S04.E20: United States Border Patrol

[Athena]

Quote

Main story: Trump's plan to hire 5,000 more Border Patrol agents could lead to corruption and misconduct; plus, Trump's leaked phone calls; Stephen Miller's feud with the press.

 

[Lantern7]

Looks like you have to make your own excitement if you're working for the Border Patrol. Also: "Do Not Finger The Armadillos" might be the best out-of-context moment I can recall. The problem is that with this show, one of John's witticisms coupled with a graphic is always fun.

And damn, that guy from Seattle(?) loves stuff way too much. I mean, not in the way those two Border Patrol agents did it during Cirque du Soleil, but I'm still a little concerned. Do you think LWT takes requests for bumpers between opening news and the main topic? Because there's a guy on a news radio station that annoys the fuck out of me.

[TVcritic]

That Ciscoe Morris sounded A LOT like Futurama's Professor Farnsworth! Sometimes it was uncanny ...

Edited August 7, 2017 by TVcritic

[biakbiak]

My grandparents used to be neighbors with Ciscoe and he and his wife are both lovely people.

[Xantar]

I have so many questions about the Border Patrol candidate who admitted to smoking marijuana 20,000 times in 10 years. For one thing, how did he actually come up with that number? Was he keeping count in a weed diary?

[attica]

That's 5.48 times per day! Of course, one now wonders how much weed is 'a time'....

[peeayebee]

I loved how excited Cisco Morris was. It was funny, but also kinda great seeing someone genuinely so happy and passionate about some things.

That whole Border Patrol story was shocking. How could those hiring think that no problem would arise. And now to possibly see it happen again? Scary.

[ahisma]

6 hours ago, attica said:

That's 5.48 times per day! Of course, one now wonders how much weed is 'a time'....

This guy had to be mentioned on Last Week Tonight's episode 4x20...

That Stephen Miller video from high school was repulsive. The perfect demonstration of white male privilege. 

[Robert Lynch]

Stephen Miller is just a disgusting excuse of a man with no integrity. He is a lapdog for Trump and will be till he is out. That man should not show his ugly mug ever again on TV. 

Edited August 7, 2017 by Robert Lynch

[Lantern7]

1 hour ago, ahisma said:

That Stephen Miller video from high school was repulsive. The perfect demonstration of white male privilege. 

It's one of those moments where you expect John to get whipped back in his chair. He would emerge unhurt, but his glasses would fall down, broken in half by the bit of his nose. Because the clip was that awful. Please tell me he did not win that election. And he's 31! WTF?!?

Loved the analysis of Linus. "Oh, I'm sorry. He is not a drug dealer?!? The messy hair? The stripey shirt? The thumbsucking? He sells Ecstasy at raves, and he's high on his own supply all the time  THERE IS NO 'GREAT PUMPKIN'! He's a junkie. Someone intervene!!!"

[paigow]

Good thing potential refugees undergo "Extreme Vetting" and simplified application procedures are used for filling Border Patrol vacancies expeditiously....

[Victor the Crab]

Hey Ollie. Red Delicious apples ARE delicious, motherfucker! Aside from that, great show. I howled with laughter over the part about fingering armadillos. And you'd have to think the guy who smokes over five joints every day would be the type of person the Border Patrol would want in order for someone to combat the tedium and boredom.

Did Stephen Miller get beat up in school every day? Cuz this douche needs to see those bullies from high school again so they could finish the job on him.

Ciscoe Morris likes a lot of things. A LOT! Too much to be considered healthy. Still, I'll take him over that New York weatherman who goes off on non sequiters A LOT!

[attica]

Oh, @Victor the Crab, you couldn't  possibly assert such a thing  if you'd  ever had a Cortland apple, or a Macintosh, or a northern spy, or Ida red, or any variety of apple with actual flavor. I'm with John. The name is half right.

[paigow]

2 hours ago, attica said:

Oh, @Victor the Crab, you couldn't  possibly assert such a thing  if you'd  ever had a Cortland apple, or a Macintosh, or a northern spy, or Ida red, or any variety of apple with actual flavor. I'm with John. The name is half right.

http://www.epicurious.com/archive/seasonalcooking/farmtotable/visualguideapples

[cuppasun]

2 hours ago, attica said:

Oh, @Victor the Crab, you couldn't  possibly assert such a thing  if you'd  ever had a Cortland apple, or a Macintosh, or a northern spy, or Ida red, or any variety of apple with actual flavor. I'm with John. The name is half right.

Or a Gravenstein, my favorite! (Arkansas Blacks are yummy, too.)

[Victor the Crab]

3 hours ago, attica said:

Oh, @Victor the Crab, you couldn't  possibly assert such a thing  if you'd  ever had a Cortland apple, or a Macintosh, or a northern spy, or Ida red, or any variety of apple with actual flavor. I'm with John. The name is half right.

Too tart for my tastes. I'll stick with my sweet, sweet Delicious Reds, thank you very much! ;)

[Robert Lynch]

Cisco Morris reminded me more as to what happens if an anime character became real. Not that it is a bad thing. Hell, I take him over the other guys from the Weather Channel.

As for Stephen Miller's white male privilege, this so called actor needs to be taken down for his ignorance and bigotry. And he forgets his parents were immigrants. Scott, you are not special or authoritative . Too bad Oliver doesn't go after this guy. If one day somebody could shut this guy down, be it Ollie or Trevor.

http://www.pennlive.com/capitol-notebook/2017/08/move_to_venezuela_the_night_ta.html

Edited August 8, 2017 by Robert Lynch

[iMonrey]

I continue to be amused by John's insistence that the Olsen twins are really one person moving back and forth very quickly.

As for the border patrol story, I don't know what to make of it. I have to say I didn't find it particularly engaging for some reason. I think it was informative but maybe not especially constructive? I don't know, it didn't move me. I don't think the tedium that comes with a job like that is necessarily an insurmountable obstacle if you hire the right kind of people. 

[Slovenly Muse]

1 hour ago, iMonrey said:

As for the border patrol story, I don't know what to make of it. I have to say I didn't find it particularly engaging for some reason. I think it was informative but maybe not especially constructive? I don't know, it didn't move me. I don't think the tedium that comes with a job like that is necessarily an insurmountable obstacle if you hire the right kind of people. 

I think that was the purpose of the piece. The government is NOT hiring the right kind of people, and John is clarifying how Trump's proposal to increase the border patrol could be detrimental to national security by pointing out how hiring tactics have backfired historically. By pointing out things that the government does WRONG when hiring border patrol (hiring a large pool of candidates all at once without appropriate screening, advertising the job as some sort of high-octane anti-terrorism task force), he is sending a message about how the government can do more harm than good by misrepresenting the job and hiring the wrong people to do it. For example, the advertisements the government runs when hiring for border patrol seem designed to attract adrenaline junkies, which basically guarantees that they will be hiring from a pool of applicants that are not well-suited to the realities of the job, and could significantly compromise the security of the border. If border patrol really is about to experience a hiring boom, John is doing good work by clearing up the misconceptions about what border patrol does and educating people about what makes the border patrol function effectively. In this way, he can help combat the misinformation/misconceptions spread by Trump about what a "secure border" needs and looks like, which helps people to be able to vote for policies that WORK in the future.

This is the way the show has always worked. Pointing out problems or misconceptions, then picking them apart, providing facts, and helping people understand what needs to be done to fix what's broken.

[Danny Franks]

First off, Stephen Miller disgusts me. That clip of him ranting about having to clean up after himself sums up him and the entire alt-right movement.

The rest of the episode was an interesting look at what always happens when public sector organisations try to adhere to the dictats of those at the top. They want to make a big splash by recruiting more staff, to address (or at least give the appearance of addressing) a current problem, but there's no thought whatsoever given to the pressures that will put on the organisation as it tries to fulfill its orders. If you have to hire a large number of new staff, the only way to do it quickly is to relax your standards. Both in recruitment and in training. It's common sense that this would be the case, yet it's never taken into account by those who blithely stated that they'd increase the size of the workforce.

In this case, the job of a Border Patrol Officer is one that requires people who are able to be tough but also empathetic, to communicate effectively, think on their feet, and be reliable and restrained. Except it's a job that will appeal to a lot of people who have few of those qualities. And while you could usually winnow them out during recruitment, when you need thousands more staff, you have to accept some who are patently unfit for the job. I'm absolutely sure the same thing happens with police forces across America, which would go a long way to explaining why they keep shooting unarmed people.

So all in all, it's just another case of Trump saying stupid shit that he doesn't understand the consequences of, which could end up being damaging to the country.

[peeayebee]

On 8/7/2017 at 2:46 PM, Robert Lynch said:

Stephen Miller is just a disgusting excuse of a man with no integrity. He is a lapdog for Trump and will be till he is out. 

I gotta disagree. Miller is not Trump's lapdog. I'm not sure I'd call Trump Miller's lapdog, but Miller and Bannon are the ones guiding Trump to carry their ugly worldviews.

 

On 8/7/2017 at 5:13 PM, Victor the Crab said:

Hey Ollie. Red Delicious apples ARE delicious, motherfucker!

I gott side with Ollie. My favorites are Pink Ladies. 

[OneWhoLurks]

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Seattle's own garden guru Ciscoe Morris was featured on John Oliver's "Last week tonight" on HBO. Jordan Steele asks him what he thought of the segment.

John Oliver introduces world to Seattle's Ciscoe Morris

[MaryPatShelby]

On 8/7/2017 at 7:35 PM, attica said:

Oh, @Victor the Crab, you couldn't  possibly assert such a thing  if you'd  ever had a Cortland apple, or a Macintosh, or a northern spy, or Ida red, or any variety of apple with actual flavor. I'm with John. The name is half right.

Honeycrisp

[OneWhoLurks]

Quote

 

Ciscoe’s enthusiasm has made him an icon in the Pacific Northwest and his love for everything was recognized on “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” in a feature called “You Wish You Loved Anything as Much as Seattle Gardening Expert Ciscoe Morris Loves Everything.”

“That was the best thing that ever happened to me,” Ciscoe said. “I knew nothing about it, I walked in on Monday morning to my wife, she just said ‘something big just happened.”’

The segment on John Oliver’s show featured Ciscoe’s high-energy and passion for gardening which led to emails flooding his inbox from all over the world. Ciscoe said he still doesn’t know how the segment made its way to the global audience but suspects someone at King 5 played a big role.

 

Enthusiastic Gardening Expert Returns to Home and Garden Show