Lawmaker's Facebook Rant Threatens Media For "Unauthorized" Use of His Name

An anonymous reader points out that Frederick County Councilman Kirby Delauter may be in need of a First Amendment lesson. "Apparently, a local Maryland politician ditched his civics class the day press freedoms were discussed. How else to explain Frederick County Councilman Kirby Delauter's recent Facebook rant in which he threatened a local newspaper with litigation because—wait for it—his name was used in print without his permission. 'Use my name again unauthorized and you'll be paying for an Attorney. Your rights stop where mine start,' Kirby Delauter, the councilman, posted on his Facebook page. He added: 'So let me be clear.........do not contact me and do not use my name or reference me in an authorized form in the future.'"

Comments

Delauter Effect

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't catch his name. What was it again?

Re:Delauter Effect

[CozmicCharlie]

I didn't catch his name. What was it again?

That would be Frederick County Councilman Kirby Delauter.

Re:Delauter Effect

[Dragonslicer]

I didn't catch his name. What was it again?

That would be Frederick County Councilman Kirby Delauter.

Are you certain that it's Frederick County Councilman Kirby Delauter?

Re:Delauter Effect

[by (1706743)]

Wait...is that the same Frederick County Councilman Kirby Delauter as this Kirby Delauter?

Dear Kirby Delauter,

[Archangel Michael]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

That is all

Re:Dear Kirby Delauter,

[thornmaker]

The newspaper-in-question's response is a great read (note the first letter of each paragraph too): http://www.fredericknewspost.c...

Re:Dear Kirby Delauter,

[bleh-of-the-huns]

Easter egg.. sorta...

Look at the first letter of each paragraph :)

Re:Dear Kirby Delauter,

[bleh-of-the-huns]

Reading comprehension fail... I completely missed what you had in parenthesis...

I will take my beatings

Frederick County Councilman Kirby Delauter

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

This guy Frederick County Councilman Kirby Delauter does not seem to understand the basic first amendment. How else can we explain Frederick County Councilman Kirby Delauter threatening to sue a newspaper for calling him Frederick County Councilman Kirby Delauter? He is Frederick County Councilman Kirby Delauter right? How else can the newspaper refer to Frederick County Councilman Kirby Delauter?

BTW Frederick County Councilman Kirby Delauter is prohibited from using my name without my express written consent. If he wants to sue me, Frederick County Councilman Kirby Delauter has to first contact me and get my permission to use my name to file the suit is a court. How about that Frederick County Councilman Kirby Delauter, he should follow what he preaches, right? By "he' I mean Frederick County Councilman Kirby Delauter.

Re: Frederick County Councilman Kirby Delauter

[Anubis IV]

The newspaper in question beat you to the punch. They published an editorial over the whole ordeal, appropriately titled, "Kirby Delauter, Kirby Delauter, Kirby Delauter". The first letter of each paragraph in the editorial can even be put together to spell out his name.

Re: Frederick County Councilman Kirby Delauter

[Krishnoid]

How else can we explain Frederick County Councilman Kirby Delauter threatening to sue a newspaper for calling him Frederick County Councilman Kirby Delauter?

You're right -- he's pretty much FCCKD however you describe it.

Re: Frederick County Councilman Kirby Delauter

[Anonymous Coward]

Also a resident here, echoing what you've said (Otis is president of the county "council" not commissioners).

Another item of detail I seem to recall, is at least one of those DRRA's - sweetheart giveaways to the suburban neighborhood developers - is being built on top of farmland which is part of a watershed where development is strongly discouraged due to pollution and runoff concerns for the Frederick City's watershed. The previous county commissioner administration showed a completely shameless lack of concern for environmental sustainability.

In addition, they voted "Maintenance of Effort" level funding, meaning the $$ never changed, for the Frederick County Public Schools all 4 years in office. No raises for the teachers, cut personnel to keep the lights on, etc.

From what I recall it was a party of "4 stooges" who ran together like a platform, and 1 dissenting (Republican) named David Gray who constantly challenged the others' votes but was obviously outnumbered. He ran against Blaine Young in the Republican primary for County Executive but lost. I guess you could consider him a more "old guard" style of republican.

The four "stooges" included Blaine Young, Kirby Delauter, Billy Shreve and Paul Smith. The lone dissenting voice was David Gray.

Later on around election time I saw an article from one of Kirby's daughters, Emily Delauter, on the FNP talking about how his father "highly values" education. Yeah, right. http://www.fredericknewspost.com/opinion/letter_to_editor/delauter-always-valued-education/article_8bb824ac-5512-538e-a4f7-cb171bde638f.html

And I was quite relieved when I found Jan Gardner [D] was voted in for County Executive. I can't fathom the nightmarish politics this county would face with 4 more years of Blaine and friends.

Re: Frederick County Councilman Kirby Delauter

[idontgno]

I hear that he almost certainly did not murder a hooker in Las Vegas in '02.

I mean, I can't be certain. I have no first-hand knowledge. But I'll certainly concede, and strongly support even, that Frederick County Councilman Kirby Delauter almost certainly never murdered a hooker in Las Vegas in 2002.

I'm virtually sure of it.

Quit printing my name!

[Anonymous Coward]

I already wrote saying not to print my name. Prepare for my lawyer's wrath. Posted as a Anonymous Coward for obvious reasons...

- Kirby

Public Figure Who Works in Government???

[Wild_dog!]

Perhaps he might think of a better way to spend his time if he thinks nobody should publish his name.
How are the people to know what government officials are doing/saying/thinking if a newspaper or anyone else can't attach a name to a piece about them?

Re:Where rights stop and start

[Vermonter]

I don't think he was incorrect that "their rights stopped where his started", I think he just doesn't realize where his rights actually start.

Obviously laughable, but ...

[ScentCone]

So the guy is an ill-informed twit, a product of a typical Maryland public education. That's fine, because he's just a typical local guy who got a few dozen more votes than the next guy, and got a job as a minor league politician on a local county council.

But the problem is that we're seeing this sort of attitude (manifesting itself a bit differently) from the very top of the nation's executive branch. Lip service to promised "transparency," but in practice, draconian limitations on non-spin-approved access by journalists and photographers, reporters (and their entire organizations) being tapped and harassed if they don't convey the right message. Politicians have always had their favorite media contacts, but the ever-receding notion that they work for us is resulting in newly toxic levels of entitlement-itis and a sort of vaguely imperial bearing. That some elected officials have flirted with that from day one of the republic is not news, but the founders anticipated that and built in checks and balances. And some of those have been sorely tested, of late.

It will be interesting to see how the Attkisson suit plays out.

Kirby Delauter

[roc97007]

To be a valid streisand effect, the name of this article should have been "Kirby Delauter's Facebook Rant Threatens Media For 'Unauthorized' Use of His Name". Just sayin'.

Huh?

[Charliemopps]

Why is some local county councilman being stupid news?
Do get elected to such a position you have to get what? About 100 people to vote for you? Even less depending on the county. lol

The funniest part was left out of the summary... the following day the papers lead article was titled:

"Kirby Delauter, Kirby Delauter, Kirby Delaute"

http://m.fredericknewspost.com...

Re:Huh?

[hymie!]

>Why is some local county councilman being stupid news?

Not sure if you're being rhetorical, but there's an answer.

In Maryland, the county is the primary local government. There is one "independent city" (Baltimore), and a small number of "incorporated cities" that have a limited amount of "home rule", primarily zoning.

States like New York and New Jersey, you have the State, the County, the Town, and the Village, all providing different levels of services and different levels of government.

In Maryland, you have the State and the County.

Re:Huh?

[afidel]

Yes, I assume they failed to register a vote in that section of the ballot. Heck, I've done that many times, including the elections for county executive because the Democratic candidates have been corrupt machine picks and the Republicans have been wackos. I also did that on most judicial candidates before a local collection of editors-in-chiefs and the bar association started a non-partial judicial candidate review site. I would argue that it's often our civic duty to do so either to show a dissatisfaction with the candidates proposed or due to a lack of information.

Republican (for the record)

[DumbSwede]

Most stories omit his party affiliation.
So pleased to see he is keeping up the (new) Republican tradition of being bat-shit insane.

Re:Republican (for the record)

[SCPRedMage]

Well, no true Republican.

Re:Republican (for the record)

[rtb61]

You are the problem with American politics. All of them, the pseudo religious, the pseudo left and pseudo conservatives, have the same thing in common. They jump into any organisation or group not for the goals of the group but to achieve their own personal goals and only exploit that group to achieve them. They are neither religious nor left nor conservative, they are self serving egoists. Until you focus on the individuals and their actual individual behaviour and drop the silly main stream media created party politics thing, you will achieve nothing.

The newspaper clearly has a sense of humor

[Registered Coward v2]

They ran an editorial about it:

he who shall be named repeatedly

Guess what

[Ol Olsoc]

party the good Kirby Delauter is from.......

Which brings me to....

When Kirby Delauter's name is outlawed, only outlaws will have Kirby Delauters name.

Irony

[Galaga88]

The real irony is that the article he's so upset about painted him as an emotionally unstable and clueless twit with a propensity for going on tirades and rants.

We need to Santorum him

[gurps_npc]

Something nice stupid to go with the name "Delauter".

I propose the act of eating vomit.

As in "Oh my god, that dog just Delautered!"

Or "Oh look, those baby birds are delautering, what caring mother bird."

Frederick County Councilman Kirby Delauter

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in Frederick Co. and these news outfits should really dig more deeply. There's a whole lot more to Kirby Delauter than just this one outburst. He's part of a group of disaffected commissioners angry at not getting his way when the county government moved from home rule to charter form.

As I recall, Kirby has also:
1. Ignored an Ethics commission ruling that barred his construction company from doing work for the county.
2. Violated MD's Open Meetings law (possibly on more than one occasion).
3. Voted for 25yr contracts for developers to give them land development rights without the developers putting any money into adequate roads, schools, etc. ...and more.. way way more..

His recent anger was sparked in part because in the previous form of county government, 3 top level republicans managed to have a solidified voting block for whatever they wanted. One of those 3 (Blaine Young) was voted out in the past election. Just prior to Blaine's departure Blaine resigned from his spot on the planning commission and then was placed back onto the planning commission by vote of the commissioners. This was thought to be something that couldn't be stopped; however, the MD AG stated that Blaine had not resigned his position as commissioner (only his position on the planning commission) as as such he couldn't be placed back onto the commission as he was ineligible. Since Blaine had close to 1M in developer dollars to (probably) pay back in favors, it's likely this angered the republican constituency very much.

When the form of government moved to the charter form, it was assumed by the republicans that Shreve would take the president spot but the democrats did something the republicans appeared to not expect, they voted for a much more moderate republican to be president of the county commissioners.

Angered by this slight to his long-time republican cohort (Shreve), Delauter has been rather angry of late.

Shreve and Delauter blame the FNP (Frederick News Post) for having a very liberal bias that cost Blaine his position and Shreve the presidency of the commission. As such, the outburst was primed to happen.

So yeah, welcome to our local politics. If our local sheriff weren't such an utter useless waste of skin then perhaps we'd get an investigation into possible wrongdoing with regards to violations of law but "Chuckles" is a worthless bag of skin that feels much more at home teaching his deputies how to choke to death mentally impaired people.

(That's a whole different story... another one in which it appears the prosecutor only provided evidence to a grand jury (evidence provided by the sheriff's office about sheriff's deputies) that was likely to exonerate deputies instead of any that was inculpatory as well.)

I like living here.. but in a lot of ways this county sucks. If I wasn't painfully aware that no place is perfect, I'd sell my house and move.

Urban Dictionary has been notified

[crawdaddy]

I wonder if his name will take hold the way Streisand's did...

delauter
"The act committed when one person threatens to sue another for using the first person's name without authorization.
  Delautering is the next level and more general form of scientologying, which is suing or threatening to sue for calling Scientology bogus."

Bethany Rodgers

[tentative]

I particularly like how he calls the reported out by name - presumably unauthorized...

Is it wrong of me...

[euroq]

Is it wrong that I guessed that this guy was a conservative, and I was right?

Re:Is it wrong of me...

[H0p313ss]

Is it wrong that I guessed that this guy was a conservative, and I was right?

No, but your sense of smug self-satisfaction is a bit off-putting.

1. Given how bat-shit-insane the American right has become you might want to get used to those to the left being a little smug. But I guess it does suck to have become the political punchline of the western world.

2. Never interrrupt the enemy when they're making a mistake.