SERIES 2 EPISODE 140: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: The story that Robert F. Kennedy Junior wants football quarterback Aaron Rodgers to be his Vice President has now mutated from the ludicrous real life realms of the proverbial idiocracy, to shameful and disgusting and disqualifying and it is now SO bad that he will be lucky, WHEN this is over – IF it is ever over – if he still has a football career. It is THAT bad.
CNN's Pamela Brown now reveals that nearly ELEVEN years ago – she was introduced to Aaron Rodgers at a post-Kentucky Derby party and, quoting Brown’s story: “Hearing that she was a journalist with CNN, Rodgers immediately began attacking the news media for covering up important stories. Rodgers brought up the tragic killing of 20 children and 6 adults by a gunman at Sandy Hook Elementary School, claiming it was actually a government inside job and the media was intentionally ignoring it.”
The WORST conspiracy theory of them all. THE worst. The Alex Jones stuff. The unforgivable, Rorshach test for insanity, inhumanity, depravity. And Aaron Rodgers not only failed it, he failed it nearly eleven years ago, and he failed it, and he failed it VOLUNTARILY – he was the one who brought it up, TO a reporter, TO a reporter who has somehow restrained herself from reporting it for nearly eleven years.
And the nightmare-within-a-nightmare is: Aaron Rodgers is (or at best was) a Sandy Hook denier. And frankly I don’t know if, in RFK Junior’s eyes, that fact ELIMINATES Rodgers as a potential running mate, or… it clinches the spot for him.
Also: The GOP has a new Biden Impeachment Plan: DON'T Impeach Biden. Don Lemon! You effed up! You trusted Musk! The Trump Mafia is celebrating the Georgia judge throwing out a handful of charges, but of course if he were going to throw out the whole case over Fani Willis on Friday, why would he bother to cull a few indictments now? And Alina Habba Dabba Do has the nerve to joke about Fani's name.
B-Block (21:08) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: After Marjorie Taylor Greene may have baited President Biden into misidentifying murder victim Laken Riley as "Lincoln" (or at best she made exactly the same mistake the president did), Trump has autographed a photo of the poor woman in which he has written her name - and MISSPELLED IT. NBC's Ken Dilanian gets further and further into the right wing talking points on the disastrous Hur hearing. And Nancy Mace, who shamed fellow rape victims and herself by endorsing Trump after the E. Jean Carroll verdicts, is still demanding George Stephanopoulos apologize for what... SHE did.
C-Block (30:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: In a brand new edition, this sounds like a terrifying and tragic story about another one of my dogs - my goofy boy Ted - until you get to the end where it turns out I'm just a lucky idiot and Ted's fine.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. The Aaron Rodgers as Robert F. Kennedy Junior's Vice President's story has mutated and exploded from the ludicrous real life realms of the proverbial idiocracy to shameful and disgusting and disqualifying. And it is now so bad that Aaron Rodgers will be lucky when this is over, if it is ever over, if he still has a career in football. It is that bad. CNN anchor and investigative reporter Pamela Brown now reveals that when she was assigned by the network to cover the Kentucky Derby the twenty thirteen Kentucky Derby nearly eleven years ago, she was introduced to Aaron Rodgers at a post derby party and quoting Brown's story. Ry hearing that she was a journalist with CNN, Rogers immediately began attacking the news media for covering up important stories. Rogers brought up the tragic killing of twenty children and six adults by a gunman at Sandy Hook Elementary School, claiming it was actually a government inside job and the media was intentionally ignoring it. The worst conspiracy theory of them all the worst, the Alex Jones stuff, the unforgivable, the Roarshack test for insanity, in humanity, depravity, and Aaron Rodgers not only failed it, he failed it nearly eleven years ago. And he failed it and failed it voluntarily. He was the one who brought it up to a reporter, to a reporter who has somehow restrained herself from reporting it for nearly eleven years. And if somehow that first had and signed account of the insanity of Aaron Rodgers by a CNN anchor is insufficient. This was hardly the only time Aaron Rodgers questioned Sandy Hook. Quoting again, CNN has spoken to another person with a similar story. This person, to whom CNN has granted anonymity so as to avoid harassment, recalled that several years ago Rogers claimed, quote, Sandy Hook never happened, All those children never existed. They were all actors. When asked about the grieving parents, the source recalled Rogers saying, they're all making it up. They're all actors unquote. I mean, until this moment. Aaron Rodgers has been a popular athlete who pitched insurance in commercials, who tried to become host of Jeopardy, while little details of a darker, certainly crazier side had begun to leak out here and there, while still leaving him mostly as a mere embarrassed for his newest employers, the New York Jets and ESPN and ESPN host Pat McAfee, who pays Rogers a million a year to appear on his show. Rogers lied to the public about his own COVID vaccination status. He has played the victim with ever escalating self righteousness and condescension and more conspiracy theories ever since then. But only now has it been revealed that he is himself a monster, unfit for any public stage, even the National Football League and certainly even an hour Twilight Zone times, unfit for candidacy for any political office. And the true nightmare contained in those quotes it was actually a government inside job. The media was intentionally ignoring it. Sandy Hook never happened, all those children never existed. The true worst case scenario is that it was clear as late as last night that before CNN's revelation, Aaron Rodgers was at minimum Robert F. Kennedy Junior's co favorite for the vice presidential slot. On his own farcical, conspiracy delusion driven independent presidential candidacy. Kennedy had confirmed he has met with Aaron Rodgers and the former wrestler and Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura about being vice president. Just before this Rogers Sandy Hook story broke, Kennedy had announced he will reveal his running mate a week from next Tuesday, the twenty sixth of this month, and that nightmare is Robert F. Kennedy Junior is himself so addled, so warped, so consumed by our era in which seemingly functional humans are in fact capable of believing and spreading and amplifying and promulgating the most disgusting and subhuman and still most importantly impossible things because their brains no longer work right, and they cannot wait to try to make your brain no longer work right either. Thus, the ultimate nightmare here is Aaron Rodgers is, or at best was, a Sandy Hook denier, And frankly, I don't know if in RFK Junior's eyes, that fact eliminates Aaron Rodgers as a potential running mate, or if it clinches the goddamned spot for him. If that didn't tell you all you needed to know about this asinine political timeline. Consider these Trump legal facts. It is clear it is blazing through Washington that after Robert K. Hurr crashed like the Hindenburg over all of their heads on Tuesday, House Republicans have devised a new Joe Joe Biden impeachment strategy, and that strategy is to not impeach Joe Biden Trump Hump. Congressman Troy Nells of Texas was blunt, I don't think we have the will to impeach Joe Biden. We don't. More importantly, they don't have any evidence, to the point that even one of the weirdest people from the last of our weird timelines, darryl Isa of California, told punch Bowl News quote, I do believe we need to bring this to a conclusion. What they do have, these Republicans, is a principal witness who was arrested last month for lying to the FBI and who was being kept in jail without bond because the prosecutors and the judges think he was already plotting to flee the country, and a secondary witness who was already serving a prison term, and a special counsel who found nothing to charge the President with, so instead he slandered him, and the slander was proved to be alive the Special Council's own transcript of his own interview with the President. On top of this, the two congressmen who have run the non impeachment into the ground to such a degree that if you told me they were actually Democratic plants who will soon pull off their masks mission impossible style and turn out to be Ron Klaine and doctor Jill Biden. Those two guys, those fundsters, Jamie Comer and Jim Jordan. They have been so declawed by their endless failures that when Comer invited Hunter Biden to a public hearing next Wednesday about something, the president's son not only declined and said he had a pre hearing in California that week, but his lawyer, Abby Lowell wrote, your blatant, planned for media event is not a proper proceeding, but an obvious attempt to throw a hail Mary pass after the game has ended, sort of anticipating the Aaron Rodgers story. The Republicans are not going to just punt, though on this whole thing, consensus seems to be they have two options. One is to demand legislative reforms, new laws guaranteeing greater oversight of the business dealings by the families of presidents and vice presidents, especially international business dealings. Because greater oversight of the business dealings by the families of presidents is exactly the first thing Donald J corrupt Trump wants, good plan Jamie. When that slight flaw in their plan occurs to these bozos, they can then switch to Plan B. Criminal referrals. Comer and Jordan concoct something resembling a crime from this mess. They insist Hunter Biden committed it, or President Biden did it, or Commander the Dog Biden did it, and then they write it up and they send it off as a criminal referral to Merrick Garland. Justice. I know, I know it sounds dumb. He never does anything, but look, this is Merrick Garland. So the chances of action are actually greater than zero with that jackass Garland. It could be one hundred percent for all we know. At minimum, this would set up some future Republican Attorney general to prosecute the Bidens, hopefully, you know, in the year twenty one fifty seven or something whatever. Plan these, Nitwitz ultimately go with though it is now clear to protect President Joseph Robinett Biden Junior, protect Jamie Comer and Jim Jordan at all costs. That theory that we are living in a computers simulation has spawned a billion corollaries. Of course it has. We're in a simulation. But the most intriguing of them was that if any character in the simulation figured out the simulation, the simulation would immediately reset to make itself more difficult to figure out. My own version of that, of course, is that if any character in the simulation figures it out, the simulation immediately resets to make itself dumber. Consider Don Lemon gets fired by CNN not for having asked if that missing Malaysian jetliner a decade ago could have been swallowed up by a black hole, a very small, very specific black hole that doesn't like jetliners. Not fired for that, but rather for later misogyny and incorrigibility. Don Lemon immediately strikes a deal with Elon Musk to do a news show on twitter x, only about seven years after twitter x stopped being a primary venue for political videos. Trust me, I basically invented it. As a primary venue for political video. Lemon does one episode. It's an interview with Musk. In the interview, Musk tells him he's only doing the interview because Lemon has agreed to do the show on X, and Lemon promptly asks Apartheid Clyde about his drug use, especially if ketamine. So now Musk isn't Apartheid Clyde, He's Ketamine Clyde and presto. The next day, Lemon announces Musk has canceled Lemon's new show. Lemon says he was canceled because he asked tough questions. Musk then said, now he was canceled because, quote, his approach was just CNN but on social media, instead of it being the real Don Lemon, it was really just Jeff Zucker talking through Don unquote, which ironically would seem to confirm the Musk drug stories. Is Jeff Zucker in the room with us right now? Elon The New York Post then reports that Musk canceled the deal because Lemon was dull, but he also canceled it because Lemon was too edgy and he asked Musk questions that Musk didn't like. But he didn't ask him about his ex girlfriend Amber heard and quote Elon probably would have liked that, which also seems to confirm the Musk drug stories. And then, as if it needed to get even crazier, Semaphore News reported that Musk had given Lemon a contract, but he now claims he does not owe Lemon a dollar because, get this, Lemon had failed to sign the contract. He just let it sit there and didn't sign it and return it. So I guess he was just trusting Elon Musk. Never trust Elon Musk. That would seem to suggest that maybe Lemon was even more impaired than was Musk. As a post ripped here the equally fired by CNN, Chris Cuomo has joined some right wing site called Valued Tainment, which leads to one final conclusion, Chris, don have some self respect, stay home and talk to a mirror for an hour and back to the asinine political timeline with Aaron Rodgers, Sandy Hook, Denier and the Republican impeachment strategy of not impeaching, and Chris Como and Don Lemon and Ketamine Clyde consider this. Trump and his mafia are now facing thirty five charges, including ten felony counts in Georgia, and they are spinning it as a win because until Judge Scott McAfee threw a few of them out on substantial ground yesterday, but in the context effectively trivial crowns, Trump and company were facing forty one charges and thirteen felon He's not thirty five and ten. And by the way, the judge specifically said the DA Fannie Willis could refile the indictment to include all the dismissed charges if she wanted to accept the delay that would entail parenthetically, that Judge McAfee would make these rulings now when he is promised by tomorrow a ruling on the attempt to get d A. Willis disqualified from the case because of her personal life. And McAfee reiterated that promise yesterday, that decision to just cull a few charges from the gigantic pile that is trump illegality in Georgia. That pretty much confirms he is not going to disqualify Fannie Willis or toss the case on the simple premise, why would the judge go to such lengths to issue such a detailed and specific ruling on some charges On Wednesday if he were planning to in effect throw the whole case out on Friday, which brings us to Alena Habba. It is bad enough that one of Trump's hoodlums, Michael Roman, introduced the motions against d A. Willis and her alleged boyfriend. That's Trumpst's claiming a relationship is prejudicial in a court proceeding while defending to the death Clarence Thomas's right to decide Trump cases while his wife was an active part of Trump's attempt to overthrow the government. But now Alina Habba, America's foremost expert in parking lot law, has mocked Fannie Willis's name.
I don't think it's indicative necessarily of his actions in terms of Fanny, I think that Fanny, Fannie, whatever she calls herself is.
She's got her own issues. That's a woman named Alena Habba Habah habadum making fun of anybody else's name in the world. Hab Oh, Nancy.
Had dude, bonehead, She's a bonehead mocking someone else's family name.
Parking legal expert, have a have a have a dumb name? I have a dumb name. No, she can't fake being small. Thank you, Nancy, faust. Also of interest here. Also of interest here, another glitch in the computer simulation's attempt to keep itself hidden is now sounding like a broken record. It's called a Nancy Mace and it is still demanding an apology from George Stephanopolis for shaming rape victims, which he did not do, but this Nancy Mace character did. Plus, it is time to turn off NBC News and fire everybody that's next. This is countdown. This is Countdown, with Keith Olboman still ahead of us on this all new edition of Countdown. Things I've promised not to tell. And a new and terrifying story about one of my dogs, terrifying until you get to the end of it, and the doctor's an I erupt into laughter, and I am diagnosed with having the closest thing to a canine version of Munchausen syndrome. By proxy coming up, I promise it ends not with tears, but with me be clowning myself. First, still more idiots be clowning themselves to talk about the daily roundup of the mis grants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute two days worst persons in the world. First, the brons worse Trump. First his slaves got on President Biden for not saying the name of murder victim Lincoln Riley. Then they got on him for saying her name during the State of the Union but saying it wrong. Then Marjorie Green said it wrong exactly as the President had. Then Congresswoman cave Woman apparently confessed that she had told Biden the wrong pronunciation, the wrong name Lincoln Riley, now the punchline. Atop the punchline, Trump posed for a photo op with her family and autographed a picture of the woman, addressing it to her, I love you, Laken, as one does if one is a psychopath, and in this autograph, Trump misspelled her name. Next runners up worser NBC News, which still has not fired nor reprimanded its latest on air tire fire. Justice correspondent Kendelanian, as I noted here Tuesday, Delanian clutched his pearls and insisted quote. The Robert her 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 unquote, Delanian got appropriately roasted for his both sides of naivee, since what the her hearing really was a perfect example of was a corrupt political hack lying about a sitting president's mental acuity and getting caught lying by his own transcript of his own interview with that president. And it is about one party, the Democrats, calling him out for lying that way, while the other party, the Republica fascists, called him out for not lying enough about the president, and then this idiot Delanian and the increasingly unreliable Dolts at NBC News insisting that fighting lies and fighting for moral lies is the same thing. Delanian promptly got community noted, even on Twitter x because Robert Hurr has not been, as he described him, a career public servant. He had spent several years at the twenty second richest private law firm in the world, and he's now gone from public service to private, to public, and now to private again in the last seven years. It was also mentioned that he'd already resigned from public service just this week, apparently so he could go to this anti Biden committee hearing as a civilian and serve as an advocate for Trump and dictatorship on TV. But Delanian will not stop digging. He fired back at a CBS reporter who noted that the transcript proved her had not told the whole truth. He insisted Joe Biden was getting help remembering the date from his lawyers. Then a CNN reporter called him out for getting the public service stuff about Robert hur wrong. Delanian clapped back the vast majority of his working life had been spent in the public sector before he left DOJ in twenty twenty one to join a law firm. From two thousand and seven to twenty fourteen, he was a federal prosecutor in Maryland. As the firestorm continued, Delanian found a quote from a lawyer somewhere, a guy named John Fishwick. Delanian identified Fishwick as an Obama appointed US attorney and quoted Fishwick as saying that Robert Hurr was the ideal prosecutor, non political, not overly zealous, and quote Merrick Garland was wise to stay out of his way. Not this guy. Fishwick lasted thirteen months as a US attorney, and he had started his career as a clerk to a federal judge appointed by Richard Nixon. By the way, the community note about HER's career public servant on the Kendalanian tweet pointed out that Maryland prosecutors Job Delanian was holding out his evidence was a political appointment, requiring confirmation by the Senate anyway, Kendalanian, NBC is a real problem here. He's already in violation of NBC news standards and probably fighting with CBS and CNN. He's violated NBC News social media standards, and he's just part of the new world of Kristen Trump allegedly tried to overturn the election. Welker and MSNBC now running Trump's speeches live no matter what Matdow says, the Conservatives had taken over NBC and MSNBC. And don't even get me started about Katie Turr. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I helped her. The worst congresswoman Nancy Mace. And if anybody could compete with Trump and Marjorie Taylor Green for most consistent and most consistently self humiliating self Martyrer, it's Nancy Mace. On ABC's This Week On Sunday, George Stephanopolis pointed out that after January sixth, may said Trump had ruined his entire reputation by what he did, and that Republicans needed to hold him accountable and that they needed to start over, and that they needed to find a new voice, which evidently meant I'm going to endorse him anyway three years from now. Nancy Mayce has also often repeatedly brought up being a victim of rape at the age of sixteen, so Stephanopoulos asked her about her multi channel panoramic multiple hypocrisies here, including how could she endorse him given Trump's repeated court losses to e gen Carroll on the sexual assault cases, being held liable for rape, for denying after the court finding again and again that he did it, for insisting as recently as the day before their interview that Egen Carroll was lying. Since there is no possible good answer to that one other than I'm a Republican, George, I have no principles. If I don't endorse him, he'll end what's left of my career emoji shrug. Mace has spent the week insisting that what Stephanopoulos did was rape, shaming her. She resumed it yesterday quote it has been three days since George shame a lot of us made a mockery of rape victims on national television. Neither he nor the female leadership from the ABC network has apologized or condemned his behavior, unquote, And they're not going to Nancy Mace, because the person who made a mockery of rape victims on national television on that ABC show was you. It wasn't George Stephanopolis. And it is not being a victim of that unforgivable crime that was shamed by somebody else. It was you shaming those who forgive it. You were the person who's forgiven it. Nancy Mace two days, worst person in the world to the number one story on the Countdown and things I promised not to tell. And I don't know how many times I have talked to you about my dogs, but now I've talked to you about them one more time. This is a scary story about one of my dogs. It has a happy ending so you can relax, and in fact, it makes for a very funny ending. And the joke was on me. This started last week, but there's a bigger context to it that started in twenty eighteen. That's when my first dog and I've told you the whole story before about how I never had a dog till I was fifty three years old. And the old girl friend and I happened to go into the pet shop on Lexington Avenue because her family dog was dying and she needed a puppy fix. And she held this little Maltese briefly, who reached up and gave her a kiss, and then she put the dog back into the cage, and the little dog, who had already sort of fallen in love with, reached up to get some water out of the spout, and her brother knocked her out of the way, and I started growling, and an hour later I had Stevie, my first dog, at age fifty three, meaning I wasted the first fifty two years of my life. Six years later, Stevie developed very suddenly, and it was pointed out to me first by the groomer, a breast cancer, a lump between her front armpits or leg pits, as it might be for a dog. It came upon suddenly, and it was soft and squishy and deadly, and it went basically from armpit to armpit. It was one of the more frightening months of my life until we got some handle on what was happening. Unfortunately, what was happening was a mast cell tumor, and one that the oncologist at the Annalytical Center, a very brilliant woman named Nicole Leebman, said was very very frightening because she had studied the DNA of the tumor after it had been removed surgically by another great physician, a veterinarian surgeon, an oncology surgeon named doctor Katie Kennedy. Doctor Liebman said this one mass cell was particularly virulent and it was likely to return. And there's nothing that you don't want to hear at the start of oncological treatment for your dog who is six years old and the love of your life and the beginning of your whole understanding of the world of dogs and the dog who's there who led to you. You're getting your second dog who led to you, bringing in a rescue dog named Ted just months earlier. Stevie was, as I said, the love of my life. And suddenly there was this thing on her chest and suddenly it was removed, and suddenly it was cancerous and she would need chemo and months of treatment, and they hope they get her a year. Well, that turned out as perfectly as it possibly could. Stevie has not only survived, she has thrived because she had a high threshold for pain, like that of say, somebody who walks on hot coals and claims not to feel it. Stevie never knew that that hospital was a hospital, or those treatments were treatments. She just thought it was some kind of spa. Stevie has now so far removed from that outbreak, from that mass cell tumor on her chest that last year, doctor Liebman said, there's no reason to have these checkups anymore. Well, you have beaten it, then, haven't you, Stevie. We now get occasional scans in connection to some arthroscopic problems that Stevie has in three of her four knees. And if you have bad knees like I do, just think for a moment if you had three bad knees. Stevie will get scanned every once in a while and a growth will appear here or there, and we'll get it tested just to make sure. But she's out of that active oncology patient stage. That's the background, And then here's what's happening right now. What happened last Friday to Ted. Ted was my first rescue. He came to me. His name was Spaghetti, and I said, I'll do anything for this dog except call him Spaghetti. So I went through the name Spaghetti. If you're going to rename a dog, try to get a name that rhymes or sounds like his original name so you don't confuse him so much. So Spaghetti became Getty, and I'm not going with that, and teddy Ted with my dad's name, perfect Ted. So we got Ted, and Ted came into the family, and Ted from day one has been a little boy who happened to have four legs and a complete wise ass and a wonderful, wonderful dog, a true companion, and the first dog I ever said I'm going to raise this dog on my own. He got his heart surgery, he thrived and survived and everything's been great since. And weeks after he got here, Stevie got sick and got her cancer, so often I would be bringing them both into the Animal Medical Center here, Stevie for her cancer treatments and Ted for his heart treatments and ultimately a heart surgery in which they put a balloon in on a tiny filament through his jugular vein in his neck, stopped his heart for a few seconds, and knocked the rust off of his oversized, heavy valve in his heart as you would knock the rust, as it were, off a rusty hinge, by just continually opening and closing the door to make do this all the time, and then suddenly there's no rust on the door anymore. That's how they got the weight off of his valve. And his heart has been normal for six years, and then last week suddenly there was a lump on his back out of nowhere, nowhere near as big as Stevie's from twenty eighteen, but terrifying nonetheless, and just about the same quality to it, this weird gel like wuishiness to a growth right under the surface subcutaneous, right above one of the ribs. I tried to measure it so I could find it again and see maybe it was some sort of inflammation, which I recalled then was what I thought Stevie's might be, that she'd had a bad grooming session or something and there was some sort of inflammation. Well, no, it was cancerous growth. And so after a couple of days of checking to see if this thing was still there.
Yeah.
It was probably about two three inches down from his neck on the left side, above one of the ribs. I marked it in a little pen mark, so I knew where I could find it. By coincidence, I was in touch with Nicole Leebman, who if you ever have an oncological problem with a dog, try to go see her at the Animal Medical Center. She really knows what she's doing, as does that entire staff. And I marked it and I was in touch with her and we were talking about something else, some issue in her family that I was able to help with. Nothing bad, just some career advice for someone. And I wrote back to her, by the way, I've found this squishy thing on Ted's back, and should I go through my vent first, because I'd love somebody in your department to check it out. And I'm scared witless by this subject because I have been through it before. No matter how well Stevie's cancer turned out, it was cancer, and the fact that it ended well does not erase the fact that for six months when we would walk across town to get infusions in Stevie's legs, and she was so happy walking to the hospital and so happy walking back I was a nervous wreck, wondering if that would be the last time I get to walk with her. And again she never knew what was happening. One night she would not eat the chemo, which was hidden in a blueberry. One night she went, no, I don't think so. All the other nights she did. I had to wear gloves to put this pill into a blueberry for her, but she could put it in her mouth and in her stomach. I'm straying again from the subject of what happened to Ted. So Ted, this delightful boy who owns my lap and who insists when I return that I pick him up so he can give me a big kiss. Who has lived up? I must say, to my father's name, who has a wonderful soul? Ted had a squishy growth on his back. And Nicole Eabman bless her, responded to my email saying, should I go to my vet, I'd like to get him in to see. This was Saturday night, and she said, bring him in on noon on Monday, I can see him. Then. Well, you couldn't get that kind of service anywhere else in the world for anything. Sunday Saturday, Come on in Monday at noon, juggled a few things on my schedule, and Ted and I showed up at noon. I have marked this squishy growth and have thought the worst and have tried to remember exactly what Stevie's felt like. It's a different shape. It's nowhere near as large. It's probably an inch wide and an eighth or an inch maybe a quarter of an inch thick. It feels squishy. There's some firm parts to it, but there's definitely squishiness. And as I feel it on Monday morning, as we are going over to the Animal Medical Center near the FDR Drive in New York, I can feel that it's a little larger than it was on Saturday. And I am a wreck. And we get into the oncology department on the eighth floor in the Animal Medical Center, and we are veterans of this because Stevie's rehab for her three bad knees is also on that floor. So all the people she knew from her cancer treatments and follow ups in twenty eighteen, in twenty nineteen, they are still there and they all say hello to her kause STEVIEE is the best patient in the world, and there are people every time I go into that hospital and it's once a week for Stevie's rehab. There are people who say who work there, who I have never seen before, who meet us in the elevator or a hallway and they say Stevie And then they look up at me and they go, are you with her? And I say, yes, I'm I'm stif human, yours Stevie's human. Well, let me tell you a story about Stevie. Stevie has her own friends, her own human friends, who I do not know what greater accomplishment can a dog achieve in a lifetime. And Stevie, who has, by the way, been proven correct because when she goes in for her therapy, she goes on an underwater treadmill. They trim her nails to make sure she's walking right. They often use lasers and massage on her limbs, and then they'd blow dry her hair because she's been in the water. It is a spa. She was right all this time and we were wrong. It's not a hospital, it's a spa. So all those people, some of them say, oh, there's Stevie. That's not Stevie. They haven't seen Ted before. He has not been in rehab nor in oncology and they come over and say hello. And Ted is a very friendly dog and particularly is friendly with girls. He is a complete and utter flirt. He goes hunting for them, especially if they're sitting on blankets in Central Park in the spring, and goes right up to the prettiest girl in the park, as if I were sending him there. They all go to say hi to Ted, and I'm trying to be calm and cool and collected and not doing that good a job. And the tech comes out Alexis so I know from Stevie's first day there, and she comes over and she goes tell me the story, and they're going to take Ted in the back and examine him, and then we're going to find out what we do. Are they going to lance the thing? Are they going to BIOPSI it what they're going to do. And she said where is it? And I show her where I've basically stained Ted's back with a pen and she says, no, don't worry, we'll wash that off. That's really helpful right there. You just push in and she goes, it's kind of oval. This may not be what you think it is, but let's go have the test. I'm sitting there for ten minutes. I'm trying to occupy myself on my phone. I'm trying to occupy myself in conversation with the veterans of the staff of the Animal medical Center. They all know what I'm there for, and they are all trying to make it easier, which is what they all do at that place. Honest to God. I once had to have my gallbladder removed, and I had them going for about ten minutes. As I told them, all, you know, if you want to work on a larger canvas than you normally do in one of these surgeries, I can scrunch up on one of your larger tables, you can take my gallbladder out. I mean, I trust you people, rather than some hospital over here. A few of them actually thought I was serious, partially because I was. In any event, they make that time go fast, and now, at about ten minutes, which is way earlier than I expected, outcomes doctor Nicole Leabman, the oncologist who saved Stevie. And she comes out and she's got a big smile on her face, and she says, sits down across from me. Along with a couple of other texts and she says, I have good news. That growth in his back that's Ted's microchip. And there's a one beat pause and I burst into laughter, and they burst into laughter, and I went, I'm an idiot, and he doesn't have a growth and it couldn't be cancer. It's it's his microchip, and they all laugh. We all laugh, and I went, but it wasn't there before. I said, I'm I'm happily totally wrong. I will wear a Dunce cap for the rest of the week and enjoy every moment of that Dunce cap on my head. Thank goodness, I don't have to go through this. More importantly, thank goodness he does not have to go through with this, or that I might lose him too soon. Thank goodness. I'm an idiot. But where the hell did that come from? That's not where they put it in, And Nicole Liebman says, a matter of factly, eh, they do migrate. I mean over the years, it probably moved slightly up from further inside when they injected it into him his microchip. ID Yeah, it'd probably moved a little bit and it became up closer to the surface. And I said, well, wait a minute, that's a hard piece of plastic and I guess a little metal, but mostly plastic, generating a number so that if your dog is ever lost. And please, if you have not microchipped your dog despite this story, get a microchipped or her microchip. I said, but how did it, how did how did it get there? And does it do that? And she said, well, look, a dog is not that big. If it moved over six years since you had it put in, if it moved half an inch or three quarters of an inch towards the surface, it would suddenly appear there. I said, but the squishy parts around it, She goes, oh, just probably inflammation from where you kept pushing it to see what it was. And I went, I'm an idiot, and they went, no, you're not, No, you're not. You're just a concerned dog guy now, and I said, okay, that's my epitaph. I'll take that. And then as everybody gets up and I'm smiling and laughing and breathing deeply for the first time in three days, Nicole Leebman adds the punchline. She hands me a post it and there on it is a series of thirteen or fourteen digits and she said, by the way, his microchip is working fine. This is his number. I've done all the damage I can do here. If I've seen tens this week, now you know why. Thank you for listening to countdown. Our musical directors, Brian Ray and John Phillip Schanel arranged, produced, and performed most of our music. Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums, and mister Shanee handled orchestration and keyboards. It was produced by TKO Brothers. Ted, by the way, is the dog who often sits here during the show at my feet inside the studio. He's outside now. He just had a big meal. He's lying down and of course he has to recover from his microchip moving. Mister Ray was on guitars, bass and drums, Mister Shanelle handled orchestration and keyboards, and it was produced by TKO Brothers. Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions, were arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports music is the Olberman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Our satirical and pithy musical cop are by Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today is my friend Jonathan Banks from Breaking Bad. Everything else was pretty much my fault. That's countdown for this two hundred and thirty seventh day before the twenty twenty four presidential election and the one sixty fourth day since dementia jy or ephasia J Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States. Use the Fourteenth Amendment and the not regularly given elector objection system, the Insurrection Act, the justice system, the mental health system, and any micro chips in his goddamned back to stop him from doing it again while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Bulletin says the news warrants till then. I'm Keith Oulderman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. B dude, bonehead, she's a bonehead mocking someone else's family name, parking legal expert. Have a have a have a dumb name? I have a dumb name. No, she can't fake being small, Thank you, Nancy FoST. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.