S17.E24: Sheldon Whitehouse, Killer Mike, Carl Hulse, Rick Wilson, and Betsy Woodruff

[Guest]

Airs August 16, 2019

Guests: Sheldon Whitehouse, Killer Mike, Carl Hulse, Rick Wilson, and Betsy Woodruff

[Robert Lynch]

!??! 

That topic went off the rails when Killer Mike showed up. WTF?

[Mr. R0b0t]

Agree....normally I can follow Killer Mike down his pathway but that night was not last night.  I wish they'd let Rick Wilson cook a little more...I have enjoyed him so much in his role as a never-Trumper.

[DoctorAtomic]

No, Bill, people were mad at Tyson because he's a boorish asshole. What opinion exactly was he expressing? That he can read data? And? 

Tyson is enamored of himself very much. How about you learn something about risk communication and perception? Smarmy bitch. 

Every time Mike is on, the show derails. He should just be a first guest. He killed with the house n word though. 

Sarah though I can see Bill's point there. 

Edited August 17, 2019 by DoctorAtomic

[DoctorAtomic]

Give me a break blaming mass shootings on phones. 

[bobbyjoe]

Quote

No, Bill, people were mad at Tyson because he's a boorish asshole. What opinion exactly was he expressing? That he can read data? And? 

Real Time With Bill Maher should be renamed The Show Without Context.  

No, people didn’t cancel their subscriptions to The New York Times because of that one headline, they cancelled them because they were fed up with the longtime pattern of the many instances of the NYT covering up or prettying up for Trump and his cronies.  That headline was the last straw for a lot of people, not, as Bill and his NYT guest would have you believe, some sudden kneejerk (a term his guest actually used) reaction.

Likewise, the blowback at Tyson didn’t happen in some vacuum, nor just come out of nowhere.   Tyson was tweeting out an extremely common tactic people have seen a lot of— way too much of— in trying to downplay or derail discussions about gun control and he was doing it the most dur hrr hrr way almost immediately after two incredibly traumatic events.  Again, this wasn’t a first time, kneejerk reaction, it was people saying enough of this kind of crap.

But you wouldn’t know any of that if you relied on Bill Maher’s context-less presentation of those situations.  He has a pre-decided thesis, and, gosh darn it, he’s gonna force things to fit his same old, same old schtick whether the facts actually have anything to do with that or not.

[DoctorAtomic]

What's wrong with people making a statement on how they choose how to spend their money anyway? Killer Mike had literally said that previously.

I certainly don't fault Bill for sticking up for his friends. I adore Silverman. And Bill is right, as he has said in a prior monologue - you can't apply today's standards to what people did in the past (to a point). From what he said about Silverman's bit, and how no one was outraged in 2007, then fine. He's also right, as a comedian, that their job is to toe that line and cross it sometimes. I'm sure some social scientist has a dissertation out there about how comedians have been agents of social change in America, and have been a driving force in the world. I mean that in a good way, and I hope that continues. That has zero to do with Tyson though.

Tyson was wrong on a technical level. Here's the thing - all of that stuff Tyson was talking about - people are trying to better with that. You have better medical procedures, better training; you design cars to be safer; there are suicide help lines, people try to raise awareness; doctors are continually working on flu vaccines. No one is going jack on guns and hasn't in a very long time. That's the problem and that's what Tyson misses.

Tyson is just the living embodiment of mansplaining. He's the textbook definition of - this is more of a comment than a question.

[Hooper]

Quote

Give me a break blaming mass shootings on phones. 

Does Bill not realize people in other countries also interact via cell phones?

[DoctorAtomic]

I have online friends. I'm not shooting anyone.

[Robert Lynch]

What happened to Tyson? He use to be so cool. Now he has become everybody's cranky uncle all of a sudden. 

[BK1978]

On 8/17/2019 at 11:11 PM, DoctorAtomic said:

I certainly don't fault Bill for sticking up for his friends. I adore Silverman. And Bill is right, as he has said in a prior monologue - you can't apply today's standards to what people did in the past (to a point). From what he said about Silverman's bit, and how no one was outraged in 2007, then fine. He's also right, as a comedian, that their job is to toe that line and cross it sometimes. I'm sure some social scientist has a dissertation out there about how comedians have been agents of social change in America, and have been a driving force in the world. I mean that in a good way, and I hope that continues. That has zero to do with Tyson though.

I have zero sympathy for Sarah.  She would be the one of the first people on the forefront of destroying someone if it was someone else that did what she did.  If you want to take part in "cancel culture" do not be surprised when your "allies" come after you for some slight.

[izabella]

I like Sheldon Whitehouse a lot, so was happy to see him in the first segement.  I hated being reminded in their discussion that our Senate majority represents 40 million fewer people than our Senate minority because there is nothing we will do to change that.