SEASON 2 EPISODE 12: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

THIS EPISODE WAS REVISED AT 2:25 AM EDT MONDAY 8.14.23

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump snaps. After a weekend of taunting Judge Tanya Chutkan - and the rule of law - through surrogates, he posts online attacks against her ("highly partisan...obviously wants me behind bars") and the special counsel ("How dare lowlife prosecutor Deranged Jack Smith break into my former Twitter account without informing me" - and calls this court-authorized access an "atrocity").

These are exactly the kind of inflammatory remarks that Judge Chutkan warned him against; he had tried to get around her by having Matt Gaetz threaten violence as he stood silently next to him, and he has tried to get around it by reposting the lies and character assassinations and threats of others. He didn't even wait 24 hours to try to get around her. Any other defendant in this country would have already had their pre-trial release revoked, or had an immediate hearing scheduled.

We must end the appeasement of Trump. The law - with Judge Chutkan representing it - must crush him.

Trump has also repeatedly attacked Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis in advance of her probable indictments tomorrow. He is panicking. He has reason to. In addition to his other crimes, she now has emails and texts tying "The Coffee County Breach" - the hacking of voting records there - to Trump lawyers and associates. 

Also: RFK Junior has self-destructed. Surprise surprise. He calls for a federal ban on abortion after 15 or 21 weeks, then denies he said such a thing; then NBC produces the transcript of him re-confirming his belief several times. Republicans continue to rage against the appointment of a Special Counsel in the Hunter Biden case after spending a year demanding the appointment of a Special Counsel in the Hunter Biden case - and getting exactly the one they all wanted. Kevin McCarthy demanded it just 34 days ago!

B-Block (22:59) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: It's like something out of a Jimmy Stewart western or a '20s Chicago Mob film: the bad guys break into the small town newspaper and kill the publisher. Only it's happened for real in Kansas, and the bad guys are the town cops, and the DOJ must have the FBI arrest the lot of them - the judge who authorized it included. And the CBS News president who tried to pander to the far right has been fired. I'm in the neighborhood, and I am available (part-time only) (29:29) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The Fox anchor who not only thinks Karl Marx wrote "Mein Kampf" but has apparently thought so since 1985; First the baseball team suspended its announcer for nothing, then it seems to have forced him to say it was all a misunderstanding. And General Mike Flynn reaches a new low: the Holocaust was the fault of Jews who didn't fight back hard enough.

C-Block (36:44) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Just passed the anniversary of the day Aaron Sorkin stole a quote from my last father and put it in the mouth of Jeff Daniels - and every one of my exes called me to complain about it.

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