HAS JACK SMITH FOUND A WAY AROUND IMMUNITY? - 9.27.24

you enjoyed Jack Smith Day. The nearly two hundred pages worth of evidence in the revised case of the United States of America Versus Disorderly Jay Trump submitted before the five pm deadline and under seal evidently not unsealed last night by Judge Tanya Chutkin, and no indication as to when it will be unsealed or when parts of it will be unsealed. On the other hand, Trump, as always

confesses more than he convinces whenever he's scared. Early yesterday morning, he posted some weird even for him that I think gives us in broad strokes at least what he has heard about where Smith is going henceforth. The answer, I think is this Smith is still going virtually everywhere he was going before the Supreme Court immunity decision. Smith may

have found some way around that Supreme Court ruling. I mean, listen to the newest of Trump's three hundred and thirty seven different explanations for what happened on January sixth, quoting shocking breaking news as exposed by John Solomon and blah blah blah blah and the great work of Congressman Barry

Loudermilk and Republicans on the House Oversight Committee. The Deep State chose to disregard my direct authorization of at least ten thousand National Guard troops to ensure that Washington, DC was safe and secure on January sixth, twenty twenty one. These Deep State subversives disobeyed the President's directives, which would have prevented any unrest that day. January sixth, as it is known, would never have taken place. So to Barry louder Milk, your friendly Capitol Hill tour guide is too

inscrutable even for me to try to figure out. But Trump has brought back his most frequently used lie about January sixth, which is that he offered troops but Nancy Pelosi turned them down. And though he left Nancy Pelosi out of that post, I just read, he did bring her up yesterday in the afternoon in remarks he made around the corner from me, here there goes the neighborhood again. In Trump's reptile brain. He must be working some kind of Everything I did that day was official, and everybody

who responded to it was official. But they betrayed me, and they trade the official chain of command, and therefore I am immune from prosecution for everything. That's what I'm seeing here, and that would dubtail neatly into something one of Trump's todys said on CNBC yesterday, Joe Kernan, the guy with the worst two pay on the network. It's

so bad. It looks like he bought one two pay and thought it looked good, so much so that he bought a second one and put it on top of the first one, and he wears them both at the same time. Listen to this and see if it doesn't line up with the idea that the whole day was somebody else's fault. Quoting Joe Kernan in the heat of that moment, at that point, I think he really did believe that it the election had been stolen. At that point, I don't know if he believes it anymore. Well, Joe,

that's all right. Then, in the heat of the moment, when I smashed through the giant, forty foot wide plate glass window in the front of J. C. Pennies. I really did believe that that was my washer dryer combo in there. So Trump may be saying everything I did on January sixth and before was official, and all the charges against me must be dismissed. And why would he do that? He might do that because Smith may have found some way to say, no, guess what, none of

it is official. And again I'm way out on a limb here. But the means to that end none of this is official. He is immune from none of it. The means to that end could be to start your case by proving that long before the insurrection started it on January sixth, and long before the Christmas time meetings, and long before the frivolous lawsuits started in November and December, Trump knew damned well he had lost, and that none of his actions were as president, that all of his

actions were as private citizen and politician. And if Smith can prove that the Supreme Court's corrupt ruling on presidential immunity means nothing, we'll see briefly some new polls national all likely voters yesterday, Harris fifty Trump forty six, Big village. That's four points Harris fifty three Trump forty seven. Outward Intelligence polling, that's six points Harris fifty two to Trump

forty five. Echelon Insights that's seven points. One non swing state poll Maryland, where it's sixty three point thirty one Harris, and it's two Democrats for every Republican. This is mentioned only because it's a Washington Post poll and it includes the Senate run with the popular Republican former Governor Larry Hogan to their hopes of taking the Senate back, and he's trailing the Democrat Angela also Brooks fifty one to

forty so that's also Brooks by eleven over also ran. Meanwhile, in the most shocking development in the history of the governance of the City of New York since at least Wednesday, Mayor Eric Adams has been indicted on charges of acting as a foreign agent for the government of the Turkish dictator Erdwan, of getting the new Turkish embassy here opened before fire inspections had been completed, and for basically ending his career for something like one hundred and forty thousand

dollars over eight years, mostly in flight upgrades and Kushier hotel rooms. So like seventeen thousand dollars a year, plus foreign contributions to his campaign for mayor that were illegally washed through fake don't owns, and which in turn entitled him to matching public funds for his campaign, maybe as much as ten million dollars. He didn't get ten million dollars his campaign did. Don't blame me, I voted for the garbage commissioner. Lady Adam says he is not resigning.

But if you would like your I'm not resigning news conference to get off to the worst possible start, you do what he did. You go out and stand in front of the mayor's official residence, Gracie Mansion. And that's when you discover that your opponents have brought a bullhorn, and the bullhorn is louder than your own portable public address system. Can you hear me? Now? This is serious stuff. All evidence to the contrary. I mean it is small scale.

Clarence Thomas here and frankly, if Adams were smart, he would announce he's joining the Republican Party by Monday. Harlan Crow and Leonard Leo would have built a statue to him. And given that, symbolically Adams had to fight his way onto the street through the crowds of people fired from or quitting his administration over the last month. It is hard to believe he can remain in office. I mean, he's barely in office now as it is. But the

rest of this, this is freaking hilarious. This is the best comedy material in New York this week, as this is the dumbest mayor of New York in my lifetime. This has to be the dumbest indictment of any politician in my lifetime. The Turks allegedly decided that this guy Adams was exactly the right New York City politician to invest in back when he was Borough president of Brooklyn.

I'm quoting from the indictment. During their meeting, Adams and the promoter solicited campaign contributions from Businessman three, who, as a Turkish national, could not lawfully contribute to any US campaign. During the meeting, Businessman three agreed to contribute fifty thousand dollars or more to the twenty twenty one campaign, believing that Adams might one day be the president of the

United States and hoping to gain influence with Adams. This is like going into a fantasy Baseball draft with the first pick overall and saying, you know who I want? I want the backup catcher on the Chicago White Sox. He's gonna break all the records. They've already lost one hundred and twenty games. Right wait, it gets worse. Quote. The Adams staffer also agreed to speak with FBI agents and falsely denied the criminal conduct of herself and Adams,

among others. At one point during her voluntary interview, the Adams staffer excused herself to a bathroom and while there deleted the encrypted messaging applications she had used to communicate with Adams, the promoter, the Turkish official, the airline manager, and others. Unquote and oh we are far from done. Quote. On November six, twenty twenty three, FBI agents executed a search warrant for the electronic devices used by Eric Adams.

Although Adams was carrying several electronic devices, including two cell phones, he was not carrying his personal cell phone, which is the device he used to communicate about the conduct described in this indictment. When Adams produced his personal cell phone the next day in response to a subpoena, it was locked such that the device required a password to open.

Adams claimed that after he learned about the investigations into his conduct, he changed the password on November fifth, twenty twenty four, and increase the complexity of his password from four digits to six. Obviously there's a typo in there. It's November fifth, twenty twenty three. But get that part again. He increased the complexity of his passwords from four ward

digits to six. Adams had done this, he claimed to prevent members of his staff from inadvertently or intentionally deleting the contents of his phone, because, according to Adams, he wished to preserve the contents of his phone due to the investigation. But Adams further claimed he had forgotten the password he had just said, and thus was unable to provide the FBI with a password that would unlock the phone. You see that meme of the guy tapping his head

to show how smart he is, don't you? Right now? The Adams premise here of courses, that he is Mayor of New York City not because he was elected, but because God has put him there. I wish I were exaggerating. I am not. Some of his past quotes quote I thank God I'm the mayor right now. And the famous nonsense elliptical statement quote, there is no way God created me for this moment. If he did not believe this was my moment, you could read that sentence backwards and

it would make just as much sense. None. And this Messiah complex is not limited to his dishonor his niece who says she's an actress or a dancer or a singer or something. Danielle Adams Elias is just as nuts as he is.

this man because he was the man for the job. So, like I say every time, if you have a problem, taking up with Jesus, because we don't care, and that man will continue to do what the Lord told him to do. So y'all gonna relax on my uncle, because you could never stay in your purpose and relax. Take a seat.

save New York from itself? January twenty twenty two, The Wall Street Journal printed is Mansion Adams the future of the Democratic Party Wonderland. Joe Biden may have become more progressive, but Joe Manchin and Eric Adams appear to believe the Democratic Party's future lies elsewhere. Yeah, evidently in Turkey. Am I right? Brett Stevens New York Times July twentieth, twenty twenty one, opinion, Eric Adams is going to save New York and the best January three, twenty twenty two. Nate Silver,

It's probably foolish, all right. You should have just deleted it at that point if you start something with. It's probably foolish. It's probably foolish. It's probably foolish. Nate wrote to think an NYC. Mayer will successfully translate into being a national political figure. But I still think Eric Adams would be in my top five for who will be the next Democratic presidential nominee after Joe Biden. He's going to be good at getting media attention, you bet your

ass is. And he has a chance of carving out a niche that's different from what other Democrats are offering. I didn't know he was from Turkey. That's a niche. Okay, That's a potentially powerful combination given how primaries are conducted nowadays. Also, the competition isn't great. Twenty twenty two, Nate goes on to specifically insist that Eric Adams was a better bet to succeed Joe Biden than was Kamala Harris, who had

already been vice president for a year. And if you think this is over the support Democrats who are actually corrupt Republicans campaign, guess who wrote the lead story yesterday analyzing the charges against Adams for the amazingly fictional fascist Murdoch propaganda rag. Here The New York Post. It was written by Jonathan Effing Turley and his lead and his conclusion there may be less here than meets the eye. I'm telling you. I'm telling you he's going to try

to stay on as mayor as a Republican. You watch. Yeah, I know the odds are long, and I just quoted Nate Silver and you should never make a prediction after Nate Silver has just proved you should never make predictions like that. But I am. I'm on a one game

winning streak. I did mention Wednesday. I think that all the sturm undrong by the New York Times, by the Washington Post, by Politico, even by Judd Legum of Popular Information over whether or not to publish the internal Trump campaign documents allegedly hacked by Iran and offered around the news business by someone calling themselves Robert, that that was

all academic. That soon or late, Robert's rules of order would lead Robert to connect with some kind of independent journalists who would look at it to make sure they weren't jeopardizing themselves legally and then say, ef it here it is. I Actually, silly, old guy me thought this wouldn't happen till next month. Instead, it happened yesterday. Kenklippenstein, formerly of The Intercept, published it. Ken Klippenstein put it online yesterday, got suspended by Elon Musk for his trouble

because Elon Musk is soft as church music. And it's two hundred and seventy one pages about jd Vance. It's the jd Vance file. And while, as Klippeteine notes, it does give you a kind of checklist for what the Trump campaign likes best about JV, and what it likes least about JV, and what it's kind of mad about JV, there is nothing compelling in there. Doesn't even identify his brand a choice and eyeliner. Clippenstein then goes to the

heart of the matter to quote his post. If the document had been hacked by some anonymous like hacker group, the news media would be all over it. I'm just not a believer of the news media as an arm of the government doing its work combating foreign influence, nor should it be a gatekeeper of what the public should know. The gatekeeper and government parts are debatable. Those actions can on occasion be defended. But he nails the whole other thing.

The Times, the Post, and the others looked at this and they said, this is boring as crap it, My god, look at the opportunity we can put on a performative dance here portraying ourselves as martyrs to the cause of responsible journalism, and it doesn't even cost us a good story.

There's one cautionary aside, though, Liz Mayor m Ai r the kind of all over the map political operative who's probably not only the only person who have worked on the campaigns of both Rishi Sunak and Carly Fiorina, but very probably the only person on the planet to know who both Rishi Sunak and Carly Fiorina are. She has read the whole thing. I'm sorry, my god, did you think I had read the whole thing? Two hundred and seventy one pages about J. D. Vance? How many lives

you think I got here? Anyway, she read it, and Liz Mayer says what matters is what's not in it, quoting her, There is more damaging stuff to be found on Vance. I guess the Trump team missed it, and so have Dems. I have no interest in tearing Vance down. I disagree with him profoundly on many issues, but we have too much in common in our bios and backgrounds, so I'll leave it alone. Well, there's one politico placing country at a party, my ass, So there's more to

look for. The message of this unpublishable, now published not that interesting JD Vance compendium is they left the good stuff out and it's still out there. Not to worry, though, traditional media is still burying one story at least a far more import than that, and with far more evident

help from the government. In the burial, The independent site Notice writes, quote, lawmakers are still waiting on the Pentagon for more details about what happened between Donald Trump's campaign and Arlington National Cemetery's staff during last month's memorial service for soldiers who died during the Afghanistan withdrawal. The Pentagon appears to be hoping the lawmakers just forget about it. Department of Defense officials informally told at least one congressional

office to let the issue fade into the background. A Congressional aid told Notice. The aide said the Pentagon offices on both sides of the aisle to move on from the incident. When reach for comment, the Department of Defense referred Notice to the Department of the Army. Note that as in aside its statements like that last one, the Department of Defense referred you to the Department of the Army.

It's statements like that one that led Joseph Heller to dream up the notion of catch twenty two to resume quoting from the notice report. The altercation prompted Congressional Democrats to request a copy of the incident report outlining what had happened. The official report hasn't yet been released, but their quiet appeal to at least one lawmaker's office regarding the request for the full incident report shows the challenges

the Department of Defense faces in the current political landscape. Unquote. So apparently there is some illusion that if they just shut up about it, this and the prospect of anybody who's ever been in the mill terry getting involved in the election in any way, shape or form, like you know, uh Iraq Army disinformation specialist JD. Whatever his name was, vance,

that all this will just vanish no military involvement. In an unrelated story, Kamala Harris has just been endorsed in a New York Times up ed by the guy who was killing al Qaeda leaders in Iraq for George Bush twenty years ago and mocking President Obama and Vice President Biden fifteen years ago, General Stan McCrystal. Thank god they are keeping that wall up between the warriors and real patriotism. Also of interest here, you have to hand it to

white trash Congressman Clay Higgins. While he was trying to claim he only meant Haitian gang members, not the Haitians in Ohio, Well he was doing that, he was simultaneously telling CNN, no, he meant every word. He'd posted about Haitians and voodoo and get out by January twentieth, and he'd posted again. Now here is a tease. We will be premiering on Monday, a new revised version of the Countdown theme music specially recast for the election home stretch Monday.

But I can now offer you a tease. This is next. This is Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith Olberman still ahead of us on this edition of Countdown. I don't know about you, but I need a break from this crap. Adams, holy crap, I'm gonna take one. I'm telling you, just become a Republican. You'll either be on the Supreme Court, or you'll be the presidential nominee by next week. We'll take a break Friday's with Thurber. One of Thurber's dog stories.

It's not the sweetest of his dog stories, but it's easily the funniest of his dog stories. And it's a Thurber dog story. Next. Okay, break time over. There are still more new idiots to talk about. A rollicking edition of the daily roundup of the misgrants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute two days worst persons in the world. And sometimes this is satirical. Sometimes this is directed at me. Sometimes this is poking fun at friends

or colleagues. No, not this time. I mean every word of this. These are three of the scumbaggiest people in the world. As John Clees once set on Faulty Towers. This is total ass worse the bronze former New York Mayor Rudy ass Giuliani for once, though I'll give him this. The timing work to Rudy's benefit. This happened to him on the day the current mayor gets indicted for selling his soul for like an upgrade from business class aisle

to business class window on a flight to Turkey the Schmndrick. Meanwhile, in Washington Rudy, who after nine to eleven thought we should cancel the election and just let him stay on as mayor because so what if that was what the terrorists would have wanted? He was wooty. Woody has just been disbawd, no longer allowed to practice law in the District of Columbia, which is especially sad because clearly Rudy

needed way more practice. I will say this, between Rudy's dispartment and the indictment of Adams, only needed one more event to make this the biggest week for scumbag New

York mayors in the proud history of my hometown. Like, maybe somebody could have done something about Jimmy bo James Walker, who was forced out of office in nineteen thirty two after a series of scandals, including his own chosen cops arresting ordinary women on the streets of New York City and charging them with prostitution, literally charging them with street walking because they were literally walking on the streets and holding them unless they paid off the cops with cash

or other considerations. Mayor Walker was allowed to flee to Europe with his mistress. But he came back six or seven years later and naturally became a disc jockey on WHN radio. Hi, I'm your corrupt mayor on WHN New York. Walker is buried in suburban Hawthorne, New York. Maybe somebody should have gone up yesterday and danced on his grave

or something, just to finish off the hat trick. The runner up worser, Dylan Buyers of Puck Puck is another one of those subscription outlets in which the emphasis is on pretending that doing press releases for corporations and executives and the powerful that that constitutes some kind of quote news.

I've mentioned Dylan Buyers before when, in twenty twenty one, I concluded the last round of a decade's worth of dancing with MSNBC about going back to do a show there, Buyers contacted me and told me that all I had told him, and all I had said in public about my negotiations with the then head of Comcast, Jeff Schell, all of it was not true because a spokesman from NBC had told him it was not true. I asked him, naturally,

which spokesman, and he said he couldn't tell me. He said the spokesman had agreed to be referenced in a story, but never by name. I asked him what the spokesman had said specifically. He said he couldn't tell me that either. That was part of the deal with them too. I then sent him screenshots of all of my email correspondence with Jeff Shell and NBC News figure head, says Arcande, to confirm that what I had been saying was true and what the spokesman had not really been saying was

not true. And Byers reacted with shock, like you told him he was adopted. I mean, he was genuinely surprised that NBC PR people had lied to him, like what was the first time it happened in world historily, I mean repeatedly lied to him. In fact, each thing the anonymous spokesman had told him wasn't just wrong, it was a lie. In his follow up story, Buyers still somehow managed to carry some of NBC's waters for it by saying that I should have known that Jeff Shell was

lying to me. That's not quite the flex you think it is. In any event, Byers has now moved on to the Oliviya newsy RFK junior story and is surprisingly enough carrying water for RFK Junior. He's one of these morons propagating the idea that RFK is going to get Newsy prosecuted or arrested or sued because she sent him photos of herself that he wanted and he never bothered to tell her bosses to ask her to stop. But he's RFK and the other one's Dylan Byer, so Dylan

Byers must serve him. Dylan Byers wrote up the story for Puck on Wednesday night, and since I regularly swipe at him on Twitter and here for doing crap like this, he decided to throw me into his update and said I had rushed. Was the word rushed to remind everybody that Olivia and I had lived together and that I should grow up. I rushed. I never revealed the relationship publicly from the time it started until Monday afternoon of this week, when the New York Post found out and

asked me. And thus I followed the age old truth about how to deal with reporters barging in on your personal life. If you can blow up their scoop, report what they're going to report before they can report it, it isn't much but at all, always ruins their day. Yeah, I rushed, Dylan. I kept it private, as it would have stayed private for well over a decade. I rushed. I mean, I don't run fast, but I can rush

faster than ten years worth idiot. I'd urge you to grow up too, but in fact I like dealing with you as you are a child. It's much easier to send you to bed without your supper this way. Oh

and I might add. A couple of years ago, a prominent reporter got a terrible fatal diagnosis about an awful disease, and within weeks, Dylan Byers had written an article in which he gratuitously threw the reporter's name into the story that had nothing to do with him, and insulted him just to drive by shot at a dying man for no reason and with no explanation. There are a lot of bad media reporters. This Buyer's guy is the worst,

but ultimately he's still only a media reporter. So if somebody else showed us up Monday claiming to be Dylan Byer's and it's a different guy, nobody will know the difference. A media reporter cannot even win the worst person's competition because the winner the worst is white trash Congressman Clay Higgins, R.

Louisiana and the R standful rathist. You will recall, Higgins came this close to dropping the N word Wednesday on the Haitian Bridge Group, which sued in Ohio to get local prosecutors to charge Trump Advance for attempting to get the legal Haitian migrants in Ohio, you know killed. Higgins responded with something that even for this David Duke supporting the clans to liberal for him, ghost bus hallucinating, insurrectionist asshole,

Even for him, this was astonishing. He screenshoted that news story and again the story was about a legal motion in an American local court by Americans, and Higgins added on his congressional account, while these Haitians are our wild eating pets voodoo spelled vudu, by the way, nastiest country in the Western Hemisphere. Cults slapstick gangsters, but damned if

they don't feel all sophisticated. Now he's so close to the N word filing charges against our president, and VP Trump's not President Vance is not VP Clay Higgins has probably stoned all these dougs. Better get their mind rat and to ask out of our countra. Before January twentieth, he said in that patois of Louisiana. Patua is a

nice word where you got shit in your mouth. The speaker and chief buffoon of the House, Mike Johnson, also of Louisiana, then zaid Higgins had prayed on what he had written, realized it was in error, and deleted the

post as a gentleman would. Yesterday this excrem at, Higgins tried to walk it back, claiming he was talking about Haitian gangs in Ohio, even though there aren't any Haitian gangs in Ohio and he didn't refer to gangs, and the filers of the lawsuit who he threatened with expulsion and targeted for stochastic violence are members of a community support group, not a gang. You never want to intentionally hurt someone's feelings. I wish I could do the John

Candy Louisiana accent from the JFK movie. You never want to intentionally hurt someone's feelings. And that post was intended for Haitian gangs, you understand, or the one from Kevin Bacon when he's asking, never mind, you never want to intentionally hurt someone's feelings. And that post was intended for Haitian gangs, you understand, not for I mean Haiti as a country, not at all. And the unintended impact that was expressed very sincerely from one of my colleagues, very

graciously that touched me as a gentleman. Well you're not a gentleman, so what the hell you're talking about. It's bad enough that this Higgins, who has behaved in public life as a disgraced fired cop, as a white supremacist, as an insurrectionist, as a guy with the only known IQ that's in negative numbers, who apparently heard the movie titled Ghostbusters once and drew from it this concept of ghost busses on January sixth, and still has never even

bothered to explain what he thinks ghost busses are. This guy who acts like he is the child of an alligator that mate it with a barrel of rotten fish. It's bad enough that he is pretending he said something far less destructive than he did on that deleted tweet. But it turns out that Higgins almost simultaneously doubled down on the original racist tweet about the Haitians. CNN asked him for a comment, and he replied about his remarks

about the Haitians quote, it's all true. I can put up another controversial post tomorrow if you want me to. I mean, we do have freedom of speech. I'll say what I want. It's not a big deal to me. It's like something stuck to the bottom of my boot. Just scrape it off and move on with my life. Unquote. Hey, I wouldn't scrape too hard there, Higgins sounds like what that something stuck to the bottom of your boot is? Is all that's left of your meager, insufficient, worthless soul.

Representative Clay Higgins of Louisiana White Trash, Today's worst person in the world to the number one story on the Countdown on Fridays with Thurber. And it's amazing to me in retrospect, how I read all of his wonderful, realistic, not goopy writing about dogs and enjoyed it thoroughly, years before I was ever adopted by a dog. Now, reading his dog stories and anecdotes is like reading about a bunch of friends, even that one surly friend for whom

we must continuously make excuses. The dog that bit people by James Thurber. Probably no one man should have as many dogs in this life as I have had, but there was more pleasure than distress in them for me, except in the case of an Airdale named Mugs. He gave me more trouble than all the other fifty four

or five put together. Although my moment of keenest embarrassment was the time a Scotch Terrier named Jeanie, who had just had six puppies in the clothes closet of a fourth floor apartment in New York, had the unexpected seventh and last at the corner of Eleventh Street and Fifth

Avenue during a walk she had insisted on taking. Then two there was the prize winning French poodle, a giant, big black poodle, none of your little, untroublesome white miniatures, who got sick riding in the rumble seat of a car with me on her way to the Greenwich Dog Show. She had a red rubber bib tucked around her throat, and since a rain storm came up when we were halfway through the Bronx, I had to hold over her

a small green umbrella, really more of a parasol. The rain beat down fearfully, and suddenly the driver of the car drove into a big garage filled with mechanics. It happened so quickly that I forgot to put the umbrella down, and I will always remember with sickening distress the look of incredulity mixed with hatred that came over the face of the particular hardened garage man that came over to see what we wanted when he took a look at

me and the poodle. All garage men and people of that intolerant stripe hate poodles with their curious haircuts, especially the pom poms that you got to leave on their hips if you expect the dogs to win a prize. But the Airdale, as I have said, was the worst of all my dogs. He really wasn't my dog. Matter of fact, I came home from vacation one summer to find that my brother Roy had bought him while I

was away, a big, burly, choleric dog. He always acted as if he thought I wasn't one of the family. There was a slight advantage in being one of the family, for he didn't bite the family as often as a bit strangers. Still, in the years that we had him, he bit everybody but mother, and he made a pass at her once but missed. It was during the month when we suddenly had mice, and Mugs refused to do anything about them. Nobody ever had mice exactly like the

mice we had that month. They acted like pet mice, almost like mice somebody had trained. They were so friendly that one night, when Mother entertained at dinner the freer Realiras, a club she and my father had belonged to for twenty years, she put down a lot of little dishes with food in them on the pantry floor so that the mice would be satisfied with that and would not

come into the dining room. Mugs stayed out in the pantry with the mice lying on the floor, growling to himself, not at the mice, but about all the people in the next room that he would have liked to get at. Mother slipped out into the pantry once to see how everything was going. Everything was going fine. It made her so mad to see Mugs lying there oblivious of the mice. They came running up to her that she slapped him, and he slashed at her, but didn't make it. He

was sorry immediately. Mother said he was always sorry, she said after he bit someone. But we could not understand how she figured this out. He didn't act sorry. Mother used to send a box of candy every Christmas to the people the Airdale bit. The list finally contained forty or more names. Nobody could understand why we did not get rid of the dog. I didn't understand it very well myself, but we didn't get rid of him. I think that one or two people tried to poison Mugs.

He acted poisoned once in a while, and old Major Moberly fired at him once with his service revolver near the Seneca Hotel and he's Broad Street. But Muggs lived to almost eleven years old, and even when he could hardly get around. He bit a congressman who had called to see my father on business. My mother had never liked the congressman. She said the signs of his horoscope showed he couldn't be trusted. He was Saturn with the moon and Virgo. But she sent him a box of

candy that Christmas. Anyway, he sent it right back, probably because he suspected it was trick candy. Mother persuaded herself that it was all for the best that the dog had bitten him, even though father lost an important business association because of it. I wouldn't be associated with such a man. Mother said, Mugs could read him lack a book. We used to take turns feeding Mugs to be on his good side, but that didn't always work. He was never in a very good humor even after a meal.

Nobody knew exactly what was the matter with him, but whatever it was, it made him irascible, especially in the mornings. Roy my brother, never felt very well in the morning either, especially before breakfast, And once when he came downstairs and found that Mugs had moodily chewed up the morning paper, he hit him in the face with a grapefruit and then jumped up on the dining room table, scattering dishes

and silverware and spilling the coffee. Muggs first free leap carried him all the way across the table and into a brass fire screen in front of the gas grate, but he was back on his feet in a moment, and in the end he got Roy and gave him a pretty vicious bite in the leg. Then he was all over it. He never bid anyone more than once at a time. Mother always mentioned that as an argument in his favor. She said he had a quick temper, but that he didn't hold grudge. She was forever defending him.

I think she liked him because he wasn't well. He's not strong, she would say pityingly, but that was inaccurate. He may not have been well, but he was terribly strong. One time my mother went to the Chittenden Hotel to call on a woman mental healer who was lecturing in Columbus on the subject of harmonious vibrations. She wanted to find out if it was possible to get harmonious vibrations into a dog. He's a large, tan colored Airdale, Mother explained.

The woman said that she had never treated a dog, but she advised my mother to hold the thought that he did not bite and would not bite. Mother was holding the thought the very next morning when Muggs got the iceman. But she blamed that slip up on the iceman. If you didn't think he would bite you, he wouldn't. Mother told himmped out of the house in a terrible jangle of vibrations. One morning when Mugs bit me slightly

more or less in passing. I reached down and grabbed his short, stumpy tail and hoisted him into the air. It was a foolhardy thing to do, and the last time I saw my mother, about six months ago, she said she didn't know what possessed me. I don't either, except that I was pretty mad. As long as I held the dog off the floor by his tail, he

couldn't get at me. But he twisted and jerked so snarling all the time that I realized I couldn't hold him that way very long, and I carried him into the kitchen and flung him onto the floor and shut the door on him just as he crashed against it. But I forgot about the backstairs. Muggs went up the backstairs and down the front stairs and had me cornered

in the living room. I managed to get up out of the mantelpiece above the fireplace, but it gave way and came down with a tremendous crash, throwing a large marble clock, several vases, and myself heavily to the floor. Muggs was so alarmed by the racket that when I picked myself up, he had disappeared. We couldn't find him anywhere, although we whistled and shouted until old Missus Dettweiler called

after dinner that night. Muggs had bitten her once in the leg, and she came into the living room only after we assured her that Muggs had run away. She had just seated herself when with great growling and scratching of claws, Mugs emerged from under a davenport where he had been quietly hiding all the time and bit her again. Mother examined the bite and put arnica on it and told Missus Dttweiler that it was only a bruise. He just bumped you, she said. But Missus Dettwiler left our

house in a nasty state of mind. Lots of people reported our airdale to the police, but my father held a municipal office at the time and was on friendly terms with the police. Even so, the cops had been out a couple of times, once when Mugs bit Missus rufus Sturt event and again when he bit Lieutenant Governor Molloy, But Mother told him it hadn't been Muggs's fault, but the fault of the people who were bitten. When he starts for them, they scream, she explained, and that excites him.

The cops suggested that it might be a good idea to tie the dog up, but mother said that it mortified him to be tied up and that he wouldn't eat when he was tied up. Mugs at his meals was an unusual site because of the fact that if you reached toward the floor, he would bite you. We usually put his food plate on top of an old kitchen table with a bench alongside the table. Muggs would

stand on the bench and eat. I remember that my mother's uncle Horatio, who boasted that he was the third man up Missionary Ridge, was flutteringly indignant when he found out that we fed the dog on a table because we were afraid to put his plate on the floor. He said he wasn't afraid of any dog that ever lived, and that he would put the dog's plate on the

floor if we would give it to him. Roy said that if Uncle Horatio had fed Mugs on the ground just before the battle, he would have been the first man up Missionary Ridge. Uncle Horatio was furious. Ray, amen, bray amen, Now, he shouted, I'll feed them on the floor. Roy was all forgiving him a chance, but my father wouldn't hear of it. He said that Mugs had already been fed. I'll feed them again, bawled Uncle Horatio. We had quite a time quieting him. In his last year.

Muggs used to spend practically all of his time outdoors. He didn't like to stay in the house for some reason or other. Perhaps it held too many unpleasant memories for him. Anyway, it was hard to get him to come in, and as a result, the garbage man, the iceman, and the laundryman would not come near our house. We had to haul the garbage down to the corner, take the laundry out, and bring it back and meet the

iceman a block from home. After this had gone on for some time, we hit on an ingenious arrangement for getting the dog in the house so that we could lock him up while the gas meter was red and so on. Mugs was afraid of only one thing, an electrical storm. Thunder and lightning frightened him out of his senses. I think he thought a storm had broken the day

the mantelpiece fell. He would rush into the house and hide under a bed or in a clothes closet, So we fixed up a thunder machine out of a long, narrow piece of sheet iron with a wooden handle on one end. Mother would shake this vigorously when she wanted to get Mugs into the house. Made an excellent imitation of thunder. But I suppose it was the most roundabout system for running a household that was ever devised. It took a lot out of mother. A few months before

Mugs died, he got to seeing things. He would rise slowly from the floor, growling low and stalk, stiff legged and menacing toward nothing at all. Sometimes the thing would be just a little to the right or left of a visitor. Once a fuller brush salesman got hysterics, Muggs came wandering into the room like Hamlet, following his father's ghosts. His eyes were fixed on a spot just to the left of the fuller brush man, who stood it until

Muggs was about three slow creeping paces from him. Then he shouted, Mugs wavered on past him into the hallway, grumbling to himself, but the fuller man went on shouting. I think Mother had to throw a pan of cold water on him before he stopped. That was the way she used to stop us boys when we got into fights.

Muggs died quite suddenly one night. Mother wanted to bury him in the family lot under a marble stone with some such inscription as flights of angels sing thee to thy rest, but we persuaded her it was against the law. In the end we just put up a smooth board above his grave along a lonely road. On the board I wrote with an indelible pencil, cave Kanum. Mother was quite pleased with the simple, classic dignity of the old Latin epitaph The Dog that Bit People by James Thurber.

I've done all the damage I can here. Thank you for listening, mugs. We are now back to five episodes a week, posting nightly just after midnight Eastern. Once again there is a Monday Countdown. Please send this podcast to somebody who doesn't listen but should, And a little preview of course about Monday, Monday Steedy day, you know what that means. Brian Ray and John Phillip Schhaneil the music Jeal directors of Countdown, arranged, produced and performed most of

our music. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards, Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums. It was produced by Tko Brothers and again their premiere of our revised theme is also in Monday special edition. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. The sports music is the Old Woman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Other music arranged and performed by the group

No Horns Allowed. My announcer today is my friend Larry David. Everything else was pretty much my fault. The that's countdown for today, five weeks and four days until the twenty twenty four presidential election and the three hundred and sixty first day since convicted felon drooling Jay Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States. Use the election, use the mental health system, use presidential immunity if we have to, to keep him from doing

it again while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is Monday bulletins as the news requires. Until then, I'm Keith Oulderman. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. 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.