SERIES 2 EPISODE 139: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump 3rd Party stalking horse and QAnon Party would-be spoiler RFK Junior has confirmed his top two choices for Vice President are: New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers, and wrestling, government, and TV washout Jesse Ventura.
But how could you be New York Jets Quarterback Aaron Rodgers AND Vice President Aaron Rodgers at the same time? That's the easy part! Based on 2023 being an NFL quarterback would only take about three and a half minutes out of his Vice Presidential year: "Now they're going to swear in the Vice Presi... OHHHH HE'S TORN HIS ACHILLES WHILE TRYING TO STAND UP."
Back-up Ventura is still insisting he was fired by MSNBC in November 2003 because he opposed the war in Iraq. Yeah, I started on MSNBC in February 2003 and I outlasted George W. Bush. I'll tell you the real story of why MSNBC fired him (Jesse may not even know it).
(7:02) SPECIAL COMMENT II: Robert K. Hur, the Biden "Special Counsel" and Trump operative named to the job by the impossibly inadequate Merrick Garland, was already DOA at yesterday's House "Biden Age Plot" Committee Hearing before it started. Republicans are enraged because the transcript of Hur's interview with President Biden they subpoenaed was also released to the taxpayers who paid for it. To the surprise (and more importantly the rage) of every Democrat, nearly every reporter, and even some Democrats, it showed that Hur COMPLETELY FABRICATED THE ENTIRE "BIDEN COULDN'T REMEMBER WHEN HIS SON DIED" saga. The transcript proved Hur a liar in that case, and time after time. Honestly, he should've told the car service driver to go right past the Rayburn Building and just take him to Dulles Airport for a trip anywhere else in the world.
Hey, maybe he can be RFK Jr's Vice President. Or get a sub host job at NewsMax!
B-Block (27:00) We didn't win, it's all rigged (28:32) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: North Carolina Republicans have nominated as the State Superintendent of Schools, a woman named Michele Morrow who believes the QAnon delusion that Jim Carrey keeps himself looking young by drinking the blood of children (wait - Jim Carrey looks YOUNG?). They've topped that in Arizona where both houses of the legislature have approved a bill that lets university students appeal their grades if they're conservative but the professor is liberal. And best of all, South Dakota governor Kristi Noem is now doing infomercials for a Cosmetic Dentist in Texas. Her last advertising idea, you may recall, was SD's anti-meth program: "Meth - We're On It!"
C-Block (38:51) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Well, no, the Political Podcast of the Year award we didn't win wasn't rigged. But 35 years ago the local NBC station figured out how to game the local news Emmy awards - part of the reason I'm 0-forever in Emmys. So it's a good time to tell you that saga.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Okay, this is newer and dumber, so let's save for a moment the self defenestration of former Special counsel and perhaps soon former Attorney Robert K Her and begin instead with Robert F. Kennedy Junior identifying his top two picks to be his vice presidential running mate, Aaron Rodgers and Jesse the Body Ventura. Because the Dilbert guy and Kurt Schilling and that weirdo who used to play Roseanne on The Roseanne Show. I guess they're two main stream. The New York Times scoop this, and the fact that the domain name Kennedy Rogers dot com was registered last week. Aaron Rodgers seems ana to run with Kennedy vaccine denying asshole perfect with the hallucinating New York Jets quarterback as his viv RFK Junior could christen their ticket the brain Damage Party. And if you're asking, how could you be vice president of the United States and quarterback of the New York Jets at the same time, that's the easy part. Based on twenty twenty three, Being Jets quarterback Rogers would take only three and a half minutes out of the year of Vice President Rogers. Hell, he could be back in the Vice Presidential Residents at the Naval Observatory by halftime. Perfect Team. The vice president with no connection to the real world and an admission he has used hallucinogens, and a president with no connection to the real world who has not admitted he has used hallucinogens and who thus may or may not know. He's just a stalking horse for Trump with Aaron Rodgers, four time football Most Valuable Player. Somehow could not translate that into a job as a game show host and is instead a sidekick on a streaming show run by ESPN. Perfect Team, and now we will swear in the vice president. Oh no, he torre's achilles standing up. Damn. The best part of this is The New York Times ruined its own scoop by taking this parade of Stoner's seriously quote, the involvement of mister Rogers or of mister Ventura could add star power and independent zeal to mister Kennedy's outsider bid. Sure so could the combination of President RFK Junior and Vice President Donald Trump Junior or or President RFK Junior and hear me out President RFK Junior and Vice President RFK Senior. Huh Yeah. As to Ventura, who could not beat out somebody named Howie to become nominee for president of the Green Party four years ago, who hasn't been in wrestling since nineteen ninety, who hasn't been governor of Minnesota since two thousand and three, who hasn't been on television since MSNBC fired him in October two thousand and three after like five episodes of a weekend show called Jesse Ventura's America. To this day, Jesse Ventura insists and says he was fired by MSNBC because he opposed the Iraq war. Hello, I was on at eight pm on MSNBC starting eight months before he did an I outlasted George W. Bush friend in fact, and I was part of a small crew trying to prevent him from getting fired, because hell, he would have been better than Joe Scarborough. Jesse Ventura got fired at MSNBC because he couldn't do the television part of the television. I mean, his questions were okay, and he could bluster and pontificate pretty well, but ask him to throw to a commercial to say something like, uh, We'll be right back, and he froze flatlined. I tried to talk our bosses into hiring somebody as his announcer. I suggested my friend Bill Pedo from ESPN. Ah, I'm Bell Pedo, and this is Jesse Ventura's America. Okay, Governor, what do you have? And okay, governor, time to take a quick break. This is Jesse Ventura's America. Please, and to introduce the guests for him too, because he couldn't do that either. They paid him the full three years left on his contract, so he too, would make a perfect pairing with RFK if Aaron Rodgers says no or forgets how to speak in human language with RFK talking like somebody who just had his throat run over by a cactus covered umbe and Jesse talking down here like this whole perfect. So Kennedy and Aaron Rodgers or oh wait, hear me out, Kennedy and Kennedy and Robert k Her because Robert k Her is done in the lawyering business. As the kids say, the President Biden special counsel mister Herr yesterday, where exactly was his head at? I have no idea, but check around the House Judiciary Hearing room for it, because long before his hearing yesterday was over, HER's head had clearly come off his body and rolled away. I mean, after everybody left, did they search hearing room twenty one to forty one in the ray Burn Building, Because this guy is done in the single most destructive testimony, self destructive testimony since the steroids in baseball hearing nineteen years ago this Sunday, when Mark McGuire said he wasn't there to talk about the past, and Sammy Sosa pretended not to speak English, and hell McGuire should have pretended not to speak English. In the worst work since then. Robert K. Hurr was proved a liar who edited out the parts of his own interview with Joe Biden in which he had complemented Biden's memory, who was repeatedly contradicted by the transcript of his own interview with Joe Biden, who started that interview with Biden by literally not knowing what time it was, who misidentified other counsel in the case, and whose mistakes and stupidity and lies were so obvious, so easily proven by his own documents that all that happened before the Democratic Congressan could even get to him before the hearing even started. And before the hearing even started, Robert Hurr's lies were so unavoidable that he was taken apart by politics, by the Associated Press, by the Washington Post, by CBS News. There was enough time still left before that gabble hit that desk in Rayburn that Robert K. Hurr could have told the car service to take him not to Capitol Hill but to Dulles Airport, and he could have gotten on a plane going anywhere else in the world, because anywhere else in the world would have worked out better for him than did hearing room twenty one to forty one in Rayburn. The Biden Age plot, and I will repeat that the phrase is not mine, it's politico. The biden Age plot depended on three key moments in the last six days. The MAGA assumption that the President would fall into the orchestra pit during the State of the Union, the in retrospect fire everybody assumption that Katie Britt would not be instantly transformed into Sarah Palin levels of punchlineeness, and the saving grace the person who we have all else failed and failed could still paint an indelible picture of a confused, delusional, dysfunctional, dishonest Joe Biden, and freed from bewoke Department of Justice, he could convict President Biden in the court of public opinion. Except Robert K. Hurr turned out to be a fraud and so bad at being a fraud that if you told me he had quit the Department of Justice to avoid being prosecuted by the Department of Justice for professional misconduct, or that he had composed his Special Counsel's report about Biden entirely by memory without ever consulting the transcript of his interview with Biden, I would believe you. And again. Then the hearings started. As soon as they realized what dead weight her was the Republicans, and I have to say I predicted this here yesterday. The Republicans turned quickly and venomously on him, and every Democrat on the committee kicked him enough to merit that Simpson stop stop, He's already dead meme. But the kill shot came courtesy Representative Madeline Dean of the Pennsylvania Fourth It's so bad you may want to stand well back from your device as you listen to this, because you could still get splattered.
Your report on page two oh eight says that mister Biden couldn't come up with the date the year of his son Bo Biden's death, when in fact, in the transcript, it shows that you asked him the month and do you know what he said, mister Her, he said, oh God, May thirtieth. Would you like to correct the record? His memory was pretty firm on the month and the day.
Congress Roman, I don't believe that's correct with respect to the transcript, but if you could refer me to a specific page, I'd be.
Happy to look. Huge mistake, Bobby Her from.
The transcription, page eighty two, the words are President.
Biden, what month did Bo die? Oh?
God, May thirtieth.
This is what Robert K. Her, who will be lucky if he comes out of this still having a law license, wrote in his report about President Biden quote he did not remember, even within several years, when his son Bo died. And that turns out to have been an utter fabrication. The transcript the transcript of Robert HER's interview over two days with Joe Biden, which starts with her saying good morning to Biden and everybody else. President except it was afternoon. The transcript shows her asks Biden about where he kept the papers promulgated after he left the vice presidency in January twenty seventeen, and the President answers, quote, I hadn't walked away from the idea that I may run for office again. But if I ran again, I'd be running for president. And so what was happening?
Though?
What month did Bo die? Oh? God, May thirtieth. One of his lawyers then interjected, twenty fifteen. Another person present also said twenty fifteen. Biden then says, was it May twenty fifteen he had died? Another unidentified speaker says it was May of twenty fifteen. Biden then says it was twenty fifteen. Another Biden lawyer reconfirms the year. Robert HER's deputy then confirms the year. That's it. That was the entire testimony about the death of Bo. Biden he did not remember even within several years when his son Bo died. Bullshit, a complete fabrication. Robert khur should be in jail for that because Robert Khurr was contradicted by Robert k Herr's own transcript, and he wasn't even smart enough to check the transcript or to anticipate that if he had promised to turn the transcript for political reasons over to the Biden Age Plot Committee, you know, the Department of Justice would have to make it public at some point too. So the other half of that is when President Biden lashed out at Robert Hurr after her release is now proven to be fictional Special Counsel report, when Biden said, how in the hell dare he raise that he wasn't complaining that her had asked him about his son during the interview, because her hadn't. Biden was complaining about her lying about Biden getting the year of his own son's death wrong when he had not gotten the year of his own son's death wrong. And by the way, and I'm sure you have a story like this too. I think I have asked my sister once a year, for five years, ten years for the date our mother died. I cannot shake the idea that it was in April, because she was a great New York Yankee fan. The first game at the New Yankee Stadium was the same day that she died, so it had to be April, except the first official game in the New Yankee Stadium that counted was in April. The first exhibition game was in March, which is when she died. Sometimes I tell people my mom and dad died in the same year, because she died late in March two thousand and nine and he died in the middle of March twenty ten. O. And by the way, Robert Hurr had a transcript of what Biden had said about his son bo and his death. Joe Biden didn't, So her is not just another corrupt partisan political hitman Trump whorer posing as a lawyer and a special counsel. He's a stupid, corrupt partisan political hitman, Trump horror posing as a lawyer and a special counsel. And oh, by the way, where the committee Republicans enraged about that whoa man about their star witness, the last hope of anything they could throw at Biden him being hoisted by the petard that was his own transcript. No, they were enraged, all right, but not about the transcript contradicting Robert Hert. They were outraged that the transcript had been released by the Department of Justice. Dan Bishop, republican author of an anti trans bathroom bill from the North Carolina eight, which is also his IQ. Yeah, Dan, they got a lot of nerve releasing your secret evidence a Department of Justice transcript. You guys subpoened to the public who paid for it before you could cherry pick something from it. Actually, DOJ did you a favor, Dan Bishop, because you couldn't have cherry picked anything from it, because on page forty seven of the Day one transcript complemented Joe Biden's memory and he chose to leave that out of the report too. And when Eric Swallwell nailed her on it, Robert Hirr couldn't even muster the honesty to say, yeah, I said.
That Day one, page forty seven, you said to President Biden, you have appear to have a photographic understanding and.
Recall of the House.
Did you say that to President Biden?
Those words do appear on page forty seven of the transcript.
Photographic, is what you said?
Is that right? That word does appear on page forty seven of the transcript.
Never appeared in your report, though, Is that correct? The word photographic that does not appear in my report.
So a cowardly and stupid, corrupt partisan political hitman Trump Horror, posing as a lawyer and a special count. Then remember when I said this was the worst congressional testimony since Mark maguire, saying he was not there to talk about the past. Well Swollwell also gave this nitwit her a chance to at least save his future by saying, of course, I'm not doing this because Trump promised me a big job if he's elected. I was a nonpartisan figure at the Department of Justice. Instead, her said, oh, no thanks, Congressman, I'll just twist here. I'll just twist slowly in the wind.
You want to be perceived understandably as credible, and so I want to first see if you will pledge to not accept an appointment from Donald Trump if he is elected Againness President.
Congressman, I don't. I'm not here to testify. I'm I'm here to talk about the report and the work that went into it.
You don't want to be associated with that guy again, do.
You, Congressman. I'm not here to offer any opinions about what may it may not happen in the future. I'm here to talk about the work that went into the report, which I stand by.
I mean, this guy is an idiot, so much of an idiot that James Comer was not the biggest idiot in that room. Comer says someone named Dana Remis was Biden's White House counsel, and her corrects Comer and says, no, no, Dana Remis was Obama's White House counsel. Except no, mister her, Dana Remis was Biden's White House counsel. Stickler for details, this dude ain't. At another point in the transcript, her is not sure about a detail about furniture. Three times in nine lines of transcript, her says he might be misremembering. Later in the transcript, her deputy adds a word to a supposed Biden quote and reads it back to Biden. Biden remembers the quote correctly and corrects the guy, and on and on and on and on and on, and then the Republicans went after him because he didn't blow up Biden in the report or obviously in the hearing room. This is Tom Tiffany of the Wisconsin Seventh, well known as one of the most gullible of the magas. That's presumably a result of the twenty years that he ran petroleum distribution at places like Zenker Oil. Twenty years is a lot of gas fumes to inhale.
So I want to thank you for the work that you did as far as you could, but unfortunately you are part of the praetorian guard that guards the swamp out here in Washington, DC, protecting the elites, and Joe Biden is part of that company of the elites.
Whatever you say, Karen, I mean Matt Gates even attacked Bob her not great Bob, and so silent, mournful, abandoned, broken, Robert k Hur recedes into the darkness. He will go into history as a possible fill in host for the three pm show on Newsmax as how shall I put this as a sympathetic, well meaning middle aged man with a poor memory, only without the sympathetic part or the well meaning part. Do not discount the reaction to this from the Washington press corps. They ran away from Robert hr as fast as their cloven feet could carry them. After seventeen Biden is demented stories the Wall Street Journal, President quote not stumped on basic factual questions. After thirty Biden is unfit stories in New York Times, Biden quote fumbled with dates and the sequence of events, while otherwise appearing clearheaded. After thirty three, Biden is troubled stories. The Washington Post Biden quote doesn't come across as being as absent minded as her has made him out to be. Associated press quote the full transcript could raise questions about HER's depiction of the eighty one year old president as having quote significant limitations unquote on his memory. The White House correspondent of CBS News quote the President was fired up about HER's claim that he couldn't remember when his son bo died because it was false. Nay, everybody got off this Titanic except a guy named Kendalanian of NBC News News and Justice correspondent last scene putting up a one source story about more Biden documents being found. His quote. The Robert Herr hearing is a perfect example of what American politics has become. A career public servant spends a year reaching conclusions that are inconvenient for partisans of each party, so they set about questioning his motives and ethics on national television. I'm pushing my oath quota again, but ken bullshit. Robert Herr career public servant. As recently as seven years ago, Robert Herr was at a private DC law firm, the twenty second biggest law firm in the world judged by income. Robert Herr was up to his ass in corporate law, cash and ethics. This man doesn't have any any ethics. In essence, he doctored his own transcript of his own interview of the President of the United States, edited out the exculpatory good parts about Biden's memory, fabricated this whole couldn't get the date of his own son's death, right bullshit. Clearly had not even read his own transcript where it contradicted him, inserted amateur medical opinions of his own into his report. Lied, tried to lie at the hearing. And oh, by the way, one party is trying to lie about the mental health of the President of the United States when the brains of its hitler wanna be candidate are seeping out his own ears, and the other party is trying to stop them and preserve representative government in this country. In this case, stopped them by proving their operative. Robert k. Hurr lied, But that's all the same to this hack Kendelanian and he and NBC News can shove their both sides as him up their asses waiting for Kristen Welker. On Sunday, Kendelanian allegedly wrote, also of interest here, ken Buck is not just retiring from Congress. The Colorado representative can't stand another goddamned minute of this crap. The Republican majority just drops to two as of the end of next week. He's quitting a special election as early as June fifteenth. Lauren Bobert can't wait to get her hands all over the special election. New law in Arizona, students can appeal their grades if they are Conservatives but the professor is liberal. And in North Carolina, the Republicans have nominated for state superintendent of schools a q moron who believes Jim Carrey drinks the blood of children to look so young and vibrant. Wait, Jim Carrey looks young and vibrant. So this today, this minute, right now, this may turn out to be the golden age of American education. That's next. This is Countdown. This is Countdown, with Keith Olberman still ahead of us on this edition of Countdown, Things I Promised not to tell and Shock Shock, we did not win the Political Podcast of the Year at the iHeart Podcast Awards at South By Southwest told you so. I mean, it was obvious Pod Save America would win. It was nominated in three different categories, including overall Podcast of the Year, so it was obvious. I do want to congratulate Favreau and Vider and those guys on the award and on surviving their grueling schedule of two episodes a week with only the five different hosts Karaja boys now seriously, congratulations. Also, it's all rigged anyway. Seems like a good time to explain the award process. I'm not saying these awards are rigged. I'm sure they're not, but there are ways to actually rig media awards. And with the retrospective period of time of almost let's see thirty five years, I'll tell you why. I now laugh at the story of how NBC gamed the Local News Emmys years ago at my expense, in things I promised not to tell. First, still more idiots to talk about the daily roundup of the miscrants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's worst persons in the world. And we begin with an honorary winner. Me. Yesterday I noted that Pope Francis had unfortunately invoked the appeasement of Hitler before and during World War Two when he suggested that President Zelenski embrace quote the courage of the white flag and surrendered to Putin. I mentioned that the World War two popes were Pious the sixth and Pious the seventh, and they pretty much told the world to do that with Hitler. Regular listener and longtime friend Charlie Pierce of Esquire reached out yesterday morning to note that Pius the seventh died in August August eighteen twenty three, and Pius the sixth died in August seventeen ninety nine. So I got the wrong Pi I, as mister Pierce noted, I meant Pious the eleventh, who died in nineteen thirty nine, and Pious the twelfth, and the twelfth, he said, is up for sainthood, which would be a big problem for me obviously, and which would be a big surprise to you know, German, Jews and other Europeans from the nineteen forties. As I would note, I think this does underscore the real reason that the Roman Empire collapsed. Those goddamned Roman numerals see x v L. I'm not trying to spell the hip version of clicks here. I'm trying to count anyway. The Countdown Editorial Board regrets the error and it has suspended me for my mistake. Okay, I'm back. The suspension was for one second. Now to the winners. The bronze worse Michelle Morrow, who won the primary for the election for state Superintendent of Public Instruction in North Carolina. She would be in charge of two thousand schools and one hundred thousand teachers. She's a Newsmax writer. She marched in DC on January sixth. She said, after Pride Month last year, quote as a nurse, I want you to understand something. There is no pride in perversion. And that was the good part about her. As always, these nitwitz like Michelle Morrow never even think to scrub their psycho's social media history, which is where we discover that she has written that the country should quote ban Islam and quote ban Muslims from elected offices. And that was only the sort of bad part. She's also a Q moron one post, follow all and retweet Trump twenty Q twenty Q patriots to Unite Worldwide WWG one WGA, which sadly is not her showing her support for the Writers Guild of America. And even that is only the sort of sort of bad part. Ms Morrow has also referenced the q and on theory that Jim Carrey drinks the blood of children in order to stay that young. And you wonder at some point if anybody has seen Jim Carrey, I mean Jim Carrey. It would be a lot less crazy of a theory if Jim Carrey was not sixty two years old but looked seventy two years old. He's drinking blood, it evidently doesn't do anything for you, assholes, just all assholes. And even that is only the sort of sort of bad part. This moro woman has referenced the QAnon theory that the actor and comedian Jim Carrey drinks the blood of children in order to stay that young. Does anybody in QAnon look at anything but QAnon crap online like a picture of Jim Carrey. I mean, it would be a lot less crazy of a theory if Jim Carrey was not sixty two years old but looks more like seventy two. I mean, if he's drinking blood, evidently it does nothing for you. Your Republican nominee for Superintendent of Schools for all of North Carolina who should not be allowed out of her house unless she's wearing a leash, Michelle Morrow, and in this context she's both dumb and dumber. The runner up worser and continuing this theme, Republican State Senator Anthony Kern of Arizona, who has hit the nail on the head with what is along with this country half of the nation idiots, measurable, factually provable boneheads. Senator Kern has introduced Arizona Senate Bill fourteen seventy seven, which will fix all that in his state. It will establish the Arizona Grade Challenge Board, which will allow any student at any Arizona Public university to demand that their instructor reevaluate their exam grade, or even their entire course grade, if the student files an allegation of bias, not racial bias, not religious bias, not gender bias, not LGBTQ bias, only political bias. This is the gist of our unsolvable national problem. Half the country believes it cannot possibly be wrong, it cannot possibly be stupid, it cannot possibly have gotten a C minus in geometry has to be because the teacher is a liberal. It was Oliver Cromwell who said, I beseech you in the bowels of Christ to think it possible you may be mistaken. But of course, these idiot students in Arizona, for whom the bias board grade challenge as being established, they've never heard of Oliver Cromwell or Oliver Hardy or Laurence Olivier because they're so smart they don't need to know who those people are. And if the answer on the exam is Oliver Cromwell and they instead write Carrie Lake and they get a C minus, it's because the professors two woke. The system is biased against me, which is true. The system is biased against them. It's supposed to be because they're stupid, and some people are irredeemably stupid. But now this system is broken and they can vote themselves smart. And I don't know how to fix this. More importantly, I don't know how to weed out the really stupid people, like the Arizona State Senator Anthony Kern, who is stupid, and his colleagues in the Senate, in the state House, the Republicans in Arizona who approved his bill happily. They did not approve it by a big enough margin to override the upcoming governor veto after which they will say the governor vetoed it because she's a liberal and their conservatives, and we start the whole cycle over again. No, she vetoed it because you're idiots. But the winner the worst, Speaking of idiots, Governor Christy Nome of South Dakota, who has done a personal testimonial commercial for some cosmetic dentistry place in Texas. This is four minutes and fifty one seconds on Twitter in which she talks about how they gave her a new smile and she's so grateful because they're orthodontic. Uncle would not fix her teeth when she was a kid and she's always suffered because of that and total loss of well, I guess credibility is the right word here. She looks straight into the camera for four minutes and fifty one seconds and ad libs about her smile and how perfect it is now. I mean, she didn't have much credibility to start with, but she's now governor infomercial. I mean six years ago, Governor Teeth launched a campaign in South Dakota. Christy Nome's campaign against crystal meth and Christy Nomes named it meth. We're on it. This is an advertising genius right here, and if you don't agree, it's because you're woke. As an aside, can we start calling these ads on Twitter what they have now? Become spam? Governor Christy do you kiss your husband with that infomercial mouth of yours? And Corey Lewandowski gnome two days worst person.
And now.
To the number one story on the countdown and my favorite topic, me and things I promised not to tell. The website The Athletic has reported that my old friends at ESPN had for years been gaming the system at the Sports Emmy Awards, bribing voters now trying to push the voting by nominating stories about the judges or about the places they were from. Now otherwise tampering with the process of who got nominated or who won, or anything like that. No, their crime was adding to the list of nominees fictional names, so that if their shows won, they would be able to get extra trophies that could be re engraved and given to people who were not eligible to win those Emmy awards. Those people were the hosts and reporters of the show. Rather incredibly, until the last few years, if a network submitted one of its shows for Best Studio Sportscast or one of several other categories, virtually everybody who worked on the show was eligible. NBC won the Emmy for the Outstanding Live Sports Special in twenty twenty two, and NBC in its submission listed all the executives, the producers, the directors, the associate producers, everybody down to the stage managers. Literally three one hundred and sixty five different sportspeople, and if they shelled out the money or if the network did it for them, they all got an actual Emmy award, not one anchor or report among them. Now, obviously this concerns me far more than it does you. And don't get me wrong, I do not begrudge any of those three hundred and sixty five winners their Emmys, including the nine stage managers. And it looks like I worked with like three of them, and they were great. Counting them up, I saw literally dozens of names of friends and former colleagues, and they were all great. But the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences did not permit adding even just the lead anchors and reporters from the twenty twenty two Olympics or any other nominated Best Show if they were on the air. The official explanation for this curiosity was they didn't want anybody quote double dipping getting an award for Best Anchor, Best Reporter and getting another Emmy if the show they were anchoring one best show. There are just five different categories for people on the air in the Sports Emmys. That's it. Three hundred and sixty five Emmys were given out to the producers and stage managers from the Olympics, and five were given out to all the people on the air at the Olympics on the NBA broadcasts, football play by play, sports centers, postgame shows, pardon the interruptions, baseball, curling, darts, whatever. Now, practically speaking, that is not literally true because of the ESPN dodge, which I will grant is hilarious and which I'll get to in a moment. But there was also the dodge used by MLB Network and other operations over the years. In twenty twenty, when it showed MLB Tonight won the Emmy for Best Daily Live Sports Series, MLB Network submitted the name of sixty three different producers among them were Greg Amsinger, and that's a coincidence. There's also a Greg Amsinger who was the primary anchor of MLB Tonight. And then there's a producer named Bob Costas, other producer named Peter Gammons. And my friends Ron Darling producer and ex Yankees manager, Joe Girardi producer and Harold Reynolds producer who I've known for thirty three years, and Baseball Hall of famers Maedro Martinez producer and Jim Tomy producer. Why once nearly ran over with a golf cart in Arizona, But I'll tell that story some other time. Heydro Martinez, who I got started in television at Turner in twenty thirteen, won an Emmy in twenty twenty as a producer of MLB Tonight, not as an analyst, because you couldn't give an Emmy to an analyst, even if he was the best thing on MLB Tonight, if he was. No Emmy's for those lousy talent. Didn't they get enough honors as it is? We're given out five of them and money? Don't they get all the money? And you know what, that's fine too. From my first day in television. August third, nineteen eighty one, somewhere around one two pm, the fourth or fifth hour of my television career, I thought, and I think I said it aloud to the producer, that I did not understand why anybody would work in television if they were not on the air. If the job fills the yawning maw of your insatiable ego, you know, like it does mine, that's great, makes sense. Being on TV has given purpose to the lives of lots of us who would otherwise have spent our entire lives just standing in front of a mirror talking to ourselves, maybe holding a microphone as we did so, a microphone that was not plugged into anything. But there are only two things that ever bring any attention to these Sports Emmy Awards and the News Emmys and the Entertainment Emmys. How many awards go to each network and who won those five little awards for best Sports Personalities. Maybe once in a while, an unlikely show will win for Best Studio Show, and it will get a little attention on Twitter for a lo like three hours, But otherwise nobody writes up those three hundred and sixty five different trophies given out to NBC's twenty twenty two Olympic non on air staff. And I think there is a little hypocrisy here because the on air people are used for publicity such as it is, while there was this horrible fear that they might win too many awards for just one show, or that adding them to the list of the real nominees would make the lists too long. I mean, three hundred and sixty five Olympic Emmy Award winners is just right, but three hundred and eighty five would have been a nightmarish embarrassment anyway. Finally, to the Athletic report on how ESPN gained the system until the rule about quote talent unquote was changed for I believe twenty twenty three. I'll quote a part of the Athletic story. The Emmy administrators quote uncovered a scheme that the network used to acquire more than thirty of the coveted statuettes were on air talent ineligible to receive them since at least twenty ten, ESPN inserted fake names in Emmy entries, then took the awards won by some of these imaginary individuals, had them re engraved, and gave them to on air personalities oohoo, describing this as fraud and as ill gotten Emmys. Katie Strang of the Athletics somehow managed to sleuth out this clever, almost indecipherable series of immoral substitutions, quoting her again. Names similar to the names of on air personalities and with identical initials were listed, all under the title of associate producers. Miss Strang gave the fake names and then helpfully followed the fake names with parentheses which contained the real names of those evil talent who, by fraud and deception and trickery and another disregard for the sacred sanctity of the Emmy Awards, took possession of young, unsuspecting and vulnerable trophies that they did not deserve. Quote Kirk Henry parenthesis, Kirk Herbstreet, Lee Clark parenthesis, Lee Corso, Dirk Howard parenthesis, Desmond Howard and Tim Richard parentheses, Tom Ronaldi, Stephen Ponder parentheses, Sam Ponder and Gene Wilson, Gene Wojatowski, Chris Fulton, Chris Fowler, Tell Fowler, I can hear him? And Shelley Saunders Shelley Smith. How did anyone ever figure out these aliases reflective of evil masterminds at ESPN. My god, did the Athletic hire the World War Two codebreakers from Bletchley Park? Who would have ever believed the Dirk Howard and Desmond Howard were the same person. I bet some of those crack MLB tonight MLB network producers could have done that detective work. Producer Pedro Martinez perhaps, or producer Jim Tomay or producer Bill Ripkin Col's brother. Seriously, don't those names seem a little too obvious? I mean, if you're trying to trick somebody into thinking the award is not for Sam Ponder, why do you write Steven Ponder? Somebody observed on social media that these names sound like the names in a sports video game when you can't get the rights to the real players' names. Why is the Kansas City quarterback named Patrick your Holmes. The Emmys did not crack down on MLB network as near as I know anyway. It certainly wasn't mentioned in the Athletic piece. It did not crack down on MLB network listing all of its on air guys as pus so they could get trophies. Doesn't it seem plausible that the use of the phony names and phony is doing a lot of work in this sentence, the use of the barely phony names was the Emmy committee looking the other way as ESPN tried to get a couple of trophies for its reporters and anchors. I mean thirty over thirteen years. That's not a lot. The problem here is somebody at the Emmy's found out called ESPN on it. ESPN made those on air people give the trophies back. And there is, at least in the Athletics article, the implication that maybe a couple of producers were fired by ESPN for doing this. It's madness. And there are two other serious components to this, and obviously one of them is going to be about me. I have been nominated for like fifteen Emmys over the years, twenty twenty five local sports network, Sports Network News. I have never I am the Susan Lucci of sports and News Emmys. Actually that is a bad comp Susan Lucci finally won an Emmy in nineteen ninety nine. Me I am oh since nineteen eighty one. Now, there are a lot of reasons for this, none of which really matters. But the primary of which is roll of the Dice. I got nominated against Bob Costas twice in three years in the nineties, and who's going to win that battle? He would he did. Then he came over sheepishly and he apologized. Why the guys who are only on once a week like me are pitted against the guys who are on every night like you. I can't understand if Bob had not been a great friend of mine before that. He sealed it with that remark. On the other hand, there was a lot of corruption in the local Emmys. They are judged by panels in other cities, at least they were when I was in local news. And in early nineteen eighty eight, apparently the news director of the NBC affiliated station in Toledo, Ohio found out that any voters in Toledo would be voting on that year's awards for Los Angeles. So somebody thought, let's game this system. The awards submitted by KNBC in Los Angeles for Best Sports Reporting for nineteen eighty eight was about morgana, the Kissing Bandit, the Buxom dancer who used to run onto the field during baseball games and kiss the players, and she lived in Toledo, Ohio. So sure enough that year the guy at CANBC in Los Angeles beat me out for Best Local TV Sports Reporting in Los Angeles because he had submitted a report consisting entirely of Benny Hill's style site gags in which Morgana The Kissing Bandit of Toledo, Ohio chased him around. All I had in my house submission was the day I exclusively broke the story that the Los Angeles Kings were trading five players and fifteen million dollars to Edmonton for Wayne Gretzky. Great report, loser, I know what kind of reporting is that compared to Morgana The Kissing Bandit. So anyway, when they gave him that award, my girlfriend and my agent and I stood up and left. But I'm not a bad loser, just a vengeful one. One year I was really pissed about not getting an Emmy. In nineteen ninety nine and two thousand, in addition to five nights a week on the Fox cable version of Sports Center, I also hosted the pregame and postgame shows wrapping around the Fox Network Baseball game of the week. These were, to say the least arduous days six am to six pm on a Saturday, invariably a beautiful day in southern California. And it was made doubly arduous by my analyst, Steve Lyons, as sleazy and as disagreeable man as anybody with whom I have ever worked. Steve Lyons made homophobic jokes on the air. He criticized a Jewish player for not playing on Yam Kipper. He implied a Latino manager had stolen his wallet. Later, his career ended after a domestic battery charge. And when he wasn't doing all that, Lions mastered and specialized in one other thing, complaining. I mean, the makeup artist on our show once thanked me for never complaining, and I said, but I complain all the time, and she said, not even close anyway. Two years of this. The first year, nineteen ninety nine, the winner for the Emmy for Best Live Studio Sports Show was not SportsCenter, was not the NFL Today on CBS. It was Fox MLB pregame me and Lions. He did not get an Emmy. I did not get an Emmy. The producers got Emmys. To their credit. The people at Fox said they were going to try to get me one, and they did not succeed. It was against the rules, and we had not thought of the little bit of a dec here and putting me in as an associate producer under the name Teeth Alderman. The next year, two thousand, the winner for the Emmy for the Best Studio Analyst was Steve Lyons. He got an Emmy. My boss on the show said, not only should I have gotten his Emmy, but quote, you should have gotten a second one for carrying that buffoon on your back every week. But personal whining aside. I mean, honestly, what would happen if I won an Emmy now? For some reason? I mean, you think anybody would ever remember that? If I am remembered, it'll be for not ever winning an Emmy. I keep coming back to this idea finally corrected in twenty twenty two that the awards are for the producers and not those whiny free madonnas the talent. When I was twenty nine, I moved from one LA TV station to another. In fact, it was just a couple of weeks after that Gretzky story that lost out to MORGANA The Kissing Bandit. The news station was KCBS and I already knew everybody there because for three years I had been popping by their station every day to do afternoon drive sportscasts on their all news radio station, and I had gotten to know and delight in knowing the company of one of my fellow kN X and soon to be KCBS sportscasters, Gil Stratton. Gil had been the first sports guy on the local news in LA in nineteen fifty four, and he did the play by play for the Rams games on the CBS network, and they wanted him to move to New York to be the face of CBS Sports. Are you kidding? Gil told them, I'm from New York. Why would I leave l to move back to New York? In La, Gil was the star until he retired to Hawaii to run his own radio station about nineteen seventy six. It didn't go well, and now again we're in nineteen eighty eight. He was back in LA, but at the bottom of the LA sports totem pole Saturday mornings on radio. He was the backups, backup on television and Gil did not care. Beats a real job, he used to tell me with a smile. Plus, I make more now in this building. Than I did fifteen years ago, even adjusted for inflation. Anyway, if the name Gil Stratton seems vaguely familiar to you, or maybe more than vaguely, it was because he was also an actor. I hope you have seen the movie Stalog seventeen, one of the all time classics about prisoners in a World War two military prison camp in Germany. If you haven't seen it, turn off the podcast, go watch the movie, then come back to me. Stalog seventeen. William Holden is the star. His right hand man is Gil Stratton. Gil was also in the Wild One with Marlon Brando and in Girl Crazy with Judy Garland, in about two dozen TV series, and he spent a year as a lead in a Broadway musical. The day before I was to join Channel two as sports director and nominally as Gill's boss, Gil sat me down in the lunch room and said he wanted to warn me about something you need to know. He said that the executives here are the biggest bunch of prima donnas I have ever seen. The general manager sent me on an assignment for the station and they had gotten everything wrong. Wrong city, wrong building, wrong day, wrong person to interview, When I got back and told him I had managed to get him a SoundBite despite all the screw ups, but that was going to be it, he burst into tears. Gil laughed, and while I'm at it, you're young enough, maybe you still believe that we are the prima donnas. Take it from me. I've been doing this and Hollywood and Broadway for forty seven years. The producers and the studio executives and the TV executives have created this fiction that we are all impossibly difficult to work with, and we are all ego, and it's them, they are the prima donnas. Listen, I rode motorcycles, Gill said, with Brando, I chased girls with Holden. I kissed Judy Garland flush on the lips. And they were all supposed to be prima donna's and none of them, not even Judy Garland on her worst day, was as much of a prima donna as the blasted general manager of this television station. So, needless to say, there is an existential dispute here. We get the money and the fame, or what's left of the money and the fame now that television is dying in exchange for which we get all the potshots and the Athletic piece about the fake names, and I left out Eric Andrews, which apparently was code for Aaron Andrews. They changed one letter genius. I mean, as unsolvable as the sphinx. Who would ever know that Eric Andrews was supposed to be Aaron Andrews. The Athletic piece about the fake name contained one anonymous pot shot that really underscored the everlasting lie that Gil Stratton told me about so many years ago. Quote. When asked why people at the network would scheme to secure trophies for on air talent, one person involved in the ESPN Emmy submission process in recent years said, quote, you have to remember that those personalities are so important and they have egos. Tell me again, who submitted a list of three hundred and sixty five NBC producers and directors and stage managers for an Emmy for one Olympics. Was it Judy Garland on her worst day or was it an off air television executive. I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown. Musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillip Schaneale arranged, produced, and performed most of our music. Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums, and mister Shanelle handled orchestration and keyboards, and it was produced by Tko Brothers. And I'm only sorry we did not win Political Podcast of the Year award because they would have gotten statues too. Probably, I don't know how this works. And when I say I'm only concerned because it affects them, I'm lying. Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions, arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. And frankly, the way things have been going in Bristol, the Podcast of the Year Political Podcast of the Year award would have been like a big highlight of the year for them. So I'm sorry on their behalf too, only on their behalf. And when I say only on their behalf, I'm lying. Our satirical and fifthy musical comments are by Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium organist ever, so she didn't need the award. Our announcer today was my friend Stevie van zandt like he needs awards. Everything else was pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this two hundred and thirty eighth day before the twenty twenty four presidential election and the one one hundred and sixty third day since dementia. J Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States. Use the Fourteenth Amendment, the not Regularly Given elector objection option, the Insurrection Act, the justice system, the mental health system to stop him from doing it again while we still can. And as we list countdowns, what is it like the thirty third day before the premiere of The Robert k. Her Show on Flomax Newsmax. Sorry, you know, when you turn sixty five you actually shouldn't make jokes about Flomax. Keith. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bulletins is the news warrants, A steady stream of bulletins as the news warrants till then. I'm Keith Ulrimman, Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olremman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts,