It's been a year since the Mueller investigation began and the Trump administration and its goons have been working harder to derail it than they have on pretty much anything else, aside from creating massive divides in the American people. I've gotta say, things are looking a bit dark. Read the rest
Children being forced to represent themselves in a court case that could determine their future? Sure, why not. Read the rest
Depending on your political leanings, the latest episode of Last Week Tonight, available on YouTube for the world to enjoy/loathe, will provide you with some catharsis or fill you with loathing. Read the rest
John Oliver is on fire (naturally) in his season finale segment on the first year of Trumpism, a year so busy and scandal-plagued that it really needs to this kind of revisiting to bring its full ghastliness to light. Read the rest
Lax anti-trust enforcement is destroying American democracy, growth and equality; it laid waste to minority-owned small businesses and "fleeced" the middle class, creating its own parallel "justice" system and laying waste to whole industries, with the complicity of the Democratic party (and the $1,000/hour expert "consulting" by superstar economists), and there's no end in sight, from Yahoo to Whole Foods. Read the rest
To appeal to the people of North Korea, Last Week Tonight host John Oliver enlisted the help of "Weird Al" Yankovic to write an accordion-based song about how Americans are not that bad (because North Koreans supposedly love accordion music). The brilliant ditty is called "The North Korea Polka" and the chorus is aptly, "Please don't nuke us, North Korea!"
image via Al Yankovic Read the rest
You only need to read the Table of Contents to know the ACLU of West Virginia's Amicus Brief on the case where coal company CEO Robert Murray, of Murray Energy, is suing John Oliver for defamation is gonna be special.
I am especially looking forward to section III.
John Oliver's new season kicked off with a spectacular episode on a dismal subject: whether or not there is such a thing as truth, why Donald Trump seems so poorly acquainted with it, and how it is that so many people have been dragged into the unfactual universe with him. Read the rest
John Oliver talked HBO into letting him release his whole 29-minute, must-watch show on resisting the normalization of Trumpism, with its endorsement of rape; torture; mass-deportations; elimination of environmental, health and safety safeguards; and Islamophobia. Read the rest
Oliver's 30+ minute investigative piece on Mary Kay, Amway, Herbalife, Avon, Rodan and Fields and the rest of the MLM basket of deplorables shows how the Facebook era has supercharged these semi-criminal enterprises, entrapping thousands of people in a cycle of debt and deception that is fuelled by celebrity endorsers, including Madeline Albright. Read the rest
John Oliver's Brexit bit provides much-needed perspective on the UK-EU referendum: while acknowledging the real problems with the EU, Oliver points out that on the one hand, the Leave side's core arguments are a mishmash of unvarnished, deranged racism and deceptive number-fudging; while the Remain side provides a lot of good to outweigh the bad of EU membership. Read the rest
50 people were killed at an Orlando gay nightclub by a terrorist. Usually, John Oliver offers a caustic, mocking routine that details and breaks down the stupidity for his viewers' bitter amusement. But not this time. Read the rest
John Oliver now holds the American record for largest single giveaway in history, doubling Oprah's "you get a car!" record -- but Oliver did it by forming a debt-collection agency and buying up the debt of Americans who'd defaulted on the sky-high expenses from life-threatening illnesses, then forgiving the debts. Read the rest
In light of Flint lead catastrophe, John Oliver gets the cast of Sesame Street to update their 20-year-old segment warning kids to steer clear of lead paint, making it over into an economic parable about moral hazard and aligning incentives.
(via Rolling Stone) Read the rest
John Oliver is, as always, a flamethrower crisping the Shield of Boringness that protects a corrupt, terrible system: this time, it's Congressional fundraising, which sends our elected reps off-site for four hours a day to a cubicle-filled call-center where they strap on a headset and wheedle strangers for money, and, on every third day, sends them to DC restaurants to host rubber-chicken fundraiser dinners. Read the rest
John Oliver continues to deliver the best comedy tech analysis in the business, with an epic rant/explainer that delves into Apple vs FBI and the new crypto wars with scathing wit and deep, technical truth that's made miraculously accessible to a general audience. Read the rest
John Oliver's segment on mass-shootings and mental health makes all the right points: making the issue about mental health instead of guns stigmatizes mentally ill people (who are more likely to be shot than shoot someone), but since we're on the subject, the American mental health system is a disgrace. Read the rest
