Sunday, June 23 – Good opening on
U.S. tensions with Iran and Trump’s decision not to go ahead with the
strike. I loved John’s analogy that this
was a display of some garbage reasoning that surprisingly turned out well, and
we shouldn’t rest easy that we’d get the same happy result next time. Really interesting main story on Mt. Everest. John looked at the danger of
climbing the mountain, particularly due to overcrowding. I liked the notes on how opportunities to
climb Everest are now more a matter of money than training/skill, which
contributes to the danger (not with inexperienced climbers endangering both
themselves and others.) And he did a
great job highlighting how much more
danger the sherpas go through to get these people to the summit. (Also, the bit about the “fecal time bomb” of
human waste sliding down the gradually-warming mountain was gross, but I loved
John’s suggestion that all babies wear onesies with that slogan.)
Sunday, May 12 – I somehow missed
the first episode in this latest block, on the Amazon Rainforest. The details here were sobering, especially
the statistics on how much of the forest has been deforested and what
percentage of the world’s CO2 emissions it absorbs – we don’t have rainforest
to spare! Naturally, talking about
Brazil meant talking about President Bolsonaro and all his terribleness (plus
golden shower tweets!) – his attitudes towards the environment and Brazil’s
indigenous peoples were predictably gross, but I enjoyed Hasan’s interview with
an indigenous activist. Additionally,
the show discussed midterms in the Philippines (speaking of terrible leaders,
President Duterte!) Specifically, we
looked at Duterte-backed senate candidates.
When one candidate was referred to as “the architect of the drug war,” I
liked Hasan’s translation of “the Frank Lloyd Wright of killing everyone,
everywhere, all the time.”
Monday, June 24 – Opening blurbs on
the BET Awards (loved the bit about someone waking from a coma being told that
Trump is president and Billy Ray Cyrus got a standing ovation at the BETs,) Democratic
candidates campaigning in South Carolina, and the horrific conditions for
children detained at the border (I laughed at the joke on Somali pirates not wanting it to get out that they treat
their hostages better than the DHS treats asylum seekers.) More on Iran, looking at Trump’s last-minute
pivot on the strike. Fun bit about Mike
Pence supporting the strike and the
president’s decision against it – as Trevor said, who’d have expected Mike
Pence to “swing both ways”? Awful story
on a study of police officers’ social media, which found overtly-racist posts
in almost ¼ of cops’ feeds. The “it’s a
good day for a choke hold” was especially terrible. I enjoyed the guest, Teen Vogue’s Elaine Welteroth, who seems like a force to be
reckoned with.
Tuesday, June 25 – It was an Ain’t Nobody Got Time for That day, covering Bernie Sanders’s plan to forgive all
student loans, schools named for Robert E. Lee looking for other famous Lees to
be named after, the administration delaying the “Tubman 20” (which Trevor said
sounded like “the weight you put on in your first year of freedom,” ha!) and
the showdown in Oregon’s Congress over climate change (with a lawmaker
threatening to shoot police before
being forced to do his job.) We also
covered the latest sexual assault allegation against Trump. After discussing Trump’s loathsome “she’s not
my type” rebuttal, Trevor had some excellent remarks on Trump’s ability to
avoid any Me-Too-era reckoning. Jaboukie
had a good piece on civics education in the U.S. – I loved one of the students
he interviewed telling him, “You smell old.”
Guest Olivia Munn talked about her new show and debated preferred
superpowers with Trevor.
Wednesday, June 26 – Live show for the
first round of Democratic debates.
Trevor covered plenty of takeaways:
Elizabeth Warren not coming to play, Cory Booker’s alarmed reaction to
Beto O’Rourke busting out the Spanish, John Delaney scoring some points but
people still not knowing who he is (I loved Trevor’s suggestion that he say his
name DJ-Khaled-style whenever he got an applause line,) Bill de Blasio trying
to fight his way through the pack, and Lester Holt resorting to asking the
candidates for a show of hands on certain questions. The correspondents did a fun sketch telling
the story of the “crack team” given the impossible task of holding 20
candidates on a debate stage – I loved that Desi was randomly an explosives
expert. The guest was FiveThirtyEight’s
Perry Bacon Jr., breaking down the debate and looking at who came away with a
bit more momentum than they previously had.
Thursday, June 27 – Debate part 2. We
started with outside reactions, including Trump’s one-word take: “BORING!”
(I loved the joke that asking Trump about normal politicians is like
asking heroin about coffee.) After a
crack about Michael Bennet being pleasantly surprised just to be asked a
question, Trevor looked at how the debate began “civilly” then made its way to
shouting matches (fun Bernie Sanders jokes here) and people coming for Joe
Biden. Like Trevor, I enjoyed Kamala
Harris’s mano a mano with Biden and loved the observation that he was so shook
he “cut himself off” in his next response.
Ronny had a field piece looking for people who could name every candidate (spoiler alert: he didn’t find
any.) I especially liked Tim Ryan thinking
he did well after only naming five.
Howard Dean was the guest, looking at the crowded field and how he sees
it narrowing over the next year.
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