John Oliver last week tonight
capt 219 see dailyshow bak
neglected, tho fighting to good fight
msnbc post rachel Last Word always includes in montage; staple on AN
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offered clarence 1 mil to quit
hmmn pop psych “preach” vs short attn span? but 3 hr rogan? low effort
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HEGS 11 26
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Oct 25, 2026 #lastweektonight
Ahead of the midterms, John Oliver devotes an entire episode to discussing the rising prominence of extremist beliefs within the Republican Party – from white nationalism to antisemitism – and what it all has to do with Vandy potato chips.
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4 minutes, 33 seconds
prominent Republicans seems to be increasingly the norm. Tennessee's Andy Ogles has posted Muslims don't belong in American society. Senator Tommy Tubville
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4 minutes, 42 seconds
has posted we must immediately ban all Islam immigrants. And just last month, Bo French, Republican candidate for Texas Railroad Commissioner attracted a lot of attention after doing this.
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4 minutes, 53 seconds
Following that big Longhorns win on Saturday, French posted a photo of this group of students saying, among other
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5 minutes
things, quote, "Social media is exposing how many Americans have been displaced by foreigners. It's everywhere and far
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12 minutes, 20 seconds
to which Tucker said we'll circle back to that and then just as Stalin did when he meant to save millions of peasants from starving to death probably just
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12 minutes, 28 seconds
forgot to. Now, in the aftermath of that sitdown, battle lines were drawn across the political right, with many arguing
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12 minutes, 35 seconds
Tucker shouldn't have given such a softball interview to Fuentes, especially since it gave him access to one of the largest audiences he's ever
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12 minutes, 43 seconds
had. But the Heritage Foundation, one of the largest, most influential think tanks in America, initially stood by Tucker, with whom it had recently had an
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12 minutes, 51 seconds
advertising deal. In fact, its president Kevin Roberts even put out a video in which he said, "We will always defend our friends against the slander of bad
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12 minutes, 58 seconds
actors who serve someone else's agenda." That includes Tucker Carlson. And he also said Tucker was under attack from a venomous coalition and mentioned
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13 minutes, 7 seconds
pressure from the globalist class. Both, if you are not aware, pretty notable dog whistles. Now, in the wake of that video, dozens of Heritage staff members
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13 minutes, 15 seconds
departed, as did several board members, and an anti-semitism task force severed ties with the foundation. Eventually, Robert admitted he'd used a terrible
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13 minutes, 24 seconds
choice of words and addressed his remaining staff in an all hands meeting in which he tried unconvincingly to plead ignorance about the issues with Carlson and Fuentes.
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13 minutes, 33 seconds
I don't actually don't have time to consume a lot of news.
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13 minutes, 39 seconds
I don't mean this as a as a fake attempt at light-heartedness. I I I consume a lot of sports.
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13 minutes, 46 seconds
I don't consume a lot of podcasts, not even hours. I don't consume a lot of news and that ignorance should have told
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13 minutes, 54 seconds
me ask around. Wow. It is one thing to say you don't watch a lot of news if you're
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remotely young boys have since either apologized or claimed that their posts were just jokes. Okay. But what that all
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21 minutes, 23 seconds
shows is that in politics, people in their 20s and 30s can rise fast. The distance between college Republican and
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21 minutes, 31 seconds
communications director can be just a couple of years. Now, as for the whole they're just shitty streamers argument.
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21 minutes, 37 seconds
These days, streamers can be a lot closer to the center of power than you might think. For instance, here's one named Stu Peters bragging about how he's been able to jpill his audience, an
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21 minutes, 46 seconds
anti-Semitic term for showing the malign influence of Jews. And I'll warn you, this next video sucks pretty hard. But if you stick with it, you do get to see him take some increasingly wild swings.
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21 minutes, 57 seconds
As everybody knows, the Stu Peters Show and this network broadly have been and still are to this day at the forefront of jpilling the American people. If
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22 minutes, 5 seconds
societal ills were a bunch of stones in the middle of a field somewhere and all of us got together walking around turning up the stones to see what's
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22 minutes, 12 seconds
underneath them, under every single one of these stones, you would find a little Jew man grubbing his hands, smirking, wearing his tiny hat, trying to get over
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22 minutes, 20 seconds
on the Goyam trying to kill the Goyam. When it really comes down to it, just think of all that these people are responsible for. user,
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22 minutes, 29 seconds
central banking, communism, bolevik communism, the hodommore, the transatlantic slave trade, transgenderism,
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22 minutes, 37 seconds
[laughter] the normalization of homosexuality, the normalization of pedophilia, transgenderism for kids, open borders, white replacement, white
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22 minutes, 45 seconds
genocide, the Hebrew immigrant aid society, Apac, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the assassination of Charlie Kirk, abortion,
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22 minutes, 54 seconds
which is just a modern-day Malakian sacrifice ritual. I mean, I'll say this, that man is thorough.
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The problem [laughter] is that sounds less like a coherent conspiracy, more like what Alex Jones would say after being kicked in the head by a horse. And
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well, I know that guy sounds completely insane. What's even crazier is guests on his show have included these three
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sitting Republican congressman, Carrie Lake, [snorts] and oh yeah, the director of the FBI, Cash Patel, who appeared on Peters's show eight times
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23 minutes, 27 seconds
from 2021 to 2022. And look, maybe they all actually like Stu Peters, or maybe they just thought that they could
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pretend to in order to keep his audience aligned with their party. And you may be thinking, what's the real difference there? To which I'd say, for sure.
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23 minutes, 42 seconds
Because here's the thing. While Cole Ro might want to pretend this is some anomaly in a party lovingly handcrafted
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23 minutes, 49 seconds
over the years to be inclusive and welcoming, that is some deeply revisionist horseshit. The farright fringe currently rising up in his party
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23 minutes, 57 seconds
is not remotely new. From the John Burch Society through Barry Goldwater and Pap Buchanan, the Republican Party's always left its door a jar for bigots, cranks,
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and conspiracy theorists. Have you ever listened to the Nixon tapes? They would do numbers on Rumble today. Sponsored by
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24 minutes, 13 seconds
who else but Vandy potato chips, the chip for the truly discriminating consumer. Anyway, the party's big tent
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24 minutes, 22 seconds
philosophy, sometimes summed up as no enemies to the right, has long meant it's been reluctant to fully disavow someone for being too extreme. And while
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24 minutes, 30 seconds
gatekeepers in conservative media used to be able to keep the racist dog whistles just below audible levels, thanks to the rise of the internet,
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24 minutes, 38 seconds
right-wing influencers like these two are now fully off leash with every incentive to get more outrage in order to draw more eyeballs that they can then
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monetize. And that brings us to our second question. What are Republicans trying to do about it? Well, the truth is as little as they think they can get
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away with. Because the rise of the online right was one of the key things that helped push Trump into the White House a decade ago. And at the time, a
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lot of establishment conservatives went out of their way to overlook the fact that their candidate had just been endorsed by David Duke and had the support of the literal Ku Klux Clan.
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It's worth remembering that Trump himself was asked about the fact that he had David Duke support and this was his response. Will you unequivocally condemn
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25 minutes, 20 seconds
David Duke and say that you don't want his vote or that of other white supremacists in this election?
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Well, just so you understand, I don't know anything about David Duke. Okay? I don't know anything about what you're even talking about with white supremacy
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or white supremacists. Honestly, I don't know David Duke. I don't believe I've ever met him. I'm pretty sure I didn't meet him. And I just don't know anything about him.
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Yeah. After you get over the initial shock there of seeing a glowing babyfaced Trump who's able to speak without sounding like he has an extra couple of flaps in his throat.
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You have time to process what a truly terrible answer that was. And while under pressure, he did eventually disavow Duke. He and other leading
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conservatives still seem compelled to try and have it both ways. In fact, at the height of the controversy over Tucker's Fuentes interview at a Turning
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Point USA conference, Ben Shapiro most annoying boy emmeritus called Fuentes a Hitler apologist Nazi loving anti-American piece of refugees and
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called Tucker interviewing him an act of moral imbecility. But when JD Vance took the stage, he very pointedly said, "I
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didn't bring a list of conservatives to denounce or deplatform." And got pretty sanctimonious about it. President Trump did not build the greatest coalition in
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politics by running his supporters through endless self-defeating purity tests. We have far more important work
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to do than cancelling each other. We have got to build and President Donald Trump is a builder.
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Okay, I'll say this. No one takes a stand about not taking a stand quite like JD Vance. You know what? Given a
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choice between Nazis and non-Nazis, let me unequivocally state boldly and clearly that I would like to talk about
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something else, please. And while to be fair, Vance has publicly condemned anti-semitism. And when asked directly
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has condemned Fuentes, even saying at one point he could eat it is noticeable the extent to which he's paired that condemnation with attacks on
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affirmative action or immigration issues where he and Fuentes have some common ground. At one point he even told an interviewer, "If you believe racism is
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27 minutes, 25 seconds
bad, Fuentes should occupy one second of your focus, and the people with actual political power who work so hard to discriminate against white men should
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occupy many hours of it." In fact, in that turning point speech, he had some notable lines that really wouldn't feel out of place in a Fuentes rant from
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mocking Soros das and Jasmine Crockett's street girl persona to telling this fun joke. Omar Fatay was Ilon Omar's
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candidate for mayor of Mogan issue. What I mean Minneapolis.
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Little Freudian slip there. What a Oh, sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. [cheering] Little little Freudian
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slip there. What a It's no wonder Fuentes himself has said
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JD Vance panders to the far right but simply doesn't want the baggage of associating with the far right. And it's not just Vance trying to have it both
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ways. A year after Kevin Roberts finally condemned that Fuentes Carlson interview. He attended a National Conservatism conference where he noticeably declined to even say their
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names instead proposing a different approach. I'm sometimes asked about one or two of these podcasters in particular.
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Let me say here that as idiotic and absurd as their rhetoric and conspiracy
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theories can be that they are irrelevant irrelevant to the conservative coalition we are building in America.
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What I've learned is that the worst thing you can do is to engage with them because speaking as a parent of four, when you have a toddler who's
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misbehaving, you just need to ignore them.
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Okay? I mean, that's pretty bad parenting advice in general, but it also isn't remotely applicable here. If your
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toddler's throwing a tantrum because you made pasta in the wrong shape, sure, ignore it. Parent how you want. But if your toddler hosts a 4-hour podcast in
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which he discusses his favorite Himmler deep cuts, I'd think about maybe intervening. Anyway, I am very sorry for
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Kevin Roberts's kids, but congrats to their therapist. I guess it's not often that you have game tape to analyze during a session. But as much as Roberts
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might want to pretend that these figures and their views are irrelevant to his party or or Vance might insist that they only deserve a second of attention, that
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is a hard case to make given how prevalent some of this extremism now is.
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30 minutes
Because it's not just the candidates you've already seen. Ohio Senator John Houston recently fired his 25-year-old political director for using Nazi
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soldiers as his profile photo. And Georgia's Republican candidate for Senate, Mike Collins, has come under heavy criticism for having multiple ties
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30 minutes, 16 seconds
to white nationalists, including, by the way, his own son-in-law, who is apparently a pro-white nationalist and social media influencer. And if you are
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thinking that that sounds like a pretty unhinged combo, you'd be right about that. As scrolling through his content, you quickly go from posts like why you
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should eat red meat through, you must stop watching porn and dealing with loneliness. Quick side note, the hat's probably not helping there.
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To stuff like this Telegram post whose caption explains that it contains quote, "All of the proof Jews control our government through finance," which he
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said, "My wife made, who you'll remember is Mike Collins's own daughter." And if you're thinking, "Well, that is just his kid." You should know Collins's former
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30 minutes, 57 seconds
chief of staff, was on a group chat with famous white nationalists including Nick Fuentes and Richard Spent. And Collins himself once responded to an
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31 minutes, 5 seconds
anti-Semitic Twitter account that said of a Washington Post reporter, "In case you were wondering, yes, she is meaning Jewish with," never was a second
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31 minutes, 14 seconds
thought. And while Collins has completely denied any anti-semitic intent, saying you'll just see stuff that ain't there, are you sure about
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31 minutes, 21 seconds
that, Mike? Cuz it sure feels like there's a lot there to see. And it's not just Collins. There are other worrying candidates further down ballot like
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31 minutes, 30 seconds
Marshall Rosson, who's currently running for Florida State House. He attended the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally and marched with the League of the
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31 minutes, 37 seconds
South, a racist and anti-Semitic neoconedfederate group. And while he has since tried to downplay that, saying, quote, "We arrived late on the second
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day after the march." Not only is that in no way exonerating, I'll point out that once he did show up,
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this video shows him getting a pretty warm welcome.
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Marshall's finally here. Hey, good to see y'all. What's up, brother? See you, man. Yes, sir.
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32 minutes, 5 seconds
How you doing, Mrs. Ros?
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Yeah, they seemed pretty happy to see old Marshall there. And while it went by kind of fast, it is worth noting that that friendly exchange took place right
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next to a swastika flag. And if you have a conversation right next to a swastika flag that does not begin, hey, the
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is that swastika flag doing here? I feel like that's already a pretty good tell.
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32 minutes, 31 seconds
And it gets even worse because Rosson later stood among the marchers at the rally. That is him right there. And that is the guy who not long after killed a
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counter demonstrator with his car. So condemning Rosson should be the lowest possible bar to clear. And yet, when a
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32 minutes, 46 seconds
reporter asked 28 Florida Republicans, many of whom had endorsed Rosson if any of this changed their mind about him, only three even bothered to respond,
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with one Byron Donald sending back a boilerplate condemnation of racism generally without mentioning Rosson by name, and the other two actually
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standing by him. The point here is far-right views in the Republican party are by no means irrelevant, and they are way past the point of being ignorable.
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Some of them are literally on the ballot in 9 days in an election, by the way, where the single biggest campaign spender is this guy, you know, of the Adolf Aloha wave.
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And some longtime members of Farright movement, seemed fully aware of these developments. In fact, when Jared Taylor, the founder of the White Nationalist New Century Foundation, was
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33 minutes, 33 seconds
recently invited to speak at a Maryland university, he recorded a video afterwards in which he both shouted out the guy that invited him there, Colin McKvers, who's running for the state
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33 minutes, 41 seconds
legislature, by the way, under the slogan, "It's time to fight for our home and pointed to the larger shift that he
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saw underway." The Republican party is in effect the party of white people.
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Look at a Trump rally. It might as well be a meeting of the sons and daughters of the Confederacy. There's a big difference between old Republicans and
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young Republicans. I can go to a meeting of old Republicans and no one knows who I am. Young Republicans treat me like a
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hero. And even a few old Republicans are beginning to see the light. Voters will decide in November how well they like
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34 minutes, 18 seconds
Marshall Rosson, Bo French, and Colin McAvers. And to all you Republicans who know what's at stake, your time to stand
Colin McEvers SU Speech: Maryland White Republican Council
- 7:03
- Apr 30, 2026Colin McEvers, Chairman of the Maryland College GOP, gives opening remarks for a speaking engagement and Q&A featuring renowned White Advocate Jared Taylor. Colin announces the formation of the ...
- Created by:Maryland Maverick959 views
- DelmarvaNow.com
- https://www.delmarvanow.com › picture-gallery › news › local › maryland › 2026 › 04 › 29 › protestors-gather-outside-white-advocacy-speech-at-salisbury-university › 89865036007
Protestors gather outside 'white advocacy' speech at Salisbury University
- Apr 30, 2026Salisbury University College Democrats held a counter-protest against Jared Taylor, a white nationalist, April 29, 2026, outside Devilbiss Hall.
- New York Times
- https://www.nytimes.com › 2026 › 05 › 19 › us › college-republicans-split-far-right.html
College Republicans Split Over Whether to Embrace the Far Right - The ...
- May 19, 2026The head of Maryland College Republicans, Colin McEvers, a Salisbury student, introduced Mr. Taylor as someone who might have the key to "save our country, to keep it from becoming a non-English ...
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up for your people may come sooner than you think. Oh, I don't like anything about that. I don't like the way he
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pronounced the word fight. And I especially don't like it coming out of the mouth of a man who looks like Carl from up if he went down some dark paths
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after Ellie died. The one thing I'll agree with him about there is that the time for choosing is here. Some of the candidates you've seen tonight, whether
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they are running for the first time or are up for reelection or a new job, are currently favored to win. But even if they all lose, and I hope they
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do, the party that put them on the ballot still has to reckon with how it got to this point. And while I'm sure mainstream Republicans will keep trying
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to dodge this issue, many are clearly betting that they'll be able to make it through the midterms without having to take a principled stand that could lose
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them a single vote. Make no mistake, this party is at a crossroads right now.
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Their current reader is their current leader is by the standards of both the constitution and even the most generous cardiologist on his way out.
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And the next iteration of this party is currently being decided amid a rising chorus of white nationalist, open
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neo-Nazis and bigots. And while I know that is a pretty ugly picture to paint of their party, if Republicans are not
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willing to actually stand up and do something about it, then I'm afraid, much like a certain politician running in upstate New York, it might soon be
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the only picture of it they have left.
10 26
The Republican Party & The Far Right: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
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BENZ MUSK RUBIO cornholed by jo 3 26
953,672 views Mar 8, 2026 #lastweektonight
John Oliver discusses the United States Agency for International Development, why the Trump Administration has gutted it, who is being impacted, and how the Cha Cha Slide can help us get to the bottom of this.
...0:21
the United States Agency for International Development or USAD. It was once described as the world's single
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largest humanitarian donor, providing aid in the form of disaster relief, global health, food assistance, climate
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resilience, education, and much more. And when Trump returned to the White House last year, he made it clear that
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the agency was in his sights. USID run by radical lunatics.
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It sounds so nice. US aid. Isn't that beautiful? But it's a whole big scam.
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When you look at USA ID, that's a uh that's a fraud. The whole thing is a
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fraud. Very little uh very little being put to good use. Okay, so set aside the irony of Donald
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Trump of Trump University accusing anything of being a fraud. You can't
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just call something a scam because you don't like it. I want to call low-rise jeans a scam. I feel like Peppa Pigs a
1:16
fraud. I believe radical lunatics run Jamba Juice. liquid fruit isn't a treat. It's cough syrup at best. But even I,
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agonize, my feelings don't make any of those thoughts true. But Trump was fixated on USA ID and its spending,
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which is a little surprising given it amounted to less than 1% of the federal budget. Yet Trump and Elon Musk quickly
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dismantled the agency with Elon at one point proudly tweeting he'd spent the weekend feeding USA ID into the wood
1:43
chipper. And a lot of MAGA Republicans were ecstatic about that. Right-wing influencer Benny Johnson even made a
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trip to DC to celebrate. I just got into Washington DC. I had to see it for myself to believe it. USID
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is no more. Check it out. There we go. Got the duct
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tape. Got the doors all closed off.
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Got the Got everything all blacked out up there.
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had to see it to believe it. The uh the consequences of Doge....num 1 selfie spot
...
:47
have issues. And even then, half of that was reclaimed. But even without knowing that, it's tough to take waste
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allegations from Elon seriously, given his Doge team seem to have no idea what the programs they were cutting even did.
10:00
ProPublica recently revealed that people at the agency watch as their brand new chief of staff scrolled down a
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spreadsheet of programs, turning rows red, yellow, or green every few seconds, never asking a single question. Then
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realizing that the bread programs were slated to be cut, they frantically started editing descriptions so he'd at
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least know what those programs did. And while the administration at one point insisted the programs would be spared if
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they were considered lifesaving, just listen to this former USAD employee tell a Senate roundt how those decisions got
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made. When we kept flagged a long list of awards that were needed for life- saving activities, we were told that the
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problem was the names of those awards didn't make clear that they were life-saving. Um, it didn't have the word
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life-saving in the name. And therefore, it was very hard for the secretary's team to to understand which awards
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should or should not be terminated. And so, the implication was that if we had been more clear in the names that these
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were life-saving awards, maybe then they would have been saved. Now, obviously that is stupid for a thousand reasons. first because
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everybody knows that names aren't usually literal descriptions of what you are getting. It's the reason that
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ketchup isn't called salty tomato inspired glo. Conjunctivitis isn't called on your finger then touched
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your eye disease. And this show isn't called facts you read in a New Yorker 18 months ago with what seems to be a
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middle-aged man. It's called poetic license. And it is notable that for all
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the talk of fraud, even Jeremy Leuen, a Doge guy who eventually served as deputy administrator and COO of the agency and
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who often personally decided which program should be axed, later admitted
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his team didn't find much. You know, we talk about people talk
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about fraud, right? Doge didn't find that much fraud at USAD. It's sort of a definitional question. What is fraud? In...
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seemed like a whole lot of words for racist. And I don't think that's a definitional issue. Now, before Leuen
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got that job at USAD, his position was held by a different member of the Trump administration called Pete Morocco. He
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actually worked there during Trump's first term, too, and attempted to delay or halt dozens of programs, but
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ultimately wasn't successful. Which is why when he came back last year, one former official said, "What we're seeing
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right now is Pete's Revenge Tour." And for the record, Pete's Revenge Tour sounds like a band composed entirely of
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former middle school football coaches who got fired because kids kept getting heat stroke and all of whom were at the
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capital on January 6th. And I only say that because Morocco did apparently storm the capital on January 6th with
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with his wife, by the way. Couple goals. But the thing is, as eager as this
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administration has been to eradicate any funding it claimed was going to woke causes and singling out small individual
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expenditures for ridicule, it still doesn't explain wholly dismantling this
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agency. Because traditionally, administrations have been free to make sure foreign aid reflects their values,
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whatever those values are. Just listen to the man who ran USD under George W.
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Bush explain that to Congress. When the Democrats took over, they moved the
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agency to the left. I moved it to the right. The Obama people actually said I was very right-wing. I was the most
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right-wing administrator in the history of the agency. And yet, the career people followed what I wanted to do in
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the agency. We put heavy emphasis on economic growth. I believe in economic growth. I believe in the private sector.
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I believe in free markets. That's what aid does. The notion that aid is some kind of a Marxist
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institution is absolutely ridiculous. Okay. Exactly. Think of USID like the
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chaa slide. You can slide it to the left. You can slide it to the right and
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the next administration can then take it back. Now y
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even during Trump's first term, he didn't take USAID apart. He just shifted
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its focus by deprioritizing areas like maternal health and family planning. while increasing funding for emergency
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responses and digital infrastructure. All of which raises the question, what changed this time to make them want to
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put the agency through a wood chipper? Well, I'm afraid the answer to that is incredibly dumb. Because many observers
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think it has something to do with this guy, Mike Benz, a far-right conservative activist. Elon's fixation on USA ID
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appears to date to late 2024 when Benz appeared on Joe Rogan's podcast and all over the agency. Elon then
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retweeted, replied to, or mentioned Benz over 160 times in the next year, sharing
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things like, "USID was a viper nest of radical left Marxists who hate America and USAD is a criminal organization."
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Even that wood chipper tweet was in reply to Mike Benz. And and it's worth
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taking a minute to explain who Mike Benz is. He worked a few jobs during Trump's
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first term, including a brief stint at the State Department. and he is, to put it mildly, a chronically online lunatic.
16:14
Among the things he's posted are this portrait of Trump made out of shakuterie
16:19
and this AI slot video where he farts in former FBI director Chris Ray's mouth.
16:24
He also once posted about the jeans he got for his birthday. And you're thinking, well, hold on, that doesn't seem so bad to me. I'll point out these
16:31
were the jeans. That's right. He got 911 jeans for his birthday. You can
16:38
apparently buy those jeans online for $180. And the reason I know that is, oh,
16:43
you. How little do you think of me, but it gets worse because Ben apparently
16:52
used to be a content creator who went by frame game and pushed a variety of far-right narratives, including the
16:57
great replacement theory, and made montages urging white viewers to unite under the banner of race. and he is
17:03
fixated on the notion that USID is basically a front. Here is how he put it
17:08
to Rogan in that interview that got Elon's attention. There's no aid in in US A by the way. That's your brain is
17:15
being tricked when you see the phrase US A. It's not an aid organization. The aid in US A stands for agent US agency for
17:22
international development. Yeah, it's an acronym, Mike.
17:28
It's it's an acronym. We all know how those work. You haven't exactly blown
17:34
Roswell open there. But that's just the beginning. Ben has also said when it's too dirty for the CIA, you give it to
17:41
USAD, which for the record is obviously not the case. We all know when a job is too dirty for the CIA, you arm Afghan
17:47
mojaheden and train them in cell warfare with a stated goal of beating back Soviet influence in the region. And then coincidentally, they team up with Osama
17:53
bin Laden, who will later carry out the very attack Mike Ben is so obsessed with, he got birthday denim merch. And
17:59
look, that is not to say there aren't small grains of truth underneath all of Benz's Look, USAD was not
18:07
perfect. As one of its former heads of global health wrote, it sometimes fostered dependency. It could be
18:12
inefficient. Too much of its funding went to international institutions rather than local ones. And yes, its history does include episodes in which
18:18
aid was bent to American military and political aims, including an incident in 2010 when it created a social networking
18:24
service in Cuba designed to kindle opposition to the government. And I do not like the fact that the agency did
18:30
that. In general, I like my regime changes the way I like my produce locally sourced. But let's not pretend
18:38
instances like that were anything other than a tiny portion of what USID did. Also, as the people of Venezuela and
18:45
Iran can attest, when the US wants regime change nowadays, it tends to do so pretty directly. So, it's not
18:52
like any of those criticisms justify getting rid of the agency entirely. But
18:57
to hear Benz tell it, USAD is basically the root of all this world's problems.
19:02
USAD is one of the most disturbing organizations in the entire federal government. It it may rank number one.
19:10
In fact, many people think they live in the world they think they live in, but in some respects, it's a carefully
constructed Truman show made up of movie characters around them produced by US A.
19:22
And what I mean by that is US A has infected the institutional architecture of every aspect of American society and
19:30
and world society. Wow. The whole world has been Truman showed
19:35
by USA ID is not something you expect to hear someone say on TV. At best, it's
19:41
something you expect to hear them muttering on a city bus. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They've infected the institutional architecture. You know
19:46
what? I think I'm going to get off here. I I know we're halfway across a bridge, but I'm pretty sure that this is my stop. It's frankly no wonder Ben took a
19:54
victory lap when USAD was gutted, posting this image of himself celebrating at its grave. And at this
20:00
point, you should probably see some of the damage that's been done because it is vast. As one expert put it, I think
20:08
the best evidence that USAiD works is how quickly people started dying when it went away. Now, it is hard to get exact
20:15
counts on deaths, partly because these cuts have, among other things, halted data monitoring. But researchers have
20:21
estimated over 262,000 adults and over half a million children
20:27
died last year as a result of these cuts. Though, I do have to tell you, Marco Rubio strongly denies claims like
20:34
those. Anybody who tells you that somehow it's the United States. If we cut a dollar, somehow we're responsible
20:40
for some horrific thing that's going on in the world is is just not true. Are you standing by your contention that
20:45
no one no one has died because the United States has cut aid? No. Okay. So, is he
20:50
telling the truth there? Well, I would argue that the answer to that is the same as the answer to the question, are Marco Rubio's ears proportional to the
20:57
size of his head? Which is to say, absolutely, demonstrabably not. And
21:03
maybe the best way to rebut that is to show you some of the specific places and programs that have been impacted by
21:09
these cuts. And let's start with food and nutrition assistance which have been devastated. For instance, in Nigeria,
21:14
clinics which provided malnutrition treatment for more than 300,000 children below the age of two were shut down at
21:20
the end of July. And in Afghanistan, NGO warehouses were bare despite 900,000 children being in desperate need of
21:26
treatment for severe acute malnutrition. And it is not just cuts to the food itself. The administration also
21:32
disrupted the global supply chain that moves food for desperate people all over the world. And that means even when the
21:39
food's actually there, the ability to get it to people who need it can be gone. For instance, last summer,
21:45
disruptions led to some food spoiling in a warehouse. The Trump administration is planning to
21:52
destroy a massive amount of emergency food. Some 500 metric tons or just over
21:58
a million pounds of high energy biscuits meant to feed hungry kids in Afghanistan
22:03
and Pakistan will now be incinerated. That first reported by the Atlantic.
22:09
We have a kind of a standard procedure that if food uh is expired, we it will
22:14
be destroyed. Federal workers had requested approval from USID leadership
22:20
to move the emergency food before it spoiled, but their memos went unanswered. That is just maddening,
NEWSMAX! TAMMY BRUCE SPOX VS
22:28
especially not even answering the memos. Leaving someone on red is always unforgivable, but especially when the
22:35
text is, "Hey shorty, 1 million pounds of high energy biscuits about to expire you up." And scenes like that are
22:42
playing out all over the world. At one refugee camp in Kenya that had relied on USA ID funding, reporters found mothers
22:48
who'd had to choose which of their kids to feed and pregnant women who were so desperate for calories that they ate
22:54
mud. But it's not just food assistance that's been cut. It's estimated more than 2,000 health clinics have closed in
23:00
crisis zones around the world. Here is what happened at just one. Before the NGO Action Against Hunger ran this
23:07
center here, providing life-saving medical assistance, but it closed down in February along with seven others in
23:13
the area when USAD stopped funding the organization. Within just over a month, 29 children in
23:20
the district died of malnutrition and illness. We've never had such a high death rate.
23:27
It was catastrophic. These are deaths that we could have avoided if funding had been maintained and we continued our
23:33
activities. Yeah, it's appalling. And it makes it even worse when you remember House
23:38
Republicans literally celebrated these cuts with this
23:47
Yeah, it's true. You are killing a lot of people in Africa. You jibjabbed The point is these cuts have cost..
23:33
activities. Yeah, it's appalling. And it makes it even worse when you remember House
23:38
Republicans literally celebrated these cuts with this
23:47
Yeah, it's true. You are killing a lot of people in Africa. You jibjabbed The point is these cuts have cost
23:55
lives. And perhaps one of the clearest examples of this concerns PEPAR or the
24:00
president's emergency plan for AIDS relief. It was created during the George W. Bush administration and is often described as one of the most successful
24:07
global health programs in history. It's credited with saving 26 million lives
24:12
and enabling 7.8 million babies to be born without HIV since it was created. It is as close to a miracle as this
24:20
government has ever accomplished. If I had to say one nice thing about George W. Bush, this program would be it. And
24:26
if I had to say two, I would go quiet. And while the administration will stress
24:32
that PEPAR still exists, its crucial aid delivery mechanism has been severely disrupted. As soon as the cut started
24:39
last January, critics were clinics were forced to shut their doors, essential frontline health workers were furoughed,
24:45
and community programs reaching the most vulnerable people stopped. And while PEPFAR was granted a limited waiver to
24:51
implement urgent life-saving HIV treatment services, a lot got left out
24:57
of that waiver because well, for instance, it it allowed uh the prevention medication prep for pregnant
25:02
and breastfeeding women, it didn't include it for anyone else, including those who were already on it. It also
25:08
left out funding for HIV prevention more generally and most programming for orphans and vulnerable children. And a
25:14
major casualty of cuts to PEPFAR were locally rooted programs tailored to the needs of specific groups of people like
25:21
specialized clinics for sex workers, men who have sex with men, and people who inject drugs. And infuriatingly to some
25:27
Republicans, that seemed to be sort of the point. This stuff about PEP 4, oh my
25:33
god, you're going to destroy the world. Now, there's a part of PEP for that deals with money for life-saving care,
25:41
isn't it? Absolutely. And there's a part of PEP 4 that won't you look at it and you you
25:47
want to say pass me the sick bucket, isn't there? Yes, sir. And you're pass you're getting rid of
25:53
the sick bucket stuff. Yes, sir. You you're getting rid of $5.5 million
25:59
to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and interex advocacy in Uganda.
26:07
Aren't you? Yes, sir. I can't believe we're arguing about this.
26:12
I can't believe we're arguing about this. Wow, that is some pretty homophobic stuff coming from a man wearing the
26:19
single cuntiest pair of glasses I think I've ever seen. Also, for what it's
26:24
worth, if anything is going to make me say pass the sick bucket, it isn't the critical work of PEP 4. It is the memory
26:31
rattling eternally around my head of Senator John Kennedy saying this.
26:37
I can't wait to have your in my mouth. Well, that certainly makes one of us.
26:45
But despite what Kennedy said there, cuts to PEPFAR are absolutely affecting
26:51
life-saving care. And for a huge amount of people, and not just those whose lives seem to make him want to reach for
26:57
the sick bucket. Even short disruptions to HIV care can be deadly and have
27:02
already resulted in stories like this. The cut off of the medication of the HIV
27:08
ARVs has really, you know, affected us so much.
27:14
The eight HIV positive orphans he cared for used to get their medicine from the
27:19
local hospital for free. After the cuts, he was told he'd have to pay. And because he couldn't afford to do so, the
27:26
orphanage ran out. Without this medication, 14-year-old
...
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AN 12 24
Throughout the 2024 election cycle, reproductive rights were an electoral vulnerability for Donald Trump. Though popular with the Republican base, his appointment of antiabortion judges gave serious pause to many key voting blocs, including undecided young men.
In pursuit of these voters, Trump’s strategy wasn’t demagoguery but comedy.
Trump’s October appearance on comedian Andrew Schulz’s podcast, “Flagrant,” demonstrated his approach to the touchy issue.
Schulz playfully invoked Trump’s youngest son, who’s a student at New York University – “Barron is 18. He’s unleashed in New York City. Are you sure you want to reverse Roe vs. Wade now?” After a beat, Trump laughed, Schulz laughed, and then, presumably, thousands of young male listeners joined in.
Trump continued with boilerplate answers about states rights, but this substance – as is so often the case – was divorced from the strategy. Schulz had helped Trump turn an unpopular position into a frat boy punchline, something to be discarded along with last night’s empties. Trump won that media cycle and, ultimately, a majority of the votes of young men on his way to a second White House win.
Podcaster Andrew Schulz pokes fun at the touchy issue of abortion in an interview with Donald Trump on Oct. 9, 2024.
Vice President Kamala Harris, by contrast, appeared on mainstream comedy shows with aging, liberal audiences like “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” Pundits criticized her failure to engage young voters in online comedy platforms. They also urged liberals to develop a new crop of political comedians to match the influence of Schulz and podcaster Joe Rogan.
However, these criticisms of Harris’ strategy miss the failure of liberal comedians to evolve with media and political trends.
While Jimmy Kimmel cries and Jon Stewart rants, the right wing in the U.S. has successfully depicted itself as the new home for free speech and cutting edge comedy. We explored this development in our book, “That’s Not Funny: How the Right Makes Comedy Work for Them.”
The right has become a home for comedians not by making political arguments through jokes, but by positing that there are funnier things to do than to argue.
A formula goes stale
Liberal comedy and political satire have stuck to the same formula of Stewart’s “The Daily Show” for much of the 21st century.
It goes something like this: A sarcastic, eloquent host uses meticulously researched data to describe a pressing social issue, and then delivers a punchline directed at right-wing hypocrisy. The resultant pairing of righteous laughter and anger has been repeated by “The Colbert Report,” “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” and “Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj,” among other comedy programs.
These satirical shows filled the void left by an increasingly profit-driven news media. However, they have come to prioritize political preaching at the expense of laughs.
Perhaps Stewart’s most successful successor – and the best example of liberal satire’s patronizing tone – is HBO’s “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.” Because the show appears on prestige cable, Oliver has a bigger budget to tackle controversial topics in depth.
Indeed, journalists and academics alike have celebrated the “John Oliver effect,” in which viewers mobilize behind a cause shortly after the host devotes an episode to it, whether it’s vaccines or internet regulation.
Oliver’s long-form lectures can be compelling. However, his appeal is not to young undecided voters who can’t afford HBO, but to college-educated liberals predisposed to support progressive reforms.
Twice in a recent
, he reminded viewers of topics his show has covered in depth, like a professor chiding students for not remembering recent lessons. In one segment about Trump’s disingenuous economic message, Oliver pleaded that his show had already “explained inflation for 24 human minutes.”
While Oliver’s exasperation can be amusing, he’s clearly more upset at – even disdainful of – the American electorate, chastising them for failing the final exam of election night.
For liberals to reconnect with young voters – especially young men – we think they have to reinvent political comedy. Doing so will mean moving beyond the haranguing that has long been its primary delivery style. This will be a challenge, however, as the right fortifies the relationship between its own comedians and political power.
Comedians like John Oliver and Jon Stewart tend to appeal to college-educated liberals predisposed to support progressive reforms. Brad Barket/Getty Images for Comedy Central
Rise of the right-wing comedy complex
Trump’s success with comedy is a result of the new relationship between digital media and the business of joking. For decades, liberals were thought to hold a monopoly on comedy. Moreover, there was little money to be made in comedy acts devoted to right-wing politics.
Since 2016, however, a new crop of right-wing comedians has taken to digital platforms and algorithmically driven audience targeting in order to change this reality.
Libertarian podcasters like Rogan have long danced around the political spectrum, finding diverse positions that intrigue his primary target of young male listeners. He routinely platforms right-leaning cultural and comedic voices, features them as guests, and promotes their shows and products. In doing so, he has helped create a de facto right-wing comedy network.
Although each comedian or show in this network doesn’t have the audience and impact of, say, “The Daily Show” in its prime, their aggregate strength is precisely targeted at coveted young consumers and potential voters.
It is no coincidence that the most heralded stops on Trump’s October podcast tour were shows hosted by three regulars on “The Joe Rogan Experience”: Schulz, comedian Theo Von and libertarian scientist Lex Fridman. Trump also appeared on Rogan’s show for a three-hour episode.
Changing styles and platforms
Importantly, the type of political comedy featured on these programs is distinct from that of liberal satire of the past two decades.
“The Daily Show,” “Last Week” and their ilk dazzle viewers in 30-minute episodes using intricate arguments and sardonic punchlines.
Rogan and his affiliates hang out for hours, and audiences can listen as they go about their daily routines. In the process, podcast hosts shape their audience’s taste in culture, technology and recreation in what’s known as parasocial bonding.
Trump’s appearance on Von’s podcast “This Past Weekend,” for example, featured little in the way of biting jokes and rollicking laughter. Instead, Von and Trump held a meandering conversation full of
interspersed with gestures to political topics.
Comedy styles are cyclical. In the 1950s, stand-up comedian Mort Sahl would read a newspaper on stage, peppering in sarcastic observations about the day’s headlines. The Smothers Brothers played with yo-yos before they introduced protest songs. The apolitical observational humor of Jerry Seinfeld reigned supreme in the 1980s and ’90s.
The 2000s liberal satire of Stewart and Oliver was driven by cable television industry mandates to court young men. The tastes and media habits of this audience have moved on, but liberal comedy has failed to follow them.
Nick Marx, Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies, Colorado State University and Matt Sienkiewicz, Associate Professor of Communication and International Studies, Boston College
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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tdb
John Oliver said that Republican claims of election fraud by non-citizens are creating the impression that there’s cause for concern, despite the fact that none of their claims have ever been backed up by actual evidence. And on this week’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Oliver singled out Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo for aiding and abetting Donald Trump’s lies.
He reported on how Bartiromo delivered “this doozy” on air in August, citing an unnamed man in Texas who’d claimed he couldn’t get into the DMV in Weatherford because of a massive line of immigrants outside, who were being recruited to vote with signs in Spanish.
In reality, none of that happened. There is no Texas DMV in Weatherford. Local police found no nearby DMV offices setting up tents or tables with signs and a local GOP official in Texas confirmed that there had only been two attempts by non-citizens to vote in that county in the past 15 years.
“I’m genuinely curious about the man who saw a massive line at the DMV and their instinct was this must be illegals registering to vote, and not the DMV functioning like it has since the dawn of time. Do they blame all common inconveniences on immigration?” Oliver wondered, adding: “And while you might instinctively know that claim is bullshit, it’s even dumber than you think,” he said, “As Baritromo explained, her source was a friend of a friend’s wife. Something that didn’t stop her happily regurgitating it on the news.”
“And if you like that, you can find well-sourced stories like it on Fwd: Fwd: Fwd: Fwd: with your Drunkest Aunt, Sundays at 10 on Fox Business.”
Yet two days after Bartiromo’s broadcast, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced an investigation into her rumor. “And that is actually a bit of a pattern for Paxton. He’ll loudly start voter fraud investigations, and even when they amount to nothing, he’ll have created the impression something is there,” Oliver said.
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an 7 24
A controversial campaign tactic is backfiring on former President Donald Trump as powerful celebrities warn of an imminent authoritarian regime that could put an end to "recreational sex" as part of a "fascistic game plan," according to a new political analysis.
Actors Taraji P. Henson and Mark Ruffalo, and Last Week Tonight host John Oliver have managed a novel political feat this summer with warnings about Trump's potential return to the
White House: they've made millions of Americans care about campaign platforms, Salon reported Friday.
"Swing voters and people who aren't sure yet if they're going to vote are starting to hear about this 'Project 2025' — and they do not like it," writes columnist Amanda Marcotte.
"Trump's campaign likely went with scary-sounding names on purpose, both to thrill their sadistic foot soldiers and to cause liberals to react fearfully. But those monikers also make them memorable enough to break into the consciousness of people who aren't paying close attention."
Project 2025— a platform crafted by the Heritage Foundation whose president this week delivered veiled threats of bloody revolution — is described by Marcotte as "a laundry list of the far-right's most politically toxic ideas" that includes a nationwide abortion ban, mass federal firings and the dismantling of the Education department.
It was unusual for Trump's campaign to come forward with so blatant a policy shift, but not that surprising, writes Marcotte. She likens MAGA to a man who pinches a woman's butt at a bar then calls her hysterical when she reacts.
"Authoritarian thought leader Christopher Rufo is the most prominent example," says Marcotte. "He frequently speaks loudly of his machinations, such as boldly announcing on Twitter that the right is trying to take away birth control, claiming women should not have 'recreational sex.'"
The benefit, Marcotte argues, is that it fires up Trump's base while making his nay-sayers sound deranged — and she points as proof to one of the former president's favorite phrases: "Trump derangement syndrome."
There's just one problem, argues, Marcotte: It only works if Americans don't pay close attention.
"However, there are promising signs that people who aren't political junkies are starting to hear about Project 2025," writes Marcotte. "Even better, those folks aren't immediately dismissing it as progressive theatrics but may be genuinely alarmed."
Marcotte credits Henson and her viral speech at the BET Awards last weekend for the sudden focus on Trump's policy promises.
"The Project 2025 plan is not a game," Henson told viewers. "Look it up!"
Ruffalo shared Henson's speech on X and added, "Project 2025 is not a game, it’s white Christian nationalism. It is the Sharia Law of the “Christian” crazy people who aren’t Christian at all but want to control every aspect of your life."
The fact-checking team Snopes reports it has received a "flood" on inquiries about Project 2025 — which has begun to surge on Google Trends.
"One of the most telling signs that this is beginning to backfire on Trump, however, is the way the MAGA forces on social media are starting to freak out," Marcotte writes. "As Democratic activist and researcher Will Stancill pointed out, the MAGA people who pretend to be leftists to sow confusion online are busy at work trying to pretend Project 2025 is, uh, a Biden thing."
The freak out stems from the fear that Project 2025 could prove fatal to Trump's campaign, Marcotte concludes.
"Trump cannot win without a large percentage of voters backing him under the false belief he's 'not so bad,'" she writes. "The more they find out about what he intends to do in office, the more will have second thoughts about risking another Trump term."
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november 27, 2014 (San Diego’s East County) –An energy corporation is suing Public Citizen, a nonprofit citizens’ watchdog group, claiming that radio ads run by the group caused the company to suffer “mental anguish and emotional distress.”
Murray Energy, a major coal mining corporation is now claiming that Citizens United — the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that has allowed unlimited election spending by billionaires and big business, may also give corporations privacy rights previously belonging only to people.
Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, calls the claim a “bizarre twist” in Murray Energy’s lawsuit. Public Citizen’s radio ads drew attention to the company’s efforts to block new rules that are intended to help protect workers including preventing black lung disease and air pollution.
In May, Murray sued The U.S. Department of Labor seeking to block the new worker safety rules for protecting coal miners and clean air protections. When Public Citizen aired hard-hitting radio ads (view text and hear audio here:{:{(link is external):(style="clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;height:1px;position:absolute;border:0px;padding:0px;width:1px"):}::(style="background-image:url("):}:) showing the plight of a miner stricken with black lung disease, Murray then sued Public Citizen as well.
After Public Citizen filed a motion seeking to dismiss the lawsuit, the company argued that the ads “invaded its privacy” and caused it “mental anguish and emotional distress.”
Remember, Murray Energy is a company,” Weissman states in a letter sent to supporters seeking donations to fund fighting back against Murray’s lawsuit. “But in this post-Citizens United, “corporations are people” world, companies claim to have human privacy that can be invaded and human feelings that can be hurt…As if invoking Citizens United to claim a right intended for living, breathing human beings isn’t radical enough, Murray Energy goes even further, suggesting that it is willing to make this lawsuit about the truth of climate science itself.”
He adds, “It could be the Scopes Monkey Trial all over again.”
A hearing in the case is scheduled for December 9.
oCTOBER 7, 2014
Public Citizen Fights Back Against Murray Energy Defamation Suit
Note: Public Citizen late Monday filed a motion to dismiss a defamation lawsuit brought against the organization in August by Murray Energy Corporation and its CEO Robert Murray. The company and CEO sued after Public Citizen ran a short radio advertisement criticizing the company for filing lawsuits to block regulations aimed at protecting public health and addressing climate change. In its motion to dismiss, Public Citizen explains that the lawsuit’s aim is to punish and silence critics. The statements of Public Citizen over which Murray Energy sued are either statements of fact or opinion, both of which are protected under the First Amendment.
Further, none of the statements in the ad is about Mr. Murray, so his defamation claim is baseless.The motion is available here (PDF). Public Citizen is represented pro bono in the case by Robert Balin, Alison Schary and Joanna Summerscales of the law firm Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, and Fred Gittes and Jeffrey Vardaro of The Gittes Law Group
[vid]
murray Energy is wrong on the law and wrong in the belief that it can silence consumer groups, reporters and other advocates for climate change solutions.
The groundless lawsuit by Murray Energy is a blatant attempt to silence opposing views – its fourth such lawsuit since July 2012.
The Public Citizen ad made accurate statements and statements of our opinion, based on publicly available sources. As the ad states, Murray Energy has sued to block a rule intended to save lives by limiting the amount of coal dust to which coal miners are exposed. And Murray Energy has sued to block a proposed rule to limit carbon emissions from power plants – a rule intended to reduce the impact of climate change on human health and to prevent premature deaths attributable to carbon emissions.
Murray Energy’s lawsuit against Public Citizen is a desperate act by a member of an industry engaged in a losing battle against the tide of history. For decades, Dirty Energy interests have engaged in a public relations campaign to block action on climate change. As a result, we stand on the brink of climate catastrophe – a cataclysm that threatens tens of millions of lives.
The days when those bullying tactics can succeed are over. The growing public insistence on climate solutions is not going away; neither, unfortunately, is the reality of worsening climate change.
As the rule proposed last spring by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency evidences WHAT WAS IT? FATE?] , policy makers are, belatedly, starting to act. Murray Energy can’t stop that.
Nonetheless, humanity is now in a race against time to take sufficiently bold and comprehensive action to avert catastrophic climate change. If Murray Energy and other companies succeed in slowing action further, we may well fall over the precipice. The consequences would be too terrible to contemplate.
That’s why there is only one reasonable response to a lawsuit intended to scare critics into silence: Defeat the lawsuit in court and use the lawsuit to educate, motivate and activate the American public.
So, our message to Murray Energy: Your lawsuit is only going to help build support for the very solutions to climate change you are trying so hard to prevent.
Read the motion (PDF) to dismiss the lawsuit.
Read Public Citizen’s response to Robert Murray’s statements about the EPA rule.
Read background information about Murray Energy.
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https://money.cnn.com/2017/06/22/media/john-oliver-coal-king-murray-lawsuit/index.html
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john Oliver -- and a giant squirrel -- made the king of coal seriously angry.
Robert Murray, the CEO of one of America's largest coal companies, filed a defamation lawsuit against Oliver on Wednesday. The lawsuit claims the HBO comedian executed a "meticulously planned" and "ruthless character assassination" designed to boost TV ratings and hurt his mining company.
The lawsuit named Oliver, the show's production company, his senior news producer Charles Wilson, HBO and Time Warner (TWX) (which owns CNN). The complaint alleges that Oliver's "Last Week Tonight" episode on Sunday "incited" viewers to "do harm to Mr. Murray and his companies." It also claims the miner's website was hacked as a result of the segment, and that Oliver's statements constitute "false light invasion of privacy" and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
During his June 18 show, Oliver lambasted President Trump over his promises to bring back thousands of coal mining jobs, a pledge the comedian says is a false promise to an industry that's been in a steep decline for decades.
The segment, which has been viewed 4.5 million times on
, devoted several minutes to Murray, the CEO of Murray Energy, and a vocal champion of the coal industry. Oliver told the audience that Murray had warned him he would sue and bring the case all the way to the Supreme Court if he failed to "cease and desist" any effort to "defame, harass, or otherwise injure Mr. Murray or Murray Energy."
Oliver said on air that he would "proceed with caution," and then he launched into a monologue comparing the 77-year-old coal exec to a "geriatric Dr. Evil." The segment chronicled Murray's career in mining and his handling of a 2007 mine collapse in Utah that left six miners and three rescuers dead.
"An honest conversation about coal and its miners needs to be had," Oliver said, "and we should neither cease nor desist from having it."
But the complaint alleges that Oliver and the show "intentionally, falsely, and outrageously" suggested that Murray had no evidence to support statements that the mine collapse was caused by an earthquake. The lawsuit claims Oliver ignored studies supporting Murray and quoted others out of context.
Oliver later recounted a story -- that Murray has denied happened -- that the CEO told workers the idea for starting a mine company came to him from a squirrel.
At the end of the show, the HBO host trotted a man dressed in a giant squirrel costume onto stage to address Murray directly. "Bob, I just wanted to say if you plan on suing, I do not have a billion dollars, but I do have a check for three acorns and 18 cents," the squirrel said.
"It's made out to 'Eat sh*t Bob!," the squirrel said, while holding up a giant fake check with "kiss my ass!" scrawled in the memo field.
Oliver acknowledged during the show that Murray is "probably going to sue me." He added, "You know what? I stand by everything I said."
In a statement, HBO said: "We have confidence in the staff of Last Week Tonight and do not believe anything in the show this week violated Mr. Murray's or Murray Energy's rights."
Murray Energy's complaint referred to Oliver, who is British, as a "foreign national residing in New York." The company, in a separate statement, called Murray a "patriotic American."
The lawsuit also described Murray as seriously ill, saying he depends on an oxygen tank, needs a lung transplant and "does not expect to live to see the end of this case."
"Nothing has ever stressed him more than this vicious and untruthful attack," the complaint said, adding it has caused "significant emotional and physical distress."
Murray Energy said that after the Oliver show, its website was attacked three different times by hackers who attempted to crash it. On the third attempt, Murray Energy said it had to take down its website to implement new security measures.
Murray Energy also said it received "numerous harassing telephone calls," including from callers who simply said: "Eat Sh*t, Bob."
The coal magnate has spoken out publicly to criticize environmental restrictions on the coal industry and has described former President Barack Obama's agenda as "evil."
Murray also filed a libel suit against the New York Times earlier this year for statements it made about the Utah mine collapse. The Times said it has moved to dismiss the suit.
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https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/john-oliver-republican-election-deniers/
10 22
"Last Week Tonight" host John Oliver focused his main story Sunday on "problems" that Republicans create so that they have something to solve.
Republicans are desperately trying to take over the House, Senate and a slew of offices that allow them to control elections in an effort to usher in restrictive election laws to put in more Republicans and eliminate any policy delivered by a Democrat for the past century.
Republicans pledged for almost ten years that Obamacare must be repealed and replaced, only to be outed for being unable to come up with the replacement. They have placed judges in top posts to eliminate the personal freedoms and medical privacy of women. They invented an idea that Kindergarteners are being taught they are evil for slavery and were convinced that any mention of LGBTQ should be banned from schools in Florida and other states that have followed.
Oliver focused on another top issue for the GOP: transgender sports. While there are many, many issues facing Americans, indeed the world, Republicans are concerned that one or two transgender people could bring down sports.
He began with South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, who ran a campaign ad claiming that she personally saved girls' sports in the state. There was one trans student about ten years ago in South Dakota, but Noem zeroed in on the possibility that one person ten years ago could one day be millions of trans students in the sparsely populated state.
Oliver pointed out that there were more girls playing sports in the Noem ad than there were trans kids in all of South Dakota sports. So, while Republicans like Noem complain about failures around inflation, healthcare and other problems they blame on Democrats, their solutions are focused on transgender sports.
Noem isn't the only one. A whopping 18 U.S. states have spent the past few years passing legislation to regulate who can urinate in a stall next to each other. While most people simply enter a bathroom, do their business and get out, in the mind of Republicans, restrooms are nefarious places where liberals are ushering in a plot to bring down society. They have yet to find any evidence of it, but they can't stop their minds from turning to anarchy as a result of a kid using the restroom.
The positive piece of Oliver's report is that he first reported on transgender rights nearly a decade ago and things have gotten a lot better. The crisis for the right-wing is that the American public has decided that they are accepting of same-sex marriage, eliminating a key issue that they have desperately clung to for years. Trans rights have now taken over that same desperate attempt to create a villain, make people afraid of him and then pass laws to protect children from him.
See Oliver's full segment in the video below: