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While I agree that the proposed legislation is probably terrible, this opinion piece uses weasel words like "republicans" and "democrats" when they only cite I

While I agree that the proposed legislation is probably terrible, this opinion piece uses weasel words like "republicans" and "democrats" when they only cite I think 2 republicans that are supporting the proposal- out of all of the republicans in Congress! While it may be technically accurate (they are republicans) it is important to remember the spin on political pieces like this. Not all 'republicans' and not all 'democrats' are the same.

pjc50 9y ago
That's not a weasel word, that's literally a party descriptor. The 2 republicans are the sponsors of the bill. While it's possible that it's not widely supported by the party, there's at least four names on it which are mentioned in the text, all of which appear to be R. https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/2359/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/2359... Including terrorist supporter Pete King. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/04/AR2011030406635.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03... Incidentally, it was introduced before the Equifax disaster ...
- eutropia 9y ago
  It was introduced in May -- Equifax was breached at least as far back as March. Given that C-level executives made substantially beneficial trades 'without knowledge' of the breach, I wonder how far back this goes. Especially because their original story had the date of breach happening after this bill was introduced. /tinfoilhat
TFortunato 9y ago
Sure they aren't all the same, but I guess I would ask what's your threshold on whether using the party name is weasel-y? Because it has 13 Co-sponsors, all republicans and no democrats. https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/2359/cosponsors https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/2359...
- ensignavenger 9y ago
  A less weaselly way to say it would have been to say " Rep. Loudermilk, Barry [R-GA] along with 13 republican co-sponsers proposed ..." and then linked to the list of who they are, like you did. Further, this was filed long before the breech, yet the piece tries to say that these representatives were doing it "despite" the breech was made public. Some of those listed may still be backing this, and it was (likely, I haven't read it myself) terrible legislation to begin with, but based on the evidence available, it is stretching to make the claims that the opinion piece does about them doing it "even as" the fallout from the breech is settling. While I am glad they are covering the proposed legislation and bringing it to the publics attention, the piece is worded in a very weasely way.
  - TFortunato 9y ago
    I'll give you the point about the way it was worded w.r.t. when the breach was announced. On that though, I did want to point out that if you look at the list of co-sponsors, the last person to sponsor it was Rep Williams of Texas, ON 9/7/17, the day Equifax announced the breach, which is probably just really bad timing that day on his / his staff's part, but also looks LOOKS really terrible, regardless of the actual reason behind it.

pjc50 9y ago

That's not a weasel word, that's literally a party descriptor. The 2 republicans are the sponsors of the bill. While it's possible that it's not widely supported by the party, there's at least four names on it which are mentioned in the text, all of which appear to be R. https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/2359/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/2359... Including terrorist supporter Pete King. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/04/AR2011030406635.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03... Incidentally, it was introduced before the Equifax disaster ...

eutropia 9y ago
It was introduced in May -- Equifax was breached at least as far back as March. Given that C-level executives made substantially beneficial trades 'without knowledge' of the breach, I wonder how far back this goes. Especially because their original story had the date of breach happening after this bill was introduced. /tinfoilhat

TFortunato 9y ago

Sure they aren't all the same, but I guess I would ask what's your threshold on whether using the party name is weasel-y? Because it has 13 Co-sponsors, all republicans and no democrats. https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/2359/cosponsors https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/2359...

ensignavenger 9y ago
A less weaselly way to say it would have been to say " Rep. Loudermilk, Barry [R-GA] along with 13 republican co-sponsers proposed ..." and then linked to the list of who they are, like you did. Further, this was filed long before the breech, yet the piece tries to say that these representatives were doing it "despite" the breech was made public. Some of those listed may still be backing this, and it was (likely, I haven't read it myself) terrible legislation to begin with, but based on the evidence available, it is stretching to make the claims that the opinion piece does about them doing it "even as" the fallout from the breech is settling. While I am glad they are covering the proposed legislation and bringing it to the publics attention, the piece is worded in a very weasely way.
- TFortunato 9y ago
  I'll give you the point about the way it was worded w.r.t. when the breach was announced. On that though, I did want to point out that if you look at the list of co-sponsors, the last person to sponsor it was Rep Williams of Texas, ON 9/7/17, the day Equifax announced the breach, which is probably just really bad timing that day on his / his staff's part, but also looks LOOKS really terrible, regardless of the actual reason behind it.