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SERIES 3 EPISODE 18: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump has doubled down on his defiling of Arlington National Cemetery. Title 32, Part 553, Subpart C: Memorial Services and Ceremonies at Army National Military Ceremonies will not include partisan political activities. Trump’s team exploited a memorial service at Arlington on Monday, broke the law by privately photographing and filming it, physically assaulted Arlington National Cemetery staff who asked him to stop, he gave a thumbs up and smiled idiotically while literally standing on the graves of dead U-S military heroes, and now they have turned it into an online campaign advertisement – by definition, a partisan political activity. This could’ve been trivial. It could’ve been “there was a miscommunication.” Not even an apology – like anybody in the Trump campaign were human enough, or honest enough, or RESPECTFUL OF OUR WAR DEAD ENOUGH to apologize. Just “misunderstanding.”

No. They blamed the Cemetery staffer, they blamed the media, they blamed Vice President Harris for not being there to commemorate the sad anniversary of deaths in Afghanistan – the commemoration Trump has illegally turned into a campaign AD – the commemoration Trump skipped last year and the year before. Because to Trump, and to this robot JV Vance, those buried AT Arlington are just another product, just another SELL, just another gimmick, just another BRAND NAME.

And they got the brand name wrong. Trump thug Chris LaCivita wrote that Arlington "most hollowed" ground. Corrupted news outlets like The New York Times covered for it by claiming he wrote "hallowed." Hallowed, is Arlington. Hollowed, is Trump's brain.

TRUMP IS NOW MORE DANGEROUS THAN EVER. Another new round of polls underscores: he's losing, and dragging down the down-ballot MAGA GOP: a total swing in four states of 25 points to Harris. She leads by one in Arizona, two in Georgia and Nevada, and has cut it to one in North Carolina. The Fox poll in Arizona scores the Senate as Ruben Gallego 56, Kari Lake 41. How is Kari lake going to be able to afford to buy 900 more camera filters THIS late in the race? The Fox poll in North Carolina scores the Governor’s race as Josh Stein 54 Mark Robinson 43. The Fox poll in Nevada scores the Senate race as Jacky Rosen 55 Sam Brown 41. 

TO LEAVEN THE MOOD A LITTLE: A comedian named Dan Wilbur has done a spot-on impression of JD Vance trying to be a human for 9 minutes at a donut shop. It's better if you go watch it. It's not bad if you listen to it here.

B-Block (25:31) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Texas political hitman Ken Paxton sends nine armed troops to 87-year old Democratic woman's home because she registered voters. CNN/Gary Tuchman "Uncommitted Voter" scandal worsens: the guy is now selling t-shirts. And asked about phones for kids during emergencies at school Jesse The Idiot Watters thinks that means HIS emergency when he has to call them in math class.

C-Block (36:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I was talking about Bill Clinton yesterday and I think it's time to tell the entire story of how NBC tried to blackmail me into NOT quitting the Clinton-Lewinsky MSNBC show in 1998 because it made them too much money. An emissary from then NBC News President Andy Lack threatened to sue me and get me blacklisted from television AND make sure my parents wound up homeless.

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SERIES 3 EPISODE 17: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump is now claiming that the White House rigged the presidential election in 2020.

HE was president in 2020.

HE was in the White House.

"Zuckerberg admits the White House pushed to suppress Hunter Biden laptop story, in other words the 2020 presidential election was rigged," Trump writes. I'm telling you: Mijni-strokes.

SPEAKING OF WHICH: There's way more to Trump exploiting Arlington National Cemetery on Monday to take smiling thumbs-up selfies while literally standing on the graves of American heroes. An Arlington official tried to stop the photography; a Trumpist allegedly shoved him; the Trump Campaign decided the correct response was to claim the Arlington official was "suffering from a mental health episode." 

JACK SMITH OUTWITS THE SUPREME COURT: This one weird trick actually works. He filed his superseding indictment in the Insurrection case in Washington. It's a little more complicated than this, but basically he got around SCOTUS by changing every reference to "President Trump" to "Candidate Trump" and calling the 1/6 Call To Arms a "campaign speech."

RAGE IN THE MACHINE: Thousands of newspaper columns were deleted (hundreds at The New York Times alone) when Kamala Harris agreed to her first sit-down interview. It's with Dana Bash on CNN so she still hasn't scheduled one anybody will SEE. The Cook Political Report has moved two more states from "Lean Democrat" to "Likely" and moved North Carolina from "Lean Republican" to "Toss-up." Maybe that's why Trump has agreed to the September 10th debate - or seemed to. The actual words in his acceptance never says he'll actually be there. And we have the first polling on weirdness by party and while the GOP is accurately seen as more weird, the lead is hardly big enough.

B-Block (23:55) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: RW troll blasts Democrats for "not being interested" in the Trump assassination attempt. Turns out all the Democrats on the House committee went to the site survey Monday. Only three of the seven Republicans bothered to. Trump makes the list too after what HR McMaster revealed about the Taliban Trump ordered released. And somebody who made this list in 2007 for indiscretions as a tv reporter is back for mocking Gus Walz while not merely a right wing media nut but also the volleyball coach at a high school with a praised and cherished program for learning-challenged kids.

C-Block (33:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: 43 years ago now, my television career starts because the late Lou Dobbs had issues keeping his pants on. It's still amazing.

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 8: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: ActiVote, completely its survey in Texas yesterday: Trump 53.3% Harris 46.7% In Texas. The lead is Trump +6.6; the margin of error is 5 points. Their last poll was July 19th, it was Trump by NINE points. So she cut the lead by nearly a third in three weeks. She is ostensibly within the margin of error. In Florida, in polling led by USA Today: Trump 47 Harris 42, so Trump is ahead by 5. IMargin of error is 4.5 points so Kamala Harris IS within the margin of error. All previous polls, from the one by the University of North Florida Research Lab to the one by a Trump pollster, McLaughlin, had it Trump by eight. As recently as last Thursday.

Is she going to WIN Florida or Texas or both? I don’t think so. Registered Republicans outnumber registered Democrats in Florida by a MILLION. Trump won Texas in 2016 by nine points. Five-and-a-half in 2020. But that the FACT of Kamala Harris, before the convention, before the campaign has really even begun, has cut Trump’s lead by nearly a third in Texas and nearly forty percent in Florida tells you just how bad things were and just how much better they have already gotten in Florida and Texas – and Michigan and Pennsylvania – and America.

I have this urgent request of the Trump campaign: please continue to do EVERYTHING exactly the way you are doing it now. Thank you. You are Kamala Harris’s primary asset. You are her ROCK.

MEANWHILE, THERE'S ELECTION INTERFERENCE by Politico, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. The Post is explaining WHY the Post cannot publish nor even IDENTIFY internal documents and computer traffic STOLEN from a presidential campaigns - THIS time.

There's some lofty bull about pausing and considering motives and outside actors and then the Executive Editor of the Post tells the truth."In the end," says Matt Murray, "it didn’t seem fresh or new enough." Of course there is a clip on YouTube from 2016 in which the Post's Wikileaks reporters explain that's why they published then and yeah they were sure it'd happen again.

So they knew this would happen again and they knew they were setting the precedent and they knew they wouldn’t do better next time and now they’re pretending that it HASN’T happened again and they’re pretending NO precedent was set and they’re confirming they AREN’T doing better next time and they haven’t learned a damn thing.

Lastly, Trump's campaign has been slammed by an unlikely source, the man who might be his only friend in the world: Bill O'Reilly. It's hilarious. And the quotes let me do my Bill O'Reilly voice again.

B-Block (26:56) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: He's back and badder than ever, suggesting Kamala Harris hasn't done enough interviews. It's Chris Cillizza (two Z's and an endless number of L's); Trump War Room goes full racist and shows you the future and in one the houses everything is neat and clean and evidently all the people are dead; and why Elon Musk's Eleventy Billion views for Trump turns out to imply that the average viewer stayed for ONLY FOUR MINUTES.

C-Block (39:35) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Sam Rosen retired yesterday - effective at the end of the next season - as the Hall of Fame play-by-play announcer of hockey's New York Rangers. Sam just happens to have succeeded so well AFTER he was my boss when I was 20 and 21 years old! The saga of Sam, who I know so long I wrote a paper about him in college.

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 140: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: The story that Robert F. Kennedy Junior wants football quarterback Aaron Rodgers to be his Vice President has now mutated from the ludicrous real life realms of the proverbial idiocracy, to shameful and disgusting and disqualifying and it is now SO bad that he will be lucky, WHEN this is over – IF it is ever over – if he still has a football career. It is THAT bad.

CNN's Pamela Brown now reveals that nearly ELEVEN years ago – she was introduced to Aaron Rodgers at a post-Kentucky Derby party and, quoting Brown’s story: “Hearing that she was a journalist with CNN, Rodgers immediately began attacking the news media for covering up important stories. Rodgers brought up the tragic killing of 20 children and 6 adults by a gunman at Sandy Hook Elementary School, claiming it was actually a government inside job and the media was intentionally ignoring it.”

The WORST conspiracy theory of them all. THE worst. The Alex Jones stuff. The unforgivable, Rorshach test for insanity, inhumanity, depravity. And Aaron Rodgers not only failed it, he failed it nearly eleven years ago, and he failed it, and he failed it VOLUNTARILY – he was the one who brought it up, TO a reporter, TO a reporter who has somehow restrained herself from reporting it for nearly eleven years.

And the nightmare-within-a-nightmare is: Aaron Rodgers is (or at best was) a Sandy Hook denier. And frankly I don’t know if, in RFK Junior’s eyes, that fact ELIMINATES Rodgers as a potential running mate, or… it clinches the spot for him.

Also: The GOP has a new Biden Impeachment Plan: DON'T Impeach Biden. Don Lemon! You effed up! You trusted Musk! The Trump Mafia is celebrating the Georgia judge throwing out a handful of charges, but of course if he were going to throw out the whole case over Fani Willis on Friday, why would he bother to cull a few indictments now? And Alina Habba Dabba Do has the nerve to joke about Fani's name.

B-Block (21:08) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: After Marjorie Taylor Greene may have baited President Biden into misidentifying murder victim Laken Riley as "Lincoln" (or at best she made exactly the same mistake the president did), Trump has autographed a photo of the poor woman in which he has written her name - and MISSPELLED IT. NBC's Ken Dilanian gets further and further into the right wing talking points on the disastrous Hur hearing. And Nancy Mace, who shamed fellow rape victims and herself by endorsing Trump after the E. Jean Carroll verdicts, is still demanding George Stephanopoulos apologize for what... SHE did.

C-Block (30:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: In a brand new edition, this sounds like a terrifying and tragic story about another one of my dogs - my goofy boy Ted - until you get to the end where it turns out I'm just a lucky idiot and Ted's fine.

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 139: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump 3rd Party stalking horse and QAnon Party would-be spoiler RFK Junior has confirmed his top two choices for Vice President are: New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers, and wrestling, government, and TV washout Jesse Ventura. 

But how could you be New York Jets Quarterback Aaron Rodgers AND Vice President Aaron Rodgers at the same time? That's the easy part! Based on 2023 being an NFL quarterback would only take about three and a half minutes out of his Vice Presidential year: "Now they're going to swear in the Vice Presi... OHHHH HE'S TORN HIS ACHILLES WHILE TRYING TO STAND UP."

Back-up Ventura is still insisting he was fired by MSNBC in November 2003 because he opposed the war in Iraq. Yeah, I started on MSNBC in February 2003 and I outlasted George W. Bush. I'll tell you the real story of why MSNBC fired him (Jesse may not even know it).

(7:02) SPECIAL COMMENT II: Robert K. Hur, the Biden "Special Counsel" and Trump operative named to the job by the impossibly inadequate Merrick Garland, was already DOA at yesterday's House "Biden Age Plot" Committee Hearing before it started. Republicans are enraged because the transcript of Hur's interview with President Biden they subpoenaed was also released to the taxpayers who paid for it. To the surprise (and more importantly the rage) of every Democrat, nearly every reporter, and even some Democrats, it showed that Hur COMPLETELY FABRICATED THE ENTIRE "BIDEN COULDN'T REMEMBER WHEN HIS SON DIED" saga. The transcript proved Hur a liar in that case, and time after time. Honestly, he should've told the car service driver to go right past the Rayburn Building and just take him to Dulles Airport for a trip anywhere else in the world.

Hey, maybe he can be RFK Jr's Vice President. Or get a sub host job at NewsMax!

B-Block (27:00) We didn't win, it's all rigged (28:32) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: North Carolina Republicans have nominated as the State Superintendent of Schools, a woman named Michele Morrow who believes the QAnon delusion that Jim Carrey keeps himself looking young by drinking the blood of children (wait - Jim Carrey looks YOUNG?). They've topped that in Arizona where both houses of the legislature have approved a bill that lets university students appeal their grades if they're conservative but the professor is liberal. And best of all, South Dakota governor Kristi Noem is now doing infomercials for a Cosmetic Dentist in Texas. Her last advertising idea, you may recall, was SD's anti-meth program: "Meth - We're On It!"

C-Block (38:51) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Well, no, the Political Podcast of the Year award we didn't win wasn't rigged. But 35 years ago the local NBC station figured out how to game the local news Emmy awards - part of the reason I'm 0-forever in Emmys. So it's a good time to tell you that saga.

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 138: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: I would've expected Trump to mispronounce "Melania" as "Melanoma" before he garbled Putin's name. Whether Putin is his blackmailer, his benefactor or just his idol, if he called him "Poten," Donald Trump is a desperately sick man. I mean, Jesus H. Christ in a Hatbox. The evidence continues to mount for either the thesis that he has Fluent Aphasia or what veteran Trump health analyst Dr. John Gartner has identified as Phonemic Paraphasias (an Alzheimer's symptom in what regular words are replaced by nonsense that rhymes with them). 

This could also explain Trump, a day after posting his latest bond for the latest money he owes E. Jean Carroll after her latest lawsuit, insisting again that he never met her, and two days after that going live on national television and insisting - as if he has never mentioned before - that he never met her. If his brain is dissolving, he might really have no idea that he met her or raped her or anything else.

The bond in the Carroll case (one of them, I forget the number) brings us back to the other question. It was a bond posted by Chubb insurance (irony unbound) and neither Trump nor Chubb will confirm or deny the 91 million was co-signed by anybody else. Chubb has outlets in Russia, Turkey, UAE, Brasil. Trump met with right-winger Jeff Yass (who owns part of TikTok and now Trump DOESN'T want to ban TikTok) and Elon Musk. Did either of them buy Trump?

And: today's House Judiciary Committee comedy show with Special Counsel Robert Hur hits differently now that Biden put a dagger in the heart of the MAGA Biden Age Plot during The State of the Union, and that Hur has "left" the Justice Department and is testifying as just a corrupt citizen Trump Stooge (which he was all along). If the Democrats begin to set him on fire, the GOP will turn on him on a dime.

B-BLOCK (23:13) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: England's Kate is bad at photoshop and worse at apologizing. Pope Francis just echoed the wartime popes who appeased Hitler, and Marjorie Taylor Greene appears to have given away her plot to sabotage Biden into calling the murder victim "Laken Riley." (28:06) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Funny that Politico, The Washington Post, CNN, the broadcast networks, the AP, New York Times and everybody rushed to the Katie Britt disaster story but almost none of them gave any credit to the independent reporter Jonathan Katz who beat them to it by two days. WaPo actually pretended their guy broke it, and Politico amplified that. It's shameful, and another symptom of broken media. Speaking of broken, there's Mitt Romney, and Bill Maher. We have an explanation for why he turned into an idiot: he reads only the most idiotic political columnists (George Will? Really? I mean other than for baseball?)

C-BLOCK (36:35) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: After the audience for our SOTU special was exceeded by only eight television news operations (each of which has, you know, a news operation) a prominent non-news TV executive asked me why I wasn't back on MSNBC. So I had to tell the Maddow story again. Including the part about the $437 with which I hired her for the network out of my own pocket.

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 137: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: For everybody who doubted the Biden Campaign vision of last night's State of the Union as some sort of seminal re-set moment (like me): we were wrong. Biden's first seven minutes were not only the best public seven minutes of his life but they comprised one of the greatest openings to a SOTU in the nation's history.

He not only dispelled any notion that he is no longer up to the challenge in any way, shape, or form, but he kicked Trump's teeth down his throat (and the teeth of MAGA and the GOP with them). Speaking forcefully, rapidly, confidently, and just this side of angrily, he hit them before they realized the fight had started: on Ukraine, on Putin, on January 6, on J6 Denial, and on every major issue.

If it had been a fight it would've been stopped at seven minutes with Biden's hand raised by the ref. But he went on for a total of 68 minutes and continued to score on every issue. Before the speech only 45% in a CNN poll thought Biden's policies would move the country in the right direction. After it the number hadn't just blown up it had gone nuclear: 62%

I devote this entire episode of the podcast to analyzing the speech and its impact and the impacts still to come, summarized by plagiarizing that line from "When Harry Met Sally." I WILL have what he's having.

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 136: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: What President Biden should say in The State of the Union tonight is, to declare, simply and directly, that of all the threats to the United States of America the greatest of these is Donald John Trump and thus tonight I am declaring The Biden Doctrine. And in sum, my fellow Americans, the Biden Doctrine is this: we must save our country from madness and vengeance and hate and racism and dictatorship, and to save our country from these evils, we must metaphorically kick the ever-loving shit out of Donald Trump.

Instead, the White House expects Biden to deliver a traditional speech that will re-set the campaign. The problem is, it'll be designed for a major event in the life of the nation called The State of the Union that… doesn’t exist any more. 53 million people watched Bill Clinton’s tension-filled post-Lewinsky State of the Union in 1998. That was 20 percent of the population. Last year? Biden had 27 million viewers and not a whole lot of streamers. 

The other problem is, 538 researched Presidential Approval before and after each SOTU since 1978 and the average change in approval is a microscopic 1.9%. The all-time highest was Clinton's 10% gain after he stared down the Republicans post-Lewinsky. If you really do think this is your last chance to fundamentally re-set the race, then gimme The Biden Doctrine. What IS the Biden Doctrine about? The Biden Doctrine is about the greatest threat facing this nation. And what IS the greatest threat to the nation? It’s Trump. It’s Trump’s Cult. It’s Trump’s madness. It’s Trump’s racism. It’s Trump’s desire to be a dictator. It’s Trump’s next coup.

Do it. If they build statues to President Joseph Robinette Biden Junior it will be for saving this nation from Donald Trump. Twice. There is no reason to back away from the easiest to understand accomplishment. There is no reason to hide from what even HE says is the reason he IS running again: to stop Trump and save representative government. Pound the son of a bitch in the ground, like you did at Independence Hall in September ’22. You'll get ten percent approval growth just for THAT.

And don't forget to join me live on YouTube and Twitch right after the speech for the Countdown With Keith Olbermann State of the Union Post-Game Show. Biden starts about 9 ET, I should start around 10. Be there. Aloha.

B-Block (22:59) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Bill Hemmer says because they cut away from Trump's "victory" speeches CNN and MSNBC should drop "news" from their names. Hilariously, last month Fox News... cut away from Trump's "victory" speeches. Politico and 60,000 other news organizations devoted space to a Democratic presidential candidate who got exactly 51 votes on Tuesday. And Elon Musk a) lied about Biden bringing in foreigners to vote b) lied when he called it "treason" c) probably lied about not helping Trump with financing and d) on the other hand, a candidate he opposed this week won by 2 to 1.

C-Block (33:13) THURSDAYS WITH THURBER: They're all brilliantly written. But "The Car We Had To Push" is brilliantly written to be read aloud. One I've never read you before, from his classic book about his childhood in Columbus, Ohio: "My Life And Hard Times."

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 135: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

Haley was winning Vermont, Uncommitted was doing ok but Biden’s worst margin was about 60 points, and once again Super Tuesday is just a brand name.

But the HEADLINE is: the Supreme Court actually HAS left the door open to disqualify Trump from becoming president again. Seriously.

Turns out that many Constitutional Scholars and even some sitting members of the House, think that in its haste to make sure their pimp Trump got on to the ballot yesterday in Colorado, the Court ALSO left the door open to Democrats and disaffected Republicans challenging the validity of a Trump election if god forbid it plays out like that. There is now a debate over the consequences of the court ruling that the Constitution gives ENFORCEMENT of the 14th Amendment “to Congress.”

Practically speaking: Trump wins the electoral college, the Democrats hold the Senate (slightly unlikely) and take the House (very likely), and they are suddenly going to pass new legislation saying Trump is ineligible because he engaged in insurrection in 2021? Well they don’t HAVE to pass new legislation. They already did that, according to this reading, in 2022. It was “The Electoral Count Reform And Presidential Transition Act” designed to clarify the 1887 legislation through whose loopholes Trump tried to run his coup.

The 2022 clarification closed nearly all of those loopholes, limiting what kinds of challenges lawmakers could make to electoral slates already certified by the states. But they left two grounds for objections challenges and one of them reads “the vote of one or more electors has not been regularly given.” THAT phrase was in the 19th Century legislation and it means, any suspicion that an elector was BRIBED to vote, or was like kidnapped and the guy casting the vote wasn’t the REAL elector, or voted on the wrong day, or… the elector voted for somebody who wasn’t eligible.

Oops. Voted… for somebody who wasn’t elllllligggggggible, you say?

It’s not just a can of worms. It’s a FAMILY SIZED can of worms. Thank you Sam Alito!

ALSO: Trump just publicly contradicted his court filing in New York that he didn’t have the $465 million he owes. Asked about coming up with it on Fox, he answered: “I have a lot of money. I can do what I want to do…I don’t worry about money.”

MEANWHILE: It’s mortifying but it may be a quick fix. A Democratic pollster has analyzed the field of potential Biden voters in three swing states and figured out that only 31% of them had even heard Trump’s top ten worst statements about vermin and deportation and dictatorship, because voters are not immersed in politics and people do move on with their lives. The good news is that the moment they HEAR all of them, Trump’s unfavorable score jumps by five points and individual deficits grow from five to nine points. Solution? More ads reminding people Trump is an anti-dictatorial son of a bitch. Like, you know, one in every commercial break on every television channel and streamer every day until the election.

Oh – and emphasizing it in tomorrow’s State of the Union wouldn’t hurt. Did I mention I’ll be on, live, after it, for our Countdown post-game show, on YouTube and Twitch?

B-Block (23:14) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Roger Stone thinks Facebook conspired to stop his astroturf. Axios still hasn’t fixed its LOLworthy story about Trump pivoting. And the appointment of a Hong Kong native here legally on a pre-citizenship visa to the San Francisco Election Commission to help with translating voting materials into other languages has deranged a bunch of fascists who are treating this as if Mao Tse Dong was just named to the Supreme Court. Maria Bartiromo thinks the San Francisco Election Commission is also the Federal Election Commission. And Michigan House candidate Anthony Hudson says we must have laws saying if you don’t speak English you can’t vote. Which’ll be a problem for Anthony because he can barely SPELL English.

C-Block (33:10) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: We had a president of MSNBC, he had been the president of CNN, and among other things he didn’t have cable in his home and apparently hadn’t watched any night-time show on MSNBC for at least a year. He also lied about his height, and he was – legitimately – 6’4”. Who the hell DOES that?

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SEASON 2 EPISODE 134: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) Trump appears to be suffering from a condition called "Fluent Aphasia."

Victims can verbalize intricate long sentences, and appear to be answering questions or making coherent observations. But frequently all they have is the structure and the cadence of coherence; the rhythm of speech. They do not fully understand what they are hearing, cannot convey what they are trying to through speech, and are almost invariably the victims of strokes or head injuries. All attempts to explain "Fluent Aphasia" (or by its formal name, "Wernicke's Aphasia,") use the phrase "Word Salad."

And after a three-day series of speeches in which, on literally dozens of occasions, he said things that SOUNDED like sentences but were not, the evidence is mounting and the problem is accelerating: the Trump word salad is "Fluent Aphasia" and on top of all of Trump's other mental and ethical problems, it is disqualifying.

He cannot be president. His brain literally does not work correctly,

MEANWHILE: “Course I’m respectable,” says John Huston as Noah Cross in Chinatown to Jack Nicholson as Jake Gittes in Chinatown. “I’m OLD. Politicians, ugly buildings and whores all get respectable, if they LAST long enough.” And then there’s what happens when you’re all three of those things - as the Supreme Court and its justices are all three of those things: Politicians pretending to be justices, working in an ugly building, and as Trump relied upon and was proved correct – they’re all whores.

“Because the Constitution makes Congress rather than the states responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal office holders and candidates, we reverse,” reads the Court's decision to not enforce the 14th Amendment denying insurrectionists the right to become president or hold other offices. 9-nothing. Except it DOESN’T do that. Section 3, as conservative scholar after conservative scholar has repeatedly stated, is SELF-enforcing. It is automatic. If you engaged in insurrection, you’re out. If you think you’re being ill-treated, Section 3 provides you an override mechanism: you can get the House AND the Senate to each CLEAR you, each by a two-thirds vote. Period. The constitution says NOTHING about an enforcement responsibility.

The Court betrayed democracy yesterday – again: this time by going faster to help Trump. On presidential immunity, it’s going SLOWER to help Trump. Its members, including Jackson and Kagan and Sotomayor, who before folding, stood up just long enough to wave BYE BYE to representative government, overruled one of the easiest parts of the constitution to understand for the benefit of one corrupt politician. Individually and as an entity they have proved themselves inept at basic reading comprehension. They have proved themselves to be corrupt and illegitimate. Its usefulness and relevance is at an end, and whatever replaces it, the immediate need is obvious: The Supreme Court must be dissolved.

The funny part, of course, is that these idiots have inadvertently given the current sitting president (a Mr. Biden, I believe) a kind of qualified, specific immunity from prosecution in case HE wants to illegally overturn an election.

B-Block (25:50) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Another reporter claims Trump is about to pivot and Trump promptly makes her look like an idiot. Trump's new vaccine promise: I'm here to kill your kids. Trump shortens his National Abortion Ban plan. Jack Smith says no, the DOJ 60-Day Secret Unwritten Rule does NOT apply to cases already filed against Trump. And farewell to my old friend Chris Mortensen go ESPN. (33:50) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Jesse Watters says Biden "licking ice cream" is unmanly and implies he has Alzheimer's. That's before they found the post from five years ago of Watters... licking ice cream. The would-be Republican nominee for governor of Missouri is suing because, he claims, he was only an HONORARY member of the KKK, and Kristin Welker allegedly wins after allegedly graduating from Harvard and allegedly being a White House correspondent and saying Trump "allegedly" tried to overturn the election.

C-Block (41:30) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: My oldest enemy - the one I thought was killed off in the '80s - turns out to be alive and well. My half century battle against "The Auto Train" and its stopped-up toilets of 1972.

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 133: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: What happens if the Supreme Court – I’m sorry – Trump’s newest Super-PAC, John Roberts, Treasurer – takes the next step and not only listens to his shroom-high concept of “presidential immunity” late next month in order to stall his trials – but actually CREATES “presidential immunity.” What ACTUALLY happens TO this country, AT that exact moment?

I still do think the STALL is the POINT; not granting all presidents immunity from all prosecutions for all time. But again, the stall itself raises the question: exactly what the hell do I know? But let me present  this grim silver lining in the form of a rhetorical question. You think about it, I’ll think about it. I’ll address it at length at the start of the new week: What happens to the nature of this country – what happens to the nature of our government – what happens to the nature of the presidency, if the Supreme Court actually rules no president can be prosecuted for official acts? What happens THAT instant? And combine that with not a rhetorical question but a simple factual one. The day the Supreme Court effectively turns the President of the United States into a King… WHO will BE president of the United States?

And could Jack Smith's response to the SCOTUS prosecutorial and electoral interference actually be to indict Ginni Thomas and present John Roberts with an insoluble crisis inside his whorehouse? Plus I don't entirely trust the source, but there is startling polling suggesting the Democrats can turn immigration and border security from their biggest liability to a plus-seven in polling by simply making a big deal out of all the immigration and border security compromises they already agreed to - and acting on whatever they can.

B-Block (16:32) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: A good time to bring you his brilliant array of political commentary disguised as fables with birds and bears in them. And a Peacelike Mongoose.

C-Block (31:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: To conclude Baseball Spring Training Week, I am still startled that the game was once so important that a rival guy went on a rival Los Angeles newscast and insisted that though they had just lost the National League Championship Series, the Dodgers were obligated to...go to a judge and get a court order to play in the World Series anyway!

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 132: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:30) RICHARD, IN MEMORIAM: The day I met Richard Lewis, at a Los Angeles Lakers game in 1989 or 1990, we parted calling each other 'Brother.' It has been like that ever since. I want to tell you about my adopted brother, who despite his on-camera persona of dysfunction and self-absorption was in fact the most loving human being I have ever known. His support, his empathy, his caring, was endless. The total number of brothers and sisters he "adopted" was nearly so. I cannot imagine a world without him.

B-Block (26:48) SPECIAL COMMENT: Of course the Supreme Court stepped in to delay Trump's trial for trying to overthrow the government and erase a valid election. It is comprised by five of Trump's judicial whores. It is yet another reason we must defeat Trump everywhere, including at the polls, so that a re-elected Joe Biden can appoint enough additional justices to the court to make Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett into living waxworks wailing impotently until they die.

The good news about Trump is, simply, that he had to confess in writing that he is not the billionaire he claims to be but for all intents and purposes insolvent and incapable of paying the $465 million fine (with interest) he owes the state of New York. He offered 22% of his debt; the judge rejected it; the full appeals court almost certainly will, and if it actually leads to practical bankruptcy, that will kill Trump.

And there was a hidden germ of good news inside Trump's underperformance in Michigan on Tuesday night. The former executive director of the state GOP there says ONE county result convinces him Trump - no matter what happens to Biden and protests and anything else - CANNOT win Michigan in November.

Of course you didn't read that in The New York Times or the WaPo or see it on CNN or anywhere else because if there were any remaining doubts, they're gone now. There is a difference between "facts" and "truth." Telling the truth means blowback and controversy and having to stay late in the office. So our legacy media, as we saw again in Michigan, will hide behind meaningless "facts" and perfect its cowardice.

C-BLOCK (49:30) With Richard Lewis at The 92nd Street Y in New York in April 2008, and on Countdown on MSNBC a few days later.

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 131: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump under-performs AGAIN, falling short of polling by at least 17 points in the Michigan Republican. And Biden OVER-performs AGAIN, and so does the “Uncommitted” protest votes against his Israel-Gaza policy, in what is looking like a gentle rebuke in the Michigan Democratic Primary.

PLUS: LEGACY NEWS MEDIA BREAKTHROUGH: After Trump did a hatful of racisms at “The Black Conservative Federation Gala” (the one that had almost no blacks in attendance) the president of ABC News Kim Godwin emailed people on her staff that “these remarks are as racist as they come…mind blowing. Shocking.” Of course they were NOT shocking and Godwin’s response might as well have been “wait – Trump was PRESIDENT?” and that only underscores the media disconnect from the reality of the evil of Trump.

But the headline is: SHE TOOK A STAND and did so in writing, knowing it would get out. She may have had ulterior motives (she’s been dreadful and loathed on the job; she just got another boss appointed above her; she may be trying to stave off dismissal) and they don’t matter. She SAID something – more than her network or any network actually has. It may have moved the needle a bit.

COMER DOUBLES DOWN: You wouldn’t, I wouldn’t. But he and Jim Jordan – with a new jailed witness replacing the first jailed witness as the primary asset in their President Biden Impeachment/Hunter Biden Smear – have doubled down. They’ve subpoenaed Merrick Garland for all of corrupt Special Counsel Robert Hur’s transcripts, videos, etc. If Garland were smart, he’d fight the subpoena and say that of course while it’s being ajudicated, Hur can’t say anything, especially to the House Committee.

Because it would be useful if Democrats began to ask themselves: What dirty trick would a Republican play in this situation. And apply it not just to a subpoena from some whores in Congress, but to the dilemma in Michigan and, for that matter, at the border. Which leads me to a modest proposal: Biden should steal the issue, control the process, and neuter Trump all in one fell swoop. HE should declare HE is building a wall and destroy the feeble minds of 60 million Trumpists.

A wall can be anything more than six inches long.

B-BLOCK (30:08) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Axios slams Biden for having note cards at fundraisers. Then, a Democratic county chairman finds pictures of the Axios reporter and the Axios co-founder reading questions off note cards. A NewsMax host thinks the DHS Secretary can be impeached for breaking not laws, but laws NewsMax would like to see. And besides the foolishness of the GoFundMe to pay the now $466 Million Trump owes the state of New York, there’s a hidden reveal inside the boilerplate at the website that suggests the right may have another “Moms For THAT Kind of Liberty Wocka-Wocka” scandal in its bed.

C-BLOCK (38:38) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Well we started on baseball spring training yesterday. Let’s continue. Let me tell you the tale of day I paid cash to suppress a story that would have rocked the World Series – the most famous pitcher in the game had gotten within inches of a fight, with a fan of his own team, and I made sure… nobody saw the video.

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 7: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump. Friday, Microsoft said the Iranians would try to meddle in the election.  SATURDAY… YOUR campaign computers get hacked - you say. By the Iranians – you say. And you didn't report it to the FBII. Even though it’s by Iran and part of your whole campaign scam, Trump, is that Iran is the root of all evil.  And you didn’t report it to the F-B-I, and you didn’t provide any evidence. Only yesterday, the FBI issued another anonymous, not even a spokesman’s name attached to it, just like that No-He-Was-Too-Hit-By-A-Bullet announcement – gave a clear and compelling picture of the vast team that has fanned out across the country, across the internet, across the world to track down this evil. Quote: “We can confirm the FBI is investigating this matter.” Investigating… who? Investigating… what? Whether they were really hacked? Whether they were really hacked by the Iranians? Whether Trump made it all up? Whether the Trump campaign fell for some sort of phishing by a porn site? Also the material was supposed to hurt Trump? And was leaked to The Washington Post and Politico, which have repeatedly been helping Trump in this campaign?

What's hurting Trump, and which the media is under-reporting, is that his polls are now cratering. Last week The New York Times had Kamala Harris ahead by 4 in each of the Rust Belt States. Now, Bullfinch Group for a site supposedly servicing independent voters: Harris by FOUR in Pennsylvania, by FIVE in Michigan, by NINE in Wisconsin. There's a tie in North Carolina. There's a lead of nearly three points at 538 and of more than half a point at the right-poisoned RCP poll of polls.

And most staggeringly - and most undercovered - from The New York Times: “Two private polls conducted in Ohio recently by Republican poillsters – which Mr. Trump carried in 2020 with 53 percent of the vote – showed him receiving less than 50 percent of the vote against Ms. Harris in the state, according to a person with direct knowledge of the data.”

Holy crap. 

B-Block (31:40) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The unaided ease by which that Turkish guy won a shooting medal at the Olympics has the inevitable side effect. 27% of Brits tell pollsters that if they started now THEY could make the 2028 British Olympic team. The aforementioned LaCivita gets blown up by Matt Dowd over Swift Boating. And the tape CNN found from January 6th from the North Carolina candidate to run schools there, Michele Morrow. All it is is a demand that Trump conduct a military coup against then President-elect Biden. (41:50) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: In memory of WCBS Radio, the day its news director validated my entire existence as an aspiring 20-year old broadcaster. The saga of The Adler Letter.

C-Block (50:30) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The Adler Letter and MY legacy of WCBS Radio, Part Two

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 130: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Bob Costas has been my friend for 40 years. He has been one of my closest professional friends for a quarter century.

And now, bluntly, Bob Costas needs to shut the EFF up about Joe Biden.

He has launched this extraordinary campaign - first on HBO with Bill Maher, now on CNN with that toad Michael Smerconish - demanding that Biden and his "hubris" be "shown the door" off the presidential ticket. Bob not only has no idea that such a thing is impossible and even if it were justifiable or smart or legal, it would result in a different candidate who would lose to Trump by ten points.

Bob will hear none of this. I tried, behind the scenes, for two weeks. I failed. And I failed to make it clear to Bob that Trump is ALSO trying to get Biden off the ticket and so that all Bob is accomplishing is - he's doing Trump's work for him.

It's heartbreaking, I'll lose his friendship, but Bob Costas needs to shut the EFF up about Joe Biden (and that goes for Jon Stewart, Ezra Klein, and all the others who like Bob don't realize that we have lots of historical evidence of what happens when the Democrats try to do a Julius Caesar on a sitting president. There are two results: you LBJ him and you get Richard Nixon; or you DON'T completely LBJ him and you only wound him - and you get Ronald Reagan).

Bob. Shut the eff up.

B-Block (29:42) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Oh, nothing, just Joe Biden and his hubris about to get a Gaza Cease Fire while eating ice cream; James Comer's favorite Russian plant will stay in jail so it's "Smirnov on Ice." Kenny The Cheese didn't tell the truth about his plot to overthrow democracy in Michigan; Trump underperformed the polling by EIGHT POINTS in South Carolina (36:52) IN SPORTS: A new explanation for baseball's uniform fiasco; Peter King retires; one of the unheralded heroes of baseball - Jim Hannan - passes away. (42:07) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: It took FIVE NBC reporters to claim Trump is about to "pivot?" Van Jones speaks at CPAC; There's a price on Tucker Carlson's head and bluntly it's humiliatingly low.

C-Block (49:10) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: From the vault, it's my Spring Training Preview - for the year 1978!

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 129: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN:

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: The disgraced Special Hunter Biden Counsel is so terrified about what could happen next to the Russian Plant/FBI "Informant" Alexander Smirnov that he had him RE-arrested yesterday, in a different state, in a second and very unusual bid to deny Smirnov bail.

A senior Republican congressman is so terrified (and enraged) about what could happen next to Smirnov that HE has broken ranks and confirmed that Jim Jordan and James Comer knew from the start that Smirnov's "Form 1023" stank and hadn't been corroborated and Smirnov had more red flags than a May Day Parade - and lied to the public anyway and nearly fulfilled Vladimir Putin's desire to see a president impeached eight months before the American election, and his son imprisoned.

But the Attorney General Merrick Garland - who was so lazy and incompetent that when they brought Smirnov's fabrications to him he fell for them and appointed the Special Counsel anyway - is HE terrified or enraged about what could happen next to Smirnov?

Nope.

He's done nothing. While another Russian-Republican plot to alter the outcome of the election has played out almost entirely in public view. This is largely Merrick Garland's fault. If he doesn't suspend the Biden Counsel, David Weiss, and if he doesn't appoint a new one immediately to grill Comer and Jordan and Weiss and all the others, President Biden must fire him. We're under attack here. It's another coup attempt. It seems to link to Trump or at least Russia's desire to return Trump to power. And Garland is trying to clean his glasses.

And it is absolutely true that this is the most important political story of the moment, and it needs to be framed as Brian Beutler framed it: What did the Republicans know, and when did they know it?

B-Block (22:00) IN SPORTS: Meet Auston Matthews, the Mike Trout of Hockey. It's 44 years since the US beat Russia at the Lake Placid Olympics (I'll report from 1980) and the extraordinary revelation by my friend Jack Edwards, play-by-play man of the Boston Bruins. (30:17) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: C-PAC is back so the Nazi loonies are loonier than ever: Charlie Kirk, Jack Posobiec, General Flynn, Matt Schlapp say stuff like "this is where we end Democracy," and "I'd like to see television killings of Trump's opponents" and "Trump is still president."

C-Block (38:00) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: You guys! I have now MET Smiles the Bernese! (38:35) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: a collection of his very political, still very relevant Political Fables: “The Mouse Who Went To The Country,” “The Very Proper Gander,” “The Moth And The Star,” “The Owl Who Was God,” “The Birds And The Foxes,” “The Peacelike Mongoose.”

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 128: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: I think this fraudulent FBI 'whistleblower' who was arrested after confessing to making up the Hunter Biden story - Alexander Smirnov - the one who admitted the story was being spread by people connected to Russian intelligence? 

I think he's flipping.

I think there is one thin reed of evidence supporting what I admit is a hunch. Maybe a second one.

More importantly, maybe, I think this man David Weiss who was - until Smirnov's story collapsed - the Special Counsel PROSECUTING Hunter Biden, has also flipped, and now intends to prosecute everybody who turned him into a Russian stooge, two steps removed. And I think he and Smirnov are going to take down at least the scum on the lower levels of the Russian Ring in this country (more likely the Russian operatives themselves, maybe James Comer, but just possibly running up the ladder to Jordan and Sean Hannity and, please God, Trump).

But we're going to need a new Special Prosecutor to round all of the big names up. And a Senate Judiciary investigation on how this sack of crap was turned into the prosecution of the president's son, and the attempted impeachment of the sitting president. In an election year. At the direction of Vladimir Putin.

We've been invaded again. And the Russians didn't need to shoot or bomb their way in here. Because all the Comers and Greenes and Jordans and Grassleys and Hannitys and Trumps just opened the doors for them. And may they burn in hell for doing so.

Because I think Smirnov is flipping.

B-Block (26:25) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The Republicans select a California banker as their Wisconsin Senate candidate who's so non-Wisconsinian that in his introductory commercial he never SAYS which state he's running in. Jon Stewart is going to bothsides us into prison camps - and how DARE he attack Mary Trump. And how dare a Biden National Security Council spokesperson blame the betrayal of Ukraine on CONGRESS. It is the REPUBLICANS who did this. You are paid to say the truth - do your damn job.

C-Block (33:25) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I've played this before. I needed the laugh again. It's the most joyous soccer story of all time: the ESPN Soccer Breakdown Tape.

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 127: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: I have argued for NINE YEARS that it is essential for the media to actually CALL the crazy shit Trump says “crazy shit” all the time. I have argued for FIVE YEARS that Joe Biden should CALL the crazy shit Trump says “crazy shit.” And it’s like I’ve been talking to the wind.

And then, yesterday afternoon, from the White House lawn, CNN’s senior correspondent there quoted sources saying the President has directed his senior campaign staff to focus on Trump’s inflammatory comments, especially “THE CRAZY SHIT TRUMP SAYS IN PUBLIC.” No bleeping, no euphemisms, she said it – deliberately.

Suddenly I feel like I’m not alone!

This is the easiest way to beat Trump is to quote Trump and the easiest way to break through the numb-to-it-all white noise permitting Trump to survive as a public figure is to get angry about it, angry enough for… the CNN White House correspondent to say “the crazy shit that Trump says.” Live. From the White House lawn. At mid-day.

Today, “The crazy shit that Trump says.” Tomorrow… the F-word!

I want CNN to talk like that, I want Biden surrogates to talk like that, I want the presidentto go and talk like that. I want to hear the phrase “the crazy shit that Trump says” said by Joe Biden in the State of the Union, right after “Thank you Mr. Speaker.” I want it to have to be broadcast 100 times that night on 100 different channels and I want to see the right wing pundits stage phony strokes and umbrage at his locker room talk because he says it and I want it played again and again and again because IT’S… THE… TRUTH!

Meanwhile, in what should shock no one: The supposed FBI whistleblower in the Hunter Biden case – the man who is at the center of the James Comer/Jim Jordan/Chuck Grassley/Donald Trump smear job against him and the president? – the one they ARRESTED last week for lying TO the FBI? Alexander Smirnov? He has now told investigators Quote: “that officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing” the fabrications about Hunter Biden.

Dramatic, yes. Two caveats: a) he WAS arrested for lying and b) that phrase “officials associated with Russian intelligence” now applies to about 90 percent of the Republican party.

B-Block (17:29) IN SPORTS: Congratulations, Nashville and Salt Lake City. You’re getting major league baseball expansion teams. Unfortunately you won’t be getting them any earlier than 2032, according to ESPN. And the actor who played one of the legendary figures in the legendary Paul Newman hockey film “Slap Shot” has died. I’ll say goodbye to Paul D’Amico, so fierce-looking as “Captain Hook” that they modeled the comic book character Wolverine after him. (22:52) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: A Republican Florida state legislator has introduced a bill that experts believe will put Florida right-wing media out of business (thank God these people are that stupid); Senator Mike Lee’s petition to get them to actually have an impeachment trial of Secretary Mayorkas earns only thirteen signatures; and Elon Musk’s crapshack website bans and then suddenly unbans Alexei Navalny’s widow. Well, Elmo’s name does constitute half of the word “Muscovite,” doesn’t it?

C-Block (28:35) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Before Black History Month ends, let’s take the opportunity to tell the true story of the man who broke the color line in major league baseball. He was NOT Jackie Robinson. He was not even Fleet Walker. His name was William Edward White, he played in the National League in 1879, and for whether he couldn’t acknowledge his accomplishment or simply chose not to, he never did.

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 126: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: How many times would YOU be permitted to threaten mass violence if you didn’t get your way before Homeland Security came and dragged your ass, off somewhere? I think Trump is now in triple digits. It’s time to drag him off. “All political prosecutions of your favorite president, me, must stop immediately… this is election interference and must be immediately stopped… Our country will not stand for it.”

This is the by-now standard Trump stochastic threat: if the government does not bend to my will my supporters will kill you all. It’s megalomania and as often as he does it and as dulled as we become to it, it’s unspeakably dangerous. It is not just shouting fire in a crowded theater, it’s shouting fire in a crowded theater full of gun-crazed nutjobs. And I’ll go back to my first point here: how often would YOU get away with it? 

Oh by the way, I think he also has to stop with this nauseating “your favorite president – me” schtick. If you hadn’t heard – in the new Presidents’ Day poll of 154 historians, Trump was again ranked the worst president ever, with only half the marks of the next-worst, James Buchanan.

PLUS: The Biden Campaign "re-set?" Knock it out of the park at The State of the Union. Good - but how about a million ads simply stating Trump WILL INSTITUTE A NATIONAL ABORTION BAN?

And the story of the day: I don’t know how the hell you could’ve missed this but  a 22-page report on the trial of a Union civilian employee during the Civil War who defended himself with a pocket-knife, produces the astonishing fact that in 1864 Abraham Lincoln PARDONED Joe Biden’s great great grandfather. The best part? "In imploring Lincoln to pardon him, the friends of Moses J. Robinette, described him as “ardent and influential… in opposing traitors and their schemes to destroy the government.”

Talk about destiny!

B-BLOCK (22:30) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: No, I don't know how a woman I lived with for three years wound up telling the audience for her MSNBC show how a man who tried to get the crowds at his rallies to kill her, wound up an "icon" in her eyes, and why she asked if it were "fair" to prosecute him - but I have a theory. The Self-Destruction of Katy Tur. (32:53) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Two guys having sex atop a moving New York subway train gives me the chance to quote the subway spokesman who preceded me as sports director of WVBR radio at Cornell, Tim Minton. Brian Kilmeade does a stupid, and spells it wrong. And the perfect joke about the Trump Sneakers.

C-BLOCK (39:17) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: 40 years ago this month I was beginning the shortest, weirdest job I ever had. And by coincidence I had to re-tell the story over the weekend. The Short Unhappy Boston Career of Keith Olbermann.

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BULLETIN: SEASON 2 EPISODE 125: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:40) BULLETIN: Russia's most vital and most vociferous opponent of Vladimir Putin and his dictatorship and international terrorism, Alexei Navalny, has died at a prison near the Arctic Circle.

Putin killed him.

Trump helped.

The Republican Party helped.

By coincidence, Navalny's wife - now his widow - was speaking at the Munich Security Conference this morning, as was Vice President Kamala Harris. Both of them spoke. The Vice President stated bluntly "Russia did this." Mrs. Navalny said she believed the day would come sooner than Putin would be punished for what he did, and urged world leaders to hasten that day.

Putin invaded Ukraine - again - a year and one week ago, next Saturday. His useful idiots in this country, from Trump to Marjorie Greene to Tucker Carlson, must be held responsible. And the President must fulfill his 2021 warning to Putin that if Navalny died, the consequences to Russia would be terrible.

They must start with the transfer of the $300,000,000,000 in Russian assets seized after the attack on Ukraine, to the Ukrainian government. We must spend Putin's money to destroy him.

(The rest of this bulletin is a repeat of Friday's regular edition of Countdown) 

(14:00) SPECIAL COMMENT: The Stormy Daniels Trump Trial will start as scheduled on March 25. The attempt to derail the Georgia 11,780 Votes Trial is bloodied but unbowed when the witness claiming the DA is lying about her relationship can't remember when she found out or who told her, and is a disgruntled ex-employee. The fine in the Trump Financial Fraud Trial should come today.

And that ISN'T the Trump legal headline. The meticulous Trump really screwed up last night and posed for a series of photos that defied the first thing all lawyers tell all clients: Whatever you do, DON'T LOOK GUILTY. He not only looks guilty in these shots, he looks like he's already imprisoned.

Plus the Comer/Grassley/Hannity "case" against the Bidens hits a slight bump (the "whistleblower" was just indicted for lying to the FBI - he made it all up) and Robert Hur's "Biden Age Plot" has two new conspirators, and shockingly enough they're both - just like Hur - Trump appointees.

B-Block (38:47) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: What could bring the ever-warring world of baseball together in one quest? Nike. Fans, players, writers, jersey wonks, all agree: new uniforms it's made for 2024 suck. So, of course, does Marjorie Taylor Greene and after that hearing yesterday nobody knows that better than she does. And the mild, modest Associated Press produces the worst Bothsidesist headline of the month.

C-block (45:00) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: Back to the beginnings. Back to the story I heard William Windom recite in 1977 and hoped someday I could emulate him. Thurber's impeccable story of madness just beneath the surface: "A Box To Hide In."

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 124: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) The Stormy Daniels Trump Trial will start as scheduled on March 25. The attempt to derail the Georgia 11,780 Votes Trial is bloodied but unbowed when the witness claiming the DA is lying about her relationship can't remember when she found out or who told her, and is a disgruntled ex-employee. The fine in the Trump Financial Fraud Trial should come today.

And that ISN'T the Trump legal headline. The meticulous Trump really screwed up last night and posed for a series of photos that defied the first thing all lawyers tell all clients: Whatever you do, DON'T LOOK GUILTY. He not only looks guilty in these shots, he looks like he's already imprisoned.

Plus the Comer/Grassley/Hannity "case" against the Bidens hits a slight bump (the "whistleblower" was just indicted for lying to the FBI - he made it all up) and Robert Hur's "Biden Age Plot" has two new conspirators, and shockingly enough they're both - just like Hur - Trump appointees.

B-Block (27:05) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: What could bring the ever-warring world of baseball together in one quest? Nike. Fans, players, writers, jersey wonks, all agree: new uniforms it's made for 2024 suck. So, of course, does Marjorie Taylor Greene and after that hearing yesterday nobody knows that better than she does. And the mild, modest Associated Press produces the worst Bothsidesist headline of the month.

C-block (33:30) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: Back to the beginnings. Back to the story I heard William Windom recite in 1977 and hoped someday I could emulate him. Thurber's impeccable story of madness just beneath the surface: "A Box To Hide In."

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SEASON 2 EPISODE 123: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: The Kansas City Super Bowl Parade shooting took place on the sixth anniversary of the Parkland shooting. And it took place on the sixteenth anniversary of the Northern Illinois University shooting. And two days ago was the anniversary of the Michigan State shooting. And next Monday will be twelve years since Alabama-Huntsville and two years since Portland and seventeen since Bethel Alaska and and and...

We are here because mass shootings - and the bullshit about "Good Guys With Guns" and "equip the police better" - are the backbone of the gun industry and the politicians and judges and states it owns. And so we will have to financially break the backs of that industry and those politicians and judges and states. Because now it's them or us.

B-Block (23:05) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: A match made in TV Old Age Heaven: NewsNation hires Geraldo. Rep. Greg Murphy implies Vice President Harris is stupid - and mispronounces her name. And if the latest January 6 arrested suspect is named Method, the joke is inevitable.

C-Block (29:15) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I offered Netflix ownership of the news industry. Its leaders worried only about the subtitles, and what would happen if one day the shows didn't upload. Seriously.

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 122: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) BREAKING: The Democrats have flipped the Kitara Ravache Memorial Special Congressional Election in the New York 3rd. It's not a bellwether. It won't even be the same district a year from now. But Tom Suozzi not only took back the seat lost to "George Santos," he completely overshadowed the WhoreHouse Republicans' performance art impeachment last night of Secretary Mayorkas.

(3:47) SPECIAL COMMENT: For once Politico aptly describes it: "The Biden Age Plot." Disgraced Special Counsel Robert Hur and House Republicans aren't just looking to have Hur testify on a topic about which he has no expertise, but they intend to have "Biden's Age" be the 2024 version of Benghazi: hearings, controversy, press conferences, witnesses, transcripts, subpoenas for weeks or even months. 

It's enraging but it reveals the GOP's terror: it is willing to risk bringing up Trump's age, Trump's bad mental health, and especially Trump's stolen documents - the actually stolen ones for which he will stand trial eventually. There are two possible Democratic responses. The first is for Attorney General Garland to squelch testimony and leave the Republicans with only one note rather than a hatful of phony storylines. The second is for the Democrats to hoist the GOP on its own petard, and to conduct a Senate investigation to whether Hur and the House Republicans conspired for him to write his editorialization about Biden before he submitted his report.

There is a sidebar to the entire "Biden's Age" crap. When you hear 77-year old Chris Wallace or 72-year old Maureen Dowd or even 61-year old Jon Stewart say "he's too old" there is a second half to that sentence that they never say aloud. "HE'S too old, and that proves I'M not." The personal fear and memento mori are a huge component. 

And there IS a response and, happily, the Biden Campaign seems to have just figured it out this week.

B-BLOCK (22:11) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Sean Hannity averaged 1.25 Hunter Biden stories per show last year and now the House has dropped the Hunter Biden performance art. A New York Times reporter explains the internal rationalization for bothsidesism: Biden Hasn't Done A Q&A With Us Recently. And gone but not forgotten: Chris Cillizza and the RFK Jr Super Bowl Commercial.

C-BLOCK (29:20) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: My friend Andrew Blauner needs your help to get his 2-1/2 year old Bernese Mountain Dog Smiles treatment for lymphoma. (31:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: It's 44 years ago TODAY when my nascent broadcasting career nearly ended atop a mountain at the 1980 Winter Olympics, all because my bosses had decided to teach me the night before how to drink.

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 121: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) Apparently having not done enough of the bidding of the creature who appointed him, Trump stooge and corrupt Special Counsel Robert Hur is negotiating with two House Committees to testify and/or provide transcripts of his interview with the president before the end of the month. If Merrick Garland will not invoke DOJ rules to prevent this, Biden must fire Garland and replace him with an Attorney General with an actual spine.

And NBC and ABC need to fire everybody involved in the scandals at Meet The Press and This Week, in which the conclusion so obvious even Hur had to report it - that there was no evidence Biden willfully retained or shared classified documents - was reversed and both Kristen Welker and Jon Karl reported that Hur HAD found such evidence. It was the same as taking the verdict "NOT GUILTY" and reporting it as "...GUILTY" Welker and Karl and the producers and executives above them must be fired.

And having had the editorializing door cracked open for them by Hur's willingness to assess Biden's memory even though he's not only not a neurologist, he's barely a lawyer, the media is running with the idea that, as Politico put it, Hur may have forced the Democrats' hand to switch to a "Plan B" instead of Biden. 

"Plan B" assumes a lot of things: like Trump won't seize upon it, like Biden would agree to it, like there IS a perfect alternative, like everybody else who isn't the chosen perfect alternative is going to NOT try to take the nomination anyway, like there has been any evidence of Biden failing at any actual task or presidential function - and most importantly like there's any other candidate who would actually BE a better candidate than Joe Biden - no matter his real, imagined, or As-Seen-On-ABC-and-NBC flaws.

I'll War-Game the possible outcomes. They're ALL worse than leaving things as is.

B-Block (32:45) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Trump beats the SCOTUS deadline and is still beating the "Presidential Immunity" dead horse. It is increasingly clear the DOJ will have to move to take the Florida documents case away from Judge Cannon. And the plan is out of the bag: Trump will again service Putin - his plan is to cut off Ukraine funding on January 20 of next year.

C-Block (38:10) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Part of the Plan B disaster creeped into my consciousness when a friend of four decades' duration went on the Bill Maher SleazeWeasel Show and declared that if Biden won't stand aside he must be pushed. This is all too much for me. Twice I had my chance to push Maher and I blew it.

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SERIES 3 EPISODE 6: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: There's no other word for it.

Collapsed.

Trump's poll numbers have collapsed.

Poll numbers collapse all the time – relatively speaking; measured across the arc of American political history. If they had had them in 1864, ABE LINCOLN’S poll numbers would have collapsed. But I do not think that any other presidential candidate’s poll numbers have collapsed, this late, this fast, after this much of a twin honeymoon of a convention and a failed assassination attempt.

Ipsos Polling: Harris by FIVE, 42-37, last surveys taken Wednesday. In the July 23rd Ipsos poll it was Harris by three, 37-34. Ipsos Repeat Polling (same respondents as last poll) of the Big Seven Swing States: Harris by TWO, 50 to 48… that’s Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The LAST Ipsos poll of the SAME voters in these states, also concluded July 23rd it was Trump by THREE.

MARQUETTE LAW SCHOOL also released its national results very early Thursday Morning and among likely voters it’s Harris 50 Trump 42 – Harris by EIGHT. Everybody has their own criteria for “likely voters” so if you drop to just registered voters it’s still Harris by SIX. Most intriguing: among independent voters where Marquette has her head by 60 to 40. TWENTY points among Independents.

What we are seeing as of THIS moment is exactly why this unprecedented move: changing horses not mid-stream but mid-tightrope was attempted. To get these results. And nobody, NOBODY, expected them this fast. NOBODY. Which leads me into the second thing I mentioned previously and I mentioned it on Wednesday July 24th and before I mentioned it I took a deep breath and asked myself do you really want to mention this already but I did and I repeat it: I have been thinking since no later than (hours after President Biden dropped out) that there will come a point, this year, this election, maybe this MONTH, where we will all be saying “Can you believe we came THIS CLOSE to not making Vice President Harris the nominee?” I’m not building the Joe Saved Democracy Again statues quite yet. But I am beginning to think of maybe what they kinda could LOOK like.

AND IS ANYBODY GOING TO DO OR WRITE ANYTHING about Trump's Health Crisis?

His “news conference” was, objectively, twice as bad, FOUR times as bad, as the President’s performance at the debate. Throughout, it bordered on – and often crossed the line INTO – fugue state. 

And this got no headlines. 

Trump always SOUNDS like he doesn’t know where he was. This time he also LOOKED like he didn’t know where he was. Can’t convey that on a podcast: when a question came from the right side of the room he looked frightened as if he had just discovered there WAS a right side of the room. He looked lost. More shockingly, perhaps, he looked pale.

The New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, Axios, ABC, NBC and CBS had NO front page stories about the demented nature of his performance yesterday. Within an hour of its conclusion. Each hid behind his vague commitment to debates. Axios, incredibly, LED with “Vice President Harris still hasn’t given an interview or taken questions from voters since she became a presidential candidate…”

B-Block (24:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: A former mediocre football player named Marcellus Wiley claims Democrats are trying to bribe celebrities like him to support them (like him?) Trump makes up a story about Biden trying to seize back the nomination; his social media whore Dan Scavino posts 'I hear Biden is trying to seize back the nomination.' Elon Musk posts a fake London newspaper headline claiming there are going to be internment camps for conservatives (I WISH). Dear UK: what is the point of HAVING a Tower of London if you're not gonna use it?

C-Block (34:50) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: The most amount of action in the smallest amount of space in any Thurber story. His impeccable tale of one hour of confusion in his childhood home: "The Night The Bed Fell."

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 120: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: OK which atrocity do you want to get enraged about first?

The fact that yesterday I began by saying “today we begin to find out if we still have a Constitution” and turns out, sorry, I guess we don’t – and the three liberal justices are complicit in that?

Or, the fact that a partisan hack appointed by Trump managed to turn his nothing-burger investigation of Biden and the returned documents into Christmas-For-The-Fascists by inserting unwarranted, unjustifiable, indefensible opinions about the president’s memory into it and THAT’S the headline and oh by the way where is the goddamned Attorney General on this?

William Rehnquist's former clerk, Rod Rosenstein's former deputy, and a contributor to The Federalist has enough nerve finding nothing to prosecute but throwing into his report what sounds like a medical opinion about the President's memory but which is really just another Conservative law-breaker whipping out his schlong and putting it on the political scale. But how does the Attorney General let that document leave his department without demanding that irrelevant, unprofessional, indefensible section not be removed?

Fire Merrick Garland. Now. Between this and his negligence in waiting two years to appoint a special prosecutor of Trump, he will bear the second most blame if Trump again seizes power.

Meanwhile at the Supreme Court, disaster as Elena Kagan posits that enforcing the 14th Amendment gives one state the right to decide who the president will be, and Ketanji Brown Jackson falls for the "President is not really an OFFICER" fabrication. The analyst Elie Mystal thinks the vote could be 9-0 for Trump, in which case Kagan, Brown, and Sonia Sotomayor need to resign from the court.

B-Block (23:17) IN SPORTS: Ex-coach Tommy Tuberville blasts Biden's memory and says he needs cues from reporters and 30 seconds later he can't remember the names of the teams and players in Sunday's Super Bowl and needs cues from a reporter. And the Oakland/Las Vegas A's saga worsens, while invoking the Oakland/Denver A's saga of 1977-80. (27:20) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Sarah Palin is back! And can now see Russian propaganda from her house. If every GOP accusation is actually a confession, Charlie Kirk and Marjorie Taylor Greene's theory of anti-impeachment GOP'ers being blackmailed with pedophilia is SOME confession. And of all the idiotic takes on the Robert Hur investigation of Biden, THE dumbest is by Mr. Astead W. Herndon of The New York Bothsidesist Times and CN-Bothesidesist-N.

C-Block (34:32) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: Since this podcast is one of five nominees for the best politics podcast at the upcoming iHeart Podcast Awards, it's fitting to read Thurber's great story of what happened when a rookie went on radio: 
"How To Relax While Broadcasting."

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 119: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Today we begin to find out if we still have a Constitution.

Because the Constitution, in the third clause of the fourteenth amendment, says no person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector, or hold any office, civil or military… who having previously taken an oath as a member of Congress or as an officer of the United States to support the Constitution shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.

It does NOT say that that person has to be CONVICTED of insurrection or rebellion.

It does NOT say that that person has to be disqualified from the ballot by a judge or a legislature or a plebiscite.

It does NOT say that the president is NOT an officer of the United States or that a President is exempt.

It does NOT say that the disqualification of an insurrectionist from being president is any different than is the disqualification of a foreign citizen, nor any different than is the disqualification of a 14-year old, that all of them are self-executing.

It does NOT say that this clause of the constitution can only be enforced if all the voters agree.

It does NOT say that this clause of the constitution can only be enforced AFTER somebody ineligible is elected.

It does NOT say that this clause of the constitution can only be enforced if the insurrectionist’s cult and gangs and militias and stochastic terrorists promise not to threaten civil war. 

It does NOT say that this clause of the constitution can only be enforced if a majority of justices of the Supreme Court can’t make up a bullshit excuse for NOT enforcing it.

It DOES say that this clause of the constitution CAN be overridden if Congress removes the disqualification of an individual by a vote of two-thirds of the House and two-thirds of the Senate.

PERIOD.

I will quote extensively from the two Federalist Society constitutional scholars whose extraordinary research into the 14th Amendment really mainstreamed it: Professors William Baude and Michael Pearson. And I'll quote a third Professor they quote, at the crux of the real argument here: if the Justices should find an excuse to make up some rule to NOT enforce our Constitution out of fear of Trump and violence. From Daniel Epps of Washington University: "The Supreme Court shouldn't rule that Trump is ineligible for the presidency for engaging in insurrection, because if they do Trump will definitely stage an insurrection."

B-BLOCK (20:18) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: If at first you don't impeach, try try again. Next Tuesday, in fact. And meet Valentina Gomez, trying to win the GOP nomination for Secretary of State of Missouri. She too is fed up with book banning. Her platform moves directly to book BURNING. (25:41) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Trump calls Grammy ratings "anemic" even though they exceed his last four hour-long network specials COMBINED. UK's Prime Minister shames himself. As do Tucker Carlson and the very gullible rightwing nut job Juanita Broadddrick.

C-BLOCK (33:30) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Can you help out Guidry's Guardian Foundation? (34:45) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Somebody mentioned he went to a baseball event and got applause and support. So let me tell you about the baseball event at which I found out Rudy Giuliani was nuts. We are approaching its 30th anniversary!

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 118: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: His whores in the House of Representatives led by Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Elise Stefanik have inadvertently admitted that Trump HAS been DISQUALIFIED from being president under the language of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. They have introduced a bill in the House declaring that Trump did not engage in insurrection and J.D. Vance did the same in the Senate and why does that sound SO FAMILIAR?

Oh, right! The final sentence of the 14th Amendment!

"Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.” 

No they’re not CALLING it that; they may not even understand that THAT is what it IS, but they have just introduced measures in the House and the Senate to legally or symbolically enact the Congressional override OF The Disqualification Clause of the 14th Amendment AS PROVIDED IN the The Disqualification Clause of the 14th Amendment. 

And to DO that you are admitting, explicitly or tacitly, that the 14thAmendment APPLIES TO TRUMP. Why declare him “not an insurrectionist” if it doesn’t matter whether anybody CALLS him an insurrectionist?

And the only reason you would actually INTRODUCE such a bill is if you A) were just told that the Supreme Court may very well agree that the Constitution is clear and Colorado is right and Trump is ALREADY disqualified and you had damn well better at least TRY to legislate him OUT of disqualification… OR – more likely - B) if you had just become convinced that all the other phony-baloney arguments saving Trump from disqualification like “he’s not an OFFICER” were falling apart and that this battle – in the Supreme Court, or in the legislature of every state of the union – is going to revert back to, is going to BOIL DOWN to, whether or not Disloyalty J. Trump “engaged in insurrection or rebellion or given aid or comfort to the enemies” and you need to give your master something – anything – a fig leaf, a cheeseburger, with which to cover himself for the battle to come.

Maybe a diaper.

ALSO: The DC District Court not only voted unanimously against Trump's hallucination that there is "presidential immunity" but took 57 pages to tell him, thus leaving the Supreme Court almost no way to overrule them. The trial now could start as early as June 1 and should be done no later than October 20. 

House Republicans aren't just schmucks they're fail-schmucks. When they couldn't impeach DHS Secretary Mayorkas Greene blamed the Democrats for "hiding" their votes because of course nobody knows how many Democrats there are in the House. And President Biden did exactly what I suggested, pointed to the border deal, said the Republicans blew it up merely to serve Trump. And then, Nikki Haley agreed with him. 

B-Block (26:25) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Laura Ingraham and Speaker Mike Johnson openly laugh at the idea of paying the members of the Border Patrol more. What WAS Marjorie Taylor Greene doing in the House Men's Room? Tucker Carlson is interviewing Putin because he thinks no other American reporters bothered to. Does this asshole know who Evan Gershkovich is?

C-Block (30:18) MUSICAL PREMIERE: Brian Ray and John Philip Shenale bring you the world premiere of our new Trump Trials Theme "91 Trombones"

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 117: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: When Trump says “there is now a 100% chance that there will be major terror attacks in the USA” he is right and after the weekend and yesterday, now we KNOW WHY he is right and what he means: He means terror attacks BY the Republican Party.

Trump for once is right: terrorism is here, and the terrorists are the Republicans.

The GOP under Trump is now the party of blackmail and extortion and destruction and terrorism: vote for us or we’ll destroy whatever we can get our hands on. Joe Biden agrees to a draconian overreaction to the migration issue that is more than the most xenophobic, most dogmatic Republican Fascist could ever DREAM of living long enough to see actually enacted, and instead of passing it before lunch just in case Biden changes his mind, they have lied about it, and attacked it, and killed it, and exacerbated the EXACT problem they claim to be fighting, and if they are correct IN THE SLIGHTEST about the gravity of the border and immigration situations, they – the Republican Party – THEY will kill Americans. THEY, the Republicans, will be ushering the criminals they claim are seeking a home here. THEY, the Republicans, will be carrying in and distributing the fentanyl they claim the immigrants are all carrying. THEY, the Republicans, will be killing Americans. And then they’ll run on the crisis THEY have caused.

If a foreign country, or a jihadist group, or a re-born Al-Qaeda, or a pack of wild communists managed to interrupt America’s control of her own border, and successfully interfered with America’s financial and military aid to its own allies around the world, and blocked our humanitarian aid to civilian war victims, and infiltrated and radicalized and made into THEIR agents some of our political leaders who then made public promises to derail, and disrupt, and SABOTAGE our Senate and our House and our Government… this nation under the leadership of either political party or a combination of them would immediately use the means provided by our laws of national self-defense… to STOP them. To STOP the terrorists.

Plus: Trump now thinks he's...Elvis?

B-Block (20:15) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: It's all TV News news: CNN blows up the morning again as the new boss damages his staff more than even Licht did. Tucker Carlson is in Moscow because you CAN fool all of the Tucker all of the time. And I think this qualifies as a national security crisis AND a brain drain AND a journalism crisis: reportedly, President Biden has come to rely on the advice of Joe Scarborough, who 30 years ago was loyal to Newt Gingrich and 8 years ago was trying to mainstream Trump and get his Vice Presidential slot and would say anything to anybody if it got him power. Plus, he's turned MSNBC's morning show into the equivalent of Sean Hannity advising Trump. It, and he, stinks.

C-Block (43:00) OOOH A TEASE: Brian Ray and John Philip Shenale are about to debut new music for the show!

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 117: BULLETIN - COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:35) BULLETIN: What was unofficial is now OFFICIAL. Judge Tanya Chutkan has confirmed in court that the start of the Trump Election Subversion/January 6th trial - scheduled for Monday March 4, and the trial thought most likely to bring a conviction against Trump before the election - has been "vacated" - postponed indefinitely pending a resolution of Trump's extra-constitutional bullshit stall, the "Presidential Immunity" fantasy.

Given that 46% of Trump supporters in the swing states say they would be very unwilling to vote for him if he has been convicted, this is more than just a scheduling issue.

What happens next - and when could it happen?

(5:00) SPECIAL COMMENT: TRUMP DC ELECTION SUBVERSION TRIAL POSTPONED. Still officially scheduled for a month from Sunday, it has in fact "fallen off" the Washington Federal Court Calendar and no new date has been set. Even as the District of Columbia and the federal government think of ways to protect the Prettyman Courthouse with metal fencing and street closures (just like right after Trump's January 6 coup), The Washington Post speculates the trial will allow for Trump's trial in New York on the Stormy Daniels Payoff Business Fraud to start next month instead. Either way, Trump's stall has worked. The DC District Appeals Court has yet to rule on his "Presidential Immunity" bullshit and fingers are pointed at the member of the three-judge panel who was appointed by George W. Bush.

ALSO: MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE is the worst person ever to serve in the United States House of Representatives. Her inability to pronounce "indictable" correctly is everything that's wrong with this country today, particularly our refusal to help the chronically stupid to heal themselves. More maddening, Greene has previously claimed a) that dyslexia runs in her family AND b) that her political opponents are "retards."

B-Block (30:34) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Steve Garvey assailed by three kids in an L.A. Times profile (the other 197 love him though). Moms For Liberty actually manages to outdo itself in what we used to call Bluenosing. And the pollster who has defined which group of voters can put Trump over the top: African-American Men With Three Arms.

C-Block (40:32) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: His most famous, most imagination-stimulating work: "The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty."

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 116: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: TRUMP DC ELECTION SUBVERSION TRIAL POSTPONED. Still officially scheduled for a month from Sunday, it has in fact "fallen off" the Washington Federal Court Calendar and no new date has been set. Even as the District of Columbia and the federal government think of ways to protect the Prettyman Courthouse with metal fencing and street closures (just like right after Trump's January 6 coup), The Washington Post speculates the trial will allow for Trump's trial in New York on the Stormy Daniels Payoff Business Fraud to start next month instead. Either way, Trump's stall has worked. The DC District Appeals Court has yet to rule on his "Presidential Immunity" bullshit and fingers are pointed at the member of the three-judge panel who was appointed by George W. Bush.

ALSO: MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE is the worst person ever to serve in the United States House of Representatives. Her inability to pronounce "indictable" correctly is everything that's wrong with this country today, particularly our refusal to help the chronically stupid to heal themselves. More maddening, Greene has previously claimed a) that dyslexia runs in her family AND b) that her political opponents are "retards."

B-Block (22:48) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Steve Garvey assailed by three kids in an L.A. Times profile (the other 197 love him though). Moms For Liberty actually manages to outdo itself in what we used to call Bluenosing. And the pollster who has defined which group of voters can put Trump over the top: African-American Men With Three Arms.

C-Block (34:32) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: His most famous, most imagination-stimulating work: "The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty."

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 115: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Election polls are bullshit.

In the morning came the polls showing Trump ahead by 8 in every swing state. Except the margin of error plus the undecided number is 16.

In the afternoon came the polls showing Biden ahead by 6 in nationally. And Trump beating Haley. But Haley beating Biden. Except the margin of error plus the undecided number is 9. 

I'll explain the "Keith Number" we should always attach to polling, and why polling was once considered unacceptable for inclusion in American TV newscasts, and how I sat there as an MSNBC executive once ordered Frank Luntz to take two polls or do two focus groups to confirm the predetermined outcome he wanted.

Though there WAS one useful "interior number" in that Swing States poll that could augur a Biden landslide.

PLUS: Judge Engoron hasn't revealed the figure, Alina Habba hasn't been fired but what Trump's done to her is much, much, worse. There was performative theater in the Senate social media hearing yesterday but ONE truth was emitted by Senator Tillis. And a bell rang somewhere and three of the most racist things ever said by Republicans were said without hesitation, by a Wisconsin state legislator ("Race Hustlers"), Senator Tom Cotton ('Are you sure you ain't Chinese?') and Nikki Haley, who, asked why she said she got shivers down her spine about the prospect of President Kamala Harris, immediately answered about how President Obama made everything about race.

Pure cracker racism from Nikki Haley.

B-Block (27:47) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Jesse Watters claims brainwashing, which is impossible if you don't have a brain. More racism from Congressman Troy Nehls. And Congressman Derrick Van Orden is so dumb, he's dumber than he was last year.

C-Block (36:08) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: With news of Netflix possibly dropping Harry and Meghan Markle, I have a Netflix story to tell. I offered them the whole of the video news industry and they demanded Italian Subtitles.

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 114: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Because this is the way to overcome a record stock market high, universal employment, and the suspicion that he's an insane treasonous rapist in some kind of mental health crisis who'll be in jail before Inauguration Day, Trump has now declared "Holy War" against... Taylor Swift.

It's SWIFT BOAT '24!

Fear that she will again endorse Biden (to say nothing of a string of self-negating conspiracy theories about fixed Super Bowls and long-term psy-ops) has provoked the fascists to plan to smear the megastar the way Trump has smeared E. Jean Carroll, Hillary Clinton, Judge Chutkan, and every other woman who has ever stood in the way of something he thought life owed him. That the list of women he's treated as not quite human should range from Hillary to Taylor to E. Jean is not a stretch. There are many things desperately mentally wrong with Dementia J. Trump but his virulent antipathy towards women - and the misogynistic cancer he has spread within his cult - is as bad as anything else.

The far right is ready for battle, though. Trump reportedly is confident he's more popular and has more fans and deserved "Person Of The Year" honors more than Swift did. His functional idiot Jack Posobiec has gotten up in front of people and said no, the Trump Death Cult may not have Taylor Swift, but it has Kid Rock and Ted Nugent! And then he ran out of names and somebody shouted "and Jon Voight!" and clearly like me, he was surprised to discover that Jon Voight is still with us.

B-Block (22:15) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: More details from the latest "Moms For Liberty" scandal: the head Moms For Liberty plied her "favorite" underaged boy with liquor than sat on his lap - at her daughter's birthday party, prosecutors allege. (27:31) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The New York Times and The Athletic just hired away a dishonest Sports TV/Business reporter. Maria Bartiromo thinks DEI killed the servicemen in Jordan (or was she thinking about DUI) and Elon Musk does nothing as a clown named Shawn McBreairty doxxes a Secretary of State ON Twitter-X.

C-Block (30:44) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Speaking of misogyny, did I ever tell you about the future president of MSNBC insisting to me that they'd never hire Rachel Maddow because the audience would never accept a WOMAN doing the POLITICAL NEWS!

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 114: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SURPRISE! A decade ago, conservative icon Justice Antonin Scalia issued a Supreme Court opinion in which he declared - and reiterated to two stunned conservative attorneys - that the President of the United States IS an OFFICER OF THE UNITED STATES. Thus the man who Trump called one of "the greatest Americans to ever live" has already destroyed Trump's only argument that he cannot be disqualified for the presidency under the 14th Amendment because the president is NOT an officer of the United States.

Unearthed by Roger Parloff of Lawfire - how, as the cliche goes, is this not the lead story everywhere in the nation? The Scalia ruling and letter (which may itself have been agreed with by Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Alito, and Justice Thomas) destroys Trump's only argument for why the 14th Amendment Disqualification Clause does NOT apply to him and can't be used to kick him off the ballot. Trump insists the president is NOT an "officer." Yet four years ago Trump proposed a garden dedicated to the 30 greatest Americans who ever lived - and Scalia was one of them!

Historians have also found a Senate argument confirming that body agreed that the disqualification clause applied to Presidents, and that it was self-enforcing, and that it was acknowledged as such by everybody from Jefferson Davis to President Andrew Johnson. Also, the Illinois Election Board was to meet today to address the bid there to enforce the 14th.

Also: Trump has now enabled Biden to run on the Bipartisan Border Enforcement and Great Economy platform, while his House lackeys have made DHS Secretary Mayorkas look like the border hardliner of the bunch. On Day 15 of his mental health crisis Trump's mind continues to corrode, and damn but Nikki Haley isn't letting up, and more importantly seems to be having a gas calling Trump unhinged and in decline EVERY SINGLE DAY.

B-Block (22:32) IN SPORTS: The Clay Travis Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce/Super Bowl/Joe Biden conspiracy theory has now been disproved. It has been replaced by the Vivek Ramaswamy Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce/Super Bowl/Joe Biden conspiracy theory. And why Bill Belichick going to do TV football could be the greatest move since John Madden did it. (29:36) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Charlie Kirk defames one of the Central Park Five while trying to dig himself out from having already defamed him; Elise Stefanik scrubs her website; South Dakota Governor (former South Dakota Snow Queen) Kristi Noem thinks the Constitution is a treaty signed between the 13 Colonies and Texas.

C-Block (36:51) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: In memory of the late Red Sox, Astros, and Blue Jays' manager Jimy Williams, the saga of the day I was thrown off the field at Fenway Park and directed to sit next to Yankee owner George Steinbrenner who promptly joined me on the Fox game broadcast and accused Williams of trying to instigate a riot during the game.

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SEASON 2 EPISODE 113: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Since Nikki Haley refused to enslave herself after he defeated her in New Hampshire Tuesday, Trump has lost what little remained of his damned mind. He is now running on a novel platform: "Trump 2024: EFF AMERICA!" He wants to crash the economy, leave the borders open so (he says) terrorists can pour in. Yesterday a resolution was floated to the RNC to effectively cancel the remaining 48 Republican primaries and declare Trump the nominee NOW. Even though the GOP rules require 1,215 delegates for nomination and he has exactly 32.

Moreover, one of the underappreciated ratfinks of the fascist push in America for a quarter century, David Bossie of the Clinton Hunt and Citizens United, is the Committeeman who has actually introduced a resolution subverting what passes for democracy within the GOP, to the Republican National Committee.

Last night Trump made a big deal of saying he doesn't want this, that he wants "to do it the old fashioned way" and guess what? I think he's lying. He wants it - he just doesn't want to be seen as being BEHIND it.

So if it happens, does Nikki Haley then sue? She certainly hasn't shrunk away from challenging Trump. He threatened to blacklist her donors? She tweeted the news and attached a link TO donate to her campaign! She's clearly aware that unlike almost any other Republican since 2016, she has destabilized him, and threatened him back.

How far will she go? Especially since Trump's desire to blow-up the border deal may have created an anti-Trump bloc among Republican Senators who might serve as a Haley base of support.

B-Block (22:36) IN SPORTS: A college athlete illegally betting on his own school's games at a legal betting site? How'd EVER have expected that? And why it doesn't matter whether he bet for or against his own team. Plus Jim Harbaugh's new job lets me tell the story of the filming of the ESPN commercial Dan Patrick and I did with him (28:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Surprise! The January 6th Sprinter, Josh Hawley, is suddenly Senator Socialism! Rep. Ralph Norman, unrepentant insurrectionist and Kaitlin Collins who didn't call him on it. And led by the last GOP nominee for governor of New York, and resident Fox stooges Typhoid and Greg Guttersnipe, decide it's ok to now use the "R-word" on TV, never realize they'd be the first three guys you'd use it to describe.

C-Block (34:35) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: I was talking about my Dad again yesterday and almost immediately I was reminded of HIS favorite Thurber story. So I offer it to you today: "I Went To Sullivant."

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SERIES 3 EPISODE 5: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Thank the lord for J.D. (J.V.) Vance. Even if you're atheist or agnostic, thank somebody. It is a given that they should have Tim Walz make ten speeches a week, every warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse, and doghouse. But Democrats should also anonymously flood the Trump campaign with the succinct and anonymous message: SEND MORE JD VANCE!

Vance has launched, twenty years after, a new version of the anti-John Kerry Swiftboat Campaign against Walz, a man who served in the military for 24 years. Falsely accused him of "stolen valor" because he retired before his unit was ordered to Iraq. And he’s not only done so while being the running mate of a draft dodger. He's done so when his own role in the military was: Marine Correspondent. Brian Williams in uniform. 

As late as 2010 he was publicly supporting Iraq, now says he fell for George W. Bush’s propaganda about Iraq. Means that Public Affairs Colonel J.D. Vance was a propagandist. By his own definition. Brian Williams in a uniform.

After that disaster, and a clumsy stunt in which he portrayed himself as a creepy weirdo trying to get on the Vice President's plane, they gave Vance the chance to push back on the thing that allowed Tim Walz to burst out of the gate Monday: that he's happy and voters want at least some happy. Asked what makes him happy, he was asked. He promptly berated the reporter and said he was angry.

Never change, Dude. You're the worst.

ALSO of note: more polls, from Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, showing an eight point swing from Trump to Harris in a little over two weeks. Eight. Points.

B-Block (25:33) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Critics of the Paris Olympics, please meet Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo. She has a lovely bouquet of F-Bombs for you. Philly radio man Howard Eskin hasn't been fired after "unwanted kiss" and I haven't gotten over something he did to me in 1980. And Valentina "Gun Moll" Gomez didn't win the Fascist Primary for Secretary of State in Missouri. In fact she didn't even finish Top Five!

C-Block (36:52) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: It was such a dumb move that the other executives at MSNBC actually thought it was a practical joke. And then they found out the only joke was on them. NBC is known for its ability to erase people from its past but nobody has been erased more than the ex-host who was inexplicably promoted to General Manager in 2006 (and then stripped of power about a week later).

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SEASON 2 EPISODE 112: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Yes. I think that's the lead story. And I don't even LIKE Jon Stewart. But it's time to recognize that we are at war. It is, for now at least, a war being conducted almost entirely inside the media world, and here's a prayer that it stays contained within those walls. But if it is, the forces of democracy need all the fighters we can find. And Stewart - who has been mad at me since 2003 and once accused me of "stealing his act" - going back to host The Daily Show at least once a week and be the Executive Producer all the other days, at least through the election, is welcomed news. For that matter, I hope it inspires Maddow - who has been mad at me since 2011 - to be on the air more often at MSNBC.

Meanwhile, I have had absolutely enough of "5 Takeaways From The New Hampshire Primary." Not only is the premise hackneyed, but The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, CNN, The Hill, and Agence France Presse all used EXACTLY THAT TITLE for their versions. And all of them left out the real takeaways: Trump needed to pretend to be a human being and instead lashed out in a rage against Nikki Haley that is now continuing into a third day and last night extended to Trump threatening to "ban" from MAGA anybody who contributes to her campaign (sure - he won't take somebody else's money; his least convincing lie yet). His fuse is completely gone. He also has now claimed he defeated the sitting governor of Iowa, I guess in the primary there, and near as I can find no sitting governor of Iowa has sought the Republican presidential nomination since 1912 so maybe whatever he has, has just moved into the tertiary stage.

Plus: CNN's shame. Its 10 PM the anchor - the one it preempts once a week to instead run Charles Barkley - condescendingly parroted the right wing talking point that nobody in America wants Joe Biden. She should be fired, but given her ratings, they can do something worse to her: force her to continue doing her show.

B-Block (25:04) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Frank Farian, the evil genius behind "Milli Vanilli," is dead. Until I read his obituary, I had NO idea that the scam came apart when a record skipped... in BRISTOL, CONNECTICUT. NewsNation is not satisfied with you not watching it on TV. Now it wants you to also not listen to it on radio. And the Maryland State Senate - led by Democrats - is trying to explain how the new member of the State Board of Elections just got arrested as a January 6th Insurrectionist.

C-Block (32:11) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: With the Abby Phillip Right Wing Talking Point and CNN's continuing lurch rightwards - even under new post-Lichtian management - I think it's time to remind you that ALL the cable news networks have already had THE meeting and tried THE lurch to the right. At MSNBC it was 20 years ago and it was highlighted by the attempt to mainstream a homophobic racist named Michael Savage, and how the President of NBC was enraged when Savage crossed the line and had to be fired.

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 111: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump has never been truer to himself than after his solid but unspectacular victory over Nikki Haley in New Hampshire last night. His toadies like Marjorie Taylor Greene were whining within 10 minutes of the closing of the polls that the tally had been rigged against him. And he overshadowed his own victory by getting up and sweating through an angry, petty, vindictive "victory" speech in which he once again resorted to stochastic threats against Haley, this time promising he could reveal enough about her to get her investigated by "them."

President Biden, meanwhile, won a non-primary primary in which he wasn't even on the Beauty Pageant Ballot, and he still got about 67% of the votes. And new polling in Pennsylvania - showing him up +8 over Trump there - was probably yesterday's REAL biggest presidential race story.

Meanwhile it's Day 9 of Trump's Dementia Crisis. Not only are other Republicans noticing he's making less sense and seeming less present every day, but Trump is now blithering his way through teleprompter speeches and making sound effects on camera - all of which can be neatly folded into Biden Campaign Commercials.

And while Jamie Combover's impeachment theater may be coming to the end of its run, there's a sudden revival of the Matt Gaetz Ethics Investigation in Congress. Plus why the President needs to federalize the Texas National Guard and arrest Governor Greg Abbott - today.

B-Block (21:00) IN SPORTS: Baseball's Hall of Fame elects new members - one too few, or two too many? Beltre was a lock but I have deep doubts about Helton and Mauer. And look out, another MLB team will be forced to wear those horrific City Connect Uniforms. (25:57) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: How do the Oscars folks do this every year? You nominate Ken but not Barbie? You nominate Barbie for best picture but not its director? This is a tradition that dates back to "How Green Was My Valley" winning best picture in 1941 instead of say, Citizen Kane or The Maltese Falcon. One weird trick that connects Lenin and Benny Hill. And farewell to the greatest radio newscaster of all-time, Charles Osgood. (35:15) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Eric Adams plays Musical Chairs with actual chairs. Oklahoma's immoral School Superintendent gives a job to the immoral LibsOfTikTok witch. And Tiffany Cross finally breaks her silence on who knifed her in the back at MSNBC. The answer? Joey Scars himself. Joe Scarborough.

C-BLOCK (43:40) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Since we're already in Trash-MSNBC-Mode, let me tell you again of the story of how Lawrence O'Donnell, kindly filling in for me in 2010 while my Dad was dying, used the opportunity to try to get me fired, or try to get all my producers to leave with him for his new show. Scarborough is always the worst - but O'Donnell is close.

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SEASON 2, EPISODE 110: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: THIS IS TUESDAY JANUARY 23rd, THE EIGHTH DAY OF TRUMP'S DEMENTIA CRISIS: While Trump and his defenders quadruple-down on the Orwellian lie that he MEANT to conflate Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi and January 6th, Trump adds a new reason for serious concern about his mental stability. In an interview in New Hampshire for the primary, Trump is asked about Haley's insistence he is not competent and in one answer invokes Dr. Ronny Jackson, can't remember his name, recalls it, moves to a different topic, and then brings up Ronny Jackson again - as if for the first time.

There's a reason Ron DeSantis did NOT end his campaign, but, like Ramaswamy, only suspended it. Like Haley, they both know that something above-and-beyond all previous problems has hit Trump and they will stay quietly and obediently in the background until it - or something else - comes and gets him.

There is little to report from New Hampshire, though the networks and newspapers will report it anyway. They will also tell you that Trump did better in Iowa than he will in the Granite State even though the reverse is true - because math may be hard but bucking the conventional wisdom is harder. Trump got 51% of the voters (and 7% of all Republicans) in Iowa. He may get 57% in N.H. That would be MORE.

B-Block (20:23) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: It's time for The New York Times to stop publishing the same column Maureen Dowd has rewritten every week since 1997; how NOT to suppress the news in Colorado (28:25) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The DeSantis War Room loses the battle of South CAROLINIA. When not to sue because the ladies trashed you on Facebook. And when they invite you to sing at Dolly Parton's birthday and you start swearing and The Grand Old Opry has to apologize for - your career is over.

C-Block (33:05) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: A friend gave me some winter clothing bearing her company's logo and I flashed back to this time in 1980 when United Press International gave me my official Lake Placid Winter Olympics parka and...the lining wasn't fur or down or foam but CONSTRUCTION PAPER.

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 109: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Acting on his behalf, Trump's attorneys enlarged on his threat of ten days ago and told the Supreme Court that if it did not do what he wants it to do, "chaos and bedlam" would ensue throughout the country.

It's stochastic terrorism. Again. Always.

Enough. Right or wrong, more than twenty years ago the government of this country utilized a process to detain those who made terroristic plans or threats against the nation. It involved an off-mainland site called Gitmo. And there were additional "black sites" around the world for use for when there were the added complications of American citizenship involved.

It's time to send Trump there.

I'd rather deal with the consequences of Trump at Gitmo than with him continuing to threaten this nation, or, worse yet, seizing power and ending all representative government here.

Ironically this newest threat occurred less than a day after Trump made two unexpected (and, probably, unknowing) admissions. While he wants there to BE "presidential immunity" (that's what the terror threat against the Supreme Court was about) he acknowledged it doesn't currently exist. He also confessed that he had made "mistakes" as president and compared himself to a "rogue cop."

B-BLOCK (21:00) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Nikki Haley blows off "No Labels." And she might still be alive in the Trump ticket VP race. (25:05) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Since when does "fist" work in the weather forecast? Larry Elder says The Deep State is suppressing his Twitter follower count. And Tucker Carlson accuses the Trump Government of planting the January 5/6 pipe bombs and I'm just guessing but I don't think he meant to.

C-BLOCK (31:30) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: Even in 1937 America was dumbing down. Thurber's bitterly hilarious story of a woman who hated the Shakespeare she had to read because it didn't conform to the rules of paperback fiction: "The MacBeth Murder Mystery."

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 108: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: ONE of these days ONE of these judges will have to take the bullshit by the horns and jail Trump overnight for contempt of court. He made a mockery of all the laws of the nation again yesterday in New York and must be punished. Clearly somebody or something has punished him for something. Three or four red marks have suddenly sprouted on his right hand. James Carville thinks they're evidence of the secondary stage of syphilis. I think they're more consistent with an old man slipping on ice and grabbing something to try to stop himself from face-planting. But I'm sure Trump will claim they're stigmata.

America's constipated political pundits have finally figured out that the interior numbers from Iowa confirm he didn't crush ANYTHING there; in fact only 8% of Iowa's Republicans voted for him! Oh and Nikki Haley is up to 38% in New Hampshire. Trump might not be the only one disqualified under the 14th Amendment. Representative Dan Goldman has moved to censure Representative Elise "Hostages" Stefanik

B-Block (21:15) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: The fascists are going to get another win out of the Supreme Court. Marjorie Taylor Greene sets herself up for another dick-pic joke. (25:23) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Argentina's New President - the guy in the Wolverine costume - blames the world's ills on feminism. The Babylon Bee's best bit of satire is its belief that it's funny. Ben Carson says why not concentration camps? The migrants have to have a place to stay!

C-Block (30:35) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Beaten puppy Sweet Cheeks needs our help in North Carolina. (32:05) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Trump's rage against MSNBC for not worshiping him enough is actually not something new. The Republicans think they can get away with bullying MSNBC because they succeeded at it as long ago as 2008 - with me - and with the help of Tom Brokaw.

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 107: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump did NOT crush DeSantis and Haley in Iowa. The "takeaway" is not that he crushed DeSantis and Haley in Iowa. The "takeaway" is he beat the field by only 2,222 votes. And the reality is Trump got a total of 56,260 votes and that’s about half the size of this podcast’s daily audience. And Trump only got 51 percent OF the votes in Iowa and if President Biden only got 51 percent in a primary they would cancel everything on television for the next 26 days and cover nothing BUT Biden only getting 51 percent in a primary, right up until kickoff on Super Bowl Sunday 26 days from now. “Biden Crisis Day 26. We pause now for football. Here’s the anthem. Join Wolf Blitzer, Tucker Carlson, David Axelrod, and Usher at halftime for a preview of Biden Crisis Day 27.”

It's madness. Political media in this country has been in freefall since the 1990’s – hell, I succeeded in it, no experience necessary – but it is hard to believe it has ever been worse, even more a victim of band-wagoning, even more a john overflowing unto eternity, each reporter abandoning reality and objectivity to prove that THEIR take was right or that their NEXT take is FIRST or that THEY can stuff more undeserved accolades into a sentence than anybody else. It’s not that they are obsessed with the horserace – the horserace coverage is FINE. But when it’s a pack of miniature ponies struggling to make it around a ten-foot track, SAY THAT, don’t call them Secretariat and Man’o’War.

Other REAL "takeaways" include Trump rolling out the new 2024 Con: his God Con, and Nikki Haley being utterly full of crap. And DeSantis realizing only too late that his path to victory was to turn on Trump and beat him senseless. Oh and Trump is deteriorating faster than ever before. If you mistake Biden for Obama, that's one thing. If you think the thing you rode down before you launched your campaign is an ESCALADE instead of an ESCALATOR... consult your physician!

B-Block (21:26) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Gosh, where will Margie Green get her porn? House GOP may have dropped the Hunter Biden contempt plan. Knicks-Rangers owner James Dolan sued, accused of trafficking a woman to Harvey Weinstein. (23:46) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs is so used to lying to its own morons it forgets the rest of the world needs to be slightly convinced. "Dudesy" steals George Carlin's jokes and calls it "A.I." Nate Cohn of The New York Times with a hiccup over "Hick-Up."

C-Block (30:05) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Our 701-day snowless streak in Fun City is over and it got cold and clammy and as always I flashed back to the day my great doctor Ed Ceccolini gave me meds I wasn't ready for and the next thing I knew my face was stuck to the window of a commuter train in Grand Central because my drool had frozen onto it!

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 106: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: The obvious headline from Iowa last night: Trump romped, around 50%, with the reminder that if it were Biden only getting 50% in the first primary the Democrats would be considered dead in the water. The real headline from Iowa: Trump mused, in that skillfully ambitious way of his, about being in charge for "four years and beyond" and he can deny he meant refusing to leave office in 2029 but of course all he's TALKED about since 2017 was how he deserved more than two terms or more than eight years or more than the constitution allows. And the NEXT headline out of Iowa is the missing ingredient in the implausibly tight race between a psychotic dictator with dementia and a gifted dedicated president: the report that internal Biden research and polling says three out of four undecided voters really DON'T believe Trump will be the nominee and will have an "oh shit" moment.

Plus: Marjorie Barney Rubble Greene thinks President Biden can communicate with the dead by phone.

B-Block (26:08) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Rep. Barry "Your Tour Guide" Loudermilk makes a huge mistake. He wants to investigate Cassidy Hutchinson. And the Baltimore Sun is sold to a fascist and a one-time columnist who took a quarter of million in bribes from the Bush Administration. (30:50) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: When the NFL playoff game in Buffalo was postponed by snow, the Outkick The Coverage idiot whined that they didn't postpone D-Day because of bad weather - except of course they did. Plus Billo is back in the list. And Laura Loomer underscores the fundamental stupidity of the right. They don't believe in man-made climate change but they DO believe that Biden has a machine to manipulate the weather.

C-Block (37:05) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: A silly story about ESPN fudging nomination lists for the Emmy Awards (Erin Andrews became "Erik Andrews," etc., to allow ineligible talent to get trophies) ignores the real problem: the hosts of Emmy winning shows were ineligible to GET Emmys because the producers who ran the Emmys thought the talent had enough good stuff as it was. It flashed me back to a memorable conversation with Gil Stratton, an actor and sportscaster who insisted that every producer and executive he ever met was a bigger prima donna than an old colleague of his named Judy Garland.

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 105: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) It is hard to believe that a year after he vanished like a bad dream, ex-Congressman/Hitler Fanboy/Weirdo Madison Cawthorn might emerge not just as a truth-teller but as THE truth-teller. He was the one who insisted Washington was a den of drug-fueled orgies and war-on-drug leaders doing bumps of coke in front of him.

Did you WATCH the Hunter Biden hearing? Did you WATCH the Trump Town Hall on Fox? Did anything any Republican say make sense to you? Because not only is the answer "no" but the more frightening reality is that everything Trump said, and everything James Comer said, and Nancy Mace, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, and all the other Republicans, made perfect sense to THEM.

And what kind of thing causes you to mistakenly believe that your hallucinations seem perfectly normal to everybody else?

And just to add in Cawthorn's other charge - it wasn't just drugs it was atypical sex. Greene showing more pornographic pictures of Hunter Biden? Nancy Mace referring to his balls?

Is THIS the explanation of the behavior of... ALL REPUBLICANS?

GOOD GOD WE NEED TO HEAR MORE FROM MADISON CAWTHORN.

B-Block (15:20) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: No more itinerant laborers because of the animus towards migrants? This Indiana state rep has the solution: let kids quit school to go work in the fields at 14. And to help them not miss it, this Florida county has banned the dictionary. And to show you what you can become when you stop learning after the 8th Grade, there's Aaron Rodgers, who actually got himself fired by ESPN yesterday.

C-Block (23:00) Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due and an explanation for today's comparative brevity. 

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 104: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) Trump made another threat of political violence and terrorism and once again escaped being treated like any other terrorist or criminal trying to blackmail the nation by promising mass death and destruction if he doesn't get his way. After attending the appeals court hearing on his "presidential immunity" nonsense, Trump said if the prosecution of him continued "It'll be bedlam in the country."

But he hasn't engaged in insurrection.

Not since Noon Eastern yesterday.

Meanwhile his attorney, Judge Luttig's former law clerk, insisted that no, if he hadn't been impeached and removed from office, Trump could not be prosecuted for ordering Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival. 

But he's not saying HE would CAUSE the bedlam.

Besides the background drumbeat of Trumpist political violence, the point of the "presidential immunity" action is to stall. And the Just Security website has game-planned when this Jack Smith prosecution is likely to end. Two of the answers end within plenty of time, the third begins to brush up against an old favorite: the DOJ tradition of not acting within 60 days of an election.

And speaking of oldies but goodies, Trump reverts to birtherism. This time his victim is Nikki Haley. And his own mother. 

And just for laughs, it was in an 1814 book of witticisms that our ancestors first read "Every man who is his own lawyer, has a fool for a client." So guess who intends to deliver some of the closing arguments in his Business Fraud Trial case in New York tomorrow? Our resident Fool.

B-Block (17:48) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: I knew there was a reason not to say anything about the "disappearance" of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin: his "minor medical procedure" was surgery for prostate cancer. And the ESPN/Big Sleeveless Pat/Aaron Rodgers/Jimmy Kimmel disaster escalates: Rodgers denies he implied anything about Kimmel, uses ESPN as a platform to spread vaccine disinformation, and attacks an ESPN VP who had been protecting his buddy's show. Like ESPN's Rush Limbaugh disaster 20 years ago, this will end in tears. (25:15) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORD: political and journalistic accounts mysteriously disappear on Ketamine Musk's site. Judge Judy makes a presidential endorsement. And Lou Dobbs, Tulsi Gabbard, Don Lemon and Jim Rome are too desperate to just stand in front of a mirror and do their new shows to an audience that cares.

C-Block (31:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Since it's ESPN time, why not tell again the events of 32 years ago this month when I met the wonderful actress Elizabeth Montgomery on a flight, we became great friends, and she... helped me to launch the ESPN Radio Network?

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 103: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44): In the course of two speeches and four days President Joe Biden has found the word that not only perfectly describes Trump, that not only can be hung around him like a giant gold-outlined neon sign, that not only can humiliate him and stick to him forever, but that the rest of us have been waiting for SOMEBODY to say: "He's a loser."

Loser = Trump

Trump = Loser

Loser J. Trump!

The long weekend in which the prospects for retaining both Biden and democracy turned on a dime and Biden found his voice. He's the average American fed up with Trump's psychosis and violence and lies and racism and juvenile haircut and narcissism and stupidity and malevolence. And the anger is pitch-perfect.

PLUS: Yesterday Trump overtly implied that if he regains power he will indict a former president of the United States. Today he was to attend the D-C Federal Appeals Court hearing at which he and his lawyers were to argue that you CANNOT indict a former president of the United States.

Of all the legal updates the most interesting perhaps is the possibility that Trump digital guru Dan Scavino is cooperating with Jack Smith. Plus, no, Kristen Welker didn't fail to do her job with the Eva Braun of upstate New York. Her inertia when Stefanik called the January 6 insurrectionists "hostages" was what NBC was paying her to do.

B-Block (24:44) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Wall Street Journal blockbuster about Elon Musk and drugs; Mehdi Hasan completely out at MSNBC, stars still silent (30:15) IN SPORTS: Latest on ESPN/Rodgers/McAfee/Kimmel/Williamson. In memory of Franz Beckenbauer (35:10) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Nikki Haley had a black friend, Kristina Karamo ousted in Michigan; Lauren Boebert can't keep a grip on herself in public despute with ex-hubby

C-Block (40:10) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Since the ESPN Pat McAfee/Jimmy Kimmel story includes accusations that ESPN leaked ratings to make McAfee look bad, I've got a story about MSNBC doing that to me at Current-TV - except the ratings were wrong.They were HIGHER than the ones we HAD at Current-TV!

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SEASON 3 EPISODE 4: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: People. Like. Him.

In a time when 50% approval is a landslide of support, when the very few most earnest and most honest politicians are still tolerated, when we have had a decade of one of the most disliked humans on the planet hating everything and everybody, the idea that the Democrats are running not one but TWO likeable candidates is staggeringly important – and simple – and novel. 

Tim Walz is HAPPY to be living here, and fighting to help other people become happy, and now to join Kamala Harris, who is ALSO happy and smiles – like a person. Trump isn’t HAPPY! At every moment of what should be success he’s degrading someone, he’s embittered, he’s angry, he’s the victim, he’s shortchanged, he’s threatening revenge.

As shown on his spectacular first day as her running mate, Walz and Vice President Harris recognize what Trump does not: America is so worn out by and done with, unhappy weirdos.

THE POLLS CONTINUE TO BE ALL KAMALA: Marist for PBS: Harris 51 Trump 48. Harris by three. Previous poll: Trump by one. Marist for PBS: Who do you trust more on abortion? Harris… 56-to-41. Who do you trust more on preserving democracy? Harris 53-46. Who do you trust more on the economy? Trump… but only by three. Who do you trust more on immigration – this is the killer, right? Trump’s real chance to survive the tsunami? Yes, poll says Trump but only by six.

And some very pro-conservative swing state polling were also all positive.

And all conducted before Tim Walz.

B-Block (26:40) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Jim Vandehei of Axios not only fires ten percent of his staff, but he makes them read about it in a memo written in the impenetrable Axios 'style.' Bloomberg editors' response to their decision to break the embargo on the trade for Evan Gershkovich? Fire the reporter! And a member of Code Pink who was already ahead of Congressman Derrick Van PTSD Orden is delayed slightly, he yells at her to move, as she moves she brushes past him, he is now demanding she be charged with "assault on a member of Congress."

C-Block (37:25) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I was supposed to anchor NBC’s cable coverage of the Summer Olympics in 2000 in Sydney. But I quit the job in 1998. Then I was supposed to anchor NBC’s cable coverage of the Summer Olympics in 2004 in Athens. But I told them – no, I think I’d prefer to stay in New Jersey and try to grow this new news show Countdown and there are still executives at NBC who think I am insane. And I am proud to tell you that I have not watched ONE minute, not ONE highlight, from the 2024 Olympics. I'm beginning to think I might not LIKE the Olympics. If this is true it dates to 1980 and my experience as part of a two-and-a-half man team that covered the ENTIRE WINTER Olympics at Lake Placid, New York – just the two-and-a-half of us. It was rewarding, it was challenging, it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I have done everything since then to make SURE it WAS just once-in-a-lifetime, especially after the other one-and-a-half guys – my boss and my boss’s boss – got me drunk one night and then sent me to cover the skiing at sunrise and I almost didn’t survive.

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 102: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN BULLETIN JANUARY 6th WEEKEND EDITION

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: You already know that MY default position when it comes to President Biden is deep respect, deep affection, and love. And having said that, even Iwas stunned by the virtuosity of his pitch-perfect speech about Trump and the threat to democracy he represents, which the President gave near Valley Forge on the eve of the third anniversary of Trump’s Insurrection, in which he hit every note ranging from whispered warning to raging righteousness; in which his emotional ebb and flow went from the astonishment of the moment to anger on behalf of every past president and every dead soldier; in which he roared from clear and unvarnished statement of the danger of Trump and the dictatorship with which he would KILL America, and the still CLEARER and MORE unvarnished delineation of the path by which to defeat it, and Trump, and these fascists, for all time. It was breathtaking. It was honest to God JFK-FDR level oratory. Here are the highlights.

Also, here is Trump's response: to claim that migrants who don't speak "our language" should not be allowed to vote, and to post a video claiming God sent him to rule America. If the cadence of this accompaniment to Dementia J. Trump turning into Deified J. Trump sounds familiar, it should. It was stolen from a 2013 Super Bowl Ad, and itself stolen from a 1978 speech by one of my old bosses.

B-Block (25:00) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Biden's speech was so good, so sweeping, that I think you should listen to all of it. Carve out half an hour and do so - here it is,

C-Block (59:10) UPDATE: While we're here, there's news on this sports story I mentioned during the week in which Aaron Rodgers, on the Pat McAfee Show, a program for which ESPN just paid its namesake host 85 million dollars to run on its platforms, Rodgers implied that when the Jeffrey Epstein lists were published, Jimmy Kimmel would be mentioned. Rodgers said when that happened, he’d pop open a bottle of something.Kimmel, who like McAfee, and Rodgers – who is under contract TO McAfee to appear on his shows – is employed by Disney. And within hours of the Aaron Rodgers statement, Kimmel tweeted that if Rodgers did not stop, he would sue Rodgers.

The next day McAfee pleaded ignorance. It didn’t take much effort; he’s pretty ignorant. He said he believed there was no cause for any problem because Rodgers was just quote “talking shit.” In fact that’s not really a defense many courts will accept in a defamation suit. A defamation suit by one Disney employee against two other Disney employees in McAfee and Rodgers. Rodgers has not again appeared on the show, nor did McAfee issue a retraction.

What McAfee DID do Friday, though, was to declare war ON ESPN. He accused executives of the company of leaking inaccurate ratings about the program.Actually, what it is, is – professionally – suicidal. Because McAfee named names, and he named the one ESPN executive who has outlasted everybody who has ever worked there, including me, including me the second time, including me the third time when HE personally got me rehired, including me as he supervised the unlikeliest of outcomes to my ESPN career in which of all people I wound up… RETIRING FROM ESPN. I got everything but the gold watch.

The executive’s name is Norby Williamson. And in trashing him, McAfee gave ESPN a way to fire him - for cause - and owe him none of the money in his contract. Or pay him off and silence him, just like Fox did with Tucker Carlson. Because if 32 years with Norby has taught me one thing: he survives - the other guy doesn't.

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SERIES 2 EPISODE 101: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: For the second time in as many days and the fourth time in one week, Trump has gotten the message out to the Justices of the Supreme Court - and especially the three he appointed - that they’d better rule in favor of Trump in the 14th Amendment and Presidential Immunity cases because he put them there.

Attorney Alina Habba did it again, again on Fox. Wednesday it was in the afternoon; last night it was in prime time. The message is loud and clear, and God knows with the utter corruption of the conservatives on THIS court you could never convict anybody of doing anything, but this is either an illegal threat AGAINST Justice Brett Kavanaugh and others, or it is the back half of an illegal quid pro quo. Habba said she "had faith" in "people like Kavanaugh, who the president fought for, who the president went through hell to get into place. He'll step up."

A week ago today Maggie Haberman went on CNN and said Trump feared SCOTUS might rule against him because it was trying to look balanced. On Tuesday, his first simpleton attorney Christina Bobb said that any ruling - even one declaring that Trump was guilty of insurrection - would be irrelevant if the people wanted Trump as their ruler. Wednesday, Habba insisted that "Republicans" (she meant Supreme Court Justices) "unfortunately  sometimes shy away from being pro-Trump because they feel that even if the law’s on our side they might be swayed much like the Democratic side would be, right? So they’re trying so hard to look neutral that sometimes they make the wrong call."

The political pressure is astonishing, even for Trump. And in the light of his stochastic terrorism against Justices Engoron and Chutkan, it is intolerable, and it portends true threats against any justice Trump feels hasn't been "loyal" to him. 

THERE MIGHT be good news out of New Hampshire: one poll shows Trump leading Nikki Haley by just four points with two weeks until the primary. There was also a good opening advertising salvo by the Biden campaign against the threat Trump is manifesting. And the same Alina Habba went on another streaming show and insisted that given the choice between being smart or pretty she'd choose pretty because "I can fake being smart."

Well, no, sorry. You clearly can't.

B-Block (32:20) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Like every other rich fascist before him, Elon Musk wants to destroy the National Labor Relations Board. Politico has a good joke at his expense. RFK Jr's Super Pac apparently made it up about Dionne Warwick AND Martin Sheen. And the Associated Press article that actually headlines Bothsidesism on tomorrow's 3rd Anniversary of Trump's January 6th Coup: “One Attack, Two Interpretations: Biden And Trump Both Make The January 6 Riot A Political Rallying Cry.”

C-Block (40:30) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: In 1913 just as in 2024, people are likeliest to believe the dumbest, the most outrageous, the least believable thing. James Thurber commemorates "The Day The Dam Burst" in Columbus, Ohio, the most noteworthy feature of which was, the DAM DID NOT BURST.

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EPISODE 2 SERIES 100: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) I misunderstood the first salvo. I completely missed the second. But when the third one exploded yesterday, it finally dawned on me. Trump - using milquetoast seemingly benign surrogates, has already begun to threaten the Supreme Court and especially his three appointees that they had better find in his favor in the "presidential immunity" and 14th Amendment Disqualification cases - or else.

Alina Habba delivered a message on Fox yesterday clearly designed for Justices Barrett, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh, warning them not to try "so hard to look neutral (and) make the wrong call" and that the only "American" verdicts would be those in Trump's favor. This echoed what Maggie Haberman reported last week (and Habba was nice enough to reveal she and Haberman are friends). And it puts in a new light Christina Bobb's boast Tuesday that it doesn't matter even if Trump IS guilty of insurrection: the people will decide who's president. It is muted, but it is a threat of violence and MORE insurrection, being delivered against the Supreme Court.

B-Block (16:48) IN SPORTS: ESPN and ABC and Disney have quite the conundrum. Its new supposed savior of the sports network, Pat McAfee, failed to retract, or even apologize for, a statement by football's Aaron Rodgers implying that Jimmy Kimmel was on the Jeffrey Epstein "list." Kimmel already threatened to sue - and that was before the fake screenshots started, and before McAfee said that since Rodgers was only "talking shit" it's not like what he said mattered. Me? I think Kimmel should sue but even better, he should do what Chick Hearn did when he was fed up with his rookie sidekick Al Michaels on the broadcasts of the 1967-68 Los Angeles Lakers. I'll explain. (23:55) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Oh good, we have a SECOND extramarital sex scandal inside the "Moms For Liberty" pro-fascist group. Congressman Troy Nehls reveals the Republicans don't give a damn about whether or not there are a million migrants crossing the border, or none. It's a stunt. And are we sure C-SPAN meant to promote its coverage of the "End of Fist Session" of Congress?

C-Block (29:30) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: It is now nearly 17 years since a veteran Senator from Delaware asked me to lunch to pick my brain on how when I spoke angrily I seemed righteously indignant, but when he spoke angrily he seemed...angry. I think he's mastered it now - and we need him to be righteously indignant AND angry in the 300 days ahead.

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