The Scott Vetter Ruse

Yep. Scott Vetter claimed to the Northwest Herald that he has removed himself from the slate, in order to protect the others, apparently, from his toxicity.

But what does that actually mean?

He's still on the ballot.

He's still apparently campaigning.

Case in point: he posted to the article on the McHenry County blog the following:

This doesn't seem to be someone who has "removed himself" from the slate.

The only thing that happened here is that he told the Northwest Herald he removed himself from the slate.

But nothing has changed.

Oh, look: squirrel!

----- More later.

Scott Vetter is dropping from the slate...but is still in the race

Apparently, Scott Vetter is worried that his tweeting may bring down his running mates, Donna Kurtz, Raphael Kamner and John Pletz in the race for the District 155 Board of Education.

So, according to another Northwest Herald article, he is leaving the slate. However, he is not leaving the race.  "I would still love to win," he stated.

His running mates have not really commented on the matter, except in this recent article. No one, except Kamner, has actually come to Vetter's defense. That's pretty telling, isn't it?

Kamner stated in the article, "He is not a racist now nor has he ever been, and he’s not anti-religious."

Funny, but do the videos claim that he is a racist? No, not really. The tweets are just shown as an example of inflammatory rhetoric not befitting of a school board member.

It's interesting that Vetter supporters are honing in on two of the tweets.  In fact, the McHenry County Blog recently posted an article about Scott Vetter with a screenshot from the video of the the "BLM racists" tweet Vetter sent on July 31, 2016.  The article is entitled "So Scott Vetter's a racist?" And, in an attempt to prove something about Scott Vetter that was never even claimed in any of the videos, author Cal Skinner posted a picture of Vetter and his wife.

This is a classic example of a "Strawman Fallacy." Skinner and supporters of Vetter are focusing on the two race and religious tweets and declaring that Vetter is not a racist. This misses the entire point of the video. The video used the tweets to show the inflammatory rhetoric of a candidate for the school board. If people are thinking that others may think that Scott Vetter is a racist are reading more into the video than is there. This actually says more about them than about Scott Vetter.

So I attempted to set the matter straight by commenting on the article in the McHenry County Blog. But, alas, my comment is still "awaiting moderation:"

The point is this: if someone wants to post inflammatory tweets, call people names on social media, that's fine. They have the right to do that. We all do.

But don't be surprised when you run for a position on a board of education that those tweets will resurface as an example of your demeanor. Remember, this is behavior we teach our kids not to engage it. Go ahead: call people "fucking idiots" on Twitter. Or, post an article about the President on Facebook and call him an "Ass Clown." That's fine.

But don't cry when these things are brought to the attention of voters. Right, Raph Kamner?

Scott Vetter and "Tweetgate"

What does it take for Drew “Mad Again” Madigan to come out of retirement?

Scott Vetter and the Northwest Herald.

I have blogged about the Northwest Herald’s stellar reporting before, and man, they keep getting better with age.

For those of you who have not been following the news, or have been out of the country, or live in a cave, Scott Vetter is Crystal Lake resident running for a spot on the District 155 School Board.  He has been involved a bit in McHenry County Republican politics for a few years.

One thing is for sure: He likes to tweet.  And last year, he tweeted a lot. Here is an example of a gem of a tweet that has been enshrined for posterity in the Google cache system:

A“campaign” video has been created to highlight those tweets.


Of course, Scott Vetter claims that he had been hacked. That’s the go-to for politicians today to try and cover up obnoxious behavior online.

“I didn’t call that guy a ‘fucking idiot.’ I was hacked!” See how easy that is? 

The problem is that Scott Vetter’s explanation just doesn’t make sense. 

Let’s take a look:

1) In a Facebook post, he claims that he hadn’t used that twitter account in “two years.” However, the account was for his position as Algonquin Precinct 36 committeeman. He didn’t get that position until April of 2016, when he wrote an email to McHenry County blog, identifying himself as the "newly elected Precinct 36 Committeemen in Algonquin Township."

2) In another post, he claims that the account was shut down over a year ago, but the account didn’t exist before June 2016, as is shown in the cached screen images. There is no record at all of an account existing before this date. And why would it? Vetter wasn’t the committee chairman long before that time.

3) Then, in the same post, he says that he closed the account in September, which is way less than a year ago. And the tweets in question come before that date. Confused? Yeah, it’s like an episode of Lost. It just doesn’t make sense.

3) Later, he admitted in the Facebook post that some of his tweets were his but were used, apparently, by the hackers and were “taken out of context.” 

But wait, you're saying in your head right now: Didn't he say that he hadn't used the account in two years?  

Yes, he did. But, apparently, we shouldn't take his word. Just the kind of guy you want on a school board, right?

So this became an issue in the race when those tweets surfaced online. And videos like this were made:



So Scott Vetter was caught with his tweets down. Literally.

And in comes the Northwest Herald. They must have put their best journalist on the case because they went right to the source.

Reporter: “Hey, Scott Vetter? How about those tweets?”

Scott Vetter: “I was hacked. Those weren’t mine.”

Reporter: “Cool. Can I quote you?”

Scott Vetter: “Sure.”

So the Northwest Herald reporter—we’ll call him Nate Linhart, because that’s his name—wrote a story that simply allowed Scott Vetter to repeat the same claims he has made over the last few days on Facebook.

I guess fact-checking is not something done by the Northwest Herald.

Or maybe they don’t have access to Google, I am not sure.

A quick glance of the cached images would show that the Twitter account in question was created in June of 2016.

A quick Google search would show that Scott Vetter was elected precinct chairman in April 2016, not 2015 as he claimed in the article.

This was the best part of the article, though:

Vetter said some of those tweets that were on the screenshots were from him, but not ones that used profanity or discriminatory remarks.

That’s Vetter saying, “Yeah, some of those tweets were mine. But only the good ones. The ones that people don’t like, those aren’t mine. Unless you like those, then maybe.”

If a journalist was really doing his job, he would notice that many of those tweets with the profanity that Scott Vetter claims to not have used are in the same Twitter conversations as the ones he takes credit for.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out: they were tweeted by the same person! And that person, admittedly, was Scott Vetter. At least for the ones that people aren’t upset about.

Again, some of these inconsistencies could have been checked out by simply typing a few words into Google.

I know, the Northwest Herald has a lot on their plate; more important things like “Spring Grove church hosting special service with Congressman Joe Walsh.”

That should tell you all you need to know. And newsflash: Joe Walsh is no longer a Congressman.

I bet Scott Vetter will be there because Scott Vetter really likes Joe Walsh. In fact, a lot of Scott Vetter’s tweeting was in response to something Joe Walsh tweeted or in defense of Joe Walsh. But most of the time, Scott Vetter simply retweeted Joe Walsh tweets.  

And this is the guy that Donna Kurtz, Raphael Kamner and John Pletz have decided to run with?

And what have they publicly stated about their running mate and “Tweetgate?” 

I'll give you a hint: It sounds something like crickets:

---more later.

Johnny Cash and the Northwest Herald

McHenry County is lucky to have such a high caliber newspaper as The Northwest Herald.

Okay, maybe not.

My wife and I cancelled our subscription to The Northwest Herald a few years ago due to the fact that the paper lacks balance. And there have been some serious flaws in reporting over the years. Amateurish, actually.

When we got a call from them last year to renew our subscription for a 4 day delivery, including Sunday, for a one-time price of $20 or so, we decided to give them another try. After all, if they were offering a subscription like that they must be hurting for readers.

And we just wanted to help them out. We’re like that, you know.

Today, the editor of The Northwest Herald went on his usually tirade. He does that every week. And this time, it was against the teachers of District 26, of course.

Chris Krug likes to do that.

He took issue with the fact that several teachers attended the last board of education meeting wearing black. The headline states, “Back out on the blackout.” Then he goes on to ridicule those teachers for their choice of color, stating, “Teachers wearing black in support of the deal that has been imposed on them is as short sighted as….yada..yada..yada.”

Chris Krug, they were not wearing black in support of the deal. They were wearing black to show that they were not in support of the deal…because, it was not….a deal. A deal implies a mutually agreed upon outcome. The fact is, the board has refused to deal.

He didn’t tell you that, however.

In fact, there was much that Mr. Krug does not mention. Of course, he laments about teachers’ salaries. “No tears will be shed for someone who can’t get by on an average salary of $69,000 a year,” he writes.

But did he tell you that the Superintendent’s base salary of $147,000 is subject to possible increases based on CPI and another 4% a year extra if he meets performance goals?

No, he did not.

Did he mention that this Board of Education has a new budget that includes 2% more allocated to Administration this year?

No, he did not.

Did he mention that the teachers have offered to give up retirement bonuses and end of career bumps?

No, he did not.

Did he mention that teachers have offered to pay 30% more for health insurance?

No, he did not.

Most of the column, actually, was devoted to the lyrics of Johnny Cash’s familiar song, “Man in Black.” In fact, the entire song was reprinted there in the column, taking up perhaps 1/3 of the space.

See, that’s what happens when people have nothing to say. You see this much in high school writing, actually. Kids like to quote songs or a famous person to show that they know how to write and make a point. This happens often in The Northwest Herald.  And these are people who supposedly know something about journalism and the writing process.

Thanks Mr. Krug for showing us that you can Google Johnny Cash lyrics.

I can, too. In fact, maybe you should have used the lyrics for Cash’s song, “First Grade Old Maid Teacher.” I’m sure you could have worked that into your column in a “clever” way, too:

First grade old maid teacher

Getting' ready to go home

Thirty happy children

Once again are on their own

They climb aboard the school bus

She smiles and waves goodbye

But the first grade old maid teacher

Wants to cry

The fact is that The Northwest Herald has come down quite aggressively on just one side of this issue. Many of us were pleasantly surprised by Katie Anderson’s article of last week. That just doesn’t happen often in The Northwest Herald.

Perhaps Mr. Krug was on vacation that week.

No one here is saying that the teacher’s shouldn’t make concessions. I believe the teachers have to make some major concessions.

But the board has to meet them at the table and give some things up as well.

But that is not what they appear to be doing.  And that is something that The Northwest Herald should also be reporting.

But Chris Krug doesn’t want that side of the story to be told, apparently.

He would rather talk about Johnny Cash and teachers wearing black.