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John Oliver
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“ ‘This has been a very dark week for lots of people. The Supreme Court is about to lurch to the right for the foreseeable future, and if things seem hopeless right now, it’s because, to be completely honest, they basically are.’ ”
That’s five-time Emmy winner John Oliver striking a decidedly glum chord in his latest “Last Week Tonight” show on HBO T, +1.60% Sunday night.
“Trump is about to replace a liberal icon with an extremely conservative justice who’s been called the female Antonin Scalia, and she can serve for a long time,” he said. “Amy Coney Barrett is only 48, and I know that I make 43 look like 76, but trust me, that is young for a Supreme Court justice.”
Oliver also called out Utah Republican Mitt Romney for saying the selection is “appropriate for a nation which is, if you will, center-right, to have a court which reflects center-right points of view.”
Oliver disputed that notion with the following stats: 47% of Americans say they align with the Democratic Party vs. 42% with Republicans. Several polls showing the country is strongly in favor of abortion rights and Medicare-for-All. And 59% say the winner of this presidential election should be the one to choose Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s successor.
“What the hell are you talking about, Mitt?” Oliver said. “Our country isn’t so much center-right as Mitt Romney is center-wrong.”
Ultimately, the likely appointment of Barrett marks the end of “a generational battle, and the heartbreaking thing is: we lost,” Oliver concluded. “And that hurts. It’s going to hurt for a long time, for a lot of people, in ways that are going to take awhile to fully comprehend.
Watch the episode, which has already racked 1.4 million views on YouTube GOOG, +1.36% :
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