TRUMP MOVING TOWARDS A FORM OF ETHNIC CLEANSING - 5.29.24

to say I told you so about something legal. But first, it is becoming increasingly obvious that Trump and the authoritarians seeking to overthrow democracy in the United States and install him as a dictator for life and then enact the equivalent of ethnic cleansing, have made the choice to let everybody know in advance that they are seeking to overthrow the democracy in the United States and install him as a dictator and then enact the equivalent of ethnic cleansing.

You may recall Trump summoning most of the fossil fuel industry of this nation to Mari Lago in April and essentially demanding that they put one billion dollars into his campaign so that he can get elected and then eliminate virtually all of the restrictions on their businesses as they

try to destroy the planet faster now. The Washington Post reports that early this month, he summoned most of the big money non gas donors to the Republicans and other fascists to the Pierre Hotel here in New York, around the corner from me, and there was essentially demanding that they increase their donations by a factor of twenty five or fifty times so he can eliminate virtually all taxes

on their businesses and their personal incomes. One businessman Trump told them had offered him a donation of a million dollars in exchange for lunch. The Posts sources quoted Trump is replying, I'm not having lunch. You've got to make it twenty five million. Then there was the other would be donor, who normally gave two to three million.

have the biggest tax increase in history. It's blackmail. Give me the money I want twenty five times or fifty times as much as you plan to give me, or else is this legal. Of course, it's not legal. What does legal mean to Trump? At this point? If he loses the election, he might as well enact the original outcome to the novel on which House of Cards was based, and go up to the roof somewhere and light himself

on fire and jump off. The Washington Post quoted campaign finance lawyers who say Trump was technically allowed to ask these donors for contributions of thirty three hundred dollars or less. Well, he's close only fifty million. The quid pro quo is in Trump's blood. It's why he's on trial. It is the through line of his relationship with Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels. It's why he was impeached over Ukraine. It

was the premise of January sixth. It is why he is running a pre sale on the environment for one billion dollars. It is why he will tell you lower taxes for fifty million dollars a plate. It's why, of course, he doesn't care if anybody knows, because if it works, exactly who is going to prosecute him for blackmail and corruption and quid pro quos? And if it doesn't work, there are a whole lot of buildings he can jump off, many of which have his own name on them. If

this unvarnished, unrestrained, undeniable corruption, we're not obvious enough. If it were not obvious enough that Trump just doesn't give a shit anymore, You're not gonna shame him, You're not going to restrain him, You're not going to prosecute him. He's decided it's us or him. There's the second part to this. Trump reposted or posted a video, another one of these fig leaf deniable Reich videos. He didn't make

the video, he just posted the video. In it, a man encounters at a New York apparently airport Joe Scarborough. He rolls his phone camera and he starts swearing at Joe Scarborough for twenty three seconds, complete with a bad New York accent. Now, look, who am I to judge?

We've all done this. And Scarborough tried to mainstream Trump, and he coached Trump before the debates in twenty sixteen, and he only stopped and suddenly found God when Trump did not pick him to be his vice president, or Scarborough would be out there at the trial supporting Trump. And Scarborough thus long ago forfeited the usual rules about deserving that minimal level of decorum in public. So he got screamed at with swear words for twenty three seconds

by this guy. And by the way, the assumption is it's a guy. But to me, go listen to the tape you judge for yourself. To me, it sounded like Judge Janine Piro from Fox but who knows, and swearing at Scarborough. But the lunatic then branched out. And this is the point. Quoting quote again mildly correcting quote, He'll get rid of all you efing liberals. You liberals are gone when he e fing wins, You e fing blowjob liberals are done. Uncle Buny's gonna take this election. Landslide, landslide,

You fing half a blowjob landslide. Get the f out of here, you scumbag unquote. Watch that guy wind up as Secretary of State. The point, of course, is that Trump posted that video and he can come up with any excuse he Oh, I thought it was funny. Oh, it's just criticism of Joe Scarborough. Oh I didn't look at it as that I didn't make that video. He is as responsible for that as if somebody verbally assaulted

I don't know Jesse Waters in a video? Does Jesse Waters recognize his own name if it's yelled at it on the streets? He yells at Jesse Waters in a video, promises Biden is going to purge Jesse Waters and his family and his supporters, and then Biden posted the video on his accounts on social media. It is the most rapidly efficiently worn out cliche of our century. But truly, what would be happening right now if Joe Biden had posted some kind of video like the Trump Scarborough video.

If that had happened, the New York Times headquarters would be the first building in human history to faint from

the vapors. And obviously Biden would not post that hypothetical video because his campaign is not an ever increasingly criminal plot to extort money from donors and pedal all the influence he has and trade tax cuts for political contributions, and sell the right to destroy the planet to oil executives who apparently get signed kind of bonus if they kill all of us by the year twenty thirty instead

of merely the year twenty thirty five. I have been arguing since the year twenty sixteen that the essence of the Trump campaign, the Trump zeitgeist. The essence of Trump has been hit Larian. Not that he would take the oath of office and then open concentration camps a half an hour later, Not that I was comparing him to Hitler nineteen forty two, but that the point of Trump is to help one part of the country metaphor or

literally kill the other half of the country. When you say, as Trump has said, the immigrants are poisoning the blood of the nation. When you say, as Trump has said, his enemies are vermin and you will remove them, and you will use the military, and you will also immunize the cops. So guess what. Then you could use the cops too, and you will do it quickly. First thing, and you will decide who is an immigrant. Guess what?

What you are building to is an ethnic cleansing of the United States of America, only the ethnic definitions are kind of fluid. Step one, purge all the immigrants. Step two, declare that all of your political opponents are immigrants. It's just a word. You could purge. I don't know people who look like Swiss cheese. And and then declare that

all of your political opponents look like Swiss cheese. The only thing knew about this is that most of Trump's predecessors on this list, Hitler, Mussolini, Mao, Paul Pott, they tried to fool some of the people some of the time before revealing their final solutions. Trump is not only revealing it. He's not only posting it in videos that mock Joe Scarborough. He's not only doing that. But if you give him a billion dollars, he'll say, would you

like to have naming rights to the final solution? Okay? Final statements at the trial and ironically, as an aside, reading of Trump threatening donors at the Pierre Hotel, which I walk past every day every day. I once had an hour long staring contest with Bill O'Reilly at a charity event inside the Pierre Hotel, reading of him there, Reading of him at Mary Lago offering to sell all

the remaining oxygen for a billion dollars. I think less of Hitler and Paul pod and those and more of the movie The Untouchables and the Al Capone baseball bat scene where Capone in formal attire is meeting with his henchmen at a formal dinner and talking about enthusiasms like baseball and good teamwork like in baseball. And the next thing, you, oh, he's beating in the skull of the character played by

John Rocky with a baseball bat. And oh yeah, who is it that Trump keeps referencing when he boasts about how often he's been indicted al Capone? And who is it again, who plays.

but you and Trump are doing it. On Fox yesterday, after De Niro swore at Trump and Maga scum in public, Dana Perino, who, until the invention of Kaylee Mcananey, was easily the dumbest Press secretary in White House history, Dana Perino actually said that de Niro had been sent by quote the campaign to do a speech across the street

from the jury trial. I actually think that they could probably file a lawsuit about that, because I think it is against the law, that it's against the rights of the defendant and of the former president, and it's tampering with the jury. Trump bringing the Speaker of the House and half a dozen Senators and half a dozen congressmen into the courthouse, not across the street, but into the courthouse several at a time every day of the trial,

that's fine. Robert de Niro holding a news conference outside, that's against the law. Because simpletons like Dana Perino really think like that, and it's not complicated why they think like that.

them and to punish you. Doesn't matter if it's oh, going around a formal dining room with a baseball bat, legal, if it's Republicans, not legal, if it's Democrats more or less at the same hour that Dana Perino was saying that, and think about how many things she clearly doesn't understand about the United States of America, more or less at that same hour, Hogan Gidley, the Trump spokesman who either has a really bad wig that he bought at Woolworth's or was never taught by his dad how to comb

his real hair. Hogan Gidley was on CNN upbraiding Jake Tapper because Jake Tapper had noted that Judge Eileen Cannon was appointed by Trump, but he did not also note that Judge Juan mere Shaan once donated to the Biden campaign, and to his credit, Tapper replied, yeah, I think he gave like thirty five bucks to get a T shirt for his daughter, and Hogan Gidley smiled with great satisfaction, because this is how they think one judge corrupt, clearly stalling,

stalling so much. She may actually have stalled too much and may get herself removed from that trial, probably not in time, but she may get herself removed from that trial and sanctioned by the judges above her. Was appointed by Trump and the other judge once donated thirty five dollars. That's the same thing to them. Because it is illegal to oppose Trump, it is illegal to contradict Trump, it is illegal to work against Trump, and if it isn't,

it will be. That's the idea I said. This part was about the trial itself, with jury's who knows, But I will point out that on May fourteenth, I noted the defense's self congratulatory insistence that they had blown up Michael Cohen because they insisted a critical call from Cohen to the phone of Trump bouncer Keith Schiller on October twenty four, twenty sixteen, could not have included questions about Harrison calls and the latest on the payments to Stormy Daniels,

That the call was less than two minutes, that Cohen could not have talked about two different things to Shiller and to Trump in just that span of time. I noted that day. The last part is nonsense. I once fired my business manager and my agent in one phone call. They were both on that including the pleasantries, lasted thirty six seconds. So sure enough, what does Prosecutor Joshua Steinlass

do in his closing argument to the jury yesterday? Per The New York Times, Steinlass just started a timer and pretended to have the exact same conversation, adding plenty of asides and silences as he played the role of Cohen talking first to Schiller and then to Trump. The call felt as if it lasted a long time. But when Steinlass stopped the timer. It had only been about forty nine seconds, about as long as the call in question.

The point he was seeking to illustrate was simple that Cohen could have easily talked to both men just like he testified. This was a real piece of showmanship, clever and useful at the same time. Moments like these show Steinlass's experience as a longtime trial lawyer who can lean into the innate theatricality of the role. Jonah Bromwich, New York Times Tall JISSEU no idea what the jury will do.

I know one of Trump's old attorneys was on TV and rolled his eyes at much of the Trump closing arguments. I know Trump's lawyer violated all the rules of the court and told the jury it could not send Trump to jail on Cohen's testimony, when this is not the jury that would decide if he goes to jail. The judge insisted that the lawyer did that deliberately. I don't know how you unhear that you can't desclare a mistrial

in favor of the prosecution. And I do know lawyers keep pointing out the crux of this that Trump confessed elsewhere to paying Cohen to pay Daniels. And I also know that if I were Bob de Niro and I was going to speak outside the Trump courthouse about scum like Trump, I would have talked more about enthusiasms, and I would have brought my baseball back with me coffee. Last point. Sometimes I think the New York Times and Politico collude. I think they alternate in covering the campaign. Now,

you guys are going to insist Biden can't win. Okay, will write something good saying he could win. Oh wait, no, no, you change it. You're going to write something good, Okay, then we'll write something bad. Times Yesterday headline, Trump leans into an outlaw image as his criminal trial concludes, Preparing for a potential verdict in Manhattan, the former president has increasingly aligned himself with fellow defendants and people convicted of crimes.

By this logic, Whenever Trump eventually dies, the Times could run a headline saying Trump leans into a dead image as his life concludes, explains it'll be easier for him to get around because he's lost so much weight. So that was the Times out law image, who no rules? Just Trump? Politico Yesterday their headline a full blown freak

out over Biden. I'll read this. A pervasive sense of fear has settled in at the highest levels of the Democratic Party over Joe Biden's reelection prospects, even among office holders and strategists who have previously expressed confidence about the coming battle with Donald Trump. A few choice quotes a Democratic operative, this isn't oh my god, Mitt Romney might become president. It's oh my god, the democracy might end.

There's still a path to win this, but they don't look like a campaign that's embarking on that path right now, said Pete g and Greco, a longtime Democratic strategist who's worked time Blah blah. New York Democrats need to wake up, said Manhattan Borough President Mark Levy. The number of people in New York, including people of color, that I come across, who are saying positive things about Trump is alarming. So

they are the negatives. This followed last Friday, the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, when nobody is reading the holy goddamn New York Times, the holy goddamnedest New York Times story. I think I have ever read the polls they wrote last Friday. I doubt you saw it have shown Trump with an edge for eight straight months, but there's one big flashing warning sign suggesting that his advantage might not

be quite as stable as it looks. By the way, that's as stable as The Times has made it look, while everybody else has said, you know, it's not stable. That warning sign the Times went on. His narrow lead is built on gains among voters who aren't paying close attention to politics, who don't follow traditional news, and who don't regularly vote, who don't regularly vote, so he'll win

the votes of everybody who doesn't vote, go on. To the extent that has not been true in the New York Times Sienna College polling in the last eight years. Disengaged voters are driving the overall polling results and the storyline about the election. President Biden has actually led the last three Times Sienna national polls among those who voted in the twenty twenty election, even as he has trailed

among registered voters overall. And looking back over the last few years, almost all of mister Trump's gains have come from these less engaged voters. So all of your polls this last year Times have been predicated on the opinions and promises and plans of voters who do not vote. I understand voters who do not vote might suddenly vote. Gotcha.

Seems though, that you might have wanted to have mentioned this a little earlier, just saying in our polling, mister Biden wins just three quarters of Democratic leaning voters who didn't vote in the twenty twenty two midterm election, even as almost all high turnout Democratic leaners continue to support him.

While the race has been stable so far. Okay, while the race has been stable so far, mister Trump's dependence on disengaged voters makes it easy to imagine how it could quickly become more volatile as voters tune in over the next six months. There's a chance that disengaged but traditionally Democratic voters could revert to their usual partisan leanings. Alternately, many of these disaffected voters might ultimately stay home, which

might help mister Biden. The Time's latest excuse for a year of polls that have put a huge thumb on the polling picture, on the entire coverage of the campaign, on Democrats who have panicked and said get rid of Joe Biden. The latest Times excuse for its intolerable indefensible journalistic malpractice. Is Biden has not been reaching the non voters who are non politically plugged in and are non readers as well. What important factor might be the media consumption.

While mister Biden holds nearly all of his support from voters who consume traditional mainstream media national newspapers, television networks and the like, the disengaged are far likelier to report getting their news from social media. Two things here. If national newspapers have no sway on this election, why why are we bothering to read their polls? Why are we bothering to believe leave their polls? Why are we not

questioning the methodology of their polls? And the other thing, If there's one thing we know for certain about social media is that it's volatile and its influences are for sale by the car load lot. If this really is the crux of the problem, flood TikTok, flood insta, get on all of them with Biden influencers. How much do you think a million dollars will get you on TikTok?

And here's one idea minute long clips News from the Future showing Trump jailing kids who are protesting, showing Trump instituting a draft showing all flights being canceled because of climate change because Trump sold all the oxygen after he got re elected. Paint in broad strokes. In other words, if this this is really about people who are influenced by social media, largely younger people or even older people,

scare the crap out of them. And if that fails, just run a lot of clips of de Niro with the baseball bats. No one wants coffee after that. Also of interest, here, who wants to be a millionaire? Jesus does? A right wing pastor insists greed is good because Jesus was a trust fund baby who was given a million dollars at birth. And no, I'm not kidding, hallelujah, hallelujah. I wonder if Jesus invested in bedkind. That's next. This is Countdown.

still more new idiots to talk about. The daily roundup of the misgrants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute two days worst persons in the world Theron's worst

Senator Lindsey Graham. We have all watched as Graham has turned from an occasionally surprisingly responsible Republican into a bloated, psychotic, hallucinating a biologist for Trump who looks like he's being blackmailed with something really, really bad, and he has late stage PTSD, and he looks like he might take hostages at any moment. On the other hand, Lindsay Graham got a lot of grief undeserved, I think for something he

said recently on Fox. He was schmoozing the idiots on the Fox Morning Show couch where you go to sit on your brains, and he was reassuring the challenged hosts that no, they were not propagandizing for fascism, they were standing up for freedom. The bottom line he is, Graham drawled, conservatives are tolerant. We are kind of get out of your business. You leave me alone, I'll leave you alone.

Needless to say, this has been met with guffaws, except I think it was met with guffaws because people thought when Lindsey Graham said tolerant, they thought he meant human tolerance, like letting people believe what they want to believe, letting women vote, letting minorities vote, letting Democrats vote, not trying to destroy the Capitol because they lost an election and they cannot deal with it. No, of course he didn't mean that kind of tolerant. Lindsey Graham said exactly literally

what he meant. Let me read you that quote again. Conservatives are tolerant. We are kind of get out of your business. Take him literally here. Of course, Conservatives are tolerant about your business. I mean he just said your business business. They are get out of your business, conservatives, especial if your business wants to cheat on its taxes, or discriminate against gays, or payoff porn stars before an election, or hire eight year olds to clean dangerous machinery, or

contribute billions of dollars to overthrowing democracy. That's what Lindsey Graham meant by tolerant. Literally, get out of my business.

The runner's up Congress here is an enigma. A year ago, last March, the House of Representatives passed a spending bill that included required, mandated the construction, creation, and installation of a plaque listing the names of the officers who served at the capitol on January sixth, ordering that it be installed when ready on the western front of our capital.

And fourteen months later, nothing, All quiet on the western front of our capital, no plaque, and Presentative Zoe Lofgren's letters to Speaker Mike Johnson about what he did with the plaque have gone unanswered. Well, of course, you don't have to be an expert to figure this one out. The plaque would offend Trump because it would give official sanction to the idea that the police were the good guys on January sixth, and Trump's traders were the bad guys.

And Trump can't accept that. So Mike Johnson is slow walking a plaque that you know, backs the Blue, because

Trump and the Republicans don't back the Blue. On the other hand, Monday Memorial Day, a man named Ben Pollock, the proud father of not one, but two insurrectionist bastards, who attacked the Capitol and the cops on January sixth led a convoy that tried to force its way into Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day to install there in the nation's most hallowed ground, a stone reading in honor of the ones who lost their lives on jan six,

twenty twenty one, starting with Ashley Babbitt, and then there were three other names of insurrectionists or whatever garbage they were. When stopped by authorities this Yahoo Pollock got out live streaming this, and he insisted that Ashley Babbitt should be buried there quote right up there with mister Lee. And again, the appalling glorification of Traders is one thing. I'm afraid

we're sort of used to that. But the continuously amazing part to me is the endless stupidity of these idiots, because while Arlington National Cemetery was once the mansion of Robert E. Lee, Robert E. Lee Trader is in fact buried at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, where he was president when he died, which they could have

googled if only they were smart enough to think. I wonder if I might be wrong out something in life PostScript, speaking of which one of the other names printed on that rock, And it's a rock with white paint on it and names then stenciled on it in black, and it looks like crap. It looks like a large frozen turkey from the A and P. One of the names on there is a woman named Roseanne Boyland, and these geniuses misspelled her name Roseanne. But our winner, Pastor Shane Vaughan.

We visited with Pastor Shane before, courtesythefine folks at Friendlyatheist dot com. Pastor Shane was the one who said he had to be careful. He could not go on his live stream and call Joy Read of MSNBC a quote jungle bunny. And of course he said those exact words while claiming he was not saying them, because all you need to do is look at this guy and you realize that he has the ethics of the most corrupt

insurance agent you've ever met. Pastor Shane has moved on to defending himself after what appears to have been a spate of complaints because he's been caught driving around in a Cadillac. Even his parishioners are wondering why so. Pastor Shane did another stream of some sort, just attacked all his own faithful who think maybe pastors shouldn't be rich.

It's none of their business. But yes, I drive a Cadillact that I did not buy. Do you think I'm just gonna throw it in the ditch because it was given to me?

you know. Historical research have concluded that if you superimposed today's economics on the world of two thousand years ago, a pound of frankincense would be worth in today's money five hundred dollars, a pound of gold would be worth six hundred dollars, and a pound of murrh four thousand dollars. Hey, forget buying any of that gold. Let's invest in murr. In short, it would be as if putin King Charles and Trump gave Jesus twenty twenty four fifty one hundred

bucks supernatural finances. You betcha hallelujah. Pastor Shane Vaughn can't add, can't count, can't do math, can't lie well, which is really a problem because he actually is an insurance agent as well. Can I pay you later past your insurance agent when my supernatural finances come through?

up hill in the snow both ways. Had to take twenty eight credits in my last semester of college just to graduate on time, And how because of that I have endured nearly half a century of dreams about not graduating on time. I know I went on for a bit about this subject, like about half an hour. Sorry anyway, this story is two semesters before that, and much much shorter.

It was the fall of my senior year at Cornell, and it's about a four credit course that I nearly failed, in fact, that every but in the class nearly failed

because a quarterback fumbled a football in an NFL game. Seriously, in September nineteen seventy eight, I walked reluctantly but proudly into this one class at Cornell University, and if I remember correctly, to get into nineteenth century American history with Professor Joel Silby eight credits spanning two semesters, I had to get special permission from the History department because I

was not a history major. I just took all the history classes I could get, even this one, which was really toughly graded, an awful lot of reading, amazing amount of detail, and really good. Not only was Professor Silby really good, but the reading material was outstanding. I took all the Corneill history classes I could get, and this

was one of the best ones. And I remember Profess Sir Sylby's first lecture and the accent and the mannerisms that quickly identified him not only as a fellow native New Yorker, but as a Brookly Knight and a Brookly Knight fan of as he quickly told us the New

York football giants. What Professor Joel Silbey said next, cause the I think it was two hundred or so other students in the lecture hall to laugh, all of them except me, because I was the sports director of the Cornhill student owned radio station, and in those days you could actually know everything about and everybody in all the national sports off the top of your head, and usually that meant you could figure out all the teams in all the sports that had the slightest chance of succeeding,

and all the teams in all the sports that did not. And the New York Football Giants did not. I want you to know I grade the papers, not the teaching assistants me and I happened to be a lifelong, therefore long suffering fan of the New York Football Giants. I saw my first Giant game in nineteen forty five, and over the years I happened to developed this habit of grading your papers on Sunday afternoons and evenings right after

I watch my New York Football Giants. So, to some degree great or small, your grade will depend on how well the New York Football Giants do. In this nineteen seventy eight National Football League season, one hundred and ninety nine of Joel Sylbe's students laughed. I emitted a low moan, since they had gone to five NFL championship games in the six seasons ending in nineteen sixty three and lost

all five. By the way, the Giants had had exactly two winning seasons and they had lost nine of fourteen games the year before nineteen seventy seven. Though they had opened this nineteen seventy eight season with a narrow victory over a very bad Tampa Bay team, and the first half of their schedule had as many as four more opponents who they might be better than. They would be lucky to win two games in the second half of the season.

When I got back to the radio station, I looked at the Giants' schedule and Professor Silbey's class schedule, and I circled one critical day when the schedules converged, Sunday, November nineteenth, nineteen seventy eight. Our term papers were due on Thursday the sixteenth. He could actually read them all after the Giants Eagles game that night in the following day. Amazingly, your New York Football Giants actually opened the season winning

three of their first four. In the middle of October, they were still five and three, and in the history lecture room, Professor Sylby was very happy, and he often recreated highlights of his glorious giants pleasing success. And he was furiously fanboying on the new quarterback they'd brought in from the Canadian League Joe Pisarchik. If you are a football history fan, or god forbid, a fan of the New York Football Giants, you already know where I'm going

with this. The Giants lost the next three games, and then our term papers were due on November sixteenth, and Joel Sylbey turned morose and I was at the radio station watching the Giants Eagles game of the nineteenth on a big black and white TV in the lounge when my nightmare unfolded impossibly. The Giants led the much better Philadelphia Eagles fourteen nothing. After the first quarter. Pisarcik threw two touchdown passes. After the third quarter, it was still

seventeen to six Giants. Then the Eagles scored and they were driving to go ahead with a minute and a half left in the game, when the impossible happened deep in Giants' territory. The Philly quarterback threw an interception with eighty three seconds left and in possession of the ball. The Giants led seventeen thirteen. The crowd at the radio station was ecstatic. I was even more ecstatic. All the Giants now had to do was stall and have the quarterback fall on the ball, maybe twice, as if he

had heard me. Quarterback Joe Pisarchik fell on the ball. Then he nearly killed me by handing the ball off to his running back Larry Zanka, who plowed up the middle to get a first down and burn another thirty seconds off the clock. The Eagles called their last time out, thirty one seconds left, thirty one seconds to my grade in Joel Silbey's nineteenth century American history class, probably ending up being half or maybe even a full grade better

than I deserved. All Joe Pisarchik had to do was fall on the damn ball again.

As Joe Pisarcik collapsed to the turf and ran out the clock and got me a better grind instead, Pisarchik handed the ball to where Zanka's hands should have been, except Larry Zanka was in the blocking stance, and Pisarchik in fact handed it off directly to Larry Zanka's helmet. I screamed. The ball bounced once off the turf and directly into the hands of Philadelphia cornerback Herman Edwards. I

continued to scream. There was nobody near Edwards, and he scooted twenty six yards into the end zone and the Giants lost the damn game nineteen to seventeen. In the last seconds, And as the Giants fans at the radio station shouted or moaned or swore, I could see Professor Joel Sylvie shutting off the TV, grabbing our papers and sentencing us to hell, and I continued to scream. Our term papers were returned on Tuesday the twenty first, just

before school broke for Thanksgiving. I actually was thankful I got either a B or a B plus. I can't find the paper. It should be somewhere in a box. There was a rumor which I was never able to confirm, that my B or B plus was the highest grade in the class. I can confirm I saw classmates, most far more prepared and astute than myself, most of them

history majors, looking at their grades and blanching visibly. One girl cried, a C, really a C. Professor Joel Silbey said, much of our grade would depend on how well the New York Football Giants did in that nineteen seventy eight national football season. And my god, they had just sustained a loss so bad that it is still talked about to this day. My classmates did not listen, and I only am escaped alone to tell thee there is a PostScript.

The PostScript takes place thirty two and one half years later. I returned to Cornell in March of twenty eleven to give a lecture and teach a series of classes to students who no longer afterwards felt they had got in their full money from the university. My alma mater was very kind to me. They gave me a tour of the secret places they never would have shown me when I was a struggling student, like where they kept Cornell's

copy of the Gettysburg address. And they promised me something special for lunch the first day, and sure enough I was dropped off at a restaurant, and there, rising from a table to greet me with applause, were Cornell's official historian and former Professor Glenn alt Schuller and their very famous history professor Walter LaFeber, and I swear Professor Joel Silby, and they were fans of mine. Of course, I could

not leave well enough alone. After a few minutes of very pleasant conversation with mister alt Schuller and Professor la Faber and Professor Silby, I brought up the nineteen seventy eight term paper Joe pisarcik Handoff Story. Professor la Faber looked at Professor Silby like Professor Silby was out of his mind? Is that true? And Sylbey smiled and said, yes, yes it is. And then Joel Silbey looked off into the distance as if he were peering backwards through time.

Nineteen seventy eight, that's when you could really enjoy being a professor. He then looked back at me and smiled, Keith, you won't believe this, but I actually graded those papers pretty fairly, and I didn't follow through on my original plan. After the fumble, I actually turned off the TV and I sat there for a few minutes, and I asked my soul if it was okay for me to take my revenge on the universe by failing all of you. The favorite gulped. Oh, said Sylby. It was so great

to be a professor back then. I laughed so much I had tears in my eyes. And then Sylby said, okay, okay, maybe I was a little unfair to you guys, but you know it's the Giants and you have to take this as as a whole. The year they won their first Super Bowl, what was that eighty six? The final exam in that class was like two days after they finished the regular season, fourteen and two, eight o'clock in the morning. So I go to the final see, which I never do.

And I waited until they were all sitting there sweating, and I said, remember last September when I told you your grade will depend on how well the New York Football Giants doing this nineteen eighty six National Football League season, And there was just silence, and I said, well, if you didn't notice, they went fourteen and two, and I haven't been this happy since when they won the title

in nineteen fifty six. So guess what, there's no final exam, and nobody moved, so I said it again, there's no final exam, Go home, go study for something else. You' all get a's. And then there was a couple of seconds of silence, and they all simultaneously realized I was not kidding, and everybody cheered and ran out into the sunshine. So with me and professors Alt Schuler and la Faber now in tears, Sylby said, see it evens out, and I said, the hell it does. I graduated in nineteen

seventy nine. How does a canceled final in nineteen eighty six even it out?

it was produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including some of the aetoven compositions, arranged and performed by No Horns Allowed. The sports music is the Olberman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis Curtis of ESPN, Inc. Where or Where Are You Tonight? Was from heehaw in about nineteen seventy and I sang that a cappella. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by Nancy Faust, the best

baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer was my friend John Dean, and everything else was pretty much my fault, especially singing a cappella. So that's countdown for this the one hundred and sixty second day until the twenty twenty four presidential election, the one two hundred and thirty ninth day since Dictator Jay Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government

of the United States. Use the legal system, use the mental health system, use presidential immunity if it happens, use the not regularly given elector objection to stop him from doing it again while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow bulletins as the news warrants till then, I'm Keith Ulberman, good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Supernatural Finances Countdown with Keith Oldman is a

production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.