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Please, just make it stop
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Published Thursday, April 26, 2018 @ 8:25 AM EDT
Apr 26 2018

For the past 15 months, the monologues of late night television comedians has been full of almost nothing but jokes about Trump and his administration.

An argument can be made for this situation. As Saul Alinsky said, "Humor is essential to a successful tactician, for the most potent weapons known to mankind are satire and ridicule."

But those weapons are not especially effective against Trump. He's been the object of satire and ridicule for the past three decades, and he seems to thrive on it. Even those who voted for him grudgingly acknowledge he's a bozo.

Also, the jokes are just too easy. The punchlines for Trump's public statements are obvious, like mittens pinned to the sleeves of a child's jacket.

Stephen Colbert, the most prolific Trump basher, now has the highest ratings of any late night show. I attribute this to his audience's revenge fantasies. In the late late night category, Seth Meyers has dominated with routines that are funny but emphasize the seriousness and absurdity of our country's situation. Consider:

Politcal satire is nothing new. Its modern form pioneer was Mort Sahl, whom television host Steve Allen said was "the only real political philosopher we have in modern comedy." His social satire performances broke new ground in live entertainment, as a stand-up comic talking about the real world of politics in the 1950s and 1960s was considered "revolutionary." Instead of obvious, rapid-fire cheap shots, Sahl's routines were thoughtful, which made the satire even more biting:

I suspect many are like me: victims of "Trump fatigue."

Please. Mueller, Congress, somebody... just make it stop. This isn't funny anymore.

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KGB Report on the web will return on Monday. Follow KGB Report and my personal account on Facebook for frequent updates.


Categories: Donald Trump, Mort Sahl, Seth Meyers, Stephen Colbert, Steve Allen


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Quotes of the day: Mort Sahl
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Published Saturday, May 11, 2013 @ 2:25 AM EDT
May 11 2013

Morton Lyon "Mort" Sahl (born May 11, 1927) is a Canadian-born American comedian and actor best known for his stream of consciousness monologues centered on current events and politics. His low-key, droll delivery of withering, ascerbic observations prompted Time to refer to him as "Will Rogers with fangs." (Sahl has his own web site here.

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A conservative is someone who believes in reform. But not now.

A social historian is someone who reports accidents to eyewitnesses.

Did anyone ever wrestle with his conscience and lose?

God is watching us. If we support someone we don't believe in and say he's electable, then God will make sure he's not elected and hope we do better the next time.

Hitler said that he always knew you could buy the press. What he didn't know was that you could get them cheap.

"I Aim for the Stars, But Sometimes I Hit London." (suggested title of Werner von Braun's autobiography)

I don't think there's any reward beyond participating, beyond being here.

I made the mistake early in my career, when I moved to Hollywood, of being attracted to actresses. I used to go out exclusively with actresses and other female impersonators.

I'm not so much interested in politics as I am in overthrowing the government.

If anybody comes up to you and says, "My kid is a conservative- why is that?" you say, "Remember in the 60s when we told you if you kept using drugs your kids would be mutants?"

If you maintain a consistent political position long enough, you will eventually be accused of treason.

If you were the last man on earth, I'd have to oppose you. That's my job.

In the forties, to get a girl you had to be a GI or a jock. In the fifties, to get a girl you had to be Jewish. In the sixties, to get a girl you had to be black. In the seventies, to get a girl you've got to be a girl.

I’m for capital punishment. You’ve got to execute people. How else are they going to learn?

Liberals feel unworthy of their possessions. Conservatives feel they deserve everything they've stolen.

Most people past college age are not atheists. It's too hard to be in society, for one thing. Because you don't get any days off. And if you're an agnostic you don't know whether you get them off or not.

My whole life is a movie. It's just that there are no dissolves. I have to live every agonizing moment of it. My life needs editing.

People tell me there are a lot of guys like me, which doesn't explain why I'm lonely.

Reagan won because he ran against Jimmy Carter. If he ran unopposed he would have lost.

Say what you will (about former Disney chairman Michael Eisner), he made the monorail run on time.

Television is never more false than when it's openly sincere.

That feeling of hopelessness only serves your masters.

The bravest thing that men do is love women.

The Democrats don't want anyone to be born, but if you are, they will take care of you from the cradle to the grave. The Republicans don't mind if you are born, if you assure them that you don't plan to live long enough to collect your Social Security.

There's a danger our fiscal bankruptcy might overtake our moral bankruptcy.

There's a magazine of obscure poetry - called Whither.

This matter of two sides to every question is bad logic and bad practice: sometimes there are no sides; sometimes there are a hundred.

Those who learn nothing from history are condemned to rewrite it.

Those who the gods would make rich and famous on TV, they first drive mad.

Two hundred years ago, we had Jefferson, Washington, Ben Franklin and Tom Paine, and there were four million people. Today we have 220 million, and look at our leaders. Darwin was wrong.

Washington couldn't tell a lie, Nixon couldn't tell the truth, and Reagan couldn't tell the difference.

We all know that America is the worst country in the world, except for all the others.

We claim we believe in compassion, which is an abstract, and when it's personified we discredit the man.

We would have broken up except for the children. Who were the children? Well, she and I were.

When the Democrats form a firing squad, they stand in a circle.


Categories: Mort Sahl, Observations, Politics, Quotes of the day


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