Piers Morgan
CNN.com
5/17/2013
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On Thursday evening, Piers Morgan debuted a brand new segment entitled “The BullPenn,” during which he invited American illusionist, comedian, and author Penn Jillette to share his candid commentary on some of the polarizing issues dominating the news cycle.
“This is one of those things that just breaks my heart,” confessed Jillette, referring to recent revelations that the IRS had targeted various conservative groups. “I have a lot of friends in the small government movement, the Tea Party movement, you know, that I don’t necessarily agree with on everything. When they say stuff like the IRS is targeting them, I want to be able to dismiss them. I want to be able to say, you’re just being nuts. You’re being paranoid. This is tinfoil hat stuff. I never want them proven right.”
Nodding with approval, Morgan took the topic one step further, agreeing in part with some of his previous guests suggestion that a government takeover isn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility:
“I’ve had some of the pro-gun lobbyists on here saying to me, ‘well, the reason we need to be armed is because of tyranny from our own government.’ And I’ve always laughed at them. And I’ve always said, ‘don’t be so ridiculous. Your own government won’t turn itself on you.’ But, actually, when you look at this — it’s nothing to do with guns. But actually, this is vaguely tyrannical behavior by the American government. I think what the IRS did is bordering on tyrannical behavior. I think what the Department of Justice has done, actually, to the AP is bordering on tyrannical behavior.”
Joining the host for a live, face to face interview, the 58-year-old noted Atheist concurred:
“This’s no doubt about that,” said the man who comprises 50 percent of the famed magical team Penn & Teller. “I also think that it shows you how much we can trust the government and just sit back, which is not very much at all. We have to be ever vigilant.”
H/T WorldNetDaily
Related: Why Obama Released Embarrassing IRS Bombshell Rep. Michele Bachmann has a possible answer.
Also, by Mark Steyn, The Autocrat Accountants Once government is ensnared in every aspect of life, a bureaucracy grows increasingly capricious.
Speaking at Ohio State University earlier this month, Barack Obama urged students to pay no attention to those paranoid types who “incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity.” Oddly enough, in recent days the most compelling testimony for this view of government has come from the president himself, who insists with a straight face that he had no idea that the Internal Revenue Service had spent two years targeting his political enemies until he “learned about it from the same news reports that I think most people learned about this.” Like you, all he knows is what he reads in the papers. Which is odd, because his Justice Department is bugging those same papers, so you’d think he’d at least get a bit of a heads-up…
Update: Was the IRS used as a weapon against Glenn Beck?
…In 2010, Glenn told listeners, “Last year I was audited. I owed exactly zero to the IRS. I overpay my taxes. I have for years because when in doubt, give it to them. I don’t want to hear from IRS agents. But I heard from them. Wonder if I’ll hear from them again. Wouldn’t that be a weird coincidence? By the way, Pat, you were audited, weren’t you? Isn’t that a weird thing.”
Yes, Pat Gray was audited too. As did Editor-in-Chief for TheBlaze Scott Baker. Weird…
