title:  John Oliver CRUSHES Republican Lies About Supreme Court History (VIDEO)
text: When a comedian knows more about history than a lawmaker, that s just sad.But John Oliver demonstrated far more knowledge of Supreme Court history on Sunday than Republicans have over the last week since Justice Antonin Scalia passed away.One week after mercilessly slamming Senate Republicans for not doing their damn jobs, Oliver took on Ted Cruz s claim that we have  80 years of precedent of not confirming Supreme Court Justices in an election year,  by pointing out that current Justice Anthony Kennedy was confirmed in 1988.However, Oliver noticed that Republicans are constantly amending their claim.GOP Senator Orrin Hatch, for instance, went on national television to claim that it s been that long since someone has been nominated in a president s last year, prompting Oliver to bring out the fact that Abe Fortas and Homer Thornberry were both nominated in 1968 by outgoing President Lyndon Johnson, which is  mathematically, unhelpfully, less than 80 years ago. Oliver noted that both nominees failed to be confirmed and surmised that that s what Ted Cruz must have been thinking of when he tweaked his previous claim by saying that for 80 years the Senate has not confirmed a nominee nominated in an election year.And once again, Ted Cruz was proved wrong. That s so close to being true,  Oliver said before noting that Justice Brennan was confirmed in 1956 and Justice Murphy was confirmed in 1940.Clearly, these claims are just a excuse for Republicans to avoid doing their jobs as the Constitution requires, which brings us to the most hilarious part of the segment.Oliver played an ad from the conservative Judicial Crisis Network that used stock footage of ethnically diverse Americans to make the case that the American people should have a voice in the nomination process by letting whoever is elected as the next president pick the nominee.That didn t sit well with Oliver, who made it clear that the American people elected President Obama to make these decisions three years ago and he still has nearly a full year in office left. We should let President Obama do his job, Oliver said.And then he totally lampooned the Judicial Crisis Network with an ad of his own using the same kind of stock footage to make the case.Here s the video via YouTube:Once again, John Oliver puts Republicans in their place by demolishing their excuses for refusing to hold confirmation hearings for any nominee President Obama puts forward to fill the vacant seat on the Supreme Court.Featured image via screenshot