EPISODE 194: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: TRUMP'S GLITCH SNITCH: Putting together scoops by CNN and The New York Times it sure looks like somebody - maybe Trump - is going to be charged with destroying or altering security video of the Mar-a-Lago storage room and the boxes of classified documents kept there. That could be a how-to-manual on breaking 18 US Code 1519 and when it's video or digital evidence, it often really does become a jail sentence of 20 years. And the Times says prosecutors have a cooperating witness from inside Mar-a-Lago and we don't know if that's the same snitch from last August, or a new one. 

(11:00) SPECIAL COMMENT: THE SUPREME COURT: Then there's Clarence The Corrupt and Mrs. Clarence The Corrupt. The Thomas Scandals are coming so quickly now they're going to have to coordinate schedules to avoid having them collide with each other. Megadonor/Fascist Harlan Crow's flunkies admit to Pro Publica's latest from the AM, that he paid for some of the tuition for Thomas's grand-nephew (whom he was raising "like a son"). But nobody's commenting on the PM scandal: The Washington Post reports Megadonor/Fascist Leonard Leo not only steered "Another $25K" to Ginni Thomas but did so with the involvement of Kellyann Conway AND Leo instructed her to leave Thomas's name off the paperwork. And this time there is something for the Senate to do about it. Not the Judiciary Committee, but Finance: get all their tax returns and get somebody to give up Clarence The Corrupt.

B-Block (19:05) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: The inaptly named Venom, on death row in NYC (20:30) IN SPORTS: Saturday, May 6, the sports world will do what it always does on May 6: celebrate the most remarkable track and field milestone of the 20th Century (and maybe of all time). It is now 69 years since Roger Bannister became the first man to run a mile in four minutes or less. It was an accomplishment as unbelievable as the Moon Landing; so unbelievable that an editorial in The New York Times asked if it would ever be accomplished again. Roger Bannister won immortal praise, for the rest of his long life and beyond, despite racism and controversy and one minor detail.

He could not POSSIBLY have been the first man to run a mile in four minutes or less. There is ample evidence of runners - other British runners in fact - performing the feat as early as 1770. And yet the history of these earlier athletes has been forgotten or erased - or deliberately purged. Why?

C-Block (37:20) IN SPORTS PART TWO: The erasure of the runners who "broke" the four-minute mile barrier in the 18th Century (or earlier) was no accident. It was the deliberate result of the flourishing of the fetishization of amateurism, first in Great Britain in the 1800's, and then throughout the world through the Olympic movement. And it also involved something even worse: blatant, obvious racism. It's an extraordinary story and you should learn the details so you can yell at everybody who tells you about the "great" Roger Bannister.