Real Time with Bill Maher #327 August 1, 2014 Frat Party

This magazine cover is from 1969,
but seems perfectly relevant today.

by Catherine Giordano

You know the last day of school or the last day at work just before a big four-day weekend. Everyone is there physically, but there is a giddy feeling in the air and, mentally, everyone is already on vacation. That was the feeling on Real Time with Bill Maher, episode 327, which aired on August 1, 2014.  

The “vacation” feeling, together with the fact that there were only men on the show, is why I named this review and recap of the show “Frat Party.” (Representative Barbara Lee (D, CA), author of Renegade for Peace and Justice: A Memoir of Political and Personal Courage, was supposed to be on the show, but the House of Representatives had to delay their own five-week vacation in order to take some votes that they should have taken earlier in the week, so Ms. Lee had to cancel her appearance.)

Douglas Brinkley, professor of history at Rice University, fellow at the non-partisan think tank, The James Baker Institute for Public Policy,  and author of several books including his latest book The Nixon Tapes: 1971-1972 was also supposed to be on the show.  I can't find out why he wasn't on the show--maybe he went on vacation.)

 

New Rules: Slack Like Me

 

Even the Final New Rules segment was about vacation.  Maher began by reporting that the United States scores 17^th on the world happiness index. “Why?” Maher asks. Because we work too much and too hard. Or, as Maher put it, “Our balance of working to living is off.”

  

For example, “Half the country is fighting to keep a job working in a coal mine, a job so bad that when we want to describe a job that is bad we say, "It is like working in a coal mine.’”

  

[I know working in a coal mine and dying from black lung disease or a cave-in is a tradition for some families in some parts of the country, but give it up already. I like those commercials for Siemans on TV that show these happy people in Iowa working to make wind turbines. They look so happy and so proud…and so clean. Those are the jobs of the future. Coal miners, listen up: The sooner the coal industry is gone, the better it will be for you.] 

 

He blamed our workaholic ways on religion. "The Catholic Church says God loves poverty. That is why he made so much of it. Then the Protestants came along and said God wants everyone to be rich …or die trying.”

  

Next Maher went on a rant about the Cadillac commercial from a couple of years ago where a man berates the people of other countries for taking it easy, but here in America we work hard, so we can buy Cadillacs. Bill said that Americans are working hard so they can die from a heart attack at 50, while Europeans take a siesta in the afternoon. You know what that means. They are having sex in the afternoon and we are not.

 

Maher berated lottery winners who collect their winnings and then say they are going back to their job. "What a waste of good luck”, he said. He said that Aussies are always the life of the party—why—because they don’t have jobs.

  

CLICK HERE

Then Maher triumphantly announced that he was taking August off.  And part of September too. He won’t be back until September 12. I felt like this whole new rule was just about Maher feeling guilty about going on vacation. (Fess up, Bill, if you won the lottery you'd still do this show and your personal appearances, too.)

 

Here I am on Saturday morning, typing away at my computer instead of enjoying the beautiful Florida sunshine.  But I like writing, and if I went outside, I’d probably be weeding the yard. So staying inside and writing is a vacation. By the way, Florida is a wonderful place for a vacation. Pick up a travel guide, and come on down. 

  

Chris Hardwick, mid-show guest

 

Spend an hour with the mid show guest, Chris Hardwick, a comedian, actor, screenwriter, musician, podcaster, television host for @Midnight on Comedy Central (and Talking Bad and Taking Dead), author of The Nerdist Way: How to Reach the Next Level (In Real Life) and you might feel like you need a vacation. He has a lot of manic energy, but he’s so funny, so delightful, so affable, that you won’t want to leave.

 

Maher said that Chris was the head of the nerd empire. Hardwick instantly refused the title. “Nerd power will take me down. Nerds understand something down to the molecular level, and then they use that information against people. I am just a servant of the nerd army.” Talented, good-looking, and modest too. If Hardwick is a nerd, he will change the image of nerds everywhere.

 

Hardwick spoke about social media. “You are interfacing with a machine, with text; you are not looking in people’s eyes. The problem with social media is, one, you can be anonymous and therefore not have to take responsibility and, two, it is an emotion in the moment. A minute later, you don’t feel that way anymore and you don’t even know why you said it.”

 

CLICK HERE

Maher brought up “FakeBook” and “OK Stupid” who were doing Dr.Mengele-like experiments. Facebook decided to put only negative posts into the news feed of some people and OK Cupid sent people random matches. Why? Evidently, just because they could. Gee, if you can’t trust social media, who can you trust?

 

Hardwick explained that the internet is used as a ‘vessel of anger.”  He warned that since you can’t read emotion, you should try to understand before you respond with anger. Maybe that innocent-sounding remark actually is actually just an innocent remark and not meant to be sarcastic. So Chris Hardwick is a nice guy too.

 

He’d be a great asset at a frat party.

 

Ralph Nader, interview guest

 

You probably won’t find Ralph Nader, political activist, former candidate (and spoiler) in the presidential election of 2000, and author of several books including his latest book (with Luke Nichter) Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State. Maher began the interview by mentioning the time on is show that Maher, along with Michael Moore, were down on their knees, begging Nader to get out of the 2000 race. 

 

Nader didn’t get out and he still refuses to take responsibility for having inflicted George W. Bush upon the nation. He still maintains that it doesn’t make any difference who is elected because Republicans and Democrats are the same. My response is: Yes, they are the same, in the same way that an ant and a tiger are the same. They will both bite you, but would you rather be bitten by an ant or a tiger? Democrats are far from perfect-they are pawns of Wall Street too, but they avoid the worse excesses and they do some good.

 

Bill Maher made the point too. “What if we had Mitt-McCain for president, a president who thinks he will inherit his own planet with Lindsey Graham?”  Maher went on, “We’d have Ted Nugent on the Supreme Court, we’d be at war with nine countries, the auto industry would have been allowed to die, and tax rates for the rich would be 3%.”

 

Maher and Nader spoke about President Obama calling out “corporate deserters”—companies that take everything that America offers (subsidies, research, protection) to succeed and then want to take the money and run. They buy a small company in another country where taxes are low, and then claim that their major business here in the United States is a subsidiary of the small company in order to avoid paying taxes in the United States. A Republican president would be trying to make it easier for corporations to do this, unlike President Obama, who wants to stop this practice.

  

And that, Mr. Nader, is the difference between Democrats and Republicans.  And that, Mr. Nader, is why I will never forgive you for your ego-trip/publicity stunt in 2000. (I keep typing “nadir” instead of “Nader.” A Freudian slip?)

 

The panel

 

The three men on the panel were:

 

Andrew Ross Sorkin, journalist, financial columnist for The New York Times, co-anchor of CNBC's Squawk Box, and author of Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System--and Themselves

 

Reza Aslan: scholar of religion, associate professor of creative writing at the University of California, and author of several books including Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth 

 

Doug Heye, Eric Cantor’s deputy chief of staff for communications. (Since Eric Cantor lost his primary and announced that he was quitting instead of serving his full term, maybe Doug Heye considers his appearance on the show to be a job interview. He doesn’t have a book to promote.)

 

Everyone got along well and pretty much agreed on the issues. (That’s the frat party aspect again—they sounded like guys sitting around the frat house discussing things over a few beers.)  

Economy

 

Conservative Doug Heye had to admit that we have seen some good job growth, and then added,  “But it is not good enough.” We have all heard that ‘but” so many times, so Maher’s replied “Blah Blah Blah.” (Later Maher told Heye he was just looking for a reason to hate Obama. Heye denied this and then denied his denial by saying, "I don't have to look far." I need to think that part about everyone getting along well. Maybe they didn't get along all that well.)

 

Israel-Hamas

 

The panel was pretty much in agreement that maybe the United States should stop giving money to other counties (including Israel) so that they can use that money to buy weapons from the United States. They did disagree though about blaming Israel for the fighting with Hamas.

 

Aslan thought that since Israel is a democracy, it must be held to a higher standard.  But he also noted that even Arab states headed by tyrants and dictators don’t like Hamas. Maher pointed out that when Arab countries get to vote for their leaders, we get the Muslim Brotherhood and not democracy. 

 

Marijuana, Drugs, Redeem Act

 

They were all back in agreement when the topic turned to drug laws and incarceration rates—they agreed that they were stupid. Sorkin said that it was ridiculous that marijuana was a “schedule A” drug with heroin, while meth and coke were “schedule B.”  Maher talked about Senators Cory Booker (D, NJ) and Rand Paul (R, KY) teaming up for the “Redeem Act”—an act that, if passed, would give young people convicted of drug offenses a chance to wipe their record clean.

 

In Florida, where I live, we will be voting on medical marijuana in November.  Some polls show 90% approval. So perhaps, the Redeem Act stands a chance of becoming law.

 

Mid-show Comedy Segment

For the last show before the August vacation, it’s traditional to do a segment about the headlines we might see while the show is on hiatus. Here are a few.

Maylasian Airlines Lands One 

Supreme Court Rules Female Orgasm Unconstitutional

GM Recalls Three Remaining Cars

See the details and a video clip at Headline Predictions.

Sharknado

Maher did a New Rules segment about Sharknado 2. He said that will have to try harder to be stupid because, "Have you ever seen Heaven is for Real?"

 

I’ll do a full recap of this bit later on my other blog, Bill Maher Rules (for real)   

Real Time on Hiatus

 

CLICK HERE

This is the last new ‘Real Time” until September 12.
  

What will I do with my Saturday mornings without a new review to write? What will I do with my Friday nights? Does anyone know of a frat party I could go to?  Maybe I should just watch the movie.

Thank you for liking, sharing, and tweeting this post.
Also, thanks for using my amazon links to buy stuff.

 

Read what Bill Maher said about the border crisis: Border Crossings


 Bill Maher’s Guests #327 August 1, 2014

Ralph Nader: political activist, former candidate (and spoiler) in the presidential election of 2000, author of several books including his latest book (with Luke Nichter) Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State 

Reza Aslan: scholar of religion, associate professor of creative writing at the University of California, author of several books including Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

Andrew Ross Sorkin: journalist, financial columnist for The New York Times, co-anchor of CNBC's Squawk Box, author of Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System--and Themselves

 

Doug Heye: Eric Cantor’s deputy chief of staff for communications

Chris Hardwick: Comedian, actor, screenwriter, musician, podcaster, television host for @Midnight on Comedy Central, author of The Nerdist Way: How to Reach the Next Level (In Real Life)

 

 

HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher" #283 "It's a Scandal"

by Catherine Giordano

It seems like everything is a scandal these days. Scandals were the main topics of conversation on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” #283 airing on Friday, May 17, 2013.  In addition to the ones that the news media are all abuzz about which aren’t even all that scandalous, there are other things that are truly worthy of being called a scandal.

Bill dived right into the swamp of scandals in his opening monologue. He reported that the Benghazi scandal is falling  apart—that is to say—there is no scandal. The White House emails that were supposed to be the smoking gun were faked. Republicans changed the wording of the emails when they gave them to the press.  (Now that is a scandal, actually two scandals. One, Republican Congressmen falsifying evidence, and, two, the news media not properly vetting what they were given. I seem to remember that when Dan Rather used false documents to make a case for a scandal—G. W. Bush going AWOL from the National Guard—he was fired. Who is going to get fired at ABC?)

Back to the monologue. He said that Republicans’ zeal to find a scandal and their denial of facts has gone so far that his “Republicans Inside the Bubble” comedy segments were outdated..Bill said that Republicans have gotten so outrageous  that they are not even in a bubble anymore. Now they are in a bouncy house.

Bill also wanted to know why there were no investigations about the 13 embassy attacks that occurred during the Bush administration. (Good question Bill-- Maybe because Democrats have a little more common sense and restraint than Republicans.)

Bill moved on to the IRS scandal. He said, “In wingnut world, Obama told his Negro party and the Black panthers to meet in the park with IRS guys to target conservative groups.” Personally, I don’t see what all the fuss is about. At worst, a few IRS agents may have been overzealous in doing their jobs. They are supposed to check out groups applying for tax-exempt status to make sure they are not too political.  (None of them were denied tax-exempt status—the only complaint was that the process was onerous. Bill said that the scandal began when some of the right wing groups complained about long delays.  “Like black people trying to vote in Florida,” Bill said.

Here’s the real scandal—the IRS is ignoring the wording of the statue governing these 501c groups that says the activities of these group must be exclusively to promote social welfare.  The IRS determined that “exclusively” meant ”primarily” and left the hapless IRS agents to figure out what “primarily” means. The second scandal here is that the Obama administration caved and fired the director of the IRS even though the events in question happened under the former director’s, a Bush appointee’s, term.  (Remember back when Shirley Sherrod got fired for making racist comments in a speech. It was fire first and investigate later. It turned out that her remarks were exactly the opposite of racist. For once, could the Obama administration show a little spine and investigate first.)  

The interview was with Richard Haass, president of The Council on Foreign Relations and the author of “Foreign Policy Begins at Home.”  He discussed the scandal of political dysfunction in Washington. Bill mentioned that the House just voted to repeal Obamacare for the 37^th time. Boehner called for this vote so the new members would have a chance to vote against it. Bill sounded very exasperated when he asked if Congress had become “The Make-A-Wish Foundation.”  Wasting time and taxpayer money on meaningless votes done just for show while ignoring important issues—that’s a scandal. By the way, as was discussed later in the show, Obamacare has already brought health-care costs down even though it will not even be fully implemented until 2014.

Here’s another scandal that Bill and Haass discussed—wasteful military spending.  Haass said, “It is not how much we spend, but how we spend it. We can get more defense for less money.” Bill mentioned how Congress forces the military to buy tanks that they don’t want because it means jobs in the districts of some Congressmen.  That is “pork” spending, not deficit reducing. That is a scandal.  

Haass also said that the real problem is not defense spending, but spending on Social Security and Medicare. This is the “You-have-now-lost-my-good-opinion-of-you” moment of the week. I think that it is a scandal that some people want to “reform” these programs out of existence. I think that it is a scandal that we don’t have single-payer healthcare insurance in this country.

The panel included Michael Moore, the Oscar winning documentarian, the right wing S. E. Cupp from MSNBC’s “The Cycle” (Yes, MSNBC allows conservatives to co-host some of its shows.), and Andrew Ross Sorkin a journalist and financial columnist for  the New York Times and the author of “Too Big to Fail.”

The panel discussed another of the “big scandals”—the A.P. Scandal. The CIA foiled a terrorist plot. Information was leaked to the AP that endangered the informant that was key to foiling the plot. The government wanted to find out who was responsible for the leak. The government did not do anything illegal and they did not listen in on any conversations. They only sought to find out who AP reporters were talking to in the hopes of deducing the source of the leak. Bill said that “We all gave up privacy ten years ago and the Republicans loved it. Why are they outraged now?”

Cupp gave a knee-jerk right-wing response: “Turn it around. Why aren’t liberals pissed now?” Cupp, you are wrong!  A lot of liberals are pissed about it and saying so very loudly.  Michael Moore promptly said, “I’m pissed.”  He then went on to say that the press did not question “the weapons of mass destruction” claim during the run-up to the Iraq war. He seemed to imply that they did not report when they should have been reporting, but now they are all pissy about being called out for revealing classified information that endangered our country’s ability to combat terrorism.

During the discussion about how health care costs and Medicare costs were coming down, Cupp suddenly lost it.  “No,’ she screeched practically jumping out of her chair, “It’s a ticking time bomb.” She did not present any evidence to support this claim. Up until this point she had spoken calmly, but now it was like some switch had been thrown, she continued to screech for the remainder of the show.  (During Overtime, she did not speak, but she rolled her eyes when others spoke.)

In a discussion, about reforming gun laws, Bill said that we need a gun registry. Moore seconded it. He said, “We register our dogs, yet we don’t say Obama is coming for our dogs.” (I would also add that you can hardly get any job in the United States anymore without a background check, so why should people be ale t buy again without a background check.) Cupp went berserk, screeching, “They assume I have criminal intent.  It’s an abuse of power.” The audience groaned.

Moore followed up, “If you have a dangerous device that can kill 20 children, we need to know where that device lives.”  (Low blow, Moore, bringing up the kids, but effective.) Bill added, “We should follow the framer’s intent. Everyone can have a musket. Cupp was practically foaming at the mouth at this point. “Mass shootings are down in the last 30 years,” she screeched.  Everyone just stared at her because apparently, like me, they found that hard to believe. I’ve been around for the last 30 years, and I seem to recall that mass shootings were a rarity. Now it feels like we have several every year. Maybe Cupp was including military deaths during WW II in her statistics.

Another scandal is the sequester and the Republicans apparent determination to ruin the American economy. Sorkin pointed out that the sequester had slowed the economy.  (And I will add, that we have not yet felt the full blow.) Why do they do things that hurt the economic recovery?  Moore said, “They hate America.” I thought he was kidding, but he meant it. As I think about it, I think he is right. They do hate the foundational principle of America: “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” Their policies are those of an aristocracy, government for the rich and powerful.

The mid-show guest was Zach Galifianakis, and actor best known for The Hangover movies (three of them so far.)  He addition to being a movie star, Galifianakis apparently also calls himself a farmer. “I have three donkeys and a blueberry bush,” he said.

In New Rules, Bill talked about the “Rice Capades.” He said, Susan Rice used talking points, but at least they weren’t written on her hand.  Benghazi was starting to sound like the name of a monster in an Asian horror movie. The difference between furor over Benghazi and a car alarm was that sometimes a car alarm indicates an actual crime.  Nixon ran a burglary ring out of the White House. Reagan traded arms with actual terrorists. Bush made Colin Powel go to the UN with props turning a war hero into Carrot Top. But Republicans think that Benghazi is the worst scandal in American History! 

I think he should have ended New Rules right there, because the remainder seemed anti-climatic to me. “What about the bogus talking points from Republicans on climate change?”  Bill concluded, “The Obama administration isn’t dirty, the air it.” Bill’s point about climate change was important point that should have preceded the list of Republican scandals.

I conclude with this observation:  There are plenty of scandals to be talked about, and the news media is not talking about the really important ones. 

The hydra-headed scandal monster.
This is a  stereographic  drawing by Dain Fagerholm

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