Authentic Is the New Slimy

By Bill Maher

Days before the election, a video surfaced of Mitt Romney from August of 2007, in which he's arguing with a radio interviewer at Iowa's WHO 1040. Why is he so pissed? Because the guy asked Romney to comment on how he reconciles his Mormon faith with his position on abortion and women's rights. There is no problem, asserts Romney, and then he proceeds to get angry and lay into the radio host, even though the DJ keeps reminding Romney that he's on his side.

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God Hates Flags

By Bill Maher

Another way angry old white men have been protesting Obama seizing power through "democracy" is by flying the flag upside down. Which is so fucking chicky it gives me contact-embarrassment. "Take that, Mr. Big Shot, with your fancy 'getting-the-most-votes.' I'm taking this flag and throwing a drink in its face. And you know how the Lincoln Memorial is on the five dollar bill? I'm farting on it." Wow, that really stings.

There have been dozens of cases, from Ohio to Kansas to Texas, anywhere there are friendless, egg-shaped pink fucks with a flagpole and a mis-held belief that they can do magic, and sometimes just talking back to the TV isn't enough.

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Sore Losers

By Bill Maher

Fifty-nine million Americans voted for Mitt Romney. Don't ask me why.  Why do they keep seeing Nicholas Sparks movies? Because white people are fucked up, that's why.

Who shops at the Hallmark Store? Who's smoking all the meth? Who's watching Duck Dynasty -- a reality show about rednecks who make duck calls? It gets higher ratings than 30 Rock or Homeland and I can't prove they're white and stupid, but someone's watching it...and it ain't Cornel West.

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The Common Cult

By Bill Maher

Fox News, you win. You have spewed your fact-free bile so insistently and so repetitively that the hypnosis has worked. A significant percentage of your viewers have accepted your ravings as gospel and what you report is no longer just a diversion or entertainment. Your fan base has become a dangerous cult.

We really do have to look at the level of hate and paranoia that's been stirred up in people by a right wing propaganda machine that has not just mischaracterized, but demonized, this President of the United States. The Secret Service recently had to pay a visit to 22-year-old California resident Denise Helms who posted on Facebook, "Another 4 years of this nigger. Maybe he will get assassinated this term." Without even a smiley face or an "LOL" or anything.

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Hypnosis Politics

By Bill Maher

Did the ability to raise an infinite amount of money in this election make a difference?

If you just paid attention to the Presidential race, then you might think the answer is no. But that's because the Presidential race is unlike any other contest in the country. People take it personally. They're invested in it. They'd seen Obama for four years and they'd seen Romney on Jay Leno and the cable shows and the debates. People in swing states may have been drowning in a bukkake-like stream of Romney and Obama ads, but it's not like those ads were providing all of their information.

But when it comes to state contests and ballot propositions, people generally don't know much beyond the ads, so in those races money isn't just the main thing, it's the only thing. 

Prop 37 went down in defeat because $48 million was spent to defeat it. This was a proposition that asked the simple question, "Wouldn't you like to know what you're putting in your mouth?" Before the ads started running, something like 90 percent of Californians who answered were for Prop 37. Now, they're against it. They're against knowing what they're putting in their mouth.

It's not that the anti-37 ads were particularly convincing. They didn't make any real arguments. It's just that there were so many of them. I saw them on Hulu when I watched old episodes of "My Favorite Martian." People keep complaining about the repetition of political ads, the same ad over and over and over, but that's the whole point -- it's hypnosis. That's how hypnosis works. The same thing. Repeated over and over. And over again. The same thing. Repeated over and over. Again. Repeated. And before you know it, you think you're a chicken. Or you don't care what's in your chicken.

Conspiracy Theorists

By Bill Maher

Fox News and the radio meat-puppets and the crank blogs are obsessed with Benghazi. It could be bigger than the Fast and the Furious scandal, and by that I mean a thimble full of flyshit no one cares about who's not on the take.

The Obama haters want revenge for how we said Bush was asleep at the switch for 9/11, so they're going to prove that Obama either ignored Benghazi, or lied about it afterwards, or possibly ordered it himself.

And that's why he looked so tired in the first debate. He'd just gotten back from Libya, where he'd been firing mortar rounds at his own men.

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The Mormon Non-Issue

By Bill Maher

Andrew Sullivan was on the show Friday, and he's written several blog posts on The Daily Dish wondering why the media never asked Romney to be more specific about his Mormon faith, especially the part about not allowing blacks into the priesthood and temple ceremonies until 1978.  

Sure, they had their prophecy in '78, but the old blacks-are-cursed-by-God stuff is still in their books, and Romney apparently believed it until he was in his thirties. Maybe he still believes it. It's not like they erased the passages in the Mormon literature. Why didn't a journalist ask Romney about this during the election?

The standard line about this stuff is that "religion is off limits," which makes no sense because religion is just something someone believes, the same as their belief on abortion or tax cuts or any other issue. Maybe whether a candidate has Type O blood or is a Sagittarius or enjoys a finger in his butt during sex is irrelevant, but a system of beliefs that informs one's entire moral code?

Why are Mormons against gay marriage? Jealousy? No, it's because of their religion. Because of their religion, gays in California can't get married. Why should this be "off limits" to journalists?

As Andrew points out, if Obama belonged to a church that preached for decades that whites were inferior, don't you think it might become an issue?

Why the Republicans Lost

By Bill Maher

Mitt Romney has lost and he'll soon be accepting his new job as professor of method acting at The New School in New York City. And after watching him play all these different characters over the last two years, really, who better?

Now comes the hand-wringing and finger-pointing that always follows electoral defeat; 500 columns of "If they'd done what I said, something, something, measuring the drapes in the Oval Office." And they'll all miss the forest for the trees. Except Dick Morris -- he's always right.

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