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Remember that Arizona “religious freedom” bill that gave Christian business owners the right to discriminate against gays, but then Jan Brewer vetoed it? Well, the Mississippi legislature passed that. Or something very similar. It’s Mississippi – the only hold up was they thought they already had a law that allowed you to discriminate against gays. In Mississippi, if a woman is looking longingly at another woman, she had better be holding a tray of corn muffins.
Read MoreA new study says that, when it comes to digital downloads, America is not so exceptional. The US ranks 34th in the world in average download speeds, behind countries like Estonia, Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria. Our upload speeds are even worse for some reason – we rank 43rd behind Romania, Belarus, and Tajikistan. Makes you wonder why Al Gore invented the Internet, along with global warming, in the first place.
Read MoreIn California, like many other states, public school teachers are granted tenure - essentially permanent employment - after 18 months on the job, or two school years. After you put in all that time, any attempts to fire you if you happen to, you know, suck at teaching, or burn out, are subject to a lengthy and often prohibitively costly process, which insures that it rarely happens. Additionally, the teachers unions have set up a "last hired, first fired" seniority system where newer teachers, regardless of merit, must be let go first when layoffs occur. So sorry, go-getter! We've got to keep that washed up drunk who shows the kids Glory instead of teaching the Civil War.
Read MoreHere’s how bad it’s looking for Democrats this year: The think pieces are already talking about “at least we can save 2016.” The point they all make is this: Midterms are won on the issues that interest angry old white people, but in presidential years blacks, Latinos, Asians and young women vote too. Presidential elections are a rainbow coalition, like feel-good ads for Coke. Midterms are like ads for the chair that goes up stairs. The point, in all the thumbsuckers, is that that the Latino vote is growing, and it’s going to save the Democrats, mañana. But the Republicans have a plan, too.
Read MorePeople magazine reported that Amanda Bynes was out and about with her parents and that she looks good. I mean crazy good. I’m speculating but it seems apparent that she suffers from some sort of mental illness, that she self-medicated and exacerbated the issue with street drugs, as so many do, and then she received five-star treatment and follow up. It’s the kind of happy outcome you can expect if you’re Amanda Bynes.
Read MoreOkay, this is from an article by Stephen Moore - our friend from the Heritage Institute - but that doesn't mean you won't get something out of it: A budget watchdog group called Open the Books studied federal grants, loans, direct payments and insurance subsidies between 2000 and 2012 and found that Fortune 100 companies: "received $1.2 trillion in payments from the federal government."
Read MoreBy now everyone’s heard of Miriam Weeks, the Duke University freshman who’s been making hardcore porn to help pay the $45,000 per year Duke charges so she can get a degree in (no joke) Women’s Studies. As Miriam points out, she likes sex a lot, and it pays better than waitressing, so why not? Well, here’s why not: because fair or not, future employers tend to not want to hire porn actors. If there are two applicants for a position, and one appears, as Miriam does, on a site called FacialAbuse.com getting choked and called a dirty whore, and the other doesn’t, who do you think is getting the job?
Read MoreRepublicans are trying to figure out the best way to set up their 2016 primary races. Dark lord Reince Priebus thinks the big problem last time was too many debates. Sure, that’s the solution: Republicans hiding their ugly ideas from the public longer – then voters would be all over them. And Utah just passed a bill to try and leapfrog Iowa and New Hampshire as the first state to vote. Just what the GOP needs to solve the lack of diversity in those other two states: Utah.
Read MoreAccording to the Washington Post, and a new Post/ABC News poll:
"Political handicappers rate Republicans as favorites to maintain their House majority and say the GOP has a legitimate opportunity to gain the six seats it needs to take control of the Senate... The Post-ABC survey affirms those projections, showing Republicans in a stronger position than Democrats in the states with Senate races this fall and more than holding their own in the battle for control of the House. In the 34 states with Senate races, 50 percent of voters say they favor Republicans and 42 percent favor Democrats..."
Read MoreRussia took 97 percent of the vote in Crimea, but I predict the big winner of this crisis won't be Russia, it'll be fracking.
Read MoreBy Bill Maher
Earlier this week, everybody in LA was woken up by an earthquake. Lots of people had bookcases that fell over or pictures turned upside down. 3/17: Never Forget. We will rebuild.
We’re always worried about the big one here, and I’m even more worried because there are not only a ton of fault lines within miles of here, there’s also a ton of shale. It’s a disaster movie waiting to happen.
Environmentalists have done a pretty good job so far holding the frackers off in California, but there are still around 700 fracking wells. I say let’s have a complete ban in Los Angeles right now. We already have something to meet our energy needs. It’s called The Sun. Let’s use it.
Fred Phelps, the founder of Westboro Baptist Church, is dead, and Twitter is alive with people rejoicing. But would they do the same thing to Billy Graham? Well, I might, but most people wouldn’t. Everyone loves Billy Graham. But Billy Graham’s stance on homosexuality is the same as Fred Phelps: they both believe that “God Hates Fags,” it’s just that Billy (and most other fundamentalist preachers) don’t say it quite so bluntly.
Read MoreBy Bill Maher
Republicans say Obamacare is pushing people from full-time jobs into part-time work, making this a “part-time economy.” But according to Ben Casselman, chief economic writer at FiveThirtyEight , over the past year, our economy has added a little under two million full-time jobs, but only 8,000 part-time jobs. Their outrage over Obama’s lie, “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan” rings a little hollow when they’re still telling ostentatious lies about Obamacare every day.
There's a mobile app called 2nd Vote that grades companies by their adherence to conservative values. For example, type in CVS and you'll find them rated "red" (because CVS supports gay marriage and has donated money to a breast cancerfoundation aligned to Planned Parenthood). You're then informed that Rite Aid is a better choice for your conservative dollars.
Read MoreCourtesy of Deadspin.com, here’s a graph that shows the highest-paid state employee in every state:
Read MoreIf you’re looking, here’s something to hate about Obama: He is terrible at saying thank you. We’ve heard this before from people who have raised money for him during his campaigns – they worked their asses off for the guy, and didn’t hear a peep. As opposed to Bill Clinton – throw a fundraiser for him, and he’ll thank you every day for years. Hillary is the same way – famous for sending personalized thank-yous for little things. It’s not just polite; it’s good politics.
Read MoreNewsweek recently re-launched as a print magazine, and the cover of their first issue was a big scoop: they identified the mystery genius that invented Bitcoin. Except they probably got the wrong guy. The creator (or creators, it was all done online and anonymously) of Bitcoin went by the name Satoshi Nakamoto, so Newsweek found a 65-year-old engineer in California with the name Satoshi Nakamoto and decided, based on a quick conversation, that it was him. But since then, evidence is mounting that they blew it
Read MoreIt’s a tired point, but it’s true: The best argument against the existence of a 9/11 conspiracy is that Americans just aren’t very good at that sort of thing. We do conspiracies like Canadians make wine. Or Russians do plumbing. Australian literature, anybody? I don’t like that the NSA knows I have a blog called “Reese Witherspoon Nude Fakes,” and I don’t know how that makes America safer, but I take some small comfort in knowing, when it tries to do evil, our government tends to trip over its own dick.
Read MoreThe Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) gets an awful lot of attention in the media considering the United States isn't a very conservative country.
Read MoreReal Time with Bill Maher will return LIVE on Friday, January 20 at 10PM.
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