VALUES: Brother Maher's aim was true!

MONDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2026

His remarks on the treatment of persons: Bill Maher is Cornell's most televised living graduate, surpassing even Ann Coulter. 

At times, we've been puzzled by Bill's recent commentaries, but we thought his aim was generally true with respect to the disgraceful, appalling recent news from his disgraced alma mater.  

Sean James reported Bill's remarks for Mediaite; he provides full videotape. Headline included, his report starts as shown:   

Bill Maher Calls for Abolishing Frats Amid Cornell 7 Saga: A Gentleman ‘Doesn’t Exploit the Woman, He Saves Her’

Bill Maher said it’s impossible to know what exactly happened in the “Cornell 7” case, but the saga has made one thing crystal clear to him: fraternities need to be abolished ASAP.

The veteran comic weighed in on the alleged gang rape during the Friday episode of Real Time. Maher closed the show by saying the details of the case are sordid and hazy, but whether it was a gang rape or group sex doesn’t change his mind—frats have got to go.   

"Any place that’s all male, no girls allowed, just doesn’t function without depravity. Just ask the Catholic Church,” Maher said. “Ask the Taliban.” 

He continued, “Everything that’s inherently bad about men gets worse if you put them in a fraternity. The drinking gets worse, the cruelty, the treatment of women, the tribalism, the peer pressure, one-upmanship, conformity, segregation, nepotism, bullying, elitism...

We're not experts on fraternities. Also, we'd use more nuanced language than Bill uses when he says that there are things that are "inherently bad about men." 

(Later, saying that colleges should also get rid of sororities, he makes the same sweeping claim about women.)

That said, Bill's general aim was true. As we noted several times last week, our human race badly needs "the girl." 

It needs Edie Doyle to help Terry Malloy struggle with issues of conscience—to expose him to instincts which may be better than some of his own may be. It also needs people like the Robert Redford character—men who know enough to respect the decency of the world's good, decent girls and young women. 

The world gains when people like Bill speak up. Here's more of what Bill said:   

In this case, a young woman made a bad decision, as 20-year-olds do, when she went to a frat house drunk and did Ketamine. And for that, she claims to have paid a price no woman should have to pay.

No one was there [or] knows what happened, but I do know what a "gentleman" is. A "gentleman," gentlemen, is someone who in that situation doesn’t exploit the woman, he saves her. That's a gentleman.   

For the record, Bill was using the term "gentleman" as a way of mocking the way the word is used in the mission statements of many fraternities. He was really saying that any person should step in to help a young person who is being assaulted after making a bad decision—as young people often do.

Good for Bill! We wish he'd also said this:    

Does anyone think the men and women who run schools like Cornell haven't been complicit in tolerating the destructive behavior described in the recent reports? And how about the people who send Greg Gutfeld and a panel of stooges out on the air, night after night, to teach young men that they should continue along with the ugliest and stupidest forms of the age-old loathing of women and girls?

How about those horrible people? Who's going to save us from them? Also, how about the horrible people, all over Blue American journalism, who refuse to report and discuss what happens on Fox every night?

We've named some of their names before. Who's going to save us—our women and girls, our boys and young men—from the horrible conduct of them?

Tomorrow: Full services alleged to return

42 comments:

  1. Rape should not be a law-enforcement matter. A better way must be found to deal with it.

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    1. Thank you for repeating a plank in the Republican Party platform, just in time for the midterms.

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    2. How about banning liquor along with drugs for everyone in our society? It would cut down on domestic violence too. It would also solve our trade problems with Canada.

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    3. People forget, but the reason Prohibition was enacted in the first place was because women lobbied to end alcohol sales due to the abuse of wives and children by drunken men, who not only hit them but also failed to provide food and shelter after drinking up their pay. After the law-enforcement failure of prohibition (largely because police didn't exist as an institution capable of monitoring smuggling and speak-easies), male drunkeness was treated as a social welfare problem and the field of social work was created, along with half-way houses, orphanages, women's shelters and other societal approaches. I suppose he wants a return to "homes" for "fallen" women, as used to happen when such things were a social problem and not a criminal matter. And after that, of course, denial of the right for women to vote, since women are not going to agree to any of that if allowed a choice.

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    4. Rapists should be incarcerated.

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    5. They should be fixed so they can’t do it again.

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  2. "Bill Maher Calls for Abolishing Frats Amid..."

    What a bunch of bullshit. Isn't there such thing as the right to freedom of association?

    So, I don't like fraternities, let's abolish them. Someone else doesn't like guns, or gas-powered cars, or knives, or, I dunno, military uniform. Let's abolish all that, and more, right?

    Is this dumb or what? I guess it ain't, as long as you're a retarded Dumbocrat....

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    1. Try making a little bit of sense Mao. And remember there is no B in dum you moran.

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  3. Speaking of Greg Gutfeld, remember when Gutfeld went on Bill Maher‘s podcast, and they yucked it up? Bill Maher said the following:

    “Listen, you’ve made a big success of your show there. I always say to people, you know, you may not love somebody’s success, but you have to respect success, you know?”

    Then they had an amusing exchange about incest porn:

    MAHER: “The idea, I’ve wondered about this, the idea that incest porn is really about being lazy — It’s about being lazy.”

    GUTFELD: (laughing) “You don’t want to even leave the house. You don’t want to leave the house, she’s right there,”

    This was 2023.

    I seriously doubt Maher feels any need to criticize Gutfeld, Bob.

    https://www.mediaite.com/media/podcasts/watch-greg-gutfeld-smokes-a-joint-with-bill-maher-as-they-discuss-their-careers-porn-and-partying/

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    1. Both are creeps. Gutfield is unwatchable and gave up on Maher about 15 years ago.

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    2. Agree both have always been creeps and unwatchable.

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    3. Why did Gutfield give up on Maher?

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    4. They're still together.

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    5. So 12:40 is wrong.

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  4. Does Somerby actually think banning all fraternities is a good idea? Or is it the unserious suggestion of a TV blowhard looking for notoriety?

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    1. Not only a TV blowhard. A blogging blowhard, too.

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  5. In what way were Cornell officials complicit in what happened at that frat house, and which officials specifically does Somerby blame? I’m genuinely curious. The students, I assume, have some responsibility for their own actions. I would also assume that whoever supplied the alcohol to underage people might have some complicity in the matter, at least more directly than the Cornell officials do. Hard liquor is banned at fraternity houses at Cornell. Of course there are laws against drinking under the age of 21 in New York State.

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  6. Here’s what Cornell did in the wake of this event:

    “Cornell closed the Xi chapter of the Chi Phi fraternity in 2024, and the chapter remains barred from campus.”

    “two of the seven fraternity members accused of sexually assaulting a fellow student at a Cornell University fraternity house were suspended, according to disciplinary summaries obtained by The New York Times.”

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  7. Trump is a misogynist. He wouldn’t even consider firing a man in this situation.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/trump-and-rubio-consider-firing-kimberly-guilfoyle-amid-misconduct-allegations-report/ar-AA2e4eOV

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    1. Guilfoyle sought help from a political ally to pay $100,000 in credit card debt before taking up her ambassadorship, allegedly promising to connect the benefactor with political officials in return.

      This is a firing offense regardless of sex, race or national origin IMO.

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    2. It should be, David. But Trump doesn’t fire men for corruption.

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    3. Fuck you, David.

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  8. Somerby spent a few days hinting about values. He will be happy to know that Trump cares about values too, just not the same ones apparently. From Tiedrich today:

    "Margaret Brennan: “Nidal Hasan is in a wheelchair. Doesn’t the administration risk livestreaming this and making him a martyr? Couldn’t this be a risk to the homeland?”

    Markwayne Mullin: “No one has to watch it.”

    Brennan: “Well then, why are you livestreaming it?”

    Mullin: “The president is restoring American values.”

    I’m sorry, but what ‘American values’ are being restored by turning a death sentence into public entertainment? When was that ever an ‘American value’? Did I blink and miss it? Was there some early draft of the Declaration of Independence that I’m not aware of, extolling the virtues of ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of gunning down some fuckface in a wheelchair’?

    Oh, and thanks for clarifying that ‘no one has to watch it,’ Marky Two-Names. I was really worried there that you shitheads were going to go all Clockwork Orange on us."

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    1. The US will now imitate ISIS by showing videos of executions. Good job, MAGA voters.

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    2. Sexual predators enjoy flaunting their dominance with public executions.

      Who knew?

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    3. I enjoy flaunting my wiener in public. Women turn away in disgust.

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  9. I also wonder what role parents have in expressing their ideas or concerns about sorority and fraternity houses on campuses.

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  10. Inappropriate remarks for $100, Alex:
    “my parents didn't give me a good face, but they did give me a huge c---,'”

    What is “what did Rose McGowan allege that Bill Maher whispered in her ear when she was on his program?”

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  11. Feminists have written a lot about rape culture in the US, which is the support system for not just the patriarchy, but the mechanism by which rape reflects and enforces male privilege. It is fine that some men are concerned about this, but shouldn't they do women the favor of reading what they have said about it? Why is Bill Maher any sort of authority, to be quoted and discussed on the topic of rape, while the reactions and opinions and ideas for change held by women go ignored? I believe it is because men are not serious about changing anything and don't really consider rape a problem. It is something women whine and nag about to them, including Somerby.

    No one can seriously claim concern while saying this:

    "As we noted several times last week, our human race badly needs "the girl."

    None of the women at Cornell are girls. It is demeaning when Somerby refers to Eva Marie Saint or her character, Edie, as girls. It is demeaning to call any grown woman a girl, as if she is a child.

    Somerby and Maher say that young people tend to make bad decisions. They leave it at that, as if there is no reason to explore why or what kind of bad decisions they make. The age of consent and the drinking age limitations (and age to legally be able to sign contracts, obtain driver's licenses, work full time, consent to surgery) are all lower than for adults in recognition of that lower capacity for decision-making. So should the age of consent to marriage, but that would interfere with male desires to lazily acquire women as household and sex slaves, and the most frequent way of evading legal consequences for rape.

    When Somerby repeatedly refers to adult women as "the girl" he is signaling to his bro readers that he is not serious about remedying this problem at all, doesn't consider it a problem, and is one of them along with the Republican party and conservative men in general.

    Is it really bad judgment for women to trust that men will not mistreat them if women are not constantly vigilant? If so, it is time for Somerby and others who believe that to explain why men are permitted to be so untrustworthy. Do they rape each other, when women are not around? Is there more to this fraternity misbehavior than is being reported outside prisons, the military, and similar nearly all-male environments? Perhaps this is what Bill Maher means about inherently male bad behavior. If so, Somerby needs to examine that, instead of brushing it aside in order to focus on Gutfeld's unfunny jokes, that only men laugh at (and Cecelia, of course).

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  12. Somerby says: “our human race badly needs "the girl." , an idea he defines as “issues of conscience—instincts which may be better than some of his own may be.”

    Somerby seems to be saying that by the term “the girl” he means certain values that to him resided in a female character in that movie. It’s unclear if he identifies those values themselves as “feminine” in some way, as opposed to , let’s call them “masculine” values emanating from today’s right wing as embodied by Hegseth and his toxic testosterone-fueled killing machine stuff, or the idea gaining traction amongst some in the right wing that women should not vote or hold political office, a throwback to the 19th century.

    Somerby has written a lot of posts attacking “woke”. But part of the idea behind woke has been precisely to bring about greater consciousness of those instincts that the Eva Marie saint character embodied for Somerby.

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  13. Bob seems to think the role of a female is to soothe and tame men.

    Not only is this ahistorical and pseudoscience but it is also sexist.

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    1. Apparently, he's also run out of fainting couches and pearls to clutch:

      "Also, how about the horrible people, all over Blue American journalism, who refuse to report and discuss what happens on Fox every night?"

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  14. Reminder: the only prosecuted major fraud in MN was masterminded by a White Christian woman, the woman that founded and ran the organization that was running the scheme, and was prosecuted by the Biden admin.

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  15. Bob focuses on the school and the victim being complicit by making "bad decisions", when in reality the male perpetrators were the ones that did the crimes.

    A broader critical look at a society based on patriarchy and elitism would be valid but Bob does not possess the knowledge nor personality traits to make such a coherent critique.

    Bob's hobby essentially is defending sexual predators.

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    1. You think that young woman made a good decision?

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  16. Waiting for the pro rape trolls to crawl out from under their rocks....

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  17. I have no experience with fraternities. This episode illustrates the downside. I wonder whether someone here could describe the virtues of fraternities, the plusses.

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    1. Ask George W Bush.

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    2. Get your own blog, Dinky, and stop ordering other commenters around.

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    3. Fuck you, David. Nobody wants to talk to you , you repulsive depraved fascist freak.

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    4. Why weren’t you in a fraternity, David? Did nobody want you? That’s what happened to me. It stung at the time, but looking back I’m glad.

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