Bill Maher has a message for Democrats and I think we need to listen.

I think that sometimes Bill Maher can be a little strident, and I certainly do not agree with him on all issues.

But his defense of Nancy Pelosi here is spot on.

And his call for Democrats to start showing some real balls goes right along with my thinking these last several years as well.

I always thought that our first Democratic Senator in decades, Mark Begich, could actually have won a second term if he had only acted more like Congressman for life Don Young.

I do not mean ideologically of course, but when people criticize Don Young he says "fuck you!"

And I don't mean that figuratively.

Republicans in Alaska, and most other places in the country, are arrogant assholes, and yet they keep getting reelected because the voting public takes that for confident leadership.

Alaska politicians Ted Stevens, Frank Murkowski, and Don Young were, and some still are, incredibly arrogant assholes who never apologized for ANYTHING.

If Democrats want to win elections they may not have to be actual assholes, but they do have to have the confidence of their values, and an unapologetic stand on the issues they believe in. 

This upcoming blue wave may get a lot of Democrats into office, but if they want to stay there they better learn to stand defiant against bullshit attacks and attempts to paint them as wishy washy. 

Bill Maher mocks Trumpsters over the border wall.

My favorite part of this was that Maher delivered it while sitting right next to Anthony Scaramucci, who holds the record for the shortest stint in any administration ever.

Maher also made fun of the Nunes memo, suggesting that it read like a glorified "Facebook post that you scan before you click unfriend."

Real Time returned last night and Bill Maher wasted no time in courting controversy by talking about the #MeToo movement.

Maher is making some very good points here, that I think a number of us have also discussed in the past.

The #MeToo movement is overall a very positive thing, but it can render itself completely ineffective if those participating do not exercise a little objectivity.

Bill Maher's New Rules: Get it in Writing.

This was a great one last night. And oh so true.

I have to admit I'm a little jealous that Maher found such a great bad photo of Sarah Palin which apparently escaped my attention.

Last night Bill Maher's New Rules featured a face familiar to all of us here on IM.

What did he call Sarah Palin?

The Daenerys Stillborn of the House of Pancakes? Yeah, I liked that.

Of course what most people are talking about concerning the show today, was this:

This just happened on @RealTimers with @billmaher pic.twitter.com/P58uThgMYs

— Matt Wilstein (@mattwilstein) August 12, 2017

I am not sure that is an actual unretouched photo, but I firmly believe one just like it exists somewhere.

Pretty good show last night though it is becoming increasingly obvious that the Trump administration is becoming so ridiculous as to defy any attempts at parody.

All Maher has to do is dictate what is actually happening to his audience and then wait for the shocked gasps and uneasy laughter.  

Last night Bill Maher addressed progress and the jobs we will never, and should never, see again.

I thought last night's show was pretty entertaining, though I could have done without that Breitbart apologist coming on and attempting to suggest that his website does the country a service by covering the news stories that the MSM will not cover.

In other words the fake ones.

However apparently he got schooled by intelligence analyst Malcom Nance who demanded an apology for a false article on Breitbart that resulted in he and his family receiving 31 death threats. 

Bill Maher tells Liberals that they are wasting their time trying to win over Trump supporters with facts.

Courtesy of Raw Story: 

“Trump supporters aren’t changing their minds because the problem isn’t in the mind. It’s lower. It’s emotional,” Maher said. “He could have Ann Frank’s skeleton in his closet. They’d all vote for him again.” 

Asking why, Maher walked through the cultural crisis many of the undervalued white voters face that Trump managed to harness. “I think it’s a gut feeling that the world has changed and they don’t like it,” he said. “Trump is going to change it back to the way it was.” 

Speaking occasionally in a thick southern accent, Maher railed against “damn Mexicans” flooding baseball fields like “the parking lot at Home Depot.” He was furious about two boys kissing on the kiss-cam. “And did I mention Bruce Jenner has tits now?” 

“I ain’t no racist, but why does American need to have a black Santa Claus?” Maher asked. “I think I speak for most liberals when I say, I don’t care about black Santa. I don’t think it’s going to make the Little Drummer Boy start cutting himself. But to Trump voters, making Santa black is unthinkable. It’d be like making Jesus Middle Eastern.”

Not only was that pretty damn funny, but it was also pretty damn true.

And I think is what really frustrates those of us whose thinking is reality based.

In my mind if Russia is working hard to get a candidate elected, that disqualifies them out of hand.

And if a candidate is caught on tape talking about grabbing pussies, that is a non-starter.

But to the Trump supporters those are either forgivable sins, or bullshit made up by the "liberal media."

Stupid is stupid, and it is apparently impervious to change.

So in response we just need to flood the upcoming elections with smart, liberal, forward thinking candidates, and push these paint chip eaters back to the fringe where they belong.

Last night Bill Maher said that "Republicans need to learn the difference between being conservative and just being a dick." Wait, there's a difference?

Courtesy of Raw Story: 

In the New Rules segment of HBO’s Real Time, host Bill Maher tore into the Republican Party for rolling back safety and environmental regulations simply because “they’re d*cks.” 

“So much of what they have done since Trump took over isn’t moving the party in a more conservative direction. It’s also not Libertarian. It’s just a d*ck move,” Maher began. 

“Republicans have to learn the difference between being a conservative and just being a d*ck,” the HBO host said before adding that conservatism has become “just about some warped idea that the way to show strength is by being a d*ck and that, in a nutshell, is what Republicanism has become – looking at any problem and saying, ‘What would a d*ck do?’”

The examples that Maher provides are brutal, and make it virtually impossible for most of us to believe that anything motivates the Republicans other than greed and abject sadism.

I mean seriously, asbestos?

It's like we are living in a country where half the politicians are fighting to protect as many people as possible, and the other half are attempting to loosen the gun laws so they can walk around arbitrarily shooting people in the head.

And I have to say it really makes me worry about the future of this country.

Last night Bill Maher took aim at Donald Trump's enablers.

Courtesy of Raw Story: 

Singling out Vice President Mike Pence, press secretary Sean Spicer, and advisors Kellyanne Conway and Stephen Miller, the Real Time host called them out for going on TV and pretending, “Trump didn’t say what everybody just heard him say.” 

“New rule,” Maher began, “If you get up everyday and try and make Donald Trump’s ludicrous and dangerous pronouncements sound normal and sane, you are an enabler.” 

“Twenty years from now when your kids ask you, over a glass of Soylent Green, ‘What did you do during the Trump years, daddy?’ You don’t want your answer to be, ‘My job was to go on TV and say my job was to go on TV and pretend Trump didn’t say what everybody just heard him say,'” Maher continued. 

“Without these professional liars and deniers, there is no Trump,” Maher added. “It takes a village to help a man-child stay in power. And the excuse, ‘I am just doing my job’ is starting to sound a whole lot like I was just following orders.”

You know just last week I wondered what kind of person can go on TV and defend Donald Trump in the morning and then look at themselves in the mirror at night and not want to hold their head under the bathwater until the bubbles stop.

I still don't know, because I can tell you that if it were MY job to defend Donald Trump you would have found me face down in my tub on day two of my employment.

Bill Maher's New Rules was pretty great last night.

There was a lot of very interesting debate last night (He even had the Liberal Redneck on!), but for me the best part might have been Maher's final remarks:

"You can unfriend somebody whose politics you don't like, but you can't unfriend 47% 0f America. Roommates can move out, patriots can't. America needs you, more than ever. Right here. With me. And the rest of the resistance. Until we can figure out how to REALLY make America great again. And don't ever let them forget, we're still here." 

Yes, yes we are. And we will definitely some back in larger numbers and with more focus than ever before.

Remember progress IS coming.

Ever once in a while it just temporarily loses its way.

On last night's Real Time Bill Maher pointed out the real reason Trump is the GOP nominee. America is full of stupid people.

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

“Last November when Trump was losing in Iowa, he said in Iowa, to Iowans,’How stupid are the people of Iowa?’ Maher said, playing the Clip of Trump. He noted that Trump is now leading in Iowa and expected to win. “So I guess he got his answer. That’s how stupid.” 

It isn’t only Republicans either. According to Maher. Many of Bernie Sanders’ supporters have switched to being Gary Johnson voters. Yet, Johnson essentially opposes everything that Sanders stands for, with the exception of marijuana legalization. 

Maher quoted results from recent polls where Americans were asked a series of what should have been very simple questions. Things like: “Does the sun go around the earth or the earth around the sun.” A full quarter of Americans got the answer wrong. At the same time, 35 percent of Americans can’t name one branch of government. Even the Governor of Oklahoma, an avid Trump supporter, got that one wrong. Sadly, only 36 percent can name all three branches and who knows how many people think the kardashianK are one of them? Maher cited a whopping 80 percent of Americans who think Ramadan is those cheap noodles college kids eat.

In case you are wondering how Maher can talk about stupid people in America without bringing up Sarah Palin, well he can't and you can see her mentioned at the 3:25 mark.

You know we are constantly warned not to call stupid people stupid, because it hurts their stupid feelings.

But the facts are the facts, and if they were not so stupid they would realize that.

Besides the increasing numbers of stupid people is not an accident.

This has been a long term plan by the conservatives to undermine education in this country by teaching kids to fill in the box rather than to think outside of one, to value test taking over critical thinking, and to create cogs in a machine rather than to reward imagination and creativity.

And when children are not having their inner light dimmed by an education system that does not value their uniqueness, they are home in front of a TV watching reality shows which celebrate tantrums, insults, and immaturity.

The question to ask is not how we got a Donald Trump candidacy, the question to ask is why did it take so long?

Bill Maher's New Rule on Donald Trump and his supporters is a must see.

Maher makes excellent points about how Trump's description of a failing America are bullshit, and how his most ardent supporters are living high on the hog while bitching that their country is being taken away from them.

At one point I think he almost killed James Carville who it appears did a real life spit take after the joke about Dick Cheney still being alive.

Good show the other night and I actually cheered out loud when during the monologue Maher made reference to Trump's lewd tape.

I was afraid that the show had been filmed before the tape was made public.

Bill Maher says that we all need to stop focusing on symbolic political fights and focus instead on defeating Donald Trump.

Courtesy of Raw Story:

In this year’s election, Real Time host Bill Maher said on Friday, progressives must be willing to set aside their own pet causes in the name of stopping Donald Trump from being elected. 

“You know me — I have seeds in my urine,” said Maher, who has openly called for marijuana legalization. “But if someone told me that pushing for pot might cost Hillary [Clinton] Ohio, until Nov. 8, I’m gonna shut the f*ck up about it.”

Maher makes some very good points, and I especially liked when he suggested that candidate Obama only said that he was against gay marriage in 2008 to keep meth head Sarah Palin from ending up "four feet away from the Oval Office."

Hard to believe he is going on hiatus for a month. I think things are only going to get crazier, and more out of control, from here on out.

If we can even imagine such a thing.

Bill Maher reminds conservatives that they can't blame liberals for Donald Trump.

Courtesy of Salon:

“Conservatives can blame liberals for a lot of things,” Maher said during his “New Rules” segment. “The one thing you’re not gonna get to blame us for is Donald Trump.” 

“If we have to own the man-bun, you have to own The Donald,” he added. 

The logic behind the theory is that left-wing PC policing led to the oppositional rise of Trump and his rabid voter base. 

“That is their theory, that Trump voters are perfectly nice if left alone,” Maher said. “Like raccoons, they just want to eat garbage and crap in your hot tub.”

Yeah Trump is not our fault, can't blame us.

But do you know who we can blame?

 And whose fault were they?

Once again, certainly not ours.

Last night Bill Maher called Donald Trump exactly what he is, a whiny little bitch.

Courtesy of Raw Story:

Bill Maher ended Friday’s episode of Real Time by once again mocking Donald Trump’s masculinity, arguing that the stereotypes about 1950s housewives really do apply to the Republican candidate. 

“Never forget, Lady Trump, that Hillary Clinton was born a woman,” he said. “But you chose to live your life as a whiny little b*tch. Which is why, if Hillary is the Democratic nominee, I’ll be voting for the only one who has balls.”

I am sure that there will be some conservative women who will feign outrage and claim that what Maher said was demeaning to women,

But it wasn't, unless of course Donald Trump's penis is even smaller than we suspect.

Bill Maher does the impossible for liberals, choosing between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.

Courtesy of HuffPo:

Maher criticized Republicans for whittling down their 17 initial candidates to two people who were essentially like the former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and the late Sen. Joe McCarthy (R-Wis.), notorious for his “witch-hunt“ for suspected Communists in the 1950s. “Hillary Clinton is not a sure thing,” the comedian added. “You need a fall back besides suicide and Canada.” 

He detailed the differences between Trump and Cruz, describing the former as “like Ebola, he’ll violently kill you right away” and the latter as “more like the Zika virus, we won’t see the damage until future generations.” 

My favorite part was of course was identifying Trump supporters Sarah Palin, Chris Christie, and Ben Carson as "Catty, Fatty, and Batty.".

Bill Maher points out that the only time conservatives seem to show empathy for others, is when they are affected as well.

Very good points.

I loved the Dick Cheney bit and the reminder that John McCain is tortured by his choice of Sarah Palin as his VP choice in 2008.

Bill Maher's take on our surveillance nation from last night's New Rules is spot on.

Usually I post these because Maher makes some great point using a little humor.

However the selling point for this one is that is laugh out loud funny.

And yes, it also makes a great point.

P.S. By the way the discussion about the McKinney cop and that pool party was pretty interesting as well.

Bill Maher wonders how the Republicans made Rand Paul their bitch, and claims that "crazy is their constituency."

Maher starts off lamenting the fact that he used to think that Rand Paul was the kind of Republican he might have been able to vote for (Spoiler alert: He wasn't.), before turning his sites on the freakout in Texas over Jade Helm 15.

Courtesy of Raw Story:

Maher also chided Paul for saying he would “look into” Jade Helm 15, the military training exercises that sent Texas conservatives — and Gov. Greg Abbott — into an uproar out of fear US troops were trying to impose martial law on their state. 

Texas Republicans had no need to worry anybody was “messing” with them, Maher said — people are already happy to leave them alone. 

“You’ve outlawed abortion, you’ve gutted government regulation, you’re armed to the teeth,” he said. “You’re the white Somalia.”

Maher followed up by telling Texas to "Stop worrying about getting sucked into the New World Order, you're barely in the old world order. And the only reason we conduct military exercises in your area is there's no chance of accidentally damaging anything anybody cares about."

Boy I bet Florida is pissed off lately with Texas stealing all of attention for THEIR crazy people.

Looks like it time for them to do a little alligator wrestling in the Florida Capitol, beat somebody to death with one of those plastic pink flamingos, or catch a partially clothed charter school principle in marijuana smoke filled car with a student.

Wow Florida, that was fast.

Bill Maher calls Republicans who deny climate change to keep donations flowing "prostitutes." Which personally I think is an insult to prostitutes everywhere.

Courtesy of Mediaite: 

Bill Maher ended his show tonight  (Actually last night.) by going after Republican “zombie lies” on the environment and basically calling them “prostitutes” for denying climate change just to satisfy donors. 

He ripped into candidates like Rick Perry, Jeb Bush, and Ted Cruz for raising serious questions about established science on climate change, before saying the whole thing was “never about facts to begin with.”

I loved this:

" In 2013 an MIT professor studies almost 11,000 peered reviewed articles about climate change. And there were only two dissenters. So yes, there is a scientific community that doubts climate change. But it could fit on a motorcycle."

I think that is one of the best metaphors I have ever heard to explain just how vast and overwhelming the research is that supports the fact of climate change, and that the change is the fault of man.

The sad fact is we no longer have the luxury of arguing about this anymore, we have to act.

And the even sadder fact is that we have spent so much time arguing, that what we do now will have limited impact on reversing the damage that we have already caused.