Boy, oh boy, the world is a crazy place, isn’t it? Seems like things have gone from bad to worse on the international front and things aren’t looking too good for us here at home, either. Fortunately we have television satire to inform us, scare us, frustrate us and hopefully make us laugh when dealing with the depressing issues of the day. Welcome to “Ballot Banter,” Nerdist’s weekly political satire roundup. We’ll be bringing you the best of the previous weeks political buffoonery from The Daily Show and its newly launched podcast, The Colbert Report, Real Time with Bill Maher, and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, as well as any other fun sketches or bits making the rounds on the interwebs. And with that, let’s get to it!
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Masters of Sexism: Claps and Catcalls with Jessica Williams
Who wouldn’t want a round of applause on their way to work?! Most women, that’s who. Jessica Williams tells it like it is (and totally knows who Telly Savalas is)Â in this clip that spread like wildfire last week, for good reason. “Who loves ya, baby?”
Guest: Ramita Navai
Author Ramita Navai joins Jon for a discussion about her book City of Lies:Â Love, Sex, Death, and the Search for Truth in Tehran and explains that for everyday people living in this major city, lying takes on a “whole different level.”
The Daily Show Podcast without Jon Stewart
The Daily Show Podcast without Jon Stewart premiered earlier this summer on August 11 and returns every two weeks with a new episode without Jon Stewart. The podcast goes behind the scenes with the writers and correspondents of some of the most memorable moments of the Comedy Central show.
This week Jason Jones tells a particularly funny story about being trapped on an elephant in India in addition to what he and his producer learned about not trusting everything you read in the papers, especially when it comes to foreign politics.
The Colbert ReportÂ
Gay in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade
New York City has announced that gay groups can march openly in the next St. Patrick’s Day parade. While most Catholic officials seem to be perfectly fine with this decision, Stephen questions whether or not the sanctity of the parade will be affected by this historic decision.
Obama’s ISIS Strategy: Frank Underwood
When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Stephen issues a suggestion to President Obama regarding the very dangerous and very scary militant group ISIS: call in the big guns. And by “big guns,” we mean House of Cards patriarch Frank Underwood.
Guest: Doris Kearns Goodwin
As most of the faithful Colbert Nation knows, Stephen is ending his show on Comedy Central in mid-December later this year. All of that became very real this week when Stephen had presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin on for, as he called it, probably “the last time.” And he did something that we never thought we’d see from the “conservative” pundit: an apology.
Real Time with Bill Maher
Real Time is still on hiatus for the summer and will return next week!
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
#GoodbyeGeckos
After Last Week Tonight‘s hiatus John Oliver promised in the opening words of last night’s show that he would address the status of the much beloved Russian space geckos who blasted into orbit to have lots of gecko space sex. Unfortunately, things did not end well for those geckos, so John invited the band Great Big World to give them a proper tribute. RIP, Russian space sex geckos.
