I wrote a story about Episode 153, with links and all, but it seems to have disappeared when the DK site started having problems. I was in the process of writing one about Episode 154 when it actually did. (I still have notes for 154 but not for 153.) And in the meantime, Keith Olbermann has posted another podcast. Since DK frowns on me writing more than one story per day, I’ve combined them all here.
Episode 153: Tucker Carlson Drops January 6th Video Story
- A-Block
- SPECIAL COMMENT: Wait — what?
- After a lurid week of claiming the entire January 6 Insurrection was just “peaceful sight-seers” disturbed by “hooligans” and insisting that the greatest conspiracy in the history of the country had been effected to transform the country and weaponize this and lie about that, Tucker Carlson suddenly, abruptly, completely and without explanation DROPPED THE JANUARY 6TH VIDEO STORY LAST NIGHT. No Jacob Chansley. No withheld video. No punish Liz Cheney.
- It’s quiet. It’s too quiet.
- What happened? The Department of Justice released three videos implicating Chansley, putting him within feet of a Senator (probably Chuck Grassley) during mid-evacuation. A New York State Supreme Court judge let the OTHER voting machine company's defamation lawsuit against Fox proceed. For all we know, Rupert Murdoch called Carlson and said “shut your pie hole.” But the sudden silence was almost universal. Seen a tweet from a Congressman lately? Even Elon Musk stopped trying to convince people — on Saturday.
- B-Block
- POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Yes, you read right. A South Carolina state representative introduces a bill to institute death penalty for women who get abortions (be pro-life or we’ll kill you). A (dubious) report CNN may fire Chris Licht before Labor Day.
- IN SPORTS: Garrapolo to Raiders; Bauer to Japan; Unknown Nicaraguan WBC star gets big league contract; in memory of Joe Pepitone.
- THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Wall Street Journal blames SVB failure on bank not having enough white guys; Trump talks about education, like he ever had one; and Ron DeSantis can do an interview AND throw a baseball while wearing high heels!
- C-Block
- EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Sloane in California
- THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Sportscaster Gary Lineker beats the BBC. It ends his suspension, he keeps expressing his political opinions. Utter deja vu for me. In 2010 MSNBC suspended me for doing something I had the right to do, vowed to not pay me for months. That was Friday. By Tuesday I was back on the air and they owed me much, much more money than they had owed me on Friday.
I have some notes and links from Episode #154.
Countdown Episode #154: DeSantis: Putting The “Ass” Back In Russian Asset
- A-Block
- (1:15) SPECIAL COMMENT: DeSantis dismissed Ukraine as not being one of our “vital national interests” and exactly six hours later a Russian fighter jet was knocking one of our intelligence drones out of international air space 75 miles off the Ukrainian coach. DeFascist looks like an idiot today, especially since Republican grown-ups pounded the crap out of him all day, and even more so because as a Congressman, the Rube-In-High-Heels demanded offensive and defensive weapons be sent TO Ukraine.
- It’s not just the standard story of a local yokel stepping onto the Republican national stage and promptly plummeting into the orchestra bit. DeSantis’s flip-flop underscores the Republicans’ century-long inability to make up its mind about any of the various incarnations of Russia. The America First DeSantii of 1939 wanted to ignore Russia even after its pact with Hitler. The post-war Republicans turned the actual Soviet threat into spies inside every home fallout shelter. Then Nixon went for detente. Then Reagan joked about beginning the bombing of Russia in five minutes. Then Reagan both destroyed the Soviet Union and “brought peace”. Then Trump sold the GOP to Putin. Now DeSantis doesn’t know which side of which is the Wokey-Fenokee Swamp.
- Meanwhile after a day of utter silence, Russia’s second-favorite American Tucker Carlson actually mentioned Jacob Chansley, the Q Shaman. One mention. Literally. No explanation what happened to his wall-to-wall-coverage of the worst attack on American freedom unwoke non-CRT conspiracy. And coincidence or maybe more: heard anything from ANY Republican besides Gosar about it? Or about this “visit” to the January 6 defendants inside the DC Jail? They’ve gone silent too. But a DC judge hasn’t: he says not only aren’t the J6’ers NOT being mistreated, all their complaints have been addressed by the jailers AND they all have access to tablets to review ... guess what ... January 6th video for their defense. Something’s up and it isn’t Fox’s ratings.
- B-Block
- (16:03) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Biden again notes that caving to Freedom Caucus demands to freeze spending at 2022 levels as their price to vote for a debt ceiling hike means ... de-funding the police. Ohhhhhh are the Republicans pissed. Trump’s indictment is days away and always will be. And Danny Lemoi championed Veterinary Ivermectin for 11 years. Right up to the day it killed him.
- (19:57) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Brian Kilmeade calls Trump “the most disciplined I’ve ever seen him” because he hasn’t dined with any white supremacists lately. The NHL televises a New York Rangers game live in cartoon without calling them the New York POWER Rangers. And Minnesota state senator Steve Drazkowski says there’s no need for free school breakfasts or lunches because HE’S never met a hungry person.
- C-Block
- (25:34) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Hopper, in Poplar Bluff, MO and Saving St. Louis Pets
- (26:56) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Dan Abrams of “News Nation” humiliated himself on his show on the Nick-At-Nite of TV News networks. Which reminded me of the day in 2006 the geniuses at NBC decided to make him General Manager of MSNBC. He was so bad so fast that ONE WEEK LATER they took all the power away from him. It’s a long laugh.
And now for #155, done in the usual style.
Episode #155 of the Countdown podcast is up at iHeart Radio. (The timings are shown below.)
OnMy.FM link (which also links to his previous podcasts)
ivoox also carries his podcast.
Preview:
A-Block
- (1:15) SPECIAL COMMENT: “A Democratic president,” writes Will Saletan (whose brother and I co-wrote a book of poems in 4th grade, “is standing up to Putin. And he’s facing a Republican who would rather attack Mickey Mouse.” But Ron DeSantis’s ignorant, naïve, isolationism is much worse. It opens the door for a full-on Republican campaign pledge (under him or Trump) to betray Ukraine as of 1/20/25. Just last night retired American military officer Douglas MacGregor went on Fox and told Carlson, “The truth is coming out that this war was not started by Russia.”
- What happens on 1/20/25, if one of them is inaugurated as president, and moments later Putin bombs … Poland? Because that just went from farfetched scenario to tangible possibility as the Polish Security Agency discovered Russian agents installing hidden cameras along the Polish railroad lines on which Western ammunition and weapons are transported to Kiev. If Putin has already game-planned an attack on NATO, we have to wonder: Would Trump or DeSantis be so committed to the anti-Ukraine, pro-Putin stance that THEIR United States would wind up permitting or even supporting a Russian war against NATO?
- It is a long, interwoven saga of DeSantis and Fox and Trump and Georgia 2020 and Marjorie Taylor Greene disclosing classified information at the Mexican border and how you won't hear this on Fox — or on CNN for that matter, where David Zaslav publicly recommitted to Chris Licht (who when we were at MSNBC together we all thought used to eat paste) in a meeting with 600 CNN Managers (CNN? 600 Managers? There's your problem right there). The New CNN’s recommitment to useless, pointless, banal stenography was brilliantly characterized by Dylan Byers of Puck: “Nearly one year in, it’s clear that Zaslav still believes in his vision for CNN as a nonpartisan, broadcast-style news digest, and still believes that Licht is his Captain Ahab.”
- Captain … AHAB?
- Wait, doesn’t Moby-Dick (or is it Moby-Licht) end with mass death?
- CALL ME ISHMAEL. MY BOAT SANK. THE END.
B-Block
- (19:37) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Shenanigan and Banshee, 14-week old shep/husky puppies in Devore, CA.
- (20:58) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: My career at the RKO Radio Network, where my boss was Charley Steiner, and where he once tasked me with finding out when and where a secret meeting between Yankees’ owner George Steinbrenner and Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn would be held. And after I gave up and went to get some pizza, I literally RAN INTO STEINBRENNER ON THE STREET YELLING OUT THE DETAILS OF THE MEETING.
C-Block [a rerun]
- (45:10) MORE THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: A little under the weather today so let me re-tell the adventures of another ‘80s job, which I waited 10 months to be able to start, and which lasted only half that long. Why almost nobody remembers me as “Keith Olbermann, SportsCenter 5, Boston”.
That’s all the damage for now. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.