"Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light."
~ Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Saturday, June 13, 2020

News Satire Roundup: June 7th-June 11th


Sunday, June 7
·       Main Story – Policing
o   No surprise what the main (and only) story was tonight. Even though Last Week Tonight doesn’t regularly devote all its time to the latest headlines, this is a story too immense to put on hold
o   I loved this – “If you’ve said the name Macy’s more than you’ve said the name Breonna Taylor this week, you can fuck off”
o   We began with the history of policing and looked at the ways white supremacy is specifically threaded into the roots of it – “If we want to talk about how we got here, it’s important to remember that we got here on purpose”
o   Democrats weren’t excused in this, with Bill Clinton’s 1994 crime bill appearing on the same list as Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan’s “war on drugs”
o   John’s disdain for for one police union head worrying that regulations on firearm use would keep officers from “doing what needs to be done” was so satisfying – “What’s he gonna do, shoot me? I don’t think so; think of the paperwork involved!”
o   “Truly, the getting-shot-in-the-leg-instead-of-the-heart candidate” was such a depressingly-apt description of Joe Biden
o   In the clip of Tucker Carlson gnashing his teeth over “Defund the Police,” my hackles went up as soon as he mentioned rape because the overwhelming majority of rape cases don’t lead to arrests – take your concern-trolling elsewhere, Carlson
o   I did love John saying that Carlson “always looks like a man who just saw his first Black Barbie and feels confused but mostly scared”
o   Powerful ending, with a clip of author/activist Kimberly Jones echoing Trevor Noah’s words about looting and “the social contract” – “You broke the contract when you killed us in the streets and didn’t give a fuck!”

Sunday, June 7
·       Main Story – Local Newspapers
o   Hasan’s take on social-media-filtered nonstop news? “High-fructose bullshit” and “that’s not news, it’s gossip”
o   In touting the importance of local newspapers, which break most of the stories that other outlets report on, Hasan especially highlighted their work in exposing sex scandals, from Larry Nassar to R. Kelly to Jeffrey Epstein
o   But of course, local newspapers are in financial peril – One reason? “They used to make bank on advertising, but just like CDs and human connection, the Internet fucked it up”
o   Another reason, no surprise, is private equities and leveraged buyouts – every time I hear another story about rich people destroying something good to make themselves even more money, I see red
o   We looked at counties in the U.S. with no local newspapers, known as “news deserts” – “They’re like food deserts, but instead of not having any apples, no one knows what the hell is going on”

Monday, June 8
·       Changes from international Black Lives Matter protests
o   The Daily Show is back, not a second too soon!
o   Racism is a second pandemic in the U.S., that “unlike the coronavirus, doesn’t go away if you stay inside your house for 14 days”
o   I loved Trevor’s response to people disingenuously asking “how we will learn about history?” as Confederate statues are coming down – “ ‘These statues are about history.’ Read a book, motherfucker!”
o   Good response to corporations’ Black Lives Matter statements, urging that words need to be followed with actions – “Companies have to start hiring more Black people. Companies have to stop not hiring people because they’re Black”
o   Great description of “Defund the Police” – “Prevention is always better than a cure, especially when the cure kills Black people”
·       Police brutality during protests
o   Looking at videos of police brutalizing both peaceful protesters and journalists covering the protests, Trevor talked about how antithetical those images are to the American ideals of freedom of speech and freedom of the press
o   A huge crowd of Buffalo police officers cheering for the two cops who shoved an old man to the ground succinctly refuted the department’s “a few bad apples” defense – Trevor repeatedly asking, “What are they cheering for?” really got to me
o   Such a strong observation – “In a way, [the police] have the same culture that a gang does: that, above all, you are loyal to your crew”
·       Interview – Black Visions Collective activist Miski Noor
o   Noor compared Minneapolis protesters’ demands after Jamar Clark’s murder 5 years to George Floyd’s now – with Clark, they sought justice within the existing systems, but after that, “[they] changed [their] focus much more to focus on abolition” of the police
o   Trevor asked about “the flints that have been causing this flame” in Minneapolis, and Noor laid out the city’s many proofs of wide systemic inequality depressingly well
o   Noor pointed out that protesters have already been practicing community policing/safety in the last few weeks to keep their neighborhoods safe – “The police really left us to ourselves when white supremacists descended on our cities”
o   I loved that Noor added the note that the Minneapolis City Council vote to work on disbanding the MPD came on Prince’s birthday
·       Interview – NFL player Anquan Boldin
o   In looking at the frequent disconnect in the political/social views of Black NFL players and their white fans, Boldin emphasized the importance of “meeting people at the level they’re at”
o   I really liked his point that, because COVID-19 shut down all the sports, there was nothing to “distract” Americans from George Floyd’s murder and the ensuing protests, perhaps creating greater space for people to finally be heard

Tuesday, June 9
·       Headlines – Washington’s response to the protests
o   Trevor’s ideas to address police violence included “make them smoke the whole carton of tear gas so they learn”
o   In looking at House Democrats’ proposal for removing some barriers to police accountability, Trevor went through the many things you need to secure/hope for to even getting a prayer of convicting a cop now – “And even if you do all that, you still have to find the cop’s Horcrux and destroy it!”
o   Oh man, I loved Trevor dunking on Kaleigh McEnany’s attempt to favorably compare Trump’s support among Black voters to Mitt Romney’s – “You’re gonna brag about getting 8% of the Black vote? Really, 8%, out of 100???”
·       Expert Panel – Patrisse Cullors, Josie Duffy Rice, Sam Sinyangwe, Mychal Denzel Smith & Alex S. Vitale
o   The show compiled a group of activists, academics, and authors to discuss what can be done about police violence, and most of the episode was dedicated to Trevor’s discussion with them
o   I’d read this elsewhere, but it bears repeating: in Los Angeles, the police department accounts for 54% of the city’s budget
o   This quote, from Rice, was really important – “We’re relying on a violent system to reduce violence. We’re relying on a cruel system to reduce cruelty. And we’re funding the back end of social ills instead of the front end of addressing them”
o   I appreciated that Trevor noted some generational disconnect in Black communities, pointing out that a number of Black leaders were advocating for increased police presence around the time of the ’94 crime bill – Cullors added some context, explaining that communities asked for policing in addition to improved education/housing/other social systems but often only got police, which couldn’t stop crime because it didn’t get at any of the roots of crime
o   Sinyangwe, coming from Campaign Zero and reform-minded initiatives like 8 Can’t Wait, talked about how their group has pivoted more toward defunding or abolishment as they saw where the movement was going – he said that, although reforms “can reduce police killings,” the overall goal needs to be “to end police violence altogether”
o   Trevor looked for guidance on what he described as the prevalence of “leaderless” movements in the U.S. (Cullors countered that they’re instead “leaderful,”) asking where people can find resources directly from the source to keep missions from being undermined by bad-faith arguments

Wednesday, June 10
·       Responses to Black Lives Matter protests – Cops and Gone with the Wind are pulled, the dictionary agrees to expand the definition of racism, and a powerful statement from babynames.com
o   Trevor at first thought cancelling Cops was a little off the mark – “this is like when you make a wish with a genie, but you aren’t specific enough”
o   He was, however, not here at all for Gone with the Wind’s “happy slaves” – “If slaves were having a good time, they wouldn’t have needed to be slaves!”
o   His idea? Have HBO Max quiz viewers before letting them watch Gone with the Wind – if they say the Civil War was about states’ rights, give them a documentary instead!
o   I loved the line, “Racism is like the corn syrup of society, it’s in everything”
o   Great point that the strong statement from babynames.com (a banner of Black people killed by police, coupled with, “Each one of these names was somebody’s baby”) demonstrates, “If you want to be a part of moving society forward, you can find a way”
·       Georgia primary
o   Yes! – “It’s funny how America has unlimited resources to make sure that countries around the world get democracy, but then America never has the resources to make sure there’s democracy in America”
o   Trevor’s solution? Have Georgia claim to be from the Middle East – “We’re actually Afghanistatlanta, so can we get some of that democracy cash?”
o   Of course, the massive logistical failures of Georgia’s primary are also looked at as a possible window into what the general might look like in November – Trevor said, “Just like coronavirus, America has an opportunity now to heed the warnings before it’s too late”
·       Interview – Joe Biden
o   It was another night where most of the episode was devoted to the interview – Trevor talked to Biden about policing, Trump, and the election, and he also made a quick pitch for himself as a running mate!
o   Biden tied the present moment, where many people have been awakened thanks to videos of police killings, to his own awakening to civil rights in the ‘60s, when he first saw news footage from Birmingham on his TV
o   Biden spoke emphatically in favor of reform rather than defunding, but a) he didn’t seem to fully understand what defunding was about, and b) he seemed to unwittingly advocate in favor for defunding himself a few times (vowing to withhold federal funding from states who didn’t adopt certain reform measures, saying we should build more rehab facilities instead of jails)
o   When Trevor asked if, as president, he would go into specific communities to address their issues directly (instead of using more typical “everybody wins!” policy approaches,) Biden said he would, but he also spent most of his answer talking about how he’d meet with business leaders to discuss those policies and why they’re important to implement – while that’s an important point and I appreciated it, it troubled me that he so quickly pivoted his focus from the original question
o   One thing I liked was Biden’s promise to guard against voter suppression between now and November, vowing to have boots on the ground throughout the country to ensure that people are able to vote

Thursday, June 11
·       Change brought by Black Lives Matter Protests
o   Great jokes/commentary on Confederate monuments and the Confederate flag – I laughed at Trevor’s plan that NASCAR compromise with fans by banning them from bringing Confederate flags into the races but then incorporating it into the race by waving it for “the losers” (Civil War burn!)
o   Trevor’s very good question to Nancy Pelosi’s call to remove Confederate statues from Congress was, “Why are there Confederate statues in Congress?!” I loved line, “The government treats actual traitors better than Black citizens”
·       Police unions resist reform
o   After NYPD union chief Pat Lynch’s handwringing remarks that “you just put your hand on a criminal and you go to jail!!”, Trevor compared him to guys who, during the MeToo movement, cried, “I’ll just cut my dick off now, we all know that’s coming next!”
o   Roy came on to discuss the issue, and he added a note about all the officers flanking Lynch during his speech, with that supposed “diverse police department” looking like “a 50-year reunion of a lacrosse team”
·       The pandemic continues amid the protests
o   Such a good line – “I feel like coronavirus grew up with a father who never loved it, because right now it’s working really hard to prove itself”
o   And we brought it back around to the earlier story with, “Coronavirus is attacking America so hard, half the country is gonna wanna build a statue for it!”
·       Interview – Director Spike Lee
o   Lee was on to discuss his new film Da 5 Bloods, a movie that looks at a group of Black soldiers returning to Vietnam decades after their service
o   Invoking Crispus Attucks, he said, “From the very beginning, we [Black people] been fighting for this country that doesn’t fight for us! We been loving this country that doesn’t love us!”
o   He also brought up Trump’s past complaints/insults about the NFL protests, arguing, “You cannot tell any African American love it or leave it. We built this bitch!”
·       Interview – Actor Josh Gad
o   There was a fun back-and-forth between Gad and Trevor about how long it took before Gad finally made it onto the show – and even then, it was during a global pandemic so he couldn’t come to the studio!
o   Gad described his Artemis Fowl character as “Hagrid by way of Han Solo,” which made me smile
o   He also talked about his new animated musical series Central Park, describing the cast (including such heavyweights as 2 Hamilton alumni, Kristen Bell, and Stanley Tucci) as “the Avengers of musical theatre”

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