TRUMP FINDS OUT ABOUT 14th AMENDMENT, PANICS - 9.5.23

I'm the Wizard of Oz, I'm the one making everything happen. Real Housewife of Salt Lake City Star, Jen Shaw, is running the scam of the century. I remember one time, Stuart lost like about 8 million. Jen was very upset and she came down to the office late at night with Coach yelling at him, asking him where their money is. Listen to Queen of the Con, season 4, the Unreal Housewife. On the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. On his new podcast, six degrees with Kevin Bacon, join Kevin for inspiring conversations with his friends and fellow celebrities who are working to make a difference in the world, like actor Matthew McConaughey. You know, I found myself moving up state in the middle of this fracking fight, you know, that I'm trying to raise kids there and you know, my neighbors like willing to poison my water. Listen to six degrees with Kevin Bacon on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Danny Shapiro, host of Family Secrets. It's hard to believe we're entering our eighth season and yet we're constantly discovering new secrets. The variety of them continues to be astonishing. I can't wait to share 10 incredible stories with you, stories of tenacity, resilience, and the profoundly necessary excavation of long-held Family Secrets. Listen to season eight of Family Secrets on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio. Somebody told Trump about the 14th Amendment last night and he's panicking. Quote, almost all legal scholars have voiced opinions that the 14th Amendment has no legal basis or standing relative to the upcoming 2024 presidential election. The insurrectionists who tried to overthrow the government and talks about terminating the Constitution lied at 714 Eastern last night. Like election interference, it's just another trick being used by the radical left communists, Marxists, and fascists to again steal an election. Who's going to tell him that it was passed by the Republicans and that the most famous politician it was used to disqualify in the 19th century was a Democrat and the most famous politician it was used to disqualify in the 20th century was a socialist party member. Make America Trump does not answer threats that don't scare him and he can't help but answer those that do. He's terrified and we know who terrified him. The Wall Street Journal published a 900 word editorial exactly 77 minutes before Trump's post and it is aptly titled the 14th Amendment Trump Panic aptly because while the journal usually has the confidence and arrogance and factuality of Marie Antoinette apocryphally talking about dessert, this time the lead fascist Shea Murdoch sound really scared themselves. They have resorted to the argument that even if the 14th Amendment doesn't just apply to people who literally fired a gun at the flag or those who instructed them to it can't apply to January 6th because January 6th wasn't a real insurrection because it didn't succeed. 143 advocates are per the journal willing to put democracy at risk in order to save it but U.S. institutions held up reasonably well despite the strains of the Trump presidency even the events of January 6th. The transfer of power took place on schedule. The rioters and organizers are being punished often severely. Unquote. In other words what do you mean attempted murder? What kind of crime is attempted murder? Either there's murder and the guy's dead and you go to jail or there isn't murder and you go home. Am I right? The last thing you want to hear and the last thing I want to read to you in this first episode after the long holiday weekend is a Wall Street Journal editorial but I must underscore that there are two main themes to it. The other one is to equate the January 6th coup attempt with I'm serious about this protests against the Vietnam War and they reveal stunning weakness in the argument and it's not the coincidence that the word appears in the headline panic especially for fascists like the journal editorial board. I mean I keep thinking of the great Charlie Adams cartoon with the patent office officials sticking a gun out the window towards a packed city street while the meek looking inventor looks on hat literally in hands. Death Ray says the patent office man fiddle sticks it doesn't even slow them up. Insurrection that's ridiculous quote Republicans across the government broke with Mr. Trump and supported that transfer of power yeah less than half of them 147 of them voted to legitimize his coup attempt but because it wasn't 247 of them at was in a real insurrection. Anyway Trump does not understand any of that nuance. He might have seen the piece and been drawn to the headline because he saw the words Trump panic and 14th and assumed it had something to do with his golf game and the 14th hole but he's very much like a wild animal. He can smell fear and the journal piece reeks of fear and there's that word panic in the title and panic in the last paragraph and the word panicky in the middle and that's all Trump needed to set him off. Plus the topic of the 14th amendment and the disqualification clause 14-3 is finally seeping into the mainstream media from places like here. Adam Schiff said on MSNBC over the weekend that it should be used against Trump. ABC news did a long piece on it. Politico humiliated itself as usual but it did get it into the discourse. The sleeper legal fight that could define 2024 is Trump even eligible to run which is a better headline I guess than what I would have predicted. This one weird trick could make Chris Christie the Republican nominee. Trumpians hate it. The journal notwithstanding and one last thing to extrapolate using their theory that there are no unsuccessful insurrections I await their next editorial explaining the thought whole confederacy slavery battle between the states thing was it really a civil war because president Lincoln might have been killed but not the government. It is a good time to note again that the 14th was used a year ago to expel a sitting local official in New Mexico and Cory Griffin had been convicted only of a misdemeanor trespass charge and he didn't even try to appeal and the Republican party didn't even try to appeal. Oh and it did keep the vice president of the Confederacy out of the Senate after he won election as a Democrat in 1866 and Alexander Stevens by the way had been convicted of nothing. He was arrested for treason on May 11th 1865 released from prison in October without even going to trial kept out of the Senate at first by the remaining military occupation laws in the wake of the Lincoln assassination and the third clause was included in the 14th amendment which is basically about everything but the rebellion largely to give the government a way to legally keep unrepentant southerners like Stevens out permanently. It was adopted on July 9th 1868 and they used it to keep Stevens out of the Senate by 1872 when he began to run for the House a different spirit was abroad in the land a Confederate amnesty act passed that May and Stevens slipped in and served nearly nine years in the House even though all that time he continued to insist that secession was constitutionally protected and that the war was all northern aggression. In 1919 143 was used to keep a congressman elect victor burger of Wisconsin literally a member of the socialist party out of the House because he had been convicted of violating the espionage act during the first world war when he opposed US entry into it burger sued it went to the supreme court the court said that was not enough and he was seated in 1921. The point of course is that Stevens was kept out even though he was never convicted of anything never even tried for anything and he was readmitted only after a congressionally approved amnesty. 143 was then used to keep victor burger out until the Supreme Court ruled it was his conviction that was excessive not his disqualification from serving in the House and while a legal bid to knock Marjorie Taylor green off the ballot last year because of the 14th came to nothing it did produce several rulings largely unresolved that sitting members of Congress could be expelled for participating in rebellion and of course the biggest question is this do you have to be convicted of insurrection to be banned from serving as president the Supreme Court would of course rule whichever way would get Alito and Thomas the most frequent flier miles but otherwise the answer seems to be no there is a law on the books written to enforce 143 it's 18 US code 2383 quote whoever incites sets on foot assists or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof or gives aid or comfort shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 10 years or both and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States so in code 2383 you can be banned for rebellion for insurrection for assisting in either for inciting it for giving aid or comfort to those who did and best of all for setting it on foot setting it on foot if any phrase in any statute anywhere a better applies to what trump did on January 6th and setting rebellion and insurrection on foot I'd like to see it trump could wind up being victor burger convicted of anything under the umbrella of the espionage act or he could be coy griffin convicted of misdemeanor trespass or he could be Alexander Stevens convicted of nothing at all so trump is not only panicking about the 14th amendment he has good reason to of course trump could still be convicted of everything and if he is mark meadows gets the game ball we underestimated two things about mark meadows last week how dumb he is and how much he convicted himself when he took the amazingly risky chance of testifying for three hours in a procedural long shot hearing to try to get himself a whiter jury pool in northern Virginia rather than the one in Atlanta portions of the transcript after the holiday weekend began and he really is a complete dope they asked why if he was acting under color of his office as a white house official and the trial should be moved to federal court and not acting as a mere part of trump's political gang why if that was the case he got involved in the fake electors scheme quote it was mentioned to me that there was litigation going on and that you had to have a provisional or conditional elector and what I didn't want to happen was for the campaign to prevail in certain areas and then not have this well first off he just mentioned the campaign he wanted something for the campaign that's not his office that's his campaign and then the follow up question in meadows was why did you not want that to happen answer quote well because I knew I would get yelled at if we had not what follow up question to meadows by whom answer meadows quote by the president of the United States uh yeah that's really a bad answer mark meadows just confessed to acting not on behalf of the president under color of office but for the campaign he used similar words quote for the campaign and out of fear getting yelled at which means trump was fully involved in a political scheme which also means trump got meadows fully involved in a political scheme which is a third problem because meadows had insisted he did not play quote any role in the fake electors scheme and then he not only admitted it but the prosecution also produced an email in which meadows had written we just need to have someone coordinating the electors for the states there is an excellent chance now that the district attorney of fulton county adds at least one perjury charge against mark meadows and he's also not going to get the trial reassigned to federal court because as the impeccable Ryan Goodman of just security notes remember when the judge asked both sides last week if all of meadows's actions had to be under color of his office or if it was enough for just one of them to be there's an easy to misreverse image there the judges also saying oh by the way what does it mean if at least one and maybe all but one of meadows's actions was not under color of his office and now we know which one would be at least one I have long assumed here that at the federal level mark meadows either flipped on trump or simply gave jack smith everything he had on him without formally agreeing to testify against him doing the same in georgia must be flying through the mind of his attorney right now because meadows has dug himself a really deep pit that ends in a penitentiary and one more note on this bid to sever trials and go to federal court in georgia no matter what the price and boy oh boy the price turns out to be really high this is from randal alias and of georgia's Washington university law and it's lawyer and nerd humor but it's pretty good lawyer and nerd humor if ken cheesebro ends up being tried by himself in georgia the headline should be the cheese stands alone but if he ends up being tried with sydney pal of course then it's cheese and crackin one last note here the website decision desk hq first big one to call 2020 for biden by the way had a really good quick write up erasing one of the most widespread assumptions about the indictments of donald trump no they are not helping him in the polls either in the republican primary polls or in the general election matchup polls one of the great gnawing undercurrents of fear in this whole thing what if prosecuting him just gets him elected has no basis in reality unquestionably trump has raised money off the prosecutions but even most of that seems predicated on the assumption that trump would not have raised similar amounts of money in a similar time frame anyway but decision desk notes a that a few weeks ago eliot morris at abc news wrote trumps lead in the 2024 primary hasn't shifted significantly since the third indictment was unsealed on august first it then notes that last week charles franklin of the market law poll said even that was wrong quoting franklin the indictments of donald trump have not boosted him in the polls either for favorability or for his support in the gop primary this claim keeps getting repeated as if the data supported it does not unquote and this unlike most data is not hard to parse franklin notes that any growth in trumps lead in the gop race has had nothing to do with him or the indictments or anything pertaining to him this is all about de santis's numbers collapsing quoting charles franklin market law poll again there has been very little trend in trumps primary vote unquote also of interest here after this past weekend anybody got any remaining questions about elan musk always pro free speech and anti anti semitism and then he says the reason twitter advertising is crashed is the anti defamation league and then there's all sorts of things about what the anti defamation did to conspire against him so he's going to sue them have fun and discovery nitwit also alls well at cnn the new guy starts it a month and four days so this is the golden time for him when nothing bad is his fault and anything good is a reflection of his wisdom and don't pay any attention to that little incident from the bbc when he leaned over in the middle of a friendly conversation with a bbc colleague and suddenly bit the guy in the arm hard enough to leave marks this is cnn our new boss may be a vampire that's next this is countdown i'm the wizard of us i'm the one making everything happen real housewife of silt Lake city star gen shaw is running the scam of the century we probably will never be able to be retired black working to work anymore living a fat million dollar lifestyle on the backs of thousands of elderly victims she turned up their lives for what a fake fendi bag congrats girl when you have her confronted instead of stopping she finds ways to be sneaky or about it and keeps going i remember one time a steward lost like like about eight million and gen was very upset and she came down to the office late at night with coach yelling at screaming at him asking him where is our money is would you call her a con artist i would just call her a con she's not very much of an artist listen to queen of the con season four the unreal housewife on the i heart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts on his new podcast six degrees with Kevin bacon join kevin for inspiring conversations with celebrities who are working to make a difference in the world like musical artist jewel and what an equal opportunist misery is it doesn't care if you're black or white or rich or poor or famous or homeless if you are raised in misery systems it's perpetual kevin is the founder of the nonprofit organization six degrees dot org now he's meeting with like-minded actors who share a passion for change like mark rough below they're all in the wrong track helping you down the right track if they're on the right track let's help them double down on that and see the opportunities stay on the right track for success in the future these conversations between kevin and activist Matthew McConaughey will have you ready to lean in learn and inspire to act you know i found myself moving up state in the middle of this fracking fight and i'm trying to raise kids there and my neighbors like willing to poison my water listen to six degrees with kevin bacon on the i heart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts hey everybody i'm ben natifafri and i want to tell you about a show called the last archive it's about the history of truth in 20th century america each episode we tell a story about how people came up with new ways of knowing things and doubting things over the last hundred years histories of science technology democracy and also some pretty far out characters well it's dr frankenstein's monster isn't it this season on the last archive will hear stories about the dawn of social network theory of course i go oh my god mid-century songwriting machines i'm not an industrial spy i'm a graduate student invasive species just chanting all together bring back the nest bring back the nest all this and more on the new season of the last archive listen to the last archive on the i heart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts this is countdown with keith oberman post scripts to the news some headlines some updates some snark some prediction state lines cnn world headquarters hudson yards new york well the chris licked era is just a memory now and cnn is in the wise and comforting hands a former bbc and new york times chief mark tomson and the controversies and the biting pain of the last year are gone and wait what a former bbc reporter and producer said mark tomson wants bit him in the newsroom and the bbc confirmed it but claimed it was horse play i'm going to avoid getting too deep in the woods here so let me just read some of the original story by richard k in britans tabloid the daily male from april 13th 2012 quote he has always enjoyed a reputation as a controversial figure but last night an extraordinary story about how bbc director general mark tomson bit a newsroom colleague was sweeping the corridors of the corporation the bizarre apparently unprovoked attack was on senior television journalist anthony massey tomsons 44 year old victim suffered clear bite marks through his shirt and immediately reported the incident their bosses were so determined to hush up the affair however that massey was promptly sent to rwanda on a perilous assignment and tomson then a rising star was allowed to continue his soaring career unhindered the story has only become public thanks to a leaked email exchange between newsnight presenter jermy paxman and massey in which paxman observes that the director general is quote quite clearly insane unquote a spokesman for tomson last night confirmed the story but claimed it was quote horse play the tale began to make its way into the public domain when paxman emailed massey who is now on the bbc's foreign news desk but long worked in bosnia and elsewhere as kate eighties producer as an aside i don't have any idea who kate eighty is i probably should have googled her paxman asked i've got to interview mark tomson tomorrow is it true that he wants bit you unquote massey replied too late for the big interview but gave full detail it is absolutely true he said it was nineteen eighty eight when he was the newly appointed editor of the nine o'clock news and i was a home news organizer again i probably should have googled that home news organizer it was nine fifteen in the morning according to the victim i went up to his desk to talk about some story i was standing next to him on his right and he was sitting reading his horoscope in the daily star i always remember that detail before i could say a word he suddenly turned snarled and sank his teeth into my left upper arm leaving marks through the shirt but not drawing blood it hurt i pulled my arm out of his jaws like a stick out of the jaws of a labrador the key thing is we didn't have a row first or even speak and i had never had any dispute with him he was just recently arrived in the newsroom and i hardly knew him he just bit me in the arm for no reason without any warning or preamble i don't think it was personal the victim continued something turned in his brain and anyone who had been standing there at that moment would have been bitten linda from the tea bar the bbc chairman Keith graves anyone again i should have googled those people it just happened to be me Thompson didn't apologize or explain so i went to complain to my then boss Chris Kramer all Kramer said was quote this whole place is full of effing head bangers unquote which was a fair point and indeed is still true but didn't help somehow i wanted to bring the whole bbc disciplinary process down on Thompson's head but Kramer was desperate for that not to happen so i got sent abroad on some story for a month or so and when i came back it had lost momentum and i never pursued it massie added that quote in those days it seemed quite acceptable for senior people to bite junior colleagues unquote the bbc said quote mark did bite him but it wasn't intended to hurt him he thought he was doing something funny when he was later told that anthony thought he had gone for him mark went up and said sorry and tried to make amends mark does remember the incident because of your members anthony took it the wrong way it was horse play unquote Richard K in the daily mail of april 13th 2012 the new chairman of cnn everybody clearly management once bitten twice shy so the vetting process is still top rate over there memo to cnn staff and my friends who still work there if you're in an argument with your new boss mark tomson whatever you do do not say mark bite me still ahead on countdown ah back to school September in new york it's opened with a real feel of 92 degrees and still i cannot and will never shake the sense that it is now winter because this is the month's school starts more over this month of september never starts without me thinking of the superstar cornell history professor who once nearly failed all of us in his class because the new york football giants lost a game things i promised not to tell coming up first time for the daily roundup of the misgrants morons and done in cruger effects specimens who constitute today's worst persons in the world the bronze mat the sound of one hand slapping slap and his wife Mercedes and Mercedes is either an idiot or very very broad-minded the daily beast reports that after a bunch of employees resigned in protest from his little fascist insurrectionist c-pack last year that spring of 2022 the shlaps brought in a priest to c-pack headquarters and conducted an exorcism and this was before we found out about the allegations of the hersial walker campaign staffer that shlap had groped him holy water medallions incantations everything but biting some guy in the arm well never know if shlap used either of the money quotes from the movie by the way on the hersial staffer is there someone inside you and the power of christ compels you or did he just sort of freeform on it hey did i tell you about the exorcism in my pants the runners-up saint marie's ukrainian catholic cemetery in elkins park pennsylvania yet there's an invisible thread stretching through today's worsts now this is a topic fraught with political implications but that does not make this story any less true or any less troublesome the cemetery contains per the philadelphia inquire a quote large stone cross honoring nazi collaborators that's right a monument on us soil honoring nazi collaborators using the tortured logic that since some ukrainians fought with the nazis late in the second world war against the russians they were kind of okay this monument near philadelphia was erected sometime in the nineties to honor the galizian unit that fought with the ss the paper quotes ukrainian history expert john paul himpca the unit quote helped suppress the slowwack uprising it was involved in atrocities against poles and slowwacks it welcomed into its ranks many perpetrators of the ethnic cleansing against the Polish population and of the holocaust it propagated anti-semitism and seems to have been involved in a roundup of jews in brody in 1944 unquote this was one of the ukrainian units condemned by ukrainian president zalenski in 2021 and we've got a monument dedicated to them near philly and by the way it's one of apparently 42 monuments honoring nazis usually individual nazis on american soil which brings us via the invisible thread to today's winner ilan musk quote to be super clear i'm pro free speech he tweeted at 12 30 yesterday but against anti-semitism of any kind this was so untrue that within half an hour musk who had spent the weekend amplifying the hashtag ban the adl had gone full anti-semitic trope quote since the acquisition he means of twitter by him the adl has been trying to kill this platform by falsely accusing it and me of being anti-semitic and then quote our us advertising revenue is still down 60 percent primarily due to pressure on advertisers by adl that's what advertisers tell us so they almost succeeded in killing x-slash twitter exclamation point unquote so how many different anti-jewish cliches and tropes can you put in one paragraph this might be the record here by musk let's see you got one the the jews control the media in here you've got two the jews have undue influence over business you got three the jews control all the money you got four it's all the jews fault and best of all you've got five there's a jewish conspiracy against fill in the blank elan musk well elan if you're not an anti-semit you better have a really good alternative explanation like insanity or acute physical illness because guess what you musk are behaving exactly the way an anti-semit behaves and the rest of us pretty much have to respond the way we would to an anti-semit who was running an anti-semitic website elan musk today's worst person in the world on his new podcast six degrees with Kevin Bacon join Kevin for inspiring conversations with celebrities who are working to make a difference in the world like musical artist jewel and what an equal opportunist misery is it doesn't care if you're black or white or rich or poor or famous or homeless if you are raised in misery systems it's perpetual Kevin is the founder of the non-profit organization six degrees dot org now he's meeting with like-minded actors who share a passion for change like mark rough below they're all in the wrong track helping get on the right track if you're throwing the right track let's help them double down on that and see the opportunities stay on the right track for success in the future these conversations between Kevin and activist Matthew McConaughey will have you ready to lean in learn and inspire to act you know I found myself moving up state in the middle of this fracking fight and I'm trying to raise kids there and my neighbors like willing to poison my water listen to six degrees with Kevin Bacon on the iHeart Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts I'm the Wizard of Oz I'm the one making everything happen real housewife of Salt Lake City star Jen Shaw is running the scam of the century we probably will never be able to be retired black working to network anymore living a fat million dollar lifestyle on the backs of thousands of elderly victims she turned up their lives for what a fake fendi bag congrats girl when you have her confronted instead of stopping she finds ways to be sneakier about it and keeps going I remember one time Stewart lost like like about eight million and Jen was very upset and she came down to the office late at night with coach yelling a screaming at him asking him where their money is would you call her a con artist I would just call her a con she's not very much of an artist listen to queen of the con season four the unreal housewife on the iHeart Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts hey this is Annie and Samantha and we are the host of stuff I'm never told to you an intersection feminist podcast about anything and everything from social issues gender entertainment science fashion and everything in between and we're coming out with a book called stuff I'm never told you the feminist past present and future we break down things like the pantsuit revolution the battle of the sexes the civil rights movement disability activism LGBTQ plus rights the Jane Collective and so much more including the feminism a fictional woman like Princess Leia and tropes like the final girl which is one of my very favorite parts um you know I love digging into entertainment and tropes but we also expanded out on that to talk about the power of representation at large yeah and you know I love digging into some of the minute things in history that people don't talk about enough that we need to have more conversations on and hopefully this will start that you can order your copy if step on ever told you the feminist past present and future now where books are sold or get yours at stepheachadreedbooks.com finally to the number one story on the countdown and my favorite topic me and things I promised not to tell so September again I literally don't know anybody who ever shakes the childhood dread of back to school days in august and the beginning of September third grade high school college doesn't matter 44 degrees 94 degrees doesn't matter it's September and by now the dread even if you liked school remains until the day you die especially if it invokes memories like the one I have about the day I nearly failed a four credit course in college because of a fumble in a professional football game 44 years ago this week I actually walked reluctantly but proudly into a class at Cornell University if I remember correctly to get into professor Joel Silby's 19th century American history course 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 they would let me and this was one of the best ones and I remember professor Silby's first lecture and the accent and the mannerisms that quickly identified him not only as a fellow native New Yorker but as a Brooklynite and a Brooklynite fan of as he quickly told us the New York football giants what professor Joel Silby said next caused the I think it was 200 or so other students in the lecture hall to laugh all of them except me because I was the sports director of the Cornell 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 and all the sports that had the slightest chance of succeeding and all the teams and 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 happen to be a lifelong therefore long suffering fan of the New York football giants I saw my first giants game in 1945 and over the years I happened to develop this habit of grading your papers on Sunday afternoons and evenings right after I watch my New York football giants so to some degree greater small your grade will depend on how well the New York football giants do in this 1978 national football league season 199 of Joel Silby students laughed I emitted a low moan since they had gone to five NFL championship games in the six seasons ending in 1963 and lost all five by the way the giants had had exactly two winning seasons and they had lost nine of 14 games the year before 1977 though they had opened this 1978 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 Silby's class schedule and I circled one critical day when the schedules converged Sunday November 19th 1978 our term papers were due on Thursday the 16th 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 Silby was very happy and he often recreated highlights of his glorious Giants pleasing success and he was furiously fanboying on the new quarterback they brought in from the Canadian league Joe Pissar chick 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 16th and Joel Silby turned morose and I was at the radio station watching the Giants Eagles game of the 19th on a big black and white TV in the lounge when my nightmare unfolded impossibly the Giants led the much better Philadelphia Eagles 14 nothing after the first quarter Pissar chick through two touchdown passes after the third quarter it was still 17 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 83 seconds left and in possession of the ball the Giants led 17 13 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 the quarterback Joe Pissar chick fell on the ball then he nearly killed me by handing the ball off to his running back Larry Zonka who ploughed up the middle to get a first down and burn another 30 seconds off the clock the Eagles called their last time out 31 seconds left 31 seconds to my grade and Joel Silby's 19th century American history class probably ending up being a half or maybe even a full grade better than I deserved all Joe Pissar chick had to do was fall on the damn ball again and it was over however on the Giants sideline offensive coordinator Bob Gibson decided that the safe play the winning play was for Joe Pissar chick to hand the ball off again to Larry Zonka now that might have been the right play only Bob Gibson and everybody else failed to tell Larry Zonka Larry Zonka assumed he was there just to block for Joe Pissar chick as Joe Pissar chick collapsed to the turf and ran out the clock and got me a better grade instead Pissar chick handed the ball to where Zonka's hands should have been except Larry Zonka was in a blocking stance and Pissar chick in fact handed it off directly to Larry Zonka's helmet I screamed the ball bounced once off the turf and directly into the hands of Philadelphia quarterback Herman Edwards I continued to scream there was nobody near Edwards and he scooted 26 yards into the end zone of the giant floss the damn game 19 to 17 in the last seconds and as the Giants fans at the radio station shouted or moaned or swore I could see Professor Joel Silby 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 21st just before school broke for Thanksgiving I actually was thankful I got either a beer or a bee 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 bee or bee 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 sea really a sea Professor Joel Silby said much of our grade would depend on how well the New York football giants did in that 1978 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 the bee there is a post script the post script takes place 32 and one half years later I returned to Cornell in March of 2011 to give a lecture and teach a series of classes to students who no longer afterwards felt they had gotten 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 Altschuller and their very famous history professor Walter 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 mr. Altschuller and professor Lafaylor and professor Silby I brought up the 1978 term paper Joe Pissartic handoff story professor Lafaylor looked at professor Silby like professor Silby was out of his mind is that true and Silby smiled and said yes yes it is and then Joel Silby looked off into the distance as if he were peering backwards through time 1978 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 my favorite gulped oh said Silby it was so great to be a professor back then I laughed so much I had tears in my eyes and then Silby 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 a whole the year they won their first Super Bowl was at 86 the final exam in that class was like two days after they finished the regular season 14 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 1986 national football league season and it was just silence and I said well if you didn't notice they went 14 and two and I haven't been this happy since when they won the title in 1956 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 y'all get A's and then there was a couple of seconds of silence 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 Lafabre now in tears Sylvie said see it evens out and I said the hell it does I graduated in 1979 how does a cancelled final in 1986 even it out for me fella Joel Sylvie thought for a second and then he said well I am buying a lunch I've done all the damage I can do here thank you for listening countdown has come to you from our studios high on top the sports capsule building here in New York here the credits most of the music arranged produced and performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Chanel they are the countdown musical directors all orchestration and keyboards by John Philip Chanel guitars basin drums by Brian Ray produced by TKO brothers other Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by the group no horns allowed sports music is the older man theme from ESPN 2 and it was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc musical comments by Nancy Faust the best baseball stadium organist ever our announcer today was my friend Howard Feynman everything else was pretty much my fault that's countdown for this the nine hundred and seventy third day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States can victim while we still can the next schedule countdown is tomorrow Bolton's as the news warrants till then I'm Keith Ulerman good morning good afternoon good night and good luck countdown with Keith Ulerman is a production of iHeart Radio for more podcasts from iHeart Radio visit the iHeart Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts I'm the Wizard of Oz I'm the one making everything happen real housewife of Salt Lake City star Jen Shaw is running the scam of the century I remember one time Stuart lost like about eight million Jen was very upset and she came down to the office late at night with coach yelling a screaming out I am asking him where is our money is listen to Queen of the Khan season four the unreal housewife on the iHeart Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts on his new podcast six degrees with Kevin Bacon join Kevin for inspiring conversations with his friends and fellow celebrities who are working to make a difference in the world like actor Matthew McConaughey you know I found myself moving upstate in the middle of this fracking fight you know that I'm trying to raise kids there and and you know my my neighbors like willing to poison my water listen to six degrees with Kevin Bacon on the iHeart Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts I'm Danny Shapiro host of family secrets it's hard to believe we're entering our eighth season and yet we're constantly discovering new secrets the variety of them continues to be astonishing I can't wait to share ten incredible stories with you stories of tenacity resilience and the profoundly necessary excavation of long held family secrets listen to season eight of family secrets on the iHeart Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts