Comments on Jack Bauer's Random Observations From Monday Night's Open Forum School Board

New Richmond's gadfly in the Yes Group ointment of optimism has posted a little ditty of 10 random observations from Monday night. Since #9 was addressed to me, I'll dwell on that point.

9. James Nelson must have not got the email about making sure he doesn’t tell everyone how much he speaks with Lester Jones, Chris Skogland, Craig Hitchens, Deb Heyerdahl, et al.



I believe JB forget to mention Bob Sievert in that list. Bob and I exchanged a few e-mails covering a range of points concerning the school district. The e-mails started before the April elections and ended sometime after the elections. I'm sure I will be in touch with Bob again in the near future.

JB for got to mention that I also e-mailed Bill Brennan with my concerns of the leaking of executive session information to the OTBL blog. I asked Bill to pledge to work to find out who is doing that and help put a stop to in. Bill never got back to me. I didn't mention this in the meeting, because I certainly wouldn't want to embarrass Mr. Brennan. He sold me a John Deere lawn mower in 1988.

I believe I also mentioned Brain Johnson as someone I've talked to. Brian has provided me with public information concerning the budgeting process and how it ties in with the mill rate.

Lester Jones called my house on a Friday night in December. The purpose of the call was to provide me with an answer to the question I raised at the previous Monday's board meeting. My question dealt with personal-related information that was leaked to the OTBL blog by one of the school board members. I had actually ask Superintendent Hitchens in the information was

executive session information via an e-mail the same day. He told me before the board meeting it was indeed. I believe that was Hitchens last school board meeting, before early retirement. Deb Heyerdahl and I met in her office for an hour on a Friday in December. I brought no pen or paper and took no notes. We discuss some of the recent history of the school district and various other school district related matters. I believe Heyerdahl also provided me with a time line of related to Hitchens early retirement. This also was in regards to contact information that was leaked to the OTBL blog -- after Hitchens was no longer an employee of the school district. The publishing of this information on my blog led to a discussion at a following school board meeting where Brennan and Judy

Remington had questions about information being provided to my blog. I didn't attend that meeting, but I can image thee was some tap dancing when the question of leaking information to the OTBL was posed to Brennan. I think even Brennan and Remington realised that it's legal for a citizen to publish public information provide by a public school official on a blog.

Chris Skoglund called me to get some background information about blogs in general and the OTBL blog specifically. Since I've known Chris for a couple of decades, know a number of her good friends and had a ranging discussion about blogs and the challenges of being a member of the school board.

I pretty much have confessed the extend of my conversations that the anonymous Jack Bauer has chosen to enclose in his OTBL post. Of course Bob Ziller is never going to let the public forget that I owe him a lunch and brought that up at the meeting.

As I explained during my five minutes of the forum Monday night, I have some experience covering various school board and I have been a reporter for weekly newspapers. I have no problem picking up the phone and arranging a meeting with career and elected public officials. That is how a taxpaying citizen participates in our democracy.

Of course, I did see Jack Bauer get up and address the forum. On the borderline blog, they are always the waiters and never sitting down at the table. In other words, the can dish it out, but they can't take it.

In addition to New Richmond school officials, I spent a significant amount of time in 2005 time to the business manager for the Hudson school district, Arnie Fett, about financial allegations raised by the OTBL blog. According to Mr. Fett, I have spent more time talking to him a school district issues that all the OTBL bloggers combined. I believe he added that that

would take more that a couple of minutes, because they never actually talk to the officials they attack and rundown in their twisted posts. Posts that they create in the dankness of the basements late at night as visions of being Tom Paine stumble drunkenly through the twisted logic that guys their anti-community antics.

Both Judy Remington and Bob Sievert talked about the stress and pressure of being involved on with the school board. Their comments and those of others hit me hard in the gut. This is a community and people need to work to gather to move forward. I
heard Judy Remington say at the meeting the other night that Tim O'Brien has called her a while back and told her that if she thought things were bad last year wait till this year. Driving home from town Tuesday night, I saw Judy and Jim Remington out walking their dog. They were about a block from Tim O'Brien's house. I was heading the opposite direction, but I was wondering if which road they took when they came to the corner.

What really confused me at the Monday night meeting was all the talk about Jack Bauer and his posts on the OTBL blog. He's a person who's entitled to his own opinions and observations -- no matter how stupid or unfounded. Hey this is America. Get over it. Despite all the publicity and talk about local blogs, there aren't that many active participants posting on the OTBL site. Many a few more than a year ago.

Old JB needs to keep on posting because he really downgrades any credibility the OTBL blog has. JB can bring his big shiny head to the forum, but he can't get up and address the people of New Richmond. That takes some intestinal fortitude. He has people on his side that will giving the old high-five to everyone of his post and on the other side they will be all hurt and offended. Live with it. Deal with it. It ain't going away. Whenever you think of anonymous bloggers, think KKK. They attack innocent members of the community in the darkness of night under their anonymous white sheets.

Remember that old nursery rhyme that goes "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me?" It's bullshit.

OTBL Blogger Outs Lies ontheborderline.net

On the other side of the borderline, the OTBL bloggers are trying to whip up their minions after their embarrassment in the Tuesday elections. Their Hudson school board endorsee, Jim Baker, missed by a significant margin. In New Richmond, the OTBL'ers are talking less about the victory of Bob Seivert and Rick Hinz, and more about the lack of ethics on their blog.

Read what OTBL anonymous blogger Keenan posted on April 7@ 4:12 PM.

"Blogger ethics do exist. No we don’t have editors. We do care about getting the facts right. After reading the actual piece written by a NR District administrator and published by the Parent Group, I’d like to make a correction to my original post above. JB used the word endorsement. Norton’s message was not as clear cut as an endorsement..."

Keenan's reference to "JB" refers to a New Richmond blogger who posts by the anonymous name Jack Bauer. Throughout the school board election campaign JB, obviously a member of New Richmond's Do Group, consistently glorified candidates Hinz and Seivert and trashed Andy Lieffort and Deanna Cook-Shannon. A number of those misinformation posts by JB were pointed out here.

Notice the date and time on Keenan's comment above. Notice that he points out he wants to retract his comments after actually reading a letter sent out by New Richmond's West Elementary principal Frank Norton. Timing is everything...

Keenan's comments were on a post by Jack Bauer boldly titled "Norton Endorses Cook-Shannon and Lieffort." No where in the post is a word from Norton's letter quoted. If fact, the actual letter linked below mentions no school board candidates. Bauer did the posting on Sunday, April 2 @ 6:30 PM.

Keenan was the first OTBL'er to jump on the post. At 11:13 PM that same night, he wrote:

"Wow! Jack- That’s out of line. First, focus on the issues and conveying your message to voters. Don’t lose focus by getting distracted by how the liberals break the rules. They do. They think the ends justify the means..."

The following morning at 10:40 AM, New Richmondite Bob Ziller commented on the post:

"I agree with Keenan on this one. I even have trouble with my representatives in Madison when emailing about political stuff. They are real skittish since Chuck whats-his-name and Scott Jensen got nailed for doing fund raising and campaigning on company time. They can’t even say a bad word about their opponent.

I am really surprised this happened. I wonder what the school board will do."
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I pause here to note that Mr. Ziller had not read Norton's letter as yet. He is making his comments based on the hearsay of JB. During the day, Ziller got a copy of the letter and actually read it. At 5:58 pm that afternoon, Ziller posted the following:

"I just got a copy of the Frank Norton letter. It does not endorse Lieffort and Deanna C-S. It only urges the increase in capacity of the elementary schools. I happen to agree to that.

Maybe there are two letters out there and Jack Bauer got a different one. Next time JB, put the letter on the blog and let us make up our own minds. I want to keep this blog on a high level of honesty and integrity."

That same afternoon, I received a copy of the Norton letter and included the letter in the following post: Ziller Accuses Jack Bauer of Dishonesty. Later that evening, anonymous blogger N. Onimous made a couple of comments siding with Keenan and ignoring Ziller's information correcting the bad information, i.e., lies posted by Bauer. Here I'll point out that a personal contact I have who is a regular poster and commenter on the OTBL site, told me that N. Onimous is a name used by a group of OTBL'ers. He is also pretty sure Jack Bauer is used by an number of people.

So now it's Friday, April 7 and keenan has finally reading the letter and getting the facts. Suddenly, confronted by the actual facts contained in the letter verses the lies posted by Jack Bauer, keenan gets religion and takes Jack Bauer to task for lying on the blog.

Jack Bauer is not just an infrequent poster at the OTBL blog. Between March 31 and April 4, of the 55 posts at OTBL, 12 or 22 percent of the posts were done by Jack Bauer. You can do your own investigative reporting on this, but most of those posts contain the same type of misinformation and lies contained in the Norton letter post.

As someone who has talked with local officials about the information posted on the www.ontheborderline.net blog, I can verify that many of the posts are filled misinterpretations of information and facts. In addition, the OTBL blog strictly posts only information that reflects positively on their agenda.

Keenan tells us that "blogger ethics do exist." I believe they do exist, but no ontheborderline.net. They are a blog site with an agenda. They have been accused of being on of the numerous right-wing blog sites getting paid by Wal-Mart to publish pro-Wal-Mart/anti-union propaganda. I like the saying about "where there's smoke there's fire." You can read many OTBL posts that read like a cut-n-paste job from a press release.

You're adults and, if you're not, you should know what adults are up to. At Ontheborderline.net they are trying their worst to put down and slander community-mind citizens who are working very hard to improve their community and keep their eyes on the future. It's not a giant communist plot, as the OTBL'ers see everything. This tendency to see everything as a plot comes from the serious influence the John Birch Society has had on some of the founding hypocrites at OTBL. You will notice that everyone who does not agree with them is labelled a "communist," "socialist," "collectivist," etc. This comes straight out of the John Birch worldview.

You can called me whatever you want. I've been paying taxes since I was 13 years old and I've always believed in being a contributing member of the community. It's about us not just me. The agenda on this blog site should be quite clear to anyone whose spent some time here. Our job is to expose the hypocrisy and lies being pumped out at the OTBL site. They can hide under the hoods of their anonymous names like Jack Bauer, but we are going to continue to shine the spotlight of truth on their sorry asses and have a damn good time doing it!

James P. Nelson

PS: If you have any guesses as to who Jack Bauer might be, please enter them in the comments below.

Ziller Says Jack Bauer's Street Cred Is Slipping

Bob Ziller to Jack Bauer on OTBL: "Jack, knock this stuff off. Your credibility is going down the toilet."

Maybe Bob has a point. Normally, I look to Jack Bauer to learn more by design (than I could learn other places by accident). But lately, I think that Jack's street cred is slipping.

Example of Wrong and Misleading Information Posted ontheborderline.net

Once Again "Jack Bauer" Proves "Truth and Honesty" Take A Back Seat To Misinformation and Innuendo at OTBL ---

The Home of Conspiracy Theories and Paranoia in the St. Croix Valley

The following is a typical post of twisted, misleading and blatantly wrong information posted at the ontheborderline.net blog site. This particular poster goes by the name of Jack Bauer and endorses New Richmond school board candidates Rick Hinz and Bob Sievert. "Jack Bauer" never seems to post any positive, factual information as to why anybody should voted for Bob and Rick, she just takes the Neanderthalian approach of endorsement: "Bob and Rick Good. Deanna and Andy Bad. Ug." Then she proceeds to use an incomprehensible variety of twisted fiction to put down and slander anyone on the New Richmond school board who isn't Bob Brennan or Judy Remington. Who Jack Bauer is, I don't know. But she speaks highly of anyone connected with the Do Group.

Below is the entire post by Jack Bauer:

3/31/2006
ATS&R’s $94,051.40 Statement
Filed under: General,
Education General, Education New Richmond
--- Jack Bauer @ 11:09 am

Paul Erickson, President of ATS&R submitted an itemized statement to
the School District on March 21 for $94,051.40 for 685.75 hours for
“Pre-Referendum Services”. He says the services his firm provided have been
requested by the District.

ATS&R has already been paid $25,000 of this amount and an additional $2,570.36 for reimbursable expenses.

The District owes the remaining $69,051.40.

This is the number Board
President Lester Jones has been trying to keep secret. During the past 5-6
months, Jones has been authorizing ATS&R to perform certain “pre-referendum”
work. Never, not once, has the Board voted to authorize these services.

Any District expenditure or future commitment for expenditure must
either be approved in the District budget at the Annual Meeting or be approved
by a publicly noticed agenda item by the Board. The District has no contract
with ATS&R. These expenditures to ATS&R were not included in the
District budget and the Board has never voted on them.

The taxpayers of the District have been put over a barrel. Again.
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As usual, Jack Bauer's "facts" don't square with reality. Below is a copy of a letter from ATS&R to the school district explaining that their services have been paid in full. Read the statement for yourself and see if the Jack Bauer version reflects what is being said in this statement. Feel free to include you comments below.

Read the entire ATS&R letter

Do You Ever Detect Any Hypocrisy In The Flag Amendment Debate?

(This post was originally done on July 25, 2005 in response to a post on the OTBL blog were a bunch of the OTBL bloggers were posing for a picture holding the Stars-n-Bars flag of the Confederate Army. It was taken at a going away party they were having for one of their members. The faces of the flag holders were browned out so viewers couldn't tell who they were. Shortly after this was posted, the OTBL'ers took down their flag picture post.
---JPN)

I happened to be surfing the blogospere earlier today and I stumbled across the picture below. At first the faces on the picture were browned out. Now they have little question marks on them. Now you might think I ran across this on some Alabama website or other site of southern original. But no, this picture is currently posted on the site of our blog comrades ONTHEBORDERLINE.COM. It looks like a nice day with 10 people standing around holding two flags: The Don't Tread On Me Flag and the Stars-n-Bars Confederate flag.



A little research of the OTBL files proved to me that the OTBL'ers have great respect for the stars and stripes of our US flag. To help illustrate their devotion, I include portions of two posts.

On 11/8/2004 Under the heading The Average Joe, Cub posted the 8 points of "average Joedom." Point five was:

Average Joe sees the flag as a symbol to be revered, not burned. He knows that he owes a debt of gratitude to those who fought and died for that flag, so that the leftists can burn it.

On Veterans Day, Admin followed with a post that included this poem about the meaning of our stars and stripes:

It is the soldier, not the reporter,Who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the soldier, not the poet,Who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the soldier, not the campus organizer,Who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.
It is the soldier, who salutes the flag,Who serves beneath the flag,
And whose coffin is draped by the flag,Who allows the protester to burn the flag.

Father Dennis Edward O'Brian, USMC
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Obviously, the US flag has a deep meaning to some ONTHEBORDERLINE. They understand the symbolism and ideals for which it stands. Being that they have this depth and reverence for our national flag, I don't think it would be a big jump for the OTBL'ers to understand that other flags may also represent symbols and ideals that are not so uplifting to certain groups of people.

If I remember correctly, it was an earlier version of our current flag that was carried into battle during the Civil War. The rebels were carrying their stars-n-bars. The number of Union soldiers killed totaled approximately 365,000. On the rebel side, approximately 135,000 were killed. That's a half million Americans killed by Americans on American soil.

I wonder what my great-great grandfather, a Civil War veteran from Wisconsin, would say if he came back and saw a group of Yankees drinking beer and having a good time playing with the Rebel flag? I wonder what all those Minnesota soldiers who died at Bull Run would say? Maybe those 10 people so proudly displaying the Confederate flag should take a walk through the cemtery in Stillwater and spend some time at Colonel Bloomer's grave. Read the words that ring his statue and contemplate their meaning. You will learn that if he were alive today, with only one leg, he would have a hard time tapping his foot to "Sweet Home Alabama."

How many thousands of Black men, women and children died or suffered unspeakable horrors and crimes while the Condererate flag flagrantly flapped in thier innocent faces of twisted agony? Too bad those 10 flag worshipers weren't there to cut their ropes, lossen their "neckties" and wet their parched throats with an ice-cold Budweiser.

Remember OTBL'ers, when you start pinning the flag-burning lapel pin on the "leftist, reporters, poets and campus organizers," they were the ones who worked to put an end to horror carried out by the Southern Capitalists who wore the sheets of the KKK and carried the torches of hate and predjudice.

If you've ever wondered why certain groups might feel the need to burn a US flag, study the pictures below:



Notice the picture with the guys on horses carrying the US flag. Much like the picture currently posted ONTHEBORDERLINE, you can't see their faces either.

On the bottom picture, notice the happy faces on all the white men? The bottom picture brings a different meaning to the phrases "Southern hospitality" and "Southern bar-b-que." Don't forget, the knights in the clean, white sheets would have been the ones pushing for the flag burning amendment. Ironically, they would be opposed to a human burning amendment. They would be the ones defending states rights and accussing the US Supreme Court of "legislating from the bench."

If you are so proud of those flags you are holding up, why are the faces covered up? Afterall, this is America and you have the right to freedom of expression. (Scroll down to an earlier post and read Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech.)

I suppose my repeated refrain of associating the ONTHEBORDERLINERs with the word "hypocrisy" is getting to be a cliche. Sort of like hearing Rush Limbaugh potificate about the "homeless" and the "femi-Nazis." Obviously, the symbolism and meanings that get wrapped around flags unfurl a deep and wide variety of opinions and feelings in America. Much wider and deeper than the soundtrack of 4 minutes and 44 seconds of "Sweet Home Alabama" dubbed over the laughter of ONTHEBORDERLINEers swilling cold Budwieser in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
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Follow up to the original post. The OTBL Confederate flag picture disappeared for awhile and came back with a darker version.
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Once again our friends ONTHEBORDERLINE have lowered their Confederate flag. In place of it, I put an editorial cartoon as a placeholder.

Attention Hudson Conspiracy Buffs

Freemasons open lodge to dispel myths

In Hudson, the Freemasons will open their Masonic Lodge to the public from 6 to 8 p.m. June 13. At the event, members will give some of the 150-year history of Freemasons in Hudson while offering tours of the building. The worldwide fraternity figures prominently in the films "The Da Vinci Code" and "National Treasure." The building is at 209 Locust St. For more information, call 715-749-3223.

Some thoughts...

Education & Freedom

"A nation of well informed men
who have been taught to know and prize the rights
which God has given them cannot be enslaved.
It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins."

Benjamin Franklin
(1706-1790) US Founding Father
---

"To educate a man is to unfit him to be a slave."

Frederick Douglass
[Frederick Baily] (1818-1895), escaped slave, Abolitionist, author, editor of the North Star and later the New National Era
---

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(1749-1832)

Ann Coulter's Godless: An Analysis and Book Review

Retired Navy Officer's opinion of Ann Coulter.
"I spent over two decades as an officer in the Navy. Although she never spent a day in the service of her country, Ann Coulter has made herself rich and famous by calling people like me "traitors". I take that quite personally. Here are my thoughts on Coulter's true character."
Skip's Homepage

Ann Coulter's Godless: An Analysis and Book Review
Why pay $27.95 to make a spoiled rich kid even richer? This is a free analysis of Ann Coulter's new book Godless: The Church of Liberalism by blogger Scoobie Davis of Scoobie Davis Online--the same guy who helped debunk Coulter's book Slander. Read the truth about Coulter's book for FREE!
.

Right Wing Nuts Interview Right Wing Nut Goddess

I received this via the Cybercast News Serivce daily e-mail. With a slogan like "The right news, right now," you might be able to guess which side of the political fence they are tossing their elephant turds. I'm not sure why they use any colors -- other than black and white -- on an Ann Clouter book cover. That's the picture she paints: white = good; everything else = bad.

I'm going to have to check with my local in-the-know Republican Party hack and see how many local ministers -- retired or active -- are active members in the local party. I believe there are at least three right off the top of my head who are involved with the local Democratic Party.

You can call me "Godless" because I don't go to church every Sunday, if that makes you feel like more of a Christian. I don't pretend to be a Biblical scholar, but certain verses have stuck in my mind over the 51 years I've spent on this Earth. Luke 6:37 comes to my mind:
Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven:

Reading what is peached to the diehard Republican faithfuls, I always remind myself that they are the "flock" of the faithful and somewhere in there is a herd of sheep.

Does anybody happen to know what church Ann Clouter attends?

JPN


Coulter: Abortion is Dems' Version of 'Virgin Sacrifice'

(CNSNews.com) - In Ann Coulter's latest book, she asserts that "liberalism contains all the attributes of what is generally known as 'religion,'" including a creation mythology (evolution), priests (public school teachers) and a holy sacrament (abortion).

"Godless: The Church of Liberalism," is the fifth book written by the best-selling author and commentator. "Godless" hits store shelves on June 6, 2006 (6/6/06, a date she deliberately chose since the numbers correspond to the mark of the beast.)

Cybercast News Service interviewed Ann Coulter about her book. Our questions and her replies are published here, in their entirety.

Cybercast News Service: During his May 10 appearance on the "700 Club," Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said: "One of the misconceptions about the Democratic Party is that we're godless and that we don't have any values. The truth is we have an enormous amount in common with the Christian community, and particularly with the evangelical Christian community." How would you respond to his statement?

Read the entire interview.
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While I'm on the subject of the CNS, here's one of their politcal cartoons:

Let's Get Our Priorities Straight

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