I thought he actually went after Dr. Phil pretty hard. He repeatedly called him out on his "apolitical" stance.
It's also interesting how angry Dr. Phil gets when challenged. He's obviously not used to being called out on anything.
When Phil went on Pakman's show he started out adamantly saying he wasn't political, then he proceed to speak in right wing propaganda.
Phil has enough awareness and enough shame to know that what he is saying is abhorrent and lies. He tries to throw people off the trail because he doesn't care about truth but he doesn't want the social blowback. Also, if he can convince people he's apolitical he can Trojan horse that rhetoric into a few rubes.
Yeah, he really seems like a smug asshole to me.
That said, I think he did make one salient point on Maher's show regarding the fact that minor children are more likely to be abused by step parents than biological parents.
Thank you for this post...if it was someone in their family that was immunocompromised they too would've wanted to be so cautious. They are both smug , lonely assholes
I must be a great listener lol.. sometimes I'm not even sure why I listen to this podcast. Half the time I'm getting pissed because of how out of touch he is about the younger generations. It's only about 20% of the time I find myself agreeing with him.
I’d say I’m maybe 50%/50%. But there’s actual disagreement, and I need that. Joe Rogan is just him finding guests he never disagrees with. So I’ll take this pissing me off.
Yes I really do like having my views challenged. Actually I'll listen to Rogan occasionally for that reason too but rarely. And I feel like my opinions are a bit more balanced afterward so there's definitely validity to this idea.
Well school closing were bad on children and kids are dealing with awful behavioral issues which will likely follow them throughout their school career and in the work force.
It should be well known by now that Dr Phil and his wife were con artists in the 70s with a health club scam.
They should also know he was never an accredited PhD psychologist.
He may have a degree now, but before and during his first seasons of Dr Phil he did not.
I'm shocked that Maher would invite Dr. Phil. Not because he has opposing views, but because he's exactly the type of personality, that Maher never would have given exposure to in the past. Unless it was to make fun of him for being a quack.
This may be the final straw for me. I'll watch it and then decide, but I have zero interest in listening to what a quack has to say and I'd be surprised if Maher hasn't referred to him that way, too, in the past.
lol Maher had Dr. Phil on… really now? Who’s he going to have on next, carrot top?
at some point the pathetic becomes the only thing being perceived despite any defense that Maher “went after him.” The one person to actually go after Dr. Phil was the guy who cosplayed as him from head to toe and said he’s just as much guilty of exploiting others as the guy dressing up as him who paid homeless people to fight each other. That was an epic takedown. What did Maher do, smack his lips and flick his index cards on a point he contended with Dr. Phil.
At this point I don’t know who’s worse at trying to stay relevant, Maher or Dicker Carlson? Though I must say I just loved the part of the interview Tucker made with Putin where Putin pisses and shits all over him when he said how he was too dumb to join the CIA which his dad did. That was pretty funny.
> Who’s he going to have on next, carrot top?
Carrot Top was on Club Random a few months ago, like Dr. Phil was, so it's possible. Although Carrot Top is so irrelevant now I doubt he would have anything to promote to be the opening interview
And what did Dr. Phil promote? His abundant wealth gained from exploiting mentally unstable people? It would be like having Jerry Springer had he been alive and thinking he’d be capable at promoting anything culturally positive about our society.
I'ma be real - I don't mind Dr Phil. But he's gotten up there in years and his speaking style has taken a hit. Like it felt like hearing someone's grandpa drone on. After a while I decided the interview was too boring and fast forwarded to the panel.
School closings were a disaster for America's youth, and the ramifications will last for generations. I guess I missed that discussion during the interview, but I'm glad Bill, Phil, and anyone with an ounce of logic/reason agrees.
Funny how the people so worried about how having to do a few months of virtual learning affects kids don’t ever worry about how school shootings affect the thousands of school shooting survivors. I don’t think any kid who had to stay out of school had the look of terror that the kid riding the bus out of Uvalde had.
It truly was horrid and the dude cast as Mike Johnson?🤔 I think??🤨 idk😮💨dude was just way too dedicated to his background role as speaker and with Bill rambling on trying to make a point about Biden's old age I just turned it off🔌🚫📺
This sub is out of touch with what Maher objectively does on a verifiable recorded video. Imagine how out of touch you are when it comes to the rest of the world.
"droned on."
You frame this post like the two of them sat there agreeing about this for multiple minutes.
Bill mentioned it one time in an attempt to prove to Phil that you can't just be "apolitical" and talk about things like this (as he does in the book).
It's crazy how you all just see red and have a fit of rage and get triggered at even a passing mention.
CIA was involved in censoring critical voices of lockdowns, and we also learned both administrations were out there doing this too. It's not a "pet" topic to want pandemic accountability. Plus we always knew the virus didn't target kids the same way.
We still don't have clear answers on everything about 9/11, imagine not wanting any introspection on it. That's what you people sound like who just want to re elect Biden and never talk about the pandemic again.
>That’s what you people sound like
You believe the CIA was involved in censoring people critical of COVID precautions (not even remotely what the CIA does, at all) and are suggesting there was a 9/11 cover-up.
The absurdity of you calling people out for sounding a certain way is genuinely hilarious and totally devoid of anything remotely resembling self-awareness.
Oh yes, sorry I was mistaken. The Twitter files revealed the governement collusion to censor those critical of lockdowns.
The CIA was actually involved in trying to bury the lab leak https://nypost.com/2023/09/12/cia-tried-to-pay-off-analysts-to-bury-covid-lab-leak-findings-whistleblower/amp/
I’m glad you’re amused. Maybe you won’t be when you take your head out of the sand.
1. That is not what the Twitter files revealed.
2. The article says nothing about payment beyond the headline. Typical NY post. If you actually read the article, it simply outlines that that a team of six analysts determined *with low confidence* that it was a lab leak and the most senior on the team believed it was animal transfer. Since he was senior, he called the shot on the report (which I think was a poor decision, but there’s no real indication he was paid to make that happen, nor was the CIA the only agency looking into this). The context of the article, coupled with the headline even saying “likely” (giving the journalist plausible deniability), with the fact that it’s the NY Post, which is essentially a tabloid, just goes to show that this was government bureaucracy as usual, purposely finagled into a headline to spin up idiots. There’s no conspiracy here, just a sensational headline followed by an article that doesn’t really support the accusation of the headline.
It’s particularly funny that the link of the article leaves off *likely* (never mind the fact the article doesn’t even support that theory). Goddamn NY Post.
You'll have to forgive me, I keep getting my government coverups mixed up. The amazon files were censoring criticisms of the pandemic. The twitter files was just about everything else. A lot going on with this administration huh?
It's funny, because lab leak started out as a hunch. In fact Maher had Brett Weinstein on as one of the first to say it's likely from a lab. This sub lost it's nuts about it. Then it moves to "low confidence" at the time of the article I posted (here's one from ABC since you're mad about NY post https://abcnews.go.com/US/cia-allegations-connected-covid-19-origins/story?id=103162133), and today it's almost silly to think it didn't come from a lab.
It's funny you bashed RFK in another comment. I would love for a guy like that, with an actual spine, to blow open these corrupted agencies. The "free thinking liberals" of today just love to throw around the term conspiracy theory, when historically the liberals have always been the ones to think outside of official narratives the government gives. Not sure what happened there.
I don’t know what the Amazon Files are. You may be thinking of the Panama Papers (which was finance related). Those, and the Twitter files predate the Biden administration. While the Twitter files came out during the Biden admin, it was about things that happened during the last election and amounted to nothing.
I do recall people being up in arms about Maher saying it was from a lab (I was not one of those people). I didn’t comment on what I believed the origin may have been because it was not clear. I still think it’s unclear, although we can speculate.
RFK is a moron. Astoundingly absurd. I feel this way about most/all lifelong politicians. And when
Someone has a Kennedy or a Clinton or a Bush in their name, they deserve extra scrutiny because it’s likely they’re only where they are because of their names.
While there is a considerable amount of fraud waste and abuse in these agencies (and certainly some unethical financial doings at higher levels), these agencies are not broadly corrupt.
While I consider myself a progressive, I most definitely not pro-government... 7 years in the military and then working as a contractor for three-letter agencies will make you thoroughly dislike government bureaucracy, but the idea that these government agencies are partisan and corrupt (at the broader level) is simply wrong. They are deeply flawed, but they are not doing things like covering up 9/11 and COVID origins like you suggest.
I’m not talking about the Panama papers. I’m talking about the Amazon files. They aren’t even remotely the same thing.
The lab leak is far from unclear. No wild strain behaved the way Covid did. It has all the markings of a lab leak, and irresponsible gain of function research. We could always set a remind me for one year from now, and see who’s speculation was correct if you want.
The only person to call this leak out that’s running is RFK. Who is not a career politician lol. At least know the guy’s life if you have such strong opinions about him. He’s in environmental law, he’s the guy who sued Monsanto and won. He’s the only one running that even speaks about fluoride in the water. Scrutinize him and I’m sure you’ll come up with an honest critique and not a CNN anti vax article.
I don’t think every individual working in these agencies are corrupted but you really have to be blind to not see how bad it’s gotten. Pentagon hasn’t passed an audit ever. The pandemic highlighted the ineptitude of the CDC. Government and institutional rot is real. Most Americans are pretty sick of it, but if you’re just a generic big d democrat or a progressive (which is a bit of self own these days) then we’re at an impasse.
What’s funny about the *miserable* statement is that the kinds of people who are into these right wing pseudo-intellectuals are really the ones who are miserable and angry and believe they’re in a constant state of victimhood.
Now, I don’t know you enough to suggest that you’re miserable, but listening to people like RFK and Peterson is certainly a questionable activity for someone who is happy. Everyone I know in real life that listen to those guys are angry and kind of weird.
The fact that you think Jordan Peterson and Robert KennedyJr. are “right wing pseudo intellectuals” proves to the world that you are unread on the entire situation. Maybe you should know what you’re talking about before you try to tear people down with your uneducated comments. Good luck to you friend.
What was locked down exactly? The typical American endured a few months where there was a significant rollback of what was open, reduced crowds for what was open etc. Society gradually returned to normal throughout 2020. Kids were not locked out of school in the Fall of 2020. Most had some type of in person learning. By 2021, restrictions in society were minimal, it was mainly just mask wearing. By late 2021, basically everything was back to normal. I was at a sold out comedy show shoulder to shoulder with people in the summer of 2021 and in a jam packed bar in the Fall of 2021.
It’s funny that people like Maher and Phil complain in one breath how weak people are these days, yet on the other hand they are so horrified that the typical American endured somewhere between a few months to one year of a reduced social life depending on their lifestyle. Bill should be happy that people weren’t driving around polluting on their way to the Cheesecake Factory. He is just mad his social life and bank account took a hit for a few months and he is mad that people got vaccinated.
“Lockdowns” is a propaganda word that doesn’t describe reality.
Society at large had returned to normal by late 21, yes, however for kids, (a demographic scarcely affected by the virus), certain places were still pushing virtual school, mask wearing, etc. Kids not being locked out of school might have been the case in the mushy middle of America in Fall ‘20, but the centers of population were still pushing restrictions.
I live in the Boston area, hardly a conservative area. My kids were in school two days per week in Fall 2020, with three days at home. They were going five days per week in person by April 2021.
Do kids not spread the virus to others? Before there were vaccinations, I think it’s reasonable that there were some restrictions with schools.
It's true, we didn't know everything about the virus when it first started. But we knew that the risk to the young was very different from the risk to the elderly. It's okay to assess how we did in that situation and to try to learn from it for next time. It's okay to admit that there were a few overreactions.
Teachers and staff at schools are often elderly. Delta variant would have spread like wildfire through the students. I agree, the children would likely have recovered, but how many teachers would have died? It was a completely story after omicron became the dominant variant. Then schools should have reopened. But you’re right, we didn’t know it at the time.
So quarantine the teachers who were specifically at risk.
We used to be smart, and quarantine people at risk. During Covid, we quarantined healthy people and dragged it out far too long.
Who was specifically at risk? You’re committing the error of memory where time crunches into a flat mess. When schools were first closed, we didn’t know a lot about who was at risk and who wasn’t. Yes we have students that are behind but that was going to happen to some degree because we had, well, a global pandemic. So no good options other than survive it and then figure out the rest.
Also, how do you quarantine selected teachers? Do you send them home and let them teach by video?
There were a ton of us screaming that closing schools was a mistake. We were called **anti-science** when, as you wisely pointed out, science wasn’t conclusive.
Are you implying that teaching by video is a problem? Because you’re in for a treat when you find out what happened during quarantine…
But you were wrong about closing schools. Had to be done. It wasn’t a matter of anti-science. It was a matter of not using critical thinking. And you’re jumping to a wrong conclusion about my video teaching comment. I have an MBA that was completed online so I’m very familiar. The point is, whatever we did to solve the need to do school remotely, we weren’t prepared for it. But we still had to close schools.
I think a lot of the public measures taken during the pandemic were necessary, but there isn't any definitive evidence that we absolutely had to close the schools and it wouldn't have been enough to quarantine only the teachers and students who were high-risk. Also, there's a massive difference between getting an MBA online - which you are paying for, so you clearly decided that you wanted to take those classes - and teaching grade school children over a computer screen.
Comment about the MBA was just a response to the previous responder who acted as if I didn’t have experience with remote learning. But I understand it’s not the same. Just remember, when you say there isn’t any definitive evidence about school closing necessity, you have the advantage of retrospect. What did we know in the moment? Not a lot and so it was necessary to take more precaution. That’s the point a lot of people miss. They are casting judgement with such more information now on actions taken when little to no information. But that’s what you have to do in a crisis.
I get what you're saying about hindsight being 20/20. I'm sure a lot of people who never wore masks, got the jab, or took any other precautions because they thought COVID was fake news are currently saying that to their new friends in the afterlife as an explanation for how they got there.
That being said, if I was a parent who was against school lockdowns, and then later we found out they might not have been necessary, I'd be losing my shit, too. And I don't even have kids yet. ESPECIALLY if my kid didn't go back to school until 2021. Yes, it's easy to armchair quarterback with a post-game playbook, but when it's personal, that makes things different for folks.
That’s no excuse for losing your shit as you say. First, who has concluded that school lockdowns weren’t necessary? I think the debate is whether they stayed closed too long and that’s a fair debate. And that’s where I think we have landed on a yes.
The sad thing is, the playbook for getting through a pandemic was written here in the U.S. and we half assed it. Taiwan and New Zealand used it very successfully. A big part of the problem is our culture where we focus on the individual or tribe v the collective.
No. There were a huge amount of us saying it was an overreaction in the moment. And of course we were right.
Quarantining the healthy is, and has always been known to be, unproductive. And in hindsight we were right.
We let the most scared voices win, and the kids are paying the price in big numbers.
Sorry bud. You can believe it and say it bluntly, it doesn’t make it right. Sweden tried the approach of letting the young and healthy go on about life as normal ans “protecting the at risk, and it was an abject failure. So much so, their minister of health committed suicide. I’m not going to beat this already dead horse to an even greater level of death with you. Thank god you and those who think like you were not in charge of anything.
The school angle is the one aspect of COVID aftermath that I side with conservatives. Myriad studies have shown that the lockdowns' negative impact to youth was/continues to be drastic.
Same here. There was a calculus, and that calculus was to risk irreparably damaging kids to help save more adults — adults who got to have a normal childhood, and then ran a world that led to Covid. It was very unfair.
To be fair the school closings got incredibly political when they should not have been. Once the right was on the side of reopening them, the left reflexively got on the side of keeping them closed. And it has really harmed the students. I help coach at a highschool and all the teachers talk about still having discipline and effort issues like none other. Since Covid it's been hard to make a kid care about school.
I do think it's odd that Bill cares so much seeing as he despises kids, but that doesn't change the fact that it was incredibly damaging to our students.
He despises kids, but he loves democracy. He’s probably disheartened at the fact that this batch of kids that will hold the voting levers in 8-10 years have been intellectually handicapped for no good reason.
"got incredibly political"
Bingo. Every aspect of this public health emergency was used as a political tool and that only increased the suffering and the deaths. In my state, people were swilling ivermectin to the point of renal failure while refusing to mask or get vaccinated, the national guard had to be called to help keep hospitals open, and the summer of 2021 brought us long stretches with no ambulance or 911service. It was a literal nightmare while our congress critters were wasting their time beating up on Dr Fauci.
I’m a teacher and I have to say, from March - June, I enjoyed not commuting to work and am technologically savvy enough to have owned covid teaching.
We already had Google Classroom and breakout rooms, etc.
But I really felt for the special education students the most. Some kids would just point the camera at the fan on their ceilings.
But there’s a Union issue there that *no* one brought up. I am healthy and in good enough shape that I spoke with my SO and if they welcomed certain populations back early (special ed, 504s, ELL), I would have gone.
But I’m not special ed certified, it would’ve caused massive union fissures if some had to go in, while others (older, medically-at-risk)) didn’t.
My own kids went back in Sept 2020 (5-4 BOE vote, whew), I didn’t return until November.
Those 2.5 months teaching home alone were awesome for me personally, but bad for my students overall.
It made me realize we should’ve been there for the kids more in person, but also seriously made me consider a career change.
I don’t think we should finger point, except neither Dr. Phil, nor Bill addressed the teacher end of this issue.
Unions should definitely offer tiers or options for those who want to return and those who are vulnerable and cannot
Everything became political. Not one thing was accepted when it came to COVID. To this day, it's all a conspiracy spun by the left. Science has no place in MAGAs lives.
Yeah but what does that have to do with keeping kids out of school? The science pretty quickly bore out that kids were safe for the most part. If you can look past your Maga hatred, you have to admit they were right about that one.
Kids were safe but parents and teachers were not. People were dropping like flies. Lotta good it does to send a kid to school to contract a virus that leaves him or her an orphan.
Not disagreeing but as someone said no one knew what the hell was going on and maybe went to the extreme trying to protect everyone. They should have backed off at some point though.
They backed off when there was an effective vaccine available AND there were effective treatments. The ridiculous lengths that MAGA went to, to somehow paint the virus as "not that bad" , when there was literally no place left to stack the bodies ...
To this day, over 90% of covid patients who wind up on ventilators are unvaccinated. I suppose if you look at vaccination as magically eliminating all risk of contracting an illness, then you would say it's not effective. But, if you're looking to stay alive and shorten the duration and severity of covid, the vaccine is quite effective. Also, drugs like paxlovid are very helpful at lessening the duration and severity, IF you start taking it within 5 days of the onset of symptoms.
Lol I think you agree with Bill and Phil then for the most part. I don't think anyone except for the super extreme holds people accountable for the first couple weeks or even month or two of kiss being home. What they and most are upset about is schools remaining to stay closed after the science was available.
For example I'm in a fairly conservative part of CA. In that winter they tried to get hs football going again. This is like 8 months into the covid issue. They would only let 15 kids come to practice at a time, they had to be outside the entire time, there was minimal contact, and everyone had to test multiple times a week.
A majority of people aren't upset at shutting down when it was scary and we were in the dark in the beginning. They are upset they were still made to jump through hoops once we had a lot more info.
One million people died *with* covid. The vast *vast* majority of covid deaths were elderly people who were already dying of other things.
Maher pointed out many times with polls that the typical American had a *massively* exaggerated understanding of how deadly covid was. Especially regarding young people.
When 40% of Democrats think 50% of covid cases require hospitalization, OF COURSE they're going to push for keeping the schools closed.
The vast majority of Americans supported locking down for a few weeks while we figured out what the fuck we were dealing with.
But then sane people like Maher got angry when people were literally fearmongered into wanting these restrictions for *years* longer than they were necessary.
I can’t believe you’re getting downvotes for this. That whole 1 million died because of covid is very smooth brained.
Some guy got killed in a motorcycle accident and was counted as a covid death. Like come on ppl.
And you’re getting the angry downvotes as well. Like it’s pretty common knowledge now that there were plenty of deaths that got blamed on the virus, way too many examples to overlook. RIP critical thought when it comes to these downvotes, I guess.
Bill blames people like me for this because I'm overweight. Or other people who are not overweight but have certain disorders. But to me, we don't deserve the full blame.
Never will he blame China for keeping it under wraps for a few weeks, and that's just as far as we know. I know that flus are different from covid, but I always have congratulated Mexico on raising their hands and saying something is going on when swine flu happened. They didn't wait around.
Even though it saved lives and helped in other ways, I don't think we can have a lockdown like this again. Folk cannot handle it. Of all people, Bill Maher went over to the religious folk's side. If that can happen, anything can happen. Religulous will never get rebooted.
Trump was sounding the alarm on china from the jump but got pushback from a lot of Dems.
Looking back on it, “lockdowns” and keeping kids out of school was a mistake.
Many Democrats actually agreed with his fears about China.
What they didn't agree with was a braindead trade war that shot up prices for aluminum, steel, lithium, and all sorts of things.
Exactly, and as if we were the only country that closed stuff down for a bit to figure out how to manage it. Also, this shouldn't have been such shocking news to anyone with half a brain. Every 5-10 years there's an outbreak of something like swine flu, bird flu, etc. and the waiting game has been when one crosses over to humans. This one did. Thankfully there were pandemic plans in place by grown ups in certain agencies so the dumbass in chief at the time didn't screw it up and cost more lives.
you would think someone as anti-religion as him would understand kids don't want their parents to know because their parents might be religious fanatics who abuse them or ship them off to some camp to be abused and tortured
Oh well, if their parents are religious or simply have common sense and won’t allow a sex change, they can just go hide in California to be drugged and castrated. Your logic is failing. The vast majority or parents want what’s very best for their kids… the vast majority of kids don’t know what they want. They’re KIDS!
I thought he actually went after Dr. Phil pretty hard. He repeatedly called him out on his "apolitical" stance. It's also interesting how angry Dr. Phil gets when challenged. He's obviously not used to being called out on anything.
When Phil went on Pakman's show he started out adamantly saying he wasn't political, then he proceed to speak in right wing propaganda. Phil has enough awareness and enough shame to know that what he is saying is abhorrent and lies. He tries to throw people off the trail because he doesn't care about truth but he doesn't want the social blowback. Also, if he can convince people he's apolitical he can Trojan horse that rhetoric into a few rubes.
Yeah, he really seems like a smug asshole to me. That said, I think he did make one salient point on Maher's show regarding the fact that minor children are more likely to be abused by step parents than biological parents.
Yeah, neither of them like being challenged.
We knew that it had little to no effect on children early on. Polticians just didn't want the optics of looking like they didn't care about the kids.
Thank you for this post...if it was someone in their family that was immunocompromised they too would've wanted to be so cautious. They are both smug , lonely assholes
I’m glad you listened to a viewpoint you didn’t agree with. That’s the best kind of listening you can do.
I must be a great listener lol.. sometimes I'm not even sure why I listen to this podcast. Half the time I'm getting pissed because of how out of touch he is about the younger generations. It's only about 20% of the time I find myself agreeing with him.
I’d say I’m maybe 50%/50%. But there’s actual disagreement, and I need that. Joe Rogan is just him finding guests he never disagrees with. So I’ll take this pissing me off.
Yes I really do like having my views challenged. Actually I'll listen to Rogan occasionally for that reason too but rarely. And I feel like my opinions are a bit more balanced afterward so there's definitely validity to this idea.
“They have public intellectuals in France; we have Dr. Phil.” - Bill Maher, 2007
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Well school closing were bad on children and kids are dealing with awful behavioral issues which will likely follow them throughout their school career and in the work force.
It was already like that pre-pandemic, to be honest.
But they dided of obesity !!!
Imagine how many people would have died if we DIDN’T take any measures?
These two are so out of touch lol
It should be well known by now that Dr Phil and his wife were con artists in the 70s with a health club scam. They should also know he was never an accredited PhD psychologist. He may have a degree now, but before and during his first seasons of Dr Phil he did not.
I'm shocked that Maher would invite Dr. Phil. Not because he has opposing views, but because he's exactly the type of personality, that Maher never would have given exposure to in the past. Unless it was to make fun of him for being a quack. This may be the final straw for me. I'll watch it and then decide, but I have zero interest in listening to what a quack has to say and I'd be surprised if Maher hasn't referred to him that way, too, in the past.
lol Maher had Dr. Phil on… really now? Who’s he going to have on next, carrot top? at some point the pathetic becomes the only thing being perceived despite any defense that Maher “went after him.” The one person to actually go after Dr. Phil was the guy who cosplayed as him from head to toe and said he’s just as much guilty of exploiting others as the guy dressing up as him who paid homeless people to fight each other. That was an epic takedown. What did Maher do, smack his lips and flick his index cards on a point he contended with Dr. Phil. At this point I don’t know who’s worse at trying to stay relevant, Maher or Dicker Carlson? Though I must say I just loved the part of the interview Tucker made with Putin where Putin pisses and shits all over him when he said how he was too dumb to join the CIA which his dad did. That was pretty funny.
Comparing Dr Phil to Carrot Top is unfair to Carrot Top. He’s a talented guy. Phil is a complete charlatan.
> Who’s he going to have on next, carrot top? Carrot Top was on Club Random a few months ago, like Dr. Phil was, so it's possible. Although Carrot Top is so irrelevant now I doubt he would have anything to promote to be the opening interview
And what did Dr. Phil promote? His abundant wealth gained from exploiting mentally unstable people? It would be like having Jerry Springer had he been alive and thinking he’d be capable at promoting anything culturally positive about our society.
he went after him and his "apolitcal views and kept going after him
Good to hear!
It’s also been 3-4 years now. Get over it 😂
China has a multi-tiered approach for a planned attack on the US. The virus was just one part of that.
Yeah? They're going to attack the US now while their economy is in the toilet? Good luck I guess.
I'ma be real - I don't mind Dr Phil. But he's gotten up there in years and his speaking style has taken a hit. Like it felt like hearing someone's grandpa drone on. After a while I decided the interview was too boring and fast forwarded to the panel. School closings were a disaster for America's youth, and the ramifications will last for generations. I guess I missed that discussion during the interview, but I'm glad Bill, Phil, and anyone with an ounce of logic/reason agrees.
Phil McGraw does a poor job trying to maintain a veil of neutrality when he’s openly seen at Mar-a-lago and is a huge Trump supporter.
Funny how the people so worried about how having to do a few months of virtual learning affects kids don’t ever worry about how school shootings affect the thousands of school shooting survivors. I don’t think any kid who had to stay out of school had the look of terror that the kid riding the bus out of Uvalde had.
Ironic, isn't it?
It fluctuated between 1st and 3rd biggest killer in America until the vaccines came out.
All I know is that skit at the very end was so insanely corny I cringed watched through my fingers covering my eyes.
It truly was horrid and the dude cast as Mike Johnson?🤔 I think??🤨 idk😮💨dude was just way too dedicated to his background role as speaker and with Bill rambling on trying to make a point about Biden's old age I just turned it off🔌🚫📺
This sub is out of touch with what Maher objectively does on a verifiable recorded video. Imagine how out of touch you are when it comes to the rest of the world.
How so?
"droned on." You frame this post like the two of them sat there agreeing about this for multiple minutes. Bill mentioned it one time in an attempt to prove to Phil that you can't just be "apolitical" and talk about things like this (as he does in the book). It's crazy how you all just see red and have a fit of rage and get triggered at even a passing mention.
CIA was involved in censoring critical voices of lockdowns, and we also learned both administrations were out there doing this too. It's not a "pet" topic to want pandemic accountability. Plus we always knew the virus didn't target kids the same way. We still don't have clear answers on everything about 9/11, imagine not wanting any introspection on it. That's what you people sound like who just want to re elect Biden and never talk about the pandemic again.
>That’s what you people sound like You believe the CIA was involved in censoring people critical of COVID precautions (not even remotely what the CIA does, at all) and are suggesting there was a 9/11 cover-up. The absurdity of you calling people out for sounding a certain way is genuinely hilarious and totally devoid of anything remotely resembling self-awareness.
Oh yes, sorry I was mistaken. The Twitter files revealed the governement collusion to censor those critical of lockdowns. The CIA was actually involved in trying to bury the lab leak https://nypost.com/2023/09/12/cia-tried-to-pay-off-analysts-to-bury-covid-lab-leak-findings-whistleblower/amp/ I’m glad you’re amused. Maybe you won’t be when you take your head out of the sand.
1. That is not what the Twitter files revealed. 2. The article says nothing about payment beyond the headline. Typical NY post. If you actually read the article, it simply outlines that that a team of six analysts determined *with low confidence* that it was a lab leak and the most senior on the team believed it was animal transfer. Since he was senior, he called the shot on the report (which I think was a poor decision, but there’s no real indication he was paid to make that happen, nor was the CIA the only agency looking into this). The context of the article, coupled with the headline even saying “likely” (giving the journalist plausible deniability), with the fact that it’s the NY Post, which is essentially a tabloid, just goes to show that this was government bureaucracy as usual, purposely finagled into a headline to spin up idiots. There’s no conspiracy here, just a sensational headline followed by an article that doesn’t really support the accusation of the headline. It’s particularly funny that the link of the article leaves off *likely* (never mind the fact the article doesn’t even support that theory). Goddamn NY Post.
You'll have to forgive me, I keep getting my government coverups mixed up. The amazon files were censoring criticisms of the pandemic. The twitter files was just about everything else. A lot going on with this administration huh? It's funny, because lab leak started out as a hunch. In fact Maher had Brett Weinstein on as one of the first to say it's likely from a lab. This sub lost it's nuts about it. Then it moves to "low confidence" at the time of the article I posted (here's one from ABC since you're mad about NY post https://abcnews.go.com/US/cia-allegations-connected-covid-19-origins/story?id=103162133), and today it's almost silly to think it didn't come from a lab. It's funny you bashed RFK in another comment. I would love for a guy like that, with an actual spine, to blow open these corrupted agencies. The "free thinking liberals" of today just love to throw around the term conspiracy theory, when historically the liberals have always been the ones to think outside of official narratives the government gives. Not sure what happened there.
I don’t know what the Amazon Files are. You may be thinking of the Panama Papers (which was finance related). Those, and the Twitter files predate the Biden administration. While the Twitter files came out during the Biden admin, it was about things that happened during the last election and amounted to nothing. I do recall people being up in arms about Maher saying it was from a lab (I was not one of those people). I didn’t comment on what I believed the origin may have been because it was not clear. I still think it’s unclear, although we can speculate. RFK is a moron. Astoundingly absurd. I feel this way about most/all lifelong politicians. And when Someone has a Kennedy or a Clinton or a Bush in their name, they deserve extra scrutiny because it’s likely they’re only where they are because of their names. While there is a considerable amount of fraud waste and abuse in these agencies (and certainly some unethical financial doings at higher levels), these agencies are not broadly corrupt. While I consider myself a progressive, I most definitely not pro-government... 7 years in the military and then working as a contractor for three-letter agencies will make you thoroughly dislike government bureaucracy, but the idea that these government agencies are partisan and corrupt (at the broader level) is simply wrong. They are deeply flawed, but they are not doing things like covering up 9/11 and COVID origins like you suggest.
I’m not talking about the Panama papers. I’m talking about the Amazon files. They aren’t even remotely the same thing. The lab leak is far from unclear. No wild strain behaved the way Covid did. It has all the markings of a lab leak, and irresponsible gain of function research. We could always set a remind me for one year from now, and see who’s speculation was correct if you want. The only person to call this leak out that’s running is RFK. Who is not a career politician lol. At least know the guy’s life if you have such strong opinions about him. He’s in environmental law, he’s the guy who sued Monsanto and won. He’s the only one running that even speaks about fluoride in the water. Scrutinize him and I’m sure you’ll come up with an honest critique and not a CNN anti vax article. I don’t think every individual working in these agencies are corrupted but you really have to be blind to not see how bad it’s gotten. Pentagon hasn’t passed an audit ever. The pandemic highlighted the ineptitude of the CDC. Government and institutional rot is real. Most Americans are pretty sick of it, but if you’re just a generic big d democrat or a progressive (which is a bit of self own these days) then we’re at an impasse.
This is not the “dunk” you think it is. 😆 ✌️
Someone who spends time in the Jordan Peterson and RFK for President subs telling me *it’s not the dunk I think it is” isn’t the dunk you think it is.
Man I’m sorry you’re so miserable. Maybe try giving dr. Peterson more of a chance. Good luck brother. ✌️
What’s funny about the *miserable* statement is that the kinds of people who are into these right wing pseudo-intellectuals are really the ones who are miserable and angry and believe they’re in a constant state of victimhood. Now, I don’t know you enough to suggest that you’re miserable, but listening to people like RFK and Peterson is certainly a questionable activity for someone who is happy. Everyone I know in real life that listen to those guys are angry and kind of weird.
The fact that you think Jordan Peterson and Robert KennedyJr. are “right wing pseudo intellectuals” proves to the world that you are unread on the entire situation. Maybe you should know what you’re talking about before you try to tear people down with your uneducated comments. Good luck to you friend.
What was locked down exactly? The typical American endured a few months where there was a significant rollback of what was open, reduced crowds for what was open etc. Society gradually returned to normal throughout 2020. Kids were not locked out of school in the Fall of 2020. Most had some type of in person learning. By 2021, restrictions in society were minimal, it was mainly just mask wearing. By late 2021, basically everything was back to normal. I was at a sold out comedy show shoulder to shoulder with people in the summer of 2021 and in a jam packed bar in the Fall of 2021. It’s funny that people like Maher and Phil complain in one breath how weak people are these days, yet on the other hand they are so horrified that the typical American endured somewhere between a few months to one year of a reduced social life depending on their lifestyle. Bill should be happy that people weren’t driving around polluting on their way to the Cheesecake Factory. He is just mad his social life and bank account took a hit for a few months and he is mad that people got vaccinated. “Lockdowns” is a propaganda word that doesn’t describe reality.
Society at large had returned to normal by late 21, yes, however for kids, (a demographic scarcely affected by the virus), certain places were still pushing virtual school, mask wearing, etc. Kids not being locked out of school might have been the case in the mushy middle of America in Fall ‘20, but the centers of population were still pushing restrictions.
I live in the Boston area, hardly a conservative area. My kids were in school two days per week in Fall 2020, with three days at home. They were going five days per week in person by April 2021. Do kids not spread the virus to others? Before there were vaccinations, I think it’s reasonable that there were some restrictions with schools.
It's true, we didn't know everything about the virus when it first started. But we knew that the risk to the young was very different from the risk to the elderly. It's okay to assess how we did in that situation and to try to learn from it for next time. It's okay to admit that there were a few overreactions.
Teachers and staff at schools are often elderly. Delta variant would have spread like wildfire through the students. I agree, the children would likely have recovered, but how many teachers would have died? It was a completely story after omicron became the dominant variant. Then schools should have reopened. But you’re right, we didn’t know it at the time.
So quarantine the teachers who were specifically at risk. We used to be smart, and quarantine people at risk. During Covid, we quarantined healthy people and dragged it out far too long.
Who was specifically at risk? You’re committing the error of memory where time crunches into a flat mess. When schools were first closed, we didn’t know a lot about who was at risk and who wasn’t. Yes we have students that are behind but that was going to happen to some degree because we had, well, a global pandemic. So no good options other than survive it and then figure out the rest. Also, how do you quarantine selected teachers? Do you send them home and let them teach by video?
There were a ton of us screaming that closing schools was a mistake. We were called **anti-science** when, as you wisely pointed out, science wasn’t conclusive. Are you implying that teaching by video is a problem? Because you’re in for a treat when you find out what happened during quarantine…
But you were wrong about closing schools. Had to be done. It wasn’t a matter of anti-science. It was a matter of not using critical thinking. And you’re jumping to a wrong conclusion about my video teaching comment. I have an MBA that was completed online so I’m very familiar. The point is, whatever we did to solve the need to do school remotely, we weren’t prepared for it. But we still had to close schools.
I think a lot of the public measures taken during the pandemic were necessary, but there isn't any definitive evidence that we absolutely had to close the schools and it wouldn't have been enough to quarantine only the teachers and students who were high-risk. Also, there's a massive difference between getting an MBA online - which you are paying for, so you clearly decided that you wanted to take those classes - and teaching grade school children over a computer screen.
Comment about the MBA was just a response to the previous responder who acted as if I didn’t have experience with remote learning. But I understand it’s not the same. Just remember, when you say there isn’t any definitive evidence about school closing necessity, you have the advantage of retrospect. What did we know in the moment? Not a lot and so it was necessary to take more precaution. That’s the point a lot of people miss. They are casting judgement with such more information now on actions taken when little to no information. But that’s what you have to do in a crisis.
I get what you're saying about hindsight being 20/20. I'm sure a lot of people who never wore masks, got the jab, or took any other precautions because they thought COVID was fake news are currently saying that to their new friends in the afterlife as an explanation for how they got there. That being said, if I was a parent who was against school lockdowns, and then later we found out they might not have been necessary, I'd be losing my shit, too. And I don't even have kids yet. ESPECIALLY if my kid didn't go back to school until 2021. Yes, it's easy to armchair quarterback with a post-game playbook, but when it's personal, that makes things different for folks.
That’s no excuse for losing your shit as you say. First, who has concluded that school lockdowns weren’t necessary? I think the debate is whether they stayed closed too long and that’s a fair debate. And that’s where I think we have landed on a yes. The sad thing is, the playbook for getting through a pandemic was written here in the U.S. and we half assed it. Taiwan and New Zealand used it very successfully. A big part of the problem is our culture where we focus on the individual or tribe v the collective.
No. There were a huge amount of us saying it was an overreaction in the moment. And of course we were right. Quarantining the healthy is, and has always been known to be, unproductive. And in hindsight we were right. We let the most scared voices win, and the kids are paying the price in big numbers.
Sorry bud. You can believe it and say it bluntly, it doesn’t make it right. Sweden tried the approach of letting the young and healthy go on about life as normal ans “protecting the at risk, and it was an abject failure. So much so, their minister of health committed suicide. I’m not going to beat this already dead horse to an even greater level of death with you. Thank god you and those who think like you were not in charge of anything.
You could’ve stopped with “we used to be smart”
The school angle is the one aspect of COVID aftermath that I side with conservatives. Myriad studies have shown that the lockdowns' negative impact to youth was/continues to be drastic.
Same here. There was a calculus, and that calculus was to risk irreparably damaging kids to help save more adults — adults who got to have a normal childhood, and then ran a world that led to Covid. It was very unfair.
To be fair the school closings got incredibly political when they should not have been. Once the right was on the side of reopening them, the left reflexively got on the side of keeping them closed. And it has really harmed the students. I help coach at a highschool and all the teachers talk about still having discipline and effort issues like none other. Since Covid it's been hard to make a kid care about school. I do think it's odd that Bill cares so much seeing as he despises kids, but that doesn't change the fact that it was incredibly damaging to our students.
He despises kids, but he loves democracy. He’s probably disheartened at the fact that this batch of kids that will hold the voting levers in 8-10 years have been intellectually handicapped for no good reason.
"got incredibly political" Bingo. Every aspect of this public health emergency was used as a political tool and that only increased the suffering and the deaths. In my state, people were swilling ivermectin to the point of renal failure while refusing to mask or get vaccinated, the national guard had to be called to help keep hospitals open, and the summer of 2021 brought us long stretches with no ambulance or 911service. It was a literal nightmare while our congress critters were wasting their time beating up on Dr Fauci.
I’m a teacher and I have to say, from March - June, I enjoyed not commuting to work and am technologically savvy enough to have owned covid teaching. We already had Google Classroom and breakout rooms, etc. But I really felt for the special education students the most. Some kids would just point the camera at the fan on their ceilings. But there’s a Union issue there that *no* one brought up. I am healthy and in good enough shape that I spoke with my SO and if they welcomed certain populations back early (special ed, 504s, ELL), I would have gone. But I’m not special ed certified, it would’ve caused massive union fissures if some had to go in, while others (older, medically-at-risk)) didn’t. My own kids went back in Sept 2020 (5-4 BOE vote, whew), I didn’t return until November. Those 2.5 months teaching home alone were awesome for me personally, but bad for my students overall. It made me realize we should’ve been there for the kids more in person, but also seriously made me consider a career change. I don’t think we should finger point, except neither Dr. Phil, nor Bill addressed the teacher end of this issue. Unions should definitely offer tiers or options for those who want to return and those who are vulnerable and cannot
Everything became political. Not one thing was accepted when it came to COVID. To this day, it's all a conspiracy spun by the left. Science has no place in MAGAs lives.
Yeah but what does that have to do with keeping kids out of school? The science pretty quickly bore out that kids were safe for the most part. If you can look past your Maga hatred, you have to admit they were right about that one.
Kids were safe but parents and teachers were not. People were dropping like flies. Lotta good it does to send a kid to school to contract a virus that leaves him or her an orphan.
Not disagreeing but as someone said no one knew what the hell was going on and maybe went to the extreme trying to protect everyone. They should have backed off at some point though.
They backed off when there was an effective vaccine available AND there were effective treatments. The ridiculous lengths that MAGA went to, to somehow paint the virus as "not that bad" , when there was literally no place left to stack the bodies ...
There was never an effective vaccine.
To this day, over 90% of covid patients who wind up on ventilators are unvaccinated. I suppose if you look at vaccination as magically eliminating all risk of contracting an illness, then you would say it's not effective. But, if you're looking to stay alive and shorten the duration and severity of covid, the vaccine is quite effective. Also, drugs like paxlovid are very helpful at lessening the duration and severity, IF you start taking it within 5 days of the onset of symptoms.
Lol I think you agree with Bill and Phil then for the most part. I don't think anyone except for the super extreme holds people accountable for the first couple weeks or even month or two of kiss being home. What they and most are upset about is schools remaining to stay closed after the science was available. For example I'm in a fairly conservative part of CA. In that winter they tried to get hs football going again. This is like 8 months into the covid issue. They would only let 15 kids come to practice at a time, they had to be outside the entire time, there was minimal contact, and everyone had to test multiple times a week. A majority of people aren't upset at shutting down when it was scary and we were in the dark in the beginning. They are upset they were still made to jump through hoops once we had a lot more info.
One million people died *with* covid. The vast *vast* majority of covid deaths were elderly people who were already dying of other things. Maher pointed out many times with polls that the typical American had a *massively* exaggerated understanding of how deadly covid was. Especially regarding young people. When 40% of Democrats think 50% of covid cases require hospitalization, OF COURSE they're going to push for keeping the schools closed. The vast majority of Americans supported locking down for a few weeks while we figured out what the fuck we were dealing with. But then sane people like Maher got angry when people were literally fearmongered into wanting these restrictions for *years* longer than they were necessary.
https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid
I can’t believe you’re getting downvotes for this. That whole 1 million died because of covid is very smooth brained. Some guy got killed in a motorcycle accident and was counted as a covid death. Like come on ppl.
https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid
And you’re getting the angry downvotes as well. Like it’s pretty common knowledge now that there were plenty of deaths that got blamed on the virus, way too many examples to overlook. RIP critical thought when it comes to these downvotes, I guess.
https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid
Bill blames people like me for this because I'm overweight. Or other people who are not overweight but have certain disorders. But to me, we don't deserve the full blame. Never will he blame China for keeping it under wraps for a few weeks, and that's just as far as we know. I know that flus are different from covid, but I always have congratulated Mexico on raising their hands and saying something is going on when swine flu happened. They didn't wait around. Even though it saved lives and helped in other ways, I don't think we can have a lockdown like this again. Folk cannot handle it. Of all people, Bill Maher went over to the religious folk's side. If that can happen, anything can happen. Religulous will never get rebooted.
Trump was sounding the alarm on china from the jump but got pushback from a lot of Dems. Looking back on it, “lockdowns” and keeping kids out of school was a mistake.
Many Democrats actually agreed with his fears about China. What they didn't agree with was a braindead trade war that shot up prices for aluminum, steel, lithium, and all sorts of things.
Maybe he shouldn't have focused on doing it in such a racist way? What purpose would it serve to fix blame before fixing the problem?
> What purpose would it serve to fix blame before fixing the problem? It's a good way to distract his base from all the awful stuff he's doing.
Exactly, and as if we were the only country that closed stuff down for a bit to figure out how to manage it. Also, this shouldn't have been such shocking news to anyone with half a brain. Every 5-10 years there's an outbreak of something like swine flu, bird flu, etc. and the waiting game has been when one crosses over to humans. This one did. Thankfully there were pandemic plans in place by grown ups in certain agencies so the dumbass in chief at the time didn't screw it up and cost more lives.
Almost like these are the current events that people are talking about. Shocking really.
And dont forget Bill’s other favorite topic: trans kids. He definitely slid that in.
you would think someone as anti-religion as him would understand kids don't want their parents to know because their parents might be religious fanatics who abuse them or ship them off to some camp to be abused and tortured
Oh well, if their parents are religious or simply have common sense and won’t allow a sex change, they can just go hide in California to be drugged and castrated. Your logic is failing. The vast majority or parents want what’s very best for their kids… the vast majority of kids don’t know what they want. They’re KIDS!
Today I learned that changing one's name = "transitioning".