Bill Maher has become the whiny little bitch he complains about

[Satchel 6,938]

Went downstairs earlier this evening and encountered two family members who have not been able to ween themselves from watching Maher. While mixing my Uncle Nearest based cocktail, I heard the Maher audience applaud Desantis’ for the way he [mis]managed vaccines in Florida. Don’t tell me disinformation doesn’t work. 

[Red Five 40,876]

I watched, for the last time ever I think. He is now basically 80% of the way to being Greg Gutfield, or whatever that guy's name is. 

Yucking it up with DeSantis about those stupid liberals and scientists. 

Maher: "Both sides, amirite."

Sam Harris: "Well one side is led by a guy facing 91 felony counts and was impeached twice and attempted a coup, so it's a little disingenuous to talk both sides like that."

Maher: "Yep, both sides suck alright. Anyway, let me bitch about Biden for five minutes to end the show...." 

Edited September 30, 2023 by Red Five

[Burt 4,089]

This fucking guy had Ted Cruz on Friday night. He sat there all smug and agreeing with much of what that cocksucker was saying, only pushing back when Ted's election denial came up.

[Satchel 6,938]

41 minutes ago, Burt said:

This fucking guy had Ted Cruz on Friday night. He sat there all smug and agreeing with much of what that cocksucker was saying, only pushing back when Ted's election denial came up.

The A listers have begun to give him much deserved shade and he’s decided that before he takes back anything, he’ll add more to it.

[Brandywine 1,316]

I used to really like his show but he’s lost me. I don’t know who he’s appealing to anymore. And that Cruz interview sucked. I can’t stand Cruz, worst Texas Senator ever, and I thought Maher let him run all over him.

Edited November 13, 2023 by Brandywine

[Willfully Horn 8,038]

Stopped watching Maher maybe two years ago. Comedians, in general, irritate me these days. They’re not pissed enough.

[Red Five 40,876]

I feel like Maher made a business decision at some point to essentially become the new Dennis Miller. 

[Biff Tannen 45,694]

9 hours ago, Willfully Horn said:

Stopped watching Maher maybe two years ago. Comedians, in general, irritate me these days. They’re not pissed enough.

 

8 minutes ago, Red Five said:

I feel like Maher made a business decision at some point to essentially become the new Dennis Miller. 

Yep, he was in my regular rotation from 2016-2018 and then he just started down this path and that was enough.  I actually went and saw him at ACL Live during that stretch too and he was pretty good, but somewhere the switch flipped.  I would add in a Joe Rogan comparison too.  Like Joe Rogan for disaffected liberals or something.

['stache 21,825]

I distinctly remember him destroying the "both sides" narrative several years ago. I can't remember if it was during trump vs. Hillary or before, but it was a good rant. It's just shocking where he's ended up. I wonder if Covid broke him, maybe he didn't like the shut downs or something. 

[Red Five 40,876]

Yucking it up with, of all fucking people, Ted Cruz. Laughing about those stupid democrats. 

[mchookem 16,338]

i think covid did break him, he's been pretty vocal about his opposition to the shut downs, masks, even vaccine mandates (not the vaccines themselves, just anti-requiring them for anything). he'd also gotten pretty anti-trans for a while now, especially anything involving children. 

i stopped watching at least a year ago for much of the same reasons, it was hard to take, especially after being a fan for decades. i mean i saw him at Gregory Gym in 90s!

i bet John Oliver's numbers are crushing his now. and honestly...Oliver really IS non-partisan. his topics rarely if ever fit with a particular 'team' narrative, they are just educational and informative and most of all he's really funny.

 i absolutely love when he goes off into some bizarre side story that ends up with a koala chlamydia ward or a sewage treatment plant named after him, or the Austin Radiant Plumbing commercial spoof. 🤣

 

[bolverk 29,694]

1 hour ago, mchookem said:

i think covid did break him, he's been pretty vocal about his opposition to the shut downs, masks, even vaccine mandates (not the vaccines themselves, just anti-requiring them for anything). he'd also gotten pretty anti-trans for a while now, especially anything involving children. 

i stopped watching at least a year ago for much of the same reasons, it was hard to take, especially after being a fan for decades. i mean i saw him at Gregory Gym in 90s!

i bet John Oliver's numbers are crushing his now. and honestly...Oliver really IS non-partisan. his topics rarely if ever fit with a particular 'team' narrative, they are just educational and informative and most of all he's really funny.

 i absolutely love when he goes off into some bizarre side story that ends up with a koala chlamydia ward or a sewage treatment plant named after him, or the Austin Radiant Plumbing commercial spoof. 🤣

 

 

His Israel/Hamas segment last night was really good, plus the bird election in New Zealand stuff is right up his alley.

[4th&Five 41,567]

Count me with the others that quit watching Bill a couple years ago. Oliver is much better and actually educational. 

[Satchel 6,938]

34 minutes ago, 4th&Five said:

Count me with the others that quit watching Bill a couple years ago. Oliver is much better and actually educational. 

I was just about to post the very same thing. I found his latest show very helpful:

 

[mchookem 16,338]

... and i voted in the NZ bird election! 😄

[WhatTheBuck 28,793]

On 11/13/2023 at 4:10 PM, 'stache said:

I distinctly remember him destroying the "both sides" narrative several years ago. I can't remember if it was during trump vs. Hillary or before, but it was a good rant. It's just shocking where he's ended up. I wonder if Covid broke him, maybe he didn't like the shut downs or something. 

Covid broke him. That’s a big part of it. He’s always had a little streak of west coast flake in him. I heard him say years ago that he didn’t trust milk. But he didn’t respond well at all to being forced to shut down his show during the pandemic. That affected his livelihood and rather than accept that it was the right thing to do as we all pulled together in a public health crisis, he took it personally. Now he acts like you can’t trust doctors and science. Because sometimes doctors or scientists, using the best available information/data at any given time, might get something wrong, he concludes that you can’t trust them on anything.

The caliber of his guests and panelists has also eroded significantly in the last several years. I wonder about what changes there may have been in his writing staff. Plus he’s just getting old. 

[Red Five 40,876]

Screams about the stupid democrats and Biden for 90% of his show like he's on Fox, and then openly wonders why Biden isn't doing better in the polls. 

 

[Fastbreak 3,988]

I was a fan at one point. Saw his live shows 3-4 times. Watched pretty regularly. These days I can’t stand him, if somehow he hits my YouTube feed i stop watching immediately.

[SubliminalHorn 6,808]

We stopped watching a couple years ago. Like others have said, I just couldn’t take his whining about everything. It’s time for him to hang it up. 

[Ted Lange 16,110]

He is going the Adam Carolla route.   Adam is a straight-up wingut now, Bill isn't far behind.   They both think woke-ism is the # issue in the country.  Insanity. 

[safe sex 11,738]

Pathetic

[Aqua Buddha 14,599]

On 11/26/2023 at 8:20 AM, WhatTheBuck said:

 

The caliber of his guests and panelists has also eroded significantly in the last several years. I wonder about what changes there may have been in his writing staff. Plus he’s just getting old. 

This.

He was never a good comic, quite frankly, but his show was good whenever he would have good guests on.  Regular A and B listers.  Now it's maybe one of those per season and a collection of people you've never heard of.

His low point was complaining about Barbie.  (How old white man can you get?)  He said the 30 year old woman he was with didn't think there was any sexism.  (That's not the flex you think it is, Boomer.)  

[safe sex 11,738]

The 30yo he was with knew better than to open her mouth about it around him..

[Dutchrudder 11,146]

I have to admit, I have been listening to some of Maher's Club Random podcasts and listened to several of them. I thought he was an interesting guy and had some interesting guests listed, so I gave it a try. I was a little skeptical given the guests he's had on there, people like RFK, Jordan Peterson, Candace Owens, Rob Schneider, etc, but he also had people I love to listen to like Neil De Grasse Tyson (Startalk is an excellent pod), Sam Harris (Making Sense pod is great), Jim Gaffigan and Bryan Cranston. I listened to some on a lark, but I will say they are not great pods. He's literally drunk and high while doing these interviews, which sounds fun in theory, but amounts to shitty stoner theories being thrown at guests who probably deserve better. 

I haven't really watched his TV show in years, so I didn't realize what his views had become. I saw a podcast of him interviewing Richard Dawkins, and I thought that would be great because Dawkins is awesome. This was the worst interview of Dawkins I could ever imagine, Bill didn't bother asking him about biology or evolution education, didn't bother discussing philosophy, and didn't really get into his numerous books. I couldn't believe the dumb topics he brought up with man like Dawkins, who is world renowned for so many interesting things. Dawkins was very reserved and unengaged much of the time, because many of the topics had nothing to do with him. Lots of Bill trying to setup some conversation like Trans issues or possible American Civil War, and Dawkins doesn't have much to say about it. The most science-y topic they covered was Covid, and it was mostly Bill complaining about things that were societal and not scientific. Dawkins tried to explain a lot of it, like MRNA vaccine development, herd immunity, etc, while Bill was going after things like "what about metal in the shot? what about cancer rates? the virus only killed old people!" Things Dawkins isn't really an expert on and trying to have an intelligent conversation with a drunk layman. 

At one point Dawkins used the word "homeopathy" and had to explain to Bill what that means. Bill has to explain to Dawkins what Twitch is, while decrying the invention of the smart phone and blaming it for many of the ills of society. There was a funny bit where Dawkins says he's always disappointed when he meets a fan and they say "I love you! I watched all your videos!" and they never read any of his books. He implores them to go read his books instead, because they are so much better. 

I watched a few more of these with people I thought might be interesting, the NDGT one was pretty good. Sam Harris was much better at countering some of Bill's dumb thoughts, but they did agree a lot about religion. I watched the Candace Owens one, and he was such an unbelievable pushover on some topics where she was clearly lying about facts, so it's hard not to see him as a tool of the Right even if he won't claim them and hates Trump. So here's a quick summary of topics that Bill thinks makes him a self-ascribed "Libertarian/Centrist" now:

Woke-ism is insane - Calls it the worst part of the Left, but isn't actually "Liberal" like he is. Claims Woke and Liberals are often opposites. 
Higher Education is dumb and worthless - Constantly attacks higher education, says going to college is a waste of money. Questions the motives of higher education, and blames a lot of the Woke-ism issues on Universities.  He also stopped doing comedy at universities due to woke backlash, people taking his jokes too seriously, or being unable to make jokes like he used to. 
Trans stuff - He's very against discussing non-binary options for children. Is against trans athletes. IMO, he seems to imply that the Left is creating more trans people by discussing it so much, but doesn't say those words. 
Covid stuff - He's very upset by the way Covid was handled, transmission rates, thinks the lab leak story is true and China covered it up, hates Fauci and how confident the CDC was in their directives of masks/COVID vaccines/business shutdowns. 
Vaccine choice - He thinks everyone should have the option to get any or no vaccines, and schools shouldn't be able to impose requirements on most of them. Claims they are just a "tool" in the medicine box. Repeats the claim that we have "too many vaccines" and compares it to the early 80s. Really likes RFK Jr and thinks he has valuable ideas about personal choice in medicine.

There are probably more opinions of his that suck, but those are the ones that come to mind after listening to a few of his pods. I wouldn't really recommend the pod, but if you have listened or watched 1 of these pods, there is an excellent parody of it by Tim Heidecker interviewing Fred Armisen. It's so uncomfortable, unprepared, off-key, slightly contentious and is completely sarcastic. The parody of the way Tim/Bill asserts himself, sits in his chair, drinks a ton of liquor and jumps around unrelated topics with no proper segue; is all top notch work. He nails the smug asshole-ness of Bill. 

 

[Red Five 40,876]

I watched last night's episode because it was a good set of guests. Gavin Newsom, Andrew Sullivan, Ari Melber. Man, Sullivan. He is now firmly in the Bill Maher camp now, of "Donald Trump and republicans are an existential danger to our democracy.... so I will spend the next hour screaming about how awful the democrats are." 

"New Rules" was about how everyone has gone crazy in this country. 90% of the examples were dumb things happening on the left. 

Also, holy shit Gavin Newsom. I think we can go ahead and pencil him into the top spot in 2028.

[Neonmoon 38,129]

Bill Maher is the Joe Rogan of the 90s

[Nivek 16,946]

Lockdowns broke him and exposed his own level of entitlement. It’s really all there is to it.

[Bullneck 19,184]

2 hours ago, Red Five said:

Also, holy shit Gavin Newsom. I think we can go ahead and pencil him into the top spot in 2028.

That's my take.  I watched some of the "debate" with him and DeSantis and he's easily head and shoulders in all categories above anyone who's run since maybe JFK or LBJ.

[Red Five 40,876]

49 minutes ago, Bullneck said:

That's my take.  I watched some of the "debate" with him and DeSantis and he's easily head and shoulders in all categories above anyone who's run since maybe JFK or LBJ.

It's like if Mayor Pete was more charismatic and 6'3" and looked like a movie star. 

[safe sex 11,738]

3 hours ago, Red Five said:

I watched last night's episode because it was a good set of guests. Gavin Newsom, Andrew Sullivan, Ari Melber. Man, Sullivan. He is now firmly in the Bill Maher camp now, of "Donald Trump and republicans are an existential danger to our democracy.... so I will spend the next hour screaming about how awful the democrats are." 

"New Rules" was about how everyone has gone crazy in this country. 90% of the examples were dumb things happening on the left. 

Also, holy shit Gavin Newsom. I think we can go ahead and pencil him into the top spot in 2028.

Thanks for the recap. Thought about watching because I used to really enjoy reading Andrew Sullivan, but trans people really sent him off the deep end. That and his weed writing—fucking embarrassing lmao. 

Might still watch the Newsom clips if I can find them. 

[Biff Tannen 45,694]

1 hour ago, Red Five said:

It's like if Mayor Pete was more charismatic and 6'3" and looked like a movie star. 

I'm actually hoping for a Newsom/Buttigieg ticket for 2028.  Assuming we still have elections.  But I'm guessing veep slot will be a female.

[Dnaguy 12,003]

3 hours ago, Red Five said:

It's like if Mayor Pete was more charismatic and 6'3" and looked like a movie star. 

And not gay… NTTAWWT… unless you’re a black southern voter of course.
So I guess e may be something wrong with that… at least to become a candidate for President.

[David Dennison 18,938]

1 hour ago, Biff Tannen said:

I'm actually hoping for a Newsom/Buttigieg ticket for 2028.  Assuming we still have elections.  But I'm guessing veep slot will be a female.

Yeah, something tells me it's not gonna be two white guys. 

Edited January 20 by David Dennison

[Walser 1,109]

2 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

I'm actually hoping for a Newsom/Buttigieg ticket for 2028.  Assuming we still have elections.  But I'm guessing veep slot will be a female.

I'm Team Pete all the way but I have some reservations about Newsom. I'm not ruling him out but I have some concerns. I have to question someone who thought that Guilfoyle was a good idea.

Edited January 20 by Walser

[Biff Tannen 45,694]

1 hour ago, Walser said:

I'm Team Pete all the way but I have some reservations about Newsom. I'm not ruling him out but I have some concerns. I have to question someone who thought that Guilfoyle was a good idea.

Could swap them either way, but they seem to be the smartest of the real contenders, which is what I want. I was a Warren voter, but feels like her moment is over. 

[aggie08 21,505]

Man, I envy your guys' optimism speculating about a gay person or a California Democrat winning a presidential election in our lifetimes.

[Pato del Muerto 52,531]

13 minutes ago, aggie08 said:

Man, I envy your guys' optimism speculating about a gay person or a California Democrat winning a presidential election in our lifetimes.

We will just keep rigging the machines. Proof of concept was 2020.  Why ever stop?

[atomheartbevo 89,744]

16 minutes ago, aggie08 said:

Man, I envy your guys' optimism speculating about a gay person or a California Democrat winning a presidential election in our lifetimes.

Well, a New York City Democrat won in 2016….

[WhatTheBuck 28,793]

2 hours ago, aggie08 said:

Man, I envy your guys' optimism speculating about a gay person or a California Democrat winning a presidential election in our lifetimes.

More likely than an avowed atheist winning. 

[4th&Five 41,567]

I quit watching when he started giving weekly updates on how long it was taking to get his pool house built because of CA regulations. 

[WhatTheBuck 28,793]

5 minutes ago, 4th&Five said:

I quit watching when he started giving weekly updates on how long it was taking to get his pool house built because of CA regulations. 

Pool house? Or was it installing solar panels?

[Satchel 6,938]

Quote from Bill Maher 1999 interview with Rolling Stone:

“I would be a Republican if they would.”

[4th&Five 41,567]

27 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Pool house? Or was it installing solar panels?

I don’t remember. Some sort of first world, rich guy bullshit he couldn’t get over. 

[RPM 26,326]

It was his solar equipment. Required a small shed. The horror.

I stopped watching about halfway through last season. He's lost his fastball comedically and even though he is smart, he's not as smart as he needs to be to play analytical politics at this level. a/k/a Rogan.

[Fudge Nuggets 19,208]

13 hours ago, Red Five said:

It's like if Mayor Pete was more charismatic and 6'3" and looked like a movie star. 

I'm straight, but I would probably let a guy like that suck my dick.

[Biff Tannen 45,694]

3 hours ago, RPM said:

, he's not as smart as he needs to be to play analytical politics at this level. a/k/a Rogan.

Surely this is sarcasm right?

[Red Five 40,876]

Maher: "Biden should select Nikki Haley as his VP." 

[Biff Tannen 45,694]

1 minute ago, Red Five said:

Maher: "Biden should select Nikki Haley as his VP." 

Me: Maher should go fuck himself.

[Dutchrudder 11,146]

7 hours ago, Red Five said:

Maher: "Biden should select Nikki Haley as his VP." 

I can't imagine how many assassination attempts this would create. (After he's inaugurated) 

[softlynow 1,816]

Just more confirmation that Maher is neither a serious person nor all that funny anymore. There are never Trumpers out there who have actually disavowed not just Dotard, but Dotardism as well. Nicki is not that. She would run the same plays any GQPer would, and probably more effectively than the Dollar Store fascist himself.

I would’ve been surprised by something as breathtakingly idiotic as this from him a couple years ago, but this seems to be his new normal. Covid must’ve really broken him.