Tag: HBO’s Last Week Tonight

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John Oliver’s Gay Bunny Book Hits #1 On Amazon

So, after chatting about Vice President Mike Pence’s many anti-LGBTQ issues and policies on Sunday night, John Oliver of HBO’s Last Week Tonight announced a “gay bunny” version of the childrens book by Pence’s 24-year-old daughter, Charlotte, and illustrated by his wife, Second Lady Karen Pence about the family pet bunny, Marlon Bundo.

As fate is a funny chick, Last Week Tonight‘s version has hit #1 on the Amazon book chart topping the Pence version currently sitting at #4.

The proceeds will go to The Trevor Project, which supports LGBTQ youth, and AIDS United, which works to end the AIDS epidemic in the United States.

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John Oliver Explains How Sinclair Broadcasting Group Is Affecting Local Newscasts

I don’t usually watch long video clips on the interwebs (short attention span, don’t you know), but I did find this segment by John Oliver on HBO’s Last Week Tonight to be compelling.

I think a lot of Americans would be surprised to find out that their local news is being thoughtfully manipulated by a conservative conglomerate.

Oliver explains how Sinclair Broadcast Group is setting itself up to be the country’s largest owner of local TV stations, and with that ownership the company is dictating content and political bias.

As Oliver points out, with Fox News you know you’re getting a conservative viewpoint. Not so when it comes to these local stations.

With in-house created “editorials,” daily “Terrorist Alert Desk” scares and clips that are dispatched to the stations labeled “must run,” local viewers are being told what to think without really understanding why the content is being presented.

Watch the clip below.

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Last Week Tonight Looks At Puerto Rico’s Debt Crisis

HBO’s Last Week Tonight takes a look at Puerto Rico’s burgeoning debt crisis.

Lin-Manuel Miranda, author/star of Broadway’s HAMILTON, joins host John Oliver to call for relief for the U.S. territory.

Via TIME:

The U.S. territory is in a massive financial crisis, facing nearly $70 billion in debt, with a poverty rate of nearly 45%. “Puerto Rico is like the last Tower Records: everything’s overpriced, everyone’s being laid off, and there is still a really weird number of Ricky Martin CDs,” said Oliver.

In a somber speech, the governor of Puerto Rico stated that the debt situation was not just an election ploy, saying: “This is not politics, this is math.” That means the situation must really be serious, because, as Oliver noted, “‘This is math’ is one of the most dread-inducing sentences in the English language.”

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Donald Trump Vs. HBO’s “Last Week Tonight”

John Oliver, host of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight” told the team of CBS This Morning he had no interest in interviewing GOP White House hopeful Donald Trump on his show.

Trump lashed out via Twitter (for a change) and told the world he’d been asked to do “Last Week Tonight” but turned it down.

The producers of LWT had their own retort to contribute.

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HBO’s Last Week Tonight Takes On Sex Education In Our Schools

I’ll preface this with the obvious fact that I don’t have kids.

That being said, I’m always amazed at the outrage some parents’ have about their child learning basic sex education in school. You constantly hear “that belongs in the home!”

Except – as John Oliver points out in this segment, No parent wants to talk to their kids about sex, and no kid wants to talk about sex with their parents.”

From The Week:

There are no standards for what to teach kids about sex, federally or sometimes even locally. Only 22 states require sex ed, Oliver noted, and only 13 require that the information be medically accurate. Viewers of this clip will get to see a lot of really bad sex-ed videos, and learn some discouraging statistics.