HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher #314 Riot-Roundup

Rob Lowe, actor and author of Love Life,
was on Maher's panel.

By Catherine Giordano

"Pussy Riot"--great name for a band! Bill Maher did an interview with the political activist group of young women in Russia who masquerade as a band on Real Time with Bill Maher, episode 314, which aired on April 11, 2014.

Congressman Vance McAllister (R, LA) was the butt of a lot of jokes, as well he should be. The married congressman ran on family values, and now a video is all over TV and the internet showing him passionately kissing a female staffer who is also married (not to him). In the monologue, Maher said, “Republicans are either voting against women or rubbing against women.” Strike one.  McAllister if forming an exploratory committee—his tongue was an exploratory committee.” Strike two. “That wasn’t kissing, that was fracking” Strike three. You’re out. Only he wasn’t out. The staffer he was kissing has resigned, but he’s still there. Being exposed as a hypocrite is not putting him out of the game.

One of the panelists was Rob Lowe, actor and author of a new book Love Life. With a book title like that, there had to be a joke about Lowe having been involved in a few “pussy riots” of his own.  This was the “cheap-shot-joke” moment of the week. I checked out the table of contents on amazon.com. —Lowe’s book appears to be both more serious and more entertaining than the cheap shot joke would imply.

Continuing with this theme, the mid-show comedy segment featured the “Sex Harasser’s Manual.” The book would include tips for Congress, such as: 

·        Never say, “Are those your real breasts or have they been gerrymandered?

·        Grow up—We all know it is pronounced BAY-ner.

The mid-show guest as Matt Taibbi, a journalist, and author of The Divide:

American Injustice in the Age of  the Wealth Gap. He was reading us the riot act about our so called “justice system.”  In a nutshell: “It is very easy to go to jail if you are poor; very hard if you are rich. All those crazy things you do when you are young—the poor go to jail, the rich don’t. It’s morally unjustifiable.” 

Since the interview was concerned repression in Russia, Maher had to point out that America is #1 with respect to the percent of its population that is in prison and Russia is #8.  Taibbi added that crime is down by 44%, but the prison population is up by one million. 

Another panelist, Anna Marie Cox, political columnist for Guardian USA, blamed “for-profit prisons.” And that is all that you need to know to understand this issue.  Every business wants to grow and if your business is prisons, you are lobbying for harsher laws and longer sentences. You are also providing minimum services to squeeze ever last bit of profit out. There’s no rehabilitation or humanity. As Maher said about our so-called “correctional institutions”: “We are creating so many bitter unemployable people.”

During a discussion about the Ukraine situation, the third panelist, Congressman Duncan Hunter (R, CA) said he was in favor of “tactical nuclear weapons.”  When everyone else was so shocked they were on the verge of a riot, Hunter explained that he only advocated tactical nuclear weapons, the kind that explode underground. Maher rightly chastised him saying “Nukes are a genie we shouldn’t let out of the bottle.”  People like Hunter scare me half to death. Doesn’t he realize if we nuke them, there are a whole lot of thems who can nuke us right back?

Maher pointed out that ignorance equals belligerence. He mentioned a recent poll asking people to locate Ukraine on a map. As you might have guessed, few got it right. Some even put Ukraine inside the U.S. The poll also asked if we should use nukes. The people who didn’t know where Ukraine was were far more likely to want to use nukes.

The New Rules finale was titled “The Call of the Riled.” Maher talked about Mike Rogers leaving Congress for a talk-radio gig and Jim DeMint who left the Senate to become head of The Heritage Foundation (a right wing “think-tank.”) Maher said, “There has never been a better time to quit government and go into the lucrative business of talking about government.” He concluded by naming Sarah Palin as the “one night stand of governing” and claiming that Ted Cruz sees “higher office as just a higher form of talk radio."

There was no riot of the set of “Real Time with Bill Maher” this week, just a riot roundup of scary scary stories about scarcity of good government. Fortunately, although the panelists were mostly “straight-men”, Maher gave us a few moments of humor.  

I hope you enjoyed this recap and review of the show.  Please leave a comment.

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HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher #299 “Spoofs and Spooks”

By Catherine Giordano

Debbie Wasserman -Shultz

HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher”, #299, aired on Halloween (Friday 10/31) or as Bill called it, “the atheist Christmas.” In the monologue, Bill commented that a lot of the Christian holidays are linked to the occult as opposed to the actual Christmas which is linked to amazon.com.

[Which reminds me, please use the link to amazon.com on the left side of this page—I get a small commission when you do and it doesn’t cost you anything. Also, you’ll see links to some books in this post—click on them to order the books you want—I get a commission on anything you buy using my link even if it is a third party seller. Maybe you will be buying stuff from amazon for gifts. This is how bloggers get paid for their work, so if you enjoy my posts, please remember to use my link when you buy from amazon.]

Bill also mentioned the flap over health insurers cancelling “junk policies.”  This gives the right a chance to proclaim that Obama is a liar because he said, “If you like your health insurance, you can keep it.” Bill brought up all the lies G. W. Bush told while president (like the lies about WMD), and said, "Well, those were OK--they were white lies.”

Keeping with the Halloween theme, my favorite spooky witch of the right, Ann Coulter was the guest for the interview. The coultergeist had a new book to flog: Never Trust a Liberal Over 3-Especially a Republican. (Buy it used—I don’t want to help put even a penny in her pocket.) Her long blonde hair was softly curled—a more flattering style than her usual long straight hair flopping down to her hips. But that dress—was it a Halloween costume? The dress drew bull’s eye’s around each breast. I think she must have had some work done or perhaps just a lot of help from Victoria’s Secret, because she usually looks very flat-chested. I won’t bother to report anything she said because it’s not worth mentioning, but I will point out that she giggled like a teen-aged girl throughout the interview.

Debbie Wasserman Shultz, the Congresswoman from Florida, and author of

For the Next Generation: A Wake-Up Call to Solving Our Nation's Problems, was fierce in defending Obama and Democrats in general. She said that Obama’s claim that people could keep their insurance was not a lie because he was referring to the 95% who have employer-provided health insurance. Furthermore, from what I have heard, almost all of the people who have had their insurance cancelled were able to get better coverage at lower cost through the ACA. And I’ll add one more thing about these cancellations—it is very self-serving for the insurance companies who would like to see the ACA fail so they can go back to gouging consumers.    

Another guest, Neil de Grasse Tyson, everyone’s favorite astrophysicist and author of Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier, opined that 10 years from now all the ACA problems “won’t even be a footnote.”  (By the way, Tyson has a lot of books—one more interesting than the next. I’ve put them all on my wish list—hint hint to anyone wanting to get me a gift.) 

The mid-show comedy segment was a spoof about posters for health insurance that you might see in various states. 

            TX:      Because we all get shot sooner or later. Get covered.

 

            WV:     Because my sister caught me with m other sister. 

            FL:      Because shit here always gets weird 

            DC:     Because you never know where you will run into Chris Brown

Bill introduced a new topic to the conversation, bringing up Ted Cruz senior, a really spooky kook, who recently went on an embarrassing rant revealing to all where Ted Cruz junior learned his nastiness. Bill remarked that Democrats have absent fathers, like Clinton and Obama, but Republicans have father issues, like Bush, Romney, and Cruz. 

Ann Coulter tried to explain away Daddy Cruz’s nutty remarks by saying he was only joking. That is really a stretch even for liar-liar-pants- on-fire Ann Coulter. Bill countered that Republican jokes are never funny because the underlying premise is wrong. For instance, we can make a joke about Sarah Palin being stupid because everyone knows she is an air-head, but if you try to say that about Nancy Pelosi, it falls flat.

Women in politics was another topic of conversation. Everyone was for it, not just Wasserman-Shultz who would like to have more female colleagues in Congress. Tyson was a big fan of the idea, saying, “Women outnumber men. Let’s do it. Women can put women in office. Vote all the men out and the women in.”  

Another panel member, Rob Reiner, co-author with Norman Lear of The Princess Bride: A Celebration (a book commemorating the 25^th anniversary of the film), spoke about Hillary. He said, “If Hillary ran we would have the single most qualified person ever to run for president.”

The interview was with Rob Lowe who plays JFK on the television adaption of Bill O’Reilly’s book, Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot. (If you want to buy that book, make sure you buy it used. I don’t want to help put even one penny in that man’s pocket.) Lowe spoke about his friendship with John Jr.  Lowe appeared on the last cover of John Jr.’s magazine, George.

There as a discussion of John Kennedy’s achievements—the space program that put a man on the moon, how Kennedy inherited the Bay of Pigs, how he tried to pull back the CIA, but couldn’t and now the intelligence agencies are out of control.

Wassermann–Schultz strongly favors continuing the embargo on Cuba. The other panelists disagreed, saying that we don’t put an embargo on other countries with human- right violations.  Tyson. in addition to being really smart and very charming, is also a funny guy: He said, “If we boycott China, Wal-Mart would go under overnight.”

Because Tyson is an astrophysicist, naturally the talk turned to the new movie, Gravity. I saw the movie—it is weak on character and plot, but the photography and special effects are worth the price of admission. Also, the uplifting theme of the spirit of humanity triumphing against the odds.  Bill thought the movie was exaggerated, but Tyson pointed out that the threat of space junk is very real—in the movie one satellite takes a hit, fragments, and takes out all the other satellites. Bill said that if that happened, we wouldn’t have cell phones. Tyson had to correct him again telling him cell phones worked off towers, not satellites. It seems Bill knows his politics, but science, not so much.

And on to New Rules. Bill jabbed Suzanne Summers who is evidently talking smack about the ACA.  He said, “She sells a metal spring for $30, and [has the gall to say] the ACA is a scam.

Bill jabbed Ted Cruz again, making fun of a photo showing him duck hunting. He looked just as awkward as John Kerry did when he was photographed duck hunting during his presidential run. He told Ted Cruz, “You have already proved your dominion over primitive creatures with brains the size of walnuts—you head the tea party.” But if Cruz insists on going duck hunting, Bill hopes he gets Dick Cheny as a partner. (If you have forgotten, Cheny once shot his friend in the face while duck hunting.) 

Bill also mentioned that some people hunt to eat. For instance, John Boehner lives on Wild Turkey. This segment was the “turkey-turkey-duck” moment of the week. Bill was blasting away at Republicans who just couldn’t duck his shotgun style jokes. 

Bill ended with an appeal on behalf of stoners. He said that ‘the New American Voter is a stoner.”  Bill said, “By the time younger folks turn 65, they’ll want pot to be covered by Medicare Part D.” (I’m not a stoner, but I say, “Why not?”) Bill called Obama a “total buzz kill”  saying he is tired of waiting for him to evolve on the issue. He told Hillary, “Give up your pantsuit and say hello to Stoner Hillary.” 

My thoughts: Who needs Halloween, when you have Republicans.  Never mind ghosts and ghoulies--it is Republicans like Ted Cruz who scare me.

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