TDS 3.0: Season Three Talk

[peeayebee]

I barely listened. I just wasn't interested.

The pic of Casual Mitch and Trevor's comments were hilarious. I also love the way that Trevor mimics the way Trump (supposedly) eats his hamburger. Numnumnumnumnumnum.

[Victor the Crab]

2 hours ago, peeayebee said:

 I also love the way that Trevor mimics the way Trump (supposedly) eats his hamburger. Numnumnumnumnumnum.

I get a big laugh when Trevor does that.

Can we PLEASE not have anymore celebrities running for president? No Oprah, No Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, no Mark Cuban. Not until you've actually DONE time in office and understand how it works. The idiots in the audience cheering for a Oprah 2020 candidacy are why America has such huge problems.

And, with so much other stuff going on, can we save all the football stuff until around the Super Bowl please?

[ganesh]

From the clip they showed, I certainly appreciate Oprah using her platform to speak out on this very serious issue to say enough is enough. But I was hoping Trevor would have called out the audience for being morons. 

3 hours ago, Victor the Crab said:

And, with so much other stuff going on, can we save all the football stuff until around the Super Bowl please?

 I think this was apropos, and I don't know if they would have done a segment had Newton not gotten concussed in the game. They've called out the NFL on hypocrisy all season, and this was really egregious. 

[ChelseaNH]

She doesn't speak much beyond platitudes. Believe in yourself. Don't take no the an answer.

People who don't take "no" for an answer are ANNOYING.  And sometimes rapists.  Just something to keep in mind.

Edited January 10, 2018 by ChelseaNH

[ganesh]

I knew the meeting on DACA was televised, but I didn't see the clip about the majority leader until this show. Wow, 45 just has no idea about anything. It's not like Feinstein was asking a gotcha question; it's a fairly straightforward, how are we going to move this through the senate question. 

Even when the house majority leader was like, 'uuhh do you know exactly what's she's saying here?' He had no idea. 

[Lantern7]

Watched tonight's episode. I imagined two or three Comedy Central lawyers in a secret basement turning keys at the same time, so that Trevor can say "shit" without the bleep. Then I saw a lot of places using that word. Still kinda fun though, especially when Hasan slipped one by in "Hasan the Record." The bit about trolling hate groups was particularly funny.

[kassygreene]

I think there is a special dispensation when the word is an actual quote of the President.  Even Rachel Maddow quoted it, and she hates that kind of language.

[sum]

I never quite understand why they are so fussy about it. Technically CC is not a broadcaster and TDS is not a prime time show. I can't imagine many TDS viewers would get mad at occasional use of curse words. 

[peeayebee]

Loved his comment that Norwegians are so white they wear moon-screen.

[ganesh]

Being on at that time slot too, they can what they want. There's multiple uses of fuck on Mr. Robot. Not exactly the same but it's a popular show on a cable network too.

I feel like I say it everyday, and I probably do, but just WOW with the letter from Trump to Kareem. I normally would feel bad for someone who is trapped in a debilitating hole of self loathing and inadequacy that he has to lash out at all aspects of life. Given damage from the last year though, I don't. I hope he drowns in his lack of self worth. 

I was going to call BS on Hasan's piece when he was starting in with the 'tolerant of intolerant' canard, but he flipped it nice, and I think he's got a point. Gay weddings at civil war monuments, and the actual anti-nazi nazi march. I think that kind of happened when a bunch of people  bought tickets to a Richard whatever white supremicist rally and hazed him. 

[peeayebee]

I liked last night's show.

Eating laundry detergent pods is even stupider than eating a spoonful of cinnamon. But who the heck first thought about doing it? The best thing that came out of this, however, was Trevor's observation, "The president has such a potty mouth. THAT'S the guy who should be eating Tide pods."

I giggled at Trevor's impression of a reserved Trump saying "the front butt" instead of pussy.

Ku Klux Khronicle.

I knew about the outrage when Lt Uhura and Capt Kirk kissed, but I didn't know Nichelle Nichols' role was cut back afterwards.

I know Gronk is a football player, but can someone fill me in on why he was chosen (or chose) to do that little video? What's the "thing" about Gronk?

[ganesh]

I'm glad covered whether 45 said "shithole" or "shithouse" and how ridiculous that the spineless senators are hiding behind that excuse to not stand up to him. The government is junior high now.

I have no idea why Gronk was chosen for the PSA. I would love to have been in the room for that.

Gronk is kind of a bro, so that could be why.

[grawlix]

3 hours ago, peeayebee said:

 

Eating laundry detergent pods is even stupider than eating a spoonful of cinnamon. But who the heck first thought about doing it?

I know Gronk is a football player, but can someone fill me in on why he was chosen (or chose) to do that little video? What's the "thing" about Gronk?

When the tide pods first came out, there was an issue with toddlers and little kids trying to eat the them.  The pods looked like candy due to their bright colors.  As a result, Tide changed the packaging to make it more kid proof.  I guess these kids grew up still enamored with the idea that it looks like candy and made it a dare.

 

As for Gronk, he made videos portraying himself as a party guy ("Yo soy fiesta").  So, maybe he is popular with that demographic.

Edited January 16, 2018 by grawlix

[ganesh]

Gronk was shotgunning beers during the Superbowl parade, so he's totally that guy.

[Victor the Crab]

Personally, I think they should let those idiots just eat those Tide pods. It would help to thin out the herd from stupid people, thus decrease the surplus population.

I liked that they put a speech from Martin Luther King on his birthday as the MoZ. Nice touch of class after all the Drumph shit we've had to endure.

[Fable]

Ronny’s bit about the CES was pretty damn funny.  He really has hit his stride.  I couldn’t stand him he first started, and now he is my absolute favorite of the correspondents. 

[2727]

33 minutes ago, Fable said:

Ronny’s bit about the CES was pretty damn funny.  He really has hit his stride.  I couldn’t stand him he first started, and now he is my absolute favorite of the correspondents. 

He seems to have settled into being a young Lewis Black, with the disgusted shouting. I'm personally glad to have two of them.

[CheezyXpressed]

I just love how over it he sounds about technology, because some of it is really stupid and weird.

[ganesh]

I mean, I get technological progress and maybe there's new uses for the tech that we haven't thought about yet, but he's right, a lot of it was kind of ridiculous. If I'm spending any money on a fancy toilet, it will be the Japanese ones. Their run of the mill toilets beat anything we have already. I'm not seeing what putting the toilet on the internet does.

[Victor the Crab]

Apologize to Drumph's personal doctor? Fuck that, Trevor! I don't buy what that doctor, who just did his physical, has to say about Drumph being healthy. If he's 239 pounds, then I'm the father of Margo Robbie's love child!

[Lantern7]

7 hours ago, 2727 said:

He seems to have settled into being a young Lewis Black, with the disgusted shouting. I'm personally glad to have two of them.

One, I don't think Lewis Black was ever young, and I've read his autobio. Two, I don't think Ronnie can reach the levels of loathing Lewis hits in his acts. The man was cast as Anger in Inside Out for a reason.

 

35 minutes ago, Victor the Crab said:

If he's 239 pounds, then I'm the father of Margo Robbie's love child!

Were you wearing clown makeup at the time of conception? And yeah, I'm not buying the results. On the bright side, I wouldn't have to lose too many pounds to get below the president's "official" weight, so there's a reason to hit the gym some more.

So weird that Trevor and the others can now say "shit." Slightly jarring, mostly because it usually got bleeped, even though some Comedy Central shows running 10-11 p.m. did not do that.

[ganesh]

I don't believe the doctor's assessment for a second either. I suppose one could argue 'cognitive ability', but when you have observable data like weight, I don't know how they compelled an actual doctor to just lie. I mean, the question was "how can you say he's in excellent health when he eats fast food every day?" "Good genes?" That's got to violate professional ethics. 

[Robert Lynch]

11 hours ago, ganesh said:

I don't believe the doctor's assessment for a second either. I suppose one could argue 'cognitive ability', but when you have observable data like weight, I don't know how they compelled an actual doctor to just lie. I mean, the question was "how can you say he's in excellent health when he eats fast food every day?" "Good genes?" That's got to violate professional ethics. 

239!!??!!? He is closer to 300 in terms of size and girth. The man could barely walk. Don't believe for a second that is a healthy man. 

[kassygreene]

The doctor lost any credibility with me when he cited the "good genes".  My follow-up question would be which genes, which scientific body's definition of "good", and how did you sequence the Drumpf genome that quickly?  Otherwise this guy sounded like a fractionally less loopy version of Trump's civilian doctor.

[ganesh]

I'm glad they followed up on the checkup. Very telling that at 6'2 he'd be obese, but at 6'3, he's not. How did they persuade the doctor to add that inch? I also don't see how they could have arrived at 239 pounds.

I also liked that the show got into this Montreal test and showed that it's a total joke. I mean, everything is a coverup, smear with this administration, it's ridiculous.

The clips of the hearing were also really good because I saw some on PBS and was hoping TDS would cover it. I thought Booker was a little over the top, but the secretary was being really smug, so I can see why he was over it. I get that she was sick of talking about it, but she was just so *bad* at spin, that I would have yelled at her too. Just say, "I didn't hear it, so I can't say either way. You (Durbin) did, so it's your story to tell." She totally exposed herself as a fraud when she said "I'm not aware of how many white people are in Norway." Just stop. They had her backed into a corner at that point.

You say, 'he said Norway because he just met with them'. Then it's: ok, so he only thinks about policy based on the last person to talk to him. Or, Booker saying, 'I find it hard to believe that you don't remember what the commander in chief said in a meeting.'

I think the whole exchange sums up the administration. They're just going to say or do whatever, and congress is finally getting outraged.  

[ganesh]

How do the adults in the room not just interrupt the president when he goes on some addled rant about picking people's names out of a bowl? But he can point to rhino!

[angora]

Great story on the diversity visa lottery and family reunification.  I loved Trevor's summation of Trump's comments as "so stupid it's not funny," (I knew he was ignorant and fearmongering, but that was just horrific,) and I appreciated his inclusion of his own perspective as an immigrant (from a "shithole country," no less.)  While tons of late-night folks have been talking about this, the words resonate more when the person speaking is saying "we" instead of "they."

[Hanahope]

I can’t believe trump really thinks that’s how the visa lottery works.  Simply amazing.  And it’s not automatic about getting relatives into the country.  It takes the right paperwork (birth certificates and such), or a DNA test, and the sponsor (who has to provide proof of income) is supposed to confirm the immigrant won’t need public assistance.

And trump can’t read a TelePrompTer or a speech right in front of him.  No wonder he likes to wing it so much, when he can’t read. 

[peeayebee]

17 hours ago, Hanahope said:

I can’t believe trump really thinks that’s how the visa lottery works.  

I'm on the fence on this. I'm sure lots of Americans think this is how the lottery works, and Trump can certainly be one of them. OTOH, he tries to make jokes or use hyperbole to make his points, and maybe this was his (lame) attempt.

[Hanahope]

On the  Clip, trump made it sound like countries troll their jails, write down the names of the worst and put them in America’s lottery bowl.  So totally a mischaracterization, and leaves out the significant vetting that occurs, like Trevor explained.  If that was supposed to be a joke by trump, it failed miserably.  

Edited January 21, 2018 by Hanahope

[ganesh]

There probably are. I didn't know much about it, but if you're asking any reasonable person to work out how they think this actually goes, they're probably not going to say, "oh they put all the names in a hat and someone pulls them out." 

Either way, the president is the one person who should actually know how it works because he's the one talking about the immigration policy. Maybe he was trying to exaggerate, but I'd still put forward that he doesn't know how the process works. 

[possibilities]

Either he knows how it works and he is lying about it on purpose (I put this way beyond mere exaggeration, it's not a matter of degree, it's a wholesale misrepresentation of the process), or he doesn't know how it works, believes what he's saying, and is not bothering to find out the way a policy works before making an official statement about it. Either way, it's unacceptable behavior for a POTUS.

[ganesh]

TDS last week showed the clip with the house majority leader interrupting the president because he was agreeing with Feinstein, but that was opposite the gop position, so I think it's the latter. 

[Robert Lynch]

I am sorry, but Orin Hatch taking off his imaginary glasses makes me spit out my milk. I have to agree with Trevor. I know am I not supposed to laugh, but that was the funniest thing I ever seen. And this guy been around for four decades as senator. If you been around since 1977 when the 80s child stars were just kids or toddlers, you know it is the time to retire now. I am sorry, but four decades as senator from Utah? Too long.

[ganesh]

Hatch was on the plane in the aisle across from me in October. He was so frail looking that a mild wind could have knocked him over. 

[2727]

Wow, that Fire and Fury guy did not come off very well. What a petty, smug, huckster.

[Hooper]

Maybe I'm just projecting, but I thought Trevor's closing comment, "Well, you're really good at selling your book,"  sounded pretty dismissive of the Fire and Fury guy.   And I'm perfectly fine with that.  

[ganesh]

He did the same thing on Real Time. I've seen him on real news interviews several times, and he was professional there. I think he's looser here because of the show environment. He's been upfront in all of them. He never intended to go in to do a journalistic book. He went in to observe what was going on and write about it. He's clearly said he doesn't care at all if he burned bridges. 

At this point, I'd say just about everyone who has bought the book is going to buy the book. So, yeah, he's trying to sell more books. I don't really see what the problem is. 

[Hooper]

Oh, there's nothing wrong with an author trying to sell his/her book.  That's why every author (including Trevor) goes on these circuits of talk shows.  What bugs me is Wolff's coy little "Trump's having a big super secret ongoing affair even as we speak, but I'm not  going to tell you with whom, but read between the lines of my book, available on Amazon..." game.   Wolff can either make an accusation if he can back it up, or keep his mouth shut.  But that "read between the lines" bit is purely a gimmick to sell more books at the expense of a lot of people becoming the subject of all sorts of salacious speculation.  i think I probably already loathe anyone who might be a target of this particular bit of speculation, but still....   Accuse or accuse not.  There is not "between the lines".

[ganesh]

Yes, it's exactly a ploy to sell more books. I don't think he was being coy about wanting to sell more books. Again, the point being, everyone already bought it and he's drumming up further interest. It's also salacious. I don't think he was hiding that either. When the book first came out, he didn't talk about this at all at the actual news outlets. 

Trevor asked him, as others have, whether this was a sourced journalism book. He's said no every time. He said in this interview that he won't be asked back to the WH. He also told people in the WH that the title of the book was something else, so they would open up more. He literally said he burned any bridges. 

He's not a journalist. As he claimed. He doesn't have to make an accusation and back it up. Anyone reads the book and draws their own conclusions. If he is committing libel, by deliberately saying or implying things that are demonstrably false, with the intent of making the president look like an idiot, then he can be sued and will have to produce the evidence to back the claims in his book. 

So if there's nothing wrong with an author trying to sell their book, then what's the problem? Jose Canseco did the same thing selling his book and ended up blowing open the entire steroid use in baseball. 

[peeayebee]

I really enjoyed Roy's bit on the Oscar nominations, particularly when he talked about the Fish People.

[ganesh]

I think Trevor was being a little simplistic on the shutdown. The dreamers were kind of used as a political chip, and that's not fair. However, 45 kept flopping back and forth on the issue, and I think that's where it was coming from. Note that once he shut up and went away, they got work done. I do agree with Trevor in that it was a largely staged event because they knew they were going to open up by Monday. 

I get that McConnell shouldn't be trusted to just give a vote on it because he said so, but he's on record saying it, and in three weeks I don't think he'll be able to duck the issue. Even if they just vote to postpone the March deadline.

[Victor the Crab]

Regarding Monday's show. If Michael Wolff is writing down what he is observing, ie the Drumph presidency, then publishing it for all to see, then that DOES make him a reporter. Thus he needs to be forthcoming with what he saw and not try to play coy with the people he hopes to sell his book too. What he did with Trevor at the end left a bad taste in my mouth. Wolff just comes off as another Kitty Kelley, IMO.

WTF were they trying to do with Desi and Dolce in that lame piece about the women's marches. They looked like half ass attempts of Kathie Lee and Hoda on the Today show. Next time, just just turn the camera on Michelle Wolf and let her speak her mind.

I do like that Trevor's OOH jar is becoming a running gag every time the audience ooohs and groans over a bad joke. A very clever and fun way of dealing with audience disapproval. Some talk show hosts should take note of that and learn, Bill Maher!

[ganesh]

I don't think it does. I mean, if he's taken to court and has to prove he didn't make anything up, then that's a different story. 

[possibilities]

I love the idea of Trevor's book becoming a movie. Why hasn't that happened yet?

[Lantern7]

10 hours ago, peeayebee said:

I really enjoyed Roy's bit on the Oscar nominations, particularly when he talked about the Fish People.

I know. And he made the same Ben Carson/Get Out joke Honest Trailers put out that day (3:30 mark to be exact). Also: "Little Mermaid, she got some pipe" FTW. Thanks, Roy!

Trevor's been on fire lately. I mean, I kinda wish things were less chaotic and that he could excel in a "peaceful" time, but I'm thankful for him

Edited January 25, 2018 by Lantern7

[peeayebee]

I can't help it, but his bit about Elton John's son being Lil John cracked me up.

Another great impression added to his repertoire: Mickey Mouse. I suppose it's not that difficult to do a Mickey Mouse voice, but his different voices are always funny.

The whole thing with gerrymandering is so frustrating. I was just reading an article about how the Republican lawmakers in North Carolina won't even let the Democrats into meetings! How can this be allowed to happen?

[ganesh]

1 hour ago, peeayebee said:

Another great impression added to his repertoire: Mickey Mouse. I suppose it's not that difficult to do a Mickey Mouse voice, but his different voices are always funny.

It's the olde tymey language: Put up your dukes!

This is the chicken/egg problem with not voting. Yes, you can say it's rigged, but it's not going to change unless you make your voice heard at the box either. CA has a bipartisan panel of judges that draw the lines, so it's possible. 

I only get my real news from PBSNewshour, so I'm wondering if other news outlets actually went down to the wall to talk to Mexicans. It's funny, but not, that literally no one thinks the wall is going to make much difference. That one guy wasn't even playing: no one crosses here, they go through Tecate mountains. Oh, ok. 

How about the NHL player? I know his first love is playing for Montreal, but Nashville got a great person. 

[ChelseaNH]

17 hours ago, Victor the Crab said:

If Michael Wolff is writing down what he is observing, ie the Drumph presidency, then publishing it for all to see, then that DOES make him a reporter.

A reporter, maybe, but not a journalist.  The thing is, he's not just writing about what he observed directly, he's writing about things people told him.  Journalists look for confirmation of what they've been told; they're not supposed to be in the business of just parroting what they've heard.

[Mimi]

3 hours ago, ganesh said:

 

How about the NHL player? I know his first love is playing for Montreal, but Nashville got a great person. 

I know!  I was heartbroken when PK was traded from Montreal.  He is an outstanding humanitarian, well-spoken, and an awesome hockey player.