We’ve pivoted from current correspondents to a past correspondent. Michelle Wolf was this week’s guest host.
Monday, November 27
· Headlines – Sexual abuse lawsuits in New York, height and weight added to NYC anti-discrimination laws, King Charles profits from dead citizens’ assets, erectile dysfunction in astronauts
o Michelle acknowledged that a lawsuit doesn’t automatically equal guilt, but she pointed out that Diddy settled with his accuser very fast – “I mean, one day later, he was signing that check like, ‘I strongly deny any allegations against me. $1 million, there you go.”
o She disliked the whole idea of only allowing a year for sexual assault survivors to make accusations past the statute of limitations. Because the window closed shortly after Thanksgiving, she called it “the greasiest Black Friday ad ever” – “Act fast! You only have two hours to get justice for the worst day of your life!”
o An easy joke, but it was a good one – “That’s right, New York City is banning discrimination based on height and weight. So congrats on yo’ mama finally being able to rent that apartment!”
o Upon learning that King Charles profits from the assets of British citizens who die without a will, Michelle said, “This is not a scandal. Great Britain is stealing from English people instead of Africans? I call that progress” – She added, “Guys, who left that Trevor joke here?”
o Michael thought that a new study about astronauts experiencing erectile dysfunction in space had global security implications – “What if an alien queen takes me to the bedroom and I can’t perform? Earth gets vaporized just because I couldn’t blast off into her Milky Way? We can’t take that risk.”
· Host Piece – White women in New York
o When Michelle asked, “Who is your Black icon?”, most of the white women she talked to responded, “Oprah,” or, “Michelle Obama,” but she also got one, “Naomi Watts” – It turned out the woman meant Naomi Campbell.
o I liked this question – “Have you ever been in a situation where you have been like, ‘I’ve gotta go, ‘cause my Karen’s like right here,’ and you’re like, ‘I don’t wanna let her out.’”
o Othe questions included, “What’s the most white-woman thing you’ve ever done?’ and, “What’s the last thing you cried to get out of?”
· Interview – Comedian Eric Andre
o Andre was there to talk about his new book Dumb Ideas, as well as his prank comedy show.
o When Michelle noted Andre’s notoriety for “transforming” to play the roles in his prank sketches, he joked, “I got head-to-toe Filipino surgery, plastic surgery.”
Tuesday, November 28
· Headlines – Jesse Watters’s Thanksgiving rant, Trump pivots to “moderate” abortion stance, UN climate conference, Red Lobster loses $11 million on “endless shrimp” promotion
o I liked Michelle calling Fox News “the white BET.”
o This made me chuckle – “Every once in a while I check in with Fox News just to see what race/pronoun/M&M I should be scared of now.”
o Jesse Watters apparently dedicated a huge chunk of his show to describing the errands and events of his Thanksgiving – After the opening bit on Watters, Michelle checked in with him periodically throughout the headlines. At one point, she asked, “Why is he still going? Like, does the bus explode if he ends this story?”
o Great line – “Well, now Trump is making the confusing and strategic decision to run as a moderate on abortion. Yeah, Trump. A moderate on abortion. It’s kind of like the Kool-Aid Man suddenly caring about walls. It’s too late, dude! The damage is done, you big red bitch!”
o Ronny offered his take on Red Lobster’s “endless shrimp” fiasco – “When this country offers you something ‘endless,’ it’s never actually something good. It’s endless war or endless student loans or endless Jesse Watters rants.”
· Correspondent Piece (Grace) – Sustainable living
o I wasn’t a fan of this piece. It was the sort where the correspondent just makes fun of the person they’re talking to – And while the man Grace interviewed went to extreme measures to live off the grid, I would’ve thought we were past the mere thought of living more sustainable as ridiculous. (Especially since we talked about a climate conference in the headlines!)
o Americans throw out 268 million tons of garbage per year.
o The guy Grace was interviewing told her, “Systemic change begins with personal change.”
o Grace “challenged” herself to live without electricity for 24 hours, which was of course a “hilarious” series of misadventures.
o Predictable joke – “Oh my God, I did it!” “Uh, that was only 90 minutes.” “F**k me!”
· Interview – Actress Da’Vine Joy Randolph
o Randolph was there to promote her new movie The Holdover.
o She talked about doing a Boston accent, though she clarified that it was the “Mark Wahlberg” kind – She needed a 1970s-era African American Boston accent, and she prepared by watching Donna Summer interviews.
o She also needed to learn to smoke for the part – “If you don’t know what you’re doing, they can tell by how you’re holding it. They’re like, ‘She’s lying. She’s never smoked a day in her life.’”
Wednesday, November 29
· Headlines – House prepares for a second expulsion vote on George Santos, the Koch network endorses Nikki Haley, BuyBuy Baby reopens stores after bankruptcy
o George Santos came in hot against his expulsion vote, declaring, “Within the ranks of the United States Congress, there’s felons galore” – He also compared himself to Mary Magdalene(?!?)
o Michelle pointed out, “We know the government is corrupt and all these guys are doing the same thing you do, George. The difference is, they’re doing it way better than you!”
o I laughed at this line about the Kochs endorsing Nikki Haley – “Oh, Nikki Haley, shattering the glass ceiling of dark money. You go, girl!”
o Michelle noted that, regardless of how much money billionaires throw at any other candidate, it’s all but a foregone conclusion that Trump will be the nominee – “I almost feel bad for these guys. They’re so used to being able to buy the president, and this time, they’re sitting on their yacht going, ‘What’s wrong with our money button? It’s not working!’”
o BuyBuy Baby’s resurgence was bad news for Grace, who claimed to have been living in one of their abandoned stores – “America is literally giant carcasses of retail chains that were bled dry by private equity. I should get to live here before the raccoons do!”
· Fake ad – Reverse mortgage loans
o Great line in Michelle’s intro to the ad – “We’ll put anything on the credit card, whether it’s the latest iPhone we’ve just gotta have or that new kidney transplant that we really, seriously gotta have.”
o I also liked this line – “It’s not a scam, it’s not! If it was a scam, why would they advertise it nonstop to elderly people?”
o During the ad, Michelle explained to the viewers, “I’m not doing this commercial because I need the money. I’m doing it because I want the money.”
· Interview – Journalist/author Mehdi Hasan
o Hasan was ostensibly there to promote his book Win Every Argument, and he opened and closed with that, but for most of the interview, he and Michelle discussed the Israel-Hamas war.
o I felt the same way as Hasan – “My worry is that we rightly as a media humanize those victims of the conflict on October the 7th —as we should, because what happened to them was horrific—but we don’t always as a media, especially in the United States and the West, also humanize the Palestinian people.”
o After talking about young Palestinian Americans who’ve been attacked in recent weeks, Hasan reiterated, “Dehumanization is a thing we all have to avoid, even in the most toughest and heated of debates.”
o He also said, “I don’t think there are military solutions to political problems,” looking to his experiences reporting in Afghanistan as an example.
o I loved this statement – “Let us first be biased as human beings before we are biased as Israelis, Palestinians, Muslims, Jews, Christians, Americans. For me, right now that’s the priority.”
Thursday, November 30
· Headlines – Elon Musk lashes out at advertisers, France bans smoking at beaches/forests and near schools, Henry Kissinger dies
o I laughed at Michelle’s reaction to Elon Musk telling companies to “go f**k [themselves]” for pulling their ads from Twitter – “It’s clear that Elon has accomplished something incredible. He’s made people root for advertisers! That’s crazy! Anyone can build an electric car, but you’re the only true genius who could lose a coolness battle to Mucinex.”
o I also loved how she dragged him for claiming that the companies were “blackmailing” him by pulling their ads – “If you don’t donate money to the KKK, the KKK isn’t like, “Ah, it’s blackmail, is it?’”
o Michelle couldn’t believe France was banning smoking from certain locations, asking, “What’s next? No more mimes in boxes? No more being racist to Muslims?” – She added, “Will it even be France anymore?”
o The Henry Kissinger stuff was great – “He committed massacres and lived to be 100! While the rest of us over here are dying at 47 because we can’t stop stressing over the time we waved to a person who was actually waving to someone behind us.”
o Ronny and Michael debated whether Kissinger was America’s greatest war criminal, with Ronny taking Kissinger’s side – “You know the last few weeks in high school, where you skim through, like, 40 years of terrible American history in, like, two days? That was all him, baby!”
o Amazing line – “This dude was doing massacres in countries that Americans didn’t even know were countries. He was putting them on the map! And then carpet bombing them off the map. He’s like a genocidal Carmen Sandiego.”
o Michael, meanwhile, was pulling for Dick Cheney – “The man shot his friend in the face, and it was one of the nicest things he’s ever done.”
o Michael dismissed Kissinger’s atrocities in the Vietnam War, since he got involved after the war had already started – “Anybody can join a super team, but Cheney built his wars from the ground up.”
o Ronny pushed back against Michael’s point that Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize – “That’s what makes him the GOAT, you f**king moron! Do you know how good a war criminal you have to be to win a peace prize for wars you escalated?”
o Michael wrapped things up with this – “Kissinger’s passing really puts things into perspective. Listen, everyone: if there’s a war criminal in your life, tell them how you feel about them now. Because you never know when they’re gonna unexpectedly die of being 100 years old.”
· Long Story Short – Hospital deliveries
o Michelle started by talking about her own recent experience giving birth – “Now, I chose to have a home birth because I wanted to ruin my couch.”
o Labor and childbirth account for 12% of all hospital stays – wow!
o Michelle pointed out that the medical industry is a business that wants to maximize profits, which it can do more easily when things are predictable – “Childbirth is messy and unique and complicated. And it needs the mother to walk around and stretch and bounce on a yoga ball and go to the bathroom, ‘cause maybe you’re gonna take a dump, or maybe that’s where you’re gonna have the baby.”
o In contrast, “The hospital would rather have us laying down with sensors attached to our bodies, ‘cause it’s more efficient to monitor all of it at once from a computer screen.”
o I really liked this line – “Just because you’re in a hospital doesn’t mean you’re sick. Childbirth is not a disease.”
· Interview – Dr. Stuart Fischbein
o Fischbein is an advocate for midwifery, and he and Michelle largely continued the conversation she began in her Long Story Short.
o Michelle asked, “Why do you think there’s so much fear around childbirth?” –Fischbein explained, “Because fear is the strongest emotion that you can control people with. And I think the reason we have so much fear in the western medical world is because the people that are practicing, the doctors, are taught to fear birth.”
o He clarified that, when he speaks about the high rates of C-sections or epidurals, he’s not trying to shame anyone who’s gotten them – “All we want to do is let people know that they have these choices and these options. And that’s not something they’re getting in the medical model.”
Michelle was all right this week, although I think I liked her better as a correspondent than a guest host. She had some good headline jokes, though, and I liked her Long Story Short.
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