Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio. So now finally we see what Elon Musk is doing to Twitter and why to him. It turns out Twitter is another CNN where fascists see a benchmark kind of neutral media outlet, hate it and fear it because it platforms criticism of fascists, bulwarks against fascism, and so they simply buy it to mute it and turn it into fascist propaganda while pretending they are merely defending what is to them just another brand name called quote free speech unquote. And finally, yesterday as the fight Musk picked with Apple morphed into the fight Apple and Google nay, now pick with him? These cats all leaped from the proverbial bag because yesterday was also the day that two of the most crass, most disingenuous, most venal Republican politicians in this country leaped to defend one billionaire monopolist against a different billionaire monopolist. It was the day the fascist began to repay Elon Musk and free speech Incorporated. First would be Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Stop Elon Musk, leave Fridney alone. Then would be Republican presidential nominee Ron Descent and Elon Musk knows that's not a winning formula, and so he's providing free speech. Free speech, and Elon Musk in the same sentence to Elon Musk, free speech is roughly equivalent to meaning free sandwich with every twelve purchase. More of what Dissantis and McCarthy said and what their involvement means for the actual future of actual speech in this country and the new Google and Twitter thing shortly, but there is a second dimension to both the destruction of CNN and the destruction in real time of Twitter, which became evident yesterday that maybe what creatures like Musque are camouflaging when they beat their chests so loudly about the brand name that is quote free speech. When ultra conservative media Robert Baron John Malone bought CNN and hired a hatchetman like Chris Licked to gut its successful shows and push its conservative talent, Malone didn't say I have money, so I'm buying CNN to kill it. Malone first softened up the target by saying CNN needed to get back to neutrality like Brett Bears newscast, exactly the way Elon Musk bought Twitter and said his presidential preferences someone quote sensible and centrists like Rhondo Santis. The third example, by the way, to complete the Brett Bear and Ron De Santis sub said of whitewashed right wing extremists would be if either Malone or Musk now said that they were really in love with musicians and actors who just stayed out of politics, like Ted Nugent and James Woods. Musk has in fact gone a little further even than Malone, and I think yesterday was a real watershed moment in understanding how and why by buying Twitter and reinstating all the white supremacists and anti Semits and misogynists and anti Baxers or all of them at the same time like Trump, and claiming that in doing so he was merely restoring free speech. Like the CNN case, it's not just eliminating the liberal content on a neutral media outlet. It is first positioning that outlet as a dangerous, one sided, rigged plot against the right, against justice, against freedom, and then claiming, just like Malone and the New CNN, that Twitter two point oh is centrist, balanced, corrective. It is moving the proverbial over in window in a way never dreamt of before. In Twitter's case, it's trying to tell four hundred million users that what two months ago was the far right is now the center, and what two months ago was the center is now the far and dangerous left. Did Musk design this play? Did he wildly overspend on Twitter intentionally just to manipulate its politics? Did he plan this well? Does anything Musk do look planned? It is entirely possible and much less paranoid and much more in keeping with the reputation Musk is building for himself as a fire hose that the firefighters have lost control of. To assume he did not plan this, that this was opportunistic, a window of opportunity, and overton window of opportunity. Sorry to the Apple and Google part of the story. Now the Apple saga, I think you know quoting a Musk tweet. Apple has mostly stopped advertising on Twitter. Do they hate free speech in America? Which is so stupid? It could have been written by Sarah palin On behalf of Donald Trump as the Spider Man. Writer Dan Slot replied, Hey, Elon Musk, I want to start a new podcast if you personally don't promise to give me a billion dollars in advertising for it. You are stifling my free speech and are supporting tyranny unquote. Not only applaud Mr Slot's response, but I advise Musk that I will defend him on this subject for half a billion dollars in advertising on this podcast Your turn again. Sorry so. Musk also claims Apple is threatening to remove the Twitter app from its app store and disingenuously claims they won't tell him why, when it's obvious it's about Musk dissolving, you know, all content moderation and restoring the worst of the wild West attitudes that the site needed years to find a way to tame, and Apples stopping advertising is hardly unprecedented in this last month of mayhem. Media Matters reported that half of Twitter's top one hundred advertisers bailed out during this past month alone, after, as another Twitter put it, fragile, narcissist buys criticism factory. Musk, the super genius businessman, knows exactly how to get those advertisers back, of course, threaten them his next battle. His next threat may involve Google. Axios reported yesterday that Google, quote like Apple, enforces content moderation policies for app eligibility in its Google Play Store, which serves Android devices, but as if now, the company has yet to contact Twitter about any potential violations or issues, a source told Axios. Still, the source said Google is monitoring developments around content moderation changes at the company. Twitter end quote. It is conceivable Apple or Google or both could drop the Twitter app. The virtual monopolies or practical coopolies tend to give the benefit of the doubt to other virtual monopolies or practical duopolies. In short, corporations stick up for the other corporations. But for right now, Musk is suddenly the latest poster boy for Republican self martyrdom over the quote free speech unquote brand name. The GOP is the party of bitching and moaning and self identifying as the real victim here. So Musk's florid hyperbole about how whether or not somebody gives him a billion dollars in ad money is a battle full the future of civilization is exactly what fascists like Kevin McCarthy and Rhonda Santis want to be asked about by the media. Yesterday, somebody went so far as to team McCarthy up even more perfectly than just a simple question. The question he was asked was about the government looking at what Twitter is doing about disinformation and reopening its Pandora's box. The government looking at Twitter, and McCarthy was able to turn the Umbridge machine up to eleven. That is offensive to me. Government's gonna go after someone that wants to have free speech? What do they have to look at Twitter about? Do they want to go more after American public about whether they can have an opinion on something. I think the American public have spoken on this. I think our First Amendment stands up, and I think they should stop picking on Elon Musk listening to Kevin McCarthy short version or long version right there. It is, of course difficult to get past that ludicrous conclusion after a month of self inflicted financial defenistration worthy of Kanye West. Poor Elon Musk is only worth a hundred and ninety one billion dollars and none of his electric cars have spontaneously combusted yet today, I think. But the other part of McCarthy's clip there is equally stupid. I think our First Amendment stands up would be apt and relevant if mccarth the or anybody else agreed that the government should have some mild regulatory control over what he is ultimately just a new form of a mass media network. But it doesn't. The First Amendment has nothing to do with Twitter. Most of McCarthy's vast catalog of idiotic remarks can be easily explained. He's an actual idiot. He's an actual idiot who does not seem to process reality all that well. Anything Ron des Santis says, on the other hand, could be base stupidity, but it is more likely to be yet another electoral scam that he's trying to cobble together. Inside that fascist head of his, you can see the little lines moving on behind his eyeballs. In that fascist head of his, monopolistic corporations who give him money are free to do whatever they want wave the flag on their behalf, and monopolistic corporations which do not give him money should be investigated by the House of Representatives. When you also hear reports that Apple is threatening to remove Twitter from the app store because Elon Musk is actually opening it up for free speech and is restoring a lot of accounts that were unfairly and illegitimately suspended for putting out accurate information about COVID. That's like one of the main things that's being reinstated. And Twitter, the old regime and Twitter their response was to try to just suffocate the dissent, and and and Elon Musk knows that's not a winning formula, and so he's providing free speech. And so if Apple responds to that by nuking them from from the app store, you know, I think that that would be a huge, huge mistake, and it would be a really raw exercise of monopolistic power that I think would merit a response from the United States Congress. Guy gets elected governor of Florida, and now he thinks he owns Congress too. By the way, that statement about when you hear reports the reports are from Elon Musk, those are not reports. Reports are from NBC or even Fox News. A report from Elon Musk. It's just a statement by Elon Musk. Anyway, we have the first glimmer finally of understanding breaking over the horizon. Musk, by plan or unhappy accident, is doing the Republicans bidding by neutering a liberal friendly media outlet and turning it into a fascist propaganda website under the guise of free speech TM, and now he has begun to be rewarded by the politicians for having done so. But what does Musk get out of this. He can't become president. It seems unlikely. He wants to be senator or even a governor, perhaps the kingmaker of the Republican Fascist Party, since you can take the boy out of apartheid South Africa, But as Musk has repeatedly revealed, you can't take apartheid South Africa out of the boy. Maybe it's just more money, more friendly deals from the govern bit more ironic, given De Santis is self serving, can't more Republican endorsement of Musk getting to enjoy another quote really raw exercise of monopolistic power. Those answers await. But for now, at least we know there is a developing De Santis McCarthy Musk nexus, prearranged or ad hoc to shut off Twitter the way John Malone has shut off CNN, and we know that it's meaning probably lies somewhere between Musk's assertion, namely quote this is a battle for the future of civilization. The free speech is lost even in America. Tyranny is all that lies ahead somewhere halfway probably between that and from the opposite end of the spectrum, the realization that's so far based just on his free speech tweets. All that Elon Musk is trying to do in this battle for the future of civilization is to make the world safe for caffeine free diet coke. Still ahead, Elmer is going to the big House. Elmer Stewart Rhodes, leader of the Oath Keepers, convicted along with an associate of sedition the Trump told us to do January six, defense didn't work out. Marjorie Trailer Park Green, proving she earns that nickname every day. She actually compares COVID nineteen transmission to farting through her underwear. She's going to be chair of the House Subcommittee on Homeland farts, isn't she Also, she claims to have denounced Nick Fuente's after speaking at one of his events and taking a selfie with him. She should stick to farts and in things I promised not to tell we are about at the anniversary of the day they wanted to fire Jimmy Kimmel and replace him with me. Now that is a tease that's next. This is Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith Olberman still ahead on Countdown. Finally, Marjorie Trailer Park Green has found a topic matching her level of class and intelligence and expertise. Farts passing through thick underwear and this is simple. My boss called one day and said, we may have to fire Jimmy Kimmel. Can you replace him? I'll explain that first. In each edition of Countdown to feature a dog in need you can help. Every dog has its day to Staten Island in New York. And Meatball, another dog who's human, could not even have been bothered to dump him at a kill shelter. You just stopped feeding Meatball. Then he left him on the street. Meatball wandered up into a neighbor's porch near Collapse near Star Bay, Near and Far Animal Foundation is doing a fundraiser on Cuddly for Meatball's treatment. He's a tan and white pitty with pleading eyes. They think if they can get him through the next few days, he'll make it simple issue. They need our donations. You can find Meatball on Cuddly or on my Twitter and a retweet will also help. I thank you and Meatball. Thanks you. Post scripts to the news some headlines, some updates, some snarks, some predictions. Date Line Washington. The codification of same sex and interracial marriage passes the Senate six the same twelve Republicans voted yes who voted yes in the earlier procedural vote. House will now try to get it done. House will also vote on two bills today to preclude the pending railroad strike. The it's would utilize the government's right to impose a settlement on both sides. The second would give the workers seven days of paid leave during a year they had asked for four. Date Line Washington. We procede this story with a tweet from January twenty three of this year from former newsman Brit Hume. You know how old he is. He's two hundred and six Hume Rights quote. Here's a thought. Let's base our view on whether or not in one six was an insurrection on whether those arrested or charged with insurrection. So far none has been. And guess what. Hume Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and his Florida flunkey Kelly Meg's both convicted yesterday of seditious conspiracy maximum sentenced twenty years. Regrettably, there is no maximum sentence for the despicable brit Hume and Dateline Elba, also known as Mari Lago. First, Mitch McConnell said anybody tolerating the anti semitism and hate of Nick Twente's would never be elected president. Then Kevin McCarthy lied to the media by claiming Donald Trump had condemned Fuentes quote four times. The correct answer is none. Then Trump issued his fourth different statement about his dinner with Fuentes and Kanye West. Quote I had never heard of Nick Fuentes. I had no idea what his views were, and they weren't expressed at the table in our very quick dinner, or it wouldn't have been accepted. And then Trump condemned Mitch McConnell. He has still not condemned Nick Fuentes. This is Sports Center. Wait, check that not anymore. This is Countdown with Keith in Sports US over Iran one nothing to advance to the next round of the World Cup. Goal by Christian Pulis, who wound up in the hospital after a pelvic contusion when he ran into the Iranian goalie. He says he will be able to play Saturday in the game against the Netherlands. Despite mounting pressure. It looks like the crashing Green Bay Packers will also start quarterback Aaron Red Rodgers this weekend against the Bears if he is healthy enough. The Pack four and eight. The self destructing Rodgers has looked terrible, but it does not look like the team is yet ready to bench him and go instead with Jordan's Love his backup. Rogers hurt, his rib already had a broken thumb. He might need more of that ayahuasca tea that he boasted of taking, the stuff with the hallucinogen d M T in it, or maybe the Packers coaches should The Gulf Wars could end for Tiger Woods. He says. The p g A and the Live Tour also known as the Saudi Blood Money League, could coexist if two conditions are met, if each group drops its suit against the other, and if the l I V people remove the ex per Riya player Greg Norman, who is their current pariah CEO. Golf people do not like Greg Norman, and he might be the thinking man's baseball player, but Joey Vato's brain nous may not transfer to a real sport. Chess, Vado revealed he had entered his first chess tournament at the Annex Chess Club in his native Toronto. Monday. He asked his followers to wish him luck His team, the Cincinnati Reds probably wrote good luck King. And then yesterday Vatto gave us an update, revealing quote, I got flattened by a nine year old ahead. This is the anniversary approximately of the day. My boss called me at home and asked me if I could replace this other guy they were about to fire Jimmy Kimmel. Things I promised not to tell. Coming up first, the daily roundup of the misgrants, morons and done in Krueger effect specimens, who constitute today's worst persons in the world. The bronze. I'm giving it to Tennessee Knitwit Senator Marsha Blackburn again for the same thing as yesterday. She put out a baking video inadvertently calling or maybe advertently calling for cooks to burn down their own homes by not removing the wax paper before sticking the cookie dough into an oven preheated to three five degrees coom. I'm going into reruns on this one because in retelling that story, yesterday. I was reminded of the time when I was a kid and my parents took me with them to a movie that I had no interest in, and to shut me up, they got me a box of Mini Reese's peanut butter cups. When the film ended and the lights came up, my mother said, Okay, let's clean up the mess. And after a moment, she said, wait, where are all the rappers, the little wax paper brown rappers? And I said what rappers? And she and my dad looked at me in horror because I had eaten the rappers. I said, I thought they were supposed to be crunchy. I did have an excuse. I was seven. The runner up, herschel Walker revealed yesterday, a week before the end of the runoff vote, he's lived in Texas for seventeen years and the quote home unquote he owns in Georgia, where he is running for the Senate in a week's time. He has rented it to other people for seventeen years. CNN later found video of him from January talking to Georgia Republicans and saying quote, I live in Texas unquote, and then adding quote as I was sitting in my home in Texas. I was sitting in my home in Texas. A genius, a political genius. I tell you this, of course makes herschel. All right, say it with me now, Walker Texas Ranger. Well whatever, let's dance through the herschel. Thank you, Nancy Faust. But our winner, Marjorie Trailer Park Green. If you somehow didn't see it, she tweeted quote I can't believe I'm reading this. By the way, she tweeted quote, so many people still wearing masks. I just want to ask you. If a pair of underwear, really thick ones, high quality cotton can't protect you from a fart, then how will a mask protect you from COVID? This is the kind of free speech. Elon Musk is there to defend on behalf of America and God and diet PEP see caffeine free as somebody who wore a mask in a doctor's office the day before yesterday. There's so much wrong in this statement. I don't know where to begin, and so much dumb. Let's start with this. A mask does not protect you from COVID. It protects everybody else in case you have COVID. I thought even the functionally illiterate like Green understood this by now after nearly three years. Secondly, COVID is a virus transferred in droplets. Gas is a gas, which is why they call it gas, So the physics is all different. Got it? Hone? Thirdly, why is this idiot talking about a pair of underwear really thick ones, high quality cotton. Why is she talking about protection from farts? Why is she talking about farts? Why is she in Congress? Why isn't she in here? Seven of the third grade? I mean, there is the theory that she does these stupid things like calling the gastopo that gaspacho and tweeting about farts to draw attention to herself, or maybe to obscure the evil things she does, like getting Kevin McCarthy to insist she had already denounced Nick Twente's, even though there was this selfie of her that's still on Twitter with Twente's and Michelle Malkin, Remember Michelle Malkin, And it was at the Nick Fuente's anti Semitism conference that she spoke at, and then she went on Twitter and denounced Twente's, which kind of confirmed McCarthy was lying when he had said she'd already denounced Twente's, so it's either one of those or she's just a moron. Whatever the answer, she's Marjorie, How can a mask stop COVID if it can't stop me from saying stupid things like this? Green to Day's worse person. He lord its own to the top of the countdown in our number one story and my favorite topic, me and things I promised not to tell. And I'm not exactly sure when this happened. It happened in l a And it was sunny and warm that day, so it could have been the fourth of July or Christmas, who knows, but I'm guessing it was around this time of the year because it was during the National Football League season of And it happened when I was working for Fox Sports and finally getting around of what the story is. It was the day they almost fired Jimmy Kimmel and hired me to replace him. I answered the phone at my home and at the other end, an Australian voice asked, quote, can you replace Kimmel? Relax? ABC is not trying to replace Jimmy Kimmel. This is twenty three years ago, but I think of it every time I see a sportscast, particularly a sports broadcast of a ball game, in which one of the sports casters talks about the point spread or asks a colleague if they're taking the over or the under? Can you replace Jimmy Kimmel? Not the ads. The ads for sports gambling have become more ubiquitous than for drugs. I'm supposed to ask my doctor about the ads in which the smoothly read list of mild side effects may cause horrific death is longer than the sales pitch itself, and you wind up not wanting to touch the bottle, let alone take the pill. It's not the ads for sports gambling. Sports itself is now fully in bed with gambling. The National Football League has seven official NFL sports betting partners, seven which may be more than the number of good teams it has this year. And all the leagues now let their broadcasts run ads for wagering, or even stories about the odds on that game, or they even provide methods to bet on the game you're watching while you are watching it. And I do not know who was most surprised by that, Pete Rose, Me, Jimmy Kimmel, or the Australian guy. On the other end of the phone. He was David Hill, the co president of Fox Sports, and he had a problem. In those days, Jimmy Kimmel was the announcer on a comedy game show, and he did TV promos for Fox, but his biggest visibility came from a short segment he did every week for the Fox NFL Sunday pregame show. He picked winners and losers for the games that day. To do only this, he basically walked a tight rope. No references to gambling were permitted. No over unders, no point spreads. He could say underdog, but he could not say dog because the NFL still believed it could not as much as acknowledge that even one fan was betting money on an NFL game now or at any point in the past. And your replaced, Jimmy moll. I mean, it was, after all, just thirty seven years since two of the NFL's biggest stars, Paul Horning and Alex Carris, had been suspended for gambling on NFL games. It had only been about half that long since the retired Baltimore Colts star Bubba Smith had wildly claimed that there was only one reason his nineteen sixty nine Colts could have famously lost the Super Bowl to the underdog Jets of Joe Willie Namath. The Colts must have bet on the Jets and throwing the game and not told him. And it was only about a decade since investigative reporter Dan Moldea had written one of the greatest sports books I've ever read, called Interference, which detailed how the NFL was basically, you know, founded by bookies and some of the current owners were the sons and grandsons of bookies, and how the league really didn't end its recurring problem with you know, fixing games and shaving points spreads for bookies until about the NFL was kind of sensitive about gambling, even when compared to Baseball, which had banned the guy with the second highest career batting average ever banned him for life over gambling in and then banned it's all time leader in bass hits for life over gambling in. So it's ten years after Pete Rose was banned in. I was doing Baseball and their version of Sports Center for Fox Sports, and the co president of the network, David Hill, called that day and said, and I'll spare you the fake Australian accent this time mine, not Hills. Can you replace Jimmy Kimmel? The NFL may ban him from our broadcast because he used the words points spread on our show last Sunday, and then he kept using all these insider gambling terms on some radio show yesterday. I think he even said vigorish, vigorish, No, oh, not vigorish. What David Hill then asked me to do was drop everything, not do that night's cable sportscast, and instead think up and then write up a two to three minute bit that could be funny and could also pick winners and losers. That I would do and would replace Jimmy Kimmel on the next edition of Fox NFL Sunday a couple of days later, after the league banned Kimmel for life. For God's sakes, though he said, do not use the word vigorish. Fox Sports was in such a panic that day that they did not want me to waste time by coming into the office to write up the winners and Losers segment. They wanted me to write the bit from home, email it to them all, and then come in While all the executives were debating whether or not it was okay, a crew and a producer and one of my suits would be waiting for me, and we would record the thing as soon as the bosses agreed to the script, and then they would submit the taped test run to the NFL. I wrote the script. There were actually a couple of laughs based on such thin gruel as the fact that the quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons was named Christian Chandler and I had once dated a girl named Chris Chandler. Prize winning this was not, but it didn't use the word vigorish, and I got it done in about an hour. I was getting in the car when Hill called back, Okay, stand down on this. We think we've resolved it with Jimmy in the league, but we won't forget what you did for us. And they didn't. They sent me some champagne and um like six months later, they tried to blackmail me into taking a pay cut. Lovely people at Fox. I don't know what the full backstory was on the Kimmel deal. For all I know, the whole thing was just a ruse to scare Jimmy into not using the word vigorish. I have seen him since nine or two thousand. But I do know that the leagues and their television partners used to be so terrified of any link to gambling that they were willing to feed the rumor mill by telling me Jimmy Kimmel was about to get suspended by the nf fill just for saying point spread and vigoroush And now the NFL has seven official gambling partners, even while an x NFL coach accused one of the franchises of tanking. And if there's anything that should terrify sports gamblers more than tanking, Frankly, I don't know what it is. I've done all the damage I can do here. Thanks for listening. If you're not following, we're subscribed or whatever to this podcast. I wish you would please stop a passer by on the street if you have already subscribed, get them to subscribe, subscribe, get them to both subscribe and spubscribe. Here are the credits. Most of the music, including this our theme from Beethoven's Ninth was arranged, produced, and performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Chanelle. They are the Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by John Philip Channel guitars, bass and drums by Brian Ray, produced by t k O Brothers. Other Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by No Horns Allowed. The sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two. It was written by Mitch Warren Davis and it appears here courtesy of ESPN eight. Musical comments from Nancy Faust. The best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was John Dene and everything else is pretty much my fault. So that is countdown for this the SI four day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States. Arrest him now while we still can a new addition tomorrow. Until then, I'm Keith Olderman. 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.

Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio. So now finally we see what Elon Musk is doing to Twitter and why to him. It turns out Twitter is another CNN where fascists see a benchmark kind of neutral media outlet, hate it and fear it because it platforms criticism of fascists, bulwarks against fascism, and so they simply buy it to mute it and turn it into fascist propaganda while pretending they are merely defending what is to them just another brand name called quote free speech unquote. And finally, yesterday as the fight Musk picked with Apple morphed into the fight Apple and Google nay, now pick with him? These cats all leaped from the proverbial bag because yesterday was also the day that two of the most crass, most disingenuous, most venal Republican politicians in this country leaped to defend one billionaire monopolist against a different billionaire monopolist. It was the day the fascist began to repay Elon Musk and free speech Incorporated. First would be Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Stop Elon Musk, leave Fridney alone. Then would be Republican presidential nominee Ron Descent and Elon Musk knows that's not a winning formula, and so he's providing free speech. Free speech, and Elon Musk in the same sentence to Elon Musk, free speech is roughly equivalent to meaning free sandwich with every twelve purchase. More of what Dissantis and McCarthy said and what their involvement means for the actual future of actual speech in this country and the new Google and Twitter thing shortly, but there is a second dimension to both the destruction of CNN and the destruction in real time of Twitter, which became evident yesterday that maybe what creatures like Musque are camouflaging when they beat their chests so loudly about the brand name that is quote free speech. When ultra conservative media Robert Baron John Malone bought CNN and hired a hatchetman like Chris Licked to gut its successful shows and push its conservative talent, Malone didn't say I have money, so I'm buying CNN to kill it. Malone first softened up the target by saying CNN needed to get back to neutrality like Brett Bears newscast, exactly the way Elon Musk bought Twitter and said his presidential preferences someone quote sensible and centrists like Rhondo Santis. The third example, by the way, to complete the Brett Bear and Ron De Santis sub said of whitewashed right wing extremists would be if either Malone or Musk now said that they were really in love with musicians and actors who just stayed out of politics, like Ted Nugent and James Woods. Musk has in fact gone a little further even than Malone, and I think yesterday was a real watershed moment in understanding how and why by buying Twitter and reinstating all the white supremacists and anti Semits and misogynists and anti Baxers or all of them at the same time like Trump, and claiming that in doing so he was merely restoring free speech. Like the CNN case, it's not just eliminating the liberal content on a neutral media outlet. It is first positioning that outlet as a dangerous, one sided, rigged plot against the right, against justice, against freedom, and then claiming, just like Malone and the New CNN, that Twitter two point oh is centrist, balanced, corrective. It is moving the proverbial over in window in a way never dreamt of before. In Twitter's case, it's trying to tell four hundred million users that what two months ago was the far right is now the center, and what two months ago was the center is now the far and dangerous left. Did Musk design this play? Did he wildly overspend on Twitter intentionally just to manipulate its politics? Did he plan this well? Does anything Musk do look planned? It is entirely possible and much less paranoid and much more in keeping with the reputation Musk is building for himself as a fire hose that the firefighters have lost control of. To assume he did not plan this, that this was opportunistic, a window of opportunity, and overton window of opportunity. Sorry to the Apple and Google part of the story. Now the Apple saga, I think you know quoting a Musk tweet. Apple has mostly stopped advertising on Twitter. Do they hate free speech in America? Which is so stupid? It could have been written by Sarah palin On behalf of Donald Trump as the Spider Man. Writer Dan Slot replied, Hey, Elon Musk, I want to start a new podcast if you personally don't promise to give me a billion dollars in advertising for it. You are stifling my free speech and are supporting tyranny unquote. Not only applaud Mr Slot's response, but I advise Musk that I will defend him on this subject for half a billion dollars in advertising on this podcast Your turn again. Sorry so. Musk also claims Apple is threatening to remove the Twitter app from its app store and disingenuously claims they won't tell him why, when it's obvious it's about Musk dissolving, you know, all content moderation and restoring the worst of the wild West attitudes that the site needed years to find a way to tame, and Apples stopping advertising is hardly unprecedented in this last month of mayhem. Media Matters reported that half of Twitter's top one hundred advertisers bailed out during this past month alone, after, as another Twitter put it, fragile, narcissist buys criticism factory. Musk, the super genius businessman, knows exactly how to get those advertisers back, of course, threaten them his next battle. His next threat may involve Google. Axios reported yesterday that Google, quote like Apple, enforces content moderation policies for app eligibility in its Google Play Store, which serves Android devices, but as if now, the company has yet to contact Twitter about any potential violations or issues, a source told Axios. Still, the source said Google is monitoring developments around content moderation changes at the company. Twitter end quote. It is conceivable Apple or Google or both could drop the Twitter app. The virtual monopolies or practical coopolies tend to give the benefit of the doubt to other virtual monopolies or practical duopolies. In short, corporations stick up for the other corporations. But for right now, Musk is suddenly the latest poster boy for Republican self martyrdom over the quote free speech unquote brand name. The GOP is the party of bitching and moaning and self identifying as the real victim here. So Musk's florid hyperbole about how whether or not somebody gives him a billion dollars in ad money is a battle full the future of civilization is exactly what fascists like Kevin McCarthy and Rhonda Santis want to be asked about by the media. Yesterday, somebody went so far as to team McCarthy up even more perfectly than just a simple question. The question he was asked was about the government looking at what Twitter is doing about disinformation and reopening its Pandora's box. The government looking at Twitter, and McCarthy was able to turn the Umbridge machine up to eleven. That is offensive to me. Government's gonna go after someone that wants to have free speech? What do they have to look at Twitter about? Do they want to go more after American public about whether they can have an opinion on something. I think the American public have spoken on this. I think our First Amendment stands up, and I think they should stop picking on Elon Musk listening to Kevin McCarthy short version or long version right there. It is, of course difficult to get past that ludicrous conclusion after a month of self inflicted financial defenistration worthy of Kanye West. Poor Elon Musk is only worth a hundred and ninety one billion dollars and none of his electric cars have spontaneously combusted yet today, I think. But the other part of McCarthy's clip there is equally stupid. I think our First Amendment stands up would be apt and relevant if mccarth the or anybody else agreed that the government should have some mild regulatory control over what he is ultimately just a new form of a mass media network. But it doesn't. The First Amendment has nothing to do with Twitter. Most of McCarthy's vast catalog of idiotic remarks can be easily explained. He's an actual idiot. He's an actual idiot who does not seem to process reality all that well. Anything Ron des Santis says, on the other hand, could be base stupidity, but it is more likely to be yet another electoral scam that he's trying to cobble together. Inside that fascist head of his, you can see the little lines moving on behind his eyeballs. In that fascist head of his, monopolistic corporations who give him money are free to do whatever they want wave the flag on their behalf, and monopolistic corporations which do not give him money should be investigated by the House of Representatives. When you also hear reports that Apple is threatening to remove Twitter from the app store because Elon Musk is actually opening it up for free speech and is restoring a lot of accounts that were unfairly and illegitimately suspended for putting out accurate information about COVID. That's like one of the main things that's being reinstated. And Twitter, the old regime and Twitter their response was to try to just suffocate the dissent, and and and Elon Musk knows that's not a winning formula, and so he's providing free speech. And so if Apple responds to that by nuking them from from the app store, you know, I think that that would be a huge, huge mistake, and it would be a really raw exercise of monopolistic power that I think would merit a response from the United States Congress. Guy gets elected governor of Florida, and now he thinks he owns Congress too. By the way, that statement about when you hear reports the reports are from Elon Musk, those are not reports. Reports are from NBC or even Fox News. A report from Elon Musk. It's just a statement by Elon Musk. Anyway, we have the first glimmer finally of understanding breaking over the horizon. Musk, by plan or unhappy accident, is doing the Republicans bidding by neutering a liberal friendly media outlet and turning it into a fascist propaganda website under the guise of free speech TM, and now he has begun to be rewarded by the politicians for having done so. But what does Musk get out of this. He can't become president. It seems unlikely. He wants to be senator or even a governor, perhaps the kingmaker of the Republican Fascist Party, since you can take the boy out of apartheid South Africa, But as Musk has repeatedly revealed, you can't take apartheid South Africa out of the boy. Maybe it's just more money, more friendly deals from the govern bit more ironic, given De Santis is self serving, can't more Republican endorsement of Musk getting to enjoy another quote really raw exercise of monopolistic power. Those answers await. But for now, at least we know there is a developing De Santis McCarthy Musk nexus, prearranged or ad hoc to shut off Twitter the way John Malone has shut off CNN, and we know that it's meaning probably lies somewhere between Musk's assertion, namely quote this is a battle for the future of civilization. The free speech is lost even in America. Tyranny is all that lies ahead somewhere halfway probably between that and from the opposite end of the spectrum, the realization that's so far based just on his free speech tweets. All that Elon Musk is trying to do in this battle for the future of civilization is to make the world safe for caffeine free diet coke. Still ahead, Elmer is going to the big House. Elmer Stewart Rhodes, leader of the Oath Keepers, convicted along with an associate of sedition the Trump told us to do January six, defense didn't work out. Marjorie Trailer Park Green, proving she earns that nickname every day. She actually compares COVID nineteen transmission to farting through her underwear. She's going to be chair of the House Subcommittee on Homeland farts, isn't she Also, she claims to have denounced Nick Fuente's after speaking at one of his events and taking a selfie with him. She should stick to farts and in things I promised not to tell we are about at the anniversary of the day they wanted to fire Jimmy Kimmel and replace him with me. Now that is a tease that's next. This is Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith Olberman still ahead on Countdown. Finally, Marjorie Trailer Park Green has found a topic matching her level of class and intelligence and expertise. Farts passing through thick underwear and this is simple. My boss called one day and said, we may have to fire Jimmy Kimmel. Can you replace him? I'll explain that first. In each edition of Countdown to feature a dog in need you can help. Every dog has its day to Staten Island in New York. And Meatball, another dog who's human, could not even have been bothered to dump him at a kill shelter. You just stopped feeding Meatball. Then he left him on the street. Meatball wandered up into a neighbor's porch near Collapse near Star Bay, Near and Far Animal Foundation is doing a fundraiser on Cuddly for Meatball's treatment. He's a tan and white pitty with pleading eyes. They think if they can get him through the next few days, he'll make it simple issue. They need our donations. You can find Meatball on Cuddly or on my Twitter and a retweet will also help. I thank you and Meatball. Thanks you. Post scripts to the news some headlines, some updates, some snarks, some predictions. Date Line Washington. The codification of same sex and interracial marriage passes the Senate six the same twelve Republicans voted yes who voted yes in the earlier procedural vote. House will now try to get it done. House will also vote on two bills today to preclude the pending railroad strike. The it's would utilize the government's right to impose a settlement on both sides. The second would give the workers seven days of paid leave during a year they had asked for four. Date Line Washington. We procede this story with a tweet from January twenty three of this year from former newsman Brit Hume. You know how old he is. He's two hundred and six Hume Rights quote. Here's a thought. Let's base our view on whether or not in one six was an insurrection on whether those arrested or charged with insurrection. So far none has been. And guess what. Hume Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and his Florida flunkey Kelly Meg's both convicted yesterday of seditious conspiracy maximum sentenced twenty years. Regrettably, there is no maximum sentence for the despicable brit Hume and Dateline Elba, also known as Mari Lago. First, Mitch McConnell said anybody tolerating the anti semitism and hate of Nick Twente's would never be elected president. Then Kevin McCarthy lied to the media by claiming Donald Trump had condemned Fuentes quote four times. The correct answer is none. Then Trump issued his fourth different statement about his dinner with Fuentes and Kanye West. Quote I had never heard of Nick Fuentes. I had no idea what his views were, and they weren't expressed at the table in our very quick dinner, or it wouldn't have been accepted. And then Trump condemned Mitch McConnell. He has still not condemned Nick Fuentes. This is Sports Center. Wait, check that not anymore. This is Countdown with Keith in Sports US over Iran one nothing to advance to the next round of the World Cup. Goal by Christian Pulis, who wound up in the hospital after a pelvic contusion when he ran into the Iranian goalie. He says he will be able to play Saturday in the game against the Netherlands. Despite mounting pressure. It looks like the crashing Green Bay Packers will also start quarterback Aaron Red Rodgers this weekend against the Bears if he is healthy enough. The Pack four and eight. The self destructing Rodgers has looked terrible, but it does not look like the team is yet ready to bench him and go instead with Jordan's Love his backup. Rogers hurt, his rib already had a broken thumb. He might need more of that ayahuasca tea that he boasted of taking, the stuff with the hallucinogen d M T in it, or maybe the Packers coaches should The Gulf Wars could end for Tiger Woods. He says. The p g A and the Live Tour also known as the Saudi Blood Money League, could coexist if two conditions are met, if each group drops its suit against the other, and if the l I V people remove the ex per Riya player Greg Norman, who is their current pariah CEO. Golf people do not like Greg Norman, and he might be the thinking man's baseball player, but Joey Vato's brain nous may not transfer to a real sport. Chess, Vado revealed he had entered his first chess tournament at the Annex Chess Club in his native Toronto. Monday. He asked his followers to wish him luck His team, the Cincinnati Reds probably wrote good luck King. And then yesterday Vatto gave us an update, revealing quote, I got flattened by a nine year old ahead. This is the anniversary approximately of the day. My boss called me at home and asked me if I could replace this other guy they were about to fire Jimmy Kimmel. Things I promised not to tell. Coming up first, the daily roundup of the misgrants, morons and done in Krueger effect specimens, who constitute today's worst persons in the world. The bronze. I'm giving it to Tennessee Knitwit Senator Marsha Blackburn again for the same thing as yesterday. She put out a baking video inadvertently calling or maybe advertently calling for cooks to burn down their own homes by not removing the wax paper before sticking the cookie dough into an oven preheated to three five degrees coom. I'm going into reruns on this one because in retelling that story, yesterday. I was reminded of the time when I was a kid and my parents took me with them to a movie that I had no interest in, and to shut me up, they got me a box of Mini Reese's peanut butter cups. When the film ended and the lights came up, my mother said, Okay, let's clean up the mess. And after a moment, she said, wait, where are all the rappers, the little wax paper brown rappers? And I said what rappers? And she and my dad looked at me in horror because I had eaten the rappers. I said, I thought they were supposed to be crunchy. I did have an excuse. I was seven. The runner up, herschel Walker revealed yesterday, a week before the end of the runoff vote, he's lived in Texas for seventeen years and the quote home unquote he owns in Georgia, where he is running for the Senate in a week's time. He has rented it to other people for seventeen years. CNN later found video of him from January talking to Georgia Republicans and saying quote, I live in Texas unquote, and then adding quote as I was sitting in my home in Texas. I was sitting in my home in Texas. A genius, a political genius. I tell you this, of course makes herschel. All right, say it with me now, Walker Texas Ranger. Well whatever, let's dance through the herschel. Thank you, Nancy Faust. But our winner, Marjorie Trailer Park Green. If you somehow didn't see it, she tweeted quote I can't believe I'm reading this. By the way, she tweeted quote, so many people still wearing masks. I just want to ask you. If a pair of underwear, really thick ones, high quality cotton can't protect you from a fart, then how will a mask protect you from COVID? This is the kind of free speech. Elon Musk is there to defend on behalf of America and God and diet PEP see caffeine free as somebody who wore a mask in a doctor's office the day before yesterday. There's so much wrong in this statement. I don't know where to begin, and so much dumb. Let's start with this. A mask does not protect you from COVID. It protects everybody else in case you have COVID. I thought even the functionally illiterate like Green understood this by now after nearly three years. Secondly, COVID is a virus transferred in droplets. Gas is a gas, which is why they call it gas, So the physics is all different. Got it? Hone? Thirdly, why is this idiot talking about a pair of underwear really thick ones, high quality cotton. Why is she talking about protection from farts? Why is she talking about farts? Why is she in Congress? Why isn't she in here? Seven of the third grade? I mean, there is the theory that she does these stupid things like calling the gastopo that gaspacho and tweeting about farts to draw attention to herself, or maybe to obscure the evil things she does, like getting Kevin McCarthy to insist she had already denounced Nick Twente's, even though there was this selfie of her that's still on Twitter with Twente's and Michelle Malkin, Remember Michelle Malkin, And it was at the Nick Fuente's anti Semitism conference that she spoke at, and then she went on Twitter and denounced Twente's, which kind of confirmed McCarthy was lying when he had said she'd already denounced Twente's, so it's either one of those or she's just a moron. Whatever the answer, she's Marjorie, How can a mask stop COVID if it can't stop me from saying stupid things like this? Green to Day's worse person. He lord its own to the top of the countdown in our number one story and my favorite topic, me and things I promised not to tell. And I'm not exactly sure when this happened. It happened in l a And it was sunny and warm that day, so it could have been the fourth of July or Christmas, who knows, but I'm guessing it was around this time of the year because it was during the National Football League season of And it happened when I was working for Fox Sports and finally getting around of what the story is. It was the day they almost fired Jimmy Kimmel and hired me to replace him. I answered the phone at my home and at the other end, an Australian voice asked, quote, can you replace Kimmel? Relax? ABC is not trying to replace Jimmy Kimmel. This is twenty three years ago, but I think of it every time I see a sportscast, particularly a sports broadcast of a ball game, in which one of the sports casters talks about the point spread or asks a colleague if they're taking the over or the under? Can you replace Jimmy Kimmel? Not the ads. The ads for sports gambling have become more ubiquitous than for drugs. I'm supposed to ask my doctor about the ads in which the smoothly read list of mild side effects may cause horrific death is longer than the sales pitch itself, and you wind up not wanting to touch the bottle, let alone take the pill. It's not the ads for sports gambling. Sports itself is now fully in bed with gambling. The National Football League has seven official NFL sports betting partners, seven which may be more than the number of good teams it has this year. And all the leagues now let their broadcasts run ads for wagering, or even stories about the odds on that game, or they even provide methods to bet on the game you're watching while you are watching it. And I do not know who was most surprised by that, Pete Rose, Me, Jimmy Kimmel, or the Australian guy. On the other end of the phone. He was David Hill, the co president of Fox Sports, and he had a problem. In those days, Jimmy Kimmel was the announcer on a comedy game show, and he did TV promos for Fox, but his biggest visibility came from a short segment he did every week for the Fox NFL Sunday pregame show. He picked winners and losers for the games that day. To do only this, he basically walked a tight rope. No references to gambling were permitted. No over unders, no point spreads. He could say underdog, but he could not say dog because the NFL still believed it could not as much as acknowledge that even one fan was betting money on an NFL game now or at any point in the past. And your replaced, Jimmy moll. I mean, it was, after all, just thirty seven years since two of the NFL's biggest stars, Paul Horning and Alex Carris, had been suspended for gambling on NFL games. It had only been about half that long since the retired Baltimore Colts star Bubba Smith had wildly claimed that there was only one reason his nineteen sixty nine Colts could have famously lost the Super Bowl to the underdog Jets of Joe Willie Namath. The Colts must have bet on the Jets and throwing the game and not told him. And it was only about a decade since investigative reporter Dan Moldea had written one of the greatest sports books I've ever read, called Interference, which detailed how the NFL was basically, you know, founded by bookies and some of the current owners were the sons and grandsons of bookies, and how the league really didn't end its recurring problem with you know, fixing games and shaving points spreads for bookies until about the NFL was kind of sensitive about gambling, even when compared to Baseball, which had banned the guy with the second highest career batting average ever banned him for life over gambling in and then banned it's all time leader in bass hits for life over gambling in. So it's ten years after Pete Rose was banned in. I was doing Baseball and their version of Sports Center for Fox Sports, and the co president of the network, David Hill, called that day and said, and I'll spare you the fake Australian accent this time mine, not Hills. Can you replace Jimmy Kimmel? The NFL may ban him from our broadcast because he used the words points spread on our show last Sunday, and then he kept using all these insider gambling terms on some radio show yesterday. I think he even said vigorish, vigorish, No, oh, not vigorish. What David Hill then asked me to do was drop everything, not do that night's cable sportscast, and instead think up and then write up a two to three minute bit that could be funny and could also pick winners and losers. That I would do and would replace Jimmy Kimmel on the next edition of Fox NFL Sunday a couple of days later, after the league banned Kimmel for life. For God's sakes, though he said, do not use the word vigorish. Fox Sports was in such a panic that day that they did not want me to waste time by coming into the office to write up the winners and Losers segment. They wanted me to write the bit from home, email it to them all, and then come in While all the executives were debating whether or not it was okay, a crew and a producer and one of my suits would be waiting for me, and we would record the thing as soon as the bosses agreed to the script, and then they would submit the taped test run to the NFL. I wrote the script. There were actually a couple of laughs based on such thin gruel as the fact that the quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons was named Christian Chandler and I had once dated a girl named Chris Chandler. Prize winning this was not, but it didn't use the word vigorish, and I got it done in about an hour. I was getting in the car when Hill called back, Okay, stand down on this. We think we've resolved it with Jimmy in the league, but we won't forget what you did for us. And they didn't. They sent me some champagne and um like six months later, they tried to blackmail me into taking a pay cut. Lovely people at Fox. I don't know what the full backstory was on the Kimmel deal. For all I know, the whole thing was just a ruse to scare Jimmy into not using the word vigorish. I have seen him since nine or two thousand. But I do know that the leagues and their television partners used to be so terrified of any link to gambling that they were willing to feed the rumor mill by telling me Jimmy Kimmel was about to get suspended by the nf fill just for saying point spread and vigoroush And now the NFL has seven official gambling partners, even while an x NFL coach accused one of the franchises of tanking. And if there's anything that should terrify sports gamblers more than tanking, Frankly, I don't know what it is. I've done all the damage I can do here. Thanks for listening. If you're not following, we're subscribed or whatever to this podcast. I wish you would please stop a passer by on the street if you have already subscribed, get them to subscribe, subscribe, get them to both subscribe and spubscribe. Here are the credits. Most of the music, including this our theme from Beethoven's Ninth was arranged, produced, and performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Chanelle. They are the Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by John Philip Channel guitars, bass and drums by Brian Ray, produced by t k O Brothers. Other Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by No Horns Allowed. The sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two. It was written by Mitch Warren Davis and it appears here courtesy of ESPN eight. Musical comments from Nancy Faust. The best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was John Dene and everything else is pretty much my fault. So that is countdown for this the SI four day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States. Arrest him now while we still can a new addition tomorrow. Until then, I'm Keith Olderman. 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.