Lauren Boebert just stepped in it
Lauren Boebert (Q-Colorado), who is locked in a contest with people like Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Green, Ted Cruz, and Lindsey Graham to be the 535th Best member of Congress, is now getting a bit of a tiff with comedy writer Toby Morton. She’s upset because he set up a little parody website called TheLaurenBoebert.com.
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Lauren’s latest salvo in this little fight was that she had her press secretary Jake Settle send an email from his official government email account demanding that Morton take down the web site. He stated that all the pictures of Lauren were copyrighted works of the United States government, and that the “entire website is a defamatory impersonation.”
Settle fell flat on his face here. (As did Lauren). The photos used by the site are ones taken by a Federal Government employee in the course of their duties, meaning they are works of the Federal government, and per the copyright act are in the public domain. 17 USC 105. Next, he showed that he doesn’t understand what parody is. Even if the site could somehow be considered defamatory, the truth is a defense and she is a public figure, which raises the bar really, really high.
In the future Lauren ought to talk to an attorney before having her staff do stupid stuff like this. She and Settle would look much less foolish if they actually tried to understand how things work before getting into these pissing contests with others. An attorney would have told her neither of her above assertions are true, and that complaining about the parody site would just draw more attention to it. (I became aware of it because she complained about it, and not something I found on my own.)
