Jake Tapper: you need to worry about the administration’s attacks on reporters.

Interesting clip here (H/T: Instapundit) from Next Generation TV: the first segment is the one of interest for this post.  It’s essentially about Jake Tapper’s not-very-veiled warning that certain people on the Left need to start taking seriously the administration’s precedent-setting harassment of reporters before the next administration comes in and really goes to town.

Which they will, if the people who are theoretically supposed to be checks on the naked ambition of this administration don’t wise up and start cleaning house.  I cannot stress enough just how insulting it is to be told, cavalierly, that groups like the the IRS and the DoJ can operate with partisan impunity.  Well, guess what? …They actually can’t; and our government bureaucracies, collectively, have been just a little too openly Democrat-friendly for just a little too long.  I can guarantee that using half of it to fire the other half can be done in such a way as to be wildly popular with the populace, particularly when the dirty laundry gets aired.  And there’s always dirty laundry…

Moe Lane

PS: No, the American people will not miss all those government agencies, once they’re gone.  No, those agencies are not the only thing keeping us from total societal ruin (although I’m not a hard-shell libertarian: we need to keep some of them around).  No, I do not have to be sympathetic to the ostensible plight of mid-level bureaucrats who make more money than I ever did as an individual and who normally don’t have to worry about getting fired, to boot. And yes, things can actually be done.  If you can’t accept that last one then… you’re probably reading the wrong site.

12 thoughts on “Jake Tapper: you need to worry about the administration’s attacks on reporters.”

  1. IMO targeting of American Citizens by the US government for their political ideology should be a federal crime punishable by 10 years in federal prison per each time it is done. Send a couple of bureaucrats to the Supermax in Colorado and they’ll squeal on their political masters and knock that crap off in the future.

    1. It already is: 18 USC § 241 – Conspiracy against rights.

      “If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States… They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both…”

      I think “18 USC § 242 – Deprivation of rights under color of law” would also apply, as the IRS thugs kept putting that boiler plate about perjury on their inquisition documents. That would add another year to the sentence.

          1. Naah, hang them they can’t squeal each other out – the Supermax in Colorado is scary enough..

          2. I’ve heard there are some wonderfully scary old maximum security prisons in northern Michigan … Since Rura Penthe appears to be unavailable, they’d do…
            .
            Mew

  2. Republicans should just come out and say, that if Partisan Targeting is to be acceptable behavior the next time a GOPier is President we will use the IRS to audit and harass progressive groups ( and they should be specific, Media Matters, ThinkProgress, Daily Kos, Daily Beast, SEIU, etc.) And they should announce their intent to wiretap reporters ( WaPo, NYT, Boston Globe, Huff Po, etc.) That should make the Media and Democrats start sweating.

    1. You prepared to include each and every single black church in Chicago that’s ever lent its’ pulpit to a candidate for office, midwest?
      .
      Mew

    2. I think we ought to give this little thingy called the Constitution a whirl and jail anybody looking to deprive Americans of their rights whether they be Republicans or Democrats (but we all know they’ll be Democrats).

  3. One can make a logical case that the form of government set up by the Constitution is in fact a contract, setting limits on the conduct of all in the operation of that government. If one side unilaterally voids all those limits to seize and hold power, is not the contract itself void? Especially since if the voiding party loses power somehow, whoever takes over would be unable to appropriately punish and deter further such violations if the contract remains binding only on the successor.

    Therefore, once the contract is broken, it is gone. And anyone may use the same or more extreme means against the original violator(s), singly or collectively. We return to a political state of nature.

    The only way out of that would be the assent to a new contract;

    That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

    .

    If the current Constitution and governmental system prove ineffective in preventing one-party tyranny; after condign punishment of those who first destroyed the old order, a new convention and ratification will be needed.

    Subotai Bahadur

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