Tag: New Rules

Adapted from Rant of the Week st The Stars Hollow Gazette

Adapted from Rant of the Week at The Stars Hollow Gazette

October 25, 2013 – Bill Maher ended his show Friday night going after Republican opposition to the minimum wage, calling them out for opposing something that would make people less dependent on government handouts. He targeted McDonalds in particular, saying “until Ronald McDonald starts paying his employees a living wage, he has to wipe that fucking smile off his face.”

When did the American Dream become the path to indentured servitude?

This is the question the right has to answer. Do you want smaller government with less handouts, or do you want a low minimum wage? Because you cannot have both.

Adapted from Rant of the Week at The Stars Hollow Gazette

New Rule: Conservatives Who Love to Brag About American Exceptionalism Must Come Here to California

Bill Maher, Huffington Post

New Rule: Conservatives who love to brag about American exceptionalism must come here to California, and see it in person. And then they should be afraid — very afraid. Because while the rest of the country is beset by stories of right-wing takeovers in places like North Carolina, Texas and Wisconsin, California is going in the opposite direction and creating the kind of modern, liberal nation the country as a whole can only dream about. And not only can’t the rest of the country stop us — we’re going to drag you along with us.

It wasn’t that long ago that pundits were calling California a failed state and saying it was ungovernable. But in 2010, when other states were busy electing whatever Tea Partier claimed to hate government the most, we elected a guy who actually liked it, Jerry Brown.[..]

Since then, everything Republicans say can’t or won’t work — gun control, immigration reform, high-speed rail — California is making work. And everything conservatives claim will unravel the fabric of our society — universal healthcare, higher taxes on the rich, gay marriage, medical marijuana — has only made California stronger. And all we had to do to accomplish that was vote out every single Republican. Without a Republican governor and without a legislature being cock-blocked by Republicans, a $27 billion deficit was turned into a surplus, continuing the proud American tradition of Republicans blowing a huge hole in the budget and then Democrats coming in and cleaning it up.

Adapted from Rant of the Week at The Stars Hollow Gazette

The US: world’s policeman or schoolyard bully?

by Bill Maher, The Guardian

Ever since 9/11, it seems America’s just been itching for a fight – and any Muslim country will do. Really, who acts like this?

New rule: 12 years after 9/11, and amidst yet another debate on whether to bomb yet another Muslim country, America must stop asking the question, “Why do they hate us?” Forget the debate on Syria, we need a debate on why we’re always debating whether to bomb someone. Because we’re starting to look not so much like the world’s policeman, but more like George Zimmerman: itching to use force and then pretending it’s because we had no choice. [..]

Since 1945, when Jesus granted America air superiority, we’ve bombed Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Serbia, Somalia, Bosnia, the Sudan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya and Yemen. And Yemen only because the tenth one was free.

How did we inherit this moral obligation to bring justice to the world via death from above? Are we Zeus? It doesn’t make any sense. Our schools are crumbling, and we want to teach everyone else a lesson?

Adapted from Rant of the Week at The Stars Hollow Gazette

Bill Maher challenges the left’s super rich to get in the game.

August 2, 2013 – (Real Time w/ Bill Maher – New Rules – Going Coup-Coup) – Bill Maher ended his show Friday night with a plea to rich liberals to even out the playing field so it’s not just “rich assholes” supporting the GOP pushing the policies they want all over the country. In particular, Maher singled out how one North Carolina businessman has been able to push his agenda through the state legislature, and with just a hint of subtlety, Maher used the segment as a direct appeal to the artist Jay Z, who, as luck would have it, was sitting right next to him.

Maher shared with liberal America a tale of “proud people in a region where religious freedom, women’s right, and democracy itself hang in the balance”: North Carolina. Maher explained how the state has gone “apeshit” with laws like a ban on Sharia and allowing concealed guns on playgrounds. Although the latter does mean “if your toddler gets knocked down in the sandbox, he can stand his ground.”

And that’s not even including the abortion debate. Maher explained this shift in the previously-“trending blue” state by introducing the audience to Art Pope, another one of the right-wing “rich assholes” throwing their money and influence around to get the laws they want. Maher declared, “It’s no longer our ideas versus their ideas, or even our base versus their base, it’s our super-rich versus their super-rich.”

He hinted to Jay Z that he should buy a state too, but he didn’t end there. Maher made direct appeals to Steven Spielberg, Tyler Perry, and Oprah Winfrey to buy states of their own to at least even the score.

Adapted from The Rant of the Week at The Stars Hollow Gazette

Pope Immunity: Vatican Will Protect Benedict From Sexual Abuse Prosecution

(Reuters) – Pope Benedict’s decision to live in the Vatican after he resigns will provide him with security and privacy. It will also offer legal protection from any attempt to prosecute him in connection with sexual abuse cases around the world, Church sources and legal experts say.

“His continued presence in the Vatican is necessary, otherwise he might be defenseless. He wouldn’t have his immunity, his prerogatives, his security, if he is anywhere else,” said one Vatican official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“It is absolutely necessary” that he stays in the Vatican, said the source, adding that Benedict should have a “dignified existence” in his remaining years.

Pope Benedict retired after inquiry into ‘Vatican gay officials’, says paper

Pope’s staff decline to confirm or deny La Repubblica claims linking ‘Vatileaks’ affair and discovery of ‘blackmailed gay clergy’

A potentially explosive report has linked the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI to the discovery of a network of gay prelates in the Vatican, some of whom – the report said – were being blackmailed by outsiders. [..]

The paper said the pope had taken the decision on 17 December that he was going to resign – the day he received a dossier compiled by three cardinals delegated to look into the so-called “Vatileaks” affair. [..]

According to La Repubblica, the dossier comprising “two volumes of almost 300 pages – bound in red” had been consigned to a safe in the papal apartments and would be delivered to the pope’s successor upon his election.

Adapted from Rant of the Week at The Stars Hollow Gazette

Adapted from The Rant of the Week at The Stars Hollow Gazette

Here’s the only thing you need to know about Todd Akin and human anatomy, he’s an asshole.

It’s not a coincidence that the party of fundamentalism is also the party of fanatasy

The symbol for their party shouldn’t be an elephant, it should be a unicorn..

My New Rule for Todd Akin and the Republican Party

by Bill Maher

New Rule: If your entire party tries to get rid of you, and you stay in, you can’t talk about how easy it is for a woman to push a stupid prick out of her body.

I don’t want to waste another second thinking about Todd Akin, and his theory that you can’t get pregnant unless your eggs are asking for it. Here’s the only thing you need to know about Todd Akin and human anatomy: he’s an asshole. What I want to talk about is how it’s not a coincidence that the party of fundamentalism is also the party of fantasy. When I say religion is a mental illness, this is what I mean: it corrodes your mental faculties to the point where you can believe in tiny ninja warriors who hide in vaginas and lie in wait for bad people’s sperm.

Evangelicals might like to pretend that the magical thinking that they indulge in at home doesn’t affect what they do at the office, but it absolutely does. The brain that believes in angels and miracles and Jesus riding a dinosaur is trained to see the world not as it is, but as you want it to be.

Republicans would like to pretend like Congressman Akin’s substitution of superstition for science is a lone problem but it’s not: they’re all magical thinkers, on nearly every issue. They don’t get their answers on climate change from climatologists, they get them from the Book of Genesis. Hence Sharia Law in America is a dire threat, and global warming a hoax. [..]

Adapted from The Stars Hollow Gazette‘s Rant of the Week

Mars sucks.

Scientists must explain how it’s possible that the tiny island country of Jamaica can at the same time possess all the most stoned people in the world and all the fastest people in the world.

Voter ID laws solve a problem that doesn’t exist.