No just sleazy as it's his friend and campaign manager. In my book probably better to see prostitutes.

ABC News - Mayor's Affair Stuns San Francisco

Follow the link for the rest of the story. Like some have already mentioned, I only know of him from his appearances on Real Time. I wouldn't have known about the scandal if Astrofan hadn't mentioned it. Disappointing.

Only Bill Maher could get away with saying something like "I can understand why someone would shoot police officers" (I'm paraphrasing). I knew what he meant, but anyone else in the media (celebrity or no celebrity) says that, they'd be ostracized.

To me, Spitzer's biggest political sin was being a hypocrite (and I'm a fan of his still). Sex scandals are so irrelevant in 2016, except to prudes and repressed religious nut jobs, who are usually overcompensating for their own indescretions.

People like to fuck. Always have, always will. Get over it.

Particularly amazing in that he was saying it in regard to the monster that killed the five Dallas policemen.

Pretty good show, other than the opening guest. I've seen Frank Luntz on a few news shows, and christ he is a giant waste of space.

The panel was fine--nothing too notable was said. Spitzer did well. Cupp is one of the few Republican commentators I respect in the Age of Trump, and she had some good comments. I was a little surprised that she stood up for Trump's kids, though, given her opinion of him.

Mortensen is a very thoughtful guy. He's pretty low key--I can see why he doesn't do a lot of promotion/talk shows. But he seems to have a good perspective on things. Captain Fantastic sounds interesting--I'll have to give it a watch. I think the last thing I saw him in was The Road.

I thought Bill's regular comedy bits were better than usual. From his opening monologue to the "25 things you don't know about me." All very funny. This week's New Rules were good, too, and I especially liked the piece at the end about the blurred line between work and home life. Something I definitely have trouble with.

Looking forward to the extra Real Time shows this week due to the convention.

That was some real shit right there. Happens all over the place. For plenty of folks, there is no more personal life. Literally everything revolves around the job.

also these 2 episodes will air live on the Real Time youtube page for those without HBO

Real Time with Bill Maher - July 20th RNC Edition

It can be watched anytime, which is nice for me because although I have HBO, I prefer watching on computer and HBO Go requires Flash whereas YouTube doesn't.

For those DVRing it, pad it by at least 30 minutes. They don't start exactly at 11, but when the convention winds up. Tonight, it was delayed by 15 minutes, so my DVR cut off.

Man, that was chilling what Michael Moore said about Trump winning by flipping the rust belt states red (MI, WI, OH, PA). If the electoral map stays the same as it was in 2012, save for those four states, Trump wins 270-268.

Just going by my social media feeds, Trump's hardcorest following seems to be with non-college-educated white men with blue collar jobs (welders, truck drivers, oil field workers, etc). On the plus side, those same guys are also hardcore republicans who voted for McCain and Romney.

No doubt that Trump is playing to the white blue collar voter, but that is also alienating the college educated white suburban voter. With the exception of my ideological friends who vote the same every election, most of my blue collar friends are going for Trump, and most of my white collar friends are going for Hillary.

I think the only Rust Belt states that Trump has a chance in is Pennsylvania & Ohio, as Hillary is consistently leading in Wisconsin & Michigan by 5-7 points in polls. Plus Trump lost Wisconsin to Cruz in the primary, so it is a different type of Rust Belt state. Trump should have never went after Kasich and his eating habits as he would have been the perfect VP to help win Ohio.

The 2 states that Romney won that Hillary is up in polls is North Carolina and Utah. Trump is very unpopular in Utah because they love Romney, and North Carolina is changing demographically as it's not a safe red state anymore.

I still hestitate to say this with certainty like previous elections, because Trump has proved me and everyone else wrong for the past year.

Polls this week show that Trump leads Hillary in the white collar whites category by a single percentage point. She does better with white women, he does better with white males but not as much as previous Republican nominees. I really think it's going to be close but they both have their weak spots and are vulnerable. It will probably come down to a big event or blunder right before the election.

I agree. The other thing Hillary has going for her is the minority vote as I just don't see Trump doing any better then Romney. The overall minority vote in 2012 was 28%, as it is supposed to rise to 31% in this election. I read that there is a net loss of 5 million white voters who have died since 2012.

Even if Trump wins this election rousing up the White Vote, it will still hurt the Republican party in future elections. At some point they have to court minority voters as the country becomes more diverse. This is what happened in California in 1994 Governor race as Pete Wilson won on Immigration getting out the white vote, and with the exception of Moderate Arnold Schwarzenegger winning in 2003 and 2006, the Republicans have not won a Governor or Senate Seat since.

Yeah the minority vote is to Hillary's advantage but that's what Maher and Moore were warning about. You can't depend on them showing up and saving the country from Trump.

There's more minority voting every 4 years. It's what killed Romney, and what will (should?) kill Trump. What's funny is that right after Romney lost, the GOP was adamant about reaching out to Latinos and other minorities, promising to figure out how their platform can help them. Then they go nominate Trump...

I think the party tried. I've seen more Latino and African American Republicans given exposure. A portion of the base just isn't ready. Say what we will about Trump, he has done nothing other than take advantage of the fact that it's easier to just go ahead and feed the masses McDonalds than try to explain why a more expensive cut of beef is better for you. It's obvious that Trump wasn't the darling of the old school (Bushes, Romney, etc.).

During the primary season, I did see candidates (and the party itself) try to be more inclusive. The last two presidential elections have had black Republican candidates who did well for awhile. We have Hispanic candidates who did well. Rome wasn't built in a day, but I do see gradual improvement.

Yeah, I agree. When I say "they" nominated Trump, I don't mean the GOP leaders, but just republican citizens.

I found that the first two in this series got rather tedious. I love a good Trump bash as much as anyone, but a non-stop stream of it for 20 minutes loses all of its effect.

The problem with our party is perception and that's what everyone misses. When you have 92% of blacks vote for a democrat every 4 years, that is a perception problem. You can't win over them when they already have made their mind up before the election started simply because they think Republicans are a bunch of racists. The same goes with Latinos, Asians, etc, they all vote majority for Democrats, not because of their policies per say, but because they think Republicans are just racist. The only minority that ever voted Republican was Cubans, because we courted them by being anti-Castro when they came to America. And now there are new polls showing that younger Cubans are leaning Democrat.

Which leads to my point that Donald Trump just reinforces their opinion that Republicans are the party of whites only. He may win in November with this strategy, but it will hurt the party long-term for years.

Heather McGhee had such a great line on last night's show (re: other cultures being represented in America): "When you're so used to privilege, equality feels like oppression."

Without turning this into the politics forum, the Republicans (and people like you, Micah, no offense intended) need to understand that it's not just putting Latino, African-American, and female candidates out there to attract voters in those groups; you need to send the message that they want to hear. I.E., when a female GOP candidate is staunchly anti-abortion to the point of lying about it (which did happen in this campaign), she's not gonna get the female vote. Latinos do not like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, African-Americans do not like Ben Carson. There seems to be this belief that if they trot out the same old tired message, but have it come from the lips of a minority, then the minorities will come out and vote for them. That comes across as pandering, and everyone can see it. It's not that the GOP needs more minority candidates (though it would certainly help, if only to show that the party is more diverse), they have to change the message. Until that happens, white male Democrats will still kick the Republicans' ass in terms of the Latino, African-American, and female vote.

I agree. And his DNC shows will be a Hillary love fest with more Trump bashing.

I have gotten to where I just skip his opening monologue, see what guest he has and listen for a few minutes to see if they are interesting or if Bill is just going to hog the time. Then I usually watch all of the panel. I typically FF the skit, see what celebrity he gets and then FF them until he goes back to the panel (most of the celebs he gets always come off douchey whether they are or not). I always watch New Rules and his closing statement.

So basically I watch probably 30 minutes of the hour show. I like Bill but he can grate on the nerves just like others who do a similar job at CNN, FOX, etc.

America Ferrera was surprisingly good as the celeb guest. Also got to fight and argue with Jack Kingsman, a deep south Georgia Republican.

I thought she was kind of flaky.