Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Paul Manafort, economic development, and The Inspectors

Take a deep breath: There are only two episodes left on Last Week Tonight this season. That includes the installment tonight, which began with a discussion that was (of course) about Donald Trump and the Robert Mueller investigation. The attack on Paul Manafort was the best part of it, mostly because of his big spending and some of the ridiculous things that he has. (Think millions of dollars on furs and outfits.)

Beyond just his comments on Manafort, Oliver also touched on the tepid White House response and their attempts to downplay the role of him and others targeted in the Mueller investigation. This shouldn’t come as a shock, since the Trump administration wants to distance themselves from everything. As a matter of fact, they are mostly banking on that in order to keep criticism at bay.

While we wouldn’t say that Oliver gave us much in the way of new information here, (the Mueller investigation played out earlier in the week and has been covered elsewhere) the start of the show gave us some great laughs.

For those of you out there wondering why Oliver didn’t offer up more words on the horrific attacks in Texas, he taped this show at around the time that the news was just starting to come out. Therefore, there wasn’t too much he could say beyond just offering some condolences.

Main segment: Economic development

Are tax breaks for big corporate projects all that valuable? According to Oliver, not necessarily. While many states have offered tax breaks to everything from the film industry to tourist attractions to virtually anything and everything in between, the segment about cities fighting for Amazon was very funny, but also rooted in truth. Everyone is so desperate for Amazon business that they’re willing to offer anything to get the company to build a headquarters there.

Beyond that, we also heard the story about a Noah’s Ark museum, which relied on tax breaks to be built, but hasn’t actually done a whole lot for its local community. Oliver realized that this wasn’t an exciting segment, but a worthwhile one given that the Republican promises of jobs and corporate tax breaks may not produce many actual benefits for everyday people.

The Inspectors

One of the most random segments we’ve seen on the show in a rather long time was this very delightful bit all about the United States Postal Service having a Saturday-morning TV series on CBS that you have probably never heard of. We haven’t here at CarterMatt, and we covered TV for a living!

Well, we now know that if we ever want to watch a show about postal police, we know where to go. Thanks, John.

Biggest surprise of the week

Oliver openly bashing another HBO show in Entourage and the horrible writing that was in the movie for some of its characters.

What did you think about tonight’s episode?

Do you like that we spent the bulk of tonight’s show on economic development? Share in the attached comments now!

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