April 14, 2023 • 49 mins
EPISODE 178: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:42) SPECIAL COMMENT: Who knew? Clarence Thomas's family is apparently a living re-boot of the '60s TV Series "My Mother The Car" only it's "My Mother The Museum." That's the latest excuse from Clarence's pimp Harlan Crow, who says he only bought Clarence's mom's house to make it into a museum. Except 8-1/2 years later she still lives there - and he has yet to disclose the transaction. He could face a year in jail.
And Trump actually answers questions in the Letitia James $250 Million case in New York. Meanwhile Jack Smith, reported yesterday to be on the verge of making up his Mar-a-Lago Documents indictment decisions, is now reported to be on the verge of making up his Election Overturning indictment decisions. And out of nowhere, the arms dealer we shipped to Russia for the release of Britney Griner says he's sent Trump a telegram saying Trump's life is danger in New York and he should flee to Russia and even if he's not serious HOW GODDAMNED GOOD AN IDEA IS THIS?
B-Block (19:38) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Rhonda Santos MIA as Florida floods. Tommy Tuberville and others assume about the Woke Military and the leak, and Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson and others assume about the Tech Murderer. (23:00) IN SPORTS: The Tampa Bay Rays tie the record.Exorcism in the NFL as Dan Snyder sells. But College Sports brings back one of the worst people I've ever known in TV: Tony Petite.
C-Block (35:15) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Cookie was found as a stray in Van Nuys, California. She was chipped. They called her 'human' - who never called back. Now Cookie may be killed. (36:15) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: It's a railway espionage and murder mystery worthy of 'Murder On The Orient Express' except it's all happening only in Thurber's mind: 'The Lady on 142.'
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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. There
is no question now that Clarence Thomas has broken the law.
(00:26):
Letting him continue to degrade the Supreme Court. He is indefensible.
We need to see him in a courtroom, not in
the robes he has figuratively soiled, but in a suit
at the defense table. He is a criminal. He is
a political prostitute. Quoting state tax and property documents pro
publica our reports and the buyer confirms that in October
(00:49):
twenty fourteen, Clarence Thomas sold his mother's home in Savannah,
Georgia to a company owned by the same Texas billionaire
Hitler standing submitting to the Supreme Court distributor of corruption,
Harlan Crowe, the how and two nearby empty lots for
one hundred and thirty three thousand dollars, and Crowe promptly
made tens of thousands of dollars worth of improvements to
(01:13):
the building, and he made a statement saying all this
is true. He bought Thomas's mother's home in order to
turn it into a museum, and eight and a half
years later the only exhibit in this museum is Thomas's
mother and if it is a museum, it's the Clarence
Thomas Museum of Crime. Because Clarence Thomas never disclosed any
of this in clear violation of the statutes requiring justices
(01:36):
and other officials to file documents relating to almost every
real estate sale worth more than a thousand dollars. And
if you fail to do that, as Clarence Thomas has
failed to do that, under Code section five USC one
three one oh four, you can be fined, and in
some cases you can be sent to jail for up
to a year. October two, fourteen and Clarence Thomas's signature
(02:02):
is on the paperwork of the sale, and he had
a Supreme Court administrator notarize it, and he still hasn't
reported the sale in Savannah, and he still hasn't amended
his twenty fourteen disclosure form to include the sale. And
as pro Public have put it, quote, the disclosure form
Thomas filed for that year also had a space to
(02:22):
report the identity of the buyer in any private transaction
such as a real estate deal. That space is blank unquote,
as blank as Clarence Thomas's ethics, or his conscience, or
his respect for the law Wells, this lunatic Crow's explanation
(02:45):
is wildly unbelievable. Quote. My intention is to one day
create a public museum at the Thomas Home dedicated to
telling the story of our nation's second black Supreme Court justice,
which I guess could happen if Thomas's mother weren't still
living there, and if the first thing that Crowe did
to the place had not been to build a car port.
(03:07):
Improvements were also made to the Thomas property, Crow explained,
to preserve its long term viability and accessibility to the public,
like a car port. Every good museum needs a car port.
Harland Crowe, the guy regularly doling out vacations to Clarence
(03:27):
and Jenny Thomas worth half a million dollars, The guy
who apparently does live in a museum, only it's a
museum for people who want to see paintings Hitler did,
and the tea pot Hitler made, tea in and the
Lenin's Hitler used. Harland Crowe says he paid full market
value for the Thomas Home, and no, he didn't provide
any documents to verify that. We'll just have to take
(03:50):
his word for it. Oh and when pro publica broke
the original Harland Crow vacation and statues and private jet
trip stories. Just a week ago. It knew nothing of this,
So we have no idea if the ruption goes further
than this. It has gone far enough. Clarence Thomas must
(04:10):
resign from the Supreme Court, and if he refuses, five USC.
One three one oh six should be invoked. And the
head of the Traditional Conference should refer this case to
the Attorney General, and he has to prosecute Clarence Thomas.
And I don't care if he's still sitting there in
the robes claiming he is the Supreme Court justice. The
man is a crook, the man is a whore. The
(04:32):
man is the definition of everything a Supreme Court justice
should not be, cannot be, must not be. And Clarence
Thomas has been at the center of the culture of
corruption of the Supreme Court, ranging from Neil Gorsuch's web
of ties, as The New York Times put it, to
the Colorado billionaire and Federalist Society funder Philip Anschutz, to
(04:56):
the stock shares John Roberts owned or had owned in
two companies as he ruled on cases involving them, to
Clarence Thomas's own one and a half million dollar book deal,
to Amy Coney Barrett's two million dollar book deal, to
Sonya Sotomayor's three million dollar book deal. And as the
money spirals up and up and the ethics spiral down
(05:17):
and down, we are ruled over by an unelected elite
with lifetime appointments, and suddenly the potential for countless multimillion
dollar revenue streams and nothing holding them back from greed
and avarice and corruption except their own mortality. And we
better fix this goddamn fast, and we're gonna need a
lot of luck. Astonishing, wrote the Chairman of the Senate
(05:40):
Judiciary Committee yesterday, Dick Durbin, to the news of the
Clarence Thomas My Mother the Museum story. The Chief Justice
must investigate how such conduct could take place at the
Court under his watch. And if the Court does not
fix these clear abuses, Congress must. Yes, Senator Derby, you
don't have to know anybody in Congress, do you, Because
(06:02):
it's clear the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee is
just going to sit there on his hands. One speck
of comic relief in this courtesy Liz Charbonneau, Vice president
of the Democratic Party's advocacy arm American Bridge. Quote. Actually
(06:26):
Harland Crowe collects property from Supreme Court justices just to
remind him of the evil they perpetrated. Oh, and what
is this secret real estate transaction? Theme week? As the
vast pit of corruption that is the Tennessee State House
continues to get hoist on its own petard after the
(06:50):
failed expulsion of Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, the website
Popular Information reports that House Speaker Cameron Sexton secretly bought
a six hundred thousand dollars home in Nashville, Tennessee, hid
the purchase behind to trust, made sure there was an
illegible signature on the warranty deed. The signature turned out
to be his wife's. Cameron's wife's name is Lacey Lacey
(07:16):
Sexton Cameron and Lacey Sexton. This is further evidence that
Speaker Sexton is serving illegally because he's got this house
in Nashville, but he represents a place called Crossville, which
is two hours away and where he already sold his home,
but still puts in for tens of thousands of dollars
(07:37):
worth of per diem for travel that he is evidently
not making to the district he evidently does not live in.
And by the way, that spark of humanity from Tennessee's
governor after the Covenant School shooting there, the strengthened red
flag laws and background checks before he could buy a gun.
The first bill in the Tennessee House to enact legislation
(07:58):
for that has died in committee. Keeper Republican talking long
enough and he will and ate himself about something, which
is why the defendant's choice in the deposition before New
York State Attorney General Letitia James yesterday was such a
wild one. Trump was in a unique position talk and
(08:22):
he could prove her fraud case, her claim that he
and Fredo and Junior and Girl Junior overvalued Trump's assets
by billions of dollars. Don't talk about that. Since it
is a civil suit, his silence could be used against him.
James is suing for a quarter of a billion, the
(08:43):
amount she says he illegally made because of that overvaluation.
She also wants the defendants and all the little defendants
to be barred from conducting business in New York State.
The defendant answered every question. He was there from ten
am to six PM, and with an hour off, that's
seven hours of questions, and so hats off to the
attorneys who had to listen to him talk that long.
(09:05):
My record since the year twenty sixteen is like three minutes.
There was incidentally, a vast maggot crowd outside the Attorney
General's office here in New York yesterday, four or five people.
Big banner, though, draped over the scaffolding which blooms here
in the spring, just like the daffodils. The banner read
(09:26):
Trump or death. One of the guys who put it,
They're emphasized to reporters quote not my death. As we
approached that moment in which every case in every courtroom
is about Trump, his half billion dollars lawsuit against his
former lawyer Michael Cohen has been assigned to an Obama
appointee named Judge Darren Gals. The suit is only days old,
(09:51):
and Judge Gals has already threatened to dismiss it. He
has notified Trump's lawyers that if they do not start
double spacing their submissions, he may toss their suit. And
the other New York case, you remember, the one they've
already arrested him for, is at stasis But on Monday
it will take a political turn. When Jim Jordan brings
(10:12):
his Green Acres road Show field hearing to Manhattan to
try to smear Attorney Alvin Bragg on Trump's behalf. The
Democrats plan a counter field hearing, at which they will
fall head first into the Republican's trap. The editor in
chief of Crooked Media, Brian Boutler, raised this inarguable point yesterday.
(10:33):
When Jordan and Trump's other lackeys bray which hunt, Why
aren't you focusing on the street crime here in New
York City? The Democrats will answer with a flood of
statistics showing that it's far more dangerous in Jim Jordan's
hometown or on his wrestling team, and they'll be really
happy about it, or or when, in fact, their only
answer should be yeah, about crime in New York. Donald
(10:55):
Trump is a criminal. That's why he was indicted. That's
what they should start with. Then they should say, that's
why he was arrested. He's a criminal. Trump's criminal, That's
why he's being sued by the state. Trump's a criminal.
That's why his company already lost in court. Trump's a criminal,
That's why he's being sued for rape. Trump is a criminal.
That's why there's a special council prepared to indict him
(11:16):
for espionage, for fundraising fraud for January sixth, for trying
to overturn the election. Because he is a criminal. Crime
in New York, its name is Trump. That is what
the Democrats should say on Monday. Don't play their game
jiu jitsu them. The story isn't about how many subway
(11:37):
hold ups there were last month. It's about how many
times Trump tried to overthrow democracy. And speaking of that,
his former Director of National Lack of Intelligence, John Ratcliffe,
testified to a Jack Smith grand jury yesterday and the
loathsome Rick Grennell testified to whichever Jack Smith grand jury
is probing the classified documents he stole, and the New
(11:59):
York Times does hit the nail on the head here.
The point of the Ratcliffe testimony is quote. While questions
linger over pending appeals and potential efforts by some of
the witnesses to delay things further by invoking the Fifth Amendment,
the development suggests mister Smith is close to finishing the
fact finding phase of his work and is moving closer
(12:20):
to a decision about seeking charges against mister Trump. And
others unquote, which is virtually exactly what we heard yesterday
about Jack Smith having heard from virtually everybody he could
have heard from about the classified docs. And that reminds
me that there is that supposed final focus of Jack
(12:41):
Smith's probe on the Marilago documents, the map Trump supposedly
stole and showed off to somebody on a plane, and
somebody else writing a book, and somebody else making a donation.
And I knew I'd heard the story somewhere before, and
sure enough, there it is kind of some of all
fears conflation. From a Tucker Carlson interview from March twenty
(13:05):
twenty two, and Carlson, who also last night defended the racist,
anti Semite kid who leaked all the military documents to
impress his gamer buddies. Carlson called him a whistleblower. Carlson
is not loyal to this country. In March twenty twenty two,
Carlson's guests said he was in the White House with
Trump one day in twenty seventeen when Trump started asking
(13:27):
him his thoughts on ISIS and North Korea and then
quoting Carlson's guest, we're looking at maps and bleep. I'm like,
you know, am I supposed to be in on this bleep?
The Carlson guest to whom Trump in twenty seventeen showed
the presumably classified maps kid Rock check Please. Lastly, since
(14:00):
the classified Kleptomania story broke, I have been saying it
will prove are worse than our worst guesses, and so
as funny as this next detail might sound, by god,
I actually find myself wondering if this is not a
wacky coincidence. Victor Boot, the arms dealer resident Biden traded
(14:21):
to the Kremlin in exchange for the basketball star Poutin
had taken prisoner Britney Griner. Victor Boot went on Russian
TV yesterday and said he had sent Trump a telegram
warning Trump that his life is in danger in New
York and he should flee to Russia and ask for
political asylum and from there lead. What Boots says is
(14:42):
the battle against the globalists. And so in conclusion, I
have only two observations. For yes, this is exactly what
I've been saying since twenty seventeen to Trump, defect, flee,
run wattle, do it now. And the second observation is wait,
(15:05):
you can still send a telegram stell ahead. On this
edition of Countdown. They were sure the secrets leak owed
to the woke military. Then it turned out the culprit
(15:28):
was a pasty white guy who liked to videotape himself
shouting anti minority slurs and then shooting guns looking at you,
Senator Tommy Tubberville. And they were sure the murderer of
a tech kingpin owed to the liberal destruction of the
city of Sun and Francisco. Then it turned out that
culprit was another tech kingpin looking at you, Elon Muskrat,
(15:55):
And he is one of the most disreputable people I
have ever met in television. And guess what, he's the
new commissioner of the Big ten On Fritz, that's next.
This cis Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith Olberman changing
(16:29):
up the format today because worst is way better than
the sports segment. Though the sports world has finally exercised
one of its worst people Football under Dan Snyder, while
readmitting one of its other worst people, former TV executive
Tony Pettiti. It's a Worst Person's Festival, first time for
the daily round of the Misgreates, Morons and dunning Ruger
(16:49):
effect specimens who constitute today's official worst persons in the world.
The bronze Governor Ronda Santis of Florida tweeting a video
of himself yesterday at Hillsdale College in Michigan and then
stopping off in Ohio and going on this book tour
that is in a book tour for a presidential campaign,
(17:09):
that is in a presidential campaign. And there's this book
and nobody's bought the book. All this while one of
his better cities, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, is under freaking water
after flooding. Hey, Ronda, how about you go back and
do your raffing job. By the way, that video he
tweeted starts with Ronda in an arms on the shoulders
(17:30):
embrace of college girls. Not great, ron not great. The
runners up everybody from Senator Tommy Tuberville, I never know
if I'm pronouncing it right. Is it Tommy Tuberville or
Tubby Tomerville? Anyway? From the Senator to Thomas spor of
the Heritage Foundation, they've all been whining and moaning about
(17:53):
the woke military. And then who do the authorities arrest
outside Providence, Rhode Island for the biggest leak of American
military secrets in a decade. A twenty one year old,
straight white, paced gamer who makes videos of himself shooting
guns and shouting anti Semitic and racist crap. Yeah, it's
the woke military Freakin Tubby Tomerville can't even spell woke.
(18:18):
But our winners, same kind of theme. Tucker Carlson and
Elon Musk. When big tech mogul Bob Lee, the founder
of cash app, was murdered in a seed section of
San Francisco, Musk and Carlson and the rest of the
right wing Blamo's sphere immediately concluded that this was just
another moment in the rise and fall that heathen city,
(18:40):
San Francisco. Many people I know, Musk tweeted, have been
severely assaulted. Oh bull crap, you don't know anybody. If
you knew anybody, who wouldn't be sleeping in your library
quoting again, violent frim in f F is horrific And
even if attackers are caught, they're often released. Is the
city taking strong direction to incostrate repeat offenders? Then he
(19:01):
tagged the new DA of San Francisco. Then yesterday police
arrested the only suspect in the Lee murder Nima Momeni,
another tech entrepreneur. Momeni and Lee knew each other, and
police contend that after a dispute in a car, Lee
got out and Momeni stabbed him to death. And of
course Carlson and Musk and all the other frauds said nothing, Tucker,
(19:25):
It's a random attack, Carlson and Elon. Is the city
taking strong direction to address the risk of tech pros
Musk two days worse persons? And this is Sports Center
(19:59):
Wait check that not anymore. This is Countdown with Keith
Alberman in Sports NFL Exorcism. The most hated of owners
in the game out of many candidates, Dan Snyder has
agreed to sell the Washington Commanders for six billion dollars
to Josh Harris, who already owns much of basketball's Philadelphia
(20:23):
seventy six ers and hockey's New Jersey Devils. The six
billion will allow Snyder to focus on his hobbies, humiliating
employees and making special videotapes of cheerleaders. Thank you, Nancy Faust.
(20:54):
So now it's thirteen and oh. The Tampa Bay Rays
beat Boston nine three yesterday to become only the third
team since eighteen eighty four to win its first thirteen
games of the season, nineteen eighty two Braves, nineteen eighty
seven Brewers, two twenty three Rays. They have played one
hundred and seventeen innings this year. They have trailed during
(21:15):
six of them. Tampa Bay goes for the modern record
in Toronto now the all time record. The eighteen eighty
four Saint Louis Maroons getting more publicity than they have
gotten since eighteen eighty four. Twenty and oh to start
that season. And once upon a time, the Big Ten
was probably the pre eminent conference in college sports. Recently,
it's had a few rocky years and it has, of
(21:37):
course an existential problem. The Big Ten consists of fourteen
different schools. Next year it will add USC and UCLA.
That'll make sixteen. Now. To go with this numerical oddity,
it has one of the most disreputable people I have
ever known as its new commissioner. It is named Tony
Pettiti to run the conference. On November twenty six, twenty twelve,
(22:01):
my agent followed the instructions of the then president of
the TV publicity channel owned by Major League Baseball MLB network,
and called that president to finalize a deal by which
I would join the channel to do a daily show,
probably at five thirty at night. It was going to
be strange. MLB Network and its sister hockey channel, NHL
Network originate in the same studios in Secaucus, New Jersey,
(22:24):
which MSNBC used every day from the day I started
there in October nineteen ninety seven through the day in
October two thousand and seven when NBC had all of
us moved to New York City. I had been asked
to do something for MLB Network in two thousand and
eight and two thousand nine, before it ever got on
the air. The request came from the then Commissioner of
(22:45):
Baseball directly, Bud Selig. Bud asked me also to write
for Baseball's website, MLB dot com. We got that done,
but the TV show was impossible until I became a
TV free agent in the fall of two thousand twelve,
and I was invited to do a couple of guest
appearances and they went well except for this really crazy
deja vous thing that at me when I went into
(23:05):
the building and found that while Baseball had spent sixty
million dollars to upgrade all the technical stuff there, and
the studio designs and such. They had not touched anything
else from the MSNBC days. I mean, the carpet tiles
were the same, the ping pong table in the break
room was the same. The signs on the back of
the bathroom door telling you who to call the john
(23:27):
overflowed were the same. It was like having a dream
where you're back in your childhood home and everything is
exactly the way it was, except you know, there's this
nuclear reactor in the middle of your den and you
keep saying, no, where did that come from? Anyway? This
gets us back to the guy an output in charge
of the Big Ten. The guest appearances on MLB network
(23:47):
had been personally arranged by the president of that network,
Tony Pettiti, the new commissioner of the Big Ten. Petiti
asked if I would fill in for two days on
their then new morning show the week of Thanksgiving, and
I certainly knew how to get to the building. I
did the shows with Brian Kenny and Ken Rosenthal and
Bob Costas, his son Keith, and a line of Rizzo,
and we had a great time. Patiti attended the meetings
(24:11):
we had before and after each show, and I mean
full staff meetings, fifteen or so people just standing around
a bunch of cubicles. In front of all of them.
Fatiti began to ask me if I thought my new
show would be doing better at five o'clock or at
five thirty, and if I agreed with him that I
should only work during the baseball season and spring training,
in the playoffs and the winter meetings, and stay fresh
(24:32):
by taking the rest of the year off. And he
asked me if there were people on the staff of
that morning show who I would like to work with.
I mean, this is in front of the staff of
the morning show. Patiti warned me in front of them
that he couldn't pay me the kind of salary I
was used to, and I said that happily, the kind
of salary I was used to meant I didn't need
the kind of salary I was used to. He then
(24:53):
told me to remind my agent to call him the
monday after Thanksgiving. He wished me a happy holiday, and
everybody left. A couple of the producers asked if I
was recommending them to be on my new show, probably
because it wasn't in the morning. So on the Monday
afternoon after Thanksgiving, my agent calls me and says he's
just gotten off the phone with this Tony Petiti and
it was the strangest conversation he had had since he
(25:16):
had become an agent. No, let me rephrase that. He said,
it wasn't a conversation, it was an attempted conversation. I
kept asking him what he told me to ask him,
and then he'd say nothing. Initially I did not understand
what my agent meant. What do you mean he said nothing?
My agent said he meant literally that. I said, so, Tony,
(25:36):
what's your offer to Keith? And then there was just silence,
and I thought the phone call had dropped. So I said, Tony,
are you there? And he said yeah, sure am so
again I asked him what's his offer? And again, literally
it's silence. I can hear him breathing. I tried, like
ten different ways. Are we talking about Keith now, Tony silence?
(25:57):
Is there a reason you're being silent about Keith? Tony silence?
If I changed the subject, my agent said, if I
talked about somebody else else, there's something else. He was
his normal self. When I mentioned your name, he went silent.
The next day, my agent called me back. Petiti just
did this again with me on the phone. He wouldn't speak, literally,
would not say any words in any language. It took
(26:20):
me a long time to find out what had happened.
The next baseball season, after I'd gone back to work
at ESPN, I'm at a game. There's one of the
MLB Network officials who I had met on my two
days working there before Thanksgiving twenty twenty twelve, and this
person comes up and apologizes, Oh, we all heard what happened.
They said, it's so embarrassing. Petitis such a coward. The
(26:43):
Yankees got to him and another club, I never found
out which one. There was some kind of conference call
the Monday after Thanksgiving to tell the teams about your
new show, and whoever was on the call for the
Yankees went nuts. If you put him on MLB Network,
we will disable your cameras at Yankee Stadium and we
will never let any of you inside the building again.
(27:03):
Now I knew why the Yankees would have done that.
I was a season ticket holder, my folks before me,
before I had a checkbook for forty two years. For
ten of those years, I was one of the two
announcers who did a kind of play by play over
the public address system at Yankee Stadium on Old Timer's Day.
And one day in twenty eleven, I had tweeted this
photo of a Yankee employee in the stands giving some
(27:27):
kind of signals to Alex Rodriguez, who was any Yankee
player in the on deck circle. I mean, the tweets
are still up. The guy was clearly telling a Rod
what the last pitch had been, fastball, curveball, slider, whatever.
It wasn't cheating. It happened after the play, not before
the play. It was helping a supposed superstar who could
(27:48):
not figure him out for himself from his position on
the field what kind of pitch the last pitch had been.
I tweeted the photo. Major League Baseball called the Yankees
and told them cut it out. The Yankees and a
Rod looked dumb in the papers, and the Yankees management
said they were not mad at me. And then three
months later, days before this Old Timer's Day, they leaked
(28:08):
to the papers that I had been fired as Old
Timer's Day play by play man because I had tweeted
the photo. So my response to that was to, you know,
not renew my season tickets and my tickets were right
behind home plate and it cost four hundred thousand dollars
a year, and relax, I gave like seventy percent of
them to make a wish. But the Yankees, being the Yankees,
(28:31):
were furious that after they did that to me, I
would still refuse to give them four hundred thousand dollars
a year. So they told MLB Network if MLB Network
gave me a show, they would unplug MLB Network cameras.
Actually they did more than that. I asked my friend,
the MLB network official, the real puzzler of the saga,
why the MLB Network president Tony Petiti literally would not
(28:54):
say anything, even just deals off sorry to my agent
on the phone. Why they went through this dance in
which he literally went silent every time my age brought
up by name. Oh, the officials said, the Yankees were
very specific about that if you say anything to him
or his people anything, we will get you fired. So
(29:18):
Tony Pettiti took that literally. He said, if you called
or your agent called, to just give you the silent treatment,
which is what he was going to do. These are adults,
mind you, adults you often say that the on air
talent are the prima donnas in broadcasting. Well, Tony Pettiti
(29:38):
got his. He was promoted not long after to chief
operating officer of Major League Baseball, and then a couple
of years later, the Commissioner of Baseball, Rob Manfred, squeezed
him out. He drifted to an e sports company, and
then a football consulting job with something called the thirty
third Team. And now he's the new commissioner of the
(29:58):
Big Ten. The Big Ten, which has sixteen members. And
if they're when Tony Petiti is done with them, they'll
still have five or six of them left still Ahead
(30:21):
on Countdown Fridays with Thurber and the story of intrigue
and spies and trains worthy of murder on the Orient Express,
except it's all happening only inside James Thurber's own head
The Lady on one, four two next, First, in each
edition of Countdown, we feature a dog in need you
(30:43):
can help. Every dog has its day to Martinez, California
and Cookie and Cookie is about to go on death row. There.
She was found on the street. She was chipped. They
called her human, and her human never called back. Cookiees
also had tumors and some paralysis, but she's responding well
to simple treatment. Antibiotics are clearing these things up. She's gentle,
(31:06):
she's sweet. They all love her there, But she is
a gray pity, A tiny one. Looks to be about
forty pounds maybe, But it's so hard to overcome the
assumptions about these dogs that they wind up first on
death row. Cookie needs our pledges to help a rescue
pull her out and save her. Look for Cook Cookie
in my Twitter feeds, I thank you and Cookie thanks you.
(31:42):
To the number one story on the countdown, and it
is Friday's with Thurber. And thus the number one story
on the Countdown is Friday's with James Thurber. Many of
the great writers great stories, the short stories, the fables,
have great meaning or symbolism, and some of them are
just great fun. Let me give you one of the
latter from the Thurber Carnival. It will explain it self
(32:04):
fairly quickly. The Lady on one four two by James Thurber.
The train was twenty minutes late, we found out when
we bought our tickets, so we sat down on a
bench in the little waiting room of the Cornwall Bridge station.
It was too hot outside in the sun. This Midsummer
(32:25):
Saturday had got off to a sulky start, and now,
at three in the afternoon, it sat sticky and restive.
In our laps. There were several others besides Sylvia and myself,
waiting for the train to get in from Pittsfield. An
older woman who fanned herself with a daily news, a
young lady in her twenties reading a book, A slender,
(32:48):
tanned man sucking dreamily on the stem of an unlighted pipe.
In the center of the room, leaning against a high
iron radiator, a small girl stared at each of us
in turn, her mouth open, as if she had never
seen people before. The place had the familiar pleasant smell
of railroad stations in the country, something compounded of wood
(33:12):
and leather and smoke. In the cramped space behind the
ticket window, a telegraph instrument clicked intermittently, and once or
twice a phone rang, and the station master answered it briefly.
I couldn't hear what he said. I was glad on
such a day that we were going only as far
as gay Lordsville. The third stopped down the line twenty
(33:32):
two minutes away. The station master had told us that
our tickets were the first tickets to gay Lordsville he
had ever sold. I was idly pondering this small distinction
when a train whistle blew in the distance. We all
got to our feet, but the station master came out
of his cubby hole and told us it was not
our train, but the twelve forty five from New York northbound. Presently,
(33:56):
the train thundered in like a hurricane and signed ponderously
to a stop. The station master went out into the
platform and came back. After a minute or two, the
train got heavily under way again for Canaan. I was
opening a pack of cigarettes when I heard the station
master talking on the phone again. This time his words
(34:16):
came out clearly. He kept repeating one sentence. He was saying,
Conductor Reagan on one four two. As the lady the
office was talking about. The person on the other end
of the line did not appear to get the meaning
of the sentence. The station master repeated it and hung up.
(34:38):
For some reason. I figured that he did not understand
it either. Sylvia's eyes had the lost reflective look they
wear when she's trying to remember in what box she
packed the Christmas tree ornaments. The expressions on the faces
of the older woman, the young lady, and the man
with the pipe had not changed. The little staring girl
(34:59):
had gone away. Our train was not due for another
five minutes, and I sat back and began trying to
reconstruct the lady on one four two the lady Conductor
Reagan had the lady the office was asking about. I
moved nearer to Sylvia and whispered, see if the trains
(35:20):
are numbered in your time table. She got the timetable
out of her handbag and looked at it. One forty two,
she said, is the twelve forty five from New York.
This was the train that had gone by a few
minutes before. The woman was taken sick, said Sylvia. They're
probably arranging to have a doctor or her family meet her.
(35:41):
The older woman looked around at her briefly. The young woman,
who had been chewing gum stopped chewing. The man with
the pipe seemed oblivious. I lighted a cigarette and sat thinking.
The woman on one four two, I said to Sylvia flatly,
might be almost anything, but she is definitely not sick.
(36:04):
The only who did not stare at me was the
man with the pipe. Sylvia gave me her temperature taking
look across between anxiety and vexation. Just then our train
whistled and we all stood up. I picked up our
two bags, and Sylvia took the sack of string beans
we had picked up for the connals. When the train
came clanking in, I said in Sylvia's ear, he'll sit
(36:27):
near us. You watch who will she said, the stranger?
I told her, the man with the pipe. Sylvia laughed,
He's not a stranger. She said, he works for the breeds.
I was certainly that he did not work for the breeds.
Women liked to place people. Every stranger reminds him of somebody.
(36:51):
The man with the pipe was sitting three seats in
front of us, across the aisle. When we got settled,
I indicated him with a nod of my head. Sylvia
took a book out of the top of her overnight
bag and opened it. Watch the man her with you,
she demanded. I looked around before replying. A sleepy man
and woman sat across from us. Two middle aged women
(37:13):
in the seat in front of us were discussing the
severe griping pain one of them had experienced as a
result of inflamed diverticulitis, A slim, dark eyed young woman
sat in the seat behind us. She was alone. The
trouble with women, I began, is that they explain everything
(37:34):
by illness. I have a theory that we could be
celebrating the twelfth of May, or even the sixteenth of
April as Independence Day, if missus Jefferson hadn't got the idea.
Her husband had a fever and put him to bed.
Sylvia found her place in the book. We've been all
through that before. She said, why couldn't the woman on
(37:56):
one forty two be sick? That was easy, I told her.
Conductor Reagan, I said, got off the train at Cornwall
Bridge and spoke to the station master. I've got the
woman the Office was asking about, he said. Sylvia cut in.
He said, Lady I gave the little laugh that annoys her.
(38:19):
All conductors, say, lady, I explained. Now, if a woman
had got sick on the train, Reagan would have said,
a woman got sick on my train. Tell the office.
What must have happened is that Reagan found somewhere between
Kent and Cornwall Bridge a woman the Office had been
looking for. Sylvia did not close her book, but she
(38:42):
looked up. Maybe she got sick before she got on
the train, and the office was worried, said Sylvia. She
was not giving the problem close attention. If the office
knew she got on the train, I said patiently, they
wouldn't have asked Regan to let them know if he
found her. They would have told him about her when
(39:06):
she got on. Sylvia resumed her reading. Let's stay out
of it, she said, it isn't any of our business.
I hunted for my chicklets but couldn't find them. It
might be everybody's business, I said, every patriots I know.
(39:26):
I know, said Sylvia. You think she's a spy, Well,
I think she's sick. I ignored that every conductor on
the line has been asked to look out for her.
I said, Reagan found her. She won't be met by
her family. She'll be met by the FBI or the OPA,
(39:50):
said Sylvia. Alfred Hitchcock. Things don't happen on the New York,
New Haven and Hartford Railroad. I saw the conductor coming
from the other end of the couch. I'm going to
tell a conductor, I said that Reagan on one four
two has got the woman. No, you're not, said Sylvia,
You're not gonna get us and mixed up in this.
He probably knows anyway. The conductor, short, stocky, silver haired,
(40:14):
and silent, took up our tickets. He looked like a
kindly Ikey's Sylvia, who had stiffened, relaxed when I let
him go by without a word about the woman on
one four two. He looks exactly as if he knew
where the Maltese falcon is hidden, doesn't, he said Sylvia,
with a laugh that annoys me. Nevertheless, I pointed out
(40:36):
you said a little while ago that he probably knows
about the woman on one four two. If she's just sick,
why should they tell the conductor on this train. I'll
rest more easily when I know that they've actually got her.
Sylvia kept reading as if she hadn't heard me. I
leaned my head against the back of the seat and
(40:57):
closed my eyes. The train was slowing down noisily, and
a brakeman was yelling can't, can't. When I felt a
small cold pressure against my shoulder. Oh, the voice of
the woman in the seat behind me said, I've dropped
my copy of Coronet under your seat. She leaned closer,
(41:20):
and her voice became low and hard. Get off here, mister,
she said, we're going to Gaylordsville. I said, you and
your wife are getting off here, mister, she said. I
reached for the suitcases on the rack. Why do you
want for Heaven's sake, asked Sylvia, we're getting off here.
(41:41):
I told her, are you really crazy? She demanded, This
is only can't come on, sister, said the woman's voice.
You take the overnight bag and the beans. You take
the big bag. Mister. Sylvia was furious. I knew you'd
get us into this, She said to me, shouting about
spies at the top of your voice. That made me angry.
(42:05):
You're the one who mentioned spies. I told her I didn't.
He kept talking about it and talking about it, said Sylvia,
come on, get off. The two of you, said the cold,
hard voice. We got off. As I helped Sylvia down
the steps, I said, we know too much. I'll shut up.
She said. We didn't have far to go. The big
(42:27):
black limousine waited a few steps away. Behind the wheel
sat a heavy set foreigner with cruel lips and small eyes.
He scowled when he saw us. The boss don't want
nobody up there, he said. It's all right. Carl said,
the woman get in, she told us. We climbed into
(42:48):
the back seat. She sat between us with the gun
in her hand. It was a handsome jeweled derringer. Alice
will be waiting for us at gaylord's bell, said Sylvia.
In all this heat, the house was a long, low,
rambling building reached the end of a poplar lined drive.
Never mind the bags, said the woman. Sylvia took the
(43:10):
string beans and her book and we got out. Two
huge matstiffs came bounding off the terrace, snarling. Down Mata,
said the woman. Down pedro They slunk away, still snarling.
Sylvia and I sat side by side on a sofa
in a large, handsomely appointed living room. Across from us,
(43:32):
in a chair lounged a tall man with heavily lidded
black eyes and long sensitive fingers. Against the door through
which we had entered the room leaned a thin, undersized
young man with his hands in the pockets of his
coat and a cigarette hanging from his lower lip. He
had a drawn, sallow face, and his small, half closed
eyes stared at us incuriously. In a corner of the room,
(43:56):
a squat, swarthy man twiddled with the dials of a radio.
The woman paced up and down, smoking a cigarette in
long holder. Well, Gail said the lounging man in a
soft voice, to what do we owe this unexpected visit?
Gail kept pacing. They got Sandra, she said. Finally, the
(44:20):
lounging man did not change expression. Who got Sandra, Gail?
He asked softly. Reagan on one for two, said Gail.
The squat swarthy man jumped to his feet. All the time,
Egypt say killed Thee's Reagan, he shouted, all the time,
Egypt say, bomb off Thee's Reagan. The lounging man did
(44:43):
not look at him. Sit down, Egypt, he said quietly.
The swarthy man sat down. Gail went on talking. The
punk here shot off his mouth. He said, he was wise.
I looked at the man leaning against the door. She
means you, said Sylvia, who laughed, Dame was dumb. Gail
(45:07):
went on. She thought the lady on the train was sick. Now,
I laughed, she means you, I said to Sylvia. The
punk was blowing his top all over the train, said Gail.
I had to bring him along. Sylvia, who had the
beans on her lap, began breaking and stringing them. Well,
(45:28):
my dear lady said the lounging man a most homely
little Touch's a touch, demanded Egypt, touch, I told him.
Gail sat down in a chair. Who's going to rub
him out? She asked. Fred Day said the lounging man.
Egypt was on his feet again. Na, na, he shouted,
(45:50):
not the punk, the punk, bomp off. They last seek
seven people. The lounging man looked at him. Egypt paled
and sat down. I thought you were the punk, said Sylvia.
I looked at her coldly. I know where I have
seen you before, I said to the lounging man. It
(46:12):
was at Zagreb in nineteen twenty seven. Tilden took you
in straight sets six love six love six love. The
man's eyes glittered. I think I bump off this man myself,
he said. Freddie walked over and handed the lounging man
an automatic. At this moment, the door Freddie had been
(46:34):
leaning against burst open, and in rushed the man with
the pipe, shouting, Gail Gaiale, Gail Gaylordsville, Gaylordsville bawled the brakeman.
Sylvia was shaking me by the arm. Quit mounting, she said,
everybody's looking at you. I rubbed my forehead with a handkerchief.
(46:57):
Hurry up, she said. Sylvia said, they don't stop here long.
I pulled the bags down and we got off. Have
you got the beans? I asked Sylvia. Alice Connell was
waiting for us on the way to their home. In
the car, Sylvia began to tell Alice about the woman
on one for two. I didn't say anything. Ain't thought
(47:19):
you as a spy, said Sylvia. They both laughed. She'll
probably got sick on the train, said Alice. They're probably
arranging for a doctor to meet her at the station.
That's just what I told him, said Sylvia. I lighted
a cigarette. The lady on one four two, I said firmly,
(47:42):
was definitely not sick. Oh Lord, said Sylvia. Here we
go again. The Lady on one four two by James Thurber.
(48:12):
First time I ever read that one. I was on
a train outside Philadelphia. It was perfect. I've done all
the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening.
Here are the credits. Most of the music arrange produced
and performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Channel the
Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by John Philip
Channel guitars based and drums by Brian Ray, produced by
(48:33):
Tko Brothers. Other Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed
by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports music is
the Olderman theme from ESPN two, and it was written
by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of the ESPN Inc. Musical
comments from Nancy Fauss the best baseball stadium organist ever
and our announcer today was Larry David. Everything else pretty
(48:53):
much my fault. So let's countdown for this the eight
hundred and twenty ninth day since Donald Trump's first attempted
coup against the democratically elected government 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 Alderman.
Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Countdown with
(49:26):
Keith Alerman 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. There
is no question now that Clarence Thomas has broken the law.
(00:26):
Letting him continue to degrade the Supreme Court. He is indefensible.
We need to see him in a courtroom, not in
the robes he has figuratively soiled, but in a suit
at the defense table. He is a criminal. He is
a political prostitute. Quoting state tax and property documents pro
publica our reports and the buyer confirms that in October
(00:49):
twenty fourteen, Clarence Thomas sold his mother's home in Savannah,
Georgia to a company owned by the same Texas billionaire
Hitler standing submitting to the Supreme Court distributor of corruption,
Harlan Crowe, the how and two nearby empty lots for
one hundred and thirty three thousand dollars, and Crowe promptly
made tens of thousands of dollars worth of improvements to
(01:13):
the building, and he made a statement saying all this
is true. He bought Thomas's mother's home in order to
turn it into a museum, and eight and a half
years later the only exhibit in this museum is Thomas's
mother and if it is a museum, it's the Clarence
Thomas Museum of Crime. Because Clarence Thomas never disclosed any
of this in clear violation of the statutes requiring justices
(01:36):
and other officials to file documents relating to almost every
real estate sale worth more than a thousand dollars. And
if you fail to do that, as Clarence Thomas has
failed to do that, under Code section five USC one
three one oh four, you can be fined, and in
some cases you can be sent to jail for up
to a year. October two, fourteen and Clarence Thomas's signature
(02:02):
is on the paperwork of the sale, and he had
a Supreme Court administrator notarize it, and he still hasn't
reported the sale in Savannah, and he still hasn't amended
his twenty fourteen disclosure form to include the sale. And
as pro Public have put it, quote, the disclosure form
Thomas filed for that year also had a space to
(02:22):
report the identity of the buyer in any private transaction
such as a real estate deal. That space is blank unquote,
as blank as Clarence Thomas's ethics, or his conscience, or
his respect for the law Wells, this lunatic Crow's explanation
(02:45):
is wildly unbelievable. Quote. My intention is to one day
create a public museum at the Thomas Home dedicated to
telling the story of our nation's second black Supreme Court justice,
which I guess could happen if Thomas's mother weren't still
living there, and if the first thing that Crowe did
to the place had not been to build a car port.
(03:07):
Improvements were also made to the Thomas property, Crow explained,
to preserve its long term viability and accessibility to the public,
like a car port. Every good museum needs a car port.
Harland Crowe, the guy regularly doling out vacations to Clarence
(03:27):
and Jenny Thomas worth half a million dollars, The guy
who apparently does live in a museum, only it's a
museum for people who want to see paintings Hitler did,
and the tea pot Hitler made, tea in and the
Lenin's Hitler used. Harland Crowe says he paid full market
value for the Thomas Home, and no, he didn't provide
any documents to verify that. We'll just have to take
(03:50):
his word for it. Oh and when pro publica broke
the original Harland Crow vacation and statues and private jet
trip stories. Just a week ago. It knew nothing of this,
So we have no idea if the ruption goes further
than this. It has gone far enough. Clarence Thomas must
(04:10):
resign from the Supreme Court, and if he refuses, five USC.
One three one oh six should be invoked. And the
head of the Traditional Conference should refer this case to
the Attorney General, and he has to prosecute Clarence Thomas.
And I don't care if he's still sitting there in
the robes claiming he is the Supreme Court justice. The
man is a crook, the man is a whore. The
(04:32):
man is the definition of everything a Supreme Court justice
should not be, cannot be, must not be. And Clarence
Thomas has been at the center of the culture of
corruption of the Supreme Court, ranging from Neil Gorsuch's web
of ties, as The New York Times put it, to
the Colorado billionaire and Federalist Society funder Philip Anschutz, to
(04:56):
the stock shares John Roberts owned or had owned in
two companies as he ruled on cases involving them, to
Clarence Thomas's own one and a half million dollar book deal,
to Amy Coney Barrett's two million dollar book deal, to
Sonya Sotomayor's three million dollar book deal. And as the
money spirals up and up and the ethics spiral down
(05:17):
and down, we are ruled over by an unelected elite
with lifetime appointments, and suddenly the potential for countless multimillion
dollar revenue streams and nothing holding them back from greed
and avarice and corruption except their own mortality. And we
better fix this goddamn fast, and we're gonna need a
lot of luck. Astonishing, wrote the Chairman of the Senate
(05:40):
Judiciary Committee yesterday, Dick Durbin, to the news of the
Clarence Thomas My Mother the Museum story. The Chief Justice
must investigate how such conduct could take place at the
Court under his watch. And if the Court does not
fix these clear abuses, Congress must. Yes, Senator Derby, you
don't have to know anybody in Congress, do you, Because
(06:02):
it's clear the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee is
just going to sit there on his hands. One speck
of comic relief in this courtesy Liz Charbonneau, Vice president
of the Democratic Party's advocacy arm American Bridge. Quote. Actually
(06:26):
Harland Crowe collects property from Supreme Court justices just to
remind him of the evil they perpetrated. Oh, and what
is this secret real estate transaction? Theme week? As the
vast pit of corruption that is the Tennessee State House
continues to get hoist on its own petard after the
(06:50):
failed expulsion of Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, the website
Popular Information reports that House Speaker Cameron Sexton secretly bought
a six hundred thousand dollars home in Nashville, Tennessee, hid
the purchase behind to trust, made sure there was an
illegible signature on the warranty deed. The signature turned out
to be his wife's. Cameron's wife's name is Lacey Lacey
(07:16):
Sexton Cameron and Lacey Sexton. This is further evidence that
Speaker Sexton is serving illegally because he's got this house
in Nashville, but he represents a place called Crossville, which
is two hours away and where he already sold his home,
but still puts in for tens of thousands of dollars
(07:37):
worth of per diem for travel that he is evidently
not making to the district he evidently does not live in.
And by the way, that spark of humanity from Tennessee's
governor after the Covenant School shooting there, the strengthened red
flag laws and background checks before he could buy a gun.
The first bill in the Tennessee House to enact legislation
(07:58):
for that has died in committee. Keeper Republican talking long
enough and he will and ate himself about something, which
is why the defendant's choice in the deposition before New
York State Attorney General Letitia James yesterday was such a
wild one. Trump was in a unique position talk and
(08:22):
he could prove her fraud case, her claim that he
and Fredo and Junior and Girl Junior overvalued Trump's assets
by billions of dollars. Don't talk about that. Since it
is a civil suit, his silence could be used against him.
James is suing for a quarter of a billion, the
(08:43):
amount she says he illegally made because of that overvaluation.
She also wants the defendants and all the little defendants
to be barred from conducting business in New York State.
The defendant answered every question. He was there from ten
am to six PM, and with an hour off, that's
seven hours of questions, and so hats off to the
attorneys who had to listen to him talk that long.
(09:05):
My record since the year twenty sixteen is like three minutes.
There was incidentally, a vast maggot crowd outside the Attorney
General's office here in New York yesterday, four or five people.
Big banner, though, draped over the scaffolding which blooms here
in the spring, just like the daffodils. The banner read
(09:26):
Trump or death. One of the guys who put it,
They're emphasized to reporters quote not my death. As we
approached that moment in which every case in every courtroom
is about Trump, his half billion dollars lawsuit against his
former lawyer Michael Cohen has been assigned to an Obama
appointee named Judge Darren Gals. The suit is only days old,
(09:51):
and Judge Gals has already threatened to dismiss it. He
has notified Trump's lawyers that if they do not start
double spacing their submissions, he may toss their suit. And
the other New York case, you remember, the one they've
already arrested him for, is at stasis But on Monday
it will take a political turn. When Jim Jordan brings
(10:12):
his Green Acres road Show field hearing to Manhattan to
try to smear Attorney Alvin Bragg on Trump's behalf. The
Democrats plan a counter field hearing, at which they will
fall head first into the Republican's trap. The editor in
chief of Crooked Media, Brian Boutler, raised this inarguable point yesterday.
(10:33):
When Jordan and Trump's other lackeys bray which hunt, Why
aren't you focusing on the street crime here in New
York City? The Democrats will answer with a flood of
statistics showing that it's far more dangerous in Jim Jordan's
hometown or on his wrestling team, and they'll be really
happy about it, or or when, in fact, their only
answer should be yeah, about crime in New York. Donald
(10:55):
Trump is a criminal. That's why he was indicted. That's
what they should start with. Then they should say, that's
why he was arrested. He's a criminal. Trump's criminal, That's
why he's being sued by the state. Trump's a criminal.
That's why his company already lost in court. Trump's a criminal,
That's why he's being sued for rape. Trump is a criminal.
That's why there's a special council prepared to indict him
(11:16):
for espionage, for fundraising fraud for January sixth, for trying
to overturn the election. Because he is a criminal. Crime
in New York, its name is Trump. That is what
the Democrats should say on Monday. Don't play their game
jiu jitsu them. The story isn't about how many subway
(11:37):
hold ups there were last month. It's about how many
times Trump tried to overthrow democracy. And speaking of that,
his former Director of National Lack of Intelligence, John Ratcliffe,
testified to a Jack Smith grand jury yesterday and the
loathsome Rick Grennell testified to whichever Jack Smith grand jury
is probing the classified documents he stole, and the New
(11:59):
York Times does hit the nail on the head here.
The point of the Ratcliffe testimony is quote. While questions
linger over pending appeals and potential efforts by some of
the witnesses to delay things further by invoking the Fifth Amendment,
the development suggests mister Smith is close to finishing the
fact finding phase of his work and is moving closer
(12:20):
to a decision about seeking charges against mister Trump. And
others unquote, which is virtually exactly what we heard yesterday
about Jack Smith having heard from virtually everybody he could
have heard from about the classified docs. And that reminds
me that there is that supposed final focus of Jack
(12:41):
Smith's probe on the Marilago documents, the map Trump supposedly
stole and showed off to somebody on a plane, and
somebody else writing a book, and somebody else making a donation.
And I knew I'd heard the story somewhere before, and
sure enough, there it is kind of some of all
fears conflation. From a Tucker Carlson interview from March twenty
(13:05):
twenty two, and Carlson, who also last night defended the racist,
anti Semite kid who leaked all the military documents to
impress his gamer buddies. Carlson called him a whistleblower. Carlson
is not loyal to this country. In March twenty twenty two,
Carlson's guests said he was in the White House with
Trump one day in twenty seventeen when Trump started asking
(13:27):
him his thoughts on ISIS and North Korea and then
quoting Carlson's guest, we're looking at maps and bleep. I'm like,
you know, am I supposed to be in on this bleep?
The Carlson guest to whom Trump in twenty seventeen showed
the presumably classified maps kid Rock check Please. Lastly, since
(14:00):
the classified Kleptomania story broke, I have been saying it
will prove are worse than our worst guesses, and so
as funny as this next detail might sound, by god,
I actually find myself wondering if this is not a
wacky coincidence. Victor Boot, the arms dealer resident Biden traded
(14:21):
to the Kremlin in exchange for the basketball star Poutin
had taken prisoner Britney Griner. Victor Boot went on Russian
TV yesterday and said he had sent Trump a telegram
warning Trump that his life is in danger in New
York and he should flee to Russia and ask for
political asylum and from there lead. What Boots says is
(14:42):
the battle against the globalists. And so in conclusion, I
have only two observations. For yes, this is exactly what
I've been saying since twenty seventeen to Trump, defect, flee,
run wattle, do it now. And the second observation is wait,
(15:05):
you can still send a telegram stell ahead. On this
edition of Countdown. They were sure the secrets leak owed
to the woke military. Then it turned out the culprit
(15:28):
was a pasty white guy who liked to videotape himself
shouting anti minority slurs and then shooting guns looking at you,
Senator Tommy Tubberville. And they were sure the murderer of
a tech kingpin owed to the liberal destruction of the
city of Sun and Francisco. Then it turned out that
culprit was another tech kingpin looking at you, Elon Muskrat,
(15:55):
And he is one of the most disreputable people I
have ever met in television. And guess what, he's the
new commissioner of the Big ten On Fritz, that's next.
This cis Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith Olberman changing
(16:29):
up the format today because worst is way better than
the sports segment. Though the sports world has finally exercised
one of its worst people Football under Dan Snyder, while
readmitting one of its other worst people, former TV executive
Tony Pettiti. It's a Worst Person's Festival, first time for
the daily round of the Misgreates, Morons and dunning Ruger
(16:49):
effect specimens who constitute today's official worst persons in the world.
The bronze Governor Ronda Santis of Florida tweeting a video
of himself yesterday at Hillsdale College in Michigan and then
stopping off in Ohio and going on this book tour
that is in a book tour for a presidential campaign,
(17:09):
that is in a presidential campaign. And there's this book
and nobody's bought the book. All this while one of
his better cities, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, is under freaking water
after flooding. Hey, Ronda, how about you go back and
do your raffing job. By the way, that video he
tweeted starts with Ronda in an arms on the shoulders
(17:30):
embrace of college girls. Not great, ron not great. The
runners up everybody from Senator Tommy Tuberville, I never know
if I'm pronouncing it right. Is it Tommy Tuberville or
Tubby Tomerville? Anyway? From the Senator to Thomas spor of
the Heritage Foundation, they've all been whining and moaning about
(17:53):
the woke military. And then who do the authorities arrest
outside Providence, Rhode Island for the biggest leak of American
military secrets in a decade. A twenty one year old,
straight white, paced gamer who makes videos of himself shooting
guns and shouting anti Semitic and racist crap. Yeah, it's
the woke military Freakin Tubby Tomerville can't even spell woke.
(18:18):
But our winners, same kind of theme. Tucker Carlson and
Elon Musk. When big tech mogul Bob Lee, the founder
of cash app, was murdered in a seed section of
San Francisco, Musk and Carlson and the rest of the
right wing Blamo's sphere immediately concluded that this was just
another moment in the rise and fall that heathen city,
(18:40):
San Francisco. Many people I know, Musk tweeted, have been
severely assaulted. Oh bull crap, you don't know anybody. If
you knew anybody, who wouldn't be sleeping in your library
quoting again, violent frim in f F is horrific And
even if attackers are caught, they're often released. Is the
city taking strong direction to incostrate repeat offenders? Then he
(19:01):
tagged the new DA of San Francisco. Then yesterday police
arrested the only suspect in the Lee murder Nima Momeni,
another tech entrepreneur. Momeni and Lee knew each other, and
police contend that after a dispute in a car, Lee
got out and Momeni stabbed him to death. And of
course Carlson and Musk and all the other frauds said nothing, Tucker,
(19:25):
It's a random attack, Carlson and Elon. Is the city
taking strong direction to address the risk of tech pros
Musk two days worse persons? And this is Sports Center
(19:59):
Wait check that not anymore. This is Countdown with Keith
Alberman in Sports NFL Exorcism. The most hated of owners
in the game out of many candidates, Dan Snyder has
agreed to sell the Washington Commanders for six billion dollars
to Josh Harris, who already owns much of basketball's Philadelphia
(20:23):
seventy six ers and hockey's New Jersey Devils. The six
billion will allow Snyder to focus on his hobbies, humiliating
employees and making special videotapes of cheerleaders. Thank you, Nancy Faust.
(20:54):
So now it's thirteen and oh. The Tampa Bay Rays
beat Boston nine three yesterday to become only the third
team since eighteen eighty four to win its first thirteen
games of the season, nineteen eighty two Braves, nineteen eighty
seven Brewers, two twenty three Rays. They have played one
hundred and seventeen innings this year. They have trailed during
(21:15):
six of them. Tampa Bay goes for the modern record
in Toronto now the all time record. The eighteen eighty
four Saint Louis Maroons getting more publicity than they have
gotten since eighteen eighty four. Twenty and oh to start
that season. And once upon a time, the Big Ten
was probably the pre eminent conference in college sports. Recently,
it's had a few rocky years and it has, of
(21:37):
course an existential problem. The Big Ten consists of fourteen
different schools. Next year it will add USC and UCLA.
That'll make sixteen. Now. To go with this numerical oddity,
it has one of the most disreputable people I have
ever known as its new commissioner. It is named Tony
Pettiti to run the conference. On November twenty six, twenty twelve,
(22:01):
my agent followed the instructions of the then president of
the TV publicity channel owned by Major League Baseball MLB network,
and called that president to finalize a deal by which
I would join the channel to do a daily show,
probably at five thirty at night. It was going to
be strange. MLB Network and its sister hockey channel, NHL
Network originate in the same studios in Secaucus, New Jersey,
(22:24):
which MSNBC used every day from the day I started
there in October nineteen ninety seven through the day in
October two thousand and seven when NBC had all of
us moved to New York City. I had been asked
to do something for MLB Network in two thousand and
eight and two thousand nine, before it ever got on
the air. The request came from the then Commissioner of
(22:45):
Baseball directly, Bud Selig. Bud asked me also to write
for Baseball's website, MLB dot com. We got that done,
but the TV show was impossible until I became a
TV free agent in the fall of two thousand twelve,
and I was invited to do a couple of guest
appearances and they went well except for this really crazy
deja vous thing that at me when I went into
(23:05):
the building and found that while Baseball had spent sixty
million dollars to upgrade all the technical stuff there, and
the studio designs and such. They had not touched anything
else from the MSNBC days. I mean, the carpet tiles
were the same, the ping pong table in the break
room was the same. The signs on the back of
the bathroom door telling you who to call the john
(23:27):
overflowed were the same. It was like having a dream
where you're back in your childhood home and everything is
exactly the way it was, except you know, there's this
nuclear reactor in the middle of your den and you
keep saying, no, where did that come from? Anyway? This
gets us back to the guy an output in charge
of the Big Ten. The guest appearances on MLB network
(23:47):
had been personally arranged by the president of that network,
Tony Pettiti, the new commissioner of the Big Ten. Petiti
asked if I would fill in for two days on
their then new morning show the week of Thanksgiving, and
I certainly knew how to get to the building. I
did the shows with Brian Kenny and Ken Rosenthal and
Bob Costas, his son Keith, and a line of Rizzo,
and we had a great time. Patiti attended the meetings
(24:11):
we had before and after each show, and I mean
full staff meetings, fifteen or so people just standing around
a bunch of cubicles. In front of all of them.
Fatiti began to ask me if I thought my new
show would be doing better at five o'clock or at
five thirty, and if I agreed with him that I
should only work during the baseball season and spring training,
in the playoffs and the winter meetings, and stay fresh
(24:32):
by taking the rest of the year off. And he
asked me if there were people on the staff of
that morning show who I would like to work with.
I mean, this is in front of the staff of
the morning show. Patiti warned me in front of them
that he couldn't pay me the kind of salary I
was used to, and I said that happily, the kind
of salary I was used to meant I didn't need
the kind of salary I was used to. He then
(24:53):
told me to remind my agent to call him the
monday after Thanksgiving. He wished me a happy holiday, and
everybody left. A couple of the producers asked if I
was recommending them to be on my new show, probably
because it wasn't in the morning. So on the Monday
afternoon after Thanksgiving, my agent calls me and says he's
just gotten off the phone with this Tony Petiti and
it was the strangest conversation he had had since he
(25:16):
had become an agent. No, let me rephrase that. He said,
it wasn't a conversation, it was an attempted conversation. I
kept asking him what he told me to ask him,
and then he'd say nothing. Initially I did not understand
what my agent meant. What do you mean he said nothing?
My agent said he meant literally that. I said, so, Tony,
(25:36):
what's your offer to Keith? And then there was just silence,
and I thought the phone call had dropped. So I said, Tony,
are you there? And he said yeah, sure am so
again I asked him what's his offer? And again, literally
it's silence. I can hear him breathing. I tried, like
ten different ways. Are we talking about Keith now, Tony silence?
(25:57):
Is there a reason you're being silent about Keith? Tony silence?
If I changed the subject, my agent said, if I
talked about somebody else else, there's something else. He was
his normal self. When I mentioned your name, he went silent.
The next day, my agent called me back. Petiti just
did this again with me on the phone. He wouldn't speak, literally,
would not say any words in any language. It took
(26:20):
me a long time to find out what had happened.
The next baseball season, after I'd gone back to work
at ESPN, I'm at a game. There's one of the
MLB Network officials who I had met on my two
days working there before Thanksgiving twenty twenty twelve, and this
person comes up and apologizes, Oh, we all heard what happened.
They said, it's so embarrassing. Petitis such a coward. The
(26:43):
Yankees got to him and another club, I never found
out which one. There was some kind of conference call
the Monday after Thanksgiving to tell the teams about your
new show, and whoever was on the call for the
Yankees went nuts. If you put him on MLB Network,
we will disable your cameras at Yankee Stadium and we
will never let any of you inside the building again.
(27:03):
Now I knew why the Yankees would have done that.
I was a season ticket holder, my folks before me,
before I had a checkbook for forty two years. For
ten of those years, I was one of the two
announcers who did a kind of play by play over
the public address system at Yankee Stadium on Old Timer's Day.
And one day in twenty eleven, I had tweeted this
photo of a Yankee employee in the stands giving some
(27:27):
kind of signals to Alex Rodriguez, who was any Yankee
player in the on deck circle. I mean, the tweets
are still up. The guy was clearly telling a Rod
what the last pitch had been, fastball, curveball, slider, whatever.
It wasn't cheating. It happened after the play, not before
the play. It was helping a supposed superstar who could
(27:48):
not figure him out for himself from his position on
the field what kind of pitch the last pitch had been.
I tweeted the photo. Major League Baseball called the Yankees
and told them cut it out. The Yankees and a
Rod looked dumb in the papers, and the Yankees management
said they were not mad at me. And then three
months later, days before this Old Timer's Day, they leaked
(28:08):
to the papers that I had been fired as Old
Timer's Day play by play man because I had tweeted
the photo. So my response to that was to, you know,
not renew my season tickets and my tickets were right
behind home plate and it cost four hundred thousand dollars
a year, and relax, I gave like seventy percent of
them to make a wish. But the Yankees, being the Yankees,
(28:31):
were furious that after they did that to me, I
would still refuse to give them four hundred thousand dollars
a year. So they told MLB Network if MLB Network
gave me a show, they would unplug MLB Network cameras.
Actually they did more than that. I asked my friend,
the MLB network official, the real puzzler of the saga,
why the MLB Network president Tony Petiti literally would not
(28:54):
say anything, even just deals off sorry to my agent
on the phone. Why they went through this dance in
which he literally went silent every time my age brought
up by name. Oh, the officials said, the Yankees were
very specific about that if you say anything to him
or his people anything, we will get you fired. So
(29:18):
Tony Pettiti took that literally. He said, if you called
or your agent called, to just give you the silent treatment,
which is what he was going to do. These are adults,
mind you, adults you often say that the on air
talent are the prima donnas in broadcasting. Well, Tony Pettiti
(29:38):
got his. He was promoted not long after to chief
operating officer of Major League Baseball, and then a couple
of years later, the Commissioner of Baseball, Rob Manfred, squeezed
him out. He drifted to an e sports company, and
then a football consulting job with something called the thirty
third Team. And now he's the new commissioner of the
(29:58):
Big Ten. The Big Ten, which has sixteen members. And
if they're when Tony Petiti is done with them, they'll
still have five or six of them left still Ahead
(30:21):
on Countdown Fridays with Thurber and the story of intrigue
and spies and trains worthy of murder on the Orient Express,
except it's all happening only inside James Thurber's own head
The Lady on one, four two next, First, in each
edition of Countdown, we feature a dog in need you
(30:43):
can help. Every dog has its day to Martinez, California
and Cookie and Cookie is about to go on death row. There.
She was found on the street. She was chipped. They
called her human, and her human never called back. Cookiees
also had tumors and some paralysis, but she's responding well
to simple treatment. Antibiotics are clearing these things up. She's gentle,
(31:06):
she's sweet. They all love her there, But she is
a gray pity, A tiny one. Looks to be about
forty pounds maybe, But it's so hard to overcome the
assumptions about these dogs that they wind up first on
death row. Cookie needs our pledges to help a rescue
pull her out and save her. Look for Cook Cookie
in my Twitter feeds, I thank you and Cookie thanks you.
(31:42):
To the number one story on the countdown, and it
is Friday's with Thurber. And thus the number one story
on the Countdown is Friday's with James Thurber. Many of
the great writers great stories, the short stories, the fables,
have great meaning or symbolism, and some of them are
just great fun. Let me give you one of the
latter from the Thurber Carnival. It will explain it self
(32:04):
fairly quickly. The Lady on one four two by James Thurber.
The train was twenty minutes late, we found out when
we bought our tickets, so we sat down on a
bench in the little waiting room of the Cornwall Bridge station.
It was too hot outside in the sun. This Midsummer
(32:25):
Saturday had got off to a sulky start, and now,
at three in the afternoon, it sat sticky and restive.
In our laps. There were several others besides Sylvia and myself,
waiting for the train to get in from Pittsfield. An
older woman who fanned herself with a daily news, a
young lady in her twenties reading a book, A slender,
(32:48):
tanned man sucking dreamily on the stem of an unlighted pipe.
In the center of the room, leaning against a high
iron radiator, a small girl stared at each of us
in turn, her mouth open, as if she had never
seen people before. The place had the familiar pleasant smell
of railroad stations in the country, something compounded of wood
(33:12):
and leather and smoke. In the cramped space behind the
ticket window, a telegraph instrument clicked intermittently, and once or
twice a phone rang, and the station master answered it briefly.
I couldn't hear what he said. I was glad on
such a day that we were going only as far
as gay Lordsville. The third stopped down the line twenty
(33:32):
two minutes away. The station master had told us that
our tickets were the first tickets to gay Lordsville he
had ever sold. I was idly pondering this small distinction
when a train whistle blew in the distance. We all
got to our feet, but the station master came out
of his cubby hole and told us it was not
our train, but the twelve forty five from New York northbound. Presently,
(33:56):
the train thundered in like a hurricane and signed ponderously
to a stop. The station master went out into the
platform and came back. After a minute or two, the
train got heavily under way again for Canaan. I was
opening a pack of cigarettes when I heard the station
master talking on the phone again. This time his words
(34:16):
came out clearly. He kept repeating one sentence. He was saying,
Conductor Reagan on one four two. As the lady the
office was talking about. The person on the other end
of the line did not appear to get the meaning
of the sentence. The station master repeated it and hung up.
(34:38):
For some reason. I figured that he did not understand
it either. Sylvia's eyes had the lost reflective look they
wear when she's trying to remember in what box she
packed the Christmas tree ornaments. The expressions on the faces
of the older woman, the young lady, and the man
with the pipe had not changed. The little staring girl
(34:59):
had gone away. Our train was not due for another
five minutes, and I sat back and began trying to
reconstruct the lady on one four two the lady Conductor
Reagan had the lady the office was asking about. I
moved nearer to Sylvia and whispered, see if the trains
(35:20):
are numbered in your time table. She got the timetable
out of her handbag and looked at it. One forty two,
she said, is the twelve forty five from New York.
This was the train that had gone by a few
minutes before. The woman was taken sick, said Sylvia. They're
probably arranging to have a doctor or her family meet her.
(35:41):
The older woman looked around at her briefly. The young woman,
who had been chewing gum stopped chewing. The man with
the pipe seemed oblivious. I lighted a cigarette and sat thinking.
The woman on one four two, I said to Sylvia flatly,
might be almost anything, but she is definitely not sick.
(36:04):
The only who did not stare at me was the
man with the pipe. Sylvia gave me her temperature taking
look across between anxiety and vexation. Just then our train
whistled and we all stood up. I picked up our
two bags, and Sylvia took the sack of string beans
we had picked up for the connals. When the train
came clanking in, I said in Sylvia's ear, he'll sit
(36:27):
near us. You watch who will she said, the stranger?
I told her, the man with the pipe. Sylvia laughed,
He's not a stranger. She said, he works for the breeds.
I was certainly that he did not work for the breeds.
Women liked to place people. Every stranger reminds him of somebody.
(36:51):
The man with the pipe was sitting three seats in
front of us, across the aisle. When we got settled,
I indicated him with a nod of my head. Sylvia
took a book out of the top of her overnight
bag and opened it. Watch the man her with you,
she demanded. I looked around before replying. A sleepy man
and woman sat across from us. Two middle aged women
(37:13):
in the seat in front of us were discussing the
severe griping pain one of them had experienced as a
result of inflamed diverticulitis, A slim, dark eyed young woman
sat in the seat behind us. She was alone. The
trouble with women, I began, is that they explain everything
(37:34):
by illness. I have a theory that we could be
celebrating the twelfth of May, or even the sixteenth of
April as Independence Day, if missus Jefferson hadn't got the idea.
Her husband had a fever and put him to bed.
Sylvia found her place in the book. We've been all
through that before. She said, why couldn't the woman on
(37:56):
one forty two be sick? That was easy, I told her.
Conductor Reagan, I said, got off the train at Cornwall
Bridge and spoke to the station master. I've got the
woman the Office was asking about, he said. Sylvia cut in.
He said, Lady I gave the little laugh that annoys her.
(38:19):
All conductors, say, lady, I explained. Now, if a woman
had got sick on the train, Reagan would have said,
a woman got sick on my train. Tell the office.
What must have happened is that Reagan found somewhere between
Kent and Cornwall Bridge a woman the Office had been
looking for. Sylvia did not close her book, but she
(38:42):
looked up. Maybe she got sick before she got on
the train, and the office was worried, said Sylvia. She
was not giving the problem close attention. If the office
knew she got on the train, I said patiently, they
wouldn't have asked Regan to let them know if he
found her. They would have told him about her when
(39:06):
she got on. Sylvia resumed her reading. Let's stay out
of it, she said, it isn't any of our business.
I hunted for my chicklets but couldn't find them. It
might be everybody's business, I said, every patriots I know.
(39:26):
I know, said Sylvia. You think she's a spy, Well,
I think she's sick. I ignored that every conductor on
the line has been asked to look out for her.
I said, Reagan found her. She won't be met by
her family. She'll be met by the FBI or the OPA,
(39:50):
said Sylvia. Alfred Hitchcock. Things don't happen on the New York,
New Haven and Hartford Railroad. I saw the conductor coming
from the other end of the couch. I'm going to
tell a conductor, I said that Reagan on one four
two has got the woman. No, you're not, said Sylvia,
You're not gonna get us and mixed up in this.
He probably knows anyway. The conductor, short, stocky, silver haired,
(40:14):
and silent, took up our tickets. He looked like a
kindly Ikey's Sylvia, who had stiffened, relaxed when I let
him go by without a word about the woman on
one four two. He looks exactly as if he knew
where the Maltese falcon is hidden, doesn't, he said Sylvia,
with a laugh that annoys me. Nevertheless, I pointed out
(40:36):
you said a little while ago that he probably knows
about the woman on one four two. If she's just sick,
why should they tell the conductor on this train. I'll
rest more easily when I know that they've actually got her.
Sylvia kept reading as if she hadn't heard me. I
leaned my head against the back of the seat and
(40:57):
closed my eyes. The train was slowing down noisily, and
a brakeman was yelling can't, can't. When I felt a
small cold pressure against my shoulder. Oh, the voice of
the woman in the seat behind me said, I've dropped
my copy of Coronet under your seat. She leaned closer,
(41:20):
and her voice became low and hard. Get off here, mister,
she said, we're going to Gaylordsville. I said, you and
your wife are getting off here, mister, she said. I
reached for the suitcases on the rack. Why do you
want for Heaven's sake, asked Sylvia, we're getting off here.
(41:41):
I told her, are you really crazy? She demanded, This
is only can't come on, sister, said the woman's voice.
You take the overnight bag and the beans. You take
the big bag. Mister. Sylvia was furious. I knew you'd
get us into this, She said to me, shouting about
spies at the top of your voice. That made me angry.
(42:05):
You're the one who mentioned spies. I told her I didn't.
He kept talking about it and talking about it, said Sylvia,
come on, get off. The two of you, said the cold,
hard voice. We got off. As I helped Sylvia down
the steps, I said, we know too much. I'll shut up.
She said. We didn't have far to go. The big
(42:27):
black limousine waited a few steps away. Behind the wheel
sat a heavy set foreigner with cruel lips and small eyes.
He scowled when he saw us. The boss don't want
nobody up there, he said. It's all right. Carl said,
the woman get in, she told us. We climbed into
(42:48):
the back seat. She sat between us with the gun
in her hand. It was a handsome jeweled derringer. Alice
will be waiting for us at gaylord's bell, said Sylvia.
In all this heat, the house was a long, low,
rambling building reached the end of a poplar lined drive.
Never mind the bags, said the woman. Sylvia took the
(43:10):
string beans and her book and we got out. Two
huge matstiffs came bounding off the terrace, snarling. Down Mata,
said the woman. Down pedro They slunk away, still snarling.
Sylvia and I sat side by side on a sofa
in a large, handsomely appointed living room. Across from us,
(43:32):
in a chair lounged a tall man with heavily lidded
black eyes and long sensitive fingers. Against the door through
which we had entered the room leaned a thin, undersized
young man with his hands in the pockets of his
coat and a cigarette hanging from his lower lip. He
had a drawn, sallow face, and his small, half closed
eyes stared at us incuriously. In a corner of the room,
(43:56):
a squat, swarthy man twiddled with the dials of a radio.
The woman paced up and down, smoking a cigarette in
long holder. Well, Gail said the lounging man in a
soft voice, to what do we owe this unexpected visit?
Gail kept pacing. They got Sandra, she said. Finally, the
(44:20):
lounging man did not change expression. Who got Sandra, Gail?
He asked softly. Reagan on one for two, said Gail.
The squat swarthy man jumped to his feet. All the time,
Egypt say killed Thee's Reagan, he shouted, all the time,
Egypt say, bomb off Thee's Reagan. The lounging man did
(44:43):
not look at him. Sit down, Egypt, he said quietly.
The swarthy man sat down. Gail went on talking. The
punk here shot off his mouth. He said, he was wise.
I looked at the man leaning against the door. She
means you, said Sylvia, who laughed, Dame was dumb. Gail
(45:07):
went on. She thought the lady on the train was sick. Now,
I laughed, she means you, I said to Sylvia. The
punk was blowing his top all over the train, said Gail.
I had to bring him along. Sylvia, who had the
beans on her lap, began breaking and stringing them. Well,
(45:28):
my dear lady said the lounging man a most homely
little Touch's a touch, demanded Egypt, touch, I told him.
Gail sat down in a chair. Who's going to rub
him out? She asked. Fred Day said the lounging man.
Egypt was on his feet again. Na, na, he shouted,
(45:50):
not the punk, the punk, bomp off. They last seek
seven people. The lounging man looked at him. Egypt paled
and sat down. I thought you were the punk, said Sylvia.
I looked at her coldly. I know where I have
seen you before, I said to the lounging man. It
(46:12):
was at Zagreb in nineteen twenty seven. Tilden took you
in straight sets six love six love six love. The
man's eyes glittered. I think I bump off this man myself,
he said. Freddie walked over and handed the lounging man
an automatic. At this moment, the door Freddie had been
(46:34):
leaning against burst open, and in rushed the man with
the pipe, shouting, Gail Gaiale, Gail Gaylordsville, Gaylordsville bawled the brakeman.
Sylvia was shaking me by the arm. Quit mounting, she said,
everybody's looking at you. I rubbed my forehead with a handkerchief.
(46:57):
Hurry up, she said. Sylvia said, they don't stop here long.
I pulled the bags down and we got off. Have
you got the beans? I asked Sylvia. Alice Connell was
waiting for us on the way to their home. In
the car, Sylvia began to tell Alice about the woman
on one for two. I didn't say anything. Ain't thought
(47:19):
you as a spy, said Sylvia. They both laughed. She'll
probably got sick on the train, said Alice. They're probably
arranging for a doctor to meet her at the station.
That's just what I told him, said Sylvia. I lighted
a cigarette. The lady on one four two, I said firmly,
(47:42):
was definitely not sick. Oh Lord, said Sylvia. Here we
go again. The Lady on one four two by James Thurber.
(48:12):
First time I ever read that one. I was on
a train outside Philadelphia. It was perfect. I've done all
the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening.
Here are the credits. Most of the music arrange produced
and performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Channel the
Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by John Philip
Channel guitars based and drums by Brian Ray, produced by
(48:33):
Tko Brothers. Other Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed
by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports music is
the Olderman theme from ESPN two, and it was written
by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of the ESPN Inc. Musical
comments from Nancy Fauss the best baseball stadium organist ever
and our announcer today was Larry David. Everything else pretty
(48:53):
much my fault. So let's countdown for this the eight
hundred and twenty ninth day since Donald Trump's first attempted
coup against the democratically elected government 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 Alderman.
Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Countdown with
(49:26):
Keith Alerman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
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