News Satire Roundup: April 16th-April 20th

Sunday, April 16

·        Recap of the Week – NRA convention, federal judge suspends use of mifepristone

o   John was delighted when Kristi Noem, speaking at the NRA convention, argued that the organization isn’t just a bunch of old white men, and then the camera panned to show exactly that – “Nothing undermines her point better than a cutaway proving the diversity in that crowd ranges somewhere between ‘Antiques Roadshow’ and ‘Friends reunion.’ That looks like a version of Guess Who? that’s just ‘Oops, All Peter!’”

o   Great description of abortion – “The thing that Republican men love to ban almost as much as they love to secretly pay for.”

o   In addition to being used for medication abortions, mifepristone is used to safely expel a miscarriage. It was pointed out that, without access to mifepristone, pregnant people might have to carry their dead fetus for as long as eight weeks waiting for it to be expelled naturally – “Can you imagine getting some of the worst news of your life and then having to carry it around painfully with you for eight weeks, all because some Disney Channel vice principal from Texas decided to play doctor for the entire fucking country?"

·        And Now This – Did You Know Action News’ Robert Grant Has a Fucking Dairy Allergy?

o   Yep, just a montage of this local newscaster, and his colleagues, talking about his dairy allergy – He occasionally prefaced such announcements with, “Fun fact,” even though his colleagues were all already well aware of it.

o   There were a few clips where it was revealed that Grant doesn’t know how to pronounce certain foods, since he never eats them due to his allergy – For instance, he says “Choh-ko Taco,” pronouncing “choco” like “loco.”

·        Main Story – Farmworkers

o   There are around 1.5 million farmworkers in the U.S., who are responsible for picking a huge percentage of the food we eat.

o   Because many crops are too delicate to harvest by machine, growers depend on farmworkers to get them picked by hand. In the early days of the pandemic, they were deemed “essential workers” – “And yet, while we claim they’re essential, we sure don’t treat them like it.”

o   One farmworker put it plainly – “One of the most difficult things is just to come to a realization, how little you mean to the people that you are working for.”

o   Lack of legal protections make it difficult for farmworkers to fight against things like subminimum wage, dangerous working conditions, and no overtime pay – “During the New Deal, as laws were finally passed to establish some bedrock labor protections, farmworkers were repeatedly and specifically excluded from them.”

o   When in comes to workplace safety, farmworkers experience some of the most dangerous conditions, getting injured on the job at a rate “far higher than police officers” and more than twice that of construction workers.”

o   We saw a video of a farmer’s adult son screaming slurs and abuse at a worker, followed by clips of his parents excusing his tirade. His mother justified it claiming that the worker in question had insulted her in Spanish, while his father dismissed his use of the N-word because none of the farmworkers were “n****rs” – “Also, I just want to point out the inconsistency between having a problem saying a vague, unknown word in Spanish and having no problem at all saying an extremely specific one in English. ‘I won’t repeat this Spanish word because it’s offensive, but if you talk to my husband, he’ll say the N-word in about four seconds.’”

o   This was an important point – “Clearly, not all farmers are abusive employers, but to the extent that any want to be, there can be shockingly little to stop them.”

o   Over the years, farmworkers have been able to secure some labor protections, but the biggest issue is now lack of enforcement and oversight – Cal/OSHA, which regulates workplace safety in the huge agricultural state of California, has approximately one field inspector for every 90,000 farmworkers.

o   John argued that farmworkers who come to the U.S. on H2-A temporary migrant visas should be allowed a path to citizenship – “After working so hard to feed this country, frankly, they deserve one. After all, you made me a citizen, and I haven’t fed you once!”

o   Strong long – “Look, farmworkers provide this country with our most basic necessity, and in return we either act like they don’t matter or don’t exist.”

 

 

Jordan Klepper was the next correspondent to take the desk. He announced, “This is pretty exciting, everyone. This is the first time the show has let me sit down in five years.”

Monday, April 17

·        Headlines – NRA convention, Clarence Thomas corruption scandal

o   Loved this description of the NRA convention – “Also known as Cargo Pants Comic-Con or the Westminster Stepdad Show.”

o   Great bit, in response to Kristi Noem’s speech – “Wow. That’s the governor of South Dakota bragging about her two-year-old granddaughter owning guns. Balls. When my kid was little, I was covering outlets, locking cabinets, and cutting grapes in half because they might be a choking hazard. Kristi Noem is like, ‘Here’s a shotgun; you’re on watch tonight. Sic semper tyrannis.’”

o   I liked this line – “The real purpose of an NRA convention isn’t to tell fun family stories of childhood abandonment, no.” (Noem reminisced about going hunting with her dad as a kid, where he left her in the woods and told her to “hunt [her] way back to camp.”) “It’s to explain why all the gun violence of the last year had nothing to do with guns.”

o   This led to a montage of speakers at the convention blaming everything from mental illness to “genetically engineered cannabis” (care of Donald Trump) – “If you’re blaming gun violence on weed, you’re not evening trying anymore. These people are just namechecking things they don’t understand on the news.”

o   Ronny came on to discuss new information about all the lavish gifts Clarence Thomas received from billionaire Harlan Crow, including his mother’s house – “You know what’s really shocking here, is this billionaire is wasting so much money buying Clarence Thomas flights and houses and shit to vote conservative. Hey, newsflash, billionaire: Clarence Thomas is already conservative!”

·        Interview – Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

o   Jordan interviewed Ocasio-Cortez in the field, where they discussed a violence reduction program in a New York hospital.

o   Ocasio-Cortez touted Stand Up to Violence, explaining, “What the data has shown us is that if you respond to violence as a public health issue instead of as an incarceration issue, violence decreases.”

o   The program combines healthcare professionals and former gang members to help prevent retaliative violence – “You’re essentially talking about preventative medicine here—which, in America, it’s not exactly our thing. We’re not known for that. We’re more of a reactive-medicine-based society.”

o   This was a fantastic point from Ocasio-Cortez, in response to perceptions about the Defund the Police movement – “We are defunding safety: defunding our public schools, defunding our public pools, defunding our parks, defunding our libraries. When we are taking all of those resources and demanding that every single department, except the militarized one, be cut, we are sending a message about who and what we care about.”

o   They also talked about other topics as well, including Harlan Crow and his collection of Nazi memorabilia – Jordan asked Ocasio-Cortez – “Don’t you think, if you had a billion dollars and you bought everything, that you’d eventually get to Nazi linens?”

o   Jordan asked Ocasio-Cortez about Trump’s current legal issues, saying, “Indictment week was last week. It could also be a month from now, too—we could have a lot of indictment weeks.”

·        Interview – Actress Betty Gilpin

o   Gilpin was there to talk about her new show Mrs. Davis, about a nun who’s part of a resistance movement against a dystopic AI overlord.

o   She had to avoid spoilers, which she said was a new experience for her – “So many things you can’t talk about—impossible to promote. I’m not used to doing something so plot-heavy. Usually, the plot of things I do are, like, ‘When is she going to sob or have sex?’, and that’s kind of, like, the plot twists for that episode.”

o   She added, “And this plot is like a Rubik’s cube had sex with a haunted calculator. It’s the best!”

o   She described the tone and feel of the show as “No Country for Old Looney Tunes.”

o   This was a really interesting point – “I myself am not a person of faith, but I do think this show has made me think a lot about, you know, church and the internet being these two sort of institutional responses to the same human question, sort of, of asking why.”

Tuesday, April 18

·        Headlines – Fox News settles in Dominion lawsuit, “alpha male” politicians

o   Jordan was a little bummed about the Fox News settlement – “I’m really disappointed we’re not gonna get a trial, because all the Fox anchors would have been forced to testify. It would’ve been like the Seinfeld finale, but instead Soup Nazis, it’s just….” And then he smirked as the audience got the joke without him having to say it.

o   I chuckled at some of the cost-cutting measures Jordan said Fox News will be implementing due to the settlement – My favorites included, “Development on a third Doocey has been halted,” and, “They’re gonna have to switch from Jesse Waters to tap water.”

o   We looked at several “alpha males” swinging their dicks around in Congress, such as Rep. Jim Jordan going after the Manhattan DA who indicted Trump – In an excellent burn, Jordan said he was most surprised that the congressman “actually held a hearing on crime”, adding, “Pretty sure ignoring crime is Jim Jordan’s whole thing.”

o   I loved this line, about George Santos’ reelection campaign hemorrhaging money – “You’ve gotta give it to George Santos. He’s the only elected official who’s effectively taken money out of politics.”

o   Desi weighed in, but she felt that the real alpha male was Sen. Dianne Feinstein, noting the 89-year-old’s refusal to step down despite having missed over 50 votes this year because of poor health – “Thinking that no one else could do your job as good as you, even though you’re barely doing your job? That is pure alpha male!”

·        Host Piece – World’s largest gun show

o   In addition to, of course, guns as far as the eye could see, Jordan remarked that the Tulsa Arms Show also had “more Nazi swag than Harlan Crow’s guest bathroom.”

o   Great line, as Jordan walked along the outside of the massive building – “Eleven acres of guns. Seems weird to use acreage as a measurement of guns, but this is America.”

o   Jordan was especially worried about attendees who were there to make private gun sales – One seller assured him that he wouldn’t sell his gun to anyone who “looks crazy as shit.” Jordan countered, “What if I say the words of somebody who’s crazy as shit, but I look composed, like I do right now?” The guy considered this, then replied, “I’d probably sell it to you.”

o   Outside of the gun show, Jordan spoke to an expert who explained that, prior to 2008 or 2009, seeing militia-style gear was incredibly rare at gun shows – “It seemed like the industry understood that propagating that kind of thing could lead to very bad shit.”

o   I was horrified by the ads the expert showed Jordan for the JR-15, a “junior” AR-15 marketed toward minors – It was especially chilling to see pictures of Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha and see how he seemed to have modeled himself after the guys in those ads.

o   Back at the gun show, Jordan tried to establish if there was any weapon the attendees thought the average citizen shouldn’t be able to own. That led to this exchange:

§  “Maybe we shouldn’t go around with nuclear bombs strapped to our backs…”

§  “That’s the line.”

§  “But…”

§  “You don’t have to ‘but!’ You don’t have to!”

·        Interview – Musician Charley Crockett

o   Upon seeing Crockett, Jordan asked, “Being a cool musician, is it ever exhausting to have to always look impressive? You ever want to just Adam Sandler it and just go cargo shorts?”

o   Crockett talked about his journey from busking on the streets to becoming a country music star – “This was a career of last resort. Hard luck and circumstances put me on street corners. I wouldn’t be in this business if I’d had an easy way. So there was no grand scheme to beat the game. The only thing I ever wanted to do is keep playing.”

·        Performance – Charley Crockett

o   Crockett performed a song called “Name on a Billboard.”

Wednesday, April 19

·        Headlines – Fox News’ reaction to Dominion lawsuit, Oklahoma officials caught on tape threatening journalists

o   Good point – “Look, I’m happy for Dominion, but Dominion was not the only injured party here. What about, you know, our faith in democracy? There are people who will not trust elections for the rest of their lives, and I have to talk to those people.”

o   Given that Fox News hasn’t apologized to their viewers for their lies after the Dominion settlement, the show spliced together an apology from footage of Tucker Carlson – Some of the best lines they pulled out were, “And no, we didn’t tell you because we don’t care what you think,” and “We are completely irresponsible.”

o   The Oklahoma officials, in discussing a pair of journalists they hated, talked about hitmen and “predug” holes where bodies could be buried – Jordan exclaimed, “Holy shit! You can’t threaten to kill journalists at a council meeting. Keep that shit on Twitter like a normal person.”

o   A wild point about the journalists who hid the tape reporter at the council meetings – “The reporters weren’t even looking for racism and assassination plots. They were hoping to catch improper meeting procedures. It’s like if you put a security camera up in the office to see which employee was stealing your yogurts, and you caught them doing a human sacrifice.”

·        Interview – Gov. Gretchen Whitmer

o   Another field piece, with Jordan returning to his home state of Michigan to talk to Whitmer.

o   Jordan brought up the conspiracy-theory-touting head of the Michigan GOP. He asked how eager Whitmer is to work with him, asking, “You don’t walk the line on satanic Beyoncé?”

o   Whitmer replied, “I’m always gonna make a seat at the table for someone who actually wants to solve problems, regardless of what their political fight is, but I don’t have time for people who wanna call Beyoncé Satan.”

o   Jordan noted that Michigan recently threw out an anti-abortion law that had been on the books since 1931 – He asked Whitmer if there were any law laws from 1931 that she had her eye on, joking, “Death penalty for swing dancing, is that in there?”

·        Interview – Actor Michael Shannon

o   Shannon was promoting his new series Waco: The Aftermath.

o   Jordan asked why Shannon decided to do another series on Waco after having been part of one previously – Shannon explained, “A thing like that is like a meteor crashing into the Earth, you know? It’s gonna have seismic consequences. And I really think it’s worth exploring these incidents. They don’t just exist in a vacuum.”

o   They talked a little about Shannon’s improv work, which I hadn’t known about.

Thursday, April 20

·        Headlines – “Wrong place” shootings, airplane meltdown over crying baby

o   Jordan quickly mentioned the SpaceX ship that exploded only a few minutes after launching – “And to the haters who said Musk couldn’t possibly destroy something faster than Twitter, joke’s on them.”

o   Sigh, relatable – “Now, I didn’t want to spend every day this week talking about guns, but this is America and it’s not giving me a choice.”

o   Great response to the rash of people shooting people for the “crimes” of knocking on the wrong door, turning their car around in someone’s driveway, or accidentally trying to get into the wrong car – “Call me old fashioned, but whatever happened to asking a person one f**king question?”

o   Jordan followed it up with, “I know you have Second Amendment rights, America, but you also have First Amendment rights. Use them.”

o   I’d seen a little of the “crying babies on planes” discourse, but I hadn’t seen the viral video that kicked it off – I laughed when a flight attendant told the irate man, “Okay, but you’re yelling”, and he screamed back, “So is the baby!!!”

o   Jordan tossed to the correspondents for more on this story, but it was mainly an excuse for 4/20 jokes – For instance, instead of interviewing the flight attendant, Roy went into ecstasy over a Cinnabon.

o   Michael wanted Jordan to know he was high on cocaine, not marijuana – “It’s medicinal! I bought it behind a Walgreens.”

·        Long Story Short – Models of masculinity for young boys

o   This was a good intro – “Outside of my job interviewing dumb men, I’m also the father of a young son, and as a father, my biggest goal is to not end up interviewing my son as part of my job.”

o   Jordan noted that, as society has been changing, not as much progressive attention has been placed on the role of men in the new culture – He added, “I know, I know, ‘a war on men?’ I sound like a network that just got sued out of $780 million. I know. Joke’s on you—Comedy Central doesn’t have that kind of cash.”

o   He also observed that, while the #MeToo/Times Up movement has provided a lot of examples of what men shouldn’t do, “We haven’t been showing young men what they should be, and that matters to young boys who are looking for an identity, for a narrative about what it means to be a man. And that vacuum is being filled with people who have the worst possible idea of manhood.”

o   This led into an Andrew Tate montage – I laughed aloud when he gave a description of himself saying, “With my sunglasses, bald head, millions of dollars, [and] nearly unmatched fighting skills,” ending with, “I am Morpheus.”

o   In reaction to the Tate video, Jordan said, “Wow, times have really changed. When I was in sixth grade, the most toxic role model for boys was Michelangelo. He eats pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner; that turtle doesn’t give a f**k.”

o   Jordan posited that Keanu Reeves would be a much kinder, healthier model of masculinity for young boys, offering various examples of why Reeves is such a standup guy – He concluded, “So as a society, we have two options. We can either follow Keanu Reeves around and put everything he does on TikTok, or—probably better—we can make sure that the conversation around modern society includes a role for men that young boys can look up to.”

o   He ended with this warning – “Long story short, if we don’t talk to our boys, then Andrew Tate is gonna talk to them.”

·        Interview – Author/philosopher Ryan Holiday

o   Holiday started with offering a basic viewpoint for Stoic philosophy – “We don’t control what happens to us in life, but we control how we respond to what happens in life.”

o   He also shared the four “virtures” of Stoicism, which are courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom.

o   Jordan asked how Stoics can expect people to relate to the writings of philosophers like Marcus Aurelius, who lived in ancient times – Holiday said, “Marcus also lived through a pandemic, he lived through social unrest, there was an insurrection and a coup—some of this might be sounding familiar.”

o   He added, “Life is life, people are people, and for better or worse, that’s gonna always stay the same.”

o   I liked this point – “It’s a shame if we think of philosophy as a series of thought exercises. ‘How do we know if we’re living in a computer simulation?’, right? Or, ‘Is there such a thing as right and wrong?’ Like, we can use it to answer these abstract, impractical questions, or we can use it as a way to make things impossibly complicated, or we can use it to really simplify things and go, ‘Who am I? What am I supposed to do? How do I make the best out of this complicated, messy situation?’ That’s what I think philosophy is.”

o   Holiday countered the idea that Stoics are anti-emotion – “The idea is not that you suppress the emotions. It’s that you not be overwhelmed by the situations and make decisions from those emotions, right? Like, there’s a difference between being angry and doing something out of anger. I think this is an important distinction that we can miss in the moment.”

o   Jordan asked if Holiday only read Stoic philosophy or if he found useful insight in other philosophies as well – He replied, “We should read widely. We should put anything to use that’s good for us. One of the Stoics, Seneca, he says, ‘Read like a spy in the enemy’s camp.’ Right? He says, I’ll quote a bad author if the line is good.”

I thought Jordan did a pretty good job. He definitely brought some of his sensibilities as a correspondent to the hosting gig. I liked that he did a couple extra interviews as field pieces rather than doing it in the studio, and throughout the week, he maintained the perspective of someone who does talk to ardent Trump supporters regularly.