News Satire Roundup: August 28th-August 31st

In actuality, the show was back for four weeks before going on another short break (it’s coming back September 10^th,) but it feels a lot shorter than that to me.  That’s because Last Week Tonight and The Daily Show seem to have been taking turns a lot this summer, and since those are the only two news satire shows I watch, the absence of one feels quite apparent.  In fact, in the last twelve weeks, only four have had both Last Week Tonight and The Daily Show airing new episodes (I’m not The Daily Show’s week of clip shows not too long ago.)  And it’s not like the news cycle is slowing down at all.  In fact, when The Daily Show came back last week, there really wasn’t time to cover the threat of nuclear war with North Korea because so much else had already happened since then – insane.  I hate to think about all that will have happened by the time John comes back.

Monday, August 28 – First was Hurricane Harvey, with Trevor urging viewers to send Texas their thoughts and/or prayers, but foremost, their money.  He then moved on to Trump’s pardon of Joe Arpaio.  He dug into the despicableness of Arpaio’s crimes, both the unconstitutional racism in his policing and the human rights violations in his prisons.  I appreciated the point that Trump pardoned Arpaio before sentencing for a conviction that would get him six months at most, cementing the idea that this is more about Trump making a statement to “his” people than anything else.  Michael talked a bit about the origins of presidential pardons in general, with Trevor questioning why the Founding Fathers would have wanted that much unchecked power in the hands of one person.  Neil deGrasse Tyson, unsurprisingly, made for a delightful guest.  He talked about “politicizing” (but not really) the eclipse and the benefits of a cosmic perspective.

Tuesday, August 29 – In the opening story on North Korea’s recent missile launch, I liked Trevor applauding Japanese citizens for not turning off the alerts on their phones.  Next was a quick bit on Melania Trump getting flack for wearing heels in Houston – I liked Trevor’s take, the focus should be more on what she does.  New developments in the Russia investigation, with Trump’s repeated claims of no business ties to Russia conveniently forgetting his deal to build the world’s tallest building there.  I enjoyed Trevor’s appreciation of how blatant the Trump camp’s collusion is, as well as the bit about how a felony conviction means a better chance of working with Trump.  Roy tried to avoid talking about a new study on CTE before revealing his plan for concussion-conscious football helmets.  The guest, MSNBC’s Joy Reid, talked about Trump’s obsession with ratings and what Democrats need to do to get back on track.

Wednesday, August 30 – Trevor opened with Mexico offering aid to Texas after the tropical storm, musing on how Mexico is much more capable of being the bigger person than him.  Good story on the debate over confederate monuments.  Hasan had an amusing bit slipping in his suggestion for how to deal with it, while Roy shut down the idea that these statues are about heritage or culture – the clip he showed of a pro-monument guy accidentally calling Martin Luther King a racial slur while he was arguing that the statues aren’t about racism was especially telling.  It was a correspondent-heavy night, because Michelle appeared as well, looking at Ivanka Trump’s so-called “mediating influence” in the White House (hint:  she doesn’t have one.)  Excellent interview with former tennis pro James Blake, who discussed his experience with police bias/brutality and how he was able to use his platform to speak out about it.

Thursday, August 31 – Insane opening, with dashcam footage of a police officer “reassuring” a white woman at a traffic stop by reminding her that cops only kill Black people.  Next was a decent story on Antifa and the recent violence at protests in Berkeley.  I thought Trevor did a nice job showing what a loose collection of disparate goals/methods exist under the Antifa banner, arguing that the most extreme members are being used to discredit the whole cause.  Ronny had an awesome, Breaking Bad-inspired field piece on Martin Shkreli, specifically on the Australian high school students who demonstrated how easy (and cheap) it was to replicate Daraprim, the HIV and malaria drug whose price Shkreli marked up by 5,000%.  Guest Reid Hoffman did his best to assuage Trevor’s concerns about artificial intelligence, discussing what we can look forward to in the field and imagining a symbiotic future between humanity and AIs.