On Sunday night's Last Week Tonight, host John Oliver delved deeply into the topic of transgender rights. The comic argued that those opposed to transgenderism – or even gender-neutral bathrooms – are on the wrong side of history: “[T]his is a civil rights issue, if you are not willing to support transgender people for their own sake, at least do it for your own, because we've been through this before. We know how this thing ends. If you take the anti-civil rights side and deny people access to something they're entitled to, history is not going to be kind to you.”
Last Week Tonight
By Alatheia Larsen | April 27, 2015 | 3:39 PM EDT
It was another trip to Oz on the April 26 Last Week Tonight show. Host John Oliver roasted Dr. Mehmet Oz’s sensationalized response to a Columbia letter calling for the university to drop the embattled TV doctor.
It was classic Oliver, showing just how inadequate and amusing Oz’s defense was. To set the stage, a little background is needed.
By Laura Flint | July 21, 2014 | 12:30 PM EDT
John Oliver used the Sunday July 20 edition of HBO’s Last Week Tonight as a platform to condemn the privatization of the American prison system. Rather than describing both sides of the issue, Oliver told horror stories from prisons that outsource healthcare and food provision without mentioning similar stories from publicly run prisons. According to Oliver, the verdict is straightforward: “private prisons are bad.”
The British comedian spent 18 of his 30 minute show decrying the “drug laws that do seem to be a little draconian, and a lot racist,” as well as the “dismantling of our mental health system” that lead to America having “more prisoners at the moment than China.” Of course, he failed to mention that the Chinese government usually chooses the death penalty over imprisonment, and according to CNN, “executed more people than any other country last year.” [See video below. Click here for MP3 audio]
By Connor Williams | July 14, 2014 | 5:15 PM EDT
In an extended screed against the horrors of income inequality, HBO’s John Oliver ripped into his adopted home country for its inaction on this supposedly devastating issue. The British-born Last Week Tonight host showed clip after clip dedicated to furthering his point, stating with sarcasm that the “roaring 20s were famously the party that never ended,” in reference to the looming depression that followed.
Oliver accused the rich of “running up the score. If our economy was a little league game, someone would have called it by now.” The former Daily Show contributor continued by claiming that the United States has introduced “policies that disproportionately favor the wealthy,” as if broad-based tax cuts benefit only the 1%, or something. In trying to identify why America is so intent on advocating such policies, Oliver found his culprit: [MP3 audio here; video below]