Category: Butler County

The Fed’s 2% Inflation to Lower Wage Rates: Micromanaging employers and causing quite a mess

There is a dirty little secret that the Federal Reserve has about its role in mass society that needs to be discussed in relation to interest rates and what it considers managed inflation.  The Fed recently met at its annual Jackson Hole meeting, and it reminded me of many things, particularly the time when my grandkids wanted chicken nuggets from McDonald’s and their dining room was closed.  We were in my RV, so the only way to place an order and collect the food was to use the drive-thru window, which I barely fit through.  The McDonald’s in Jackson Hole is very close to where the Fed meets against the backdrop of the Teton mountains.  For a tourist town with one of the largest concentrations of wealth in the world, it’s a small McDonald’s with a pretty small parking lot.  Certainly not RV friendly.  However, I managed to make it work with less than an inch on all sides of my vehicle, and it’s a story that has gained a lot of popularity in my family.  “Remember that time grandpa did this?”  And everyone says, “Which one?” because there are a lot of things to talk about.  The town itself is one of my favorites, and I can understand why all the bank presidents who are members of the Fed want to meet there to discuss monetary policy.  It’s a really good place to go and is America’s version of Geneva, Switzerland.  I think the Tetons are better, though.  So after the Fed meeting there, Jerome Powell indicated he was going to do what I said he was going to have to do, and what J.P. Morgan had been pressing for, along with President Trump, and that was the Fed was going to lower interest rates.  Not happily, but because they have to.  The economy is too good to hide phony interest rate profits for the banks behind artificial inflation numbers meant to frighten the world away from Trump’s presidency. 

However, there is another issue at play that we need to address regarding employment.  The Fed believes that in managing money, it must bake in 2% inflation per year because that is the only way to offset the erosion of wages that employers provide to employees, which dilutes the actual value of labor.  Because the Fed believes, which is one of the reasons for its existence, that employers will not incur the hard cost of paying employees less for their labor as they age and become less valuable.  Therefore, the Fed believes that it must step in and manage the economy because employers won’t do so on their own.  Often, when a company gets out of step with its cost structure, it has an obligation to reduce its costs, either through a reduction in force or wage cuts.  However, most employers are hesitant to lose their legacy talent and invest a significant amount of money in retaining them, when in reality, they should consider letting them go on the open market and replace them with cheaper and younger workers.  The NFL has to do this all the time with salary caps, which are imposed on teams to keep them fresh and relevant.  If a player wants to leave a team for more money, then that team can turn to free agency to replace that player.  If the market wants to pay a lot for that experienced player, they certainly can, but there is a salary cap, so that team won’t be able to pay a lot to other workers as well. 

That’s why we should operate in America with some gold standard, because value has to be protected. Instead of the Fed having the temptation to print more money, it would micromanage the economy with continuous infusions of cash, ultimately diminishing its buying power and hiding the inflation it creates in the process.  And try to hide it behind other economic conditions as a justification, which had worked until Trump came along and called the Fed’s bluff.  And because the Fed believes that free market pressures won’t manage the economy effectively, they have baked into all their assumptions about economic flow that they must micromanage employers who won’t trim their fat with inflated wage rates at their companies, as they fear losing talent to their competition.  So, the Fed bakes 2% inflation into everything.  That’s why, when reviews are conducted with employees, a standard minimum of 2% is required to maintain your wage value at the same level as the previous year.  The trick is that as you get older, you actually lose buying power in most cases because inflation eats up whatever increases you manage to get for yourself.  The goal is for Americans to earn less over their working years, not more, because the actual value of labor must be managed by the Fed, which introduces all kinds of problems, as it’s not really employers who are the problem.  That is just the excuse that the Fed applies to cover a lot of liberal politics, for which they are prone.  Labor unions, for instance, are very guilty of propping up wage rates that are artificially too high, which then feeds the Fed’s argument for mass micromanagement of the economy with incremental inflation to let people believe they are being paid a certain amount on paper, but in truth, the money is worth a lot less.  People don’t notice because it happens over time.  However, every three years, at a minimum, workers lose 6% of their buying power if they do not receive raises in their pay that are well above 2%.  To receive an actual 2% raise, employees would need to obtain a 4% raise with each yearly evaluation.  Which certainly isn’t the case for most people. 

Consider the problem at the McDonald’s in Jackson Hole that I mentioned, which had its drive-thru window closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  And the government was pushing for a minimum wage increase that inflated the real value for entry-level jobs, such as McDonald’s workers making $15 per hour, when the real value for their jobs is likely under $10.  When politicians interfere in the process of manipulating market values, the Fed must attempt to cover up the mess with interest rate hikes to conceal the inflation it creates, which often exceeds 2%.  Our goal with inflation should be zero, and if we held it to the gold standard, it would have to be.  These are the problems you get when you let pin-headed bureaucrats micromanage an economy with Marxist ideas instead of free market capitalism, and it’s a real problem.  So Jerome Powell knows all this and is reluctant to lower interest rates, even though all the parts of the economy that they usually hide behind at those Jackson Hole meetings are too good, forcing his hand.  So he’s not happy about it.  But a lot is coming that he won’t be pleased about.  There has been a significant amount of tampering that has impacted wage rates, and employers have not been the primary source of the issue.  It’s too much administrative mess that comes from the Fed, and short-term politicians who have caused all the problems.  McDonald’s workers, like the one in Jackson Hole, should not have employees making over $20 per hour.  Wal-Mart should not have employees making $20 to $25 per hour because all other labor has had to increase their wage rates to obtain workers.  But the money is all on paper.  People are not actually making those actual wage rates because the Fed has had to hide the impact through inflation.  And now they are being forced to lower interest rates, which will expose the whole mess.  Although the meeting in Jackson Hole might have been very scenic, it wasn’t enjoyable.  There will be a lot more to happen with monetary policy in the coming months.  And the Fed is going to lose a lot more control, as they very well should. 

Rich Hoffman

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

I Tried to Tell Them: Why consultants often fail

It’s been a little time now, but I suppose it’s appropriate to spike the football a bit and talk a bit more about the details of why I wrote my book, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business.  I had in my life at that time a lot of people who were really gunning for me, literally.  They did many terrible things, and their world has crumbled around them, leaving them surprised by the consequences.  However, I had already informed them of what was going to happen in my book, which is one of the reasons I wrote it.  I really wanted to be fair, but the bloodthirsty nature of people provoked a lot of bad behavior that has since collapsed, and there was always something of a science to it.  So they can’t say they weren’t warned.  And it really is simple.  One of the key metaphors in The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, which has achieved what I wanted out of it as a book on business that can help a select few understand why success or failure occurs, is the use of Wild West metaphors to put everything into context.  Why are some people successful while others aren’t? There is a real shell game in the world of people who seek equality and inclusion, who don’t want to admit to themselves the facts of this very distinct reality.  It takes courage to be successful, and you can’t replicate that with process improvements and administrative handholding.  And most of the world doesn’t want to believe that, so I had to write it down in a way that would predict the future.  And that future is now before many people who are finding their personal destruction quite a surprise.  So I explained it to them beforehand.

I love Wild West towns and the idea of them on the open expansion of the American idea.  A vast horizon of opportunity coming together to form a city of ambition, unleashed by capitalist ideas.  Wild West towns were unique to the American experience for many reasons, and I find them infinitely fascinating as a result of human need.  And upon their formation, of course, there were always bad guys trying to get a lot for very little and were willing to bring significant harm to people for their own profit.  So, in that way, how could you bring security to a town without hampering the ambitions of people seeking capitalist outcomes?  And to do so without letting bad guys take everything that was made.  Successful towns established a law and order that centered on gunslingers fighting it out in duels, and good guys like Doc Holiday, Wyatt Earp, and Wild Bill Hickock would meet the bad guys in the street and be willing to risk their lives to shoot their nemesis dead.  And as long as the bad guys were removed from harming good people, a town would grow and thrive.  But without such characters, evil would overrun the process and everything would fall apart.  And that is pretty much true in any endeavor that human beings involve themselves in, even to this day.  You can’t fake courage, and others need to survive in the world and lead good lives.  It all starts with a few unique personalities who have abundant courage and the skill to defeat all others.  Gunfighters come to mind in the concept of fast draw for obvious reasons; they are a uniquely American invention that points directly to why the United States has the largest GDP of any country in the world, especially considering the relatively small number of people contributing to the economy. 

The trick is, once a town was formed, then what?  In those cases of success, there were always plenty of parasites who would come into the city and try to establish rules to maintain order without losing the courage that the town was founded on.  In historical terms, these “Dandies” and “Bounty Hunters,” as I call them, are contemporaries of today’s consultant class, which is quite extensive, who attempt to feed off the carcass of those who have come before them and to steal the profit of their lives ruthlessly.  And they expect everything to work out well.  My response to all these occasions, including before I wrote that book, is to, as the gunslinger, get on my horse and leave town, not sharing the crime-fighting of the town’s profits with the newcomers.  Usually, the gunslinger would move from town to town once success set in, as tag-alongs would then create an administrative barrier.  Instead of a gunslinging gunman, towns would then form a sheriff and a court system. Although things were never quite as good, more people could join in stabilizing a town’s economy.  Gunslingers were not welcomed once things were working well, as collective-based people would then want to share in the glory of success without having the courage to propel it forward with their own sentiments. Consistently, these parasites would seek to steal success from those who created it, without expecting that success to fail in their hands.  However, it never works out that way; yet, after many thousands of years, people still expect a different outcome.  So I wrote my book to explain why that outcome never changes.  Success is directly attached to courage, and you can’t fake that.

I have dealt with people who think they are the most intelligent individuals in the world at many levels, and their ruthlessness has been very easy to overcome.  Usually, these people come out of the consultant classes, and they have a belief that collective administration can replace courage in process improvement, and it just doesn’t work that way.  And no matter what the tag-alongs try to do, when faced up against courageous personalities, they can not compete.  This was the reason that Wild Bill was shot in the back of the head in Deadwood, South Dakota.  The town did not want law and order.  They wanted crime to thrive, and they wanted an administrative mechanism to rule instead of a reputable gunman.  And that is the typical reaction that most people have toward the few who actually achieve success in the world.  Once they see success, they try to shoot the person who made it possible dead, and throw their bodies off the side of the road into an unmarked grave.  They steal the wealth and hope to mimic success.  However, they never quite manage to do it.  Knowing all this, I have not allowed anybody to sneak up on me, which has robbed them of the opportunity to steal what I have created.  They are pretty surprised by the results.  But if only they had listened, I told them well beforehand how it was going to be.  And it is always that way.  Courage beats collectivism every time.  And collectivism allows those with fake courage to appear bold.  But you can’t change the heart of what people are.  They either are, or they aren’t.  And everyone knows the difference.  Courage can’t be duplicated, just as a gunfighter can stand in a dusty street and face down a bullet intended to kill them, and laugh at the danger.  While others hope they can hire a sheriff to do that hard work for them.  But it’s never quite the same.  It takes courage to achieve true success.  And the truth is, there just aren’t many in the world who have real courage.  And when they find they can’t fake it, they get very frustrated when they lose because the illusions of the world couldn’t hide the truth about their bland natures.  That’s why I wrote the book.  As I often say about some of the books I like most, there may be only 20,000 to 30,000 people in the world who read such books, and only 4 of them understand it.  I tend to write books like The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business for those who do.  And to let the other 20,000 people scratch their heads in confusion, because that is about the ratio of people in the world with real courage and an opportunity to be successful at the things they do.  Success is not for everyone; you can’t fake it.  And yes, I tried to tell them.

Rich Hoffman

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

The Woke Museums of Washington D.C.: Why the Museum of the Bible is different

I’m sure I will visit the new museum that just opened in Cairo, Egypt, which cost over a spectacular $ 1 billion.  I love museums and have been to several around the world.  They are to me like books that tell a story about a significant moment in history, and there are always interesting things to consider in the context of a museum that assembles information to put forth a point of view.  I’m sure the new one in Egypt will be fantastic.  However, in that context, the Museum Center in Cincinnati, I think, is great as well, and it’s a place I like to visit frequently for many of the same reasons.  However, for me personally, the Museum of the Bible is a very special place in Washington, D.C., and one of my favorite destinations.  There are many great museums in Washington, D.C., including the Smithsonian and the National Geographic Museum, both of which are located there.  So when President Trump called out the various woke museums like the Smithsonian as targeted to change their ways as part of his reform of Washington D.C. culture, what is he talking about?  And I would point to the Museum of the Bible as the answer, as it was created by very passionate people, such as the ownership of Hobby Lobby and many others, who put forth a lot of effort to make the place really something special.  But why was it so much better than the other area museums for which Washington, D.C. is known?  Well, it all comes down to wokeness and how modern political spins on information provided tend to water down the experience for everyone.  And people don’t like it.  However, the Museum of the Bible is remarkably free of any woke influences, and this is noticeable upon entering and leaving, a place that has truly captured the spirit of what a museum should be and the impact a good one can have on visitors. 

The Museum of the Bible is just a few blocks away from Capitol Hill and the Mall, home to many well-known museums.  But on the way to it, when walking through the parking garage just to the west of the main entrance, a woman of color was in the elevator with my wife and me, and she noticed a particular glow of enthusiasm from us, and she asked about it.  “You guys are going to the Museum of the Bible,” she asked, smiling.  “Well, yes, we are as a matter of fact,” I said.  “How did you know?”  She was smiling, but she was a rough-looking, large woman with neck tattoos who looked like she had been living in an urban jungle for quite some time.  However, she said that the Museum of the Bible was her favorite place and that she was happy for us to experience it.  Now this wasn’t just a bunch of people happy about a museum dedicated to a religious experience.  The Museum of the Bible is dedicated to the most significant literary achievement ever produced on earth.  But it’s the way it’s presented that carries the most significance toward lasting appeal and makes it more than just another museum for most people.  I was very impressed with it.  It wasn’t trying to convince me of anything, as most museums saturated with wokeness do.  It was just proud of what it was, and it offered to let people share in that pride without pretension.  It enables you to enjoy it for all its glory without further explanation. 

And that’s what makes The Museum of the Bible special: it lacks woke references.  It wasn’t about being close to God or unashamed of biblical references that the outside world might attempt to impose on free minds.  It was authentic and put together with a genuine love of the subject, and was just a bit more than the usual museum because of it.  The displays are good, but more than that, the architecture, down to the kind of paint used, was very well put together.  The people working there came across as genuinely loving the place; they weren’t just workers fulfilling mandates for a paycheck.  I also noticed that the museum in the basement of the Capitol Building had just been reopened, and it was really good, which surprised me coming out of a recent Biden administration where wokeness was a big issue.  It was a nice museum, and my wife and I spent a lot of time there watching votes from the House on the big screens in real time.  It was put together well by people obviously passionate about the subject matter.  So the common theme here is not religious, but passion.  And once propaganda of a modern political nature is infused into the subject, people have a natural revulsion to it.  That is one of the significant criticisms of the Smithsonian and National Geographic, which have been trying to present a Charles Darwin view of science, despite evidence pointing to many other contributing factors.  It’s the authenticity of the presentation that elevates sentiment to a higher status.  And woke presentations that are filled with modern political propaganda are something that people naturally reject.  Evidence is what museums put forth.  However, interpreting that evidence in a way that advances a political narrative, if the public is not naturally inclined to agree, is a sure way to push people away, which is what has recently happened to Cracker Barrel and many other trusted commercial endeavors that have tried to embrace woke trends.  The public naturally rejects them.

The Smithsonian and National Geographic are both dedicated to science, which I love to see.  But they are terribly woke and progressive.  And the Smithsonian has been accused of censoring evidence, such as the massive amount of evidence that giant skeletons in the mounds of North America indicate a society that predates what many call Native Americans.  The real native Americans go back much further than the Indians of modern politics, and people can smell a phony that the Smithsonian is trying to steer evidence toward a political sentiment, and that is the case that America was built on stolen land from indigenous people.  And rather than let the evidence tell the story for itself, the museum tells you a fake story, and you are supposed to accept it.  And museums that push civil rights issues from a Democrat perspective, when it was Democrats who were slave owners and it was Republicans who stopped slavery, come across as phony because the material presented attempts to glaze over the facts that are culturally well known.  And that is why woke doesn’t work and why Trump is pushing woke behavior away from everything he can, especially woke museums like the Smithsonian.  America has a rich history, and museums should tell the story without the desire to steer the public in a direction that validates certain political views.  If there were giants on Earth in the form of very tall people, predating what we call “Indians,” then let’s discuss that and examine the evidence.  However, suppose we propose something that contradicts logic. In that case, the public will be uncomfortable and even resistant to enjoying it, which is the problem with ‘woke’ everywhere it is presented, in music, movies, restaurants, and even museums.  Wokeness as a propaganda tool was never going to work, and when we see things like The Museum of the Bible, which is wonderfully woke-free, we reward them with our time and attention.

Rich Hoffman

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

Jennifer Gross Goes to Washington: The importance of redistricting

When I say that Jennifer Gross is not very well-liked, I mean it in the manner of a compliment.  I think it’s a great asset to have people who don’t like you or who are very angry when your name is brought up.  Many people certainly dislike President Trump.  And I would say that I am one of the most hated people in the world.  People typically like you when you do what they want you to do, and their acceptance of you in some way is the way they gain leverage over your authenticity.  So, that makes Jennifer Gross an effective politician in a dynamic intellectual sense, where a static order has to compete, and they don’t like it.  In Ohio, Jennifer is my Representative in the 45th district, and she works hard to do so; I appreciate people who work hard.  And in the course of that work, she found herself in Washington, D.C. with Lee Zeldon, director of the EPA under Trump’s administration, asking questions directly to him about an issue I have been very concerned with regarding the EPA.  I would say that among Trump supporters and people who dislike RINOs, Jennifer Gross is very popular, so it depends on the crowd and what they want out of relationships, which often determines likeability.  I believe cordial relationships can be a liability.  However, it was interesting to hear about Jennifer’s trip to Washington, D.C., where she met with several Trump administration officials, including RFK, over MAHA issues.  So, once her plan was in place, Jennifer and I discussed a number of topics that we would typically talk about.  However, for this audience, I happened to record it so that others could share in the experience.  And, as much as I am concerned about the EPA issue, the conversation we had, which came straight from the Trump administration, was about the need for redistricting. 

The primary thing that Jennifer wanted to tell me about the Trump administration was that they weren’t a bunch of phonies.  The people working for Trump were all successful individuals in their own right, who could take or leave other politicians.  Jennifer can relate because she has always been very independent when it comes to politics, and that makes it hard for her to deal with when it comes to deal-making.  Much of politics is a collaborative effort, and I know several people I would call good friends who spend a lot of time collaborating with other politicians, only to accomplish a fraction of their wants and needs individually.  But that’s part of the process, and one of the reasons I thought the Trump presidency would be a good thing was his self-control over his wealth and ability to walk away from anything he didn’t like.  And his administration is very much the real deal, and Jennifer was pleased to report that they were not a bunch of phonies like we often learn people really are once these political campaigns are over.  So she couldn’t wait to tell me how authentic people like Lee Zeldon, Secretary Kennedy, and Commerce Secretary Lutnick were in real life.  It’s not usual to have people like this in any administration, and to meet them in real life after the honeymoon is over for Trump, doing everyday work, it was good to hear that they are everything they say they are.  Politically, many people dislike them as well, but, as all successful people must learn, that comes with the territory. 

The primary concern on everyone’s mind is the fairness of redistricting, so that Republicans can have more seats in Congress.  There are a few that we can pick up in Ohio, and several other states. The Trump administration is playing hardball on this issue, as it should.  Trump is right, Republicans should not play nice with Democrats over any election issues.  If we genuinely want a representative republic, which is what we are, we must trust the American people to choose who they want to represent them.  Not what a party wants us to adopt for their convenience.  That’s where things get tricky with playing nice to get along, and being a stick to poke in the eye of those who are too quick to compromise.  My point in the matter is that there is room for people like Jennifer Gross in politics and room for plenty of mainstreamers who enjoy the process of collaboration, if we didn’t have such a close margin of majorities.  I think that if we had guarded our elections more closely, there would be 60-plus Republican votes in the Senate and over +50 in Congress.  It is only close in America because of election fraud, and Democrat gerrymandering for many years has given them the appearance of a 50/50 country, when actually it’s a long way from being so.  Democrats are a minority party at best, filled with misfits and broken toys.  It’s one thing to have compassion for their poor state.  It’s quite another to have them destroy our entire society to appear fair.  In Ohio, there are 15 congressional seats, and Republicans have 10 of them.  There are opportunities in Ohio to improve upon that, and without question, Republicans should.  Don’t listen to the cries of Democrats, play hardball and defeat them everywhere. 

And if we did that, as Republicans, the world would be a lot better off.  As Jennifer and I discussed after her trip to Washington, fairness, or the appearance of it, often leads to inauthentic corruption, and righteous representation usually falls by the wayside as people who pay money for representation in the form of lobbyists end up running our government from the shadows.  And that is what we have been trying to get away from.  It’s what I always hoped would be the case from independently wealthy people like Trump, Secretary Lutnick, Zeldon, and Kennedy —that they would do the job for the right reasons. They could make a lot of money if they weren’t in politics.  However, as successful people, they can best represent the public that needs it.  And through redistricting, we can elect more people like that in the future, which would properly represent our actual society.  We don’t have an obligation to play nice with people who want to destroy our country.  And we owe Democrats no illusion of fairness.  If we can secure an additional 20 seats for the 2026 midterms, then let’s do it.  Meanwhile, it’s good to hear that Jennifer was being treated with sincerity by the Trump administration and that doing the right things for the right reasons was more than just an empty promise by politicians who usually disappoint us.  If too many people like you, that’s usually a bad sign, and that’s the case in any level of society.  And the Trump administration couldn’t care less; they can afford to be independent of such popularity concerns.  And because of that, they can actually accomplish some things.  Based on Jennifer’s report, they are willing to do the work and are solid in the promise category.  And these days, that is a scarce commodity.  One area we could significantly improve if we were more aggressive with redistricting. 

Rich Hoffman

Rich Hoffman

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

The Child Pornography of 73-Year Old Howard Saal: You can’t trust professionals, anywhere

The study of institutional failure is fundamental to a proper society, and it’s vital that everyone understands the inherent failures, especially in the case of Howard Saal, the 73-year-old former geneticist and dysmorphologist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.  He was recently indicted and arrested on federal charges for possessing and transporting child sexual abuse material as investigators found 153,000 images and 470 videos on his electronic devices, with some of the victims being as young as newborns.  The Children’s Hospital doctor admitted that he photographed children during exams as “glamour shots.”  Saal surrendered his medical license in July of 2025 and is currently out on bond, facing up to 20 years in prison.  The hospital itself has tried to distance itself from the doctor, but this has rattled people’s trust in the process because they usually think of doctors as being wiser and above such matters.  So understanding how and why people would do something like this is essential, especially when we are dealing with sexual perversion that migrates into children.  We see this kind of thing way too often to ignore, and this isn’t some loser hiding in his mom’s basement.  But was a very mature person of elderly years working in a very responsible position at a well-respected hospital.  People need to trust these kinds of authority figures, and this case is proof that nobody can really be trusted.  The best solution to this kind of situation is always to be a little cautious when dealing with everyone.  And don’t give out trust like candy.  We often trust professionals and experts because we are too lazy to do the work ourselves, and the unsettling element is that there are many Howard Saals out there looking to take advantage of people, especially children. 

I learned more about child pornography and sex abuse than I’ll ever care to know recently as I was a foreman for a grand jury in Butler County, Ohio.  And let me tell you, I thoroughly enjoyed that job.  I enjoyed indicting bad guys and convincing the other jury members to move toward aggressive resolutions.  It was a very satisfying job, and I could have done it every day of my life, finding significant meaning in the experience.  But before that experience, child pornography was something I had heard about, but didn’t think much of it.  It seemed to me like something impossible to do, where grown adults were involved in sexual activity with children because of the apparent size difference.  But for several cases, as a grand jury, we had to watch evidence of child pornography by people prosecutors were trying to indict.  Regarding Butler County, I would like to mention that some truly dedicated prosecutors had their hearts in the right place for the job.  It would be challenging to sift through thousands of these images and still maintain sanity.  I saw just a fraction of what they did to prepare these cases, so as I watched my fellow jury members crying over what they saw, imagine how the prosecutors felt having to look at that stuff all day long, preparing for these indictments.  Most of the people on my jury, about half of them, were moms, and seeing kids sexually abused on video was too much for them, and they broke down quickly at the grim reality of the abuse they had to watch.  There’s not much that rattles me about anything.  Watching those videos was tough.  But seeing how much child pornography is out there, it is even worse.  These were not isolated cases by a few degenerates.  These were common and were getting worse as our society loosened its sexual predilections. 

One way this harsh reality is concealed in our society is that nobody feels they can express an opinion about it unless they are a professional.  That is the first problem, where we surrender logic to authority figures like Howard Saal, and they find they can abuse that power for their own distorted thinking, keeping it concealed from society at large.  However, I have many opinions on various subjects.  And I know enough about everything to be a professional in hundreds of different professions.  And I’m happy to argue with any psychologist on the deterioration of the human mind that descends into child pornography any time anybody wants to.  Chances are, I know more about psychology than people working in the industry.  Sexual perversion is a dangerous path to take.  As teenagers emerging from puberty, it’s pretty simple.  Find a member of the opposite sex that you want to procreate with.  Get married.  Have children.  When nature selects you for termination, take it like an adult and die quietly as the world lives on.  When you step away from that path and make sex a recreational activity that increases in sign stimuli as adults move into their 20s and 30s, things get complicated.  To keep the things that provoke arousal, constantly recreating that initial stimulation, more and more perverse acts have to be accepted by the mind.  And by the time people get into their 50s, 60s, and 70s, natural sex has long left the mind, and a very diabolical thought process has to take place to carry sexual thought into an arousal state that satisfies the urge.  The danger lies in people who don’t develop hobbies as they age, such as model trains or flying airplanes, during their leisure time.  If they are still pursuing sexual satisfaction, they are likely going to engage in behavior that is illegal or diabolical.   

Socially, we recognize the danger of a 50-year-old having sex with a 20-year-old.  Or even an 18-year-old.  Our 18-year-old daughter couldn’t or shouldn’t ever bring home a boyfriend who is 60 years old.  We don’t like to see such things, even if they may be legal, because they are destructive to our minds and can’t bring anything good.  So, to further step outside the boundaries, sex with children of any age is the ultimate power trip for an adult who wants domination over people in a weak intellectual condition.  Human beings often struggle with power over others, and the role of an adult over a helpless child can be particularly perilous.  And we should never assume that because someone is a professional, they have learned to deal with these emotional temptations.  And based on my experience with that grand jury, this appears to be a common occurrence.  It’s not just a random occasion here and there.  The more sexual our society has become, the worse sex with children has emerged as common, and not unique.  It appears that adults often seek to exert power over others, which is why they tend to target the most vulnerable.  So while people are shocked to learn that a respected doctor at Children’s Hospital in Cincinnati has a serious addiction to child pornography, and that they took their own children to him under an understanding of trust, and that trust has now been shattered, this isn’t the only guy doing this.  It’s a common occurrence in our schools, among medical professionals, and in every professional class.  And trusting any of those professional types was a dumb idea.  Leaving us to figure out the future without them having nearly the kind of power they have today.  Trust is something that everyone needs to earn.  We should not give it away so cheaply because we are too lazy to protect the innocent from the diabolical hiding behind professional titles like wolves in sheep’s clothing.  Because the minds of many of these people are not functioning correctly.  And this case with Howard Saal is just a small glimpse into that ominous, dark world of child sexual predators. 

Rich Hoffman

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

The Real History of Göbekli Tepe: Trying to fit the evidence to a previous narrative

This is a widespread problem in all professional fields.  What we are seeing these days from the field of archaeology is certainly not unusual.  However, the story surrounding Gobekli Tepe in Turkey, the ancient Neolithic site dating back to approximately 9600-7000 BCE, is at the center of a lot of conversation that reveals many mistakes regarding the study of the human race.  The problem is that the site predates any other known human site in the world in a sophisticated manner, and appears to be something not unusual, overturning many of our previous assumptions about the evolution of our species by many years.   And Gobekli Tepe isn’t the only place like it; there are other sites nearby that are just as old and just as sophisticated.  So I was curious at the beginning of August 2025 when Josh Gates from Expedition Unknown covered the ancient site on his television show.  I have always liked Josh Gates, and when he’s in town for one of his live shows, I like to take my daughters to see him.  However, to have a mainstream show on television, Josh has turned more toward mainstream ideas about science than toward what is called pseudoscience, where people question, with great speculation, the established opinions of academia.  Gobekli Tepe certainly challenges this assumption, because we know the dates of the site, we can see how articulate the stone work is for a group of people who were supposedly hunters and gatherers, and we know that the site as it is now in Turkey is a tiny part of a much larger complex, much of it still underground.  The answers to many questions about Göbekli Tepe still need to be uncovered in the surrounding hills, but for some reason, Archaeologists have limited themselves to the same portion of the discovered site and used that minimal knowledge to tell the complete story.  So, yes, given all the controversy, I was curious to see how Josh Gates would handle it. 

For a qualifier, I don’t like to trash archaeologists.  I am glad they work hard and dig in the ground to provide us with evidence to discuss.  I am not shy about it, but my favorite organization in the world is the Biblical Archaeology Society, which publishes the Biblical Archaeology Review magazine.  I find it fascinating to see evidence for the validation of events from the Bible, the most essential piece of literature the human race has ever produced.   And to watch various groups dispute, or use that evidence to validate their religious perspectives.  I love archaeologists because they dig in the dirt, analyze data, and reveal new things about the world.  However, I also don’t like the term ‘pseudoscience,’ which is often applied to Graham Hancock and others who question the established narrative presented by institutionalized science.  I think that archaeology and anthropology, as general fields of endeavor, are too young to be conclusive about anything.  Just over one hundred years is not enough time to do anything, so defending conclusions from the field of archaeology is ridiculous.  We have only just begun to dig in the world, and there is still a lot of evidence that we will yet discover.  So conclusions about anything at all are premature at this point.  The story will continue to evolve as new information becomes available, which we find out all the time.  Gobekli Tepe is just the tip of a lot more hidden below the surface, all over the world.  We tend to see a lot more archaeology in the Holy Land region, which is where Göbekli Tepe is located, because of the Bible.  I think there are sites older around the world that we don’t yet know about because nobody is looking for them.  They look in the Bible land because of the Bible.  However, similar sites are likely in China, Russia, and all over South America.  And likely, when we reach Mars, we will find archaeology there too. 

My rule of thumb for analyzing data from the archaeological community is based on James Frazer’s excellent book, The Golden Bough.  The 12-volume set, which evolved into two enormous volumes, was a magnificent contribution to the early field of anthropology, spanning approximately from 1890 to 1923.  It was the study of global culture and its use of magic and religion to navigate existence, and it essentially laid the groundwork for the fields of anthropology and archaeology.  The study of human cultures was significantly better before institutionalized science attempted to confine it within a box, and that is the problem with all static cultures when dynamic ideas are introduced.  But I judge scientists in these fields by their knowledge of that large book by Frazer.  I’ve read it many times and it’s one of my favorites.  It answers many questions that were hard to get at the time the book was written, for instance, why do headhunters seek to steal the head of their neighbors and eat their bodies?  Or why are kings sacrificed through ritual regicide once they lose their powers of youth?  Understanding these kinds of things, of course, carries over into our modern world, from psychology to politics.  Understanding why people do what they do is crucial to grasping the fundamentals of human existence.  And in management cultures, even when managing a McDonald’s drive-thru, understanding human behavior is the key to success.

So it was painful to watch Josh Gates try to take what is known about Göbekli Tepe and fit everything into the academic box of hunters and gatherers, because archaeologists have already established a timeline of discovery, and with Göbekli Tepe, they were purposefully trying to fit the evidence into the assumption, rather than the other way around.  That’s why I like old books like Frazer’s over modern work.  Because when the field of anthropology was established, it was done so with a great deal of human imagination and ambition attached to it.  However, once we institutionalize that information, it loses its authenticity and becomes part of a corrupt static order, which is what we find in the Gobekli Tepe case.  The answers are in digging the whole hill, which will tell everyone most of the answers they want to know.  However, because there is an apparent fear that what they will discover will destroy their institutionalized status, they are not digging in those areas and instead try to plant trees over those sites to prevent future excavation.  So, rather than trying to understand what Gobekli Tepe is, mainstream archaeologists, including Josh Gates on the Discovery Channel, are trying to fit what they know into what they want it to be.  Which is just as ridiculous as what we saw during COVID with the mask policy, where we were told to stop the spread, yet we had to wear a mask.  The game is about accepting an authority figure’s opinions over the flighty assumptions of the casual observer.  Because there is power in defining the truth, and that holds even when we are talking about presenting evidence that might run counter to previous assumptions, which gives the people who provided it power over their sector of society.  So it was fascinating to watch.  I enjoyed the broadcast.  However, the answer to Gobekli Tepe and other sites in the region is that there is much more to the story, just waiting to be uncovered.  And rather than concluding that it was hunters and gatherers who built the site, the evidence suggests a much older human race that was more sophisticated.  And if we want to know the truth, we should withhold our opinions until we gather all the evidence.  Anything else would be premature.

Rich Hoffman

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

Anna Paulina Luna and Her Interdimensional Beings: Understanding the politcs of creatures beyond time and space

I think it’s time to discuss the politics of interdimensional beings and their impact on our terrestrial existence.  And she’s certainly not a whack job, U.S. Representative from Florida, Anna Paulina Luna, who recently appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast and discussed interdimensional beings that can operate through the time and spaces that we currently have.  Moving outside of time and space, and she said all this based on classified photos, documents, and witness testimonies she reviewed as a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, which investigates Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs).  Those witness testimonies include Air Force pilots who reported phenomena defying current physics, suggesting the presence of non-human technology.  Anna Paulina Luna is interested in a wide range of subjects and is very logical.  As a U.S. Air Force airfield management specialist, she had posed for Maxim as a Hometown Hottie and was a semi-finalist for Fort Walton Beach, Florida.  And now, as a member of Congress, she is always interested in several topics on which she has opinions.  What she isn’t is a tin-hatted conspiracy theorist.  It was pretty remarkable that she would go on to one of the most popular podcasts in the world and talk about the impact interdimensional beings have on our existence as a person who has observed vast amounts of evidence pointing in that direction.  And it’s interesting timing, because recently Tucker Carlson, a reporter whom many people find credible,  He’s not a crazy lunatic.  However, he has recently stated, just a few weeks before Anna Paulina Luna made her comments, that he believes supernatural forces are controlling many members of our government, who are deeply invested in appeasing those forces for various reasons.  And he has reached a point where he no longer wants to know any more.  There is too much evidence pointing in that direction and the ramifications of that possibility are overwhelmingly ominous.  These kinds of stories are also why I am working on a new book called The Politics of Heaven.  These forces have always been with us, and we need to understand their motivations and political ambitions from their perspective to understand the impact they have on our lives. 

One of the best things I have done for myself was to go to the Mothman Museum with my family in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, this year.  That is an exciting place where people are starting to put together all the pieces, and as intelligent creatures ourselves, we want to understand these interdimensional characters.  We discuss them in many of our religions.  I can report from personal experience how Japan goes to extraordinary measures to appease the creatures it calls the kami.  In Islam, it’s gin.  In Christianity, we refer to them as demons, angels, and gods.  However, their movement has been chronicled over vast amounts of time, and sacrifices to them have been made from temples as long as time has been recorded, to appease them.  When you visit the Mothman Museum, you gain a unique insight into the mystery of one of the most significant events in which a Mothman-like creature terrorized the town during the 1960s, ultimately leading to a catastrophic outcome.  Wrestling with this mystery has become a pastime for many people, and the work of the reporter and writer John Keel, who has since passed away, has involved earnest investigation into these topics. The museum reflects that effort.  I love to read John Keel books, which ask more questions than they answer, but the trend points toward a lot of smoke coming from a raging interdimensional fire that is very interested in our lives from their perspective of wants and needs. 

However, my experience with these kinds of things doesn’t lead me to believe that any of them are more intelligent than we are.  Just because they can operate outside our dimensional space does not mean they have developed an intellect superior to our own.  I think the Bible addresses this issue very effectively in Ephesians 6:12, and that the phrase and contemplations accurately describe the problem.  Just because something has better technology, or that they seem older, or operate in dimensional space beyond our four dimensions, that doesn’t make them smarter than we are.  From my own experience, I think of them more as animals with technology, and not very wise.  If we think of time as just one dimension, what is it to them to operate in the 5th dimension, or the 11th?  Time is just a unit of measure that is different relative to the relation gravity has on it.  Time dilation is common when dealing with elements in space, so time is not the same; it’s relative to where it is experienced.  And that could easily be the case with the interdimensional beings Anna Paulina Luna is talking about, or the appeasement of big government types to supernatural entities that they seek to placate through sacrifice and ritual, which is as old as time itself.  Eternity as we think of it would exist outside of the measurement of time, and may be more real than just a hopeful idea.  And with that in mind, we have to deal with the part of ourselves that is connected to eternity, and not the limited measurements of our dimensional space.  We should not assume that reality is all that we can see, but instead that it is determined by the behaviors we observe and how much of that is a result of the world we live in, or from a world that is not in our dimensional reality but only interacts with us as a sliver of that impasse, such as the flatland metaphors used to describe the life of a 2-dimensional being witnessing a 3-dimensional being. 

But we are not as helpless as we have been led to believe.  I don’t question why Anna Paulina Luna is discussing this topic now, as are Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan, along with many others.  Or why there is even a Mothman Museum that people can visit and think about these mysteries.  Or why right now there are Harvard scientists who are claiming we are going to be attacked by aliens from another planet in November of 2025.  I believe all of these sources.  But considering the motivations of these interdimensional beings, what is it about this time in the human race that has timeless beings so concerned?  Why now?  Because it is evident that the story is spiraling out of control very quickly, our ability to discuss this topic freely on the open internet for the first time in history has a purposeful political element that has a payoff beyond our measure of time and space.  And understanding that is something we should endeavor to embrace.  We’re not debating whether Anna Paulina Luna is correct in her observations, based on testimony that suggests the existence of interdimensional beings.  Our need to know is what they intend and how their political needs compete with our own.  Just because we are a four-dimensional being, should we assume that they are superior because they live in higher dimensions?  Or are they dumber than we are, and need to feed off our lives for their very sustenance.  Which is what I am inclined to believe.  These are the questions that matter, and, interestingly, we are discussing these topics now as the world is shifting in a populist direction.  I would say that, as Tucker Carlson pointed out, the temptation for governments worldwide to engage in supernatural worship is to appease those unseen forces in all kinds of diabolical ways.  And that much of our misery on earth and during our lifetimes is self-inflicted to appease those forces.  But is that necessary?  And, or, should we turn those tables, and perhaps have, which is why all the desperation now?  I think perhaps so.  And as we untangle all this, I think there are a lot of opportunities that have previously been concealed.  And I’m looking forward to the results.  In a political fight with these interdimensional forces, I think we can win the great elections of cosmic concern.

Rich Hoffman

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

The Government Robbery of 1933: Removing the gold standard was always a mistake

It’s always been about who controls the money, and in 1913, when the Fed convinced a group of starry-eyed congresspeople to relinquish their Article I, Section 8 powers to coin money to a group of bankers to manage the money, they made a significant mistake.  And, of course, we are discussing this now as we contemplate why Jerome Powell, the current head of the Federal Reserve, has interest rates so high and is artificially holding back the flow of money to the public.  Should or could President Trump fire him?  And why is there a claim of independence that Janet Yellen asserts is necessary for the Fed to function correctly?  She used to be the chairman, as Jerome Powell is now, and she was the economic lady for Biden’s administration.  She is also a prominent member of the World Economic Forum, placing her at the heart of this modern discussion.  The answer to all this Fed talk is that, of course, Trump should and could fire Powell.  Because Powell has not performed well, now that Trump has created an environment where the economy is moving along nicely, the excuses that the Fed hides typically behind to control the levers of power over the money supply have been taken away.  The only people making money from the Fed’s system are the banks, whose interest rates are holding back economic growth.  And of course, the banks don’t want to give up that easy money.  So, for his sabotage of the current economy, Trump should fire him.  The Fed’s mess in 1913 was a mistake, and it’s time to admit it.  Because what happened 20 years later with FDR in the White House would well cross the line toward poor money management, which is a crime that still looms.  And we have to correct it. 

If we had our money connected to a gold standard, BlackRock would not own all these properties

On April 5, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 6102, which required U.S. citizens to surrender most of their gold bullion, coins, and certificates to the government by May of that same year, in exchange for $20.67 per troy ounce.  This was just as bad as a buy-back program for something like personal firearms.  The reason for the order was to unleash money into the supply that people were hoarding and let the government manage the depression.  However, looking back on history, the Great Depression was caused by excessive government intervention, which exacerbated the problem it was trying to fix by taking people’s ownership of gold and unleashing it into the economy, thereby loosening things up.  Now, this was the Red Decade, when communist ideas were being experimented with, following the Roaring Twenties, which had a lot of open capitalism.  Communist movements were widespread, and they certainly infiltrated Roosevelt’s administration.  But how could this arrangement work, where the Fed was given everyone’s personal gold reserves, and where did they get the money to buy it?  Well, they printed the money, just as they did after the 2008 crisis, and gave that money to Larry Fink to essentially buy up bad loans with quantitative easing.  In the case of 1933, they were able to make some money off the deal and profit from the exchange.  But the Fed got the money by essentially printing it.  And it was this critical step that would take America off the gold standard by 1971.  After that, gold would become a commodity with no inherent value.  The goal of the Fed was to remove the stabilizing grounding gold provided to the economy, where people were regulating that value off a common exchange.  Instead, the government sought to empower centralized bankers with the ability to micromanage the economy, decisively removing the process from any free market consideration —a move that was distinctly communist and remains a mistake we are still dealing with to this day. 

By removing America from the gold standard, the Fed gained significant centralized power that it had previously been unable to achieve. This power was acquired after the Fed confiscated people’s wealth and issued banknotes that would, from then on, have a value adjusted by the Fed’s actions.  This was to protect the global international bankers, who have long sought to rule the world from the shadows.  And they are still a serious menace to this very day.  This is essentially what opened the door to Modern Monetary Theory and enabled individuals like Larry Fink to accumulate significant power at BlackRock.  The money managers who laundered the money through Wall Street were able to take all that printed money and buy up bad debt, thereby gaining control of the boards of numerous United States companies.   And Larry Fink is a bleeding heart liberal, otherwise known as a communist.  The original crime was the creation of the Fed in 1913, but the robbery took place in 1933 when the Fed, under FDR, took everyone’s private gold and replaced it with a monetary system that would fluctuate over time at an inflation rate of at least 2.5% per year.  So, doing nothing with that original $20.67, it would take $513.46 today to buy just as much.  But if grandpa had given you that much in gold, the value would still be relatively the same.  Taking away the gold standard meant that if Grandpa gave us $20.67 in 1933, and you wanted to buy something, it would now cost you $513.46 to buy the same thing. 

Deep in the heart of many things that members of the Federal Reserve believe is that employers are reluctant to reduce the wages of their employees over time.  They may receive raises, but in terms of real buying power, the Fed believes that it must step in to offset the value of increasing paychecks due to employer reluctance.  So long as they control the value of money, they can micromanage all factors of our economy in ways that are not driven by market value.  In the case of pay, which we all experience, we might make an average of 2% increases over our lifetime, but the Fed is using purposeful inflation to take that value away as we age giving our buying power much less with the same dollars because they believe that actual productivity goes down as we age, so we should not continue to get more money for doing less work.  That kind of thinking would only come out of the Red Decade.  And it has now caused a lot of significant problems that we need to address under this new Trump administration.  And Jerome Powell is going to have to go.  Reluctantly, but critically, he will have to lower Fed interest rates in September and maintain them through up to Christmas in 2025, because the pressure will be too great.  Trump’s economy is forcing everyone to come clean, and people are figuring out how the game has been played against them.  We can’t have foreign centralized bankers controlling our money supply through our Federal Reserve.  And the Fed can’t be independent of representative management.  They have been openly robbing our money supply, and it’s time for all that to stop.  The 1933 confiscation of personal ownership of gold was a form of open government theft, and it should never have happened because it empowered centralized bankers to gain control over the dollar and use it to access power. Today, banks have way too much power.  And we have to take it away from them by force.  Because they won’t give that power back now, they will have to be made to.  But we have no choice. 

Rich Hoffman

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

Getting Rid of Mail-in Ballots: If Trump had been in office, millions of lives would have been saved

I was pleased to see that President Trump was moving forward with an executive order to initiate the process of removing mail-in ballots from future elections.  This topic came up during the Russian talks, specifically with Putin, where they discussed the problem that all democracies face in not having secure elections.  With so much at stake, it should always be assumed that election fraud will occur if there are not tight controls in place on the process.  No matter where in the world those elections are taking place.  Cheating is endemic to the human race among those who are too lazy to compete.  And there are always lots of those people in any society.  And in America, where laziness is encouraged, of course, there will be a large sector of the population that will be inclined to cheat to get their people elected.  There is always a lot of money and power at stake in elections, so we should always assume that cheating will be present unless we are vigilant in preventing it.  And now we have a lot of proof that the mail-in process does not have honest people in it, and that cheating was part of the anticipated vote count, which we saw in the 2020 election that we still have not solved.  Mail-in ballots continued to be a problem in the 2024 election, but Trump had such a significant lead that Democrats couldn’t overcome him in state-to-state races.  As I pointed out before, states without voter ID had more election fraud than states that didn’t.  And, of course, there is nothing worse than a mail-in ballot that comes from an undisclosed person in a box with a bunch of other votes from unknown sources, and is counted alongside all the legitimate ballots, which an election worker witnesses. 

We observed a significant overcount in 2020 from mail-in ballots that likely didn’t represent actual voters, as Democrats were unable to replicate the effort in 2024.  They fell well short of the 81 million votes for president that they had shown for Biden.  Those numbers fell short for Kamala Harris, which should have been the same number of engagement.  Logically.  Only in 2020 were mail-in voting rules loosened due to COVID lockdowns, which then opened the door to massive cheating, which was much harder to replicate in the 2024 election.  What is interesting about the 2024 election is that while everyone was focused on the presidential election, with a margin for victory much higher for Trump, the House races and many Senate races were largely overlooked.  Yet at least 7 House races were decided by a margin of less than 1%.  The California 13th district, where Adam Gray defeated the incumbent John Duarte by less than .09%, or 187 votes out of 200,000 cast.  That margin was likely determined by mail-in ballots counted illegally.  That was likely the case in Colorado’s 8th district, where Yadira Caraveo beat Gabe Evans by just 557 votes.  And going back to 2019, in the race for governor in Kentucky between Matt Bevin and Andy Beshear, the Democrat won by just 5,136 votes out of 1.4 million cast, with an election margin of just 0.37%.  If illegal mail-in ballots had not been counted, the Republican majorities in the House and Senate right now would not be as close as they are.  There was still a significant amount of fraud in 2024 that did not receive much attention because Trump won his election.  But a lot of the margin for Republicans in the House and Senate would have otherwise been much larger. 

Democrats, of course, hope that nobody notices and that they can cheat in 2026 to gain majorities back in the House and Senate, so to prevent that from happening, we have to have much better controls over elections.  The election fraud question came up again in the White House as an off-topic question while Zelinsky was visiting.  And Trump had to explain his reason for the executive order on mail-in ballots.  This idea that we need to bring elections to the doorstep of voters is a Democrat one because they have so many of their members who are lazy and unengaged.  And they need their votes to get any power.  But that’s not how a free society is supposed to work.  People need to manage their representation in person, providing proof of their identity.  And someone needs to witness that exchange.  The security should be just as rigorous as cashing a check at the bank or any other financial transaction.  We should assume that people will want to cheat.  So we must guard every vote.  That seems logical, but the expectation from Democrats is that every disenfranchised person should be able to vote, allowing them to fill out the ballot and submit it through mail-in ballots as a legitimate vote.  And many of these close elections are going to Democrats over Republicans, tipping power in a way that does not represent what voters pick.  And the damage is extensive.  Just looking at the cost of Biden being in office over Trump, everyone discussing the Russian peace talks agrees that if Trump were in the White House, there would not have been an invasion into Ukraine, and millions of people would still be alive.  That is the cost of election fraud.

You can see that same trend in just about every political race in the country, where Democrats routinely steal yard signs of their opposing candidates.  When people try to steal a message by removing people’s visibility to it, you see a desire to cheat the message toward a favorable outcome by denying information to voters.  That same logic applies to mail-in ballots.  When people can steal a message with fake ballots thrown into a box to be counted with legitimate votes, they certainly will, and do.  So we have to take away all these opportunities to cheat that Democrats have lobbied for over the years, disguised as fairness.  Because the exact opposite has happened.  There are a lot of Democrats in office now who should not be.  And when a former KGB agent in Putin says that the 2020 election was stolen, it’s not because he played a part in it.  We know now from intelligence reports that Russia could not impact the 2016 election or the 2020 election.  But many people have discussed the election rigging that has gone on in Russia and many other places in the world.  And when Putin says that there was blatant cheating, people should listen, because he would know.  Elections work against those who want power from an administrative perspective, so all election locations are prone to cheating.  With each one, we need to approach them with a heavy hand toward security.  We must expect people who want power, as well as those who want to hold it, to cheat to gain it.  Cheating in an election is safer than an armed revolt, and many of these radicals would not hesitate to take power through force.  Cheating for them is a reasonable concession.  And because cheating has been so pervasive, we have a lot fewer Republicans than we otherwise should have.  And we need to correct that before the 2026 midterm.  Democrats will cheat to gain power back, and it is our job to take that ability away from them and force them to win honest elections.  Which they likely can’t do.

Rich Hoffman

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

I Have Personally Saved Lakota School District Businesses and Residences Many Hundreds of Millions of Dollars: What the next generation looks like

I don’t talk about it much or think about it in any significant way, but I have had at least three school board members tell me what someone reminded me of this past week.  I have personally saved the Lakota school district, businesses, and homes many millions of dollars in tax money because of my stance against Lakota schools.  Its pretty unusual for a school district the size of Lakota schools to go as long as they have without a request for a tax increase and the hidden element that doesn’t get discussed by the school and the media that reports hand in hand with them is that it has been my name that they don’t want to deal with in their public relations efforts to extract more taxes from the public.  Going back to the No Lakota Levy days, from 2010 to 2013, it was me and a few business owners who got together and put forth a resistance to tax increases proposed by Lakota schools in the form of levy initiatives.  And I was the spokesman who did all the radio spots, television and wrote articles for the media, and even produced my own material.  So much so that the reporter for the Cincinnati Enquirer told me directly that I was his biggest competition, as he was interviewing me for my anti-tax positions.  We defeated three consecutive tax increases until school board member Julie Shaffer and some of her cohorts devised a scheme with the same Enquirer to try to destroy me personally.  Of course, it didn’t work for a lot of the same reasons. After they finally got a tax increase passed in 2013, by the slimmest margin they could have had and still call it a win, they haven’t tried since, until recently.  This year, in 2025, they will try again, starting with a facilities plan.  Then, after it cools off a bit, they will push for an operational tax increase.  However, I am happy to say that these days, it’s not just me who is resisting. 

Following that win in 2013, many members of No Lakota Levy were tired of feeling socially excluded.  They were primarily people who attended all the social functions, which, at that time, Lakota controlled exclusively as the region’s largest employer.  And the longer I was the front man, the more rhetoric that would come my way.  And I do not tolerate intimidation from anyone.  So I dug in for a fight that would last for another 15 years, and it has become very vicious.  It started for me by simply discussing how Lakota’s wage structure was out of control, with too many six-figure salaries inflating the budget, which caused them to take money from property owners.  But Lakota’s plot to deal with me was to get rid of me.  And because they weren’t able to do that, they haven’t been able to put a levy on the ballot all this time, even though they have wanted to.  They’ve been dipping their toes in the water since 2019, but wouldn’t, fearing the mess it would cause and the potential for a levy fight they knew they couldn’t win, with declining enrollment keeping them from having to.  Yes, I have personally saved the Lakota school district’s businesses and personal residences many hundreds of millions of dollars over the years, and I have been happy to lend my name to that endeavor for that purpose. 

It’s better to pay for lawn signs than the high taxes of a Lakota levy passage

At many social events, knowing that Lakota schools planned to go for a tax increase at some point, we have been talking about getting the old ‘No Lakota Levy’ band back together again.  And there is a lot of hope in putting this facilities plan first, as many of those old members probably won’t want to join against a tax increase going forward because they want to be part of the construction of new facilities.  And while we’re all community members who generally like each other, I have been that one person who couldn’t care less what anybody at Lakota schools thinks of me, and that conflict has kept them in check to a large degree, not wanting the public relations nightmare that a conflict with me will undoubtedly cause them.  So we have been able to prove in the Lakota district that schools do not make communities great.  They are essentially free babysitting services to busy parents.  The reason the part of Butler County where Lakota schools are located has continued to have excellent resale value, and numerous businesses have come to the region and stayed, is that we have kept taxes low.  And to that point, we have kept Lakota schools from requesting additional funding every couple of years, unlike most schools around the country.  Making the Lakota district very attractive to investors in commercial and residential opportunities, not for the schools, but for the lack of taxes.  So in that way, my name has been worth many millions of dollars in gained opportunity costs that high taxes would have otherwise destroyed.  However, in the same conversation where I was being given credit for stopping Lakota schools from tax increases over 15 years, I was also asked what I considered success to be, if I was being a bit reserved in taking all the credit.  And I said what I have said to many successful people, hundreds of consultants over the years, lawyers, and media professionals: how do I define success?  And my statement has been, when you work yourself out of a job. 

I am very proud of many people over those 15 years who have found their voice and are stepping up to take all this to an entirely new level.  Of course, I will always be involved in these kinds of fights.  And I am involved in a lot more fights than just this Lakota thing.  I am happy to see that some brilliant people, who are very ambitious in their own way, have started to meet the new tax increase from Lakota schools with the next generation of No Lakota Levy.  They have signs going to the printer as I write this and are ready for a vicious campaign in September and October of 2025, and beyond.  They have started a PAC called Citizens PAC, where people can donate money to cover the costs of signs and mailers, which can be pretty expensive.  And that PAC isn’t just for this levy, but to fund at least the next 5 to 6 attempts, so that we can keep taxes down in the district, as they have been.  I would dare say these guys are better positioned than we were at No Lakota Levy all those years ago, where so much good did come out of it.  This next generation is much more vicious, articulate, and engaged than previous ones, because back then, nobody knew what this kind of resistance looked like.  However, we now have a wealth of history to draw from, including what works, what doesn’t work, and the cost of such resistance.  And what it saves.  Saving hundreds of millions of dollars in lost taxes for these public schools is a huge deal that wasn’t as well known back in the day.  However, in the future, we will be much better prepared, with years of history to draw from.  I’m thrilled to tell everyone that not only will there be resistance to these new levies from Lakota schools, but also from other schools.  But I think the coverage will be much better.  And it fits my model for success.  How do you know if you’ve been successful?  If you work yourself out of a job, you can pursue other interests.  You should never make anything all about you.  And while I appreciate the nice comments and credit, I want to see success.  I think the members of this new Citizens PAC will do a better job and be more successful because they now have a track record and know how to utilize it.  Of course, I will always do what I do.  However, there are now many more people doing it.  I would encourage donations because the goal is to save the millions more in tax increases, which a few yard signs here and there are more than worth spending to save massive amounts of money that Lakota schools want to confiscate and waste on a terrible product.  But to answer the question, will No Lakota Levy get together for a new tour?  And the answer is, it’s time for the old band to retire.  A new band is rising to the occasion, and the music they play I think will be much better.  Nobody wants to see David Lee Roth in concert these days.  They want the latest and greatest, and that is what the Lakota school district is going to get.

This situation makes me think of David Lee Roth, and watching him sing recently, it makes it abundantly clear that people need to know when to hang it up. I have a fascinating personal David Lee Roth story I’ll tell sometime. He should have retired years ago.

Rich Hoffman

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