Real Time with Bill Maher #351 4/24/15 "There There"

by Catherine Giordano


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Real Time with Bill Maher #351 4/24/15 There There

There, There. We all need a little consolation and a few laughs at the end of a hard week. That’s why we have Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO on Friday nights at 10 pm. It’s more outrage than consolation, but the laughs are there.  

Here is the review and recap of the episode 351 which aired on April 34, 2015.  

Eddie Huang 

I thought Eddie Huang, the mid-show guest, would steal the show and he did. He’s the host of the series Huangs World, author of Fresh Off the Boat: A Memoir (now a TV series on ABC), and proprietor of BaoHaus, a NYC restaurant. I’m glad Eddie Huang was there. 

Maher said he was the product of a “tiger mom.” Huang is Korean and he said his mother always told him that there was 5000 years of history that he had to live up to.  

His book and the ABC sit-com based on his book tell the story of a Korean immigrant family. Huang is unhappy with the show because he feels it is full of stereotypes. “The same stories as on every other show, but with yellow faces.”  

Maher said he never could understand why Asians are said to have yellow skin. He doesn’t see it. Huang said he doesn’t mind because “I can claim the emojis as my people.” He said, “I’m Oriental like rugs and 5-spice.”  

Hillary Clinton

The swift-boating of Hillary Clinton has begun. A new book Clinton Cash claims there is a scandal somewhere. Relax. There is no “there” there. Maher called it “the worse scandal since the last one, whatever that was.” He added, “The book was written by the guy who advised Sarah Palin on foreign policy.” That’s like a book on hair styling “by guy who does Trump’s hair. “ 

Maher said that the Clinton Foundation is a charity. “They are not in it for the money…They are policy wonks.” 

Panelist Ana Marie Cox, political editor for The Daily Beast and Bloomberg View, MSNBC political commentator, founder of the blog. Wonkette, and author of the novel Dog Days said “They just want to be loved.” 

Panelist Christopher Caldwell, senior editor at The Weekly Standard and author of Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West  “They like power. Whether or not it can be proved, people who gave the money thought they were getting something for it.”  

This was Maher’s cue to berate people who say the Clintons are constantly involved in a scandal. Manufactured scandals!  Ken Starr, after years of investigations couldn’t find anything. In the end he had to say “I got nothing but a blow job.”  

Panelist Liz Mair, Republican political consultant and president of Mair Strategies gave us “the-lamest-remark-of-the-show” moment when she said, “The Clintons handle it badly.”



Ana Marie Cox

The real money scandal

The real money scandal is Citizen’s United and billionaires like Sheldon Adelson.

Adelson gave millions to Republican presidential candidates in 2012 and will give millions more for the 2016 election. Does he want something for his money? You bet he does. He wants the U.S. to be there for Israel. Maher quipped, “If Adelson was a Hindu, don’t you think the issue would be, we gotta stop killing cows.”   

Anna Marie Cox added, “And the 89 million dollars the Kochs will spend. It is like being a third party.”  

Presidential Candidates

Carly Fiorina has announced her candidacy for the Republican nomination for president. Maher lampooned her in the monolog. “She is running as the junior senator of California, except she wasn’t elected. She’s running on having turned Hewlett Packard around, but not in the right direction. [She was fired as CEO of the company 

In my opinion, she is running just to have something to do and perhaps to get the VP slot if the winning candidate thinks he should have a woman on the ticket. [That didn’t work out so well when John McCain put Sarah Palin on the ticket because she was a woman, but Republicans don’t appear to learn from their mistakes.] 

Mid-show comedy segment: I wish my teacher knew essay

A teacher in Denver assigned her class of third graders the essay topic, “I wish my teacher knew…” The school was in a poor neighborhood and children wrote things like “I can’t do my homework because we don’t have any pencils at home.” And “I miss my Dad because he got deported to Mexico.”  

Maher said when a teacher in Beverly Hills assigned her students the same topic, the responses were very different. Here are a few f them. 

…the lady who come to my parent-teacher conference is my nanny

…I can’t tell when my mommy is mad because her forehead doesn’t move

…my sex tape drops on May 3^rd.

…she hasn’t taught me anything because all knowledge comes from scientology

 

Robert Kennedy, Jr. and the dangers of mercury in vaccines

I wish I knew who was telling the truth about vaccinations. Robert Kennedy, Jr., is an environmental activist, chief prosecuting attorney for Riverkeeper and president of Waterkeeper Alliance. He was on the show to promote the new book Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak and the video Trace Amounts.

He claims that there is still too much mercury in vaccinations and this is harming children because mercury is a neuro-toxin. He claims to be pro-vaccine—all his kids were vaccinated-- but he says vaccinations have become big business now. He said, “The CDC [Center for Disease Control] has been taken over by the vaccine industry.” Kids used to get 3-5 vaccines, but his kids got 16 vaccines and 57 inoculations.  

I did some further research on this, and I've come to the conclusion that Kennedy is dangerously wrong about vaccines. I want to respect him for his environmental work, but he should leave medicine to the medical professionals.  

New Rules: Mommie Nearest

If you watch Bill Maher long enough you get to know his pet peeves,--religion, unhealthy eating, political correctness, and over-zealous parenting. Today the New Rules rant was about  ”helicopter parents”—“parents who are more anxious than a squirrel on meth.“

There is a new catch-phrase:”free-range parenting” It describes parents who give their kids a little space. Like the parents of two children , one aged 10 and one aged six, who were allowed to walk home from a park two blocks from their home in a good neighborhood. The police picked them up. Imagine! Kids allowed to walk alone in their own neighborhood.

Maher said, when he was a kid, there was no such word as parenting. Walking home alone isn’t the problem. Kids sitting at home in front of the TV like “fattening veal” is the problem.

And porn. Because nowadays porn is not an airbrushed Playboy model, but all types of sickening perversion. At least kids playing outside are not sitting home in front of the computer watching porn. And violent sexist video games. So there!  

 

Bill Maher’s Guests #351, April 24, 2015 

 

The interview was with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: Editor of a new book Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak, environmental activist, chief prosecuting attorney for Riverkeeper and president of Waterkeeper Alliance.  

The mid-show interview was with Eddie Huang: Host of the series Huangs World, author of Fresh Off the Boat: A Memoir (now a TV series on ABC), proprietor of BaoHaus, a NYC restaurant.  

Panel 

Ana Marie Cox: Political editor for The Daily Beast and Bloomberg View, MSNBC political commentator, founder of the blog. Wonkette, author of the novel Dog Days

Christopher Caldwell: Senior editor at The Weekly Standard, author of Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West   

Liz Mair: Republican political consultant, president of Mair Strategies

 

 

 

Real Time with Bill Maher #350 04/17/15 "More Zombie Lies"

by Catherine Giordano

Zombie Lies: Environmental Edition
 

 

Back on July 11, 2014, Bill Maher did a bit about zombie lies. (See the review, Zombie Lies) On April 17, 2015, episode 350, he updated that bit. Maher named his final New Rules bit, “Zombie Lies; Environmental Division.”

Zombie lies are the lies Republicans tell, the lies that are discredited and disproven, yet they won’t die. Only the zombie lies will be worse than ever because it is presidential campaign season. If you are into drinking games, watch a newscast, or the Republican debates, and chug a drink every time you hear a zombie lie. But only play for 10 minutes –I don’t want anyone passing out.

Maher tore into many of the Republican candidates for President. Not all of them--it’s only a one hour show. For example, Ted Cruz explains away global warming by saying,"In the 1970’s, everyone said cooling was the problem." Maher corrects him saying, “Not everybody, just one Newsweek article. And the article said a FEW scientists believed it."  

[By the way, we should be entering a mini ice age about now because of the earth’s position relative to the sun. The greenhouse gasses have kept the planet warm. Which would be a good thing, except the green house gases are keeping the planet TOO warm.] 

Ted Cruz likes to say that scientific consensus can be wrong, citing the fact that at one time everyone believed that the sun revolved around the earth. Galileo was the dissenter and he was right. Maher blew a gasket. It wasn’t scientific consensus—it was Galileo against the consensus of the church leaders, the ones who believed “Bible myths from cavemen.”  

Maher said the zombie lies are for the Republican donors. Even Republican voters now accept that the earth is over-warming. “The zombie lies are for the Republican donors who make their money killing the planet. … It’s what their fellow prostitutes in the sex industry call  ‘the girlfriend experience.’”

 

Below is a video of the bit, Zombie Lies: Environmental Division.

 

 

 

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Judith Miller and her Iraq War zombie lies

The interview was with Judith Miller, Pulitzer Prize winner former editor of The New York Times. She is the author of a new book The Story: A Reporter's Journey. The book is supposed to be about how everyone got it wrong When George W. Bush took the country to war. It wasn’t his fault, and it wasn’t her fault for reporting the lies (the zombie lies) in the New York Times as if they were true. It was faulty intelligence. That is her story and she is sticking to it. She insists she was a diligent skeptical reporter; I didn’t believe a word of what she said.  

The intelligence was fabricated and cherry-picked and by now everyone knows it. I’m confident that even Judith Miller knows it.  

 

Presidential Candidates

Maher spoke about the so called Clinton-Bush dynasties. There is a Bush dynasty. Prescott Bush was a senator. His son George H. W. Bush was a president. Then GHW’s son, George W. Bush was president, and now another of his sons, JEB bush is running for President. On the Clinton side—there has been only one Clinton in public office so far, President Bill Clinton. And the Clinton years were good years. Clinton gave us peace and surpluses; the Bush presidencies gave us war and bankruptcy.  
 

Rubio claims to be the young fresh face in the race. Maher remarked that “he looks like the pool boy.” He looks young, but his ideas are old ideas. Panelist Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress and former advisor at the Department of Health and Human Services where she worked on The Affordable Care Act, said “Yu can’t be the candidate of the future if you are against same-sex marriage.”  

Maher said he used to like Rand Paul because he was the only one of the Republican candidates who was not a hawk. Paul is now right on board with the hawks, giving a speech in front of an air craft carrier. Maher said, “It’s like Ross Perot went into a phone booth and Mitt Romney came out.”  

 

Clay Aiken

Clay Aiken

The mid-show guest was Clay Aiken, the American Idol contestant, former congressional candidate (D, NC) and subject of Esquire Networks documentary series, The Runner Up. He has recorded numerous musical albums including Playlist: The Very Best of Clay Aiken. 

Maher berated Aiken for distancing himself from Obama during his run. Many other candidates did the dame, and Maher is critical of all of them. As am I. Stand up for you party and your principles and if you lose, at least you fought the kid fight. It’s just stupid to say, as Aiken did, “I have nothing to do with Obama.” The voters don’t believe you. Further, if they want someone who has nothing to do with Obama, there is a Republican candidate to vote for.  

 

But it is hard to be mad at Clay Aiken. He is such a nice guy.

 

Money in Politics 

Money is having a corrosive effect in politics. Each of the nominees for president in 2016 will spend about a billion dollars.  

CLICK HERE

Panelist Jon Meacham is the executive editor at Random House and Pulitzer Prize winning author. His latest book is Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, a #1 New York Times bestseller. His next book will be about George H. W. Bush. He said, “Money is taking a physic toll on candidates.“ 
 

Michelle Caruso-Caberra, CNBC’s chief international correspondent and contributor to PBS’s Nightly Business Report, had a novel idea. She said, “We need small government, and then it will take less money to run campaigns.” Huh? Then she said, “Social security should be privatized. Then the public wouldn’t have anything to say about it.” Huh? 

 

Mid-Show Comedy Bit: 4/20

Once upon a time some young stoners in California used to meet every afternoon at 4:20 pm to smoke a little weed. Maher said it was like the English having tea everyday at four. Meacham said, "My people have bourbon every day at five."

 

So now April 20^th (4/20) is the unofficial stoner holiday to celebrate weed.  

Maher did a very funny bit—a parody of “The Night Before Christmas,” only it was The Night Before 4/20.  

“The bowls were all packed and the bakes with great care in the hopes that Willie Nelson would soon be there.“

Later on in the poem. St. Woody arrives and

"We knew by the aroma, he had brought something for my glaucoma.”

Watch the whole bit here.

 

Bill Maher: Zombie Slayer

Soon we will be more inundated than ever before with zombie lies, as more and more Republicans jump into the race for the Republican nomination. It sometimes seems to me the race for who can tell the biggest lie. A good thing we have Zombie Slayer, Bill Maher, with his trusty cross-bow of wit, satire, and truth. 

 

Bill Maher’s Guests, #350,  April 17, 2015

The interview was with Judith Miller, Pulitzer Prize winner former editor of The New York Times. She is the author of a new book The Story: A Reporter's Journey




CLICK HERE

The mid-show guest was Clay Aiken, American Idol contestant, former congressional candidate (D, NC) and subject of Esquire Networks documentary series, The Runner Up.  He has recorded numerous musical albums including Playlist: The Very Best of Clay Aiken.

Panel guests included: 

Jon Meacham: Executive editor at Random House and Pulitzer Prize winning author. His latest book is Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, a #1 New York Times bestseller.  

Michelle Caruso-Caberra: CNBC’s chief international correspondent and contributor to PBS’s Nightly Business Report 

Neera-Tanden:  President of the Center for American Progress and former advisor at the Department of Health and Human Services where she worked on The Affordable Care Act. 

Real Time with Bill Maher # 348 4/10/15 "Maher is Back"

by Catherine Giordano


A Fighting Chance

Bill Maher is back and we have all got him! (Except for the people who don’t get him—more about that later.) For months, I have been disappointed in the show—boring guests and lack-luster humor. But on April 10, 2015, Real Time with Bill Maher, episode #349, showed Maher at the top of his game.  

Elizabeth Warren

The interview guest was Elizabeth Warren. I never miss a chance to see an interview with Elizabeth Warren. Just like in the old days, Maher got a lot of news coverage with this interview. He offered Warren a million dollar donation (like he gave to Obama) if she would run for president. Warren has a comedian’s timing. She kept a poker face, waited for the laughter to die down, and then slowly and firmly said, “I am not running for president 

Elizabeth’s main issue is standing up for middle class economics. She said there are 11 companies that if anyone of them failed, it would bring down the economy. And these companies are 32% larger now than they were when they almost brought down the economy before. “Yet Republicans want to bring down Dodd-Frank.” [Dodd-Frank is a bill that attempts to regulate Wall Street and which falls far short of what is actually needed, but at least it is something.] 

Maher mentioned how Republicans are trying to co-opt the issue of middle class economics. Warren shot back, “Talk is cheap!”  

·       They don’t want to do anything about student loans. [The government should not be making billions of dollars in profit from interest on student loans. She went to college for $50 a semester. It is now impossible for most students to work their way through college.]  

·        They don’t want to raise the minimum wage. [Warren told us that when she was a child, circumstances made it necessary for her stay-at-home mom to go to work to support the family. Back then, her minimum wage job was enough to support a family of three.]  

Warren went on to rail against money in politics. She said that the Citizens United decision makes it possible for one man to finance the entire campaign of one candidate. Some of the anti-Iran talk is because candidates want the support of billionaire Sheldon Adelson.  

Warren concluded, “We may not have the money, but we have the voices. The grass roots of what we can do together. We can make a country that works for all of us.” Warren may not run for president, but I hope she is out there backing Hillary.  

 

The monolog on the presidential election

“I know why you are happy,” Bill Maher said, as he says every week. “Hillary Clinton is announcing tomorrow. She’s going to do an email blast. Email--the same tool she used to say kill everyone in Benghazi. Then she is going to Iowa to make a spring break video, ‘Girls Gone Inevitable.’” 

Maher said, “Rand Paul hit the ground sucking.” “He was supposed to be the one Republican for cutting defense spending, and now he is standing in front of an aircraft.” Maher quipped that Paul said, “When I was young, I experimented with integrity.” Maher followed that by saying the Paul used to be an eye doctor. Now whenever Paul switches positions, he sounds like he is giving an eye exam: “Is it better like this? Or is it better like this? [By the way Paul is changing his position a lot these days and getting very testy with reporters who ask him about it.]  

Police shootings 

In Defense of a Liberal Education

Are you as horrified as I am by police shootings? Maher seemed pretty horrified by the latest video of a South Carolina policeman shooting Walter Scott in the back as he ran away from the officer. Maher said he was struck by how “nonchalant” the officer was about it, especially because video showed that “up to that moment he (the officer) doesn’t seem like a crazy person.” Maher also said about the incident, “A second cop came over and he was black. He helped with the cover-up. Something is wrong with the whole barrel; it is not just one bad apple.”  

Fareed Zakaria is the host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS, a columnist for The Washington Post, and the author of In Defense of a Liberal Education. Zakaria pointed out that we don’t even know how big a problem this is because it is under-reported. A recent report said there 930 killings last year. “So you are 50 times more likely to be killed by a cop than a terrorist.” 

Zakaria also commented on the entire criminal justice system. The United States has 5% of the world’s population, but 25% of the world’s prisoners.  

Ross Douthat is a New York Times columnist and author of several books. His most recent book is Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics. Douthat pointed out that this is happening in a time when crime is falling.  

Christina Bellantoni is the Editor-in-Chief of Roll Call. She formerly reported on politics for the PBS News Hour, Talking Points Memo, and The Washington Times. Bellantoni added that “technology has changed the conversation.” It is a lot harder to pull off a cover up because of cell-phones.  

What a delight when the whole panel is in agreement discussing an issue.

Terrorism

Bad Religion

The discussion on terrorism ended the agreement, mainly because Maher disagreed with everyone else.  

Maher brought up the trial of Boston Bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The jury convicted him on all charges and now must decide on the death penalty. Maher said that he is not against the death penalty, “but I don’t want to give him what he wants. People said he looked arrogant. I think he looked confident.”  

Zakaria was quite eloquent in the discussion about terrorism that ensued. Zakaria said that he was not religious, but that he understood Muslims. “There are 1.6 billion Muslims. You won’t reform them by saying your religion is bad. Calls for reform require respect. I grew up in this world. They feel that their religion is being insulted.”  He said “Indonesia is the largest Muslim country and people live there in harmony with each other. The problems are with pathologically dysfunctional Arab countries with oppressive dictators.”   

Zakaria made a good case for this analysis, but I don’t think Maher heard him. Maher’s disdain for religion is too strong. [More on this in the discussion of New Rules.] 

Explaining Jokes to Idiots

Maher gets a lot of heat for his anti-Islam remarks. Sometimes his remarks are perceived as anti-Islam when he has no intent of saying something anti-Islamic. It just gets perceived that way. 

A few weeks ago, he did a segment in New Rules about Zayn Malik, a member of the boy band “One Direction” who recently left the band. At the end of the segment, Maher made a joke about Malik bearing a physical resemblance to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Maher said he didn’t even know Malik was Muslim.  

Maher said he was doing the bit in the persona of a 12 year old girl. He said all the media who covered this—you are a 12-year old girl.”  

I’m so glad Maher called out the people who pretended not to get his joke. Fake outrage in the media has really gone way too far. Everyone wants to pile on and get their 140 characters of fame. I’m pretty sure everyone who railed against the joke did not actually need the joke explained to them.

Live Right and Find Happiness 

                                                                                           

Dave Barry

The mid-show guest was Dave Barry, a Pulitzer-Prize winning humorist and former nationally syndicated columnist for The Miami Herald. He is the author of several books. His most recent book is Live Right and Find Happiness (Although Beer is Quicker). Maher introduced him by saying Barry was “reliably funny.” Barry is a delight. 

Barry’s latest book is about happiness. He said the happiest people he knows are his parents. He talked about how they knew how to have fun back in the days when people were a lot more relaxed about parenting. In fact, parenting had not yet become a verb.

He said when he and his siblings went out to play, his parents said, “Have fun." Come back by September.” When they went to the pond, his mother would lean out the window and say, “Don’t drown.”   

Maher said the sweet spot for happiness was when you don’t have time to think about whether you are happy of not.. Exactly the same conclusion I came to in my essay about happiness, “How to be Happy”—Rule 14.

New Rules: Easy Bake Lovin’

Gay wedding cake topper

Maher began, “You know you have lost the culture wars when you are reduced to refusing to bake cakes.…You cannot destroy something by denying it pastry.”  

“More than half of all Americans believe that the Bible is the word of God, but 55% are OK with gay marriage.” How can that be reconciled?  

In California, Matt McLaughlin started a ballot imitative to kill all gays. He says, “Killing all gays is better than God’s wrath killing us all.” Maher says McLaughin is not on the fringe. Many well-known preachers like Jerry Falwell, John Hagee, Pat Robertson, and Bob Jones say the same thing. Then Maher quoted them saying that homosexuality would bring down God’s wrath on the United States in the form of hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes and all sorts of natural disasters including comets. 

Maher pointed out that some countries—Islamic countries-- already have kill-the-gays laws. “In the United States, we don’t let fundamentalists rule. None of those religious freedom laws ever denied anyone a cake. They go to court and the judge says, ‘Bitch, just make the cake.’”

 

Bill Maher’s Guests, #349, April 10, 2015
 

The interview is with Senator Elizabeth Warren (D, MA) and the author of several books. Her most recent book is A Fighting Chance. She recently co-founded, with Elijah Cummings ( D, MD), The Middle Class Prosperity Project, an initiative to focus attention on the problems of the middle class. 

The mid-show guest is Dave Barry, a Pulitzer-Prize winning humorist and former nationally syndicated columnist for The Miami Herald.  He is the author of several books. His most recent book is Live Right and Find Happiness (Although Beer is Quicker).   

Ross Douthat is a New York Times columnist and author of several books. His most recent book is Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics.  

Fareed Zakaria is the host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS, a columnist for The Washington Post, and the author of In Defense of a Liberal Education.

 

Christina Bellantoni is the Editor-in-Chief of Roll Call. She formerly reported on politics for the PBS News Hour, Talking Points Memo, and The Washington Times.