Well, this is absolutely their right.

News came down today that Bill Maher will not suffer any disciplinary action from the brass of HBO.

In fact, Maher is pretty much skating on this whole “house ni**a”  incident, so, apparently, he does get a pass.

TMZ reported on Monday that it’s business as usual for Maher.

Sources familiar with the situation tell us, HBO will not yank Bill from the air or fire him for the comment he made to Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse on last Friday’s show.

Maher apologized quickly and the fallout from the comment got quickly lost after the London terrorist attack.

By the way … the fact that HBO does not run advertisements makes the situation vastly different from networks that advertise … HBO will not lose money because it’s subscription-based and, realistically, very few people would unsubscribe. Maher’s show will stand or fall on ratings.

That makes a lot of sense. Most people receive HBO as part of a bundle of networks on cable or satellite TV. To give up HBO means to give up that bundle, and there may be other channels included that viewers don’t want to give up.

It’s rather complicated, actually.

If fans are really disappointed, I supposed we’ll see it in his live shows. To date, there’s no word on whether ticket sales have dropped off for those events.

Senator Ben Sasse ended up catching more grief for just being on the set when it was said than Maher had to deal with, and he’s the one that said it!