Category: Ann Becker

Ascending from Plato’s Cave: Don’t suffer from second husband syndrome

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about where humanity stands at this pivotal moment. As of late March 2026, NASA is days away from launching Artemis II—the first crewed mission to the Moon since Apollo, targeted for no earlier than April 1, 2026, with astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen aboard Orion for a ten-day lunar flyby.   This isn’t just another flight; it’s NASA finally getting aggressive, the way it always should have been. I support the Artemis program with my whole heart. I want to see timelines compressed, second and third shifts running around the clock, Saturdays and Sundays included—full throttle output. We’ve talked for decades about whether we ever really went to the Moon. I respect people who doubt it; many have been lied to by institutions they once trusted. But I’ve traveled the world, seen the curvature of the Earth with my own eyes, understood time zones through lived experience, and studied how ancient mathematicians calculated that curvature to plot constellations and voyages. Those advances in human culture demand we go to space—not just with drones or robots, but with people living sustainably off-world. That’s the only way we climb out of Plato’s cave, stop staring at shadows, and see reality for what it is.

My perspective is rooted in a deep love for knowledge, ancient history, and the biblical call to dominion. I don’t dismiss fears about transhumanism or the occult origins some attribute to NASA. I get the Tower of Babel parallels—humanity trying to replace God. But I also believe God gave us intellect and drive precisely for exploration. Leaving Earth isn’t rebellion; it’s fulfillment of the creation mandate. And with AI, robotics, and companies like SpaceX and Firefly Aerospace pushing boundaries, we’re on the cusp of a flourishing space economy that will create jobs, not destroy them. I’ll explain all of this below, drawing on the examples and reasoning I’ve shared in conversations, while adding substantial background, historical context, scientific details, and references for further study. This is my view, expressed in the first person because these convictions are personal—forged from years of study, travel, and reflection on what makes civilizations thrive or collapse.

Let’s start with the skepticism that still lingers. I’ve met kind, thoughtful people who defend Flat Earth theory aggressively. I feel for them. Decades of institutional deception—from governments to media—have left many clinging to simplicity as a shield against complexity. Yet the evidence against a flat Earth is overwhelming and ancient. Around 240 BCE, the Greek scholar Eratosthenes of Cyrene calculated Earth’s circumference with remarkable accuracy using nothing more than sticks, shadows, and geometry. At noon on the summer solstice in Syene (modern Aswan), the Sun shone directly down a well with no shadow. In Alexandria, 5000 stadia north, a stick cast a 7.2-degree shadow—exactly 1/50th of a circle. Multiplying the distance by 50 gave him roughly 250,000 stadia, or about 40,000 kilometers—within 1% of the modern equatorial value of 40,075 km.   Ancient cultures used this spherical understanding to navigate oceans and align monuments with constellations. Time zones, the Coriolis effect on weather, and lunar eclipses (where Earth’s round shadow falls on the Moon) all confirm it. I’ve seen the horizon curve from high altitudes and across oceans. We don’t need to argue endlessly; we need to move forward.

The same institutional distrust fuels Moon-landing conspiracies. Yet commercial progress is demolishing doubt. In March 2025, Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander achieved the first fully successful commercial Moon landing in Mare Crisium, near Mons Latreille. It operated for over 14 days on the surface—346 hours of daylight plus lunar night—delivering NASA payloads and proving robotic precision.  This wasn’t government theater; it was private industry landing hardware right near prior Apollo sites. The best proof, though, will be routine human traffic: Starship ferrying thousands to lunar bases and back. When people vacation on the Moon like they do in Hawaii, the shadows-on-the-wall debate ends.

This brings me to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, which I invoke often because it perfectly captures our situation. In Book VII of The Republic, Socrates describes prisoners chained since birth in an underground cavern, facing a blank wall. Behind them burns a fire; between fire and prisoners, puppeteers carry objects whose shadows dance on the wall. The prisoners believe these shadows are ultimate reality; they compete to predict the next shadow, mistaking illusion for truth. One prisoner breaks free. Dragged upward into sunlight, he suffers pain but gradually sees real objects, then the Sun itself—the Form of the Good. Returning to the cave to free others, he is mocked as blind. Plato uses this to illustrate education’s purpose: turning the soul from illusion toward truth.  

I see modern humanity in that cave. We’ve been fed institutional shadows—media narratives, bureaucratic lies, power-maintaining myths. Space exploration is the ascent. Drones and rovers have sent back data, but they’re still shadows. Humans must go—live, work, have children off-world—to grasp the fire and the Sun beyond. Only then do we understand what cast those flickering images on Earth’s wall. My entire worldview, from business to culture to faith, rests on this quest for unfiltered knowledge. I refuse to remain chained, interpreting shadows while interpreters with agendas lie about what they see.

Ancient history reinforces this urgency. I study civilizations full-time because they reveal what builds success: boldness, truth-seeking, and expansion. Many past cultures achieved greatness then lost momentum—collapsed under internal rot or external conquest. I call this “second husband syndrome.” Imagine a second husband tormented by thoughts of his wife’s first husband, especially if children from that marriage remain. Jealousy poisons the new relationship. Likewise, modern elites suppress or dismiss prior cultures’ achievements to claim sole glory. They rewrite history so previous “husbands” (Atlantis legends, megalithic engineering, advanced astronomy) never existed or were primitive. This intellectual jealousy stifles progress. Studying the Sumerians, Egyptians, Greeks, or Maya shows they grasped Earth’s sphericity, built with precision, and reached for the stars. To build successful cultures today, we must leave the mother’s womb—Earth—and psychologically inhabit other worlds. Labor shortages on Earth are irrelevant; AI and robotics multiply our hours exponentially.

Biblically, this expansion aligns with God’s design, not against it. Genesis 1:28 commands: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Theologians call this the creation or cultural mandate—image-bearers exercising responsible stewardship and creativity across creation.   Some interpret it Earth-only, warning against “playing God.” I counter: God gave intellect, curiosity, and the stars themselves. Exploration within biblical rules—humility before the Creator, ethical stewardship—strengthens faith. Western civilization’s prosperity flows from this worldview: truth-seeking fused with moral order. Space doesn’t dismiss Scripture; it illuminates it. Ancient myths and biblical echoes (Ezekiel’s wheels, chariots of fire) hint at cosmic realities. When we settle the Moon and Mars, we’ll confront those stories with fresh eyes, not fear.

Transhumanism and AI raise valid anxieties. I sympathize with those guarding the “temple of the human body” against occult-tinged experiments that seek to dethrone God. Yet I support robotics and AI enthusiastically. They’re tools, not replacements. Elon Musk’s Optimus robots—demonstrated in recent high-profile events—represent progress, not erasure. The robot Melania Trump walked onstage symbolized partnership: machines handling hostile environments so humans thrive. Blue-collar fears about job loss in trucking or fast food miss the bigger picture. Space will explode opportunities. Lunar mining, orbital manufacturing, tourism, and research will demand millions of roles Earthside and off-world. NASA studies project Artemis driving economic growth through commercial partnerships and a burgeoning lunar marketplace.  PwC forecasts a $127 billion Moon economy by 2050, fueled by energy infrastructure, resources, and services.  I think it will be a lot higher than that.  Far from regression, we gain jobs by the mass. I’m bullish because history shows technology expands human potential when paired with moral vision.

Look at the hardware already proving the path. SpaceX’s Starship must fly aggressively; routine, reusable flights are non-negotiable. Firefly’s success shows commercial lunar access is here. Artemis II tests Orion and SLS for crewed lunar operations, paving the way for Artemis III’s landing (targeted 2027–2028 under current plans) and eventual bases. I want Americans—led by visionaries like President Trump—first on the Moon again, first with permanent colonies (dozens, then hundreds, then thousands). A 10,000-person lunar hub by 2050 isn’t fantasy; it’s engineering plus will. People will live there comfortably: internet, power, hotels. I’ll be among the first tourists with my wife—enthusiastically. Imagine vacationing on the Moon, then returning transformed.

Mars follows. Elon Musk has highlighted the Fermi Paradox’s scariest resolution: we might be alone, or nearly so, in the observable universe—a tiny candle of consciousness in darkness.   That rarity demands we multiply life outward. Different gravities will reshape humanity—taller or shorter frames, new adaptations—yet our core experience evolves. Space archaeology will resolve earthly mythologies: Was Mars once lush? Did prior intelligences leave traces? We boldly go, not in fear, but in faith.

Opposition comes from anti-human forces—regressive ideologies that prefer controlled scarcity on Earth over expansive freedom. Democrats and globalist mindsets sabotage by slowing timelines, inflating costs, or prioritizing Earthbound politics. They fear off-world colonies because independent humans are harder to dominate. I reject that. Human destiny is multi-planetary; it guarantees species survival against asteroids, climate shifts, or self-inflicted woes.

I want answers. I want the space economy flourishing, exploration routine, and humanity confronting the fire behind the shadows. My book The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business outlines principles of decisive action and moral clarity I apply here. Subscribe, engage, study ancient history, support aggressive NASA and SpaceX timelines. Let’s compress Artemis, land Starships weekly, and build hotels on the Moon. The cave is behind us. The stars await. Godspeed.

Footnotes and Further Reference Material

1.  Plato. The Republic, Book VII (514a–520a). Standard translation by Benjamin Jowett or Allan Bloom recommended. For modern analysis: SparkNotes or MasterClass summaries align with my interpretation of enlightenment through ascent. 

2.  Eratosthenes’ method detailed in Cleomedes’ On the Circular Motions of the Heavens and modern reconstructions. See APS News (2006) or Khan Academy for accessible explanations. 

3.  NASA Artemis Program: Official site (nasa.gov/artemis) for timelines; Wikipedia for historical delays. Economic report: “Economic Growth and National Competitiveness Impacts of the Artemis Program” (NASA, 2022). 

4.  Firefly Blue Ghost Mission 1: Firefly Aerospace press releases and end-of-mission summary. Confirms March 2, 2025 landing. 

5.  Biblical Creation Mandate: Genesis 1:26–28; extended discussion in Answers in Genesis or Focus on the Family resources. 

6.  Space economy projections: PwC Lunar Market Assessment (2026); NASA’s commercial lunar payload services page. 

7.  Elon Musk on Fermi Paradox and solitude in cosmos: Public statements 2018–2026, including Davos remarks and X posts. 

Additional reading: The Republic (Plato); Pale Blue Dot (Carl Sagan) for perspective (though I differ on some philosophical points); NASA’s Artemis economic studies; The Case for Mars (Robert Zubrin); ancient astronomy texts like Ptolemy or modern histories of Eratosthenes. For AI/robotics ethics: Musk’s own writings and Tesla Optimus updates. Study these, visit NASA facilities as I have with my wife, and join the ascent. The future is ours to seize.

Rich Hoffman

More about me

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About the Author: Rich Hoffman

Rich Hoffman is an aerospace executive, political strategist, systems thinker, and independent researcher of ancient history, the paranormal, and the Dead Sea Scrolls tradition. His life in high‑stakes manufacturing, high‑level politics, and cross‑functional crisis management gives him a field‑tested understanding of power — both human and unseen.

He has advised candidates, executives, and public leaders, while conducting deep, hands‑on exploration of archaeological and supernatural hotspots across the world.

Hoffman writes with the credibility of a problem-solver, the curiosity of an archaeologist, and the courage of a frontline witness who has gone to very scary places and reported what lurked there. Hoffman has authored books including The Symposium of Justice, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, and Tail of the Dragon, often exploring themes of freedom, individual will, and societal structures through a lens influenced by philosophy (e.g., Nietzschean overman concepts) and current events.

Justice Deferred: Why Prosecutions Under Trump’s Second Term Remain Slow—and What Global Parallels Reveal

Donald Trump’s second term reignited expectations of sweeping accountability for political corruption. Yet, despite strong rhetoric and high-profile promises, major prosecutions remain elusive.  One year into Trump’s second term, the question persists: Why haven’t the big names gone to jail? Hillary Clinton remains free, despite years of allegations. The Clintons’ ties to corruption, Epstein’s network, and the weaponization of law enforcement against Trump allies have fueled public frustration. From Rudy Giuliani to Peter Navarro, loyalists have faced bankruptcy and imprisonment for defending election integrity. Meanwhile, figures like Letitia James and James Comey—central to prosecutorial misconduct—walk free after cases were dismissed due to procedural irregularities, not innocence.

This paradox underscores a deeper truth: prosecutions are not merely legal acts—they are political acts requiring stability, mandate, and timing. In a polarized nation, aggressive prosecutions without securing legislative dominance risk triggering retaliatory cycles, undermining the very agenda they aim to protect.

The dismissal of cases against Letitia James and James Comey illustrates the fragility of prosecutorial authority. A federal judge recently threw out charges citing the unlawful appointment of Lindsey Halligan as interim U.S. attorney, despite clear evidence of misconduct. The crime was procedural, not substantive—a loophole exploited to shield political elites from accountability1.

This is not unique. DOJ statistics reveal that high-profile political cases often span 3–7 years from indictment to resolution, with declination rates exceeding 39% when political volatility threatens institutional legitimacy2. Prosecutors, like any actors, weigh personal risk: firebomb threats, reputational ruin, and career destruction loom large when partisan control can flip overnight.

Trump’s own experience reinforces this caution. His first term saw relentless lawfare—Mueller investigations, impeachment trials, and civil suits—weaponized to cripple his agenda. The lesson? Without a stable mandate, prosecutions become pyrrhic victories, inviting reciprocal vengeance when power shifts.

The human toll of this legal warfare is staggering. Rudy Giuliani, once America’s Mayor, now faces $1.36 million in unpaid legal fees, with bankruptcy looming3. Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO, has liquidated assets to fund election integrity lawsuits, burning through millions4. Tina Peters, a Colorado clerk, sits in jail for investigating election fraud—a chilling precedent for dissent5.

These cases illustrate the asymmetry of lawfare: defending truth costs fortunes, while weaponizing law costs taxpayers. The financial attrition of Trump allies serves as a deterrent, signaling to future operatives that loyalty carries existential risk.

Enter the Epstein files—a political gambit disguised as transparency. Democrats, desperate to derail Trump ahead of midterms, embraced Epstein disclosures as a “gotcha” strategy, betting on salacious ties to tarnish MAGA credibility6. What they miscalculated was Trump’s counterplay: full release of the files, exposing a Democratic nexus of sexual trafficking, influence peddling, and elite corruption7.

This maneuver exemplifies asymmetric warfare: bait the opposition into overreach, then detonate the trap. As Trump played it, “rat poison in the nest”—a tactic to implode the colony from within. The fallout promises to be seismic, not for Trump, but for the progressive aristocracy entangled in Epstein’s web.

Brazil offers a cautionary mirror. Jair Bolsonaro, ousted after contesting election fraud, now faces 27 years in prison for an alleged coup attempt8. His successor, Lula da Silva—himself a convict released to reclaim power—embodies the cyclical weaponization of law. The message is clear: in politicized systems, justice is not blind; it is partisan.

For MAGA strategists, Bolsonaro’s fate underscores the imperative of institutional entrenchment. Without securing Congress and insulating the judiciary, Trump’s prosecutions risk reversal under a Democratic resurgence.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. attorneys prosecuted 61% of suspects in matters concluded in FY 2023, with political cases often delayed beyond five years due to appeals and procedural challenges2. The median time from investigation to decision: 61 days, but high-profile cases involving political figures skew far longer, often requiring special counsel oversight.

Public impatience for “perp walks” is understandable. Yet, in the calculus of power, timing trumps theatrics. Immediate arrests may gratify the base but jeopardize the agenda if Democrats reclaim legislative control. Trump’s restraint is not weakness—it is war by other means.

The Epstein gambit, midterm positioning, and structural reforms signal a long game: secure the mandate, then strike decisively. Until then, justice remains deferred—not denied.  I would say to all who are seeking justice, defend Trump for the midterms, keep the Democrats running for the hills.  And sweep them up once the rat nest is poisoned and they can no longer do any harm.  But don’t play nice with them.  They would never give you the same benefit. 

References

NBC News. Judge dismisses cases against James Comey and Letitia James after finding prosecutor was unlawfully appointed. Nov. 24, 2025.1

Bureau of Justice Statistics. Federal Justice Statistics, 2023. March 2025.2

USA Today. Rudy Giuliani must pay his defense lawyers $1.36 million. Sept. 17, 2025.3

CBS News. Convicted Colorado election clerk Tina Peters transfer controversy. Nov. 23, 2025.4

PBS News. Trump signs bill to release Jeffrey Epstein case files. Nov. 20, 2025.7

CBS News. Jair Bolsonaro arrested before serving 27-year sentence for coup attempt. Nov. 22, 2025.8


To understand why prosecutions under Trump’s second term remain slow, we must situate this phenomenon within a broader historical and theoretical context. Lawfare—the strategic use of legal systems as instruments of political warfare—is not an American invention. It is a global sport, played with Machiavellian finesse and Foucauldian precision

Consider South Korea: former presidents Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak were imprisoned for corruption, only to be pardoned later in a theatrical display of political mercy. This oscillation between punishment and absolution mirrors Michel Foucault’s thesis on power as a dynamic, relational force rather than a static possession [1]. In Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trials have dragged on for years, punctuated by coalition collapses and judicial reforms—a case study in how legal timing intersects with political survival [2].

Historical parallels abound. Watergate, often romanticized as a triumph of accountability, was in fact a slow burn. The scandal erupted in 1972, yet Nixon resigned only in 1974 after exhaustive hearings and strategic delays. Roman legal systems offer an even older template: prosecutions were frequently deferred until political winds shifted, illustrating Cicero’s dictum that law is the servant of politics, not its master [3].

Theoretical frameworks enrich this analysis. Machiavelli, in The Prince, counseled rulers to appear just while wielding power ruthlessly—a maxim evident in Trump’s calibrated restraint. Foucault’s Discipline and Punish reminds us that law is a technology of control, deployed to normalize behavior and consolidate authority [4]. When Trump delays prosecutions, he is not abdicating justice; he is performing sovereignty, signaling that timing—not immediacy—defines true dominion.

Global data corroborates this thesis. Transparency International reports that high-profile political prosecutions in democracies average 4–6 years from indictment to resolution, with delays often justified as procedural safeguards [5]. In Brazil, Lula da Silva’s conviction and subsequent resurgence exemplify lawfare’s cyclical nature: today’s convict is tomorrow’s kingmaker [6].

This expanded lens reframes Trump’s strategy as part of a transnational pattern: justice deferred is not justice denied—it is justice weaponized. The playful irony? While pundits clamor for perp walks, seasoned strategists know that the real game is chess, not checkers. Arrests gratify the mob; timing secures the throne.

Footnotes:
[1] Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Vintage Books.
[2] Peleg, I. (2023). Judicial Politics in Israel: Between Law and Power. Israel Studies Review.
[3] Cicero, M.T. (54 BCE). De Legibus.
[4] Machiavelli, N. (1532). The Prince.
[5] Transparency International. Global Corruption Report, 2024.
[6] Hunter, W. (2020). The Politics of Corruption in Brazil. Journal of Democracy.

Bibliography

Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Vintage Books.

Machiavelli, N. (1532). The Prince.

Cicero, M.T. (54 BCE). De Legibus.

Peleg, I. (2023). Judicial Politics in Israel: Between Law and Power. Israel Studies Review.

Transparency International. Global Corruption Report, 2024.

Hunter, W. (2020). The Politics of Corruption in Brazil. Journal of Democracy.

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

Vote for Mark Welch as Trustee of West Chester, Ohio: The island of misfit toys wants to ride the success of good politics

Mark Welch, the long-standing trustee of West Chester, Ohio, has undoubtedly been one of the main reasons that the northern Cincinnati community is one of the best places to live in the world.  And that’s not just me saying that because I like West Chester, Ohio.  Years ago, some effective policies were implemented to limit government overreach and foster a free enterprise approach to the growing community. This was achieved through a collaborative effort, led by then-trustee George Lang, with Mark Welch subsequently elected to provide a much-needed second vote.  It used to be that George was always outvoted two to one, and he needed someone who could share his vision with him. The result was a period of prosperity in West Chester, Ohio, which has made it unquestionably one of the best places to live anywhere in the world.  As a result, many people have moved into the area, bringing with them political ideas reflective of their origins, which have evolved.  George is now Senator Lang of Ohio, representing the 4th District.  However, Mark Welch remains a trustee who is now up for re-election in 2025.  With his excellent track record, he should have an easy re-election to his seat.  But we don’t want to take anything for granted.  Another long-time holdout, Lee Wong, who is very sympathetic to Chinese causes, is also up for re-election.  He is the kind of person who a lot of Democrats vote for, so he tends to get support from the many moderate Republicans, and the Democrats so there is some concern that in a race that is introducing the long term police chief to the mix Joel Herzog, that if Republicans don’t work together, that damage could be done to the seats in West Chester. 

Most of the time, there aren’t many people who run for these spots, and it could be assumed that Mark would win his seat back and that there would be room for Joel Herzog to join him.  Lee Wong, under all considerations, is vulnerable for many reasons, but he plays nicely enough with Republicans to avoid drawing too much hate, which is part of his strategy.  In a three-way race for two seats, it can get tricky.  The ideal situation would be for Republicans to show up and support Mark and Joel, thereby putting Lee in third place.  However, as I mentioned earlier, Lee will likely draw Democrat votes without needing to do much campaigning.  And the way these elections work is that it’s the best of the candidates who get the highest vote count.  Therefore, the top two vote-getters will win the seats.  And if it were just between these three, I would say Mark Welch would have no problem retaining his seat.  Joel Herzog is a good guy who comes highly recommended by everyone who knows him.  I have mentioned that, as a former police chief, it would be challenging for him to negotiate police contracts as a trustee with impartiality.  But most people agree that the good stuff with him is so good that that’s not a concern in his regard.  To regain the support of two conservative West Chester trustees, it will require a coordinated effort to retain Mark and help Joel win without one of them losing to Lee Wong.  The current belief is that Lakota schools will attempt to put a levy on the ballot, which is expected to attract many big-spending Democrats, making the math for Lee much more favorable than in previous years.

Then there is the issue of Ann Becker. A couple of other prominent Democrat challengers, affiliated with the Kathy Wyenandt area Democrats, who are certainly in the minority, are also running. Still, they are organizing to tag-team their efforts with the Lakota school levy push, so they hope to have higher than normal voter turnout to capture some advantage.  Ann Becker is the third trustee who was formerly a Tea Party conservative, serving as president of the Cincinnati Tea Party and the West Chester Tea Party.  She used to have a show on 55 KRC to discuss Tea Party topics, but Ann Becker is long gone these days.  She used to be a good tag team vote with Mark Welch, but she has changed quite a lot over the years, to the point where she might as well be a Democrat.  Therefore, electing Joel and retaining Mark become that much more critical.  When I first met Ann, whom I have been good friends with for a long time, she was associated with the levy supporters of Lakota, and we were at odds politically.  However, I always liked Ann, and she made a transition into the Tea Party movement, where we saw many things eye to eye.  People would warn me that she used to be a Democrat.  But I liked her anyway.  I also like Kathy Wyenandt, too, as a person.  However, Democrats are not adept at handling money or policy, and the needs of West Chester require a particular kind of mind. Unfortunately, Ann has lost her way and reverted to the person she was before I met her, before the Tea Party movement.  These individuals might be friendly, but they shouldn’t be in government. 

The other two candidates stepping into the crowded race for those two trustee seats are both Democrats: Alyssa Louagie and Amanda Ortiz.  I don’t think either one of them has a chance, but they think they do because they plan to tag-team the Lakota levy, which many are counting on Ann to lend her support as well.  So, we suddenly have a lot of Democrats taking a calculated leap into the mix, hoping that something will stick.  There is also a risk of losing what made West Chester great and falling into the same trend that muddles so many other communities, which assume that their success stories can survive with Democrats moving into positions of leadership.  People see things going well, so they give the misfit toys a chance, out of the luxury of success.  Then democrats ruin everything, and they want to attach themselves to the success story of West Chester, and the game for the rest of us is to preserve that success by re-electing Mark Welch and adding Joel Herzog.  However, the Democrats want to capitalize on the success to fund their social engineering projects, which will then alter everything great about West Chester, turning it into just another typical community that has seen its success fade because it was taken for granted.  And if we let the Democrats have a greater share of the seats at the table, we could easily end up with three Democrats as trustees, which would be detrimental to the interests of the other parties. That provides some early math to put the situation in perspective.  I think it will be good for Lakota to put out their ridiculous school levy because it will bring out more MAGA, Trump-voting Republicans, who will only help Mark hold his seat.  I think the math works in Mark’s favor to pick up votes this year, given the anger at Lakota schools over their proposed tax increases.  But we’ll see.  What we do know is who is running, and it’s now that the strategies for preserving West Chester need to be developed, before it’s too late.  And taking a long view, Joel would be great, but the more strategic seat comes up in a few years. To protect West Chester, we need a strategy and a lot of players willing to support the long view, especially in a crowded field.

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

Michael V. Ryan is Running for Butler County Commissioner: There is no reason to put up with wilted flowers

It was a surprise that so many people attended the Michael V. Ryan press conference at the Courtyard by Marriott in Hamilton, Ohio.  The current Vice-Mayor of the city and city council member announced that he was running for Butler County Commissioner, and it was good to see such a diverse group of people coming out to show him support on a Monday afternoon.  There were people of all ages and a nice, even number of men and women from all kinds of backgrounds, which showed broad support early in the process.  When I first heard about it, I thought it was a great idea that someone from the group of anti-liberal rebels on the City Council would migrate into the commissioner seat that is coming up, where the incumbent, Cindy Carpenter, is up for re-election.  Recently, she had been caught in Middletown, Ohio, campaigning for Democrats, and that pretty much sealed her fate among the many who have been unhappy with her over the years and have been calling her a RINO.  Well, now people had more than speculation on the matter, and they were looking for alternatives.  And Michael Ryan was making himself available, and people were excited about it.  It was also surprising that several officeholders also showed up to lend their support.  When you see Bruce Jones at a political event, you know something significant is brewing, because he tends to associate with emerging vigilance over the years that I have come to trust for several decades now.  And as I peeked around the crowd to the back of the room, I saw Mark Welch, the West Chester trustee there, whom I wanted to talk to.  It was a good crowd that had run out of seats, leaving many standing in the background and doorways to hear the future commissioner speak.

After the announcement, I took the chance to speak with Mark because I knew he was also thinking of running for commissioner, so it showed some significance that he was willing to come out and support Michael Ryan running.  The other two seats for the commissioner have a few years left on them, so for Mark to show public support this early in the process was very admirable.  And as we discussed, he has challengers for his trustee seat, which is up for re-election this year.  And he is committed to protecting that seat, which I thought showed great teamwork by the GOP to help in several races, which I’d like to see more of.  West Chester has been great because it has had some significant policies from the trustees over the years, which worked best when George Lang and Mark Welch served in West Chester simultaneously.  The best path forward, which has made West Chester one of the best places to live in the world, occurred during this period.  But since then, George has moved on to become State Senator, leaving Ann Becker to fill that void, which we all thought was going to be a good thing, as she used to be the President of the West Chester Tea Party, and the Cincinnati Tea Party, and she was a good friend.  She was on 55 KRC all the time announcing on the radio Tea Party events and was a key to implementing fiscal small government ideas back into the Butler County Republican Party.  But time has a way of eroding at people, and the person she once was isn’t quite so much anymore, and she has been siding with Democrats a lot these days, which has been a concern.  Because the other guy, Lee Wong, is a known Democrat.  So the trustees have moved more toward the Democrat side of things in dangerous ways.

Mark knows the situation, and he doesn’t feel like he can step away from the West Chester Trustee race because he needs help, so things don’t get out of control.  At a minimum, Mark needs to win one of the two seats this year, with Lee also up for re-election.  So while everyone is excited about Michael Ryan running for commissioner, the Republican Party needs to protect some of the best spots, which in West Chester is how the MAGA movement evolved in the Butler County area and set the foundation for what a prosperous community with good politics should look like.  Ann Becker and I used to be close during all this, and I was very supportive of her in that other Trustee spot George left behind.  And back then, we all planned to keep West Chester conservative by tag-teaming who would run and maintain a two-vote majority.  It meant a lot that Mark was doing that with this Butler County Commissioner race because that’s how you get good management at these positions.  It doesn’t do any good for everyone to beat each other up in primaries only to wonder why some knuckle-dragging Democrat ends up winning in the end, pretending to be a Republican, such as what we had for a long time in Cindy Carpenter.  I can say that in Ann Becker’s case, she didn’t start badly.  She and I parted political ways a bit when Trump came into the picture, and I was in full support of him early, while it took others a while to get there.  Ann eventually did, but over the coming years, it got increasingly complex to hold the same Tea Party political philosophy, as life has a way of chipping away at our foundational beliefs.  And at times like that, political challengers are healthy and needed.  But knowing when to work together and when to challenge for the betterment of a party that serves the needs of a representative government can be tricky, and takes good people to do things for the right reasons. 

Many great things are happening where Michael Ryan, as a commissioner, could be inspiring, especially given that Vivek Ramaswamy will soon be the governor of Ohio.  Butler County is one of the biggest counties in Ohio, with high population density, so having Michael Ryan as one of the commissioners is a rare opportunity.  Trump in the White House setting economic policies flowing down into all levels of government is showing great promise, which Vivek’s future administration will take full advantage of.  Then, having an enterprising commissioner like Michael Ryan engage in that excitement is a great opportunity.  What he has done with the City Council of Hamilton has been fun to watch; they have done things that have brought life back to the city that I never thought I’d see in my lifetime.  And he could do so much more as a commissioner.  But we don’t want to lose the West Chester seats, because that would be a step backward.  So it was good to see some teamwork at key positions, covering each other with support where it counted.  Elections are always opportunities.  It’s rare to have such good people running for politics simultaneously in the same room, but that was certainly the case here.  Michael Ryan and his very nice wife, Amanda, are good, solid people who bring a lot of pride to Republican politics and have a very bright future that is well deserved.  But authentic leadership doesn’t just come in election wins; it comes in setting the table for victory on many fronts.  It was also good to see that happening in the background at the Michael Ryan announcement for County Commissioner on a bright day in May 2025 was unfolding a new strategy, where so many opportunities were blooming everywhere.  And in the Republican Party, several flowers have lost their luster and are wilting.  Cindy Carpenter is one of them, and she needs to go.  There is no reason to put up with wilted flowers who are Democrats in disguise when we have so many good, solid Republicans who are aligned with the MAGA movement.  But everyone will need to support each other in these efforts. 

Rich Hoffman

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Don’t Talk About Party Loyalty: Lynda O’Connor lost because she was disloyal to her base support

They keep saying we are a small, but loud minority of radicals, as if to say, critics aren’t important. But all that did was fuel the opposition against Lynda.

It wasn’t a surprise that Lynda O’Connor had an embarrassing defeat on the Lakota school board. She shouldn’t have run for another term after the mess she caused over the last few years. Her brand was down in a big way and instead of trying to right the ship, she dug in and alienated all the people she should have been working with. The voter turnout was unusually high for a Lakota school board race, but that is largely due to the increased interest from the scum bags and pot-smoking losers who voted to kill babies and legalize drugs, who went in the direction of Julie Shaffer and Doug Horton. During the election, I saw all of them as the same, but it was Lynda who I felt had personally betrayed me, and I couldn’t support her. This hold your nose, and voting for someone who has done a lousy job isn’t an excellent way to conduct elections. Lynda deviated from the original plan and decided to move to the hard left and work against Darbi Boddy, and after two years of mismanagement, the results were evident in the election. Unfortunately, Lynda dragged Russ Loges down on the ticket because the GOP was split and not united behind the candidates. When you don’t have the Central Committee lined up with the desired outcome, it’s never a good thing. And it’s even worse to tell them to deal with the party leadership picks and to accept bad behavior. Lynda O’Conn0r was horrible as a school board president, especially after all the support that was thrown her way. She used people to get power, then abused that power overtly to destroy a popularly picked school board member in Darbi Boddy and cause problems between her and Issac Adi. And the results were evident well before voters cast a vote on how election night was going to turn out.

This is why Lynda O’Connor Lost the Lakota School Board. The Republican Party doesn’t run the voters. The voters run the party. The RINOs aren’t in charge.

I was in Japan, far away from Ohio when it became apparent to me what the cost of Lynda seeking re-election was going to have on Butler County politics. Over the previous two years, we had seen a couple of incidents where party leaders had abused their power to attack upcoming talent or long-standing respected leaders. Such a case was what Sherrif Jones did to Roger Reynolds, essentially sticking the label of a felon onto the former auditor for entirely personal reasons, which then of course alienated the base of the Republican Party. Then, of course, Darbi was a popular pick, and Lynda went on a campaign of personal destruction against her, which resulted in two years of bad branding. I told Lynda on a phone call about a year ago how to fix it, and she ignored the advice. She dug in and name-dropped a few people she thought was important then continued to support horrendous behavior on the school board and aligned herself closer to Julie Shaffer and Kelly Casper. And in the process, she made herself indistinguishable. People who don’t understand these things so well put their support behind her believing they had control of the party and the people in it like some kingly aristocrat and they resorted to a lot of pushing and shoving to get everyone aligned, which was not going to work with the Tea Party types in the Republican Party. Then, to make matters worse, they sought to destroy the Tea Party of West Chester to make their point more vocal, which essentially sealed the fate of Lynda O’Connor in politics. She had used the West Chester Tea Party to advance herself as a brand for the Lakota school board. And when she turned against those values, she lost the only real support she ever had.

After I returned, I attended a Central Committee meeting in Liberty Township after there were some political shenanigans in West Chester with their Central Committee, and it was obvious that the establishment types were going to screw everything up. The RINOs wanted appeasement, and the MAGA types wanted authenticity, so there was going to be an impasse, and it was just going to have to play out. Republicans everywhere, locally and nationally, have gotten into a lot of trouble trying to appease evil, and it has caused them to work with Democrats on all kinds of Marxist issues and has essentially pulled the country away from its foundation and more toward socialism and Marxism all because they wanted to “hold their nose and support the party.” For the preservation of a party that only wanted to live, not actually to represent voters’ values. That has left people who have values and want to see those values supported in politics hungry for accurate representation. That’s why Trump is running for president as opposed to all the other Republican offerings they have tried to give us over the last few decades. And with all the excellent work that has been done, a lot of people in the Republican Party didn’t get it. I explain it to them voluminously, but they don’t have the mind to listen. They think they know better, and the best they can give you is to hold your nose and put up with what your “betters” can provide you. They emphasized that they knew better what that was, and everyone should get in line and deal with it. Support Lynda because she didn’t want to challenge Ann Becker for the open West Chester trustee position because Ann was in trouble over trans rights, so Lynda screwed up and ran again after two years of serious mistakes, and everyone thought it was going to work out great?

A political party either represents voters, or it doesn’t. There have been times that I have loved being affiliated with the Republican Party and have been very proud of what we have had in Butler County. But then, after these last few years, since Trump has been out of office and everyone has snapped back into their true natures, we have seen a lot of embarrassment that reminds me of the old Bob Shelly days with Michael Fox. Party politics, arm twisting, deception, all the kinds of things that made people run to Ross Perot or Donald Trump. And they will continue to run because they don’t want to support the politics of the machine. I’m not interested in politics to hold my nose and vote for some loser, all for the “party.” I want to see things run well with constitutional value. But don’t lecture anybody on supporting the endorsed candidates as a base of loyalty to the Republican Party. Lynda went after Darbi, and the party should have helped the “Republican Endorsed” person. And Sheriff Jones worked to destroy the life of a very popular Republican in Roger Reynolds, and nobody stepped in to help him. And nobody stepped in to save the West Chester Tea Party when a media campaign went against them and essentially destroyed them for the time being, at least their meeting venue. When the RINOs decide to fight the actual base and future of the party, nobody should have expected good results for Lynda. Lynda had to earn those votes. Instead, she went on a crusade of personal destruction and acted as if she were entitled to the position purely off the backs of party affiliation. And some of the back-bending endorsements from people I know were concerned that they would be cut off from the money machine, were reprehensible. And the results reflect just how bad it was. When the approach to an election was filled with such ridiculously stupid behavior, the results should surprise nobody.

Rich Hoffman

How Lynda O’Connor has become more of a RINO over the last few years

If anybody needs a reminder, why not to vote for Lynda O’Conner on November 7th, 2023 here it is. While she was always something of a RINO, she has become excessively worse over the last several years. Remember this when you vote.

Rich Hoffman

The Trump Hurrican is Coming: Yes, they think you are stupid

Here’s what you need to know about the Hunter Biden indictments: it’s a bone of sacrifice to the gods of politics hoping to appease them in the same way that ancient Canaanites would sacrifice their firstborn children to Baal and Moloch hoping good fortune might be granted to the perpetrator of death and doom.  And these people think we are all stupid, and we will take the sacrifice and move along, and all things political will return to control of the SWAMP.  No, it means that Trump has a sizable lead over Biden a year away from the election, and the media is finally catching up to what I’ve been saying all along.  If ABC, owned by Disney, is willing to admit that Trump is winning by 10 points now, you know that the internals are much worse for Democrats, and there aren’t too many with their hand up willing to take on the bloodbath that is coming.  If Democrats can’t cheat to win elections, and this one has a lot of eyes on it, and they know it, they will lose massively everywhere.  I just finished several trips worldwide, across the United States and back again, and it’s the same question: when will Trump fix everything that Biden broke?  Nobody is looking at Biden and thinking he represents anything for the future.  He represents destruction and mayhem, and people are onto the game.  They aren’t taking the bait of a sudden set of meaningless indictments sent toward Hunter Biden, especially after all we know about him.  Much more serious charges should be sent in his direction, but nobody expects anything to come of those.  We are dealing with a rigged justice system built to keep corrupt politicians in power, and people are tired of it. 

That same kind of oblivious sentiment was evident over the talks of the CR that Kevin McCarthy signed up with to join Democrats in further funding the country’s destruction, breaking the essential promises he made when he obtained the Speaker of the House earlier this year.  Those days of cosmetic hugging on the house floor and crying politicians seeking compassion over logic have put our country into dangerous inflation as the crooks that made people like Hunter Biden spend us all into desecration like drunken sailors on one last heist.  And Merrick Garland thinks he can lecture us all about an ” impartial ” Justice Department and not working as the personal attorney for President Biden.  Of course, McCarthy should lose his Speaker role.  He lied to his people and made deals with the Devil in the vile Democrats.  The price of milk is high, we are dealing with $6 eggs, everyone is being crushed by the hidden tax of poorly run government, and the pitchforks are about to come out, and Democrats and RINO Republicans know it.  They see the internal polling and understand what the actual numbers are saying.  Trump is poised to win every state in America in the next election by margins that are not even close.  And many people will be out of power unless they turn to violence, which they are contemplating as we speak.  But first, they will try the old trick of lying to us, as they have gotten away with in the past, and see if we are still all suckers who will go away and leave them alone.  And to take the edge off the many indictments thrown at Trump to keep him out of the race, they have tossed these silly charges at Hunter Biden, hoping to make things look fair when the opposite is true.

The scam was always proposed behind a mask of civility.  We were supposed to believe that middle-class suburban moms wouldn’t vote for Trump because of his mean tweets and harsh opinions about his rivals.  That the world wanted fair treatment of political opponents, not hostile bloodletting.  And we were supposed not to judge Hunter Biden; he could be anybody’s kid.  We all make mistakes, don’t we?  And Matt Gaetz should not seek to remove Speaker McCarthy from his Speaker role because the Speaker was working in a “bipartisan way,” after all, Matt doesn’t have the votes.  We are all supposed to take this level of corruption because the system is too rigged to change, so we should send this ridiculous government our taxes and shut up and mind our own business.  The bad guys out there think these things about us because they think we are as stupid as they are and corrupt.  We are guilty of trusting them as much as we might trust a neighbor with a lawn mower.  They have lied to us, and we are hurt by it, and now it’s time to pay all these losers back.  And they fear what kind of world that’s going to look like.  I don’t know that anybody has ever seen such a thing.  But I can say that after all my traveling, people are just holding their noses with Biden until they can get Trump back, and they can’t wait to vote for him.  That is what the Biden crime family indictments are really about appeasement, not justice, to protect a corrupt system beyond repair. 

The politics of the future in America and the world will not be as it has been in the past.  What gave us this world of over 30 trillion in debt will not last in the future, and those who have blown on that destruction for their strategic aims are caught as well.  The world that allowed them to do so much terror behind charities and altruistic press releases differs from where real value dictates behavior; people must be what they sell themselves as.  The forked tongue of the Kevin McCarthy types is precisely the kind of purge that the Republican Party will have to endure.  And there are no Democrats that can be saved, aside from a few unique people like Robert Kennedy.  The entire Democrat Party has been built on a beach of lies, and the testaments of their ambition are but sandcastles facing a hurricane.  And that Hurricane is Trump, a category five that is about to hit in the middle of their plans.  I have been watching all these old politicians who thought over the last three years that things would snap back into some pre-2016 political mode run by lawyers, consultants, and corrupt magistrates.  That was never going to happen.  Yet many people believed it, and the flimsiness of their plans is evident in their actions and the depth of their corruption shows in the Hunter Biden indictments as if they thought that would shake the world off the justice that is coming in these upcoming elections.  Sorry, everyone, but the Trump hurricane is coming, and you can only blame yourselves.  You should have listened.  I have been warning every day for more than three years now.  The government is not in charge; the people are in America, and these government people have been caught not reporting to the boss.  And there will be a lot of Hell to pay, so get out your wallets and purses.  Its time.

Rich Hoffman

The West Chester Tea Party Does Not Endorse Lynda O’Conner for the Lakota School Board: And neither do I

For clarity, the West Chester Tea Party has not, and will not endorse Lynda O’Conner for the Lakota School Board.  There has been some rattling around from several people that they would, but they have told me personally that those rumors were untrue and they do not support her.  And neither do I.  We all have long friendships with Lynda and other candidates who these days call themselves Republicans but have drifted way to the political left.  But friendships or past relationships don’t make a good candidate.  Whether or not they represent our values to earn a vote is the issue at hand.  Too often, endorsements are given out because of friendships, not actual performance.  Lynda O’Conner has been the school board president for a while now, and she has attended Tea Party meetings in West Chester for over a decade and has formed relationships with many of us over the years.  However, based on her performance and what she did to Darbi Boddy as she begged us all to give her a conservative school board, the moment she had it, she essentially turned into the progressive governor that Ohio had, John Kasich, and betrayed us openly, even recklessly.  I tend to move on when I experience people like that.  I’ll give them a chance once, and once they show who they are, I don’t get too kinked up about it.  It’s always worth a try to give someone a chance.  Then, once they show who they are, you make decisions and move on.  Knowing she has betrayed many people in the Liberty movement within the Lakota school district and is running again, she is seeking endorsements for the upcoming election.  I had some reason to believe the rumors that the West Chester Tea Party might endorse Lynda, but quickly, they set the record straight and wanted to make sure they screamed from the mountaintops that they would not support Lynda O’Connor for the Lakota School Board and based on what they have learned about her, they never would. 

I wouldn’t usually talk about something that happened that was confidential, but looking back on it as I have, those privileges are meant within the context of friendly trust.  Yet after what happened with the previous Lakota school superintendent and the behavior against free speech that Lynda led against the incoming school board member Darbi Boddy, it’s clear what was going on, and I’m still insulted that she thought so little of me to try it.  I mean, she should have known better.  I spent hours and hours with Lynda O’Conner on the phone, meeting her in person, trying to help her.  But from her side, all she was doing was consensus-building in the classic sense against someone she had targeted as a political rival in the community.  And that didn’t become clear until the days after a specific meeting in the basement of some of our mutual Tea Party friends in May of 2022.  I should know what she was up to because I have covered these modern versions of The Delphi Technique for years.  It’s one of the most corrosive tools used in all public schools.  After a contentious school board meeting where I spoke in favor of Darbi Boddy, it was clear Lynda was trying to run her off the school board over minor issues.  Lynda had recruited Darbi to give her a majority on the board, along with Isaac Adi, and I did what I could to smooth out the edges and give credibility from the freedom movement side of things.  If I were on board with the effort, it would help the conservative base. 

I didn’t see a need to be overly cautious with this relationship with Lynda.  She had just spent the previous decade trying to win my trust, so I figured getting a functional, conservative school board in charge of Lakota schools was worth a shot.  Even that day I met with her and several other people, it became pretty clear what she was doing; I still wanted to give the effort a chance at working.  But she was looking for compliance out of Darbi Boddy to some liberal view of authority that was shocking to many of us, especially the West Chester Tea Party.  We all found ourselves in the basement of one of the leading members, with Isaac Adi and some school board mentor of his from Monroe schools pushing a sheet of paper in front of me, asking me what I wanted out of Lakota schools, which made me angry because of the amateur effort.  It was an apparent consensus-building exercise, much like the Lakota community conversations had been trying to win over opposition to school policy for a while.  And Lynda sat across from me with a smile, thinking all this was acceptable.  She had surrounded me with people I had trusted, especially in the Tea Party, and she felt that the peer pressure might win me over and away from the continued support of Darbi Boddy.  After all the years and everything I had written over all the time we had known each other, she thought I was that stupid. 

The meeting didn’t go well.  My wife and I left that day, never to speak to any of them personally again, because, within a few months, we had all the drama over the school superintendent.  Everything got worse after much further erosion in the community led by Lynda’s tampering with everyone’s political sentiments and wanting to pull everyone to the left, and lawsuits became a significant issue.  I had to explain to the attorney for the superintendent that if he had just apologized to Darbi Boddy for his role in trying to do what Lynda wanted, which was to remove her from the school board after many of us had spent the previous year trying to get her elected, then a lot of the trouble he found himself in wouldn’t have been such an issue.  But now that people knew and learned how much Lynda knew about it all along, those were self-inflicted problems that ultimately cost a lot of money in the district.  Through it all, I hadn’t talked to any of them in that basement meeting, so when I heard that the West Chester Tea Party was thinking of endorsing Lynda, it wouldn’t have surprised me after all the other people who had fallen off the wagon over the last year.  But if there is anything good that did happen, as a result, they did let me know that they felt the same way about Lynda as I did and that they would not support her or any of the other candidates who have gone over to the dark side of politics.  That’s certainly the case with Ann Becker, who is running for another term as trustee in West Chester.  She used to be president of the Tea Party for both West Chester and Cincinnati, but she has moved well away from those good old days now, more toward the political left.  Watching that kind of thing is painful, but it always happens.  And when it does, you always must wonder what people believe.  But happily, it is good to see that the West Chester Tea Party has not waivered, as others have, and they will not be endorsing Lynda O’Conner for the Lakota School Board.  And neither will I.

Rich Hoffman

Don Jr. Campaigns in West Chester, Ohio for J.D. Vance: We are seeing extraordinary things happening

The beer is always good at Lori’s Roadhouse in West Chester. When they have political events that are conducive to country music and Republican Party politics, it tastes even better. And as I sipped on a beer with my wife at the bar watching J.D. Vance and Don Jr take pictures with a supportive crowd, several people asked me the same question, what effect will Trump’s endorsement of Vance for the hotly contested Ohio Senate seat have on the race as a whole. At present, the election is really between Josh Mandel, who I have been supportive of during the whole race, primarily because of his willingness to fight anybody anywhere, and his open talk about 2020 election fraud, and J.D. Vance, the former Never Trumper. He was now being personally put on a platform by the Trump family. All the other candidates, Jane Timken, Gibbons, and Dolin, are fighting for the traditional Rob Portman RINO types, the same people who currently support DeWine for governor. The present fear is that the Trump voters will be split between J.D. and Mandel, letting the squishier Republicans slide into the lead on May 3rd, 2022. Also, Jim Renacci and Mike DeWine are running pretty much tied, according to long-time Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale, as recently as a few days ago. So, what does all this mean, which is what people were asking me? So, I sipped my beer and answered……………….

If we take traditional primary voters, there would be many reasons to worry about all those mentioned concerns. But this isn’t a standard primary. Biden has taken the country to terrible, new places, and Don Jr. was just a few feet away, helping J.D. Vance overcome his past as a Never Trumper. President Trump had just held a major rally with tens of thousands of people in Delaware, Ohio. Marjorie Tayler Green was coming to West Chester in a few days to help Vance out and many other top-tier Republicans. This was no ordinary race, and voter engagement looked like it would be very high. That would help Renacci, even without a formal Trump endorsement. Because of the high voter engagement, Vance and Mandel voters would naturally also vote for Renacci. It doesn’t help Renacci that Blystone and others have stayed in the race to help DeWine by splitting the vote essentially. But with high voter turnout, things were looking good for Renacci to knock off DeWine. But in a hungry Ohio primary season where everyone wants a Trump endorsement, the J.D. Vance endorsement and personal work that Don Jr was willing to do himself would likely tip the scales in favor of J.D. Vance. 

Prior to the beer, J.D. and Don Jr. spoke to an eager crowd about why the senate candidate was a born-again Trump supporter, no longer a Never Trumper. And they made some excellent points that were worth mentioning. J.D. is undoubtedly not planning to be a war hawk like John McCain and Lindsey Graham have been. He doesn’t want to be in the war in Ukraine and has a very Trump-like position regarding global affairs. America First, and let everyone else fight their own battles. Drop the globalism and bring home all the jobs. That’s a good thing. The other thing that Don Jr. brought up, which was shown in the really great video of Don Jr.’s 25-minute speech, was that he asked the audience how many senators they actually liked that would fight for MAGA. He wondered if anybody could name five. Well, nobody could name more than three, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Josh Hawley. Beyond that, all we had out of the remaining 100 were squishy politicians who cared more about being liked by the media and could care less about the people they were supposed to represent. Many of them, like Mitch McConnell, had sold out America to foreign powers long ago, and they hid their guilt behind a kind of political game that most of them were playing, except for those three names mentioned. Some members of the audience mentioned Marjorie Tayler Green and Jim Jordan. But Don Jr. explained to those people that those were members of the House. They weren’t senators. 

So, to answer the question to everyone who didn’t get to ask me that same set of questions, I think the Trump endorsement will put J.D. Vance over the top. I think voter engagement will stave off the more establishment types. And that same voter engagement should help Renacci over DeWine. Of course, anything can happen, but as I sipped on the wonderful beer and enjoyed the good company there at the bar, that’s how things looked to me. Regardless of what happened on election day, the speech by Donald Trump Jr. was an amazing one, something that not even the craziest comedy sketches from 2015 would have dared to entertain. The kind of critical opinion expressed in the open at that event was very new and honest. It was the kind of stuff that people only talked about in private. They never talked about those things out loud. So we were in unique territory here, where the son of a billionaire who might otherwise just live life in a previous decade being a playboy and living on the golf course was flying around the country trying to get MAGA politicians elected to help his father have options in the Oval Office by the year 2024. This wasn’t politics as usual. These guys weren’t doing these things for money or power. J.D. Vance himself could be making a seven-figure income in a number of fields, but he wanted to be a senator. He wanted to help save Middletown, his hometown, from the victimization of globalism that had killed it over the last half-century. These were people who were defying logic as it was traditionally known. They loved their country, and the attackers of America never planned for that. We saw something extraordinary happening. 

And more than any other political prediction, I see something more special happening. Voters are engaged in a way they have never been previously. They are taking more time out of their lives to be involved in these kinds of political events. As I watched the people in line trying to get a picture with J.D. and Don Jr., I couldn’t help but think how proud people were to be near them. Not so much for the celebrity of the event, but because they recognized what Don Jr. was trying to do to save America. He was giving up a lot to be at Lori’s Roadhouse in West Chester, Ohio, to give his father a chance to have a beneficial senator in place by the time 2024 came around. Someone who would stand up to China and support the future Trump trade policies, especially regarding China, who owes us all a lot of money for what they did with Covid in 2020. And the public appreciated that kind of fight, and they wanted to be near people who were fighting on the front line. We’ll see how that pans out on election day, May 3rd. But from my viewpoint, remarkable things are lining up that we have never witnessed before. And that is an exciting prospect.  

Rich Hoffman

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Butler Country Republican Party Endorses Jim Renacci for Governor: President Trump is coming to Delaware, Ohio on April 23rd, get your tickets

It was quite remarkable that the Butler County Republican Party endorsed Jim Renacci for Governor of Ohio during the upcoming primary vote. Butler County isn’t the only endorsement for Renacci; he is picking them up at an increasing pace as the stretch toward election day has come closer. However, the Butler County Republican Party is one of the strongest conservative forces for good in the nation. Every officeholder in Butler County, which has over 400,000 people, is a Republican. Butler County likes its Republicans, and to turn away from the current governor and political heavyweight Mike DeWine is quite a public statement. It shows the tremendous Republican strength of Jim Renacci, but it also indicates to what degree Mike DeWine has lost the conservative base, and deservedly so. DeWine has operated as a Democrat. He was horrible during the Covid crisis. In many ways, he led all the blue states in lockdowns and has been a complete embarrassment to the Republican Party. If there were a picture of what a RINO looked like (a Republican in name only), Mike DeWine’s face would be their despicable example. But an endorsement from the Butler County Republican Party was no easy thing to give to Renacci. The DeWine name has been in politics for a long time, and in a less turbulent time, an endorsement of the incumbent governor would be assured. However, the times are turbulent, and Mike DeWine has led disaster straight to all our doorsteps by letting global oriented health experts tie Ohio to the sinking ship of lockdowns and mask mandates destroying businesses and people’s lives ruthlessly as the grips of authoritarian power seized all rational thought and turned DeWine into a modern version of the insane Roman emperor, Nero. Jim Renacci was a chance to start over, and when the Republican Party of Butler County was ready to make that change, it’s quite clear that the rest of Ohio was too.

I have loved Jim Renacci from the beginning and spoke to him personally during his campaign several times. He is poised to bring a Jim Renacci version of Florida’s Ron DeSantis to Ohio. I think Jim can be better than DeSantis, who has set a very high bar in many ways. Just a few days ago, I had a chance to talk to Jim Renacci again, this time for a long time in a somewhat private setting, and we talked about Trump. He didn’t want to say if he would get a Trump endorsement at that time. We talked about how tough it would be for Trump to pick anybody as an endorsement because if the other guy won, Trump would have to work with the loser when he returns to the White House in 2024 after the shellacking that is planned for the insurgent Democrats after this upcoming 2022 election. Jim Renacci was undoubtedly part of the puzzle in retaking America from the grips of Democrat activism. But again, DeWine has been in politics for a long time and has worked with the Trump administration before. In public, the relationship was workable, but behind the scenes, not so much. At one of the last campaign events Trump held in Ohio when DeWine tried to get on the stage with the president, the public booed him off, embarrassing DeWine tremendously. Trump supporters had not forgotten what DeWine did to Ohio during Covid, and they let him hear about it. A few weeks ago, I had a chance to meet the governor in Columbus, and it was evident that he was a shell of his former personality. He knew he was in political trouble. He screwed up Ohio under his first term, and he would have to pay for it. So to answer the question of endorsements, Trump is coming to Ohio on April 23rd to Delaware, just north of Columbus. Renacci will be at that event to meet with his old friend, Donald J. Trump. Get your tickets and witness history. 

So now is the time for Joe Blystone and others who are also running for governor to put their name behind Jim Renacci. They are polling at 20% or less and are not picking up endorsements, which is an early indicator of people’s voting in the primary. Joe Blystone might be a good guy with conservative policies, but he doesn’t have the depth that Renacci brings to the table, and he’s not going to get it a month before the election. Instead, he could hurt the sizable lead that Renacci does have over DeWine by staying in the race. There is undoubtedly a home for good people like Blystone in a state run by Jim Renacci. He would essentially be an extension of the Trump administration, just as Florida is presently. But splitting up that Republican vote by skimming away 20% off the top would serve only one purpose, the chance that Mike DeWine might squeak in under the door due to a split-up conservative movement. That is undoubtedly the situation with the top four candidates for the Senate, one of the primary reasons Trump is coming to Ohio on the 23rd to settle a tight race so the party can unite behind his pick. Voters want to know who Trump wants to work with within the coming days, so the need to clarify things just a few weeks ahead of the primary election is necessary. Of course, it’s risky for President Trump to put his name behind anybody since all four of the candidates are running on a Trump platform of America first. But Trump isn’t afraid of risks, and this visit to Delaware shows it and the kind of leadership that a real leader brings to politics.

That is the same situation for candidate for governor Ron Hood and his running mate Candice Keller. I think they have value, and I’d hate to see them waste it fighting against Renacci for some slice of the Trump vote when the real villain in the race is Mike DeWine. Everyone needs to unite to ensure that Mike DeWine is defeated, especially with an upcoming Trump visit to back candidates and endorsements like Jim Renacci has with the Republican Party. There are still plenty of Never Trumper RINOs in the Republican Party who will show up and vote for Mike DeWine. Even though Blystone and Hood have no chance of catching up to Renacci before the election, if they were ever going to, it would have been before now; being in the race forces Renacci to have an unreasonable lead over DeWine to win the election. Without them in the race, Renacci would win for sure. So there could be only one reason they would stay in the race because they secretly want to help DeWine, which would then destroy their brand for any hope of a political future. It’s time for them to pick sides and back a winner. In this case, it’s Jim Renacci. It really shouldn’t be hard for them; whether the issue is constitutional conservativism or abortion rights, Renacci is so much like Trump policy-wise; he will listen to people who are further in the conservative movement than he is. But DeWine isn’t. So it should be an easy decision if those candidates genuinely want what’s best for Ohio. Once the Republican Party of Butler County makes their pick, it’s a good indication of what Ohio is going to do. And they have great things to offer the Republican Party; they should be involved once Jim Renacci is elected governor, and Ohio can then become much more of a MAGA state than it is now. We can then become the Florida of the north and perhaps do even better.

Rich Hoffman

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