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

Friday, January 18, 2019

News Satire Roundup: January 14th-January 17th

Monday, January 14 – Lots of opening blurbs:  the LA teachers’ strike (with grammatically-correct chants!), an Instagram picture of an egg with 26 million likes (I laughed so hard at its Oscar-hosting gig being “ruined” by its old “EGG WHITE POWER!” tweets,) China landing a craft on the dark side of the moon, and Chicago Bears fans failing at a challenge they berated their kicker for.  Next was the news that the FBI investigated Trump possibly acting on Russia’s instruction – I loved the jokes on Trump being the worst spy ever.  We also looked at some early Democratic candidates for 2020.  I especially liked Trevor comparing Julián Castro’s speech patterns to Obama’s.  The guest was Derek Waters of Drunk History.  Before the interview, in which he talked about wrangling drunk comedians, he and the show created a “Trump History,” with the correspondents reenacting non-drunk Trump’s dubious Civil War stories.

Tuesday, January 15 – We started with Brexit and Netflix’s price hike.  Good story on Trump serving fast food to the NCAA-winning team visiting the White House.  I loved Trevor calling Big Macs by candlelight quintessentially Trump:  something fancy mixed with something “garbage-y.”  Fun bit of Trevor playing “Racism Detective” examining clips of Steve King – my favorite line was, “God damn, that was so racist it burned my lungs!”  Ronny did a tech piece on the consumer electronics show’s most useless new technology.  I enjoyed his anger at the inconvenience of a vending machine that sells whole loaves of bread, and the sensor to send you notifications on your baby’s diapers made me laugh.  Author Tressie McMillan Cottom was the guest, and I loved her.  She had great things to say about Black women, their experiences, the assumptions people put on them, and why she chooses not to code-switch.

Wednesday, January 16 – Quick bits on Kirsten Gillibrand joining the 2020 race, YouTube banning harmful challenge videos (featuring Thomas Edison’s nuts slamming into a metal railing,) William Barr accepting Trump's attorney general appointment because he’s “led a good life”(?), and the homophobia of the school where Karen Pence works – I liked what Trevor said about using religion as ana all-purpose excuse for discrimination.  We got the latest on the shutdown, including Nancy Pelosi disinviting Trump to the House for the State of the Union; Trevor envisioning the spelling mistakes (and included “stage directions”!) of a Trump speech delivered in writing was great.  New Back in Black on state laws that went into effect in the new year, ranging on issues from the age of consent for marriage to mandatory cursive to pet custody in divorce settlements.  The guest, Keegan-Michael Key, denied having designs on Trevor’s job, despite his sharp suit, and Trevor seethed with jealousy over Key being in the new Lion King.

Thursday, January 17 – We opened on an Ain’t Nobody Got Time for That, featuring Rudy Giuliani maybe admitting to collusion in the campaign, Michael Cohen rigging polls for Trump (that Trump later called rigged!), the 10-year challenge and the twinning app being mined by facial recognition technology (loved the bit about Trevor coming up as a celebrity “twin” for wildly-differently-looking people,) and Microsoft stepping in to do the business of the government during the shutdown.  Speaking of which, we got Cardi B.’s thoughts on the issue and looked at unpaid federal workers turning to GoFundMe to stay afloat.  Great bit on the wall, with a staggering montage of Trump’s clueless evasions as to how “Mexico was gonna pay for it” and Jaboukie showing off the ease of using his “A-Mexican Express” card.  Don Cheadle was the guest, getting me even more hyped up for Black Monday and talking about his activism.

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