EPISODE 142: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:42) SPECIAL COMMENT: Merrick Garland is going to appear in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning. And it looks like there'll be yet another new and big and shiny thing to ask him about, about the arrested ex-FBI man Charles McGonigal and the Russian linked via Paul Manafort to Trump, Oleg Deripaska. Once, McGonigal was in charge of investigating Deripaska. The next thing you knew, he was WORKING FOR Deripaska. Exactly WHEN that happened keeps changing. 2020? 2019? Now it's 2018? Could it have been 2016? Judiciary Chair Dick Durban and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse want to know, and they want to know if Garland knows if McGonigal was aware of his FBI New York Field Office and how it was already trying to fix the 2016 election for Trump by forcing James Comey to re-smear Hillary Clinton eleven days before the election.

Meanwhile Trump CAN get the GOP nomination because the GOP hierarchy is moronic: it actually believes it has "cornered" him by demanding a pledge of all would-be nominees to support whoever gets the nomination because OF COURSE he always lives up to his promises. And Tucker Carlson doubles down on the January 6th video scam.

B-Block (18:08) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: First you could say "Dilbert" isn't funny. Then you could say it isn't appropriate. Now, after Scott Adams' racist rant, you can say it just...isn't. Happily Elon Musk is there to defend him. And the Department of Energy says Covid-19 was a lab leak? Oh they say it with "low confidence" that they're right? And it's the Department of ENERGY? (21:43) In sports: baseball's pitch clock seems to work (I'll be DAMNED), but where is it going to come up with the money to pay Manny Machado? Four more Regional Sports Networks pumping baseball (and the NBA and NHL) full of cash say they will likely go bankrupt within a month. (25:20) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Did the anti-Drag governor of Tennessee dress up IN drag in High School? Why does one writer keep calling CNN's Chris "Maybe Ate Paste" Licht a genius when he's never finished higher than last in the ratings? And how do you spell "NINTH" and "TWELFTH"? Don't ask the Florida Department of Education - the folks there have no clue.

C-Block (32:00) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Peanut, in North Carolina, who weighs 20 pounds when she should weigh 60, needs your help. (33:15) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: On one day I was supposed to have coffee - at her invitation, as a prelude to a date, with Uma Thurman, AND the president of Current TV was taking me to dinner to explain how we could get rid of the idiot co-owner who didn't know what "DVR" was and so bought ratings showing only "Live" viewers, not "Live + DVR" viewers. If I tell you I had coffee and dinner alone, can you guess what happened?