And to add to JTH's point, look at what the director of the Palin documentary said about ending oil company subsidies, that they shouldn't end on principle because the spending needs to stop.

Since this is the Maher thread, you should refer to them exclusively as "Teabaggers".

I don't think there's a single Democrat out there who wants to cut anything of substance in the federal budget other than the military. Traditional Republicans are almost worse. They preach small government and then run up the debt just as much as the Democrats.

The Tea Party are the only ones actually doing anything to genuinely try to shrink the size and scope of the federal government. I don't always with agree with everything on their agenda, but this is the one thing that unifies them it's the single most important issue to me in national politics.

Yeah, small government is great... until you actually need it.

Like Maher says, where are the Teabaggers burning their SS and medicare cards like the bra burners of the past?

It's not going to happen... nah, instead you got huge Teabagger Michele Bachmann profiting off of federal farm subsidies. What a joke.

We essentially have 3 choices:

1) Massive tax increases on everyone (not just the rich) so that the government can fund everything you want them to do.

2) Wholesale reform of entitlement spending to check runaway growth.

3) Keep doing what we're doing and burn this mother down.


Given that the areas of society that are most troubled are also those with the greatest government involvement (e.g. education, health care, etc.), I don't trust them with our money. I think you and I will make better decisions with our money than Congress ever could.

I think both parties are fully of crap, because the democrats only solution is to tax the rich when they know if we taxed the top 1% of earners at 100% marginal rate it wouldnt come close to balancing the budget. Republicans are frauds because they talk about deep cuts but when it is time to be precise about WHAT to cut, they only talk about fraud and waste and keep their distance from entitlements.

The problem with this country is we can't have it both ways. If you want to keep funding all these entitlement programs, you need to tax the hell out of people like you me (middle class). The problem with that is you will stunt growth for years as that always happens to societies that subscribe to socialism. If I have to pay thousands of more dollars out of my paycheck, the economy will suffer because I won't be spending that money the private sector.

The other alternative is to have drastic cuts in entitlement, defense, and cut out most subsidies and pet projects for congressman. We should have reformed entitlement 20 years ago knowing the baby boomers would be retiring right around now and would eventually outgrow the numbers of workers who pay into the government every month.

Social Security/ Medicare should have been limited to the poor (just like it was originally proposed in 1935 by FDR, and LBJ in 1965), and people like you and me should have the option 7% FICA tax/ 2-3% Medicare and invest it anyway we want. Right now I pay FICA and Medicare Tax and the governments yields a 1% return for me when I'm 65 years old, whereas I could take the that money (I am 38 years old), and invest it in mutual funds for the next 25 years and yield between 5-8%. I have an HSA for my healthcare and have built up savings because I am young so when I get older I have an account that can pay for pills, doctor visits, and the only coverage I pay for is catastropic God forbid I need some major surgery.

The system is so fucked up it is so frustrating to see where my taxes go from my check each week.

That's a specious argument at best and perfectly demonstrates Maher's bias and/or stupidity.

The Teabaggers, like all other working folk, have paid into the system for years & they're just expecting a return on their investment. No one asked them whether they wanted to voluntarily contribute to the system; rather their money was confiscated & used to pay benefits for earlier retirees. I think it's been demonstrated that people could have invested their FICA contributions and gotten a much better return on their money...especially considering that employers could have paid them higher wages if they didn't have to match the employees' contributions.

To say that anyone who has paid into the system for a lifetime is a hypocrite for criticizing the system is like saying that no one who sends kids to public schools has any right to criticize the schools. Or no one who has benefited in any way from public services has the right to criticize the government.

It would be like someone putting money into a bank and then having the bank call them a hypocrite when the bank customer wanted to withdraw money later on.

Of course, we all know that there is no "account" being held in anyone's name (which is what most people think). Social Security, like other entitlements, is simply a pay-as-you-go system intended to benefit current beneficiaries who qualify. The whole scheme is predicated on some future worker paying for your pension; no one is depositing your contribution into an account and holding it for you. It's just another tax and people should recognize it. Why anyone should be surprised if the system folds and some contributors don't get any benefits is the interesting thing.

Anyway, comparing people who complain about entitlements which are drowning the nation in debt to bra-burners is one of the stupidest analogies ever devised. That some think it is brilliant is anindictment of the sorry state of critical rather than a tribute to Maher's 'brilliance'.

Good comments, guys. I ran across something discussing Michele Bachmann today I thought I'd share. They're essentially the same article with the first referring to the second.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/jo...oto_not_sexist
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...urrentPage=all

I couldn't begin to do the due diligence necessary to vet the statements being made, but the articles paint a picture that she essentially believes there was nothing wrong with slavery and blacks were lucky for it. I had no intention of digging into the articles, but the depiction is so inflammatory I had to read at least a bit more.

As it turns out, she identified a book as "must read" that apparently defends slavery. While it may (or may not) represent her views, listing a book that defends slavery as "must read" is different from making the statements yourself. A Quote from the book:

Slavery, as it operated in the pervasively Christian society which was the old South, was not an adversarial relationship founded upon racial animosity. In fact, it bred on the whole, not contempt, but, over time, mutual respect. This produced a mutual esteem of the sort that always results when men give themselves to a common cause. The credit for this startling reality must go to the Christian faith. . . . The unity and companionship that existed between the races in the South prior to the war was the fruit of a common faith.

And now, a quote from the first (Salon) article:
I was most blown away by the way one of her "must-read" books defended slavery: as a kindness that rescued Africans from "savagery" and made them Christians, but also as an institution that developed "mutual respect" between slave and slave owner, likewise thanks to Christianity.

That's the quote that caught me since we'd previously talked about that invading countries and converting to Christanity quote of "extremist" conservative Ann Coulter. So I dipped into the article to read it and came away with the fact that nowhere does the article actually say Ms. Bachmann says she agrees with those views, just that she likes a book with those views.

There will be a Republican party presidential debate Thursday sponsored by Fox News and the Iowa Republican Party. I ran across an article that says moderate Republican Fred Karger is inappropriately excluded from the debates.

http://www.autostraddle.com/fred-kar...debate-104769/

He's openly gay, worked for Ronald Reagan, raised money for Hillary Clinton, and thinks Obama's being too much of a pushover. I subsequently realized is he's from northern Illinois (Obama's home), so they've likely crossed paths before. Also, I've heard it said that Republicans of Illinois are typically more moderate conservatives. Anyway, Karger has a lot to say that disagrees with the "mainstream" views of the Republican party. Personally, I was hoping to hear from him. But apparently even though he meets the criteria to be included, he was subsequently denied participation because some of the polls he used to justify his inclusion were on-line polls the sponsors won't accept (even though their pre-published criteria did not exclude them).

I know there's little chance for a moderate conservative to win the nomination (especially one who is polling at 1% and doesn't have the money behind him), but it'd be nice to hear from one and see how many others there are out there.

First, I stand corrected because I guess I do know someone calling for a new crusade, I just didn't know they had done so. I don't follow Coulter at all, but from what little I've seen I think of her more as a bomb throwing attention whore than a politician or even a pundit.

My initial point was merely that there are extreme leftist positions beyond raising taxes and increasing welfare programs.

You see, helping the poor (and not by saying they want to be poor and are too lazy to get a real job at McDonalds) and making sure that the super rich are paying a higher % of their income than their secretaries and not using lawyers and loopholes from helping destroying this country are not extreme leftist positions.

Yeah, that was kind of exactly my point. I was responding to post 388.

I'm willing to let it go, but please recognize that I ask what they are because I truly don't know. I tried thinking about people like Ayers (the guy from ACORN) or maybe Obama's preacher. But they're more just people who look at the other side with disdain. I can't think of anything really dangerous they advocate. I simply don't know of any extreme liberals with any following in the U.S. who advocate anything clearly dangerous (beyond being governmentally invasive.. ie, taxes.).

Returns Friday 9/16 10pm

with guests: Dexter Filkins, Keith Olbermann, Rich Galen, Jennifer Donahue and Louis C.K.

wow, maher put a tea party guy (Rich Galen) and Olbermann on the same panel. This ought to be good, as Olbermann rarely if ever has conservatives and or people from the other side on his show

How does this show keep getting nominated for Emmys?

I'm a liberal. I'm a progressive. I vote Democrat. I like Bill Maher--he's better on any other show than his own or when he does an HBO special.

Real Time is only occasionally very good and, most of the time, the panel is composed of the few people who actually just want to be on tv whenever they're asked.

I know that really big name conservatives aren't often going to appear, but the show if often just the opening monologue, a decent interview, a panel discussion--the biggest portion of the show--that gives me a headache and goes nowhere, and New Rules, which over the years have actually gotten shorter. It's often the best part of the show and they can't come up with 3 more minutes of jokes for New Rules before Bill gets to the last one where he ends with his commentary, which I actually like as well most of the time?

Again, it's an interesting enough show, it's worth watching, especially when you see some names on the panel that don't include any comedians, but it's not worthy of an Emmy nomination. Not when Ferguson or Letterman are left out.

Real Talk must be a spin-off of Real Time.

Whatever it's called with Olbermann and Louis CK on the same panel it's going to be fucked up in a sweet way.

He ended New Rules with having someone in a big bubble as a republican, with Maher (and joined later by Olbermann) telling him "facts" which the republican ignores and sits in his bubble

I agree with a lot of this but Letterman blows.

I think the whole bubble thing had potential, but the delivery was terrible. I can relate to the frustration of talking to someone iwho lives n a bubble. Not ignorant. Not wrong. In a bubble. Not even willing to consider new information. Sporting some kind of high tech inner ear filter where certain things just don't even get in. But even with that, it fell horrendously flat. New Rules is normally the consolation prize in that no matter how bad the panel discussion gets, the last New Rule kind of saves the show. Not this time.

Anyway, I'm glad the show is back.

BTW, I've been hearing about this "Yeah!" shoutout since the night of that debate, but I haven't read anything where the person/people who did that were interviewed or talked to about what they meant. I'm sure he meant what everyone thinks he meant, but when I first heard it, I thought, "Maybe he means, 'Yeah, would you just let him die?!" In other words, he could have been agreeing with the question, not providing the answer. Absent information, we have to assume, and I agree with the assumption people are malking, but the press was all over. Why not ask?

I liked the whole panel, including the Tea Party guy. I thought Bill said he'd stop calling them Tea Baggers.

Wow..didnt even realize I did that. haha oops

I've been a fan of Maher since the old Politically Incorrect days. I thought his HBO show was good for the first few years.

It's grown tiresome for me, and I just don't even find it all that entertaining anymore.

He is better on other people's shows. His delivery on jokes has never been all that good, which means the writers better hit a home run for some of this stuff to be funny.

The only person who seems to be absent information is you since you didn't see the debate. There is video of the incident; I suggest you seek it out. It's pretty clear what the people shouting meant.

"The only thing the Republicans hate more than a mandate is a man date!"

I'll take Letterman over loser let me interrupt all my guest and talk about myself Leno. What makes Letterman blow is Paul Schaffer, he needs to keep his mouth shut.

I love Real Time but it can get repetitive and boring.

Craig Ferguson is brilliant.