EPISODE 233: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: The most influential conservative justice on the Supreme Court accepted a free private jet flight worth $100,000 from a hedge fund manager and then six years later the justice voted in favor of a Supreme Court decision that gave the hedge fund manager’s company $2,400,000,000. Neither all the hand-wringing and self-martyring in the world by the recipient, Samuel Alito, NOR all the hand-wringing and calls for ethical reform in the world by the likes of Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin changes the fact that we shouldn’t have to have rules aying that is a bad and corrupt idea and you shouldn’t do it. The issue of SUPREME COURT ETHICAL STANDARDS is important and overdue and maybe, Please Christ, this will scare Dick Durbin out of his stupor, but the REAL issue is SAMUEL ALITO’S ETHICAL STANDARDS and the unfortunate complication is that he CLEARLY DOESN’T HAVE ANY.
Dick Durbin now plans a Senate Judiciary Committee "mark-up" of Supreme Court ethics rules but of course it can't pass without the House. But what he can - and MUST - do is scare the crap out of Alito, Thomas, Leonard Leo, Paul Singer, Harlan Crow and the rest of them. Subpoena them. Dirty them up. Use words like bribe and corruption and deal.
PLUS: It's almost too good to be true. On the House Floor, Marjorie Taylor Greene reportedly called Lauren Boebert a "little bitch" which is news enough by itself, but it also allows all of us to keep repeating that Greene reportedly called Boebert a quote "little bitch" unquote.
AND: Kari Lake posts a photo of herself in a bikini with Trump around her waist. Trump, in inflatable pool float form. At least she didn't post a photo of herself blowing it up.
B-Block (14:55) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: After John Durham testified to the House Judiciary committee and imploded, and after Kevin McCarthy got booed off the rostrum announcing the censure of Adam Schiff, I am beginning to suspect Durham and McCarthy are Democratic plants. (22:35) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Ron DeSantis boasts about Florida's unemployment data - "amoung the best." Misspelled "among." Well - it wasn't about education, was it? Plus while the right invokes the time a 69-year old grandmother served for January 6, she asks them to stop and says she was wrong to be there. And an online guy has just discovered what he thinks is a previously unknown obscure presidential candidate who he's determined to introduce to the rest of us. The guy's name is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
C-Block (30:10) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: If you can make it, we need you to go to the Board Meeting of the New York Pound THIS MORNING (31:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: When I worked for Ted Turner, covered him as he met with striking NFL players, made him gush with pride and then angry enough to fire me, and then actually used my head and turned the situation into a win-win.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.