SEASON 2 EPISODE 28: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: I call for the immediate arrest of Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, representative of the 14th district of Georgia, for violating 18 US code 871 – “Threats against the President and Successors to the Presidency.” Greene has posted to social media video of a direct threat to harm or kill Joe Biden, made by a man who when asked about that threat of personal violence replied “I don’t regret nothing I said. I (effing) mean it, bro."
Greene’s own ignorance of the federal code dealing with threats against the President is no defense. 18 U-S code 871 quite clearly states that the threat does NOT have to be first-hand. Greene does not have to have said it, she merely has to have distributed the threat. Though she helpfully began her distribution and promulgation of the threat against Biden’s life with her own statement: “I agree with this man.”
At some point we have to break Greene - and the fascist right's - dance along the cliff-edge of political violence. Just two weeks ago she rightly complained that violent threats against her had gotten a weak three-month sentence. Now, the threat she distributed should be met by her being charged, arrested, convicted, and sentenced to the maximum of five years.
Because occasionally the Justice System works. "Enrique" Tarrio broke the January 6 record with a 22-year sentence (though take the odds and bet on Trump getting more). And let's hear it for my new hero, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro, who was born in Cuba and who accused political ignoramus and stunter Tommy Tuberville of more than even endangering national security by holding up military promotions. “For someone who was born in a communist country," said Secretary Del Toro, "I would never have imagined that actually one of our own senators would actually be aiding and abetting communists and other autocratic regimes around the world.”
And there is more on the 14th Amendment, now the flavor of the month in the media. Michigan’s Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson makes an interesting revelation: “Secretaries of states of multiple states are having conversations. I’m talking with folks in Pennsylvania, with the secretary of state in Nevada and even in Maine; people in Georgia of course – my colleague Brad Raffensberger – just to get a sense of what the facts are” and she added that a group of states quote “likely need to act in concert, if we act at all.”
B-Block (21:10) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: I'm somewhat limited by a throat infection, but here are Anthony Rendon of baseball's Angels who can't play due to a string of injuries (it happens) but refuses to talk about it (it's inexcusable), Washington Post "Fact Checker" Glenn Kessler, and the Saudi Prince who's trying to choose our president for us and whose exports to this country we should cut off and whose assets here we should seize.
C-Block (29:12) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Yesterday was the 15th anniversary of the night the Republican Party and Tom Brokaw got me fired as the co-anchor of MSNBC’s 2008 Presidential Debate coverage because the Republicans told Brokaw do this or McCain won’t show up for the debate you inherited when Tim Russert died and Brokaw really wanted a second career after Brian Williams had buried his first career alive and threw me under the bus even though I had welcomed him to our MSNBC campaign coverage when NBC had literally benched him for the '08 campaign.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.