September 25, 2024 • 52 mins
SERIES 3 EPISODE 35: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) I wish these were metaphors.
In his latest fugue-state multi-hour you-know-how-old-he-is-he's-206 campaign speech at Savannah, Trump first literally drooled on himself in the middle of a sibilant "S" and a scant 45 minutes later revealed that he just found out that Russia beat Napoleon AND Hitler and suddenly he's the director in "The Producers" who says "I never knew the Third Reich meant Germany! I mean the play is drenched with historical goodies like that!”
CNN's coverage of this latest evidence that Trump's cheese has slid off his Ritz Cracker? “Trump focuses on economy at stop in battleground Georgia.” The term is sane-washing. If Biden had done this the replays would still be running on a loop on CNN.
And this doesn't even get to his insanity on issues of substance: the stalker language towards women. The first oblique promise to jail people who criticize the Supreme Court. The continued insistence he will send the legal migrants in Ohio who are from Haiti "back" to Venezuela because he evidently thinks that's where Haiti IS.
The stuff about the courts will re-surge in the next two days because Judge Tanya Chutkan has ruled Jack Smith can submit the phone book as his preliminary briefing in his revised Insurrection Case against Trump. 180 pages, probably, filled with evidence. Chutkan smacked Trump's lawyers around, too. Stand by for fun.
There's been more hacking of Trump campaign stuff and it won't be published either but the recipient at least characterizes it. The auteur of Project 2025 reportedly told colleagues he killed a dog with a shovel because he barked too loudly. And just for laughs, what the Prime Minister of the U.K. meant to say was "return of the HOSTAGES" but he must have been hungry.
B-Block (28:58) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: CNN's Abby Phillip is the Maggie Haberman of Chuck Todds. She beat up Harris for not going to the border. She is now beating up Harris FOR going to the border. Hers is the lowest rated prime time show in cable news and this podcast is approaching audience comparisons with it. Mike Lindell just dropped his pillow price and just accidentally picked a number that attracts Hitler Stans. And there are some Nuzzi updates: Ben Smith of Semafor says journalists SHOULD sleep with their sources. And even better, the New York Post has printed the funniest thing I've ever seen and I'm only going to reveal it reads "SHE ALSO DATED OLBERMANN."
C-Block (46:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: In the recent spirit of confession, I will reveal that 46 years ago while Sports Director and Vice President of Cornell's student-owned radio station I went on the air and lied and said that a local semi-pro hockey team had suddenly gone out of business. But I had damn good reasons and it turned out I was actually just off on my timing - they would, 16 months later. The saga of The Ithaca Stars.
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. I
don't want to alarm you. But Trump drooled in the
(00:26):
middle of his mindless fugue State rant at Savannah, Georgia yesterday,
and then a scant forty five minutes later, he revealed
he had just found out that Russia was on our
side against Hitler in World War Two. These are not metaphors.
This is tough to convey audio only, but listen carefully.
(00:49):
It's quick. I'll play it three times. You can hear him.
He dribbles on himself and says, forced to be out.
You'll hear it. Sounds like forced. That's the drool. He
wipes it away with his left forefinger between out and
because stand by for the Republican candidate for dementia in chief,
(01:13):
drooling on himself. Want to be but they were forced
to be out because in this country. But they were
forced to be out because in this country. But they
were forced to be out because you know how old
he is, He's two hundred and six. Trump was sweating
like a Steve Adore during the last half hour of
the last debate, repeatedly having to as the baseball guys say,
(01:34):
go to his mouth to wipe the perspiration off his
upper lip. And now live from Savannah, it's dribble cup night.
Did you see that on the news last night? Even
on cable? If that had happened to President Biden two
months ago, they would have played that on a loop
(01:54):
for well, the show would not yet be over, would
it on CNN? Back and to the left back, and
to the left, left back, and to the let right.
There there's the Drowoel in point of fact, seeing and
described this Jewel speech as Trump focuses on economy at
(02:16):
stop in battleground Georgia, and then somehow Trump's hallucinations got worse.
We will not leave until we win. What happens if
they win. That's what they do is they fight wars.
As somebody told me the other day, they beat Hitler,
(02:37):
they beat Napoleon. That's what they do.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
They fight something.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
He just told me, Hey, did you hear the news
Napoleon got the crap beaten out of them at Borodino,
like forty thousand casualties, like fifty dead generals. I didn't
know Napoleon had fifty generals. Yeah, I just saw it
on Channel nineteeneteenth century. Somebody just told me Russia beat Hitler.
(03:09):
Good God, wherever Trump's mind has gone to, it has
caused him to reveal he has no sense of world history,
even things that happened during his lifetime, no more sense
of it than the director Roger Debris in the mel
Brooks movie The Producers. I never knew the Third Reich
meant Germany. I mean the play is drenched with historical
(03:30):
goodies like that. I appreciate that. Every two weeks or so,
I take up some of your increasingly valuable time and
I say, look, his brain is so loosely attached to reality,
it is going to have to fall out soon. But
maybe it's not. Maybe he has kind of lucid stretches
(03:51):
where he's just evil, and then these really crazy stretches
where he's evil and stupid and drooling, and he not
only thinks Jimmy Kimmel hosts the Tonight Show, but that
it's time for Jimmy to go and it's time to
bring back Well, it's time to say he Johnny, I
went on this show, right, And he goes to Tonight's show,
(04:13):
which is dying. They're all dying with is Johnny Carson?
Bring back Johnny it made you appreciate, right, uncle Seth.
I know Johnny Carson used to take a lot of
time off towards the end of his Tonight show. But
that's not what this absence is. What this absence is
is he's dead. That's what this absence is since two
thousand and five. Johnny isn't here. Johnny is here, Johnny
(04:39):
isn't here. I mean, we haven't even gotten to the
substantial things yet, like this stalker language he used towards
women in a speech two nights ago, about how he'll
be their protector and they'll never have to worry again
and they'll never think about abortions. And I'm listening to
Trump and I'm thinking, is he quoting Sean Diddy Combs
or was Sean Didty Combs quoting him? And we still
(05:03):
haven't even gotten to the ma madness of the immigrants story.
He's still on the Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio and
his plans to send them back to Venezuela because he
apparently legitimately thinks that's where Haiti is. Haiti is in
Venezuela in the Trump world, where he just found out
(05:24):
that the Russians beat Napoleon in one century and helped
us beat Hitler in the other Haiti, or as JV.
Vance calls it, Haitia. And No, Trump did not actually
call for tattooing all immigrants from Haitia and others places
with serial numbers, like you know, the Nazi death caps.
(05:47):
He didn't do that, not because he'd never do something
like that, but because he already thinks they have serial numbers.
I mean, this was the exact quote. We're getting the
criminals out, and we're going to do that fast, and
we know who they are, and the local police know
their names, and they know their serial numbers, they know
everything about them unquote. If this guy's just finding out
(06:09):
about Napoleon losing at Borodino in eighteen twelve, I'm thinking
it's a fair assumption that he doesn't know that they
don't have serial numbers right now, just like he doesn't
know that you don't have to produce an ID card
to buy a sandwich at the grocery store. And when
he does find out that they don't have serial numbers,
he will go the Holocaust route with them, or maybe
(06:31):
go right to barcodes. The good news here is a
group called Haitian Bridge Alliance in Springfield, Ohio has filed
suit in Clark County Municipal Court demanding that the local
district attorney filed criminal charges against Trump Advance for lying
about the Haitian immigrants, for lying about their legal status here,
(06:52):
for lying about their positive impact on that city. And
this is not God bless them, just a somebody do
something thing quote like those who falsely shout fire in
a crowded theater. Trump and Vance do not color within
the lines of the First Amendment. They commit criminal acts.
(07:12):
Your god damned right they do. This complaint demands prosecutions
for seven specific charges covering five specific criminal offenses in
the city and state codes, disrupting public services, making false alarms,
aggravated menacing complicity, and telecommunications harassment. It is a brilliant
(07:38):
and necessary action, and every group threatened by Trump and
his monkey wearing eyeliner Vance should file similar motions in
every jurisdiction in this country into which Trump has drooled
his drool of regret and his venom of remorse. For
(07:59):
Vance in particular, this is going to create an impossible
situation if he and Trump lose, which I presume Vance
has not for one moment actually contemplated. He took office
already hated by nearly half his constituents. He has induced
so many bomb threats now in Springfield, Ohio, I am
surprised his phone has not been seized by the police.
(08:19):
Now imagine him the subject of a series of forced
prosecutions by pro Haitian groups around the state of Ohio.
I'm the character witness for the Haitian group. Who are you?
I'm the Republican mayor of Springfield, Ohio. It is Vance,
of course, who continues to insist that the Haitians legally
in Ohio are not there legally, and even worse, to
(08:43):
say that their legal status is in fact fluid, that
it can be withdrawn at his and Trump's instruction. The
pandora's box this opens is astonishing, because, if allowed to happen,
it could be a gateway to the revocation of citizenship
for people who were born here but whose parents were
not born here, you know, like Milania Trump, or you
(09:08):
could deport any naturalized citizen, you know, like Elon musk. Okay,
let me think this for a moment. I'm beginning to
sense that maybe under responsible control, this idea could be
you know, revoked citizenship there could be really useful. So, sir,
you were born here and your father was born here,
(09:28):
but his father was born in Germany. And what does
it say here your mother was born in Scotland. What
part America is Scotland? Sir? I'm afraid, sir. Under the
new naturalization process, you are now considered an anchor baby.
And looking at you, I can see the emphasis here
(09:49):
is on baby, and your citizenship is revoked. Mister Trump,
here's your ticket back to Venezuela. You want to go
(10:27):
to the change the rules in the middle of the
game game, Let's play that game. Let's play that goddamn game.
Let's find out where your grandparents are from, where was
your mother born? You're out just for like thirty three
people in this country, starting with Trump and Musk and Milanna,
(10:49):
rather astonishingly between the drooling and the more commonplace world history.
You should never, never ever admit you didn't know until recently,
like who beat Hitler and Napoleon. Trump has also made
what I think is the first overt threat to im
and political critics. He's still going kind of sideways on this,
but it's there. They were very brave. The Supreme court
(11:11):
very brave, and they take a lot of hits because
of it. It should be illegal what happens.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
You know, you have these guys like playing the ref
like the great Bobby Knight. These people should be put
in jail the way they talk about our judges and
our justices.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Ironically, the first guy who would go to prison for
criticizing judges would be Trump. Ask Judge Chutkin and Judge
Mershon and Judge Kaplan and Judge Curiel from the Trump
College of Khan Man Knowledge case and all the other judges.
It's funny, isn't it that he's still more enraged against
Mershan than against Chutkin because Chutkin just sent more shutters
(11:49):
through Trump's camp and encouraged more anticipatory drooling. Sorry in
law abiding America. The backup scenario for when the corrupt
Supreme Theocratic Court urinated on the Constitution to give Trump
just enough immunity to delay his trials until after the election.
The backup plan for that event will be engaged in
(12:12):
the next twenty four to thirty six hours. Not only
will much of Special Counsel Jacksmith's evidence against Trump in
the elections subversion case be revealed publicly, but it will
be revealed supersized over the weekend. Smith advised the judge
that his opening brief would in fact be an opening
not so brief, and rather than the customary thirty five
(12:34):
forty fifty pages, it might be two hundred. Looks like
the actual number of pages will be one hundred and
eighty pages. Please no wagering Trump's attorneys this month's Trump's
attorneys immediately filed a motion to suppress or delay or
refuse or hold their breath, and as usual, Chuck and
not only denied them, she denied them, then slapped them
(12:56):
and told them you'll get nothing, and you'll like it.
She writes in her ruling, allowing a brief from the
government is not quote, contrary to law, procedure and cut
as defendant claims, it is simply how litigation works. Unquote.
She left out the two additional words, you assholes, because
well we all know she meant them, so why did
(13:17):
she have to bother and write them down. The filing
deadline for Jacksmith is tomorrow, so it could be filed today, They,
for custom probably will wait till tomorrow, whichever it will
go into the court. Listener dot Com documents Harvester, and
then stand well back because all hell's going to break loose.
(13:37):
Remember this will be the amended Smith filing against Trump
for you know, trying to encourage others to break every
law we have and violently overthrow the government elect of
this nation. Minus all those things that Smith believes the
Supreme Court intends to let Trump get away with via
its phony boloney immunity ruling. Well, I have you a
(14:09):
couple of poll numbers Bullfinch poll with some amazing states.
This is after the Mark Robinson scandal. North Carolina Harris
by two. They also have her Georgia by two, and
in Florida they have Trump by one one and Senator
Rick Scott by two. These are registered voters, though likely
(14:30):
voters would probably be a little looser. Poll close September
twenty three. Nationally, Quinnipiac tied at forty eight. A month ago,
Quinnipiac was Harris by one, so no change. Nationally CNN
Harris forty eight, Trump forty seven. Nationally IPSOS for Reuters
Harris fifty Trump forty four, and again the variations are
(14:50):
all based on one thing. Those last three numbers are
likely voters are you a likely voter. Yes, I don't
think you are. Okay, then I'm not on your poll.
You bet you're not inside the seat pulling a bunch
of favorability numbers. In January, Harris was underwater by twenty points.
She is now underwater by just four Trump was under
(15:13):
by nineteen points in January. He is now underwater by
twelve vance. Who, when only one quarter of this nation
knew who the hell he was in June was underwater
by seven points, is now known by three quarters of
the country and is now underwater by twelve points. Gurgle,
gurgle alone in the CNN poll Tim Walls apparently we
(15:38):
like Tim Walls thirty six to thirty two. It appears
Trump is being hacked again. Jud Legum met Popular Information
says somebody named Robert sent his organization Trump campaign info
on the fifteenth. He's not publishing it. This isn't the
Post or the Times or the others who tend to
(15:59):
turn the gravity on and off journalistically whenever they feel
like it. Jud had chops. I'm not sure I agree
with him, but at least he went into detail about
why he has done what he has done, and he
has explained what the others have not. He has characterized
what the leaks talk about. I'll quote him. I believe
(16:23):
that in some circumstances, the publication of leaked materials can
be justified. The Pentagon papers, for example, were obtained illegally
by Daniel Elsberg, but the public interest in revealing the
truth about the Vietnam War outweighed those concerns. The internal
Trump campaign documents obtained by Popular Information may be embarrassing
or problematic to members of the Trump campaign. Some of
(16:47):
the documents have news value, but the stolen materials do
not provide the public with any fundamental new insight about
Trump or his campaign. So on balance, the relevant factors
argue against publication. What I suspect will happen will be
that eventually Robert or whoever is behind this, Iranians, Mike Pence,
(17:14):
people who like their presidential candidates to know about Hitler
and Napoleon and Russia Battle of Borodino, whoever is responsible,
sometime just before the election, will find a news organization
or a semi news organization that will print stuff right
before the election. So all of this hemming and hawing
(17:36):
and deep anguished sometimes analysis by people like Judleagan will
go to Naught because they'll send the stuff to Okay
magazine and they'll publish it. I'm in favor of that,
if only to even up the score for twenty sixteen
and then we pass a law or something. Does it
(17:59):
look like there's anything in these newest leagues about any
of the latest quartet of amazing examples of every fascist
accusation is actually a confession stories my god. The Guardian
reports that Kevin Roberts literally the tour of Project twenty
twenty five. While the Republicans are insisting immigrants are eating
your pets. Kevin Roberts is revealed to allegedly have done
(18:21):
a Christynome before Christynome was uncool, kill the dog the
neighbor's dog with a shovel for barking, quoting he told
university colleagues about two decades ago that he had killed
a neighborhood dog with a shovel because it was barking
and disturbing his family, According to former colleagues who spoke
(18:43):
to The Guardian. Quote My recollection of his account was
that he was discussing in the hallway with various members
of the faculty, including me, that a neighbor's dog had
been barking pretty relentlessly and was, you know, keeping the
baby and probably the parents awake, and that he kind
of lost it then took a shovel and killed the dog.
End of problem, said Kenneth Hammond, who was the chair
(19:05):
of the university's history department at the time. Two other people,
a professor and her spouse, recall hearing a similar account
directly from Roberts at a dinner at his home. Three
other professors also said they heard the account at that
time from the colleagues, who said they had heard it
directly from Roberts. None recall Roberts, who worked at that
(19:25):
university as an assistant professor from two thousand and three
to two thousand and five, ever saying that the dog
he allegedly said he killed was actively threatening him or
his family. In a statement to The Guardian, Roberts denied
ever killing a dog with a shovel. End quote. You
guys at the Guardian ask him if he ever killed
a dog without a shovel. Did he then say? No?
(19:47):
Comment one quote here where is it again? Keeping the
parents awake, and that he kind of lost it and
took a shovel. And killed the democracy. No dog not democracy,
as to would be Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno. No, it's
(20:08):
not misogyny, a agism that made him claim that women
should not be one issue abortion voters, especially those over fifty,
implying that women over fifty would never need an abortion,
so why would they care. I mean, there is misogyny
in agism, but mostly this is just Bernie Moreno is
a moron, another knit wit, the kind who does not
(20:30):
know that women over fifty have daughters who might want
the right to control their own bodies, or even if
they don't have daughters, they might just want, you know,
lawful rights for other citizens. Vote Republican, elect another moron
to the Senate. Look, you can't spell moron without Moreno.
(20:54):
There it is mor e no. The Texas Observer reports
that the human Donut Trump henchman Jason Miller had his
email appear in the same data breach that contributed to
Mark Robinson's Week from Hell. It's the same email Miller
was connected to in court documents. The Texas Observer says
(21:16):
New York fascist congressant Anthony Desposito, one of his party's moderates,
wins the double play award. The New York Times reports
the ex New York City cop and by the way,
everybody who is not an ex New York City cop
appears to be an ex New York City staffer for
Mayor Eric Adams. They're dropping like flies. Desposito hired his
(21:38):
fiance's daughter as a part time paid employee in his
congressional district office right after he assumed that job. Then
last April, that's April twenty twenty three, he hired somebody
else as another part time paid employee in the same
office his mistress. Surprisingly enough, this is not only a
(21:59):
violation of ethics rules, but it's also of how dumb
is this mook rules because it led to the fiance
finding out about the mistress. And if you think Congress
and Desposito is pathetic, the fiance then took him back.
(22:24):
And lastly, this bulletin comic relief. There's the new British
Prime Minister, Secure Starmer. I like him, but at his
first Labor Party conference as Prime Minister, he proved that
Trump isn't the only one who needs significant remedial prompter work.
I am very good at teaching the reading of teleprompters.
(22:46):
I can get him up to speed with like three
or four half an hour sessions. Just fly me to London.
I'll get right to work. The line at the party
conference was I call again for immediate cease fire in Gaza,
the return learn of the hostages. Only he didn't say hostages.
(23:11):
I call again from immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the return
of the sausages. A hostital It sounds better with an
English accent, but yeah, you heard it. He still said
return of the sausages, return of the sausages, hostages, the
(23:32):
hostage sausages. Let's everybody break.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
For lunch, and Stormer was in Egypt's land, Let my
sausages go.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Also of interest here in an all new edition. It's
the funniest thing I have ever seen, and yes it's
about me, and the other thing somewhat related to it
is the dumbest thing I have ever seen. And it's
about why journalists should should sleep with their sausages. Oh, no, sources,
(24:16):
why they should sleep with their sources. And it's from
the former media reporter of the New York Goddamn Holy Times.
And he's also the co founder of Semaphore News, and honestly,
he should never be allowed to work again in the
sausage making business of news in his life. On this
(24:38):
talk of sausages and I'm drooling. That's next. This is Countdown.
This is Countdown with Keith Olberman still ahead of us,
(25:07):
on this all new edition of Countdown. Next. In Things
I promised not to tell, they were the second most
important hockey team in Ithaca, New York. They had ex
Cornell's standouts on them. They played teams like the Montreal Canadians,
old Timers, the Asian pro They used to fill or
nearly fill Cornell's famous rink. They had Cornell Hall of
(25:29):
Famer Bill Duffy on their team, and the greatest name
in hockey history played for them, Winger Murray Death, though
he was beginning to change the pronunciation to death. Good call.
And then they did something to me, to my radio station,
to my sports department, to my aspirations that caused me,
(25:50):
at the age of nineteen, to go on the air
and flat out lie and say they had gone out
of business. The Saga of the Ithaca Stars rest in peace,
and all new things I promised not to tell. First,
there are still more new idiots to talk about the
daily roundup of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger
(26:12):
effects specimens who constitute two days worst persons in the world,
the Brons the worst. Abby Phillip, CNN's ten PM anchor,
I bet you didn't know that, the CNN anchor doing
the absolute best impressions of both Maggie Haberman and Chuck
Todd and occasionally Chris Solisi. After parroting the Trump fascist
(26:34):
talking point that Kamala Harris has somehow been in charge
of the southern border and the Republican complaint that she
hasn't gone to the southern border and done a performative
political photo op just like all the Republicans do, and
all the nitwits at CNN can just barely process because
it does fit into one of the very few story
templates they can begin to understand, and it involves sane washing.
(26:57):
After all of that, Abby Phillip is now complaining that
Vice President Harris is going to the border. First, Philip said,
there was polling that said Trump would be better on
the issue unquote, because shoving immigrants and their supporters into
concentration camps where guess what, genius some of them are
going to die is much better than the compromise that
(27:19):
Harris supported and Biden arranged and Trump vetoed for campaign reasons.
Philip after that, nit wittedly added that Harris is quote
hoping to change the narrative that she's soft on immigration.
One of the things about this moment, I mean, the
Harris campaign has just been trying to float above it all,
to float above the immigration arguments, float above some of
(27:40):
the nitty gritty details on some of this policy. But
this shows that they realize they have to do something. Well,
if anybody in this country's going to know about floating
above it all, it would be a CNN anchor, especially
the lowest rated host in cable news primetime. Thursday, barely
half of Laurence O'Donnell's audience, one quarter of Greg got
(28:04):
fields audience. My god, how could you show up to
work the next day?
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Hey?
Speaker 1 (28:10):
How are the ratings? Jesus Jesus Jesus Friday Friday Abby
Philip had an average of eighty six thousand viewers under
the age of fifty five for reference and its Apples
to Oranges. I know my number has nothing to do
with under fifty five. It's a total. But on Friday,
this podcast between its online audience and its YouTube audience.
(28:33):
This thing had one hundred and sixteen two hundred and
twenty one viewers and listeners. Can't imagine why she's in
last place floating a bubbado. The runner up worser Mike Lindell,
the guy who has smoked too many pillows, his latest
attempt to offset his eleventy billion dollar debt that has
been driven up insisting Trump didn't lose the election he lost.
(28:55):
Glendell is now selling pillows at steep discounts. Your costs
fourteen dollars and eighty eight cents teen eighty eight. Fourteen
eighty eight, What an odd price. Lots of people sell
things that say fourteen dollars in ninety eight cents or
fourteen dollars in ninety nine cents, but eighty eight cents. Well,
(29:18):
you know what fourteen eighty eight means, right, fourteen eighty eight.
On the white supremacist far right, the murderers, fourteen eighty
eight is one of the more common signals from one
of the scumbags to another of the scumberg bags, meaning Hey,
I'm a fellow scumbag. Let's go knife somebody. Why fourteen
(29:39):
eighty eight the price of the Lindell pillow. Fourteen means
the fourteen words as in quote, we must secure the
existence of our people and a future for white children.
Knowing how dumb these people are. I did check. It
is one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen. Yeah,
fourteen words, they got it right. Eighty eight. Well, those
(30:01):
are the numbers closest to the letters HH. As in
quote Kyle Hitler unquote, Mike Lindell says that this is
all ridiculous and it's Jessica coincidence. What would he know
about white supremacists? But our Winner? How in the world
has Mike Lindell avoided accidentally killing himself all this time?
(30:23):
Is that the greatest streak in human history? I mean,
he makes Keith Richards look like some sort of stay
at home get to bed at six thirty pm diletton
who only drinks tea. But Our Winner. Ben Smith, editor
and co founder of Semaphore Media. Now, I said I
didn't have much more to say about Olivia Newzy and
(30:46):
that she lived with me, but I did want to
mention some other things, mostly throwaways about her, even good
jokes about her. But I only saw this the other day.
What Ben Smith wrote about this is the most amazingly
tone deaf thing. Don't have anything to do with me.
It's the most amazingly toned deaf thing I've read about her,
or even about RFK Junior, or maybe about anything in
(31:08):
the history of news reporting. I'll get to it in
a second. First, the actual Newsy news UZI updates. This
is from CNN's Brian Stelter. Are other outlets reviewing the
work of Olivia Newsy in the wake of her relationship
with Kennedy Junior, They aren't saying. Bloomberg is not commenting
on questions surrounding Newsy, who recently hosted the series Working
(31:31):
Capital at the outlet, where she interviewed prominent political leaders separately.
AMC Networks, which had commissioned a satirical drama that Newsy
was set to executive produce, is remaining mum on her
involvement in the project as an aside, And this would
be true of anybody, not just that it's her. I'm
just sort of liberated to talk about her now. How
(31:52):
could a satirical drama that Newsy was set to executive
produce possibly rival for sheer quality, the satirical drama that
Newsy has just lived for the last week, and featuring
such and such as Keith Overman at the end of
the credits. All right back to Ben Smith at Semaphore,
(32:15):
I had hoped to avoid writing about last week's big
media scandal. We were scooped to Max's eternal regret that's
their media guy by Oliver Darcy's excellent new newsletter status
after we ignored a Wednesday evening email from one Anderson Jones. Jones,
an anonymous sender with an Iowa IP address who has
(32:36):
since gone dark, had a news tip New York Magazines.
Olivia Newsy had disclosed to Box she'd had a romantic
relationship with Robert F. Kennedy Junior. Firstly, congrats on trying
to boast your way out of how you were scooped.
Right back to what Ben Smith wrote. But now that
we are in the full fury of American media prurience
(32:56):
and self righteousness, I'm going to risk my neck on
a slightly contrarian view. Reporters have all sorts of compromising
relationships with sources. Huh. The most compromising of all, and
the most common, is a reporter's fealty to someone who
gives them information. That's the real coin of this realm. Huh,
(33:20):
sex barely rates? Come on, you won't hear many American
journalists reckon with this. Some British journalists, naturally, have been
texting us to ask, oh texts, what the fuss is about?
If you're not sleeping with someone in a position of power,
how are you even a journalist? The advice writer Heather
have Roleski texted me Saturday that the world would be
(33:43):
much more exciting with more newsies around, but alas, the
world is inhabited by anonymously mailing moralists instead. When you're
in London, check out, Heather have Roleski. You can find
your phone number written on the wall somewhere. I suppose,
I mean, would you actually write that? Never mind? Are
(34:06):
you're a woman reporter? You're a woman, you're a reporter,
you're somehow you have no gender at all, you have
no sexual organs at all, And you would write the
world would be much more exciting with more newsies around,
But a last, the world is inhabited by anonymously emailing
moralists instead, leading the guy to write, how are you
(34:27):
even a journalist, if you're not sleeping with someone in
a position of power, my god, advice and she's an
advice writer. Dear Heather, the President of the United States
wants to sleep with me. He'll give me a scoop
and a button. Should I do it? My yes, you
(34:48):
ought to, Dearie, Oh my god. Back to ben Smith.
Many of Newsy's critics were furious at her over a
July fourth story about members of Joe Biden's inner circle
who felt he was too old to run for president.
How these critics ask now, could she have done that
story fairly if she had add an emotional attachment to
a fringe candidate. And this is where two values of
(35:09):
journalism part ways. The obvious defense of that story is
that it was true, something few Democrats now contest, though
the few that do continue to loudly fill up our
email inboxes and Twitter mentions. Okay, if you got bribed
to write a story, or you offered to write a
(35:31):
story in exchange for something from the person who benefited
from the story, you're not a journalist anymore. This is
just occurring to Bensmith, who was a media columnist for
a national newspaper until he started this piece of shit Semaphore.
But we're also in the business of trust as well
as truth. Who's this we ben, You're not in the business.
(35:53):
That's not what we do. I mean you have to
draw the line somewhere, and that line is taking off
your pants in front of us source and for those purposes,
the appearance of conflict it is in fact bad enough.
It undermines reasonable people's trust, and there's no real defense
for that. And so before I have to hand over
(36:13):
my editor's badge, I should mention he's almost saved it
now has any I should mention, don't worry, he won't.
I should mention that Our policy here at Semaphore is
that if you're having a romantic relationship with a subject
of your coverage, for the love of God, tell your
editor that's right there on the wall under Employees must
(36:36):
wash hands, especially if you're having a romantic relationship with
the subject of your coverage. In other words, it's fine
to f the F and Robert F. Kennedy Junior literally
or merely via electronic and digital. The word used was digital.
I'm just not going to touch that as it were.
(36:58):
It's fine to do that, but if you haven't told
your editor about it. If you need to screw somebody
to get this, we can give you a bonus or
at least a condom. For the love of God, tell
your editor well, well, Ben Smith, congrats on destroying any
possible credibility Semaphore might ever achieve. I mean now, I
have to wonder who they ft to get the rights
(37:22):
to use that typeface on their letters and their website.
I wonder who fed them to bury that story that
you will never see in Semaphore. You're done, Ben, Fold,
fold the organization. If you own stock in this, if
they sell stock, I have no idea sell the stock.
This is madness to defend the idea that reporters, and
(37:45):
not only that, but to insist that reporters constantly do
this madness. You will be surprised to find out that
when he co founded seven four I mentioned this, he
was with the National paper Guests, which one Ben was
with the New York Times. Now understand why everything's gone
(38:06):
to hell in a handbasket in the New York Times.
Either everybody there is sleeping with somebody in the Trump campaign,
or everybody there isn't sleeping with somebody in the Trump campaign,
or everybody in there was sleeping with somebody in the
Trump campaign, and they reported it to their editor, who said, well,
you can't do that anymore, and now they're all frustrated.
(38:26):
Now to eleven this, I will have three postscripts. One,
I will say one thing I realized today about my
relationship with Olivia. I only realized it when I found
myself writing it online. The phrase by Felicia from the
movie Fridays. I've used it in sportscasts and newscast I've
(38:48):
used it on this podcast. Olivia taught me that phrase. Man,
let's break into the New York Post's feed and put
that out there. And then this from the Twitter account
at what forty six has done the Biden accomplishments. This
is so funny. I think she would laugh at it. Quote.
The more I learn about Olivia Newsy, the more I
(39:09):
think that maybe her animosity towards Joe Biden was because
he didn't want to date her. Oh oh my god,
do I feel seen. But best of all, that New
York Post gossip story Monday about my extremely peripheral role
in this saga, this satirical series. I bought the actual
(39:36):
physical newspaper of the New York Post yesterday, just on
a hunch, thinking I wonder how this looks in the print.
First time in like ten years I spent any money
on the New York Post, and there in the latest
roundup of the Newsy News was a small but glowing
red box with white letters on it and their gossip
(39:58):
logo page six on one half of the glowing red box,
and then on the other side it read in big
bold letters quote. She also dated Alberman. It's the funniest
thing I have ever seen in my life. If you
heard minutes of unending laughter wafting out over the land
(40:24):
reaching the Pacific around one fifteen pm Eastern until about
one point thirty Eastern, that was me outside a store
that actually still sells newspapers on Second Avenue in New York.
She also dated Alberman White on red Not only is
it now my background on my Twitter page, Not only
(40:46):
am I getting it framed, I'm thinking of getting it
as a tattoo and on my memorial marker whenever the
time comes. Anyway, Back to the point, been sleeping with
my sources. That's ridiculous. Why do you think I got
into this business? Smith? Two days? Worst person then the
(41:12):
world I mentioned recently that one of the things I
wanted to do. In fact, my original career goal in
(41:32):
broadcasting was to become play by play announcer of the
New York Yankees. The second one, and the one that
I actually tried to work on for a while, was
to become play by play announcer of the New York
Rangers hockey team. My high school, Hackley, had a hockey
team and a radio station, not that anybody listened to us,
and we had a sports director. His name was Chris Berman,
(41:53):
and he did the basketball games, and one day put
out an ad for somebody to do the hockey games.
And the requirement was do you own your own cassette
tape recorder? And I've played you the tapes of what
I sounded like like long before my voice even began
to change. The play by play wasn't bad for a
thirteen year old kid. And I have to say the
next year, nineteen seventy three, when the Pittsburgh Penguins job
(42:15):
opened for play by play radio guy, I had the
nuts to actually send them a tape and say, look,
I know my voice is a little high, but think
of the novelty aspect. So I always wanted to do
hockey play by play, and then I went to Cornell,
which might as well have had a professional hockey franchise,
And that's still true. Lina Rink is one of the
great sporting event locales in the world, certainly in college hockey.
(42:38):
And it always sold out, and the team was competitive
and number one in the IVY League and a national
championship contender. And the rights to the games were owned
by Cornell and immediately, of course dispersed to the two
radio stations Cornell University, Inc. Owned, so we never got
close to doing play by play of Cornell hockey. I
(42:59):
once asked my friend who was the general manager of
those stations, Don Martin, who I've talked about here before
as one of the most import people I ever met
in broadcasting. I asked him, could we do the JV Games?
Could we do the women's games? No, because you'll get
advertising for it. I know you'll do a good job.
You'll be taking bread out of the food of my announcers.
And I was like, yeah, but I'm asking for like
(43:19):
one slice of bread. You're gonna go far, but not
in Ithaca. So anyway, one day a fellow named Al
Goldstein who had come to us I believe, from Berkeley, California,
and was twenty eight years old and long past college
days or college radio days, moved to Ithaca, New York
(43:40):
to try to become a radio sportscaster, newscaster, radio salesman,
and had heard had done research on this and had
determined that WVBR, the student owned professional radio station at
Cornell University, was the best training ground for radio in
the country. Al was known as Weird Al and before
(44:05):
a Yankovic, and he was a delightful guy. And he
used all the southern or northern California lingo that none
of us understood, happening in Gnarley and all these other
things long before they became famous things. I was like,
what did I'll just say I'm not sure, but whatever.
He works hard. So he did sports cast, and he
(44:25):
did newscast, and he became a salesman because we sold
advertising on the radio station. And one day he came
to me he said, you know, Ko, I've been talking
to h a lot of my clients out there, and
they I just mentioned the Ethaica stars and their eyes
light up, like why aren't they on the radio? I mean,
like I know it's not Cornell hockey man, but they
(44:47):
Cornell Hockey gets four thousand people, Ethica Stars get eighteen
hundred years. There's a lot of people people want to hear.
Why don't we do the games? I'd get it sponsored immediately,
and I went say that part again, and he went
through it again, and I said, why don't we? So
we all knew the president of the Ethica Stars. It was,
I believe a car salesman. His name was Bob Toddy
(45:08):
called him up and said, how much for the rights
to broadcast your games? Would do it on an experimental
basis and he went first ones free and I said,
I think my colleagues here will agree to that, and
sure enough we scheduled a broadcast of the Ithaca Stars
versus somebody. The Ethica Stars would be made up of
(45:29):
Cornell graduates who did not make it in professional hockey,
or had played professional hockey and lived in the area
came back to Ithaca. In other words, if you were
a Cornell Hockey star in nineteen seventy two and did
not make a career of it, you could become an
Ehaica Stars star in nineteen seventy eight, which is when
we are in the history of semi pro hockey in
this country. And they did. They drew two thousand a
(45:50):
game at line of rink. They almost often when it
would be a team like the Montreal Former Canadians, they
would fill the place out people like their hockey and
Ethica New York. The ice is already there, the rank
is fent. So we put Al out on this and
I was like, we'll try it, and I'll do the games,
and the program director, Glen Cornelius, he'll be the he'll
(46:13):
be my color man, and we'll have somebody host in
between periods, and we'll have a reporter and we'll you know,
maybe we'll get some wireless. But Al came back in
twenty four hours and said sold it out. I was like,
but I figured out how many availabilities we'd have and
how many spots, and we have a waiting list. We've
already taken in like twenty thousand dollars for this. I went,
are you out of your mind? He goes, no, man,
let's go ahead to don't tell Toddy, this will be
(46:35):
demanding money. But I bet if we do, you know,
we could do ten games before the end of their season.
I was like, let's go. So we now begin to
promote this thing on WVBR coming up on Saturday night,
and Glenn Cornelius and I go to a Corneill hockey
practice and we do a practice broadcast of a game,
and We're like, this isn't bad, and I'm thinking, maybe
I could still become a hockey play by play man
(46:57):
and my voice is changing. Maybe I can send the
tape to the Pittsburgh Penguins again. So now this is
mony day or Tuesday, and then the broadcast is coming
up on Saturday. And we went wall to wall every
commercial break on WVBR, every newscast, every sports cast, every
disc jockey show, even the public affairs broadcasts. In the breaks,
(47:17):
it was don't forget to listen to the other guitars
They're premiering on WVBR with Keith Olduman and Glenn Cornelias,
and we had five announcers, and we literally rented wireless mikes,
and we had this whole thing. We had a scoreboard
show planned in a studio. It was just it was
it was network level excess. On Friday afternoon, I walked
(47:40):
into the radio station and Al Goldstein was sitting at
the desk in the newsroom that I usually used in
my chair in front of my typewriter went ashen and
Al had what would have been politely referred to as
ruddy complexion, and he was white as a sheet. And
I said, what's wrong? He goes, what's go inside? Man,
It's goingside. And we went into a studio and he went,
(48:01):
they canceled the game. I went, what our game? Our
game tomorrow night? It's canceled. I said, what do you
mean it's canceled the Apparently there's a they forgot they
forgot to rent the rink. So what do you mean
they forgot to rent the rink? They think the Stars
have been in business for twenty years. Suddenly he forgets
to rent the rink. Yeah, there's a JV women's hockey
(48:24):
practice and they won't interrupt it. They won't change it.
There's no game Saturday. Man. I can't remember the rest
of that day. I do know from having gone and
listen to the tape that at some point I decided
that there was a very simple solution to this that
more than likely my old friend Don Martin from WHCUA
(48:45):
enough Mythica had prevailed upon Bob Toddy, the general manager
of the Ethica Stars, to not have any game that
would be broadcast on WVBR and the mention, by the way,
when we called Bob Toddy and did the nineteen seventy
eight equivalent of WTF on his backside, he said, I've
(49:06):
also rethought the whole idea. We're not going to do
any more games on radio. So we haven't done any
goddamn games on radio because you just forgot to rent
the rink. What kind of business are you in? Do
you sell cars that don't have wheels? I hung up
on them. I was just the same then when I
was twenty years old. In fact, I was still nineteen.
I'm very proud of that. In any event, we solved
this one pretty clearly. I went on the air that
(49:27):
night and I said, we have breaking news from the
world of semi pro hockey. It's sad news, particularly in
light of the fact that we were intending to bring
you the Ithaca Stars game tomorrow night here on WVBRS.
You may have heard in the three thousand advertisements we
do for today, we have bad news. The Ithaca Stars
have gone bankrupt. Don't mess with the nineteen year old olderman.
(49:56):
Thank you very much. As a PostScript. By the way,
I wasn't lying about the Ethica Stars, I was just premature.
The Stars did not go out of business during that
(50:17):
nineteen seventy eight seventy nine season, but after the nineteen
seventy nine eighty season audios don't f with the Jesus
I've done all the damage I can do here ask
the ethic of Stars. Thanks for listening. We're now back
to five episodes a week, posting nightly just after midnight Eastern.
Once again, there is a Monday Countdown. Please forward this
(50:39):
to a non listener who should fix that and start listening.
The credits Brian Ray and John Phillip Schanel, the musical
directors of Countdown, have arranged, produced, and performed most of
our music. Mister Shanelle handled out orchestration and keyboards, and
mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums. It
was produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and fifthy musical
comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust.
(51:02):
The sports music is the Lberman theme from ESPN two,
written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Other
music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
On my announcer today is my friend Kenny Maine, who
never played for the Ethic of Stars, although he was
a quarterback in college. Everything else was, as always, pretty
much my fault. That's countdown for today, five weeks and
(51:25):
six days until the twenty twenty four presidential election, the
three hundred and fifty ninth day since convicted felon drooling
Jay Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government
of the United States. Use the election, use the metal
health system, use presidential immunity if we have to, to
keep him from doing it again while we still can.
(51:50):
The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bulletins as the news requires.
Until then, I'm Keith Olderman. Good Morning, good afternoon, good night.
Once again the can Keith hit the post challenge? Good Luck?
Speaker 2 (52:05):
What Yes?
Speaker 1 (52:16):
The Return of the SUS Countdown with Keith Oldman is
a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. I
don't want to alarm you. But Trump drooled in the
(00:26):
middle of his mindless fugue State rant at Savannah, Georgia yesterday,
and then a scant forty five minutes later, he revealed
he had just found out that Russia was on our
side against Hitler in World War Two. These are not metaphors.
This is tough to convey audio only, but listen carefully.
(00:49):
It's quick. I'll play it three times. You can hear him.
He dribbles on himself and says, forced to be out.
You'll hear it. Sounds like forced. That's the drool. He
wipes it away with his left forefinger between out and
because stand by for the Republican candidate for dementia in chief,
(01:13):
drooling on himself. Want to be but they were forced
to be out because in this country. But they were
forced to be out because in this country. But they
were forced to be out because you know how old
he is, He's two hundred and six. Trump was sweating
like a Steve Adore during the last half hour of
the last debate, repeatedly having to as the baseball guys say,
(01:34):
go to his mouth to wipe the perspiration off his
upper lip. And now live from Savannah, it's dribble cup night.
Did you see that on the news last night? Even
on cable? If that had happened to President Biden two
months ago, they would have played that on a loop
(01:54):
for well, the show would not yet be over, would
it on CNN? Back and to the left back, and
to the left, left back, and to the let right.
There there's the Drowoel in point of fact, seeing and
described this Jewel speech as Trump focuses on economy at
(02:16):
stop in battleground Georgia, and then somehow Trump's hallucinations got worse.
We will not leave until we win. What happens if
they win. That's what they do is they fight wars.
As somebody told me the other day, they beat Hitler,
(02:37):
they beat Napoleon. That's what they do.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
They fight something.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
He just told me, Hey, did you hear the news
Napoleon got the crap beaten out of them at Borodino,
like forty thousand casualties, like fifty dead generals. I didn't
know Napoleon had fifty generals. Yeah, I just saw it
on Channel nineteeneteenth century. Somebody just told me Russia beat Hitler.
(03:09):
Good God, wherever Trump's mind has gone to, it has
caused him to reveal he has no sense of world history,
even things that happened during his lifetime, no more sense
of it than the director Roger Debris in the mel
Brooks movie The Producers. I never knew the Third Reich
meant Germany. I mean the play is drenched with historical
(03:30):
goodies like that. I appreciate that. Every two weeks or so,
I take up some of your increasingly valuable time and
I say, look, his brain is so loosely attached to reality,
it is going to have to fall out soon. But
maybe it's not. Maybe he has kind of lucid stretches
(03:51):
where he's just evil, and then these really crazy stretches
where he's evil and stupid and drooling, and he not
only thinks Jimmy Kimmel hosts the Tonight Show, but that
it's time for Jimmy to go and it's time to
bring back Well, it's time to say he Johnny, I
went on this show, right, And he goes to Tonight's show,
(04:13):
which is dying. They're all dying with is Johnny Carson?
Bring back Johnny it made you appreciate, right, uncle Seth.
I know Johnny Carson used to take a lot of
time off towards the end of his Tonight show. But
that's not what this absence is. What this absence is
is he's dead. That's what this absence is since two
thousand and five. Johnny isn't here. Johnny is here, Johnny
(04:39):
isn't here. I mean, we haven't even gotten to the
substantial things yet, like this stalker language he used towards
women in a speech two nights ago, about how he'll
be their protector and they'll never have to worry again
and they'll never think about abortions. And I'm listening to
Trump and I'm thinking, is he quoting Sean Diddy Combs
or was Sean Didty Combs quoting him? And we still
(05:03):
haven't even gotten to the ma madness of the immigrants story.
He's still on the Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio and
his plans to send them back to Venezuela because he
apparently legitimately thinks that's where Haiti is. Haiti is in
Venezuela in the Trump world, where he just found out
(05:24):
that the Russians beat Napoleon in one century and helped
us beat Hitler in the other Haiti, or as JV.
Vance calls it, Haitia. And No, Trump did not actually
call for tattooing all immigrants from Haitia and others places
with serial numbers, like you know, the Nazi death caps.
(05:47):
He didn't do that, not because he'd never do something
like that, but because he already thinks they have serial numbers.
I mean, this was the exact quote. We're getting the
criminals out, and we're going to do that fast, and
we know who they are, and the local police know
their names, and they know their serial numbers, they know
everything about them unquote. If this guy's just finding out
(06:09):
about Napoleon losing at Borodino in eighteen twelve, I'm thinking
it's a fair assumption that he doesn't know that they
don't have serial numbers right now, just like he doesn't
know that you don't have to produce an ID card
to buy a sandwich at the grocery store. And when
he does find out that they don't have serial numbers,
he will go the Holocaust route with them, or maybe
(06:31):
go right to barcodes. The good news here is a
group called Haitian Bridge Alliance in Springfield, Ohio has filed
suit in Clark County Municipal Court demanding that the local
district attorney filed criminal charges against Trump Advance for lying
about the Haitian immigrants, for lying about their legal status here,
(06:52):
for lying about their positive impact on that city. And
this is not God bless them, just a somebody do
something thing quote like those who falsely shout fire in
a crowded theater. Trump and Vance do not color within
the lines of the First Amendment. They commit criminal acts.
(07:12):
Your god damned right they do. This complaint demands prosecutions
for seven specific charges covering five specific criminal offenses in
the city and state codes, disrupting public services, making false alarms,
aggravated menacing complicity, and telecommunications harassment. It is a brilliant
(07:38):
and necessary action, and every group threatened by Trump and
his monkey wearing eyeliner Vance should file similar motions in
every jurisdiction in this country into which Trump has drooled
his drool of regret and his venom of remorse. For
(07:59):
Vance in particular, this is going to create an impossible
situation if he and Trump lose, which I presume Vance
has not for one moment actually contemplated. He took office
already hated by nearly half his constituents. He has induced
so many bomb threats now in Springfield, Ohio, I am
surprised his phone has not been seized by the police.
(08:19):
Now imagine him the subject of a series of forced
prosecutions by pro Haitian groups around the state of Ohio.
I'm the character witness for the Haitian group. Who are you?
I'm the Republican mayor of Springfield, Ohio. It is Vance,
of course, who continues to insist that the Haitians legally
in Ohio are not there legally, and even worse, to
(08:43):
say that their legal status is in fact fluid, that
it can be withdrawn at his and Trump's instruction. The
pandora's box this opens is astonishing, because, if allowed to happen,
it could be a gateway to the revocation of citizenship
for people who were born here but whose parents were
not born here, you know, like Milania Trump, or you
(09:08):
could deport any naturalized citizen, you know, like Elon musk. Okay,
let me think this for a moment. I'm beginning to
sense that maybe under responsible control, this idea could be
you know, revoked citizenship there could be really useful. So, sir,
you were born here and your father was born here,
(09:28):
but his father was born in Germany. And what does
it say here your mother was born in Scotland. What
part America is Scotland? Sir? I'm afraid, sir. Under the
new naturalization process, you are now considered an anchor baby.
And looking at you, I can see the emphasis here
(09:49):
is on baby, and your citizenship is revoked. Mister Trump,
here's your ticket back to Venezuela. You want to go
(10:27):
to the change the rules in the middle of the
game game, Let's play that game. Let's play that goddamn game.
Let's find out where your grandparents are from, where was
your mother born? You're out just for like thirty three
people in this country, starting with Trump and Musk and Milanna,
(10:49):
rather astonishingly between the drooling and the more commonplace world history.
You should never, never ever admit you didn't know until recently,
like who beat Hitler and Napoleon. Trump has also made
what I think is the first overt threat to im
and political critics. He's still going kind of sideways on this,
but it's there. They were very brave. The Supreme court
(11:11):
very brave, and they take a lot of hits because
of it. It should be illegal what happens.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
You know, you have these guys like playing the ref
like the great Bobby Knight. These people should be put
in jail the way they talk about our judges and
our justices.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Ironically, the first guy who would go to prison for
criticizing judges would be Trump. Ask Judge Chutkin and Judge
Mershon and Judge Kaplan and Judge Curiel from the Trump
College of Khan Man Knowledge case and all the other judges.
It's funny, isn't it that he's still more enraged against
Mershan than against Chutkin because Chutkin just sent more shutters
(11:49):
through Trump's camp and encouraged more anticipatory drooling. Sorry in
law abiding America. The backup scenario for when the corrupt
Supreme Theocratic Court urinated on the Constitution to give Trump
just enough immunity to delay his trials until after the election.
The backup plan for that event will be engaged in
(12:12):
the next twenty four to thirty six hours. Not only
will much of Special Counsel Jacksmith's evidence against Trump in
the elections subversion case be revealed publicly, but it will
be revealed supersized over the weekend. Smith advised the judge
that his opening brief would in fact be an opening
not so brief, and rather than the customary thirty five
(12:34):
forty fifty pages, it might be two hundred. Looks like
the actual number of pages will be one hundred and
eighty pages. Please no wagering Trump's attorneys this month's Trump's
attorneys immediately filed a motion to suppress or delay or
refuse or hold their breath, and as usual, Chuck and
not only denied them, she denied them, then slapped them
(12:56):
and told them you'll get nothing, and you'll like it.
She writes in her ruling, allowing a brief from the
government is not quote, contrary to law, procedure and cut
as defendant claims, it is simply how litigation works. Unquote.
She left out the two additional words, you assholes, because
well we all know she meant them, so why did
(13:17):
she have to bother and write them down. The filing
deadline for Jacksmith is tomorrow, so it could be filed today, They,
for custom probably will wait till tomorrow, whichever it will
go into the court. Listener dot Com documents Harvester, and
then stand well back because all hell's going to break loose.
(13:37):
Remember this will be the amended Smith filing against Trump
for you know, trying to encourage others to break every
law we have and violently overthrow the government elect of
this nation. Minus all those things that Smith believes the
Supreme Court intends to let Trump get away with via
its phony boloney immunity ruling. Well, I have you a
(14:09):
couple of poll numbers Bullfinch poll with some amazing states.
This is after the Mark Robinson scandal. North Carolina Harris
by two. They also have her Georgia by two, and
in Florida they have Trump by one one and Senator
Rick Scott by two. These are registered voters, though likely
(14:30):
voters would probably be a little looser. Poll close September
twenty three. Nationally, Quinnipiac tied at forty eight. A month ago,
Quinnipiac was Harris by one, so no change. Nationally CNN
Harris forty eight, Trump forty seven. Nationally IPSOS for Reuters
Harris fifty Trump forty four, and again the variations are
(14:50):
all based on one thing. Those last three numbers are
likely voters are you a likely voter. Yes, I don't
think you are. Okay, then I'm not on your poll.
You bet you're not inside the seat pulling a bunch
of favorability numbers. In January, Harris was underwater by twenty points.
She is now underwater by just four Trump was under
(15:13):
by nineteen points in January. He is now underwater by
twelve vance. Who, when only one quarter of this nation
knew who the hell he was in June was underwater
by seven points, is now known by three quarters of
the country and is now underwater by twelve points. Gurgle,
gurgle alone in the CNN poll Tim Walls apparently we
(15:38):
like Tim Walls thirty six to thirty two. It appears
Trump is being hacked again. Jud Legum met Popular Information
says somebody named Robert sent his organization Trump campaign info
on the fifteenth. He's not publishing it. This isn't the
Post or the Times or the others who tend to
(15:59):
turn the gravity on and off journalistically whenever they feel
like it. Jud had chops. I'm not sure I agree
with him, but at least he went into detail about
why he has done what he has done, and he
has explained what the others have not. He has characterized
what the leaks talk about. I'll quote him. I believe
(16:23):
that in some circumstances, the publication of leaked materials can
be justified. The Pentagon papers, for example, were obtained illegally
by Daniel Elsberg, but the public interest in revealing the
truth about the Vietnam War outweighed those concerns. The internal
Trump campaign documents obtained by Popular Information may be embarrassing
or problematic to members of the Trump campaign. Some of
(16:47):
the documents have news value, but the stolen materials do
not provide the public with any fundamental new insight about
Trump or his campaign. So on balance, the relevant factors
argue against publication. What I suspect will happen will be
that eventually Robert or whoever is behind this, Iranians, Mike Pence,
(17:14):
people who like their presidential candidates to know about Hitler
and Napoleon and Russia Battle of Borodino, whoever is responsible,
sometime just before the election, will find a news organization
or a semi news organization that will print stuff right
before the election. So all of this hemming and hawing
(17:36):
and deep anguished sometimes analysis by people like Judleagan will
go to Naught because they'll send the stuff to Okay
magazine and they'll publish it. I'm in favor of that,
if only to even up the score for twenty sixteen
and then we pass a law or something. Does it
(17:59):
look like there's anything in these newest leagues about any
of the latest quartet of amazing examples of every fascist
accusation is actually a confession stories my god. The Guardian
reports that Kevin Roberts literally the tour of Project twenty
twenty five. While the Republicans are insisting immigrants are eating
your pets. Kevin Roberts is revealed to allegedly have done
(18:21):
a Christynome before Christynome was uncool, kill the dog the
neighbor's dog with a shovel for barking, quoting he told
university colleagues about two decades ago that he had killed
a neighborhood dog with a shovel because it was barking
and disturbing his family, According to former colleagues who spoke
(18:43):
to The Guardian. Quote My recollection of his account was
that he was discussing in the hallway with various members
of the faculty, including me, that a neighbor's dog had
been barking pretty relentlessly and was, you know, keeping the
baby and probably the parents awake, and that he kind
of lost it then took a shovel and killed the dog.
End of problem, said Kenneth Hammond, who was the chair
(19:05):
of the university's history department at the time. Two other people,
a professor and her spouse, recall hearing a similar account
directly from Roberts at a dinner at his home. Three
other professors also said they heard the account at that
time from the colleagues, who said they had heard it
directly from Roberts. None recall Roberts, who worked at that
(19:25):
university as an assistant professor from two thousand and three
to two thousand and five, ever saying that the dog
he allegedly said he killed was actively threatening him or
his family. In a statement to The Guardian, Roberts denied
ever killing a dog with a shovel. End quote. You
guys at the Guardian ask him if he ever killed
a dog without a shovel. Did he then say? No?
(19:47):
Comment one quote here where is it again? Keeping the
parents awake, and that he kind of lost it and
took a shovel. And killed the democracy. No dog not democracy,
as to would be Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno. No, it's
(20:08):
not misogyny, a agism that made him claim that women
should not be one issue abortion voters, especially those over fifty,
implying that women over fifty would never need an abortion,
so why would they care. I mean, there is misogyny
in agism, but mostly this is just Bernie Moreno is
a moron, another knit wit, the kind who does not
(20:30):
know that women over fifty have daughters who might want
the right to control their own bodies, or even if
they don't have daughters, they might just want, you know,
lawful rights for other citizens. Vote Republican, elect another moron
to the Senate. Look, you can't spell moron without Moreno.
(20:54):
There it is mor e no. The Texas Observer reports
that the human Donut Trump henchman Jason Miller had his
email appear in the same data breach that contributed to
Mark Robinson's Week from Hell. It's the same email Miller
was connected to in court documents. The Texas Observer says
(21:16):
New York fascist congressant Anthony Desposito, one of his party's moderates,
wins the double play award. The New York Times reports
the ex New York City cop and by the way,
everybody who is not an ex New York City cop
appears to be an ex New York City staffer for
Mayor Eric Adams. They're dropping like flies. Desposito hired his
(21:38):
fiance's daughter as a part time paid employee in his
congressional district office right after he assumed that job. Then
last April, that's April twenty twenty three, he hired somebody
else as another part time paid employee in the same
office his mistress. Surprisingly enough, this is not only a
(21:59):
violation of ethics rules, but it's also of how dumb
is this mook rules because it led to the fiance
finding out about the mistress. And if you think Congress
and Desposito is pathetic, the fiance then took him back.
(22:24):
And lastly, this bulletin comic relief. There's the new British
Prime Minister, Secure Starmer. I like him, but at his
first Labor Party conference as Prime Minister, he proved that
Trump isn't the only one who needs significant remedial prompter work.
I am very good at teaching the reading of teleprompters.
(22:46):
I can get him up to speed with like three
or four half an hour sessions. Just fly me to London.
I'll get right to work. The line at the party
conference was I call again for immediate cease fire in Gaza,
the return learn of the hostages. Only he didn't say hostages.
(23:11):
I call again from immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the return
of the sausages. A hostital It sounds better with an
English accent, but yeah, you heard it. He still said
return of the sausages, return of the sausages, hostages, the
(23:32):
hostage sausages. Let's everybody break.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
For lunch, and Stormer was in Egypt's land, Let my
sausages go.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Also of interest here in an all new edition. It's
the funniest thing I have ever seen, and yes it's
about me, and the other thing somewhat related to it
is the dumbest thing I have ever seen. And it's
about why journalists should should sleep with their sausages. Oh, no, sources,
(24:16):
why they should sleep with their sources. And it's from
the former media reporter of the New York Goddamn Holy Times.
And he's also the co founder of Semaphore News, and honestly,
he should never be allowed to work again in the
sausage making business of news in his life. On this
(24:38):
talk of sausages and I'm drooling. That's next. This is Countdown.
This is Countdown with Keith Olberman still ahead of us,
(25:07):
on this all new edition of Countdown. Next. In Things
I promised not to tell, they were the second most
important hockey team in Ithaca, New York. They had ex
Cornell's standouts on them. They played teams like the Montreal Canadians,
old Timers, the Asian pro They used to fill or
nearly fill Cornell's famous rink. They had Cornell Hall of
(25:29):
Famer Bill Duffy on their team, and the greatest name
in hockey history played for them, Winger Murray Death, though
he was beginning to change the pronunciation to death. Good call.
And then they did something to me, to my radio station,
to my sports department, to my aspirations that caused me,
(25:50):
at the age of nineteen, to go on the air
and flat out lie and say they had gone out
of business. The Saga of the Ithaca Stars rest in peace,
and all new things I promised not to tell. First,
there are still more new idiots to talk about the
daily roundup of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger
(26:12):
effects specimens who constitute two days worst persons in the world,
the Brons the worst. Abby Phillip, CNN's ten PM anchor,
I bet you didn't know that, the CNN anchor doing
the absolute best impressions of both Maggie Haberman and Chuck
Todd and occasionally Chris Solisi. After parroting the Trump fascist
(26:34):
talking point that Kamala Harris has somehow been in charge
of the southern border and the Republican complaint that she
hasn't gone to the southern border and done a performative
political photo op just like all the Republicans do, and
all the nitwits at CNN can just barely process because
it does fit into one of the very few story
templates they can begin to understand, and it involves sane washing.
(26:57):
After all of that, Abby Phillip is now complaining that
Vice President Harris is going to the border. First, Philip said,
there was polling that said Trump would be better on
the issue unquote, because shoving immigrants and their supporters into
concentration camps where guess what, genius some of them are
going to die is much better than the compromise that
(27:19):
Harris supported and Biden arranged and Trump vetoed for campaign reasons.
Philip after that, nit wittedly added that Harris is quote
hoping to change the narrative that she's soft on immigration.
One of the things about this moment, I mean, the
Harris campaign has just been trying to float above it all,
to float above the immigration arguments, float above some of
(27:40):
the nitty gritty details on some of this policy. But
this shows that they realize they have to do something. Well,
if anybody in this country's going to know about floating
above it all, it would be a CNN anchor, especially
the lowest rated host in cable news primetime. Thursday, barely
half of Laurence O'Donnell's audience, one quarter of Greg got
(28:04):
fields audience. My god, how could you show up to
work the next day?
Speaker 2 (28:09):
Hey?
Speaker 1 (28:10):
How are the ratings? Jesus Jesus Jesus Friday Friday Abby
Philip had an average of eighty six thousand viewers under
the age of fifty five for reference and its Apples
to Oranges. I know my number has nothing to do
with under fifty five. It's a total. But on Friday,
this podcast between its online audience and its YouTube audience.
(28:33):
This thing had one hundred and sixteen two hundred and
twenty one viewers and listeners. Can't imagine why she's in
last place floating a bubbado. The runner up worser Mike Lindell,
the guy who has smoked too many pillows, his latest
attempt to offset his eleventy billion dollar debt that has
been driven up insisting Trump didn't lose the election he lost.
(28:55):
Glendell is now selling pillows at steep discounts. Your costs
fourteen dollars and eighty eight cents teen eighty eight. Fourteen
eighty eight, What an odd price. Lots of people sell
things that say fourteen dollars in ninety eight cents or
fourteen dollars in ninety nine cents, but eighty eight cents. Well,
(29:18):
you know what fourteen eighty eight means, right, fourteen eighty eight.
On the white supremacist far right, the murderers, fourteen eighty
eight is one of the more common signals from one
of the scumbags to another of the scumberg bags, meaning Hey,
I'm a fellow scumbag. Let's go knife somebody. Why fourteen
(29:39):
eighty eight the price of the Lindell pillow. Fourteen means
the fourteen words as in quote, we must secure the
existence of our people and a future for white children.
Knowing how dumb these people are. I did check. It
is one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen. Yeah,
fourteen words, they got it right. Eighty eight. Well, those
(30:01):
are the numbers closest to the letters HH. As in
quote Kyle Hitler unquote, Mike Lindell says that this is
all ridiculous and it's Jessica coincidence. What would he know
about white supremacists? But our Winner? How in the world
has Mike Lindell avoided accidentally killing himself all this time?
(30:23):
Is that the greatest streak in human history? I mean,
he makes Keith Richards look like some sort of stay
at home get to bed at six thirty pm diletton
who only drinks tea. But Our Winner. Ben Smith, editor
and co founder of Semaphore Media. Now, I said I
didn't have much more to say about Olivia Newzy and
(30:46):
that she lived with me, but I did want to
mention some other things, mostly throwaways about her, even good
jokes about her. But I only saw this the other day.
What Ben Smith wrote about this is the most amazingly
tone deaf thing. Don't have anything to do with me.
It's the most amazingly toned deaf thing I've read about her,
or even about RFK Junior, or maybe about anything in
(31:08):
the history of news reporting. I'll get to it in
a second. First, the actual Newsy news UZI updates. This
is from CNN's Brian Stelter. Are other outlets reviewing the
work of Olivia Newsy in the wake of her relationship
with Kennedy Junior, They aren't saying. Bloomberg is not commenting
on questions surrounding Newsy, who recently hosted the series Working
(31:31):
Capital at the outlet, where she interviewed prominent political leaders separately.
AMC Networks, which had commissioned a satirical drama that Newsy
was set to executive produce, is remaining mum on her
involvement in the project as an aside, And this would
be true of anybody, not just that it's her. I'm
just sort of liberated to talk about her now. How
(31:52):
could a satirical drama that Newsy was set to executive
produce possibly rival for sheer quality, the satirical drama that
Newsy has just lived for the last week, and featuring
such and such as Keith Overman at the end of
the credits. All right back to Ben Smith at Semaphore,
(32:15):
I had hoped to avoid writing about last week's big
media scandal. We were scooped to Max's eternal regret that's
their media guy by Oliver Darcy's excellent new newsletter status
after we ignored a Wednesday evening email from one Anderson Jones. Jones,
an anonymous sender with an Iowa IP address who has
(32:36):
since gone dark, had a news tip New York Magazines.
Olivia Newsy had disclosed to Box she'd had a romantic
relationship with Robert F. Kennedy Junior. Firstly, congrats on trying
to boast your way out of how you were scooped.
Right back to what Ben Smith wrote. But now that
we are in the full fury of American media prurience
(32:56):
and self righteousness, I'm going to risk my neck on
a slightly contrarian view. Reporters have all sorts of compromising
relationships with sources. Huh. The most compromising of all, and
the most common, is a reporter's fealty to someone who
gives them information. That's the real coin of this realm. Huh,
(33:20):
sex barely rates? Come on, you won't hear many American
journalists reckon with this. Some British journalists, naturally, have been
texting us to ask, oh texts, what the fuss is about?
If you're not sleeping with someone in a position of power,
how are you even a journalist? The advice writer Heather
have Roleski texted me Saturday that the world would be
(33:43):
much more exciting with more newsies around, but alas, the
world is inhabited by anonymously mailing moralists instead. When you're
in London, check out, Heather have Roleski. You can find
your phone number written on the wall somewhere. I suppose,
I mean, would you actually write that? Never mind? Are
(34:06):
you're a woman reporter? You're a woman, you're a reporter,
you're somehow you have no gender at all, you have
no sexual organs at all, And you would write the
world would be much more exciting with more newsies around,
But a last, the world is inhabited by anonymously emailing
moralists instead, leading the guy to write, how are you
(34:27):
even a journalist, if you're not sleeping with someone in
a position of power, my god, advice and she's an
advice writer. Dear Heather, the President of the United States
wants to sleep with me. He'll give me a scoop
and a button. Should I do it? My yes, you
(34:48):
ought to, Dearie, Oh my god. Back to ben Smith.
Many of Newsy's critics were furious at her over a
July fourth story about members of Joe Biden's inner circle
who felt he was too old to run for president.
How these critics ask now, could she have done that
story fairly if she had add an emotional attachment to
a fringe candidate. And this is where two values of
(35:09):
journalism part ways. The obvious defense of that story is
that it was true, something few Democrats now contest, though
the few that do continue to loudly fill up our
email inboxes and Twitter mentions. Okay, if you got bribed
to write a story, or you offered to write a
(35:31):
story in exchange for something from the person who benefited
from the story, you're not a journalist anymore. This is
just occurring to Bensmith, who was a media columnist for
a national newspaper until he started this piece of shit Semaphore.
But we're also in the business of trust as well
as truth. Who's this we ben, You're not in the business.
(35:53):
That's not what we do. I mean you have to
draw the line somewhere, and that line is taking off
your pants in front of us source and for those purposes,
the appearance of conflict it is in fact bad enough.
It undermines reasonable people's trust, and there's no real defense
for that. And so before I have to hand over
(36:13):
my editor's badge, I should mention he's almost saved it
now has any I should mention, don't worry, he won't.
I should mention that Our policy here at Semaphore is
that if you're having a romantic relationship with a subject
of your coverage, for the love of God, tell your
editor that's right there on the wall under Employees must
(36:36):
wash hands, especially if you're having a romantic relationship with
the subject of your coverage. In other words, it's fine
to f the F and Robert F. Kennedy Junior literally
or merely via electronic and digital. The word used was digital.
I'm just not going to touch that as it were.
(36:58):
It's fine to do that, but if you haven't told
your editor about it. If you need to screw somebody
to get this, we can give you a bonus or
at least a condom. For the love of God, tell
your editor well, well, Ben Smith, congrats on destroying any
possible credibility Semaphore might ever achieve. I mean now, I
have to wonder who they ft to get the rights
(37:22):
to use that typeface on their letters and their website.
I wonder who fed them to bury that story that
you will never see in Semaphore. You're done, Ben, Fold,
fold the organization. If you own stock in this, if
they sell stock, I have no idea sell the stock.
This is madness to defend the idea that reporters, and
(37:45):
not only that, but to insist that reporters constantly do
this madness. You will be surprised to find out that
when he co founded seven four I mentioned this, he
was with the National paper Guests, which one Ben was
with the New York Times. Now understand why everything's gone
(38:06):
to hell in a handbasket in the New York Times.
Either everybody there is sleeping with somebody in the Trump campaign,
or everybody there isn't sleeping with somebody in the Trump campaign,
or everybody in there was sleeping with somebody in the
Trump campaign, and they reported it to their editor, who said, well,
you can't do that anymore, and now they're all frustrated.
(38:26):
Now to eleven this, I will have three postscripts. One,
I will say one thing I realized today about my
relationship with Olivia. I only realized it when I found
myself writing it online. The phrase by Felicia from the
movie Fridays. I've used it in sportscasts and newscast I've
(38:48):
used it on this podcast. Olivia taught me that phrase. Man,
let's break into the New York Post's feed and put
that out there. And then this from the Twitter account
at what forty six has done the Biden accomplishments. This
is so funny. I think she would laugh at it. Quote.
The more I learn about Olivia Newsy, the more I
(39:09):
think that maybe her animosity towards Joe Biden was because
he didn't want to date her. Oh oh my god,
do I feel seen. But best of all, that New
York Post gossip story Monday about my extremely peripheral role
in this saga, this satirical series. I bought the actual
(39:36):
physical newspaper of the New York Post yesterday, just on
a hunch, thinking I wonder how this looks in the print.
First time in like ten years I spent any money
on the New York Post, and there in the latest
roundup of the Newsy News was a small but glowing
red box with white letters on it and their gossip
(39:58):
logo page six on one half of the glowing red box,
and then on the other side it read in big
bold letters quote. She also dated Alberman. It's the funniest
thing I have ever seen in my life. If you
heard minutes of unending laughter wafting out over the land
(40:24):
reaching the Pacific around one fifteen pm Eastern until about
one point thirty Eastern, that was me outside a store
that actually still sells newspapers on Second Avenue in New York.
She also dated Alberman White on red Not only is
it now my background on my Twitter page, Not only
(40:46):
am I getting it framed, I'm thinking of getting it
as a tattoo and on my memorial marker whenever the
time comes. Anyway, Back to the point, been sleeping with
my sources. That's ridiculous. Why do you think I got
into this business? Smith? Two days? Worst person then the
(41:12):
world I mentioned recently that one of the things I
wanted to do. In fact, my original career goal in
(41:32):
broadcasting was to become play by play announcer of the
New York Yankees. The second one, and the one that
I actually tried to work on for a while, was
to become play by play announcer of the New York
Rangers hockey team. My high school, Hackley, had a hockey
team and a radio station, not that anybody listened to us,
and we had a sports director. His name was Chris Berman,
(41:53):
and he did the basketball games, and one day put
out an ad for somebody to do the hockey games.
And the requirement was do you own your own cassette
tape recorder? And I've played you the tapes of what
I sounded like like long before my voice even began
to change. The play by play wasn't bad for a
thirteen year old kid. And I have to say the
next year, nineteen seventy three, when the Pittsburgh Penguins job
(42:15):
opened for play by play radio guy, I had the
nuts to actually send them a tape and say, look,
I know my voice is a little high, but think
of the novelty aspect. So I always wanted to do
hockey play by play, and then I went to Cornell,
which might as well have had a professional hockey franchise,
And that's still true. Lina Rink is one of the
great sporting event locales in the world, certainly in college hockey.
(42:38):
And it always sold out, and the team was competitive
and number one in the IVY League and a national
championship contender. And the rights to the games were owned
by Cornell and immediately, of course dispersed to the two
radio stations Cornell University, Inc. Owned, so we never got
close to doing play by play of Cornell hockey. I
(42:59):
once asked my friend who was the general manager of
those stations, Don Martin, who I've talked about here before
as one of the most import people I ever met
in broadcasting. I asked him, could we do the JV Games?
Could we do the women's games? No, because you'll get
advertising for it. I know you'll do a good job.
You'll be taking bread out of the food of my announcers.
And I was like, yeah, but I'm asking for like
(43:19):
one slice of bread. You're gonna go far, but not
in Ithaca. So anyway, one day a fellow named Al
Goldstein who had come to us I believe, from Berkeley, California,
and was twenty eight years old and long past college
days or college radio days, moved to Ithaca, New York
(43:40):
to try to become a radio sportscaster, newscaster, radio salesman,
and had heard had done research on this and had
determined that WVBR, the student owned professional radio station at
Cornell University, was the best training ground for radio in
the country. Al was known as Weird Al and before
(44:05):
a Yankovic, and he was a delightful guy. And he
used all the southern or northern California lingo that none
of us understood, happening in Gnarley and all these other
things long before they became famous things. I was like,
what did I'll just say I'm not sure, but whatever.
He works hard. So he did sports cast, and he
(44:25):
did newscast, and he became a salesman because we sold
advertising on the radio station. And one day he came
to me he said, you know, Ko, I've been talking
to h a lot of my clients out there, and
they I just mentioned the Ethaica stars and their eyes
light up, like why aren't they on the radio? I mean,
like I know it's not Cornell hockey man, but they
(44:47):
Cornell Hockey gets four thousand people, Ethica Stars get eighteen
hundred years. There's a lot of people people want to hear.
Why don't we do the games? I'd get it sponsored immediately,
and I went say that part again, and he went
through it again, and I said, why don't we? So
we all knew the president of the Ethica Stars. It was,
I believe a car salesman. His name was Bob Toddy
(45:08):
called him up and said, how much for the rights
to broadcast your games? Would do it on an experimental
basis and he went first ones free and I said,
I think my colleagues here will agree to that, and
sure enough we scheduled a broadcast of the Ithaca Stars
versus somebody. The Ethica Stars would be made up of
(45:29):
Cornell graduates who did not make it in professional hockey,
or had played professional hockey and lived in the area
came back to Ithaca. In other words, if you were
a Cornell Hockey star in nineteen seventy two and did
not make a career of it, you could become an
Ehaica Stars star in nineteen seventy eight, which is when
we are in the history of semi pro hockey in
this country. And they did. They drew two thousand a
(45:50):
game at line of rink. They almost often when it
would be a team like the Montreal Former Canadians, they
would fill the place out people like their hockey and
Ethica New York. The ice is already there, the rank
is fent. So we put Al out on this and
I was like, we'll try it, and I'll do the games,
and the program director, Glen Cornelius, he'll be the he'll
(46:13):
be my color man, and we'll have somebody host in
between periods, and we'll have a reporter and we'll you know,
maybe we'll get some wireless. But Al came back in
twenty four hours and said sold it out. I was like,
but I figured out how many availabilities we'd have and
how many spots, and we have a waiting list. We've
already taken in like twenty thousand dollars for this. I went,
are you out of your mind? He goes, no, man,
let's go ahead to don't tell Toddy, this will be
(46:35):
demanding money. But I bet if we do, you know,
we could do ten games before the end of their season.
I was like, let's go. So we now begin to
promote this thing on WVBR coming up on Saturday night,
and Glenn Cornelius and I go to a Corneill hockey
practice and we do a practice broadcast of a game,
and We're like, this isn't bad, and I'm thinking, maybe
I could still become a hockey play by play man
(46:57):
and my voice is changing. Maybe I can send the
tape to the Pittsburgh Penguins again. So now this is
mony day or Tuesday, and then the broadcast is coming
up on Saturday. And we went wall to wall every
commercial break on WVBR, every newscast, every sports cast, every
disc jockey show, even the public affairs broadcasts. In the breaks,
(47:17):
it was don't forget to listen to the other guitars
They're premiering on WVBR with Keith Olduman and Glenn Cornelias,
and we had five announcers, and we literally rented wireless mikes,
and we had this whole thing. We had a scoreboard
show planned in a studio. It was just it was
it was network level excess. On Friday afternoon, I walked
(47:40):
into the radio station and Al Goldstein was sitting at
the desk in the newsroom that I usually used in
my chair in front of my typewriter went ashen and
Al had what would have been politely referred to as
ruddy complexion, and he was white as a sheet. And
I said, what's wrong? He goes, what's go inside? Man,
It's goingside. And we went into a studio and he went,
(48:01):
they canceled the game. I went, what our game? Our
game tomorrow night? It's canceled. I said, what do you
mean it's canceled the Apparently there's a they forgot they
forgot to rent the rink. So what do you mean
they forgot to rent the rink? They think the Stars
have been in business for twenty years. Suddenly he forgets
to rent the rink. Yeah, there's a JV women's hockey
(48:24):
practice and they won't interrupt it. They won't change it.
There's no game Saturday. Man. I can't remember the rest
of that day. I do know from having gone and
listen to the tape that at some point I decided
that there was a very simple solution to this that
more than likely my old friend Don Martin from WHCUA
(48:45):
enough Mythica had prevailed upon Bob Toddy, the general manager
of the Ethica Stars, to not have any game that
would be broadcast on WVBR and the mention, by the way,
when we called Bob Toddy and did the nineteen seventy
eight equivalent of WTF on his backside, he said, I've
(49:06):
also rethought the whole idea. We're not going to do
any more games on radio. So we haven't done any
goddamn games on radio because you just forgot to rent
the rink. What kind of business are you in? Do
you sell cars that don't have wheels? I hung up
on them. I was just the same then when I
was twenty years old. In fact, I was still nineteen.
I'm very proud of that. In any event, we solved
this one pretty clearly. I went on the air that
(49:27):
night and I said, we have breaking news from the
world of semi pro hockey. It's sad news, particularly in
light of the fact that we were intending to bring
you the Ithaca Stars game tomorrow night here on WVBRS.
You may have heard in the three thousand advertisements we
do for today, we have bad news. The Ithaca Stars
have gone bankrupt. Don't mess with the nineteen year old olderman.
(49:56):
Thank you very much. As a PostScript. By the way,
I wasn't lying about the Ethica Stars, I was just premature.
The Stars did not go out of business during that
(50:17):
nineteen seventy eight seventy nine season, but after the nineteen
seventy nine eighty season audios don't f with the Jesus
I've done all the damage I can do here ask
the ethic of Stars. Thanks for listening. We're now back
to five episodes a week, posting nightly just after midnight Eastern.
Once again, there is a Monday Countdown. Please forward this
(50:39):
to a non listener who should fix that and start listening.
The credits Brian Ray and John Phillip Schanel, the musical
directors of Countdown, have arranged, produced, and performed most of
our music. Mister Shanelle handled out orchestration and keyboards, and
mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums. It
was produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and fifthy musical
comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust.
(51:02):
The sports music is the Lberman theme from ESPN two,
written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Other
music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
On my announcer today is my friend Kenny Maine, who
never played for the Ethic of Stars, although he was
a quarterback in college. Everything else was, as always, pretty
much my fault. That's countdown for today, five weeks and
(51:25):
six days until the twenty twenty four presidential election, the
three hundred and fifty ninth day since convicted felon drooling
Jay Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government
of the United States. Use the election, use the metal
health system, use presidential immunity if we have to, to
keep him from doing it again while we still can.
(51:50):
The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bulletins as the news requires.
Until then, I'm Keith Olderman. Good Morning, good afternoon, good night.
Once again the can Keith hit the post challenge? Good Luck?
Speaker 2 (52:05):
What Yes?
Speaker 1 (52:16):
The Return of the SUS Countdown with Keith Oldman is
a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
Popular Podcasts
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.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!