Only because they're always wrong.

Andrew Sullivan voted for Obama in 2008, so please don't use him as 'the conservative' on the panel. Sullivan is on Chris Matthews show every Sunday, and blasts republicans more then liberals do!

I don't like Michael Steele's smugness and disagree with almost everything that comes out of his mouth. That being said, he wasn't even close to being as obnoxious as Schultz was, who I felt behaved similarly to a 7-year old child throwing a tantrum. He was loud, self-righteous, overbearing, bully-like, and really did himself and his points of view a huge disservice by behaving as he did.

She has -- most recently in 2005 -- but my point was that coladar has a bit of rose-colored glasses when he says that Maher has worse conservatives than he used to.

Sullivan is vehemently anti-torture, and he's (not surprisingly) sensitive to the right's antipathy toward gays, but he otherwise lines himself up with the right. For instance, he's spent the last several weeks talking about how great it is that Paul Ryan is a Very Serious Person who has shown True Courage by proposing to gut Medicare and cut taxes for the rich.

Ugh, Paul Ryan. I wish this whole cut everything idealogy by the Republicans would just go away.

I would have really liked to hear more from Mark McKinnon. In fact, from what I've seen of him, I wouldn't mind him having a permanent seat on the panel.

Agreed. I think Breitbart and that chick ruined this past episode. They should have just took their bickering somewhere else.

This happens often. I thought she was going slap Breitbart at one point. McKinnon is a level headed Republican and it's too bad he barely got a word in.

The same thing happened on the last new show when Michael Steele and Ed Schultz went back and forth the entire night.

I think it was mostly Andrew Breitbart. The last time he was on Real Time (back on September 24, 2010), he (with an assist from Amy Holmes) also ruined the show that night in a typically loud and belligerent way. Laura Flanders did severely miscalculate and think Breitbart might actually admit he did something wrong in the Shirley Sherrod case when she should've known that pompous ass will never ever admit he did anything wrong (and he even claimed that he was a victim in the scandal that he started!).

I just hope Bill Maher noticed how having Breitbart on ruined Mark McKinnon's appearance and invites McKinnon back soon. (And I really hope Maher doesn't invite Breitbart back again ever. He along with Amy Holmes, Ann Coulter, and Mos Def should all be a banned-from-the-show list.)

At least the episode wasn't completely ruined, thanks to John Waters showing up at the end. And this week's Overtime was good too, thanks to John Waters.

Andrew Breitbart is an asshole, pure and simple. If we lived in a more just world, he'd be wandering the streets of Manhattan, begging passers-by for spare change and arguing with the voices in his head.

Then how do you propose to eliminate the 1 trillion+ deficit this year, and 13 trillion+ national debt?

Wait until there's a Republican in the White House and people will stop caring?

(Seriously, this has been discussed ad nauseum in the Politics Forum so I won't derail this thread, but the short answer is a combination of higher taxes, modest and appropriate spending cuts, and not trying to balance the budget during a time of economic fragility)

depends on what you cut, billions could be saved from the military, yet i think the ryan plan actually increases military spending by 4 billion.

Agreed. Yeah, I didn't mean to derail the thread either.

Does anyone know... If $1B were cut from the military, what specifically gets cut? Does Congress have the ability to tell generals what to cut? In other words, do they say, "We're cutting $1B from your budget, so stop purchasing those battle helicopters we've never used."

A billion dollars is nothing. The military spent almost that much per day on the war in Iraq.

Yes. Who do you think writes the checks?

Friday's episode has turned already into a must see with tonight's news.

Which seems to suggest that we can "cut" the military budget by just extricating ourselves from these ... "initiatives". I seem to remember reading that the money for efforts like Iraq and Afghanistan hasn't come from the military budget per se. Still, a trillion dollars is a trillion dollars. No matter which account it eventually comes from, I'd rather not have it spent. That said, when following these discussions, it's helpful to make sure consistent terminology is used.

Thanks for the answer, but I see no value in assuming something when there are many knowledgeable folks here who may be able to give a more definitive answer. I know of many situations where the people who cut the checks review a budget, but give operating control/decisions to managers (generals in this case). With a budget the size of the military, I have no idea where that line is.

Modest and appropriate spending cuts wont do the trick

Republicans are just as much frauds for the last 10 years as the democrats. I am an independent who is fed up with both parties, and its about time both parties made tough choices:

The simple answer for our deficit problems: entitlements. Entitlements are about 60% of the budget.

Here are some solutions that should have been done 20 years ago, so the Baby Boomers (born 1946-64) could have planned their retirement better:

-Increase the retirement age to 72 years old

-Means test social security and medicare for the highest income earners (Do people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett really need full benefits for Social Security?)

-Let people my age (45-under) invest 1 or 2% of our fica tax each week in the stock market (optional if they choose), like I do with my 401K every year, so I am not totally dependent on the government when I retire.

-Close many tax loopholes for big business

-Eliminate all the coporate subsidies (corporate welfare as many know it by)


This is a start, but no politican has the balls to propose real cuts, they just give the typical answer of cutting 'waste and fraud' from the budget, which is probably amounts to about 1%.

Maher will say how got Bin Laden was killed in under 3 years doing it the Obama liberal way instead of 10 years of trying the Bush Republican way.
That anyone who votes Repubilican in 2012 is stupid.

There's your show.

But they won't hurt.

You may be fed up with both parties, but are there any realistic alternatives?

I have no problem with most of your suggestions, but I do have some questions.

That sounds cool, but whatever you do, imagine the guy next to you is 71 years old and also doing it. Discuss. I think it's great for some people to work into an older age, but things do decrease significantly as you age. Increasing the retirement age to 72 effectively tells businesses they have to keep people around longer, even when their productivity and efficiency may be significantly decreased. Are you for this?

Does this mean no subsidies for investing in clean(er) alternative energy? Sometimes businesses receive subsidies because it's in the public interest to encourage the private sector to do things for the long term their focus on short term profits might otherwise prevent.

What's sad is I can see it playing out exactly that way. Bill used to be much fairer about these things. I don't think he's gotten more stupid, which leaves alternatives that don't sit well with me (increased bias and/or decreased integrity). Hopefully it doesn't play out that way. We'll see.

I think Maher has gotten more left because our country has become more polar on issues. I don't like how he'll be cynical on almost everything including stuff from the White House and Obama, yet he was 100% behind Obama on the Libya bombing. That just came off weird to me.

I can't wait to watch this week's episode.

I agree. I read somewhere recently that the U.S. defense budget has increased something like 80 percent since 9/11, and a lot of that has to do with being at war in three countries.

This is interesting reading: http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=45870

This week's panel was THE WORST! The skinny loud-mouth should have been fitted for a burka right then and there. And Eric Michael or Michael Eric Dyson's fried chicken needs to get off his soapbox and come up for air for god sakes. The guy literally never takes a breath or leaves any pauses between thoughts to let anyone else get a word in. His entire spiel is one long run-on sentence. I think he must have gills. He's annoying to the nth degree. And btw, what's with using the full name? Is he that self-important? Is there another Michael Dyson that someone else might possibly confuse for this blowhard? David Frum was totally impotent (and outnumbered) as a spokesperson for an opposing pov. Worst...Panel...Ever! I'm going to email the show and request that MEDfc never be invited back.