November 3, 2023 • 45 mins
SEASON 2 EPISODE 67: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Dementia J. Trump’s lawyers last night filed a 35-page document to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, one or two paragraphs of which asks that court to BAR Judge Tanya Chutkan from reinstating the gag order on him. The rest of it is about how wonderful he is and how much he leads in the primary polls and it sounds like the dialogue they gave Rita Moreno in the last scene of the Jack Nicholson movie “Carnal Knowledge.”
From the first (!) page: “President Trump’s uniquely powerful voice has been a fixtue of American political discourse for eight years, and central to the American fabric for decades.” Well, true, like car alarms. Or Herpes. From Item 4, on Page 11: "The Gag Order violates the rights of tens of millions of Americans to receive President Trump’s speech: A restriction on President Trump’s speech inflicts a reciprocal injury on the rights of over 100 million Americans who listen to him…" Listen to him bout how big and strong he is and how he is better, more beautiful, more powerful, more perfect, more strong, more masculine, more extraordinary, more virile, more domineering, more irresistible and more up in the air and I may have added a little something to the text there.
More importantly, but less entertainingly, Judge Chutkan hits the gas, Judge Engoron hits the roof, Judge Cannon does NOT hit the pause button. Chutkan sent a not so subtle sign to the Trump Cult that the Subversion trial will start as planned 123 days from now, and Jack Smith let Cannon know that Trump was playing her like a two dollar banjo.
Also, here in New York, the FBI searched the home of the Mayor's top campaign fundraiser and all of a sudden there is a money scandal involving her, him, a construction company, the nation of Turkey, donors who didn't donate, and don't blame me, I voted for the Garbage Commissioner Lady.
And back in DC, Lauren Boeber and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Chip Roy in a three-way… war of words. It began with a post by Roy, explaining why he moved to stop the vote to censure Representative Tlaib. Then Barney Rubble sub-tweeted him: “You voted to kick me out of the freedom caucus, but keep CNN wannabe Ken Buck and vaping groping Lauren Boebert…” to which Roy replied “Tell her to go-chase so-called Jewish space lasers if she wants to spend time on that sort of thing.” And Greene responded “Oh shut up Colonel Sanders” and predicted that this would all end with him reciting “powdered wig soliloquies as Americans are marched to the firing squads”and no, I don’t get the reference either. Curiously silent through all this was Vaping Groping Lauren Boebert. Sources say she’s simply sitting there quietly, trying to get a grip on the situation.
B-Block (26:03) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD (26:03) Dean Phillips, the Harlan Crow-funded "Democrat" challenging Biden, may have a bigger problem even than Crow. Fox is equally-opportunity hate: Jesse Watters gets suspended for threatening Arab Americans; Mark Levin lies about Wolf Blitzer's grandparents and denies they died in the holocaust. And after an ex-NHL player dies from taking a skate to his neck, how could an NHL team glorify one of their players nearly cutting another player with EACH of his skates?
C-Block (35:05) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: There is boredom, there is paranoia, there is fantasy, there is detective fiction, there is self-satirization. Put them all together and you get Thurber's epic "The Lady on 142."
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Chut
Chin hits the gas, Judge Enderon hits the roof. Judge
(00:25):
Cannon does not hit the pause button. But let me
start at the US Court of Appeals for the District
of Columbia where dementia j Trump's lawyers last night filed
a thirty five page document, one or two paragraphs of
which asks that the court bar Judge Tanya Chutkin from
reinstating the gag order against Trump, the rest of which
(00:47):
is about how wonderful Trump is and how much he
leads in the primary polls. And it sounds like the
dialogue they gave rieda Moreno in the last scene of
the Jack Nicholson movie Cardinal Knowledge. Fourth paragraph of page
one of the introduction quote, President Trump's uniquely powerful voice
has been a fixture of American political discourse for eight
(01:09):
years and central to the American fabric for decades. Now
true like Carl Arms or herpes. Page eleven, item four quote,
the gag order violates the rights of tens of millions
of Americans to receive President Trump's speech. A restriction on
(01:30):
President Trump's speech inflicts a reciprocal injury on the rights
of over one hundred million Americans who listened to him
about how big and strong he is and is better,
more beautiful, more powerful, more perfect, more strong, more masculine,
more extraordinary, more virile, domineering, more irresistible, and more up
(01:54):
in the air. I added a little something to that
at the end. Now, as to the actual election subversion trial,
where sense that any of the many delaying tactics of
dementia Jay's legal team, or their big motion to dismiss
the whole case because it's unfair to charge a criminal
(02:15):
with crimes your honor, that any of that was going
to get them anything other than more billable hours that
Trump will someday stiff them on. That has vanished with
the issuance of what in every other trial would be
just another procedural memo, But what in this one is
a metaphorical backhand slap across Trump's pouchy face quote. The
(02:36):
court will use a written questionnaire in advance of in
person jury selection. Judge Chuckkin announces prosecution and defense should
negotiate what's in that. They should submit it to her
on January ninth, that's sixty eight days from now, before
you subtract the holidays, and if the lawyers can't agree
on the wording of the questionnaire, they need to tell
(02:57):
her what's in dispute. Then quote, after review and approval
by the court, the questionnaire will be distributed to prospective
jurors summoned to complete it at the courthouse on February nine,
twenty twenty four, unquote, and that's ninety nine days from
now before subtracting the holidays. And all that means is
(03:17):
she intends to start this trial on the announced date,
March fourth, and that's one hundred and twenty three days
from now. Judge Chutkin went on to warn both sides
that they can research potential jurors, but if they dox
any of them, she will come down on them like
a ton of bricks. And she ain't looking at Jack
Smith when she says that quote, no party may provide
(03:39):
jurors identifying information to any other entity parenthesis, eg. The
defendant's campaign unquote. That shot across Trump's bow is delicious.
But the import of the Chutkin ruling is that it
underscores Jack Smith's message to Trump's concierge. Judge in Florida,
(04:01):
Eileen Cannon. You will recall that on Whennesday, Canon made
all the kinds of noises for ten judges make before
they are going to do something inappropriate or biased or
reeking of corruption, the same kind of dilatory time wasters
that Chutkin just swatted away in Washington without even bothering
to acknowledge them. Canon accepted tenderly and did everything but
(04:25):
swaddled them in baby clothes. I'm having a hard time
seeing how this work can be accomplished in this compressed
period of time, she said, while metaphorically beaming at the
man who lifted her from among six thousand assistant US
attorneys to a judgeship she was totally unprepared for. She
spoke to the prosecutor then as if he were misguided, misled, miseducated.
(04:50):
I'm not seeing in your position a level of understanding
to these realities. And she hinted that as soon as
the next day, yesterday, she might be making reasonable adjustments
to the Florida Documents case trial schedule that could slide
the start of that trial from May fourteenth until after
the primaries, or after the convention or after the election.
(05:14):
And then she sat back as if waiting overnight would
reduce the obviousness of her dual role as Trump's judge
and one of Trump's lawyers. And then overnight came and went,
and the sun rose and set, and Judge Cannon ruled nothing.
And that was because Jack Smith's team filed a brief
(05:34):
overnight Wednesday that explained to Judge Cannon that it was
obvious she had missed the fact that Trump and his
attorneys had pulled the rug out from under her, and
that it was obvious to everybody in the world except
her that they were all playing her like the proverbial
two dollar ban Joe. Here, she was ready to postpone,
(05:54):
delay or otherwise scring out the Florida trial on the
excuse that he had so much prep for the Florida
trial that it would crash into the schedule for the
Washington True. But Trump had already filed not just a
motion to dismiss the Washington trial, but was filing another
motion to delay the Washington trial indefinitely until they get
(06:15):
every court except Judge Wapner's to rule on this thing
they made up called presidential immunity. In short, Cannon was
about to delay her trial so Trump could concentrate on
the Washington trial while Trump was busy demanding that they
delay the Washington trial too. Quote. As the government argued
(06:36):
to the court Wednesday, the trial date in the District
of Columbia case should not be a determinative factor in
the court's decision whether to modify the dates in this matter.
Defendant Trump's actions and by the way, how nice is
it to hear or say the phrase defendant Trump. Defendant
Trump's actions in the hours following the hearing in the
(06:59):
case illustrate the point and confirm his overriding interest in
delaying both at any cost. Smith and jay Brat's filing
then closes with what seems like an unfortunate typo, but
which really reads more like a Freudian slip, warning Eileen
Cannon what a fool she is making of herself. Quote,
this court should allow itself to be manipulated in this fashion.
(07:24):
Of course, they meant should not allow. But if you
read it as written, and that's about you, you should
allow yourself to be manipulated in this fashion. I think
it would make your cheeks burn. Wait, I am allowing
myself to be manipulated. Regardless Cannon's response to that filing
(07:48):
was nothing, nothing that we know of. Anyway, I would
still not hold out much hope that she will do
the right thing. She's still on the case, even though
if there is an in person hearing a week from Monday,
Trump's attorneys really should bring in a cake celebrating the
third anniversary of her appointment by the defendant. Still, corruption
(08:12):
delayed could always turn out to be corruption denied. Where
there's hope of honesty, there's life or something, or as
the judicial website above, the law dot com perfectly headlined
its story on this farse, Trump demands delay in Florida
case to accommodate delay in DC case, to accommodate delay
(08:33):
in dot dot dot before getting to the frakkha here
in New York, in which, for once, Trump himself is
actually an innocent bystander. One more note about Aileen Cannon.
If you saw it and it was everywhere and you
don't know that, the purported Trump's social media post about
(08:56):
Canon was a fake, it was a fake. It had
him saying that she was the best judge since King David,
and she gets the next Supreme Court opening, And given
the bottomless pit of Trumpian corruption, it sounds utterly plausible.
But there was a series of tells. First, content, whoever
wrote it refers to quote looney Jack Smith, and he
(09:16):
has never called him looney. It's too endearing. Secondly, how
in the hell would Trump, who kept not a Bible
by his bed, but rather a copy of Hitler's favorite speeches,
how in the hell would he know who King David was?
Then there are the technical tells. Is it on his
social media site? And if it isn't, which it wasn't,
(09:38):
how come every time you see the screen shot it's
exactly the same one with the same font. Wouldn't more
than one person have screenshotted something that would be that
stupid even for Trump. I mean, there are literally dozens
of reporters with burner accounts on Trump's site waiting for
things like that, who get alerts for things like that,
(09:59):
and only one of them got the screenshot. You're going
to bite on the fake one ones, only bite on
the good fake ones. Also, everything including the word adjudicated,
was spelled correctly. Now to New York it looked like
(10:20):
the civil fraud trial of Trump and Junior and Moron
Junior and Girl Junior was going to be highlighted by
Junior's admission that sure he signed all those fraudulent financial statements,
but that doesn't mean he's responsible for what's in those
fraudulent financial statements. Or if not that, then it was
going to be highlighted by Moron Junior, who yesterday testified
(10:41):
under oath that he never heard of the company's statement
of financial condition until recently. And then they showed him
an email where employees were told that he was working
on the company statement of financial condition. But then something
happened that caused Judge Arthur and Gern to literally pound
on the bench and shout, if there is any further
(11:04):
reference to anyone on my staff, I would consider expanding
the gag order to include the attorney's unquote more amazing still,
what caused that had nothing to do with any of
the Trumps, but instead it was about their attorney, Chris Kiss.
He complained to the bench about the court clerk, you know,
(11:26):
the one Trump doxed, and in that paroxysm of paranoia,
he claimed she was Chuck Schumer's girlfriend and now she
was passing notes to the judge and Kiss complained about it.
That's right. The judge shouted confidential communications for my record,
absolute right to it. You don't have any right to
(11:46):
see it. While it would be joyful to think that
Trump has actually only hired lawyers like Alena Habba and
the other one, the one who vanished the lawyer slash
spokesmodel Christina Something, whatever happened to her, it would be
joyful to think that he'd only hired lawyers who are
(12:06):
even worse at legal stuff than he is. Courtroom observers
believe that this one, mister Kiss, may have actually pulled
off a brilliant bit of performance art and actually taken
one for the team. This theory states that instead of
writing about how Eric Trump seemingly perjured himself about the
Trump statement of financial condition and the fact that it
(12:28):
sure looks like Eric only began to develop amnesia about
company financials in twenty twenty as the Attorney General's investigation began,
Instead of that, everybody is writing about the clerk and
the gag order again and the judge yelling, And as
a bonus, when they are writing about those things, they
also aren't mentioning dementia. Jay. Supporting this theory is the
(12:52):
startling realization that there could actually have been an entire
day in a courtroom somewhere in the world in which
Donald Trump's name did not come up at all. But
he can never leave well enough alone, nor can he
leave bad enough alone. For that matter, Deventia Jay attacked
(13:13):
Engern online again at midday, and then he did something
even weirder. Quote our corrupt attorney general sits on her
ass in court all day watching the Trump family unquote. So,
Defendant Trump, how long have you been obsessed by Letitia
James's backside? There is one more Trump trial. Note it
(13:38):
was light day, only five of them in progress. At
the fourteenth Amendment disqualification hearing in Colorado, Trump's team called
as witnesses. He just announced his retirement. Representative ken Buck,
the woman who organized the January sixth rally and the
chief of staff to Congressman bat Guano Paul Gozar. Ken
(14:02):
Bucks stumbled all over the so called Republican EVA it's
about the insurrection, saying the January sixth Committee left out
Jim Jordan's side of the story, which immediately reminded the
court that Jim Jordan ignored first an invitation to testify
to the committee and then a subpoena from the committee.
Jim Jordan, remember Jim Jordan. But the part about that
(14:23):
that knocked me out was the part that again supports
by conviction that whatever Trump's brain problem is, it is
getting worse and rapidly so. Ken Buck testified on Trump's
behalf in court at about nine am local time yesterday,
not twelve hours earlier. Trump had written, quote, good news
(14:47):
for the country. Congressman ken Buck of Colorado, a weak
and ineffective super rhino, if ever there was one, announced
today that he won't be running again, which is a
great thing for the Republican Party. Bad news for ken Buck.
That's the same Trump who's version you defended under oath,
(15:07):
Worst news for Trump now. Ken Buck also knows that
if you are loyal to Trump, you can rest assured
that you can rely on him for the rest of
your life. He will never forget to not give a
damn who you are or what you did for him.
(15:28):
A little closer to home, this is year twenty five
of the part of my career I've spent covering politics,
and rarely do headlines surprise me anymore. But to be fair,
a hat tip to the writers of this part of
our current timeline. Quote us investigating whether New York Mayor
Eric Adams received illegal donations from Turkey. A raid at
(15:49):
the home of his chief fundraiser was part of an
inquiring into whether foreign money was funneled into his mayoral campaign.
A search warrant shows. I wonder how he's gonna claim
this was all God's doing. Anybody who has lived in
this city for longer than twenty two minutes knows that
(16:11):
when the mayor leaves for Washington to try to get
money for something, and when he gets there he suddenly
cancels the meetings and heads right back to New York,
that something good is in the microwave. And then it
came the news yesterday that the FBI had rated the
top donation wrangler of his campaign, the woman who doubles
as one of his key agenda operatives, always pushing the
(16:33):
mayor wants this, and the mayor wants that. Finally out
comes the warrant and the backstory noveled even for this city,
and it's Madame Tussaud's collection of corrupt mayors. There is
a Brooklyn construction company involved. It has ties to Turkey.
There is Bay Atlantic University in Washington, which has six
(16:54):
hundred students, but no Wikipedia page, but it's owned by
people in Turkey, and it has ties to Mayor Adams.
Then there's the mayor himself who's boasted six or seven
times to Turkey. There are donors who are in the
Ledger books but don't seem to actually exist or at
least to have donated. And there are allegedly kickbacks to
(17:16):
the construction company and to Turkey. And I will just
state for the record, and mister chairman, don't blame me.
I voted for the garbage commissioner. Lady. Back to Washington,
drooping Johnson watch day nine, the new fifth string Speaker
passed his support Israel, don't support Ukraine. Don't you dare
(17:38):
let the IRS investigate rich Republican tax e vators bill.
He even got twelve Democratic votes for it. It will
go to the Senate where there's not a chance in
hell of it passing, and Ukraine will be put back
in and the defunding of the IRS that will expand
the deficit will be taken back out. But that's not
the point. The point is that once again this Johnson's
(18:00):
weird ejaculations. What dictionary definition of ejaculation is something said
quickly and suddenly, what what this guy says about? He's
not playing politics with aid to Israel. This bothers me.
It bothers me because it's clear that Mike Johnson does
(18:22):
not realize that we all can see him.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
And now, as Israel begins the next phase of its war,
it's been kind of disturbing to us. I've heard Democrats
suggest that there needs to be a ceasefire. Israel doesn't
need a ceasefire, needs its allies to cease with the
politics and deliver support now. And that's what we're doing.
House Republicans plan to do that. We're going to do
it in short order, and it provides Israeli aid it
needs to defend itself, free its hostages, and eradicate Hamas,
(18:50):
which is a mission that must be accomplished. All of this,
all of this while we also work to ensure responsible
spending and reduce the size of the federal government to
pay for that commitment to our friend in Allie, we
cannot waste any time getting Israel the AI needs. We're
going to work on.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
That right, no politics and no delay. Other than the
part about Ukraine, which I guess is kind of relevant
because they're both wars. Oh, and the part about the Irs,
which has got nothing to do with Israel. It's pure
it's pure politics. Three year old child could see that.
(19:26):
Any one of my dogs could see that there is
the terrifying prospect that Mike Johnson might not be this stupid.
He might actually believe he's getting away with it. And lastly,
speaking of Johnson's, there's Lauren Bobert. She and Marjorie Taylor
(19:48):
Green and Chip Roy in a three way war of words.
It began with a post by Roy explaining why he
moved to stop the vote to cent your representative to
Leeb then Barney Rubble. Marjorie Taylor Green sub tweeted him,
you voted to kick me out of the freedom call,
but kept seeingn wanna be ken Buck and vaping groping
(20:08):
Lauren Bobert. All right, vaping groping Lauren Bobert. Sure. Roy
replied to that, tell her to go chase so called
Jewish space lasers if she wants to spend time on
that sort of thing. And Green then responded, oh, shut up,
Colonel Sanders, and predicted that this would all end with
(20:30):
him reciting quote powdered Wig soliloquies as Americans are marched
to the firing squads, and no, that's where they lost. Man.
I don't get that reference either. Curiously silent through all this, though,
was vaping groping Lauren Bobert. Sources say she's simply sitting
there quietly trying to get a grip on the situation.
(20:58):
I maybe better last part up. Also of interest here, Oops,
turns out there are more skeletons in the closet of
Dean Phillips, the Gelato king and Minnesota congressman who is
challenging Biden in the primaries. But it's just a coincidence
that Harlan Crowe has contributed to Dean's campaign. When Harlan
(21:18):
crow might not be your biggest problem. You've got some
closet that's next. This is countdown. This is countdown, with
Keith Olberman still ahead on countdown. In the dear dead
(21:57):
days of the early nineteen seventies, when innocence in naivete
consumed us all, my dad and I were flying to
Boston for some reason, and for some reason there was
a passenger who'd pissed us off another passenger in the
line to get the tickets maybe, and he sat near
us in the waiting room. So as we sat there
(22:18):
in the waiting room at LaGuardia, my dad and I
began to, on a totally ad hoc, unplanned basis, try
to scare the crap out of the guy because he
had annoyed us. I didn't think they allowed that on planes,
I began. My dad winked at me. I didn't think
they allowed anything like that on commercial flights. He nodded
me to keep going. Well, I said, I didn't think
(22:41):
you could put explosives on any plane in this country.
The guy sitting near us looked alarmed and then quickly
moved away. Mission accomplished. I do not believe that by
that point in my life I had read The Lady
on one four to two by James Thurbert. But I
might have, and it might have inspired that impromptu and
(23:02):
really evil, practical joke at that airport. You'll hear why
next in Fridays with Thurber and The Lady on one
four to two. First time for the daily round up
of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens
who constitute two days worse persons in the world worse.
Congressman Dean Phillips the Harlan crow funded quote Democrat unquote
(23:25):
who is challenging President Biden in the primaries because he
thinks Biden is too old. And remember the polling, It
does not matter if anybody thinks Biden is too old.
It only matters if everybody thinks Trump is too old.
Any who Daily Beast reports he's so rich Dean Phillips
is that he's the Talente Gelato guy, that he has
(23:47):
his own secret holding company and he buys real estate
through it in order to lower his tax liability. So
his purchase of his one and a half million dollar
town home in DC, it was bought not by Dean
Phillips nor by his wife, but by Anna dellc, which
is legal except for one problem. He is a member
(24:10):
of Congress after all, and his financial transactions are supposed
to be transparent, except there's no record of this one
or of him owning the LLC in question. Oops. Maybe
Harlan crow Ow worser a Fox News tie between two
of the true scumbags on that channel, Little Jesse Waters,
(24:30):
who broke in his bill O'Reilly's henchman and procureur and stalker,
and who went on Fox instead of Arab Americans who
are for some reason against all or just part of
the tragedy in the Middle East. Quote, we've had it
with them. And so if you're an Arab American in
this country, no, no, no, someone is going to get
punched in the face unquote. Apparently that someone turns out
(24:52):
to be at least metaphorically Waters, who was not on
either of his shows yesterday. Rumor is he's been suspended.
Then there's Mark Levin of Fox, whose voice is so
bad he sounds like somebody scramping aluminum signing with barbecue tong's.
His voice is so bad he will never get a
weeknight show on Fox, but he is on on the weekends.
And he was nice enough recently to call Jake Tapper
(25:15):
of CNN a quote self hating Jew. And now he
says Wolf Flitzer's quote parents weren't victims in one way
or another around the Holocaust. And you can see where
this guy is going. Wolf Flitzer's parents fled Poland after
all four of his grandparents were killed during the Holocaust, murdered.
His maternal grandparents were murdered at Auschwitz. This is not
(25:37):
enough for Levin, And you could call Levin self hating
but he didn't have time for that. He's too busy
hating everybody else. A truly sick and disgusting creature. But
our winners Hockey's Anaheim Ducks Saturday, and I think you've
probably heard about this. The former Pittsburgh Penguin player Adam
Johnson died during a professional hockey game in England when
(26:00):
his neck was devastatingly cut by the skate of another player.
That league immediately mandated that all players in it wear
neck guards. The National Hockey League seems to be moving
towards that too. Many players around the league immediately voluntarily
began to wear them, at least in practices, But in Anaheim,
(26:20):
the Ducks social media team yesterday posted a slow motion
video of Anaheim goon Radco Goudis with a legal mid
ice hip check of Arizona's Clayton Keller, with the caption
beware the Butcher. After Goudas hit Keller, both players crumpled
to the ice, and first Goudas's left skate just missed
(26:42):
hitting Keller's unprotected neck, maybe by a foot, and then
Goudas's right skate literally bumped up against the side of
Keller's head, his helmet, missing his neck again by just
a couple of inches. Beware the Butcher and the anaheim
Ducks decided to celebrate that play and use the term butcher.
While police in England are still investigatating exactly how a
(27:06):
skate to the neck killed Adam Johnson on Ice six
days ago. The anaheim Ducks, as they say, read the
effing room today's worst persons in the world to the
(27:33):
number one story on the Countdown, and it is Fridays
with Thurber. And thus the number one story on the
Countdown is Fridays with James Thurber. Many of the great writers,
great stories, the short stories, the fables, have great meaning
or symbolism, and some of them are just great fun.
Let me give you one of the latter from the
Thurber Carnival. It will explain itself fairly quickly. The Lady
(27:58):
on one four to two by James Thurber. The train
was twenty mins and it's late, we found out when
we bought our tickets. So we sat down on a
bench in the little waiting room of the Cornwall Bridge station.
It was too hot outside in the sun. This Midsummer
Saturday had got off to a sulky start. And now
(28:19):
at three in the afternoon, it sat sticky and restive
in our laps. There were several others besides Sylvia and myself,
waiting for the train to get in from Pittsfield. An
older woman who fanned herself with a daily news, a
young lady in her twenties reading a book, A slender,
tanned man sucking dreamily on the stem of an unlighted pipe.
(28:44):
In the center of the room, leaning against a high
iron radiator, A small girl stared at each of us
in turn, her mouth open as if she had never
seen people before. The place had the familiar pleasant smell
of railroad stations in the country, something compounded of wood
and leather and smoke. In the cramped space behind the
(29:06):
ticket window, a telegraph instrument clicked intermittently, and once or
twice a phone rang, and the station master answered it briefly.
I couldn't hear what he said. I was glad on
such a day that we were going only as far
as Gaylordsville. The third stopped down the line twenty two
minutes away. The station master had told us that our
(29:27):
tickets were the first tickets to Gaylordsville he had ever sold.
I was idly pondering this small distinction. When a train
whistle blew in the distance. We all got to our feet,
but the station master came out of his cubby hole
and told us it was not our train, but the
twelve forty five from New York northbound. Presently, the train
(29:47):
thundered in like a hurricane and sighed ponderously to a stop.
The station master went out into the platform and came back.
After a minute or two, the train got heavily underway
again for Canaan. I was opening a pack of cigarettes
when I heard the station master talking on the phone again.
This time his words came out clearly. He kept repeating
(30:10):
one sentence. He was saying, Conductor Reagan on one four
to two. As the lady the office was talking about.
The person on the other end of the line did
not appear to get the meaning of the sentence. The
station master repeated it and hung up. For some reason.
I figured that he did not understand it either. Sylvia's
(30:35):
eyes had the lost reflective look they wear when she's
trying to remember in what box she packed. The Christmas
tree ornaments. The expressions on the faces of the older woman,
the young lady, and the man with the pipe had
not changed. The little staring girl had gone away. Our
train was not due for another five minutes, and I
sat back and began trying to reconstruct the lady on
(30:57):
one four to two the lady conductor Reagan had the
lady the office was asking about. I moved nearer to
Sylvia and whispered, seeing if the trains are numbered in
your timetable. She got the timetable out of her handbag
and looked at it. One forty two, she said, is
(31:20):
the twelve forty five from New York. This was the
train that had gone by a few minutes before the
woman was taken sick, said Sylvia. They're probably arranging to
have a doctor or her family meet her. The older
woman looked around at her briefly. The young woman who
had been chewing gum stopped chewing. The man with the
pipe seemed oblivious. I lighted a cigarette and sat thinking.
(31:43):
The woman on one four to two, I said to
Sylvia flatly, might be almost anything, but she is definitely
not sick. The only person who did not stare at
me was the man with the pipe. Sylvia gave me
her temperature, taking look across between anxiety and vexation. Just
(32:03):
then our train whistled and we all stood up. I
picked up our two bags, and Sylvia took the sack
of string beans we had picked up for the connels.
When the train came clanking in, I said in Sylvia's ear,
he'll sit near us. You watch hoo. Who will she said,
(32:23):
the stranger? I told her, the man with the pipe.
Sylvia laughed, He's not a stranger, she said, he works
for the breeds. I was certainly that he did not
work for the breeds. Women like to place people. Every
stranger reminds him of somebody. The man with the pipe
was sitting three seats in front of us, across the aisle.
(32:46):
When we got settled, I indicated him with a nod
of my head. Sylvia took a book out of the
top of her overnight bag and opened it. What's the
matter with you, she demanded. I looked around before replying.
A sleepy man and woman sat across from us. Two
middle aged women and the seat in front of us
were discussing the severe griping pain one of them had
(33:09):
experienced as a result of inflamed diverticulitis. A slim, dark
eyed young woman sat in the seat behind us. She
was alone. The trouble with women, I began, is that
they explain everything by illness. I have a theory that
we could be celebrating the twelfth of May, or even
(33:31):
the sixteenth of April as Independence Day if missus Jefferson
hadn't got the idea. Her husband had a fever and
put him to bed. Sylvia found her place in the book.
We've been all through that before. She said, why couldn't
the woman on one be sick? That was easy, I
(33:52):
told her. Conductor Reagan, I said, got off the train
at Cornwall Bridge and spoke to the station master. I've
got the woman the Office was asking about, he said.
Cut in, he said, lady. I gave the little laugh
that annoys her. All conductors say, lady, I explained, Now,
(34:14):
if a woman had got sick on the train, Reagan
would have said, a woman got sick on my train.
Tell the office. What must have happened is that Reagan
found somewhere between Kent and Cornwall Bridge a woman the
office had been looking for. Sylvia did not close her book,
but she looked up. Maybe she got sick before she
(34:36):
got on the train, and the office was worried, said Sylvia.
She was not giving the problem close attention. If the
office knew she got on the train, I said patiently,
they wouldn't have asked Reagan to let them know if
he found her. They would have told him about her
(34:56):
when she got on. Sylvia resumed her reading. Let's stay
out of it, she said, it isn't any of our business.
I hunted for my chicklets but couldn't find them. It
might be everybody's business, I said, every patriots I know.
(35:17):
I know, said Sylvia, you think she's a spy, Well,
I think she's sick. I ignored that every conductor on
the line has been asked to look out for her.
I said, Reagan found her. She won't be met by
her family. She'll be met by the FBI or the OPA,
(35:41):
said Sylvia. Alfred Hitchcock. Things don't happen on the New York,
New Haven and Hartford Railroad. I saw the conductor coming
from the other end of the couch. I'm going to
tell the conductor, I said that Reagan on one four
to two has got the woman. No you're not, said Sylvia.
You're not going to get us in mixed up in this.
He probably knows anyway. The conductor, short, stocky, soon overhaired
(36:05):
and silent, took up our tickets. He looked like a
kindly Icky's Sylvia, who had stiffened, relaxed when I let
him go by without a word about the woman on
one four to two. He looks exactly as if he
knew where the Maltese falcon is hidden, doesn't, he said Sylvia,
with a laugh that annoys me. Nevertheless, I pointed out
(36:27):
you said a little while ago that he probably knows
about the woman on one four to two. If she's
just sick, why should they tell the conductor on this train.
I'll rest more easily when I know that they've actually
got her. Sylvia kept reading as if she hadn't heard me.
I leaned my head against the back of the seat
(36:48):
and closed my eyes. The train was slowing down noisily,
and a brakeman was yelling can't, can't. When I felt
a small cold pressure against my shoulder. Oh, the voice
of the woman in the seat behind me said, I've
dropped my copy of Coronet under your seat. She leaned
(37:11):
closer and her voice became low and hard. Get off here, mister,
she said, We're going to Gaylordsville. I said, you and
your wife are getting off here, mister, she said. I
reached for the suitcases on the rack. What do you
want for Heaven's sake? Asked Sylvia. We're getting off here?
(37:32):
I told her, are you really crazy? She demanded, This
is only can't come on, sister, said the woman's voice.
You take the overnight bag and the beans. You take
the big bag. Mister. Sylvia was furious. I knew you'd
get us into this, She said to me, shouting about
spies at the top of your voice. That made me angry.
(37:56):
You're the one who mentioned spies. I told her I didn't.
You kept talking about it and talking about it, said Sylvia,
come on, get off the two of you, said the cold,
hard voice. We got off. As I helped Sylvia down
the steps, I said, we know too much. How shut up?
She said. We didn't have far to go. A big
(38:18):
black limousine waited a few steps away. Behind the wheel
sat a heavy set foreigner with cruel lips and small eyes.
He scowled when he saw us. The boss don't want
nobody up there, he said, it's all right, Carl, said
the woman get in. She told us we climbed into
(38:38):
the back seat. She sat between us with the gun
in her hand. It was a handsome jeweled derringer. Alice
will be waiting for us at Gaylordsville, said Sylvia, in
all this heat. The house was a long, low, rambling
building reached at the end of a poplar lined drive.
Never mind the bags, said the woman. Sylvia took the
(39:01):
string beans and her book and we got out. Two
huge matstiffs came bounding off the terrace, snarling. Down Mada,
said the woman. Down pedro. They slunk away, still snarling.
Sylvia and I sat side by side on a sofa
in a large, handsomely appointed living room. Across from us,
(39:23):
in a chair lounged a tall man with heavily lidded
black eyes and long sensitive fingers. Against the door through
which we had entered the room leaned a thin, undersized
young man with his hands in the pockets of his
coat and a cigarette hanging from his lower lip. He
had a drawn, sallow face, and his small, half closed
eyes stared at us incuriously. In a corner of the room,
(39:47):
a squat swarthy man twiddled with the dials of a radio.
The woman paced up and down, smoking a cigarette in
a long holder weld. Gale said the lounging man, in
a soft voice, to what do we owe this unexpected visit?
Gail kept pacing. They got Sandra, she said. Finally, the
(40:11):
lounging man did not change expression. Who got Sandra, Gail?
He asked softly. Reagan on one four to two, said Gail.
The squat swarthy man jumped to his feet. All the time.
Egypt say kill these Reagan, he shouted all the time.
Egypt say bomp off this Reagan. The lounging man did
(40:34):
not look at him. Sit down, Egypt, he said quietly.
The swarthy man sat down. Gail went on talking. The
punk here shot off his mouth. He said, he was wise.
I looked at the man leaning against the door. She
means you, said Sylvia, who laughed. The dame was dumb.
(40:58):
Gail went on. She thought the lady on the train
was sick. Now, I laughed, she means you, I said
to Sylvia. The punk was blowing his top all over
the train, said Gail. I had to bring him along. Sylvia,
who had the beans on her lap, began breaking and
stringing them. Well, my dear lady, said the lounging man
(41:21):
a most homely little touch. What's a touch? Demanded Egypt, touch,
I told him. Gail sat down in a chair. Who's
going to rub him out? She asked. Fredae said the
lounging man. Egypt was on his feet again. Nah nah,
he shouted, not the punk, the punk bomp off the
(41:44):
last six seven people. The lounging man looked at him.
Egypt paled and sat down. I thought you were the punk,
said Sylvia. I looked at her coldly. I know where
I have seen you before, I said to the lounging man.
It was at Zagreb in nineteen two twenty seven. Tilden
(42:06):
took you in straight sets, six loves, six loves, six love.
The man's eyes glittered. I think I bump off this
man myself, he said. Freddie walked over and handed the
lounging man an automatic. At this moment, the door Freddy
had been leaning against burst open, and in rushed the
(42:28):
men with the pipe, shouting Gail Gail, Gail Gaylordsville, Gaylordsville
bawled the brakeman. Sylvia was shaking me by the arm.
Quit mounting, she said, everybody's looking at you. I rubbed
my forehead with a handkerchief. Hurry up, she said. Sylvia said,
(42:50):
they don't stop here long. I pulled the bags down
and we got off. Have you got the beans? I
asked Sylvia. Alice Connell was waiting for us on the
way to their home. In the car. Sylvia began to
tell Alice about the woman on one four to two.
I didn't say anything. He thought she has a spy,
(43:12):
said Sylvia. They both laughed. She'd probably got sick on
the train, said Alice. They would probably arranging for a
doctor to meet her at the station. That's just what
I told him, said Sylvia. I lighted a cigarette. The
lady on one four to two, I said firmly, was
(43:33):
definitely not sick. Oh, Lord, said Sylvia. Here we go again,
the lady on one four to two by James Thurber, Oh,
(44:03):
how I love that one. I have never gotten on
a train since the first time I read that one,
which was probably forty years ago, never gotten on a
train in summer in the daytime without thinking about the
lady on one four to two. I've done all the
damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown
has come to you from the Vin Scully studio at
the Olderman Broadcasting Empire warled headquarters here in New York Counttown.
(44:28):
Musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillip Schanel arranged, produced,
and performed most of our music. Mister Shanelle handled orchestration
and keyboards. Mister Ray was on guitars, bass and drums,
and it was produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including
some Beethoven, arranged and performed by No Horns Allowed sports
music courtesy of ESPN, Inc. It was written by Mitch
(44:48):
Warren Davis. We call it the Olderman theme from ESPN two.
Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Faust,
the best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was
my friend Howard Feineman. Everything else was pretty much my fault.
So that's countdown for this, the one thousand and thirty
second day since dementia J Trump's first attempted coup against
the democratically elected government of the United States. Convict him
(45:11):
now while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is Tuesday.
Bolton says, the news warrants till then. I'm Keith Oldraman.
Good morning, Good afternoon, good Night, and good Luck. Countdown
(45:39):
with Keith Oulderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Chut
Chin hits the gas, Judge Enderon hits the roof. Judge
(00:25):
Cannon does not hit the pause button. But let me
start at the US Court of Appeals for the District
of Columbia where dementia j Trump's lawyers last night filed
a thirty five page document, one or two paragraphs of
which asks that the court bar Judge Tanya Chutkin from
reinstating the gag order against Trump, the rest of which
(00:47):
is about how wonderful Trump is and how much he
leads in the primary polls. And it sounds like the
dialogue they gave rieda Moreno in the last scene of
the Jack Nicholson movie Cardinal Knowledge. Fourth paragraph of page
one of the introduction quote, President Trump's uniquely powerful voice
has been a fixture of American political discourse for eight
(01:09):
years and central to the American fabric for decades. Now
true like Carl Arms or herpes. Page eleven, item four quote,
the gag order violates the rights of tens of millions
of Americans to receive President Trump's speech. A restriction on
(01:30):
President Trump's speech inflicts a reciprocal injury on the rights
of over one hundred million Americans who listened to him
about how big and strong he is and is better,
more beautiful, more powerful, more perfect, more strong, more masculine,
more extraordinary, more virile, domineering, more irresistible, and more up
(01:54):
in the air. I added a little something to that
at the end. Now, as to the actual election subversion trial,
where sense that any of the many delaying tactics of
dementia Jay's legal team, or their big motion to dismiss
the whole case because it's unfair to charge a criminal
(02:15):
with crimes your honor, that any of that was going
to get them anything other than more billable hours that
Trump will someday stiff them on. That has vanished with
the issuance of what in every other trial would be
just another procedural memo, But what in this one is
a metaphorical backhand slap across Trump's pouchy face quote. The
(02:36):
court will use a written questionnaire in advance of in
person jury selection. Judge Chuckkin announces prosecution and defense should
negotiate what's in that. They should submit it to her
on January ninth, that's sixty eight days from now, before
you subtract the holidays, and if the lawyers can't agree
on the wording of the questionnaire, they need to tell
(02:57):
her what's in dispute. Then quote, after review and approval
by the court, the questionnaire will be distributed to prospective
jurors summoned to complete it at the courthouse on February nine,
twenty twenty four, unquote, and that's ninety nine days from
now before subtracting the holidays. And all that means is
(03:17):
she intends to start this trial on the announced date,
March fourth, and that's one hundred and twenty three days
from now. Judge Chutkin went on to warn both sides
that they can research potential jurors, but if they dox
any of them, she will come down on them like
a ton of bricks. And she ain't looking at Jack
Smith when she says that quote, no party may provide
(03:39):
jurors identifying information to any other entity parenthesis, eg. The
defendant's campaign unquote. That shot across Trump's bow is delicious.
But the import of the Chutkin ruling is that it
underscores Jack Smith's message to Trump's concierge. Judge in Florida,
(04:01):
Eileen Cannon. You will recall that on Whennesday, Canon made
all the kinds of noises for ten judges make before
they are going to do something inappropriate or biased or
reeking of corruption, the same kind of dilatory time wasters
that Chutkin just swatted away in Washington without even bothering
to acknowledge them. Canon accepted tenderly and did everything but
(04:25):
swaddled them in baby clothes. I'm having a hard time
seeing how this work can be accomplished in this compressed
period of time, she said, while metaphorically beaming at the
man who lifted her from among six thousand assistant US
attorneys to a judgeship she was totally unprepared for. She
spoke to the prosecutor then as if he were misguided, misled, miseducated.
(04:50):
I'm not seeing in your position a level of understanding
to these realities. And she hinted that as soon as
the next day, yesterday, she might be making reasonable adjustments
to the Florida Documents case trial schedule that could slide
the start of that trial from May fourteenth until after
the primaries, or after the convention or after the election.
(05:14):
And then she sat back as if waiting overnight would
reduce the obviousness of her dual role as Trump's judge
and one of Trump's lawyers. And then overnight came and went,
and the sun rose and set, and Judge Cannon ruled nothing.
And that was because Jack Smith's team filed a brief
(05:34):
overnight Wednesday that explained to Judge Cannon that it was
obvious she had missed the fact that Trump and his
attorneys had pulled the rug out from under her, and
that it was obvious to everybody in the world except
her that they were all playing her like the proverbial
two dollar ban Joe. Here, she was ready to postpone,
(05:54):
delay or otherwise scring out the Florida trial on the
excuse that he had so much prep for the Florida
trial that it would crash into the schedule for the
Washington True. But Trump had already filed not just a
motion to dismiss the Washington trial, but was filing another
motion to delay the Washington trial indefinitely until they get
(06:15):
every court except Judge Wapner's to rule on this thing
they made up called presidential immunity. In short, Cannon was
about to delay her trial so Trump could concentrate on
the Washington trial while Trump was busy demanding that they
delay the Washington trial too. Quote. As the government argued
(06:36):
to the court Wednesday, the trial date in the District
of Columbia case should not be a determinative factor in
the court's decision whether to modify the dates in this matter.
Defendant Trump's actions and by the way, how nice is
it to hear or say the phrase defendant Trump. Defendant
Trump's actions in the hours following the hearing in the
(06:59):
case illustrate the point and confirm his overriding interest in
delaying both at any cost. Smith and jay Brat's filing
then closes with what seems like an unfortunate typo, but
which really reads more like a Freudian slip, warning Eileen
Cannon what a fool she is making of herself. Quote,
this court should allow itself to be manipulated in this fashion.
(07:24):
Of course, they meant should not allow. But if you
read it as written, and that's about you, you should
allow yourself to be manipulated in this fashion. I think
it would make your cheeks burn. Wait, I am allowing
myself to be manipulated. Regardless Cannon's response to that filing
(07:48):
was nothing, nothing that we know of. Anyway, I would
still not hold out much hope that she will do
the right thing. She's still on the case, even though
if there is an in person hearing a week from Monday,
Trump's attorneys really should bring in a cake celebrating the
third anniversary of her appointment by the defendant. Still, corruption
(08:12):
delayed could always turn out to be corruption denied. Where
there's hope of honesty, there's life or something, or as
the judicial website above, the law dot com perfectly headlined
its story on this farse, Trump demands delay in Florida
case to accommodate delay in DC case, to accommodate delay
(08:33):
in dot dot dot before getting to the frakkha here
in New York, in which, for once, Trump himself is
actually an innocent bystander. One more note about Aileen Cannon.
If you saw it and it was everywhere and you
don't know that, the purported Trump's social media post about
(08:56):
Canon was a fake, it was a fake. It had
him saying that she was the best judge since King David,
and she gets the next Supreme Court opening, And given
the bottomless pit of Trumpian corruption, it sounds utterly plausible.
But there was a series of tells. First, content, whoever
wrote it refers to quote looney Jack Smith, and he
(09:16):
has never called him looney. It's too endearing. Secondly, how
in the hell would Trump, who kept not a Bible
by his bed, but rather a copy of Hitler's favorite speeches,
how in the hell would he know who King David was?
Then there are the technical tells. Is it on his
social media site? And if it isn't, which it wasn't,
(09:38):
how come every time you see the screen shot it's
exactly the same one with the same font. Wouldn't more
than one person have screenshotted something that would be that
stupid even for Trump. I mean, there are literally dozens
of reporters with burner accounts on Trump's site waiting for
things like that, who get alerts for things like that,
(09:59):
and only one of them got the screenshot. You're going
to bite on the fake one ones, only bite on
the good fake ones. Also, everything including the word adjudicated,
was spelled correctly. Now to New York it looked like
(10:20):
the civil fraud trial of Trump and Junior and Moron
Junior and Girl Junior was going to be highlighted by
Junior's admission that sure he signed all those fraudulent financial statements,
but that doesn't mean he's responsible for what's in those
fraudulent financial statements. Or if not that, then it was
going to be highlighted by Moron Junior, who yesterday testified
(10:41):
under oath that he never heard of the company's statement
of financial condition until recently. And then they showed him
an email where employees were told that he was working
on the company statement of financial condition. But then something
happened that caused Judge Arthur and Gern to literally pound
on the bench and shout, if there is any further
(11:04):
reference to anyone on my staff, I would consider expanding
the gag order to include the attorney's unquote more amazing still,
what caused that had nothing to do with any of
the Trumps, but instead it was about their attorney, Chris Kiss.
He complained to the bench about the court clerk, you know,
(11:26):
the one Trump doxed, and in that paroxysm of paranoia,
he claimed she was Chuck Schumer's girlfriend and now she
was passing notes to the judge and Kiss complained about it.
That's right. The judge shouted confidential communications for my record,
absolute right to it. You don't have any right to
(11:46):
see it. While it would be joyful to think that
Trump has actually only hired lawyers like Alena Habba and
the other one, the one who vanished the lawyer slash
spokesmodel Christina Something, whatever happened to her, it would be
joyful to think that he'd only hired lawyers who are
(12:06):
even worse at legal stuff than he is. Courtroom observers
believe that this one, mister Kiss, may have actually pulled
off a brilliant bit of performance art and actually taken
one for the team. This theory states that instead of
writing about how Eric Trump seemingly perjured himself about the
Trump statement of financial condition and the fact that it
(12:28):
sure looks like Eric only began to develop amnesia about
company financials in twenty twenty as the Attorney General's investigation began,
Instead of that, everybody is writing about the clerk and
the gag order again and the judge yelling, And as
a bonus, when they are writing about those things, they
also aren't mentioning dementia. Jay. Supporting this theory is the
(12:52):
startling realization that there could actually have been an entire
day in a courtroom somewhere in the world in which
Donald Trump's name did not come up at all. But
he can never leave well enough alone, nor can he
leave bad enough alone. For that matter, Deventia Jay attacked
(13:13):
Engern online again at midday, and then he did something
even weirder. Quote our corrupt attorney general sits on her
ass in court all day watching the Trump family unquote. So,
Defendant Trump, how long have you been obsessed by Letitia
James's backside? There is one more Trump trial. Note it
(13:38):
was light day, only five of them in progress. At
the fourteenth Amendment disqualification hearing in Colorado, Trump's team called
as witnesses. He just announced his retirement. Representative ken Buck,
the woman who organized the January sixth rally and the
chief of staff to Congressman bat Guano Paul Gozar. Ken
(14:02):
Bucks stumbled all over the so called Republican EVA it's
about the insurrection, saying the January sixth Committee left out
Jim Jordan's side of the story, which immediately reminded the
court that Jim Jordan ignored first an invitation to testify
to the committee and then a subpoena from the committee.
Jim Jordan, remember Jim Jordan. But the part about that
(14:23):
that knocked me out was the part that again supports
by conviction that whatever Trump's brain problem is, it is
getting worse and rapidly so. Ken Buck testified on Trump's
behalf in court at about nine am local time yesterday,
not twelve hours earlier. Trump had written, quote, good news
(14:47):
for the country. Congressman ken Buck of Colorado, a weak
and ineffective super rhino, if ever there was one, announced
today that he won't be running again, which is a
great thing for the Republican Party. Bad news for ken Buck.
That's the same Trump who's version you defended under oath,
(15:07):
Worst news for Trump now. Ken Buck also knows that
if you are loyal to Trump, you can rest assured
that you can rely on him for the rest of
your life. He will never forget to not give a
damn who you are or what you did for him.
(15:28):
A little closer to home, this is year twenty five
of the part of my career I've spent covering politics,
and rarely do headlines surprise me anymore. But to be fair,
a hat tip to the writers of this part of
our current timeline. Quote us investigating whether New York Mayor
Eric Adams received illegal donations from Turkey. A raid at
(15:49):
the home of his chief fundraiser was part of an
inquiring into whether foreign money was funneled into his mayoral campaign.
A search warrant shows. I wonder how he's gonna claim
this was all God's doing. Anybody who has lived in
this city for longer than twenty two minutes knows that
(16:11):
when the mayor leaves for Washington to try to get
money for something, and when he gets there he suddenly
cancels the meetings and heads right back to New York,
that something good is in the microwave. And then it
came the news yesterday that the FBI had rated the
top donation wrangler of his campaign, the woman who doubles
as one of his key agenda operatives, always pushing the
(16:33):
mayor wants this, and the mayor wants that. Finally out
comes the warrant and the backstory noveled even for this city,
and it's Madame Tussaud's collection of corrupt mayors. There is
a Brooklyn construction company involved. It has ties to Turkey.
There is Bay Atlantic University in Washington, which has six
(16:54):
hundred students, but no Wikipedia page, but it's owned by
people in Turkey, and it has ties to Mayor Adams.
Then there's the mayor himself who's boasted six or seven
times to Turkey. There are donors who are in the
Ledger books but don't seem to actually exist or at
least to have donated. And there are allegedly kickbacks to
(17:16):
the construction company and to Turkey. And I will just
state for the record, and mister chairman, don't blame me.
I voted for the garbage commissioner. Lady. Back to Washington,
drooping Johnson watch day nine, the new fifth string Speaker
passed his support Israel, don't support Ukraine. Don't you dare
(17:38):
let the IRS investigate rich Republican tax e vators bill.
He even got twelve Democratic votes for it. It will
go to the Senate where there's not a chance in
hell of it passing, and Ukraine will be put back
in and the defunding of the IRS that will expand
the deficit will be taken back out. But that's not
the point. The point is that once again this Johnson's
(18:00):
weird ejaculations. What dictionary definition of ejaculation is something said
quickly and suddenly, what what this guy says about? He's
not playing politics with aid to Israel. This bothers me.
It bothers me because it's clear that Mike Johnson does
(18:22):
not realize that we all can see him.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
And now, as Israel begins the next phase of its war,
it's been kind of disturbing to us. I've heard Democrats
suggest that there needs to be a ceasefire. Israel doesn't
need a ceasefire, needs its allies to cease with the
politics and deliver support now. And that's what we're doing.
House Republicans plan to do that. We're going to do
it in short order, and it provides Israeli aid it
needs to defend itself, free its hostages, and eradicate Hamas,
(18:50):
which is a mission that must be accomplished. All of this,
all of this while we also work to ensure responsible
spending and reduce the size of the federal government to
pay for that commitment to our friend in Allie, we
cannot waste any time getting Israel the AI needs. We're
going to work on.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
That right, no politics and no delay. Other than the
part about Ukraine, which I guess is kind of relevant
because they're both wars. Oh, and the part about the Irs,
which has got nothing to do with Israel. It's pure
it's pure politics. Three year old child could see that.
(19:26):
Any one of my dogs could see that there is
the terrifying prospect that Mike Johnson might not be this stupid.
He might actually believe he's getting away with it. And lastly,
speaking of Johnson's, there's Lauren Bobert. She and Marjorie Taylor
(19:48):
Green and Chip Roy in a three way war of words.
It began with a post by Roy explaining why he
moved to stop the vote to cent your representative to
Leeb then Barney Rubble. Marjorie Taylor Green sub tweeted him,
you voted to kick me out of the freedom call,
but kept seeingn wanna be ken Buck and vaping groping
(20:08):
Lauren Bobert. All right, vaping groping Lauren Bobert. Sure. Roy
replied to that, tell her to go chase so called
Jewish space lasers if she wants to spend time on
that sort of thing. And Green then responded, oh, shut up,
Colonel Sanders, and predicted that this would all end with
(20:30):
him reciting quote powdered Wig soliloquies as Americans are marched
to the firing squads, and no, that's where they lost. Man.
I don't get that reference either. Curiously silent through all this, though,
was vaping groping Lauren Bobert. Sources say she's simply sitting
there quietly trying to get a grip on the situation.
(20:58):
I maybe better last part up. Also of interest here, Oops,
turns out there are more skeletons in the closet of
Dean Phillips, the Gelato king and Minnesota congressman who is
challenging Biden in the primaries. But it's just a coincidence
that Harlan Crowe has contributed to Dean's campaign. When Harlan
(21:18):
crow might not be your biggest problem. You've got some
closet that's next. This is countdown. This is countdown, with
Keith Olberman still ahead on countdown. In the dear dead
(21:57):
days of the early nineteen seventies, when innocence in naivete
consumed us all, my dad and I were flying to
Boston for some reason, and for some reason there was
a passenger who'd pissed us off another passenger in the
line to get the tickets maybe, and he sat near
us in the waiting room. So as we sat there
(22:18):
in the waiting room at LaGuardia, my dad and I
began to, on a totally ad hoc, unplanned basis, try
to scare the crap out of the guy because he
had annoyed us. I didn't think they allowed that on planes,
I began. My dad winked at me. I didn't think
they allowed anything like that on commercial flights. He nodded
me to keep going. Well, I said, I didn't think
(22:41):
you could put explosives on any plane in this country.
The guy sitting near us looked alarmed and then quickly
moved away. Mission accomplished. I do not believe that by
that point in my life I had read The Lady
on one four to two by James Thurbert. But I
might have, and it might have inspired that impromptu and
(23:02):
really evil, practical joke at that airport. You'll hear why
next in Fridays with Thurber and The Lady on one
four to two. First time for the daily round up
of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens
who constitute two days worse persons in the world worse.
Congressman Dean Phillips the Harlan crow funded quote Democrat unquote
(23:25):
who is challenging President Biden in the primaries because he
thinks Biden is too old. And remember the polling, It
does not matter if anybody thinks Biden is too old.
It only matters if everybody thinks Trump is too old.
Any who Daily Beast reports he's so rich Dean Phillips
is that he's the Talente Gelato guy, that he has
(23:47):
his own secret holding company and he buys real estate
through it in order to lower his tax liability. So
his purchase of his one and a half million dollar
town home in DC, it was bought not by Dean
Phillips nor by his wife, but by Anna dellc, which
is legal except for one problem. He is a member
(24:10):
of Congress after all, and his financial transactions are supposed
to be transparent, except there's no record of this one
or of him owning the LLC in question. Oops. Maybe
Harlan crow Ow worser a Fox News tie between two
of the true scumbags on that channel, Little Jesse Waters,
(24:30):
who broke in his bill O'Reilly's henchman and procureur and stalker,
and who went on Fox instead of Arab Americans who
are for some reason against all or just part of
the tragedy in the Middle East. Quote, we've had it
with them. And so if you're an Arab American in
this country, no, no, no, someone is going to get
punched in the face unquote. Apparently that someone turns out
(24:52):
to be at least metaphorically Waters, who was not on
either of his shows yesterday. Rumor is he's been suspended.
Then there's Mark Levin of Fox, whose voice is so
bad he sounds like somebody scramping aluminum signing with barbecue tong's.
His voice is so bad he will never get a
weeknight show on Fox, but he is on on the weekends.
And he was nice enough recently to call Jake Tapper
(25:15):
of CNN a quote self hating Jew. And now he
says Wolf Flitzer's quote parents weren't victims in one way
or another around the Holocaust. And you can see where
this guy is going. Wolf Flitzer's parents fled Poland after
all four of his grandparents were killed during the Holocaust, murdered.
His maternal grandparents were murdered at Auschwitz. This is not
(25:37):
enough for Levin, And you could call Levin self hating
but he didn't have time for that. He's too busy
hating everybody else. A truly sick and disgusting creature. But
our winners Hockey's Anaheim Ducks Saturday, and I think you've
probably heard about this. The former Pittsburgh Penguin player Adam
Johnson died during a professional hockey game in England when
(26:00):
his neck was devastatingly cut by the skate of another player.
That league immediately mandated that all players in it wear
neck guards. The National Hockey League seems to be moving
towards that too. Many players around the league immediately voluntarily
began to wear them, at least in practices, But in Anaheim,
(26:20):
the Ducks social media team yesterday posted a slow motion
video of Anaheim goon Radco Goudis with a legal mid
ice hip check of Arizona's Clayton Keller, with the caption
beware the Butcher. After Goudas hit Keller, both players crumpled
to the ice, and first Goudas's left skate just missed
(26:42):
hitting Keller's unprotected neck, maybe by a foot, and then
Goudas's right skate literally bumped up against the side of
Keller's head, his helmet, missing his neck again by just
a couple of inches. Beware the Butcher and the anaheim
Ducks decided to celebrate that play and use the term butcher.
While police in England are still investigatating exactly how a
(27:06):
skate to the neck killed Adam Johnson on Ice six
days ago. The anaheim Ducks, as they say, read the
effing room today's worst persons in the world to the
(27:33):
number one story on the Countdown, and it is Fridays
with Thurber. And thus the number one story on the
Countdown is Fridays with James Thurber. Many of the great writers,
great stories, the short stories, the fables, have great meaning
or symbolism, and some of them are just great fun.
Let me give you one of the latter from the
Thurber Carnival. It will explain itself fairly quickly. The Lady
(27:58):
on one four to two by James Thurber. The train
was twenty mins and it's late, we found out when
we bought our tickets. So we sat down on a
bench in the little waiting room of the Cornwall Bridge station.
It was too hot outside in the sun. This Midsummer
Saturday had got off to a sulky start. And now
(28:19):
at three in the afternoon, it sat sticky and restive
in our laps. There were several others besides Sylvia and myself,
waiting for the train to get in from Pittsfield. An
older woman who fanned herself with a daily news, a
young lady in her twenties reading a book, A slender,
tanned man sucking dreamily on the stem of an unlighted pipe.
(28:44):
In the center of the room, leaning against a high
iron radiator, A small girl stared at each of us
in turn, her mouth open as if she had never
seen people before. The place had the familiar pleasant smell
of railroad stations in the country, something compounded of wood
and leather and smoke. In the cramped space behind the
(29:06):
ticket window, a telegraph instrument clicked intermittently, and once or
twice a phone rang, and the station master answered it briefly.
I couldn't hear what he said. I was glad on
such a day that we were going only as far
as Gaylordsville. The third stopped down the line twenty two
minutes away. The station master had told us that our
(29:27):
tickets were the first tickets to Gaylordsville he had ever sold.
I was idly pondering this small distinction. When a train
whistle blew in the distance. We all got to our feet,
but the station master came out of his cubby hole
and told us it was not our train, but the
twelve forty five from New York northbound. Presently, the train
(29:47):
thundered in like a hurricane and sighed ponderously to a stop.
The station master went out into the platform and came back.
After a minute or two, the train got heavily underway
again for Canaan. I was opening a pack of cigarettes
when I heard the station master talking on the phone again.
This time his words came out clearly. He kept repeating
(30:10):
one sentence. He was saying, Conductor Reagan on one four
to two. As the lady the office was talking about.
The person on the other end of the line did
not appear to get the meaning of the sentence. The
station master repeated it and hung up. For some reason.
I figured that he did not understand it either. Sylvia's
(30:35):
eyes had the lost reflective look they wear when she's
trying to remember in what box she packed. The Christmas
tree ornaments. The expressions on the faces of the older woman,
the young lady, and the man with the pipe had
not changed. The little staring girl had gone away. Our
train was not due for another five minutes, and I
sat back and began trying to reconstruct the lady on
(30:57):
one four to two the lady conductor Reagan had the
lady the office was asking about. I moved nearer to
Sylvia and whispered, seeing if the trains are numbered in
your timetable. She got the timetable out of her handbag
and looked at it. One forty two, she said, is
(31:20):
the twelve forty five from New York. This was the
train that had gone by a few minutes before the
woman was taken sick, said Sylvia. They're probably arranging to
have a doctor or her family meet her. The older
woman looked around at her briefly. The young woman who
had been chewing gum stopped chewing. The man with the
pipe seemed oblivious. I lighted a cigarette and sat thinking.
(31:43):
The woman on one four to two, I said to
Sylvia flatly, might be almost anything, but she is definitely
not sick. The only person who did not stare at
me was the man with the pipe. Sylvia gave me
her temperature, taking look across between anxiety and vexation. Just
(32:03):
then our train whistled and we all stood up. I
picked up our two bags, and Sylvia took the sack
of string beans we had picked up for the connels.
When the train came clanking in, I said in Sylvia's ear,
he'll sit near us. You watch hoo. Who will she said,
(32:23):
the stranger? I told her, the man with the pipe.
Sylvia laughed, He's not a stranger, she said, he works
for the breeds. I was certainly that he did not
work for the breeds. Women like to place people. Every
stranger reminds him of somebody. The man with the pipe
was sitting three seats in front of us, across the aisle.
(32:46):
When we got settled, I indicated him with a nod
of my head. Sylvia took a book out of the
top of her overnight bag and opened it. What's the
matter with you, she demanded. I looked around before replying.
A sleepy man and woman sat across from us. Two
middle aged women and the seat in front of us
were discussing the severe griping pain one of them had
(33:09):
experienced as a result of inflamed diverticulitis. A slim, dark
eyed young woman sat in the seat behind us. She
was alone. The trouble with women, I began, is that
they explain everything by illness. I have a theory that
we could be celebrating the twelfth of May, or even
(33:31):
the sixteenth of April as Independence Day if missus Jefferson
hadn't got the idea. Her husband had a fever and
put him to bed. Sylvia found her place in the book.
We've been all through that before. She said, why couldn't
the woman on one be sick? That was easy, I
(33:52):
told her. Conductor Reagan, I said, got off the train
at Cornwall Bridge and spoke to the station master. I've
got the woman the Office was asking about, he said.
Cut in, he said, lady. I gave the little laugh
that annoys her. All conductors say, lady, I explained, Now,
(34:14):
if a woman had got sick on the train, Reagan
would have said, a woman got sick on my train.
Tell the office. What must have happened is that Reagan
found somewhere between Kent and Cornwall Bridge a woman the
office had been looking for. Sylvia did not close her book,
but she looked up. Maybe she got sick before she
(34:36):
got on the train, and the office was worried, said Sylvia.
She was not giving the problem close attention. If the
office knew she got on the train, I said patiently,
they wouldn't have asked Reagan to let them know if
he found her. They would have told him about her
(34:56):
when she got on. Sylvia resumed her reading. Let's stay
out of it, she said, it isn't any of our business.
I hunted for my chicklets but couldn't find them. It
might be everybody's business, I said, every patriots I know.
(35:17):
I know, said Sylvia, you think she's a spy, Well,
I think she's sick. I ignored that every conductor on
the line has been asked to look out for her.
I said, Reagan found her. She won't be met by
her family. She'll be met by the FBI or the OPA,
(35:41):
said Sylvia. Alfred Hitchcock. Things don't happen on the New York,
New Haven and Hartford Railroad. I saw the conductor coming
from the other end of the couch. I'm going to
tell the conductor, I said that Reagan on one four
to two has got the woman. No you're not, said Sylvia.
You're not going to get us in mixed up in this.
He probably knows anyway. The conductor, short, stocky, soon overhaired
(36:05):
and silent, took up our tickets. He looked like a
kindly Icky's Sylvia, who had stiffened, relaxed when I let
him go by without a word about the woman on
one four to two. He looks exactly as if he
knew where the Maltese falcon is hidden, doesn't, he said Sylvia,
with a laugh that annoys me. Nevertheless, I pointed out
(36:27):
you said a little while ago that he probably knows
about the woman on one four to two. If she's
just sick, why should they tell the conductor on this train.
I'll rest more easily when I know that they've actually
got her. Sylvia kept reading as if she hadn't heard me.
I leaned my head against the back of the seat
(36:48):
and closed my eyes. The train was slowing down noisily,
and a brakeman was yelling can't, can't. When I felt
a small cold pressure against my shoulder. Oh, the voice
of the woman in the seat behind me said, I've
dropped my copy of Coronet under your seat. She leaned
(37:11):
closer and her voice became low and hard. Get off here, mister,
she said, We're going to Gaylordsville. I said, you and
your wife are getting off here, mister, she said. I
reached for the suitcases on the rack. What do you
want for Heaven's sake? Asked Sylvia. We're getting off here?
(37:32):
I told her, are you really crazy? She demanded, This
is only can't come on, sister, said the woman's voice.
You take the overnight bag and the beans. You take
the big bag. Mister. Sylvia was furious. I knew you'd
get us into this, She said to me, shouting about
spies at the top of your voice. That made me angry.
(37:56):
You're the one who mentioned spies. I told her I didn't.
You kept talking about it and talking about it, said Sylvia,
come on, get off the two of you, said the cold,
hard voice. We got off. As I helped Sylvia down
the steps, I said, we know too much. How shut up?
She said. We didn't have far to go. A big
(38:18):
black limousine waited a few steps away. Behind the wheel
sat a heavy set foreigner with cruel lips and small eyes.
He scowled when he saw us. The boss don't want
nobody up there, he said, it's all right, Carl, said
the woman get in. She told us we climbed into
(38:38):
the back seat. She sat between us with the gun
in her hand. It was a handsome jeweled derringer. Alice
will be waiting for us at Gaylordsville, said Sylvia, in
all this heat. The house was a long, low, rambling
building reached at the end of a poplar lined drive.
Never mind the bags, said the woman. Sylvia took the
(39:01):
string beans and her book and we got out. Two
huge matstiffs came bounding off the terrace, snarling. Down Mada,
said the woman. Down pedro. They slunk away, still snarling.
Sylvia and I sat side by side on a sofa
in a large, handsomely appointed living room. Across from us,
(39:23):
in a chair lounged a tall man with heavily lidded
black eyes and long sensitive fingers. Against the door through
which we had entered the room leaned a thin, undersized
young man with his hands in the pockets of his
coat and a cigarette hanging from his lower lip. He
had a drawn, sallow face, and his small, half closed
eyes stared at us incuriously. In a corner of the room,
(39:47):
a squat swarthy man twiddled with the dials of a radio.
The woman paced up and down, smoking a cigarette in
a long holder weld. Gale said the lounging man, in
a soft voice, to what do we owe this unexpected visit?
Gail kept pacing. They got Sandra, she said. Finally, the
(40:11):
lounging man did not change expression. Who got Sandra, Gail?
He asked softly. Reagan on one four to two, said Gail.
The squat swarthy man jumped to his feet. All the time.
Egypt say kill these Reagan, he shouted all the time.
Egypt say bomp off this Reagan. The lounging man did
(40:34):
not look at him. Sit down, Egypt, he said quietly.
The swarthy man sat down. Gail went on talking. The
punk here shot off his mouth. He said, he was wise.
I looked at the man leaning against the door. She
means you, said Sylvia, who laughed. The dame was dumb.
(40:58):
Gail went on. She thought the lady on the train
was sick. Now, I laughed, she means you, I said
to Sylvia. The punk was blowing his top all over
the train, said Gail. I had to bring him along. Sylvia,
who had the beans on her lap, began breaking and
stringing them. Well, my dear lady, said the lounging man
(41:21):
a most homely little touch. What's a touch? Demanded Egypt, touch,
I told him. Gail sat down in a chair. Who's
going to rub him out? She asked. Fredae said the
lounging man. Egypt was on his feet again. Nah nah,
he shouted, not the punk, the punk bomp off the
(41:44):
last six seven people. The lounging man looked at him.
Egypt paled and sat down. I thought you were the punk,
said Sylvia. I looked at her coldly. I know where
I have seen you before, I said to the lounging man.
It was at Zagreb in nineteen two twenty seven. Tilden
(42:06):
took you in straight sets, six loves, six loves, six love.
The man's eyes glittered. I think I bump off this
man myself, he said. Freddie walked over and handed the
lounging man an automatic. At this moment, the door Freddy
had been leaning against burst open, and in rushed the
(42:28):
men with the pipe, shouting Gail Gail, Gail Gaylordsville, Gaylordsville
bawled the brakeman. Sylvia was shaking me by the arm.
Quit mounting, she said, everybody's looking at you. I rubbed
my forehead with a handkerchief. Hurry up, she said. Sylvia said,
(42:50):
they don't stop here long. I pulled the bags down
and we got off. Have you got the beans? I
asked Sylvia. Alice Connell was waiting for us on the
way to their home. In the car. Sylvia began to
tell Alice about the woman on one four to two.
I didn't say anything. He thought she has a spy,
(43:12):
said Sylvia. They both laughed. She'd probably got sick on
the train, said Alice. They would probably arranging for a
doctor to meet her at the station. That's just what
I told him, said Sylvia. I lighted a cigarette. The
lady on one four to two, I said firmly, was
(43:33):
definitely not sick. Oh, Lord, said Sylvia. Here we go again,
the lady on one four to two by James Thurber, Oh,
(44:03):
how I love that one. I have never gotten on
a train since the first time I read that one,
which was probably forty years ago, never gotten on a
train in summer in the daytime without thinking about the
lady on one four to two. I've done all the
damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown
has come to you from the Vin Scully studio at
the Olderman Broadcasting Empire warled headquarters here in New York Counttown.
(44:28):
Musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillip Schanel arranged, produced,
and performed most of our music. Mister Shanelle handled orchestration
and keyboards. Mister Ray was on guitars, bass and drums,
and it was produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including
some Beethoven, arranged and performed by No Horns Allowed sports
music courtesy of ESPN, Inc. It was written by Mitch
(44:48):
Warren Davis. We call it the Olderman theme from ESPN two.
Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Faust,
the best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was
my friend Howard Feineman. Everything else was pretty much my fault.
So that's countdown for this, the one thousand and thirty
second day since dementia J Trump's first attempted coup against
the democratically elected government of the United States. Convict him
(45:11):
now while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is Tuesday.
Bolton says, the news warrants till then. I'm Keith Oldraman.
Good morning, Good afternoon, good Night, and good Luck. Countdown
(45:39):
with Keith Oulderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.