December 22, 2023 • 52 mins
SERIES 2 EPISODE 97: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: For all those wringing their hands about disqualifying Trump from the ballot via the 14th Amendment without a conviction: What would Donald Trump have done with Joe Biden if January 6th had somehow worked?
Or TO him?
It's January 20, 2021 and the 46th President-Elect of the United States is prevented by whatever means from assuming office as demanded by the Constitution and Trump remains in power extra-legally, extra-judicially, extra-constitutionally. And we are supposed to believe that Biden would have been left free to speak in public, on television, on social media, to the press, in the courts, to the Speaker Pelosi or Majority Leader Schumer, to the Democratic governors with their authority over the National Guard?
Trump would have found a pretext to detain him. Or he HAD a pretext to detain him; a plan we just haven’t found out about. Having once crossed the ultimate threshold – ENDING 237 years of American democracy – having retained power as a dictator by some other name, what would Trump have then NOT been willing to do? And most importantly, what Trump would have done with a man he would’ve wanted the world to believe was an extra, illegitimate American president who had somehow plotted against Trump?
He would have had Joe Biden killed.
Or if somebody had stopped him from that, he would have had him seized somehow, by someone, by some official sounding but ultimately fabricated and illegal and anti-American quote “authority” unquote, and held. Incommunicado. With Kamala Harris and Pelosi and Schumer and uncooperative Senators and Congressmen of both parties and hundreds of reporters and editors and you and me and god knows how many others, on the pretext of god knows WHAT kind of imaginary plot to… enforce the Constitution?
THAT is why the Colorado Supreme Court was right. Because THAT second plan is the TRUE comparison to the Civil War traitors on whom the 14th Amendment was first applied. Because the Confederacy’s plans involved killing the President and the Vice President and half the cabinet and burning down New York City and seizing Northern ports. And just because the Confederacy did not win the Civil War those plans did not miraculously disappear from the minds of the traitors. Just as Trump’s plans for what to do with one president too many did not miraculously disappear from HIS diseased and monomaniacal and traitorous mind. The 14th Amendment is Iabout what ELSE he was willing to do, and what horrors he is willing to precipitate today, and in 2024, and, god forbid, in January of 2029.
ALSO: Trump's not an insurrectionist! He was so concerned about it he posted 11 whole words denying it. And as his lapdogs race to defend his paraphrases of Hitler, Trump undercut them again last night by repeating the "blood poisoning" line. He's also in even more insurrection trouble: turns out there's a RECORDING of his phone conversation pressuring Michigan Republicans to not certify Biden's win there in November, 2020. And Ronna McDaniel could go to jail - she's on the tape too, offering to pay for their lawyers. That is a bribe.
And for comic relief, Rudy Giuliani has gone from Moral Bankruptcy to Actual Bankruptcy. He's filed for Chapter 11. And while he's unlikely to get it granted, he has revealed who he owes money to it and the list somehow includes Hunter Biden! It's so bad it has inspired yet more "singing" on the part of your deluded tone deaf host.
B-Block (28:15) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Rep. Tim Burchett thinks there are Republicans in the House being blackmailed with honey pots. He describes in stark detail (as if he were in the room when it happened!) what that would've been like. Kiss The Washington Post goodbye; its new publisher was a Murdoch editor. And John Schneider threatens Biden again. John Schneider. The actor. The guy from 'Dukes Of Hazzard.' The actor you thought was DEAD.
C-Block (34:40) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: Only one way to close out 2023: with James Thurber's amazingly prescient saga of a man everyone thinks is a hero but is in fact a nightmare who must be stopped: "The Greatest Man In The World." And no, he wrote this 15 years before Trump was born.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. What
would Donald Trump have done with Joe Biden? If January
(00:28):
sixth had somehow worked for all those wringing their hands
about disqualifying Trump from the ballot via the fourteenth Amendment
without a conviction, even though the fourteenth Amendment does not
say convicted or charged, just engaged in insurrection. For the
Steve Schmidts and the Byron Donaldses and the idiots from
(00:50):
New York Magazine and Robert F. Kennedy Junior, and the
transparently scheming Congressman Dean Phillips trying to primary the president
and pretend he's a Democrat. Let me repeat the question
with which I just began. If Trump's attempt to stop
the transfer of power by violence on January sixth, twenty
(01:12):
twenty one, had worked, or if Trump's eastman chesbro fake
Elector's coup had worked, or if Trump's Jeffrey Clark That's
why we have an Insurrection Act coup had worked, or
if Trump's Special Council Sidney Powell Seizes the Voting Machine's
coup had worked, If any subversion of the twenty twenty
(01:36):
election or violent or merely threatening violence overthrow of the
democratically elected government of the United States, or if any
other of Trump's perversions had worked, if noon on January
twentieth had come but Trump had not gone, what do
you think Donald Trump would have done with Joe Biden?
(02:00):
Or let me rephrase it, what would Donald Trump have
done too? Joe Biden the forty sixth President elect of
the United States, and he is prevented by whatever means,
from assuming office as demanded by the Constitution, and Trump
remains in power extra legally, extra judicially, extra constitutionally, and
(02:24):
we are to believe that Biden would have been left
free to speak in public, to appear on television, on
social media, in the courts, to talk to the Speaker
of the House of Representatives from the Democratic Party and
to the majority leader of the Senate from the Democratic Party,
to speak with Democratic governors with their authority over the
(02:46):
National Guard, to speak with anyone who just you know,
likes the constitution. Trump would have found a pretext to
detain President elect Biden, or he had pretext to detain
him a plan we just have not found out about yet.
(03:10):
And that's the best case scenario for having once crossed
the ultimate threshold, having ended two hundred and thirty seven
years of American democracy, having retained power as a dictator
by some other title. What would Trump have then not
(03:31):
been willing to do next to anybody still pawing at
the dirt and looking at the fourteenth Amendment, which was
used successfully and non violently and without convictions or charges,
and pretty much uncontroversially half a century before the nineteenth
Amendment was used to give votes to women, let me
(03:53):
ask you about whether it has dawned on you yet
that you are rationalizing superimposing a standard of proof not
required by the Constitution on a scumbag insurrectionist who tried
to overthrow the government and certainly had a second plan
of some kind ready if he succeeded, a second, darker,
(04:17):
bloodier plan. And guess what Trump's plan for Joe Biden
would not have required convictions either. Sorry to offend your sensibilities,
I mean, not to hammer this into the ground, and
not to cost you any sleep during the holiday season,
(04:39):
But what was the end game for Trump? On January sixth?
What happens to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and Nancy
Pelosi and Chuck Schumer and the editors of the New
York Times and the producers at PBS, and the Democratic
senators and the Republicans who spoke out against him. What
happens to all of them, Steve Schmidt, and to you
(05:05):
and to me, and most importantly, what would Trump have
done with a man he would have wanted the world
to believe was an extra American president, an illegitimate extra
American president, a man somehow involved. Trump would have said,
in the greatest political crime in the modern history of
(05:26):
the Western world. He would have had Joe Biden killed,
or if somebody had stopped him, Trump would have had
him seized somehow by someone by some official sounding but
ultimately fabricated and illegal and anti American quote authority. And
(05:50):
he would have had him held in communicado disappeared with
Kamala Harris and Pelosian Schumer and uncooperative senators and congressmen
of both parties, and hundreds of reporters and editors and governors,
and you and me and Schmidt and God knows how
many others on the pretext of God knows what kind
(06:11):
of imaginary plot we were all involved with to thwart
Trump by enforcing the Constitution. Bluntly, it is hard to
believe the following sentence could ever be said by anybody
at any time. But the darker, grimmer point about enforcing
(06:34):
the Constitution, enforcing the fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, is
that Trump's insurrection is not just what he planned and
fomented and watched with glee from the White House on
January sixth, not just what actually happened. It is more importantly,
more damningly about whatever he had planned next. That is
(06:59):
why the Colorado Supreme Court was right, because that second
plant is the true comparison to the Civil War traders
against whom the Fourteenth Amendment was first applied. Because the
Confederacy's plans involved killing the President of the United States
and the vice president and half the cabinet and burning
(07:21):
down New York City and using agents coming in from
Canada to seize Northern American ports, and just because the
Confederacy did not win the Civil War, those plans did
not miraculously disappear from the minds of the traders, just
as Trump's plans for what to do with one president
(07:45):
too many did not miraculously disappear from his diseased and
monomaniacal and traitorous mind in the context in which it
must be applied today, The Fourteenth Amendment is not about
what Trump did in twenty twenty and twenty twenty one.
(08:06):
It's about what else he was willing to do, and
what horrors he is willing to precipitate today and in
twenty twenty four, next month, and God forbid, in January
of twenty twenty nine. The Fourteenth Amendment is not some
violation of our tradition of due process, just as Lincoln
(08:29):
defending the government of the United States by military force
in eighteen sixty one was not some violation of due process.
The simple truth is that Donald Trump has been treated
with kid gloves by this country, and, recognizing that the
Fourteenth Amendment has already disqualified him from running for president
(08:51):
or any office ever again in his goddamned life, this
is in fact a continuation of treating him with kid gloves.
Sixteen days shy of three full, long, agonizing years, this
nation has bent over backwards and not crushed the perpetrator
(09:15):
of insurrection and rebellion against the United States of America
and specifically its constitution. The Constitution, however, is self protecting.
That is what the fourteenth Amendment is. Four. If you
have doubts about it, ask yourself that question with which
(09:40):
I began rhetorically, if January sixth had succeeded, what would
Trump have then done with? And two, Joe Biden, keep
your answer to yourself and get the hell out of
the way of justice and get the hell out of
(10:02):
the way of the Constitution of the United States of America.
Oh but happily turns out Trump is not an insurrectionist.
You know how we know that because he's now posted
this online. I'm not an insurrectionist parenthesis peacefully and patriotically,
(10:26):
and parenthesis Biden is end quote. And you know how
you can tell Trump is telling the truth because he
used eleven whole words to deny that he's an insurrectionist.
The guy who writes thousand word long threads every three
(10:47):
days insisting the judge is lying and he is too
richer than all the rest of us bastards put together.
And those threads are all caps eleven words. Wait, his
next definitive post, Hitler, not me. None of my relatives
(11:08):
were from Braunau. I am not secretly related to him.
None of my relatives served into the sixteenth Bavarian Reserve
regiment with him. I've never even read Hitler's zweitez Buch.
Why hasn't Biden said this? The Republican rationales for Trump
channeling Hitler now baby Hitler channeling old Hitler, they are
(11:33):
happily so lame as to be genuinely funny at a
time when we need this. Senators Sullivan of Alaska and
Vance of Ohio actually wondered if maybe he was talking
about fentanyl. Congresswoman Mally Atacus of New York, who is
just not bright, said no, no, he was talking about
(11:55):
democratic policies. That's what he meant by poisoning. And then
Trump made all three of them look like idiots when
he said, no, you're right, I am saying the same
things as Hitler, but quote in a much different way,
and He's going to keep on saying it. Rolling Stone,
which has had sources who sometimes outlandish claims and predictions
(12:15):
about what Baby Hitler would do next have been scoffed at,
and then they turned out to be pretty much prescient
and exact. Rolling Stone quotes one of those sources again
is saying Trump quote said he's going to keep doing it.
He's going to keep saying they're poisoning the blood of
the nation and destroying and killing the country. He says,
(12:35):
it's a quote great line unquote. Well, of course it's
a great line. Look at what Hitler did with it
in the thirties. A second Rolling Stone source says Trump
thinks he's been quote too nice about the quote animals,
so he's going to get tougher and guess what. He
(12:58):
did it again last night. He put out a video
at seven four pm Eastern Standard time.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Integration is poisoning the blood of our nation. They're coming
from prisons, from mental institutions, from all over the world.
Without borders and fair elections, you don't have a country.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
I didn't hear the word ventanyl in there, did you,
oil boy? As Nicole mally attack is going to be
sorely pressed to make up new bullshit excuses every day.
Back to disqualification. Early polling, the country favors enforcing the
fourteenth Amendment fifty four percent strongly or somewhat approved, thirty
(13:38):
five percent strongly or somewhat disapprove. That is a nineteen
point margin, with only eleven percent undecided. Hell, a quarter
of Republicans approve of it. It's a UGOV poll. And
they also did the general election with and without a
Trump conviction. It is forty four forty four. Right now
(13:59):
with a Trump conviction, it's forty six thirty nine Biden.
So now here's another question. Who else is ineligible to
run for any office now under the fourteenth Amendment, Because
if there's one scale the Supreme Court cannot stick its
thumb on for sure, it's for anybody running for Congress
(14:19):
or the Senate or governor, since the fourteenth has already
been used to disqualify people running for those offices. Trial
now under way in Atlanta to disqualify George's Lieutenant Governor
Burt Jones because he was one of Trump's fake electors,
bigger fish. Well, nobody's moved on Congressman Scott Perry yet,
(14:42):
but this has his name written all over it. Or
how about Ronald McDaniel. She has aspirations for elected office,
Well they're out the window. The Detroit News revealed last
night it has reviewed a recording from November seventeenth, twenty twenty,
in which Trump gets on the blower and pressures two
(15:03):
canvassers from I'm Wayne County, Michigan to not sign the
certification of the twenty twenty election for Biden in their state.
We've got to fight for our country. Trump is recorded
as saying on the call, we can't let these people
take our country away from us. Then another voice chimes
(15:24):
in and tells the two Michigan politicians, if you can
go home tonight, do not sign it. We will get
you attorneys. The voice was that of Ronald McDaniel, chairman
of the RNC. If she is now only hit with
the fourteenth Amendment, she'll be lucky because that's a crime
(15:44):
for which she could go to jail. Vivek Ramaswami is
probably safe. However, he is also probably nuts. It's clear
the puppet masters have lost their use for Biden and
are slowly sidelining him, he writes on Twitter X. But
the real trick is who they're propping up instead. It's
(16:06):
not Gavin or Michelle as I'd assumed before. It's far
more insidious. Open your eyes, folks, it's staring us right
in the face. Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh
my god. It's Taylor Swift. Oh my god, oh my god,
Oh my god. Taylor Swift's going to be president the
puppet masters Christ Trameslami is it Kermit the frog moron?
(16:34):
And of course, as you have already heard, a day
after the judge in the sea Os Ruby Freeman case
ruled that he has a history of trying to avoid
paying stuff, so they should and legally could claim there
one hundred and forty eight million dollars from Rudy Giuliani
right now. Rudy Giuliani filed for Chapter eleven yesterday from
marley bankrupt to actually bankrupt. In the document he claims
(16:59):
assets of up to ten million dollars, but debts of
one hundred and fifty two point six million dollars. That
would be more right. The best part is the list
of debtors that Woody submitted in the filing that a
lot of experts think will be rejected anyway. There's this company,
(17:22):
Giuliani Partners, Rudy owes himself money. There's the federal government,
the New York State government. He owes a total of
a million in back taxes. By the way, the New
York Post once wrote me up because my accountant and
the irs were politely resolving a disagreement over seven hundred
and twenty five dollars over middle Wards taxes. Rudy owes
(17:43):
money to his former assistant, the one who said he
offered to sell pardons on Trump's behalf. He owes money
to a divorce accountant. Oh, and he owes money to
one Robert Hunter Biden. Rudy owes money to Hunter Biden. Rudy, Rudy,
(18:04):
Rudy Wait, Rudy, Rudy, Rudy.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Oh, oh, Nancy, WHOA Rudy, Rudy, Rudy.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Are you bankrupt?
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Ah?
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Rudy, Rudy, Rudy, are you bro Rudy, Rudy, Rudy.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
Are you drugged of? Rudy Rudy? Did you go?
Speaker 2 (18:38):
WHOA?
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Thank you? Nancy post Also of interest here, Congressman Tim
Burchett says Republicans in the House are being blackmailed by
the Russians using honeypots. He goes into great detail. He
seems to know an awful lot about how this would
(19:02):
work in real time, like a lot like way too much.
But first, this is the last scheduled episode of the year.
I'm betting there will be a bulletin before in New
Year's Eve. So I have two things about it being
the last scheduled episode of the year. I've never asked
(19:25):
you to forward a given edition of the podcast to anybody,
but if you would forward this one to somebody who
does not listen, I think the point about what Trump
would have done to Biden had the coup worked is
an essential question, and I haven't heard it asked, at
least not recently, at least not in the context of
(19:46):
applying the fourteenth Amendment. And on a lighter note, I
think you may have noticed that I like being silly
about even these darkest of topics when possible, and that,
for some reason, even at my advanced age, I still
fancy myself a modern Tom Lairr. Wow, modern Tom Lahr
(20:09):
who can quote sing unquote for like thirteen fourteen seconds.
So here, just for you are all of the mock
songs I've done with Nancy Faust in twenty twenty three.
Enjoy and or hit stop immediately might be indedd in
(20:35):
the morning, Dean don The locks are gonna.
Speaker 5 (20:40):
Charm, pitch me, jail me, fuck me, and fail me,
but get me to the.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Trial on time.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
You make a bind.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Time to leave me, you.
Speaker 6 (20:54):
Seal with forty cots against me and your bleed the
boss wants server deleaded, won't he you've ADVANTI leave me ucy.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Thinking it's a fast.
Speaker 5 (21:16):
Ride a show, got food talk on ours, m F
baton for your drunken le sa dim dinzoba been doun
(21:38):
feed a fast mood, got.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
A man and fell don Broyd boe some through.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Don't conant past.
Speaker 7 (22:00):
I am so indicted and I just can't fight. I'm
about to go to jail in America likes it. I'm
so indicted.
Speaker 6 (22:13):
My defensing they're tightened, and I know, I know the
unindicted co conspirators can bite it.
Speaker 8 (22:27):
Can A get a witness? Canna righting a witness? Can
I timidate a witness? Canda terrorize a wedness? Thank you
Nancy Post. Reinvited and it feels so good. Reindied like
(22:55):
a file in wood. You want the big fit and
sugar freeze.
Speaker 7 (23:00):
It is the.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Country so excited causes griefsty Thank you, Nancy Post.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
Into something parked?
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Hey you insurrection. Who you're gonna call gods?
Speaker 7 (23:26):
My size?
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Thank you Nancy Post. I had the scoop that you
had the contract. Then I had the story, the plane
and the hours. I wish you had signed with Toronto
Deer Show. He because now my career has been sent
(23:50):
to the showers.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
Where where are you?
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Do not?
Speaker 1 (23:56):
How could you leave me here all alone? I searched
the world over and I thought up out of Nie.
But you met the Dodgers and you was gone, think Nancy.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
If I host, this is Countdown with Keith Oberman Oberman, my.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Friend Larry David doing his impression of the late Yankee
Stadium Stentorian PA announcer Bob Shepherd introducing me. The streams
have merged, still to come on Countdown. End of the week,
end of the year. Merry Christmas with for my money,
(25:03):
the most Wonderful. He's cynical and stunningly prophetic. Of all
of the works of James Thurber, most of them read
like he wrote them last week. But this time he
wrote a story about Trump. But in nineteen forty The
Greatest Man in the World and Fridays with Thurber first
(25:27):
time for the daily roundup of the miss Grants, Morons
and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute two days worst
Persons in the World World the Bronze Worse. Congressman Tim Burchett.
He has told a fascist podcast that he is confident
(25:47):
that a large number of conservative congressmen and women are
compromised by the Russians and by others. He thinks they
are being forced to vote against Republican bills by the Russians.
And I think he's whistling past graveyards there, But that's
not the point. The point is. Listen to this quote
(26:08):
from Tim Burchett. You know, the old honey pot. The
Russians do that, and I'm sure members of Congress have
been caught up. Why in the world would good conservatives
vote for crazy stuff like what we've been seeing. Here's
how it works. You're visiting, you're out of the country
or out of town, or you're in a motel or
at a bar in DC and whatever. You're into women,
(26:31):
men whatever comes up and they're very attractive, and they're
laughing at your jokes, and you're buying them a drink.
Next thing you know, you're in the motel room with
them naked. And next thing you know, you're about to
make a key vote, and what happens, Some well dressed
person comes up, whispers in your ear, Hey man, there's
tapes out on you. Were you in a motel room
(26:53):
on whatever with whoever, and you're like, uh oh, and
they say you really ought not to be voting for
this thing, and what do they do? It's human nature unquote,
just as shame Burchett couldn't go into any detail. Huh.
It's like, I mean, it's just a hunch on my
(27:15):
part here, but it's almost like he's been in the
room with the victims of the compromat and the people
doing the compromat. Just saying, by the way, the point
here is this has been characterized as Congressman Burchett thinks
a large number of conservative congressmen and women are compromised
by Russians and others. No, the real headlines should be phrased.
(27:39):
Congressman Burchette thinks there are actually some conservative congressmen and
women who are not being compromised by the Russians. Now
that's a story runners up worser the Washington Post. If
you noticed that in the last year the Washington Post
started to let me use a journalistic insider term here,
(28:00):
If you notice the Washington Post started to suck, you
ain't seen nothing than yet. The new publisher and CEO
just appointed by Jeff Bezos to replace the last publisher
and CEO who made the Post suck. He is Sir
William Lewis, and apart from the fact that he is
a Murdoch editor, he ran the Wall Street Journal. He
(28:21):
helped run the company that ran Murdoch's News of the World,
which was so up to its neck in the infamous
British phone hacking journalism scandal, which included the stealing of
voicemails of a murdered British teenaged girl. It was so
infamous that Rupert Murdoch closed the paper down rather than
(28:42):
deal with the fallout of the hacking scandal. This is
the guy who will now run the Washington Post. Talk
about compromot. Think they got Jeff Bezos this time? Hey,
New York Times, better step up, boys, But our winner
the worst. John Schneider, that actor from the Dukes of
(29:05):
Hazzard who I'm guessing you like me, thought was dead.
He has been body snatched though, Mister President, he writes
in a response to a tweet from Joe Biden, I
believe you are guilty of treason and should be publicly
hung your son too. Your response is sincerely John Schneider unquote.
(29:30):
I'm guessing Biden's response would be who in the hell
is John Schneider Like he's gonna respond to you, dude, John. Also,
it's hanged dim bulb, unless you're referring to those photos
of Hunter that Marjorie Taylor Green showed in the House
Committee and then took home with her Waka waka Schneider
two days worse person in the world. Okay, the last
(30:14):
Fridays with Thurber for the year twenty twenty three, And
once again I can never get over how prophetic this was.
James Thurber wrote this story in the nineteen thirties, and
it is as bitterly cynical and deeply observant as anything
else he ever wrote, And nearly everything he wrote was
(30:35):
bitterly cynical and deeply observant. The greatest man in the world.
When it turns out the greatest man in the world
is Trump, and he's fooled everybody. Only this was written
before Trump was born, James Thurber and the greatest man
(30:58):
in the world. Looking back on it now from the
vantage point of nineteen forty one can only marvel that
it had not happened. Long before it did. The United
States of America had been ever since Kitty Hawk blindly
constructing the elaborate petard by which, sooner or later it
must be hoist. It was inevitable that someday there would
(31:22):
come roaring out of the skies a national hero of
insufficient intelligence, background and character, successfully to endure the mounting
orgies of glory prepared for aviators who stayed up for
a long time or flew a great distance. Both Lindbergh
and Byrd, fortunately for national decorum and international amity, had
(31:43):
been gentlemen, So had our other famous aviators. They wore
their laurels, gracefully, withstood the awful weather of publicity, married
excellent women, usually fine family, and quietly retired to private
life and the enjoyment of their varying fortunes. No untoward
incidents on a worldwide scale marred the perfection of their
(32:04):
conduct on the perilous heights of fame. The exception to
the rule was, however, bound to occur, and it did
in July nineteen thirty seven, when Jack pal smirch erstwhile
mechanics helper in a small garage in Westfield, Iowa, flew
(32:25):
a second hand, single motored Bresthaven Dragonfly three monoplane all
the way around the world, without stopping. Never before in
the history of aviation had such a flight as Smirches
even been dreamed of. No one had even taken seriously
the weird floating auxiliary gas tanks invention of the mad
(32:48):
New Hampshire professor of astronomy, doctor Charles Lewis Gresham, upon
which Smirch placed full reliance. When the garage worker, a
slightly built, surly unprepossessing young man of twenty two, appeared
at Roosevelt Field early in July nineteen thirty seven, slowly
chewing a great quid of scrap tobacco, and announced nobody
(33:11):
ain't seen no flying yet. The newspapers touched briefly and
satirically upon his projected twenty five thousand mile flight. Aeronautical
and automotive experts dismissed the idea, curtly, implying that it
was a hoax of publicity stunt. The rusty, battered second
hand plane wouldn't go, the Gresham auxiliary tanks wouldn't work.
(33:38):
It was simply a cheap joke. Smirch, however, after calling
on a girl in Brooklyn who worked in the flap
folding department of a large paper box factory, a girl
whom he later described as his sweet Pittuti, climbed nonchalantly
into his ridiculous plane at dawn the memorable seventh of
(33:59):
July nineteen thirty seven, spit a curve of tobacco juice
into the still air, and took off, carrying with him
only a gallon of bootleg gin and six pounds of salami.
When the garage boy thundered out over the ocean, the
papers were forced to record in all seriousness that a mad,
(34:20):
unknown young man his name was variously misspelled, had actually
set out upon a preposterous attempt to span the world
in a rickety one engine contraption, trusting to the long
distance refueling device of a crazy schoolmaster. When nine days later,
without having stopped once, the tiny plane appeared above San
(34:41):
Francisco Bay, headed for New York, spluttering and choking, to
be sure, but still magnificently and miraculously aloft the headlines,
which long since had crowded everything else off the front page.
Even the shooting of the Governor of Illinois by the
Valetti Gang swelled to unprecedented size, and the news stories
began to run to twenty five and thirty columns. It
(35:06):
was noticeable, however, that the accounts of the epoch making
flight touched rather lightly upon the aviator himself. This was
not because the facts about the hero as a man
were too meager, but because they were too complete. Reporters
(35:26):
who had been rushed out to Iowa when Smirch's plane
was first sighted over the little French coast town of
Serlee Lemaire to dig up the story of the great
man's life, had promptly discovered that the story of his
life could not be printed. His mother, a sullen short
order cook and a shack restaurant on the edge of
a tourists camping ground near Westfield, met all inquiries as
(35:48):
to her son with an angry and the hell with
him a help he drowns. His father appeared to be
in jail somewhere for stealing spotlights and lap robes from
tourists automobiles. His young brother, a weak minded lad, had
but recently a gate from the Preston, Iowa Reformatory, and
was already wanted in several western towns for the theft
(36:09):
of money order blanks from post offices. These alarming discoveries
were still piling up at the very time that Pal Smirch,
the greatest hero of the twentieth century, blear eyed, dead
for sleep, half starved, was piloting his crazy junk heap
high above the region in which the lamentable story of
his private life was being unearthed, headed for New York
(36:32):
and a greater glory than any man of his time
had ever known. The necessity for printing some account in
the papers of the young man's career and personality had
led to a remarkable predicament. It was, of course, impossible
to reveal the facts, for a tremendous popular feeling in
(36:52):
favor of the young hero had sprung up like a
grass fire when he was halfway across Europe on his
flight around the globe. He was therefore described as a modest,
chap taciturn blonde, popular with his friends, popular with girls.
The only available snapshot of Smirch, taken at the wheel
of a phony automobile in a cheap photo studio at
(37:15):
an amusement park, was touched up so that the little
vulgarian looked quite handsome. His twisted leer was smoothed into
a pleasant smile. The truth was in this way kept
from the youth's ecstatic compatriots. They did not dream that
the Smirch family was despised and feared by its neighbors
(37:35):
in the obscure Iowa town, nor that the hero himself,
because of numerous unsavory exploits, had come to be regarded
in Westfield as a nuisance and a menace. Pal's Smirch had,
the reporters discovered, once knife the principle of his high school,
not mortally, to be sure, but he had knifed him,
(37:56):
and on another occasion, surprised in the act of an
stealing altar cloth from a church, he had bashed the
sexton over the head the pot of Easter lilies. For
each of these offenses he had served a sentence in
the reformatory. Inwardly, the authorities, both in New York and
in Washington, prayed that an understanding providence might, however awful,
(38:20):
such a thing seemed, bring disaster to the rusty, battered
plane and its illustrious pilot, whose unheard of flight had
aroused the civilized world to hosannas of hysterical praise. The
authorities were convinced that the character of the renowned aviator
was such that the limelight of adulation was bound to
reveal him to all the world as a congenital hooligan,
(38:45):
mentally and morally unequipped to cope with his own prodigious fame.
I trust, said the Secretary of State, at one of
the many secret cabinet meetings called to consider the national dilemma.
I trust that his mother's prayer will be answered, by
which he ref to missus Emma's Smirch's wish that her
(39:07):
son might be drowned. It was, however, too late for
that Smirch had leaped the Atlantic and then the Pacific
as if they were mill ponds. At three minutes after
two o'clock on the afternoon of July seventeenth, nineteen thirty seven,
the garage boy brought his idiotic plane into Roosevelt Field
for a perfect three point landing. It had, of course
(39:30):
been out of the question to arrange a modest little
reception for the greatest flier in the history of the world.
He was received at Roosevelt Field with such elaborate and
pretentious ceremonies as rocked the world. Fortunately, however, the worn
and spent hero, promptly swooned, had to be removed bodily
from his plane, and was spirited from the field without
(39:51):
having opened his mouth once. Thus he did not jeopardize
the dignity of his first reception, a reception illumined by
the presence of the Secretaries of War and the Navy,
Mayor Michael J. Moriarty of New York, the Premier of Canada,
Governors Fanamine Groves, mcpheey and Critchfield, and a brilliant array
of European diplomats. Smirch did not, in fact come too
(40:14):
in time to take part in the gigantic hullabaloo arranged
at City Hall for the next day. He was rushed
to a secluded nursing home and confined in bed. It
was nine days before he was able to get up, or,
to be more exact, before he was permitted to get up. Meanwhile,
the greatest minds in the country, in solemn assembly, had
(40:35):
arranged a secret conference of city, state and government officials,
which Smirch was to attend for the purpose of being
instructed in the ethics and behavior of heroism. On the
day that the little mechanic was finally allowed to get
up in dress, and for the first time in two weeks,
took a great chew of tobacco. He was permitted to receive.
(40:58):
The newspaper men this by way of testing him out.
Smirch did not wait for questions. Use guys, he said,
and the Times Man winced. Use guys can tell a
cock eyed world that I put it over on Lindbergh. See, yeah,
made an asset. I'm two frogs. The two frogs was
(41:21):
a reference to a pair of gallant French flyers who,
in attempting to flight only halfway around the world, had
two weeks before unhappily been lost at sea. The Times
Man was bold enough at this point to sketch out
for Smirch the accepted formula for interviews in cases of
this kind. He explained that there should be no arrogant
statements belittling the achievements of other heroes, particularly heroes of
(41:45):
foreign nations. Ah the hell with that, said Smirch.
Speaker 5 (41:50):
I did it.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
See I did it, and I'm talking about it. And
he did talk about it. None of this extraordinary interview was,
of course printed. On the contrary, the newspapers already under
the discipline direction of a secret directorate created for the
occasion and composed of statesmen and editors gave out to
a panting and restless world that Jackie, as he had
(42:14):
been arbitrarily nicknamed, would consent to say only that he
was very happy and that anyone could have done what
he did. My achievement has been I fear slightly exaggerated.
The Times Man's article had him protest with a modest smile.
These newspaper stories were kept from the hero, a restriction
(42:34):
which did not serve to abate the rising malevolence of
his temper. The situation was indeed extremely grave for Palell's.
Smirch was, as he kept insisting, raring to go. He
could not much longer be kept from a nation clamorous
to lionize him. It was the most desperate crisis the
(42:55):
United States of America had faced since the sinking of
the Lusitania. On the afternoon of the twenty seventh of July,
Mrch was spirited away to a conference room in which
were gathered mayors, governors, government officials, behaviorist, psychologists, and editors.
He gave them each a limp moist paw and a brief,
(43:17):
unlovely grin hi, he said. When Smirch was seated, the
mayor of New York arose and with obvious pessimism, attempted
to explain what he must say and how he must
act when presented to the world, ending his talk with
a high tribute to the hero's courage and integrity. The
mayor was followed by Governor Fannaman of New York, who,
(43:38):
after a touching declaration of faith, introduced Cameron Spottiswood, second
Secretary of the American Embassy in Paris, the gentleman selected
to coach Smirch in the amenities of public ceremonies. Sitting
in a chair with a soiled yellow tie in his
hand and his shirt open at the throat, unshaved, smoking
(43:58):
a rolled cigarette, Jack Smirch listened with a leer on
his lips. Get you, I get you, He cut in nastily.
You want me to act like a softie.
Speaker 4 (44:10):
Huh?
Speaker 1 (44:11):
You want me to act like thaty memany baby face
lind big huh? Well nuts to that.
Speaker 4 (44:17):
See.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
Everyone took in his breath sharply. It was a sigh
and a hiss. Mister Lindbergh began a United States Senator
purple with rage, and mister bird Smirch, who was paring
his nails with a jackknife, cut in again. Boyd, he exclaimed, Oh,
for God's sake, that big somebody shut off the blasphemies
(44:41):
with a sharp word. A newcomer had entered the word
the room. Everyone stood up except Smirch, who was still
busy with his nails, and he did not even glance up.
Mister Smirch, said someone sternly. The President of the United States.
It had been thought that the presence of the Chief
Executive might have a chastening effect on the young hero,
and the former had been, thanks to the remarkable cooperation
(45:04):
of the press, secretly brought to the obscure conference room.
A great, painful silence fell. Smirch looked up, waved a
hand at the president. How you coming, he asked, and
began rolling a fresh cigarette. The silence deepened. Someone coughed
(45:33):
in a strained way. Jesus hot, ain't it, said Smirch.
He loosened two more shirt buttons, revealing a hairy chest
and the tattooed word sadie enclosed in a stenciled heart.
The great and important men in the room, faced by
the most serious crisis in American history, exchanged worried frowns.
(45:58):
Nobody seemed to know how to proceed. Come on, come on,
said Smirch. Let's get the hell out of here. Yeah,
when do I start cutting in on the podies?
Speaker 4 (46:07):
Euh?
Speaker 1 (46:08):
And when is there gonna be this in it? He
rubbed a thumb and forefinger together meaningly. Money, exclaimed a
state senator, shocked. Pale. Yeah, money, said pal, flipping his
cigarette out of the window. And big money. He began
rolling a fresh cigarette. Big money, he repeated, frowning over
(46:32):
the rice paper. He tilted back in his chair and
leered at each gentleman separately, the leer of an animal
that knows its power, the leer of a leopard loose
in a bird and dog shop. Ah, for God's sake,
let's get someplace where it's cool, he said. I've been
cooped up plenty for three weeks. Smirch stood up and
(46:56):
walked over to an open window, where he stood staring
down into the street nine floors below. The faint shouting
of news boys floated up to him. He made out
his name, hot dog, he cried, grinning ecstatic. He leaned
out over the sill. You tell him, babies, he shouted down,
(47:17):
Hot diggity dog in the tense little knot of men
standing behind him. A quick, mad impulse flared up. An
unspoken word of appeal of command seemed to ring through
the room, yet it was deadly silent. Charles K. L Brand,
secretary to the Mayor of New York City, happened to
be standing nearest Smirch. He looked inquiringly at the President
(47:40):
of the United States. The President, pale grim nodded shortly. Brand,
a tall, powerfully built man wants to tackle at Rutgers University,
stepped forward, seized the greatest man in the world by
his left shoulder and the seat of his pants, and
pushed him out the window. My god, he's falling out
the window, cried a quick witted editor. Get me out
(48:02):
of here, cried the President. Several men sprang to his side,
and he was hurriedly escorted out of a door toward
a side entrance of the building. The editor of the
Associated Press took charge. Being used to such things crisply,
he ordered certain men to leave, others to stay. Quickly.
He outlined a story which all the papers were to
agree on, sent two men to the street to handle
that end of the tragedy. Commanded a senator to sob
(48:23):
and two congressmen to go to pieces nervously. In a word,
he skillfully set the stage for the gigantic task that
was to follow, the task of breaking to a grief
stricken world the sad story of the untimely accidental death
of its most illustrious and spectacular figure. The funeral was,
(48:46):
as you know, the most elaborate, the finest, the solemnest,
and the saddest ever held in the United States of America.
The monument in Arlington Cemetery, with its clean white shaft
of marble and the simple device of a tiny plane
cause on its base, is a place for pilgrims in
(49:10):
deep reverence to visit. The nations of the world paid
lofty tributes to Little Jackie Smirch, America's greatest hero. At
a given hour, there were two minutes of silence throughout
the nation. Even the inhabitants of the small, bewildered town
of Westfield, Iowa, observed this touching ceremony. Agents of the
(49:33):
Department of Justice sought to that one of them was
especially assigned to stand grimly in the doorway of a
little shack restaurant on the edge of the tourist's camping ground,
just outside the town there under his stern scrutiny, missus
Emma Smirch bowed her head over two Hamburger steaks sizzling
(49:54):
on her grill. Bowed her head and turned away so
that the secret serviceman could not see the twisted, strangely
familiar leer on her lips. The Greatest Man in the
World by James Thurber. I've done all the damage I
(50:27):
can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown. Musical directors
Brian Ray and John Phillip Schanelle arranged, produced, and performed
most of our music. Mister Ray was on guitars, bass
and drums. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards produced by
Tko Brothers. Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions,
arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The
(50:48):
sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written
by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Our satirical
and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Fauss, the best
baseball stadium organist ever. And I'm proud to say my
accompanists he missed a company. The woman who played the
(51:08):
organ during my attempts at singing throughout twenty twenty three
and the Rudy song today. Thank you Nancy. Our announcer
today is my friend Larry David doing his impression of
the late Bob Shepherd from Yankee Stadium, and everything else
was pretty much my fault for the sixty fifth consecutive year.
(51:29):
That's countdown for this the one thy eighty first day
since dementia. J Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically
elected government of the United States. Use the fourteenth Amendment,
use the Insurrection Act, convict him in court, use everything
we got while we still can. The next scheduled countdown
(51:50):
is Tuesday, January second, twenty twenty four. Bulletins as the
news warrants, and boy will I be surprised if there
is not a bulletin TwixT now and January second, twenty
four till then, thank you for your supporting twenty twenty three,
and let's hope that twenty twenty four actually happens as scheduled.
(52:12):
In the interim, I'm Keith Olreman. Good morning, good afternoon,
good night, good luck, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year. Whoa rudy,
Rudy Rudy? Are you bankrupt.
Speaker 4 (52:28):
Oh, Rudy, Rudy, Rudy.
Speaker 1 (52:30):
Are you bro go Rudy, Rudy Rudy. Are you dug?
Rudy Rudey.
Speaker 7 (52:40):
Did you go?
Speaker 2 (52:42):
Whoa go?
Speaker 1 (52:45):
Thank you. That's a fast Countdown with Keith Olreman 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. What
would Donald Trump have done with Joe Biden? If January
(00:28):
sixth had somehow worked for all those wringing their hands
about disqualifying Trump from the ballot via the fourteenth Amendment
without a conviction, even though the fourteenth Amendment does not
say convicted or charged, just engaged in insurrection. For the
Steve Schmidts and the Byron Donaldses and the idiots from
(00:50):
New York Magazine and Robert F. Kennedy Junior, and the
transparently scheming Congressman Dean Phillips trying to primary the president
and pretend he's a Democrat. Let me repeat the question
with which I just began. If Trump's attempt to stop
the transfer of power by violence on January sixth, twenty
(01:12):
twenty one, had worked, or if Trump's eastman chesbro fake
Elector's coup had worked, or if Trump's Jeffrey Clark That's
why we have an Insurrection Act coup had worked, or
if Trump's Special Council Sidney Powell Seizes the Voting Machine's
coup had worked, If any subversion of the twenty twenty
(01:36):
election or violent or merely threatening violence overthrow of the
democratically elected government of the United States, or if any
other of Trump's perversions had worked, if noon on January
twentieth had come but Trump had not gone, what do
you think Donald Trump would have done with Joe Biden?
(02:00):
Or let me rephrase it, what would Donald Trump have
done too? Joe Biden the forty sixth President elect of
the United States, and he is prevented by whatever means,
from assuming office as demanded by the Constitution, and Trump
remains in power extra legally, extra judicially, extra constitutionally, and
(02:24):
we are to believe that Biden would have been left
free to speak in public, to appear on television, on
social media, in the courts, to talk to the Speaker
of the House of Representatives from the Democratic Party and
to the majority leader of the Senate from the Democratic Party,
to speak with Democratic governors with their authority over the
(02:46):
National Guard, to speak with anyone who just you know,
likes the constitution. Trump would have found a pretext to
detain President elect Biden, or he had pretext to detain
him a plan we just have not found out about yet.
(03:10):
And that's the best case scenario for having once crossed
the ultimate threshold, having ended two hundred and thirty seven
years of American democracy, having retained power as a dictator
by some other title. What would Trump have then not
(03:31):
been willing to do next to anybody still pawing at
the dirt and looking at the fourteenth Amendment, which was
used successfully and non violently and without convictions or charges,
and pretty much uncontroversially half a century before the nineteenth
Amendment was used to give votes to women, let me
(03:53):
ask you about whether it has dawned on you yet
that you are rationalizing superimposing a standard of proof not
required by the Constitution on a scumbag insurrectionist who tried
to overthrow the government and certainly had a second plan
of some kind ready if he succeeded, a second, darker,
(04:17):
bloodier plan. And guess what Trump's plan for Joe Biden
would not have required convictions either. Sorry to offend your sensibilities,
I mean, not to hammer this into the ground, and
not to cost you any sleep during the holiday season,
(04:39):
But what was the end game for Trump? On January sixth?
What happens to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and Nancy
Pelosi and Chuck Schumer and the editors of the New
York Times and the producers at PBS, and the Democratic
senators and the Republicans who spoke out against him. What
happens to all of them, Steve Schmidt, and to you
(05:05):
and to me, and most importantly, what would Trump have
done with a man he would have wanted the world
to believe was an extra American president, an illegitimate extra
American president, a man somehow involved. Trump would have said,
in the greatest political crime in the modern history of
(05:26):
the Western world. He would have had Joe Biden killed,
or if somebody had stopped him, Trump would have had
him seized somehow by someone by some official sounding but
ultimately fabricated and illegal and anti American quote authority. And
(05:50):
he would have had him held in communicado disappeared with
Kamala Harris and Pelosian Schumer and uncooperative senators and congressmen
of both parties, and hundreds of reporters and editors and governors,
and you and me and Schmidt and God knows how
many others on the pretext of God knows what kind
(06:11):
of imaginary plot we were all involved with to thwart
Trump by enforcing the Constitution. Bluntly, it is hard to
believe the following sentence could ever be said by anybody
at any time. But the darker, grimmer point about enforcing
(06:34):
the Constitution, enforcing the fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, is
that Trump's insurrection is not just what he planned and
fomented and watched with glee from the White House on
January sixth, not just what actually happened. It is more importantly,
more damningly about whatever he had planned next. That is
(06:59):
why the Colorado Supreme Court was right, because that second
plant is the true comparison to the Civil War traders
against whom the Fourteenth Amendment was first applied. Because the
Confederacy's plans involved killing the President of the United States
and the vice president and half the cabinet and burning
(07:21):
down New York City and using agents coming in from
Canada to seize Northern American ports, and just because the
Confederacy did not win the Civil War, those plans did
not miraculously disappear from the minds of the traders, just
as Trump's plans for what to do with one president
(07:45):
too many did not miraculously disappear from his diseased and
monomaniacal and traitorous mind in the context in which it
must be applied today, The Fourteenth Amendment is not about
what Trump did in twenty twenty and twenty twenty one.
(08:06):
It's about what else he was willing to do, and
what horrors he is willing to precipitate today and in
twenty twenty four, next month, and God forbid, in January
of twenty twenty nine. The Fourteenth Amendment is not some
violation of our tradition of due process, just as Lincoln
(08:29):
defending the government of the United States by military force
in eighteen sixty one was not some violation of due process.
The simple truth is that Donald Trump has been treated
with kid gloves by this country, and, recognizing that the
Fourteenth Amendment has already disqualified him from running for president
(08:51):
or any office ever again in his goddamned life, this
is in fact a continuation of treating him with kid gloves.
Sixteen days shy of three full, long, agonizing years, this
nation has bent over backwards and not crushed the perpetrator
(09:15):
of insurrection and rebellion against the United States of America
and specifically its constitution. The Constitution, however, is self protecting.
That is what the fourteenth Amendment is. Four. If you
have doubts about it, ask yourself that question with which
(09:40):
I began rhetorically, if January sixth had succeeded, what would
Trump have then done with? And two, Joe Biden, keep
your answer to yourself and get the hell out of
the way of justice and get the hell out of
(10:02):
the way of the Constitution of the United States of America.
Oh but happily turns out Trump is not an insurrectionist.
You know how we know that because he's now posted
this online. I'm not an insurrectionist parenthesis peacefully and patriotically,
(10:26):
and parenthesis Biden is end quote. And you know how
you can tell Trump is telling the truth because he
used eleven whole words to deny that he's an insurrectionist.
The guy who writes thousand word long threads every three
(10:47):
days insisting the judge is lying and he is too
richer than all the rest of us bastards put together.
And those threads are all caps eleven words. Wait, his
next definitive post, Hitler, not me. None of my relatives
(11:08):
were from Braunau. I am not secretly related to him.
None of my relatives served into the sixteenth Bavarian Reserve
regiment with him. I've never even read Hitler's zweitez Buch.
Why hasn't Biden said this? The Republican rationales for Trump
channeling Hitler now baby Hitler channeling old Hitler, they are
(11:33):
happily so lame as to be genuinely funny at a
time when we need this. Senators Sullivan of Alaska and
Vance of Ohio actually wondered if maybe he was talking
about fentanyl. Congresswoman Mally Atacus of New York, who is
just not bright, said no, no, he was talking about
(11:55):
democratic policies. That's what he meant by poisoning. And then
Trump made all three of them look like idiots when
he said, no, you're right, I am saying the same
things as Hitler, but quote in a much different way,
and He's going to keep on saying it. Rolling Stone,
which has had sources who sometimes outlandish claims and predictions
(12:15):
about what Baby Hitler would do next have been scoffed at,
and then they turned out to be pretty much prescient
and exact. Rolling Stone quotes one of those sources again
is saying Trump quote said he's going to keep doing it.
He's going to keep saying they're poisoning the blood of
the nation and destroying and killing the country. He says,
(12:35):
it's a quote great line unquote. Well, of course it's
a great line. Look at what Hitler did with it
in the thirties. A second Rolling Stone source says Trump
thinks he's been quote too nice about the quote animals,
so he's going to get tougher and guess what. He
(12:58):
did it again last night. He put out a video
at seven four pm Eastern Standard time.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Integration is poisoning the blood of our nation. They're coming
from prisons, from mental institutions, from all over the world.
Without borders and fair elections, you don't have a country.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
I didn't hear the word ventanyl in there, did you,
oil boy? As Nicole mally attack is going to be
sorely pressed to make up new bullshit excuses every day.
Back to disqualification. Early polling, the country favors enforcing the
fourteenth Amendment fifty four percent strongly or somewhat approved, thirty
(13:38):
five percent strongly or somewhat disapprove. That is a nineteen
point margin, with only eleven percent undecided. Hell, a quarter
of Republicans approve of it. It's a UGOV poll. And
they also did the general election with and without a
Trump conviction. It is forty four forty four. Right now
(13:59):
with a Trump conviction, it's forty six thirty nine Biden.
So now here's another question. Who else is ineligible to
run for any office now under the fourteenth Amendment, Because
if there's one scale the Supreme Court cannot stick its
thumb on for sure, it's for anybody running for Congress
(14:19):
or the Senate or governor, since the fourteenth has already
been used to disqualify people running for those offices. Trial
now under way in Atlanta to disqualify George's Lieutenant Governor
Burt Jones because he was one of Trump's fake electors,
bigger fish. Well, nobody's moved on Congressman Scott Perry yet,
(14:42):
but this has his name written all over it. Or
how about Ronald McDaniel. She has aspirations for elected office,
Well they're out the window. The Detroit News revealed last
night it has reviewed a recording from November seventeenth, twenty twenty,
in which Trump gets on the blower and pressures two
(15:03):
canvassers from I'm Wayne County, Michigan to not sign the
certification of the twenty twenty election for Biden in their state.
We've got to fight for our country. Trump is recorded
as saying on the call, we can't let these people
take our country away from us. Then another voice chimes
(15:24):
in and tells the two Michigan politicians, if you can
go home tonight, do not sign it. We will get
you attorneys. The voice was that of Ronald McDaniel, chairman
of the RNC. If she is now only hit with
the fourteenth Amendment, she'll be lucky because that's a crime
(15:44):
for which she could go to jail. Vivek Ramaswami is
probably safe. However, he is also probably nuts. It's clear
the puppet masters have lost their use for Biden and
are slowly sidelining him, he writes on Twitter X. But
the real trick is who they're propping up instead. It's
(16:06):
not Gavin or Michelle as I'd assumed before. It's far
more insidious. Open your eyes, folks, it's staring us right
in the face. Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh
my god. It's Taylor Swift. Oh my god, oh my god,
Oh my god. Taylor Swift's going to be president the
puppet masters Christ Trameslami is it Kermit the frog moron?
(16:34):
And of course, as you have already heard, a day
after the judge in the sea Os Ruby Freeman case
ruled that he has a history of trying to avoid
paying stuff, so they should and legally could claim there
one hundred and forty eight million dollars from Rudy Giuliani
right now. Rudy Giuliani filed for Chapter eleven yesterday from
marley bankrupt to actually bankrupt. In the document he claims
(16:59):
assets of up to ten million dollars, but debts of
one hundred and fifty two point six million dollars. That
would be more right. The best part is the list
of debtors that Woody submitted in the filing that a
lot of experts think will be rejected anyway. There's this company,
(17:22):
Giuliani Partners, Rudy owes himself money. There's the federal government,
the New York State government. He owes a total of
a million in back taxes. By the way, the New
York Post once wrote me up because my accountant and
the irs were politely resolving a disagreement over seven hundred
and twenty five dollars over middle Wards taxes. Rudy owes
(17:43):
money to his former assistant, the one who said he
offered to sell pardons on Trump's behalf. He owes money
to a divorce accountant. Oh, and he owes money to
one Robert Hunter Biden. Rudy owes money to Hunter Biden. Rudy, Rudy,
(18:04):
Rudy Wait, Rudy, Rudy, Rudy.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Oh, oh, Nancy, WHOA Rudy, Rudy, Rudy.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
Are you bankrupt?
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Ah?
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Rudy, Rudy, Rudy, are you bro Rudy, Rudy, Rudy.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
Are you drugged of? Rudy Rudy? Did you go?
Speaker 2 (18:38):
WHOA?
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Thank you? Nancy post Also of interest here, Congressman Tim
Burchett says Republicans in the House are being blackmailed by
the Russians using honeypots. He goes into great detail. He
seems to know an awful lot about how this would
(19:02):
work in real time, like a lot like way too much.
But first, this is the last scheduled episode of the year.
I'm betting there will be a bulletin before in New
Year's Eve. So I have two things about it being
the last scheduled episode of the year. I've never asked
(19:25):
you to forward a given edition of the podcast to anybody,
but if you would forward this one to somebody who
does not listen, I think the point about what Trump
would have done to Biden had the coup worked is
an essential question, and I haven't heard it asked, at
least not recently, at least not in the context of
(19:46):
applying the fourteenth Amendment. And on a lighter note, I
think you may have noticed that I like being silly
about even these darkest of topics when possible, and that,
for some reason, even at my advanced age, I still
fancy myself a modern Tom Lairr. Wow, modern Tom Lahr
(20:09):
who can quote sing unquote for like thirteen fourteen seconds.
So here, just for you are all of the mock
songs I've done with Nancy Faust in twenty twenty three.
Enjoy and or hit stop immediately might be indedd in
(20:35):
the morning, Dean don The locks are gonna.
Speaker 5 (20:40):
Charm, pitch me, jail me, fuck me, and fail me,
but get me to the.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Trial on time.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
You make a bind.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Time to leave me, you.
Speaker 6 (20:54):
Seal with forty cots against me and your bleed the
boss wants server deleaded, won't he you've ADVANTI leave me ucy.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Thinking it's a fast.
Speaker 5 (21:16):
Ride a show, got food talk on ours, m F
baton for your drunken le sa dim dinzoba been doun
(21:38):
feed a fast mood, got.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
A man and fell don Broyd boe some through.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Don't conant past.
Speaker 7 (22:00):
I am so indicted and I just can't fight. I'm
about to go to jail in America likes it. I'm
so indicted.
Speaker 6 (22:13):
My defensing they're tightened, and I know, I know the
unindicted co conspirators can bite it.
Speaker 8 (22:27):
Can A get a witness? Canna righting a witness? Can
I timidate a witness? Canda terrorize a wedness? Thank you
Nancy Post. Reinvited and it feels so good. Reindied like
(22:55):
a file in wood. You want the big fit and
sugar freeze.
Speaker 7 (23:00):
It is the.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Country so excited causes griefsty Thank you, Nancy Post.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
Into something parked?
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Hey you insurrection. Who you're gonna call gods?
Speaker 7 (23:26):
My size?
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Thank you Nancy Post. I had the scoop that you
had the contract. Then I had the story, the plane
and the hours. I wish you had signed with Toronto
Deer Show. He because now my career has been sent
(23:50):
to the showers.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
Where where are you?
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Do not?
Speaker 1 (23:56):
How could you leave me here all alone? I searched
the world over and I thought up out of Nie.
But you met the Dodgers and you was gone, think Nancy.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
If I host, this is Countdown with Keith Oberman Oberman, my.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Friend Larry David doing his impression of the late Yankee
Stadium Stentorian PA announcer Bob Shepherd introducing me. The streams
have merged, still to come on Countdown. End of the week,
end of the year. Merry Christmas with for my money,
(25:03):
the most Wonderful. He's cynical and stunningly prophetic. Of all
of the works of James Thurber, most of them read
like he wrote them last week. But this time he
wrote a story about Trump. But in nineteen forty The
Greatest Man in the World and Fridays with Thurber first
(25:27):
time for the daily roundup of the miss Grants, Morons
and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute two days worst
Persons in the World World the Bronze Worse. Congressman Tim Burchett.
He has told a fascist podcast that he is confident
(25:47):
that a large number of conservative congressmen and women are
compromised by the Russians and by others. He thinks they
are being forced to vote against Republican bills by the Russians.
And I think he's whistling past graveyards there, But that's
not the point. The point is. Listen to this quote
(26:08):
from Tim Burchett. You know, the old honey pot. The
Russians do that, and I'm sure members of Congress have
been caught up. Why in the world would good conservatives
vote for crazy stuff like what we've been seeing. Here's
how it works. You're visiting, you're out of the country
or out of town, or you're in a motel or
at a bar in DC and whatever. You're into women,
(26:31):
men whatever comes up and they're very attractive, and they're
laughing at your jokes, and you're buying them a drink.
Next thing you know, you're in the motel room with
them naked. And next thing you know, you're about to
make a key vote, and what happens, Some well dressed
person comes up, whispers in your ear, Hey man, there's
tapes out on you. Were you in a motel room
(26:53):
on whatever with whoever, and you're like, uh oh, and
they say you really ought not to be voting for
this thing, and what do they do? It's human nature unquote,
just as shame Burchett couldn't go into any detail. Huh.
It's like, I mean, it's just a hunch on my
(27:15):
part here, but it's almost like he's been in the
room with the victims of the compromat and the people
doing the compromat. Just saying, by the way, the point
here is this has been characterized as Congressman Burchett thinks
a large number of conservative congressmen and women are compromised
by Russians and others. No, the real headlines should be phrased.
(27:39):
Congressman Burchette thinks there are actually some conservative congressmen and
women who are not being compromised by the Russians. Now
that's a story runners up worser the Washington Post. If
you noticed that in the last year the Washington Post
started to let me use a journalistic insider term here,
(28:00):
If you notice the Washington Post started to suck, you
ain't seen nothing than yet. The new publisher and CEO
just appointed by Jeff Bezos to replace the last publisher
and CEO who made the Post suck. He is Sir
William Lewis, and apart from the fact that he is
a Murdoch editor, he ran the Wall Street Journal. He
(28:21):
helped run the company that ran Murdoch's News of the World,
which was so up to its neck in the infamous
British phone hacking journalism scandal, which included the stealing of
voicemails of a murdered British teenaged girl. It was so
infamous that Rupert Murdoch closed the paper down rather than
(28:42):
deal with the fallout of the hacking scandal. This is
the guy who will now run the Washington Post. Talk
about compromot. Think they got Jeff Bezos this time? Hey,
New York Times, better step up, boys, But our winner
the worst. John Schneider, that actor from the Dukes of
(29:05):
Hazzard who I'm guessing you like me, thought was dead.
He has been body snatched though, Mister President, he writes
in a response to a tweet from Joe Biden, I
believe you are guilty of treason and should be publicly
hung your son too. Your response is sincerely John Schneider unquote.
(29:30):
I'm guessing Biden's response would be who in the hell
is John Schneider Like he's gonna respond to you, dude, John. Also,
it's hanged dim bulb, unless you're referring to those photos
of Hunter that Marjorie Taylor Green showed in the House
Committee and then took home with her Waka waka Schneider
two days worse person in the world. Okay, the last
(30:14):
Fridays with Thurber for the year twenty twenty three, And
once again I can never get over how prophetic this was.
James Thurber wrote this story in the nineteen thirties, and
it is as bitterly cynical and deeply observant as anything
else he ever wrote, And nearly everything he wrote was
(30:35):
bitterly cynical and deeply observant. The greatest man in the world.
When it turns out the greatest man in the world
is Trump, and he's fooled everybody. Only this was written
before Trump was born, James Thurber and the greatest man
(30:58):
in the world. Looking back on it now from the
vantage point of nineteen forty one can only marvel that
it had not happened. Long before it did. The United
States of America had been ever since Kitty Hawk blindly
constructing the elaborate petard by which, sooner or later it
must be hoist. It was inevitable that someday there would
(31:22):
come roaring out of the skies a national hero of
insufficient intelligence, background and character, successfully to endure the mounting
orgies of glory prepared for aviators who stayed up for
a long time or flew a great distance. Both Lindbergh
and Byrd, fortunately for national decorum and international amity, had
(31:43):
been gentlemen, So had our other famous aviators. They wore
their laurels, gracefully, withstood the awful weather of publicity, married
excellent women, usually fine family, and quietly retired to private
life and the enjoyment of their varying fortunes. No untoward
incidents on a worldwide scale marred the perfection of their
(32:04):
conduct on the perilous heights of fame. The exception to
the rule was, however, bound to occur, and it did
in July nineteen thirty seven, when Jack pal smirch erstwhile
mechanics helper in a small garage in Westfield, Iowa, flew
(32:25):
a second hand, single motored Bresthaven Dragonfly three monoplane all
the way around the world, without stopping. Never before in
the history of aviation had such a flight as Smirches
even been dreamed of. No one had even taken seriously
the weird floating auxiliary gas tanks invention of the mad
(32:48):
New Hampshire professor of astronomy, doctor Charles Lewis Gresham, upon
which Smirch placed full reliance. When the garage worker, a
slightly built, surly unprepossessing young man of twenty two, appeared
at Roosevelt Field early in July nineteen thirty seven, slowly
chewing a great quid of scrap tobacco, and announced nobody
(33:11):
ain't seen no flying yet. The newspapers touched briefly and
satirically upon his projected twenty five thousand mile flight. Aeronautical
and automotive experts dismissed the idea, curtly, implying that it
was a hoax of publicity stunt. The rusty, battered second
hand plane wouldn't go, the Gresham auxiliary tanks wouldn't work.
(33:38):
It was simply a cheap joke. Smirch, however, after calling
on a girl in Brooklyn who worked in the flap
folding department of a large paper box factory, a girl
whom he later described as his sweet Pittuti, climbed nonchalantly
into his ridiculous plane at dawn the memorable seventh of
(33:59):
July nineteen thirty seven, spit a curve of tobacco juice
into the still air, and took off, carrying with him
only a gallon of bootleg gin and six pounds of salami.
When the garage boy thundered out over the ocean, the
papers were forced to record in all seriousness that a mad,
(34:20):
unknown young man his name was variously misspelled, had actually
set out upon a preposterous attempt to span the world
in a rickety one engine contraption, trusting to the long
distance refueling device of a crazy schoolmaster. When nine days later,
without having stopped once, the tiny plane appeared above San
(34:41):
Francisco Bay, headed for New York, spluttering and choking, to
be sure, but still magnificently and miraculously aloft the headlines,
which long since had crowded everything else off the front page.
Even the shooting of the Governor of Illinois by the
Valetti Gang swelled to unprecedented size, and the news stories
began to run to twenty five and thirty columns. It
(35:06):
was noticeable, however, that the accounts of the epoch making
flight touched rather lightly upon the aviator himself. This was
not because the facts about the hero as a man
were too meager, but because they were too complete. Reporters
(35:26):
who had been rushed out to Iowa when Smirch's plane
was first sighted over the little French coast town of
Serlee Lemaire to dig up the story of the great
man's life, had promptly discovered that the story of his
life could not be printed. His mother, a sullen short
order cook and a shack restaurant on the edge of
a tourists camping ground near Westfield, met all inquiries as
(35:48):
to her son with an angry and the hell with
him a help he drowns. His father appeared to be
in jail somewhere for stealing spotlights and lap robes from
tourists automobiles. His young brother, a weak minded lad, had
but recently a gate from the Preston, Iowa Reformatory, and
was already wanted in several western towns for the theft
(36:09):
of money order blanks from post offices. These alarming discoveries
were still piling up at the very time that Pal Smirch,
the greatest hero of the twentieth century, blear eyed, dead
for sleep, half starved, was piloting his crazy junk heap
high above the region in which the lamentable story of
his private life was being unearthed, headed for New York
(36:32):
and a greater glory than any man of his time
had ever known. The necessity for printing some account in
the papers of the young man's career and personality had
led to a remarkable predicament. It was, of course, impossible
to reveal the facts, for a tremendous popular feeling in
(36:52):
favor of the young hero had sprung up like a
grass fire when he was halfway across Europe on his
flight around the globe. He was therefore described as a modest,
chap taciturn blonde, popular with his friends, popular with girls.
The only available snapshot of Smirch, taken at the wheel
of a phony automobile in a cheap photo studio at
(37:15):
an amusement park, was touched up so that the little
vulgarian looked quite handsome. His twisted leer was smoothed into
a pleasant smile. The truth was in this way kept
from the youth's ecstatic compatriots. They did not dream that
the Smirch family was despised and feared by its neighbors
(37:35):
in the obscure Iowa town, nor that the hero himself,
because of numerous unsavory exploits, had come to be regarded
in Westfield as a nuisance and a menace. Pal's Smirch had,
the reporters discovered, once knife the principle of his high school,
not mortally, to be sure, but he had knifed him,
(37:56):
and on another occasion, surprised in the act of an
stealing altar cloth from a church, he had bashed the
sexton over the head the pot of Easter lilies. For
each of these offenses he had served a sentence in
the reformatory. Inwardly, the authorities, both in New York and
in Washington, prayed that an understanding providence might, however awful,
(38:20):
such a thing seemed, bring disaster to the rusty, battered
plane and its illustrious pilot, whose unheard of flight had
aroused the civilized world to hosannas of hysterical praise. The
authorities were convinced that the character of the renowned aviator
was such that the limelight of adulation was bound to
reveal him to all the world as a congenital hooligan,
(38:45):
mentally and morally unequipped to cope with his own prodigious fame.
I trust, said the Secretary of State, at one of
the many secret cabinet meetings called to consider the national dilemma.
I trust that his mother's prayer will be answered, by
which he ref to missus Emma's Smirch's wish that her
(39:07):
son might be drowned. It was, however, too late for
that Smirch had leaped the Atlantic and then the Pacific
as if they were mill ponds. At three minutes after
two o'clock on the afternoon of July seventeenth, nineteen thirty seven,
the garage boy brought his idiotic plane into Roosevelt Field
for a perfect three point landing. It had, of course
(39:30):
been out of the question to arrange a modest little
reception for the greatest flier in the history of the world.
He was received at Roosevelt Field with such elaborate and
pretentious ceremonies as rocked the world. Fortunately, however, the worn
and spent hero, promptly swooned, had to be removed bodily
from his plane, and was spirited from the field without
(39:51):
having opened his mouth once. Thus he did not jeopardize
the dignity of his first reception, a reception illumined by
the presence of the Secretaries of War and the Navy,
Mayor Michael J. Moriarty of New York, the Premier of Canada,
Governors Fanamine Groves, mcpheey and Critchfield, and a brilliant array
of European diplomats. Smirch did not, in fact come too
(40:14):
in time to take part in the gigantic hullabaloo arranged
at City Hall for the next day. He was rushed
to a secluded nursing home and confined in bed. It
was nine days before he was able to get up, or,
to be more exact, before he was permitted to get up. Meanwhile,
the greatest minds in the country, in solemn assembly, had
(40:35):
arranged a secret conference of city, state and government officials,
which Smirch was to attend for the purpose of being
instructed in the ethics and behavior of heroism. On the
day that the little mechanic was finally allowed to get
up in dress, and for the first time in two weeks,
took a great chew of tobacco. He was permitted to receive.
(40:58):
The newspaper men this by way of testing him out.
Smirch did not wait for questions. Use guys, he said,
and the Times Man winced. Use guys can tell a
cock eyed world that I put it over on Lindbergh. See, yeah,
made an asset. I'm two frogs. The two frogs was
(41:21):
a reference to a pair of gallant French flyers who,
in attempting to flight only halfway around the world, had
two weeks before unhappily been lost at sea. The Times
Man was bold enough at this point to sketch out
for Smirch the accepted formula for interviews in cases of
this kind. He explained that there should be no arrogant
statements belittling the achievements of other heroes, particularly heroes of
(41:45):
foreign nations. Ah the hell with that, said Smirch.
Speaker 5 (41:50):
I did it.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
See I did it, and I'm talking about it. And
he did talk about it. None of this extraordinary interview was,
of course printed. On the contrary, the newspapers already under
the discipline direction of a secret directorate created for the
occasion and composed of statesmen and editors gave out to
a panting and restless world that Jackie, as he had
(42:14):
been arbitrarily nicknamed, would consent to say only that he
was very happy and that anyone could have done what
he did. My achievement has been I fear slightly exaggerated.
The Times Man's article had him protest with a modest smile.
These newspaper stories were kept from the hero, a restriction
(42:34):
which did not serve to abate the rising malevolence of
his temper. The situation was indeed extremely grave for Palell's.
Smirch was, as he kept insisting, raring to go. He
could not much longer be kept from a nation clamorous
to lionize him. It was the most desperate crisis the
(42:55):
United States of America had faced since the sinking of
the Lusitania. On the afternoon of the twenty seventh of July,
Mrch was spirited away to a conference room in which
were gathered mayors, governors, government officials, behaviorist, psychologists, and editors.
He gave them each a limp moist paw and a brief,
(43:17):
unlovely grin hi, he said. When Smirch was seated, the
mayor of New York arose and with obvious pessimism, attempted
to explain what he must say and how he must
act when presented to the world, ending his talk with
a high tribute to the hero's courage and integrity. The
mayor was followed by Governor Fannaman of New York, who,
(43:38):
after a touching declaration of faith, introduced Cameron Spottiswood, second
Secretary of the American Embassy in Paris, the gentleman selected
to coach Smirch in the amenities of public ceremonies. Sitting
in a chair with a soiled yellow tie in his
hand and his shirt open at the throat, unshaved, smoking
(43:58):
a rolled cigarette, Jack Smirch listened with a leer on
his lips. Get you, I get you, He cut in nastily.
You want me to act like a softie.
Speaker 4 (44:10):
Huh?
Speaker 1 (44:11):
You want me to act like thaty memany baby face
lind big huh? Well nuts to that.
Speaker 4 (44:17):
See.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
Everyone took in his breath sharply. It was a sigh
and a hiss. Mister Lindbergh began a United States Senator
purple with rage, and mister bird Smirch, who was paring
his nails with a jackknife, cut in again. Boyd, he exclaimed, Oh,
for God's sake, that big somebody shut off the blasphemies
(44:41):
with a sharp word. A newcomer had entered the word
the room. Everyone stood up except Smirch, who was still
busy with his nails, and he did not even glance up.
Mister Smirch, said someone sternly. The President of the United States.
It had been thought that the presence of the Chief
Executive might have a chastening effect on the young hero,
and the former had been, thanks to the remarkable cooperation
(45:04):
of the press, secretly brought to the obscure conference room.
A great, painful silence fell. Smirch looked up, waved a
hand at the president. How you coming, he asked, and
began rolling a fresh cigarette. The silence deepened. Someone coughed
(45:33):
in a strained way. Jesus hot, ain't it, said Smirch.
He loosened two more shirt buttons, revealing a hairy chest
and the tattooed word sadie enclosed in a stenciled heart.
The great and important men in the room, faced by
the most serious crisis in American history, exchanged worried frowns.
(45:58):
Nobody seemed to know how to proceed. Come on, come on,
said Smirch. Let's get the hell out of here. Yeah,
when do I start cutting in on the podies?
Speaker 4 (46:07):
Euh?
Speaker 1 (46:08):
And when is there gonna be this in it? He
rubbed a thumb and forefinger together meaningly. Money, exclaimed a
state senator, shocked. Pale. Yeah, money, said pal, flipping his
cigarette out of the window. And big money. He began
rolling a fresh cigarette. Big money, he repeated, frowning over
(46:32):
the rice paper. He tilted back in his chair and
leered at each gentleman separately, the leer of an animal
that knows its power, the leer of a leopard loose
in a bird and dog shop. Ah, for God's sake,
let's get someplace where it's cool, he said. I've been
cooped up plenty for three weeks. Smirch stood up and
(46:56):
walked over to an open window, where he stood staring
down into the street nine floors below. The faint shouting
of news boys floated up to him. He made out
his name, hot dog, he cried, grinning ecstatic. He leaned
out over the sill. You tell him, babies, he shouted down,
(47:17):
Hot diggity dog in the tense little knot of men
standing behind him. A quick, mad impulse flared up. An
unspoken word of appeal of command seemed to ring through
the room, yet it was deadly silent. Charles K. L Brand,
secretary to the Mayor of New York City, happened to
be standing nearest Smirch. He looked inquiringly at the President
(47:40):
of the United States. The President, pale grim nodded shortly. Brand,
a tall, powerfully built man wants to tackle at Rutgers University,
stepped forward, seized the greatest man in the world by
his left shoulder and the seat of his pants, and
pushed him out the window. My god, he's falling out
the window, cried a quick witted editor. Get me out
(48:02):
of here, cried the President. Several men sprang to his side,
and he was hurriedly escorted out of a door toward
a side entrance of the building. The editor of the
Associated Press took charge. Being used to such things crisply,
he ordered certain men to leave, others to stay. Quickly.
He outlined a story which all the papers were to
agree on, sent two men to the street to handle
that end of the tragedy. Commanded a senator to sob
(48:23):
and two congressmen to go to pieces nervously. In a word,
he skillfully set the stage for the gigantic task that
was to follow, the task of breaking to a grief
stricken world the sad story of the untimely accidental death
of its most illustrious and spectacular figure. The funeral was,
(48:46):
as you know, the most elaborate, the finest, the solemnest,
and the saddest ever held in the United States of America.
The monument in Arlington Cemetery, with its clean white shaft
of marble and the simple device of a tiny plane
cause on its base, is a place for pilgrims in
(49:10):
deep reverence to visit. The nations of the world paid
lofty tributes to Little Jackie Smirch, America's greatest hero. At
a given hour, there were two minutes of silence throughout
the nation. Even the inhabitants of the small, bewildered town
of Westfield, Iowa, observed this touching ceremony. Agents of the
(49:33):
Department of Justice sought to that one of them was
especially assigned to stand grimly in the doorway of a
little shack restaurant on the edge of the tourist's camping ground,
just outside the town there under his stern scrutiny, missus
Emma Smirch bowed her head over two Hamburger steaks sizzling
(49:54):
on her grill. Bowed her head and turned away so
that the secret serviceman could not see the twisted, strangely
familiar leer on her lips. The Greatest Man in the
World by James Thurber. I've done all the damage I
(50:27):
can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown. Musical directors
Brian Ray and John Phillip Schanelle arranged, produced, and performed
most of our music. Mister Ray was on guitars, bass
and drums. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards produced by
Tko Brothers. Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions,
arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The
(50:48):
sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written
by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Our satirical
and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Fauss, the best
baseball stadium organist ever. And I'm proud to say my
accompanists he missed a company. The woman who played the
(51:08):
organ during my attempts at singing throughout twenty twenty three
and the Rudy song today. Thank you Nancy. Our announcer
today is my friend Larry David doing his impression of
the late Bob Shepherd from Yankee Stadium, and everything else
was pretty much my fault for the sixty fifth consecutive year.
(51:29):
That's countdown for this the one thy eighty first day
since dementia. J Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically
elected government of the United States. Use the fourteenth Amendment,
use the Insurrection Act, convict him in court, use everything
we got while we still can. The next scheduled countdown
(51:50):
is Tuesday, January second, twenty twenty four. Bulletins as the
news warrants, and boy will I be surprised if there
is not a bulletin TwixT now and January second, twenty
four till then, thank you for your supporting twenty twenty three,
and let's hope that twenty twenty four actually happens as scheduled.
(52:12):
In the interim, I'm Keith Olreman. Good morning, good afternoon,
good night, good luck, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year. Whoa rudy,
Rudy Rudy? Are you bankrupt.
Speaker 4 (52:28):
Oh, Rudy, Rudy, Rudy.
Speaker 1 (52:30):
Are you bro go Rudy, Rudy Rudy. Are you dug?
Rudy Rudey.
Speaker 7 (52:40):
Did you go?
Speaker 2 (52:42):
Whoa go?
Speaker 1 (52:45):
Thank you. That's a fast Countdown with Keith Olreman is
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