Tom Price, head of the Department of Health and Human Services, and Kellyanne Conway, who does whatever it is Kellyanne Conways do, were having an excellent road trip! Sure, everywhere they went there were vulgar protesters staging "die-ins" about losing their socialist healthcare handouts. But freedom demands sacrifice, doggone it! So the dynamic duo pitched the trip as a "listening tour" to get information from "stakeholders" about the opioid crisis.
AHCA causes stir at WV Capitol; Manchin, Capito weigh in -- from @jake_zuckerman https: //t.co/ZoXgStWUIz
— Gazette-Mail (@wvgazettemail) May 10, 2017
Just a small, preselected audience, a quick photo op, a nice speech about how much better it would be if states got a tiny block grant for Medicaid rather than some big, bossy reimbursement, then on to the next town! It was all going swimmingly until Tuesday in West Virginia when the Statehouse goons went and arrested that reporter.
Capitol Police have removed a protestor asking HHS Secretary Price ?s on preexisting conditions under AHCA pic.twitter.com/OTov1Wmkbr
— Jake Zuckerman (@jake_zuckerman) May 9, 2017
Sure, no one likes having a phone shoved in her face while someone shouts questions about domestic violence becoming a pre-existing condition for health insurance. But Kellyanne and Tommy never needed any help ignoring women's health issues before! And they sure didn't need some nitwit Sergeant getting an unknown reporter from Public News Service whatever that is into the Washington Post ! It is hard enough to get states to embrace the benefits of kicking 50,000 people off Medicaid without the ACLU on your back to boot.
#DanHeyman ’s arrest is a blatant attempt to chill an independent, free press. Read why it matters: https: //t.co/jCDxnDza5i
— ACLU of WV (@ACLU_WV) May 10, 2017
The government works for us, not the other way around. We stand with the @ACLU_WV , Dan Heyman, and reporters nationwide. pic.twitter.com/MdmTUNDZAc
— ACLU National (@ACLU) May 10, 2017
And that charging document! It's been a while since Kellyanne graduated from law school, but even she knows that this foolishness will blow up in her face.
On 5-9-17 while providing security for the Special Counsel to the President of the US, Kellyanne Conway and Secretary Price of Federal Health and Human Services the abovedefendant was aggressively breaching the secret service agentsto the point where the agents were forced to remove him a couple of times from the area walking up the hallway in the main building of the Capitol. The defendant wascausing a disturbance by yelling questionsat Ms. Conway and Secretary Price.This Officer and Sgt. Bennett were able to detain the defendant before he tried aggressively to breach the security of the Secret Service.
Update: Man arrested at Capitol was a journalist with Public News Service, not protestor. Criminal Complaint below. pic.twitter.com/Hv6uyNV3ai
— Jake Zuckerman (@jake_zuckerman) May 9, 2017
What kind of backwater nonsense is "aggressive breach" of a secret service agent? First you say he did breach, and then two sentences later you say you were able to detain the guy before he breached? And before he "tried" aggressively to breach? Are they pre-cogs? Kellyanne gets enough of this waffling at the White House, Mister. She doesn't give a darn what you do next week. But while she's here, can you at least pretend to care about the First Amendment? Now Kellyanne will have to spend an hour explaining to that know-it-all orthopedist how to appear supportive of the cops without explicitly endorsing their bogus arrest.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price on Wednesday commended police in West Virginia for “doing what they thought was appropriate” in arresting a journalist who shouted questions at him, but added that it wasn’t his call to say whether they took the proper measures.
Price said the reporter confronted him while he was walking down a hallway. “That gentleman was not in a press conference,” he said.
My new sounds: PNS Journalist Dan Heyman Arrest https: //t.co/IIPT9krSvBon #SoundCloud
— Public News Service (@PNS_News) May 10, 2017
And what the heck is "Willful Disruption of Government Process" anyway? The entire purpose of a "listening tour" is to avoid any government process! Kellyanne has been in this business a long, long time, and she is not going to get caught on the record talking about drug addiction when some Democrat holdover leaked that memo to Politico showing Donald Trump cutting funding for the Office of National Drug Control Policy from $388 million to $24 million.
West Virginia has 19 counties designated as High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA), and Her boss is about to zero out the funding for HIDTAs. Do you think Kellyane was trying to draw attention to this visit? Do you think she's some kind of amateur? Kellyanne is a PROFESSIONAL, darnit! She brings you all this independence from federal funding, and how do you cretins thank her? By taking a big poopie on her efforts to stay under the radar. Now even NBC has the story! Thanks a lot, West Virginia!
But police accounts of the arrest differ from [reporter Dan] Heyman's own recollection and that of witnesses, who are calling it a disturbing breach of First Amendment rights.
For Heyman — who said he was wearing a press pass and clearly "behaving like a reporter" — the officers' actions prevented him from doing his job.
After Price entered the building and began walking down a hallway, Heyman said he approached the secretary and asked a question three or four times about whether domestic abuse is considered a pre-existing condition under the recently passed Republican health care bill. According to his account, he did not approach Conway.
Price did not respond and, moments later, Heyman was being arrested.
"I have to wonder if it's really the job of the Secret Service to protect government officials from uncomfortable questions," Heyman said on a call with reporters Wednesday afternoon. "I was never attempting to breach through anything. I was just trying to get a recording."
You all should just be glad that Kellyanne's boss is absorbing all the media attention this week by provoking a Constitutional crisis. Otherwise, people might actually be paying attention to this story. Yet another reason West Virginia should be grateful that Donald Trump is our president!
[ WaPo / Boston Globe / Politico / West Virginia Gazette Mail / The Daily Dot / NBC ]
We are just inspired by Kellyanne's mastery of public relations! Please help us to become more like her by contributing to the Hairspray and False Eyelash Fund !
As the Buddhists say, if you focus too much on the destination you can't enjoy the trip.
Yeah. It's odd how these Dolt supporters are all "takers".