How does Franken define the "DeHumanizer" in the nonfiction book, Al Franken, Giant of the Senate?

Franken jokingly defines the DeHumorizer as "a $15 million machine Republicans built using state-of-the-art Russian technology," its function to "take a joke and strip away everything that made it, well, a joke" (79). Defending his reputation and character against attacks from the DeHumorizer proved to be one of Franken's most persistent obstacles both throughout his campaign and to this day. To give him a concrete place to lay blame, he invented the concept of the DeHumorizer. For example, he recalls how the DeHumorizer misconstrued a piece in one of his earlier books satirizing "Republicans' willingness to balance the budget on the backs of the elderly," and their "chronic underfunding of NASA" by joking that "Every Sunday, we put an elderly (or terminally ill) person in a rocket, fire it over the Snake River, and put it on pay-per-view. The revenues go straight to reducing the debt" (80). Obviously a joke and not an actual legislative suggestion, his Republican opponents used the DeHumorizer to strip the joke of its context and chastise Franken for his careless proposal.