The Indecision 11: Emily Heller

Welcome to The Indecision 11, our soft-hitting — caressing, really — politics questionnaire for smart, funny people. This week: Emily Heller, who appears TONIGHT on an all-new episode of John Oliver's New York Stand-Up Show, which you can watch on Comedy Central at 11/10c. She produces a weekly live stand-up show called The Afterlife, and the Just for Laughs festival in Montreal just named her one of their New Faces of Comedy. Follow that face: @MrEmilyHeller.

What's your earliest political memory?
When I was a sophomore in high school I phone banked for Al Gore. Later, I was on the phone with my boyfriend during election night. I remember saying something like, "We only need a few more states!" and him saying, "Well… would it be so bad if Bush won?" It was like the end of The Crying Game–turns out I had been dating a Republican the WHOLE TIME!

I also wrote a letter to President Clinton when I was 11, complaining about my P.E. teacher and comparing the whole situation to the Montgomery bus boycott. It was very classy, tasteful and not at all hyperbolic.

What do you think of people who don't vote?
I think of them often. I'm like, "What are they up to right now? It's really too bad we lost touch." Just kidding. I don't know. I understand how it happens. You're busy, America. You have all kinds of video games to play and diseases to die from.

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Tags: Emily Heller, John Oliver's New York Stand-Up Show, The Indecision 11

John Oliver on the Difference Between U.S. and U.K. Elections

Also, the magic that is/was Herman Cain, thoughts on the new season of his Comedy Central stand-up series, and a solemn promise concerning the upcoming Daily Show coverage of the RNC and DNC conventions…

"Listen, I'm not saying the British democracy is the perfect democracy either. It is also completely screwed up, but in a different way. And we at the very least spend less money and less time doing it. We have our entire campaign season over about five weeks. So, there has to be a happy medium between five weeks and one-and-a-half years." – John Oliver

John Oliver's New York Stand-Up Show airs Friday nights at 11/10c.

(via HuffPo Comedy)

Tags: Citizens United v. FEC, Herman Cain, John Oliver, John Oliver's New York Stand-Up Show, Money, The Daily Show, United Kingdom

John Oliver and Kumail Nanjiani Celebrate Their Legal Permanent Residency Status

…which I think makes them terrorists and possibly even terror babies, though I'm only about 50 percent on that one. Can somebody please double check with Louie Gohmert?

An all-new episode of John Oliver's New York Stand-Up Show airs Thursday night at 12/11c.

Tags: Immigration, John Oliver, John Oliver's New York Stand-Up Show, Taxes, United Kingdom

John Oliver Searches for Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly's Good Old Days

Cable news rabble-rousers like Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly love to rouse their rabble by lamenting the loss of the America they grew up in, an idyllic and simpler bygone era. So, on last night's Daily Show, John Oliver went looking for these so-called good old days, and it wasn't so easy. But maybe he just didn't go back far enough. From what I understand, there was a pretty nice period of time that ended about 250,000 years ago.

The Daily Show airs Monday through Thursday at 11pm / 10c. And be sure to tune in for the series premiere of John Oliver's New York Stand-Up Show, Friday at 11pm / 10c.

Tags: Bill O'Reilly, Fox, Glenn Beck, John Oliver, John Oliver's New York Stand-Up Show, Jon Stewart, Sean Hannity, The Daily Show, Video