First, so much of your argument hangs on "partisan = untrustworthy", without any real argument as to why this is the case. You try to bring up an equivalence argument, looking to equate Salon with National Review Online purely on partisan grounds, ignoring the very real criticisms leveled at the latter which explain why it has a low level of trust. And without the argument that partisanship means an untrustworthy argument, you can't just dismiss the work of either Progress Texas or Media Matters out of hand. In short, your argument is built fundamentally on a rotten support, and taking it out causes the argument to collapse.
Second, you try to argue that the fact that neither judge dismissing the argument means nothing. This shows a weak understanding of the law - weak claims are regularly dismissed, and a judge would be derelict in their duty to not dismiss a poorly substantiated claim. At the very least, the refusal to dismiss means that a legitimate question of law was put forth.
Firstly, my argument doesn't hang on partisan = untrustworthy. Progress Texas has an agenda, of that there can be no doubt. Progress Texas is the source of much of the counterargument, in various venues. In some cases they're even quoted commenting on ideas as though they were news, when they are the initial source of the ideas. Salon is also guilty of this, as I show in the review.
If you want to discard my assertion that Salon is an awful source that exists only to collect ad revenue from progressives who like to be validated, feel free to do that and instead move on to the substantive criticism of the article itself. It was substantial!
Secondly, I think SiG has gone most of the way to demonstrating that not only was the "conservative" claim false, but the "judges could dismiss" claim was also incorrect.
Scientists have a clear agenda, does that mean we should dismiss all arguments that human actions are fucking over future generations?
Like spool said, there's a lot of stuff in his argument beyond "Salon is a crappy news site, " so maybe we should move beyond that claim and into substantive critique?
(I don't have enough knowledge of the case to opine on whether it's a slam dunk or not, though I certainly think it bears investigation. )
The problem with his argument isn't "Salon is crappy", it that he's said "all these groups speaking out about Perry are partisan, so they're inherently untrustworthy," without providing any real evidence that they are untrustworthy. He tries to defend this by equating Salon to NRO, but the comparison doesn't work - we don't distrust NRO because they're right-leaning, we distrust them because they have a history of being economical with the truth. Without that cover to just dismiss what's being said outright, the argument falls apart because he's not actually rebutting the points made.
No, I gave specific examples of how individuals were being dishonest and deceptive in the course of their attack, while pointing out that it's no surprise, because that's their job.
Posts
No, I gave specific examples of how individuals were being dishonest and deceptive in the course of their attack, while pointing out that it's no surprise, because that's their job.
Yeah, triangulating with partisan sources happens, but all your primary sources being political groups with clear agendas is problematic.
Find any other source.