News Satire Roundup: April 17th-April 21st

Sunday, April 17

·        Recap of the Week – Tennessee bill on homelessness, Dr. Oz’s Senate campaign

o   When once again, we ask, “Why is this Tennessee state senator holding up Hitler as an example of someone who ‘succeeded’ after being homeless?” – “He’s basically using the age-old ‘what if the homeless person you passed on the street was Jesus?’, except in his example, the person is Hitler! Adolf Hitler, and the homelessness somehow only made him stronger.”

o   After looking at a clip of Trump endorsing Dr. Oz for Senate, John remarked on how long it had been since he’d heard Trump’s voice – “The first growl in that clip is like hearing the sound of a cranky lawnmower you know is about to sexually harass you.”

o   John had plenty of reasons to dislike Dr. Oz’s campaign, not least of which because of his surprisingly-shoddy media performance for someone who’s a seasoned TV personality – After a social-media video of him cheering on a high school wrestling team in what practically seemed a fugue state, John said, “I don’t know what I like most there: the fact that he seems to be recording a Cameo no one requested, his shout-out to ‘Carl Sandersyouallknow whoheis,’ or the fact that that was posted at 6:57 p.m. Did you pre-game a high school wrestling match, you deeply weird man?”

·        And Now This – Hollow chocolate bunnies

o   An amusing montage of local news anchors bemoaning the fact that chocolate bunnies aren’t solid chocolate, complete with a morose backing score – I especially liked one anchor admitting, “I was disappointed and hurt,” and another demanding, “What’s the point of eating air?”

·        Main Story – Police Interrogations

o   It’s a major issue that police confessions are considered “the gold standard” at trials and can “be more persuasive than even DNA evidence” – In the first of many gross statistics of the night, John shared that, “Of all the convictions that have been overturned through DNA testing, 29% involved false confessions.”

o   We spent a lot of time looking at the Reid Technique, the most popular method for police interviews and interrogations.

o   The Reid Technique is full of debunked junk science and frequently contradicts itself – “When it comes to eye contact, it advises that ‘when a person is being less than honest, he may not maintain direct eye contact,’ but also, others ‘may overcompensate by staring.’ Meaning, if you have eyes, you’re basically fucked!”

o   Another terrible statistic: for people who gave false confessions and were later exonerated, that confession came after an average of 16.3 hours of questioning – After going through all that, “The notion that people crack under pressure and falsely confess really shouldn’t be that hard to understand.”

o   As was pointed out, and as we saw demonstrated in multiple clips from different interrogations, it’s not illegal for police to lie to suspects. John summed up one particularly egregious example this way – “‘I can’t lie about the evidence,’ he lied as he lied about the evidence, and did it while gesturing with all the nuance of a high schooler auditioning for A Few Good Men.”

o   More awful statistics – Of those who falsely confessed under interrogation and were later exonerated, 34% were under 18 and 69% had a mental illness or intellectual disability.

o   Excellent summation – “The problem with police interrogations right now is the same problem that we have with policing at large. They’re emboldened to act however they’d like in a system where they hold an undue amount of power with very few protections for civilians, especially the most vulnerable.”

o   Lastly, John took the media to task for copaganda shows that repeatedly suggest that harsh interrogation tactics produce reliable confessions, and the show ended with a fake ad for a crime drama that depicted these tactics more honestly.

 

Monday, April 18

·        Headlines – Florida bans math textbooks for “critical race theory,” inflation, Illinois church gave up white music for Lent, youth praise band performs on a flight

o   Excellent line – “If you still aren’t sure what critical race theory is, don’t worry: neither are the people banning it.”

o   Like many, Trevor just what kind of “critical race theory” could be found in a math textbook – “Well, think about it, Trevor. Algebra is just a bunch of numbers that rejected their slave names and now go by X.”

o   This made me laugh – “If they were trying to teach CRT into the schools, why would they do it with math? Math textbooks would be the worst place to do it. Because who remembers anything they learned in math, huh?”

o   Trevor went on to add, “Even Liam Neeson. His particular set of skills does not include hypotenuse!”

o   I smiled at this description – “You see, you had Easter, Passover, and Ramadan all at the same time. Yeah. It was basically the Coachella of religion.”

o   Trevor understood people who were upset when an impromptu worship service broke out on a plane, but he “argued” that the praise band was in the right – “I think the most logical place for religious songs is on a plane. Yeah. I don’t care who you are—that’s where you need God. Because who the hell knows how to fly planes, huh? Who even knows how planes work? There’s only, like, two people on the entire plane who know how that thing works. I mean really know. Two people. If they get diarrhea at the same time, we’re all dead.”

·        Correspondent Piece (Ronny) – Tax Day

o   This was a really fun piece, full of great, cantankerous Ronny lines – “It’s tax season, which right off the bat is a sign that something is wrong, okay? Because taxes shouldn’t have a whole season. Seasons are supposed to be for exciting stuff, like baseball season or wedding season or season 2 of Bridgerton.”

o   Relatable – “America decided that paying taxes should be as quick and painless as getting a root canal at the DMV.”

o   Oh man, I loved this – “You spend days trying to figure out what you owe the government, and then the government tells you if you’re right because apparently, they knew the whole frigging time.”

o   The main thrust of the piece was on taxes in America vs. the rest of the world, but Ronny extended to include other money-related topics as well – “I know you guys are used to it, but I need you to realize that the way you tip in this country is not normal. Everywhere else, a tip is a show of appreciation, not a GoFundMe for someone who doesn’t earn a living wage.”

o   Ronny also took issue with U.S. paper currency, pointing out that in other countries, each denomination is a different size to make differentiation easier, especially for blind people – “But apparently blind people don’t need to use money in America, ‘cause look at this shit. Same exact size! All of it. You got to look over each individual bill to figure out which slave owner to hander over.”

·        Interview – Musician/author Janelle Monáe

o   Monáe was getting real in this interview – “I am in the most ‘I don’t have to prove anything’ space that I’ve ever been in in my life. Yeah, and it took me a while to get there because, you know, as public people, we try to inspire people with our words. But I don’t feel like I was really living what I was saying. I wasn’t really believing in myself. I was saying it, it was helping other people, but I had to do some deep healing during the pandemic.”

o   She further explained how she’s freed herself from others’ expectations – “We’re supposed to be living our Earth experience in the best possible way, and I think when I first started my career, I was really serious. Like, I have to prove a point. I have to prove that just because I look like this… I can do this type of music. I can say these things, I can talk about science fiction. I had a lot to prove. But now, man, I’m floating.”

o   Trevor praised her new short story collection The Memory Librarian, in which Monáe collaborated with a different science fiction writer on each story – They both talked about it in music terms, with Trevor describing the stories as literary “feature” tracks and Monáe saying, “It’s like a compilation album. It is. It’s like a mixtape.”

Tuesday, April 19

·        Headlines – Federal judge ends public transit mask mandate

o   Trevor did sympathize with people who were sick of wearing masks – “Your face gets sweaty. You can’t pretend it’s somebody else’s breath that stinks. Yeah? It always feels like someone’s using a tiny dull saw on the back of your ears just to cut them off.”

o   This was the crux of it, though – “Look, I don’t care what you think of masks. You have to admit, it is insane to change a safety rule in the middle of a flight, people.”

o   This was a great point – “People forget that a lot of flight attendants weren’t just happy about the masks coming off because of politics. No, a lot of them were happy because of the way people react to masks, and the fact that it has turned their everyday lives basically into UFC.”

·        Correspondent Piece (Jordan) – Hungary’s slide from democracy to dictatorship

o   This was a lead-up to Jordan’s new special investigating the far-right, less-than-democratic government in Hungary since the election of Victor Orbán.

o   A theme of the piece was how the oppressive government in Hungary is doing the kinds of things the GOP would love to do, especially at the state level – While Florida has their “Don’t Say Gay” law, Hungary as a “child protection act” that prohibits selling books at all related to LGBTQ folks within 200 meters of a school or church!

o   This was an excellent insight from Jordan – “I think when we think about what could happen to American democracy, we lack imagination. We think the only way that it could crumble is if it becomes a civil war, like the 1800s in America.”

·        Interview – Actor/showrunner Pamela Adlon

o   I liked this observation and found it very relatable – “It’s extremely important to love what you do. But sometimes it’s not possible. And you got to kind of cool your heels and wait to do the thing that you love to make money from doing the thing you love.”

o   Adlon talked about making her own opportunities with her show Better Things – “I used to-- I was just an actor, and I would wait for the phone to ring and I thought that that’s how it was supposed to be…”

o   I liked her answer to Trevor’s question about how much the show is inspired by her own home life as a single mom – “I like to say that my character Sam is me in a cape. So it’s like the ultra version of me.”

Wednesday, April 20

·        Headlines – Netflix stock drops, Florida retaliates against Disney, office birthday party lawsuit

o   I laughed at Trevor’s defense of his explanation that Disney spoke out against Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law in part because so many LGBTQ people work for them – “If you’re surprised, how can you be surprised? What did you think? Why do you think Disney’s always killing off straight parents? They hate breeders. Think about it! It’s a conspiracy.”

o   Super valid, about Governor DeSantis wanting to strike back legislatively at Disney over their eventual criticism of the law – “He’s using the power of the government to punish Disney because they don’t agree with his politics. Yeah. And can we just admit that most Republicans are not even Republicans anymore? Right? Because for, like, 100 years, their whole thing has been that there’s nothing worse than the government telling businesses what to do. And now they’re gonna use the law to punish corporations for their opinions?”

o   In particular, Trevor pointed out that DeSantis’s outrage at Disney’s “wokeness” meant he’s now clamoring to have a giant corporation pay more taxes – “If you think about it, if liberals are smart, they should start harnessing this and, like, hyping up oil companies. You know? Yeah. AOC should just come out and be like, ‘ExxonMobil is such a good ally. They support Black Lives Matter. They always use people’s preferred pronouns.’ And then, all of a sudden, Republicans will be like, ‘What?! Destroy Exxon! Tear them down! Cover them with solar panels! We got to end this wokeness!’”

o   The office birthday party lawsuit was far more reasonable than it sounds – The man in question was actually suing for wrongful termination after 1) he told his office not to throw him a party because he had an anxiety disorder and figured it could trigger a panic attack, 2) they threw him a surprise party anyway, 3) he had a panic attack, 4) his boss got mad at him for having a panic attack, and 5) he got fired.

o   This made me laugh – “People, you can’t fire someone for something you gave them! Pablo Escobar was never like, ‘George, HR found cocaine in your desk, so, uh, yeah, please hand in your ID card. Sorry.’ That’s not a thing.”

·        Correspondent Piece (Ronny) – Earth Day

o   This was another one of Ronny’s “Prove Me Wrong” booth bits, not as good as some of the earlier ones he’s done – Some of his controversial takes included “the Earth doesn’t need to be celebrated” and “outside is better than inside.

o   I did like when he conversed with a Malaysian couple in another language and then remarked, “Nobody knows what we just said, so….”

o   I also smiled at this exchange – “There’s better air [outside]! It’s fresh.” “Have you smelled the air around here lately? We’re in New York City, lady.”

·        Interview – Amazon Labor Union president Chris Smalls

o   Smalls talked about the shift to labor organizing after several years of working as a supervisor at Amazon – “For me, organizing just means I’m playing for a different team, and I’m with the people.”

o   When Trevor asked what was highest on the union’s “hierarchy of needs,” Smalls said, “I noticed that Amazon is run completely off of metrics. There was no human aspect to it, you know? You get fire by email or a app” – He went on to explain that recognizing the humanity of workers can lead to everything from more robust sick leave policies to hazard pay.

o   Smalls had an interesting response to Trevor inquiring why he didn’t align himself with any politicians, as many unions do – He explained that he didn’t want partisanship to be barrier to anyone joining the union, adding, “If you start to align with certain groups, then Amazon uses that against you.”

Thursday, April 21

·        Headlines – CNN+ shuts down, Rudy Giuliani revealed on The Masked Singer

o   This made me laugh, about CNN+ - “Wow. Did they say they had less than 10,000 views a day? You could’ve just been on TikTok.”

o   Top-notch segue – “Let’s move on to a different spectacular disaster, Rudy Giuliani.”

o   Valid point – “It’s also weird how Rudy has time to be on a game show but he’s ‘too busy’ to testify in front of Congress.”

·        Main Story – France election

o   I liked this intro – “For decades now, France has been one of the few countries in Europe you didn’t have to worry about, right? They didn’t make Nazis. They didn’t go bankrupt. They didn’t hire a wet Teletubby as their prime minister.”

o   But now, far-right conservative Marine Le Pen is closer than she’s ever been to beating moderate Emmanuel Macron. I loved this reaction from Trevor – “…There’s a possibility of a French Trump? Jesus, if you thought Donald Trump was horny before…. I don’t think the world is ready for what this election could bring.”

o   I laughed at Trevor’s response to Macron and Le Pen’s heated presidential debate – “You know, I know this fight was considered intense by French media, but by American standards, that was pretty chill. It was, uh… yeah. Everyone stayed in their seats. No one was screaming. If anything, it looked less like a debate and more like a stressed couple arguing at a restaurant, you know?”

o   Great bit, in response to man-on-the-street interviews about the state of French politics – “You know, every time you think French stereotypes are exaggerated, you see something like this. Because, no, because using your cuisine to comment on the dire state of your politics, that’s the most French thing you could do. You know? ‘Our country’s collapsing from the inside, like a soufflé.’”

o   Trevor continued, saying, “Think about it: I’ve never seen people in any other country make a metaphor like that on the news. Not once have I seen someone being interviewed in the streets of Nigeria being like, ‘Our problems run deeper than the flavors of jollof rice, eh?’ That’s not a thing.”

o   Nice burn, re: Le Pen praising Putin in an interview – “To be fair to her, they asked her about Putin in 2017, and back then, Putin was just undermining elections and poisoning people. It was still too soon to tell.”

·        Interview – Actor Alexander Skarsgård

o   Since Skarsgaård was on Stephen Colbert’s show the night before, and Colbert tested positive for COVID shortly after, Trevor moved to the opposite end of the desk for the interview – “This is nice. This is like Putin’s table when he talks to people.”

o   After failing to get Skarsgård to admit he’s an actual Viking (on the basis of being Swedish and having a Viking surname,) Trevor said, “Let me tell you something. If I had any name-- If, like, my last name was ‘Trevor Giantslayer,’ I’d be like, ‘Yo, I slayed giants. I’m related to people to slayed….’ Just claim it.”

o   Skarsgård talked about his new movie The Northman and what made him so eager to sign on – “I’d never seen a big epic Viking movie that took on the mythology seriously or really went in deep into the mythology. And where you could experience the fantastical world, the mythology, the spirits, through the eyes of someone a thousand years ago.”