October 27, 2023 • 50 mins
SEASON 2 EPISODE 62: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump threatens the New York judge, while Jack Smith goes not for a stronger gag order but something closer to a Hannibal Lecter mask.
“This is judicial misconduct, coupled with prosecutorial misconduct, and somebody from the state of New York must step in and stop this complete and total miscarriage of justice,” unquote. BECAUSE Trump had earlier suggested that New York’s GOVERNOR should “get involved” and because he capitalized the word “State” in State of New York, he kept one foot in that shadowy region in which he’s lived that life and his attorneys could argue that he was NOT asking “somebody from the state of New York” to “step in and stop this” by attacking somebody like the judge or the district attorney.
The rest of the filing shows that Trump IGNORED the New York Gag Order, IGNORED it again, was called to the witness stand to explain what he said, LIED ABOUT IT – PERJURED HIMSELF – and has proven to be unrestrainable even with the Gag Order as presently constituted. Jack Smith isn’t telling the Judge that Trump has violated her GAG ORDER. He is telling her that Trump has violated the ORIGINAL CONDITIONS under which she did NOT jail him until the trial starts. To resume the quote. “Accordingly, the court should modify the defendant’s conditions of release by making compliance with the Order a CONDITION or by clarifying that the existing condition barring communication with witnesses about the facts of the case, INCLUDES indirect messages made publicly on social media or in speeches.”
Plus, Trump's faint grip on sanity seems to be slipping and the tell on that is: he has reverted to the genuinely unfathomable dog analogies that he fell into during the most stressful times of 2015-2016. When Trump starts claiming dogs get fired, he's about to lose it.
And Speaker Mike Johnson, Day 2: For a man who spent twenty years advocating for sending gay people to prison for having sex, advocating for sending doctors to prison for providing family planning, advocating for a national abortion ban, advocating for fewer laws against guns, advocating for more laws against divorce, advocating for gutting of the entire societal safety net, advocating for disenfranchising minorities and entire states, advocating for using the constitution to destroy the constitution, advocating for the forced conflation of church and state, advocating for a conservative group that makes employees swear an oath to Jesus, advocating against transgenderism, advocating against men wearing women’s clothes, advocating against women wearing MEN’S clothes, advocating restrictions against Muslims, advocating against federal disaster relief, advocating for more oil and gas and against science that has proved we are all going to be KILLED by more oil and gas, advocating for that idiot Amy Coney Barrett since he met her in 1988, advocating for a limit of three terms in the House and then running for this one – his FOURTH, and advocating for the overthrow of the duly-elected government of the United States throughout the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021. For a guy who has done nothing but comment on everything, all the time, and always wrong… so far… he sure has been Speaker of The House Mr. No Comment.
B-Block (22:24) IN SPORTS: Oh boy. The World Series. The 7th best regular season team versus the 12th best. I have never been less interested. Here's a shock: after legal sports gambling websites become the primary sponsor of all North American sports league, a player is suspended for half a season for...using one. And the brilliant idea from England's Tottenham Hotspur: give each player in its team history their own "legacy number." (27:35) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: President Duda of Poland may be trying to Trump the last election. E-Bikers should be saving the planet; instead they're menacing New Yorkers. And I do not pretend this isn't a crass idea. I think we should name the mass shootings after the politicians and propagandists who have enabled them. So Lewiston, Maine, should be named after Speaker Johnson or Susan Collins or Sean Hannity.
C-Block (35:45) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: A story I have not previously read you, to which almost everyone can relate. How science and swimming almost kept him from graduating in "University Days."
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio once
Again Dementia. J Trump is providing hints and foreshadowings and
(00:26):
augurs that he is about to finally lose all control
of his mind. Meanwhile, Jack Smith has clearly graduated from
demanding that they put a gag order on Trump to
instead demanding that they put something on him that more
resembles a Hannibal lecter mask Trump under a gag order
(00:46):
in a New York courtroom, two violations of which have
been used to argue for the immediate reinstatement of another
gag order in a Washington courtroom, a gag order which
could go back into effect as early as tomorrow. Has
now attacked the New York judge three separate times online,
and in one of the attacks, he may have issued
yet another stochastic call for violence against the judge. Quote.
(01:10):
This is judicial misconduct coupled with prosecutorial misconduct, and somebody
from the state of New York must step in and
stop this complete and total miscarriage of justice unquote because
Trump had earlier suggested that New York's governor should get involved,
(01:30):
and because he capitalized the word state when he wrote
state of New York. He managed to keep one foot
in that shadowy region in which he has lived his life,
and his attorneys could argue that he was not asking
somebody from the state of New York to step in
and stop this by attacking somebody like the judge or
the district attorney or both. But Trump's rage inside that
(01:53):
New York courtroom this week was worse than initially reported.
Those inside it with him now say he pounded his
fist on the defense table and got bright red. And
perhaps the full measure of how rapidly his already minimal
self control seems to be cracking was underscored just before
one pm Eastern yesterday when he attacked a reporter, not
(02:16):
so much for what she had written, but for what
she did not write. Quote Maggot Hagerman of the failing
New York Times wrote almost her entire fake story today
about the Trump hating judges gag order they loved to
silence me rather than the racist Attorney general, star witness
(02:37):
choking like a dog on the witness stand, Perry Mason.
There is so much ass in that sentence that it
is hard to sort it all out. But from a
psychological viewpoint, there is little that could be ever more
telling than Trump attacking a writer who has often been,
(02:58):
even post coup, astonishingly deferential to him, and who has
been brutally attacked, including by me here metaphorically speaking of course,
for being so deferential to him. Moreover, the article that
drove him to this most insane of a series of
insane posts is pretty dull, pretty even handed, pretty hard
(03:21):
to criticize. Any Trumpist who actually bothered to read Maggie
Haberman's piece in The New York Times yesterday would be
hard pressed to figure out why Trump would have gone
so crazy. And that's because since the court hearings began
to dominate his schedule, Trump has ever increasingly shown more
and more signs of his evil but still strategic public
(03:45):
pressure against prosecutors and political opponents and others. He's shown
that that is dissolving into pure petulance, maggot, and then
calling Haberman Hagerman on, I guess the premise that's substituting
a G for the B in her name means we're
(04:05):
supposed to pronounce that hag The parenthetical reference to Perry
Mason in there, that's a callback to an earlier post
ten or twenty posts before and anyway, it's a reference
to a television show that had its last special episode
on April tenth, nineteen ninety five. The reference to the
(04:25):
star witness choking because he doesn't know how to spell choking.
These are easy tells, clear signs of Trump under stress,
and the real tell is in the phrase that should
have read choking like a dog. That is the second
reference in twelve hours to dogs doing things dogs don't do, choking.
(04:50):
The other one is lying. Trump has a fraud relationship
with canine analogies. In the stress of the twenty sixteen campaign,
at his lowest moments, when it looked as if he
would lose by ten points or perhaps be replaced on
the ticket in a special maneuver by the re Publican party,
he repeatedly made references to people being fired like a dog,
or thrown off TV like a dog, or begging for
(05:14):
money like a dog. And he made these references with
the confidence of a moron speaking a language, a foreign
language he doesn't really understand. The next dog I see
begging for money will be the first in the history
of the planet. More on this shortly, but back to
the main point. Trump just threw some more chaff submarine
(05:37):
countermeasures into this mix. His lawyers last night filed a
motion that he is not guilty of election subversion because
there are classified government assessments that he's going to produce
at trial quote relating to foreign influence activities that impacted
the twenty sixteen and twenty twenty election, to establish that
he acted at all times in good faith and on
(06:00):
the belief that he was doing what he had been
elected to do, which I guess means he's going to
call as a surprise witness Q. While Judge Tanya Chutkin
deals with this nonsense, I am still unconvinced that either
she or Judge Arthur Engern will actually jail Trump for
violating gag orders, although my hopes for Chutkin are significantly higher.
(06:23):
But I am just as firmly convinced that that is
exactly what Jack Smith and his team of prosecutors in
the federal election subversion case are now pushing for Trump's ambulance.
Chasers appealed the Chutkin gag order to a different court
at as judges do. Chutkin gave him a temporary suspension
of that gag order. His attorneys then immediately asked for
(06:46):
an even longer suspension. The Office of the Special Council
replied late Wednesday night early yesterday morning, demanding that Trump
be regagged immediately, and Trump's lawyers, you know, the future
witnesses against him in some other courtroom and the jurisdiction
far far away. They had till Saturday morning to reply.
(07:07):
The focus of the Smith argument is obviously Trump's all
purpose posts about Mark Meadows, part insult, part dismissal, part
not at all veiled threat, but most importantly dovetailing with
the argument Smith and his group have repeatedly made to
Judge Chutkin. It contained not just intimidation of a witness.
(07:28):
It contained an attempt to poison the jury pool by
impeaching a witness and insisting the prosecution was corrupt to
quote that Smith filing. The defendant's targeting included insinuating that
if the reporting were true, the chief of staff had
lied and had been coerced, and the defendant sent a
(07:49):
clear public message to the chief of staff intended to
intimidate him. And then in the footnotes, the ghostbuster streams
crossed the bid to restart the Washington gag cited Trump's
ignoring of the New York gag quote. Defense counsel also
assured the court that the defendant's post targeting the court
(08:11):
staffer had been quote dealt with by the court in
New York. That assurance turned out to be mistaken unquote
here the word mistaken is a very very polite euphemism.
The rest of the filing shows that Trump ignored the
New York gag order, ignored it a second time, was
(08:31):
called to the witness stand to explain what he said,
lied about what he said, perjured himself, and has proven
to be unrestrainable even with the gag order as presently constituted.
What Jack Smith and his staff are setting up is
something stronger. As I said earlier, it is less a
gag order than it is a Hannibal Lecter mask. Here,
(08:53):
they write, the defendant has capitalized on the court's administrative
stay to, among other prejudicial conduct, send an unmistakable and
threatening message to a foreseeable witness in this case, Unless
the court lifts the administrative stay, the defendant will not
stop his harmful and prejudicial attacks. In addition to the
(09:14):
extent that the defendant's public message directed to mark Meadows
with knowledge that it would reach him is not already
covered by his release conditions. It is an intentional end
run around them. En quote, let me translate that. In
other words, Jack Smith is not telling the judge that
Trump has violated her gag order. He is telling the
(09:36):
judge that Trump has violated the original conditions under which
she did not jail him until the trial starts. To
resume the quote, Accordingly, the court should modify the defendant's
conditions of release by making compliance with the order a condition,
or by clarifying that the existing condition barring communication with
(10:00):
witnesses about the facts of the case includes indirect message
is made publicly on social media or in speeches. Again,
in short, a mask over his face and a straight
jacket legally anyway, I'm afraid Trump in a real mask
(10:22):
and a real straight jacket is just too much to
hope for for now. The quick follow up now on
this the second full day of the reign of Speaker
Mike Johnson. For a man who spent twenty years advocating
for sending gay people to prison for having sex, advocating
(10:44):
for sending doctors to prison for providing family planning for women,
advocating for a national abortion ban, advocating for fewer laws
against guns, advocating for more laws against divorce, advocating for
gutting the entire social safety net, advocating for disenfranchising minorities
and entire states. Advocating for using the Constitution to destroy
(11:07):
the Constitution. Advocating for the forced conflation of church and state,
Advocating for a conservative group that makes its employees swear
an oath to Jesus, advocating against transgenderism, advocating against men
wearing women's clothes, advocating against women wearing men's clothes, advocating
restrictions against Muslims, advocating against federal disaster relief, advocating for
(11:31):
more oil and gas, and against science that has proved
we're all going to get killed by more oil and gas.
Advocating for that idiot Amy Cony Barrett since he met
her in nineteen eighty eight, advocating for a limit of
three terms in the House and then running for this
term his fourth term, and advocating for the overthrow of
the duly elected government of the United States. Throughout the
(11:53):
end of twenty twenty and the beginning of twenty twenty
one for a guy who has done nothing but comment
on everything all the time and has always been wrong
so far. Mike Johnson sure has been Speaker of the House,
mister no comment. Can you clarify your show on the
(12:14):
anchist brief? Do you believe the twenty twenty election was stolen?
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Serg just yes or no news? For the record service?
Do you impress his excuse me? Do you send to
pursue a national abortion fan as speaker?
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Sir?
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Oh, President, you.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Know you're gonna have to say something sometime soon. Sparky
two other Johnson notes Echelon Insights not exactly a liberal outfit.
Did a crash poll on public reaction to the news
Speaker five hundred and ninety four US adults. They say
favorable thirty one percent, unfavorable fifteen percent, heard of him
(13:01):
but have no opinion twenty one percent. But the big
winner is never heard of him thirty four percent. Compare
this to Congressman Ted Jones favorable eighteen percent, unfavorable just
twelve percent, heard of him but have no opinion nineteen percent.
That is a statistical tie with Speaker Johnson, and again
(13:22):
the big winner for Congressman Ted Jones never heard of
him fifty one percent. There is no congressman Ted Jones,
the news speaker of the House, the leader of the
Republicans in Congress. He's doing slightly better than an imaginary congressman.
(13:42):
And lastly, from the House, I am stealing this joke
from Twitter user your Canadian girlfriend at your Canadian GF.
Representative Lauren Bobert tweeted a photo of herself wearing too
much makeup on the packed House floor beaming alongside Speaker Johnson.
Congratulations on becoming the next Speaker of the United States
House of Representatives. You assume office at a critical time
(14:04):
for our name, Pray the Lord guides you. Blah blah
blah blah blah, to which your Canadian girlfriend observes quote
not the first time she stroked a Johnson in a
crowded room. Wow, and now is referenced earlier. Since the
(14:27):
subject is topical and podcasts can be infinity long. This
is an all new episode, by the way, including a
Thurber story I have not read you previously, plus sports
plus Worst Persons, which is mostly about the main shooting
and how we should name these shootings after the politicians
who have enabled them. Since the subject is still front
of mind. Let me repeat what I first analyzed on
(14:49):
October three, twenty sixteen. This insane The word is meant literally,
this insane inability of dementia jay Trump to process the
concept of dogs. When he talks about dogs, he clearly
he is unaware that anybody likes dogs. When he analogizes
with dogs, he says things that make less sense than usual,
(15:12):
even for him. When he invokes dogs, something fragile in
his brain is barking. It is saying to us, it
is close to the breaking point, and we are here
again as we were seven years ago this month when
I first said this quote. Until one has loved an animal,
(15:33):
wrote the journalist and author Anatole France, a part of
one's soul remains unawakened. There is no evidence Donald Trump
has ever loved an animal. If Trump has ever in
his life had a pet, wrote Gail Collins of The
New York Times, his campaign doesn't know about it. There's
some question, in fact about whether he's even had an
(15:55):
animal friend. In fact, none of the books about Trump,
including his own, refer to a pet dog. The co
author or ghostwriter of the Art of The Deal time
Tony Schwartz told me he never heard Trump reference a
pet as adult or child. Google it, fact check it,
do a nexus Lexis search on it, and you come
up blank. Save for an apparently apocryphal story about him
(16:19):
tweeting asking for prayers for a labrador named Spinney, there
were no tweets, no entreaties, and for all we can determine,
no spinny. A man running to lead a nation of
three hundred and twenty four million people, and while we're
at it, seventy eight million dogs and seventy six million cats,
and there are solid reasons to believe he has never
had a dog. But it's worse than just that, isn't it.
(16:44):
Quote July twenty fifteen. I hear that sleepy eyes Chuck
Todd will be fired like a dog. October twenty fifteen. Wow,
great news, I hear. Eric Erickson of Red State was
fired like a dog. December twenty fifteen. Glenn Beck got
fired like a dog. January two thousand six. Union leader
(17:06):
refuses to comment as to why they were kicked out
of the ABC News debate like a dog. Twelve days later,
Brent Bozell, one of the National Review lightweights, came to
my office, begging for money like a dog. Huh When
was the last time he saw a dog begging for
money in somebody's office? February twenty sixteen. Wow, was Ted
(17:30):
Cruz disloyal to his very capable director of communication? He
used him as a scapegoat. Fired like a dog? All right?
Which is it a go to greet dog? March twenty sixteen,
Eric Erickson again got fired like a dog from Red State.
Eleven days after that, David Gregory got thrown off of
TV by NBC, Fired like a dog. June twenty sixteen.
(17:51):
Mitt Romney had his chance to beat a failed president,
but he choked like a dog. What the hell is
wrong with this guy about dogs? Fired like a dog?
Have you ever fired a dog? He's also tweeted that
the Egyptian president Mubarik was dropped like a dog, that
(18:12):
Reverend Jeremiah Wright was dumped like a dog, that Mark
Cuban was thrown off television like a dog, that Kristen
Stewart cheated on Robert Pattinson like a dog. And worst
of all, he said that during a Republican debate, he
saw Senator Marco Rubio sweating like a dog. Dogs don't sweat.
In theory, they could get fired, they could get cheated on,
(18:35):
they could beg for money, or they could get dropped, dumped,
kicked out, or thrown off television. But physically they cannot sweat.
Donald Trump has no knowledge of this, no understanding of this.
There's no evidence that he's ever had a dog, no
evidence he understands even the kinds of basics that people
(18:56):
who do not have dogs still know about dogs. What
the hell is he for, Mars? If so, could he
go back and I'll add in twenty sixteen when he
said Romney choked like a dog, unlike this week about
(19:17):
Michael Cohen. In twenty sixteen, Trump spelled choked correctly, naming
the mass shootings after people like, say Senator Susan Collins.
That's next. This is countdown.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
This is countdown with Keith Olberman. This is Sports Senate. Wait,
check that not anymore. This is countdown with Keith Olberman.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
In Sports World Series starts tonight, the team tied for
the seventh best record in the game, the Texas Rangers,
hosting the team with the twelfth best record in the game,
the Arizona Diamondbacks. Baseball has managed to develop a playoff
(20:21):
system in which ten of the eleven best teams in
the regular season can be eliminated. Sadly, the team's taking
the field Arizona and Texas. They are not the best
teams in the game or in either league. I do
not know what they are playing for anymore. The whole
(20:42):
thing is just a really sad lie. Now, thank you,
(21:02):
Nancy Faust. Just to make it worse, the Arizona Diamondbacks
are expected to become the first team to despoil the
World Series by wearing uniforms with advertising patches on the sleeves.
And if you're the advertiser, you should be asking for
your money back, because, as much as I know, I
sound like the captain of team old man yells at cloud. Hey,
(21:26):
you kids, get off my lawn. I'm going to go
back to my prediction. Way. Do you see how many
people do not watch this World Series Nationally? The series
has only once dipped below ten million viewers per game.
That was in the COVID season the token World Series
of twenty twenty. The peak was forty four million viewers
per game for the Yankees and Dodgers in nineteen seventy eight. Yes,
(21:49):
a different entertainment world, there were only three TV networks.
On the other hand, the population was thirty three percent
smaller than it is now. Guess which one of those numbers,
ten million or forty four million a game? This series
is going to come close or two. They have reduced
the World Series to this simple formula. Is my team
(22:10):
playing no see an x spring? Who would have ever
thought this? As gambling sites become one of the leading advertisers,
maybe the leading advertisers in all of sports. A pro
athlete has been suspended for violating his league's rules against
gambling on sports. I know a shock. Shane Pinto of
(22:32):
hockey's Ottawa Senators will sit for forty one games after
one of the sites reported to the NHL that he
had a gambling account with them. There is some evidence
that Pinto did not actually do the gambling in question,
but somebody else was using his account improperly and talk
about the chickens coming home to roost. The first hockey
team to have put an ad on its helmets for
(22:53):
a gambling site yep, Pinto's Ottawa Senators, and the worst
on this is clearly yet to come. Lastly, also on uniforms,
brilliance from the British soccer club Tottenham Hotspur. It has
carefully researched the eight hundred and seventy nine different players
who performed for the team since it began play in
eighteen ninety four. It has determined in which order they debuted,
(23:18):
and it has now assigned each of them a legacy number.
Stanley Briggs, center half of their first eighteen ninety four
Spurs team, is number one, and Alejo Valise, who just
joined them this year, is number eight seventy nine. So
when their next new player debuts, there will be a
small number eight eighty on the back of his jersey
(23:40):
below the collar. Imagine an American team in any sport
doing this. It is that rarest of ideas, something that
actually salutes the players, cherishes the history of the game,
and lets the team make some more money selling more
replica uniforms, only maybe leave the ads off them. This time.
(24:22):
Still ahead on this all new edition of Countdown Fridays
with Thurber, and I've never yet met anybody who will
not shudder with recognition about something in James Thrber's reminiscences
about how he almost did not graduate because of science
and swimming. The first time I have ever read to
you University days, first time for the daily roundup of
(24:45):
the misgrants, morons and dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute
today's worst persons in the world. The bronze President Dudah
of Poland, the anti fascist candidate Prime Minister Donald Tewisk
upset the ultra nationalist quote Law and Justice Party and
has the only prospects for forming a coalition to now
rule the nation. Yet the President has refused to name
(25:08):
Tusk as prime minister. The President now says he will
not open parliament until the eleventh of next month, and
he may not have named a prime minister even then.
There are grim suspicions in Poland that somebody is trying
to pull a Trump there to reappoint the fascist and
then either stage violence or create some diversion to keep
the Democratic Coalition and Tusk out of office. The runner up,
(25:32):
Mayor Eric Adams of New York. This is not about
his delusion of being anointed by God. I'm letting that
pass today. This is about the dangers of e bikes
in this city or any other city. People have died
here because the batteries of e bikes have caught fire
in apartment buildings. People have been grievously wounded here because
(25:52):
the police do nothing about e bikers riding up on
sidewalks or ignoring all traffic lights and laws and driving
in the opposite direction of the traffic and now now
though they've gone too far. Wednesday night, friend of mine's
dog and another dog were being walked on the west Side.
They were walking east on forty seventh Street on the sidewalk,
which is for walking out of nowhere. An idiot on
(26:16):
an e bike on the sidewalk going west plows into them,
the walker and the two dogs. Happily, the injuries to
the dogs and the walker were minor. The e biker
those swore at them as he drove away, and two
cops witnessed the entire event and did nothing. Maybe the
(26:37):
lead story is here. There were two cops standing on
forty seventh Street alert the media. The nightmare, of course,
is that e bikes are central to fighting climate change,
but something like this happens daily here because the city
is not designed for e bikes or enforcing rules, and
people are coming to hate e bikes here, and the
(26:58):
people who drive e bikes here so recklessly that when
the city acts instead of enforcing regulation against e bikes,
it's going to have to flat out ban them. So
these idiots are endangering lives and endangering dogs, and then
they will endanger lives again by ruining one means we
have of helping to not extinguish life on the planet.
(27:22):
Get on this, Mayor Adams, pretend God told you to,
but our winners, and we will drop the music for this.
It is a tie. Speaker Mike Johnson, hours after his
election a mass shooting in Maine, for which he has
now offered prayers. Johnson voted against background checks. He's voted
(27:45):
against protecting domestic violence victims from gun possession. He's voted
against the Bipartisans Safer Communities Act. But he had time
to meet ten days ago in his House office with
women for Gun Rights to, as he put it, then
discuss the safeguarding of our Second Amendment rights. Speaker, shove
(28:05):
your Second Amendment up your ass. It does not say
anything about ownership of guns. If it did, it would
have the word own in it, you fatuous christo fascist idiot.
I'm going to suggest something now that might be grotesque,
It might be callous, it might hurt some of those
directly affected by these shootings, or it might steer the
(28:29):
society out of its spiral towards collective suicide by gun.
I think we should name each mass shooting after a
politician who's inactivity, negligence, or acceptance of bribes from the
NRA has made them at least a symbolic accessory before
the fact to the latest carnage. I think we should
(28:50):
not call this one the Lewiston, Maine mass shooting. I
think we should call this one the Speaker Mike Johnson
mass shooting, or the Senator Susan Collins mass shooting. The
Senator from voted against renewing the assault weapons ban, and
she voted against the ban on high capacity magazines that
(29:11):
allow mass shooters to fire their weapons of terror even faster.
She has contributed to the fact that while gutless, heartless
Republicans like herself always respond to a mass shooting like
the Speaker Mike Johnson mass shooting by invoking mental health.
Maine does not have background checks on all gun sales,
nor a red flag law, nor does it stop domestic
(29:33):
abusers from getting guns, nor does it have a waiting period.
Senator Collins has not learned her lesson. She had the
gall to show up to a news conference in Lewiston
last night. Or we could also call this one the
Sean Hannity mass shooting. A long time ago, I was
friendly with this fatuous idiot. He used to express bewilderment
(29:55):
to me that people took what he said or what
I said seriously. It's only television. At some point though,
he started believing his own delusions after the shooting Wednesday night,
interviewing Nicky Hayley, well, there's a combined IQ that's still
under one hundred, Hannity actually suggested that everybody should have
(30:17):
a plan to confront a mass shooter. Quote, I have
a personal security plan. I train in mix Marshall Arch.
In other words, Sean Hannity thinks this is the matrix
and he's going to kick the AR fifteen out of
the Mike Johnson mass shooter's hands. I'm guessing ultimately nobody
(30:39):
on the right will do anything about any of this
until they are literally all standing over the body of
somebody like Sean Hannity and commenting on how it looked
like he was in some sort of jiu jitsu stance.
When that guy put the six inch diameter bullet hole
through him, and maybe even then they still won't do
(31:00):
anything about it. Speaker Mike Johnson, Senator and Collins Sean
Hannity useless wasted human beings, today's worst persons in the world.
The closest thing James Thurber ever wrote to a novel
(31:24):
was the story of his childhood, somewhat exaggerated, or, according
to his family, almost completely exaggerated. It was called My
Life and hard Times. In it are stories like the
night the bed fell and such as that. But my favorite,
perhaps of all of his stories from his supposed youth,
is called University Days. There's a lot of well you'll hear,
(31:50):
there's a lot of stuff in University Days. And so
I presented to you for the first time on Fridays
with Thurber University Days by James Thurber. I've passed all
the other courses that I took at my university, but
I could never pass botany. This was because all botany
(32:12):
students had to spend several hours a week in a
laboratory looking through a microscope at plant cells, and I
could never see through a microscope. I never once saw
a cell through a microscope. This used to enrage my instructor.
He would wander around the laboratory, pleased with the progress
(32:32):
all the students were making and drawing the involved and
so I am told interesting structure of flower cells. Until
he came to me. I would just be standing there.
I can't see anything, I would say. He would begin
patiently enough explaining how anybody can see through a microscope,
(32:52):
but he would always end up in a fury, claiming
that I could too see through a microscope, but just
pretended that I couldn't. It takes away from the beauty
of flowers. Anyway. I used to tell him, we are
not concern with the beauty in this course. He would say,
we are concerned solely with what I may call the
mechanics of flowers. Well, I'd say, I can't see anything.
(33:18):
Try it just once again, he'd say, And I would
put my eye to the microscope and see nothing at all,
except now and again a nebulous milky substance, a phenomenon
of maladjustment. You were supposed to see a vivid, restless
clockwork of sharply defined plant cells. I see what looks
(33:40):
like a lot of milk. I would tell him this,
He claimed was the result of my not having adjusted
the microscope properly. So he would readjust it for me,
or rather for himself, and I would look again and
see milk. I finally took a deferred pass, as they
called it, and waited a year and tried again. You
(34:01):
had to pass one of the biological sciences, or you
could graduate. The professor had come back from vacation brown
as a berry, bright eyed and eager to explain cell
structure again to his classes. Well, he said to me
cheerily when we met in the laboratory first hour of
the semester. We're going to see cells this time, aren't we, Yes, sir,
(34:23):
I said. Students to right of me, and to left
of me, and in front of me were seeing cells.
What's more, they were quietly drawing pictures of them in
their notebooks. Of course, I didn't see anything. We'll try it,
the professor said to me gently. With every adjustment of
(34:43):
the microscope known to man, as God is my witness,
I'll arrange this glass so that you see cells through it,
or I'll give up teaching. In twenty two years of
botany I he cut off abruptly before he was beginning
(35:04):
to quiver all over like Lionel Barrymore, and he genuinely
wished to hold on to his temper. His scenes with
me had taken a great deal out of him. As
an editor's note here, if you don't recognize the name
Lionel Barrymore, if you've ever seen the movie It's a
Wonderful life, mister Potter, the evil financier in the wheelchair
(35:27):
that was played by Lionel Barrymore, who used to quiver
all over. Back to Thurber. So, we tried it with
every adjustment of the microscope known to man. With only
one of them did I see anything but blackness or
the familiar lacteal opacity. And that time I saw, to
(35:47):
my pleasure and amazement, a variegated constellation of flex specks
and dots. These I hastily drew. The instructor, noting my activity,
came back from an adjoining desk, a smile on his lips,
his eyebrows high in hope. He looked at my cell
draw What's that, he demanded, with a hint of squeal
(36:08):
in his voice. That's what I saw. I said, You didn't,
You didn't, You didn't, he screamed, losing control of his
temper instantly, and he bent over and squinted into the microscope.
His head snapped up. That's your eye, he shouted. You
fix the lens so that it reflects you've drawn your eye.
(36:32):
Another course that I didn't like but somehow managed to
pass was economics. I went to that class straight from
the botany class, which didn't help me any in understanding
either subject. I used to get them mixed up, but
not as mixed up as another student in my economics
class who came there direct from a physics laboratory. He
(36:54):
was a tackle on the football team named Balentsowitz. At
the time, Ohio State University had one of the best
football teams in the country, and Blentsuwitz was one of
its outside standing stars. In order to be eligible to play,
it was necessary for him to keep up in his studies,
a very difficult matter, for while he was not dumber
(37:16):
than an ox, he was not any smarter. Most of
his professors were lenient and helped him along. None gave
him more hints in answering questions or asked him simpler
ones than the economics professor, a thin, timid man named Bassum.
One day, when when we were on the subject of
transportation and distribution. It became Blentsowitz's turn to answer a question.
(37:42):
Name one means of transportation, the professor said to him.
No light came into the big tackle's eyes. Just any
means of transportation, said the professor. Balentsuwitz sat staring at him.
That is, pursued the professor, any medium, agency or method
(38:07):
of going from one place to another. Balentuwitz had the
look of a man who is being led into a trap.
You may choose among steam, horse drawn or electrically propelled vehicles,
said the instructor. I might suggest the one which we
commonly take in making long journeys across land. There was
(38:33):
a profound silence in which everybody stirred uneasily, including Balentuwitz
and mister Bassum. Mister Bassom abruptly broke this silence in
an amazing manner. Chew, Chew, chew, he said in a
(38:55):
low voice, and turned instantly scarlet. He glanced appealingly around
the room. All of us, of course, shared mister Bassom's
desire that Balentuwitz would stay abreast of the class in
economics for the Illinois Game, one of the hardest and
most important the season. Was only a week off too, too, too,
Some student with a deep voice moaned, and we all
(39:16):
looked encouragingly at Balentsuwitz. Somebody else gave a fine imitation
of a locomotive letting off steam. Mister Bassom himself rounded
off the little shell. Ding dong, ding dong, ding dong,
he said hopefully. Balentsowitz was staring at the floor now
trying to think. His great brow furrowed, his huge hands
(39:41):
rubbing together, his face red. How did you come to
college this year, mister Balentowitz asked the professor. Chuff of chuff, chuff, chuff,
CHUFFI chuff my father sent me, said the football player.
(40:01):
What on, asked bassm get Loans, said the tackle in
a low, husky voice, obviously embarrassed. No, No, said pass.
Some name a means of transportation? What did you ride
here on train? Said Bealensuitz. Quite right, said the professor. Now,
(40:27):
mister Nugent, will you tell us if I went through
anguish in botany and economics for different reasons. Gymnasium work
was even worse. I don't even like to think about it.
They wouldn't let you play games or join in the exercises.
With your glasses on and I couldn't see with mine off.
I bumped into professors, horizontal bars, agricultural students swinging iron rings,
(40:54):
not being able to see. I could take it, but
I couldn't dish it out. Also, in order to pass gymnasium,
and you had to pass it to graduate, you had
to learn to swim if you didn't know how. I
didn't like the swimming pool. I didn't like swimming, and
I didn't like the swimming instructor, and after all these years,
(41:16):
I still don't. I never swam, but I passed my
gym work anyway by having another student give my gymnasium
number nine seven eight and swim across the pool in
my place. He was a quiet, amiable blonde youth number
four seventy three, and he would have seen through a
microscope before me if we could have gotten away with that.
(41:37):
But we couldn't get away with that. Another thing I
didn't like about gymnasium work was that they made you
strip the day you registered. It is impossible for me
to be happy when I am stripped and being asked
a lot of questions. Still, I did better than a
lanky agricultural student who was cross examined. Just before I was.
They asked each student what college he was in, that is,
(41:59):
whether arts, engineering, commerce, or agriculture. What college are you in?
The instructor snapped at the youth in front of me
Ohio State University. He said promptly, it wasn't that agricultural student,
but it was another a whole lot like him, who
decided to take up journalism, possibly on the ground that
when farming went to hell, he could fall back on
(42:21):
newspaper work. He didn't realize, of course, that that would
be very much like falling back full length on a
kit of carpenter's tools. Haskins didn't seem cut out for journalism,
being too embarrassed to talk to anybody and unable to
use a typewriter, but the editor of the college paper
assigned him to the cowbarns, the sheep house, the horse pavilion,
(42:42):
and the animal husbandry department. Generally, this was a genuinely
big beat for took up five times as much ground
and got ten times as great a legislative appropriation as
the College of Liberal Arts. The agricultural student knew animals,
but nevertheless his stories were dull and colorlessly written. He
(43:05):
took all afternoon on each of them. On account of
having to hunt for each letter on the typewriter. Once
in a while he had to ask somebody to help
him hunt. C and L in particular, were hard letters
for him to find. His editor finally got pretty much
annoyed at the farmer journalists because his pieces were so uninteresting.
(43:28):
See here, Haskins. He snapped at him one day, why
is it we never have anything hot from you on
the horse pavilion Here we have two hundred head of
horses on this campus, more than any other university in
the Western Conference except Purdue, and yet you never get
any real lowdown on them. Now shoot over to the
horse barns and dig up something lively. Haskins shambled out
(43:50):
and came back in about an hour. He said he
had something. Well tart it off, snappily, said the editor,
something people will read. Haskins sent to work, and in
a couple of hours brought a sheet of typewritten paper
to the desk. It was a two hundred word story
about some disease that had broken out among the horses.
Its opening sentence was simple but arresting. It read, who
(44:16):
has noticed the sores on the tops of the horses
in the animal husbandry building. Ohio State was a land
grant university and therefore two years of military drill was compulsory.
We drilled with old Springfield rifles and studied the tactics
of the Civil War, even though the World War was
going on at the time. At eleven o'clock each morning,
(44:38):
thousands of freshmen and sophomores used to deploy over the campus,
moodily creeping up on the old chemistry building. It was
good training for the kind of warfare that was waged
at Shiloh, but it had no connection with what was
going on in Europe. Some people used to think that
there was German money behind it, but they didn't dare
(44:58):
say that, or they would have been thrown in jail
as German spies. It was a period of muddy thought
and marked I believe the decline of higher education in
the Middle West. As a soldier, I was never any
good at all. Most of the cadets were glumly indifferent soldiers,
but I was no good at all. Once General Littlefield,
(45:23):
who was commandant of the Cadet Corps, popped up in
front of me during regimental drill and snapped, you are
the main trouble with this university. I think he meant
that my type was the main trouble with the university,
but he may have met me individually. I was mediocre
at drill, certainly, that is until my senior year. By
(45:46):
that time I had drilled longer than anybody else in
the Western Conference, having failed at military at the end
of each preceding year, so that I had to do
it all over again. I was the only seniors still
in uniform. The uniform, which when new had made me
look like an interurban railway conductor, had become faded and
(46:06):
too tight, made me look like Bert Williams in his
Bellboy act. This had a definitely bad effect on my morale.
Even so, I had become by sheer practice little short
of wonderful at squad maneuvers. One day, General Littlefield picked
(46:26):
our company out of the whole regiment, tried to get
it mixed up by putting it through one movement after
another as fast as we could execute them. Squad's right,
squad's left, squad's on right into line squad's right, about
squad's left, front into line, et cetera. In about three minutes.
One hundred and nine men were marching in one direction,
and I was marching away from them at an angle
(46:48):
of forty degrees, all alone. Company halt, shouted General Littlefield.
That man is the only man who has it right.
I was made a corporal for my achievement. The next day,
General Littlefield summoned me to his office. He was swatting
(47:10):
flies when I came in. I was silent, and he
was silent too. For a long time. I don't think
he remembered me or why he had sent for me,
But he didn't want to admit that. He swatted some
more flies, keeping his eyes on them narrowly before he
let go with the swatter. But not up your coat,
he snapped. Looking back on it now, I can see
(47:32):
that he meant me, although he was looking at a fly.
But I just stood there. Another fly came to rest
on a paper in front of the General and began
rubbing its hind legs together. The General lifted the swatter cautiously.
I moved restlessly, and the fly flew away. You startle them,
barked General Littlefield, looking at me severely. I said, I
(47:54):
was sorry. That won't help the situation. Snapped the General
with cold military logic. I didn't see what I could
do except offered to chase some more flies toward him desk,
but I didn't say anything. He stared out the window
at the far away figures of co Ed's crossing the
campus towards the library. Finally he told me I could go,
(48:16):
so I went. He either didn't know which cadet I was,
or else he forgot what he wanted to see me about.
It may have been that he wished to apologize for
having called me the main trouble with the university, or
maybe he had decided to compliment me on my brilliant
drilling of the day before, and then at the last
minute decided not to. I don't know. I don't think
(48:41):
about it much anymore. University Days by James Thurber done
all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening.
(49:03):
Any similarity to my University Days is purely coincidental. Countdown
has come to you from the Vin Scully Studios at
the Older Woman Broadcasting Empire in New York. If you
know anybody who does not listen to this podcast, please
tell them how wonderful it is. And if you're still
listening at this point, you must think it's wonderful. Countown
musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillip Schanel arranged, produced,
and performed most of our music. Mister Shanelle handled orchestration
(49:26):
and keyboards. Mister Ray was on the guitars, the bass,
and the drums, and it was produced by Tko Brothers.
The other music, including other Beethoven tunes, were arranged and
performed by No Horns Allowed. The sports music is courtesy
of ESPN, Inc. It was written by Mitch Warren Davis,
and we call it the Olderman theme from ESPN two.
Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Fauss,
(49:48):
the best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was
my friend Richard Lewis of Ohio State University, and everything
else was pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for
this the oney twenty fifth day since Donald Trump's first
attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the na
United States. Convict him now while we still can. The
(50:08):
next scheduled countdown is Tuesday. Bulletin says the news warrants
till then. I'm Keith Oldman. Good morning, good afternoon, Good
Night and good Luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a
(50:32):
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 once
Again Dementia. J Trump is providing hints and foreshadowings and
(00:26):
augurs that he is about to finally lose all control
of his mind. Meanwhile, Jack Smith has clearly graduated from
demanding that they put a gag order on Trump to
instead demanding that they put something on him that more
resembles a Hannibal lecter mask Trump under a gag order
(00:46):
in a New York courtroom, two violations of which have
been used to argue for the immediate reinstatement of another
gag order in a Washington courtroom, a gag order which
could go back into effect as early as tomorrow. Has
now attacked the New York judge three separate times online,
and in one of the attacks, he may have issued
yet another stochastic call for violence against the judge. Quote.
(01:10):
This is judicial misconduct coupled with prosecutorial misconduct, and somebody
from the state of New York must step in and
stop this complete and total miscarriage of justice unquote because
Trump had earlier suggested that New York's governor should get involved,
(01:30):
and because he capitalized the word state when he wrote
state of New York. He managed to keep one foot
in that shadowy region in which he has lived his life,
and his attorneys could argue that he was not asking
somebody from the state of New York to step in
and stop this by attacking somebody like the judge or
the district attorney or both. But Trump's rage inside that
(01:53):
New York courtroom this week was worse than initially reported.
Those inside it with him now say he pounded his
fist on the defense table and got bright red. And
perhaps the full measure of how rapidly his already minimal
self control seems to be cracking was underscored just before
one pm Eastern yesterday when he attacked a reporter, not
(02:16):
so much for what she had written, but for what
she did not write. Quote Maggot Hagerman of the failing
New York Times wrote almost her entire fake story today
about the Trump hating judges gag order they loved to
silence me rather than the racist Attorney general, star witness
(02:37):
choking like a dog on the witness stand, Perry Mason.
There is so much ass in that sentence that it
is hard to sort it all out. But from a
psychological viewpoint, there is little that could be ever more
telling than Trump attacking a writer who has often been,
(02:58):
even post coup, astonishingly deferential to him, and who has
been brutally attacked, including by me here metaphorically speaking of course,
for being so deferential to him. Moreover, the article that
drove him to this most insane of a series of
insane posts is pretty dull, pretty even handed, pretty hard
(03:21):
to criticize. Any Trumpist who actually bothered to read Maggie
Haberman's piece in The New York Times yesterday would be
hard pressed to figure out why Trump would have gone
so crazy. And that's because since the court hearings began
to dominate his schedule, Trump has ever increasingly shown more
and more signs of his evil but still strategic public
(03:45):
pressure against prosecutors and political opponents and others. He's shown
that that is dissolving into pure petulance, maggot, and then
calling Haberman Hagerman on, I guess the premise that's substituting
a G for the B in her name means we're
(04:05):
supposed to pronounce that hag The parenthetical reference to Perry
Mason in there, that's a callback to an earlier post
ten or twenty posts before and anyway, it's a reference
to a television show that had its last special episode
on April tenth, nineteen ninety five. The reference to the
(04:25):
star witness choking because he doesn't know how to spell choking.
These are easy tells, clear signs of Trump under stress,
and the real tell is in the phrase that should
have read choking like a dog. That is the second
reference in twelve hours to dogs doing things dogs don't do, choking.
(04:50):
The other one is lying. Trump has a fraud relationship
with canine analogies. In the stress of the twenty sixteen campaign,
at his lowest moments, when it looked as if he
would lose by ten points or perhaps be replaced on
the ticket in a special maneuver by the re Publican party,
he repeatedly made references to people being fired like a dog,
or thrown off TV like a dog, or begging for
(05:14):
money like a dog. And he made these references with
the confidence of a moron speaking a language, a foreign
language he doesn't really understand. The next dog I see
begging for money will be the first in the history
of the planet. More on this shortly, but back to
the main point. Trump just threw some more chaff submarine
(05:37):
countermeasures into this mix. His lawyers last night filed a
motion that he is not guilty of election subversion because
there are classified government assessments that he's going to produce
at trial quote relating to foreign influence activities that impacted
the twenty sixteen and twenty twenty election, to establish that
he acted at all times in good faith and on
(06:00):
the belief that he was doing what he had been
elected to do, which I guess means he's going to
call as a surprise witness Q. While Judge Tanya Chutkin
deals with this nonsense, I am still unconvinced that either
she or Judge Arthur Engern will actually jail Trump for
violating gag orders, although my hopes for Chutkin are significantly higher.
(06:23):
But I am just as firmly convinced that that is
exactly what Jack Smith and his team of prosecutors in
the federal election subversion case are now pushing for Trump's ambulance.
Chasers appealed the Chutkin gag order to a different court
at as judges do. Chutkin gave him a temporary suspension
of that gag order. His attorneys then immediately asked for
(06:46):
an even longer suspension. The Office of the Special Council
replied late Wednesday night early yesterday morning, demanding that Trump
be regagged immediately, and Trump's lawyers, you know, the future
witnesses against him in some other courtroom and the jurisdiction
far far away. They had till Saturday morning to reply.
(07:07):
The focus of the Smith argument is obviously Trump's all
purpose posts about Mark Meadows, part insult, part dismissal, part
not at all veiled threat, but most importantly dovetailing with
the argument Smith and his group have repeatedly made to
Judge Chutkin. It contained not just intimidation of a witness.
(07:28):
It contained an attempt to poison the jury pool by
impeaching a witness and insisting the prosecution was corrupt to
quote that Smith filing. The defendant's targeting included insinuating that
if the reporting were true, the chief of staff had
lied and had been coerced, and the defendant sent a
(07:49):
clear public message to the chief of staff intended to
intimidate him. And then in the footnotes, the ghostbuster streams
crossed the bid to restart the Washington gag cited Trump's
ignoring of the New York gag quote. Defense counsel also
assured the court that the defendant's post targeting the court
(08:11):
staffer had been quote dealt with by the court in
New York. That assurance turned out to be mistaken unquote
here the word mistaken is a very very polite euphemism.
The rest of the filing shows that Trump ignored the
New York gag order, ignored it a second time, was
(08:31):
called to the witness stand to explain what he said,
lied about what he said, perjured himself, and has proven
to be unrestrainable even with the gag order as presently constituted.
What Jack Smith and his staff are setting up is
something stronger. As I said earlier, it is less a
gag order than it is a Hannibal Lecter mask. Here,
(08:53):
they write, the defendant has capitalized on the court's administrative
stay to, among other prejudicial conduct, send an unmistakable and
threatening message to a foreseeable witness in this case, Unless
the court lifts the administrative stay, the defendant will not
stop his harmful and prejudicial attacks. In addition to the
(09:14):
extent that the defendant's public message directed to mark Meadows
with knowledge that it would reach him is not already
covered by his release conditions. It is an intentional end
run around them. En quote, let me translate that. In
other words, Jack Smith is not telling the judge that
Trump has violated her gag order. He is telling the
(09:36):
judge that Trump has violated the original conditions under which
she did not jail him until the trial starts. To
resume the quote, Accordingly, the court should modify the defendant's
conditions of release by making compliance with the order a condition,
or by clarifying that the existing condition barring communication with
(10:00):
witnesses about the facts of the case includes indirect message
is made publicly on social media or in speeches. Again,
in short, a mask over his face and a straight
jacket legally anyway, I'm afraid Trump in a real mask
(10:22):
and a real straight jacket is just too much to
hope for for now. The quick follow up now on
this the second full day of the reign of Speaker
Mike Johnson. For a man who spent twenty years advocating
for sending gay people to prison for having sex, advocating
(10:44):
for sending doctors to prison for providing family planning for women,
advocating for a national abortion ban, advocating for fewer laws
against guns, advocating for more laws against divorce, advocating for
gutting the entire social safety net, advocating for disenfranchising minorities
and entire states. Advocating for using the Constitution to destroy
(11:07):
the Constitution. Advocating for the forced conflation of church and state,
Advocating for a conservative group that makes its employees swear
an oath to Jesus, advocating against transgenderism, advocating against men
wearing women's clothes, advocating against women wearing men's clothes, advocating
restrictions against Muslims, advocating against federal disaster relief, advocating for
(11:31):
more oil and gas, and against science that has proved
we're all going to get killed by more oil and gas.
Advocating for that idiot Amy Cony Barrett since he met
her in nineteen eighty eight, advocating for a limit of
three terms in the House and then running for this
term his fourth term, and advocating for the overthrow of
the duly elected government of the United States. Throughout the
(11:53):
end of twenty twenty and the beginning of twenty twenty
one for a guy who has done nothing but comment
on everything all the time and has always been wrong
so far. Mike Johnson sure has been Speaker of the House,
mister no comment. Can you clarify your show on the
(12:14):
anchist brief? Do you believe the twenty twenty election was stolen?
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Serg just yes or no news? For the record service?
Do you impress his excuse me? Do you send to
pursue a national abortion fan as speaker?
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Sir?
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Oh, President, you.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Know you're gonna have to say something sometime soon. Sparky
two other Johnson notes Echelon Insights not exactly a liberal outfit.
Did a crash poll on public reaction to the news
Speaker five hundred and ninety four US adults. They say
favorable thirty one percent, unfavorable fifteen percent, heard of him
(13:01):
but have no opinion twenty one percent. But the big
winner is never heard of him thirty four percent. Compare
this to Congressman Ted Jones favorable eighteen percent, unfavorable just
twelve percent, heard of him but have no opinion nineteen percent.
That is a statistical tie with Speaker Johnson, and again
(13:22):
the big winner for Congressman Ted Jones never heard of
him fifty one percent. There is no congressman Ted Jones,
the news speaker of the House, the leader of the
Republicans in Congress. He's doing slightly better than an imaginary congressman.
(13:42):
And lastly, from the House, I am stealing this joke
from Twitter user your Canadian girlfriend at your Canadian GF.
Representative Lauren Bobert tweeted a photo of herself wearing too
much makeup on the packed House floor beaming alongside Speaker Johnson.
Congratulations on becoming the next Speaker of the United States
House of Representatives. You assume office at a critical time
(14:04):
for our name, Pray the Lord guides you. Blah blah
blah blah blah, to which your Canadian girlfriend observes quote
not the first time she stroked a Johnson in a
crowded room. Wow, and now is referenced earlier. Since the
(14:27):
subject is topical and podcasts can be infinity long. This
is an all new episode, by the way, including a
Thurber story I have not read you previously, plus sports
plus Worst Persons, which is mostly about the main shooting
and how we should name these shootings after the politicians
who have enabled them. Since the subject is still front
of mind. Let me repeat what I first analyzed on
(14:49):
October three, twenty sixteen. This insane The word is meant literally,
this insane inability of dementia jay Trump to process the
concept of dogs. When he talks about dogs, he clearly
he is unaware that anybody likes dogs. When he analogizes
with dogs, he says things that make less sense than usual,
(15:12):
even for him. When he invokes dogs, something fragile in
his brain is barking. It is saying to us, it
is close to the breaking point, and we are here
again as we were seven years ago this month when
I first said this quote. Until one has loved an animal,
(15:33):
wrote the journalist and author Anatole France, a part of
one's soul remains unawakened. There is no evidence Donald Trump
has ever loved an animal. If Trump has ever in
his life had a pet, wrote Gail Collins of The
New York Times, his campaign doesn't know about it. There's
some question, in fact about whether he's even had an
(15:55):
animal friend. In fact, none of the books about Trump,
including his own, refer to a pet dog. The co
author or ghostwriter of the Art of The Deal time
Tony Schwartz told me he never heard Trump reference a
pet as adult or child. Google it, fact check it,
do a nexus Lexis search on it, and you come
up blank. Save for an apparently apocryphal story about him
(16:19):
tweeting asking for prayers for a labrador named Spinney, there
were no tweets, no entreaties, and for all we can determine,
no spinny. A man running to lead a nation of
three hundred and twenty four million people, and while we're
at it, seventy eight million dogs and seventy six million cats,
and there are solid reasons to believe he has never
had a dog. But it's worse than just that, isn't it.
(16:44):
Quote July twenty fifteen. I hear that sleepy eyes Chuck
Todd will be fired like a dog. October twenty fifteen. Wow,
great news, I hear. Eric Erickson of Red State was
fired like a dog. December twenty fifteen. Glenn Beck got
fired like a dog. January two thousand six. Union leader
(17:06):
refuses to comment as to why they were kicked out
of the ABC News debate like a dog. Twelve days later,
Brent Bozell, one of the National Review lightweights, came to
my office, begging for money like a dog. Huh When
was the last time he saw a dog begging for
money in somebody's office? February twenty sixteen. Wow, was Ted
(17:30):
Cruz disloyal to his very capable director of communication? He
used him as a scapegoat. Fired like a dog? All right?
Which is it a go to greet dog? March twenty sixteen,
Eric Erickson again got fired like a dog from Red State.
Eleven days after that, David Gregory got thrown off of
TV by NBC, Fired like a dog. June twenty sixteen.
(17:51):
Mitt Romney had his chance to beat a failed president,
but he choked like a dog. What the hell is
wrong with this guy about dogs? Fired like a dog?
Have you ever fired a dog? He's also tweeted that
the Egyptian president Mubarik was dropped like a dog, that
(18:12):
Reverend Jeremiah Wright was dumped like a dog, that Mark
Cuban was thrown off television like a dog, that Kristen
Stewart cheated on Robert Pattinson like a dog. And worst
of all, he said that during a Republican debate, he
saw Senator Marco Rubio sweating like a dog. Dogs don't sweat.
In theory, they could get fired, they could get cheated on,
(18:35):
they could beg for money, or they could get dropped, dumped,
kicked out, or thrown off television. But physically they cannot sweat.
Donald Trump has no knowledge of this, no understanding of this.
There's no evidence that he's ever had a dog, no
evidence he understands even the kinds of basics that people
(18:56):
who do not have dogs still know about dogs. What
the hell is he for, Mars? If so, could he
go back and I'll add in twenty sixteen when he
said Romney choked like a dog, unlike this week about
(19:17):
Michael Cohen. In twenty sixteen, Trump spelled choked correctly, naming
the mass shootings after people like, say Senator Susan Collins.
That's next. This is countdown.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
This is countdown with Keith Olberman. This is Sports Senate. Wait,
check that not anymore. This is countdown with Keith Olberman.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
In Sports World Series starts tonight, the team tied for
the seventh best record in the game, the Texas Rangers,
hosting the team with the twelfth best record in the game,
the Arizona Diamondbacks. Baseball has managed to develop a playoff
(20:21):
system in which ten of the eleven best teams in
the regular season can be eliminated. Sadly, the team's taking
the field Arizona and Texas. They are not the best
teams in the game or in either league. I do
not know what they are playing for anymore. The whole
(20:42):
thing is just a really sad lie. Now, thank you,
(21:02):
Nancy Faust. Just to make it worse, the Arizona Diamondbacks
are expected to become the first team to despoil the
World Series by wearing uniforms with advertising patches on the sleeves.
And if you're the advertiser, you should be asking for
your money back, because, as much as I know, I
sound like the captain of team old man yells at cloud. Hey,
(21:26):
you kids, get off my lawn. I'm going to go
back to my prediction. Way. Do you see how many
people do not watch this World Series Nationally? The series
has only once dipped below ten million viewers per game.
That was in the COVID season the token World Series
of twenty twenty. The peak was forty four million viewers
per game for the Yankees and Dodgers in nineteen seventy eight. Yes,
(21:49):
a different entertainment world, there were only three TV networks.
On the other hand, the population was thirty three percent
smaller than it is now. Guess which one of those numbers,
ten million or forty four million a game? This series
is going to come close or two. They have reduced
the World Series to this simple formula. Is my team
(22:10):
playing no see an x spring? Who would have ever
thought this? As gambling sites become one of the leading advertisers,
maybe the leading advertisers in all of sports. A pro
athlete has been suspended for violating his league's rules against
gambling on sports. I know a shock. Shane Pinto of
(22:32):
hockey's Ottawa Senators will sit for forty one games after
one of the sites reported to the NHL that he
had a gambling account with them. There is some evidence
that Pinto did not actually do the gambling in question,
but somebody else was using his account improperly and talk
about the chickens coming home to roost. The first hockey
team to have put an ad on its helmets for
(22:53):
a gambling site yep, Pinto's Ottawa Senators, and the worst
on this is clearly yet to come. Lastly, also on uniforms,
brilliance from the British soccer club Tottenham Hotspur. It has
carefully researched the eight hundred and seventy nine different players
who performed for the team since it began play in
eighteen ninety four. It has determined in which order they debuted,
(23:18):
and it has now assigned each of them a legacy number.
Stanley Briggs, center half of their first eighteen ninety four
Spurs team, is number one, and Alejo Valise, who just
joined them this year, is number eight seventy nine. So
when their next new player debuts, there will be a
small number eight eighty on the back of his jersey
(23:40):
below the collar. Imagine an American team in any sport
doing this. It is that rarest of ideas, something that
actually salutes the players, cherishes the history of the game,
and lets the team make some more money selling more
replica uniforms, only maybe leave the ads off them. This time.
(24:22):
Still ahead on this all new edition of Countdown Fridays
with Thurber, and I've never yet met anybody who will
not shudder with recognition about something in James Thrber's reminiscences
about how he almost did not graduate because of science
and swimming. The first time I have ever read to
you University days, first time for the daily roundup of
(24:45):
the misgrants, morons and dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute
today's worst persons in the world. The bronze President Dudah
of Poland, the anti fascist candidate Prime Minister Donald Tewisk
upset the ultra nationalist quote Law and Justice Party and
has the only prospects for forming a coalition to now
rule the nation. Yet the President has refused to name
(25:08):
Tusk as prime minister. The President now says he will
not open parliament until the eleventh of next month, and
he may not have named a prime minister even then.
There are grim suspicions in Poland that somebody is trying
to pull a Trump there to reappoint the fascist and
then either stage violence or create some diversion to keep
the Democratic Coalition and Tusk out of office. The runner up,
(25:32):
Mayor Eric Adams of New York. This is not about
his delusion of being anointed by God. I'm letting that
pass today. This is about the dangers of e bikes
in this city or any other city. People have died
here because the batteries of e bikes have caught fire
in apartment buildings. People have been grievously wounded here because
(25:52):
the police do nothing about e bikers riding up on
sidewalks or ignoring all traffic lights and laws and driving
in the opposite direction of the traffic and now now
though they've gone too far. Wednesday night, friend of mine's
dog and another dog were being walked on the west Side.
They were walking east on forty seventh Street on the sidewalk,
which is for walking out of nowhere. An idiot on
(26:16):
an e bike on the sidewalk going west plows into them,
the walker and the two dogs. Happily, the injuries to
the dogs and the walker were minor. The e biker
those swore at them as he drove away, and two
cops witnessed the entire event and did nothing. Maybe the
(26:37):
lead story is here. There were two cops standing on
forty seventh Street alert the media. The nightmare, of course,
is that e bikes are central to fighting climate change,
but something like this happens daily here because the city
is not designed for e bikes or enforcing rules, and
people are coming to hate e bikes here, and the
(26:58):
people who drive e bikes here so recklessly that when
the city acts instead of enforcing regulation against e bikes,
it's going to have to flat out ban them. So
these idiots are endangering lives and endangering dogs, and then
they will endanger lives again by ruining one means we
have of helping to not extinguish life on the planet.
(27:22):
Get on this, Mayor Adams, pretend God told you to,
but our winners, and we will drop the music for this.
It is a tie. Speaker Mike Johnson, hours after his
election a mass shooting in Maine, for which he has
now offered prayers. Johnson voted against background checks. He's voted
(27:45):
against protecting domestic violence victims from gun possession. He's voted
against the Bipartisans Safer Communities Act. But he had time
to meet ten days ago in his House office with
women for Gun Rights to, as he put it, then
discuss the safeguarding of our Second Amendment rights. Speaker, shove
(28:05):
your Second Amendment up your ass. It does not say
anything about ownership of guns. If it did, it would
have the word own in it, you fatuous christo fascist idiot.
I'm going to suggest something now that might be grotesque,
It might be callous, it might hurt some of those
directly affected by these shootings, or it might steer the
(28:29):
society out of its spiral towards collective suicide by gun.
I think we should name each mass shooting after a
politician who's inactivity, negligence, or acceptance of bribes from the
NRA has made them at least a symbolic accessory before
the fact to the latest carnage. I think we should
(28:50):
not call this one the Lewiston, Maine mass shooting. I
think we should call this one the Speaker Mike Johnson
mass shooting, or the Senator Susan Collins mass shooting. The
Senator from voted against renewing the assault weapons ban, and
she voted against the ban on high capacity magazines that
(29:11):
allow mass shooters to fire their weapons of terror even faster.
She has contributed to the fact that while gutless, heartless
Republicans like herself always respond to a mass shooting like
the Speaker Mike Johnson mass shooting by invoking mental health.
Maine does not have background checks on all gun sales,
nor a red flag law, nor does it stop domestic
(29:33):
abusers from getting guns, nor does it have a waiting period.
Senator Collins has not learned her lesson. She had the
gall to show up to a news conference in Lewiston
last night. Or we could also call this one the
Sean Hannity mass shooting. A long time ago, I was
friendly with this fatuous idiot. He used to express bewilderment
(29:55):
to me that people took what he said or what
I said seriously. It's only television. At some point though,
he started believing his own delusions after the shooting Wednesday night,
interviewing Nicky Hayley, well, there's a combined IQ that's still
under one hundred, Hannity actually suggested that everybody should have
(30:17):
a plan to confront a mass shooter. Quote, I have
a personal security plan. I train in mix Marshall Arch.
In other words, Sean Hannity thinks this is the matrix
and he's going to kick the AR fifteen out of
the Mike Johnson mass shooter's hands. I'm guessing ultimately nobody
(30:39):
on the right will do anything about any of this
until they are literally all standing over the body of
somebody like Sean Hannity and commenting on how it looked
like he was in some sort of jiu jitsu stance.
When that guy put the six inch diameter bullet hole
through him, and maybe even then they still won't do
(31:00):
anything about it. Speaker Mike Johnson, Senator and Collins Sean
Hannity useless wasted human beings, today's worst persons in the world.
The closest thing James Thurber ever wrote to a novel
(31:24):
was the story of his childhood, somewhat exaggerated, or, according
to his family, almost completely exaggerated. It was called My
Life and hard Times. In it are stories like the
night the bed fell and such as that. But my favorite,
perhaps of all of his stories from his supposed youth,
is called University Days. There's a lot of well you'll hear,
(31:50):
there's a lot of stuff in University Days. And so
I presented to you for the first time on Fridays
with Thurber University Days by James Thurber. I've passed all
the other courses that I took at my university, but
I could never pass botany. This was because all botany
(32:12):
students had to spend several hours a week in a
laboratory looking through a microscope at plant cells, and I
could never see through a microscope. I never once saw
a cell through a microscope. This used to enrage my instructor.
He would wander around the laboratory, pleased with the progress
(32:32):
all the students were making and drawing the involved and
so I am told interesting structure of flower cells. Until
he came to me. I would just be standing there.
I can't see anything, I would say. He would begin
patiently enough explaining how anybody can see through a microscope,
(32:52):
but he would always end up in a fury, claiming
that I could too see through a microscope, but just
pretended that I couldn't. It takes away from the beauty
of flowers. Anyway. I used to tell him, we are
not concern with the beauty in this course. He would say,
we are concerned solely with what I may call the
mechanics of flowers. Well, I'd say, I can't see anything.
(33:18):
Try it just once again, he'd say, And I would
put my eye to the microscope and see nothing at all,
except now and again a nebulous milky substance, a phenomenon
of maladjustment. You were supposed to see a vivid, restless
clockwork of sharply defined plant cells. I see what looks
(33:40):
like a lot of milk. I would tell him this,
He claimed was the result of my not having adjusted
the microscope properly. So he would readjust it for me,
or rather for himself, and I would look again and
see milk. I finally took a deferred pass, as they
called it, and waited a year and tried again. You
(34:01):
had to pass one of the biological sciences, or you
could graduate. The professor had come back from vacation brown
as a berry, bright eyed and eager to explain cell
structure again to his classes. Well, he said to me
cheerily when we met in the laboratory first hour of
the semester. We're going to see cells this time, aren't we, Yes, sir,
(34:23):
I said. Students to right of me, and to left
of me, and in front of me were seeing cells.
What's more, they were quietly drawing pictures of them in
their notebooks. Of course, I didn't see anything. We'll try it,
the professor said to me gently. With every adjustment of
(34:43):
the microscope known to man, as God is my witness,
I'll arrange this glass so that you see cells through it,
or I'll give up teaching. In twenty two years of
botany I he cut off abruptly before he was beginning
(35:04):
to quiver all over like Lionel Barrymore, and he genuinely
wished to hold on to his temper. His scenes with
me had taken a great deal out of him. As
an editor's note here, if you don't recognize the name
Lionel Barrymore, if you've ever seen the movie It's a
Wonderful life, mister Potter, the evil financier in the wheelchair
(35:27):
that was played by Lionel Barrymore, who used to quiver
all over. Back to Thurber. So, we tried it with
every adjustment of the microscope known to man. With only
one of them did I see anything but blackness or
the familiar lacteal opacity. And that time I saw, to
(35:47):
my pleasure and amazement, a variegated constellation of flex specks
and dots. These I hastily drew. The instructor, noting my activity,
came back from an adjoining desk, a smile on his lips,
his eyebrows high in hope. He looked at my cell
draw What's that, he demanded, with a hint of squeal
(36:08):
in his voice. That's what I saw. I said, You didn't,
You didn't, You didn't, he screamed, losing control of his
temper instantly, and he bent over and squinted into the microscope.
His head snapped up. That's your eye, he shouted. You
fix the lens so that it reflects you've drawn your eye.
(36:32):
Another course that I didn't like but somehow managed to
pass was economics. I went to that class straight from
the botany class, which didn't help me any in understanding
either subject. I used to get them mixed up, but
not as mixed up as another student in my economics
class who came there direct from a physics laboratory. He
(36:54):
was a tackle on the football team named Balentsowitz. At
the time, Ohio State University had one of the best
football teams in the country, and Blentsuwitz was one of
its outside standing stars. In order to be eligible to play,
it was necessary for him to keep up in his studies,
a very difficult matter, for while he was not dumber
(37:16):
than an ox, he was not any smarter. Most of
his professors were lenient and helped him along. None gave
him more hints in answering questions or asked him simpler
ones than the economics professor, a thin, timid man named Bassum.
One day, when when we were on the subject of
transportation and distribution. It became Blentsowitz's turn to answer a question.
(37:42):
Name one means of transportation, the professor said to him.
No light came into the big tackle's eyes. Just any
means of transportation, said the professor. Balentsuwitz sat staring at him.
That is, pursued the professor, any medium, agency or method
(38:07):
of going from one place to another. Balentuwitz had the
look of a man who is being led into a trap.
You may choose among steam, horse drawn or electrically propelled vehicles,
said the instructor. I might suggest the one which we
commonly take in making long journeys across land. There was
(38:33):
a profound silence in which everybody stirred uneasily, including Balentuwitz
and mister Bassum. Mister Bassom abruptly broke this silence in
an amazing manner. Chew, Chew, chew, he said in a
(38:55):
low voice, and turned instantly scarlet. He glanced appealingly around
the room. All of us, of course, shared mister Bassom's
desire that Balentuwitz would stay abreast of the class in
economics for the Illinois Game, one of the hardest and
most important the season. Was only a week off too, too, too,
Some student with a deep voice moaned, and we all
(39:16):
looked encouragingly at Balentsuwitz. Somebody else gave a fine imitation
of a locomotive letting off steam. Mister Bassom himself rounded
off the little shell. Ding dong, ding dong, ding dong,
he said hopefully. Balentsowitz was staring at the floor now
trying to think. His great brow furrowed, his huge hands
(39:41):
rubbing together, his face red. How did you come to
college this year, mister Balentowitz asked the professor. Chuff of chuff, chuff, chuff,
CHUFFI chuff my father sent me, said the football player.
(40:01):
What on, asked bassm get Loans, said the tackle in
a low, husky voice, obviously embarrassed. No, No, said pass.
Some name a means of transportation? What did you ride
here on train? Said Bealensuitz. Quite right, said the professor. Now,
(40:27):
mister Nugent, will you tell us if I went through
anguish in botany and economics for different reasons. Gymnasium work
was even worse. I don't even like to think about it.
They wouldn't let you play games or join in the exercises.
With your glasses on and I couldn't see with mine off.
I bumped into professors, horizontal bars, agricultural students swinging iron rings,
(40:54):
not being able to see. I could take it, but
I couldn't dish it out. Also, in order to pass gymnasium,
and you had to pass it to graduate, you had
to learn to swim if you didn't know how. I
didn't like the swimming pool. I didn't like swimming, and
I didn't like the swimming instructor, and after all these years,
(41:16):
I still don't. I never swam, but I passed my
gym work anyway by having another student give my gymnasium
number nine seven eight and swim across the pool in
my place. He was a quiet, amiable blonde youth number
four seventy three, and he would have seen through a
microscope before me if we could have gotten away with that.
(41:37):
But we couldn't get away with that. Another thing I
didn't like about gymnasium work was that they made you
strip the day you registered. It is impossible for me
to be happy when I am stripped and being asked
a lot of questions. Still, I did better than a
lanky agricultural student who was cross examined. Just before I was.
They asked each student what college he was in, that is,
(41:59):
whether arts, engineering, commerce, or agriculture. What college are you in?
The instructor snapped at the youth in front of me
Ohio State University. He said promptly, it wasn't that agricultural student,
but it was another a whole lot like him, who
decided to take up journalism, possibly on the ground that
when farming went to hell, he could fall back on
(42:21):
newspaper work. He didn't realize, of course, that that would
be very much like falling back full length on a
kit of carpenter's tools. Haskins didn't seem cut out for journalism,
being too embarrassed to talk to anybody and unable to
use a typewriter, but the editor of the college paper
assigned him to the cowbarns, the sheep house, the horse pavilion,
(42:42):
and the animal husbandry department. Generally, this was a genuinely
big beat for took up five times as much ground
and got ten times as great a legislative appropriation as
the College of Liberal Arts. The agricultural student knew animals,
but nevertheless his stories were dull and colorlessly written. He
(43:05):
took all afternoon on each of them. On account of
having to hunt for each letter on the typewriter. Once
in a while he had to ask somebody to help
him hunt. C and L in particular, were hard letters
for him to find. His editor finally got pretty much
annoyed at the farmer journalists because his pieces were so uninteresting.
(43:28):
See here, Haskins. He snapped at him one day, why
is it we never have anything hot from you on
the horse pavilion Here we have two hundred head of
horses on this campus, more than any other university in
the Western Conference except Purdue, and yet you never get
any real lowdown on them. Now shoot over to the
horse barns and dig up something lively. Haskins shambled out
(43:50):
and came back in about an hour. He said he
had something. Well tart it off, snappily, said the editor,
something people will read. Haskins sent to work, and in
a couple of hours brought a sheet of typewritten paper
to the desk. It was a two hundred word story
about some disease that had broken out among the horses.
Its opening sentence was simple but arresting. It read, who
(44:16):
has noticed the sores on the tops of the horses
in the animal husbandry building. Ohio State was a land
grant university and therefore two years of military drill was compulsory.
We drilled with old Springfield rifles and studied the tactics
of the Civil War, even though the World War was
going on at the time. At eleven o'clock each morning,
(44:38):
thousands of freshmen and sophomores used to deploy over the campus,
moodily creeping up on the old chemistry building. It was
good training for the kind of warfare that was waged
at Shiloh, but it had no connection with what was
going on in Europe. Some people used to think that
there was German money behind it, but they didn't dare
(44:58):
say that, or they would have been thrown in jail
as German spies. It was a period of muddy thought
and marked I believe the decline of higher education in
the Middle West. As a soldier, I was never any
good at all. Most of the cadets were glumly indifferent soldiers,
but I was no good at all. Once General Littlefield,
(45:23):
who was commandant of the Cadet Corps, popped up in
front of me during regimental drill and snapped, you are
the main trouble with this university. I think he meant
that my type was the main trouble with the university,
but he may have met me individually. I was mediocre
at drill, certainly, that is until my senior year. By
(45:46):
that time I had drilled longer than anybody else in
the Western Conference, having failed at military at the end
of each preceding year, so that I had to do
it all over again. I was the only seniors still
in uniform. The uniform, which when new had made me
look like an interurban railway conductor, had become faded and
(46:06):
too tight, made me look like Bert Williams in his
Bellboy act. This had a definitely bad effect on my morale.
Even so, I had become by sheer practice little short
of wonderful at squad maneuvers. One day, General Littlefield picked
(46:26):
our company out of the whole regiment, tried to get
it mixed up by putting it through one movement after
another as fast as we could execute them. Squad's right,
squad's left, squad's on right into line squad's right, about
squad's left, front into line, et cetera. In about three minutes.
One hundred and nine men were marching in one direction,
and I was marching away from them at an angle
(46:48):
of forty degrees, all alone. Company halt, shouted General Littlefield.
That man is the only man who has it right.
I was made a corporal for my achievement. The next day,
General Littlefield summoned me to his office. He was swatting
(47:10):
flies when I came in. I was silent, and he
was silent too. For a long time. I don't think
he remembered me or why he had sent for me,
But he didn't want to admit that. He swatted some
more flies, keeping his eyes on them narrowly before he
let go with the swatter. But not up your coat,
he snapped. Looking back on it now, I can see
(47:32):
that he meant me, although he was looking at a fly.
But I just stood there. Another fly came to rest
on a paper in front of the General and began
rubbing its hind legs together. The General lifted the swatter cautiously.
I moved restlessly, and the fly flew away. You startle them,
barked General Littlefield, looking at me severely. I said, I
(47:54):
was sorry. That won't help the situation. Snapped the General
with cold military logic. I didn't see what I could
do except offered to chase some more flies toward him desk,
but I didn't say anything. He stared out the window
at the far away figures of co Ed's crossing the
campus towards the library. Finally he told me I could go,
(48:16):
so I went. He either didn't know which cadet I was,
or else he forgot what he wanted to see me about.
It may have been that he wished to apologize for
having called me the main trouble with the university, or
maybe he had decided to compliment me on my brilliant
drilling of the day before, and then at the last
minute decided not to. I don't know. I don't think
(48:41):
about it much anymore. University Days by James Thurber done
all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening.
(49:03):
Any similarity to my University Days is purely coincidental. Countdown
has come to you from the Vin Scully Studios at
the Older Woman Broadcasting Empire in New York. If you
know anybody who does not listen to this podcast, please
tell them how wonderful it is. And if you're still
listening at this point, you must think it's wonderful. Countown
musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillip Schanel arranged, produced,
and performed most of our music. Mister Shanelle handled orchestration
(49:26):
and keyboards. Mister Ray was on the guitars, the bass,
and the drums, and it was produced by Tko Brothers.
The other music, including other Beethoven tunes, were arranged and
performed by No Horns Allowed. The sports music is courtesy
of ESPN, Inc. It was written by Mitch Warren Davis,
and we call it the Olderman theme from ESPN two.
Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Fauss,
(49:48):
the best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was
my friend Richard Lewis of Ohio State University, and everything
else was pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for
this the oney twenty fifth day since Donald Trump's first
attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the na
United States. Convict him now while we still can. The
(50:08):
next scheduled countdown is Tuesday. Bulletin says the news warrants
till then. I'm Keith Oldman. Good morning, good afternoon, Good
Night and good Luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a
(50:32):
production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
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