Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Voting By Mail

June 1, 2020 10:54 PM - Season 7, Episode 13

This week: another installment from the white void. Protests over the death of George Floyd, and the terrible take on it from Tucker Carlson. This week's main story is about mail-in voting which Trump incorrectly says is "corrupt," and its dire importance during the pandemic. To help encourage people to vote by mail and be safe, Last Week Tonight reminds us that their stamps are still available at stamps.com/laststamptonight, and they have also made available some "I voted!" stickers with a mail-in ballot theme, which you can get from ivotedbymail.com. And Now: TV Hosts Want to Know: What's That Behind You? On YouTube (19m) Finally, on the UFC, who had been planning on holding fights on what they had called "Fight Island." Two weeks ago John Oliver had suggested a much better name would be UF-SEA. It looks like UFC agreed; they filed a trademark on that name two days after it aired, and in a Sportscenter interview the head of UFC admitted he got the idea from John. You can also buy a baby onsie with the expired UFC trademark phrase "You Will Submit," at tugslabmeatsbabypalace.com.

Fox News terrible person roll this week: Tucker Carlson, Jeanine "DEMON RATS!! Pirro and Dan Patrick (Lt. Governor of Texas, [R])

Alternate names (a coupe of them David Ryder-esque) for UFC honcho Dana White: Dumps McFightman, Lug Steakface, Spamiel Musclemilk, Skull Brisket, Tummybuns Bin Laden, Rufus T. Namethief, Tug Slabmeat, or of course: Doug.

F.37: "Vox Populi," LARRY KRAMER

posted by JHarris (4 comments total)

The Dana White segment was his funniest in ages. Loved it.

I admit though - and as an ex-pat, it's entirely possible that it would strike the wrong chord in the US right now, but I'm a bit disappointed that he didn't use the opportunity to draw a comparison between the structural problems that we have with law enforcement militarization and accountability in some/many jurisdictions and the administrative injustices like voting by mail (or the packing of federal benches, or changing administrative requirements for guest workers, etc, etc).

The vote by mail segment addressed something that (arguably, given that it's a way to influence the actual lawmakers who can either bolster or change the current systemic issues facing the nation) has potentially much-farther reaching long-term consequences. It seems the perfect time to emphasise that there's no chilling and devastating video that ever will galvanise people similarly to care about - as I think he's put it before - "the easiest way to hide something terrible is to put it in something boring".
posted by Seeba at 9:18 AM on June 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

I checked their twitter account when I watched this and there weren't any tweets ranking the various Hemsworth brothers, so I guess we finally found the limit of what lengths this show will go to for a joke.
posted by ckape at 5:01 PM on June 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

I thought we were done with the the scourge that is Tucker (I used to wear Bow Ties!) Carlson when Jon Stewart got his ass kicked off CNN. So it was good to see John go after him again in the best of ways on this episode.

Tucker Carlson, FUCK YOU!
posted by valkane at 5:03 PM on June 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

In fact, I think there should be an FCC rule that before every Tucker Broadcast, they have to do a pre-roll of Jon Stewart making him look like a dingus.
posted by valkane at 5:05 PM on June 2, 2020 [4 favorites]