Arianna Appears On "Real Time with Bill Maher," Spars With Jack Kingston And Darrell Issa
Arianna appeared on "Real Time with Bill Maher" Friday night alongside Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA). During the show's 'Overtime' segment the group had a particularly spirited discussion on such topics as Rush Limbaugh comparing Obama to Hitler as well as the fact that Rep. Kingston had placed a photo of himself posing with a "R.I.P The U.S. Constitution" t-shirt on his Flickr account.
Both of the GOP representatives, after being pressed by Arianna, denounced the use of Hitler comparisons by figures such as Rush Limbaugh, with Rep. Issa saying that invoking Nazi Germany was "off limits" and that "Nobody has a right to use Hitler if it doesn't live up to the atrocities he did."
Kingston, however, played down the idea that there was an outpouring of anger at the recent health care town halls, saying that he had hosted 11 of them and that he didn't see any "hate-mongering." Kingston instead suggested that the whole story was being driven by "Rahm Emanuel and the White House and the spin machine trying to make anyone who opposes 'Obama care' an extremist."
Arianna then asked Kingston to explain why he had posted a photo on Flickr of him holding a t-shirt that read "R.I.P The U.S. Constitution," which was taken at a health care town hall last week. Kingston defended the photo, saying that he was simply trying to help inspire a young activist who had approached him.
To watch the segment, click here. Then click on the large "Overtime" picture to pull up the video.
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Let's think this through.
The health insurance business makes soooo much money that they have enough for all the costs of doing business plus large salaries, huge bonuses, national advertising, lobbyists - health care money being misspent, paid by individuals or businesses through high premiums.
A public option won't have those unwarranted costs.
You have have no control over a private insurance company. They make healthcare decisions that are actually business decisions.
Public healthcare decisions will be made by your medical provider. Care can improved over time by consumer/voters. If you are not satisfied, you will have a public advocate.
We are told this will cost too much money; the issue is treated as if the money will pour out until it dries up & the treasury is empty.
Think about it. More health care providers will be employed. More tradespersons will be employed building new hospitals and clinics. More service providers will be employed - janitors, cafeteria workers, laundries, gardeners,... and much more. These individuals will be paying taxes, buying consumer goods, homes and cars..... The money will go round and round, for the public good.
Meanwhile, you and your neighbor will be feeling good. That neighbor that you never see that is sitting inside because they are in too much pain to do anything else? They will be going to work, making money, paying taxes... That nagging pain you live with because the MRI, surgery, or medication is too costly? Dealt with.
Imagine!
But, first, please think.
Amongst other things, didn’t Hitler marginalise a section of society, as a means to unite other parts of that society?
A blunder highlighted, when efforts to develop nuclear devices were impeded through lack of suitable specialists. Thereby demonstrating, the inadvisability of compromising the full potential of the human resource, through setting one part against another.
WHLE ON BILL, ARIANA MENTIONED HOW SHE HAD TO FIGHT SCHOOLS IN ORDER TO KEEP HER ADOLESCENT CHILDREN OFF DRUGS. I WAS PRESCRIED LITHIUM AT AGE 14 AND REFUSED. I WENT BACK TO THERAPY 15 YEARS LATER AND BECAME A PSYNTHETIC ME FROM ALL THE DRUGS MASKING MINOR ISSUE AND CREATING GRATER ONES WITH DEPENDENCY AND ABUSE. MY LIFE IS NOW A BREATH BY BREATH STRUGGLE. MY FATHER ALSO DIAGNOSED AND TREATED AT ONE OF THE BEST FACILITIES IN THE COUNTRY DIED OF RENAL FAILURE FROM HIS MEDICATIONS AND MY PSYCHIATRIST ALSO DIED, WHO TOOK A LOT OF THE SAME DRUGS.
NOW MY I AM SOUL SICK AND HAVE ONLY MYSELF TO BLAME...AFTER ALL I SWALLOWED THE MANY JAGGED PILLS .
You've just wasted your time. I never read posts that are written in caps. When you post something that's readable, I'll read it.
Should have used cheeba.. no adverse reactions. Unless you consider gorging yourself on twinkies and yoohoo a bad thing.
Health care is making me sick.Iam sick of all the name calling and dirty tricks.The people making money off the sick are in a panic.They might make a little less then before.Greed always wins over need.One good thing is we have a wise latina now.
Haw Haw Haw Haw:
"Nobody has a right to use Hitler"...Guess I'll have to switch to Mussolini
There can be no reason given by any Republican for denying health care to people who cannot afford it. There can be no reason for anyone denying a public option to health care.
This argument is not Blue or Red, it is humanitarian and the hate that has been spewed by people against it is once again powered by ignorance, fear of change and the possibility that someone, basically all of us have to pay for it. So what!!!!!! It is time to use the gray matter that we all have in different quantities -- brain power and get enough information to understand just the concept of public option first and then the details And if it costs money, then that is the responsibility of all of us.
Really? There can be no reason given? How about, we don't have the money?
Lets just pay for things we don't have the money for. Republicans and Democrats don't care when they are paying with monopoly money.
you are already paying for it, what part of that do you not understand? you are already paying for the uninsured, dont you get it? Ever wonder why an MRI costs $30,000.00? could it be because you not only were charged for your MRI, but the uninsured MRIs.
Why dont we just leave things the way they are then, lets just continue to let the private health care industry that could care less about patients and let the costs continue to spiral out of control, and continue to fight with insurance companies while on our death beds. wow, what fools.
We don't have the money for 2 wars either, but I don't hear you b*tching about that.
I watched this segment on Real Time and was struck by how much more reasonable and thoughtful Issa and Kingston were than I expected. They honestly did not seem to be of the temperament that would condone what we're seeing at these town halls. Their arguments were well-founded even though I disagreed with their conclusions. I can't for the life of me understand why they - and others like them - do not stand up for honest debate on the merits of the health care reform and put an end to this other madness.
I was disappointed with bill. No intelligent retorts. Was this to satisfy conservatives and gain an emmy nod?
The Rabid Right wing lost a legitimate election to our first black president. They can't take it. Now they are using their primary tool - violence and intimidation in a juvenile temper tantrum. Remember that its usually the left that takes the hit from the fascistically minded: HItler and ultra nationalism were tilted way to the right, and exercised mind control over the uneducated and fearful; Remember some of the most influential Liberals and crusaders for Peace and Freedom of modern times fell to crazed, right-wingers/would be moralists/ and/or rascists - Gandhi, Kennedy, MLK, Lennon, Rabin... Violence and hate is the most effective language the ultra-conservatives know best. Get ready to stand up Progressives, and non-violently push back the ignorance with some Truth, rock and roll ethics, common sense, Peace Light and Love.
"rock and roll ethics" LMAO! I like that one.
LOL, yeah a needle in every vein and pill in every pill box, Rock and Roll!
Never mind these idiots. You are 100% correct!
After watching the show, I immediately emailed my congressman and senators and requested the same type health care they had. How is it that the government can run health care for the military, elected officials, but can't run it for us every day Americans?
Of course, I know I must pay for it!
FIRST...as a military brat, i have had the insurance coverage and treatment that they offer..and even my mother asked about taking me off base for treatment.
SECOND...the only reason their heathcare runs as smooth as it does, is the same reson they always manage to get a rasie for themselves even with an approval rating of below 20%...because they dont have to answer to anyone and they did it for themselves...
I watched the show tody, no spurs, they were getting along just fine...very boring show.
The republican , at least one praised Bill Clinton, Maher always does support Bill and Hill , and we also know how Arianna feels about them....
So.... democrats and republicans who can get along with each other are... boring?
Is that what we're doing here? Throwing bipartisanship away in the spirit of entertainment?
Then you are no better than the idiot masses who watch these programs, not for the content, but for the fight. That is why network news spends its time talking about Hillary's rant about being asked to speak for Bill over what the U.S. policy will be for nations in Africa. Thank you Bulbul for being the reason why our news is more entertainment than substance.
Personally thought it was a very disappointing show, especially because of the lack of sparring.
Absolutely. It was extremely unsatisfying. Bill's Oh-no-you-didn't moment at the very beginning was the highlight, and then it went downhill from there.
I was thinking that Bill needed to stand up to those 2 guys. He kept letting them take over...
When Bush was president, people, including Bill Maher and Arianna, were making references of Hitler and attacks on the Constitution. I'm not saying it's right or wrong. I'm just saying you can't have double standards. It's hypocrisy. You can defend that it's not justified in this situation, but don't act like you would never do it under ANY circumstance when you already did.
It was a deserved comparison back then. The complete opposite right now.
Really? You mean like corporate giants getting all the breaks? Innocent women and children dying in Afghanistan? Saying one thing and doing another? Appointing unqualified people to high places? No one but Hitler deserves to be called Hitler. There is no comparison "back then". Last I checked the concentration camps were closed. As for the complete opposite, well read this post again!
True, more women and children are dying in Afghanistan than in Iraq. It is definitely opposite.
So, all the work, billions of dollars in aid to Africa, and millions of people treated with retroviral drugs, hundreds of thousands of lives saved, perhaps millions, compares to the holocaust?
You're disgusting.
Examples?
I think the Patriot Act, FBI Security Letters, the abililty to arrest and disappear American citizens on the sole grounds they're "enemies of the State"....packing sensitive government agencies, in particular the DOJ with party loyalists, .that has a certain Fascist dimension to it. Not to mention the absolutely orchestrated attacks on Liberal delivered via the vast echo machine. The demonization of us as being "traitors", "unAmerican", etc. And the "unitary executive" drive.
It all has a pronounced neo-fascist bent to it.
I don't use Hitler for any comparsions, but fascism is a defined historical (since Mussolini) ideology and more importantly an overall approach to seizing and holding and excercising power.
I have seen little if any of that with Obama.
And most of this is still true today under Obama. And Conservatives are frequently being demonized as traitors, un-American, etc. by the leftists.
However I disagree with calling Obama a fascist. Fascism is an extreme right wing perspective. Obama's takeover of America's financial, industrial and medical institutions is much more fitting of COMMUNISM, an extreme left wing perspective.
The DOJ firings were party loyalists being replaced with Bush/Cheney loyalists who would work harder at making cases against Democrats. It was worse than you described and I recall key Republicans (Specter, Graham) speaking out against it.
The Bush/Cheney "evil", "Hitler" stuff started with the Iraq War not before 911 for sure.
I spoke a lot of smack about that administration and I think there are crimes they should be prosecuted on, but I agree that much of the liberal chatter was shrill and unproductive. A lot of the town meeting bruhaha we're seeing is frightened and misinformed backward thinking people who are falling prey to fear-mongering talk radio rodeo-clowns like Beck and Limbaugh. They're not thugs, but chumps who have been convinced to support the opposite of their own self-interest.
Wow, so when your dem libs are doing the same things, its okay and when gop conservs do it, its not. Yep, that sounds about right. Think people.
Don't remeber any blogs on here about how wrong it was to compare Bush to Nazis. Would love some links to those if they are available.
I remember there were calls to moderate that kind of talk. I haven't heard anything from the RNC denouncing it here. And the comparison to Hitler, while ill-conceived, had to do primarily with power.
Not with accusations of "euthanasia"......
I think the term fascism was used to elicit comparisons, well deserved, to the Bush admiistration, but after Fisa, the Patriot Act, Valerie Plame, Blackwater, the Brooks Brothers Brigade, secret prisons etc. and the way it is vomited up loosely by the brain dead conservatives as if they never saw it coming it seems a bit disingenuos and misdirected to anyone with half a brain.
Well, where was all that discourse during the TV show? I couldn't believe how Bill backed off and let these two republicans come across like they were representing the "sane" party. I am from California and always thought Darrel Issa was a pretty disqusting charactor but after watching that show, he sounded logical. I was questioning my own beliefs about healthcare. He actually said he authored the public option. If I could trust that any republican could tell the truth, I would be on their side after watching the show. Luckily, I've seen Jack Kingston enough to know he was faking. He put on his Cheshire cat smile and lied out his behind.
Yes and thank you for this. Bill not only backed off, he fumbled around like someone who obviously had NOT done his homework. They cleaned his clock last night, it was pitiful and truly aggrevating to see. Except for NewRules, he was pitiful. I couldn't wait for Arianna to come out and set the record staight, but shock upon shock she was just as bad. They both failed miserable last night.
I agree... Bill was really disappointing and seemed to be completely not prepared. It was as if he was just letting these liars say their bit and then waiting for Arianna to mop up with them... but then they did not discuss health care once she appeared. It was infuriating.
If Kinstone actually created the health care package he claims he did, why has he not proposed it? He has said and done NOTHING to counter the Obama proposal except for allow the underinformed continue to rant about crazy stuff. I am unhappy with Obama's plan, for certain... IT'S TIME FOR SOCIALIZED MEDICINE IN OUR COUNTRY. Can we not have a grown-up discussion? We are GIVING them this power! Pelosi should have stuck to her guns and not allowed an August recess! But no. And now they are everywhere saying really dumb stuff to encourage the dumb to stay dumb.
I feel like I'm going crazy. Yesterday in Phoenix there was a big anti-health care reform outside of a major mall. The crowd was noisy and intimidating. Not one person of color that I saw. Mostly older folks... a medicare crowd. It makes me sick just to think about it. Too bad I can't get any coverage for "deeply disquited and disturbed".
Have you contacted your congressman?
If all they're hearing is ranting idiots at Town Meetings and not getting letters that are reasoned and forceful that THIS IS THE ISSUE, they are going to think people can be pushed around and denied a truly UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE.
Geez, what ever happened to "two sides of every story"? Liberal are so smug with themselves they thing everything they believe in is 110% true and accurate.
yes, two sides but only one side came across on the show. We need a civil debate...... actually about the fact. When you're only hearing one side, you have no way of know if the truth is being told. No matter what the republicans think.... truth means a lot to me.
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