Countdown with Keith Olbermann

COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN: EPISODE 252 A-Block (1:42) SPECIAL COMMENT:  As they say at the big sports DRAFTS: Jack Smith, you are ON the clock. As soon as midnight passed on the east coast, the Special Counsel’s window of warning to the recipient of the Target Letter closed. Donald Trump has had his chance to testify to the Grand Jury or demand that evidence be submitted to the Grand Jury or other witnesses be questioned BY the Grand Jury and all evidence suggests he didn’t even bother to say ‘no thanks’ and Smith can and will indict him at any time on god-knows-HOW-many-violations of US Code 18 Section 241 Conspiracy Against Rights (the suppression of vote counting statute, with or without violence), US Code 18 Section 371 Conspiracy To Defraud The United States, and US Code 18 Section 1512 Corruptly Obstructing An Official Proceeding – and the only question is, WHEN Smith notifies him and when Trump pauses from chain-eating cheeseburgers and threatening revolutions long enough to leak the news. On “The Simon Conway Show” in Des Moines, just getting viral last night, Trump again stochastically threatens terrorism if he's jailed, saying his supporters are 200 times more fired up than last time. And forgetting he now longer is in charge of the tanks. You will also recall on the 27th of last month when McCarthy went on CNBC and said “Can Trump win that election? Yeah he can. The question is, is he the STRONGEST to win the election? I don’t know the answer” and within hours he was back on TV insisting oh yes he DID now the answer and it was Trump is stronger than Hercules and it was clear Trump had yelled at McCarthy, possibly on the phone and possibly simply by opening the window and yelling at him across the country. Politico reports Trump demanded of McCarthy “he needs to endorse me – today!”   McCarthy, who is of course WITH Trump Win, Win, or Tie, had to come up with a bullshit excuse to NOT endorse Trump. Quickly. So quickly you wouldn’t believe it. To his credit he cobbled together some sophistry - that he had to remain neutral through the primaries because if he didn’t, HIS relationship with HIS caucus could influence which ones of them did and didn’t endorse Trump. Trump bought it but was still enraged and demanded a pound of McCarthy and now McCarthy made his fatal mistake. “The house would vote to expunge the two impeachments against the former president. And as McCarthy would communicate through aides later the same day, they would do so before August recess.” And now, Politico says, “we’re told that Trump brings up the matter in EVERY CALL he has with McCarthy, prodding the speaker about WHEN he will bring expungement to the floor.” Oh and guess what. Doesn't look like McCarthy has the votes! B-Block (22:31) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: The RFK Junior hearing. NOT GOOD, BOB. A bad idea just before you don't tell the truth about your past antisemitic and anti-vaccine comments, to remind everybody that you are on the record and under oath. And first they bought Clarence Thomas. Then they bought him good pub. (27:23) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Jim Jordan actually repeats the fascist bullshit that my friend Henry Aaron died from a Covid-19 vaccination. Ron DeSantis explains how you can sue Ron DeSantis. And Tucker Carlson's Videopalooza was so effective it would've gotten "The Q Anon Shaman" MORE time in prison. C-Block (34:20) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: Two stories of Man Versus Life and why you should just leave mediocre enough alone: The fable of The Mouse Who Went To The Country, and Nine Needles.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 251: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:42) SPECIAL COMMENT: The same-day reporting on what was in Jack Smith's 2nd Target Letter to Trump was incomplete (possibly because Trump was the direct or indirect source and he only skimmed the letter and saw only the Statute Heading not the statute itself). If the Letter is any guide, The Special Counsel's centerpiece to the January 6th prosecution of Donald Trump is US Code 18 Section 241 - originally a Reconstruction-era law designed to prosecute Ku Klux Klan members for terrorizing freed slaves and keeping them from voting. It later morphed into the preferred tool for voting fraud and was affirmed in a Supreme Court ruling written by Thurgood Marshall in 1974, per The New York Times. It would fit all the "Fake Electors" schemes, but it would match what Trump tried to do ("I just want to find 11,780 votes") perfectly. It is the denial of the most fundamental constitutional right. Bottom line: Smith wants to prosecute Trump for trying to have a RIGGED THE ELECTION. For ELECTION INTERFERENCE. For FIXING THE VOTE. It would be an irony that would ring through the ages. I'll assess its meaning and how and why we missed it (John Barron? John Miller?) on Tuesday night, plus Trump's disastrous legal day. PLUS: Trump may not have had the WORST day. Ask Marjorie Groomer Greene, who spent the day showing America her porn collection: giant blown-up photos of Hunter Biden having sex. It was so bad, and the Republicans so beclowned themselves, that Congressman Jared Moskowitz quipped "Maybe now we need to call HUNTER Biden 'The Big Guy.'" B-BLOCK (21:43) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Stanford's student-run campus newspaper wins all the awards: its investigation of the University president's academic research work just led to him quitting. This flashed me back to how MY university president's academic qualifications (Dean of Engineering; co-discoverer of Element Number 85) saved the two of us from getting on a damaged Allegheny Airlines plane they were trying to repair with paper towels (29:12) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: If they're gonna make up Biden Million-Dollar Bribes, go big. And who better to believe anything than Maria Bartiromo. There's also the Maryland Congressional candidate who didn't know he was one, and the self-martyring saga of Twitter clown Catturd. C-BLOCK (35:20) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: The sad tale of Fizz in the NYC pound (36:25) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: My producer had to explain to me that no, Rachel Maddow wasn't going to be on our MSNBC primary night coverage because my boss actually had LIED when he said he'd signed her to a contract, and we were about to lose her to CNN because Larry King offered her $250 to work there that night. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 250: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:42) SPECIAL COMMENT: We now have more Trump Trials than court schedule time FOR Trump Trials. Well - this is what we wished for! The SECOND federal set of indictments of The Defendant could be handed up as early as Thursday though Friday is likelier still and the likeliest is Trump being notified Thursday or Friday and then announcing it and we will re-enact early June where we all know in advance and there’s enough time for the sledge gangs to put up all the stages and tents and refreshment stands because the circus is coming to town. We DO know what was in the Jack Smith January 6th Target letter – second in a series of who knows how many (collect them all) -- received Sunday by Trump’s lawyers. It was Rolling Stone that broke it: it listed just three CATEGORIES of federal statutes the government claims Trump violated and is likely to be charged under: Conspiracy to commit offense or defraud the United States; deprivation of rights under color of law; and tampering with a witness, victim or an informant. A few hours later ABC NEWSconfirmed those three categories word-for-word and both reports note what is NOT in the letter. As Rolling Stone puts it quote “the letter does not mention statutes on sedition or insurrection” (and I’ll add there is no category mentioned that could even obliquely house charges of wire fraud for scamming people into donating into this bottomless slush fund ostensibly designed to fund Trump’s effort to overturn a stolen election Jack Smith has clearly been trying to prove Trump knew WASN’T stolen). Perhaps the most important fact about the Target Letter is that it does NOT have to be inclusive and it does not have to spell out charges and that there were counts in the Classified Documents case indictments that were not even obliquely referenced in THAT letter, either.“Trump is the only person named in the letter,” says Rolling Stone’s source. Quoting ABC: “Multiple sources tell ABC News that allies, aides and attorneys for the former president have been working to determine if anyone else received a target letter: “we can’t find anyone” unquote, a source said Tuesday afternoon.” Rudy Giuliani’s lawyer confirms HE did not get a target letter; same from John Eastman’s; no firm answers from Jeffrey Clark, Michael Roman, Boris Epshteyn, or (cough) Mark Meadows, or any other Trump lawyer involved in the fake electors end of the coup attempt. Conventional wisdom had developed that Jack Smith was going to reel in not only Trump but a lot of his legal co-conspirators and that’s one of the problems with Conventional Wisdom. OTOH here's the conventional wisdom: this case centers on faking government documents (the electoral results) and using them to falsely claim it's the law that Pence had to invalidate Biden's certification. B-BLOCK (21:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Well it's just past my first dog Stevie's 11th birthday and given I've done three of these in 24 hours I'm going to devote the rest of this podcast to the extraordinary hour in which I went from a man who had never had a dog and knew he never would, to one who has now had five full timers including three rescues and three others who were here briefly. Hell - I have a lot of wasted time to make up! C-BLOCK (35:40) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL, PART 2: How Rudy Giuliani fits in the story. And my interview with Stevie. Sorta :-)    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 249: BULLETIN COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:41) BULLETIN: The SECOND set of Trump Indictments by Special Counsel Jack Smith which will come as early as Thursday in Washington – the second in as many months -- may make the first ones look like a small stack of parking tickets. As news has broken this morning and this afternoon we are seeing the outline of a HUGE number of counts – dozens – the June 29th report by the British newspaper “The Independent” of 30 to 45 more charges being readied may actually be CONSERVATIVE – it could be FAR MORE than 45 counts. And just as breathtaking may be… the range of charges: those hazy details just coming into focus at the horizon could include everything from simple cheesy financial fraud, to the I-word: Insurrection. “A SPRAWLING case,” as it is phrased by the sources of Robert Costa of CBS News – and again quoting them -- “focused on how Trump acted after he was informed by many, that claiming the election was rigged, would be pushing fraud. AND, whether Trump criminally conspired to block certification.” Trump is clearly going to be indicted by the Special Counsel – AGAIN – conceivably as early as this week – and THIS time there is reason to believe he will be indicted not just for premeditated fraud because he conned the gullible cultists for donations to cure a stolen election he knew WASN’T stolen, but also indicted both for the palace coup that was the phony electors scheme AND the violent coup he unleashed stochastically every day between his “it’ll be wild” tweet of December 19th and his speech on the Ellipse on January 6th. At 9:21 Eastern this morning Trump himself revealed he is the recipient of ANOTHER Jack Smith target letter: “stating that I am a TARGET of the January 6th Grand Jury investigation and giving me a very short four days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an arrest and indictment,”unquote. Well on the last part, Trump WOULD know.  And there is the one lingering little detail I spent so much of your time on, on Monday. WHY did he make that Freudian Slip on Saturday and refer to "The Insurrection Act"? Why did he kill the post half an hour later and replace it? When 24 hours later he would learn he is almost certainly to be indicted for the...insurrection? NOTE: THE REST OF THIS PODCAST IS A REPEAT, IN ITS ENTIRETY, OF THIS MORNING'S EPISODE 248. IF YOU'VE HEARD IT, TURN IT OFF, I WON'T TAKE IT PERSONALLY. (12:00) SPECIAL COMMENT : Judge Aileen Mercedes Cannon will now begin to decide whether we all live or die. This, sadly, is not hyperbole. A federal judge who has presided over a total of four trials for a total of fourteen days will today make the first of a series of decisions that will ultimately end with whether we all live or die. The forest really CAN never be seen because we’re next to the trees and how fitting the analogy is because while we are down here taking samples of the bark to check markings by Jack Smith, the big picture is: this judge, Aileen Cannon will at minimum help decide whether or not Donald Trump is kept out of the White House and that will at minimum help decide whether or not we have any chance of maintaining a president who will lead this nation and thus this world through climate change. B-Block (29:25) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Flynn and Bannon are subpoenaed for the Smartmatic suit against Fox. So? Do they tell the truth, or lie? Harlan Crow tries to deduct the Good Ship Super-Yacht Clarence Thomas; Pink Beret Girl from 1/6 is finally found - and turned in by an EX. And the rule of thumb in cable news is: the first week of a new show is its ratings peak. Which means Kaitlin Collins soon will not be watching her own program. (34:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Megyn Kelly blasts RFK Jr's sister because Meg is too dumb to know what RFK Jr's sister DOES; The mayor betrays Atlanta over Cop City; and brilliant plan, Vivek Ramaswamy: on the Supreme Court, he wants: Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and the judge who protected a Beauty Pageant's right to discriminate against transgendered people. C-Block (40:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: If Lionel Messi really is going to debut for the Miami MLS team Friday we have to welcome him in the only way Countdown can. Whatever your watch may say, it's always SOCCER BREAKDOWN O'CLOCK!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 248: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:42) SPECIAL COMMENT: Judge Aileen Mercedes Cannon will now begin to decide whether we all live or die. This, sadly, is not hyperbole. A federal judge who has presided over a total of four trials for a total of fourteen days will today make the first of a series of decisions that will ultimately end with whether we all live or die. The forest really CAN never be seen because we’re next to the trees and how fitting the analogy is because while we are down here taking samples of the bark to check markings by Jack Smith, the big picture is: this judge, Aileen Cannon will at minimum help decide whether or not Donald Trump is kept out of the White House and that will at minimum help decide whether or not we have any chance of maintaining a president who will lead this nation and thus this world through climate change. It really is that stark, and I think we forget about it and then something snaps the picture into focus and in my case it IS two pictures. The first is that one grinning idiot in the black "SAN DIEGO" shirt and the black shorts and the black cap and the black sunglasses in Death Valley taking selfies with a digital thermometer reading 131 degrees - both as if that heat couldn’t hill him, personally, and as if that 131 degree temperature was temporary or transient or unique to that locale or something he has to take a picture of so he can preserve it for his grandchildren and oh by the way at the present rate of acceleration of the climate catastrophe don’t worry about preserving it for your grandchildren because you’re not going to have any, nor is anybody else, because the last words Donald Trump ever speaks on this earth will be about how money is more important than anything or how climate change is a hoax or both and if any of the existential decisions about this planet of the next five years are made with Trump as president - we're all dead. The other image was this redneck Jason Aldean, the pride of MAGA, New Year’s Eve guest at Mar-a-Lago, the yodeling darling of the Climate Denial crowd dropping a song on Friday daring black protestors to – to quote the title “Try That In A Small Town” – and then having to run off the stage and get two IV’s stuck in him so he didn’t lose consciousness while singing the ferocious tropical heat of Hartford, Connecticut. In July. At night. But there’s no man-made climate change. Try THAT in a Small Town, Jason, after the energy grid has failed and your governor chased away all the doctors because Woke. 109 in Rome, 110 expected in Miami, 126 in Sanbao China, 152 at Persian Gulf Airport which is in Iran but closer to Dubai than anywhere else and it didn’t matter because it was 152. So if the power had failed at Persian Gulf Airport, I mean, again, energy grid failure -- as if it were Texas -- there would’ve been a mass casualty event. Judge Cannon is to tell Trump’s lawyers and Walt Nauta’s lawyers and Jack Smith’s team some preliminary findings about the process for handling classified information at the trial and all the indications she gave yesterday suggested she would be adding an item to the agenda: the planned trial start date and timeline and we are now on the path.  She won't be the only one who decides whether we all live or die. But she gets the first set of decisions.As to us, history doesn’t usually SCHEDULE stuff this important in advance. It didn't warn us about Bubonic Plague or Archduke Ferdinand or Hitler or John Brown. But it's warning us in advance about this. I guess that means we're lucky. B-Block (17:30) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Flynn and Bannon are subpoenaed for the Smartmatic suit against Fox. So? Do they tell the truth, or lie? Harlan Crow tries to deduct the Good Ship Super-Yacht Clarence Thomas; Pink Beret Girl from 1/6 is finally found - and turned in by an EX. And the rule of thumb in cable news is: the first week of a new show is its ratings peak. Which means Kaitlin Collins soon will not be watching her own program. (22:51) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Megyn Kelly blasts RFK Jr's sister because Meg is too dumb to know what RFK Jr's sister DOES; The mayor betrays Atlanta over Cop City; and brilliant plan, Vivek Ramaswamy: on the Supreme Court, he wants: Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and the judge who protected a Beauty Pageant's right to discriminate against transgendered people. C-Block (28:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: If Lionel Messi really is going to debut for the Miami MLS team Friday we have to welcome him in the only way Countdown can. Whatever your watch may say, it's always SOCCER BREAKDOWN O'CLOCK!  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 247: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:42) SPECIAL COMMENT: Why did Trump imply he was quote “being charged under the Insurrection Act?” Why did Trump put that out THOSE words – “Insurrection Act” on his social media propaganda site and then delete the post within half an hour and replace “Insurrection Act” with “Espionage Act”? Is there a chance somebody has told him that he may actually BE charged under the Insurrection Act? Could Jack Smith be prosecuting him under the Disqualification Clause of Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment? Could the Special Counsel try to get Donald Trump DISQUALIFIED from ever again holding office in this country? The very thought of it is breathtaking. “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States… to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof." Any person will make tens of thousands of mistakes with words in his life and Trump, more than that, but almost all substitution mistakes – you MEAN one word but SAY or WRITE another – have one minimum threshold: the person who substitutes the one for the other – the person who writes “Insurrection Act” when he INTENDED to write “Espionage Act” – has been thinking about The Insurrection Act. The word “insurrection” did not fall off a shelf and hit Trump in the head and he suddenly wrote it when he MEANT to write “Espionage.” If I haven’t been clear let me state this explicitly: I don’t have a source in the Special Counsel’s office. I don’t have a cousin whose meter maid’s twin brother’s spiritual advisor’s uncle’s nephew types up the daily notes. Nor have any of the people I actually DO know who MIGHT have those kinds of sources said anything. Nor is there anything – ANYTHING – from any of the solid dozen or so reporters covering the coming Trials of Trump that suggests… anything. Nobody has said Smith is think about prosecuting him on Insurrection. And yet I am still sitting here wondering why he wrote what he wrote and I am absolutely convinced Trump has been thinking about the Insurrection Act. So setting aside the one thing you and I most WANT to be true – that even some of Trump’s idiot legal advisers including the non-lawyer ones have told him they may charge him with it… what else could it be? B-Block (20:50) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Tucker Carlson goes off the deep end and as he attacks six presidential contenders to their face it finally dawns on me whose career his has always reminded me of: it was the top American political commentator of 1938. He too was fired while at the pinnacle. He never returned - and he was dead six years later. (27:33) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The Michigan GOP bank account is down to five figures, Eric Adams is still rhetorically beating up the 84-year old holocaust survivor, and Steve Bannon makes me an offer I cannot refuse. C-Block (33:00) IN SPORTS: A brilliant idea! Bring in an aging ex-GOAT from another country to finally make MLS a big deal. Sure it didn't work the first 50 times but Messi's different. Isn't he? And the Buck may not stop here as the Mets near a purge (36:30) Meaning I have to tell the story of the day 30 years ago next month Buck Showalter locked all his players in the trainers' room at Yankee Stadium to teach me a lesson and blame it on them. And I LIKE Buck!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 246: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT:  As a Democratic Congressman Jared Moskowitz asked the trillion-dollar question – whether James Comer and the House Oversight Committee and their indicted fugitive Chinese Agent witness have quote “jeopardized Homeland Security in their search to help Donald Trump” – Comer and Nancy Mace and Speaker McCarthy and all the others attached at the hip to Gal Luft have Thelma-And-Louised it and they are headed right for the edge of the Grand Canyon. Moskowitz is not yet trying to put this directly under noses AT Homeland Security but that is the inevitable outcome. Gal Luft is indicted as a Chinese agent and the Republicans are trying to use him to help Trump seize power. People go to prison for this. Is Comer adroitly fleeing? Not at all. He has scheduled more hearings next week with his OTHER discredited "witness." And Speaker McCarthy has claimed the revelation that Luft was indicted 254 days ago only increases his credibility because it emphasizes that nobody indicted Hunter Biden and McCarthy is not a bright man, just a clever one, like the rat who can find the quickest way through the maze to the cheese that is the House Speakership. NOW would be the right time to explain this whole thing with the Chinese Energy company C-E-F-C that Gol Looft and Hunter Biden did indeed both work for, and why the similarity ends there, and why it is a dangerous thing to let a man as dumb as Kevin McCarthy try to “extrapolate” anything when it is a remarkable development that in that sound bite you just heard Kevin McCarthy SPELL “C-E-F-C” correctly. Here is the Kevin McCarthy-Jamie Comer “extrapolation.”  Hunter Biden consulted for the Chinese energy company C-E-F-C. Thus to the Republicans that means he WORKED for C-E-F-C. Thus to the Republicans that means he TOOK MONEY from C-E-F-C. Thus to the Republicans that means the ENTIRE BIDEN FAMILY was BANKROLLED by C-E-F-C. Thus to the Republicans that means the ENTIRE BIDEN FAMILY was BRIBED by C-E-F-C. This is known not just as extrapolation but as sophistry. Let’s use the same process here about somebody else: ME. I used to be the lead sportscaster Fox Sports News owned by Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. Thus to the Republicans that means I WORKED for Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. Thus to the Republicans that means I TOOK MONEY from Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. Thus to the Republicans that means that the entire OLBERMANN FAMILY was bankrolled by Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. Thus to the Republicans that means that the entire OLBERMANN FAMILY was BRIBED by Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. I think I am spotting a subtle failure in the chain of logic here. Plus: his name is Eli Crane and until yesterday his only claim to fame was founding a company that made shell casings into bottle openers. And then he explained he was NOT trying to keep "colored people" out of the military. Ooops. B-Block (22:40) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Hats of to Representative Kamlager-Dove of Los Angeles. She responds to Marjorie Barney Rubble Greene in the truly correct manner: by asking for Advil. And the Actors' and Writers' strikes are seen from many perspectives but have you ever considered it this way: L.A. is a factory town. 18 of every 1000 employees works IN entertainment and the other 982 want to. Southern California could be in a new Great Depression within six months. (35:02) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The congressman who reportedly edited his own wikipedia entries; the "Fresh Fit" podcast that suddenly added "Fuentes Holocaust Denial;" and Ohio State Representative Bob Young, who in two hours attacked his wife, his brother, and his brother's Storm Window. In the case of the latter - by crashing through it. C-Block (41:00) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: Only a master could combine obvious misogyny with equally obvious certainty that women were better than men. And James Thurber was a master, as you'll hear in his deadpan epic "Mr. Treble Gets Rid Of His Wife."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 245: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: Groups of Congressional Democrats have now separately called for investigations of Gal Luft and his influence on Congressional Republicans, investigations by the House Armed Services Committee, by the House Foreign Affairs Committee, by the House Select Committee on China, and by the House Oversight Committee. investigations into the obvious security breaches and the potential national security threat. But if the questions are about quote “security breaches,” quote “our national interests and those of our allies” quote “national security” then the investigation needs to be conducted by the Office of Homeland Security and The Office of the Director of National Intelligence because while the big red rotating, blaring siren may be Luft. But he isn’t a sitting member of the House or the Senate and this nation needs to know immediately to what degree if any, Congressman James Comer, Congressman Jim Jordan, Congresswoman Nancy Mace, Senator Ron Johnson and other Republicans, have been compromised by China, or have been targets FOR compromise by China. TRUMP’S STOCHASTIC TERRORIST who went to kill Obama after Trump doxxed Obama, WILL stay in jail until trail. Judge Zia Faruqui has ordered him held indefinitely, saying the quote “temperature is way too high in our political discussions” unquote and adding that the consequences could be quote “catastrophic” if Taranto were released and was free to do the things he thought elected officials were telling him to do. Translation: Faraqui believes Taranto could still be a Trump stochastic terrorist, and could easily still head to Obama’s home or anywhere and do anything he thought would please Trump. RAY EPPS is suing Fox and Tucker Carlson for defamation and is using the same local lawyer Dominion Voting Systems used and based on the filing it looks like Ray Epps will wind up OWNING Tucker Carlson and maybe Fox as well, possibly just because of one 100-word paragraph Carlson belched on March 11 of this year: “A lot of this was clearly influenced by federal agents or informants. It was, ok? But I did not want to suggest someone was a federal agent or informant unless I knew for a fact, because you really could get someone in trouble. Right? If you’re like, THIS was the guy and like, we don’t know. I DO know for – I mean it’s very clear – something very strange is going on with Ray Epps. We’ve named him repeatedly, we’ve invited him on the show repeatedly. I mean don’t lie to my face, the Ray Epps thing isn’t, isn’t organic, sorry."  If Tucker Carlson WASN’T trying to tell his audience that Ray Epps was a Federal Agent and Informant who influenced the events of January 6th…what the hell ELSE could Carlson have possibly been TRYING to SAY? B-Block (23:38) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Miles Taylor, launching a new podcast today on whistleblowers within the Trump Administration, says he and his boss talked Trump out of headlining the 2018 State of the Union by announcing he would invoke The Insurrection Act to allow troops to remove or menace migrants. The BBC Presenter story finally goes public even though everybody knew it was newscaster Huw Edwards because all the other reporters kept saying "Huw is it" instead of "Who is it." And oh by the way he wasn't guilty of anything (29:15) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: A pollster reminds us that though inflation in June was remarkably better, prices are still higher than in 2021. Clarence Thomas's aide accepted Venmo; and Barry Bonds really thinks he should now get into the Baseball Hall of Fame. C-Block (34:15) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Because my bosses decided that the night before was the right moment to teach me how to drink, I found myself atop a mountain at the 1980 Olympic Ski Medal Runs without an audio cassette. There was but one other radio reporter there and though nobody would've ever known, he refused to loan me a spare. His name was Jack Briggs. This is his story (and as a bonus: I've attached a report I did FROM the Olympic skiing days earlier, and a two-minute commentary on how I thought we could make Luge the next big sport in America.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 244: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: Do the Republican leaders know WHERE their fugitive foreign agent Gal Luft is? Does Senator Ron Johnson – demanding immunity for Luft so that this multi-national con-man can testify to the House – know Where Gal Luft is? Does Chairman James Comer – still insisting Luft must testify despite the damning revelation that he has been under indictment in this country for 20 months for allegedly bribing a Trump Advisor on behalf of Chinese interests – does Chairman Comer know where Gal Luft is? Does Congresswoman Nancy Mace – still on board the sinking Luft ship and calling him quote “our witness” and promising “we are going to work as hard as we can and deliver as much evidence as we can to the American people so that they can decide whether or not Joe Biden should be in prison” – does Representative Mace know where Gal Luft is? And if the answer to any of these questions is yes – or the answer to the question “do any of them know how to reach him through intermediaries” is yes – then why have they not communicated to the proper authorities the whereabouts of this FUGITIVE FROM THE AMERICAN JUSTICE SYSTEM AND FOREIGN SPY – and why has the Department of Justice not questioned them about what they know about Gal Luft What do the Republicans know about Gal Luft and how long have they known it? ALSO: Jack Smith’s gang goes back to work, the Fani Willis Grand Jury is impaneled in Atlanta, and incredibly the DOJ is defending Trump in the Peter Strzok/Lisa Page lawsuit because it’s not like Trump is trying to end representative government in this country by manipulating the law or anything. B-Block (17:19) IN SPORTS: We had that rarest of sporting events last night: one in which THE highlight was carried off by…the fans in the stands at the Baseball All-Star Game in Seattle and what they chanted. It is staggering to realize that the telecast of 1980 Game was watched by roughly five times as many fans as watched the one last night – and the population was a third smaller in 1980. There are lots of reasons (the players are not playing to win; the stars don’t show up; gone are the days when 9 of the 10 All Star MVP Awards between 1963 and 1972 went to Hall of Famers). But the real reason the game is now meaningless is that baseball threw away the greatest organic gift it was ever given. For 96 seasons, the owners, players, and fans of the American League HATED the fans of the National League, and vice versa. Happily baseball was good enough to throw that away and reduce the two Leagues to bookkeeping arrangements by introducing Interleague Play so they could sell some New York Subway Series caps. (30:25) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Senator Tommy Tuberville doubles down in defense of White Nationalists, then suddenly reverses and says they are racists, then disappears. Congressman Jim Jordan wants to move the FBI Headquarters to Alabama. And this is the kind of man you want leading the free world: the dark horse Republican presidential candidate who will pay you TWENTY dollars if you will donate ONE dollar to his campaign. How does he do it? Volume! Volume! Volume! C-Block (35:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Baseball used to matter so much that local Los Angeles TV sportscasters used to make up crazy conspiracy stories about it, to try to get ratings. Let me tell you of two mind-blowing stunts told by two of my rivals in just my first year doing the sports on the local news in LA nearly 40 years ago: the guy who told his viewers to call a hotel and harass the manager of the All-Star team whom he believed had insulted a local Angels player, and the other guy who insisted that even though the L.A. Dodgers lost the 1985 playoffs they should show up anyway to the World Series and demand to play, because HE and HE ALONE had discovered that the home run that beat them wasn’t a home run at all!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 243: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: It's COMEUPPANCE DAY!  The ENTIRE Republican Hunter Biden/Jo Biden fairy tale has burst and collapsed to the ground, pinning Jamie Comer and Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham and Fox News under the rubble. And the fascists’ pretend-FBI plant they swear was behind January 6th has decided to sue Fox and maybe Tucker Carlson separately. The so-called “Missing Hunter Biden Witness” doesn’t have evidence of Chinese bribes of the Bidens -- he turns out to be a Chinese spy who was bribing a member of the Trump Transition Team. The so-called “Biden IRS Whistleblower” whose entire life consists of swearing the Attorney General refused to grant a U-S Attorney the authority to prosecute Biden, has been completely contradicted BY the U-S Attorney who says the Attorney General GRANTED him the authority to prosecute Hunter Biden anywhere in the country. And the attorney for the so-called “stage manager of the insurrection” around whom Tucker Carlson built a short-lived career but a long-lived conspiracy says the four month grace period is up and he is preparing the lawsuit against Fox. It’s COMEUPPANCE DAY! B-Block (18:54) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Hours after Turkey said it wouldn't support Sweden's NATO admission until the European Union admitted Turkey, Turkey suddenly supported Sweden's NATO admission. Inscrutable even for the Kremlin: Putin met with WHO? And the Taliban endorses Twitter (21:39) IN SPORTS: The New York Times Sports Department was right! The New York Times Sports Department no longer exists! (25:02) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The graphic that actually appeared on cable tv, and NOT on Fox, describing GOP impeachment plans for Hunter Biden. If you want stupid, it's Representative Nicole Malliotakis and Maria Bartiromo. And serial sex abuser Larry Nasser is stabbed in prison. C-Block (29:30) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Morty in Brooklyn (31:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Stop throwing around the prospect of Anthrax at the White House because there was some Cocaine at the White House. At least until you've had real anthrax sent to you. Or even fake anthrax. Like I was. Four times.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.