The main story on Sunday's Last
Week Tonight was on political fundraising, John Oliver said at the top of
the segment, "and before you roll your eyes, this is not going to be about
how money corrupts presidential candidates. For that, you can read much more on
your most annoying friend's Facebook posts." Instead, he wanted to talk
about the less-discussed issue of raising money in congressional races, which
reached a total of $1.7 billion in the 2014 election. "That's a lot of
money," he said. "That's more than it costs to buy 230 million tubes
of hemorrhoidal cooling gel, and it's somehow even more upsetting."
And the amount of time members of
Congress spend raising money isn't just embarrassing, "it's
horrifying," Oliver said, taking up anywhere from 25 percent to 66 percent
of their work time. "So tonight, let's look at where that time actually
goes," he said. He focused on fundraisers and phone calls to donors, and
while they both sound unpleasant, the phone calls sound terrible. Oliver
settled on calling it "a dehumanizing process," but noted that while
there is a bipartisan hatred of raising money, neither party is willing to back
down first. "And regulating campaign finance is going to be
difficult," he added, not least because the Supreme Court has ruled that
spending money is a form of speech.
Oliver then showed a little of his
own powers of persuasion, convincing retiring Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) to sit
down, on camera, and explain the fundraising process. "It is, in my view,
a form of torture, and the real victims of this torture have become the
American people, because they believe they don't have a voice in this
system," Israel said. If you watch to the end, Oliver had a little
surprise for Israel. He also compares lawmakers to coked-up Girl Scouts with
gambling debt, has a bit about phone sex with Sting, and uses some mildly NSFW
language. If you're okay with that, watch below. Peter Weber
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