Late Sunday on HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, the liberal comedian despaired, along with the rest of the media, over Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement from the Supreme Court. Playing advocate for the Democrats, the host spread doom and gloom predictions over the legacy of Roe v. Wade and gay marriage.
Oliver didn’t hold back, starting off the segment by declaring a Trump SCOTUS pick “bad” for “rights” protected by the Constitution. “To anyone who believes that the Constitution protects things like reproductive and LGBT rights, this is bad!” he griped.
After mocking President Trump’s son, Don Jr., for his use of millenial slang in an excited tweet over the news, Oliver continued taking shots at Republicans for daring to want to replace Kennedy with a more conservative justice, in the lines of the late Antonin Scalia.
And the administration has made their plans pretty clear, with Mike Pence tweeting, "Thank you to justice Anthony Kennedy for your long career of service. Trump will nominate a strong conservative in the tradition of the late justice Scalia." Which is a little weird. You don't generally stand up at someone's retirement party and say, "Thank you for everything you did for this company, Robert, and rest assured that we will replace you with someone exactly like that other guy who used to work here that we always liked much more than you."
He was more nasty to Mitch McConnell, echoing the Democrats’ tired refrain that Supreme Court appointments before a presidential election was the same as before Congressional midterms. “Mcconnell couldn't give a flying fuck about fairness or consistency,” Oliver whined:
And given all of this, it's understandable that Democrats are now desperately trying to game out arguments that would let them obstruct or delay Trump's nomination. They've appealed to Mitch Mcconnell's sense of fairness and consistency by pointing out that he refused to confirm Merrick Garland before a major election. The problem there is that Mcconnell couldn't give a flying fuck about fairness or consistency, meaning some Democrats have now been forced to move on to plan B.
Oliver then played a clip of Senator Cory Booker pleading for Congress to deny confirming Trump’s pick on the sole basis that he is being investigated by Robert Mueller.
Unless Democrats could convince swing vote Republicans such as Susan Collins to flip over to their side, they are “shit out of luck” Oliver complained. “The consequences will almost certainly be grim,” he added.
Despairing over the state of Roe v. Wade, Oliver played clips of CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin over and over again predicting it would be overturned, as proof that abortion was doomed from here on out.
“But, I'm happy to say, there is some good news. It turns out there's a constitutional loophole that allows Democrats to -- I'm obviously lying here. There's no good news. Everything is terrible now,” the host gushed.
He hoped Trump would “screw up” but doubted there was anything that could be done now, because Republicans had gotten us into this “mess:”
“[T]he only thing anyone can really do is vote. And there are actually two key elections you should really try and vote in: One in 2016 and one in 2014. Because that is what got us into this mess,” he stated.
Oliver then advised his audience to construct an imaginary time machine, and scream into it. Then, go door to door and talk to people about voting, he advised.
“And if you ever come across someone who's thinking of sitting out an election because neither of the candidates quite do it for them and there's not much difference between them anyway, open that box into their fucking face and let yourself from this week scream some sense into them!” he ranted, ending the segment.
This isn’t the first time the liberal entertainer has angrily attacked conservatives and unfairly presented an issue. He spent one show recently specifically targeting and smearing pro-life crisis pregnancy centers and Christians, and just last week encouraged viewers to send pornography to Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
