BULLETIN: ALITO CONFIRMS 'STOP THE STEAL' FLAG SCANDAL; LIES ANEW ABOUT IT - 5.17.24

is a bulletin edition of the Countdown podcast. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has not only now confirmed that the upside down American flag flown in front of his home three days before President Biden's inauguration was meant to support the Trump Stop the Steel plot, but in blaming his wife and his neighbors for it, Alito has also blatantly and transparently lied in his excuse quote, I spoke directly with Justice Alito about the flag story in the New

York Times, posts Shannon Bream, a host on Fox News. In addition to what's in the story, he told me a neighbor on their street had a quote F Trump sign that was within fifty feet of where children await the school bus in January twe twenty one. That's the lie. Local schools City of Alexandria, Virginia and Fairfax County, Virginia had resumed remote learning a month earlier. There were no

school buses in January twenty twenty one. There were no kids waiting at bus stops waiting for the school buses that never were there. Alito seems to have forgotten that anybody could check this. Continuing from Shannon Breem, Alito confronted the neighbor who had the sign so offensive to school kids who weren't there waiting for buses that weren't coming. Quote. According to Justice Alito, things escalated and the neighbor put up a sign personally addressing Missus Alito and blaming her

for the January sixth attacks. Justice Alito says he and his wife were walking in the neighborhood and there were words between Missus Alito and a mail at the home with the sign. Unquote. Again, this sign could not have been seen by any kids at any bus stop. Quote Alito says, the man engaged in vulgar language quote, including the C word unquote. Following that exchange, Missus Alito was distraught and hung the flag upside down quote for a

short time unquote. Justice Alito says some neighbors on his street are very political and acknowledges it was a very heated time in January twenty twenty one. End quote Shannon Bream. Except that last contention from Alito seems also to be a lie or at best some classic paranoia. CNN reporter Holmes librand went gumshoe quoting him. I spoke with some of Justice Alito's neighbors who said they remember the American flag being flown upside down at his home, but did

not recall any neighborhood drama surrounding it. Each neighbor I spoke with reiterated multiple times how kind and well liked the Alitos are. Granting that Alito has a hair trigger for any criticism about anything, and has constructed for himself a world in which his religion is under assault in this country, and that Missus Martha Ann Alito has a widespread reputation for exaggerated personal behavior, and that they could have interpreted the tone behind the word hello as an

indicator of a neighbor being quote very political. The state of political discourse in Alexandria Virginia obscures a larger issue about Alito and how politically corrupt he had become by this point, and what this flag represented. Glenn Thrush of The New York Times hit that nail on the head to quote him. This appears to be a confirmation that won the Jodie Canter story in The New York Times

is accurate. Two he had a general awareness that an upside down flag was an emblem of Trump's rejection of a free and fair un quote. Thrush does not note it, but Alito's comments to Fox also contradict his response when The New York Times broke the original story quoting him, quoting them quoting him, I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag, just as Alito said in an emailed statement to The Times, it was briefly placed by Missus Alito in response to a neighbor's use of

objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs. Alito had no involvement whatsoever, he says there in the flying of the flag when contacted by The Times on Wednesday or Thursday.

But by Friday he suddenly had an involved and intricate story of an increasingly bitter and intense series of confrontations with his neighbors, including his wife, becoming quote distraught, including exact language used, including himself, and especially this vivid and enraging detail about the flow with the F word being visible to neighborhood children at the school bus stop that

had not been used in at least a month. There were not any children at that bus stop for at least a month, as Congressional aid Aaron Fritchner was the first to note, citing Washington Post headlines from that time, there were no school buses in much of December twenty twenty and all of January twenty twenty one in that neighborhood. On November twenty third, twenty twenty, Alexandria, Virginia City Schools announced they would be going back to remote learning because

of COVID surges. On December fourteenth, twenty twenty, Fairfax and other county schools the only others that would have had school buses in the area near the Alitos Alexandria home, The counties announced they would also close the school buildings. Fairfax classrooms did not reopen until February fifteenth, twenty twenty one, Alexandria's a few days earlier. Alito's truthfulness in claiming his American flag was flown upside down for a short time

is also in serious doubt. A photograph showing it is timestamped January seventeenth. The Times has posted it at its website. As The Times noted in an email from January eighteenth, twenty twenty one, reviewed by The Times. A neighbor wrote to a relative that the flag had been upside down for several days at that point. When did it get that way? January sixteenth, fifteenth, fourteenth? Should we go all

the way back to January sixth? Also lost in Alito's apparent dissembling about the granular details of his stop the steel protest is the idea that whoever hung that flag upside down, or how many ever days or weeks it hung that way, How on earth a man who has now been on the Supreme Court for eighteen years could have possibly thought that any form of in public political protest hanging outside his own home was acceptable conduct for

a Supreme Court justice. That remains unanswered. Ledo now tells Fox News this entire backstory of how the flag got there, and not once does he address when it finally dawned on him that it was utterly inappropriate and that it damaged the neutrality and legitimacy not just of his own tenure on the Court, but of the Supreme Court itself and of the entirety of the American judicial system. Alito was also on the US Court of Appeals for sixteen years.

He probably can still remember that, because ethical guidelines actually

applied to justices on that court. Had he or his wife, or just some neighborhood prankster or perhaps a ghost hung a political protest flag outside his house in the time between an attempted coup and the inauguration of the legitimate president, not only would he have come under formal review for that, but all of his court's decisions, even remotely connected to politics or protests or candidates, would have come under formal

review and possibly have been overturned. Clearly, at some point, Justice Alito must have determined, Hey, this is a mistake. Why didn't he do it earlier? There is also a real reason to investigate this particular one of the many disqualifying incidents involving Sam Alito. The exact date when his American flag at his home was turned upside down to represent the stop the Steel movement turned upside down by him or his wife or the goddamned wind. The exact

date is vital information. Several years ago, the then Trump Kraken lawyer turned Plea deal taker, Sidney Powell, revealed that the backup plan if Mike Pence did not illegally overturn the election and the mob did not stop the certification. On January sixth, was to get a Supreme Court justice to stop the certification for them. Guess which one.

count Act Electoral College Act. So that was the main point, and Nancy Pelosi had finagled to file an amicas brief in it. There'd been inside goings on in Congress whereby I believe it was Steve Scale and McCarthy kept her from being an actual party. She wanted to work her way into the case as a party, but somehow politically

that didn't happen. So she got noticed when we made her filing because she wanted to file on amigas brief or head filed an amigas breef and then you know, everything for a clues, and she had to really speed up reconvening Congress to get the vote going before Justice Alito might have issued an injunction to stop it all, which is what should have.

from his home. That is the core of this extraordinarily important story that got less attention from the media than did the high school graduation of Trump's son, whose name he barely remembers. And by the way, Sidney Powell, the word is jibe jibe jive. What you said is what your logical rationalizations of treason are. Lastly, pathetically and predictably, the Democratic response to Alito and stop the steal has

been terrified and mouse like. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin says that this is proof that Congress needs to pass ethics reform for the Supreme Court. Nothing about forcing Alito off the court, or hearings or sanctions or getting the Department of Justice involved, just a milk toast request that Alito recuse himself from upcoming Trump related decisions about January sixth cases and this farcical, fabricated presidential immunity that

could overturn the democracy itself. The Democrats should be calling for Alito's immediate resignation or a boycott of the Supreme Court, or at least hearings into this. Instead, they are hoping that John Roberts does something. John Roberts would not be willing to take Martha and Alito's flag away from her.

What would the Republicans be doing if to merge two current Supreme Court scandals involving them and their wives, If, say, Justice Katanji Brown Jackson had hung an Antifa related flag or sign from her home for several days and taken cash and gifts directly from George Soros. Chairman Durbin needs to think about the end answer to that question, or somebody needs to think about it for him, and then

he should do that thing. The rest of this edition of Countdown is a repeat of Friday's regular edition, including James Thurber's short story how to Relax while Broadcasting, and next a translation of the amazingly self unaware mission statement issued by the amazingly self unaware Chris Solissa. If you have heard this previously and you hit stop now, I will not take offense post scripts to the news, some headlines, some updates, some stark, some predictions. Dateline, Washington, d of C.

That's just in. Chris Solissa has issued a mission statement. No no, no, mission, not emission. I don't know how many times I've talked about Chris Solisza, who used to be when he worked for the Washington Post, a semi regular on Countdown on MSNBC, and then he developed an unfortunate habit of both sidesing everything except stuff that didn't really matter. No one reporter is responsible for but her emails.

The obsession with the story, which we think of is twenty sixteen, but actually started in twenty fifteen and went on for more than a year. That moment of obsession, which may yet be the official start of the day that American democracy caught its fatal illness. That doesn't owe to one guy being a bad reporter, just not understanding what it was he was supposed to do or how

he was supposed to evaluate truth from falsehood. Simply because both of those things was said by people wearing tie didn't mean you had to give equal balance to them. It owes in a larger sense to a combination of decreasing training and decreasing intelligence among reporters, because I don't know how many more good reporters there are now than there were in nineteen seventy, but the number of outlets that can give them prominence is about ten times as large.

For all of the contractions in the news industry, and there have been so many, so many great news organizations that have gone right out the window and under the bus and into the toilet and all the other cliches you want to use for everyone that's gone out of business. There's been one hundred new ones and they've all been crap, but they do give jobs or at least platforms to people, and one of them was Chris Silizza. And in addition to sort of overall stupidity in the news media that's

gradually taken over in the last fifty years. The second part is fomo fear of missing out on somebody else's story. If you look at someone else's newspaper, newscasts, podcasts, twitter feed and there's something on there that you have not emphasized, and they have and they're all excited about it, your instant reaction is to get excited about it too. I look at it and go, this is not interesting. Sorry,

that's unfortunately not what most of them do. And when they write the history, if after butt her emails there is any history, and anybody is allowed to write it, the book that comes out about but her emails may very well have Chrys Sillizz's picture on it. Just in the middle six months of the year twenty fifteen, just in those six months, he wrote fifty different pieces and blog entries and articles for The Washington Post on her emails,

Hillary Clinton's emails and the headlines. And again he may or may not have composed These blog posts are different than newspaper articles. You can always depend on the idea that a newspaper article headline was not written by the person who wrote the article, but that's not necessarily true on a blog post. Every blog post I ever wrote I wrote my own headlines, and these were just some of the headlines in that segment that he did for The Washington Post called the Fix Between March and I

guess September of twenty fifteen, you ready. March third, The Fix, Hillary Clinton's private email address at State reinforces everything people don't like about her. March fourth, The Hillary Clinton email story just keeps getting worse for her. August twelfth, This email story just keeps getting worse for Hillary Clinton. And you'll notice that's the same thing he said the previous time, only with the words in different order. Then let's see

this is August ninth. Hillary Clinton's email problem isn't going away. August eleventh, Hillary clinton email issue is not going away anytime soon. September fourteenth, Hillary Clinton's email issues have become a massive political problem. July thirtieth, Hillary Clinton as honest and trustworthy as Donald Trump. April twenty eighth, Hillary Clinton has answered seven questions as a candidate. Here are seven

more she should answer. But of course I'm only scratching the surface here because it's a podcast, and the amount of time I have available to me is infinity. It's kind of majestic. When you read the headlines together like that, when you look at the big picture, It's like that scene in the movie The Right Stuff about the founding of the American space program where they set up and lift off trial rocket after trial rocket, and they all collapse.

Some of them get like three feet off the pad and then implode upon themselves, and they show the reflections of everything going up in flames, and the eyeglasses of the scientists behind it, and Verner von Brown looks very unhappy, and machine after machine blows up in the air on the launch pad while they're carrying it out, while they're

drawing it, the drawing blows up. It's like that looking at those emails, especially ones like the Hillary Clinton email story just keeps getting worse for her, followed by this email story just keeps getting worse for Hillary Clinton, followed by Hillary Clinton's email problem isn't going away anyway. The man who was behind all that, Chris Salizza, who eventually left the Washington Post to go to work for CNN only did he get fired there and has been independent

ever since, has now issued a mission statement. And this is the crux of what I want to talk about here. He wrote this apparently about a week ago. I only saw it yesterday, so it's news to me because this Chris Sili is a mission statement story isn't going away. I watched Jerry McGuire over the weekend. That's another movie. And I know I make too many movie references, but at least the ones that I refer to don't suck. I refer to the right stuff. He's watching Jerry McGuire

over the weekend with my wife and kids. It's a little cheesier than I remember. Okay, a lot cheesier, something that's often said about Chris's work. But one thing stuck with me. Jerry's mission statement, a vision of what he wanted to do and why, how he could be different and better. So I wrote my own on journalism. Now, before you say this must be fiction, let me read

it to you. Bullet point. I will hold politicians to account when they lie, when they obfuscate, or when they try to play too cute with their words or their actions. I will be tough but fair on Donald Trump. I will be tough but fair on Joe Biden. I will not conclude that something is good solely because Democrats do it, or something is bad solely because Republicans do it, or vice versa. I will never write things for clicks or to add subscribers who want red meat thrown at them.

I will always show my work and how I got to my conclusions. I will admit when I got it wrong and explain how and why it happened. I will never talk down to you or assume I know better. I will always work to foster kindness and civility in our community. No, no, no, no, no, None of this is meant ironically anyway. That's the short version. Well, I've gotten a hold of the long version. It has all that, and then it goes on to say I will not

hold politicians to account when they lie. I will not be tough or fair with Donald Trump, be tough for fair with Joe Biden. I will conclude that something is good solely because Democrats do it. I will always write things for clicks. I will never admit when I got it wrong. I will always talk down to you and assume I know better. You see what I did there?

He's both scientists, So the first half of his mission statement would consist of all those noble statements, but my satirical second half in that he would contradict all those noble statements. See what I did there. This caused me to text a couple of my old MSNBC colleagues with a variation of this basic message. Remind me why we used to book this guy on the show? Did he drive himself into the office? Did he bring the crew

food instead? I was reminded that the stuff from I remember in two thousand and six, seven eight, As I said here once when we used to have real trouble getting guests on MSNBC, Chrystalizza was already. He's always ready to go. Probably brought food to the crew. It wasn't just then or with the email stuff. It's keeping gun in pace to this day. I was reminded by somebody that during the Super Bowl, remember the RFK Junior ad where they stole his uncle's nineteen sixty presidential campaign ad

word for word and had him voice it. Oh the class. It sounds like a frog that's been kidnapped and being held for ransom. They spent fifteen million dollars on it. But of course he had nothing to do with it. It was done by an outside group. There was no coordination. He put it at the head of his Twitter feed. He pinned it, so the FCC got involved or FEC

got involved, and the family, the Kennedys denounced him. Right after it aired during the Super Bowl, somebody had tweeted the Robert F. Kennedy Junior ad was brilliant, and Chris Salizzis saw that about this commercial that the world would condemn within minutes, and he got there first and retweeted it and added quote, totally agree Hillary Clinton as honest and trustworthy as Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton has answered seven questions as a candidate. Here are seven more she should answer.

There is nothing out there that Chris Siliza cannot get wrong or get right and then correct himself, so he remains wrong, or get wrong and right, or get right and then correct it and then correct the correction, so he winds up being wrong seventy five percent of the time. He insisted that the models said Trump had not even the slightest chance of reelection. He wrote this at the end of September twenty twenty. The models must have been

Zulander and Giselle Bunchin. He predicted a Republican red wave weeks before the twenty twenty two mid terms. He said that when she would not put Jim Jordan and Jim Banks on it. Nancy Pelosi, let me get the exact quote. Doomed the already tiny chances of the January sixth committee

actually mattering. And then the first time we mentioned him here in this podcast November of twenty twenty two, the House Majority whip Jim Clyburn, south Carolina history degree from South Carolina State history teacher in high school, said on Fox the facts are very clear. I've studied history all of my life. I've taught history, and I'm telling you what I see here are parallels to what the history was in this world back in the nineteen thirties, in

Germany and in Italy. And Chris Saliza knew better than Jim Clyburn because Christalia is a very serious political reporter. I mean, look at all the extensive coverage he did of the Hillary Clinton email story and how decisive that was in the election. That proves he was right right. Also, he hosts Political Trivia Night, and he went to Georgetown.

Christaliza wrote after Jim Cliburn said, Hey, this looks like Nazi Germany, like in nineteen thirty two, So pre Nazi Germany or Italy before Mussolini started wearing the uniform and killing people. Krystalizer wrote less than a year and a half ago. I guess about a year and a half ago. Rule number one of politics goes like this, don't compare

anything to Nazi Germany. Just don't. Before we go any further, it's worth voting here that comparing anything to the Nazi regime, which led to the systemic murder of more than six million Jews, is a mistake. It just is. There is nothing in our current moment that suggests we are anywhere close to that. Well, of course, the whole point of what Cliburn was saying was he was not comparing Hitler to the current moment of November twenty twenty two. He

was comparing it to our immediate future. He was comparing the Hitler of nineteen thirty to our America of twenty twenty two, and thus of twenty twenty four, what is ahead for us? What I see here are parallels to what the history was in this world back in the nineteen thirties in Germany. In Italy, he didn't mention the Nazis. Chris Eliza did then. At about the same time, there was this tweet that went out, America needs a total cleansing only Trump can do with the help of true patriots.

Herschel Walker sent that. It was in response to the nutjob lawyer Lynn Wood, who had tweeted calling for the execution of Mike Pants by a firing squad in November twenty twenty two. The response for Chrystalizit of that was the election deniers like Herschel total cleansing of America Walker quote, represent a serious threat to our way of life. After all, if we can't accept that our leaders were fairly elected and have faith in the system, it's very hard to

imagine how we can expect anyone to effectively govern. That's see, that's what would be wrong with a fascist coup to overturn democratic election and install a loser as winner and do heaven knows what to the actual elected president. That's the problem there. It would interfere with governance. The lines at the Department of Motor Vehicles would quadruple if there were a civil war going on or a coup, or if there were tanks rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue and Chris

Salissa was at the DMZ. Imagine the inconvenience for Americans trying to report for jury duty. Now, I'm not going to say ignored the idea that there might be a fascist coup. He did address this another fascist coup, which is bad. Exclamation point very bad. See. You know it's more important because he used it very on the second reference. But it's also remembering that democracy held in twenty twenty even while it was under active assault from Donald Trump

and his minions. Again, the man who helped bring you but her emails is saying, what do you mean attempted murder? He's not dead, is he? Quote. We absolutely should be vigilant about the potential rise of authoritarian politicians who would wipe out things like the rule of law to further

their own political ambitions. But let's stop making the Nazi Germany comparisons for all of our sakes, politicians who would wipe out things like the rule of law, because there's lots of other things they could do that would have as much damage as wiping out the rule of law. Again, tanks blocking Chris's way into the DMV, that would really

be a tragedy. I mean, what would happen? What would happen if he was going back to the world's only remaining blockbuster with that copy of Jerry Maguire that he'd watched with his wife and kids and found it a little bit cornerer. What if he was trying to return it and they were cooping out there in the street and he couldn't return the VHS. I mean, it's probably

the only VHS copy. What if it got damaged. What if they shot up his car and you know, nobody was hurt, but the VHS copy, the videotape of Jerry maguire were the last living copy of Jerry McGuire. I mean, isn't anybody going to think of Tom Cruise? Won't somebody think about Tom Cruise's work gone forever because of this coup? I mean, this is what we have to worry about, politicians who would wipe out things like the last copy of Jerry McGuire. But let's stop making the Nazi Germany

comparison for all of our sakes. Even though Trump keeps quoting Hitler, even though Trump kept a copy of Hitler's speeches by his bed. The next day, after Solisa wrote that Elon Musk told his one hundred and fifteen million followers to vote Republican and then responded to a quote that was falsely attributed to Voltaire that was actually spoken by an American neo Nazi pedophile, And the day after that, Musk tweeted a photo of a Nazi soldier from nineteen

forty Chris Solissa Mission statement. Hillary Clinton finally apologizes for her private email server. What took so long? September eighth, twenty fifteen. Hillary Clinton's apology interview annotated September ninth, twenty fifteen. Hillary Clinton's worst week in Washington August twenty first, twenty fifteen. Now you know what the whole fifty two fifty six sixty weeks stretch from about that headline through November of

twenty sixteen. Those are all tied for Hillary Clinton's worst week in Washington, and in fact, those are all tied for to that point America's worst week in Washington, and people like chrystal As are responsible for it, and never in their lives will they ever understand this. If you could actually claim that your mission statement should include I will never write things for clicks or to add subscribers

who want red meat thrown at them. I will always show my work and how I got to my conclusions. I will admit when I got it wrong and explain how and why it happened. Chrystal is a literally nine years after he was as wrong as anybody in American journalism could be wrong. Doesn't he even know that this is where he was wrong and will not admit that he got it wrong and cannot explain how and why it happened because he doesn't believe he got it wrong. I will never talk down to you or assume I

know better. Except for these fifty articles about Hillary Clinton's emails in just that six month period, that's not even the whole list. So reading all this, I was thinking about asking Chrys Saliza for a comment to put in this podcast about how these stories Hillary Culton finally apologizes for a private email server, what took so long? And the upcoming looking back at the ten year anniversary of Hillary Clinton's email servers, my best fifty seven articles on

Hillary clinton emails. I thought, you know, I could ask him about that. I was thinking of sending him an email. What do you think? Here? The number one story on the Countdown and it's Friday and the weekend edition, so that means a little more. James Thurber for you. James

Thurber had many full time jobs. He was a street reporter for the Columbus Dispatch and later the New York Post, and he was an editor of The New Yorker long before he was a writer or cartoonist there, and people kept trying to make him into a radio star, leading to a short story which is understandably one of my favorites. A lot of it speaks of broadcasting in another world and of course another century. But it is amazing how much of what you will hear now is still true today.

From the May fifth, nineteen thirty four edition of The New Yorker, How to Relax while Broadcasting by James Thurber. The evening I went up to the studios for my first radio broadcast. I got off by mistake, at the sixteenth floor instead of the seventeenth. I decided not to wait for the elevator, but just run up the stairs to the seventeenth floor, because elevators in broadcasting buildings are

always crowded with small Italian musicians carrying cellos. And furthermore, when the upsign above the elevators in these buildings lights, the operator of the car that stops where he usually says down, and before you can think, you find yourself on the first floor again, without any way of getting back up, because you surrendered your pass to the man at the desk in the lobby the first time you

went up. I walked to a door on the sixteenth floor, marked stairs, and stepped out into a cold, dark staircase shaft and walked up one flight. I found that the door on that floor wouldn't open. It was after seven o'clock in the evening and the door had been officially locked. I hurried back down to the sixteenth floor and discovered that the door there had locked behind me too. I began to beat on it and kick it from far off. A faint voice came to me, finally saying, cut that out.

The only thing to do was walk down fifteen flights to the main floor, which I did, but the door out into the lobby was also locked, and nobody answered my screams and poundings. Screaming and pounding is not radio, as the broadcasting people say. I went down into the basement, which was dark and gloomy, and hunted for the elevator shaft. I found it, but there was no bell to push, so I sat on an old chair until the car came down. The operator was surprised to see me and

asked me for my pass. I told him I didn't have a pass. He thought awhile, and then asked if mister Hayman knew I was down there. I said I didn't think so. He was pretty much alarmed by that, but he took me up to the seventeenth floor after warning me never to come down to the basement again without a pass. There was nobody on the seventeenth floor who understood my case, although the people I talked to

were patient and courteous. They said the seventeenth floor was entirely given over to the business department and had no studios or microphones. What I probably wanted was the twenty seventh floor. Up there, I found some people I had met before, but they were pretty busy and seemed to think it was the wrong night. I sat down in a chair, and presently a man came up to me and asked me if I was mister Ttherer. I said

I wasn't sure, and he said to follow him. I was shown into an office where there were some officials I knew and some friends of mine. One of the officials was denying a story somebody had been telling about a man who fell dead in front of the microphone. It seems he had merely had a stroke. In a little while, I was led in a solemn march to a small and lonely studio, heavily raped and silent. I took out a cigarette, but saw a sign saying no smoking,

so I put the cigarette away again. Some men in the glass in control room began to look at me. I could see their lips move, but I couldn't hear anything. A man tiptoed into the room where I was and shook hands with me, and tiptoed out again. He never came back. I walked over to a regular microphone, such as I had talked over once or twice before and had got used to. But somebody led me away from that said I was to talk over a table microphone

because it would help me to relax. This turned out to be a table about the size of a card table with a microphone set innocently in its center, face up, more or less like an ash tray. It studied simplicity caused me to tighten up slightly, and I mentioned this to a man be it your ease, he said. I stood over the table, asped its edges firmly, and leaned

down toward the microphone. Someone grasped me. No, no, he said, you just sit down at the table, as if you were sitting in a chair at any table and talk. I sat down, trying to remember how I sit in a chair at a table, especially at a card table at which nobody else is sitting. Relax, said someone with a note of command. I slumped back in the chair and placed on the table the papers I was going to use, and began fussing with them. Sh. Somebody hissed,

don't rustle them. This is a very highly sensitized mic which picks up every slightest sound. It would sound like a waterfall sh if you rustled them. I began to drum my fingers on the tabletop, but a courteous official put his hand on mine and stop that tapping would sound like cavalry crossing a bridge to your listeners, he explained, Just take it easy. I leaned back in my chair and adjusted my tie, doubts, giving the effect of someone trying to take a leather belt away from a bulldog.

In a moment, an announcer came in and said we were all ready to go. Okay, I said, standing up, let's get out. He smiled with calm assurance and said no. He meant that we were about to start the program. Everybody but him tiptoed out of the room. I sat down at the table again. I could see them all watching me from the control room. Somebody in there raised his hand sharply and let it drop sharply. I expected to hear the faint hiss of lethal gas escaping into

the chamber, but instead the announcer started to talk. I creaked nervously in the chair at this, and the listeners heard, along with his calm announcement, the sound of a buckboard falling over a cliff. Finally, he pointed a finger at me. I sat bolt up and began to talk to the ash tray. When it was all over, everybody tiptoed whisperingly into the room and congratulated me on being only five seconds too slow. Not bad for a beginner. The record

is one five hundredth of a second. I got up and started it out of the room, but a man followed me and took me by the arm. Where are you going? He asked, let's all go out and get a drink. I said, But you haven't got time, he said, All this has just been the rehearsal. I must have tightened up horribly at that, for he said, soothingly, take it easy. You got plenty of time to relax in he looked at his wristwatch. You got four minutes how to relax While broadcasting by James Thurber. I've done all

the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Countdown. Musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillips Schanel arranged, produced, and performed most of our music. Mister Ray was on guitars, bass and drums, and mister Shanelle handled the orchestration and the keyboards, and it was produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions, 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. ESPN ESPN. How could you misspell ESPN or mispronounce it? It's spelled very similarly to the way it sounds. ESPN ESPN our satirical and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Fauss, the best baseball stadium organist ever. At our announcer today was my friend Nancy Faust. Everything

else pretty much my fault as usual. That's countdown for this the one hundred and seventy third day until the twenty twenty four presidential election, and twenty eighth day since Dictator Jay Trump's first attempt at coup against the democratically elected government of the United States. Use the legal system, use the mental health system, use presidential immunity if the Supreme Court makes it up. Use the not regularly given elector objection option to stop him from doing it again

while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is Tuesday. The throat may be on the mend, the sinus infection may be on the run. Hopefully I'll be at seventy five percent by then. Whenever the next one is till the next one, I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and what about her emails? 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.