Bill Maher > Pundits

This is why Bill Maher is smarter than the vast majority of the talking heads that infect TV news. Maybe it's not even that he's smarter, perhaps he just has the balls to speak the truth and doesn't twist himself into a partisan pretzel.



And he's absolutely right about all of it. Obama is trying too hard to please the Republicans... screw the Republicans! They had their chance, they broke America and left it for someone else to fix. That someone else is our current president and he'd be better suited ignoring these nimrods than trying to get us all to come together and "compromise," that's code for "do what the Republicans want."

And don't take this as me being partisan, watch: screw the Democrats too! The Democrats are so obsessed with becoming Republican Lite due to this myth of America being a "center-right" country, all they're doing is just slowing progress. As Maher said, we have no progressive party in this country, any true liberal politicians are looked at as jokes and our lazy media is too busy worrying about the latest adventures of Governor Avon Lady to do anything about it.

Since Maher brought up Sarah Palin in that interview, let's make fun of her. I wanted to write a blog about her "feud" with David Letterman, but then the thing just got so ridiculous that I wouldn't be able to write anything without putting my fist through my monitor. If you're curious about my feelings, here's a quick summary that will keep my blood pressure down:

-The joke was funny and every other late night host has told similar ones.
-John McCain - Palin's runningmate - once called Chelsea Clinton "ugly."
-If Sarah Palin wasn't such a shitty parent, the joke wouldn't have been made in the first place. These jokes aren't about making fun of the children, they're about making fun of the Governor for being a hypocrite.
-Palin once again exploits her children for political gain.
-Palin made accusations about Letterman that were far more offensive than his joke.
-Shame on David Letterman for apologizing.
-Palin should stay in Alaska and do her damn job... or at least only come to "Real" America.
-Sarah Palin is a friggin' moron.

That about sums it up. I'm surprised I made it through that without using the c-word.

So yeah... President Obama, show us a little more Candidate Obama and don't worry about the Republicans, they're too busy killing their party from within. And put Sarah Palin on some kind of no-fly list while you're at it. It'll be good for America and the wildlife she shoots from her helicopter.

Domestic Terrorism

We were warned, but the right-wing media didn't want to listen. Two times in two weeks, terrorism on American soil, but clowns like Joe Scarborough just laughed off the warnings. How funny is it now, Joe?



Why can't the neocons just distance themselves from these murderers? Instead, they try to project it onto the Democrats, even going so far as to call the Holocaust Museum shooter a "leftist." James von Brunn (the shooter) called President Obama a "creation of the Jews," who was coming for his guns. Yeah, real bleeding-heart liberal.

Have the Republicans officially lost their minds? Instead of just coming out, condemning the tragedy and moving on, they have to play the blame game? Is Rush Limbaugh truly so desperate for attention that he thinks simply saying Von Brunn is a "leftist" will make it true? Anyone with half of a functioning brain (okay, that eliminates 90% of elected Republicans and right-wing commentators) can see this guy's political ideology is more in-line with hardcore Libertarianism. Not the fiscal conservative who wants to smoke pot Libertarian, I'm talking about the Libertarian living in a bunker surrounded by gold and various assault rifles.

Von Brunn is not a Republican, and no one is even suggesting he is. The reason the Republicans are so defensive right now is because they threw a fit over the DHS report that was 100% accurate. Republicans tried to use it as a wedge issue and make it sound like Barack Obama and Janet Napolitano were targeting anyone who identifies themselves as conservative. Never mind the report was authorized by the Bush Administration, the neocons saw it as a chance to gain some political points and now it has exploded in their collective face.

While the adults were talking about real threats facing our country, the Republicans were turning it into a spectacle, trying to find something (anything) that could maybe get them back in the driver's seat in Washington. By coming out against the report, Republicans inadvertantly aligned themselves with people who would shoot up a museum or assassinate a doctor in a church. Make no mistake, the museum shooting and the assassination of Dr. Tiller are acts of terrorism, but instead of fighting it, the Republicans continue to play political games.

The crazies are getting restless

Usually it's just fun to laugh at wingnuts; they're generally harmless, spewing shit so idiotic that no one in their right mind would ever pay attention to them. Whether it's Obama's birth certificate, his choice in mustard, gay marriage leading to the downfall of civilization, or they're named Glenn Beck... they're usually just silly old crazy people, like the kind you'd find pushing around a shopping cart, but not in a grocery store. Unfortunately, the ultra right-wing is growing increasingly frustrated as they become increasingly irrelevant and as a result, they're becoming more dangerous.

All this psychotic rage seemed to begin around the end of the presidential campaign when the McCain/Palin events became glorified hate rallies. We all remember McCain reining in the crazy old woman who called Obama an "Arab," but Governor Avon Lady didn't stop fanning the flames of wingnuttery when she started insinuating that her opponent was a "terrorist." With policemen (in uniform) and various religious leaders to help spread the smears as well, they set the table for the crazies to come feast.

Aligning with psychopaths is a lot like opening Pandora's Box, there is no going back, the toothpaste is out of the tube, insert other cliché here. Obama won the election, but the Republicans had all these new found loonies shuffling around aimlessly like the mindless zombies they are, so they all got together and had themselves a little Tea Party. The tea parties were hijacked from the Libertarian movement and turned into campaign events, funded by neocons like Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey. The teabagging did nothing except show how hypocritical and out of touch the Republican Party was with America; they were essentially complaining that they had to pay for the tow truck after a night of drunk driving resulting in wrapping their Mercedes around a telephone pole. But that didn't stop the crazies from showing up, oh no... the teabaggers weren't just coming to talk about taxes, they had plenty of wingnutty goodness to go around.

But then it got scary, unlike when McCain reined in the racists at those campaign rallies, the Republicans embraced the tea parties and we got a glance at just how fucking insane this party has become. Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann wanted her contstituents "armed and dangerous," Texas Governor Rick Perry talked about seceding from the union and Republican strategist (and complete scumbag) Dick Morris, took a page out of G. Gordon Liddy's handbook and said, “Those crazies in Montana who say, ‘we’re going to kill ATF agents because the UN’s going to take over’ - well, they’re beginning to have a case.”

All this crazy boiled over earlier this week when Dr. George Tiller, a doctor who helped women and their families through an agonizing decision, was assassinated by a right-wing extremist. And then, several sick and demented psychopaths celebrated. I'm not going to get into the abortion debate here - if you agree with a woman's right to choose then I'd just be preaching to the choir; if you disagree, neither of us will convince the other otherwise - but if you think Dr. Tiller was performing these late-term abortions just because the mother "changed her mind," then you're a fucking moron. Pro-"life," but only if it's unborn... grown adults are apparently fair game, and killing them in church is a-okay too. Crazy and hypocritical... a dangerous combination.

But it doesn't stop there... in the last two days, a man is roaming around somewhere in the country, armed to the teeth and carrying a small fortune, plotting to assassinate the President of the United States. Today, a different man was arraigned in New York after plotting to "blow up" President Obama and Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. Mix this in with all these random shooting sprees that have been popping up all over the place and one might think this country has officially lost its goddamn mind.

A lot of people have placed part of the blame on Fox News, especially Bill O'Reilly, for the assassination of Dr. Tiller. As much as I'd like to blame them specifically, it goes much deeper than that. This culture of fear and paranoia has been growing since 9/11, partially because the Republicans have exploited it for political gain, partially because we still have a lot of racists and bigots living in this country and partially because we'll always have people who are just plain bonkers. That Homeland Security report about right-wing extremists (the one the Republicans went nuts over even though it was authorized by the Bush Administration) was spot-on, and I worry that this problem is only going to get worse before it gets better.