The left-leaning news site Huffington Post was nothing but supportive of the Democratic occupation of the House floor this week, but HuffPo used to sing a different tune about terrorist watch lists.
In a 2014 article titled, “7 Ways That You (Yes, You) Could End Up On A Terrorist Watch List,” Nick Wing of the Huffington Post sounded like today’s Republicans when he decried how easy it is to find oneself on one of the lists.
But as Democrats sat on the floor and Republicans argued for due process, HuffPo seemingly forgot its previous disdain for terrorist watch lists, as the website praised the Democratic attempt to take away constitutional rights of those on them.
At one point on Thursday, the HuffPo homepage headline read, “Dems Give ’em Bloody Hell,” and HuffPo reporter Matt Fuller gushed that Democrats had “finally tried to do something about the gun bloodshed.”
Here are some of the ways to get on a watch list according HuffPo’s critical 2014 article:
- “You could be a little terrorist-ish, at least according to someone.”
- “You could just know someone terrorist-y, maybe.”
The bitingly sarcastic rhetoric from 2014 sounds more like the words coming out of Speaker Paul Ryan’s mouth this last week than current opinions of Huffpo. But like Hillary Clinton, the Huffington Post of 2016 seems to have some evolving viewpoints.
Ryan, along with other House Republicans, has consistently argued that removing Second Amendment rights from those on the lists is unconstitutional due to how flippantly people are added to or taken off the lists. Surely, the Republicans appreciate the Huffington Post making their argument for them, even prematurely.