Countdown with Keith Olbermann iHeartPodcasts

SERIES 2 EPISODE 173: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: I don’t know much about the law but I do know the Trump Trial has confirmed one of the immutable truths of the field: Never hire an attorney with a rating of 3-1/2 stars.

Susan Necheles somehow managed to lose to Stormy Daniels during the second day of cross-examination in Trump-On-Trial yesterday; lose so badly and obviously that Trump’s team was forced to file for a desperation mistrial from the very thin ice of basically claiming Necklace forgot to object to something that Daniels said on TUESDAY.

All of a sudden the Trump defense was claiming – and leaking to every news organization, by the way – that Daniels had dog-whistled a subtext of rape or assault when she gave details about Trump standing in front of her, and not using a condom, and a bodyguard being out in the hallway – and we should just ignore that when she said all that, THREE DAYS AGO, Trump’s lawyer with the three-and-a-half stars rating Susan Necheles said… nothing. Not even the only thing you or I would remember to say if we woke up in some alternate universe where we were in that courtroom as Trump’s lawyer: “OBJECTION.”

And that might have been Necheles's best work.

Ms. Necheles: “You have experience in making up fake stories about sex?”

Ms. Daniels: “The sex is real. That’s why it’s not a B movie.”

Ms. Necheles: “NOW you have a story about having sex with President Trump, right?”

Ms. Daniels: “If that story was untrue, I would’ve written it to be a lot better.”

Ooops! There goes another half a star.

Ms. Necheles: “You had sex with a cameraman?”

Ms. Daniels: “I started dating him and he became my husband.”

A reminder: None of this needed to be heard by the jury. If Trump’s defense had stipulated, yeah, they had sex, she wouldn’t have been allowed to testify. Or they could have just asked her what she knew about Trump’s involvement in the non-disclosure agreement and the payoffs and she could have said “nothing” and Ms. Necheles could have said “nothing further, your honor.” This is a case – a relatively boring case with excruciating details about how routine company checks got sent to the White House for Trump to sign even as president and he never ignored a single detail that cost him more than 99 cents – a relatively boring case about falsified business records and the attempt to interfere with an election and Trump’s team turned it into wocka-wocka-wocka, and his credibility and their credibility against the credibility of a pornographic actress and guess what: the actress won.

ALSO: Oh by the way, last month Trump assembled around 20 of the nation's top oil and fossil fuel executives and offered them a deal. He'd sell them the world to destroy as quickly as they wanted - repeal all regulations and make Doug Burgum Secretary of Energy or VP or whatever - if they'd simply give him a billion dollars with which to get elected. So when you worry that democracy is on the ballot in November, just remember, no, it's worse than that: human EXISTENCE is on the ballot.

B-Block (23:10) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Mark Levin tries to get around calling Judge Juan Merchan "a pervert" because he was listening to Stormy Daniels' testimony. Failson Andrew Giuliani is "reporting" on the trial and puts me in an impossible position by blasting Lawrence O'Donnell. And Chuck Todd ISN'T gone after all. He has just written a masterpiece of nonsense: an Epic Poem of bothsidesism in which he concludes Biden and Trump both need to admit their mistakes. He spends one paragraph on Trump's mistakes and about a dozen on how Biden failed to bring the country together (while Trump was tearing it apart). 

C-Block (34:00) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: No gentle reminiscences here. No prophetic tales of heroes who were actually schmoes. Thurber goes for the jugular vein of the famous Avantgarde artist Salvador Dali in

SERIES 2 EPISODE 172: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Robert F. Kennedy Junior who may turn out to be the spoiler who throws the election to Trump says under oath that his cognitive problems and short term and longer term memory loss from a worm that ate his brain and then died.

On the other OTHER hand, too early to tell if it’s an outlier or the start of the new wave, but swing state poll: Wisconsin, Quinnipiac, Registered voters: Biden 50 Trump 44. Three-way: Biden 40 Trump 39 Kennedy and his Worm, 12.

Nevertheless. I’m not confident we can stave off fascism in this country because: worms in Kennedy’s brain. AND Trump’s trial in Florida has been delayed until the twelfth of never by an unqualified judge HE appointed and his trial in Georgia has been delayed indefinitely – probably into next year - because the appeals court says it WILL listen to Trump’s appeal of the ruling that the district attorney didn’t have a financial conflict of interest just because she hired her boyfriend to work on the case (because guess what: there IS a deep state and among its constituent parts are the legal system and partisan judges and the Supreme Court and an Attorney General who will go to his grave believing the people exist to serve laws rather than laws existing to serve the people. Also, because OBAMA’s most public adviser criticized all the sex talk in the Stormy Daniels testimony and, oh by the way, WORMS IN KENNEDY’S BRAIN.

Memory loss, quote: “caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died. I have cognitive problems, clearly. I have short-term memory loss, and I have longer-term memory loss that affects me.”RFK Junior, in a deposition during his divorce in 2012.

When Kennedy said I was his HERO - I KNEW something was wrong.

MEANWHILE the man who called out The New York Times for its vengeful coverage of Biden answers the Editor-in-Chief's strawman response that the paper won't become part of the Biden campaign. "In general, and this is a complaint I have had about the New York Times that is two decades old – I wish they would take good faith criticism from the left with as much seriousness as they take BAD faith criticism from the right," says Dan Pfeiffer.

B-Block (24:51) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Lobbyist Jim Courtovich (if you're going to make a threat by quoting 'The Godfather' you better make sure you get the quote right), Speaker Mike Johnson (you know "intuitively" that non-citizens are voting? Is that like I know "intuitively" that there must have been fraud in your election? No facts, just a Spidey Sense?), and Congressman Mike Collins (You think last week's racism-at-Ole-Miss tweet was disqualifying? Wait'll you see this week's joke about the JFK and RFK assassinations).

C-Block (32:10) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Trump mocked Lawrence O'Donnell after Tuesday's court session, so it's probably time for me to mock him. The day they finally incarcerate Joe Scarborough, O'Donnell will become the least sincere person on MSNBC. Ever seen the pilot of the old HBO show "The Newsroom"? Where the back-up tries to steal the show from the guy he's filling in for? Guess who that's actually about?

 

 
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 2 EPISODE 171: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: First of several underemphasized meta-headlines from Stormy Daniels' testimony: Trump’s lawyer Ms. Necklace seems to have made inroads in her effort to convince the jury that Ms. Daniels would say or do almost anything for money. Uh, she’s a pornographic actress. Whether you approve that profession, or abhor it, or like me you’re agnostic: one statement should not be among those you express in shock or dismay or surprise: “Oh no, she’s a pornographic actress, she will do or say almost anything for money.”

Which leads to the next meta headline. My GOD the media, especially the television networks, treated her testimony like they were cicadas and Stormy Daniels was the ring girl who stepped between the ropes to announce the start of year 13. My GOD they all awoke from somnambulance about bank records and cell phone extractions and the testimony of comptrollers and people named RONA and were able to say – at least to themselves – good grief, get a load of those rebuttals.

Which leads into the next meta headline: Stormy Daniels is not on trial here. She’s only incidental to the case. That is NOT what you would have thought if you watched coverage of this case. The sex isn’t illegal, the money isn’t illegal, Trump isn’t illegal, Daniels changing her story isn’t illegal. Buying her story to keep it from becoming public in the weeks before an election and then hiding the payoffs to prevent THEM from becoming public in the weeks before an election – THAT’S illegal and all those boring receipts and records and notations written by hand by a guy named Allan – with TWO L’S – THAT is the case. And denying it as Trump has – LYING about it, as Trump has – is why Stormy Daniels is there. To testify.

I have to admit I was a little surprised by the last headline. If the Monday juxtaposition of Trump Maybe Going To Jail Over The Gag Order and Kristi Noem Quintuples Down On The Idea That Shooting Puppies In The Face Is A Good Thing underscored how MAGA believes it has the right to kill, then YESTERDAY’S juxtaposition of Noem’s disastrous media tour – more on that shortly – and Trump On Trial underscored that these really deeply disturbed, borderline personalities, do NOT do well when confronted with reality from which they cannot run and they cannot hide.

And then there's Noem, who got beaten up on Fox by my old friend Stu Varney and, stunningly, on NewsMax. But it's all right, she still thinks she's killing it. Yeah, the way his presidential roll-out killed it for Greg Stillson.

B-Block (24:33) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL/SPORTS: Seen anything about this week being the 70th Anniversary of Roger Bannister "breaking the 4-Minute mile?" There's one problem.

C-Block (42:20) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL/SPORTS PART 2: That one problem? Roger Bannister WAS NOT the first man to run a mile in four minutes or less. It's a sad story with a lot of bias and even racism in it.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 170: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: The reaction to Justice Merchan’s stark warning to Trump that he may put him in jail the next time he violates the gag order, and the defense inside the Trump cult of Kristi Noem for murdering her dog and threatening Biden’s dog - these are actually the same story.

The point is: killing.

They are about one thing: at their core, Noem and Trump and MAGA and Trump’s Supreme Court Justices and his slaves inside the House and the Senate believe they have a right to kill. Today, they have a right to kill their dogs. Tomorrow? Your dog. Then the judge. The day after that immigrants. Finally, anything and anybody.

Do not mistake them, nor what this is about. Do not forget that even as chilling a phrase as “political violence” is itself just a euphemism. Political violence is: murder. Individual murder, mass murder, or if the rest of us are lucky, just attempted murder or threatened murder.

Every Trump attack on every witness, on every judge, on every prosecutor, on every opponent; every stochastic call to “end” this; every reference to “bedlam”; every meme of the President of the United States bound and gagged; every Tim Scott refusing to honor the outcome of an election; every reference to patriots and deep states and rigged elections and I am your retribution – they all have the unspoken second half: those who try to stop us will do what we say or we will kill them. One third of Trump supporters who’ve heard about Noem killing her dog told a YouGov poll that it WAS acceptable. 29 percent weren’t sure. So the total of Trump voters who would not criticize it was six out of ten.

AS THIS UNFOLDS, THE NEW YORK TIMES completely disconnects from reality.

“When you are Democrat you start off essentially at 40 percent (of the vote) because you have civil service, you have the unions and you have welfare. They get welfare to vote, and then they cheat on top of that. They cheat,” Trump said of Biden and the Democrats. “'These people are running a Gestapo administration’ Mr. Trump told donors who attended the event at Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Palm Beach, Florida, according to an audio recording obtained by The New York Times."

An audio recording. OBTAINED by The New York Times.

Where is this recording?

Why has this recording not been made public by The Times? Why is the paper suppressing it?

Incredibly, at the same time the paper's editor gave an interview to Semafor News that discredits everyone who works at The Times as he dismisses any awareness that his coverage has normalized Trump without a sufficient sense of crisis or threat. "To say that the threats of democracy are so great that the media is going to abandon its central role as a source of impartial information to help people vote – that’s essentially saying that the news media should become a propaganda arm for a single candidate, because we prefer that candidate’s agenda," said Joe Kahn. “It’s our job to cover the full range of issues that people have. At the moment, democracy is one of them. But it’s not the top one – immigration happens to be the top, and the economy and inflation is the second. Should we stop covering those things because they’re favorable to Trump?”

Nothing to see here. Just the editor-in-chief of The New York Times living in a world defined by Fox News talking points, and populated entirely by strawmen.

B-Block (38:15) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The Tigers say their new uniforms are "going 0-60." Nancy Mace claims the victim of half the GOP Antisemitic tropes is behind all the pro-Palestinian protests too. And Obama's campaign manager has the new podcast every one has been clamoring: he co-hosts with Kellyanne Conjob. (47:20) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL/SPORTS: Seen anything about this week being the 70th Anniversary of Roger Bannister "breaking the 4-Minute mile?" There's one problem.

C-Block (1

SERIES 2 EPISODE 169: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump is full of shit.

Nothing about the gag order precludes him from testimony. What caused him to change his mind and suddenly announce no, he's not testifying after all, is sheer naked fear. He heard the Smoking Gun tape of himself and Michael Cohen mapping out how to pay hush money to his girlfriend before the election, and he crapped himself. 

I'll play the tape and you'll see. The last thing you do after THAT tape is played, is talk. In a fitting metaphor, on Trump’s pants are so on fire about why he's too scared to testify, that his post-court photo op was at a New York Fire Department Station. He also mocked reporting about how he's been falling asleep in court and then 90 minutes later, he fell asleep in court - again.

MEANWHILE: We are in such an unprecedented place in this country’s history that if Trump were now to pick Kristi Noem as his running mate and announce they were going to campaign on a platform of puppy killing, the cult would do it. He’s not likely to try it. But then did you really think that Noem’s response to her self-defenestration would be to double down and claim the dog she murdered was far more evil than she let on and was a threat to her children.

By next week she’ll be claiming Cricket had clamped her vicious jaws around her daughter’s neck. Or that she was holding Noem’s kids hostage.​ And by the way, she may have no other choice than to double down and claim she is the real victim here, because there is emerging evidence that the story of Kristi Noem luring the dog into a gravel pit and shooting it in the face because it was randomly attacking other animals and posed a threat of some kind​ that might be a COVER STORY.

As America’s hatred washed over her, she laid low – until Wednesday. That’s when she went on with Sean Hannity and resumed trying to get people to buy the book, and buy her story. But her story has now changed. Cricket was no puppy. She was a working dog – and 14 months old. That Cricket was untrained wasn’t HER fault. Quote: “It was a dog that was extremely dangerous. It had come to us from a family who found her way too aggressive. We were her second chance. The day she was put down was a day that she massacred livestock.​.. (Livestock? Chickens. But of course killing animals is just a first step – and then you’re Ted Bundy​)...“that were part of our neighbors. She attacked me. And it was a hard decision.” That was Wednesday night. By ​y​esterday afternoon on social media, Noem saw an out. “I had a choice between the safety of my children and an animal who had a history of attacking people and killing livestock. I chose my kids.”

So. She's already changed the story. Was the version in the book also changed? Was the murder worse? Was the timeline of who saw it different? Could Noem have shot the dog as her family watched?

B-Block (19:47) SPECIAL COMMENT: I am largely agnostic on the issues, and having taken part in student protests against Vietnam and racism in the 7th Grade in 19-freaking-70 I'm in favor of them at any time. But what's happening on campuses today is NOT 1970 revisited. It's not on the level of Black Lives Matter. The arrests aren't unprecedented, the right to protest isn't being destroyed, and the students might want to recognize that their decisions are simply increasing the chances that everything they want will NOT happen, culminating in a Trump presidency in which they or their successors will be detained by the Army or shot on sight or both.

C-Block (28:05) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: Thurber's mother was down with the whole occult stuff. Him? He barely delved. But this is another week where we need a pure silly story and he produced one when he went into the worlds of supernatural (and German dialects). "The Black Magic of Barney Haller."
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 168: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Enough excuses. In a speech in Wisconsin yesterday, Trump talked about, attacked, and attacked the accuracy of, Cassidy Hutchinson - a probable witness against him in the Election Subversion trial in Washington.

He has thus violated both the terms of his release on bail, and the gag order long ago imposed upon him.

Judge Tanya Chutkan must now jail him.

There is no evading this. While under threat of imprisonment if he violates the gag order in the Hush Money Election Interference case in New York, he has violated the gag order in the Election Subversion case in Washington. Judge Chutkan has no excuse this time. Revoke his bail. Somebody, for once, for God’s sake, for America’s preservation – draw the line in the sand.

And just for added insolence, in attacking Hutchinson he confirmed the gist of her testimony, that he tried to talk his Secret Service detail into taking him to the Capitol on January 6th so he could watch his scum try to overthrow American democracy. He's been lying about this for three years.

In his speech Trump also insisted he was president three years ago (he wasn't), butchered the word "infrastructure," and of particular relevance to the moment, reminded the current protestors that he would prohibit refugees from Gaza and reinstitute his ban on Muslims.

PLUS a small slip in that extraordinary Time Magazine interview suggests that his extensive, inappropriate, and entirely corrupt shadow diplomacy with other nations may have included some kind of arrangement with Putin by which Russia continues to hold Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich hostage, until and unless Trump regains power.

B-BLOCK (18:20) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The collapse of the regional sports cable television market not only felled last year's San Diego Padres but it's now taken an NHL playoff game off the air in the middle of the action. When The Gateway Pundit wonders if you might be an unreliable source - you might be an unreliable source. And given that it was a stunt bill with no more impact than the week full of Republican Make Appliances Pollute Again legislation, it's amazing that Marjorie Taylor Greene decided to explain why she voted against an Antisemitism measure - and her reasoning was that it might make it illegal to proclaim that the Jews killed Jesus.

C-BLOCK (27:40) GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.