Among the things we're learning about Daily Show summer host John Oliver: He's goofier than Jon Stewart, has a broader range of strange accents, and is apparently way more into musical theater. All of that was on display Wednesday night, as Oliver celebrated the Supreme Court's striking down the Defense of Marriage Act and Texas State Sen. Wendy Davis' (D) dramatic 11-hour filibuster of a restrictive abortion bill.
For the DOMA analysis, Oliver brings out regular correspondents Samantha Bee, Jason Jones, and Al Madrigal. Bee mocks Justice Antonin Scalia for angrily arguing that the Supreme Court has no right to strike down DOMA, a day after he happily neutered the Voting Rights Act. Madrigal and Jones are, well, confused by the DOMA ruling.
With the death of DOMA properly noted, Oliver moves on to the "epic" 11-hour filibuster by Texas State Sen. Wendy Davis (D). If you watched The Daily Show last night, Oliver says, "big mistake: You should not have done that." The real drama, he says, was in the Texas statehouse, where Davis and her Democratic colleagues managed to (temporarily) kill a restrictive abortion bill, with the help of a friendly raucous crowd in the gallery.
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Oliver shows a little skepticism about how bad for abortion rights the bill would actually be: If all but five of the state's 42 abortion clinics were to shut down, he notes, Texas would still have three more clinics than Six Flag amusement parks. But ultimately, Oliver applauds Davis' stamina, moxie, and potential for a lucrative sneaker endorsement deal.
He then turns the show over to "senior women's issues correspondent" Kristen Schaal (of 30 Rock fame), who applauds Davis but gives a bigger shout out to "even greater Texas lady" Rep. Jodie Laubenberg (R), a supporter of the abortion bill who argued in the Texas House that state-purchased rape kits somehow facilitate abortion, instead of collecting evidence for future rape prosecutions. Having women publicly "make stuff up about how a woman's body works" is "the final glass ceiling" women had to break through, Schaal proclaims. Watch:
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