Archives for category: Humor

This is the funniest analysis of Ed Gillespie’s loss in Virginia that I have read.

Trump brushed off the loss and said Gillespie didn’t embrace him enough. This from a man who polls in the mid-30s.

Petri agrees with Trump.

“He forgot that there is more to Trump than just racism: There is also corruption and incompetence.

“He did the first part just fine. His MS-13 commercials were exactly the sort of nightmarish dog-horn that is Trump’s specialty. But he forgot: That is not all that “Trumpism” is. Otherwise we would not need a special new -ism for it and could just say “racism.”

“No, Gillespie barely even tried. Where was the paranoia? Where were the unhinged rants about wiretapping? Where were the attacks on the legitimacy of the free press? There was, naturally, some gleeful disregard for fact, and those lines about sanctuary cities were Trump-ish, but there could have been much more. Just to show he was trying. Where were the conspiracy theories? Where was Alex Jones?”

There is much more, and very funny.

This skit was made by the Monty Python Flying zcircus troupe.

I used to watch them faithfully. They were the funniest comedians of our time (my time).

I wish there were reruns. But at least there is YouTube.

John Oliver is one of our very best political commentators, and he does it with humor, intelligence, and graphics.

Watch this stunning program about state legislatures and ALEC, the most malignant of organizations attacking public schools, unions, teachers, environmental regulation, gun control, and everything else that makes sense in the twenty-first century.

This is a very funny satire, written in Ernest Hemingway’s prose, describing his efforts to assemble an IKEA daybed with three drawers.

It is called “A Farewell to Hemnes.”

Enjoy!

Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank tells the true story of a woman who is being prosecuted because she laughed out loud at Jeff Sessions.

Be careful not to laugh at Jeff Sessions, or you too may be prosecuted. I myself compared him to Gollum in “Lord of the Rings” on this blog, but I didn’t intend it as a joke. I was serious. I hope that is not a thought crime.

He writes:

Did you hear the one about Jeff Sessions?

I’d like to tell you, but I can’t. You see, it’s illegal to laugh at the attorney general, the man who on Tuesday morning announced that the 800,000 “dreamers” — immigrants brought here illegally as children — could soon be deported. If you were to find my Sessions jest funny, I would be an accessory to mirth.

This is no joke, because liberal activist Desiree Fairooz is now being put on trial a second time by the Justice Department — Jeff Sessions’s Justice Department — because she laughed at Sessions during his confirmation hearing. Specifically, she laughed at a line about Sessions “treating all Americans equally under the law” (which is, objectively, kind of funny).

Police asked her to leave the hearing because of her laugh. She protested and was charged. In May, a jury of her peers found her guilty of disorderly conduct and another offense (“first-degree chuckling with intent to titter” was Stephen Colbert’s sentence at the time). The judge threw out the verdict, objecting to prosecutors’ closing argument claiming that laughter alone was enough to convict her.

But at a hearing Friday, the Justice Department said it would continue to prosecute her. A new trial is scheduled for November. Maybe Sessions, repeatedly and publicly criticized by Trump, thinks Justice’s anti-laughing crackdown will protect whatever dignity he has left.

This could be funny, but it is not. Since when it is a criminal offense to laugh at ridiculous public figures?

Get a cup of coffee and sit down. John Oliver dissects Alex Jones, the rightwing provocateur who makes money saying insane things. Jones is the talk-show host who pushed the outrageous claim that the Sandy Hook massacre never happened, that it was staged by the federal government to promote gun control.

Oliver totally demolishes Jones’ credibility. Jones complained that his critics take his words out of context, so Oliver shows his remarks in full, in context. They don’t get any better.

This segment demonstrates the power of humor to inform and the power of evil to mislead.

New Yorker humorist Andy Borowitz says there is reason not to worry about Trump and the nuclear codes. His tweets demonstrate that he can’t spell even the simplest words. He even invents words like Covfefe.

This suggests that he will not be able to enter the nuclear codes correctly. And given his short attention span, he has probably forgotten them.

Andy Borowitz is a humorist for the New Yorker.

Today, he said that Betsy DeVos googled the Civil War and found it extremely fascinating.

Will she share what she learned with Trump?

If you wonder why people become teachers and remain in the classroom, watch this video created by the teachers at Sunburst Elememtary School in Glendale, Arizona. They are having fun! They have a culture of happiness. Not every public school is happy. But those with a strong culture are like families. Watch this family of teachers cavorting for the joy of it.

By the way, I googled the school and saw that they had made many videos. I also saw that it was a diverse school, with small class size, all teachers certified, and no teacher with less than three years experience. Also, it closed the achievement gap between white and Hispanic children. Maybe the secret is joy.

Our blog poet, who goes by the sobriquet Some DAMPoet (Devalue Added) responded to the story about the rankings of the best high schools in the country, which were notable for their high attrition rates and their selectivity. The very best high school, in one ranking, had only 24 graduates of the 43 that entered ninth grade; the number two high school had only 11 graduates of an entering ninth grade class of 17.

“100% Graduation”

It really can’t be beat
Our graduation rate
Our senior, you should meet
His scores are really great