Stormy Daniels landed a few verbal punches during her testimony in Trump’s hush money trial, the former president hosted NFT buyers for a meal at Mar-a-Lago, CBS could be auctioned off if Paramount is sold, and there’s no end to the fascination around the worm that ate a portion of RFK Jr.’s brain.If anything, the second day of Stormy's testimony was even better than the first, since Naptain America's lawyers gave her plenty of opportunities. I'll get to those later. Right now, I want to write that media consolidation has not been a good thing, but I'm not sure Paramount's likely buyer selling it off for parts is the way to reverse it. It might just result in a different form of consolidation that might just be worse than what we have now. Sigh.
Second, I have never mentioned Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., (RFK Jr.) on this blog before, which even I find surprising because of how much I wrote about minor party candidates for Examiner.com when it was a thing. That's because I was using that to distinguish my coverage or partition the niche, to borrow a concept from ecology, which gave me a unique angle among Michigan election reporters. They didn't care much about minor parties, so I would. It wasn't because I supported minor party candidates; I was a precinct delegate for the Michigan Democratic Party all the years I covered elections for Examiner.com. I no longer have such an interest to promote, so I'll gladly tear down minor party candidates, especially for the Natural Law Party, about whose leader I wrote "I'm annoyed at [Doug Dern] for not cooperating with me as an Examiner.com reporter--but that's another story for another time." "Another time" was in the footnote to Michigan's two smallest parties nominated candidates, too.
I don't much care for the Natural Law Party, and not because of their ideology. It's because of all the minor parties that I covered during my years writing for Examiner.com, they were the least cooperative. I called and asked for dates of conventions and lists of nominees and never got either. It was like they didn't want news coverage or free media. Consequently, I never wrote an article about them.They finally got free media from news coverage when the Natural Law Party nominated RFK Jr. for President. I was not the least bit surprised that they did. RFK Jr. is their kind of candidate and will almost certainly give the Natural Law Party the most votes ever, which means he's good for the party even if he's bad for the rest of us for no other reason than his anti-vaccine views. Those, at least, make him a bigger threat to Donald Trump than to Joe Biden.
Speaking of Trump, follow over the jump for more late night talk show hosts mocking him in their monologues.
Seth Meyers returned to the trial in Stormy Calls Trump an “Orange Turd” in Wild Testimony; Greene Booed by Republicans: A Closer Look.
Seth takes a closer look at Stormy Daniels returning to the stand in Trump’s criminal trial while Marjorie Taylor Greene fails to oust Speaker Mike Johnson.Trump's lawyer getting "orange turd" into the trial record was quite the own goal. The phrase trended on Twitter today.
Marjorie Taylor Greene fits with RFK Jr. as a conspiracy theorist when she calls the bipartisan consensus the "uniparty," another term I've never mentioned here before. That's what the fringes call the center when they disregard the real differences between the major parties. It's right up there with duopoly, which I only mentioned once when quoting Bukko Boomeranger in A conversation about the Australian election with a reader from Down Under. That's a marginally fairer characterization that results from Duverger's Law, which I last mentioned in Vox explains 'Why US elections only give you two choices'.
Jon Stewart returned to The Daily Show on a day other than Monday in Biden Halts Weapons to Israel & Trump Trial Coverage Hits New Lows.
Jon Stewart tackles the media's obsession with Trump's hush money trial, while the GOP freaks out over Biden's new energy efficiency standards and a name change for the Boy Scouts. Meanwhile, Biden slows the flow of weapons to Israel, and after Trump shames Jewish Biden supporters, the Best F**kin' News Team stops by to give Jon a guilt trip.What Trump's lawyer tried to do to Stormy isn't just hypocrisy, it's projection. As I wrote in the most tweeted link from the blog last year, Projection is the Right's favorite defense mechanism. Trump projects, so he fits right in.
For the subject listed first but discussed last, I'll just return to what I wrote in 'SNL' covers protests, Kristi Noem, and hush money trial with Dua Lipa doing double duty.
Israel-Gaza? Not funny. The protests becoming vehicles for antisemitism? Not funny, as I pointed out last December. Cops and counterprotesters breaking up the protests? Still not funny. Parents freaking out about their children protesting? Surprisingly funny.So is the right-wing freakout over the decision to honor the red line the Biden Administration drew. I'm filing this under pissing off the right people and having the right enemies.
Jimmy Kimmel couldn't resist going for the lowest common denominator that ABC's Standards and Practices would allow him to pursue in The Stormy Daniels Roast of Trump’s Penis, Drake vs Kendrick Lamar & Celebrities Read Mom Texts.
Team Trump spent most of the day trying to paint Stormy Daniels as a sleazy, money-grubbing liar, there’s an amazing list of words and phrases that were used in court today, the sketch artist at the trial has been doing an incredible job, Trump’s lawyers are still going with the “he didn’t have sex with her” fairy tale, Ted Cruz took to Fox News to defend Trump, the judge warned Donald that if he violates the gag order again he could get jail time, Biden doesn’t believe that Trump will accept the results of the election, our in-house hip hop historian Gary Greenberg explains the Drake vs Kendrick Lamar drama, and once again some of our celebrity friends (Dave Burd, Nicholas Braun, Bebe Rexha, Jake Gyllenhaal, Quinta Brunson & Brett Goldstein) read real texts from their moms in honor of Mother’s Day.With friends like Ted Cruz, Trump hardly needs enemies, a sentiment that works both ways.
I found the bit about the Drake-Kendrick Lamar beef both more awkward and more informative than the SNL skit, my reaction to which was "On the one hand, I learned something despite the characters' cluelessness. On the other, I'm with Devon Walker's weatherman; I would want nothing to do with this conversation!"
The final part with celebrities reading texts from their moms reminds me that Sunday is Mother's Day. On that note, I'm returning to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert for What Your Mom Really Wants For Mother’s Day.
Moms can be hard to shop for, but we here at The Late Show have found the perfect gift for all the moms in your life this Mother’s Day.On the one hand, hahahaha! On the other, appreciate all the mothers in your life and give them the break they deserve.
Stay tuned for this year's edition of 'Social Security’s Top 10 Baby Names of 2022' for Mother's Day followed by a Mother's Day edition of Saturday Night Live.
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