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News just in: Before taking the gig, Burr had no clue where Saudi Arabia was either.
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He never really addressed why people are pissed at him. Poor showing by Conan for not calling him out,
He’s using the same arguments as Ansari is, which is that they’re there for the people and to move the needle a bit. Which is a bit of a cop-out given that they have to know that this festival was created by the government and a publicity effort for the country to show it as modern and open to the world. Jimmy did call him out on that, but he also kinda let him get away with his “I did it for the people” defence.
I do think Burr has a point when it comes to hypocrisy. I mean, exactly what measures have you and I taken to make sure that there’s no fuel in our car tank that’s been made with oil imported from Saudi Arabia?
(Okay, I suspect quite a lot of people here will answer, I don’t drive a car so there, but me personally, I do have one. And the logic applies.)
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He does kinda have a point there. Every country has done bad things, does that mean you can’t perform in any of those countries? It would also mean he can’t perform in the United States.
One of the main issues is that they are not only performing there, but they are being specifically instructed by the government not to mention topics or make jokes that will embarrass or ridicule the country or its leaders, and are happy to go along with that kind of censorship of material for the right price. It makes it all feel like a propaganda exercise and makes a bit of a mockery of their support for free speech and claims of the festival pushing progressive thought.
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So Aziz Ansari and Jessica Kirson said they were going to donate their fee from the Riyadh Comedy Festival to Human Rights Watch and they told him they don’t want it.
I find it so frustrating when celebrities buy off controversy by donating to a charity, so Human Rights Watch refusing to be a party to this is refreshing.
I saw someone point out that in defending themselves Burr, Ansari et al have to by extension also defend Saudi Arabia, and that’s exactly what the Saudi government wanted out of this, a legion of celebrities who are now whitewashing the reputation of a reprehensible regime in order to try and keep themselves in their fans’ good books.
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Bill Burr is coming off worse and worse with this whole thing.
‘How Could You F—ing Do That to Another Human Being?’ Bill Burr Once Cared About Jamal Khashoggi
In 2018, the kidnapping, torture and murder of Washington Post journalist and Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s paid assassins shocked the free world and all believers in the free press, democracy and human dignity — a group that once included Bill Burr.
When Burr agreed to headline the Riyadh Comedy Festival, which started September 26th and concluded yesterday evening, he clearly underestimated how much the rest of the American comedy community would disapprove of their colleagues playing a Saudi state-funded festival that was organized by the guy who has so many political prisoners that there’s a wing named after him in the Riyadh jail. Ever since Burr returned to the United States, he has been angrily defending his participation in the Saudi Royal Family’s official comedy festival, and he continues to argue that his decision to take a check from the same Crown Prince who ordered the murder of Khashoggi was actually a big win for freedom of speech in Saudi Arabia, where, he reports, they even have a McDonald’s.
For all his many attacks on his critics, Burr has been cagey about actually acknowledging who organized the festival (Turki Al-Sheikh) and who paid his performance fee (MBS). Perhaps that’s because Burr is ashamed of how, shortly after Khashoggi’s murder, he went on the Jim & Sam Show with fellow future Riyadh comic Mark Normand and expressed his disgust about the brutal crime commissioned by his recent patrons.
Just two weeks after Saudi operatives loyal to the Crown Prince tortured and murdered Khashoggi, Burr expressed his moral outrage at the brutality of the killing on the record. “How could you fucking do that to another human being?” Burr asked when host Jim Norton pointed out that audio tapes of Khashoggi’s killing captured the moment the murderers cut off his fingers. “Listen to them scream in agony and then you continue?”
“Human beings, we deserve whatever the end of this is. We’re just awful,” Burr lamented of the brutality of Khashoggi’s killers, whom he joined on the Saudi payroll late last month. However, even then, Burr realized that his outrage wouldn’t lead to any kind of positive action.
“Now what am I gonna do, as a person, to continue — to make sure that doesn’t happen?” Burr asked rhetorically. “Am I going to get involved? Or am I gonna go buy a New York Post and get a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich?”
At the time, Burr didn’t realize that there was a third option that he would gladly take: perform a show for the people who ordered the horrific murder and accept enough blood money to buy every bacon, egg and cheese sandwich in New York.
In a Reddit thread about Burr’s past comments on the Khashoggi killing, Burr’s fans mocked him for forgetting that the Saudi Royal Family once made him so disgusted with humanity that he looked forward to our extinction. “330 beheadings in 2024,” one commenter wrote of the well-documented increase of Saudi executions in the last few years, often of journalists and dissidents just like Khashoggi.
“Indeed, Bill. How could you do that? Stand on that stage built by slaves and tell jokes to drown out Jamal Khashoggi’s screams to the world,” another fan asked.
However, Burr’s defenders pointed out that Burr simply didn’t have enough information about Saudi Arabia to make better choices in the past. Said one apologist, “To be fair, he didn’t know Saudi Arabia had a Chili’s when he made those comments.”
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One of the main issues is that they are not only performing there, but they are being specifically instructed by the government not to mention topics or make jokes that will embarrass or ridicule the country or its leaders, and are happy to go along with that kind of censorship of material for the right price. It makes it all feel like a propaganda exercise and makes a bit of a mockery of their support for free speech and claims of the festival pushing progressive thought.
Especially when some of them go on to claim that they are more free to speak than in the US. Presumably because they don’t have any jokes about the Saudi government anyway, but they do have many about how dumb women are and about people with disabilities and whatnot.
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‘Amoral, evil’: vitriolic backlash builds against comics who played Riyadh festival
To paraphrase TS Eliot: and was it worth it after all? A question to ponder for those who have taken the coin of a government once described unequivocally as “the worst of the worst” by one human rights advocacy organisation.
The past decade has seen Saudi Arabia invest in everything from football to opera to video games – all part of the regime’s efforts to diversify its oil-dependent economy and its execution-heavy reputation.
Mohammed bin Salman’s (MBS) latest interest? Comedy. The Riyadh comedy festival, which ends today, has attracted a number of big hitters. Among them: Pete Davidson, Louis CK, Dave Chappelle, Kevin Hart, Aziz Ansari, Whitney Cummings and Jessica Kirson. While most of the performers are US based, Jimmy Carr, Jack Whitehall and Omid Djalili also appeared as headliners.
Organised by Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority (GEA), the festival was intended to “amplify Riyadh’s status as a leading destination for major cultural and artistic events”. Or, as Visit Saudi didn’t put it: come for the weather and the entertainment! Stay because you’ve been arrested!
The organiser of the festival and chair of the GEA, Turki Al-Sheikh, is a big fan of culture. Indeed, he reposted a song on X that celebrated the lead suspect in Jamal Khashoggi’s murder.
It’s interesting that MBS has discovered a sense of humour, though, as the crown prince wasn’t laughing when Masameer County, a South Park meets Family Guy-style satire, was picked up by Netflix and became one of the most popular shows in the region. Instead, its creator, Abdulaziz Almuzaini, was sentenced to a 13-year jail term and a 30-year travel ban for “terrorism and promoting homosexuality”.
Others who have left MBS stony-faced? Fahad Albutairi, known as “Saudi Arabia’s Jerry Seinfeld”, who was allegedly handcuffed, blindfolded and put on a plane to Saudi Arabia when performing in Jordan in 2018. (He was also reported to have been forced to divorce his wife, a women’s rights activist.)
Abdulrahman al-Sadhan was jailed for 20 years for running a parody Twitter account. Tala Safwan, an Egyptian TikTok influencer and prankster was arrested for a joke with “lesbian subtext”. And in 2018 a specific law was introduced to punish, with jail sentences and fines, anybody who produced satire online deemed to be “mocking public order”.
You might think, then, that comedians most vehement in their protestations against cancel culture – Chappelle, Ansari, CK, in particular – would balk at performing in a country whose predilection for silencing extends to (alleged) murder by bone-saw.
Pete Davidson has said that there were no restrictions on the material he could perform, a dubious claim given that Atsuko Okatsuka leaked a prospective contract she was sent. The “content restrictions” section detailed anything that “may be considered to degrade, defame, or bring into public disrepute, contempt, scandal, embarrassment, or ridicule … the Kingdom of Saudi, the Saudi royal family, its legal system … religion”. (Okatsuka declined the offer.)
Another reason: Tim Dillon had his invite rescinded after making a quip about slavery in the kingdom, as did Jim Jefferies after he said: “One reporter was killed by the government … unfortunate, but not a fucking hill that I’m gonna die on.” Outing himself as an absolutely awful person and then not even getting the cash? Unfortunate. Oh, and then there’s the fact that Bill Burr, who did perform, confirmed there was censorship. But “the royals loved the show”, he said – so that’s nice.
Perhaps the likes of Chappelle, Ansari and CK felt there was less at stake because, by their own estimation, they have already suffered cancellation. Except that their exile from public life appears to include fresh Netflix specials and Grammy awards. Louis CK should count himself lucky; if he’d been caught with his dick in his hand in Najd, rather than Colorado, he may well have retained neither of those appendages (punitive limb amputation is an actual thing).
CK’s stance on murderous dictatorships seems to have changed since this full-throated criticism of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi. But fair play to him in one sense for getting out of his comfort zone – he has a whole bit about giving up weed and yet here he is visiting a place where getting stoned is common. CK has defended himself thus: “I struggled about going once I heard what everybody was saying.” Truly, a man of integrity.
Another performer who has seemingly discovered their conscience after the fact is Jessica Kirson, a lesbian Jewish comic. Kirson has tied herself in knots worthy of a grovelling balloon-dog since. In a statement post-performance, Kirson asserted her “deep regret”, saying that she was “surprised” to be asked. Disingenuous to the extreme, given the fact she openly solicited an invitation on a podcast months ago.
Then there’s Hannibal Buress, widely praised for his significant role in taking down Bill Cosby; Buress is now taking money from a government that sentenced a 19-year-old victim of gang-rape to 200 lashes and six months in prison. Meanwhile, I remember Jack Whitehall doing a skit about “grown adults getting wound up about cartoons”. Presumably he doesn’t mind the grown adults who got so wound up by cartoons that they sentenced satirist Al Hazzaa to 23 years’ jail time for lighthearted illustrations about fasting.
Of course, the primary – and here consider primary as a euphemism for only – reason for entertainers becoming sharply severed from their morals is the riyals. On the state’s Soundstorm festival bill for this December, for instance: Post Malone, Halsey and Tyla. Actors who have taken million-dollar paychecks to attend the Red Sea film festival include Will Smith and Johnny Depp.
At least some comedians were honest about the money grab, rather than Kirson, who called the festival “a gay-affirming event”, a stretch when its sponsors have beheaded people for same-sex activity. Davidson was more straightforward: “I see the number and go: ‘I’ll go’”. (The SNL alumnus has come in for particular criticism given that his firefighter father died during 9/11). Chris Distefano said that he didn’t want to do it, but that his fiancee had instructed him to “take that fucking money”.
A more nuanced take came from Nimesh Patel, who initially said yes before backing out. “They offered a lot of money. I’m not in a position to say no to life-changing money. But it wasn’t life-changing.” Which, given the people involved, and as David Cross said in a fiery rebuke, will be true of all of them. The actor called out peers he admired who “would condone this totalitarian fiefdom for … what, a fourth house? A boat? More sneakers?” I suppose Davidson is on record as loving sneakers.
Of course, some will argue that performing in authoritarian or oppressive countries is a means of reaching the masses; opening up art to those underserved. And while that may be true on occasion, it is a different thing entirely from being sponsored by the state itself to launder its sovereignty. As Vinny Thomas sarcastically put it: “Sometimes to fight the power you have to be paid by the power.”
Others argue that cultural boycotts and campaigns make little difference, even when South Africa, BDS, and more recently, Nan Goldin’s dismantling of the Sackler family’s art patronage have proven otherwise. Plenty of comedians joined Cross in condemnation, including Nish Kumar, Marc Maron and Zach Woods. In typically forthright style, Stewart Lee described participants as “evil, amoral, grifting bastards”.
And Shane Gillis, Leslie Liao, Stavros Halkias and Mike Birbiglia turned down offers alongside Okatsuka. The stain on the reputations of the comedians who stood up for Saudi’s project whitewash? A deep, blood red.
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Prince Andrew gives up royal titles including Duke of York after ‘discussion with king
No sweat.
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Another No kings protest:
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/nationwide-kings-rallies-set-protest-trump/story?id=126611770
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Well, at least he’s honest about what the Bible actually says about slavery. But most people would probably reach the more sane conclusion that the Bible is wrong rather than slavery is right.
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A task for inspector Clouseau:
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c62lnennzgdt
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Not “Oceans 11” or “Thomas Crown”:
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Mamdani not taking prisoners:
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Laeticia James was after him and now he is vindictive:
https://abcnews.go.com/US/new-york-ag-letitia-james-set-arraigned-mortgage/story?id=126813113
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One of the main issues is that they are not only performing there, but they are being specifically instructed by the government not to mention topics or make jokes that will embarrass or ridicule the country or its leaders, and are happy to go along with that kind of censorship of material for the right price.
This is the key difference really. Yes Burr isn’t wrong the UK has a terrible list of atrocities in its past (and quite a few dodgy things in its present) as do many countries but if you play the Hammersmith Apollo you aren’t doing it in service to the King or government and won’t be given a list in advance of what you can and can’t say.
I’d say it’s more comparable with doing a gig for a mafia boss because MBS ordered the execution of a critic and he’s signing your pay cheque.
The defences are also very reminiscent of those made during apartheid era South Africa. Cricket and rugby teams would tour, claiming to make things better by doing one afternoon training session with black kids in a township (while also pocketing $100k each in an era the sports were meant to be amateur). I think history proved them wrong really, the later 1980s move to completely boycott SA contributed more to a positive change than their random outreach to a handful of selected kids.
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Don’t look now, but with this government shutdown affecting the SNAP benefits of 42M Americans by mid November.
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Police ‘urgently’ looking for prisoner freed by mistake in London
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Yeah, delivering on his promises will be tough.
Man, I hope they’re doing a documentary about this and filming his staff meetings and whatnot. Must be crazy there right now. This made me think about Ex Machina again – which I recently re-read – given that it was also about a young man becoming mayor of NYC unpredictably and completely out of the blue, and about his political battles to get anything done.
(Well, it was also about how he was also a superhero but actually an unwitting advance party to an alien invasion from another dimension, but, it was also about being mayor of NYC with no experience and a young, idealistic staff.)
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47 and higher education:
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47 and higher education:
So he’s extorted $60 MILLION from them? JFC!
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47 and higher education:
So he’s extorted $60 MILLION from them? JFC!
It’s not just universities, but he is grifting a lot of industries:
You don’t even want to know how much the family is getting. Not just that jet plane.
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Years ago when Sarah Palin was on the ticket as VP and that close to being POTUS, it was Bill Maher who said it was a stupid country. (Years before Dan Quayle was VP). But it is ignorance, not thinking, failure of the education system, and also racism to be against anything that everyone takes it to mean black or Hispanic etc. (DEI, Critical race theory, the term “woke”)
Now we have the “difference” between ACA and Obamacare:
@reamichellew How could people not know that the Affordable Care Act and Obamacare are the same thing. #healthcare#kamala#wewintogether
It makes me wonder… if you asked on the street: “Should heterosexuals be allowed in office?” (And their vote counts just as much as some Ivy League poli sci grad student or so)
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Now it turns out that because of the Dem cave in, there is no leverage against the BBB which next year will result in tripling premiums, huge cuts across the board in services and so on.
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Now on social there are all these out-of-towners who never set foot in the city making snide remarks about Mamdani and NYC next year ie, all the rich move out, wishful thinking that everything will be free, city will be so screwed over. Like they are all highly educated political analysts. Sigh…
And yet… when it comes to them getting a subsidy they call it “basic service”… During the shutdown, there were a few MAGA on social with their “pick me” explanations about being on SNAP, going out of their way to “differentiate” their use of it from “the rest”. They don’t mind the “basic service”, but when other demographics get it just the same, all of a sudden it’s communism and socialism, waste of taxpayer money. They don’t mind it for themselves, they just don’t want the others to have equal access.
It’s all another answer to: “What’s trashy if you’re poor, but classy if you’re rich?” – a government subsidy.
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This John Fetterman guy (1 of the 8) who caved in:
He is a senator. But there is something about voters not seeing the larger picture, not reading the room, not seeing how things intersect, and this ignoring and not seeing other people’s experiences, seeing themselves as “the exception” and not “next”:
In truth, like this pic here, some actually ended up voting for their own deportation. But what were they thinking? They saw all this in the news: the border situation, kids in cages, how Puerto Rico was treated. They were blinded to thinking they were the exception instead of next.
Then the Midwest farmers who voted MAGA to “put the Dems and libs in their place”: It turned out that the subsidies and contracts they depended on were by Biden and the Dems and got discontinued. They all ended up voting for their own foreclosures and they now have insult added to injury: The trade war with China has China going to South America for agriculture produce like soybeans etc. hurting US farm exports and now the farmers see the US admin with a 20B bailout to their competitor Argentina. wow…
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This Epstein email leak is 20,000 files. Someone needs to read through all this crap and give the info that is the most incriminating.
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Regarding ACA(“Obamacare”) this doctor gave a nice explanation. You can tell why the GOP really didn’t like it and why they wanted to shoot it down. We in the States just can’t have nice things
Then Stacy Abrams brings up the autocrat playbook:
@drjessicaknurick For the last 15 years, the Republican healthcare plan has just been to repeal the Affordable Care Act. And in their effort to do that, they’re now trying to frame the ACA subsidies as some kind of giveaway to health insurance companies, which is wildly disingenuous. These are the same lawmakers who spent years voting to repeal profit caps on insurers, expand high-deductible plans that shift costs to patients, and block any form of public option that would’ve actually competed with private insurance. Suddenly, they’re deeply concerned about insurance company profits? The ACA subsidies were designed to make coverage affordable for working- and middle-class Americans and to keep people insured in a system Republicans insisted remain private. But if Republicans are finally ready to talk about reducing insurance company profits, amazing. The logical next step is a universal healthcare system, like every other high income country in the entire world — and I genuinely welcome them to that fight.
@rfkhumanrights We were honored to have Stacey Abrams join us for our John Lewis Young Leaders retreat, where she walked us through the 10 steps to autocracy. Democracy can’t defend itself. It’s on us to show up, speak up, and keep fighting.
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Last year had that red and blue lines chart of the breakdown of voters. But how accurate is it to say for example that 92% of AA voted blue?
The best way I ever heard it put was think of an actual huge pot of soup or stew. Now you can’t take the whole thing, but if it is stirred thoroughly, you can take a spoonful of it, taste it, and that will tell you how it is. So with statistics and all the stat and math ways to take a sample size, check for bias, test and measure for accuracy etc. that sample size will give you the whole picture.
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But it is hard to believe that 47 got rid of the Labor Statistics commissioner because the numbers are what they are. He wanted to replace him with someone who can inflate the numbers to his favor. But what about the Wall Street investors,financial analysts, sociologists, economists etc. who depend on accurate labor reports for their studies, analysis, decisions, and strategies? Ridiculous.
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As Hannah Arendt said:
Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty
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