Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Pig Butchering Scams

February 25, 2024 10:42 PM - Season 11, Episode 2

This week: West Virginia considers a law that would impose criminal penalties to people who expose children to "obscene literature," and similar moral panics grip lawmakers across the nation. The Alabama Supreme Court rules that frozen embryos are people "regardless of developmental stage," putting the legality of in vitro fertilization in jeopardy. Anti-abortion figures try to keep quiet that the Comstock Act could be used, in a second Trump term, to harm access to abortion drugs nationwide without going through Congress. And Now: More Explicit Readings From Concerned Citizens At Public Meetings. Main story: "Pig Butchering Scams," where malign entities send out-of-the-blue messages to people attempting to engage them in conversation, build a connection with them, and eventually con them. And Now: Local News Loses It Over Major League Baseball's New Pants.

F.37. "Superbus Owlus," FLACO THE OWL

posted by JHarris (4 comments total)

This is the first whole episode of Last Week Tonight I've watched in a long time, and I'd forgotten how much the first segment resembles an old-school episode of the Daily Show. I'd kinda started to think about John Oliver as a guy who delivers twenty-minute humorous video essays about depressing things, and had forgotten just how delightfully silly the rest of the show is.
posted by Kattullus at 3:19 AM on February 29 [2 favorites]

The main story is now up on Youtube.
posted by JHarris at 4:26 AM on February 29

I saw the summary for this show very briefly somewhere, and thought it was going to be a show about literal pig butchering.
posted by joannemerriam at 5:50 AM on February 29

I got a shifty spam text right before watching this. Obviously I did not respond to it.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:39 AM on February 29 [2 favorites]