A post-election shot across the bow of the First Amendment.
Kellyanne Conway:
“I find Harry Reid’s public comments and insults about Donald Trump and other Republicans to be beyond the pale. . . . And he should be very careful about characterizing somebody in a legal sense. He thinks — he thinks he’s just being some kind of political pundit there, but I would say be very careful about the way you characterize it.” [boldface added for emphasis]
Throughout the campaign, Trump claimed Hillary should be in jail, that if he were elected, he would appoint a special prosecutor to go after “crooked Hillary.” Gleeful crowds responded, “Lock her up! Lock her up!” Trump called the women who accused him of sexual assault liars and threatened to sue them. His antagonism toward the media led him to say he would “open up our libel laws” so the press could be sued for what is now legally protected speech. But all that was before the election, when Trump was only a candidate. It was just idle talk—vicious, dangerous, but idle talk.
The election is over, and Trump is president-elect. Nothing he or his closest advisors says is idle talk anymore. Kellyanne Conway made the statement above five days after the election, so it means something. It was Conway letting everyone know that outgoing Senate minority leader Harry Reid better be damn careful about the way he criticizes Trump, or else. Of course, she wasn’t just addressing her comment to Reid. She was telling everyone who was listening, politician, pundit or private citizen, to watch what they say about Trump, or his administration just might come after them with the full force of the U.S. government.
Conway made the statement on Chris Wallace’s Fox News Sunday. One of Wallace’s strengths is that he actually listens to the people he’s interviewing instead of waiting for them to finish so he can ask his next prepared question. On hearing Conway issue a legal threat to Reid, instead of letting her move on as she wanted to so she could leave the threat hanging as a frightening possibility, Wallace interrupted her. “But wait, wait, wait. Are you—?” Conway tried once again to move on, but Wallace wouldn’t let her. “Are you suggesting,” he asked, “when you say in a legal sense, are you suggesting that Donald Trump might sue Harry Reid?”
The threat of lawsuits against people who cross him has been one of Trump’s go-to bullying tactics throughout his business career, and he continued to employ it on the campaign trail. Conway was making sure everyone understood, that won’t change once Trump is president. But Conway, an expert at the quick pivot, lied and denied that was her intent. “No, I’m not suggesting that at all,” she replied to Wallace’s question and moved on. Of course she was suggesting Trump might sue Reid or anyone else who gets in their way. She just didn’t want to confirm that’s what she said. Not yet anyway.
Using the law to censor dissent is a technique employed by dictators world wide. Will Trump use his presidential power to come after people who challenge him? We don’t know yet. But almost as dangerous as government-imposed censorship is self censorship, where people feel they have to be careful about what they say, because who knows what will happen if the president doesn’t approve?
This article appears in Nov 10-16, 2016.
“Using the law to censor dissent is a technique employed by dictators world wide.”
You mean like using the IRS against Tea Party?
You mean like calling anyone in the opposition racists, bigots and all the other ‘ism’s’ liberals use?
In re Hillary and Jail time. Sad fact is that if some GS 12 or a enlisted soldier had failed to safeguard classified information, he or she would get an Article 15 or some other punishment. Apparently the elite can fail to follow federal regulations without regard to consequence. I am not a Trump supporter, just a guy who worked with classified info for years and understands that you must protect such information from disclosure.
David, this is so embarrassing to watch you do. But please keep it up, because you are sending the “normal” democrats over the edge.
It looks as though you did not include Harry Reid’s comments, of which there have been many. Or the response that Kelly Anne Conway gave when she was pressed about her statement.
Pressed by Wallace on whether she was saying that Trump might sue Reid over his comments, Conway responded, No, Im not suggesting that at all, but that she was expecting responsibility and maturity and decency from Reid regarding the elections aftermath.
You have painted a picture with rumors and innuendo. Is it any wonder that the media has become public enemy #1?
Kelly Anne expected way too much out of Harry Reid. The rest of us don’t.
Or maybe they knew exactly what they were dealing with:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goEGcMEEMPw
I can only hope that once the loss sinks in the lying will stop. It’s only fair that our first orange president be given an equal opportunity to succeed. If he does, we all do.
US VET,
I know what you mean, but HRC has been doing this stuff for years. Remember her “Blue Ribbon” healthcare panel that she tried to run right after Bill Clinton was elected the first time? Her elitist attitude has been at the forefront for most of her career, from Benghazi to the private email server mess, yet she has the gall to fault the FBI director for losing the election.
The Democrats lost the election when they nominated HRC over the only candidate that their own people said had a chance against Trump – Bernie Sanders; however, thanks once again to HRC’s hubris and her BFF Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Sanders never stood a chance.
Instead of scapegoating, which is a favorite tactic of the president elect, the DNC needs to seriously re-examine who they are serving – the people, the party or themselves. As for the 2016 presidential election, the people came in a distant third.
Good Morning, What, Again.
I am intrigued by your comment: “You mean like using the IRS against Tea Party?”
This is news to me.
Do you have a link?
I’d really like to read more about it.
riorican – here you go – it’s still going on
IRS refuses to abandon targeting criteria used against tea party, conservative groups
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/sep/7/irs-refuses-to-abandon-targeting-criteria-used-aga/
The IRS is refusing to recant the targeting criteria it used to single out tea party groups for intrusive scrutiny, according to court filings made public Wednesday that show the tax agency still struggling with the fallout from the scandal.
Harry Reid should practice what he preaches!
SG Smith, that is exactly right.
And Democratic-party-machine commenters like Safier will be coasting for who knows how long now on easy Trump-bashing pieces, ignoring the conspicuous failures of representatives of the “Democratic” party to manage public institutions competently (and in a truly democratic, transparent fashion) in Southern Arizona.
“THREAT watch,” indeed. Those who are paying attention see a lot of threats to the interests of average citizens closer to home — and many of them in the area of how our local public educational institutions are being (mis-)managed — but we will never get proper coverage of these issues from “education blogger” David Safier.
More’s the pity.
Remember when Harry called Obama a “negro” and how about his Tokyo Rose impression during the Iraq war where he told America we should surrender… what a boost to troop morale that was! And this is the guy running the senate and we are paying his salary!
Speaking of the IRS… Harry thinks our income tax system is totally voluntary!
I don’t know about the rest of you but I’m not voluntarily paying my taxes… I’m simply paying them to stay out of prison!
Jump Safier Jump!!!!!!
Did somebody really just ask to hear about the IRS and denying 501c3 status to Tea party conservatives? What the hell have you been watching NBC News?
They held Congressional hearings for weeks. Lois Lerner deleted all her emails. (Sound familiar?)
UPDATE, Wednesday, May 15: On Wednesday evening, President Obama announced that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew accepted the resignation of Internal Revenue Service acting commissioner Steven Miller after Lew requested that he step down.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/05/irs-tea-party-scandal-congress-nonprofit-obama
Mr Safier surely wrote an article about that in regards to shutting up peoples right to speak out. He must have also penned an article when Loretta Lynch threatened to JAIL global warming deniers.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/03/10/us-attorney-general-we-may-prosecute-climate-change-deniers/
An 8th grader could have out researched him if he wanted to try for any objectivity. But his goal seems to be based on a continuation of threats that have been heralded by the liberal left.
Try not truth.
David, you would do much better to read the Bannon interview in the Hollywood reporter. You can give up your watch. This is exactly what’s going to happen. The Bernie supporters will realize they never needed socialism. And the Democrats? Well, they are dead to me.
“Bannon, arguably, is one of the people most at the battle line of the great American divide and one of the people to have most clearly seen it.
He absolutely mockingly rejects the idea that this is a racial line. “I’m not a white nationalist, I’m a nationalist. I’m an economic nationalist,” he tells me. “The globalists gutted the American working class and created a middle class in Asia. The issue now is about Americans looking to not get fed over. If we deliver” by “we” he means the Trump White House “we’ll get 60 percent of the white vote, and 40 percent of the black and Hispanic vote and we’ll govern for 50 years. That’s what the Democrats missed. They were talking to these people with companies with a $9 billion market cap employing nine people. It’s not reality. They lost sight of what the world is about.”
If you are that pro American, wouldn’t you admit that blacks and hispanics would benefit? In fact all races would, not just the ones you try to control. They can become the masters of their own destiny.
God bless the USA!
Sorry. The IRS targets the right wing sites was a scam orchestrated by Darrel Issa. … .. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archiv…
Don’t embarrass yourself. 21 hours ago in Cincinnati.
A federal judge ruled this month in a lawsuit in the ongoing IRS tea party saga that there was “a strong showing” that the agency had discriminated against conservative groups because of their political stances.
And U.S. District Court Judge Michael R. Barrett wrote in a decision that a particular group suing the IRS “has made a strong showing of a likelihood of success” on its claim that its free speech rights were violated by the delay in processing the application.
He ordered the IRS to continue processing the application from the group, called the Texas Patriots Tea Party, even as the IRS fights the Patriots’ lawsuit.
http://www.cincinnati.com/news/
Eric Holder denied running guns which most now know was Fast and Furious, another Obama failure that got Agent Terry killed.
Hyperbolic trolls are still on the loose, and they are trying to take over your house, Tucson Weekly. Ok, we can/must all give Trump a chance (more than he gave opponents in both primaries and general), but let’s never be afraid to show some smarts as he deals with crises – and there will be many because there always will be crises. He cannot delegate responsibility to others for everything forever, and he is bailing already on his own hyperbole. Jobs? Wall? Drain the swamp? How?