S021.E05: Christoph Waltz; Ari Melber; Sarah Isgur

[tessaray]

Air Date: February 17, 2023

Bill’s guests are Christoph Waltz, Ari Melber, and Sarah Isgur.

[Mr. R0b0t]

-Sarah really nailed RW talking point bingo tonight.  Now I want a therapy puppy to walk me to class.

-Why does it make so much sense that Bill has no idea about Cracker Barrel or Waffle House?  He champions himself for going to red states to do comedy shows, but apparently only goes from his private plane to the 4-star hotel to the comedy venue and back to the airport.  Hard to have credibility as a both-sides truth-teller when you out yourself on air as having no idea about the punchlines you're throwing around.

-Bill wants credit for his covid opinion before any science backed it up.  Where I'm from that's is called coincidence.  Blind squirrel brags about finding nut; news at 11.

-Bill left out one aspect of his monologue.... all those actors worked together because at the end of the day THEY WERE PROFESSIONALS. RW politicians are not interested in professionalism (or actual governance for that matter).

[Starchild]

Waltz seems like a tough, contrarian interviewee.

[arachne]

Call me crazy, old-fashioned, whatever -- but rather than wait for "natural immunity" to set in, I'll just get vaxxed and avoid infection in the first place. (Yeah, I know there's still a chance for it, but vaccination lowers the risk quite a bit.)

I've eaten at Cracker Barrel. FWIW, some of the dishes are fine, but the biscuits/gravy are terrible! Stay away!

Anyone else notice that the longer in the tooth Bill gets, the more concerned he is about ageism? I don't recall him talking like that on Politically Incorrect. 

[aghst]

2 hours ago, arachne said:

Call me crazy, old-fashioned, whatever -- but rather than wait for "natural immunity" to set in, I'll just get vaxxed and avoid infection in the first place. (Yeah, I know there's still a chance for it, but vaccination lowers the risk quite a bit.)

He was never aggressively anti-vax from the beginning.  IIRC, he didn't have a strong position on the initial vaccine doses but then turned against boosters as he got more strident about masks.

Maybe he was pissed that he got infected after being vaccinated and had to miss a show.

Yeah he can take a victory lap over the fact that hundreds of thousands of people in this country died because they weren't vaccinated.  Still remains the case that the unvaccinated are more likely to die than vaccinated, if any prior infection was over a years old.

If you survive infection without vaccination you might have better protection vs. re-infection, though past studies showed that infection didn't produce consistent levels of neutralizing antibodies like vaccines did.

Or you might have survived it but you have acute long covid symptoms or may have aged your organ and immune system, even if you don't have obvious lingering symptoms.

 

 

[Hedgehog2022]

OMG...he's still going on about the vaccine??? O dear god...doesn't he have ANYTHING else to talk about??? This is just pathetic. HBO...please do us a favor and cancel this show. 

[Salacious Kitty]

22 minutes ago, Hedgehog2022 said:

OMG...he's still going on about the vaccine??? O dear god...doesn't he have ANYTHING else to talk about??? This is just pathetic. HBO...please do us a favor and cancel this show. 

I think they just gave him a 2 year extension. 👎

[The Solution]

I wonder what Ari Melber did to piss off the powers that be at MSNBC that he had to appear on this show. Ari seriously is one of my all time favorites.

Criminy! Sarah Isgur is a piece of work too!

Edited February 18, 2023 by The Solution

[canaanite2]

Bill opening an interview with "here's something we have in common, you're from Europe and I find that Europeans like me more because of their sophistication" is next level narcissism. CW simply stating he's a naturalized citizen who watched the superbowl was next level IDGAF and I loved it. 

So on this episode Bill managed to shoehorn three of his personal grievances.

1:  These kids today with the wokeness amiright in the form of "asking a question" of CW about how he feels about the topic seeing that he has young adult kids with CW basically not responding (did Bill expect the man to insult his own kids in front of millions?)

2:  College sucks and isn't necessary. Neither guest indulged this since it was way besides the point of the conversation they were having. 

3:  Society is kowtowing to the trans movement. Neither guest took the bait on this, likely because they both knew Bill's simplistic characterization of the NYT story being about journalists covering a whistleblower who wants to protect children with trans activists refusing to listen to facts isn't what's actually happening.  Funny how Bill is suddenly all "what about the chillldrrren??" when it comes this particular topic. 

 

Edited February 19, 2023 by canaanite2

[Tara]

8 hours ago, Mr. R0b0t said:

Sarah really nailed RW talking point bingo tonight.

Funny, I thought just the opposite. Ari just kept bringing everything back to Trumpism, and how great and honest MSNBC is, not really in the conversation, but just putting out talking points.

I thought Sarah was spot on saying the news stations are about making money, and the business model is no longer advertising, but catering to one side or the other. Absolutely spot on.

Waffle House. My husband always would want to get breakfast there while we were traveling over the years. I always said I’m not eating in one of those hideous-looking boxes of a restaurant. One day, after dropping off someone at the airport for an early morning flight, I was starving and gave in, as it was the only thing open. I LOVED my eggs, hash browns, cinnamon toast, and bacon. Cooked just the way I like it. Color me surprised as hell.

Edited February 19, 2023 by Tara

[Hanahope]

What is red neck food?  I’ve never heard that.  A bit elitist Bill?

I have to admit it’s so refreshing not to have the type of guest that runs at the mouth and constantly shouts over others and not let them speak.  The last 2 weeks of guests have been good panels.  
 

I listen/watch to msnbc and I never thought the former president would be indicted and I don’t recall anyone saying he would be.  I’m sure there were opinions on should.  
 

it’s a shame news stations are more interested in ratings than news these days.  

[arachne]

17 hours ago, The Solution said:

I wonder what Ari Melber did to piss off the powers that be at MSNBC that he had to appear on this show. Ari seriously is one of my all time favorites.

Maybe Bill was hoping that Ari would start quoting rap lyrics. 

😉

Now that I think of it, I did eat at a Waffle House once, in Florida (a place I would never visit nowadays.) I ordered chicken breast with eggs, a variation of steak/eggs. Whatever they did with the chicken was incredible; I could cut it with a fork -- no knife needed! Now that's what I call "culinary savantism."

Edited February 19, 2023 by arachne

[heatherchandler]

RT is the #1 show on hbo right now.  I don’t know about ratings but there are obviously a lot of “us” that like him.

I was glad he brought up the train derailment in Ohio, I get my news from all sources and cnn had nothing about it.. well one article and it was about how important it was that the company burn the train, rather than explore other options.  If I didn’t go elsewhere for news, I wouldn’t have known that the explosion should have been the last resort, according to a guy who worked for the EPA.  People getting sick and animals dying, and there was nothing about that!

The thing about natural immunity and why it is important to know that it DOES offer protection is not that you should wait for that, rather than get vaccinated, it is that the people who already had covid, and didn’t want to be forced to be vaccinated but were told they had to, or they lost their jobs were losing their jobs for nothing, it turns out.

[aghst]

Really, RT is more popular than The Last of Us?

 

[tessaray]

The interview seemed awkward and there were a few spots where I rolled my eyes but the show overall wasn't bad. At least not as rage inducing as some others. And I happen to agree with the final New Rules - lots of people loathe their coworkers and still manage to do their jobs. 

My heart hurts for the trans kids being denied medical care. I wish Bill would just shut up about it. This is between the families and their doctors. 

[ApocalypseThen]

Did anyone watch the Overtime segment? Sarah Isgur made a reference to Don Lemon's comments about "women's prime" that got him in hot water at CNN. Bill was squirming a bit and changed the subject. It almost looked like someone behind the camera gave him the signal to move on. 😂

 

 

[canaanite2]

Quote

RT is the #1 show on hbo right now.  I don’t know about ratings but there are obviously a lot of “us” that like him.

There's also a lot of us who don't care much for Bill, but enjoy the show overall and appreciate how unique and important it is to have a show like this within such a polarized society.  

[aghst]

Remember the Dennis Miller show?

After he really turned his politics?

He wasn't quite bad as Bill these days but those smirking, sneering riffs that Miller used to do all the time was highly annoying.

 

 

[AgentRXS]

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[TakomaSnark]

On 2/19/2023 at 6:18 PM, heatherchandler said:

RT is the #1 show on hbo right now.  I don’t know about ratings but there are obviously a lot of “us” that like him.

I was glad he brought up the train derailment in Ohio, I get my news from all sources and cnn had nothing about it.. well one article and it was about how important it was that the company burn the train, rather than explore other options.  If I didn’t go elsewhere for news, I wouldn’t have known that the explosion should have been the last resort, according to a guy who worked for the EPA.  People getting sick and animals dying, and there was nothing about that!

The thing about natural immunity and why it is important to know that it DOES offer protection is not that you should wait for that, rather than get vaccinated, it is that the people who already had covid, and didn’t want to be forced to be vaccinated but were told they had to, or they lost their jobs were losing their jobs for nothing, it turns out.

Source? According to Flix Patrol, out of thirty-six shows on HBO, Real Time is presently #34. Ahead of The Big Bang Theory and The Winchesters.

Edited February 23, 2023 by TakomaSnark

[heatherchandler]

8 hours ago, TakomaSnark said:

Source? According to Flix Patrol, out of thirty-six shows on HBO, Real Time is presently #34. Ahead of The Big Bang Theory and The Winchesters.

It’s not the #1 show in it’s time slot, it’s on premium cable.  I saw it on a ratings site, someone at work pulled up, it said Real Time is the number 1 show on hbo right now, it has a .630 or something and other shows like The Last of Us has a .385.  Those are not exact, it’s just what I remember seeing. I believe they were the numbers for viewers watching on 1st run.  

[sugarbaker design]

On 2/18/2023 at 7:16 PM, canaanite2 said:

CW simply stating he's a naturalized citizen who watched the superbowl was next level IDGAF and I loved it. 

The highlight of the episode!