Bill Maher

Well,  my last post was a bit far-fetched. I was convinced I was on to something, but there was a big hole in my argument. If Trump were really willing to kill Comey rather than allow him to testify, why then was he allowed to testify? Perhaps Comey only thought his life were imperiled, but it's just as likely that writing things down immediately when they are still fresh in one's mind is a good way to ensure accuracy. And, as my wife put it, I may have been "hearing zebras."

But I digress.

Today I want to discuss Bill Maher, and for once I'm not talking about vaccines and autism.

Bill Maher slipped up a week ago. While interviewing Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, the Senator told Bill he would "like to see you work in the fields," by which he meant he wanted Bill to come visit Nebraska sometime. Bill responded by saying "Work in the fields? Senator, I'm a house nigger." When his audience groaned, he said, "It's a joke."

Yes, it was a joke, and a bad one. The Senator was from Nebraska, not Alabama. What made Bill think of southern plantations instead of giant tractors?

I'm in the habit of watching Real Time on the Saturday morning after the show. Usually HBO GO has the episode available by then. But that weekend, they didn't. I only knew there was even an episode of Real Time because of the news stories covering Bill's faux pas. I checked again Saturday night, and again Sunday. Still nothing. Finally by Monday, it was available. I didn't get around to watching it until Tuesday. When my wife and I did, we saw the segment where Bill made his well-publicized use of the n-word. But HBO had edited out the audio for those few seconds.

Let me say that again: HBO censored it!

Bill apologized, and rightly so. But that hasn't  made it go away. He spent much of yesterday's show trying to make up for the mistake. It didn't work. Rapper Ice-T tried to school Maher by telling him, "It's our word now, you can't have it back."

And here's where I draw the line. Bullshit! It's nobody's word, Mr. T. Or should I call you Ice? Because America is all about freedom of speech, and therefore it's illegal to take any word and say "You can't say that." (Although the FCC still needs to learn this important lesson.) If nobody gave a damn about Quentin Terantino saying "dead nigger storage" in the movie Pulp Fiction, and if conservatives readily forgave Don Imus for referring to some black female college basketball players as "nappy headed ho's," then nobody has much of a case against Bill Maher, especially when he spoke off the cuff and then apologized after. No one should be calling for him to be fired, and the whole damned world needs to lighten up.

Here's the real problem: It's racial segregation of a word. And if racial segregation of people is wrong, it is equally so for language. Yes, "nigger" is a racially charged word, and rightly so, but if whites are not allowed to say it, even in jest, why do they want rebellious white teenagers to buy the rap music that uses it? It's a double standard (and bad art - an insult to the black gods of music who came before).

Frank Zappa said it best. "Any word may be used by anyone, anytime. Period." I'm paraphrasing, but he did say something very much like that. And he was right. Censorship is evil. Censorship based on racism, whether it be Afro-centric or Euro-centric, is even more evil. And such evil should not result in the firing of a man like Bill Maher.

Bill fights against conservibullies week after week, interview after interview. Even an expert swordsman can't avoid getting nicked all the time. Bill Maher is one of our best warriors, and we can't afford to lose him now, just as we couldn't afford to lose General Patton after he struck a private across the face before the invasion of Normandy. When even the Reverend Al Sharpton has to reach all the way back to Bill's days on Politically Incorrect to find another clip where Bill made a similar mistake, we have to be impressed with Bill's overall batting average.

If we don't fire sports heroes for beating up their spouses, then we can't fire Bill Maher for having one honest slip of the tongue.

There aren't many absolutes, but one of them is freedom of speech. And freedom of speech means freedom to misspeak, both accidentally, as in Bill's case, or even on purpose.


Eric

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Why Did Comey Write Notes?

Ah, so many things I've wanted to blog about lately. I've had so little time. But this time I've found a few minutes, and I can't help but make a simple observation that I think everyone ought to know about.

By now, many of you have been listening and/or watching the testimony of former FBI Director James Comey to Congress. Lots of interesting things can be found in what he's saying. But one thing stands out, and as usual, nobody but me seems to have noticed it. After Trump clearly told Comey to ease off on the investigations into his campaign's possible connections with Russia, Comey wrote down notes regarding what Trump said.

How interesting. He wrote down notes afterward?

Why on earth would he think that would do any good? If such written records were produced, it would still be hearsay, and he's smart enough to know that. So why write it down?

There's only one reason to write notes down after the fact. The notes can be hidden away and produced in evidence after one is killed.

Yes, James Comey was in fear of his life after his meetings with Trump.

Why wouldn't he be? After all, here was the president clearly breaking the law by telling Comey to break the law. Comey, as a smart FBI man, knew what that meant. It meant that he had just witnessed an impeachable offense, and that the best way for Trump to avoid the consequences was to kill the witness!

The fact that Comey felt the need to make immediate written records, I think, is the most damning part of his entire testimony. He feels that Trump will kill people, even FBI people, if it means staying in office.

You can't kill us all, Donald. You can't kill us all.


Eric

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