Real Time with Bill Maher #344 02/20/15 "Pardon Me"

by Catherine Giordano


Pardon me, but I have to inform you about a few rather ugly things in the news this week, and I’m not even talking about terrorism (Islamic or otherwise. Bill Maher and his guests discussed some of these despicable events on Real Time with Bill Maher episode 344, which aired on February 20, 2015. 


I have some giuliani on my shoe.

Giuliani: I’ve got some giuliani on my shoe.

I have to lead with Rudy Giuliani for his despicable comments this week; the ones that he should be asking pardon for, but instead he’s proud of them. He said:

“I do not believe — and I know this is a horrible thing to say — but I do not believe that the president loves America. He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.” 

Giuliani knows it is horrible, he said it—in public—anyway, and not only does he not apologize for it, he’s proud of it. 

I can’t look at that man’s face with thinking about something that needs to be scraped off the bottom of my shoe. He disgusts me that much. 

Remember santorum. Google it. Rick Santorum said some despicable things about gays, and as a result a campaign was launched to create a neologism making his name mean a disgusting substance. It came up as the first listing for many years, and it is still on the first page.

I propose that we do the same for Giuliani. As in: 

 

Pardon me, I’ve got to scrape this giuliani off my shoe.

Yuck, it looks like I’ve stepped in some giuliani.

 

Fran Leibowitz:
Tales From A Broad

Panel member, Fran Lebowitz, is a writer for Vanity Fair, humorist, public speaker, and author of several books including Tales from A Broad: An Unreliable Memoir. Lebowitz is particular noted for writing about New York City. She offered the best explanation for why Giuliani said this. She said that Giuliani earns his living now as a public speaker, and smears against Obama is what his groups want to hear. Maybe his bookings were slipping so he needed to get himself some publicity. I hope it backfires on him. After all, who wants giuliani on their speaker’s platform? It’s bad enough when you get it on your shoe.

Maher’s explanation was a joke about how Giuliani wanted love from Obama, in the carnal way. As part of a joke in his monologue, Maher read from a book he said that Giuliani had written—“50 Shades of Black.” In one scene Giuliani is alone in the oval office with Obama when Obama “reaches into his pants and pulls out his long hard black…veto pen, and waves it in Giuliani’s face. (Pardon me for repeating that very-off-color joke.)

Remember Giuliani’s short-lived campaign for the Republican nomination for president, Joe Biden said, Giuliani’s entire campaign was “a noun, a verb, and 9-11. Giuliani is still at it. He trades on the fact that he was mayor of NYC when 9-ll happened. He ignores how he was responsible for some of the deaths because he insisted on having the command center in the World Trade Center when the people responsible for security of the city wanted it to be in Brooklyn. As a result there was no command center that day. Why did he put the command Center in the World Trade Center? He did it so he would have a convenient place for trysts with his mistress.   

Giuliani is also always talking about how much he loves America. Maher said, “If America was a woman he’d move her into the mayor’s mansion while his wife was still there. (Giuliani actually did have his mistress come to live at the mayor’s mansion while his wife was still living there.) 

[If you like me have a little trouble with the spelling, remember Giuliani puts I (himself) before U (you).]  

New Rules: Doobie Brothers

Obama as a young man

In the final New Rules segment, Doobie Brothers, Maher took on some more despicable behavior from politicians. He began by saying how stupid it was to ask potential candidates about their use of marijuana. It was shocking when Bill Clinton admitted to it; now it would be shocking if a candidate denied it. 

 “Everyone from Bill Clinton to Newt Gingrich, Al Gore to Rick Santorum, John Kerry to Sarah Palin — they have all fessed up,” he said. “Come on, when even Ted Cruz cops to it? That one surprised me, I must admit. I thought, ‘Who would get high with Ted Cruz?’”  

Now it is about the hypocrisy. Jeb Bush got singled out for being particularly hypocritical. Jeb not only smoked pot, he was a dealer in his prep school.           Jeb dismissed it by saying that he was “a cynical little turd at a cynical school.”  

This self-admitted turd is still a cynical little turd. When Jeb was governor of Florida, he instituted jail-only policies—no treatment-- for drug offenses — except in one case. Maher said, ““Except when it was your daughter, when you made an exception,” Wow, that sounds like something a cynical turd would do.” We better be careful--if Jeb gets into the oval office, he’ll be getting giuliani all over the rug.

Maher reminded us that President Obama not only smoked pot as a young man, he looked cool doing it. These presidential candidates never went to jail for the drug crimes they committed. (It helps to have “parents who are white and well-connected”, Maher said.)

Maher said that it’s time for Obama to call an end to the war on drugs and to give a pardon to all the people in prison for non-violent marijuana offenses.

Oscars


Oscar

In the monologue Maher said that the Academy Awards were about “movies you haven’t seen with British actors you don’t know.” Maher went on to say that each group was rooting for a different movie. The blacks are rooting for Selma, the gays are rooting for Imitation, and the Catholic Church is rooting for Boyhood. 

Later in the show, Maher mentioned that the Best Picture Oscar usually goes to the movie about a cause. He said a sure winner would be “a movie about a slave with AIDS during the Holocaust.”  

Maher did the comedy segment about the Oscars. The nominees all get swag bags. This year the swag is estimated to be worth $160,000. Maher showed us some of the actual items in the actual items in the swag bag and since the Oscars coincides with the Daytona 500 this year, he joked about the counterpart item in the Daytona 500 swag bag. For instance, at the Oscars you get a fancy face cream; at the Daytona 500 you get a jar of Bubba’s mayonnaise. The Oscars gives you an expensive weight loss treatment; the Daytona 500 gives you a bag of meth. 

The Issues

Pardon me, for even bringing these up again. I know you probably feel as much despair as I do whenever these subjects come up. 

Maher mentioned “Millennial Anger” saying that young people today are blaming the prior generations for the mess they will inherit. I can’t say I blame them--we have created problems (like ISIS) and ignored others (like climate change. 

Climate Change

Bill Nye, scientist, educator, humorist, and author of several books (including Bill Nye's Comic History of England and Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation) said we have to stop talking about “climate skeptics.” The correct term is “climate denier.”

Panelist, Elahe Izadi, Journalist and reporter for The Washington Post said “Half of the Republicans now believe it.” Maher said, But not the feces-throwers and flat-earthers who vote in the primaries” which makes it political suicide for the Republican leadership refuses to acknowledge climate change.

The Mid East

We wouldn’t be having the ISIS problem if we had not invaded Iraq and removed Saddam and his Sunni regime. Panelist Rob Reiner said that now those Sunnis are ISIS fighting a sectarian was with the Shiites and using terrorism as revenge against the west. (Reiner is an actor, director, producer, and activist. He directed This is Spinal Tap. He played Meathead, Archie Bunker’s son-in-law, in the television series All in the Family.)  

Maher said that the Arab nations must put “the boots on the ground.” He pointed out that there is a precedent for this. They all banded together to fight Israel. Now they need to band together to fight ISIS.  



Aloe Blacc

Music royalties

Perhaps the issue of writers of music not being very poorly paid for their work is not as grave as the other issues, but it is important to the writers. The interview was with musician Aloe Blacc. (His newest release is Lift Your Spirit.) Blacc says that he wants “control over who sings my songs and the current copyright laws don’t allow that.   

Maher said, “If the world is going to shit, on the way, I want to listen to good music.”  

Pardon me

Pardon me for not really doing justice to the Real Time with Bill Maher show. This review and recap has to leave so much out. I’ll get to some of the bits I omitted in other posts that I will do later in the week. 

Bill Maher’s Guests, episode 344, aired on February 20, 2015

 

Bill Nye: Scientist, educator, humorist, author of several books including Bill Nye's Comic History of England and Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation

Rob Reiner: Actor, director, producer, activist. He directed This is Spinal Tap. He played Meathead, Archie Bunker’s son-in-law, in the television series  All in the Family.

Aloe Blacc: Rapper, musician. His newest release is Lift Your Spirit

Fran Lebowitz: Writer for Vanity Fair, public speaker, author of several books including Tales From A Broad: An Unreliable Memoir

Elahe Izadi: Journalist, reporter for The Washington Post

 

Bill Maher and Bill Nye

 

 

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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HBO Real Time with Bill Maher #265 "It's the Facts, Stupid"

by Catherine Giordano

HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” episode #265, airing on November 2, 2012 was smart and funny as usual.  (Except when the Republicans are talking as usual; Bill had two of them this week.)

I’m naming this episode “It’s the Facts, Stupid.” It’s a take-off on the headline of Bloomberg Business Week. The cover of this magazine was shown on the show. In big red letters, the headline was “It’s Global Warming, Stupid.” Bill discussed how during the Republican National Convention Romney turned Obama’s words into a joke.  Romney, with his customary smirk on his face, quoted Obama as saying, “I will stop the rise of the seas and heal the planet.” Har! Har! Har! This is the “Not-So-Funny-Now-Is-It?” moment of the week. The rising seas inundated communities in New York and New Jersey and killed close to 100 people. As Bill said, “The rising seas” is not a laugh line.

While I’m talking about Romney’s smirk, take a close look at Romney when he is supposedly offering condolences to the victims of Sandy at his Victory Rally/Relief Event last Wednesday. It was a very brief statement. He followed it with his smirk and a nod of his head. It was as if he was saying, “There, that’s done. Now let’s get back to campaigning.”  And get back to campaigning is exactly what he did.  

Romney did this phony food drive. His aides went to WalMart the night before and bought canned goods. At the rally, the aides handed the cans to attendees who then marched in front of the cameras to give them to Romney. Obama is supervising FEMA and touring the destruction, and Romney is holding a fake relief rally. And here’s the kicker. The Red Cross will not accept food or clothing. They don’t have the resources to sort, store, and distribute. They want money so they can buy what is needed when and where it is needed. 

Mitt Romney, if you had one ounce of humanity, you would have gone to that rally and made a speech about how you were donating one million dollars (or five million or ten million) to the Red Cross. (You earn $20 million a year. You could easily have given a million.)  And then you could have said that you had asked all your billionaire and multimillionaire supporters to do likewise and told us how much you had raised from this.  And then you could have asked the attendees to give you checks made out to the Red Cross. That would have been a way to show compassion and to actually help. Instead, you bought canned goods with campaign money that the Red Cross doesn’t want and can’t use.  (I hope that stuff ends up in a food bank somewhere.)  Have you contributed even a dollar of your own money yet? Probably not. Too busy out on the campaign trail making empty gestures and telling lies. 

One more thing. The Red Cross needs blood. Why didn’t Romney have several bloodmobiles at his rally?  Why didn’t he roll up his sleeve in front of the cameras?  It’s what I would have done in his position. This was supposed to be a relief event, wasn’t it?  What exactly did he do at this rally to help anyone but himself.

 

Forgive the digression. I’m back to the show now and the funniest line in the monologue. Bill said Obama was getting bi-partisan support.  Even Fox News said, “Heck of a job, Brownie.” Second funniest line was about Mitt always being wrong—wrong about Bin Laden, wrong about letting Detroit going bankrupt, wrong about FEMA. Then he goes out and denies that he ever said those things. Bill said “Now he loves FEMA. If Mitt ever met anti-Mitt, his head would explode.” 

The interview was with James Balog, a photographer who has science credentials and who has just completed a documentary about the melting of the glaciers entitled “Chasing Ice.” He did a great job explaining global warming. Solar energy melts the ice that is needed to reflect that energy back into space; then the dark water that is exposed by the melting ice absorbs more energy. Less reflection; more absorption. This causes changes in the weather. Bill seems to be devoting a lot of time to this issue—it is discussed every week and he often has a guest who has expertise on the subject. Bravo to Bill for using his show to educate people about facts. 

The panel was Rob Reiner, actor/director and a strong Democrat; Margaret Hoover, a CNN contributor and an obvious Republican partisan; a Rick Lazio (a former Republican Congressman from NY who lost his bid for the Senate to Hillary Clinton).

 

BTW, was Margaret Hoover ever a beauty pageant contestant? She had this inane smile on her face constantly. She was so “girly,” how does anyone ever take her seriously?  Maybe they don’t.  

During a discussion about FEMA vis-a-vis Katrina under Bush and Sandy under Obama, Bill pointed out that “people who like government run it better.”Rob said privatizing FEMA (as Romney said he wants to do) is insane. Bill added, “When it is life and death you don’t want a private business in charge—“they put profit over human life.” 

How do we combat global warming? Lazio suggests that we don’t know if global warming caused the storm. He also suggests nuclear power as an alternative to carbon-based fuels. Bill tells him that there are better options. I agree. Just because solar alone, wind alone, hydro-power alone, bio-fuels alone can’t do the job, doesn’t mean that they all can’t be a bigger part of the mix. We may also have to build off-shore barriers. Bill said it would be too hard and too expensive.  I say that just because it is hard and expensive doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it. And the sooner we start, the more lives (and property) we will save.  

Bill said that Obama’s biggest endorsement was from Chris Christie, governor of New Jersey. (It was a tacit endorsement because Christie only praised Obama’s response to the storm, but he, nonetheless, praised him effusively.) Bill pointed out that the Salt Lake City Tribune endorsed Obama. Romney is a Mormon and Utah has a very large Mormon population, yet the Utah paper endorsed Obama over Romney. Bill pointed out in the places where “they know Romney best, they don’t like him.”  (In Massachusetts where Romney was a one- term governor, Obama leads by over 20 points.)   

Bill showed a mock ad jokingly claiming that it should be Obama’s response to Romney’s false ads about Chrysler sending American jobs overseas--an ad that is condemned as false by everyone except rabid Romney-ites. (Even Chrysler has denied Romney’s claims.) Bill’s satirical commercial was about Romney’s experience running the 2002 Olympics in Utah.. It was very funny.  The ad said that Romney gave jobs to foreigners from Iran and Russia taking jobs away from American athletes, Arab terrorists killed 11 Jews (that was a different Olympics, but we are not going to let facts intrude are we?) while Romney stood idly by, then the Olympics went to China (again another Olympics) and ended with “Romney ran the Olympics and so did Hitler.” 

Mathew Segal was the last guest. He is the young (only 27) president and co-founder of “Our Time”, an organization that represents young people.  He said young people vote ideals, not parties. He also pointed out, as so many others have, that there are not two sides to every issue; there are not “two sides to facts.” I’d like to see more of him. 

On the economy, Matt said he learned in his economics classes that it takes 10 years for an economy to recover, and that Obama has had less than four years. The Republicans tried to deny that economists say this. Bill said that there have been 1.9 million new jobs in 2012. Over the almost four years (including the first few months when America was losing jobs due to the continuation of the trend from the Bush administration), there has been a net gain of 562,00 jobs. He also pointed out the Congressional Research Service (a non-partisan organization) reported that tax cuts for the 1% do not create jobs. The Republicans, true to form, protested--unsuccessfully.  It’s the facts, stupid! 

Hoover and Lazio seeing that they were losing the argument do what Republicans so often do. Talk louder, talk faster, talk over everyone else in the room. Further, It sounded to me like they raised the pitch of their voices—My ears hurt. I was ready to turn off the TV. (I didn’t because I have to do this review.) Hoover said that she tries to reform the Republican party. Perhaps there is some hope for her—at least she realizes that the Republican party needs reform. Nonetheless, she continued to deny facts and defend Republicans.   

Bill had some good zingers in “New Rules.”  Here’s a few of them. 

“The 2012 election might be remembered as the election where one candidate was suspected of not being born in America, and the other candidate was suspected of not being born on Earth.” 

“How did we get the shameless weathervane from the Planet Kolub? The other choices were Rick Perry, Santorum, the mom from Carrie (Michelle Bachman) and the black guy from Ghostbusters (Herman Cain).” 

“Clint Eastwood was not their first choice for a celebrity speaker at the Republican National Convention.  Honey Boo Boo refused to dumb it down.” 

“There is only time for five more reincarnations of Mitt Romney.  By Tuesday, he’ll be saying he is a staunchly pro-gay Unitarian who hates corporations and has is proud of his Latino heritage who doesn’t want old white men telling him what he can’t do with his vagina.”  

Bill concluded by saying that the election is win-win for him.  “If Obama wins, America wins.  If Romney wins, comedy wins.” 

Nate Silver, the statistician who crunches poll numbers, and almost exactly predicted the number of electoral votes for Obama in 2004, has reported that Obama now has an 81% probability of winning. And that was before he got the endorsement of Chris Christie. 

 
I pray that America votes based on facts. I pray that America wins on Tuesday.

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