GRAYSON MUST GO Updated

I am utterly mortified that this man represents my district. He is an absolute embarrassment. This is the same moron who introduced that bill to mandate paid vacation for all businesses with 100+ employees. Because the economic crisis and the raising of the minimum wage (again) hasn't done enough to cripple small businesses, apparently. Don't get me wrong - paid vacation is something my own family enjoys, and I think more people, especially full-timers, should have the same luxury. But is the middle of an economic crisis really the best time to introduce something like this? In my case, our two weeks of paid vacation this year are balanced by two mandatory weeks of unpaid vacation, in an effort to cut costs and retain employees - and this is a very large, international corporation, not a small mom-and-pop. Come on, people, a little common sense, please!

But I digress.

His ridiculous, embarrassing, and just plain wrong tirade on the House floor stoops to a new low. If he actually had a clue, he might have read H.R. 3400, or perhaps S. 1099, or maybe H.R. 2520 or S. 1324. All of those are republican offerings for the health care debate, and all of them are languishing in committee as the democrats rail that the republicans have nothing to offer but 'no'. For a quick overview of the republican bills, click here.

Not a single one of them says 'don't get sick' or 'die quickly'. I'm not really sure where the whole 'die quickly' thing came from - the only thing I can think of is H.R. 3200. They still have not removed the rationing boards (aka 'death panels') from that legislation, so I would assume poor, confused Mr. Grayson came upon section 1233 of H.R. 3200 when he was picking up trash from the floor of the House and thought that such a horrible idea simply must be from republicans.

Calls and emails to his office have no effect, as he smugly assumes anyone who criticizes the democrat ideas are deluded or don't have the facts. Which is really something, considering at his town hall he insisted that he had read the bill (H.R.3200), but was remarkably light on facts about it when challenged.

His town hall meeting in August for health care was stacked with supporters. He held the town hall at a union facility, after a meeting, so that those who had waited outside for hours to get in couldn't because the union members stayed for the town hall. Only 31 people (out of an estimated 1000+) who had been waiting for hours outside were allowed in.

Did I mention he also brought his kids to the town hall and continually used them as a shield when the discussion would get heated - to the point of cutting the meeting short because it was their bedtime?

I am on his email list and the tele-town hall call list. I received an email on Aug. 10th about energy issues (see picture), but not a thing about his then up-coming health care town hall. A few days later, he held a tele-town hall on health care, and, although I have been included in other tele-town halls, I was not included in that one.

I was finally included in a health care related tele-town hall last week, and I found it remarkable that every single caller was pro-reform. Granted, I didn't hear the whole conference call, only the last 45 minutes or so, but, considering the callers were apparently pre-screened before being called on for questions, one would assume if there were differing viewpoints, they would be interspersed with pro-reform questions.

This man is a partisan hack who has no problem lying through his teeth and using any method available to forward his agenda as his ridiculous, childish 'presentation' on the House floor illustrates. The only good he has done so far is his work on auditing the Fed, but that is just not enough. He is more interested in forwarding the far-left agenda of the Obama administration than listening to his constituents. His smug arrogance and patronizing demeanor are offensive, and I for one can't wait to vote him out.

BTW, the cherry on this cake? Mr. Grayson calls himself the "Congressman from ACORN" - they seem to like him, too. That didn't last long, though, because he voted for defunding the organization when the political winds changed. Of course, he is now chasing the 'Bill of Attainder' meme to get out of the vote, stating the defunding was unconstitutional. The jury is still out on this, so I'm sure this will be used as a stall tactic until people lose interest in the story. That way they can say they voted against funding, but, in reality, because the measure never got a presidential signature, no harm was actually done to ACORN. And Mr. Grayson is on the front line of this defense.

Let's make an effort to say good-bye to Mr. Grayson in 2010, shall we?

UPDATE: I'm sure this won't go anywhere, but kudos to Rep. Price (author of H.R. 3400 -The Health Care Freedom Plan) for stepping up. Hopefully in all the hullabalu the details of the republican's real proposals will manage to leak out.


Just a hint - don't hold your breath.

UPDATE II: Oh, this guy has to go. What a putz.