Free Republic

On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher praised the climate provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act but noted that climate activists have “thrown around these numbers forever.” And said that back in the 1990s “we were already going to die” if numbers reached levels they’ve already reached. Maher began by saying that President Joe Biden “just signed the biggest climate bill ever. Finally, we’re doing something about climate.”

Lena Dunham swerves directly into the culture wars, whether she means to or not. Critics X-rayed her HBO series, Girls, during its six-year run over every sexual taboo and revelation. She used a sexual metaphor to tell voters to pull the lever for President Barack Obama in 2012. And her recent clothing line for larger women got hammered in the press for not being woke enough. Dunham’s newest project, Sharp Stick, is heading in the same direction. Except this time it’s clear the film’s co-star and creator is cheering it on. The film follows a 20-something woman named Sarah Jo...

Look how much hatred your favorite celebrities and companies harbor for you in the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson. In the wake of the Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood, the corporate and entertainment world have joined the pro-abortion chorus in denouncing the decision, the Court, and the pro-life movement. Their reaction has been swift and predictable. The Hollywood crowd wasted no time screeching on social media, according to Newsweek. Bette Midler wrote about the Court: "They did it. THEY DID IT TO US. ... How dare they?" She called a woman who suggested...

Left-wing HBO host John Oliver has dismissed calls for sending more police into schools following the deadly school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, saying that the solution is more gun control. In Sunday’s episode of HBO’s Last Week Tonight, John Oliver launched an anti-police rant and cited a study claiming that a police presence in schools could even motivate shooters to come more heavily armed.

HBO’s Last Week Tonight host John Oliver said he’s pleased at the prospect of Disney paying more taxes in Florida but doesn’t like the fact that it was Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) who successfully brought down the hammer on the company. Oliver called DeSantis a “right-wing *******” and falsely accused the governor of being “scared” of gay people, presumably because of Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law, which prohibits the teaching of sexuality and gender ideology to children in kindergarten through third grade.

Jon Stewart is struggling to gain traction on his new talk show, according to a report. “The Problem with Jon Stewart,” which launched on AppleTV+ in September, appears to be a flop, as it trails far behind its competitors on broadcast and cable TV, according to Bloomberg. The show’s first episode was seen by just 180,000 US homes in the first week it debuted last fall, measurement firm Samba TV said. That number dropped to 78% to 40,000 by its fifth episode, which aired in early March. Stewart’s comic rival John Oliver, meanwhile, pulled in viewership of 844,000 US homes...

'Paranoid' WarnerMedia staff are preparing for another round of layoffs ahead of the completion of its merger with media conglomerate Discovery, sources have revealed, after a firing spree this week saw nine top execs nixed from the company. The nine departures saw the exit of CEO Jason Kilar, Warner Bros. chief Ann Sarnoff, and HBO Max general manager Andy Forssell. Other staffers set to leave the company Friday include WarnerMedia CRO Tony Goncalves, CTO Richard Tom, CFO Jennifer Biry, Executive Vice President Jim Cummings, CIO Christy Haubegger and WarnerMedia general counsel Jim Meza. All were top members of Kilar's management...

ESPN and HBO personality Bomani Jones said bluntly that “white people” are the NFL’s problem following the Brian Flores lawsuit news. Jones, who is Black, appeared the Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz earlier this week to discuss Flores’ lawsuit against the NFL. Flores, who was fired by the Dolphins after the 2021 season, is suing the NFL, alleging racism in its hiring process. The NFL head coach has interviewed for multiple jobs this year. Flores was believed by many to be a frontrunner in New York, though the Giants went with Brian Daboll instead. Jones was asked by Le...

So another radical named Derrick Bell was a  big time pal of Obama. Who was Derrick Bell? He’s dead now, but he was a professor of Law at Harvard University. After leaving Harvard in 1992, he Bell wrote a racialist, antisemitic essay called “The Space Traders” in 1994. HBO, which currently employs misogynist “comedian” Bill Maher, decided to turn this loony essay into a documentary back in the 1990s. The essay was about space aliens coming to earth. Whites would “trade” blacks to the space aliens for gold to pay off the national debt. Bell said Jews would just stand...

“Welcome to the world. People are garbage.” ~Tony Soprano Today, we take for granted premium cable channels and streaming services creating their own content. In the late 1990’s, this was a brand new concept, one that many people in the film and television industry had little or no faith in. HBO took a big gamble with The Sopranos — and they hit the jackpot. The show was a resounding critical success and connected deeply with viewers. It garnered and audience of around 11 million viewers an episode, including most viewers for a season premier with 22.6 Million in 2001[1]. What’s...

It’s hard to recall a former politician who was showered with more free media attention than Chris Christie this month as he peddled his new book, “Republican Rescue.” Invited to appear on a carousel of shows, Christie was all-present as journalists lined up to interview him. CNN even dedicated an entire primetime hour to him, treating the in-your-face Republican as one of the most important political voices in the country. Consumers aren’t buying it. A senior publishing source with access to the industry’s BookScan tabulations tells me that “Republican Rescue” sold just 2,289 copies during its first week in stores,...

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, lacing up for a possible presidential run in 2024, told "Axios on HBO" he won't back down from a fight with former President Donald Trump, taunting his longtime friend for losing the last election. "I've never walked away from an argument, no matter who stood on the other side," Christie told me during a wide-ranging interview in New Jersey. Why it matters: This is the first hand-to-hand combat of the 2024 Republican presidential race. Many Republican candidates fear crossing Trump. But Christie — who said he still considers Trump a friend, despite their falling-out...

On Friday, HBO’s Bill Maher fired back at leftist Vanderbilt University professor Michael Eric Dyson after Dyson claimed parents were “spooked by Critical Race Theory.” Maher retorted, “I find that a disingenuous argument because I don’t think that is what people are objecting to.” Dyson stated, “The point is parents who were spooked by Critical Race Theory, none of whom can define it, when you ask them what it is, they don’t know.” “I find that a disingenuous argument because I don’t think that is what people are objecting to, Maher responded. “They are not objecting to black history being...

HBO star said 'what's going on in the schools' was going to be 'the issue' in future elections... Bill Maher sounded the alarm Friday night about next week's Virginia gubernatorial election, which could go to Republicans for the first time since 2009. Maher began the show's panel discussion by pointing out that Democratic nominee Terry McAuliffe "should walk away with it" since resident Biden won Virginia by 10 points and McAuliffe previously served as the commonwealth's governor, 2014-2018. Instead, Maher noted, the race is "neck and neck," with GOP challenger Glenn Youngkin over an issue that Maher reminded viewers he...

Perhaps some viewpoints WILL be changed by watching this documentary, which carries no distinct political slant and employs an old-fashioned “fly on the wall” technique, thus allowing the footage and the comments from participants on both sides to speak for itself. You can hear the sometimes-heartbreaking recollection of U.S. representatives and their staffers, journalists who were in the midst of the fray and police officers who were under attack and in some cases feared for their lives, and then hear from the insurrectionists who speak with boastful pride and zero regret about their nauseating actions that day — and while...

Bill Maher details Trumps' super scary plan to steal the election in 2024 and how this plan began with "The Eastman Memo". "Be afraid. Be very afraid". New Rule: The Slow-Moving Coup - Real Time with Bill Maher (9 mins)The Eastman Memo

Many walking near the White House Friday noticed an incongruous sign at 17th and Penn: “President Nixon campaign headquarters.” Turns out HBO’s White House Plumbers docuseries—which follows the story of the Nixon cronies behind Watergate—is filming in town and turned a portion of DC around the Eisenhower Executive Office Building into a recreation of 1972. Here’s what some people have seen over the past few days.

A Los Angeles jury convicted Robert Durst on Friday of murdering his best friend 20 years ago in a case that took on new life after the New York real estate heir participated in a documentary that connected him to the slaying linked to his wife's 1982 disappearance. Durst, 78, was convicted of the first-degree murder of Susan Berman, who was shot at point-blank range in the back of the head in her Los Angeles home in December 2000 as she was prepared to tell police how she helped cover up his wife's killing. Berman, the daughter of a Las...

In March 2020, HBO aired a Brian Stelter-produced documentary, "After Truth: Disinformation and the Cost of Fake News," which typically focused on how a "mainstream media" dedicated to truth had to expose and defeat pro-Trump kooks and grifters, such as InfoWars, which claimed the Sandy Hook school shooting was faked. New York Times TV critic James Poniewozik celebrated Stelter, a Times alumnus, for his focus: "Its strongest animating idea is that fake news is not simply a political abstraction. It's a real offense that harms real people." It's different for pro-Obama kooks and grifters. In August and September 2021, HBO...

Liberal comedian Bill Maher took on the woke takeover of media. On his HBO show Real Time on Friday evening, Maher welcomed former New York Magazine writer Andrew Sullivan as a guest on the show. Sullivan singled out academia as the biggest cause of the woke takeover as universities have been allegedly teaching students to think of themselves as part of racial and sexual groups instead of as individuals. Academia has not be unique to the problem however, as Sullivan was recently pushed out of New York Magazine for not toeing the woke line. “You were at New York Magazine,...