On Real Time‘s New Rules tonight, Bill Maher said that “Republicans have to stop calling the Occupy Wall Street protesters ‘hippies’.” “Yes, they’re peeing outdoors and having sex in sleeping bags– or as Bristol Palin calls it, dating,” Maher explained. “[But] these people down there– they’re not the counter-culture, they’re the culture. They don’t want free love, they want paid employment. They don’t hate capitalism, they hate what’s been done to it.”

Bill Maher, Touré and Rachel Maddow were all in agreement that Herman Cain was in over his head intellectually in his run for the Republican nomination. “I think people have been reluctant to call Herman Cain dumb and an idiot like Sarah Palin, because they’re afraid that people will say ‘it’s because you’re racist,’” Maher surmised. “I’m not racist, I think he’s dumb; I think he’s really dumb!”

Bill Maher opened tonight’s Real Time by dedicating much of his monologue to calling out Republicans for not giving President Obama credit for helping kill Muammar Gaddafi. “They’re like the banks, they will not give a black man credit!” Maher zinged.

On Friday night’s Real Time, host Bill Maher punctuated his dissection of Thursday night’s Fox News/Google Republican Presidential Debate with a nasty sexist slam of moderator Megyn Kelly. Recapping one of Kelly’s questions, Maher referred to her simply as “this blonde twink.” Former Democratic Congresswoman Jane Harman called Maher out over the remark, prompting him to resort to the familiar, idiotic defense that it’d be sexist for him not to insult Kelly.

In an episode in which Real Time with Bill Maher host Bill Maher chided Fox News for its renaming of President Obama‘s birthday party as a “Hip-Hop BBQ,” the comic-cum-commentator made another of his own frequent racial non sequiturs about the President. Speaking about the recent debt ceiling deal, Maher quoted Speaker John Boehner saying he got 98% of what he wanted, which shows that “contrary to popular belief, black does crack.”

It’s no secret that Bill Maher isn’t a fan of Republican policies on…pretty much anything. Tonight, he took aim at the party’s economic thinking, and to illustrate what he saw as the absurdity of it, drew a parallel many might find more than a bit absurd themselves: he compared it to the Casey Anthony trial.

Often, it seems that the real specialty of political talking head debate shows is the ability to bring together a group of people with no apparent rhyme or reason behind their selection. And while a certain Great American Panel is perhaps the best example of this, the roundtable debate on tonight’s Real Time with Bill Maher stands among the unlikeliest.

On today’s radio program, Glenn Beck took great exception with a comment made by NY Times‘ David Carr last Friday night during an appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher. While responding to a critique of Gov. Chris Christie‘s leadership of New Jersey — a “smart state” in the eyes of Maher — Carr took a swipe at the residents of Kansas and Missouri, specifically describing their “low-sloping foreheads.” It was clearly a joke (an offensive and unfunny joke) but in Beck’s eyes, this is the sort of comment that “leads to death camps.”

Barack Obama impersonator Reggie Brown first hit my radar in April, but with a much-publicized performance at the Republican Leadership Conference, he figures to be on many more screens in the near future. Initially accused (by liberal blogs) of telling “racist jokes,” then by RLC President Charlie Davis of “racially insensitive jokes,” the truth beyond those accusations has emerged. In an exclusive interview with Mediaite, Reggie responds to his critics, talks about his past and future, and issues a friendly challenge to fellow Faux-bama Fred Armisen.

Larry King is pretty much a walking self-parody at this point. That’s not to say he isn’t well-liked – in fact, he sees to be quite popular among his peers. But he’s also old (he’ll turn 78 later this year), and the likes of Conan O’Brien have filled much airtime through the years with jokes painting King as a caricature of an old person. And videos like the one after the jump are a big reason why.

Reaction to Osama bin Laden’s death was overwhelmingly not just positive, but gleeful – and let’s face it, it’s not tough to see why. Bill Maher, though, tonight pointed out on Real Time that Christians who celebrate the death of even someone as evil as bin Laden are disobeying the part of their faith that instructs them to love their enemies – and, being Bill Maher, delighted in saying so.

Let’s face it – it’s not really an episode of Real Time with Bill Maher if the host doesn’t spend some time bashing the Republican party, and tonight, Maher closed out his program doing just that. In addition to ridiculing the party for falling short on its supposed strengths (“The Republicans, the fiscally conservative, strong on defense party, are neither fiscally conservative nor strong on defense”), Maher also paid some very…detailed compliments to the White House’s current occupant.

Osama bin Laden is dead, and while few doubt that’s a good thing in itself, some couldn’t help but wonder if the price – both monetarily and in lives lost in the time since 9/11 – was worth it. Tonight, the panel on Real Time with Bill Maher weighed in on the topic – though, as is clear from the title of this post, Maher asked the question a bit more provocatively.

Bill Maher welcomed conservative firebrand Andrew Breitbart onto his Real Time panel tonight, which alone probably would have been enough for some heated discussions. Add liberal political analyst Laura Flanders to the mix and…well, you get tonight’s panel. (Yes, sparks flew.)

A full zero episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher have passed since the host’s last incendiary remark about Islam, so naturally, we were due for another. And tonight, in speaking to Irshad Manji of NYU’s Moral Courage Project, he delivered.

Bill Maher was his usual understated self on Real Time tonight, urging everyday Americans to begin “a class war” on Wall Street. And he illustrated the need for such a fight by drawing a comparison to the backlash received by one Charlie Sheen after his disastrous show in Detroit. And as much as we groaned initially about having to hear Sheen’s name again, we’ll admit Maher got in some good lines.

The status of President Barack Obama’s U.S. citizenship is the “issue” that just will not die. Most recently, that’s thanks to the attention-seeking efforts of the endlessly attention-seeking Donald Trump, which at one point included Trump releasing some birth-certificate-ish-but-not-actually-an-official-birth-certificate document. This lunacy inspired Bill Maher to look at not only Trump’s, but other “birth certificates” of prospective 2012 GOP presidential candidates – documents even less valid than the one Trump produced.

Bill Maher doesn’t think Republicans are interested in doing much but opposing President Barack Obama at every turn, and with that in mind, on Real Time he devised a 2012 presidential candidate he said would be a perfect fit for the party in its current state. Why? The candidate is the exact opposite of Obama in every way but gender, right down to his name…Karab Amabo.

Bill Maher was startled by the results of some polls on Republicans’ beliefs he read recently, and devoted a segment on tonight’s Real Time to analyzing them. And while any segment where Maher discusses Republicans is in danger of turning into a bash-fest filled with accusations of racism, this one stayed calmer…and produced a pretty good segment of television.

While Bill Maher didn’t say anything as provocative on Real Time this week as, say, calling the Qur’an a “hate-filled holy book,” it wouldn’t be Bill Maher if he weren’t antagonizing someone, and tonight he needled one of his favorite targets, the Republican Party. Maher’s main beef with the right wing tonight: a perceived lack of focus on real issues in favor of “useless distractions.”

Bill Maher took it upon himself on Real Time tonight to analyze George Will’s prospective field of realistic Republican presidential candidates for 2012. In a development that will shock precisely no one, Maher didn’t seem overly taken with the field – although in a somewhat more surprising turn, neither did one of his conservative panelists.

The emotion shown by Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) at Rep. Peter King’s (R-NY) Muslim radicalization hearings garnered much attention, and we have a feeling Ellison’s appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher tonight will get its share of play as well. Maher and Ellison had an interesting conversation about Islam (Ellison converted in college) – but perhaps most interesting were the harsh words Maher had for the radical element of Islam…an opinion he had no problem sharing to Ellison’s face (or the screen it was on, anyway).

Bill Maher gave viewers a list of New Rules tonight on Real Time, as he is wont to do. As Maher is also wont to do, one item on the list in particular targeted a prominent Republican – this time likely 2012 presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich. And, like everyone who has said anything in the past week, Maher found a way to work Charlie Sheen into it, too.

President Barack Obama’s budget plan has its share of critics, including lawmakers on both sides of aisle who feel it insufficiently deals with rising costs of entitlement programs like Social Security. It’s safe to say the plan has another critic in Bill Maher, though as Maher explained on tonight’s Real Time, it’s for a different reason.

There was some unrest on Real Time with Bill Maher tonight – both among the panelists and in the audience. Maher and guest Tavis Smiley couldn’t agree on the relative treatment of women in Muslim countries and America, leading to some spirited debate and some strong attacks on Muslim countries from Maher. That is, until one audience member interrupted the show with a shouting rant before getting kicked out.