Screen shot via YouTube

John Oliver and his HBO show “Last Week Tonight” will be back Feb. 8 after a lengthy hiatus. In the meantime, check out our favorite clips of the British comedian’s program from the past year.

John Oliver Puts His Finger on the Reason Income Inequality Is So Prevalent in the U.S. “Just because politicians can’t talk about income inequality,” the “Last Week Tonight” host starts on one of his characteristic rants, “doesn’t mean we shouldn’t.”

How State-Sponsored Lotteries Steal From the Poor to Give to the Rich In 2013, in the words of “Last Week Tonight” host John Oliver, “Americans basically spent more on the lottery than they spent on America.” And although lottery commercials would have you believe that proceeds go to charitable causes, the truth is a bit more complicated.

Police Have Taken Over $2.5 Billion in Cash From Civilians Who Weren’t Even Charged With a Crime John Oliver dedicated one of his main stories on HBO’s “Last Week Tonight” to explaining civil forfeiture, a “shady process” that police departments across the country have been using to seize property with little justification.

There Are Scarily Few Answers About Drones John Oliver’s been looking for information about the unmanned death robots, such as what exactly an “imminent threat means” or how many people are killed during any given drone strike. So far, “hard facts” have been hard to come by, and in the “Last Week Tonight” host’s words, it’s “completely fucking terrifying.”

England Has Been a ‘Little Bit of a Dick’ to Scotland Four days before the Scottish independence vote, the Englishman and “Last Week Tonight” host begged Scotland to stay in the United Kingdom in a way only John Oliver could.

Student Debt: Our Leaders Have Decided Education Is Not Important Enough to Pay For In an inspired back-to-school rant, John Oliver encourages college freshmen to enjoy every last second of what will undoubtedly be the best years of their lives since every year that comes after will be marked with crushing, inescapable debt.

Ferguson: Police Are Not Soldiers, So Why Are They Wearing Fucking Camo? The “Last Week Tonight” host explains how U.S. towns like Ferguson became militarized with the excuse of the drug war and 9/11 and offers some possible solutions to the conflict in Missouri.

How Native Advertising Is Killing News The most profitable news websites are fueled by so-called native ads—paid advertisements disguised as original news content. John Oliver finds a funny way of explaining why the future of news is in jeopardy.

America Is a Useless Nuclear Weapon ‘Hoarder’ and Nobody Cares As the “Last Week Tonight” host points out, it’s not Iran or North Korea we have to worry about; it’s America.

‘Protecting Net Neutrality’ Should Be Called ‘Preventing Cable Company Fuckery’ “The cable companies have figured out the great truth of America,” explains the “Last Week Tonight” host. “If you want to do something evil, put it inside something boring.” Oliver goes on to give a hysterically funny call to arms to all Internet trolls to comment on the FCC’s website in order to save net neutrality.

—Posted by Natasha Hakimi Zapata

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In this Article:
#civil forfeiture#drones#education#ferguson#income inequality#john oliver#last week tonight#lottery#net neutrality#nuclear arms#police#politics#student debt#video