Flashback: Dem. Rep. Alan Grayson wanted Eric Holder’s DOJ to jail critic for five years in 2009

Joe NewbyOctober 27, 2013

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Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., is engaged in a campaign to foment hate and violence against the Tea Party, going so far as to falsely accuse left wing MSNBC host Martin Bashir of collaborating with the Tea Party for daring to criticize his use of an image of a burning cross.

It turns out, however, that Grayson has had a problem with the First Amendment for quite some time. In 2009, for example, he actually wanted Eric Holder’s Justice Department to throw a critic in jail for five years for publicly criticizing him on the Internet.

In December 2009, Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey said Grayson went ballistic when someone outside his district started a website with the domain name mycongressmanisnuts.com. The domain no longer exists, but the story is worth recalling, because it speaks volumes about what kind of statist hatemonger Grayson really is.

Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?

Yes

The Orlando Sentinel reported at the time:

Not everyone thinks imitation is the best form of flattery.

In fact, U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson of Orlando took such offense at a parody website aimed at unseating him that the freshman Democrat has asked that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder investigate the Lake County activist who started the anti-Grayson website “mycongressmanisnuts.com.”

Specifically, Grayson accuses Republican activist Angie Langley of lying to federal elections. His four-page complaint highlights the fact that the Clermont resident lives outside his district, but that Langley still uses the term “my” in “mycongressmanisnuts.com.”

“Ms. Langley has deliberately masqueraded as a constituent of mine, in order to try to create the false appearance that she speaks for constituents who don’t support me,” writes Grayson. “[She] has chosen a name for her committee that is utterly tasteless and juvenile.”

Grayson’s office did not respond with comment other than to confirm the letter exists — including its request that Langley be fined and “imprisoned for five years.”

You got that right — “imprisoned for five years.” Simply for criticizing Grayson.

Now, Grayson is defaming every single member of the Tea Party, and falsely claims that anyone who dares question him is a “collaborator.”

“Just five years?” Morrissey asked. “Why doesn’t Grayson just demand that Holder chop off her head? After all, that’s the remedy that royalty and nobility usually demand. (Drawing and quartering went out of fashion a while back, although Braveheart did its best to bring it back into vogue.)”

“It’s awfully ironic that Grayson is demanding to silence one of his critics, given his history of red-meat rhetoric against a host of powerful Republicans,” Politico noted at the time.

Grayson, of course, is back to his old tricks.

What do Florida Democrats have to say about it?

“That’s just Congressman Grayson being Congressman Grayson,” Florida Democratic Party Chair Allison Tant said Saturday, referring to Grayson’s attempt to tie the Tea Party to the KKK.

Wonder if Tant would say the same thing about Rush Limbaugh or any other conservative?