Countdown with Keith Olbermann

EPISODE 242: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:42) SPECIAL COMMENT: Not even five days since it went live, Zuckerberg's 'Threads' has exceeded the 100,000,000 users mark. And what is Musk doing? Calling him a "cuck" and personally servicing "Libs of TikTok." He's already made a fool of himself threatening to sue Zuckerberg and he HAS sued Twitter's old law firm for accepting the money Twitter owed it. So as Twitter is losing about two and a half billion dollars in value a month, what is his only other play? What it's ALWAYS been: ask the government for a bailout. It HAS to be! For once I'm rooting for the Republicans to take a state-level plan national. One Michigan county GOP leader says of another Michigan county GOP leader "“He kicked me in my balls as soon as I opened the door." And a dismissed budget chairman says new State GOP boss Kristina Karamo's spending is "so far out of proportion with income as to put us on the path to bankruptcy.” MAGA: Make America Groin Again. THIS is unlikely: Ron DeSantis says Trump colluded with Big Tech to bury the Hunter Biden "story" in 2020. Again - more of this please, Republicans. Even President Zelenskyy is scoring points off Trump, and while in an ideal world we'd admit Ukraine to NATO tomorrow, Biden makes two unanswerable points as to why we can't - not now. B-Block (19:04) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Oh, nothing, it's just Tucker Carlson losing 92.5% of his audience between Episode 1 and Episode 8. You can guess which paper asked that moronic cocaine question. And Trump's imbecility at a Dairy Queen invokes one of my Dad's greatest stories and greatest punchlines. (25:04) IN SPORTS: The same day the LOS ANGELES Times sports section essentially announces it's going out of business, the 28 surviving members of the NEW YORK Times sports section rebel and protest and mutiny against their dying outlet in the only way they can: With a letter to the editor. And MLB is trying to spruce up and speed up its player draft. But with it cut from 70 rounds to 20, what happens to all the people who won't be drafted and thus won't start their careers as the lifers who are the backbone of the game?  (34:11) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The podcast host talks about liquidating Joe Biden. The podcast guest - Jeanine Pirro - doesn't walk off the show. And given that assassination-adjacent conversation, why is Nikki Haley STILL predicting the president's death? Plus: Andrea Mitchell thinks magnetometers can detect cocaine. I think I detect the time for Andrea Mitchell to retire before she destroys her reputation and becomes Tom Brokaw. C-Block (41:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Last week was the 20th Anniversary of Ambassador Joe Wilson's famous New York Times Op-Ed that destroyed George Bush's lie that there was WMD in Iraq - and thus destroyed George Bush's legacy. So they decided to destroy Joe Wilson. And craziest of all: they thought I could help. Only one problem - they couldn't figure out how to spell my name so they could email me the weapons.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 241: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:42) SPECIAL COMMENT: The judge in the Taylor Taranto case bought prosecutors – and former President Obama – and the COUNTRY – a little more time by NOT ruling yesterday on whether or not Taranto can be held without bail until trial. He ordered prosecution and defense to return to court NEXT WEDNESDAY to continue arguments. That MIGHT be enough time for the Justice Department to actually get its act together and stop sleep-walking while the rest of us face this NIGHTMARE. At the courthouse yesterday, assistant U-S Attorney Allison Ethen confirmed the government INTENDED to seek additional charges against Taranto. What charges? No answer. When? No answer. The Trump Stochastic terrorist who hunted Barack Obama was so untethered from reality that he was kicked out of a group that holds nightly prayer vigils outside the jail in Washington for January 6th Insurrectionist Defendants. Because the robot is dangerous enough. It is WUSA-TV Channel 9 in Washington reporting that just a week ago the leaders of this January 6thvigil group asked Taranto to leave.THEY disassociated themselves from him because  -- as the wife of convicted Three Percenter Guy Reffitt told the reporter, Taranto quote “did an interview saying he believed Ashli Babbitt was not really dead.” Concurrently, CREW finds that 174 of those defendants specifically said they were quote “answering Donald Trump’s calls when they traveled to Washington and joined the violent attack on the Capitol…” In Court filings, in transcripts, in news items, these 174 people, again quoting the CREW report, “considered Trump their leader and believed they were FOLLOWING his lead by joining the insurrection” and nearly all of those made some reference to his December 19th “It’ll be wild” tweet ABOUT January 6th. Of the 174, NINETY FOUR specifically cited Trump’s remarks IN his January 6th speech “as the reason they went to the Capitol.” CREW notes ominously that these totals do NOT include those at the speech who were part of the attack on the Capitol but not yet arrested. Hours after the CREW report, CNN joins the chorus of reporting that the office of the Special Prosecutor is zeroing in on the chaotic White House meeting earlier in Trump’s day – the tweet was on the 19th, the meeting on the 18th. That’s how far gone Taylor Taranto is. The wife of the militia leader whom prosecutors proved in court quote “lit the match” of the insurrection – who was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison -- SHE didn’t want to associate with him. Also Walt Nauta pleads not guilty as new details of the security video are released and they explain why the DOJ thought Trump had pulled the old switcheroo. And Walt finally got a Florida lawyer named Sasha Dadan and this was once posted on Facebook: “Got a ticket? Don’t pay it! Call attorney Sasha Dadan Bonna. Free consultations, affordable prices.” B-Block (18:29) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Prigozhin is here? Prigozhin isn't here? Marjorie Traitor Greene ISN'T here. Musk is suing Zuck for suing all the guys Musk fired? Pence ends his campaign before it's even begun? (22:51) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Actor Jim Caviezel says there's no free speech while he goes on a media tour promoting his new film (and reveals on the last Jesus picture he was hit by lightning AND was hit by a 150-pound cross which would make me re-think the plot). What? Trump Junior's story about getting "cancelled" by Australia isn't true? And speaking of which: it was a touching story. The mayor of New York still carried in his wallet a photo of his fellow cop who fell in the line of duty in 1987. And then they found that the photo had been printed off the internet and stained with coffee to make it look holder help us help us we keep electing loonies here send help send help C-Block (29:30) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: The New York pound crisis continues. They're ready to kill Yu-Gi-Oh just a week after he arrived. (31:00) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: a story I've never read you here before.You've met the person Thurber writes of: she is not convinced that MacBeth is the murderer and is angry Shakespeare violated the Agatha Christie rules. It's "The Macbeth Murder Mystery."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 240: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: One of Trump’s stochastic terrorists went to Barack Obama’s house to assassinate him. Anybody else notice this, or was it just me? And that a Washington judge was having a hard time last night finding an excuse to hold him without bail? Hold the WOULD-BE ASSASSIN without bail? And that Trump had doxxed Obama and finally found a sucker willing to do his bidding for him? AND park his van full of ammo and weapons a few blocks from Obama’s home. AND livestreamed himself threatening Jamie Raskin and Kevin McCarthy and oh he was going to take his van to Maryland to a federal facility containing a nuclear research reactor and blow up the van and the nuclear reactor and… I mean am I the only one seeing this anywhere? Trump – crazier and more dangerous by the minute – is finally clearly and inextricably linked to a guy ready to answer Trump’s constant drumbeat to try to get one of his cultists to kill, without TELLING them to kill and thus leaving himself open to prosecution FOR killing or incitement-to-kill, and the Department of Justice remains asleep at the switch. The US Magistrate Judge in DC, Zia M. Faruqui managed to avoid having to release Trump’s figurative flying monkey – his name is Taylor Taranto – by keeping him in stir overnight and putting the onus on the government to answer the judge’s question: if the original charges against this would-be political murderer Taranto were simply left over trespassing accusations from January 6th, and the government wanted him held without bail because he’s a flight risk, what if the Judge finds he’s NOT a flight risk? Is it enough that threatening key Democratic and Republican congressmen and talking about going to a government nuclear reactor and blowing up your van next to – oh and responding to one former president’s publishing of another former president’s address by going there with a van full of weapons of death – is THAT quote “clear convincing evidence” of a danger to the public and even if it is, does that mean the judge can really hold him in jail? Yeah, you guys let Taranto loose while the lot of you argue over how many angels can dance on the head of this proverbial pin, and, you know, if he goes back to Obama’s neighborhood or, I dunno, tries to ram the White House with his van while screaming “TRUMP IS GOD” as he does so, maybe then prosecutors can indict him for various vehicular and parking offenses. B-Block (20:00) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Miles Taylor says Trump negotiated with Erik Prince to form his own private mercenary army to dispatch to Afghanistan and Venezuela; RFK needs money more than power; Steve Bass's new horizon; farewell to Dr. Frank Field and Marvin Kitman. (25:50) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Laura Ingraham wants to defund Jack Smith. How about demoting him to 7 PM? The warmest day since July 4, 122,977 BC. And GQ Magazine first neuters a piece that offended David Zaslav of Warner BROS, then kills the piece completely, then it turns out GQ's Editor is producing a film FOR WARNER BROS. C-Block (34:10) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Angelina, L'il Bit and Prince in Georgia (35:20) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Nothing makes me smile more than a week with July 4th in the middle. It's because of that kind of calendar that I got my first network job just 44 years ago. The holiday ate up nearly all the business days they would've had to look for anybody besides me! (Plus that first broadcast from July 1979).See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 239: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: Jack Smith is reportedly ready to indict Trump on between 30 and 45 MORE counts. And he is preparing to indict several of Trump’s lawyers from the Fake Electors Scheme including (voluntary interview notwithstanding) Rudy Giuliani. And all that is reported by the same British newspaper that correctly nailed the Miami indictments two days before they were finally handed up. CNN adds that the main Trump campaign official in charge of the Fake Electors will take the immunity deal he was offered and testifying for the Special Prosecutor. If the source for Britain's "The independent" is correct, Trump could be facing as many as 77 counts in a superseding indictment, although its sources are not clear if those charges would come in a superseding indictment in Florida or might be filed in a different jurisdiction (and we have already discussed the possibility of Trump being indicted in New Jersey for The Trump Confession Tape, plus all the crimes still on the table in D.C.). There is one intriguing new twist to the seemingly trivial question of where to indict. It will, quoting the story, “depend in part on whether they feel the Trump-appointed district judge overseeing the case against him in the Southern District of Florida, Aileen Cannon, is giving undue deference” to Trump. As to the hapless Giuliani, Feinberg’s source says that despite the ex-Mayor’s proffer offer to prosecutors, Rudy will quote “most definitely” face at least some charges from Jack Smith’s office, dating to his actions in the interval between the election and January 6th. Also: Trump showed that secret map to the co-chair of a lobbying firm taking millions from at least three Chinese tech firms closely linked to the Chinese government. The “I should not be showing the map” map? The “so don’t get too close”map? Wednesday night ABC News identified the person Trump showed the classified map to as Susie Wiles, a Trump adviser and campaign official and his potential 2024 campaign chair. Last night the NEW YORK POST, of all news outlets, identified Susie Wiles as the co-chairman of Mercury Public Affairs, lobbying mouthpieces for at least three really bad, really dangerous Chinese firms including Alibaba – the online retailer and web services company that is actually partially owned BY the Chinese GOVERNMENT and which the Post says Susie Wiles’ company, Mercury, is STILL receiving payments from. And the nightmare unfolds at the Supreme Court: Affirmative Action is struck down and although work-arounds are offered and President Biden lambasted the Fascist Theocratic Court's interference with the settled law of the nation and agreed that the court is not a "normal" one, when offered the cure, he shied away: "If we start the process of trying to expand the court, we’re going to politicize it, maybe forever, in a way that is not healthy, that you can’t get back.” President Biden? It's irredeemably politicized NOW. It's FOREVER. It is ALREADY not healthy. And we can't get it back. (17:54) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The 5'7" Prime Minister of the UK violates the first rule of comparative height: NEVER give away 14 inches in a photo. Pirro, Ingraham, others at Fox mock Biden's use of CPAP machine despite own physical and emotional problems; New York Mayor Eric Adams must resign: he rages against a renters' advocate, compares her to a slaveowner, insults her repeatedly. She's an 84-year old woman who escaped the holocaust yet within seconds of her remarks he played the race card against her. B-Block (28:06) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Not only did Joe Biden spend most of his senatorial career fighting a reputation as a hothead, but when he decided to fight it he turned to advice about how to productively focus his anger to...me? C-Block (39:10) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: I succumb to Bothsidesism! If I have a long Biden story, I must offer a long Trump story. And Thurber wrote one, and somehow managed to do it 15 years before Trump was born. When success is mistaken for character and the worst person in the world is mistaken for "The Greatest Man In The World."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 238: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) Rudy Giuilani has offered to flip. It is almost certainly NOT against Trump and it may even be a finesse play to distract Jack Smith FROM Trump (and from himself). But that "voluntary meeting" with prosecutors we heard about early in the week turns out to have been a "Proffer Offer" in which he essentially auditioned as a witness. The New York Times also has what – under the proffer protection that whatever he told them IN that interview will not be used against him unless it turns out he was lying – prosecutors asked him about: 1) About a plan to create fake slates of pro-Trump electors. 2)“They focused specifically on the role played in that effort by John Eastman." 3) Quote: “Giuliani also discussed Sidney Powell” 4) “Ms. Powell… also took part in a meeting in the Oval Office in December 2020 during which Trump was presented with a brazen plan, opposed by Giuliani, to use the military to seize control of voting machines and re-run the election.” 5) “Prosecutors further asked Mr. Giuliani about the scene at the Willard Hotel days before the attack on the Capitol” and the group of conspirators gathered there – the Times names Eastman, Boris Epshteyn, and Steve Bannon. CBS News, which does NOT use that tell-tale term “proffer,” also says he was asked about Jeffrey “Can I Put My Pants On” Clark? And 6) CBS had one other detail which reads quote: “The special counsel did not indicate that Giuliani is a SUBJECT of the investigation and his team does not believe he is” which then raises the question why the hell would he be trading information to the Special Prosecutor as a potential immunity deal? I’m Rudy and I’m a good citizen, so don’t prosecute me? Moreover: time and time again throughout American criminal history – especially American POLITICAL criminal history – key witnesses have changed sides while telling themselves they were not giving up THEIR guy and then once they see how much MORE protection they will gain FROM giving up their guy… they GIVE UP their guy. When it was time to get immunity for his role in Watergate, my friend John Dean’s starting point was, according to the giggling reminiscence of his attorney Charlie Shaffer, “We can’t talk about The P” – “The P” -- Dean’s shorthand for President Nixon. B-Block (19:48) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: She's trying to play to the right of Boebert and Greene by raging against abortions and human stem cells - even saying using some of the latter for research "makes us no better than Nazis." Now her family financial disclosures are out and Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna's husband owns stock in a medical company that uses human stem cells. And a MAGA "prophet" says he saw an image of Trump in the sky over "Rush Mountmore." (25:19) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Meltdown in RFK Jr Merch-land. Just when you thought he couldn't possibly be connected to foreign interference turns out the image in his merchandise ad is just a photoshopped stock shot of a Russian woman on a Russian street. Nancy Mace and Tommy Tuberville try to take credit for local Biden projects they voted against. And the Jersey Munitions Dealer and OAN guest didn't like those 32 old growth trees that blocked his view of New York City. So he had them cut down. Two problems: they weren't on HIS property and the law there says he now has to replace them and that could cost him nearly $2 Million. C-Block (32:10) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Duke the beautifully-behaved Doberman on death row in Baldwin Park, California. (32:52) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Somebody asked me why TV executives seem like idiots. I said "SEEM?!?" and then instead of trying to explain it to her I just told her the saga of Rick Kaplan, who was president of CNN and then MSNBC and once credited himself for a format change from a year earlier that we did only once and abandoned but he didn't know because he DIDN'T HAVE CABLE IN HIS HOUSE.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 237: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: There arises today the distinct chance that the two Non-Trump-Employees heard on the Trump Confession Recording supplied their copy of the recording to Jack Smith, and that they will testify against him. It may be coincidence but we know this much for sure: days after they were at Bedminster in July, 2021, after a lot of publicity in newspapers and with Tucker Carlson for their new venture, the co-publishers of Mark Meadows' book all but disappeared from public view.  The recording does not exist in a vacuum. Why is everybody looking at it that way It's a tape of FIVE PEOPLE TALKING IN A ROOM. Any of whom can be called to testify ABOUT THE TAPE. And we don’t really know, because nobody’s really focused them, who the OTHER four people are. And we don’t know what THEY think of the tape. And we don’t know whether any of them are already on that list of possible witnesses Smith may call in the documents trial. The New York Post had a throwaway reference last night: “Two of the people Trump speaks to in the audio are believed to be Kate Hartson and Louise Burke, who had started All Seasons Press, a conservative publishing company…” You do not have to have a hyperactive imagination to wonder: if the Post is right and it was both of them that as Ms. Burke and Ms. Hartson left Bedminster that day two years ago next month one of them realized that they had just been shown top secrets and had it within their power to get Trump indicted for not keeping top secrets SECRET and it put the fear of God into them. Hell, Kid Rock says Trump did it with HIM and even HE was smart enough to get frightened. Did they go to the FBI? Meanwhile Trump really DID change HIS story three times yesterday. When he got burned by Bret Baier on Fox last week, Trump insisted about the document referred to in the transcript of the recording, quote “there was no document.” Yesterday he posted only that he was covered by the Presidential Records Act. Then in New Hampshire he insisted he had kind of told Baier there WAS a document. Then to reporters on his plane he said no, he never had a document, just building plans. And golf course plans. And a newspaper story about Iran. And he was showing off. All in one day. Plus Walt Nauta didn't testify because his lawyer decided he needed lots more money to take THIS case. But Rudy Giuliani reportedly pre-testified in an interview with the Special Counsel's staff. B-Block (24:32) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: SCOTUS votes 6-3 in favor of keeping democracy after all (though it's really more like 5-4). The Senator whose state's top industry is tourism tells tourists not to go there. A Bob and Ray sketch comes to life. They once imagined Chocolate-Flavored Ketchup. The National Culinary institute is introducing COLA-Flavored Ketchup - for use on HOT DOGS. (35:01) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Elon Musk deliberately or inattentively starts punishing accounts which block RW ads on Twitter. Last week The National Hockey League betrayed Pride Night. THIS week it puts its player draft in the city whose incoming owner is a noted anti-same-sex marriage and adoption ex-Governor. And yes RFK Jr shared an online stage with an anti-vaxxer who says the Covid vaccine causes you to become magnetic. But I'm the winner because I accidentally called RFK Jr "JFK Jr" and that is utterly unfair...to JFK Jr. C-Block (36:30) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Fox just changed its lineup to put its 10 PM host on at 7 because its audience is now too old to stay up to 10. This flashed me back to the day, nearly 15 years ago, when I first realized that the future of cable news was... there wasn't any. The day they let a guy who knew nothing about cable news and cared even less bully the people who ran MSNBC. His name was Tom Brokaw.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 236: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:42) SPECIAL COMMENT: Donald Trump will be convicted for criminal violations of The Espionage Act. Because there are smoking guns, and then there are the smoking guns so profound and so productive that they turn the Eastern Seaboard sky orange. And this one is the second kind. CNN GOT the clip of the actual recording of Trump showing off classified Joint Chiefs of Staff military plans for attacking Iran. AND then The Washington Post got it. And then The New York Times got it. I haven’t yet checked my high school paper, The Hackley Dial. First: It fulfills the first rule of Trump: everything is worse than you could possibly imagine – he’s laughing as he commits crimes prohibited by The Espionage Act, his flunky is making Hillary Clinton jokes, he’s making Anthony Weiner jokes, he’s ordering Cokes. Second: It HAS to have come from Mark Meadows. It HAS to have. Third: It fulfills the prophesy of Ryan Goodman from Just Security: it IS NOT just Trump committing a crime, it is Trump narrating his own crime, as he crimes. Fourth: the tape has a postscript, something that was for whatever reason NOT included in the transcript of the tape that was included in the charging document filed by Special Counsel Jack Smith. Meanwhile there are also huge developments in Smith's pursuit of a Trump indictment in the Fake Electors, Wire Fraud, and January 6th Coup strands of his perfidy. B-Block (21:50) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: In memoriam: the former President of Current TV, and also my boss at CNN in 2001-02, the legendary television news producer David Bohrman. If you've watched it, it was something Bohrman dreamt up. C-Block (41:30) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Bill Maher is back in the news as an Anti-Vax sympathizer, fawning over the demented Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. I nearly got into a fistfight with him in 1978, didn't remember it until 2009, when we nearly got into a fistfight again. I clearly should've followed my first instincts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 235: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT:  While we wait to see if Yevgeny Prigozhin accidentally falls out Vladimir Putin’s window in a month, or Vladimir Putin accidentally falls out Yevgeny Prigozhin’s window in a month, it is clear that Jack Smith is again in the End Game for more Trump Indictments – about Fake Electors – and he and his team are also really shockingly confident that they will get a quick conviction of Trump in the documents case.It was obscured because television news and even most big-time newspapers exceeded the number of big stories they can effectively cover simultaneously – ONE – and we had Russia and the Titanic Sub – but Jack Smith has obtained the testimony of two Nevada Fakes and may have already bought the testimony of the guy who was the Trump Campaign’s Director of, in essence, Fake Electors. Smith is also locking in testimony and he is clearly coming down the stretch towards indictments. Almost certainly that will include the deplorable Justice Department hatchet-man Jeff “Can I Put My Pants On” Clark and Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell and with any luck Jenna Ellis and Boris Epshteyn too and probably Trump as well. The key is: Smith is reportedly close to a deal for the testimony of the Trump Campaign's clearing officer for the entire Electoral Slate conspiracy: Michael Roman. All the while: Trump keeps confessing to the Documents charges, and one national security attorney reads the latest DOJ motion and determines that the Special Counsel believes that trial WILL occur this year and won't last long. B-Block (19:00) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: I can see Russia from my house and if you think that conflict "ended" Saturday, think again. RFK's PAC is reportedly run by MAGA PAC. CNN got rid of Chris Licht's graphics. Did they also get rid of Licht's new primetime star? (24:31) IN SPORTS: Baseball congratulates itself on another pointless trip to play regular season games in England. The first such trip was 149 years ago. Seriously. Is Aaron Judge sprained or torn or both? And why run differential makes no difference. (28:28) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Meghan McCain, Lance Armstrong, and Nikki Haley were too obvious so I went with Chuck Todd, Greg Abbott and Stew Peters. C-Block (34:40) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: It happened on a Sunday night and last night was a Sunday night so sure enough I was reminded of it. There's no surprise quite like the one you get when you look out your apartment window and notice the building is en Fuego.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 234: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:42) SPECIAL COMMENT: He’s behaved like a lot of things before but until now Trump has NEVER sounded so desperately scared. “CONGRESS WILL HOPEFULLY NOW LOOK AT THE EVER CONTINUING WITCH HUNTS AND ELECTION INTERFERENCE” it began.“CONGRESS, PLEASE INVESTIGATE THE POLITICAL WITCH HUNTS,” he begs. All caps. “THE ONLY WAY THEY CAN WIN IS TO CHEAT. STOP THEM NOW!,” he pleads. ALSO all caps. It’s everything but “Mommy I’m scared. They caught me.” What caused this? I mean, apart from the insanity? Via Discovery, he’s received much of the Department of Justice evidence supporting the 37 counts against him, including all the audio tapes – the vainglorious interviews he gave which are apparently peppered with references to documents and secrets and I-can’t-tell-you-this-but-here-goes. Plus: if he didn’t before, HE now knows WHO testified against him and what they said. There is another Sam Alito All-Expenses-Paid-Vacation scandal. It is not nearly as startling and quid pro quo-ish as taking a 100-thousand dollar private jet trip to Alaska courtesy of a Hedge Fund Guy and then years later voting for a Supreme Court judgment that gave Hedge Fund Guy two billion, 400 hundred million. CNN got on-the-record confirmation from the director of the Notre Dame University Religious Liberty Initiative that her group did INDEED pay the traveling expenses for Alito to go to its conclave in Rome last July and give a speech mocking anybody who dared criticize him. No laws were broken, only the basic tenets of judicial honesty. The Notre Dame University Religious Liberty Initiative has a legal clinic, and since its founding in 2020 it has filed a series of “Friend Of The Court” briefs on cases being heard by… the Supreme Court. Happily, Sam Alito always has another hair he can split. Quote: “My understanding is that Notre Dame Law School’s Religious Liberty Initiative has a number of components, only one of which is a clinic that, like the legal clinics at many other law schools, files amicus briefs in the Supreme Court. I was not invited to speak in Rome by the CLINIC.” And Marjorie Taylor Greene has extended the “Marjorie Taylor Greene called Lauren Boebert a quote “Little Bitch” unquote” story another day. She was good enough to explain to Semafor News WHY she called Lauren Boebert a quote “LITTLE BITCH” unquote. “She has genuinely been a nasty little bitch to me.” Greene re-told the story as witnesses had broken it to The Daily Beast: Anna Paulina Lunatic was talking about impeachment when Boebert came over to Greene to complain about Greene’s recent remarks. “I told her exactly what I think about her.” B-Block (15:10) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Oh cool two more Republican presidential candidates. Moms For Liberty backs down, then backs down again, after quoting Hitler about how to own children and thus the future. Jeff Zucker's CNN journey could go from getting fired to buying the place. Or, since it's in The New York Post: maybe not. (18:40) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Canadian Member of Parliament Matt Jeneroux addresses his nation's crisis. He wants an "official grievance" filed against Taylor Swift for not coming to Canada on her next tour. Why don't you try The World Court At The Hague? The lesson of the lost Titanic Submersible? Charlie Kirk says it's don't hire black pilots. And there are bigots and cowards and homophobes. But if you FOLD to homophobes for money and pretend you're not folding to them but doing it to protect the people you just abandoned, you are worse than all the kinds of homophobes put together. And that is National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman. C-Block (26:05) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: His bizarre but compelling story of a handyman with an accent and his own pet thunderstorms: "The Black Magic of Barney Haller."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 233: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: The most influential conservative justice on the Supreme Court accepted a free private jet flight worth $100,000 from a hedge fund manager and then six years later the justice voted in favor of a Supreme Court decision that gave the hedge fund manager’s company $2,400,000,000. Neither all the hand-wringing and self-martyring in the world by the recipient, Samuel Alito, NOR all the hand-wringing and calls for ethical reform in the world by the likes of Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin changes the fact that we shouldn’t have to have rules aying that is a bad and corrupt idea and you shouldn’t do it. The issue of SUPREME COURT ETHICAL STANDARDS is important and overdue and maybe, Please Christ, this will scare Dick Durbin out of his stupor, but the REAL issue is SAMUEL ALITO’S ETHICAL STANDARDS and the unfortunate complication is that he CLEARLY DOESN’T HAVE ANY. Dick Durbin now plans a Senate Judiciary Committee "mark-up" of Supreme Court ethics rules but of course it can't pass without the House. But what he can - and MUST - do is scare the crap out of Alito, Thomas, Leonard Leo, Paul Singer, Harlan Crow and the rest of them. Subpoena them. Dirty them up. Use words like bribe and corruption and deal. PLUS: It's almost too good to be true. On the House Floor, Marjorie Taylor Greene reportedly called Lauren Boebert a "little bitch" which is news enough by itself, but it also allows all of us to keep repeating that Greene reportedly called Boebert a quote "little bitch" unquote. AND: Kari Lake posts a photo of herself in a bikini with Trump around her waist. Trump, in inflatable pool float form. At least she didn't post a photo of herself blowing it up. B-Block (14:55) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: After John Durham testified to the House Judiciary committee and imploded, and after Kevin McCarthy got booed off the rostrum announcing the censure of Adam Schiff, I am beginning to suspect Durham and McCarthy are Democratic plants. (22:35) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Ron DeSantis boasts about Florida's unemployment data - "amoung the best." Misspelled "among." Well - it wasn't about education, was it? Plus while the right invokes the time a 69-year old grandmother served for January 6, she asks them to stop and says she was wrong to be there. And an online guy has just discovered what he thinks is a previously unknown obscure presidential candidate who he's determined to introduce to the rest of us. The guy's name is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. C-Block (30:10) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: If you can make it, we need you to go to the Board Meeting of the New York Pound THIS MORNING (31:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: When I worked for Ted Turner, covered him as he met with striking NFL players, made him gush with pride and then angry enough to fire me, and then actually used my head and turned the situation into a win-win.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.