The June 25, 2013 episode of the Daily Show focuses on the Supreme Court’s decision on the voting rights act, Congress’ ineffectiveness, the Zimmerman Trial, and Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson.
The episode begins with a discussion of the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down key parts of the voting rights act. This part is specifically the one that applied strict scrutiny to states with previous issues of discrimination. Chief Justice John Roberts’ explanation was that the country has changed. John Oliver points out that one of the reasons things have changed for the better is this voting rights act. Of course, Oliver says, if things have changed so much, perhaps this part of the act is obsolete. Except that it clearly is not, since it has been used 74 times since 2000. Also, not two hours after the decision was announced, Texas, one of the states covered by this part of the act, announced they were putting into action a redistricting, and the strictest voter id laws in the country. However, there is room for Congress to make amendments. Oliver then goes through the usual discussion of how ineffective Congress actually is, but with one small glimmer of hope. They did manage to pass a bill that would allow for the electronic purchase of duck stamps in all 50 states.
The second segment, by far smaller than the first, focuses on the Zimmerman Trial. Not the entire trial, though, just how his lawyer starts his defense: a poorly received joke. Oliver plays the joke, and it really is not a horrendous joke, in my opinion. It clearly was in everyone else’s, though. That reception may have been the result of how inappropriate it was for that venue. Or he may just be setting up an appeal based on incompetent representation. Either way, Oliver is horrified by the joke, and it actually makes him feel badly for Zimmerman. The one positive, he states, is that the lawyer has set the bar so low, that the media will have a tough time getting lower. He then shows a clip of two reporters reenacting Zimmerman’s story of the shooting on the floor of the studio’s kitchenette.
The guest for this episode is Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson promoting his new book, Mo’Meta Blues: The World According to Questlove. According to Oliver, the book is part memoir, part history, and part Thompson’s manager shouting at him in footnotes. The manager part of the book is that Thompson wanted his manager to comment on all of these stories with his own perspective. That part sounds brilliant, and something I want all memoirs to do. Maybe not always the manager, but friends, family, or significant others could be just as brilliant.