May 3, 2024 • 37 mins
SERIES 2 EPISODE 169: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump is full of shit.
Nothing about the gag order precludes him from testimony. What caused him to change his mind and suddenly announce no, he's not testifying after all, is sheer naked fear. He heard the Smoking Gun tape of himself and Michael Cohen mapping out how to pay hush money to his girlfriend before the election, and he crapped himself.
I'll play the tape and you'll see. The last thing you do after THAT tape is played, is talk. In a fitting metaphor, on Trump’s pants are so on fire about why he's too scared to testify, that his post-court photo op was at a New York Fire Department Station. He also mocked reporting about how he's been falling asleep in court and then 90 minutes later, he fell asleep in court - again.
MEANWHILE: We are in such an unprecedented place in this country’s history that if Trump were now to pick Kristi Noem as his running mate and announce they were going to campaign on a platform of puppy killing, the cult would do it. He’s not likely to try it. But then did you really think that Noem’s response to her self-defenestration would be to double down and claim the dog she murdered was far more evil than she let on and was a threat to her children.
By next week she’ll be claiming Cricket had clamped her vicious jaws around her daughter’s neck. Or that she was holding Noem’s kids hostage. And by the way, she may have no other choice than to double down and claim she is the real victim here, because there is emerging evidence that the story of Kristi Noem luring the dog into a gravel pit and shooting it in the face because it was randomly attacking other animals and posed a threat of some kind that might be a COVER STORY.
As America’s hatred washed over her, she laid low – until Wednesday. That’s when she went on with Sean Hannity and resumed trying to get people to buy the book, and buy her story. But her story has now changed. Cricket was no puppy. She was a working dog – and 14 months old. That Cricket was untrained wasn’t HER fault. Quote: “It was a dog that was extremely dangerous. It had come to us from a family who found her way too aggressive. We were her second chance. The day she was put down was a day that she massacred livestock... (Livestock? Chickens. But of course killing animals is just a first step – and then you’re Ted Bundy)...“that were part of our neighbors. She attacked me. And it was a hard decision.” That was Wednesday night. By yesterday afternoon on social media, Noem saw an out. “I had a choice between the safety of my children and an animal who had a history of attacking people and killing livestock. I chose my kids.”
So. She's already changed the story. Was the version in the book also changed? Was the murder worse? Was the timeline of who saw it different? Could Noem have shot the dog as her family watched?
B-Block (19:47) SPECIAL COMMENT: I am largely agnostic on the issues, and having taken part in student protests against Vietnam and racism in the 7th Grade in 19-freaking-70 I'm in favor of them at any time. But what's happening on campuses today is NOT 1970 revisited. It's not on the level of Black Lives Matter. The arrests aren't unprecedented, the right to protest isn't being destroyed, and the students might want to recognize that their decisions are simply increasing the chances that everything they want will NOT happen, culminating in a Trump presidency in which they or their successors will be detained by the Army or shot on sight or both.
C-Block (28:05) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: Thurber's mother was down with the whole occult stuff. Him? He barely delved. But this is another week where we need a pure silly story and he produced one when he went into the worlds of supernatural (and German dialects). "The Black Magic of Barney Haller."
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Trump
is full of shit. The jury also heard a smoking
(00:28):
gun yesterday, Trump going over the hush money details on
tape with Michael Cohen. I'll play the tape in a minute,
but to me, the headline is Trump is full of shit.
He has now lied that he can't testify because of
the gag order. He is full of shit. Well, I'm
(00:53):
not allowed to testify. I'm under a gag order. I
guess I can't even testify it now we're gonna be
appealing the gag order. I'd love to answer that question.
It's a very easy question these he has questioned so far.
But I'm not allowed to testify. So I'm not allowed
to testify because of an unconstitutional gag order. For appealing
(01:14):
the geg order, and let's see what happens, Thank you
very much. He's full of shit. He is backing out
of testifying and is always blaming somebody else, and as
usual that somebody or something else is imaginary. He is
backing out of testifying because apparently only when they played
it did he remember that Michael Cohen had made a
(01:37):
tape of the two of them discussing the twenty sixteen
hush money payment to not Stormy Daniels, but rather Karen McDougall.
So it's a smoking gun. And it's not even the
smoking gun from the Daniels case. There are multiple smoking guns.
The jury just heard smoking gun number one A it's
not even a new a one smoking gun. CNN got
(02:02):
this tape and everybody played it in the summer of
twothous eighteen, and on it, Cohen is heard telling Trump,
referring to the National Inquirer catch and kill guy David Pecker,
I need to open up a company for the transfer
of all that info regarding our friend David, And Cohen
references Alan Weiselberg and financing, and Trump interrupts, what financing,
and then they talk about cash and it sounds something
(02:25):
like this. So I'm all over that, and I spoke
to Alan about it. When it comes time for the financing,
which will be listening, you'll have to pay yourself. Hold no, no, no, no,
I got no hard to come back after the jury
has heard that. But one thing you do not do
(02:48):
if you are trying to come back from that after
the jury has heard that. One thing you do not
do is testify because they will ask you about that.
Hence Trump's lie about the gag order meaning he can't testify.
I wonder how Jnathan Turley will make that lie seem
true and how big a font they'll have to set
(03:09):
the printer to so that Trump can walk out of
court today with a phone book sized stack of printouts.
Well print out in a fitting metaphor on the subject
of not testifying and then lying about it. Trump's pants
are so on fire that his post court photo op
last night was at a downtown New York fire department station.
(03:35):
The other news yesterday Gag Order hearing number two, and
his attorneys actually asked the judge to look at articles
before they post them to see if they violate the
gag order, which was another stunt. Obviously, the judge said
no when in doubt, steer clear. It has been noted
in several quarters that we may be burying the lead
about the gag order rulings by Justice Mayr Sean and
(03:58):
especially the threat of jail time. Trump has been quiet.
Trump has been too quiet, but his lawyers tried to
rebut the gag order by saying he has to be
able to defend himself. From comments by others like Biden. Listen, Pal,
I've tried that. Just turn the comments off. Also, if
(04:21):
he's going to try to defend himself from mean tweets,
Trump is going to spend the rest of his life
answering just those that were sent between three forty seven
pm and three point fifty seven pm yesterday. Say that's
not a bad idea. At the risk of exceeding my
cussword limit for one podcast, the back and forth between
(04:43):
Trump's attorneys and the prosecution and the judge about the
gag order led to the following term used on Twitter
x on April twenty third by Michael Cohen, entering the
official Trump trial record quote, Oh von schittz in pants,
keep whining, crying and violating the gag order. You Petchel
(05:04):
defendant v O N s h I t z I
N p A and could you spell it? Yes, v
(05:25):
O and s h I t z I A p
A and G I'm sorry. I'm gonna have to get
a piece of paper and a pencil and write all
(05:45):
this down. That's a very old joke from a British
radio series called The goon Show. There were two laughs
in court during the afternoon break, drowsy j Trump posted,
contrary to the fake news media, I don't fall asleep
during the crooked which hunt, especially not today. I simply
(06:07):
close my beautiful blue eyes, sometimes listen intensely and take
it all in two five pm, three forty three pm,
just securities. Adam Klassfeld reports he fell asleep again, and lastly,
for Maggie Haberman of the New York Times, the first
(06:28):
time I have ever empathized with the defendant quote. Trump
left the courtroom squinting strangely at Lawrence O'Donnell, the MSNBC host,
as he did today. For once, we are all Trump
(07:00):
thought Bubble, I thought he was dead. We are in
such an unprecedented place in this country's history that if
Trump were to now pick Christy Nome as his running
mate anyway and announced that they were going to campaign
on a platform of puppy killing, the cult would do it.
He's not likely to try this. But then, did you
(07:20):
really think that Nome's response to her self defenestration would
be to double down and claim the dog she murdered
was far more evil than she had let on and
was in fact a threat to her children? Seriously? By
next week noame will be claiming that Cricket had clamped
her vicious jaws around her daughter's neck, or that she
(07:42):
was holding Nome's children hostage. And by the way, Nome
may have no other choice than to double down and
claim she is the real victim. Year because there is
emerging evidence that the story of Christy Nome luring the
dog into a gravel pit and shooting it in the
face because it was randomly attacking other animals and posed
(08:03):
a threat of some kind, that might be a cover story.
It has been little noticed, but the leader of the
Democratic minority in the South Dakota State Senate said that
Nome's unfathomable decision to write about shooting the dog was
not some mistake, nor some expression of stupidity, nor even madness.
(08:26):
According to the Associated Press, which interviewed him, Senator Reynald
Nessaba quote said the story has circulated for years among
lawmakers that Nome killed a dog in a quote fit
of anger, and that there were witnesses. He speculated that
it was coming out now because Nome is being vetted
(08:47):
as a candidate for vice president. Again quoting the minority
leader directly, she knew that this was a political vulnerability,
and she needed to put it out there before it
came up in some other venue. Why else would she
write about it. Nessaba's implication is clear. The true story
of the death of Cricket, somehow is worse. In the
(09:12):
book version. All efforts to train this dog failed. Even
an electronic collar. The dog quote ruined a bird hunt.
The dog then escaped from Nome's truck and killed some
chickens at somebody else's house like quote a trained assassin.
As Nome tried to get Cricket away from quote the
scene of the crime, the fourteen month old puppy then
(09:36):
quote whipped around to bite me. Nooam decided Cricket was untrainable,
dangerous to anyone she came in contact with, less than worthless.
I hated that dog unquote. And then she killed Cricket,
and she killed a goat she also didn't like. Then
she realized that a construction crew had watched both murders.
(10:01):
Whatever really happened. Noam wrote that it had startled those
workers so much that they had stopped working. Whatever really happened,
Gnome could not stop complimenting herself in the book for
her toughness, for her willingness to do what was quote difficult,
messy and ugly. Difficult, messy and ugly an apt description
(10:26):
of Christinome. The excerpt from the book was found by
the newspaper The Guardian a week ago. As America's hatred
washed over Christinome. She laid low until Wednesday. That's when
she went on with Sean Hannity and resumed trying to
get people to buy the book and of course buy
(10:47):
her story. But it appears that buying the book was
more important. But her story has now changed. Cricket was
no puppy. She was a working dog and fourteen months old,
and that cricket was untrained. While that wasn't Christine Holmes's fault, quote,
it was a dog that was extremely dangerous. It had
(11:10):
come to us from a family who found her way
too aggressive. We were her second chance. The day she
was put down was a day that she massacred live stock, livestock,
chickens massacred. But of course killing animals is just a
(11:37):
first step, and then you're Ted Bundy, aren't you, governor?
Quote livestock that were part of our neighbors. She attacked
me and it was a hard decision that was Wednesday night,
my Thursday afternoon on social media, Nome thought she saw
an out. I had a choice between the safety of
my children and an animal who had a history of
(12:00):
attacking people and killing live stock. Ah chose my kids. Okay,
when I said that, by next week, she'll be claiming
cricket had clamped her vicious jaws around her daughter's neck,
or that she was holding nomes kids hostages. That was
wrong and unfair. Gnome is still scheduled to be on
(12:22):
Face the Nation on Sunday. By then, she'll be claiming
cricket had bitten the kids or holding them hostage. This
woman still thinks she is going to get away with this.
Three postscripts. One, George Conway notes that at least today
there is a Humane Society shelter that is literally a
half an hour drive from the Nome farm. Two. I
(12:47):
don't know what the other version that the minority leader
hinted at might be. We know she killed a dog
and a goat on the same day, within minutes of
each other. I do note with horror that in the
book Gnome really details the timeline she kills cricket, she
kills the goat. The construction workers see it. Then her
daughter gets home and asks, where's Cricket? Why such specificity
(13:13):
in the timeline. Maybe the version in the book has changed,
not in what happened to Cricket, but changed in the
area of the witnesses. Maybe her daughter had already gotten
home from school, or maybe this was not the first
animal Gnome had murdered. And point number three, I don't
(13:35):
know how many fascist commentators have actually defended Nome. If
Trump picked her, it would be one hundred percent. But
right now that psycho Michael Knowles has most of them
have ignored it, or did a what about it with
President Biden's dog commander biting the Secret Service guys, or
(13:56):
did the sure this is bad? But uh uh kamala
harris am I right? But the greatest excuse, the greatest
example of let me just throw this at the wall,
maybe it'll stick. The greatest example of that I have
ever heard is from Kim Gilfoyle, who posits that the
(14:19):
only possible explanation for this is the story is true,
but it wasn't supposed to be in the book, and
somebody wishing to harm Christy Nome slipped it into the
book and Gnome didn't know.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
I just can't imagine that because there's a forever home
for all animals. I don't know what happened. Maybe somebody
slipped that in and she didn't see it. I don't know,
but it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
So that's a tough one to take.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Oh my god, I mean, it's creative. It's the first
time I've ever heard Kimberly Gilfoyle be creative, and I've
known her for nearly twenty years. One would assume, though,
that if it were possibly true true, that would require
that the story of the murder of Cricket not be true,
(15:09):
and that Noame would deny that she shot Cricket. But
that's not the excuse Gilfoyle has come up with. Gilfoyle
is not doubting that Noame, who is a friend of hers.
By the way, she's not doubting that Noam murdered the dog.
She just thinks somebody who knew sneaked the story into
the book without Nome checking the true story. Maybe it
(15:31):
was one of the construction worker witnesses who sneaked it
into the book. Maybe it was Nome's daughter getting Riven
slipped it into the book. Now that is a Christi
nome apologist. I'm telling you by Sunday, Christy Noam will
be insisting that cricket had bitten the kids or was
(15:54):
holding them hostage. Also of interest here, a survey in
late March, so like five and a half, six weeks
ago at the latest, indicated that among issues mattering the
most to America's college students, the Palestine, Gaza Israel conflict
came in at two percent. Let's say that's gone up
(16:17):
fivefold since then ten percent. So why are the protests
being covered wall to wall? Because they're easy television and
they make Biden look bad, and they hide the reality
that America's college protesters don't seem to realize that the
existential threat to Palestine, to Gaza, to Israel, to peace
(16:40):
in the Middle East, and to themselves and to the
right to protest on campus are off. The thing they
should be protesting first would be Trump's fascism. That's next.
This is countdown. President yesterday insisted the right to protest
(17:02):
is not also a right to chaos. He also insisted, no,
he will not send the National Guard in anywhere. Morons. Now,
Joe Biden did not say morons. I've thrown that in.
I'm saying it for him because the coverage of the
pro Palestinian and anti pro Palestinian, and pro Israel and
(17:23):
anti pro Israel protests is both hysterical and lousy, and
the protests themselves are well this question, where is this
kind of enthusiasm and urgency on college campuses about the
existential threat to democracy in this country? Where are the
takeovers protesting Trump and his plan to you know, end
(17:48):
all women's health rights, to send minority groups to concentration camps,
to not admit refugees, refugees from Gaza, and to reinstitute
his Muslim ban, among ten thousand other things that direct
the effect those who are protesting right now. Where is that?
All I am hearing, even from smart friends of mine
(18:12):
is comparisons to the student protests of the late nineteen sixties.
And guess what I was there. Not in college, obviously,
but we had them in high school and middle school.
And in the spring of nineteen seventy they canceled my
seventh grade classes for a week and they did teach
ins from nine in the morning till three in the afternoon,
(18:35):
five days in a row because the issues were a
little closer to home, like systemic racism and the assassination
of Martin Luther King and the Kennedys, and oh, by
the way, by the government forcing teenagers against their will
to kill other people or be killed by other people
in Southeast Asia, something that confronted nearly all of us
in that school potentially. At least yesterday, the Associated Press
(19:00):
breathlessly issued the news that quote, at least two thousand
people have been arrested at pro Palestinian protests on US
campuses since April eighteenth. Ap tally shows I'm not advocating
for arresting protesters, although that's part of the protesting deal,
and I'm not defending protesting or getting arrested. I'm agnostic
(19:23):
about this. I'm just offering a little perspective. Two thousands
since April eighteenth is a little under one thousand a week,
more or less unlikely to continue at that rate, but
just for perspective. For FBI statistics for the last decade
or so, there have been a little under one thousand
arrests per week for forgery and counterfeiting. These protests are
(19:51):
being covered because protests are easy television news streaming news stuff.
The protesters can shoot themselves. It's easy point and click.
We used to say the stories rarely fail to produce
a story, and conflict and violence and fires and explosions.
(20:15):
So if you actually send a reporter or a crew
and you get nothing, well, that doesn't happen with a
student protest. You get something you can lead with or
put on your front page or a live stream. And
they are depending on your audience's point of view, they're
either those selfish, slovenly college students or those brave, principled
(20:35):
college students. And if you're Fox News, you can blame
all this on Biden and lead with something other than
Trump on trial or Trump lying or Trump farting. So
the last point about the students, I don't know. The
City of New York is often a dubious source, but
this is the kind of statistic that can be easily
(20:56):
rechecked later. Sounds like it would be a difficult one
to lie about. City of New York yesterday says it
arrested two hundred and eighty two people at Columbia and
CC and why, and forty seven percent of them were
not affiliated with either school. In the sixties, the protests
were literally life and death But do you know about
(21:20):
the protest movements at major universities in the seventies, Probably not,
because they were about what these protests of today are
nominally about, divestment, get Cornell out of South Africa. Not
one violent incident in I think five six years of
constant protest and debate and negotiation. And this was just
(21:44):
six and seven and eight years after black students had
to defend themselves at Cornell with guns long guns against
racist frat brothers. And guess what the end of it?
Without violence, Cornell divested from South Africa. As I said earlier,
I'm largely agnostic about the issues being protested here, and
(22:05):
I defend the student's right to protest. And sorry, this
is not nineteen sixty nine. This is also not Black
Lives Matter, and the coverage of this is being used
to convince right wingers and undecided voters that the cities
are burning right now. The trajectory of what these protests
(22:26):
will produce is a Trump presidency in which what most
of the protesters want us involvement in the Middle East war.
That will be increased support for Palestine, Palestinians, Gaza refugees
that will be cut off humanitarian aid. No more humanitarian aid.
(22:47):
And by the way, the next protesters on college campuses,
they will be immediately arrested or worse. Listen, I think
about burning it all down roughly every second or third day.
In fact, I have since nineteen seventy five or so.
I get it. Problem is Trump gets it too, and
(23:13):
these protests are playing into Trump's hands. To the number
one story on the Countdown, and it's Fridays with Thurber,
(23:35):
And only occasionally did the great American humorist bend towards
the supernatural. Lots of Thurber's characters, like his fictionalized version
of his own mother, claimed to get messages from beyond
the grave and stuff like that, but rarely did Thurber
ever go a cult in the first person. This is
(23:56):
not true in one of my all time favorites of
his stories, The Black Magic of Barney Holler, in which
a slight accent turned it to something that is just
right up against the line of being actually a little
scary but still hilarious. The Black Magic of Barney Haller
(24:16):
by James Thurber. It was one of those hot days
on which the earth is uninhabitable, even as early as
ten o'clock in the morning. Even on the hill where
I live under the dark maples. The long porch was hot,
and the wicker chair I sat in complained hotly. My
coffee was beginning to wear off, and with it the
(24:37):
momentary illusion it gives that things are right and life
is good. There were sultry mutterings of thunder. I had
a quick feeling that if I looked up from my book,
I would see Barney Holler. I looked up, and there he was,
coming along the road, lightning playing about his shoulders, thunder
(24:59):
following him like a dog. Barney is, or was, my
hired man. He is strong and amiable, sweaty and dependable,
slowly and heavily confident. But he is also eerie. He
traffics with the devil. His ears twitch when he talks,
(25:22):
but it isn't so much that as the things he says.
Once in late June, when all of a moment, sabers
began to flash brightly in the heavens and bowling balls rumbled,
I took refuge in the barn. I always have a
feeling that I am going to be struck by lightning
and either riven like an old apple tree, or left
with a foot that aches in rainy weather, and a
(25:43):
habit of painting. These things happen. Barney came in not
to escape the storm to which he is or pretends
to be indifferent, but to put the sigh the way. Suddenly,
he said the first of those things that made me,
when I was with him, faintly creepy. He pointed at
the house. He says, seid his boat come down to rock?
(26:06):
He said, it is phenomena like that of which I
stand in constant dread, boats coming down rocks, people being teleported,
statues dripping blood, old regrets, and dreams in the form
of Luna moths fluttering against the windows at midnight. Of course,
I finally figured out what Barney meant, or what I
(26:27):
comforted myself with believing he meant something about a bolt
coming down the lightning rod on the house, a commonplace
and utterly natural thing. I should have dismissed it, but
it had its effect on me. Here was a stolid man,
smelling of hay and leather, who talked like somebody out
(26:47):
of Charles Fort's books, or like a traveler back from
oz and all the time the lightning was zigging and
zagging around him on this hot morning. When I saw
Barney coming along with his faithful storm trudging behind him,
I went back frowningly to my copy of Swan's Way.
(27:07):
I hope that Barney, seeing me absorbed in a book,
would pass by without saying anything. I read. I myself
seemed actually to have become the subject of my book,
A church a quartet, the rivalry between Francis the First
and Charles the Fifth. I could feel Barney standing looking
at me, but I didn't look at him this morning.
(27:29):
By and by, said Barney, I go hunt grocers and davoudes.
That's fine, I said, and turned a page and pretended
to be engrossed in what I was reading. Barney walked on.
He had wanted to talk some more, but he walked on.
After a paragraph or two his words began to come
(27:51):
between me and the words in the book. Bime by,
I go hunt grotches in davods. If you are susceptible
such things, it is not difficult to visualize grotches. They
fluttered into my mind, ugly little creatures about the size
of whipperwills, only covered with blood and honey, and the
(28:13):
scrapings of church bells. Grotches who and what I wondered,
really was this thing in the form of a hired
man that kept anointing me ominously in passing with Abra cadabra.
Barney didn't go toward the woods at once. He weeded
(28:34):
the corn, He picked apple boughs off the lawn. He
knocked a yellowjacket's nest down out of a plum tree.
It was raining now, but he didn't seem to notice it.
He kept looking at me out of the corner of
his eye, and I kept looking at him out of
the corner of my eye. Vod dime, is it beneeze?
He called to me. Finally, I put down my book
and sauntered out to him. When you go for those grotches,
(28:58):
I said, firmly, I'll go with you. I was sure
he wouldn't want me to go. I was right protested
that he could get the grotches himself. I'll go with you,
I said, stubbornly. We stood looking at each other, and then, abruptly,
just to give him something to ponder over, I quoted,
(29:18):
I'm going out to clean the pasture spring. I'll only
stop to take the leaves away and wait to watch
the water clear. I may i shan't be gone long
you come too. It wasn't, I realized, very good Abrica dabra,
but it served. Barney looked at me in a puzzled way. Yes,
(29:41):
he said, vaguely, it's five minutes of twelve, I said,
remembering he had asked. Then we go, he said, And
we trudged through the rain over to the orchard fence
and climbed that, and opened a gate and went out
into the meadow that slopes up to the woods. I
had a prefiguring of Barney at some proper spot deep
in the woods, prancing around like a goat, casting off
(30:04):
his fall nature, shedding his hired man's garments, dropping his
teutonic accent, repeating diabolical phrases, conjuring up grotches. It was
a great slash of lightning and along bumping of thunder.
As we reached the edge of the woods, I turned
and fled, glancing over my shoulder, I saw Barney standing
(30:27):
and staring after me. It turned out, on the face
of it to be as simple as the boat that
came down the rock. Grotches were crotches, crotched saplings, which
he cut down to use as supports under the peach boughs,
because in bearing time they become so heavy with fruit
that there was danger of the branches snapping off. I
(30:50):
saw Barney later putting the crotches in place. We didn't
have much to say to each other. I can see
now that he was beginning to suspect me too. About
six o'clock next evening, I was alone in the house
and sleeping upstairs. Barney rapped on the door of the
front porch. I knew it was Barney because he called
(31:13):
to me. I woke up slowly. It was dark for
six o'clock. I heard rumblings and soft flickerings. Barney was
standing at the front door with his storm at heel.
I had the conviction that it wasn't storming anywhere except
around my house. There couldn't, without the intervention of the
Devil or one of his agents, be so many lightning
(31:34):
storms in one neighborhood. I had been dreaming of Prost
and the church at Cambre, and meadowlands dipped in tea,
and the rivalry between Francis the First and Charles the fifth.
My head whirled and I didn't get up. Barney kept
on rapping. He called out again. There was a flash
(31:55):
followed by a sharp splitting sound. Now I leaped up
this time, I thought he is here to get me.
I had a notion that he was standing at the door, barefooted,
with a wreath of grape leaves around his head and
a wild animal's skin slung over his shoulder. I didn't
want to go down, but I did. He was as usual, solid, amiable,
(32:19):
dressed like a hired man. I went out onto the
porch and looked at the improbable storm now on in
all of its fury. This is getting pretty bad, I
said meaningly. Barney looked at the rein placidly well. I said, irritably,
what's up? Barney turned his little squinty blue eyes on me.
We go to the gaddock now and become warbs, he said,
(32:44):
the hell we do? I thought to myself quickly. I
was uneasy. I was you might even say terrified, but
I determined not to show it. If he began to
chant incantations or to make obscene signs, or if he
attempted to sling me over his shoulder, I resolved to
plunge right out into that storm, lightning it all, and
run to the nearest house. I didn't know what they
(33:07):
would think at the nearest house when I burst in
upon them, or what I would tell them. But I
didn't intend to accompany this amiable looking fiend to any
garrick and become a warb. I tried to persuade myself
that there was some simple explanation that warbs would turn
out to be as innocuous as boats on rocks and
(33:27):
grotches in divoods. But the conviction gripped me in the
growling of the thunder that here, at last was the
moment when Barney Holler or whoever he was, had chosen
to get me. I walked toward the steps that led
to the lawn and turned and faced him grimly. Listen,
(33:50):
I barked. Suddenly, Did you know that even when it
isn't brillig I can produce slye toes? Did you happen
to know that the Momrath never lived that could outgrab me? Yeah?
And furthermore, I can become anything I want to. Even
if I were a warb, I wouldn't have to keep
on being one if I didn't want to. I can
become a playing card at will too. Once I was
the jack of clubs, only I forgot to say, my
(34:12):
glasses off, and some guy recognized me. I. Barney was
backing slowly away toward the petunia box at one end
of the porch. His little blue eyes were wide. He
saw that I had him. I think I go now,
he said, and he walked out into the rain. The
rain followed him down the road. I have a new
(34:36):
hired man now. Barney never came back to work for
me after that day. Of course, I figured out finally
what he meant about the garrick and the wharves. He
had simply got horribly mixed up in trying to tell
me that he was going up to the garret and
clear out the wasps, of which I have thousands. The
new hired man is afraid of them. Barney could have
(35:00):
scooped them up in his hands and thrown them out
a window without getting stung. I am sure he trafficked
with the devil, but I am sorry I let him go.
(35:24):
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
you for listening. Countown musical directors Brian Ray and John
Phillip Schaneil arranged, produced and performed most of our music.
Mister Ray was on the guitars, the bass, and the drums,
mister Shanelle, I had a little orchestration and keyboards, and
the whole thing was produced by Tko Brothers. Other music,
including some of the Beethoven compositions, arranged and performed by
(35:44):
No Horns Allowed. The sports music is the Olderman theme
from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of
ESPN Inc. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by
Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium organist ever. Everything else
was pretty much my fault. That's countdown for this the
one hundred and eighty seventh day until the two thousand
and two twenty four presidential election, and the two and
(36:07):
fourteenth day since Defendant J. Trump's first attempted coup against
the democratically elected government of the United States. Use the
justice system, use the mental health system, use the not
regularly given elector objection option, use the Donald the Walrus
no sleepies bit to stop him from doing it again
(36:28):
while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is Tuesday.
Bolton says, the news warrants till then. I'm Keith Ulreman,
good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown
(37:00):
with Keith Oulderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Trump
is full of shit. The jury also heard a smoking
(00:28):
gun yesterday, Trump going over the hush money details on
tape with Michael Cohen. I'll play the tape in a minute,
but to me, the headline is Trump is full of shit.
He has now lied that he can't testify because of
the gag order. He is full of shit. Well, I'm
(00:53):
not allowed to testify. I'm under a gag order. I
guess I can't even testify it now we're gonna be
appealing the gag order. I'd love to answer that question.
It's a very easy question these he has questioned so far.
But I'm not allowed to testify. So I'm not allowed
to testify because of an unconstitutional gag order. For appealing
(01:14):
the geg order, and let's see what happens, Thank you
very much. He's full of shit. He is backing out
of testifying and is always blaming somebody else, and as
usual that somebody or something else is imaginary. He is
backing out of testifying because apparently only when they played
it did he remember that Michael Cohen had made a
(01:37):
tape of the two of them discussing the twenty sixteen
hush money payment to not Stormy Daniels, but rather Karen McDougall.
So it's a smoking gun. And it's not even the
smoking gun from the Daniels case. There are multiple smoking guns.
The jury just heard smoking gun number one A it's
not even a new a one smoking gun. CNN got
(02:02):
this tape and everybody played it in the summer of
twothous eighteen, and on it, Cohen is heard telling Trump,
referring to the National Inquirer catch and kill guy David Pecker,
I need to open up a company for the transfer
of all that info regarding our friend David, And Cohen
references Alan Weiselberg and financing, and Trump interrupts, what financing,
and then they talk about cash and it sounds something
(02:25):
like this. So I'm all over that, and I spoke
to Alan about it. When it comes time for the financing,
which will be listening, you'll have to pay yourself. Hold no, no, no, no,
I got no hard to come back after the jury
has heard that. But one thing you do not do
(02:48):
if you are trying to come back from that after
the jury has heard that. One thing you do not
do is testify because they will ask you about that.
Hence Trump's lie about the gag order meaning he can't testify.
I wonder how Jnathan Turley will make that lie seem
true and how big a font they'll have to set
(03:09):
the printer to so that Trump can walk out of
court today with a phone book sized stack of printouts.
Well print out in a fitting metaphor on the subject
of not testifying and then lying about it. Trump's pants
are so on fire that his post court photo op
last night was at a downtown New York fire department station.
(03:35):
The other news yesterday Gag Order hearing number two, and
his attorneys actually asked the judge to look at articles
before they post them to see if they violate the
gag order, which was another stunt. Obviously, the judge said
no when in doubt, steer clear. It has been noted
in several quarters that we may be burying the lead
about the gag order rulings by Justice Mayr Sean and
(03:58):
especially the threat of jail time. Trump has been quiet.
Trump has been too quiet, but his lawyers tried to
rebut the gag order by saying he has to be
able to defend himself. From comments by others like Biden. Listen, Pal,
I've tried that. Just turn the comments off. Also, if
(04:21):
he's going to try to defend himself from mean tweets,
Trump is going to spend the rest of his life
answering just those that were sent between three forty seven
pm and three point fifty seven pm yesterday. Say that's
not a bad idea. At the risk of exceeding my
cussword limit for one podcast, the back and forth between
(04:43):
Trump's attorneys and the prosecution and the judge about the
gag order led to the following term used on Twitter
x on April twenty third by Michael Cohen, entering the
official Trump trial record quote, Oh von schittz in pants,
keep whining, crying and violating the gag order. You Petchel
(05:04):
defendant v O N s h I t z I
N p A and could you spell it? Yes, v
(05:25):
O and s h I t z I A p
A and G I'm sorry. I'm gonna have to get
a piece of paper and a pencil and write all
(05:45):
this down. That's a very old joke from a British
radio series called The goon Show. There were two laughs
in court during the afternoon break, drowsy j Trump posted,
contrary to the fake news media, I don't fall asleep
during the crooked which hunt, especially not today. I simply
(06:07):
close my beautiful blue eyes, sometimes listen intensely and take
it all in two five pm, three forty three pm,
just securities. Adam Klassfeld reports he fell asleep again, and lastly,
for Maggie Haberman of the New York Times, the first
(06:28):
time I have ever empathized with the defendant quote. Trump
left the courtroom squinting strangely at Lawrence O'Donnell, the MSNBC host,
as he did today. For once, we are all Trump
(07:00):
thought Bubble, I thought he was dead. We are in
such an unprecedented place in this country's history that if
Trump were to now pick Christy Nome as his running
mate anyway and announced that they were going to campaign
on a platform of puppy killing, the cult would do it.
He's not likely to try this. But then, did you
(07:20):
really think that Nome's response to her self defenestration would
be to double down and claim the dog she murdered
was far more evil than she had let on and
was in fact a threat to her children? Seriously? By
next week noame will be claiming that Cricket had clamped
her vicious jaws around her daughter's neck, or that she
(07:42):
was holding Nome's children hostage. And by the way, Nome
may have no other choice than to double down and
claim she is the real victim. Year because there is
emerging evidence that the story of Christy Nome luring the
dog into a gravel pit and shooting it in the
face because it was randomly attacking other animals and posed
(08:03):
a threat of some kind, that might be a cover story.
It has been little noticed, but the leader of the
Democratic minority in the South Dakota State Senate said that
Nome's unfathomable decision to write about shooting the dog was
not some mistake, nor some expression of stupidity, nor even madness.
(08:26):
According to the Associated Press, which interviewed him, Senator Reynald
Nessaba quote said the story has circulated for years among
lawmakers that Nome killed a dog in a quote fit
of anger, and that there were witnesses. He speculated that
it was coming out now because Nome is being vetted
(08:47):
as a candidate for vice president. Again quoting the minority
leader directly, she knew that this was a political vulnerability,
and she needed to put it out there before it
came up in some other venue. Why else would she
write about it. Nessaba's implication is clear. The true story
of the death of Cricket, somehow is worse. In the
(09:12):
book version. All efforts to train this dog failed. Even
an electronic collar. The dog quote ruined a bird hunt.
The dog then escaped from Nome's truck and killed some
chickens at somebody else's house like quote a trained assassin.
As Nome tried to get Cricket away from quote the
scene of the crime, the fourteen month old puppy then
(09:36):
quote whipped around to bite me. Nooam decided Cricket was untrainable,
dangerous to anyone she came in contact with, less than worthless.
I hated that dog unquote. And then she killed Cricket,
and she killed a goat she also didn't like. Then
she realized that a construction crew had watched both murders.
(10:01):
Whatever really happened. Noam wrote that it had startled those
workers so much that they had stopped working. Whatever really happened,
Gnome could not stop complimenting herself in the book for
her toughness, for her willingness to do what was quote difficult,
messy and ugly. Difficult, messy and ugly an apt description
(10:26):
of Christinome. The excerpt from the book was found by
the newspaper The Guardian a week ago. As America's hatred
washed over Christinome. She laid low until Wednesday. That's when
she went on with Sean Hannity and resumed trying to
get people to buy the book and of course buy
(10:47):
her story. But it appears that buying the book was
more important. But her story has now changed. Cricket was
no puppy. She was a working dog and fourteen months old,
and that cricket was untrained. While that wasn't Christine Holmes's fault, quote,
it was a dog that was extremely dangerous. It had
(11:10):
come to us from a family who found her way
too aggressive. We were her second chance. The day she
was put down was a day that she massacred live stock, livestock,
chickens massacred. But of course killing animals is just a
(11:37):
first step, and then you're Ted Bundy, aren't you, governor?
Quote livestock that were part of our neighbors. She attacked
me and it was a hard decision that was Wednesday night,
my Thursday afternoon on social media, Nome thought she saw
an out. I had a choice between the safety of
my children and an animal who had a history of
(12:00):
attacking people and killing live stock. Ah chose my kids. Okay,
when I said that, by next week, she'll be claiming
cricket had clamped her vicious jaws around her daughter's neck,
or that she was holding nomes kids hostages. That was
wrong and unfair. Gnome is still scheduled to be on
(12:22):
Face the Nation on Sunday. By then, she'll be claiming
cricket had bitten the kids or holding them hostage. This
woman still thinks she is going to get away with this.
Three postscripts. One, George Conway notes that at least today
there is a Humane Society shelter that is literally a
half an hour drive from the Nome farm. Two. I
(12:47):
don't know what the other version that the minority leader
hinted at might be. We know she killed a dog
and a goat on the same day, within minutes of
each other. I do note with horror that in the
book Gnome really details the timeline she kills cricket, she
kills the goat. The construction workers see it. Then her
daughter gets home and asks, where's Cricket? Why such specificity
(13:13):
in the timeline. Maybe the version in the book has changed,
not in what happened to Cricket, but changed in the
area of the witnesses. Maybe her daughter had already gotten
home from school, or maybe this was not the first
animal Gnome had murdered. And point number three, I don't
(13:35):
know how many fascist commentators have actually defended Nome. If
Trump picked her, it would be one hundred percent. But
right now that psycho Michael Knowles has most of them
have ignored it, or did a what about it with
President Biden's dog commander biting the Secret Service guys, or
(13:56):
did the sure this is bad? But uh uh kamala
harris am I right? But the greatest excuse, the greatest
example of let me just throw this at the wall,
maybe it'll stick. The greatest example of that I have
ever heard is from Kim Gilfoyle, who posits that the
(14:19):
only possible explanation for this is the story is true,
but it wasn't supposed to be in the book, and
somebody wishing to harm Christy Nome slipped it into the
book and Gnome didn't know.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
I just can't imagine that because there's a forever home
for all animals. I don't know what happened. Maybe somebody
slipped that in and she didn't see it. I don't know,
but it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
So that's a tough one to take.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Oh my god, I mean, it's creative. It's the first
time I've ever heard Kimberly Gilfoyle be creative, and I've
known her for nearly twenty years. One would assume, though,
that if it were possibly true true, that would require
that the story of the murder of Cricket not be true,
(15:09):
and that Noame would deny that she shot Cricket. But
that's not the excuse Gilfoyle has come up with. Gilfoyle
is not doubting that Noame, who is a friend of hers.
By the way, she's not doubting that Noam murdered the dog.
She just thinks somebody who knew sneaked the story into
the book without Nome checking the true story. Maybe it
(15:31):
was one of the construction worker witnesses who sneaked it
into the book. Maybe it was Nome's daughter getting Riven
slipped it into the book. Now that is a Christi
nome apologist. I'm telling you by Sunday, Christy Noam will
be insisting that cricket had bitten the kids or was
(15:54):
holding them hostage. Also of interest here, a survey in
late March, so like five and a half, six weeks
ago at the latest, indicated that among issues mattering the
most to America's college students, the Palestine, Gaza Israel conflict
came in at two percent. Let's say that's gone up
(16:17):
fivefold since then ten percent. So why are the protests
being covered wall to wall? Because they're easy television and
they make Biden look bad, and they hide the reality
that America's college protesters don't seem to realize that the
existential threat to Palestine, to Gaza, to Israel, to peace
(16:40):
in the Middle East, and to themselves and to the
right to protest on campus are off. The thing they
should be protesting first would be Trump's fascism. That's next.
This is countdown. President yesterday insisted the right to protest
(17:02):
is not also a right to chaos. He also insisted, no,
he will not send the National Guard in anywhere. Morons. Now,
Joe Biden did not say morons. I've thrown that in.
I'm saying it for him because the coverage of the
pro Palestinian and anti pro Palestinian, and pro Israel and
(17:23):
anti pro Israel protests is both hysterical and lousy, and
the protests themselves are well this question, where is this
kind of enthusiasm and urgency on college campuses about the
existential threat to democracy in this country? Where are the
takeovers protesting Trump and his plan to you know, end
(17:48):
all women's health rights, to send minority groups to concentration camps,
to not admit refugees, refugees from Gaza, and to reinstitute
his Muslim ban, among ten thousand other things that direct
the effect those who are protesting right now. Where is that?
All I am hearing, even from smart friends of mine
(18:12):
is comparisons to the student protests of the late nineteen sixties.
And guess what I was there. Not in college, obviously,
but we had them in high school and middle school.
And in the spring of nineteen seventy they canceled my
seventh grade classes for a week and they did teach
ins from nine in the morning till three in the afternoon,
(18:35):
five days in a row because the issues were a
little closer to home, like systemic racism and the assassination
of Martin Luther King and the Kennedys, and oh, by
the way, by the government forcing teenagers against their will
to kill other people or be killed by other people
in Southeast Asia, something that confronted nearly all of us
in that school potentially. At least yesterday, the Associated Press
(19:00):
breathlessly issued the news that quote, at least two thousand
people have been arrested at pro Palestinian protests on US
campuses since April eighteenth. Ap tally shows I'm not advocating
for arresting protesters, although that's part of the protesting deal,
and I'm not defending protesting or getting arrested. I'm agnostic
(19:23):
about this. I'm just offering a little perspective. Two thousands
since April eighteenth is a little under one thousand a week,
more or less unlikely to continue at that rate, but
just for perspective. For FBI statistics for the last decade
or so, there have been a little under one thousand
arrests per week for forgery and counterfeiting. These protests are
(19:51):
being covered because protests are easy television news streaming news stuff.
The protesters can shoot themselves. It's easy point and click.
We used to say the stories rarely fail to produce
a story, and conflict and violence and fires and explosions.
(20:15):
So if you actually send a reporter or a crew
and you get nothing, well, that doesn't happen with a
student protest. You get something you can lead with or
put on your front page or a live stream. And
they are depending on your audience's point of view, they're
either those selfish, slovenly college students or those brave, principled
(20:35):
college students. And if you're Fox News, you can blame
all this on Biden and lead with something other than
Trump on trial or Trump lying or Trump farting. So
the last point about the students, I don't know. The
City of New York is often a dubious source, but
this is the kind of statistic that can be easily
(20:56):
rechecked later. Sounds like it would be a difficult one
to lie about. City of New York yesterday says it
arrested two hundred and eighty two people at Columbia and
CC and why, and forty seven percent of them were
not affiliated with either school. In the sixties, the protests
were literally life and death But do you know about
(21:20):
the protest movements at major universities in the seventies, Probably not,
because they were about what these protests of today are
nominally about, divestment, get Cornell out of South Africa. Not
one violent incident in I think five six years of
constant protest and debate and negotiation. And this was just
(21:44):
six and seven and eight years after black students had
to defend themselves at Cornell with guns long guns against
racist frat brothers. And guess what the end of it?
Without violence, Cornell divested from South Africa. As I said earlier,
I'm largely agnostic about the issues being protested here, and
(22:05):
I defend the student's right to protest. And sorry, this
is not nineteen sixty nine. This is also not Black
Lives Matter, and the coverage of this is being used
to convince right wingers and undecided voters that the cities
are burning right now. The trajectory of what these protests
(22:26):
will produce is a Trump presidency in which what most
of the protesters want us involvement in the Middle East war.
That will be increased support for Palestine, Palestinians, Gaza refugees
that will be cut off humanitarian aid. No more humanitarian aid.
(22:47):
And by the way, the next protesters on college campuses,
they will be immediately arrested or worse. Listen, I think
about burning it all down roughly every second or third day.
In fact, I have since nineteen seventy five or so.
I get it. Problem is Trump gets it too, and
(23:13):
these protests are playing into Trump's hands. To the number
one story on the Countdown, and it's Fridays with Thurber,
(23:35):
And only occasionally did the great American humorist bend towards
the supernatural. Lots of Thurber's characters, like his fictionalized version
of his own mother, claimed to get messages from beyond
the grave and stuff like that, but rarely did Thurber
ever go a cult in the first person. This is
(23:56):
not true in one of my all time favorites of
his stories, The Black Magic of Barney Holler, in which
a slight accent turned it to something that is just
right up against the line of being actually a little
scary but still hilarious. The Black Magic of Barney Haller
(24:16):
by James Thurber. It was one of those hot days
on which the earth is uninhabitable, even as early as
ten o'clock in the morning. Even on the hill where
I live under the dark maples. The long porch was hot,
and the wicker chair I sat in complained hotly. My
coffee was beginning to wear off, and with it the
(24:37):
momentary illusion it gives that things are right and life
is good. There were sultry mutterings of thunder. I had
a quick feeling that if I looked up from my book,
I would see Barney Holler. I looked up, and there he was,
coming along the road, lightning playing about his shoulders, thunder
(24:59):
following him like a dog. Barney is, or was, my
hired man. He is strong and amiable, sweaty and dependable,
slowly and heavily confident. But he is also eerie. He
traffics with the devil. His ears twitch when he talks,
(25:22):
but it isn't so much that as the things he says.
Once in late June, when all of a moment, sabers
began to flash brightly in the heavens and bowling balls rumbled,
I took refuge in the barn. I always have a
feeling that I am going to be struck by lightning
and either riven like an old apple tree, or left
with a foot that aches in rainy weather, and a
(25:43):
habit of painting. These things happen. Barney came in not
to escape the storm to which he is or pretends
to be indifferent, but to put the sigh the way. Suddenly,
he said the first of those things that made me,
when I was with him, faintly creepy. He pointed at
the house. He says, seid his boat come down to rock?
(26:06):
He said, it is phenomena like that of which I
stand in constant dread, boats coming down rocks, people being teleported,
statues dripping blood, old regrets, and dreams in the form
of Luna moths fluttering against the windows at midnight. Of course,
I finally figured out what Barney meant, or what I
(26:27):
comforted myself with believing he meant something about a bolt
coming down the lightning rod on the house, a commonplace
and utterly natural thing. I should have dismissed it, but
it had its effect on me. Here was a stolid man,
smelling of hay and leather, who talked like somebody out
(26:47):
of Charles Fort's books, or like a traveler back from
oz and all the time the lightning was zigging and
zagging around him on this hot morning. When I saw
Barney coming along with his faithful storm trudging behind him,
I went back frowningly to my copy of Swan's Way.
(27:07):
I hope that Barney, seeing me absorbed in a book,
would pass by without saying anything. I read. I myself
seemed actually to have become the subject of my book,
A church a quartet, the rivalry between Francis the First
and Charles the Fifth. I could feel Barney standing looking
at me, but I didn't look at him this morning.
(27:29):
By and by, said Barney, I go hunt grocers and davoudes.
That's fine, I said, and turned a page and pretended
to be engrossed in what I was reading. Barney walked on.
He had wanted to talk some more, but he walked on.
After a paragraph or two his words began to come
(27:51):
between me and the words in the book. Bime by,
I go hunt grotches in davods. If you are susceptible
such things, it is not difficult to visualize grotches. They
fluttered into my mind, ugly little creatures about the size
of whipperwills, only covered with blood and honey, and the
(28:13):
scrapings of church bells. Grotches who and what I wondered,
really was this thing in the form of a hired
man that kept anointing me ominously in passing with Abra cadabra.
Barney didn't go toward the woods at once. He weeded
(28:34):
the corn, He picked apple boughs off the lawn. He
knocked a yellowjacket's nest down out of a plum tree.
It was raining now, but he didn't seem to notice it.
He kept looking at me out of the corner of
his eye, and I kept looking at him out of
the corner of my eye. Vod dime, is it beneeze?
He called to me. Finally, I put down my book
and sauntered out to him. When you go for those grotches,
(28:58):
I said, firmly, I'll go with you. I was sure
he wouldn't want me to go. I was right protested
that he could get the grotches himself. I'll go with you,
I said, stubbornly. We stood looking at each other, and then, abruptly,
just to give him something to ponder over, I quoted,
(29:18):
I'm going out to clean the pasture spring. I'll only
stop to take the leaves away and wait to watch
the water clear. I may i shan't be gone long
you come too. It wasn't, I realized, very good Abrica dabra,
but it served. Barney looked at me in a puzzled way. Yes,
(29:41):
he said, vaguely, it's five minutes of twelve, I said,
remembering he had asked. Then we go, he said, And
we trudged through the rain over to the orchard fence
and climbed that, and opened a gate and went out
into the meadow that slopes up to the woods. I
had a prefiguring of Barney at some proper spot deep
in the woods, prancing around like a goat, casting off
(30:04):
his fall nature, shedding his hired man's garments, dropping his
teutonic accent, repeating diabolical phrases, conjuring up grotches. It was
a great slash of lightning and along bumping of thunder.
As we reached the edge of the woods, I turned
and fled, glancing over my shoulder, I saw Barney standing
(30:27):
and staring after me. It turned out, on the face
of it to be as simple as the boat that
came down the rock. Grotches were crotches, crotched saplings, which
he cut down to use as supports under the peach boughs,
because in bearing time they become so heavy with fruit
that there was danger of the branches snapping off. I
(30:50):
saw Barney later putting the crotches in place. We didn't
have much to say to each other. I can see
now that he was beginning to suspect me too. About
six o'clock next evening, I was alone in the house
and sleeping upstairs. Barney rapped on the door of the
front porch. I knew it was Barney because he called
(31:13):
to me. I woke up slowly. It was dark for
six o'clock. I heard rumblings and soft flickerings. Barney was
standing at the front door with his storm at heel.
I had the conviction that it wasn't storming anywhere except
around my house. There couldn't, without the intervention of the
Devil or one of his agents, be so many lightning
(31:34):
storms in one neighborhood. I had been dreaming of Prost
and the church at Cambre, and meadowlands dipped in tea,
and the rivalry between Francis the First and Charles the fifth.
My head whirled and I didn't get up. Barney kept
on rapping. He called out again. There was a flash
(31:55):
followed by a sharp splitting sound. Now I leaped up
this time, I thought he is here to get me.
I had a notion that he was standing at the door, barefooted,
with a wreath of grape leaves around his head and
a wild animal's skin slung over his shoulder. I didn't
want to go down, but I did. He was as usual, solid, amiable,
(32:19):
dressed like a hired man. I went out onto the
porch and looked at the improbable storm now on in
all of its fury. This is getting pretty bad, I
said meaningly. Barney looked at the rein placidly well. I said, irritably,
what's up? Barney turned his little squinty blue eyes on me.
We go to the gaddock now and become warbs, he said,
(32:44):
the hell we do? I thought to myself quickly. I
was uneasy. I was you might even say terrified, but
I determined not to show it. If he began to
chant incantations or to make obscene signs, or if he
attempted to sling me over his shoulder, I resolved to
plunge right out into that storm, lightning it all, and
run to the nearest house. I didn't know what they
(33:07):
would think at the nearest house when I burst in
upon them, or what I would tell them. But I
didn't intend to accompany this amiable looking fiend to any
garrick and become a warb. I tried to persuade myself
that there was some simple explanation that warbs would turn
out to be as innocuous as boats on rocks and
(33:27):
grotches in divoods. But the conviction gripped me in the
growling of the thunder that here, at last was the
moment when Barney Holler or whoever he was, had chosen
to get me. I walked toward the steps that led
to the lawn and turned and faced him grimly. Listen,
(33:50):
I barked. Suddenly, Did you know that even when it
isn't brillig I can produce slye toes? Did you happen
to know that the Momrath never lived that could outgrab me? Yeah?
And furthermore, I can become anything I want to. Even
if I were a warb, I wouldn't have to keep
on being one if I didn't want to. I can
become a playing card at will too. Once I was
the jack of clubs, only I forgot to say, my
(34:12):
glasses off, and some guy recognized me. I. Barney was
backing slowly away toward the petunia box at one end
of the porch. His little blue eyes were wide. He
saw that I had him. I think I go now,
he said, and he walked out into the rain. The
rain followed him down the road. I have a new
(34:36):
hired man now. Barney never came back to work for
me after that day. Of course, I figured out finally
what he meant about the garrick and the wharves. He
had simply got horribly mixed up in trying to tell
me that he was going up to the garret and
clear out the wasps, of which I have thousands. The
new hired man is afraid of them. Barney could have
(35:00):
scooped them up in his hands and thrown them out
a window without getting stung. I am sure he trafficked
with the devil, but I am sorry I let him go.
(35:24):
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
you for listening. Countown musical directors Brian Ray and John
Phillip Schaneil arranged, produced and performed most of our music.
Mister Ray was on the guitars, the bass, and the drums,
mister Shanelle, I had a little orchestration and keyboards, and
the whole thing was produced by Tko Brothers. Other music,
including some of the Beethoven compositions, arranged and performed by
(35:44):
No Horns Allowed. The sports music is the Olderman theme
from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of
ESPN Inc. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by
Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium organist ever. Everything else
was pretty much my fault. That's countdown for this the
one hundred and eighty seventh day until the two thousand
and two twenty four presidential election, and the two and
(36:07):
fourteenth day since Defendant J. Trump's first attempted coup against
the democratically elected government of the United States. Use the
justice system, use the mental health system, use the not
regularly given elector objection option, use the Donald the Walrus
no sleepies bit to stop him from doing it again
(36:28):
while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is Tuesday.
Bolton says, the news warrants till then. I'm Keith Ulreman,
good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown
(37:00):
with Keith Oulderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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