"Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light."
~ Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Friday, January 5, 2018

News Satire Roundup: January 2nd-January 4th

Tuesday, January 2The Daily Show had New Year’s off but was back for the rest of the week.  Trevor kicked things off with the New Year’s “deep freeze” (9 above?  That’s so cute.)  Then, it was onto a rundown of some new laws enacted in the New Year, from judges deciding pet custody in divorces to California legalizing recreational marijuana, before returning to the new tax plan, which went into effect.  I liked Trevor musing on how massive changes in estate taxes effected families losing rich relatives between the 31st and the 1st – “Just hang on for ten more minutes, Grandpa!”  The show also covered some world news, including the protests in Iran and the latest from Kim Jong-un.  I cracked up at Kim slipping in his self-appointed invite to the Olympics amid his bombastic threats.  I enjoyed the guest, Yara Shahidi.  There to promote Grown-ish, she also got serious about her campaign to get young people voting in the midterms.

Wednesday, January 3 – We opened on the “Nigerian prince” being revealed to be an old white guy, causing Trevor to lament that white people even steal stealing from Black people.  The show then moved on to perennial favorite the Russia investigation, with the main focus going to Steve Bannon’s claims about Russian collusion in the Trump team and the resulting “presidential diss track” from Trump.  I especially loved Trevor’s remark about what a head-trip it’d be to have Donald Trump say you’ve lost your mind.  The next segment was another old chestnut:  Trump tweets.  This time around, it was everything from Trump bragging to Kim Jong-un about the size of his “nuclear button” to his announcement of the forthcoming “Most Dishonest & Corrupt Media Awards.”  Guest Dan Harris talked about his new book on meditation and addressed some misconceptions from skeptics.

Thursday, January 4 – More weather, with the “bomb cyclone” and Trevor pointing out that you can’t just put random scary words together and pretend it’s a thing.  Next was a quick note on the control of Virginia’s state legislature being drawn out of a hat (cue the Russians – “How do we interfere with this?!”), and then it was onto Michael Wolff’s forthcoming tell-all on the Trump administration.  It’ll be interesting to see where the dust settles on that one.  Michael had a field piece on a program that tries to proactively reach out to people suspected of gun violence, offering education, opportunities, and, in some cases, cash incentives to turn their lives around.  Jodi Kantor, the New York Times reporter who published the initial Harvey Weinstein story, was the guest.  She had a lot of great things to say about the current movement, why her piece broke through when so many similar stories before hadn’t, and what we still have to figure out.

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