Yup. And this is the heart and soul of the loaded label fallacy. If you cannot deal with the principal grounding of the argument, you go after the way it was phrased.

People opposed to the estate tax will often do something similar, by calling it “the death tax,” leaning heavily on the aphorism about death and taxes…

I think you might be underestimating the degree to which the backlash is in bad faith, too. While I agree with you that the distinction between connotation and denotation is important, I think it’s hard to ignore the fact that the right wing revels in using bad faith claims of anti-semitism against the left — any…

When I was growing up, we didn’t really have organized sports leagues for kids this young and if we had our parents would have been working too many hours to come. I think we were better off.

I coach little league baseball and softball. Currently, there is a drastic umpire shortage in our area because this type of behavior has become the norm. It’s not worth the stress and risk of possibly being attacked for $60. These idiots think that a bad call in a little league game is going to cost their kid a…

I’m not particularly a “scholar” of WW II, but I did minor in history with a concentration in the European theater of that war—and I lived in Germany for five years (had the opportunity to visit Auschwitz, as well).

Based on that education and those experiences, I can only say the following:

Americans tend to conflate…

It’s important to note about the Splinter Fauxgressive:

Don’t particularly agree there, mostly because “Marxism” describes a) an analytical method and guide to action based on dialectical and historical materialism, not simply the rejection of identities other than class, and b) a body of thought far larger and more complete than just the words of Marx & Engels themselves.…

“At this point, not pressing for a harder line and just letting Trump continue to walk all over them is looking increasingly pathetic.”

This is the salient point I think the usual anti-impeachment crowd here seems to miss over and over. It’s not good when you look weak. We can discuss until the cows come home about…

Anyone who ever—even for an instant—takes the spotlight off Special Big Boy is getting a reprimand.

This dude is further up his own ass than the super-serious high school theater kid who hisses at the parents in the audience if someone sneezes during that year’s production of CATS.

... who thinks Nazis are just fine.

Ah, yes, this soil is the sacred land of our ancestors, God’s chosen people, the persecuted children of Abraham that we must take back from those infidel Muslims.

It’s a genuinely sad way to end the Warriors’ time in Oakland. It’s too bad they decided to adopt Silicon Valley’s mantra of “move fast and break things” at just the wrong time.

The Hatch Act is a limit on the 1st Amendment.  That’s why it’s by definition a violation of the 1st Amendment.  So arguing that her 1st Amendment rights are being restricted is both correct and irrelevant.