Category: George Lang

George Lang’s Business Ratio: The New Bass Pro in West Chester, Ohio

Over the last several weeks, it has been interesting to hear from so many people upset that I support George Lang, the current State Senator in the 4th District in Ohio, and will continue to do so.  They think he is a RINO and that somehow I can’t tell the difference between a rhino and an elephant.  And the concern continues because I know many politicians, and I like many of them, and I’ve been very open about it.  People new to politics or who don’t have an excellent understanding of what the government is supposed to do for all of us get wrapped up in the horse race criteria that the media creates for them, so supporting candidates for various positions becomes a kind of football game where some people in Ohio support the Cincinnati Bengals because they happen to live south of Columbus while people in the north support the Cleveland Browns.  Those in Columbus fight over which is the better, depending on the record.  But in the end, it’s all rigged, and they are all the same guys and corporate products designed to sell advertising to people.  Politics is much the same kind of thing, and what we usually end up with are people who don’t do a very good job once in office.  They talk the talk but never walk the walk.  And the people I tend to support do so on merit-based standards.  I judge them more on what they actually do than what they say, and when it comes to George Lang, who doesn’t say much about himself too often, he does a lot in the background that is very successful.  And one of these, there was undoubtedly a topic of conversation ahead of the March primary; I had the good fortune to attend the opening of Bass Pro for a unique sneak peek ahead of the crowds with George.  And we geeked out by what we saw.  But as we enjoyed a private tour and I did a scouting report on some of my hard-to-find .500 magnum ammunition and acquire much-needed 209 shotgun primers, I was reminded of why I like George so much.  Not that it’s a struggle, but when I say he’s a great politician and has done all of us such a great job, I look at Bass Pro moving to West Chester as part of the great free enterprise initiatives that George Lang has built over the years, things that operate in the background, and the case for George Lang makes itself quite clear. 

I remember when George and I were friends as he was a trustee in West Chester 15 years ago, and he struggled to fight to keep the trend of the area toward small government and generate much economic wealth, as a township instead of a city.  I have a rule I talk about all the time, which I discuss in great detail in my book, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, which people worldwide have been enjoying because the balance of government is the key to a country’s success.  Just as it was set up to do in America, the government needs to be big enough to support the needs of a country or a community but not too big to become authority figures, which is tricky business among anybody in the human race, anywhere in the world.  But few places have done it better than West Chester, Ohio.  I have been a part of it since the beginning, starting when we used to call it Union Township, and it was mostly farmland and open fields.  It was strange to stand in the new Bass Pro parking lot with my wife a few days later during the grand opening when she remembered me racing cars against other rival people in that area.  Things have changed quite a lot.  However, the form of government formed around the growth of West Chester Township is a success story that traces back to George Lang.  To have such a community run by three trustees is unusual in the world, where so much wealth is generated among so many people, and to have such a high standard of living is almost unheard of.  But George established much of that in those early days, and the trustees there now have continued those policies and resisted the temptation to turn West Chester into a city with a mayor and city councils running everything.  The success in West Chester is that George Lang and future trustees have embraced the capitalist concept of free enterprise and kept government as small as possible to allow businesses to grow, and as a result, West Chester has been, and continues to be, one of the best places in the world, not just the country.  I’ve been all over the world several times.  And I’ve been all over the United States and seen a lot of very nice communities.  There are few places as good as West Chester, Ohio.  I would argue that no place is better.  The reasoning is that the government ratio has been figured out and maintained in West Chester mainly because of George Lang’s precedent.

The Bass Pro story is a good one.  We have been fortunate to have a Bass Pro in Forest Park and a Cabela’s in West Chester by Liberty Center.  Since Bass Pro bought Cabela’s over the last decade, I have mixed feelings about them combining resources to make this new Bass Pro in West Chester, which opened on February 21st, 2024.  I liked both previous stores and hated to see them go.  But the property for the new one was established over a decade ago, and once they were planning to move to the new location, Forest Park made them an excellent deal on their lease, so they stuck around while the market settled down and the agreement with Cabela’s matured.  The giant outdoor store market has found its balancing act, as Field and Stream have discovered.  How big can you be and still be small enough to survive?    I tend to judge all Bass Pro stores based on my favorite, the one in Springfield, Missouri, the headquarters of a vast store, as I have discussed before.  As George and I stepped into the new Bass Pro, it was more Cabela’s in its presentation than Bass Pro, but it’s a fantastic size and filled with everything anybody could ever hope to have regarding outdoor life.  My family spends a lot of time exploring and traveling, so a store like this is a wonderful addition to our life.  The new West Chester store is enormous.  It is noticeably different from the one in Forest Park, but it is right-sized to fill the needs of the current outdoor market.  Having the ground on the Streets of West Chester is far better for them than in any of the other two previous locations. 

And that’s the trick: why did Bass Pro select that location in West Chester instead of other regional places?   The Forest Park site was failing because the community failed, as has Fairfield, Springdale, and Sharonville around the area.  All those places have moved in the city direction and have added government in the form of mayors and city councils that slowed down the growth rate because they started looting off their businesses to support the government.  West Chester is very business-friendly, and the tax structure is not penalizing.  If you keep your government small, they don’t have the ability to loot off the community.  And additionally, we have kept the government school of Lakota under check for well over a decade now, so they haven’t been able to suck the life out of West Chester and Liberty Township the way the schools do in other parts of the world.  The result is that investments like those that take a Bass Pro Shop to build and develop can happen, where different communities would choke off the opportunity at the development phase.  Working in the background as one of Ohio’s most powerful senators, George Lang is bringing those same sensibilities to the entire state of Ohio.  And he’s doing a great job.  Whenever I go to Columbus to talk politics, the word about George is that he stays focused on his Business First Caucus and doesn’t get wrapped up in much else.  He is applying the West Chester model, which he helped to build from the start to Ohio in general.  The Ohio Senate listens to him, as does the House, and he has the ear of the governor in a healthy way.  You don’t see George running for every microphone to broadcast everything he does.  When I took a few pictures of him at the opening of the new Bass Pro, he was a little shy about taking credit.  But I know the details behind the scenes, and he deserves much credit.  And that’s also why I’m so supportive of him over these many years and continue to be.  George understands how to support just enough government to make it functional.  And takes away the flash of temptation for it to grow into a monster.  And everywhere George has been, his fight has been to keep government small and manageable.  Bass Pro is just a recent but obvious example.  And it was great to see it happen.

Rich Hoffman

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

The Corporation of the United States against The United States of America: We are well into this new Civil War, which is behind the actions of Letitia James

I hate to say it, but there is a reason a lot of this diabolical behavior has been allowed to gestate in our American culture, where radical Marxists like Fani Willis and that goofball loser from New York, Letitia James, are permitted to cover for a maniacal menace to our Constitutional Republic.  We don’t discuss it much, but it’s a genuine problem.  I of course have talked about it for years, but to this detail we haven’t spent much time, because it’s a depressing concept.  And that is the idea that the truth of our nation and the nature of globalism is that corporations run it rather than the people.  And that our governments are set up to give the illusion that people are in charge, just like in the marketplace, but that behind-the-scenes decisions are made for the preservation of the corporation at the expense of everything else.  Of course, there are all kinds of things wrong with this idea, and I refuse the premise.  Not that it exists, but that it is the foundation for our rule of law.  Yet, when it is analyzed why so many people in government hate the idea of President Trump, and that they will do anything to stop him from even running for office, let alone being in charge of the Executive Branch, then we have to talk about this essential problem that we do not have a United States of America ran as republic, but a Corporation of the United States ran by corporate communists.  This traces back to the battlelines that the World Economic Forum has established, and we saw their footprints all over COVID-19 and the Great Reset economy they attempted.  However, the roots of this corporation idea started a long time ago, most notably in the 1950s during Eisenhower’s term in office.  He didn’t want to sell us out to the global corporations, but they pinned him down which led to his famous speech upon exiting office, warning us of this menace.

Not only do I know a lot of lawyers, but I also know many people with very high IQs.  And I know and have known quite a few people with IQs in the 200 range, which is supposed to be impossible.  I can say that I have known more than one to keep some form of anonymity for their own good.  Because they are not necessarily flag-waving patriots the way I am, or you might be, dear reader.  These are people who have been trying to recruit me for the last thirty years into the Sovereign Citizens Movement, and they have been in and out of jail and have all kinds of problems.  Not because they are dumb, of course, but they are too smart to play the game, which the rest of us do.  And that game is that America is a free nation run by free people.  They would argue that it’s a corporation, that our Social Security numbers are our only real names, and that we are all products of the state as the state decides.  And that government is run by corporations, which I think is beyond a doubt.  What we’ve seen over these last few years when we talk about the Deep State is these kinds of characters scrambling around in a panic.  Like the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz, Toto pulled back the curtain to the Wizard’s little booth, where he made all the illusions the world saw.  Trump’s was in that effect, Toto pulling back the curtain to the Deep State, and suddenly everything real started to emerge, shattering the illusion of a free republic.

I have told these people over the years that I do not acknowledge a Corporation of America.  I only recognize the American Constitution, and anybody who does not adhere to the Constitution of the United States of America will have a lot of trouble with me.  And that has certainly been the case over a long period, and there’s not much anybody can do about it in protest.  The courts must support an assumption that they follow the Constitution to maintain the illusion of a republic.  But due to their impatience, they have been pushing to subvert the Constitution for years and replace it with a kind of corporation human resource handbook intending to enable outright communism, which most corporations are attracted to for obvious reasons of centralized planning.  But strategically, I have expressed to all these citizen protestors, again, not stupid people, that I would always stand with the Constitution, and anybody who wanted to fight about it would have to deal with it.  Because I wasn’t giving up on it, and I certainly had no plans to be a fugitive rebel living in the mountains, hoping the FBI, CIA, and IRS never find me.  I’m a kick-the-front-door kind of guy, not a sneak-around subversive type.  So, that has been an impasse I have lived with for a long time, and my position on it is essential because of what we are witnessing now.  There are no longer a few random people talking about these things, but essentially everyone.

The reason of importance now to discuss it, in the wake of all that’s happened to President Trump, and the more success he has, the more panic that there is from these Corporation of America types, which we loosely call RINOs, Deep Staters, Administrators of the Administrative State, people like Mitch McConnell and other members of the House and Senate who have become very rich off politics.  People like Biden and his puppet master Barack Obama.  Who do you think put the terrorists from the Weather Underground in power who then put Obama in the White House?  It was not a random act, and it turned out to be the same people who used the power of government to steal the 2020 election.  It’s the members of the hostile Corporation of America, and they wish to keep their gig going without revolution.  But we are in another Civil War as we speak, and yes, people are being killed.  The battlefield is in our living rooms, school boards, and Chambers of Commerce.  And it’s not so easy to see who the good guys are.  But for me, the good guys stand for the Constitution.  Those against it are the enemy.  We are fighting for a free United States of America from the forces of the Corporation of the United States, which is just one door in the centralized planning scheme of the World Economic Forum.  Unfortunately, these guys have been in power operating outside Constitutional law for a long time.  And now we are ripping away their assumptions about existence, and it will be messy.  And the days of battle that I have told my friends over the years that I would stand on are here.  I stand for the Constitution, and anybody who says otherwise is an enemy of the United States, and that’s how it will be.  And they will suffer accordingly.  This isn’t a new problem.  For most of us, it has been in the background our entire lives.  But it’s not how it’s supposed to be, and they won’t give up their scam easily.  Which ultimately, is on them when they suffer for it.

Rich Hoffman

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

I Support George Lang Emphatically for Senate in the 4th District of Ohio: Staying strong under intense fire in 2024

With George Lang’s term as an Ohio senator coming up this year, he’s up for re-election in 2024, I happily endorse him for another term.  George Lang has done a great job in the 4th District of Ohio, and I wish every politician were like him.  If they were, we’d be a lot better off as a country.  Yet, many people, especially my readers, have developed a healthy distrust of politicians of all kinds, and I know many wonder why I like George Lang so much, even though he is considered a mainstream politician.  After all, Candace Keller had filed to run against George, which she had done before when it was for a representative seat, and the campaign took a turn for the worse in the mudslinging.  I personally like Candice, her husband, and her family.  I tend to get along best in the world with people like her.  On most things, our politics are very much aligned.  But because she has filed and intends to run against George, I must talk about a few things as to why I am such a supporter of the very powerful senator for the 4th District and explain why he’s not a RINO as is so common a designation for a mainstream politician.  While I am certainly no fan of RINOs, I must set the record straight going into this election year as to why I have always supported George, which sometimes mystifies people.  But from my perspective, it’s an easy decision, because George Lang is a very good person from the ground up and I have known that side of him for a very long time now, around 15 years.  And he’s very much the same person now that I have known all that time, which brings to mind three examples that would put some rationality behind the decision-making process.

Yes, George Lang associates with compelling people and has for many years; John Boehner comes to mind as he was marching toward the Speaker of the House role in Congress.  Along the way, George and I formed a friendship as fellow Tea Party members who were very upset by the direction Barack Obama was taking our country, which goes all the way back to 2009.  Well, all this was before President Trump came along, but in 2012, I had a significant negative news story designed to push everyone away from me.  I was okay with it, but there were a lot of Judas types who were perfectly willing to kiss my cheek in public to be thrown to the wolves, to say it nicely.  We had an event in the back room of a local LaRosa’s restaurant to rally support for me in the wake of intense fire.  Guess who stood with me under the fierce fire in public.  There is a picture of us all at this event, but guess who took the picture?  George Lang came, probably on the same afternoon he was having lunch with John Boehner, Speaker of the House at the time.  My name was all over the media, on all the primary sources so he had a lot to lose.  But he came anyway and was even willing to be in the picture.  It was my suggestion that he take the picture and that we keep him out of it.  So we took the picture, and I learned a lot about George Lang that day, which has lasted for over a decade.  He’s the real deal and he will stand with you under intense fire.  He had much to lose being associated with me, especially by the donors.  But as I have seen many more times than once, George is strongly inclined to do the right things, especially under great fire.

I can also say that I have seen George work with Governor DeWine with the door closed and the pressure very hot.  My thoughts on any management, especially politics, is that you get much more done with the door shut than with dueling press conferences.  And George has been highly influential in these kinds of meetings. A lot goes on in the senate in Columbus, Ohio, that has George Lang’s name all over it, but he never seeks the credit.  And I’ve witnessed it several times personally with Governor DeWine, where just a few people were in the room, and George had to make his point.  These are no powder puff conversations; George is stern when he needs to be and knows what to say and when.  And as professionals should be, George and the Governor were able to shake hands and get things done at the end of the conversation.  I would point to the recent flip-flop by DeWine on the transgender surgery ban for kids as one such example.  DeWine does listen to people when he steps in it.  And George has been one who can shut the door and talk to him without compromising who he is politically.  This is a skill that many people never develop in their lives.  It comes easily to George.  Many people in his position get washed away by the giant waves when you spend time with some of these prominent personalities; it’s easy to happen.  But George can play at a very high level and never lose himself in becoming a RINO.

George has such an excellent personal foundation and can do the things I am talking about because he sincerely loves his wife.  I have known that side of them, and I can say that one of the reasons George and I have maintained a friendship all this time is because he has a great relationship with his wife, which I respect.  I don’t know many people who love their wives and kids like George Lang.  And it has been my observation that this is the key to George’s success.  When you can love a spouse the way George does of his wife Debbie and your kids the way he does, then you can love your country, your political party, your Constitution, your commitment to business, everything with that strong foundation.  And that’s ultimately why I like George so much.  I know a lot of politicians, but I don’t know of many who have such strong foundations as George Lang does.  If you can love a wife the way he does her, and she does him, then you are doing something fundamentally right at the start.  And that can then translate into many good things you do in life.  So, when it comes to other politicians, it may not be their fault that they aren’t as skilled as George Lang is.  And people frustrated that they don’t have those skills might assume that he possesses some voodoo magic in his associations with the very powerful.  But I know him very personally and know that his secret sauce is the love of his family, which allows him to play big ball without losing himself along the way.  Because at the end of the day, no matter what happens, he has his family, which is really all George wants in life.  And that makes him very good as a senator and someone we are lucky to have in the 4th District in Ohio.  I wish we could have him forever, but for now, at least one more term.

Rich Hoffman

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

I Endorse Bernie Mareno for Ohio Senate: The necessity of Defeating the radical Democrat Sherrod Brown

I had been thinking about Frank LaRose for the next senate seat in Ohio, where Sherrod Brown, the long-time extremely progressive Democrat, is vulnerable.  There are three Republicans looking to take a shot at taking on Sherrod Brown, and because he was Secretary of State and I knew the most about him, Frank was well positioned to defeat Sherrod Brown, which will be a tough job under optimal conditions.  I remember how tough it was when another person I supported, Jim Renacci, tried to do it a few years back but fell short.  Jim left some opportunities on the table, so this has been cooking in the background for quite a while.  Winning this seat would significantly impact the balance in the Senate from Democrat control to Republican.  But it needs to be a good Republican, and there was an upgrade when Rob Portman stepped down and J.D. Vance won that seat opposite Sherrod Brown.  Rob Portman had essentially become a Democrat, and between him and Sherrod Brown, Ohio was not being represented in the federal Senate with conservative values.  So, this next chance at Sherrod Brown was critical, and I thought only Frank had a chance.  The other guy running is another person I have met a few times, Matt Dolan.  He’s a good guy, but he’s a traditional country club Republican who doesn’t think much of Trump supporters, and nobody is going to win anything in Ohio if they don’t have the Trump base.  Plus Matt is one of the owners of the Cleveland Guardians baseball team in Cleveland and people haven’t forgotten how he caved to woke pressure to change the name from the Indians, which people miss.  So he is damaged goods.  Then there was this guy Bernie Mareno, who I didn’t know much about until I met him at a fundraiser for Nancy Nix.

I was surprised that Nancy Nix had already come out in favor of Bernie at that point.  But the special election in August hadn’t happened yet, and the loss on Issue 1 essentially damaged Frank LaRose for the foreseeable future.  And I couldn’t help but think how funny Bernie Mareno was at that event, which featured comedians for entertainment. That was quite a nice touch by Nancy.  Nancy usually has a great sense of people in politics, so I pay attention to who she supports and why, and suddenly, Bernie Mareno looked a lot better for that senate seat.  So, I was already leaning in the direction of Bernie when I had a chance to have lunch with him and get to know him better.  And I’m glad I did because there are things I learned that I wouldn’t have otherwise come to know about him personally, which makes him to me an emphatic yes on an endorsement. Bernie Mareno is undoubtedly the best Republican to take on Sherrod Brown, and after hearing from his team, they have the best game plan I have heard yet for taking down the long-time Democrat.  Bernie was good on all the conservative boxes, great on Ukraine support, great on business first in Ohio, and great on MAGA positions.  He has been a successful businessperson, so he has an independence that I find very valuable in political figures.  After spending some time with Bernie it was clear to me why Nancy came out so early in endorsing him.  Bernie was likable, brilliant, and getting into politics for all the right reasons.  Essentially, and I understand completely, he’s at a place where he has been very successful and wants to leave the country in good hands to the next generation. 

Unlike Frank LaRose, who is now damaged goods politically because of the Issue 1 failure, and Matt Dolan, who does not like Trump supporters and is best known for changing his name under woke pressure, Bernie Mareno is a well-connected fresh face.  He has a great relationship with J.D. Vance, the current senator.  I had met J.D. under similar circumstances in the backyard of Nancy Nix, by her pool, ironically.  So, it has been interesting to watch this new generation of politicians emerge and build a new teamwork network.  And Bernie is undoubtedly part of that because with J.D. Vance also comes relationships with the Trump family, especially Don Jr and Kimberly Guilfoyle.  Bernie also told me that he had formal endorsements from Charlie Kirk from Turning Point USA, so these were all great things, and there are many more to come.  Bernie Mareno had quietly put together all the pieces for a successful run against Sherrod Brown that he would need, which certainly consolidated the Trump MAGA base in Ohio without ostracizing all the other degrees of Republicans along the way, which can be a tricky balance.  And he’s full-time committed to running for this seat, which means a lot of leg work across Ohio, which he has already been utilizing, with a lot more work to do.  But it’s a tough job, even with great endorsements, and one obvious thing was that Bernie Mareno was a hard worker who was faith-based.  We talked about God and moral perspective on the Washington D.C. culture, which he was great at.  And he had the right mindset for what it would take and the energy to put it all to work. 

I endorse Bernie Mareno for the Ohio Senate seat.  I would give it based on what I know about Bernie himself.  All the other good stuff is just reassurance.  To beat Sherrod Brown, you must be able to tap into his union support in the northeast, and only the Trump base can do that with the percentages needed.  There are a lot of union people who support Trump and are willing to vote for Republicans on anything, so long as Trump is part of the story.  Then, of course, the rest of the puzzle is that Bernie will have to perform with significant margins in the southwest.  Only Bernie has a chance at any of this.  I worry about Frank being stubborn and not repairing his brand before another run because he could easily make himself a future Ron DeSantis.  You lose a lot of political capital when you suffer a loss, and Frank needs to be part of some wins before he attempts anything like a state race again.  And, of course, the MAGA base won’t turn out for Dolan, and at this stage, there is no way to be who he isn’t.  Dolan will get soft support and nothing better, and that won’t peel away any votes from Sherrod Brown.  Only Bernie Mareno has a plan and personality to pull that off, which is exciting.  I’ve heard a lot of happy talk over the years about taking on Sherrod Brown, but nobody has had the gas in the tank to do it.  Bernie Mareno does.  And I’m looking forward to watching it happen over the coming race.  Replacing Rob Portman and Sherrod Brown with J.D. Vance and now Bernie Mareno would be excellent for Republican politics and change the face of the Senate into a much more conservative body of representative government.  And it is what Ohio deserves after several long years of the wrong people representing us.  We all deserve better, and Bernie Mareno is what we should have had all along. 

Rich Hoffman

Isaac Adi Loses His Man Card: Despite modern woke rules, people are still people

So they have drug Judge Lyons into all this? I love the Judge, and there he was in court serving as the stooge for a failed political figure, as Lynda is calling in all the favors, hoping to turn back the tides of reality like some crazy old woman seeks the fountain of youth before the grip of old age seals her doom. These political gymnastics can’t hide the terrible report card at Lakota. Lynda was in charge, and it’s on her, which will be the subject of tomorrow. But for now, man cards are still crucial in the world, despite the attempt to use new woke rules to remove such judgments from society. Men and women still have expectations from each other that have been relevant for many thousands of years, even millions. And that was something an old friend of mine, who ran WLW radio then, used to enjoy during his Saturday radio show from 9 a.m. until 11. Back before there was ever a YouTube, through the Obama first term, I used to do a lot of talk radio all over the country, and I had a good relationship, especially with Clear Channel Radio, who ran WLW, specifically through Darryl Parks when he was the big man at the station, setting all their programming priorities. He and I had similar politics, so I was a frequent guest with him and many other Marconi award-winning personalities, and we had a good time having fun with forbidden early woke social rules. It would be woke politics that would have Clear Channel remove most of the conservative talent (Bill Cunningham is not a real conservative; he only plays one on the radio), and Parks eventually lost his title. But while he had it, we had a lot of fun and did a lot of good radio making fun of ridiculous things, such as woke policies, well before anybody even knew what they were. We would often exploit that trait on his radio show, and one of the most popular mechanisms we would employ was removing people’s man cards when they showed weak behavior in a public setting, especially men who were not standing up for traditional masculine attributes. We would talk about them on the air during his show to hundreds of thousands of people and remove their man cards as a shame for their lack of courage and strength when it was needed most.

So in that fabulous and influential tradition, we must bring back the removal of man cards when they show they do not deserve them, and that is certainly the case with Isaac Adi, the Lakota school board member who attempted to have court protection from fellow school board member, Darbi Boddy.  He and Darbi were at a conference in Florida and had several arguments, which isn’t unusual.  They ran for school board together and have turned out to be quite different politically.  It didn’t look that way at first, but since Isaac won his seat, he has essentially become much more liberal, whereas Darbi is still the conservative mom that she ran herself as.  But unlike regular politicians, Darbi didn’t say one thing and then show herself to be something else.  And that is what the establishment types call a lack of “professionalism” when politicians do what they say they will do with the naive assumption that they might be able to change anything. For most politicians, you throw populist opinions to the public to get them to vote for you.  Then you say other things to those who donate money to political campaigns.  But when you are in executive session with other politicians, you are all friends; you talk about Bill’s cat and Sarah’s new dress, and no matter who they are, Republicans and Democrats, you enjoy a kind of silent membership to the club.  Darbi was always the same person: the campaign Darbi, the fundraising Darbi, and the daily school board member.  So when efforts were led by Lynda O’Conner, a supposed conservative school board member, to get control of these two new school board members a few years ago, Isaac and Darbi, only Isaac listened.  Darbi remained independently conservative, and since then, Isaac and Darbi have had a very contentious relationship, and they argue frequently for obvious reasons. If it’s anybody’s fault for destroying their relationship, it’s Lynda O’Conner who did it.

According to court testimony on September 15, 2023, because of this incident, Isaac was admitted to a hospital for two nights and three days, and he had a medical bill as evidence. That says everything.

But the only time they’ve been violent, that type of thing was initiated by Isaac. At least two times, I know where Isaac has punched at cameras recording him, and it was women holding those cameras. Isaac has a temper and has expressed it openly. He likes to be in control, and when he feels he’s losing control, he turns to physical aggression. I never thought it was a big deal, but under the definition of harassment that he expressed to a court on September 15th, 2023, then the smeller is the feller in this case. He’s the guy in the elevator passing gas and then looking at everyone else as if it were their fault. So it is ironic that after that Florida trip for school board business, he went to the courts to file a petition against Darbi, citing that he did not feel safe around her and that she had been “bullying” him. And that she carries a gun and he doesn’t feel “safe.” Jiminy Christmas, that is not how men talk! I understand that Darbi is tough, and she has a powerful personality. I have been to the firing range with her and her husband, and I can report that she does know how to handle herself with a gun. But what world is Isaac living in? Everyone carries a weapon, or at least they should. It’s like saying that a woman has earrings. Carrying guns is a common social enterprise, so it should not have been a big deal to Isaac. But he went to the courts to seek protection from her, which was pretty embarrassing, and he felt he needed to. The judge denied the request, as should have been understood from the start. Isaac failed to present evidence that an ex parte order is necessary for his safety and protection from imminent danger.

They should have never tried to knock Darbi off the school board. They just keep digging themselves deeper and deeper.

All that might be fine in the legal world of court talk and political discourse.  And to say it’s a dysfunctional relationship doesn’t go deep enough to the true heart of the matter.  What is the purpose of these frequent confrontations?  It comes down to acceptance of honest public discourse, and what I find valuable about Darbi is that as a genuine representative of the community and an unpolished political figure, she is a good gauge of how people feel in the district.  Yet the political trend is to be one way in public and another in private, which is an inherently dishonest position, and that understanding has led to healthy conflict.  But if you are a man, you don’t run to the courts looking for protection, for the “state” to protect you.  You handle your battles and don’t seek government help to resolve them.  That is why Isaac Adi must lose his man card.  By the woke rules of the modern world, it’s OK for men to cry and be emotional.  And to be afraid of guns.  But by the fundamental laws of manhood, those are all reprehensible traits that women classicly find destructive and unattractive.  And I think Darbi’s primary source of disappointment, knowing her pretty well as I do, is that Isaac has shown himself to be everything but the kind and conservative person she ran with on the campaign.  Darbi never wanted to be a political figure in the traditional sense.  She just wanted to be on the school board to help kids get access to a better life.  And she has had no desire to become what Isaac has, and that anger spills over into their conversations.  The Lakota school board’s dysfunction started when Isaac attempted to remove Darbi from the school board with many other hostile people, led by Lynda O’Conner, literally the moment that Darbi gave her the critical vote to make her president.  So, who in their right mind would expect Darbi to get along with them at this late date or that she’d want to join hands under a banner of peace now?  She can only hope that she gets more people on the school board who are better representatives of the community to work with, and until then, she is just holding her nose, like many people are.  But compromising with people without integrity is not an option, or dealing with people who have lost their man cards. 

Rich Hoffman

Isaac Adi Gets Violent Again: An Interview with Darbi Boddy

It has been interesting to watch the trajectory of two school board officeholders who essentially started at the same place but took two different paths upon being elected to satisfy the parameters of accomplishment. Obviously, there is more to the conflict this past week between Isaac Adi and Darbi Boddy on the Lakota school board, where the police investigated a condition of assault, where Isaac, yet again under pressure, lashed out at someone trying to record his public behavior. Darbi is a tough young lady who can handle conflicts just fine. But what’s interesting is how RINOs are created because once elected, Isaac went into an appeasement mode of the very kind of people he was supposed to be engaging with, whereas Darbi has stayed faithful to her campaign promises. I talked to Darbi about all this while we were both at a March for Children rally in downtown Hamilton, Ohio. Darbi never advertised herself as anything but a fighter for children’s rights, whereas the same was expected from Isaac. But once elected, what was witnessed was an instant barrage of influencers who often inject themselves into the newly elected person’s life, and the temptation to appease these new faces is powerful, and most people never develop resistance to it. When I see these clips of Isaac Adi acting violently toward people who put cameras on him to record aggressive behavior, I see that conflict in his actions. Isaac is not alone in this problem. Being authentic has a freedom of its own which was quite apparent when I was able to talk to Darbi on camera about her first few years as a school board member at Lakota. You can see freedom of conscience in her because she has stayed true to herself. But others have not, and that often leads to the kind of obvious frustrations on the face of Isaac Adi in the footage of him lashing out at Darbi.

I worked with both Isaac and Darbi during their campaigns because many of us wanted to help Lynda O’Conner have conservative votes to work with on the Lakota school board. We felt sorry for Lynda and tried to help her. Isaac and Darbi essentially ran together as a package during the campaign, and they won their elections easily. But as soon as the election was over, Lynda started talking about controlling the school board members in ways that didn’t sound very Republican. And immediately, the OSBA (Ohio School Board Association) started to do its work; it’s like a club. They invite new school board members into the warm embrace of friendship, and it doesn’t take much for that type of romance to entice lonely people or people with a natural personality to want to please others. Admittingly, that was a concern I had about Isaac during the campaign; he was so friendly and so outgoing that I was concerned that he would find the desire to appease the other school board members too lucrative when conflict was the best approach. One thing that we did talk about that didn’t make it on camera was Darbi’s support network, with Kelly Kohls at the National Leadership Council (NSBLC), which offers an alternative to the support of the more labor-union-controlled OSBA. Lynda O’Conner and I have talked specifically about the OSBA; she thinks it’s a good organization. I think along the lines of Darbi and Kelly on the matter. But the obvious results are in the influences that led to Darbi doing what voters expected on the Lakota school board and Isaac looking to appease all these new friends, which is the game of politics that happens at every level.

As I explained to Darbi, I am proud of her, as many are. I’ve been doing this kind of thing, supporting candidates in many ways, for many years, and most of the time, it results in a dud. It’s like going to the fireworks store for the Fourth of July and buying a bunch of fireworks that never blow up. You have great expectations, but they just fizzle out when you light the fuse. Whereas with Darbi, she has exploded in all the right ways that were very satisfying and surprising. Every now and then, your hopes and expectations are met, which is the case with Darbi. She was not seduced by all the forces that have taken public education in the wrong direction, and that has been great to see. The ratio for me is about 10 to 1. Of every ten candidates I have worked with over the years, you occasionally get one Darbi. Of course, I knew when such an honest person like Darbi, who simply wanted to do an excellent job as a school board member, confronted a system with so much bad behavior in it, and that bad behavior was hidden from the public through friendships that were designed to conceal it; then there would be conflict. I get emails from people all over the country from people who are political moderates who are jealous that they don’t have someone like Darbi Boddy on their school board. I am very proud of her and would love to have three or four more like her, people who could resist the temptations of group consensus at the expense of voter responsibility.

I brought this up during our talk, how one player for the Reds inspired many others to get better. In many ways, Darbi has been that person for Lakota

We don’t elect people into politics to get along, which is becoming more evident in national politics. We don’t expect physical altercations either, but one of the problems that lead to so much corruption is the appeasement of peers, which is at the heart of the problem at every level. At Lakota, at the fundamental community level, we can see two people who started in the same place and quickly went in entirely different directions. From both perspectives, they had good intentions, yet during our talk, Darbi hit the nail on the head; much of the evil that starts in the world of politics doesn’t come from some pitch-forked devil; it’s often the friendly face who wants to buy you dinner and treat you like a king or princess. Of course, they expect something in return. But it’s often hard to see because it feels good to be liked. Some people will do anything to be liked; once others know that about you, they own you. And at that point, elected representatives often go bad when they fall in love with being loved because, just like a manipulative spouse, once they start jerking around your feelings, you lose the authenticity of why people voted for you in the first place. And at the heart of the conflict between Darbi and Isaac, two people who ran for office together and had been friends, is this villain of appeasement. The lucrative nature of being accepted in the warm embrace of friendship within institutional confinement is a nector all its own. And thankfully, in our community, Darbi didn’t fall for it, much to the frustration of those who wanted to seduce her into it. That’s why people tell me they are jealous of us in Lakota because they see the clear value in elected representatives like Darbi Boddy. The controversy only comes from those who want to steer her in a different direction. But she has stayed with the voters authentically, and people appreciate that, as they do with all people who do so. And with Isaac, it’s frustrating when you can’t please everyone, and that comes out in these outbursts caught on camera twice now. As Darbi said to me, she gets tired of how people talk behind closed doors and speak in public. That duality is the source of the problem because an honest person would be the same in any format. 

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

DeSantis at the Butler County Republican Party Lincoln Day Dinner: For 2024, its still Trump, Trump, and more Trump

It’s all about the Constitution. The only trouble these days are governments who violate it unlawfully.

It’s all about the chaos; in fact, the political fights we are fighting are not the ones we think we are, and that has been a harsh reality for the Republican Party. We’re not looking for a fair fight against a battle of ideas but a resolute cage fighter with an addiction to winning and destroying the enemy, which is the key behind the 2024 election. Because the enemy thinks it knows Republicans, and they want them to play by the rules they control. And as long as Democrats and a liberal world order control those rules, they control politics, which is why Republicans have always been on their heels and acting as victims when they hold the majority opinion. It’s been a trick that the political left has utilized against conservatives for most of the last century, and it’s time to put an end to it. And that was obvious at the 2023 Butler County Republican Party Lincoln Dinner at the Savannah Center, where a line of attendees wrapped around the building to see Ron DeSantis speak as the guest. Anthony Munoz was in line behind me, along with many other influencers who came to unite over a nice meal, even though their politics might be spread across the conservative spectrum to various degrees. Everyone intends to have the right ideas about things, but as is often the case in life, there is usually only one correct answer. And finding it can be a painful process with many hurt feelings. But it was good to see many friends gathering together to discover common interests at a fabulous event by many good people. I enjoyed the company, the food, and the atmosphere. But at the end of the evening, as I spoke to everyone I could, the question most asked me was, is it time to consider Ron DeSantis as the Republican nominee for President of the United States? And to that answer, which I gave repeatedly, was an emphatic no.

It’s not that Ron DeSantis and his very sweet wife didn’t present themselves as the best that Republican politics could offer. Ron’s speech was great, it was good to see him in person, and it’s good to see he has a functioning relationship with his wife, who was just fantastic. But this 2024 election isn’t about such good people or policies. It’s about a radical global plot to destroy the dollar and America with it. It’s about massive election fraud controlled by foreign investment and a full push from Chinese communists to take over all commerce in the world under the tutelage of the World Economic Forum. Republicans have underestimated the world’s villains because they think we are still dealing with elections as a domestic matter. But that is not the opinion of the hostile nations of the world who are looking to overthrow America without firing a shot. China has invested in espionage, deceit, election tampering, and undermining cultures from within. That is how they fight, and they have an army of billionaires helping them with their plans, people like Ray Dalio, George Soros, Bill Gates, Larry Fink, and his BlackRock money management firm. We are dealing with some really nasty characters who have invested heavily in the destruction of America, and they expect a return. Canada just was found to have had their elections rigged by China tampering. The same certainly was the case recently in Brazil. The pattern for China is to support some beat-up old man who is compromised and would otherwise be in jail and have them loyal to whoever puts them in power. That’s certainly the case with Biden in America. And that is obvious in Brazil with Lula (Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva). That communist insurgent was in jail, and they let him out to run for president. The election fraud system in key districts did the rest of the work. 

As I moved around the room after the DeSantis speech, I was genuinely happy to see around 50 to 60 different people I have a long history with who greeted me with lots of hugs and fist bumps. It had been challenging in Butler County; not everyone has the same conservative commitment and understanding level. But we treated each other with respect, which was really good to see, even with people I had been sideways with in a big way during 2022. But I was concerned as I talked to them, and they were still elated with Ron’s speech. I told them I hated to see Ron DeSantis ruin his brand in a conflict with Trump when the real enemy was foreign investment into America, not just at the banking level but our election system. Trump was the only one who could run in 2024 because he was the only one willing to tackle the real problem, but he had the financial incentive actually to perform the task. And if DeSantis got caught in the crossfire, it would ruin him for 2028 and 2032. I kept saying to everyone that Republicans need a ten-year plan, not just to be looking at 2024. America is literally under attack, and this was no time for happy talk about reaching across the aisle to Democrats. Democrats, at this point, are assets of Chinese aggression, they are communists, and they want that for America, and we have to deal with them in that fashion, with the same vigor that we approach the trans issues in public schools and the destruction of our children with CRT learning. This is not a time for middle-ground politics.

I thought it was great that we could have had some of the debates in the Republican Party and still shake hands at the end of it and, in many cases, exchange a warm embrace. And after 2024, that will be the case in national politics, and I really want Ron DeSantis to have a place in it. But first, the rest of the country needs to see what authentic leadership is at the governor’s level. States need better governors; they need to focus on good, conservative secretaries of state. And they need to get control of their elections, especially in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. As long as massive election fraud is a way of life in Milwaukee, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Pittsburg, and Philadelphia, the election fraud network, which is controlled by Chinese infiltration and money, will not allow a Republican in the White House. That is the actual fight, and as of this election, the only way to beat the cheat is with a Republican who can generate over 75 million votes on election day. And it’s not suburban moms who are going to get Republicans there. It’s the beer drinkers, the monster truck drivers, the immigrants who came to America for an opportunity, who ran away from socialism and communism in their home countries. They need to go out and vote when they otherwise might not. But they will vote because of the Trump brand. If he were the nominee, DeSantis would only get a vote count in the 60 million range, just as Barack Obama had.

Only people educated on the matter will vote on election day, which is typical. Republicans in 2024 need and overvote much more than usual to overtake the cheating in those key battleground states who still have radical Democrats in their Secretary of State positions. And that is why I have been saying now, especially to the critical influencers in the Butler County Republican Party, its Trump, Trump, and more Trump, and only Trump for 2024. DeSantis was great at the Lincoln Day Dinner. I want to see a 10 to 15-year plan that has him in it and eventually in the White House. But we have to get there first, which requires understanding that we are in a global war with China, and they intend to control international elections to suit their cause. And that is the battlefield of 2024 and is something everyone must deal with in their own way of understanding.

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

George Lang: The Morality of Money

I get asked often why I like George Lang, the Ohio senator for the 4th District, so much. I cover a lot of topics, and having so much respect for an establishment politician doesn’t often seem like they are elements that are conducive to each other. I think it’s the same kind of anxiety that is often witnessed when showing respect for Ayn Rand while still having great reverence for the religious right, the hard biblical conservatives. How can you serve the God of money and still serve God because we think of those things as opposed to one another? Yet, while Ayn Rand was an atheist, she was able in her work to cut through the true value of the measurement of money in a culture in very beneficial ways that are well represented in great American novels like Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. And few people in the world understand the morality of money more than George Lang, not in serving it as a deity of its own, but as a measure of good human conduct. It’s a side of politics that not many people get to see, especially translated by a media culture that has no way to express such a topic to the public, because they don’t understand it themselves. However, an economic report coming out will show Ohio in a very favorable way. The time of improvement is when George Lang has been in Columbus as first a representative, then as a senator. I see his fingerprints all over the detailed findings showing the state of Ohio becoming quite an economic powerhouse. I’m not allowed to talk about it yet, not in detail. But I was quite impressed with it, and it points to some not-so-well-known attributes that come directly from George Lang’s Business First Caucus, where he has stayed very focused, along with a handful of other politicians in Columbus. And that is very unique among any political class because if they don’t understand the “morality of money,” they quickly become the detriments often talked about in the Bible who lose their way and get distracted by every shiny thing. And by walking that tightrope, George Lang has done some extraordinary things as a senator that is making Ohio much better off than the federal government as a whole that is suffering significant hardships under Joe Biden and the other looters of the Beltway culture. 

You may have to turn up the volume, but this room paid great reverence to Senator Lang, which was well deserved.

A few things happened recently, I was in a meeting with a bunch of people from Columbus who expressed themselves with great respect to George Lang, and they wondered if the people of Southern Ohio knew how good he was behind the scenes when people weren’t looking. Of course, the answer is yes; most people do know. And I was also recently up in Columbus at the Statehouse talking to many people, and the running joke about “Georgie” is that he doesn’t want to talk about anything but a business-first agenda for Ohio. And it wasn’t a derogatory reference, but one of respect for being able to go to Columbus and, with all the pressure from various factions, to stay focused on the real measure of success for any state or federal government, and that is its financial health. Without financial health, society really can’t be moral. People can function morally independently. But society can’t function without revenue and healthy businesses to provide jobs for people; a society really can’t function without wealth. I’ve known George for many years, well before he was going to Columbus as a politician. I remember him well as a trustee in West Chester, Ohio, where the business first policies were well laid as a foundation for the greatness that is seen there today. George Lang has always had the idea of getting the government out of the way of the creative output that makes businesses happen, and that has translated to tremendous growth wherever his attention has been applied. And now, as a Senator for the 4th District, his influence has been rubbing off on other politicians very favorably, even into the Governor’s office. I have seen up close and personal that Governor DeWine and his Lt. Governor Jon Husted have significantly benefited from George Lang’s focus on business first and supporting infrastructure as an administration that has made business much more of a priority than it has been previously. 

Usually, when we talk about business, politics, and money, the first thing that pops into our minds is corruption. You can’t serve the two gods, God, and money, equally. That is the way that we have been taught incorrectly as a civilization. By doing good things, by having the means to work and be productive, the measure of morality is often in money. Good people tend to find that money is a direct measure of their personal morality. The many socialists who have been trying to infect American culture for more than a century now will apply that money is the root of all evil and that only collective wealth redistribution can establish morality. But actually, the opposite is true. Money directly measures moral conduct when it represents productivity, innovation, and strength of character. When money is corrupted, it comes from those most lazy who seek to align the power of government to get as much of it as possible without having to do work. So the government is used as a wealth extractor to redistribute wealth to the unearned. Behind most bad economic reports in state and federal governments all over the world, this is how corruption occurs. 

Yet, when government is applied to remove the barriers to morality toward the creation of businesses in which families can build lives around as job creators, then great things happen, and the morality of that good conduct directly translates into the health of a state government. I’ve seen George Lang perform in very good ways morally under tremendous pressure without ever compromising himself in the process, and that’s not easy to do in such a high political position. It would be very easy to stumble a toe under such pressure, but George Lang handles it always with great care and grace because he understands those basic Ayn Rand rules of money as a measure of morality. Rather than empowering those who would do anything to get it without the productivity that makes it, George empowers the kind of Adam Smith economic value that should be at the heart of every economic policy throughout the world. This is why the rest of the country is currently struggling and will continue to do so as long as Democrats continue to pervert the relationship between business and government. But Ohio is making a dramatic turnaround economically into something that is very respectful and is on its way to becoming one of the best states to live in America, which is saying something. George Lang has been in Columbus long enough to have rubbed off on the culture there, and they reflect his eternal optimism and industrious spirit. So, when people wonder why I love George Lang so much, it’s for all these reasons and more. He is the real deal, and he understands the morality of money and the need for the goodness that is represented by wealth creation. And for the very few who truly understand that unique ratio, the world is always a better place. 

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

The Darbi Boddy Playbook: Breaking free of the invisible fence that has always held back Republicans

I’ve always watched dogs confined behind an invisible fence and thought of them as Republicans. Why don’t the dogs just run through the zapper when they get near the parameter of the fence? There is no physical barrier to hold them back, just an emotional one set off by a little physical pain that they learn occurs by a wire buried under the ground that gives off a bit of pain when they get near it. When you first set up an invisible fence, you put little flags in the ground so the dogs know where the limits are. Then once they learn the limits, the flags can be removed, the dogs will stay behind their “invisible fence,” and the yard can look like an open space when really there are barriers only the dog knows about. In a liberal society, that is what Democrats call bipartisan relationships. That’s how it looks to the outside world. But really, the deal is that only Democrats get to run free across an open yard. Republicans get zapped if they get too close to the edge and dare cross a line. My advice to Republicans for over three decades is to ignore the silly zappers liberals have set up to contain Republicans. Put up with a bit of pain, ignore the signal of woke limits they have politically imposed on everyone, and just go beyond those barriers because they have nothing else in the playbook. Either the dog stops with the invisible fence, or they have nothing else. And when we say stop, we mean the little fears of pain and social castigation that Democrats apply with name-calling to keep Republicans behind their own version of an invisible fence. And after three decades of watching this ridiculous behavior, I am very proud to say that the first conservative politician I have ever seen prove this point is Darbi Boddy, the first-year school board member at Lakota schools. She has broken through their barrier and is loose, and all the liberals are lost as to what to do. 

Ultimately, that forced Matt Miller’s resignation, the very controversial superintendent of Lakota schools. Liberals expect to live a life of no accountability for their social life, and conservatives hope for accountability for everything. Those relationships just don’t go together. For many years, conservatives have been stuck behind an invisible fence of social parameters that Democrats controlled, and the relationship of free expression was clearly one-sided. It remained that way in national politics until President Trump came along and showed politicians that they could just step through that stupid invisible fence and there wasn’t anything that Democrats could do to convince everyone to stay within the barriers they created through social rules they controlled, the kinds of things you can say, the topics you could cover, the way things were communicated to the public. But with Trump, it was experience from show business that he brought with him into politics. With Darbi Boddy, a local school board member for Lakota schools, she has brought that same kind of effort to ground up politics, and the results are obvious. On Monday, the 23rd of January, 2023, I saw one of the best school board meetings I’ve ever seen; there were plenty of community members and supporters of Darbi Boddy who voiced their opinions and did some really good, articulate work that showed the liberals of that progressive government school that the dogs had broken free of the liberal invisible fence, and were now just as free to roam around in society as Democrats always have been. Pay particular attention to the public comments around the 55-minute mark included on this article.

For those who want to know, or need to know, this is where the future of education is going. Darbi represents that effort at Lakota. But this is a national movement that is not going away. It was caused by years of abuse by teacher unions, and taxpayers have had it. Public schools cost too much, they teach all the wrong things, and they bring liberal politics to our homes and we don’t want them around.

I would call what happened at Lakota schools the Darbi Boddy playbook. At the start of her term as a school board member, essentially the moment she was sworn in by my good friend, Senator George Lang, the radical progressives of Lakota schools, the kind of people who are always causing all the trouble, and making everything too expensive, tried to get rid of her.   In just four months on the job, the alignment of the school board, Matt Miller’s radicalism, and their media partners, the Michael Clarks and the Karin Johnsons, turned up the heat on that invisible fence to keep Darbi contained from investigating CRT in Lakota. And they pushed her hard to force a resignation. But Darbi kept plowing forward; she did not resign, she did not play by the liberal woke rules, and she stayed tough in the pocket under a lot of pressure. More pressure than most people could ever hope to handle. And the result has been a complete collapse of that liberal invisible fence network. And now that one Republican has survived it, others are seeing how to do it themselves, which led to a parade of protestors speaking in support of Darbi at the school board in front of a very messy crowd that isn’t used to people beating them with their liberal playbook. There were radicals there with t-shirts trying to inspire people to sign a petition online to remove Darbi from the board, and they were pretty vicious at the meeting away from the microphones. But essentially, they were like those owners of the dogs who yelled and screamed at the escaped animals hoping to terrify them into submission. Meanwhile, the freed dogs are just jumping around and playing like nothing in the world matters because now that they know they can escape the invisible fence, nothing in the world does. They are just as free to communicate as the radical Democrats who run all government schools. 

If this were indeed a debate over what’s good for kids or not, we might call all this effort “childish.” For instance, many who spoke against Darbi Boddy at that school board meeting want to convince themselves that the people who support Darbi are only 30% of the community. They want to believe that they are the ones in control and that there are more of them than Republicans who care about these matters. They keep saying to the escaped dogs, “let’s just get back to teaching the kids. Let’s get back to meetings where nobody shows up, and we just give out awards and happy stuff that makes education fun.” They really intend to get the dogs back behind the invisible fence with a treat or a dog toy; then they plan to turn up the zapper to keep anything like this from ever happening again, where they lose control. But the truth of the matter, and I’ve told this to Lynda O’Conner, the school board president at Lakota, many times, most people in the community support Darbi. They don’t like liberalism and are upset that Democrats have been running the public schools for years and are looking for something to rally their minds to the problem. And for them, Darbi is that person, that rally point they can believe in. They have watched her escape from the clutches of the invisible fence that Democrats have always controlled, and they now have someone to cheer on. And now more people are joining Darbi, which was on full display at the Lakota school board meeting. The best one I have seen yet after all these years. And now that Republicans can see from the Darbi Boddy playbook how to fight back against those invisible fences they are always confined to, maybe they can do some good work in the world as well.  And remember the most important thing, it’s not that we just say we are teaching kids that matters.  But it’s what we teach them.  If what we intend to teach is liberal behavior, then that’s a no go on all fronts. 

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

The Lakota School Board is Not in Charge: Lawyers and public relations officials are, elected representatives are just a mask

The school board meeting for Lakota on December 12th, 2022 was unique for several reasons, most of which was the obvious realization that our elected members are not in charge; the lawyers are. As I listened to comments about the new Senate Bill 178, which will take away much of the power of the Ohio Department of Education and give it to a director reporting to the governor for direct accountability, it was quite clear that even with all our work in Lakota of electing a conservative board, that no matter what we did, the system hid itself behind a veil of lawyers and public relations personalities. The school board itself was just a ruse, and you could hear it in Isaac Adi’s voice in that meeting in the way he spoke to Darbi Boddy. I had spoken to both of those personalities extensively before the election of 2021, and to hear Isaac talk, it was like a completely different person, shaped by the system itself, to fit the mold of corruption that resides behind all of public education. It caused me to reflect on the ten previous years that Lynda O’Conner worked hard to prove to me directly that she was one of the good school board members. And after all the many hours of conversation, the moment we delivered a conservative majority to her, she became obsessed with controlling Darbi Boddy, which was never my intention, and the power of the seat obviously went to her head. Ultimately, the truth is that the only value of the school board was ceremonial, not in real management decisions, and these people understood that which is why the titles of their positions were so crucial to them. Because the lawyers were really in charge and always residing behind a veil that the school board showed the public, and behind that veil, so much bad action occurred, which conceals the reality of public education today in America. 

And part of the veil was what we saw from Matt Miller himself, the current Lakota superintendent who got himself in trouble with a messy divorce, then sought to harass witnesses in the community with legal threats to keep his actions from being discussed in public. As an example of the legal firewall they utilize, included here is a copy of the investigation into Matt Miller by the school board. Notice how much of it is redacted? So much for the transparency that Lynda O’Conner talks about. For some who received those intimidation letters, it was a scary experience. But I am proud of those who continued on unafraid of the obvious intimidation tactic and proceeded to make a national story out of the content that was learned about the sexual lifestyles of Lakota administrators and the various mechanisms that had been exposed during the process. Over the last few weeks, the Libs of Tik Tok picked up the story and several radio stations. Charlie Kirk has carried it, as did Louder with Crowder, who works for Glenn Beck’s Blaze news network. I thought most effective was Kristi Ertel’s interview with Brian Thomas on 55 KRC. Because Kristi is a very conscientious Christian woman, a rock-solid character, she represents what’s best about the Lakota community. When people like her can’t accept the nonsense that the Lakota school system was trying to feed the public, you know something is really wrong. I have a long history of opposition. So when I say something, people tend to refer to it in the context of a long-standing opponent. But when nice people like Kristi Ertel are on a big radio station in Cincinnati talking about how she can’t accept the moral dilemma that Lakota employees have imposed on our community, then it becomes clear that this is a different kind of time we are living in, where the veil of the lawyers isn’t working any longer. The school doesn’t know what to do about it, because the school board isn’t in charge, and they never were. 

The tactics used to derail the public from public opinions into the ostentatious liberal lifestyle of the Lakota superintendent and the general administrative culture have only exacerbated the suspicions that were always there. I remember the many meetings we had early in 2021 to identify possible school board candidates, which were organized by Lynda, who obviously always wanted a conservative majority so they would nominate her as the school board president. It was always odd to me how once Lynda knew she had the vote of Issac and Darbi to appoint her as the new president, then Isaac as the VP, Lynda quickly turned on Darbi to see her removed from the board, which essentially started all this trouble. That is how the information about Matt Miller got out to the public. Otherwise, people wouldn’t have been very interested in the superintendent’s sex life. For the sake of context, it looks like things worked out for the best because now people have seen the teeth of Lakota and the actual quality of the employees, not the garbage that the public relations firms present through tricks and nonsense. At those early meetings, Darbi was there, organized by Lynda. So were Vanessa Wells, Kristi Ertel, and many of the kinds of people who have come out very upset about the Matt Miller behavioral problems. And it’s clear what Lynda was after during those meetings in hindsight. In all her conversations with me, she knew the school board wasn’t really in charge. It’s the lawyers who run the school. The school board has no value at all other than to provide a mask for all the garbage that was going on behind the scenes. So when there are protests about S.B. 178 removing our vote from a Board of Education, the truth is, that vote is worthless because our elected representatives aren’t in charge of doing anything anyway. The lawyers do everything, and all these school boards constantly punt all the hard decisions to them along with a hefty legal bill, which then provides cover for the multitudes of bad behavior that the employees of public schools engage in.

I’ve told everyone concerned about legal action from this experience with Lakota that frivolous lawsuits are often viewed by the courts harshly, and this one is a clear case of frivolity. Most First Amendment cases are. As many who have nationally picked up on the story know from experience, reporting on a story isn’t a violation of slanderous behavior. Once a story is a story, it’s a story. And the police report in which Matt Miller was interviewed in a public context made this a story.   From my perspective, the divorce records didn’t make it a story. It became a story once the Lakota superintendent admitted to the contents of the police interview, which then turned all this into a crisis instead of a messy divorce from poor decisions on his part and became a community problem. Whether or not Matt Miller is one of Sheriff Jones’ “boys” protected by the sheriff’s department is irrelevant. The criminal element is just another consideration. The moral representation of what is expected from public employees in a school full of children is essential. And it has been good to see that people like Kristi Ertel and many others have not allowed themselves to be intimidated into shutting up when voices are needed to undo the many wrongs of this case. It’s obvious the school board won’t do it, and they never had the power to. And knowing that it’s up to the community to do the work that we had trusted the media, the police, and our elected officeholders to do. What we have learned is that we’re on our own.    

Rich Hoffman

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