HBO

John Fund on Friday smacked down Bill Maher for calling Tea Partiers "teabaggers."

As the panel discussion of HBO's "Real Time" convened, the host said, "The teabaggers I guess think they had a big win Tuesday."

He then asked the American Spectator's Fund, "Why are they so silent on financial reform?"  

After Fund answered the question, he said, "I think people should be called by the term that they use themselves...Using 'teabaggers' is equivalent to, I have atheist friends. They don't like to be called 'Christian haters.' They prefer to be called atheists (video follows with partial transcript and commentary): 

Bill Maher on Friday said conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh is intentionally saying "f--ked up s--t" to compete with Fox News's Glenn Beck

While making this preposterous assertion, the "Real Time host falsely claimed that Limbaugh accused the Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, of having a Barack Obama bumper sticker on his SUV.

Much like other falsehoods spouted by the HBO host on the most recent installment of "Real Time," Maher seemed to be attacking all manner of conservatives in an attempt to save face after his humiliating encounter with ABC's George Will last Sunday.

Feeling comfortable on his home turf without someone to challenge his inaccuracies, the comedian went into a vulgarity laden segment ridiculing the trifecta of Limbaugh, Beck, and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin (video follows with partial transcript and commentary, strong vulgarity warning):

After making a fool out of himself going up against George Will on last Sunday's "This Week," Bill Maher dug an even deeper hole five days later trying to strike back at the well-known columnist with a peculiar blend of falsehoods and Bill Clinton.

As NewsBusters previously reported, Maher was humiliated on national television last week when he errantly claimed Brazil was "off oil" only to be corrected by ABC's token conservative.

On Friday's "Real Time," the HBO host countered first by citing an ad that former President Bill Clinton did back in 2006 in favor of a California ballot initiative that would have implemented a tax on that state's oil producers.

Next, Maher absurdly claimed that "part of the reason" America isn't off oil yet is "because of global warming deniers like George Will" (video follows with transcript and oodles of commentary):

Bill Maher was clearly out of his league Sunday when he made an absurd claim about Brazil being off oil for decades only to be corrected by a significantly more knowledgeable George Will.

As the Roundtable discussion of ABC's "This Week" turned to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, host Jake Tapper mentioned -- without the vulgarity -- what Maher said on HBO's "Real Time" about President Obama not "getting more shall we say guff" for this crisis.

Maher concluded his answer by erroneously saying, "I mean, Brazil got off oil in the last 30 years, we certainly could have."

When Will got his chance to respond, Maher was left looking rather foolish (video embedded below the fold with transcript, commentary, and oil data to further embarrass the "Real Time" host, relevant section at 2:48):

HBO's Bill Maher on Friday asked an extraordinary question of his guest panel: "Why isn't Barack Obama getting more s--t' for the oil spill in the Gulf?

Almost as surprising, the studio audience applauded after the "Real Time" host said this. 

"Okay, so I mentioned in the monologue I'm a little mad this week," Maher began after introducing his guests.  

"I'm mad at the oil company who didn't obviously build their rig well enough," he continued. "I'm mad at America in general because we should have gotten off the oil tit starting in the '70s."

Hold on to you seats: "But I'll tell you who I'm really mad at which is Barack Obama...So, why isn't Barack Obama getting more s--t for this" (video follows with transcript and commentary): 

Former United Nations ambassador John Bolton had one of the best lines on Friday's "Real Time" when after he got some scattered applause from the typically liberal audience in attendance, he said to Bill Maher, "You let Republicans in."

As the subject turned to America's military operations abroad, the HBO host told his guest, "You can't really believe that radical Muslim terrorists...need Afghanistan to launch an attack on us."

"I think there are plenty of alternative places," replied Bolton. "And I would say the bigger strategic interest going forward is keeping those nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists."

This produced some scattered applause from the crowd leading Bolton to marvelously say, "You let Republicans in" (video follows with transcript and commentary): 

Bill Maher Friday went on quite a little rant about conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh.

During the opening monologue of HBO's "Real Time," Maher mocked something Limbaugh mentioned on his show about the leaking oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico possibly having been attacked by environmentalists.

"That's right, a secret team of hippie frogmen snuck on board an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico and blew it up to frame the oil companies," Maher quipped. 

Next came the cheap shots: "You know what Rush, how many pills is your maid giving you?...Congratulations, Rush Limbaugh, you are now officially the Louis Farrakhan of white people" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Bill Maher on Friday said Barack Obama is a moderate Republican by '70s standards.

As the subject on the most recent installment of "Real Time" moved to the retirement of Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, the HBO host actually said that it was the Republican Party that has changed in the past thirty or forty years and not Stevens' view of the world.  

"You know what's ironic is that you know who's really a moderate Republican by '70s standards?" Maher asked. "Barack Obama."

This stupidity came seconds after guest Richard Clarke actually said that the gun rally in Virginia on April 19 was to commemorate the Oklahoma City bombing (video follows with transcript and commentary, file photo): 

Apparently HBO's advertising and marketing divisions don't know if Dr. Jack Kevorkian is a killer or not. Promos for the company's new movie, "You Don't Know Jack" feature actor Al Pacino as Kevorkian, along side the question, "Is this the face of a killer?" To HBO, the answer is no, he's not a killer, if the movie's synopsis and trailer are any indication.

"Provocative, obstinate and complex, Jack ultimately risks it all in his fervor to change the prevailing laws and challenge society's attitude towards the right to die," read the film's synopsis. The movie premieres April 24.

Throughout the trailer, viewers hear Pacino demanding, "When a law is deemed unmoral by you, you must disobey it. You must disobey it." Prior to that he stated, "What we're doing here today is groundbreaking" and "If a person's allowed to die, you do it quickly, painlessly, you don't let him whither away."

Viewers also hear actress Brenda Vaccaro, who plays Kevorkian's sister, defending him to protesters, "He's leading society to an age of enlightenment, you idiots!"

(Updated with anti-Catholic "New Rules" jokes below.) Liberals complained this week when Rep. Michele Bachmann complained about "gangster government." But do they mind if the Catholic Church is compared to (and prosecuted like) the Mafia? So said former Gov. Jesse Ventura on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday.

MAHER: You did a movie called Predator. Let's talk about the Vatican.

VENTURA: That's a predator, too. Never got me, though, the Vatican. An alien did.

MAHER: My crazy radical friends Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins say that if the Pope travels to England, as he is scheduled to in September, he should be arrested when he hits the tarmac. Now do you think that's going too far?

VENTURA: ...I have another alternative, a question I've asked here in the United States. Why hasn't the Catholic Church been prosecuted under the RICO laws of organized crime?

HBO should name its show "Real Lies with Bill Maher," because on Friday night he was wildly claiming that 98 percent of taxpayers paid lower taxes this year, and so Tea Parties are just a Klan rally:

What a day for the Tea Party people. Did you see that? America's parks and fairgrounds were lost in a sea of man-boobs. (Laughter) As they were venting their anger and rage against taxes, which in most cases for them went down. Protesting, their taxes went down. Why let the truth spoil a perfectly good Klan rally?

After the whoops and applause and laughter, he continued:

It's true, it's true. These are the facts. Federal taxes went down for 98 percent of people -- working families, individuals, almost everybody.

Catching up with an HBO sports documentary which ran several times in March: ‘Magic & Bird: A Courtship of Rivals,’ painted Boston Celtics basketball star Larry Bird as the victim of a racist national milieu exacerbated by President Ronald Reagan -- a formulation which relied on the expert assessment of a journalist who a few years ago contended that if only Senator Ted Kennedy hadn’t killed her, he “would have brought comfort...in her old age” to Mary Jo Kopechne. Over video zooming in on Reagan at his Oval Office desk, HBO’s narrator intoned:

But as Magic enjoyed his image as a crossover star, it was Bird, the one-time great white hope, who had further emerged as the polarizing racial figure due in part to that era's increasingly conservative political climate.

Then, the Boston Globe’s Charles Pierce argued “the triumph of the movement” that supposedly “rolled back” civil rights “took place in the 1980s” and that caused “sublimated frustration” amongst black Americans “and I think one of the ways it got sublimated was into basketball” with Bird catching those “lingering resentments.” On screen as Pierce spoke, this New York Times headline:

STUDY SAYS BLACKS HAVE LOST GROUND
Finds Reagan's Policies Have Hurt the Poor and Imperil Emerging Middle Class

It's an archaic way of thinking - unless it's imposed upon conservatives, then it's OK. It's this notion that commentators that are right-of-center should know their place - that place being only in the realms of talk radio or on the Fox News Channel. Otherwise, it is unacceptable.

Now Politico has joined the fray and is taking news tips from left-wing storefronts that have staked out RedState.com founder Erick Erickson's Macon, Ga. radio show on Newstalk 940 WMAC, to capture any sort of gotcha moment to embarrass Erickson. And all of this seems to have been spurred on by CNN's announcement last month that Erickson would be a network contributor.

At issue is Erickson's claim he would pull a shotgun on an American Community Survey (ACS) worker, an organization that is part of the U.S. Census Bureau, if he attempted to approach his home. However, Erickson's statement has been framed by his critics that he is attempting to prevent the Census Bureau from fulfilling a constitutional requirement, and that has been deemed "threatening" by Andy Barr of Politico in an April 2 post.

Editor's Note: The following is an open letter from actress Maria Conchita Alonso, who penned this response to actor Sean Penn's recent remarks on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" in which the left-wing actor defended Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez.

Dear Sean, WHY?

Even though I have great respect for your artistic talent, I was appalled by a recent television interview where you vigorously showed support for the regime of Hugo Chavez. Therefore, I've decided to set the record straight for you regarding the Chavez regime, supporting my case based not only on my political ideologies, but on proven facts you choose to ignore.  Otherwise, I believe your position would be different.

Being born in Cuba, a country where freedom of speech is non-existent, it's startling to observe how Venezuela, where I was happily raised, is fast becoming Cuba's mirror image: Dismantling of fundamental democratic rights deserved by its people and citizens of the world.

For example, you said that all Chavez-winning elections in Venezuela were "transparent."

Then WHY didn't the government allow a manual recount of the votes and computer information when doubt set in? After all, how do you explain how these votes that were strongly favoring the opposition mysteriously reflected the opposite results the morning after, thus permitting Chavez to continue on?  On what are you basing your conclusions? I strongly recommend that you read a report by the U.S. State Department written in 2009 entitled "The Fraudulent Elections in Venezuela".

On Friday’s Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO, during a discussion of Mitt Romney’s recent altercation with rapper Sky Blu on an airplane, host Maher seemed to suggest that Romney might have been motivated by anti-black racism in confronting the rapper as the Real Time host brought up racially tinged quotes from former Mormon church president Joseph Fielding Smith – who died in 1972 at the age of 95 after serving two years as president – as if the words were relevant to Romney’s scuffle. Maher: "I just couldn't help but think maybe this has something to do with the fact that the Mormons traditionally have not had a great relation with the black people."

After reading a quote from Smith that came from a 1963 article in Look magazine, in which Smith contended that "I would not want you to believe that we bear any animosity toward the Negro. Darkies are wonderful people," Maher claimed that the words were only 20 or 30 years old. Maher: "I'm just saying if you're a Mormon and this is the ‘pope’ of your church and he says things like this about Negro and darkies – and this is only like, I don't know how long ago this was, 20, 30 years ago." The HBO host then read a quote from the book, The Way to Perfection, published by Smith in the 1930s, without divulging the date.

Greg Gutfeld and the "Red Eye" gang Tuesday tore apart Bill Maher for wishing that Glenn Beck had been killed during last week's Pentagon shootings.

As NewsBusters previously reported, the so-called comedian during last Friday's "Real Time" said of the tragedy, "When we see crazy, senseless deaths like this, we can only ask why, why, why couldn't it have been Glenn Beck?"

This led Gutfeld, along with guests including Ann Coulter and S.E. Cupp, to lay into Maher for his absurdity while also skewering actor Sean Penn for recently wishing his critics would "die screaming of rectal colon cancer."

For the entertainment pleasure of his audience, Gutfeld enlisted the help of his famous Red Eye Robots to offer Maher some new material utilizing "Glenn Beck died" punch lines (video embedded below the fold, h/t Story Balloon):

Over the weekend, Time Magazine published a long, glowing profile of Tom Hanks to help promote his upcoming HBO miniseries “The Pacific.” And as with all things entertainment media, the subject is never challenged or even made to shift uncomfortably in his seat. The push to ascend Hanks to “national treasure” status is clearly on.

Hanks does seem to be a genuinely nice man and the work he’s done to bring American history to life on film is impressive, especially during a time when the singling out of America’s exceptionalism is more and more frowned upon in artistic and academic circles. ”From the Earth to the Moon,” “Band of Brothers,” and “John Adams” are not only artistic achievements, but in this MTV-addled culture, might be the best hope of teaching America’s youth about the unique history and greatness of this nation. And I suspect ”The Pacific,” the 10-part miniseries premiering this Sunday on HBO (which Big Hollywood’s Michael Broderick will cover extensively) will be a worthy addition to what came before.

But when it comes to leftist Hollywood, whenever Tinseltown and America meet, you have to brace yourself for it — and by “it” I mean the leftist sucker punch. Throughout, Hanks sounds perfectly reasonable, intelligent and even patriotic for a couple of thousand words. But of course that’s just the lure to get us on his side before we’re walloped with this left cross: [emphasis mine]

"When we see crazy, senseless deaths like this, we can only ask why, why, why couldn't it have been Glenn Beck?"

So joked Bill Maher Friday evening on HBO's "Real Time."

During his opening monologue, Maher addressed John Bedell, the man that was shot and killed Thursday when he attacked the Pentagon.

For some reason, the comedian used the incident as a vehicle to go after the Fox News host (video embedded below the fold with transcript, h/t Ed Morrissey, file photo):  

The left's comedic mud-slingers have been working overtime lately. Bill Maher injected his latest bit of invective Friday when he labeled the Tea Party movement a "cult" and hurled epithets at major conservative figures.
Angry that Americans would dare object to his particular brand of ultra-liberal politics, Maher has recieved a bit of press lately for his unending stream of hatred for anyone who disagrees with him.  He consistently mocks Sarah Palin and her son Trig. And he certainly has a lot of disdain for the American people--you know, the ones who "love the troops the way Michael Vick loves dogs" and are "not bright enough to really understand the issues."
So Maher's latest bit of vitriol on HBO's "Real Time" - reserved for Americans who have the gall to voice their political principles - was hardly a surprise (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript):

On the eve of the Winter Olympics four years ago, Bryant Gumbel couldn't resist taking a racial shot at the Republican Party in a commentary at the end of his Real Sports magazine show on HBO. The former NBC and CBS morning news host concluded by telling viewers that as for the Winter Olympic games, “count me among those who don't like 'em and won't watch 'em.”

He condescendingly suggested viewers “try not to laugh when someone says these are the world's greatest athletes, despite a paucity of blacks that makes the Winter Games look like a GOP convention.”

Gumbel's remarks came on the February of 2006 edition of Real Sports, a monthly sports news magazine show which includes Bernard Goldberg amongst its correspondents. It first aired on Tuesday night, February 7, a few days before the Olympics opened in Torino, Italy.

Rosie O’Donnell appeared on Tuesday’s Good Morning America and lectured host George Stephanopoulos, "You just have to relax and remember that not everyone's a politician. And you don't have to grill them." The liberal comedienne needn’t have worried. Stephanopoulos only gently approached O’Donnell and her new gay-themed HBO documentary.

After being dressed down by O’Donnell, the GMA host offered this softball question about A Family Is a Family Is a Family: "So, tell us about this amazing documentary." He quickly followed up to see if the query was benign enough: "How was that?"

Although O’Donnell asserted that the documentary is about "equality," Stephanopoulos didn’t bring up the details of the special. A plot synopsis explains that the film features "children with two fathers or two mothers...a pair of mothers who are getting married to make one big family," in addition to stories on kids being raised by grandparents and who are adopted. So, it’s odd that Stephanopoulos would allow O’Donnell to get away with claiming to be non-political.

"We'll always have Paris. We didn't have, we'd lost it until you came to Casablanca. We got it back last night."

So famously said Humphrey Bogart to Ingrid Bergman in the marvelous conclusion of one of the greatest films of all time, "Casablanca."

On Wednesday, MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell shamelessly used a version of this line on White House advisor David Axelrod.

During her interview about yesterday's election results, including Bill Owens' victory in New York's 23rd Congressional district, Mitchell asked Axelrod about the Obama campaign documentary aired on HBO Tuesday.

This led to the following exchange that is guaranteed to make Bogie and Bergman roll over in their graves (video embedded below the fold):

UPDATE: Fox News misreported Gibbs' press gaggle comments. He did not claim President watched HBO special on election night.

During the 10AM ET hour of America’s Newsroom on Fox News Channel, fill-in co-host Martha Maccallum told viewers what President Obama watched on election night while Democrats suffered big losses in New Jersey and Virginia: “Robert Gibbs said, well, he was actually watching, you know, the HBO special about his year-long campaign and how it all went.”

On Tuesday night the White House had worked to downplay the Democratic gubernatorial defeats by claiming the President did not watch the election returns. Apparently Gibbs thought it would look better if the commander in chief was watching a self-indulgent fawning documentary about himself. Interestingly, Obama apparently previewed the HBO special a few days earlier, as Gibbs himself explained to the blog Talking Points Memo: “White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs says Obama has already seen ‘By the People’...Gibbs told TPMDC Obama’s review: ‘Thumbs up!’”

On FNC, Maccallum noted: “...we know that Michelle and the girls went to the Miley Cyrus concert last night... So he’s all alone in that big house, right? Nothing to do but sit back and watch – reminisce about the long campaign and watch HBO and the special.” The HBO documentary, ‘By the People,’ debuted on Tuesday, in commemoration of the one year anniversary of Obama’s election.

On Election Day, HBO will broadcast a documentary about Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

Though he's been in office for less than ten months, the cable network actually felt it was time:

BY THE PEOPLE: THE ELECTION OF BARACK OBAMA is a moving record of the Obama campaign's history-making odyssey to the White House. Interwoven with the drama of the campaign is never-before-seen footage of Obama behind the scenes, as well as interviews and candid moments with wife Michelle Obama, the couple's young daughters, Malia and Sasha, and senior campaign staff, volunteers, reporters, supporters and opponents.  

The following is a preview (video embedded below the fold, h/t Mediaite):

HBO's hit series "Curb Your Enthusiasm" has pushed the comedic envelope for many years, but what happened in Sunday's episode was so disgraceful it's already received comment from the Catholic League's Bill Donohue.

The set-up is the show's star and producer Larry David is taking some medication that is making him urinate quite forcefully.

It's so powerful that while urinating in his assistant's bathroom, he accidentally splashed some of it on a picture of Jesus Christ hanging on a nearby wall.

This prompted the following response from Donohue (video embedded below the fold h/t Big Hollywood):

Comedian Wanda Sykes drew little criticism from the "objective" media for wishing Rush Limbaugh’s kidneys would fail in a dinner thrown by the White House Correspondents Association in May. In her new HBO special, I’m A Be Me, Sykes continues her love for the Obamas, and her hate for anyone who crosses them. Sykes mocked people who didn’t like that the Obama family dog wasn't from a rescue shelter:

"How come he didn’t get a rescue dog? He should have gotten a rescue dog." I’m like, the man has to rescue a country that’s been abused by its previous owner.

Sykes also went on an extended riff about how beautiful Michelle Obama is, much more beautiful than Barbara Bush:

A few years ago, comedienne Sarah Silverman disparaged God on her Comedy Central program by throwing him out of her apartment the morning after having sex with him.

On Friday's "Real Time with Bill Maher," Silverman expounding on her anti-theism by introducing a new video wherein she offered a solution to solve world hunger: "Sell the Vatican, Feed the World."

As she chided the Pope for preaching about living humbly despite residing in a "house that is a city," she advised him that such a noble deed would absolve him of any guilt he might have over his alleged connections to the Holocaust.

More disgracefully, Silverman said, "If you sell the Vatican, and you take that money, and you use it to feed every single human being on the planet, you will get crazy p***y" (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript, h/t Mediaite, vulgarity alert): 

Comedian and kooky leftist Janeane Garofalo is at it again, smearing conservative activists as "white power" racists. Garofalo made her incendiary comments on the October 2 edition of Bill Maher's "Real Time" program on HBO.

Sorry, Janeane, the "real reason that so few people are willing to talk about racism is because, quite frankly, few people are as crazy as Janeane Garofalo is," Media Research Center President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell told viewers the next morning on Saturday's "Fox & Friends." [MP3 audio available here]

Bozell noted that Garofalo conveniently forgets that President Obama began office in January with a stunning 83 percent approval rating, before citing more evidence of Garofalo's wackiness:

"The American dream is not totally dead, but it’s being pretty, it’s dying pretty fast...Horatio Alger would move to Europe these days."

So said New York Times columnist Paul Krugman Friday.

Appearing with disgraced former New York governor Eliot Spitzer on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher," Krugman demonstrated perfectly why his perpertually pessimistic view of America is so revered by perpetually pessimistic liberals (video available here, partial transcript below the fold):

Who needs to make health care Barack Obama's Waterloo, as Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. suggested? Why not make it the president's Alamo?

That's the advice PBS host Bill Moyers had for President Barack Obama in an appearance on HBO's August 28 "Real Time with Bill Maher." According to the former press secretary for President Lyndon B. Johnson, a defeat on health care/health insurance reform would do the left more good than crafting some sort of compromise.

"I mean, I would rather see Barack Obama go down fighting for vigorous, strong principled public insurance, than to lose with a bill - look, BusinessWeek had a cover story last week, ‘The Insurers are Winning,'" Moyers said.