HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" #324 07/11/14 Zombie Lies

by Catherine Giordano

Has this ever happened to you? You just keep killing zombies and they won’t stay dead. Don’t you just hate it when that happens? On episode #354 of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” we learn a little something about that during the “New Rules” segment. Here's the recap and review of the show...with commentary, of course.

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It was all about Republican lies. They certainly won’t admit to lies. The best they can do is to say they “misspoke.” But worse yet, when caught in a lie, they don’t stop saying it. 

Republican lies about the Iraq war are finally starting to elicit some outrage, but where is the outrage over the lies about the Affordable Care Act? Everything Republicans said about it was untrue. There are no death panels. Young people have signed up. Enrollees have paid their premiums. The number of uninsured has dropped. People like it—even Republicans-- 75% of Republicans who are now covered like it. But Republican politicos continue to lie about it. Maybe Republicans have a case of “If-it-wasn’ t-for-wrong-opinions-I- wouldn’t-have-any-opinions- at-all.” 

On the other side of the ACA debate, Obama may have told one lie. It was an inadvertent lie about being able to keep your doctor; it affected less than 2% of people, and when “observable reality” showed it to be untrue, he stopped saying it. 

Republicans are lying about fracking, lying about voter fraud, lying about tax cuts for the rich trickling down to the middle class, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But no matter how many times these ideas are shot down, they keep on standing.  Maher said, “They are roaming the countryside, neither living or dead … like Dick Cheney.” Then Maher showed a picture of Cheney, and, I swear, even without makeup, he looks like a zombie.
  

Maher concluded with a brief description of how the lies circulate from one right-wing media outlet to another until they finally go to die “being tweeted by Donald Trump.” 

See the video at Bill Maher Rules.

Republicans are still lying about climate change/global warming, although every day the evidence against their denials grows stronger. The interview was with Jason Box, climatologist, glaciologist, and professor at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. His observations indicate that the oceans will rise 70 feet, not just five or six feet as others are predicting, and hehis predictions have been right before when others were wrong. Box says that the glaciers are getting sooty, getting darker and dirtier, and therefore less reflective of sunlight. He says, that this loss of reflectively is not being factored into the global warming models of others. 

Republicans don’t just tell lies, they tell stupid lies. Republican state senator of Kentucky,. Brandon Smith, claimed that man-made climate change is scientifically implausible because Mars and Earth share “exactly” the same temperature and since Mars doesn’t have any coal mines, coal can’t be responsible for global warming.  A rather absurd argument made all the more absurd by the fact that Earth and Mars do NOT have the same temperature. According to NASA, the average temperature on Earth is 57 degrees Fahrenheit--138 degrees above Mars' average of -81 degrees. That pesky observable reality. (Why am I feeling the urge to type this whole paragraph in caps? Oh, I know, because it is such a STUPID LIE!) 



Rick Perry

Speaking of stupid, Governor Rick Perry (R, TX) was the butt of a lot of Maher’s jokes about how stupid he is. Maher quipped that Obama did not need to go to the border “to see a five-year old who can barely speak English. I’m with Rick Perry right now.” Later he said that all the media coverage of Obama shaking hands with a man wearing a horse head mask shouldn’t have been a big deal because he later shook hands with “a horse’s ass” (Rick Perry.) Bill got a few more licks in at Perry because Perry wanted to avoid being photographed with Obama, but as foiled by Obama. Bill said that Obama not only shook the governor’s hand, but patted Perry on the arm, back, and shoulders making sure to get his “Kenyan cooties” all over him.  

For more about rick Perry, read: Oopsies

Obama was meeting with Perry because of the immigration/refugee crisis happening n Texas. One panelist, Reihan Salam, a conservative political commentator, columnist for Slate and National Review, and author of Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream, said we should open a processing center in Mexico. News Flash—these people are NOT Mexicans—they come mainly from Guatemala, El Savador, and Honduras. They are more refugees than immigrants because they have fled their country to escape the drug-gang violence. 

Maher blamed the crisis on the drug related crime, and said the solution was to legalize drugs to remove the profit from drug trafficking. No profit, no gangs.  Another panelist, Ron Suskind, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author whose most recent book is Life, Animated: A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes, and Autism, agreed that we needed to “deal with the problem at the source.” 
 

The third panelist, Congresswoman Donna Edwards (D, MD) attributed the problem to a “patchwork quilt of immigration laws.”  One of those laws, signed by George W. Bush, requires that unaccompanied minors must see an immigration judge before a decision can be made as to whether they are sent back to their home country or allowed to stay. (Currently, about 85% of these kids already have a family member in the United States willing to take them in.) 
 

Maher said that the people of Central America seem to think “America is like the Holiday Inn. Kids stay free.” Maher also railed about the United States acting like it is being  overwhelmed with 50,000 refugees. He pointed out that many counties far smaller than the United States manage to deal with hundreds of thousands and even millions of refugees.  Salam reiterated that they should stay in Mexico—see what I mean about zombies—once again—they are NOT Mexicans. Maher appeared to lose patience with Salam and said to him, “Your folks weren’t on the Mayflower.”






Menopause or Global Warming?

The mid-show guest was Sandra Tsing Loh, a writer, actress, and radio personality who is the author of The Madwoman in the Volvo: My Year of Raging Hormones and  Mother on Fire: A True Motherf%#$@ Story About Parenting!  She was a whirlwind of energy as she ranted about the situation of women in mid-life. Aside from the raging hormones, it appears she is OK with hormones. It just returns women to the person they were when they were 12 year-old girls. She said by 2015, one out of every two women in America will be post-menopausal and “having more sex than ever because they are not making babies.” In comparison, in 1900, women only lived to an average age of 48 so there weren’t a whole lot of women dealing with menopause back then. Tsing Loh doesn’t think we should worry about electing women to high office because of their monthly estrogen surges—the real problem is electing men with their continual overabundance of testosterone which makes them too aggressive. 
 

One woman who should never again be elected to high office is Sarah Palin, but every time you think she is gone forever, she ‘s back just like those pesky zombies. Maher skewered both her and John Boehner over the lawsuit Boehner is filing against Obama. Palin is all over TV calling Boehner a wuss for not going for impeachment. So Maher did the mid-show comedy segment giving us Articles of Impeachment written by Palin. One of the articles blamed Obama for the riots in “Ben Gazarra.” The articles included a variety of malapropisms and ended up devolving into her grocery list.   

The Hobby Lobby decision was discussed not only as a freedom-of-religion issue, but as a woman’s issue. Edwards pointed out that 40% of the businesses in this country are the same type of corporation as Hobby Lobby is and that “women are not going to stand for it.”  Edwards believes this should be about freedom of religion for employees because “corporations can’t posses a religious right.” Maher pointed out that Justice Scalia completely reversed himself from his early opinion involving the religious rights of native Americans. “No peyote for Injuns,” but Christians can get exempted from the law. Maher threw out a rhetorical question about what would have happened if a Muslim group had brought the suit.  

Last Maher discussed economic realities. He quoted a group that reported that it takes about $131,000 a year to live a middle-class life for a family of four--a house, a car, a one-week vacation—nothing extravagant. The median income in the United States is $50,000 a year. Salam, who had been mostly well-behaved up to this point, finally lost it, and began angrily flailing about. He had half a dozen objections to the study, examining the trees and missing the forest. The zombies must have eaten his brain because otherwise he would have seen that the point of Maher’s remarks was that once upon a time in this country, the median income bought a nice middle-class life.  

Thank you, Bill Maher, for being a zombie-slayer each week, dispatching right-wing lies and making us laugh while you do it.

Bill Maher’s Guests: #324 July 11, 2014


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Jason Box: climatologist, glaciologist 

Rep. Donna Edwards: Congresswoman (D, MD)

Ron Suskind: Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, author--His most recent book is Life, Animated: A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes, and Autism

Reihan Salam: conservative political commentator, columnist for Slate and National Review, author of Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream



 

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Sandra Tsing Loh: writer, actress, and radio personality—Her books include The Madwoman in the Volvo: My Year of Raging Hormones and  Mother on Fire: A True Motherf%#$@ Story About Parenting!



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A small apology: I'm doing zombies again. I thought I was done with zombies for a while after writing about Maher's episode 23, The Real Zombie Apocalypse, and then writing a web article, ZOMBIES: The Mythology, Popularity, Psychology, Philosophy, and Reality, but Bill Maher did a New Rules segment about zombie lies, so here I am doing zombies again. 

 

HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher #301 “Same Old, Same Old”

By Catherine Giordano

Casey Affleck

It was a low key hour with the same old topics for conversation and jokes on Real Time with Bill Maher, episode 301, airing on Friday, November 15, 2013.

Maher began with the Obaminable Care Act. (Did I just make that up? Surely someone has come up with that bad pun before. Maybe not. It’s a bit of a tongue twister.)

In the monologue, Maher reported that so far 26,794 people have signed up on the Federal Government’s  ACA  website. He joked, “Wilt Chamberlain has had sex with more people than that.” He followed up with “The ACA is like sex—you do it online, it’s incredibly frustrating, and the idea of anyone getting it makes Republicans insane.”

Maher talked about the sub-standard plans that insurance companies are cancelling. He called them “The hospital gown plans: You’re ass is not covered.” Obama had to give people the option of keeping their sub-standard plans for another year to calm the hue and cry over his promise “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.” Maher pointed out that it didn’t help that former president Bill Clinton was on TV saying that Obama needed to back down on this. Maher quipped that “if you are a Democrat, Clinton is a preexisting condition". In my opinion, Clinton is a buttinski who can't accept that he is no longer president. The proper response to questions on this on any topic related to the current president is “I have confidence in President Obama.”

During the discussion, Matty Duppler, government affairs manager for the right wing group, Americans for Tax Reform, couldn’t keep a gleeful smile off her face as she said that Obama wasn’t helped by the 39 House Democrats who voted for the new bill rushed to the floor of the House by Republicans allowing people to keep their current plans. The same old tactic of Republicans--lies, and half truths. Ezra Klein, MSNBC correspondent, had to point out that the bill had two parts—the second part allowed health insurers to sell new sub-standard plans. Obama has already ordered a change in the regulations so existing plans could be kept for another year, but to allow new sub-standard plans to be sold would be counter-productive. The ACA is about quality affordable insurance.    



Most of the people who have those sub-standard plans probably won’t want them anyway once they see what a good deal they can get from the ACA, when and if the website gets working properly. This whole embarrassing problem wouldn’t have happened if the website had worked properly. Obama explained the reasons for the problem during his press conference on Friday morning. It’s red tape in the sourcing process. As a candidate, his IT operation was flawless because he could just say, “Get me the best people.” But government has to put out 40 pages of specs and get bids. Not always the best way to find and hire the best people. But still! Getting this right was so important, I’m really pissed it was botched.

Reihan Salam, writer for the libertarian National Review, said it should have been kept simple.  Maher pointed out that single payer (Medicare for all) is simple, doing it with insurance companies is why it is a mess. Duppler chimed in, again gleeful, saying that Medicare is going bankrupt. Klein had to correct her again telling her that it is not going bankrupt, and that it is 20% cheaper than private insurance.



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The interview was with Radley Balko, author of Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of the Police Force, talked about how police are getting more and more like the military.  For example, the tanks on the street in Boston during the search for the Boston Marathon bombers. The trend for police to use greater force for lesser offenses is disturbing.

The conversation discussed the same old Republican nuttiness over Benghazi. The news show “60 Minutes” interviewed a supposed eyewitness to the attack who told the story the way Republicans like to present it. Fox News said that this validated their reporting.  “Yes”, said Maher, “the story was bullshit” just like the stuff we heard from Fox News." Republicans will not give up trying to turn a tragedy into a scandal.

The mid-show comedy bit revolved around Sarah Palin going after the Pope for being too liberal. Same old, same old Sarah Palin making a fool of herself. Maher said, “She thinks the Pope is kinda liberal, wait until she hears what Jesus is saying.” He then imagined a twitter war between the two. One exchange went like this: Sarah tweets, “Bring back Pope Benedict”. The Pope tweets, “Yeah, you would want the guy who quit while in office.”  

The guest was Casey Affleck, an actor who appears in a new film, Out of the Furnace.  It concerns the problems of soldiers who return home after numerous tours of duty with PTSD, anxiety, and depression.  Affleck told us that 22 veterans commit suicide ever day.  
 

The problems with veterans led to a discussion about food stamps.  Many veterans are on food stamps. And they are among the millions of Americans being hurt by cuts to the program. Duppler was in favor of the cuts, because her view is when you help people “Where does it end?”  Affleck, who clearly shares the political views of his older brother, Ben Affleck, jumped in and said “It is like kicking people when they are down.” 

The conversation turned to the Philippines’ typhoon. It is the most powerful storm ever to make landfall.  Warmer oceans mean bigger storms. Duppler tried to say that global warming is happening but that doesn’t mean the warming is man-made, but she got so lost in a typhoon of her own words that I couldn’t make out what she was saying. 

Maher changed the subject to George W. Bush being the keynote speaker at a Jews for Jesus convention.  Maher said, “Jews for Jesus—an oxymoron. George Bush--a moron.” This a the “I-couldn’t-have-said-it-better-myself” moment of the week.

Salam contradicted Maher saying that some Jews are cultural Jews and can have a different religion and still be Jewish. He used Buddhist Jews--Bu-Jews (think that is how it should be spelled)--as an example. Maher wasn't buying it, and neither am I. Buddhism is more a moral philosophy than a religion, and Buddhists don't proselytize. 

And on to New Rules. And a bit called “Docket Science” about the Supreme Court rulings on the Voting Rights Act and Citizens United. Striking down key provisions of the voting rights acts would have no effect, Roberts said, except that within 48 hours a bunch of states made it harder for blacks to vote. Allowing unlimited money into elections wouldn’t sway elections, Justice Roberts said, and then creeps like Sheldon Adelson, the casino mogul, spent 100 million dollars on Republican campaigns for the 2012 election.  Maher concluded by imagining Roberts repeating the line from Animal House: “You f—ked up, you shouldn’t have trusted us.”

Maher got that right. Last week I wrote about Christie and said, "Never trust a fat guy.” This week I have to add, “Never trust a Republican.”  It is the same old same old with them—lies, and at best, half truths. Think about this: If Republican policies are so great, why do they always have to lie about them? 

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P.S. The picture on the book Rise of the Warrior Cop is not from Star Wars. It is an actual photograph taken at the Republican National Convention in Tampa. 

P.P.S. If you want to read a great book (it reads like a novel) recapping the 2012 election, read Double Down: Game Change.

 

Real Time With Bill Maher #255 08/17/12

Chelsea Handler

Bill Maher is baaaack and he is as “badass” as ever.

On August 17, 2012, (episode 255) as usual, Bill had a smack-down rundown of the news in his opening monologue.  Paul Ryan got most of the abuse. Best line:  “Paul Ryan is an English-speaking version of Sarah Palin.” Pow! Double whammy!

Bill said Paul Ryan rails against government, but has worked his whole life in government and the only job Ryan ever held in the private sector was driving the Oscar Mayer Wiener Mobile while in high school.  Later on, he mentions that Chris Christie is going to be the keynote speaker at the Republican Convention. They lured Christie there by having Paul Ryan drive the Weiner Mobile. Pow! Double whammy!

There were three guests on the panel on the 8/17/12 show.  Alex Wagner who hosts the MSNBC show “Now with Alex Wagner,” a charming liberal; Mark Cuban who is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, a sensible middle-of-the roader; and Reihan Salam, who is a CNN contributor, a frothing-at-the-mouth conservative. They were later joined by Chelsea Handler, a smart and sassy comedian.

One of the problems I have with the Bill Maher show is that often the lone conservative is an obnoxious loud-mouth who dominates the show. He interrupts the others, talks over them, and generally makes civilized conversation impossible. Reihan Salam performed that role on this panel. Finally, Chelsea Handler had enough and told Mr. Salam, “You need to calm down.”  The audience cheered.  I just about jumped off my couch as I cheered at home. Chelsea, I love you!  You actually got that man to sit down and shut up and let someone else talk.

The worst shows are when Bill has two conservatives. I have to turn it off. The best shows are when he has three liberal-leaning guests. The conversation is great—intelligent and witty. I usually learn something. Are you listening, Bill?

However, I think this confrontational show is the kind of show Bill likes. On the 8/17/12 show he was talking about election politics, but his comment illuminates how he picks his panel. “The people want The Hunger Games. They want a bar fight.”  And that is what we get on his show most weeks.

“New Rules” is one of the best parts of the show. It closes the show and it is always outrageously funny.  Bill gently bends “The Rules” from jokes to serious (yet still humorous) commentary. On the 8/17/12 show he commented on the Republicans’ plan of voter suppression—suppression of the voters who are most likely to vote Democratic. He said the Republican get-out-the vote philosophy was, “You’re here to vote? Get out!”  Then he suggested we bring back literacy tests for the tea-partiers.  Question #1: What was the name of the World War that preceded World War II? He expects that that one would remove most tea-partiers from the voter rolls.

It was a good show.  I’d give it a 7 on a 10 point scale where 5 is “So-So” and 10 is “Amazing!”  Bill, Mark, and Alex were able to refute Raihan pretty well, and Chelsea delivered the knock-out punch. Chelsea is a delight; she fairly sparkles. Bring her back, Bill!

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P.S.  My focus on this blog is usually drama, comedy and dramedy shows, but maybe once in a while I can include some other types of shows, like “Real Time with Bill Maher” or a made for TV movie.