Daily Show substitute host John Oliver ripped apart the Supreme Court’s decision to overrule landmark civil rights legislation on Tuesday, which now has “a hole in it the shape of John Roberts’ middle finger.” “This was a landmark piece of civil rights legislation,” Oliver said. “I hope that Justice Roberts has a pretty compelling reason to get rid of it.” When a reporter pointed out that the opinion justified it with “our country has changed,” Oliver said, “Oh, that’s fine then. That’s fine. We’re good then. Because it has changed. We’ve got iPads, Twitter, maxipads with wings, everyone’s allergic to bread now.” “Racially, things have got better in the south, that’s true. It maybe got better because of things like, I don’t know, the Voting Rights Act of 1965,” Oliver said wryly. “That’s the piece of legislation that has a hole in it the shape of John Roberts’ middle finger,” Oliver added. Oliver went on to point out that the Justice Department needed to intervene on states’ voting laws over racial bias “basically never” that is, unless “basically never means — and this is true — 74 times since the year 2000.” Texas, one of the states subject to federal overview in the Voting Rights Act’s Section 5, began movement on voting restrictions just two hours after the court’s decision. “It takes Texas less time to disenfranchise minority voters than it does to barbecue a pig.” Then Oliver moved on to mock the House of Representative’s failure to pass the farm bill on Monday, because “not only did it cut enough spending, it cut too much spending. It’s like the bill is Goldilocks and the first bear said, ‘I think your food stamp cuts are too low’ and the second bear said, ‘I think your food stamp cuts are too high.’ … And instead, the two bears tear Goldilocks limb from limb and eat her.”
Posted on: Thu, 27 Jun 2013 02:52:22 +0000