April 7, 2023 • 47 mins
EPISODE 173: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:42) SPECIAL COMMENT: President Biden needs to federalize the Tennessee National Guard in order to help re-establish democracy in that state. A GOP Super-majority employs sanctioned government bigotry, racism, and fascism to EXPEL two African-Americans who had the temerity to protest the slaughter of school children there. The cracker NRA members who did this did everything but call them "boy," describe them as "uppity," or say "what we have is failure to communicate."
(9:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: The Senate must impanel a committee in hopes of forcing the resignation or arrest of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, our 21st Century version of Boss Tweed, a walking, breathing version of a "FOR SALE" sign.
(24:15) SPECIAL COMMENT: Alvin Bragg has a TAPE of The Defendant and Michael Cohen talking about hush money for women. And Jim Jordan may just be stupid enough to conduct hearings on Bragg and Trump and Stormy Daniels and let the Democrats prosecute him day after day after day. Plus those Secret Service agents are testifying TODAY, per CBS News, to Special Counsel Jack Smith's Grand Jury.
B-BLOCK (29:32) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Biden strikes a devil's bargain with fascists who will never stop with what he's giving them: SOME trans athletes can be barred from high school and college sports? And Sean Spicer's TV career is over (31:40) IN SPORTS: Mastering the Masters after a double-bogey on the 1st Hole. The Pitch Clock is 8 days old. The Pitch Clock will soon be sponsored. (33:53) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Don Lemon looks really bad, Charlie Kirk and Glenn Beck are really dumb, and Travis Tritt will show those LGBTQ-friendly Bud Light people - he won't let them give him any more free beer!
C-BLOCK (40:40) THINGS I PROMISED TO TELL: I met my first boss Sam Rosen and future Disney chairman Bob Iger on the SAME day. When I had to write my last college English paper about an interesting character I had just met - I didn't choose Iger.
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. President
Biden needs to federalize the Tennessee National Guard in order
(00:25):
to help re establish democracy in that state. Yesterday, in
one of the worst episodes of sanctioned government bigotry and
racism in recent history, the Republicans supermajority in the Tennessee
State Assembly voted to expel two African American lawmakers who
had joined a public protest pleading for stricter gun laws
(00:46):
after the shooting at the Covenant Christian School. The protest
briefly interrupted a debate and the Republicans. The white Republicans,
literally reacted to the protest, in which the most dangerous
weapon wielded was a megaphone, by comparing it to the
January sixth insurrection at the United States Capitol. Yesterday, on
(01:06):
a motion from a white Republican named Andrew Farmer, Representative
Justin Pearson of Memphis was expelled from the Tennessee Assembly.
So was Justin Jones, representative of Nashville, not reprimanded, not
censured expelled. A third member of the House involved with
the protest, Gloria Johnson of Knoxville, survived the move to
(01:27):
expel her by just one vote. She is not. African
American democracy is on the verge of collapse. In Tennessee.
Republicans have gerrymandered the state to give rural white areas
absolute control over the racially diverse cities of Tennessee. The
Republicans will brook no gun reform, no gun debate, no
gun discussion, and certainly no gun protests, even as terrified
(01:51):
school children in their own state begged them too. During reconstruction,
the federal government sent troops into most of the South
to try to re establish representative government and integrated government.
For the first time in nineteen fifty seven, when Governor
Orville Faubus brought the Arkansas National Guard to Little Rock
(02:11):
High School to prevent its integration. President Dwight Eisenhower nationalized
that Arkansas National Guard and had its members instead protect
the nine African American students. Six years later, the same
scenario played out in Alabama, where Governor George Wallace tried
to block the integration of the university there. President John F.
Kennedy federalized the Alabama Guard under the Insurrection Act of
(02:33):
eighteen oh seven. It is time for President Biden to
take the same steps to re establish democracy in Tennessee
because the racial parallels to Little Rock and Tuscaloosa are
simply differently constructed. Representatives Jones and Pearson were not expelled
because they attacked gun rights, or because they protested, nor
(02:53):
because they interrupted debate with a megaphone. They were expelled
because they did all that while being black. If you
don't believe me, listen, not just to what the expulsion
build sponsor this cracker lawyer NRA member Andrew Farmer said
to Representative Pearson, but how he said it. The only
(03:14):
things he left out were what we have here is
failure to communicate and quote boy unquote ar in this
Tennessee General Assembly. That's why you're standing there because of
that temper tantrum that day, for that yearning to have attention.
That's what you wanted, but you're getting it now. So
(03:35):
I disadvise you. If you want to conduct business in
this house, follow bill, be recognized, stand there and present
it and pass it. All you gotta do is pass
a bill. Represent Pearson. Now you all heard then, how
(04:02):
many of you would want to be spoken to that way?
How many of you want to be spoken to that way?
We're not talking about politics, We're not talking about even
gotten violent. How many of you would want to be
(04:23):
spoken to that way. The reason that I believe the
sponsor of this legislation, of this resolution spoke that way
is because he's comfortable doing it, because there's a decorum
that allows it. As a decorum that allows you to
(04:48):
belittle people. We didn't belot nobody. Another white Republican Representative
Geno Bulso, while questioning Representative Jones, said that failing to
expel the members would quote simply invite him at his
colleagues to continue to engage in mutant on the House
floor mutiny. I am surprised that Representative Bolso left out
(05:11):
the word uppity. After the expulsions, Representative Pearson explained what
this was really about in order that the National Rifle
Association and all of these gun lobbyists continue to be
able to have control over our legislation. What bard from
my mind right now is we need to fight for
democracy in the state of Tennessee, and we need people
not only just to vote, but people the sharp and
(05:34):
counsel that we can depend the gun that is happening
in our state. This is wrong, This is unjust, and
this is not the way that it has to be.
There is a better way for us to live, and
we don't have to live this way. But the Republican
Party of the State of Tennessee want to keep things
the saves. If you want to fight to ten if
you want to help to make this place for a
better place, you have to use your voice, you have
to use your power. Yes, sometimes you gotta get expelled. Sea.
(06:01):
I'm going this institution had kage, the injustice must have changed,
and I'll continue to find them. My family wille coming back. Yes,
it is almost certain when selecting temporary replacements for the
expelled members, their home county boards will choose Justin Jones
(06:24):
and Justin Pearson. Then there will be special elections, and
the men cannot be expelled twice for the same actions.
But the issue is larger than these two representatives in Tennessee,
In Tennessee, in Nebraska, in Missouri, in Idaho, in Kansas.
Throughout this country, democracy is not just failing at the
local level, it is being killed by Republicans. And in
(06:49):
every case, as in Tennessee, there is an undertone, often
an overtone of racism and misogyny, and in every case
there is the growing menace of fascist ownership of the
local and state governments in the areas in which they
are predominant. They are not just winning elections and instituting policies,
(07:10):
as Republicans and Democrats alike have done since the eighteen fifties.
These Republicans are trying to put Democrats and democracy out
of business. President Biden, federalize the National Guard in Tennessee
and have it and not the Tennessee State troopers protecting
the Tennessee General Assembly and those who wish to protest
(07:32):
or to serve there. The fascists are getting uppity. What
we have is failure to communicate, or as this fascist
farmer said to Justin Pearson, the Republicans are having temper
tantrums and they're yearning to have attention. That's what they wanted.
Well they're getting it now. Federalize the Tennessee Guard, President Biden.
(07:58):
The trouble there is not ending here. And we know
who is making the trouble, the andrew Arms and the
Geno Balsoms of this modern elected streamlined clan, and you,
mister President, and possibly you alone, have the power to
(08:18):
stop it. It was a very busy and very disturbing
day on many fronts, and not just in Tennessee. The
Senate Judiciary Committee must immediately begin an investigation and televised
hearings into the newly exposed evidence of repetitive, endless, institutionalized
(08:40):
corruption by Justice Clarence Thomas of the United States Supreme Court,
whether an eye to forcing his resignation or his arrest
or both. House Democrats, though only one Supreme Court justice
has ever been impeached, though they would certainly lose the vote,
must immediately introduce articles of impeachment against Justice Thomas. The
(09:02):
Attorney General of the United States, Merrick Garland, must immediately
begin a criminal investigation into the dozens, more likely hundreds
of times that Justice Thomas has violated federal laws prohibiting
the acceptance of bribes and expensive gifts, and the Attorney
General must launch similar investigations into the possible bribery of
Justice Cavanaugh, Justice Alito, Justice Gorsich, Justice Coney Barrett, and
(09:27):
Chief Justice John Roberts. Chief Justice John Roberts must immediately
resign during his virtually absentee tenure, the Court has descended
below the surface of a vast cesspool of corruption and
political extremism, and it is now unrecognizable even when contrasted
to the merely biased and manipulated court of just twenty
(09:50):
years ago. Thomas, if you have somehow missed the report
by the investigative independent journalists, ProPublica, is not just the
political prostitute we all knew him to be. For two
decades now, he has been accepting gifts some worth twice
his annual income, including exotic vacations for himself and his wife,
(10:12):
from one Republican The organizations he runs frequently submit petitions
and briefs to the Supreme Court. He is also a
Republican mega donor. During these trips and on countless other occasions,
Clarence Thomas has made himself available to Republican financial powers,
corporate lobbyists, and other malefactors of mankind. And while in
(10:35):
twenty twenty his wife was trying to overthrow the government
of the United States on behalf of the Republican Party,
Clarence Thomas himself voted with the majority in a twenty
sixteen Supreme Court case called McDonnell v. United States, in
which he and the Court ended federal bribery statutes that
made it a crime for a public official to quote,
(10:56):
receive or accept anything of value in exchange for being
influenced in the performance of any official act. Thomas not
only did not recuse himself from this case, Thomas used
the power of the court to shield a Republican governor
of Virginia so venal that he once accepted fifty thousand
dollars from a businessman and immediately within minutes texted one
(11:20):
of his aids to arrange the meetings that that businessman
wanted with state officials. Clarence Thomas then voted, and he
voted to make the exact kind of bribes that he
has ritually and voraciously and greedily devoured legal. Clarence Thomas
is a whore, and particularly in combination with his insurrectionist
(11:40):
conspiracy theory peddling ex cult member wife, he is a
clear and present danger to the United States of America
and the continuation of its form of government and to
the freedom of its citizens. And Clarence Thomas has got
to go. And if Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin is
not up to this urgent and vital task, he needs
(12:02):
to turn his committee over to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse or
literally anybody willing to stand for the American public and
not merely to self protect the a moral bureaucracy of
the federal government. Sadly, the early returns suggest Durban is
not even close to being up to this. His reaction
is barely a notch above Susan Collins levels of quote concern.
(12:26):
Today's report, Durban writes, demonstrates yet again that Supreme Court
justices must be held to an enforceable code of conduct,
just like every other federal judge. The pro publica report
is a call to action, and the Senate Judiciary Committee
will act end quote. How will it act, Senator Durban?
(12:48):
When how many more times will Clarence Thomas loot this country?
How much more will he steal? How many more of
his Supreme Court votes will he sell before he and
his seditious wife are investigated and removed and punished and
the vermin who bribed them prosecuted and imprisoned as well.
Clarence Thomas, a living, breathing for sale sign, has been
(13:13):
prostituting himself and the Supreme Court and this country since
nineteen ninety one. When will his reign of justice denied
is available for the right price be ended permanently. Senator Whitehouse,
who chairs the Subcommittee on the Federal Courts, at least
put some anger into his words. This cries out for
(13:37):
the kind of independent investigation that the Supreme Court, and
only the Supreme Court across the entire government refuses to perform.
And the best bet for Democrats to do something anything
is in the Senate. If a Democratic strategist named Max
Burns is to be believed, quote, one Democratic House member
tells me by a text, public trust in the Supreme
(13:59):
Court is already bad. A big circus would destroy it completely.
Vote yes, exactly. That's where we are. The Supreme Court
is now a theocratic entity, enslaving the majority of Americans
to its own religious beliefs, except when religious beliefs aren't involved,
(14:20):
and the justice is like this whore Clarence Thomas have
been bought and paid for. Better that public trust in
this form of the Supreme Court of the United States
be destroyed completely than for this Supreme Court to be
run by this utterly corrupt Clarence Thomas and his psychotic wife.
(14:41):
The serial bribing of Clarence Thomas, documented by Pro Publica,
reads like something out of the nineteenth century. And the
professionally corrupt New York City politician Boss Tweed. A twenty
nineteen vacation on a thirty seven million dollar private jet
and a private yacht worth at least half a million dollars.
(15:01):
The vacation, not the yacht. The jet and the yacht
owned by Harland Crowe of Dallas, Texas. Other trips on
the yacht one a day cruise in Georgia, one something
larger around twenty thirteen in New Zealand, another trip to
the Greek Islands, another destination unknown date known because the
host had customized polo shirts made for the guests with
(15:25):
the name of the yacht and the year two thousand
and seven emblazoned on them, and Clarence Thomas has been
brazen enough to be photographed wearing that shirt. Shirts provided
by Harland Crowe of Dallas, Texas. Two eleven donation to
a tea party group also half a million dollars. The
group was founded by Jinny Thomas. The group's top employee,
(15:48):
who was paid a salary of one hundred and twenty
thousand dollars, was Jinny Thomas. The donation came from Harland
Crowe of Dallas, Texas. Annual access to a private resort
in the Adirondack Mountains called top Ridge, where hangs a
painting show Clarence Thomas smoking a cigar with four other men.
(16:08):
One is the notorious Republican moneyman and Federalist Society fascist
organizer Leonard Leo. One is Harland Crowe of Dallas, Texas.
Rooms at another resort nearby Nowhere near is nice. Start
at twenty two hundred and fifty dollars a night. You
cannot buy your way though into the top Ridge resort
(16:29):
where this picture hangs. It is private. It is owned
by Harland Crowe of Dallas, Texas. The late nineteen nineties
gift of a Bible once owned by Frederick Douglas worth
at least nineteen thousand dollars. The gift came from Harland
Crowe of Dallas, Texas. Another portrait of Clarence Thomas and
Jenny Thomas, value unknown. The painting was commissioned by Harland
(16:53):
Crowe of Dallas, Texas. A recent donation to Yale Law
School and the amount of one hundred and five thousand
dollars for the Justice Thomas Portrait Fund. The generous gift
of Harland Crowe of Dallas, Texas, a trip from Washington
to Texas on a private jet to a private home
so Clarence Thomas could swear in a Fifth Circuit judge
(17:13):
with the utterly appropriate name for purposes of the startling
pro publica story of James Hoe. The jet which the
rental of an equivalent private jet would cost about seventy
thousand dollars for this trip, and the number of Thomas
trips on the jet are at least in double figures.
The jet and the home are owned by Harland Crowe
(17:33):
of Dallas, Texas. In October twenty twenty one trip on
that jet to Mahwah, New Jersey, so Thomas could speak
at the dedication of an eighteen hundred pound statue of
his eighth grade teacher, a nun called Sister Virgilius, a
speech Thomas ended by thanking the people who paid for
that statue, mister and missus. Harland Crowe of Dallas, Texas.
(17:57):
A twenty twenty one documentary about Clarence Thomas called Born Equal,
in which with a straight face, Clarence Thomas says, I
for the RV parks, I prefer the Walmart parking lots
to the beaches and things like that. The documentary was
funded by Harland Crowe of Dallas, Texas, and Harlan Crowe
(18:17):
and Clarence Thomas and Jinny Thomas did not even bother
to hide their tracks. Pro Publica documented his litany of
offenses simply by looking at flight records and from conducting
interviews with everybody from staff on a super yacht to
a Scubra instructor in Indonesia, and from documents distributed among
(18:41):
the employees of Harlan Crowe of Dallas, Texas. Harland Crowe
is a seventy four year old real estate developer. He
and Clarence Thomas met in nineteen ninety six. He got
the anti tax group Club for Growth up on its
financial feed after a shaky start. He is on the
board of the far right Hoover Institution and the American
(19:04):
Enterprise Institution. He has given ten million dollars to Republican
candidates and organizations, those to whom news of his donations
has been required. The rest of the donations untold amounts
we know nothing about. The Harvard Business School Club of
Dallas conducted something called the Real Estate Magnate interview series
(19:26):
Quick Questions, Quick answers. Harland Crowe has asked what scares
you the most. Harland Crowe's answer was one word, Marxism.
The Supreme Court justice was impeached by the House in
eighteen oh four and then acquitted by the Senate. There
has never been any Supreme Court justice removed, no matter
how corrupt by legal means. The supposed sanctity of this court,
(19:50):
its restoration from the whorehouse that people like Clarence Thomas
and Jenny Thomas and Harland Crowe have made it into
can be accomplished only grimly by waiting for people like
Thomas to resign or die. According to federal law US
Code five CFR Part two six three five, sub Part B,
(20:12):
government employees may accept gifts of almost any kind and
are not required to report them, nor are they subject
to investigation for conflicts of interest or bribery because of them,
provided those gifts are worth no more than four hundred
and fifteen dollars. The four hundred and fifteen dollars threshold
(20:34):
would have been passed literally within five seconds of the
first moment that this scumbag Clarence Thomas first stepped onto
Harlan Crows thirty seven million dollar jet in Dallas, Texas
(20:56):
and separate from both of those stories. Supreme Court sea
separate sheet for bribery rate card. There is also news
today out the defendant, knowing that he would get his
ass kicked if he actually did more than just threatened
to subpoena the Manhattan District Attorney Alban Bragg, the wonderfully
incompetent Congressman Jim Jordan, has instead subpoenaed former Manhattan Assistant
(21:20):
District Attorney Mark Pomerantz. Pomerantz resigned over Bragg's hesitation to
pursue the original case against the defendant left to him
by his predecessor. The DA's office has already forbidden Pomerants
to testify, and rightly so. Jim Jordan now threatens contempt
of Congress charges which the Department of Justice will not
act upon, of course, and which is kind of undercut
(21:43):
by the fact that Jim Jordan ignored a subpoena from
the House January sixth Committee DA. Bragg also hinted again
that Jordan is coming very close to obstructing a criminal investigation. Frankly,
Pomerantz should testify. Bragg himself should testify if Jim Jordan
wants to hold an unofficial version of the defendant's stormy
(22:05):
Daniel's election interference and tax of Aasian trial inside his
congressional hearing room. Go for it. It'd be like arresting
the defendant every day for a week after week after week,
and one more thing from the arrest of the defendant.
And how in the hell has this not become a headline?
Alvin Bragg has a tape of the defense. All right,
(22:27):
I want to be absolutely clear here Trump. Alvin Bragg
has a tape of Trump and lawyer A lawyer A
is Michael Cohen, and they are discussing how to payoff
woman one. That's Karen McDougall. Lordie, lordie, there's a tape.
Bragg writes about it in his Statement of Facts Item fourteen,
which apparently every reporter in this country failed to read.
(22:51):
I'll use the names, not the identity hiders quote. In
a conversation captured in an audio recording in approximately September
twenty sixteen concerning McDougall's account, the defendant and Cohen discussed
how to obtain the rights to McDougal's account from Ami Ami.
That's the National Enquirer publishing company and how to reimburse
(23:12):
AMI for its payment. Cohen told the defendant he would
open up a company for the transfer of McDougall's account
and other information, and stated that he had spoken to
the chief financial officer for the Trump organization about quote,
how to set the whole thing up. The defendant asked, quote,
so what do we gotta pay for this one fifty
(23:34):
and suggested paying by cash. When Cohen disagreed, the defendant
then mentioned payment by check. There is no other reference
to recordings in Bragg's filing. There is no guarantee that
a judge would let a surreptitiously recorded conversation into the
record at trial. But one thing is I think certain.
If there is one conversation involving the defendant on tape,
(23:58):
there are more than one conversation on tape, and they
probably all sound just as eloquent as the defendant saying,
so what do we got to pay for this one fifty?
Which reads like a line from the Sopranos. I mean, geez, defendant,
paying one fifty one fifty wouldn't even buy you an
hour of Clarence Thomas's time. Owen, CBS News is confirming
(24:36):
what had been reported earlier in the week that former
and current US Secret Service officials will after all testify
today through special Counsel Jacksmith's Grand Jury in relation to
the classified documents Trump stole and stashed at Marilago. There
were conflicting reports whether it would be now or later,
and according to to CBS, it'll be now. Still ahead
(24:58):
on this initiship countdown absolutely incomprehensible. The Biden administration cuts
a deal with the Theocrats. Some trans athletes can be
banned from scholastic sports, because appeasing terrorists always works, right, Joe,
I mean this is almost at the level of maybe
we need a new candidate next year. Kind of offensive,
(25:19):
mister President. Sports first, baseball boasted, this is the one
sport where there is no clock. Then they instituted a clock,
a pitch clock, now the inevitable. A week after the
first use of the pitch clock, the pitch clock is
now available to be sponsored. Report from the City of
(25:39):
Merchandise coming up. It's an all new things I promised
not to tell. Actually, in one way that's not true.
Most of what I'll be reading I wrote in March.
March nineteen seventy nine. It's about the day I met
the man who would become my first boss in radio,
and I met the man who would become the chairman
of Disney. I had to write a school paper on
(26:01):
an interesting character I had just met, and I tunes, Yes,
the guy who did not become the chairman of Disney.
And in worse persons, Travis Tritt. He's going to show
them trans friendly bud Light people. He will not let
bud Light give him any more free bud Light. By God,
what a sacrifice. It's like he jumped on a grenade
(26:23):
at That's next. This is an all new edition of Countdown.
This is Countdown with Keith Olberman Owe scripts to the news,
some updates, some insights, some snarks, some prediction. State Line, Washington,
(26:46):
mister President, you are not serious. The Biden administration has
proposed new regulations to allow colleges and high schools to
bar some transgender athletes from some scholastic sports based on
quote fairness unquote translated from bureaucratic ease. Blanket bands on
the athletes that have been instituted in twenty different states
(27:08):
around the country would be eliminated, but if they could
justify it on quote educational grounds. The schools could ban
a given trans athlete from a given sport. The example
the Washington Post offered was keeping a trans athlete off
a competitive high school track and field team would be okay.
(27:29):
Keeping a trans athlete off the intramural middle school kickball
team would not be okay. The various AstroTurf organizations trying
to eliminate trans athletes, and for that matter, trans people,
immediately rejected the compromise because you don't try to appease
terrorists or fascists, or especially fascist terrorists, mister President. Speaking
(27:52):
of which, date Line TV land Sean Spicer, the first
Trump Press Secretary and most recently host of the Newsmax show.
Spicer and Company is out of leaving Newsmax after contract
negotiations reportedly fell apart. He said, quote, It's time for
me to move on to a new challenge, a new adventure,
(28:14):
and a new opportunity to serve the American people. Just
guessing here, but I believe Sean Spicer will now go
across the country door to door and lie to people
one at a time rather than all at once. This
(28:40):
is sports Center, Wait, check that not anymore. This is
Countdown with Keith Alberman in sports bizarre start at the Masters,
on the first toll of the world's most overrated sporting event,
John Ram registered a four put double bogey. He starts
(29:01):
round two as the co leader seven hundred sixty five,
lowest score in Master's history by anybody who started with
a double Bogeye Brooks, Kpka and Victor Hovland are also
at seven. Under baseball, I swear fifty seven seasons. Now,
I have been following this sport every day, winter, spring, summer,
and fall, and I did not see this coming. The
(29:24):
new pitch clock, which keeps the action moving, has been
in use for literally eight days. It's not the first
time Baseball tried to introduce a pitch clock, they had
one in nineteen sixty eight, but this is the first
time it stuck, and admittedly it has helped so sure enough.
A sports business publication is reporting that Major League Baseball
(29:44):
is now offering sponsorship deals for the pitch clock. Quote.
MLB is open for business. Unquote. It is supposedly calling
timex Omega Rolex and offering to call the pitch clock.
The pitch timer. See, all right, Rolex would be nice,
(30:06):
but I'm thinking. The real choice for the sponsor of
this clock is Bang's Funeral Home, West Green Street, Ithaca,
New York. When your time is up, go out in
a Bangs. I know I've used that joke before. It's
(30:32):
still so good. Still ahead. On an awfully chunky edition
of Countdown, March twenty, nineteen seventy nine. It was quite
a day for yours, truly, and I know this because
I wrote a paper for college documenting it, and I
still have the paper. I found it the other day.
The star of the paper is a man who to
(30:53):
this day is the play by play announcer of the
New York Rangers and was my first boss. You will
never believe who I overlooked writing this paper first time
for the daily roundup, for the miss Grants, Warns and
Dunning Kruger Effect specimens who constitute today's worst person in
the world. I got a time for the bronze. Fittingly,
it's between two of the dumbest people in human history. First,
(31:14):
Glenn Beck Old Lonesome Roads is back. With Trump's arrest.
He says Democrats are now mimicking exactly what Vladimir Putin
did to his political enemy. No. Putin first had his
political enemy Alexei Nivalni, attacked on the street with chemicals
(31:35):
intended to blind him. Then when that didn't work, they
attacked him with different chemicals on the street with the
intention of blinding him. Then they poisoned him with nerve gas.
Then after Nivalney left the country, Putin learned her back
from Germany and then jailed him. Beck is tied for
the third place honors here with Charlie Kirk, the balloon
(31:58):
headed guy. It's worth to have a cost of unfortunately
some gun deaths every single year year, so that we
can have the Second Amendment to protect all our other rights.
Kirk says, as if anybody has ever used a gun
against the government to protect his other rights in this country,
and the government has all the tanks and bombs and stuff, Bob,
(32:22):
but Kirk made this worse. He then suggested, trying to
reduce gun deaths, how didn't we stop shootings at baseball
games because we had armed guards, which isn't the case.
There haven't been shootings at baseball games, and you can't
bring a gun into a baseball game because everybody has
(32:42):
to go through a magnetometer. Would you think those things
were Charlie just taking pictures of your underwear. Just not bright, guys.
The runners up President Chris Licked paced boy and his
sort of star Don Lemon. This is the lickt Lemon combination.
A CNN continues to implode. Vanity Fair magazine has sliced
(33:03):
up what passes for on air star anchor Don Lemon.
Licked destabilized Lemon by moving him from a good nighttime
show which he's solo anchored, to a morning disaster with
three anchors, Lemon, somebody they hired from The Daily Caller,
and a journeyman anchor named Hoppy Partlower. I don't know something.
Vanity Fair has an awful lot of awful things to
(33:25):
say about Don Lemon in this article, but this is
the worst. During a two thousand and eight rivalry with
then co anchor Kiera Phillips, Lemon was reportedly upset that
she was sent to Iraq and he wasn't. Phillips was
out to dinner with two staffers from their show when
she received the first of two text messages from an
unknown phone number. This is two thousand and eight. Who
(33:47):
sent text messages in two thousand and eight, especially who
sent text messages that read now you've crossed the line,
and you're going to pay for it. Vanity Fair claimed.
CNN investigated and proved that the texts were traced back
to Don Lemon. He denies that. But the Travis Tritt,
who was apparently a country singer who wears really tight
(34:09):
pastel colored pants, I have no other information. He blocked
me on Twitter after I mocked him. The lunatic right
is expressing rage on a level rare even in its
world of umbridge and paranoia. Because bud Light used a
transperson in an ad campaign or on a can or
a bottle or something. It's exhausting. I can't keep track anymore.
(34:32):
So the far right lunatics are trying to outdo each
other in aggressively boycotting bud Light. Kid Rock, who was
apparently a non country singer who had a hit in
nineteen eighty nine or something, used a machine gun to
shoot up a six pack of bud Light two of
the applause of hundreds or something. I don't know what
was going on there. Maybe it was his new song.
(34:54):
So this trit had to do something even more dramatic.
Quote other artists who are deleting anheuser Busch products from
their hospitality writer might not say so in public for
fear of being ridiculed and canceled. I have no such fear. Unquote.
Let me translate this for you. When he writes deleting
Anheuser Busch products from their hospitality writer, what he means
(35:16):
is Travis Tritt will no longer let the venues at
which he performs give him any cans of bud Light
for free. Wow. What a sacrifice, Holy cow, Travis Tritt.
It's like you're donating a kidney to a stranger. No, no, wait,
(35:37):
it's more than that. It's like you're going to the
guillotine in somebody else's place. Travis. It is a far
far better free beer. I give up than I have
ever given up before. Trit two days, worst person. And
now to the number one story on the countdown on
(36:12):
my favorite topic, Me and Things I promised not to tell.
It was James Thurber who once pointed out that the
secret to great writing was never throw away anything you
have written. He confessed that I believe in nineteen fifty
eight that he had managed to rework stuff that he
had written in nineteen eighteen. Well, I can finally top him.
(36:34):
I wrote what You're Gonna Hear Next on March twenty seventh,
nineteen seventy nine. It was a creative writing assignment for
my last English class at Cornell, and it was simple,
somebody you have met recently who you found interesting or
under interesting circumstances. Four to five pages, typed double space.
I'll spare you the suspense. It's about Sam Rosen, as
(36:57):
you will hear. I had what seemed to be a
courtesy interview with Sam Rosen in his office at UPI
Audio in New York on Thursday, March twenty second, nineteen
seventy nine. I didn't think anything had come of it,
but on July third, nineteen seventy nine, UPI Audio hired
me my first job. I was replacing their sports director.
(37:18):
Thought I named Maury Trumbull, who was leaving to go
be the sports director of NBC Radio. Yes, they used
to have such jobs. Morey and I overlapped for about
ten days, so technically he was my first boss. But
really Sam was my first boss, and he not only
survived it, he's still working. He's been the play by
(37:38):
play announcer of the New York Rangers since nineteen eighty four.
And he remains a friend. I guess I'm not that
tough on my employers after all. Just as interesting, though,
is a guy you will here referred to in passing
in the second sentence as an ABC Sports executive. I
will explain who that was and is after I read
(38:00):
you the original. From the original copy, I might add
which I will start doing in one second from now.
Keith Olberman English one thirty five point one three March
twenty seven, nineteen seventy nine. By the time I cornered
Sam Rosen in the back room of United Press International's
(38:21):
offices in New York City, March twenty second had already
qualified as a very bizarre day. In the preceding twelve hours,
I had dragged myself out of bed despite half a
night's sleep, conducted a successful job interview with an ABC
Sports executive who turned out to be a former wtko
ITHACA dish jockey, gotten drunk before noon at a bar
(38:43):
run by an ex Cornell basketball player, sobered myself up
in the bowels of New York's subway system, and walked
at least three miles on the hard city streets. Sam
Rosen is a sportscaster for the United Press Audio Network,
a low grade national organization with which I had some
contact on some all hope of employment. The Rosen, who
(39:07):
introduced himself to a burnt out, tired me, was a burly,
slow moving man, broad in the shoulders, straightforward and confident,
and the owner of distractingly bushy sideburns. He had consented
to spend a few minutes with me at the request
of Roger Norham, a UPI newscaster whom I had met
through a contact just four days earlier. Norham had thought
(39:30):
Rosen might be able to help me in my efforts
to get a job, and at the very least critique
a tape of one of my broadcasts. Page two. Rosen
began slowly and deliberately reviewing his rise to network radio
from humble beginnings as a gopher in a New York station.
It's a hard business, Keith, he pointed out. You have
to be prepared to start at the bottom, even say
(39:52):
as an intern for a radio or TV station. I noted,
rather meekly than I spent the summer of nineteen seventy
eight in just such a capacity at Channel five in
New York. Rosen seemed surprised, then a little miffed at
my sliver of experience and seemed to be groping for
something else to suggest, Well, it's good to define just
(40:12):
where you want your career to go and how it
will go. Rosen's confidence disappeared a second later when I
recounted my decision at the age of eight to become
the country's top sportscaster by starting in radio and then
moving into television. He looked at me with mystification and
slowly leaned back in his seat, to the accompaniment of
a groan from rusty hinges and the squeak of the
(40:35):
chairs casters against the tile floor. Maybe you should try stringing,
he offered, and began to explain the radio term for
providing reports or newsmaker's comments to a station or network
on a freelance basis. He stopped explaining when I noted
I had done that for three city stations and two networks,
including his own. Page three. Oh. There followed a classic
(41:02):
deafening silence. Finally, Rosens on something he presumed I couldn't
possibly have done already, small market radio. He blurted, barking
the words out as if he were desperately answering some
oral test. Question. At the last possible second. Sam looked
hopefully at me, but I disappointed him by reviewing my
four years at w VBR, the station's ratings and nature,
(41:25):
and my thousand or so broadcasts on it. He was
now getting upset. It was evident, and Sam later embarrassedly
admitted that he was approaching our talk as a major
league baseball player might a clinic with a dozen little leaguers. Well,
you just can't expect a job in New York out
of college, he was nearly pleading, and then more sternly,
(41:46):
you have to be realistic. Well, Sam, I had decided
to take the offensive at this point and was speaking
softly and unpresumptuously. Do you think my four years in
Ithaca will be discounted because I was a college student.
It's small market radio, and I don't think it can
get much better in small market radio. Can we listen
(42:06):
to my tape now? Is that okay? Sure? My pleasure?
Sam appeared relieved by not having to answer my question,
and he quickly threaded the brown tape through one of
the studio's many large tape recorders. Page four. He hit
the on button and sat back. My voice was soon
reverberating in the small room. At first, Rosen simply gazed
(42:26):
at the revolving reels and played with his sideburns. At
the moments passed, however, the motion stopped and he sat
up in his chair. Finally, with the tape over, he
moved his lips as if to comment, but couldn't manage
more than a nervous laugh. Then suddenly his tone changed.
You know, Keith, this tape. No, maybe I shouldn't point. Well,
(42:48):
we just hired a guide at du Sports starting next month,
and I don't have anything to do with the hiring
or anything. But here Rosen stopped staring past me and
looked me instead, squarely in the eyes. His tape wasn't
half as good as yours. I'm very again, a brief
silence and a staccato delivery. I'm very impressed. It was
(43:11):
at once one of the most prideful and disheartening moments
of my life. I couldn't help but smile at the
thought that perhaps my basic skills were indeed honed enough
to the point of excellence. But at the same time,
I since having been purposely placed in the right place
at the wrong time, upi audio. As Sam later noted
hadn't had any changes in sports staff since nineteen seventy four,
(43:34):
and here there had been an opening filled just a
week before, filled by somebody who sounded only half as
good as me, page five. The rest of my conversation
with Sam Rosen was far more enjoyable and relaxed. It
had been graphically illustrated to me that patronizing condescension could
be turned into genuine respect by my simply flashing a
(43:58):
little talent. Sam spent the rest of my time in
the studios bathing me in compliments, offering me any assist
since he could, and urging me to make a lot
of people listen to the tape. Make them listen to it,
he suggested, drawing on our just concluded experience. Early in
the conversation, the instructor in this class English what was it?
(44:23):
One thirty five point one five one three gave me
a check mark with a plus on it. Sounds like
a great experience. I can't believe that you'll have any
difficulty in finding a suitable job. This is well written,
it's clear to the point, narrative, some cleverness as usual,
but cuteness firmly under control. Also, perhaps because written fast.
(44:44):
None of those awkward spots caused by your fondness for
being indirect. Some things have not changed at all since
nineteen seventy nine. I wish I could remember the name
of the teaching assistant who wrote that she was very nice,
extremely supportive, and obviously clare voyant. Now a little reminder
that you cannot, always, to paraphrase Shakespeare, look into the
(45:06):
seeds of time and say which grain will grow and
which will not. The ABC Sports executive and former W. T.
Ko Ithaca, New York disc jockey I met earlier in
the day, to whom I gave short shrift to say
the least in sentence to a paragraph one was a
vice president at a broadcast called Wide World of Sports
(45:27):
who gave me a brilliant piece of advice that I
will save for a later edition of Things I promised
not to tell. And his name was Robert Bob Iger,
I g E. R. By nineteen eighty nine, Iger was
the head of entertainment at the ABC Television Network. In
nineteen ninety four, he became president of Cap City's ABC,
(45:50):
which owned ESPN, so he became my ultimate boss in
my third year there. The next year, Disney bought ABC,
mostly so it could get its hands on ESPN. Iger
became president of Disney in two thousand, chairman in two
thousand and five. He retired in twenty twenty one, but
he returned to the job at Disney last year. And
(46:11):
as I have said to him every time we have
talked since March twenty second, nineteen seventy nine, when we
met and here, I thought you were just some middle
manager who still wanted to be a sportscaster when he
grew up. I've done all the damage I can do here.
(46:40):
Thank you for listening. Here the credits. Most of the
music was arranged, produced and performed by Brian Ray and
John Philip Channel, who are the Countdown musical directors. All
orchestration and keyboards by John Philip Chanel, guitars based and
drums by Brian Ray, produced by Tko Brothers. Other Beethoven
selections have been arranged and performed by the group No
Horns Allowed. The sports music is the Olderman theme from
(47:03):
ESPN two, and it was written by Mitch Warren Davis
courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Musical comments by Nancy Faust, the
best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was Kenny Maine.
Everything else is pretty much my fault. So let's countdown
for this, the eight hundred and twenty second day since
the defendants first attempted coup against the democratically elected government
(47:24):
of the United States. Don't forget keep arresting him while
we still can. The next scheduled countdown is Monday. Until then,
I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck.
(47:45):
Countdown with Keith Olderman 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. President
Biden needs to federalize the Tennessee National Guard in order
(00:25):
to help re establish democracy in that state. Yesterday, in
one of the worst episodes of sanctioned government bigotry and
racism in recent history, the Republicans supermajority in the Tennessee
State Assembly voted to expel two African American lawmakers who
had joined a public protest pleading for stricter gun laws
(00:46):
after the shooting at the Covenant Christian School. The protest
briefly interrupted a debate and the Republicans. The white Republicans,
literally reacted to the protest, in which the most dangerous
weapon wielded was a megaphone, by comparing it to the
January sixth insurrection at the United States Capitol. Yesterday, on
(01:06):
a motion from a white Republican named Andrew Farmer, Representative
Justin Pearson of Memphis was expelled from the Tennessee Assembly.
So was Justin Jones, representative of Nashville, not reprimanded, not
censured expelled. A third member of the House involved with
the protest, Gloria Johnson of Knoxville, survived the move to
(01:27):
expel her by just one vote. She is not. African
American democracy is on the verge of collapse. In Tennessee.
Republicans have gerrymandered the state to give rural white areas
absolute control over the racially diverse cities of Tennessee. The
Republicans will brook no gun reform, no gun debate, no
gun discussion, and certainly no gun protests, even as terrified
(01:51):
school children in their own state begged them too. During reconstruction,
the federal government sent troops into most of the South
to try to re establish representative government and integrated government.
For the first time in nineteen fifty seven, when Governor
Orville Faubus brought the Arkansas National Guard to Little Rock
(02:11):
High School to prevent its integration. President Dwight Eisenhower nationalized
that Arkansas National Guard and had its members instead protect
the nine African American students. Six years later, the same
scenario played out in Alabama, where Governor George Wallace tried
to block the integration of the university there. President John F.
Kennedy federalized the Alabama Guard under the Insurrection Act of
(02:33):
eighteen oh seven. It is time for President Biden to
take the same steps to re establish democracy in Tennessee
because the racial parallels to Little Rock and Tuscaloosa are
simply differently constructed. Representatives Jones and Pearson were not expelled
because they attacked gun rights, or because they protested, nor
(02:53):
because they interrupted debate with a megaphone. They were expelled
because they did all that while being black. If you
don't believe me, listen, not just to what the expulsion
build sponsor this cracker lawyer NRA member Andrew Farmer said
to Representative Pearson, but how he said it. The only
(03:14):
things he left out were what we have here is
failure to communicate and quote boy unquote ar in this
Tennessee General Assembly. That's why you're standing there because of
that temper tantrum that day, for that yearning to have attention.
That's what you wanted, but you're getting it now. So
(03:35):
I disadvise you. If you want to conduct business in
this house, follow bill, be recognized, stand there and present
it and pass it. All you gotta do is pass
a bill. Represent Pearson. Now you all heard then, how
(04:02):
many of you would want to be spoken to that way?
How many of you want to be spoken to that way?
We're not talking about politics, We're not talking about even
gotten violent. How many of you would want to be
(04:23):
spoken to that way. The reason that I believe the
sponsor of this legislation, of this resolution spoke that way
is because he's comfortable doing it, because there's a decorum
that allows it. As a decorum that allows you to
(04:48):
belittle people. We didn't belot nobody. Another white Republican Representative
Geno Bulso, while questioning Representative Jones, said that failing to
expel the members would quote simply invite him at his
colleagues to continue to engage in mutant on the House
floor mutiny. I am surprised that Representative Bolso left out
(05:11):
the word uppity. After the expulsions, Representative Pearson explained what
this was really about in order that the National Rifle
Association and all of these gun lobbyists continue to be
able to have control over our legislation. What bard from
my mind right now is we need to fight for
democracy in the state of Tennessee, and we need people
not only just to vote, but people the sharp and
(05:34):
counsel that we can depend the gun that is happening
in our state. This is wrong, This is unjust, and
this is not the way that it has to be.
There is a better way for us to live, and
we don't have to live this way. But the Republican
Party of the State of Tennessee want to keep things
the saves. If you want to fight to ten if
you want to help to make this place for a
better place, you have to use your voice, you have
to use your power. Yes, sometimes you gotta get expelled. Sea.
(06:01):
I'm going this institution had kage, the injustice must have changed,
and I'll continue to find them. My family wille coming back. Yes,
it is almost certain when selecting temporary replacements for the
expelled members, their home county boards will choose Justin Jones
(06:24):
and Justin Pearson. Then there will be special elections, and
the men cannot be expelled twice for the same actions.
But the issue is larger than these two representatives in Tennessee,
In Tennessee, in Nebraska, in Missouri, in Idaho, in Kansas.
Throughout this country, democracy is not just failing at the
local level, it is being killed by Republicans. And in
(06:49):
every case, as in Tennessee, there is an undertone, often
an overtone of racism and misogyny, and in every case
there is the growing menace of fascist ownership of the
local and state governments in the areas in which they
are predominant. They are not just winning elections and instituting policies,
(07:10):
as Republicans and Democrats alike have done since the eighteen fifties.
These Republicans are trying to put Democrats and democracy out
of business. President Biden, federalize the National Guard in Tennessee
and have it and not the Tennessee State troopers protecting
the Tennessee General Assembly and those who wish to protest
(07:32):
or to serve there. The fascists are getting uppity. What
we have is failure to communicate, or as this fascist
farmer said to Justin Pearson, the Republicans are having temper
tantrums and they're yearning to have attention. That's what they wanted.
Well they're getting it now. Federalize the Tennessee Guard, President Biden.
(07:58):
The trouble there is not ending here. And we know
who is making the trouble, the andrew Arms and the
Geno Balsoms of this modern elected streamlined clan, and you,
mister President, and possibly you alone, have the power to
(08:18):
stop it. It was a very busy and very disturbing
day on many fronts, and not just in Tennessee. The
Senate Judiciary Committee must immediately begin an investigation and televised
hearings into the newly exposed evidence of repetitive, endless, institutionalized
(08:40):
corruption by Justice Clarence Thomas of the United States Supreme Court,
whether an eye to forcing his resignation or his arrest
or both. House Democrats, though only one Supreme Court justice
has ever been impeached, though they would certainly lose the vote,
must immediately introduce articles of impeachment against Justice Thomas. The
(09:02):
Attorney General of the United States, Merrick Garland, must immediately
begin a criminal investigation into the dozens, more likely hundreds
of times that Justice Thomas has violated federal laws prohibiting
the acceptance of bribes and expensive gifts, and the Attorney
General must launch similar investigations into the possible bribery of
Justice Cavanaugh, Justice Alito, Justice Gorsich, Justice Coney Barrett, and
(09:27):
Chief Justice John Roberts. Chief Justice John Roberts must immediately
resign during his virtually absentee tenure, the Court has descended
below the surface of a vast cesspool of corruption and
political extremism, and it is now unrecognizable even when contrasted
to the merely biased and manipulated court of just twenty
(09:50):
years ago. Thomas, if you have somehow missed the report
by the investigative independent journalists, ProPublica, is not just the
political prostitute we all knew him to be. For two
decades now, he has been accepting gifts some worth twice
his annual income, including exotic vacations for himself and his wife,
(10:12):
from one Republican The organizations he runs frequently submit petitions
and briefs to the Supreme Court. He is also a
Republican mega donor. During these trips and on countless other occasions,
Clarence Thomas has made himself available to Republican financial powers,
corporate lobbyists, and other malefactors of mankind. And while in
(10:35):
twenty twenty his wife was trying to overthrow the government
of the United States on behalf of the Republican Party,
Clarence Thomas himself voted with the majority in a twenty
sixteen Supreme Court case called McDonnell v. United States, in
which he and the Court ended federal bribery statutes that
made it a crime for a public official to quote,
(10:56):
receive or accept anything of value in exchange for being
influenced in the performance of any official act. Thomas not
only did not recuse himself from this case, Thomas used
the power of the court to shield a Republican governor
of Virginia so venal that he once accepted fifty thousand
dollars from a businessman and immediately within minutes texted one
(11:20):
of his aids to arrange the meetings that that businessman
wanted with state officials. Clarence Thomas then voted, and he
voted to make the exact kind of bribes that he
has ritually and voraciously and greedily devoured legal. Clarence Thomas
is a whore, and particularly in combination with his insurrectionist
(11:40):
conspiracy theory peddling ex cult member wife, he is a
clear and present danger to the United States of America
and the continuation of its form of government and to
the freedom of its citizens. And Clarence Thomas has got
to go. And if Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin is
not up to this urgent and vital task, he needs
(12:02):
to turn his committee over to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse or
literally anybody willing to stand for the American public and
not merely to self protect the a moral bureaucracy of
the federal government. Sadly, the early returns suggest Durban is
not even close to being up to this. His reaction
is barely a notch above Susan Collins levels of quote concern.
(12:26):
Today's report, Durban writes, demonstrates yet again that Supreme Court
justices must be held to an enforceable code of conduct,
just like every other federal judge. The pro publica report
is a call to action, and the Senate Judiciary Committee
will act end quote. How will it act, Senator Durban?
(12:48):
When how many more times will Clarence Thomas loot this country?
How much more will he steal? How many more of
his Supreme Court votes will he sell before he and
his seditious wife are investigated and removed and punished and
the vermin who bribed them prosecuted and imprisoned as well.
Clarence Thomas, a living, breathing for sale sign, has been
(13:13):
prostituting himself and the Supreme Court and this country since
nineteen ninety one. When will his reign of justice denied
is available for the right price be ended permanently. Senator Whitehouse,
who chairs the Subcommittee on the Federal Courts, at least
put some anger into his words. This cries out for
(13:37):
the kind of independent investigation that the Supreme Court, and
only the Supreme Court across the entire government refuses to perform.
And the best bet for Democrats to do something anything
is in the Senate. If a Democratic strategist named Max
Burns is to be believed, quote, one Democratic House member
tells me by a text, public trust in the Supreme
(13:59):
Court is already bad. A big circus would destroy it completely.
Vote yes, exactly. That's where we are. The Supreme Court
is now a theocratic entity, enslaving the majority of Americans
to its own religious beliefs, except when religious beliefs aren't involved,
(14:20):
and the justice is like this whore Clarence Thomas have
been bought and paid for. Better that public trust in
this form of the Supreme Court of the United States
be destroyed completely than for this Supreme Court to be
run by this utterly corrupt Clarence Thomas and his psychotic wife.
(14:41):
The serial bribing of Clarence Thomas, documented by Pro Publica,
reads like something out of the nineteenth century. And the
professionally corrupt New York City politician Boss Tweed. A twenty
nineteen vacation on a thirty seven million dollar private jet
and a private yacht worth at least half a million dollars.
(15:01):
The vacation, not the yacht. The jet and the yacht
owned by Harland Crowe of Dallas, Texas. Other trips on
the yacht one a day cruise in Georgia, one something
larger around twenty thirteen in New Zealand, another trip to
the Greek Islands, another destination unknown date known because the
host had customized polo shirts made for the guests with
(15:25):
the name of the yacht and the year two thousand
and seven emblazoned on them, and Clarence Thomas has been
brazen enough to be photographed wearing that shirt. Shirts provided
by Harland Crowe of Dallas, Texas. Two eleven donation to
a tea party group also half a million dollars. The
group was founded by Jinny Thomas. The group's top employee,
(15:48):
who was paid a salary of one hundred and twenty
thousand dollars, was Jinny Thomas. The donation came from Harland
Crowe of Dallas, Texas. Annual access to a private resort
in the Adirondack Mountains called top Ridge, where hangs a
painting show Clarence Thomas smoking a cigar with four other men.
(16:08):
One is the notorious Republican moneyman and Federalist Society fascist
organizer Leonard Leo. One is Harland Crowe of Dallas, Texas.
Rooms at another resort nearby Nowhere near is nice. Start
at twenty two hundred and fifty dollars a night. You
cannot buy your way though into the top Ridge resort
(16:29):
where this picture hangs. It is private. It is owned
by Harland Crowe of Dallas, Texas. The late nineteen nineties
gift of a Bible once owned by Frederick Douglas worth
at least nineteen thousand dollars. The gift came from Harland
Crowe of Dallas, Texas. Another portrait of Clarence Thomas and
Jenny Thomas, value unknown. The painting was commissioned by Harland
(16:53):
Crowe of Dallas, Texas. A recent donation to Yale Law
School and the amount of one hundred and five thousand
dollars for the Justice Thomas Portrait Fund. The generous gift
of Harland Crowe of Dallas, Texas, a trip from Washington
to Texas on a private jet to a private home
so Clarence Thomas could swear in a Fifth Circuit judge
(17:13):
with the utterly appropriate name for purposes of the startling
pro publica story of James Hoe. The jet which the
rental of an equivalent private jet would cost about seventy
thousand dollars for this trip, and the number of Thomas
trips on the jet are at least in double figures.
The jet and the home are owned by Harland Crowe
(17:33):
of Dallas, Texas. In October twenty twenty one trip on
that jet to Mahwah, New Jersey, so Thomas could speak
at the dedication of an eighteen hundred pound statue of
his eighth grade teacher, a nun called Sister Virgilius, a
speech Thomas ended by thanking the people who paid for
that statue, mister and missus. Harland Crowe of Dallas, Texas.
(17:57):
A twenty twenty one documentary about Clarence Thomas called Born Equal,
in which with a straight face, Clarence Thomas says, I
for the RV parks, I prefer the Walmart parking lots
to the beaches and things like that. The documentary was
funded by Harland Crowe of Dallas, Texas, and Harlan Crowe
(18:17):
and Clarence Thomas and Jinny Thomas did not even bother
to hide their tracks. Pro Publica documented his litany of
offenses simply by looking at flight records and from conducting
interviews with everybody from staff on a super yacht to
a Scubra instructor in Indonesia, and from documents distributed among
(18:41):
the employees of Harlan Crowe of Dallas, Texas. Harland Crowe
is a seventy four year old real estate developer. He
and Clarence Thomas met in nineteen ninety six. He got
the anti tax group Club for Growth up on its
financial feed after a shaky start. He is on the
board of the far right Hoover Institution and the American
(19:04):
Enterprise Institution. He has given ten million dollars to Republican
candidates and organizations, those to whom news of his donations
has been required. The rest of the donations untold amounts
we know nothing about. The Harvard Business School Club of
Dallas conducted something called the Real Estate Magnate interview series
(19:26):
Quick Questions, Quick answers. Harland Crowe has asked what scares
you the most. Harland Crowe's answer was one word, Marxism.
The Supreme Court justice was impeached by the House in
eighteen oh four and then acquitted by the Senate. There
has never been any Supreme Court justice removed, no matter
how corrupt by legal means. The supposed sanctity of this court,
(19:50):
its restoration from the whorehouse that people like Clarence Thomas
and Jenny Thomas and Harland Crowe have made it into
can be accomplished only grimly by waiting for people like
Thomas to resign or die. According to federal law US
Code five CFR Part two six three five, sub Part B,
(20:12):
government employees may accept gifts of almost any kind and
are not required to report them, nor are they subject
to investigation for conflicts of interest or bribery because of them,
provided those gifts are worth no more than four hundred
and fifteen dollars. The four hundred and fifteen dollars threshold
(20:34):
would have been passed literally within five seconds of the
first moment that this scumbag Clarence Thomas first stepped onto
Harlan Crows thirty seven million dollar jet in Dallas, Texas
(20:56):
and separate from both of those stories. Supreme Court sea
separate sheet for bribery rate card. There is also news
today out the defendant, knowing that he would get his
ass kicked if he actually did more than just threatened
to subpoena the Manhattan District Attorney Alban Bragg, the wonderfully
incompetent Congressman Jim Jordan, has instead subpoenaed former Manhattan Assistant
(21:20):
District Attorney Mark Pomerantz. Pomerantz resigned over Bragg's hesitation to
pursue the original case against the defendant left to him
by his predecessor. The DA's office has already forbidden Pomerants
to testify, and rightly so. Jim Jordan now threatens contempt
of Congress charges which the Department of Justice will not
act upon, of course, and which is kind of undercut
(21:43):
by the fact that Jim Jordan ignored a subpoena from
the House January sixth Committee DA. Bragg also hinted again
that Jordan is coming very close to obstructing a criminal investigation. Frankly,
Pomerantz should testify. Bragg himself should testify if Jim Jordan
wants to hold an unofficial version of the defendant's stormy
(22:05):
Daniel's election interference and tax of Aasian trial inside his
congressional hearing room. Go for it. It'd be like arresting
the defendant every day for a week after week after week,
and one more thing from the arrest of the defendant.
And how in the hell has this not become a headline?
Alvin Bragg has a tape of the defense. All right,
(22:27):
I want to be absolutely clear here Trump. Alvin Bragg
has a tape of Trump and lawyer A lawyer A
is Michael Cohen, and they are discussing how to payoff
woman one. That's Karen McDougall. Lordie, lordie, there's a tape.
Bragg writes about it in his Statement of Facts Item fourteen,
which apparently every reporter in this country failed to read.
(22:51):
I'll use the names, not the identity hiders quote. In
a conversation captured in an audio recording in approximately September
twenty sixteen concerning McDougall's account, the defendant and Cohen discussed
how to obtain the rights to McDougal's account from Ami Ami.
That's the National Enquirer publishing company and how to reimburse
(23:12):
AMI for its payment. Cohen told the defendant he would
open up a company for the transfer of McDougall's account
and other information, and stated that he had spoken to
the chief financial officer for the Trump organization about quote,
how to set the whole thing up. The defendant asked, quote,
so what do we gotta pay for this one fifty
(23:34):
and suggested paying by cash. When Cohen disagreed, the defendant
then mentioned payment by check. There is no other reference
to recordings in Bragg's filing. There is no guarantee that
a judge would let a surreptitiously recorded conversation into the
record at trial. But one thing is I think certain.
If there is one conversation involving the defendant on tape,
(23:58):
there are more than one conversation on tape, and they
probably all sound just as eloquent as the defendant saying,
so what do we got to pay for this one fifty?
Which reads like a line from the Sopranos. I mean, geez, defendant,
paying one fifty one fifty wouldn't even buy you an
hour of Clarence Thomas's time. Owen, CBS News is confirming
(24:36):
what had been reported earlier in the week that former
and current US Secret Service officials will after all testify
today through special Counsel Jacksmith's Grand Jury in relation to
the classified documents Trump stole and stashed at Marilago. There
were conflicting reports whether it would be now or later,
and according to to CBS, it'll be now. Still ahead
(24:58):
on this initiship countdown absolutely incomprehensible. The Biden administration cuts
a deal with the Theocrats. Some trans athletes can be
banned from scholastic sports, because appeasing terrorists always works, right, Joe,
I mean this is almost at the level of maybe
we need a new candidate next year. Kind of offensive,
(25:19):
mister President. Sports first, baseball boasted, this is the one
sport where there is no clock. Then they instituted a clock,
a pitch clock, now the inevitable. A week after the
first use of the pitch clock, the pitch clock is
now available to be sponsored. Report from the City of
(25:39):
Merchandise coming up. It's an all new things I promised
not to tell. Actually, in one way that's not true.
Most of what I'll be reading I wrote in March.
March nineteen seventy nine. It's about the day I met
the man who would become my first boss in radio,
and I met the man who would become the chairman
of Disney. I had to write a school paper on
(26:01):
an interesting character I had just met, and I tunes, Yes,
the guy who did not become the chairman of Disney.
And in worse persons, Travis Tritt. He's going to show
them trans friendly bud Light people. He will not let
bud Light give him any more free bud Light. By God,
what a sacrifice. It's like he jumped on a grenade
(26:23):
at That's next. This is an all new edition of Countdown.
This is Countdown with Keith Olberman Owe scripts to the news,
some updates, some insights, some snarks, some prediction. State Line, Washington,
(26:46):
mister President, you are not serious. The Biden administration has
proposed new regulations to allow colleges and high schools to
bar some transgender athletes from some scholastic sports based on
quote fairness unquote translated from bureaucratic ease. Blanket bands on
the athletes that have been instituted in twenty different states
(27:08):
around the country would be eliminated, but if they could
justify it on quote educational grounds. The schools could ban
a given trans athlete from a given sport. The example
the Washington Post offered was keeping a trans athlete off
a competitive high school track and field team would be okay.
(27:29):
Keeping a trans athlete off the intramural middle school kickball
team would not be okay. The various AstroTurf organizations trying
to eliminate trans athletes, and for that matter, trans people,
immediately rejected the compromise because you don't try to appease
terrorists or fascists, or especially fascist terrorists, mister President. Speaking
(27:52):
of which, date Line TV land Sean Spicer, the first
Trump Press Secretary and most recently host of the Newsmax show.
Spicer and Company is out of leaving Newsmax after contract
negotiations reportedly fell apart. He said, quote, It's time for
me to move on to a new challenge, a new adventure,
(28:14):
and a new opportunity to serve the American people. Just
guessing here, but I believe Sean Spicer will now go
across the country door to door and lie to people
one at a time rather than all at once. This
(28:40):
is sports Center, Wait, check that not anymore. This is
Countdown with Keith Alberman in sports bizarre start at the Masters,
on the first toll of the world's most overrated sporting event,
John Ram registered a four put double bogey. He starts
(29:01):
round two as the co leader seven hundred sixty five,
lowest score in Master's history by anybody who started with
a double Bogeye Brooks, Kpka and Victor Hovland are also
at seven. Under baseball, I swear fifty seven seasons. Now,
I have been following this sport every day, winter, spring, summer,
and fall, and I did not see this coming. The
(29:24):
new pitch clock, which keeps the action moving, has been
in use for literally eight days. It's not the first
time Baseball tried to introduce a pitch clock, they had
one in nineteen sixty eight, but this is the first
time it stuck, and admittedly it has helped so sure enough.
A sports business publication is reporting that Major League Baseball
(29:44):
is now offering sponsorship deals for the pitch clock. Quote.
MLB is open for business. Unquote. It is supposedly calling
timex Omega Rolex and offering to call the pitch clock.
The pitch timer. See, all right, Rolex would be nice,
(30:06):
but I'm thinking. The real choice for the sponsor of
this clock is Bang's Funeral Home, West Green Street, Ithaca,
New York. When your time is up, go out in
a Bangs. I know I've used that joke before. It's
(30:32):
still so good. Still ahead. On an awfully chunky edition
of Countdown, March twenty, nineteen seventy nine. It was quite
a day for yours, truly, and I know this because
I wrote a paper for college documenting it, and I
still have the paper. I found it the other day.
The star of the paper is a man who to
(30:53):
this day is the play by play announcer of the
New York Rangers and was my first boss. You will
never believe who I overlooked writing this paper first time
for the daily roundup, for the miss Grants, Warns and
Dunning Kruger Effect specimens who constitute today's worst person in
the world. I got a time for the bronze. Fittingly,
it's between two of the dumbest people in human history. First,
(31:14):
Glenn Beck Old Lonesome Roads is back. With Trump's arrest.
He says Democrats are now mimicking exactly what Vladimir Putin
did to his political enemy. No. Putin first had his
political enemy Alexei Nivalni, attacked on the street with chemicals
(31:35):
intended to blind him. Then when that didn't work, they
attacked him with different chemicals on the street with the
intention of blinding him. Then they poisoned him with nerve gas.
Then after Nivalney left the country, Putin learned her back
from Germany and then jailed him. Beck is tied for
the third place honors here with Charlie Kirk, the balloon
(31:58):
headed guy. It's worth to have a cost of unfortunately
some gun deaths every single year year, so that we
can have the Second Amendment to protect all our other rights.
Kirk says, as if anybody has ever used a gun
against the government to protect his other rights in this country,
and the government has all the tanks and bombs and stuff, Bob,
(32:22):
but Kirk made this worse. He then suggested, trying to
reduce gun deaths, how didn't we stop shootings at baseball
games because we had armed guards, which isn't the case.
There haven't been shootings at baseball games, and you can't
bring a gun into a baseball game because everybody has
(32:42):
to go through a magnetometer. Would you think those things
were Charlie just taking pictures of your underwear. Just not bright, guys.
The runners up President Chris Licked paced boy and his
sort of star Don Lemon. This is the lickt Lemon combination.
A CNN continues to implode. Vanity Fair magazine has sliced
(33:03):
up what passes for on air star anchor Don Lemon.
Licked destabilized Lemon by moving him from a good nighttime
show which he's solo anchored, to a morning disaster with
three anchors, Lemon, somebody they hired from The Daily Caller,
and a journeyman anchor named Hoppy Partlower. I don't know something.
Vanity Fair has an awful lot of awful things to
(33:25):
say about Don Lemon in this article, but this is
the worst. During a two thousand and eight rivalry with
then co anchor Kiera Phillips, Lemon was reportedly upset that
she was sent to Iraq and he wasn't. Phillips was
out to dinner with two staffers from their show when
she received the first of two text messages from an
unknown phone number. This is two thousand and eight. Who
(33:47):
sent text messages in two thousand and eight, especially who
sent text messages that read now you've crossed the line,
and you're going to pay for it. Vanity Fair claimed.
CNN investigated and proved that the texts were traced back
to Don Lemon. He denies that. But the Travis Tritt,
who was apparently a country singer who wears really tight
(34:09):
pastel colored pants, I have no other information. He blocked
me on Twitter after I mocked him. The lunatic right
is expressing rage on a level rare even in its
world of umbridge and paranoia. Because bud Light used a
transperson in an ad campaign or on a can or
a bottle or something. It's exhausting. I can't keep track anymore.
(34:32):
So the far right lunatics are trying to outdo each
other in aggressively boycotting bud Light. Kid Rock, who was
apparently a non country singer who had a hit in
nineteen eighty nine or something, used a machine gun to
shoot up a six pack of bud Light two of
the applause of hundreds or something. I don't know what
was going on there. Maybe it was his new song.
(34:54):
So this trit had to do something even more dramatic.
Quote other artists who are deleting anheuser Busch products from
their hospitality writer might not say so in public for
fear of being ridiculed and canceled. I have no such fear. Unquote.
Let me translate this for you. When he writes deleting
Anheuser Busch products from their hospitality writer, what he means
(35:16):
is Travis Tritt will no longer let the venues at
which he performs give him any cans of bud Light
for free. Wow. What a sacrifice, Holy cow, Travis Tritt.
It's like you're donating a kidney to a stranger. No, no, wait,
(35:37):
it's more than that. It's like you're going to the
guillotine in somebody else's place. Travis. It is a far
far better free beer. I give up than I have
ever given up before. Trit two days, worst person. And
now to the number one story on the countdown on
(36:12):
my favorite topic, Me and Things I promised not to tell.
It was James Thurber who once pointed out that the
secret to great writing was never throw away anything you
have written. He confessed that I believe in nineteen fifty
eight that he had managed to rework stuff that he
had written in nineteen eighteen. Well, I can finally top him.
(36:34):
I wrote what You're Gonna Hear Next on March twenty seventh,
nineteen seventy nine. It was a creative writing assignment for
my last English class at Cornell, and it was simple,
somebody you have met recently who you found interesting or
under interesting circumstances. Four to five pages, typed double space.
I'll spare you the suspense. It's about Sam Rosen, as
(36:57):
you will hear. I had what seemed to be a
courtesy interview with Sam Rosen in his office at UPI
Audio in New York on Thursday, March twenty second, nineteen
seventy nine. I didn't think anything had come of it,
but on July third, nineteen seventy nine, UPI Audio hired
me my first job. I was replacing their sports director.
(37:18):
Thought I named Maury Trumbull, who was leaving to go
be the sports director of NBC Radio. Yes, they used
to have such jobs. Morey and I overlapped for about
ten days, so technically he was my first boss. But
really Sam was my first boss, and he not only
survived it, he's still working. He's been the play by
(37:38):
play announcer of the New York Rangers since nineteen eighty four.
And he remains a friend. I guess I'm not that
tough on my employers after all. Just as interesting, though,
is a guy you will here referred to in passing
in the second sentence as an ABC Sports executive. I
will explain who that was and is after I read
(38:00):
you the original. From the original copy, I might add
which I will start doing in one second from now.
Keith Olberman English one thirty five point one three March
twenty seven, nineteen seventy nine. By the time I cornered
Sam Rosen in the back room of United Press International's
(38:21):
offices in New York City, March twenty second had already
qualified as a very bizarre day. In the preceding twelve hours,
I had dragged myself out of bed despite half a
night's sleep, conducted a successful job interview with an ABC
Sports executive who turned out to be a former wtko
ITHACA dish jockey, gotten drunk before noon at a bar
(38:43):
run by an ex Cornell basketball player, sobered myself up
in the bowels of New York's subway system, and walked
at least three miles on the hard city streets. Sam
Rosen is a sportscaster for the United Press Audio Network,
a low grade national organization with which I had some
contact on some all hope of employment. The Rosen, who
(39:07):
introduced himself to a burnt out, tired me, was a burly,
slow moving man, broad in the shoulders, straightforward and confident,
and the owner of distractingly bushy sideburns. He had consented
to spend a few minutes with me at the request
of Roger Norham, a UPI newscaster whom I had met
through a contact just four days earlier. Norham had thought
(39:30):
Rosen might be able to help me in my efforts
to get a job, and at the very least critique
a tape of one of my broadcasts. Page two. Rosen
began slowly and deliberately reviewing his rise to network radio
from humble beginnings as a gopher in a New York station.
It's a hard business, Keith, he pointed out. You have
to be prepared to start at the bottom, even say
(39:52):
as an intern for a radio or TV station. I noted,
rather meekly than I spent the summer of nineteen seventy
eight in just such a capacity at Channel five in
New York. Rosen seemed surprised, then a little miffed at
my sliver of experience and seemed to be groping for
something else to suggest, Well, it's good to define just
(40:12):
where you want your career to go and how it
will go. Rosen's confidence disappeared a second later when I
recounted my decision at the age of eight to become
the country's top sportscaster by starting in radio and then
moving into television. He looked at me with mystification and
slowly leaned back in his seat, to the accompaniment of
a groan from rusty hinges and the squeak of the
(40:35):
chairs casters against the tile floor. Maybe you should try stringing,
he offered, and began to explain the radio term for
providing reports or newsmaker's comments to a station or network
on a freelance basis. He stopped explaining when I noted
I had done that for three city stations and two networks,
including his own. Page three. Oh. There followed a classic
(41:02):
deafening silence. Finally, Rosens on something he presumed I couldn't
possibly have done already, small market radio. He blurted, barking
the words out as if he were desperately answering some
oral test. Question. At the last possible second. Sam looked
hopefully at me, but I disappointed him by reviewing my
four years at w VBR, the station's ratings and nature,
(41:25):
and my thousand or so broadcasts on it. He was
now getting upset. It was evident, and Sam later embarrassedly
admitted that he was approaching our talk as a major
league baseball player might a clinic with a dozen little leaguers. Well,
you just can't expect a job in New York out
of college, he was nearly pleading, and then more sternly,
(41:46):
you have to be realistic. Well, Sam, I had decided
to take the offensive at this point and was speaking
softly and unpresumptuously. Do you think my four years in
Ithaca will be discounted because I was a college student.
It's small market radio, and I don't think it can
get much better in small market radio. Can we listen
(42:06):
to my tape now? Is that okay? Sure? My pleasure?
Sam appeared relieved by not having to answer my question,
and he quickly threaded the brown tape through one of
the studio's many large tape recorders. Page four. He hit
the on button and sat back. My voice was soon
reverberating in the small room. At first, Rosen simply gazed
(42:26):
at the revolving reels and played with his sideburns. At
the moments passed, however, the motion stopped and he sat
up in his chair. Finally, with the tape over, he
moved his lips as if to comment, but couldn't manage
more than a nervous laugh. Then suddenly his tone changed.
You know, Keith, this tape. No, maybe I shouldn't point. Well,
(42:48):
we just hired a guide at du Sports starting next month,
and I don't have anything to do with the hiring
or anything. But here Rosen stopped staring past me and
looked me instead, squarely in the eyes. His tape wasn't
half as good as yours. I'm very again, a brief
silence and a staccato delivery. I'm very impressed. It was
(43:11):
at once one of the most prideful and disheartening moments
of my life. I couldn't help but smile at the
thought that perhaps my basic skills were indeed honed enough
to the point of excellence. But at the same time,
I since having been purposely placed in the right place
at the wrong time, upi audio. As Sam later noted
hadn't had any changes in sports staff since nineteen seventy four,
(43:34):
and here there had been an opening filled just a
week before, filled by somebody who sounded only half as
good as me, page five. The rest of my conversation
with Sam Rosen was far more enjoyable and relaxed. It
had been graphically illustrated to me that patronizing condescension could
be turned into genuine respect by my simply flashing a
(43:58):
little talent. Sam spent the rest of my time in
the studios bathing me in compliments, offering me any assist
since he could, and urging me to make a lot
of people listen to the tape. Make them listen to it,
he suggested, drawing on our just concluded experience. Early in
the conversation, the instructor in this class English what was it?
(44:23):
One thirty five point one five one three gave me
a check mark with a plus on it. Sounds like
a great experience. I can't believe that you'll have any
difficulty in finding a suitable job. This is well written,
it's clear to the point, narrative, some cleverness as usual,
but cuteness firmly under control. Also, perhaps because written fast.
(44:44):
None of those awkward spots caused by your fondness for
being indirect. Some things have not changed at all since
nineteen seventy nine. I wish I could remember the name
of the teaching assistant who wrote that she was very nice,
extremely supportive, and obviously clare voyant. Now a little reminder
that you cannot, always, to paraphrase Shakespeare, look into the
(45:06):
seeds of time and say which grain will grow and
which will not. The ABC Sports executive and former W. T.
Ko Ithaca, New York disc jockey I met earlier in
the day, to whom I gave short shrift to say
the least in sentence to a paragraph one was a
vice president at a broadcast called Wide World of Sports
(45:27):
who gave me a brilliant piece of advice that I
will save for a later edition of Things I promised
not to tell. And his name was Robert Bob Iger,
I g E. R. By nineteen eighty nine, Iger was
the head of entertainment at the ABC Television Network. In
nineteen ninety four, he became president of Cap City's ABC,
(45:50):
which owned ESPN, so he became my ultimate boss in
my third year there. The next year, Disney bought ABC,
mostly so it could get its hands on ESPN. Iger
became president of Disney in two thousand, chairman in two
thousand and five. He retired in twenty twenty one, but
he returned to the job at Disney last year. And
(46:11):
as I have said to him every time we have
talked since March twenty second, nineteen seventy nine, when we
met and here, I thought you were just some middle
manager who still wanted to be a sportscaster when he
grew up. I've done all the damage I can do here.
(46:40):
Thank you for listening. Here the credits. Most of the
music was arranged, produced and performed by Brian Ray and
John Philip Channel, who are the Countdown musical directors. All
orchestration and keyboards by John Philip Chanel, guitars based and
drums by Brian Ray, produced by Tko Brothers. Other Beethoven
selections have been arranged and performed by the group No
Horns Allowed. The sports music is the Olderman theme from
(47:03):
ESPN two, and it was written by Mitch Warren Davis
courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Musical comments by Nancy Faust, the
best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was Kenny Maine.
Everything else is pretty much my fault. So let's countdown
for this, the eight hundred and twenty second day since
the defendants first attempted coup against the democratically elected government
(47:24):
of the United States. Don't forget keep arresting him while
we still can. The next scheduled countdown is Monday. Until then,
I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck.
(47:45):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
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.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.