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John Oliver

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There is hope for the world. And it is in the form of Wikipedia.

John William Oliver (born 23 April 1977) is a British comedian, political satirist and actor. He is best known in the United States for his work on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and the satirical comedy podcast The Bugle. Having left The Daily Show at the end of 2013, Oliver became the host of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on HBO on Sunday, 27 April 2014.

Quotes

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Wikipedia is such a vital resource. It's a way of us completely rewriting our history to give our children and our children's children a much better history to grow up with. We seem to have no intention of providing them with a future.
  • The deeper you look into these stories, the more flawed you realize things are, systemically. But the more you encounter people work incredibly hard to change things. Like clockwork, at some point during a story, I go into Tim [Carvell]'s office, who I... run the show with, and we'll say "Burn it down. Just burn everything to the ground." 'Cause it feels like things are so bad in a story, only flames are going to purify the hell that we've built for ourselves. But you do then work through that, much like this shitty hot sauce, to realizing that, in lieu of-— even as you're waiting for major change that you think might not come, incremental change is possible, and valuable.

John Oliver: Terrifying Times (2008)

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  • Many people would argue that the most dangerous inhabitant of the earth is currently the self styled 43rd president of the United States. Not so much in deed anymore as in word. Because to hear that man speak is to wish upon yourself physical harm.
  • I started looking into these groups in America, campaigns groups who want to put stickers on the front of all school science text books saying that Evolution is only one possible theory of life on earth. Now, although this seems like a stupid idea at first, second, and thirty ninth glance, look at it once more. Give it that fortieth view. Because it's brilliant. Let's have stickers on the front of all books! Slap one on the front of the Bible saying "Of course this could all be bullsh*t. Maybe he never died! Perhaps he opened a donkey sanctuary. He had a clear bond with donkeys." Or slap one on the Theory of Gravity! "Look, that's just one man's opinion. Maybe we could all fly! R. Kelly believed it so. Why would he lie to us? What does he possibly stand to gain?"
  • But if you think it's going to get any better, let me burst that bubble of optimism now because I was fortunate enough last year to be invited to the First Republican Presidential Candidate Debate in Simi Valley in California, which, interestingly, was exactly as much fun as it sounds. But it was, obviously a privilege to be there and I did get to witness one incredible moment of political theater when all, at that point, ten of the potential leaders of the free world were asked the same question. And that question was "Who here doesn't believe in evolution?" And three of those men raised their hands. And then none of those three men put their hands down and said "Only joking." And their confidence was seductive!
  • You might look at the Oreo Pizza and think, "That is a reprehensible foodstuff". I put it to you that that is the single most patriotic item I have ever seen in my life! Hoist that up a flagpole! ... Because that is the biggest imaginable "fuck you" you could possibly issue to terrorists. By hoisting the Oreo Pizza up a flagpole, what you're essentially saying is, "There is nothing you can do to us, we are not already doing to ourselves".
  • The world's become so horrifying now. It's too easy to become cynical about things and that's not fair and it doesn't work. And in fact, there is hope for the world. And it is in the form of Wikipedia. Now, Wikipedia will save us all. I found this out when recently a friend of mine emailed me and he said that someone had created a Wikipedia entry about me. I didn't realize this was true, so I looked it up. And like most Wikipedia entries, it came with some flamboyant surprises, not least amongst them my name. Because in it it said my name was John Cornelius Oliver. Now my middle name is not Cornelius because I did not die in 1752. But obviously, I want it to be. Cornelius is an incredible name. And that's when it hit me — the way the world is now, fiction has become more attractive than fact. That is why Wikipedia is such a vital resource. It's a way of us completely rewriting our history to give our children and our children's children a much better history to grow up with. We seem to have no intention of providing them with a future. Let's at least give them a past. It is in a very real sense the least we can do.

Interview with The Rolling Stone (2013)

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  • Jon called me and asked, "Would you like to host the show?" My first reaction was, "Yeah, sure. Whatever you want. No problem." It was only on hanging up that my knees started to buckle. I was like, "Holy shit! What did I just agree to? I'm about to destroy the most beloved show on American television."
  • You’re not supposed to see your country’s most famous author [J.K. Rowling] in the audience watching you. You’re supposed to look down at that point and realize that you’re naked and then wake up.
  • I’ve made so many people angry that they kind of blur into one unpleasant memory of people staring at you with somewhere between passive aggression and active aggression.

Last Week Tonight (2014–present)

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You've just constructed a straw man so large you could burn it in the desert and hold an annoying festival around it.
  • Welcome to Last Week Tonight! I am John Oliver and welcome, welcome... welcome to whatever this is.
  • The cable companies have figured out the great truth of America: If you want to do something evil, put it inside something boring. Apple could put the entire text of "Mein Kampf" inside the iTunes user agreement, and you'd just go, "Uh, agree, agree, agr-- what? Agree, agree."
  • John Oliver: You've stated that you believe there could be an infinite number of parallel universes. Does that mean that there is a universe out there where I am smarter than you?
    Stephen Hawking: Yes. And also a universe where you're funny.
  • Please, make sure your college years are the best ones of your life because, thanks to the debt that we are saddling you with, they almost certainly will be.
  • Drug companies are a bit like high school boyfriends; they're much more concerned with getting inside you than being effective once they're in there.
    • After quoting a BBC report claiming that most "Big Pharma" companies spend more money on marketing than research and development.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "Marketing to Doctors" (ff. 0:02:20) (8 Feb 2015)
  • As far as I can see, this is a system that has enriched multiple companies and that pays and fires teachers with a cattle birthing formula, confuses children with talking pineapples, and has the same kind of rules regarding transparency as Brad Pitt had for Fight Club.
  • For the record if someone did that to me I'd hitch a ride to the International Space Station straight away; of course who am I kidding, they would never let me in, I've got spiders for hands! The internet is mean!
  • In science, you don't just get to cherry-pick the parts that justify what you were going to do anyway! That's religion! You're thinking of religion.
    • In response to Al Roker's advice to "find the study that sounds best to you".
    • Last Week Tonight -- "Scientific Studies" (ff. 0:14:44), (8 May 2016)
  • You can't just hear a conspiracy theory, fan the flames, and then walk away! "Is Katy Perry Jonbenet Ramsey?" "Well, identity theft is a real and persistent issue in this day and age, and we really need to look into that!"
    • Last Week Tonight -- "Third Parties" (ff. 0:08:48), (17 October 2016)
  • He is truly one of the most revolting humans (minions) I have ever seen. In a way, there is no more fitting spokesman for the Trump administration than an entitled, elitist arsehole who refuses to take responsibility for the messes he makes, and who can somehow pick a fight with the Statue of Liberty.
  • Oh, why do I love Salisbury? It's simple. The population is 40,302. And their member of parliament is John Glen, a Conservative whose eight-year tenure has been widely viewed as a failure. (open brackets: "citation needed", closed brackets.)
    • After he talks about how Sergey Skripal poisoning suspects' statement sounds like they're reading from Salisbury's Wikipedia page.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "Saudi Arabia" (ff. 0:02:43) (15 October 2018)
  • Please, buy [Last Week Tonight Presents: A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo] for your children, buy it for any child you know, or just buy it because you know it would annoy Mike Pence. You'd be doing a nice thing in a really dickish way, and isn't that the dream at the end of the day?
    • Last Week Tonight -- "Mike Pence" (ff. 0:19:24) (19 March 2018)
  • Calling slave labor "chores" is a euphemism on par with calling Hitler a "best-selling author with a side hustle" or JFK's assassination a "bad hair day" or this a comedy show.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "U.S. History" (ff. 0:09:36) (2 August 2020)
  • And look, do I think it’s bad if Disney pays more taxes? No, I don’t. That would be a good thing. I don’t love that it might happen not through meaningful tax reform but on the whim of one right-wing dipshit who’s scared of gay people and doesn’t understand the First Amendment. But hey: Ends, means, what are you gonna do?
  • Hope and joy are crucial here; they are the fuel that powers the ongoing fight for equality. And while there is a lot of fear and uncertainty right now, it is worth remembering that progress -- while not always linear -- is always possible.
  • There is a natural human impulse to protect children, to grab a toddler you don't know if you see them running into traffic, and if that impulse is broken or disincentivized by a government, there is absolutely a humanitarian crisis, no matter what any asshole has to say about it.
  • It has to be possible to feel the pain in one community without denying it in another. It has to be! That is perhaps the most necessary precondition for peace because real peace here will clearly be difficult! It's gonna be struggled toward as part of a larger pursuit of justice which will, in turn, require an honest and uncomfortable reckoning with all the decisions that brought us to this point.
  • You can see how baiting customers with one price and then switching it for another might be considered a bait-and-switch! There's actually a great Econ book on the subject entitled "Words Mean What Words Mean"!
    • Last Week Tonight -- "Elon Musk" (ff. 0:09:58) (17 December 2023)
  • Wait, he "loves drama"?! I'm sorry, I'm really not that comfortable with one of the most powerful people on Earth being summed up the same way you describe Andy Cohen on New Year's Eve!
    • Last Week Tonight -- "Elon Musk" (ff. 0:28:35) (17 December 2023)
  • From the beginning, America -- like most countries -- was built on polite fictions by men who could somehow hold in their heads the idea that all men were created equal at the exact same time that they were drawing up the three-fifths compromise.
  • We have spoken to experts who have all told us that, best they can tell, this is somehow legal. Which seems crazy to me, 'cause it really feels like it shouldn't be.
  • Whenever they don't want to talk about something, it's probably worth you knowing about it.
    • Last Week Tonight (25 February 2024)
  • If your friend told you to download an app and you saw it in the App Store with good reviews, you might assume that everything on it was legitimate even before you saw MetaTrader's logo, which looks like three men in suits jerking each other off under a table -- an appropriate metaphor for cryptocurrency if I have ever seen one.
  • If you're funny enough, you can make people forget a lot of things, whether it's common-sense internet safeguards, lessons from previous relationships, or that they've been accidentally learning about financial fraud and human trafficking for the last twenty minutes. We're having fun, aren't we?
  • One project leader in the 80s and early 90s is remembered for saying "No secrets" and "The only thing that will make me rip off your head and shit down your neck is withholding information." And I'm sorry, but that should be the mug.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "Boeing" (ff. 0:06:07) (3 March 2024)
  • I'm curious, is it a rule that, to be in Congress, you have to be one of the weirdest motherfuckers to ever live?
    • Last Week Tonight, in response to Nancy Pelosi's "Tic, tac, toe, a winner" comment on the House floor (17 March 2024)
  • I'm not saying college is the right choice for everyone -- but it should be a choice.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "Student Loans" (ff. 0:29:22) (17 March 2024)
  • I know I've spend a lot of time over the last ten years reassuring everyone that this show does comedy and not journalism, but I think we can all agree that the most important thing we do here is stir shit up.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "Executions" (ff. 0:11:55) (7 April 2024)
  • The fact is, no matter how executions are performed, they'll never be humane. No matter how many times you call them "textbook" or claim it's "much better than anything they did to the victims", or show people viral videos of dizzy tweens on helium, it's never gonna be okay, and we are kidding ourselves if we think taking someone's life actually lowers the number of killers in the world; it literally, definitionally, creates more.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "Executions" (ff. 0:26:29) (7 April 2024)
  • Manchin's argument speaks to what can be so dispiriting about our current politics, because while there is nothing fundamentally wrong with civility and compromise, it does depend on who you're being civil to and what you're compromising with. 'Cause remember, this is the moment when one of the loudest voices in the senate campaign against Mangi is also happily encouraging people to "take things into their own hands" when it comes to those they don't agree with. And it's pretty scary to think that, in the name of building bridges, some appear to be perfectly fine finding a middle ground with those willing to throw protestors off them.
    • Last Week Tonight (21 April 2024)
  • While you can believe aliens exist or not, when it comes to UFOs, belief doesn't really come into it; whatever they are, people are seeing them. That poster in Mulder's office shouldn't have said "I Want To Believe", it should've said "Believe, Smelieve, What The Fuck Is That Thing?"
    • Last Week Tonight -- "UFOs" (ff. 0:04:42) (21 April 2024)
  • "There's something out there that's better than our airplane." It is chilling to hear that from a Navy pilot and not the usual place: the Executive Boardroom at Boeing.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "UFOs" (ff. 0:21:00) (21 April 2024)
  • When New Jersey sends us mayors, they're clearly not sending their best.
    • Last Week Tonight -- Campus Protests
  • Everyone who's ever been to a protest has, at some point, seen a sign and thought to themselves "Shit, not sure about that one. I'm here for abortion rights; do we really need to bring 9/11 into this"?
    • Last Week Tonight -- Campus Protests
  • Student protests against injustice generally age pretty well, and the efforts to criticize or crack down on them tend not to.
    • Last Week Tonight -- Campus Protests
  • You know God! The freak known for building a nude garden He could watch all day. The guy who commissioned the construction of an all-animal fuck boat, and who sat back and watched while His own son got nailed. Oh, I'm sorry! Am I misunderstanding the Bible by taking things out of context? Forgive me, I haven't read it. I looked at the summary; it told me all I needed to know.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "Public Libraries"
  • I know it is not shocking that an episode of this show would advocate to support your local libraries; it's pretty much implicit in our whole vibe. My suit, glasses, and desk all practically scream "support your local libraries" to which the rest of my body would say out of respect, "Shh!"
    • Last Week Tonight -- "Public Libraries"
  • [The] U.S., where our constitution guarantees virtually unlimited freedom of speech, except, of course, when the Supreme Court decides it’s cool for a public university to ban drag shows. Yeah, that happened two months ago. It’s kind of surprising no one flew a pride flag upside down on their lawn in protest.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "AfD"
  • Lots of people are 68, working, and paying taxes, and I’d venture to say most of them are not Nazi enthusiasts, other than, it seems, you and Mel Gibson.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "AfD"
  • [Between] the attempted assassination of a central European leader, and the rise of a far-right party in Germany, Europe really seems to be playing the 20th century hits right now, even if some of their former history teachers refuse to see the similarity.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "AfD"
  • [There’s] no better tribute to [the Beatles'] legacy than having terrified children wander around Ringo’s nostrils wondering if they’ll ever see their families again.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "Corn"
  • Thinking of the negatives is pretty much all I do, along with speaking the negatives out loud and making jokes about the negatives all while modeling the latest suits from "Sir Michael Gambon’s Haberdashery for Oddly Long Gentlemen".
    • Last Week Tonight -- "Corn"
  • [Unless] we force the government and the handful of large companies that control this industry to change their priorities, we’re going to be stuck where we are, like a bunch of fifth graders in the world’s largest corn maze begging for our fucking lives.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "Corn"
  • The election is in full swing right now, and it's pretty much your usual campaign -- candidates offering policy proposals, trading barbs... and occasionally getting convicted of 34 felonies and complaining about the judge.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "Trump’s Second Term"
  • That is really the Trump experience in a nutshell right there: hateful ideology, a promise to make life harder for minorities, all wrapped up in a non-sequitur so stupid it is inconveniently funny. The radical left invented trans people a few years ago? I’m sorry, what? Did they put it on Shark Tank and I somehow missed it?
    • Last Week Tonight -- "Trump’s Second Term"
  • Trump as president was sort of like a hamster in an attack helicopter. Sure, he wants to bathe the world in blood and terror—he wants it with his whole rotten hamster heart—but luckily he doesn’t know what buttons to press and his brain’s the size of a peanut, so that puts some hard limits on the damage he’s actually able to do.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "Trump’s Second Term"
  • Okay, that is essentially all the background you need to know about federal personnel management. If you’re bored, it’s over, and if you’re hard, welcome home.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "Trump’s Second Term"
  • Okay, a few things. First, you don’t need a new dating app to find conservatives online. Just go onto any existing app and filter for people who describe their views as "moderate". Any single woman in a big city can tell you "moderate" just means "I’m a right-wing nut job, but I’d like to get laid, please".
    • Last Week Tonight -- "Trump’s Second Term"
  • When you fire everyone who knows what they’re doing and only hire people who will say yes to the rich guy in charge, that’s not a recipe for good government. It’s a recipe for the Titan Submersible. I don’t want scientific research about nuclear power being done by people without experience. I don’t want my latte being made by someone without experience. Oh, it’s your first day? I’m sorry, step aside, please. Give me the barista with a sleeve of techno-tan stick-and-poke tattoos and a septum piercing who’s worked here for five years and who hates everybody here. Experience matters.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "Trump’s Second Term"
  • Project 2025 is born from an impulse as old as America. It’s an impulse that says "one class of Americans is entitled to lead, and the rest of us are lucky to be allowed to serve". That thinks there should be a limited government when it comes to rules they have to live by, but also a unitary executive to keep the rest of us in line. These are old, old ideas that have been shouted from podiums by the likes of George Wallace and Pat Buchanan but have now been placed into a new handbook for an only-too-willing president to use on day one. And in a perfect world, I would love if we had an opposing party better able to articulate a strong defense of our country’s ideals and that also consistently lived up to them. People are entitled to hope for more from the next four years than someone just not being Trump and for at least two Supreme Court justices to die. I’m not saying which ones I would prefer, but I think we all have our top two. And for anyone tempted to think, "Well, we survived Trump’s first term," first, not everyone did. And it should hopefully be very clear by now: a second Trump term really does promise to be far, far worse. Because if Trump’s first term was defined by chaos, his second could be defined by ruthless efficiency, and that should be troubling to absolutely everyone, because Project 2025 is a movement whose members joke about wanting a white homeland and insist women have to have more babies to uphold Western society. And its work could be about to be funneled through a man who happily calls his fellow Americans “vermin.” It is not subtle, it’s hard to miss, and once you see it, you cannot unsee it.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "Trump’s Second Term"
  • Listen, as a 47-year-old who looks like a 67-year-old, I clearly don’t understand TikTok, but I do know perfect film-making when I see it, and that right there is perfect film-making.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "Cake Bears"
  • "I know I talk a lot on this show about the bad stuff Ronald Reagan did. So to balance that out, I do want to mention something positive he did for the planet. In 2004 – and this is true – he died."
    • Last Week Tonight -- "Deep-Sea Mining"
  • Conservatives love to rail against “cancel culture” while trying to ban any speech they don’t like. So when it’s someone else’s symbol, it’s an affront that needs to be burned or banned, but when it’s theirs, it can be mandated by law, and anyone who doesn’t like it can just turn their head and not look.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "Flags"
  • Like many things, the way Britain operates is "kind of like the U.S., but whimsically worse."
    • Last Week Tonight -- "UK Elections"
  • "[Do] you have any idea just how unlikable you have to be to get milkshaked? No one just casually has a milkshake on their person, or thinks "I better grab one in case I encounter any assholes today." No, they think "You know what I haven’t had in a while but deserve? A milkshake. A treat." Yet despite that, Nigel Farage is clearly so much of an asshole that this hero was willing to get rid of her possible birthday milkshake having decided "this is a better use of it."
    • Last Week Tonight -- "UK Elections"
  • Do you know how much of an out-of-touch wang you have to be for people to think your whole vibe can be summed up by the word "rich"? Elon Musk’s the richest man on Earth, and it’s not even the first word that comes to mind when I think of him. That’d be "apartheid". It’s also not the first word that comes to mind when I think of Bill Gates. That would be "how-many-times-was-he-on-Epstein's-plane" which counts as one word if you say it really fast.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "UK Elections"
  • The thing about denying the press is there is, the press tends to catch you doing that, because the press is fucking there!
    • Last Week Tonight -- "UK Elections"
  • But that is the natural endpoint of austerity right there: punishing people for circumstances completely beyond their control. And Sunak is now promising to introduce what he calls the next generation of welfare reforms, including yet more cuts, justifying it by saying, “I worry very much about benefits becoming a lifestyle choice.” Which is a rich fucking statement from a rich fucking man who’d probably go into anaphylactic shock if he ever had to fly coach.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "UK Elections"
  • If a wild badger broke into your home and fucked everything up for 14 straight years, tearing everything apart, you can argue about redecorating choices later, right now, that badger’s got to fucking go. And I will say, if the U.K. can successfully rid itself of the Tories next month, that’s not cause for a shrug, that’s cause for a celebration. And I know that celebration’s not something that comes naturally to Britons. The country’s most famous motivational slogan is “Keep Calm and Carry On” and even that morale booster basically amounted to, “I know you’re about to die, but there’s no need to make a scene.” That was supposed to get us through World War II! But if Britain can extricate itself from the party whose unremitting cruelty has stained the last decade and a half of British life, that does deserve to be marked.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "UK Elections"
  • The UK managed to kick the Tories out after fourteen years, France narrowly managed to keep the far-right out of power, and Kendrick Lamar released a music video for the spectacularly hostile "Not Like Us" on the Fourth of July, and that is the end of the good things that happened.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "RNC & "Migrant Crime""
  • [You] expect to see certain things at the RNC -- elephant logos, cowboy hats, a massive spike in Grindr usage -- but "a message of unity" is not something traditionally associated with that event or indeed, this man!
    • Last Week Tonight -- "RNC & "Migrant Crime""
  • If you’d asked me, “What’s next to this guy, just out of the frame?” and gave me a thousand guesses, there is no way I’m saying, “a lumpy bulldog lounging in an armchair like it’s being interviewed at the 92nd Street Y.” And don’t drag a bulldog to the RNC. Life’s hard enough for them. To have the soul of a wolf trapped inside the body of a wrinkly bowling ball? To be inbred over centuries into the perfect genetic car crash? That dog doesn’t deserve to be made into a prop at the RNC, it deserves a rawhide bone and an apology from humanity!
    • Last Week Tonight -- "RNC & "Migrant Crime""
  • I do not like that man, Ted Cruz. I do not like his toxic views. I do not like his nasty speeches, I do not like the shit he preaches. I do not like him when he fishes, I do not like him when he kisses. Pulling off that beard, he ain't. That man, Ted Cruz... looks like a taint.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "RNC & "Migrant Crime""
  • The thing is, if you want to prevent crime and death, that’s a great idea, and there are absolutely ways to do that. But when you draw a circle around a few members of a particular group—especially one identifiable by race or nationality—then generalize about what this means about all of them, no matter what you say, you’re not having a reasoned debate about crime or safety. You’re being racist.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "RNC & "Migrant Crime""
  • So, what can we do? Well, I don’t know if you noticed, but we’re currently four months out from an election, so just assume that the underlying “what can we do” for most of our U.S. stories from now until then is going to be “do not vote for Donald Trump again.” That seems like that should be barely worth saying, like “drink water” or “go to the dentist,” but it does bear repeating because… Be honest: when was the last time you drank water? Or, indeed, went to the dentist? Exactly.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "RNC & "Migrant Crime""
  • There are so many things we, as Americans, do have to resign ourselves to: airline cancellations, a national anthem with too many high notes, Glen Powell inevitably starring in a Field of Dreams remake. We can’t fight those things. But we can, and must fight this. And at the end of this week, it should be clear to absolutely everyone: it doesn’t matter if Trump and his party say they have a "new tone" or nominally call for "unity," or throw a cute dog onstage for some reason. They have told us who they are, they’ve told us what they want, they literally put it on a sign and waved it in everyone’s face. They’re trying to win this election by pointing a finger at immigrants, and the only appropriate response is to take a cue from the so-called "symbol of the Biden presidency" and say "fuck that shit!"
    • Last Week Tonight -- "RNC & "Migrant Crime""
  • Okay. I don’t usually do this, but I want you to pause this right now, and write down what you think you just saw. I don’t want to do this for you, just write down what you feel you just witnessed there, then come back and I’ll tell you what I think, okay?
    • Last Week Tonight -- "The World Games""
  • And you might be thinking: "Why are you telling me about any of this right now?" Well, first: I dunno. The world’s a pretty shitty place right now. Do you not want to be told about Mr. Panda? Would you rather talk about how someone managed to get a semiautomatic rifle past the Secret Service? Or are we allowed to have some fucking fun for a second?! Please! Let me! Have this!
    • Last Week Tonight -- "The World Games""
  • It's not like the Geneva Convention says "The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies... unless there's, like, really convenient shopping and a super manageable commute to Jerusalem".
    • Last Week Tonight -- "The West Bank"
  • The whole settlement project has been massively encouraged by the Israeli government to such a degree that it is hard to argue that living in one is an apolitical choice. Building on stolen land is an inherently political act. It is also, by the way, copyright infringement.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "The West Bank"
  • Does apartheid actually have a smell? Because I'll be honest, until now, I was pretty sure it had only produced the one kind of Musk.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "The West Bank"
  • Wow. "I decide what the law is, and your actions are illegal." That is a bold fucking attitude. It's the sort of thing an American cop would only be comfortable tattooing above their sleeve line.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "The West Bank"
  • Human dignity has to be a prerequisite for negotiating anything. And Palestinians in the West Bank have their dignity challenged hundreds of times a day! From having beer bottles thrown at their heads, to being detained for kicking balls near fences, to having their homes stolen, bulldozed, and far, far worse. And to be clear, dignity is the absolute beginning of this. What's required is justice. And the call for that is getting louder.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "The West Bank"
  • Look, a phrase that gets brought up a lot with regard to Israel is "never again" -- an anti-genocide slogan often invoked in memory of the Holocaust, and it's always been open to two interpretations: there's the one that means "This must never again happen to the Jewish people", and the one that means "This must never again happen to any people anywhere." And in the West Bank, as in Gaza right now, it's pretty clear which one the Israeli government has favored.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "The West Bank"
  • I guess, at the very least, I just want my government to have the moral backbone that's been shown by Ben and fucking Jerry's. Please, just try not to get morally outflanked by the makers of Impretzively Fudged! That cannot be too much to ask!
    • Last Week Tonight -- "The West Bank"
  • He's promised to be "the greatest environmental President in American history" and has talked about a bunch of things that we have covered, like so-called "forever chemicals" and PFAS and the proliferation of microplastics. You know, all the fun stuff that you expect from our "comedy" show. Which, at this point, should probably be called You Have Already Been Poisoned with the Duolingo Owl's Biological Uncle.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "RFK Jr."
  • Okay, so before we go any further, let me just say this: I also don't want to be doing this. I don't want to be debunking his arguments at length! […] But he's made so many confident assertions there, and if you leave even one unchallenged, people will think "Well, maybe there's something to it."
    • Last Week Tonight -- "RFK Jr."
  • It is the ultimate conspiracist code -- "Nothing is a coincidence except when I do it".
    • Last Week Tonight -- "RFK Jr."
  • If you like that [RFK Jr.] is against polluters and Big Pharma, I get it! We criticize them all the time! But when we do that, we make sure we've got our facts right and don't just pull them out of the ass of our best workout jeans.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "RFK Jr."
  • Picking apart policy proposals when the alternative is Trump is a bit like debating which color to paint the living room when your house is on fucking fire! You kind of have to prioritize the imminent threat!
    • Last Week Tonight -- "Election 2024"
  • I know it is hard to imagine things getting worse on this but to be fair, Trump has always been one to roll up his sleeves, throw on a very unflattering vest, and dig us into a new layer of hell.
    • Last Week Tonight -- "Election 2024"
  • Look, I know this isn't inspiring to hear, but politics isn't always inspiring; it's transactional. It rarely matches our greatest hopes and dreams. I'll be honest: I really didn't want the first vote I cast as an American citizen to be for Joe fucking Biden, but here we are. Here is how I look at it: The struggle for justice isn't just about what happens on election day. It's a fight waged constantly -- day in, day out. In protests on the streets, meetings with legislators, and in the thousand small actions that cumulatively move the government forward an inch at a time. Abbas Alawieh, the co-founder of the Uncommitted Movement, has urged Democrat voters to "pair their vote, their support for Vice President Harris with a public commitment to pressure her to stop sending weapons, should she become President. As for Ruwa Romman, she voted for Harris in Georgia -- another critical swing state -- while doing a vote swap with someone in a blue state who cast a protest vote on her behalf. And she explained her Harris vote by saying "My vote is a promise — a promise that I and those who stand with me will not stop demanding the end of mass slaughter and violence everywhere", and that is the point. Elections alone aren't sufficient for large-scale change, but they're absolutely necessary for it to ever happen. Because it's the day when essentially you get to choose who you'd prefer to be pushing for the next four years and where you'll be pushing them from. Look, I love this country. I'm an American. I chose to be here. In the words of the late Lee Greenwood, "I'm proud to be an American". And I'd argue there's nothing more American than having a healthy adversarial relationship with those in power, even if you voted for them!
    • Last Week Tonight -- "Election 2024"
  • If what you want is a centrist candidate that's quiet on trans issues, tough on the border, distances itself from Palestinians, talks a lot about law and order, and reaches out to moderate Republicans, that candidate existed, and she just lost!
    • Last Week Tonight -- Trump's Reelection

About Oliver

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  • On the 6th May 2011 episode of The Bugle John created the phrase "fuckyoulogy", an obituary for someone recently deceased who most certainly will not be missed.
  • Here's a guy who likes to take boring topics and make them interesting. If you can do that for an administrative process like the FCC on net neutrality, imagine the level of interest in issues people are even more familiar with at the state level.
  • The knowing know that police reform, that abortion rights, that labor unions are important, but go no further: What is important, after all, is to signal that you know these things. What is important is to launch links and mockery at those who don't. The Good Facts are enough: Anybody who fails to capitulate to them is part of the Problem, is terminally uncool. No persuasion, only retweets. Eye roll, crying emoji, forward to John Oliver for sick burns.
  • When John Oliver told viewers that if they opposed abortion they had to change the channel until the last minute of the program, when they would be shown “an adorable bucket of sloths,” he perfectly encapsulated the tone of these shows: one imbued with the conviction that they and their fans are intellectually and morally superior to those who espouse any of the beliefs of the political right. Two days before the election, every talking head on television was assuring us that Trump didn’t have a chance, because he lacked a “ground game.” After his victory, one had to wonder whether some part of his ground game had been conducted night after night after night on television, under flattering studio lights and with excellent production values and comedy writing.
  • For years, Oliver has criticized the estate tax, which opponents, in a smart linguistic move dreamed up by Frank Luntz, long ago labeled the “death tax”; and the tax code’s raft of loopholes that benefit special interests he identified as oil companies and hedge fund managers. Oliver even briefly established the bogus Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption to draw attention to tax-exempt status granted to churches and charities.
    Back in July 2014, in an episode in which he lamented the "Wealth Gap in America” (which has resulted in the richest one percent of Americans controlling 20 percent of annual income), Oliver said, “At this point the rich are just running up the score…What sets America apart is that we are actively introducing policies that disproportionately benefit the wealthy,” such as tax cuts and loopholes like trusts.
    So it’s a little surprising to discover that just months before, Oliver had a tax attorney set up two revocable trusts, one for him and one for his wife, to hide the couple’s purchase of a $9.5 million Manhattan penthouse. Then he used a tax loophole created by Donald Trump himself back in the 1970s, when the current president was merely a prominent New York real estate developer and aspiring celebrity author.
  • No one takes more glee in dumping their shit on middle America than John Oliver. [...] If he delivered the exact same words sounding as if he went to school with Miley Cyrus, no one would take him seriously.
    • Derek Hunter, Outrage, Inc.: How the Liberal Mob Ruined Science, Journalism, and Hollywood (Harper/Broadside 2018) p. 55
  • There is no "fact-checking" of John Oliver, Beyonce or Kim Kardashian. They're entertainers, not politicians or journalists.
    • Derek Hunter, Outrage, Inc.: How the Liberal Mob Ruined Science, Journalism, and Hollywood (Harper/Broadside 2018) p. 55

See also

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Wikipedia
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