A week after Joe Biden’s win in the US presidential election, the host of HBO’s Last Week Tonight John Oliver discusses Donald Trump’s various attempts to overturn the results, why his claims don’t hold water, and the consequences of indulging him.
Tag: Last Week Tonight
Aug 12 2019
From His Cold Dead Hands
On Sunday, John Oliver, host of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight,” finally pried that gun out of the former president of the NRA Charlton Heston’s cold dead hands then proceeded to take on the NRA and the squatter in the Oval Office with an epic opening segment.
Aug 13 2018
That Grassroot Maybe Astroturf
Atroturfing is a practice intended to give the statements or organizations credibility by withholding information about the source’s financial connection. The term astroturfing is derived from AstroTurf, a brand of synthetic carpeting designed to resemble natural grass, as a play on the word “grassroots.” The implication behind the use of the term is that instead …
Jun 27 2018
How To Get A Cable Network Banned In China
It’s actually much simpler than you would think, China being very thinned skinned about criticism of its leaders and policies. The host of HBO’s “Last week Tonight” John Oliver did it in twenty minutes. How exactly did he achieve that, you ask? Simple, he compared China’s President Xi Jinping to that honey loving cartoon bear …
May 22 2017
“Last Week Tonight” This Morning
The host of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight” John Oliver devoted his show to looking back at the week that was and quite a week it was: (F)rom President Donald Trump leaking Israeli intelligence to Russian officials, to finding out a high profile member of the administration has been named as a person of interest in …
May 26 2016
The International Internet Cat Fight
Sunday night, the host of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight,” John Oliver sparked an international, internet cat fight when he criticized the leader of Chechnya, Kremlin-backed Ramzan Kadyrov who posted an internet appeal to find his lost cat, a so-called toyger, a domestic cat bred to resemble a tiger cub. Last week, Kadyrov posted a message …
Sep 14 2015
Our Lady of Perpetual Exemptions Has Closed Its Doors
As quickly as it opened its doors and our eyes to fraudulent televangelism, Our Lady of Perpetual Exemptions has closed. John Oliver, pastor and host of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight,” announced the end of his church’s mission not because they had to, they were perfectly legal, but because, as his “wife” Wanda Jo put it, “when someone send you jizz in the mail, its time to stop whatever you’re doing..”
Warning the video below contains NSFW material.
Aug 06 2015
The State of The District of Columbia
Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
The topic of statehood for the District of Columbia became the hot topic of discussion on Monday after John Oliver, host of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight,” brought attention to disenfranchisement of more than 600,000 voters who live in the District.
“They pay federal taxes, and fight in wars,” Oliver said, “and yet have no member of Congress who’s able to vote on their behalf, even though their population is larger than Vermont and Wyoming, and their gross domestic product is higher than that of 16 states.” [..]
“Isn’t this just how countries treat their capital cities? It actually isn’t,” he said. “We’re the only democracy in the world that does this.” [..]
“It seems that Congress just forces riders on DC whenever they disapprove of how they’re spending their own money,” Oliver said. “They are treating more than 600,000 people right now like children.”
German Lopez at “Vox” has an excellent primer the problem of D.C. statehood with answers to 6 questions you were too disenfranchised to ask
Mar 31 2015
No Prank April Fools’ Day
I have always hated April Fools’ Day for the nasty pranks that everyone thinks are funny except the victim. My second spouse thought they were a hoot until he made the mistake of playing one on me. Trust me, after I was done with him, he never did it again but then the marriage only lasted 6 weeks. He so laughs last, laughs best, as they say.
John Oliver agrees with me that the pranks are for sociopaths. So he has asked his fans to take the No Prank Pledge because “April Fools’ Day is to comedy as to St. Patrick’s Day is to Irish Culture. It is a mockery of the very concept that usually ends in a fistfight.”
Mar 09 2015
How Is This Still A Thing? Daylight Saving Time
After losing an hour of sleep, most of are still dragging, trying to adjust to the Spring ritual of Daylight Saving Time. HBO’s “Last Week Tonight” with host John Oliver gives us a brief history of the tradition, why it is bad for us and asks how is this still a thing?
Time to Kill Daylight Saving
By Matt Sciavenza, The Atlantic
The changing of the clocks-which happened once again Sunday morning-is wasteful, unnecessary, and even dangerous.
More recently, a study of homes in Indiana-a state that adopted Daylight Saving Time only in 2006-showed that the savings from electricity use were negated, and then some, by additional use of air conditioning and heat.
The simple act of adjusting to the time change, however subtle, also has measurable consequences. Many people feel the effects of the “spring forward” for longer than a day; a study showed that Americans lose around 40 minutes of sleep on the Sunday night after the shift. This means more than just additional yawns on Monday: The resulting loss in productivity costs the economy an estimated $434 million a year.
Daylight Saving Time may also hurt people who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, depriving them of light in the mornings. “Our circadian rhythms were set eons ago to a rhythm that didn’t include daylight savings time, so the shift tends to throw people off a bit,” Nicholas Rummo, the director of the Center for Sleep Medicine at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mt. Kisco, New York, told HealthDay News. The switchover to Daylight Saving Time is also linked to an increase in heart attacks as well as traffic accidents.
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