EPISODE 136: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:41) The death of baseball's legendary television analyst Tim McCarver, easily one of the most beloved people in the sport, and in broadcasting. I knew him for 42 years and for whatever criticisms he took late in his career from listeners who didn't realize all the other ones were merely doing impressions of him, in 1983 he literally, personally, saved my love of the game. He was a pleasure to work with, and as I have been saying for 20 years, his insight in literally the last 60 seconds of the bottom of the 9th inning of the 7th Game of the most emotional season in baseball history was the television equivalent of Bill Mazeroski's home run to win the 1960 World Series.

B-Block (19:55) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: The Fox News texts are out. Tucker Carlson was afraid Trump would destroy them, but telling the truth about him would tank the stock price. He, Ingraham and Hannity all thought Rudy Giuliani was crazy. The News Chief tried to stop news. Perjury in the Trump Atlanta case? How many people did Senator Fetterman help yesterday? Now that he's proven he can live on his own, why is the Central Park Zoo setting a honey trap to re-capture Flaco the Owl? And can anyone stop the Killer Windows of Russia? (25:48) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Nikki Haley would struggle with the math part of her own Presidential Candidate Mental Competency Test, Ann Coulter makes you feel sympathy for Nikki Haley, and a German choreographer says: I am an artist and you have criticized me, so, I will now smear my dog's feces on your face.

C-Block (31:50) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Falcon, Rio, Titan, Torino, and Tundra - five pups with Parvo in Texas (32:50) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: fittingly on the occasion of the loss of a great baseball broadcaster, Thurber's story that begins with the words of another great baseball broadcaster: "The Catbird Seat."

EPISODE 136: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:41) The death of baseball's legendary television analyst Tim McCarver, easily one of the most beloved people in the sport, and in broadcasting. I knew him for 42 years and for whatever criticisms he took late in his career from listeners who didn't realize all the other ones were merely doing impressions of him, in 1983 he literally, personally, saved my love of the game. He was a pleasure to work with, and as I have been saying for 20 years, his insight in literally the last 60 seconds of the bottom of the 9th inning of the 7th Game of the most emotional season in baseball history was the television equivalent of Bill Mazeroski's home run to win the 1960 World Series.
B-Block (19:55) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: The Fox News texts are out. Tucker Carlson was afraid Trump would destroy them, but telling the truth about him would tank the stock price. He, Ingraham and Hannity all thought Rudy Giuliani was crazy. The News Chief tried to stop news. Perjury in the Trump Atlanta case? How many people did Senator Fetterman help yesterday? Now that he's proven he can live on his own, why is the Central Park Zoo setting a honey trap to re-capture Flaco the Owl? And can anyone stop the Killer Windows of Russia? (25:48) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Nikki Haley would struggle with the math part of her own Presidential Candidate Mental Competency Test, Ann Coulter makes you feel sympathy for Nikki Haley, and a German choreographer says: I am an artist and you have criticized me, so, I will now smear my dog's feces on your face.
C-Block (31:50) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Falcon, Rio, Titan, Torino, and Tundra - five pups with Parvo in Texas (32:50) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: fittingly on the occasion of the loss of a great baseball broadcaster, Thurber's story that begins with the words of another great baseball broadcaster: "The Catbird Seat."

“Countdown With Keith Olbermann,” the landmark news and commentary program that reordered the world of cable news, returns as a daily podcast. Olbermann’s daily news-driven mix will include his trademark “Special Comment” political analysis, the tongue-in-cheek “Worst Persons In The World” segment, and his timeless readings from the works of the immortal James Thurber. The man who turned SportsCenter into a cultural phenomenon will broaden the content to include a daily sports segment, a daily call for help for a suffering dog, and a remarkable series of anecdotes covering a career that stretched from covering the 1980 Olympic Miracle on Ice a month after his 21st birthday, to anchoring the 2009 Presidential Inauguration and the 2009 Super Bowl pre-game show in a span of just twelve days, to rejoining ESPN as a “rookie” baseball play-by-play man at the age of 59.

“Countdown With Keith Olbermann,” the landmark news and commentary program that reordered the world of cable news, returns as a daily podcast. Olbermann’s daily news-driven mix will include his trademark “Special Comment” political analysis, the tongue-in-cheek “Worst Persons In The World” segment, and his timeless readings from the works of the immortal James Thurber. The man who turned SportsCenter into a cultural phenomenon will broaden the content to include a daily sports segment, a daily call for help for a suffering dog, and a remarkable series of anecdotes covering a career that stretched from covering the 1980 Olympic Miracle on Ice a month after his 21st birthday, to anchoring the 2009 Presidential Inauguration and the 2009 Super Bowl pre-game show in a span of just twelve days, to rejoining ESPN as a “rookie” baseball play-by-play man at the age of 59.

Countdown with Keith Olbermann

MY FRIEND TIM McCARVER - 2.17.23

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/clips/0a2fefa3-c9cb-468c-b6dd-afac00457dc9/transcript

SEASON 2 EPISODE 161: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Justice Juan Merchan MUST put Trump's ass in jail for violating the gag order - even if it's only one hour at Rikers Island.

Trump is determined to break Merchan, break the New York Court, break the Criminal Justice System. He is a cornered and wounded animal and this is life-or-death for him. Think of a cockroach - only with thumbs. So it's him or us that gets broken, and Merchan has to make sure it isn't us.

Trump tried to finesse the gag order by quoting somebody else – this worm Watters from Fox – denigrating the jurors and the judge and adding to the pile of stochastic inducements to violence against anyone who thwarts Trump. And by morning one of the jurors – the silhouette of their name and the vague depiction of their home – was quitting out of fear. Because what Trump sought by denigrating the jury WORKS. Because Trump’s intimidation WORKS. Because Trump’s terrorism WORKS.

Prosecutors began Day 3 of the trial yesterday noting he had violated the gag order SEVEN times just since jury selection started and they actually UNDER-SOLD the most egregious of the violations, with Joshua Steinglass saying “the defendant reposted about liberals lying to try to get on the jury, a post by Jesse Watters.” That was NOT a re-post. Trump does dozens of re-posts a day. You hit a re-post icon, a couple of rounded arrows. Maybe you add a comment. Trump KNOWS what a re-post IS.

That is NOT what Trump – or someone in control of the social media account bearing his name – DID. What Trump did was to make a NEW post, QUOTING Watters. It redd – and still reads:“They are catching undercover Liberal Activists lying to the Judge in order to get on the Trump Jury - Jesse Watters.” It is in Trump’s own electronic hand. It is not a re-post. It is not ‘technically ok within the gag order’ because Trump ISN’T lying about the judge and the jurors and endangering them all, he’s just QUOTING Jesse Watters lying about the judge and the jurors and endangering them all.

RUNNING THE HEADLINES: Derrick Van Orden, a walking PTSD demonstration, calls Matt Gaetz "tubby" and Marjorie Taylor Greene demands anybody who votes for Ukraine aid be conscripting into its military as the House Republican caucus comes apart at the seems. Happily Jared Moskowitz is there with the big yucks and a Rick Perry protege has the best idea yet: four Republicans should resign from the House to own the liberals. FOUR? How about FIVE? FIFTY? Think big be big my friend!

And why on earth did Kari Lake devote a disturbingly large part of a campaign speech to repeatedly saying "strap-on?"

B-Block (31:18) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Clay Travis goes from being the knight in shining armor defending the sanctity of women's sports from destruction by trans athletes, to insisting that Caitlin Clark isn't actually popular and nobody CARES about women's sports. The Charlotte GOP still hasn't realized it insulted Trump online and he'll see it eventually. And Twain was wrong: history DOES sometimes repeat itself. In 2005 I watched on in astonishment as Bo Dietl began his new MSNBC show by calling a gay reporter a "fudge-packer" and get fired within two weeks. Now, he's been fired for ANOTHER homophobic rant directed at ANOTHER reporter. Did you know Dietl's specialty in the NYPD was to serve as the mugging decoy? So he was mugged 500 times? Does it show?

C-Block (48:00) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Snowie is fine - now - but her family could use a little help plowing through the bills for the medical wizardry that saved her life. (49:30) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: Appropriately enough, Thurber takes a dog who was alive when Teddy Roosevelt was president and makes him seem as new as the youngest pup. "The Dog That Bit People."

SEASON 2 EPISODE 161: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Justice Juan Merchan MUST put Trump's ass in jail for violating the gag order - even if it's only one hour at Rikers Island.
Trump is determined to break Merchan, break the New York Court, break the Criminal Justice System. He is a cornered and wounded animal and this is life-or-death for him. Think of a cockroach - only with thumbs. So it's him or us that gets broken, and Merchan has to make sure it isn't us.
Trump tried to finesse the gag order by quoting somebody else – this worm Watters from Fox – denigrating the jurors and the judge and adding to the pile of stochastic inducements to violence against anyone who thwarts Trump. And by morning one of the jurors – the silhouette of their name and the vague depiction of their home – was quitting out of fear. Because what Trump sought by denigrating the jury WORKS. Because Trump’s intimidation WORKS. Because Trump’s terrorism WORKS.
Prosecutors began Day 3 of the trial yesterday noting he had violated the gag order SEVEN times just since jury selection started and they actually UNDER-SOLD the most egregious of the violations, with Joshua Steinglass saying “the defendant reposted about liberals lying to try to get on the jury, a post by Jesse Watters.” That was NOT a re-post. Trump does dozens of re-posts a day. You hit a re-post icon, a couple of rounded arrows. Maybe you add a comment. Trump KNOWS what a re-post IS.
That is NOT what Trump – or someone in control of the social media account bearing his name – DID. What Trump did was to make a NEW post, QUOTING Watters. It redd – and still reads:“They are catching undercover Liberal Activists lying to the Judge in order to get on the Trump Jury - Jesse Watters.” It is in Trump’s own electronic hand. It is not a re-post. It is not ‘technically ok within the gag order’ because Trump ISN’T lying about the judge and the jurors and endangering them all, he’s just QUOTING Jesse Watters lying about the judge and the jurors and endangering them all.
RUNNING THE HEADLINES: Derrick Van Orden, a walking PTSD demonstration, calls Matt Gaetz "tubby" and Marjorie Taylor Greene demands anybody who votes for Ukraine aid be conscripting into its military as the House Republican caucus comes apart at the seems. Happily Jared Moskowitz is there with the big yucks and a Rick Perry protege has the best idea yet: four Republicans should resign from the House to own the liberals. FOUR? How about FIVE? FIFTY? Think big be big my friend!
And why on earth did Kari Lake devote a disturbingly large part of a campaign speech to repeatedly saying "strap-on?"
B-Block (31:18) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Clay Travis goes from being the knight in shining armor defending the sanctity of women's sports from destruction by trans athletes, to insisting that Caitlin Clark isn't actually popular and nobody CARES about women's sports. The Charlotte GOP still hasn't realized it insulted Trump online and he'll see it eventually. And Twain was wrong: history DOES sometimes repeat itself. In 2005 I watched on in astonishment as Bo Dietl began his new MSNBC show by calling a gay reporter a "fudge-packer" and get fired within two weeks. Now, he's been fired for ANOTHER homophobic rant directed at ANOTHER reporter. Did you know Dietl's specialty in the NYPD was to serve as the mugging decoy? So he was mugged 500 times? Does it show?
C-Block (48:00) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Snowie is fine - now - but her family could use a little help plowing through the bills for the medical wizardry that saved her life. (49:30) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: Appropriately enough, Thurber takes a dog who was alive when Teddy Roosevelt was president and makes him seem as new as the youngest pup. "The Dog That Bit People."

TRUMP MUST GO TO JAIL FOR IGNORING THE GAG ORDER - 4.19.24

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/clips/a737f832-0f50-4395-92ff-b15700088253/transcript

SERIES 2 EPISODE 160: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump is an idiot. Trump is an idiot who employs other idiots. Trump is an idiot who employs other idiots and who thinks Jimmy Kimmel and Al Pacino are the same guy. And he'll probably come back later with some nonsensical and irrational explanation that he was joking or being metaphorical or to him they might as well be the same or that Kimmel is the palindrome of Pacino or it's like when he wittily called Nikki Haley "Nancy Pelosi."

He. Is. An. Idiot.

And more substantively, Trump publicly admitted that he believed his lawyers had "unlimited" jury strikes; that they could disqualify an infinite number of potential jurors in his trial for Election Interference in New York. Think about the implication here: it never occurred to Trump (or doesn't matter to him) that to have "unlimited" jury strikes would mean any defendant could literally stall the start of his trial FOREVER and no one would ever be tried for - let alone convicted OF - ANYTHING.

It just gets worse from there. We learn his Bodega stunt Tuesday was astroturfed because the New York Young Republicans who staged it couldn't resist taking a team picture at it, so they can be identified in the crowd.

Trump is an idiot who employs other idiots.

B-Block (24:24) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I don't know what made me think of him but think of him I did. The mandarin of Los Angeles news was Jerry Dunphy and even he acknowledged it: On the air, he was simply a teleprompter-reading machine. More than once, it came with hilarious consequences.

C-Block (41:30) GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK.

SERIES 2 EPISODE 160: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump is an idiot. Trump is an idiot who employs other idiots. Trump is an idiot who employs other idiots and who thinks Jimmy Kimmel and Al Pacino are the same guy. And he'll probably come back later with some nonsensical and irrational explanation that he was joking or being metaphorical or to him they might as well be the same or that Kimmel is the palindrome of Pacino or it's like when he wittily called Nikki Haley "Nancy Pelosi."
He. Is. An. Idiot.
And more substantively, Trump publicly admitted that he believed his lawyers had "unlimited" jury strikes; that they could disqualify an infinite number of potential jurors in his trial for Election Interference in New York. Think about the implication here: it never occurred to Trump (or doesn't matter to him) that to have "unlimited" jury strikes would mean any defendant could literally stall the start of his trial FOREVER and no one would ever be tried for - let alone convicted OF - ANYTHING.
It just gets worse from there. We learn his Bodega stunt Tuesday was astroturfed because the New York Young Republicans who staged it couldn't resist taking a team picture at it, so they can be identified in the crowd.
Trump is an idiot who employs other idiots.
B-Block (24:24) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I don't know what made me think of him but think of him I did. The mandarin of Los Angeles news was Jerry Dunphy and even he acknowledged it: On the air, he was simply a teleprompter-reading machine. More than once, it came with hilarious consequences.
C-Block (41:30) GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK.

TRUMP IS AN IDIOT WHO THINKS JIMMY KIMMEL AND AL PACINO ARE THE SAME GUY - 4.18.24

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/clips/c785d786-1c69-4a0d-955b-b155017469d4/transcript

SERIES 2 EPISODE 159: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: There’s nothing better than a good NAP.

“Now: Trump’s head slowly dropped, his eyes closed. It jerked back upward. He adjusts himself. Then, his head droops again. He straightens up, leaning back. His head drops for a third time, he shakes his shoulders. Eyes closed still. His head drops. Finally, he pops his eyes open. My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains my sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, or emptied some dull opiate to the drains."

Honestly: You’re Trump, on Monday they literally catch you napping. How do you possibly go in there yesterday and get caught napping… at least TWICE. One video, or one rapid-shutter sequence of still pictures of “Trump’s head slowly dropped, his eyes closed. It jerked back upward. He adjusts himself. Then, his head droops again” and we don’t have to WATCH the rest of the trial, he’d be DONE.

Looks like we'll get this started Monday. Seven jurors chosen. I had forgotten what I learned during two days in the NYC jury pool in 2013: it is surprisingly easy to find enough people who don’t know anything about anything to fill up a New York jury. Meanwhile Trump tried out his new defense: He knows nothing. Billionaire businessman, greatest mind of his or any other generation, but when it comes to paying off Stormy Daniels to bury her story and illegally keep bad facts about himself away from the eyes of the electorate weeks before the election, and then turning the thing into a clear crime by trying to write it off as a business expense? He knows nothing. He doesn’t know the accountant. He doesn’t know the lawyer. He didn’t know anything about the document. He didn’t know anything about the deduction. He just signed whatever they put in front of him. Because the billionaire businessman knows NOTHING about his own business!

ALSO: The picture is a rare one of Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene with her mouth shut. It's in The New Republic and above it the magazine's question is: “Russia is Buying Politicians in Europe. Is it Happening Here Too?” After Greene decided to try to fire another Speaker of the House to destabilize our government further, and her screw-up in the Mayorkas hearing, it's a question worth exploring.

B-Block (24:38) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Baseball's uniform scandal is back. The pitcher is wearing the batboy's pants. The Speaker of the House had his brain trust look at his new bill first: Libs of TikTok and DC Draino and a 1/6 defendant. And I used to think the Supreme Court Justices were merely not there to do justice or defend the constitution. Now I'm not sure they're from this country, nor have more of a legal education than I do (and I took one law class 37 years ago).

C-Block (33:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Just passed the quarter century anniversary of one of the most fun, most unexpected events of my career. How many people do you know who can say this: Tom Hanks, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon pulled me on to the Red Carpet at the Oscars - and they broke my cummerbund!

SERIES 2 EPISODE 159: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: There’s nothing better than a good NAP.
“Now: Trump’s head slowly dropped, his eyes closed. It jerked back upward. He adjusts himself. Then, his head droops again. He straightens up, leaning back. His head drops for a third time, he shakes his shoulders. Eyes closed still. His head drops. Finally, he pops his eyes open. My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains my sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, or emptied some dull opiate to the drains."
Honestly: You’re Trump, on Monday they literally catch you napping. How do you possibly go in there yesterday and get caught napping… at least TWICE. One video, or one rapid-shutter sequence of still pictures of “Trump’s head slowly dropped, his eyes closed. It jerked back upward. He adjusts himself. Then, his head droops again” and we don’t have to WATCH the rest of the trial, he’d be DONE.
Looks like we'll get this started Monday. Seven jurors chosen. I had forgotten what I learned during two days in the NYC jury pool in 2013: it is surprisingly easy to find enough people who don’t know anything about anything to fill up a New York jury. Meanwhile Trump tried out his new defense: He knows nothing. Billionaire businessman, greatest mind of his or any other generation, but when it comes to paying off Stormy Daniels to bury her story and illegally keep bad facts about himself away from the eyes of the electorate weeks before the election, and then turning the thing into a clear crime by trying to write it off as a business expense? He knows nothing. He doesn’t know the accountant. He doesn’t know the lawyer. He didn’t know anything about the document. He didn’t know anything about the deduction. He just signed whatever they put in front of him. Because the billionaire businessman knows NOTHING about his own business!
ALSO: The picture is a rare one of Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene with her mouth shut. It's in The New Republic and above it the magazine's question is: “Russia is Buying Politicians in Europe. Is it Happening Here Too?” After Greene decided to try to fire another Speaker of the House to destabilize our government further, and her screw-up in the Mayorkas hearing, it's a question worth exploring.
B-Block (24:38) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Baseball's uniform scandal is back. The pitcher is wearing the batboy's pants. The Speaker of the House had his brain trust look at his new bill first: Libs of TikTok and DC Draino and a 1/6 defendant. And I used to think the Supreme Court Justices were merely not there to do justice or defend the constitution. Now I'm not sure they're from this country, nor have more of a legal education than I do (and I took one law class 37 years ago).
C-Block (33:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Just passed the quarter century anniversary of one of the most fun, most unexpected events of my career. How many people do you know who can say this: Tom Hanks, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon pulled me on to the Red Carpet at the Oscars - and they broke my cummerbund!

THE NEW NORMAL: NAP TIME WITH DON SNORELEONE - 4.17.24

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/clips/12082a0a-c90d-409c-a44e-b155000532f9/transcript

MY FRIEND TIM McCARVER - 2.17.23

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