April 11, 2023 • 50 mins
EPISODE 175: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:42) SPECIAL COMMENT: A week ago, frankly, none of us OUTSIDE Nashville knew whether the Tennessee’s State Government had a House, a Senate, an Assembly, a Parliament, a Duma, was inflated or stuffed. Yesterday, Justin Jones was reinstated to the Tennessee House. Tomorrow, Justin Pearson will be.
I am trying to think of exactly WHAT Republicans got out of this. The two young representatives will have been out of office for a total of four days, MAYBE five. They went from obscure state legislators to superstar magnets drawing international coverage. They provided energy and hope to the movement, support for which had inspired the racist acts of a racist legislative body, to do SOMETHING about the epidemic of gun violence in this country. The forces of right have not had a real WIN in perhaps two decades and even though this one is just symbolic, it resonates: it shows us that the whole thing is NOT impossible to fight, and that dramatic and important milestones can occur almost spontaneously, virtually immediately, breathtakingly panoramically.
Plus: The Senate Judiciary Committee will actually HOLD A HEARING INTO SCOTUS CORRUPTION! Trump and Rhonda Santis are at it again. Melania apparently has a new contract. And Jim Jordan is coming to Fun City! There goes the neighborhood.
B-Block (20:23) SPECIAL COMMENT: The latest mass gun slaughter was at a bank, 11 days after Ted Cruz had insisted the solution to mass gun slaughter was to put as many armed guards in schools as they have in those impregnable fortresses: banks. The solution isn't guns, it isn't mental health checks, it's money. We must financially crush the people for whom gun violence is a profit center. And I mean crush the businesses, the politicians, and if need be, the states.
C-Block (40:25) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: His ratings debacle at the new CNN reminded me to tell you of the time Bill Maher and I almost had a fistfight at his after-show party, because I insisted I was "aware" of him when we overlapped in college. It turned out my barely-remembered "awareness" of him at Cornell was ALSO of a near-fistfight...in 1978!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio justin Time.
(00:37):
The Nashville Council unanimously voted Justin Jones back into the
Tennessee State House at four thirty pm yesterday. He was
sworn in to that applause at five fifteen. He was
leading a protest march two hours later. And the Memphis
vote to reinstate Justin Pearson to the State House will
be tomorrow. And I'm trying to think of exactly what
(01:00):
Republicans got out of all this. The two young represent
enitives will have been out of office for a total
of four days, maybe five. They went from obscure state
legislators to superstar magnets, drawing international coverage. They have energized
and activated Goodness knows how many young politically disaffected Tennesseeans,
(01:22):
to say nothing of young politically disaffected Americans, some of
whom will doubtless wind up in other state houses and
Senates and congressional races and governor's offices and White Houses.
And most importantly of all, the Republicans who turned Jones
and Pearson into national figures, they did something that many
of us thought would never be done. They provided energy
(01:46):
and hope to the movement support for which had inspired
the racist acts of a racist legislative body to do
something about the epidemic of gun violence in this country.
The forces of right have not had a real win
in this area in perhaps two decades, and even though
this one was just symbolic, it resonates. The Tennessee State
(02:08):
House tried to punish not just its own members who
want things to change, but its own citizens who want
things to change instead. No Justin's no peace, This just in,
just in time, the justin case, etc. This gigantic petard
on which the Tennessee crackers hoisted themselves may not make
(02:31):
a tangible, immediate difference in gun control and a correction
to the fraudulence of the Second Amendment, but it shows
us that the whole thing is not impossible to fight,
and that the dramatic and important milestones can occur almost spontaneously, virtually, immediately, breathtakingly, panoramically. Also,
(02:53):
the Tennessee Republicans managed to switch back on a bunch
of spotlights on their own dubious behavior and upgrade those
dubious behaviors from minor topics even in their own state,
to one's of national import. They tried to cut the
Metro Nashville Council in half from forty members to twenty,
clearly because they thought they could fight and win for
(03:15):
a twenty seat council and not a forty seat one.
A three judge Bannel ruled yesterday the power grab was
almost certainly illegal and slapped an injunction against it. Suddenly,
the Speaker, Cameron Sexton, is being scrutinized because flatly, the
independent news outlet Popular Information reports he don't live where
(03:36):
he says he lives, and the state constitution demands that
he has to. And he represents a place called Crossville, Tennessee,
out in District twenty five, and he lists a home
there as his address, a home he's sold in October
twenty twenty. This clown Sexton is Speaker of the damned
Tennessee House and reportedly represents a district two hours outside
(03:58):
of Nashville, but he lives in Nashville, and he's also
apparently taking reimbursements for travel to and from a home
he's not traveling to in a district he apparently doesn't
live in, and a week ago, frankly, none of us
outside Nashville knew whether the Tennessee state government had a House,
a Senate, an Assembly of Parliament, a Duma, was inflated
or stuffed. You want more? The Republican National Committee has
(04:22):
a long scheduled donor retreat coming up starting this Friday.
Trump will be there, Pence, Rick Scott, Marcia, Glitter and Glitz, Blackburn,
Kelly an con Job, Blake, Googly Eyes, Masters, and many
many less. And guess where they are holding this fundraising
retreat Nashville. The major problem facing Democrats local and national
(04:48):
is that, generally speaking, Republicans wield metaphorical political knives better
than Democrats do. They exploit the nooks and crannies of
government that democrats don't even know exist, and they are
just better at politics than democrats are until suddenly they're
not my God. For all we know, Justin Jones and
(05:14):
Justin Pearson inspired Dick Durban to do something yesterday. As
late as yesterday morning, it looked like Clarence Thomas and
John Roberts and the other proprietors of the all you
can eat graft buffet, that is, the fascist theocratic Supreme Court.
We're going to get away with no more practical damage
than a Susan Collins level of concern and lesson learning.
(05:35):
And then suddenly, yesterday afternoon, the eleven Democrats on the
Senate Judiciary Committee wrote the Chief Justice a letter whose
actual contents take up a little less space than do
their big blue signatures. That's kind of the point. It's
a cordial letter. It drips with the language of ancient
Washingtonian bureaucracy. It is nevertheless a threatening letter. It reproaches
(05:59):
Roberts for ignoring the corruption of his court and Senate
inquiries about that as long ago twenty eleven. And it
tells him that the Judiciary Committee will hold quote, in
the coming days, a hearing regarding the need to restore
confidence in the Supreme Court's ethical standards, and if the
Court does not resolve this issue on its own, the
(06:20):
Committee will consider legislation to resolve it. Unquote. I am
not holding my breath that Dick Durban, whose concept of
combative politics on behalf of honesty and the Constitution consists
largely of staring daggers at the malefactors on the right,
I am not holding my breath that Dick Durban is
(06:42):
actually planning legislation to resolve it. But when it comes
to its own reputation, this Supreme Court is as soft
as church music. All of them, John Roberts especially, managed
to walk this tight rope over reality, the reality that
American confidence in their honesty and their necessity has plummeted
(07:05):
faster than the general opinion of the news media has.
They all think they're Oliver Wendell Holmes, when in fact
we all think they're closer to Judge Judy or maybe
worse Janine Piro. Somewhere in the back of John Roberts's
mind is the fear that he could end up like
(07:26):
Chief Justice Roger B. Tawney after dred Scott, overseeing the
Supreme Court that has degraded, sidelined, and humiliated itself. Roberts
actually thinks he has a reputation to uphold. There is
actually the chance that John Roberts could be shamed into
(07:46):
formally accepting the standard US government employee ethical conduct minimums
for the Supreme Court. And of course we know how
we can get Clarence Thomas to vote for it. You
want that in fifties or hundreds? Or would you prefer
airfare vouchers? Pal The politics of ignoring a judge got
(08:13):
very dicey for Democrats yesterday for about ninety minutes, Actor
Senator Ron Widen and then AOC said that the Texas
abortion pill ruling should be ignored, and then HHS Secretary
Javier Pechera said everything is on the table. Republican Congressman
Tony Gonzalez went on CNN and almost lit something on fire.
(08:33):
It's very dangerous, he said, when you have the Biden
administration coming out and saying they may not uphold a ruling.
Never mind that the Trump administration did this seemingly on
a weekly basis. This is Washington. The response was to
immediately assert that the Democrats had just made a terrible,
unforced error that could never be corrected, that neutralized their
(08:55):
own advantages over the Republicans on the entire abortion issue
forever and for all time. And soon the missionary position
DC political media industrial complex, represented by the likes of Politico,
declared that the debate was about to work to the
Republicans advantage and the Dems would wind up being portrayed
as anti law or anti court or anti something that
(09:18):
Gonzalez could become a star by amplifying his latest new
message defund the FDA, and Jesus H. Christ as an asside,
think about the implications of defunding the FDA and how
much arsenic would you like in your baby's food. Anyway,
the thing was about to ignite when a different member
of the House went on TV and announced there was
(09:40):
quote no basis for the Texas ruling intended to overturn
an FDA approval from nearly a quarter of a century ago.
Quote it's not up to us to decide as legislators
or even as the court system whether this is the
right drug to use or not. I agree with ignoring
it at this point. This thing should just be thrown
(10:01):
out quite frankly, who said that Nancy Mace of South
Carolina Republican Nancy Mace of South Carolina. So ignoring the
ruling is back on the table, because my god, it's
suddenly bipartisan, because once again Republicans are better at politics
until they are not ask the defendant. The defendant will
(10:25):
be back in my neighborhood starting tomorrow, so he can
not answer the questions of New York State Attorney General
Tish James about the Trump organization's quote business practices unquote
on Thursday morning, widely expected to take the fifth, and
we all know what he said about people who take
the fifth. This will of course serve principally to remind
(10:48):
everybody that way back when last week the defendant was arrested,
with the news cycle cut down from the formerly insanely
fast twenty four hours to something closer to two hours
and forty minutes, it feels like that half and a
year ago. It may feel like the arrest had no
impact and was in a previous century, but there is
(11:10):
actually polling that suggests the opposite. ABC has one of
these rare useful polls out, asking people the same questions
before and then after an event that might have impacted
their decisions on this On April first, in a previous
ABC poll, fourteen percent of those polled did not know
(11:32):
how they felt about the severity of the charges against
the defendant. In the new poll, that is down to
eight percent, almost cut in half a week ago, Forty
three percent of independence thought the charges were serious that
it's fifty four who do. In the first poll, forty
three percent of Americans believed the defendant should then suspend
his candidacy after the arrest. Forty eight percent due, and
(11:56):
the jump among independents went from forty one to fifty two.
Things are so bad that the New York Post reports
that the defendant actually has asked for help from Misses.
The defendant, Philotus Milania, reportedly reappeared at Marilago for Easter
brunch Sunday behind a velvet rope, of course, no picchuzz
(12:21):
after Trump told her quote, I really need you for
this because we are going to be campaigning. A source
said they had a major talk over the weekend and
she has agreed to be on board. He must have
gotten a new contract, and the defendant has stepped up
his attacks on Ronda a long, actually coherent press release
(12:42):
with actual data about how much time Ronda Santis has
spent outside Florida while he has not been running for
the Fascist nomination for president. The press release's point is
to emphasize that DeSantis has skirted Florida's resigned to run law,
and also has been rumored to be planning to have
his toadies in the state legislature change that law. Of course,
(13:04):
there was also the incoherent, data free social media post
from the defendant which began Ron de Santis is a
young man who is not doing well against me in
the polls. To put it mildly, this goes on to
insist that an announced DeSantis candidacy would only hurt and
somewhat divide the party and cost to Santis the MAGA
(13:25):
vote and will, oh, you know, end his political career.
Then comes the nonsense that only somebody who doesn't really
understand any other human being on the planet could write
quote if he remains governor, it would be a whole
different story, just saying, but who knows what the hell
does that mean? I will say I love that line
(13:47):
quote Ron de Santis is a young man when it's
obviously intended as an insult. But clearly the only person
who could dismiss a man who hits forty five this
September as a young man and think that's an insult
to a forty five year old is an old man.
It is fascinating that, for all his missteps on the
(14:09):
national stage and his vulgarities and his you know, fascism,
good old Ronda has not really fired back at a
guy who was arrested last week. You have to wonder
what happens if Dessantis formally runs and the next year,
is just the two of these idiots beating in each
other's brains. If Ronda responds to that at some point
(14:34):
with victory or elimination evident in the near future. If
Ronda then says, I'm going to turn on Trump, and
he starts emphasizing the fact that the defendant is you know,
the defendant. Thank you, Nancy Faust. And lastly here, as
(15:17):
I mentioned, the defendant is coming back to visit fund City.
So if you need me, I'll be out there battening
down the hatches. But next Monday, we will have another
out of town Rube stopping by the House Judiciary Committee
Chairman Jim Jordan Jacket missing in Action, will stage a
quote field hearing quote victims of violent crime in Manhattan
(15:42):
to attack the da Alban Bragg, of course, on Trump's behalf.
Jordan even leaked that the committee may invite Bragg to testify.
Somebody should tell this snotty little Pip squeak that the
rate of property and violent crime in New York for
one thousand people is forty one, and the rate of
property or violent crime in his hometown of Lima, Ohio
(16:06):
is forty eight, which would be more watch where you park, Jim,
and whatever you do, don't resist. Arrest. Still ahead on
(16:30):
this edition of Countdown, another mass shooting eleven days after
Ted Cruz tried to rationalize the slaughter of school children
by insisting that the solution was to put as many
guards in schools as we have in all those safe,
impenetrable banks. Five are dead and eight more are injured
at a Louisville bank. Once again, there is a solution
(16:55):
to this madness, and it starts with stopping all thoughts
that goodness has anything to do with that solution. This
is economics, and we need to financially cry those companies,
those politicians, and those states that profit off gunslaughter. Some
thoughts on that coming up. And then, to lighten the
mood a little bit, the story of the day I
(17:15):
almost had a fist fight with Bill Maher, because three
decades earlier I had almost had a different fist fight
with Bill Maher. That's next. This is Countdown. It was
(17:46):
actually overshadowed slightly by the reality of the racism and
the plantation mentality so starkly presented of which they were
so proud. But when that cabal of Cracker fascists in
Tennessee expelled the Justins. They did so, or at least
they used as pretext the fact that the Justin's had
participated in a protest at the State Assembly, and the
(18:09):
protest at the State Assembly was about anyone remember about
the gun murders at the Covenant Christian School and the
fact that the only thing the Republicans want to do
about them and all the other gun murders at all
the other schools. Who has to put more cops or
more armed teachers, or for all we know, armed robotic
dogs in schools and in every American building, everywhere, every city,
(18:33):
every state, all the time. Oh and blame transpeople for
every mass gun murder in American history. Yesterday Louisville in
a bank. Somebody asked me after it happened, when this
is going to stop? And I said, flatly, it is
not going to stop. Think about that. Unless we not
(18:54):
only try, but succeed. There will be another Louisville before
the end of this month, maybe before the end of
this week, and certainly another Covenant School before the end
of this spring. It doesn't matter that it's mass madness.
It doesn't matter that one of the leading propagandists on
the right came out last week and actually said, seriously, well, sorry,
it's like automobile accidents is the price we pay for driving.
(19:16):
We have to accept some gun deaths to protect our
Second Amendment rights. It doesn't matter that the life expectancy
in this country has gone down in large part because
of guns. It doesn't matter that kids dying by guns
in this country has doubled in two years. Doesn't matter. Right,
(19:37):
has nothing to do with It doesn't matter that one
of the student survivors at Michigan State was a student
survivor of Sandy Hook, and at least three of the
student survivors of Michigan State. We're student survivors of Oxford
fifteen months before that. And we can all say with
all too much certainty that some of them will be
survivors of Toledo twenty twenty nine, or Dallas twenty thirty three,
(19:58):
or your city twenty thirty five or my city twenty
thirty seven, because and here is the essence of what
we have to address and trying to stop this. Not
what's right, not what's humane, not what's logical, not what
about the children. This will begin to stop when we
recognize that mass gun murders are profit centers. Greg Popovich,
(20:21):
the basketball coach, kind of hit the nail on the
head Sunday night. They're going to close all this stuff.
You know, the second of the myth of the Second Amendment,
the freedom, you know, it's just it's a myth. It's
a joke. It's just a game they playing. Why does
this supposedly sophisticated nation abide the ritual sacrifice of our
children and our brothers and sisters and parents to the
(20:44):
moloch of insane gun owners like Lauren Bobert or Thomas
Massey or whoever, the ones who get some kind of
sexual gratification from owning and displaying and stroking and firing
weapons because it makes other people millions of dollars. That's
(21:04):
why we are owned by guns. And so we go
on calculating the averages and deciding if by age five
it is already too late to teach kids how to
play dead in their classrooms, And we go on listening
to fascist asshole madmen like Ron de Santis talk about
(21:27):
fortifying schools and fortifying movie theaters and fortifying churches, and
we go on listening to messianic buttonheads like Eric Adams
talk about giving more guns to more police, when police
often turn out either to be the murderers or the
cowards who idol in the hallways as the children of
Uvalde are executed one by one, And we go on
(21:50):
listening to the fatuous idiots, like the Missouri House where
the police said we need laws to stop fourteen year
olds from walking down the streets of Saint Louis carrying
AAR fifteens, and the House voted one hundred and four
to thirty nine to keep open carry legal in Missouri
for kids. And we go on listening to amoral monsters
(22:11):
like Donald Trump talk about arming teachers and bringing back
firing squads, and we listened to these paid scum Republicans
bribed by the gun manufacturers and the gun organizations, recite
what they have been paid to say about responsible gun owners,
when after half a million gun deaths in this country
in the last ten or twelve years, it is no
(22:32):
longer in doubt there are no longer any responsible gun owners.
On this nightmare so familiar, so routine, and so constant
that we no longer remember the details or the location,
or the motive or the sequence of them. And now
(22:54):
we are no longer even remembering that there was a
nightmare last night or the night before, and we're now
marbling them into other things in American life, as if
they were snowstorms or flight delays. And a hockey podcaster
begins by saying, well, it's tough to do this after
the Michigan State news, but let's talk about the Carolina hurricanes.
(23:15):
Needs at the deadline, and the New York Times can
run a sidebar that the shooting, well, it upended the
lives of thousands, but it also put the school back
in an uncomfortable spotlight, what with the sexual assault scandal.
There we go on in an unacceptable world in which
we are owned by guns. We go on to borrow
(23:41):
from Churchill, in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided,
resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity,
all powerful to be impotent. The dead of Michigan State,
(24:03):
the dead of Las Vegas, the dead at the Pulse,
the dead at Well. Why do we bother with individual
place names anymore? The dead of the killing field, the
dead of the transcendent national shooting range that is the
United States of America. They are dead. Because somebody is
(24:29):
making money off them, and because Ted Cruz is making
money off them, and Marjorie Taylor Green is making money
off them, and every Hoore politician is making money off them,
and rarely even bothering anymore to wash the money through
seepack or save America this or shoot America, that the
(24:54):
donations come straight and unhidden, and whether it's Trump or
DeSantis or Poor soon to be very very surprised, Nicki
Haley or just some other idiot it free from morality
or conscience, whom the moneyed interests select. It is fair
to say that the Republican nominee for president in twenty
twenty four, whoever that is, will be underwritten by the
(25:15):
gun manufacturers and the gun lobby and their masters, the
death lobby, who pay good money to bad people to
maintain not just our culture of guns and shooting and
dead children and thoughts and prayers, but also maintain the
world's culture of continuing to poison the atmosphere and kill
(25:36):
off the species one by one. Because the one billion,
nine hundred and sixty three million dollars in profit made
last year by big oil just isn't enough. Because they
stay up at night anguished by the thought that there
remains somewhere one dollar not yet stolen from a child
(25:58):
dying next to the earthquake rubble in Syria or Turkey,
one dollar yet to be pocketed by Darren Woods, the
CEO of Exxon Mobile Away God intended it. It is economics,
and thus the only solution can also be economics, because
(26:23):
we will not defeat them in the states that are
already lost to the control of the death lobby. And
even if President Biden said tomorrow we are not owned
by guns, and I don't give a damn. If I'm
reelected or even renominated, I'm going to issue four hundred
and fifty executive orders and take every damn gun I
can get off the streets. And if the House and
(26:45):
send it won't reinstate the assault weapons man, I will
do so unilaterally and come and get me in the courts.
Even if Biden did that, we the anti death people,
we would lose in the Supreme Court because Clarence Thomas
us the whore is on the Supreme Court because of
(27:08):
and bought and paid for by the death lobby, and
Samuel Alito the whore is and John Roberts the whore
Is and Neil Gorsich and drunken Brett Kavanaugh and Bible
paralegal amy Coney Barrett. And so we must ask ourselves,
what economically can we do to the gun lobby, to
(27:30):
the oil lobby, to the death lobby, and to their
minions in the Senate and the House, and all the
Senates and all the houses, in all the states in
America and in this country. There are only a couple
of measures that might possibly work, and might possibly work
fast enough so that enough of us won't be killed
(27:53):
in next year's three hundred gun massacres or the next
decade's three hundred climate crises. And that one thing is,
to spare you the kind words, the soft words. That
one thing is economic civil war. It can start simply,
buy nothing from Texas, do not go to Florida, do
(28:18):
not patronize Missouri. We can start there, and then we
can get serious. It is a simple mathematical fact that,
with some exceptions, and a little more nuanced than time
permits me here, it is a simple mathematical fact that
the blue states of this country keep the Red states
(28:39):
of this country from going bankrupt. It is a simple
mathematical fact that the Blue states pay in more to
the federal government than they ever get back in services
or infrastructure, or certainly in per capita representation. New York
pays a net twenty four billion a year, California pays
(28:59):
in a net fourteen billion, and most of that goes
to keeping Florida and Texas US from starving. Florida gets
thirty six billion a year, more than it pays in
Texas nearly that much. It is state to state socialism,
(29:20):
and we all know that we can't have socialism. And
it is a simple fact that the Blue states restrict
and regulate guns, and the Red states sell guns and
sell guns and sell guns and profit off dead children.
And when the political whores like Ted Cruz and Tucker
(29:44):
Carlson and Rupert Murdoch point to the gun carnage of Chicago,
they are actually pointing to the gun carnage of weapons
smuggled in from Indiana to Chicago. And it is also
a simple fact that we can dance around for decades
yet to come about how to the gun massacres of
(30:06):
February twenty forty seven and the chemical disasters of June
twenty sixty one, so bad they reminded old timers of
where was that East Palestine, Ohio? Or we can cut
to the chase and put it this way. If the
Red States do not agree to strict and enforced gun
regulation and the removal and the outlawing of gun manufacture,
(30:31):
and a revision of the Second Amendment so that the
vagueness that isn't actually there but the death lobby has
spent a century convincing millions is there, that all doubt
about the Second Amendment be erased and replaced by the
simple statement that private gun ownership is illegal without a
series of licenses and mental health tests, and that the
owner is liable for whatever is done with his gun,
(30:52):
and if that includes murder, then the owner is liable
for life imprisonment, whether he fired the gun or not.
If the Red States do not agree to that, and
by the way, to reapportioned representation in the House and
the Senate, Idaho does not have as many senators as
a real state and not a welfare state like Idaho.
(31:12):
And if they do not agree to the resignations of
Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito, Barrett, gorsych Kavanaugh, and Thomas.
If the Red States do not agree to that then
the Blue states will simply stop paying money into the
federal government, and the Blue states will simply spend that
money directly on their own citizens. And if the leaders
(31:35):
of our Blue states who will not comply with this,
then the only solution we have. Since the murders at
Michigan State Monday night and the murders at your town
name here next week are profit streams for many people,
the only solution we have is to then stop paying
our federal taxes until our state leaders recognize that the
(31:58):
only way out of this nightmare is to threaten the
Red states, and thus threatened the gun lobby, and thus
threatened the oil lobby, and thus threatened the death lobby
with economic strangulation, economic civil war, to save the country,
to save the next six hundred thousand Americans who will
(32:23):
die by gun violence almost certainly by the year twenty
thirty five, if it does not get worse before then
six hundred thousand, the same number who were killed in
the actual Civil War. And if you ask yourself, or
you are asked by what right we could threaten economic
(32:45):
civil war, just say this is constitutional under the Second Amendment.
Quote a well regulated militia being necessary to the security
of a free state. The right of the people to
keep and bare arms shall not be infringed. Our rights
to the security of a free state have been infringed
(33:08):
upon by the gun lobby and the death lobby, which
has convinced generations of gun fetishists that an amendment that
does not contain the word own nor any synonym for own,
does contain it. The Constitution is a property document. It
mentions rights only fifteen times. It mentions voting only thirty
seven times. This is out of nearly eight thousand words,
(33:30):
but it mentions money and ownership one hundred and three times.
The Second Amendment is about making sure nothing interferes with
a well regulated militia. Well regulated militia that is there
protecting our rights as citizens to have, as it says
in the Second Amendment, the security of a free state.
(33:53):
Our Second Amendment rights have been trampled on by Donald
Trump and the Republicans, the anti Second Amendment Republicans. We
need to start enforcing the Second Amendment. We need an
economic civil war against the gun lobby and the death
lobby and those corrupted and financially insolvent red states that
(34:14):
stand in the way of peace. And security in this
country because we are owned by guns. But god damn it,
we are not going to be owned by guns any longer.
(34:37):
I don't know about you, but I need a break
from the assault on my heart from all the corners
of this current cycle of news and with him in
the news about the news again. Lately, the repurposing of
part of his show has gotten CNN audiences in the
so called advertising demo of forty five thousand one night,
sixty three thousand one Night, and the Big one eighty
(35:00):
three thousand one Night. In other words, he's kind of
remaining competitive with the podcast, but it doesn't look so
good for him. The wall that Bill Maher has obviously
hit in terms of his insight is now being reflected
by his ratings. While speaking of hitting the wall and
Bill Maher, I have to confess twice in my life
(35:21):
I was ready to make Bill Maher hit a wall.
He and I nearly had a fist fight in college.
We each forgot all about it, and as I began
to remember it vaguely thirty years later, we almost had
another fist fight about the fist fight that we didn't remember.
From nineteen seventy eight, The saga of how I was
(35:44):
aware of Bill Maher. Next, sometime in nineteen eighty five
or nineteen eighty six, I saw a movie on cable
called DC Cab. There was a character in it. Clearly
the actor portraying him was talented and funny, but for
(36:06):
some reason I felt like I knew him from somewhere,
and I really didn't like him. I remember the feeling
was so strong that I stuck around to watch the
credits to find out who he was. His name was
Bill Mayher m ah er Well. I had a teacher
named Bill Mayer, but his name had a y in it.
He was my adviser in high school. Now I wasn't him,
(36:29):
but I knew three things. He was talented, I didn't
like him, and I knew him from somewhere. This is
pre Internet, of course, so no way to find out
where I knew him from. Hallowell's annual film Guide would
be my best bet. Maybe he'd be in the new
one coming out checked calendar just eight or nine months
from now. Eventually I found out Bill Maher was in
(36:52):
the year ahead of mine at Cornell University. He was
not at my radio station, he was not in my college.
Maybe I knew him from a class somewhere. I could
never nail it down. I like to say I have
a photographic memory, but it's all polaroids, and I haven't
always bothered to label them. Almost everything that ever happened
is stuck inside this big empty head of mine. But
(37:13):
often key details like who, what, when, and where are
just missing. Never wrote him down, and honestly, in this case,
it was not worth the effort. I knew I was
the right word, the word. Was aware of him when
we were both in college. Occasionally, especially after I went
from ESPN to MSNBC in nineteen ninety seven, a writer
(37:36):
would note the coincidence of university and years and ask
me about it, and I would say just that I
don't remember if he was in a class with me,
or I knew him somehow, but I was aware of
Bill Maher. And then twenty two years ago, this month,
no remember, twenty third, two thousand, I went on his
old show, Politically Incorrect, used to be the late night
(37:57):
show on ABC. This was when I was doing sports
for Fox in LA and it was an all sports episode.
Lennox Lewis, the boxer, Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas, Mavericks,
Todd Zeal the first basement of the New York Mets,
and Me from Fox Sports. When I met Bill mar
before the show, I asked him about Cornell and whether
or not we ran into each other. I didn't know
(38:17):
anybody there. I didn't see anybody. I didn't goo comedy anywhere.
I didn't talk to anybody. I didn't meet you. Okay,
excuse me. That settles it. Except during the recording of
the show, when Mark contradicted me on some point, I
got angry at him, and there was no reason to
get angry at him, so I dismissed the anger, and
I dismissed the moment. Except on the way home, I
(38:40):
kept thinking, I know him from school somehow, no matter
what he says, and I know I didn't like him
in school. In the next decade, Bill switched to his
weekly HBO political show, and I went back and turned
MSNBC into a political network. And the Internet happened so
(39:00):
that Cornell juxtaposition became easier for reporters to stumble over.
So I would tell them the same thing. I can't
remember the details, but for twenty nine years now I
have been convinced I was aware of Bill Maher at Cornell.
Finally came the day March twentieth, two thousand and nine,
when they asked me to go on Real Time and
(39:21):
Bill Maher Cornell University seventy eight asked me Cornell University
seventy nine, something about colleges, and I said, well, as
you know, we overlapped at Cornell, and I don't know
if we met, but I was aware of you there,
and he interrupted and said, no, you weren't, and I
just went back and answered his question. Now, after every
episode of his program, Mar has or at least hand
(39:44):
a little party back stage, I mean catered with booze
and with more guests than there are people in the
studio audience, and usually a bunch of models having done
that show four times, where they will fly you in
first class and put you up for the weekend in
LA just to do their show, and there's a party.
I began to suspect that, like many of the guests,
(40:06):
Bill Maher does the show just so he can have
the party. Anyway, not long after it started, it overcomes
Mar and he's mad at me. And mind you, even
if his allegation that he is five feet eight is correct.
I'm just under six four, So he's giving up a
lot of height during an argument, and he starts yapping
about how I should stop saying I was away here
(40:27):
of him at Cornell, and I'm just trying to get
publicity off something that never happened. And who could remember
that kind of crap anyway? And he never talked to
anybody in four years in college because quote except for
the ethical high school students, I sold drugs too, unquote.
And I notice he's getting heated, and this is just
triggering that core belief of mine that I was aware
(40:50):
of him in college and I didn't like him, and
now it becomes clear to me he didn't like me either.
He's getting loud enough and he's swinging his arms around
now and it looks funny, but apparently it happens in
the office sometimes. And this is when Scott Carter, who
was the executive producer whom I definitely did know since
(41:12):
like nineteen ninety two when he worked at Comedy Central
with my friend Alan Haby, Scott Carter comes over to
defuse the situation. Scott was a three piece suit kind
of guy with the thumbs tucking the vest who would
call a group of men fellows, as in say fellows.
So Scott comes over and says, say fellows with your
(41:34):
at Cornell alumni reunion here, And of course this makes
Bill Maher even angrier. Let me ask you something. I
used to drive down from Hobart to see concerts at
Cornell to say, I think Cornell was the leading concert
school in the nation back an hour day. And now
Scott starts the list who he saw in concert at Cornell,
Robert Palmer and the famous Grateful Dead concert at Cornell
(41:57):
at Barton Hall. He was there, And I say, I
went to Springsteen, and mar mumbles something about Loggins and Messina,
and I know what Carter he's doing here, he's diffusing,
And we do a couple of rounds of who saw
which Cornell concert? And finally I say, I can top
both of you comic geniuses. I saw Robert Kleine in
concert at Cornell. Now it is criminal, but there's an
(42:21):
excellent chance you may not know who Robert Klein is,
suffice to say, as prominent a comedian in the sixties,
seventies eighties as George Carlin or Richard pryor. HBO itself
was built on annual George Carlin concerts and annual Robert
Klein concerts and everybody else. And Robert Klein wasn't quite
(42:43):
as deep or eternal as George Carlin, but he was
really on the money during Watergate and during Reagan. So
I say, I saw Robert Kleine in concert at Cornell,
and Mark looks at me funny and not angrily, and
says quietly, I was at that too. I saw Robert
Klein too, and I don't really register that Mar's mood
(43:06):
has now utterly changed. He's not angry, he's confused. Well,
I say, I can still top you, because after that
concert I interviewed Robert Klein. Now Bill Maher starts to squint,
and he looks at me, and he looks at Scott Carter,
and he looks back at me, and he says, wait,
I interviewed Kleine after that concert too. And I'm smiling
(43:32):
through all this, and smiling and smiling and smiling, And
then suddenly, simultaneously it hits Bill Maher and me at
the same moment, in the same fullness of detail, and
I stopped smiling, and I shout at Bill Maher, you
and he pulls his arms in towards his stomach and
kind of bends forward at the waist and covers his
face with his hands, and he says, oh God, I'm
(43:52):
so sorry, Jesus, it can't be. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
And while the anger wells up inside me so powerfully,
I can almost see it in my own eyeballs. Bill
Maher's concert going pretty. Scott Carter is really confused. Say, fellows,
did I miss something or did I have a brief
stroke or episode? And I say, Bill, and I just
(44:16):
remembered how I happened to be aware of him in school,
And Mars still has got his hands over his face,
and people are looking at us, and Bill is shouting apologies,
and I say, you want to tell him? Or should I?
And Mar just shakes his body no and mumbles, no, God, dude,
I can't, I can't, I can't. And it all came
(44:38):
back to me. For years I would tell people the
story of the Robert Klein concert at Cornell University in
nineteen seventy eight. Our radio station co sponsored his appearance
along with the Cornell Concert Commission, and in the contract
we specified that a couple of us real comedy nerds
at the radio station would get to go backstage afterwards
(45:00):
and tape a brief ten or fifteen minute interview with
Robert Klein. Basic we paid We paid him not much,
but we paid him to do an interview. And when
my pal Andy Grossman and I get backstage to talk
to Robert Klein, and we have our two microphones and
two mic stands and three tape recorders, there is this guy,
this short guy, and he's yelling at the chief of
(45:23):
the Cornell Concert Commission, and he's yelling at Robert Klein's manager,
and he's demanding that he should get to interview Robert
Kline because like Klin. This kid says he is a
stand up comedian and he publishes the Cornell Humor magazine.
And he points at me and he says he should
get priority over these quote corporate sellouts from the Cornell
radio station. I hated him on site. Oh wait, I
(45:50):
say to him in nineteen seventy eight. And he's small
and he's got dirty, stringy hair, and he's loud, and
I say, you are the publisher of the Cornell Humor magazine,
the Cornell Widow And he snorts and says I would
get caught dead publishing, that corporate sellout Cornell Widow and
so I say, oh, so, then that means you're the
publisher of the Cornell alternative humor magazine, the Not So
(46:13):
Big Red or whatever it is they call it. He says,
no way, they're corporate sellouts. I publish this, and he
pulls out a stack of mimeograph pages stapled together and
there's like a drawing on the front of a naked
girl and handwritten it says it's his comedy magazine. And
I look at Robert Klein's manager and I say, so,
(46:37):
it's ten o'clock and if you leave now while this
idiot is screwing this up, the limo can still get
mister Klein to Elan's in the city before it closes, right,
And the manager is wildly impressed, you know of Elanes?
And I said yes, and I felt like an adult.
And I also said, if we give this guy five
minutes of our time right now while we're setting up
(46:58):
our tape recorders, can we still have ten minutes with
mister Klein. And the manager says, good plan. I like
the way you think, and he points to the kid
and gestures for him to come along. No, the kid shouts,
I want half an hour. These corporate sellouts deserve nothing.
And now I'm getting angry. I say, buddy, so far
all the corporations in the world have paid me about
(47:22):
a hundred bucks. So I threatened him. Now, mind you,
I believe this is literally true. Since nineteen sixty seven,
when I was eight years old, I have started two
fist fights, two in fifty five years. I am a
man of peace. I am loud, but I am a
man of peace. But I say to this guy, you
(47:44):
now have two choices. Kid, five minutes with Robert Klein
or I hit you in the face. And he runs
to where Klein's manager is still gesturing towards him, and
he screams corporate sell out, and he disappears to do
his interview, and behind him he leaves his little homemade
nimiograph ten or twelve page humor publication. And I pick
(48:06):
it up, and I read it and register it and
dismiss it before I leave the building. And if I
had only remembered what it said on the cover, all
the years of mystery and I was aware of him,
and all that would never have happened, because the cover
of the magazine read Bill Mars Comedy Magazine by Bill Maher,
(48:28):
and now back in well, technically this is correct, back
in real time at the party in the Hollywood studio
in two thousand and nine, the producer Scott Carter says nothing,
and Bill Maher is still doubled over in shame, and
I say, are you satisfied that I was aware of you?
And he mumbles yes. And I say, will you ever
(48:51):
question my memory again? And he mumbles no. And he
says if I need him to do my show or
a charity benefit or something, just call. And he says
he's ashamed, and he offers me his hand to shake,
and we shave can Finally, I say, and by the way,
Bill Maher, if Bill Maher's Comedy Magazine by Bill Maher,
are you a corporate sellout? And he says kind And
(49:15):
that's how I was aware of Bill Maher in college.
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
(49:35):
you for listening. Here are the credits. Most of the
music was arranged, produced, and performed by Brian Ray and
John Philip Channel, who are the Countdown musical directors. All
orchestration and keyboards by John Philip Channel. Guitars, bass, and
drums by Brian Ray, produced by t Ko Brothers. Other
Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by the group
No Horns Allowed. The sports music when we have it,
(49:56):
of course, is the Olderman theme from ESPN two. It
was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
Musical interludes courtesy of Nancy Fauss, the best baseball stadium
organist ever. Na. Everything else pretty much my fault. So
let's countdown for this the eight hundred and twenty sixth
day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically
(50:18):
elected government of the United States. Don't forget. Keep arresting
him while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is
tomorrow until ben on Keith Alderman. Good Morning, good afternoon, goodnight,
and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production
(50:43):
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 justin Time.
(00:37):
The Nashville Council unanimously voted Justin Jones back into the
Tennessee State House at four thirty pm yesterday. He was
sworn in to that applause at five fifteen. He was
leading a protest march two hours later. And the Memphis
vote to reinstate Justin Pearson to the State House will
be tomorrow. And I'm trying to think of exactly what
(01:00):
Republicans got out of all this. The two young represent
enitives will have been out of office for a total
of four days, maybe five. They went from obscure state
legislators to superstar magnets, drawing international coverage. They have energized
and activated Goodness knows how many young politically disaffected Tennesseeans,
(01:22):
to say nothing of young politically disaffected Americans, some of
whom will doubtless wind up in other state houses and
Senates and congressional races and governor's offices and White Houses.
And most importantly of all, the Republicans who turned Jones
and Pearson into national figures, they did something that many
of us thought would never be done. They provided energy
(01:46):
and hope to the movement support for which had inspired
the racist acts of a racist legislative body to do
something about the epidemic of gun violence in this country.
The forces of right have not had a real win
in this area in perhaps two decades, and even though
this one was just symbolic, it resonates. The Tennessee State
(02:08):
House tried to punish not just its own members who
want things to change, but its own citizens who want
things to change instead. No Justin's no peace, This just in,
just in time, the justin case, etc. This gigantic petard
on which the Tennessee crackers hoisted themselves may not make
(02:31):
a tangible, immediate difference in gun control and a correction
to the fraudulence of the Second Amendment, but it shows
us that the whole thing is not impossible to fight,
and that the dramatic and important milestones can occur almost spontaneously, virtually, immediately, breathtakingly, panoramically. Also,
(02:53):
the Tennessee Republicans managed to switch back on a bunch
of spotlights on their own dubious behavior and upgrade those
dubious behaviors from minor topics even in their own state,
to one's of national import. They tried to cut the
Metro Nashville Council in half from forty members to twenty,
clearly because they thought they could fight and win for
(03:15):
a twenty seat council and not a forty seat one.
A three judge Bannel ruled yesterday the power grab was
almost certainly illegal and slapped an injunction against it. Suddenly,
the Speaker, Cameron Sexton, is being scrutinized because flatly, the
independent news outlet Popular Information reports he don't live where
(03:36):
he says he lives, and the state constitution demands that
he has to. And he represents a place called Crossville, Tennessee,
out in District twenty five, and he lists a home
there as his address, a home he's sold in October
twenty twenty. This clown Sexton is Speaker of the damned
Tennessee House and reportedly represents a district two hours outside
(03:58):
of Nashville, but he lives in Nashville, and he's also
apparently taking reimbursements for travel to and from a home
he's not traveling to in a district he apparently doesn't
live in, and a week ago, frankly, none of us
outside Nashville knew whether the Tennessee state government had a House,
a Senate, an Assembly of Parliament, a Duma, was inflated
or stuffed. You want more? The Republican National Committee has
(04:22):
a long scheduled donor retreat coming up starting this Friday.
Trump will be there, Pence, Rick Scott, Marcia, Glitter and Glitz, Blackburn,
Kelly an con Job, Blake, Googly Eyes, Masters, and many
many less. And guess where they are holding this fundraising
retreat Nashville. The major problem facing Democrats local and national
(04:48):
is that, generally speaking, Republicans wield metaphorical political knives better
than Democrats do. They exploit the nooks and crannies of
government that democrats don't even know exist, and they are
just better at politics than democrats are until suddenly they're
not my God. For all we know, Justin Jones and
(05:14):
Justin Pearson inspired Dick Durban to do something yesterday. As
late as yesterday morning, it looked like Clarence Thomas and
John Roberts and the other proprietors of the all you
can eat graft buffet, that is, the fascist theocratic Supreme Court.
We're going to get away with no more practical damage
than a Susan Collins level of concern and lesson learning.
(05:35):
And then suddenly, yesterday afternoon, the eleven Democrats on the
Senate Judiciary Committee wrote the Chief Justice a letter whose
actual contents take up a little less space than do
their big blue signatures. That's kind of the point. It's
a cordial letter. It drips with the language of ancient
Washingtonian bureaucracy. It is nevertheless a threatening letter. It reproaches
(05:59):
Roberts for ignoring the corruption of his court and Senate
inquiries about that as long ago twenty eleven. And it
tells him that the Judiciary Committee will hold quote, in
the coming days, a hearing regarding the need to restore
confidence in the Supreme Court's ethical standards, and if the
Court does not resolve this issue on its own, the
(06:20):
Committee will consider legislation to resolve it. Unquote. I am
not holding my breath that Dick Durban, whose concept of
combative politics on behalf of honesty and the Constitution consists
largely of staring daggers at the malefactors on the right,
I am not holding my breath that Dick Durban is
(06:42):
actually planning legislation to resolve it. But when it comes
to its own reputation, this Supreme Court is as soft
as church music. All of them, John Roberts especially, managed
to walk this tight rope over reality, the reality that
American confidence in their honesty and their necessity has plummeted
(07:05):
faster than the general opinion of the news media has.
They all think they're Oliver Wendell Holmes, when in fact
we all think they're closer to Judge Judy or maybe
worse Janine Piro. Somewhere in the back of John Roberts's
mind is the fear that he could end up like
(07:26):
Chief Justice Roger B. Tawney after dred Scott, overseeing the
Supreme Court that has degraded, sidelined, and humiliated itself. Roberts
actually thinks he has a reputation to uphold. There is
actually the chance that John Roberts could be shamed into
(07:46):
formally accepting the standard US government employee ethical conduct minimums
for the Supreme Court. And of course we know how
we can get Clarence Thomas to vote for it. You
want that in fifties or hundreds? Or would you prefer
airfare vouchers? Pal The politics of ignoring a judge got
(08:13):
very dicey for Democrats yesterday for about ninety minutes, Actor
Senator Ron Widen and then AOC said that the Texas
abortion pill ruling should be ignored, and then HHS Secretary
Javier Pechera said everything is on the table. Republican Congressman
Tony Gonzalez went on CNN and almost lit something on fire.
(08:33):
It's very dangerous, he said, when you have the Biden
administration coming out and saying they may not uphold a ruling.
Never mind that the Trump administration did this seemingly on
a weekly basis. This is Washington. The response was to
immediately assert that the Democrats had just made a terrible,
unforced error that could never be corrected, that neutralized their
(08:55):
own advantages over the Republicans on the entire abortion issue
forever and for all time. And soon the missionary position
DC political media industrial complex, represented by the likes of Politico,
declared that the debate was about to work to the
Republicans advantage and the Dems would wind up being portrayed
as anti law or anti court or anti something that
(09:18):
Gonzalez could become a star by amplifying his latest new
message defund the FDA, and Jesus H. Christ as an asside,
think about the implications of defunding the FDA and how
much arsenic would you like in your baby's food. Anyway,
the thing was about to ignite when a different member
of the House went on TV and announced there was
(09:40):
quote no basis for the Texas ruling intended to overturn
an FDA approval from nearly a quarter of a century ago.
Quote it's not up to us to decide as legislators
or even as the court system whether this is the
right drug to use or not. I agree with ignoring
it at this point. This thing should just be thrown
(10:01):
out quite frankly, who said that Nancy Mace of South
Carolina Republican Nancy Mace of South Carolina. So ignoring the
ruling is back on the table, because my god, it's
suddenly bipartisan, because once again Republicans are better at politics
until they are not ask the defendant. The defendant will
(10:25):
be back in my neighborhood starting tomorrow, so he can
not answer the questions of New York State Attorney General
Tish James about the Trump organization's quote business practices unquote
on Thursday morning, widely expected to take the fifth, and
we all know what he said about people who take
the fifth. This will of course serve principally to remind
(10:48):
everybody that way back when last week the defendant was arrested,
with the news cycle cut down from the formerly insanely
fast twenty four hours to something closer to two hours
and forty minutes, it feels like that half and a
year ago. It may feel like the arrest had no
impact and was in a previous century, but there is
(11:10):
actually polling that suggests the opposite. ABC has one of
these rare useful polls out, asking people the same questions
before and then after an event that might have impacted
their decisions on this On April first, in a previous
ABC poll, fourteen percent of those polled did not know
(11:32):
how they felt about the severity of the charges against
the defendant. In the new poll, that is down to
eight percent, almost cut in half a week ago, Forty
three percent of independence thought the charges were serious that
it's fifty four who do. In the first poll, forty
three percent of Americans believed the defendant should then suspend
his candidacy after the arrest. Forty eight percent due, and
(11:56):
the jump among independents went from forty one to fifty two.
Things are so bad that the New York Post reports
that the defendant actually has asked for help from Misses.
The defendant, Philotus Milania, reportedly reappeared at Marilago for Easter
brunch Sunday behind a velvet rope, of course, no picchuzz
(12:21):
after Trump told her quote, I really need you for
this because we are going to be campaigning. A source
said they had a major talk over the weekend and
she has agreed to be on board. He must have
gotten a new contract, and the defendant has stepped up
his attacks on Ronda a long, actually coherent press release
(12:42):
with actual data about how much time Ronda Santis has
spent outside Florida while he has not been running for
the Fascist nomination for president. The press release's point is
to emphasize that DeSantis has skirted Florida's resigned to run law,
and also has been rumored to be planning to have
his toadies in the state legislature change that law. Of course,
(13:04):
there was also the incoherent, data free social media post
from the defendant which began Ron de Santis is a
young man who is not doing well against me in
the polls. To put it mildly, this goes on to
insist that an announced DeSantis candidacy would only hurt and
somewhat divide the party and cost to Santis the MAGA
(13:25):
vote and will, oh, you know, end his political career.
Then comes the nonsense that only somebody who doesn't really
understand any other human being on the planet could write
quote if he remains governor, it would be a whole
different story, just saying, but who knows what the hell
does that mean? I will say I love that line
(13:47):
quote Ron de Santis is a young man when it's
obviously intended as an insult. But clearly the only person
who could dismiss a man who hits forty five this
September as a young man and think that's an insult
to a forty five year old is an old man.
It is fascinating that, for all his missteps on the
(14:09):
national stage and his vulgarities and his you know, fascism,
good old Ronda has not really fired back at a
guy who was arrested last week. You have to wonder
what happens if Dessantis formally runs and the next year,
is just the two of these idiots beating in each
other's brains. If Ronda responds to that at some point
(14:34):
with victory or elimination evident in the near future. If
Ronda then says, I'm going to turn on Trump, and
he starts emphasizing the fact that the defendant is you know,
the defendant. Thank you, Nancy Faust. And lastly here, as
(15:17):
I mentioned, the defendant is coming back to visit fund City.
So if you need me, I'll be out there battening
down the hatches. But next Monday, we will have another
out of town Rube stopping by the House Judiciary Committee
Chairman Jim Jordan Jacket missing in Action, will stage a
quote field hearing quote victims of violent crime in Manhattan
(15:42):
to attack the da Alban Bragg, of course, on Trump's behalf.
Jordan even leaked that the committee may invite Bragg to testify.
Somebody should tell this snotty little Pip squeak that the
rate of property and violent crime in New York for
one thousand people is forty one, and the rate of
property or violent crime in his hometown of Lima, Ohio
(16:06):
is forty eight, which would be more watch where you park, Jim,
and whatever you do, don't resist. Arrest. Still ahead on
(16:30):
this edition of Countdown, another mass shooting eleven days after
Ted Cruz tried to rationalize the slaughter of school children
by insisting that the solution was to put as many
guards in schools as we have in all those safe,
impenetrable banks. Five are dead and eight more are injured
at a Louisville bank. Once again, there is a solution
(16:55):
to this madness, and it starts with stopping all thoughts
that goodness has anything to do with that solution. This
is economics, and we need to financially cry those companies,
those politicians, and those states that profit off gunslaughter. Some
thoughts on that coming up. And then, to lighten the
mood a little bit, the story of the day I
(17:15):
almost had a fist fight with Bill Maher, because three
decades earlier I had almost had a different fist fight
with Bill Maher. That's next. This is Countdown. It was
(17:46):
actually overshadowed slightly by the reality of the racism and
the plantation mentality so starkly presented of which they were
so proud. But when that cabal of Cracker fascists in
Tennessee expelled the Justins. They did so, or at least
they used as pretext the fact that the Justin's had
participated in a protest at the State Assembly, and the
(18:09):
protest at the State Assembly was about anyone remember about
the gun murders at the Covenant Christian School and the
fact that the only thing the Republicans want to do
about them and all the other gun murders at all
the other schools. Who has to put more cops or
more armed teachers, or for all we know, armed robotic
dogs in schools and in every American building, everywhere, every city,
(18:33):
every state, all the time. Oh and blame transpeople for
every mass gun murder in American history. Yesterday Louisville in
a bank. Somebody asked me after it happened, when this
is going to stop? And I said, flatly, it is
not going to stop. Think about that. Unless we not
(18:54):
only try, but succeed. There will be another Louisville before
the end of this month, maybe before the end of
this week, and certainly another Covenant School before the end
of this spring. It doesn't matter that it's mass madness.
It doesn't matter that one of the leading propagandists on
the right came out last week and actually said, seriously, well, sorry,
it's like automobile accidents is the price we pay for driving.
(19:16):
We have to accept some gun deaths to protect our
Second Amendment rights. It doesn't matter that the life expectancy
in this country has gone down in large part because
of guns. It doesn't matter that kids dying by guns
in this country has doubled in two years. Doesn't matter. Right,
(19:37):
has nothing to do with It doesn't matter that one
of the student survivors at Michigan State was a student
survivor of Sandy Hook, and at least three of the
student survivors of Michigan State. We're student survivors of Oxford
fifteen months before that. And we can all say with
all too much certainty that some of them will be
survivors of Toledo twenty twenty nine, or Dallas twenty thirty three,
(19:58):
or your city twenty thirty five or my city twenty
thirty seven, because and here is the essence of what
we have to address and trying to stop this. Not
what's right, not what's humane, not what's logical, not what
about the children. This will begin to stop when we
recognize that mass gun murders are profit centers. Greg Popovich,
(20:21):
the basketball coach, kind of hit the nail on the
head Sunday night. They're going to close all this stuff.
You know, the second of the myth of the Second Amendment,
the freedom, you know, it's just it's a myth. It's
a joke. It's just a game they playing. Why does
this supposedly sophisticated nation abide the ritual sacrifice of our
children and our brothers and sisters and parents to the
(20:44):
moloch of insane gun owners like Lauren Bobert or Thomas
Massey or whoever, the ones who get some kind of
sexual gratification from owning and displaying and stroking and firing
weapons because it makes other people millions of dollars. That's
(21:04):
why we are owned by guns. And so we go
on calculating the averages and deciding if by age five
it is already too late to teach kids how to
play dead in their classrooms, And we go on listening
to fascist asshole madmen like Ron de Santis talk about
(21:27):
fortifying schools and fortifying movie theaters and fortifying churches, and
we go on listening to messianic buttonheads like Eric Adams
talk about giving more guns to more police, when police
often turn out either to be the murderers or the
cowards who idol in the hallways as the children of
Uvalde are executed one by one, And we go on
(21:50):
listening to the fatuous idiots, like the Missouri House where
the police said we need laws to stop fourteen year
olds from walking down the streets of Saint Louis carrying
AAR fifteens, and the House voted one hundred and four
to thirty nine to keep open carry legal in Missouri
for kids. And we go on listening to amoral monsters
(22:11):
like Donald Trump talk about arming teachers and bringing back
firing squads, and we listened to these paid scum Republicans
bribed by the gun manufacturers and the gun organizations, recite
what they have been paid to say about responsible gun owners,
when after half a million gun deaths in this country
in the last ten or twelve years, it is no
(22:32):
longer in doubt there are no longer any responsible gun owners.
On this nightmare so familiar, so routine, and so constant
that we no longer remember the details or the location,
or the motive or the sequence of them. And now
(22:54):
we are no longer even remembering that there was a
nightmare last night or the night before, and we're now
marbling them into other things in American life, as if
they were snowstorms or flight delays. And a hockey podcaster
begins by saying, well, it's tough to do this after
the Michigan State news, but let's talk about the Carolina hurricanes.
(23:15):
Needs at the deadline, and the New York Times can
run a sidebar that the shooting, well, it upended the
lives of thousands, but it also put the school back
in an uncomfortable spotlight, what with the sexual assault scandal.
There we go on in an unacceptable world in which
we are owned by guns. We go on to borrow
(23:41):
from Churchill, in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided,
resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity,
all powerful to be impotent. The dead of Michigan State,
(24:03):
the dead of Las Vegas, the dead at the Pulse,
the dead at Well. Why do we bother with individual
place names anymore? The dead of the killing field, the
dead of the transcendent national shooting range that is the
United States of America. They are dead. Because somebody is
(24:29):
making money off them, and because Ted Cruz is making
money off them, and Marjorie Taylor Green is making money
off them, and every Hoore politician is making money off them,
and rarely even bothering anymore to wash the money through
seepack or save America this or shoot America, that the
(24:54):
donations come straight and unhidden, and whether it's Trump or
DeSantis or Poor soon to be very very surprised, Nicki
Haley or just some other idiot it free from morality
or conscience, whom the moneyed interests select. It is fair
to say that the Republican nominee for president in twenty
twenty four, whoever that is, will be underwritten by the
(25:15):
gun manufacturers and the gun lobby and their masters, the
death lobby, who pay good money to bad people to
maintain not just our culture of guns and shooting and
dead children and thoughts and prayers, but also maintain the
world's culture of continuing to poison the atmosphere and kill
(25:36):
off the species one by one. Because the one billion,
nine hundred and sixty three million dollars in profit made
last year by big oil just isn't enough. Because they
stay up at night anguished by the thought that there
remains somewhere one dollar not yet stolen from a child
(25:58):
dying next to the earthquake rubble in Syria or Turkey,
one dollar yet to be pocketed by Darren Woods, the
CEO of Exxon Mobile Away God intended it. It is economics,
and thus the only solution can also be economics, because
(26:23):
we will not defeat them in the states that are
already lost to the control of the death lobby. And
even if President Biden said tomorrow we are not owned
by guns, and I don't give a damn. If I'm
reelected or even renominated, I'm going to issue four hundred
and fifty executive orders and take every damn gun I
can get off the streets. And if the House and
(26:45):
send it won't reinstate the assault weapons man, I will
do so unilaterally and come and get me in the courts.
Even if Biden did that, we the anti death people,
we would lose in the Supreme Court because Clarence Thomas
us the whore is on the Supreme Court because of
(27:08):
and bought and paid for by the death lobby, and
Samuel Alito the whore is and John Roberts the whore
Is and Neil Gorsich and drunken Brett Kavanaugh and Bible
paralegal amy Coney Barrett. And so we must ask ourselves,
what economically can we do to the gun lobby, to
(27:30):
the oil lobby, to the death lobby, and to their
minions in the Senate and the House, and all the
Senates and all the houses, in all the states in
America and in this country. There are only a couple
of measures that might possibly work, and might possibly work
fast enough so that enough of us won't be killed
(27:53):
in next year's three hundred gun massacres or the next
decade's three hundred climate crises. And that one thing is,
to spare you the kind words, the soft words. That
one thing is economic civil war. It can start simply,
buy nothing from Texas, do not go to Florida, do
(28:18):
not patronize Missouri. We can start there, and then we
can get serious. It is a simple mathematical fact that,
with some exceptions, and a little more nuanced than time
permits me here, it is a simple mathematical fact that
the blue states of this country keep the Red states
(28:39):
of this country from going bankrupt. It is a simple
mathematical fact that the Blue states pay in more to
the federal government than they ever get back in services
or infrastructure, or certainly in per capita representation. New York
pays a net twenty four billion a year, California pays
(28:59):
in a net fourteen billion, and most of that goes
to keeping Florida and Texas US from starving. Florida gets
thirty six billion a year, more than it pays in
Texas nearly that much. It is state to state socialism,
(29:20):
and we all know that we can't have socialism. And
it is a simple fact that the Blue states restrict
and regulate guns, and the Red states sell guns and
sell guns and sell guns and profit off dead children.
And when the political whores like Ted Cruz and Tucker
(29:44):
Carlson and Rupert Murdoch point to the gun carnage of Chicago,
they are actually pointing to the gun carnage of weapons
smuggled in from Indiana to Chicago. And it is also
a simple fact that we can dance around for decades
yet to come about how to the gun massacres of
(30:06):
February twenty forty seven and the chemical disasters of June
twenty sixty one, so bad they reminded old timers of
where was that East Palestine, Ohio? Or we can cut
to the chase and put it this way. If the
Red States do not agree to strict and enforced gun
regulation and the removal and the outlawing of gun manufacture,
(30:31):
and a revision of the Second Amendment so that the
vagueness that isn't actually there but the death lobby has
spent a century convincing millions is there, that all doubt
about the Second Amendment be erased and replaced by the
simple statement that private gun ownership is illegal without a
series of licenses and mental health tests, and that the
owner is liable for whatever is done with his gun,
(30:52):
and if that includes murder, then the owner is liable
for life imprisonment, whether he fired the gun or not.
If the Red States do not agree to that, and
by the way, to reapportioned representation in the House and
the Senate, Idaho does not have as many senators as
a real state and not a welfare state like Idaho.
(31:12):
And if they do not agree to the resignations of
Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito, Barrett, gorsych Kavanaugh, and Thomas.
If the Red States do not agree to that then
the Blue states will simply stop paying money into the
federal government, and the Blue states will simply spend that
money directly on their own citizens. And if the leaders
(31:35):
of our Blue states who will not comply with this,
then the only solution we have. Since the murders at
Michigan State Monday night and the murders at your town
name here next week are profit streams for many people,
the only solution we have is to then stop paying
our federal taxes until our state leaders recognize that the
(31:58):
only way out of this nightmare is to threaten the
Red states, and thus threatened the gun lobby, and thus
threatened the oil lobby, and thus threatened the death lobby
with economic strangulation, economic civil war, to save the country,
to save the next six hundred thousand Americans who will
(32:23):
die by gun violence almost certainly by the year twenty
thirty five, if it does not get worse before then
six hundred thousand, the same number who were killed in
the actual Civil War. And if you ask yourself, or
you are asked by what right we could threaten economic
(32:45):
civil war, just say this is constitutional under the Second Amendment.
Quote a well regulated militia being necessary to the security
of a free state. The right of the people to
keep and bare arms shall not be infringed. Our rights
to the security of a free state have been infringed
(33:08):
upon by the gun lobby and the death lobby, which
has convinced generations of gun fetishists that an amendment that
does not contain the word own nor any synonym for own,
does contain it. The Constitution is a property document. It
mentions rights only fifteen times. It mentions voting only thirty
seven times. This is out of nearly eight thousand words,
(33:30):
but it mentions money and ownership one hundred and three times.
The Second Amendment is about making sure nothing interferes with
a well regulated militia. Well regulated militia that is there
protecting our rights as citizens to have, as it says
in the Second Amendment, the security of a free state.
(33:53):
Our Second Amendment rights have been trampled on by Donald
Trump and the Republicans, the anti Second Amendment Republicans. We
need to start enforcing the Second Amendment. We need an
economic civil war against the gun lobby and the death
lobby and those corrupted and financially insolvent red states that
(34:14):
stand in the way of peace. And security in this
country because we are owned by guns. But god damn it,
we are not going to be owned by guns any longer.
(34:37):
I don't know about you, but I need a break
from the assault on my heart from all the corners
of this current cycle of news and with him in
the news about the news again. Lately, the repurposing of
part of his show has gotten CNN audiences in the
so called advertising demo of forty five thousand one night,
sixty three thousand one Night, and the Big one eighty
(35:00):
three thousand one Night. In other words, he's kind of
remaining competitive with the podcast, but it doesn't look so
good for him. The wall that Bill Maher has obviously
hit in terms of his insight is now being reflected
by his ratings. While speaking of hitting the wall and
Bill Maher, I have to confess twice in my life
(35:21):
I was ready to make Bill Maher hit a wall.
He and I nearly had a fist fight in college.
We each forgot all about it, and as I began
to remember it vaguely thirty years later, we almost had
another fist fight about the fist fight that we didn't remember.
From nineteen seventy eight, The saga of how I was
(35:44):
aware of Bill Maher. Next, sometime in nineteen eighty five
or nineteen eighty six, I saw a movie on cable
called DC Cab. There was a character in it. Clearly
the actor portraying him was talented and funny, but for
(36:06):
some reason I felt like I knew him from somewhere,
and I really didn't like him. I remember the feeling
was so strong that I stuck around to watch the
credits to find out who he was. His name was
Bill Mayher m ah er Well. I had a teacher
named Bill Mayer, but his name had a y in it.
He was my adviser in high school. Now I wasn't him,
(36:29):
but I knew three things. He was talented, I didn't
like him, and I knew him from somewhere. This is
pre Internet, of course, so no way to find out
where I knew him from. Hallowell's annual film Guide would
be my best bet. Maybe he'd be in the new
one coming out checked calendar just eight or nine months
from now. Eventually I found out Bill Maher was in
(36:52):
the year ahead of mine at Cornell University. He was
not at my radio station, he was not in my college.
Maybe I knew him from a class somewhere. I could
never nail it down. I like to say I have
a photographic memory, but it's all polaroids, and I haven't
always bothered to label them. Almost everything that ever happened
is stuck inside this big empty head of mine. But
(37:13):
often key details like who, what, when, and where are
just missing. Never wrote him down, and honestly, in this case,
it was not worth the effort. I knew I was
the right word, the word. Was aware of him when
we were both in college. Occasionally, especially after I went
from ESPN to MSNBC in nineteen ninety seven, a writer
(37:36):
would note the coincidence of university and years and ask
me about it, and I would say just that I
don't remember if he was in a class with me,
or I knew him somehow, but I was aware of
Bill Maher. And then twenty two years ago, this month,
no remember, twenty third, two thousand, I went on his
old show, Politically Incorrect, used to be the late night
(37:57):
show on ABC. This was when I was doing sports
for Fox in LA and it was an all sports episode.
Lennox Lewis, the boxer, Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas, Mavericks,
Todd Zeal the first basement of the New York Mets,
and Me from Fox Sports. When I met Bill mar
before the show, I asked him about Cornell and whether
or not we ran into each other. I didn't know
(38:17):
anybody there. I didn't see anybody. I didn't goo comedy anywhere.
I didn't talk to anybody. I didn't meet you. Okay,
excuse me. That settles it. Except during the recording of
the show, when Mark contradicted me on some point, I
got angry at him, and there was no reason to
get angry at him, so I dismissed the anger, and
I dismissed the moment. Except on the way home, I
(38:40):
kept thinking, I know him from school somehow, no matter
what he says, and I know I didn't like him
in school. In the next decade, Bill switched to his
weekly HBO political show, and I went back and turned
MSNBC into a political network. And the Internet happened so
(39:00):
that Cornell juxtaposition became easier for reporters to stumble over.
So I would tell them the same thing. I can't
remember the details, but for twenty nine years now I
have been convinced I was aware of Bill Maher at Cornell.
Finally came the day March twentieth, two thousand and nine,
when they asked me to go on Real Time and
(39:21):
Bill Maher Cornell University seventy eight asked me Cornell University
seventy nine, something about colleges, and I said, well, as
you know, we overlapped at Cornell, and I don't know
if we met, but I was aware of you there,
and he interrupted and said, no, you weren't, and I
just went back and answered his question. Now, after every
episode of his program, Mar has or at least hand
(39:44):
a little party back stage, I mean catered with booze
and with more guests than there are people in the
studio audience, and usually a bunch of models having done
that show four times, where they will fly you in
first class and put you up for the weekend in
LA just to do their show, and there's a party.
I began to suspect that, like many of the guests,
(40:06):
Bill Maher does the show just so he can have
the party. Anyway, not long after it started, it overcomes
Mar and he's mad at me. And mind you, even
if his allegation that he is five feet eight is correct.
I'm just under six four, So he's giving up a
lot of height during an argument, and he starts yapping
about how I should stop saying I was away here
(40:27):
of him at Cornell, and I'm just trying to get
publicity off something that never happened. And who could remember
that kind of crap anyway? And he never talked to
anybody in four years in college because quote except for
the ethical high school students, I sold drugs too, unquote.
And I notice he's getting heated, and this is just
triggering that core belief of mine that I was aware
(40:50):
of him in college and I didn't like him, and
now it becomes clear to me he didn't like me either.
He's getting loud enough and he's swinging his arms around
now and it looks funny, but apparently it happens in
the office sometimes. And this is when Scott Carter, who
was the executive producer whom I definitely did know since
(41:12):
like nineteen ninety two when he worked at Comedy Central
with my friend Alan Haby, Scott Carter comes over to
defuse the situation. Scott was a three piece suit kind
of guy with the thumbs tucking the vest who would
call a group of men fellows, as in say fellows.
So Scott comes over and says, say fellows with your
(41:34):
at Cornell alumni reunion here, And of course this makes
Bill Maher even angrier. Let me ask you something. I
used to drive down from Hobart to see concerts at
Cornell to say, I think Cornell was the leading concert
school in the nation back an hour day. And now
Scott starts the list who he saw in concert at Cornell,
Robert Palmer and the famous Grateful Dead concert at Cornell
(41:57):
at Barton Hall. He was there, And I say, I
went to Springsteen, and mar mumbles something about Loggins and Messina,
and I know what Carter he's doing here, he's diffusing,
And we do a couple of rounds of who saw
which Cornell concert? And finally I say, I can top
both of you comic geniuses. I saw Robert Kleine in
concert at Cornell. Now it is criminal, but there's an
(42:21):
excellent chance you may not know who Robert Klein is,
suffice to say, as prominent a comedian in the sixties,
seventies eighties as George Carlin or Richard pryor. HBO itself
was built on annual George Carlin concerts and annual Robert
Klein concerts and everybody else. And Robert Klein wasn't quite
(42:43):
as deep or eternal as George Carlin, but he was
really on the money during Watergate and during Reagan. So
I say, I saw Robert Kleine in concert at Cornell,
and Mark looks at me funny and not angrily, and
says quietly, I was at that too. I saw Robert
Klein too, and I don't really register that Mar's mood
(43:06):
has now utterly changed. He's not angry, he's confused. Well,
I say, I can still top you, because after that
concert I interviewed Robert Klein. Now Bill Maher starts to squint,
and he looks at me, and he looks at Scott Carter,
and he looks back at me, and he says, wait,
I interviewed Kleine after that concert too. And I'm smiling
(43:32):
through all this, and smiling and smiling and smiling, And
then suddenly, simultaneously it hits Bill Maher and me at
the same moment, in the same fullness of detail, and
I stopped smiling, and I shout at Bill Maher, you
and he pulls his arms in towards his stomach and
kind of bends forward at the waist and covers his
face with his hands, and he says, oh God, I'm
(43:52):
so sorry, Jesus, it can't be. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
And while the anger wells up inside me so powerfully,
I can almost see it in my own eyeballs. Bill
Maher's concert going pretty. Scott Carter is really confused. Say, fellows,
did I miss something or did I have a brief
stroke or episode? And I say, Bill, and I just
(44:16):
remembered how I happened to be aware of him in school,
And Mars still has got his hands over his face,
and people are looking at us, and Bill is shouting apologies,
and I say, you want to tell him? Or should I?
And Mar just shakes his body no and mumbles, no, God, dude,
I can't, I can't, I can't. And it all came
(44:38):
back to me. For years I would tell people the
story of the Robert Klein concert at Cornell University in
nineteen seventy eight. Our radio station co sponsored his appearance
along with the Cornell Concert Commission, and in the contract
we specified that a couple of us real comedy nerds
at the radio station would get to go backstage afterwards
(45:00):
and tape a brief ten or fifteen minute interview with
Robert Klein. Basic we paid We paid him not much,
but we paid him to do an interview. And when
my pal Andy Grossman and I get backstage to talk
to Robert Klein, and we have our two microphones and
two mic stands and three tape recorders, there is this guy,
this short guy, and he's yelling at the chief of
(45:23):
the Cornell Concert Commission, and he's yelling at Robert Klein's manager,
and he's demanding that he should get to interview Robert
Kline because like Klin. This kid says he is a
stand up comedian and he publishes the Cornell Humor magazine.
And he points at me and he says he should
get priority over these quote corporate sellouts from the Cornell
radio station. I hated him on site. Oh wait, I
(45:50):
say to him in nineteen seventy eight. And he's small
and he's got dirty, stringy hair, and he's loud, and
I say, you are the publisher of the Cornell Humor magazine,
the Cornell Widow And he snorts and says I would
get caught dead publishing, that corporate sellout Cornell Widow and
so I say, oh, so, then that means you're the
publisher of the Cornell alternative humor magazine, the Not So
(46:13):
Big Red or whatever it is they call it. He says,
no way, they're corporate sellouts. I publish this, and he
pulls out a stack of mimeograph pages stapled together and
there's like a drawing on the front of a naked
girl and handwritten it says it's his comedy magazine. And
I look at Robert Klein's manager and I say, so,
(46:37):
it's ten o'clock and if you leave now while this
idiot is screwing this up, the limo can still get
mister Klein to Elan's in the city before it closes, right,
And the manager is wildly impressed, you know of Elanes?
And I said yes, and I felt like an adult.
And I also said, if we give this guy five
minutes of our time right now while we're setting up
(46:58):
our tape recorders, can we still have ten minutes with
mister Klein. And the manager says, good plan. I like
the way you think, and he points to the kid
and gestures for him to come along. No, the kid shouts,
I want half an hour. These corporate sellouts deserve nothing.
And now I'm getting angry. I say, buddy, so far
all the corporations in the world have paid me about
(47:22):
a hundred bucks. So I threatened him. Now, mind you,
I believe this is literally true. Since nineteen sixty seven,
when I was eight years old, I have started two
fist fights, two in fifty five years. I am a
man of peace. I am loud, but I am a
man of peace. But I say to this guy, you
(47:44):
now have two choices. Kid, five minutes with Robert Klein
or I hit you in the face. And he runs
to where Klein's manager is still gesturing towards him, and
he screams corporate sell out, and he disappears to do
his interview, and behind him he leaves his little homemade
nimiograph ten or twelve page humor publication. And I pick
(48:06):
it up, and I read it and register it and
dismiss it before I leave the building. And if I
had only remembered what it said on the cover, all
the years of mystery and I was aware of him,
and all that would never have happened, because the cover
of the magazine read Bill Mars Comedy Magazine by Bill Maher,
(48:28):
and now back in well, technically this is correct, back
in real time at the party in the Hollywood studio
in two thousand and nine, the producer Scott Carter says nothing,
and Bill Maher is still doubled over in shame, and
I say, are you satisfied that I was aware of you?
And he mumbles yes. And I say, will you ever
(48:51):
question my memory again? And he mumbles no. And he
says if I need him to do my show or
a charity benefit or something, just call. And he says
he's ashamed, and he offers me his hand to shake,
and we shave can Finally, I say, and by the way,
Bill Maher, if Bill Maher's Comedy Magazine by Bill Maher,
are you a corporate sellout? And he says kind And
(49:15):
that's how I was aware of Bill Maher in college.
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
(49:35):
you for listening. Here are the credits. Most of the
music was arranged, produced, and performed by Brian Ray and
John Philip Channel, who are the Countdown musical directors. All
orchestration and keyboards by John Philip Channel. Guitars, bass, and
drums by Brian Ray, produced by t Ko Brothers. Other
Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by the group
No Horns Allowed. The sports music when we have it,
(49:56):
of course, is the Olderman theme from ESPN two. It
was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
Musical interludes courtesy of Nancy Fauss, the best baseball stadium
organist ever. Na. Everything else pretty much my fault. So
let's countdown for this the eight hundred and twenty sixth
day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically
(50:18):
elected government of the United States. Don't forget. Keep arresting
him while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is
tomorrow until ben on Keith Alderman. Good Morning, good afternoon, goodnight,
and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production
(50:43):
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.