News Satire Roundup: October 8th

Sunday, October 8

·        Recap of the Week – Kevin McCarthy removed as Speaker of the House, Franklin, Tennessee mayoral candidate Gabrielle Hanson

o   I have to imagine that the show is planning to speak more in depth about Israel and Gaza at some point, because they got barely a mention here.

o   I loved John calling the interim House Speaker “Patton Oswalt as a ventriloquist dummy.”

o   Yikes, re: Rep. Steve Scalise – “[He’s] been described as ‘David Duke without the baggage.’ And you know who described him as that? He did!”

o   In the bit on Gabrielle Hanson, we covered all kinds of messed-up things she’s done, including trying to get the Nashville airport to denounce Juneteenth(?) – John pointed out that this was a losing battle, saying, “The airport is a cruel, unfeeling dimension uninterested in your culture war bullshit.”

o   Hanson also posted a photo of a group of her “friends” who endorsed her, not mentioning that they weren’t from Tennessee and weren’t actually her supporters – “Wow. Not only are those women clearly not your friends, you definitely just united them against you. I guarantee you, one of them dropped your name in the group chat, and the replies are still going right now.”

o   Part of the Hanson story included multiple appearances from Phil Williams, a local reporter who’s known for exposing the lies and corruption of Tennessee politicians – According to one politician’s office, their saying goes, “If the press calls, call your PR person. If Phil Williams calls, call your lawyer because you’re in trouble.”

o   Oh yes, and Hanson argued that working as a realtor for neo-Nazis doesn’t make her a neo-Nazi. She brought up other clients in a “working with a Black client doesn’t make me Black” kind of way – “You did just imply one of your clients was a Muslim jihadist simply based on the fact that they are Middle Eastern, so I’d say that you’re probably more of a white supremacist neo-Nazi than you are lesbian or Black.”

·        And Now This – People on TV Share Increasingly Unhinged Conspiracy Theories about Taylor Swift

o   This was all about local news anchors speculating on what’s really going on between Swift and NFL player Travis Kelce.

o   This was my favorite – “We’re getting ready for Taylor Swift 1989 re-release, right? The theme for this album is the color red. Travis Kelce plays for the Chiefs—they are a big red team. He was also born in 1989. This is just a promotional tool!”

o   Others thought that, because Swift was born in Philly, this is all a plot to ghost Kelce right before the Super Bowl, thus sabotaging the Chiefs.

·        Main Story – Homeschooling

o   John took issue with parents who went viral with their homeschooling skills during the early days of the pandemic, arguing that it makes the rest of them look bad – “It was much less singing certified alphabet bangers and much more hiding in the closet, praying [my kids] would not find me.”

o   As we got into this story, John had to clarify that lots of homeschool families exist outside the stereotypical images many people have – “The truth is, the homeschooling community is much broader than just right-wing parents afraid of hypothetical third grade lube demonstrations.”

o   Great explanation – “The ceiling of how good homeschooling can be is admittedly very high. But the floor of how bad it can get is basically nonexistent.”

o   One of the biggest things at play here was almost zero regulation – “In most states, there is no oversight, no evaluation by anyone of the academic program and of students’ progress.”

o   We looked at popular homeschool curricula – In one textbook, Robert E. Lee was referred to as “a devoted Christian who practiced his Christianity in all his dealings with others.”

o   A woman on TikTok shared a homeschool schedule from her childhood, noting that more than half of the list was just “cleaning tasks and chores.”

o   Then, of course, there’s Dissident-Homeschool, the program that provided a Nazi-based curriculum for white supremacist parents to give their kids – “You never want to hear a mother lovingly utter the sentence, ‘My kid’s a wonderful Nazi,’ outside of maybe if they’re praising their son’s performance as Rolfe in The Sound of Music. And even then, just say ‘wonderful Rolfe’—what’s wrong with you?!?”

o   One Black mother pulled her kids out of public school because she was concerned about the whitewashed education they were being taught. She spoke about the inner conflict of relying on the homeschooling lobby, which promotes a lot of hateful stuff she doesn’t like – “That’s the nuanced aspect of being in homeschool world. The people that you have to work with in order to maintain what you hold dear are also the people who crush you.”

o   We also looked at how a lack of regulations can allow parents to use homeschooling as a way to avoid detection for abusing their kids – “Deregulating homeschooling doesn’t just eliminate safeguards against parents who are bad teachers. It also eliminates them against parents who are bad people.”

o   In 48 states, there is no background-check process to ensure that abusive parents aren’t pulling their kids out of school.

o   Loved this point, about protective laws that the homeschooling lobby has gotten shut down – “If the HSLDA thinks trying to protect kids from being taken out of school by people convicted of child abuse is an attack on homeschooling, they’re saying quite a bit about what they believe homeschooling to be.”

o   Beautifully stated – “Being a parent doesn’t automatically make someone moral, and being with a parent doesn’t automatically make a child safe.”

·        And Now This – The Surprising Importance of Emojis on Divorce Court

o   Good silly fun – I liked the seriousness with which the judge asked questions like, “Were you sending water-splashing emojis to your ex?”

o   After one person mentioned receiving “a purple thing” emoji (i.e. an eggplant,) the judge exclaimed, “Ooh, smoking gun! That’s a smoking gun!”