Real Time with Bill Maher #331 10/03/14 "Wake Up America!"

by Catherine Giordano


Elizabeth Warren

If anything is going to wake up America it is Bill Maher and his guests on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, episode 331, which aired on October 3^rd, 2014.

Elizabeth Warren

The interview was with Elizabeth Warren, a senator (D, MA) and author of A Fighting Chance.  She is a fighter with so much energy and enthusiasm. She got a standing ovation from the audience when she was introduced.  She believes that America has lost its way and she wants to bring us back to our values.

She said after the Great Depression changes were made so that we would not have a “boom and bust” economy, but we slipping back into an economy run by Wall Street, the type of economy that brought us the Great Depression. Wake Up Amercia! “The economy is leaving people and families behind and we have to fight back.”  

Elizabeth Warren believes we need to raise the minimum wage because no one who works full time should live in poverty. She believes in equal pay for equal work. She believes it is not your employer’s business what kind of contraception you use. She believes that the government should not profit from student loans to pay for tax loopholes for billionaires. She said, “This is what the upcoming election is all about.”

Warren told us that the government is making $66 billion in profit annually on student loans. “This fight is personal,” she said. Her family suffered a lot of economic hardship when she was growing up and the only reason she was able to go to college was because it only cost $50 a semester to go to a commuter college. 

Flip-A-District.com

Maher mentioned that one of the reasons he is trying to oust Representative John Kline (R, MN) from congress in the upcoming election is Kline’s support for oppressive rates of interest on student loans.   

He said Kline’s campaign strategy is simply to hide. Maher believes that in order for democracy to work candidates have to put their issues on the table. Maher is encouraging the media to report on Kline’s positions and records. He mocked people who always vote for whoever as an “R” next to their name.

If you go to flipadistrict.com, you can download posters and other stuff.



The Republican brand is a lie

Republicans

On the prior week’s show (see my review, Safe), Alexandra Pelosi, documentary filmmaker, sowed video clips of her man-on-the-street interviews.  One after another, a person who indicate that they supported the Democrat position (which weren’t labeled with a party name), and then they would proudly proclaim they were voting Republican.  The Republicans have done a good job of branding themselves as the party of strong defense, lower taxes and family values. Wake up America!  

The Republican controlled House of Representatives went on a six week vacation without voting on the war in Iraq in Syria to fight ISIS. They were too cowardly to take a stand. When Republicans talk about lowering taxes, they are not talking about YOUR taxes; they are only interested in cutting taxes for corporations and billionaires. When they talk about family values, they say one thing and do another. Wake up America! 

Maher mentioned during the show that the unemployment rate is down to below 6% after a steady decline since Obama took office.  Also the deficit has been cut in half sine Obama took office. And the Obama administration accomplished this while the Republicans did everything possible to impede his success. But Obama has low approval ratings (in the mid 40’s). Wake up America!

(P.S. When a Republican says he is going to cut taxes, ask him what he is going to cut to make up for the lost funding. Chances are it is a government service that you like and depend upon. Wake up America!) 

Mid-show comedy segment

Republicans are so elitist that they actually had to put out a commercial saying Republicans are good citizens too. They drive a Prius, they recycle, etc. So Maher did a parody ad, saying that Democrats are just like Republicans. They ride scooters (like Sheldon Adelson) they shoot unarmed black people, etc. It concluded with “Democrats are Assholes Too.”

Read more about this segment and see a video at Democrats are A-Holes Too.

New Rules: Dirty Vancing 

Maher totally lambasted Republican hypocrisy in New Rules. He said it was “a good election year for the bad boys of Congress” – congressmen who blatantly misbehave and the electorate sends them back to congress anyway. 

There is Vance McAlister (R, LA) who was caught on tape passionately kissing a staffer. “His tongue was forming an exploratory committee.” “That’s not kissing, that’s fracking.”

Mark Sanford, (R, SC) who gave new meaning to the phrase “hiking the Appalachian Trail ,” when he went AWOL from his job as governor to see his Argentinean mistress. Maher called him "another born-again booty-caller.

And the worse one of them all Mikael Grimm (R, NY) He’s under a 20-count indictment for fax evasion, fraud, and perjury. He forced his ex-wife to have two abortions and also forced his mistress to have an abortion. He’s a doctor who had an affair with two of his patients. He’s up for a third term in congress and will probably get it unlike the fetuses he conceived.

Maher said he has a new definition for insanity: Giving Congress an 8% approval rating, and then sending them all back to Congress.

Wake up America!

Secret Service badge

The Secret Service

What is in the news this week? The same stuff that was in the news last week. Every day he learn about another failure of the Secret Service.  Maher quipped, in the monolog that America hasn’t been this worried about a crazy person getting into the White House since Sarah Palin.

Maher pointed out that Obama has three times more threats made against him than any other president. This is no time for laxity of the secret service.

Nicholas Kristof is a journalist, author, op-ed columnist, and a winner of two Pulitzer Prizes. His latest book is A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity. He said, “The vitriol against this president is unequalled. No prior president has been called the anti-Christ and had his citizenship questioned.”

Maher pointed out that the Supreme Court pronounced that racism is America was over. Even Republican  Michael Steele, former chairman of Republican National Committee, political commentator, and author of the 2010 book, Right Now: A 12-Step Program For Defeating The Obama Agenda had to admit it. He knows racism is not over because he is a black man.

(BTW, take a look at the title of Steele’s book:  It proves my point about Republican obstructionism.If Obama hasn’t accomplished as much as you hoped he would, it is the Republicans who are to blame for that. Wake up America! )

Ebola virus

Ebola

The United States has its first case of Ebola. The victim is a man from Nigeria who was visiting family in Nigeria.  Maher quipped that it is Rick Perry governor of Texas, is now in charge of preventing an Ebola outbreak.  Maher quipped, “Rick Perry doesn’t know whether to shoot it or cut its taxes.”

Maher said that it would be nice to have a surgeon general to deal with this problem We don’t have a surgeon general because Republicans won’t confirm Obamas nominee because he once said something about guns that they don’t like.

Kristoff pointed out the problem has come to our country because we ignored it when it was in West Africa.  When will people learn that we cannot ignore problems anywhere in the world.  They will grow larger and eventually threaten us too. Oceans can’t protect us anymore. Wake up America!

ISIS

Batman Ben Affleck

ISIS is another problem that was ignored for too long. The discussion on ISIS was dominated by a shouting match between Ben Affleck (panelist) and Sam Harris (mid-show guest). Ben Affleck is an actor, director, writer, producer, activist. (His newest movies are Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Gone Girl, based on a novel by Gillian Flynn). Sam Harris is an author, philosopher neuroscientist. His newest book is Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion.His other books are: Free Will, Lying, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, Letter to a Christian Nation, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. 

Waking Up by Sam Harris
CLICK HERE

Sam Harris has correctly pointed out that a large majority of Muslims hold dangerous beliefs. He said, “Islam is the mother lode of bad ideas.” He said a small proportion of jihadists who want to kill people. However, a larger proportion are Islamists who want Muslim supremacy. Many more are Muslim conservatives  who are horrified by ISIS but hold many of the same beliefs about gays and women and death as a punishment for anyone who leaves the religion. Harris is merely informing us that fundamentalists are not a fringe group in Islam.  

Affleck couldn’t wait to jump into the conversation and tried to shout Harris down. Harris, to his credit, stood his ground. Yes, there are many Muslims who are peaceful, but we can’t ignore the many more who are still in the Middle Ages with respect to their beliefs.   

Maher pointed out that reasonable Muslims are afraid to speak out. “Islam is the only religion that who acts like the Mafia—they will kill you for writing the wrong book or drawing the wrong cartoon.”  

Maher and Harris have the facts on their side. They recognized that although there are many Muslims who do not hold dangerous beliefs, a very large proportion do. Affleck seemed to think that should be no criticism of Islam. He was acting like an asshole. I think Maher may have had people like him in mind a couple of weeks ago when he did another New rules segment about holier-than-thou liberals who make it easy for people to dismiss liberals. 

Spiritual, but Not Religious



Sam Harris

I wish Affleck would have shut up so Harris would have had more time to talk about spirituality without religion, the topic of his new book, Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion. Harris explained that we all have spiritual experiences, but we have to apply science to it, and not just attribute it to religion. He said, “Swapping a belief in the virgin birth of Jesus for a belief in Atlantis is not much progress.” 

Wake Up America

I took the title of this review from the new book by Sam Harris. Harris wants America to wake up about religion.  Elizabath Warren wants us to wake up about the economy. Maher wants us to wake up and stand up for liberal values. One thing for sure, Bill Maher’s show, was lively enough to keep us all wake.

Maher’s Guests for October 3, 2014

Elizabeth Warren: Senator (D, MA), author of A Fighting Chance. Maher did the interview with her.

Sam Harris: author, philosopher neuroscientist. His newest book is Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion. His other books are: Free Will, Lying, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, Letter to a Christian Nation, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. Harris was the mid-show guest.


Ben Affleck: actor, director, writer, producer, activist. His newest movies are Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Gone Girl based on a novel by Gillian Flynn

Nicholas Kristof: journalist, author, op-ed columnist, a winner of two Pulitzer Prizes. His latest book is A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity

Michael Steele: former chairman of Republican National Committee, political commentator, author. His book, published in 2010, Right Now: A 12-Step Program For Defeating The Obama Agenda, sounds out of date. 

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Real Time with Bill Maher #270 “Reason and Unreason”

by Catherine Girodano

HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” episode 270 that aired on Friday February 1, 2013, was a rarity—everyone on the show was a believer in reason,--i.e. no right-wingers. But even reasonable people can disagree.  But when reasonable people disagree it is a debate, not a brawl. The only problem with the show tonight is that it was not ten hours long. Bill likes to cover a lot of topics during each show and that doesn’t allow for a full discussion and resolution of the issues.

The interview was with Alex Gibney, a documentary film-maker with a new film, Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in theHouse of God which will air on HBO beginning Monday February 4. We may have thought that we knew about the pedophilia scandal within the Catholic Church, but it looks like this documentary will show us how little we really know.  Alex talked about how pervasive sexual crimes against children (usually boys) are, and how massive the cover up is, and how even popes, including the current pope, are complicit.

Bill asked if pedophile men become priests because they are pedophiles who hope the “power of Jesus” will cure them or because the all male environment turns them into pedophiles. The answer is neither. Gibney said that pedophiles become priests because predators want to be where they are protected. Priests have the power to abuse with immunity.  And I might add, they have so much access to potential victims.

Alex pointed out one good outcome of the exposure of the abuse and cover-up, which goes back to the 4^th century (to the very beginnings of The Church) is that previously the government of Ireland and the Catholic Church were practically one entity, and now the government of Ireland has separated from the Catholic Church.

Bill mentioned that priests are seen as “demi-gods.” Alex informed us that the belief that a priest is halfway between a mortal and an angel is a heresy.  Priests are clearly not demi-gods using their power for evil, they are just men using their power for evil.

One of the panelists was Sam Harris, co-founder of “Project Reason” and well known for the best-selling books he has written on the topic of atheism. Given that Bill is an atheist and Gibney was speaking about the crimes of the Catholic Church, I expected to hear something on these topics by Harris. Not a word, although at one point he was identified as “Sam Harris, philosopher” on the screen. Harris did not speak about atheism or philosophy—he spoke about politics and current events.

The other two panelists were Cory Booker, mayor of Newark, and Eva Longoria, an actress and activist. (Fashion-police-moment-of-the-week—who did Eva’s hair? It was obviously carefully coiffed, but looked weird. Her hair was pulled back from her face into a loose pony tail, but at the very top part of her head, a small section of hair was poofed up like she was hiding a mouse under it.)  

Cory Booker always has so much to say and says it very well. He’s also a very down- to-earth guy, self-effacing and the epitome of cool. During Overtime, he talked about his twitter account and about how it is a great way to stay in touch with constituents. He knows about a water main break before the Department of Water knows about it; it helped him locate and send help to people during the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. 

Cory is so hands-on that Bill joked that “your blackberry is like the bat-signal.” Whenever there is trouble, he’s on the spot. Everything from using is body (ala Superman) to cover a gap in the tracks of the PATH train (a funny exaggeration although Cory once rescued a woman from a burning building) to preventing a fight from breaking out between two patrons in a local laundromat (something that one could easily imagine Cory doing in real life.)

Eva is an activist on immigration issues, so with immigration in the news right now, It was the first topic of conversation. Eva talked about some of the rhetoric that says the border must be secured before there can be a path to citizenship for the undocumented residents of the United States. Eva pointed out that the border is already secure—net immigration is at zero. Cory said that we need to do what is best for America. He advocates for the Dream Act, saying that it is foolish to educate them, and then kick them out. He segued into the issue of crime. The undocumented are afraid of the police so they will not report crime making them disproportionately likely to be victims of criminals. The implication is that Immigration reform will make it easier to catch criminals, and thus reduce the crime rate.

Bill in his opening monologue said that the alternative to immigration reform is “Pick your own strawberries.”

The conversation moved to safety and guns. Bill pointed out that nothing is safer than a police state. The discussion about guns showed that reasonable people can disagree.  Sam and Bill both commented that guns can play a role in providing for personal safety. One would think so, but Cory once again came to the rescue of misguided thinking.  He said he was for much stricter laws and pointed out that if you own a gun, you are much more likely to be killed by that gun than you are to use it to successfully defend yourself. Cory, as a mayor of a city, Newark that has been known for violence, is on the front lines when it comes to guns and crime. I’d listen to him.

Eva said, if you are going to own a gun, it should be like getting a car license. You need to have training. At the very least, I want to add. Yes, every now and then people successfully defends themselves with a gun, but here’s the problem. The gun needs to be secured, kept away from children and thieves, and the crazy person that might just happen to live in your house. In an emergency, that gun is not going to be at hand, or your training and temperament is not going to be sufficient, or you might be emboldened to try to face down a possible intruder instead of retreating to safety.

In any event, if a gun makes you feel more safe and you are not mentally ill and do not have a criminal record, the current proposed gun laws will not stop you from owning a gun if that is what you wish to do. Just because gun laws can’t stop all gun crimes, does that mean we shouldn’t try to stop some of them. Cory had the statistics to prove that the ban on assault rifles did reduce crimes. 

Returning now to the voices of unreason, we have the Republicans in the House and Senate. The Republicans behaved disgracefully, browbeating Hillary during the hearings on Benghazi, and then being absolutely vicious to Chuck Hegal during his hearings for confirmation as Secretary of Defense. And Chuck Hegal is a Republican!

Bill said  that Republicans had turned against Hegal because since he was nominated by Obama “he has Obama’s cooties on him.” (It’s true, Republicans act like children.)

McCain was the leader of the pack of jackals. Jackie pointed out that there is bad blood between McCain and Hegal because Hegal was against the surge in Iraq that McCain favored. Bill responded that McCain was saying “The surge worked! Say it! Say it!” (It reminded me of a bully in a school yard, twisting someone’s arm until he says what the bully wants him to say.)

There’s a gun lobby.  There’s a defense industry lobby.  Cory said we need a lobby to do rational things. The Reason and Rationality lobby--I like the sound of that.

Back to the voices of Unreason.  In New Rules, Bill said that Sarah Palin was dumped by Fox News right after Jindal (Republican governor of Louisiana) said that Republicans have to stop being the “stupid party.” (Bill called it a wondrous coincidence. Also, Fox is slipping in the ratings. I hope that is more than a coincidence.)

Glen Beck is one of the major voices of unreason. He lost his show on Fox News last year when he went so far around the bend that he lost too many advertisers. But Beck doesn’t need Fox News. He has a show on the internet now. It costs $9.95 a month to subscribe. And he has 300,000 subscribers.  He and his ilk, according to Bill, are in the business of “separating rubes from their money”—all they have to do is to keep them feeling like they are under attack. The fear mongers—Beck, Hannity, Coulter, O’Reilly, et al.—can then keep on selling the same book over and over—the one that attacks liberals as the scourge that will lead to the downfall of America and death of us all.

Bill concluded that there is no comparable organization on the left dedicated to separating liberals from their money…here’s the “wait-for-it-moment-of-the-week” … unless you count Whole Foods. 

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