SEASON 3 EPISODE 124: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: The new Trump plot to beg, borrow, or steal a third term has dropped (that makes four different) and it follows the others in that a) somebody besides Trump has suggested it AND b) they've made it seem harmless AND c) they've made it seem like Trump has nothing to do with it and probably won't do it anyway AND d) they'll leave it to the will of the people to decide to convince him to, reluctantly, violate the Constitution.

The twist in this new one is, it's positioned as: "The Constitution is Unconstitutional!" - namely, that because only the presidency is term-limited among federal offices, this must be invalid and overturned. Not that Trump wants it to be overturned. No, YOU want it overturned. Not that HE wants to stay on. But YOU will want him to.

People are still not taking it seriously and still see the 22nd Amendment as a bulwark against any possibility of it happening. I'll review the other three plots and the fact that they've been working on them since at least 2017, and why you should never ever keep your eye off their machinations, nor forget the Trump Political Mantra: I'm going to do it - TRY AND STOP ME.

STATE SECRETS PRIVILEGE: Trump and Stephen Miller are so scared that they won't get away with renditioning Kilmar Abrego Garcia that they have now thrown up the "State Secrets" crap to further stall his return. And they're talking about kidnapping people off our streets and sending them to Libya or Ukraine. And Trump's craziness continues to double as we get the back story on the movie tariffs and a redux on windmills and it makes me mad enough to SING ABOUT THE WINDMILLS IN TRUMP'S MIND.

B-Block (49:30) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The far right's open racism is on display as a Minnesota woman calls a five-year old the N-word and a million dollars is raised to defend her. Laura Loomer employs one of Hitler's first catchphrases. And they so distrust the Deputy Secretary of State that they won't let him touch the thermostat in his office.

C-Block (58:22) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: This time of year in 1997 I saw a ghost. I know who he was. I know why he was there. I know why he was silently laughing at me. And I did what he wanted me to do. His name was Glenn Corneliess and there's a reason the new facilities of WVBR-FM in Ithaca, N.Y. are the Olbermann-Corneliess studios.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 123: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Don't be silly, Stephen Miller - you're taking the fall.

For contempt of court in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia and Rogue Deportation Flight cases. The target to at least be fined, maybe jailed, for contempt of court has got to be Stephen Miller. The picture is clarifying slowly, the focus is sharpening painstakingly, but it seems evident now that contempt cases being built by District Judges Jeb Boasberg and Paula Xinis – the effort to get depositions about, and charge somebody with, contempt of court in the abduction of Mr. Abrego Garcia AND the renditioning of dozens of others to El Salvador after Boasberg ordered the plane to NOT take off – the slow, methodical attempt to finally, at long last, about damn time, hold SOMEBODY in the Trump Crime Administration responsible for SOMETHING… this whole move to put somebody behind bars, is, in both courts, targeting… Stephen Miller. 

Based on reporting by NBC, by the Akron Law Journal, by Brian Beutler in "Off Message" and otters: the finding by Judge Boasberg of probable cause for contempt citations against the Trump Gang, and these depositions scheduled by Judge XINIS are apparently designed to confirm what Miller and the other Trumpian monsters are boasting about in private – Miller is the architect of the deportation scheme and especially its baseline component of cruelty. The man who has allegedly hated Hispanics since a girl he asked out in high school turned him down, is also the architect of the scheme to disobey the District Court orders to bring Abrego Garcia home AND to disobey the Supreme Court in the process. The man who greets every warning from a court or an attorney or a human with a conscience to stop now before it is too late for him, by getting louder, and angrier, and more monstrous, the man behind whatever step towards Ethnic Cleansing is next, is Stephen Miller. And it sure looks like Judges Boasberg and Xinis want to put the man Beutler refers to as the "monstrous twerp-fascist" behind bars.

AND TRUMP GETS CRAZIER: Literally wants 11-year olds to give up their dolls and pencils for the sake of his delusion, and doesn't know if he has to uphold the constitution and has just infuriated all the Veterans by re-naming Veterans Day "Victory In World War 1 Day" and creating a "Victory In World War 2 Day" on the anniversary of a day when... World War 2 wasn't won.

B-Block (34:30) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Trump clowns Labor Secretary Lori DeRemer-Chavez and Secretary of Lies Karoline Leavitt tie with some whoppers. Jesse Watters goes into a cave with Elon Musk. And a pretend reporter named Myles gets told to Eff Off by Ilhan Omar. 

(41:17) SPORTSBALLCENTER: Tomorrow is the 71st anniversary of the day in 1954 when Roger Bannister became the first to ever run a mile in less than four minutes. Except that he WASN'T the first to ever run a mile in less than four minutes. He wasn't even the first in England, where it had been done 200 years earlier. Never mind, say, in Kenya.

(59:30) SPORTSBALL CENTER, CONTINUED: The reason all Bannister's predecessors are unknown is: they were erased from the records by the self-appointed "Amateur Authorities" of the 19th Century who wanted to make sure only "Gentlemen" held the honors. Gentlemen - and White People.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 122: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump is the greatest president of all time... at losing public support! Almost overlooked in the typical maelstrom, analysis by the last King of 538: Trump's Net Approval Rating has fallen farther, faster, than any other president since they started keeping the statistic in 1953. On Inauguration Day he was at Net Plus 10. After 100 Days he's already at Net MINUS 10. At this rate, by August he'll be at NET MINUS 30. He is losing an approval point every FIVE DAYS. By itself, the Net Minus 10 is also a record.

And that's just the start of Trump's polling crater. Internal Republican Congressional Campaign polling has him at a Net Minus Seven inside vulnerable swing House districts. He is collapsing faster than he is collapsing the economy! This sets up the prospect of a Democratic landslide next year, if only the Democrats will TRY. Chuck Schumer's response? More bipartisanship in spending bills!

B-Block (33:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Minnesota Congressman Tom Emmer wants an ethics investigation of Minnesota Congresswoman Angie Craig because when he was too terrified to host a town hall in his district, she did. Their districts ADJOIN. DC US Attorney nominee Ed Martin sinks further into deceit over Hitler cosplayer Hale-Cusanelli. And Trump demands Penn apologize for letting transgender athletes compete or he'll withhold $175 million in funding. My suggestion? Penn should declare that Trump got his degree from Penn's Wharton School by deception and sue HIM FOR $175 MILLION. And new developments in Bill Maher's self-immolation. He did something ELSE about Trump - eight years ago - that he attacked Larry David for doing last week!

C-Block (45:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: If I didn't actually invent the mobile phone, there is every chance I was the first to use one on the streets of New York City. It was this time of year, about 35 years ago, and it still shocks me that I actually stopped pedestrian traffic on 42nd Street just by answering a call.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 121: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: The District Attorney for New Orleans Jason Williams must indict and issue arrest warrants for Tom Homan, Kristi Noem (Now With 8 Action Adventure Dress-Up Outfits) and the other members of the ICE Gestapo who disappeared a two-year old New Orleans born girl and sent her to Honduras - possibly making up a story that her Honduran-born mother wanted to take her with her - AND also abducted and renditioned a four-year old US Citizen toddler with Stage 4 Medication and sent her and her mother to Honduras, too.

The charges should be led by Child Trafficking, kidnapping, violation of 5th and 14th Amendment rights, and be predicated on the fact that ICE has degenerated into a violent gang threatening the safety of Americans. Throw the RICO act at the Brownshirts.

The event was so egregious, so redolent of Moral Cannibalism, that the Trump Appointee judge who brought the case to public attention and tried to stop it referred in his writings to their plane being above "The Gulf of America." But he also voiced his "strong suspicion that the government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process."

Indictments of Noem and the others may be fruitless. But it will at least symbolize that democracy will at least fight back against what Trump is doing: which is verging on Ethnic Cleansing.

MEANWHILE IN WISCONSIN the ICE stormtroopers who arrested a judge in her courtroom for not collaborating with a raid should themselves be arrested. And unlike Trump, authorities there will not have to fabricate or pervert laws to do so.

PLUS I'll analyze Trump's sudden pathetic pleadings to Putin, his bat guano crazy interview with Time, and most imperatively, his writing that he suspects Putin is "just tapping me along." There is no indication anywhere that this phrase "tapping me along" has ever been used by anybody else, ever. There is every indication Trump's mind may have now degenerated further into the stage where he is making up his own words and phrases.

B-Block (36:00) Dedicated to Karoline Leavitt whose first and last names both contain the letters for the word "lie." Trump himself gets a bronze for boasting about spending $58,000 of his own money on behalf of the country while he syphons off millions daily. The runner-up is Ed Martin and his embrace, then disengagement, from the world's stupidest looking Hitler cosplayer. But the winner again is Bill Maher, who perpetuates his career-ending decision to go to the White House for dinner with Trump. He claims Larry David's soon-to-be-Pulitzer-Prize winning satire of the event has insulted "six million dead Jews" because of the comparison between Trump and Hitler: "I think the minute you play the ‘Hitler’ card, you’ve lost the argument." Ooops. It's a shame Bill's memory is so damaged. Guess who played the Hitler card, made the comparison to Trump, and thus presumably lost the argument? Twice? On his own show? IN 2015?

C-Block (46:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Someone mentioned the great Cornell astronomer and planetary scientist and 26-time Tonight Show guest Carl Sagan and I was flashed back. Sure enough, it was 47 years ago last week that he won a Pulitzer Prize. Our Cornell radio station called him for an interview and he said yes, on one condition: "Is your sportscaster Keith there? I want him to do it. He gets it." This would be the first time I ever interviewed anybody famous, and he requested me, even though we'd never met. I'm as stunned now as I was then, and I'll explain why it happened.

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 120: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: We’ve all known it would come to this; we’ve all WARNED it would come to this; we’ve all PREDICTED they’d try to ease the knife in slowly, they’d take the boiling frog route, and here it comes. It’s in every piece of political science fiction from "1984" to "Brazil" to "V For Vendetta."

And it is now real: if everything Trump does deserves criticism and gets criticism there is only one thing for Trump and his gang to do: prosecute criticism of Trump and claim those WHO criticize him are aiding and abetting terrorists. The ultimate Thought Crime was given voice by no less a figure than Trump's Counterterrorism Director, who, since Trump found the worst possible person to do each job (and bin Laden is dead) is Sebastian Gorka.

The threat is connected to the push to send not just immigrants to rot in a For-Profit El Salvador Rendition Center, but American citizens too, especially those who standup to Trump's attempt to purge Hispanics from this country. Axios reports that one of the other potential new Orwellian crimes would be advising detainees of their rights. If that's not directed at AOC I don't know what could be.

B-Block (25:20) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Derrick Van Orden attacks Wisconsin's governor because Van Orden thinks Milwaukee kids are stupid - and he misspells the word "how" in his post. Brian Kilmeade's Hegseth spoiler alert: he calls him "former secretary." And we are all very proud here that one of 'our own' has reduced Bill Maher to graffiti. Further details on "My Dinner With Adolf."

C-Block (37:45) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I had literally forgotten - until I literally worked through the neighborhood - that I made my Broadway singing and dancing debut seven years ago. I mean literally, on stage, during an actual Broadway show. If it made that much of an impression on me, imagine how bored the audience was!

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 119: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Senator Lisa Murkowski may be the most important person in the country right now. Her public confession that she too is afraid of the Trump nightmare and her HINTS at talking to Senate colleagues ABOUT her fear – could provide just enough Republican rebellion to rein Trump in.

It feels as if she just got it, as if she just understood that yes Trump is Nazi-esque and yes Trump often emulates the Soviets but the closest parallel to him is O'Brien and "The Party" in Orwell's "1984" and the simple terrifying conviction that "the object of power is power." That's why I think when Kristi Garden Noem and Secretary of Defense (and Vodka) Hegseth (if he's still on the job after ANOTHER Signal chat came to light) file their report on the border to Trump this week and tell him no, they don't need to invoke The Insurrection Act, he may do it anyway because... the object of power is power.

Murkowski and thirteen other Republican Senators and at most four Republican Representatives can stop this. They can save the country. They can impeach Trump or if they still can’t get over the hump, the 18 of you can use the THREAT to impeach him, to virtually fetter him, to at least control the width and breadth of his damage, to make him know the Senate WILL vote against him. 

She can also talk to anybody on the Supreme Court except Alito or Thomas. The other seven, in the middle of the damn night - at 1 AM Saturday - stepped in to freeze any further disappearing Americans under the phony premise of The Alien Enemies Act. And there is reason to hope that these Murkowski-led conversations might happen before the iron curtain of dictatorship descends: Later in her confession of fear, she hinted at doing exactly what I just suggested.

Meanwhile, how many times can you self-destruct on this? Gavin Newsom dismisses the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case as a "distraction" and calls Democrats sheep for defending the constitution. On the other hand, Senator Ed Markey is crafting a sense of the senate resolution stating Trump cannot again be elected, and cannot again serve, as president or vice president.

Damn Straight.

B-Block (40:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The Musk Crappertruck Owner who claims to also be a "girl dad"; Pennsylvania congressman Dan Meuser kinda blames Governor Josh Shapiro's criticizing Trump for provoking the attempt to incinerate him and his family in the governor's mansion on Passover. And Trump DEI hire Pam Bondi lies that compulsive martyr and 85th Place Olympic Trials finisher Riley Gaines "went to the Olympics." Not unless she bought a ticket, Pam Blondie.

C-Block (55:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The renewed Trump bid to ban the Associated Press got me talking to a friend: How MANY times have I been banned, as a reporter? Do you mean this century, or in total? It's... a lot. From the LA Clippers to the ESPN Campus, I've been banned... a lot. And je ne regret rien!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 118: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: ICE Director Tom Homan and his boss Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem must be arrested for contempt of court. It SHOULD be President Ted Bundy Trump being arrested for contempt of court – potentially for ignoring the orders of the SUPREME COURT - but we already know how the laws of this land have been corrupted to protect the greatest criminal in our history. That it cannot be will simply hasten the latest iteration of the constitutional crisis created by a lawless chief executive who still has the military behind him. We are headed for a flashpoint, perhaps as soon as today. To summarize: Trump believes he is God.

But in the interim it is time for U-S District Judge Paula Xinis to send this rogue government a message. In fact it is well past time. “Time” was two days ago, at 5 PM. Noem and Homan are now in contempt of HER order in the case of the Noem-Homan-ICE abduction, the DISAPPEARING of a Maryland man already under the PROTECTION of the government of the United States, Kilmar Abrego Garcia. They are in contempt of the orders not of some judge – as the fascist Stephen Miller and his brownshirts call any representative of law and order – they are in contempt of the LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. It is not some judge. They are in contempt of the NATION and they are on the VERGE of being in contempt of the Supreme Court.

The point, of course, may be the admission that they abducted someone by "mistake." They sent a Massachusetts-born immigration lawyer a notice to leave the country by "mistake." They warned ICE will keep illegal "ideas" from entering the country, by "mistake." Maybe these are mistakes - God knows, it all involves Elon Musk - but now they see an opportunity to exploit even mistakes to deliver the message, passively but still aggressively, that even when they are wrong they are still RIGHT because even when they are wrong what do you think YOU are going to be able to DO about it? What do you think YOU are going to be able to DO about it, Mrs Abrego Garcia? What do you think YOU are going to be able to DO about it, Judge? What do you think YOU are going to be able to DO about it, AMERICA?

B-Block (40:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: We have a new member of the WPITW Hall of Fame, Linda McMahon. We dedicate this episode to Stephen A. Smith, still making a fool of himself. And then the nominees: Bill Maher makes a propaganda video for Trump saying all the nice things about Trump that Maher has forgotten he already said about them in 2016 and then repudiated. Trump butt dials the wrong McMaster. And Jeanine Pirro may be the dumbest person to ever work at Fox News. Do you know what an accomplishment this would be?

C-Block (1:04:05) GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK: A quick announcement about the immediate future of this podcast. Sounds more ominous than it is.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 117: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump has already LOST the tariff wars he finally claimed he paused yesterday (without really pausing). Already. Took him only eight days. From Liberation Day to a day when in any other war, literal or figurative, he would have been deposed - 8 days. And never mind how much YOU AND I think he’s crazy; a high-priced adviser to macro fund managers says “a few have quietly wondered if the president might be insane." And after Wall Street came off the ledge and got back to where it was Monday – only, what, seven trillion lost – he declared victory. “Up 2500 points. Nobody has ever heard of it. Gotta be a record.” Because he can’t admit he made a mistake; his head would fall off.

His approval numbers have cratered. He’s underwater by an AVERAGE of six points. LAST Wednesday it was an average of TWO points. Since the election he’s lost 20 points among those  over age 65; he’s lost 50 points among those under age 30. And he still raised the tariffs on the Chinese again – to 125 percent – because he’s mad at them. Because they of course are winning. Because the Chinese are not negotiating; the Chinese are as they have been for centuries, waiting for their opponents to DIE. The Chinese are apparently dumping our 10-Year Treasuries, driving up our debt. And they’ve opened trading partnership negotiations with the head of the European Union. 

And for all the claims about pausing the tariffs, a universal TEN percent tariff will be maintained.

He didn't pause anything. He simply lost everything.

B-Block (27:10) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Joe Manchin writes a book celebrating his middle of the road bona fides. The cover photo shows only the right half of his face, naturally. Marjorie Stupid Greene reveals she does not know what the word "Merch" means. And the president of the hockey writers' association, a bonehead named Frank Seravalli, not only defends Wayne Gretzky's attacks on Canada but his bringing FBI Director and Election Denier Kash Patel to the Ovechkin game - and calls CRITICISM of those decisions "political BS." Instead of, maybe, calling out Gretzky for BRINGING political BS into a moment of sports history.

C-Block (49:15) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: She's still at it. Even as Trump's boasts of pausing the tariffs while INCREASING them on China and maintaining them on everybody else, Laura Ingraham is still carrying his water for him. It's time for me to review my dates with her last century, and the extraordinary revelation she made during the first of them about the then-nascent Republican-Media Industrial Complex.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 116: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: I want polling on a special, emergency, extra-constitutional Presidential Recall Vote.

I know there isn't going to BE a Presidential Recall Vote. I know we're not going extra-constitutional, we're not REPUBLICANS dammit. But they are always making up laws (inside the Supreme Court and outside of it) on the premise that the people really want it, so after this week of unprecedented insane unnecessary failure on the part of Trump and his Team of Imbecilic Rivals, I want to know where we stand.

Because the moment we get 10 Republicans in the House and 14 in the Senate to believe that if Trump stays in office, their careers are over, he's gone. Half of them think he's nuts already and a quarter have had doubts. They need to be pushed and I don't want to wait until the mid-terms for them to get the damned message

I want SOME pollster - independent, news-related, hired by the Democrats, SOMEBODY - to ask these questions: 1) if the election were re-run today would you vote for Trump or a Democrat. Or another Republican. Or a fairly intelligent farm animal.

2) would you support a special recall vote to potentially reverse the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.

3) would you describe the current financial panic and the upcoming tsunami of inflation and unemployment as a national emergency.

4) do you think Donald Trump has lost his mind.

5) do you think Donald Trump is mentally fit to run the country.

6) do you think Donald Trump is acting to destroy the United States on behalf of a foreign country.

7) do you think it is necessary to act outside the constitution if necessary to save the United States of America FROM Donald Trump.

8) if the midterm elections for the Senate and the House were tomorrow would you vote Republican or Democratic?

WHATEVER the percentages are they could easily scare the crap out of 10 House Republicans and 14 Senate Republicans and the day they do, Trump vanishes. You doubt me? Ask Richard Nixon. Ask Abraham Lincoln, whom they were ready to get rid of seven months before Lee surrendered at Appomattox because they thought he wasn't going to be re-elected.

Also is it possible the Democrats are listening to me? Obama emerges to spout sense, as I've asked. The DNC Chair founds "The People's Cabinet." All we need now is POLLING ON A PRESIDENTIAL RECALL VOTE.

B-Block (31:28) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The Pittsburgh Pirates rip a Roberto Clemente memorial off their outfield wall to make room for an ad for seltzer, a Republican influencer insists there are no tariffs on Russia because we don't import anything from Russia (we import $2.5 Billion a year from Russia), and the Secretary of the Treasury wants YOU to buy American while he buys British. (41:28) SPORTSBALLCENTER: Alexander Ovechkin DOES have more goals than Wayne Gretzky now, but no, that's still not the big league hockey record (and Gretzky managed to throw himself out another window during the celebrations) and the date of the first American, maybe the first human, to be photographed giving the finger to the cameraman has to be pushed back from 1886 to 1882 after a discovery this weekend about baseball Hall of Famer Old Hoss Radbourn.

C-Block (55:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I have been asked by a listener to expand on last week's news that Chuck Todd not only does not realize that his news career is over but he thinks investors are going to give him $2,000,000,000 to go buy a news organization now. The answer to the question "Chuck Todd: Why?"

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 115: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: It only took Trump losing a critical election by 10 points in a state he carried last November for even HIM to figure out that Elon Musk is the best electoral friend the Democrats have right now. The White House has leaked that Elon's 130-day exemption as a "Special Government Employee" is up at the end of May and so is his time inadvertently saving democracy from the MAGA cult.

We CAN'T LET HIM LEAVE! Also, INDICT ELON! Also also, PROTECT ELON AT ALL COSTS! The reporting suggests Trump intends to keep Musk as an informal advisor and frequent White House visitor and that is great news. If Trump won't keep Musk attached to him sufficiently, we have to do it for him. ELON MUSK'S UNFAVORABILITY AMONG DEMOCRATICS IN WISCONSIN IS 97 PERCENT. Let's take that national!

OH BY THE WAY TRUMP JUST TANKED THE WORLD ECONOMY. 54% tariffs on China? 26% on India? Huge on the EU and UK? 10 percent on the people he likes? This is the day the Leopards of Wall Street discover that Trump of the Leopards Eating Faces Party is a cannibal: he eats the faces of other leopards! Also I'll explain how this whole tariff crap mainlines back to Trump's insane fixation with gold and the color gold. 

MEDIA DISASTER: Bill Maher self-destructs. Stephen A. Smith thinks he's the first person to discover the Trump 3rd Term Scam. MSNBC's attempt to tank is so successful "Morning Joe" is now behind CNN in the demo.

B-Block (36:14) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Whoever let the BBC start a piece about the Myanmar Earthquake with the line "On the road to Mandalay." Ex-journalist Matt Taibbi will never testify to the House again. And Richard Carlson, at the center of transphobia, sports, TV news, Fox News, Renee Richards, and even worse things, is dead.

C-Block (49:45) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: With the New York Times reporting Chuck Todd is seeking to buy a podcast or local high school sports news company for two billion dollars, it's time for me to note that we are nearing the six year mark since I finally said "I have had enough of this idiot for one lifetime."

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.