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Obama's ex Green Czar Van Jones on Bill Maher, June 4

By April MacIntyre Jun 3, 2010, 16:33 GMT

02/24/2010 - Bill Maher and Cara Santa Maria - HBO\'s "The Pacific" Mini-Series Los Angeles Screening - Arrivals - Grauman\'s Chinese Theater - Hollywood, CA. USA © Albert L. Ortega / PR Photos

Bill Maher will have plenty to discuss this Friday night, with the ongoing gusher underwater thanks to BP and government regulators who pushed the riggers out to unsafe depths in the ocean floors.

HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher continues its eighth season Friday, June 4 (10:00-11:00 p.m. live ET/tape-delayed PT), exclusively on HBO, with an instant replay at 11:00 p.m., following the live presentation. 

The format is a salon type exchange allowing Maher to offer his unique perspective on contemporary issues; the show includes an opening monologue, roundtable discussions with panelists, and interviews with in-studio and satellite guests.

The roundtable guests this week are environmentalist Van Jones, commentator Andrew Sullivan and editor Katrina vanden Heuvel; writer-director-producer Judd Apatow and political strategist Paul Begala are interview guests.

White House environmental adviser Van Jones resigned September 2009 after a controversy over his past statements and activism erupted  into calls for his ouster from Republican leaders.

Last September, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs went on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," saying, "Van Jones decided was that the agenda of this president was bigger than any one individual." The president does not endorse Jones's past statements and actions, "but he thanks him for his service," Gibbs said.

Jones joined the Obama administration as special adviser for green jobs at the CEQ, and delivered two public apologies - one for signing a petition in 2004 from the group 911Truth.org that questioned whether Bush administration officials "may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war"  - and one for using a derogatory term to describe Republicans in a speech he gave before joining the administration.

Jones was further hamstrung by the revelations that he advocated on behalf of a death-row inmate, Mumia Abu-Jamal, convicted of shooting a Philadelphia police officer in 1981.  Jones was also criticized for his involvement with the Bay Area radical group Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM), which reportedly had Marxist roots.

On the network in 1989, Maher has starred in nine solo specials on HBO, including the hour-long presentations “Bill Maher…But I’m Not Wrong” (which debuted in February), “The Decider” and “I’m Swiss” (both nominated for an Emmy® in the Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Special category), “Victory Begins at Home,” “Be More Cynical,” “The Golden Goose Special” and “Stuff That Struck Me Funny,” and two half-hour stand-up specials, plus the HBO specials “30 Seconds Over Washington” and “Comic Relief VI™.”  REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER will return for its ninth season on HBO in 2011.

Other HBO playdates:  June 6 (12:30 p.m., 2:55 a.m.), 7 (8:00 p.m.) and 9 (11:00 p.m.)

HBO2 playdates:  June 4 (3:00 a.m.), 5 (9:00 a.m., midnight), 6 (7:00 p.m.) and 8 (10:00 p.m.)