December 12, 2022 • 42 mins
EPISODE 93: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (2:02) SPECIAL COMMENT 1: The attack on power stations that blacked out Moore County, North Carolina turns out to be just one of THIRTEEN attacks on the softest targets of our power grid, in Florida, North Carolina, Oregon, and Washington State - just since September. What's going on about this domestic terrorism that could leave the entire nation without power, and what are we doing about it? (9:15) SPECIAL COMENT 2: You might be mystified by Kyrsten Sinema's declaration she's suddenly an "Independent" - as somebody who's known her, I am not (11:00) This is her only chance at staying in politics: Convince the Democrats that as a third-party candidate she can steal away at least 6% of the vote from the Democratic nominee for Senate in Arizona in 2024 so they need to clear the field for her. It's nonsensical, but then again, so is she. (14:46) The obvious explanation is the corporate money poured into her campaigns (and her life) but I keep wondering how such a genuinely progressive person could have destroyed herself so quickly. And each time it hits me anew: she's messianic but she's also messy and if I'm not the only one to whom she revealed details of her unconventional personal life, perhaps she's been blackmailed.
B-Block (18:49) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Benji in New York; (19:52) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Trump confesses: he turned down a Russian offer to send American Marine Paul Whelan back in a prisoner swap; Will we learn tomorrow that there's been a breakthrough in nuclear fusion?; Will Dr. Fauci sue Elon Musk and has The New York Times figured out what Q-Elon's politics are yet? And Marjorie Taylor Greene says if she'd planned it, January 6th would've succeeded, then lies about there being no guns involved, then switches to topics she can comprehend: "a butt plug or a dildo." 25:55 IN SPORTS: Another journalist dies at the World Cup; In a new interview Grant Wahl's brother is still "legitimately suspicious;" Britney Griner hits the court; and 51 years later, in defense of the Mets trading Nolan Ryan for Jim Fregosi; (31:10) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Chuck Todd vies with Kyle Rittenhouse and Justice Brett "I Shouldn't Be At This Party, Should I?" Kavanaugh for the honors.
C-Block (35:05) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I have seen the view from the top of the mountain. It's not quite so good if you're there to cover the Gold Medal race in the 1980 Olympics Men's Downhill skiing and you have not brought anything to record your interviews on!
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 I Heart Radio.
I have not done this before. I have two separate
(00:25):
commentaries for you today because a series of small, under
publicized news stories is giving me the creeps. But I
also have a lot to say about my ex Kirsten Cinema,
speaking of giving me the creeps, pretending to become an
independent those underpublicized news stories. First, it seems to have
(00:46):
started with the Russians Monday, October. They bombed sixteen different
Ukrainian cities that day. Sadly, nothing unusual about that, except
for the targets power plants, water heating facilities, electrical grids.
It was repeated in Kiev in October, repeat it across
Ukraine as recently as December one, enough damage just to
(01:08):
power plants to plunge a nation the size of Texas
into darkness and cold indefinitely. Then came December three. Somebody
fired shots into the Duke Energy substations in Carthage and
West End, North Carolina. Not terrorist assaults, not commando raids,
not cyber attacks, not break ins, just ordinary gunfire, and
(01:32):
within minutes, virtually all of Moore County, North Carolina was
without electricity. And would be for four full days, and
it was only that brief because of round the clock
efforts to put the county's power grid back together again.
The same day the lights came back on in North Carolina,
three thousand German cops and special forces troops conducted one
(01:55):
and fifty separate raids in eleven different German states and
rolled up a plot to overthrow the German government, and
at the home of the would be dictator a new
German Reich, they found a cash of irridium satellite phones
that cost twenty one thousand dollars a piece that were
there so members of the plot could communicate with each
(02:16):
other after they sabotaged as much of the German national
power grid as they could. German coup destroy the power grid,
North Carolina terrorism destroy the power grid. Russian attack on
Ukraine destroy the power grid following me. Yet, I don't
(02:37):
want to make more of this than it deserves, and
I genuinely hope I'm being paranoid about this, But I
am getting that same skin crawling feeling that I had
as we began to piece together what we didn't piece
together before nine eleven about frequent flyers seeing the same
passengers acting bizarrely on the same roots out of Logan
and Newark and Dulless, but nobody cross referencing what they saw,
(03:01):
which were dry runs, or the hijackers learning how to
fly but not bothering with landings or takeoffs, or the
two terrorists who flew the plane into the Pentagon renting
rooms from an FBI informant who never suspected them. But
of course this is premature and wild and irresponsible of me,
because it's just one attack on two substations in North Carolina,
(03:22):
and that may still turn out to have been a
crazy scheme to prevent a drag show from these imbeciles
incited by the manipulative record rhetoric now being fueled by
the likes of Elon Musk. It is not as if
there have been other attacks on power stations not in America.
Moore County is the thirteenth attack on a power station
(03:44):
in America since September. Duke Energy Bay Ridge Substation, Florida,
September intruder Duke Energy pay Ridge Substation, Florida, September Intruder
Duke Energy Orange Blossom Substation, Florida, September intruder Duke Energy
Zephyr Hills Substation, Florida, September twenty one. Intruder Duke Energy
(04:07):
Zephyry Hills North Substation, Florida, September twenty one, forced entry,
nine minute outage. Duke Energy East Clearwater Substation, Florida, September
forced entry, manually locked the substation, taking it offline. Two
minute outage. Cowlitz County Public Utility, Woodland, Washington, mid November.
(04:30):
Two substations attacked. Puget Sound Energy, Washington State. Late November.
Two substations attacked Portland General Electric, Clackamus, Oregon, late November.
Bonnaville Power Administration, Clackamus County, Oregon. November. Fence cut equipment
damaged the Bonneville Power Administration attack number twelve on your
(04:50):
list here, not counting North Carolina, is especially noteworthy because
the Bonneville Power Administration runs a key part of the
power transmission system from the Federal hydro Electrical Dams, but
goes the entire Northwest. Again. Maybe maybe, maybe this isn't
(05:11):
some sort of nationwide testing of the defenses at substations
in the Northwest, in the southeast, in Florida. Maybe it
all isn't in furtherance of some plot or plots to
shut off the power to enable what a fascist coup?
Something on Trump's behalf support for the oath keepers or
(05:32):
the Proud Boys, and excuse for martial law, something from
the crazy parts of the left. Your guests is as
good as mine. Maybe somebody just wants to see the
inside of power substations. Maybe somebody has a grudge against
power companies. Ludicrous as that sounds. For sixteen years, New
York City was terrorized by a man identified as the
(05:53):
Mad Bomber. His real name was George mattes Ki. He
hid thirty three bombs in Grand Central, in Radio City,
the public Library, thirty Rock, the subway. George Mattsky turned
out to be a former con Edison employee who was
injured in an accident there in the bombs he believed
were his revenge. So it could be that, But there
(06:17):
comes a point at which the motive is not the
primary concern. Just consider the confusion, the fear, and the
insecurity in More County, North Carolina, population one thousand. Just
remember the confusion, the fear of the insecurity in the
Northeast Blackout from two thousand three. Just consider a scenario
where your lights don't work. Your heat doesn't work, your
(06:41):
air conditioning doesn't work, your refrigerator doesn't work, your phone
doesn't work, your Internet doesn't work. And somebody has done
this deliberately. Because the defenses around the soft targets of
our electrical grid are a bunch of chain link fences.
You don't even have to cut through them, as More
(07:01):
County showed, you can just shoot through them. The Wall
Street Journal got hold of a study by the Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission. There are more than fifty five thousand
transmission substations in this country. Most of them are privately owned,
so forget some easy security fix. One hundred of the
fifty thousand are considered vital, but just nine of them
(07:24):
are so critical that attacks on just those just those
nine could plunge the nation into darkness. According to this study,
nine as opposed to the thirteen that have been attacked
since September. Why away the Federal Energy Regulatories Commission, warning
(07:44):
that the Wall Street Journal got ahold of It's from
March March of two thousand fourteen. And speaking of being
in the dark, there is Kirsten Cinema, The handwringing mystified
Confusion in Washington is in and of itself mystifying to me.
Her move to rebrand herself Friday is independent is not mysterious,
(08:08):
nor is it enigmatic. It is obviously not sincere it
is in fact her last option. She is Sheriff bart
In blazing saddles, let me out of here, or the
cinema gets it. She is the lamest lame duck ever
to hold a Senate or House seat. Liz Chenese numbers
were better. Kirsten's only remaining play is to threaten without
(08:28):
saying she is threatening that she will run as an
independent in four for the seat she currently holds. Mark
Kelly just beat blake Y. Yes, I was hypnotized at
the county fair and never snapped out of it. Why
do you ask? Masters? By a hundred and twenty six
thousand votes out of two and a half million votes
cast Kirsten Cinema running as a third party candidate getting
(08:51):
literally six percent of the vote in the Arizona Senate
election could throw it to the Republican. She is underwater
in terms of the polls. Her unfavorable exceed her favorables
by thirteen points among college educated voters. That is her
best net score. She's minus fourteen among men over fifty,
(09:15):
minus fifteen among whites over fifty, minus sixteen among all men,
and among all voters over fifty. Kirsten is minus seventeen
among women and all likely voters. She's minus eighteen among Republicans.
She's minus twenty among Democrats. She's minus twenty two among Hispanics.
It's amazing. It's like they all dated her. This is
(09:39):
why Friday she declared herself a quote independent. She might
not even bother to run for renomination by the Democrats.
She just has to convince Democratic leadership in Arizona and
Washington that she can get on the ballot through a
third party, and then she hopes they will fold to
her unspoken blackmail and keep other Democrats from challenging her.
(10:01):
I mean keep all the other Democrats in the world
from challenging her for that Senate nomination. If they do that,
and she can maintain her absolute conviction that she is
a super genius while the rest of us are idiots,
and by us, I mean all of humanity. I truly
believe that she believes she can con Arizona into re
(10:21):
electing her, even if they cleared the field for her.
It will not work, but it does allow for her
to TULSEI gabbered this thing. Identify as a Democrat for
a while, vote as a Republican, get a job at
Fox News as the in house pet, alleged liberal, and
if it's none of those, she may actually be suffering
(10:42):
under delusion. One of those you should get a ct
scanned delusions that she can run for president to some
sort of centrist in personally, given the choice between having
to work for Cinema for president twenty four and Kanye
for President twenty four, I think I m hm flee
(11:03):
the country. My question is why did she choose this path.
We dated briefly in eleven It was not a big deal.
It was always friendly. There was no break up. We
went to Book of Mormon twice. She was clear she
didn't have relationships, so there was no expectation from either
of us, no scenes, no anger. We talked a lot
(11:27):
before and after. I have seen her in eleven years,
but we stayed in touch right through her election to
the Senate and then she disappeared. And I couldn't calculate
the exact percentage, but she was thoroughly and in all
respects phenomenally more liberal than I am minus twenty among Democrats,
(11:48):
minus twenty among all voters without four years of college.
Do you know how difficult it is to put up
both of those numbers together. It's like being attacked for
an hour by me and then being attacked for an
hour by Tucker Carlson. The popular theory is that when
exposed to the money available to her from the corporations,
especially the hedge funds, her liberality, her bond to people
(12:12):
like herself raised on the brink of financial disaster, melted away.
That she suddenly discovered that being a warrior for the underprivileged,
being a member of and the champion for half a
dozen minority groups was great, but that money was better.
The communications director on her two thousand eighteen Senate campaign
(12:35):
spared nothing Friday, quote, Cinema is showing us who she's
been all along out for herself. One of her rivals
in her race for Congress, her one time friend, David Shapira,
says she has always been like this. They made a
joint public promise to run a clean campaign in two
thousand twelve, and she promptly lied and put out ads
(12:57):
in which she said he had supported McCain over Obama,
he had supported Obama over McCain, and that he favored
private school abouchers. He was, in fact wildly against private
school vouchers. Shapirah writes, quote, she later apologized and told
me she had to do it or she would have lost,
as if that made it okay unquote. I can see
(13:19):
that even twelve years ago, she was messianic. But she's
also messy. If I and my experiences are any indicator,
Kirsten Cinema is remarkably free with the let's call them
atypical details of her personal life. And as I've seen
her turn into a red dog Democrat these last four years,
(13:39):
at best, a red dog democrat, I find myself thinking
and thinking each time as if it has just occurred
to me for the first time. I wonder if somebody
is blackmailing her Now. I do not underrate what money
can do. I have seen better people in every industry
in this country, better people than Kirsten Cinema corrupted by money.
(14:01):
But what if it's both? I mean, Tobe, it's neither.
Maybe she's just a schmuck. But her political instincts were
once so solid and practical that to have collapsed in
this way makes her the John Edwards of her time
(14:32):
still ahead, Trump confesses he deliberately left the former marine
Paul Wheeling in a Russian jail, even though he was
offered a straight up prisoner swap for him, And that
is some confession even for Trump. Marjorie Trader Green boasts
the next time they try a coup, they will bring
more guns. Quillan is in full flower. Elon Musk threatens
(14:54):
Anthony Faucci. When is the Senate hearing into how he's
jeopardized the lives of former Twitter employees say nothing of
Dr Fauci by promulgating Pizza Gate. Chuck Todd finally makes
it into worse persons. And it was one of the
great privileges of my career, covering the miracle on ice,
the hockey game against the Soviets at the nineteen Olympics,
(15:14):
and Lake Plastics. Of course, a week before that, I
found myself stranded at atop a mountain in La Plasid
about to be fired because the only other radio reporter
up there would not help me out things I promised
not to tell coming up. That's next, This discountdown. This
(15:34):
is countdown. With Keith Alberman still ahead, did we just
finally make in roads towards making nuclear fusion of practical
source of energy is gonna be announced tomorrow? And in
the same speech, did Marjorie Taylor Green actually endorsed both
another January six and quote dildos and butt plugs unquote
(16:01):
first In each addition of countdown, we featured dog in need.
You can help. Every dog has its day. Imagine you're Benji.
He is a puppy with a big smile and big
energy and a love for fetch and for playing ball.
Yet his humans kept him in a crate for ten
hours a day because they thought he had too much energy.
Right after his second birthday, they took him to the
New York kill shelter to die there. He needs training
(16:24):
and socialization, and he needs our pledges to help defray
the costs a rescue will incur by saving him from
that kill list tomorrow. You can find Benji on my
Twitter feeds. Please retweet him and pledge if you can. Hi,
thank you, and Benji, thanks you. Post Scripts to the
(17:01):
news and there's a lot of it. Some headlines, some updates,
some snarks, some prediction, state line, Mari Lago. Quite a
confession last night from Trump, quoting his social media post,
I turned down a deal with Russia for a one
on one swap of the so called merchant of death
for Paul Wheeland end quote. Trump brother remarkably admitting he
(17:21):
let the former marine wrought in a Russian prison for
two years because the trade terms were more important to
him than the American citizen in question. Quote. I wouldn't
have made the deal for a hundred people in exchange
for someone that has killed untold numbers of people with
his arms. Deals. Trump neglects to note that Victor Boot
the so called merchant of death, his sentence ends in
(17:42):
six years and he will be released anyway. Quote. I
would have gotten Paul out, however, just as I did
with a record number of other hostages unquote, even though,
of course he didn't get Paul Wheeling out last quote.
The deal for Griner is crazy and bad. The taking
wouldn't have ever happened during my administration, but if it did,
I would have gotten her out fast unquote, even though
(18:03):
he didn't get Paul wheel And out at all. Dateline
the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, the financial Times
reports that the quote major scientific breakthrough to be announced
tomorrow by the Department of Energy is nothing less than
a successful experiment in harnessing nuclear fusion, quoting a process
(18:24):
called inertial confinement fusion that involves bombarding a tiny pellet
of hydrogen plasma with the world's biggest laser had achieved
net energy gain in a fusion experiment in the past
two weeks. If this is true, it could change everything
from the future of energy production to the chance we
still have to save this planet from climate change. The
(18:46):
real test as to whether or not nuclear fusion as
opposed to nuclear fission i e. Doctor Strange Love is
how quickly the fossil fuel industry will start rumors that
nuclear fusion kills birds and spreads COVID dateline San Francisco,
speaking of which que Elon is in fulller. No word
yet whether Dr Anthony Fauci will sue Elon Musk after
(19:09):
Musk last night stated as if fact that Fauci quote
lied to Congress unquote and funded research that quote killed
millions of people. Earlier, Musk had tweeted that his pronouns
were quote prosecute slash Fauci. What is needed now is
Senate hearings into Elon Musk and who or what might
be behind his transformation of Twitter into one long pizza
(19:31):
gate tweet For context, On March, Musk tweeted quote the
coronavirus is dumb, and on March Musk tweeted probably close
to zero cases in US two by end of April,
also looking idiotic today The New York Times, which on
Saturday reported that it was difficult to tell what Musk's
(19:52):
politics really were, and based on how quickly that bit
of sophistry was disproved, the time should probably fold today.
Thank you, Nancy Faust at Dateline, New York, and speaking
(20:18):
of Mickey Mouse, Marjorie Trader Green addressed a Young Republicans
dinner or cell meeting or whatever Saturday and endorsed the
January six coup attempt and then explained how the mob
sent by Trump could have successfully prevented the certification of
President Biden's election and overthrown the government and installed Trump
as dictator. Where it happens the next thing, you know,
(20:40):
I organized the whole thing along with step here, and
I don't and I had organized that we would have
won Chro Magnu woman speaks the last lie in their hands.
(21:05):
At where Taylor Green went next, repeating the lie that
there were no guns at the Capitol or on the
Capitol grounds during the coup attempt. You'll notice no laughs
(21:32):
or applause. They're just shock, I guess because Green inadvertently
proved that it was the Second Amendment people who did
in fact carry out the attempted coup. On January six,
there were at least seven arrests for gun possession at
the Capitol that day. Mark Masa is going to jail
for five years for having brought two handguns hand guns
(21:53):
rather in Lonnie Kaufman got four years for one gun.
Guy refit convicted of having one on the grounds, And
of course the oath keepers had a stash of literally
dozens of long guns waiting at a Virginia who tell
On the other hand, Green says, it's so called twitter
files are quote evidence of a coup, a comment that
is in itself evidence of a moron. And in her
(22:15):
New York speech she complained about transgenderism and how quote
you can pick up a butt plug or a dildo
at target nowadays unquote, and you have to admit that
at least it's nice she has finally turned to talking
about her areas of expertise. This is Sports Center. Wait
(22:50):
check that not anymore. This is Countdown with Keith Alberman,
Nuclear fusion and butt plugs in the same podcast. In Sport.
After the shocking death of America's top soccer journalist Grant
Wall on Friday, another journalist has died at the World Cup.
(23:12):
Qatari photographer Khalid al miss Lam collapsed yesterday and died
at the age of forty eight. There is as yet
nothing further on what caused it, and nothing further on
Grant walls death, though his brother Eric tells the Kansas
City Star quote there's enough that I know in my
conversations with Grant to make me legitimately suspicious if nothing else,
That's why we want transparency. Those remarks were made on Sunday.
(23:36):
Eric Wall says he has been assured his brother's autopsy
will be conducted in the US. In happier sports news,
Brittany Grinder is still being assessed at Fort sam Houston
and San Antonio, but her agents telling ESPN that she
picked up a basketball yesterday for the first time in
ten months, and she started her light workout with a dunk.
(23:57):
Basketball is mourning a great loss to Paul Silas has died,
another product of mcclemens High School in Oakland, a sports
factory for narrations, a member of the NBA champions Celtics
of nineteen seventy four and seventy six and the Seattle
Sonics of nineteen seventy nine, sixteen years as an NBA
player and eleven as a head coach, and a big
anniversary in baseball. Over the weekend fifty one years ago Saturday,
(24:20):
the New York Mets gave up on a promising picture,
easily the hardest thrower in the game, but one who's
inconsistency had be doubled the Mets for six seasons. They
sent Noelan Ryan to the California Angels with three prospects
for shortstop Jim for Goosie, whom they envisioned as the
man who would end their ten years search for a
star third baseman. It was not a good trade. It
(24:43):
did not work out, but it has been enshrined as
one of the worst trades in sports history. And this
is terrifically unfair to everybody involved. In the first half
of the season before the deal in nineteen seventy one,
Nolan Ryan struck out one hundred men in his first
one four innings that year. His earned run average at
mid season was two point two four and his whip
(25:05):
was one point to nine. In the second half of
the same year, he pitched only forty eight innings, walked
fifty three men, struck out just thirty seven. His e
r A went up five and a half runs to
seven point seven four, and his whip went up an
entire base runner to two point to two. And that
was the second straight year that Ryan, despite a light workload,
(25:25):
had imploded at mid season. There were also all sorts
of rumors that Nolan Ryan did not want to play
in New York anymore, that his family hated the place.
The Mets might have had the best pitching coach in baseball,
he had nurtured and refined the likes of Tom Sieber
and Jerry Kuzman and others, and he could never get
through to Nolan Ryan. And as to the players, the
(25:45):
Mets got Jim for Gosie was only four years and
ten months older than Nolan Ryan. So much for the
cliche that they traded Nolan Ryan for some old guy
for Goosie had had an off year in nineteen seventy one,
but in the eight seasons ending in nineteen seventy, Jim
for Gosie had gotten votes each year in every election
(26:06):
for the most Valuable player in the American League. Modern
calculations showed that twice, including in nineteen seventy, for Goosie
had the second highest wins above replacement total in the
entire American League. He had made six All Star teams
in seven years, four winters earlier. Future Hall of Fame
Angels beat writer Ross Newhan reported that the Giants so
(26:27):
coveted Jim for Gosi that they offered to give the
Angels future Hall of Fame picture Juan Marichal, slugger Jim
ray Heart and infielder Tito Fuentes just for for Goosie,
and the Angels turned them down. At one point, the
Angels contemplated asking Jim for Gosi to become player manager
of the team, and they actually kind of did that
(26:48):
in night, when he was finishing up as an active
player for Pittsburgh, the Angels traded for him and made
him their manager, and they then led them and Nolan
Ryan his picture to the American League Championship Series the
next year. Was it a good trade? No, it was
not a good trade. But very few people would have
told you that fifty one years ago today. Ultimately the
(27:10):
Mets needed to trade Nolan Ryan. They could not have
forecast that in his first spring training in New York,
Jim for Gosie would hurt his thumb and never be
able to hit with power again. For Goosie was a
great player, and nobody, nobody knew that he had hit
the end of the road before that trade was made.
He should be remembered for more than just that trade,
(27:31):
and it should probably also be remembered that Nolan Ryan
pitched for twenty two years after the trade and not
once did his team win a single postseason series. For Gosie,
he managed the Philadelphia Phillies into the World Series ahead.
(27:54):
You know that phrase, I have been to the top
of the mountain. Well, I have, and I can tell
you the view is not always that good. For it
was at the top of the mount that I discovered
I didn't have all the equipment I needed to do
my job, and the only other radio reporter on top
of the mountain refused to help me. Things I promised
(28:15):
not to tell about the ninety Olympics. Next, first, the
daily roundup of the misgrants, morons and Dunning Krueger effect
specimens who constitute two day's worst persons in the WARLD Bronze.
Chuck Todd, who at this rate will be the twelve
and final moderator of NBC's Meet the Press, discussing the
possibility of criminal referrals by the January sixth Committee with
(28:39):
ex prosecutor pre Perrara, Chuck asked, but doesn't it add
negatively to the political stew Just when you thought Chuck
had run out of euphemisms for I have to say
something to let the Republicans off some hooks somewhere, or
they'll get me fired tomorrow morning. I've known Chuck Todd
eighteen years now, and he will never understand that. He
(29:02):
will never understand that the political stu is merely the
package that America comes in. It is not the contents
the runner up, Kyle Rittenhouse. Kyle Rittenhouse has tweeted, quote,
people need to start being held accountable. Unquote Wow, I
(29:22):
don't know, Sonny. People need to start being held accountable.
You better hope not. But our winner Supreme Court Justice
Brett Kavanaugh, Politico and it's the only roundup of awards
season for ugly people listed some of those quote spotted
at the annual Christmas party of the Czar and Czarina
(29:43):
of Spack. Matt and Mercedes Schlepp. I'm sorry, slap schlap
Actually sounds better, doesn't it, Matt and Mercedes Schlepp. Matt
and Mercedes slap quote Matt Gates, Greta van Sustern, Eric Prince,
that's the mercenary, Eric Prince, Eric Prince, Sebastian Gorka, Sean,
(30:06):
I don't know what day it is, Spicer and Justice
Brett Kavanaugh. Before you ask, what on earth is a
Supreme Court justice doing at a party for the scummiest
fascists in town, you already know the answer to that question.
What is he doing at that party? Well, he's serving canopies,
Justice Brett. Would you like a cockdail napkin with that? Ms?
(30:29):
Van Soustern Kavanaugh Today's worst person? Oh, have this drink too?
In the way to the number one story on the
(30:51):
Countdown and my favorite topic, me and things I promised
not to tell and I swear I saw a snowflake
or too late Saturday night here, the first of the year,
and that makes it forty two consecutive winners. That at first,
snow has triggered me in exactly the same way, sending
me back in my mind to the nineteen eighty Winter
(31:13):
Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. The alarm goes off.
It is pitch black in my room at the Swiss
Acres Motel. It is Valentine's Day, and I am still drunk.
Keith knew he was in trouble, but I was also
(31:34):
twenty one years old, and in fact, my twenty one
birthday had only been eighteen days earlier. So somehow I survived, showered, dressed, packed,
and I mean I packed two cassette tape recorders, four
sets of batteries, an audio processing machine that weighed like
fourteen pounds. The nine volt batteries it took, I think
it was a dozen of them, a telephone, a backup telephone,
(31:56):
twelve assorted patch chords to loose leaf notebooks, about eight pens,
two microphones, to extra pair of socks, and I got dressed,
two full sets of thermal underwear, shirts, sweaters, snow pants,
snow shoes because it was eleven degrees below zero that morning.
I got something quick to eat at the commissary, and
(32:18):
I made it out somehow to the line for the
bus from the Lake Placid Olympics Center to the Lake
Placid Transportation Center to Lake Placid's own White Face Mountain,
then onto the snow track the open penned mountain tractor
that went up the side of White Face Mountain and
took me to the finish line of the nineteen Olympic
(32:39):
Men's downhill ski final still drunk. That is how a
reporter covered the Olympics nearly forty three years ago. You drank,
you woke up, you went, You stood near the finish line,
and when the skiers completed their runs, you hiked or
wobbled over to them, and you took out your microphone
(32:59):
or your pen and you interviewed them, like two minutes
after they had finished hurtling towards you down the hill.
You could see almost nothing of the race from there.
There were no TV monitors. Basically, your only clue was
the sound of the crowd. That would give you about
thirty seconds worth of warning that the skier was coming
over the near horizon, and you should be prepared to
(33:20):
flee just in case he or she wiped out. Also,
you were on top of a mountain at the dead
point of winter, and whereas it might have been a
balmy eleven degrees below zero in the comfort of the
Swiss Acres Motel with the wind chill at the base
of the mountain, it was forty eight below zero and
(33:43):
there had already been four inches of new snow since
the sun came up, which is where the still drunk
part came in Handy my boss is at my first job,
the thousand station radio network called United President National Audio,
had decided the night before to teach me how to
drink while on assignment. My bosses were the bureau manager
(34:05):
for that part of u p I, the late Stan Sebek,
who had hired me, and Sam Rosen, the sports director
of the network, who not only somehow survived being my
first boss, but today, just forty three years later, is
still working as the television voice of the New York
Rangers hockey team and is in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
So I guess my reputation is a tough employee is
(34:27):
wildly overrated, or at least Sam think so. Sam and
Stan kept me drinking at the motel until two am,
knowing full well that I had to get on the
six am bus to go cover the men's downhill, because
it was the two of them who had assigned me
to go cover the men's downhill, and bluntly, I was
surprisingly pleased with myself that freezing morning, because I had
(34:50):
indeed learned how to drink while on assignment. I had
somehow found the phone jack for the U P I
phone buried under all the new snow, which of course
was buried under all the old snow, attached the phone
to it in a dial tone, called the office, checked
the alligator clips with which I would feed the tape,
and always well until I went to put a cassette
(35:15):
tape into the cassette recorder. I didn't have one. Fat
A lot of good two cassette tape machines gonna do
you without a cassette to stick in one of them.
I looked forlornly around the base of White Face Mountain,
twelve feet above sea level. As we were. There was
(35:37):
a surprisingly nice shalet and a decent restaurant, but there
were no radio shacks or other electronics stores. There was, however,
one other radio guy Jack Briggs from the Associated Press
Radio network, the nominal arch rival to our own up
I Audio. I knew Jack a little. He was a
nice guy. I went and explained my plight, making sure
(36:01):
to blame my bosses for my predicament. Oh man, he said,
his breath turning into first steam and then ice cubes.
I'm so sorry, but I can't give you a cassette.
I'm sorry, you're U p I and I'm a p
oh how, I laughed. That was a great line to
(36:23):
say to a rookie reporter still drunk thanks to the
initiation rituals of his own bosses, the possessor of one
great buzz but zero audio cassettes, Jack Briggs could tell
I thought he was kidding. That's when he said, I'm
not kidding. Look. Look, if my boss, Shelby Whitfield ever
found out, he'd fire me. I suddenly wasn't drunk anymore,
(36:46):
not at all. My my boss will will will fire me.
Briggs was adamant. I can't run the risk of Shelby
finding out. I have to confess, I shouted, how the
hell is he gonna find out? Jack? I think subconsciously
I was hoping to create an avalanche, which would have
(37:07):
been a better solution than the one I was faced with.
I said to him, there's you and there's me, and
we're on top of a goddamn mountain and Shelby Whitfield,
your boss is in Washington, d C. And he's a drunk,
and he's probably more drunk than I am, and he'd
probably thank you for helping me to drink more. Briggs
(37:28):
would not budge. I told him I would pay him.
I told him I would give him the cassette back
after I fed my boss the interviews over the phone,
so there'd be no evidence and he wouldn't even have
to do any interviews. No good, I'm sorry, and I
know you're gonna tell this story about me for a while.
As he walked away from me, I shouted after him forever.
(37:51):
Turned out there was no radio shack and no camaraderie,
but there was a West Coast newspaper reporter atop the
mountain who heard some of this conversation. I guess I
yelled a little loudly at Mr Briggs. Some guys ending
next to us St. Bernard and told me to quiet down.
He mentioned something else about the avalanches, or maybe I
dreamed that part. I don't know anyway, The West Coast
(38:12):
newspaper guy said he had a micro cassette machine and
he would loan it to me and I could give
it back to him at the media center that day
or the next one. But I had to do him
a favor because there was this really cute reporter in
our up I bureau and he really wanted to be
introduced to her. And I said, I can promise you
nothing but a handshake, and he understood, and that's how
I did not get fired. But of course, a story
(38:33):
like this has punchlines, and this one has two of them.
The first is two years and a couple of months later,
Shelby Whitfield asked me to lunch. He had left the
Associated Press to run the sports department at the ABC
Radio network, back when that was not only a thing
but a big thing. We went to a terrific New
(38:53):
York City Chinese restaurant near ABC called shun Lee, and
Shelby Whitfield interviewed me for a job when that kind
of job paid eighty thousand a year and my very
nice studio apartment in a very nice part of town
costs less than five dollars. A month later, in an
interesting twist, I found out that jobs didn't exist. I
(39:14):
was mentioning the interview in a press box somewhere I
think Madison Square Garden, and there was another kid reporter
named how He Rose and how are you still working?
He does the New York Mets games on the radio,
and how He said, wait, they interviewed me for that
job last year. Just an excuse for that damn Whitfield
to go drink his lunch on ABC's tab. Anyway, before
(39:36):
we started the interview for the job I did not
know did not exist at ABC. I told Shelby Whitfield
the white Face Mountain, can I borrow a cassette Jack
Briggs story? And Shelby's exact reply was, I don't know.
Was I going to find out? There was you and
there was him, and you were on top of a
goddamn mountain and I was in Washington. Only he didn't
say goddamn that Briggs. He added, always trying to suck
(40:00):
up to me. I gotta tell you something. I actually
once promised I wouldn't tell you if we ever met this.
When the Olympics were over and came back to the office,
he told me what happened. He expected me to be
happy or give him a bonus or something, and I
called him a little snitch. Only Shelby didn't say snitch,
just a word that rhymed with it. The other punch
line is from and remember this happened at the Olympics.
(40:25):
I go to work at ESPN and come in a
little early to launch their radio network of story I've
told here before. And there I find a friend of
mine since my radio days who I have not seen
in a year or so, and he says, hey, last month,
I was in an NBA game in Washington. I ran
it at Jack Briggs. He heard you were going to ESPN.
He asked me if you were still telling that story
about the time you got stuck on White Face Mountain
(40:46):
without a cassette and he was the only other reporter
there and he wouldn't give you a spare And I
told him you were, and I smiled, and I replied,
I hope you remembered to use the word forever. I mean,
(41:12):
how is it going to find out spy satellites? It's
there no spy satellites. I've done all the damage I
can do here. Thanks for listening. If you're not following
or subscribed or whatever to this podcast, please do so
and stop somebody on the street and get them too
as well. Here are the credits. Most of the music,
including our theme from Beethoven's Ninth, was arranged, produced, and
performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Channel. They are
(41:34):
the Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by John
Philip Chanelle, guitars, bass and drums by Brian Ray, produced
by t Ko Brothers. Other Beethoven selections have been arranged
and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports
music is the Olberman theme from ESPN two. It was
written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Musical
(41:56):
comments by Nancy Faust. The best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer today was Richard Lewis. Everything else was pretty
much my fault because I left the cassette back in
the hotel room. Mr Prigg's Thank God, I'm not better.
That's countdown for this the seven hundred and sixth day
since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected
(42:16):
government of the United States. Arrest him now, while we
still can. There'll be a new addition tomorrow. Until then,
I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and
good luck. Countdown with Keith old Reman is a production
of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
(42:38):
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio.
I have not done this before. I have two separate
(00:25):
commentaries for you today because a series of small, under
publicized news stories is giving me the creeps. But I
also have a lot to say about my ex Kirsten Cinema,
speaking of giving me the creeps, pretending to become an
independent those underpublicized news stories. First, it seems to have
(00:46):
started with the Russians Monday, October. They bombed sixteen different
Ukrainian cities that day. Sadly, nothing unusual about that, except
for the targets power plants, water heating facilities, electrical grids.
It was repeated in Kiev in October, repeat it across
Ukraine as recently as December one, enough damage just to
(01:08):
power plants to plunge a nation the size of Texas
into darkness and cold indefinitely. Then came December three. Somebody
fired shots into the Duke Energy substations in Carthage and
West End, North Carolina. Not terrorist assaults, not commando raids,
not cyber attacks, not break ins, just ordinary gunfire, and
(01:32):
within minutes, virtually all of Moore County, North Carolina was
without electricity. And would be for four full days, and
it was only that brief because of round the clock
efforts to put the county's power grid back together again.
The same day the lights came back on in North Carolina,
three thousand German cops and special forces troops conducted one
(01:55):
and fifty separate raids in eleven different German states and
rolled up a plot to overthrow the German government, and
at the home of the would be dictator a new
German Reich, they found a cash of irridium satellite phones
that cost twenty one thousand dollars a piece that were
there so members of the plot could communicate with each
(02:16):
other after they sabotaged as much of the German national
power grid as they could. German coup destroy the power grid,
North Carolina terrorism destroy the power grid. Russian attack on
Ukraine destroy the power grid following me. Yet, I don't
(02:37):
want to make more of this than it deserves, and
I genuinely hope I'm being paranoid about this, But I
am getting that same skin crawling feeling that I had
as we began to piece together what we didn't piece
together before nine eleven about frequent flyers seeing the same
passengers acting bizarrely on the same roots out of Logan
and Newark and Dulless, but nobody cross referencing what they saw,
(03:01):
which were dry runs, or the hijackers learning how to
fly but not bothering with landings or takeoffs, or the
two terrorists who flew the plane into the Pentagon renting
rooms from an FBI informant who never suspected them. But
of course this is premature and wild and irresponsible of me,
because it's just one attack on two substations in North Carolina,
(03:22):
and that may still turn out to have been a
crazy scheme to prevent a drag show from these imbeciles
incited by the manipulative record rhetoric now being fueled by
the likes of Elon Musk. It is not as if
there have been other attacks on power stations not in America.
Moore County is the thirteenth attack on a power station
(03:44):
in America since September. Duke Energy Bay Ridge Substation, Florida,
September intruder Duke Energy pay Ridge Substation, Florida, September Intruder
Duke Energy Orange Blossom Substation, Florida, September intruder Duke Energy
Zephyr Hills Substation, Florida, September twenty one. Intruder Duke Energy
(04:07):
Zephyry Hills North Substation, Florida, September twenty one, forced entry,
nine minute outage. Duke Energy East Clearwater Substation, Florida, September
forced entry, manually locked the substation, taking it offline. Two
minute outage. Cowlitz County Public Utility, Woodland, Washington, mid November.
(04:30):
Two substations attacked. Puget Sound Energy, Washington State. Late November.
Two substations attacked Portland General Electric, Clackamus, Oregon, late November.
Bonnaville Power Administration, Clackamus County, Oregon. November. Fence cut equipment
damaged the Bonneville Power Administration attack number twelve on your
(04:50):
list here, not counting North Carolina, is especially noteworthy because
the Bonneville Power Administration runs a key part of the
power transmission system from the Federal hydro Electrical Dams, but
goes the entire Northwest. Again. Maybe maybe, maybe this isn't
(05:11):
some sort of nationwide testing of the defenses at substations
in the Northwest, in the southeast, in Florida. Maybe it
all isn't in furtherance of some plot or plots to
shut off the power to enable what a fascist coup?
Something on Trump's behalf support for the oath keepers or
(05:32):
the Proud Boys, and excuse for martial law, something from
the crazy parts of the left. Your guests is as
good as mine. Maybe somebody just wants to see the
inside of power substations. Maybe somebody has a grudge against
power companies. Ludicrous as that sounds. For sixteen years, New
York City was terrorized by a man identified as the
(05:53):
Mad Bomber. His real name was George mattes Ki. He
hid thirty three bombs in Grand Central, in Radio City,
the public Library, thirty Rock, the subway. George Mattsky turned
out to be a former con Edison employee who was
injured in an accident there in the bombs he believed
were his revenge. So it could be that, But there
(06:17):
comes a point at which the motive is not the
primary concern. Just consider the confusion, the fear, and the
insecurity in More County, North Carolina, population one thousand. Just
remember the confusion, the fear of the insecurity in the
Northeast Blackout from two thousand three. Just consider a scenario
where your lights don't work. Your heat doesn't work, your
(06:41):
air conditioning doesn't work, your refrigerator doesn't work, your phone
doesn't work, your Internet doesn't work. And somebody has done
this deliberately. Because the defenses around the soft targets of
our electrical grid are a bunch of chain link fences.
You don't even have to cut through them, as More
(07:01):
County showed, you can just shoot through them. The Wall
Street Journal got hold of a study by the Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission. There are more than fifty five thousand
transmission substations in this country. Most of them are privately owned,
so forget some easy security fix. One hundred of the
fifty thousand are considered vital, but just nine of them
(07:24):
are so critical that attacks on just those just those
nine could plunge the nation into darkness. According to this study,
nine as opposed to the thirteen that have been attacked
since September. Why away the Federal Energy Regulatories Commission, warning
(07:44):
that the Wall Street Journal got ahold of It's from
March March of two thousand fourteen. And speaking of being
in the dark, there is Kirsten Cinema, The handwringing mystified
Confusion in Washington is in and of itself mystifying to me.
Her move to rebrand herself Friday is independent is not mysterious,
(08:08):
nor is it enigmatic. It is obviously not sincere it
is in fact her last option. She is Sheriff bart
In blazing saddles, let me out of here, or the
cinema gets it. She is the lamest lame duck ever
to hold a Senate or House seat. Liz Chenese numbers
were better. Kirsten's only remaining play is to threaten without
(08:28):
saying she is threatening that she will run as an
independent in four for the seat she currently holds. Mark
Kelly just beat blake Y. Yes, I was hypnotized at
the county fair and never snapped out of it. Why
do you ask? Masters? By a hundred and twenty six
thousand votes out of two and a half million votes
cast Kirsten Cinema running as a third party candidate getting
(08:51):
literally six percent of the vote in the Arizona Senate
election could throw it to the Republican. She is underwater
in terms of the polls. Her unfavorable exceed her favorables
by thirteen points among college educated voters. That is her
best net score. She's minus fourteen among men over fifty,
(09:15):
minus fifteen among whites over fifty, minus sixteen among all men,
and among all voters over fifty. Kirsten is minus seventeen
among women and all likely voters. She's minus eighteen among Republicans.
She's minus twenty among Democrats. She's minus twenty two among Hispanics.
It's amazing. It's like they all dated her. This is
(09:39):
why Friday she declared herself a quote independent. She might
not even bother to run for renomination by the Democrats.
She just has to convince Democratic leadership in Arizona and
Washington that she can get on the ballot through a
third party, and then she hopes they will fold to
her unspoken blackmail and keep other Democrats from challenging her.
(10:01):
I mean keep all the other Democrats in the world
from challenging her for that Senate nomination. If they do that,
and she can maintain her absolute conviction that she is
a super genius while the rest of us are idiots,
and by us, I mean all of humanity. I truly
believe that she believes she can con Arizona into re
(10:21):
electing her, even if they cleared the field for her.
It will not work, but it does allow for her
to TULSEI gabbered this thing. Identify as a Democrat for
a while, vote as a Republican, get a job at
Fox News as the in house pet, alleged liberal, and
if it's none of those, she may actually be suffering
(10:42):
under delusion. One of those you should get a ct
scanned delusions that she can run for president to some
sort of centrist in personally, given the choice between having
to work for Cinema for president twenty four and Kanye
for President twenty four, I think I m hm flee
(11:03):
the country. My question is why did she choose this path.
We dated briefly in eleven It was not a big deal.
It was always friendly. There was no break up. We
went to Book of Mormon twice. She was clear she
didn't have relationships, so there was no expectation from either
of us, no scenes, no anger. We talked a lot
(11:27):
before and after. I have seen her in eleven years,
but we stayed in touch right through her election to
the Senate and then she disappeared. And I couldn't calculate
the exact percentage, but she was thoroughly and in all
respects phenomenally more liberal than I am minus twenty among Democrats,
(11:48):
minus twenty among all voters without four years of college.
Do you know how difficult it is to put up
both of those numbers together. It's like being attacked for
an hour by me and then being attacked for an
hour by Tucker Carlson. The popular theory is that when
exposed to the money available to her from the corporations,
especially the hedge funds, her liberality, her bond to people
(12:12):
like herself raised on the brink of financial disaster, melted away.
That she suddenly discovered that being a warrior for the underprivileged,
being a member of and the champion for half a
dozen minority groups was great, but that money was better.
The communications director on her two thousand eighteen Senate campaign
(12:35):
spared nothing Friday, quote, Cinema is showing us who she's
been all along out for herself. One of her rivals
in her race for Congress, her one time friend, David Shapira,
says she has always been like this. They made a
joint public promise to run a clean campaign in two
thousand twelve, and she promptly lied and put out ads
(12:57):
in which she said he had supported McCain over Obama,
he had supported Obama over McCain, and that he favored
private school abouchers. He was, in fact wildly against private
school vouchers. Shapirah writes, quote, she later apologized and told
me she had to do it or she would have lost,
as if that made it okay unquote. I can see
(13:19):
that even twelve years ago, she was messianic. But she's
also messy. If I and my experiences are any indicator,
Kirsten Cinema is remarkably free with the let's call them
atypical details of her personal life. And as I've seen
her turn into a red dog Democrat these last four years,
(13:39):
at best, a red dog democrat, I find myself thinking
and thinking each time as if it has just occurred
to me for the first time. I wonder if somebody
is blackmailing her Now. I do not underrate what money
can do. I have seen better people in every industry
in this country, better people than Kirsten Cinema corrupted by money.
(14:01):
But what if it's both? I mean, Tobe, it's neither.
Maybe she's just a schmuck. But her political instincts were
once so solid and practical that to have collapsed in
this way makes her the John Edwards of her time
(14:32):
still ahead, Trump confesses he deliberately left the former marine
Paul Wheeling in a Russian jail, even though he was
offered a straight up prisoner swap for him, And that
is some confession even for Trump. Marjorie Trader Green boasts
the next time they try a coup, they will bring
more guns. Quillan is in full flower. Elon Musk threatens
(14:54):
Anthony Faucci. When is the Senate hearing into how he's
jeopardized the lives of former Twitter employees say nothing of
Dr Fauci by promulgating Pizza Gate. Chuck Todd finally makes
it into worse persons. And it was one of the
great privileges of my career, covering the miracle on ice,
the hockey game against the Soviets at the nineteen Olympics,
(15:14):
and Lake Plastics. Of course, a week before that, I
found myself stranded at atop a mountain in La Plasid
about to be fired because the only other radio reporter
up there would not help me out things I promised
not to tell coming up. That's next, This discountdown. This
(15:34):
is countdown. With Keith Alberman still ahead, did we just
finally make in roads towards making nuclear fusion of practical
source of energy is gonna be announced tomorrow? And in
the same speech, did Marjorie Taylor Green actually endorsed both
another January six and quote dildos and butt plugs unquote
(16:01):
first In each addition of countdown, we featured dog in need.
You can help. Every dog has its day. Imagine you're Benji.
He is a puppy with a big smile and big
energy and a love for fetch and for playing ball.
Yet his humans kept him in a crate for ten
hours a day because they thought he had too much energy.
Right after his second birthday, they took him to the
New York kill shelter to die there. He needs training
(16:24):
and socialization, and he needs our pledges to help defray
the costs a rescue will incur by saving him from
that kill list tomorrow. You can find Benji on my
Twitter feeds. Please retweet him and pledge if you can. Hi,
thank you, and Benji, thanks you. Post Scripts to the
(17:01):
news and there's a lot of it. Some headlines, some updates,
some snarks, some prediction, state line, Mari Lago. Quite a
confession last night from Trump, quoting his social media post,
I turned down a deal with Russia for a one
on one swap of the so called merchant of death
for Paul Wheeland end quote. Trump brother remarkably admitting he
(17:21):
let the former marine wrought in a Russian prison for
two years because the trade terms were more important to
him than the American citizen in question. Quote. I wouldn't
have made the deal for a hundred people in exchange
for someone that has killed untold numbers of people with
his arms. Deals. Trump neglects to note that Victor Boot
the so called merchant of death, his sentence ends in
(17:42):
six years and he will be released anyway. Quote. I
would have gotten Paul out, however, just as I did
with a record number of other hostages unquote, even though,
of course he didn't get Paul Wheeling out last quote.
The deal for Griner is crazy and bad. The taking
wouldn't have ever happened during my administration, but if it did,
I would have gotten her out fast unquote, even though
(18:03):
he didn't get Paul wheel And out at all. Dateline
the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, the financial Times
reports that the quote major scientific breakthrough to be announced
tomorrow by the Department of Energy is nothing less than
a successful experiment in harnessing nuclear fusion, quoting a process
(18:24):
called inertial confinement fusion that involves bombarding a tiny pellet
of hydrogen plasma with the world's biggest laser had achieved
net energy gain in a fusion experiment in the past
two weeks. If this is true, it could change everything
from the future of energy production to the chance we
still have to save this planet from climate change. The
(18:46):
real test as to whether or not nuclear fusion as
opposed to nuclear fission i e. Doctor Strange Love is
how quickly the fossil fuel industry will start rumors that
nuclear fusion kills birds and spreads COVID dateline San Francisco,
speaking of which que Elon is in fulller. No word
yet whether Dr Anthony Fauci will sue Elon Musk after
(19:09):
Musk last night stated as if fact that Fauci quote
lied to Congress unquote and funded research that quote killed
millions of people. Earlier, Musk had tweeted that his pronouns
were quote prosecute slash Fauci. What is needed now is
Senate hearings into Elon Musk and who or what might
be behind his transformation of Twitter into one long pizza
(19:31):
gate tweet For context, On March, Musk tweeted quote the
coronavirus is dumb, and on March Musk tweeted probably close
to zero cases in US two by end of April,
also looking idiotic today The New York Times, which on
Saturday reported that it was difficult to tell what Musk's
(19:52):
politics really were, and based on how quickly that bit
of sophistry was disproved, the time should probably fold today.
Thank you, Nancy Faust at Dateline, New York, and speaking
(20:18):
of Mickey Mouse, Marjorie Trader Green addressed a Young Republicans
dinner or cell meeting or whatever Saturday and endorsed the
January six coup attempt and then explained how the mob
sent by Trump could have successfully prevented the certification of
President Biden's election and overthrown the government and installed Trump
as dictator. Where it happens the next thing, you know,
(20:40):
I organized the whole thing along with step here, and
I don't and I had organized that we would have
won Chro Magnu woman speaks the last lie in their hands.
(21:05):
At where Taylor Green went next, repeating the lie that
there were no guns at the Capitol or on the
Capitol grounds during the coup attempt. You'll notice no laughs
(21:32):
or applause. They're just shock, I guess because Green inadvertently
proved that it was the Second Amendment people who did
in fact carry out the attempted coup. On January six,
there were at least seven arrests for gun possession at
the Capitol that day. Mark Masa is going to jail
for five years for having brought two handguns hand guns
(21:53):
rather in Lonnie Kaufman got four years for one gun.
Guy refit convicted of having one on the grounds, And
of course the oath keepers had a stash of literally
dozens of long guns waiting at a Virginia who tell
On the other hand, Green says, it's so called twitter
files are quote evidence of a coup, a comment that
is in itself evidence of a moron. And in her
(22:15):
New York speech she complained about transgenderism and how quote
you can pick up a butt plug or a dildo
at target nowadays unquote, and you have to admit that
at least it's nice she has finally turned to talking
about her areas of expertise. This is Sports Center. Wait
(22:50):
check that not anymore. This is Countdown with Keith Alberman,
Nuclear fusion and butt plugs in the same podcast. In Sport.
After the shocking death of America's top soccer journalist Grant
Wall on Friday, another journalist has died at the World Cup.
(23:12):
Qatari photographer Khalid al miss Lam collapsed yesterday and died
at the age of forty eight. There is as yet
nothing further on what caused it, and nothing further on
Grant walls death, though his brother Eric tells the Kansas
City Star quote there's enough that I know in my
conversations with Grant to make me legitimately suspicious if nothing else,
That's why we want transparency. Those remarks were made on Sunday.
(23:36):
Eric Wall says he has been assured his brother's autopsy
will be conducted in the US. In happier sports news,
Brittany Grinder is still being assessed at Fort sam Houston
and San Antonio, but her agents telling ESPN that she
picked up a basketball yesterday for the first time in
ten months, and she started her light workout with a dunk.
(23:57):
Basketball is mourning a great loss to Paul Silas has died,
another product of mcclemens High School in Oakland, a sports
factory for narrations, a member of the NBA champions Celtics
of nineteen seventy four and seventy six and the Seattle
Sonics of nineteen seventy nine, sixteen years as an NBA
player and eleven as a head coach, and a big
anniversary in baseball. Over the weekend fifty one years ago Saturday,
(24:20):
the New York Mets gave up on a promising picture,
easily the hardest thrower in the game, but one who's
inconsistency had be doubled the Mets for six seasons. They
sent Noelan Ryan to the California Angels with three prospects
for shortstop Jim for Goosie, whom they envisioned as the
man who would end their ten years search for a
star third baseman. It was not a good trade. It
(24:43):
did not work out, but it has been enshrined as
one of the worst trades in sports history. And this
is terrifically unfair to everybody involved. In the first half
of the season before the deal in nineteen seventy one,
Nolan Ryan struck out one hundred men in his first
one four innings that year. His earned run average at
mid season was two point two four and his whip
(25:05):
was one point to nine. In the second half of
the same year, he pitched only forty eight innings, walked
fifty three men, struck out just thirty seven. His e
r A went up five and a half runs to
seven point seven four, and his whip went up an
entire base runner to two point to two. And that
was the second straight year that Ryan, despite a light workload,
(25:25):
had imploded at mid season. There were also all sorts
of rumors that Nolan Ryan did not want to play
in New York anymore, that his family hated the place.
The Mets might have had the best pitching coach in baseball,
he had nurtured and refined the likes of Tom Sieber
and Jerry Kuzman and others, and he could never get
through to Nolan Ryan. And as to the players, the
(25:45):
Mets got Jim for Gosie was only four years and
ten months older than Nolan Ryan. So much for the
cliche that they traded Nolan Ryan for some old guy
for Goosie had had an off year in nineteen seventy one,
but in the eight seasons ending in nineteen seventy, Jim
for Gosie had gotten votes each year in every election
(26:06):
for the most Valuable player in the American League. Modern
calculations showed that twice, including in nineteen seventy, for Goosie
had the second highest wins above replacement total in the
entire American League. He had made six All Star teams
in seven years, four winters earlier. Future Hall of Fame
Angels beat writer Ross Newhan reported that the Giants so
(26:27):
coveted Jim for Gosi that they offered to give the
Angels future Hall of Fame picture Juan Marichal, slugger Jim
ray Heart and infielder Tito Fuentes just for for Goosie,
and the Angels turned them down. At one point, the
Angels contemplated asking Jim for Gosi to become player manager
of the team, and they actually kind of did that
(26:48):
in night, when he was finishing up as an active
player for Pittsburgh, the Angels traded for him and made
him their manager, and they then led them and Nolan
Ryan his picture to the American League Championship Series the
next year. Was it a good trade? No, it was
not a good trade. But very few people would have
told you that fifty one years ago today. Ultimately the
(27:10):
Mets needed to trade Nolan Ryan. They could not have
forecast that in his first spring training in New York,
Jim for Gosie would hurt his thumb and never be
able to hit with power again. For Goosie was a
great player, and nobody, nobody knew that he had hit
the end of the road before that trade was made.
He should be remembered for more than just that trade,
(27:31):
and it should probably also be remembered that Nolan Ryan
pitched for twenty two years after the trade and not
once did his team win a single postseason series. For Gosie,
he managed the Philadelphia Phillies into the World Series ahead.
(27:54):
You know that phrase, I have been to the top
of the mountain. Well, I have, and I can tell
you the view is not always that good. For it
was at the top of the mount that I discovered
I didn't have all the equipment I needed to do
my job, and the only other radio reporter on top
of the mountain refused to help me. Things I promised
(28:15):
not to tell about the ninety Olympics. Next, first, the
daily roundup of the misgrants, morons and Dunning Krueger effect
specimens who constitute two day's worst persons in the WARLD Bronze.
Chuck Todd, who at this rate will be the twelve
and final moderator of NBC's Meet the Press, discussing the
possibility of criminal referrals by the January sixth Committee with
(28:39):
ex prosecutor pre Perrara, Chuck asked, but doesn't it add
negatively to the political stew Just when you thought Chuck
had run out of euphemisms for I have to say
something to let the Republicans off some hooks somewhere, or
they'll get me fired tomorrow morning. I've known Chuck Todd
eighteen years now, and he will never understand that. He
(29:02):
will never understand that the political stu is merely the
package that America comes in. It is not the contents
the runner up, Kyle Rittenhouse. Kyle Rittenhouse has tweeted, quote,
people need to start being held accountable. Unquote Wow, I
(29:22):
don't know, Sonny. People need to start being held accountable.
You better hope not. But our winner Supreme Court Justice
Brett Kavanaugh, Politico and it's the only roundup of awards
season for ugly people listed some of those quote spotted
at the annual Christmas party of the Czar and Czarina
(29:43):
of Spack. Matt and Mercedes Schlepp. I'm sorry, slap schlap
Actually sounds better, doesn't it, Matt and Mercedes Schlepp. Matt
and Mercedes slap quote Matt Gates, Greta van Sustern, Eric Prince,
that's the mercenary, Eric Prince, Eric Prince, Sebastian Gorka, Sean,
(30:06):
I don't know what day it is, Spicer and Justice
Brett Kavanaugh. Before you ask, what on earth is a
Supreme Court justice doing at a party for the scummiest
fascists in town, you already know the answer to that question.
What is he doing at that party? Well, he's serving canopies,
Justice Brett. Would you like a cockdail napkin with that? Ms?
(30:29):
Van Soustern Kavanaugh Today's worst person? Oh, have this drink too?
In the way to the number one story on the
(30:51):
Countdown and my favorite topic, me and things I promised
not to tell and I swear I saw a snowflake
or too late Saturday night here, the first of the year,
and that makes it forty two consecutive winners. That at first,
snow has triggered me in exactly the same way, sending
me back in my mind to the nineteen eighty Winter
(31:13):
Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. The alarm goes off.
It is pitch black in my room at the Swiss
Acres Motel. It is Valentine's Day, and I am still drunk.
Keith knew he was in trouble, but I was also
(31:34):
twenty one years old, and in fact, my twenty one
birthday had only been eighteen days earlier. So somehow I survived, showered, dressed, packed,
and I mean I packed two cassette tape recorders, four
sets of batteries, an audio processing machine that weighed like
fourteen pounds. The nine volt batteries it took, I think
it was a dozen of them, a telephone, a backup telephone,
(31:56):
twelve assorted patch chords to loose leaf notebooks, about eight pens,
two microphones, to extra pair of socks, and I got dressed,
two full sets of thermal underwear, shirts, sweaters, snow pants,
snow shoes because it was eleven degrees below zero that morning.
I got something quick to eat at the commissary, and
(32:18):
I made it out somehow to the line for the
bus from the Lake Placid Olympics Center to the Lake
Placid Transportation Center to Lake Placid's own White Face Mountain,
then onto the snow track the open penned mountain tractor
that went up the side of White Face Mountain and
took me to the finish line of the nineteen Olympic
(32:39):
Men's downhill ski final still drunk. That is how a
reporter covered the Olympics nearly forty three years ago. You drank,
you woke up, you went, You stood near the finish line,
and when the skiers completed their runs, you hiked or
wobbled over to them, and you took out your microphone
(32:59):
or your pen and you interviewed them, like two minutes
after they had finished hurtling towards you down the hill.
You could see almost nothing of the race from there.
There were no TV monitors. Basically, your only clue was
the sound of the crowd. That would give you about
thirty seconds worth of warning that the skier was coming
over the near horizon, and you should be prepared to
(33:20):
flee just in case he or she wiped out. Also,
you were on top of a mountain at the dead
point of winter, and whereas it might have been a
balmy eleven degrees below zero in the comfort of the
Swiss Acres Motel with the wind chill at the base
of the mountain, it was forty eight below zero and
(33:43):
there had already been four inches of new snow since
the sun came up, which is where the still drunk
part came in Handy my boss is at my first job,
the thousand station radio network called United President National Audio,
had decided the night before to teach me how to
drink while on assignment. My bosses were the bureau manager
(34:05):
for that part of u p I, the late Stan Sebek,
who had hired me, and Sam Rosen, the sports director
of the network, who not only somehow survived being my
first boss, but today, just forty three years later, is
still working as the television voice of the New York
Rangers hockey team and is in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
So I guess my reputation is a tough employee is
(34:27):
wildly overrated, or at least Sam think so. Sam and
Stan kept me drinking at the motel until two am,
knowing full well that I had to get on the
six am bus to go cover the men's downhill, because
it was the two of them who had assigned me
to go cover the men's downhill, and bluntly, I was
surprisingly pleased with myself that freezing morning, because I had
(34:50):
indeed learned how to drink while on assignment. I had
somehow found the phone jack for the U P I
phone buried under all the new snow, which of course
was buried under all the old snow, attached the phone
to it in a dial tone, called the office, checked
the alligator clips with which I would feed the tape,
and always well until I went to put a cassette
(35:15):
tape into the cassette recorder. I didn't have one. Fat
A lot of good two cassette tape machines gonna do
you without a cassette to stick in one of them.
I looked forlornly around the base of White Face Mountain,
twelve feet above sea level. As we were. There was
(35:37):
a surprisingly nice shalet and a decent restaurant, but there
were no radio shacks or other electronics stores. There was, however,
one other radio guy Jack Briggs from the Associated Press
Radio network, the nominal arch rival to our own up
I Audio. I knew Jack a little. He was a
nice guy. I went and explained my plight, making sure
(36:01):
to blame my bosses for my predicament. Oh man, he said,
his breath turning into first steam and then ice cubes.
I'm so sorry, but I can't give you a cassette.
I'm sorry, you're U p I and I'm a p
oh how, I laughed. That was a great line to
(36:23):
say to a rookie reporter still drunk thanks to the
initiation rituals of his own bosses, the possessor of one
great buzz but zero audio cassettes, Jack Briggs could tell
I thought he was kidding. That's when he said, I'm
not kidding. Look. Look, if my boss, Shelby Whitfield ever
found out, he'd fire me. I suddenly wasn't drunk anymore,
(36:46):
not at all. My my boss will will will fire me.
Briggs was adamant. I can't run the risk of Shelby
finding out. I have to confess, I shouted, how the
hell is he gonna find out? Jack? I think subconsciously
I was hoping to create an avalanche, which would have
(37:07):
been a better solution than the one I was faced with.
I said to him, there's you and there's me, and
we're on top of a goddamn mountain and Shelby Whitfield,
your boss is in Washington, d C. And he's a drunk,
and he's probably more drunk than I am, and he'd
probably thank you for helping me to drink more. Briggs
(37:28):
would not budge. I told him I would pay him.
I told him I would give him the cassette back
after I fed my boss the interviews over the phone,
so there'd be no evidence and he wouldn't even have
to do any interviews. No good, I'm sorry, and I
know you're gonna tell this story about me for a while.
As he walked away from me, I shouted after him forever.
(37:51):
Turned out there was no radio shack and no camaraderie,
but there was a West Coast newspaper reporter atop the
mountain who heard some of this conversation. I guess I
yelled a little loudly at Mr Briggs. Some guys ending
next to us St. Bernard and told me to quiet down.
He mentioned something else about the avalanches, or maybe I
dreamed that part. I don't know anyway, The West Coast
(38:12):
newspaper guy said he had a micro cassette machine and
he would loan it to me and I could give
it back to him at the media center that day
or the next one. But I had to do him
a favor because there was this really cute reporter in
our up I bureau and he really wanted to be
introduced to her. And I said, I can promise you
nothing but a handshake, and he understood, and that's how
I did not get fired. But of course, a story
(38:33):
like this has punchlines, and this one has two of them.
The first is two years and a couple of months later,
Shelby Whitfield asked me to lunch. He had left the
Associated Press to run the sports department at the ABC
Radio network, back when that was not only a thing
but a big thing. We went to a terrific New
(38:53):
York City Chinese restaurant near ABC called shun Lee, and
Shelby Whitfield interviewed me for a job when that kind
of job paid eighty thousand a year and my very
nice studio apartment in a very nice part of town
costs less than five dollars. A month later, in an
interesting twist, I found out that jobs didn't exist. I
(39:14):
was mentioning the interview in a press box somewhere I
think Madison Square Garden, and there was another kid reporter
named how He Rose and how are you still working?
He does the New York Mets games on the radio,
and how He said, wait, they interviewed me for that
job last year. Just an excuse for that damn Whitfield
to go drink his lunch on ABC's tab. Anyway, before
(39:36):
we started the interview for the job I did not
know did not exist at ABC. I told Shelby Whitfield
the white Face Mountain, can I borrow a cassette Jack
Briggs story? And Shelby's exact reply was, I don't know.
Was I going to find out? There was you and
there was him, and you were on top of a
goddamn mountain and I was in Washington. Only he didn't
say goddamn that Briggs. He added, always trying to suck
(40:00):
up to me. I gotta tell you something. I actually
once promised I wouldn't tell you if we ever met this.
When the Olympics were over and came back to the office,
he told me what happened. He expected me to be
happy or give him a bonus or something, and I
called him a little snitch. Only Shelby didn't say snitch,
just a word that rhymed with it. The other punch
line is from and remember this happened at the Olympics.
(40:25):
I go to work at ESPN and come in a
little early to launch their radio network of story I've
told here before. And there I find a friend of
mine since my radio days who I have not seen
in a year or so, and he says, hey, last month,
I was in an NBA game in Washington. I ran
it at Jack Briggs. He heard you were going to ESPN.
He asked me if you were still telling that story
about the time you got stuck on White Face Mountain
(40:46):
without a cassette and he was the only other reporter
there and he wouldn't give you a spare And I
told him you were, and I smiled, and I replied,
I hope you remembered to use the word forever. I mean,
(41:12):
how is it going to find out spy satellites? It's
there no spy satellites. I've done all the damage I
can do here. Thanks for listening. If you're not following
or subscribed or whatever to this podcast, please do so
and stop somebody on the street and get them too
as well. Here are the credits. Most of the music,
including our theme from Beethoven's Ninth, was arranged, produced, and
performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Channel. They are
(41:34):
the Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by John
Philip Chanelle, guitars, bass and drums by Brian Ray, produced
by t Ko Brothers. Other Beethoven selections have been arranged
and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports
music is the Olberman theme from ESPN two. It was
written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Musical
(41:56):
comments by Nancy Faust. The best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer today was Richard Lewis. Everything else was pretty
much my fault because I left the cassette back in
the hotel room. Mr Prigg's Thank God, I'm not better.
That's countdown for this the seven hundred and sixth day
since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected
(42:16):
government of the United States. Arrest him now, while we
still can. There'll be a new addition tomorrow. Until then,
I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and
good luck. Countdown with Keith old Reman is a production
of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
(42:38):
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
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