Real Time with Bill Maher #347 03/20/15 "Oh, God, No"

Bob Costas

by Catherine Giordano

Bob Costas, NBC sportscaster and author of Fair Ball: A Fan’s Case for Baseball, did a good interview on Real Time with Bill Maher, episode 347,which aired on March 20, 2015. As for the rest of the show, all I can say is “Oh, God, No.”  

Bob Costas has become known not just as a sportscaster, but as someone who comments on the issues. Maher said that Costas has been speaking out on gays, guns, and concussions. He said, “Some people say “Keep the news out of sports…but what they really mean is don’t say something I disagree with.” 

Costas reminded us that sports figures have always been mixed up with issues that are in the news—sports stars like Billie Jean King, Mohammed Ali, Jackie Robinson, Arthur Ashe. And these days, wife-beating football players, racist owners of football teams, and a gun culture run amok. He was referring to Kansas City Chiefs linebacker who shot his girlfriend and himself in a murder-suicide. He owned eight guns.  

I say God bless him for being willing to speak out. 

Israel and Iran

Whenever I think of the Middle East all I can say is “Oh, God, No.” Obama is going his best to work with the allies of the United States to work out a deal with Iran in which Iran agrees not to pursue nuclear weapons. Unfortunately the recently reelected prime minister of Israel, Netanyahu, and the Congressional Republicans are doing everything they can to sabotage the final days of the negotiations.  

Speaker of the House John Boehner is going to Israel to meet with Netanyahu. In the monologue Maher joked that Boehner’s nickname among his security detail is Agent Orange. Maher said the wailers at the Wailing Wall will soon have a new wailer. “Just wait until Super-Soaker has a good cry when he gets shit-faced there.” (Boehner is known for his drinking and his crying.) 

There was talk about how Netanyahu used anti-Arab rhetoric to win his election. As soon as he won, he did a 180. In the monologue, Maher quipped, “Mitt Romney said “Wow, that guy is good.”  

Christine Quinn

Panel member, Jack Kingston, a former U.S. Representative (R, GA), defended Netanyahu saying, “He is motivated by survival of Israel.”  

Panel member, Christine Quinn, is a Democrat politician, former speaker of the New York City Council, (the first woman and first openly gay person to hold the position), former candidate for mayor of New York City, and current advisor to the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo. She is the author of With Patience and Fortitude: A Memoir. Quinn conceded that “the danger to Israel is real,” while not condoning Netanyahu’s tactics.  

Maher said that Iran is our ally against ISIS. The Muslims are having a war against themselves, like the Catholics and Protestants did back in the 16^th century. The West should stay out of it. This is a war between Muslims who want to go back to the 7^th century and Muslims who want to be part of the 21^st century to fight. “Where are the Muslims who want to fight against ISIS?”  

Racism

Maher mentioned how in this country, Reagan Nixon and Bush all used race issues to win. Mercedes Schlapp, a conservative political strategist said “Obama played the race card.” When Maher tried to set her straight—Obama was very careful to keep race out of the election because it would have hurt him more than helped him—Schlapp became very loud and overbearing. No one else could speak. She did this many times during the show--standing up, pounding the table, shouting, talking over everyone else, interrupting—she pretty much ruined the show by making conversation impossible.  

Every time Schlapp opened her mouth I thought “Oh, God, No. Not again.” At one point in the show she said she was hot-headed, like Ted Cruz, because they are both Cuban. I’d say obnoxious and rude, but never mind. Maher pointed out that she was being racist because she was engaging in stereotypes.  

Robert Durst

Maher congratulated HBO on exposing multiple-murder suspect Robert Durst on the HBO documentary about him, The Jinx. His admission of guilt was caught by a hot mic (that he didn’t know was recording) during filling. Later Maher wondered if he would plead sarcasm. 

The panel said Durst had gotten away from it up until now because of stupid juries and slick lawyers. Kingston said that “justice is not equal when you have a big purse.” (Durst was born into a billionaire family.” Maher agreed saying that 40 of homicides go unsolved. “We don’t convict the guilty, we plea-bargain the innocent.”  

Mid show comedy segment—No God

The Durst documentary led Maher to think about his own documentary, Religulous . He pretended to have found an outtake of Pope Benedict talking to himself while he thought he was alone in the bathroom, Pope Benedict revealed that there is no God, the whole idea of the trinity makes no sense, and more. 

God’s Bankers

God's Bankers

Speaking of Popes and money leads us right to the mid-show guest, Gerald Posner, Investigative journalist and author of several books. His most recent book is God's Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican. He told us that the Vatican bank goes back only as far as World War II when Mussolini made the Vatican an independent country. The Vatican is only two-tenths of a mile wide in return for the support of the Catholic Church during WW II.  

Maher said “A lot of Nazis were Catholic. What if the Pope had said it was a mortal sin to kill Jews?”   

Posner explained how the Vatican bank was being used for many nefarious purposes including money laundering. 

Maher said, “How is Pope Frank doing?” He mentioned that he got made at the Pope about his remarks about Charlie Hebdo (See episode 339, Free Speech ), but “I can’t stay mad at him. Imagine, I like the Pope and Mel Gibson doesn’t.”  

Maher asked Posner about the pope saying he might step down in a couple of years—resigning as Pope Benedict did before him. ( I have a theory about that also. I believe  that another HBO documentary, Mea Maxima Culpa caused the Pope to resign because it revealed how deeply he was involved with the cover in the church’s pedophile scandal. See my review of episode 270, Reason and Unreason, especially the comments.)  

Posner said, “I don’t believe it. By saying he’s leaving he energizers reformers.” They will think they have to act fast or lose their chance for reform once he has left the papacy.   

New Rules Theta Blockers

Maher took on Frat Houses in his final New Rules segment. He called them “little Vaticans” because they are an independent entity inside the large campus. “If you want to live with 40 other dudes and hold homoerotic ceremonies—why not just join a seminary.”  

Maher said fraternities kill people--pranks, hazing, alcohol poisoning—why not just pledge IIS.   

Maher concluded by saying “colleges should be places for independent thinking, but fraternities promote group think.  

Oh, God, No

Religion and God in one form or another dominated the show. It was either about there is no God or about how religion and its adherents are often doing really bad things. 
 

Bill Maher’s Guests for Friday, March 20, 2015 

The interview is with Bob Costas: NBC sportscaster and author of Fair Ball: A Fan’s Case for Baseball  

The mid-show guest is Gerald Posner: Investigative journalist and author of several books. His most recent book is God's Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican  

The panel includes:  

Christine Quinn: Democrat politician, former speaker of the New York City Council (first woman and first openly gay person to hold the position), former candidate for mayor of New York City, and current advisor to governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo. She is the author of With Patience and Fortitude: A Memoir 

Jack Kingston: Former U.S. Representative (R, GA) 

Mercedes Schlapp: Conservative political strategist 

Real Time with Bill Maher #369 09/19/14 Terror Tantrum

Is this when the war on terror began?
Colin Powell at the UN holding anthrax

Bill Maher and his guests had a terror tantrum on Real Time with Bill Maher, episode 369, which aired on September 19, 2014.

 

The Interview: Colin Powell

 
The interview was with General Colin Powell, a four-star general, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the former Secretary of State. He is the author of several books. His most recent book is It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership.
 

When I think of Colin Powell, the image that immediately comes to mind is Powell at the U.N. holding up that little vial of fake anthrax.  Powell is one of the people most responsible for getting us into George W. Bush’s Iraq war and thus he is responsible for all the unintended consequences of that war including the rise of ISIS. Because Powell was respected by so many world-wide, his support for the war was what put Bush and Cheney’s campaign for war over the top.  I noticed in Powell’s conversation with Maher, he praised the way the conduct of the first Iraq war, the one that Poppy Bush started, but had nothing to say about the second Iraq war.

No wonder Powell wants to change the subject from war to education.  He says he is doing it because it is a continuation of what he did as a general. Take young people and “teach them how to behave, how to have discipline, how to have structure.”  (And, I will add, how to fight and die in a war based on lies conducted to enrich the oil companies.)

Maher was fawning over Powell. I suppose that is what you have to do when your guest is the esteemed General Powell.  He didn’t ask for clarification when Powell said he is a Republican because of “my feelings about foreign policy and defense spending.”  I would have liked to know what those feelings are. Powell added that he was more moderate on social issues than the Republican party is. He added that the Republican party has to do more to appeal to minorities because minorities will soon be the majority in this country. “Appeal to minorities?” Why didn’t he say, “Do something to help minorities?”

 I can praise Powell on one thing. He supported Obama in both of Obama’s presidential elections. He said, “It was the right choice in 2008 and in 2012.” I want to add, what was the right choice when it was time to proclaim your party affiliation? I think he made the right choice for himself—being a black man in the Republican party gets attention and power because there are so few blacks in the Republican party.  It is selling out! Why else would a black person align with a party hasn’t done one thing to help blacks since Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.  (P.S. The same goes for gay Republicans.  When the party leadership reviles you—why do your support them?)

ISIS
Talk about terror filled the hour.  Maher thinks that Obama is wrong to conduct even a “limited war” against ISIS.  Maher thinks Obama is giving them exactly what they want, exactly what the beheadings were designed to do—incite the U.S. to go to war in Iraq.

In the monolog Maher mentioned “arming and training the moderate rebels.”  He told us not to worry. “McCain is carefully vetting them.” A nice swipe at Sarah Palin, which Maher built on in New Rules when he referenced the Palin family’s public drunken brawl.  Maher said that Obama’s “mom jeans” were clearly better than her mom genes. Pow!

Personally, I don’t know what is the right thing to do. It seems about 75% of the country is in favor of military action against ISIS and 75% also thinks it won’t work. I agree on both. There is no winning here. The U.S. can’t ignore such a deliberate provocation and yet responding is exactly what ISIS wants. They want war with “the West.” I hope they are wrong in their strategy.
 

 

New Rules: Jihad Me at Hello

Maher said that “for terrorism to work, it takes two. Why are we buying what they are selling?” 

Maher mocked Lindsey Graham as “the scared-est man in the country.” Because of his recent hysterical statements implying that ISIS was going to kill us all.

He mocked Representative Trent Franks (R, AZ) for saying ISIS was on our border. “Yes,” Maher said sarcastically, “The Mexicans and ISIS are working together. They will cut off our heads with hedge trimmers.”

Maher said that he feels bad about the beheading of the two American journalists by ISIS.  However, they were in Iraq and they were there by choice. Maher minimizes the danger ISIS poses to U.S. citizens in general.  “Do you really think you are standing in line for the new I-Phone and zap—ISIS beheads you.”

Maher says he agrees with Hillary Clinton that global warming is the biggest threat facing us and the world. But we can’t see the sea rising. It’s not on TV over and over like the beheading videos that Anderson Cooper tells us not to watch and then airs 10,000 times. Maher ends with, “We need to get a polar bear to punch someone in an elevator.”

For more of Maher’s views about  ISIS, read Bill Maher Talks Sense About ISIS.

Flip-a-District

Maher, reported that just as he predicted, the Flip-A-District loser John Kline is now trying to make the campaign be about Maher. He’s having a tantrum because he is terrified of  Maher’s campaign against him. Kline has said that Maher is all but his opponent’s campaign manager.  Maher refuted this saying he didn’t even know who his opponent was and had never heard of his opponent, Mike Obermueller. Maher said he wanted to emphasize that he is not endorsing or supporting anyone.  “We are wholly negative,” he said with a grin.

Matthew Segal and Student Debt and The University of Phoenix Scam

The mid-show guest was Matthew Segal, a media commentator and political activist. He is the co-founder and president of Our Time, a nationwide non-profit network of young Americans promoting economic and voter empowerment, gave us plenty of reasons not to vote for John Kline.

Segal reported that the University of Phoenix, Kline’s biggest supporter, was a publically traded for-profit organization. The university is paid mainly through student loans and the graduation rate is only 22%. (Is that degree even worth anything, given the poor reputation of the school?) Maher added that Kline wants to raise student loan rates and has called student loans a “handout.” At one time, students got education grants, not loans, because education was seen as good for society. Now we have loans with compound interest which students can’t pay back and which hurts the economy because when a person has loan debt he can’t buy a house, a car, or much of anything.

Segal is having a tantrum over this because student loan debt is terrorism for students.

Jack Kingston defends Kline and Attacks Obama
 

Panelist Representative Jack Kingston (R, GA) didn’t have much to add to the conversation except is in vein attempts to defend John Kline as “a nice man.”  Maher said maybe he is a nice man, but he doesn’t vote that way. Kingston may also be a “nice man,” but he recently lost his primary for the Republican Senate nomination. The more moderate David Perdue won. I’m thinking  there may be a trend here. Extreme right-wing candidates may win in gerrymandered congressional districts, but they have a harder time in statewide elections where independents can tilt the election to the more moderate candidate. Perdue is now in a close race with Democrat Michelle Nunn.

Kingston tried to pin the ISIS problem on Obama asking a rhetorical question “are we safer now (than under Bush)?  Yes, Maher said. We have not been attacked (on U.S. territory) like we were with Bush on 9/11. Yes, Pierce said, Obama got Iran to back down. And Obama has done 175 sorties against ISIS.

Republicans like to trot out the old adage that Republicans are better at foreign policy and defense. Powell did it during the interview. And Kingston repeated it. Look closely and you will see Republicans like to spend money on defense, and they like to talk tough but do they actually keep us safer. Do wars make us safer or do they just set the stage for the next war.  It is diplomacy that makes us safer.

 

Fergusson and the Terror of Being a Black Male

Every witness to the killing of Mike Brown, including two new witnesses, say that Brown had his hands up and was surrendering when he was gunned down in the street by a police officer.  



Wendell Pierce

Panelist Wendell Pierce, an actor who currently plays a corrupted parole officer on Showtime’s Ray Donovan and who previously appeared in HBO’s Treme told a personal story that made the issue vivid.

He described how the most dangerous moment of a black man's life is when he is pulled over by a policeman.  He knows that this could be the end of his life.  He then told a chilling story of a close call he once had in Louisiana.  "I can't believe in a post racial America." he said.  "It could get me killed."

Read Wendell's story and see a video clip from Maher's show at: Post Racial America? Not for Wendell Pierce!

Terrorizing Little Children
 

There is a difference between spanking and whipping. There is a difference between an occasional slap on the rear and terrorizing a young child with a beating.  Since the NFL players currently in the news for beating their wives and children are all black, the conversation turned to whether or not this was “a black thing”  Blacks may be treating their children the way slave-masters treated them. 

Maher said it was a Southern thing because the South is where religion is the strongest. The Bible says that beating your kids is good for them. 

I think it is a generational thing. Being beaten as a child makes you beat as a parent. Not just because it is a family tradition, but because that anger is seething within you. You can hear people like Sean Hannity on TV saying, “I was beaten as a child and I turned out OK.” I saw him take out a belt and start beating it against the table. He looked out of control. Oh yeah, Sean, you turned out OK. 

The abuse in the news is against children as young as one. Is beating a one-year old discipline? A one year old can’t understand anything.  All they understand is terror.  The parent is having a tantrum and terrorizing and traumatizing the child. I can’t write about this anymore because I am going to cry.

Terrorizing the Electorate

Panelist,  Joan Walsh, editor-at-large of Salon.com, political commentator on MSNBC, and the author of several books including, What's the Matter with White People: Why We Long for a Golden Age That Never Was took Jack Kingston down a notch or two. “Your party philosophy is to win because people don’t vote.

In addition to voter suppression laws, Maher said Republicans try to suppress voting in three other ways.

1. The people in this country want instant gratification. When Congress does nothing, they lose interest in voting.

2. There is no education on civics. People do not learn in school about how to be a good citizen.

3. Money has perverted the system. People feel that without money they can’t affect the political system.

  I could add to this list, but this review is already too long.

The Terror of Fracking

The mid-show comedy bit was about fracking. The American Petroleum Institute bused in homeless people to attend a town hall meeting and speak in favor of fracking.  They were paid to do so.  Maher joked that that they were allowed to make their own signs.   Here are a few of the signs:

“We are the 99 Proof.”

“Give me money, and I’ll say anything, just like Congress.” 

“I hate nature. A seagull stole my French fry.”

I found the jokes a little lame, maybe because they were mostly making fun of homeless people and not politicians.  

 

Terror Trauma
 

I’m worn out from writing about terror in all its forms. It just occurs to me: Does all this terror go back to children who were beaten by their parents. Maybe those ISIS people are terrorists because they were beaten as children. Maybe those cops are killing because they were beaten as children. And maybe Republicans have such hateful views because they were beaten as children.

Bill Maher's Guests #329 September 19, 2014

General Colin Powell: Four-star general, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the former Secretary of State. He is the author of several books. His most recent book is It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership 

Matthew Segal: media commentator and political activist. He is the co-founder and president of Our Time, a nationwide non-profit network of young Americans promoting economic and voter empowerment 

Representative Jack Kingston (R, GA) 

Joan Walsh: Editor-at-large of Salon.com, political commentator on MSNBC, and the author of several books including, What's the Matter with White People: Why We Long for a Golden Age That Never Was

 

Wendell Pierce: Actor ,who currently plays a corrupted parole officer on Showtime’s Ray Donovan and who previously appeared in HBO’s Treme

 

Real Time With Bill Maher # 256 Ninth Circle

Bill Maher opened his show on August 24, 2012 (episode 256) as he always does –with a brief clip from the archives.  He aired the one where someone in the audience started shouting something (I couldn’t make out what), and Bill gets off the stage and walks down the aisle and personally ejects the heckler (with a little help from the paid security guys).

There were times last night when I wished that Bill would jump across the desk and evict a few of the panelists. Last night was my worst fear come true about the show.  Two conservatives on the panel and one middle-of-the-roader who said, “a pox on both their houses”. That left Bill as the only voice of reason. Now Bill is a good advocate for rationality, but he is mainly a comedian. The professional politicians and policy makers can sometimes score points off him.

Bill’s opening monologue began with the Republican convention scheduled to begin in Tampa, Florida on Monday. Hurricane Isaac is also scheduled to arrive in Tampa on Monday. Bill’s Joke: “An evangelical party nominating Mormon and a Catholic and then getting wiped out by a hurricane.”  The sub-text is that evangelicals are always saying that hurricanes are God’s punishment for human wrongdoing, like a gay pride parade.  So if Isaac hits the convention, is the Republican Party being punished for something. If I remember correctly, the first day of the last Republican convention had to be cancelled because of a hurricane. I’m seeing a trend. Maybe God thought they didn’t get the message last time.

The show opened, as it does every week, with an interview. The interviewee was Ariana Huffington, currently a liberal) from the hugely successful Huffington Post.

During the show Bill put a decade-old picture of Ariana and the very liberal Al Franken in bed together (Photo-shopped—they were never actually in bed together.) The picture was making the point –“strange bedfellows”.  Ariana, embarrassed by this reference to her past, quickly changed the subject to her hair. (I bet she gave bill “what-for” backstage after the show.)  Ariana Huffington now espouses liberal views (and does it very well), but she used to be a conservative. Perhaps she shed her politics when she shed her conservative husband; perhaps she saw a profitable niche on the liberal side—I don’t know.

As I said, Ariana does a great job. She more or less said that Ryan was “Romney’s poodle,” the way, Blair, the prime minster of England used to be “Bush’s poodle.”  She said his treatment of Romneyy was like a couples’ relationship pre and post marriage. A woman gets courted by a man because she is an exciting person; but after marriage that’s not what he wants anymore—now he wants her to be a doormat.  The analogy is right-on. Ryan is being forced to tone down everything that made him an exciting choice.

Back to the panel. The conservatives were Avic Roy, from a conservative think tank, Jack Kingston, a Republican and congressman from Georgia (A frequent guest, a much too frequent guest, in my opinion. I groaned out loud, when I saw that he was on the show).  Katy Kay, a correspondent World News America (the BBC in America), was the sole defender of sanity, albeit no liberal.

They argued about Medicare and the Affordable Care Act (Kingston won’t “forgive Justice Roberts”) ,about how Mitt Romney went “birther” the other day while disingenuously saying it was only a joke (mainly Bill), about how Todd Akin’s ideas about rape are the same as those held by Ryan and many other Republicans in Congress (Bill again), about whether or not the stimulus was good or bad for the economy (Avic said bad, whereas most economists agree that it saved the country from a second Great Depression), and maybe some other stuff.  It was hard to follow with everyone talking over each other.

Conservatives have a hard time giving someone else a chance to speak.  I kept hoping that Bill would do what Chelsea Handler did last week—tell them to pipe down.

As the babble went on, I’m yelling at my TV as if Bill could hear me, “Come on. Do some jokes.  Do a “bubble segment”; do the bit with the mock-ups.”  Maybe Bill heard me because he segued to a comedy bit about Republicans putting ads on Craig’s List trolling for sex partners during the convention.  He skewered Christie, Gingrich, and a few others. It’s was very funny.

Finally, it is time for the second guest usually someone from the entertainment business; tonight that guest was D.L. Hughley, a stand-up comedian who stands up for liberal ideas. The exchange between him and Bill was informative and funny. Then, he did it! Kingston interrupted the interview with the guest.  That is very bad form! (I hope Bill gave him “what-for” backstage after the show.) The panel almost always remains silent after the guest comes on.

Chaos broke loose and everyone on that stage was talking at the same time so I couldn’t make out much of what any was saying.  Mercifully, it was time for “New Rules.” The final rule, the one where Bill makes a serious point, concerned the Republicans.  It is where I found the–funniest- line-of-the-week-that-is-also-true moment. “The symbol for the Republican party should not be an elephant; it should be a unicorn “ A unicorn because they live in a fantasy land. Most of their ideas are not based on reality, but some fantasy that just happens to suit their purposes.

Bill, doesn’t title his shows, so I’m going to give This one a title: “The Ninth Circle of Hell is Two Conservatives on the Bill Meher Show.” Can you hear me now, Bill?

 I found this picture at http://wn.com