[TV static drones]
[bright tone]
[upbeat rock music]
*
[cheers and applause]
- Welcome, welcome, welcome to "Last Week Tonight."
I'm John Oliver.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Just time for a quick recap of the week,
and we begin with the U.S. election,
or as you may know it,
the Clowntown Fuck-the-World Shitshow 2016.
This was a particularly big week for the Republican Party,
with Donald Trump winning seven states on Super Tuesday
and two more last night.
And while yesterday's wins were a little narrower,
it does appear that Republican voters have,
for the time being,
decided not to make Donald Drumpf again.
In fact--in fact,
Trump's opponents spent the week
seeming increasingly desperate.
- He's always calling me "Little Marco."
And I'll admit, the guy-- he's taller than me.
He's, like, 6'2", which is why I don't understand
why his hands are the size of someone who's 5'2".
Have you seen his hands?
They're like this.
And you know what they say about men with small hands.
[laughter]
You can't trust 'em.
- No, no,
that is not what they say about men with small hands.
And if you can't say the word "penis,"
don't imply the word "penis,"
because at that point, it's not even an insult;
it's a Christian rock lyric.
[laughter]
But--but even as primary voters embrace Trump,
the Republican establishment is rejecting him
like a transplanted organ,
which is fitting, as Trump does resemble
a kidney dropped on the floor at a Supercuts.
But--but to truly reject an organ,
you need white blood cells,
and the GOP called up
the whitest blood cell of them all.
- Now, Donald Trump tells us that he is very, very smart.
[laughter]
I'm afraid that when it comes to foreign policy,
he is very, very not smart.
- Okay,
and that is very, very not a very good insult.
But--but Romney-- Romney wasn't alone.
Prominent Republicans lined up to publicly attack
their own party's front-runner.
- I'm just hopeful that we aren't faced
with the possibility of having Mr. Trump as our nominee.
- I cannot in good conscience vote for him,
and I will not.
- If we nominate Donald Trump
and put him on a glide path to the nomination,
Republicans will be committing an abortion on their own party,
and it will be the end
of the Republican Party as we know it.
- Holy shit!
You know they're getting desperate
when they're just throwing in their favorite buzzwords.
"He won't just be an abortion.
"He'll be a sharia law
"wrapped in a Benghazi-themed gay wedding,
"and I mean it.
"I'm not understating that.
I mean it."
But--but Trump, not surprisingly--
not surprisingly,
Trump hit back hard at his critics
with his tiny hamster-sized fists
during Thursday's debate.
- He referred to my hands-- if they're small,
something else must be small.
I guarantee you there's no problem.
I guarantee.
- That's right.
Donald Trump just talked about his dick
during a presidential debate,
a dick which I presume looks like a Cheeto
with the cheese dust rubbed off.
I presume. That's a--that's a guess.
But do you know what?
I'm glad he brought it up,
mainly because I now have an excuse
to play you something that we didn't have time
to include last week, specifically,
an audiobook excerpt from his ex-wife Ivana's
"For Love Alone," a barely fictionalized account
of their marriage, as read by Morgan Fairchild.
- Oh, that is horrible,
although, whatever you think about that,
you can't say jizzing all over your girlfriend's clothes
is not presidential, okay?
[laughter]
You can't say that.
But--but the Republican Party wasn't just doing damage control
at the national level this week.
A number of local elections
also threw up terrifying results.
Just look at Texas, the Lone Star State,
in that a lone star is what most people
would give Texas on Yelp.
This week--this week, voters in Travis County, Texas,
voted for a Republican chairman, and look who they picked.
Hadlock: Real anger tonight after a man
many Republicans consider to be vulgar and brash
just won control of their party in Travis County.
- I'm not politically correct.
I'm politically incorrect.
I'm like Donald Trump on steroids, sweetheart.
So get ready to have some fun reading my Twitter feed.
- Ugh.
For a start, that guy's overall look
can only be described as
"guy kicked out of your gym for trying to smell women."
Although--although, in his defense, I'll say this:
he's not overselling his Twitter feed,
'cause in just the 48 hours after his election,
he actually tweeted,
"I am the face of the Re-Pube-Licking Party,"
and, "I like boobies," which is still nothing compared
to my absolute favorite tweet of his, which read,
"If you Google 'Robert Morrow 11 inch penis confirmed,'
"you get over 11,800,000 hits.
I'm just sayin',"
which, for the record, is not true,
because we did it, and we only got 472,000 hits.
Although interestingly, if you Google,
"Robert Morrow 1 inch penis confirmed,"
the results go up by 150,000.
But that's not the point.
That's not the point.
The point is,
this guy is now an actual elected official,
chair of the Travis County Republican Party.
This guy.
- Do you think Hillary Clinton would swallow your come,
or would it be more of a Lorena Bobbitt type situation?
George W. Bush is like Rick Perry.
Both of them are closet homosexuals.
That's my personal opinion.
George Herbert Walker Bush was being provided
young teen boys to have sex with.
I think Barack Obama is a gay man who got married.
Bill Clinton, serial rapist.
Hillary Clinton, rampaging bisexual adulterer.
Rick Perry, rampaging bisexual adulterer.
- Yes, yes, that all sounds appalling,
but to be fair, the question he was asked was,
"What sounds does Ann Coulter make
as she falls down the stairs?"
So with that context, he's not entirely wrong.
And look, he wasn't even the only candidate to embarrass
the Republican Party in Texas this week.
Let me introduce you to Mary Lou Bruner,
a woman who, based on her jacket,
I can only assume was a member
of the 1996 women's gymnastics team.
Is she Kerri Strug?
I think she's Kerri Strug.
She's running a successful campaign
for a place on the Texas State Board of Education,
so let's find out some more about her.
woman: Bruner has recently come under fire online
for some passionately stated opinions she holds,
including the idea that global warming
was made up to promote global socialism
and that President Obama paid for a drug addiction in his 20s
through homosexual prostitution.
- How do people think that people on welfare
who also have a drug habit--
how do they think they pay for their drugs?
Well, they steal.
They prostitute themselves.
- Say what you will about that woman.
I would read any history textbook
she had a part in creating.
Wait, Teddy Roosevelt fathered an illegitimate child
that was half human, half bear?
Why did nobody tell me this?
Education is fun.
I yearn to learn.
[laughter]
And look, the Texas State Board of Education
is not known for having
the least controversial personnel in the country,
but she seems extreme, even for them.
She's previously written that the dinosaurs
were on Noah's ark but went extinct afterward
because--and I quote--
"They may have been babies and not able to reproduce.
"It might make sense to take the small dinosaurs onto the ark
instead of the ones bigger than a bus,"
which is clearly scientifically wrong.
The reason we don't have dinosaurs
isn't because they were too small to have sex.
It's because nobody fucks on a cruise.
The--the dinosaurs were probably just too full from the buffet.
Crack a book, lady.
Crack a science book!
Now, to their credit, Republicans were quick
to distance themselves from both candidates,
with a current school board member
saying Bruner would be "a human rain delay"
and the Texas governor's office issuing the statement,
"Robert Morrow in no way speaks for the Republican Party
or its values."
But doesn't he, though?
Because in this election cycle,
it'd be a lot easier to argue that your party
shouldn't be judged by people who spread
weird Obama conspiracy theories and brag about their dicks
if that didn't also accurately describe
your presumptive nominee for the presidency.
It's a weird election time we're going through.
So let's move on to Lands' End,
the clothing company so boring,
its name is literally synonymous with "water."
the Lands' End catalog has recently become
the source of an unexpected scandal.
Jarvis: The retailer known for glossy catalogs like this one
apologizing for what's inside the new spring issue:
an interview with feminist, journalist,
and political activist Gloria Steinem.
- Yes, people were upset over a Gloria Steinem interview
which featured such incendiary quotes as,
"Dreams are bigger than goals,"
"Each person is a unique miracle,"
and, "Lands' End is helping people become themselves,"
which is absurd.
The only way Lands' End helps people "become themselves"
is by providing a visual expression of rock bottom,
because that is a puffy coat with lapels.
Fucking lapels!
It's a puffy blazer!
If you see a loved one wearing that,
don't just stand there; comfort them.
It's a cry for help.
They're reaching out.
Actually, what upset some Lands' End customers
wasn't so much Steinem's interview
as one of her beliefs.
- To do a feature on a pro-abortion feminist,
it's like, "Why--why would you do that?"
Bigos: Pro-life customers promising
to boycott the business
are flooding the company's Facebook page.
woman: The company apologized to customers who were offended,
and it has removed Steinem from its website.
Lands' End says its goal was to feature people
who have made a difference
and not to take a political or religious stance.
- Oh, come on.
Apologizing for the interview is taking a political stance.
And if you didn't want to be religious,
maybe stop making all your clothes
look like they're designed for Mormon spring break.
Now, in an amazing added twist,
Steinem supporters are now threatening
to boycott the company as well.
So, I guess, congratulations, Lands' End.
With one pointless interview, which incidentally
didn't even mention abortion, you've done the impossible.
You've pissed off everyone involved in the abortion debate.
I don't know how you did it.
But by the way, since you are
apologizing about things,
how about apologizing for this shirt
designed to look like the blueprints of a sailboat
or whatever the fuck this is?
It looks like something an ER nurse
would wear to a book burning.
Or maybe apologize for this beige sweater vest,
which-- and this is a fact--
you legally are not allowed to own
unless you are a middle school vice principal.
That's a legal fact.
But I guess-- I guess it does make sense
that Lands' End backed down here,
because they know if a woman truly has the right to choose,
the first thing she'll choose to do
is to shop somewhere else than Lands' End.
And now this:
- There's a new study out that says women
are more attracted to wide-faced men.
- Not to marry, though.
Just to...
- 'Cause...
[laughter]
- Go to Poughkeepsie, if you know what I mean.
[laughter]
- Viagra for men, it's not just for the men,
if you know what I mean.
[laughter]
- She said they lost it having a little honeymoon fun,
if you know what I mean.
[laughter]
- The only thing the guys do of any value involving children
is getting the process started, if you know what I mean.
[laughter]
- If you're a husband who likes to help your wife out
around the house, it may not pay off,
if you know what I mean.
[laughter]
- They're giving it to you,
but then they're giving it to you,
if you know what I mean.
[laughter]
- He wants to sow some wild oats,
if you know what I mean.
- Let's just say it all starts with a banana,
if you know what I mean.
- You have to heat it up in different ways,
you know what I mean?
[laughter]
Gifford: Why don't you just get yourself a nice dickey,
if you know what I mean?
- I don't know what you mean.
[laughter]
- Moving on.
Our main story tonight concerns government,
sports for nerds.
These days, we are all focused on the presidential race,
the biggest, most prominent office in all of government,
but I would like to talk about the opposite of that,
one of the smallest and most obscure
forms of government: special districts.
That's right.
Tonight we are talking
about special taxing districts, so hello,
people watching for the first time
because of our Trump piece,
and also, I presume, good-bye.
Good-bye.
Thanks for checking in.
But just so you know,
special districts are small units of government
with the power to take tax dollars
to do one specific thing.
You've probably heard of a fire district
or a water district,
but they can be set up for almost any purpose,
and there are way more of them than you think.
Berry: Special districts over the past half century
have really proliferated to the point
that we have about 40,000 of them
in the country now, and they account
for about $100 billion of spending.
- $100 billion a year.
That is $16 billion more
than Russia spends on its military.
And when you include school districts,
special districts are the most common form
of local government in the country.
And that's crazy.
It's like finding out the highest-paid athlete
in the world is Harold.
I mean, who the fuck is Harold?
What sport does he play?
Why don't people talk about this all the time?
How am I only hearing about Harold now?
You're making me feel a fool.
Special districts are so ubiquitous
and sometimes have so little accountability,
states may not even know how many they have
or how much they spend.
A few years back, Idaho launched
an investigation of special districts,
with objective one being,
"identify how many special districts
there are in Idaho."
And when Kentucky investigated, its auditor found
that 40% of its districts that were required to
didn't even file proper budgets.
- I mean, this is-- this is an extraordinary mess.
As one of my good friends says, "You can't make this up."
$2.7 billion system of government operating
because of a lack of oversight and accountability
at almost every level has been permitted to become
a level of ghost government.
- Yes, ghost government.
And that is the shittiest idea for a ghost story
I've ever heard.
[laughter]
Aside, of course, from "Ghost Dad,"
and that was a bad idea
before context changed the way we felt about Bill Cosby
having the power to walk through walls.
Before then, it was a bad idea.
After, it was horrifying.
But if you think about it, it's a little weird,
in a country that talks so much about government accountability,
that a huge amount of our tax dollars
go to fund entities that most of us
know absolutely nothing about.
You may not even know how many districts
you are living in right now.
Berry: A school district may overlap with a park district,
a water district, a sewer district, and so on,
such that it wouldn't be at all uncommon
for one person to be finding themselves
within the boundaries of ten or more of these districts.
- That's right.
Think of a special district like a cult.
It can take your money,
and you may not even be aware that you are in one.
Although it is worth remembering,
in a special district, allowing the leader
to impregnate you is not mandatory,
no matter what the guy in charge of the library district says.
No matter what he says with his words or eyes.
[laughter]
And if you're thinking,
"Well, look, what difference does it make
what districts I'm in?"
Well, it can actually make a big difference.
- One person that we found paid $1,000
as part of an irrigation special district
that he lives in in North Central Phoenix.
His neighbor literally across the street
is not a part of that district.
Their special district bill was $7.
$1,000 versus $7.
- Look, the only people who should be paying
$1,000 more than their neighbors across the street
are the assholes who cover every square inch of their house
with Christmas decorations.
They should be taxed,
and then they should be imprisoned,
and then they should be told
their lights were "better last year,"
because it's that one that would hurt them the most.
That's the one that would sting.
And it is important to note here,
in theory and often in practice,
having small entities with a single purpose
can be a great idea.
Take Litchfield, New Hampshire.
In 2007, they chose to create
a mosquito control district
to, you know, control mosquitoes.
It's run by two men who,
as you will see from an amazing YouTube video
of one of their public meetings,
are almost heartbreakingly conscientious,
regardless of the fact
that there is no one else in the room.
- Let's all stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.
[laughter]
both: I pledge allegiance to the flag
of the United States of America
and to the republic for which it stands,
one nation under God, indivisible,
with liberty and justice for all.
[laughter]
- Okay.
Chair will call the roll.
Uh, acting vice chair Mr. Raccio.
- Present.
- And I'm here.
All members are present.
- Come on!
You have got to admire their dedication to the rules.
These two men are so scrupulous,
they would sit at a broken red traffic light
for six hours in the middle of the night.
"Hey, red is red.
"We live in a civilized society.
Red is red. We stay."
[laughter]
In fact, they ran
that 43-minute meeting so meticulously,
they even took input from the public,
with predictable results.
- Any members of the public wishing to speak?
Seeing and hearing none.
[laughter]
- Look, I guess when you're a member
of a ghost government, it's only natural
your meetings are gonna be attended
only by the ghost public.
Now, that is the best-case scenario,
and many special districts are like that,
chugging along just fine with no major problems.
But some, like the Isaacson
Municipal Utility District in Texas, are not,
'cause an audit recently discovered $70,000 in losses
and that the district billed residents for water
with a disturbing consistency.
- We're not all professional accountants or managers.
We may not have looked at things
as closely as, maybe, we should have.
Oberg: IMUD has been billed
for 13,721,200 gallons of water
every year for the last six years,
rain or drought or weather, no change, same number.
- Now, no charges have been filed there,
but that level of consistency is weird.
The only time the exact same amount of water
should appear in a document year after year
is in Shamu's rider.
Yeah, Shamu gets 13.7 million gallons of water
in his tank at all times, and not a drop less.
He's a fucking artist.
I'm obviously kidding.
You can keep him in a wading pool if you want,
and if you want to fuck his blowhole,
that'll be an extra $20.
The point is, thanks for visiting SeaWorld.
[laughter]
And--but-- but in Kentucky--
in Kentucky, the lack of supervision
led to outright corruption,
with over $100,000 being fantastically misspent
by one former assistant fire chief.
man: The report claims
the Garrett Volunteer Fire Department
in Floyd County used taxpayer money
to buy things like flat-screen televisions,
chewing tobacco, and fireworks.
Investigators say they also found
hundreds of pornographic videos on department electronics.
- All right, all right, porn and chewing tobacco
are obviously inappropriate,
but you know what really upsets me the most there?
Fireworks.
They're a fire department.
That's like hearing EMTs have been using their budget
to stage scissor races.
They're your natural enemy!
[laughter]
But that behavior was nothing compared to what happened
in a fire district in Rhode Island.
- You won't believe the undercover video
we gathered on the man in charge.
We spotted him drinking during the day,
then driving the fire department vehicle
back to work.
We even have him taking the public safety vehicle
to party up on Federal Hill,
drinking and apparently smoking marijuana.
- This is you smoking what looks to be pot.
- A cigar maybe?
- You then share the cigar with your friends there?
- I don't know.
- That's a cigar?
- Yes, it is.
- You know, I got to tell you, Chief,
no one's gonna buy that.
- Eh.
No, no, I'm pretty sure they'll definitely buy it.
That's a cigar, just like that's flour
for when you want to bake one tiny cookie.
That's honey for my tea.
I use a very specific amount.
And that's just some quartz I keep laying around.
I love quartz.
[laughter]
And look,
corruption is not unique to special districts.
There are clearly problems
in all other forms of government as well.
But when special districts only have one job,
it makes it all the more noticeable when things go wrong.
Take Evergreen Park, Illinois.
The county it's in has four different
mosquito abatement districts
to prevent the spread of West Nile,
so it had to be humiliating when this happened.
- The mayor of west suburban Evergreen Park
came down with West Nile virus.
- The mayor got fucking West Nile!
Look, no one is expecting a 0% failure rate here,
but if you're surrounded
by that many mosquito abatement districts,
shouldn't there at least be agents
willing to take a mosquito for him?
Come on.
[laughter]
And one of the most interesting ways
that special districts are different
from any other form of government
is how they can be created seemingly out of thin air.
For instance, in Conroe, Texas, a company was hoping to create
a new neighborhood on undeveloped land.
They wanted to form a special district
which could issue bonds.
Now, to do this, the law required a vote,
but remember, no one lived there yet.
So guess what they did.
McCulley: When Tim Kellerman saw someone
installing a mobile home next to his house recently,
he asked them what's going on.
- He told me it was none of my business.
McCulley: This man and his wife moved in on Monday
and signed a nine-month lease with Stingray Services.
After that, he said they're moving out.
They're the only two people who can vote
on $500 million worth of bonds for the new housing project.
- Two people voting for $500 million of bonds
and then leaving.
It's as if in "The Lion King,"
Simba's father looked out over the plains and said,
"Son, someday this will all be someone else's problem,"
and they both fucked off and never came back.
[laughter]
And that whole process is perfectly legal.
In fact, this wasn't the only place
where Stingray Services provided what they called
"'turn-key voter trailer' election services."
They once even advertised on Craigslist
with an ad reading, "Eligible tenants will vote in
"and serve as election officials
for the election which takes place in the home."
Oh, that's right.
You're not just the only voters.
You're the election officials,
and your trailer is the polling station.
It makes you wonder why they didn't just throw in
some bullshit ballot initiatives just for fun.
"Oh, and on the motion that Jenna start cleaning out
"her fucking hairbrush 'cause it's starting
to look like we have a cat, we seem to be tied one to one."
[laughter]
And once--once a special district is created,
you can be pretty sure
no one is going to be watching what you do.
'Cause remember that New Hampshire video?
When we found it on YouTube, it had zero views.
Zero!
Meaning those two guys themselves
didn't even watch it.
That is antiviral, as videos go.
And voter accountability is pretty unlikely too.
One county in New York found turnout rates
for some special district elections
could be as low as 1.8%,
which might be because that county held,
on average, one special district election
every 10.9 business days,
with not a single one taking place on Election Day,
which just seems inherently suspicious.
Think about it.
It would be a bit of a red flag
if someone in your neighborhood offered children candy
every 11 days but never on Halloween.
It would give you pause for thought.
[laughter]
And even if the state government does investigate,
special districts may try to blow them off.
When that Kentucky auditor started asking
his state's districts about making their information
available to the public,
he got some pretty unhelpful responses.
- Here's one. Direct quote, by the way.
We didn't take any liberties with these.
"This contains information
the public is not entitled to know."
This is a good one.
"We don't want to fill this out
because there are too many crackpots in the world."
And my favorite, "Well, we'd just rather
"the public contact us directly to gain information
so we know who's asking."
- What?
You get the sense their preferred mode of contact
would be an email to fakeemailaddress@fuckoff.gov.
And--and by the way, if, after hearing that,
some Kentuckians wanted to shut a district down,
they might not be able to, because as that auditor wrote,
"Many types of districts may continue to exist
because there is not a process for them to be dissolved."
There's no way to break them up.
They're like Styrofoam packing peanuts
or the enduring friendship
of Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake.
They'll be with us until the end of time.
[laughter]
Now, to be fair, some states are pushing
to reform special districts.
California, for instance,
has made them far more transparent in recent years,
and a special districts association in San Diego
even launched a competition for schoolchildren
to create a one-minute video educating the public about
"What's So Special About Special Districts?"
The deadline was Tuesday, and it had a $1,500 top prize.
And the reason I know that is,
we entered with some local schoolkids,
and this is the result.
- Today's top story: special districts.
What's so special about them?
- Special districts are smaller governments
that collect taxes to handle one specific service.
- Like fight fire or provide water
or buy fireworks or smoke cigars.
- Special districts are special
because they can receive little oversight.
- They're sometimes called ghost governments.
- I used to be afraid of ghosts,
but now I'm afraid of girls.
- Special districts can also be very easy to create.
- Sometimes the only people voting for them
are two people in a trailer in the middle of nowhere.
- Hmm, they put two people in a trailer in an empty field.
Sounds like my younger brother.
You know it's true, Declan.
You weren't wanted.
- Sometimes special districts aren't so special, though.
- Like when the mayor of a village
in a county with four mosquito spraying districts
came down with the West Nile virus.
- Come on.
- That would barely be acceptable
if your town were near the actual Nile.
- A river you think so little about,
you don't even realize that's not the Nile!
This is the Nile.
- But perhaps the most special part about special districts
is how hard it is to get rid of them.
- They're almost impossible to destroy,
like Wolverine.
Even Superman couldn't destroy Wolverine.
- Though obviously they would never meet,
because that's crossing universes.
- So, to recap,
special districts take our money
and do whatever they want with it
with little to no consequences.
- When I grow up, I want to be a special district.
all: Yay!
And now this.
- That's our show.
Thank you so much for watching.
See you next week.
Good night!
- I used to be afraid of ghosts,
but now I'm afraid of girls.
- I used to be afraid of ghosts,
but now I'm afraid of girls.
- Even Superman couldn't destroy Wolverine.
Come on!
That would barely be acceptable.
If your town were near the "actual" Nile, um...
- That's not the Nile.
This is the Nile right here.
[sighs]
- You know it's true, Decla--Ducklan.
You weren't wanted.
[bright tone]