'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Wednesday, July 13th, 2011
video 'podcast'
screencaps

ShowPlug1: Live on Countdown at 8ET: GOP Rep. Peter King joins chorus demanding US investigation of Murdoch's phone hacking. He writes FBI

ShowPlug2: Menendez says DOJ, Lautenberg SEC, Rockefeller: Senate Committee. @JohnWDean on investigation chances, @MichaelWolffNYC on Day10

ShowPlug3: Debt Ceiling + GOP Fissure: DeMint blasts McConnell 'compromise.' Contributor @Markos Moulitsas on latest

ShowPlug4: Wisconsin Real Dems beat Fake Dems in Recall Primary, but did GOP win by stalling? John Nichols of @TheNation in Madison joins us

ShowPlug5: Worsts: the REAL blowback of Minnesota shutdown about to swamp GOP. The Great Republican Beer Crisis of 2011

ShowPlugLast: And why Fracking is personal for @MRuff221 - actor and activist Mark Ruffalo, my special guest tonight.


Segments:
watch whole playlist

'Murdoch's US Mess', John Dean
YouTube

'Murdoch's US Mess', Michael Wolff
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)

'Debt Duelers', Markos Moulitsas
YouTube, Current.com (excerpt)

Time Marches On!
YouTube

'Wisconsin Recall Primaries', John Nichols
YouTube

Worst Persons: Ann Coulter, Cynthia Davis (R-MO), Amy Koch (R-MN)
Current.com, YouTube

'Frack No', Mark Ruffalo
YouTube

Web Extra: Countdown Contributor Mark Ruffalo on Fracking
Current.com, podcast


Worst Persons:

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

The bronze to Coulter-Geist... Failed Author.
In 2003, one of the first of her fiction-based paranoid screeches about Liberals, called "Treason"...sold 400-thousand hard cover copies.
The next one, the next year, sold 300-thousand.
"Godless" - in 2006 - 279-thousand.
A follow-up in 2007... 130-thousand.
2009's "Guilty"...120-thousand.

Her new book "Demonic" - and yes, the irony of a picture of Ann Coulter with the word "Demonic" superimposed on it, was lost on her - has, in four weeks, sold 67-thousand copies. It is selling at a 15% slower rate than the previous bomb.
Coultergeist **will** make up for it, of course, by getting hundreds of copies sold for 25 cents each as part of subscriptions for perverse Right-Wing websites.
Incidentally, Bristol Palin's audio book of her tome "Not Afraid Of Life" has sold 58 copies, nationwide. **58**.

The runner-up: Cynthia Davis, former representative to the Missouri State House, from the city of O'Fallon.
She is now **also** the former chairwoman of the St. Charles County Republican Committee.

She claims she's going to concentrate on a private anti-gay marriage group.
Other members of the St. Charles County Committee say she quit before they could fire her.
Her crime, according to another leading County Republican? " She's a narcissist... the whole thing was set to help her, not the Republican Party."
So?
Some local wingnut lost her job amid a flowering delusion of grandeur?
Remember that name? Cynthia Davis?
Two years ago the Missouri Department of Health announced it would be providing free breakfasts and lunches at schools for the 20% of Missouri kids who live with hunger.
Then Representative Davis saw through that scheme, writing in her newsletter to constituents:

"Bigger governmental programs take away our connectedness to the human family, our brotherhood and our need for one another...
"Anyone under 18 can be eligible? Can't they get a job during the summer by the time they are 16? Hunger can be a positive motivator. What is wrong with the idea of getting a job so you can get better meals?
"Tip: If you work for McDonald's, they will feed you for free during your break."

Having lost her seat in the State House, and now her County Republican Chairwomanship, and having actually failed to be elected to a seat on the County **Ambulance Board**... a tip for Ms. Davis: if **you** work for McDonald's, they will feed you for free during your break.

But our winner: Minnesota Republican Senate Majority Leader Amy Coke.
She was the genius behind the political standoff there that has led to Minnesota's state government shut-down.
And she is about to become a victim of the Law Of Unforseen Consequences.

Because of Senator Coke's shutdown, Minnesota... Is running out of beer.
Miller-Coors, the nation's second leading brewer, has to pull its **39 brands of suds** from stores, bars and restaurants in the state because it failed to renew its brand-label registrations, and with Minnesota's government closed, it won't be able to renew them in the immediate future.
But wait, there's more.
Hundreds of **bars** and restaurants and stores, are running **out** of **all brands** of brewskies.
**Their** state-issued licenses to **buy** beer expire, and there's no government to give them **new** licenses.
As an example, there is "The Ugly Mug," a bar near the new baseball stadium, which says it will run out long before the season does.
But wait - there's even **more.**
Minnesota has also stopped issuing tobacco tax stamps.
As of Labor Day - no cigarettes.
This is how bad it is: a state Senator has urged Governor Mark Dayton to use his executive powers to arrange for alcohol sales to continue. The Senator is a Republican and the Governor is a Democrat.
The Senator's no dummy.
This is not to endorse drinking or smoking... But he sees what's ahead: hundreds of thousands of beer and cigarette deprived Minnesotans storming the State House.
Think "Night Of The Living Dead."

Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch - who just cut off beer and smokes in her state - today's Worst Person In The Worrrrld.