Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (2014) s11e07 Episode Script
Lethal Injections
Welcome, welcome, welcome
to "Last Week Tonight". I'm John Oliver.
Thank you so much for joining us.
It has been a busy week.
In Gaza, Israel killed, among
others, seven aid workers,
something the Biden administration
expressed absolute outrage about
while continuing to send Israel
more bombs.
Meanwhile, Taiwan saw
a major earthquake,
and New Jersey saw a minor one,
which nevertheless got
a ton of coverage,
because it was felt where
the national media are based,
leading to this excellent moment
on CNN.
To our viewers, we're getting some
incredible new video just in
out of New Jersey showing
the earthquake. Watch this.
Well, it doesn't seem
so incredible, this video.
No, no, it doesn't.
You know when you tell your friend
about a funny video you saw
on YouTube,
then you show it to them,
they don't laugh at all, and you
both sit in awkward silence?
That's what just happened
on the news.
But we're gonna dive straight
into our main story tonight,
which concerns the death penalty.
America's had it for centuries,
but its methods have varied
considerably,
as this documentary
from the '80s explains
in weirdly comprehensive fashion.
The methods America has used to
execute its criminals
have changed over the years,
from burning to drawing
and quartering to hanging.
Criminals have
been axed, crucified, buried alive,
pressed with weights,
stoned, impaled, starved,
decapitated, and gibbetted.
Gibbetting is the hanging of the
condemned man by chains to rot.
Death often takes weeks to occur.
Holy shit! A few things.
First, if that list
wasn't so horrifying,
the creativity would be
genuinely impressive.
I mean, "pressed with weights?"
You've gotta be pretty inventive to be
brainstorming ways to kill people
and think, "Let's panini them!"
Second, what the fuck is "axed"?
At first, I thought,
"Well, it's beheading,"
but then "decapitated" is listed
as its own thing.
So, is "axed" just someone
hacking at you
like they're in one of those
lumberjack competitions?
Or did people just throw axes, like
they're at a bachelorette party
in Brooklyn that needed an activity?
And as for gibbetting,
that is a horrifying definition
for an adorable word.
"Gibbetting" sounds like what you'd call
baby goats rushing to food
at a petting zoo, or the weird head
movement that pigeons make.
At its grossest, "gibbetting" should be
when you have the hiccups,
but there's a tiny bit
of throw-up in it.
Not hanging someone by chains
for days until they rot to death.
And let me just acknowledge, we've
talked about the death penalty before,
in our second-ever show
back in 2014,
and again five years later,
in an episode narrowly beating out
"Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2"
as the least anticipated sequel
of all time.
And to quickly summarize
the arguments in those stories,
our stance was that the death penalty
is morally wrong,
there is no humane way to do it,
and any discussion of one is akin
to coming up with the best way
to fuck your mom,
which is to say, there's simply
no right way to do that.
But we need to talk about the death
penalty a third time tonight,
because there've been
some grim developments.
Since our last piece aired,
the U.S. has executed 91 people.
And 13 of those executions were done
at the federal level.
Which is actually unusual,
given that, for almost two decades,
there had been zero.
And all those 13 federal executions
were under Trump,
who went on an execution spree
at the end of his term,
including "the first lame-duck federal
execution in more than a century."
Which really shouldn't be surprising,
given his outspoken love
of capital punishment,
from taking out full-page ads
calling for it to be applied
to the Central Park Five,
to constantly saying things like this.
I've always supported
the death penalty.
I don't even understand people
that don't.
Death penalty, bring it forth.
I am so for the death penalty.
Remember the old days?
A deserter. What happened?
You know, the old days,
boom! Firing squad.
You know, in the old days, bing-bong!
When we were strong,
when we were strong.
The ultimate penalty has
to be the death penalty.
Now, maybe our country's not ready
for that, it's possible,
it's possible that our country is not
ready for that, and I can understand it,
maybe. Although personally,
I can't understand that.
Okay. First, genuinely shocking
to hear the phrase "bring it forth"
come out of his mouth.
Second, how can you understand,
but also can't understand?
And finally, do you think guns go
"bing-bong"?
Why would you make that sound, when
there are so many correct gun noises?
Bang, boom, pew, pow. I'd even
accept blam-o! But bing-bong?
The fuck are you talking about?
I guess what I'm trying to say is:
I can understand it, maybe, although
personally I can't understand it.
But the thing I want to focus on about
those federal executions
is the method used to carry them out.
Because it wasn't 100% by the book.
That probably shouldn't be surprising
coming from the Trump administration,
but we may have some
new information for you tonight
about exactly how far from the book
they ended up straying.
And that disregard speaks
to a larger issue here,
which is that our federal and state
governments have continued to pursue
questionably legal and definitely
horrifying ways to do something that,
again, I would argue
they shouldn't be doing at all.
So given that, tonight, let's check in
on some of the new ways
our government has found
to execute people.
And let's start with the fact that,
as we've discussed before,
it can be incredibly hard for the
government to find drugs to use
in lethal injections.
The governor of South Carolina once
summed up the reasons for that
at a press conference to explain
why a planned lethal injection
couldn't actually be carried out.
The reason we don't have the drugs,
despite efforts, intense efforts,
to get 'em, is because the companies
that make 'em,
the distributors who distribute 'em,
and the pharmacists who may have
to compound 'em
don't want to be identified.
They are afraid that their names
will be made known,
and that they don't want to have
anything to do with it.
He's right. He's doing a B-minus
impression of Foghorn Leghorn there,
but he is right!
Drug suppliers don't want their names
associated with executions.
In fact, people generally don't like
to be associated
with killing their fellow citizens.
It's why your friend's husband says
he's "in consulting"
instead of "working for big tobacco,"
and Becca from college says
she's a "corporate lawyer"
instead of "defending the Sacklers
in court".
Also, and this isn't the point, but did
these two coordinate their outfits?
I'm gonna choose to believe that the
governor called up the other guy
the night before and was like,
"Hey babe, let's do red tie,
white shirt,"
and an untailored black suit
from Joseph A. Bank's 'drab
conservative' collection.
See you in the morning, twinsie!"
What that governor was pushing for,
and ultimately got,
was a shield law keeping the names
of drug suppliers secret.
And South Carolina isn't alone there.
Since 2011,
15 states have enacted new secrecy
statutes that conceal vital information
about the execution process,
from the names of drug suppliers
to the identities
of those participating.
But even with that secrecy, many
suppliers still refuse to provide drugs
for executions,
because it's bad for business.
And that has led states to source drugs
from pretty sketchy suppliers.
Which is a problem,
because when drugs are tainted,
or not formulated
at the proper dosage,
executions become a protracted
nightmare of suffering,
which is both horrifying
and also unconstitutional.
Take Arizona. Over the years,
it's sourced drugs from places
including a driving school in London
and a random guy in India whose
supposed "facilities" included
his former apartment, and whose
drugs were seized by the FDA.
And Arizona has a history of not
administering drugs properly,
it actually paused executions for eight
years after one in 2014 was botched,
taking nearly two hours
as a man died gasping for air.
And when executions resumed there
a couple of years ago,
there was a concern
they'd repeat those mistakes.
But the state's AG, Mark Brnovich,
didn't seem that concerned
about any of this.
At the end of the day, what these
killers get with lethal injection
is much better than anything they did
to the victims and their families.
Okay, but that doesn't really matter,
does it?
Because the Constitution exists.
The 8th Amendment doesn't say,
"No cruel and unusual punishment,
unless they like, really deserve it."
Now, interestingly, there's been a big
development in lethal injections,
with states increasingly giving up
on the method many had been using,
a three-drug cocktail of an anesthetic,
a paralytic,
and a drug that induces
cardiac arrest,
a process that's been likened
to being paralyzed
while fire is being poured
into your veins.
Instead, they've switched over
to a single, massive shot of a sedative
called pentobarbital.
That is the drug
the Trump administration used
in its end-of-term killing spree.
But it is no less brutal
than the other method.
Because while the Trump administration
offered sanitized accounts
of the executions it carried out,
likening the process
to "falling asleep,"
calling the gurneys "beds"
and the final breaths "snores,"
witnesses reported that "prisoners'
stomachs rolled, shook,
and shuddered
as the pentobarbital took effect,"
and in the two autopsies done
after those executions,
both revealed that inmates' lungs were
twice as heavy as they should be,
indicating pulmonary edema,
where fluid rushes into lungs
and airways,
which, if you're not properly
anesthetized
could cause pain akin to being
suffocated or drowned.
All of which is about as far from
peacefully falling asleep in your bed
as your kid's dog is from chasing cars
in doggy heaven.
That person suffered,
and that dog is dead and in doggy hell
because he was never baptized.
But even setting the brutality aside,
a key question hanging
over this whole thing is,
where exactly did the Trump
administration get these drugs?
Because it's not like it's easy to find
a supplier
willing to sell you pentobarbital.
You can't just pop into CVS
and head over to the "state-sponsored
execution drugs" aisle.
Tennessee's Department of Corrections
spent years trying to find pentobarbital
for its executions,
and a report later exposed the lengths
it was willing to go to to find
a supplier.
Emails between TDOC and the
pharmacy they work with
revealed the agency was looking
at importing the drug
from a different country.
Years earlier, TDOC had even asked
the pharmacy
if they could get the drug through
a veterinarian, but it didn't work out.
You don't get drugs that you give
to animals to people.
It is sort of ridiculous that we have
to run around the country begging,
borrowing for drugs to kill people.
Right. The DOC shouldn't be running
around the country begging for drugs,
that is for diabetics and women who
want to exercise their right to choose!
This is America! And he is right!
You shouldn't give animal drugs
to people.
We probably shouldn't be ingesting
anything meant for animals,
aside from maybe Fancy Feast,
because, be honest,
tell me that doesn't look good!
I know it's just a wet puddle of chicken
for cats, but frankly, I'm interested.
So, pentobarbital is hard to find.
Raising the question of, again, where
the Trump administration got it.
But that is hard to find out,
because, at every level, those who
carry out executions crave secrecy.
When South Carolina's execution
methods were challenged
in the state supreme court,
here's the argument the state made
for why some elements of their
process had to remain secret.
Your honor, the minute you begin to
disclose anything about the drug,
you begin to give the other side puzzle
pieces as to where the drug came from.
So, whether it's manufactured
or compounded,
what's the lot number of the drug
or of the bulk materials,
you begin to piece together
who manufactured it,
where could it have been
compounded,
who could have sold 'em the bulk
material.
And the minute
you start releasing that,
you make it harder for SCDC
to get the drugs in the future.
Now, that is an interesting point,
even if it is coming from Teen Sheldon,
super-lawyer.
Any time you unmask a drug supplier,
that probably is gonna make carrying
out executions much harder.
So, you can see why the federal
government so badly wants
to keep its suppliers secret, too.
And that is why it may be slightly
inconvenient for them
that we're pretty sure we've tracked
down exactly who supplied
the Trump administration
with its pentobarbital.
It's a company called
Absolute Standards,
based in Hamden, Connecticut.
That's their logo on the sign outside,
which is presumably supposed to be
a chemical particle,
even though it looks more like a mobile
made out of minion testicles.
Absolute Standards' business is making
chemicals for calibrating machines,
which is to say, not making drugs
for human consumption.
But we're pretty sure they're making
execution drugs as a side hustle,
and I think our case is pretty strong.
And I know I've spent a lot of time
over the last 10 years
reassuring everyone that this show
does comedy and not journalism
but I think we can all agree that
the most important thing we do here
is stir shit up,
and it's in that spirit that I want
to explain how we got to this point.
Because one of our researchers has
been covering the death penalty
for years,
long before he worked for us.
And he found that Absolute Standards
had registered with the DEA to produce
pentobarbital in August of 2018,
and, as it happens, when the Bureau
of Prisons was asked when it entered
into a contract
with a new pentobarbital supplier,
they said, "It would have been roughly
August of 2018".
so the timeline matches up.
We're not the first to suspect
this company.
Reuters asked similar questions
a few years ago,
and the lab's director initially said
his company
"had no involvement with
the government's execution drugs,"
only to later say
he could not rule it out,
because "in many parts of our market,
we don't know what the final intended
use is going to be."
Which isn't that reassuring.
It is one thing
if you're a peanut farmer
and you don't know if your nuts
are gonna be used in trail mix
or as the nipples on a snowman.
Everyone knows you use coal
for the eyes, a carrot for the nose,
and peanuts for the nipples.
I don't make the rules,
I just follow them.
But for a manufacturer of drugs
that kill people,
you should probably know
where your products are going.
But we still weren't entirely sure,
so we filed a Freedom
of Information Act request, or FOIA,
with the DEA back in 2020,
asking for any records they had
on Absolute Standards,
and while we were waiting for them
to send us over the documents,
the agency's liaison slipped up twice
over the phone and told us
that the reason the request
was taking so long
was because the documents were
related to the death penalty,
which is what's known in the government
world as a big old whoopsie.
And honestly, five out of five
on the post-call survey there.
This employee certainly helped me
solve my problem.
And on top of all this, a confidential
source our researcher trusts
has now confirmed that Absolute
Standards made the drugs.
So it's them.
It's Absolute Standards.
Honestly, at this point, they might
as well just update their real slogan
to "We have the solution that were
secretly used
in a bunch of government executions!"
It even rhymes! You can have that
slogan for free, you monsters!
And look, maybe Absolute Standards
is proud to be producing the drugs
that enabled our government to
effectively drown at least 13 people
while they were strapped to a table.
We've reached out to them repeatedly
for comment on this story,
and they have ignored us.
Which is an odd thing to do when
someone's accusing you
of making execution drugs.
But even if they are happy
to keep doing this,
it's not clear whether
they should be able to.
Because under the law, companies
that make drugs need to be registered
with the FDA.
And the Trump administration claimed,
before the executions,
that its supplier
was properly registered.
But remember, Absolute Standards
doesn't make drugs
for human consumption.
So, we filed another FOIA request
with the FDA,
asking for records they had related
to Absolute Standards,
and they responded by saying they
were "unable to locate any records
responsive to your request,"
and "the firm has not been inspected
by the FDA."
Which is basically government jargon
for "who the fuck is Absolute Standards,
and what the fuck
are you asking us about?"
So, Absolute Standards aren't just
making execution drugs,
I'd argue, they're doing so illegally.
It turns out, it's not just the federal
government that's been buying drugs
from them.
Because when the Trump administration
restarted federal executions,
Arizona's AG, Mark Brnovich,
asked them for help,
and his state wound up spending
an incredible 1,5 million dollars
of taxpayer money to have 1,000 vials
of pentobarbital delivered
in "unmarked jars and boxes,"
the official packaging of "things
you shouldn't be shipping."
And I get wanting secrecy,
but you gotta put something
on those jars to warn people
they might be dangerous.
At least slap on a sticker like a bunny
with crossed out eyes
or a weirdly buff Michael Cera.
Something that makes you go,
"I don't trust what's in this thing."
And our source told us that the supplier
in that instance was, again,
Absolute Standards.
Which, for all we know, could
well still be selling those drugs
to any state that wants them.
And if those unmarked jars did come
from a company without FDA approval,
which they did, it sort of calls into
question a promise
that Brnovich made the last time his
state was caught buying drugs
from questionable sources,
eight years and one beard ago.
All I can assure you is that as long
as I'm attorney general,
we will follow all state and federal
regulations and all the laws
when it comes to obtaining and using the
drugs in the executions here in Arizona.
But it turns out, maybe not.
And as long as he was making
promises he wasn't going to keep,
he might as well have added,
"I can also assure you that I will never
grow a beard that makes me look like
Ted Cruz's less hot cousin."
Now, Brnovich maintains Arizona
didn't have to follow drug laws,
because the DOJ issued a legal opinion
that the FDA has no jurisdiction
over drugs intended for use
in lawful executions.
And it is true that, during the Trump
administration, under Bill Barr,
the DOJ did write that opinion.
And that memo prohibits the FDA from
taking action against a company
making unregulated drugs
for executions.
But the federal appeals court in D.C
has repeatedly ruled,
both before and after
that memo was written,
that drug laws still apply when
they're used for lethal injections.
Meaning they essentially found the
central argument of Barr's memo
to be complete horseshit.
Which does make sense.
Think about what Brnovich and Barr
are arguing there.
They are saying that a company that
wouldn't be qualified to make drugs
to euthanize animals is
perfectly qualified to make drugs
to kill human beings.
It's a pretty embarrassing argument
for a state AG to even try to make.
Although it's not the most embarrassing
thing that he has ever done,
considering he's also a self-described
nunchuck enthusiast who once did this.
It's Arizona Attorney General
Mark Brnovich.
We've gotten a lot of calls,
a lot of emails.
But there's one thing people
definitely want to see.
They want to see more chucks.
So, people, you want more chucks?
You got more chucks!
Cool. Though, just to be clear, Mark,
at no point did I say
I wanted more chucks.
And I've never hoped so hard
that someone was about
to accidentally chuck themselves
in the dick.
Now, thankfully, Arizona's current
governor has paused executions there,
pending a review of the transparency,
accountability,
and safety of the execution process.
And let me just say, Governor,
I have some notes
on where you might want to begin
asking questions!
It's right here on Google Maps.
If you hit the cheese manufacturer,
you've gone too far.
Also, if you work at Absolute Standards,
you've gone too far,
but that is a different issue.
But the truth is, even if we shut down
the use of pentobarbital,
it won't stop executions
in this country.
Because elected leaders seem
hellbent on getting it done.
In South Carolina, where you saw the
governor bemoaning their difficulty
in sourcing execution drugs,
his outfit doppelganger,
the head of their prison system,
at one point noted
that they could just fall back
on the electric chair instead.
And just watch as a local interviewer
starts spit balling
other alternatives for him as well.
If lethal injection is not available,
then it defaults to the electric chair.
Even fentanyl. That stuff's just been
such a horrible drug
for so many people, and it obviously
is very widely available,
but even something like that
you couldn't get?
No one would sell it to us.
Any time we have a conversation
with people about trying to find it,
trying to compound it, people just say,
"Well, I'm not gonna give it to you
for that."
Can you guys take it from evidence over
at one of these county sheriff's office?
There'd be a constitutional claim there.
You can't do that.
What are you doing?
Honestly, part of me wishes he'd just
kept throwing out ideas to kill people,
"So if we can't get fentanyl, could
we sprinkle prisoners with anthrax?
What about throwing a bunch
of poisonous toads at them?
What if we dropped them
into the hippo pool at the zoo
and just let the hippos take care of it?
What about gibbeting?
I hear that's really good."
But the solution some states are
increasingly looking at involves
suffocating prisoners to death
using nitrogen gas.
Something, like most execution
procedures,
that wasn't developed
by medical professionals,
but originated with a bunch
of amateur death enthusiasts.
It first found its way into U.S. law
a few years back,
after this Oklahoma state legislator
watched a BBC documentary
called "How to Kill a Human Being",
in which a retired member of British
parliament sampled
various execution protocols before
deciding that nitrogen
was the perfect killing device.
And look, there are lots of TV
programs you can learn from,
"Bill Nye the Science Guy"
can teach you about science,
"The Kitchen" can teach you
about cooking,
and "Property Brothers" can teach
you how to renovate a house
with your twin brother
who you've definitely fucked.
But lawmakers shouldn't be learning
how to perform executions from one.
That legislator then called in this guy,
a high school friend of his
and criminal justice professor
who put together a presentation
for the legislature,
in which he tried to prove
the method was painless,
by, for some reason, playing YouTube
videos of kids passing out
from breathing helium.
So, this is a teenager
that is breathing helium
to make their voice sound funny.
But they're not really thinking that
they're not breathing oxygen.
And so, she's trying to get as big
a breath as she can,
and here in a second,
she becomes hypoxic.
So, then they get back up
and they're giggling and laughing.
Now, obviously,
there's a lot wrong with that.
For starters, those kids are voluntarily
depriving themselves of oxygen,
not trying to resist, which is what
would likely happen during an execution.
So, you can't really compare
the two scenarios.
But since Oklahoma lawmakers seem
to respond well to videos
of people on helium, allow me
to address them directly to deliver
an important message about
that criminal justice professor.
Here goes!
Fuck that guy,
and his fucking YouTube videos!
Stop listening to a man who doesn't
know what the fuck he's talking about,
you idiots!
I'll point out, both that "expert"
and the legislator who brought him in,
lacked what you would think would be
a pretty relevant bit of experience.
- Have you ever seen an execution?
- No.
- Have you ever been to an execution?
- Never have, and I don't wish to.
Why is that?
It's probably something I probably
should,
but I have no wish or desire
to witness one.
Oh, really? Why not, Mike?
Because killing another human being
is an act of brutality
that's harrowing to witness?
Because being present might impress
on you the hideous gravity
of the power you've given yourself?
Or were you just, like, super busy
on the day they were doing it?
And look, if they'd consulted an actual
expert, they might have learned
that even animal welfare guidelines
no longer allow pets to be put down
with nitrogen gas because dogs
were observed "yelping, gasping,
and convulsing."
Nevertheless, legislators in Oklahoma
voted to allow nitrogen gas executions.
And apparently, during the debate
over it, there were a few holdouts,
but only because they didn't want
the inmate to "feel good while dying,
they wanted pain."
And since Oklahoma's decision, multiple
other states have passed similar laws.
And earlier this year, Alabama produced
the very first nitrogen gas execution.
Which was, by all accounts,
absolutely horrific.
One witness described the man
who died
as "someone struggling for their life."
And another,
who'd seen five executions,
said it was "definitely the most violent
execution that I've ever witnessed."
All of which makes it pretty galling
that afterward,
the state's AG took this victory lap,
while thanking
his whole execution team.
Everyone in this room knows they
are the first team in the country
to carry out nitrogen execution,
and what occurred last night
was textbook.
They deserve a great deal of thanks
and credit for being willing to be
the one to step up, first in the country
to do so,
and I now suspect that many states
will follow.
As of last night, nitrogen hypoxia
as a means of execution
is no longer an untested method.
It is a proven one.
Yeah. He called it
a textbook execution.
Which I would call "textbook bullshit."
And by the way, Alabama,
do you ever get tired of being
trailblazers in all of the worst ways?
Your state history is just brave Alabama
citizens protesting
as your leaders are the last to do
something good,
or the first to do something terrible.
And look, it seems America's gonna
keep innovating ways to kill people
and drawing a veil around it
to protect anyone involved.
But on some level, all this secrecy
is also meant to protect us,
the people in whose name it is done,
from confronting the horror
of what the death penalty truly is.
Because whether it's nitrogen gas
or an IV injection of drugs,
or a firing squad, or an electric chair,
or being "pressed with weights",
it's all brutal.
And to their credit,
some lawmakers will admit this.
When Idaho was debating whether
it should have a shield law
for suppliers
of its death penalty drugs,
one state senator
summed it all up pretty well.
There's a fundamental contradiction
at work here.
Lethal injection, I believe, is sold
to the public as humane.
And yet, the secrecy that becomes
necessary in order to actually get
and use the drugs mandates
that the public can't independently
confirm that it is, in fact, humane.
And there is a great deal of evidence
to indicate that,
in at least some cases, it is not.
I think lethal injection is a lie.
It is as if we are selling the idea that
this is just putting your pet to sleep.
That's not what it is.
And then in order to perpetuate
that lie,
we have to lie and lie and lie and lie
and lie again.
This is a terrible position to put
our public servants in.
It's a terrible position
to put the state of Idaho in.
It's wrong, it's unfair,
it needs to stop.
He's right. It is, and it does.
And lying is one of the first things
we teach our children not to do.
Then we tell them they'll be punished by
the Tooth Fairy and/or Santa Claus,
but that is trauma
they can all work out later.
The fact is, no matter how executions
are performed, they'll never be humane.
No matter how many times
you call them "textbook,"
or claim it's "much better than
anything they did to the victims,"
or show people viral videos
of dizzy tweens on helium,
it's never gonna be okay.
And we are kidding ourselves if we think
taking someone's life actually lowers
the number of killers in the world. It
literally, definitionally, creates more.
And I know this is usually the point
where I say "So, what can we do?"
But the answer is so clearly,
just stop doing it!
The fact is, around the country,
there are still over 2,300 people
on death row.
In some cases, they're in states
where no one in a position of power
will put a stop
to their execution.
But when it comes to federal prisoners,
Biden could, before leaving office,
commute all 42 death sentences
to life in prison.
That way, even if Trump is reelected,
he can't pick the bing-bong bloodbath up
right where he left off.
But beyond commuting sentences,
Biden's administration could do
so much more.
It could investigate the legality of the
federal government's drug purchases
from Absolute Standards and rescind
that bullshit DOJ memo
that tries to exempt execution drugs
from regulation.
It could also force states to surrender
the pentobarbital
that they've acquired
from an unregulated source.
As for state legislatures,
I'd argue they should be eliminating
secrecy statutes.
Because if the government is going
to give itself the power
to execute its own citizens,
which, for the final time, I strongly
believe that it should not,
then I want to see where the drugs
come from, who's making them,
and relentless scrutiny
of every part of this process.
Because all of this is being done
in our name,
and far too often, in secret.
And we should get a voice to express
exactly how we feel about that.
Specifically, this voice.
Stop fucking killing people,
you fucking assholes!
And now, this.
And Now: A Sincere Thank You to ESPN
for Their Slow-Motion Replays
During the American Kennel Club's
"Fastest Dogs USA".
You're watching the American Kennel
Club's "Fastest Dogs USA",
part of our dog sports series on ESPN.
Welcome, everybody,
to a drag race unlike any other.
Moving on. Finally, tonight, we wanted
to talk about stock photo libraries,
massive repositories of images
you can license on
almost every concept you might need,
from the incredibly generic,
like this family photo,
to the incredibly specific,
like this image of underwear filled
with spaghetti
that someone, somewhere
apparently needed.
Stock photo libraries are your one-stop
shop when you need photos
like this one,
of employees happier than anyone's
employees have ever been.
That photo, by the way, is captioned,
"Happy diverse business team
celebrating success and having fun.
Group of cheerful ecstatic people
standing in circle in modern office
high five each other
and shout yes we did it, hooray."
Stock photos provide an income stream
not just for photographers,
but also for actors starting out.
Here is pre-fame John Boyega
in a stock photo playing a student,
and here is Simu Liu in a series
of them, pointing at a laptop,
looking at the camera during
a group project,
and exercising in a totally normal,
not-at-all-unhinged way.
And the great thing about stock photos
is that there's one for almost
everything you can imagine.
You need a samurai? There you go.
You need a samurai on a Zoom call?
They've got that covered, too.
Now, on this show, we use our own
staff for graphics a lot of the time.
That dead-eyed parent
at her kid's swim lesson?
That's Megan, one of our producers.
This guy fucking a cheesecake?
That's Jeremy, our script supervisor.
He's been in a lot of graphics,
by the way,
and you will see him again
in the future.
And whenever there is someone
shitting on something,
that would be our editor, Ryan.
But if the graphic calls for
a very old man
or a sumo wrestler or a healthy-looking
John Oliver type,
we simply don't have one
of those in-house.
That is when we turn to stock photos.
And while we appreciate all the
photographers and models
that we've used over the years, we've
also developed a particular fondness
for one man.
This guy: Ilgar Pashayev.
This man has the "it" factor,
which in stock modeling terms,
means a willingness to do absolutely
anything he's asked to do,
whether it's wearing big pants,
wearing a space helmet at a desk
for no clear reason,
or getting into a sword fight
with Death at a woman's bedside.
We first encountered Ilgar while looking
for an image to help us convey
"Grandpa dies while watching
Fox News."
That was a first draft, and we didn't
actually use it on the show.
Instead, we went with this version,
because the grandpa just seemed
deader in every meaningful way.
But the person who'd found the photo
of Ilgar noticed
that there were other photos of him
linked from that same page,
and when they clicked through
to see more,
they were amazed at what they found.
Because it turns out, Ilgar has been
in a lot of photos.
I mean, a lot, a lot.
He's currently featured in over 250
pages on the website Shutterstock,
which doesn't sound like much,
until you realize that each page
contains 100 photos.
So that's more than 25,000 photos
of this one man,
demonstrating a Meryl Streep level
of range.
He's been a baker, a judge,
doctor, an unclear but seems like
something in finance,
a carpenter, a dentist feeding
a baseball bat to teeth,
don't overthink it,
and the image that will now forever
come to mind
whenever I picture the concept
of business.
Basically, whatever you need,
Ilgar's got you covered,
whether it's watching VR
or doing yoga with friends.
And by the way, eat your heart out,
Simu Liu,
that's how it's fucking done
right there.
But when you're in, again,
25,000 photos,
you're gonna repeat a few setups,
and some pronounced themes start
to emerge.
Like Ilgar pointing guns at things,
or being inexplicably angry
with paperwork.
But maybe the weirdest subgenre
is Ilgar's bones period.
Because the man loves posing with
bones. Taking selfies with bones.
Arguing about money with bones,
sharing coffee with bones,
growing tired of bones' shit
before ultimately saying,
"Hey, there's the door, bones."
There's this photo where Ilgar appears
suspicious of his coworker bones
or this one, where he's a doctor
reminding the viewer
that skeletons don't have penises,
a fact it seems this skeleton
would've preferred left unsaid.
Ilgar loves bones,
possibly a little too much.
And not just human bones,
he loves dog bones,
cat bones, cute little mice bones,
upside-down bat and bird bones.
I'm just saying, if you wanted a single
photo to communicate the idea
"you just walked in on someone who
finished doing something weird
with bones and is now trying to assure
you it's not what it looks like,"
this is the image I'd use for that.
I love this man, despite knowing
almost nothing about him,
apart from the fact that when
a photographer asks him
if he can do literally any task,
his answer will either be "fuck yes"
or, if he's asked to pose as someone
who is definitely familiar
with American football, "fuck kinda".
And he will do it even if the prompt
seems like it was clearly the result
of something getting lost
in translation,
like "mischievous old man makes
phones fight featuring Christ vibes".
Incidentally, when we discovered
that one, the caption on it read
"Almost never licensed, high potential."
"Be the trendsetter,
make this untapped asset yours."
Like it's an undiscovered oil well,
and not a drunk dad
at a wedding photo booth
who got real weird with the props.
And at this point,
you might be wondering
why I'm even talking about stock
photos, let alone, this one guy.
To which I say, hey, shut up.
This is one of those stories where we,
forgive the term,
chill the fuck out a bit.
We're not doing charts and graphs
and pull quotes over my shoulder.
In fact, here's the only chart
I'll show you in this piece.
If 90% of our episodes are "sad
daddy honks some numbers at you,"
the rest is "wasting your one precious
life on meaningless bullshit."
And good news, we are comfortably
in the latter zone now, guys.
We are burning through time
like death isn't real.
And if you're wondering where
all this is going,
it's that we became obsessed
with this guy
So much so, that even though there is
clearly an absolute mountain of photos
that exist of him, there is one that I
realized I wanted more than any other.
And that is one of me shaking hands
with Ilgar himself.
And I know we could technically
Photoshop that up.
But, you know, that just doesn't feel
the same to me.
I know it's fraudulent, deep down.
so we set out to track Ilgar down.
And that is why, ladies and gentlemen,
I want to reveal, Ilgar,
Is not coming out. He is not here.
Let me explain.
It turns out,
he's not an easy man to find.
Ilgar has almost no digital footprint,
aside from, famously,
25,000 photographs.
We did, though, manage to track down
the photographer who took the photos,
a man named Elnur Amikishiyev,
who lives in Azerbaijan.
He told us Ilgar lives there, too.
But when we asked him to put us
in touch with Ilgar,
he was hesitant to do so
without more information.
Then we lost email contact with him,
so we were at a dead end.
Until a few months ago, when we found
the photographer on WhatsApp,
got in touch again, and he told us that
he was now willing to help us out.
But it turns out, bringing someone here
from Azerbaijan
is actually very difficult.
It involves meetings at the American
embassy there,
applications for visas, interviews,
it's a lengthy process.
And the reason I know that,
is because we got to the end
of that process this week.
And you know when I said Ilgar wasn't
coming out from over there?
That was technically true.
But that's only because he's
coming out from over here instead!
Because we found him!
We found him! Ilgar Pashayev,
everybody!
Ilgar, thank you so much
for being here.
We are such huge fans
of all of your work.
Thank you.
Would it be okay, Ilgar,
if we took a photo together?
- Of course.
- Thank you so much.
Now, obviously, the setting where
I believe you've done your best work
is a doctors' office, so, I'm gonna
need a white coat for Ilgar
and a selection of weird bones.
I can't believe I'm doing this,
dreams really do come true!
Are you ready, Ilgar?
I'm ready. Let's do this.
We did it! Ilgar Pashayev, everyone!
That is our show,
thank you so much for watching!
We'll see you next week,
good night! Ilgar Pashayev!
You fucking assholes!
to "Last Week Tonight". I'm John Oliver.
Thank you so much for joining us.
It has been a busy week.
In Gaza, Israel killed, among
others, seven aid workers,
something the Biden administration
expressed absolute outrage about
while continuing to send Israel
more bombs.
Meanwhile, Taiwan saw
a major earthquake,
and New Jersey saw a minor one,
which nevertheless got
a ton of coverage,
because it was felt where
the national media are based,
leading to this excellent moment
on CNN.
To our viewers, we're getting some
incredible new video just in
out of New Jersey showing
the earthquake. Watch this.
Well, it doesn't seem
so incredible, this video.
No, no, it doesn't.
You know when you tell your friend
about a funny video you saw
on YouTube,
then you show it to them,
they don't laugh at all, and you
both sit in awkward silence?
That's what just happened
on the news.
But we're gonna dive straight
into our main story tonight,
which concerns the death penalty.
America's had it for centuries,
but its methods have varied
considerably,
as this documentary
from the '80s explains
in weirdly comprehensive fashion.
The methods America has used to
execute its criminals
have changed over the years,
from burning to drawing
and quartering to hanging.
Criminals have
been axed, crucified, buried alive,
pressed with weights,
stoned, impaled, starved,
decapitated, and gibbetted.
Gibbetting is the hanging of the
condemned man by chains to rot.
Death often takes weeks to occur.
Holy shit! A few things.
First, if that list
wasn't so horrifying,
the creativity would be
genuinely impressive.
I mean, "pressed with weights?"
You've gotta be pretty inventive to be
brainstorming ways to kill people
and think, "Let's panini them!"
Second, what the fuck is "axed"?
At first, I thought,
"Well, it's beheading,"
but then "decapitated" is listed
as its own thing.
So, is "axed" just someone
hacking at you
like they're in one of those
lumberjack competitions?
Or did people just throw axes, like
they're at a bachelorette party
in Brooklyn that needed an activity?
And as for gibbetting,
that is a horrifying definition
for an adorable word.
"Gibbetting" sounds like what you'd call
baby goats rushing to food
at a petting zoo, or the weird head
movement that pigeons make.
At its grossest, "gibbetting" should be
when you have the hiccups,
but there's a tiny bit
of throw-up in it.
Not hanging someone by chains
for days until they rot to death.
And let me just acknowledge, we've
talked about the death penalty before,
in our second-ever show
back in 2014,
and again five years later,
in an episode narrowly beating out
"Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2"
as the least anticipated sequel
of all time.
And to quickly summarize
the arguments in those stories,
our stance was that the death penalty
is morally wrong,
there is no humane way to do it,
and any discussion of one is akin
to coming up with the best way
to fuck your mom,
which is to say, there's simply
no right way to do that.
But we need to talk about the death
penalty a third time tonight,
because there've been
some grim developments.
Since our last piece aired,
the U.S. has executed 91 people.
And 13 of those executions were done
at the federal level.
Which is actually unusual,
given that, for almost two decades,
there had been zero.
And all those 13 federal executions
were under Trump,
who went on an execution spree
at the end of his term,
including "the first lame-duck federal
execution in more than a century."
Which really shouldn't be surprising,
given his outspoken love
of capital punishment,
from taking out full-page ads
calling for it to be applied
to the Central Park Five,
to constantly saying things like this.
I've always supported
the death penalty.
I don't even understand people
that don't.
Death penalty, bring it forth.
I am so for the death penalty.
Remember the old days?
A deserter. What happened?
You know, the old days,
boom! Firing squad.
You know, in the old days, bing-bong!
When we were strong,
when we were strong.
The ultimate penalty has
to be the death penalty.
Now, maybe our country's not ready
for that, it's possible,
it's possible that our country is not
ready for that, and I can understand it,
maybe. Although personally,
I can't understand that.
Okay. First, genuinely shocking
to hear the phrase "bring it forth"
come out of his mouth.
Second, how can you understand,
but also can't understand?
And finally, do you think guns go
"bing-bong"?
Why would you make that sound, when
there are so many correct gun noises?
Bang, boom, pew, pow. I'd even
accept blam-o! But bing-bong?
The fuck are you talking about?
I guess what I'm trying to say is:
I can understand it, maybe, although
personally I can't understand it.
But the thing I want to focus on about
those federal executions
is the method used to carry them out.
Because it wasn't 100% by the book.
That probably shouldn't be surprising
coming from the Trump administration,
but we may have some
new information for you tonight
about exactly how far from the book
they ended up straying.
And that disregard speaks
to a larger issue here,
which is that our federal and state
governments have continued to pursue
questionably legal and definitely
horrifying ways to do something that,
again, I would argue
they shouldn't be doing at all.
So given that, tonight, let's check in
on some of the new ways
our government has found
to execute people.
And let's start with the fact that,
as we've discussed before,
it can be incredibly hard for the
government to find drugs to use
in lethal injections.
The governor of South Carolina once
summed up the reasons for that
at a press conference to explain
why a planned lethal injection
couldn't actually be carried out.
The reason we don't have the drugs,
despite efforts, intense efforts,
to get 'em, is because the companies
that make 'em,
the distributors who distribute 'em,
and the pharmacists who may have
to compound 'em
don't want to be identified.
They are afraid that their names
will be made known,
and that they don't want to have
anything to do with it.
He's right. He's doing a B-minus
impression of Foghorn Leghorn there,
but he is right!
Drug suppliers don't want their names
associated with executions.
In fact, people generally don't like
to be associated
with killing their fellow citizens.
It's why your friend's husband says
he's "in consulting"
instead of "working for big tobacco,"
and Becca from college says
she's a "corporate lawyer"
instead of "defending the Sacklers
in court".
Also, and this isn't the point, but did
these two coordinate their outfits?
I'm gonna choose to believe that the
governor called up the other guy
the night before and was like,
"Hey babe, let's do red tie,
white shirt,"
and an untailored black suit
from Joseph A. Bank's 'drab
conservative' collection.
See you in the morning, twinsie!"
What that governor was pushing for,
and ultimately got,
was a shield law keeping the names
of drug suppliers secret.
And South Carolina isn't alone there.
Since 2011,
15 states have enacted new secrecy
statutes that conceal vital information
about the execution process,
from the names of drug suppliers
to the identities
of those participating.
But even with that secrecy, many
suppliers still refuse to provide drugs
for executions,
because it's bad for business.
And that has led states to source drugs
from pretty sketchy suppliers.
Which is a problem,
because when drugs are tainted,
or not formulated
at the proper dosage,
executions become a protracted
nightmare of suffering,
which is both horrifying
and also unconstitutional.
Take Arizona. Over the years,
it's sourced drugs from places
including a driving school in London
and a random guy in India whose
supposed "facilities" included
his former apartment, and whose
drugs were seized by the FDA.
And Arizona has a history of not
administering drugs properly,
it actually paused executions for eight
years after one in 2014 was botched,
taking nearly two hours
as a man died gasping for air.
And when executions resumed there
a couple of years ago,
there was a concern
they'd repeat those mistakes.
But the state's AG, Mark Brnovich,
didn't seem that concerned
about any of this.
At the end of the day, what these
killers get with lethal injection
is much better than anything they did
to the victims and their families.
Okay, but that doesn't really matter,
does it?
Because the Constitution exists.
The 8th Amendment doesn't say,
"No cruel and unusual punishment,
unless they like, really deserve it."
Now, interestingly, there's been a big
development in lethal injections,
with states increasingly giving up
on the method many had been using,
a three-drug cocktail of an anesthetic,
a paralytic,
and a drug that induces
cardiac arrest,
a process that's been likened
to being paralyzed
while fire is being poured
into your veins.
Instead, they've switched over
to a single, massive shot of a sedative
called pentobarbital.
That is the drug
the Trump administration used
in its end-of-term killing spree.
But it is no less brutal
than the other method.
Because while the Trump administration
offered sanitized accounts
of the executions it carried out,
likening the process
to "falling asleep,"
calling the gurneys "beds"
and the final breaths "snores,"
witnesses reported that "prisoners'
stomachs rolled, shook,
and shuddered
as the pentobarbital took effect,"
and in the two autopsies done
after those executions,
both revealed that inmates' lungs were
twice as heavy as they should be,
indicating pulmonary edema,
where fluid rushes into lungs
and airways,
which, if you're not properly
anesthetized
could cause pain akin to being
suffocated or drowned.
All of which is about as far from
peacefully falling asleep in your bed
as your kid's dog is from chasing cars
in doggy heaven.
That person suffered,
and that dog is dead and in doggy hell
because he was never baptized.
But even setting the brutality aside,
a key question hanging
over this whole thing is,
where exactly did the Trump
administration get these drugs?
Because it's not like it's easy to find
a supplier
willing to sell you pentobarbital.
You can't just pop into CVS
and head over to the "state-sponsored
execution drugs" aisle.
Tennessee's Department of Corrections
spent years trying to find pentobarbital
for its executions,
and a report later exposed the lengths
it was willing to go to to find
a supplier.
Emails between TDOC and the
pharmacy they work with
revealed the agency was looking
at importing the drug
from a different country.
Years earlier, TDOC had even asked
the pharmacy
if they could get the drug through
a veterinarian, but it didn't work out.
You don't get drugs that you give
to animals to people.
It is sort of ridiculous that we have
to run around the country begging,
borrowing for drugs to kill people.
Right. The DOC shouldn't be running
around the country begging for drugs,
that is for diabetics and women who
want to exercise their right to choose!
This is America! And he is right!
You shouldn't give animal drugs
to people.
We probably shouldn't be ingesting
anything meant for animals,
aside from maybe Fancy Feast,
because, be honest,
tell me that doesn't look good!
I know it's just a wet puddle of chicken
for cats, but frankly, I'm interested.
So, pentobarbital is hard to find.
Raising the question of, again, where
the Trump administration got it.
But that is hard to find out,
because, at every level, those who
carry out executions crave secrecy.
When South Carolina's execution
methods were challenged
in the state supreme court,
here's the argument the state made
for why some elements of their
process had to remain secret.
Your honor, the minute you begin to
disclose anything about the drug,
you begin to give the other side puzzle
pieces as to where the drug came from.
So, whether it's manufactured
or compounded,
what's the lot number of the drug
or of the bulk materials,
you begin to piece together
who manufactured it,
where could it have been
compounded,
who could have sold 'em the bulk
material.
And the minute
you start releasing that,
you make it harder for SCDC
to get the drugs in the future.
Now, that is an interesting point,
even if it is coming from Teen Sheldon,
super-lawyer.
Any time you unmask a drug supplier,
that probably is gonna make carrying
out executions much harder.
So, you can see why the federal
government so badly wants
to keep its suppliers secret, too.
And that is why it may be slightly
inconvenient for them
that we're pretty sure we've tracked
down exactly who supplied
the Trump administration
with its pentobarbital.
It's a company called
Absolute Standards,
based in Hamden, Connecticut.
That's their logo on the sign outside,
which is presumably supposed to be
a chemical particle,
even though it looks more like a mobile
made out of minion testicles.
Absolute Standards' business is making
chemicals for calibrating machines,
which is to say, not making drugs
for human consumption.
But we're pretty sure they're making
execution drugs as a side hustle,
and I think our case is pretty strong.
And I know I've spent a lot of time
over the last 10 years
reassuring everyone that this show
does comedy and not journalism
but I think we can all agree that
the most important thing we do here
is stir shit up,
and it's in that spirit that I want
to explain how we got to this point.
Because one of our researchers has
been covering the death penalty
for years,
long before he worked for us.
And he found that Absolute Standards
had registered with the DEA to produce
pentobarbital in August of 2018,
and, as it happens, when the Bureau
of Prisons was asked when it entered
into a contract
with a new pentobarbital supplier,
they said, "It would have been roughly
August of 2018".
so the timeline matches up.
We're not the first to suspect
this company.
Reuters asked similar questions
a few years ago,
and the lab's director initially said
his company
"had no involvement with
the government's execution drugs,"
only to later say
he could not rule it out,
because "in many parts of our market,
we don't know what the final intended
use is going to be."
Which isn't that reassuring.
It is one thing
if you're a peanut farmer
and you don't know if your nuts
are gonna be used in trail mix
or as the nipples on a snowman.
Everyone knows you use coal
for the eyes, a carrot for the nose,
and peanuts for the nipples.
I don't make the rules,
I just follow them.
But for a manufacturer of drugs
that kill people,
you should probably know
where your products are going.
But we still weren't entirely sure,
so we filed a Freedom
of Information Act request, or FOIA,
with the DEA back in 2020,
asking for any records they had
on Absolute Standards,
and while we were waiting for them
to send us over the documents,
the agency's liaison slipped up twice
over the phone and told us
that the reason the request
was taking so long
was because the documents were
related to the death penalty,
which is what's known in the government
world as a big old whoopsie.
And honestly, five out of five
on the post-call survey there.
This employee certainly helped me
solve my problem.
And on top of all this, a confidential
source our researcher trusts
has now confirmed that Absolute
Standards made the drugs.
So it's them.
It's Absolute Standards.
Honestly, at this point, they might
as well just update their real slogan
to "We have the solution that were
secretly used
in a bunch of government executions!"
It even rhymes! You can have that
slogan for free, you monsters!
And look, maybe Absolute Standards
is proud to be producing the drugs
that enabled our government to
effectively drown at least 13 people
while they were strapped to a table.
We've reached out to them repeatedly
for comment on this story,
and they have ignored us.
Which is an odd thing to do when
someone's accusing you
of making execution drugs.
But even if they are happy
to keep doing this,
it's not clear whether
they should be able to.
Because under the law, companies
that make drugs need to be registered
with the FDA.
And the Trump administration claimed,
before the executions,
that its supplier
was properly registered.
But remember, Absolute Standards
doesn't make drugs
for human consumption.
So, we filed another FOIA request
with the FDA,
asking for records they had related
to Absolute Standards,
and they responded by saying they
were "unable to locate any records
responsive to your request,"
and "the firm has not been inspected
by the FDA."
Which is basically government jargon
for "who the fuck is Absolute Standards,
and what the fuck
are you asking us about?"
So, Absolute Standards aren't just
making execution drugs,
I'd argue, they're doing so illegally.
It turns out, it's not just the federal
government that's been buying drugs
from them.
Because when the Trump administration
restarted federal executions,
Arizona's AG, Mark Brnovich,
asked them for help,
and his state wound up spending
an incredible 1,5 million dollars
of taxpayer money to have 1,000 vials
of pentobarbital delivered
in "unmarked jars and boxes,"
the official packaging of "things
you shouldn't be shipping."
And I get wanting secrecy,
but you gotta put something
on those jars to warn people
they might be dangerous.
At least slap on a sticker like a bunny
with crossed out eyes
or a weirdly buff Michael Cera.
Something that makes you go,
"I don't trust what's in this thing."
And our source told us that the supplier
in that instance was, again,
Absolute Standards.
Which, for all we know, could
well still be selling those drugs
to any state that wants them.
And if those unmarked jars did come
from a company without FDA approval,
which they did, it sort of calls into
question a promise
that Brnovich made the last time his
state was caught buying drugs
from questionable sources,
eight years and one beard ago.
All I can assure you is that as long
as I'm attorney general,
we will follow all state and federal
regulations and all the laws
when it comes to obtaining and using the
drugs in the executions here in Arizona.
But it turns out, maybe not.
And as long as he was making
promises he wasn't going to keep,
he might as well have added,
"I can also assure you that I will never
grow a beard that makes me look like
Ted Cruz's less hot cousin."
Now, Brnovich maintains Arizona
didn't have to follow drug laws,
because the DOJ issued a legal opinion
that the FDA has no jurisdiction
over drugs intended for use
in lawful executions.
And it is true that, during the Trump
administration, under Bill Barr,
the DOJ did write that opinion.
And that memo prohibits the FDA from
taking action against a company
making unregulated drugs
for executions.
But the federal appeals court in D.C
has repeatedly ruled,
both before and after
that memo was written,
that drug laws still apply when
they're used for lethal injections.
Meaning they essentially found the
central argument of Barr's memo
to be complete horseshit.
Which does make sense.
Think about what Brnovich and Barr
are arguing there.
They are saying that a company that
wouldn't be qualified to make drugs
to euthanize animals is
perfectly qualified to make drugs
to kill human beings.
It's a pretty embarrassing argument
for a state AG to even try to make.
Although it's not the most embarrassing
thing that he has ever done,
considering he's also a self-described
nunchuck enthusiast who once did this.
It's Arizona Attorney General
Mark Brnovich.
We've gotten a lot of calls,
a lot of emails.
But there's one thing people
definitely want to see.
They want to see more chucks.
So, people, you want more chucks?
You got more chucks!
Cool. Though, just to be clear, Mark,
at no point did I say
I wanted more chucks.
And I've never hoped so hard
that someone was about
to accidentally chuck themselves
in the dick.
Now, thankfully, Arizona's current
governor has paused executions there,
pending a review of the transparency,
accountability,
and safety of the execution process.
And let me just say, Governor,
I have some notes
on where you might want to begin
asking questions!
It's right here on Google Maps.
If you hit the cheese manufacturer,
you've gone too far.
Also, if you work at Absolute Standards,
you've gone too far,
but that is a different issue.
But the truth is, even if we shut down
the use of pentobarbital,
it won't stop executions
in this country.
Because elected leaders seem
hellbent on getting it done.
In South Carolina, where you saw the
governor bemoaning their difficulty
in sourcing execution drugs,
his outfit doppelganger,
the head of their prison system,
at one point noted
that they could just fall back
on the electric chair instead.
And just watch as a local interviewer
starts spit balling
other alternatives for him as well.
If lethal injection is not available,
then it defaults to the electric chair.
Even fentanyl. That stuff's just been
such a horrible drug
for so many people, and it obviously
is very widely available,
but even something like that
you couldn't get?
No one would sell it to us.
Any time we have a conversation
with people about trying to find it,
trying to compound it, people just say,
"Well, I'm not gonna give it to you
for that."
Can you guys take it from evidence over
at one of these county sheriff's office?
There'd be a constitutional claim there.
You can't do that.
What are you doing?
Honestly, part of me wishes he'd just
kept throwing out ideas to kill people,
"So if we can't get fentanyl, could
we sprinkle prisoners with anthrax?
What about throwing a bunch
of poisonous toads at them?
What if we dropped them
into the hippo pool at the zoo
and just let the hippos take care of it?
What about gibbeting?
I hear that's really good."
But the solution some states are
increasingly looking at involves
suffocating prisoners to death
using nitrogen gas.
Something, like most execution
procedures,
that wasn't developed
by medical professionals,
but originated with a bunch
of amateur death enthusiasts.
It first found its way into U.S. law
a few years back,
after this Oklahoma state legislator
watched a BBC documentary
called "How to Kill a Human Being",
in which a retired member of British
parliament sampled
various execution protocols before
deciding that nitrogen
was the perfect killing device.
And look, there are lots of TV
programs you can learn from,
"Bill Nye the Science Guy"
can teach you about science,
"The Kitchen" can teach you
about cooking,
and "Property Brothers" can teach
you how to renovate a house
with your twin brother
who you've definitely fucked.
But lawmakers shouldn't be learning
how to perform executions from one.
That legislator then called in this guy,
a high school friend of his
and criminal justice professor
who put together a presentation
for the legislature,
in which he tried to prove
the method was painless,
by, for some reason, playing YouTube
videos of kids passing out
from breathing helium.
So, this is a teenager
that is breathing helium
to make their voice sound funny.
But they're not really thinking that
they're not breathing oxygen.
And so, she's trying to get as big
a breath as she can,
and here in a second,
she becomes hypoxic.
So, then they get back up
and they're giggling and laughing.
Now, obviously,
there's a lot wrong with that.
For starters, those kids are voluntarily
depriving themselves of oxygen,
not trying to resist, which is what
would likely happen during an execution.
So, you can't really compare
the two scenarios.
But since Oklahoma lawmakers seem
to respond well to videos
of people on helium, allow me
to address them directly to deliver
an important message about
that criminal justice professor.
Here goes!
Fuck that guy,
and his fucking YouTube videos!
Stop listening to a man who doesn't
know what the fuck he's talking about,
you idiots!
I'll point out, both that "expert"
and the legislator who brought him in,
lacked what you would think would be
a pretty relevant bit of experience.
- Have you ever seen an execution?
- No.
- Have you ever been to an execution?
- Never have, and I don't wish to.
Why is that?
It's probably something I probably
should,
but I have no wish or desire
to witness one.
Oh, really? Why not, Mike?
Because killing another human being
is an act of brutality
that's harrowing to witness?
Because being present might impress
on you the hideous gravity
of the power you've given yourself?
Or were you just, like, super busy
on the day they were doing it?
And look, if they'd consulted an actual
expert, they might have learned
that even animal welfare guidelines
no longer allow pets to be put down
with nitrogen gas because dogs
were observed "yelping, gasping,
and convulsing."
Nevertheless, legislators in Oklahoma
voted to allow nitrogen gas executions.
And apparently, during the debate
over it, there were a few holdouts,
but only because they didn't want
the inmate to "feel good while dying,
they wanted pain."
And since Oklahoma's decision, multiple
other states have passed similar laws.
And earlier this year, Alabama produced
the very first nitrogen gas execution.
Which was, by all accounts,
absolutely horrific.
One witness described the man
who died
as "someone struggling for their life."
And another,
who'd seen five executions,
said it was "definitely the most violent
execution that I've ever witnessed."
All of which makes it pretty galling
that afterward,
the state's AG took this victory lap,
while thanking
his whole execution team.
Everyone in this room knows they
are the first team in the country
to carry out nitrogen execution,
and what occurred last night
was textbook.
They deserve a great deal of thanks
and credit for being willing to be
the one to step up, first in the country
to do so,
and I now suspect that many states
will follow.
As of last night, nitrogen hypoxia
as a means of execution
is no longer an untested method.
It is a proven one.
Yeah. He called it
a textbook execution.
Which I would call "textbook bullshit."
And by the way, Alabama,
do you ever get tired of being
trailblazers in all of the worst ways?
Your state history is just brave Alabama
citizens protesting
as your leaders are the last to do
something good,
or the first to do something terrible.
And look, it seems America's gonna
keep innovating ways to kill people
and drawing a veil around it
to protect anyone involved.
But on some level, all this secrecy
is also meant to protect us,
the people in whose name it is done,
from confronting the horror
of what the death penalty truly is.
Because whether it's nitrogen gas
or an IV injection of drugs,
or a firing squad, or an electric chair,
or being "pressed with weights",
it's all brutal.
And to their credit,
some lawmakers will admit this.
When Idaho was debating whether
it should have a shield law
for suppliers
of its death penalty drugs,
one state senator
summed it all up pretty well.
There's a fundamental contradiction
at work here.
Lethal injection, I believe, is sold
to the public as humane.
And yet, the secrecy that becomes
necessary in order to actually get
and use the drugs mandates
that the public can't independently
confirm that it is, in fact, humane.
And there is a great deal of evidence
to indicate that,
in at least some cases, it is not.
I think lethal injection is a lie.
It is as if we are selling the idea that
this is just putting your pet to sleep.
That's not what it is.
And then in order to perpetuate
that lie,
we have to lie and lie and lie and lie
and lie again.
This is a terrible position to put
our public servants in.
It's a terrible position
to put the state of Idaho in.
It's wrong, it's unfair,
it needs to stop.
He's right. It is, and it does.
And lying is one of the first things
we teach our children not to do.
Then we tell them they'll be punished by
the Tooth Fairy and/or Santa Claus,
but that is trauma
they can all work out later.
The fact is, no matter how executions
are performed, they'll never be humane.
No matter how many times
you call them "textbook,"
or claim it's "much better than
anything they did to the victims,"
or show people viral videos
of dizzy tweens on helium,
it's never gonna be okay.
And we are kidding ourselves if we think
taking someone's life actually lowers
the number of killers in the world. It
literally, definitionally, creates more.
And I know this is usually the point
where I say "So, what can we do?"
But the answer is so clearly,
just stop doing it!
The fact is, around the country,
there are still over 2,300 people
on death row.
In some cases, they're in states
where no one in a position of power
will put a stop
to their execution.
But when it comes to federal prisoners,
Biden could, before leaving office,
commute all 42 death sentences
to life in prison.
That way, even if Trump is reelected,
he can't pick the bing-bong bloodbath up
right where he left off.
But beyond commuting sentences,
Biden's administration could do
so much more.
It could investigate the legality of the
federal government's drug purchases
from Absolute Standards and rescind
that bullshit DOJ memo
that tries to exempt execution drugs
from regulation.
It could also force states to surrender
the pentobarbital
that they've acquired
from an unregulated source.
As for state legislatures,
I'd argue they should be eliminating
secrecy statutes.
Because if the government is going
to give itself the power
to execute its own citizens,
which, for the final time, I strongly
believe that it should not,
then I want to see where the drugs
come from, who's making them,
and relentless scrutiny
of every part of this process.
Because all of this is being done
in our name,
and far too often, in secret.
And we should get a voice to express
exactly how we feel about that.
Specifically, this voice.
Stop fucking killing people,
you fucking assholes!
And now, this.
And Now: A Sincere Thank You to ESPN
for Their Slow-Motion Replays
During the American Kennel Club's
"Fastest Dogs USA".
You're watching the American Kennel
Club's "Fastest Dogs USA",
part of our dog sports series on ESPN.
Welcome, everybody,
to a drag race unlike any other.
Moving on. Finally, tonight, we wanted
to talk about stock photo libraries,
massive repositories of images
you can license on
almost every concept you might need,
from the incredibly generic,
like this family photo,
to the incredibly specific,
like this image of underwear filled
with spaghetti
that someone, somewhere
apparently needed.
Stock photo libraries are your one-stop
shop when you need photos
like this one,
of employees happier than anyone's
employees have ever been.
That photo, by the way, is captioned,
"Happy diverse business team
celebrating success and having fun.
Group of cheerful ecstatic people
standing in circle in modern office
high five each other
and shout yes we did it, hooray."
Stock photos provide an income stream
not just for photographers,
but also for actors starting out.
Here is pre-fame John Boyega
in a stock photo playing a student,
and here is Simu Liu in a series
of them, pointing at a laptop,
looking at the camera during
a group project,
and exercising in a totally normal,
not-at-all-unhinged way.
And the great thing about stock photos
is that there's one for almost
everything you can imagine.
You need a samurai? There you go.
You need a samurai on a Zoom call?
They've got that covered, too.
Now, on this show, we use our own
staff for graphics a lot of the time.
That dead-eyed parent
at her kid's swim lesson?
That's Megan, one of our producers.
This guy fucking a cheesecake?
That's Jeremy, our script supervisor.
He's been in a lot of graphics,
by the way,
and you will see him again
in the future.
And whenever there is someone
shitting on something,
that would be our editor, Ryan.
But if the graphic calls for
a very old man
or a sumo wrestler or a healthy-looking
John Oliver type,
we simply don't have one
of those in-house.
That is when we turn to stock photos.
And while we appreciate all the
photographers and models
that we've used over the years, we've
also developed a particular fondness
for one man.
This guy: Ilgar Pashayev.
This man has the "it" factor,
which in stock modeling terms,
means a willingness to do absolutely
anything he's asked to do,
whether it's wearing big pants,
wearing a space helmet at a desk
for no clear reason,
or getting into a sword fight
with Death at a woman's bedside.
We first encountered Ilgar while looking
for an image to help us convey
"Grandpa dies while watching
Fox News."
That was a first draft, and we didn't
actually use it on the show.
Instead, we went with this version,
because the grandpa just seemed
deader in every meaningful way.
But the person who'd found the photo
of Ilgar noticed
that there were other photos of him
linked from that same page,
and when they clicked through
to see more,
they were amazed at what they found.
Because it turns out, Ilgar has been
in a lot of photos.
I mean, a lot, a lot.
He's currently featured in over 250
pages on the website Shutterstock,
which doesn't sound like much,
until you realize that each page
contains 100 photos.
So that's more than 25,000 photos
of this one man,
demonstrating a Meryl Streep level
of range.
He's been a baker, a judge,
doctor, an unclear but seems like
something in finance,
a carpenter, a dentist feeding
a baseball bat to teeth,
don't overthink it,
and the image that will now forever
come to mind
whenever I picture the concept
of business.
Basically, whatever you need,
Ilgar's got you covered,
whether it's watching VR
or doing yoga with friends.
And by the way, eat your heart out,
Simu Liu,
that's how it's fucking done
right there.
But when you're in, again,
25,000 photos,
you're gonna repeat a few setups,
and some pronounced themes start
to emerge.
Like Ilgar pointing guns at things,
or being inexplicably angry
with paperwork.
But maybe the weirdest subgenre
is Ilgar's bones period.
Because the man loves posing with
bones. Taking selfies with bones.
Arguing about money with bones,
sharing coffee with bones,
growing tired of bones' shit
before ultimately saying,
"Hey, there's the door, bones."
There's this photo where Ilgar appears
suspicious of his coworker bones
or this one, where he's a doctor
reminding the viewer
that skeletons don't have penises,
a fact it seems this skeleton
would've preferred left unsaid.
Ilgar loves bones,
possibly a little too much.
And not just human bones,
he loves dog bones,
cat bones, cute little mice bones,
upside-down bat and bird bones.
I'm just saying, if you wanted a single
photo to communicate the idea
"you just walked in on someone who
finished doing something weird
with bones and is now trying to assure
you it's not what it looks like,"
this is the image I'd use for that.
I love this man, despite knowing
almost nothing about him,
apart from the fact that when
a photographer asks him
if he can do literally any task,
his answer will either be "fuck yes"
or, if he's asked to pose as someone
who is definitely familiar
with American football, "fuck kinda".
And he will do it even if the prompt
seems like it was clearly the result
of something getting lost
in translation,
like "mischievous old man makes
phones fight featuring Christ vibes".
Incidentally, when we discovered
that one, the caption on it read
"Almost never licensed, high potential."
"Be the trendsetter,
make this untapped asset yours."
Like it's an undiscovered oil well,
and not a drunk dad
at a wedding photo booth
who got real weird with the props.
And at this point,
you might be wondering
why I'm even talking about stock
photos, let alone, this one guy.
To which I say, hey, shut up.
This is one of those stories where we,
forgive the term,
chill the fuck out a bit.
We're not doing charts and graphs
and pull quotes over my shoulder.
In fact, here's the only chart
I'll show you in this piece.
If 90% of our episodes are "sad
daddy honks some numbers at you,"
the rest is "wasting your one precious
life on meaningless bullshit."
And good news, we are comfortably
in the latter zone now, guys.
We are burning through time
like death isn't real.
And if you're wondering where
all this is going,
it's that we became obsessed
with this guy
So much so, that even though there is
clearly an absolute mountain of photos
that exist of him, there is one that I
realized I wanted more than any other.
And that is one of me shaking hands
with Ilgar himself.
And I know we could technically
Photoshop that up.
But, you know, that just doesn't feel
the same to me.
I know it's fraudulent, deep down.
so we set out to track Ilgar down.
And that is why, ladies and gentlemen,
I want to reveal, Ilgar,
Is not coming out. He is not here.
Let me explain.
It turns out,
he's not an easy man to find.
Ilgar has almost no digital footprint,
aside from, famously,
25,000 photographs.
We did, though, manage to track down
the photographer who took the photos,
a man named Elnur Amikishiyev,
who lives in Azerbaijan.
He told us Ilgar lives there, too.
But when we asked him to put us
in touch with Ilgar,
he was hesitant to do so
without more information.
Then we lost email contact with him,
so we were at a dead end.
Until a few months ago, when we found
the photographer on WhatsApp,
got in touch again, and he told us that
he was now willing to help us out.
But it turns out, bringing someone here
from Azerbaijan
is actually very difficult.
It involves meetings at the American
embassy there,
applications for visas, interviews,
it's a lengthy process.
And the reason I know that,
is because we got to the end
of that process this week.
And you know when I said Ilgar wasn't
coming out from over there?
That was technically true.
But that's only because he's
coming out from over here instead!
Because we found him!
We found him! Ilgar Pashayev,
everybody!
Ilgar, thank you so much
for being here.
We are such huge fans
of all of your work.
Thank you.
Would it be okay, Ilgar,
if we took a photo together?
- Of course.
- Thank you so much.
Now, obviously, the setting where
I believe you've done your best work
is a doctors' office, so, I'm gonna
need a white coat for Ilgar
and a selection of weird bones.
I can't believe I'm doing this,
dreams really do come true!
Are you ready, Ilgar?
I'm ready. Let's do this.
We did it! Ilgar Pashayev, everyone!
That is our show,
thank you so much for watching!
We'll see you next week,
good night! Ilgar Pashayev!
You fucking assholes!