Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. This is a Bulletin Countdown update after the Wall Street Journal's stunning story. It is no longer feasible nor safe for this country to permit Elon Musk to continue to have access to any project involving the government of the United States, nor for Musk to remain at large in this country. The government must sever all connections with him, immediately, seize all his technological assets, including SpaceX, Starlink and Twitter X, and if need be, detain him, to port him, or if it comes to that level, arrest him. The safety of the nation may depend upon it. A team of Wall Street Journal writers led by Thomas Grove has now reported to quote them. Elon Musk, the world's richest man and a lynchpin of US space efforts, has been in regular contact with Russian President Vlatnerin since late twenty twenty two. The discussions, confirmed by several current and former US, European and Russian officials, touch on personal topics, business, and geopolitical tensions. The Journal cites two sources who say that Musk's relationship was far more than just conversational. They claimed putin asked Musk to not activate his Starlink satellite internet service over Taiwan as quote a favor to Chinese leader shi Jinping that the journal reports happened late last year. The journal source, it says, is a former Russian intelligence officer. Starlink, part of Musk's SpaceX, won a classified contract with the American Space Program in twenty twenty one that was worth one billion, eight hundred million dollars our government taxpayer dollars fund elon Musk, you will recall that after initially deploying fifteen thousand Starlink units at no cost to Ukraine, after Russia's invasion of that nation, some of the starlinks there suddenly became inoperative. Quote. Later in twenty twenty two, the journal rights Musk was having regular conversations with high level Russians. According to a person familiar with the interactions, at the same time, there was pressure from the Kremlin on Musk's businesses and quote implicit threats against him, the person said, unquote. Ukraine has asserted this year that it is now the Russians using Starlink in eastern and southern Ukraine. The journal says that since Musk has quote a security clearance that allows him access to certain classified information. His continuing contact with Putin triggers quote potential national security concerns among some in the current administration. That is putting it mildly, Musk's fingers reach into almost every aspect of American security, and particularly its communications and space programs. If he is now accepting requests from the dictator of Russia, if he is entertaining doing favors for the dictator of China, Elon Musk can no longer be trusted to be anywhere near these extraordinarily important aspects of our national defense. The Wall Street Journal team also reports the disheartening news that while some in the Biden administration appear to have been aware of Musk's connection to Russia and Putin, many, maybe most, have not been aware. Several White House officials said they weren't aware of them, per the Journal. The journal also quotes a Kremlin spokesman who says Putin has spoken just once to Musk. That appears to match Musk's denial, as the Journal rights. In October twenty twenty two, Musk said publicly that he had spoken only once to Putin. He said on x that the conversation was about space, and that it occurred around April twenty twenty one. The journal contends that is not true. It reports Musk has engaged in quote dialogues with other high ranking Russian officials path twenty twenty two and into this year. One of the officials was Sergey Kiriyenko, Putin's first deputy chief of staff. Un quote. The journal identifies Sergei Kiriyenko as the same man named in a Justice Department Affidavid as the Russian agent who had created thirty Internet domains with which to spread Russian disinformation, some of them via Musk's Twitter x platform designed to quote, erode support for Ukraine and manipulate American voters ahead of the presidential election. And that, of course, is where the Journal's Musk Putin story turns into an even more terrifying nightmare. One current and one former intelligence source. The journal writer's conclude said that Musk and Putin have continued to have contact since then and into this year, as Musk began stepping up his criticism of the US military aid to Ukraine and became involved in Trump's election campaign. Musk is in bed with Trump with a platform he has purchased since he began to exchange ideas and who knows what else with putin a platform, he has gradually transformed into propaganda and disinformation and conspiracy theories for the direct benefit of the Trump campaign. There are few more dangerous combinations of money, politics, dishonesty, and foreign influence imaginable, and President Biden must act against Musk and do so immediately. Due to production deadlines, the rest of this edition of Countdown, recorded before the Wall Street Journal Musk story broke, now followed as originally planned. Texas What the f is Vice President Harris doing in Texas? Eleven days before the election? Texas, where the five point thirty eight average of polls is Trump by six and a half and has only briefly dropped down into the fives. Where the best of the polls this month is Trump by four and the most recent was Emerson and it closed Monday with her down by seven. I think she may know more than we do now I get it. That same Emerson poll has Colin Allred within two of Ted Cruz for the Texas Senate seat. A week before that it was within one. In Morning consult the average remains cruised by three and a half. That's still a long shot for an upset in a medicense. You may also well ask that even if one rally, even one rally with Beyonce, actually were to get you that Senate seat, is it worth it if it contributes to losing the presidency to a guy who will at some point at least try to arrest all the Democratic senators, including potential Senator Allread Because people really haven't thought through just how far Trump would go to stay in power. Still, maybe she knows more than we do. I'm beginning to think so, because if you were calculating this mathematically, you could put together a formula of some kind in which you recognize that in the Internet age, all campaigning is national, and a Friday night Democratic infomercial carried by god knows how many networks and streaming outlets starring Beyonce with Kamala Harris is valuable enough to take the day and go to Texas or Toronto or timbuck too, because a Beyonce Aamala event maybe as valuable in Pennsylvania as a Kamala event in Pennsylvania, although I still don't know how she has not done one at four seasons total landscaping. Yet add in those slim senate upset prospects and the underrated importance of giving the candidate and energy producing thrill justice, things begin to get unbearably tense. And maybe it makes sense. It sure as hell beats going to Scranton and hearing from somebody in Scranton about how they have more funeral homes per capita than any other city in the country, even if one of them is the dissentist funeral home out in the suburbs of Scranton. If you're paying attention to the forces of evil and death Party weekend Schedule two, you may remember Trump is also in a state he cannot win, New York Sunday night. At first, I thought this was a comp and I thought it entered the Harris trip to Texas even less explicable and defensible and meaningful. Then again, Trump is not doing a campaign event Sunday with Beyonce or anybody else you'd care to hear from. He's doing a combination worship me and fundraising org. All the Republican leadership will be there bowing, and some seats will cost nine hundred and twenty four thousand, six hundred dollars a peace almost as much as a freakin' Knicks ticket. And Trump can talk about how much he hates New York City now, but he's always wanted a headline Madison Square Garden. His real issue going into this thing is he's so old he may go to the wrong address, because he may not remember that the garden moved to thirty third and seventh from fiftieth and eighth fifty six years ago. Still, I quiver a little at Kamala Harris's Texas trip, unless, unless she knows more than we do, Unless the internal polls the Harris campaign has are way better than the ones we mere civilians get to see. I mean, I hope, for the sake of human existence that there are better quality wise, But I also mean I hope their numbers show the shapes of a win. And I suspect this is the case. I don't mean Texas, though I think Trump is wobblier there than the numbers suggests. I mean, I mean, I think, I think the swing stains, I think the I think the independence in the swing swing States is going to go for her. I have mentioned already two numbers we have seen that hint at this the late deciders, those who have chosen between them in the last week or the last month are breaking per that same Emerson poll sixty to thirty seven Mars, we have seen voters under thirty five go from supporting Harris by just forty six percent to now favoring her by sixty percent. Now we have three more sets of numbers. Again, they are glimmers, they're hints. There are something smaller than returns, but bigger than vibes. There is early voting data, and it is like trying to read an eye chart through a fog bank. But follow me here. The University of Florida Elections Lab reports that the early vote in the state of North Carolina is basically split three ways. That in North Carolina more Republicans have voted early than Democrats thirty four point two percent to thirty four percent, with unaffiliateds and third party registrations making up the other thirty one percent of the voters, a three way split that blows one cliche out of the water. But despite the parody of the registrations of those vote early, Republicans actually in a slight lead. Maris Polling says in North Carolina, Harris is ahead of Trump among early voters by fifty five to forty three. Among those who have already voted, the polling is Harris fifty five forty three in North Carolina, but the registrations are Republicans thirty four point two to thirty four. In Arizona, Republican early voters outnumber Democratic early voters forty two percent to thirty six. Yet in the Maris poll of Arizona early voters, Harris leads Trump fifty five to forty four. In Nevada, again, Republican early voters outnumbered Democrats forty to thirty five and a half, and the Marist polling of early voters in Nevada is a toss up. The national Marist polling of early voters is fifty five forty three Harris, meaning she is running ahead of state affiliations where we know them. That is an important caveat. Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin do not release the party affiliation of the early voters in those states, and Pennsylvania, which does, is useless as a predictive because early voters there are sixty percent Democratic. There is a micro poll of just the Pennsylvania seventh that is a little bit bigger for Harris than expected. She is ahead by four in Northampton County. She is a head by seven in Lehigh and those margins are bigger than those by which Biden beat Trump in those counties in twenty twenty. No reason to play the theme there. I just wanted to give you a second to catch your breath amid all these numbers. Any of it decisive? No, any of it enough to cut school to go sing with Beyonce. Maybe, But there's something else from that Florida vote lab before we weighed completely out of the numbers, hopefully with our limbs intact, that you should listen to. Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Michigan, North Carolina, and Virginia report the early voters identities by gender and put together. Out of more than eight million votes cast just in those states, fifty four point forty three percent of the early votes have been cast by women, just forty four percent by men. And as you of Florida, election lab professor Michael McDonald concludes, if this is what is happening elsewhere and the polling is right about the big gender gap, Trump is going to need the world's largest sausage party on election Day, somewhere the late Arnold Palmer is saying, did someone mention the world's largest sausage? Okay, last pole thing. This is a vibe. As tight as the polling is and the campaign seems to be, there also is the start of an emerging consensus that the electoral college will not be close. Who wins in the electoral college that is far from clear, but Nate Silver, who remains reliable as long as all he says is. Here are the numbers the computer printed out. Sir Nate Silver reported something bizarre from their simulations of the swing state electional votes. There are one hundred and twenty eight different possible combinations in the seven swing states. She wins Pennsylvania, he wins the other six, she wins the other six. He wins Pennsylvani, she wins three, he wins four, she wins a different, et cetera. The likeliest of all the simulations twenty four percent of the time, Trump swept all seven swing states. The second likeliest of all the simulations fifteen percent of the time, Harris swept all seven swing states. So that's Nate Silver. Then. CNN's Harry Enton said his outfits computer simulations have concluded that there is a sixty percent chance that the winner gets at least three hundred votes in the electoral College. Well, how in the hell would you do that by sweeping or nearly sweeping the Swing states? Again, who is the winner in that equation? He doesn't know that, But what he does, though, is actually kind of valuable. Twenty twelve, Enton pointed out ninety two percent of the polling averages in the Swing States underestimated Obama's vote in those states twenty sixteen, eighty three percent of them underestimated Trump's vote in those states in twenty twenty, one hundred percent underestimated Trumps. So this breath taking data from the swing states too close to call half a point between them that could take weeks, is probably totally incorrect. Somebody the figure Phil suggest is going to win big if you put that prediction together with those little nuggets of data from the early voting, plus whatever the Harris campaign has locked away in its polling safe while it travels around. Maybe you two would take Friday night off to go to a state you aren't going to win and go party with Beyonce the other news. Trump says he'd fire Jack Smith in the first few hours, and he'd eliminate all taxes on January twentieth, So stand by for a stock market crash on January twenty first, add an even greater depression on January twenty second, and starvation in the Red States on January twenty third. Oh, and Trump again said Obama is currently president. Right, it's all coming through Iran, and Obama wants to He doesn't want to talk about it. He doesn't want to mention. He doesn't even mention them in a statement. It's all coming through Iran. Well, you mean President Biden. So Trump's accelerating brain problem as heard again, there will not move the needle or the arrow. Even though the arrow is one of those props Steve Martin used to use, and it goes in one side of Trump's head and comes out the other. The latest model groping accusation is not going to move the needle. John Kelly has not called the Hitler news conference to move the needle, and so I think we can pretty much discount the October or really early November surprise. I usually bashed the website Axios, but I give them credit. They actually listed the top ten Trump scandals and contextualize them, and I want to read it just as they published it. Quote. Pull any one of these ten Trump scandals out of a hat and apply it to any other politician, or even just a typical American. More likely than not it would end their career. Good evening, and welcome to the end of our careers. Number one. Trump was found guilty on thirty four felon accounts in New York for paying illegal hush money to a porn star. Two he refused to concede the twenty twenty election and spread baseless claims of voter fraud that inspired a violent mob to attack the capitol On January sixth, twenty twenty one. Three, he was indicted on federal charges of illegally retaining classified documents that included nuclear secrets. The case was dismissed, but could be reinstated upon appeal. Four. He was impeached twice. I'd forgotten that. Four. He was impeached twice, once for his actions on January sixth, and once for withholding military aid to pressure Ukraine's government to investigate his political opponents. Five he has publicly praised dictators and sided with Vladimir Putin over US intelligence agencies that assessed that Russia had interfered in the twenty sixteen election. Six he was found liable for sexually abusing writer E. Gen Caron has been accused of sexual misconduct by at least twenty five other women. He was caught on tape in two thousand and five bragging about grabbing women by their genitals. Seven He and his company were ordered to pay three hundred and fifty million dollars in a New York Civiyl fraud trial for artificially inflating his net worths to secure favorable loan terms. Eight he placed full page ads in the New York Times in nineteen eighty nine calling for the death penalty for five black and Latino teenagers who were wrongfully convicted of raping the jogger in Central Park. He has refused to apologize. Nine he promoted the racist conspiracy theory that Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States. And ten he made more than thirty thousand false or misleading claim during his four years in office, according to Washington Post factcheckers. Finally, Axios is showing some astonishment at all of this, though sadly no recognition that part of the reason none of these things have ended Trump's candidacy or his career is axios and ninety nine percent of the rest of the American political media industrial complex have never portrayed these corruptions as things that should have ended Trump's candidacy. All Right, something different here. The regular edition of Worse Persons is still to come. It's double Worst Person's Day. It will be complete with the general manager of the New York Yankees trying to blame his failure on cheaters on other teams. But for a change, here is a special edition of the Worst Journalists in the World, number three. And yes, the term journalists is being applied kind of loosely in two of these three of these three cases Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon Schong, who is one typo away from being known as Patrick Soon Schlong. He killed the LA Times editorial sections planned endorsement of Kamala Harris for president. The editorial's editor of The Times, Mariel Garza, quit on the spot. Good for her. That is the kind of ethical rage that is almost extinct today. They should put her in charge of CNN or the Washington Post, not just bring in another recycled British loser. I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent. Garza says in dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I'm standing up. The crazy thing about this, of course, quoting her again. I didn't think we were going to change our reader's minds. Our readers, for the most part, are Harris supporters. We're a very liberal paper. I didn't think we're going to change the outcome of the election in California. And this idiot who owns The Times killed the editorial. We should run him out of the country. Number two. Dana Bash of CNN, speaking of being run out, she should change her name to hapless because she is, in fact hapless Dana Bash. Maybe you could hyphenate it hapless Dana or hapless Dana hyphen Bash. Immediately after the Harris town hall on CNN Wednesday night, I mean immediately, the Vice President was still on the stage when Bash blurted, I'll just tell you what I'm hearing from people that I've been talking to. If her goal was to close the deal, they're not sure she did that. Ah well, there you have it. Call off the election. So people Dana Bash had been talking to what kind of people Republicans, Democrats, ones who only had three or four fingers, Trump family members, CNN executives, whoever was stupid enough to have not fired her after CNN's credibility destroying Biden Trump debate that she co moderated. I mean, not even characterizing your sources here, I'll just tell you what I'm hearing from people that I've been talking to. Her goal was to close the deal. They're not sure that she did that. Relatives, christ Bash, you might as well have been quoting the voices in your head. You you hapless Dana Bash. Maybe she was. I mean, it's empty enough. But the winner, the even more hapless. Eric Erickson. The man was two erics and forty two necks. Say what you will about but he has a type blonde. This lady who waited until now, meaning the latest assertion of being groped by Trump in the nineties, This lady who waited until now does not fit Trump's type. He is a type blonde. This lady who waited until now does not fit Trump's type meaning blonde. No, I do not believe it. Thirteen days before the twenty twenty four election. My surprise is that her last name is not Ford nor her first name Christine. Uh? Eric, what's uh? What's the name of Trump's current missus or you know, the woman he hired to portray his wife in public? And what's her hair color? She a blonde? She's not a blonde. You didn't notice this, You haven't deleted the tweet or anything. Did you hate a column on it? Did you do his show on it? I mean, if you want to be a Trump whore, Eric, that's fine. Could you at least fact check something as easy as the hair color of the previous contractually obligated First Lady of the United States? Eric Erickson, Today's worst journalist in the world. Christ also of interest here if you think that's bad. Hey, Lara Trump, how many states are there? I mean in the United States, United United States where you are at the moment. Are there forty eight? Are there? Fifty? More than fifty? More than seventy? My young pup, Kit who you hear in the background, Kit knows is it more than eighty? Are there more than eighty states? Lara Trump? Is the correct number? On number so high it cannot be measured by Man only by puppy. That's next. This is countdown. This is countdown with Keith Oberman. Oberman still ahead of us on this edition of Countdown. So you're an artist Therefore, as F. Scott Fitzgerald said, an artist is someone who can hold two opposing viewpoints and still remain fully functional. You want to stop hearing about politics, yet you need to keep hearing about politics. I understand. So I have an ideal compromise. The collection of the best political fables from the fast Collection of the Master Fridays with Thurber the political fables coming up first. There are still more new idiots to talk about. The daily roundup of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning kruegriff X specimens who constitute today's non journalistic worst persons in the world to the bronze worse. Brian Cashman, general manager of Larry David's New York Yankees, who you heard Larry doing an impression of Bob Sheppard, the late Great Pa announcer at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees who have won one Worlds Championship in the twenty four years since Brian Cashman squeezed out the real architects of the last Yankee dynasty of the nineties, Geen Michael, and Bob Watson. Somebody interviewed Cashman on the eve of the Yankees first World Series since two thousand and nine and mentioned that it was the Yankees first World Series since two thousand and nine, and he's not happy with the reality that that represents. Quote. I hate the fifteen year thing because it completely forgets and discounts that some other organization cheated us when we were already in the end. If you knew what was going on, I don't think they would be advancing during that time thing. I think we would have been advancing. I hate that fifteen year thing because I don't think it accurately reflects history. The thing Cashman is referring to is the Houston Astros sign stealing scandal of the preceding decade, which is a valid point, but which does assume that the Astros would not have beaten the Yankees without the cheating, which is just an assumption, and which also assumes that the Yankees never cheated in that span, which is inaccurate. The last time the Yankees won the World Series, in two thousand and nine, they were led by Alex Rodriguez, who, while publicly denying for the next decade that he ever used steroids, in fact publicly staging protests with protesters he had high to carry signs supporting him. Rodriguez in fact testified under oath to federal drug agents and prosecutors that actually he was using twelve thousand dollars worth of steroids per month. Also in two thousand and eleven, after I published a series of photographs of Alex Rodriguez looking sort of at me but actually behind me to a guy in a Yankee coat wearing a headset who was flashing him signs with fingers and cards, the Yankees were reprimanded by Baseball for a form of cheating in which a guy, an employee in the stands, was giving Alex Rodriguez information about the pitches. You can't contact a player from the stands if you are a team employee. But that's not cheating, is it. Prior to that, the Yankees' last World Series wins had been in nineteen ninety nine and two thousand, when noted, Performance enhancing drug and stimulants enthusiast Roger Clemens was the winning pitcher in two of the World Series these games. Those two years, and he won two other games in preliminary rounds those two years, and he later won three more games for the Yankees in the postseasons, during which Cashman implies the Yankees didn't cheat because if we're going to go on a this completely forgets and discounts that some other organization cheated us. Ride the nineteen ninety nine Atlanta Braves and the two thousand Mets in the two thousand and nine Phillies would like to have a word, mister Cashman, say nothing of the nineteen ninety six Braves and maybe the nineteen ninety eight Padres as well. Mister Cashman, We we cheated. That's why we suck. The runner up worser Nicole Shanahan, who apparently believes she's still a candidate for vice president with the JFK junior ticket of the I Don't Know Pantsiless Party. The Washington posted a long piece on her nit wittedness and how it has led her from getting a lot of money after a failed marriage to being a Trump stooge. One segment in it jumps out Elizabeth with Dwaskin, Ashley Parker, Merrill Cornfield, and Aaron Schaeffer write quote, Shanahan became aware of reporting for this article when she and Kennedy were still campaigning. In June, she texted an associate who had been contacted by the Post to suggest a deal. Shanahan said, she would pay your friend that would be the Post reporter quote half a million dollars to be a whistleblower to expose people Shanahan claimed were spreading false information about her unquote. See now, the failure here is not just about Shanahan's morals. The Post reporters they missed a golden opportunity. Five hundred thousand ridiculous, especially since Shanahan got a reported one billion in her divorce from Sergey Brinn, the Google co founder. That's a lot of money, even for having to cope with seeing Elon Musk naked and stoned. What the Post reporter should have done was say five hundreds are you crazy? Try five hundred million and you got a deal, and then use the five hundred million to buy the Post from Jeff Bezos so the Post would have an actual journalist in charge and not be sitting there two fridays before the efing election without having endorsed a presidential candidate like the Washington Post was just the goddamned useless La Times, but the winner the worst Lara Trump. One looks at her marriage to Qusa Trump and wonders which of them is the NEPO baby. Did Lara or her hubby who goes by the name Eric get the job with the campaign based on being related to the other, Which one of them is the I mean, Eric is an idiot, an amazingly shallow guy, even in that family, who apparently thought that the word charity meant raising money, taking a percentage of it for himself and letting other people have what was left over. Years ago, when I pointed out to him that the word charity actually meant giving something value you had to somebody else who did not have it because they needed it and you had too much, he blocked me on all social media platforms. Still Lara Trump his wife and co chair of the RNC, just eight years after she was still a producer on Inside Edition. Lara really is a dim bulb. Here she is on Newsmax with Coincidentally enough, somebody else Fox News also fired Eric Puffy Dad bowling to these poll workers, We're gonna have lawyers in all the major polling locations across the country. We have lawsuits in eighty one states right now. We won about a week and a half ago. As Democratic voting legal eagle Mark Elias notes, the Republican National Committee actually has voting suppression lawsuits in nineteen states. In the week preceding that interview with Lyarra Trump, eight cases were decided by the courts and the Trump campaign lost all eight. And oh yeah, yeah, by the way, there aren't eighty one states in this country. The Republicans are still talking about Obama slipping in May two thousand and eight and saying he'd been to fifty seven states when he meant he'd been to forty seven states. But Trump's co chairman and double NEPO baby can say eighty one states. And that's fine, Lara, unless she was including the state of depression, the state of anxiety, the state of obliviousness, the state of denial, the state of lip botox overdose, the fugue state, or, since we are talking Trump, the state of incontinence. Trump two days worst person. I like that one in the world. Fridays with Thurber and I have not done a bunch of the political fables lately, So let's dive right in. Some of these got him into huge trouble in the nineteen fifties, and I'm happy to think that they would get him into huge trouble in the twenty twenties. We start with the least political of them, just the fun one. The Mouse who Went to the Country by James Thurber. Once upon a Sunday there was a city mouse who went to visit a country mouse. He hit away on a train the country mouse had told him to take, only to find that on Sundays it did not stop at Beddington. Hence the city mouse could not get off at Beddington and catch a bus for Siebert's Junction, where he was to be met by the country mouse. The city mouse, in fact, was carried on to Middelburg, where he waited three hours for a train to take him back. When he got back to Beddington, he found out that the last bus for Seebirch Junction had just left, so he ran, and he ran, and he ran, and he finally caught the bus and crept aboard, only to find out that it was not the bus for Siebert's Junction at all, but was going in the opposite direction through Pell's hollow and grum to a place called Whimberbee. When the bus finally stopped, the city mouse got out in a heavy rain and found that there were no more buses that night going anywhere. To the hell with it, said the city mouse, and he walked back to the city moral. Stay where you are, you're sitting pretty. The Very Proper Gander by James Thurber. Not so very long ago, there was a very fine gander. He was strong and smooth and beautiful, and he spent most of his time singing to his wife and children. One day somebody who saw him strutting up and down in his yard and singing, remarked, there is a very proper gander. An old hen over this and told her husband about it. That night in the roost they said something about propaganda. She said, I have always suspected that, said the rooster, And he went around the barnyard next day telling everybody that the very fine gander was a dangerous bird, more than likely a hawk in gander's clothing. A small brown hen remembered a time when, at a great distance she had seen the gander talking with some hawks in the forest. They were apt to no good, she said, A duck remembered that the gander had once told him he did not believe in anything. He said, to hell with the flag too, said the duck. A guinea hen recalled that she had once seen somebody who looked very much like the gander throw something that looked a great deal like a bomb. Finally, everybody snatched up sticks and stones and descended on the gander's house. He was strutting in his front yard, singing to his children and his wife. There he is, everybody cried, hawk lover, unbeliever, flag hater, bomb thrower. So they set upon him and drove him out of the country. Moral anybody who you or your wife thinks is going to overthrow the government by violence must be driven out of the country. The very proper Gander by James Thurber. The Moth and the Star, and I have a tattoo pertaining to this one by James Thurber. A young and impressionable moth once set his heart on a certain star. He told his mother about this, and she counseled him to set his heart on a bridge lamp instead. Stars aren't the thing to hang around, she said. Lamps say the thing to hang around. You get somewhere that way, said the moth's father. You don't get anywhere chasing stars. But the moth would not heed the words of either parent. Every evening, at dusk, when the star came out, he would start flying toward it, and every morning at dawn he would crawl back home, worn out with his vein endeavor. One day his father said to him, you haven't burned a wing in months, boy, and it looks to me as if you're never going to. All your brothers have been badly burned flying around street lamps, all your sisters have been terribly singed flying around house lamps. Come on, now, get out there and get yourself scorched. Big strip and moth like you without a muck on him. The moth left his father's house, but he would not fly around street lamps, and he would not fly around house lamps. He went right on trying to reach the star, which was four and one third light years or twenty five trillion miles away. The moth thought it was just caught in the top branches of an elm. He never did reach the star, but he went right on trying night after night, and when he was a very very old moth he began to think that he really had reached the star, and he went around saying so. This gave him a deep and lasting pleasure, and he lived to a great old age. His parents, and his brothers and his sisters had all been burned to death when they were quite young. Moral who flies afar from the sphere of our sorrow is here today and here tomorrow. The Moth and the Star by James Thurber. Another one, the owl who was God. Once upon a starless midnight, there was an owl who sat on the branch of an oak tree. Two ground moles tried to slip quietly by unnoticed, You said the owl. Who They quavered in fear and astonishment, for they could not believe it was possible for anyone to see them in that thick darkness, You too, said the owl. The moles hurried away and told the other creatures of the field and forest that the owl was the greatest and wisest of all animals, because he could see in the dark, and because he could answer any question. I'll see about that, said a secretary bird, And he called on the owl one night, when it was again very dark. How many claws am I houlding? Up, said the secretary bird, too, said the owl, and he was right. Can you give me another expression, for that is to say or namely? Asked the secretary bird, to wit, said the owl. Why does a lover call on his love? Asked the secretary bird to woo, said the owl. The secretary bird hastened back to the other creatures and reported that the owl was indeed the greatest and wisest animal in the world, because he could see in the dark, and because he could answer any question. Can he see in the daytime? Asked a red fox, Yes, echoed a dormouse and a French poodle. Can he see in the daytime? Too? All the other creatures laughed loudly at this silly question, and they set upon the red fox and his friends and drove them out of the region. Then they sent a messenger to the owl and asked him to be their leader. When the owl appeared among the animals, it was high noon and the sun was shining brightly. He walked very slowly, which gave him an appearance of great dignity, and he peered about him with large, staring eyes, which gave him an air of tremendous importance. He's God, screamed a Plymouth rockhand, and the others took up the cry He's God, He's God. So they followed him wherever he went, and when he began to bump into things, they began to bump into things too. Finally, he came to a concrete highway, and he started up the middle of it, and all the other creatures followed him. Presently, a hawk, who was acting as an outrider, observed a truck coming toward them at fifty miles an hour, and he reported to the secretary bird, and the secretary bird reported to the owl. There's danger ahead, said the secretary bird. Too. Wit, said the owl. The secretary bird told him, aren't you afraid, he asked, woo, said the owl calmly, for he could not see the truck. He's God, cried all the creatures again, and they were still crying, He's God, He's God, when the truck hit them and ran them down. Some of the animals were merely injured, but most of them, including the owl, were killed. Moral you can fool too many of the people too much of the time. The owl who was God by James thurberd two more of Thurber's fables, Political of nature, the birds and the foxes. Once upon a there was a bird sanctuary in which hundreds of Baltimore orioles lived together happily. The refuge consisted of a forest entirely surrounded by a high wire fence. When it was put up, a pack of foxes who lived nearby protested that it was an arbitrary and unnatural boundary. However, they did nothing about it at the time because they were interested in civilizing the geese and ducks on the neighboring farms. When all the geese and ducks had been civilized and there was nothing left to eat, the foxes once more turned their attention to the bird sanctuary. Their leader announced that there had been foxes once in the sanctuary, but that they had been driven out. He proclaimed that Baltimore orioles belonged in Baltimore. He said furthermore that the orioles in the sanctuary were a continuous menace to the peace of the world. The other animals cautioned the foxes not to disturb the birds in their sanctuary, So the foxes attacked the sanctuary one night and tore down the fence that surrounded it. The orioles rushed out and were instantly killed and eaten by the foxes. The next day, the leader of the foxes, a fox from whom God was receiving daily guidance, got under the rostrum and addressed the other foxes from it. His message was simple and sublime. You see before you, he said another Lincoln, we have liberated all them birds. Moral government of the orioles by the foxes, and for the foxes must perish from the earth. And lastly, the peace like mongoose by James Thurber. In cobra country, a mongoose was born one day who did not want to fight cobras or anything else. The words spread from mongoose to mongoose that there was a mongoose who didn't want to fight cobras. If he didn't want to fight anything else, it was his own business, But it was the duty of every mongoose to kill cobras or be killed by cobras. Why, asked the peace like mongoose, And the word went around that the strange new mongoose was not only pro cobra and anti mongoose, but intellectually curious and against the ideals and traditions of Mongoosism. He is crazy, cried the young mongoose's father. Hey is sick, said his mother. He's a coward, shouted his brothers. He is a mongoose sexual, whispered his sisters. Strangers who had never laid eyes on the piece like mongoose, remembered that they had seen him crawling on his stomach, or trying on cobra hoods, or plotting the violent overthrow of Mongoosia. I'm trying to use reason and intelligence, said the strange new mongoose. Reason is six sevenths of treason, said one of his neighbors. Intelligence is what the enemy uses, said another. Finally, the rumor spread that the mongoose had venom in his sting like a cobra, and he was tried, convicted by a show of pause, and condemned to banishment. Moral ashes to ashes, and clay to clay. If the enemy doesn't get you your own folks, may the peace. Like mongoose by James Thurber, I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. We're now back to five episodes a week, posting nightly just after mid night Eastern. Follow me for the podcast promo videos as well, which appear on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, x, Instagram, and you face. Once again, there is a Monday countdown. Please listen to it. Also send this podcast or the link to it to somebody who does not know that they really need to listen. Brian Ray and John Phillip Schaneil, the musical directors of Countdown, arranged, produced, and performed most of our music. Mister Chanel handled orchestration and keyboards. Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums, and it was produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. 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 is my friend Larry David, Yankees fan fan. Everything else was pretty much my fault. That's countdown for today. One weekend, four days until the twenty twenty four presidential election, the one and eighty ninth day since convicted felon associated fugue Jay Trump's first attempted coo against the democratically elected government of the United States, use the election, use the mental health system, use presidential immunity to keep him from doing it again while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is Monday. Bulletin says the news requires till then, I'm Keith Oulberman. 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.

Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. This is a Bulletin Countdown update after the Wall Street Journal's stunning story. It is no longer feasible nor safe for this country to permit Elon Musk to continue to have access to any project involving the government of the United States, nor for Musk to remain at large in this country. The government must sever all connections with him, immediately, seize all his technological assets, including SpaceX, Starlink and Twitter X, and if need be, detain him, to port him, or if it comes to that level, arrest him. The safety of the nation may depend upon it. A team of Wall Street Journal writers led by Thomas Grove has now reported to quote them. Elon Musk, the world's richest man and a lynchpin of US space efforts, has been in regular contact with Russian President Vlatnerin since late twenty twenty two. The discussions, confirmed by several current and former US, European and Russian officials, touch on personal topics, business, and geopolitical tensions. The Journal cites two sources who say that Musk's relationship was far more than just conversational. They claimed putin asked Musk to not activate his Starlink satellite internet service over Taiwan as quote a favor to Chinese leader shi Jinping that the journal reports happened late last year. The journal source, it says, is a former Russian intelligence officer. Starlink, part of Musk's SpaceX, won a classified contract with the American Space Program in twenty twenty one that was worth one billion, eight hundred million dollars our government taxpayer dollars fund elon Musk, you will recall that after initially deploying fifteen thousand Starlink units at no cost to Ukraine, after Russia's invasion of that nation, some of the starlinks there suddenly became inoperative. Quote. Later in twenty twenty two, the journal rights Musk was having regular conversations with high level Russians. According to a person familiar with the interactions, at the same time, there was pressure from the Kremlin on Musk's businesses and quote implicit threats against him, the person said, unquote. Ukraine has asserted this year that it is now the Russians using Starlink in eastern and southern Ukraine. The journal says that since Musk has quote a security clearance that allows him access to certain classified information. His continuing contact with Putin triggers quote potential national security concerns among some in the current administration. That is putting it mildly, Musk's fingers reach into almost every aspect of American security, and particularly its communications and space programs. If he is now accepting requests from the dictator of Russia, if he is entertaining doing favors for the dictator of China, Elon Musk can no longer be trusted to be anywhere near these extraordinarily important aspects of our national defense. The Wall Street Journal team also reports the disheartening news that while some in the Biden administration appear to have been aware of Musk's connection to Russia and Putin, many, maybe most, have not been aware. Several White House officials said they weren't aware of them, per the Journal. The journal also quotes a Kremlin spokesman who says Putin has spoken just once to Musk. That appears to match Musk's denial, as the Journal rights. In October twenty twenty two, Musk said publicly that he had spoken only once to Putin. He said on x that the conversation was about space, and that it occurred around April twenty twenty one. The journal contends that is not true. It reports Musk has engaged in quote dialogues with other high ranking Russian officials path twenty twenty two and into this year. One of the officials was Sergey Kiriyenko, Putin's first deputy chief of staff. Un quote. The journal identifies Sergei Kiriyenko as the same man named in a Justice Department Affidavid as the Russian agent who had created thirty Internet domains with which to spread Russian disinformation, some of them via Musk's Twitter x platform designed to quote, erode support for Ukraine and manipulate American voters ahead of the presidential election. And that, of course, is where the Journal's Musk Putin story turns into an even more terrifying nightmare. One current and one former intelligence source. The journal writer's conclude said that Musk and Putin have continued to have contact since then and into this year, as Musk began stepping up his criticism of the US military aid to Ukraine and became involved in Trump's election campaign. Musk is in bed with Trump with a platform he has purchased since he began to exchange ideas and who knows what else with putin a platform, he has gradually transformed into propaganda and disinformation and conspiracy theories for the direct benefit of the Trump campaign. There are few more dangerous combinations of money, politics, dishonesty, and foreign influence imaginable, and President Biden must act against Musk and do so immediately. Due to production deadlines, the rest of this edition of Countdown, recorded before the Wall Street Journal Musk story broke, now followed as originally planned. Texas What the f is Vice President Harris doing in Texas? Eleven days before the election? Texas, where the five point thirty eight average of polls is Trump by six and a half and has only briefly dropped down into the fives. Where the best of the polls this month is Trump by four and the most recent was Emerson and it closed Monday with her down by seven. I think she may know more than we do now I get it. That same Emerson poll has Colin Allred within two of Ted Cruz for the Texas Senate seat. A week before that it was within one. In Morning consult the average remains cruised by three and a half. That's still a long shot for an upset in a medicense. You may also well ask that even if one rally, even one rally with Beyonce, actually were to get you that Senate seat, is it worth it if it contributes to losing the presidency to a guy who will at some point at least try to arrest all the Democratic senators, including potential Senator Allread Because people really haven't thought through just how far Trump would go to stay in power. Still, maybe she knows more than we do. I'm beginning to think so, because if you were calculating this mathematically, you could put together a formula of some kind in which you recognize that in the Internet age, all campaigning is national, and a Friday night Democratic infomercial carried by god knows how many networks and streaming outlets starring Beyonce with Kamala Harris is valuable enough to take the day and go to Texas or Toronto or timbuck too, because a Beyonce Aamala event maybe as valuable in Pennsylvania as a Kamala event in Pennsylvania, although I still don't know how she has not done one at four seasons total landscaping. Yet add in those slim senate upset prospects and the underrated importance of giving the candidate and energy producing thrill justice, things begin to get unbearably tense. And maybe it makes sense. It sure as hell beats going to Scranton and hearing from somebody in Scranton about how they have more funeral homes per capita than any other city in the country, even if one of them is the dissentist funeral home out in the suburbs of Scranton. If you're paying attention to the forces of evil and death Party weekend Schedule two, you may remember Trump is also in a state he cannot win, New York Sunday night. At first, I thought this was a comp and I thought it entered the Harris trip to Texas even less explicable and defensible and meaningful. Then again, Trump is not doing a campaign event Sunday with Beyonce or anybody else you'd care to hear from. He's doing a combination worship me and fundraising org. All the Republican leadership will be there bowing, and some seats will cost nine hundred and twenty four thousand, six hundred dollars a peace almost as much as a freakin' Knicks ticket. And Trump can talk about how much he hates New York City now, but he's always wanted a headline Madison Square Garden. His real issue going into this thing is he's so old he may go to the wrong address, because he may not remember that the garden moved to thirty third and seventh from fiftieth and eighth fifty six years ago. Still, I quiver a little at Kamala Harris's Texas trip, unless, unless she knows more than we do, Unless the internal polls the Harris campaign has are way better than the ones we mere civilians get to see. I mean, I hope, for the sake of human existence that there are better quality wise, But I also mean I hope their numbers show the shapes of a win. And I suspect this is the case. I don't mean Texas, though I think Trump is wobblier there than the numbers suggests. I mean, I mean, I think, I think the swing stains, I think the I think the independence in the swing swing States is going to go for her. I have mentioned already two numbers we have seen that hint at this the late deciders, those who have chosen between them in the last week or the last month are breaking per that same Emerson poll sixty to thirty seven Mars, we have seen voters under thirty five go from supporting Harris by just forty six percent to now favoring her by sixty percent. Now we have three more sets of numbers. Again, they are glimmers, they're hints. There are something smaller than returns, but bigger than vibes. There is early voting data, and it is like trying to read an eye chart through a fog bank. But follow me here. The University of Florida Elections Lab reports that the early vote in the state of North Carolina is basically split three ways. That in North Carolina more Republicans have voted early than Democrats thirty four point two percent to thirty four percent, with unaffiliateds and third party registrations making up the other thirty one percent of the voters, a three way split that blows one cliche out of the water. But despite the parody of the registrations of those vote early, Republicans actually in a slight lead. Maris Polling says in North Carolina, Harris is ahead of Trump among early voters by fifty five to forty three. Among those who have already voted, the polling is Harris fifty five forty three in North Carolina, but the registrations are Republicans thirty four point two to thirty four. In Arizona, Republican early voters outnumber Democratic early voters forty two percent to thirty six. Yet in the Maris poll of Arizona early voters, Harris leads Trump fifty five to forty four. In Nevada, again, Republican early voters outnumbered Democrats forty to thirty five and a half, and the Marist polling of early voters in Nevada is a toss up. The national Marist polling of early voters is fifty five forty three Harris, meaning she is running ahead of state affiliations where we know them. That is an important caveat. Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin do not release the party affiliation of the early voters in those states, and Pennsylvania, which does, is useless as a predictive because early voters there are sixty percent Democratic. There is a micro poll of just the Pennsylvania seventh that is a little bit bigger for Harris than expected. She is ahead by four in Northampton County. She is a head by seven in Lehigh and those margins are bigger than those by which Biden beat Trump in those counties in twenty twenty. No reason to play the theme there. I just wanted to give you a second to catch your breath amid all these numbers. Any of it decisive? No, any of it enough to cut school to go sing with Beyonce. Maybe, But there's something else from that Florida vote lab before we weighed completely out of the numbers, hopefully with our limbs intact, that you should listen to. Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Michigan, North Carolina, and Virginia report the early voters identities by gender and put together. Out of more than eight million votes cast just in those states, fifty four point forty three percent of the early votes have been cast by women, just forty four percent by men. And as you of Florida, election lab professor Michael McDonald concludes, if this is what is happening elsewhere and the polling is right about the big gender gap, Trump is going to need the world's largest sausage party on election Day, somewhere the late Arnold Palmer is saying, did someone mention the world's largest sausage? Okay, last pole thing. This is a vibe. As tight as the polling is and the campaign seems to be, there also is the start of an emerging consensus that the electoral college will not be close. Who wins in the electoral college that is far from clear, but Nate Silver, who remains reliable as long as all he says is. Here are the numbers the computer printed out. Sir Nate Silver reported something bizarre from their simulations of the swing state electional votes. There are one hundred and twenty eight different possible combinations in the seven swing states. She wins Pennsylvania, he wins the other six, she wins the other six. He wins Pennsylvani, she wins three, he wins four, she wins a different, et cetera. The likeliest of all the simulations twenty four percent of the time, Trump swept all seven swing states. The second likeliest of all the simulations fifteen percent of the time, Harris swept all seven swing states. So that's Nate Silver. Then. CNN's Harry Enton said his outfits computer simulations have concluded that there is a sixty percent chance that the winner gets at least three hundred votes in the electoral College. Well, how in the hell would you do that by sweeping or nearly sweeping the Swing states? Again, who is the winner in that equation? He doesn't know that, But what he does, though, is actually kind of valuable. Twenty twelve, Enton pointed out ninety two percent of the polling averages in the Swing States underestimated Obama's vote in those states twenty sixteen, eighty three percent of them underestimated Trump's vote in those states in twenty twenty, one hundred percent underestimated Trumps. So this breath taking data from the swing states too close to call half a point between them that could take weeks, is probably totally incorrect. Somebody the figure Phil suggest is going to win big if you put that prediction together with those little nuggets of data from the early voting, plus whatever the Harris campaign has locked away in its polling safe while it travels around. Maybe you two would take Friday night off to go to a state you aren't going to win and go party with Beyonce the other news. Trump says he'd fire Jack Smith in the first few hours, and he'd eliminate all taxes on January twentieth, So stand by for a stock market crash on January twenty first, add an even greater depression on January twenty second, and starvation in the Red States on January twenty third. Oh, and Trump again said Obama is currently president. Right, it's all coming through Iran, and Obama wants to He doesn't want to talk about it. He doesn't want to mention. He doesn't even mention them in a statement. It's all coming through Iran. Well, you mean President Biden. So Trump's accelerating brain problem as heard again, there will not move the needle or the arrow. Even though the arrow is one of those props Steve Martin used to use, and it goes in one side of Trump's head and comes out the other. The latest model groping accusation is not going to move the needle. John Kelly has not called the Hitler news conference to move the needle, and so I think we can pretty much discount the October or really early November surprise. I usually bashed the website Axios, but I give them credit. They actually listed the top ten Trump scandals and contextualize them, and I want to read it just as they published it. Quote. Pull any one of these ten Trump scandals out of a hat and apply it to any other politician, or even just a typical American. More likely than not it would end their career. Good evening, and welcome to the end of our careers. Number one. Trump was found guilty on thirty four felon accounts in New York for paying illegal hush money to a porn star. Two he refused to concede the twenty twenty election and spread baseless claims of voter fraud that inspired a violent mob to attack the capitol On January sixth, twenty twenty one. Three, he was indicted on federal charges of illegally retaining classified documents that included nuclear secrets. The case was dismissed, but could be reinstated upon appeal. Four. He was impeached twice. I'd forgotten that. Four. He was impeached twice, once for his actions on January sixth, and once for withholding military aid to pressure Ukraine's government to investigate his political opponents. Five he has publicly praised dictators and sided with Vladimir Putin over US intelligence agencies that assessed that Russia had interfered in the twenty sixteen election. Six he was found liable for sexually abusing writer E. Gen Caron has been accused of sexual misconduct by at least twenty five other women. He was caught on tape in two thousand and five bragging about grabbing women by their genitals. Seven He and his company were ordered to pay three hundred and fifty million dollars in a New York Civiyl fraud trial for artificially inflating his net worths to secure favorable loan terms. Eight he placed full page ads in the New York Times in nineteen eighty nine calling for the death penalty for five black and Latino teenagers who were wrongfully convicted of raping the jogger in Central Park. He has refused to apologize. Nine he promoted the racist conspiracy theory that Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States. And ten he made more than thirty thousand false or misleading claim during his four years in office, according to Washington Post factcheckers. Finally, Axios is showing some astonishment at all of this, though sadly no recognition that part of the reason none of these things have ended Trump's candidacy or his career is axios and ninety nine percent of the rest of the American political media industrial complex have never portrayed these corruptions as things that should have ended Trump's candidacy. All Right, something different here. The regular edition of Worse Persons is still to come. It's double Worst Person's Day. It will be complete with the general manager of the New York Yankees trying to blame his failure on cheaters on other teams. But for a change, here is a special edition of the Worst Journalists in the World, number three. And yes, the term journalists is being applied kind of loosely in two of these three of these three cases Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon Schong, who is one typo away from being known as Patrick Soon Schlong. He killed the LA Times editorial sections planned endorsement of Kamala Harris for president. The editorial's editor of The Times, Mariel Garza, quit on the spot. Good for her. That is the kind of ethical rage that is almost extinct today. They should put her in charge of CNN or the Washington Post, not just bring in another recycled British loser. I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent. Garza says in dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I'm standing up. The crazy thing about this, of course, quoting her again. I didn't think we were going to change our reader's minds. Our readers, for the most part, are Harris supporters. We're a very liberal paper. I didn't think we're going to change the outcome of the election in California. And this idiot who owns The Times killed the editorial. We should run him out of the country. Number two. Dana Bash of CNN, speaking of being run out, she should change her name to hapless because she is, in fact hapless Dana Bash. Maybe you could hyphenate it hapless Dana or hapless Dana hyphen Bash. Immediately after the Harris town hall on CNN Wednesday night, I mean immediately, the Vice President was still on the stage when Bash blurted, I'll just tell you what I'm hearing from people that I've been talking to. If her goal was to close the deal, they're not sure she did that. Ah well, there you have it. Call off the election. So people Dana Bash had been talking to what kind of people Republicans, Democrats, ones who only had three or four fingers, Trump family members, CNN executives, whoever was stupid enough to have not fired her after CNN's credibility destroying Biden Trump debate that she co moderated. I mean, not even characterizing your sources here, I'll just tell you what I'm hearing from people that I've been talking to. Her goal was to close the deal. They're not sure that she did that. Relatives, christ Bash, you might as well have been quoting the voices in your head. You you hapless Dana Bash. Maybe she was. I mean, it's empty enough. But the winner, the even more hapless. Eric Erickson. The man was two erics and forty two necks. Say what you will about but he has a type blonde. This lady who waited until now, meaning the latest assertion of being groped by Trump in the nineties, This lady who waited until now does not fit Trump's type. He is a type blonde. This lady who waited until now does not fit Trump's type meaning blonde. No, I do not believe it. Thirteen days before the twenty twenty four election. My surprise is that her last name is not Ford nor her first name Christine. Uh? Eric, what's uh? What's the name of Trump's current missus or you know, the woman he hired to portray his wife in public? And what's her hair color? She a blonde? She's not a blonde. You didn't notice this, You haven't deleted the tweet or anything. Did you hate a column on it? Did you do his show on it? I mean, if you want to be a Trump whore, Eric, that's fine. Could you at least fact check something as easy as the hair color of the previous contractually obligated First Lady of the United States? Eric Erickson, Today's worst journalist in the world. Christ also of interest here if you think that's bad. Hey, Lara Trump, how many states are there? I mean in the United States, United United States where you are at the moment. Are there forty eight? Are there? Fifty? More than fifty? More than seventy? My young pup, Kit who you hear in the background, Kit knows is it more than eighty? Are there more than eighty states? Lara Trump? Is the correct number? On number so high it cannot be measured by Man only by puppy. That's next. This is countdown. This is countdown with Keith Oberman. Oberman still ahead of us on this edition of Countdown. So you're an artist Therefore, as F. Scott Fitzgerald said, an artist is someone who can hold two opposing viewpoints and still remain fully functional. You want to stop hearing about politics, yet you need to keep hearing about politics. I understand. So I have an ideal compromise. The collection of the best political fables from the fast Collection of the Master Fridays with Thurber the political fables coming up first. There are still more new idiots to talk about. The daily roundup of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning kruegriff X specimens who constitute today's non journalistic worst persons in the world to the bronze worse. Brian Cashman, general manager of Larry David's New York Yankees, who you heard Larry doing an impression of Bob Sheppard, the late Great Pa announcer at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees who have won one Worlds Championship in the twenty four years since Brian Cashman squeezed out the real architects of the last Yankee dynasty of the nineties, Geen Michael, and Bob Watson. Somebody interviewed Cashman on the eve of the Yankees first World Series since two thousand and nine and mentioned that it was the Yankees first World Series since two thousand and nine, and he's not happy with the reality that that represents. Quote. I hate the fifteen year thing because it completely forgets and discounts that some other organization cheated us when we were already in the end. If you knew what was going on, I don't think they would be advancing during that time thing. I think we would have been advancing. I hate that fifteen year thing because I don't think it accurately reflects history. The thing Cashman is referring to is the Houston Astros sign stealing scandal of the preceding decade, which is a valid point, but which does assume that the Astros would not have beaten the Yankees without the cheating, which is just an assumption, and which also assumes that the Yankees never cheated in that span, which is inaccurate. The last time the Yankees won the World Series, in two thousand and nine, they were led by Alex Rodriguez, who, while publicly denying for the next decade that he ever used steroids, in fact publicly staging protests with protesters he had high to carry signs supporting him. Rodriguez in fact testified under oath to federal drug agents and prosecutors that actually he was using twelve thousand dollars worth of steroids per month. Also in two thousand and eleven, after I published a series of photographs of Alex Rodriguez looking sort of at me but actually behind me to a guy in a Yankee coat wearing a headset who was flashing him signs with fingers and cards, the Yankees were reprimanded by Baseball for a form of cheating in which a guy, an employee in the stands, was giving Alex Rodriguez information about the pitches. You can't contact a player from the stands if you are a team employee. But that's not cheating, is it. Prior to that, the Yankees' last World Series wins had been in nineteen ninety nine and two thousand, when noted, Performance enhancing drug and stimulants enthusiast Roger Clemens was the winning pitcher in two of the World Series these games. Those two years, and he won two other games in preliminary rounds those two years, and he later won three more games for the Yankees in the postseasons, during which Cashman implies the Yankees didn't cheat because if we're going to go on a this completely forgets and discounts that some other organization cheated us. Ride the nineteen ninety nine Atlanta Braves and the two thousand Mets in the two thousand and nine Phillies would like to have a word, mister Cashman, say nothing of the nineteen ninety six Braves and maybe the nineteen ninety eight Padres as well. Mister Cashman, We we cheated. That's why we suck. The runner up worser Nicole Shanahan, who apparently believes she's still a candidate for vice president with the JFK junior ticket of the I Don't Know Pantsiless Party. The Washington posted a long piece on her nit wittedness and how it has led her from getting a lot of money after a failed marriage to being a Trump stooge. One segment in it jumps out Elizabeth with Dwaskin, Ashley Parker, Merrill Cornfield, and Aaron Schaeffer write quote, Shanahan became aware of reporting for this article when she and Kennedy were still campaigning. In June, she texted an associate who had been contacted by the Post to suggest a deal. Shanahan said, she would pay your friend that would be the Post reporter quote half a million dollars to be a whistleblower to expose people Shanahan claimed were spreading false information about her unquote. See now, the failure here is not just about Shanahan's morals. The Post reporters they missed a golden opportunity. Five hundred thousand ridiculous, especially since Shanahan got a reported one billion in her divorce from Sergey Brinn, the Google co founder. That's a lot of money, even for having to cope with seeing Elon Musk naked and stoned. What the Post reporter should have done was say five hundreds are you crazy? Try five hundred million and you got a deal, and then use the five hundred million to buy the Post from Jeff Bezos so the Post would have an actual journalist in charge and not be sitting there two fridays before the efing election without having endorsed a presidential candidate like the Washington Post was just the goddamned useless La Times, but the winner the worst Lara Trump. One looks at her marriage to Qusa Trump and wonders which of them is the NEPO baby. Did Lara or her hubby who goes by the name Eric get the job with the campaign based on being related to the other, Which one of them is the I mean, Eric is an idiot, an amazingly shallow guy, even in that family, who apparently thought that the word charity meant raising money, taking a percentage of it for himself and letting other people have what was left over. Years ago, when I pointed out to him that the word charity actually meant giving something value you had to somebody else who did not have it because they needed it and you had too much, he blocked me on all social media platforms. Still Lara Trump his wife and co chair of the RNC, just eight years after she was still a producer on Inside Edition. Lara really is a dim bulb. Here she is on Newsmax with Coincidentally enough, somebody else Fox News also fired Eric Puffy Dad bowling to these poll workers, We're gonna have lawyers in all the major polling locations across the country. We have lawsuits in eighty one states right now. We won about a week and a half ago. As Democratic voting legal eagle Mark Elias notes, the Republican National Committee actually has voting suppression lawsuits in nineteen states. In the week preceding that interview with Lyarra Trump, eight cases were decided by the courts and the Trump campaign lost all eight. And oh yeah, yeah, by the way, there aren't eighty one states in this country. The Republicans are still talking about Obama slipping in May two thousand and eight and saying he'd been to fifty seven states when he meant he'd been to forty seven states. But Trump's co chairman and double NEPO baby can say eighty one states. And that's fine, Lara, unless she was including the state of depression, the state of anxiety, the state of obliviousness, the state of denial, the state of lip botox overdose, the fugue state, or, since we are talking Trump, the state of incontinence. Trump two days worst person. I like that one in the world. Fridays with Thurber and I have not done a bunch of the political fables lately, So let's dive right in. Some of these got him into huge trouble in the nineteen fifties, and I'm happy to think that they would get him into huge trouble in the twenty twenties. We start with the least political of them, just the fun one. The Mouse who Went to the Country by James Thurber. Once upon a Sunday there was a city mouse who went to visit a country mouse. He hit away on a train the country mouse had told him to take, only to find that on Sundays it did not stop at Beddington. Hence the city mouse could not get off at Beddington and catch a bus for Siebert's Junction, where he was to be met by the country mouse. The city mouse, in fact, was carried on to Middelburg, where he waited three hours for a train to take him back. When he got back to Beddington, he found out that the last bus for Seebirch Junction had just left, so he ran, and he ran, and he ran, and he finally caught the bus and crept aboard, only to find out that it was not the bus for Siebert's Junction at all, but was going in the opposite direction through Pell's hollow and grum to a place called Whimberbee. When the bus finally stopped, the city mouse got out in a heavy rain and found that there were no more buses that night going anywhere. To the hell with it, said the city mouse, and he walked back to the city moral. Stay where you are, you're sitting pretty. The Very Proper Gander by James Thurber. Not so very long ago, there was a very fine gander. He was strong and smooth and beautiful, and he spent most of his time singing to his wife and children. One day somebody who saw him strutting up and down in his yard and singing, remarked, there is a very proper gander. An old hen over this and told her husband about it. That night in the roost they said something about propaganda. She said, I have always suspected that, said the rooster, And he went around the barnyard next day telling everybody that the very fine gander was a dangerous bird, more than likely a hawk in gander's clothing. A small brown hen remembered a time when, at a great distance she had seen the gander talking with some hawks in the forest. They were apt to no good, she said, A duck remembered that the gander had once told him he did not believe in anything. He said, to hell with the flag too, said the duck. A guinea hen recalled that she had once seen somebody who looked very much like the gander throw something that looked a great deal like a bomb. Finally, everybody snatched up sticks and stones and descended on the gander's house. He was strutting in his front yard, singing to his children and his wife. There he is, everybody cried, hawk lover, unbeliever, flag hater, bomb thrower. So they set upon him and drove him out of the country. Moral anybody who you or your wife thinks is going to overthrow the government by violence must be driven out of the country. The very proper Gander by James Thurber. The Moth and the Star, and I have a tattoo pertaining to this one by James Thurber. A young and impressionable moth once set his heart on a certain star. He told his mother about this, and she counseled him to set his heart on a bridge lamp instead. Stars aren't the thing to hang around, she said. Lamps say the thing to hang around. You get somewhere that way, said the moth's father. You don't get anywhere chasing stars. But the moth would not heed the words of either parent. Every evening, at dusk, when the star came out, he would start flying toward it, and every morning at dawn he would crawl back home, worn out with his vein endeavor. One day his father said to him, you haven't burned a wing in months, boy, and it looks to me as if you're never going to. All your brothers have been badly burned flying around street lamps, all your sisters have been terribly singed flying around house lamps. Come on, now, get out there and get yourself scorched. Big strip and moth like you without a muck on him. The moth left his father's house, but he would not fly around street lamps, and he would not fly around house lamps. He went right on trying to reach the star, which was four and one third light years or twenty five trillion miles away. The moth thought it was just caught in the top branches of an elm. He never did reach the star, but he went right on trying night after night, and when he was a very very old moth he began to think that he really had reached the star, and he went around saying so. This gave him a deep and lasting pleasure, and he lived to a great old age. His parents, and his brothers and his sisters had all been burned to death when they were quite young. Moral who flies afar from the sphere of our sorrow is here today and here tomorrow. The Moth and the Star by James Thurber. Another one, the owl who was God. Once upon a starless midnight, there was an owl who sat on the branch of an oak tree. Two ground moles tried to slip quietly by unnoticed, You said the owl. Who They quavered in fear and astonishment, for they could not believe it was possible for anyone to see them in that thick darkness, You too, said the owl. The moles hurried away and told the other creatures of the field and forest that the owl was the greatest and wisest of all animals, because he could see in the dark, and because he could answer any question. I'll see about that, said a secretary bird, And he called on the owl one night, when it was again very dark. How many claws am I houlding? Up, said the secretary bird, too, said the owl, and he was right. Can you give me another expression, for that is to say or namely? Asked the secretary bird, to wit, said the owl. Why does a lover call on his love? Asked the secretary bird to woo, said the owl. The secretary bird hastened back to the other creatures and reported that the owl was indeed the greatest and wisest animal in the world, because he could see in the dark, and because he could answer any question. Can he see in the daytime? Asked a red fox, Yes, echoed a dormouse and a French poodle. Can he see in the daytime? Too? All the other creatures laughed loudly at this silly question, and they set upon the red fox and his friends and drove them out of the region. Then they sent a messenger to the owl and asked him to be their leader. When the owl appeared among the animals, it was high noon and the sun was shining brightly. He walked very slowly, which gave him an appearance of great dignity, and he peered about him with large, staring eyes, which gave him an air of tremendous importance. He's God, screamed a Plymouth rockhand, and the others took up the cry He's God, He's God. So they followed him wherever he went, and when he began to bump into things, they began to bump into things too. Finally, he came to a concrete highway, and he started up the middle of it, and all the other creatures followed him. Presently, a hawk, who was acting as an outrider, observed a truck coming toward them at fifty miles an hour, and he reported to the secretary bird, and the secretary bird reported to the owl. There's danger ahead, said the secretary bird. Too. Wit, said the owl. The secretary bird told him, aren't you afraid, he asked, woo, said the owl calmly, for he could not see the truck. He's God, cried all the creatures again, and they were still crying, He's God, He's God, when the truck hit them and ran them down. Some of the animals were merely injured, but most of them, including the owl, were killed. Moral you can fool too many of the people too much of the time. The owl who was God by James thurberd two more of Thurber's fables, Political of nature, the birds and the foxes. Once upon a there was a bird sanctuary in which hundreds of Baltimore orioles lived together happily. The refuge consisted of a forest entirely surrounded by a high wire fence. When it was put up, a pack of foxes who lived nearby protested that it was an arbitrary and unnatural boundary. However, they did nothing about it at the time because they were interested in civilizing the geese and ducks on the neighboring farms. When all the geese and ducks had been civilized and there was nothing left to eat, the foxes once more turned their attention to the bird sanctuary. Their leader announced that there had been foxes once in the sanctuary, but that they had been driven out. He proclaimed that Baltimore orioles belonged in Baltimore. He said furthermore that the orioles in the sanctuary were a continuous menace to the peace of the world. The other animals cautioned the foxes not to disturb the birds in their sanctuary, So the foxes attacked the sanctuary one night and tore down the fence that surrounded it. The orioles rushed out and were instantly killed and eaten by the foxes. The next day, the leader of the foxes, a fox from whom God was receiving daily guidance, got under the rostrum and addressed the other foxes from it. His message was simple and sublime. You see before you, he said another Lincoln, we have liberated all them birds. Moral government of the orioles by the foxes, and for the foxes must perish from the earth. And lastly, the peace like mongoose by James Thurber. In cobra country, a mongoose was born one day who did not want to fight cobras or anything else. The words spread from mongoose to mongoose that there was a mongoose who didn't want to fight cobras. If he didn't want to fight anything else, it was his own business, But it was the duty of every mongoose to kill cobras or be killed by cobras. Why, asked the peace like mongoose, And the word went around that the strange new mongoose was not only pro cobra and anti mongoose, but intellectually curious and against the ideals and traditions of Mongoosism. He is crazy, cried the young mongoose's father. Hey is sick, said his mother. He's a coward, shouted his brothers. He is a mongoose sexual, whispered his sisters. Strangers who had never laid eyes on the piece like mongoose, remembered that they had seen him crawling on his stomach, or trying on cobra hoods, or plotting the violent overthrow of Mongoosia. I'm trying to use reason and intelligence, said the strange new mongoose. Reason is six sevenths of treason, said one of his neighbors. Intelligence is what the enemy uses, said another. Finally, the rumor spread that the mongoose had venom in his sting like a cobra, and he was tried, convicted by a show of pause, and condemned to banishment. Moral ashes to ashes, and clay to clay. If the enemy doesn't get you your own folks, may the peace. Like mongoose by James Thurber, I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. We're now back to five episodes a week, posting nightly just after mid night Eastern. Follow me for the podcast promo videos as well, which appear on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, x, Instagram, and you face. Once again, there is a Monday countdown. Please listen to it. Also send this podcast or the link to it to somebody who does not know that they really need to listen. Brian Ray and John Phillip Schaneil, the musical directors of Countdown, arranged, produced, and performed most of our music. Mister Chanel handled orchestration and keyboards. Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums, and it was produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. 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 is my friend Larry David, Yankees fan fan. Everything else was pretty much my fault. That's countdown for today. One weekend, four days until the twenty twenty four presidential election, the one and eighty ninth day since convicted felon associated fugue Jay Trump's first attempted coo against the democratically elected government of the United States, use the election, use the mental health system, use presidential immunity to keep him from doing it again while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is Monday. Bulletin says the news requires till then, I'm Keith Oulberman. 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.