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SERIES 2 EPISODE 220: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Finally somebody has said SOMETHING confirming we don't have any idea whether Trump was hit by a bullet or a piece of bubble gum during what was - unquestionably - the assassination attempt, now nearly two weeks ago. And the doubt is from no less a figure than the head of the FBI, in Congressional testimony day before yesterday that got almost no attention for hours after he gave it. This led to considerable umbrage from Ex-Doctor Congressman Ronny Glug Glug Jackson of Texas who insists he saw the wound (of course it was the next day) even as video emerges of him explaining his own nephew was near Trump and suffered minor superficial injuries from... debris evidently thrown up by a bullet hitting something. Something that is ever more certainly NOT Trump.
ALSO: Superb polling numbers for Kamala Harris from The New York Times (Biden was behind by six; she is behind by one), Morning Consult (she is now ahead by one) and Change Polls (It was Trump by four over Biden. It is now Harris by one over Trump). The Times had to find some disaffected Democrat and somehow found a confidence trickster (literally, she went to prison over a fake finger-in-the-chili thing) and quoted her. The Times has jumped the shark.
I AM BEGINNING TO THINK TRUMP WILL DUMP JD VANCE. It's not just the couch embarrassment (So-fa, so-good) or the horrible approval numbers. This video of him complaining that Harris has 'no skin in the game' because she's not a biological parent? So - Lindsey Graham has no skin the game? Tim Scott? George Washington?
And maybe best of all, there is a new nickname for Vice President Harris and the momentum she's building: Kamalot. It's courtesy Trump's second worst press secretary, the imbecilic Kayleigh McEnany, who is convinced it's an insult. This person has had one good idea in her life - this is it - and she's disowning it.
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SERIES 2 EPISODE 219: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump’s nephew Fred III – the one who likes him – says Trump told him, in the oval office, in May 2020, that the disabled, quote, “these people…the shape they’re in, all the expenses, maybe those kinds of people should just die.”
It is somehow worse than it seems.
Fred Trump III has a son William who has spent the whole of his 25 years on this planet fighting illness after illness and complication after complication. When the medical fund the family set up for William began to run dry in 2020, William called his uncle and asked for more help. “I don’t know,”Fred Trump quotes Donald Trump. “He doesn’t recognize you. Maybe you should just let him die and move down to Florida.”
There are lots of words for this: euthanasia, mercy killing, assisted suicide, quietus; for the elderly senicide or geroniticide, the Nazis called it Akt-zone T-4. We all have our differing moral north stars but for most of us I think there are at least some circumstances in which it is valid and justifiable.
You and I both knew Trump was this kind of monster. What we must realize is that while others might see individually justifiable acts of assisted suicide, with Trump we are talking forced euthanasia - mass murder. I have asserted here before that we saw of Trump during Covid suggested this was at the heart of his attitude towards people: that they were just another commodity. Kill a few… kill a few thousand… so what. Just let them die and move down to Florida. Round them up by the millions in camps before deporting them, leaving lord knows how many to DIE in those camps. "These people. The shape they’re in, all the expenses, maybe those kinds of people should just die."
It's kind of amazing that in Fred Trump III's upcoming book he quotes his uncle using the N-word to blame damage to his car and that's barely an afterthought here. Which circles back to the campaign against Harris. Brian Kilmeade of Fox may have said the Vice President was going to a "college sorority" and he may have said "colored sorority" but two weeks ago Trump flunky Sebastian Gorka proudly called Harris "colored" - and the birtherism has started again.
This while Biden gave a moving and eloquent farewell address, Kim Jong Un told Trump to stuff his friendship, CBS reported there are a dozen potential VP candidates, and the next round of polls shows her - in a wildly conservative poll - just a point back in Pennsylvania, and cutting Trump's lead in half in the CNN poll while improving 5 points on Biden's last numbers among female voters and 11 among young voters and 16 points among black voters
B-Block (27:46) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: To analyze how the fascists are NOT running a misogynistic campaign against Kamala Harris, NewsMax brings on Mark Halperin and Ed Henry - both fired for harassment and worse. If you think Trump has been screwed up by Biden bowing out, The New York Times is down to criticizing HOW he bowed out and the astonished headline "The Most Ruthless Political Operator in the Country Is a WOMAN." And Russell Brand, super-genius, thinks melatonin controls skin color.
C-Block (42:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The old joke about this hated baseball figure was: you're in a boat with this guy, Hitler and Mussolini. You have a gun and two bullets. What do you do? Answer: shoot this guy, then throw Hitler overboard, then throw Mussolini overboard, then shoot this guy again just to make sure. The saga of how the Los Angeles Dodgers "lost" several million dollars in 1964 while making a huge profit.
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SERIES 2 EPISODE 218: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) I have been thinking for awhile now 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?”
You have heard about THE poll: Ipsos for Reuters (Harris 42 Trump 38 Kennedy 8 third-party race; Harris 44 Trump 42 head-to-head) that's a four point shift TO Kamala Harris… in a week. But have you heard the OTHER polls? Marist for NPR and the PBS News Hour? Harris 42 Trump 42 Kennedy 7 / Trump 46 Harris 45.YouGov for Yahoo News? Harris 46 Trump 46. These numbers are from the FIRST FULL DAY of the Harris campaign and she is already in a statistical tie. Harris's favorables are at a net -2, sounds meh. Biden's? A net -18. Trump's? Net -19.
More jaw-dropping still? The top Republican internal pollster in Georgia has Harris starting off there, trailing just 48-47. And best of all: Do you agree or disagree: at 78 years old Trump is too old to work in government? Agree – 53%. Disagree – 43%. Trump's pollster issued a panicked memo lowering the bar just as the Reuters poll was coming out. Funny he never mentioned the age issue!
Polling, polling, polling.
Plus it's hard to tell what the Fascists are freaking out about the most: the polls, Kamala declaring war on their suddenly oldest-ever candidate, or their leadership's insistence that they can't call her "colored" (like Sebastian Gorka did a week ago) or use racial epithets and especially not call her "DEI." Which, of course, is what they immediately called her.
Or maybe it's J.D. Vance. There's instant buyers' remorse because he's so bad on stage that they can't tell if he's inflated or stuffed - or both.
B-Block (35:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Colombian emigre Valentina Gomez is running for Secretary of State in Missouri on an anti-immigration platform and now she's illegally used the balcony of the Speaker of the House on which to film an ad. An Ohio State Senator becomes the last Republican to threaten Civil War, and the New York Post and Senator Mike Lee both fall for the worst fake announcement of the fake death of the fake Jimmy Carter on fake stationery imaginable.
C-Block (47:10) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I mentioned Aaron Sorkin yesterday. Time to explain the story of the day I was watching one of his TV shows and suddenly my father's favorite saying was coming out of the mouth of Aaron's lead character because Aaron had gotten in the habit of borrowing my life.
 
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SERIES 2 EPISODE 217: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Oh, nothing. Kamala Harris only raised $223,000 a MINUTE or $13,380,000 an hour in her first 24 hours as the Democratic presidential candidate-presumptive and will only rap up the pledged delegates by today or tomorrow and has already opened her campaign five points closer to Trump than any other Democrat.
And as somebody mentioned (cough; cough cough) Friday it turns out if President Biden had not seen the wisdom of the choice and bowed out before the new week started Nancy Pelosi was ready to go public - with polling. And now, everybody's together again and everybody's endorsed here and even that moron Manchin has gotten out of the way and the only question is where in town do you want YOUR Joe Biden statue to be.
ON THE OTHER HAND Trump intends to sue. Somebody. Maybe Hannibal Lecter. The man who is suddenly history's oldest presidential candidate wants to be reimbursed and the debate moved and they want to force Biden to stay in the race AND resign as president and don't you know Trump was shot with a wadded up piece of gum so you must defer to him.
If there's anything more delightful than watching Trump implode because it never occurred to him the other side had better tactics, it's watching Hannity complain that Kamala Harris has a funny laugh when... shoot... who has ever actually heard Trump laugh? Like a person?
There's a lot to go through, including the reminder that if you're worried about this nation's racism and its misogyny: in the last four US elections: we have elected a man of color president, then re-elected him, then a woman candidate won the popular vote, and most recently, a woman of color was elected VP defeating a ticket led by racist incumbent 
Assume nothing. But - Excelsior!
B-BLOCK (37:40) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: So. Much. Stupid. Takery. Aaron Sorkin, Brian Stelter, Olivia Nuzzi and Katy Tur could've forged a four-way tie (well, three; Sorkin would've just 'borrowed' one of their ideas).
C-BLOCK (56:15) IN MEMORY OF MINET: I'm a little unfocused today and when I get unfocused I get verbose because I'm ad libbing. And if you didn't see it on social media, my extraordinary 17-year old rescue pup, Minet, died Sunday just six days after hitting that amazing milestone of longevity. If you've been scared off adopting a senior dog or even a geriatric one, please listen to Minet's story and how much he gave me - and consider getting one yourself!
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SERIES 2 EPISODE 216: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-BLOCK (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: I’m sorry to write this, but it is now time for Joe Biden to withdraw his name for nomination for re-election as president of the United States. He should release his delegates with instructions to vote for Kamala Harris for president. We can, I hope, spend the next twenty years embracing Joe Biden and the greatest sacrifice made by any American politician in our lifetimes while we celebrate Trump being turned down by the pardon board for the twentieth consecutive year. For now, we must approach this without emotion because what is now a problem is on the verge of becoming a disaster. Its essence can be boiled down to five points.
First: democracy lives or dies on this. Also the climate and thus continuing life on the planet. We have to choose whatever path offers the best odds.
Second: the long awaited FOB (Friends of Biden) push in private is complete. Friends of Biden. Obama’s warning to “allies” that the Biden path was “greatly diminished” followed Pelosi, Schumer, Jeffries, and possibly the Clintons reaching out in private to the president to tell him he must exit. I believe if he does not do so by next week these same leaders will risk a temporary rupture of the party by publicly saying they can no longer support him.
Third: as I said previously America will always choose the old man yelling at the cloud, especially over the old man whispering intelligently but inaudibly. This nation elected Reagan twice.
Fourth: the president has said he will be re-elected because he’s done such a good job. This, sadly, is no longer predominant in elections. And it is no how you beat a liar promising the gullible eternal life.
Fifth: the polls are cratering. The last 47 of them, Trump leads. I’m beginning to spot a pattern. In new polling by Emerson College, Biden is down by four nationally, and now an average of five-and-a-half in the seven swing states. On the other hand, the same poll pitted Trump against a mythical “younger Democrat who is qualified for the job.” As ludicrously vague as that is, and as much as the rule that the Imaginary Candidate always out-polls the real one, the results are too staggering to totally ignore. In those same seven swing states, that imaginary Democrat beats Trump by an average of seven points. The pendulum swings nearly thirteen points, and even with all the caveats it should at least reassure Democrats that they would not be throwing away their only chance of victory by changing – even now. 
MEANWHILE: Evidence continues to mount that Trump was not hit by a bullet but by debris knocked towards him, and is lying about it - as he lies about everything else. The usual idiots were fooled into believing he’d pivot. His acceptance speech at FascistCon24 was the pivot everyone expected, until he demanded that all the charges be dropped against him CUZ UNITY. And the exploitation of the firefighter killed at his rally kind of went off the rails when he brought what was supposedly the man's uniform onstage as if it were a religious icon - and they had misspelled his names. And one of Trump's longest-standing pro-conspiracy co-conspirators is dead. Lou Dobbs – an original birther and a despicable human being – died yesterday.
B-BLOCK (32:25) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: We now have more information on who thought MSNBC would do better taking Joe Scarborough off the air as the Republican convention opened and replacing him with NBC’s online-only news anchors. It’s Cesar Conde, the NBC News boss who’s as bad as all the other NBC News bosses. Matt Gaetz spoke at the RNC and he either got too much botox or he had himself laminated. And we have that rare consecutive edition winner. Van Jones of CNN is back and badder than ever.
C-BLOCK (47:47) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: So the Republicans have officially nominated a convicted felon still scheduled to be on trial for espionage and for le

SEASON 2 EPISODE 215: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: It is now my expectation that if by next week President Biden has not withdrawn from the presidential race, a coterie of key Democrats led by Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries will publicly announce that they and their caucuses cannot support his candidacy.
The first true dam break in that process occurred Saturday, but only became known last night when ABC News reported that Schumer went to the president's Delaware home and "forcefully made the case that it would be better for Biden, better for the Democratic party, and better for the country if he were to bow out of the race." The Schumer office issued something less than a non-denial denial and the White House press office put its head down and shouted full steam ahead.
But the Schumer news followed a day in which it became more and more apparent that those key Democrats no longer care if this becomes public. Congressman Adam Schiff, soon to be Senator from California, publicly called for Biden to step aside. More and more ugly details emerged from a Zoom call between the president and House Democrats. A really startlingly tepid defense of Biden's continuing on the ticket by Bernie Sanders was published by The New Yorker. And it was revealed that Schumer and Jeffries working in concert got that "virtual roll call" confirming Biden's nomination delayed into August.
There was also new polling (65% of Dems want a new candidate, Associated Press) that wasn't so new (66% of them wanted one in April, Pew Research). 
And then there was that weirdly timed presidential positive test for COVID yesterday in Las Vegas forcing the cancellation of a speech and a trip back east. From all I can tell that's what it is: the virus. Your willingness to compare it to the "cold" President Kennedy suddenly developed while on a campaign tour during The Cuban Missile Crisis is up to you.
ALSO: Five days after the assassination attempt and we now have to assume that Trump is LYING about getting shot.
That he was SHOT AT, is not in doubt.
That the blood came from - in the unfortunate phrase he himself chose – his EAR BEING PIERCED, by a bullet – has been verified… by absolutely nobody.
Nothing from Butler Memorial Hospital in Pennsylvania.
Nothing from the Secret Service.
Nothing from the Department of Justice.
Nothing from ANY branch of government.
Nothing from the FBI even though it has gone to unusual lengths of confirming the INVESTIGATION is of an assassination attempt AND domestic terrorism AND they’ve broken into the shooter’s phone AND they know there were eight shots AND they know who ELSE was shot AND they released names AND
Nothing from ANY news organization, each of which has cleverly and almost ARTISTICALLY avoided saying Trump WAS shot and avoided saying Trump WASN’T shot. 
The entire official medical report from the Trump campaign is that he is quote “fine,” unquote.
100 hours and they can't get an anonymous statement from a hospital. We now have to assume he's lied about something about the attempt.
B-Block (25:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: It's been awhile. Time for Ted Cruz to make a jackass out of himself again. The Washington Post editorial writer with the unfortunate name of "Shadi" asks if Trump not dying was "God's will." And CNN must fire Van Jones. Its remaining 837 viewers will accept no less.
C-Block (37:10) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The onetime American counter-culture soccer star Alexi Lalas is now just another D-list "celebrity" at the Republican Convention. But once he was the straight man in an ESPN commercial that rings through the ages.
 
 
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