Real Time with Bill Maher #343 02/13/15 "Unholy BS"

CLICK HERE
for Merchants of Doubt
 

by Catherine Giordano 

The unholy aroma of BS hung heavy in the hair throughout episode 343 of Real Time with Bill Maher which aired on February 13, 2015.  

The Merchants of Doubt

Did you know that you can earn a living being a professional bs-er? Robert Kennar, producer, director, and screenwriter for a new documentary, Merchants of Doubt which will be released on March 5, 2015. (It is based on the book, Merchants of Doubt, by Naomi Oreskes and Eric M. Conway. His previous documentary, Food Inc., was nominated for an Academy award.) 

The professional bs-er is in the business of deceiving people. Let's call them "the merchants of unholy bs."  Kennar explained that it began with tobacco. Not only did these bs-ers maintain that tobacco did not cause cancer long after there was no longer any doubt about the connection, they claimed that cigarettes didn’t cause fires-- couches caused fires. Their bs was so convincing that laws were passed to add fire retardant chemicals to couches. Guess what—the chemicals caused cancer. How many cancer deaths did these people cause? 

After tobacco the bs-ers moved to pesticides, ozone, climate-change, drugs, sugar, and even cloned meat. They turn common sense on its head. How do you save the forests—more logging!

Maher said that they and the politicians they have bought put it this way, “If we protect you, it will infringe on your freedom." (I guess they are referring to your freedom to die an early painful death.) 

Read more about this and see video clips at Professional Liars: he Merchants of Doubt

Marriage Equality

Baratunde Thurston

Some counties in Alabama are refusing to issue marriage licenses to anybody in order to get around an order from the federal court to issue licenses to same-sex couples. Panel member, Baratunde Thurston (writer, comedian and entrepreneur, author of How to Be Black), said, “They are fighting a war that has already been lost. It is like they are auditioning for the part of Governor Wallace in the movie Selma.”

 

Republicans BS in London

Panel member, Zanny Milton Bedoes, is Editor in Chief of The Economist magazine. She’s from England and she called out Republicans on the bs they speak when they visit her country. Chris Christie got in trouble for bs-ing about vaccinations and Scott Walker got in trouble for bs-ing about evolution. Bedoes said, “If you are a Republican candidate for president, don’t go to London.” The English press is fierce. They will take you down if you bs.


While in London, Walker said that he would not answer a question about whether or not he believed in evolution. He later tried to walk it back by saying science and faith are completely compatible. Maher called out that bit of bs. He said, “No. Stupidity is not another form of knowledge.”

Racism and Cops

Do cops have an 007 mentality?

I learned about another wanton murder by cops “in the line of duty” on Maher’s show. He showed a shocking video clip. A Hispanic man, this time, threw some rocks at some cops and ran away. Three cops chased him and shut him dead, firing multiple times, as he ran away. He ran away—he was no longer a threat to them. Beside there were three of them.

This 007-License- to-Kill mentality has to be stopped. The rules are that deadly force (guns) can only be used as a last resort to protect human life. But too many cops are shooting just because they are pissed off.  

Maher said, “Something is wrong in the culture. They know they can get away with it.”

Panelist Tom Davis, former Representative (R, VA) and author of Partisan Divide: Congress in Crisis (with Martin Frost and Richard E. Cohen) said “The police have to call out their own.” 

Jeff Comey, the director of the FBI, is the top cop. He is starting to speak out. He said, “We are all a little bit racist.” Yes, that is true. We all have prejudices, but we don’t all go out and shoot people based on those prejudices. (We cross the street.)  

Maher said, it was better for a white person (like Comey) to say these things. I agree, a white person is more likely to get racist people to listen and I agree they are more likely to listen if he approaches the subject gingerly, but he is just bs-ing if he doesn’t get tough. It won’t stop until these cops get prosecuted.

 

ObamaCare

Maher cited a New York Times article that reported that ObamaCare is working. More people have insurance and costs are coming down. Thurston said that he has personally benefitted from it because he did not have insurance before.  

Davis said that it has helped some and hurt others. It was a badly written bill. (Question to Davis: What did you do to make it better? Trying to kill it completely does not count as making it better.) 

Maher said, “We should have a single payer system. Insurance companies are sharks.” Later, he added, “We shouldn’t have the profit motive in sickness and death.” (No bs there.) 

Bedoes said, ”England has a single payer system. You want a hybrid system.” I wish she had explained what a hybrid system would look like. Maybe we would have had time for that if Maher had not gone on a rant about vaccines. (See below) 

 

Mid-Show Comedy Segment: Celebrity Perfume

It seems like every celebrity, male and female, in the world of fashion, music, and film ahs their own perfume label. Maher suggested a few new ones. 

• Kanye West                         Interruption  
• Renee Zellweger                 Incognito
• Bruce Jenner                      Transition for Men
• Brian Williams                     Conflation    
• Hillary Clinton                      Inevitable
• John McCain                       Old Spite
• Chris Christie                      Enormity for Men 

David Duchovney

CLICK HERE
for Holy Cow

The mid-show guest was David Duchovney, actor, director, and author of a new novel Holy Cow: A Modern Day Dairy Tale

 Maher teased Duchovney because he has always called himself a writer, but has never published a book until now. Duchovney joked, “Delusional is my perfume.

The book is a about a cow that goes to India. It is written as a satire (like Animal Farm by George Orwell) to address the issue of animal rights. Duchovney said, “The abuse of animals comes from humans thinking they are separate from animals.” 

Maher said that raising animals for meat causes more global warming than cars. (It’s the methane gas they emit from their butts.) 

 

Vaccines

Maher mentioned that livestock animals have to be given antibiotics because of the unhealthy conditions in which they are raised. From there he segued to antibiotic-resistant “bugs” and from there, he was on vaccines.  

Maher has had plenty of time to educate himself on vaccines, but he evidently wants to just keep on spewing out the same old bs. Children need to give their immune system a workout. I don’t get sick because I eat healthy. The flu shot is bogus.  

Maher then began yelling that having six kids is worse than not getting vaccinated. (Maher is unmarried and has no children.) The panel was a dissimulated. They didn’t know how to respond to this non-sequitur. Yes, having six kids is probably not a good idea, but what does that have to do with vaccines? 

Measles is highly contagious and can be deadly. Yes, exposure to a few common bacteria that don’t usually cause illness in humans can give the immune system “a workout,” but best not to do that with a serious illness. Yes, the flu shot is not 100% effective, but it does save some lives. Not everyone is as healthy at Maher—some of us need the protection of vaccines. And by the way, I don’t care if Maher thinks his immune system is like “The Hulk”, if Maher is exposed to measles and has not been vaccinated, he is going to be one sick puppy. Why risk it? 

Vaccines give the immune system a workout. When people are vaccinated, they get a weakened form of the virus. The immune system produces antibodies, and then they won’t get the disease if they are exposed to it. The flu mutates every year so immunologists have to try to guess which variant will prevail, and that is why the flu vaccine is not 100% effective.   

One of the definitions of bs in the Urban Dictionary is talking when you don't know what you are talking about. Stop bs-ing about vaccines!

New Rules: Anchor Sore

Maher began, "Brian Williams should not have to go away because he lied. He should have to go away because the news sucks.” 

He berated news shows as a race to the bottom. They feature trivia like YouTube videos and reports about snow (“It snows. They plow it. It melts. The end.”) He ended with a complaint about heart-warming stories. He said, “There’s a place for them. It’s called Reader’s Digest.”  

Fat bellies

On his way to his snappy conclusion, Maher did the very thing he was complaining about. He faulted the networks for doing an endless number of segments that pretend to be about obesity and are just an excuse to show jiggling bellies, boobs and butt. (The alliteration is mine, Maher’s.) Then Maher gave us fat jiggling bellies, boobs, and butts.  

I’m with Maher on the viciousness of the broadcast news shows, but I have to call bs on this part of his diatribe. Maher delights in showing us this kind of thing. Maher is thin and athletic. (Remember the season opener last year when he was filmed running from one theater to the other.) Fat is one of Maher’s pet peeves and it gives him a chance to be superior. As previously mentioned, Maher avoids sugar--he has said in the past that he prefers to get his calories from alcohol.  

Stop the BS

I watch Bill Maher because it is a no bs zone for his guests. Lately, I’m feeling like the bs is coming from Maher. I’d like Maher to give his guests more time to talk on their area of expertise and stop interjecting when his opinions are uninformed. 

 

Bill Maher’s Guests for February 13, 2015, episode #343

 

Robert Kennar: Screenwriter, director, producer, His newest movie is Merchants of Doubt, a documentary, based on the book by Naomi Oreskes and Eric M. Conway

David Duchovney: Actor, director, author of Holy Cow: A Modern Day Dairy Tale

Tom Davis: Former Representative (R, VA), author of Partisan Divide: Congress in Crisis (with Martin Frost and Richard E. Cohen)

Zanny Milton Bedoes: Editor in Chief of The Economist magazine

Baratunde Thurston: writer, comedian and entrepreneur, author of How to Be Black

Real Time with Bill Maher #313 “Going Going Gone”

Alex Wagner, MSNBC host

By Catherine Giordano

The discussion on Real Time with Bill Maher, episode 313, aired on April 4, 2014,  focused on what’s going well, what doing down, and what’s going gone.

ObamaCare is going well. On March 31, the end of the 2014 enrollment period, sign-ups had gone through the roof, surpassing the 7million target number.  This success has made Republicans go crazy (crazier). The “truthers” are back--only this time it is not about a birth certificate, it is about cooking the books.  And now that the Supreme Court has gone and voted down more spending limits, the billionaires will be pounding that message into our heads with even greater ferocity. 

The interview was with Captain Paul Watson founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation organization and the “star” of Animal Planet’s Whale Wars, a documentary-style reality show.  He told us that ocean life will be gone unless we change our ways.  “If the oceans die, we die.” He advocated for protecting bio-diversity in the ocean. He warned that “global warming/climate change” could alter the oceans currents, plunging Europe in a deep freeze. I feel our planet is going downhill like an Olympian in a luge, and maybe it is already too late to stop this downhill slide.  [See The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert.] It’s the extinction that could wipe out human beings.]

The panel included Alex Wagner, host of MSNBC’s Now with Alex Wagner.  She speaks with confidence and passion—she knows her stuff.  I’d say that Wagner presents the liberal viewpoint, but it is more accurate to say she presents the honest viewpoint..

Wagner stands in stark contrast to another female panelist, Carrie Sheffield, a columnist for Forbes, decidedly in the Republican/conservative camp, spewing forth the same old discredited talking points. Worse yet, she seemed to think she was on a game show, smiling inanely each time she thought she had scored a point.  She thought she had landed a zinger when she said that campaign spending in 2012 is the same amount Americans spend on chewing gum.  Maher looked at her like she had gone off on the train to Crazy Town.  “It’s not the amount in aggregate that matters,” he explained. “It’s the percentage spent by rich people.”

The third panelist was former Representative (R VA) Tom Davis.  He too spewed the talking points, but at least he didn’t make a fool of himself while doing so.  And, towards the end of the show, he even said something I agreed with. He said that the rogue agencies in the CIA must be held accountable.

I hope Davis will continue to be for accountability when the CIA torture report is made public.  The report will show how the Bush administration, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and all the rest, violated the Geneva Convention and engaged in torture and gained no useful information in the process.  Maher seemed really angry when he castigated the movie Zero Dark 30 which showed that torture helped in the search for bin Laden. He called it “product placement for torture.”  [I refused to see the movie when it played in theaters, but I did catch it on HBO and it made me as angry as it made Maher.]

Bill came back to the torture report in New Rules. He said, “If the torture report makes you disgusted, you’re liberal; if it makes you shrug, you’re conservative; and if it makes you hard, you’re Dick Cheney.”

The comedy sketch dealt with a report that said 43% of college age and high school aged boys have been coerced into sex.  He then did a showed video about the terrible threat of LBS, Lucky Bastard Syndrome.  The title speaks for itself.

The mid-show guest was Nas, a rapper and songwriter with a new album, Illmatic XX.  He’s very soft-spoken for a rapper—I had to turn the volume up on my TV to hear him.  He mentioned that he did a song with Jay Z on a prior album (Hip Hop is Dead) ironically titled Black Republican.  (“I feel like a Black Republican--I got money coming in.”) This put Sheffield into a tizzy because she took Maher’s joke—“You may have a new recruit”-- literally.  Nas, gently put her in her place saying, “I wouldn’t go that far.”

In New Rules, Maher spoke about how the middle class was going, going, gone.  He said that Tiffany was doing great and umpteen different versions of dollar stores were doing great, but stores that cater to the middle class like, Sears and Penney’s, were dying.  “We are becoming a country of rich people and desperate people.” The bit wasn’t all that funny so we got the “Maher-goes-for-a-desperate-joke” moment of the week.  “Lube up,” was the tag line, “time to do some porn.” 

 

The final New Rules bit wasn’t as sharp as it usually is—Bill didn’t seem to know where to go with it.  Nonetheless, I’m going to HBO every Friday at 10pm.  Because, despite one kinda-fell-flat joke, Maher has gone and done it again, delivering an hour of news-focused opinion, commentary, and humor. Bill Maher has got it going on.

 Please share this review by tweeting, "liking" on facebook, and "+1 ing"

Please ""follow" so you don't miss any of my reviews.

Please click on the shopping cart at the top left of this post to buy from Amazon.com

Real Time with Bill Maher # 275 “New Ideas”

Rachel Maddow on "Real Time with Bill Maher"

by Cathrine Giordano

“Real Time with Bill Maher” on HBO, episode 275, on march 15, 2013, was a lively show.  Rachel Maddow was a guest and that is reason enough to watch it.

Bill does a segment titled ”New Rules” each week, so I thought I’d do a take-off on that and  title this review “New Ideas.”  And when I say “new ideas”, I mostly mean “no new ideas.”

In the opening monologue, Bill talked about the selection of a new pope, or as Bill put it, “They found a guy to wear the white dress.”  He said that the new pope was being called “the humble pope.”  No limos for him, he rides the bus. Bill said, “An old guy on the bus mumbling about Jesus. When do you ever see that?” Nothing new about that.

Bill asked whether anything would change with this new pope.  He answered his own question, saying “Of course not.”  Bill pointed out that Pope Francis is pro-life, against contraception, and thinks homosexuality is the work of the devil. No new ideas there.

Bill added, “Or as Republicans call him, a progressive.” (It’s a joke, but as Republicans keep leap-frogging over each other to be the furthest to the right, it may actually be true real soon.)

Bill discussed C-Pac—the conservative convention.  Mark Rubio, senator from Florida, and new darling of tea-party gave a speech saying, “We don’t need a new idea.  We have an idea. It’s called America and it still works.”  Bill mocked him. “Really? Climate change? America! Stagnant wages? America. Equal rights for women? Saudi Arabia!"

Rubio is not ready for prime time. First there was the dreadful speech after the president’s state of the union speech. and now this inane speech at C-Pac.  First of all, Rubio—you just admitted that not only do Republicans have no new ideas, they don’t even want any new ideas. Why have an idea when you can have a slogan?  America!  Bill didn’t have to make a joke about it. It’s funny all by itself.

The interview was with Michelle Rhee, the Republicans darling of education reform. I didn’t hear any new ideas from her. Just the same old tired Republican talking points about bad schools and bad teachers.  Bill pointed out that the problem is not schools and teachers, but poverty. Michelle wouldn’t engage, and just kept on talking about bad schools and bad teachers.

I live in Florida.  When Jeb Bush was governor, the state started giving schools grades.  (Jeb Bush is often called the education governor. If by that they mean “the destroyer public education.’ then the title fits. I don’t know how he gets away with it.) One year, an “F” school was turned into an “A” school in one year. How was it done?  A local corporation “adopted” the school.  They provided resources, tutoring, enrichment programs. It’s as simple as that. We don’t have to close “bad” schools or fire “bad” teachers, we just need to provide more resources.  All the government had to do was duplicate the efforts of this corporation in every “bad” school, and problem solved.  Did they do it? Of course not! That would cost money! 

The panel included Rachel Maddow, host of an MNSBC news show (9pm Monday through Friday), Jared Bernstein, a former economic advisor to V.P. Biden, and Tom Davis, a former Republican Congressman from Virginia.

I love Rachel Maddow—watch her on MSNBC and you’ll see why. She’s super intelligent and funny.  She’s like no one else on TV. Jared is new to me, but I liked him immediately.  Rachel and Jared didn’t have any new ideas either, but they don’t need any. Their old ideas are the ones that this country needs, like cutting defense spending, ending poverty, providing health care, and not putting the country into deficits by neglecting to pay for the war that you lied the country into.

Tom Davis’s response was to say that he agreed with Jeb Bush that “history will be kind to G. W. Bush.” He added, “Nixon was rehabilitated.”  Everyone else guffawed saying that there was no comparison between what Nixon did and the terrible mess that Bush got us into. I was laughing, too.  It seems like the country is finally waking up to how really, really, bad Bush was.

Bill went back to the pope theme for his comedy segment.  He talked about what some famous politicos might say in confession.

John Boehner:         I only cry because I’m sh-t-faced.”

Pope Benedict:         I’m not actually sick. I just hated the job.   

Sarah Palin:              Sometimes I close my eyes and pretend Todd is Kobe Bryant.

Marcus Bachman:   Sometimes I close my eyes and pretend Michelle is Kobe Bryant. (Michelle Bachman’ s husband, Marcus, is rumored to be gay.)

Mitt Romney:             I hate the other 53% too.

An orangutan:          I only slept with Donald Trump’s mother to win a bet.

The special guest was Tom Colicchio, a chef who has just done a documentary about hunger in America, called “A Place at the Table.”  He pointed out that 47 million children in this country don’t know where their next meal is coming from. He also explained that hunger and obesity are related. People get calories, but not nutrition. Healthy food is expensive.   

In “New Rules” Bill poked fun at smart cars. He said that you may have things on your key chair bigger than a smart car, and that if you kit Chris Christy while driving one, he’d ask you if you were OK.  (Yes, smart cars are very small, probably smaller than Chris Christie, but I think they are cute.)

The final ‘new rule” dealt with conservatives. 

Bill said that Obamacare is hated, but its individual components are well liked. 

He compared it to saying, “I hate pizza, but I love dough with tomato sauce and cheese.”  He said, “People don’t dislike socialism; they just don’t know how to define it. Hint:  It’s in the name ‘social security.’”

 He said C-Pac was the “open mic from Hell.”  Their message is “whatever you do, don’t change.” 

Bill said, ”Politicians from both parties think their constituents are more conservative than they actually are. He added, “(Conservatives) don’t speak for the majority of Americans. They are just so loud that they haven’t noticed that America has moved on.

He concluded by saying that conservatives were like the nasty old man yelling that the kids hit their ball into his yard and he hasn’t noticed that they have grown up and moved away… and he’s the senior senator from Arizona.

And, that is not a new idea, not even a new joke, but it is really funny when Bill says it.  It’s funny because the analogy is so perfect. This is the “I’ve-heard- it-before-but-it-still-makes-me laugh-every-time” moment of the week.

I’m fine with the fact that Republicans don’t have new ideas. I bet the do-do birds didn’t have any new ideas either—just before they went extinct. I just wish they would get out of the way of the liberal’s good ideas.

Please share this review by tweeting, "liking" on facebook, and "+1 ing" on google circles.

Please ""follow" so you don't miss any of my reviews.