News Satire Roundup: June 5th

Sunday, June 5 – Trump’s enterprises have been sued 3,500 times.  As John pointed out, TV doesn’t have enough legal drama to cover that.  After adding up every episode of every Law & Order variation, he added other lawyer shows until he ran out, a great way to show how insane that is.  He also looked at Trump University, including tidbits from its skeevy “playbook” and a little on the judge who’s hearing the case, who Trump thinks should recuse himself because he has Mexican heritage (yeah.)  The main story on debt buyers continued the “slimeball” theme.  They buy old debts for pennies on the dollar and rake people over the coals to pay them, even if they’ve passed the statute of limitations, declared bankruptcy, or passed away.  Luckily, John is spectacular; he not only started a debt buying company to prove how disturbingly easy it is, he bought a bunch of debt and had nearly $15,000,000 officially forgiven at the end of the episode.

No Daily Show again this week.  One thing that I want to mention is that I really like how the show has covered bathroom bills and the issue of trans rights over the past couple of months.  I remember when the subject first came up on the show, I was a bit apprehensive; I hadn’t been overly impressed with what little LGBTQ-related stories they’d previously done (or with standup pieces I’d seen from Trevor dealing with LGBTQ people, honestly,) and while this was the first time I’d seen the show and/or Trevor talk about trans stuff in particular, I wasn’t sure how thoughtful the commentary or the jokes would be.

But really, I think they’ve hit it out of the park.  I love that they did an entire episode centered around trans folk, and their continuing coverage of the North Carolina situation, bathroom bills in general, and the Obama administration’s response has been excellent.  Every story they’ve done on this topic, for me, has been funny, informative, hard-hitting, and most importantly, very earnest.  The show is really standing with trans people here, and I’m glad to see that.

A lot of what’s sprung out of this continuing story is crazy and ripe for satire.  North Carolina suing the federal government when the DOJ tells them their law is unconstitutional?  And willing to lose billions of dollars of federal education funding over it?  A man who supports a law to discriminate against people appears on TV comparing himself to Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, and Jesus?  That’s insane, and perfectly ridiculous.

But the show has made serious points as well, both with and without humor.  Trevor has addressed (and ripped to shreds) each of the various hyperbolic, fearmongering arguments against allowing trans people to use the bathroom that matches their gender identity.  “But how’s it supposed to work?!  It’s unnatural!!!”  (Progress is often uncomfortable at first, but it’s still the right thing to do.)  “So any man can say he feels like a woman and go into the bathroom to molest my daughter?!”  (There’s no correlation between being trans and being a pervert, and it’s not like perverts have been sitting on their hands waiting for a legal loophole they can use to their advantage – also, there’s never been a reported case of someone being molested by a trans woman in a public restroom.)  “But it’s absurd; why would anyone think this is something we should be doing?!”  (People once said the same thing about interracial bathrooms, and looking back on it now, you’d call that sort of forced segregation absurd.  Again, progress.)  He’s also brought up trans men – specifically, the fact that no one’s bringing them up in all their panicked, exclusionary rhetoric and the gross double standard therein.