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This week:

• Trump's summit with North Korea leader Kim Jong Un happened. The result was what Oliver reminds us is a Trump speciality, something akin to an "Ice Cream Blow Job." Something that sounds great, but when you think about it, doesn't actually mean anything.
• Thousands of children were forcibly taken from parents due to the Trump administration's zero-tolerance policy over illegal imigration, an act that has infuriated millions.
• And Now: Senator Chuck Schumer Is Caught In An Endless Graduation-Speech Time Loop
• Main story: China President Xi Jinping has overcome term limits, had his ideas enshrined in China's constitution, and cultivated a cult of personality around himself. Under him, China's released catchy viral videos to advance their economic interests. LWT made their own to remind everyone of their human rights issues. The main story (20m) is available on YouTube.

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posted by JHarris on Jun 20, 2018 - 2 comments

This week:

• Trump prepares for the (then) upcoming North Korea summit, of course, by not preparing.
• Philippine President and strongman Rodrigo Duterte very uncomfortably kisses a young woman before a crowd.
• And Now: Julie Chen Has A Few Questions For The Audience of "The Talk."
• Main Story: More on Stupid Watergate, this time about Fox News' efforts to normalize the idea that the Mueller investigation is a "witch hunt" by calling that through every channel available to them, in an desperate (yet somewhat effective) effort to get ordinary Americans thinking it must be one, despite the fact that they've already charged 20 people and three companies, and gotten five guilty pleas. Watch it on YouTube (18m).
• And Now: The Entire Seventeen-Minute Piece You Just Saw, Boiled Down To Eight Seconds.
• Finally, a bit about the UK. Last week's episode had a segment about the putdowns of House of Commons speaker John Bercow that could not air in the UK, because of a stupid law saying footage of the chamber could not be used in "light entertainment" or "political satire." Because they used such footage this week and thus UK viewers again cannot be shown the whole program, LWT offers five minutes of replacement content: Gilbert Gottfried reading Yelp reviews.

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posted by JHarris on Jun 16, 2018 - 1 comment

This week:

• The summit with North Korea is called off. North Korea sends Trump a message in an oversized envelope. Trump calls the summit back on. Trump admits he hadn't read the contents of the envelope. Leader of the greatest nation in the world, folks.
• Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko is declared to be dead on worldwide news, but then discovered to be alive, his faked death an element in a sting to catch a group of Russian assassins.
• In the UK, the chairman of the British Monarchists Society, one "Thomas J. Mace-Archer-Mills, Esq.," a fixture on TV during the royal wedding, is revealed to actually to have been born and lived to his teens in the US, and even got an unrelated elderly British couple to call themselves his grandparents.
• And Now: The Very British Put-Downs of Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow.
• Main story: Legal guardianship, a state under which senior citizens can be put where they have limited rights, and can find it difficult to get out of.

The main story (16 minutes long) is available on YouTube. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Jun 7, 2018 - 6 comments

This week....

• Prince Harry and Meghan Markle get married. Next!
• North Korea may call off the summit between Trump and Kim Jong Un over demands that the country denuclearize. John Bolton says on air they were using "The Libyan model," which turns out to be the worst thing he could have said; autocrats the world over have obsessed over Gadaffi's horrible death since it happened in 2011.
• And Now: Local News Gets A Little Too British For The Royal Wedding ("Hello gov'ner." "Cheerio!" "Hallo hallo!" "Tally-ho." "A spot of tea?" etc.)
• Main Story: Rehab, a 35 billion dollar industry. Federal law requires health insurance to pay for some of it, but there are no federal standards for what "Rehab" means, leading to a situation ripe for abuse by unscrupulous people.
• And Now: Just Look At This Bunch of Royal Wedding Shit.

The Rehab segment is on YouTube. If you are suffering from addiction, instead of jumping right into a rehab clinic that may have a strong motive to take advantage of you, you could try The American Board of Preventative Medicine's search site for board-certified doctors, here. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on May 21, 2018 - 6 comments

This week:

• President Trump suddenly agrees to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jung Un, reversing decades of precedent on a whim.
• International Women's Day, "that one special day for half the population of Earth. Knock yourselves out, three-and-a-half billion people!" A roundup of disturbing and disgusting responses from across the media, finishing with Vladimir Putin.
• And Now: An MSNBC Guest, Brought On To Discuss Gary Cohn's Departure, Can't Get Over The "Bachelor" Finale.
• Main Story: Cryptocurrencies, "Everything you don't understand about money combined with everything you don't understand about computers." In a field fulled with ridiculous terms like HODL and LAMBO, LWT invited an inspirational speaker (Keegan Michael Key) to promote their new way of dealing with cryptocurrencies, responsibility: "Instead of being HODL, you have to be CRAEFUL!"

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posted by JHarris on Mar 11, 2018 - 16 comments

• Violence in Charlottesville, where a Neo-Nazi drove a car into a group of counter protesters, killing one and injuring several others, after which Donald Trump refuses to admit that Nazis are bad. Oliver: "David Duke and the Nazis really seem to like Donald Trump, which is weird because Nazis are a lot like cats. If they like you, it's probably because you're feeding them."
• AND NOW: HIGHLIGHTS FROM ROBOCUP 2017, first without, and then vastly improved by Univision Deportes Commentator Luis Omar Tapia.
• Main Story: North Korea, the most dangerous rogue nation in the world, and its leader Kim Jong Un, whom Donald Trump seems to be personally insulted by, resulting in a dangerous exchange a couple of weeks ago between the two thin-skinned madmen. Last Week Tonight put together a helpful package of information on the country, revealing such facts that the accordion is the country's national instrument, and that video of US television programming, most notably NCIS, is smuggled into North Korea on USB drives. At the end LWT presents a special number by "Weird Al" Yankovich asking North Korea not to nuke us. YouTube (27m) - Metafilter

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posted by JHarris on Aug 19, 2017 - 8 comments

So, what's up in the world?

• "We begin with A Narcissistic, Unstable Man Who Just Might Kill Us All." In this case, that means Trump and Kim Jong-un, between whom tensions have been racheting up lately. Trump "sends" and "armada" to deter North Korea, although it turns out the weren't heading right there, but instead going to Austrailia.
• Turkey President Recep Erdoğan consolidates power with a referrendum that takes him closer to being a dictator.
• And Now: Cable News. (It's a lot of arguing and people talking over each over, sometimes up to 10 at once.)
• Main story: Trump's advisors and relatives Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, popularly regarded as moderating influences. LWT takes a closer look and notes that we we really know little about them, and what we do know suggests Ivanka is more about preserving the Trump brand, and Jared is an underachiever, extremely inexperienced, and is ludicrously in over his head. YouTube (22m)
• And Finally: Bill O'Reilly: A Life In Television.

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posted by JHarris on Apr 26, 2017 - 8 comments

Meanwhile, back on Earth....

• Trump's Press Secretary Sean Spicer digs an incredible hole for himself, first appearing to claim that President Bashar al-Assad of Syria was worse than Hitler because Hitler never used chemical weapons (he did), then that Hitler never used them against innocent people (he did), then making up the term "Holocaust centers" as the place where Jews were gassed.
• Trump meets with China president Xi Jinping, who apparently in 10 minutes convinced him to do what over half the United States desperately wanted him to do for months: learn a damn thing about North Korea. Alas they did so at Trump's Mar-a-Lago, having recently been cited for 13 health code violations. Trump continues to flip-flop on practically everything related to foreign policy, underscoring how desperately stupid his campaign was.
• Trump drops a "MOAB" (Mother Of All Bombs) on Afghanistan, causing euphoric celebration at Fox News from Geraldo Rivera. When directly asked if he had authorized the strike, Trump danced around the question.
• And Now: You Put Easter And Local News Together, And What Do You Fucking Expect?
• Main Story: The upcoming French Presidental elections, between 11 different candidates, at least three of which have been assaulted in public by citizens throwing baking ingredients. YouTube (18m)

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posted by JHarris on Apr 18, 2017 - 8 comments

So, what happened last week?

• President Trump continues to amplify unquestioningly whatever whimsical story was presented on Fox News, this time that Sweden is having problems with immigrants, which Sweden denies.
• The half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Kim Jong-nam (Wikipedia), was poisoned in an airport, by a woman who claims she was told to do it as part of a reality show.
• A Florida man plotted to have bombs placed in 10 Target stores in order to drive stock prices down.
• AND NOW: Fox & Friends is Painfully Aware of Who is Watching Them
• MAIN STORY: Russia, specifically Vladimir Putin (YouTube, 20m). Him, his regime, how he's profited, what happens to those who oppose him, and Trump's fascination for him. LWT produced a short dance number about him, refering to the Russian pop song praising Putin.

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posted by JHarris on Feb 20, 2017 - 6 comments

This week....

• Ted Cruz drops out of the race for the Republication Nomination, leaving Donald Trump as presumptive nominee. (YT 4m, via Fortune!)
• North Korean leader Kim Jong Un calls the first meeting of their Worker's Party since 1980. (YT 4m)
• And Now: The Next President of the United States
• Main story: Science (YT 19m), and how good, and not-so-good, studies get trumpeted by the media as saying things that they don't all the fucking time. LWT presents a parody of TED talks, "TODD," to make their point.

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posted by JHarris on May 10, 2016 - 10 comments

This week.... Hostilities flare up between North Korea and South Korea. Vladimir Putin bans the import of many types of food from the West. Greece President Alexis Tsipras resigns (but will still run for reelection) after just seven months in office amidst controversy over his bank-mandated austerity measures. And Now: Another Check-In With The Most Patient Man On Television. (That would be Steve Scully of C-Span's Washington Journal.) The main story: discrimination against LGBT couples still legal in surprisingly much of the nation. YouTube (15m) And Now: The Most Patient Man On Television Faces His Greatest Challenge. Finally, a follow-up on the business of John Oliver's church, Our Lady Of Perpetual Exemption. They got rather a lot of mail, including a giant bag of seeds, followed by gianter bag of seeds the next day. They also got beef jerky and a 100-Trillion-dollar bill from Zimbabwe (worth about 40 cents). Last Week Tonight is taking a break for two weeks. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Aug 24, 2015 - 6 comments

This week.... The US and Iran are on the verge of signing a historic nuclear arms deal. Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman escapes from prison by constructing a surprisingly elaborate tunnel a mile long. North Korea gears up to celebrate their "Liberation Day" with a concert by Slovenian band Laibach. And Now: CBS This Morning's Awkward Sex Talk. Main story: The fact that the US wastes 40% of the food it produces each year, and its consequences. YouTube (18m) Last Week Tonight produced their own, more honest version of an "American" cheeseburger commercial produced by Carl's Jr. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Jul 21, 2015 - 4 comments