Countdown with Keith Olbermann

EPISODE 103: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:55) BARBARA WALTERS: IN MEMORIAM. Since her death Friday, there has been one story after another about Barbara Walters the groundbreaker and Barbara Walters the feminist and Barbara Walters the interviewer and Barbara Walters the role model and each of these accolades is more than justified. But I'm not seeing enough about Barbara Walters, the person with a large soul who survived as huge a disaster as ever befell the career of anybody in television, who fought her way back from punchline to immortal, and who thanked everybody who protected her, and tried to protect everybody - women and men alike - who might be facing any of the attacks she fought off in the years following 1976. As she wrote me once: "I'm not as tough as I pretend to be and the support means the world to me. I cannot thank you enough." B-Block (16:40) SPECIAL COMMENT: Chief Justice Roberts reinforced his reputation as the human embodiment of the "This Is Fine" dog in the burning room meme. Did his year end message on the judiciary for New Year's 2023 address Samuel Alito's insults towards this country? The revelation that he discussed Hobby Lobby with one of the theocrats before ruling? The madness of Ginni Thomas trying to overthrow the government? The Court throwing away its remaining credibility? No. He knows who the real victims here: The Justices. C-Block (26:15) SPECIAL COMMENT: Roberts, of course, is nothing compared to Sam Alito. Where is Alito's reply to The New York Times report about his leak to Hobby Lobby? Where is the Court's reply to the Judiciary Committees of the House and Senate demanding answers about it? Alito is a clear and present danger to this country.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 102: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT No. 1: George Santos is the Brian Williams of politics. I joked last week "If that IS your real name." Now there's question as to whether or not it is. And about where he went to HIGH SCHOOL. And the time he claimed he was black. And about how he could get Kevin McCarthy elected speaker - and get him fired later. As the Feds begin to follow his equally dubious campaign money, I repeat my plea to Democrats: don't try to keep him from being seated by the House of Representatives next Tuesday. After it dawned on me that the comp for Santos is my unfortunate former friend Brian Williams, it also dawned on me that there might still be a way for Santos to worm his way out of it. And that's also reflected in the saga of the George Santos of 1954: Congressman Douglas Stringfellow of Arizona. B-Block (18:36) SPECIAL COMMENT No. 2: There is method to the January 6th Committee's madness of waiting until the Christmas-New Year's Break to release its final report and these fascinating deposition transcripts. I think they did it to shield the recommendation to invoke the Insurrection Clause of the 14th Amendment. As a bonus yesterday we got testimony that Kim Guilfoyle is an idiot, and that Melania Trump lived in mortal fear of being seen in her robe by Rudy Giuliani. B-Block (33:51) IN SPORTS: The death of Pele, an analysis of the athletic gifts that made him his game's greatest ever, and his surprising legacy in New York and the United States. (37:55) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Bad reporting at The New York Times, New York Magazine, and Politico is no match for - as Scottish tweeter Al Kennedy wrote - "I have to hand it to Andrew Tate, this is the first time I've seen someone be so outwitted by a teenager that they end up in jail without it involving a dog that solves fake ghost mysteries." C-Block (43:21) FRIDAYS WITH JAMES THURBER: His most reprinted story: "The Night The Bed Fell."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 101: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: Be as righteously indignant as you want, Democrats. But do NOT attempt to block the seating of George "If That Is Your Real Name" Santos. No matter which way Kevin McCarthy turns, Santos will be his undoing, so just shut up and invest in popcorn. As a Republican District Attorney opens a probe of his campaign and his cornucopia of lies, Santos is still doubling down and dismissing as "nitpicking" those recoiling at his lies about his religion, family, the Holocaust, the Pulse Nightclub, 9/11, his finances, jobs, education, time spent in Brazil, time spent in Russia, possible criminal records, buildings he does or doesn't own, and lies about a DOG RESCUE. This is not a man even approaching the building that contains the hallway that leads to step one of the 12-Step Program for compulsive liars. It's so bad one Republican ex-Congressman is openly hoping they can seat Santos, then talk him into voting for McCarthy for Speaker, and only then resigning! B-Block (19:45) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Maltipoo Honey in New York (20:53) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: I'm running for CEO of Twitter, the health of Jamie Raskin, the Bill Cosby Comeback-And-Spiked-Drink Tour (22:54) IN SPORTS: The Raiduhs Quarterback must go down and he must go down hard (24:38) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The New York Times can't stop itself: now it's hyping books written by three correspondents who held news back from The Times in order to get book deals. Plus Elon Musk, and Mayor Eric Adams endorsing turning New York over to "Big Brother." C-Block (29:12) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Because I found the cassette recently, please enjoy the first professional sportscast I ever did, on July 10, 1979, plus sportscasts from Disco Demolition Night and the retirement of Catfish Hunter. Or don't. I won't hold it against you if you don't listen to 43-year old sportscasts!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 100 REVISED: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:53) BREAKING OVERNIGHT NEWS IN SPORTS: 24 hours ago Carlos Correa was on his way to a press conference for a $350 Million dollar deal with the San Francisco Giants. Then the shindig was cancelled and now Correa has instead signed with the New York Mets! Invoking the college basketball coached who changed his mind on the way to HIS press conference. And sadness in football as Franco Harris died, two days before the 50th Anniversary of the "Immaculate Reception" and three before the Steelers were to retire his uniform. SPECIAL COMMENT (7:17) Merry Christmas! We got you six years of Trump's Tax Returns! No accounting expertise? No problem. There are apparently no receipts, no substantiations - and somebody stopped the IRS from its mandated audit of Trump's returns while he was in the Oval Office (9:00 The walls haven't just closed in on Trump, they've crushed him. The 1/6 Committee is now shipping all its evidence to DOJ Special Counsel Jack Smith (10:52) Remember the attorney who told the Trump witness not to tell everything to the Committee? She's been identified - and her lawyer was the Trump White House Ethics Attorney! (10:45) Bigger picture: The Omnibus Spending Bill will include "The Electoral Count Reform And Presidential Transition Improvement Act," or as it has also been described: Trump-Proofing Our System (14:00) And the right wingers are beginning to look for the Emergency Exit. They can't survive an actual Trump Trial, so they are floating "The Agnew Option" (16:00) But couldn't Trump then transfer his cult to some up and coming young Republican like Representative-Elect George Santos and his helpers? I will not make Simpsons references I will not make Simpsons references I will not make Simpsons references. (17:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: He really thought the name was "John Mastodon;" the owner of the Knicks, Rangers and Radio City owner is using facial recognition technology to keep out people he doesn't like, and Sean Hannity says you're not allowed to have his phone number (23:00) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Grizzly in California. B-Block (25:30) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Amid dark rumors at MSNBC, the day that GE was ready to shut us down because the chairman's mother loved Fox News. C-Block (44:00) JAMES THURBER: Maybe the best of his longer works, that almost predicted Joe McCarthy, O.J. Simpson, Donald Trump. The saga of fame without character, "The Greatest Man In The World."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 99: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: The House 1/6 Committee's criminal referrals of Trump are historic and headline-grabbing but they are symbols. The testimony and newly-released text of Hope Hicks, the ubiquity of the obscure Ken Klukowski in at least three tentacles of the coup plot, and the introduction of a whole new line of Obstruction of Justice are the real keys. Because not only are they the evidence the Department of Justice can use, but they also give us the shape of things to come: what the trial of Donald Trump will look like. And he says "what does not kill me makes me stronger"? OK, fella. Deal. B-Block (16:36) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Buddy (18:04) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: It's not just that the Republicans elected a Congressman in New York whose entire resume is a lie, it's that the lazy, sloppy New York Democrats only found out about it when they read it in The New York Times (23:35) IN SPORTS: No, the NBA is not expanding to Mexico City now, any more than it was expanding there in 1992. And baseball mourns the pitcher who walked out on a World Series game because the baby was on the way - and the team had the play-by-play announcers try to beckon him back. C-Block (32:25) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: How is this possible? Probably the two most prominent blackmail stories of this century - and I once worked alongside the blackmailer in the first case, and I once worked alongside the blackmailee in the other!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 98: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: As Elon Musk votes himself off Twitter Island, the shocking news from The Washington Post: though the two things were unconnected and Musk irresponsibly blamed reporters and the Elon-Jet kid for something that none of us caused or even influenced and had happened two days EARLIER, the mother of two of his children, the singer Grimes HAS an alleged stalker and there was a confrontation last Tuesday. It wasn't our fault and incredibly Musk tried to argue the Elon-Jet kid down from $50,000 to $5,000 for his help. But as somebody who was himself stalked - for FIVE years - IN Los Angeles - by a woman who had the same kind of delusion about 'secret coded messages' from me that Grimes' alleged stalker claims about her, I feel nothing but empathy for Grimes and the kids and - even though Musk tried to humiliate me, mocked my efforts to save death row dogs, and literally told 120 million followers that I had committed a crime, I have empathy for him and would've helped if asked. WHY DIDN'T HE TELL US FIRST, OR EVEN EXPLAIN, INSTEAD OF SUSPEND, THREATEN, AND BULLY? B-Block (22:51) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Violet in New York POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Criminal Referrals are coming; why Kari Lake must be arrested; Kyrsten Sinema to finance Independent Senate run by selling her old shoes IN SPORTS: Oh great, you decide the soccer championship of the world by a shooting competition. What a pathetic conclusion to a great tournament. The guy who caught Aaron Judge's homer auctions it for half what he would've gotten a month ago. THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Larry Elder invokes Mao, Musk, and Hitler, Marjorie Taylor Greene is back with a second reference to the sex toys for sale, and Chris Licht strikes back at me - and misses. C-Block (37:11) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: You have to admit, if you want to listen to somebody who's an expert on getting suspended - from Twitter or anybody else - I'M YOUR GUY. Where my top three suspensions rank (and the Twitter one doesn't make the cut). The sagas of MSNBC 2010, ESPN 1997, and UPI 1980.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 97: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: So you probably haven't heard anything about this (LOL) but last night Elon Musk reenacted the church scene from "The Godfather" where Al Pacino as Michael Corleone has all his rivals murdered while his own son is being baptized. I was almost incidental in this: on November 6th, Musk wrote "My commitment to free speech extends to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk." Five weeks later Elon Musk-leone banned the account and threatened legal action against the kid, called it "Assassination Coordinates," even though the information is legally and publicly available and as Phil Bump of The Washington Post writes "identifying the location of an airplane provides 'assassination coordinates' to, like, the operator of a Patriot missile battery." Journalists like Aaron Rupar, Ryan Mac, Donie O'Sullivan from CNN, Drew Harwell of The Post, Matt Binder, Micah Lee, Tony Webster, Steve Herman from the Voice of America - and me - who defended the account, or mentioned a new account had begun on Twitter's rival Mastodon, or linked to it - were immediately banned, permanently, without explanation or notification. I"ll give you the full saga of Apartheid Clyde here, but what a friggin candy-ass lying hypocritical self-contradicting little paranoid snowflake Elon Musk is! B-Block (20:57) SPECIAL COMMENT: I swear I wondered if maybe Musk did this anti-free speech crap just to make everybody forget about Trump's ridiculous "SuperHero Digital Baseball Cards" which show such illustrations as liquid pouring out of the seat of his pants, him standing in front of something called "RUMP TOWEL," and him standing dressed as a cowboy and way in the background it sure looks like two horses are having sex. C-Block (27:27) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: His classic story "The Catbird Seat."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 96: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:45) Do you have a dog? Seems like a simple question. Until you're reminded that Donald Trump never had a dog in his life and only refers to dogs as insults, while Joe Biden got a shelter shepherd who apparently had the insight to bite somebody from the corrupted Secret Service. I'm a late-life dog guy and there's no zealot like a convert, so let me tell you about two of my five pups. The first - was my first. The story of how I was adopted by my gal Stevie is the stuff of improbability, including the role played in it by... Rudy Giuliani? B-Block (14:03) Stevie's story led me to the American Maltese Association's rescue arm and soon she and her sister were joined by a little guy with a bad heart, who recovered after delicate surgery. (28:42) And then last year I was asked to take in another pup named Mishu whose heart was even worse and for whom there was no surgery to have. C-Block (37:00) Mishu's story ended in the only way it could. And every moment was worth it. And every moment, he remains with me.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 95: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: You'll be happy to know that Kevin McCarthy, whose only gift is making up excuses for the violent, insane, anti-democracy, murderous, treacherous, traitorous, seditious mob otherwise known as "The Republican Party," has reassured us that when Marjorie Taylor Greene said SHE would've "won" the January 6th Coup, she was just being "facetious." (2:11) So now, what rationalization will he come up with Rep. Ralph Norman and his text of 1/17/21 urging that Trump get busy "invoking Marshall (sic) Law!?" There's quite a few of these McCarthy needs to excuse: the Republicans who want to hang Democrats, who want to hang them from cranes, or put them before firing squads. What words might he choose? (7:05) And how would he describe what Trailer Park Greene asked Laura Loomer to find out about McCarthy's own "affairs"? (8:19) And what word would we use if McCarthy grew a pair and acted to expel Marjorie Taylor Greene under the Rebellion Clause of the 14th Amendment? B-Block (11:55) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Zenith in New York (13:00) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Senate progress to close the coup loophole? Commutations in Oregon. And the Drag Show Must Go On. (14:46) IN SPORTS: The NBA does an odd job in suddenly naming all its awards after its greatest players. How is a guy who played in nine finals and lost eight of them, to be the face of the "Clutch" Award? And this raises the question of re-naming hockey awards. If the people for whom they are named are not worthy, you should find new faces, yes? That means the racist Conn Smythe. Does it also mean the colonialist anti-native Lord Stanley? (19:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Brittney Griner's situation is original but not unique as The Wall Street Journal claims; many ex-prisoner athletes have played again - including one who played in the country that imprisoned him! Plus Rudy Giuliani changes the Hunter Biden laptop story AGAIN. But can they compete with Elon "I Might Be Elizabeth Holmes Only With A Higher Voice" Musk and his new scheme to cut costs by not paying his debts. C-Block (24:42) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I went past my first New York Apartment the other day. It was a great place for $483 a month. Until that night I noticed that the light peeking in around my shades was way too bright because somebody had thrown a Molotov Cocktail into our lobby!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 94: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:43) Trump and Musk (and it would've been Marjorie Taylor Greene, too, but she screwed it up) are working simultaneously and perhaps in some coordinated form to portray Trump's 1/6 Coup as a "false flag" operation run by Democrats. (4:05) Trump pitched this in an interview yesterday, because it's obvious public opinion will change significantly once the 1/6 Committee issues its report and probably criminal referrals (6:05) As to Greene, she was supposed to make the same claim, but instead inadvertently disproved the whole thing by invoking Guns and the 2nd Amendment in her speech Saturday (9:26) Musk's "Twitter Files" failure has clearly been leading up to the latest claim: that Twitter violated its rules by "illegally de-platformed" Trump (when obviously Federal Laws against sedition and the violent overthrow of the government make your little Twitter rules unnecessary). This all taps into Musk's urgent need to be worshiped on a site that has so far cost him his status as the richest man in the world and forced him to fabricate excuses for why he got booed during a walk-on at Dave Chappelle's show Sunday. Until there's a more complicated explanation, Musk's need of Trump's approval is pretty simple: he's just another rich guy, terrified it will all go away as fast as it arrived, and Trump represents the type of government that will always protect Money. B-Block (18:00) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Hershey, in Oregon (19:02) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: No SPF for SBF; TPM buries Rep. Scott Perry and Rep. Andy Biggs; No press conference for Putin. (22:09) IN SPORTS: Grant Wahl comes home, baseball continues to shuffle stars, and why would you pay $63 million for a pitcher whose whole thing is delaying and waiting and pausing, if they're instituting a 20-second pitch clock next year? (25:20) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: A Rush Limbaugh cosplayer says supporting vaccine mandates makes you the equivalent of a Slave owner; A Michigan GOP official threatens to shut down a library "by force" and Senator-Elect Vance moves to ban porn. This presumably puts him up against Ted Cruz in a head-to-head battle, as it were. C-Block (30:31) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: No, I haven't been fired as many times as you've been told. But yes, after years of rumors, it turns out to be true: I WAS fired - personally - by Rupert Murdoch!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.