FanFare

This episode aired on July 29:

• More Stupid Watergate, "Something with the potential gravity of Watergate, if the entire White House was on bath salts and Nixon was a raccoon with his head stuck in a jar of peanut butter." Revealed is that Cohen secretly taped interactions between him and Trump, and some of one of the tapes was leaked, relating them planning to keep a story about Trump's affair with Playboy Bunny Karen McDougal secret. Also, Cohen claims Trump knew in advance of the meeting with Russian representatives in Trump Tower. And, Mueller is looking into whether Trump's tweets constitute obstruction of justice.
• Facebook loses $119 billion dollars of value, 19% of its total valuation, overnight. That's more than the value of the entire global cheese market: Facebook's stock dropped by the concept of cheese. It's because of piracy issues, which they've apologized for via an ubiquitous ad. LWT provides one of their trademark more honest versions.
• Main story: Workplace sexual harassment. In the wake of a number of prominent male executives being brought down, it's looking like something may finally be done about it... except that the current situation shares a lot of things in common with the 90s, at which time everything was supposed to change, and then, didn't. The issue became national news with the testimony of Anita Hill before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
• The last act was a great interview with Anita Hill herself.

Both the main story and the interview are on the show's official Youtube channel. (29m) [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Aug 13, 2018 - 1 comment

This week:

• Trump prepares for the (then) upcoming North Korea summit, of course, by not preparing.
• Philippine President and strongman Rodrigo Duterte very uncomfortably kisses a young woman before a crowd.
• And Now: Julie Chen Has A Few Questions For The Audience of "The Talk."
• Main Story: More on Stupid Watergate, this time about Fox News' efforts to normalize the idea that the Mueller investigation is a "witch hunt" by calling that through every channel available to them, in an desperate (yet somewhat effective) effort to get ordinary Americans thinking it must be one, despite the fact that they've already charged 20 people and three companies, and gotten five guilty pleas. Watch it on YouTube (18m).
• And Now: The Entire Seventeen-Minute Piece You Just Saw, Boiled Down To Eight Seconds.
• Finally, a bit about the UK. Last week's episode had a segment about the putdowns of House of Commons speaker John Bercow that could not air in the UK, because of a stupid law saying footage of the chamber could not be used in "light entertainment" or "political satire." Because they used such footage this week and thus UK viewers again cannot be shown the whole program, LWT offers five minutes of replacement content: Gilbert Gottfried reading Yelp reviews.

[more inside]
posted by JHarris on Jun 16, 2018 - 1 comment

Last week....

• A new installment of Stupid Watergate. James Comey tells Congress under oath that he had no doubt he was fired because of the Russia investigation, which everyone knew anyway but still sent shockwaves, and that wasn't the end of it.
• And Now: There Is No Group Of People More Easily Amazed Than The Audience Of "America's Got Talent."
• Main story: The continuing negotiations of the UK over Brexit, and the harm done to them by Prime Minister Theresa May's ill-considered snap election which lost her a lot of seats. YouTube (19m)

In the UK, much like from the classic Monty Python sketch Election Night Special, it's traditional for all the candidates to appear on stage together when results are announced, no matter how many votes they received, meaning Theresa May had to appear on stage with Elmo (three votes), Howling Lord Hope of the Monster Raving Looney Party (119 votes) and "Lord Buckethead" (249 votes), an "intergalactic space lord." The esteemed personage was flown in by LWT to New York to appear on the show, an event which he comemmorated on Twitter. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Jun 14, 2017 - 6 comments

So what happened last week?

• The Trump/Putin scandal continues, which the show has dubbed Stupid Watergate, because "it has all the potential consequences of Watergate, but everyone involved is really stupid." This week time it was Devin Nunez, whose claims of wiretapping Trump officials unraveled. Nunez himself was one of those alleged to have been wiretapped, a conflict of interest for an investigator.
• British PM Theresa May invokes Article 50, beginning the process of leaving the European Union.
• And Now: Yet Another Look at the Awkward Sex Talk on CBS This Morning.
• Main Story: Marijuana legalization, or rather, how its differing legality at state and national levels causes grave problems for businesses and users alike. YouTube (17m)
• And Now: Twenty-Seven Seconds of the Breakfast Foreplay That Is CBS This Morning.
• Finally, more of the Bolivian Traffic Zebras, who responded graciously to John Oliver's gushing about them in the previous episode.

[more inside]
posted by JHarris on Apr 5, 2017 - 3 comments