September 20, 2024 • 46 mins
SEASON 3 EPISODE 32: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: So the next North Carolina Poll will be, what, conducted by Morning Consult for NudeAfrica-dot-com?
Nobody's surprised but everybody's shocked? Trump’s crazed choice for governor of North Carolina – and remember if he’s the nominee or presumptive nominee and you take him off, that’s a coup, Trump says so – said he was a black Nazi, supported reinstating slavery, loved transgender porn, loved a porn site called Nude Africa, and declared he was a perv. And then according to CNN there was the GROSS stuff.
And almost nobody's surprised.
This kind of behavior (run for office and threaten all the people who do the things you have secretly enjoyed for decades) is more common than it seems. There is a reasonably straightforward psychological explanation. I'll do my best to translate it.
MEANWHILE: THE TEAMSTERS WON'T ENDORSE except a majority of the 1,300,000 Teamsters have already endorsed Kamala Harris via their local Teamster chapters. Curious. I wonder how much somebody like Trump would know about bribing a union boss.
AND THE POLLS: Once again, The New York Times is the outlier - but even its poll is in line with two hugely important throughlines: the momentum is all on Harris's side, and she is ahead in Pennsylvania. Oh and it probably won't last but Colln Allred is ahead of Ted Cruz in Texas.
B-BLOCK (27:28) THE BREAKING NEWS: At an anti-Antisemitism event at the American Israeli Council last night, Trump shortened the distance between him and Hitler still further. We already knew him as an antisemite who spread the trope that Jews were loyal first to Israel and then whatever country they were in. Now, he has blamed Jewish Americans - in advance - for his potential loss. It is staggering, and confirms every previous warning that the Hitler comparison is apt, and terrifying: "If I don’t win this election, and the Jewish people would really have a lot to do with that if that happens because at 40%, that means 60% of the people are voting for the enemy."
C-BLOCK (34:43) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: His most famous story remains so famous that 85 years after it was published, the name of its hero remains in the dictionary as a verb: The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty.
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. He
says he's a black Nazi. So he's a black Nazi.
(00:27):
I mean their presidential nominee is a white Nazi. There's
a guy Fuentes, he's a Latino Nazi. They have Laura Lomer,
Trump's choice for governor of North Carolina. And remember, if
he's the nominee or the presumptive nominee for something and
you take him off the ballot, that's a cou Trump said. So,
Trump's choice for governor of North Carolina went online and
(00:50):
wrote he was a black Nazi who supported reinstating slavery,
who loved transgender porn, who loved a porn site called
Nude Africa, and who declared he was a per And then,
according to CNN, there was the gross stuff. The only
(01:11):
surprise to me about Mark Robinson is how did he
not wind up is Trump's running mate. Okay, let me
try to explain this. Years ago, I asked a therapist
friend of mine about this exact phenomenon. Because the country,
the world, particularly the religious and political worlds, they are
(01:32):
filled with Mark Robinson's. This guy went on to threaten
transgender people he's anti Semitic, he's Old Testament kill people religious.
And yet, like fifteen years ago, he was posting under
an online user name quote, I like watching tranny on
girl porn exclamation point un quote. So this is how
(01:58):
she explained it. Imagine that there's a child who believes
they're supposed to feed a certain way, that they've been
told there's one way that's normal and everything else is sick.
That they've been told, if you're going to behave this way,
you're going to heaven. If you don't, you're going to hell.
And depending on how much you don't and how badly
(02:20):
you don't, that's how long you're going to be in hell,
or how much you're going to be burned in hell
or whatever. And then as you become an adult, you
find out that you really enjoy all the things they
told you are going to send you to hell, and
in many cases you enjoy them in a sexual way.
Sounds like Mark Robinson. Sounds like hundreds of thousands of
(02:42):
people in this country, most of whom represent the Republican
Party in Congress in any event, So what do these
people do to function? Now? I forget what the technical
term for this was in psychological circles. But I do
remember that. To explain it to a dumb layman like me,
my friend the therapist said, think of this in terms
of numbers. Each time this guy gives in to his
(03:07):
desire to watch transgender porn, he scores against himself in
his mind subconsciously a one, so that each time you're
kind of paying for your sins literally one cent plus
one cent plus one cent until you get to like
thirty seven thousand dollars. Each time you talk about owning slaves,
(03:29):
that's another one cent, another two say here we go,
and soon your debt, your evil. The amount of evil
is quantifiable in your own mind. Whether or not you
actually ever dream up an actual number is irrelevant. But
in your mind, you've done this much evil, and you're
gonna go to hell for this length of time, and
you're gonna burn this much unless you come up with
(03:52):
a different, bigger score on the other side of what
is literally in your mind a psychological equation. If you
are thirty seven thousand points or dollars in day to
transgender porn and the website Nude Africa, and if you're
(04:13):
going to call yourself a black Nazi and you're thirty
seven thousand down. The way to rationalize this is to
go and do something that gives you a score of
one hundred and thirty seven thousand against all these things
you have sinned. Your chance to not erase the sin
and not even stop doing the sin, but just to overshadow,
(04:39):
obscure completely, overshadow, completely, dwarf the idea that you participated
in any of these things. Well, I can't be a perv.
I can't really love transgender porn. I don't really reinstate
slavery because I'm persecuting the other people who do. And
look how many times I've done it. I have one
(05:00):
hundred and thirty seven thousand points on the Persecute transgender
people scoreboard. It's as simple as that. That's why they
all wind up doing this. There's no way for them
to change the way they feel or the gratification they get,
particularly if it's sexual, my friend explained to me. So
they have to then try to punish other people who
(05:23):
feel the same way. It is at first illogical, not natural,
and seemingly so much work for no good reason. And
the more you think about it, the more it makes
sense because the second part of This is, as my
friend pointed out, that the Mark Robinson's of this world,
(05:47):
when the scoreboard reads one hundred and thirty seven thousand
against perversion and sin at only thirty seven thousand four
perversion and sin, they can sit there and go, you know,
I have a little margin here to play with. I
think I'm going to go do ten thousand more in sin,
because running for office on a promise of punishing and
(06:08):
killing the sinners is by itself one hundred thousand. I
(06:40):
wonder how much somebody like Trump would know about bribing
union bosses. Now. I don't have any inside information about
Sean O'Brien, and I'm certainly not suggesting that his national
teamsters are sitting out the election and not endorsing Kamala Harris,
(07:02):
even though they have endorsed every Democrat who's run for
resident since nineteen ninety six. I'm not saying that's the
result of anything in particular, anything except a full and
fair voter poll, or or whatever it is they said
they did before they said they weren't going to do
anything in this election, even though Sean O'Brien went and
(07:22):
spoke at the Republican National Convention just because Harris has
since been endorsed by Teamsters regional councils in Michigan. That's
a quarter million Teamsters right there, and California, Hawaii and Guam,
and the Battleground in Nevada that's another group of Teamsters
three hundred thousand, plus the local councils in Wisconsin and
(07:44):
Philadelphia and Miami and Greater New York, and the Teamsters
National Black Caucus. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with
what the National Teamsters decided they had the votes for.
I'm not saying there was anything like bribing a union
boss involved, just because there are a million, three hundred
thousand Teamsters nationally and they voted no endorsement, per President O'Brien,
(08:10):
and now it looks like a majority of them will
be endorsing her via their regional councils. Anyway, that's no
reason to assume there's helter skelter hanky panky run willy
nilly in union Land. But I do wonder how much
somebody like Trump would know about bribing a union boss,
(08:30):
given what he spent his life doing. Let me tell
you another story. This one is from my late father.
We have to go back in time a little put
yourself in the mind of being it. Just before Christmas
nineteen seventy eight, We're in Binghamton, New York. It's a
little warm for the time of year, at a new
mall Cornell, my college has broken for the winter. And
(08:55):
by total coincidence, my dad, an architect who worked largely
in malls, is going to be in bingham to New York,
an hour away from Cornell, on the day that my
friends are leaving Ithaca to go home to their home
in outside Philadelphia. And we can time this perfectly. Exactly
where they have to hang a right which gets them
(09:18):
to Philadelphia, when going straight takes you to New York
is the mall my father's going to be at that
particular night. So I pile in the car with them,
and I get out at the mall and there's my
dad's car, and on a foggy night, fifty fifty five degrees,
foggier and foggier, finally out my father comes and says
(09:38):
he's got somebody with him, and he goes, this is
my son. He's a senior at Cornell. We think he's
a saying he's going to graduate in the spring. You
are going to graduate Argie, the whole routine. Now, my
father had worked as an architect. He got his first
license in nineteen sixty seven and wound up being licensed
in forty of the states, which was pretty good for
a guy who never actually went to college. But before that,
(09:59):
he'd been a draftsman working for a firm in New
York for about fifteen years. He did the nitty gritty stuff,
and when it came time to get stuff built, he
had to go there and deal with the union bosses,
and he had to go there and deal with the
contractors and the owners, and the inspectors and the city people.
He had to deal with people on a granular level,
(10:21):
as they say. So my dad is talking to me
about as we got up into the car and this
foggy night, And it was foggy enough that at one point,
as we drove away from this mall, I said, when
did they put that Christmas tree up? And he went,
what Christmas tree? There was a giant Christmas tree in
the parking lot, which we could not see even though
we were standing ten feet from it. Now the fog
(10:44):
is clearing it like it had just grown there. So
this is a very weird night to begin with, plus,
I'm almost an adult, not quite. I haven't turned twenty
years old yet. Maybe I'm graduating, maybe I'm not. And
I say something, and to this day, I don't remember
what it was to my dad about construction. And he
(11:04):
almost swerves off the highway and says, look, I thought
I raised you well. And I went, what's wrong? He goes,
you've reached your age, you nearly twenty years old, and
you don't understand that everything that gets built involves a bribe.
And I said, well, I mean, I guess that's true,
(11:25):
but I don't know that we've ever discussed. Oh, we
discussed it before you came with me on that one
job in Queens in nineteen sixty seven. I said, I
was eight years old. Dad goes on to explain that
everything that is built, certainly everything that is built in
New York, and everything that he has seen in his
world travels, well, his national travels. He used to go
around the country. He had a mall and Nacadochius, Texas
(11:48):
that he had six different stores in. He was at
one point the architect who had something like three hundred
and fifty different Baskin Robbins's around the country. That he
had designed. He was expert and intuitive and at great
demand for being able to put your standard boilerplate, official
(12:10):
restaurant or store design into an irregular space. So a
Baskin Robbins that needed to be I don't know, forty
feet by forty feet, he could put it in a
thirty six by forty seven foot square and you, mister
Baskin Robbins, would never know the difference. That was what
he excelled in. He didn't think it was pretty, that
(12:30):
creative or anything. He just that was what he was
good at. So Dad is now explaining to me that
no matter where you go, somebody is going to get bribed.
And I'm, of course at nineteen like you bribed someone.
He said, no, I don't do the bribes. I have
seen a few of them. That guy I introduced you to,
(12:52):
he got a bribe. But that's I know, because right
before the bribe came in, the guy I'm working for
asked me to leave, and I went and looked at
some other stores in the mall and I said, on
the way out, how long He said five minutes? And
I know what was done. Then this way we'll get
it done on time. The man that you just were
(13:15):
introduced to He told me just before I introduced him
to you, just before you became visible in the fog,
he said, We're taken care of. This will get open
on time. Whatever it was February fifteenth, April first, everything
that gets built union, non union, somebody has gotten a
(13:39):
little taste, as they say in the Godfather movies. So
I don't know anything about how it is that after
a tradition of nearly thirty years of always endorsing the Democrat,
and the rather obvious truth that no matter how bad
sometimes democrats, individual democrats or individual democratic presidents have been
(14:01):
for unions, that they have always been better than Republicans
have been for you, Unions at least the last sixty
years worth of them have been. I don't know anything
beyond that. I'm just a simple country commentator. But my
dad was a near witness to bribery of union officials
(14:22):
in every state of the Union in which he had
a license to practice architecture. That's forty of them, that's
four fifths. And what was it Trump did before he
went on TV and people went who is this ass?
And he became a star, and then they became president.
What was it he did before that? Did he build things?
(14:44):
Do I remember that? Really? Is that why his name
is on all those buildings that were all built with
either union or non union labor, in which everything had
to be approved by a local government inspector and things
to open on time, And Trump buildings always opened on time.
I wonder how that happened. As I said, I I
wonder how much somebody like Trump would know about bribing
(15:09):
a union boss. Heading into the weekend, polls all over
the map, as you know, except for a couple of
consistent through lines. The New York Times Siena poll that
essentially shows the race tide before the debate, the Times poll,
(15:32):
the same one was Trump by two. The Times poll
has been an outlier all along, and the idea that
the informator of the New York Times is anything special
any longer has left the building except the building that
houses the New York Times, so there's nothing special. It's
not likely to be that they're right and everybody else
(15:52):
is wrong, because even the New York Times Siena poll,
like almost every other poll for the last six weeks,
shows one through line continued ongoing in incremental, sometimes really
small improvement, for Kamala Harris. The other national polls that
(16:12):
came out yesterday are suggestive of potential blowouts. Outward Intelligence
poll Harris by seven, Florida Atlantic University Harris by four,
you Gov for The Economist Harris by four. There are
two out of about twenty five national polls that do
not show Kamala Harris ahead of Trump. One was Atlas Intel,
(16:38):
which last week had Trump up by three. Nate Silver
likes Atlas Intel. I don't know anymore about Nate Silver.
My opinion of him changes day to day. The other
one was the New York Times poll, and even in
that it has gone from Harris minus two to even
(16:59):
the point of this through line is the possession arrow
is pointing to Kamala Harris. The other through line, of course,
in the total national vote doesn't matter, as you know,
it's the swing states, and the other through line happens
to be in oh a swing state Pennsylvania. The Times
poll has her up by four. If we are suggesting
(17:22):
that the Time Siena poll has been running as an
outlier against the Democrats for the whole of this year,
four point lead in Pennsylvania for Kamala Harris is worth
the weekend of Champagne. Quinnipiac we mentioned the other day,
has her up by six In Pennsylvania. Marrist and the
Washington Posts separately have her up by just one. On
(17:45):
the other hand, other hand, other hand, there is one
poll this month that has Trump up in Pennsylvania one.
What's happening? Well, The easiest explanation is the oldest one.
Polling sucks. It's too easy. In point of fact, the
polls are not as bad as they used to be.
They're better than they were in twenty twenty, when they
(18:06):
were far better than they were in twenty sixteen. But
we keep ignoring one fundamental thing that the pollsters are
so used to that they don't really make a big
deal of anymore. The polls offer two flavors of results.
Who is leading among registered voters and who is leading
among likely voters. Registered voters is defined. Are you registered
(18:31):
to vote? Yes, I am, You're a registered voter. They
don't ask people in this way are you a likely voter?
They try to ascertain in their own opinion if this
person is in fact likely to vote. The idea of
the likely voter is the better number. It is more predictive,
(18:52):
but it can be played like a two dollars banjo.
That is where pollsters can be prejudiced towards one side
or the other. These people who say they're going to
vote for Harris, we're going to declare them not likely voters.
Or these people that say they're going to vote for Harris,
we're going to declare them likely voters. Each polster has
(19:14):
his own definition of likely voter, and the ones that
are playing it straight. Did they vote in the last
state election, did they vote in the last national election,
do they know the candidates? Did they vote in both
the nationals and locals? Did they vote in mid terms?
You get a score. You could have ten polsters though
(19:36):
poll literally the same eleven hundred people in Pennsylvania or
anywhere else, and based on the different definitions of likely voter,
the same posters interviewing the same eleven hundred people could
give you a final score of Harris leading by six,
Harris leading by four, or Harris leading by one. The
key thing in Pennsylvania is the number of polsters who,
(19:58):
no matter what they do to get this number, can
put together. Trump ahead in Pennsylvania is nearly extinct. There's
also one interior polling number worth mentioning I'll give Axios
credit on this, while they were whining at the same
time about Harris not giving them an interview, and they're
on a record pace not to give any interviews before
(20:18):
the leg because they're trying to hire it. Okay, whatever,
you're that important. They're running a campaign. They're not running
to win over the vote of Jim Van Dehi, all right.
So while they're complaining about that, Axios did conclude quoting
their headline, Harris closes trust gap with Trump on the economy,
(20:40):
Forty six percent of voters say they trust Kamala Harris
to handle the economy, the same share as Trump, according
to the Morning Consult poll, which was conducted in late
August and released Thursday Morning. They took their time on
this pole. A separate survey Axios notes from FT Michigan Ross,
(21:02):
taken after the debate and released last Sunday, shows Harris
with a slight edge over Trump when it comes to
the economy. I have noted this before that these numbers
are basically all within a range. Trump by a point,
Harris by a point. Even That's it. And the important
point there again goes back to the possession arrow and
the momentum this was Trump by ten over Biden, and
(21:26):
earlier than that it was even higher than that. And
remember the dreams of knocking Ted Cruz out of the Senate.
It may not last because the Democrats seem to have
spent like ninety percent of their ad budget in Texas,
while the Republicans have about that much left. But according
to Morning Consults, Colin Hall red leeds Ted Cruz in
(21:48):
the Texas Senate race forty five forty four. The Saint
Foster put out its first entirely post debate polls for
the swing states. It's Trump by one in Georgia, but
otherwise clean sweep. Harris, Harris by one in Arizona, Harris
by two in North care Carolina and Pennsylvania. Harris by
four in Nevada, Harris by six in Wisconsin, Harris by
(22:10):
eight in Michigan. Again, trends, and I can't wait to
see those post Mark Robinson polls in North Carolina. I mean,
first of all, they're going to read Morning Consult North
Carolina poll for Ashleymadison dot com. Lastly, comic relief bottom line.
(22:32):
Take this with you, Smile over the weekend as you
think about it. Trump is again hallucinating after he got
up in an abandoned New York hockey arena the other
night and announced he can win that state when he's
losing it by twenty He went into Fox News on
the show of the guy nearly as delusional as he is,
(22:53):
the guy Gutfeld, who has shown up to that office
every day for what ten fifteen years, has never made
one joke that actually had a laugh in it, and
thinks he is Mark Twain. Well, Trump got an even
bigger non laugh. He selected his wine for the night,
the fact checking at the debate, and I suppose we
(23:15):
should be happy that he was fact checking debates from
twenty twenty four rather than twenty sixteen. Trump said on
the Gutfeld Show, they didn't correct her once, and they
corrected me everything I said, practically, I think nine times
or eleven times, and the audience was absolutely they went crazy,
(23:36):
and I walked off unquote. Trump thinks there was an
audience at his debate against Kamala Harris. Hece, you're forgetting
there was no audience. On the other hand, if your
ego is so large that it has to be continued
onto the person standing next to you, ah maybe that
(23:59):
guy does count as your audience. Also of interest here
the Late News comparatively speaking last night from an anti
anti Semitism dinner at which Donald Trump, because the comparisons
to Hitler are apparently insufficient in his mind, decided to
(24:20):
warn the Jewish people of this country that they will
be at fault if he is not elected president. He
is moving ever closer to Hitler. That's next. This is countdown.
I don't know when I first made a comparison between
(24:43):
Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler. I know I implied it
in the article that I wrote for the BBC website
in twenty and sixteen about the early versions of Trump's
plan to remove millions of people here from this country,
and the realization that was not widespread at that point
(25:03):
that you could not simply expect immigrants or other people
who Trump did not like, to simply line up and
march out of the country without some kind of intermediary
stage in which they would be kept in camps in concentration,
or as I put it, camps with concentration, or as
(25:24):
their known concentration camps. Trump, as we know since nineteen
ninety when it was revealed by his first wife that
he kept a book of Hitler's speeches in a bedside table,
and it was very important to him that when this
(25:46):
was found out, it was confirmed that the book had
been given to him by somebody who was Jewish, and
that it was not mind comp it was a book
of speeches, and if he did have it, he never
read it. Anti Semitism is at the core of who
Donald Trump is, and in increasingly people have recognized that
(26:06):
the historical comparison to Hitler nineteen twenty nine, thirty thirty one,
thirty two and the Trump of today is apt. Everybody
seems to think it's when made a comparison to Hitler
at the lowest point in his non humanity. That's not
what we're talking about. We're talking about what you would
(26:29):
have seen if you had looked at Hitler in nineteen
thirty two. That is where we are with Trump, and
if there was any doubt remaining of this, it ended
last night. Trump has been through the course of this
entire campaign saying that the Democrats are not serving Israel
and that anyone who's Jewish in this country who would
(26:50):
vote for a Democrat needs to and I'm quoting him here,
get their head examined because long ago, sometime before he
first needed to have his head examined. Trump utterly conflated
in a per anti Semitic meme, the idea that the
Jews are loyal first to Israel, the Jews of America
(27:14):
are first loyal to Israel, the Jews of Holland, or
first loyal to the Jews of Australia. It is the
most common form of anti Semitism, and those who are
afflicted with it don't think they are being particularly anti Semitic. Well,
now there is a secondary stage up from that, and
Trump reached it last night at a dinner at which
(27:36):
he was given an award and introduced by this Adelson
woman who is pouring millions of dollars into the attempt
to get Trump elected again and again. Trump with this
confusion between the idea that support for Jewish people and
support for Israel must overlap entirely, now he has gone
(28:00):
to the next stage. Jewish support for Trump is not
what it should be. And he openly and without any
kind of reservation, and in a sad tone of voice,
as if he was warning the Jews of America that
he's going to have to do something about them if
he wins and they have not supported him. He basically
(28:22):
in advance blamed Jewish Americans for the possibility that he
would not be returned to the presidency. I'm going to
play the whole clip. I have no comment to make afterwards.
It speaks for itself, and the reverse of what he
says is true. If any Jewish American votes for Donald Trump,
they need to have their head examined. If any Gentile
(28:44):
American votes for Donald Trump, they need to have their
head examined too.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
But i will put it to you very simply and gently,
I really haven't been treated right. But you haven't been
treated right because you're putting yourself in great danger and
the United States hasn't been treated right. So if I
don't win this election, and I've been very good, you know,
they say Trump's been right about everything. I've been right
(29:09):
about a lot of things. Even Ted will admit that
I've been right about a lot of things. A lot
of things that a lot of people said no, that
won't happen. But a lot of bad things happened, and
some good things I've been right about too, And I
only want to be So I'm not going to call
this as a prediction. But in my opinion, the Jewish
people would have a lot to do with a loss
(29:31):
if I'm at forty percent, if I'm at forethink of it,
I mean sixty percent of voting for Kamala, who in
particular is a bad Democrat. The Democrats are bad to Israel,
very bad. They'll never change because they have a section
of their party now which has become amazingly and quickly
very powerful both ways. I mean, Chuck Schumer is a
Palestinian who would have thought that was going to happen.
(29:53):
What the hell happened to him? I saw him the
other day. He was dressed in one of their robes.
Now that'll be next.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
James Thurber's best known work, best loved work, and maybe
just best work, has been made into two different films,
neither of which is really satisfactory, but each gives you
just a glimpse of what your imagination is doing as
you hear or read his words. It is a universal
It is the story of everybody who's ever lived, who
(30:30):
has ever daydreamed. It is the secret life of Walter
Mitty by James Thurber. We're going through. The Commander's voice
was like thin ice breaking. He wore his full dress
uniform with the heavily braided white cap pulled down rakishly
over one cold gray eye. We can't make it, sir.
(30:55):
It's spoiling for a hurricane. If you ask me, I'm
not asking you, Lieutenant Berg, said the commander. Throw on
the power lights, rever up to eighty five hundred. We're
going through. The pounding of the cylinders increased to pocket,
the pocket to pocket, to pocket to pocket. The commander
stared at the ice forming on the pilot window. He
walked over and twisted a row of complicated dials. Sweitch
(31:17):
on number eight auxiliary. He shouted, switch on number eight auxiliary,
repeated Lieutenant Berg. Full strength and number three turret, shouted
the commander, full strength and number three turret. The crew,
bending to the various tasks in the huge, hurtling eight
engined Navy hydroplane, looked at each other and grinned. The
(31:38):
old man will get us through, they said to one another.
The old man ain't afraid of hell, not the fast.
You're driving too fast, said missus Middy. What are you
driving so fast for? Hmmm, said Walter Middy. He looked
at his wife in the seat beside him with shocked astonishment.
(31:59):
She seemed grossly unfamiliar, like a strange woman who had
yelled at him in a crowd. Up to fifty five,
she said, you know I don't like to go more
than forty. You're up to fifty five. Walter Midty drove
on toward Waterbury in silence, the roaring of the s
N two two through the worst storm in twenty years
of Navy flying, fading in the remote intimate airways of
(32:23):
his mind. You're ten step again, said missus Midty. It's
one of your days. I wish you'd let doctor Renshaw
look you over. Walter Mitty stopped the car in front
of the building where his wife went to have her
hair done. Remember to get those overshoes while I'm having
the hair done, she said, I don't need overshoes, said Mitty.
(32:44):
She put her mirror back into her bag. We've been
all through that, she said, getting out of the car.
You're not a young man any longer. He raced the
engine a little. Why don't you wear your gloves? Have
you lost your gloves? Walter Mitty reached in a pocket
and brought out the gloves. He put them on, but
after she had turned and gone into the building, and
(33:05):
he had driven on to a red light. He took
them off again. Pick it up, brother snapped the cop
as the light changed, and Mitty hastily pulled on his
gloves and lurched ahead. He drove around the streets aimlessly
for a time, and then he drove past the hospital
on his way to the parking lot. It's the millionaire
(33:26):
banker Wellington, McMillan, said the pretty nurse. Yes, said Walter Mitty,
removing his gloves slowly. Who has the case, Doctor Renshawn,
Doctor Renbow. But there are two specialists here, doctor Remington
from New York and mister Prichard Mitford from London. He
flew over. The door opened down a long cool carter,
(33:46):
and doctor Renshaw came out. He looked distraught and haggard.
Hello Mitty, he said, we're having the devil's own time
with McMillan, the millionaire banker and close personal friend of
Roosevelt obstriosis of the ductal tract tertiary. Wish you'd take
a look at him. Glad to, said Mitty. In the
(34:08):
operating room, there were whispered introductions Doctor Remington, doctor Mitty,
mister Richard Mitford, doctor Mitty, and I've read your book
on scripto thracosis, said Richard Mitford, shaking hands. A brilliant performance, sir,
thank you, said Walter Mitty. Didn't know you're in the
State's Mitty grumbled. Remington Cole's to Newcastle, bringing Midford to
(34:32):
me up here for a tertiary. You are very kind,
said Mitty. A huge, complicated machine connected to the operating
table with many tubes and wires began at this moment
to go pocket to pocketa POCKETA the new anesthetizer is
giving way, shouted an interurn. There is no one in
the East who knows how to fix it. Quiet man,
(34:55):
said Mitty in a low, cool voice. He sprang to
the machine, which was now going pocket to pocket to creep,
pocket to pocket to creep. He began fingering delicately a
roll of glistening dials. Give me a fountain pen, he snapped.
Someone handed him a fountain pen. He pulled a faulty
piston out of the machine and inserted the pen in
its place. That will hold for ten minutes, he said,
(35:19):
Get on with the operation. A nurse hurried over and
whispered to Renshaw and Mitty saw the man turn pale.
Coreopsis has set in, said Renshaw nervously. If you would
take over, Middy. Mitty looked at him, and at the
craven figure of Benbow who drank, and at the grave
uncertain faces of the two great specialists. If you wish,
(35:43):
he said. They slipped a white gown on him. He
adjusted a mask and drew on thin gloves. Nurses handed
him shiny, back it up, Mac, look out for that buick.
Walter Mitty jammed on the brakes. Wrong laye, Mac, said
the parking lot attendant, looking at Mitty closely. Gee yeah,
muttered Mitty. He began cautious to back out of the
(36:05):
lane marked exit. Only leave us sit there, said the attendant.
I'll put her away. Mitty got out of the car.
Hey better leave the key, oh, said Mitty, handing the
man the ignition key. The attendant vaulted into the car,
backed it up with insolent skill, and put it where
(36:25):
it belonged. They're so damn cocky, thought Walter Mitty, walking
along main Street. They think they know everything. Once he
had tried to take his chains off outside New Milford,
and he got them wound around the axles. The man
had to come out in a wrecking car and unwind
them a young, grinning garage man. Since then, Missus Mitty
(36:50):
always made him drive to a garage to have the
chains taken off. The Next time, he thought, I'll wear
my right arm in a sling. They won't grin at me.
Then I have my right arm in a sling, and
they'll see. I couldn't possibly take the chains off myself.
He kicked at the slush on the sidewalk. Overshoes, he
said to himself, and he began looking for a shoe store.
(37:12):
When he came out into the street again with the
overshoes in a box under his arm, Walter Mitty began
to wonder what the other thing was his wife had
told him to get. She had told him twice before
they set out from their house for Waterbury. In a way,
he hated these weekly trips to town. He was always
getting something wrong. Kleenex, he thoughts, quibbs, razor blades, now toothpaste,
(37:35):
toothbrush by carbon at Carborundum initiative referendum, he gave it up,
but she would remember it. Where's the what's its name?
She would ask? Don't tell me you forgot the what's
its name? The newsboy went by, shouting something about the
Waterbury trial. Perhaps this will refresh your memory. The district
(37:56):
attorney suddenly thrust a heavy automatic at the quiet figure
on the witness stand. Have you ever seen this before?
Walter Mitty took the gun and examined expertly. This is
my Webley Vicar's fifty point eight, oh, he said calmly.
An excited buzz ran around the courtroom. The judge wrapped
for order. You are a crack shot with any sort
(38:18):
of firearms, I believe, said the district attorney, insinuatingly. Objection,
shouted Mitty's attorney. We have shown that the defendant could
not have fired the shot. We have shown that he
wore his right arm in a sling on the night
of the fourteenth of July. Walter Mitty raised his hand briefly,
and the bickering attorneys were stilled with any known make
(38:40):
of gun, He said evenly, I could have killed Gregory
Fitzhurst at three hundred feet with my left hand. Pandemonium
broke out in the courtroom. A woman's scream rose above
the bedlom, and suddenly a lovely, dark haired girl was
in Walter Mitty's arms. The district attorney struck at her savagely,
without rising from his chair. Mitty let the man have
(39:02):
it on the point of the chin, you miserable curl er.
Puppy biscuit, said Walter Mitty. He stopped walking, and the
buildings of Waterbury rose up out of the misty courtroom
and surrounded him again. A woman who was passing laughed.
He said, puppy biscuit. She said to her companion. That
man said puppy biscuit to himself. Walter Mitty hurried on.
(39:26):
He went into an a and p not the first
one he came to, but a smaller one farther up
the street. I want some biscuit for small young dogs,
he said to the clerk. Any special brand, Sir, the
greatest pistol shot in the world. Thought a moment. It says,
puppies bark for it on the box, said Walter Mitty.
(39:51):
His wife would be through at the hairdressers in fifteen minutes.
Mitty saw in looking at his watch. Unless they had
trouble drying it, sometimes they had trouble drying it. She
didn't like to get to the hotel first, she would
want him to be there for her as usual. He
found a big leather chair in the lobby facing a window,
and he put the overshoes and the puppy biscuit on
(40:11):
the floor Beside it. He picked up an old copy
of Liberty and sank down into the chair. Can Germany
conquer the world through the air? Walter Mitty looked at
the pictures of bombing planes and of ruined streets. The
Cannonaden has got the wind up in young Rawley, Sir,
(40:33):
said the sergeant. Captain. Mitty looked at him through touzled hair.
Get him to bed, he said, wearily. With the others,
I'll fly alone, but you can't, sir, said the sergeant.
Anxiously takes two men to handle that bomber, and the
archies a pounding l out of the air. Von Rickman's
circus is between here and Solier. Somebody's got to get
(40:55):
that ammunition dump, said Mitty. I'm going over spot of brandy.
He poured a drink for the sergeant and won for himself.
Wore thundered and wine around the dugout and battered at
the door. There was a rending of wood and splinters
flew through the room of a near thing, said Captain
Mitty carelessly. The box barrage is closing in, said the sergeant.
(41:18):
We only live once, sergeant, said Mitty, with his faint
fleeting smile. Or do we He poured another brandy and
tossed it off. I've never seen a man could hold
his brandy. Lock you, sir, said the sergeant, begging you pardon, sir.
Captain Mitty stood up and scrapped on his huge Webbley
Vicars automatic. It's forty kilometers through el, sir, said the sergeant.
(41:41):
Mitty finished one last brandy after all, he said, softly.
What isn't The pounding of the cannon increased. There was
the rat tat tatting of the machine guns, and from
somewhere came the menacing pucket a pucket to pucket a
pocket of the new flame thrilleries. Walter Mitty walked to
the door of the dugout, humming out Prey de ma blon,
(42:04):
and he turned and waved to the sergeant Cheerio. He said.
Something struck his shoulder. I've been looking all over this
hotel for you, said missus Mitty. Why do you have
to hide in this old chair. How did you expect
me to find you things close in? Said Walter Mitty,
vaguely what missus Mitty said? Did you get the wats
(42:28):
it's name the poppy biscuit? What's in that box? Overshoes?
Said Mitty? Couldn't you put them on on the star?
I was thinking? Said Walter Mitty. Does it ever occur
to you that I am sometimes thinking? She looked at him.
I'm going to take your temperature when I get you home,
she said. They went out through the revolving doors that
(42:50):
made a faintly derisive whistling sound when you push them.
It was two blocks to the parking lot at the
drug store on the corner. She said, wait here for me.
I forgot something. I won't be a minute. She was
more than a minute. Walter Mitty lighted a cigarette. It
began to rain, rained with sleet in it. He stood
(43:11):
up against the wall of the drug store smoking. He
put his shoulders back and his heels together. To hell
with the handkerchief, said Walter Middy scornfully. He took one
last drag on his cigarette and snapped it away. Then,
with that faint, fleeting smile playing about his lips, he
faced the Firing Squad, erect and motionless, proud and disdainful.
(43:35):
Walter Mitty, the Undefeated, Inscrutable to the last. The Secret
Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber. I've done all
(43:59):
the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening
right now. Back to five episodes a week, posting nightly
just after midnight Eastern, so that's Sunday night, just after
midnight a Sunday night, early Monday morning. Once again there
is a Monday Countdown. Please forward both this podcast and
the news of the Monday Countdown to a non listener
(44:20):
who should fix that problem? Send it to Mark Robinson.
Tell them it's no, don't. Brian Ray and John Phillip
Shanel are the musical directors of Countdown and they have arranged,
produced and performed most of our music. Mister Chanelle handling
orchestration and keyboards, Mister Ray on guitars based on drums.
It was produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and pithy
(44:41):
musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organists ever,
Nancy Faust. The sports music is the Olderman theme from
ESPN two, written by Mitch Horren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
Other music arranged and performed by the group No Horns allowed.
Everything else. It's pretty much my fault. That's countdown for
this the forty seventh day until the twenty twenty four
(45:03):
presidential action. The election day included the three and forty
seventh day since convicted felon dementia J Trump's first attempted
coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.
Use the election, use the mental health system, use presidential immunity.
If we have to to keep him from doing it again.
Why we still can He thinks there's an audience. He
(45:28):
thought there was an audience at the debate. The next
scheduled countdown is Monday bulletins as the news requires until
the next one on Keith Oulderman. Good Morning, good afternoon,
good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Oulderman is
(46:00):
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. He
says he's a black Nazi. So he's a black Nazi.
(00:27):
I mean their presidential nominee is a white Nazi. There's
a guy Fuentes, he's a Latino Nazi. They have Laura Lomer,
Trump's choice for governor of North Carolina. And remember, if
he's the nominee or the presumptive nominee for something and
you take him off the ballot, that's a cou Trump said. So,
Trump's choice for governor of North Carolina went online and
(00:50):
wrote he was a black Nazi who supported reinstating slavery,
who loved transgender porn, who loved a porn site called
Nude Africa, and who declared he was a per And then,
according to CNN, there was the gross stuff. The only
(01:11):
surprise to me about Mark Robinson is how did he
not wind up is Trump's running mate. Okay, let me
try to explain this. Years ago, I asked a therapist
friend of mine about this exact phenomenon. Because the country,
the world, particularly the religious and political worlds, they are
(01:32):
filled with Mark Robinson's. This guy went on to threaten
transgender people he's anti Semitic, he's Old Testament kill people religious.
And yet, like fifteen years ago, he was posting under
an online user name quote, I like watching tranny on
girl porn exclamation point un quote. So this is how
(01:58):
she explained it. Imagine that there's a child who believes
they're supposed to feed a certain way, that they've been
told there's one way that's normal and everything else is sick.
That they've been told, if you're going to behave this way,
you're going to heaven. If you don't, you're going to hell.
And depending on how much you don't and how badly
(02:20):
you don't, that's how long you're going to be in hell,
or how much you're going to be burned in hell
or whatever. And then as you become an adult, you
find out that you really enjoy all the things they
told you are going to send you to hell, and
in many cases you enjoy them in a sexual way.
Sounds like Mark Robinson. Sounds like hundreds of thousands of
(02:42):
people in this country, most of whom represent the Republican
Party in Congress in any event, So what do these
people do to function? Now? I forget what the technical
term for this was in psychological circles. But I do
remember that. To explain it to a dumb layman like me,
my friend the therapist said, think of this in terms
of numbers. Each time this guy gives in to his
(03:07):
desire to watch transgender porn, he scores against himself in
his mind subconsciously a one, so that each time you're
kind of paying for your sins literally one cent plus
one cent plus one cent until you get to like
thirty seven thousand dollars. Each time you talk about owning slaves,
(03:29):
that's another one cent, another two say here we go,
and soon your debt, your evil. The amount of evil
is quantifiable in your own mind. Whether or not you
actually ever dream up an actual number is irrelevant. But
in your mind, you've done this much evil, and you're
gonna go to hell for this length of time, and
you're gonna burn this much unless you come up with
(03:52):
a different, bigger score on the other side of what
is literally in your mind a psychological equation. If you
are thirty seven thousand points or dollars in day to
transgender porn and the website Nude Africa, and if you're
(04:13):
going to call yourself a black Nazi and you're thirty
seven thousand down. The way to rationalize this is to
go and do something that gives you a score of
one hundred and thirty seven thousand against all these things
you have sinned. Your chance to not erase the sin
and not even stop doing the sin, but just to overshadow,
(04:39):
obscure completely, overshadow, completely, dwarf the idea that you participated
in any of these things. Well, I can't be a perv.
I can't really love transgender porn. I don't really reinstate
slavery because I'm persecuting the other people who do. And
look how many times I've done it. I have one
(05:00):
hundred and thirty seven thousand points on the Persecute transgender
people scoreboard. It's as simple as that. That's why they
all wind up doing this. There's no way for them
to change the way they feel or the gratification they get,
particularly if it's sexual, my friend explained to me. So
they have to then try to punish other people who
(05:23):
feel the same way. It is at first illogical, not natural,
and seemingly so much work for no good reason. And
the more you think about it, the more it makes
sense because the second part of This is, as my
friend pointed out, that the Mark Robinson's of this world,
(05:47):
when the scoreboard reads one hundred and thirty seven thousand
against perversion and sin at only thirty seven thousand four
perversion and sin, they can sit there and go, you know,
I have a little margin here to play with. I
think I'm going to go do ten thousand more in sin,
because running for office on a promise of punishing and
(06:08):
killing the sinners is by itself one hundred thousand. I
(06:40):
wonder how much somebody like Trump would know about bribing
union bosses. Now. I don't have any inside information about
Sean O'Brien, and I'm certainly not suggesting that his national
teamsters are sitting out the election and not endorsing Kamala Harris,
(07:02):
even though they have endorsed every Democrat who's run for
resident since nineteen ninety six. I'm not saying that's the
result of anything in particular, anything except a full and
fair voter poll, or or whatever it is they said
they did before they said they weren't going to do
anything in this election, even though Sean O'Brien went and
(07:22):
spoke at the Republican National Convention just because Harris has
since been endorsed by Teamsters regional councils in Michigan. That's
a quarter million Teamsters right there, and California, Hawaii and Guam,
and the Battleground in Nevada that's another group of Teamsters
three hundred thousand, plus the local councils in Wisconsin and
(07:44):
Philadelphia and Miami and Greater New York, and the Teamsters
National Black Caucus. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with
what the National Teamsters decided they had the votes for.
I'm not saying there was anything like bribing a union
boss involved, just because there are a million, three hundred
thousand Teamsters nationally and they voted no endorsement, per President O'Brien,
(08:10):
and now it looks like a majority of them will
be endorsing her via their regional councils. Anyway, that's no
reason to assume there's helter skelter hanky panky run willy
nilly in union Land. But I do wonder how much
somebody like Trump would know about bribing a union boss,
(08:30):
given what he spent his life doing. Let me tell
you another story. This one is from my late father.
We have to go back in time a little put
yourself in the mind of being it. Just before Christmas
nineteen seventy eight, We're in Binghamton, New York. It's a
little warm for the time of year, at a new
mall Cornell, my college has broken for the winter. And
(08:55):
by total coincidence, my dad, an architect who worked largely
in malls, is going to be in bingham to New York,
an hour away from Cornell, on the day that my
friends are leaving Ithaca to go home to their home
in outside Philadelphia. And we can time this perfectly. Exactly
where they have to hang a right which gets them
(09:18):
to Philadelphia, when going straight takes you to New York
is the mall my father's going to be at that
particular night. So I pile in the car with them,
and I get out at the mall and there's my
dad's car, and on a foggy night, fifty fifty five degrees,
foggier and foggier, finally out my father comes and says
(09:38):
he's got somebody with him, and he goes, this is
my son. He's a senior at Cornell. We think he's
a saying he's going to graduate in the spring. You
are going to graduate Argie, the whole routine. Now, my
father had worked as an architect. He got his first
license in nineteen sixty seven and wound up being licensed
in forty of the states, which was pretty good for
a guy who never actually went to college. But before that,
(09:59):
he'd been a draftsman working for a firm in New
York for about fifteen years. He did the nitty gritty stuff,
and when it came time to get stuff built, he
had to go there and deal with the union bosses,
and he had to go there and deal with the
contractors and the owners, and the inspectors and the city people.
He had to deal with people on a granular level,
(10:21):
as they say. So my dad is talking to me
about as we got up into the car and this
foggy night, And it was foggy enough that at one point,
as we drove away from this mall, I said, when
did they put that Christmas tree up? And he went,
what Christmas tree? There was a giant Christmas tree in
the parking lot, which we could not see even though
we were standing ten feet from it. Now the fog
(10:44):
is clearing it like it had just grown there. So
this is a very weird night to begin with, plus,
I'm almost an adult, not quite. I haven't turned twenty
years old yet. Maybe I'm graduating, maybe I'm not. And
I say something, and to this day, I don't remember
what it was to my dad about construction. And he
(11:04):
almost swerves off the highway and says, look, I thought
I raised you well. And I went, what's wrong? He goes,
you've reached your age, you nearly twenty years old, and
you don't understand that everything that gets built involves a bribe.
And I said, well, I mean, I guess that's true,
(11:25):
but I don't know that we've ever discussed. Oh, we
discussed it before you came with me on that one
job in Queens in nineteen sixty seven. I said, I
was eight years old. Dad goes on to explain that
everything that is built, certainly everything that is built in
New York, and everything that he has seen in his
world travels, well, his national travels. He used to go
around the country. He had a mall and Nacadochius, Texas
(11:48):
that he had six different stores in. He was at
one point the architect who had something like three hundred
and fifty different Baskin Robbins's around the country. That he
had designed. He was expert and intuitive and at great
demand for being able to put your standard boilerplate, official
(12:10):
restaurant or store design into an irregular space. So a
Baskin Robbins that needed to be I don't know, forty
feet by forty feet, he could put it in a
thirty six by forty seven foot square and you, mister
Baskin Robbins, would never know the difference. That was what
he excelled in. He didn't think it was pretty, that
(12:30):
creative or anything. He just that was what he was
good at. So Dad is now explaining to me that
no matter where you go, somebody is going to get bribed.
And I'm, of course at nineteen like you bribed someone.
He said, no, I don't do the bribes. I have
seen a few of them. That guy I introduced you to,
(12:52):
he got a bribe. But that's I know, because right
before the bribe came in, the guy I'm working for
asked me to leave, and I went and looked at
some other stores in the mall and I said, on
the way out, how long He said five minutes? And
I know what was done. Then this way we'll get
it done on time. The man that you just were
(13:15):
introduced to He told me just before I introduced him
to you, just before you became visible in the fog,
he said, We're taken care of. This will get open
on time. Whatever it was February fifteenth, April first, everything
that gets built union, non union, somebody has gotten a
(13:39):
little taste, as they say in the Godfather movies. So
I don't know anything about how it is that after
a tradition of nearly thirty years of always endorsing the Democrat,
and the rather obvious truth that no matter how bad
sometimes democrats, individual democrats or individual democratic presidents have been
(14:01):
for unions, that they have always been better than Republicans
have been for you, Unions at least the last sixty
years worth of them have been. I don't know anything
beyond that. I'm just a simple country commentator. But my
dad was a near witness to bribery of union officials
(14:22):
in every state of the Union in which he had
a license to practice architecture. That's forty of them, that's
four fifths. And what was it Trump did before he
went on TV and people went who is this ass?
And he became a star, and then they became president.
What was it he did before that? Did he build things?
(14:44):
Do I remember that? Really? Is that why his name
is on all those buildings that were all built with
either union or non union labor, in which everything had
to be approved by a local government inspector and things
to open on time, And Trump buildings always opened on time.
I wonder how that happened. As I said, I I
wonder how much somebody like Trump would know about bribing
(15:09):
a union boss. Heading into the weekend, polls all over
the map, as you know, except for a couple of
consistent through lines. The New York Times Siena poll that
essentially shows the race tide before the debate, the Times poll,
(15:32):
the same one was Trump by two. The Times poll
has been an outlier all along, and the idea that
the informator of the New York Times is anything special
any longer has left the building except the building that
houses the New York Times, so there's nothing special. It's
not likely to be that they're right and everybody else
(15:52):
is wrong, because even the New York Times Siena poll,
like almost every other poll for the last six weeks,
shows one through line continued ongoing in incremental, sometimes really
small improvement, for Kamala Harris. The other national polls that
(16:12):
came out yesterday are suggestive of potential blowouts. Outward Intelligence
poll Harris by seven, Florida Atlantic University Harris by four,
you Gov for The Economist Harris by four. There are
two out of about twenty five national polls that do
not show Kamala Harris ahead of Trump. One was Atlas Intel,
(16:38):
which last week had Trump up by three. Nate Silver
likes Atlas Intel. I don't know anymore about Nate Silver.
My opinion of him changes day to day. The other
one was the New York Times poll, and even in
that it has gone from Harris minus two to even
(16:59):
the point of this through line is the possession arrow
is pointing to Kamala Harris. The other through line, of course,
in the total national vote doesn't matter, as you know,
it's the swing states, and the other through line happens
to be in oh a swing state Pennsylvania. The Times
poll has her up by four. If we are suggesting
(17:22):
that the Time Siena poll has been running as an
outlier against the Democrats for the whole of this year,
four point lead in Pennsylvania for Kamala Harris is worth
the weekend of Champagne. Quinnipiac we mentioned the other day,
has her up by six In Pennsylvania. Marrist and the
Washington Posts separately have her up by just one. On
(17:45):
the other hand, other hand, other hand, there is one
poll this month that has Trump up in Pennsylvania one.
What's happening? Well, The easiest explanation is the oldest one.
Polling sucks. It's too easy. In point of fact, the
polls are not as bad as they used to be.
They're better than they were in twenty twenty, when they
(18:06):
were far better than they were in twenty sixteen. But
we keep ignoring one fundamental thing that the pollsters are
so used to that they don't really make a big
deal of anymore. The polls offer two flavors of results.
Who is leading among registered voters and who is leading
among likely voters. Registered voters is defined. Are you registered
(18:31):
to vote? Yes, I am, You're a registered voter. They
don't ask people in this way are you a likely voter?
They try to ascertain in their own opinion if this
person is in fact likely to vote. The idea of
the likely voter is the better number. It is more predictive,
(18:52):
but it can be played like a two dollars banjo.
That is where pollsters can be prejudiced towards one side
or the other. These people who say they're going to
vote for Harris, we're going to declare them not likely voters.
Or these people that say they're going to vote for Harris,
we're going to declare them likely voters. Each polster has
(19:14):
his own definition of likely voter, and the ones that
are playing it straight. Did they vote in the last
state election, did they vote in the last national election,
do they know the candidates? Did they vote in both
the nationals and locals? Did they vote in mid terms?
You get a score. You could have ten polsters though
(19:36):
poll literally the same eleven hundred people in Pennsylvania or
anywhere else, and based on the different definitions of likely voter,
the same posters interviewing the same eleven hundred people could
give you a final score of Harris leading by six,
Harris leading by four, or Harris leading by one. The
key thing in Pennsylvania is the number of polsters who,
(19:58):
no matter what they do to get this number, can
put together. Trump ahead in Pennsylvania is nearly extinct. There's
also one interior polling number worth mentioning I'll give Axios
credit on this, while they were whining at the same
time about Harris not giving them an interview, and they're
on a record pace not to give any interviews before
(20:18):
the leg because they're trying to hire it. Okay, whatever,
you're that important. They're running a campaign. They're not running
to win over the vote of Jim Van Dehi, all right.
So while they're complaining about that, Axios did conclude quoting
their headline, Harris closes trust gap with Trump on the economy,
(20:40):
Forty six percent of voters say they trust Kamala Harris
to handle the economy, the same share as Trump, according
to the Morning Consult poll, which was conducted in late
August and released Thursday Morning. They took their time on
this pole. A separate survey Axios notes from FT Michigan Ross,
(21:02):
taken after the debate and released last Sunday, shows Harris
with a slight edge over Trump when it comes to
the economy. I have noted this before that these numbers
are basically all within a range. Trump by a point,
Harris by a point. Even That's it. And the important
point there again goes back to the possession arrow and
the momentum this was Trump by ten over Biden, and
(21:26):
earlier than that it was even higher than that. And
remember the dreams of knocking Ted Cruz out of the Senate.
It may not last because the Democrats seem to have
spent like ninety percent of their ad budget in Texas,
while the Republicans have about that much left. But according
to Morning Consults, Colin Hall red leeds Ted Cruz in
(21:48):
the Texas Senate race forty five forty four. The Saint
Foster put out its first entirely post debate polls for
the swing states. It's Trump by one in Georgia, but
otherwise clean sweep. Harris, Harris by one in Arizona, Harris
by two in North care Carolina and Pennsylvania. Harris by
four in Nevada, Harris by six in Wisconsin, Harris by
(22:10):
eight in Michigan. Again, trends, and I can't wait to
see those post Mark Robinson polls in North Carolina. I mean,
first of all, they're going to read Morning Consult North
Carolina poll for Ashleymadison dot com. Lastly, comic relief bottom line.
(22:32):
Take this with you, Smile over the weekend as you
think about it. Trump is again hallucinating after he got
up in an abandoned New York hockey arena the other
night and announced he can win that state when he's
losing it by twenty He went into Fox News on
the show of the guy nearly as delusional as he is,
(22:53):
the guy Gutfeld, who has shown up to that office
every day for what ten fifteen years, has never made
one joke that actually had a laugh in it, and
thinks he is Mark Twain. Well, Trump got an even
bigger non laugh. He selected his wine for the night,
the fact checking at the debate, and I suppose we
(23:15):
should be happy that he was fact checking debates from
twenty twenty four rather than twenty sixteen. Trump said on
the Gutfeld Show, they didn't correct her once, and they
corrected me everything I said, practically, I think nine times
or eleven times, and the audience was absolutely they went crazy,
(23:36):
and I walked off unquote. Trump thinks there was an
audience at his debate against Kamala Harris. Hece, you're forgetting
there was no audience. On the other hand, if your
ego is so large that it has to be continued
onto the person standing next to you, ah maybe that
(23:59):
guy does count as your audience. Also of interest here
the Late News comparatively speaking last night from an anti
anti Semitism dinner at which Donald Trump, because the comparisons
to Hitler are apparently insufficient in his mind, decided to
(24:20):
warn the Jewish people of this country that they will
be at fault if he is not elected president. He
is moving ever closer to Hitler. That's next. This is countdown.
I don't know when I first made a comparison between
(24:43):
Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler. I know I implied it
in the article that I wrote for the BBC website
in twenty and sixteen about the early versions of Trump's
plan to remove millions of people here from this country,
and the realization that was not widespread at that point
(25:03):
that you could not simply expect immigrants or other people
who Trump did not like, to simply line up and
march out of the country without some kind of intermediary
stage in which they would be kept in camps in concentration,
or as I put it, camps with concentration, or as
(25:24):
their known concentration camps. Trump, as we know since nineteen
ninety when it was revealed by his first wife that
he kept a book of Hitler's speeches in a bedside table,
and it was very important to him that when this
(25:46):
was found out, it was confirmed that the book had
been given to him by somebody who was Jewish, and
that it was not mind comp it was a book
of speeches, and if he did have it, he never
read it. Anti Semitism is at the core of who
Donald Trump is, and in increasingly people have recognized that
(26:06):
the historical comparison to Hitler nineteen twenty nine, thirty thirty one,
thirty two and the Trump of today is apt. Everybody
seems to think it's when made a comparison to Hitler
at the lowest point in his non humanity. That's not
what we're talking about. We're talking about what you would
(26:29):
have seen if you had looked at Hitler in nineteen
thirty two. That is where we are with Trump, and
if there was any doubt remaining of this, it ended
last night. Trump has been through the course of this
entire campaign saying that the Democrats are not serving Israel
and that anyone who's Jewish in this country who would
(26:50):
vote for a Democrat needs to and I'm quoting him here,
get their head examined because long ago, sometime before he
first needed to have his head examined. Trump utterly conflated
in a per anti Semitic meme, the idea that the
Jews are loyal first to Israel, the Jews of America
(27:14):
are first loyal to Israel, the Jews of Holland, or
first loyal to the Jews of Australia. It is the
most common form of anti Semitism, and those who are
afflicted with it don't think they are being particularly anti Semitic. Well,
now there is a secondary stage up from that, and
Trump reached it last night at a dinner at which
(27:36):
he was given an award and introduced by this Adelson
woman who is pouring millions of dollars into the attempt
to get Trump elected again and again. Trump with this
confusion between the idea that support for Jewish people and
support for Israel must overlap entirely, now he has gone
(28:00):
to the next stage. Jewish support for Trump is not
what it should be. And he openly and without any
kind of reservation, and in a sad tone of voice,
as if he was warning the Jews of America that
he's going to have to do something about them if
he wins and they have not supported him. He basically
(28:22):
in advance blamed Jewish Americans for the possibility that he
would not be returned to the presidency. I'm going to
play the whole clip. I have no comment to make afterwards.
It speaks for itself, and the reverse of what he
says is true. If any Jewish American votes for Donald Trump,
they need to have their head examined. If any Gentile
(28:44):
American votes for Donald Trump, they need to have their
head examined too.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
But i will put it to you very simply and gently,
I really haven't been treated right. But you haven't been
treated right because you're putting yourself in great danger and
the United States hasn't been treated right. So if I
don't win this election, and I've been very good, you know,
they say Trump's been right about everything. I've been right
(29:09):
about a lot of things. Even Ted will admit that
I've been right about a lot of things. A lot
of things that a lot of people said no, that
won't happen. But a lot of bad things happened, and
some good things I've been right about too, And I
only want to be So I'm not going to call
this as a prediction. But in my opinion, the Jewish
people would have a lot to do with a loss
(29:31):
if I'm at forty percent, if I'm at forethink of it,
I mean sixty percent of voting for Kamala, who in
particular is a bad Democrat. The Democrats are bad to Israel,
very bad. They'll never change because they have a section
of their party now which has become amazingly and quickly
very powerful both ways. I mean, Chuck Schumer is a
Palestinian who would have thought that was going to happen.
(29:53):
What the hell happened to him? I saw him the
other day. He was dressed in one of their robes.
Now that'll be next.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
James Thurber's best known work, best loved work, and maybe
just best work, has been made into two different films,
neither of which is really satisfactory, but each gives you
just a glimpse of what your imagination is doing as
you hear or read his words. It is a universal
It is the story of everybody who's ever lived, who
(30:30):
has ever daydreamed. It is the secret life of Walter
Mitty by James Thurber. We're going through. The Commander's voice
was like thin ice breaking. He wore his full dress
uniform with the heavily braided white cap pulled down rakishly
over one cold gray eye. We can't make it, sir.
(30:55):
It's spoiling for a hurricane. If you ask me, I'm
not asking you, Lieutenant Berg, said the commander. Throw on
the power lights, rever up to eighty five hundred. We're
going through. The pounding of the cylinders increased to pocket,
the pocket to pocket, to pocket to pocket. The commander
stared at the ice forming on the pilot window. He
walked over and twisted a row of complicated dials. Sweitch
(31:17):
on number eight auxiliary. He shouted, switch on number eight auxiliary,
repeated Lieutenant Berg. Full strength and number three turret, shouted
the commander, full strength and number three turret. The crew,
bending to the various tasks in the huge, hurtling eight
engined Navy hydroplane, looked at each other and grinned. The
(31:38):
old man will get us through, they said to one another.
The old man ain't afraid of hell, not the fast.
You're driving too fast, said missus Middy. What are you
driving so fast for? Hmmm, said Walter Middy. He looked
at his wife in the seat beside him with shocked astonishment.
(31:59):
She seemed grossly unfamiliar, like a strange woman who had
yelled at him in a crowd. Up to fifty five,
she said, you know I don't like to go more
than forty. You're up to fifty five. Walter Midty drove
on toward Waterbury in silence, the roaring of the s
N two two through the worst storm in twenty years
of Navy flying, fading in the remote intimate airways of
(32:23):
his mind. You're ten step again, said missus Midty. It's
one of your days. I wish you'd let doctor Renshaw
look you over. Walter Mitty stopped the car in front
of the building where his wife went to have her
hair done. Remember to get those overshoes while I'm having
the hair done, she said, I don't need overshoes, said Mitty.
(32:44):
She put her mirror back into her bag. We've been
all through that, she said, getting out of the car.
You're not a young man any longer. He raced the
engine a little. Why don't you wear your gloves? Have
you lost your gloves? Walter Mitty reached in a pocket
and brought out the gloves. He put them on, but
after she had turned and gone into the building, and
(33:05):
he had driven on to a red light. He took
them off again. Pick it up, brother snapped the cop
as the light changed, and Mitty hastily pulled on his
gloves and lurched ahead. He drove around the streets aimlessly
for a time, and then he drove past the hospital
on his way to the parking lot. It's the millionaire
(33:26):
banker Wellington, McMillan, said the pretty nurse. Yes, said Walter Mitty,
removing his gloves slowly. Who has the case, Doctor Renshawn,
Doctor Renbow. But there are two specialists here, doctor Remington
from New York and mister Prichard Mitford from London. He
flew over. The door opened down a long cool carter,
(33:46):
and doctor Renshaw came out. He looked distraught and haggard.
Hello Mitty, he said, we're having the devil's own time
with McMillan, the millionaire banker and close personal friend of
Roosevelt obstriosis of the ductal tract tertiary. Wish you'd take
a look at him. Glad to, said Mitty. In the
(34:08):
operating room, there were whispered introductions Doctor Remington, doctor Mitty,
mister Richard Mitford, doctor Mitty, and I've read your book
on scripto thracosis, said Richard Mitford, shaking hands. A brilliant performance, sir,
thank you, said Walter Mitty. Didn't know you're in the
State's Mitty grumbled. Remington Cole's to Newcastle, bringing Midford to
(34:32):
me up here for a tertiary. You are very kind,
said Mitty. A huge, complicated machine connected to the operating
table with many tubes and wires began at this moment
to go pocket to pocketa POCKETA the new anesthetizer is
giving way, shouted an interurn. There is no one in
the East who knows how to fix it. Quiet man,
(34:55):
said Mitty in a low, cool voice. He sprang to
the machine, which was now going pocket to pocket to creep,
pocket to pocket to creep. He began fingering delicately a
roll of glistening dials. Give me a fountain pen, he snapped.
Someone handed him a fountain pen. He pulled a faulty
piston out of the machine and inserted the pen in
its place. That will hold for ten minutes, he said,
(35:19):
Get on with the operation. A nurse hurried over and
whispered to Renshaw and Mitty saw the man turn pale.
Coreopsis has set in, said Renshaw nervously. If you would
take over, Middy. Mitty looked at him, and at the
craven figure of Benbow who drank, and at the grave
uncertain faces of the two great specialists. If you wish,
(35:43):
he said. They slipped a white gown on him. He
adjusted a mask and drew on thin gloves. Nurses handed
him shiny, back it up, Mac, look out for that buick.
Walter Mitty jammed on the brakes. Wrong laye, Mac, said
the parking lot attendant, looking at Mitty closely. Gee yeah,
muttered Mitty. He began cautious to back out of the
(36:05):
lane marked exit. Only leave us sit there, said the attendant.
I'll put her away. Mitty got out of the car.
Hey better leave the key, oh, said Mitty, handing the
man the ignition key. The attendant vaulted into the car,
backed it up with insolent skill, and put it where
(36:25):
it belonged. They're so damn cocky, thought Walter Mitty, walking
along main Street. They think they know everything. Once he
had tried to take his chains off outside New Milford,
and he got them wound around the axles. The man
had to come out in a wrecking car and unwind
them a young, grinning garage man. Since then, Missus Mitty
(36:50):
always made him drive to a garage to have the
chains taken off. The Next time, he thought, I'll wear
my right arm in a sling. They won't grin at me.
Then I have my right arm in a sling, and
they'll see. I couldn't possibly take the chains off myself.
He kicked at the slush on the sidewalk. Overshoes, he
said to himself, and he began looking for a shoe store.
(37:12):
When he came out into the street again with the
overshoes in a box under his arm, Walter Mitty began
to wonder what the other thing was his wife had
told him to get. She had told him twice before
they set out from their house for Waterbury. In a way,
he hated these weekly trips to town. He was always
getting something wrong. Kleenex, he thoughts, quibbs, razor blades, now toothpaste,
(37:35):
toothbrush by carbon at Carborundum initiative referendum, he gave it up,
but she would remember it. Where's the what's its name?
She would ask? Don't tell me you forgot the what's
its name? The newsboy went by, shouting something about the
Waterbury trial. Perhaps this will refresh your memory. The district
(37:56):
attorney suddenly thrust a heavy automatic at the quiet figure
on the witness stand. Have you ever seen this before?
Walter Mitty took the gun and examined expertly. This is
my Webley Vicar's fifty point eight, oh, he said calmly.
An excited buzz ran around the courtroom. The judge wrapped
for order. You are a crack shot with any sort
(38:18):
of firearms, I believe, said the district attorney, insinuatingly. Objection,
shouted Mitty's attorney. We have shown that the defendant could
not have fired the shot. We have shown that he
wore his right arm in a sling on the night
of the fourteenth of July. Walter Mitty raised his hand briefly,
and the bickering attorneys were stilled with any known make
(38:40):
of gun, He said evenly, I could have killed Gregory
Fitzhurst at three hundred feet with my left hand. Pandemonium
broke out in the courtroom. A woman's scream rose above
the bedlom, and suddenly a lovely, dark haired girl was
in Walter Mitty's arms. The district attorney struck at her savagely,
without rising from his chair. Mitty let the man have
(39:02):
it on the point of the chin, you miserable curl er.
Puppy biscuit, said Walter Mitty. He stopped walking, and the
buildings of Waterbury rose up out of the misty courtroom
and surrounded him again. A woman who was passing laughed.
He said, puppy biscuit. She said to her companion. That
man said puppy biscuit to himself. Walter Mitty hurried on.
(39:26):
He went into an a and p not the first
one he came to, but a smaller one farther up
the street. I want some biscuit for small young dogs,
he said to the clerk. Any special brand, Sir, the
greatest pistol shot in the world. Thought a moment. It says,
puppies bark for it on the box, said Walter Mitty.
(39:51):
His wife would be through at the hairdressers in fifteen minutes.
Mitty saw in looking at his watch. Unless they had
trouble drying it, sometimes they had trouble drying it. She
didn't like to get to the hotel first, she would
want him to be there for her as usual. He
found a big leather chair in the lobby facing a window,
and he put the overshoes and the puppy biscuit on
(40:11):
the floor Beside it. He picked up an old copy
of Liberty and sank down into the chair. Can Germany
conquer the world through the air? Walter Mitty looked at
the pictures of bombing planes and of ruined streets. The
Cannonaden has got the wind up in young Rawley, Sir,
(40:33):
said the sergeant. Captain. Mitty looked at him through touzled hair.
Get him to bed, he said, wearily. With the others,
I'll fly alone, but you can't, sir, said the sergeant.
Anxiously takes two men to handle that bomber, and the
archies a pounding l out of the air. Von Rickman's
circus is between here and Solier. Somebody's got to get
(40:55):
that ammunition dump, said Mitty. I'm going over spot of brandy.
He poured a drink for the sergeant and won for himself.
Wore thundered and wine around the dugout and battered at
the door. There was a rending of wood and splinters
flew through the room of a near thing, said Captain
Mitty carelessly. The box barrage is closing in, said the sergeant.
(41:18):
We only live once, sergeant, said Mitty, with his faint
fleeting smile. Or do we He poured another brandy and
tossed it off. I've never seen a man could hold
his brandy. Lock you, sir, said the sergeant, begging you pardon, sir.
Captain Mitty stood up and scrapped on his huge Webbley
Vicars automatic. It's forty kilometers through el, sir, said the sergeant.
(41:41):
Mitty finished one last brandy after all, he said, softly.
What isn't The pounding of the cannon increased. There was
the rat tat tatting of the machine guns, and from
somewhere came the menacing pucket a pucket to pucket a
pocket of the new flame thrilleries. Walter Mitty walked to
the door of the dugout, humming out Prey de ma blon,
(42:04):
and he turned and waved to the sergeant Cheerio. He said.
Something struck his shoulder. I've been looking all over this
hotel for you, said missus Mitty. Why do you have
to hide in this old chair. How did you expect
me to find you things close in? Said Walter Mitty,
vaguely what missus Mitty said? Did you get the wats
(42:28):
it's name the poppy biscuit? What's in that box? Overshoes?
Said Mitty? Couldn't you put them on on the star?
I was thinking? Said Walter Mitty. Does it ever occur
to you that I am sometimes thinking? She looked at him.
I'm going to take your temperature when I get you home,
she said. They went out through the revolving doors that
(42:50):
made a faintly derisive whistling sound when you push them.
It was two blocks to the parking lot at the
drug store on the corner. She said, wait here for me.
I forgot something. I won't be a minute. She was
more than a minute. Walter Mitty lighted a cigarette. It
began to rain, rained with sleet in it. He stood
(43:11):
up against the wall of the drug store smoking. He
put his shoulders back and his heels together. To hell
with the handkerchief, said Walter Middy scornfully. He took one
last drag on his cigarette and snapped it away. Then,
with that faint, fleeting smile playing about his lips, he
faced the Firing Squad, erect and motionless, proud and disdainful.
(43:35):
Walter Mitty, the Undefeated, Inscrutable to the last. The Secret
Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber. I've done all
(43:59):
the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening
right now. Back to five episodes a week, posting nightly
just after midnight Eastern, so that's Sunday night, just after
midnight a Sunday night, early Monday morning. Once again there
is a Monday Countdown. Please forward both this podcast and
the news of the Monday Countdown to a non listener
(44:20):
who should fix that problem? Send it to Mark Robinson.
Tell them it's no, don't. Brian Ray and John Phillip
Shanel are the musical directors of Countdown and they have arranged,
produced and performed most of our music. Mister Chanelle handling
orchestration and keyboards, Mister Ray on guitars based on drums.
It was produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and pithy
(44:41):
musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organists ever,
Nancy Faust. The sports music is the Olderman theme from
ESPN two, written by Mitch Horren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
Other music arranged and performed by the group No Horns allowed.
Everything else. It's pretty much my fault. That's countdown for
this the forty seventh day until the twenty twenty four
(45:03):
presidential action. The election day included the three and forty
seventh day since convicted felon dementia J Trump's first attempted
coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.
Use the election, use the mental health system, use presidential immunity.
If we have to to keep him from doing it again.
Why we still can He thinks there's an audience. He
(45:28):
thought there was an audience at the debate. The next
scheduled countdown is Monday bulletins as the news requires until
the next one on Keith Oulderman. Good Morning, good afternoon,
good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Oulderman is
(46:00):
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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