June 16, 2025 • 59 mins
SEASON 3 EPISODE 138: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: The Minnesota Assassinations and Trump's Toy Tank Parade proved it again this weekend: Without violence, he is nothing.
No tanks? No guns? No bombs (to fulfill his FOMO over not getting to bomb Iran)? No threat if you protest you'll be harmed? Beaten, even if you're a Senator? No parades? No Pro-Life Murderers?
Without them, Trump is nothing.
Unfortunately - as the weekend showed - they are all still here.
ON THE OTHER HAND: There is some small respite this morning. They got the 2011 Georgia Crops report and printed it out and pasted in some pictures of Trump or something and made it brief and showed it to him and all of a sudden he TACO’d on the ICE Gestapo round-ups of immigrants. At least the ones in agriculture, hotels, and restaurants because, you know… mass starvation. Well, mass starvation LATER. First, mass lower corporate profits IN agriculture, hotels, and restaurants. As I've cited endlessly since the report came out, in 2011 Georgia warned it would detain all undocumented migrant farm workers. Suddenly all the onions, watermelons, blueberries were rotting in the fields and Georgia farms were going bankrupt because they were 40% short of workers and the Georgia citizens recruited to replace them were no good at the jobs or quit because it was too tough and by the middle of summer Georgia had lost $75,000,000 in agricultural income.
So that, times fifty.
BUT PHILOSOPHICALLY: Even when the manifestos were found inside the car of the Minnesota Pro-Life Assassin, Senator Mike Lee went on Musk's Disinformation Platform to brand him a "marxist." Or all the fictionalized accounts of the assault on Senator Alex Padilla. Because the key to being infected with MAGA disease is to reach the conclusion that best suits you, then make up the facts to fit the outcome. We will defeat Trump. I don't know how we will defeat this.
B-Block (36:11) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: There's always a tweet and for this moment in Iran, it's from Tulsi 2020 Gabbard. Then there are two tales of achieving peak idiocy about the assault on Senator Padilla from opposite directions: Stephen A. Smith, who started with no political experience or insight and has somehow gone backwards, and CNN political director David Chalian, who started as a political director and has ALSO somehow gone backwards.
C-Block (49:00) MONDAYS WITH THURBER: Haven't read one in awhile. One of his most pleasing to hear rather than just read: The Car We Had To Push.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. This
(00:26):
weekend was the reminder that without weapons, Donald Trump is nothing.
No gun, Trump, who claimed to carry a gun, is nothing.
No tanks. Trump is nothing, No bombs, no bombs to
drop on Iran to assuage his sudden and obvious fomo
(00:49):
of somebody blowing people up and it's not him doing it.
Without that, Trump is nothing, no threat that if you
do not obey him, no matter how immoral it is,
or illogical or illegal his orders are, you will be
injured or wounded, or kill or at least metaphorically. So.
Without that, Trump is nothing. No parades, no mindlessly cheering
(01:12):
military grunts, no sadists cheering for blood. Without them, Trump
is nothing. Hell, there was a parade and it drew
less than a minor league hockey game. This was no
Kings versus no crowds. There was a parade, and Trump
(01:36):
still was nothing. But most importantly, most tragically, most ominously
for us and for our future, no religious fanatic, no
tertiary maga disease infected fascist humanoids driving into a No
King's protest in Salt Lake City, ending with one dead.
(01:59):
None of them, dressed as cops to assassinate elected Minnesota
Democrats in the homes with eleven more on his Wisconsin list,
doing so on Trump's behalf because they think that will
serve him, or aid him, or just please him. A
pro life murderer, Without pro life murderers, Trump is nothing.
(02:29):
The problem, of course, is there are weapons. There are guns,
there are tanks, there are bombs, there are threats, there
are pro life murderers. It is so ingrained in our
system that it almost sounds stupid to say it aloud
and question it. For more than two centuries, our government
had operated, at least in part, at least for long
(02:50):
stretches on some sense of shared effort, of good faith,
of right makes might. That is as dead now as
it was during the Civil War, as bad as anywhere else.
The fundamental baseline by which the governing related to the
(03:12):
governed is now entirely in effect. Here, you do what
we say, or we hurt you. That's what this weekend
was about. That's what happens when you spend a decade
introducing into the national consciousness the idea that violence will
be supported by one political party, or at least one
(03:35):
political party will have a blind eye turned towards violence.
That's what happens when you spend five decades telling half
the people in this country that all the laws and
all the rules and all the precedents are unfair to
them and prejudiced against them and will ultimately destroy them,
and that they, the vast majority, with all of the
(03:58):
wealth and the power, are actually near death's door because
that two percent could come and get them. That's what
happens when one Friday you send in troops and marines
because your terrorists attacks on southern California aren't leading to
enough Brown people being disappeared and renditioned or just left
(04:20):
where they are in mortal dread of it happening to them.
And then the next Thursday you tackle the brown senator
from that state because your administration cannot actually handle a
question and your play actors pretending to fill positions like
Secretary of Homeland Security have no idea what to do
other than to shoot or threaten or promise to overthrow
(04:42):
the elected mayor or governor, or wear a funny hat
or have a senator from the opposite party thrown to
the floor. And if your idiot Secretary of Homeland Security
doesn't know what Habeas Corpus is. Of course she can
claim nobody knew who the senator was, and she can
dismiss his existence by simply calling him that man. And
(05:04):
that's what what happens when two days later, a maga
religious nut tries to kill all the liberals. He can
to thwart or shut down the no Kings protests because
he wants kings, and he can always overrule reality, he
can always overrule the law, he can always overrule what
he is right because he has a gun. And then
(05:26):
an idiot senator from Utah who thinks his combover works
can call the murderer a Marxist based on nothing and
get applauded by a strung out, money crazed foreigner who
happens to own the social media site on which the
crazy senator from Utah has made his completely slanderous and
(05:49):
incorrect claim. And then, of course, after it ends, even
when it ends in humiliation for Trump, whose parade drew
fewer people than the Fourth of July parade used to
draw in Hastings on Hudson, New York when I was
a kid, after it ends, you look at the tear
in Los Angeles and the blood in Minnesota, and the
inescapable dread of more to come in every corner of
(06:10):
this nation. And you say violence has no place in
our democratic system, as if that has ever been true,
As if nearly a quarter of our presidents haven't been
shot and killed or just shot or just nearly shot,
As if Representative Melissa Hortman and Senator John Hoffman and
their spouses hadn't been shot two days ago in Minnesota,
(06:32):
As if Trump himself shot at least shot at not
a year ago, did not even express sympathy for them,
just to promise for vengeance against the shooter, As if
the only legitimacy to the still growing Trump dictatorship wasn't
the still growing threat behind every move it makes that
(06:56):
if you do not obey, they will go and get
one of the weapons without which Donald Trump is nothing.
(07:37):
There is some small respite this morning, and it has
nothing to do with weapons. They got the twenty eleven
Georgia crops report apparently and printed it out or something
similar to it, and paste it in some pictures of
Trump or something, and they made it brief, and they
showed it to him, and maybe they used flash cards
(07:59):
or finger puppets, and all of a sudden he tacoed
on the ice. Gestapo roundups of immigrants, at least the
immigrants in agriculture and hotels and restaurants, because you know,
mass starvation, while mass starvation later first, mass lower corporate
(08:21):
profits in agriculture, hotels, and restaurants. The Secretary of Agriculture,
who is not Julius sugar Baker from Designing Women. She
just looks like her stunt double rights that, oh no,
there's been no change in policy about deporting people. She
and Trump quote have consistently advanced a farmer's first approach,
(08:42):
recognizing that American households depend upon a stable and legal
agricultural workforce. Severe disruptions to our food supply would harm Americans.
It took us decades to get into this mess, and
we are prioritizing deportations in a way that will get
us out. All of you people were going to rendition.
(09:03):
Please harvest those fields first and then get into the
back of the truck. In other words, the Secretary of Agriculture,
she saw the twenty eleven Georgia crops report and somebody
extrapolated it for her. I don't know how many times
I have cited the twenty eleven Georgia Crops Report. I
(09:25):
think the first time I saw it was August twenty eleven.
That state at that point, you're not even over with
announced eight had announced the year before a strict crackdown
on undocumented farm workers, back when this was a reasonable
thing to try or examine, and everybody said, you may
(09:48):
regret this, and they went, no, we don't think so.
We're smart. We're Republicans in Georgia. And shockingly enough, after
they announced that there would be raids and that they
would deport and arrest all of the migrant farm workers,
particularly the ones who did not have citizenship or other papers.
(10:11):
Almost none of the nation's itinerant farm workers went to
Georgia in twenty eleven. Who the hell could have seen
that coming. If you go here, we'll arrest you. Nobody
went so. In the middle of the summer, the state
Commissioner of Agriculture explained that all the Georgia onions and
the Georgia watermelons, and the Georgia blueberries and the other
(10:33):
Georgia produce was rotting in the Georgia fields, and the
farms were going bankrupt, and all the bribes to get
all the Georgia residents to go and harvest the crops
were not working because Georgia residents were too slow, or
they quit within minutes because the work was too hard. Georgia,
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said the head of agriculture there, a Republican, was at
least eleven thousand, far more short. They were forty percent
of what they needed. They were asking for volunteers. They
were bringing in convicts and promising to let them go
sooner if they picked the walnuts. The state's agricultural industry
(11:17):
had already lost seventy five million dollars by the middle
of twenty eleven just in the spring and summer harvests,
so that times fifty states and now all of a sudden,
we are not prioritizing those in agriculture, those in hotels,
(11:42):
those in restaurants, those without whom the rest of us
will starve. And the message was you can keep doing this,
Stephen Miller, but you personally will have to harvest all
the rude begas west of Denver. This does not mean
they are suddenly going to pivot back towards humanity. In
(12:04):
southern California or in the case of kilmar Abrego, Garcia
or anything else that's already in progress. In point of fact,
if anything, it looks like they are moving towards something
that might be supporting of perjury in the Abrego Garcia case,
something like it. At least Adam Klassfeld reporting that one
of the new witnesses in the attempt to turn the
didn't even give him a ticket traffic stop of twenty
(12:26):
twenty two into life on Devil's Island or something. One
of the new witnesses is suddenly getting leniency on his
thirty year prison term. He has been moved to a
halfway house, and shock of shocks, ICE is suddenly reassessing
its immigration case against him. The judge in the newest
(12:52):
case against our Dreyfus Abrego Garcia is also reportedly hesitating
to grant Abrego Garcia bail, not because he doesn't deserve it,
but because of ICE's continuing rage and they are acting
like just to pick something out of a hat. Ketamine
addicts who just ran out. She's worried about ICE's continuing
(13:15):
rage and its continuing threats to redisappear this man. The
moment he has let out of detention, the judge could
issue a bail ruling as early as today. Here is
what Trump should have done. He should have offered a
Brego Garcia a pardon if he said nice things about
Christy nomes, bangs and dress up outfits, or if a
(13:39):
Brego Garcia had been willing to stand on a street
corner in Washington on Saturday night and watch Trump play
with his tanks and his toy soldiers. At one point,
presumably before they burned the tape, destroyed any digital machines
that recorded it, fired everybody who was involved in it.
(13:59):
At one point, Newsmax reported that there were ten thousand
people there. The estimates on the No Kings protests nationwide
organizers claim five million. Elliot Morris of Strength in numbers
formerly five thirty eight has taken reported individual cities and extrapolated,
and he had raised his calculation to a total all
(14:23):
of the protests combined, all of the marches somewhere between
four million, two hundred thousand and seven million people, about
two percent of the population back at the event that
had what would have been a disappointing turnout at the
nineteen sixty four July Fourth Parade down Farragut Parkway in Hastings,
(14:45):
on Hudson, New York. Even Stephen Chung's laugh out loud
lie was only two hundred and fifty thousand, which is
by itself pathetic. When the Washington Capitals held their parade
after winning hockey Stanley Cup in twenty eighteen, the DC
Subway reported that ridership was above average for that day
(15:08):
by two hundred and twenty eight thousand. So there is
no doubt that a hockey parade featuring exactly one large
not too dangerous bowl unless you drop it on your
foot drew fifty percent, fifty percent more, seventy five percent more,
(15:29):
ten times what Trump's dog and Pony show did. And
by the way, a dog and pony show would have
been way better by any measure. That was a terrible parade,
just terrible. When he fires Pete, Hegseth, and we all
wonder was it signal Gate? Was it the drinking? Was
it general's quitting? Was it Hegseith forgetting to wear pants
(15:50):
to a cabinet meeting? No, the answer will be he
was fired because Trump blamed him for the parade. No
troops marching in step, crowds so quiet you could hear
the tracks on the World War two tanks creaking and
making a noise so nails on a blackboard noisy that
(16:12):
it kept waking Trump up. Since it happened last Thursday,
I have been thinking almost continuously about the event involving
Senator Alex Padilla of California at the Christinoum Propaganda Conference
(16:33):
in southern California. I think it means much more than
we are even recognizing now. It is obviously a watershed
moment in the history of the aggressiveness, the aggression, the
violence inherent in the MAGA disease and its system, but
it may be even bigger than that. In the last
(16:55):
few days, it has dawned on me that in the
interpretation of what happened in that room and in that
hallway is the last four twenty to fifty years of
the brainwashing of the American right and the stupider people
in this country, and the underinformed people in this country,
and the racist people in this country. And it all
(17:18):
comes together. And this is not the first example, but
this may be the best example, and it is the
most current example of why the far right MAGA, the Trumpists,
the Tea Party before them, the Republicans before them, why
they are so quick to be able to pass judgment
(17:38):
on a situation like this and never let it bother
their consciences, nor never let facts interrupt their conclusions. There
have been all sorts of studies that suggest that there
is actually a difference in the modeling of the brain
of the conservative versus the liberal of all people. The
actor Colin Firth once spent money with the BBC to
(18:01):
conduct actual psychological and I believe some physiological studies on
whether or not there was processing issues that involved. Some
people saw this thing this way as a conservative, and
some people saw the same thing that way as a liberal.
John Dene's book Conservatives Without Conscience quotes survey and after survey,
(18:24):
and study after study, and autopsy after autopsy on the
idea that the brain of the conservative, the authoritarian is
actually different than that of the more liberal, the more egalitarian,
the more community based individual. But I'm not talking about that.
I'm talking about learned, perhaps experience learned from forty to
(18:47):
fifty years of listening to shit like Rush Limbaugh. And
here is what this amounts to. If you look at
the entirety of the event, and you have the entirety
of the background that Senator Padilla provided in the hours
after the event involving Secretary Nome, Secretary Garden Nome, the
(19:10):
dog murderer, nonme, the I would not vouch that she
could pass a sanity or a drug test. Gnome. And
you analyzed the whole timeline, it's pretty clear what happened.
And there is one flaw in the Padia story, and
we would recognize it as liberals and let me go
through it quickly to make my point in terms of
(19:33):
how the other groups of people in this country don't
torture themselves over these details. We know he was in
that building to get a briefing from Homeland Security because
he had not been able to get anybody from Homeland
Security on the phone or by email in the preceding
week since Trump started his terrorist attacks on southern California,
(19:57):
since Trump started a civil war or attempted to in
which he would use the military against civilians on this
s streets of Los Angeles, he had not Padia, that is,
been able to get in touch with anybody. He'd tried
to get Secretary nom and he happened to be in
a building where he was going to get a briefing
from a military commander about what the hell they were
doing there, and hopefully what the hell they were not
(20:20):
going to be doing there. Somehow, either he knew in
advance or he found out as he was there that
NOME was conducting this as I called it, propaganda conference
in a room in that building that they would be passing.
Now Padilla does not wander in off the street for this.
He is being escorted by I believe military people, by
(20:43):
the official greeters in this situation, whoever they are. And
he says, we have some time before this meeting. Can
I pop in and listen to what Noame says. I
can't get any other answers from her. Maybe she's going
to address my questions. He goes in, and course, if
you heard any of the NOME press conference, she's out
of her mind. She is either in full Trump servicing
(21:08):
in terms of selling each one of these hallucinatory talking
of points about saving Los Angeles from the people elected
to run it who are running it into the ground,
essentially offering a coup by the Department of Homeland Security
against the Governor of California, the Mayor of Los Angeles,
and anybody who gets in their way, and at some
(21:28):
point Padilla says, I have a question. Now. He knows
that the people who have just escorted him into that
room know that he is Senator Alex Padia. But he's
not wearing a big shirt that says I'm a senator.
He's not wearing a giant gold chain that says senator guy.
(21:48):
He's not wearing some sort of big id And he
has not spent ninety percent of his time on Fox News.
He's not Pam Bondi, who for a long time I
thought was actually hosting the nine o'clock hour on Fox
News rather than simply appearing on it every night. He's
(22:09):
not wearing something that instantly identifies him to the people who,
in this equation actually matter as much as Christinome, Corey Lewandowski,
her advisor, advisor, whoever else was there on behalf of
the Gestapo. They are not as important as the people
who are right there, standing next to Alex Padilla as
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he comes into that room. Who are the militarized members
of the FBI who have been pre chosen to be
on board with the political message. They are political policemen.
In effect, they are not just law enforcements. They are
maga enforcement. They are what we have feared. And at
this point in June of a presidency, of a new presidency,
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they are already in place. They don't know who the
hell that is. That's the one flaw in this equation.
Everything that happens after they decid that this man must
be thrown to the floor is the fault of the FBI.
There should be mass firings, suspensions, prosecutions. Padia should sue.
(23:17):
There should be people who spend the rest of their
lives answering for this in court. The men who took
him out of that room, who dragged him, the men
who threw him to the ground, the men who said
that the FBI has the rights here and you cannot
film this, All of them in jail. If we could
get them there, it probably won't happen. Bankrupt them, wait
to make Trump pardon them. But there is one flaw
(23:41):
in that equation. Padia assumed people knew he was Padia.
That's the only part of this that is even remotely
his fault. And I would say, on the scale of
apportioning responsibility for the entire event, on a scale of
one to one hundred and ninety eight, is Christy Nome
(24:02):
not responding to calls the entirety of the Trump administration
attacking southern California. The obviously the security goons and the
Gestapo members and the FBI MAGA, and it's just one
group now, it's b IIMGA. Ninety eight percent is them
and maybe two percent, maybe one and a half percent
(24:24):
is Padilla, simply because he assumed, having identify himself to
the people with him, that when push came to shove,
literally one of them would say no, that Senator Alex Padilla,
leave him alone, and they didn't, leading to a, if
you want, conspiracy theory that they set him up for
this in some occasional though it doesn't seem to me
like something this intricate could be worked out by these
(24:46):
MAGA idiots. It might have been a conspiracy of opportunity
where they realized he was getting heated and there might
be a good photo op for the right wing here
in which, oh, guess what, the Hispanic senator from California
is thrown to the floor while defending his fellow foreigners.
(25:07):
In any event, we can now then analyze what happens
in the hallways and the conflicting instructions from these goons
and his Padia's attempt to respond to them, and then
as Padia added the idea that suddenly Corey Lewandowski appears
and goes let him go, let him go right now,
Of all people, Corey Lewandowski, possibly because he has seen
(25:30):
the consequences of what happens when you man handle somebody
in a hallway and how that can follow you for
a few years, at least he had the presence of
mind to say, we don't need this, or he may
have said we've already got all we needed on video.
So my point in going to such length to go
into ten minutes worth of just detail on a line
(25:51):
by line basis of what happened and where Alex Padilla
might not have done exactly what he would have done
had he planned this out, had this been perhaps a stunt,
like many politicians do often to great effect of stunts
that have been for the benefit of mankind. If you
would like to stretch the definition just slightly, the emancipation
(26:13):
proclamation was a stunt. The timing of it certainly was
a stunt. In any event, this is the liberal interpretation
of what Padilla did, and you can see the knots
I can turn myself into while stating that Alex Padilla
is ninety eight and a half percent right, I am
(26:33):
still sitting there looking at that other one and a
half percent saying, well, see here's here's the window that
you left open for them. And now I'll give you
the mag of viewpoint on this. What happened? What happened?
Senator goes in, yells at our secretary, beautiful Christynome, and
then gets thrown to the floor. It was a terrorist attack.
(26:55):
He tried to kill her? Or more simply, what happened?
What happened? A senator went in and attacked our beautiful
Christy Noome. Okay, whose fault is it? Is it Biden's fault?
Is it? Is it George Soros's fault? Let's decide quickly
and then we'll work backwards. It's obviously his fault. He
(27:15):
obviously tried to attack her. He may have tried to
kill her. Now let's fill in the facts. What's on
the tape? Oh, okay, we're going to ignore that fact.
We don't have to sow what he says. He's Alex Padia.
Who the hell knows who Alex Padia is? How many
alex Padias are there in southern California. They have defeated
the scientific method. What is it five hundred, six hundred
(27:39):
years since Francis Bacon said no, the way to solve
most problems is to figure out what the f just
happened and then try to figure out why. No, they
have erase that go to the conclusion, what do you
want the reply to this to be? What do you
want the public perception of an event like that to be?
Senator attacks Christy Nome, Senator barges in, senator confronts Christine No,
(28:04):
senator violates law, Senator terror. Whatever answer you want, you
reach it first and then work backwards. And there is
no one and a half percent acknowledgment that perhaps perhaps
there was an overreaction on the part of the Gestapo.
Perhaps there would be a reaction that you're the senator
(28:31):
from California and you were one of the people who
voted on Christy Nomes's nomination. And even if she doesn't
remember that many she is stupid. One hundred senators. That's
a lot of senators to ask her to remember, but
she should have remembered the fact that there are two
California senators and she's in California try to overthrow the
(28:53):
government of California. She's a terrorist in California trying to
overthrow the government, holding a news conference, a propaganda conference
at which she is explaining she's going to overthrow the
goverm of California. She could have had two pictures printed
out for her of who the two senators from California are,
(29:15):
so if you see one of them, you can confront
him or whatever, or you can stop, you can step
in and show how you actually are a good secretary
of Homeland Security. She didn't know. There's nobody on the
right of the equation. There is no one left. There
is no brain cell functioning. There is no part of
(29:37):
the hive mind of the fascists and the Nazis and
the Magas and the other scumbags who would say, wait,
we have to acknowledge that Christy f this up a
little bit one and a half percent. They won't do it.
You and I would say at Alex Padi would probably say,
I wish I had been wearing my giant senatorial lanyard
(29:58):
or my giant sweatshirt with my picture on it that
says Senator the picture Padilla on it. I wish I
had been doing that. I wish I had been there
with I don't know Bono, who could have said that's
Senator Padilla, or I don't know Lee Atwood, who the singer.
(30:28):
But this is where we are, and that's what's been
bothering me about the event since it happened on Thursday.
You and I would look at it and analyze where
there might be a flaw, And on the other side
of the equation, there are no flaws. There is no
detail to analyze. There is simply a decision made. What
are we going to tell everybody happened here? And then
(30:51):
we will fill in and make up the facts as necessary,
and fixing that will take a lot longer and will
be a lot more painful and may do a lot
more towards tearing this country apart than the problem of
what they are trying to do. The terrorist attack on
(31:14):
southern California that the Trump administration is still intending to
conduct before they move on to the terrorist attack on
Illinois and the terrorist attack on New York, those problems
will be transcendent because I think ultimately Americans will defeat Trump.
(31:34):
But what do we do about a world in which
half the people in this country already know the answer
and are now just filling in the facts and making
up the facts to fit that answer. Also of interest here,
it is amazing you can know everything about politics and
(31:55):
when it counts, you can still make a fool out
of yourself. Or you can know nothing about politics and
when it counts, you can still make a fool out
of your On the same topic, the sagas of CNN's
political director David Shalian and the increasingly laugh out loud
(32:15):
funny stephen A. Smith. That's next. This is Countdown. This
is Countdown with Keith old Woman still ahead on this
(32:48):
editiontive Countdown. You know we haven't done in weeks and
weeks and weeks. Fridays with Thurber. I know it's not Friday.
How much did they charge you to listen to this podcast?
If we want to make it Friday for ten, but
it's going to be Friday, you want to refund, refund
(33:11):
some Thurber and his great story about I'm just gonna
surprise you now that you put up a fight over
it first, believe it or not, There's still more new
idiots to talk about. The roundup of the new miscreants,
morons and dunn in gruger effects specimens. Who constitutes the
latest other worst persons in the world, the bronze worse.
(33:35):
There's always a tweet. I'll just read the tweet and
then I'll tell you who it's from. The hint is
it's not Trump. It's connected to Trump. Ready. We do
not seek regime change, Trump declares as he escalates his
regime change war against Iran. Neocons like Graham Bolton are
(33:59):
cheering to all who voted for Trump because of his
anti war rhetoric. It's time to reel he lied to you.
Stand with me against Trump's Iran war hashtag Trump's War.
Three forty one PM January three, twenty twenty, written by
(34:22):
Tulsey Gabber, the director of National Hypocrisy No Information Information
about hypocrisy. What an absolute bubblehead runner up, Speaking of
which worser Stephen A. Smith. I thought, because he'd been
(34:46):
quiet lately, that he'd got in a hint that covering
a burgeoning dictatorship is not just doing whatever your pal
Sean Hannity says is a good idea. It's not the
same as trying to turn a rumor you made up
about an NBA free agent changing teams maybe in three
years into eleven hours of programming today and then going
(35:10):
wall to wall with it tomorrow. It's not like that, Steve.
This is Stephen A. Smith on the beating up of
Senator Alex Padilla. Here you have this Senator Alex Padilla.
Can Christy Nomes speak? Could you have waited till she
finished to ask your questions? To shout your questions? You
(35:31):
are a senator, right, you couldn't wait? So that was
just you out of control because you were just losing it. Huh,
You a United States senator, couldn't compose yourself and let
the head of Homeland Security finish her thoughts before you
ask the question. Couldn't do that? Huh? Couldn't do it?
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Huh.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
First clue, Steven does not know what senators are. Second,
Stephen does not know that Christy Nome is one of
the batties. Third, Stephen does not really that Christy Nome
has been avoiding the questions of that senator and other
senators since she lied to all the senators in her
(36:12):
confirmation hearing. But the best part here is Stephen A.
Smith does not know what a Stephen A. Smith is.
Let me reread this a little bit more appropriately, this
is a revision of what Steven A. Smith said about
Alex Padia. Here you have this, Stephen A Smith. Can
(36:34):
somebody else speak? Could you have waited till they finished
to ask your questions? To shout your questions? You're a
Stephen A Smith, right, You couldn't wait? So that was
just you out of control because you were just losing it. Huh, You,
Stephen A Smith, couldn't compose yourself and let the other
person finish their thoughts before you ask the question. Couldn't
do that? Huh? Couldn't do it?
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Huh.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
I sometimes think if Stephen A. Smith's image actually did
appear when he looked in a mirror, and he looked
in a mirror, he wouldn't know who that was. Stephen
Interrupting people, shouting them down and being disrespectful to them.
That's your job. You do it well. They pay you
(37:18):
millions for it. I hate the phrase stay in your lane,
Stay in your goddamn lane. You're making a fool out
of yourself, and eventually sooner rather than later with this
level of lack of sophistication and the facts, by the way,
that the right wingers will never believe you for very
many reasons that should also be obvious to you. Eventually
(37:40):
you will begin to destroy your sports brand. Stop stop.
Let me rephrase that, no, wait, stop, come back, but
the winner. Just emphasizing what I mentioned before that you
don't have to be an amateur to act amateurish. On
the subject of Senator Padilla, David Shalien CNN Political direct
(38:04):
and I sometimes think that there is no such role
or such person, and this is a brilliant comedic performance.
Maybe it could be Patton Oswalt done up in like
extra jowls, extra prosthetic jowls put on to him to
make him look look like a thumb with eyes and
(38:29):
glasses drawn on it. I think that may be the explanation.
But until we are able to confirm that David Shalian
is just Paton Oswalt dressed up to look ridiculous, we're
going to have to assume that he really is the
political director of CNN. He really is the idiot who
insisted that not fact checking either candidate in a presidential
(38:51):
debate when one of them was lying and apparently strung
out on something and the other was making a huge
number of mistakes because of some sort of perceptual problems.
Not fact checking either of them was the only fair thing.
This is the man who portrays himself as a neutral
in the field, and yet he dined with Trump horrors,
(39:13):
Jason Miller, Stephen Chung, and Chris Lassivit, all of them
the night before a Republican debate. Oh but he's a neutral.
This is what he said about the Padilla assault. I
mean she was holding a press conference and delivering a
statement to the press. He's not a member of the press.
The astonishment, I cannot recreate it, the astonishment in Shalian's voice.
(39:38):
You're not a member of the press. You know. Senators
often ask questions too, sir, you're not a member of
the press. You work for CNN. You're no longer a
member of the press either. It's a whorehouse. Anyway, back
to the quote, this wasn't a hearing or an open
(39:58):
form for senators to ask questions. Well, no, of course not,
because no one would have lied to them at that
if she'd even to answer any of those questions. He
clearly showed up at a public event just to create
a moment and do exactly what you're describing, to show
his constituents, not just Democrats, that he's fighting from his perspective.
David Shealey and CNN political director, bullshit. You have no
(40:22):
earthly clue what you're talking about. If I had ever
said anything quite that stupid, even if I was misinformed
by reliable sources who got it completely wrong and it
was their fault, if I had ever said anything approaching that,
I would have resigned. I would have resigned somewhere between
the he's fighting and then the from his perspective, and
(40:43):
then I would have gone, oh no, I'm I've misspent
my entire life. I resign. Gnome had been avoiding his
questions and the questions of all Democrats. She had just
finished explaining how she and Trump were going to overthrow
the socialist mayor and governor in Los Angeles and California.
(41:04):
He's in not a public place, an open forum, but
he showed up at a public event. This is in
the federal building. He is a senator, He's a member
of the federal government. Did you not know that political
director of CNN he was on his way to a
briefing about the incursion, the terrorist attack by Trump using
(41:29):
the National Guard and the fing Marines on the streets
of southern California. He's on his way to a briefing.
He entered that room with the cooperation and consent of
his escorts, one an FBI agent and the other a
National Guard officer. He clearly showed up at a public
(41:50):
event just to create a moment. Unbelievable, create a moment.
And by the way, David Chillyan, you and CNN are
opposed to the creation of moments. Is this the CNN
that last weekend, not this past one, but the week before,
postponed the news for three hours to show a Broadway show.
(42:14):
I'm all with that, except for the fact that while
that was happening, there was mayhem on the streets of
Los Angeles caused by the government of the United States.
And you, instead, instead of showing news, you showed a
play about the news. In nineteen fifty four, This just
in nineteen fifty four. Create a moment. That's all CNN does,
(42:38):
That's all the modern media is doing. That's the Washington
that the Washington posts new phrase, create a moment, or
it's vivid storytelling for all America, which is consultants, speaker,
create a moment. He clearly showed up at a public event.
He was being escorted by the FBI and a National
(42:59):
Guard officer to a briefing on the attempt to overthrow
the democracy, just to create a moment. Listen, pal, if
you were any good at creating moments, if you were,
if you knew how to create a moment, if you
knew what a moment was, you wouldn't be at Effing's
CNN watching the place melt around you, like the opening
(43:20):
animation from the TV series mad Men. David I actually
would fire him before I fired Jake Tappert. Worse than that,
I would make him do a primetime CNN show every night. Shalien,
CNN's political director and today's other worst person in the movement.
(43:58):
Some years ago, I did an audiobook of Theber stories,
with the proceeds going to the Literary Estate, on the
idea that the more people heard Thurber, the better. And
one of the great compliments, one of the greatest compliments
I have ever received, was that when the thing was published,
it did not say Thurber Audios collection or whatever read
(44:22):
by me. It said performed by me. I guess that's
because they did a lot of different voices, or because
we included in it one particular story that really does
kind of need a cast of a few different people
for one sub scene in the middle of it. I
(44:42):
think you will recognize it when we get there. The
story is from his epic Tale of his youth, somewhat
exaggerated my life in hard times. The Car we had
to Push by James Thurber. Many autobiographers, among them Lincoln
Stephens and Gertrude Atherton, describe earthqua their families have been in.
(45:07):
I am unable to do this because my family was
never in an earthquake, but we went through a number
of things in Columbus that were a great deal like earthquakes.
I remember, in particular some of the repercussions of an
old Rio we had that would not go unless you
pushed it for quite a way and suddenly let your
(45:28):
clutch out. The brand does not sound familiar. A Rio
was an early automobile. Once we had been able to
start the engine easily by cranking it, but we had
had the car for so many years that finally it
wouldn't go unless you pushed it and let your clutch out.
Of course, it took more than one person to do this,
(45:50):
took sometimes as many as five or six, depending on
the grade of the roadway and conditions underfoot the car
was unusual, and that the clutch and brake were on
the same pedal, making it quite easy to stall the
engine after it got started, so that the car would
have to be pushed again. My father used to get
sick at his stomach pushing the car, and very often
(46:14):
was unable to go to work. He had never liked
the machine, even when it was good. Sharing my ignorance
and suspicion of all automobiles of that time and longer ago,
the boys I went to school, we used to be
able to identify every car as it passed by Thomas Flyer, Firestone, Columbus, Stevens, Dryer, Rambler, Winton, White, Steamer, etc.
(46:41):
I never could. The only car I was really interested
in was one that the get Ready Man, as we
called him, rode around town in a big red devil
with a door in the back. The get Ready Man
was a lank, unkept, elderly gentleman with wild eyes and
(47:03):
a deep voice who used to go about shouting at
people through a megaphone to prepare for the end of
the world.
Speaker 2 (47:13):
Get Ready, get Ready.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
He would bellow, the world is coming to an end.
His startling exhortations would come up like summer thunder at
the most unexpected time and in the most surprising places.
I remember once during Mantell's production of King Lear at
the Colonial Theater, that the get ready man added his
(47:40):
bawlings to the squealing of Edgar and the ranting of
the King, and the mouthing of the fool, rising from
somewhere in the balcony to join in. The theater was
in absolute darkness, and there were rumblings of thunder and
flashes of lightning off stage. Neither Father nor I, who
were there, ever completely got over the scene, which went
(48:02):
something like this, Edgar, Tom's a cold? Oh did o
do de do de? Bless thee from whirlwinds star blasting
and talking. The foul fiendbexes thunder off stage. What have
his daughters brought him to this pass? Get Ready? Get ready?
(48:26):
Edgar Pillocock sat on Pillocock Hill. Hello, Hello, Lou Lou.
Lightning flashes. The world is coming to an end. This
cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen.
Take here, the foul fiend, obey thy, get ready, Tom's
(48:49):
a cold. The well is coming to an end. They
found him finally, and dejected him, still shouting. The theater
in our time has known few such moments. But to
get back to the automobile, One of my happiest memories
(49:11):
of it was when in its eighth year, my brother
Roy got together a great many articles from the kitchen,
placed them in a square of canvas, and swung this
under the car with a string attached to it, so
that at a twitch, the canvas would give way and
the steel and tin things would clatter to the street.
(49:31):
This was a little scheme of Roy's to frighten father,
who had always expected the car might explode. It worked perfectly.
That was twenty five years ago, but it is one
of the few things in my life I would like
to live over again if I could. I don't suppose
that I can now. Roy twitched the string in the
(49:53):
middle of a lovely afternoon on Bridon Road near Eighteenth Street.
Father had closed his eyes and with his hat off,
was enjoying a cool breeze. The clatter on the asphalt
was tremendously effective. Forks, can openers, pie pans, pot lids,
biscuit cutters, ladles, egg beaters fell beautifully together in a
(50:14):
lingering clement crash stop the car, shouted Father. I can't,
Roy said, the engine fell out. God Almighty, said Father,
who knew what that meant, or knew what it sounded
as if it might mean. It ended unhappily, of course,
because we finally had to drive back and pick up
(50:35):
the stuff. And even Father knew the difference between the
works of an automobile and the equipment of a pantry.
My mother wouldn't have known, however, nor her mother. My mother,
for instance, thought, or rather knew, that it was dangerous
to drive an automobile without gasoline. It it fried the
valves or something. Now, don't you dare drive all over
(50:58):
town with that gasoline, she would say to us when
we started it off. Gasoline, oil, and water were much
the same to her, a fact that made her life
both confusing and perilous. Her greatest dread, however, was the Victrola.
We had a very early one back in the Come
Josephine in my flying machine days. She had an idea
(51:19):
that the Victrola might blow up. It alarmed her, rather
than reassured her to explain that the phonograph was run
neither by gasoline nor by electricity. She could only suppose
that it was propelled by some new fangled and untested
apparatus which was likely to let go at any minute,
making us all the victims and martyrs of the wild
(51:42):
eyed Edison's dangerous experiments. The telephone she was comparatively at
peace with, except of course, during storms, when for some
reason or other she always took the receiver off the
hook and let it hang. She came naturally by her
confused and groundless fears for her own. Mother lived the
latter years of her life in the horrible suspicion that
(52:04):
electricity was dripping invisibly all over the house. It leaked.
She contended out of empty sockets. If the wall switch
had been left on, she would go around screwing in bulbs,
and if they lighted up, she would hastily and fearfully
turn off the wall switch and go back to her
Piersons or Everybody's magazine, happy and the satisfaction that she
(52:29):
had stopped not only a costly but a dangerous leakage.
Nothing could ever clear this up for her. Our poor
old rio came to a horrible end. Finally, we had
parked it too far from the curb on a street
with a trolley car line. It was late at night
(52:52):
and the street was dark. The first street car that
came along couldn't get by. It picked up the tired
old automobile as a terrier might seize a rabbit, and
drubbed it unmercifully, losing its hold now and then, but
catching a new grip a second later. Tires booped and whoosh,
the fenders coeled and graped. The steering wheel rose up
(53:17):
like a specter and disappeared in the direction of Franklin
Avenue with a melancholy whistling sound. Bolts and gadgets flew
like sparks from a Catherine wheel. It was a splendid spectacle,
but of course saddening to everybody except the motorman of
the street car, who was sore. I think some of
(53:38):
us broke down and wept. It must have been the
weeping that caused grandfather to take on so terribly. Time
was all mixed up in his mind. Automobiles and the
like he never remembered having seen. He apparently gathered from
the talk and the excitement and the weeping that somebody
had died. Nor did he let go of this delusion.
(54:01):
He insisted. In fact, after almost a week in which
we strove mightily to divert him that it was a
sin and a shame and a disgrace to the family
to put the funeral off any longer. Nobody is dead.
The automobile is smashed, shouted my father, trying for the
(54:21):
thirtieth time to explain the situation to the old man.
Why was he drunk, demanded grandfather. Sternly was who drunk?
Asked father? Zenus said grandfather, he had a name for
the corpse. Now it was his brother's Zenus, who, as
it happened, was dead, but not from driving an automobile
(54:45):
while intoxicated. Zenus had died in eighteen sixty six, the sensitive,
rather poetical boy of twenty one. When the Civil War
broke out, Zenis had gone to South America, just as
he wrote, back until it blows over. Returning after the
war had blown over, he caught the same disease that
was going off the chestnut trees in those years, and
(55:07):
passed away. It was the only case in history where
a tree doctor had to be called in to spray
a person, and our family had felt it very keenly.
Nobody else in the United States caught the blight. Some
of us had looked upon Zenus's fate as a kind
of poetic justice. Now that Grandfather knew, so to speak,
(55:27):
who was dead, it became increasingly awkward to go on
living in the same house with him, as if nothing
had happened. He would go into towering rages in which
he threatened to write to the Board of Health unless
the funeral were held. At once we realized that something
had to be done. Eventually, we persuaded a friend of
(55:48):
father's named George Martin to dress up in the manner
and costume of the eighteen sixties and pretend to be
Uncle Zenus in order to set Grandfather's mind at rest.
The impostor looked fine and impressive, inside burns and a
high beaver hat, and not unlike the dagera types of
Zenis in our album I Shall Never Forget. The night
(56:09):
just after dinner, when this Zenis walked into the living room,
Grandfather was stomping up and down, tall hawk nosed round oathed.
The newcomer held out both hands. Clem, he cried to Grandfather.
Grandfather turned slowly, looked at the intruder and snorted, hurry you,
(56:33):
he demanded in his deep, resonant voice. I'm Zenis, cried Martin.
Your brother Zenus, fit is a fiddle and sound is
a dollar. Zenus my foot said. Grandfather. Zenus died in
a chestnut light in sixty six. Grandfather was given to
(56:54):
these sudden, unexpected, and extremely lucid moments. They were generally
more embarrassing than his other moments. He comprehended before he
went to bed that night that the old automobile had
been destroyed, and that its destruction had caused all the
turmoil in the house. It flew all the pieces. Pa,
my mother told him, in graphically describing the accident, I
(57:15):
new toward growled, Grandfather. I always told you to get
a poop Toledo the car we had to push by
James Thurber.
Speaker 2 (57:29):
Get run ah some Thurber.
Speaker 1 (57:50):
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
you for listening. Most of our Countdown music was arranged, produced,
and performed by Brian Ray and John Phillip Chanel, our
musical directors of Countdown. It was produced by Tko Brothers.
Mister Ray was on the good titars, based and drums.
Mister Chanel handled orchestration and keyboards. Our satirical and pithy
(58:10):
musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever,
Nancy Faust. The Olberman theme from ESPN two, written by
Mitch Warren Davis Curtisy of ESPN, Inc. Is the sports music.
Other music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
My announcer today is my friend Jonathan Banks from Breaking Bad,
and everything else was as always my fault. That's countdown
(58:35):
for today, day one hundred and forty eight of America
held hostage just one three hundred and sixteen days until
the scheduled end of his lame duck, lame brained term
unless Putin or Musk remove him sooner, or Millenia does,
or the actuarial tables do, or we do. The next
(58:56):
scheduled countdown is Thursday, and until that next one, I'm
Keith Olberman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.
(59:24):
Countdown with Keith Oldman 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. This
(00:26):
weekend was the reminder that without weapons, Donald Trump is nothing.
No gun, Trump, who claimed to carry a gun, is nothing.
No tanks. Trump is nothing, No bombs, no bombs to
drop on Iran to assuage his sudden and obvious fomo
(00:49):
of somebody blowing people up and it's not him doing it.
Without that, Trump is nothing, no threat that if you
do not obey him, no matter how immoral it is,
or illogical or illegal his orders are, you will be
injured or wounded, or kill or at least metaphorically. So.
Without that, Trump is nothing. No parades, no mindlessly cheering
(01:12):
military grunts, no sadists cheering for blood. Without them, Trump
is nothing. Hell, there was a parade and it drew
less than a minor league hockey game. This was no
Kings versus no crowds. There was a parade, and Trump
(01:36):
still was nothing. But most importantly, most tragically, most ominously
for us and for our future, no religious fanatic, no
tertiary maga disease infected fascist humanoids driving into a No
King's protest in Salt Lake City, ending with one dead.
(01:59):
None of them, dressed as cops to assassinate elected Minnesota
Democrats in the homes with eleven more on his Wisconsin list,
doing so on Trump's behalf because they think that will
serve him, or aid him, or just please him. A
pro life murderer, Without pro life murderers, Trump is nothing.
(02:29):
The problem, of course, is there are weapons. There are guns,
there are tanks, there are bombs, there are threats, there
are pro life murderers. It is so ingrained in our
system that it almost sounds stupid to say it aloud
and question it. For more than two centuries, our government
had operated, at least in part, at least for long
(02:50):
stretches on some sense of shared effort, of good faith,
of right makes might. That is as dead now as
it was during the Civil War, as bad as anywhere else.
The fundamental baseline by which the governing related to the
(03:12):
governed is now entirely in effect. Here, you do what
we say, or we hurt you. That's what this weekend
was about. That's what happens when you spend a decade
introducing into the national consciousness the idea that violence will
be supported by one political party, or at least one
(03:35):
political party will have a blind eye turned towards violence.
That's what happens when you spend five decades telling half
the people in this country that all the laws and
all the rules and all the precedents are unfair to
them and prejudiced against them and will ultimately destroy them,
and that they, the vast majority, with all of the
(03:58):
wealth and the power, are actually near death's door because
that two percent could come and get them. That's what
happens when one Friday you send in troops and marines
because your terrorists attacks on southern California aren't leading to
enough Brown people being disappeared and renditioned or just left
(04:20):
where they are in mortal dread of it happening to them.
And then the next Thursday you tackle the brown senator
from that state because your administration cannot actually handle a
question and your play actors pretending to fill positions like
Secretary of Homeland Security have no idea what to do
other than to shoot or threaten or promise to overthrow
(04:42):
the elected mayor or governor, or wear a funny hat
or have a senator from the opposite party thrown to
the floor. And if your idiot Secretary of Homeland Security
doesn't know what Habeas Corpus is. Of course she can
claim nobody knew who the senator was, and she can
dismiss his existence by simply calling him that man. And
(05:04):
that's what what happens when two days later, a maga
religious nut tries to kill all the liberals. He can
to thwart or shut down the no Kings protests because
he wants kings, and he can always overrule reality, he
can always overrule the law, he can always overrule what
he is right because he has a gun. And then
(05:26):
an idiot senator from Utah who thinks his combover works
can call the murderer a Marxist based on nothing and
get applauded by a strung out, money crazed foreigner who
happens to own the social media site on which the
crazy senator from Utah has made his completely slanderous and
(05:49):
incorrect claim. And then, of course, after it ends, even
when it ends in humiliation for Trump, whose parade drew
fewer people than the Fourth of July parade used to
draw in Hastings on Hudson, New York when I was
a kid, after it ends, you look at the tear
in Los Angeles and the blood in Minnesota, and the
inescapable dread of more to come in every corner of
(06:10):
this nation. And you say violence has no place in
our democratic system, as if that has ever been true,
As if nearly a quarter of our presidents haven't been
shot and killed or just shot or just nearly shot,
As if Representative Melissa Hortman and Senator John Hoffman and
their spouses hadn't been shot two days ago in Minnesota,
(06:32):
As if Trump himself shot at least shot at not
a year ago, did not even express sympathy for them,
just to promise for vengeance against the shooter, As if
the only legitimacy to the still growing Trump dictatorship wasn't
the still growing threat behind every move it makes that
(06:56):
if you do not obey, they will go and get
one of the weapons without which Donald Trump is nothing.
(07:37):
There is some small respite this morning, and it has
nothing to do with weapons. They got the twenty eleven
Georgia crops report apparently and printed it out or something
similar to it, and paste it in some pictures of
Trump or something, and they made it brief, and they
showed it to him, and maybe they used flash cards
(07:59):
or finger puppets, and all of a sudden he tacoed
on the ice. Gestapo roundups of immigrants, at least the
immigrants in agriculture and hotels and restaurants, because you know,
mass starvation, while mass starvation later first, mass lower corporate
(08:21):
profits in agriculture, hotels, and restaurants. The Secretary of Agriculture,
who is not Julius sugar Baker from Designing Women. She
just looks like her stunt double rights that, oh no,
there's been no change in policy about deporting people. She
and Trump quote have consistently advanced a farmer's first approach,
(08:42):
recognizing that American households depend upon a stable and legal
agricultural workforce. Severe disruptions to our food supply would harm Americans.
It took us decades to get into this mess, and
we are prioritizing deportations in a way that will get
us out. All of you people were going to rendition.
(09:03):
Please harvest those fields first and then get into the
back of the truck. In other words, the Secretary of Agriculture,
she saw the twenty eleven Georgia crops report and somebody
extrapolated it for her. I don't know how many times
I have cited the twenty eleven Georgia Crops Report. I
(09:25):
think the first time I saw it was August twenty eleven.
That state at that point, you're not even over with
announced eight had announced the year before a strict crackdown
on undocumented farm workers, back when this was a reasonable
thing to try or examine, and everybody said, you may
(09:48):
regret this, and they went, no, we don't think so.
We're smart. We're Republicans in Georgia. And shockingly enough, after
they announced that there would be raids and that they
would deport and arrest all of the migrant farm workers,
particularly the ones who did not have citizenship or other papers.
(10:11):
Almost none of the nation's itinerant farm workers went to
Georgia in twenty eleven. Who the hell could have seen
that coming. If you go here, we'll arrest you. Nobody
went so. In the middle of the summer, the state
Commissioner of Agriculture explained that all the Georgia onions and
the Georgia watermelons, and the Georgia blueberries and the other
(10:33):
Georgia produce was rotting in the Georgia fields, and the
farms were going bankrupt, and all the bribes to get
all the Georgia residents to go and harvest the crops
were not working because Georgia residents were too slow, or
they quit within minutes because the work was too hard. Georgia,
(10:56):
said the head of agriculture there, a Republican, was at
least eleven thousand, far more short. They were forty percent
of what they needed. They were asking for volunteers. They
were bringing in convicts and promising to let them go
sooner if they picked the walnuts. The state's agricultural industry
(11:17):
had already lost seventy five million dollars by the middle
of twenty eleven just in the spring and summer harvests,
so that times fifty states and now all of a sudden,
we are not prioritizing those in agriculture, those in hotels,
(11:42):
those in restaurants, those without whom the rest of us
will starve. And the message was you can keep doing this,
Stephen Miller, but you personally will have to harvest all
the rude begas west of Denver. This does not mean
they are suddenly going to pivot back towards humanity. In
(12:04):
southern California or in the case of kilmar Abrego, Garcia
or anything else that's already in progress. In point of fact,
if anything, it looks like they are moving towards something
that might be supporting of perjury in the Abrego Garcia case,
something like it. At least Adam Klassfeld reporting that one
of the new witnesses in the attempt to turn the
didn't even give him a ticket traffic stop of twenty
(12:26):
twenty two into life on Devil's Island or something. One
of the new witnesses is suddenly getting leniency on his
thirty year prison term. He has been moved to a
halfway house, and shock of shocks, ICE is suddenly reassessing
its immigration case against him. The judge in the newest
(12:52):
case against our Dreyfus Abrego Garcia is also reportedly hesitating
to grant Abrego Garcia bail, not because he doesn't deserve it,
but because of ICE's continuing rage and they are acting
like just to pick something out of a hat. Ketamine
addicts who just ran out. She's worried about ICE's continuing
(13:15):
rage and its continuing threats to redisappear this man. The
moment he has let out of detention, the judge could
issue a bail ruling as early as today. Here is
what Trump should have done. He should have offered a
Brego Garcia a pardon if he said nice things about
Christy nomes, bangs and dress up outfits, or if a
(13:39):
Brego Garcia had been willing to stand on a street
corner in Washington on Saturday night and watch Trump play
with his tanks and his toy soldiers. At one point,
presumably before they burned the tape, destroyed any digital machines
that recorded it, fired everybody who was involved in it.
(13:59):
At one point, Newsmax reported that there were ten thousand
people there. The estimates on the No Kings protests nationwide
organizers claim five million. Elliot Morris of Strength in numbers
formerly five thirty eight has taken reported individual cities and extrapolated,
and he had raised his calculation to a total all
(14:23):
of the protests combined, all of the marches somewhere between
four million, two hundred thousand and seven million people, about
two percent of the population back at the event that
had what would have been a disappointing turnout at the
nineteen sixty four July Fourth Parade down Farragut Parkway in Hastings,
(14:45):
on Hudson, New York. Even Stephen Chung's laugh out loud
lie was only two hundred and fifty thousand, which is
by itself pathetic. When the Washington Capitals held their parade
after winning hockey Stanley Cup in twenty eighteen, the DC
Subway reported that ridership was above average for that day
(15:08):
by two hundred and twenty eight thousand. So there is
no doubt that a hockey parade featuring exactly one large
not too dangerous bowl unless you drop it on your
foot drew fifty percent, fifty percent more, seventy five percent more,
(15:29):
ten times what Trump's dog and Pony show did. And
by the way, a dog and pony show would have
been way better by any measure. That was a terrible parade,
just terrible. When he fires Pete, Hegseth, and we all
wonder was it signal Gate? Was it the drinking? Was
it general's quitting? Was it Hegseith forgetting to wear pants
(15:50):
to a cabinet meeting? No, the answer will be he
was fired because Trump blamed him for the parade. No
troops marching in step, crowds so quiet you could hear
the tracks on the World War two tanks creaking and
making a noise so nails on a blackboard noisy that
(16:12):
it kept waking Trump up. Since it happened last Thursday,
I have been thinking almost continuously about the event involving
Senator Alex Padilla of California at the Christinoum Propaganda Conference
(16:33):
in southern California. I think it means much more than
we are even recognizing now. It is obviously a watershed
moment in the history of the aggressiveness, the aggression, the
violence inherent in the MAGA disease and its system, but
it may be even bigger than that. In the last
(16:55):
few days, it has dawned on me that in the
interpretation of what happened in that room and in that
hallway is the last four twenty to fifty years of
the brainwashing of the American right and the stupider people
in this country, and the underinformed people in this country,
and the racist people in this country. And it all
(17:18):
comes together. And this is not the first example, but
this may be the best example, and it is the
most current example of why the far right MAGA, the Trumpists,
the Tea Party before them, the Republicans before them, why
they are so quick to be able to pass judgment
(17:38):
on a situation like this and never let it bother
their consciences, nor never let facts interrupt their conclusions. There
have been all sorts of studies that suggest that there
is actually a difference in the modeling of the brain
of the conservative versus the liberal of all people. The
actor Colin Firth once spent money with the BBC to
(18:01):
conduct actual psychological and I believe some physiological studies on
whether or not there was processing issues that involved. Some
people saw this thing this way as a conservative, and
some people saw the same thing that way as a liberal.
John Dene's book Conservatives Without Conscience quotes survey and after survey,
(18:24):
and study after study, and autopsy after autopsy on the
idea that the brain of the conservative, the authoritarian is
actually different than that of the more liberal, the more egalitarian,
the more community based individual. But I'm not talking about that.
I'm talking about learned, perhaps experience learned from forty to
(18:47):
fifty years of listening to shit like Rush Limbaugh. And
here is what this amounts to. If you look at
the entirety of the event, and you have the entirety
of the background that Senator Padilla provided in the hours
after the event involving Secretary Nome, Secretary Garden Nome, the
(19:10):
dog murderer, nonme, the I would not vouch that she
could pass a sanity or a drug test. Gnome. And
you analyzed the whole timeline, it's pretty clear what happened.
And there is one flaw in the Padia story, and
we would recognize it as liberals and let me go
through it quickly to make my point in terms of
(19:33):
how the other groups of people in this country don't
torture themselves over these details. We know he was in
that building to get a briefing from Homeland Security because
he had not been able to get anybody from Homeland
Security on the phone or by email in the preceding
week since Trump started his terrorist attacks on southern California,
(19:57):
since Trump started a civil war or attempted to in
which he would use the military against civilians on this
s streets of Los Angeles, he had not Padia, that is,
been able to get in touch with anybody. He'd tried
to get Secretary nom and he happened to be in
a building where he was going to get a briefing
from a military commander about what the hell they were
doing there, and hopefully what the hell they were not
(20:20):
going to be doing there. Somehow, either he knew in
advance or he found out as he was there that
NOME was conducting this as I called it, propaganda conference
in a room in that building that they would be passing.
Now Padilla does not wander in off the street for this.
He is being escorted by I believe military people, by
(20:43):
the official greeters in this situation, whoever they are. And
he says, we have some time before this meeting. Can
I pop in and listen to what Noame says. I
can't get any other answers from her. Maybe she's going
to address my questions. He goes in, and course, if
you heard any of the NOME press conference, she's out
of her mind. She is either in full Trump servicing
(21:08):
in terms of selling each one of these hallucinatory talking
of points about saving Los Angeles from the people elected
to run it who are running it into the ground,
essentially offering a coup by the Department of Homeland Security
against the Governor of California, the Mayor of Los Angeles,
and anybody who gets in their way, and at some
(21:28):
point Padilla says, I have a question. Now. He knows
that the people who have just escorted him into that
room know that he is Senator Alex Padia. But he's
not wearing a big shirt that says I'm a senator.
He's not wearing a giant gold chain that says senator guy.
(21:48):
He's not wearing some sort of big id And he
has not spent ninety percent of his time on Fox News.
He's not Pam Bondi, who for a long time I
thought was actually hosting the nine o'clock hour on Fox
News rather than simply appearing on it every night. He's
(22:09):
not wearing something that instantly identifies him to the people who,
in this equation actually matter as much as Christinome, Corey Lewandowski,
her advisor, advisor, whoever else was there on behalf of
the Gestapo. They are not as important as the people
who are right there, standing next to Alex Padilla as
(22:31):
he comes into that room. Who are the militarized members
of the FBI who have been pre chosen to be
on board with the political message. They are political policemen.
In effect, they are not just law enforcements. They are
maga enforcement. They are what we have feared. And at
this point in June of a presidency, of a new presidency,
(22:54):
they are already in place. They don't know who the
hell that is. That's the one flaw in this equation.
Everything that happens after they decid that this man must
be thrown to the floor is the fault of the FBI.
There should be mass firings, suspensions, prosecutions. Padia should sue.
(23:17):
There should be people who spend the rest of their
lives answering for this in court. The men who took
him out of that room, who dragged him, the men
who threw him to the ground, the men who said
that the FBI has the rights here and you cannot
film this, All of them in jail. If we could
get them there, it probably won't happen. Bankrupt them, wait
to make Trump pardon them. But there is one flaw
(23:41):
in that equation. Padia assumed people knew he was Padia.
That's the only part of this that is even remotely
his fault. And I would say, on the scale of
apportioning responsibility for the entire event, on a scale of
one to one hundred and ninety eight, is Christy Nome
(24:02):
not responding to calls the entirety of the Trump administration
attacking southern California. The obviously the security goons and the
Gestapo members and the FBI MAGA, and it's just one
group now, it's b IIMGA. Ninety eight percent is them
and maybe two percent, maybe one and a half percent
(24:24):
is Padilla, simply because he assumed, having identify himself to
the people with him, that when push came to shove,
literally one of them would say no, that Senator Alex Padilla,
leave him alone, and they didn't, leading to a, if
you want, conspiracy theory that they set him up for
this in some occasional though it doesn't seem to me
like something this intricate could be worked out by these
(24:46):
MAGA idiots. It might have been a conspiracy of opportunity
where they realized he was getting heated and there might
be a good photo op for the right wing here
in which, oh, guess what, the Hispanic senator from California
is thrown to the floor while defending his fellow foreigners.
(25:07):
In any event, we can now then analyze what happens
in the hallways and the conflicting instructions from these goons
and his Padia's attempt to respond to them, and then
as Padia added the idea that suddenly Corey Lewandowski appears
and goes let him go, let him go right now,
Of all people, Corey Lewandowski, possibly because he has seen
(25:30):
the consequences of what happens when you man handle somebody
in a hallway and how that can follow you for
a few years, at least he had the presence of
mind to say, we don't need this, or he may
have said we've already got all we needed on video.
So my point in going to such length to go
into ten minutes worth of just detail on a line
(25:51):
by line basis of what happened and where Alex Padilla
might not have done exactly what he would have done
had he planned this out, had this been perhaps a stunt,
like many politicians do often to great effect of stunts
that have been for the benefit of mankind. If you
would like to stretch the definition just slightly, the emancipation
(26:13):
proclamation was a stunt. The timing of it certainly was
a stunt. In any event, this is the liberal interpretation
of what Padilla did, and you can see the knots
I can turn myself into while stating that Alex Padilla
is ninety eight and a half percent right, I am
(26:33):
still sitting there looking at that other one and a
half percent saying, well, see here's here's the window that
you left open for them. And now I'll give you
the mag of viewpoint on this. What happened? What happened?
Senator goes in, yells at our secretary, beautiful Christynome, and
then gets thrown to the floor. It was a terrorist attack.
(26:55):
He tried to kill her? Or more simply, what happened?
What happened? A senator went in and attacked our beautiful
Christy Noome. Okay, whose fault is it? Is it Biden's fault?
Is it? Is it George Soros's fault? Let's decide quickly
and then we'll work backwards. It's obviously his fault. He
(27:15):
obviously tried to attack her. He may have tried to
kill her. Now let's fill in the facts. What's on
the tape? Oh, okay, we're going to ignore that fact.
We don't have to sow what he says. He's Alex Padia.
Who the hell knows who Alex Padia is? How many
alex Padias are there in southern California. They have defeated
the scientific method. What is it five hundred, six hundred
(27:39):
years since Francis Bacon said no, the way to solve
most problems is to figure out what the f just
happened and then try to figure out why. No, they
have erase that go to the conclusion, what do you
want the reply to this to be? What do you
want the public perception of an event like that to be?
Senator attacks Christy Nome, Senator barges in, senator confronts Christine No,
(28:04):
senator violates law, Senator terror. Whatever answer you want, you
reach it first and then work backwards. And there is
no one and a half percent acknowledgment that perhaps perhaps
there was an overreaction on the part of the Gestapo.
Perhaps there would be a reaction that you're the senator
(28:31):
from California and you were one of the people who
voted on Christy Nomes's nomination. And even if she doesn't
remember that many she is stupid. One hundred senators. That's
a lot of senators to ask her to remember, but
she should have remembered the fact that there are two
California senators and she's in California try to overthrow the
(28:53):
government of California. She's a terrorist in California trying to
overthrow the government, holding a news conference, a propaganda conference
at which she is explaining she's going to overthrow the
goverm of California. She could have had two pictures printed
out for her of who the two senators from California are,
(29:15):
so if you see one of them, you can confront
him or whatever, or you can stop, you can step
in and show how you actually are a good secretary
of Homeland Security. She didn't know. There's nobody on the
right of the equation. There is no one left. There
is no brain cell functioning. There is no part of
(29:37):
the hive mind of the fascists and the Nazis and
the Magas and the other scumbags who would say, wait,
we have to acknowledge that Christy f this up a
little bit one and a half percent. They won't do it.
You and I would say at Alex Padi would probably say,
I wish I had been wearing my giant senatorial lanyard
(29:58):
or my giant sweatshirt with my picture on it that
says Senator the picture Padilla on it. I wish I
had been doing that. I wish I had been there
with I don't know Bono, who could have said that's
Senator Padilla, or I don't know Lee Atwood, who the singer.
(30:28):
But this is where we are, and that's what's been
bothering me about the event since it happened on Thursday.
You and I would look at it and analyze where
there might be a flaw, And on the other side
of the equation, there are no flaws. There is no
detail to analyze. There is simply a decision made. What
are we going to tell everybody happened here? And then
(30:51):
we will fill in and make up the facts as necessary,
and fixing that will take a lot longer and will
be a lot more painful and may do a lot
more towards tearing this country apart than the problem of
what they are trying to do. The terrorist attack on
(31:14):
southern California that the Trump administration is still intending to
conduct before they move on to the terrorist attack on
Illinois and the terrorist attack on New York, those problems
will be transcendent because I think ultimately Americans will defeat Trump.
(31:34):
But what do we do about a world in which
half the people in this country already know the answer
and are now just filling in the facts and making
up the facts to fit that answer. Also of interest here,
it is amazing you can know everything about politics and
(31:55):
when it counts, you can still make a fool out
of yourself. Or you can know nothing about politics and
when it counts, you can still make a fool out
of your On the same topic, the sagas of CNN's
political director David Shalian and the increasingly laugh out loud
(32:15):
funny stephen A. Smith. That's next. This is Countdown. This
is Countdown with Keith old Woman still ahead on this
(32:48):
editiontive Countdown. You know we haven't done in weeks and
weeks and weeks. Fridays with Thurber. I know it's not Friday.
How much did they charge you to listen to this podcast?
If we want to make it Friday for ten, but
it's going to be Friday, you want to refund, refund
(33:11):
some Thurber and his great story about I'm just gonna
surprise you now that you put up a fight over
it first, believe it or not, There's still more new
idiots to talk about. The roundup of the new miscreants,
morons and dunn in gruger effects specimens. Who constitutes the
latest other worst persons in the world, the bronze worse.
(33:35):
There's always a tweet. I'll just read the tweet and
then I'll tell you who it's from. The hint is
it's not Trump. It's connected to Trump. Ready. We do
not seek regime change, Trump declares as he escalates his
regime change war against Iran. Neocons like Graham Bolton are
(33:59):
cheering to all who voted for Trump because of his
anti war rhetoric. It's time to reel he lied to you.
Stand with me against Trump's Iran war hashtag Trump's War.
Three forty one PM January three, twenty twenty, written by
(34:22):
Tulsey Gabber, the director of National Hypocrisy No Information Information
about hypocrisy. What an absolute bubblehead runner up, Speaking of
which worser Stephen A. Smith. I thought, because he'd been
(34:46):
quiet lately, that he'd got in a hint that covering
a burgeoning dictatorship is not just doing whatever your pal
Sean Hannity says is a good idea. It's not the
same as trying to turn a rumor you made up
about an NBA free agent changing teams maybe in three
years into eleven hours of programming today and then going
(35:10):
wall to wall with it tomorrow. It's not like that, Steve.
This is Stephen A. Smith on the beating up of
Senator Alex Padilla. Here you have this Senator Alex Padilla.
Can Christy Nomes speak? Could you have waited till she
finished to ask your questions? To shout your questions? You
(35:31):
are a senator, right, you couldn't wait? So that was
just you out of control because you were just losing it. Huh,
You a United States senator, couldn't compose yourself and let
the head of Homeland Security finish her thoughts before you
ask the question. Couldn't do that? Huh? Couldn't do it?
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Huh.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
First clue, Steven does not know what senators are. Second,
Stephen does not know that Christy Nome is one of
the batties. Third, Stephen does not really that Christy Nome
has been avoiding the questions of that senator and other
senators since she lied to all the senators in her
(36:12):
confirmation hearing. But the best part here is Stephen A.
Smith does not know what a Stephen A. Smith is.
Let me reread this a little bit more appropriately, this
is a revision of what Steven A. Smith said about
Alex Padia. Here you have this, Stephen A Smith. Can
(36:34):
somebody else speak? Could you have waited till they finished
to ask your questions? To shout your questions? You're a
Stephen A Smith, right, You couldn't wait? So that was
just you out of control because you were just losing it. Huh, You,
Stephen A Smith, couldn't compose yourself and let the other
person finish their thoughts before you ask the question. Couldn't
do that? Huh? Couldn't do it?
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Huh.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
I sometimes think if Stephen A. Smith's image actually did
appear when he looked in a mirror, and he looked
in a mirror, he wouldn't know who that was. Stephen
Interrupting people, shouting them down and being disrespectful to them.
That's your job. You do it well. They pay you
(37:18):
millions for it. I hate the phrase stay in your lane,
Stay in your goddamn lane. You're making a fool out
of yourself, and eventually sooner rather than later with this
level of lack of sophistication and the facts, by the way,
that the right wingers will never believe you for very
many reasons that should also be obvious to you. Eventually
(37:40):
you will begin to destroy your sports brand. Stop stop.
Let me rephrase that, no, wait, stop, come back, but
the winner. Just emphasizing what I mentioned before that you
don't have to be an amateur to act amateurish. On
the subject of Senator Padilla, David Shalien CNN Political direct
(38:04):
and I sometimes think that there is no such role
or such person, and this is a brilliant comedic performance.
Maybe it could be Patton Oswalt done up in like
extra jowls, extra prosthetic jowls put on to him to
make him look look like a thumb with eyes and
(38:29):
glasses drawn on it. I think that may be the explanation.
But until we are able to confirm that David Shalian
is just Paton Oswalt dressed up to look ridiculous, we're
going to have to assume that he really is the
political director of CNN. He really is the idiot who
insisted that not fact checking either candidate in a presidential
(38:51):
debate when one of them was lying and apparently strung
out on something and the other was making a huge
number of mistakes because of some sort of perceptual problems.
Not fact checking either of them was the only fair thing.
This is the man who portrays himself as a neutral
in the field, and yet he dined with Trump horrors,
(39:13):
Jason Miller, Stephen Chung, and Chris Lassivit, all of them
the night before a Republican debate. Oh but he's a neutral.
This is what he said about the Padilla assault. I
mean she was holding a press conference and delivering a
statement to the press. He's not a member of the press.
The astonishment, I cannot recreate it, the astonishment in Shalian's voice.
(39:38):
You're not a member of the press. You know. Senators
often ask questions too, sir, you're not a member of
the press. You work for CNN. You're no longer a
member of the press either. It's a whorehouse. Anyway, back
to the quote, this wasn't a hearing or an open
(39:58):
form for senators to ask questions. Well, no, of course not,
because no one would have lied to them at that
if she'd even to answer any of those questions. He
clearly showed up at a public event just to create
a moment and do exactly what you're describing, to show
his constituents, not just Democrats, that he's fighting from his perspective.
David Shealey and CNN political director, bullshit. You have no
(40:22):
earthly clue what you're talking about. If I had ever
said anything quite that stupid, even if I was misinformed
by reliable sources who got it completely wrong and it
was their fault, if I had ever said anything approaching that,
I would have resigned. I would have resigned somewhere between
the he's fighting and then the from his perspective, and
(40:43):
then I would have gone, oh no, I'm I've misspent
my entire life. I resign. Gnome had been avoiding his
questions and the questions of all Democrats. She had just
finished explaining how she and Trump were going to overthrow
the socialist mayor and governor in Los Angeles and California.
(41:04):
He's in not a public place, an open forum, but
he showed up at a public event. This is in
the federal building. He is a senator, He's a member
of the federal government. Did you not know that political
director of CNN he was on his way to a
briefing about the incursion, the terrorist attack by Trump using
(41:29):
the National Guard and the fing Marines on the streets
of southern California. He's on his way to a briefing.
He entered that room with the cooperation and consent of
his escorts, one an FBI agent and the other a
National Guard officer. He clearly showed up at a public
(41:50):
event just to create a moment. Unbelievable, create a moment.
And by the way, David Chillyan, you and CNN are
opposed to the creation of moments. Is this the CNN
that last weekend, not this past one, but the week before,
postponed the news for three hours to show a Broadway show.
(42:14):
I'm all with that, except for the fact that while
that was happening, there was mayhem on the streets of
Los Angeles caused by the government of the United States.
And you, instead, instead of showing news, you showed a
play about the news. In nineteen fifty four, This just
in nineteen fifty four. Create a moment. That's all CNN does,
(42:38):
That's all the modern media is doing. That's the Washington
that the Washington posts new phrase, create a moment, or
it's vivid storytelling for all America, which is consultants, speaker,
create a moment. He clearly showed up at a public event.
He was being escorted by the FBI and a National
(42:59):
Guard officer to a briefing on the attempt to overthrow
the democracy, just to create a moment. Listen, pal, if
you were any good at creating moments, if you were,
if you knew how to create a moment, if you
knew what a moment was, you wouldn't be at Effing's
CNN watching the place melt around you, like the opening
(43:20):
animation from the TV series mad Men. David I actually
would fire him before I fired Jake Tappert. Worse than that,
I would make him do a primetime CNN show every night. Shalien,
CNN's political director and today's other worst person in the movement.
(43:58):
Some years ago, I did an audiobook of Theber stories,
with the proceeds going to the Literary Estate, on the
idea that the more people heard Thurber, the better. And
one of the great compliments, one of the greatest compliments
I have ever received, was that when the thing was published,
it did not say Thurber Audios collection or whatever read
(44:22):
by me. It said performed by me. I guess that's
because they did a lot of different voices, or because
we included in it one particular story that really does
kind of need a cast of a few different people
for one sub scene in the middle of it. I
(44:42):
think you will recognize it when we get there. The
story is from his epic Tale of his youth, somewhat
exaggerated my life in hard times. The Car we had
to Push by James Thurber. Many autobiographers, among them Lincoln
Stephens and Gertrude Atherton, describe earthqua their families have been in.
(45:07):
I am unable to do this because my family was
never in an earthquake, but we went through a number
of things in Columbus that were a great deal like earthquakes.
I remember, in particular some of the repercussions of an
old Rio we had that would not go unless you
pushed it for quite a way and suddenly let your
(45:28):
clutch out. The brand does not sound familiar. A Rio
was an early automobile. Once we had been able to
start the engine easily by cranking it, but we had
had the car for so many years that finally it
wouldn't go unless you pushed it and let your clutch out.
Of course, it took more than one person to do this,
(45:50):
took sometimes as many as five or six, depending on
the grade of the roadway and conditions underfoot the car
was unusual, and that the clutch and brake were on
the same pedal, making it quite easy to stall the
engine after it got started, so that the car would
have to be pushed again. My father used to get
sick at his stomach pushing the car, and very often
(46:14):
was unable to go to work. He had never liked
the machine, even when it was good. Sharing my ignorance
and suspicion of all automobiles of that time and longer ago,
the boys I went to school, we used to be
able to identify every car as it passed by Thomas Flyer, Firestone, Columbus, Stevens, Dryer, Rambler, Winton, White, Steamer, etc.
(46:41):
I never could. The only car I was really interested
in was one that the get Ready Man, as we
called him, rode around town in a big red devil
with a door in the back. The get Ready Man
was a lank, unkept, elderly gentleman with wild eyes and
(47:03):
a deep voice who used to go about shouting at
people through a megaphone to prepare for the end of
the world.
Speaker 2 (47:13):
Get Ready, get Ready.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
He would bellow, the world is coming to an end.
His startling exhortations would come up like summer thunder at
the most unexpected time and in the most surprising places.
I remember once during Mantell's production of King Lear at
the Colonial Theater, that the get ready man added his
(47:40):
bawlings to the squealing of Edgar and the ranting of
the King, and the mouthing of the fool, rising from
somewhere in the balcony to join in. The theater was
in absolute darkness, and there were rumblings of thunder and
flashes of lightning off stage. Neither Father nor I, who
were there, ever completely got over the scene, which went
(48:02):
something like this, Edgar, Tom's a cold? Oh did o
do de do de? Bless thee from whirlwinds star blasting
and talking. The foul fiendbexes thunder off stage. What have
his daughters brought him to this pass? Get Ready? Get ready?
(48:26):
Edgar Pillocock sat on Pillocock Hill. Hello, Hello, Lou Lou.
Lightning flashes. The world is coming to an end. This
cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen.
Take here, the foul fiend, obey thy, get ready, Tom's
(48:49):
a cold. The well is coming to an end. They
found him finally, and dejected him, still shouting. The theater
in our time has known few such moments. But to
get back to the automobile, One of my happiest memories
(49:11):
of it was when in its eighth year, my brother
Roy got together a great many articles from the kitchen,
placed them in a square of canvas, and swung this
under the car with a string attached to it, so
that at a twitch, the canvas would give way and
the steel and tin things would clatter to the street.
(49:31):
This was a little scheme of Roy's to frighten father,
who had always expected the car might explode. It worked perfectly.
That was twenty five years ago, but it is one
of the few things in my life I would like
to live over again if I could. I don't suppose
that I can now. Roy twitched the string in the
(49:53):
middle of a lovely afternoon on Bridon Road near Eighteenth Street.
Father had closed his eyes and with his hat off,
was enjoying a cool breeze. The clatter on the asphalt
was tremendously effective. Forks, can openers, pie pans, pot lids,
biscuit cutters, ladles, egg beaters fell beautifully together in a
(50:14):
lingering clement crash stop the car, shouted Father. I can't,
Roy said, the engine fell out. God Almighty, said Father,
who knew what that meant, or knew what it sounded
as if it might mean. It ended unhappily, of course,
because we finally had to drive back and pick up
(50:35):
the stuff. And even Father knew the difference between the
works of an automobile and the equipment of a pantry.
My mother wouldn't have known, however, nor her mother. My mother,
for instance, thought, or rather knew, that it was dangerous
to drive an automobile without gasoline. It it fried the
valves or something. Now, don't you dare drive all over
(50:58):
town with that gasoline, she would say to us when
we started it off. Gasoline, oil, and water were much
the same to her, a fact that made her life
both confusing and perilous. Her greatest dread, however, was the Victrola.
We had a very early one back in the Come
Josephine in my flying machine days. She had an idea
(51:19):
that the Victrola might blow up. It alarmed her, rather
than reassured her to explain that the phonograph was run
neither by gasoline nor by electricity. She could only suppose
that it was propelled by some new fangled and untested
apparatus which was likely to let go at any minute,
making us all the victims and martyrs of the wild
(51:42):
eyed Edison's dangerous experiments. The telephone she was comparatively at
peace with, except of course, during storms, when for some
reason or other she always took the receiver off the
hook and let it hang. She came naturally by her
confused and groundless fears for her own. Mother lived the
latter years of her life in the horrible suspicion that
(52:04):
electricity was dripping invisibly all over the house. It leaked.
She contended out of empty sockets. If the wall switch
had been left on, she would go around screwing in bulbs,
and if they lighted up, she would hastily and fearfully
turn off the wall switch and go back to her
Piersons or Everybody's magazine, happy and the satisfaction that she
(52:29):
had stopped not only a costly but a dangerous leakage.
Nothing could ever clear this up for her. Our poor
old rio came to a horrible end. Finally, we had
parked it too far from the curb on a street
with a trolley car line. It was late at night
(52:52):
and the street was dark. The first street car that
came along couldn't get by. It picked up the tired
old automobile as a terrier might seize a rabbit, and
drubbed it unmercifully, losing its hold now and then, but
catching a new grip a second later. Tires booped and whoosh,
the fenders coeled and graped. The steering wheel rose up
(53:17):
like a specter and disappeared in the direction of Franklin
Avenue with a melancholy whistling sound. Bolts and gadgets flew
like sparks from a Catherine wheel. It was a splendid spectacle,
but of course saddening to everybody except the motorman of
the street car, who was sore. I think some of
(53:38):
us broke down and wept. It must have been the
weeping that caused grandfather to take on so terribly. Time
was all mixed up in his mind. Automobiles and the
like he never remembered having seen. He apparently gathered from
the talk and the excitement and the weeping that somebody
had died. Nor did he let go of this delusion.
(54:01):
He insisted. In fact, after almost a week in which
we strove mightily to divert him that it was a
sin and a shame and a disgrace to the family
to put the funeral off any longer. Nobody is dead.
The automobile is smashed, shouted my father, trying for the
(54:21):
thirtieth time to explain the situation to the old man.
Why was he drunk, demanded grandfather. Sternly was who drunk?
Asked father? Zenus said grandfather, he had a name for
the corpse. Now it was his brother's Zenus, who, as
it happened, was dead, but not from driving an automobile
(54:45):
while intoxicated. Zenus had died in eighteen sixty six, the sensitive,
rather poetical boy of twenty one. When the Civil War
broke out, Zenis had gone to South America, just as
he wrote, back until it blows over. Returning after the
war had blown over, he caught the same disease that
was going off the chestnut trees in those years, and
(55:07):
passed away. It was the only case in history where
a tree doctor had to be called in to spray
a person, and our family had felt it very keenly.
Nobody else in the United States caught the blight. Some
of us had looked upon Zenus's fate as a kind
of poetic justice. Now that Grandfather knew, so to speak,
(55:27):
who was dead, it became increasingly awkward to go on
living in the same house with him, as if nothing
had happened. He would go into towering rages in which
he threatened to write to the Board of Health unless
the funeral were held. At once we realized that something
had to be done. Eventually, we persuaded a friend of
(55:48):
father's named George Martin to dress up in the manner
and costume of the eighteen sixties and pretend to be
Uncle Zenus in order to set Grandfather's mind at rest.
The impostor looked fine and impressive, inside burns and a
high beaver hat, and not unlike the dagera types of
Zenis in our album I Shall Never Forget. The night
(56:09):
just after dinner, when this Zenis walked into the living room,
Grandfather was stomping up and down, tall hawk nosed round oathed.
The newcomer held out both hands. Clem, he cried to Grandfather.
Grandfather turned slowly, looked at the intruder and snorted, hurry you,
(56:33):
he demanded in his deep, resonant voice. I'm Zenis, cried Martin.
Your brother Zenus, fit is a fiddle and sound is
a dollar. Zenus my foot said. Grandfather. Zenus died in
a chestnut light in sixty six. Grandfather was given to
(56:54):
these sudden, unexpected, and extremely lucid moments. They were generally
more embarrassing than his other moments. He comprehended before he
went to bed that night that the old automobile had
been destroyed, and that its destruction had caused all the
turmoil in the house. It flew all the pieces. Pa,
my mother told him, in graphically describing the accident, I
(57:15):
new toward growled, Grandfather. I always told you to get
a poop Toledo the car we had to push by
James Thurber.
Speaker 2 (57:29):
Get run ah some Thurber.
Speaker 1 (57:50):
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
you for listening. Most of our Countdown music was arranged, produced,
and performed by Brian Ray and John Phillip Chanel, our
musical directors of Countdown. It was produced by Tko Brothers.
Mister Ray was on the good titars, based and drums.
Mister Chanel handled orchestration and keyboards. Our satirical and pithy
(58:10):
musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever,
Nancy Faust. The Olberman theme from ESPN two, written by
Mitch Warren Davis Curtisy of ESPN, Inc. Is the sports music.
Other music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
My announcer today is my friend Jonathan Banks from Breaking Bad,
and everything else was as always my fault. That's countdown
(58:35):
for today, day one hundred and forty eight of America
held hostage just one three hundred and sixteen days until
the scheduled end of his lame duck, lame brained term
unless Putin or Musk remove him sooner, or Millenia does,
or the actuarial tables do, or we do. The next
(58:56):
scheduled countdown is Thursday, and until that next one, I'm
Keith Olberman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.
(59:24):
Countdown with Keith Oldman is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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