Stephen Colbert still doesn’t give up on jokes … or some anger

Without missing a beat, Stephen Colbert’s opening monologue pulled in source after source and threw in a few jokes for good measure.

Some nights, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert has to make a lot out of a little for its opening monologues. Slow news days do still exist, although even the slower ones seem far too fast. Wednesday night’s show, however, did not have this problem at all.

In the interest of creating your afternoon reading list (should you still want to read political news, because we’d understand if you didn’t), we’ll link to the articles and reports Colbert refers to, and give some updates wherever possible.

Let’s start with the longer of the two videos. Fair warning: there’s a bleeped-out word (which earned headlines on sites like Entertainment Weekly), a few uses of mildly NSFW language, and Viagra jokes.

First things first: as of Thursday at about noon Eastern time, BuzzFeed News reported that Donald Trump’s tweets have not yet effected any change in the military, citing a letter from Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as an email from Robert Burke, who is the Navy’s chief of personnel. It sounds like the tweets don’t qualify as enough “guidance.” BuzzFeed also reiterates the basics of the Time article Colbert cites.

In the realm of healthcare, Politico reports this morning that Senate Republicans apparently still don’t know what exactly “skinny repeal” of the Affordable Care Act looks like. The Chicago Tribune has more on what exactly has been voted on so far. Meanwhile, the Washington Post has more on specific senators.

As for the rest of his articles, he calls up the New York Daily News to discuss Trump’s draft experiences, The Hill’s summation of Kristin Beck’s call out, and then he gets into the weeds a little bit.

Why? Because he actually pulls out a report from the RAND Corporation (specifically, according to the report itself, the RAND National Defense Institute) that the Department of Defense ordered. It’s 112 pages long. This is the same thing that the Post cites for its Viagra-in-the-military article.

For your palate cleanser, since it has no NSFW language (but more of Colbert’s Trump impression … and a little Jeff Sessions impression too), here’s part two:

Okay, one question: “Inbred Dalmatian”? Why do they turn so fast?

Anyway, he cites CNN twice: once to discuss Sessions, and once for the Ohio rally. An analysis from the Post makes it seem as though the Senate may not take too kindly to anything happening to Jeff Sessions.

Next: From Dirty Dancing to GLOW: How abortion on screen has changed

Hopefully Colbert’s jokes continue to make it just a little easier to keep up.