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Tag Archives: straw man

Democracy & Elitism 3: burning down the straw man, and who are these out-of-touch “liberal elites,” anyway?

Posted on 2009.12.07 by winterSmith 12 comments

Let’s begin with a quick trivia question. What legislator’s Top 20 donor list includes the following?

Blackstone Group (Financial Services)
Bain Capital
FPL Group (Energy)
DLA Piper (Corporate law firm, representing Global 1,000 and Fortune 500 companies)
Kindred Healthcare
Beacon Capital Partners
Comcast Corp
Brownstein, Hyatt et al (Corporate law firm)
Venable LLP (Corporate law firm)
Hummer Winblad Venture Partners
Apollo Advisors (Private equity firm)
River Terminal Development
Time Warner

We’ll have the answer for you at the bottom. Read more

Michael Vick and the problem with forgiveness

Posted on 2009.08.17 by winterSmith 45 comments

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has conditionally reinstated former Atlanta quarterback Michael Vick, who was convicted of running a dogfighting ring in 2007. Vick served 23 months in federal prison, followed by two months of house arrest.

Last Thursday the Philadelphia Eagles answered the question as to which team would sign a convicted dog-killer (there were 32 possible answers to the question, and “none of the above” wasn’t one of them), and in doing so touched off a long-awaited PR war for the souls of their stunned fans. Read more