Biden & The Border: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

The story of the El Paso alligator statue is stranger than you think. In the late 1800s, the city underwent a beautification project, one element of which included renovating the city park. For some wonderfully inspired reason, the city decided to put a group of young American Alligators into the newly-renovated park pond (alligators are not native to the El Paso area). The gators stayed there for many years, but as time went on, more and more problems arose. The gators weren't the problem, they were quite well-mannered, but the citizens of El Paso were not responsible enough with their alligators. The city faced numerous issues ranging from people throwing things at them, to people catching the alligators and putting them in someone's house or office as a prank, to drunk men jumping into the pond at night hoping to wrestle one. The vandalism and disrespect caused two alligators to die and one to be blinded in one eye. Eventually, in the 1960s the city decided that the alligators would go to the city zoo where they could be safe from the city's population. They tried again in the 70s, but results were soon the same. Then, in 1995, a statue was placed to honor the reptiles that we did not deserve.

While I do understand the plea of these migrants, I have some first hand experience with people who had to leave the country as legal highly skilled labor who had come into the country ”the right way”. An Indian friend of mine had been married and settled in the US. She had been working for nearly 2 decades as an H1-b worker since her permanent residence permit was still very much stuck in the process. She and her spouse were working in medicine and tech respectively, so atleast $130k plus each, and were law abiding tax paying citizens, contributing to their society and their economies. They had bought and built a house for their family and had one daughter who was a US citizen by birth. When my friend lost her job during the Covid-19 pandemic, she had a total of 3 months to find another one in exactly the same field. When she was unable to do so her family had to upend their entire lives and leave immediately along with their daughter, abandoning their house and pet. If this is how the US government treats people who were educated in the country, contributing to the economy greatly and were overall outstanding members of their societies, I can only wonder how they treat migrants from these other countries.

gonna miss the show for however long its off but good for the writers fighting for their rights. i wish workers in all sectors would realize their collective power and stick it to the ruling class.

The problem is we're probably gonna be right back where we started with it being Biden vs. Trump. The lack of even an alternative within the "two party" system is damning of its failure.

As soon as Biden started talking about family I was desperately hoping that Jon would mention Fast and Furious; and I wasn't disappointed.

I worked with a vietnamese boat person. His brother got to America a year ahead of the rest of his family and had a car, a house, and a steel mill job waiting for them. Hard working, decent people. Of course, this was 45 years ago when an individual could, through hard work, earn his way into a house and a car in a year.

Facial recognition IS HARDER when your skin is darker, period. I'm dark myself, and I've written this code, and it's frustrating, but there's little that can be done about it. it's because there's less contrast in my features (dark skin, dark hair, eyebrows) and if I'm not in a well-lit area, I just fade into the background. This has to do with the very physics of photography and vision -- how much light and how much difference in the light and dark areas. One solution is to remove the IR filter that's on all digital cameras, that made me look very white, gave me plenty of contrast. This means that the melanin in my skin apparently reflects, not absorbs, near infrared. That was good enough for my purposes.

I recognize that I'm late to this, but I hope the WGA and especially the Last Week Tonight team are able to make it through this strike. It's a bummer there hasn't been any new episodes for near a full month, but getting fair treatment and compensation for the talented folks who deserve it comes first. Good luck to the Last Week Tonight team and I hope you all are managing through the strike okay

Even entering legally is incredibly difficult. My aunts and uncles, who are middle class in Mexico, and can afford an attorney to handle the process, have been waiting for 24 years for their green cards to be approved.

That app makes me think of when I worked with my state's unemployment office during the pandemic. Our role was very limited (we could help with filing a weekly claim and update personal information on the account, but we could not approve an account for benefits as I believe that had to be done by a licensed adjudicator). For those needing more assistance, they required an appointment to speak with someone by phone. Appointments could only be made Sunday through Thursday after 5PM. The slots were taken within two minutes of opening and people were going months without being able to speak with someone. We were actually informed to flag a supervisor if someone made mention of committing suicide because of this. That was just unemployment benefits, I can only imagine how much worse it is for those seeking asylum.

You can tell John is still new to America because he’s still expecting Presidents to honor their promises

Just because things could be worse, doesn't mean they couldn't be better. Just because you love your country, doesn't meant you can't wish better for it. It's our duty to guide our country towards a better state.

I'm German, and I was in a LDR with an American girl. At one point, I looked into ways to stay in the US for a longer time. She couldn't believe how hard it is to get into the country, maybe she thought I was too stupid to find the right approach. I'm a software developer with a degree, and it would be so incredible difficult to come with a work visa, and then you are on the mercy of the company hiring you. Also marrying wouldn't be all rainbows and unicorn puke. Things didn't work out between us, and to be honest, I prefer the employee rights and protections I have in Germany very much over the American nightmare. After we broke up, she accused me to be anti-american. That's not true, I like your country, but that means even more that I have to criticize it if it becomes a shit show of a dumpsterfire on an erupting volcano. Get your shit together, and immigration would be a good starting point.

Stand with the WGA & SAG! Give artists their worth and the security they deserve! We miss you, LWT, but we’re supporting you 100%!

This video is only 10 months old and already it didn't age well.

Ahhhhh the second he started talking about the app my thought was “wow this puts my Ticketmaster experience in perspective.” And to learn that I was not the only person who’s mind went there is both gratifying and horrifying

As an immigration lawyer whose main practice area is asylum, you are spot on. I'm so disappointed in the Biden administration, and I thank you for bringing this important issue to light.

I'm genuinely really excited for this show to come back - whenever that may be. I hope WGA gets their demands soon too. This has been a wild month as soon as theyve gone off air. I wish everyone on the LWT team good luck with this strike!

the asylum app was clearly about some contractor getting a huge contract for developing it not to provide any value

Seeing Stephen Miller after all these years is like vampire seeing sun for the first time