Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Rent

June 20, 2022 4:33 PM - Season 9, Episode 15

This week.... The January 6 investigation continues, revealing the complicity of Trump's legal advisor John Eastman. Republicans across the country are fielding election deniers in positions for public office, such as conspiracy theorist and QAnon ally Jim Marchant, the Republican nominee for Secretary of State in Nevada. And Now: In Honor of Father's Day, ZADDIES. Main story: Rent, which has been skyrocketing across the nation, a crisis that's been with us for multiple decades, has gotten much much worse lately, and no one seems willing to do anything about. On YouTube (22 minutes). And Now: It's Always Happy Hour on QVC.

The "America First Secretary of State Coalition" is led by Jim Marchant, and contains these other candidates, every one of them a terrible person, whose names are presented for purposes of mockery and to warn people away from them:

• Mark Finchem, for Arizona, whose campaign picture looks like the second coming of J.R. Ewing,
• Kristina Karamo, of Michigan, the lady who claimed the Democratic Party has been "totally taken over by a satanic agenda," and who said of current Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, "She's an evil woman. She's a very evil, evil, evil woman!", and who also said premarital sex allows for pedophilia and is an admitted antivaxxer to boot,
• Audrey Trujillo, of New Mexico,
• Rachel Hamm, of California, whose picture looks like it was taken in a wind tunnel,
• Tina Peters, of Colorado, who exists in the Flag Dimension,
• Jody Hice, of Georgia, my state unfortunately, in the MOST generic suit possible and said "What Brad Raffensperger did was create cracks in the integrity of our elections" thus cementing himself as somehow a bigger tool than Brian Kemp,
• Audrey Trujillo, of Michigan,
• Doug Mastriano, of Idaho,
• Keith Blanford, of South Carolina, whose portrait looks like he's has some coke to sell you on the 18th hole and whose section of the group's website is a HOOT, saying he's CEO of "Blandford International – this is a holding company that holds, sells and acquires assets," "Covid is a BIOweapon used to support a regime change in the US," "Big Tech, Big Pharma, Media, Foreign Powers colluded to rig a presidential election and we are currently under a puppet regime."
• Diego Morales, of Indiana,
• Mike Brown of Kansas, who is staring directly at that truck bearing down on him GET OUT OF THE WAY MIKE OH NO
• Robert Borer, of Nebraska, whose campaign staff knows how to use Photoshop to construct a background,
• Dante Sabatucci, not for Secretary of State but for Ohio's 13th district, how'd he sneak in there, and whose photo was taken at 18,000 feet,
• Jim Zeigler, of Alabama, of course, and
• Jay Schroeder, of Wisconsn, filtering for krill.

Fun fact about that page: after Dorothy Moon, whoever made it ceased to give a damn, and just linked the portrait of everyone who follows to her website too. Dorothy Moon, Dorothy Moon, Dorothy Moon, they all go to her site.

posted by JHarris (8 comments total)

Ack, I misgendered Tina Peters in the post accidentally. Could someone please change that "him" to a "her," even though, in the Flag Dimension, there is only.... flag.

EDIT: Wait--I can't find it now? Maybe I misstated. It's a long post, and I did a lot of HTML fiddling to make it. I'm going to go lie down.
posted by JHarris at 4:37 PM on June 20, 2022 [2 favorites]

Rachel Hamm came in third in California's primary earlier this month so no chance of her getting in state office this time around.
posted by The Ardship of Cambry at 5:36 PM on June 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

I was disappointed that John didn't mention Air B'n'B as a significant factor in dwindling apartment availability.
posted by The Ardship of Cambry at 5:42 PM on June 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

The AirBNB issue is a very significant one in places like Miami. It was frankly ridiculous how many of them were in my neighborhood when I could still afford to live there and there were more all the time

The sad part is that it wasn't even a particularly desirable location, just somewhat close to a couple. Certainly not somewhere you'd stay for your dream beach vacation. With me out there's six within a few feet of each other. The funny thing is that none of them really got used that much. Once or twice a month at most, never for more than a week and more commonly for two to three days at a stretch.
posted by wierdo at 7:21 PM on June 20, 2022 [2 favorites]

Two of my Facebook friends have had to leave their rental houses and found themselves unable to get anything else- it's terrible. One of them had to beg money off the rest of us so his family could stay in a motel, and I know it killed him to do it. Both of them are fine now.
posted by acrasis at 3:29 PM on June 21, 2022 [1 favorite]

Well this is me, I just got notice of my $200/month rent increase. I moved in only 10 months ago but will have to move again. Corporate owned. I am lucky I guess, that I should be able to find a place, even with my dogs. I’m going to have to pay another $600 fee for having two pets and all those other one-time fees I thought I could avoid at least a couple years. Anyway, I am 14:26 into this episode and it is so fucking depressing I can’t watch anymore.
posted by Glinn at 5:51 PM on June 22, 2022 [1 favorite]

Last November, I got an unexpected raise that amounted to about $200 extra per month. In December I got a notice saying that my rent was increasing $240 per month when my lease ended in February. Life is basically impossible.
posted by WhenInGnome at 6:18 PM on June 26, 2022 [3 favorites]

I am lucky I guess, that I should be able to find a place, even with my dogs. I’m going to have to pay another $600 fee for having two pets and all those other one-time fees I thought I could avoid at least a couple years.

Ok so I have a solution to this, that some people may or may not like. Register your pet as an emotional support animal. There is no regulation and any pet can become one (like you hear about the ducks on the planes). I did this with my cat, because he doesnt cause $300 worth of damage while I live there (and that place had $50/month pet rent on top of that).

I would never ever ever use this to take my cat into a place he shouldnt be, but I will absolutely use it to keep some of that money from my corporate apartment landlord. Fuck them and their stupid fees.
posted by LizBoBiz at 2:35 AM on June 28, 2022 [1 favorite]