Tim Carvell

Tim Carvell

@timcarvell.bsky.social

Executive Producer, Last Week Tonight. Friend to nearly all the animals.

33.5K followers300 following5.1K posts

Tim Carvell reposted

The most maddening part of this -- which is saying something -- is that the cop who has torn his town into shreds thinks the remaining residents are cool with him because they smile at him when he walks by. Mind-numbing levels of cope. www.propublica.org/article/depo...

propublica.orgThe Small-Town Cop Who Helped ICE Deport His NeighborsIngram, Texas, was just rebuilding from a devastating flood when its tiny police department enrolled in ICE’s 287(g) deportation program. Within a year, cops would hand over the equivalent of 10% of t...

This is a very good story about what 287(g) enforcement looks like on the ground, and the prong of Trump-era immigration enforcement that doesn’t look like ICE agents doing raids on the streets of Minneapolis or Chicago.

Francesca D'Annunzio@francescadnunz.bsky.social

Early this year, I visited Ingram, a TX town of ~1,900, to check out a tip. The area was starting to recover from its worst flood in a century. But as Latino workers drove to jobsites to help rebuild, the tipster said, a cop in a black Dodge Charger kept stopping them ... 🧵

Tim Carvell reposted

NATHAN FIELDER: So now that you’ve seen it, can you tell me what was funny about that bit? ELIZABETH HOLMES: *smiling like the Smile Demon from the Smile horror movie series* The guy took a really long time to describe what his family’s act was

Tim Carvell reposted

if you ever happen to see someone post a joke you don't understand or discuss a subject you aren't familiar with, you are well within your right to complain, and perhaps even scold them if necessary. you are their customer and you have rights

(Also, it’s a sign of how well The City Reporter has carved out a niche for itself that I didn’t even bother googling for an explainer of those proposals, I just went to their site knowing it would definitely have one.)

It’s been out for a week and I think it’s time we all talk about the big reveal in “You Can See Everything”, when Jesse Eisenberg and his crew of heist magicians turn up and reveal it’s the secret fourth “Now You See Me” movie.

Thank you to @sepinwall.bsky.social for actually writing this and talking to me for it, and to @garyjackson.bsky.social for the most concise summation of Sorkin’s ethos I’ve ever seen: “I want to be rude to a blonde woman.”

whatsalanwatching.comAnatomy of a disaster: Aaron Sorkin's 'Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip'Why do comedy writers still love talking about the infamous bomb?
Tim Carvell@timcarvell.bsky.social

Consider this an alert to outlets that cover entertainment: The 20th anniversary of “Studio 60” is coming up in September and every comedy writer on earth will talk to you about their continued horrified fascination with it.

Just thinking about the trail of excruciatingly diplomatic rejection letters from major outlets that have to precede a comedy legend’s work appearing in Graydon Carter’s subscription-only newsletter.

Tim Carvell reposted

I think people should ask Ds running for office how they plan to vote on these bills (there's also a pro-bail bill floating around). You can say "abolish ICE" but what will you do? Will you vote for DHS to create new crime centers for shoplifting and then feign ignorance?

Jessica Pishko@jesspish.bsky.social

It's hard to get attention when people are focused on the midterms, but politics will continue after November. On the horizon: a federal bill addressing "organized retail crime" and another addressing "carjacking." Both of these would be disasters and give DHS more power.

Having said I wanted @johnpfaff.bsky.social ‘s take on the Gladwell LAPD/LASD thing, I didn’t expect to get a response this thorough, this quickly. A 🧵:

John Pfaff@johnpfaff.bsky.social

So I put this together a few years ago, comparing US policing per capita to that elsewhere, and for the countries providing the UN data, we are in fact about middle of the pack or less. But! 1. "Police" is not a consistent term, may not be apples-to-apples. 2. HOW we use/train police matter too!

I do not think it is unreasonable to ask that we skip the step where the audio gets leaked, and just let everyone dial in to tomorrow’s CBS News morning meeting.

A fun thing to realize is, Jan Crawford has covered the Supreme Court for years -- including recently interviewing Samuel Alito! -- but somehow, that calm, indoor-voice explanation of the Establishment Clause is the one time she's felt the need to reach for the word "diatribe"

The thing about Jan Crawford’s “diatribe” and CNN’s “heated” is, we all could see the whole exchange with our own eyes, but it suggests they’ve fucked up a lot of coverage of things we couldn’t see.

Steve Vladeck@stevevladeck.bsky.social

This is a really striking tweet.

The whole Coates thing is a fun chance to revisit the fact that the recording of the CBS News internal meeting about the interview was leaked to, and gleefully published by… The Free Press.

Two smaller things I appreciate here: 1. Unless I’m mistaken, there are zero cuts or edits in this? It’s the whole conversation, start to finish. 2. The addition of “or not pray at all” every single time, which a lot of candidates tend to omit.

Abdul El-Sayed@abdulelsayed.bsky.social

This is Tommy. Tommy had a question about my allegiances. Listen to the end to hear about his.

Tim Carvell reposted

something I have to try not to think about too often as the parent of a disabled child is the fact that in an active shooter situation she simply would not understand or know what to do or even necessarily follow every direction, and no amount of drilling at school is ever going to change that

CNN@cnn.com

All victims in the Oregon school shooting Thursday were shot inside one special needs classroom. A teacher tried to fight away the shooter's gun, helping to prevent more bloodshed before a father took down the shooter, police say. Follow live updates: https://cnn.it/3WvqJdz

This is one step away from having people walk out of the White House behind her carrying boxes of her stuff, and a locksmith hastily changing the locks.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

LJ: Katie, it's a tough Q, but do you think you still have the confidence of the president? KZ: I'm standing here & I was able to travel w/ him through the midterm conventio-- excuse me, midterm rallies. I hope to be able to build the trust of everyone around me KILMEADE: Uh. Off and running.

Oh wow they played her off at the end like she was a writer giving an acceptance speech.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

oh my god this interview was a disaster for Zacharia. I've never seen Hannity do someone who works for Trump like this

People say networks aren’t making great workplace comedies anymore but “boss berates staff one day before being trapped with everyone on a 3-hour morale-building boat ride” is the funniest plotline I’ve heard in years.

Status@status.news

After an explosive all-hands meeting that left CBS News’ foreign desk in turmoil, embattled editor Shayndi Raice attempted to make some amends during an awkward boat cruise, we have learned. Details in @status.news: www.status.news/p/cbs-news-i...

It’s like they forgot everything that made the first movie great. (Minnie Driver collecting a paycheck for doing two brief scenes on a phone.)

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Congratulations to everyone who will inevitably be cast in the Kelly Clarkson-inspired episode of “Law & Order”, whether it’s in the role of Pop Superstar, Crazed Fan Who Seems Like the Murderer for Two Acts, or Store Landlord Who We Eventually Learn Did It for Other Reasons.

The cops and ADAs are gonna have such a robust 90-second debate over whether celebrities can be held accountable for their fans’ actions, where Both Sides Make Some Good Points, before someone bursts into the room and says “you’re gonna want to see this” and the subject is never mentioned again.

This framing is wild because somehow, the people who pushed the lie get passive-voiced away into a generalized “mistrust”, the Democrats get named as the ones who need to learn their lesson from this, and then we move on to a broader framing for the Republicans who are described as simply “worried”.

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It feels like malpractice to talk vaguely about “mistrust of politicians and the mainstream news media” without naming the party that stokes and benefits from this mistrust, and has set up an apparatus to capitalize on it, both in general and in this instance specifically.

(And in fairness to the rest of the piece, it traces the journey pretty well, from right-wing “influencers” to Elon and Twitter to Republican candidates and White House officials. It does everything but put a name to what it’s assembled the evidence for.)

This framing is wild because somehow, the people who pushed the lie get passive-voiced away into a generalized “mistrust”, the Democrats get named as the ones who need to learn their lesson from this, and then we move on to a broader framing for the Republicans who are described as simply “worried”.

In an earlier era there would be 20 different blogs scrambling to publish posts titled “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle” and Letterman would be making one of his crew go into the store and keep asking “ehhhh… how much for the bird?” Videogum would have a “You Can Make It Up”. We used to be a country.

If you want to hear a judge literally scream at Trump administration lawyers right now, this is… something else.

Roger Parloff@rparloff.bsky.social

Judge Reyes has ordered cessation of all tree removal at the golf course until at least tomorrow. Also provides remote call-in number for hearing on temporary restraining order. She wants to know, inter alia, who ordered tree removal & how long govt attys have known of this plan.

Just a reminder that (as noted in the thread) Part I of this fantastic and compelling and is on MUBI, where you can watch it as a five-episode limited series.

Alissa Wilkinson@alissawilkinson.bsky.social

One of the year’s great and most chilling films opens tomorrow in New York at Film Forum: www.nytimes.com/2026/10/08/m...

I went to check on the latest House and Senate polls and hadn't realized I must still have a bookmark for the NYT's polling page from 2016, because this is what came up, and it's (a) an amazing jump-scare; and (b) honestly a pretty good reminder to approach polls with caution.