not remembering it, I should go
(44:06):
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 nineteen sixty seven. I'm sure we had a fight,
I said, finally. I mean every kid in that class
had a fight. I mean in the fourth grade. I
(44:27):
fought Brian Rubin one day, and then I fought with
him against Gordon Craig and Ricky Wester the next day.
So what he smiled? I smiled. Another figure emerged from
a newly parked car. Hey, look, it's Katzenstein. Let's go inside.
I'll buy both of you guys a drink. We had
a great time, and I never brought up the fight.
(44:50):
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 won't have been Hey, anybody know
whatever happened to that Jim teacher, mister Hood. I've done
(45:19):
all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening.
If you know others who are not yet listening, advise them.
Tell the others countdown has come to you from the
Vin Scully Studios at the Older Women Broadcasting Empire in
New York. I mean, it's just a coincidence that I
told the story today about beating up the bully. Downtown
(45:40):
Musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillips. Shanelle Arrange produced
and performed most of our music. Mister Shanelle handled the
orchestration and the keyboards. Mister Ray was on the guitar
as the bass and the drums produced by TKO Brothers.
I will not reveal the name of the bully. It
was some conversation, though no all kids have fights, and
(46:04):
in this one I left you completely. On the other hand,
it was the last fight I ever started. Other music,
including some of the Beethoven compositions, were arranged and performed
by No Horns Allowed. The sports music courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
And it was written by Mitch Warren Davis and we
call it the old Wrin theme from ESPN two. What
do you think of this new way of closing the
(46:25):
show in which I just sort of riffed on what
we've already talked about. I mean, there must be a
reason we decided not to alter the insurrection Act. And
if there's any man who means insurrection, it's Donald Trump.
And if you're going to see it used on offense
against US or in defense by US, I don't think
(46:48):
there's any choice here. Our satirical and fifthy musical comments
are by Nancy Fauss. The best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer today was my friend Richard Lewis. Everything else
was pretty much my fault. That's countdown for this, the
one thy and sixty fourth day since demand should jay
Trump's first attempt at coup against the democratically elected government
(47:08):
of the United States, Convict him now or use the
Insurrection Act against him now while we still can. The
next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bolton says, the news warrants
till then. I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night,
good Insurrection Act, and good luck? Can again a witness?
(47:42):
Can witness? Can I devindate a witness? Cannatris a winness?
Thank you? Nancy Faust. Countdown with Keith Oulderman is a
production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
(48:03):
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts,
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