Category Archives: National Politics

Liberal Dan Radio 5/23/2013: DNA Ownership, Assault and Abortion

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Thursday, May 23rd, on Liberal Dan Radio:

Does your DNA belong to you? A lawsuit has been filed against Myriad Genetics. Myriad claims to own the gene BRCA1, the same gene used to determine that Angelina Jolie has a higher risk of breast cancer than normal. It also claims to own the BRCA2 gene as well. Can one own a patent on a gene that your own body creates? Can one own a patent on a design on how to test for those genes? Can one own a patent on all forms of ways to test for those genes regardless of if they develop those tests or not? I will go over the myriad issues surrounding this case and what it means for individuals who are seeking to see if they are also at risk.

Also, a Florida high school student who is 18 has been charged with raping her 15 year old female classmate. Some are blaming the religious beliefs of the 15 year old girl as the cause of the charges against the older student. Is it really correct to make this a gay rights issue? Would religious parents have accepted it had the 18 year old student been male?

Finally, a new Planned Parenthood will be opening in New Orleans. I will go over the arguments made by those opposed to the opening of this new center and explain why they are horribly wrong.

Those stories, headlines, redneck words of wisdom, an update by Cool Mini Or Not and your calls on Liberal Dan Radio: talk from the left, that’s right.

Liberal Dan Radio 5/9/2013: DOMA Oral Arguments I

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Thursday on Liberal Dan Radio:

After reviewing the headlines and going over some of the silliness that happened in Jefferson Parish last Saturday when it came to tolls and taxes, Liberal Dan Radio will actually start talking about the oral argumetns made in the Supreme Court about DOMA.

Seriously.

That, plus the tweet of the week and words of redneck wisdom, on Liberal Dan Radio: Talk from the left, that’s right.

Liberal Dan Radio: March 14th, 2013

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On tonight’s episode of Liberal Dan Radio:

Voter disenfranchisement in Louisiana. The election to overturn the toll renewal in New Orleans is being thrown out because of some issues with the provisional ballots. See why the the ruling is trampling voter rights and is par for the course for Conservatives across this country.

The FDA is going to consider a request by the milk industry to change what can be called “milk”. See how you can petition your government to stop this abusive change.

New York’s soft drink law was thrown out. Why should it have existed in the first place and how has Mississippi gone completely off the wall in making an “Anti-Bloomberg” law and why is that similar to what is being asked of the FDA?

Those topics and more on Liberal Dan Radio: Talk from the left, that’s right.

Live Blogging the State of the Union

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Tonight I will be live blogging my responses to the state of the union and the responses by the GOP and tea party.

There are already excerpts being given out on what President Obama is going to say. It seems a major theme is going to be developing the middle class. The proposals he will be giving tonight are supposed to be budget neutral. Regardless of if true or not, I am sure the GOP will deny it.

On national defense, President Obama is expected to discuss reducing nuclear weapons and bringing troops home from Afghanistan. I am sure the tea party response, if not the main GOP response, will be critical of the reduction of nuclear weapons (even though we have more than enough to take out everyone else on Earth).

There is also a suggestion that President Obama will announce a free trade agreement with Europe. I am ok with “free trade” as long as it is “fair trade”. The American worker cannot compete with workers in other countries where labor laws are not equivalent.

Of course, excerpts of the official GOP response is also available. (What an amazing time we live in where we can debate excerpts from two speeches before they even happen.) Rubio looks like he will rest his middle class argument on having a “free economy”. This usually means an economy with less governmental regulation. Of course, it is competition and not a free economy that is good for consumers. The “free economy” supported by Rubio and the GOP (as well as the tea party) allows for large corporations to consolidate power and provide barriers to entry, including economies of scale, that prevent upward mobility for individuals and make it harder for competition to do its job in keeping prices down.

Rubio blames President Obama and government for businesses not giving raises and reducing benefits. It is amazing how Conservatives think. It is not the greed of the business owners that are to blame for this in their eyes. Forget the fact that Wall Street is doing amazingly well. Forget the fact that the disparity between the wealthy and the poor is the highest it has ever been in years. No, to the GOP the reason that these business owners are not sharing in their personal successes is because of taxes and required benefits. I guarantee you that many of these businesses, if they didn’t have their higher tax rates and if they didn’t have to cover health insurance, that the additional revenue gained would not be going into the pockets of the employees. That money would just go into the pockets of the employers.

If the GOP gets its way, no additional employees will be hired, no additional wages would be paid, and no additional benefits will be earned. Most employers are not altruistic. Most employers will not just give away their profits. Unless labor can force them to pay more money, the employers will keep as much as possible. But it has been the main goal of the GOP recently to take power away from labor. And that is why the GOP plans are bad for the economy because they are bad for the worker. They take power away from employees and give it to the employer. And when the employer has that upper hand, the employee gets stuck having to take whatever he/she can get.

Rubio wants growth in the economy. But growth wont happen until we stop making it profitable for US jobs to be shipped overseas. Growth wont happen if we sign free trade agreements with other countries that lack the employee protections that we currently have.

The Tea Party response from Rand Paul is also available online. Unfortunately it is full of straw man arguments and is really not worthy of comment at this time. I will wait until the full speech is given to see if he gets into details or if he is just full of hot air.

Clotters, the new conspiracy theory.

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On the latest episode of Liberal Dan Radio, towards he end of the show I spoke about some random issues. One of them was the latest conspiracy theory by the extreme right that Hillary Clinton faked her blood clot in order to avoid Senate hearings.

The name of this group, like birthers, shall be clotters.

Also on the show I discuss the fiscal cliff negotiations, the death of the GOP (and why it wont just die swiftly) and how a sperm donor case in Kansas is an argument on why we need marriage equality.

So listen to Liberal Dan Radio: Talk from the left, that’s right.

(The podcast may not be available immediately, give it some time after 9pm central for it to  save)

The Gun Free Zone Myth

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One of the biggest lies told by the Conservatives after Newtown is that shooters will focus their attempts at violence at gun free zones because they will meet no resistance. Their solution is to put armed guards at these schools to keep the potential shooters away.

So why did this happen? That’s right. A gunman entered a police precinct and started shooting.

So much for the theory that having guns at a location will prevent a shooter from attempting gun violence. The truth is that a potential killer will commit acts of violence regardless of the risk of someone else returning fire.

Conservative share “facts” but reach wrong conclusions.

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I am a frequent listener to the John Osterlind show on Rush Radio 99.5 FM in New Orleans. I will also call in and set the Conservatives straight when important. This is where I have earned the nickname “Liberal Dan”.

Today he was discussing certain “facts” pertaining to gun control. One set of facts was a listing of all countries in the 20th century that eliminated vast segments of its citizenry. Each of them had taken the guns away from their citizens. I am not disputing those facts. However, the conclusion Conservatives make about these facts are false. By pointing these “facts” out they try to make people believe that countries that enact strict gun control laws are trying to eliminate portions of their populations. But that is absolutely untrue. There are plenty of countries that have enacted stricter gun control laws that we have that are not trying to systematically eliminate portions of their populations.

Another set of facts was that for the most part, mass shootings take place in “gun free zones”. This is true, but again misleading. The point he and others try to make is that these killers search out these gun free zones to commit their acts of violence. However, this is not true. Shooters may choose to commit gun crimes in such areas. Bombers do not care about a lack of gun free zones. Timothy McVeigh wouldn’t have been able to bring a gun into the building in OKC. That didn’t matter to him, because he chose to use a bomb instead. Osterlind tried to say that the facts prove that if a potential killer knows someone with a gun might be there, that they will not go murder people. However, what it tells me is that people who want to murder other people will find a way to murder those people based on the situation at hand. If the killer is less likely to be successful using a gun and instead will be more likely to be successful by using a bomb, the killer will use a bomb.

The response by Osterlind? He suggested that bombs are harder to get so it is less likely that a killer would be able to get the job done with a bomb. Ironic, because that is exactly what an anti-gun advocate would say.

I am more than willing to discuss the issue of gun regulations with people on both sides of the aisle. However, when the pro-gun folks insist on using logical fallacies to promote their agenda, it is very difficult to have an honest discussion with them.

A logical fallacy by the “Arm The Teachers” crowd.

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I have a lot of Conservative Facebook friends. I also post in several Facebook groups where Conservatives post a lot. Because of this I get a clear window into the desires of many Conservatives out there and what they believe is the direction we should take this country.

After the Newtown shootings I have been seeing a lot of posts by those who wish to turn our schools into the wild west by arming all teachers. There are some major issues with this. The first in my mind would be what happens if a teacher freezes up while trying to use a weapon and the weapon goes to the shooter, allowing the shooter to have another weapon and more ammunition.

One of the defenses of this “arm the teachers” movement is a list of several examples where an armed civilian is able to prevent more harm because they either used a gun or showing the gun deterred more violence. These stories are out there.

But if we are going to have an honest and balanced discussion about such stories as proof, we would have to know what happened in all the other times a gunman threatened a group of people and other people had their own guns available. How many times did individuals with guns who were not trained to deal with this sort of situation froze up and were unable to do anything? How many times did the person with a gun just become a victim first because they were incapable of bringing it to bear. How many times was the gunman able to take the gun away and have an additional weapon from that point on?

So yes, there may have been times where an individual was able to protect other innocent civilians from a gunman because they were also armed. However, without the other information there is absolutely no way for us to know if this is the exception or if it is the rule. Until those questions are answered, the proposition by those Conservatives cannot logically be used as a defense for the “arm the teachers” argument.

The Reason Bobby Jindal Supports OTC Birth Control

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In an op-ed, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal stated his support for allowing birth control pills to be made available over the counter.

He also stated that he opposes the requirement that insurance policies not only cover oral contraception but do so at 100% first dollar.

To some it might seem counter-intuitive to support increased access to oral contraception while also seeking to allow employers to not cover oral contraception in health insurance policies (that are paid for by the work of their employees).

However, by making oral contraceptives available over the counter, the pills would no longer be covered under an insurance plans prescription coverage. So not only would Jindal make sure that his religious fundamentalist buddies would get their way by allowing them to offer their employees insurance without oral contraception coverage, he would also end up making it harder to obtain birth control (especially for those women who cannot use the simple generic version of the drug) because it would no longer be covered at 100% first dollar .

When I first heard of his support for making oral contraceptives available over the counter I  refused to believe that he was doing so to increase access to birth control for women. All I needed was a little time to uncover the method behind Jindal’s madness. So for those people who believe that Jindal has all of a sudden become more friendly to women’s issues, don’t kid yourself. That will never happen.

Update: Other bloggers have also seen through this facade.

Why Bobby Jindal is not your Birth Control Buddy also points out that this is about reducing access to oral contraception and questions Jindal’s inclusion of age into the argument.

Update 2: It is a little disturbing that Think Progress believes Jindal is waking to popular opinion and is pushing for increased access to birth control coverage. He is, in fact, distorting popular opinion to push his radical right wing agenda of restricting access to women.

I am so sick of tinfoil hat wearing teabaggers

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In order to try and say that there is some conspiracy involving the loss by Alan West, they are trying to use the fact that the number of ballots cast in St. Lucie county was more than 100% of the voters in that county.

Townhall has it.

Free Republic has it.

World Net Daily has it.

You know, all your typical unreliable, crazy, right winged teabagger supported internet garbage.

So what is the truth? Well a simple two second Google search netted me the St. Lucie County elections website.

NOTE* – TURNOUT PERCENTAGES WILL SHOW OVER 100% DUE TO A TWO PAGE BALLOT.  NOT ALL VOTERS VOTED THE SECOND CARD CONTAINING THE AMENDMENTS

Well there you have it. I am going to buy stock in a tinfoil hat manufacturer. With the number of crazies that should be coming out of the woodwork after the re-election of Barack Obama, I should make a fortune!

The bottom line is this. There is no controversy. There is no need for investigation. There is no overvote. This is how the election was supposed to go and it is not fraudulent. But please, go ahead, continue making yourselves look like paranoid delusional morons. It will just make your movement that much more irrelevant than it is now.