HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher #323 "Horror and Mayhem"

Max Brooks graphic novel

by Catherine Giordano

Is a co-incidence that a doctor, Martin Blaser, who has a book about modern plagues and an author, Max Brooks, who has a book about zombies are on the same show? I don't think so. Plenty of horror and mayhem in the news served up with a splash of comedy) and some mayhem caused by a horribly ignorant panelist, Andy Dean.

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In the monologue, Bill Maher spoke about the mayhem in the Republican party because of the Thad Cochran and tea-partier (and “real knuckle-dragger,” according to Maher) Chris McDaniel Republican primary race in Mississippi for the Senate. McDaniel had the lead, but Cochran in an upset, won due to a last minute effort by Cochran to persuade black Democrats to vote for him. Mississippi has open primaries, meaning that a voter can choose which primary to vote in. McDaniel and tea-party supporters everywhere are hopping mad. Maher quipped that McDaniel is demanding that the election be overturned because Cochran won with black votes and everyone knows blacks are not supposed to vote.”

Later in the show, Maher said the black voters in Mississippi knew a Democrat would never get elected in Mississippi so they voted for the least bad Republican choice. One of the panelists, Joy Reid (a black woman) who is the anchor of the MSNBC show The Reid Report, also defended blacks who came out to vote for Cochran. She said, “49% of the budget for the state comes from the federal government and the tea party wants to stop those funds and he wants to send poll-watchers to watch blacks vote.”

Here’s my plea to everyone in Mississippi who supports the tea party: In November, exact your revenge on Cochran for seeking the support of blacks--vote for the Democrat, Travis Childers, or don’t vote at all. And my plea to those blacks who voted for Cochran in the primary--come out again in November and vote for Childers. And my plea to Childers, come up with some smart campaign moves of your own and win this thing. The latest poll shows you with only 34% vs. Cochran’s 46%. Let’s have another upset in Mississippi.

The interview was with Dr. Martin Blaser, Director of the NYU Human Microbiome Program, Professor of Microbiology at New York University School of Medicine, author of Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics Is Fueling Our Modern Plagues. They discussed the serious consequences of the overuse and misuse of antibiotics.
 

Harmful bacteria are becoming resistant to antibiotics and new antibiotics are not being developed. Maher explained that drug companies want to develop drugs like Lipitor that people take every day. There is far more money in it than in antibiotics that people take just once in a while and only for a week. 

Blaser pointed out another problem. The good bacteria that we need to keep us healthy and alive are being killed off (reducing biotic diversity) and/or mutating also. Since World War II, there has been a huge increase in obesity, diabetes, allergies, and other problems. He posits that the effects of antibiotics on the good bacteria may be causing all of these illnesses.
 

After the interview, Maher brought up the subject of climate change. He noted that even some Republicans are not supporting the idea of climate change. Joy Reid said, “We can pay for the solution or pay for the clean-up. “ Another panelist, Bobby Ghosh, journalist, managing editor for Atlantic Media’s Quartz, former TIME Magazine's World Editor, and author of The New Middle East (with Time Magazine editors), added, “There is money to be made in protecting the environment." 

 

And then Andy Dean, host of radio talk show, America Now with Andy Dean piped up with one of his many stupid comments. You are going to put hundreds of thousands of coal miners out of a job so a rich guy in Malibu doesn’t lose a couple of feet of his beach-front property.

  

Maher immediately slammed him, saying “There are so many stupid lies in that one sentence. Maher accused him of pulling the number of coal miners right out of a certain aperture in his posterior. (Maher expressed it more bluntly than I just did.) He also said, "The solution was to train the current miners for better jobs." (I 100% agree. Coal mining is a dirty dangerous job. I’m sure coal miners would much rather have a job in a clean energy industry.) Reid added that coal mining is poisoning the water. (I think coal miners would like to have clean water as well as clean jobs.) 

 

More nuclear energy is not the solution of course, this is what Dean proposed, bemoaning the fact that no new nuclear plant has been built since Three Mile Island. Reid smartly shut him down: “That’s because of Three Mile Island.” (P.S. You guys should have mentioned Japan after the 2011 tsunami. If that doesn’t scare us off nuclear energy, what will?)  

 

The situation in Iraq was also discussed. Maher said that the pottery Barn rule should have a statute of limitation. “It’s not you break it and you have to work for Pottery Barn forever.”

  

Reid said, “We should stop infantilizing the Arab world. Everything they do is not because of us” and later, “We sowed division by trying to tinker with the Middle East. We took down a secular Sunni government and handed it to the Shia and told them to fight Iran.”

 

Ghosh said, “It is not about hating each other about religion. It is about power. In other countries, Sunni and Shia live side by side.” 

 

And what were Dean’s contributions to the discussion. 

“The Kurds were the main reason we went to Iraq.” And the Kurds love Israel and everything.” Everyone gives him a WTF look.  

“We walked away from Iraq and that is why we are here we are today. Maher yells, “Bullshit.” 

“It’s because of 9/11.” Joy angrily demands, “What did 9/11 have to do with Iraq?”

“They hate us for our way of life.” Pandemonium breaks out as everyone screams at Dean. I was screaming at my TV.  

Remember two weeks ago when I said that Tom Rogan was acting like a misbehaving child. See Totally Tripping #321) I have the same feeling about Andy Dean. (And, Tucker Carlson, although he hasn’t been on Maher’s show.) Here’s my theory. They are all short, slight, and boyish- looking. I heard Carlson say that he was ignored by the cool kids in high school. I bet the others were too. They became conservatives to get back at the cool kids who were liberal. I’m not picking on short people. Some short people, like Robert Reich, are smart enough to not go through life it a chip on their shoulder. And smart enough not to go through life behaving like stupid children. 

 

In a plug for #FlipADistrict, Maher urged viewers to use the hash tag to vote for who should have his district flipped. He said, ‘Vote for your ‘loser’ to win.” I’ll add, “So the ‘winner’ can lose in November.” 

 

Maher introduced the mid-show comedy segment by reminding us about the Clive McBundy supporting couple who shot two policemen and another person in Tulsa recently because they wanted to start a revolution, were wearing adult diapers at the time of their killing spree. This led Maher to a mock adult diaper ad for gun nuts. The ad said that if you don’t want the revolution to be cut sort because “you have to go,” you need “Defends.” The constitution is written right on the diapers which come in sizes, “small, medium, and George Zimmerman.” The tag line was, “Our movement shouldn’t be sidetracked because of yours.” 

 

The mid-show guest was Max Brooks, son of Mel Brooks, and author of World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead, and a graphic novel, The Harlem Hellfighters (with illustrator Caanan White). Maher said that Brooks' zombie novels were an allegory for survival of any apocalypse. 

 

Brooks said, “I want to talk about the larger issues, infrastructure and everything that keep civilization running.” Brooks and Maher talked about how the conservatives and tea-party are trying to strip that away. . Brooks said, “They want less government. That’s Somalia. That’s the real zombie apocalypse. Go live the dream!” 

Read about a possible real zombie apocalypse 

Brooks also talked about his new graphic novel, The Harlem Hellfighters. It is a fictional story about the true story of a World War I regiment of blacks who fought heroically in

France. 

 

The final segment of New Rules also focused on WW I. He said that for most wars, you can sum up the cause in a sentence the way you could do a pitch for a movie. Then he did a few movie pitches. 

Titanic:                      Two teenagers have sex and turn over a boat.

Jurassic Park:           Resurrecting dinosaurs is a shitty idea.

Wizard of Oz:            Nice girl from Kansas drops acid.

Spiderman III:           Same shit as last time.

 After this digression, Maher returns to the point. There was no point to WW I and WW I’s Treaty of Versailles, caused WW II by stripping Germany of everything but Octoberfest. The humiliation of Germany assured they would come back for revenge.

 

Maher concluded it a bit lamely. He said, "It’s like workplace sex or eating at Wendy’s. It feels good at the time, but eventually you’ll regret it.”

 

In between the horror of war and the horror of apocalypse and  the horror of stupid conservative ideas and stupid conservatives saying stupid things, there as a bit of mayhem, some of it quite delightful.

 

Bill Maher’s Guests, #322, June 27, 2014

 

Joy Reid: journalist, anchor of the MSNBC show The Reid Report, managing editor of TheGrio.com, political columnist for the Miami Herald, and the editor of The Reid Report political blog

 

Andy Dean: host of America Now with Andy Dean, a radio talk show 

Bobby Ghosh: journalist, managing editor for Atlantic Media’s Quartz, former TIME Magazine's World Editor, author of The New Middle East (with Time Magazine editors)

 

Dr. Martin Blaser: Director of the NYU Human Microbiome Program, Professor of Microbiology at New York University School of Medicine, author of Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics Is Fueling Our Modern Plagues 

 

Max Brooks: author of World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead, and a graphic novel, The Harlem Hellfighters (with illustrator Caanan White)

HBO's True Blood as Social Satire

by Catherine Giordano

Show Your Trubie Love

Undeading True Blood
 
The seventh and final season of True Blood premiered on Sunday June 22, 2014. Will the series go out in a blaze of glory or will it just flicker out leaving us with the taste of ashes in our mouth. Does the episode title “Jesus Gonna Be Here” portend a resurrection of interest in this show?

I stopped watching a few seasons ago. I gave more reasons for quitting the show in my previous post, but essentially I felt that the whole point of the show had become a game to see if each new episode could top the previous one’s body count, gore, over-the-top sexual misadventures, and number of buckets of blood. My last post was for an episode named “Save Yourself.”  I decided to save the time I had spent watching this show.

But now I’m feeling a little nostalgic for Sookie and her friends.  Maybe I’ll come back.

One thing that I liked about the show was its social satire elements. Today, I came across an article from Mother Jones that discussed the social commentary embedded in the show. True Blood is really all about civil rights, political malfeasance, and religious bigotry. Read the article: “A Political History of “True Blood.”

I just added True Blood back to my viewing list. If it doesn’t revive my interest, I won’t hesitate to put a stake in its heart.  All I have to do is click “delete” and the undead are dead to me again.

 

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HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher #322 "Bad Boys"

Hillary Clinton gives her book,
 Hard Choices, to Mr. Squirrel

Bad Boys

by Catherine Giordano

The bad boys came out to play on "Real Time with Bill Maher", episode 322, which aired on 6/20/2014. 

Bill Maher, who is always a bad boy, had a few comments in his monologue about some bad boys. He mentioned the Isis group in Iraq who took the Iraqi city of Baiji and robbed a bank in the process. Maher said “When they do it they are terrorists; when we do it we are venture capitalists.   

Maher also blasted the Republicans who got it all wrong when they urged the U.S. to go to war with Iraq—Dick Cheney, John McCain, Bill Kristol (to name a few) all over the TV now complaining that Obama is not handling the ISIS insurgency correctly. He called them “Satan’s V.I.P. list for Hell.” The bad-est of these bad boys is Cheney-- Maher joked that Cheney said, “My thoughts and prayers go out to our oil.” 

Later in a discussion about foreign policy, Maher reported that even Fox News was buying it anymore.  Megan Kelly, A Fox-News host grilled Cheney during a TV interview saying “All your predictions were wrong.” Kristen Soltis Anderson, a Republican pollster for the company, Echelon Insights, and a columnist for The Daily Beast reported that “There is a wide spectrum of opinion on that by Republicans.”  Well perhaps.  There is Rand Paul vs. all the other Republicans.) 

The pope is now on Maher’s list of bad boys.  Maher said, “The honeymoon is over between me and Pope Frank.” It seems the Pope called drugs and alcohol evil and said there can be no compromise with evil. Maher added that this was coming from someone “who never drinks anything stronger than the blood of Christ.”  A wicked bad quip. 

The interview was with Ta-Nehisi Coates who is a national correspondent at The Atlantic, which recently published his much talked about article in The Atlantic magazine, “The Case for Reparations.”  He is also the author of the memoir. The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood.   Coates said that black people in America are in a constant state of “unfreedom.”   He talked about Jim Crow, debt peonage (share cropping) segregation and more making the case for reparations. Maher asked his if he agreed with Martin Luther King who said (repeating words first used by Theodore parker, a Unitarian minister and abolitionist) “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Coates responded saying “oh, nooo,” drawing out the word “no” and sadly shaking his head. The he added “It’s an arc of injustice.” 

Two of the panelists, both bad boys got into a bad screaming match. Paul Reickhoff is a veteran of the United States Army and the Iraq War and founder and Executive Director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, and author of Chasing Ghosts: Failures and Facades in Iraq: A Soldier’s Perspective. Reickoff is passionate about advocating for soldiers and veterans. His opponent in this fight was Glenn Greenwald, a lawyer, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, author I of several books. His most recent book is No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State. Greenwald is a passionate advocate for Edward Snowden and more transparency in government.

 

They strongly disagreed about whether Snowden was a traitor for revealing state secrets (Reickhoff’s position) or  a hero for exposing excessive government surveillance (Greenwald’s position). Greenwald made an excellent point when he said that Snowden did not reveal anything. He only turned the files over to newspapers and asked them to vet it carefully. It may be splitting hairs, but Greenwald is a lawyer, and a defense can turn on how hairs were split. 

Maher had to break up the fight before it came to blows by interrupting and changing the subject to the Flip–A-District campaign.   

Maher then moved on to a news story about Dr. Oz touting green coffee extract as a “miracle” and “magic” weight loss aid. (When a doctor uses words like “miracle” and “magic” you know he has sold out.) Maher then held up a Time magazine showing the cover story about weight-loss titled, “Eat More Butter.” Maher claimed this was all about telling people what they want to hear, and he had a few magazine cover story ideas of his own.  Here’s a few of them: 

Boys Life:                If All the Scouts are Doing It, It is Not Really Gay         

Sports Illustrated:    Video Gamers: The Real Athletes

AARP:                     That Smell Isn’t Really Coming from You

Hustler:                    Masturbation Prevents Cancer    

Modern Parenting:   How to Raise a Genius by Sticking Your Toddler in Front of the TV All   Day    

 

Read more about wish-fulfillment magazine over stories at BillMaherRules.

(I include the most salacious ones there.)

The mid-show guest was, Mike Shinoda a musician, record producer, and artist. He is best known as the rapper, principal songwriter, keyboardist, rhythm guitarist and one of the two vocalists of the rock band Linkin Park which has had more number one hits than any other band.  His newest album is The Hunting Party. Shinoda is also the author (with Shepherd Fairey) of Glorious Excess. 

Shinoda talked about how the band has moved from themes of teen-aged angst to songs about social issues over the years. Shinoda is now very involved with social issues like relief efforts for major natural disasters causes like climate change. 

In New Rules, Maher mocked “Co-dependence Day.”  He said “Broken nations are like broken people. You can’t fix them,” adding, “Maybe America needs Dr. Phil to ask, 'How’s that nation-building thing working out for you?’”  

Maher said that the United States went into Iraq thinking (My interjection: Or at least saying, because we all know the real reason was oil) we would liberate the country from a dictator, install a democracy, and then that democracy would be a model for the whole Mid-east. He brought the point home by finishing with “and then after lunch …” He said the United States was like a woman who thinks she can fix the bad boys.   

Have you seen that big bad orange squirrel on TV—the one that is following Hillary Clinton around. (Actually, it’s a person in a squirrel costume, and the squirrel looks cute and cuddly.) It’s leftover from the campaign against Obama and it was meant to associate Obama with the group, Acorn.  Maher pointed out that since Acorn has been defunct for many years now, the prop no longer makes sense. Unless, as Maher said, as he held up a picture of the 2012 Republican contenders on the debate stage, it makes sense because “Republicans like to gather all their nuts in the fall.” 

The whole squirrel thing is not working at all. I saw a clip on TV where Hillary approached “Mr. Squirrel”, as she called him, shook his hand, and gave him a copy of her book, Hard Choices.  Mr. Squirrel looked delighted as he hugged the book to his chest and gave Hillary a thumbs-up sign. (My guess is that the person inside that squirrel costume no longer has a job as a squirrel impersonator.)  CLICK HERE to see video.

 

The bad boys are not going to change, whether they are your boyfriends, or your   leaders, or your leaders, or even your comedians. I wish they would, except for Bill Maher—Bill, you keep on being your bad funny self. Keep that political and social satire coming. Our country needs it bad.

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Bill Maher’s Guests,  #322,  June 6, 2014

Paul Reickhoff: Writer, veteran of the United States Army and the Iraq War, founder and Executive Director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, and author of Chasing Ghosts: Failures and Facades in Iraq: A Soldier’s Perspective

Ta-Nehisi Coates: National correspondent at The Atlantic, which recently published his much talked about article, "The Case for Reparations." He is also the author of a memoir. The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood.

Glenn Greenwald: American lawyer, journalist, author I of several books.  His most recent book is No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State

Kristen Soltis Anderson: Republican pollster for the firm, Echelon Insights, columnist for The Daily Beast.

Mike Shinoda: Musician, record producer, and artist. He is best known as the rapper, principal songwriter, keyboardist, rhythm guitarist and one of the two vocalists of the rock band Linkin Park.  His newest album is "The Hunting Party." He is the author (with Shepherd Fairey) of Glorious Excess.

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Real Time with Bill Maher #321 June 13, 2014 "Totally Tripping"

Totally Tripping

by Catherine Giordano

Bill Maher was tripping out, but his guests pretty much avoided tripping up on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, episode 321, which aired on 6/13/14.  I promise, this review and recap will be worth the trip. 

Let’s start at the end with New Rules and a bit called “Brownie Points.” Maher gave Colorado its marching orders with the rules a state must observe when that state is the first to legalize recreational marijuana making it “The Jackie Robinson of Pot.” His point was that when you are first at something, the way Jackie Robinson, was the first black in major league baseball, you have to get it right or you will ruin it for those who hope to follow you.  

Maureen Dowd went to Colorado, got some pot, and did everything wrong.  Then she blasts the details of her bad trip in The New York Times. (Read the column here.)  This prompted Maher to proclaim some rules for weed newbies.  I repeat them as a public service.

·         Don’t do it alone the first time. 

·         Don’t mix pot with alcohol.  It’s like funny pron.  It ruins both. 

·        The first time, smoke it, don’t eat it.  Eating it makes is more intense.  Eating it is more likely to make you paranoid. 

·         It takes time to have an effect. Be patient. Don’t keep taking more. 

·         Also the serving size of a regular brownie may be one brownie, but the serving size of a pot brownie is just a very small bite.
 

·        Don’t take stuff made for veteran users. You know like skiers who are supposed to learn on the bunny slope.   

Then he advised Colorado not to throw the baby out with the bong water. Be sure to give newbie customers detailed instructions and guidance. Also, stop selling pot that looks like popular brands of candy. That is not what stoners do; it is what R.J Reynolds does. 

CLICK HERE for more details about "Brownie Points"

And now to a few people in the news who tripped up this week. 
 

·       Eric Cantor lost his primary for his e district to a Tea party newcomer.  Maher quipped that Cantor said, “I get it. I was unreasonable, uninformed, and hateful.  What happened?  

·        Rick Perry compared gay people to alcoholics.  Perry believes that maybe they got a bad gene, but they can just control it. 

·       Hillary got into some kind of fight with Terry Gross on NPR about how and why and when Hillary changed her position on gay marriage. I heard that sound bite.  It seemed to me that they were both saying the exact same thing.  (Listen to it here.) 
    

·        McCain who has been proven wrong on everything he has ever said about Iraq, now wants us to bomb Iraq to protect the Shiite government. But wait, Iran is Shiite so we would be helping Iran who McCain also wants us to bomb. In fact McCain’s answer to everything is bombing. McCain is a cranky old man who should have retired long ago.

 

The interview was with Gina McCarthy, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator. She spoke about the Clean Power Program and the importance of the fight against pollution to public health.  She said, “Reducing carbon is an economic opportunity. She told us that five Northeast states have acted on their own and are making cap and trade work. Who opted out? Massachusetts (under Governor Romney) and New Jersey (under Governor Christie) they had/have presidential ambitions and both members of the anti-science party. 

 

I am against the Keystone pipeline, not just because of the dangers of an oil spill, but because it is putting money into an antiquated technology. Renewable energy is the energy of the future and will make this country free of dependence on foreign oil. It will create far more jobs that the pipeline and spur economic development. Its win-win--except if you happen to be a billionaire in the oil industry. (I mean you, Koch brothers.)  

            

The panelists included Richard A. Clarke, former National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism and author of several books, both fiction and non-fiction. His newest novel is Sting of the Drone.  He was the first person to tell the country the truth about 9-11. He has the wisdom and gravitas of an elder statesman.  

 

Another panelist was Krystal Ball, co-host on MSNBC's The Cycle. She’s relatively young, but she is poised and in command of the facts.  

 

The third panelist was Tom Rogan:  a contributor to National Review Online, The Daily Telegraph, and blogger at TomRoganThinks. Tom Rogan may think, but not always too well—alas he thinks like a conservative which means he frequently distorts the facts, as in this exchange with Clarke.

 

 

Maher:     Saddam was against the jihadists. We got rid of the Sunni secularists and now we have the Sunni crazies.  

 

Clarke:     Saddam was fighting Al Qaeda.

 

Rogan:     I agree, but if we hadn’t gotten rid of him he would have had a nuclear program.

 

Clarke:     No, we wouldn’t have allowed it. (spoken with firm authority)

 

Rogan:     We allowed it in Iran. 

 

Clarke:     No, we have not allowed it. (spoken with firm authority)

 

Rogan:     We’ll see. (spoken petulantly)

 

Rogan’s dubious arguments were not helped by his over-eager puppy dog manner.  He looked and acted like a 12-year old child.  I wanted to ask him to move to the children’s table so the adults could talk. 

 

The discussion about Iraq was quite a long one—usually Maher is changing subjects every three minutes—so they got into the dynamics of the Middle East in some detail.

 

Maher took an historical view. “In the 16^th century, the Catholics and the protestants spent 100 years killing each other. Now Islam is having its 16^th century. Let them have it.” Exactly right—we don’t need to be involved in their religious wars that have been going on almost since the beginnings of Islam. 

 

Getting back to the present crisis, Clarke said, “We are still trying to clean up the mess that Bush created for the world.”  

 

Rogan piped up, “We withdrew our troops that why.”  

 

Clarke set him straight. “It would have happened whenever we withdrew, even if we stayed for 1000 years.” 

 

Ball added. “We thought that with magical capitalism-democracy fairy dust, we could fix everything. 

 

Naturally, Rogan had to bring up the same-old, same old. “If you do nothing, they will export terrorism. 

 

Clarke had to set him straight again. “If they set up terrorism camps in Iraq, we will deal with it. But let it happen first.”  

 

Maher added, “Terrorist groups are all over the world. We would have to go to war with 15 countries.”  Later, he added, “We can use drones, the middle ground between sending an army and doing nothing.”  Maher got it exactly right.  

  

The mid-show guest was Carol Leifer, a stand-up comedian, writer and producer for several TV shows, and author. Her latest book is How to Succeed in Business Without Really Crying, a book that instructs young people how to succeed in business with such hints as, don’t be late, don’t dress like a whore. (Do young people actually need to be told these things.  It seems they do.)  

 

On the issue of women in business, Leifer talked about a woman who went on a job interview and was asked if she could make a good cup of coffee. “She stormed right out of that Starbucks.” 

 

Leifer also discussed telling her eight year old son she was going to marry her partner a woman. Here sold told her “Girls can’t get married to each other.” Leifer said, “So now I have to tell my mother her grandson is a Republican.” 

 

The mid-show comedy segment was about stuff written on T-shirts for pregnant woman.  It seems a T-shirt that said “Wake me when I am skinny again,” set off a controversy about expectations about women’s bodies.  I don’t get it.  I think a lot of pregnant women feel this way.  So Maher came up with some other T-shirt scripts, such as, 

 

·         “It looked like fun on Juno. 

 

·         Nice try, Trojans. 

 

·         I’m with Stupid ä 

 

See more details about the comedy bit at Bill Maher Rules.
 

Let’s end this trip with something Richard Clarke said.  “Doctor Frankenstein creates the monster and it kills him. Cantor created the Tea party and it killed him.”   

 

Also, a bit of advice for Hillary.  Don’t get testy and petulant during interviews. That slamming the press works for Republicans because the Republican base hates what they call “the liberal media.” Democrats, not so much.  Don’t let the story of the day (or week) be about a catfight.  

 

I’ll be tripping with Bill Maher again next week. Same time. Same place.  I hope you come along for the ride.

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Guests

CLICK HERE for details

Gina McCarthy:  U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator

Richard A. Clarke:  former National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism and author of several books, both fiction and non-fiction.  His newest novel is Sting of the Drone 

Krystal Ball:  co-host on MSNBC's The Cycle

Tom Rogan:  a contributor to National Review Online, The Daily Telegraph, blogger at TomRoganThinks

Carol Leifer: a stand-up comedian, writer and producer for several TV shows, and author. Her latest book is How to Succeed in Business Without Really Crying