S16.E24: Preet Bharara, Adam Conover, Jennifer Granholm, Charlie Sykes, and Jonathan Swan

[formerlyfreedom]

Quote

Former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm (D), The Daily Standard podcast host Charlie Sykes, Axios national political reporter Jonathan Swan, and host of "Adam Ruins Everything" Adam Conover.

[Robert Lynch]

I must admit I did laugh at the New Rules synopsis of Tomb Raider. If you play those games on PS1, you do realize there is not much of a plot to begin with.

[Mumbles]

So glad Maher came out for Alex Jones’s First Amendment rights. Maybe his theories are crackpot, but hoaxes have been known to happen (the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the U.S.S Maine) and we shouldn’t silence people just because they’re obnoxious weirdos. Maybe Bill is thinking of his own experience of losing Politically Incorrect for challenging the Bush official line.

[GoldenGirl90]

When they were talking about the Oscars coming up with a new category and Bill mentioned the “fish fucker movie, I can never remember the title,” I BUSTED out laughing! I don’t really watch the Oscars and I haven’t seen that movie (The Shape of Water) but I could totally relate because I can never remember the name of it, either. 

Also, about Omarosa: I don’t like the woman at all and her credibility is pretty much nonexistent, but how amazing would it be if a black woman were the one to actually take Trump down? For the record I don’t think anything will take him down at this point, just sayin’. If someone showed me a movie script of everything that has happened during this administration thus far I’d absolutely believe it was all completely made-up... 

[iMonrey]

Oh good grief, here we go again. Even when Bill has panelists who are able to clearly explain to him that a right to free speech does not mean a right to a platform, he says "Yes, but . . ." so he claims he gets that, but clearly he does not. He is never going to get over being butt-hurt about the Berkley incident, and he is never going to get past his belief that college kids are all a bunch of snowflakes. At this point he should probably be relegated to the front porch so he can shake his cane at those rotten kids on his lawn.

[GoldenGirl90]

1 minute ago, iMonrey said:

Oh good grief, here we go again. Even when Bill has panelists who are able to clearly explain to him that a right to free speech does not mean a right to a platform, he says "Yes, but . . ."

Yeah, Bill was doing a lot of the “Yes, but...” thing   during the course of the show.

[sistermagpie]

2 hours ago, Mumbles said:

So glad Maher came out for Alex Jones’s First Amendment rights. Maybe his theories are crackpot, but hoaxes have been known to happen (the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the U.S.S Maine) and we shouldn’t silence people just because they’re obnoxious weirdos. Maybe Bill is thinking of his own experience of losing Politically Incorrect for challenging the Bush official line.

Alex Jones has not had his First Amendment rights taken away and hasn't been silenced, though. There's good reason not to compare real things that have happened to whatever comes out of his mouth as if it's all the same.

Edited August 18, 2018 by sistermagpie

[ganesh]

1 hour ago, Alexis2291 said:

Also, about Omarosa: I don’t like the woman at all and her credibility is pretty much nonexistent, but how amazing would it be if a black woman were the one to actually take Trump down? For the record I don’t think anything will take him down at this point, just sayin’. If someone showed me a movie script of everything that has happened during this administration thus far I’d absolutely believe it was all completely made-up... 

Agreed, but I don't care what her credibility is. You get low level scum gangsters to rat out the boss when you're building a RICO case. If those recordings are authentic, then her credibility isn't really relevant. 

1 hour ago, iMonrey said:

Even when Bill has panelists who are able to clearly explain to him that a right to free speech does not mean a right to a platform, he says "Yes, but . . ." so he claims he gets that, but clearly he does not. He is never going to get over being butt-hurt about the Berkley incident, and he is never going to get past his belief that college kids are all a bunch of snowflakes. At this point he should probably be relegated to the front porch so he can shake his cane at those rotten kids on his lawn.

And again, Bill needs a civics lesson. And again, as we said with Coulter, who can pull up a chair at Sproul Plaza at Berkeley during lunch and say literally anything she wants; she can even sit next to the guy who dresses up as Hitler, here, Jones absolutely has the right to say exactly what he wants. Go to the train station and set up there. Do Snapchat to your followers. Also, it's a week. 

While I do tend to think Berkeley students overreacted, Bill seems to forget that he gave a 5 minute (very good) monologue on what he would talk about at graduation. 

What Bill is missing about Jones, is that is not totally about speech, and they only touched on this on the show. Taking aside that his speech causes trauma, what the real point is the lack of a platform for Jones means that he can't hock his products. His 'act' is merely a vehicle to sell snake oil. That's it. People are getting fed up with it. You're not guaranteed a platform, and you're not free from consequences. 

Good show though. The mid show bit was flat, but the US Attorney was excellent, and the mid show guest was funny and knowledgeable. I honestly thought Bill was way too easy on the church scandal. Letting women in and letting them all marry is just garbage. They aren't sorry, they're sorry they got caught. Throw these people in jail. Tax the churches. Stop going. 

[Maherjunkie]

I don't think it's garbage, I just don't think it solves the problem.

[sistermagpie]

10 minutes ago, Maherjunkie said:

I don't think it's garbage, I just don't think it solves the problem.

Yes, I think when it comes to priests it's very much central to the problem. It's because of the celibacy rule that the Catholic Church developed such a robust secret sex world going on that they instinctively covered up. Trouble is they see all sex as equally bad, with maybe sex between two men being slightly worse. They don't seem to know sexual abuse when they see it and they've got a huge system in place for protecting these guys. It makes total sense they're such a haven for them.

It wouldn't totally solve the problem--as Bill pointed out, there's sexual abuse outside the church. But it's not irrelevant at all.

Edited August 18, 2018 by sistermagpie

[ganesh]

All I heard from the panel was excuses and stop gap measures. Wipe out the statue of limitations on child abuse and throw then in jail. Throw anyone else in jail that was/is an accomplice or part of the cover up. We'll see how fast it gets fixed. 

As they correctly pointed out, football coaches, i.e., Sandusky, Paterno, were married and had children, family, etc. I'm just not buying the panel. 

[Victor the Crab]

2 hours ago, Mumbles said:

So glad Maher came out for Alex Jones’s First Amendment rights. Maybe his theories are crackpot, but hoaxes have been known to happen (the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the U.S.S Maine) and we shouldn’t silence people just because they’re obnoxious weirdos. Maybe Bill is thinking of his own experience of losing Politically Incorrect for challenging the Bush official line.

Alex Jones has gone out of his way to deliberately hurt people. He called the Sandy Hook shooting a false flag operative and that the six to seven year old victims of the massacre were crisis actors brought in as part of a plot to eventually take away people's firearms. The parents of the victims have received death threats from Jones' followers for calling him out over their dead children. Imagine having to go through that horror.

And last month, Jones accused Robert Mueller of being a pedophile and threatened to take him out in a gunfight. And let's not forget Jade Helm, a regular military exercise that takes place frequently in Texas, which Jones said was a plot by Obama to take over the country and turn it into his own dictatorship, that got even state officials in Texas demanding answers from the military.

Alex Jones is an obnoxious crackpot who's free to say anything he wants without reprisal FROM THE GOVERNMENT! But not from private entities like Facebook, YouTube and such that have allowed him a platform to spew his vile bullshit up until now. Free speech does not mean free to say whatever you like without consequence.

And Bill need to get that same message continuously drilled into his thick skull because he still doesn't fucking get it, even after ABC cancelled his show Politically Incorrect (even though the reasoning behind it was bullshit). In fact, to take a page out of Bill -- NEW RULE: You don't get to complain about your free speech being violated until you first read up about what free speech actually means. Starting first by reading up on the First Amendment. 

[GHScorpiosRule]

When asked how Drumph escaped prosecution in New York for all those years on Overtime:

Preet: “My Bad.”

Me:???????

I ❤️❤️❤️ Preet so so much.

Edited August 18, 2018 by GHScorpiosRule

[ganesh]

Bill should look at the silver lining. ABC canned him and he's got an HBO show that allows him an enormous latitude in creative content, and, where he said the n-word on live television and essentially got away with it. 

I do wish Bill pushed back on the governor a little more about Cuomo. She kind of snipped at him about 'haven't you said anything dumb'. Yes, all the time, and completely irrelevant to the point. You know there's going to be about 57 million ads with Cuomo's quote, just like the "San Francisco values" ads. Democrats continually shoot themselves in the foot and continually cede the narrative just like she did here. "Oh he apologized and walked back from it." Do you realize that isn't the point at all? 

I'm really sick of hearing about the "blue wave" because it's 2016 all over again. 

[Caseysgirl]

Loved Preet trying to calm Bill down as he hysterically yelled “Traitor!Traitor!” Yes, what he’s alleged to have done could be traitorous, but let’s see what the Mueller investigation’s logical conclusions are. Alas, I feel that Jonathan Swan’s prediction that it may not prove a thing is probably true.  Using  a word like traitor becomes as meaningless as comparing someone to Hitler if it’s thrown around enough.

[ganesh]

11 minutes ago, Caseysgirl said:

Yes, what he’s alleged to have done could be traitorous, but let’s see what the Mueller investigation’s logical conclusions are.

That's true to a point, but Bill was saying that democrats needs to hammer the narrative more. He pointed out that Rudy is on tv like everyday, and while Preet was correct in saying that he's not telling the truth and just covering for Trump, that's also not the point. People don't care (largely). When he opened up the panel Bill was saying that it's past time to worry about whether it's going to backfire or not, which it might, because we're too deep into all the corruption. Rudy being on tv lying isn't being met consistently and forcefully. 

"We'll just wait for the report to come out" misses the point. The report is going to be discredited. Unless there's a huge smoking gun, which they said here that there probably won't be. All this Rudy on tv every night is laying the groundwork for when the report comes out. So maybe you don't say treason everyday. But Bill is correct in pointing out there's no push back either. 

[GoldenGirl90]

3 hours ago, ganesh said:

4 hours ago, Alexis2291 said:

 

Agreed, but I don't care what her credibility is. You get low level scum gangsters to rat out the boss when you're building a RICO case. If those recordings are authentic, then her credibility isn't really relevant. 

Oh I agree with you. Had she not recorded everything, everyone would’ve called her a liar. So far, everything she’s claimed has been corroborated by a recording. I’m looking forward to the other recordings she plans on releasing soon lmao. Even though I don’t like Omarosa, she’s no dummy and I think she’s being very strategic in what she’s releasing.

[ganesh]

I was dying when the guy who was sitting in the middle totally lost it when Bill cracked the joke about the Ugg boots.

[wknt3]

20 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Oh good grief, here we go again. Even when Bill has panelists who are able to clearly explain to him that a right to free speech does not mean a right to a platform, he says "Yes, but . . ." so he claims he gets that, but clearly he does not. He is never going to get over being butt-hurt about the Berkley incident, and he is never going to get past his belief that college kids are all a bunch of snowflakes. At this point he should probably be relegated to the front porch so he can shake his cane at those rotten kids on his lawn.

Yeah you would think that after having it repeatedly explained to him by smart people who are naturally inclined to support free expression he would start to get it, I mean when academics, pundits, comedians, actors, etc. who have experienced Twitter shit storms and overreaction from the professionally keep telling you that you are going too far and that this isn't suppressing free speech you'd start to rethink things. It's sort of like the KKK telling you that you're being too racist. At least we didn't have to hear about Berkeley...

Although personally I was far more disappointed by the discussion of Andrew Cuomo's gaffe. There was actually a kernel of a really interesting discussion there, where he was talking about how there was some truth there, but it was very poorly phrased and how the public can't handle subtlety and nuance. I would have loved to hear him expand on it, maybe talking about how telling unpopular truths is his job and politicians should be truthful, but not in the same way as journalists, or academics, or comrdians, and if there is a way to make their point without getting people who may be persuadable upset and playing in to their opponents hands they should do so and save unvarnished unpopular opinions for vital occasions when there is no other morally acceptable alternative. Or maybe discuss how the media does a bad job with these stories or how it mirrors Trump (as a NYS resident I've seen plenty of smart analysts who believe that his goal was to pick a fight with Trump and gain support in the party by pissing off the "enemy") Instead we just got a perfunctory rendition of "whatever Democrats do is wrong and they should do something else even if that goes against what I said on the last show." Sigh. The scripted bits were pretty good though and I think the show overall was much more cohesive than last week's disjointed misfire.

Edited August 19, 2018 by wknt3
fixed poor phrasing of my own

[sistermagpie]

44 minutes ago, wknt3 said:

Instead we just got a perfunctory rendition of "whatever Democrats do is wrong and they should do something else even if that goes against what I said on the last show."

And it's still coming from this weird position where you have Republicans openly siding with a foreign power against the US and cuddling up to Nazis and being fine with the president destroying the rule of law, but the Democrats are still the ones who've just blown everything by saying something that makes them sound like pinko hippies and now all the decent people are going to be too repulsed by them to vote.

It just openly admits that saying America was bad for having slavery is a big gaffe but saying America was better when it had slavery is perfectly okay.

[meowmommy]

3 hours ago, wknt3 said:

Although personally I was far more disappointed by the discussion of Andrew Cuomo's gaffe. There was actually a kernel of a really interesting discussion there, where he was talking about how there was some truth there, but it was very poorly phrased and how the public can't handle subtlety and nuance.

It reminds me very much of Jimmy Carter's so-called "malaise" speech.  If you don't tell 'Muricans every minute of every day that we're the bestest, brightest, smartest, holiest, kindest, bravest, purtiest, most extra-sooper-special flakes the heavens ever snowed, better than everyone else in the world, we get our panties in a twist.  It haunted Carter, and the panel may well be right that the Cuomo sound bite will live on in Republican ads.  Never mind that "Make America Great Again" by definition presumes a shortage of greatness.

10 hours ago, ganesh said:

Agreed, but I don't care what her credibility is. You get low level scum gangsters to rat out the boss when you're building a RICO case. If those recordings are authentic, then her credibility isn't really relevant.

The fact that Sammy the Bull Gravano was a cold-blooded killer didn't keep him from being the star witness who finally helped put the Teflon Don away.

Edited August 19, 2018 by meowmommy

[wknt3]

8 hours ago, meowmommy said:

It reminds me very much of Jimmy Carter's so-called "malaise" speech.  If you don't tell 'Muricans every minute of every day that we're the bestest, brightest, smartest, holiest, kindest, bravest, purtiest, most extra-sooper-special flakes the heavens ever snowed, better than everyone else in the world, we get our panties in a twist. Never mind that "Make America Great Again" by definition presumes a shortage of greatness.

 

This sounds exactly like waht the Politically Incorrect Bill Maher would have said!

Edited August 19, 2018 by wknt3

[scrb]

On 8/18/2018 at 8:21 AM, Mumbles said:

So glad Maher came out for Alex Jones’s First Amendment rights. Maybe his theories are crackpot, but hoaxes have been known to happen (the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the U.S.S Maine) and we shouldn’t silence people just because they’re obnoxious weirdos. Maybe Bill is thinking of his own experience of losing Politically Incorrect for challenging the Bush official line.

Nobody has "silenced" Alex Jones.

He can build up his own social network or video sharing site.

Apple, Youtube and Facebook are private companies.  They do not enforce or provide 1st amendment rights.

If Bill is worried that Alex can't get his message out he can have him on his show.

[Victor the Crab]

1 hour ago, scrb said:

If Bill is worried that Alex can't get his message out he can have him on his show.

Oh jeez, I can see it now. Bill will congratulate Jones for being "so brave" to come on his show, then Jones will start spewing his batshit yargle-bargle which will cause the audience to boo him and Bill will go whinny little baby on them for disrespecting his guest and his opinions. Sounds just like the kind of dumb ass move Bill would do.

[scrb]

Or instead of having him on in person, just play his stupid videos.

No, Bill doesn't want to air Jones' hateful spewings?

Yet when Apple, Google and Facebook does it, it's suppressing Jones' free speech?

[wknt3]

5 hours ago, Victor the Crab said:

Oh jeez, I can see it now. Bill will congratulate Jones for being "so brave" to come on his show, then Jones will start spewing his batshit yargle-bargle which will cause the audience to boo him and Bill will go whinny little baby on them for disrespecting his guest and his opinions. Sounds just like the kind of dumb ass move Bill would do.

Yep. First he will congratulate Jones for being so brave. Then he will congratulate himself for being so brave to have on a repulsive hatemonger who has told lies about him and his friends and is shunned by anyone with half a brain and/or a sense of decency. Next will be a rant about Berkeley. Then he will do a terrible interview with no preparation asking questions with about a half inch of depth like does he really believe in the Sandy Hook bullshit or about how he has said in court that it is all an act, which Jones will be prepared for and bat aside. There will be the lecture to the audience about not booing. Bill will move on after a half assed attempt at following up and maybe a quip. After a few minutes of this Bill will be satisfied that it's not Milo 2.0 and they will move on to alternative medicine/nutrition and Bill will talk about how Jones is more "reasonable" there and that is one area where he is unfairly criticized. Bill will then talk about how he doesn't agree with Jones about much, so he has a lot of guts showing up, and chide the audience again. They will move to the panel where Jon Favreau and Dan Savage attempt to explain to Bill everything he should have asked and what he would learned if he did any research while Jack Kingston or Darrell Issa say that Bill is off base in suggesting that conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones are the new face of the GOP, but they will carefully avoid real disagreements with what he said when the other panelists challenge him before Bill says they're getting bogged down in details and need to move on. Bill will complain that his "old friend" Barney Frank/Sarah Silverman/Michael Eric Dyson cancelled their appearance, refusing to share a stage with Jones and he can't figure out why. For the 5000th time we will rehash the whole free speech thing. Then we will move on to New Rules which will be about how the mainstream media pays too much attention to the fringe and needs to have higher standards about what they give air time to.

[Victor the Crab]

^^Pretty much, yeah.

[ganesh]

I'm going to give the production team some credit in that I think they'll head this off. 

Bill was legitimately trying to make the point in this episode that 'shining the light on' is a good strategy and brought up how the nazi rally in Washington D.C., was outnumbered and ridiculed. I do agree with that. I don't think that is an equivalent comparison with Jones, however. 

*If* and that's a big one, Bill wanted to expose Jones as the snake oil salesman he is, then I would totally be down for that. I don't think he has the spine though tbh. 

And I get the larger context Bill is thinking about in terms of free speech and how that relates to comedians. He's just not as introspective as he thinks he is. 

[formerlyfreedom]

Get back on topic, please - what actually happened on the show, not projecting what you think might happen. No posts have been removed at this time, but may be in the future.

[scrb]

Bill has this chip on his shoulder that the younger audiences are too PC for some of his brilliant jokes.

I've heard the same complaint from some right wing comedians like Nick di Paolo, who cites Bill Maher to prove it's not a political issue.

They can't stand that millennial crowds groan at some of their off color jokes rather than applaud them for their brilliance.  Bill is the same, if a joke doesn't land, he gives the audience the side eye.

But really it's these old comics who are out of touch with the times.  They're the ones who are being too sensitive because not every word they utter is met with huge laughs.

Anyways, Jones not being on Youtube is NOTHING like the city government of Skokie denying the nazis a permit to march.

[attica]

I liked Conover's jacket, suspenders and pocket squares. I go for nerdy flair like that. ( I love his show, and use it all the time to win water-cooler arguments. He also gets points from me for often using women scholars on his show, which more shows should do, BILL.) 

Also: Preet looks elegant with that beard.

[iMonrey]

Quote

Loved Preet trying to calm Bill down as he hysterically yelled “Traitor!Traitor!” 

While I share Bill's frustration with the Democratic party I feel like he is being willfully disingenuous about how politics work. Republicans can call Hillary a traitor and lie about Pizzagate etc. and their base will still vote for them. It's different for Democrats running for office, especially if they are in red states, and Bill knows that. They're not vying for the same type of voters and have to take a more moderate tone.

I also feel like Bill's argument about exposing alt-right antics by airing them in the light of day (or whatever analogy he was trying to make) is also contradictory to what Bill already knows is true about crazy conspiracy theorists. There are people who actually believe, whole-heartedly, crazy shit like Hillary Clinton running a child sex slave ring out of a pizza restaurant, or that the Sandy Hook shootings were faked. Those are both demonstrably untrue things if based on nothing but common sense but saying so doesn't stop people from believing them. You really should suffer some consequences for spreading lies like that.