'Real Time' Guest List: May 11, 2012

By Miles Leicher

For this week's show:

At the top-of-show will be Richard Clarke, former White House Advisor and author of Cyber War. He was recently interviewed in The Washington Post about working in the private vs. the public sector.

On the Panel:

Margaret Hoover is a CNN Political Contributor and author of American Individualism. Her latest article is on the GOP’s growing support of sex marriage.

David Cay Johnston is a Reuters Columnist, author of Free Lunch, and Professor at Syracuse University College of Law. He recently wrote that, contrary to popular belief, Social Security “is not going broke.”

Grover Norquist is the founder of Americans For Tax Reform and co-author of Debacle.

Mid-show will be actress and activist Eva Longoria, one of the stars of ABC's 'Desperate Housewives' and a 2012 Obama Campaign Co-Chair. She recently appeared in a video, in which she shared why she supports President Obama’s reelection campaign.

Behind the Screens: May 4, 2012

By Miles Leicher

Check out what went on behind the scenes of last week’s 'Real Time' episode, featuring Arsenio Hall, Ed Schultz, Lawrence Wilkerson, Susan Del Percio and Bobcat Goldthwait!

Drill Baby, Drill

By Miles Leicher

It’s time for President Obama to show Republicans what “spiking a football” looks like. It’s been one year since SEAL Team 6 put a bullet in Osama bin Laden’s eye, after which President Obama defended his decision to not release the photos of bin Laden’s corpse, saying, “we don’t need to spike the football.” Which conservatives apparently took to mean, “We’ll never speak of this day again.”

So when the President recently pointed out that the mission he ordered was one that Mitt Romney likely would not have undertaken, Republicans were all, “Oooh, he just spiked the shit out of that football!” Or, as John McCain put it, “he is doing a shameless end-zone dance to help himself get re-elected.” Grandpa, please. As if the thought of sending a SEAL team in the dead of night to kill the world’s most wanted terrorist doesn’t give you a raging phantom boner. But, really, President Obama hasn’t even come close to excessively celebrating this issue. But he should. Which is why we think it’s high time he threw a good ol’ fashioned military parade.

We're talking boots on the ground, tanks on the tarmac, a bunch of those trucks with the big pointy missiles...the whole kit and caboodle. And sure, it’s gonna feel a little North Korean. But Kim Jong Un’s shit is fake. And the only thing worse than that bankrupt country spending all their money on dummy missiles is our bankrupt country spending all of our China’s money on real missiles that we a) don’t use and b) never get to see. So who’s the real dummy?

Come on, let’s see what 43 percent of the world’s military spending buys us.

Just picture it…Barack Obama standing on a viewing platform as every piece of equipment in our arsenal rolls down Pennsylvania Avenue. It would go on for months! We might even catch a glimpse of the “alternative engine” for the F-35 fighter jet that cost taxpayers $3 billion to design before the Pentagon canceled it, or the F-22 Raptor, which cost $79 billion and has yet to be used in a single combat mission. Our money would’ve been better-spent making actual raptors. Think about it, DARPA.

And, best of all, this parade would create jobs, including hundreds of pooper-scoopers. Not for the horses – for Rush Limbaugh.

'Real Time' Guest List: May 4, 2012

By Miles Leicher

Tonight’s top-of-show interview will be with comedian Arsenio Hall, who is a competitor on the current season of Celebrity Apprentice and appears in the recent Snoop Dogg-narrated documentary, Uprising: Hip Hop & The LA Riots. They will be discussing the 20^th anniversary of the riots in South Central Los Angeles, sparked by the acquittal of police officers involved in the Rodney King beating. Twitter: @ArsenioOFFICIAL

On the Panel:

Susan del Percio is a Republican strategist, the founder of Susan Del Percio Strategies and a regular contributor to NY1 and The Ed Show on MSNBC. Twitter: @DelPercioS

Ed Schultz hosts The Ed Show weeknights at 8pm ET and The Ed Shultz Show, a nationally syndicated talk radio program. He recently wrote a Huffington Post editorial called, “The War on the Poor: The Potential Impact of the Proposed Budget Cuts by Republicans” Twitter: @WeGotEd and @EdShow

Lawrence Wilkerson is the former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell and retired US Army Colonel. He recently taught a course in national security as a visiting professor at The College of William & Mary.

Mid-show is Bobcat Goldthwait who has written and directed a new film 'God Bless America' which is being released in select cities on May 11th.

Bubble Math

By Miles Leicher

One of our favorite segments here at Real Time is called "Dispatches From the Bubble," in which we show an example of someone (let's be honest – usually a Republican) who's hopelessly stuck in a "bubble" through which facts and reality may not penetrate. There's also a liberal bubble, filled with Democrats who say things like, "Obama's got this election in the bag" and "my co-workers love it when I brag about biking to work!"

In his book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010, Charles Murray (featured on last week's episode of Real Time) writes about a different kind of bubble, which contains an American upper class that has grown out of touch with the rest of the population. You can imagine what it would be like trying to find common ground among people with whom you clearly have none. There would probably be lots of talk of the trees being the "right height" and the grass being "the right color for this time of year…" you know, "kind of a brownish-greenish sort of thing." But I digress.

In Coming Apart, Murray asks readers a series of questions to find out just how vulnerable they are to becoming out of touch with America's working class. Below are a few excerpts from the book:

"How Thick Is Your Bubble?"

• Have you ever lived for at least a year in an American neighborhood in which the majority of your fifty nearest neighbors probably did not have college degrees?

• Have you ever lived for at least a year in the United States at a family income that was close to the poverty line?

• Have you ever walked on a factory floor?

• Have you ever had a close friend who was an evangelical Christian?

• Have you or your spouse ever bought a pickup truck?

• During the last year, have you ever purchased domestic mass-market beer to stock your own fridge?

• Have you ever ridden on a long-distance bus or hitchhiked for a trip of fifty miles or more?

• What does the word Branson mean to you?

Feeling left out? Crack open a domestic mass-market beer, take the full quiz and score yourself here! How'd you do?

Reprinted from the book Coming Apart by Charles Murray. Copyright © 2012 by Charles Murray.  Published by Crown Forum, a division of Random House, Inc

Behind the Screens: April 27, 2012

By Miles Leicher

Check out what happened behind the scenes of the latest Real Time episode!

'Real Time' Guest List: April 27, 2012

By Miles Leicher

Tonight’s top-of-show interview will be with Charles Murray, co-author of The Bell Curve, whose latest book is Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010. Murray argues that our greatest source of inequality is cultural, and Coming Apart shows that since 1963, working class whites have lost touch with what he calls the “founding virtues” of America: industriousness, honesty, religion, and marriage, while the new upper class has maintained them.

On the Panel:

Paul Begala is a Democratic Strategist and CNN Contributor. His take on Mitt Romney’s recent election wins – against “the weakest field in modern presidential history” can be found on The Daily Beast.

Andrew Ross Sorkin is a New York Times columnist and co-host of CNBC's "Squawk Box." He also wrote Too Big to Fail, which was adapted into an HBO film. In his latest Times Dealbook column, he questions whether an executive’s failed history at one company should automatically disqualify them from serving on the boards of others.

S.E. Cupp is a New York Daily News columnist and co-host of GBTV's "Real News." In her recent opinion piece in the Daily News, Cupp suggests that Mitt Romney could learn a thing or two from President Obama, whom she calls a “masterful bully.”

Joining the panel mid-show will be Paul Rieckhoff, Founder and Executive Director of Iraq and Afghanistan Verterans of America (IAVA). He has been a proponent of “Operation Welcome Home,” which calls for a national day of action to honor and support returning veterans.

Agents of Strange

By Miles Leicher

It’s been an embarrassing week for the Secret Service, what with the prostitution scandal and having to be seen out in public with Newt Gingrich. But that hasn’t stopped them from trying to turn a negative in to a positive with these new recruitment posters that we totally didn’t make up:

Think you can top those? Let’s hear it!