Disqus - Latest Comments for Nylund

Re: Trump Campaign Chair In Ohio: 'There Was No Racism Before Obama'

Nylund — Thu, 22 Sep 2016 10:14:25 -0000

Although, I bet if you were to ask her about white men who hadn't succeeded, she could come up with a long list of reasons it's not their fault, including immigrants, taxes, outsourcing, feminists, secularists, affirmative action, etc.

Re: MSNBC's Hugh Hewitt Says 'Skittles' Uproar Is 'Absurd' And Will 'Help Donald Trump'

Nylund — Wed, 21 Sep 2016 09:35:48 -0000

When it comes to how this is going to play out across the country, he's right.

I just got home from extensive trip that took me around the country. EVERYWHERE, you run into people who are terrified of terrorist attacks. The TV is nothing but bombs in NY/NJ, stabbings in Minnesota, etc. They see one party saying, "This is a problem that we have to deal with," and they see another party screaming about how a picture of Skittles is racist.

Guess which side they think should be running America's counter-terrorism efforts? Hint: it's not the party obsessed with candy memes.

I definitely witnessed a lot of bigotry out there and it made me very sad. I understand how these tweets and memes feed that. It's bad. It's poisoning the country.

But anyone who thinks they're "winning" the political debate with the general electorate by talking about Skittles when bombs are going off really has to get out of their bubble more often.

Re: Donald Trump On Twin Towers: 'They Were Not Great Buildings' Until 'Their Demise'

Nylund — Sun, 11 Sep 2016 17:23:34 -0000

I despise Trump as much as anyone can. I also lived in NYC at the time, and knew people who died that day. I also used to live just blocks from Ground Zero and spent a lot of time in and around those buildings.

That being said...the Twin Towers were not universally loved prior to 9/11. The common joke in NYC was that they were the boxes that the Empire State and Chrysler buildings came in. They were viewed as ugly and representative of an old style of soulless modernist architecture that had not aged well, if it was ever liked much at all. They were critiqued from day one as representative of the ongoing problem in NYC of the time where history, culture, and soul were razed in the name of soulless corporate mega-dominance. It was the same as the old Penn Station, a beautiful building destroyed and replaced by the horrific current incarnation. With regard to Penn Station, there's a quote that goes, "You used to get off the train and enter the city like a king. Now you enter like a rat." That same sentiment was also commonly thought of those two giant "filing cabinets" (as they were also referred to).

You don't hear that much about those critiques anymore. The tragedy over shadows it all. You don't speak ill of the dead. I understand and respect that. But it's simply not true that they were always considered great. As unpopular as it may be to say given their destiny, for much of their existence, they weren't beloved.

On the other hand, they were a very handy way to quickly re-orient your north/south compass when you exited a subway station.

Re: Texas College Students Bring Sex Toys To A Gun Fight

Nylund — Sat, 27 Aug 2016 09:19:07 -0000

Good for them. When they registered voters, I hope they reminded them of the voter ID laws in Texas, and to make sure they have one of the approved ID's.

Re: Open Thread - Full Frontal Asks Trumpee's, When WAS America 'Great?'

Nylund — Wed, 24 Aug 2016 09:23:52 -0000

Looking at data, it's actually pretty nuts. Right around 80-82, there's a huge shift in the pattern and shape of the data. And I use the vague word, "data" on purpose, because it holds true for so many things.

Here are some examples:

http://api.theweek.com/site...

http://www.justfacts.com/im...

Re: GOP Officials Considering Options If Trump Quits

Nylund — Wed, 03 Aug 2016 11:45:35 -0000

I know you're being sarcastic, but I'd love it if Republicans thought that was valid logic.

Similarly, I'm frustrated by voters too young to remember the effects of third party candidates in 1992, 1996, and 2000. While I liked the outcome of the 1992 election, it wasn't reflective of the populous. 57% voted right of center, 43% left-of-center, and the 43% won. The effect is even more exaggerated in places like Canada where there have been pretty recent federal election where upwards of 70% voted for a left of center party, but it was the 30% party that won because of the vote-splitting between so many left-leaning parties.

Of course, I want my personally prefered candidate to win, but I also do desire elections where the outcome best represents the will of the majority.

Re: Reporters React To Trump’s Clinton Cash Citations: “Widely Discredited,” “Reporting Fell Apart Under Scrutiny”

Nylund — Sun, 31 Jul 2016 20:12:07 -0000

I've read the book. The tactic is to assemble a list of true facts, take the out of context, and reorder them into a false, but damning story. Here's an example:

True Facts, in chronological order: State dept. sanctions Nigerian gov't. Hillary condemns Nigerian Govt. Nigerian gov't makes some improvements. Hillary praises improvements. Nigerian gov't slips back into old bad ways. Hillary condemns bad actions. Hillary leaves State Dept. Bill gets paid to give speech by Nigerian Businessman. There is a separate businessman who had shady business with the now dead former head of Nigeria. Shady businessman donates money to many things, including children's hospital, the Louvre, DNC, and CGI.

The book rearranges this to: Hillary sanctions and condemns Nigerian Gov't. Bill gets paid to give speech by nigerian businessman, Hillary praises Nigerian leader for progress. businessman. True facts! but rearranged to tell a nefarious story that isn't true (which you'd obviously see if things were in their actual chronological order).

But on top of this, it throws in the story of the OTHER businessman who did shady business with A DIFFERENT nigerian leader, who donated to CGI, hoping the reader doesn't realize it's a different business man and a different Nigerian leader, hoping the reader will think it's the same businessman who paid clinton for the speech, and that the leader he did shady stuff with was the same one Hillary was talking about.

This is how the book operates. As a result, the fact-checking of the individual facts come back as "mostly true," but the story itself is total malarkey, because those facts have been taken out of context and rearranged out of chronological order in order to imply a quid-pro-quo that is obviously untrue and impossible once you put the facts in context and in the proper chronological order. This is why the author himself, when pressed, admits there's no "quid-pro-quo" even though the book reads like it's proof of numerous quid-pro-quo.

I can say, "The US allied itself with the USSR, and both the US and the USSR invaded Afghanistan." That's all true! The US did ally itself with the USSR during WWII, and both did invade Afghanistan, one in the 80's the other in the 2000's, but separately, for different reasons, and definitely not in cahoots with each other. But the way I've assembled those true facts implies something very different. But it's not a lie! That's how you be dishonest without lying. It's a very common style of writing in the genre of conspiracy theories.

Re: Donald Trump Admits His Comrades In Russia And China Helped Him With DNC Hack

Nylund — Mon, 25 Jul 2016 20:53:07 -0000

What I'm surprised by is how little talk there is of all the Russian connections. The Russian oligarchs have bankrolled him since he was blacklisted by the banks after all his bankruptcies. I think he's in hawk to them for a few hundred million. The two main people in his campaign have spent the last decade or so working for Putin stooges. The only part of the GOP platform Trump seemed to care about was watering down the section on defending Ukraine from Russia.

He's working with Putin guys, taking Russian money, and trying to soften his party's anti-Russian stance. Throw on top of that the big kisses he always blows Putin's way and his anti-NATO talk and it's pretty damn clear, Putin has Trump by the balls and Trump will do whatever's best for Putin.

Re: Clinton Set To Troll The RNC With The #BetterThanThis Hashtag And It's Brilliant

Nylund — Sat, 16 Jul 2016 10:12:35 -0000

No, you don't. But most of these names are completely unrecognizable to the general public. Being in the House of Representatives doesn't automatically make you a celebrity.

Re: Does Donald Trump Really Want To Start A Race War?

Nylund — Thu, 14 Jul 2016 10:26:52 -0000

I saw this and was really irked he wasn't immediately called on it. It's a nasty lie meant to anger, enrage, and divide people. It's the kind of thing meant to my elderly relatives into voting for people who will cut their social security and medicare payments.

Re: Lord Help Us

Nylund — Sun, 10 Jul 2016 10:39:00 -0000

I don't see any level of hypocrisy. BLM wants the police to protect and serve the public (just like it says on the car). That was true before, during, and after the shooting.

Re: Watchdog Groups File FEC Complaint Against Trump's Fundraising Emails To Foreigners

Nylund — Thu, 30 Jun 2016 15:57:07 -0000

The FEC probably won't do a single thing about it. It'll get labeled as an innocent mistake, or someone will allege the emails were spoofed. At most, any money given (if any was), will be returned.

All this means is that people who already think Trump is an idiot/crook will continue to think he's an idiot/crook.

Re: Now Here's A Retirement Plan

Nylund — Wed, 20 Apr 2016 12:49:20 -0000

have a friend buy them, give them away as gifts. You keep the royalties. The friend writes it off as a tax deductible business expense (like Oprah does with the stuff she gives away), and voila, money all around! Get them to buy enough and you may even become a NY Times best-selling author!

This is a very common grift in conservative circles.

Re: Bill O'Reilly Smears Justice Sotomayor Over Possible Immigration Ruling

Nylund — Wed, 20 Apr 2016 10:40:51 -0000

That's something I can't believe didn't get more attention. His wife's job was lobbying to overturn the ACA, and he "inadvertently" neglects to disclose the fact that a major source of income for his family is based on trying to overturn the ACA, and he gets to vote on ACA?

"People are paying us to overturn the ACA" is about as "conflicted" a conflict of interest can get when your job is to vote on the constitutionality of the ACA.

Re: Latest From Tinfoil Hat Land: Did Ted Cruz's Dad Help Kill JFK?

Nylund — Thu, 14 Apr 2016 10:26:20 -0000

I don't believe it, but I can see the resemblance to a young Rafael Cruz.

Re: Secret Service Tells GOP Gun Nuts "No Guns At The Republican National Convention"

Nylund — Mon, 28 Mar 2016 17:18:34 -0000

I'm not ruling out the possibility that this was, in whole or part, the work of some liberals trolling the GOP in an attempt to highlight the absurdity of the claim that more guns = safer. I think they succeeded in that. But, I think there's a chance that if that's true, the quote may be a liberal parody of rightwing think, but maybe it's not. It's hard to tell satire from truth these days.

Re: The Daily Show Mocks Right Wing Freak-Out Over Cuba Visit

Nylund — Fri, 25 Mar 2016 12:27:46 -0000

The one thing that is a bit refreshing about Trump is that prior to him, the GOP played this BS game of, "We don't torture. Sure, we waterboard people, deprive them of sleep, food, light, communication, put them in stress positions, beat them, make them crawl around naked on leashes like dogs, etc. but it's not torture! How dare you accuse us of being pro-torture!" It took years for the media to even use the word torture, toeing the GOP line, referring to it as "enhances interrogation techniques." At least with Trump, it's in plain daylight. Yes, it's torture, and yes they love it.

But it's also sort of sad. At least, before, we pretended that both major parties thought war crimes were bad. Now we have the front-runners for one party actively campaigning on the notion that the US should purposely go out and commit war crimes.

So...good that they're finally being honest, sad that about what they honestly think America should do. Well, really more shameful than sad.

Re: Mary Matalin Tells Reporter She'd Like To Choke Him For Calling Out GOP's Racism

Nylund — Sun, 06 Mar 2016 20:57:24 -0000

She's right in the sense that establishment republicans don't consider themselves bigots. That would take a level of self-awareness that they lack. They are. They just won't admit it. They probably have tons of non-racist justifications that they fool themselves with. Heck, they may actually believe that all poor people are lazy, regardless of their race. Their hatred may be more class-based.

Re: MSNBC Continues To Try To Destroy What's Left Of Their Liberal Audience, Runs Melissa Harris-Perry Off The Air

Nylund — Sun, 28 Feb 2016 12:09:13 -0000

Echo chambers can be fact-based. What makes them echo chambers is which facts get echoed over and over again vs. which facts never get mentioned at all.

For example, name all the local politicians you can that have been convicted of a crime in the last couple years.

Here's a list from Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...

These are all "facts." But which of these facts did your source mention, and which didn't they? Is that distinction based on something neutral like the seriousness of the crime? or is it based on something partisan like party affiliation of the convicted?

Re: Yes, Ted Cruz Really Does Want To Deport 11 Million People

Nylund — Tue, 23 Feb 2016 15:18:38 -0000

Ted Cruz looks like a cross between Joe McCarthy and Grandpa Munster.

Re: Yes, Ted Cruz Really Does Want To Deport 11 Million People

Nylund — Tue, 23 Feb 2016 15:05:33 -0000

Yeah, and it didn't work out so Alabama quietly rolled back many of the aspects of that law. I wish that backtracking had gotten more media attention.

Re: Yes, Ted Cruz Really Does Want To Deport 11 Million People

Nylund — Tue, 23 Feb 2016 15:02:57 -0000

In order to deport 12 million people, you'd need a way to transport them, and a place to hold them during the process. The grand irony would be that the GOP would actually have to build the "FEMA concentration camps" they ridiculously accused Obama of building.

Transporting them would be a challenge too. Maybe you could pack them into railway cars. You'd probably need to add some sort of auxiliary special forces to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Maybe something like ICE Internal Strategic Support, or ICE-ISS for short. Rolls right off the tongue.

Re: Tucker Carlson Gripes About Plus-Size Model: 'Keep Politics Out Of My Swimsuit Issue'

Nylund — Sun, 14 Feb 2016 16:52:43 -0000

Why is showing a variety of body types considered political? It's only political if people involved in politics insist it has something to do with them. There's this weird subtext that part of the GOP platform must be, "No fatties," and therefore, inclusion of plus-sized models is somehow anti-Conservative...or something.

It's like Republicans are saying, "Uggh, if it wasn't for those dang liberals, I'd never have to look at a woman who wasn't built like a Victoria's Secret model."

Re: Donald Trump Says The Unemployment Rate May Be 42 Percent

Nylund — Wed, 10 Feb 2016 10:19:54 -0000

There are indeed other measures and statistics that count more people as "unemployed" than the headline number. The broadest, U6, even includes people who are employed part-time, but would prefer full time jobs. This, the "biggest" unemployment number you can, get is currently around 10%.

http://www.bls.gov/news.rel...

So where the heck is his number coming from? The only number in that ball park that I can think of is the percentage of working age people who are not in the labor force. That is, all the people in the US, age 16 and up, who are not working (nor looking for work). That's at about 37%.

http://data.bls.gov/timeser...

So 37% of the people, aged 16 and up, aren't in the civilian labor force. This includes retired people, students, housewives/husbands, people in the military, the disabled, etc.

Even if you got everyone who wanted a job, a job, that number goes down to about 33%. Any lower than that and you're forcing people to not retire, forcing students who don't need and want a job into working, force the stay-at-home-spouse to put the kids in daycare and go get a job, kicking people out of the military, etc. That is, you'd have to coerce the population into doing things they probably don't want to do.

Maybe that's Trump's plan, "I'll make it so you can never retire!"

Re: Marco Rubio Shows His Stupidity By Slamming Something Obama Never Said

Nylund — Thu, 04 Feb 2016 10:59:44 -0000

And the Republicans only added to that division by welcoming the bigots and telling them their bigotry was acceptable. Not only that, they've branded anti-bigotry as "political correctness," and bigotry, not just as something good, but something the law should support They're claiming that various forms of bigotry are "freedoms" of religion, speech, etc. protected by the First Amendment. In a sense, they want discrimination to become a constitutionally protected right.

So yes, Obama made the bigots come out of the closet, and the Republicans responded with an agenda of trying to protect that bigotry as a constitutional right, with the goal of making any anti-discriminatory policies unconstitutional.