Florida Congressman Wants Blogging Critic Fined, Jailed

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."

Comments

Re:The question, really, is this:

[CrazedWalrus]

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:Joke

[Cornelius the Great]

Grayson 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:Her Constituent Status Is Only Part of It

[Locke2005]

Yes, both sides use the same tricks. But the "playing on their fears" technique is something that was really perfected by Nixon's campaign staffers and some (not all) Republicans take this tactic to ridiculous extremes (e.g. "Joe the Plumber"). Part of Obama's appeal was that he tried to take the high road. But rhetoric is a part of every campaign, and Obama himself is gifted at it.

Re:Her Constituent Status Is Only Part of It

[uncqual]

And, perhaps you should explain why she only gets $76/mo from SS?

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

[Zordak]

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."