Bill Maher tried to capture what he saw as the Republican reaction to President Obama’s State of the Union address this week with words, calling Republicans “sourpusses” and describing their reaction as “unprecedented.” But he only truly captured what he was trying to say by making this face– at once childish and elderly– as his panel descended into disarray, with Rep. Dana Rohrabacher trying to explain his party’s attitude and Kennedy making the point that parties don’t matter, while a mum Martin Bashir looked on.

Isn’t domestic violence hilarious? I didn’t think so, either. Apparently, Real Time host Bill Maher does, at least when it happens to women who are part of a breakaway Mormon sect. In an appearance on AC360, Maher told host Anderson Cooper that he believes former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney will win the Republican nomination, and that “Obama is going to beat him like a runaway sister wife.”

During an ill-informed rant about SOPA on Friday night’s Real Time, host Bill Maher dropped in one of the more appallingly casual racist remarks I’ve heard in a long time. Speaking about the “moral dimension” to the online piracy debate, Maher said, “I call it ‘Caucasian looting,’ to laughs from panelist Buddy Roemer, and shocked silence from former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm. It’s just the latest example of Maher’s affection for racial stereotypes.

Chalk this one up to a case of “opposites attract,” or perhaps things can be so vastly different that they circle back around to being near identical. Bill Maher had former Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain on his program last night, and not only did the candidate not say “999″ or quote Pokémon (that we know of), the two laughed and chatted like old friends. Maybe the world won’t end in 2012 after all.

Stand-up comic and quasi-political commentator Bill Maher flexed some of his favorite comedic muscles in a Christmas Eve tweet that had it all: profanity, shock value, and Maher’s trademark blasphemy. Referring to the Denver Broncos’ crushing loss to the Buffalo Bills, Maher tweeted, “Wow, Jesus just f**ked #TimTebow bad! And on Xmas Eve! Somewhere in hell Satan is tebowing, saying to Hitler ‘Hey, Buffalo’s killing them’”

Things got very, very uncomfortable today over at The View thanks to an appearance by Bill Maher. Last February on Real Time, Maher had made a joke that, were Hosni Mubarak to release the then-captured Lara Logan, they could trade him Elizabeth Hasselbeck. At the time, Hasselbeck had been furious, starting a mini feud that an unrepentant Maher seemed to have no interest in fighting.

Last night marked the end of the season for Real Time, at least for the rest of the year. So given that Bill Maher wont be around for the holidays, he delivered his Christmas message early: a reminder to Republicans that Ebenezer Scrooge was actually supposed to be the bad guy in A Christmas Carol, not a role model.

Whenever Bill Maher has a certified Republican on his panel, the conversation usually gets heated quickly, and yesterday was no exception. In fact, yesterday he had Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, the chair of the House Investigations Committee, on the program, and got to ask him about that bizarre “In God We Trust” vote, demanding, rhetorically, “and you wonder why Congress’s approval rating is at 8%?”

Last night’s panel on Real Time with Bill Maher was rowdy, to say the least. After an entire segment where the host tried to contain his mostly liberal panel’s rage against former Dick Cheney aide Ron Christie over Iraq, it was time to talk about Occupy Wall Street, a cause for which panelist Cornel West had been arrested. Needless to say, he had an opinion or two on the matter.

One would think that the anti-corporatist ideals of the Occupy Wall Street movement would receive some safe harbor on Real Time with Bill Maher, and one would be correct that their ideology gelled entirely with the audience. But before Alan Grayson passionately stood up as a spokesman for their cause, the panel spent a fair amount of time mocking the group ruthlessly, for their “bongo drums,” disorganization, and incoherence.

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.”

Last night, a monologue on the virtues of socialism and the shame of not openly embracing it was received with hearty applause, exuberant cheers and the kind of laughter so loud it makes you wonder if its source producing it at gunpoint. I wish I could tell you it’s from Hugo Chavez‘s weekly variety hour Aló, Presidente. It’s not. It’s Bill Maher‘s “New Rules” segment, where he attempts to convince Americans they’re actually really into this socialism thing, whether they know it or not.

Last week’s horrific rampage in Norway by gunman Anders Behring Breivik was a huge story no matter what due to the scope of the tragedy involved, but it became that much bigger as soon as Breivik was labeled as an extreme right-wing “Christian fundamentalist.” Predictably, some took issue with that characterization, and just as predictably, Bill Maher tonight used the tragedy as a jumping-off point to take issue with something more – religion in general.

Well, Bill Maher‘s still not happy with President Barack Obama. In the same week he told Lawrence O’Donnell that he wasn’t sure what the president was thinking when it came to tackling the nation’s debt problem, he used the beginning of his panel debate on tonight’s Real Time to essentially say the same thing. Suffice to say, Maher believes Obama is letting the other party dictate the action…and that next November, it could cost him.

Bill Maher got a fairly hearty media lashing for a program riddled with crass jokes at the expense of Sarah Palin and Rep. Michele Bachmann last week, so naturally he opened this week’s show with… crass jokes at the expense of Sarah Palin and Rep. Michele Bachmann. While the latter got off easy for her migranes, Maher spent a good deal of his monologue mocking the Palins for welcoming a new grandchild, quipping, “I think they think abstinence is Latin for ‘no anal.’”

It became apparent the moment guests started speculating about the Bachmanns’ sex life that last week’s Real Time would be hard to top– and this week’s edition was certainly more substantive than the last, with an extensive debate on how Congress should balance the budget and the elusiveness of compromise. But it had its tense moments, too, as one panelist, a Pennsylvania mayor, (jokingly?) offered to “take it outside” after being sarcastically told to be proud of his town’s poverty.

In addition to Republican presidential pledges, tonight on Real Time Bill Maher re-tackled another subject he addressed last week: the woes of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. To help him grasp just what kind of power Murdoch’s built up over the years, Maher invited British writer/producer/marketing expert Martin Lewis on the program.

Bill Maher and his Real Time panel last week touched on the prominent pledges many prospective Republican presidential candidates were signing, such as Grover Norquist’s Taxpayer Protection Pledge and Bob Vander Plaats‘ marriage vow. (They weren’t fans.) This week, Maher raised the issue again, going a bit more in-depth in his rant this time…and designing a pledge of his own.

Sean Hannity is making it abundantly clear he is not covering Bill Maher‘s transgression on Real Time last weekend just to have something to talk about. Hannity dedicated a second segment on his program today to Maher’s comments about Sarah Palin and Rep. Michele Bachmann last Friday, noting that he had contacted the National Organization for Women and they were prepared to respond. But in the meantime, Hannity had a bone to pick with “angry, bitter” Bill Maher.

Bill Maher has found himself in a familiar place. Hosting a program that routinely indulges in off-color political humor and taunts the lines of decency in our public discourse, Real Time may have crossed its own lines. The highlights of the program are already well-known: calling Sarah Palin‘s family “inbred weirdos,” speculating as to what Rep. Michele Bachmann‘s sex life is like, wishing Congressional Republicans dead. Yet sad as it is, Maher can count at least one battle won in the war for vulgarity, as some on Fox News have taken to speculating about his sex life in retaliation.

Real Time host Bill Maher thought he had a good soundbite when he compared Congressional Republicans to late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, but was quickly one-upped by “It gets better” LGBT activist Dan Savage, who said “Unfortunately not exactly like him. I wish they were all f**kin’ dead.”

On Bill Maher‘s show, his near polar opposite on the political spectrum Ann Coulter stopped by for some no holds barred debate. Yet the fun between the verbal sparring partners continued on Maher’s Internet-only “Overtime” broadcast, with Coulter humorously taking exception to Maher’s lengthy condemnation of “Republican thinking.”

Last night’s incredibly zany social salad on Real Time included a number of people who would have otherwise likely never been in a room together– Bill Maher included with Ann Coulter, Chris Hayes, and Chaz Bono, which of course let Maher explore some of his curiosities. For example, he asked Bono– who completed the physical process of becoming male– if, given how advanced car parking technology is, “how are they doing with dicks?”

Earlier this week, outgoing Fox News host Glenn Beck illustrated David Carr‘s criticism of Midwesterners as “neanderthals” by doing an offensive caricature of a mentally disabled person. Mediaite’s Frances Martel wrote a relatively mild critique of Beck’s performance, given the level of offense, and for her trouble, conservative website Big Journalism has accused Martel of anti-disabled bigotry, and defended Beck’s vile minstrelsy by (I’m not kidding) asserting that those offended are mentally deficient.