Countdown with Keith Olbermann

SPECIAL BULLETIN EPISODE 170: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:42) My ex-landlord has been arraigned on 34 counts of felony falsification of business records, but they ARE felonies because D.A. Alvin Bragg is alleging that they were committed to further a bigger, massively more important crime, one being almost ignored by the news media. Bragg isn't prosecuting him for a payoff to a porn star, nor even the business records. He's prosecuting him for ILLEGALLY INFLUENCING THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. If the case comes to court it will be an attempt to put a former president in jail for trying to defraud not investors and not even the state of New York, but the VOTERS. The ambition is extraordinary. As is another detail that seemed to elude most reports. David Pecker, Michael Cohen and Trump were ready to pay a Trump Palace Doorman $30,000 to buy his apparently inaccurate story that there was a TRUMP LOVE CHILD SOMEWHERE. And just as the judge was admonishing both sides to tamp down the rhetoric, Fredo Trump and Junior Trump were doxxing the judge's daughter and manufacturing a conspiracy involving her and Biden and VP Harris. It is impossible to believe Trump will not wind up violating the Judge's warnings. The protests were also hilarious: Marjorie Greene fled out of fear of counter-protestors with whistles. And she revealed she's dating a right wing TV talking head. AND HE KISSED HER LIVE ON THE AIR AT THE END OF THEIR INTERVIEW. But the real essence of this story is contained in one post Trump made in route - as Special Counsel Jack Smith's Grand Jury made its THIRD headline of the week (an appeals court rules that key Trump aids like Mark Meadows and Stephen Miller MUST testify to Smith's Grand Jury). The door has been opened, the seal has been broken, the precedent can be set. You CAN indict and arraign a former President of the United States and the earth will not spin off its axis. And you CAN make Trump realize reality is bigger than just him. You could read the fear in his last pre-hearing post: “Heading to lower Manhattan, the courthouse, seems so surreal, WOW they are going to ARREST ME. Can’t believe this is happening in America.” You bet your ass it's happening. B-Block (18:59) It is 14 years to the day since my mother Marie passed away. She was not only the baseball fan in the family; she was one of the most prominent baseball fans in the country, all because of one bad throw by Chuck Knoblauch in 2000. Plus: advice learned from bitter experience about why the loss of a parent can hit you twice: you are remembering the very first fear you had as a child. Marie Olbermann, In Memoriam. C-Block (36:29) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Cuda, in the South Los Angeles pound for TWO YEARS and finally cracking up. (35:30) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: CNN and MSNBC did not show Trump in a car, then Trump in a plane, then Trump in another car, for three hours yesterday just because it was a comparatively shiny object. They're both trying to cozy up to Trump viewers, just in case they have to go Hard Right to protect their owners. As crazy as it sounds, it's happened before: let me recount for you the saga of the time MSNBC tried to go further fascist than Fox and hired this psycho Michael Savage to host a TV show, at the direct orders of the president of NBC.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 169: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN I EXPECT TO BE UPDATING THIS EDITION IN LATE AFTERNOON  A-Block (1:42) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump leaks details of the 34-count indictment and tries to blame D.A. Bragg for the leak, but inadvertently confesses by screwing up the number. Anyhow, ALL the counts are felonies, not just one. The judge also rules against video cameras during the arraignment, though still photographers can come in to do a "spray" before the action start, and ONE video camera will be permitted in the hallway. No holding cell, no handcuffs, no mugshot - unless there is a mugshot. The Trumpers were demanding one while the Trump Lawyers were demanding the opposite. And again, the REAL threat to Trump comes out of Washington where the Jack Smith Grand Jury will now hear from a bunch of Secret Service agents about the classified documents Trump stole and stashed at Mar-a-Lago, maybe as early as Friday. And while Sean Hannity tries to shush him, Trump not only confesses he did what the latest reports accused him of (rifling through the boxes and keeping the secret documents he wanted to keep) he even simplifies the motive we've all been kept up at night worrying about. He notes with the gleam of avarice, "They ended up paying Nixon 18 million for what HE had!" B-Block (16:26) It is 14 years to the day since my mother Marie passed away. She was not only the baseball fan in the family; she was one of the most prominent baseball fans in the country, all because of one bad throw by Chuck Knoblauch in 2000. Plus: advice learned from bitter experience about why the loss of a parent can hit you twice: you are remembering the very first fear you had as a child. Marie Olbermann, In Memoriam. C-Block (34:35) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Cuda, in the South Los Angeles pound for TWO YEARS and finally cracking up. (35:30) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: CNN and MSNBC did not show Trump in a car, then Trump in a plane, then Trump in another car, for three hours yesterday just because it was a comparatively shiny object. They're both trying to cozy up to Trump viewers, just in case they have to go Hard Right to protect their owners. As crazy as it sounds, it's happened before: let me recount for you the saga of the time MSNBC tried to go further fascist than Fox and hired this psycho Michael Savage to host a TV show, at the direct orders of the president of NBC.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 168: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:41) SPECIAL COMMENT: The source is a dubious British tabloid, but the idea has been deemed completely possible and entirely appropriate: Trump's lawyers are reportedly expecting that Judge Juan Marchan will issue a GAG ORDER against Trump today or tomorrow, precluding him from speaking about the case to reporters, or posting on social media about it, or giving a speech about it (as he plans to do, Tuesday night from Mar-a-Lago). The reported punishment: a fine of up to $1,000 and up to 30 days in jail. Trump meanwhile is reported to be ready to go back on the offensive and "eff up" Alvin Bragg, the judge, and the politicians his paranoia tell him are behind this. At the same time, maybe tomorrow they should take a second set of Mugshots. Jack Smith reportedly edges closer to charges of Conspiracy to Obstruct Justice as The Washington Post reports he now has a paper trail because of the texts and emails of an obscure assistant named Molly Michael. During the January 6 Committee hearings we learned that at the White House, Trump used to dictate his emails and have HER send them out on HER account. And that may be devastating evidence against him in the nearing charge that not only did he steal Classified Documents but instructed others to lie about whether or not he'd returned them - a classic obstruction conspiracy. Plus he had some strange obsession with documents about the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley. Plus: all those cliches the Trump Apologists are using to deflect from the absolute appropriateness of the indictment? Let me help you refute them. Ex-Manhattan DA Cy Vance actually updated us on the first ("Bragg's predecessor wouldn't pursue the case") and hints at interference to stop his investigation by none other than William Barr. We'll track the exact nature of George Soros's donations - not to Bragg but to a group that donated to Bragg. And we'll remind you that the next time somebody says 'you can't prosecute a presidential candidate' that Trump himself promised to prosecute FOUR of them and actually tried to get a U.S. Attorney investigating the least likely of the bunch. B-Block (24:11) IN SPORTS: NCAA Women's Hoops title game overshadowed by second classless gesture in last three rounds; Last November's Phillies Phold extends to 2023; MSG's Jim Dolan sued and a warning to him: You could end up taking tickets at the arena you now own (28:13) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Sure, Biden's insulting King Charles even though no American president has EVER attended a British coronation; Jim Jordan calls for defunding Law Enforcement, and the great Lesley Stahl and CBS News and 60 Minutes get the chance to end Marjorie Taylor Greene's career with ONE follow-up question, and completely fail. (31:48) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: My old NBC Election boss Mark Lukasiewicz with the reminder that (if there's no gag order) Trump will give a speech full of lies after tomorrow's indictment and the networks DO NOT have to carry it live. And this reminded me that all of today's money-only logic in TV news was prophesied by the greatest media movie ever made: Network (1976). C-Block (45:51) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL, PART TWO: We are now in the 47th year of prophecy after prophecy in "Network" coming true. I'll review the 30 or so things predicted in the Paddy Chayefsky classic that were literally unbelievable the day the movie premiered, but are now merely...unremarkable.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 167: SPECIAL WEEKEND EDITION, COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:41) SPECIAL COMMENT: Associated Press reports that at least one of the reported 34 charges against Trump for falsifying business records is a FELONY offense. That not only lines up with previous reporting but when added to the CBS reporting that Alvin Bragg had obtained communications and documents not previously known to the public, it supports the theory that the Felony charge could involve TAX CHEATING. David Frum guesses "this case will turn out to be about Trump cheating on his taxes (again): allegedly creating false invoices so as to convert the payoff to Stormy Daniels into a LEGAL BILL to his lawyer - and then DEDUCTING the fake legal bill from his TAXABLE INCOME." There were way too many updates to NOT do a special weekend edition. On Social Media, Trump is in full-fledged panic: by dinner-time last night he had already exceeded 100 posts full of rage and Mark Levin clips and in one verging on the same kind of terroristic threats as a week ago: "HOW MUCH MORE ARE AMERICAN PATRIOTS EXPECTED TO TAKE?" The Secret Service has toured the courthouse at 60 Centre Street so Trump is scheduled to appear at 2:15 PM EDT next Tuesday. After saying "Democrats want Civil War" (six weeks after demanding a "national divorce") maybe Marjorie Barney Rubble will lead protests when she comes to New York Tuesday, but so far there's been nothing - for or against - in NYC. There was one guy in front of Trump Tower yesterday (and he was whispering). Trump and his various attorneys (and they need numbered ear-tags, like cows) will move to throw out the judge, and the charges, but they will not approach a plea deal. And District Attorney Bragg will not approach giving Trump's house chairman the documents and testimony they want: in fact he may have just warned them that they could be charged with interfering with his prosecution. There were developments in two Trump-adjacent cases Friday. The election fraudster Douglass Mackey (who conned a couple thousand Clinton voters to try to vote by TEXT in 2016) has been convicted. And Dominion's defamation suit against Fox will proceed and the judge will tell the jury NONE of what Fox said about Dominion was true. And two belly laughs. One, I'll save for the podcast itself. In the other: Eric-Fredo Trump on Thursday told Fox that Bragg is obsessed by his father even though shoplifting is so bad in New York that he went to CVS to get some Tylenol and found it behind plastic protection. On Friday he told NewsMax that he went to Duane Reade to get Advil and found it behind plastic protection. Time to get Eric some Motrin. B-Block (21:52) COULD TRUMP PASS A SANITY TEST, Part 1: An updated version of the 2016 Vanity Fair piece and video that forever linked me to the Oompa Loompa. C-Block (44:50) COULD TRUMP PASS A SANITY TEST, Part 2: The conclusion and the final score and guess what...he COULDN'T.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 166: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:41) SPECIAL COMMENT: Manhattan District Attorney's Office Confirms: Trump has been indicted. Improbably, Hannity sums it up best. And the breadth of reported counts (34?) suggests the range of charges could include really dangerous ones like tax crimes or lying to banks. In confirming he'll be brought in, Trump makes two outstanding bloopers. Sean Spicer has to announce it on Newsman. And maybe the most important consideration: life teaches us that in anything controversial, the toughest thing is to go first. Today it's twice as easy for Fani Willis or Jack Smith to indict him than it was yesterday afternoon. Plus: just for fun I'll read you Trump's 2014 fan letter to me. No - seriously. Talk about a blooper! B-Block (19:46) COULD TRUMP PASS A SANITY TEST, Part 1: An updated version of the 2016 Vanity Fair piece and video that forever linked me to the Oompa Loompa. C-Block (44:00) COULD TRUMP PASS A SANITY TEST, Part 2: The conclusion and the final score and guess what...he COULDN'T.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 165: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:45) The gun cult of this country, led by Fox News and the right wing media hatred factory, has metaphorically shat on the dead children of Nashville. They are trying - at this moment -  to use their poor, destroyed bodies, as a rationalization for the purging of the LGBTQ community AND its allies on the fallacious pretext that, as the filth Tucker Carlson said, "The Trans movement is targeting Christians." Simultaneously these sadists are using the murder of these nine-year olds as the final, ultimate excuse to not merely do nothing to stop the madness of Gun America, but to INCREASE the number of guns they own and place them ubiquitously in this society. This cult of death with its AR-15 Murder Machines must be stopped. As always, the first step to halt evil is to call it evil, and do so loudly. And yesterday, two Congressmen began the loud attack on evil: Jared Moskowitz of Florida, and Jamaal Bowman of New York, whom I am proud to say now represents the town in which I grew up. B-Block (24:06) The cornerstone of the Republican/Fox/Gun Cult lie is its perversion of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. To understand that lie you must understand that the Constitution is in actuality a property document that decides what the government can own and what the people can own. Forms of the word "vote" appear just 37 times in it. "Right" and "rights" appear just 15 times. Terms of money and ownership are included 103 times. The Constitution is about OWNERSHIP. Yet the 2nd Amendment does not contain the word "own" nor any synonym for it. And as the former Chief Justice of the United States said, "The gun lobby's interpretation of the 2nd Amendment is one of the greatest pieces of fraud...on the American People..." Let the lying begin. C-Block (42:44) From February 15, 2022, after the shooting at Michigan State. (57:30) Every Dog Has Its Day: as we try to save the country let's save a poor puppy named Junior.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 164: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:42) Actually I have answers to this. Conflicting reports that the Manhattan District Attorney's Grand Jury looking into the Stormy Daniels payoff will be off until tomorrow - or next week. Either way, this likely has less to do with Trump or Pecker or Trump's Pecker, and more to do with the fact that the jurors have actual lives. There is good news from Special Counsel Jack Smith's Grand Jury in Washington: Mike Pence must testify after all (with limited exclusions). But does anybody remember that there's a THIRD Grand Jury out there? Anyone? Bueller? B-Block (14:00) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Marjorie Barney Rubble Greene can't understand why Twitter suspended her just because she spat on the dead of Nashville by calling the shooting "the threat of Antifa driven trans-terrorism; and Dominion Voting System has just a few names on its witness list include multiple anchors and multiple Murdochs. (17:28) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Senator Tommy Tuberville is holding up military promotions cuz abortion and the top two REPUBLICANS on the Armed Services Committee are mad as hell about it. The head of the Chicago police union, who has been suspended for misconduct eight different times, threatens voters with "blood in the streets" if they vote for the black guy for Mayor; and Congressman Byron Donalds condescendingly dismisses the possible ban of the AR-15 Death Machine and the children it murdered as "politics." C-Block (24:25) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: As Baseball's Opening Day looms, time to go back to a simpler, gentler era when a big league manager could lock his entire team in the trainers' room so that there wouldn't be a soul in the clubhouse and that would teach the obnoxious young anchor of SportsCenter a lesson. Me and Buck Showalter - 1993.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 163: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:41) The apparent final witness who could get Donald Trump arrested for paying off Stormy Daniels is named Pecker. DAVID Pecker, former publisher of the National Inquirer and the middleman in the Catch-and-Kill process by which Trump buried his infidelity problem before the 2016 election, returned to Alvin Bragg's Manhattan Grand Jury to confirm a) Trump paid her off and b) Trump knew it was done to influence the outcome of the election.  Silence out of the Special Counsel's office; Trump slammed on Fox and Fox Business for his Waco speech; and why Trump's history with Mike Tyson explains Trump's cult unshakable adherence to him even though he's such a putz. B-Block (15:38) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Was turmoil in Israel quieted or worsened when the Prime Minister said he was staving off a "civil war"? The far right calls the Nashville shooting a false flag - until the shooter was ID'd as Trans and that became their only headline. (19:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: C-Block (26:15) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: The whole crowd at New York Bully Crew needs our donations - they're out of food (27:15) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Newly recovered from an archaeological dig in my storage unit: the ORIGINAL unedited copy of the greatest TV sports outtake of all time: Gary Miller's SOCCER BREAKDOWN.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 162: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:41) Special Counsel Jack Smith is reportedly constructing a conspiracy charge - Conspiracy To Obstruct A Congressional Proceeding - against Trump. CBS News reported this once, buried it, doesn't seem to realize what it has. If the charge hangs off the statute 18 US Code 1512 (c) (2) it carries a maximum sentence of 20 years, and Robert Costa reported Smith is "looking into a possible conspiracy case against Trump and people around him trying to block the Congressional proceedings on January 6th" and says witnesses "are being asked about what kind of NATIONAL SECURITY LEVERS Trump was asking about in those final days." And Smith's other primary investigation - the Classified Documents Trump stole and were found at Mar-a-Lago - are still very much in play. Meanwhile back at the ranch: Trump has now made all three possible statements about his possible indictment in the Stormy Daniels case: A) He's Being Arrested B) The Case Has Been Dismissed C) He Really Doesn't Have Any Idea. And Stormy Daniels herself breaks a MAGA critic in half. The MAGA-splainer tweets Trump wouldn't touch Daniels with a 10-foot pole; she slams back: no, he did it with a 3-inch pole. Which circles back neatly to the idea that Trump could go to jail with his national defense lever in his hand. B-Block (15:37) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Israel falls apart and 16% of the nation protests fascist changes there; pay attention, we may have to protest this way here. And Elon Musk has only lost $24,000,000,000 on Twitter in five months but he can make it up if everybody buys a $7 checkmark. EVERYBODY. (21:10) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Marsha Blackburn attacks Democrats for trying to "ban" everything. She's tried to ban at least 7 things in the last two years; The John Fetterman's Been Replaced By A Body Double conspirators get a tremendous disappointment as Facts ruin their fun. And this is 57-dimensional chess: You know what the Russian Sputnik Covid vaccine was for? To put chips in Russians so they can be targeted by...American missiles? Huh? C-Block (26:40) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY (27:40) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I can tell you from my own experience - four different times - that there's nothing fake about receiving "fake anthrax" in the mail, as Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg did Friday after Trump's threat of "death and destruction."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 161: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:41) If I told you Donald Trump was an "animal" who "should be removed immediately;" If I told you Trump was "doing...the work of the devil;" If I told you Trump was destroying our country "as they tell US to be peaceful;" If I showed you two pictures, one of Trump and - next to it - one of me holding a baseball bat, about to swing it, posed exactly as was Robert DeNiro portraying Al Capone in "The Untouchables" just before he beat another character to death WITH a baseball bat; If I showed you 30 other social media posts I had made in just 24 hours, each of them filled with threatening and violent and hateful language about Trump, what would you think I was TELLING you? What would you THINK I was hoping you would DO? Donald Trump is a stochastic terrorist. He used stochastic terrorism to get somebody to attack the FBI after the Mar-a-Lago search and within days a man breached a local FBI headquarters to try to kill FBI agents. He used stochastic terrorism to get others to commit the insurrection of January 6. He used stochastic terrorism to inspire somebody to attack Democrats in 2018 and Cesar Sayoc sent out 12 liberals and he had a second list in his computer and I know because I was on it.  Trump is not just committing stochastic terrorism, he knows he is doing it, because it has worked for him, so well, and so often. Arrest him, today. And he has openly threatened four prosecutors and countless journalists and witnesses. He must not only be arrested - he must NOT be granted bail. B-Block (17:00) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: The judge may order Rupert Murdoch to testify in the Fox/Dominion defamation case; a NEW defamation case may be filed against Tucker Carlson; Ron DeSantis comes out in favor of immediately eliminating The New York Post and all of conservative media (20:01) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: You're going to CHARGE for Apple TV Baseball? After what it sounded like LAST year? A dishonest media attack on Alvin Bragg. And the Congressman who wants to stop The Biden Student Debt Relief program insisting "debt can not be forgiven" - after he filed for bankruptcy FIVE TIMES. C-Block (25:30) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Lace, on death row in New York (26:30) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: Please meet Muggs - "The Dog That Bit People."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.