I'm liking that James Hogan kid running for Congress

I like his spunk. His candid way of expressing himself. I like that he has no idea what he's gotten himself into, yet he keeps plowing ahead wanting to make a difference. I like him because he makes me laugh.

Here's an email exchange we had this afternoon:

Subject: Who is the "Rob McLeod" guy I'm running against? I found out!

Art,
I thought I would forward this over to you as I had emailed it to a
few other people who seemed surprised at what my quick "research"
turned up. Before you get to this long email, you owe me a "I told
you so" because I'm pretty sure it was you who told me "Andy will be
gone as quickly as he came". It's crazy the way the system work and
I'm learning more and more about how it works each day which is just
building my motivation and drive more and more.

Anyhow, thanks again for the support you've shown me in the past and I
look forward to EARNING your support, and vote, through November and
through my term in office. As always, I'm open to critisism, comments,
suggestions, new issues or new perspectives on old issues. The email
I had sent to a few people this morning follows.

--
James Hogan
http://www.hoganforcongress.com/




I did some quick searching - after all, it is the year 2008 and Google
is everyone's best friend, right? I was thinking that if this McLeod
guy was a career judge, I'd have to find *something* about the guy...
so to Google we go:

Robert McLeod Congress -- in Google turns up nothing - I shouldn't
say that - it turns up a few blogs that mention my name and ask "who
the hell is McLeod?" Interesting....
FWIW - trying "James Hogan Congress" turns up many links to my website
and other websites that contain information, forums posts, opinions,
etc from me.

So I continued on in my search for Mr. McLeod:
Judge Robert E. McLeod -- turns up nothing really - you'd expect
SOMETHING in a 15+ year career right? The few interesting things that
DO come up:
1) http://www.atlantichighlands.net/news/010628/hawley_complaint.htm
from 2001 - nothing of real substance in my opinion - a dismissed
political case - seems like real non-sense to me - hopefully this was
dismissed without too much tax payer money wasted on court
expenses/salaries/etc and hopefully an innocent individual who was
accused of some crime didn't have to wait too long for their "hearing"
while this case was "heard"... not bad so far, dismissed a silly case,
looking good...
and
2) http://www.holmdeltownship-nj.com/content/1066/1088/default.aspx- pay your traffic tickets here..... uhhhh "yuck"! So it APPEARS that
I'm running against the traffic court judge - you know the guy who
presumes you guilty until you can convince the prosecutor to let you
off "cheaper". Mr. McLeod has made his career taking the money of his
neighbors through traffic tickets in a "court" without a jury. I think
we've all been to traffic court a few times and you certainly aren't
getting a fair trial there, and there is certainly no presumption of
innocence, and Mr. McLeod was the guy taking revenue for the township,
great, thanks for your work in the community.

But I wasn't willing to stop there - there HAD to be more this guy has
done in 15+ years, there just had to be....
So I try -- "Judge Robert E. McLeod" (ie, the name in quotes) and
BINGO - NOW I remember why the name sounded so familiar! From Google
Cache:
http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:WGoaOd5HCOEJ:www.eteamz.com/vianneysoftball/+%22Judge+Robert+E.+McLeod%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=us&lr=lang_en

This was the judge who heard the "case" of the St. John Vianey Girls
Softball coach who was accused of, and admitted to, and even returned
the "fence gate" and this is the judge who wanted his 15 minutes of
fame at the tax payer's expense and made a decision that the coach was
guilty but said that the coach should immediately appeal his decision
because it was a bad one. HUH!? That is the guy who wants to write
the laws now??? A traffic court judge who tries to hear a potentially
"real" case and bobbles it so tremendously that he makes a knowingly
bad decision and immediately recognizes the bad decision and says
someone else should make a better decision, ridiculous! "Following two
days of testimony....Kommendant was ordered to pay $316 in fines and
costs" *2 DAYS* of us tax payers paying for a court (at the tax payer
expense) and the coach/criminal pays $316. Remember that number, this
is leading somewhere, but don't forget McLeod found him guilty but
knew it was a bad call - in fact, McLeod seemed to think the whole
case was ridiculous but rather than dismiss the case and save the tax
payers some money, he wasted tax payer money and cost a good citizen,
a good coach, a lot of money and a good career.

At this point, I knew there HAD to be more - a guy who makes such a
crappy decision after 15 years of work HAD to have screwed up big at
least one or two more times... and then I found IT.....
http://forums.jerseyshoremoms.com/viewtopic.php?t=487&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30&sid=a0424a1d3762dbc0a0ba191af47c12ed

This is the judge, who ordered 13 youths to pay a $500 fine each for
drinking alcohol at PNC bank arts center! So again, $316 was paid by a
39 year old softball coach that this "judge" determined (poorly in his
own words) was a thief who stole $9,000 worth of goods but some "kids"
who drink alcohol at a concert are expected to pay $500 each for their
"crime"? That somehow makes sense to this guy? Doesn't make a whole
lot of sense to me, criminalize the youth of America, charge them more
money than they might get in gifts for a few birthdays or a holiday -
I suppose that according to Mr. McLeod, since they are "kids" they
deserve to be treated WORSE THAN CRIMINALS, just for being "kids", and
since these "kids" can't vote, Mr. McLeod will surely criminalize the
youth of American even more should be be elected and the youth of
America, who have no voting rights or representation, will just suffer
the wrath of this out of control, traffic court judge.

Mr. McLeod, a traffic court judge, who doesn't have a website
outlining any of his political positions two months before an
election, is clearly out of touch with the youth, the future, of
America Moreover, this traffic court judge clearly is unable to make
firm, sound decisions in his own court, and yet he believes that
somehow he can represent "we the people" and make sound decisions for
us in Washington DC? Please, save me the time and tell a friend about
this traffic court judge's history of wasting tax payer money and
making bad decisions - if needed, I'll be glad to provide references
from any and all of my previous bosses and co-workers who can attest
to my ability to make a sound business decision, quickly, and have
that decision proven to be a sound, reliable, long-term good decision
that is to the benefit of my employer. As a representative, you, the
people of New Jersey are my employer and it is you for whom I need to
answer to, serve and make sound decisions in order to represent you
best.

--
James Hogan
http://www.hoganforcongress.com/

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Hey Jim---
> I told you so!

Classic. :-)

> Thanks for the email. I'm going to use it on my blog
> Art

As I've said to others, I appologize that my writing is not more
"official" or "professional" looking and ready for the easy
"copy/paste". I write and say what I think and I don't hold much back
which seems to lead to rambling sentences. Also, a fellow youth
rights supporter friend of mine thinks it is wrong of me to attack a
judge's decisions or the legitamacy of his court room - I can see how
and why someone might look at my research and conclusions that way,
however, my point is simply that in a long public career as a judge,
one would hope to find many cases of good judgement and 15+ years of
good examples of fair and equal judgement and it seems like the few
cases that you can find attached to his name have rather disappointing
turnouts and I'm willing to bet (and bank on) Average Joe Voter not
voting for the guy who collected their parking ticket money, nor do I
think that Average Joe Voter is going to vote for someone who makes a
decision that is knowingly wrong. I mean, I for one, don't want a
representative that agrees to some act of Congress and then says "but
we should undo this legislation later cause it's wrong". Again, I
wouldn't tell my boss "I knowing coded all of this system poorly in a
depreciated language which is a bad decision but you can always hire
someone else to clean up the code and rewrite it later", that's just
silly talk.

Anyhow, keep up the great work on your blog. I've been
checking/reading daily since I last emailed you, good stuff.

--
James Hogan
http://www.hoganforcongress.com/