The Onion‘s satire captures the mindset of police and ICE and CBP and how they work in the aftermath of committing an atrocity.
Mano Singham
Just another Freethought Blogs site
The Onion‘s satire captures the mindset of police and ICE and CBP and how they work in the aftermath of committing an atrocity.
He has started a new season of shows with an examination of ICE and DHS, starting with a summary of the atrocities committed by ICE and the heroic actions of ordinary Minnesotans who came out in their thousands to protest against ICE actions.
The head of the operation Tom Homan has announced that the ICE actions have ended in Minnesota. Since these people are such liars, we’ll have to wait and see if they actually leave.
I do not watch the Super Bowl because I don’t care for it. I also never watch the half-time shows either during or after. But since the MAGA world seemed to have lost their collective minds over this year’s half-time show by Bad Bunny, I felt I must watch it and did.
Here’s the full show.
So why the freakout? Because almost the entire show was in Spanish, except for a brief song by Lady Gaga. The MAGA world was deeply offended by the absence of English, seeing that as a deliberate insult aimed at the ‘true Americans’ who are of course white, English-speaking, and Christian, and even seemed to think that Puerto Ricans like Bad Bunny were not Americans. They may have been temporarily mollified by him ending by saying ‘God Bless America’ only to be immediately rocked back on their heels by him then listing the names of all the countries in the Americas. How dare those people of inferior nations think of themselves as Americans!
Jon Stewart had a ton of fun with the freakout and the alternative MAGA show featuring a bunch of nobodies but ends with a strong point, that these people, for all their tough talk and sneering at liberals who talk of safe safe spaces and the need respect the sensibilities of others, are hyper-sensitive weenies who get offended by even the slightest things.
Jon Stewart:
Seth Meyers:
[UPDATE: Arizona senator Ruben Gallego says that he thinks Trump is literally insane and that “Everyone needs to stop pretending this is rational.” We need to encourage more people to say this.]
Trump has been doing many cruel and absurd things, too many to list, and besides which most readers of this blog are already aware of them. It has provided late night comics with plenty of fodder. Jon Stewart of The Daily Show provides many examples over a few days from just the past week.
But this is no laughing matter. It is tempting for people who are sane and rational to try and find reasons for Trump’s bizarre and erratic behavior. One of the most popular ones is that he is a master of distraction and uses these things to take people’s attention away from his declining popularity, the high cost of living and housing, lack of health care plans, and of course, the Epstein files.
But his actions over Greenland, his weird text message to the prime minister of Norway complaining about not being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize being a factor in his attempt to annex Greenland (even though it is a protectorate of Denmark and not Norway) and that he would impose tariffs on European countries if they did not agree to his demands, suggest to me a level of irrationality that cannot be easily explained away as some kind of deep fake.
[Read more…]
I know that the Christmas season is over but I found some amusing stuff that I wanted to share just to break up the bad news that has been happening recently.
It is the custom in the UK for the monarch to give a Christmas message to the nation and the satirical puppet show known as Spitting Image provides a parody. (Thanks to commenter brigerjohannson.)
Another tradition that began in 1993 is for the UK’s Channel 4 to give an alternative message to the monarch’s speech and this year US talk show host Jimmy Kimmel was surprised to be asked.
Here is Kimmel’s message.
Much has been written in tribute about Rob Reiner after the brutal murder of him and his wife Michele. Rob was the son of actor and writer Carl Reiner and became well known playing the liberal Michael Stivic as a counterpoint to the bigoted Archie Bunker in the groundbreaking TV series All in the Family, a show that broached many social issues and taboos.
Much to Archie’s displeasure, Stivic is the boyfriend (and later husband) of Bunker’s daughter Gloria. In this clip we see the first meeting of Stivic and Archie and Edith (his wife) and hear the first time that he is called ‘Meathead’, the name that stuck forever after.
The writer and digital rights activist coined the term ‘enshittifcation’ to describe the deterioration of the internet and it caught on. I wrote about it a couple of times (see here and here). He now has a book with that title that I will get and read soon.
In this interview with Ronny Chieng on The Daily Show Doctorow explains succinctly how enshittification comes about and what can be done about it. It is an excellent informative interview.
