The government may have shut down for the first time in 17 years, but Jon Stewart is staying put because his excoriation of House Republicans is essential.

John Oliver did a valiant job subbing for Daily Show host Jon Stewart during his three-month absence, but the time has come for Stewart to stop playing director and get back to what he was born to do: Give the news a good talking-to.

Jon Stewart began The Daily Show last night by noting: "The great thing about mayors is that they can maintain the eccentricities that get sanded-off and focus-grouped out of statewide or national politicians." And even among crazy mayors, he says, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford stands out.

At this point even a casual observer would be forced to deduce that CNN was doing dumb shit just to get a rise out of Jon Stewart.

On the Daily Show and the Colbert Report last night, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert covered the 142nd NRA convention held in Houston, Texas. Stewart covered the NRA 2013 convention in a riff titled "The Good, the Bad, and the Crazy," while Colbert used the convention to launch into a new series called "Bat Shit Serious."

It all started last week when Donald Trump suddenly decided to launch an antisemitic spitball in the direction of The Daily Show's Jon Stewart via his Twitter account.

CNN's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week was great news for Jon Stewart.

In their first shows since Monday's bombings at the Boston Marathon, both Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert had a few things to say about the tragic event.

The U.S. Embassy in Cairo could use a good social media editor after two disastrous days on Twitter. The embassy's problems began Tuesday, when they (or whoever is in charge of their Twitter account) tweeted a link to The Daily Show's passionate defense of "Egypt's Jon Stewart" Bassem Youseff, who was arrested last weekend for insulting President Mohamed Morsi and Islam. That tweet didn't go over well with the offices of Morsi or the Muslim Brotherhood.

Bassem Youssef, the Egyptian TV host and satirist known as "Egypt's Jon Stewart," was arrested over the weekend for insulting President Mohamed Morsi and Islam. America's Jon Stewart, who's had Youssef on as a guest in the past, took the opportunity to defend his friend and counterpart (and knock Morsi for anti-Semitism) on The Daily Show last night.

Deadline reports that Daily Show host Jon Stewart is taking the summer off to make a movie about an Iranian journalist Maziar Bahari, who was imprisoned after appearing in a Daily Show sketch. For eight of his 12 weeks off, Stewart will be replaced by regular John Oliver.

The Daily Show returned to Comedy Central last night with a well-rested and well-fired-up Jon Stewart at helm champing at the bit to blast Republicans for all the things they've fucked up while he was away.

Hugh Grant hates being a celebrity, hates being an actor and generally seems like a smug and unpleasant person to be around. Now, Jon Stewart has confirmed that Grant is exactly that. Last week, Stewart was interviewed by Stephen Colbert onstage in Montclair, New Jersey at a fundraiser for the Montclair Film Festival. Among the topics was the worst guest to ever appear on Stewart's show, and he didn't hesitate in answering.

The only thing more predictable than the annual "War on Christmas" outcry at Fox News is The Daily Show's annual response to the annual "War on Christmas" outcry at Fox News.

On last night's episode of The Daily Show, after recapping former CIA director David Petraeus's "spyfall" from grace and expressing disappointment at the scandal's lack of, well, scandal, host Jon Stewart got down to brass tacks: Namely, his own failure to figure out that something was going on between Petraeus and Paula Broadwell during his now-infamous interview with the disgraced biographer.

The moments after Fox News called Ohio — and thereafter the race — for President Obama will no doubt live in infamy.

After mocking MSNBC's now infamous freakout over Obama's first debate performance, Jon Stewart turned the spotlight on Fox's latest attempts to spin the debate in Ryan's favor. Across the board, Fox News made some expected accusations: Biden's laughing was "hostile, aggressive, scornful"; some not so expected accusations: "Dementia"; and, of course, some all together laughable accusations courtesy of "Eskimo Annie Oakley" Sarah Palin: Biden "reminded me of a muskox running across the tundra with Ryan and [Raddatz] underfoot."

A 90-minute "rumble" between the Daily Show's Jon Stewart and the O'Reilly Factor's Bill O'Reilly inside an air-conditioned auditorium inside George Washington University brought the two disparate pillars of news talk no closer to consensus — but none of the attendees (who paid as much as $1395 to see black debate white) seemed to mind.

After putting every single criticism of Mitt Romney's now-infamous "47 percent" pitch into one perfect segment, The Daily Show's Jon Stewart sets his snark-sights on the presidential nominee's enablers — namely Fox News, AKA "Romney Campaign Headquarters," AKA "Bullshit Mountain."

Many poignant things have already been said about the not-so-secret-anymore remarks Mitt Romney made to donors at a private $50,000-a-plate fundraiser at a hedge fund manager's home in Boca Raton, but leave it to The Daily Show to put them all together into one, neat, glorious verbal beatdown.