After cataloguing the ways in which the oil industry boom has taken advantage of polite North Dakotans, John Oliver announced on Sunday’s “Last Week Tonight” that he had bought a billboard in North Dakota urging the state’s residents to “Be Angry. (Please.)”
“North Dakota had gotten used to be ignored,” Oliver said, about the time before the shale oil boom happened in the state.
But “like Channing Tatum, North Dakota suddenly turned out to be much more interesting covered in oil,” the HBO show host joked.
“For all the good the oil industry has done for the state, it has not been without cost,” he said.
There are few federal workplace compliance officers working across the vast state, leading to dangerous conditions for workers, the show reported. Additionally, campaign contributions (from oil companies or otherwise) don’t even have to be used for a campaign; it can be put in the politician’s own account at the end of the campaign, the HBO show reported. And it’s unlikely things will change, Oliver argued, because North Dakota doesn’t have an ethics commission.
“Which is pretty much guaranteeing FIFA just found its location for its new international headquarters. They’re coming, North Dakota, they’re coming,” Oliver said.
Watch the clip and see the billboard below, courtesy of HBO:
Not to mention crime and drug use are spiraling out of control and the cost of living is/was skyrocketing until worldwide oil prices plummeted.
How about them thar Big-State Problems, North Dakoty?
FIFA and oil. whatta match!
Let’s bring thousands of manual laborers, have little to no oversight of their employers, shitty labor laws, and hard, demanding jobs that require lots of physical work and long hours.
Holy shit, methamphetamine use is out of control? HOW THE HELL DID THIS HAPPEN?
Signed,
North Dakota
FIFA headquartered in Bismark, ND does have a ring to it.
ND has only 880,000 citizens, yet it gets 2 Senators, both of which are DEEPLY in the pockets of the Oil Industry.
They pride themselves on being “Conservative” with a Capital “C”, Pro-Military, anti-tax, anti-immigrant, anti-drug, anti-abortion (very high percentage of Catholics/Lutherans in ND) and typically RURAL state with large military bases (huge Air Force base in Minot) and No Income Taxes.
We joke about how there are only 3 reasons anyone lives in ND:
You Bet’cha Yaw.