S04.E01: Season Premiere

[Athena]

Fourth season premiere!

[Victor the Crab]

Too long a wait. I want it now!

[fastiller]

Oh good gravy, me too, @Victor the Crab!  I think it could be a two or three hour show and it would just scratch the surface of the crazy that's been happening recently.

Wonder if he'll harken back to the "if you look up, you'll see rock bottom" thing he did for the later eps from S03.

[WhosThatGirl]

Yup. This is too far from me. I need this show and I need it now.

[dusang]

As someone who has barely been able to make it through a 2-minute Daily Show clip since the election, 20 minutes of John might actually be too much for me right now.  I want him speaking, I just don't know if I'm emotionally prepared to listen to him.

[peeayebee]

I hope their story is all the connections to Russia that Trump and his team have. I had been following some guy on Twitter, and it was fascinating, but frankly it was very hard (for me, at least) to really grasp. John and his team could make that clear and understandable. Plus, the whole story would get out in the mainstream. 

[anna0852]

On 1/27/2017 at 9:41 AM, dusang said:

As someone who has barely been able to make it through a 2-minute Daily Show clip since the election, 20 minutes of John might actually be too much for me right now.  I want him speaking, I just don't know if I'm emotionally prepared to listen to him.

I'm with you. I love John and I love Samantha Bee but I'm having such a hard time watching because of the subject matter. Which sucks, because these are important stories and it's vital that we hear them.

[Hanahope]

two weeks to go, and what a plethora of topic choices, almost too many to choose from.

[Gemma Violet]

Awesome that John is running ads during tomorrow's morning shows (the shows that Trump watches), explaining what the Nuclear Triad is.  

[peeayebee]

Those ads are hilarious! But actually, this is a pretty good idea. Maybe some of it will sink in to his orange little head.

I noticed the opening sequence has Domus Bannon – White House and POTUS Operandi – Putin.

When John was saying that when someone says good morning to you, you respond, "No it isn't!" Honestly, for a few days after the election, all I would say to people was, "'Morning." Because it wasn't good.

Anyway, I thought the subject of reality was a good one, but boy how depressing. When people depend on fake news sites for their information, what hope is there, esp when one of those people is the leader of the free world. Well, free for now. Every time I hear that some people believe Sandy Hook was fake, I get boiling mad.

[ajsnaves]

Maybe we need to get someone to report that every last on of those 3 million illegal votes was for Trump, and they were cast in Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.  Therefor he's not really President.

[SuburbanHangSuite]

So I love John more than my luggage but bringing up ancient Richard Gere rumors?  Not cool.  There was another way to make that point.

The Empire Carpet ad blasting away on Air Force 1---There. Are. NO. WORDS.

Edited February 13, 2017 by absolutqt
spell chk

[biakbiak]

I literally said the exact same thing about getting the MTM death news Alert and I loved her! 

[WhosThatGirl]

I mean to be quite honest, the only thing that gets me through the news are these shows. I live for John Oliver, Samantha Bee, and Real Time with Bill Maher and Seth Myers. It helps me laugh though the crazy news that is real life. 

[vb68]

Quote

Every time I hear that some people believe Sandy Hook was fake, I get boiling mad.

Oh, I know. Same here. I struggle to understand why someone would put that out there over airways, but I guess I struggle more on how that guy still has a show.  Anchors have lost shows over much less. Much. (Hi Bill Maher!)

Quote

The Empire Carpet ad blasting away on Air Force 1---There. Are. NO. WORDS.

I hadn't seen that clip before, and it shows you so much about him.  It didn't surprise me but still left me disgusted.

I lost it when John called Spicer "Melissa".

I also thought the ads were a clever way of getting information to Trump.  Hey his own staff has to go TV to talk to him. 

[Kromm]

Oh. My. Lord.

That last sequence with the Cowboy?  

Genius!

I know some of that was just for the segment, but if the first part (which Oliver said will really air) DOES get a Trumpsponce?  I hope that gets reported on.

[biakbiak]

23 minutes ago, vb68 said:

struggle to understand why someone would put that out there over airways, but I guess I struggle more on how that guy still has a show.  Anchors have lost shows over much less. Much. (Hi Bill Maher!)

Infowars where many of the clips that are shown are from is his website but his show is radio and talk radio is full of crazy asshats who can say a lot of shit and not get fired. According to the not reliable but more reliable than Infowars Wikiped he is only aired on 90 stations.

He also turned 43 this weekend, proving that that being a lying hateful crazy monster takes a toll on the body.

[walnutqueen]

2 hours ago, absolutqt said:

So I love John more than my luggage but bringing up ancient Richard Gere rumors?  Not cool.  There was another way to make that point.

The Empire Carpet ad blasting away on Air Force 1---There. Are. NO. WORDS.

Yes,  He had me - until he didn't, with that cheap Gere "joke".  I thought John Oliver was better and smarter than that.  Apparently, I was misled

One sour note in an otherwise brillian comeback - too bad it ruined it for me.

[purist]

Oh lord. I was simultaneously cheering and felling absolutely sick to my stomach during the long and brilliant segment on Drumpf and fake news. What a comeback by Ollie and his team! Way to go, show.

[revbfc]

I'm in DC and I have not seen the commercials on MSNBC this morning.  

[fastiller]

@revbfc - I may be mis-remembering, but I thought he said between 8a & 9a this morning.

[revbfc]

Just now, fastiller said:

@revbfc - I may be mis-remembering, but I thought he said between 8a & 9a this morning.

Good, I was getting worried that they were rejected at the last minute.

[Lana X]

er...i didnt get the richard gere thing. so i was just confused. haha. maybe I was too young when those rumors happened. (whatever rumors they are)

[SuburbanHangSuite]

Way to make me feel old, Lana X.  But seriously, you're better off that you don't know.  A vile rumor that has no business being referenced anywhere but especially not a part of such an intelligent, vital, NECESSARY show.  

[Primetimer]

Yes, InfoWars is in there.

View the full article

[Lana X]

5 minutes ago, absolutqt said:

Way to make me feel old, Lana X.  But seriously, you're better off that you don't know.  A vile rumor that has no business being referenced anywhere but especially not a part of such an intelligent, vital, NECESSARY show.  

haha i just assumed it was sexual in which case i thought "ok, we all have our sexual secrets. unless......it involves animals/children in some way in which case...BLECH..."

i still think overall, it was a well done segment. :-)

[Jersey Guy 87]

I didn't necessarily mind the Gere reference, although it's pretty old.  But, it's a ridiculous concept that obviously can't be true which was a his point, I suppose. Still, he could have used something more recent.

Trump holding up a printout of a Breitbart article as proof was scary.

The number of people who don't understand what fake news really is scares me.  I've seen people I knew in high school claim that Breitbart, InfoWars, etc. are reliable sources on Facebook.  They really don't understand how to tell a legitimate source.

[Kromm]

So I love John more than my luggage but bringing up ancient Richard Gere rumors?  Not cool.  There was another way to make that point.

The Empire Carpet ad blasting away on Air Force 1---There. Are. NO. WORDS.

I was okay with it, because the whole purposes of mentioning Gere wasn't to confirm the rumor, but rather to use it as an example of something ridiculous and patently untrue. While it might annoy Gere that people are talking about it again, mostly what they should be saying is "how did anyone ever believe that stupid shit?" So the conversation is about battling people's propensity to buy into ridiculous shit for no good reason. It was basically "Gere rumor = stupid = anything the Trumtards/Alex Jones says = stupid".

[stillshimpy]

10 hours ago, absolutqt said:

So I love John more than my luggage but bringing up ancient Richard Gere rumors?  Not cool.  There was another way to make that point.

The Empire Carpet ad blasting away on Air Force 1---There. Are. NO. WORDS.

 

 

I'm with you on that.  That was not one of the stronger moments in the show.  It was unworthy of John and I'm really surprised he did that.  

Admittedly, I'm a little surprised John didn't spend the first twenty minutes of the show, sprinting back and forth across the stage yelling, "Fuuuuccckkkkk! What the fuuuucccccckkk!"  pausing to look at yet another alarming headline and just continuing with the sprinting and swearing because this is brain breaking material.  I guess I'll put that regrettable humor choice down to some evidence of completely understandable brain breakage.  

Also, I had to explain to my husband what the rumor pertained to and...so that was a form of fun.  If fun is "and then he looked at me like my brain had broken long ago but as it seemingly fit with what John was implying, we moved on."  

I'm still entirely tripped out by the Empire Flooring jingle being played.  I wanted to laugh at the cowboy ads, they're brilliant and truly, what is with the paucity of books on the shelves in the original?  Are books themselves now threatening?  I had a hard time laughing though because ...yeah...hi, reality.  How grim you are.  

Edited February 13, 2017 by stillshimpy

[Kromm]

I didn't necessarily mind the Gere reference, although it's pretty old.  But, it's a ridiculous concept that obviously can't be true which was a his point, I suppose. Still, he could have used something more recent.

Trump holding up a printout of a Breitbart article as proof was scary.

The number of people who don't understand what fake news really is scares me.  I've seen people I knew in high school claim that Breitbart, InfoWars, etc. are reliable sources on Facebook.  They really don't understand how to tell a legitimate source.

The real tragedy of it all is that the WAY the purveyors of fake news have battled being fingered as fake news is to simply scream the phrase "fake news" at/about the REAL news outlets, thus creating a cycle where people who are wont to believe their point of view simply stop listening at all to anything which resembles evidence.

Its actually less like the classic dystopian visions from literature that we all namecheck and more like the less lauded but now eeriely seemingly accurate movie from Mike Judge called "Idiocracy". Only its not 1000 years in the future like in the movie, but 10 (since it was released). And it's only 50% of the population who are suddenly plum stupid, but they're desperately delusional as well.

But really, the seed of this must have been planted some time ago. Maybe a few decades ago. Somewhere along the line the notion that truth is subjective took root and bloomed under our feet. And the idea that how you FEEL (and Oliver talked about this on another show last year) is more important and relevant than cold hard facts. So you can say for example that you "feel" that Hillary Clinton is seriously sick and thus have the "stamina" to hold office... and despite evidence to the contrary, it becomes the truth for people who want to believe it. Now we get challenged by this kind of thing every single day. Each day its a NEW lie, like that the crime rate is the largest in decades, and any attempt to correct that statement just gets "fake news!" screamed at it, followed by implications that the only reliable sources of information are our new Dictator and his official secrets keepers at Breitbart and Infowars.

Up is down. Down is left. Left is diagonal. Diagonal is blue. Blue is the color of the sun. Etc.

[ganesh]

There wasn't too much that was covered that hasn't already been covered, but I cut the show some slack because it hasn't been on in a while, so I do agree with the theme. I also remembered they did the show on tax districts!

One thing I did like that Jon only spent a little time on was the "people don't take Trump literally". Then show Trump saying "I don't kid around." It's such garbage. Of course he's saying what he means. As Jon showed, he spouts whatever drivel flits into his mind without any context. I can't recall when another president was given a pass on the things he actually says. 

[dusang]

23 minutes ago, Kromm said:

Up is down. Down is left. Left is diagonal. Diagonal is blue. Blue is the color of the sun. Etc.

My fellow Americans. As a young boy, I dreamed of being a baseball; but tonight I say, we must move forward, not backward; upward, not forward; and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom! 

- Kang

[meowmommy]

24 minutes ago, Kromm said:

Its actually less like the classic dystopian visions from literature that we all namecheck and more like the less lauded but now eeriely seemingly accurate movie from Mike Judge called "Idiocracy". Only its not 1000 years in the future like in the movie, but 10 (since it was released). And it's only 50% of the population who are suddenly plum stupid, but they're desperately delusional as well.
 

For me, it's like the movie Being There.  

I don't think people really believed the Richard Gere/gerbil story back in the day, so the analogy to current fake news fell a little flat for me.

8 hours ago, biakbiak said:

He also turned 43 this weekend, proving that that being a lying hateful crazy monster takes a toll on the body.

43?  Seriously???  I'm 59 and he looks older than me.

[stillshimpy]

Wait, who turned 43 over the weekend?  

Edited: that apoplectic freak, Alex Jones is only 43?  Holy shit.   

I actually have a friend named Alex Jones and he's an incredibly funny man and a gifted writer.  So my husband will see me liking his posts on FB and my friend Alex leans incredibly far to the left.  I guess one day my husband took it into his head to follow AJ on Twitter because he finds my friend really funny.  

I literally heard about it when my husband let loose with a horrified scream.  We got the "that's a different Alex Jones" straightened out very quickly but last night was the first time he's ever seen that Alex Jones (my husband had never heard of him before the friend mix-up) and to say he was horrified anew would be putting it really mildly.  

I swear I thought he was going to die in the clip they were showing.  A human being shouldn't routinely turn brick red like that.  Dude's turning the color of the clay pot from which he will soon push up daisies because ....that's not healthy.  

Edited February 13, 2017 by stillshimpy

[Traveller519]

It really frightens me that there are people out there that thought that Fox News was too liberal and thus dug out things like Info Wars and Brietbart, to fulfill their echo chamber, it's even worse that the President of the US is one of those people.

[Hanahope]

2 hours ago, Kromm said:

But really, the seed of this must have been planted some time ago. Maybe a few decades ago. Somewhere along the line the notion that truth is subjective took root and bloomed under our feet. And the idea that how you FEEL (and Oliver talked about this on another show last year) is more important and relevant than cold hard facts. So you can say for example that you "feel" that Hillary Clinton is seriously sick and thus have the "stamina" to hold office... and despite evidence to the contrary, it becomes the truth for people who want to believe it. Now we get challenged by this kind of thing every single day. Each day its a NEW lie, like that the crime rate is the largest in decades, and any attempt to correct that statement just gets "fake news!" screamed at it, followed by implications that the only reliable sources of information are our new Dictator and his official secrets keepers at Breitbart and Infowars.

May I present you with Truthiness.  This, imo, all started with Fox News, the so-called "fair and balanced" news that gave such slanted and biased versions of events that they sometimes boarded on 'alternative-facts.'  The preached the whole "oh books are so elitist" bit that got the Gop believing that "liberal elites" didn't know "real americans" in the heartland who didn't go to college or, you know, read books.  

Its simply disgusting that our president relies more on breitbart, info wars and the national enquirer than on pulitizer prize winning journalists.  Feeding trump with info via television commercials reminds how I learned about grammer, government and other important things on Schoolhouse Rock inbetween Saturday morning cartoons.  I guess we must treat trump like a child.  /smh

I bet someone (maybe his dad) taught trump to pull back with his hand during handshakes, to make the other person come to you, believing this was a 'show of strength.'

[maraleia]

Speaking of people's ages that were featured on last night's show- Stephen Miller is 31 and of course Kellyanne Conartist is 50 and they both look decades older. Hate will do some crazy shit to one's looks.

[sacrebleu]

I'm seriously glad John is back, and that is "And Now This" was all about Trump's bizarre handshake ritual. What kind of crazy, alpha-male power play bullshit is that. It always starts out semi-normal, then the sharp pull towards him, then some sort of second-hand pat.

Heh. And my boyfriend Justin Trudeau is not having any of it.

http://occupydemocrats.com/2017/02/13/canadas-justin-trudeau-just-showed-world-leaders-shake-trumps-hand/ 

Edited February 13, 2017 by sacrebleu

[iMonrey]

I wonder how much it cost HBO to air those commercials on Fox News. And that somebody at Fox News didn't flag them and refuse them. But assuming they do air? That's awesome.

Quote

The number of people who don't understand what fake news really is scares me.  I've seen people I knew in high school claim that Breitbart, InfoWars, etc. are reliable sources on Facebook.  They really don't understand how to tell a legitimate source.

That's my dad. He gets all his info from right-wing radio and if you try to counter him with provable facts he just thinks you're spewing a lot of liberal propaganda. The only "real" news is the hyperbole coming from Rush Limbaugh and his ilk because it reinforces his existing prejudices. Anything contradicting those beliefs is "fake." And people like that now have a President who thinks the same thing. That's what's scary. They all ran out and voted for this guy because think they - finally, someone is telling the "truth" as they know it.

[cpcathy]

Thank goodness for John Oliver!

I also thought the handshake was a weird domination thing, every time, shake, pull, shake, shake, shake, shake.  Very creepy. Sad!

[meowmommy]

1 hour ago, iMonrey said:

I wonder how much it cost HBO to air those commercials on Fox News. And that somebody at Fox News didn't flag them and refuse them. But assuming they do air? That's awesome.

MSNBC runs pro-Trump ads all the time.  I guess it's the size of the check...

2 hours ago, Hanahope said:

This, imo, all started with Fox News, the so-called "fair and balanced" news that gave such slanted and biased versions of events that they sometimes boarded on 'alternative-facts.'  The preached the whole "oh books are so elitist" bit that got the Gop believing that "liberal elites" didn't know "real americans" in the heartland who didn't go to college or, you know, read books.  

Its simply disgusting that our president relies more on breitbart, info wars and the national enquirer than on pulitizer prize winning journalists.

As a certified old person, I have to say that "books are elitist" didn't start with Faux News.  That slant has been around for a really long time.  Your opposition is either an Ivy League poseur or a Green Acres illiterate, depending on your politics.  No middle ground.  Go look up Spiro Agnew and his attacks on the effete corps of intellectual snobs, that resonated with the "Silent Majority."

I had never seen that clip before that John showed of Drumpf holding up a Breitbart page and unabashedly citing it as a news source.  That's just beyond pathetic.  He would scarcely have had more credibility if he had held up the National Enquirer.  At least they are what they are, and don't aspire to be seen as real news.

Edited February 13, 2017 by meowmommy

[ganesh]

19 minutes ago, meowmommy said:

 He would scarcely have had more credibility if he had held up the National Enquirer.  

And he cited the National Enquirer when talking about Ted Cruz's father's alleged involvement with Lee Harvey Oswald. 

[Hanahope]

22 minutes ago, meowmommy said:

He would scarcely have had more credibility if he had held up the National Enquirer.  At least they are what they are, and don't aspire to be seen as real news.

Actually, Trump has said very favorable things about the Enquirer (which was the only national "newspaper" to endorse him for presidency), and has actually written articles for it.  Trump writes for the National Enquirer.  There's quite a few articles about all the conspiracy theories about Hillary that trump repeated, so I think he believes what they say, whole heartedly.

He apparently has a good relationship with the editor too.  Cozy relationship

Edited February 13, 2017 by Hanahope

[HawaiiTVGuy]

Maybe we need to get someone to report that every last on of those 3 million illegal votes was for Trump, and they were cast in Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.  Therefor he's not really President.

Exactly, hey, you tweet it so it must be the truth right?
In all seriousness, for the Trumpers who believe this crap, why are they not asking why was this fraud happening in California that was going to be blue anyway? And seriously, it is more likely that there was fraud in the swing states FOR Trump because of the sheer numbers and the importance of those states than there would be the 3 million illegal vote for Hillary in California. Anyone else find it peculiar that Bannon chose to vote in New York (a loser blue state) and NOT vote in Florida (a supposed swing state)?

[HawaiiTVGuy]

Too bad someone at CNN didn't play "fake or not fake" with Trump regarding Breitbart headlines after that asshole question the Breitbart "reporter" asked. At this point, I think the only way to possibly breakthrough to the not completely brainwashed Trumpers is for the media to start being petty, they seem to be only able to react off of how Trump reacts to things, not actual fact-checking. Or maybe they are all lost causes anyway.

[fastiller]

Not to stray too off topic, but: The National Enquirer actually has a fair enough reputation for reporting things well before the "real" media does. This includes: John Edwards's love-child; Rush Limbaugh and his opioid addiction; Tiger Woods affair(s?).  There are others.  Usually about extramarital affairs.

[Victor the Crab]

I'm just happy to see Ollie back. His stuff, like introducing us to the facts producing cowboy, is why I look forward to his show late Sunday night and be able to face the start of my work week after a few guffaws. I only hope he doesn't spend way too much time covering Drumph in his Main Stories.

[stillshimpy]

3 hours ago, cpcathy said:

I also thought the handshake was a weird domination thing, every time, shake, pull, shake, shake, shake, shake.  Very creepy. Sad!

That combination of clips legitimately made me laugh until I cried but that's because it rounded the bend into actually crying.   This is the man who will have to meet heads of state and foreign dignitaries.  He can't even do something as simple as shake hands without being a giant, creepy weirdo.  Awesome.  That's just...so great.  I'm already fucking tired of winning.  Please, make the winning stop.  

Last Week Tonight faces such a tough challenge:  How to fit all the horror that is 45 into a 30 min segment.  You know by the time they've got their show in the can on Sundays, they'll have a week's worth of "Oh shit, really? God gawd.  Maybe space aliens will take mercy on us and colonize Earth soon" by the time the show actually airs that evening.  

Keeping that in mind -- and quite possibly because they had to acknowledge at least some of the "What the fuck? Really?" of the three months that LWT has been off the air, I didn't actually find this one of John's stronger episodes but I didn't care because I was so glad that he was back.    

Edited February 13, 2017 by stillshimpy

[mojoween]

I can't help but remember John's show pre-election where he tried to represent that Donald and Hillary were equally bad.  Because they were not.  And that show didn't help anything, raisins or not.

Half of what he showed Agent Orange saying was from the campaign trail.  If we (the global we) focused more on how batshit crazy he is back then, maybe we wouldn't be in this mess now.

It just made me sad.  And angry.

[LoneHaranguer]

There wasn't too much that was covered that hasn't already been covered, but I cut the show some slack because it hasn't been on in a while, so I do agree with the theme. I also remembered they did the show on tax districts!

One thing I did like that Jon only spent a little time on was the "people don't take Trump literally". Then show Trump saying "I don't kid around." It's such garbage. Of course he's saying what he means. As Jon showed, he spouts whatever drivel flits into his mind without any context. I can't recall when another president was given a pass on the things he actually says. 

Trump may not kid around, but he uses metaphors, analogies, and hyperbole, none of which should be taken literally.