Author: Michael Koppelman

On the Republican watch

Michael Koppelman, , , , Leave a comment

Let’s see, a high-level recap of the things that happened under the Republicans over the last 8 years:

1. 9/11
2. Katrina
3. The credit crisis
4. The closely related housing crisis
5. Iraq
6 Afghanistan
7. $4 gas

Now the government just nationalized Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac — another example of deregulation at work.

While the Democrats are deeply flawed in many ways, the Republicans are just completely incompetent. They are unfit to lead this country. They want their cake and eat it too and the math does not work out.

Recall the Republicans held the Congress for 6 of the last 8 years and the Presidency for 20 of the last 28 years.

This has been 8 years of a financially irresponsible administration, a foreign policy based on expensive national building, an economic policy of caving to the rich and sticking it to the middle class and a deregulation policy that has led to Yet Another Expensive Government Bailout.

It makes no sense whatsoever to believe that the Republicans are the answer to the problems that the Republicans created.

We need a president like Clinton again — a really smart moderate with liberal tendencies. We don’t need another President like Bush.

Obama could be a very Clinton-like President. McCain would be another Bush-like President.

On the Republican watch

Palin's denigration of community organizers

Michael KoppelmanLeave a comment

It is ironic as hell that a party that has a goal of shrinking the government and a party that extols the virtues of the private sector as being a more powerful force than government should denigrate the role of community organizers. If the Republicans weren’t hypocrites they would hold up Obama as the exact kind of community leader that drives their small, local government agenda. Instead Sarah Palin mocked Obama as having some country club sort of a career, free from all responsibility.

Here one such community organizer responds.

Look — I think the experience argument is perfectly legitimate for everyone on the Presidential tickets. McCain spent the last 26 years not being a chief executive. Same with Biden. That doesn’t disqualify them in the slightest. Obama has a great resume. Sarah Palin has an impressive resume. Let’s grill them on their record and how it supports their ambitions.

As a side note, the bulk of Palin’s “executive experience” was managing a city with an annual budget around $10 million. To an order of magnitude I manage a budget that big at the company I own. Obama is managing a budget now, for his campaign, that spends more than that in a month. I think being a mayor is good experience and it looks just fine on her resume. But it’s not some trump card.

Palin's denigration of community organizers

Raving pro-life lunatics

Michael Koppelman, Leave a comment

As you know by now, Obama officially has the nomination of the pro-death Democratic Party. Money is flowing into his campaign from the radical homosexuals, God-haters, and baby-killers all over the country.

Yes, we on the Left love death. We want to spread death as far and wide as possible. That’s why we support war in Iraq! (Oh wait, we don’t.) That’s also why we support capital punishment! (Oh wait, we don’t.) That’s also why we want to put commercial interests over the environment, in hopes of creating a global climate crisis! (Oh wait, we don’t.)

If these idiots really believed in a culture of life it would be a philosophy that extended further than abortion. That don’t have a culture of life, they have a culture of theocracy, where their religious views are the law of the land.

I respect that some people truly believe abortion is murder. That doesn’t excuse this inane rhetoric at all. Troy Newman, President, Operation Rescue — are you an idiot.

Raving pro-life lunatics

Sarah Palin's daughter

Michael KoppelmanLeave a comment

I wonder — didn’t Sarah Palin talk to her daughter about safe sex? Did she talk to her about birth control? Apparently the abstinence approach didn’t work? That’s odd.

Note: I’m not picking on her daughter. I did many stupid things at that age, too. I do wonder if Sarah Palin’s views on birth control put her daughter at risk of sexually transmitted disease. I also wonder whether her very public pro-life “family values” will force her daughter into a teen marriage for political reasons.

Sarah Palin's daughter

McCain's creationist running mate

Michael Koppelman, , 1 Comment

The Minnesota Independent has a fairly damning summary of Sarah Palin. The worst part is she seems to favor teaching creationism along side evolution:

The volatile issue of teaching creation science in public schools popped up in the Alaska governor’s race this week when Republican Sarah Palin said she thinks creationism should be taught alongside evolution in the state’s public classrooms.

Palin was answering a question from the moderator near the conclusion of Wednesday night’s televised debate on KAKM Channel 7 when she said, ‘Teach both. You know, don’t be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important, and it’s so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both.’

She later clarified to say “…she would not push the state Board of Education to add such creation-based alternatives to the state’s required curriculum.”

She’s pro-life, pro-drilling-in-ANWR and she “invokes God in every decision she makes”.

I’m glad McCain chose a woman and I’m not going to condemn her myself until I learn more. But so far it does not look good.

McCain's creationist running mate

President 2.0

Michael Koppelman, Leave a comment

I think this is a great ticket. Obama got where he is because he is smart and well-spoken. Biden is where he is because he rose to prominence in the Senate. I’ve heard people joke about how this should be the Biden-Obama ticket. That would be fine too.

When I think about what the most important criteria is, for me, when it comes to choosing a presidential candidate, it’s intelligence and honesty. I want to know the person is really smart and has really good judgement and will be honest with the American people. I will forgive almost any failure if I think this is true. It’s why I think Jimmy Carter was a great president, for example. I will accept failure if it is honest failure. I think Clinton was a great president for the same reasons: he as really smart and he wasn’t afraid to be honest with us. I still recall a debate where he answered a question by a doctor and he said “I’m gonna raise your taxes.” He did not try to hide that and his honesty was refreshing. (As an aside, Slick Willy was not necessarily honest in all regards and I do not give him a free pass for that, per se.) I even liked John McCain in those times that he was boldly honest. I’m seeing less and less of that McCain.

So Obama, to me, has the two most important qualities. He’s really smart and he’s not just blowing smoke up our asses. We’ll have a good-faith problem solver at the helm. That alone is a major, huge, gigantic, colossal, phenomenally large difference compared to Bush. In the intelligence/honesty department I think McCain is also an improvement over Bush. He is nowhere near as smart as Obama, though, plus he’s old, which slows down the processor a bit. He’s also been caught famously lying, like in regards to the rebel flag issue. He came clean, which I respected, but he lied about it in the first place.

Biden is really a great man. He is a liability politically because of his long voting record and the fact that he is an East Coast Liberal. We’ll be hearing all sorts of horror stories about what Biden has voted for (and against). But he is a solid guy with a solid reputation in the Senate and I love that he is boldly outspoken.

So Obama is better than McCain and way, way better than Bush and Biden is way, way better than Cheney. We have a chance to significantly upgrade our executive branch. President 2.0. Let’s do it!

President 2.0

Abortion is not murder

Michael Koppelman26 Comments

Murder is the unlawful killing of a person. Fertilized eggs are not people. Thus abortion is not murder. Q.E.D.

I don’t understand at all why people believe so strongly that abortion is murder. At conception we are talking about a single celled organism. How can such a thing have civil rights? I think religion leads people to this weird view: they think God must stuff a soul in there at the moment of conception.

Let me be clear: I hold human life to be “sacred”, in a secular sense. I think personhood is the very pinnacle of our civil rights. I think we should guard human life very carefully and make certain people are not unlawfully denied the right to life, from which all other rights follow.

That is why I can’t understand people who feel so strongly for human life that they use it as their sole criterion when electing a President and yet they ignore Darfur and Iraq, not to mention good ol’ poverty, which have taken the lives of millions of people.

If you think human life is sacred, why the fuck are you so willing to kill people?

Abortion is not murder

True Christians

Michael KoppelmanLeave a comment

From an interesting article at People for the American Way (via The Minnesota Independent)

“Barack Obama’s choice of Joe Biden sends a clear message, true Christians need not apply in the Democratic Party,” said Dr. Gary Cass, Chairman and CEO of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission. “Instead of picking a true Christian, Obama, a fake evangelical, has selected Biden, a fake Catholic.”

The CADC proclaims its mission is to “advance religious liberty for Christians by protecting Christians from defamation, discrimination, and bigotry from any and all sources,” but that apparently doesn’t apply to those it considers “fake” Christians such as Obama and Biden. It might seem odd that an organization founded to protect Christians from defamation would among the most frequently and vocally defaming Obama’s faith, but only if you don’t understand that Cass’s mission is reserved solely for those he deems “true Christians” who have proven their faith via “actions and [holding] the beliefs personified by all of us who proclaim the name of Jesus Christ as Savior: the need to be re-born in Christ and the affirmation of historic Christianity, having a demonstrable and proven record of support for traditional Christian morality.”

It’s hilarious that an organization with the words “Christian Anti-Defamation” in their name would defame the Christian faith of Obama and Biden.

I’m an atheist but I’ve read the New Testament several times, back when I was a Catholic, and these “true Christians” seem to me like the people who Jesus would rightly reject as hypocrites.

Beware of people who tell you what God wants. They are always delusional or liars.

True Christians

Dear Clinton supporters: get over it!

Michael Koppelman, 1 Comment

Lord knows WTF the problem is with supporters of Hillary Clinton. Your candidate dropped out of the race! Obama was never disrespectful to Clinton. Get over yourselves.

“Touchy, touchy, feely, feely,” said Rick Stafford, a superdelegate and a leader of Clinton’s Minnesota campaign, of the purpose of the late-night meeting. “People need to express their feelings one more time.”…Still, hundreds of Clinton supporters want to voice their support one more time for their candidate, and there are emotionally compelling events that will almost ensure she’ll get substantial first-ballot support

Via MinnPost.

Dear Clinton supporters: get over it!

Who cares if McCain is richer than God?

Michael Koppelman, , 3 Comments

I do. I care because the rat-bastard Republicans are trying to make Obama look like an elitist. McCain could buy Obama 100 times over. McCain doesn’t know how many houses he has! If the rat-bastard Republicans want to stop this utter inane nonsense about how Obama is an elitist, we can just let this issue drop. Otherwise McCain should expect a lot of questions about his extreme fucking wealth.

Republicans are the fucking kings of double-standards. They gave Kerry shit for being out of touch with common people because of his wealth. But does that apply to McCain? Of course not!

Who cares if McCain is richer than God?