Liberty and Justice for All!

I have made the decision to step away from Dan and Dave on the Air effective immediately*. What this means is that Dave will be doing the show by himself for the next two weeks (one of which will be taped) and after the end of December, there will no longer be a Dan and Dave on the Air radio program. I had a really good time on the air and I will still be looking for opportunities to get on the air with my own radio program. I am not going to get into the details as to why I am leaving. It is just for the best. Thanks to everyone who listened and who called in. And thanks to everyone who did buy advertising. If anyone would be interested in helping me get advertisers for my own show, please let me know.

*I had posted this on Facebook already, so people reading this there will have already known.

Self anointed “Radio Gawds” Walton and Johnson have gotten more and more political through the years. I remember listening to them when I first came down to New Orleans and I found them to be a funny bunch of shock jocks.

This morning they were discussing climate change and Walton issued a challenge to any listener who thinks that there is global warming out there to call in and debate the issue.  So I called up and eventually a call screener picked up. I said that I was responding to his challenge to debate the issue of climate change. She said “and what do you want to say?”. This is a typical answer of more tightly controlled radio shows, but in this case it was really a stupid question. Obviously Walton does not believe in climate change and if I am calling to debate him, I am going to give arguments in support of climate change. However, since she couldn’t quite grasp the concept, I told her that my position was that “science can be counterintuitive and that just because the weather has gotten cold, it doesn’t disprove the theories on climate change”. She said that she would pass along the message and she hung up. Um, I called to debate, not to pass on a message.

So I called back. I asked if I was somehow mistaken about Walton wanting debate. She said that I was “all over the place and wasn’t making much sense”. Apparently the Walton and Johnson radio program sets their standards quite low when it comes to who they hire as a call screener. I doubt this genius could fight her way out of a paper back with a pair of scissors. So I restated my position for her again and finally I was “cleared” to debate the issue on the air but I was told to keep the message “short and to the point”. But wait a second, didn’t we just establish that Walton wanted to “debate” the issue?

I finally get on as the 2nd caller and I make some short point regarding what the last caller said, they made some comment and then moved on. I never got to debate Walton about the issue of climate change, even though he was the one who requested it.

These guys prattle on about what they refer to as the “pussification of America”.  When they make a challenge to someone to debate an issue and then refuse to actually debate it… it becomes clear that the “pussification of America” emanates from the Walton and Johnson radio program.

If anybody listened to the show beyond that point, I would be interested to know if they did the typical Republican radio host trick of only letting on someone who sounded stupid so they could “win the argument”. Or perhaps they would say that “nobody wanted to debate them” and declare victory over the liberals who they would then claim was too afraid to debate, when in reality it is Walton who would have been too afraid to debate.

And to W+J.. guys, stick to comedy. Because you obviously are not ready to have serious discussions about political issues. They refer to themselves and their listeners 10-percenters. Perhaps this is the bottom 10-percent.

Dan and Dave on the Air would never pull such cowardly stunts on our radio program.

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This is also the subject of the current two minute drill (that ran on Thanksgiving and will also run this Thursday) for Dan and Dave on the Air.

Say what?

This first thing you might wonder is why I am endorsing a race in NY-23. Then, once you see where Doug Hoffman is on the political spectrum and who he is being endorsed by, you might wonder why on earth I am also endorsing him to win. The first thing I would tell you is to go read this previous post of mine and you might get a clearer picture.

Well, just in case you haven’t figured out the method to my madness, here is why I would love to see Hoffman win. The first reason is that this is a Republican seat and a typically safe one. The political climate of Congress wont change if he wins. So there is no real loss to the Democrats and their desires to reform healthcare or pass any other part of their agenda.

So what does a Hoffman victory do? Well, it emboldens the “ideological purity” wing of the GOP and the Club for Growth into thinking that this kind of strategy will work on a larger scale. They will focus much time and money and effort trying to get more ideologically pure candidates on the ballot. When they do this in typically conservative districts it wont really matter, as they will stay conservative. However, when they try this in more moderate areas, it will split the conservative ticket up or drive the moderates and independents to the Democratic side. The GOP will continue to fall apart and it will all be because of ideological purity.

So go Hoffman! Give those Republicans the false hope they are looking for. Your campaign could be the last straw in the undoing of the GOP.

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This was discussed on Dan and Dave on the Air but it needs to be repeated, over and over.

There are some states where it is legal for a health insurance company to consider a battered woman as someone who has a “preexisting condition”.

Anybody who has been paying attention to this healthcare debate has to have heard about the woman who was denied breast cancer treatments because she was found out to have made a material misrepresentation on her insurance application… she failed to disclose that she once had acne.

Many in the GOP want to defeat health reform legislation. To the women who support the GOP on this issue I say this. If you fight to keep the status quo, knowing what you know about these cases and others, you are not only signing a death warrant for yourself if you come down with a serious condition, you are signing a death warrant for your mothers, your sisters, your daughters and your friends. Remember that.

OK there are many but I will focus on one in particular… rationing.

The Conservatives who are fighting Barack Obama and the Democratic Party on healthcare reform are making the argument that if the Democrats get their way that it will lead to “rationing” because there would be no way that we could pay for all the care.

Really? The people who constantly complain that all Democrats want to do is spend their way out of their problems are now saying that when faced with the problem of how to deal with an increased demand on health services that the Demcorats would ration care instead of spending more money to cover the costs? Really?

Do you now see why we do not take you guys seriously? You cannot even keep your arguments consistent.

The President is going to be giving a speech to our nation’s students about how important it is to get an education and stay in school.

There are people who are actually trying to say that this is an attempt by Obama to indoctrinate our children.

These people should be mocked and ridiculed for suggesting that there is anything wrong with our President encouraging students to stay in school and get an education.

Just sayin…

The 2008 election results amazed even me. I couldn’t have thought that Barack Obama would get over 300 electoral votes, let alone 365.

But the important thing to look at here is not the electoral votes but the number of states Obama won.

Obama won 28 states. These are states that came out and supported President Obama. These are states that knew President Obama wanted to put in place health insurance reform that included a public option. So these are 56 Senators that should have absolutely no fear, Democrat or Republican, in supporting the healthcare reform plan  suggested in HR 3200. Republican Senators from these states need to be reminded that their state supported President Obama and thus supported healthcare reform.

These Republicans Senators from states who voted for Barack Obama (the candidate who ran on the platform of bringing major healthcare reform) are: Collins, Ensign, Lugar, Martinez, Burr, Grassley, Gregg, and Voinovich.

Now, there are also Senators who are Democrats from states that did not vote for Barack Obama. Of these include Begich, Lincoln, Pryor, Landrieu, Byrd, Rockefeller, McCaskill, Nelson, and Johnson. With these guys you can either use the carrot or the stick. Either entice them with other incentives to support the bill (having to do with healthcare or not) or make sure that they know that they will not be supported on legislation they want if they fail to support this major piece of health reform.

Add the 56 Senators from Obama states with the 9 Democratic Senators and you have 65 potential votes for healthcare reform. That is the math you need to get healthcare reform done.

It is official. Charlie Melancon will run for the Louisiana Senate race!

The diapers gloves are off now. Vitter will now have a serious challenger in the form of a “blue dog” Democrat. Vitter will now have to not only defend his record in Congress. He will also have to seriously deal with all of the allegations surrounding his acknowledgement of committing serious sins involving the D.C. Madam scandal.

David Vitter better hope this healthcare bill passes. Because once he is out of a job, he will at least have health coverage.