In more dispiriting news, it's now a crime to hurl questions at Health and Human Services Sec. Tom Price about his health care bill. Doug Stanglin of USA Today writes:
A veteran West Virginia reporter has been arrested and charged with "disruption of government services" in the state capitol for "yelling questions" at visiting Health and Human Services secretary Tom Price and White House senior advisor Kellyanne Conway.
Daniel Ralph Heyman, 54, with the Public News Service of West Virginia, was freed on $5,000 bond Tuesday night on a charge of "willful disruption of government processes," according to a criminal complaint. [...]
“This is my job, this is what I’m supposed to do,” he said. “I think it’s a question that deserves to be answered. I think it’s my job to ask questions and I think it’s my job to try to get answers.”
Heyman could be fined $100 and jailed for six months for doing his job. This is what reporters do—they ask questions. And when people don't answer, they ask again, often persistently. And sometimes, they manage to elicit an answer; and other times, the mere fact that a public servant won’t answer those questions is telling enough to the public.
Thirty percent of West Virginia families are on Medicaid, the very program that Trumpcare guts. Few states have more to lose as a result of the GOP's healthcare repeal effort than West Virginia, and those voters—Trump voters—deserve answers. The fact that a reporter was arrested for trying to get those answers from a public servant in Trump's administration does an appalling disservice to West Virginia voters.