Tag Archives: Sean Hannity

Politically Ill-Informed with Bill Maher

Bill Maher Says 'Reckless Experiment' of COVID Lockdowns Led to ...

I’m a big fan of Bill Maher.

The host of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher was one of the first to use the term “panic porn,” a perfect description of the news coverage style of the 24/7s. He’s one of Donald Trump’s fiercest critics. And he’s funny as hell.

But there’s something off on his coronavirus diagnosis. And it’s somehow in sync with Fox News in lamenting the coverage of COVID-19.

Yes, the news is monotonous in its alarm bell headlines about the virus. Between the pandemic and protests, CNN and MSNBC are as varied in programming as the Lifetime Network.

But he may be doing real harm in his complaints about the re-opening of the country. Perhaps fatal harm. Just like Sean Hannity. Just like Tucker Carlson.Regulator Says Hannity, Carlson Broke Impartiality Rules | Law & Crime

Of late, he’s pointed out the inconsistent policies of state and federal government to get the country and economy jump started. “Why can’t I get a haircut, but my dog can?” he asked in a recent episode of his show. In moaning that he can’t see a baseball game this summer, Maher featured a picture from a packed United Airlines flight recently and asked why United Airlines is up and running, but United Airlines Stadium isn’t. Fair enough.

Yet he’s seemingly ignoring statistics. We’ve eclipsed two million confirmed cases in the U.S. alone. We’ve surpassed 100,000 American deaths, making COVID one of the country’s leading causes of deaths this year.

And those aren’t Breitbart numbers. They’re sourced from places like Johns Hopkins University and The Lancet. And the CDC! Do you really think an arm of the Trump administration is under-reporting the numbers? If it were up to Dr. Bone Spurs, the number would be in single digits, if they existed at all.

And showing a packed plane doesn’t exactly make the argument. We don’t know if passengers are aboard a flying petri dish. We may not know for weeks. Just because, say, most people drive home safe with a .08 blood-alcohol level, that isn’t an argument for raising the legal limit.

Already, we are seeing a spike in COVID numbers, as experts predicted. Confirmed cases have risen in 19 states. Hospitalizations are up in at least nine. Is that fake news, Bill? Do you think physicians are in cahoots,  doctoring the numbers in a radical left conspiracy?

I love when healthy people complain about the overreaction to a health risk. Or the under-qualifications of modern sciencists and doctors. You apparently have experienced the benefit of neither.

It reminds me of self-professed libertarians, among them magician Penn Gillette, of whom I’m also a big fan. Funny how poor people rarely call for libertarian-ism.Magician Penn Jillette Says 'God, No!' To Religion : NPR

Face it, Penn and Bill. You don’t want your wallets touched. You don’t want to be bothered with the ailments of the sickly.

And I’ve got news for you, Bill. You can get a haircut. Have your HBO stylist come by for a home visit. Get a set clippers. Or hop a flight to a state that’s opened its barbershops.

Maher has described the nation’s reaction to coronavirus to a panicked babysitter rushing upstairs in fear of an intruding slasher.

Here’s a news flash, in real time: The calls are coming from inside the house.

But I’m No Super Genius…or Are I?

 

Watching cable news lately is a bit like walking into the home of parents with third graders. There’s gonna be crap on the fridge.

Similarly, you’d think Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson had just spawned  a pre-teen after Donald Trump’s fitness “test” at the White House. You can almost see them jostling for fridge real estate, so Junior can see who posted his latest masterwork.

First, try to get that image out of your head. Sorry about that. No one should have to picture either of those fleshy men copulating.

Now, though, consider the awkward position in which that doctor must have found himself, as do all people caught in the orbit of Trump: Utter the ridiculous, or pack. Do even the most ardent Trump supporters believe that, with a few fewer Big Mac and Filet of Fish sandwiches a day, he could live to 200?

For some reason, that sounded particularly absurd, if there’s a way to distinguish one utterance from another. We expect a press lackey to proclaim the Earth’s largest inauguration. We expect a toadie to hail Trump as the force to “revolutionize reality TV.” We’d even expect neo Nazis and the religious right (sorry for the redundancy) to, well, vote for him. You expect crazy shit.

But this doc probably has friends. Maybe doctor friends. What do they say when he comes to poker night? Do they tease him for a Biblical diagnosis? Raise the nickel-a-hand game to $5,000 a card? SeanTuck either didn’t know or didn’t care, so proud were they with Donnie’s perfect score.

Just for kicks, I looked up the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), a test usually given to Parkinson’s patients. While lots of folks have reprinted the image above, what’s interesting is the stuff below: the rest of the test. So here it is. All of it. Try NOT to get a perfect score: 

Now, for some factslaps our baboon-in-chief could likely not read, let alone know:

  • In the Norwegian town of Longyearbyen, it is illegal to die.
  • In a study following the lives of 19,000 kids for 10 years, video games had no negative social behavior effects on the children.
  • In 2010, a group of 15 monkeys escaped a research institute in Japan by using trees to catapult themselves over a 17 ft high electric fence.
  • Stifling a sneeze by clamping your nose and mouth shut can rupture your throat.
  • During the Columbine massacre, two 20 pound propane bombs were planted in the school cafeteria right before lunch. Had the bombs not fail to detonate, it’s estimated that 488 students would have been killed or severely injured.
  • A sophomaniac is a person who’s under the delusion that they are extremely intelligent.
  • In 2015, a man sued Red Bull stating that after 10 years of consuming the product, he received no wings, enhanced physical nor intellectual performance.

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