Florida Congressman Wants Blogging Critic Fined, Jailed 549
vvaduva writes "Florida Rep. Alan Grayson wants to see one of his critics go directly to jail, all over her use of the word 'my' on her blog. In a four-page letter sent to [US Attorney General Eric] Holder, Grayson accuses blogger Angie Langley of lying to federal elections officials and requests that she be fined and imprisoned for five years. Her lie, according to Grayson, is that she claims to be one of his constituents. Langley, Grayson says, is misrepresenting herself by using the term 'my' in the Web site's name."
While Grayson can be entertaining (Score:4, Interesting)
He can also be a jackass. Jail for a website?
If only congress had people like him who were standing up on the right side of the issues. This and other comments (health care == Holocaust??) show he's a nut.
*sarcasm* Thanks Florida.
Grayson should be impeached (Score:1, Interesting)
Also, she should sue him for civil rights violations; specifically, her first amendment rights. This man has no place in government (TFA didn't say if he's a federal congresscritter or a state guy)
He apologized in October for calling a female adviser to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke a "whore."
She should sue for slander. Get this guy out of government and into the poorhouse!
MySpace? (Score:2, Interesting)
So if she can go to jail for using that particular name on a site, can I go to jail for having a MySpace page? What about MyYahoo? MyWay?
Re:The question, really, is this: (Score:5, Interesting)
Besides, the domain name makes sense from a different context: the viewer's. When a viewer in his district goes there, it would be ostensibly be *their* congressman. It's like "MyFreeCreditReport.com" or "MyCorporation.com" or whatever. They're not claiming ownership -- they're offering service for the viewer, with a name relative to the viewer.
Should we sue Intuit because they're claiming ownership of corporations created at mycorporation.com?
Re:I call bullshit (Score:4, Interesting)
Why? Should anything the New York Times reports on a Republican also be assumed to be false? Don't be so intellectually lazy.
New York Times != Democratic equivalent of Fox News.
MSNBC might be a bit closer, but then again I can't think of who their equivalent of Glenn Beck is.
Thanks for the clarification. . . (Score:4, Interesting)
Now I remember why I almost never read/watch Fox news. I was scratching my head wondering what the connection is between a domain name, and lieing to the Federal Elections Commission. Last time I checked, a DNS registration is not submitted to the FEC.
Reading that statement, I knew there had to be more to this story, but good luck getting it from Fox News. They must really think everyone is stupid (or maybe they just *don't* care about non-stupid people - we aren't in their demographic, I guess).
Re:Joke (Score:5, Interesting)
Grayson [wikipedia.org] is a joke. Ignore him and maybe he'll go away.
I've tried to ignore him, yet it's difficult when you actually live in central FL and you hear about him in the news on a weekly basis. I'm not even a republican, yet I cringe every time I hear him being interviewed- he's got an enormous ego and an even bigger mouth. He's the most annoying kind of politician- one who believes he's a populist yet no one actually likes him. Out of all of the reasonable people that democrats had running in the 2008 election for my district, we somehow ended up with a guy who can't debate without personally insulting people, refers to those who disagree with the current healthcare legislation "murderers", called a woman a "whore" on national television, etc... there's nothing professional about him. No surprise that he's trying to get some blog critical of him shut down.
Alan Grayson like a liberal Jack Thompson, only he still has power. He's a disgrace to my district, and frankly, I'm embarrassed that my neighbors in central FL were either stupid or ill-informed enough to elect him.
Yes, I said MY district.
Come get me, Mr. Grayson.
Re:Clear Submission Bias (Score:4, Interesting)
Way to engage in ad hominem rather than address the point -- you know, the screen capture of Fox identifying Sanford as a democrat, or the side by side video clips proving footage was used out of turn.
Re:I call bullshit (Score:3, Interesting)
BTW - for the 323,325 commenters - yes democrats have their own media sources - CNN. CNN went from the really good news start up, to a liberal news group, to the liberal insanity group (and I'm a democrat). It's gotten to the point that watching CNN makes me want to puke, though in all honesty watching Fox News makes me puke...
Re:Her Constituent Status Is Only Part of It (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Oh, the irony (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, in theory she's raising money against one candidate. That money could be going to any number of politicians who are opposed to that candidate's policies. I believe that the PAC laws are written in terms of how many candidates you support, rather than how many candidates you are against. It's possible that she may still have a problem if all the money raised went directly to a single opposing candidate; but that isn't necessarily the case.
Re:Her Constituent Status Is Only Part of It (Score:1, Interesting)
We have the money to pay for it. We can print it.
Banks create money using the fractional reserve system. This process is not subject to the public srutiny or transparency required when the govt does it. So we don't really know that banks are creating money all the time, but when the govt does it, it is made into a big thing that we should all be afraid of!
In conclusion, we can afford to provide a minimum standard of living to every citizen. As Dick Cheney said, Reagan proved deficits don't matter [washingtonpost.com]!
Re:Her Constituent Status Is Only Part of It (Score:5, Interesting)
My guess would be that she spent most of her career in a government pension fund instead of contributing to SS so had very few SS credits having contributed to it only for a few quarters.
(Isn't it odd that one of the few groups that gets to opt out of SS are some government workers - while almost every other worker and their employer is forced to stay in SS? Goose, Gander comes to mind for some reason...)
Re:Her Constituent Status Is Only Part of It (Score:5, Interesting)
Part of Obama's appeal was that he tried to take the high road.
Sorry, I just threw up a little in my mouth. How exactly did Obama take the "high road"? His whole campaign was straight out of Reagan's (very successful) 1984 playbook. "Change we can believe in" == "It's morning in America." He gave people warm fuzzies, so when they saw his big, charismatic grin, they remembered the warm fuzzies. Rhetoric was not just part of Obama's campaign. Rhetoric was his entire campaign. The guy was elected because he is an outstanding orator. It's not because people knew or particularly cared about his policy plans. In fact, now that he's in office with huge Democratic majorities, people seem to be genuinely baffled at the "change" they voted for. They thought "change" meant "a pretty new face."
Re:Give specifics (Score:1, Interesting)
Any example you can give of Republican malfeasance can easily be matched by a similar Democratic one.
During the 2000 election recount, the Republicans hired demonstrators to physically stop the recount. I can't think of a single thing in recent memory that the Democrats have done that approaches that level of sliminess.
Re:Her Constituent Status Is Only Part of It (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't forget term limits. Why should the Pres be limited to two terms, but Congress-people get to make a life-time "career" out of it?
Re:Her Constituent Status Is Only Part of It (Score:2, Interesting)
"Let me invest that tax money the way I see fit in my 401k and I guarantee you I will do better than the SS program will do for me."
I just don't get such statements. How old are you, 65? Me, I have about 40 years until retirement. You think you know which investements will pay off in 40 years? I certainly don't; I couldn't have told you 40 years ago if you asked me, and the world is changing faster (and there is more uncertainty in other ways) today. Looking at the "best" fund managers, the ones that did best one year will be all over the map in the next. Even short term, there's just too many uncertainties.
And in 40 years? So much can change in 40 years, I don't like thinking about it. Them raising the retirement age is the least of my worries.
Re:Her Constituent Status Is Only Part of It (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, if he didn't take it as literal, the meaning implies that there aren't MANY black Republicans. And the ability to name a few prominent ones does little to prove that to be false.
And of course the fact that most blacks aren't Republican pretty much has jack to do with shit.