S6 E10: Lethal Injections, William Barr & Australian Elections: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Bill Barr skips hearing, Steve Cohen brings chicken

• US Attorney General Bill Barr failed to attend a congressional hearing, prompting Congressman Steve Cohen to bring a bucket of fried chicken and a ceramic chicken to the hearing to make a point about Barr's absence (42s).
• Cohen had bought the chicken the night before and kept it in his fridge, which was seen as a pathetic attempt at humor (1m12s).
• Republican Senator Tom Tillis criticized Cohen's actions, but then displayed a poster board image of someone eating KFC, which was seen as hypocritical (1m43s).

Australian election scandals

• Australia is holding a federal election on May 18th, and the campaign has already been marred by scandals, including footage of Steve Dixon, a leader in the far-right One Nation party, groping dancers at a US strip club (2m51s).
• Dixon's actions were seen as a bad look, especially since he campaigns on family values, but the criticism focused more on the fact that he wasn't behaving on brand rather than the severity of his actions (3m8s).
• Several candidates in the Australian election have gotten in trouble for offensive social media posts, including anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic, homophobic, and rape joke posts (3m39s).
• Ross McDonald, a candidate, posted a plethora of lewd photos to his Facebook page, including a photo of himself grabbing a woman's breast in a bar and a photoshopped image of a naked woman made to look like a horse (3m50s).
• Clive Palmer, the head of the United Australia party, is a brash businessman running for election with a populist anti-establishment platform, drawing comparisons to a certain well-known figure due to his arrogance and red tie (4m27s).
• Palmer has positioned himself as a political outsider, despite being elected in 2013 and becoming known for being the most absent politician for two years in a row (5m20s).
• Palmer has had some notable business ideas, including a failed Jurassic Park-inspired dinosaur park called "Palmersaurus" and a plan to build a ship called the "Titanic 2" (5m45s).
• The Titanic 2 is intended to be a "ship of peace" that will travel from China to Southampton to New York, with Palmer claiming it will be a place where "dreams will come true" (5m57s).
• However, the idea of the Titanic 2 has been criticized for not learning from the lessons of the past, particularly the fact that the original Titanic sank, and for using fictional characters like Jack and Rose from the movie Titanic to promote the idea (6m46s).
• The Titanic 2 project is seen as representative of Palmer's entire political platform, which seems to be based on taking a historic disaster and trying to do it again, only worse and in Australia (7m26s).

Jim Adler, the Texas Hammer

• In a separate note, a lawyer named Jim Adler, also known as the "Texas Hammer," is mentioned as someone who claims to take on greedy insurance companies and fight for his clients' rights (7m47s).
• A lawyer advertisement for Jim Adler, also known as "The Texas Hammer," and his brother Bill Adler, was shown, featuring the two lawyers claiming to fight for clients' medical bills, paychecks, and pain and suffering, with a humorous tone (8m12s).

Lethal injection debate

• The main story of the night was supposed to be about the desert rainfrog, but it was actually about lethal injections, a subject that doesn't come up often because people don't want to think about it (8m46s).
• Lethal injections happen frequently in America, with one occurring in Georgia just three nights prior, and there are differing views on the death penalty, with some believing it's a deterrent to crime and others believing it's righteous justice (9m44s).
• Wyoming state senator Linn Hutchings believes the death penalty is justified because Jesus died via the death penalty, which is an unusual reason for supporting capital punishment (9m58s).
• The personal view on the death penalty is that it shouldn't exist, as there's no proof it brings down crime, it's more expensive to execute someone than to keep them in prison for life, and it's morally wrong (10m42s).
• Listing reasons why one doesn't support the death penalty can feel like listing reasons why one doesn't like their mom, but it's essential to consider the facts, including that around 4% of people sentenced to death are actually innocent (11m7s).
• Lethal injection was introduced as a humane and painless method, gaining popularity around four decades ago as states started getting queasy about the horrors inflicted by the electric chair (11m49s).
• A state senator from Louisiana explained his vote to switch to lethal injection, stating that he's for capital punishment but thinks it should be done humanely (12m2s).
• Lethal injection was initially perceived as a more humane method of execution compared to other methods like the electric chair, which has been known to set people's heads on fire (12m9s).
• The process of lethal injection is often compared to a medical procedure, but this comparison is a stretch since it is not performed by medical personnel due to ethical codes that prohibit physicians from being involved in executions (13m1s).
• As a result, the people involved in executions are usually not physicians and lack proper training for procedures like IV insertion, let alone lethal injection (13m14s).
• The design of the lethal injection process was not developed by scientists in a lab, but rather by legislators in Oklahoma who consulted with the state's medical examiner, Jay Chapman, despite his lack of expertise in the area (13m47s).
• Lethal injection is typically administered in three steps: an anesthetic to put the inmate to sleep, a paralytic to stop the limbs from moving, and a third drug to initiate cardiac arrest (14m26s).
• The second and third drugs used in the procedure are particularly concerning, with the third drug causing a sensation of fire being poured into the veins and the second drug potentially causing a nightmarish experience of suffocation if the inmate is not completely unconscious (14m47s).
• The use of these drugs raises questions about the humanity of lethal injection, with some arguing that it is not significantly more humane than other methods like the electric chair (15m38s).
• The first drug in a lethal injection sequence is crucial as it's supposed to prevent the person from feeling the other two drugs, with sodium thiopental previously being used for this purpose, but it's no longer made in the US and not approved by the FDA for import (15m59s).
• Some states have tried to circumvent the restriction on sodium thiopental, with Arizona purchasing it illegally from a supplier in London five years ago (16m22s).
• When the supply of sodium thiopental was cut off, states looked for replacement drugs, with Texas attempting to buy them from a supplier in India and a small independent pharmacist that also operated as a gift shop (16m46s).
• Most states have given up on sodium thiopental and now use a sedative called midazolam for the first step, which relaxes the person but doesn't stop pain (17m20s).
• An expert has described midazolam as a "martini in a syringe," which is not sufficient to prevent pain during the procedure (17m31s).
• Dr. Roswell Lee Evans has testified in favor of using midazolam in six different states, despite not being a medical doctor and having limited expertise in the field (17m54s).
• Dr. Evans has not conducted research on midazolam or other anesthetics, and has been working as a college administrator since 1994 (18m6s).
• During a deposition, Dr. Evans answered "no" to multiple questions about his involvement in research on various anesthetics, highlighting his lack of expertise (18m27s).
• An expert witness report for the Supreme Court consisted of printouts from drugs.com, a resource that explicitly states it is not intended for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment, which raises concerns about its use in lethal injections (20m5s).
• In Arizona, some inmates sued over the use of midazolam (mazam) in their executions, and the Department of Corrections suggested that inmates could bring their own execution drugs, which is impractical and nearly impossible for prisoners (20m34s).
• The head of Arizona's Department of Corrections acknowledged that no prisoner on death row in Arizona has successfully purchased federally regulated drugs for their own execution, and it is unlikely that any prisoner could do so (21m20s).
• The case of Clayton Lockett, who was executed in Oklahoma in 2014 using a new three-drug combination including midazolam, is an example of how botched executions can occur when factors such as inadequate training and lack of transparency come together (22m4s).
• Lockett's execution took 43 minutes, and the needles were inserted into his forearms, neck, foot, groin, and buttock, causing him to try to raise up and say "something's wrong" (22m14s).
• The investigation into Lockett's execution revealed that the people administering the injection were ill-prepared, the drugs were not delivered into his vein, and there was no backup plan or emergency plan in place (22m55s).
• The use of midazolam in executions has been widely criticized, and it has been shown that it does not render a person unconscious and can cause immense pain (23m22s).
• Lethal injection has the highest botch rate of any execution method, with many examples of gruesome and inhumane executions (24m2s).
• Two inmates in Tennessee requested to be executed by the electric chair last year, as they believed it would be less painful than lethal injection, highlighting the unpredictable nature of lethal injection as a method of execution (24m8s).
• Some ardent supporters of the death penalty, including a federal judge, acknowledge that lethal injection is not a humane method of execution, but rather a way to make it appear peaceful and benign (24m27s).
• The same federal judge has proposed alternatives to lethal injection, including firing squads and the guillotine, which he believes are more effective and humane methods of execution (24m49s).
• However, it is worth noting that this judge stepped down from his position due to numerous sexual misconduct claims (25m29s).
• There is no perfect way for the government to kill people, and various alternatives to lethal injection, such as assisted suicide, overdosing on opioids, and cyanide gas, have been tried but have their own problems (25m40s).
• The latest idea is nitrogen gas, but it also has its own set of problems, and coming up with different methods of execution is a bit like trying to find a way to make it more palatable (26m19s).
• The fundamental fact about lethal injection is that it is a show designed to maximize the comfort of those who support the death penalty, rather than minimizing the pain of those being executed (27m4s).
• Lethal injection is not about the people being executed, but about the kind of society we are, and if we still think we should be using this method of execution, then we are arguing that we should be a society that tortures people to death (27m29s).
• The discussion concludes that continuing to execute people by lethal injections or any other method is a serious issue. (27m45s)

Jim M and Spanish Advertisements

• The conversation mentions Jim M, implying that he also did advertisements in Spanish. (27m58s)

Show Closing

• The segment ends with a closing statement, thanking viewers for watching and bidding them farewell until the next episode. (28m40s)