"Gutfeld!" panelist Tyrus envisions a musical take on Homeland information czar and TikTok variety act Nina Jankowicz — like "singing telegrams when you're canceled for a tweet."
•ove or loathe President Donald Trump, but the 45th commander in chief gave comics all the material they needed.
Now, the Biden administration is serving up a potential bounty of low-hanging new satirical fruit, but so far most comedians aren’t indulging.
Biden’s proposed Disinformation Governance Board, an off-shoot of the Homeland Security Department, promises to root out “lies” peddled by Russia, Iran and other global forces. Conservatives pounced on the group’s formation, dubbing it a spiritual cousin to George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth from his dystopian classic, “1984.”
Biden’s group will be led by Nina Jankowicz, a so-called disinformation guru who previously labeled the Hunter Biden laptop story Fake News and sang the praises of Christopher Steele, author of the widely debunked Steele Dossier.
That plus her history of posting goofy TikTok videos of her singing in a Mary Poppins-style falsetto about “misinformation” offer up comic gold.
At least on paper, that is. We’ve yet to see late night TV or “Saturday Night Live” line up to explore the possibilities. Stephen Colbert is laser-focused on the Roe v. Wade debate flowing from the Supreme Court leak earlier this month.
Unwoke comedy insurgents, however, are another story. Paul Crosetti, executive producer of the right-leaning satire series “That Show Tonight,” says his show already has the topics in its sights.
Pulling no punches, a recent “That Show Tonight” parody featured the new board’s “strategist,” Vilhelm Kannepertz, speaking in a Nazi-like accent.
“The no-brainer is comparing the department to past ‘ministries of truth’ regimes,” Crosetti says. “You can see how Jankowicz could easily become a caricature of herself, especially if she spends any amount of time in the public view.”
He doesn’t expect much comedy competition, at least for now, in poking fun at either Jankowicz or the board in general.
“If recent history serves as a guide, mainstream network shows, whether ‘SNL’ or the late-night shows, will steer clear,” he says of those left-leaning outlets.
Comedian Andrew Heaton agrees that Colbert and co. won’t be addressing the board or its antic maitresse anytime soon.
“I’m the sort of person to make fun of this thing, and this is the first I’ve heard of it — I doubt it’s widely known, and probably a secondary issue to Ukraine, Roe v Wade, and of course the eternal ‘the other party is truly evil’ slapfight,” says Heaton, host of podcasts “The Political Orphanage” and “Losers, Pretenders & Scoundrels.”
Political satirist Lou Perez thinks comedians will come around to both the board and Jankowicz.
“A Disinformation Governance Board that openly threatens civil liberties should be a nonpartisan field day for joke slinging,” says Perez, author of the upcoming book, “That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore: On the Death and Rebirth of Comedy.”
“The question is, which comedians?” asks Perez, who previously satirized both sides of the political aisle via We the Internet TV. “For years, many comedians on the left were afraid to make jokes that could hurt their side. Trump was an existential threat after all … I think this is an opportunity for them to step up and rightfully mock our current president and his administration.”
As for Jankowicz, her social media warblings make her perfect for a Broadway musical parody. “Musical versions of George Orwell’s 1984 have been done already,” he says. “But I imagine Jankowicz’s 2022 would be a lot brighter than ’84. More pop and TikTok, you know. Call Jankowicz ‘Miss Information’ or something cute like that.”
Tyrus, the wrestler-turned-pundit from Fox News’ “Gutfeld!,” sees plenty of satirical fodder in the board and its leader — but fears party discipline may interfere with comic opportunity.
“Unfortunately, [comedians] let division and politics get in the way of a great joke or jokes,” he says. “Tragic.”
Like Perez, Tyrus envisions a musical take on Jankowicz, like “singing telegrams when you’re canceled for a tweet,” he suggests.
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George Landrith, President of Frontiers of Freedom, co-hosting the Conservative Commandoes Radio Show, broadcast from WNJC – 1360 AM in Philadelphia and around the globe on the internet. Landrith and co-host Rick Trader discuss the abusive law in Virginia that imposes criminal penalties for speeding more than 10 miles per hour over the freeway speed limit of 70 MPH. Landrith argues that criminalizing relatively innocent behavior that virtual every American driver has done — driving a few miles over the speed limit — is a prime example of government abuse.
Criminalizing ordinary highway speeding and jailing drivers for going 11 miles per hour over the limit is a grotesque abuse of power.
•This summer, millions of Americans have been on road trips through the highways of Virginia. The state’s top speed limit is clearly posted at 70 miles per hour. However, what few drivers know is that driving at a speed greater than 80 miles per hour — a mere 11 miles per hour over the top speed limit — is criminal reckless driving under Virginia law. Driving on an open freeway, the flow of traffic is typically somewhere between 78 and 85 miles per hour. And yet, in Virginia (and many other states) going with the flow of traffic on an open freeway can subject you to insanely harsh criminal punishment. In Virginia, that means up to one year in jail and heavy criminal fines of up to $2,500, plus thousands in related legal fees. All across the nation, similar abuses in traffic laws exist.
Any honest driver will admit, at least to themselves, that at varying points in long freeway drives, they have driven more than 10 miles per hour over the speed limit — just driving with the natural flow of traffic or by accident. How would you feel about being stopped for driving more than 10 miles per hour over the limit while on a family vacation and not getting a ticket, but instead being hauled off to jail? Does that sound like a reasonable exercise of government power? If we keep criminalizing ordinary and small infractions that virtually every American does, soon every American can spend time in jail. This is an absurd policy. Yet, that’s the direction things are going. Continue reading
Wisconsin senator accused of cover-up of lack of action in Tomah VA scandal
by CJ Ciaramella • Washington Free Beacon
Calls are mounting for the Senate Select Committee on Ethics to investigate Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D., Wis.) for her alleged cover-up of her office’s handling of a scandal at a Veterans Affairs hospital in Tomah, Wisconsin.
The watchdog group Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT) sent a letter to the Senate Ethics Committee on Thursday calling on the committee to investigate two complaints filed against Baldwin this week regarding the Tomah affair.
“It appears that Senator Baldwin attempted to use taxpayer funds to hide information from those very taxpayers,” FACT director Matthew Whitaker said in the letter. “It is this type of behavior that erodes public trust in our public officials, and reflects poorly on the Senate as a whole.” Continue reading
Documents show few have been fired in wake of scandal at VA hospitals
by Brent Scher • Washington Free Beacon
Rick Perry, the former governor of Texas, says it is “outrageous” that so few people have been held accountable at the Department of Veterans Affairs after the Obama administration promised action would be taken against those found responsible for manipulating wait times at VA hospitals.
Internal documents obtained by the New York Times show that despite claims by the department that at least 14 people had been fired, only three actually have lost their jobs.
“It is outrageous that the Obama administration has not held people accountable for manipulating wait times in VA hospitals after promising to take action against those implicated in the scandal,” said Perry. Continue reading
How the Constitution Protects Us From Abuse and Stops the Abusers
By George Landrith
News reports of federal agencies abusing the rights of Americans and violating the law have become all too common. It is no longer plausible for defenders of big government to argue that these abuses are simply a few isolated incidents. We have witnessed a veritable parade of lawless abuses from all corners of the federal government.
For most of the last six years, the Senate ran interference for the Administration and the national media largely ignored the abuses of their ideological allies. But even in this dangerous and unaccountable age, the Constitution’s genius divides power in such a way as to limit the abuse of power — provided we are smart enough to rely upon the wisdom of the Constitution. Continue reading
By Jay Sekulow • Fox News
I have said it before — the Obama administration’s Internal Revenue Service is institutionally incapable of self-correction.
And, now it is even clearer that the Obama administration’s Department of Justice is incapable of holding accountable those responsible for a massive illegal targeting scheme. Even worse, its own involvement in the scandal not only means that it can’t properly investigate the IRS, it should instead be investigated for cooperating with the IRS in its campaign of censorship and oppression. Continue reading
What has gone wrong with the U.S. government in the past month? Just about everything, from the fundamental to the ridiculous.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the United States to warn Congress about the dangers of a nuclear Iran. He spoke without the invitation of an irritated President Obama, who claimed that he did not even watch the address on television.
Obama declined to even meet with the Israeli prime minister, announcing that it would have been improper for him to have such a meeting so close to Netanyahu’s re-election bid.
But if Obama was so concerned about not influencing the Israeli elections, why, according to some news accounts, is a Senate panel launching an investigation into whether Obama’s State Department gave grant money to a nonprofit organization, the OneVoice Movement, that sought to unseat Netanyahu with the help of several former Obama campaign operatives?
Then, 47 Republican senators signed an unusual letter to the Iranian theocracy, reminding it that any agreement on Iran’s nuclear program negotiated with the Obama administration would have to first clear Congress. Continue reading
by Marc A. Thiessen • Washington Post
Rolling Stone magazine has faced nearly unanimous condemnation for publishing serious accusations without bothering to interview those it accused to check the facts and get their side of the story.
So why is it wrong for Rolling Stone to do this, but okay for Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)?
Feinstein and Senate intelligence committee Democrats just spent six years and $40 million investigating the CIA’s rendition and interrogation program. Surely they took the time to sit down with the CIA officials who ran the program, present the committee’s findings and ask officials to explain their version of events, right?
Wrong. Continue reading
The corruption of the Internal Revenue Service is still under investigation, but the public has learned a lot already: The IRS targeted conservative and tea party groups for extra scrutiny and harassment, Lois G. Lerner tried to hide behind the Fifth Amendment to avoid prosecution for violating the rights of taxpayers, and the president of the United States assured one and all that there was not even a “smidgen of corruption” at the agency when he knew better.
What the public did not know until recently was that the White House requested and received from the IRS the tax records of 2,500 taxpayers for White House inspection. Continue reading
Despite his memory lapses, the ethical problems related to his work on Obamacare are plain.
by John Fund • National Review Online
An old Soviet joke had men carrying briefcases marching alongside tanks and soldiers in a Kremlin parade. “Why are those men in a military parade?” a boy innocently asks his father. He replies, “Those are the economists. They are the most dangerous of all.”
MIT economist Jonathan Gruber’s factually impoverished testimony on Obamacare didn’t get nearly the attention it should have, as congressional Democrats cleverly decided to release a report on CIA torture abuses on the same day. Continue reading
Obama’s hubristic promises have been followed by a total discrediting of his ideology.
by Victor Davis Hanson • National Review Online
Barack Obama will end his tenure with the ruin of Hope and Change. The implosion was brought about not by the marginalization of Hope and Change, but by the power of the U.S. government to reify the slogan in a way we have not seen since the 1930s.
Survey the wreckage.
The hope-and-change therapeutic approach to foreign relations ended logically with historic cuts in defense, lectures about American culpability, pink lines and the end of Syria, farcical Iranian talks, in Libya the short trip from “leading from behind” to Benghazi, the self-induced suicide of Iraq, the empowerment of Putin, a pivot to Asia that invited ridicule, and the charade of a war against ISIS. Continue reading
By Joseph Curl • The Washington Times
In the weeks after voters cast a vote of no confidence on President Obama and his fellow Democrats, the president has gone on a scorched-earth campaign, unilaterally declaring amnesty for some 5 million illegal aliens, firing the only Republican in his Cabinet and rolling out a new federal rule dubbed “the most expensive regulation ever.”
Yes, this is the real Barack Obama, the one Americans cast their votes against Nov. 4 in an election in which the president had declared his agenda most definitely “on the ballot.” Continue reading