News Satire Roundup: September 12th-September 15th

Soon – soon Last Week Tonight will return to us.  In the meantime, have another of my favorite recurring bits from the show:  “(X), a country you think about so little, you didn’t even notice that that’s not (X)!”  I love this gag.  It really doesn’t get old for me, especially because John keeps mixing it up.  I like when he went through several different “Venezuelas” before revealing that the first one was right all along, or when he chided us for not noticing that his proposed “Azerbaijan” wasn’t even a landmass but was in fact the Caspian Sea.  There have been a few occasions when the map has been so obviously wrong that the joke doesn’t work for me – while I wouldn’t be 100% on a handful of states, Nebraska isn’t one of them, and the “Nile” wasn’t even moving in the right direction – but most of the time, it’s gold, and John’s glee at having hoodwinked us makes it even more fun.

Monday, September 12 – I like Trevor’s speculation of Syria’s indignation as it realized all the U.S. and Russia needed to come to terms was a pizza party.  Decent story on Clinton’s pneumonia as it relates to the varied conspiracy theories about how she’s dying.  The Grim Reaper in the “I’m with Her” T-shirt was really funny, and I like that the show acknowledged that she was in a “damned if you do” position but still criticized her campaign for how they handled things.  Hasan had a field piece talking to Native Americans protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline, in which he misguidedly tried to play his own “Indian card” and nearly got carried away by a pony.  T.I. was the guest.  I didn’t really care about the reality show he was promoting, but his new music video – “Warzone,” which reverses the races on police brutality a la the closing argument in A Time to Kill – sounded excellent.

Tuesday, September 13 – Excellent story on Colin Kaepernick’s silent protest during the National Anthem.  I liked Trevor’s point that celebrities are chastised for not doing anything “important” with their platform, but as soon as they espouse an idea that people don’t like, it’s, “You’re not paid to think!  Now throw that ball for us!”  I also appreciated the montage of other athletes joining the protest, and the piece had some fine comedy bits, too – I laughed at Trevor incurring the audience’s wrath over American football vs. “real football,” and his tangent about a Black Superman was both biting and funny.  The follow-up piece, with Roy presiding over an “Outrage Court” with Jordan and Desi debating Kaepernick’s actions, didn’t really do it for me.  It was fine, but it didn’t add anything to the story.  Danielle Weisberg and Carly Zakin, founders of theSkimm, talked about making the news quicker and more accessible for millennials.

Wednesday, September 14 – Great story on Missouri’s new proposed gun laws, which would allow people to get carry permits without the training required to own a gun.  Like Trevor, I just can’t see what the benefit is in this.  What’s the incentive to pass it?  Insane, and the show gave it its due.  Roy’s field piece was also gun-related, about a new Texas law allowing college students to carry on campus, and the protest group who’s “responding to absurdity with absurdity” by open-carrying dildos.  I especially liked of the open-carry advocate who complained about the dildos but saw zero parallels to people who are uncomfortable with guns on campus.  YouTube star Hannah Hart was the guest; some interesting remarks about how her online fame provided an unexpected path for her to do what she’s always wanted.  The show ended with a superb, satire-free rant from Trevor on Trump that veered at times into spoken word.

Thursday, September 15 – Nice opening blurb on a runaway mid-autumn-festival “moon balloon” from China, with amusing tangent on how useless we’d be during an alien invasion.  Loved the footage of Obama campaigning for Clinton and Trevor’s boundless adoration for the “coolest President,” both of which were awesome.  The show deftly covered the self-importance and absurdity of Trump “releasing his (two pages of) medical records” on The Dr. Oz Show.  Trevor’s reaction to Trump’s claim that he sees “a 35-year-old man” in the mirror was great, as were the renewed jokes about the “Dr. Big Lobowski” who wrote Trump’s suspiciously-glowing bill-of-heath letter.  As the guest, Bill Clinton got two slots, two of which I think were pretty good.  He discussed the campaign, obviously, the also the Clintons’ charitable efforts, and he was an affable sport about Trevor ending the interview by dropping a bunch of balloons on him.