News Satire Roundup: May 5th-May 9th

Sunday, May 5 – We started with William Barr backing out of his second day of testimony and Rep. Cohen’s mocking/symbolic use of KFC (I loved the detail that he bought it the night before and likely spent the night chuckling over what a sick burn it was gonna be.)  We also checked in with Australia’s election, which is ridiculously scandal-ridden and features a Trump-ish figure who’s obsessed with building an Australian “Titanic II”(?)  The main story was not on the desert rain frog, as John teased, but lethal injection.  John’s passion for the subject was evident as he debunked the idea that lethal injection is a “humane” death, showing that 1) we’re more concerned with making it palatable for people who witness it and 2) the government’s handling of it is both callous and incompetent.  I loved the analogy likening the whole thing to reasons for/against “fucking your mom” while ignoring the giant flashing “IT’S YOUR MOM.”

Monday, May 6 – Opening blurbs on the royal baby (with Harry impressed by Meghan’s labor in part because he’s never seen a royal do any kind of labor!), a trio of Black beauty queens, the Kentucky Derby (great tangent from Trevor on people who spent 22 minutes thinking they’d won a ton of money before the results were overturned,) and a Starbucks cup spotted in a Game of Thrones shot (which led to some fun Westerosi-Starbucks jokes.)  We had a story on potential wars the US may be looking to enter, from John Bolton’s hard-on to bomb Iran to Trump’s threat to escalate his trade war with China.  Roy reported on the administration’s push to make school-lunch health standards more lax – I laughed when he smacked a burger out of a kid’s hand.  Eddie Izzard was the guest; impressive that he performs comedy shows in four different languages, and Trevor had a fun story about an encounter with Izzard early in Trevor’s career.

Tuesday, May 7 – We started with extinction threats for a million animals, followed by Chance the Rapper leading the charge to bring spicy nuggets back to Wendys and South African runner Caster Semenya being ordered to alter her own body chemistry before racing (which is bull, as noted in Trevor’s ensuing rant.)  Next was a piece on administration drama:  Steve Mnuchin refusing to hand over Trump’s tax returns, William Barr’s possible contempt charges, and Betsy DeVos deciding that teachers should strike outside of school hours; I loved Trevor’s comparison to Black people desegregating lunch counters by having food delivered.  In light of the Uber strike, Desi talked to a cabbie who’s anti-rideshares (and says that telling a rider, “Go fuck yourself,” is the only rating anyone needs.)  The guest was former Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett.  She discussed her new memoir, which includes stories about her relationship with the Obamas.

Wednesday, May 8 – More on royal baby Archie, followed by the US threatening to retaliate against threats from Iran (even though the US has so many bases in the Middle East that Iran’s military moving in any direction could be construed as threatening the US) and a vocal anti-vaxxer getting chicken pox.  I loved the piece on Bernie Sanders’s cable access show from the ‘80s – great bit on how he both advocates and looks the same at every age (if he was the first person you saw after time-traveling, you’d think it hadn’t worked!), and I really laughed at the clip of him asking small children about cocaine.  Next, we looked at Trump’s billion-dollar loss over a decade of tax returns from the ‘80s and ‘90s, with Fox News predictably spinning it as impressive (it takes talent to lose that much money, don’t ya know?)  Great interview with Tyra Banks, talking about modeling and celebrating beauty at every age and size.

Thursday, May 9 – First was a police shooting in Anaheim (he shot through the windshield,) speculation on how to “break up” Facebook, and a bag of meth found in a Lego box (Trevor’s whole bit about “how did the kid know it was meth” was fun.)  Big story on South Africa’s elections.  Because every election seems to need this now, we saw a candidate who’s rabidly against the press and spouts extreme rhetoric; the clip of him saying that he didn’t advocate killing all the white people “for now” was mind-boggling.  Desi did a piece on sexism against female presidential candidates.  The montage of crass pundit remarks was gross, but Desi was hopeful that, with multiple women running, they can at least divvy up the sexism between them.  The guests, documentarians Mark Jonathan Harris and Deborah Oppenheimer, discussed their experiences from their new film on the foster care system.