with more on romney's $10,000 bet, we turn to our senior political correspondent john oliver in iowa. thanks for joining us. why is everyone making such a big deal about this $10,000 bet thing. >> one, jon, because it feeds into the pre-existing narrative about mitt romney being an out of touch multi-millionaire. when romney ran the buy-out firm, everything about romney tells the tale of a man who just fired your dad. this is not a narrative, jon, that the press invented. look at his third grade class picture. his hair is exactly the same, jon. what seven-year-old has graying temples? >> jon: what about newt gingrich? he has a personal net worth from last year i think like $6- $7 million. a half a million dollar tab at tiffany's. >> money isn't gingrich's narrative. it's the infidelity guy. his problem is oaths. he can flaunt his wealth all he likes. what he can't do is promise to be america's president for richer or poorer and definitely not in sickness and in health. without evoking images of president gingrich getting bored of us and messing around with a younger country behind our

john oliver has more. >> reporter: california is in trouble. they're facing a financial armageddon.s largely because of one thing. direct democracy. >> they throw issues on the ballots and people vote for them without actually knowing what the ramifications are. >> we hear that direct democracy is on wonderful but what if it's not. >> reporter: with just 500,000 signatures californians can put anything on the ballot right past the legislature and make it law. it's a difficult system to understand until you talk to state democratic chairman john burden. >> it's totally (beep) up. it was put in place to protect people from the special interests. it's now become a tool of the special interests to screw the people. >> reporter: i'm not sure it's not as bad as you're saying. >> it's give you a real (beep) example. the team (beep) because there's not enough money for the school, not enough money for state services. >> reporter: he's talking about proposition 13 which mandates the property taxes cannot be raised meaning that there's not enough money to pay for things like proposition 98 wh

you have no (beep) idea what i'm capable of." >> jon: john oliver, everybody. we'll be right bac ( cheers and applause ) >> jon: welcome back to the show. as you know, last week just this past week i declared war on christmas. it's probably why we haven't heard so much about christmas recently. anyway, as an example of how the santity of christmas day and the ensuing four-month lead-up to christmas day has changed over time, we played a quick clip from the history channel program. >> on december 25, 1789, the united states congress sat in session and continued to stay open on christmas day for most of the next 67 years. >> jon: when the country was founded congress had exactly the same attitude about the santity of christmas celebrations that a 7/11 does today. yeah, we're open. a funny story. apparently the clip we showed was off by around 66 years. for this mistake i was awarded the fact-checking site politifact dot-com's lowest grade possible "pants on fire." something the people at politifact must know that a gentleman such as myself is akin to a death sent

>> (beep). >> reporter: exactly. >> jon: john oliver. hey ladies. this movie is not for you! is dr pepper ten. 23 flavors from 10 manly calories. it's what guys want. like this! catch phrase! ( cheers and applause ) >> jon: my guest tonight is a photographer. his photos from his many trips to iraq are displayed in his new book, iraq perspectives. please welcome to the program ben lowy. ( applause ) so this is a selection of or a collection of photographs from iraq from the years.... >> 2003 to 2008. >> jon: how many times did you go to iraq to collect these photographs through those years? >> way too many. more than my wife would have liked. >> jon: that many times. let me tell you how this happened. so we did this rolling stone piece. they said, oh, we're going to send over this photographer. he's just going to hang out with you guys for a day and take some pictures. we thought, okay, we'll rough him up a little bit. this guy shows up. where were you before this? where was it? >> libya. >> jon: yeah, that's right. >> i get around. >> jon: you get around. so we go, who are yo

. >> reporter: last year, comedian john oliver of "the daily show" summed up the content many more secularmericans and plenty religious fans too have for tebow on a rant caught on tape and posted online. >> if i was in a room with tim tebow and bin laden and i had a gun with one bullet in it, i'd shoot bin laden. i'm not a monster. but if i had two bullets, i'd shoot tim tebow first. >> reporter: there are websites devoted to hating tebow. every sunday, when he plays, twitter erupts with his fierce critics and fervent supporters. >> there are many americans now who don't like hearing about religion. when they hear someone like tim tebow speaking so enthusiastically about his christian faith and thanking jesus after games, it really puts them off. >> reporter: this man studies religion and sports. >> many people go into the sports spectating experience expecting sports to be this sort of unifying civic rallying point. when a christian athlete like tebow comes in with his strong and in some ways divisive message, a lot of fans say no, that's not appropriate, this is not the time and place. >

. >>> today at 3:00, olympic skater and bay area native bryan boy tan know and john oliver from the dailyn at 4:00, how brushing your teeth could help prevent you from developing knew money the surprising results in -- pneumonia. the surprising results in a new study. those stories and more at 4:00 and 5. >>> the only winning mega millions lottery ticket was sold in middle island, new york. >> the big ticket may not have been sold in the golden state, however three tickets sold in california did match five numbers, did not get the mega number. >> each ticket is worth $388,000, far short of the 208 million that the person in new york won. here are the winning numbers: 23, 32, 33, 39, 43 and the mega number is 8. >> not one is mine. >> we'll all be back tomorrow. >> definitely. from all of us here at abc 7 news, thanks for joining us. >> who wants to be a millionaire is next.osos -dad, why e you getting that? -that's my cereal. is there a prize in there? oh, there's prize, all right. is it a robot? no. is it a jet plane? nope. is it a dinosaur? [ laughs ] [ male announcer ] inside every box

. >>> today at 3:00, olympic skater and bay area native bryan boy tan know and john oliver from the dailyw -- then at 4:00, how brushing your teeth could help prevent you from developing knew money the surprising results in -- pneumonia. the surprising results in a new study. those stories and more at 4:00 and 5. >>> the only winning mega millions lottery ticket was sold in middle island, new york. >> the big ticket may not have been sold in the golden state, however three tickets sold in california did match five numbers, did not get the mega number. >> each ticket is worth $388,000, far short of the 208 million that the person in new york won. here are the winning numbers: 23, 32, 33, 39, 43 and the mega number is 8. >> not one is mine. >> we'll all be back tomorrow. >> definitely. from all of us here at abc 7 news, thanks for joining us. news, thanks for joining us. >> who wants to be a [ male announcer ] if you're ready to get more from your tv service, now's a great time to get at&t u-verse tv. make the switch! [ female announcer ] call to get u-verse -- now with free hd -- only 25 a

john brennan on august the 19th of 2009, and he called to say who he was. we determined that he was an irishman, the oh stood for a win. if you're an irishman, oliver is important. anyway, that's an aside. john, john said he had just spoken to kenny mccaskill. he did it on the half of the president of the president told him to call mccaskill and say we did not want this guy released. john's job, i don't know how john sleeps at night. he is a guy who meets with the president every day, every morning, and tells him all the horrible things that have gone on around the world. and he has been involved with us since that day in 2009. we've had several conference calls with them. he gave a speech here three years ago that is on our website that was just a tremendous speech, very moving speech, and we are honored that he would come again. we, as i said, and we know of his interest and the attorney general, and molars, and as i say, it's personal. john moved people on the plane. john work for the cia for 31 years. we would not have been able to present the criminal case that we did come as brian murtagh will tell you, without the unprecedented help of the c

john dewey was the ultimate optimist about the children learn by doing it, learn by experimentation and the chief advocate of this at least in the books on the supreme court was oliver wendell holmes, and i see a legacy of all over wendell holmes in that regard because i do believe he believes and fundamental freedoms going back to the intention of the founding fathers as the basis of government and in fact a lot of the freedom he argues precedes the constitution, the right to liberty and so on and then going from that i think he is open to a don't want to say experimentation with the society evolves and a few study dewey you know he is in the camp in the regard. i think that if he were here he would deny all of that. >> the notion of not having a hard set it seems very consistent with the way that justice stevens with his career. one thing that struck me also was on the pedagogy of john dewey when of the only school named after john paul stevens he was speaking very and he gives three which is the joy of learning, power to help friends and neighbors and success in securing the blessing of liberty that was another striking similarity. >> i want to make a point biogr