Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Democratic Party leadership in the House and the Senate has to go, and the leaders in the States have to get active or they have to go. And the first you can go is Gavin Newsom. You're out. I'll get to him. In a moment. During a pit stop at the Indianapolis five hundred car race in nineteen eighty one, some methanol was sprayed into and on driver Rick Mears and his crew,
and suddenly there was literally an invisible fire. Methanol flame does not produce smoke. It is virtually invisible in sunlight. Rick Mears and his crew were on fire, and nobody could see it, literally invisible fire. People thought, perhaps they
were kidding. Right now, this nation is on fire, also an invisible fire, and Democratic leadership is saying, oh no, it isn't because Akeem Jeffries and Gavin Newsom and the others can't e fing see it, or because they personally are not yet on fire yet yet, because Trump hasn't
gotten to them yet to set them on fire. Axio supports that Jeffries, the Minority Whip Catherine Clark, and Caucus Chair Pete Aguiar, the top three Democrats in the House summoned a dozen rank and file members to what was called a come to Jesus meeting about the disruptions during Trump's I'm God Right speech last week. You're thinking Jeffries and Clark and Aguiar should have been awarding the disruptors medals of some kind, or maybe scolding them for not
disrupting enough. No, sir, leadership is quote unhappy that congressmen and congresswomen who see the invisible fire consuming our nation had the audacity to react to it, raps like Jasmine Crockett, Maxwell Frost, Maxine Dexter of Oregon, Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico.
You had a lot of nerve straying from our plan, Jeffries told them, and reminded them of his dear colleague letter he sent them before the speech, insisting on a quote strong, determined and dignified democratic presence in the chamber, and how they violated that by making themselves the story. Seriously, if it came, Jeffries thinks, limiting protests, holding up those pathetic little signs that they all had, and to what was called quote outfit coordination and refusal to clap on quote.
If he thinks that was a sign of strength, or that it was determined, or that it was somehow dignified, he should be marched out of the House Chamber faster than al Green was, and in fact, Jeffrey should be marched out of the House Chamber by Democrats. They're not being talked to like they are children. One Democrat leaked to Axios for a story that made the protesters look like children. We are helping them understand why their strategy is a bad idea. Ah, I think I've just located
the source of the problem here. Their strategy is not a bad idea, given that their strategy is, unlike the one apparently dreamed up by a Keem Jeffreys, an actual strategy, while the one dreamed up by a Keem Jeffries is holding up signs the size of ping pong paddles and not offending the dictator nor angering his Republican slave masters in the House. It doesn't surprise me. Leadership is very upset.
They gave specific instructions not to do that, one anonymous Democrats said, showing exactly the lack of courage Trump is counting on. Trump will count on. Trump has always counted on. Would they have ever done that to Nancy Pelosi? You know the answer. Never. So you've got to put the hammer down. Yes, put the hammer down. Put the hammer down right on top of that anonymous Democrat's head. F him or her, f them. The country is on fire and Trump is doing his best, well, putin's best to
next set the world on fire. And the keen Jeffries is worried about making sure his Democrats in the House are absolutely consistent in doing absolutely nothing about it. Invisible fire everywhere, and he has become a living meme. It's fine, he says from the table, sipping his coffee. And by the way, you invoke Nancy Pelosi to encourage this silent appeasement, this obeying in advance. What did Nancy Pelosi do again?
After Trump's last State of the Union address in twenty twenty, she tore up her copy of his speech on camera, slowly and methodically. And do you remember that, or do you remember the Democratic response speech that followed Trump's State of the Union in twenty twenty, or who gave that speech or what that speech was about. I understand that democratic lawmakers are hamstrung. They don't know what to do at the moment. Democracy seems to be a bad campaign basis.
They only have a few options at this point. They could literally act outside of the law, I suppose, since bribes by foreigners are no longer going to be investigated anywhere, you could get foreign billionaires to buy Republicans to vote to impeach Trump. I mean, it's one Republican, Michael, what could it cost ten million dollars? You could go a
little bit more immediately and more direct. You could interrupt fascist rallies like Trump's next verbal version of mind komp with I don't know reasons to evacuate the area in
which the speech is being given. That's probably contraindicated Democratic leadership, and Democrats could act symbolically and metaphorically and maybe get themselves punished inside the house or maybe even arrested by you know, getting up and leaving with Al Green when he is escorted out, or going along with the progressives who saying we shall overcome while this latest crazy Republican
speaker Mike Johnson read out Green's censure motion. Or if they're not willing to do any of that, they can do whatever the hell teme Jeffries thinks he's doing, and I'm really not sure what holding up little paddles that make them all look like wile e Coyote in the road rudder cartoons with his signs reading help and that's all folks does. But I believe the technical term for what he's doing is I think this is the technical
term nothing. While the nation burns invisibly by the way, Andy Ogles and insane man who represents Insane County is pushing privileged motions to remove all the protesting Democrats from
their committee assignments. And you know, if the King Jeffries votes for those resolutions, I would only be mildly surprised, because, of course, ten Democrats in the House, elected as Democrats by Democratic voters, they voted with the Republicans to censure Al Green and they did this because, bluntly, these ten
Democrats are assholes. Amy Barra asshole, Ed Case asshole, Jim asshole, Laura Gillen asshole, Jim Himes asshole, Chrissy Hulahan asshole, Marcy Capture asshole, Jared Moskowitz asshole, Marie Glusen camp Perez asshole, and Tom Swazi asshole. In fact, here's another asshole to take home with you. Some of those are not actually surprises. Swazi is nothing more than a weather vane, and a mediocre one. Marie Perez too. It's a shame about Jared Moskowitz.
He's useful, he was great against Comer, He's funny, and if he apologizes, I would say he gets a second chance. It's a shame Marcy Capture wants to end her career siding with Nazis. But there you go out, all of them out. And if he doesn't figure out that the country is on fire, Jeffreys out. Because what Jeffrey should be doing is threatening to shut the goddamn House of
Representatives down. If any of those measures to throw those dozen or so Democrats who sang off their committees passes, walk out before the CR vote, let the Republicans destroy themselves and Trump and the economy with no Democrats in the House. Get yourself arrested. If need be a king, do something. Christ at least hold that weekly news conference every Sunday morning, just to steal the narrative away from Trump. It's a meaningless press conference. It's a manipulation of the media.
At least you could do that are you good at anything risk something risk as much as that old man from Texas with the Caine risk and the members of the Black Caucus who sang risked, I mean, goddamn it, Jeffreys. Last month, Jim McGovern of Massachusetts suggested there was a constitutional crisis and that the respond should be quote, maybe a national strike. Saturday he held a town hall in Holliston, mass and he brought it up again, a national strike.
We can't just sit back and let our democracy just fall apart, says Congress from McGovern. I can imagine Jeffrey's response to that. We're not letting it fall apart. We have outfit coordination. We have our cute little auction house bitter paddles with strong words written on them, but not
too strong. The inside, off the record response from the Democrats, from the leadership, from the old wise men and women of the party is that the Democrats just haven't coordinated a strategy of response to all this yet still flat footed after the election. The election was one hundred and twenty six days ago. In that time, Trump has given a line a budget veto to a white supremacist, and
he's given your personal info to a stoned narcissist. He's dangled the prospect of war against Canada, Panama, Mexico and Denmark. He has imperiled Ukraine and all of Europe. He has followed Putin's instructions to the letter. He has begun the process of staying in office past his expiration date. What he has not yet broken, he has threatened to break. The King Jeffreys has bought pickleball paddles and coordinated outfits and yelled at the only Democrats actually merely doing something
symbolic out get him out of here and the others. Ordinarily, you wait for the Vhy government to take shape after the Hitler has defeated the France. The King Jeffries has already surrendered. Al green for Democratic House leader, or or
bring back Nancy and start tearing shit again. By the way, the answer to the trivia question was that the year Nancy tore up the copy of Trump's speech was twenty twenty, and the Democratic response was by Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, and it had an audience and I had to go look it up. When you have nothing but symbolism, do the symbolism. No to a Keem Jeffries, Yes to Nancy Pelosi and no, not to Gavin Newsom as the new
face of the Democratic Party. Not at all. I'm not as shocked as many were that he's suddenly uncertain about transgendered scholastic athletes. The whole issue, all sides of it, whereas it has taken on tragic and meaningful proportions, is not in fact gigantic. There might be in this country one hundred and fifty students high school college to whom
this applies. If the amount of time spent on this issue were devoted to the amount of time that would be required to resolve each of these situations inside the league or the organization in which they are unfolding, they could have been solved in about two weeks. Because it's not about transgendered athletes, Gavin. It's not about whether or not it's fair to the girls. They don't give a damn about girls sports. They're going to eliminate them next month.
Gavin Newsom did not surprise me with that. He surprised me with something else. He really didn't surprise me with anything, because I met Kimberly Gilfoyle twenty years ago when she was trying to get a show at MSNBC when Newsom was still mayor of San Francisco and Kimberly Gilfoyle was still Gavin Newsom's wife, and my only thoughts were, this is his wife, that's who he married, this this idiot.
And the other thought was the dialogue from the movie The Graduate when the old guy mister maguire at the graduation party has that conversation that career advice with Dustin Hoffman and he says, I want to say one word to you, just one word, and Dustin Hoffman is Benjamin says yes sir, and mister McGuire says, are you listening, and Benjamin says, yes, yes I am, and mister McGuire says plastics. Newsom has given me another one of those first moments, not the Plastics moments, but you know, the
he married this idiot. Newsom did a podcast with Charlie Kirk that's where the quote about transgendered athletes comes from, and he agreed with Charlie Kirk that there's an issue with transgendered athletes. He agreed with Charlie Kirk, racist, sexist, monstrous, Charlie Kirk to what point to try to get the vote from that vast middle out there, the middle between what Gavin Nazis who want to kill all the non Nazis and Nazis who merely want to imprison all the
nun on Nazis. Is that your wheelhouse for the nomination in twenty twenty eight? And then it turned out, at least according to Kirk, that the podcast was arranged by Kim Gilfoyle. Kirk told the Fox station in La quote, I got a phone call from Governor Knew some two weeks ago. We connected through Kimberly Gilfoil. Obviously they have a shared past. So not only are you still working with Kirk, but you reached out via Kim Gilfoil because
Lara Trump was unavailable. Alina Hobo wouldn't take your call. Kirk had another quote, this is another non surprise. This is a guy who wants to be president more than any other human being alive. Well that's not true. There's still Trump. But Gavin, if Kirk's right, by advice to you is this, get jd Vance to resign, Get Trump to appoint you vice president. Because even today, even now, to get the Democratic nomination for president, you have to have a minimum of one scruple, just one. I mean,
here is where we are in this country. Josh Marshall's site TPM has gotten an email from management at the US African Development Foundation to the White House Presidential Personnel Office about the appointment of the acting chair of the Foundation's board. Seems like trivia, seems like legales, and it in fact is the next thing they are going to
do to destroy the country. It gets around the reality that in this case, Trump's choice could never get confirmed by the Senate for this acting chair or full time chair of the foundational board. So the Foundation's solution, memorialized in an email to the White House Presidential Personnel Office, is very simple, the Foundation solution and Trump end Senate
confirmation of presidential appointments. This email begins, quote, given the president's inability to supervise the activities of the board less USADF, he has inherent authority. Those are the keywords, inherent authority to designate an acting chairman of the board, and it ends quote. The President currently has no way of ensuring the agency is running or complying with his executive order unless he directs and temporary official using inherent authority under
Article two bingo, you heard me. The next Trump maneuver will be that Senate approval of his appointments is unconstitutional according to the inherent authority in Article two, President B King advise and consent. This eliminate just restraints on Trump, no also eliminate criticism of him and questions to him.
Eliminate the slightest protest by the outside world, whether it is Al Green swinging his cane, or a Keem Jeffery swinging his bat with the paddle ball attached to it by string, or just some senator asking a question about who this idiot is he wants to appoint to run the board of the USADF. And that's another reason why Al Green's mid speech protest was so essential. Trump long ago figured out that the easiest way to avoid criticism
was to avoid critics. Keep the critics out out of your rallies, out of your speeches, out of your cabinet, out of your party, out of your sight. But there's one hole in that wall. You can't keep them out of your speeches. To Congress, Democrats at Trump's speeches, and the media at Trump events are literally the last people in this country, the last handful of people who pierce
Trump's bubble. In the slightest al Green voiced opposition and criticism, and Trump almost imperceptibly has moved from being convinced he has overwhelming support to convincing himself he has nothing but support, to convincing himself that he has a complete mandate and is already king, to never even hearing any more criticism, to punishing the critics, to making critics and criticism of him illegal. That is the path. That's why the individual boycotts of his speech to Congress a week ago were
well intentioned but stupid. That's why even the little ping pong ball paddles were better. That's why democratic leadership should have walked out with al Green, not warned others never to do anything again without written permission of a game Jeffreys. Most of them are of at best dubious value as elected congressmen and senators, utterly fungible, several buildings full of Tom Swazis. But as the last Americans allowed to literally speak truth to power. Their job is to interrupt Trump.
Their job is to interrupt his feedback loop. Their job is to shake him and enrage him and provoke him. Their job is to use their right to shout cat calls from the Congressional Peanut Gallery until Trump eliminates the Congressional Peanut Gallery by eliminating Congress. They have to do this because when he eliminates Congress, all we will have left is the media. And I know it's a surprise to you that we still have media. I wouldn't have
noticed either. Funniest dog one thing. Trump announced he was going to get tough on Russia and there'd be sanctions on Russia, and he would pressure Russia to settle with Ukraine. And then he cut off Ukraine's access to US satellite imagery. And then the Russians doubled the amount of bombs they were dropping onto Ukraine, and then the accuracy of those drops suddenly doubled two as if they were getting locations
and other targeting information from American companies. And then NBC reported yesterday that even if Zelensky signs a rare Earth deal today, that does not mean Trump will restore American aid to Ukraine. He wants Zelensky to move towards resigning and holding elections. And yes, Trump's people have been caught talking to the opposition parties in Ukraine. You know the ones favored by Putin. Oh, and yes, he signs the Rare Earths and Minerals deal and seeds all the territory
Russia wants. And after all that, the media is still reporting Trump is going to get tough on Russia about Ukraine, and there'll be sanctions on Russia. And he's pressuring Russia because the media now sucks. The only people who have not been muzzled or self muzzled are the ones who are too stupid to do the job well in the first place. And just when you are ready to give up on these idiots, you remember, oh my god, they are idiots, but they are our idiots, and they are
the only idiots we have left. And you remember that Trump hates them more than we do, only he is hunting them now. I got scoffing blowback from last Thursday's podcast, especially the title Trump's plan to make it illegal to criticize him and his hunta. And I'd like to apologize for that title because it wasn't strong enough. The title should have been Trump's plan to make it illegal to criticize him and his hunta. And the media is collaborating
so fast it may happen before summer. President, since you must.
Talk about it yesterday, detail about if there happening.
Bob Moskins, cautious secretary of.
Movie, own secretary of no clash.
I was there.
You're just a trouble mecare and you're not supposed to be asking that question because we're talking about the World Cup. Gets along great with Marco and they both are fantastic. You have there is no clash Presidents inc. I'm wonder's NBC any of the questions of.
The World Cup to I can't imagine why Trump got away with telling a reporter you're not supposed to ask that question. Maybe it's because when he expelled the Associated Press from the White House, not one other news organization, not one did anything about it. Nobody did a thing, even when simple self defense should have told the White House car Respondence Association to walk out on Moss that day.
And maybe it's because when the White House Correspondence Association did not walk out on Moss that day, Trump knew he could take away its right to select the pool reporters and they again would not walk out on Moss. When he did that, he could threaten them with expulsion from the White House the way you just heard him do it to the NBC guide just there, without saying it, just by implying it and knowing the White Correspondence Association
would do nothing. He also knew he could do that to mister NBC reporter there because v she Joe Scarborough and missus vsh Joe went to Mari Lago and begged for what passes for their pathetic professional lives. And he knew he could do that to NBC going forward, because NBC immediately spun off MSNBC as fast as they could file the business paperwork, and MSNBC then fired or demoted all of its hosts of color, and Trump would never
have to explolicitly threatened NBC ever again. Okay, maybe you'd have to threaten them again once.
Frankly, what Nicole Wallace said, I've never been a fan of hers, and she's not very talented, but i'll tell you what she said the other day about that young man is disgraceful. She should be forced to resign, and Rachel Mattow should be forced to resign. Nobody watches her anyway. I don't know if it's not possible they pay her as much money as I hear, but certainly she's lost all credibility, both of them.
But would they said the other day they should be forced to resign? Thank you again, Joe Scarborough. Joe Scarborough is, as hl Mankin would have phrased, it not worth the oil with which to fry him in hell. You know my criticisms of Rachel Matdow ten million, Joe Scarborough's are
not worth one Rachel Maddow. I'm sure though, when push comes to shove, NBC will defend her and Wallace and its White House reporter or that guy who is probably by now it's ex White House reporter and not the shady ex congressman who has gone from Trump critic to Trumps sanitizer, to would be Trump Vice president to never Trumper, to welcome her of Trump insect overlords, and has done
all this in literally one decade. Laws against deep fakes that can be converted into laws against anti Trump videos, laws against campus protests nominally about the Middle East that can be converted into laws against campus protests about him, And the saddest part is none of these refined laws directed at the media directed at protests may be necessary because the media will have killed itself first. Quote. I am a member of several Tesla owner forums where widespread
reports of similar attacks are being shared. Begins a post at a Facebook site user named Mike Miller, who knows if it's real, copying a letter he claims to have sent to his California congressman garrim Mendi. Quote. Owners are facing physical threats, vandalism, and intimidation simply because of their vehicle choice. Reports in the media highlight incidents of Tesla charging stations being burned, Tesla service centers being vandalized, and
Tesla vehicles being spray painted or otherwise damaged. Unfortunately, law enforcement often has limited ability to hold perpetrators accountable. By the way, certainly that's not because the inpetrators got away in their Tesla vehicles. This is not just an issue of property damage. It is an issue of safety and
targeted aggression. I urge you to consider legislative action that would increase penalties for these acts, potentially classifying them as hate crimes or enhancing legal consequences for individuals who engage in such behavior. You heard him, hate crimes he wants and again it could be a troll. Everybody who responded to him was in atrol. Everybody who said, yes, let's make it a hate crime. He wants any damage to a Tesla vehicle or a facility, or especially Seibetwak prosecuted
as a hate crime. This is how far the madness of America twenty twenty five has gone. Protections for transgendered people erased and the debate over it endorsed by the governor of California who claims to be a Democrat and
is still talking to that crazy woman Guilfoyle. Protections for transgendered people erased, the history of violence against blacks erased from government websites, libraries closed, history whitewashed, the interruption of a presidential speech, which is a Republican invention, incidentally interrupting a presidential speech bringing censure and possible removal from committees and ten Democrats supporting it. But if somebody writes, f you Musk with their finger on the dust on the
back of your cyber truck, that should be a hate crime. Problem, of course, is what under hate crime statutes could you charge Musk with when he blows up another one of his own rockets like last week. Sadly we go from the ridiculous to the sublime. The New York Times has published a massive history of Sullivan, the Supreme Court case with which it was involved that is the protection for almost all journalistic investigations of and criticisms of elected officials
and prominent public figures. The essence of Sullivan is that to be guilty of defamation or libel, a news organization has to be proved to be guilty of actual malice, knowingly printing falsehoods designed to damage a public or governmental figure.
After laudable but probably way too detailed history of the ruling, the Times finally gets around the shattering conclusion paragraph nine thousand or so, that there are already two Supreme Court justices willing to hear a case that could repeal Sullivan, Gorstch and Thomas, and all you need is two more and Sullivan will be re litigated by an utterly compromised court,
a Supreme Court that is itself a constitutional crisis. Worse hill, The Times peace concludes that the likeliest paintiff in such a case would be Trump, that his frivolous lawsuits against CNN and the ABC Stephanopoulos case about his quoting of the word rape and the stupid CBS lawsuit about the
sixty minutes interview of Kamala Harris. Those are actually attempts on Trump's behalf, or maybe by him, if he's sane for an hour, to get one of his lawsuits in front of his Supreme Court to overturn Sullivan, and again not exactly being secretive about it. No stealth here. After he lost his twenty twenty two defamation case against CNN, Trump appealed last year, and his lawyers wrote, quote, Plaintiff respectfully requests that the court revisit the actual malice standard
under New York Times v. Sullivan. New York Times v. Sullivan. Maybe that means they're going to try to repeal New York Times be Sullivan. No, it's not possible. If Sullivan disappeared, How much of the already terrified American news media run by shitthead billionaires would disappear with it? How shaky is the ground on which Sullivan stands? Well, if you'd really
like to not sleep tonight. The Times notes that thirty two years ago, an academic paper was written by an assistant law professor at a Midwestern university which questioned the broadness of Sullivan, which questioned, especially how much it limited non governmental public figures from suing news outlets for damage, how it could someday if left to its own devices, tabloid eyes mainstream news, even though even thirty two years
ago that had long since happened. The assistant professor with the nineteen ninety three doubts about Sullivan is still a prominent legal figure in twenty twenty five. Her name is Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan. And unless she's changed her mind, we're all in a boatload of trouble. Also of interest here in speaking of which, Gavin Newsom embraces Charlie Kirk and Stephen A. Smith. Sorry, that's President Stephen A. Smith. Ask him he's reluctant to run, but ask him if
he's going to run and make the great sacrifice. Gavin Newsom embraces Charlie Kirk and Stephen A. President Smith embraces Candae Owens. And that sound you heard is not the Overton window shifting. It's the Overton window being dropped by the movers and shattering into a million pieces on the
effing floor. That's next. This is countdown. This is countdown, with Keith Olberman still ahead on this edition of Countdown, the newspaper The Columbus Dispatch notifies us that Thurber House, the museum former Thurber family home, the literary nonprofit operation supporting writers and perpetuating the work of America's most versatile humorist and satirist, is in financial trouble needs two hundred thousand to keep going, in large part because fewer and
fewer people know who James Thurber was. I have done my best to keep him prominent. We had a brief recive's urgents when I used to read his stories on TV. But here I have failed him. I haven't done one Thurber story since we switched to two podcasts a week. So in hopes that you will help bring him front of mind again, I will bring you today not just one, but two Thurbers, and not just two Thurbers, but my
favorite Thurber and my late father's favorite Thurber story. Fitting since this Thursday, it will have been fifteen years since my father died, and I was reading it to him when he died. Now, honestly, it went better than that. Souths James Thurber forever first, believe it or not, There's still more new idiots to talk about. The Roundup of the miscrants, morons, and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute
two Day's other worst persons in the world. And this episode is dedicated to the new rule they are experimenting with in baseball spring training, the automatic Balls and Strikes system, in which a batter, catcher, or pitcher can appeal the umpire's ball or strike call and you get a computerized review in like fifteen seconds on the scoreboard. I like it. It's terrific, but I think they may have to change
the name because it's already known by its acronym. It is the ABS system, which, if you were mean spirited and I am, you could alter your pronunciation of that and simply call it a BS system. Fix the acronym anyway. Here the nominees the Bronze Worse once again, Stephen A. Smith. I hope he has learned that getting into politics means more than putting your fingers to your lips pensively and
trying to look serious, but I don't think so. ESPN is giving him, reportedly a five year, one hundred million dollar new contract, and cool. I am all for the talent having the money, and the owners not having the money should have held out for one hundred and one million, my friend. But part of this deal will allow Stephen to talk even more politics in venues other than ESPN. And I swear to you when I was at ESPN, I insisted that I would not and should not be
allowed to do it. Nobody else should be allowed to do politics in other venues while doing sports at ESPN. Not don't, and I didn't. We did this at MSNBC and on NBC Football Night in America years ago, ending in two thousand and nine, twenty ten, And basically that was the last time it didn't end in utter disaster. Even before that, Rush Limbaugh tried it and it ended in utter disaster. And it ended in utter disaster at ESPN.
This with Stephen a will end in tears, especially if Steven lets himself get played like a two dollars banjo every time he steps into the arena. This is him about an interview guest on one of his podcasts quote, and I'll spare you my impression of him. When that young lady speaks, don't even think about challenging her intelligence. Don't even think about challenging her ability to articulate her point of view. You better know what the hell you're
talking about when you come at her. That's what I take away just as much as anything else. You get the idea that Stephen is paid by the word. I can't wait until she and I sit face to face one day and bolly back and forth about what we feel, what we believe, what we stand for, and why. Because I'm certainly different than her when it comes to some political position She's taken and beyond, there is no doubt
about that. But I can't deny she's sharp as attack, and you damn well better be if you're going to come for her. Because ladies and gentlemen, this went on for another seventeen days. Who is she is he talking about? Who is the she in this equation? Candace Owens? Candace Effing Owens, the woman that the fascist site The Daily Wire fired because they said she was too anti Semitic
even for them. Candace Effing Owens, who ten years ago was writing about quote the batshit crazy antics of the Republican Tea Party, and then she discovered the real money was being one off of the batshit crazy Republican Tea Party. Stephen, if you want to cover politics or run for office, pro tip, take some of that one hundred million dollars and buy a guide dog the runner up or sir elong,
I'm just going to quote Politico about Musk. Here. Elon Musk defended himself to a room full of House Republicans saying that he can't bat a thousand all the time. According to four people present for his remarks, Okay, I realize Elon is an immigrant, possibly an immigrant who gained the system and the laws and has no right to be here. I don't know, and he probably was impaired when he said that, so he doesn't exactly get you know,
America or American things like baseball. But let me revisit that one phrase in there where he said he quote can't bat a thousand all the time. In point of fact, to bat a thousand, to have a baseball batting average of a thousand that is one point zero zero zero. That means you are batting one thousand all the time. It means you did not make any outs, no mistakes, nothing but hits. There are no degrees of batting a thousand. If you don't bat a thousand all the time, you
are instead batting nine eighty nine or something. Because the world divides into just two categories e long batting one thousand and not batting a thousand and guess which category you fall into, you torp. Also, Elon is not batting nine eighty nine or something. He's batting about ninety one. But our winner the worst the Prime Minister of New Zealand,
Christopher Luxon. Now New Zealand used to have a thoughtful, brilliant, brave, humane, though sometimes unintelligible because of that accent, prime minister named Jacinda Ardern. Now it has a bald right winger named Luxon.
New z Willand's senior envoy to the United Kingdom, former head of their Labor Party, Phil Goff, got up an event in London after Trump started his war crimes against Zelenski and Ukraine, and mister Goff compared what Trump did to what the British government and Prime Minister Nevil Chamberlain and the then outsider Winston Churchill did after Chamberlain sold out Czechoslovakia to Hitler at Munich in nineteen thirty eight.
Mister Goff said, quote, President Trump has restored the bust of Churchill to the Oval Office, but do you think he really understands history Goff then quoted Churchill to Chamberlain and his government in Parliament after the infamous war starting betrayal of Czechoslovakia, quote, you had the choice between war and dishonor you chose dishonor yet you will have war. New Zealand's Foreign Minister, Winston Peters, who turns eighty next month and is the head of New Zealand, first immediately
fired mister Goff. His Prime Minister Luxem, who he did not inform of the firing, backed him up. Why did they fire Golf because diplomats are supposed to talk diplomatically. It sounds like mister Luxan could be running the Democratic Party in this country anyway. Before he became Prime Minister of New Zealand, Luxon was on the Unilever Company executive ladder, where he rose to the position of swear. I swear this is true. He was director of the global deodorance
and grooming category. All right, which part of that sounds the most embarrassing? And what do you do for the company here? I'm in charge of grooming. What do you do for the company here? I'm in charge of global deodorance. All the deodorans in the world I know that's more of an Australian accent. I apologize New Zealand. Now this
is bad enough. GoF is quoting Winston Churchill, is pointing out reality and is doing what real political leaders they are supposed to do, giving a middle finger to desk spots like Donald Trump. And they fired him for making New zealand diplomatic efforts look bad in England. But just to add to this, he was fired for doing what I did after the Trump ambush of Zelenski quoting Winston Churchill and you had the choice between war and dishonor you chose dishonor yet you will have war. So I'm
taking this personally. Bro New Zealand's Prime Minister Christopher, you need more global deodorance because your spit does two stink lux on two days. Other worst person and Lord, as I've mentioned many times, I read this story first aloud in a class in college in nineteen seventy nine, and a friend of mine came up to me and said, you should forget that sportscasting thing. You should read Thurber for a living, and I said, yeah, that'll ever happen.
This is, for some reason salvation for me. Catharsis, and every other emotion that is appropriate after it has been a long week. A Box to Hide In by James Thurber. I waited till the large woman with the awful hat took up her sack of groceries and went out, peering at the tomatoes and the lettuce on her way. The clerk asked me what mine was. Have you got a box, I asked, A large box. I want a box to hide in. You want a box, he asked, I want a box to hide in. I said, what do you mean?
He said, you mean a big box. I said, I meant a big box, big enough to hold me. I haven't got any boxes, he said, only cottons that cans come in. I tried several other groceries, and none of them had a box big enough for me to hide in. There was nothing for it but to face life out. I didn't feel strong, and I'd had this overpowering desire to hide in a box for a long time. Well, what do you mean you want to hide in this box? One grocer asked me. It's a form of escape. I
told him, hiding in a box. It circumscribes your worries in the range of your anguish. You don't see people either. How the hell do you eat when you're in this box, asked the grocer. How don't the hell do you get anything to eat? I said I had never been in a box and didn't know, but that that would take care of itself. Well, he said, finally, I haven't got any boxes, only some pasteboard curtains that cans come in.
It was the same every place. I gave up when it got dark and the groceries closed, and hid in my room again. I turned out the light and lay on the bed. You feel better when it gets dark. I could have hit in a closet, I suppose, but people are always opening doors. Somebody would find you in a closet. They would be startled, and you'd have to tell them why you're in the closet. Nobody pays attention to a big box lying on the floor. You could stay in it for days and nobody'd think to look
in it, not even the cleaning woman. My cleaning woman came the next morning and woke me up, and I was still feeling bad. I asked her if she knew where I could get a large box. How big a box you want? She asked, I want a box big enough for me to get inside of, I said. She looked at me with big dim eyes. There's something wrong with her glands. She's awful, but she has a big heart, which makes it worse. She's unbearable. Her husband is sick, and her children are sick, and she is sick too.
I got to thinking how pleasant it would be if I were in a box now and didn't have to see her. I'd be in a box right there in the room, and she wouldn't know. I wondered, if you had a desire to bark or laugh when someone who doesn't know walks by the box you were in, maybe she would have a spell with her heart. If I did that would die right there. The officers and the elevator man and mister Grammage would find us funny. Dog gone,
thing happened at the building last night. The doorman would say to his wife, I led in this woman to clean up ten f and she never come out. See she's never in there more in an hour, but she never come out. See when got time for me to go off duty? Why, I says to Credic, who was on the elevator, I says, what the hell you suppose happened to that woman cleans tenf. He says he didn't know. He says he never seen her after he took her up.
So I spoke to mister Grammage about it. I'm sorry to bother you, mister Grammage, I says, but there's something funny about that woman cleans tenf. So I told him so he said we better have a look, and we all three goes up and knuts on the door and rings the bells, seeing nobody answers, so he said we'd have to walk in. So Crenic opened the door and we walked in and here was this woman cleans the apartment, dead as a herring on the floor, and the gentleman
that lives there was in a box. The cleaning woman kept looking at me. It was hard to realize she wasn't dead. It's a form of escape, I murmured, wat say. She asked, Dully, you don't know of any large packing boxes, do you? I asked, now, I don't. She said, I haven't found one yet, But I still have this overpowering urge to hide in a box. Maybe it will go away, maybe I'll be all right, Maybe it will get worse. It's hard to say. A Box to Hide In by James Thurber, and I don't know when I went to
Sullivan became my father's favorite Thurber story. I suspect it was in the hospital when I was reading to him in the last six months of his life. I know I read it to him at least half a dozen times, the first five by his request. The last time he did not request it, in fact, and this is the most perverse kind of compliment I think any restriter has ever received. I read this story to him. It was
the last thing that I read to him. In fact, it was the last thing he did on earth, was to listen to this story in a state of semi consciousness. He waited till the end of it. He took one deep, satisfied breath, and he died. I don't recommend this, but I think it does speak to the quality of the writing.
I went to Sullivant by James Thurber. I was reminded the other morning by what I don't remember, and it doesn't matter, of a crisp September morning last year when I went to the Grand Central to see a little boy of ten get excitedly on a special coach that was to take him to a boys' school somewhere north of Boston. He had never been away to school before.
The coach was squirming with youngsters. You could tell after a while the novitiates shining and tremulous and a little awed from the more aloof boys who had been away to school before. But they were very much alike at glance. There was for me, in case you thought I was leading up to that, no sharp feeling of old lost years in the tense atmosphere of that coach. Because I never went away to a private school when I was a little boy. I went to Sullivant School in Columbus.
I thought about it as I walked back to my hotel. Sullivant was an ordinary public school, and yet it was not like any other I have ever known of. In seeking an adjective to describe the Sullivant School of my years nineteen hundred and nineteen hundred and eight, I can only think of tough. Sullivant School was tough. The boys of Sullivant came mostly from the region around Central Market, a poorish district with many families of the laboring class.
The school district also included a number of homes of the upper classes, because at the turn of the century one or two old residential streets still lingered near the shouting and rumbling of the market, reluctant to surrender under their fine old houses to the encroaching rabble of commerce, and become as a last. They now have more vulgar business streets. I remember always first of all, the Celibant
baseball team. Most grammar school baseball teams are made up of boys in the seventh and eighth grades, or they were in my day, But with Sulibant it was different. Several of its best players were in the fourth grade, known to the teachers of the school as the terrible fourth. In that grade you first encountered fractions and long division, and many pupils lodged there for years, like logs in a brook. Some of the more able baseball players have
been in the fourth grade for seven or eight years. Then, too, there were a number of boys who had not been in the class past the normal time, but were nevertheless deep into their teams. They had avoided starting to school by eluding the truant officer until they were ready to go into long pants, but he always got them in the end. One or two of these fourth graders were seventeen or eighteen years old, but the dean of the squad was a tall, husky young man of twenty two
who was in the fifth grade. The teachers of the third and fourth had got tired of having him around as the years rolled along and had pushed him on. His name was Dana Wayeney, and he had a mustache. Don't ask me why his parents allowed him to stay in school so long. There were many mysteries at Sullivans that were never cleared up. All I know is why he kept on in school and didn't go to work.
He liked playing on the baseball team, and he had a pretty easy time in class because the teachers had given up asking him any questions at all years before. The story was that he had answered but one question in the seventeen years he had been going to classes at Sullivant, and that was what is one use of the comma? The kami, said Dana, embarrassedly, unsnarling his long legs from beneath a desk much too low for him,
is used to shoot marbles with. Kami's was our word for those cheap ten percent marbles in case, it wasn't yours. The Sullivant School baseball team of nineteen hundred and five defeated several high school teams in the city and claimed the high school championship of the state, to which title
it had, of course, no technical right. I believe the boys could have proved their moral right to the championship, however, if they had been allowed to go out of town and play all the teams they challenged, such as the powerful Dayton and Toledo Nines. But their road season was called off after a terrific fight that occurred during one game at Mount Stirling or Picquah or Zenia, I can't
remember which. Our first baseman, Dana Whaney, crowned the umpire with a bat during an altercation overcalled strike and the fight was on. It took place in the fourth inning, so of course the game was never finished. The battle continued on down into the business section of the town and raged for hours, with much destruction of property. But since Sullivan was ahead of the time seventeen to nothing, there could have been no doubt as to the outcome.
Nobody was killed. All of us boys were sure our team could have beaten Ohio State university that year, but they wouldn't play us. They were scared. Wayney was by no means the biggest or toughest guy on the Grammar School team. He was merely the oldest, being about a year the senior of Floyd, the center fielder who could jump five feet straight into the air without taking a running start. Nobody knew, not even the Board of Education, which once tried to find out whether Floyd was Floyd's
first name or his last name. He apparently only had one. He didn't have any parents, and nobody, including himself, seemed to know where he lived. When teachers insisted that he must have another name to go with Floyd, he would grow sullen and ominous, and they would cease questioning him because he was a dangerous scholar in his schoolroom brawl, as mister Harrigan, the janitor found out one morning when he was called in by a screaming teacher. All our
teachers were women to get Floyd under control. After she had tried to whip him and he had begun to take the room apart, beginning with the desks. Floyd broke into small pieces the switch she had used on him. Some said he also ate it. I don't know, because I was home sick of the time with mumps or something. Harrigan was a burly, iron muscle janitor, a man come from a long line of coal shovelers, but he was no match for Floyd, who had to be sure the
considerable advantage of being more aroused than mister Harrigan. When their fight started, Floyd had him down and was sitting on his chest in no time, and Harrigan had to promise to be good and to say that's what I get ten times before Floyd would let him up. I don't suppose I would ever have got through Sullivant School alive if it hadn't been for Floyd. For some reason,
he appointed himself my protector, and I needed one. If Floyd was known to be on your side, nobody in the school would dare be after you and chase you home. I was one of the ten or fifteen male pupils in Sullivant School who always or almost always knew their lessons, and I believe Floyd admired the mental prowess of a youngster who knew how many continents there were and whether or not the sun was inhabited Also, one time, when it came to be my turn to read to the class.
We used to take turns reading American history aloud. I came across the word ducane and knew how to pronounce it. That charmed Floyd, who had been slouched in his seat idly following the printed page of his worn and penciled textbook. How you know that was ducane, boy, he asked me after class. I don't know, I said, I just knew it. He looked at me with round eyes. Oh that's something he said. After that word got around that Floyd would beat the tar out of anybody that messed around with me.
I wore glasses from the time I was eight, and I knew my lessons, and both of those things were considered pretty terrible at Sullivan. Floyd had one idiosyncrasy, though. In the early nineteen hundreds, long, warm, furry gloves that came almost to your elbows were popular with boys, and Floyd had one of the biggest pears in school. He wore them the year round. Dick Peterson was an either greater figure on the baseball team and in the school
than Floyd was. He had a way in the classroom of blurting out a long, deep, rolling be for no reason at all. Once he licked three boys his own size, single handed, really single handed, for he fought with his right hand and held a mandolin in his left hand all the time. It came out uninjured. Dick and Floyd never met in mortal combats, so nobody ever knew which one could beat, and the scholars were about evenly divided in their opinions. Many a fight started among them after
school when the argument came up. I think school never let out at Sullivan without at least one fight starting up, and sometimes there were as many as five or six raging between the corner of Oak and sixth Streets and the corner of Rich and Fourth Streets, four blocks away. Now and again, virtually the whole school turned out to fight the Catholic boys of the Holy Cross Academy in Fifth Street near town for no reason at all, in winter with snowballs and ice balls, in other seasons with fists,
brick bats, and clubs. Dick Peterson was always in the van, yelling, singing, being whirling all the way around when he swung with his right or if he hadn't brought his mandle in his left and missed. He made himself the pitcher on the baseball team because he was the captain. He was the captain because everybody else was afraid to challenge his self election except Floyd. Floyd was too lazy to pitch, and he didn't care who was captain because he didn't
fully uncomprehend what that meant. On one occasion, when Earl Baddock, a steamfitter's son, had shut out Mound Street School for six innings without a hit, Dick took him out of the pitcher's box and went in himself. He was hit hard, and the other team scored, but it didn't make much difference because the margin of Sullivan's victory was so great. The team didn't lose a game for five years to another grammar school. When Dick Peterson was in the sixth grade,
he got into a saloon brawl and was killed. When I go back to Columbus, I always walked past Sullivant School, and I have never happened to get there when classes were letting out, so I don't know what the pupils are like. Now, I am sure there are no more Dick Peterson's and no more Floyd's unless Floyd is still going to school there. The playyard is still entirely bare of grass and covered with gravel, and the sycamore still line the curve between the schoolhouse fence and the Oak
Street car line. A street car line running past a schoolhouse is a dangerous thing as a rule, but I remember no one being injured while I was attending Sullivant. I do remember, however, one person who came very near being injured. He was a motorman on the Oak Street line, and once when his car stopped at the owner of six to let off passengers, he yelled at Cheudy Davidson, who played third base on the ball team and was a member of the Terrible Fourth, to get out of
the way. Chudy was fourteen years old, but huge for his age, and he was standing on the tracks taking a chew of tobacco. Come on down off of that con I'll not get blocked off, said Shouty, and what I can only describe as a sullivant tone of voice. The motorman waited until Shooty moved slowly off the tracks, then he went on about his business. I think it was lucky for him that he did. There were boys in those days. I went to Sullivant by James Thurber
Thurber House, Columbus, Ohio. I don't know. Maybe we can put out another book, audio book of Thurber's stories. I did one. It's available where audio books are available. I don't think it's on iTunes. It's called the Thurber Audio Collection. I don't think you can find it using my name, but it's there. They get all the money anyway. I've done all the damage I can do here more on Thurber later as I think of it. Thanks for listening.
Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanelle, the musical directors have Countdown, arranged, produced, and performed most of our music. Mister Shanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums. It was produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever,
Nancy Faust. The sports music is the Olderman 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 was my friend Kenny Maine. Everything else was as ever my fault. Kenny and I are not running for president. That's countdown for today, Just four hundred and thirteen days until the scheduled end of his lame duck, lame brained term, unless Musk replaces him sooner or the
actual aerial tables due. The next scheduled countdown is Thursday. As always, bulletins as the news warrants, remember impeach Trump. It won't work now, it will win the Democrats the midterms if there are midterms, and in the interim, put your paddles away and get out your canes and keep protesting until next time. I'm Keith Olverman. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production
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