Howdy all!  It's been a busy time in Casa de Cas lately, so I have not been able to post in a while.  Slager seems to have taken this as an opportunity to go down a path of exceptional ridiculousness, though, so I felt I needed to make some time to comment.  Note that he's been spreading his crap around multiple blog posts lately, so I'm not going to fully deconstruct any one of the posts.  I'll take a few quotes, though, and shine the TruthLight (tm) on them for all to see.  If anybody thinks that specific posts are worth a dedicated effort, I can try to make the time to go through it/them.  These are in no particular order, and are all based on the version of his site available this afternoon.  There have been a *lot* of changes made to his various posts (of course, none of them were documented), but I don't have the time to go back through all of them. 

It's Time To Move Wareham Forward wrote:

The Wareham Observer will be more than happy to promote (Moving Wareham Forward) but will not take a leadership role in any organization that emerges behind it.

I've shown many examples of where Slager has exhibited a lack of journalistic ethics, but this is the first time that he has admitted it himself.  If Slager wants to be considered a journalist, his job is to cover the news.  His job in this situation would have been to cover the MWF effort, but the fact that he is openly admitting to being willing to promote it is irresponsible.  This is akin to Fox News coaching protesters in DC last week to make it look like the effort was stronger than it was.  By stating this, he has essentially either said that he's not a journalist (which would make the actual "promotion" of a political effort ok), or that he's an unethical one.  I'll let him say which one it is.  Beyond that, let's point out all of the ways that his coverage of this is hypocritical/spin-filled/untrue:

* The person/people who registered the site did so behind a private proxy service so their name does not get listed.  Slager has railed against anonymous web posters for months, but no mention of the anonynimity here.
* He calls the CBW an "unregistered political action group".  Nothing that the CBW has done has met any requirements for registration of any type.  Slager has repeated this slam in a couple of different blog posts, apparently in an attempt to paint the CBW as being corrupt.  It really is shameful how low he will stoop to try to advance his pro-Selectmen agenda.
* He says '“Move Wareham Forward” should not be viewed as another political group'....presumably because that would show the hypocrisy of his writings.
* He says "Mature, rational debate has been replaced by vicious, irresponsible personal attacks"....oddly, he wrote this shortly before calling Larry "an absolutely despicable human being" in an email.  If he wants to know why the discourse has spiraled down into vicious, irresponsible personal attacks, he needs to look no further than the mirror.
* He says "They have already begun to discredit the movement and are actively trying to undermine it. They are demanding a meeting with those involved in Move Wareham Forward, insisting the meeting be held under their own rules and agenda (which includes their typical no-media-allowed exclusionary policy)".  This is an absolutely disgusting attempt to spin a noble gesture by the people on this site.  Steve sent an email to the group looking to open up a dialogue.  EXACTLY what the anonymous people behind the site claim to be looking for.  Given how vilely Slager has spun efforts from people on this site to Move Wareham Forward by Taking It Back from the people that are Screwing It Up, it's no wonder why they don't want the media involved.  It's simply a group of residents getting together with each other to talk about the future of their town.  Unless Mr. Slager moves to Wareham, he has no business being at that meeting, and just needs to get over himself.
* Another Gem: "Legitimate differences of opinion exist on many political issues, but those messages are being diluted because of the way those messages are being delivered. Town officials and citizens alike have played a role in that".  I think he meant for his second sentence to read "Town officials, citizens, and irresponsible shock-journalists have played a role in that".  See what happens when I'm not around to proofread for him?
* "That hope should be nurtured not just by residents of Wareham but by the media as well."  False.  100 times false.  The media should be reporting on it, as is their job.  The media should NOT be "promoting" or "nurturing" it. 
* "Their hateful words must be isolated." Words like "absolutely dispicable human being", Rob?  How about all of the things you called me?  You need to take a good long look in the mirror before making claims like this, becuase really, you're arguing against your own relevance.

For the record, I'm open to the idea of this sort of group existing.  I do think that the stated goals run contrary to inviting Slager to a secret meeting for him to report on, but if they are truly interested in what they are claiming, then it's a good thing.  I just hope that Slager's tentacles don't wind up turning a good thing bad.

Open Letter to Rep. Gifford wrote:

Your claim that the Wareham Observer pursued this story simply to sell newspapers also exhibits ignorance on your part. More than 90 percent of the Wareham Observer newspapers that are put on sale each week are purchased within three days

Slager has published a couple of different versions of this claim recently, all of which miss a key idea.  The accusations that Rep. Gifford, Mr. Brady, myself, and others have made about Slager posting incendiary and loosely-based-on-reality stories stories have been around his continual pattern of doing this, not any one instance.  If his sales claims are to believed, it simply proves the point.  He has a track record going back at least as far as I've been taking copies of his page of making sensationalistic accusations with little or no evidence to back them up.  That's his M.O.  That's how he sells papers.  If you assume that we were all talking about just one instance where he has made something up, then yeah, it doesn't make sense.  But this is how he operates.  This is what he does.  This is about his speed.  A great example is his continued pushing of the library issue.  In lawsuits like this, it's a given that the loser has to pay some/all of the winner's legal fees.  Who paid whom in this case?  The trustees did not have to pay any of the town's legal fees.  If the Selectmen had won, they have an obligation to the taxpayers to seek compensation for these fees.  The fact is, they didn't win, which is why the town's insurance paid out $40k to the trustees.  He's still harping on the finances after making accusations of a $250k loss (for which his math was proven wrong, and he has never been able to substantiate) as well as tax dollars paying trustees' legal fees years ago (which, again, he has not shown any evidence of).  This is just another example of his use of this shock journalism tactic in an attempt to move papers.  Things like this are common, and one would expect that he'd eventually let it die and move on to the next invented-controversy (the DA being involved in a republican conspiracy against the BOS, CBW being an "unregistered political action committee", etc, etc)  It's a provable pattern.

New Lows "Jeer" wrote:

The "Take Back Wareham" crowd has done a lot of sleazy things over the past few months, but this one takes the cake. They are trying to stop the Meals on Wheels program from dropping off free copies of the Observer to home-bound seniors. That’s right - FREE copies.

Well this is simply not true.  Before we go into why it's not true, does anybody know when he published his "I'm done responding to them in print" fallacy?  Was it 3 days?  4?  I forget.  Anyways, at the time I last read that thread, there were 15 comments.  ONE of those 15 had any substantial discussion about stopping the delivery, and it was basically ignored.  The remainder were either mocking the Observer, talking about how to get other papers to provide free papers, or making general statements around "is this allowable?".  What Slager wrote is a blatant, BLATANT misrepresentation of what was discussed here, and he should be ashamed of himself.  Even if you believe what he wrote, it's based on the premise that having a biased publication that spews hate week after week as the only available source of information for seniors is a good thing.  That's just ridiculous.  Mr. Brady showed us in his letter to the editor that Slager's editorial policy is damaging to the town, and I would argue that it's damaging to our seniors as well.  What Slager's saying is about as valid as someone saying "Can you imagine the nerve of these people, removing cigarette vending machines from our elementary schools?  We were giving the cigarettes away for free because we felt like it was the decent thing to do, and these twisted bloggers want to deny the kids a chance to smoke FREE cigarettes".  It would all be funny if it wasn't so sad.

The other ridiculous thing on here is when he says "We have an idea. Let the Courier and the Standard-Times give free papers to these folks as well."  Hate to burst your bubble Rob-O, but Larry posted that in the very first post in the thread on this topic.  He said, and I quote "...what are the chances we can speak with the Courier and/or Standard Times and try to secure the same deal?"  No reason for you to include the truth in your jeers, though, I guess.

Finally, I can't take the time right now to go through all of the lunacy in his "Winning the Hate Blogger War" (presumably he won by being more hateful?) blog post, but I do feel like I need to address one issue:

Much like Brady, the hate bloggers do not want debate...A perfect example is a letter that local resident Michael Schneider sent to both the Observer and the Courier. Schneider offered his critical viewpoint on Brady’s “community” meeting...Bob Brady even admitted to personally contacting Mr. Schneider after the letter appeared.

Slager is clearly trying to imply with this line that Brady was on the attack - nobody can disagree with him because he is all powerful!  Dissent must be crushed!!!  Etc, etc.  The reality is that Mr. Brady invited the guy out for coffee to discuss his concerns.  The REALITY is exactly the opposite of what Slager is trying to convince people of.  Mr. Brady made an effort to engage a fellow citizen in a discussion about the future of Wareham. How this reality could possibly be interpreted to support Slager's stance that nobody on this site wants a mature debate is beyond me, but it really is too bad that Slager, for whatever reason, feels like he needs to distort the truth to this level.

I have more to say, but I'm pulling into the train station, so this will have to do.  Before I go, though, I know a number of you have contacted me recently about some of these things and I have not responded.  For that, I apologize.  I will try to be more vigilant in my communication, and pay more attention to the lies that are spewing from that other site to try to keep him in line.  And Mr. Slager, when you read this, again I will tell you that you have my authorization to print my name on your blog, and I will not file any charges or make any accusations of any sort should you do so.  I can't, however, speak for the person who you name, because it sure as hack isn't going to be me.

Good night, and good luck.