3 STEPS TO STOP TRUMP TODAY
A BLOCK (1:48) SPECIAL COMMENT: Ron DeSantis didn't "pull off a political stunt." He is guilty of kidnapping and human trafficking and must be arrested. (3:42) He's violated 8 US Code 1324 and (5:31) his agent lured people onto the flight to Massachusetts. There are 50 counts; it's 5 years each (8:09) Incredibly, the White House already had a meeting scheduled today about "litigation options" against DeSantis and Abbott (8:49) And we must stand up against the psychopathic scum the way our ancestors did against the psychopathic scum of 1860 (10:30) Plus: there's a three-step process to bypass the corrupt Trump-appointee who just erased American law to protect the pimp who put her on the bench: Appeal, Waive All Executive Privilege, and INDICT THE M'F'ER NOW, especially after the interview (13:05) in which he made seven separate incitements to another insurrection in just 37 seconds of an interview.(14:30) A reminder: the bully understands only the kick in the crotch.
B BLOCK (19:10) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Cooper, in Los Angeles (20:42) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Marjorie Taylor Greene tries three times to kick and push a Young Voters' Organizer, finally gets her, no word on charges; Chris "Eats Paste" Licht demotes CNN's top liberal primetime host to co-host of the little-watched morning program (alongside a former reporter for "The Daily Caller"), WSJ whiffs on Biden's Railroad (25:30) IN SPORTS: Federer goes, Ohio Republicans vote themselves the right to inspect undressed teenaged girl athletes, Washington Commanders can't tell WHICH Washington (28:22) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: D'Souza confuses an arrested Republican for a Democrat, Mike Lindell literally forgets This-Is-A-Hardee's and Blake Masters wants to fire all the generals as they vie for hours.
C BLOCK (34:10) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty!
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio. The Department of Justice must indict Donald Trump, Braun des Santis, and Greg Abbott, and do it today, no more awaiting. The patience of this nation is exhausted. Trump, des Santis, Abbott are threats to the national security and the democracy and the peace of this nation. And if they will not atone, they will be punished. No more letting the latest Trump judicial prostitute repay the pimp who put them on the bench. No more invitations to the worst criminal in this nation's history to run out the clock because of a dilatanti is a political rule that suits no election more complicated than kindergarten milk money treasurer. And no more letting the governors of corrupt states that would go bankrupt in a week without tax money from the Blue States break the law and play with the lives of the terrified people of the world who have mistakenly thought there were human beings running places like Texas and Florida. Trump in a moment and three quick steps that can end this farce of him using the law to break the law and endanger every person in this country. But de Santis and Abbot first and Ron de Santis is guilty of human trafficking, arrest him. Amazingly, they actually might. There is a meeting scheduled at the White House today to discuss quote litigation options against De Santis and Abbott of Texas, and if we have bold and righteous leadership, that meeting should end with De Santis and those who helped him commit his crime being indicted. That was not just a publicity stunt by the governor and would be dictator of Florida. It is not some fascism free sample. It is not some gratuitous racism. It is not some owning of the libs roun. De Santis has committed a federal crime. Eight US Code one three two four, Section A two makes it explicit quoting any person who, knowing or in reckless disregarded the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, transports or moves or attempts to transport or move such an alien within the United States by means of transportation or otherwise. Shall for each alien in respect to whom such a violation occurs be fined under Title eighteen, imprisoned, not more than five years or both. Ron de Santis has boasted that he was behind the tricking of fifth the undocumented immigrants into getting on a plane in Texas and being dropped off at Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts. You cannot do that legally. It is human trafficking. It is a federal offense. Ron des Santis is a human trafficker, and everyone else who participated in his craven soulless illegal scheme is also a human trafficker. And there are fifty victims and eight US Code one to four sets a punishment of up to five years in prison for each victim, and thus Ron des Santis should be facing up to two hundred and fifty years in a federal prison. And for each undocumented immigrant put on a bus for New York or Washington, d C. The Texas governor Greg Abbott should be arrested and should face up to five years in prison. Each Texas has sent at least a thousand Abbot should be charged and arrested by the government and face up to five thousand years in federal prison. And of course all this is the minimum extent of the crimes here. These people were not just trafficked by Ron de Santis and Greg Abbott. In the Massachusetts case, they appear to have been kidnapped. National Public Radio reported it was able to interview three of the immigrants who had been staying at a shelter in San Antonio. They quote said a woman they identified as Perla approached them outside the shelter and lured them into boarding the plane, saying they would be flown to Boston, where they could get expedited work papers. She provided them with food. The migrants said Parlow was still trying to recruit more passengers just hours before their flight end quote. Axios reported one of the victims was told they were in fact headed to New York. This is the methodology of human trafficking and of kidnapping. You don't have to point a gun at a frightened, hungry person from another country in order to break the law yourself. They don't have to be exploited for sex to be exploited. Parla, whether she uses a knife or a promise, is a kidnapper. And since she was evidently working for De Santis or working for those who worked for De Santis, Ron de Santis is a kidnapper too, So add in fifty counts of kidnapping when the FBI goes and drags him by his ill fitting suit out of his state capital. There could yet be additional charges because part of the Dessantist crime spree here included sending a videographer onto the flight to further exploit and make recordings of these people, to videotape them as they were kidnapped and as they landed into what was them the wrong place, as they realized they had fallen victim to yet another group of corrupt government officials. Only these ones were named Parala and greg and Ron, and the video of their trauma was given to Fox News Channel. And if Fox News Channel knew this was happening before it happened and accepted the video of the crimes, they participated in the crimes, and they should also be charged as accessories to the trafficking and the kidnapping. And if they merely knew afterwards and accepted the video of the crime, they still participated in the crime, and they should also be charged as accessories after the fact of the trafficking and the kidnapping, and all of them to Santis and whoever aided and abetted his trafficking and kidnapping, and Abbott and his co conspirators could not have had worse timing, as I alluded to earlier axios reporting that already scheduled on the White House calendar for today Friday, the sixt was a meeting of White House officials and cabinet heads to discuss a series of immigration issues, including quote litigation options to respond to GOP governors transporting unauthorized immigrants from the border to other parts of the country. That the Martha's Vineyard victims have arrived in a place of kindness where locals scrambled not to exploit them or arrest them, but to feed them and house them is a silver lining here. But that they should have been freed from Texas or Florida is not exculpatory. Rohn de Santis is a human trafficker and kidnapper, and the time in this country when we permit some some like that to manipulate, at, hurt and kidnap innocent people in order to score points with the psychopathic fascists who support him electorally, has to come to an end. In eighteen sixty, the psychopathic fascists who believed that some people in America should own other people in America decided that their rules were the only rules, and their laws were the only laws, and they were going to make the rest of us do what they wanted. After eighty were years of compromise and equivocation and spinelessness, our ancestors said enough. It is time also for us to end our compromise and our equivocation and our spinelessness and put these fascists in their place. This country needs to stand for something again. And the ways and the means are right in front of us and easily perceived and easily enforced, and start here. Ronald Dion de Santis of Tallahassee, Florida is in violation at least fifty counts of eight US Code one three to four, Section eight. To indict him, arrest him, prosecute him, imprison him, and if somebody doesn't like it, that's what the police are for. And if the police don't like it, that's what the National Guard is for. Arrest him. And today is the day to arrest him and to move finally against Trump. It is testament I suppose to the unshakable images burned into our heads of things like Mr Smith goes to Washington, that any of us thought for a moment that a reprehensible peon of Trump World named e Leen Cannon was actually going to behave vaguely like a federal judge instead of like a poorly paid employee of the Donald Trump organized crime family. Last night, as you know, I Lean Cannon lived down to all expectations. She decided, based on her lack of legal knowledge or of any of the restraints usually provided by conscience or ethics or legalities, that she will not vacate her manipulation of the law to break the law to protect her man Trump, and that a special master should decide whether the top secret ultra classified documents that the nuclear kleptomaniac stole really are top secret ultraclassified documents, and whether the risk at which she now has personally put this nation could really trigger international conflict or a shooting war or a nuclear exchange, or if she the equivalent of a paralegal a paralegal temp knows better than the rest of us combined, we know what would happen next if a Republican were sitting in the White House now and a Democrat were under suspicion of stealing the nuclear crown Jewels. The White House would ignore Judge Cannon, and would ignore Special Master Deary, and would ignore the district irrelevant Court of Southern Irrelevant Florida. It would act and then tell everybody else to go and try and stop it. Happily, there is a legal means for President Biden an Attorney General Garland to proceed in such a morally justifiable manner, cut through the red tape and the people dispensing it. To borrow from a three step plan offered by the editor in chief of Crooked Media, Brian Boitler, one file an appeal to have President Biden publicly issue a memo waiving all executive privilege relating to the stolen documents and reminding Judge Cannon and the Appeals Court and Trump and everybody else that only a sitting president can assert presidential executive privilege in the here and now and then three used the materials already seen and gasped at by the Department of Justice, and as Boiler wrote, indict the m effort. Now go a little further, indicte the goddamned m effort, and indict him god damned immediately, because if you've somehow missed this. In the last few weeks, as he has threatened, revenged, and fully embraced Q and on and insisted upon an immediate new election and demanded he'd be installed right now as president. To day, Donald Trump has deteriorated from a humanoid but not human power mad creature with a Messiah complex into an out of control nuclear reactor, a chernobyl wearing orange makeup. In an interview with a right wing pedant named Hugh Hewitt, Trump has now threatened to destroy this country. He has belched out seven different threats of stochastic terrorism, seven threats by proxy, seven unmistakable calls to violence and insurrection again, and he has enunciated these seven blasphemies in just thirty seven seconds. I don't think the people of the United States would stand for it. And as you know, of a thing like that happened, I would have no prohibition against running. You know that I do, And that's what I wanted people to understand. That would not take you out of the arena. It would not. But I think if it happened, I think you'd have problems in this to the likes of which perhaps we've never seen before. I don't think the people of the United States would stand for it. What kind of problems, Mr President. I think they have big problems, big problems. I just don't think they stand for it. They will not. They will not sit still and stand for this ultimate of hoaxes. It is the January sixth speech all over again. It is the my Second Amendment people tweet all over again, and this crazed his brain does not work right phrasing. They will not sit still and stand for this is simply the proud boys, stand back and stand by debate answer all over again. Donald Trump is an immediate and lethal a threat to this country and to the safety of everyone in it, as if he were a terrorist holding a gun to the head of a baby. The Biden administration, the Garland Department of Justice have the means at hand right now to save the baby and take the gun away from him and contain or overcome whoever and whatever vermin he'd his call to create big problems. But every day that those means are not used, every day when formality and fear and dilettantism make us hesitate, the process of using those means becomes more difficult and more disruptive and more weighted down. But it is always true. The bully does not hit you because you hit him first, or because you hit him back. The bully hits you because he is a bully. He understands only one thing. He defers to only one thing, a kick to the crotch. Still ahead on countdown, while we are indicting Trump right now and arresting de Santis and arresting Abbott. Bringing Marjorie Trailer Park Green too. She assaulted a staff member of a young voters advocacy group on the streets of Washington last night. There's video, In fact, there are three videos. It is Friday's with Thurber, and I'll read you his best and worst persons. Now, Mike Lindell seems to think the FBI knocked his door down and for help about getting his phone back, He is invoking Captain Kirk. That's next. This is countdown. This is countdown with Keith Olberman. Still ahead on countdown. First, Marjorie Trailer Park Green tries to kick the student voting activists but fails. Then she tries again but fails. Then well, you'll just have to check the video. Check any of the three different videos. First, In each edition of Countdown, we feature a dog in need whom you can help. Every dog has its day to Los Angeles and Cooper. Cancer in dogs is surprisingly survivable. The first step is to remove the mass or masses. Cooper has a few of them. Surgery should cure him. My friend Alana Rizzo from MLB Network and her group Gidrey's Guardian are trying to raise a small amount to get him treated. He's a big guy, looks like a big gold beagle, not a beagle though. If you can donate, or you can just retweet, it will help Cooper a lot. Check Alana Rizzo's feed or giddres Guardians feed or my account for dogs in Need at tom Jumbo Grumbo and look for my tweet today about Cooper and thank you very much. Coming up on Countdown, Ohio Republicans have just voted themselves the right to inspect the genitalia of teenaged high school girls. You heard me right. Plus in sports, so the old Washington Redskins fixed their team name, but now is the Washington Commanders. They've somehow screwed up their city name. And it's Friday with Thurber First postscripts to the news. Some headlines, some thoughts, some snark. Dateline Washington no word as to whether or not charges will be pressed after Congresswoman Marjorie Trailer Park Green kicked and half pushed and half punched an eighteen year old official with a youth voters organizing group. Marianna Pecora is the digital director of Voters of Tomorrow, and she and colleagues got into an MTG special wherein the insurrectionist representative from Georgia walks and talks and insults in the vicinity of our capital. It is tough to hear exact quotes, and you don't really need to in this tape, but what you're listening for is when Green starts to talk about the Second Amendment and how it protects kids from getting killed in school. Just at this point, the video shows Marianna Pacara walking several steps ahead of the quote Congresswoman unquote. Pacara is in fact so far ahead that at least three different times Green tries to stride forward and deliberately kick Pecora while still being able to pretend it was just an accident. The first two times Green misses her legs are two short. On the third try, she kicks the young woman and pushes a clenched fist into her back. Yeah, that was how you're blocking. Excuse me blocking. You can't block members of congres. The only thing was blocking this member of Congress was her lack of intelligence. There are three different videos showing three different angles of the assault by Marjorie Taylor Green. As another member of the group notes, the real story is that after all of her grotesque kickboxing videos, it took her three tries. Date Line Hudson Yards, New York. Did I tell you about Chris Licht? Did I tell you why they made him PRESIDENCYNN? Did I tell you what he was like? Is Joe Scarborough's henchman when we were at MSNBC. He has made his first big move. He has relegated the liberal host Don Lemon from prime time to the CNN Morning Desert, which saw it's only measure of audience ratings that actually counts viewers age to fifty four dropped to an average of eighty thousand in August. Like we do that in a couple of days. Licked who when we work together at MSNBC, I believe used to eat paste? Now has two primetime hours without any anchors, and he has a morning show in which Lemon will have to co anchor with and be neutralized by a nasal reporter who last month demanded to know went down buying ninth going to a yanking. We have Pompblicans and a woman that CNN hired away from Tucker Carlson's The Daily Caller, the change made to please CNN's new fascist power behind the throne. John Malone also d platforms Brianna Keeler, the supposed moderate who tried to save herself with a tweet about the marine presence during a Biden speech, but learned you can never be ideologically pure enough for a guy like Chris Lick, who gets gold star are every time he silences a liberal or a moderate. Also, I've been quoted in a lot of corporate press releases about new shows and new jobs. Thus I have said a lot of things I never really said. But I've never read a quote like this. It comes from the Daily Caller person and it's in the CNN press release. Quote. I can't wait to wake with our viewers and do the news every day. So pour a cup of coffee and join us. Ma'am, you make mine glass of hemlock and Dateline News Corps. The Wall Street Journal opinion page pretty much hates anybody more liberal than King Louis the fourteenth seventeenth century France, and they're skilled at doing it too. But somebody stepped in it Wednesday night and yesterday morning. The headline on the editorial posted at seven pm Wednesday is Biden working on the railroad unions. You'd think all of the president's favors to big labor over two years would be enough to avert a railway strike. Als here ten hours later overnight, Joe Biden averted a railway strike. The Journal editorial, remarkably enough, is still up on their site. This is Sports Center. Wait, check that not anymore. This is Countdown with Keith Alberman in sports. Roger Federer has retired. He leaves tennis at the age of forty one, having taken twenty Grand Slam titles, having finished five seasons as the world's number one ranked player, and having been one of only three men's tennis players you have ever heard of, well five, maybe, but probably just three. Some real pervs in the Ohio Statehouse, Republicans there have passed the Save Women's Sports Act, which was supposed to prevent transgender women and girls from participating in interscholastic or intercollegiate athletics in Ohio. Problem is, the bill would permit anyone to accuse a female athlete of being transgender and allow officials to checked find out. In other words, Ohio State House republicans have passed a law permitting them adult men to inspect any high school girl athletes. Quote external and internal Genitalia, welcome to Ohio. Hockey Canada, the governing body of the nation which rules all national teams from entry level to the Olympics, has been collapsing under the weight of a rape scandal since the spring, when a woman sued saying she had been assaulted by eight members of the Canadian World junior team in under the guidance of Hockey Canada, or at least under its umbrella. Resignations, recriminations, investigations have followed. Yesterday, the National Hockey League held its press tour near Las Vegas, and Connor McDavid, of the Minton Oilers, perhaps Canada's top hockey hero, was asked about the disaster with Hockey Canada. His answer quote, I'm very proud to be Canadian, very proud to represent Hockey Canada. Obviously a situation that is terrible for everybody. A really really pathetic answer. Lastly, and somewhat happier, no explanation from the NFL's Washington Commanders about this under that name or as the Washington Football team, or the Washington Redskins, or the Boston Redskins or the Boston Braves. For eighty years now, they've been one of football's worst franchises. Now make it ninety years, isn't it. But it still doesn't explain how at their first home game in Washington under the name Commanders, an official team merchandise truck out in the stadium parking lot happened to be selling mugs with the Commander's logo emblazoned on them, and on top of that an outlined map of the state of Washington, which is two thousand, six and nine two miles away stell ahead. It's the most famous thing James Thurber ever wrote, and I will read it to you first, the daily roundup of the miscreants, morons and Dunning Krueger effect specimens who constitute today's worst persons in the world. The Bronze denish to SUSA, the rights squinting idiot mascot put out a tweet with a picture of two FBI agents with their big letter FBI jackets say FBI on them. The headline, FBI arrests top official in Democrats state over absentee ballot scheme. Denis Desus's message, this is huge. If you go to the story, this is what you will find. Quote the FBI arrested a New York Collection commissioner over allegations of an absentee ballot fraud scheme. Jason Scofield, a Republican, top official in Democrats state over Jason Scofield, a Republican. You know, it's huge. What's huge is that empty space between your ears. Denish your unner up. Blake Masters, the fascist candidate for the Senate in Arizona. You know the guy. I mean, he's the one who looks like he was hypnotized at the county fair and never snapped out of it. Vice News got a tape of him speaking to the Apache Junction Arizona ladies for Trump event last summer that must have been a blast, and insisting to them that he has a way to improve the military fire all the generals. Quote, it's very hard to become a general without being some kind of left of center politician. I would love to see all the generals get fired. You take the most conservative colonels, you promote them to general. Has anybody ever tried shaking this master's guide to see if his pupils will ricochet around his eyeballs like one of those old little handheld toys, you know, you try to get the little pinball to settle back into the hole in the middle of the thing. Jeez waves. But the winner Mike Lindell, as I said yesterday, he and the far right are insistent the legal seizure of his phone by a search warrant is a cross between nine eleven and the crucifixion. But Lindell, amid transposing words like president and president and statutes and statues has now looking for his phone, invoked Captain James T. Kirk. We're not gonna put up with this. We're not going to be the Gestapo like in Nazige Germany. This is uh, We're being proactive. I was on the phone with these attorneys. I said, no, I want to sue. What can we do? We got all the lawyers on the phone. They looked up all these statues. We're gonna go with places where no man has gone before. This will set a present. This has to stop. Nobody gets to bash people's door down and you get forty seconds to answer your door. Sir, this is a heartis no no, no, literally it isn't your house, and that wasn't your door. It's literally hearties, Mike, damn it, Jim, I'm a crackhead, not a poly Si Major Lindell two Day's worst person in the world to the number one story on the Countdown. It's the weekend, so it is Friday's with Thurber, and next week I will resume the harrowing tales of my youth not so youth, with things I promised not to tell. Anniversary scheduled for next week include and this is literally true the story of the day. My great grandfather Zelinski suggested that an acquaintance of his name his new company, General Motors. It's true we didn't get a dime out of it. But now Perfection, James Thurber's best known work, best loved work, and maybe just best work, has been made into two different films, neither of which is really satisfactory, but each gives you just a glimpse of what your imagination is doing as you hear or read his words. It is a universal It is the story of everybody who's ever lived, who has ever day dreamed. It is the Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber. We're going through. The Commander's voice was like thin ice breaking. He wore his full dress uniform with the heavily braided white cap pulled down rakishly over one cold gray eye. We can't make it, sir, It's spoiling for a hurricane. If you ask me, I'm not asking you, Lieutenant Burg said the commander. Throw on the power lights. Rever up to eight hundred. We're going through. The pounding of the cylinders increased to pocket. A pocket of pocket, a pocket of pocket. The commander stared at the ice forming on the pilot window. He walked over and twisted a row of complicated dials. Switch on number eight auxiliary. He shouted, Switch on number eight dogs, Hillary repeated Lieutenant Burg. Full strength and number three turret, shouted the commander, full strength and number three turret. The crew, bending to their various tasks in the huge, hurtling eight engine Navy hydroplane, looked at each other and grinned. The old man will get us through, They said to one another. The old man ain't afraid of Hell. Not so fast. You're driving too fast, said Mrs Middy. What are you driving so fast for? M hm, said Walter Middy. He looked at his wife in the seat beside him with shocked astonishment. She seemed grossly unfamiliar, like a strange woman who had yelled at him in a crowd. You're up to fifty five, she said. You know I don't like to go more than forty. You're up to fifty five. Walter Middy drove on towards Waterbury in silence, the roaring of the s N two O two, through the worst storm in twenty years of Navy flying, fading in the remote intimate airways of his mind. Your ten step again, said Mrs Middie. It's one of your days. I wish you'd let Dr Renshaw look you over. Walter Middy stopped the car in front of the building where his wife went to have her hair done. Remember to get those over shoes while I'm having my hair done, she said, I don't need overshoes, said Middy. She put her mirror back into her bag. We've in all through that, she said, getting out of the car. You're not a young man any longer. He raised the engine a little. Why don't you wear your gloves? Have you lost your gloves? Walter Middy reached in a pocket and brought out the gloves. He put them on, but after she had turned and gone into the building and he had driven onto a red light, he took them off again. Pick it up. Brother snapped the cop as the light changed, and Middy hastily pulled on his gloves and lurched ahead. He drove around the streets aimlessly for a time, and then he drove past the hospital on his way to the parking lot. It's the millionaire banker Wellington McMillan, said, the pretty nurse. Yes, said Walter Middy, removing his gloves slowly. Who has the case? Dr Renshawn, Dr Wrenbo But but there are two specialists here, Dr Remington from New York and Mr Pritchard Mitford from London. He flew over. The door opened down a long cool carter, and Dr Renshaw came out. He looked distraught and haggard. Hello Middy, he said, we're having the Devil's own time with McMillan, the millionaire banker and close personal friend of Roosevelt obstreosis of the ductal tract tertiary. Wish you'd take a look at him. Glad to, said Middy. In the operating room, there were whispered introductions Dr Remingtons, Dr Middy, Mr Richard Mitford. Dr Middy, and I've read your book on scripto thricosis, said Pritchard Mitford, shaking hands. Brilliant performance, Thank you, said Walter. Middy. Didn't know you're in the State's Middy grumbled. Remington's coals to Newcastle, bringing Mitford and me up here for a tertiary. You are very kind, said Middy. A huge, complicated machine connected to the operating table with many tubes and wires began at this moment to go Pacata, Pacata, pacata. The new anesthetizer is giving way, shouted an intern. There's no one in the East who knows how to fix it. Quiet man, said Middy in a low, cool voice. He sprang to the machine, which was now going pocketa pocketa creeep, pocketa pocketa creep. He began fingering delicately a roll of glistening dials give me a fountain pen, he snapped. Someone handed him a fountain pen. He pulled a faulty piston out of the machine and inserted the pen in its place. That will hold for ten minutes, he said, Get on with the operation. A nurse hurried over and whispered to Renshaw and Middy saw the man turn pale. Coreopsis has set in, said Renshaw nervously. If you would take over, Middy. Middy looked at him and at the craven figure of Benbow, who drank, then at the grave, uncertain faces of the two great specialists. If you wish, he said. They slipped a white gown on him. He adjusted a mask and drew on thin loves. Nurses handed him shiny back it up, Mac, look out for that buick, Walter. Middy jammed on the brakes. Wrong lane, Mac, said the parking lot attendant, looking at Middy closely. Gee yeah, muttered Middy. He began cautiously to back out of the lane marked exit. Only leave us sit there, said the attendant. I'll put her away. Middy got out of the car. Hey better leave the key, oh, said Middy, handing the man the ignition key. The attendant vaulted into the car, backed it up with insolent skill, and put it where it belonged. They're so damn cocky, thought Walter Middy walking along Main Street. They think they know everything. Once he had tried to take his chains off outside New Milford, and he got them wound around the axles. The man had to come out in a wrecking car and unwind them, a young grinning girl ashman. Since then, Mrs Middy always made him drive to a garage to have the chains taken off. The Next time, he thought, I'll wear my right arm in a sling. They won't grin it me. Then I have my right arm in a sling and they'll see I couldn't possibly take the chains off myself. He kicked at the slush on the sidewalk. Over shoes, he said to himself, and he began looking for a shoe store. When he came out into the street again with the overshoes in a box under his arm, Walter Middy began to wonder what the other thing was his wife had told him to get. She had told him twice before they set out from their house for Waterbury. In a way, he hated these weekly trips to town. He was always getting something wrong. Clean x, he thought, squibs, razor blades, now toothpaste, toothbrush by carbonet carborundum, initiative referendum. He gave it up, but she would remember it. Where's the what's its name? She would ask. Don't tell me you forgot the what's its name? The newsboy went by, shouting something about the Waterbury trial. Perhaps this will refresh your memory. The district attorney suddenly thrust a heavy automatic at the quiet figure on the witness stand. Have you ever seen this before? Walter Middy took the gun and examined it expertly. This is my Webley Victor's fifty eight, oh, he said calmly. An excited buzz ran around the courtroom. The judge rapped for order. You are a crack shot with any sort of firearms, I believe, said the district attorney, insinuatingly. Objection, shouted Middy's attorney. We have shown that the defendant could not have fired the shot. We have shown that he wore his right arm in a sling on the night of the fourteenth of July. Walter Middy raised his hand briefly, and the bickering attorneys were stilled with any known make of gun. He said evenly, I could have killed Gregory Fitzhurst at three hundred feet with my left hand. Pandemonium broke out in the courtroom. A woman scream rose above the bedlam, and suddenly a lovely, dark haired girl was in Walter Middy's arms. The district attorney struck at her savagely, without rising from his chair. Middy, let the man have it on the point of the chin, your miserable cur Puppy biscuit, said Walter Middy. He stopped walking in the buildings of Waterbury, rose up out of the misty courtroom and surrounded him again. A woman who was passing laughed. He said, puppy biscuit. She said to her companion. That man said puppy biscuit to himself. Walter Middy hurried on. He went into an a and p not the first one he came to, but a smaller one farther up the street. I want some biscuit for small young dogs, he said to the clerk. Any special brand, sir, the greatest pistol shot in the world. Thought a moment it says, puppies bark for it. On the box, said Walter Middy. His wife would be through at the hairdressers in fifteen minutes. Middy saw in looking at his watch. Unless they had trouble drying it. Sometimes they had trouble drying it. She didn't like to get to the hotel first. She would want him to be there waiting for her as usual. He found a big leather chair in the lobby facing a window, and he put the overshoes and the puppy biscuit on the floor beside it. He picked up an old copy of Liberty and sank down into the chair. Can Germany conquered the World through the Air, Walter Middy looked at the pictures of bombing planes and of ruined streets. The canon Aden has got the wind up in young Rawley, Sir, said the sergeant. Captain Middy looked at him through tousled hair. Get him to bed, he said, wearily. With the others, how fly alone? But you can't, sir, said the sergeant anxiously takes two men to handle that ball, and the Archies are pounding hell out of the air. Von Rickman's circus is between here and Solier. Somebody's got to get that ammunition dump said Middy. I'm going over spot of brandy. He poured a drink for the sergeant and one for himself. War thundered and wined around the dugout and battered at the door. There was a rending of wood and splinters flew through the room. Of a near thing, said Captain Middy carelessly. The box barage is closing in, said the sergeant. We only live once, sergeant, said Middy, with his faint, fleeting smile. Or do we He poured another brandy and tossed it off. I've never seen a man could hold his brandy lack usa, said the sergeant, begging your pardon, sir. Captain Middy stood up and scrapped on his huge webb Lee Vickers automatic. It's fortters through Elsa, said the sergeant. Middy finished one last brandy after all, he said, softly. Why isn't the pounding of the cannon increased. There was the rat tat tatting the machine guns, and from somewhere came the menacing pocket a pucket, a pocket, a pocket of the new flame throweries. Walter Middy walked to the door of the dugout, humming out, prayed the my blonde He turned and waved to the sergeant Cheerio. He said, something struck his shoulder. I've been looking all over this hotel for you, said Mrs Middy. Why do you have to hide in this old chair? How did you expect me to find you? Things close in, said Walter Middy, vaguely what Mrs Middy said? Did you get the wats it's name the poppy biscuit? What's in that box? Overshoes? Said Middy. Couldn't you put them on on the star? I was thinking, said Walter Middy. Does it ever occur to you that I am sometimes thinking? She looked at him. I'm going to take your temperature when I get you home, she said. They went out through the revolving doors that made a faintly derisive whistling sound when you pushed them. It was two blocks to the parking lot at the drug store on the corner. She said, wait here for me. I forgot something. I won't be a minute. She was more than a minute. Walter Middy lighted a cigarette. It began to rain, rain with sleet in it. He stood up against the wall of the drug store smoking. He put his shoulders back and his heels together to hell with the handkerchief, said Walter Middy scornfully. He took one last drag on his cigarette and snapped it away. Then, with that faint fleeting smile playing about his lips, he faced the firing squad, erect and motionless, proud and disdainful. Walter Middy, the undefeated, inscrutable to the last. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber. I've done all the damage I can do here. Help me out. Give this thing a good review or rating or whatever. Subscribe or forwarded to somebody, or you know what. Give it to CNN. Let them put it on instead of their morning show. The Countdown theme from Beethoven's Ninth arranged, produced and performed by Countdown Musical directors Brian Ray and John Philip Channel All orchestration and keyboards by John Philip Chanelle, guitarist, bass and drums by Brian Ray. Produced by t k O Brothers. The other Beethoven selections in the show have been arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. Our sports music was The Old Woman. The ESPN to Love theme written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Musical comments throughout by Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium organist ever, and my announcer today was Larry David. And that's countdown for this the six nine day since Donald Trump's first attempted coop against the Demmick radically elected government of the United States. Arrest him now while we still can. There'll be a new episode Monday. That's the plan. I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.