As John Peter Zenger once said to Thomas Paine, what the fck is going on here?

From The Washington Post:

Heyman, a journalist with Public News Service, repeatedly asked the secretary whether domestic violence would be considered a preexisting condition under the Republican bill to overhaul the nation's health care system, he said. "He didn't say anything," Heyman said later in a news conference. "So I persisted." Then, an officer in the capitol pulled him aside, handcuffed him and arrested him. Heyman was jailed on the charge of willful disruption of state government processes and was released later on $5,000 bail.

Apparently, it is now illegal in some quarters for reporters to ask questions more than once in the presence of Cabinet members. The criminal charges are both chilling and hilarious.

Then, an officer in the capitol pulled him aside, handcuffed him and arrested him. Heyman was jailed on the charge of willful disruption of state government processes and was released later on $5,000 bail.

How it is a disruption of state government to ask questions of a couple of federal job-holders as they pass by is best left to more West Virginian minds than mine. What I do know is that the parameters on when and where and why you can bust a reporter are widening and it's all trickling down from Washington.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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