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After listening to Joe Queenan chide him about the need to "let it go" with harping on Sarah Palin, Bill responds with his "clip" of how Fox News reacted to Obama's victory on election night. I'm still waiting for this to happen on Hannity's show before the next four years are over.
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The Real Time Oct. 24, 2008 panel weighs in on McCain's awful comments about abortion during the debate. Comedian Carol Liefer raises some great points about the term "partial birth abortion" being something made up by the religious right to further their agenda of overturning Roe V Wade. It's actually a "late term abortion." And that abortion staying legal in this country is hanging on by a thread.
Apparently Matt Dowd hasn't been to any Palin rallies lately if he thinks no one cares about this issue any more. It will always be a huge money maker for the James Dobson wing of the Republican party. The money quote:
"If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament."
McCain gets a "zero" rating from NARAL and Planned Parenthood.
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From Real Time Oct. 24, 2008 the panel of Tim Robbins, Carol Liefer, Matt Dowd and Arthur Laffer discuss how things will go for the Democrats if they do win the Presidency and large enough majorities in the House and the Senate to make the Republicans irrelevant. Matt Dowd of course thinks that for any Democrat to be successful in office they have to govern from the "center" which Bill Maher does a great job of shooting down.
UPDATE: by John Amato
This is becoming a prevailing theme from the Villagers. That America is a Conservative nation and if Obama wins the election he better not use liberal ideas to govern or he will pay a heavy price for it. Where is the outrage over the eight years of Conservative governance that has destroyed this country while all these so called Conservatives in Congress rubber stamped Bush's policies throughout his entire presidency?
Here's John Meacham's latest. Get used to it.
America remains a center-right nation—a fact that a President Obama would forget at his peril.Why doesn't Meacham hold Conservative ideology up for public scrutiny and then tell me why we're a Conservative nation? What have they done that has helped the 300 million plus Americans in their quest for better lives? We are creating less jobs for the economy, families are losing income per house household except for the ultra rich and the American dream is being crushed because of the greed that de- regulation has fostered. What the evidence shows is that we've just witnessed the greatest financial melt down since the Depression, but Obama should take heed and not govern with his own policies. To be continued...
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Bill Maher has new rules for political "soulmates", gay French ambassadors, Amy Winehouse and any American who is considering voting for a candidate who seeks healing from witch doctors.
And finally, new rule: You can’t be President if you practice a violent, Middle Eastern religion and worship a genocidal desert god. Which is why Sarah Palin can’t be President. Now all the churches that Sarah Palin has attended, and she’s been to almost as many churches as she has colleges, have one thing in common: a belief that the Bible is literally true. She’s not “Country First”, she’s “Bible First”. And not just the New Testament. That’s the happy half of the book: the baby in the manger, Jesus doing magic tricks, long romantic walks on the water that turn into fishing trips with the guys and a generally positive message. Jesus, after all, preached love and forgiveness, not shooting wolves from an airplane.
The problem is Gov. Avon Lady, she takes the Old Testament literally too, and in that one, God is an insecure, rage-filled hybrid of Bobby Knight and Suge Knight. He’s been alive forever and He has anger issues. He’s like John McCain if John McCain could fart hail. He’s pro-slavery, pro-polygamy and homophobic and he’ll kill you for masturbating. More people get stoned in the Old Testament than in my Jacuzzi. That’s what I have to tell you guys… If there was a video of Barack Obama standing in front of his congregation being healed by a black witch doctor, this election would be over.
But there is that video of Sarah Palin.
By the way, for those of you keep track, Jane congratulates Bill for his "Religulous" kicking "An American Carol"'s tail on opening weekend. Considering that AAC wouldn't preview the film for critics, I think it's safe to say it's about as funny as the 1/2 Hour Comedy Hour.
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Make sure you buy: "The Shock Doctrine"
It's so chic of conservatives like Sullivan to blame the American people for the economic crisis, because as Sullivan stated on Real Time, millions and millions of people took out loans on homes that they couldn't afford. Yes, the Kudlow Thesis of the market housing crisis. Don't blame the lenders and grifters that came upon us like a biblical plague of locusts, blame the people.
Naomi Klein, God love her, told him that it was the Wall Street profiteers that preyed upon society. His ideal conservative world is completely fictional. And as she says, what comes next is the real disaster. Today was Christmas morning to the fat cats on The Street, but what happens next to all the debt we the people have just incurred? Whoever is elected president will have a major role in deciding our fate. Sorry, I can't write the whole transcript, so watch the entire clip.
Klein: The disaster is far from over. They've actually just relocated. The disaster was on Wall Street and they have moved the disaster to Main Street by accepting those debts and you said they didn't have to bomb, the bomb has yet to detonate. The bomb is the debt that has now been transferred to the taxpayers so it detonates when, if John McCain becomes president in the midst of an economic crisis and says look we're in trouble, we have a disaster on our hands, we have to privatize social security, we can't afford health care, we can't afford food stamps, we need more deregulation, more privatization. The thesis of the Shock Doctrine is you need a disaster to rationalize these very unpopular policies so the real disaster has yet to come.The real disaster is the debt that is going to explode on the American taxpayers. And then they do economic shock therapy.
They had to step in, but I don't think they had to step in in the way they did. The reason why the stock market went up on Wall Street today is because it's Christmas morning. Imagine waking up and being told your credit card debits have been wiped out, your mortgage has been erased. There's a fairy godmother that has taken care of you. A guardian angel. But actually that's the tax payers.
With a smirk, Andrew gets pissed and chimes in
Sullivan: You're favoring nationalizing the other companies.and most industries?
Klein: No, I'm just saying. This is socialism for the rich.
Maher: Why are you so hostile towards this?
Sullivan: Because I think the fundamental thesis that she is proposing is wrong. I think the reason why we're in this situation is not demonizing a few individual companies, it's systemic. And part of the reason we have this is the American People. The American people since the 70's have had stagnating income, so they decided to get something for nothing. And the government never told them they couldn't. So we have the stock bubble of the 90's and now we have the real estate bubble in the 2000's.
Klein: That's not why we have this.
Sullivan: And the government never told them they couldn't. Wall Street is to blame for giving these people these loans, but no one is ever forced to take out a bad load they cannot pay.
Klein: The reason why this bubble was allowed to inflate was not that the American people demanded it, it was spectacularly profitable for Wall Street. Just in bonuses last year, they handed out 33 billion dollars in bonuses... The problem is we have crybaby capitalism where when the times are good they are preaching deregulation and when the times are bad they want the bail-outs. The problem I have with your argument is where is this ideal capitalism of which you speak?
Andrew, the lenders told them they could get the houses for nothing and then lied about how they would pay for it and what they would pay, then bundled the cash and passed it on... And it's not the government's role to tell people what they cannot do. That's why we used to have regulations and background checks and down payments and mortgage lenders to oversee the system. It weeds out the people that can and cannot afford a home. He tried to deconstruct her argument because apparently he wasn't getting enough air time at that point (he filibustered the entire show after that) with nonsensical rationalizations on the current state of affairs. I lived through it and saw it up close and personal. Yea, he supports Obama, great, but his conservative ideology is a sham.
Andrew Sullivan has been conned by a fictitious notion of what conservatism really is. He states his Utopian vision of conservatism, but leaves out the part where conservatives want to deregulate everything and get rid of oversight and government so they can reap a magical harvest of cash like they have been doing during the entire Bush administration. Now we are seeing the results of conservatism. It's a failure. Does Sully really believe that conservatism exists without the fat cats expanding their pie of wealth in America to 1920's or pre-New Deal proportions? They've been trying to undo the New Deal ever since it was instituted and by the way which brought the country back from the brink of destruction.
Do you want Barack Obama or John McCain to make these decisions? I think the choice is easy. Conservative rule rains Armageddon down upon our heads---whether it happens in two years or twenty. It's inevitable.
Jeffrey Toobin of CNN and The New Yorker joins Bill via satellite to talk about the conventions, John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin, and her attacks on "the media."
Bill Maher returned to HBO last night with a great show and a hilarious "New Rules" segment.
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"New Rule: You can't put a windmill in your ad if you've voted against every single bill that might lead someone to actually build one. As long as you're sending a camera crew to a farm, why not take a picture of actual bullsh*t."
Heather also took the liberty of uploading the Overtime segment and writes this:
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This is the portion of the Overtime segment where they're talking about cable news pundits talking about nothing instead of actually covering the speeches during the convention and just how bad all "news" coverage is right now and the use of advocates as reporters and mixing commentary and reporters and Corzine takes a good shot at the papers for advocating for war and saying there were WMD's on their front pages and that there is opinion buried in almost all reporting now so that people don't know what to trust.
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Bill Maher goes off on chick vs. slasher flicks, postage on tax returns, airline customer service, papal dress, corporate takeovers and how Barack Obama's "bitter" comments are not as elitist as John McCain would like you to believe.
Referring to voters who America has left behind economically as “bitter” isn’t an insult. In fact, it’s a compliment, acknowledging that they’re smart enough to understand what’s happening to them. The hopeful, now those are some idiots. So let’s separate the bitter – my people – from the idiots. If you think the Democrats are going to take away your Bible, you’re an idiot. If you think they’re going to take away your gun, you’re an armed idiot. And if you think they’re going to take away your gun and give it to a Mexican to kill your God, you’re Bill O’Reilly.
Heather also has Bill's interview with Chris Matthews up at YouTube.
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Bill Maher's New Rules for Friday took on the security surrounding the Olympic torch run, horoscopes, children's parties, grooming on board airplanes and the extremist Mormon cult raided this week, but saved his harshest words for the Catholic Church:
Whenever a cult leader sets himself up as God’s infallible wingman, here on Earth, lock away the kids. Which is why I’d like to tip off law enforcement to an even larger child-abusing religious cult. Its leader also has a compound, and this guy not only operates outside the bounds of the law, but he used to be a Nazi and he wears funny hats. That’s right, the Pope is coming to America this week and ladies, he’s single!
Now I know what you’re thinking: “Bill, you shouldn’t be saying that the Catholic Church is no better than this creepy Texas cult.” For one, altar boys can’t even get pregnant. But really, what tripped up the little cult on the prairie was that they only abused hundreds of kids, not thousands, all over the world. Cults get raided, religions get parades. How does the Catholic Church get away with all of their buggery? Volume, volume, volume!
If you have a few hundred followers, and you let some of them molest children, they call you a cult leader. If have a billion, they call you “Pope.” It’s like, if you can’t pay your mortgage, you’re a deadbeat. But if you can’t pay a million mortgages, you’re BearStearn and we bail you out. And that is who the Catholic Church is: the BearStearns of organized pedophilia. Too big, too fat. When the current pope was in his previous Vatican job as John Paul’s Dick Cheney, he wrote a letter instructing every Catholic bishop to keep the sex abuse of minors secret until the Statute of Limitations ran out. And that’s the Church’s attitude: “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it…”
And despite all this, Pope Benedict shows that he does have some standards in other areas as he declined an invitation to a White House dinner in his honor.
On Real Time with Bill Maher this week, Bill Maher had some strong words for those who feel that the Democratic nomination race should be decided already.
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And finally, new rule: If voting can destroy the Democratic Party, then the party isn’t very democratic. Democrats need to stop freaking out about how this long primary battle between two popular candidates needs to be “settled yesterday! Because the candidates are bloodying each other! They’re causing irreparable harm! Mommy and Daddy are fighting!” Hey you people need to reach into your teenager’s knapsack and pull out a Paxil or Prozac and chill out.
Democrats, your task is not just to choose between this pair, it’s to grow a pair. Now, I know the idea of a very close race brings up some pretty bad memories for Democrats, but these are Democratic primaries. There are no Republicans in this race, so there is nobody organized enough to actually steal the election. What is so terrible about a long, drawn out contest? A season of American Idol is, what, 87 weeks? That’s a lot of time just to pick out a cruise ship entertainer. This is the presidency we’re talking about. I understand that a lot of Democrats feel passionately about their candidate, and that’s great. But then their passion gets the best of them and they go on websites like DailyKos, and post stuff, like the Obama supporter, who wrote, “I will vote for Hillary, but then I will leave the country.” Yes, because who could live in a nation that elects the person that you just voted for?
And that is what is so great about the internet. It enables pompous blowhards to connect with other pompous blowhards in a vast circle jerk of pomposity. But that doesn’t mean I’m throwing my hat in for Hillary. For one thing, she would say I was shooting at her. And I know she’s going to have a tough time catching Obama, because he’s black and she’s not that fast. But this is America, we don’t call the election before we know who the real winner is. That, after all, is the job of the Supreme Court.
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John Cusack appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher to promote his new film, War, Inc. which satirizes the military-industrial complex. While Cusack clearly had the cozy relationship between the Bush/Cheney White House and subcontractors like Halliburton and Blackwater in mind (as well as Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine), host Bill Maher thinks that the blame should be spread around evenly: the White House for perpetrating it in the first place, the Democrats for enabling it and the American public for being complacent about it.
MAHER: I mean, if people really cared, they would care to find out.
CUSACK: Well, but I think they’re getting more and more information about it. And I think, you know, some of these truths are so horrible that you don’t really want to think about that. I mean, I don’t…but I mean, it’s just…I mean, the gig’s up. I mean, if guys who are statesmen on CNN and are also sitting on the boards and are, you know, shareholders in some of the most profitable defense contractors in the world and they publicly make the case to go to war, and then they go to war, right? And they create a new market with their war, they bar their competitors from the aftermath; then they come back and speak evangelically about free markets that aren’t even free, when it’s a vast protectionist racket. These aren’t particularly subtle facts, their stop…stock prices jump 145%, their companies are awarded $2.3billion dollar contracts. I mean, after a while, you have to just expose and shame and indict and hopefully, convict the participants in this illegal, immoral ideology. So yeah, are Americans complacent? But I’m not…I’m not ready to give up or cede the Constitution of the United States to this bunch of hoodlums.
Howie Klein got the chance to see a sneak preview of War, Inc. last week and wrote a glowing review.
From Real Time Overtime, the web-exclusive portion of Real Time with Bill Maher with panel Robert Klein, Tavis Smiley, Robin Wright and Dan Savage.
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Bill Maher's New Rules went hard after John McCain for his repeated misstatements on the Iran/al Qaeda connection on Friday's episode of Real Time:
New Rule: Old soldiers never die, they get young soldiers killed. This week John McCain said for the third time in two days, that Iran, a Shi’ite stronghold was training al Qaeda a militant Sunni organization. That the Hatfields of the Muslim world would be working with the McCoys is so not true even Dick Cheney hasn’t said it. Now the press, which loves McCain because he feeds them BBQ, dismissed this as just one of those senior moments. Not to worry, he’s only going to have his finger on the nuclear trigger. But it’s not just a ‘gaffe,’ it’s what McCain really thinks. And therein lies the paradox of this campaign: McCain’s strength is really his weakness. He’s a warrior who’s dumb about war. Whoever read The Art of War, chapter three of The Art of War says, “Know thy enemy.” And John McCain plainly doesn’t. He thinks the solution is our presence in the Middle East. No, the problem is our presence in the Middle East. That’s why I don’t care if John McCain is better than Bush on global warming or torture or campaign finance, because he’s exactly the same as Bush on the war. They both don’t get the same thing. As long as we’re setting up shop in the heart of the Arab world, we’re not keeping America safer. Bin Laden goes ballistic over cartoons in Danish newspapers, and Goober and Grandpa want to put up a Hooters in Fallujah. They don’t “hate us for our freedom,” they hate us for our fiefdom. Winning the War on Terror comes down to this: what will make us safer from pissed off Arab teenagers who are willing to die? There are a number of good answers to that question, but occupying their land for the next 100 years is not one of them.
Some people look at McCain and see a tough guy who is going to protect us from the “Islamofascists.” I look at him and see a walking Tom Clancy action figure who is going to get us all killed. And yet a new poll shows that a majority of Americans believe John McCain is the candidate best qualified to answer when that red phone rings at 3:00 a.m., because he’d be up anyway, trying to pee. Yes, 55% of Americans think it’s McCain who should answer that phone, because they know John McCain is a warrior. He will not waver or hesitate. He will answer that phone and give the order that sends men to die and it will turn out to be a recording asking him if he’s happy with his mortgage.
Heather has also posted the online only Real Time Overtime if you're looking for more with Bill Maher and guests Barney Frank, PJ O'Roarke, Jon Hamm and Maelissa Harris-Lacewell.
I thought we needed a little levity after all the intensity of the news today:
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Now, I have to ask you some personal questions ‘cause this is an exit poll. Like income?
Substantial.
Marital Status?
Divorced.
Church attendance?
No.
So far, you’re doing really well with me. You’re rich, you’re single and you don’t go to church. I think I’m in love.
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Bill Maher breaks out his new rules on Friday's Real Time and his final rule deals with politicians who say that Americans are smart enough to see through spin and lies. Maher speaks the truth - it's amazing that during the information age, it's still so difficult to get factual information to the public. The facts are that Barack Obama isn't a Muslim, Saddam Hussein wasn't involved in the 9/11 attacks and global warming is real -- yet somehow, to some, they still remain theories.
Maher:"New rule, politicians must stop saying "the American people are smarter than that." No they aren't! If the Bush era has taught us anything, it's that voters want a president carved in their own image. Someone who doesn't like to read or believe anything he's told and is easily distracted by bright, shiny objects."
