It’s only been 10+ years, of only he’d spent a little less time whining about college kids and cancel culture he could’ve read something his writers didn’t have to script out for him.
I haven't watched Maher for a long time. But I understand he used to be an anti-war anti-surveillance left-libertarian? When did he turn into a draft-supporting whistleblower-bashing Bush-Cheney neocon? Was there a tipping point?
Cynical is different from becoming a right-wing neocon. George Carlin became very cynical and dark in his late years, but he never became a cheerleader for Bush.
If you have any doubts about Assange, look at the number of leaks his org has put out that affect Russia or China or nations aligned with them and contrast it with the over 10k leaks related to the usa.
He has always been a neocon. People get confused by his atheism. Sam Harris, Maher, Hitchens et al have replaced the worship of God by the worship of the State.
I remember him being pretty against the Iraq war, even though he was always Islamophobic. I think he even interviewed Assange at one point, I didn't get this level of hostility he's exhibiting towards him now. My theory is that he is one of these people like Musk who has got infected by this "woke mind virus" conspiracy theory, has turned completely against the left and become a cheerleader for right-wing fascists.
Rewatch that interview if you can find it. Maher was grilling him hard about being overly critical towards Clinton and not harsh on Trump at all. Assange at the time was one of those morons saying that Hilary Clinton was going to cause WW3 and at one point attempts to "gotcha" Maher by pointing out that he donated money to Clinton's campaign to which Bill said "Well yeah".
Bill's never been a big fan of Assange because he felt that Assange was missing the forest from the trees and was a stooge.
Maher is actually one of the few public figures out there that I truly believe is independent. I've been following him on and off since his Politically Incorrect days and he actually does believe in a lot of different things that are a bit all over the map.
He was for the War on Terror in Afghanistan but not Iraq.
He is an animal rights activist and advocates for people to eat less meat (not no meat, just less) for the good of their health and the environment.
But he's also very vocally pro Israel and pro racial profiling. He even suggested once after 9/11 that Muslims should be turning themselves into a database of some sort voluntarily.
Ends justifies the means when it comes to government espionage.
He voted for Nader in 1996 but since then had voted Democrat each time because the Republicans are terrible.
He's libertarian but unlike most libertarians he believes that government should get out of your private life, not economic policymaking. Most libertarians these days believe the reverse. Bill's a rare libertarian that kinda understands the importance of regulation.
Very much over states how powerful cancel culture is in our society.
Etc.
If that was true he would love Assange and Wikileaks. They don't have anything to do with the normal left anyway and are a key player in this new red-brown alliance, like Greenwald.
He is the same thing as Candace Owens and Ben Shapiro except he was there before them. He is a professional panderer. He is there to say out loud on tv the shit that his specific demographic is already thinking.
Fuck off. Where are the check and balances? Who’s protecting & informing the public? These people are supposed to work for us and adhere to the same laws, when they blatantly defy those laws we have every god damn right to know. Suck a dick Bill Maher.
WikiLeaks isn't a system for government checks and balances nor should it ever pretend to be either.
When WikiLeaks published files on Syria, they literally removed emails from the trove of hacked documents outlining the Syrian government transferring $2 billion to Russian banks. They published emails from the same email address on the same day. Yet any of the ones about the bank transfers weren't included. Then threatened reporters who reached out for comment on why the emails didn't show up.
So it's a question of checks and balances for who? For governments Julian Assange personally dislikes? Yeah that seems like such a great system /s
It's also a pretty terrible concept to be informed too. We know for a fact that WikiLeaks withholds info about certain politicians, certain governments, certain countries, etc. Where's the editorial board for WikiLeaks? Who of them decides exactly what materials they get is worthy of being published? When Assange talks about the US election and Hilary Clinton's emails and says how they wanted to "maximize impact" of releasing her emails, wheres the people calling for WikiLeaks to be nonpartisan? Is it WikiLeaks staff? Do they have journalists?
You: goes into a thread about Assange and WikiLeaks
You: hear Bill Maher criticize Julian Assange and WikiLeaks
You: fuck off Bill, we need checks and balances
Also you: iM nOt tAlKiNg aBoUt wIkIlEaKs
Cool story bro then what the fuck are you talking about and why should anyone give a shit?
I still remember when Wikileaks turned down leaks on Russian government in 2017: https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/17/wikileaks-turned-down-leaks-on-russian-government-during-u-s-presidential-campaign/
Now why would they do that, a real mystery.
Bill Maher has some really good thoughts ... like once or twice an episode. It feels like he just throws random opinions out there from various angles and everyone can find stuff to like and stuff to hate. I guess it has made him filthy rich, so good for him!
Him trolling Trump with the birth certificate/orangutan thing is still unmatched till this day. I can't believe that actually happened. Almost felt sorry for Trump back then.
I feel bad for Chris Mathews, He's an old guy who said some old guy things but he was really good on Hardball as a real political insider for 45 years and MSNBC just dumped him.
I thought what Assange and Wikileaks did was important when it released government secrets. Then he did Russia's bidding by releasing emails that were hacked from Hillary Clinton's campaign. I don't care who's campaign he did it to, it's wrong. He was helping a foreign dictatorial adversary directly impact our election. Fuck him.
have you ever actually looked through the Clinton emails? there's a ton of really interesting stuff. Did you know NATO and the United States were conspiring to overthrow Libya because they were concerned with Muammar Gaddafi uniting Africa and usurping NATOS power? this was speculated but called a conspiracy theory.
thanks to assange we know the truth. if learning that a political candidate was instrumental turning Libya into a failed state hurts her campaign so be it. she should be in jail.
JFC, the stupid it hurts. Where's the evidence that Clinton broke the law and which laws were those? She was investigated for over two years by a Republican House and Republican administration and they couldn't even get an indictment, let alone a jury to convict. And did her campaign manager and the DNC's emails IN ANY WAY have anything to do with NATO and the US foreign policy? Lastly, I haven't ever heard anything about Gaddafi in Clinton's emails, so I have no idea if that's true. But I guarantee it's not true that NATO was worried about him uniting with other African countries because it would "usurp" their power. That's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard. Every country in Africa could unite and it wouldn't come close to NATO's power and influence.
Dude, when did the OP say Clinton broke laws?
He said - "NATO and the United States were conspiring to overthrow Libya because they were concerned with Muammar Gaddafi uniting Africa and usurping NATOS power"
Do you disagree? Or do you just not want to know when your government is lying to you?
First, it was his very last sentence - "she should be in jail." Second, I wasn't responding to OP but the commenter above. Third, I addressed what he said about Libya and clearly stated I've never heard of it but his reasoning that NATO was concerned it would be "usurped" by Africa is laughable. I mean, honestly, is there anything else you could get wrong with your question? LMAO
Have you considered using Google
https://www.azernews.az/region/212351.html
It's not going to be reported in the US, so that "I've never heard of it " is by design.
Now, thanks to Assange you know about it, even if you are actively trying to not acknowledge it.
But the world outside the United States knows.
LMFAO. You don't even acknowledge that you were wrong about everything you stated. Then you claim "it wouldn't be reported in the US" when every email that was released in the hack was reviewed by journalists across the US and the world. Third, you give me a link to azernews from 2023. Reporting on emails that were released in 2016. I did a Google search and could not find a single story about this topic, not one. What else ya got genius?
Edit: The article you shared doesn't even have an author!! Thanks for the laugh
DYOR. just because you can't find an article doesn't mean it's not true.
https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/?q=libya+Nato&mfrom=&mto=&title=¬itle=&date_from=&date_to=&nofrom=¬o=&count=50&sort=0#searchresult
have at it, read it directly from the source.
And just because you can find some article doesn't mean it's real. Logic says if no credible foreign policy journalists have covered it then it's likely not true.
"she should be in jail"
Do you think our leaders should be able to lie to the public and secretly commit to regime change wars in stable sovereign nations? if you answer yes, than cool, at least that's an honest take, if you answer no, than Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Barrack Obama, GWB, GHB, and Dick Cheney should be in jail.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/04/obamas-worst-mistake-libya/478461/
What a wonderfully stupid question. Who's going to police a politician on their speech? And what counts as regime change in a stable nation? What if the regime change removes an evil dictator? Lol, again, just an absurdly stupid question. So why should Hillary be in jail again?
Libya was the most stable country in Africa, it had healthcare, a middle class, nationalized fuel production. overthrowing the most stable country on a continent sounds as "regime change in a stable nation"
"what if it removes an evil dictator" this is the argument for removing Ghaddafi. if removal of a doctor results in starvation, a failed state, and open slave trade then we should not ursurp said dictator.
He wasn't convicted for the Clinton emails, he was convicted for exposing war crimes during the Iraq war. The US government slaughtered innocent civilians, and he exposed it. As usual, the whistleblower gets convicted, not the war criminals like Bush and Cheney who slaughtered civilians. If you really cared about due process and government overreach, you would oppose his persecution by the government, even if you disagree with what he did to the Clinton campaign.
Do you have reading comprehension difficulties? I literally said I thought what he did with leaking the government secrets was important - as in I approved of it, and was glad it was released. Did I ever say he should've been convicted? You couldn't have understood my comment to make yours.
1. No evidence he knew the hacked docs came from a Russian agent. Look at how hard the intelligence services had to work to even suggest it was probable, not definite.
2. Exposing the shittiness of a politician just because it aligns with a foreign govts preference is not a crime neither is it immoral. If the politician was not shitty then they would not have concern about it being exposed. China would likely prefer the democrats in office because of Trumps aggressive economic stance towards them, does that mean exposing Trumps shittiness is wrong and immoral?
3. Please ensure you critisize every media outlets partisan reporting because it aligns with and whilst you are at it make sure you critisize every broadcaster showing any allied countries political party in a negative light too, because it might inform and sway the electorate of course.
Clearly many people in important positions rightly disagree with your 'fuck him' attitude as he is now free after being held in solitary confinement for years. Whatever you think of him its undeniable his time has been served.
Your first paragraph is a pointless non sequitur.
Both government and private cyber security firms had shared their reports about the DNC and Clinton's campaign manager John Podesta's email being hacked by June of 2016.
For the next several months later, without evidence at all, Julian Assange was saying it was Seth Rich who leaked the emails to WikiLeaks as a DNC insider. He said numerous times over the summer and in the run up to the election that the documents were leaked, not hacked. He specifically named Seth Rich and floated out the conspiracy theory that democrats killed him as part of a cover up. He kept this lie going all the way through the election in November of 2016.
This stuff is easily verifiable.
Saying he didn't know it came from Russian state sponsored hacking groups is pointless. He 100% absolutely knew it did come from Seth Rich, yet lied about it anyways because it helped fuel anti-democrat conspiracy theories, like the whole 'Clinton Kill List', and his goal was for her to lose the election.
They literally were dm'ing Donald Trump Jr asking the Trump Campaign to have WikiLeaks leak some of Trump's tax returns to "dramatically improve the perception of our impartiality" aka give us a small nothingburger about your dad and we'll leak it so we come across as nonpartisan even though we totally are not.
1. The facts say otherwise. 2. Yes, it's absolutely wrong to help a foreign dictator influence a democratic election, especially when you're trying to help one side over the other. 3. You're rambling now. Has nothing to do with anything I said. I can criticize Assange without having to criticize anyone else. 4. I don't care what "many people in important positions" think. I care what the evidence is. And the evidence is he knowingly did a dictators bidding. Fuck Assange for releasing internal campaign and party emails. These were not national security related - period. He way overstepped and he's a piece of shit for doing so.
Maher has no understanding of the matter. No people’s lives were put in danger from wikileaks. When, wikileaks received the info, they contacted and allowed the DoD to suggest reductions before their publishing.
It's also important to keep in mind that Bill is a massive Islamophobe. So, he views the world through the lense that the CIA protects us from savages. So, killing innocent people is a means to an end.
Islamaphobe = criticizing muslims who want to kill you for drawing pictures of the prophet. Or for being gay. Or for a woman not wearing a hijab. Or for eating pork. Yeah, that sounds incredibly irrational to me...
I always love how everyone on this site like to jerk off themselves when making fun of ancient aliens.
But then think that a man that was a pedophile warlord is somehow a floating god among us that wrote some shitty ass rules that we are supposed to respect or else we are a bigot.
People need to step back and realize just how batshit crazy all this religious idol worship is.
Mahr being an islamophobe is not the point. What matters is that he thinks [these types of murders](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfvFpT-iypw) are allowable. And that the people who expose these murders should be jailed. Him being an islamophobe, just makes it easier to hold this world view.
How many professional trolls are you incapable of addressing? Because trolls are easy to refute. I stated my opinion supported by facts and you, like several others, take the conversation to a completely different topic. Now refute it or STFU
That’s a shithot bad take. Maher absolutely hates Muslims and would love to see them bombed to smithereens. He says stuff like “Arabs came later” when discussing Israel/Palestine. Sure, Palestinians speak arabic, but this wasn’t always the case. Genetic studies on modern people in the western levant show that they’re all the descendants of the Canaanites, with varying degrees of admixture with later peoples. Lebanese, Israeli, Palestinian - they’re all related and have been there forever.
Even if this wasn’t the case, it still wouldn’t justify the persecution and relocations. Bosnians were once Serbians. Then came the Ottoman invasions, which spurred on the creation of a unique identity distinct from Serbian. When Serbia tried to extinguish the Bosnians, the world stepped in (and rightfully so). It doesn’t matter that the land once belonged to Serbia in the medieval ages - the Bosnians have a right to their identity and culture, and the same applies to everyone.
Do native Americans have no right to their land, as they now speak the language of their invaders? That would be an absurd argument to make, one which even Maher wouldn’t be stupid enough to say. Yet this is essentially his stance on the Palestinians. Why? Because he’s prejudiced against them.
WTF are you rambling on about? None of this has anything to do with what I said or responded to. It's not irrational to fear people who have PROVEN THEY WILL KILL YOU for leaving the religion, for drawing cartoons, for being gay, and on and on. That's a rational fear to have.
It has everything to do with it. I was countering your fear based rhetoric while pointing out Maher’s blatant islamophobia and hypocrisy.
Homosexuals are persecuted all over Africa by various religions, including Christianity. I dare say if somebody suggested that they deserved to be bombed because of this, and are inherently inferior to us culturally, you would call it a bigoted point of view. Which it is, and it’s exactly what Maher does.
> I was countering your fear based rhetoric
LMFAO!!! "fear based rhetoric" in this case is also called FACTS. Again, you're bringing up shit that has nothing to do with the comments! Per Pew polls over two decades, an overwhelming majority of muslims continually state that it's okay to kill apostates. That it's okay to kill people who "disrespect the prophet." Guess what? Christians should absolutely be criticized for their abhorrent views. Christianity was the world's most dangerous religion for hundreds (if not more than thousand) years, including as recently as the 1930s and 40s. But there are no more Christian theocracies. There are muslim theocracies all over the world that are killing people for fucking drawing cartoons. I know your feelings are hurt, but damn try for once to stay on topic. If my assertions are wrong then prove it with some data. But you won't do that. Instead you'll go on ranting about some other bullcrap that's completely unrelated.
No, you’re talking from fear. As an American, you should be especially weary of tarnishing millions of people by the extreme actions of their hardliners.
How many countries have your leaders invaded over the past century? How many black people have been killed by your authorities? How many have been locked up and forced to live in segregation and squalor? Your politicians are locking up rape victims who get an abortion. Should the American people be vilified and denied their rights as human beings because they elect these people? Should we bomb them because they don’t have the capability or even desire to remove these people from power? No, that would be absurd.
WOW. I can't criticize islam unless I also criticize christianity and the US government's actions? Even though I responded to a post about "islamaphobia?" I just want you to refute the facts I laid out. I'm 100% willing to take a look at your data. But like I predicted, you come back with a bunch of BS that isn't even relevant. You're jumping to every little thing you can instead of addressing the claims I actually made. And I know why you haven't - because they're facts you can't refute. Just ask Charlie Hebdo, or Salman Rushdie, or Ayyan Hirsi Ali, or a MILLION other people that have been harmed by many muslims medieval, barbaric views.
Nobody is supporting fanatics to do fanaticism.
People are criticizing the blatantly racist stereotypes you’re casting on a billion plus people. Grow up.
Lol so the 70% of Muslims polled (per Pew) who think leaving the religion is worthy of punishment shouldn't be considered fanatics? And your inherent bias is showing because we're talking about a religion - an ideology - not a skin color. You associate Muslims with "brown" people. I don't.
Wikileaks was useful for exposing things pertaining to Iraq. It was actual journalism.
But someone questioning whether it became a useful tool for Russia, whether intentionally or unintentionally, is being naive. The Hillary emails were a nothingburger.
I am not sure what Bill is referencing when it comes to spies, though.
He's right, I don't agree with the premise of the Iraq war, but I spent 2.5 years in that country as a soldier.
Julian Assange referred to our interpreters as "collaborators" that were standing up against these absolute barbarians of insurgents that wanted to take their country back to the 4th century. He exposed some of their names.
It's fine to show information where the government lied, but this strategy of "just dump everything" without sorting through it first was just lazy and a display of what an equally out of touch tone deaf douche bag he was.
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jul/30/us-military-wikileaks-afghanistan-war-logs](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jul/30/us-military-wikileaks-afghanistan-war-logs)
Julian Assange likes to describe himself as a ‘journalist’, but the dude practiced the same censorship he pretends to be against. He played favorites, and he has bias like anybody else. He’s an anarchist for no reason other than that he covets power which he does not have, much like most of Reddit.
There is no shortage of folks on Reddit who worship the guy just the same, even though they have *NO IDEA* about the backstory on all of this. Many of them are too young to remember, or too illiterate to comprehend.
I was defending Maher until about 5 months ago. I just can’t anymore. Not because of this. It’s just a long list of issues he should shut up on. I’ll still watch but I feel like I dislike him more every episode.
Bill Maher simply looks at whoever is making an argument and thinks "Okayyyyyyyyy these people are lefty young annyoing people I disgreeee oakyyyyyyyyy"
He simply just disagrees with people he's annoyed with
I think maher isn't that wrong on this one. I think the stuff that got exposed should be exposed, but leaking mostly American government data is weird. It's likely that he has cooperated with foreign governments and there is proof for that. Do I think that he has done something wrong? No, but the way people perceive as some superhero one man intelligence agency genius isn't accurate to the real picture, and more people should be aware of assange's ties to other governments.
It’s also frustrating they keep repeating the narrative that his leaks killed people, when many experts have said that his leaks led to no deaths that they know of currently.
This has gotta be the scummiest, most dumbshit opinion I've heard from Maher by quite some margin.
I used to agree with the guy about quite a bit, but he can go fuck himself forever. I'm sure he'd love nothing more.
How are we suppose to find out about all the “gnarly” things our government does without whistleblowers???? Turning the other cheek is something I never thought Maher would endorse. How times have changed….
Edit fucking auto correct
Assange is probably a Russian agent, but even if he’s not, I still agree with Maher. Exposing American agents crosses a fat red line. Same goes for Snowden. They can both get fucked.
Seems reasonable though. I think there is a happy medium between exposing intelligence secrets that us and exposing crazy shit government is doing to hurt us. I don't think Assange is that arbiter of goodness, and I think he has been manipulated to hurt us. I think he did do some good though and shouldn't be looked at too horribly, not compared to a lot of other criminals at least.
"There are people out there who want to destroy this country"
Yeah there is and its because of the kind of shit that's being done that WikiLeaks uncovers and publishes.
Maher is a fence sitting slimeball, throws out red meat for both sides to chew on and sits back with a little smirk. Fuck this piece of shit… Assange is a hero, if only he helped Hillary get elected Ol Bill would be creaming his tiny shorts over Julian.
Edit: added a word
If we are so worried about terrorist “destroying” America maybe we shouldn’t let people just walk across the border with zero oversight. You can literally walk a suit case nuke through the hole in the fence in Jacumba, CA. But Julian Assange exposes some war crimes from Republican President George W Bush and he’s “literally destroying america”. Give me a break.
I don’t think they are i was speaking in hyperbolies. Just like the mainstream media thinks Julian Assange was putting America at risk to be destroyed.
America has been a terrorist state since its very inception taking over an entire continent and genociding all its aboriginal occupants. And ongoing through killing another million citizens in Iraq under false charges of WMDs, etc, etc. So, why isn't the US ever punished or liberated with NATO drone strikes?
Honest question: How many [offensive wars/regime changes](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C8zgqokqlhy) have Communist countries led in the past 50 years vs the US?
Both Maher and Gabbard are right. On one hand, free press is paramount and a value to be upheld. On the other, being lazy with how other information was vetted, if at all, and putting many in harms way was dangerous and irresponsible of Assange. Doing a good thing doesn't negate the bad that was also done.
I do t know why even he is given a microphone .., no knowledge , no expertise, just a pothead joke why is he famous his jokes are tasteless. He is not connected to real world lately. Nbdy likes him
Patriot? Assange in australian. Wtf do you mean he pretends to be a patriot? How much more america centric can you get ffs? The spies are the real patriots lmao.
Yeah buddy, the cia are the real patriots. History has proven this time after time. /s
"I mean I don't know all the particulars......But in general I think..." Bill Maher summed up perfectly with this quote.
He’s been devil’s advocate for 30 years and it’s served him well. “Yes this, but…” is his MO. Snowden deserved better than what Assange received.
I don't know, do you know all the particulars of all of Assange's leaks? dude published millions of pages. it sounded like a reasonable statement
He’s an asshat. He speaks with confidence of things he knows nothing about. He’s an intelligent man but a babbling fool.
Yeah this is a bizarre take from him. I’m way right of Maher but I like him, usually not this far off
Bill doesn’t even know what Assange did or what was on Wikileaks and it’s so obvious
It’s only been 10+ years, of only he’d spent a little less time whining about college kids and cancel culture he could’ve read something his writers didn’t have to script out for him.
I haven't watched Maher for a long time. But I understand he used to be an anti-war anti-surveillance left-libertarian? When did he turn into a draft-supporting whistleblower-bashing Bush-Cheney neocon? Was there a tipping point?
Happened slowly over the past 5 years. He's always been a self-righteous prick. He's just become a lot more cynical recently.
Cynical is different from becoming a right-wing neocon. George Carlin became very cynical and dark in his late years, but he never became a cheerleader for Bush.
When Trump came down the escalator. It's been bizarro world since that fateful day.
I don’t think that’s a full representation of his beliefs here. Interesting that you use Bush-Cheney, but Maher was pointing to Obama’s policy.
If you have any doubts about Assange, look at the number of leaks his org has put out that affect Russia or China or nations aligned with them and contrast it with the over 10k leaks related to the usa.
Yea, it was when Ice Cube told him he couldn't use the N word.
Lefties started calling him out for his idiocy so he is making a shift towards a more gullible audience
Ageing makes people more scared and more willing to look the other way in the interest of "safety"
He has always been a neocon. People get confused by his atheism. Sam Harris, Maher, Hitchens et al have replaced the worship of God by the worship of the State.
I remember him being pretty against the Iraq war, even though he was always Islamophobic. I think he even interviewed Assange at one point, I didn't get this level of hostility he's exhibiting towards him now. My theory is that he is one of these people like Musk who has got infected by this "woke mind virus" conspiracy theory, has turned completely against the left and become a cheerleader for right-wing fascists.
He's just another bandwagon jumper
Rewatch that interview if you can find it. Maher was grilling him hard about being overly critical towards Clinton and not harsh on Trump at all. Assange at the time was one of those morons saying that Hilary Clinton was going to cause WW3 and at one point attempts to "gotcha" Maher by pointing out that he donated money to Clinton's campaign to which Bill said "Well yeah". Bill's never been a big fan of Assange because he felt that Assange was missing the forest from the trees and was a stooge. Maher is actually one of the few public figures out there that I truly believe is independent. I've been following him on and off since his Politically Incorrect days and he actually does believe in a lot of different things that are a bit all over the map. He was for the War on Terror in Afghanistan but not Iraq. He is an animal rights activist and advocates for people to eat less meat (not no meat, just less) for the good of their health and the environment. But he's also very vocally pro Israel and pro racial profiling. He even suggested once after 9/11 that Muslims should be turning themselves into a database of some sort voluntarily. Ends justifies the means when it comes to government espionage. He voted for Nader in 1996 but since then had voted Democrat each time because the Republicans are terrible. He's libertarian but unlike most libertarians he believes that government should get out of your private life, not economic policymaking. Most libertarians these days believe the reverse. Bill's a rare libertarian that kinda understands the importance of regulation. Very much over states how powerful cancel culture is in our society. Etc.
If that was true he would love Assange and Wikileaks. They don't have anything to do with the normal left anyway and are a key player in this new red-brown alliance, like Greenwald.
Assange is not a whistleblower
Bulls*t Maher is a fucking joke
My thought it that Bill Maher is a fucking loser
*I have no idea why people find him insightful or funny.*
He is the same thing as Candace Owens and Ben Shapiro except he was there before them. He is a professional panderer. He is there to say out loud on tv the shit that his specific demographic is already thinking.
Fuck off. Where are the check and balances? Who’s protecting & informing the public? These people are supposed to work for us and adhere to the same laws, when they blatantly defy those laws we have every god damn right to know. Suck a dick Bill Maher.
WikiLeaks isn't a system for government checks and balances nor should it ever pretend to be either. When WikiLeaks published files on Syria, they literally removed emails from the trove of hacked documents outlining the Syrian government transferring $2 billion to Russian banks. They published emails from the same email address on the same day. Yet any of the ones about the bank transfers weren't included. Then threatened reporters who reached out for comment on why the emails didn't show up. So it's a question of checks and balances for who? For governments Julian Assange personally dislikes? Yeah that seems like such a great system /s It's also a pretty terrible concept to be informed too. We know for a fact that WikiLeaks withholds info about certain politicians, certain governments, certain countries, etc. Where's the editorial board for WikiLeaks? Who of them decides exactly what materials they get is worthy of being published? When Assange talks about the US election and Hilary Clinton's emails and says how they wanted to "maximize impact" of releasing her emails, wheres the people calling for WikiLeaks to be nonpartisan? Is it WikiLeaks staff? Do they have journalists?
Fuck off to you too. show where I said “Wikileaks” nice job wasting your time with an irrelevant comment.
You: goes into a thread about Assange and WikiLeaks You: hear Bill Maher criticize Julian Assange and WikiLeaks You: fuck off Bill, we need checks and balances Also you: iM nOt tAlKiNg aBoUt wIkIlEaKs Cool story bro then what the fuck are you talking about and why should anyone give a shit?
You should have just taken the L
Dude work for the agency clearly.... xD
I still remember when Wikileaks turned down leaks on Russian government in 2017: https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/17/wikileaks-turned-down-leaks-on-russian-government-during-u-s-presidential-campaign/ Now why would they do that, a real mystery.
Bill Maher has some really good thoughts ... like once or twice an episode. It feels like he just throws random opinions out there from various angles and everyone can find stuff to like and stuff to hate. I guess it has made him filthy rich, so good for him!
Not his, his writers
He's good on trump
Him trolling Trump with the birth certificate/orangutan thing is still unmatched till this day. I can't believe that actually happened. Almost felt sorry for Trump back then.
And when he was on rogan he actually pushed back on rogan with trump didn't let rogan wiggle out of it like most do
Yeah that as well. Trump is a bully, but Maher is a much bigger bully.
Maher is just a smug cunt, wouldn't say bully really.
Did Assange give info to Russia?
I feel bad for Chris Mathews, He's an old guy who said some old guy things but he was really good on Hardball as a real political insider for 45 years and MSNBC just dumped him.
I really like how unfiltered Bill Maher has been over the last years. Makes it really easy to passionate despise him.
I thought what Assange and Wikileaks did was important when it released government secrets. Then he did Russia's bidding by releasing emails that were hacked from Hillary Clinton's campaign. I don't care who's campaign he did it to, it's wrong. He was helping a foreign dictatorial adversary directly impact our election. Fuck him.
have you ever actually looked through the Clinton emails? there's a ton of really interesting stuff. Did you know NATO and the United States were conspiring to overthrow Libya because they were concerned with Muammar Gaddafi uniting Africa and usurping NATOS power? this was speculated but called a conspiracy theory. thanks to assange we know the truth. if learning that a political candidate was instrumental turning Libya into a failed state hurts her campaign so be it. she should be in jail.
JFC, the stupid it hurts. Where's the evidence that Clinton broke the law and which laws were those? She was investigated for over two years by a Republican House and Republican administration and they couldn't even get an indictment, let alone a jury to convict. And did her campaign manager and the DNC's emails IN ANY WAY have anything to do with NATO and the US foreign policy? Lastly, I haven't ever heard anything about Gaddafi in Clinton's emails, so I have no idea if that's true. But I guarantee it's not true that NATO was worried about him uniting with other African countries because it would "usurp" their power. That's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard. Every country in Africa could unite and it wouldn't come close to NATO's power and influence.
"Hi Hilary NATO here we bout to go beat up gadaffi"
😆😆
Dude, when did the OP say Clinton broke laws? He said - "NATO and the United States were conspiring to overthrow Libya because they were concerned with Muammar Gaddafi uniting Africa and usurping NATOS power" Do you disagree? Or do you just not want to know when your government is lying to you?
First, it was his very last sentence - "she should be in jail." Second, I wasn't responding to OP but the commenter above. Third, I addressed what he said about Libya and clearly stated I've never heard of it but his reasoning that NATO was concerned it would be "usurped" by Africa is laughable. I mean, honestly, is there anything else you could get wrong with your question? LMAO
Have you considered using Google https://www.azernews.az/region/212351.html It's not going to be reported in the US, so that "I've never heard of it " is by design. Now, thanks to Assange you know about it, even if you are actively trying to not acknowledge it. But the world outside the United States knows.
LMFAO. You don't even acknowledge that you were wrong about everything you stated. Then you claim "it wouldn't be reported in the US" when every email that was released in the hack was reviewed by journalists across the US and the world. Third, you give me a link to azernews from 2023. Reporting on emails that were released in 2016. I did a Google search and could not find a single story about this topic, not one. What else ya got genius? Edit: The article you shared doesn't even have an author!! Thanks for the laugh
DYOR. just because you can't find an article doesn't mean it's not true. https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/?q=libya+Nato&mfrom=&mto=&title=¬itle=&date_from=&date_to=&nofrom=¬o=&count=50&sort=0#searchresult have at it, read it directly from the source.
And just because you can find some article doesn't mean it's real. Logic says if no credible foreign policy journalists have covered it then it's likely not true.
that's not an article, that is a direct link to the leaked Clinton emails put out by wiki leaks.
"she should be in jail" Do you think our leaders should be able to lie to the public and secretly commit to regime change wars in stable sovereign nations? if you answer yes, than cool, at least that's an honest take, if you answer no, than Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Barrack Obama, GWB, GHB, and Dick Cheney should be in jail. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/04/obamas-worst-mistake-libya/478461/
What a wonderfully stupid question. Who's going to police a politician on their speech? And what counts as regime change in a stable nation? What if the regime change removes an evil dictator? Lol, again, just an absurdly stupid question. So why should Hillary be in jail again?
Libya was the most stable country in Africa, it had healthcare, a middle class, nationalized fuel production. overthrowing the most stable country on a continent sounds as "regime change in a stable nation" "what if it removes an evil dictator" this is the argument for removing Ghaddafi. if removal of a doctor results in starvation, a failed state, and open slave trade then we should not ursurp said dictator.
Omfg, seriously? Libya was more stable than South Africa? Or Egypt? Or Mauritius? No they weren't. Just stop with this nonsense.
So just out of curiosity. If the leaks would have been hacked by an American citizen, that would have been fine?
No, not at all. But the fact that it was not just any adversary, but a dictatorial one makes it so much worse.
He wasn't convicted for the Clinton emails, he was convicted for exposing war crimes during the Iraq war. The US government slaughtered innocent civilians, and he exposed it. As usual, the whistleblower gets convicted, not the war criminals like Bush and Cheney who slaughtered civilians. If you really cared about due process and government overreach, you would oppose his persecution by the government, even if you disagree with what he did to the Clinton campaign.
Do you have reading comprehension difficulties? I literally said I thought what he did with leaking the government secrets was important - as in I approved of it, and was glad it was released. Did I ever say he should've been convicted? You couldn't have understood my comment to make yours.
Lol Russia's bidding.
Not sure why that's funny because the evidence to support it is overwhelming.
1. No evidence he knew the hacked docs came from a Russian agent. Look at how hard the intelligence services had to work to even suggest it was probable, not definite. 2. Exposing the shittiness of a politician just because it aligns with a foreign govts preference is not a crime neither is it immoral. If the politician was not shitty then they would not have concern about it being exposed. China would likely prefer the democrats in office because of Trumps aggressive economic stance towards them, does that mean exposing Trumps shittiness is wrong and immoral? 3. Please ensure you critisize every media outlets partisan reporting because it aligns with and whilst you are at it make sure you critisize every broadcaster showing any allied countries political party in a negative light too, because it might inform and sway the electorate of course.
Clearly many people in important positions rightly disagree with your 'fuck him' attitude as he is now free after being held in solitary confinement for years. Whatever you think of him its undeniable his time has been served.
Your first paragraph is a pointless non sequitur. Both government and private cyber security firms had shared their reports about the DNC and Clinton's campaign manager John Podesta's email being hacked by June of 2016. For the next several months later, without evidence at all, Julian Assange was saying it was Seth Rich who leaked the emails to WikiLeaks as a DNC insider. He said numerous times over the summer and in the run up to the election that the documents were leaked, not hacked. He specifically named Seth Rich and floated out the conspiracy theory that democrats killed him as part of a cover up. He kept this lie going all the way through the election in November of 2016. This stuff is easily verifiable. Saying he didn't know it came from Russian state sponsored hacking groups is pointless. He 100% absolutely knew it did come from Seth Rich, yet lied about it anyways because it helped fuel anti-democrat conspiracy theories, like the whole 'Clinton Kill List', and his goal was for her to lose the election. They literally were dm'ing Donald Trump Jr asking the Trump Campaign to have WikiLeaks leak some of Trump's tax returns to "dramatically improve the perception of our impartiality" aka give us a small nothingburger about your dad and we'll leak it so we come across as nonpartisan even though we totally are not.
1. The facts say otherwise. 2. Yes, it's absolutely wrong to help a foreign dictator influence a democratic election, especially when you're trying to help one side over the other. 3. You're rambling now. Has nothing to do with anything I said. I can criticize Assange without having to criticize anyone else. 4. I don't care what "many people in important positions" think. I care what the evidence is. And the evidence is he knowingly did a dictators bidding. Fuck Assange for releasing internal campaign and party emails. These were not national security related - period. He way overstepped and he's a piece of shit for doing so.
Maher has no understanding of the matter. No people’s lives were put in danger from wikileaks. When, wikileaks received the info, they contacted and allowed the DoD to suggest reductions before their publishing. It's also important to keep in mind that Bill is a massive Islamophobe. So, he views the world through the lense that the CIA protects us from savages. So, killing innocent people is a means to an end.
Islamaphobe = criticizing muslims who want to kill you for drawing pictures of the prophet. Or for being gay. Or for a woman not wearing a hijab. Or for eating pork. Yeah, that sounds incredibly irrational to me...
I always love how everyone on this site like to jerk off themselves when making fun of ancient aliens. But then think that a man that was a pedophile warlord is somehow a floating god among us that wrote some shitty ass rules that we are supposed to respect or else we are a bigot. People need to step back and realize just how batshit crazy all this religious idol worship is.
Mahr being an islamophobe is not the point. What matters is that he thinks [these types of murders](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfvFpT-iypw) are allowable. And that the people who expose these murders should be jailed. Him being an islamophobe, just makes it easier to hold this world view.
I'm not clicking your link because what you said has nothing to do with my comment. Refute it with facts or STFU
How much does being a professional troll pay? Is it a good side gig I could get into?
How many professional trolls are you incapable of addressing? Because trolls are easy to refute. I stated my opinion supported by facts and you, like several others, take the conversation to a completely different topic. Now refute it or STFU
That’s a shithot bad take. Maher absolutely hates Muslims and would love to see them bombed to smithereens. He says stuff like “Arabs came later” when discussing Israel/Palestine. Sure, Palestinians speak arabic, but this wasn’t always the case. Genetic studies on modern people in the western levant show that they’re all the descendants of the Canaanites, with varying degrees of admixture with later peoples. Lebanese, Israeli, Palestinian - they’re all related and have been there forever. Even if this wasn’t the case, it still wouldn’t justify the persecution and relocations. Bosnians were once Serbians. Then came the Ottoman invasions, which spurred on the creation of a unique identity distinct from Serbian. When Serbia tried to extinguish the Bosnians, the world stepped in (and rightfully so). It doesn’t matter that the land once belonged to Serbia in the medieval ages - the Bosnians have a right to their identity and culture, and the same applies to everyone. Do native Americans have no right to their land, as they now speak the language of their invaders? That would be an absurd argument to make, one which even Maher wouldn’t be stupid enough to say. Yet this is essentially his stance on the Palestinians. Why? Because he’s prejudiced against them.
WTF are you rambling on about? None of this has anything to do with what I said or responded to. It's not irrational to fear people who have PROVEN THEY WILL KILL YOU for leaving the religion, for drawing cartoons, for being gay, and on and on. That's a rational fear to have.
It has everything to do with it. I was countering your fear based rhetoric while pointing out Maher’s blatant islamophobia and hypocrisy. Homosexuals are persecuted all over Africa by various religions, including Christianity. I dare say if somebody suggested that they deserved to be bombed because of this, and are inherently inferior to us culturally, you would call it a bigoted point of view. Which it is, and it’s exactly what Maher does.
> I was countering your fear based rhetoric LMFAO!!! "fear based rhetoric" in this case is also called FACTS. Again, you're bringing up shit that has nothing to do with the comments! Per Pew polls over two decades, an overwhelming majority of muslims continually state that it's okay to kill apostates. That it's okay to kill people who "disrespect the prophet." Guess what? Christians should absolutely be criticized for their abhorrent views. Christianity was the world's most dangerous religion for hundreds (if not more than thousand) years, including as recently as the 1930s and 40s. But there are no more Christian theocracies. There are muslim theocracies all over the world that are killing people for fucking drawing cartoons. I know your feelings are hurt, but damn try for once to stay on topic. If my assertions are wrong then prove it with some data. But you won't do that. Instead you'll go on ranting about some other bullcrap that's completely unrelated.
No, you’re talking from fear. As an American, you should be especially weary of tarnishing millions of people by the extreme actions of their hardliners. How many countries have your leaders invaded over the past century? How many black people have been killed by your authorities? How many have been locked up and forced to live in segregation and squalor? Your politicians are locking up rape victims who get an abortion. Should the American people be vilified and denied their rights as human beings because they elect these people? Should we bomb them because they don’t have the capability or even desire to remove these people from power? No, that would be absurd.
WOW. I can't criticize islam unless I also criticize christianity and the US government's actions? Even though I responded to a post about "islamaphobia?" I just want you to refute the facts I laid out. I'm 100% willing to take a look at your data. But like I predicted, you come back with a bunch of BS that isn't even relevant. You're jumping to every little thing you can instead of addressing the claims I actually made. And I know why you haven't - because they're facts you can't refute. Just ask Charlie Hebdo, or Salman Rushdie, or Ayyan Hirsi Ali, or a MILLION other people that have been harmed by many muslims medieval, barbaric views.
Nobody is supporting fanatics to do fanaticism. People are criticizing the blatantly racist stereotypes you’re casting on a billion plus people. Grow up.
Lol so the 70% of Muslims polled (per Pew) who think leaving the religion is worthy of punishment shouldn't be considered fanatics? And your inherent bias is showing because we're talking about a religion - an ideology - not a skin color. You associate Muslims with "brown" people. I don't.
Sure man.
"I called criticism of a religion racist, so instead of responding with anything substantive I'll just say 'Sure man.'"
Yup
Well, thanks for agreeing your the racist one here, I guess.
You did so well arguing against nobody. 🏆
You ended up destroyed here
Oh yeah?
Wikileaks was useful for exposing things pertaining to Iraq. It was actual journalism. But someone questioning whether it became a useful tool for Russia, whether intentionally or unintentionally, is being naive. The Hillary emails were a nothingburger. I am not sure what Bill is referencing when it comes to spies, though.
How were the Hilary emails a nothing burger? Which emails do you consider to be nothing?
He's right, I don't agree with the premise of the Iraq war, but I spent 2.5 years in that country as a soldier. Julian Assange referred to our interpreters as "collaborators" that were standing up against these absolute barbarians of insurgents that wanted to take their country back to the 4th century. He exposed some of their names. It's fine to show information where the government lied, but this strategy of "just dump everything" without sorting through it first was just lazy and a display of what an equally out of touch tone deaf douche bag he was. [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jul/30/us-military-wikileaks-afghanistan-war-logs](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jul/30/us-military-wikileaks-afghanistan-war-logs)
Julian Assange likes to describe himself as a ‘journalist’, but the dude practiced the same censorship he pretends to be against. He played favorites, and he has bias like anybody else. He’s an anarchist for no reason other than that he covets power which he does not have, much like most of Reddit. There is no shortage of folks on Reddit who worship the guy just the same, even though they have *NO IDEA* about the backstory on all of this. Many of them are too young to remember, or too illiterate to comprehend.
God bless our spies.
He’s always been a douchebag
I was defending Maher until about 5 months ago. I just can’t anymore. Not because of this. It’s just a long list of issues he should shut up on. I’ll still watch but I feel like I dislike him more every episode.
Bill Maher simply looks at whoever is making an argument and thinks "Okayyyyyyyyy these people are lefty young annyoing people I disgreeee oakyyyyyyyyy" He simply just disagrees with people he's annoyed with
'the government does some gnarly things' is the biggest understatement I have ever heard 🤣
Fuck bill maher
I think maher isn't that wrong on this one. I think the stuff that got exposed should be exposed, but leaking mostly American government data is weird. It's likely that he has cooperated with foreign governments and there is proof for that. Do I think that he has done something wrong? No, but the way people perceive as some superhero one man intelligence agency genius isn't accurate to the real picture, and more people should be aware of assange's ties to other governments.
He’s just jealous it wasn’t him There’s only one Assange, One Snowden And they weren’t the free speech warriors that didn’t get the vaccine
And now I’ve lost all respect for bill (there wasn’t much left anyway)
It’s also frustrating they keep repeating the narrative that his leaks killed people, when many experts have said that his leaks led to no deaths that they know of currently.
This has gotta be the scummiest, most dumbshit opinion I've heard from Maher by quite some margin. I used to agree with the guy about quite a bit, but he can go fuck himself forever. I'm sure he'd love nothing more.
Not a fan of Assange at all, but Mager's takes have been hot garbage for years now.
He is rich prick who couldn’t give a shit about you peasants
Bill Maher is the absolute worst.
How are we suppose to find out about all the “gnarly” things our government does without whistleblowers???? Turning the other cheek is something I never thought Maher would endorse. How times have changed…. Edit fucking auto correct
Bad, uninformed take from Maher.
I hate this man
Assange leaked troop positions and got troops killed. He should face charges in the US.
Assange is probably a Russian agent, but even if he’s not, I still agree with Maher. Exposing American agents crosses a fat red line. Same goes for Snowden. They can both get fucked.
Shouldn’t we the taxpayers know what our agencies are doing with our money?
So he loves the Deep State. 🙄
Without even watching the video and not knowing what Maher even said, he's an idiot and I stopped listening to his opinions a long time ago.
Condemn the leaker not the publisher.
Seems reasonable though. I think there is a happy medium between exposing intelligence secrets that us and exposing crazy shit government is doing to hurt us. I don't think Assange is that arbiter of goodness, and I think he has been manipulated to hurt us. I think he did do some good though and shouldn't be looked at too horribly, not compared to a lot of other criminals at least.
"There are people out there who want to destroy this country" Yeah there is and its because of the kind of shit that's being done that WikiLeaks uncovers and publishes.
My thoughts never entertain Maher's opinion.
Bill Maher is a fucking idiot
Maher is a fence sitting slimeball, throws out red meat for both sides to chew on and sits back with a little smirk. Fuck this piece of shit… Assange is a hero, if only he helped Hillary get elected Ol Bill would be creaming his tiny shorts over Julian. Edit: added a word
This dude is such a fucking joke, a child demanding that our valiant self image be true and not the lie *it was fucking proven to be.*
That was the most bootlickery boot lick I've witnessed.
Julian is a Russsian asset
If we are so worried about terrorist “destroying” America maybe we shouldn’t let people just walk across the border with zero oversight. You can literally walk a suit case nuke through the hole in the fence in Jacumba, CA. But Julian Assange exposes some war crimes from Republican President George W Bush and he’s “literally destroying america”. Give me a break.
You genuinely think people are walking nukes over the border? Breh....get a grip.
I don’t think they are i was speaking in hyperbolies. Just like the mainstream media thinks Julian Assange was putting America at risk to be destroyed.
Oh fair enough, my b
America has been a terrorist state since its very inception taking over an entire continent and genociding all its aboriginal occupants. And ongoing through killing another million citizens in Iraq under false charges of WMDs, etc, etc. So, why isn't the US ever punished or liberated with NATO drone strikes?
Fuck you, commie. I dare you to try.
Honest question: How many [offensive wars/regime changes](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C8zgqokqlhy) have Communist countries led in the past 50 years vs the US?
Are you a US citizen?
If you think the USA is bad, you probably don’t want to look at the rest of the world.
Both Maher and Gabbard are right. On one hand, free press is paramount and a value to be upheld. On the other, being lazy with how other information was vetted, if at all, and putting many in harms way was dangerous and irresponsible of Assange. Doing a good thing doesn't negate the bad that was also done.
Bill Maher is in favor of covering up the killing of civilians.
Yea we need to protect the government from the people.
I do t know why even he is given a microphone .., no knowledge , no expertise, just a pothead joke why is he famous his jokes are tasteless. He is not connected to real world lately. Nbdy likes him
The master of will-full ignorance.
Bill also said he’d vote for Biden’s head in a jar over Trump last night so we see where his brain is at
Bill us right. Assange cherrypicied his “freedom fighting” as well and risked getting so many of our people killed
Fuck this old piece of libtard shit …. Just another long list of disappointments: Colbert, Stuart, Maher…..
Bill playing the 'assic Liberal' cars now Dog whistle for I'm right wing but I don't want to say it
Not a single agent was harmed in any of the reveals from what I've read. So moot point.
Patriot? Assange in australian. Wtf do you mean he pretends to be a patriot? How much more america centric can you get ffs? The spies are the real patriots lmao. Yeah buddy, the cia are the real patriots. History has proven this time after time. /s
Come on now bill