News Satire Roundup: July 23rd-July 26th

Monday, July 23 – I liked the story on a waitress bodyslamming the guy who groped her, especially the joke that, when she grabbed his collar, the guy probably thought for a second that his harassment had “worked.”  Next was R. Kelly’s song addressing his sexual abuse allegations, followed by a new policy that would allow people to distribute blueprints for 3-D-printing guns, what!?!  The latest Trump news, with word that Michael Cohen has taped conversations of them, Trump’s no-proof existence that the Carter Page memo totally exonerates him, and – what else?  Threatening war with another country on Twitter.  Just another day in U.S. politics.  A new sports piece, with Ronny begrudgingly filling in for Michael.  It was all baseball stuff, and I loved Ronny refuting Roy’s claim of baseball as the national pastime with, “I thought that was racism?”  The guest, T.I., talked book smarts vs. street smarts in and the history of trap music.

Tuesday, July 24 – Great point about the oddness of the multi-billion-dollar farmer aid package, that it’s government aid for a disaster directly caused by the president (fallout from Trump’s trade war.)  Quick blurbs on Ivanka Trump closing down her fashion company and Japanese taking out ad space on models’ armpits before getting into a story on the administration’s anti-environmental efforts, from reversing air-quality regulations in California to stopping automatic protections for endangered species.  You get to a point where the Lorax-level environmental vendetta stops being “pro-corporation” and just veers into cartoon villainy.  Desi had a field piece on efforts to curb the deer population on Staten Island, with a $2 billion dollar plan to give all the males vasectomies – wow.  Really interesting interview with journalist Michael Scott Moore on his experience of being held by Somali pirates; his book sounds fascinating.

Wednesday, July 25 – On the Drake viral video challenge, I liked Trevor’s point about how much harder it’s gotten to go viral these days.  Quick blurb on Serena Williams claiming discrimination for receiving more than twice the average “random” drug tests, and I loved the bit that Melania watching CNN instead of Fox was her way of “cheating” on Trump.  Crazy story on the Michael Cohen tape – I loved the observation that “the Playboy affair hush-money tape” actually helps Trump, at least in that there’s nothing directly incriminating in it.  Roy had an interesting piece on “Twitter name twins,” people who get abuse on social media for having names like Mike Pence or Michael Cohen.  Guest Bo Burnham talked about his movie Eighth Grade; I appreciate that he didn’t seem at all embarrassed to acknowledge that his comedy/discussion of his anxieties resonated most deeply with 13-year-old girls.

Thursday, July 26 – I always love Trevor comparing Mark Zuckerberg to a robot – I laughed at the bit about him and Siri stuck in a feedback loop.  Fun blurb on Walmart’s plan for driverless cars taking people to pick up orders in stores, with Trevor comparing it to an Amazon Prime that packed you in a box and shipped you to their warehouse.  The story on Trump “fixing problems” was great, top-shelf snark.  Trevor praised Trump for his farmer aid package, working with Europe, and reuniting (two-thirds of) children separated from their parents, shrugging that we’ll never know “which 45^th president” created those problems in the first place.  I also like the piece on climate change, with Trevor spitballing solutions less crazy than regulating carbon emissions (i.e., all the white people stand outside to “reflect the sun” away from Earth).  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was the guest, discussing her vision for the U.S. and how she hopes to fund it.