EPISODE 52: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) Elon Musk boasted of talking to Vladimir Putin before tweeting his moronic "Ukraine Peace Plan" that just happened to give Putin everything he wanted. Then he blasted the reporter who broke the story - but didn't deny it (3:30) Which fit perfectly in a day in which the fascists proved reality means nothing to them: it doesn't have to BE real; it only has to SEEM real. Take Herschel Walker, now accused of demanding TWO abortions and demanding she pay for them. Meanwhile back on the campaign trail he starts talking about a bull who has impregnated three females and wants to impregnate three more (6:09) And the other new darling of MAGA, Kanye West, turns out to have been plenty crazy in the Tucker Carlson interview, but they left it on the floor. All the antisemitic tropes you can eat! (10:30) And then there's Tulsi Gabbard, who blew all the dog whistles in 'quitting' the Democratic Party just two years after she was thrown out of it (12:30) While the fascists can do nothing with sincerity or love - like Joe Biden's for his broken son - but mock it (13:34) And I am reminded of when I shared a studio with Sean Hannity and he gave away the entire Far Right Game: "Why are they so upset? I mean, it's only TV - it's not REAL!"

B-Block (17:40) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Morgana in Gardena, CA (18:35) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Prediction by analysis: Garland WILL indict Trump; How can an LA City Council member take a "leave of absence," and remembering Angela Lansbury and her all-time great performance in "The Manchurian candidate." (20:26) IN SPORTS: Baseball's Rusty Champs, and Hockey's Referee Hosts (21:20) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Some Trumpers want a declaration of war against something you can't declare war against. They compete with Kevin McCarthy and Saudi Arabia for the honors.

C-Block (26:50) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Somebody asked me recently "Whatever happened to Matt Lauer?" A look inside his reign of terror at NBC, and when it was directed at me because the husband of the late Terri Schaivo wanted to do an interview with me and not him. And a reminder of how the utterly corrupted Joe Scarborough responded to that story by saying "The Democrats (are) the party on the side of death."

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EPISODE 51: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: Putin is doubling down and we must act. We must avoid war, so we must DO everything else. We must at least explore dissolving the United Nations and re-forming it without Russia (3:05) More practically, Biden must reverse his September decision and declare Russia a State Sponsor of Terrorism - it's what the oligarchs fear most (4:27) And the need to do SOMETHING is not just about Russia. It's about Russia's propagandists here - paid or not - like Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, CPAC, and Michael Flynn. We have to make it career-ending to supply the Kremlin with anti-Ukraine sound bites.

B-Block (15:09) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Al, in Miami (16:25) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: The lone Ohio Senate Debate is a TKO for Tim Ryan over J.D. Vance, or, if you prefer, "Hillbilly Eulogy"; Maggie Haberman battered by BBC; LA Council resignations not enough. (20:15) IN SPORTS: Baseball lifer gets the big gig in Philly; the five-year plan in Carolina turns into a five-week plan; Tommy Tuberville blowback hits sports (22:23) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Candace Owens, Owen Shroyer, and Jason Whitlock defend Kanye West and antisemitism, and compete with Lauren Boebert and the Secretary of the Army for the crown.

C-Block (27:08) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Five different baseball franchises have tried to get me fired - at ESPN, at KTLA, at Fox Sports. Only one has kinda sorta succeeded. The remarkable story from ten years ago: when MLB Network offered me a show, and then reneged when threatened by the Yankees.

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EPISODE 50: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: At his Sunday night rally in Mesa, Trump boasted he had boxes of documents at Mar-a-Lago, their contents were all "his." He is all but daring Merrick Garland to arrest him (2:30) Mr. Attorney General: saying "I had a small number of boxes at Mar-a-Lago...guarded by Secret Service...they should give me immediately back everything they took from me, because it's mine" is a CONFESSION (4:06) We now learn he also offered to TRADE the documents for FBI Russia records (6:00) And Friday's conclusion that the FBI was at least ready to search Trump Tower and/or Bedminster was confirmed by Rolling Stone's report that DOJ is asking witnesses if he had documents in those locales (8:30) And while Merrick Garland stalls and hesitates, Trump's minions have dropped the pretense and are joining him on stage to admit they are there to end fair elections (11:00) And his cult's candidate for Governor of Arizona did something last night that was just this side of posing with a ball-gag in her mouth with the word "TRUMP" written on it.

B-Block (13:54) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Boomer, in Los Angeles (15:01) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Small problem in the Kremlin case against the "terrorist" who blew up the Kerch bridge, as Michael Flynn calls US Ally Zelenskyy a "fool," the lead Democrats on the L.A. City Council are going to have to resign, and the bad reviews for Yankee Scented Candles may actually augur a new Covid wave, so get your Bivalent! (20:29) IN SPORTS: Ear today, gone tomorrow: Mets get waxed as Showalter's Musgrove Ritual falls on deaf ears (23:55) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Kanye West (and the Republican Attorney General who defended his antisemitism) try to stave off Tommy Tuberville's racism and Mehmet Oz's Hitler Symbolism for the honors.

C-Block (30:21) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: My friendship with the legendary actress Elizabeth Montgomery (32:00) How it happened because of the founding of ESPN Radio and the unexpected scoop we got on the first weekend (34:25) Leading me to do my impression of my high school classmate Chris Berman as he greeted me on my first day at ESPN (38:44) And the extraordinary life lesson about fans and memory that she taught me and has stayed with me for 30 years.

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COUNTDOWN EPISODE 49

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: The FBI is preparing to search The Trump Golf Club And Cemetery in New Jersey or Trump Tower in New York. That's the clear implication of The New York Times report (2:24) that the Justice Department notified Trump's lawyers that it is not convinced that all the classified documents stolen by Trump have yet been retrieved (2:45) CNN went a step further, sourcing that DOJ demanded to Trump's attorneys all remaining documents must be returned. (2:53) There have been hints (like those empty folders with "CLASSIFIED" on them (3:14) And there was almost a compromise, but now Trump is hard-lining this and ultimately this ends with another search (5:02) Apart from the danger of him still having docs, there's the chance he's already sold or lost or had some stolen. (6:03) More bad news for Trump: Secret Service confirms Oath Keepers contacted them about "security procedures" which they position as ordinary but which a witness at the sedition trial implies had something to do with invocation of The Insurrection Act (8:20) And a key Proud Boy has flipped against Enrique Tarrio (8:51) But at least no one invoked The Herschel Walker Defense.

B-Block (12:13) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Theodore, in New York (13:33) IN SPORTS: Baseball overshadows its own playoffs with streaming controversy while Canada's hockey scandal just keeps getting worse (15:49) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Matt Walsh-Blog defends his support for impregnating 16-year olds, and competes for honors with Kari Lake and TNT hockey nudnik Paul Bissonnette (17:45) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: It is exactly 47 years since my first appearance on a professional radio station, when they told me I was only going to do one story in a five-minute sportscast and it was all a lie and I was 16 and I mispronounced my name. Twice. And I am actually letting you hear clips from it.

C-Block (27:03) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: His epic story of public panic, and people so convinced they were right that they ignored common sense, science, and what their own eyes showed them: The Day The Dam Broke (42:22) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL BONUS: My entire 11:15 PM sportscast on WVBR-FM, Ithaca NY, on Tuesday, October 7, 1975!

 

 

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COUNTDOWN EPISODE 48

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: A corrupt unstable ex-president is trying to use a corrupted Supreme Court to avoid prison - and that's just the start of our troubles (4:20) Happily, democracy has survived not so much through the exertions of those of us who would save it, but thanks to the laugh-out-loud stupidity of those who would destroy it (4:46) So LET'S laugh out loud. (5:00) Trump made a fool out of himself in Miami yesterday (7:25) Ron DeSantis implied the liberal media controls the weather (8:08) The Herschel Walker story - now morphed into "He paid for the abortion for the mother of one of his children" - precipitated a hilarious confession about GOP hypocrisy (9:49) Alina Habba is a blooper factory (10:35) Senator Marshall can't pronounce "9/11" (11:15) Ron Johnson endorses white supremacy (11:27) CPAC admitted its members are terrorists (11:54) And Trump actually said "When they leak on my administration." Wait - WHAT?

B-Block (15:01) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Xica, in Van Nuys (16:07) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: The bill to remove our missile systems out of Saudi Arabia after their oil blackmail, and bad polling news for Herschel and Boebert. (18:15) IN SPORTS: Steven Vogt goes out with a bang; maybe the real Most Valuable Player of the American League is neither Judge nor Ohtani; and the announcer nominees for the Baseball Hall of Fame are revealed (24:07) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: GOP Governor candidate swears there are kids "identifying" as cats, another GOP Congressional candidate exaggerates his military record, and they compete with Fox's Mark Levin's latest high-pitched whine.

C-Block (27:30) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The day Dodgers' owner Walter O'Malley nearly caused his top lieutenant to pass out by saying "We lost $2,000,000 last year" and why that doesn't mean anything close to what it would sound like to us civilians.

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EPISODE 47

A-Block (1:46) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump's appeal of the "Special Master Compromise" is just a stalling tactic so he can time his 2024 announcement AFTER the Mid-terms but BEFORE he's indicted (2:16) He knows announcing before 11/8/22 will undercut many election deniers he needs in place in '24. He may even believe the DOJ won't indict him if he's an announced candidate. (4:00) Whatever the specifics, the appeal to Clarence Thomas at the Supreme Court is nonsense: it might as well be 35 blank pages (6:11) The NYT notes he didn't even appeal the ruling that lets DOJ continue using the classified stolen documents in its investigation of him. (7:27) Trump could also be deflecting legal attention from his next real problem: The trial of The Oath Keepers (11:00) Prosecutors played a tape of a November 2020 meeting to plan a violent insurrection and if they can tie it to Trump's inner circle, he's meat.

B-Block (14:45) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Ranger in Greenville, Tennessee. (15:48) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: The abortion story won't hurt Herschel Walker. His son's videos will. And what happened to the lawsuit, Hersch? (20:08) IN SPORTS: Our long national nightmare is over: Aaron Judge is the new home run champ. And if you don't think so, ask yourself: which is the all-time Strikeout Record: Nolan Ryan's 383 in 1973 or Matt Kilroy's 513 in 1886? (24:19) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Mehmet Oz, torturer of puppies, competes with Roger Waters and David Zaslav of CNN for the honors.

C-Block (30:50) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: It's the 15th Anniversary of the day MSNBC management told me they'd never let me use Rachel Maddow as my guest host, nor give her her own show, because no woman could get ratings in prime time, and we didn't need a second liberal show, and no LGBTQ woman host would ever attract male viewers! 

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EPISODE 46

A-Block (1:46) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump just convicted himself of Obstruction of Justice. (2:50) The big debate within DOJ about charging him is about "consciousness of guilt." Could he have NOT known he had illegal possession of documents (including one detailing the nuclear capabilities of another nation)? If as The Washington Post reports, he actually packed the boxes himself, he knew - and the debate is over. (3:45) And to make it worse, he tried to suborn perjury, to get his attorney to sign a document in February saying he had returned all the documents (4:38) Which could lead to a conspiracy, since he DID get another attorney to sign the same kind of document in June (5:36) An entirely separate second path of Obstruction and Conspiracy was opened by his conversation with Maggie Haberman about the Kim Jung-Un letter (7:12) All of which explains the timing of his suit against CNN (8:45) And his threat to sue the 1/6 Commission, which may register in only one place: (9:00) CNN, where Chris Licht and John Malone have spent six months brown-nosing Conservative politicians in hopes that the leopards wouldn't eat THEIR faces.

B-Block (13:17) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Whisper (14:20) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: It's one thing to be anti-abortion and to have a news organization prove you paid for a girlfriend's abortion, but it's quite another, Herschel Walker, to then be repudiated in public by your own son. Plus the Oaf Keepers' trial starts (18:06) IN SPORTS: Albert Pujols yes, Aaron Judge no; Monday Night Football fan flattened; National Women's Soccer League devastated by new report of coach corruption (20:50) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Scott Jensen and Kim Kardashian compete with a Twitter Karen who can't tell the Pennsylvania Senate from a minor league baseball team.

C-Block (25:19) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The day I met actor Walter Matthau, his improbable hobby of vocal impersonations, and the kindness he extended me that was so extraordinary that though it was the only time I met him, when he died years later, I burst into tears.

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A-Block (1:46) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump threatens violence against Mitch McConnell and Marjorie Trailer Park Greene implies Republicans should kill Democrats but the real sign over the weekend that the GOP has transformed entirely into a nihilist mob is neither of them (2:44) It's Susan "I Haven't Learned My Lesson" Collins, who has just noticed that "a Senator or House member (might be) killed." (8:30) It is the Collinses of this nation who have let Trump echo his cultists' call for Civil War by valuing their own offices and power more than they do the nation. 

B-Block (13:53) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Stella in St. Louis (14:58) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Brazil's Burn The Amazon vote goes to a runoff; they've identified the DeSantis Trafficking Coyote; Prime Minister Truss attacks the King; Trailer Park Greene self-owns. (17:37) IN SPORTS: Aaron Judge now has one homer in his last 49 plate appearances; Angels sign Ohtani - to trade him? T.J. Watt beats Fox to an exclusive about his A-Fib and they'll close a loophole to keep future Tuas on the bench. (21:18) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Michigan's Tudor Dixon (WHO THE HELL IS NAMED 'TUDOR') competes with Conservative unemployables Sophie Corcoran and Alex Bruesewitz (whose entry is one of the most despicable public statements I've ever covered).

C-Block (28:25) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: It's the anniversary of the week David Letterman revealed, on his show, that he was being blackmailed. Incredibly, I WORKED WITH the blackmailer 40 years ago at CNN, and somehow I also worked with the other victim when the Trumpists tried to blackmail Jeff Bezos!

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EPISODE 44: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: This should've been a landmark day at the Supreme Court with Judge Jackson's Investiture (2:15) Instead it's again about the prejudice, the dishonesty, the proselytizing of Samuel Alito and the threat contained in his response to Justice Kagan: "Saying or implying that the court is becoming an illegitimate institution or questioning our integrity crosses an important line." (6:08) New Gallup poll shows trust in the Court has dropped from 67% to 47% in just two years (10:29) Alito thinks his job is to create laws that protect the "role" of Jesus in American life, and said so in Rome in July (12:12) And hidden within his reference to criticism that "crosses an important line" is a threat that Alito thinks the Court should ACT against those who dare to stand up against the theocracy he and the other political prostitutes of this course are building as we speak.

B-Block (17:18) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Gulf Coast Humane Society (18:35) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: John Harris of Politico believes Maggie Haberman and the other Suppress-The-News-Til-You-Get-A-Book-Deal hacks proved journalism is "more powerful than Trump." He competes with LIV Golf and Ben Shapiro for the honors (23:26) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Exactly 10 years ago today my then-girlfriend faced the heartbreak of a dying family dog by telling me "I need a puppy fix." What followed was probably the most important day of my life.

C-Block (36:51) Part Two of Things I Promised Not To Tell: Rudy Giuliani makes a cameo appearance in the middle of my meltdown and the ultimate triumph of love at first sight - and you'll hear from the girl herself.

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A-Block (1:47) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trial of the Proud Boys starts in DC, near the trial of the Oath Keepers, while one liberal commentator is blasted for asking about climate change and Hurricane Ian, but Tucker Carlson is free to insinuate President Biden blew up the Nord Stream pipelines. So this question: (2:47) WHY and WHEN did much of our country GO CRAZY? When did despicable but sane conservatives go insane? (4:09) I think the answer is: the conservatives' guard rails began to fall off when the 9/11 PTSD sunk in (13:52) Certainly what Bush got away with, in Iraq, with torture, conservatives lost any fear that they couldn't get away with anything - including claiming JFK Jr. is back from the dead.

B-Block (19:27) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Gonzo, in New York (20:27) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Coolio, In Memoriam; J.R. Majewski, in trouble again; Marjorie Trailer Park Greene, in divorce court; and John Barron rides again. (22:20) IN SPORTS: Tim Mayza and Matt Buschmann are in the record books! (Oh and Aaron Judge too) And of triple-headers, quadruple-headers, and sextuple-headers (23:56) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: MTG self-owns while hog-hunting, Martha MacCallum doesn't understand Puerto Rico, and Chris Hayes advocates something unconscionable, as they compete for he honors (29:45) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Saturday is the 29th Anniversary of the launch of the New Coke of TV Sports: ESPN2 - and I still have the scars!

C-Block (41:15) Part two of Things I Promised Not To Tell. There were two reasons I was willing to give up SportsCenter to be the face of the ESPN2 disaster. One reason, I've always mentioned. But the other? I don't think I told more than one other person in 29 years. In this podcast: I TELL THEE.

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