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Sunday, May 1
· Recap of the Week – Midterm campaigns
o John’s description of Rep. Madison Cawthorn as “Congress’s freshest-faced idiot” was delightful.
o In the category of “incumbents behaving badly in a midterm year,” we of course covered Gov. Ron DeSantis retaliating against Disney speaking in opposition to the “Don’t Say Gay” bill (and maybe accidentally lowering Disney’s taxes in an attempt to raise them?) and Gov. Greg Abbott stopping every truck coming across the border, costing Texans $4 billion in just eight days while finding zero migrants and no drugs – The chief position, though, went to Sheriff Alex Villenueva, whose seeming cover-up of a police-brutality incident in his department was only the latest of a wave of scandals.
o It was telling that when a video leaked showing one of Villenueva’s officers kneeling on an inmate’s head, he immediately launched an investigation… into who leaked the video – “Okay. When you’re accused of being complicit in a terrible act, being more concerned about who said it than the accusation doesn’t exactly convey innocence. If someone said, ‘John Oliver likes to be called Big Daddy Zazu with the Long, Long Beak around the office,’ and my response was, ‘Who said that? Is it Joseph? I’m gonna investigate Joseph,’ that would be more than a little suspicious, wouldn’t it?”
o Villenueva also referred to “wokeism” as “the national disease” that will finally be cured – “You probably thought that the national disease that he was referring to there was the literal one that’s killed almost a million Americans in two years, or the figurative one that is BTS fever. (By the way, Yoongi, marry me. I have the documents.) But instead, he meant the made-up one where you’re not allowed to make fun of your nephew for being a sociology major. You know, the real tragedy.”
o Unfortunately, as John pointed out, none of these things are likely to hurt these men’s chances of reelection – “The name of the game in politics these days seems to be less ‘can you help the most people?’ and more ‘how much can you hurt the people your supporters hate the most?’”
· And Now This – Shaq talks about buying gas
o This was funny, a supercut of Shaq on a sports commentary show (don’t ask me which one) defending his claim that you save money on gas if you refill your tank when it gets down to half – No matter how many times his fellow commentators pointed out that that would just mean spending the same amount on two separate trips to the gas station, Shaq was resolute.
o My favorite bit was the eventual cuts to the utterly-defeated looks of the other commentators as Shaq kept swearing by his allegedly-foolproof method.
· Main Story – Environmental racism
o I already knew that Black and brown communities are exposed to significantly higher levels of pollution than white communities, and John broke the issue down in detail – “Crucially, the disparity in exposure exists even when controlling for income. One study found that, on average, Black Americans making $200,000 were exposed to more air pollution than white Americans making $25,000, proving yet again that racism is one of the few things in this country more powerful than money.”
o In a news clip about environmental racism, one expert explained, “Right now the zip code is the most important predictor of health and well-being. You tell me your zip code, I can tell you how healthy you are. All zip codes are not created equal.”
o Inequities in zip codes can result in a 10- to 15-year difference in life expectancies.
o We looked at the indifferent responses from multiple polluters to this topic, but none more so than the CEO of a now-disbanded company who dropped tons upon tons of broken shingles on the outskirts of a Black community in the name of “recycling” – “You know, part of me almost appreciates that level of unapologetic shittiness. No effort to spin or dodge it. Just flat-out saying, ‘Yeah, it’s an icky part of town full of gross poors who deserve to live in filth. Did you get all of that for your news report? I can say it again slower if it helps.’”
o We looked at a diagram showing a Tennessee pipeline expanding along an incredibly circuitous route that “just so happened” to avoid white neighborhoods while going straight through Black and brown ones – “That does seem a little odd, doesn’t it? Normally the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, not ‘through any Black people who happen to be living nearby.’”
o I really appreciated the point that a lot of work being done on this issue is through local activists rather than large environmental groups, many of whom seem to view environmental racism as an unneeded distraction from protecting the natural world.
o John pointed out that even when the government identifies “Superfund” areas (places in urgent need of hazardous waste cleanup,) they’re not required by law to inform the residents of those areas of the danger. As an example, he looked at a neighborhood in East Chicago, where dangerously-high levels of lead were first identified in 1985 but residents were told nothing until 2016 – “That is 31 years and 8 government agencies later. And even then, the steps the government took were absolutely pathetic,” mainly putting up signs telling kids not to play on the grass and warning people to take off their shoes before entering the house.
o The show brought up the idea of “sacrifice zones, which are “areas of the country where it is both government policy and industry practice to concentrate pollutants” – This means places that are already polluted just keep getting worse and worse.
o One such place was “Cancer Alley” in Louisiana, located along a long stretch of industrial and chemical plants where the prevalence of cancer is 50 times the national average.
o John praised the Biden administration for recognizing this issue but aggravated by their statement that race won’t be a factor in deciding where to focus clean-up efforts – The reasoning was that the current Supreme Court would likely block any “race-based” environmental clean-up program, but “we’re in a pretty fucking backwards situation when any solutions to this problem have to be raceblind despite the fact that the causes of it are so demonstrably not.”
· And Now This – Rejected license plates
o Amusing – My favorites included, “FARTACUS,” “BYT M3, “ETABUSH,” and “DRPOOP.”
Monday, May 2
· Headlines –Ukraine, MP resigns over porn
o Trevor very rightly goggled at a Russian official’s attempt to defend Russia’s justification of the war as “denazifying Ukraine, despite President Zelenskyy literally being Jewish – “Did this guy say that Jews are the worst anti-Semites? You couldn’t think of anyone else? Everyone else above them?” He added, “What does this dude believe, that the Johnson & Johnson is the cool vaccine? Who are you, man?”
o I loved the description of England as “the country holding onto the rest of the world’s artifacts for ‘safekeeping.’”
o I laughed at Trevor’s impression of the MP who was caught watching porn during a Parliament session, particularly his explanation that he’d been googling farm equipment and wound up on the wrong site – “No, no, no! I went to Cornhub.com! Oh, bother. Oh, bother. No!”
o This was a great point – ”What’s amazing to me about this is how politicians can lose their jobs over normal things that everybody does, right? Like watching porn or having an affair. But if they’re busted for doing something that destroys other people’s lives, then nothing happens. You know? People are like, ‘Hey! Did you just make a deal with a corporation that allowed them to pollute our rivers and our lakes, which made a ton of people sick?’ Be like, ‘Yes, I did.’ ‘Well… at least you weren’t watching porn. Just try not to do it again.’”
o Great bit about how humans are obsessed about checking out Mars just out of “curiosity” – “It’s the same way your dad is currently looking for apartments. The marriage is fine. He just needs a place to hang, you know?”
o I liked Trevor’s reaction that NASA’s big Mars news was that the current rover found debris left by the previous rover’s landing – “Are you kidding me? NASA’s big discovery on Mars is some garbage that they left there? Why are you announcing…? What are you…? Like, I expect this shit from a five-year-old, not the greatest space agency in the world. ‘Look, Mommy, I found a poop in the toilet.’ That’s your poop, you f**king idiot!”
· Main Story – Ohio primary
o I liked this description of the midterms – “The time of year when voters ask for a refund.”
o Sadly valid – “Before you get to Election Day, you have to make it through the primaries, which is when the voters decide which candidates they really hate, and which ones they only kind of hate.”
o I enjoyed Trevor’s response to two GOP candidates almost coming to blows during a debate – “Hey man, look, I knew American politics were unpredictable, but I never thought the Republican Party would pick its leaders Wakanda-style, you know?”
o After, as Trevor pointed out, all the primary candidates competed over who was the “Trumpiest,” J.D. Vance was the one to get Trump’s endorsement. Unfortunately for him, Trump got his name wrong twice at a rally (including confusing him with one of the other candidates!) – “That was weird. You could see. Even the crowd was looking like, ‘Aw, man.’ They look like parents watching their kid bombing in a spelling bee. They’re just like, ‘Aw, that’s… Those are your genes. Yeah.’”
· Interview – Writer/comedian Ziwe
o I wasn’t familiar with Ziwe, but after the interview, I felt like I had a good sense of her style of humor, really fun and sly.
o Trevor wondered how Ziwe keeps enticing celebrity guests onto her show, where a lot of them unintentionally make fools of themselves – She told him, “Well, I celebrate icons, and I enable icons to say iconic things.”
o While her interview segments are the most popular part of her show, Trevor also praised Ziwe for her songs, such as “Stop Being Poor” – “I just think that trickle-down economics, it works. And I think if you look at yourself in the mirror and say, ‘Stop being poor,’ eventually it will happen.” She brightly added, “And that’s why I’m running for Congress!”
o Ziwe wouldn’t take the bait when asked who her favorite celebrity guest was – “Guests are like children. You can’t pick favorites.”
Tuesday, May 3
· Main Story – Leaked Supreme Court draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade
o Excellent observation – “If the Court’s decision is released officially, abortion will be illegal in about half the states in America. Yeah. That means all across the country, women in places like South Dakota or Missouri or even Texas will have the exact same abortion rights as women in Afghanistan under the Taliban. Yeah. Just think about that. We just evacuated people out of Afghanistan, and now we’re gonna have to evacuate them out of Tennessee?”
o Trevor took issue with Justice Alito’s words that the right to abortion isn’t “deeply rooted” in history – “But then again, the right to an abortion has also been around for 50 years now. Think about it. You want to talk about history and tradition? I think it’s safe to say that that’s a tradition at this point. Like, if you without electricity for a weekend, you’re camping. If you go without it for 50 years, you’re Amish, mother**ker. That’s just who you are!”
o Naturally, Sen. Susan Collins was shocked that Justices Gorsuch and Kavanagh would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade after calling it “settled law” during their confirmation hearings – “I will say, in Senator Collins’ defense, it is insane—it really is insane—that Supreme Court Justices can just lie in their job interview without any repercussions. Right? You couldn’t even do that shit at Kinko’s. If you claimed that you’re an expert at clearing paper jams, and then, when you get there, all you know how to do is make copies of your butt, Kinko’s is gonna fire you.”
o I loved Trevor’s response to people who were primarily upset about the leak itself and not the actual draft opinion – “I understand why these people are upset. You heard what they said. The conservative majority on this Court has a fundamental right to choose when they want to release a decision into the world. Imagine having some random person violate your privacy and make that choice for you. Who would do such a thing?”
o Great line – “I’m sorry, what—you wanted your ruling to be a big surprise and now someone ruined it? Yeah, I’m really sorry this decision to colonize every vagina in American wasn’t given the respect and dignity that it deserved.”
o Desi came on at the end of the piece to vent her anger and prepare to keep fighting – “Actually, Trevor, women do still have the right to choose. We can choose who to blame for this mother**king shit show of a travesty.”
· Interview – Sen. Amy Klobuchar
o Klobuchar and Trevor discussed what can be done about this ruling in Congress, either before or after it’s officially announced – Klobuchar said, “Two people have to show where they stand. And we have to have this vote. It’s critical.”
o Klobuchar focused a lot on Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, two pro-choice Republicans – “I can’t predict what they’re going to do, but yes, this is a moment where people have to make a decision. When you look at history, all kinds of exceptions to that filibuster. And this is a moment where, one—we have to codify Roe v. Wade into law, especially if they have been betrayed by these justices who they claim made one claim to them, and then voted another way. And then, secondly, they’ve got to make their own decision.”
o In a heavy, bleak interview, I did smile at the very end when Klobuchar complimented Trevor for his great speech at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner last week.
· Interview – Magnate/philanthropist Bill Gates
o Since Gates’s foundation has helped address reproductive rights around the world, they began by talking about the draft opinion, which Trevor characterized as, “One small step for the Supreme Court, one giant leap back for all women in America?”
o Mostly, though, the discussed Gates’s new book on preparing for the next pandemic – Gates explained, “It’s not that hard to get ready. You need to drill, like you do for a fire. We’ve got 300,000 firemen in the U.S. We’ve got 9 million fire hydrants. And a lot less than that would make it so we wouldn’t have to suffer another pandemic.”
o Gates observed that this was actually an ideal time to get governments to address health inequities in developing nations – “We have health inequity with all sorts of diseases. This isn’t…. You know, this is day in and day out we have inequity. But it’s nice that this reminded them about infectious diseases. So, you know, I’m talking to governments all the time about, ‘Hey, let’s give more, and help out and lift these countries up.’ There’s a lot of distractions out there. Budgets are super tight. I hope that cause keeps in people’s minds and remains a priority.”
Wednesday, May 4
· Main Story – Supreme Court Roe v. Wade leak
o Great analogy – “With the Supreme Court now seemingly on the brink of striking down Roe v. Wade, many people are horrified. Not that women in half the country would lose their rights over their own body but rather that this information got leaked. Which is weird. It’s like running around the deck of the Titanic, trying to find out who yelled, ‘We’re sinking!’, instead of focusing on the iceberg.”
o I loved Trevor’s response to a Newsmax commentator saying his “first suspect” for the leak was the forthcoming Justice Jackson – “And my first suspect for asshole is you! Bravo, detective. Bravo. Look at you, using the tried and true investigative technique of ‘the Black person did it.’”
o And it isn’t just firm red states that are facing trouble here. Wisconsin and Michigan have just realized that they never repealed their old abortion bans (one of which was from the 1840s after Roe – “Guys, unused laws shouldn’t be a thing that come back. They should have an expiration date. Or, at the very least, states should smell them every now and again to make sure that they haven’t gone bad.”
o Good line – “Companies like Apple, Citigroup, and even Amazon are promising to help their employees travel to other states if they need to get abortions, which is amazing. That’s really amazing. Usually you only see that kind of offer when a member of Congress gets his mistress pregnant.”
o Trevor noted that conservative news networks that rail against abortion because that person getting pregnant was “God’s will” seem to have no problem running ads for erectile dysfunction pills – “Medicine is always encouraged to do whatever it can to augment men’s sexual health however it can.”
· Correspondent Piece (Michael) – Man-on-the-street quiz
o Michael quizzed folks in Times Square on quotes from public figures – These bits aren’t my favorite, but it was okay.
o I liked this hint he gave about a claim Rep. Madison Cawthorn made about Ukraine – “Before you guess, it’s not cocaine and orgies, but it is similar because it’s also something he made up.”
o Amusing line – “No love for NFTs, the Beanie Babies of the 2020s.”
o Great response to people guessing that Mike Pence was the person Trump asked for advice on North Korea – “You are giving Donald Trump way too much respect to think that he would ask an actual politician a policy question. Think much less qualified.” (The answer, by the way, was Kid Rock.)
· Interview – Planned Parenthood president Alexis McGill Johnson
o This was a good question from Trevor – “Do you ever think that we could do a better job of maintaining a consistency in these fights for people’s liberties as opposed to having it be an on-off switch? Because, you know, I know people have made record donations. I know there are people out protesting, et cetera. But if you look at conservatives on their side, it seems like they’ve been slowly chipping away. They slowly chip away. They plan way in advance. They think of which judges to get into which positions, and now it looks like they’re going to reap the fruit of their labor.”
o McGill Johnson agreed with that, saying the present outcry needs to carry forward – “It is not just about being in the streets. It is about capturing that rage and turning it into the midterms.”
o Strong statement – “If Roe v. Wade is overturned, they’re essentially saying, ‘You are not equal. You cannot control your body.’ And so, if anybody kicks you out of the Constitution, you got to think about how you’re gonna get yourself back in.”
o On what’s next for Planned Parenthood – “The question we have to ask ourselves now is, who are we going to be when we are no longer defending Roe? How are we going to reimagine and create an affirmative vision, right? Without stigma, the kind of provision that everyone should be able to have, the kind of health care they need to have in their own state.”
Thursday, May 5
· Headlines – Federal Reserve raises interest to curb inflation, new Madison Cawthorn video leak, NASA prepares space beacon
o Trevor didn’t think a Fed official’s statement about raising interest rates 0.5% instilled that much confidence – “Okay, I felt confident in him until he said a soft-ish landing. Soft, I like. Soft-ish—Any time you have to add ‘ish’ to something, I don’t feel reassured anymore. ‘Yeah, this roller coaster is safe-ish.’ ‘These clams are fresh-ish.’ ‘Yeah, baby, we’re monogam-ish.’ You know how this is gonna end.”
o Funny impression from Trevor as the dollar, lamenting how fall its fallen with inflation – “Now they only talk about Benjamin. That loser wasn’t even president!”
o Topnotch intro for Rep. Madison Cawthorn – “North Carolina congressman and villain on every CW show.”
o The Cawthorn piece opened with a quick review of a few of his numerous scandals before saying, “And now, in the words of the esteemed political analyst DJ Khaled, another one.”
o I loved Trevor’s side eye at Cawthorn’s apology video – “Okay, before we address that statement, can anyone explain to me why the American flag is in that video? That flag wasn’t humping anybody. Why are you dragging the flag into this bullshit, Madison, huh?”
o The latest scandal involved a leak of an old video where a naked Cawthorn was pretending to hump his friend’s face, and as dumb and crude as it was, Trevor acknowledged some validity in Cawthorn’s statement – “Since the beginning of time, people have had the ability to insulate what they do in private from what they do in public. But now we have a whole generation who’s growing up documenting every single dumb thing they do or say or hump. And honestly, unless they’re breaking the law, we’re gonna have to figure out how to deal with this in society.”
o Good line – “Let’s move onto a story about space, Jeff Bezos’ vacation home.”
o Trevor wasn’t sure about the idea of sending simplistic computerized drawings of nude human bodies into space as a potential introduction to alien races – “First of all, they’ve got to hire more women over at NASA, because only dudes would think the best way to introduce yourself is with unsolicited nudes.”
o This made me laugh – “How are these the nudes we’re sending to aliens? If we want aliens to be interested, don’t send them an Etch-a-Sketch drawing. Send them coupons for OnlyFans. Come on, man.”
o I loved the bit about how this move by NASA would only make sense if Trump was still president – “I don’t know what they have down there, but I’m grabbing it! I’m grabbing it. Come here, aliens.”
· CP Time (Roy) – History of Black jockeys
o Interesting piece of history – “For many years in the early days of organized horse racing, Black jockeys were extremely common in the sport, partly because Black people had a lot of experience taking care of horses during slavery, and partly because riding horses was the best way to prevent the police from stopping you for a broken taillight.”
o Oliver Lewis was the very first winner of the Kentucky Derby – “Despite his success, Lewis retired from racing the very same year he won the Derby. Which is understandable. With the prize money he won, he could finally achieve the dream of every Black man in 1875 Kentucky—moving out of Kentucky."
o Two-time Derby winner Jimmy Winkfield eventually left the U.S. and became a racer for Russia after threats and harassment from the KKK – “Do you know how bad it’s got to get for a Black man to move to Russia? They didn’t even have Black people over there back then. Although maybe that’s the secret—got to get in early before they learn how to do racism.”
· Interview – Political reporters Alex Burns & Jonathan Martin
o This was a great observation from Trevor, about the Real Housewives of Washington, D.C.-style drama documented in Burns and Martin’s new book – “It seems like this is deciding the country versus what the people are seeing on the news, but the people are voting on what they see in the news.”
o Martin responded to that, saying, “When the cameras are running in Washington, Trevor, you see two very different kinds of politicians than what you see behind the scenes in private when they don’t know that, say, the audio is running.”
o Burns addressed criticisms that they had very revealing audio from the days after January 6th but didn’t release it until the book was published – “Look, if we were in a position to release that information the second we got it, of course we would have done that. But part of the exercise of writing a book and part of why it’s different from writing for a newspaper or producing a television show, is that the people you’re talking to, the sources you’re working with, will be more candid with you and will share more information. It’s not just audio, it is documents, it is notes that they’re taking in real time, it is their personal views and recollections—when they feel they’re sharing it for history, and not, you know, a show that’s gonna air, in a couple of hours from now.”
o After listening to an audio of Sen. Lindsey Graham fawning to Trump days after January 6th, Trevor asked, “Does this show us that the politicians are lying to the people, or they’re lying to Trump?” – In reference to Graham specifically, Burns replied, “I don’t know that he’s lying to anybody. I think Lindsey Graham genuinely believes that he is playing a vital role as a diplomat between the establishment of the Republican Party and Donald Trump. And I’m not saying he’s right. I just-- that’s clearly how he’s rationalizing it.”
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