HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher #300 “Winners and Losers”

I found this picture in the New York Times Book Review
of Double Down: Game Change 2012

By Catherine Giordano

Are we winning or losing is the theme for my recap and review of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher

#300 which aired on 11/08/13.  The answer is a little of both and sometimes it is hard to tell.

No one can dispute that Chris Christie won big in New Jersey. Bill Said, “What a week for Chris Christie. First they bring back the McRib. Then he wins reelection.”  Is it bad form to make fun of someone’s weight? I can’t help staring at Christie. He’s the elephant man in the room. He looks like he swallowed a flying saucer and it is lodged in his gut. However, the lap-band surgery looks like it is working a little. He’s not quite a fat as he was last year.

But I rail about the fat not just because it is ugly, but because it tells us who Christie is. It fits his personality and character. He’s an unrestrained bully. He wants what he wants and doesn’t care about anyone else. He’s all about domination. He’s a hollow man emotionally trying to fill the emptiness. You can sense his insecurity when he’s talking about how great he is. Never trust a fat man!  

The people of New Jersey voted for him, twice. He’s been a disaster for New Jersey. He vetoed the marriage equality act and a raise in the minimum wage, and the people undid his veto on both, but they still voted for him. He showed sympathy when Sandy hit as any governor would. He fought for the relief funds, but the money hasn’t gotten to the people who need it. No one knows (except maybe Christie and friends) where it went.

John Heilemann, the co-author (with Mark Halperin) of Double Down:Game Change 2012 explained that Romney took a close look at Christie when he vetted potential VP candidates and he passed on him. Heilemann said that Romney did so with good reason—there is a lot of stuff in Christie’s background that cannot withstand scrutiny. Here’s something I never thought I would say: I hope that the American people are at least as smart as Romney.

Sometimes I wonder. Did Obama win his elections because the American people were smart enough to pick the better candidate or did he win because he played the game better, particularly with the get-out–the-vote-efforts? If Republicans get better at technology, could we end up with someone like Christie?  I’ve only read the first few chapters of Double Down. I’ll get back to you when I’ve finished the book.

If you read my comment on my review of last week’s show, you will remember that I said Double Down was a page turner. I was so excited to hear Bill say the same thing last night. A book about politics where you know the plot and how it ends and still you can’t put it down. Now that is a good book!

Other than Christie, election night was a good night for Democrats. DiBlasio won in the mayor’s race in New York City by a huge margin (73% to 24%).  And McAuliffe won in the Virginia’s governor’s race by a smallish margin (48% to 45%), but still a solid win.

One of the contenders for the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York City was Anthony Weiner, former Democratic congressman from New York. Weiner was the mid-show guest.  Bill brought him on with a lot of talk defending Weiner, saying his sexual peccadilloes should not have disqualified him from public office. Poor Weiner, he was squirming with discomfort. Finally, Maher moved on to issues, and it made me so sad to see what a great crusader for liberal policies—someone with wit and passion and heart--we could have had, but lost because he still has an adolescent sexuality.

Weiner defended Obama and the ACA. He favored Medicare for all, as did I. Like me, he said, we should have started moving the eligibility age down a little every year until everyone was covered. Every dollar the insurance companies take is one less dollar for actual medical care. If the ACA has not tried to keep insurance companies in the system (a political necessity) we would not be having the problems with the ACA federal rollout that we are having now.

Weiner defended the president on the “If you like your plan, you can keep our plan statement” while so many others are willing to say that he “fudged” the truth. He said people are being “too literal.” What if you had an employer based plan and you lost our job or your employer went out of business? You don’t keep your plan. And hundreds of people were losing their health insurance every day before the ACA.”

Weiner also pointed out that the people who are in the news saying that their plan was cancelled and they have to pay twice as much almost always turn out to be mistaken about the cost. Almost all of them will end up with a better plan at less cost if they choose to use the ACA exchanges.  I say almost but not all because whenever there is a change, there are some winners and some losers. The good news is with the ACA almost everyone is a winner.

Medicare for all is essentially single payer. The third panelist, Victoria DeFrancisco Soto, a fellow at the Center for Politics and Governance at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas and a political analyst for Telemundo also favors single payer.

The only person at the desk on this show who was attacking the ACA was David Avella, president of GOPAC. GOPAC is an Republican political organization known for aggressive attack ads. Avella, of course, proclaimed that health insurance premiums were doubling and tripling. He also brought up the issue that so many detractors are bringing up—why do men have to pay the same as women when women use more health care. “Why should men pay for pregnancy?”, he asked. Weiner slapped him down. “Your car probably came with a hook for a child seat.” The point was you get the feature whether you personally use it or not—the product is made to provide for everyone. I would have told him that he and all other men are only on this earth because of a pregnancy. Have a little respect for your mother, you loser!

Weiner said that we have to judge the ACA by what we had before. While it doesn’t go as far as I would like and maybe it goes too far for some, it is without a doubt better than what we had before. There are minimum standards, coverage will be close to universal, and insurance companies have to compete on a level playing field. There are far more winners than losers with the ACA.  

The third panelist, Victoria DeFrancisco Soto, a fellow at the Center for Politics and Governance at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas and a political analyst for Telemundo also favors single payer. She seems a quiet person, and the guys did not give her much opportunity to speak.

The interview was with Bill Binney, former technical director of the NSA. We are all losers with respect to privacy. He said the government is spying on everyone, and it is growing. The data bases in the cloud are merged into the government cloud.  I don’t understand it all, but Binney thinks it is pretty bad. He said that if you think it doesn’t matter because you think you are not doing anything wrong, it doesn’t matter what you think, it is what the government thinks.

The mid-show comedy segment was about a husband and wife who were running against each other for some minor office somewhere. He did some spoof ads that they might have run against each other. The ads took standard campaign claims and gave them a twist that made it sound like a husband and wife bickering.

New Rules was really good, so good that I mostly wasn’t laughing. The segment was titled “Cheap of Faith” and it was how conservatives will always find a way to justify their stinginess as superior morality. For instance,

 “I would love to help the unemployed, but it discourages working.”

“I would love to give to charity, just not to those who need it.”

“We’d like to feed the starving, but what if they used their new strength to do drugs.”

“I want everyone to see a doctor, but if the government do it will destroy our way of life and besides the website is glitch and that leads to Stalinism.

The part that had me too angry to laugh was the part about the religious stiffing servers in restaurants. Bill asked, “What do the snake handlers have against the food handlers?”  What they like to do is write little notes on their receipts. “I give 10% to the church, why should I give you 18%.” I want to scream, “Because the wait staff gets paid $2.25 and runs their tails off giving you good service. The tip is how they get paid for their work. The tip is part of the cost of the meal. If you have moral objections to tipping, eat at home!!!!”

Then there was the one given to a gay waiter. “Queers will not share in the wealth of God and you will not share in ours.” I want to scream, “You didn’t have a moral objection to this queer running his tail off to serve you, but you have a moral objection to paying him for his work!!!” Bill’s response was. “Stiffing him on the tip is not going to make him want to put his penis in a woman; it is going to make him want to put his penis in your pasta primavera.” I laughed at that one. This was the “sweet-revenge- fantasy” moment of the week.)

And finally, Bill showed us these fake $10 bills. When the server sees it, he thinks he has received a generous tip. When the fake bill is turned over, he sees this message.  "Some things are better than money. Like your eternal salvation that was bought and paid for by Christ going to the cross.” Bill had a great response to that one. First, he said, “Yeah, but Jesus didn’t have to put gas in the donkey”. He capped it with, “If you are a waiter and you get one of these phony $10 bills, do me a favor, the next time you go to church, drop it in the collection plate.” 

HBO Real Time with Bill Maher Bill #269 "Forward"

I’m naming episode #269 of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher that aired on January 25, 2013 “Forward.”  It was president Obama’s campaign slogan, and it was the theme of the show. The election is over; now it is time to move forward with the president’s agenda.

The interview was with Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic Leader. Bill described her as a co-speaker because John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the house, can’t pass legislation despite a 25-seat advantage without Nancy rounding up a majority of Democratic votes. Bill pointed out that Pelosi should actually be the speaker because over one million more Americans voted for Democratic candidates that Republican candidates. The Republicans only retained the majority because of gerrymandered districts.

Pelosi began by praising Obama’s inauguration speech. I agree. I was a powerful and poetic speech. He spoke about America’s ideals and joined them with his goals for his second term. In the monologue Bill pointed out that Republicans hated the speech and that they would have hated it no matter what he had said. I agree. Obama could have given Reagan’s speech word-for-word, and Republicans would have hated it because the words came from Obama’s mouth.

One of the guests was David Avella, the president of GOPAC, a fundraising organization of Republicans.  He represents the typical Republican—always twisting the truth and blaming Democrats for every nasty thing that the Republicans do. He began by accusing Obama of name-calling after saying he was against name calling.  Bill called him out. “What names did he call Republicans?” David tried to wriggle away, but Bill insisted he answer. It turns out Obama called Republican’s “right-wing.” Excuse me for laughing, but Republicans call themselves right wing. 

Republicans are calling themselves names. In his monologue, Bill mentioned that Bobby Jindal, Republican governor of Louisiana, called Republicans “the stupid party.”  Bill then joked that Sarah Palin demanded an apology for “the insult to idiotic Americans like me.” I just heard that Palin will no longer be on Fox News. Perhaps even the far far right is catching on to how idiotic she is.

Later Avella says Obama did not create new jobs-- an out-and-out howler of a lie.  There were 5 to 6 million more jobs in this country at the end of Obama’s first term than when he came into office.  If the number of jobs is not at an all-time high it is because G.W. Bush lost us so many jobs that we are still catching up.

During Overtime Avella was at it again. He said that Obama raised taxes on everyone. Not true. In the new tax bill, the payroll- tax-holiday instituted by Obama was not continued.  Obama wanted to continue it, but he couldn’t get the Republicans to vote for it. (Also, I want to point out that the Bush tax cuts for middle and lower income people were put into the law by Democrats. The Republicans only proposed tax cuts for the upper income group. Everyone always seems to forget that.)

I’d have a lot more respect for Republicans if they could defend their positions without lying. I want to ask them, “If your ideas are so good, why do you always have to lie about them?  Why can’t you convince Americans to support them with the truth?”

Going back to Pelosi, she spoke about the “over-the-edge crowd”, the new tea-party anti-government Republicans. She said that she tells her Republican friends to “take back your party.”

Bill mentioned that Pelosi had never been on the cover of a major news magazine. Nancy was the first woman Speaker of the House, but that achievement did not get her a cover. However, John Boehner got a cover. She was also one of the most effective speakers in modern history, but still no cover. It’s still a tough world for women.

The other two panelists were Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont, and Kristen Soltis, a Republican strategist and pollster.  Howard added a lot to the show—he gave facts, erudite opinions, and wit in equal measure. Kristen might as well have stayed home. She had nothing much to add to the conversation. She wasn’t strident like some of Bill’s Republican guests, just bland as she repeated Republican talking points every now and then.

Howard got some well-deserved credit for being governor when Vermont led the nation by offering universal health care and recognizing civil unions. Dean called out Avella for asserting that both parties had their crazies. “False equivalency,.” he proclaimed.  “You have 49% crack-pots, we only have 10%.” Howard also said that Republicans are “undermining democracy. “ They can’t win so they have to fix elections, first with voter suppression, and now by trying to change how the electoral college works. I agree.  How low will they go?

Talking about undermining democracy, I’m surprised no one mentioned the filibuster.  Harry Reid was so timid ,making only tiny changes around the edge. He seemed to feel that he needed Mitch McConnell’s approval. His stated reason for not making broader reforms is that one day Democrats might be in the minority again and in need of the filibuster.  Is Reid that naïve? The moment the Republicans gain the majority, the filibuster will be gone. They threatened to do it when they were last in power, only backing off because Reid promised that Democrats would not use the filibuster.  Next time they will abolish it in a “hot New York minute.” 

The special guest was John Testa, Democratic senator from Montana. He is one savvy man. He’s from a conservative state, but his liberal positions don’t hurt him there. I can see why. He speaks eloquently and with passion about defending family farms, protecting Americans with regulatory oversight, allowing women in serve in combat, and empowering women to make their own decisions about abortion.

The comedy bits were a little weak this week. However, I did love it when Bill mentioned Tom Tancredo in his opening monologue.  He said that Tancredo lost a bet about Colorado legalizing marijuana. Since the referendum legalizing marijuana passed, Tancredo will have to pay-up by sucking on a joint. Bill said, “I hope he loses a bet on gay marriage.”  That was the first “bringing the zinger” moment of the week.

The mid-show comedy bit was about the Chinese censorship going way to far—they are cutting scenes from American movies when they are shown in China, sometimes cutting away 30 minutes or more. So Bill came up with some posters for the movies when they are shown in China. The only one that made me laugh was “All Dogs Come with Noodles.”  (I’m guessing this was a play on “All Dogs Go To Heaven.”)

“New Rules” featured a riff on manhood named “Guns and Poses.”  It ended with the line, “the older they get, the bigger their guns get” as he showed two posters for Arnold Schwarzenegger where the later movie showed him holding something that looked like a hand-held cannon. He brings up Zell Miller’s quote: I have more guns than I need, but not as many as I want.”  (Zell Miller is a turn-coat Democrat who served as governor of Georgia and who served a partial term in the Senate, most famous for challenging MSNBC political commentator. Chris Hayes, to a duel.)

In the discussion of this rule, Bill spoofs the ads for “Low T,” saying that men who need a pill to get a boner, now need a pill just to get in the mood.  He talks about Manti Te’O (the football player with the imaginary girlfriend) .and asks, “Why was this jerk such a hero to so many guys.” He goes on, asking why men idolize 20-year old ball-players, action stars who solve problems with violence, tough guys who start wars for no reason (he shows a picture of G.W. Bush looking tough), and generals who conquer countries with third rate rag-tag armies?) Bill concludes with the second “bringing the zinger” moment of the week, he asks. “Is it because the most masculine thing they do all day is pee standing up?”

Obama and Nancy Pelosi are bringing this country forward, Dean and Testa are bring the discussion about national issues forward, and Bill Maher is bringing political and social comedy forward.

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At least,  Ms Magazine recognized Pelosi.