Champagne Corks Are Popping: MSNBC Staff Celebrates, Welcomes Return of Brian Williams
Posted: June 23, 2015 Filed under: Entertainment, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: Al Sharpton, Ann Coulter, Bill Maher, Brian Williams, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, NBC, NBC News, NBC Nightly News, United States Leave a commentStephanie Smith reports: Brian Williams’ welcome to MSNBC might be frigid because staffers there haven’t forgotten a scathing report he arrogantly aired on his short-lived “Rock Center” about “corrosive” cable news blowhards at MSNBC, Fox News and CNN.
The two-part September 2012 report was so unpopular at MSNBC that, at a network holiday party shortly after, some over-served staffers even chanted “F - - k Brian Williams.”
“Rachel Maddow said on-air last week she was ‘really happy’ about Williams joining MSNBC and she believes in ‘second chances.’”
Williams is now a cable staffer after his demotion from NBC’s “Nightly News”anchor chair. But in 2012, as anchor and managing editor of his own show, “Rock Center,” he aired a two-parter on cable news’ “partisan ranting” from correspondent Ted Koppel. Williams introduced one segment by describing cable as, per Koppel, “corrosive and does nothing to help compromise in this country.”
“The rank and file at MSNBC were furious at Brian. They hated it so much, they were still mad about it months later at the office Christmas party…That’s where some cheered ‘F - - k Brian Williams’ — It was like a rallying cry.”
Williams stuffily wondered, “Has any of this splashed up against what we do?” Koppel responded: “What works about cable television is it’s cheap and it makes a ton of money. There is nothing cheaper than a bunch of talking heads. The people who hire those talking heads have discovered the more irascible, the more partisan, the nastier they are, the bigger an audience.” Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Maher: Liberals are Killing Comedy
Posted: June 15, 2015 Filed under: Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Bill Maher, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, Jeff Ross, Jerry Seinfeld, Jim Carrey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Political Correctness, Real Time with Bill Maher, Seinfeld, Trevor Noah 1 CommentHunter Schwarz writes: Add Bill Maher to the growing list of comedians who think political correctness is bad for comedy — and are making an issue of it.
“I used to fight with this audience all the time, because we used to get the audience strictly from liberal sources, then we got the audience like from everywhere and I’ve had a much better time the last couple of months.”
Maher spoke with comedian Jeff Ross on “Real Time” over the weekend about Jerry Seinfeld, who said last week he doesn’t play at colleges because they’re too PC. Maher suggested the reason was political…(read more)
Daniel Greenfield: How Islam in America Became a Privileged Religion
Posted: June 4, 2015 Filed under: Law & Justice, Politics, Religion, Think Tank | Tags: Apostasy in Islam, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Bill Maher, Islam, Islamic fundamentalism, Jihadism, Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, Liberalism, Mediaite, Muslim, Muslim world, propaganda Leave a commentDaniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.
Daniel Greenfield writes: What is Islam? The obvious dictionary definition answer is that it’s a religion, but legally speaking it actually enjoys all of the advantages of race, religion and culture with none of the disadvantages.
“Islamist organizations have figured out how lock in every advantage of race, religion and culture, while expeditiously shifting from one to the other to avoid any of the disadvantages.”
Islam is a religion when mandating that employers accommodate the hijab, but when it comes time to bring it into the schools, places that are legally hostile to religion, American students are taught about Islam, visit mosques and even wear burkas and recite Islamic prayers to learn about another culture. Criticism of Islam is denounced as racist even though the one thing that Islam clearly isn’t is a race.
Islamist organizations have figured out how lock in every advantage of race, religion and culture, while expeditiously shifting from one to the other to avoid any of the disadvantages.
“Islam is a theocracy. When it leaves the territories conquered by Islam, it seeks to replicate that theocracy through violence and by adapting the legal codes of the host society to suit its purposes.”
The biggest form of Muslim privilege has been to racialize Islam. The racialization of Islam has locked in all the advantages of racial status for a group that has no common race, only a common ideology.
Islam is the only religion that cannot be criticized. No other religion has a term in wide use that treats criticism of it as bigotry. Islamophobia is a unique term because it equates dislike of a religion with racism. Its usage makes it impossible to criticize that religion without being accused of bigotry.
By equating religion with race, Islam is treated not as a particular set of beliefs expressed in behaviors both good and bad, but as an innate trait that like race cannot be criticized without attacking the existence of an entire people. The idea that Islamic violence stems from its beliefs is denounced as racist.
“By equating religion with race, Islam is treated not as a particular set of beliefs expressed in behaviors both good and bad, but as an innate trait that like race cannot be criticized without attacking the existence of an entire people. The idea that Islamic violence stems from its beliefs is denounced as racist.”
Muslims are treated as a racial collective rather than a group that shares a set of views about the world.
[Read the full text here, at FrontPageMag.com]
That has made it impossible for the left to deal with ex-Muslims like Ayaan Hirsi Ali or non-Muslims from Muslim families like Salman Rushdie. If Islam is more like skin color than an ideology, then ex-Muslims, like ex-Blacks, cannot and should not exist. Under such conditions, atheism is not a debate, but a hate crime. Challenging Islam does not question a creed; it attacks the existence of an entire people.

YAAN – FEB28 – Author Ayaan Hirsi Ali talks about her autobiography. tb (Photo by Tony Bock/Toronto Star via Getty Images) By: Tony Bock, Collection: Toronto Star
Muslim atheists, unlike all other atheists, are treated as race traitors both by Muslims and leftists. The left has accepted the Brotherhood’s premise that the only authentic Middle Easterner is a Muslim (not a Christian or a Jew) and that the only authentic Muslim is a Salafist (even if they don’t know the word).
The racialization of Islam has turned blasphemy prosecutions into an act of tolerance while making a cartoon of a religious figure racist even when it is drawn by ex-Muslims like Bosch Fawstin. The New York Times will run photos of Chris Ofili’s “The Holy Virgin Mary” covered in dung and pornography, but refuses to run Mohammed cartoons because it deems one anti-religious and the other racist. Read the rest of this entry »
Noah Rothman: Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy Embarrasses Himself with Indiana RFRA Tantrum
Posted: March 30, 2015 Filed under: Mediasphere | Tags: American Civil Liberties Union, Arkansas, Bill Clinton, Bill Maher, Charitable organization, Clinton Foundation, Connecticut, Dan Malloy, Executive order, Free Exercise Clause, Freedom of religion, Hillary Clinton, Indiana, Mike Pence, Religious Freedom Restoration Act, White House Leave a commentConnecticut Governor Dannel Malloy revealed that he will prohibit all state-sponsored travel to this heretical member of the Union. He joins the mayor of Seattle, who also blocked city-funded travel to Indiana in protest over this perfectly banal law.
Noah Rothman writes: The frenzied outpouring of disproportionate outrage from the left over Indiana’s state-level version of the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act can be best described as a tantrum.
[Read the full text here, at Hot Air]
A number of firms including Apple and Angie’s List Inc. have announced that they will respond to the legislation that critics insist is designed to discriminate against gays and lesbians by reviewing their commitments to do business in the state. A cornucopia of liberal groups are organizing a boycott of all things Hoosier. And, on Monday, Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy revealed that he will prohibit all state-sponsored travel to this heretical member of the Union. He joins the mayor of Seattle, who also blocked city-funded travel to Indiana in protest over this perfectly banal law.
“This law, like other RFRAs, merely requires that state laws meet a demanding, but hardly insurmountable, test before infringing upon the religious practice or conscience of religious believers.”
— The Washington Post’s Volokh Conspiracy blogger Jonathan Adler
This reaction is nothing short of an embarrassment for the left and a repudiation of the values that the Democratic Party espoused as recently as the 1990s, when President Bill Clinton signed a national version of this act into law.
“RFRA is a shield, not a sword. It can be used to defend oneself against lawsuits or administrative action. It can’t be used affirmatively to try and deprive others of the protections of law.”
— Attorney Gabriel Malor, The Federalist
The hypocrisy exhibited by the left in this display of childish pique over Indiana’s RFRA bill is impossible to ignore.
“[W]hile Indiana is being criticized, the NCAA didn’t say it was concerned over how athletes and employees would be affected by Kentucky’s RFRA when games were played there last week, there aren’t any plans to boycott states like Illinois or Connecticut, and Miley Cyrus has yet to post a photo of President Clinton or any of the 19 other governors who have also signed RFRAs,” The Washington Post’s Hunter Schwarz wrote. “Indiana might be treated as if it’s the only state with a bill like this, but it’s not.”
“Malloy’s absurd response to the Indiana law is, no doubt, an effort to distract his liberal constituents from the fact that Connecticut’s RFRA law – yes, they have one, too – goes farther than the act signed last week by Governor Mike Pence.”
“This law, like other RFRAs, merely requires that state laws meet a demanding, but hardly insurmountable, test before infringing upon the religious practice or conscience of religious believers,” observed The Washington Post’s Volokh Conspiracy blogger Jonathan Adler. “If the law imposes a substantial burden on religious belief, the law must yield unless the law serves a compelling state interest and is the least burdensome way to advance that interest.”
Malloy’s absurd response to the Indiana law is, no doubt, an effort to distract his liberal constituents from the fact that Connecticut’s RFRA law – yes, they have one, too – goes farther than the act signed last week by Gov. Mike Pence.
The Federalist’s Sean Davis makes the case:
Connecticut’s law, however, is far more restrictive of government action and far more protective of religious freedoms. How? Because the Connecticut RFRA law states that government shall not “burden a person’s exercise of religion[.]” Note that the word “substantially” is not included in Connecticut’s law.
The effect of the absence of that single word is enormous…(read more)
That seems straightforward enough. Still have questions? Over at The Federalist, attorney Gabriel Malor answers all of your pressing inquiries. The most substantive assertion that he makes, however, is that all RFRA’s do not and cannot license discrimination. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Bill Maher Calls Real-Life American Sniper ‘Psychopathic Patriot’
Posted: January 24, 2015 Filed under: Entertainment, Mediasphere, War Room | Tags: American Sniper, Ben Affleck, Bill Maher, Chris Kyle, Clint Eastwood, HBO 1 Comment[VIDEO] Bill Maher Forces Liberals To Eat Their Own Vomit: ‘Islamophobia Kills?’
Posted: January 17, 2015 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics, War Room | Tags: Berkeley, Bill Maher, Charlie Hebdo, Freedom of speech, Freedom of the press, HBO, Islam, Islamism, Jihadism, media, Real Time with Bill Maher, Rush Limbaugh, Sony, Terrorism, University of California Leave a commentIn the final segment of Friday’s edition of HBO’s Real Time, host Bill Maher took aim at those who oppose free speech, especially taking liberals to task for the “Islamophobia kills” campaign and being against “bullying” when it’s convenient.
“Yeah, liberals hate bullying alright but they’re not opposed to using it when they causally throw out words like bigot and racist.”
“It does cower people into avoiding this debate. And if you’re doing that, you don’t get to wear the “Je suis Charlie” button; the button you wear is ‘Je suis party of the problem.’ And that goes for everybody,” he added.

Some are willing to have an open debate. Others are too delicate, fragile, prefer to join movement that advocates unplugging their opponent’s microphone, so they won’t risk being “offended” by forbidden points of view
[BONUS: The pro-censorship website crooksandliars.com disapproves of Maher’s defense of free speech with this thumb-sucking, pouting, infantile headline: Maher’s New Rule: Limbaugh Can Say Whatever He Wants, You Little People Can Just STFU]
Maher criticized Catholic League president Bill Donahue for blaming the publisher of Charlie Hebo for not understanding “the role he played in his tragic death. Maher says that’s essentially blaming a woman for rape because she was wearing clothes that were too provocative.
“Free speech only works if there are no waivers. No waivers. Including for religion.”
— Bill Maher
Next, Maher slammed frequent guest of the show Glenn Greenwald for saying anti-Muslim speech is a “vital driver” for the occupation of Muslim countries and killing the innocent.
“Really? Newspaper cartoons did all that? Wait until they get to the horoscopes and the crossword.”
“It reminds me of one of those protest signs that I saw up in Berkeley last month; it said: ‘Islamophobia kills.’ Does it? The phobia kills? Or maybe it’s more the AK-47s, and the beheadings, and the planes into buildings,” Maher responded.
There it is.This Just about sums up our #FreeSpeechRally today & the Muslim counter protest. RSVP FB #standforfreedom pic.twitter.com/nELTozlr9L
— Pamela Geller (@PamelaGeller) January 17, 2015
“…Ironically you’re not even a proper liberal because you don’t get free speech. You’re just a baby who can’t stand to live in a world where you hear things that upset you. Oh, you’re not alone.”
Maher even defended Rush Limbaugh from campaigns in recent years to boycott him and get companies to pull their advertisements from his show. Read the rest of this entry »
Bill Maher: ‘Mainstream Muslims Applaud Murder for Insulting Mohammed’
Posted: January 8, 2015 Filed under: Global, Mediasphere, Politics, Religion, War Room | Tags: Bill Maher, Cartoons, Charlie Hebdo, France, Islamism, Jihadism, Jimmy Kimmel, media, Paris, satire, Terrorism 2 CommentsJeff Poor reports: On Wednesday’s broadcast of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on ABC, HBO “Real Time” host Bill Maher criticized the religion of Islam in the wake of the terrorist attack on the headquarters of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that resulted in 12 dead.
“…it’s Muslim terrorists. This happens way too frequently. It’s like it’s like Groundhog Day, except the groundhog kept getting his head cut off…”
According to Maher, there is no deny the connection of Islam to the attack.
“Let’s also give some credit to this newspaper. This was a satirical newspaper in Paris. These guys have the balls of the Eiffel Tower. Their balls were bigger than Gérard Depardieu, because they kept doing it.”
“It’s not a presume – no, no it’s Muslim terrorists,” Maher said. “This happens way too frequently. It’s like it’s like Groundhog Day, except the groundhog kept getting his head cut off. Let’s also give some credit to this newspaper. This was a satirical newspaper in Paris. These guys have the balls of the Eiffel Tower. Their balls were bigger than Gérard Depardieu, because they kept doing it.”
“In 10 Muslim countries, you can get the death penalty just before being gay. They chop heads off in the square in Mecca. Well, Mecca is their Vatican City. If they were chopping the heads off of catholic gay people, wouldn’t there be a bigger outcry among liberals?”
“For the crime of being satirists, for the crime of drawing cartoons. this has to stop, and unfortunately, a lot of the liberals, who are my tribe, I am a proud liberal,” he said. “No, I’m not turning on them, I’m asking them to turn toward the truth as I have been for quite a while. I’m the liberal in this debate. I’m for free speech. To be a liberal, you have to stand up for liberal principles. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Ben Shapiro: The Myth of the Tiny Radical Muslim Minority
Posted: November 6, 2014 Filed under: Global, History, Mediasphere, Religion, Think Tank | Tags: Ben Affleck, BEN SHAPIRO, Bill Maher, Global Panic, Honor Killings, Islamism, Jihadism, media, Pew Research, Radical Muslim, Reality Check, Sharia Law, Terrorism Leave a commentIn the debut of Reality Check, Ben Shapiro takes on Ben Affleck and the myth that only a tiny minority of Muslims worldwide are radical.
‘Who wants to live in a world where the only place you can speak your mind is in your head?
Posted: May 22, 2014 Filed under: Censorship, Mediasphere, Politics | Tags: Allen Porter, Bill Maher, Cold War, Daily Caller, Donald Sterling, East Germany, Maher, Political Correctness 7 CommentsThe Emerging Liberal Dystopia
For The Daily Caller, Allen Porter writes: You know things are bad when even a hardcore liberal ideologue like Bill Maher can not only see but publicly admit it.
In a recent installment of the infamous “New Rules” segment of the HBO show titled after himself, Maher tackled the trendy topic of the release of Donald Sterling’s recorded remarks. Only instead of falling in line with the mainstream liberal media’s inexorable march for political correctness in this as in all cases—instead of focusing on the “racist” dimension of Sterling’s comments, that is — Maher decided to buck the well-worn mantle of his ideology and, instead, focus on the real story. That is: instead of playing into the fabricated narrative predictably constructed by the pervasively liberal media, Maher saw what is really at stake in a case like this — namely free speech, privacy, and our Fourth Amendment rights.
The terrifying reality is that we are on the verge of, and moving ever closer to, a liberal dystopia in which speech is directly policed, and thought thereby indirectly policed; one in which principles of political correctness replace moral standards as the ultimate criteria of normative evaluation; one in which the chilling effects on discourse has become a deep freeze. Maher himself made the perfect historical analogy during the May 9 show, which is somewhat ironic:
“Who wants to live in a world where the only place you can speak your mind is in your head? That’s what East Germany was like. That’s why we fought the Cold War, remember? So we’d never have to live in some awful limbo where you never knew who, even among your friends, was an informer. And now we’re doing it to ourselves.”