Bill Maher is not a fan of the recent boycott of Laura Ingraham's advertisers, calling it a form of "bullying" and "the modern way of cutting off free speech."Ingraham, host of "The Ingraham Angle" on Fox News, became the subject of a boycott after she tweeted about Parkland student David Hogg not getting into several colleges (various schools of the University of California). "David Hogg Rejected By Four Colleges To Which He Applied and whines about it. (Dinged by UCLA with a 4.1 GPA...totally predictable given acceptance rates.)," she tweeted on March 28, along with an article about Hogg not getting into the colleges. Her comment drew widespread criticism, especially given the fact that she was talking about a young student.
English
08 Nisan 2018 - 02:00
Bill Maher: Laura Ingraham boycott was 'bullying' and a 'modern way of cutting off free speech'
Bill Maher is not a fan of the recent boycott of Laura Ingraham's advertisers, calling it a form of "bullying" and "the modern way of cutting off free speech."
English
08 Nisan 2018 - 02:00
![Bill Maher: Laura Ingraham boycott was 'bullying' and a 'modern way of cutting off free speech'](https://www.abdpost.com/images/genel/detayfoto_1.jpg)
David Hogg Rejected By Four Colleges To Which He Applied and whines about it. (Dinged by UCLA with a 4.1 GPA...totally predictable given acceptance rates.) https://t.co/wflA4hWHXY
-- Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) March 28, 2018
In response, Hogg, 17, a gun control advocate and survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, called for a boycott of Ingraham's advertisers, which resulted in many companies, including Ace Hardware, Johnson & Johnson, Expedia, Nestle, Nutrish, Liberty Mutual Insurance, Jenny Craig and Jos. A. Bank dropping her show. Ingraham later tweeted an apology: "Any student should be proud of a 4.2 GPA —incl. @DavidHogg111," she said. "On reflection, in the spirit of Holy Week, I apologize for any upset or hurt my tweet caused him or any of the brave victims of Parkland.""She's only apologizing after a third of her advertisers pulled out," Hogg told CNN, rejecting the apology.On Friday's episode of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher," Maher (see clip above) emphasized that Hogg has willingly spoken out about gun control in the wake of the shooting, making him a public figure. "People are going to have the right, I think, to argue back," he said.
Pick a number 1-12 contact the company next to that #
-- David Hogg (@davidhogg111) March 29, 2018
Top Laura Ingraham Advertisers
1. @sleepnumber
2. @ATT
3. Nutrish
4. @Allstate & @esurance
5. @Bayer
6. @RocketMortgage Mortgage
7. @LibertyMutual
8. @Arbys
9. @TripAdvisor
10. @Nestle
11. @hulu
12. @Wayfair
Maher criticized the root of the boycott, remaining incredulous that of all the controversial things Ingraham had said over the years, "this was the straw that broke the camel's back.""The First Amendment doesn't guarantee you the right to have a soap advertisement in between your segments," said "Real Time" panelist Heather McGhee, president of Demos, a public policy organization. "Effectively it is the modern way of cutting off free speech," Maher argued, calling the willingness to boycott advertisers of shows "chilling." Max Boot, a columnist for the Washington Post and fellow in national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the reason to boycott Ingraham had less to do with her comment about Hogg than her larger presence on Fox News. "She is part of this Fox news propaganda machine, which is bombarding the American people with alternative facts, i.e. fake news, every single day," he said. "And that's a reason why large companies should not be underwriting her message. It goes way beyond David Hogg."
Los Angeles Premiere- LBJ
Vivien Killilea | Getty Images
Maher, 62, who grew up in River Vale, said he's known Ingraham, 54, for a long time, and showed a photo of her on his old show, "Politically Incorrect," in the 1990s. That didn't hold him back from saying what he thought of her opinions, though. "In the intervening years, she just has become a deliberately terrible person," he said. "Maybe you shouldn't say that about a 17-year-old, but again, he is in the arena," Maher said.But Maher — who took Geraldo Rivera to task in the same episode of "Real Time," calling him "the spin" for his work on Fox News — completely rejected Hogg's move to call for a boycott of Ingraham's sponsors. "Really, is that American?" he said. "And he complains about bullying? That's bullying. I have been the victim of a boycott. I lost a job once. It is wrong. You shouldn't do this by team, you should do it by principle." "I agree," said Eliot Spitzer, former governor of New York, who served as a panelist on the show. But went on to defend such boycotts. "She has the right to say whatever she wants, with very, very few exceptions," he said. "We have the right to speak back.""Speak back is different than boycott," Maher said. "Think of the civil rights movement," Spitzer countered. "Boycotting is free speech."
Social reaction
Because we know Maher just loves when the media highlights people sounding off on Twitter, here's a taste of the reaction to his comments about the Ingraham boycott.
Kaynak:Nj.com