News Satire Roundup: March 19th

Sunday, March 19

·        Recap of the Week – Trump’s message to farmers, Silicon Valley Bank collapse

o   In a video Trump recorded about limiting inheritance taxes, he said that farmers could leave their farms to their kids “assuming you love them” – “Do you know how much you have to hate your kids to get distracted by that thought in the middle of a political speech? ‘We should’ve pulled out troops from the region sooner. Speaking of regretting not pulling out sooner, Don Jr.’”

o   I loved John’s reaction to Fox News claiming that Silicon Valley Bank collapsed because it was a “woke bank” – “What are you talking about? That is so stupid, I’m almost jealous. Because it must be so nice for them to be able to automatically blame everything that they don’t like or understand on wokeness.”

o   This led straight into a fabulous impression – “ ‘It rained on my birthday because of critical race theory, and my son called me a bitch because of socialism. And on top of all of that, I was late to work today because of a bunch of pronouns. I believe these things mind, body, and soul, and it makes my life monumentally easier.’”

o   Strong observation – “Overall, it seems the people in charge of keeping our economy safe will just keep telling us, ‘Trust us. We can police ourselves. Nothing will go wrong.’”

·        And Now This – For St. Patrick’s Day, Local News Did What They Always Fucking Do

o   I smiled at the local anchor who said, with a very affected accent, “Top o’ the morning to you on this fine Irish day!” and then flatly added in his own voice, “All right, let’s get to it.”

o   Another anchor commented on his colleague’s own “top o’ the morning,” saying, “That was perfect. You didn’t insult a single person.”

·        Main Story – Timeshares

o   To start, John acknowledged that timeshares being a scam was hardly a surprise – He pointed to TV shows that have referenced timeshare scams, from Married with Children to King of Queens to Spongebob.

o   We saw footage of the head of one timeshare company pumping up his sales team, referencing the stat that people who take more vacations have fewer heart attacks – He said, “You’re just like a doctor, nurse, fireman, policeman, a lifeguard—they all save lives, and you all do it too.”

o   He also briefed his employees on the art of the hard sell – John remarked, “I don’t know what is more alarming there: that he knew a camera crew was filming and still instructed his sales teams to lie, or that he knew that and willingly wore that shirt, because what the fuck is that thing? It looks like someone ate a Persian rug and then threw up on him. He looks like the mascot for divorce.”

o   To that end, we learned about the in-industry acronym TAFT, which stands for “tell them any friggin’ thing” – We also learned that most timeshare contracts stipulate that the salesperson has no obligation to tell buyers the truth, which attorneys have called the “salesman’s license-to-lie clause.”

o   When it comes to actually booking a vacation at someone’s timeshare, it can be nearly impossible, with companies urging owners to pay for expensive upgrades in order to finally be able to book dates to stay there – “Yeah, that’s not great, is it? Being asked to pay $15,000 for something that you’ve only seen in pictures is not a timeshare. That’s an expensive, and remarkably niche, OnlyFans account.”

o   I liked John’s reaction to one woman expressing her anger at her experience getting scammed by a timeshare company – “Wow, she is pissed there. I know ‘mad as hell’ might not sound that extreme to us delinquents on HBO, but coming from a 76-year-old woman in Tennessee? That’s the equivalent of a child screaming, ‘Motherfucker!’ through a bull horn, at an elementary school. It’s that level of intensity.”

o   If an owner dies, their timeshare, and all the expensive maintenance fees that go with it, is passed down to their next of kin – They only have 9 months to file paperwork with the court to reject that inheritance and get out from under it, with the timeshare automatically passing to the next person in line (who has to file the same paperwork to get out of it, ad nauseum.)

o   We also looked at timeshare exit companies, who supposedly specialize in helping people get out of predatory timeshare contracts – When one such company touted a “100% success rate,” John said, “That’s one of those phrases that’s just an automatic red flag. Just like ‘endorsed by Dr. Oz’ or ‘Forbes cover model.’ It just immediately raises suspicions.”

o   I liked this comment, in reaction to the shame felt by people who were scammed by timeshare companies – “The shame here should not be on the people who were duped. It should be on the industries that exploited them, told them ‘any frigging thing’ they wanted to, and abused their understandable desire just to take a fucking break.”

 

The Daily Show was new this week, but I had no interest in watching the guest host, Al Franken. I’ll be back next week for John Leguizamo!