July 21, 2023 • 43 mins
COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN: EPISODE 252
A-Block (1:42) SPECIAL COMMENT:
As they say at the big sports DRAFTS: Jack Smith, you are ON the clock.
As soon as midnight passed on the east coast, the Special Counsel’s window of warning to the recipient of the Target Letter closed. Donald Trump has had his chance to testify to the Grand Jury or demand that evidence be submitted to the Grand Jury or other witnesses be questioned BY the Grand Jury and all evidence suggests he didn’t even bother to say ‘no thanks’ and Smith can and will indict him at any time on god-knows-HOW-many-violations of US Code 18 Section 241 Conspiracy Against Rights (the suppression of vote counting statute, with or without violence), US Code 18 Section 371 Conspiracy To Defraud The United States, and US Code 18 Section 1512 Corruptly Obstructing An Official Proceeding – and the only question is, WHEN Smith notifies him and when Trump pauses from chain-eating cheeseburgers and threatening revolutions long enough to leak the news. On “The Simon Conway Show” in Des Moines, just getting viral last night, Trump again stochastically threatens terrorism if he's jailed, saying his supporters are 200 times more fired up than last time. And forgetting he now longer is in charge of the tanks.
You will also recall on the 27th of last month when McCarthy went on CNBC and said “Can Trump win that election? Yeah he can. The question is, is he the STRONGEST to win the election? I don’t know the answer” and within hours he was back on TV insisting oh yes he DID now the answer and it was Trump is stronger than Hercules and it was clear Trump had yelled at McCarthy, possibly on the phone and possibly simply by opening the window and yelling at him across the country. Politico reports Trump demanded of McCarthy “he needs to endorse me – today!”
McCarthy, who is of course WITH Trump Win, Win, or Tie, had to come up with a bullshit excuse to NOT endorse Trump. Quickly. So quickly you wouldn’t believe it. To his credit he cobbled together some sophistry - that he had to remain neutral through the primaries because if he didn’t, HIS relationship with HIS caucus could influence which ones of them did and didn’t endorse Trump. Trump bought it but was still enraged and demanded a pound of McCarthy and now McCarthy made his fatal mistake. “The house would vote to expunge the two impeachments against the former president. And as McCarthy would communicate through aides later the same day, they would do so before August recess.” And now, Politico says, “we’re told that Trump brings up the matter in EVERY CALL he has with McCarthy, prodding the speaker about WHEN he will bring expungement to the floor.”
Oh and guess what. Doesn't look like McCarthy has the votes!
B-Block (22:31) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: The RFK Junior hearing. NOT GOOD, BOB. A bad idea just before you don't tell the truth about your past antisemitic and anti-vaccine comments, to remind everybody that you are on the record and under oath. And first they bought Clarence Thomas. Then they bought him good pub. (27:23) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Jim Jordan actually repeats the fascist bullshit that my friend Henry Aaron died from a Covid-19 vaccination. Ron DeSantis explains how you can sue Ron DeSantis. And Tucker Carlson's Videopalooza was so effective it would've gotten "The Q Anon Shaman" MORE time in prison.
C-Block (34:20) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: Two stories of Man Versus Life and why you should just leave mediocre enough alone: The fable of The Mouse Who Went To The Country, and Nine Needles.
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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. As
they say at the Big sports drafts, Jack Smith, you
(00:25):
are on the clock. As soon as midnight passed on
the East Coast, the Special Council's window of warning to
the recipient of the target letter Strawberry Letter twenty two closed.
Donald Trump has had his chance to testify to the
grand jury or demand that evidence be submitted to the
grand jury, or that other witnesses be questioned by the
(00:46):
grand jury. And all evidence suggests he did not even
bother to say no thanks. So Jack Smith can and
will indict him at any time on god knows how
many violations of US Code eighteen section two four to
one conspiracy against rights that is, the suppression of vote
(01:06):
counting statute with or without violence, and US Code eighteen
section three seven to one conspiracy to defraud the United States,
and US Code eighteen section one five one two corruptly
obstructing an official proceeding. And the only question is when
Smith notifies him, and thus when Trump pauses from chain
(01:27):
eating cheeseburgers and threatening revolutions long enough to leak the news.
The cheeseburgers is a gratuitous shot, though not an inaccurate one.
The threatening revolutions is neither a gratuitous shot nor an
inaccurate one. From the Simon Conway Show on WHO Radio
(01:50):
in Des Moines, just going viral last night.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Say Jacksmith says, Okay, I'm going to put Donald Trump
in jail. I think it's a very dangerous thing to
even talk about, because we do have a tremendously passion
group of voters, and I mean, maybe you know, maybe
one hundred, one hundred and fifty. I've never seen anything
like it, much more passion than they had in twenty twenty,
(02:14):
and much more passion than they had in twenty sixteen.
I think it would be very dangerous.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
We all know Trumpe's well enough by now to know
by now what that means, and that is Trump threatening stochastically.
There's that word again, something worse than January sixth. January sixth,
which of course he had nothing to do with, except
now when it serves his purpose. Do you threaten this
country with violent revolution and remind us about January sixth?
(02:44):
Then I would point out that this is why the
National Guard has access to tanks, and I would remind
Trump and those with him that unlike last time, Trump
is not in charge of the National Guard. And if
last time went so badly that he is about to
be indicted on dozens of federal charges worth up to
ten years in prison per count, how bad do y'all
(03:05):
suppose it's going to go this time? There actually were
two major developments yesterday and a surprising political poll, maybe
even two of them that could reset the conventional wisdom
on a third party spoiler being a third party spoiler
next year. Let's do the news developments first, one of
(03:26):
Trump's judicial appointees got too cute by half, and because
he did, the rest of us found out that Jack
Smith's grand jury was indeed still meeting yesterday in Washington,
and it was still hearing testimony from Trump's box carrier
and water carrier, Will Russell, and for the third time
from Will Russell. Because Trump's shell companies, well shell campaign committees,
(03:51):
are paying for a lot of the legal representation for
former Trump staffers sucked into the January sixth vortex of
Trump ego plus Trump coup, A lot of these idiots, everybody,
from some oathkeepers to Cash Patel, have the same lawyer.
His name is Stanley Woodward and yesterday Stanley Woodward had
(04:12):
to be in two places at once. Stanley Woodward represents
Will Russell and he was doing so in front of
the Jack Smith grand Jury at two pm yesterday in Washington,
when he was also due in the courtroom of Trump
appointee Trevor McFadden for the verdict reading for another Trump
appointee who happened to be a January sixth violence defendant,
(04:35):
Federico Cline, which sounds like the name of a Sherlock
Holmes character. Federico Kleine was getting sent to the Big
House and his lawyer wasn't there, and this judge McFadden
demanded to know where he was and sent his people
to find the lawyer, and the lawyer appeared, and he
asked for a sidebar to explain in private, and judgemcfadden
(04:56):
decided to bigfoot and said, no, tell the entire class,
and I hope you brought enough gum for all of them.
And Woodward said, I'll have to buy a grand jury secrecy,
and McFadden told him go ahead, and so he did.
The grand jury hearing, the Jack Smith Donald Trump Coup
Revolution Insurrection grand Jury hearing was running long because every
(05:17):
time they asked this Will Russell guy something, he and
or the attorney brought up executive privilege. Trump's executive privilege
which expired with his presidency. We don't know the specifics
beyond that, but we also were not supposed to even
know the executive privilege part. So thanks Judge Bigfoot, and
thank you Stanley Woodward, who might as well run TV
(05:39):
spots advertising himself with the tagline did you do a coup?
Call Woodward and not Bernstein, January sixth, Attorneys one, eight hundred.
I'm not going to jail for Trump. You have seen
photos of this Will Russell, whether you knew it or not.
There were shots the day Trump was finally vomited out
of the White House, and there was a picture of
(06:00):
two guys, a tall one and a small one, was
wearing a mask, and they were carrying Trump banker's boxes
to Marine one. This is January twentieth, twenty twenty one,
high noon, and the tall one is Will Russell, and
I think the short one is Walt Nauda, but the
masks make it difficult to be sure. Thanks Fauci. By
(06:23):
September of last year, this Russell had been subpoena to
testify into the events leading up to the events at
the Capitol on January sixth. So that's how long he's
been testifying about this and why they would still be
talking executive privilege. Alissa Farrow was on CNN and she
suggested she knew Russell and that Russell was almost Trump's
body man, and he was certainly next to him at
(06:44):
the ellipse on the sixth and could easily corroborate the
Cassidy Hutchinson two key pieces of testimony, that Trump wanted
to go to the Capitol himself, you know, to supervise
the coup, and that Trump told people to take down
the magnetometers because none of the guns that might be
there that day were meant to harm him anyway. The
(07:06):
bigger picture is confirmed by this idiot. Judge Jack Smith
is still taking testimony on the topics he is presumably
about to indict Trump on here in round two. You're
on the clock, Jack. The consensus is no set of
indictments precludes any future further indictments for the same crime.
Any future further indictments That can't be right, isn't it
(07:30):
any further future indictments? The idea, I marriage your mother
because I wanted children to imagine my disappointment when you arrived.
CNN and The New York Times both reported that Smith
has worked out a voluntary interview with Bernie Carrick, the
uniquely styled ex police Commissioner of New York and ex con.
He's Rudy Giuliani's henchman and all around fascists. What he
(07:54):
could testify too is not clear, but it was either
inspired by Juliani's proper or it's Carick trying to point
the finger guilt away from himself and back at Rudy.
And it could be about I don't know. I don't
know how many different bad things Carrick and Giuliani have
done between them, but it's one of them. The idea,
so the grand jury and Will Russell and the tick
(08:16):
tick tick of the indictment clock and the late wagering
on the over under for the number of indictments is
the one major development. And the other major development takes
us out of the courts and into the house, and
it is breath takingly dumb, and we need to do
everything we can to encourage its execution. I am actually
(08:40):
going to suggest that you pray for this. What could
possibly make all of this instantly worse for Trump? What
could Trump force his own Republican lackeys into to make
sure those Republicans who had rid themselves of the Trump
taint but have since wandered back to him out of
(09:02):
simple authoritarian contrariness. What could make them again move away
from the taint. How About at the same time he
is being prosecuted for trying to pull off a rigged election,
how about he re litigates the impeachments, both impeachments. You
(09:24):
will recall a month ago tomorrow when Marjorie Pornography Green
and a Last Stephanic introduced bills to quote expunge the
impeachments from Congressional history. Well, it wasn't their idea. It
turns out it was Kevin McCarthy's, and he has apparently
(09:44):
promised Trump it will happen before the recess next month. No, seriously, no,
he's not being bribed to do this by Democrats. You
will also recall, and this is why it's happening that
on the twenty seventh of last month, McCarthy went on
CNBC and said, can Trump win that election? Yeah? He can.
(10:04):
The question is is he the strongest to win the election?
I don't know the answer, And within hours Kevin McCarthy
was back on TV insisting, Oh, yes, I do know
the answer, and it's Trump is stronger than Hercules. And
it was clear Trump had yelled at McCarthy, possibly on
the phone and possibly simply by opening a window somewhere
and yelling at him across the country. Politico reports, Trump
(10:28):
demanded of McCarthy, he needs to endorse me today. And McCarthy,
who is of course with Trump, win win or tie,
had to come up with a bullshit excuse to not
endorse Trump quickly, so quickly you wouldn't believe it. To
his credit, McCarthy cobbled together some great sophistry that he
(10:50):
had to remain neutral through the primaries because if he didn't,
his relationship with his complicated caucus could influence which ones
of them did or did not endorse. Trump bought it,
but he of course was still enraged and demanded a
pound of McCarthy. And now McCarthy makes his fatal mistake.
(11:12):
The House would vote to expunge the two impeachments against
the former president, Politico wrote, And as McCarthy would communicate
through AIDS later the same day. They would do so
before August recess. Now, Politico says, quote, we're told that
Trump brings up the matter in every call he has
with McCarthy, prodding the speaker about when he will bring
(11:35):
expungement to the floor. And guess what all but about
thirty House Republicans would rather French kiss Alejandro Majorcis than
spend any of their valuable Hunter Biden's slime time on
basically rerunning the impeachment over Trump trying to extort President
(11:58):
Zelenski of Ukraine, and basically rerunning the impeachment over Trump
and his little stochastic terrors of January sixth at the
same time, whether it lasts for an hour or a
week or however long House Democrats could drag it out.
I mean, it's not like the Democrats' impeachment lawyer Dan
Goldman is in the House or anything. Alright, he's now
(12:20):
the congressman from the New York tenth oops. I say
it so often you can probably repeat it with me.
But every year I grow more convinced that the democracy
survives less because of the exertions of those of us
who are trying to preserve it and more because of
the gold plated, undulating, oscillating stupidity of those who are
(12:43):
trying to destroy it. And exactly what could be more
stupid than not only reminding the nation of how Trump
sold out Ukraine and tried to bully the man currently
atop the world democracy rankings, but then as soon as
you were finished with that, you then reminded the nation
that all the Republicans said about up in the immediate
(13:05):
wake of the coup attempt, that they'd never have anything
to do with him again. And then you take a.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Vote on it and force Republicans like David Bladeo and
Dan Newhouse to vote against expungement, and then you force
the Republicans in Biden districts to vote against expungement. And
exactly what do you do, Kevin McCarthy, if your five
seat majority cannot pass expungement, you're gonna come back next
week and try another vote to expunge the fact that
(13:29):
you took an expungement vote. McCarthy denies the whole thing,
except not really. He told NBC I support expungement, but
there's no deal out there, and his deputy, I think
he's still a deputy. I think he's still loyal to McCarthy. Honestly,
looking at the Republican Party in the House, it's like
trying to read the personnel files at the Kremlin in
(13:51):
nineteen thirty five or in Tehran in nineteen eighty. His deputy,
Steve Scalise said, no, of course they won't do this
because they're busy. We're doing the appropriations bills next week,
and then of course when we return in September, we
have a lot of other appropriations bills tied up, so
we're going to be very busy. And boy, is that.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
A convincing denial if you have an expungement. Politico quotes
an unnamed senior GOP member who will not even put
his name to that common sense leak. And it goes
to the floor and fails, which it probably will, then
the media will treat it like it's a third impeachment,
(14:34):
you think, and it will show disunity among Republican ranks.
It's a huge strategic risk. Beyond the skidtish moderates who
prefer not to take the vote. Politico writes, there's the
clutch of constitutionally minded conservatives who we are told have
privately voiced skepticism that the House has the constitutional authority
(14:58):
to erase a president's impeachments. Unquote, you think, oh, great, McCarthy.
Now you have your caucus members who are not just
performative fascists and actually believe there are you know, laws,
and who recognize that expungement ain't a thing, and if
it is a thing, maybe they should just expunge you.
(15:20):
Not good, keV ah, But Kevin McCarthy did not get
to be Speaker of the House of Representatives without having
a secret plan to escape the expungement predicament. And what
is that plan? Just tell Trump that it will be
better if the expungement vote takes place when all Washington
is back from the summer doldrums in September, and the
(15:45):
next plan after that one runs out late September. And
after that, oh, oh, by the end of September. And
after that.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
Oh, please try to expunge. Oh please try to expunge. Oh,
please try to expunge. Oh please please MEAs.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
I mentioned some surprising political poll numbers, and one is
just a happy note that you should file away and remember.
At some point over the weekend, Dave Wasserman, Chief figure
Philbert at the Cook Political Report, Mister I've seen enough
changed five of his ratings yesterday on congressional races for
next year, three downgrades for Democrats, one downgrade for a
(16:32):
Republican I've never heard of. And then this from the
Colorado Third Lauren Bobert moved from lean GOP to toss up.
So you go, Adam Frish, who only lost her by
five hundred and forty six votes last year. She should
be able to get some peace and quiet, enjoy her
(16:53):
old age, grand motherhood in retirement at the age of
thirty six thirty seven in December. But the bigger polling
news is from the Monmouth poll, and it really does
reset one of the prospective nightmares of the twenty twenty
four presidential race. Monmouth polled one group two ways, who
(17:15):
are you definitely or probably going to vote for next year?
Biden or Trump? Biden forty seven, Trump forty Okay. Then
they said to the same voters, who are you definitely
or probably going to vote for among Biden, Trump or
a third party ticket? This is not the answer I
was expecting to see. Biden thirty seven, Trump twenty eight,
(17:39):
third party ticket thirty you heard it, third party ticket
costs Biden ten points, costs Trump twelve points, finishes ahead
of Trump for second place, and the caveat is it's
always the case here the generic unnamed candidate does better
(18:00):
than any real life one. So they went back to
these people a third time Biden Trump or the so
called fusion no labels crap ticket of Joe Manchin and
John Huntsman, and still it's Biden forty, Trump thirty four,
Mansion Huntsman sixteen. So even a nominally non fascist, non
(18:24):
conservative third party candidate and a bad one costs Biden
seven points, costs Trump six points, and still gives Biden
a six point margin, and that ain't good news. But
it ain't Jill Stein Ralph Nader territory either. Monmouth did
not pull RFK Junior, and that is too bad because
(18:44):
he carries name recognition, especially among voters who have not
recently heard how crazy he is any future further candidates
that can't be right. Also of interest here that RFK
(19:04):
hearing yesterday, it's a really bad idea, Bob, before you
completely don't tell the truth about stuff you have been
recorded on video doing and saying, it's a really bad idea.
To remind everybody that you are on the record and
under oath as you do not tell the truth about it.
(19:25):
Not good Bob. That's next. This is countdown. This is
countdown with Keith Olberm. Postscripts to the news, some headlines,
some updates, some snark, some predictions, dateline the House Select
(19:48):
Subcommittee on fruitcake, Washington, DC. No indication that anybody is
actually going to prosecute Robert F. Kennedy Junior for blatantly
not telling the truth to the Jim Jordan Committee. But
he blatantly did not tell the truth to the Jim
Jordan Committee. Said first, he never told anybody to avoid vaccination.
Speaker 5 (20:11):
I have never been an anti vax I have never
told anybody. I have never told the public avoid vaccination
the only thing I've asked for, and my views are
constantly misrepresented.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Never told anybody to avoid vaccination, except on that podcast
two years ago when he boasted about stopping passers by
to tell them to avoid vaccination.
Speaker 6 (20:38):
You're walking down the street, and I do this now myself,
which is you know, I don't want to do it.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
I'm a busybody.
Speaker 6 (20:47):
I see somebody on a hiking trail with a carrying
a little baby, and I said, I'm better and I
can vaccinate it. And do you hear that from me?
If he hears it from ten other people, maybe he
won't do it, you know, maybe maybe he will say
that child. And before we were all quiet because we
didn't wanted to get along with our families.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
Oops.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Then he did it again about anti semitism.
Speaker 5 (21:13):
By the way, I want to say this while I'm
on the record that in my entire life and why
I'm under oath, in my entire life, I have never
uttered a phrase that was either racist or anti Semitic.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
In January twenty twenty two, Robert F. Kennedy Junior told
an anti vax rally quote, even in Hitler's Germany, you
could cross the Alps to Switzerland. You could hide in
an attic like a Frank did. He also posted a
photo of doctor Anthony Fauci with a Hitler mustache. Of course,
technically none of those are actually anti Semitic terms. It's
(21:55):
just anti semitism. His own wife, the actor Cheryl Hines,
not only publicly disavowed Kennedy, but Kennedy actually apologized for
all that not anti semitism. I'm going to assume here
that this is psychological illness or brain damage, and he
has no memory of the things that he has said.
(22:17):
This does happen, and as a former friendly professional acquaintance
of Robert F. Kennedy Junior, it is too painful for
me to think otherwise. But his public career needs to end.
He is doing nothing but harm to anybody except to
the new Nazis of the twenty first century America dateline
(22:38):
the Supreme Court. The Washington Post reporting that as a
Nanita Hill film was about to premiere in twenty sixteen,
the twenty fifth anniversary of Clarence Thomas's confirmation to the Court,
A quote flurry of opinion articles defending Thomas and railing
against the film appeared in news outlets, websites celebrating Thomas's
(22:59):
career popped up, and on Twitter, a new account using
the name Justice Thomas Fan account began serving up flattering commentary.
The Post reports all of that was part of a
bought and paid for publicity campaign financed with at least
one eight hundred thousand dollars from conservative nonprofit groups steered
(23:20):
to that purpose by judicial activist Leonard Leo of the
Federalist Society. You know the Federalist society, the people who
own Clarence Thomas. What do you get for the Supreme
Court justice who already has everything because Harlan Crowe buys
him gifts like the two dollars whore that he is, well,
(23:42):
you buy him good publicity. Stell ahead on Countdown Fridays
with Thurber and a doubleheader. The magic of James Derber
is he didn't write in just one style or on
(24:04):
one subject. In fact, he didn't just write. He was,
of course one of the great humorous illustrators of all time.
But if there is one through line in all his work,
written or drawn, it is man versus life, and two
of the greatest examples of that are his fable of
the Mouse who went to the Country and his story
(24:25):
of the visit to somebody Else's bathroom, Medicine Cabinet gone
Wrong nine needles, both of them coming up first time
for the daily round up of the miss Grants, morons
and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's worst persons
in the world. Lebron's Jim Jordan mentioned the Republicans trotting
out what was left of Robert F. Kennedy Junior, and
(24:46):
it blew up in their faces. You knew it would,
and everybody but Bob knows that it blew up in
their face. But Jordan crossed a separate line entirely. Jordan
was reciting what he said was a history of attempts
by the Biden administration to censor Kennedy, and in doing so,
he repeated one of the sleaziest all the right wing
conspiracy theories. Jim Jordan invoked the death of baseball's all
(25:09):
time home run hitter and the fascist claim that he
was killed by the COVID nineteen vaccine. Quoting Jordan, Hank
Aaron passed away after he got the vaccine. Just pointing
out facts. Here is something that has or will kill
one hundred percent of its victims. Traveling to Jim Jordan's
district in Ohio north of Columbus. How many tens of
(25:33):
millions of people have died after going to Jim Jordan's
hometown area of Lima, Ohio. How many tens of millions
more will perish? Shouldn't we investigate this? Could Jim Jordan
be the reason? Shouldn't we shut the town down? Idiot?
The runner up Jim Jordan's South. His name is Ron DeSantis,
(25:56):
the creature from the Wokie Finocchi swamp. This non stop
culture war has dropped him from the top of the
list of GOP challengers to Trump, to the point where
in one poll this week, he is tied for second
with Vivek Gramaswami. So naturally, DeSantis is not changing his spiel.
He's just shouting it louder, his latest culture idea, his
(26:18):
latest woke thing. He went on Fox last night and said,
the state of Florida is quote going to be launching
an inquiry about bud Light and it could lead to
a derivative lawsuit filed on behalf of the shareholders of
the Florida Pension Fund because there's got to be penalties
for when you put business aside to focus on your
(26:38):
social agenda unquote. Of course, DeSantis didn't seem to realize
that in making that claim, he is admitting that the
targeted criticism of Budweiser did damage Budweiser and thus did
damage the Florida Pension Funds investment in Budweiser, which is
kind of a problem since he DeSantis was one of
(26:59):
the leaders of the targeted criticism of Budweiser, so the
Florida Pension Fund can now turn around and sue Ron
Santas also idiot. By the way, After that nonsense, Fox's
Jesse Waters, who is the host, now eagerly asked to
Santis if he would also be suing Disney because Disney
fired six of the seven Dwarves. Apparently this hurt Jesse deeply. Honestly,
(27:24):
I do not know of my hatred of waters predecessor.
Tucker Carlson and his predecessor, Bill O'Reilly can be measured
in anything, you know, smaller than light years. But the
two of them were not idiots. This kid Waters looks
like he's having some mental processing problems because he just
ate five pounds of sugar in one hour. But the winner,
(27:45):
well it's Tucker Carlson. Remember him? Remember the whole Tucker Carlson.
January sixth Kevin McCarthy scam, the ten thousand hours of
unseen video that would expose the real culprits and exonerate
people like the Quenon Shawman. I didn't show anything, and
now it officially has not exonerated the QAnon. Shannon Jacob Chansley,
(28:08):
who has already been released from prison, asked the judge,
who supervised his guilty fleet to throw out his conviction
because of the video didn't exactly work out like that, Lamberth.
The judge wrote this yesterday. Quote not only was the
broadcast repleat with misstatements and misrepresentations regarding the events of
January sixth, twenty twenty one, too numerous to count, but
(28:31):
the host explicitly questioned the integrity of this court, not
to mention the legitimacy of the entire US criminal justice system,
with inflammatory characterizations of cherry picked videos script of their
proper context. In so doing, the judge wrote, he called
on his followers to reject the evidence of their eyes
and ears language resembling the destructive, misguided rhetoric that fueled
(28:55):
the events of January sixth in the first place. Unquote,
not only did the new video add nothing, wrote Judge Lamberth,
but only ten seconds of it was actually knew was
actually stuff Chansley did not have in his possession before
the sentencing, and that ten seconds had no exculpatory value.
And then there's this. The judge said that if before sentencing,
(29:17):
Chansley's attitude towards his own guilt and his own responsibility
had been what it is now after the Tucker Carlson
video debacle, Chansley would have ear Chanceley would have earned
a longer sentence Tucker Carlson, who almost managed to get
a guy who has already served his prison time more
(29:39):
prison time to day's worst person in the world. Here's
the number one story on the Countdown, and it's Fridays
(29:59):
with Thurber and a lot of his work details the
fundamental clash between people, husband and wife, he and various relatives,
a guy and a bed, and a seal, two animals
representing any two humans in conflict. But some of the
most magical writing is the stuff that is just about
one person alone against life. One of his stories ends
(30:24):
with a great grandmother struggling with a butter churn and
screaming into the void, why doesn't somebody take this goddamn
thing away from me? A line which I think could
be the start of a national anthem somewhere. Such a
story is nine needles this week's selection. As you will see,
it is a little short for our usual time frames here,
so I'll give you a bonus another man versus life
(30:47):
story afterwards, in the form of one of Thurber's Fables
for our time, The mouse who went to the country.
But first, it's unlikely this event has ever happened to you,
but the anxiety that should be immediately familiar. Nine Needles
by James Thurber. One of the more spectacular minor happenings
(31:10):
of the past few years, which I am sorry that
I missed, took place in the Columbus, Ohio home of
some friends of a friend of mine. It seems that
a mister Albatross, while looking for something in his medicine
cabinet one morning, discovered a bottle of a kind of
patent medicine which his wife had been taking for a
stomach ailment. Now, mister Albatross is one of those apprehensive
(31:33):
men who are afraid of patent medicines and of almost
everything else. Some weeks before, he had encountered a paragraph
in a consumer's research bulletin which announced that this particular
medicine was bad for you. He had thereupon ordered his
wife to throw out what was left of her supply
of the stuff and never buy any more, she had promised.
(31:54):
And here now was another bottle of the perilous liquid.
Mister Albatross, a man given to quick rages, shouted the
conclusion of the story at my friend. I threw the
bottle out the bathroom window, and the medicine chest after it.
It seems to me that must have been a spectacle
(32:14):
worth going a long way to see. I am sure
that many a husband has wanted to wrench the family
medicine cabinet off the wall and throw it out the window,
if only because the average medicine cabinet is so filled
with mysterious bottles and unidentifiable objects of all kinds, that
it is a source of constant bewilderment and exasperation to
(32:37):
the American male. Surely, the British medicine cabinet, and the
French medicine cabinet, all the other medicine cabinets must be
simpler and better ordered than ours. It may be that
the American habit of saving everything and never throwing anything away,
even empty bottles, causes the domestic medicine cabinet to become
(32:58):
as cluttered in its small way as the American attic
becomes cluttered in its major way. I have encountered few
medicine cabinets in this country which were not packed jammed
with something between one hundred and fifty and two hundred
different items, from dental floss to boracic acid, from razor
blades to sodium perborate, from adhesive tape to coconut oil.
(33:25):
Even the neatest wife will put off clearing out the
medicine cabinet on the ground that she has something else
to do that is more important at that moment, or
more diverting. It was in the apartment of such a
wife and her husband that I became enormously involved with
a medicine cabinet. One morning, not long ago, I had
spent the weekend with this couple. They live on East
(33:46):
tenth Street, near Fifth Avenue. Such a weekend as left
me reluctant to rise up on Monday morning with bright
and shining face and go to work. They got up
and went to work, but I didn't. I didn't get
up until about to two thirty in the afternoon. I
had my face all lathered for shaving, and the wash
(34:09):
bowl was full of hot water, when suddenly I cut
myself with the razor. I cut my ear. Very few
men cut their ears with razors, but I do, possibly
because I was taught the old Spencerian free wrist movements
by my writing teacher in the grammar grades. The ear
bleeds rather profusely when cut with a razor, and is
(34:30):
difficult to get at. More angry than hurt, I jerked
open the door of the medicine cabinet to see if
I could find a stiptic pencil, and out fell from
the top shelf a little black paper packet containing nine needles.
It seems that his wife kept a little paper packet
containing nine needles on the top shelf of the medicine cabinet.
(34:52):
The packet fell into the soapy water of the wash bowl,
where the paper rapidly disintegrated, leaving nine needles at large
in the bowl. I was, naturally enough, not in the
best condition, either physical or mental, to recover nine needles
from a wash bowl. No gentleman who has lather on
(35:13):
his face and whose ear is bleeding is in the
best condition for anything, even something involving the handling of
nine large blunt objects. It did not seem wise to
me to pull the plug out of the wash bowl
and let the needles go down the drain. I had
visions of clogging up the plumbing system of the house,
and also a vague fear of causing short circuits somehow
(35:37):
or other. I know very little about electricity, and I
don't want to have it explained to me. Finally, I
groped very gently around the bowl, and eventually had four
of the needles in the palm of one hand and
three in the palm of the other. Two I couldn't find.
If I had thought quickly and clearly, I wouldn't have
(35:58):
done that. A lathered man whose ear is bleeding, and
who has four wet needles in one hand and three
and the other may be said to have reached the
lowest known point of human efficiency. There is nothing he
can do but stand there. I tried transferring the needles
in my left hand to the palm of my right hand,
but I couldn't get the off my left hand wet
(36:20):
needles cling to you. In the end, I wiped the
needles off onto a bath towel, which was hanging on
a rod above the bath tub. It was the only
towel that I could find. I had to dry my
hands afterward on the bath mat. Then I tried to
find the needles in the towel. Hunting for seven needles
(36:42):
in a bath towel is the most tedious occupation I
have ever engaged in. I could find only five of
them with the two that had been left in the bowl.
That meant there were four needles in all, missing, two
in the wash bowl and two others lurking in the
towel or lying in the bathtub under the towel. Frightful
(37:03):
thoughts came to me of what might happen and do
anyone who used that towel or washed his face in
the bowl or got into the tub if I didn't
find the missing needles. Well, I didn't find them. I
sat down on the edge of the tub to think,
and I decided finally that the only thing to do
was to wrap up the towel in a newspaper and
(37:23):
take it away with me. I also decided to leave
a note for my friends, explaining as clearly as I
could that I was afraid there were two needles in
the bathtub and two needles in the wash bowl, and
that they better be careful. I looked everywhere in the apartment,
but I could not find a pencil or a pen
(37:43):
or a typewriter. I could find pieces of paper, but
nothing with which to write on them. I don't know
what gave me the idea a movie I had seen, perhaps,
or a story I had read. But I suddenly thought
of writing a message with lipstick. The wife might have
an extra lipstick lying around, and if so, I concluded
it would be in the medicine cabinet. I went back
(38:07):
to the medicine cabinet and began poking around in it
for a lipstick. I saw what I thought looked like
the metal tip of one, and I got two fingers
around it began to pull gently. It was under a
lot of things. Every object in the medicine cabinet began
to slide. Bottles broke in the washbowl and on the floor, red, brown,
and white liquids, spurted, nail files, scissors, razor blades, and
(38:31):
miscellaneous objects sang and clattered and tinkled. I was covered
with perfume, peroxide, and cold cream. It took me half
an hour to get all the debris all together in
the middle of the bathroom floor. I made no attempt
to put anything back in the medicine cabinet. I knew
(38:54):
it would take a steadier hand than mine and a
less shattered spirit. Before I went away only partly shaved
and abandoned the shambles. I left a note saying that
I was afraid there were needles in the bathtub and
the washbowl, and that I had taken their towel, and
that I would call up and tell them everything. I
wrote it in Io Dine with the end of a toothbrush.
(39:18):
I have not yet called up. I am sorry to
say I have neither found the courage nor thought up
the words to explain what happened. I suppose my friends
believe that I deliberately smashed up their bathroom and stole
their towel. I don't know for sure, because they have
not yet called me up either. Nine Needles by James Thurber,
(39:44):
and as I suggested in a broad sense on the
same subject from his Fables for our Time and famous
poems illustrated. The Mouse who Went to the Country by
James Thurber. Once upon a Sunday there was a city
(40:04):
MoU who went to visit a country mouse. He hid
away on a train the country mouse had told him
to take, only to find that on Sundays it did
not stop at Beddington. Hence the city mouse could not
get off at Beddington and catch a bus for Cybert's Junction,
where he was to be met by the country mouse.
The city mouse, in fact, was carried on to Middleburg,
(40:25):
where he waited three hours for a train to take
him back. When he got back to Beddington, he found
out that the last bus for Sieberts Junction had just left,
so he ran, and he ran, and he ran, and
he finally caught the bus and crept aboard, only to
find that it was not the bus for Seeberts Junction
at all, but was going in the opposite direction through
Pells Hollow and Grum to a place called Wimberbee. When
(40:49):
the bus finally stopped, the city mouse got out into
a heavy rain and found that there were no more
buses that night going anywhere. To the hell with it,
said the city mouse, and he walked back to the
city moral. There you are, you're sitting pretty. The Mouse
who Went to the Country by James Thurber. I've done
(41:25):
all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening.
Here are the credits. Most of the music arranged, produced
and performed by Brian Ray and John Phillip Schanel, who
are the Countdown musical directors. Guitars, bass and drums by
Brian Ray, all orchestration and keyboards by John Phillip Shaneil
produced by Tko Brothers. Other Beethoven selections have been arranged
and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports
(41:47):
music which I swear we will run again someday is
the Olderman theme from ESPN two. It was written by
Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Musical comments by
Nancy Fauss. The best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer
today was my friend Tony Kornheiser, and everything else is
pretty much my fault. Remember. Countdown is now also available
on YouTube. That is countdown for this the nine twenty
(42:09):
seventh day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the
democratically elected government of the United States. Arrest him again
while we still can. Would today be convenient for anybody?
The next scheduled countdown is I don't know. Every time
I say I'm going to try to take a three
day weekend, stuff immediately happens. But if there's nothing cooking
(42:32):
hunt Jack Smith to Electric Bugaloo, don't be surprised. If
there's nothing Monday, I need a nap. We'll see Bulletins
is the news warrants till then. I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
(42:59):
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. As
they say at the Big sports drafts, Jack Smith, you
(00:25):
are on the clock. As soon as midnight passed on
the East Coast, the Special Council's window of warning to
the recipient of the target letter Strawberry Letter twenty two closed.
Donald Trump has had his chance to testify to the
grand jury or demand that evidence be submitted to the
grand jury, or that other witnesses be questioned by the
(00:46):
grand jury. And all evidence suggests he did not even
bother to say no thanks. So Jack Smith can and
will indict him at any time on god knows how
many violations of US Code eighteen section two four to
one conspiracy against rights that is, the suppression of vote
(01:06):
counting statute with or without violence, and US Code eighteen
section three seven to one conspiracy to defraud the United States,
and US Code eighteen section one five one two corruptly
obstructing an official proceeding. And the only question is when
Smith notifies him, and thus when Trump pauses from chain
(01:27):
eating cheeseburgers and threatening revolutions long enough to leak the news.
The cheeseburgers is a gratuitous shot, though not an inaccurate one.
The threatening revolutions is neither a gratuitous shot nor an
inaccurate one. From the Simon Conway Show on WHO Radio
(01:50):
in Des Moines, just going viral last night.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Say Jacksmith says, Okay, I'm going to put Donald Trump
in jail. I think it's a very dangerous thing to
even talk about, because we do have a tremendously passion
group of voters, and I mean, maybe you know, maybe
one hundred, one hundred and fifty. I've never seen anything
like it, much more passion than they had in twenty twenty,
(02:14):
and much more passion than they had in twenty sixteen.
I think it would be very dangerous.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
We all know Trumpe's well enough by now to know
by now what that means, and that is Trump threatening stochastically.
There's that word again, something worse than January sixth. January sixth,
which of course he had nothing to do with, except
now when it serves his purpose. Do you threaten this
country with violent revolution and remind us about January sixth?
(02:44):
Then I would point out that this is why the
National Guard has access to tanks, and I would remind
Trump and those with him that unlike last time, Trump
is not in charge of the National Guard. And if
last time went so badly that he is about to
be indicted on dozens of federal charges worth up to
ten years in prison per count, how bad do y'all
(03:05):
suppose it's going to go this time? There actually were
two major developments yesterday and a surprising political poll, maybe
even two of them that could reset the conventional wisdom
on a third party spoiler being a third party spoiler
next year. Let's do the news developments first, one of
(03:26):
Trump's judicial appointees got too cute by half, and because
he did, the rest of us found out that Jack
Smith's grand jury was indeed still meeting yesterday in Washington,
and it was still hearing testimony from Trump's box carrier
and water carrier, Will Russell, and for the third time
from Will Russell. Because Trump's shell companies, well shell campaign committees,
(03:51):
are paying for a lot of the legal representation for
former Trump staffers sucked into the January sixth vortex of
Trump ego plus Trump coup, A lot of these idiots, everybody,
from some oathkeepers to Cash Patel, have the same lawyer.
His name is Stanley Woodward and yesterday Stanley Woodward had
(04:12):
to be in two places at once. Stanley Woodward represents
Will Russell and he was doing so in front of
the Jack Smith grand Jury at two pm yesterday in Washington,
when he was also due in the courtroom of Trump
appointee Trevor McFadden for the verdict reading for another Trump
appointee who happened to be a January sixth violence defendant,
(04:35):
Federico Cline, which sounds like the name of a Sherlock
Holmes character. Federico Kleine was getting sent to the Big
House and his lawyer wasn't there, and this judge McFadden
demanded to know where he was and sent his people
to find the lawyer, and the lawyer appeared, and he
asked for a sidebar to explain in private, and judgemcfadden
(04:56):
decided to bigfoot and said, no, tell the entire class,
and I hope you brought enough gum for all of them.
And Woodward said, I'll have to buy a grand jury secrecy,
and McFadden told him go ahead, and so he did.
The grand jury hearing, the Jack Smith Donald Trump Coup
Revolution Insurrection grand Jury hearing was running long because every
(05:17):
time they asked this Will Russell guy something, he and
or the attorney brought up executive privilege. Trump's executive privilege
which expired with his presidency. We don't know the specifics
beyond that, but we also were not supposed to even
know the executive privilege part. So thanks Judge Bigfoot, and
thank you Stanley Woodward, who might as well run TV
(05:39):
spots advertising himself with the tagline did you do a coup?
Call Woodward and not Bernstein, January sixth, Attorneys one, eight hundred.
I'm not going to jail for Trump. You have seen
photos of this Will Russell, whether you knew it or not.
There were shots the day Trump was finally vomited out
of the White House, and there was a picture of
(06:00):
two guys, a tall one and a small one, was
wearing a mask, and they were carrying Trump banker's boxes
to Marine one. This is January twentieth, twenty twenty one,
high noon, and the tall one is Will Russell, and
I think the short one is Walt Nauda, but the
masks make it difficult to be sure. Thanks Fauci. By
(06:23):
September of last year, this Russell had been subpoena to
testify into the events leading up to the events at
the Capitol on January sixth. So that's how long he's
been testifying about this and why they would still be
talking executive privilege. Alissa Farrow was on CNN and she
suggested she knew Russell and that Russell was almost Trump's
body man, and he was certainly next to him at
(06:44):
the ellipse on the sixth and could easily corroborate the
Cassidy Hutchinson two key pieces of testimony, that Trump wanted
to go to the Capitol himself, you know, to supervise
the coup, and that Trump told people to take down
the magnetometers because none of the guns that might be
there that day were meant to harm him anyway. The
(07:06):
bigger picture is confirmed by this idiot. Judge Jack Smith
is still taking testimony on the topics he is presumably
about to indict Trump on here in round two. You're
on the clock, Jack. The consensus is no set of
indictments precludes any future further indictments for the same crime.
Any future further indictments That can't be right, isn't it
(07:30):
any further future indictments? The idea, I marriage your mother
because I wanted children to imagine my disappointment when you arrived.
CNN and The New York Times both reported that Smith
has worked out a voluntary interview with Bernie Carrick, the
uniquely styled ex police Commissioner of New York and ex con.
He's Rudy Giuliani's henchman and all around fascists. What he
(07:54):
could testify too is not clear, but it was either
inspired by Juliani's proper or it's Carick trying to point
the finger guilt away from himself and back at Rudy.
And it could be about I don't know. I don't
know how many different bad things Carrick and Giuliani have
done between them, but it's one of them. The idea,
so the grand jury and Will Russell and the tick
(08:16):
tick tick of the indictment clock and the late wagering
on the over under for the number of indictments is
the one major development. And the other major development takes
us out of the courts and into the house, and
it is breath takingly dumb, and we need to do
everything we can to encourage its execution. I am actually
(08:40):
going to suggest that you pray for this. What could
possibly make all of this instantly worse for Trump? What
could Trump force his own Republican lackeys into to make
sure those Republicans who had rid themselves of the Trump
taint but have since wandered back to him out of
(09:02):
simple authoritarian contrariness. What could make them again move away
from the taint. How About at the same time he
is being prosecuted for trying to pull off a rigged election,
how about he re litigates the impeachments, both impeachments. You
(09:24):
will recall a month ago tomorrow when Marjorie Pornography Green
and a Last Stephanic introduced bills to quote expunge the
impeachments from Congressional history. Well, it wasn't their idea. It
turns out it was Kevin McCarthy's, and he has apparently
(09:44):
promised Trump it will happen before the recess next month. No, seriously, no,
he's not being bribed to do this by Democrats. You
will also recall, and this is why it's happening that
on the twenty seventh of last month, McCarthy went on
CNBC and said, can Trump win that election? Yeah? He can.
(10:04):
The question is is he the strongest to win the election?
I don't know the answer, And within hours Kevin McCarthy
was back on TV insisting, Oh, yes, I do know
the answer, and it's Trump is stronger than Hercules. And
it was clear Trump had yelled at McCarthy, possibly on
the phone and possibly simply by opening a window somewhere
and yelling at him across the country. Politico reports, Trump
(10:28):
demanded of McCarthy, he needs to endorse me today. And McCarthy,
who is of course with Trump, win win or tie,
had to come up with a bullshit excuse to not
endorse Trump quickly, so quickly you wouldn't believe it. To
his credit, McCarthy cobbled together some great sophistry that he
(10:50):
had to remain neutral through the primaries because if he didn't,
his relationship with his complicated caucus could influence which ones
of them did or did not endorse. Trump bought it,
but he of course was still enraged and demanded a
pound of McCarthy. And now McCarthy makes his fatal mistake.
(11:12):
The House would vote to expunge the two impeachments against
the former president, Politico wrote, And as McCarthy would communicate
through AIDS later the same day. They would do so
before August recess. Now, Politico says, quote, we're told that
Trump brings up the matter in every call he has
with McCarthy, prodding the speaker about when he will bring
(11:35):
expungement to the floor. And guess what all but about
thirty House Republicans would rather French kiss Alejandro Majorcis than
spend any of their valuable Hunter Biden's slime time on
basically rerunning the impeachment over Trump trying to extort President
(11:58):
Zelenski of Ukraine, and basically rerunning the impeachment over Trump
and his little stochastic terrors of January sixth at the
same time, whether it lasts for an hour or a
week or however long House Democrats could drag it out.
I mean, it's not like the Democrats' impeachment lawyer Dan
Goldman is in the House or anything. Alright, he's now
(12:20):
the congressman from the New York tenth oops. I say
it so often you can probably repeat it with me.
But every year I grow more convinced that the democracy
survives less because of the exertions of those of us
who are trying to preserve it and more because of
the gold plated, undulating, oscillating stupidity of those who are
(12:43):
trying to destroy it. And exactly what could be more
stupid than not only reminding the nation of how Trump
sold out Ukraine and tried to bully the man currently
atop the world democracy rankings, but then as soon as
you were finished with that, you then reminded the nation
that all the Republicans said about up in the immediate
(13:05):
wake of the coup attempt, that they'd never have anything
to do with him again. And then you take a.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Vote on it and force Republicans like David Bladeo and
Dan Newhouse to vote against expungement, and then you force
the Republicans in Biden districts to vote against expungement. And
exactly what do you do, Kevin McCarthy, if your five
seat majority cannot pass expungement, you're gonna come back next
week and try another vote to expunge the fact that
(13:29):
you took an expungement vote. McCarthy denies the whole thing,
except not really. He told NBC I support expungement, but
there's no deal out there, and his deputy, I think
he's still a deputy. I think he's still loyal to McCarthy. Honestly,
looking at the Republican Party in the House, it's like
trying to read the personnel files at the Kremlin in
(13:51):
nineteen thirty five or in Tehran in nineteen eighty. His deputy,
Steve Scalise said, no, of course they won't do this
because they're busy. We're doing the appropriations bills next week,
and then of course when we return in September, we
have a lot of other appropriations bills tied up, so
we're going to be very busy. And boy, is that.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
A convincing denial if you have an expungement. Politico quotes
an unnamed senior GOP member who will not even put
his name to that common sense leak. And it goes
to the floor and fails, which it probably will, then
the media will treat it like it's a third impeachment,
(14:34):
you think, and it will show disunity among Republican ranks.
It's a huge strategic risk. Beyond the skidtish moderates who
prefer not to take the vote. Politico writes, there's the
clutch of constitutionally minded conservatives who we are told have
privately voiced skepticism that the House has the constitutional authority
(14:58):
to erase a president's impeachments. Unquote, you think, oh, great, McCarthy.
Now you have your caucus members who are not just
performative fascists and actually believe there are you know, laws,
and who recognize that expungement ain't a thing, and if
it is a thing, maybe they should just expunge you.
(15:20):
Not good, keV ah, But Kevin McCarthy did not get
to be Speaker of the House of Representatives without having
a secret plan to escape the expungement predicament. And what
is that plan? Just tell Trump that it will be
better if the expungement vote takes place when all Washington
is back from the summer doldrums in September, and the
(15:45):
next plan after that one runs out late September. And
after that, oh, oh, by the end of September. And
after that.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
Oh, please try to expunge. Oh please try to expunge. Oh,
please try to expunge. Oh please please MEAs.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
I mentioned some surprising political poll numbers, and one is
just a happy note that you should file away and remember.
At some point over the weekend, Dave Wasserman, Chief figure
Philbert at the Cook Political Report, Mister I've seen enough
changed five of his ratings yesterday on congressional races for
next year, three downgrades for Democrats, one downgrade for a
(16:32):
Republican I've never heard of. And then this from the
Colorado Third Lauren Bobert moved from lean GOP to toss up.
So you go, Adam Frish, who only lost her by
five hundred and forty six votes last year. She should
be able to get some peace and quiet, enjoy her
(16:53):
old age, grand motherhood in retirement at the age of
thirty six thirty seven in December. But the bigger polling
news is from the Monmouth poll, and it really does
reset one of the prospective nightmares of the twenty twenty
four presidential race. Monmouth polled one group two ways, who
(17:15):
are you definitely or probably going to vote for next year?
Biden or Trump? Biden forty seven, Trump forty Okay. Then
they said to the same voters, who are you definitely
or probably going to vote for among Biden, Trump or
a third party ticket? This is not the answer I
was expecting to see. Biden thirty seven, Trump twenty eight,
(17:39):
third party ticket thirty you heard it, third party ticket
costs Biden ten points, costs Trump twelve points, finishes ahead
of Trump for second place, and the caveat is it's
always the case here the generic unnamed candidate does better
(18:00):
than any real life one. So they went back to
these people a third time Biden Trump or the so
called fusion no labels crap ticket of Joe Manchin and
John Huntsman, and still it's Biden forty, Trump thirty four,
Mansion Huntsman sixteen. So even a nominally non fascist, non
(18:24):
conservative third party candidate and a bad one costs Biden
seven points, costs Trump six points, and still gives Biden
a six point margin, and that ain't good news. But
it ain't Jill Stein Ralph Nader territory either. Monmouth did
not pull RFK Junior, and that is too bad because
(18:44):
he carries name recognition, especially among voters who have not
recently heard how crazy he is any future further candidates
that can't be right. Also of interest here that RFK
(19:04):
hearing yesterday, it's a really bad idea, Bob, before you
completely don't tell the truth about stuff you have been
recorded on video doing and saying, it's a really bad idea.
To remind everybody that you are on the record and
under oath as you do not tell the truth about it.
(19:25):
Not good Bob. That's next. This is countdown. This is
countdown with Keith Olberm. Postscripts to the news, some headlines,
some updates, some snark, some predictions, dateline the House Select
(19:48):
Subcommittee on fruitcake, Washington, DC. No indication that anybody is
actually going to prosecute Robert F. Kennedy Junior for blatantly
not telling the truth to the Jim Jordan Committee. But
he blatantly did not tell the truth to the Jim
Jordan Committee. Said first, he never told anybody to avoid vaccination.
Speaker 5 (20:11):
I have never been an anti vax I have never
told anybody. I have never told the public avoid vaccination
the only thing I've asked for, and my views are
constantly misrepresented.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Never told anybody to avoid vaccination, except on that podcast
two years ago when he boasted about stopping passers by
to tell them to avoid vaccination.
Speaker 6 (20:38):
You're walking down the street, and I do this now myself,
which is you know, I don't want to do it.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
I'm a busybody.
Speaker 6 (20:47):
I see somebody on a hiking trail with a carrying
a little baby, and I said, I'm better and I
can vaccinate it. And do you hear that from me?
If he hears it from ten other people, maybe he
won't do it, you know, maybe maybe he will say
that child. And before we were all quiet because we
didn't wanted to get along with our families.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
Oops.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Then he did it again about anti semitism.
Speaker 5 (21:13):
By the way, I want to say this while I'm
on the record that in my entire life and why
I'm under oath, in my entire life, I have never
uttered a phrase that was either racist or anti Semitic.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
In January twenty twenty two, Robert F. Kennedy Junior told
an anti vax rally quote, even in Hitler's Germany, you
could cross the Alps to Switzerland. You could hide in
an attic like a Frank did. He also posted a
photo of doctor Anthony Fauci with a Hitler mustache. Of course,
technically none of those are actually anti Semitic terms. It's
(21:55):
just anti semitism. His own wife, the actor Cheryl Hines,
not only publicly disavowed Kennedy, but Kennedy actually apologized for
all that not anti semitism. I'm going to assume here
that this is psychological illness or brain damage, and he
has no memory of the things that he has said.
(22:17):
This does happen, and as a former friendly professional acquaintance
of Robert F. Kennedy Junior, it is too painful for
me to think otherwise. But his public career needs to end.
He is doing nothing but harm to anybody except to
the new Nazis of the twenty first century America dateline
(22:38):
the Supreme Court. The Washington Post reporting that as a
Nanita Hill film was about to premiere in twenty sixteen,
the twenty fifth anniversary of Clarence Thomas's confirmation to the Court,
A quote flurry of opinion articles defending Thomas and railing
against the film appeared in news outlets, websites celebrating Thomas's
(22:59):
career popped up, and on Twitter, a new account using
the name Justice Thomas Fan account began serving up flattering commentary.
The Post reports all of that was part of a
bought and paid for publicity campaign financed with at least
one eight hundred thousand dollars from conservative nonprofit groups steered
(23:20):
to that purpose by judicial activist Leonard Leo of the
Federalist Society. You know the Federalist society, the people who
own Clarence Thomas. What do you get for the Supreme
Court justice who already has everything because Harlan Crowe buys
him gifts like the two dollars whore that he is, well,
(23:42):
you buy him good publicity. Stell ahead on Countdown Fridays
with Thurber and a doubleheader. The magic of James Derber
is he didn't write in just one style or on
(24:04):
one subject. In fact, he didn't just write. He was,
of course one of the great humorous illustrators of all time.
But if there is one through line in all his work,
written or drawn, it is man versus life, and two
of the greatest examples of that are his fable of
the Mouse who went to the Country and his story
(24:25):
of the visit to somebody Else's bathroom, Medicine Cabinet gone
Wrong nine needles, both of them coming up first time
for the daily round up of the miss Grants, morons
and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's worst persons
in the world. Lebron's Jim Jordan mentioned the Republicans trotting
out what was left of Robert F. Kennedy Junior, and
(24:46):
it blew up in their faces. You knew it would,
and everybody but Bob knows that it blew up in
their face. But Jordan crossed a separate line entirely. Jordan
was reciting what he said was a history of attempts
by the Biden administration to censor Kennedy, and in doing so,
he repeated one of the sleaziest all the right wing
conspiracy theories. Jim Jordan invoked the death of baseball's all
(25:09):
time home run hitter and the fascist claim that he
was killed by the COVID nineteen vaccine. Quoting Jordan, Hank
Aaron passed away after he got the vaccine. Just pointing
out facts. Here is something that has or will kill
one hundred percent of its victims. Traveling to Jim Jordan's
district in Ohio north of Columbus. How many tens of
(25:33):
millions of people have died after going to Jim Jordan's
hometown area of Lima, Ohio. How many tens of millions
more will perish? Shouldn't we investigate this? Could Jim Jordan
be the reason? Shouldn't we shut the town down? Idiot?
The runner up Jim Jordan's South. His name is Ron DeSantis,
(25:56):
the creature from the Wokie Finocchi swamp. This non stop
culture war has dropped him from the top of the
list of GOP challengers to Trump, to the point where
in one poll this week, he is tied for second
with Vivek Gramaswami. So naturally, DeSantis is not changing his spiel.
He's just shouting it louder, his latest culture idea, his
(26:18):
latest woke thing. He went on Fox last night and said,
the state of Florida is quote going to be launching
an inquiry about bud Light and it could lead to
a derivative lawsuit filed on behalf of the shareholders of
the Florida Pension Fund because there's got to be penalties
for when you put business aside to focus on your
(26:38):
social agenda unquote. Of course, DeSantis didn't seem to realize
that in making that claim, he is admitting that the
targeted criticism of Budweiser did damage Budweiser and thus did
damage the Florida Pension Funds investment in Budweiser, which is
kind of a problem since he DeSantis was one of
(26:59):
the leaders of the targeted criticism of Budweiser, so the
Florida Pension Fund can now turn around and sue Ron
Santas also idiot. By the way, After that nonsense, Fox's
Jesse Waters, who is the host, now eagerly asked to
Santis if he would also be suing Disney because Disney
fired six of the seven Dwarves. Apparently this hurt Jesse deeply. Honestly,
(27:24):
I do not know of my hatred of waters predecessor.
Tucker Carlson and his predecessor, Bill O'Reilly can be measured
in anything, you know, smaller than light years. But the
two of them were not idiots. This kid Waters looks
like he's having some mental processing problems because he just
ate five pounds of sugar in one hour. But the winner,
(27:45):
well it's Tucker Carlson. Remember him? Remember the whole Tucker Carlson.
January sixth Kevin McCarthy scam, the ten thousand hours of
unseen video that would expose the real culprits and exonerate
people like the Quenon Shawman. I didn't show anything, and
now it officially has not exonerated the QAnon. Shannon Jacob Chansley,
(28:08):
who has already been released from prison, asked the judge,
who supervised his guilty fleet to throw out his conviction
because of the video didn't exactly work out like that, Lamberth.
The judge wrote this yesterday. Quote not only was the
broadcast repleat with misstatements and misrepresentations regarding the events of
January sixth, twenty twenty one, too numerous to count, but
(28:31):
the host explicitly questioned the integrity of this court, not
to mention the legitimacy of the entire US criminal justice system,
with inflammatory characterizations of cherry picked videos script of their
proper context. In so doing, the judge wrote, he called
on his followers to reject the evidence of their eyes
and ears language resembling the destructive, misguided rhetoric that fueled
(28:55):
the events of January sixth in the first place. Unquote,
not only did the new video add nothing, wrote Judge Lamberth,
but only ten seconds of it was actually knew was
actually stuff Chansley did not have in his possession before
the sentencing, and that ten seconds had no exculpatory value.
And then there's this. The judge said that if before sentencing,
(29:17):
Chansley's attitude towards his own guilt and his own responsibility
had been what it is now after the Tucker Carlson
video debacle, Chansley would have ear Chanceley would have earned
a longer sentence Tucker Carlson, who almost managed to get
a guy who has already served his prison time more
(29:39):
prison time to day's worst person in the world. Here's
the number one story on the Countdown, and it's Fridays
(29:59):
with Thurber and a lot of his work details the
fundamental clash between people, husband and wife, he and various relatives,
a guy and a bed, and a seal, two animals
representing any two humans in conflict. But some of the
most magical writing is the stuff that is just about
one person alone against life. One of his stories ends
(30:24):
with a great grandmother struggling with a butter churn and
screaming into the void, why doesn't somebody take this goddamn
thing away from me? A line which I think could
be the start of a national anthem somewhere. Such a
story is nine needles this week's selection. As you will see,
it is a little short for our usual time frames here,
so I'll give you a bonus another man versus life
(30:47):
story afterwards, in the form of one of Thurber's Fables
for our time, The mouse who went to the country.
But first, it's unlikely this event has ever happened to you,
but the anxiety that should be immediately familiar. Nine Needles
by James Thurber. One of the more spectacular minor happenings
(31:10):
of the past few years, which I am sorry that
I missed, took place in the Columbus, Ohio home of
some friends of a friend of mine. It seems that
a mister Albatross, while looking for something in his medicine
cabinet one morning, discovered a bottle of a kind of
patent medicine which his wife had been taking for a
stomach ailment. Now, mister Albatross is one of those apprehensive
(31:33):
men who are afraid of patent medicines and of almost
everything else. Some weeks before, he had encountered a paragraph
in a consumer's research bulletin which announced that this particular
medicine was bad for you. He had thereupon ordered his
wife to throw out what was left of her supply
of the stuff and never buy any more, she had promised.
(31:54):
And here now was another bottle of the perilous liquid.
Mister Albatross, a man given to quick rages, shouted the
conclusion of the story at my friend. I threw the
bottle out the bathroom window, and the medicine chest after it.
It seems to me that must have been a spectacle
(32:14):
worth going a long way to see. I am sure
that many a husband has wanted to wrench the family
medicine cabinet off the wall and throw it out the window,
if only because the average medicine cabinet is so filled
with mysterious bottles and unidentifiable objects of all kinds, that
it is a source of constant bewilderment and exasperation to
(32:37):
the American male. Surely, the British medicine cabinet, and the
French medicine cabinet, all the other medicine cabinets must be
simpler and better ordered than ours. It may be that
the American habit of saving everything and never throwing anything away,
even empty bottles, causes the domestic medicine cabinet to become
(32:58):
as cluttered in its small way as the American attic
becomes cluttered in its major way. I have encountered few
medicine cabinets in this country which were not packed jammed
with something between one hundred and fifty and two hundred
different items, from dental floss to boracic acid, from razor
blades to sodium perborate, from adhesive tape to coconut oil.
(33:25):
Even the neatest wife will put off clearing out the
medicine cabinet on the ground that she has something else
to do that is more important at that moment, or
more diverting. It was in the apartment of such a
wife and her husband that I became enormously involved with
a medicine cabinet. One morning, not long ago, I had
spent the weekend with this couple. They live on East
(33:46):
tenth Street, near Fifth Avenue. Such a weekend as left
me reluctant to rise up on Monday morning with bright
and shining face and go to work. They got up
and went to work, but I didn't. I didn't get
up until about to two thirty in the afternoon. I
had my face all lathered for shaving, and the wash
(34:09):
bowl was full of hot water, when suddenly I cut
myself with the razor. I cut my ear. Very few
men cut their ears with razors, but I do, possibly
because I was taught the old Spencerian free wrist movements
by my writing teacher in the grammar grades. The ear
bleeds rather profusely when cut with a razor, and is
(34:30):
difficult to get at. More angry than hurt, I jerked
open the door of the medicine cabinet to see if
I could find a stiptic pencil, and out fell from
the top shelf a little black paper packet containing nine needles.
It seems that his wife kept a little paper packet
containing nine needles on the top shelf of the medicine cabinet.
(34:52):
The packet fell into the soapy water of the wash bowl,
where the paper rapidly disintegrated, leaving nine needles at large
in the bowl. I was, naturally enough, not in the
best condition, either physical or mental, to recover nine needles
from a wash bowl. No gentleman who has lather on
(35:13):
his face and whose ear is bleeding is in the
best condition for anything, even something involving the handling of
nine large blunt objects. It did not seem wise to
me to pull the plug out of the wash bowl
and let the needles go down the drain. I had
visions of clogging up the plumbing system of the house,
and also a vague fear of causing short circuits somehow
(35:37):
or other. I know very little about electricity, and I
don't want to have it explained to me. Finally, I
groped very gently around the bowl, and eventually had four
of the needles in the palm of one hand and
three in the palm of the other. Two I couldn't find.
If I had thought quickly and clearly, I wouldn't have
(35:58):
done that. A lathered man whose ear is bleeding, and
who has four wet needles in one hand and three
and the other may be said to have reached the
lowest known point of human efficiency. There is nothing he
can do but stand there. I tried transferring the needles
in my left hand to the palm of my right hand,
but I couldn't get the off my left hand wet
(36:20):
needles cling to you. In the end, I wiped the
needles off onto a bath towel, which was hanging on
a rod above the bath tub. It was the only
towel that I could find. I had to dry my
hands afterward on the bath mat. Then I tried to
find the needles in the towel. Hunting for seven needles
(36:42):
in a bath towel is the most tedious occupation I
have ever engaged in. I could find only five of
them with the two that had been left in the bowl.
That meant there were four needles in all, missing, two
in the wash bowl and two others lurking in the
towel or lying in the bathtub under the towel. Frightful
(37:03):
thoughts came to me of what might happen and do
anyone who used that towel or washed his face in
the bowl or got into the tub if I didn't
find the missing needles. Well, I didn't find them. I
sat down on the edge of the tub to think,
and I decided finally that the only thing to do
was to wrap up the towel in a newspaper and
(37:23):
take it away with me. I also decided to leave
a note for my friends, explaining as clearly as I
could that I was afraid there were two needles in
the bathtub and two needles in the wash bowl, and
that they better be careful. I looked everywhere in the apartment,
but I could not find a pencil or a pen
(37:43):
or a typewriter. I could find pieces of paper, but
nothing with which to write on them. I don't know
what gave me the idea a movie I had seen, perhaps,
or a story I had read. But I suddenly thought
of writing a message with lipstick. The wife might have
an extra lipstick lying around, and if so, I concluded
it would be in the medicine cabinet. I went back
(38:07):
to the medicine cabinet and began poking around in it
for a lipstick. I saw what I thought looked like
the metal tip of one, and I got two fingers
around it began to pull gently. It was under a
lot of things. Every object in the medicine cabinet began
to slide. Bottles broke in the washbowl and on the floor, red, brown,
and white liquids, spurted, nail files, scissors, razor blades, and
(38:31):
miscellaneous objects sang and clattered and tinkled. I was covered
with perfume, peroxide, and cold cream. It took me half
an hour to get all the debris all together in
the middle of the bathroom floor. I made no attempt
to put anything back in the medicine cabinet. I knew
(38:54):
it would take a steadier hand than mine and a
less shattered spirit. Before I went away only partly shaved
and abandoned the shambles. I left a note saying that
I was afraid there were needles in the bathtub and
the washbowl, and that I had taken their towel, and
that I would call up and tell them everything. I
wrote it in Io Dine with the end of a toothbrush.
(39:18):
I have not yet called up. I am sorry to
say I have neither found the courage nor thought up
the words to explain what happened. I suppose my friends
believe that I deliberately smashed up their bathroom and stole
their towel. I don't know for sure, because they have
not yet called me up either. Nine Needles by James Thurber,
(39:44):
and as I suggested in a broad sense on the
same subject from his Fables for our Time and famous
poems illustrated. The Mouse who Went to the Country by
James Thurber. Once upon a Sunday there was a city
(40:04):
MoU who went to visit a country mouse. He hid
away on a train the country mouse had told him
to take, only to find that on Sundays it did
not stop at Beddington. Hence the city mouse could not
get off at Beddington and catch a bus for Cybert's Junction,
where he was to be met by the country mouse.
The city mouse, in fact, was carried on to Middleburg,
(40:25):
where he waited three hours for a train to take
him back. When he got back to Beddington, he found
out that the last bus for Sieberts Junction had just left,
so he ran, and he ran, and he ran, and
he finally caught the bus and crept aboard, only to
find that it was not the bus for Seeberts Junction
at all, but was going in the opposite direction through
Pells Hollow and Grum to a place called Wimberbee. When
(40:49):
the bus finally stopped, the city mouse got out into
a heavy rain and found that there were no more
buses that night going anywhere. To the hell with it,
said the city mouse, and he walked back to the
city moral. There you are, you're sitting pretty. The Mouse
who Went to the Country by James Thurber. I've done
(41:25):
all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening.
Here are the credits. Most of the music arranged, produced
and performed by Brian Ray and John Phillip Schanel, who
are the Countdown musical directors. Guitars, bass and drums by
Brian Ray, all orchestration and keyboards by John Phillip Shaneil
produced by Tko Brothers. Other Beethoven selections have been arranged
and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports
(41:47):
music which I swear we will run again someday is
the Olderman theme from ESPN two. It was written by
Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Musical comments by
Nancy Fauss. The best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer
today was my friend Tony Kornheiser, and everything else is
pretty much my fault. Remember. Countdown is now also available
on YouTube. That is countdown for this the nine twenty
(42:09):
seventh day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the
democratically elected government of the United States. Arrest him again
while we still can. Would today be convenient for anybody?
The next scheduled countdown is I don't know. Every time
I say I'm going to try to take a three
day weekend, stuff immediately happens. But if there's nothing cooking
(42:32):
hunt Jack Smith to Electric Bugaloo, don't be surprised. If
there's nothing Monday, I need a nap. We'll see Bulletins
is the news warrants till then. I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
(42:59):
Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
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