I have been talking about this for years now, and the pattern keeps confirming itself. A few years ago, in 2022, it was Cochise County, Arizona, with Katie Hobbs as Secretary of State. Republican supervisors on the board delayed certifying the midterm results past the statutory deadline, citing concerns about the certification and accreditation of the voting machines. Hobbs, who was herself a candidate for governor against Kari Lake, sued the county to force the canvass. A judge ordered them to certify; they eventually did under threat, and later two supervisors were indicted for interference. Official accounts insist there was “no evidence of a count being incorrect,” yet the resistance itself, the attempted full hand-count that a court blocked, and the broader atmosphere of machine distrust revealed how thin the institutional trust had become.
We have seen the same dynamic in Fulton County, Georgia. In December 2025, an attorney for the county stood before the State Election Board and stated plainly that they did not dispute the failure to sign tabulator tapes covering roughly 315,000 early votes from the 2020 election—nearly all of the early in-person ballots. That directly violates the rules designed to create a verifiable chain of custody between voters and tabulated results. There have also been admissions and findings around double-scanned ballots, missing ballot images, and inconsistent batch tallies from the risk-limiting audit and recount. Officials and the Secretary of State call these clerical errors that did not change the outcome; Biden’s margin in Georgia was about 11,779 votes. Yet the volume of procedural failures is not trivial, and the late admission years later only feeds the original skepticism.
How They Thought They Would Get Away With It
This is what has always puzzled me. The Constitution and American society rest on a baseline of integrity—people raising their right hand and swearing to tell the whole truth, so help them, God. When that idea is hollowed out, the entire mechanism of voluntary cooperation collapses. Progressive globalism treated the removal of that integrity as a feature, not a bug. Without the sacred weight of the oath, testimony becomes just another tactical instrument. You can say whatever advances the narrative today and walk it back tomorrow as a “clerical error.” The goal was authority without the restraint of genuine accountability.
They preached using the power of government to reshape the individual and society, yet simultaneously pushed to defund the police. That is an obvious contradiction. If you dismantle the everyday instruments of law and order, how exactly do you intend to enforce the new authority you claim? You cannot have it both ways. Either the rules apply with consistent enforcement, or the system becomes pure power exercised by whoever controls the institutions at the moment. The progressive assumption seemed to be that once integrity was sufficiently degraded, and once enough people accepted that “the process” itself was the only legitimacy required, dissent could be managed through narrative, lawfare, and selective prosecution rather than persuasion.
Lawfare, Oaths, and the Targeting of Questioners
We saw that approach in practice. Efforts to put Trump in jail; the imprisonment of Peter Navarro for contempt of Congress related to the January 6 committee and election-related challenges; and the FBI seizure of Mike Lindell’s phone at a drive-through while he was under heavy scrutiny for questioning the machines and the results—these were not abstract debates. They showed what happens when you question the official story too persistently. At the same time, discussions continue about holding figures such as Anthony Fauci accountable for the pandemic response, yet the institutional machinery has been far more energetic in pursuing those who challenged 2020 election procedures than in applying the same standard universally.
The removal of the idea that an oath means something is central. When liberals treat the “so help me God” clause as optional theater, the entire structure of testimony and public record loses its force. That is why a candidate like Amy Acton can run for governor in Ohio with a campaign largely managed through public relations filters, raising tens of millions while avoiding direct, unscripted answers to difficult questions. The model is to control the information environment rather than submit to open scrutiny. In a system that still had robust integrity, that approach would be fatal. Once integrity is optional, it becomes a viable strategy.
The Voice of the People and the 2024 Contrast
People still went out and voted in large numbers in 2024. The red wave, though it could not be fully contained, showed that when voters have a clear channel and counting is sufficiently visible, the representative mechanism can still function. That is why calls to re-examine 2020—not as nostalgia, but as a demand that discrepancies be treated with the same seriousness as any other large-scale administrative failure—continue. Trump didn’t have to be drafted into that fight; he volunteered because the alternative was accepting a system in which the oath and the count are both flexible. It was never more complicated than that for those who still believe the mechanisms they were told were reliable should actually be reliable.
The progressive error was thinking that authority could be sustained after integrity had been systematically weakened. Without the cultural habit of telling the truth under oath, and without consistent law enforcement that does not depend on political convenience, the only remaining tools are narrative control and selective coercion. That is not a stable foundation for any society that claims to be constitutional. The admissions in places like Fulton County and the certification fights in Cochise County are not the whole story, but they clearly illustrate why so many people concluded the system had stopped treating integrity as non-negotiable.
Bibliography
• New York Times, “Republican-Controlled County in Arizona Holds Up Election Results,” November 28, 2022.
• Snopes, “Fulton County, Georgia, officials admitted ballot-handling errors during 2020 election,” December 2025 (citing State Election Board proceedings and county attorney Ann Brumbaugh’s statement).
• Atlanta News First and 11Alive reporting on the December 9, 2025, State Election Board hearing regarding unsigned tabulator tapes covering approximately 315,000 early votes.
• Associated Press and other contemporaneous coverage of Cochise County Board of Supervisors actions, Hobbs lawsuit, and subsequent judicial order to certify.
• Judicial Watch and reporting on the 2022 FBI warrant and seizure of Mike Lindell’s phone.
• Coverage of Peter Navarro’s conviction and imprisonment for contempt of Congress.
• Acton for Governor campaign finance announcements and contemporaneous polling.porting on the 2026 Ohio gubernatorial race.The record is public.
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
Three weeks ago, on September 21, I stood in a room at Miami University with people who matter in Ohio manufacturing, aerospace, and the emerging unmanned systems business. We were talking about the Volynt Vyper—the hybrid unmanned eVTOL some of us have been calling the Viper—and why it should be built and staged right here in Ohio for exactly the kind of problem that just hit the Florida Panhandle.
I said we were in hurricane season. I said the real issue after these storms is rarely that the buildings fall down. Category 2 storms like the one that just made landfall near Destin do not usually level towns. The buildings stay up. What fails is the power. Nursing homes, dialysis clinics, and people on oxygen concentrators cannot wait three or four days while line crews clear trees and string new wire. I said the Vyper could deliver power into those areas the first night. The market is wide open. Nobody else is flying a hybrid platform that can land and put usable AC power on the ground where it is needed.
Hurricane Isaias made landfall Friday night near Destin as a Category 2 with sustained winds around 105 mph and gusts over 110–116 mph in places. By early Saturday the statewide Florida outage count was near 448,000 customer accounts according to Governor DeSantis, part of a broader regional peak that approached 900,000 across Florida, Alabama, and Georgia. As of Sunday afternoon, hundreds of thousands were still without power, concentrated in Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, and neighboring counties. Florida Power & Light has said it expects to restore 95 percent of customers who can safely accept power by the end of the day Monday. That is the current system working as well as it can: more than 16,000 linemen and restoration personnel from dozens of states, staged in advance, drones and helicopters already doing damage assessment, major roads and bridges reopened quickly. It is impressive work. It is also not fast enough for the people who need continuous power to stay alive.[1][2][3]
The Last 5 Percent Is the Real Problem
Most towns can absorb a Category 2. The buildings hold. The problem is the multi-day loss of electricity. Of the roughly 300,000 Florida customers still dark or only recently restored as of Sunday, a small but critical percentage—call it 5 percent or so—are elderly, medically dependent, or in facilities that cannot simply ride it out. Oxygen concentrators are the clearest example. A typical home stationary 5-liter unit draws roughly 300–400 watts continuous, with a startup surge that can approach 600 watts. Run that for 24 hours and you are looking at about 7–10 kWh just for one machine. Multiply that by the number of residents in a nursing home who need continuous oxygen, add medical equipment, emergency lighting, and the minimum HVAC required to keep temperatures safe, and the load climbs fast.[4]
A nursing home with half a dozen concentrators plus supporting medical gear and basic environmental control can easily sit in the several-kilowatt range for critical loads. Full building HVAC and lighting push it higher still—into the 10–11 kW territory for some facilities, which is roughly 260 kWh for a full day. That is not a job for a handful of truck batteries. It is a job for something that can get there when roads are blocked and then either deliver charged batteries or, better, land and generate power on site.
The federal Office of Inspector General looked at this problem earlier this year. Their audit of nursing homes participating in Medicare and Medicaid estimated that 73 percent of the roughly 15,000 facilities nationwide have inadequate or unreliable emergency power systems. The deficiencies include poor generator maintenance, incomplete circuit coverage, and equipment that is decades old. The report exists because people have died in past storms when power failed and backup systems did not hold. Hurricane Ida in Louisiana and Winter Storm Uri in Texas are the recent examples the OIG cited. Those numbers did not change because Isaias was “only” a Category 2.[5]
What the Vyper Actually Does
Volynt Aero, based in Oxford, Ohio, and spun out of the Miami University ecosystem, is building the Vyper as a hybrid-electric unmanned aircraft specifically for contested logistics, disaster response, and mobile power. Public specifications list a 500-pound cargo capacity and a range of about 150 nautical miles. The important part for this use case is that it is designed to land and provide 110, 240, or 480 VAC plug-in power on the ground for equipment or tactical microgrids. It runs on standard JP-8 or Jet A, so it does not require a high-voltage charging network to turn around quickly. It is remote-operated or autonomous. The mission set is dull, dirty, dangerous, and distant—exactly the description of a post-hurricane nursing home that still has no grid power on night one or night two.[6]
A realistic early mission profile is not trying to power an entire 120-bed facility at full load. It is the critical load: the concentrators, the medical equipment that must stay online, emergency lighting, and enough environmental control to keep residents safe overnight. One aircraft, one night, one nursing home is the starting point. Battery payload delivery is part of the picture as well. A 50 kg battery package is already meaningful for concentrators and medical gear. Multiple flights or a landed generator configuration scales from there. The point is not that the Vyper replaces the 16,000 linemen. It covers the gap between landfall and the moment the grid is back for the people who cannot wait.
Escambia County alone has on the order of 2,000 nursing home beds. Santa Rosa has well over 1,000. Okaloosa has several hundred more. Dozens of facilities sit inside the hardest-hit outage zones. Some of them have generators that work. Many do not have generators that cover the loads that actually matter once the power is out for more than a few hours. The nurses, the residents, and the families already know what those nights look like. The current restoration system prioritizes hospitals, 911 centers, and the greatest number of customers. It does not fly a power source to a specific nursing home at 2 a.m. on night one.
Ohio Manufacturing and the Open Market
The question after Isaias is not whether the power need exists. It is whether enough of these aircraft will be manufactured and staged before the next storm season. The market is empty. There is no competing hybrid unmanned platform already delivering AC power into disaster zones at this scale. It will take any competitor two or three years and substantial capital just to reach the starting line. That window belongs to whoever builds and fields the capability first.
Manufacturing in Ohio makes sense for the same reasons we discussed on September 21. The technical talent is here. The supply base for aerospace and unmanned systems is here. The university partnership is already in place. The product is dual-use: the same airframe that can support military contested logistics can support civilian disaster response. State emergency management agencies, utilities, and federal partners already buy staged assets. They stage 16,000 linemen and thousands of trucks. Adding a layer of prepositioned aircraft and trained operators is an incremental procurement item, not a new invention.
Governor DeSantis and Florida’s emergency management structure have shown they will stage resources aggressively. A memorandum of understanding with Florida utilities and the Division of Emergency Management, followed by a procurement vehicle, is the practical path. Preposition aircraft and batteries in Pensacola and Tallahassee before the next named storm. Train the operators. Write the contracts so the capability is already funded and sitting on the ramp when the cone of uncertainty locks in. The alternative is asking nursing homes and oxygen-dependent residents to hope their generators hold or that the last 5 percent gets restored before something goes wrong.
Next Year Is the Test
Hurricanes will hit the Gulf Coast and the Atlantic coast again. North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Florida will lose power for days. Category 2 storms will continue to leave the buildings standing and the lights out. The people who need oxygen, dialysis, or temperature control will still be waiting on the traditional restoration timeline.
The prototype is close enough that the conversation should no longer be about whether the idea works. It should be about how many airframes can be built, staged, and under contract before the 2027 season. One aircraft proving the concept on the first night after landfall is valuable. A fleet sized to the critical facilities in the hardest-hit counties is the actual requirement. The investment is not theoretical. It is lithium batteries, hybrid powerplants, airframes, operators, and the contracts that put them in position before the storm arrives instead of after the bodies have been counted.
I said on September 21 that this is what the Vyper is for. Isaias just spent the weekend making the case. The buildings held. The power did not. The people who cannot wait are still in the dark tonight. Next year we should not be asking the same question.
Notes
1. Landfall details, wind speeds, and early outage counts drawn from statements by Governor Ron DeSantis and contemporaneous reporting from the Associated Press, CBS, and Florida outlets, October 9–10, 2026.
2. Florida Power & Light restoration targets (95 percent of customers who can safely accept power by end of day Monday) and workforce size (more than 16,000 from 29 states) from FPL updates issued October 10–11, 2026.
3. Peak regional outages approaching 900,000 and continuing Sunday figures in the 300,000–400,000 range for Florida and Alabama from PowerOutage.us tracking and national reporting, October 10–11, 2026.
4. Oxygen concentrator power consumption ranges (approximately 300–600 W continuous for stationary home units, with higher startup surges) are standard published specifications for common 5-liter models such as Philips Respironics EverFlo and DeVilbiss units.
5. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, “Most Nursing Homes Throughout the United States Do Not Have Adequate or Reliable Emergency Power Systems,” report issued April 2026. Estimate of 73 percent based on sample of 100 facilities extrapolated to approximately 15,115 Medicare/Medicaid nursing homes.
6. Volynt Aero public descriptions of the Vyper: 500 lb cargo, ~150 NM range, hybrid JP-8/Jet A powerplant, capability to land and supply 110/240/480 VAC power. Company materials and capability statements, 2024–2026. Oxford, Ohio; Miami University spinout connection.
Bibliography / Further Reading
• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General. Most Nursing Homes Throughout the United States Do Not Have Adequate or Reliable Emergency Power Systems. April 2026.
• Florida Power & Light newsroom updates on Hurricane Isaias restoration, October 10–11, 2026.
• National Hurricane Center advisories and post-landfall reporting on Hurricane Isaias, October 9–11, 2026.
• Volynt Aero company materials and capability statements describing the Vyper hybrid unmanned aircraft (payload, range, on-ground power generation).
• PowerOutage.us and Florida Public Service Commission outage tracking data for Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, and surrounding counties, October 9–11, 2026.
• Published technical specifications for common stationary oxygen concentrators (Philips Respironics, DeVilbiss, and similar 5 L models) regarding continuous and startup wattage.
• Prior storm case studies referenced in the OIG report: Hurricane Ida (Louisiana nursing home deaths) and Winter Storm Uri (Texas nursing home power loss and evacuations).
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
I am not a fan of the surveillance state. I wrote a book against police abuse and against the abuse of authority, and I meant it. I do not like being commanded. I do not take orders well; I would have been a poor recruit for the military, and I do not like a government that knocks on the door at two in the morning and calls it a rescue. I am not big on tolls; I am not big on a camera sending me a bill for a bridge I did not mean to take, and I spent years on the radio, including with Scott Sloan on WLW, arguing against red-light cameras. Many people who usually agree with me in Butler County are against Flock cameras. Some of the township trustees I know are against them. I understand the objection. I do not share it anymore, and the reason is a month I spent as foreman of a Butler County grand jury.
That is a qualification, not a conversion. The tool is not the same thing as the hand on the tool.
Tolls, red lights, and a bill in the mail
The Louisville bridges cured me of any romance about a camera and a mailbox. RiverLink, on the Lincoln, the Kennedy, and the Lewis and Clark, has no cash lane. A camera reads the plate, and the bill finds the registered owner. Cross without a transponder, and you pay the higher pay-by-plate rate. As of July 2026, a two-axle car was $5.57 pay-by-plate against $2.79 with a transponder. [1] I got that bill once, four or five dollars in the version I remember, because I was in the wrong lane and would rather have used the other bridge. I did not like it. I had not agreed, in any way that felt like an agreement, to be invoiced by a lens.
I feel differently about the tolls on the drive to Washington and the drive toward Chicago. I pay them. Twenty-five or thirty dollars, sometimes more, and I do not hunt the free road to save three bucks. The toll road is usually the direct road, and getting on and off a free highway through a thicket of signals is its own tax. Florida still gets me. Leave Orlando toward the parks, and a couple of those plazas always find the rental. Toward Cape Canaveral it is milder. I am not a fan of any of it. A road built with taxes should not be rented back to the people who already paid for it. That objection stands. It is not the same objection as a camera that tells a prosecutor which car left a parking lot after a shooting.
What a Flock camera actually is
Flock Safety, out of Atlanta, sells automatic license plate readers. The camera does not need an officer on the corner with a notepad. It photographs the passing vehicle, and the plate number, state, time, location, and the vehicle’s color and make become a searchable record. The company says it does not do facial recognition. People are not supposed to be the data. The car is. By the summer of 2026, the New York Times had the network at about 120,000 cameras, under contract to about 7,000 agencies, which the paper put at roughly 40 percent of American departments, in every state but Alaska. Other reporting put the scan volume near 20 billion license plates a month. Default retention had been about 30 days. After a run of documented abuses, Flock said it was cutting the standard window to seven days and locking accounts that searched abnormally. [2] [3] [4]
The abuse is not theoretical. The Washington Post found more than 50 cases of officers using the databases for personal searches, often men looking up wives, girlfriends, exes, and women they wanted to meet. Dozens of cities have canceled or suspended contracts. The Electronic Frontier Foundation calls the whole arrangement invasive mass surveillance, and that description is fair for the capability. A camera that records every car records the innocent with the guilty. [4] [5] I am not going to pretend otherwise to win an argument with a trustee.
What the grand jury changed
I had always wanted to serve on a grand jury. I did not like the way the summons talks. “ Commanded to appear” is not a phrase I answer to with any pleasure. I am not a recipient of orders from a superior. I went anyway. I was selected foreman. Ohio law lets a county pay a grand juror up to forty dollars a day; the figure is set locally, and I served about twenty-six days. Over the month I took home a few hundred dollars. I spent it on books. I know which ones. They are on the shelf by the bed, and they mean more than books I bought with ordinary money. [6]
About half the time in that room was video. I estimate it’s about eighty hours of tape across the month, including witnesses on the stand and footage played against what they said. I wasn’t a fan of being summoned, and I wasn’t a fan of what I had to watch. Child-exploitation cases came in on phone video, messages arranging sex with a fourteen-year-old, the kind of evidence a detective can pull off a device. Other cases needed a place and a time. A license plate at an intersection in Middletown at 2:30 in the morning is a fact. A deputy sitting on that corner with a clipboard is a target. The drug runs between Dayton and Middletown do not slow down for a man with a pen.
One case is the one I still use when someone tells me a camera is only a toy for busybodies. Two men shot each other up after a fight that started in a bar parking lot. One of them was hit about fourteen times. They dropped a body at the emergency room at the Middletown hospital and left. The man on the stretcher would not say who shot him. Witnesses in that world do not rat each other out. Cars on the road, plates on the cameras, and the correspondence between those plates and the people who could then be found, and the guns that could then be collected, were the indictment. Without the plate reads, we did not have a case. We would have had a wounded man who would not talk, and a prosecutor with a theory.
That is the hole in the old model. Testimony used to carry more of the load because more people were afraid to lie under oath in a culture that still treated a lie as a sin, not a tactic. I do not trust unaided testimony the way a courtroom in 1955 could pretend to. People lie to your face. They lie about alibis, they lie about who was driving, they lie because the crowd they are going back to will punish the truth harder than the court will punish the lie. A camera does not join a gang. It does not forget the intersection. It does not get run over at 2:30 in the morning for writing down a number.
I have told the trustees who worry I will turn on them: I am not going to get mad at you for the cameras. I do not like a surveillance state as a lifestyle. I like a plate reader that makes an indictment possible when every human witness has a reason to go mute.
The qualification, which is the whole argument
Here is the line I will not blur. I trust this tool under a Republican administration. I do not trust it under a Democratic one.
I like law enforcement when it targets criminals. I like it in Butler County under Sheriff Jones. I like it in the Fourth Congressional District under Warren Davidson, in the Ohio Senate under George Lang, and in Columbus under a Republican majority. I like Washington under Trump in a way I didn’t before. I have been to the city several times since he went back to the White House, and I enjoy it now the way I enjoy Mount Rushmore, which is not a sentence I expected to write. The order is visible. The cops and the immigration agents look like they are doing the job in front of them rather than auditioning for a political faction. I like the FBI better with Kash Patel over it than I liked the FBI that raided Mar-a-Lago and treated a former president and his wife as a stage prop. Same building. Different hand on the warrant.
Democrats have already shown what they do with police power when they have it. The surveillance state, the early-morning knock, the selective prosecution, the use of a process crime to punish a political enemy: that was not a rumor from a pamphlet. It was the Obama years and the Biden years, in public. A Flock network in those hands is not a tool for a Middletown shooting. It is a map of where the opposition drove on Tuesday. The company itself has had to warn users off searches tied to reproductive-care laws in some states and off immigration searches in others, which admits the search box can be aimed at politics as easily as at a stolen car. [2] Officers have already aimed it at their private lives. [5] I would not give that keypad to an administration that has used the IRS, the intelligence agencies, and the Justice Department as factional weapons.
So the policy I actually hold is narrower than “cameras good” or “cameras bad.” Cameras, plate readers, and the data centers that make the search possible, under officials who can be thrown out of office and who are not already in the habit of aiming the state at their critics. If the other party takes the offices, the same hardware becomes a reason to rip the contract out. I would rather pass a clean rule now, retention short, searches logged, personal queries a firing offense, immigration and political queries banned by statute, than pretend the objection is the lens.
Data centers are a separate argument, and I have been on that side in Butler County while opposing the nosy state. A data center is a building that hires people and pays taxes and gives a county the computing power the next economy runs on. It is not a warrant. Treating every server rack as a spy camera is how you talk yourself out of the jobs and then act surprised when the investigative database lives in another state anyway. I support the centers. I do not support a government that uses every stream of data just because the stream exists.
Mount Rushmore, Deadwood, and the point of the order
I trust the places where the country still feels like itself. Mount Rushmore is the one I send people to if they have never gone. Better to go during the Sturgis rally, ride the Badlands, take the Iron Mountain road down toward Custer, see the buffalo, then drive up to Deadwood for a hamburger in one of those bars on the strip. The fries taste better next to a street where the old gunmen walked, and a sheriff holding a hard town is still the right picture of the job: Devils Tower, the Tetons, Jackson Hole: same sensation. America is a physical place, not a policy memo.
I have been to the bookstore at Rushmore with my oldest daughter. Everyone else was ready for the car. We had done the avenues and the little passage in the hills, and she and I stayed and carried books out. They are on the shelf. Grand jury service sits in that same part of my memory, which will sound strange to anyone who has not done it. A few hundred dollars, a stack of books, and a month of looking at what people actually do to each other when they think no one can place the car. Since that month I have been back to Washington, and I like the city more than I did. The obelisk and the Masonic ornament do not bother me the way they once did. A country that can put Trump back in that house, after the lawfare and the raid, has earned some patience with its marble.
I do not trust people as much as I used to, not under oath and not in a parking lot. I trust a timestamp. I trust a plate. I trust a data center that keeps the record long enough to indict and not long enough to build a dossier on a life. I do not think the camera network is a Chinese social-credit poster, and I do not think the machine on the other end is HAL, waiting to lock the pod bay doors. The rational machine does not wipe out the creature that can pull its plug. It behaves more like a working dog than like a coup. That is my view of the technology, and it is open to evidence. It is not open to the slogan that every lens is a prison.
If you want the practical version, it is this. Vote for the sheriff, the prosecutor, the trustee, and the president who will aim the cameras at the shooting in the bar lot and not at the donor list. Say yes to the Flock contract with a short retention and a public log of searches. Say no, immediately, if the people in charge have already shown they will use a warrant as a campaign. Churches on Sunday will not replace a plate read at 2:30 in the morning, and a plate read will not replace a county that still elects the hand on the switch. You need both. I have seen cases where you do not get a ticket if you only have the sermons and the witnesses.
Notes
[1] RiverLink tolls the Abraham Lincoln Bridge, the John F. Kennedy Memorial Bridge, and the Lewis and Clark Bridge with no cash lanes. Cameras match the plate to the registration and mail an invoice if there is no transponder account. As of the July 1, 2026 adjustment, a two-axle pay-by-plate toll was $5.57, against $2.79 with a transponder. Toll Wiki, “Kentucky Toll Bridge — RiverLink,” citing the bi-state rate resolution; RiverLink pay-by-plate instructions.
[2] Flock Safety’s network was reported at about 120,000 cameras and about 7,000 law-enforcement customers, roughly 40 percent of U.S. departments, in every state but Alaska. Searches can be run across agencies. The system prompts users away from reproductive-care searches in jurisdictions that bar them and away from immigration searches in others. Kashmir Hill and Fernando Alfonso III, “Why are Flock cameras controversial?” The New York Times, August 10, 2026.
[3] Reporting in 2026 put Flock’s volume near 20 billion license-plate scans a month. A scan can include plate, state, time, location, color, make, and model. The company says the cameras do not use facial recognition. Default deletion had been about 30 days. TechSpot, “License plate cameras are scanning 20 billion vehicles a month,” June 30, 2026. In August 2026, Flock said it would shorten standard retention to seven days and lock accounts showing abnormal search behavior. Associated Press, “Surveillance tech company Flock announces platform changes amid public backlash,” August 13, 2026.
[4] The Marshall Project, “The Flock Backlash Catches Up to the Tech,” October 3, 2026, summarizing the Washington Post’s count of more than 50 unauthorized searches, often personal, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s description of ALPRs as invasive mass surveillance. The Institute for Justice’s tracker, cited there, counted 247 full cancellations of ALPR programs.
[5] Same Marshall Project account, October 3, 2026, on officer misuse. See also AP, August 13, 2026: more than 50 agencies or jurisdictions had canceled, suspended, rejected, or deactivated Flock cameras since the start of the year, by a DeFlock count.
[6] Ohio Revised Code 2939.04: grand-juror pay is fixed by the board of county commissioners and may not exceed forty dollars a day, paid from the county treasury. The per-day figure in the essay is the author’s recollection of Butler County service, within that statutory cap. The supervisor may be selected by the common-pleas judge under R.C. 2939.02.
Bibliography
Associated Press. “Surveillance tech company Flock announces platform changes amid public backlash.” August 13, 2026.
Electronic Frontier Foundation. Atlas of Surveillance, and EFF writing on automated license plate readers as mass surveillance. https://atlasofsurveillance.org
Hill, Kashmir, and Fernando Alfonso III. “Why are Flock cameras controversial?” The New York Times, August 10, 2026.
Institute for Justice. Automated license plate reader cancellation tracker, cited in The Marshall Project, October 3, 2026.
Marshall Project. “The Flock Backlash Catches Up to the Tech.” October 3, 2026.
Ohio Revised Code, sections 2939.02 and 2939.04. Grand jury foreman; compensation.
RiverLink. Official payment and account pages for the Louisville-Southern Indiana Ohio River bridges. https://riverlink.com
TechSpot. “License plate cameras are scanning 20 billion vehicles a month, cities are starting to push back.” June 30, 2026.
Toll Wiki. “Kentucky Toll Bridge — RiverLink.” Rate table including the July 1, 2026 adjustment.
Wisconsin Right Now. “Shootings, Stabbings, A Kidnapping Attempt: Flock Cameras Helped Crack These Waukesha County Cases.” September 29, 2026. Local case summaries in which a plate reader identified the suspect vehicle.
WIS-TV. “Inside Richland County’s Flock network: 94 murders solved amid mounting privacy debate.” September 29, 2026. Sheriff’s office figures: 687 investigative successes, 296 vehicles recovered, 94 homicides assisted by ALPR data since 2023. One department’s numbers, not a national rate.
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
I said I would do a thesis on Jason Voorhees. I still will. I have been thinking about him all season, and I have been close enough to the subject to test a few things I used to know only from a chair. I cannot talk about that work yet. I am under an obligation on it, and I will get into the details in November, after Halloween 2026 has passed. What I can say now, and what I will stand behind, is this: if you go to Kings Island Haunt and walk JASON: Blood Reign, you will be scared. I do not care how tough you think you are.
That is not a park slogan. It is an observation about what the maze is built to do.
A B-movie with a longer shadow
When I was a teenager, Friday the 13th was the movie you watched hoping to see a topless girl. There was no internet. You could not pull anything up whenever you wanted to see nudity. You sat through a camp-in-the-woods picture and took what you could get. I have always thought of those films that way. They are B-movies. They are fun. They are rough. The later ones are mostly refs of the earlier ones.
They are also still here.
A dozen films on, Jason Voorhees is one of the most recognized villains American cinema ever produced. People do not just remember him. They wear him. At Kings Island, you can walk out of the gift shop in a Jason jersey or a Jason hoodie, and you can buy the same stuff almost anywhere else the season is being sold. That is not how audiences are supposed to treat a killer. They are supposed to sympathize with the victims. They do not. They root for Jason to finish the job. I have wanted to know why, and I have wanted to know it in a way that survives contact with the actual exhibit, not just the comfort of a book.
Haunted houses are a very specific American habit. Jason is a very specific kind of villain. The Kings Island maze, one of three Six Flags parks debuting JASON: Blood Reign this year, and the only one in the Midwest, is the cleanest public expression of that psychology I have seen. Universal has promoted the property. Other parks have tried the mask. This one understands the character.
Psycho, the mother, and the boy in the lake
The first Friday the 13th is not really a Jason movie. It is a mother movie. Pamela Voorhees is the killer. Her boy drowned in the lake while the counselors were off doing what counselors in these movies always do. The picture owes a great deal to Psycho: the mother, the frame, the sense that you are being watched from the tree line, the score doing half the violence before a hand ever moves. Hitchcock is all over the early films, whether anyone on set would have said so. You are often looking at the victims from the place the killer is standing.
Jason himself comes back in the sequel, still not the hockey mask. The mask arrives in Part III, taken off a prankster, and from then on it is the face. No eyes you can bargain with. No mouth you can read. Kevin Bacon, years before Footloose, dies in the first film with an arrow through the throat. We did not leave the theater grieving the campers. We left talking about the kill.
The added layer, past Psycho, is that Jason was the picked-on boy. Different. Isolated. Kept by his mother. Abandoned, in the story the films tell, by the very people hired to watch the children. He dies. She avenges him. Then he comes back, and he does not stay dead. He has no fear of death because the films will not let death keep him. He cannot be appealed to. He cannot be shamed. He grew into a slow, silent killer with no tether to the rules the camp was built to teach.
Why the gift shop sells the killer
Most of what scares people in a haunt is not contact. You are not allowed to be touched. The scare is psychological, and nothing in that toolkit is more psychological than a silent killer who does not yell, does not explain, and does not hurry. He keeps coming.
People identify with that. I do not think they were supposed to. I think Jason was built as a killer and a punishment. Audiences made him something else. They bought the jersey. They wanted the counselors dead. The kids in those movies are the structure: the ones who tell you when to build the fire, when to brush your teeth, when the season starts, when it ends, which lake you can swim in, which trail you can take. They are also, in the films’ own moral accounting, the ones who were having sex while a boy drowned. The audience holds both ideas at once and picks Jason.
That is the interesting part. We do not identify with the victims of a system. We identify with what cuts the system down, even when that thing is a murderer. Art in a free country is allowed to show that. We do not have to pretend we came for the counselors.
Camp counselors, peer pressure, and the pecking order
I have spent a lot of years watching this kind of subject from a distance. Books. A chair. A camper. Airports. High altitude, low emotional cost. This year I have had to look at a few things up close, without that distance, and I think some of that was on purpose. The Jason question got sharper when I could no longer keep it theoretical.
Here is the part I have been telling people.
Most of us spend our lives appealing to someone we have decided is above us. The neighbor has more money. Someone else has the better job, the better spouse, the better lawn, the better pool. We measure ourselves in human units, and we learned the units early. Babies mimic. They copy speech, the shape of a mouth, the way an eye narrows, the way a person walks. Then the wider world gets hold of the copy. Peer pressure is the delivery system. I have said for years that evil does some of its best work there: not as a monster in a lake, but as the whisper that tells ordinary people who is at the top of the order, and what they have to do to stay near it.
Joseph Campbell, in one of the lectures that stayed with me, talked about the packing order. Take away the modern costume, and you still have the top male, the top female, the breeding pair, the children who grow up to be the quarterback and the homecoming queen. Those are not small social decorations. They are the structure. Camp counselors are a summer-stock version of the same thing. So are a lot of police in the later Friday the 13th films, and many other authority figures who show up to explain Jason away and then get killed for their trouble. The audience is not shocked. The audience wanted the explanation killed.
Public life works the same way. We drive the kids to the institution. We pass the levy. We clap for the order that tells people when to sit, what to repeat, and who is allowed to be different. Then we feel a small, guilty satisfaction when something outside that order swings an axe at it. Lakota, in my own backyard, is the argument I usually use for how a system can be captured. I am not making Jason a school-board lecture. I am saying the reflex is the same. We participate in the structure, and we cheer when the structure bleeds, because some part of us knows the structure is how peer pressure keeps score.
Jason never learned the score. He never learned how to get the girl’s attention. He had his mother, and the films treat that attachment as unnatural, which it is, and also as the only loyalty he has that is not for sale. When he comes back, he is not in the pecking order. He is what happens when the pecking order is refused.
Sacrifice, scapegoats, and why the kill feels like relief
This is where the character stops being a B-movie and starts rhyming with older material, which is why he belongs in the neighborhood of The Politics of Heaven even if a hockey mask looks ridiculous next to a dolmen.
Human beings have a long habit of killing a designated victim so the group can feel clean. Aztec sacrifice, Canaanite offerings, sexual cults built to feed a deity, the Roman habit of treating the planets as powers that had to be paid: the names change, and the mechanic does not. Something is angry. Something wants blood. The group picks a body and calls the killing sacred. René Girard’s scapegoat account is the cleanest modern description of that mechanic I have found. The victim is loaded with the group’s disorder and destroyed so the group can go back to pretending it is orderly. In the Christian telling, Christ walks into that role on purpose and breaks the cycle, which is why the crucifixion is not just another offering on the pile. It is the offering meant to end offerings.
Jason is a pop version of the other half of the story. He is not the scapegoat the counselors sacrifice. He is the return of the boy they already sacrificed through neglect, mockery, and busyness. The films then reverse the rite. The counselors become the offering. The audience feels relief, not because murder is good, but because the social order that lives on peer pressure has been put on the block for ninety minutes. We get to watch the thing we obey get punished by something that cannot be shamed, fired, voted out, or talked down.
That is why he cannot be killed in any way that sticks. Immortality, in this costume, means he is outside the leverage. You cannot threaten a dead man with his reputation.
I am not saying the movies are theology. I am saying a free country, left alone with a camera and a mask, stumbled onto a picture of the same appeasement instinct the old death cults organized on purpose. We call it entertainment. We still buy the hoodie.
Why Blood Reign works
JASON: Blood Reign puts that on a floor you have to walk. Kings Island’s Halloween Haunt runs select nights from September 25 through October 31, 2026, and the maze is the new centerpiece: the woods, the camp, the blood-soaked retelling, Jason as the slasher the franchise spent forty years building. It is not a pile of cut-up props and a loud noise. A lot of haunts are only that. This one puts him on a pedestal and makes the guest do the psychological work the films trained them to do. You already know whose side you are on before the first corridor. That is the scare. The body knows it came to see the order lose.
I have called it the best haunted experience in the country this year, and I’ll stand by that. The build is top-notch, and it is smarter than the promotion. Six Flags asked, in so many words, whether you were on Jason’s side. The honest answer, for more people than will admit it in daylight, is yes.
What November is for
I have a longer argument, and I am not making it this month. I want to confirm some of what I want to confirm up close, not from the usual distance. After the season, I will write the dissertation version: the rise of this particular evil, why a picked-on boy became a folk saint, what a silent killer is doing in a culture that claims to hate bullies and then organizes itself by them. Until then, the public point is enough.
Go to Kings Island. Walk JASON: Blood Reign. You will be scared, because the maze is built on what Jason means, not on a rubber knife. He does what most of us won’t. He does not negotiate with peer pressure. He kills the people whose job is to apply it. We root for him because some part of us is tired of the pecking order, and because art is still the safest place in America to admit it.
I’ll explain more in November.
Further reading
• Friday the 13th (1980), Sean S. Cunningham; Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981); Friday the 13th Part III (1982). The mother, the return, the mask.
• Psycho (1960), Alfred Hitchcock. The template the first film is borrowing from.
• René Girard, The Scapegoat and Violence and the Sacred. The group, the victim, the relief.
• Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth and the packing-order material in the primitive-mythology lectures. Social order before it puts on modern clothes.• Kings Island Halloween Haunt, JASON: Blood Reign, Mason, Ohio, select nights September 25–October 31
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
I started this blog, and the videos that go with it, fifteen or twenty years ago for one reason. I needed a platform that would stand up to the tax increases coming out of the Lakota Local School District. I went to Lakota schools. I live in Liberty Township. Affiliation with a school district in your own community does not oblige you to throw money at it. That is a dumb way to run a household, and an even dumber way to run a township. School boards use that money, more often than not, for left-wing political control. I am getting ready to say more about who sits on those boards and who gets elected to them. I have been part of these campaigns forever. I am happy to see more people involved now than used to be.
This is a shout-out. I was pleased to open the mailbox and find Diane Hughes’s piece. Good on her. Good on Kristi Ertle. Good on Jamie and Todd Minniear. More people in the background than I am naming here are working this issue the way it has to be worked. For the 2026 Lakota levy, the answer is still no. It went down in flames last time. They went out, raised some money, raised enough to fight another campaign, and came back. I talked to Kristi Ertle about this very thing during the last campaign. They knew Lakota would return with a smaller swipe if they failed. They would break it up and make it look easier. That is what they are doing.
What Landed in the Mailbox, and Why It Matters More Than a Podcast
This is essentially a renewal dressed up for the 2026 ballot. Diane and the people around her have been very good about saying so. The mailer is great material. The bullet points are clean. This isn’t just a podcast or a blog that updates when I get around to it. It is a traditional mailer, which is still how a lot of voters in Butler County like to take in an issue. Your information is in the mail. They did a nice job pointing out why you should not vote for this thing.
Paragraph two on that sheet is the whole argument. The original one-mill bond will pay off this year. For a $450,000 home, which is most everybody in Liberty Township and a fair description of what a house is worth around here, you will see $157 in reduced tax liability the following year. Stay with that number. Congratulations. You are about to get that money back if you do not hand it right back to the district.
I used to do this work by standing in the middle of it and saying no, no, no, and handing out statistics. They are doing a better job than I did. They are a better group. They stick together better. The information is nice and clean, and it arrives the way a lot of people who still vote in Butler County want it. Not everybody wants a website. Not everybody wants a blog. A lot of them want it in the mailbox, with the details on one sheet. There are your details.
The Math on a $450,000 House
Here is the line that matters. On a $450,000 house, you are voting this year to get tax money back.
Ohio measures these things in mills. One mill is one dollar of tax for every thousand dollars of assessed value, and residential property is assessed at 35 percent of market value. On the county auditor’s market-value scale that school campaigns actually use, that works out to about $35 a year per mill for every $100,000 of home value. A one-mill bond on a $450,000 house is four and a half times $35. That is $157.50. The mailer rounded it to $157. Either way, it is your money.¹
The district will tell you a different story, and you should hear it so you know what you are voting against. After voters rejected the big ask in November 2025, Lakota came back with a bond issue of about $223.5 million, listed at 2.20 mills, or $77 per $100,000 of market value, on the November 3, 2026 ballot. They say collections would not start until 2029, lined up with older bond debt rolling off at the end of 2028, and that the rate you pay would not go up. The Journal-News reported the other half of that sentence, which the district does not lead with. People opposing the replacement point out that a no vote is how you actually reduce the school property tax when that debt expires.² The mailer is aimed at the piece that pays off now. Let it pay off. Do not replace it.
A $100,000 evaluation is the figure newspapers still use, and it is the wrong way to measure real estate in Butler County. You cannot buy a tool shed for $100,000 anymore. They nailed it by putting a $450,000 house on the flyer. Some homes here are worth more than that. Some are worth less. That is the real number.
They Lost Big in 2025 and Came Back Smaller, Just as Predicted
Last November, Lakota asked for a bond on the order of $506 million, a sum both the district and Liberty Township Trustee Todd Minniear treated as the largest school levy request in Ohio history. It failed. Unofficial results had about 61 percent of voters rejecting it.³ That is not a close call. That is a community saying no.
I told Kristi, during that campaign, that a loss would not be the end of it. They would raise money and return with something easier to sell. Break it into pieces. Call it a renewal. Tell people the rate does not go up. That is the play, and it is the play they ran. The board voted in June 2026 to put the smaller facilities bond on this November’s ballot. The pro-levy campaign now says the rate you pay today is the rate you would pay tomorrow.⁴ That is the sales pitch. The answer is still no. If the old debt is about to die, let it die. Give the money back. If Lakota gets voters in the 50% range, they will be inspired to come back again thinking they are weakening the community.
Lakota runs on about a quarter-billion dollars a year. That has not been enough for them. The more you give, the more they ask. The more they ask, the more gets wasted. Vote no, and you are not starving a classroom. You are declining to extend a debt the district already told you was on a schedule to end.
Public Education Mimics a Family and Still Fails at the Job
We have talked a lot about GOP politics. Put five people in a room, and you usually get five disagreements. Those five will talk about three of the others the minute the three leave. Human beings are built that way. Our minds construct themselves around a family structure. Parents. A household. Dinner. Whatever you watched together after dinner. Public schools try to mimic that basic arrangement. They have never captured it. Public education was well-intentioned and has failed at the human part of learning. That is what we are against here.
People bond up to achieve anything in a Republican Party, or even in an anti-tax campaign, from different points of understanding. We learned differently. We had different parents and different household rituals. It is hard to make that into a team. In politics, you still have to agree on something. The ballot card is that something. It tells you who to vote for. There is a barcode on it. Scan it, and it comes up on your phone, so you are not standing in the booth trying to remember the names.
I can tell you, going down that list, that there have been debates about every one of these people. Are they good? Are they pure? Are they the kind of people we should have primaried? Would a Democrat in that seat be better? Here is the thing you actually need to think about in this election. The Lakota levy, for sure. We are in a stage of American government where a lot of money has been confiscated. We have been taxed too high for too long. Government does not get smaller by itself. You have to take the rebates when they come due. That is what this levy vote is. It is about getting money back.
If you have a $450,000 house, the district’s argument amounts to this: can’t you give us that $157 so we can keep doing what we have been doing? Purple hair. Confused sexual policy in the bathrooms. Teachers who develop the wrong kind of relationship with students. A student is always in a weaker position than the adult in the room. Every school year we get angry at a school board for not taking a hard stance, and we ask where the moral authority went, and why people we pay good money to teach valuable things behave badly and then hide behind the institution when they are caught. Should we take money away from a system that lets us down like that? Yes. Should we take it back since the rate is already too high and needs to come down? Yes. You deserve that $157.50 on a $450,000 home. Diane and the gang put the reasons on paper. I think they do it better than I used to.
The Slate Card Is the One Thing a Party Can Agree On
When I show up at a local Republican picnic, I am friendly. I shake hands. That part is real, and it is good. I go to a lot of them. I do not go to all of them. I can’t attend everything, and I would like to attend more. You can be decent in the room and still, on the drive home, not like somebody very much. Most of that is not ideology. It is the way we learned to communicate inside a family. Families matter. Bloodline matters. Call it God’s design or call it the long argument I have been writing about in other places: the failure in the first household became everybody else’s failure down the line. A political system still has to get to something like fifty percent plus one. Otherwise you get a 20 or 30 percent faction deciding the election for everybody else.
I learned that lesson in 1992. I supported Ross Perot. He took about 19 percent of the vote, pulled it away from the Republican, and we got Bill Clinton, who should never have been president. Clinton was a disaster. Three candidates on the ballot will do that. You have to work it out with other people if you want a majority. There is a hard 50 percent of Republicans way over on one side, and people are standing on the line.
Nancy Nix and I have talked about this. Nancy is great. She is sweet. I love her mom. I love her sister. She knows how I feel about her. I love her husband. They are good people. I think Bob is probably more politically aligned with me than she is. She is a very nice person. My wife is a nice person. I would say my wife would probably be a Democrat if she were not married to me. It is impossible to live in a house with me, and share a bed with me, and be a Democrat. It could not happen. I do not like Democrats. I can still sit down with people. One skill I actually have, when applied to anyone outside myself, is leadership. I know how to bring people to the one thing they agree on and use that to get the direction right. That is what the Republican slate card is. That is why you vote to get your tax money back instead of penalizing yourself by renewing a subsidy to a progressive incubation factory. Lakota is a serious tax burden on this community. Take the money. Dial the tax back. Do not keep growing it.
They will say you are only paying the same money you have always paid. Give that money back to yourself and put it toward something else. It is not a lot of money in the scheme of one household. It is a lot of money when you multiply it by the households inside the Lakota district. They do not need it. They need to dial it back so the rest of us can get something that looks like budget control.
Running in the Black Is How You Get a Rebate
Republicans, whatever else you want to say about them, do not spend every dollar they get. They tend to run in the black. That is how you get options. Ohio just showed the trick at the state level. On October 1, 2026, Governor Mike DeWine signed the bill suspending the state gas tax for 90 days. The gasoline tax is 38.5 cents a gallon. The diesel tax is 47 cents. Lawmakers covered it with $725 million out of the General Revenue Fund so road and bridge work would not stop, and they did it because the state was running ahead of its spending. Collection drops to nearly nothing from early October through January 2, 2027.⁵ A lot of work in the background made that possible. George Lang and plenty of others put time into it that they will not brag about. The man who carried a lot of that is more modest than I am. He will not tell you how much work he did.
I have said bad things about DeWine. I had a picture of myself with him this year, and people asked how I could do that. He was the lockdown governor. He put the health department in charge of ordinary life. He has been a RINO for years. All of that is true. I think of him as a Yellow Springs Democrat who ended up with an R after his name. Yellow Springs is a hard place to drive through without smelling marijuana somewhere on the street. It is a liberal pocket, Clifton Gorge over there with it, a peculiar little part of the state. The DeWines are nice people. Fran DeWine makes great cookies. I like them. I think he is a decent person. I do not think he is a very strong Republican. Over the years, I have worked with him. People I respect have worked with him. Sitting down with somebody is not the same thing as surrendering your own politics. Debate is good. People do not have to like each other. They can talk about each other when they are out of the room. I attribute most of that to upbringing, not a platform failure.
He signed the gas-tax suspension. I was proud of that rebate. He knows Vivek Ramaswamy is coming in to continue tax work that didn’t get finished this term. Vivek worked with Trump. I saw them in Vandalia. They are going to be close, and that will help Ohio. Over the next few years, there is a real chance to save a lot of money on taxes in this state and get business innovation moving, especially with the people who actually build things. The same logic applies in Liberty Township. You only get the rebate if somebody was willing to run in the black long enough for the debt to end.
The Names on the Card, and Why They Do Not Have to Agree
The card is strong. Warren Davidson is on it. I have talked to Davidson recently about the votes he goes against President Trump. At Vandalia, Trump said nice things about him and called him out to that audience, because Davidson is a sincere person. His office is at the end of my road. I can walk over there in about four minutes. If you do not know the building, it sits next to Right to Arms, where they sell guns. He is a solid congressman. He is on the card.
Jon Husted is on it for the Senate. I will do a whole piece on Jon, which he deserves. I was glad to see him out there saying what he has been saying. Diane Mullins is on it. She is a pastor. Does she get along with everybody who has been treated as mainstream for a long time? Probably not. I come out of what people call the religious right. I love those people. They are fire and brimstone on ethics and on law and order. They do not put up with much. They are not happy with Lakota’s moral position, and they do not want more money going to a school system that does not represent moral order. They like their churches. The churches do a good job.
Within about a mile and a half of my house in Butler County, counting quickly, there are nine churches. I have come to think of churches as a hidden part of good government. The more real church participation you have, and the more of those churches are actually around, the better the quality of the place. People can behave badly on Saturday and ask forgiveness on Sunday. That is at least better than having no ethics at all.
Put the people on this card in a room, and they will not agree on much. Thomas Hall and Jennifer Gross can fight about nine different things. I have watched them, over a long period, fight, then hug, and do good work together on the things that mattered. That is the job. Find the one thing they agree on. Do not build the meeting around the things they do not agree on. Warren Davidson and President Trump have had differences. I have talked to Davidson about those differences. He will tell you he is trying to be a free thinker and still be supportive. He is a good, honest man. There are good, honest people in this, even when they are not identical.
We can all agree that the Lakota levy is a disaster. Vote no on it. It does not matter where you enter the party. You can be right on the 50 percent line, half a step from becoming a Democrat. You can be a hard Republican. My wife is more than a 50 percent Republican. There are things, helping people who are down and out, where her instincts run softer than mine. She would probably like a lot of Lakota teachers because they are well-intentioned. Call her 60 percent, ten points into Republican territory. I am a 99.99999999 percent Republican. You can’t go much farther and still be in the conversation. Jonathan Edwards is conservative. That is where I am. I completely understand that point of view. My wife is nicer than I am. We are married, and we work it out. A lot of Republicans fit somewhere between those two spots. Bob Nix and I are probably close on most things. Nancy and I do not argue. I have never argued with her. She is too decent for that. We would still disagree on things. There have been times I was a no, no, no, and she brought me to a yes, not because she is nice, but because the logic was better and I was willing to hear it. You have to be willing.
All of these Republicans, and what we do together, comes down to the thing we mostly agree on. Stick to it. Build the party around it. They really did that in paragraph two of this mailer.
The People Who Built the Piece, and Why I Am Glad They Did
There is a lot of good material on that sheet. They give you the reasons. I am not going to overdo it. Jamie Minniear, super. Todd Minniear, super. Kristi Ertle, super. Diane Hughes, super. One thing people can rally around is sitting in that paragraph and putting it in the mail. This is a great mailer. Great campaign work.
I remember when we used to fight a Lakota levy and I had to be at the center of it. I know how hard it is. They are doing it better than we did. We were learning. They are better at it than we were. I am happy to say that. I see a sharp hand in deciding to identify the hot issue: the $450,000 home and the $157 you get back if you vote no. I believe Kristi came up with that line. There is a lot of talent on this side of the issue. I love seeing them grow and get better. They are smart. They are the future of politics in Liberty Township and Butler County. I am proud they are affiliated with churchgoing people. They are solid. They did a good job pointing at the real issue—$ 450,000 value. Vote no. Get back $157.50. They even broke it out further down the card, which is better still.
Years ago, when I was in the middle of these fights, some people thought I was using Lakota to promote myself. I was writing books. I was on WLW. I will not pretend I never wanted the radio time, or that I never wanted the books and the other projects to move. I did not want to talk about a Lakota levy all the time. I did not want to be involved. I got involved because no one else was stepping up. That is no longer the situation. The bench is deeper. The work is cleaner. I am glad to be out of the center of it.
Vote No, and Give the Money Back to the People Who Earned It
The bottom line, for anybody who only wants the reason, is this. Why is the answer on Lakota still no? Because you want your $157 back. Lakota owes you that. They have not spent the money well. We already give them a quarter-billion-dollar budget every year, and it is not enough, and they keep asking. Vote for Republicans who run in the black. That is how you get options. That is how you get money back. That is why the state could suspend the gas tax. Republicans have been in power long enough and held the line long enough to give some of it back. The same thing is sitting in front of you locally. This one-mill bond is about to be paid off. It is time to get that money back.
Vote no. You get some of your own money back next year. That is a good vote. It is a big no for me. It is a huge no. Good work to everybody who built the case, and good work to Diane and the gang. I am proud of what they have done. They did it better than I was used to, and I love seeing that. If you are new to this fight, this is the issue. A school district is not entitled to a renewal just because a bond is about to die. Let it die. Keep the $157.50.
Notes
1. Ohio taxes residential property on 35 percent of market value. One mill equals $1 per $1,000 of assessed value, which is $35 per $100,000 of market value. A one-mill levy on a $450,000 house is 4.5 × $35 = $157.50. The mailer figure of $157 is that arithmetic, rounded. Lakota’s own 2026 ballot language prices 2.20 mills at $77 per $100,000 of county-auditor market value, which is the same $35-per-mill scale. See the district’s Resolution to Proceed, filed for the November 3, 2026 election; Butler County Board of Elections certification deadline: August 5, 2026.
2. Lakota Local Schools, board action of June 9, 2026, placed a bond of $223,483,492 on the November 3, 2026 ballot, average 2.20 mills, estimated at $77 per $100,000, first due in calendar year 2029. The district says an existing bond of about 2.2 mills ends as the new one would begin, so the rate would not rise. Journal-News, October 2, 2026, “Lakota Schools voters to decide on bond tax for new, expanded school buildings,” notes that opponents treat a defeat as the chance to cut the tax when the old debt expires. Both claims should be read together. “No increase” means they want you to replace a tax that is ending. A no vote is how the ending actually shows up on the bill.
3. Cincinnati Enquirer, November 4–5, 2025, “Lakota Local Schools’ historic levy fails.” The November 4, 2025 request, on the order of $506 million and described by the district and by Trustee Todd Minniear as the largest school levy ask in Ohio history, failed with about 61 percent voting no. Enquirer, October 28, 2025, “Lakota’s ‘last resort’ historic levy divides board candidates, voters.”
4. Pro-levy campaign site Vote For Lakota (lakotaforkids.com), and Lakota’s facilities page, “Lakota Board Approves November 2026 Ballot Issue for Facilities Plan,” June 17, 2026, updated September 12, 2026. The district’s line is that the 2.2-mill bond replaces expiring debt and does not raise the rate. Local share is given as about $223 million after roughly $77 million in Ohio Facilities Construction Commission co-funding, down from a prior proposal near $400 million. Early in-person voting in Butler County began October 6, 2026. Election Day is November 3, 2026, with polls open from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Ohio photo ID is required.
5. Governor Mike DeWine signed House Bill 519 on October 1, 2026, suspending Ohio’s 38.5-cent gasoline tax and 47-cent diesel tax for 90 days, funded with $725 million from the General Revenue Fund so state and local road work would continue. The pause runs from about October 4, 2026, through January 2, 2027. Cincinnati Enquirer / Columbus Dispatch, October 1, 2026; Ohio Senate President Rob McColley, September 30, 2026. The bill moved after Vivek Ramaswamy called for the holiday. A surplus on that scale is what “running in the black” looks like when a party decides to give money back.
6. Butler County Republican slate for November 3, 2026, includes Vivek Ramaswamy for governor, Jon Husted for U.S. Senate, Warren Davidson for Congress in the 8th District, Nancy Nix for county auditor, Michael V. Ryan for county commissioner, Jennifer Gross (House District 45), Thomas Hall (House District 46), and Diane Mullins (House District 47), along with the statewide row and the judicial row. Ohio Republican Party Butler County slate card, September 2026; Butler County GOP, “Who’s on the GOP ticket?”; Cincinnati Enquirer, October 1, 2026, “Who’s running for what in Butler County.” Sheriff Jones is not on this ballot line, but he remains part of the law-and-order bench this county has relied on.
7. Ross Perot took 18.9 percent of the national popular vote in 1992. Bill Clinton won the presidency with 43.0 percent of the popular vote and 370 electoral votes; George H. W. Bush took 37.4 percent. The spoiler lesson is the one I have used ever since. A faction that doesn’t get to fifty doesn’t get to govern. It gets to crown the other side.
8. On teacher misconduct: every year, in districts all over the country, cases come out of schools in which an adult used a position of authority over a minor. Those cases should be read as allegations until a court finishes them, and as convictions where a court already has. The point for a levy vote is not any one case. It is that a community paying a very large tax has a right to expect moral order from the institution, and a right to stop extending debt when that order is not there. The Ohio Department of Education and Workforce holds public records on certified-employee discipline.
For Further Reading
Lakota Local Schools, Resolution to Proceed on the November 3, 2026 bond issue, Butler County, principal amount $223,483,492, 2.20 mills, $77 per $100,000 of auditor market value.
Journal-News, “Lakota Schools voters to decide on bond tax for new, expanded school buildings,” October 2, 2026.
Cincinnati Enquirer, “Lakota Local Schools’ historic levy fails,” November 5, 2025, and “Lakota’s ‘last resort’ historic levy,” October 28, 2025.
Vote For Lakota, lakotaforkids.com, pro-levy campaign page for the November 3, 2026 bond.
Lakota Local Schools, “Lakota Board Approves November 2026 Ballot Issue for Facilities Plan,” June 17, 2026.
Butler County Board of Elections, elections.bcohio.gov, for early-vote hours, polling places, and photo-ID rules. Early voting opened October 6, 2026.
Ohio Republican Party, 2026 Butler County Republican slate card; Butler County GOP, “Who’s on the GOP ticket?”
Cincinnati Enquirer, “Gov. DeWine signs bill to suspend Ohio gas tax for 90 days,” October 1, 2026. House Bill 519.
Ohio Senate, Rob McColley, “Senate Approves Gas Tax Suspension,” September 30, 2026.
Federal Election Commission, 1992 presidential general election results, for the Perot share and the Clinton plurality.
Butler County Auditor, for the parcel-level tax bill on any house in Liberty Township or West Chester. The mailer’s $450,000 example is the right scale for this township. The $100,000 example used in older newspaper copy is not.
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
The signed version is House Bill 519. Governor DeWine signed it October 1. The cut started at 12:01 a.m. October 4 and runs through 11:59 p.m. January 2, 2027.
Ohio did something useful at the start of October 2026. The General Assembly suspended the state motor fuel tax for 90 days, and Governor Mike DeWine signed the bill. For the next three months, the state tax on gasoline drops from 38.5 cents a gallon to one-hundredth of one cent. The diesel tax drops from 47 cents to the same token rate. The lost revenue, about $725 million, is covered out of a General Revenue Fund surplus. Roads and bridges are not being raided to pay for it. The Rainy Day Fund is not being raided either. That is the whole story, and it is a better story than the price of a gallon usually gets.
I live in Butler County. Senator George Lang is my senator, and he was in the middle of getting this into shape. A lot of people had to touch it. That is how a legislature is supposed to work. One member does not pass a tax cut alone. Somebody still has to walk the Statehouse, catch a colleague at the water fountain, and get the vote. Lang was doing that work, and he was out announcing the suspension as the vote came together, which is what you do when you are leaning on the thing rather than waiting to see how it lands. I will give him the credit he earned. I will also name the people whose names are on the paper, because a useful account has to be accurate.
What the law actually does
House Bill 519 started as a vehicle-theft bill, aimed at electronic devices used to steal cars. The Senate amended the gas-tax holiday into it so the relief could move in days instead of months. The holiday language came from Senate Bill 475, sponsored by Senators Michele Reynolds of Canal Winchester and Jane Timken of Canton. The House bill itself was sponsored by Representative Andrea White of Kettering. On September 30 both chambers passed the package as an emergency: 26–5 in the Senate, 78–16 in the House. DeWine signed it the next morning, October 1. Because of the emergency clause, there was no 90-day wait. The reduction began at 12:01 a.m. on October 4, 2026, and it ends at 11:59 p.m. on January 2, 2027. [1] [2] [3]
The rate does not go to a flat zero. It goes to $0.0001 per gallon. That is an accounting choice, and a smart one. If Ohio levied no tax at all, some border counties could get hit by a neighboring state’s tax on fuel sold into Ohio. A token rate keeps that from happening and still takes essentially the whole state tax off the ticket. The holiday covers gasoline and diesel only. Compressed natural gas and propane are not in it. [4] [5]
Retailers have to pass the savings through. Failure to do that can be treated as an unfair or deceptive act and referred to the Attorney General. A receipt mandate that station owners opposed, and the $1 million that would have paid for it, came out of the final bill. The Department of Taxation got $250,000 to administer the break. The department told retailers to have their systems reset by midnight on October 4. [2] [6]
What a fill-up is worth
On a 15-gallon gasoline purchase the state piece is about $5.78, if the cut shows up at the pump. On 20 gallons it is about $7.70. A 20-gallon diesel fill is about $9.40. A work truck that takes 100 gallons of diesel is looking at about $47 off the state tax on that one stop. Over 90 days, for a family that fills up once a week, the gasoline savings are real money, not a rounding error. Statewide, the estimate is more than $725 million left at the pump instead of sent to Columbus. [1] [4]
The federal tax is still there. Washington still collects 18.4 cents on gasoline and 24.4 cents on diesel. Ohio cannot suspend that. Anyone who watches the sign and wonders why the whole tax did not vanish should look at the federal line before they blame the station. [7]
This is also why a diesel truck crossing Ohio this fall should fuel here if the route allows it. As of July 1, 2026, Kentucky’s total state gasoline tax was 26.4 cents a gallon. Indiana’s was in the 50-to-60-cent range, depending on which fees are counted. Michigan was in the same high band. For these 90 days Ohio’s state rate is a tenth of a mil. A truck that used to skip Ohio for a cheaper state has the math backward until January 2. [8]
Why the money was there
The $725 million is not a raid on the highway fund, and it is not a withdrawal from the Budget Stabilization Fund. Senate President Rob McColley said the state had enough to cover the holiday and still keep road and bridge work on schedule. Timken said the same thing in plainer words: conservative fiscal policy is what made the relief possible without touching the Rainy Day Fund or the Ohio Department of Transportation budget. The September report from the Office of Budget and Management projected a General Revenue Fund surplus of about $745.4 million at the end of the fiscal year. The holiday fits inside that surplus, with a little room left over. [2] [5] [9]
That is the part the critics do not like to say out loud. A surplus is not a mood. It is what is left after you refuse to spend every dollar that comes in. Ohio has had Republican majorities in the House and the Senate for a long time. The counties that stay in the black tend to be the counties run the same way. Where Democrats run the budget, the pattern I have watched for years is the opposite: spend past the line, then come back for a tax increase to cover the miss. David Pepper and the people who argue that Republicans have been in too long never explain where the $725 million would have come from under their model. It would not have been there. You cannot suspend a tax out of a deficit. You can only do it when someone, for years, spent less than they took in.
Lang put the practical case on the record the day the Senate passed it. Every dollar a small business spends on fuel is a dollar it cannot put into employees, equipment, or growth. Diesel, he said, powers the trucks, the farm equipment, and the construction equipment. Suspending the tax is breathing room, not a theory. [4] That is the right argument. A fuel tax is a tax on getting to work, on moving freight, and on a farm that has to run whether or not Columbus is in session.
Prices, excuses, and the point of doing it now
I have said all summer that the price at the pump should have come down in 2026, and a lot of it did not. Refiners and distributors have been slow. The Iranian conflict has been a convenient fog. There is no settled government on the other end of that war that can answer for a barrel, and there are plenty of people, in markets and in media, who would rather keep the uncertainty going. A long, muddy conflict is useful to anyone who wants a wider margin and a Republican governor’s race that looks expensive at the pump. I am not going to pretend every cent of the 2026 price is a conspiracy. I am going to say the excuse has been used past the point of honesty, and that waiting on a perfect global price was a bad plan for a state that had a surplus in the bank.
Ohio could not fix the world oil market. It could take its own 38.5 cents off the gallon, and its own 47 cents off diesel, and order the stations to pass it through. That is the part of the price a state actually controls. Doing it in the first week of October, with an emergency clause, was the proactive move. Early voting was about to start. People are still paying the summer’s hangover. A legislature that waits for a calmer headline is a legislature that never spends the surplus on the people who created it.
The vote was bipartisan enough to get the emergency clause, which needs more than a simple majority. It was not a love letter from the other party. More than half the Democrats in each chamber voted no. [9] The ones who voted yes made the immediate effective date possible. The ones who voted no will explain, later, that the money should have been spent on something else. That is the argument. Their something else is always a larger government. The surplus is the evidence that Ohio did not need one.
What other states can copy
This is a model, not a stunt, and other states sitting on a real surplus should look at the mechanics instead of the press release.
First, suspend the tax. Do not invent a rebate card, a portal, or a six-month application. The relief has to show up on the receipt this week.
Second, backfill the road money from the general surplus. Do not cut the projects, and do not crack the rainy-day fund for a holiday. Ohio was explicit on both points. A tax holiday that steals from maintenance is just a pothole with a ribbon on it.
Third, leave a token rate in place if a zero rate would let a neighbor’s tax reach across the line. The tenth-of-a-mil was not cute. It was drafted for border counties.
Fourth, require the pass-through, and give the attorney general a hook if a station keeps the difference. A tax cut that dies in the wholesale markup is not a tax cut.
Fifth, do it with an emergency clause if the statute otherwise waits 90 days. A relief bill that takes effect after the pain is a press release.
The permanent version is a policy question, and it should be on the next governor’s desk. A 90-day window has ambiguity in it. Distributors and convenience stores have to reprice twice, and a driver cannot build a household budget on a holiday. The honest next step is to decide how much of this rate Ohio still needs once the books are open. Vivek Ramaswamy called for the pause the week before the vote. [10] I have already said he is the right direction for the job. This holiday is a hint of the governing style, not the whole platform: when there is a surplus, the default is to give it back, not to find a new program to absorb it. DeWine signed the bill quickly. The next governor can be the one who decides whether 38.5 cents needs to come back in full on January 3.
A tax only funds government. It does not improve it by being larger. Republicans in Ohio spent less than the alternative for long enough to have $725 million they could hand back without missing a road project. That is why a driver in Butler County, and a driver crossing the river from Kentucky, will see a cheaper gallon this fall. I am proud of the legislature for doing it when people needed it. If you are passing through Ohio before January 2, stop and fill the tank. The Statehouse already paid the difference.
Notes
[1] Gov. Mike DeWine signed House Bill 519 on October 1, 2026. The bill reduces the 38.5-cent gasoline tax and the 47-cent diesel tax to $0.0001 per gallon from 12:01 a.m. October 4, 2026, through 11:59 p.m. January 2, 2027. Estimated pump savings are about $725 million, roughly $5.78 on 15 gallons of gasoline and $7.70 on 20 gallons, and about $9.40 on 20 gallons of diesel. “DeWine signs 90-day Ohio gas and diesel tax suspension,” Your Ohio News, October 1, 2026.
[2] The chambers passed the emergency measure on September 30, 2026, 26–5 in the Senate and 78–16 in the House. The final bill appropriates $725 million from the General Revenue Fund and $250,000 to the Department of Taxation. A station-receipt mandate and its $1 million appropriation were removed. Danny Eldredge, “DeWine to sign bill suspending Ohio’s gas tax for 90 days,” The Blade, September 30, 2026.
[3] H.B. 519 was sponsored by Rep. Andrea White (R-Kettering). The gas-tax language came from S.B. 475, sponsored by Sens. Michele Reynolds (R-Canal Winchester) and Jane Timken (R-Canton), and was amended into H.B. 519 so the holiday could move faster. “Ohio’s gas tax holiday enacted into law,” Ohio Society of CPAs, October 2, 2026.
[4] Sen. George F. Lang (R-West Chester) announced Senate passage on September 30, 2026, including the small-business and diesel arguments, and noted that the token rate protects border counties from a neighbor’s tax. Highway work is covered by the fiscal-year surplus, not the Rainy Day Fund. “Lang Approves Gas Tax Suspension,” Ohio Senate, September 30, 2026.
[5] Sen. Jane Timken: relief was possible without the Rainy Day Fund or the ODOT budget. “Timken Approves Gas Tax Suspension,” Ohio Senate, September 30, 2026. See also Ohio Department of Taxation, “Ohio Department of Taxation Issues Guidance for 90-Day Motor Fuel Tax Holiday,” October 2, 2026. Retailers must pass the savings through; failure may be referred to the Attorney General. Guidance: https://tax.ohio.gov/motor-fuel-tax-holiday
[6] Ohio Department of Taxation, guidance released October 2, 2026, cited above. Tax Commissioner Patricia Harris urged retailers to adjust systems by midnight October 4.
[7] Federal excise tax remains 18.4 cents per gallon on gasoline and 24.4 cents on diesel. Nebraska Department of Transportation, “Total State Taxes on Motor Fuel,” rates effective July 1, 2026, citing the Energy Information Administration. The federal layer is not part of H.B. 519.
[8] Same table: Ohio 38.50 cents, Kentucky 26.40 cents, Indiana 64.50 cents total state taxes on gasoline as of July 1, 2026. During the holiday Ohio’s state rate is $0.0001.
[9] Office of Budget and Management, September 2026 report, General Revenue Fund surplus projected at $745.4 million at fiscal year-end, as cited by The Blade, September 28, 2026. Senate passage was 26–5; more than half the Democrats in each chamber voted no. “Ohio General Assembly Suspends State Gas Tax,” Ohio Senate, October 1, 2026. McColley: the surplus covers the holiday without delaying road and bridge work.
[10] The vote followed a call for the pause by Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy the preceding week. Jake Zuckerman, “Gas tax in Ohio suspended for 90 days after politically charged Statehouse vote,” Signal Ohio, September 30, 2026.
Ohio General Assembly. House Bill 519 (136th General Assembly), sponsor Rep. Andrea White; Senate amendment incorporating Senate Bill 475, sponsors Sens. Michele Reynolds and Jane Timken. Passed September 30, 2026. Signed October 1, 2026.
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.Eldredge, Danny. “Ohio lawmakers introduce $726M gas tax holiday bill.” The Blade, September 28, 2026.
Your Ohio News. “DeWine signs 90-day Ohio gas and diesel tax suspension.” October 1, 2026.
Zuckerman, Jake. “Gas tax in Ohio suspended for 90 days after politically charged Statehouse vote.” Signal Ohio, September 30, 2026.
Nebraska Department of Transportation. “Total State Taxes on Motor Fuel.” Rates effective July 1, 2026. Source table: Energy Information Administration, federal excise noted at 18.4 cents gasoline and 24.4 cents diesel.
I like doing these kinds of talks. Positive stuff. The benefits of things. The proper role of government. When you vote people into government, you are not voting them in to manage your life. You are voting them in to manage something you need done at the local, state, and federal levels, and then to get out of the way so good minds can finish the work. I talk about that a lot, and I talk about my friend, State Senator George Lang, who I consider one of my very best friends, because he has spent a long time doing the unglamorous part of that job. Good things, done over a long period of time, eventually just happen. He does not always realize, in the moment, how far those things are going to travel. I will talk more about some of that in November. For now, I want to talk about a day in Oxford that caught me off guard in the best way.
We had an event at the College@Elm innovation center on September 21. I was there to talk about what I have been calling the dreams of Elm Street. I discussed the next generation of middle-mile work I am involved with through Volynt, the company I lead as COO, and the hybrid unmanned aircraft they call Vyper (with a Y), since Volynt also uses a Y. Volynt Aero sits at 20 S. Elm Street, Suite 117, Oxford, Ohio, inside that building, and I am very proud of the affiliation and of the people around it.[1] When I do these kinds of things, I invite people I know. I know quite a few political people. I looked into the audience, and there were some very important faces in it. I had invited George to come out and listen. I had no idea he was already part of the roots of the place.
Positive people, positive work
It is nice to be involved in positive things with positive people who mean to do good things. I had no idea when I first got involved with Volynt, and they brought me out to show me the facility and how deep the story of that building went. I was impressed with the building. I didn’t know the story of the Innovation Center on Elm Street. When I gave the talk, I made a play on words. Nightmare on Elm Street used to be the honest description of the building Volynt is in. It was dilapidated. People had considered tearing it down. Miami University President Gregory Crawford brought George Lang out, and Nancy Nix, and a bunch of other people, and said Let us save this building and make it an innovation center for young minds coming through Miami University, a place to get a launch in life. That is exactly what is happening. A partnership moved into the building. I came out there in a COO role with Volynt. We talked a little about the history of how they arrived there, and about the other tenants, in a building that sits right there on the campus square, right there on Elm Street.
I talked about the play on words. A nightmare on Elm Street becoming dreams on Elm Street, because innovation startups are dreams. They are people trying to bring about new thoughts and new ideas. I guess a lot of people knew that story already. I did not. I was talking to George, telling him to come out, and George was already coming. As I was giving the speech, I looked out, and of course Michael Ryan was there, who I believe is going to be the next Butler County commissioner, and he came and gave part of the speech with me. In the audience were people like Nancy Nix. And George was there. I am going to show you. I know George is going to do the work. I had no idea that when I said, “Come on out,” he already knew all about it. He knew about the innovation center. He was there when it was being born. Nancy and I were talking about it, and she had been invited to see it back when President Crawford pitched the idea of taking this building and turning it into an innovation hub for aspiring ideas at Miami University. I had no idea this was where it was going.
The building that almost got torn down
I saw George in the background as we were setting up to give our speech. He was filming a short presentation on the building’s history, which he hadn’t told me about. I had no idea it was happening. I just joined the Volynt role. I admired the building. I thought it was a good use of a structure that might otherwise have been lost. It is very close, in Oxford terms, to the Miami University Airport, the little airport down the road at 7101 Fairfield Road, identifier OXD, a 4,011-foot runway that Miami operates and that sits only a few miles from campus.[2] For a company building uncrewed aircraft, that proximity is not a small thing. It is all very well set up.
Here is the history, for those unfamiliar, because it is a good story and deserves to be talked up.
The building at 20 S. Elm Street was built in 1933. For 68 years it served as Miami University’s central food service facility, the unglamorous engine room that kept the campus fed.[3] After dining services moved to the Demske Culinary Support Center, the Elm Street building became swing space and general storage, then sat vacant. By the time people were seriously arguing about its future, it was a roughly 90-year-old, 39,000-square-foot brick building with a strong foundation and a failing prospect. Miami and the City of Oxford debated what to do with it. Selling it was on the table. Tearing it down was on the table. Leaving it as a forgotten building on South Elm was the path of least resistance.[4]
President Crawford did not take the path of least resistance. He had been in business before higher education. He had founded companies. He knew the difference between a press release and a building that works. Around 2017 and 2018, he began walking potential partners through the place and asking whether they could see what Elm Street might become.[5] By 2020, the university and the city had a plan: turn the vacant structure into a technology, entrepreneurship, and workforce hub. Preparations began in 2021. The renovation cost about $10.7 million, part of a larger public-private investment of $17.55 million from the State of Ohio, JobsOhio, Butler County, the City of Oxford, and private donors.[6] Miami alumni Lee Fisher, class of 1968, and Rosemary Fisher, class of 1969, provided the naming gift. In February 2023, the building opened as the Lee and Rosemary Fisher Innovation College@Elm.[7]
That is the part I did not know when I was admiring the brick.
George Lang, the incubator, and the long clock
George has said publicly that he used whatever political capital he had to get state dollars into the project so it could get started and get up and running. He has called College@Elm something very special and very unique. His line, the one that matches what I half-heard him filming in the background, is that it is the only incubator he knows of where you can go from concept to production under one roof: prototypes, marketing expertise, funding, the whole path an entrepreneur needs to find out whether an idea can succeed.[8] Advanced manufacturing was part of the original pitch. The Fischer Group was an early anchor concept, an “innovation extension” inside the same walls as Miami’s entrepreneurship training.[9] When I watched him in the background and later saw the clip surface on LinkedIn, because the algorithm knows I know him, he was not doing a campaign spot. He was telling the history of a building he had already helped stand up, eight or ten years before Volynt moved into Suite 117.
I have known George for about twenty years: very good times and some very hard times. You learn the character of a person that way. A good person is pretty stable whether the times are good or bad. I am sure things are going on in his life where people look at him from the outside and say, I wish I were him. Then you know the pressure of living. It can be hard. I am sure he would trade some of the blood pressure for an easier job. He has said as much, in the way friends say it. The goldfish feeder at Walmart might be a better life on some days, because you can enjoy things a little more and carry less pressure. He finds himself under a lot of pressure a lot of the time. I say that as a friend, someone I talk to pretty regularly. It is not always better on the other side of the glass. It is hard. But when you care about innovation, and business, and technology, and job growth, this is the work. That is why I am involved in it. Not because the title is comfortable. Because the output is real.
Nancy Nix has the same knack. She was in the audience on September 21. She has a way of seeing a good thing before it becomes important, and she has been that way for a long time, back through nearly sixteen years as Butler County Treasurer and into the Auditor’s office she was sworn into in February 2023.[10] She was invited out when Crawford was still pitching the building. She came. Michael Ryan has supported this kind of work well before the commissioner race, and he stood up and spoke with me that day. He won the Republican primary in May 2026 with about 72 percent of the vote, and he is on the November 3 ballot focused on economic development, job creation, and capital investment.[11] I think he is going to win. More to the point, he showed up.
What Volynt is actually doing there
Volynt Aero was formed in 2024 by people who have been developing uncrewed aircraft and eVTOL machines for years. The spelling is the point—Volynt, with a Y. The aircraft is the Vyper, also with a Y. They are always doing things a little differently, and I like that. The company builds hybrid-electric uncrewed aircraft aimed at cargo logistics, highly mobile power generation, and forward communications for defense and for disaster response- the work where you cannot always count on a runway, a fuel truck, or a pilot who can get there.[1] The address on the capability statement and on the federal registration is the same as the innovation center: 20 S. Elm Street, Suite 117, Oxford, Ohio 45056. They have taken Ohio Third Frontier and TVSF support and partnered with Miami University on powertrain work. That is the right use of a building like this. Not a plaque. A prototype.
I had no idea, the first time I walked the facility, that the roots of the innovation talk went back that far, or that George was part of it, or that Nancy Nix was part of it. A lot of things in government never mature. Maybe only five percent of them ever become anything good. This one has a chance to mature into something really good. It is exactly the kind of thing that all of these people hope their role in government can do: take good minds, imagination, goodwill, and blood, and help them mature into something productive. Government, used properly, does not dream for people. It keeps the road open so the people who do dream can get the work to market.
Dreams, not the extended nightmare
I have always enjoyed my time on college campuses. I have not been happy with the direction academia has taken, captured as so much of it has been by left-wing politics and by the pursuit of intelligence subordinated to social order. I still encourage what I see. Even if everybody on a campus is not pushing the limit the way I think they should, you still see a proportion of people who are. I stop by the little convenience store on the campus, and I get a Mello Yello. People joke about it. The three drinks I drink are Mello Yello, water, and milk. A lot of water, a lot of milk, and a lot of Mello Yello. Sugar is not good for you, but I don’t consume much else with a lot of sugar in it, so I am good with it. And when I am standing there, I see a lot of bright-eyed people walking around with backpacks, dreaming and hoping.
That is what I was talking about in the speech. The dreams of Elm Street, because we were on Elm Street, in the innovation center. You expect a company like Volynt, working there, to have a shot at evolving into a technological powerhouse. It all started with the dreams of people like the president of Miami University, and Senator Lang, and Nancy Nix. You can tell who your friends are. It depends on who shows up for these things. You invite them to come out, you look into the audience, and you see faces that are very familiar to you. Some of the things you are doing may not become important for five years, or ten. They still come.
George said it in his own way. The things you do today are the things that show up eight or nine years from now. A lot of the work he does, and a lot of the work the other people who came out to our event are doing, works on that clock. I appreciate everybody who came. Michael Ryan has been supportive before he was ever on a commissioner ballot. Nancy has always supported things well before they become important. She has a good eye. She was in the audience. She knows a good thing when she sees it.
The innovation center on Elm Street is there for a purpose. It is there to inspire the growth of human intellect, as academia was always meant to do. I was proud to be there, and proud to be a part of it, and proud to look into that audience and see those kinds of people. I appreciate having high-quality people like that in my life. I think all of us, working together, can make dreams come true for a lot of people who don’t even know they are dreaming yet. They are just living their lives and hoping for a dream to dream, instead of living inside an extended nightmare where intellect is no longer in charge of the human condition.
Innovation centers like the one on Elm Street are, I think, among the highest-order things a community can build anywhere in the world, because they are dedicated to aspiring intelligence that makes everybody else’s lives much better. George Lang has always been supportive of that. It was good to hear his story, and to hear it go back those eight or nine years. The things you do today will be the things people are standing inside of nine years from now. That is what good government looks like. A president of a university pushing. A senator putting political capital on a building that is still empty. An auditor who shows up early. A future commissioner who stands up and speaks. They help pave the way for dreams to become a reality instead of a nightmare.
Footnotes
[1] Volynt Aero, Inc. lists its primary address as 20 S. Elm Street, Suite 117, Oxford, Ohio 45056. Founded in 2024, the company develops hybrid-electric uncrewed eVTOL aircraft for cargo logistics, mobile power generation, and forward communications under the Vyper name, and has paired Ohio Third Frontier and TVSF support with Miami University powertrain work. See Volynt Aero capability statement, volynt.aero; federal entity record, CAGE 9X2Y4, UEI ZDFZRXS7EJY2; Volynt Aero LinkedIn company page.
[2] Miami University Airport (OXD), 7101 Fairfield Road, Oxford, Ohio 45056, is a public-use airport operated in connection with the university and has a 4,011-by-70-foot asphalt runway. Miami University, “OXD Airport in Oxford, Ohio,” miamioh.edu/oxd-airport.
[3] Miami University, “From Food Services to Innovation Hub: The Story of College@Elm,” College@Elm Impact Blog, 2025. The building was constructed in 1933 and served as the university’s central food service facility for 68 years before dining operations moved to the Demske Culinary Support Center.
[4] Halie Barger, “Forgotten building on South Elm Street to become space for innovation startups and a focus on the arts,” Oxford Observer, February 14, 2020. Miami and Oxford officials described a vacant former food-service building that had later been used for storage; sale and continued vacancy were both live options before the innovation-hub plan.
[5] Sean Scott reporting in the Oxford Free Press, “College@Elm aims to provide innovation hub for Southwest Ohio businesses,” drawing on Lee Fisher’s account that President Gregory Crawford approached potential partners around 2017–2018 and was “the big driving force” behind the project. Crawford has described walking partners through the building more than two years before the 2023 opening. Miami University News, “The Lee and Rosemary Fisher Innovation College@Elm celebrates grand opening,” February 2023.
[6] Miami University put the renovation at $10.7 million and total invested funding at $17.55 million from the State of Ohio, JobsOhio, Butler County, the City of Oxford, and private donors. Miami University News, February 4, 2021, “Miami and Oxford initiative to transform uptown into an entrepreneurial hub”; Miami University News, February 2023 grand-opening release. The Oxford Free Press separately noted a City of Oxford contribution of about $1.18 million toward renovations, plus parking-lot work. Figures vary by what is counted as renovation versus total public-private investment; both numbers are in the public record.
[7] Lee Fisher ’68 and Rosemary Fisher ’69 provided the naming gift. The Lee and Rosemary Fisher Innovation College@Elm held its grand opening in February 2023 at 20 S. Elm Street. Miami University News, February 2023.
[8] George Lang, quoted in the Oxford Free Press: “I was very proud to use whatever political capital I had to get some dollars at the state level to help get the program started and get it up and running.” And: “It’s the only place, literally the only incubator in Ohio, that I know of in the country, where you can go from concept to production all under one roof and have everything right there.” The Miami Student, March 2023, also noted Lang’s support through the funding process. The September 21, 2026 remarks I saw him filming are his own telling of that same history.
[9] Miami University News, February 4, 2021. The early plan named two anchor uses: Miami’s entrepreneurship training and incubator center, and the Fischer Group’s manufacturing “innovation extension.” Later tenants have included student and alums ventures such as Coarse Culture. The Miami Student, March 2023, reported a five-year hope, attached to the Fischer Group concept, of 52 jobs and just under $3 million in payroll.
[10] Butler County Auditor Nancy Nix was sworn in on February 13, 2023, after nearly 16 years as Butler County Treasurer, and was elected in November 2024 to the unexpired term. She holds a B.S. from Truman State University, an MBA from Miami University (2012), and a CPA license—Butler County Auditor, “Meet Nancy,” auditor.bcohio.gov.
[11] Michael V. Ryan, former Hamilton City Council member and vice-mayor, won the May 5, 2026 Republican primary for Butler County Commissioner with about 72 percent against incumbent Cindy Carpenter, and faces Democrat Mike Miller on the November 3, 2026 ballot. Journal-News, “Butler County commissioners race: Michael Ryan and Mike Miller up for open seat,” September 30, 2026. Ryan has campaigned on economic development, job creation, and capital investment.
Volynt Aero. Capability statement and company site. https://volynt.aero/ — address listed as 20 S. Elm Street, Suite 117, Oxford, Ohio 45056. Aircraft program styled Vyper.
Volynt Aero. LinkedIn company page, Oxford, Ohio. Notes Ohio TVSF grant and Miami University powertrain partnership.
Hoffman, Rich. Overmanwarrior essays and podcast, hoffmanbooks.com — including the September 21, 2026 College@Elm remarks and the George Lang clip referenced here.
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
I have said this for two decades, and it’s brought me more trouble than it was worth. I would rather not have to see it. I would rather the country I hired people in, and raised daughters in, had kept its standards. It did not. So when the argument turns to artificial intelligence, and to whether America should chase superintelligence at all, I am not interested in the polite version. I have already explained the economic case more than once. The real story is ruder than that, and it starts at my own kitchen table.
People don’t like AI because it doesn’t flatter them. A robot does not call in because a hamster died. A model does not clock out at 5:02 and have the car in the driveway before the second hand clears the twelve. A line that runs on automation does not need a bereavement policy for every emotional weather system that blows through a shift. That is offensive to a culture that has spent thirty years teaching people that their feelings are a form of production. I have employed thousands of people. I have watched the applicant pool’s quality fall in real time. I am not guessing.
The Boy from England and the Standard Nobody Wanted to Hear
I have two daughters. When they were teenagers, I looked around Butler County, and then around the wider American teenage market, and I said something I have repeated as recently as a few weeks ago. The boys being produced in the United States were not good enough for my daughters. Not the polite version of “not a fit.” Not good enough. Bad mouths. Bad sexual manners. Parents who had taught them the wrong things on purpose, or by neglect, which is the same thing as leaving the television on. I was not willing to hand eighteen years of work to that.
One of my daughters married a young man from England. He had manners. He had a work ethic you could see at fourteen and fifteen. His parents and ours coordinated supervised trips. He flew over. For the first couple of years, we put him up in a hotel. We picked him up in the morning. We drove them to the movies. We drove them to whatever else teenagers do when somebody is actually watching. Heavily supervised. The whole thing. They dated like that for years. Five years before they even kissed. That was my idea of how this was supposed to go, and I will not apologize for it.
He has been her husband for well over a decade, fourteen or fifteen years. He became an American citizen. He is a good young man. Our families are close. His father came with us on the camper, traveled with us, went to Put-in-Bay. We were coordinating this when their sons were fourteen and fifteen. It worked. It has been a traditional life. That is what I wanted for my kids. I did something like it for both daughters. It worked cleanly for one of them. I will take the win.
I caught ridicule for it. A father hosting supervised dates for a boy who flew in from another country did not match the local script. The script was that American boys were entitled to a shot because they were nearby and breathing. I did not accept the script. Suppose Lee Greenwood had wanted to date one of my daughters, I still would have wanted to see the manners. Patriotism is not a character reference. A flag on the truck is not a substitute for how you treat a young woman whose father spent eighteen years building her into a person rather than a hole. That last sentence is the one that gets people angry. Good. The anger is the confession.
What the Dating Market Was Already Telling Me About the Labor Market
I looked at my daughters’ friends and at the boys around them, and I was more right than I wanted to be. Sex was too easy. Porn had done what porn does, which is train a boy to treat a girl as a clip. Addiction was common and shrugged at. The language was garbage. The expectations were garbage. Schools had a hand in it. Parents had a hand in it. MTV and the shows that replaced MTV had a hand in it. A culture that cannot produce a boy willing to wait five years for a kiss won’t produce a man who will stay on a precision job until the work is done.
President Trump understands more of this, and so do Steve Bannon and the War Room crowd; Trump saw the raw material on The Apprentice. He wrote the books. Politically, the quiet part is hard to say out loud because it insults the audience. I will say it. I had daughters. The boys were not suitable. They were not good enough. A father is allowed to have that standard. An employer is allowed to have the same standard. A country that wants a gross domestic product will need the same standard, whether it admits it or not.
The marriage numbers have caught up to what I saw in the driveway. In 2024, half of American adults were not currently married. Among adults 18 to 29, 84 percent were unmarried. Among adults 30 to 39, 48 percent were unmarried, more than triple the 1960 share. Only about 20 percent of 25-year-old men have ever married, against roughly 75 percent in 1967. Lyman Stone’s projection, that something like a third of today’s teenagers may never marry by 45, is not a mood. It is the dating market I already priced in. [1][2]
David Autor, David Dorn, and Gordon Hanson showed years ago that when young men’s earnings and employment fall, marriage falls with them, idleness rises, and more children end up in poor single-parent homes. They were measuring trade shocks. I was measuring manners. Same wreck, different instrument panel. [3]
The Arithmetic of a Country That Still Wants to Build Things
People hear “low unemployment” and think the labor market is a full parking lot. It is not. In August 2026, the civilian noninstitutional population was about 275 million. The labor force was about 170 million. The participation rate was 61.6 percent. Men 20 and over were participating at 69.4 percent. That is not a country in which every able body is on a line. [4]
Male participation has been falling for most of my adult life. It was about 87 percent in 1948. It was about 75 percent in 2000. It is about 68 percent now. The drop is sharpest among men 16 to 24. Prime-age men, 25 to 54, look healthier on a chart, near 89 percent, until you notice that more than one in ten of them are neither working nor looking. Nicholas Eberstadt has been writing about those men for a decade. The round number that keeps coming back is nearly seven million prime-age men off the economy. Among U.S.-born prime-age men, the share not in the labor force rose from about 4 percent in 1960 to 11.2 percent by April 2025. For those without a bachelor’s degree, it was 14.8 percent. [5][6][7]
I have said, roughly, that of 250 or 300 million people, you might have something like 100 million who can actually do industrial work. The official labor force is larger than that. The slice that can do high-mix, high-tolerance, show-up-every-day work is not. I have hired into that slice. I hosted a SpaceX event and had to get my own head around robotics, because even the hand-craft end of serious aerospace work doesn’t have a deep bench of people who can do it. The employees are not out there in the numbers the drawings assume. A robot does not solve taste. It does solve the empty chair.
Schools That Work Like a Public Toilet
Public education, as I have seen it, works like a public toilet. Everybody uses it. Nobody cleans it. Garbage in, garbage out, and then a diploma on top so the garbage can apply for a job.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress results released in 2025, from tests of 2024 seniors, put 12th-grade reading at the worst level in three decades. About a third of those seniors lacked basic reading skills. Nearly half were below basic in math, which means trouble with the sort of percentage problem a shipping clerk used to do on a pad. Only about a third were leaving high school with the reading and math for college-level work. Margaret Spellings called it an economic emergency. She was being polite. [8]
The adult figures are worse, because they are the people already out of the building. On the 2023 Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, the share of 16-to-24-year-olds at the lowest literacy levels rose from 16 percent in 2017 to 25 percent. That is about five million young adults who can follow a short text but cannot analyze a long one. More of them held diplomas than in 2017. The paper improved. The skill did not. Across working-age adults, the share at the lowest literacy level rose from 19 percent to 28 percent. Numeracy low performers rose from 29 percent to 34 percent. The United States sits below the international average in numeracy. [9][10]
I don’t need a chart to know the college experience hasn’t been cranking out people who walk into a plant or a courthouse and do good work. My wife comes home and says the same thing I hear from people who hire attorneys and prosecutors. There are not enough good ones. The courthouse has the same problem as the machine shop. The pipeline is thin because the formation was thin. Churches emptied of the basic teaching. Schools filled up with everything else. Twenty years of that and you do not get a workforce. You get a cohort that is not qualified to marry, not obviously qualified to raise a child, and only loosely qualified to hold a job. I am not interested in the hurt feelings attached to that sentence. I poured heart and soul into my kids. A lot of people out there are not worthy of the work that went into a serious daughter. An employer who has moved people through real jobs has the same right to say it about a shift.
The 32-Hour Week and the Cult of Going Home Early
I was always the man who frowned on the clock-watchers. People who would not stay. People who were in the car and out of the parking lot before you could look up and see 5:00. A progressive culture has taken that instinct and tried to make it policy.
On September 8, 2026, Bernie Sanders and Mark Takano reintroduced the Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act. It would lower the overtime threshold from 40 hours down to 32, with no loss of pay, in steps. The AFL-CIO is for it. So are the UAW, SEIU, UFCW, and others. Sanders argues that AI and robotics will raise productivity, and that the gain should be taken as time off rather than as output. [11]
I understand the politics of that argument. I do not accept its economics for a country that intends to stay ahead of China. Productivity that is cashed out as a shorter week, on top of a workforce that already struggles to fill a full one, is not a dividend. It is a surrender. The same political current that wants the 32-hour week spent a generation arguing that the government should pay people to stay home. Video games were not a secret. They were the plan. You cannot keep up with a rival that is installing robots if your domestic reform agenda is fewer hours, more process, and a medical report every time somebody skins a knuckle.
Unions do not like Elon Musk, and they are open about it. Tesla’s plants run on robotics. That is not a moral failure. That is what you do when the alternative is a union model in which a small injury becomes an incident report, the incident report becomes an insurance hit, the insurance hit eats the margin, and the margin was the only thing paying for the next hire. I have watched that movie. Robotics is how you refuse to cast it.
Walmart, the Rally, and the Lawsuit That Replaced It
My wife is loyal to Walmart. When we were raising the kids, it was stocked, the prices were honest, and the place worked. She still likes to go. I go where the stuff is. If Walmart doesn’t have it, I don’t have a sentimental objection to leaving.
Walmart used to rally people at the start of a shift. The company pushed greeters, sourcing, and the idea that workers should be better at the end of the day than at the beginning. Then the progressive lawsuits and the union drives arrived. A company does not have to vote a union in to catch the disease. It only has to spend enough years defending itself from one. The habits change. You stop asking who is good. In a lot of places you are not allowed to say “good” without a lawyer in the room. Standards become disparate impact. Disparate impact becomes a settlement. The settlement becomes the new handbook.
I have told my wife the plain version. Walmart does not have the employees it used to have. Kmart already showed one ending of that story. You cannot recruit what the schools did not make, and you cannot test for what the courts will not let you name. The aisles tell on the culture. So does the parking lot at 5:02.
China Is Not Confused About Any of This
China is not trying to talk America out of automation because China is worried about our feelings. China is automating as fast as its factories can take the machines. The International Federation of Robotics reported that China installed 295,000 industrial robots in 2024, 54 percent of global demand, a record. The operational stock hit 2,027,000. It doubled in three years. Domestic Chinese robot makers took 57 percent of their home market. And remember, China has over 1 billion people in it, and they are automating wherever possible. Asia took 74 percent of new factory-robot deployments in 2024. Europe took 16 percent. The Americas took 9 percent. [12]
Beijing has also poured state money into the software side. Stanford’s AI Index puts state-initiated Chinese investment funds at about $184 billion into AI firms from 2000 to 2023, and Xi has told the apparatus to add tax breaks, contracts, financing, and infrastructure on top of that. In the first half of 2026, Chinese investment in information services, the bucket official statistics credit to AI, was up 19.2 percent. Their own youth unemployment, students excluded, was 18.9 percent in August. They are automating anyway. [13]
That is the tell. A rival with a fifth of its young people out of work is still buying the machines. The media campaign aimed at American companies, the one that treats every AI lab as a jobs villain, is not a labor policy. It is a delay. Slow the United States down. Protect the slug, as I have put it, the applicant covered in tattoos and piercings who wants thirty hours and a speech about work/life balance. China will take the productivity gap and cash it as industrial power. I have no interest in helping them. Get young people in America playing video games instead of producing product.
I have said I do not agree with the president on this point. A lot of people around him, and a lot of people in the Glenn Beck audience, want superintelligence treated as a threat to be slowed. If you want an economy that works, you had better get AI, or superintelligence, or whatever name clears the politics, into the work. The people are not standing there ready. Trump knows there are not a hundred million employees you can sit in a chair and point at a build. The machine does not complain, does not need a remote-work negotiation, and does not open a bereavement case when the pet dies.
Twenty Years to Grow a Better Cohort, If We Start Now
If we started this year, with the babies in the nursery, we are about twenty years from a cohort that could be reasonably good again. That assumes we actually change the inputs. Church. Rules. Fathers who will say no. Mothers who will back the no. Schools that teach reading and math instead of passing the toilet paper down the row. I am not optimistic about the institutions. I am insistent about the timeline.
Go back and watch the old films. The Wizard of Oz was 1939, every cell hand-painted, a country that still assumed competence was normal. I am not romantic about the Depression. I am clear-eyed about the people. The baseline manners, literacy, and willingness to be supervised were higher than what walks into an interview now. We let that fall. We can grow it back. We cannot grow it back by next quarter.
So the gap has to be covered. That is what automation is for. That is what AI is for. Not as a replacement for the best people I have ever hired. As a supplement for a corrupted workforce that is not ready for the basics of life, let alone for a competitive industrial policy. Three generations have been hit. The damage is intellectual and moral. A man who cannot be trusted with a daughter cannot be assumed ready for a clean room work environment.
Biblical Formation Is Not a Side Issue
I have told my wife this until she is tired of it. There are not enough good people to staff the work she sees, the legal work, the ordinary institutional work. The fix is not another HR module. People have to get back to church and back to basic teaching, because the last twenty years of young people, as a cohort, have been trash for the jobs and the marriages a country needs. Individuals escape that. I married one of my daughters to a man who escaped it, and he had to cross an ocean to do it. The cohort did not escape it.
AI does not preach. It also does not undo a sermon. What it can do is hold output up while a serious culture tries to form human beings again. Biblical scholarship, rules, agency, the old expectation that a man governs himself before he governs a shift. That is the long repair. Superintelligence is the bridge. China would prefer we argue about the bridge until the repair is irrelevant.
I am allowed to have high standards as a father, as an employer, and as a man who has lived in the same county long enough to watch the decline without a consultant’s chart. Low standards were sold as kindness. The kindness produced a country that cannot fill its own lines, cannot fill its own aisles, and cannot fill its own dating pool with men a serious father will hand a daughter to. AI offends that arrangement. Good. Be offended. The machine will make the shift. The rest of us have twenty or thirty years to remember how to make people who can.
Notes
1. Hannah N. Smith, “Unmarried Adulthood: More than a Century of Change, 1900–2024,” Family Profile No. 8, 2026, National Center for Family & Marriage Research, Bowling Green State University. In 2024, half of U.S. adults were unmarried; 84 percent of adults 18–29 and 48 percent of adults 30–39 were unmarried.
2. Lyman Stone, “1 in 3: A Record Share of Young Adults Will Never Marry,” Institute for Family Studies, February 2024. About 20 percent of 25-year-old men had ever married, against about 75 percent in 1967; about 60 percent of 35-year-old men had ever married, against about 90 percent in 1980.
3. David Autor, David Dorn, and Gordon Hanson, “When Work Disappears: Manufacturing Decline and the Falling Marriage Market Value of Young Men,” AER: Insights 1, no. 2 (2019): 161–178.
4. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Situation, August 2026, Table A-1. Civilian noninstitutional population 275.4 million; labor force 169.8 million; participation rate 61.6 percent; men 20 and over participation rate 69.4 percent.
5. American Institute for Boys and Men, “What’s really going on with men and work? Seven facts,” May 2026. Male labor-force participation from about 87 percent in 1948 to 68 percent; from 75 percent in 2000 to 68 percent; prime-age men from 92 percent to 89 percent since 2000; men 16–24 from 69 percent to 57 percent.
6. Nicholas Eberstadt, summarized in “Time for ‘Shock Therapy’ — How to Get Our 7 Million Dropout Men Back to Work,” American Enterprise Institute, April 2025. Nearly seven million prime-age men are neither working nor looking.
7. Steven A. Camarota, “Working-Age, but Not Working, 1960 to 2025,” Center for Immigration Studies, November 2025. U.S.-born prime-age men not in the labor force: 4 percent in 1960, 11.2 percent in April 2025; 14.8 percent among those without a bachelor’s degree.
8. Dana Goldstein, “12th Grade Reading Skills Hit a New Low,” New York Times, September 9, 2025, reporting National Assessment of Educational Progress results. About a third of 12th graders are below basic in reading; nearly half are below basic in math; about a third are prepared for college-level work. Margaret Spellings, Bipartisan Policy Center, called the decline an economic emergency.
9. National Center for Education Statistics and the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, 2023 results, released December 2024. U.S. adult literacy low performers rose from 19 percent in 2017 to 28 percent in 2023; numeracy low performers rose from 29 percent to 34 percent. Young-adult figures: American Institutes for Research analysis, share of 16-to-24-year-olds at the lowest literacy levels from 16 percent to 25 percent, about five million people.
10. Sharon Bonney, Coalition on Adult Basic Education, quoted in reporting on the PIAAC release: more than 20 percent of young adults with a high-school diploma lack skills commensurate with it.
11. Office of Senator Bernie Sanders, “Sanders, Takano Reintroduce Bill to Move Toward 32-Hour Workweek,” September 8, 2026. Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act; endorsements include AFL-CIO, UAW, SEIU, UFCW, National Nurses United.
12. International Federation of Robotics, World Robotics 2025, press release, September 25, 2025. China installed 295,000 industrial robots in 2024 (54 percent of global demand); operational stock 2,027,000; domestic manufacturers’ home-market share 57 percent. Global new deployments: Asia 74 percent, Europe 16 percent, Americas 9 percent.
13. Li Yuan, “In China, A.I. Is Moving Forward While the Economy Lags Behind,” New York Times, September 20, 2026. Stanford AI Index estimate of $184 billion in state-initiated fund deployment into AI firms, 2000–2023; information-services investment up 19.2 percent in the first half of 2026; youth unemployment, students excluded, 18.9 percent in August.
Bibliography and Further Reading
Autor, Dorn, and Hanson, AER: Insights (2019). Eberstadt, Men Without Work (Templeton, 2016). Camarota, Center for Immigration Studies (November 2025). American Institute for Boys and Men, “Seven facts” (May 2026). NAEP via Goldstein, New York Times, September 9, 2025. PIAAC / NCES release, December 10, 2024. NCFMR Family Profile No. 8 (2026). Stone, Institute for Family Studies (February 2024). Sanders/Takano Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act, September 8, 2026. International Federation of Robotics, World Robotics 2025. Li Yuan, New York Times, September 20, 2026. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Situation, August 2026.
For the longer shelf: Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind; Charles Murray, Coming Apart; Mark Regnerus, Cheap Sex; Kay Hymowitz, Manning Up; Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged; the Bradford Wilcox file at the Institute for Family Studies. Read Hanna Rosin’s The End of Men against Regnerus, not instead of him.
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
If you have been anywhere near a television or a radio in the Cincinnati area lately, you have seen Sheriff Richard K. Jones. He has been on the local news. He has been on WLW. He has been on Channel 9. He has even ended up in the weather, which is not where most sheriffs go to make a point, and that is exactly why I like watching him. He can get on a set, talk about immigration, talk about the law, and then, if the moment calls for it, talk about whether your windshield wipers will work on the drive home. That is not a gimmick. That is a man who can think on his feet, and Butler County has benefited from that habit for a long time.
I have spent much of this year, 2026, working through the specifics of institutional persuasion and what proper ethical behavior actually looks like when you are trying to move a population. I am going to keep coming back to the root causes of purity, ethics, morality, righteousness, and the plain old goodness that used to be assumed in American public life. We need another Great Awakening in the United States. I do not say that as a slogan. I say it because the methods used against this country have been very sinister. They turned free speech into a weapon. Immigration was turned into a weapon. No place on earth has a more diverse population than the United States, and that diversity was not an accident of geography. It was a policy. When a policy is used to import people who reject the host country’s values, you are not running a humanitarian program. You are running a Trojan horse. Sheriff Jones has been willing to say the quiet part out loud, and that is why I want him in the room.
You Want This Man in the Party
People ask me whether Sheriff Jones is a hard-core Republican or a big-tent Republican. He is more the second than the first, and the question is the wrong test. You always want Sheriff Jones in the room. You want him on the news. You want him in your party. If you have built a party that cannot make room for a man like him to do good things, you are in the wrong place. You want people like him on your side.
Some of the people who have been against Sheriff Jones over the years are the same people who have been against President Trump, and they usually dress the objection up as ethics. I will get into the ethics of coalition-building in a separate piece, because I have been down that rabbit hole on purpose. I am usually a positive person. I am also, if I am honest about my own temperament, a little melancholy, and more Book of Revelation oriented than the average political commentator. The apocalypse has a following for a reason. There is a reason people talk about the Rapture taking the faithful out of a world that will not deliver justice. I know a lot of people who are so distraught over the lack of justice in ordinary life that they want God and Jesus to come and end the argument. I understand the feeling. I don’t think that excuses us from the work in front of us.
The work in front of us includes immigration, and it includes the people who will actually enforce the law while the rest of us argue about tone. Sheriff Jones has been that person in Butler County. He has done it well for decades. He has been especially visible lately, and he has earned the attention.
A Hamilton Kid Who Became the 45th Sheriff
Richard K. Jones was born on October 11, 1953, in Hamilton, in Butler County. He came up through the Hamilton city schools, volunteered for the draft, and served from 1973 to 1975 as a combat engineer in the United States Army, leaving as a Specialist 4. He then did the unglamorous work that actually teaches you how a jail runs. He went into the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, trained staff, rose to Senior Captain, and served as the warden’s designee for inmate appeals. From 1990 to 1993, he was a major at the Lebanon Correctional Institution. In 1993, he became chief deputy of the Butler County Sheriff’s Office and held that job for twelve years, adding deputies, expanding jail capacity, and dragging the office into the computer age.
He picked up the credentials along the way: an associate degree in corrections from Hocking Technical College, a bachelor’s in criminal justice from Wilmington College in 1981, and a master’s in corrections from Xavier University in 1984. In November 2004, Butler County voters elected him the 45th sheriff. He took the oath on January 3, 2005. He is now in his sixth term. That is not a media creation. That is a man the same county has returned to office, again and again, while the national argument about immigration has swung from one administration to the next.
In 2004 he put up the sign. “Illegal Aliens Here,” with an arrow pointing at the jail. The federal government was then in the habit of saying it did not know where illegal aliens were. Jones’s answer was a piece of roadside honesty: they are in my jail. The sign has come down and gone back up as presidents have changed. The sheriff has not. In 2006 he was already running billboards that said “Hire an illegal — break the law,” taking out newspaper ads, and opening a tip line on employers. Twenty years later, he is still on the same subject. Consistency is not fashionable. It is, in a sheriff, a virtue.
Immigration Is the Issue Because It Was Designed to Be
His main topic has always been immigration, and he has been a real enforcer of the law, not a press-release enforcer. Butler County had a contract to house federal immigration detainees from 2003 until June 2021, when Jones canceled it because of the Biden administration’s rules. Two days after the 2024 election, he was already talking to federal officials about restoring the capacity. By early 2025, the “Illegal Aliens Here” sign was part of the public argument again. In February 2025, the county reentered an agreement to house U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees. Since March 2025, the jail has been holding them. Jones has a 287(g) agreement, covering both the jail-enforcement model and the task-force model, and he has said that fifty to sixty of his deputies have been trained by federal agents for that work.
In a WCPO interview in late September 2026, tied to the book, he said roughly 450 people in his jail were held on immigration matters, and that about 6,000 people had been deported from the Butler County Jail over the prior eighteen or nineteen months. Those are not theoretical numbers. That is a sheriff’s office doing the job most jurisdictions in this part of Ohio will not do.
He also said, in that same interview, that the second Trump term “messed up” the early execution, that they “went about it the wrong way,” and that you cannot deport twenty or twenty-five million people on the timetable some people imagine. National outlets immediately tried to spin that into a sheriff “turning on MAGA.” I do not buy the spin. I have watched this man long enough to know the difference between a critic and a man who says what he thinks. He has called Trump a real leader. He likes the bluntness. He thinks the economy has moved in the right direction. He also thinks a federal bureaucracy that has to fire people, hire people, and find its footing will make a mess on the way to a policy. That is not betrayal. That is the same habit that makes him say the thing on the weather segment. You want that habit in your party. A party that can only tolerate applause is not a party. It is a fan club.
Deporting everybody does not, by itself, solve the whole problem. I agree with him on that, and I have said it in my own way for years. Enforcement is necessary. It is not sufficient. You also have to promote the country you are enforcing on behalf of. You have to say, out loud, why the law exists. You have to be willing to do it on WLW, on Channel 9, on Channel 5, on Fox, and, if that is where the audience is that day, in the weather. The strategy against us has been to get people stuck in a bureaucratic decision, transfer information and loyalty away from the host culture, and husk out society from the inside. I know immigrants who are more American than a lot of people born here, people who have not lost touch with how good it is to live in this country. Sheriff Jones has been one of the most consistent cheerleaders of that distinction for at least twenty years, and by his own count longer. Legal immigration can be expanded. Illegal entry cannot be treated as a civil right. He has been clear on both.
The Weather, the Wipers, and the Point of Being Clever
Which brings me back to the weather. I thought it was Channel 9, and the recent long interview was, in fact, WCPO (Channel 9) with Stephen Knobel, posted around September 24, 2026, under the heading of immigration and leadership. The sheriff’s own office has also been putting a weekly weather outlook in front of people, which tells you something about how he thinks about an audience. He does not wait for the national shows to call. He goes where the county already is.
And yes, I enjoyed the windshield-wiper bit. A stiff man cannot do that. A consultant cannot do that. A man who has spent his life in rooms where the next sentence has to be true can get handed a forecast and still sound like himself. It is clever, it is local, and it is funny, and funny is not the opposite of serious. Funny is how a serious man keeps the room. Butler County has always produced characters who understand that. Jungle Jim Bonaminio turned a produce stand across from the old Fisher Body plant into one of the country’s most unusual independent grocers. Sheriff Jones turned a Hamilton upbringing and a corrections career into a national immigration argument without ever really leaving the county. I will take both. I would rather have a county that produces originals than a county that produces spokespeople.
He wears the suit jacket with the American flag on it. He has the cowboy hat. He has had the snub-nose where a snub-nose belongs. He will tell you about the lawyers, and he will tell you about the jail, and he will not sand it down for a panel. That is the man I want as sheriff. That is the man I want in the party. Working with him can be challenging. He is a hard person to get along with if your idea of politics is a permanent compromise of your own position. I do not think the answer is to become him. The answer is to find the common cause and do the work. On immigration and on law and order, the common cause is obvious. A president can set the policy. He still needs Tom Homan; he still needs sheriffs, and he still needs people who came into the fight from different rooms and different ethical habits. You are not a king. You are a president. The freebies of the Obama years, of Obamacare, of the Biden credit-card bill, do not vanish because a new man takes the oath. Somebody pays. I warned about that while it was happening. The people now complaining about prices are often the same people who applauded the spending. The midterms are not the moment to wander off in search of a purer candidate. They are the moment to rally behind what has actually been accomplished and to keep the enforcers in the field.
The Jail, From the Other Side of the Glass
I have seen the Butler County Jail from the other side of the usual tour. I sat as foreman of a Butler County grand jury, and I have been around that building enough to have an opinion that is not borrowed from a press release. It is not a resort. It is also not the worst thing in the world, and I don’t think Sheriff Jones gets enough credit for how the place is actually run. He talks about the food. I would not say it the way he says it, but I will say this much from my own ethical seat: if you are serving a long sentence and you are eating the burger they serve in that jail every day, you are eating a better burger than the speeches against him would lead you to believe. I do not think he has a contemptuous relationship with the people in his custody. I think he runs a serious jail, and I am proud of it. I am proud that it is our jail.
The critics do not usually argue the operations. They argue the premise. In September 2026, Butler County for Immigrant Justice protested outside the Government Center in Hamilton and called the 287(g) agreement immoral. Around the same time, Jones and West Chester got into a public dispute over a September 14 fender-bender and whether township officers should have turned an alleged undocumented driver over to ICE. The sheriff’s office arrested the man on September 18. Township officials disputed the sheriff’s account of their policy. There was also, in May, a federal lawsuit from a former ICE detainee alleging an assault in the jail; an internal investigation reported no assault, and the office denied the claim and stood behind its staff while the case was active. I am not going to pretend every allegation in a jail is fiction. I am going to say I have watched this operation more closely than the people holding the signs, and I trust the man who’s been willing to put his name on the door.
Read the Book
The book is They Call Me Jonesy: Let’s Get Real About Saving America. It came out on May 18, 2026. It is 294 pages long. I enjoyed it. I learned things about him as a younger man in Butler County that I did not know, even after years of watching him in public, and I have lived in this county my whole life. It is a practical explanation of why Butler County works as well as it does: law first, straight talk, no patience for the swamp, a memory of an older America in which extended families lived near one another, and neighbors still knew each other’s names. That older America is the one he keeps returning to. It is also the one I grew up in, a few miles down the road.
If you want to understand the sheriff instead of the caricature, read the book. If you want to understand the county, read the book and then look at the jail, the sign, and the number of times the voters have sent him back.
What I Had
I miss the old life more now than I missed it when I was in it. That is the ordinary trick of age. If I could buy it back, the church, the Sunday night, the bag of chips on the way home, I would think hard about the price. I don’t think I would change the course. I didn’t have the context then for how good it was.
We went to church most Sundays. My parents were active. I knew the pastor extremely well. I went through catechism. The church was off Nilles Road in Fairfield along Winton Road, and after the service we would drive past Jungle Jim’s as it grew, year after year, from the roadside stand across from Fisher Body into the monster it became, one of the biggest independent grocers in the country and about as Butler County a thing as exists. Sometimes we stopped for a bag of chips or a pop. Sometimes it was Chester’s pizza for Sunday night. Then The Wonderful World of Disney, back before the house had air-conditioning, and Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom at seven. I loved that show. I loved every Sunday for those reasons, life in Butler County.
After that we worked. We cut the grass. We worked the garden. We did the things a household does when the household still believes work is part of the day, not an interruption of it. I have had a lot of comments lately about my work ethic. I learned it there. I look at younger people now, and I do not blame them for missing what nobody handed them. I do think they would benefit from a little more of that life than the present culture is willing to admit. A church on Sunday, a grocer who started with rejected potatoes and a truck, a sheriff who grew up in Hamilton and stayed: these are not nostalgia props. They are a civilizational technology. They are how a county transmits a standard.
Ethically, there are not enough values out there right now. I can see that more clearly at this age than I could when I was driving past Jungle Jim’s with a bag of chips, half listening to my parents, thinking about Wild Kingdom. The context arrives late. That does not make it less true.
Purity Is Not a Strategy
So here is the political point, and I will come back to the ethics of it in the series I have been building. A big-tent party is not a party without standards. It is a party that can tell the difference between a standard and a vanity. Immigration is a standard. The law is a standard. The willingness to say both of those things on a neutral platform, and to keep saying them after the headlines turn, is a standard. Sheriff Jones meets it. He is a Butler County kid who grew up and did the job. He is on Channel 9 talking about immigration and, when the segment allows it, about whether it is going to rain. He is a pride of this county in the same family of local facts as Jungle Jim’s, not because the two men are the same, but because both of them are unmistakably from here.
I love the Republican Party more with him in it than without him. I want the people who are strong on Trump and strong on immigration in the same room as the sheriff who will tell you the execution has been uneven. That argument is allowed. The alternative is a purity spiral that hands the institutions to people who do not believe in the country at all. If you do not have the law, you do not have a society to argue about. Immigration is one place the law has been deliberately hollowed out. Sheriff Jones saw it early, built a record on it, wrote it down, and is still willing to go on the air and say it.
Read They Call Me Jonesy. You will get the man, not the montage. And if you are building a party worth belonging to, leave a chair for the sheriff in the flag jacket. We are going to need him.
NOTES
1. Butler County Sheriff’s Office, “Sheriff,” biographical sketch of Richard K. Jones, https://www.butlersheriff.org/sheriff. See also the author note to Richard K. Jones, They Call Me Jonesy: Let’s Get Real About Saving America (2026). Born October 11, 1953, in Hamilton, Butler County, Ohio. Hamilton City Schools. United States Army, combat engineer, 1973-1975, Specialist 4.
2. Ibid. County and office biographies place the Lebanon Correctional Institution major’s posting from 1990 to 1993 and the chief-deputy years from 1993 until he took office as sheriff in January 2005. Education: associate degree in corrections, Hocking Technical College, 1979; bachelor’s in criminal justice, Wilmington College, 1981; master’s in corrections, Xavier University, 1984.
3. Elected November 2004 as the 45th sheriff of Butler County. Took office January 3, 2005. Reelected to a sixth term in November 2024. See Butler County Sheriff’s Office biography, and Lauren Pack, “Sheriff Richard Jones makes it clear illegal immigrants are in his jail, but he is not housing ICE prisoners – yet,” Dayton Daily News, February 3, 2025.
4. Pack, Dayton Daily News, February 3, 2025. The “Illegal Aliens Here” sign, with an arrow pointing at the jail, went up in 2004. Jones: “Originally the government said there were no illegal aliens. They said they don’t know where they are at. So I put that giant sign up with an arrow pointing to the jail in case they couldn’t find them. I let them know they were in my jail.” The sign has come down and gone back up as administrations changed. It was put back into the public argument in early 2025.
5. Julia Preston, “Sheriff Defies Immigrants by Billboard and by Blog,” The New York Times, July 31, 2006. Six billboards in Butler County read “Hire an illegal – break the law!” Jones also took out newspaper advertisements, opened a tip line on employers, and kept the yellow “Illegal Aliens Here” street signs outside the jail.
6. Pack, Dayton Daily News, February 3, 2025; Journal-News, May 19, 2026, and September 30, 2026; Local 12, “‘It is immoral’: Protest urges Butler County sheriff to stop assisting ICE deportations,” September 23, 2026. Butler County housed federal immigration detainees from 2003 until June 2021, when Jones canceled the contract over Biden administration rules. Two days after the 2024 election he was back in contact with ICE. The county reentered an agreement to house ICE detainees in February 2025. Housing resumed in March 2025. Jones has a 287(g) agreement covering the Jail Enforcement Model and the Task Force Model. He told Local 12 that 50 to 60 deputies had been trained by federal agents. The Cincinnati Enquirer reported the jail holds up to 848 maximum- and medium-security inmates, and that the sheriff’s office is paid $68 per day and $36 per hour to transport ICE detainees to the airport.
7. “Butler County sheriff says Trump administration ‘went about it the wrong way’ on immigration,” Journal-News, September 30, 2026, reporting the WCPO interview with Stephen Knobel. Jones’s figures: about 450 people in the jail held on immigration matters, and about 6,000 people deported from the Butler County Jail over the preceding 18 to 19 months. He also said, “You can’t deport 20, 25 million people,” and “I don’t even think [Trump’s] deported maybe over a million.”
8. The Daily Beast headline of September 24, 2026, “JD Vance’s Ultra-Trumpy Hometown Sheriff Richard Jones Turns on MAGA,” is the clearest example of the spin. The underlying WCPO quotes acknowledge early execution problems in the second term (“Has it been kind of messed up when they first started this under the second term? Sure they have.” “Did they go about it in the wrong way? Sure they did.”) and the practical limits of mass removal. They do not renounce enforcement, the 287(g) agreement, or Jones’s description of Trump as a real leader. In the same interview he said he likes Trump’s bluntness and what he sees as positive movement in the economy. See also WCPO 9, “Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones On Immigration And Leadership,” September 24, 2026.
9. WCPO 9, “Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones On Immigration And Leadership,” posted September 24, 2026, interviewer Stephen Knobel. The sheriff’s office has also posted weekly National Weather Service outlooks under its own name, including a September 28, 2026 outlook introduced by meteorologist Natalie Fitzpatrick on the office account.
10. Local 12, “‘It is immoral’: Protest urges Butler County sheriff to stop assisting ICE deportations,” September 23, 2026. Demonstrators with Butler County for Immigrant Justice called for an end to the 287(g) agreement outside the Government Center in Hamilton. Jones’s reply, as reported: “The whole system’s broke and won’t be fixed by either party. So, we can’t allow people to come into this country illegally and not know who they are and where they’re at.”
11. Matthew Cupelli, “How a fender bender led to Butler County sheriff, West Chester dispute,” Cincinnati Enquirer, September 26, 2026, updated September 27, 2026. The collision was September 14, 2026. No injuries. Jones said a West Chester policy kept officers from turning an alleged undocumented driver over to ICE. Township officials said that was false. The sheriff’s office arrested the 26-year-old man on September 18. Jones said he was from Mexico, had been in the United States four years, and would likely be deported.
12. Journal-News, “New Butler County Jail lawsuit alleges assault of ICE detainee,” May 19, 2026, and “Internal investigations shows no assault on Butler County Jail detainee,” May 28, 2026. Attorneys for Luis Tenelanda sued Sheriff Richard Jones, Sgt. Corneal Rowe, and the county on May 18, 2026. The office denied the allegations, cited a 2025 internal investigation that found no assault, and declined further comment while litigation was active.
13. Richard K. Jones, They Call Me Jonesy: Let’s Get Real About Saving America (May 18, 2026), 294 pages, ISBN 979-8253821909. In the book he describes Trump as a real leader and returns to the phrase “The America I once knew.”
14. Jungle Jim’s International Market places the Fairfield beginning in 1973, across from Fisher Body, after earlier produce selling out of a truck. James O. “Jungle Jim” Bonaminio, born 1949 in Lorain, Ohio. First store opened in 1975 at about 4,200 square feet. See Jungle Jim’s, “The Jungle Jim Story,” https://junglejims.com/about-us.
15. WLWT, “Butler County sheriff speaks out on deportation of CPS grad, high-profile local crimes involving illegal immigrants,” June 28, 2025. Jones said the office then had ten deputies with ICE-equivalent arrest authority, wanted ten more, and expected to have about fifty. At that point he said Butler County was the only jurisdiction in Ohio with that arrangement, and that the jail was the only ICE holding facility in the Greater Cincinnati area.
ICE, “Delegation of Immigration Authority Section 287(g),” ice.gov, is the practical companion to the local record. For the older national argument Jones walked into, see Julia Preston, New York Times, July 31, 2006, and the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General reviews of 287(g) from 2010 onward. For the county side of the same years, the Journal-News archive on the ICE contract from 2003 through the June 2021 cancellation and the February 2025 reinstatement is the cleanest local paper trail.
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
I have been hinting at this for weeks, and I still won’t say exactly what I am doing. I can tell you the shape of it. I have been toying with a Ph.D. for several years, and I think the trigger has finally been pulled. I already know what the doctoral thesis will be. A version of it will live on the blog, because I am not going to make people wait five or six years to hear the argument. A humanities dissertation runs on the order of 80,000 words. That is a long walk. It is also, if you do it right, a bridge between things the academy will not put in the same room.
I am not happy about what has happened to academia. I am not happy that a credential which was supposed to mean rigor has been rendered, in too many departments, into a party card for liberal politics. I think there are a lot of problems with that, and I would like to get on that side of the argument for my own reasons. A Ph.D. is a tool. It is not a personality. It gives you a seat in a fight that otherwise dismisses you as a blogger with a whip and a podcast. I do not want the universities left entirely to people who have already decided the conclusion. Big tent, small tent, ethics, the lack of ethics: this is the same argument I have been making about parties and about sheriffs. If you will not go into the room, you do not get to complain that the room was captured.
The thesis comes out of The Politics of Heaven. Even while I am doing everything else, if I write several books in that line, and if I am involved in aerospace work that makes money and does cool things, none of that changes the strategy. Money is a tool. You do not do the long work to get paid for it. The Politics of Heaven, in the draft I have been editing, is over 200,000 words. The published book will be shorter. Parts of it are clean. I’m combining two bodies of evidence in the same paragraph because few others have read both piles. The politics of heaven, as I am using the phrase, are my speculations built on a very wide reading. Very few people read as much of this material as I do, or as diversely. I put things together in places the guild system of the sciences cannot handle, because the guild system is paid to stay in its lane. There needs to be a bridge. If I am going to write a thesis anyway, I might as well make the bridge the doctorate.
People I trust with a book want an entry. They want to know the information has been through a fight. Academic argument, when it is actually argument and not a loyalty oath, comes across better if you get on their side of the table and make them defend the status quo. I think I have a hook. Less than one percent of the people who encounter it are going to love it. Everyone else will scratch their heads and say they are not ready. That is fine. A lot of what I assert is not laboratory science. It is immersion. It is psychology. It is a lifetime of reading. I make assertions that are not “scientifically grounded” in the sense a journal referee means, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. They are grounded in experience, in a level of ethical attention, and in a concern I am willing to name: the ethical behavior of the spirit world, how it moves against the human race, and how it plots against God’s design. That is the concern. I am not worried about putting the frame of it out here. Somebody might try to steal it. I’m happy to share them and see if anyone can do anything with them. Most people cannot.
The thesis, as I am presuming to pursue it, is Jason Voorhees: why he is scary, and why Yahweh had to save the world from the gods of Canaan. And why those are not two subjects.
A book I saw advertised through Biblical Archaeology Review took the very progressive line that the Palestinians are the indigenous people and that Israel is the invader, the same argument you hear about American Indians. I heard a woman out of Portland, Oregon, the other day, talking about the drug problem on those streets, the cities run by blue mayors, and she concluded that we need to teach kids to do drugs, because the Indians were doing drugs, talking to spirits, going on vision quests. Democrats, in that telling, need this to happen to our young people. Break them away from their parents at twelve and thirteen. Send them on a spirit journey under drug consumption. Let them communicate with the other world. Coyote. Peyote. The vision.
I am writing, among other things, about why you should not do that, and about what you are actually encountering when you go looking for the spirit world on those terms. I talk about three rivers a lot. I talk about the origin stories of the Aztecs. I talk about a claim almost no working archaeologist or anthropologist will yet admit in public, which is that the Noah story has a geographical hook in eastern Turkey that the guild retired, and that some of the people who wrote the retirement papers are themselves retired, and that methods we were told settled the question are being reopened because the ground will not stay closed. I am saying yes to some of those reopenings because I know where the argument is going. For me, proof is not a single carbon date. Proof is accumulated experience and a willingness to read the thing the department will not assign.
So the thesis, in a sentence: Jason Voorhees and how Yahweh saved the human race from the gods of Canaan; the rest of the map is the same type. Indian cultures. Central Mexican cultures. Large parts of South America. If we were allowed to explore the same questions in Russia, China, Afghanistan, and India with the same honesty, we would know more about them too. I hear the argument every week that Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and the Hindu traditions are older than Christianity, and the related argument that Hindu and Buddhist ideas migrated into the community around Jesus, that John the Baptist was a rebel against orthodox Judaism, that Greek society had already been in those eastern regions for two or three hundred years before the Roman machine arrived, with its gods and its planetary worship and its mystery cults. We would also understand the dolmens of the Jordan Valley better than we do. We would ask a ruder question: why do we have stone chambers in New England, and mound-and-monument landscapes in the northern Great Lakes and the Michigan peninsula, that keep getting explained away as root cellars and colonial oddities. At the same time, the Jordan field is allowed to be religion? Those are good questions. They are not simple. They are the complicated kind of simple, the kind that looks obvious once you stop protecting the departmental border.
Here is the hook I plan to share before November. The thirteenth villain, the one America actually produced, could not have been created anywhere but here. No other artistic culture had the combination. A commercial horror film, made for almost nothing, aimed at teenagers, indifferent to critics’ approval, and then kept alive by the audience for forty-six years. That figure explains something the ancient Near Eastern texts only describe from the other side: why people worshiped the deities of Canaan, why Yahweh was necessary, why the land had to be cleared of rival cults if anyone wanted a garden rather than an altar, why there could not be another god before him, and why human beings keep drifting back to the lesser worship anyway. I will explain more of the operational evidence after Halloween. I cannot discuss that part yet. I can tell you I am obsessed with why Jason Voorhees was invented in American cinema, and why people are still obsessed with him.
I got interested again when I saw how people reacted. My grandkids and my wife play Dead by Daylight on the PlayStation 5 a lot, all the time. I wanted to know why this character was in the room. I remembered him from when I was a teenager. In those years, you watched the movies because you wanted to see kids get killed and you wanted the cheap thrill, and you filed it under science fiction, fantasy, and horror, and you moved on. He did not move on. Then I realized there was a psychological mechanism under the costume, and I immersed myself in it until I had something I could call objective evidence. Enough, I think, for 80,000 words on why Jason Voorhees matters in the art and entertainment of human cultures, and why he had to be invented in America.
The academic position I want to refuse is the one that treats indigenous worship as automatically virtuous. Worship of lesser gods, as against Yahweh, or against what I will call for the thesis an Alpha claim on the divine, is not a heritage to be restored. It is a psychology. It has a shape. It shows up in Canaan. It shows up in the vision-quest argument. It shows up in the woman who thinks the drug policy of a failing city is a sacrament. It shows up, dressed as entertainment, in a hockey mask. If you want to talk about the psychology of goodness in a culture, and about how you defend a big-tent civilization against people who think every altar is equal, you have to be willing to look at the altar people actually kneel at when nobody from the department is watching.
This will be a quiet undertaking. It is not the thing that makes the money. I think it is needed if the human race is going to get a psychological look at itself that is not written by the people who already agree with the Portland sermon. For my part, I jump off the board before the pool is finished filling. A lot of things have to happen on the way down. I have often made the large moves under dangerous circumstances, because that is where the world actually is. You do not find the treasure by doing the same thing everyone else is doing. I think I have found something in Jason Voorhees and the Friday the 13th series: why human beings are so ready to worship an idea, and why a certain kind of academia wants to point everyone toward the indigenous deity and call it liberation. That is why the drug argument keeps coming back. I understand why people feel that way. I do not feel anything close to it. Liberal-minded people, tending to vote Democrat, accommodate the opinion because they have talked themselves into believing every spirit is a friend if it arrives wearing the costume of the oppressed. I have a different reading now of why Jason is revered across cultures and across decades, and why he became a killer in Dead by Daylight not as a memory of the movies but as a current character. I know him from the movies, from the games, and from everything that has cascaded off him. I have watched that cascade go through generations.
I am deep in it. It will not make anyone rich. The information I have learned is more than most people will ever care to know about the character and about the public reaction to him. In November, I will share the details I can’t share now. It is the doctoral idea. To help the academics, I will put it on ground they already understand, and on ground everybody else understands: a horror movie. It is a good comment. It is a big concept. I am going to use it to launch the reasoning about why those older worships were dangerous, why people still practice them, why they are still impactful, and why a society that wants to fix itself has to fix that before it fixes the tax bill.
It will be entertaining. I promise that. Some of the apocalyptic discussions I have had came from real reflection, because I put myself through a considerable amount of discomfort to see the thing from the inside. It is not enough to stand on the dock and throw a theory at the water. You have to go in with the sharks and the snakes and the vipers and see what is actually down there. I would like it to be easier. I want the design of the world to be more accommodating to personal pleasure. Here is the deal. I will get further into this over the coming weeks and months as I work up to it. A thesis, in the ordinary academic calendar, is five or six years of hard work. In another sense, I have already been at the reading for longer than that. I know what the end needs to be. It needs to be this. And it has an academic entrance, which you cannot use unless you have gone down the rabbit hole past Alice, further by a lot. That is what I am talking about. I think I understand Jason Voorhees, the public reaction to him, the fascination, and why the human race turns away from Yahweh and Jesus Christ and finds itself worshiping the old neighbors.
The Jewish people worshiped the calf when Moses took too long coming down with the commandments. The guidance drifted. Even Aaron drifted. He drifted for a reason. What is the reason? I think I have it. I will put it in the books, in the thesis, and in future academic work. I will also put it here, because I am not going to make people wait five or six years. Putting it out helps me. The feedback helps. People send notes. They ask questions I had not framed. I get a better answer, and I refine it. That is the process. It is not always the way I would design it. It has been working.
A dose of reality with a fire under it has been hard. This particular immersion has been out of my comfort zone. It will make for a richer discussion, which is the point of the effort. Job titles are transitory. Acquisitions are transitory. Most of them are built on compliance with human systems. I mean compliance with a cosmic claim. The Bible is not a hint. I think it is part of a larger story we are going to be covering for thousands of years, and that we miraculously captured some of it through prophets and through voices that managed to get a portion written down, and that the portion lasted through purges and reformations and kingdoms and empires to reach us.
I find that survival a miracle. There is a lot more, and when a generation is done with the portion it inherited, it still has to ask questions. It has to cut into the topic with evidence-based trajectories. That is what I am doing. I wish it were easier to get. If it were easy, more people would do it. Very few have the stomach for the fight. I have gone down the rabbit hole. I have seen what is down there. I know a treasure was left behind, and I think it is my task, because I have been given a voice, to bring some of that treasure into the light.
The structural thesis on Jason Voorhees is the door. I think people are going to get a kick out of it. It is going to be fun. If you liked The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, you’ll know the voice. The subject is different. The standard is not.
NOTES
1. A typical humanities doctoral thesis in the United States and Britain falls somewhere around 80,000 to 100,000 words, excluding bibliography. I am using 80,000 as the working target, not as a university requirement already assigned to me. I am not enrolled in a program as of this writing. The point of saying the number is to mark the scale: this is not a blog post, and it is not a five-year wait for the blog either.
2. The Politics of Heaven is the manuscript I have described elsewhere as completed in draft in 2026, in final edits, and aimed at publication in 2027. The draft I am editing has run past 200,000 words. The published book will be cut down. The thesis is a bridge out of that book, not a substitute for it.
3. Friday the 13th, produced and directed by Sean S. Cunningham, written by Victor Miller, opened in the United States on May 9, 1980. Budget reported under $600,000. Domestic gross about $39.8 million; worldwide about $59.8 million. It was the first independent slasher picked up by a major studio, Paramount. See Friday the 13th (1980 film), Wikipedia, revised 2026; Ryan Gilbey, “Friday the 13th at 40,” The Guardian, May 9, 2020.
4. In the first film, the killer is Pamela Voorhees, Jason’s mother. Jason himself appears at the end as a jump scare. Makeup designer Tom Savini has said the beat was his idea after Carrie: “let’s bring in Jason.” Victor Miller later objected to the sequels making Jason the killer: “Jason was dead from the very beginning. He was a victim, not a villain.” That argument inside the creative team is part of the evidence. The culture did not accept the victim. It promoted the corpse. See Friday the 13th (1980 film), Wikipedia, production history.
5. The hockey mask arrives in Friday the 13th Part III, released August 13, 1982, directed by Steve Miner, the only film in the series released in 3-D. On-set accounts say a Detroit Red Wings goaltender mask belonging to 3-D effects supervisor Martin Jay Sadoff was put on actor Richard Brooker for a lighting test, then enlarged by makeup effects. In Part 2, Jason had worn a sack. The mask is an American industrial object, a piece of sporting armor, not a cult image designed by a priest. That is the point.
6. The franchise then did what Canaanite cults did. It would not stay dead. Sequels, a 2009 reboot, a crossover with A Nightmare on Elm Street, novels, song references from Tupac to Eminem, The Simpsons, and, in 2026, a playable killer. Gilbey notes that Jason became the first fictional character to receive an MTV Lifetime Achievement Award. The culture promoted a murderer of teenagers into an institution.
7. Dead by Daylight, from Behavior Interactive, added Jason as Chapter 40 on June 16, 2026. In the game, he is called The Slasher. The chapter shipped as paid downloadable content at $4.99 or 500 Auric Cells, with a hockey-mask cosmetic and a “Misty Cabin” banner. He joined Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, Ghostface, and Leatherface on the same roster. My wife and my grandchildren play the game. That is not a footnote to the thesis. That is the transmission mechanism: a character I met as a teenager is now a weekly opponent for children who were not alive for the original film.
8. The Canaanite comparison is the theological half of the thesis, and I am stating it here as my claim, not as a finding already peer-reviewed. The biblical polemic is not subtle. Israel is commanded not to do what the nations did on their high places. Child sacrifice to Molech is forbidden and treated as a capital offense (Leviticus 18:21, 20:2-5; Deuteronomy 12:31; 2 Kings 23:10; Jeremiah 32:35). The contest on Carmel is a direct trial between Yahweh and Baal (1 Kings 18). Josiah’s reform demolishes the high places, the asherim, and the Topheth in the Valley of Hinnom (2 Kings 23). John Day, Molech: A God of Human Sacrifice in the Old Testament (Cambridge, 1989), belongs in the bibliography so the fight is visible. My claim is that the psychological pattern survives the argument about body counts.
9. The golden calf is the control case inside Israel itself. Exodus 32: Aaron builds the calf because the people will not wait for Moses to come down. The text does not treat this as a moment of heritage. It treats it as drift under impatience, including drift by the priest. That is the mechanism I think I can show in the modern material: absence of the harder claim, impatience, a visible substitute, and a leader who accommodates the substitute so the crowd will not leave.
10. The Portland remark is from a broadcast comment I heard, a woman arguing that children should be taught drug use because indigenous vision quests used intoxicants to speak with spirits, set against the open drug scenes of cities run by Democratic mayors. I am not hanging the thesis on her name. I am hanging it on the argument, which is now common: the pre-Christian or non-Christian rite is the authentic one, the parental household is the interruption, and the drug is the sacrament. Standard starting points on the Native American Church and peyote, which is not the same thing as a municipal drug market, include Weston La Barre, The Peyote Cult (1938 and later editions), and Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990).
11. On the Biblical Archaeology Review advertisement and the “Palestinians as indigenous, Israel as invader” line: BAR has long carried a range of politics alongside the archaeology, and the indigenous framing of the Palestinian claim has become a standard academic position in parts of Near Eastern studies since the 1990s, drawing on the same vocabulary used for Native American land claims. I am marking the parallel as my reading of that advertisement and of the wider literature, not as a quotation from a single editor. A fair bibliography has to carry both William G. Dever, Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From? (Eerdmans, 2003), and the more minimalist and postcolonial work the department actually assigns.
12. Jordan Valley dolmens are not a rumor. Fields run along the escarpment east of the Jordan, south from the Yarmuk toward the Kerak plateau, with a heavy Early Bronze Age I burial use and a possible late Chalcolithic beginning. See the radiometric dolmen paper in Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports (2023), and David Gilead, “Burial Customs and the Dolmen Problem,” Palestine Exploration Quarterly 100 (1968). James A. Fraser’s Dolmens in the Levant (2018) is the modern synthesis. More than a century of work has still not produced dolmens west of the Jordan south of the Upper Galilee.
13. New England stone chambers are the contested American analog, and I am not going to pretend the guild has conceded the point. The colonial root-cellar explanation is the standard one. A luminescence study of structures in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, published in 2022 in Quaternary Geochronology, reported sediment ages under some structures in the late sixteenth century, before sustained colonial settlement. That is not a Phoenician colony. It is a date that does not fit the root-cellar story cleanly. The thesis does not need the chambers to be dolmens. It needs the question to stay open.
14. The Michigan peninsula and the northern Great Lakes are a different monumental tradition: Late Woodland mounds and earthworks, roughly AD 1200-1600, not Levantine dolmens. Meghan C. L. Howey, Mound Builders and Monument Makers of the Northern Great Lakes, 1200-1600 (University of Arizona Press, 2012), is a careful book. I raise the peninsula because the public is told these are separate phenomena by disciplinary border, while the psychological function, a built place where the dead or the spirit is dealt with outside the household, keeps rhyming. The rhyme is my claim. The distinction in architecture is the academy’s fact. Both go in the thesis.
15. The Durupinar formation near Dogubayazit, eastern Turkey, is the Noah’s Ark claim I am referring to. The geological consensus, including a 1996 paper by Lorence Collins and David Fasold, “Bogus ‘Noah’s Ark’ from Turkey Exposed as a Common Geologic Structure,” is that the boat shape is a natural formation. In 2026, a team led by Cenker Atila of Sivas Cumhuriyet University ran further scans and reported right-angled subsurface anomalies and higher carbon inside the formation than outside it. Mainstream outlets treated the new work as another round of a claim already rejected. I am not asking the reader to call it the Ark. I am asking why a formation that will not stay out of the news is professionally required to be a closed case, while vision-quest pharmacology is professionally required to be an open sacrament.
16. Aztec origin traditions are a separate dossier in The Politics of Heaven. The relevant point for the thesis is the public one: a civilization that built an imperial sacrificial system on a calendar of blood is still routinely taught as a heritage interrupted by Europeans, while the biblical refusal of that kind of altar is taught as the crime. The primary narrative is in the Florentine Codex of Bernardino de Sahagún and in Diego Durán. The archaeological frame is Michael E. Smith, The Aztecs. The moral question is mine.
17. Greek and eastern mystery religion in the centuries before Jesus is not an internet invention. The Hellenistic kingdoms sat on the Levant from Alexander’s campaigns in the late fourth century BC. The claim that Jesus or John the Baptist is a Buddhist or Hindu import is modern. The mainstream counter is still the Jewish context: Second Temple Palestine, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Josephus, and the Gospels. A clean entry is Martin Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism (1974).
18. The ethical claim of the thesis, which will not be popular in a religious-studies faculty, is that the spirit world has a moral direction, and that “indigenous” is not a moral category. A rite can be old and still be a violation. I am using Jason as the modern control because nobody can accuse a Paramount slasher of being a colonial slander against a living tribe. America invented him in New Jersey in 1980, out of a marketing bet on Halloween (1978). The audience then did what audiences have always done with the lesser god. It kept him, masked him, sold him, and handed him to the children.
19. I am withholding, until after Halloween and into November, the field observations from the seasonal work that put me inside the costume and inside the crowd reaction. That material is the part of the evidence I will not sketch in public yet. The thesis does not depend on gossip about a haunt. It depends on the crowd, which I have now watched from both sides of the mask.
20. The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business is the earlier book in which I used a popular American figure to carry an argument about discipline, producers, and the refusal to live by permission. The Jason thesis is the same method on a darker subject. Readers who want the voice can start there. Readers who want the cosmology can start with The Politics of Heaven when it is out.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Collins, Lorence G., and David Fasold. “Bogus ‘Noah’s Ark’ from Turkey Exposed as a Common Geologic Structure.” Journal of Geoscience Education, 1996.
Cunningham, Sean S., director. Friday the 13th. Paramount Pictures, 1980. Screenplay by Victor Miller.
Day, John. Molech: A God of Human Sacrifice in the Old Testament. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Dead by Daylight Wiki. “CHAPTER 40: Jason.” Behavior Interactive release, June 16, 2026.
Dever, William G. Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From? Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003.
Duran, Diego. The History of the Indies of New Spain. Translated by Doris Heyden. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994.
Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990).
Fraser, James A. Dolmens in the Levant. London: Routledge, 2018.
Gilbey, Ryan. “Friday the 13th at 40: the maligned slasher that’s haunted pop culture.” The Guardian, May 9, 2020.
Gilead, David. “Burial Customs and the Dolmen Problem.” Palestine Exploration Quarterly 100, no. 1 (1968): 16-26.
Hengel, Martin. Judaism and Hellenism. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974.
Howey, Meghan C. L. Mound Builders and Monument Makers of the Northern Great Lakes, 1200-1600. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2012.
La Barre, Weston. The Peyote Cult. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1938.
Mahan, Shannon, and colleagues. Luminescence dating of enigmatic rock structures in New England. Quaternary Geochronology, 2022.
Miner, Steve, director. Friday the 13th Part III. Paramount Pictures, 1982.
Sahagun, Bernardino de. Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain. Translated by Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1950-1982.
Smith, Michael E. The Aztecs. 3rd ed. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.
The Holy Bible. Exodus 32; Leviticus 18 and 20; Deuteronomy 12; 1 Kings 18; 2 Kings 23; Jeremiah 32.
Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com. If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.
