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Oh, Sweet, Sweet Victory

Mitt Romney's Facebook page is losing followers by the thousands. I guess they don't want to be associated with a loser.

What's Wrong with Ron Christie?

I watched Real Time with Bill Maher last night. After taking a break from Maher for most of last year because I felt he was always 10 days to 2 weeks behind on facts and perhaps had gotten a little lazy on preparation for his show, I figured I had to watch immediately after the GOP Convention just for a couple of laughs. I wasn't disappointed.

He obliterated Dinesh D'Souza while interviewing him and called him out for every bullshit meme that douchebag put in his anti-Obama movie. Catch a repeat if you can. But the main thing that caught my attention was the panel discussion: Jason Alexander, Soledad O'Brien and one of my favorite people to hate, Ron Christie.

When Christie was front and center a few years ago, it would me my blood boil. And he seemed to be on every fucking taking head show there was. He's such a hard line Republican that there was no use debating/arguing with him on any point, regardless of facts. If Darth Cheney came out and said the sky was green, Christie would deny his lying eyes and argue green skies to the death.
I just came to the conclusion that this was the role he was being paid for and that he couldn't possibly believe the bullshit pouring out of his mouth. Just like it's an act for Sean Hannity, I felt the same about Ron Christie. And for me personally, that makes me despise that person even more; there's no conviction or honesty in what they say. It's just a little game, being a paid shill for the GOP.

But watching Christie tonight, after not seeing him for so long, perhaps because his 15 minutes were up or he had a moment of clarity on the air and was subsequently fired as a GOP surrogate (but I doubt that) I tried to give him a fresh start. And wouldn't you know it, that little fucker is still the towing the GOP line always was- but this time I felt differently.

I used to think he was a paid shill, but now I truly think he actually believes what he says. ...I know right?! I was shocked too! The $716 billion Medicare story came up and Christie denounced President Obama's awful $716 billion Medicare "cut" but defended Paul Ryan's $716 billion Medicare "savings," and no amount of explanation that the savings were the same was going to change Christie's mind. Nope. Obama's cut bad. Ryan's savings good.

Bill Maher: So let me ask this panel, do you think we’ve ever seen lies like this [from politicians like Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney]? Because it’s one thing to slant things, all politicians do that, but to just pull out of your ass…I mean Mitt Romney went through…Obama ‘s apologizing around the world — Fact checkers: no — Raising taxes on the middle class — Not true — Cutting defense — He’s only raised it. — Uh, you know, wrecked our credit rating — Welfare work requirement…he got rid of that — No, he didn’t do that — Robbing Medicare… Just a series of total lies. Have we seen this before? 

Soledad O’Brien: I don’t know if we’ve seen it before, but what I think you are seeing is people trying to get control of the message, that sort of the veracity doesn’t matter, right? If you can just say it and say it often, say it enough, and say it loud enough, and just keep repeating it and have everyone around you repeating it, then eventually it becomes true. I think that we’ve seen that a lot in this campaign. 

Bill Maher: Well now you’re describing what Hitler did. I’m not saying the Republicans are Hitler, but Hitler famously said the big lie works and the little lie doesn’t. 

Ron Christie: Well I think the big lie here is we need to fact check the fact checkers. The fact of the matter is the media has been running around – audience disapproval – the media has been running around saying Paul Ryan has been lying. The fact of the matter is this: President Obama and his plan Obamacare took $716 billion out under Medicare Advantage, he took it out of hospitals, and he took it out of the insurance program, and he programmed that into Obamacare. That’s true.

While this is technically true, what's misleading is that it's a cost savings over future spending curbing the increasing costs, not a cut in current spending. The part of Christie's sentence "took $716 billion out under Medicare Advantage" is purposely misleading. You know, it's that fiscal responsibility Republicans constantly beat their chests about but never really put into practice. But I'm done with this. Unlike Republicans, I'm not going to beat a dead horse while simultaneously beating my head against the wall.

When the issue of climate change came up, Christie wondered why it was such a cudgel on both sides, and wished we could just "agree to disagree." The science is not still out on this! And the English scientist email conspiracy theory has been thoroughly debunked as Christie was reminded by Maher when he tried to make that an issue. But at this point I wasn't so much angry as I was dumbfounded.

How does a seemingly intelligent person like Ron Christie deny global warming? How is it that one can be so ingrained in their ideology that solid, scientific facts are nothing but a conspiracy theory in their eyes? How did his brain develop to the point that if he and others like him in his party, which looks like a vast majority of them at this point, don't believe or understand something, then they outright just refuse it? Or that they are so willing to believe a lie from someone they respect, but when confronted with the truth, with facts staring them in the face even by nonpartisan entities, it just doesn't sink in?

No matter how many times they are confronted with pure fact, it's dismissed which makes trying to have a conversation or debate with Republicans, teabaggrs and Obama haters so frustrating. Paraphrasing Maher, how can you have a debate when you can't agree on the facts?

Ron Christie believes Paul Ryan because he wants to believe Paul Ryan. But all those reporters actually doing their jobs for a change and reporting the lies? Nu-uh. He said someone should "fact check the fact checkers." ...What? Well, then who's going to fact check the fact checkers checking the fact checkers when you still don't get the result you want?! It's all talking in circles. It's birtherism at the next level. Insist on a birth certificate, but when it's provided, insist it's a forgery. Ask for the long form and when it's provided, insist it's a forgery. They will never be satisfied.

It must be nice to live in your own little bubble, blissfully unaware that maybe, just maybe you might be wrong.

 (Cross-posted on ABLC)

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What Occupy Wall Street Is About

Here's Alan Grayson, former and hopefully future member of the House of Representatives explaining in simple terms what the Occupy Wall Street movement is all about.



PJ O'Roarke can act like the clown and try to divert attention and misdirect in response to the logic that Grayson is espousing, but that's just more proof of Grayson being a serious figure when it comes to important matters concerning the country while O'Roarke just comes across as an asshole.

Dumbass Quote of the Day

“I do agree that there are other groups that pose a terroristic threat to this country... I would say that the threat from radicalized Muslims is a unique and greater threat. It is the greatest threat... [Islam] comes from a hate-filled holy book, the Quran, which is taken very literally by its people.”

~Bill Maher on Real Time while speaking to Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, a Muslim

I was shocked and disappointed, waiting for the punchline, when Bill said this especially after starting the interview bringing the question posed by Glenn Beck when he interviewed Ellison, "Sir, tell me why I should think you're not with the enemy." He goes on to quote an author who disparages the Quran, but doesn't bother to go to the source itself? Or to at least follow up with a Quran scholar? I don't understand how he can criticize Rep. Peter King and Glenn Beck for their views in one breath and in the next, agree with the generalized nonsensical right wing meme that Islam is a radical religion that wants to destroy the United States.

If Maher truly believes that the Quran is taken literally by it's followers, then he must think Beck was on to something.

Why I Stopped Watching Real Time

When I first started this blog almost four years ago, it was because I was inspired by Richard Dreyfuss when he was a guest on Real Time. I noticed last season, after President Obama won the 2008 election, the was something a little different about the show. Something akin to falling into the false equivalency meme that has infected the mainstream media.

There is no such thing as "both sides are equally crazy." Who is the liberal equal in influence to a Sean Hannity or a Rush Limbaugh? Name the progressive that has an equally large following. Point out who on the left holds an audience of millions spellbound like Glenn Beck does with his rubes. You can't name one, because one does not exist. Not even to mention the content of these shows, using half truths, spin, innuendo and flat out lies in an effort to undermine any Democratic "agenda." Believing that both sides are the same is just flat out wrong and dangerously naive.

And then last Friday night, there was Bill Maher introducing Andrew Breitbart as one of his guests on the panel. Andrew. Fucking. Breitbart. And he introduced him as a journalist.

It was disappointing to hear Bill Maher refer to Andrew Breitbart as a "journalist" last night. He isn't one, and calling him that is an insult to every journalist everywhere. Journalism requires the kind of integrity Breitbart utterly lacks...

Maher has diminished himself in elevating Breitbart, who returned the favor by telling his host "you're not libertarian, you're socialist." The fabricator's entire web empire is characterized by this sort of Overton Window-yanking insanity. You cannot find a single mention of Iraq or Afghanistan contracting scandals on his sites, for example, but you can find the latest ginned-up outrage over White House Christmas ornaments or an NEA conference call in between the Victoria Jackson posts.

I turned the program off halfway through the show.  I want honest debate, not shitty talking points and ACORN conspiracy theories.

Will I watch Maher again? Maybe in passing or perhaps stream a video clip here and there, but I'm not going out of my way to tune in anymore.

She's A Witch! Burn Her!

Via Intoxination:

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What Happened To Bill Maher?

I couldn't sleep early this morning so instead of tossing and turning and being annoyed about not sleeping, I dragged my sorry ass into the living room and caught up on the last two episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher. And I have one question: What the fuck happened to Bill Maher?

The show seems old. The comedy seems forced. At first I thought it was perhaps since Maher wasn't kicking Incurious George around on a weekly basis that it lost some pizazz, but as I kept watching I realized that the show and maybe Maher just wasn't hitting the mark. Maybe the formula needs some tweaking. Here's the breakdown of a typical show.

Possible Parody Commercial / Opening Credits
Real Time sometimes starts out with a little parody commercial bit during the first minute or two of the show and it's usually pretty good because they have a week to prepare it. Earlier this season, the combination Snuggie and ShamWow! called "SnugWow!" for the couch potato who occasionally spills his drink and is too lazy to get up for a bathroom break comes to mind.

Monologue
Then after the opening credits roll, Maher does a couple of minutes of monologue with the kind of giggle-under-your-breath delivery that conveys the material is crap and he's hoping for at least one joke to land.

Interview with a Single Guest (sometimes live, sometimes via satellite)
Sometimes Maher has some really informative and credible guests on this segment; Madeleine Albright and Bill Bradley come to mind just this season alone. But on the April 3rd, 2008 episode, Maher brought on Samuel "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher. Seriously? Joe the Plumber? And he's peddling Joe's book? Here's the list of guests he's had on this segment this season: Ron Paul, George Stephanopoulos, T. Boone Pickens, Steven Pearlstein, Madeleine Albright, Bill Bradley and .... Joe the Fucking Plumber?! [*More on this interview later.]

Panel Discussion
Depending on the panel, this segment can be highly entertaining and informative, as in the case with panelists Salman Rushdie and Mos Def, or incredibly infuriating as in the case with Andrew Breitbart being a complete douche in sparring with, and losing to, Eric Michael Dyson.

Comedy Bit
This little routine is designed to break up the seriousness and take a breather with a little levity. This segment more often than not falls flat on its face, as you can witness by Maher's this-is-so-funny-I'm-laughing-through-the punchline fake giggles. Get rid of this segment, it's the weakest part of the show. It only serves to disrupt what is usually an engaging discussion.

Adds a Member to the Panel Discussion
Out from stage left walks someone peddling a new book or article. If it contributes to the conversation already taking place, it flows nicely as is usual in the cases of a Mike Taibbi or a Dan Savage or even a Christopher Hitchens. When it's a comedy writer like Carol Leifer bringing nothing to the table but a book on dealing with a mid-life crisis? Not so much.

New Rules
Always the best part of the show. It's carefully thought out and Maher hits it out of the park almost every time. Part of the reason is the delivery. Maher knows it's good. He knows it's funny, edgy, witty and he has the advantage of believing he's on right side of the issue. Not the liberal or conservative side, but the correct side. And he sells it.

The bottom line in all of this is that in my opinion, I don't know if Maher has gotten a busier schedule with his road act, or maybe he thinks every debate is going to be like punching Ann Coulter in the uterus, or he's a little behind the 8-ball after doing a documentary, but it seems like he's has gotten slightly intellectually lazy and is having a harder time trying to counterpoint his higher caliber guests. I may not like opinions from guests like David Frum and disagree with his viewpoints, but he's attempting to communicate his ideology and I feel he truly believes his stance and not just spout talking points, and where Maher used to be up on his game with data and politics, it seems that lately he has nothing to add to the debate unless it's about religion (sometimes forcing the debate towards that topic.) Enough already, we get it.

When you don't know what you're going to get from week to week, it can make for reduced viewership. I don't know if this will make a difference for HBO, but Bill Maher is losing his edge and he needs to get it back.

********************************

*Regarding the Wurzelbacher interview, since Joe the non-licensed non-plumber came onto the political scene, he has shown himself to be an opportunistic, know-nothing boob with absolutely no factual basis on which to spout his ridiculous opinions, and Maher has been having his fun in not such a nice way at Joe's expense. But when he had Joe in his sights, on his set and had the opportunity to take Wurzelbacher's asinine comments and political stances to task, my stomach turned at the Mickey Mouse sized kid gloves that Maher used on Mr. Common Man.

This could have been Mr. The Plumber's final minute of fame never to be heard from again, but Maher peddled his book, tried to make nice with him with a "Things We Have In Common" list and didn't bother to question Joe on his disagreement with Hillary Clinton's assertion that 90% of the arms being used in the Mexican Drug War are coming from the U.S.

An older version of Maher would have known the answer to that assertion. Maher 2.0 let it slide without a whimper. I didn't think it was possible, but he made Joe the Plumber look good in an interview. If Bill Maher were Katie Couric, we could be looking at Vice President Palin right about now. Don't get me wrong Bill, I'm usually on your side, but you blew that Wurzelbacher interview big time.

Richard Dreyfuss Rips GOP

The day I decided to start this blog was because of Richard Dreyfuss' appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher almost two years ago. He was speaking of civics and our duty as citizens to question the government when we thought necessary.

He was interviewed by Nora O'Donnell on MSNBC and ripped into the Bush administration and the "corrupt" Republican party as a whole when asked if a President McCain would better handle a disaster like Katrina that the Bushies did.

Dreyfuss: I don’t think the Europeans have any confidence in our government. I think that the last eight years has destroyed two hundred years of respect and dedication. And I think we have been the point of meaning and admiration in the world for very specific reasons, and George Bush trashed it.

O’Donnell: So, you don’t think that John McCain would be able to manage this government well, would have a different response than George Bush to a Hurricane Katrina?

Dreyfuss: I think the Republican party is corrupt through and through. And even the republicans like Buckley before he died said ‘we should lose this election, go into the wilderness, and get cleansed’, and I believe that’s true. I think that they have been in office too long. I think that they are too adept at thievery, at moving the Constitution into places it never meant to go. I think that they have an extraordinary ability to divide rather than unite. And I think that I’m tired of being called a traitor, because I like my flag and I support the troops.

Watch the video on Crooks & Liars.

Bill Maher - The Haves & The Been-Hads

Great "New Rule" finale by Bill Maher on November 2nd's broadcast. Here's a snip:

MAHER: ...the days when a shop girl in the big city could support herself working a full 40-hour week, or a family of four could live off a single blue-collar breadwinner, are as bygone a fantasy as malt shops or heterosexual wizards. If you’re living hand-to-mouth, and still buying into the con that the big threats to America are socialized medicine, Mexican immigrants and tax increases, then you’re not being kept down by the rich. You’re being kept down by you.

In America, it’s not the haves and have-nots. It’s the haves and the been-hads. If you, the citizen, deliberately vote for someone who won’t give you health care over someone you will, you need to have your head examined. Except you can’t afford to have your head examined.

Please remember that if you hear the new radio ad from Rudy Giuliani, who says his chances of surviving prostate cancer in America were 82%, whereas, in England, under “socialized medicine,” his chances would have been 44%. Numbers that, like the cancer, were pulled directly out of Rudy’s ass.

Now, I know socialized medicine sounds like Stalin himself is going to come over to your house and perform a forced sterilization. But, really all it is, is universal health care. Which means everybody – not just the rich – gets to see a doctor when their erection lasts longer than 72 hours.

And I just hope that one day, ten or fifteen years from now, one of Rush Limbaugh’s “Ditto Heads” is going to wake up in his cell in debtors’ prison – because that’s where President Giuliani throws you when you can’t pay your Visa bill – and he’ll turn on the Fox Financial Channel, and as he watches some CEO gloat over his $200 million in stock options, he’s going to suddenly realize that he’s been had. And on that day, that man will begin the great middle class uprising of the 21st century.

Oh, no, he’ll probably just switch over to “Pimp My Truck.”

Bill Maher - For Halloween, Fear Global Warming

Not the Fearmongers

Kasparov on Real Time

Former World Chess Champion and current candidate for president of Russia Garry Kasparov was Bill Maher's guest on HBO's Real Time, and told it like it is in Russia, the U.S and the Middle East.

If only there were more straight shooters in the political arena, we wouldn't be in the global mess we're in now. A riveting interview.

Bill Maher: New Rule - Misspeaking

Bill Maher's Huffington Post blog of February 16th concerning the way our Presidential nominees are chosen, or discarded as he case my be.

"There's more to being smart than just not misspeaking. The world is a complicated place. Sometimes it all feels like a runaway train of violence, resentment and insecurity - sort of like a family reunion at Ryan O'Neil's place. Which is why for this next election, we need to pick the smartest candidate, not the dullest one who simply never had a verbal gaffe and said a wrong word or phrase."

Read the whole post here.

Richard Dreyfuss and Civics

I caught an episode of Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO the other day as I occassionally do, and one of the guests on the panel was Richard Dreyfuss. I had met Mr. Dreyfuss briefly while he was on Broadway with a show called SLY FOX at the Barrymore Theatre. He seemed like a very nice man and we were basically introduced, said hello and shook hands... that was it. Had I known what was inside him which you are about to read, I might've steered a conversation toward this topic instead of the idle chit chat... but how the hell are you supposed to know what's in a person's brain upon first meeting them?

Anyway, the show (Bill Maher's) as always deals with politics. This conversation was steered towards TV news not being news so much as entertainment nowadays, because they are expected to be part of the profit margin, whereas that wasn't the case years ago.

DREYFUSS: ...it used to be a given that the news industry, the news network departments, were not part of the profit center... And now it is a given that they are. And Dan Rather, who is a great journalist and comes from a great tradition, was at the center of an enormous change, an invisible change, which made the news divisions expected to be profit centers. That should never have happened.

Then the case of the democratization of media arose because yet another cop beating was caught on tape ala Rodney King. (I guess blogs can be part of this too although they mostly center on opinion.) And the "common man" media can have an impact to a point. But when do we get used to this? At some point we all get desensitized. Tom Morrello, another panelist said this:

MORELLO: I don’t think that there’s – that police brutality is more now than it has been in the past, but it is – what is disturbing to me is that people are not, you know, with pitchforks and torches in the streets when you see something like that. And that is a huge problem in our country that needs to be dealt with.

To which Dreyfuss responded with something that gave me the motivation to start this blog:

DREYFUSS: That’s the constancy that you can learn. You can actually learn the constancy of curiosity and the constancy of outrage. You can learn that it is okay to keep asking the questions and to be dissenters. And if you don’t, if you’re not taught it, then you don’t know it. But we owe ourselves and the United States that we will pass off to our children, to relearn the tools of reason, logic, clarity, dissent, civility and debate.
And those things are the – the nonpartisan basis of democracy. And without them, you can kiss this thing goodbye. And it is up to us – it is up to us – it wasn’t because of a conspiracy that this left. It was thoughtlessness. And what you have to do is get it back. And what happens now in this partisan-addicted country of ours, is the Democrats are afraid that if they send their kids to civics classes, they might not come back Democrats, and Republicans are afraid their kids won’t come back Republicans. But – but civics, the expertise needed to understand western enlightenment and civil liberties, is not something you’re born with. You have to learn it.
And if you – and we teach our kids what we want them to know and we don’t teach them what we don’t want them to know. And that’s not a conspiracy. That’s human nature. And you have to – we have to – remember, that unless we teach the ideas that make America a miracle in government, a miracle that everyone knows is a miracle, unless we teach what that means, then it will go away in your kids’ lifetime. And we will be a fable. We will be a tale told about this place that used to stand up for blah-blah-blah.
You have to teach it. You have to find the time and creativity to teach it in school. And if you don’t, then you will lose it to fundamentalists of any stripe. You will lose it to stupidity. You will lose it to the darkness. And what this country represents is a tiny twinkle of light in a history of oppression and darkness and cruelty.
And if it lasts for more than our lifetime or our kids’ lifetime, it is only due to the fact that we put some effort into teaching what it is, the ideas of America, the idea of opportunity, mobility, freedom of thought, freedom of assembly.
And if you don’t teach it, it’ll go away. And in the middle of the night, when the towers fall, we will not say, “What am I responsible for?” We will say, “Tell us what to do.” And, remember, democracy, in any form, is only 200 or 300 years old. Kingship is 10,000—

MAHER: [overlapping] No, it’s not. It goes back to Athens.

DREYFUSS: No, I mean, in practice, in the way we live with each other. In the practice—

MAHER: Well, they practiced it in ancient Greece.

DREYFUSS: And then it went away for 2,000 years. And what we’ve had is monarchy and theocracy and all kind of – you know, “God tells the king and the king tells us.” And the idea of being personally responsible for your government is a twinkle. It’s only as old as, you know, since Victoria’s death. And we have to support it, or we will, else, instinctively react, as we have for 10,000 years: “Tell us what to do.” And we’ll chuck these liberties the moment the next terrorist horror happens.

Thank you Richard Dreyfuss.

civ·ics
n. The branch of political science that deals with civic affairs and the rights and duties of citizens.