Colbert and Meyers lampoon 'Italygate' and debunk Trump's backwards pants

It's been almost a full month since I featured Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers here, so I can't resist them lampooning yet another conspiracy theory. I begin with Colbert's monologue from last night, Exactly What You Thought, But So Much Worse Than You Imagined.*

In this edition of Stephen's unfortunately ongoing segment, he looks at damning findings of law enforcement failures leading up to the Jan 6th Capitol riot, and an insane election fraud theory known as "Italygate."

After rushing through another report about the January 6 insurrection, Stephen moved on to "Italygate." That's at least as nutty as searching for bamboo fibers as part of the Arizona audit, but less racist.

Seth Meyers concentrated on that story in The GOP's Insane Election Conspiracy Theories Now Include "Italygate": A Closer Look.

Seth takes a closer look at Donald Trump reportedly believing he'll be "reinstated" in the White House as some of his allies and supporters openly call for a coup.

Before I move on to the main conspiracy theories, I have to remark about Seth mentioning Rudy Guiliani's video about UFOs. On the one hand, I feel the same about addressing the official interest in UFOs as I do about "Fauci's emails and...the Wuhan lab-leak hypothesis, two narratives that I want to give as little attention to as possible." On the other, I have described this blog as having a "science fiction slant" on its Facebook page, so writing about the topic is on brand. I have two opportunities to do so, as there are two World UFO Days coming up, June 24 and July 2. Maybe by then I'll feel up to it.

As for "Italygate," Seth found it even more ridiculous than Stephen did. He also thought the idea that Trump wore his pants backwards was silly and quoted Snopes debunking it. Progressives have their own conspiracy theories, although they are a lot less convoluted and dangerous than the ones being promoted on the right, like the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen.

I'm closing the circle today by returning to Colbert, whose Monday night monologue was The Zipper Was In Front - Fact-Checking No. 45's Pants Scandal, in which he also quoted Snopes debunking the idea.

After the internet delighted in the possibility that America's previous president was copying a look from the legendary rap duo Kriss Kross, people may be disappointed to hear that fact checkers have proven the president was not wearing his pants backwards at a speech in North Carolina last weekend.

While going back to the studio is more good news about the pandemic, I can tell Stephen is getting punchy from cabin fever after fifteen months of recording his show from home, but I think that made his monologues even more hilarious. Still, I will miss hearing his wife and crew laughing in the background when he returns to the studio next week. Stephen might also miss being able to do his show from home while wearing shirtsleeves and slippers.

Stephen's line about Trump "spends so much time yanking stuff out of his keister he just likes to have the zipper back there to make it easy" reminds me of one of my favorite insults of BS artists: If so-and-so ever had an intestinal blockage, he'd run out of material. After ten plus years of blogging, I finally got to use it here. Thanks, Stephen, for giving me the opening.

Stephen closed with space news. I really will have to cover both Jeff Bezos going into space and UFOs. Stay tuned for posts about those, eventually.

*I couldn't resist this shiny object. Writing about coral reefs for Coral Triangle Day and a late World Reef Awareness Day, which I wrote I might do yesterday, will just have to wait.