In what’s become a weekly occurrence, John Oliver provided a look at a the week’s top story with ample — and appropriate — measures of outrage and humor. The target of last night’s Last Week Tonight episode was the ongoing situation in Ferguson, Missouri in the wake of the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown on Aug. 9.
A few of Oliver’s best barbs:
- “If the police wanted to distract everyone with a video that had absolutely nothing to do with Michael Brown’s shooting, they should have just released Ghostbusters instead. It’s exactly as relevant to everything that happened afterwards.”
- “Here’s the thing the [Ferguson] mayor doesn’t understand: As a general rule, no one should ever be allowed to say, ‘There’s no history of racial tension here,’ because that sentence has never been true anywhere on earth.”
- “If you are white in Ferguson, you’d need to be snorting cocaine directly off your dashboard to get stopped by the police.”
- “If you are getting high in your dorm room right now, you are not paranoid. There is a SWAT team outside and they are coming to get you.”
Make sure you watch all the way to the end, when Oliver delivers an ultimatum of his own to match the one issued by Missouri Governor Jay Nixon on Saturday.
More Must-Reads From TIME
- What We Know So Far About the Deadly Earthquakes in Turkey and Syria
- Beyoncé's Album of the Year Snub Fits Into the Grammys' Long History of Overlooking Black Women
- How the U.S. Shot Down the Alleged Chinese Spy Balloon
- Effective Altruism Has a Toxic Culture of Sexual Harassment and Abuse, Women Say
- Inside Bolsonaro's Surreal New Life as a Florida Man—and MAGA Darling
- 'Return to Office' Plans Spell Trouble for Working Moms
- 8 Ways to Read More Books—and Why You Should
- Why Aren't Movies Sexy Anymore?
- How Logan Paul's Crypto Empire Fell Apart
