'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Tuesday, July 5th, 2011
video 'podcast'

ShowPlug: Live, 8 PM, @Current : @JoshTPM Marshall on Debt Ceiling, @SenJeffMerkley on Afghanistan; @MichaelWolffNYC on Murdoch Scandal

ShowPlugDetailed: POTUS calls WH Debt summit, tells GOP to "leave ultimatums" at door. Which GOP does he mean? @JoshTPM Marshall, + Mother Jones' @AndrewKroll on Romney, Santorum economic bloopers. @SenJeffMerkley on his 'Declare Victory Get Out' Afghanistan op-ed. Britain rises as one against Murdoch in voicemail scandal, w/biographer @MichaelWolffNYC. And David Duke, running for GOP presidential nomination, with Countdown Contributor @MaysoonZayid - live at 8 on @Current


Segments:

'Medicare Deal?', Josh Marshall
YouTube

'Doubling Down', Andy Kroll
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)

'Withdrawal 2012', Sen. Jeff Merkley
YouTube

Time Marches On!
YouTube

'Murdoch and Mayhem', Michael Wolff
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)

Worst Persons: Maria del Mar Arjona, John J. Doherty of NYC Sanitation, the Pentagon
Current.com, YouTube

'Diff'rent Folks', Maysoon Zayid
YouTube


Worst Persons:

Here are Countdown's viewers' nominees for today's Worst Persons In The World.

The bronze to Maria del Mar Arjona, who stopped by the local prison in Chetumal in Mexico to pick something up.

Namely: her common-law husband, Juan Ramirez Tijerina, who was serving 20 years for weapons possession. Ms. Arjona had an unusual plan for busting him out.
First, the conjugal visit...

**Then**...

The old "stuff the husband in the roller bag ploy." Prison officials said they stopped Ms. Arjona because she seemed nervous... And the bag seemed to be giving her trouble as she tried to wheel it out.

The runner-up tonight: John J. Doherty, head of New York City's Sanitation Department, who has to answer for **this**...

An 83-year old woman getting a ticket for 300 dollars... For throwing trash away... In a trash can.

Darbe Pitofsky said she had just placed a paper bag with newspapers in it, in a city trash barrel on 71st Street when somebody emerged from a Sanitation Department car across the street and began to run towards her.

She told one of the city's newspapers that the man demanded her I-D and threatened to "take her in." Since she didn't have any I-D with her, he followed her to her apartment to see her driver's license, then issued her a ticket for 100 dollars.

When she complained, he tripled it.

The Sanitation Department's defense?

"Corner baskets are for pedestrian use only."

Of course the woman was on foot. It's unclear if they are charging her with disposing of **home** garbage in a **public** trash receptacle. The city has also not addressed why every one of its employees, especially the ones with uniforms, have become convinced that they are dictators.

But our winners: the Pentagon. Well, the whole country, really.

This is about infra-structure and cost and what is beyond the **pointlessness** of war.

Retired Brigadier General Steven Anderson - who was General Petraeus's chief of logistics - has estimated, for NPR, the annual cost of **air conditioning** for American troops and facilities in Afghanistan and Iraq. He counts the whole equation:

Delivering fuel to "some of the most isolated places in the world"...the soldiers to run the convoys... security... building the roads to run the convoys **on**... medevac support for those injured on those jobs or for whom the air conditioning is not enough... Soup to nuts.

**How** much does it cost to air condition our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, per year?

20 billion, 200 million dollars.

Seriously.

Larger than the NASA budget.

Seriously.

This is not to criticize soldiers for needing air conditioning. Trust me, I wouldn't last half an hour there, with or without it. This is just another reason, a startling, utterly wasteful reason, why we should not be there.

So the Pentagon - and us, for letting 20 billion dollars in air conditioning each year **happen** - today's Worst Persons In The World.