SEASON 2 EPISODE 98: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: You and I have 305 days until the election and the GOOD news is: if the Supreme Court rules Trump is immune from prosecution for anything he did while president OR if the Supreme Court rules the 14th Amendment DOESN’T disqualify him from the ballot OR if the Supreme Court rules both… Joe Biden can declare himself president for life, he can arrest the Supreme Court, and he can detain Trump without charges or trial and the Supreme Court has just ruled there’s not a goddamned thing anybody can do about it, including them. Well thank god THAT’S settled. Happy New Year!
I am mystified by the sanctimonious criticisms of Maine striking Trump from the ballot from its Senator Angus King and "Democratic" Congressman Jared Golden. They have decided the Constitution wasn’t enough and decided on their own that we needed HIGHER BARRIERS before as a nation we could defend ourselves against a psychotic dictator-in-waiting who wants to turn the government into a personal revenge factory and oh by the way the only thing he’s going to remember about YOU Angus King, is that you voted to impeach him.
“Under the established Constitutional process," said Senator King from atop his high horse, "absent a final judicial determination of a violation of the 14th Amendment’s disqualification clause, I believe the decision as to whether or not Trump should rest with the people as expressed in free and fair elections. This is the ultimate check within our Constitutional system,” This isn’t a matter of interpretation for the courts, or for you, Senator King. It’s what the 14thAmendment SAYS as opposed to what a fragment of your voters want you to tell them it says. What it SAYS is, your Senate AND the House have a right to REMOVE the disqualification of Donald Trump by a two-thirds vote. It exists. It exists right now. It only STOPS existing if you OVERRIDE IT. By 75 to 25, thank you. That’s what it says. THAT is the ultimate check within our Constitutional System.
I hope you can hear me up there floating on that cloud above it all.
Speaking of, congratulations to The New York Times, which addresses disqualification by quoting Judge Michael Luttig, and balancing him with someone who wrote commercial scripts for Dunkin' Donuts and an L.A. democrat who went on Fox to say he's mad at Joe Biden. And congratulations to The Washington Post for buying out the only one of its reporters who got it - Greg Sargent.
But genuine thinks to Green Day, which did what the rest of us can almost never do - pierce the MAGA/Trump Cult/Fascist bubble and show its cultists, to their shock, that they are not a majority and not at all liked. It's shocking that such penetrations come during Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve - but it's worth singing about!
B-Block (27:45) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: She allegedly liquored up underaged teenagers at her daughter's 17th birthday party. Is she A) a drag queen B) a trans-gendered swimmer C) a librarian or D) the founder of the “Keeping Kids In School PAC” and former Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor?; The right-wing pundit who boasts of how The Statue of Liberty is better than any European art; The passing of Tom Foty. (35:25) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Fox kills the wrong Frank Thomas. Aaron Rodgers has now descended into using antisemitic tropes. And Michael Flynn Jr. sticks his father with a new name: "General Flynn-Bitch."
C-Block (41:55) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: We're now in the 25th anniversary year of the night - before Game 1 of the World Series which I was covering for Fox - where an Atlanta hotel gave me a room next to a choir that spent the entire night practicing for a competition the next day. It then tried to make it up to me by offering me, instead...THE PRESIDENTIAL SUITE.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.