Right. There are exactly two reasons Trump agrees to meet with anyone; either he expects them to give him fawning adulation and/or money, or he has something they want and he wants to make them humiliate themselves for it.
Which is Maher?
How about “neither”? How about, he’s a comedian with a long-running Emmy-winning TV show who necessarily thrives on publicity and, frankly, controversy. But look, when actual members of Congress tweet things like “cancel rent”, “cancel mortgage” (Rep. Ayanna Pressley D-MA) and “no more policing, incarceration or militarization” (Rep. Rashida Tlaib D-MI) then I have to side with Maher that “woke” has gone way too far. When he calls out shit like this, he’s not manufacturing controversy, he’s reporting stupidity. The kind of stupidity that’s been sinking the Democrats.
If I was invited to a meeting with Trump I’d tell him to fuck off because I know that he’s immune to facts and no good could possibly come out of it. Unless I was a comedian with a TV show. Then I’d be happy to take the opportunity to have something to talk about on my show.
Tweet??? They introduced bills. Bills that would have done that wokest of woke things, pay landlords the rent so people wouldn’t face evictions during FUCKING COVID.
Exactly the kind of ‘no cash for you poors, we don’t trust you enough to give you actual money to pay your bills’ relief that Republicans had insist on with Section 8, LIHEAP, SNAP, and Medicaid.
Of course, that insistence flew out of the window when Trump realized he could mail out checks with his name on them.
Pressley and Tlaib are right. We have an artificial housing crisis in this country because avaricious corporations are hoarding property to turn into airbnbs or charge extortionate rents that many Americans working full time can’t afford. The real estate industry crashed our economy once already this century and with the help of Bill’s new pal Trump they’re removing the guardrails that were put in place to stop them from doing it again. Police care more about protecting property than human life and are increasingly openly hostile to the public they’re supposed to be serving. Incarceration has become a for-profit business that encourages cops to swoop in on easy targets and judges to sentence them to maximal amounts so that corporate-owned prisons can exploit their labor and cash in. The administration has now openly made a policy of arresting people without charge on the flimsiest pretense and deporting them to Salvadorean slave labor camps without due process of law.
If “woke” has “gone too far” it’s only because runaway capitalism has gone much much farther, but the only probem a multi-millionaire like Maher cares about is that people are infringing on his “free speech” by criticizing him when he says the n-word.
He also agrees with Trump on getting rid of the Education Department, at least that is what I got form the recent overtime portion (the part that is for the internets) with Ben Shapiro and some lady that thought that because the prosecution was dropped against Donald Trump on the day of his inauguration that there was no evidence against him.
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Yep. It’s crazy to me that wolfpup knew enough about these quotes to cite the house members, but not enough to know or check the actual context and meaning.
No wonder he likes Maher, whose show is 50% woke strawmen (strawperson?)
What gets me is, how much money did ‘we’ spend bailing out businesses during Covid but bailing out landlords and mortgage companies is woke somehow?
Oh, wait,
Rashida Harbi Tlaib is the first Palestinian American woman to serve in Congress.
Pressley was the first black woman elected to Congress from Massachusetts.
nah, it can’t be that… I’m sure someone has Black and Palestinian friends.
Bill Maher doesn’t care if his friends are black, brown, or normal.
The less I have to think about Bill’s sexual fetishes friends the better.
Back in the P.I. days, I would have welcomed Bill skewering any Republican with biting sarcasm and the smarts to back it up. I know his style and / or politics have changed some, but I don’t see him kissing up to Trump.
Either way, I’ll believe it when I see it( and I will watch).
What “context” could possibly redeem this kind of utter bullshit? The meaning of plain English words is not debatable. The most charitable possible interpretation that context could bring to the table is that this was outrageous hyperbole in the service of an actual worthwhile cause, in which case the problem – the one that Maher is highlighting – is that the statements are extremely irresponsible because this is exactly the kind of thing that Republicans use to demonize Democrats.
Read the plain English words and think about what they say. They say that homeowners should stop paying their mortgages and stick it to the banks, that tenants should stop paying rent and stick it to the landlords, and there should be no consequences because law enforcement has been “cancelled”. This is the kind of thing that helped create a backlash against Democrats and got Trump elected and set the US on the road to fascism.
Read the fucking bills and stop lying, because the bills do not say that.
April 18, 2020 Pressley, Omar, Colleagues Introduce Bill to Cancel All Rent and Mortgage Payments During the COVID-19 Pandemic
WASHINGTON – Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07) joined Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (MN-05) and colleagues in unveiling the Rent and Mortgage Cancellation Act, a bill to institute a nationwide cancellation of rents and home mortgage payments through the duration of the coronavirus pandemic.The bill would constitute a full payment forgiveness, with no accumulation of debt for renters or homeowners and no negative impact on their credit rating or rental history. The legislation will establish a relief fund for landlords and mortgage holders to cover losses from the cancelled payments and create an optional fund to fully finance the purchase of private rental properties by non-profits, public housing authorities, cooperatives, community land trusts, and states or local governments—in order to increase the availability of affordable housing during this downturn.
March 11, 2021 Reps. Pressley, Omar, Colleagues Re-Introduce Rent and Mortgage Cancellation Act
WASHINGTON – Today, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07) joined Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (MN-05) and colleagues in re-introducing the Rent and Mortgage Cancellation Act, a bill to institute a nationwide cancellation of rents and primary home mortgage payments through the duration of the coronavirus pandemic. The bill would constitute a full payment forgiveness, retroactive starting April 2020, with no accumulation of debt for renters or homeowners and no negative impact on their credit rating or rental history.The legislation will establish a relief fund for landlords and lenders to cover losses from the cancelled payments, so long as they agree to abide by a set of fair renting and lending practices for five years. It will also create an optional buyout fund to fully finance the purchase of private rental properties by non-profits, public housing authorities, cooperatives, community land trusts, and states or local governments—in order to mitigate the loss of viable homes in the wake of this economic downturn and increase the availability of affordable and low-income units in the market.
If we’re judging politicians based on the plain, English words of their tweets, I know which side of the political spectrum gets my vote.
Sure, but statements like that undermine attempts to present the Democrats as the party of sanity.
What MAGAs will get out of a Maher-Trump interview: Juicy headline stories on Fox about Those Crazy Lefties And Their Horrible Woke Ideas (Fox News has played up Maher interviews on previous occasion). Lots of chuckles and opportunity to stoke outrage in their audience.
What Maher will get out of it: Attention. Any attention is good. Look at me, pay attention to me.
If Trump doesn’t storm out of the interview within five minutes, Maher will have failed.
And a paycheck. Thanks to Rump, most people his age can’t find jobs (and they can’t file for Social Security either). I guess he’ll blather anything so his rent and his dope dealer can get paid.
I think it’s a safe bet that there will be several examples of “Do you know the left now believes [something that one person on bluesky said once, who we don’t even know is a person on the left]!?”
But, like I say, Maher is sharp. I do expect him to get a couple of shots in, even if he tries to do it in a way that flies under the trump / Maga radar.
He’s far from my first choice of interviewer but he won’t be a fox fluffer.
In Maher’s line of work, attention = $$$. It’s the nature of the biz.