SEASON 3 EPISODE 143: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL REPORT: Which is worse? That Trump is running a “Protection Racket Presidency” and bribed one Senator to vote for his Big Beautiful Soak The Poor Budget Bill while metaphorically bumping off one Senator who wouldn’t? Or that Trump threatened Israel, threatened the government of Israel, if Israel's courts don’t do what HE wants on behalf of Netanyahu – and nobody noticed.

Which is worse?

Well it’s a trick question because these are actually just two different aspects of the same story. It’s a protection racket. These are a) the domestic operations of the protection racket, and b) the international operations of the protection racket.

Thom Tillis, the vaguely responsible Republican senator from North Carolina, refused to let Trump politically rape him Saturday night and would not vote to advance the budget bill. Trump had been threatening him for weeks, months, accelerated it, finally began to ask for volunteers to primary him, Tillis announced yesterday he will retire from the senate at the end of his term next year.

So much for Mr. Tillis. So much for somebody, anybody, in the Republican party saying “I owe this country something.” So much for the thought that when the country is up against it and the breaks are beating the boys, tell ‘em to go out there with all they got and win just one for the Tiller. I don’t know where I’ll be then, but I’ll know about it and I’ll be happy.” Well I know where Thom Tillis will be: he’ll be back home in Cornelius, North Carolina. Presumably drinking heavily. Reflecting on how he represents the utter moral and ethical decline of the already near-bankrupt and nearly-totally-declined Republican Party.

Meanwhile Senator Lisa Murkowski turns out to be Susan Collins with less Kibuki make-up. She sold her soul to get herself a carveout for Alaska, only to find out the Senate Parliamentarian says it violates the Senate's Byrd Rule and the carveout must be carved out. Lol.

AND TRUMP THREATENED TO DEFUND ISRAEL - what would be the end of the political career of any other American figure - and nobody noticed. And it seems to have worked.

ALSO: WHY KRISTEN GILLIBRAND MUST RESIGN (and get treatment), Stephen Miller has a financial interest in the ICE raids, the plot to make Eric Adams the Republican nominee for mayor of New York, and you missed the new SCOTUS rulings on porn! Pay attention, Mike Johnson!

B-Block (37:32) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Jeopardy aficionados worried about a conflict of interest because the contestant was related to the person who was the answer to the question? I was on two episodes of Jeopardy in which a contestant had the same name as the answer to the question, and where a contestant wrote four of the five sketches that were all the answers in an entire category! Plus the Fox host who doesn't know when World War 2 was or which American party caused breadlines; Chris Cuomo thinks AOC destroyed the Democratic Party not, say, he and his brother; and idiot Senator Bernie Moreno discusses "anals" with Laura Ingraham.

C-Block (56:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: It's that time again. July 10 is the 46th anniversary of my first broadcast on my first full-time broadcasting job, which means you have a choice: you have to listen to it, or skip it.

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SEASON 3 EPISODE 142: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: The only “scum” here is Trump and the only thing that’s been “obliterated” is America’s reputation. We have now descended to that level of hell in which the entire purpose of the government of the United States is to say and shout and lie so loudly and so often that the insane, deteriorating, mentally-dissolving, international joke that IS the current president doesn’t yell at the fools and whores who work for him.

He has now gotten the government of Israel to lie for him about his attack on Iran; he has now gotten his own government to issue assessments that not only completely contradict YESTERDAY’S assessments but completely contradict his OWN assessments; he has now gotten his own Director of National Intelligence – presumably under threat of being fired – to cherry-pick SOMEBODY’S intelligence, maybe ours, maybe Qatar’s, maybe Joe Rogan’s, who knows – and insist that it is NEW and it confirms his obsession that everybody in the country, everybody in the world, everybody in the universe, everybody YET TO BE BORN, agree with him that Iran’s nuclear capacity is quote “obliterated” and for all time and forever and no arguments and it’s the greatest military success since Hiroshima and Nagasaki and don’t you dare say otherwise, don’t you dare say inconclusive obliterated obliterated obliterated. Except that 24 hours ago Trump said… inconclusive. 

THERE ARE SEVERAL SIDEBARS to Zohran Mamdani’s startling first-round win in the Democratic primary for mayor here in Fun City. First: the tepidness of national Democratic support for him. Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, and the rest of the gerontocracy better shape up fast because Mamdani won the MIDDLE class by doing the two things you idiots refused to even try to do last year: combine concern for the financial crushing OF the middle class, AND standing up for what’s right in the country and the world, including opposing Trump and ICE and punishing corrupt political cynics like Andrew Cuomo. The hesitation can only open an avenue for Eric Adams to whore himself out as a pro-business "centrist" who will be Trump's tool.

B-Block (27:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Larry Ellison and my old ex-friend Jeff "You Should've Known I Was Lying To You" Shell have a plan for CBS News: more Bari Weiss. The one time we could've used propaganda and Voice of America in Iran, Kari Lake made sure we were off the air. And it's so easy to miss and to minimize, but Trump went full gay-bashing this week. Silence is compliance.

C-Block (37:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Now that I'm with my fifth different network just doing baseball games (FanDuel Sports) it's a good time to revisit my departure from my first. A scant 28 years ago this month I left ESPN - but we came thisclose to keeping the relationship going just enough to continue the Sunday SportsCenter.

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BULLETIN: SEASON 3 EPISODE 141. TRUMP'S PROFANE, INSANE RANT

Donald Trump's limited tether to reality has snapped this morning and he must be removed from office, by his own party, first via the 25th Amendment and then by Impeachment.

Even as individuals as far from being anti-Trump as Speaker of the House Johnson and Pennsylvania Congressman Scott Perry have said, live, on networks like Fox and CNN, that Iran's nuclear capacity was obviously not fully destroyed in Trump's undeclared war against Iran, he has now raged against the networks, against Israel, and against Iran - because reality is not doing what he is telling it to.

After a session with the press that was disturbing even for him, Trump then went aboard Air Force One and began to struggle (again, well beyond his usual struggle) to locate certain words and even repeat words just said to him. Asked about possible Iran "sleeper cells" he raged against "super cells."

Trump is a lethal, imminent, clear and present danger to the life of everybody on this planet. He cannot continue in office.

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SEASON 3 EPISODE 140: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: We join the Trump Dictatorship, already in progress.

He has attacked Iran, declared undeclared war on Iran, denied he wanted regime change there and is now insisting there should be regime change. And it's all because he has lost America. The Economist polling that has his OVERALL approval underwater in FIFTEEN states… that HE WON LAST YEAR. SEVEN under in Pennsylvania, FOUR under in Georgia, FOUR under in North Carolina, eight under in Michigan, eight under in Pennsylvania. Even CNN’s pollster Harry Enten says “I think we can say Trump has lost the political battle when it comes to what has happened in Los Angeles." CNN has Trump at -15 approval on his key issue: immigration, and -24 among independents.

Trump attacked Iran because he has lost America.

As a political observer wrote on January 17, 2012, “Obama will attack Iran in order to get re-elected.” And the SAME political observer wrote on October 9, 2012, “Now that Obama’s poll numbers are in tailspin watch for him to launch a strike in Libya or Iran. He is desperate.” And the SAME political observer then wrote on September 16 2013 “I predict that President Obama will at some point attack Iran in order to save face,” and as the SAME political observer wrote on September 25, 2013 “Remember what I previously said, Obama will some day attack Iran in order to show how tough he is,” and how finally that SAME political observer wrote on November 10 2013 “Remember that I predicted a long time ago that President Obama will attack Iran because of his inability to negotiate properly – not skilled” – and that political observer was… Donald J. Trump.

I'll analyze the consequences of Trump's unconstitutional act - including angering Putin - and the hilarious moment when Pete Hegseth got the location of the target wrong. Plus Trump's nonsensical "I'd especially like to thank God," his lies about being opposed to Iraq, and the small victory: the Senate parliamentarian says they have to strip from the budget bill the move to limit the courts' ability to restrain Trump.

B-Block (37:32) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: It's like Champions Week on Jeopardy: Mayor Eric Adams keeps digging, Jake Tapper keeps digging, and Stephen A. Smith is digging so hard to align himself with the reprehensible Candace Owens that at this rate Smith will be forcing ESPN to fire him.

C-Block (50:45) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Of all the things you don't expect to come up on Jason Benetti's Detroit Tigers telecast is not one but two ex-pitchers confessing they still have dreams - thirty years later - that the anthem is playing, they are supposed to be pitching, but they cannot find their uniforms or that their shoelaces have been tied together. I'll explain why the mini-PTSD dream has become a nostalgic dream for these guys from my cohort: Frank Tanana, Dan Petry, and me.

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SEASON 3 EPISODE 139: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: So we're going to do that whole Iraq crap again. Only swapping out the last letter. "Iran" instead of "Iraq." Because nobody remembers Bush and people think Trump is somehow anti-war, when he's doing all this because of his desperate FOMO that there is something somewhere on Fox News that he is not being given personal credit for. 

Only he's skipping the whole phony terrorism-9/11-pancake uranium-manufactured evidence dance and just saying "we're doing it to save Israel" even though the evangelicals who WANT to "save" Israel like Mike Huckabee really want just to make sure nobody but them destroys Israel, since the end of their prophecy is that when there are no Jews anywhere but Israel, there'll be a rapture, and all the Jews will convert or, you know, bye-bye.

It's complete delusional snake-handling level religion.

And as for the US military, the purpose of war with Iran would be the same as was the purpose of war with Iraq: to HAVE a war in which you can DESTROY B-2 Stealth Bombers and thus increase the Pentagon budget. As Big Jim McBob and Billy Sol Hurok would say: "Blowed 'em up good. Blowed 'em real good!"

PLUS: Governor Hochul of New York uses the mot juste about what appears to have been a set-up of NYC Comptroller Brad Lander. ICE swings back towards seizing the people who keep the red states from starving. And those Trump American Phones are made in China.

B-Block (32:50) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: CNN/MSNBC screw up the ratio of ICE protest coverage to No Kings protest coverage; Stephen Miller runs Trump but Katie Miller runs Stephen Miller; Karoline Leavitt inexplicably posts a photo of Trump wearing a dunce cap. 

C-Block (43:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: This week was the 25th anniversary of the day my mother became famous, and loved every moment of it, when she got hit in the face by a baseball thrown by the second baseman of the Yankees - while I was doing the highlights of that game on Fox's national game of the week telecast. 

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SEASON 3 EPISODE 138: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: The Minnesota Assassinations and Trump's Toy Tank Parade proved it again this weekend: Without violence, he is nothing.

No tanks? No guns? No bombs (to fulfill his FOMO over not getting to bomb Iran)? No threat if you protest you'll be harmed? Beaten, even if you're a Senator? No parades? No Pro-Life Murderers?

Without them, Trump is nothing.

Unfortunately - as the weekend showed - they are all still here.

ON THE OTHER HAND:  There is some small respite this morning. They got the 2011 Georgia Crops report and printed it out and pasted in some pictures of Trump or something and made it brief and showed it to him and all of a sudden he TACO’d on the ICE Gestapo round-ups of immigrants. At least the ones in agriculture, hotels, and restaurants because, you know… mass starvation. Well, mass starvation LATER. First, mass lower corporate profits IN agriculture, hotels, and restaurants. As I've cited endlessly since the report came out, in 2011 Georgia warned it would detain all undocumented migrant farm workers. Suddenly all the onions, watermelons, blueberries were rotting in the fields and Georgia farms were going bankrupt because they were 40% short of workers and the Georgia citizens recruited to replace them were no good at the jobs or quit because it was too tough and by the middle of summer Georgia had lost $75,000,000 in agricultural income.

So that, times fifty.

BUT PHILOSOPHICALLY: Even when the manifestos were found inside the car of the Minnesota Pro-Life Assassin, Senator Mike Lee went on Musk's Disinformation Platform to brand him a "marxist." Or all the fictionalized accounts of the assault on Senator Alex Padilla. Because the key to being infected with MAGA disease is to reach the conclusion that best suits you, then make up the facts to fit the outcome. We will defeat Trump. I don't know how we will defeat this.

B-Block (36:11) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: There's always a tweet and for this moment in Iran, it's from Tulsi 2020 Gabbard. Then there are two tales of achieving peak idiocy about the assault on Senator Padilla from opposite directions: Stephen A. Smith, who started with no political experience or insight and has somehow gone backwards, and CNN political director David Chalian, who started as a political director and has ALSO somehow gone backwards.

C-Block (49:00) MONDAYS WITH THURBER: Haven't read one in awhile. One of his most pleasing to hear rather than just read: The Car We Had To Push.

 

 

 

 

 

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COUNTDOWN BULLETIN: SEASON 3 EPISODE 137

Attempting to question Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at her Propaganda Conference in Los Angeles today about the Trump Junta's illegal usurpation of the California National Guard and its illegal deployment of active military into civilian police enforcement, California Senator Alex Padilla was jumped by a series of Trumpist thugs including uniformed members of the FBI who wrestled him to the ground, threatened him, and handcuffed him.

This is simply the latest in a string of domestic terrorist events perpetrated by Trump's government since the beginning of the ICE raids rounding up migrants, naturalized citizens, and native-born Americans alike, last Friday. It precipitated minor protests and violence slightly below the level of that seen after the Los Angeles Lakers' basketball team won its last championship in 2020.

The manhandling of Padilla may have not been the most ominous development Thursday in our march towards dictatorship. Pressed at a congressional hearing about the pending case asking a judge to restrain Trump from usurping control of the California National Guard from Governor Newsom, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth refused to confirm he would abide by any ruling from the court with which he would not agree. He is attempting to cloak the insertion of active military into civilian police enforcement, and the overriding of the courts, in some fantasy that he and Trump are enacting "foreign policy" by terrorizing Southern California.

 

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SEASON 3 EPISODE 136: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Gavin Newsom has reached his "EFF IT" moment - and it might prove to be the moment we began to save the democracy.

If you MISSED Newsom’s speech (and trust me, I did, its only failure was its rollout) I am going to play the whole thing at the end of the first segment because it was that good. Eight minutes of escalating but suppressed righteous indignation bordering on rage – eight minutes building towards Eff-It - of which I think I am still the Official Exclusive East Coast Distributor. I think I KNOW my eight-minute suppressed righteous indignation speeches and this was outstanding.

Newsom alone has realized that all you have to do is stop playing Trump's version of this game, and introduce him to a NEW version in which the Mike Tyson Law applies - and he will have no chance. And Mike Tyson’s law – is that everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.” As you listen to the speech, my connoisseur’s advice is to listen to the slow burn and the rapidly decreasing time between each metaphorical shot Newsom takes. It’s not just the FIRST grown-up speech responding to Trump’s evil. It’s a really good one. And it ends with… Trump getting metaphorically punched in the face.

But consider the larger context. Newsom’s emergence – this is a stupid analogy but it somehow works – was like a caterpillar emerging as a gigantic butterfly, a butterfly equipped with nukes, a stealth bomber butterfly – and THAT was last Friday with his threat to crash Trump by withholding all of California’s federal taxes, all 692 billion of it – THE economic civil war game-ender I have been advocating out here in the wilderness for a decade. Then he says “wait, I’m not finished yet” and he goes back inside the cocoon for a minute and comes out even LARGER with MORE nukes and now he is THE Resistance, THE Democratic Party, and THE hope to save America. 

A week ago Gavin Newsom was posting a podcast with quote “Doctor” Phil McGraw, who did a ride along with ICE raiders. June 4: glad-hand interview that utter fraud Phil McGraw AFTER glad-hand interviewing Newt Gingrich, Michael Savage, Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon. June 6: respond to Trump’s threats to kneecap California by threatening to lead a TAX STRIKE – the most liberal, progressive, in-your-face political protest proposed this century. June 7-8-9: come back and TOP that with calling the bluff of these Halloween Mask bullies like Trump and Tom Homan. June 10: give this speech.

So, now the question is: Why haven’t any other Democratic so-called leaders followed Newsom over the top into no-man’s land even though he went first and discovered there are 100 to 200 million Americans just standing there waiting for somebody to lead them against Trump?

B-Block (38:22) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Senator Kevin Cramer, who has never held a real job in his life (an entire career as a politician or failed political candidate) doesn't see the need for ANY federal minimum wage. Tulsi Gabbard thinks the "elites" have underground bunkers in which they can survive nuclear war. And Terry Moran got fired for an analytical opinion about Stephen Miller, but Jake Tapper can retweet Jonah Goldberg's opinion retweeting Fox's opinion retweeting Fetterman's opinion about how much the Democrats are hated. Fire. Tapper. Now.

C-Block (50:00) IN MEMORY OF MINET GERMAIN OLBERMANN: Tuesday was World Pet Memorial Day and yesterday was the third anniversary of his gotcha day, so please let me tell you about my late rescue Minet. He arrived here a month shy of his 15th birthday with no expectations and very little awareness of the world around him. And then a little dental care and a little attention and the next thing I knew he was literally jumping for joy on the streets of New York. 

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SEASON 3 EPISODE 135: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: This isn't a metaphor or an analogy. When the Los Angeles Lakers won their last NBA championship in October, 2020, there were 76 people arrested for assaulting law enforcement, burning cars, mayhem, looting, graffiti, etc. The day before yesterday, during the Trump ICE Gestapo Riots? The ones he claims almost "obliterated" Los Angeles? It was so calm there were only 42 arrests.

That's literally the score:

LAKERS        76

TRUMP-ICE  42

The true law-breaking is, as always, by Trump. Analysis by Ryan Goodman of Just Security (and others) underscores that the document Federalizing the National Guard and authorizing the unprecedented use of active military is a blank check for Trump. It redefines everything, summoning from thin air a veto of the governors' primary role in this, giving the Guard to attack not just violence and not just peaceful protests but just the threat of peaceful protests. It is unchecked power to kill protestors. That's why Gavin Newsom and the government of California sued yesterday over Trump's illegal usurpation of the National Guard and the use of military enforcement of his political whims.

B-Block (21:15) ANALYSIS: Anybody remember ELON MUSK? Wow, that whole thing with Trump seems like years ago. There is something substantial to the biggest story ever (until the next one). In a twisted way, I think it proves that no, what Trump said about Musk knowing all the computer voting machines was just D. Mentia's imprecision. It probably all confirms Musk didn't alter any of the actual voting in November.

C-Block (37:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I was explaining how I knew the remarkable actor Walter Matthau to a friend, and thought this was the right day to tell you about this extraordinary - and extraordinarily kind - man.

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SEASON 3 EPISODE 134: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Call this what it is. This is Trump's terrorist attack on Los Angeles - and his terrorist threat against every other American city not yet infected with MAGA fascism disease.

 It is taking what even the paranoid L.A. police department considers a minor event and trying to manufacture a crisis worthy of burning down our constitutional rights and sending National Guard and perhaps Marines to shoot at civilians on the streets of an American city... and to warn every other city that it could be next.

What else do you call it, when the fiendish, demented, Hispanic-hating advisor and bigot calls all this quote “an insurrection against the laws and sovereignty of the United States” when it is in fact a handful of people exercising their protected constitutional rights in the parking lot of a goddamned Home Depot?

It is terrorism.

It is designed to cause terror and panic and to either use violence or the threat of it to effect political change, extra-legally, by masked and helmeted, faceless men and women, with weapons of war, on the streets of America’s second largest city, to stage an ICE riot and then show what are literally seconds of self-defense by civilians again and again on what are nominally television news channels subverted and perverted into propaganda machines… to warn with unstated menace that THIS will be re-enacted every day for the next month in Southern California and then - where? New York? Chicago? Washington

YET there IS a way to stop Trump, here, and to destroy his plans and perhaps his presidency. Right now. Governor Gavin Newsom and the state government of California have proposed leading what is in effect, a TAX STRIKE. "We pay over 80 billion dollars more in taxes than we get back. Maybe it’s time to cut that off," Newsom says. says State Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas is more specific: “We must look at every option, including withholding federal taxes.”

California pays $692 Billion a year in federal taxes. If the blue states withheld federal taxes the red states would be figuratively starving by next week. DOGE THIS, Trump.

Do it. Stop the dictatorship. Stop the terrorism.

B-Block (35:40) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Dinesh D'Souza and "Buck Millions" hilariously can't process the Musk-Trump fight. There's reportedly something amiss with the book sale figures for the Jake Tapper tome. And last month, New York mayoralty candidate Jessica Ramos branded fellow contender Andrew Cuomo as "The Democrats' Trump." Now - she's endorsed him.

C-Block (45:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I saw a video of one of "our" newscasts the other day. He was the stentorian-voiced anchorman. I was the 19-year old intern. He remains one of my favorite people I've ever met in the business, and not just because he dedicated himself to being a thorn in the side of management everywhere. In memory of Bill Jorgensen, this time until next time.

 

 

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