News Satire Roundup: May 12th, May 14th-May 16th

Sunday, May 12 - After touching on Vladimir Putin wiping out at a hockey game, we looked at Georgia’s new abortion law, as well as similar legislation in other states.  The congresswoman reading “direct quotes” from “Baby Fetus” was wild, and I liked John’s contribution of selections from Baby Fetus’s 1973 autobiography.  The main story was on the Green New Deal:  what it is, what it isn’t, and what might be done moving forward.  I appreciated the time John took to show how the resolution was more about setting priorities and making a commitment to big legislation on multiple fronts and not actually “coming for all our airplanes and hamburgers!!!”  And while he pointed out issues with how the Green New Deal was rolled out, he also noted how it’s started (and continued!) a conversation about combat climate change.  Bill Nye stopped by for a “fun experiment” demonstrating the importance of this issue that involved setting a globe on fire.

Tuesday, May 14 - Clip show week.  Today’s episode looked at international stories.  First was a roundup of British news, from Boris Johnson saying women in burqas look like “letter boxes” to “the most British heist ever” during a Parliament fight over Brexit.  I loved revisiting Trevor’s delight at Australia’s largest cow, and we also got repeats of pole dancing at a Chinese kindergarten, Nigerians being paid to fly to England for pizza, and lightsaber duels becoming an official French sport.  It was great to see the fantastic piece on stolen African art again, with the many terrible/paternalistic excuses for why western nations couldn’t possibly give it back, along with the story on a Basketball Africa League started by the U.S. (“Enslave me once, shame on you.  Enslave me twice...”)  We ended on the poacher killed by African wildlife, featuring the amusing graphic of a lion in a shirt it stole from the poacher.

Wednesday, May 15 – The theme of the night was the 2020 Democratic race.  Even limited to one story per candidate, the show only covered half of the Democrats running (I wish they’d done a montage of the “Look at all those faces!” jokes.)  For “I’m running!” pieces, we had Bernie Sanders (you know he’s serious because he didn’t rub a balloon over his hair beforehand,) Elizabeth Warren, Beto O’Rourke, Julián Castro (still love Trevor’s theory that he’s secretly Obama,) and Amy Klobuchar (with a bonus content about her terrorizing her staff.)  I liked the return of Kirsten Gillibrand’s policy changes prefaced by trips to Brooklyn, the rundown on Pete Buttigieg, and Joe Biden’s inappropriate personal space (“Taste?!  We’re tasting now??”)  They also touched on Cory Booker and included clips of Trevor’s interview with Kamala Harris and Ronny being prepared to blindly support Andrew Yang no matter what he stands for.

Thursday, May 16 – Tonight featured stories all about young people.  The activism of Parkland students kicked things off, with the student walkout, a sum-up of progress a year after the shooting (the note that 2018 saw the most gun-control legislation since Sandy Hook was a little eerie,) and Trevor’s interview with two of the students.  We revisited fun bits, like the 14-year-old running for governor of Vermont (“‘Politics as usual’?  Since when, since you learned to read seven years ago?”) and Roy’s piece on young YouTube pundits.  We saw Dianne Fienstein getting snippy with some kids about the Green New Deal, followed that great bit from Jaboukie about how young people should get “preparations” (pre-reparations) for how we’re being screwed over in the future.  And of course, you can’t leave out anti-vaxxers and the teen who turned to the Internet to find out how to get vaccinated when his mom wouldn’t let him.