Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO) - 9/14/18

[Rhiannon12866]

Monologue: Florence and the Ratings Machine

Bill recaps the top stories of the week, including Trump's feud with hurricanes and Paul Manafort's plea deal.




John Kerry: Truth Teller

Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry joins Bill to discuss President Trump's war on truth and his new memoir, "Every Day Is Extra."




I Don't Know It For a Fact... I Just Know It's True

Long before Donald Trump was "hearing things," Bill Maher was making baseless assertions in a segment called "I Don't Know It For a Fact... I Just Know It's True.




Steve Ballmer: Just the Facts

USA Facts founder and LA Clippers Chairman joins Bill to dicuss his initiative to paint a data-driven portrait of America.




New Rule: Scary Socialism

In his editorial New Rule, Bill argues that socialism isn't as scary as it sounds and calls on Democrats to ramp up their rhetoric against Trump.




Steve Ballmer, S.E. Cupp, Mark Leibovich, Richard Clarke | Overtime

Bill and his roundtable guests answer viewer questions after the show.

[Hulk]

1. S.E.Cupp is a disgusting sleeze ball....

Why have THIS bitch on repeatedly? She is nothing but a dRumpf apologist, and she offers NOTHING to the debate of how to get this country's ship righted once again. I don't care to see her face or hear her pathetic logic on ANYTHING related to politics. SHE IS THE PROBLEM. She is the "middle ameriKKKa" dim wit. Fuck her...and the horse she rode in on.

As for "daddy warbucks"...fuck him too. If you have $48,000,000,000 dollars of wealth?....and you are worried about not making it...FUCK YOU! Nobody in this world is worth that amount of hoarded wealth. This loud mouth jackass is a pathetic , self-centered chicken shit. ONE BILLION is more than anyone should ever have access to. This is obscene...and this loud mouth fucker is just as obscene.

I found this whole show to be probably the worst of Maher's shows I've witnessed. Sad....cupp is a douchebag repuKKKe idiot, and this loudmouth jackass is a greedy, selfish capitalist wart.

Sorry...but this show did nothing but piss me off....and that's never been my reaction to the Maher Show before. Depressing.

[Rhiannon12866]

2. I have to admit that I was really annoyed when I heard she was on

There are some RWers that can be put in their place by the rest of the panel, but she's not one of them. There have been times I couldn't watch when she was on, Amy Holmes is another one. They smirk and talk down to the rest of the panel and have to weigh in on every word that's said. It helped having Richard Clarke there, though.

I wasn't all that familiar with Steve Ballmer, he seemed like an affable guy. I'll take your word for it about him, though he seemed to be on the right side of things.

But I thought it was worth tuning in just to hear from John Kerry. He really is a national hero - and I still believe he won the 2004 election - and we don't see enough of him.

[LoveMyCali]

12. No one even tried to put her in her place

When she wouldn't admit she made a mistake not voting for Hillary someone needed to shout "then you're a fucking idiot!"

[Rhiannon12866]

13. I know!

She is one of those exasperating right-wing guests that even Bill Maher can't put in their place, I don't know why he still has her on. And I guess the others are just too polite.

[localroger]

5. I think it's unfair to tag Ballmer as 'Warbucks'

I don't think people should be that rich, and I've hated Microsoft since before hating Microsoft was cool, but none of the buttons Gates and Ballmer sold ever killed thousands of people each time they were pushed. If you want to know where Ballmer got all that money, look past this post at the machine you're reading it on.

If Ballmer simply gave his money away evenly to everyone in the US, it would be less than $200 for each of us. Most of us wouldn't even remember the gift after a year. If he gave it to everyone in the world it would barely buy everyone lunch. And now that he finds himself in what he admits is a ridiculous situation, he is at least trying to use it in a way that does the most help for other people. Compared to the folks who got their gains by variations on mass-scale theft and murder and care only about getting more for themselves, I find it kind of hard to complain about Ballmer. If anyone is going to have $50 billion I'd rather it be someone like Ballmer than someone like Trump.

[Hulk]

6. I don't take issue with your response to my "hot under the collar" post......

I usually look forward to Bill Maher each week, and this was a real let down for me. cupp is disgusting...at best.

As for Ballmer, he may be a decent man. I didn't see or hear anything that let me to believe otherwise. Other than that short burst on enlightenment, I knew nothing about this character, other than he seems pretty self confident and proud of his achievement and status. That's all cool. I guess you can excuse that when he has accomplished gathering such wealth.

My point was that it's insane to have that much money, when there is no earthly way your needs require anything near that wealth. I wouldn't suggest distributing it to everyone...that's insane. The same argument is made when they talk about taxing the rich to the 90% level post WWII....it wouldn't eliminate the deficit nor be a huge boost to jobs, neighbors' plights, etc. But it would help chip away at the insane deficit the teabaggers were all bawling about when President Obama was in office.

It's noble that his wife and he ventured on spending some on fact checking, or whatever his site is that he mentioned. I'm thinking the reich wingers don't give a rat's behind about facts, but the rest of us can at least keep an even keel. But there are thousands of things he and his wife could be doing with that exorbitant wealth...such as funding grocery stores in these impoverished neighborhoods where there are NONE; assisting educators across the state or across the nation in helping special programs or the arts, which are disappearing or have disappeared entirely; building shelters for homeless...drug treatment facilities for the addicted, funding Planned Parenthood that is starving for funding across the country; refurbishing dilapidated schools, community centers, providing after school activities for youth, helping to defray student loans to the harnessed young citizens who are going to be struggling for decades to break even; and the list goes on and on. It was mentioned by Secretary Kerry that the US is responsible for stopping the Ebola epidemic in Africa, controlling the spread of AIDS in Africa and elsewhere....and again, the list goes on and on.

My point was $48,000,000,000 is a damn lot of money that could be doing a damned lot of good around the world. Giving it away is not on the list, but helping the world's needs is definitely a worthy cause. He is not alone. There are others who sit on hoards of billions of dollars, and they are so proud of what they have accomplished, and they toss of a few coins to keep their conscience clean, but I find it appalling....such selfishness in a world of such need.

And finally, you noticed, perhaps, how quickly he ignored the donation of ANYTHING to the blue wave movement in this country. They don't want to get involved in politics. Well....good for them. That alone could make a HUGE difference in the lives of 320,000,000 Americans and their future in the world.

Maybe "daddy warbucks" is an expression that I don't understand the meaning of, but my intent was to label him as a man with immense wealth that borders on the level of vulgar. He has the ability....like all the rest of that billionaire club...he tosses off a few coins and can be honored and have his ego pumped even further. Not impressed....at all.

[localroger]

7. Daddy Warbucks

...as the name suggests if you read it literally, Little Orphan Annie's adoptive father made his money through the death and suffering of others. It wasn't JUST that he had an obscene amoount of money, the way he GOT it was also obscene. And there are many more people like Warbucks than there are like Ballmer, Gates, and Tim Jenison who got their money by making stuff that people really wanted to do positive things, and almost offhandedly found themselves with more money than they could possibly use and no simple and actually useful way to correct that.

Ballmer has probably been counseled by highly paid people who know "better than him" to stay out of politics. Maher was visibly disappointed that he couldn't get the man to admit that his money might make a real difference if applied to politics. But Ballmer did have a real point; if someone with 50 billion dollars enters a political race and starts spraying money around, everyone on the other side is going to accuse him of trying to "buy the election." A truly decent person will not want that. But then a truly decent person probably isn't prepared to deal with having 50 billion dollars in the first place, for other reasons as well.

I agree that S.E. Cupp is a waste of breathable oxygen. Her waffling when Maher tried to pin her down on her anti-Hillary vote in Overtime was painful to watch. To his credit, Maher pressed it and made her eat it. Too bad that wasn't in the main show.

[Hulk]

8. Wasn't aware of Little Orphan Annie's adoptive father's history.

Just assumed he was another rich oligarch.

I know Maher gave $1,000,000 to the Democratic races. I hope this dude is doing as much. I admire Maher as one of those people who actually put "excess wealth" into action. Hope Ballmer is silently doing the same, but I somehow suspect otherwise. Just my "gut feeling", and we all know how important those "gut feelings" are. <sarcasm>

[Stellar]

9. Birds of a feather....

I heard Meghan McCain say that she and S.E. Cupp were best of friends. They belong in the same kettle.

[Hulk]

10. My sentiments exactly.

Because we respected SOME aspects of her father's character, doesn't translate to her at all. She is pathetic...and not the brightest bulb in the chandelier.

[Stellar]

11. hear, hear. nt

[Auggie]

3. Thanks for sharing, Rhiannon12866!

[Rhiannon12866]

4. Thanks so much!

We need all the humor we can get, these days!