Category: George Lang

Why I Am Proud of Vivek Ramaswamy: The New Declaration of Independence

When I saw Vivek Ramaswamy at the Lincoln Day Dinner 2022 in Butler County, Ohio, I brought my copy of his book Woke, Inc for him to sign. I had a VIP pass, so I figured at some point I’d get a chance to see him behind the scenes, and I had to take that opportunity to get him to sign what I think will be a book that will define our age, this weird kind of financial war America is in with the rest of the world. Getting books signed isn’t a usual thing for me; I have to be very impressed with the author even to seek a signature, and my reason for doing this one with Vivek was I knew my great-grandchildren would be going through my books a century or two from now wanting to understand me and all the things I was involved in during my life. I wanted them to see Vivek’s signature to understand the magnitude of what was coming next. These many steps would occur over the next decade to save America for the world to enjoy, and knowing that the book Woke, Inc played a significant part in that effort, I put more emphasis on it than I otherwise would. I’ve read Woke, Inc at least nine times that I can remember, and many more times I’ve read sections of it because it has turned out to be a skeleton key to hundreds of other books that I have read, which sort of circled the drain, but never quite got to where they needed to go, including Klaus Schwab’s The Great Reset, and most recently, The Great Narrative. I would also put The Lords of Easy Money into that book category brought together by Vivek’s masterpiece, Woke, Inc. It had been a journey since I last spoke to Vivek Ramaswamy at the Middletown Republican Headquarters for a special event where he talked about his upcoming book, and during that, he gave me a little promo card that I had kept on my desk since then. At the time, our meeting was unremarkable, but I felt that he was performing a kind of Paul Revere task in a new type of revolution, so I made a point to read his book the day it came out. I was very glad I did.

Since August of 2021, Vivek has been talking about his new book all over the media, and I was proud of him. He came from my area; he actually went to Lakota schools for a short time in his youth before moving to Evendale, where his father worked at GE. Vivek grew up and made well for himself, working on Wall Street and becoming a CEO of a few companies in biotech. We ran into each other a few times before the Covid pandemic, and during that time, he came up with this idea to tackle woke culture in our corporations just as the world was going into lockdowns over the pandemic. When I ran into Vivek again at the Middletown event, he was on to something that was just then becoming a recognizable problem, the takeover of American corporations by liberal politics that were backdooring our Constitution and imposing themselves beyond our politics for the destruction of our society. I thought his speech was compelling, so when he did his book tour on Fox News and many other places, I tried to catch every interview with him that I could, and I continued to be increasingly impressed, especially as we saw what The Great Reset by Klaus Schwab had been building up to in a post-Covid economy. Vivek had been more correct about things than anybody could have imagined. He took his insider knowledge of how Wall Street worked, and with Woke, Inc, he got in front of a significant attack on our way of life in America, and he really earned my respect. This respect culminated after rereading Woke, Inc after watching Vivek at the 2022 CPAC in Florida. That’s when it was clear that America was under attack not with tanks and troops but through finance and international progressivism. Before anybody knew what was coming, Vivek had his finger on it. 

But what made me want to get his signature wasn’t any of those things. By all measures of success, Vivek had hit the jackpot with Woke, Inc. But so do many other writers. It was a successful book that had been on the bestseller’s list for many months.   But that wasn’t why Vivek was doing what he was doing. The book was just the first step in the ultimate solution. When I found out about that, I grew very excited and determined that I would get him to sign my book the next time I saw him. Many people don’t understand the world of money management, which most of us have to interact with, and unfortunately, they have all turned radically to the political left. While we are arguing about politics and election results, these radical left-wingers have taken over all of finance. It doesn’t matter if its Larry Fink’s BlackRock, but State Street, Vanguard, and dozens of others at the top which all our 401K plans flow through are forcing us to hold our nose and put up with it because literally all our life’s work is often entangled in these liberal companies. They have shown that they are attacking our culture where it hurts most, through our economy. That is why Disney is bent over backward presently because their executives have all been put in place to satisfy ESG scores. Power plants are closing in Ohio because BlackRock owns a majority share of stock and can now command how the company has been run. In Larry Fink’s case, he has had a very incestuous relationship with the Federal Reserve, with Ben Bernake, Janet Yellon, and now Jerome Powell. They have printed money for Wall Street to build up a massive artificial asset bubble that has allowed these money management firms to buy up all these key stocks to liberalize the companies. So this isn’t small stuff, it’s all big, and there hasn’t been a solution until Vivek Ramaswamy brought his tireless energy and talent to the problem and is essentially changing the world for the better.

At this point, I’m not going to get into the details until Vivek is ready. But what makes me so proud of him is that he is working very hard to give people a choice, which is the key to American society. When it comes to money managers, they are all currently liberalized. To deal with them, we are forced to deal with progressive politics, ESG scores, and the nightmare of international controls that even makes Klaus Schwab blush. The point of Woke, Inc for Vivek Ramaswamy has been to create an option to that problem, to give people an off-ramp for their investments that do not involve woke politics, and to allow investments to flourish in measures of actual value instead of climate change initiatives and global power politics set by radicals like Al Gore. And that option is being created as we speak, and I think it will save our country from the financial side of things. That is why I couldn’t wait to have Vivek sign my book, why I am proud to have it, and why I think my great-grandchildren will find that information valuable. They’ll understand how things occurred when they want to know why I spent the kind of time I do on these things as history reflects on it and see Vivek’s signature in that book on my vast bookshelf. We can win elections. We can fight for liberty around the world. But if we let the monsters of finance run our lives through our money, we will be held hostage to value for which the bad guys determine it. And that isn’t freedom; it’s slavery.   If we want to remain free, we must defend our financial system, our corporations, and our national economy, where we control the standard. Not Klaus Schwab, not Larry Fink, and certainly not the maniacal lunatics from Chatham House in London, where they plot to rule the world through interconnected banking and ESG manipulations. Vivek Ramaswamy is working to give us a choice, and for that, the key to saving America resides. And I am very proud of him for what he has done.

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

DeSantis Standing up To Disney: Government as the good guy in an evil world

Maybe the most valuable thing that will come out of this post-Trump period and now the debacles of the Biden administration is putting to rest many speculations that have existed since the beginning of time, is what does good governance look like and why is bad government the perpetuation of all that is evil in the world? Because of the Trump administration, we had several examples of great government. We saw firsthand what bad government was in contrast to the aftermath of Joe Biden and the reaction the bad guys out there in the world had to the prospect of good government. I have spent much of my adult life looking and fighting for the prospect of good government like a good sheriff wants to bring justice to the town they live in, only to find it ripe with criminal elements profiting off misfortune and chaos. When Trump was elected, he accelerated the plans of a vast criminal underclass that had been eroding our country for many years. But finally, with a new sheriff in town, we could take theory and put it to practice. The result was what good government should look like, protecting individual rights and the safe foundation for a prosperous country. One of the creations of this new kind of good government with a new sheriff in town kind of mindset was Ron DeSantis, who has redefined what a good governor of a state looks like. He’s certainly his own man, aside from President Trump. Still, Trump brought executive-level leadership into vogue in politics. Desantis from Florida was the first to fully utilize those gifts in a way that has now shown a light for all the future to see, which of course, led to a clash with the Disney Company that has turned out to be like the Shootout at the OK Corral with legendary figures like Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. But this shootout wasn’t with guns; it was over finance, and the massive impact that money management firms have over modern corporations, and the way the bad guys have now tried to attack America through woke policies and desecrating social impacts meant to take down what used to be one of America’s top family-friendly companies, the entertainment company that Walt and Roy Disney built to remind America what America was always meant to be.

The “Don’t Say Gay Bill” is the kind of legislation that a good government should propose in any healthy society to protect families in their development. Nobody in their right mind believes that it is a good idea for children to be exposed to sexual elements in their early years, from kindergarten to the third grade. No child should be thinking about sex in those years; there are millions of other concerns. They shouldn’t have so many enemies to legislation intended to protect kids from discussions that are already on the wrong side of history. But what was shocking was just how committed Disney as a company showed itself to these kinds of social desecrations. When we think of Disney, we think of Main Street USA, which is the way Walt Disney intended it. The kind of America where you could buy fancy chocolates in Victorian-style buildings with white picket fences and the glory of private property ownership looming over everything. But over time, we have seen the Disney company, and lots of other big corporations for that matter, descend into extreme left-leaning politics intent to undo everything that America stands for.

To some extent, we put up with it. Getting what was good out of Disney while holding our nose at what we saw was becoming bad. But quite shockingly, which is part of the woke culture of most corporations these days that left-leaning activist money managers control, like BlackRock and State Street, the control of money through publicly traded companies have become the weapon of choice to attack America and the lives Walt Disney meant to preserve, undoing them from within with radical boards of directors and executives that nobody would have considered hiring a few decades ago. Now they were radical political extremists who were running everything, and their social intention was to introduce gay sex and perverse sexual lifestyles to children as early as possible, with only one purpose in mind, the destruction of their minds for a social cause that is as anti-American as one could possibly conceive.

The balancing act in good government, as opposed to bad government, creates conditions where businesses and the lives they feed can thrive. But when they are working against those individual lives, to step in and provide protection. It’s like the difference between a Wild West town overrun by cattle rustlers and scandalous gamblers, prostitutes, and killers until a good sheriff comes to town to clean it up. Of course, the bad guys won’t be happy with the effort, and they will fight back for their own preservation. But in America, the classic gunfighter who comes to town with only a gun and the law at their back often did such a thing which allowed the town to survive and give the people living within it a chance at a happy and productive life. That concept carried America into being the world’s top economy. And it is that which the bad guys in the world want to undo, desperately. They have infected the Disney Company through the many investment firms of BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street and imposed on them ESG scores which have removed the traditionalists loyal to the Walt Disney vision and replaced them with what I call the purple-haired people eaters, the Desecrators of Davos types who want global communism and a one-world order starting with the icons of American industry. They don’t care if Disney is destroyed in the process; they just want to see the sheriff run out of town so they can have an easy time at crime and malice. Good government, in this case, stays in town and enforces the law on the bad guys, and that is precisely what Ron DeSantis had done in Florida by threatening to remove the special privileges that Disney had enjoyed there and fighting back when the economic powerhouse showed its intentions to attack the “Don’t Say Gay Bill” after the legislature supported it as represented by the people of the state.

The plan all along by these liberal attackers was to embed themselves into our corporations and force us to accept their ways of desecration to get some little memory of what they once meant to us. The desecrators want to destroy the idea of all American life and the families of its creation. Under those conditions, we need government to preserve the constitutional intentions of life in America from the influences that invade our country in ideas and trojan horse style influence. The surprise that the woke political left has now had is Ron DeSantis standing up to Disney instead of doing what most all other governors would do, which would be to cave to one of the biggest economic influences in American life. Most governors would be eating out of the hand of Disney. Instead, DeSantis is doing what all good executives would do, and that’s always keeping in mind the big picture and the constitution for which he serves. And in so doing, it has brought to Florida something far more valuable than Disney as a tourist resort. He has confronted the bad guys in the street and brought them down for all to see, and people are standing behind DeSantis, not Disney. And this clear message is being noticed by the attack vectors of the Desecrators of Davos, who did not think such a thing would happen, and it has them in a bit of a panic.   The government was being a good referee, which should have always been its function, not an active player on the field tipping the scales toward the corrupt influence who wanted to win the game without playing by the rules. I’ve seen this process developing for a long time, but now it is in practice, and it’s not President Trump who is doing it. Instead, it’s the next generation of a new kind of politician. And it is one of the best examples of good government that we have seen in America to date. 

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Jennifer Gross Endorses Jim Renacci: The Overton Window in Ohio Politics

I’ve never been a “no government anarchist.” My thoughts on government management have always been a small but active legislature that is contentious, honorable, yet tenacious. Those who have read my Gunfighter’s Guide to Business know I view most group-oriented behavior as a competitive match, not an opportunity for back-slapping and friendship. Our republic form of government has been unique globally, and now that we understand the nature of the attack against our country, we can better understand the threat that has always been there. I have thought about this kind of thing a lot over the last year, especially while visiting Mt. Rushmore. I found that place to be a temple of intellect, and the bookstore they have there is better than a gold mine of infinite wealth. My thoughts on the matter have matured up to the present with this visit to the Statehouse of Ohio. The challenge has been to create as open a market as possible for business and individual rights while still defending the sovereignty of our states and nation from foreign aggression. Which, of course, is hard to do in an open market global economy. The hostile forces to the United States have attacked not the concept of any nation-states but the essence of our very economy. This corporate board room government within a government type of thinking is challenging the very nature of our Republic form of government. Understanding the nature of that attack is precisely why I have been pointing out Ohio politicians I know who are doing the job correctly, in their own unique way, so that we can see examples of how our republic government should look. And a fine example of how government should look can be found in my State Representative Jennifer Gross, whom I recently had a chance to visit at the Statehouse. 

It’s taken me a while to warm up to Jennifer Gross. During a rough election, she ran against my pick for that seat that Mike DeWine had screwed up with emergency power Covid rules. But in the short time Jennifer has been in the seat of the 52nd District; she has brought more of the Tea Party to Columbus than I would have thought possible. When I recently found her after Governor DeWine’s State of the State speech, she was very bubbly and enthusiastic, working the floor and talking to many different people. I know that many members of the House and Senate and many other politicians view Jennifer as a disruptive force and find her unsettling. I’ve heard lots of negative talk about her by several in the political class, but I have some other ideas about her that I wanted to confirm. So we spent some time together talking about the Overton Window and its role, which she more than understood. And we also talked about the challenger Jim Renacci whom she is one of the only official members of the Statehouse to endorse openly. I know there are a lot more, but I could see the pressure up close. At this event, where Jennifer and I talked, Governor DeWine walked around talking to people. People in the House and Senate know they need DeWine to sign bills they are working on. And DeWine needs them to, to look like he’s in charge. DeWine wants to take credit for the big Intel chip manufacturing plant coming to Ohio, announced just ahead of the primary for 2022. And he recently signed a controversial Constitutional Carry bill he would never have signed otherwise, except for Republican pressure to act more “conservative.” But the trade-off has been to show public support for DeWine in a very tight race against Renacci and other challengers. So there is a lot of double talk going on around the Governor. But Jennifer is not one of those double-talkers. She is right out in the open about it, and the Governor is well aware. 

And that is the value I see in Jennifer; she openly embraces that role of a disrupter, someone who will challenge the Overton Window on the political spectrum and yank it hard right away from the communism that has seeped into the process over the years. Back to the constitutional republic, we have needed and expected. Politics is not about friendships, it’s about doing the job correctly, and there is a real hunger from Jennifer to do a great job. She intends to represent all the people honestly in her district, including the people who didn’t vote for her, and that was the general vibe I picked up on as she showed me around where her desk was and other features of the House chamber. Things got pretty heated in Columbus as Jeniffer was on the front of legislation to prevent mandated vaccine requirements imposed by the Biden administration. We all learned a lot from that experience. It was a balancing act between a Chamber of Commerce view of the world, allowing corporate environments to impose rules on their workforce for their own needs and the individual’s rights. The workers have their own sovereignty. Jennifer represented the raw Tea Party small-government perspective against forces that didn’t want to be bothered with contentious debate during a government-imposed pandemic. But in hindsight now, after watching Klaus Schwab at the World Government Forum in Dubai recently, we see those vicious bandits plotting the demise of America out in the open. Their mode of attack has been through the corporate boardroom, our Chambers of Commerce, and our mom-and-pop businesses, dancing to ridiculous rules and regulations imposed by unconstitutional commerce clauses. If we ever needed a functioning republic to sort all these things out, it was now. And I have been increasingly happy that there is someone like Jennifer Gross who will ask the hard questions and force people to think out of the box without making it unnecessarily contentious. Jennifer walks that line quite well, I think. 

So how to put businesses first in Ohio and give corporations the autonomy to locate in our state and do great things is the problem of those lofty halls in Columbus. It’s why I wrote The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and started passing out copies of it to people I talk to in the political world. We have to defend business and commerce, uphold law and order, and stand by our government and boardroom politics. We have to stand for executive-level leadership in business and politics. But we must also stand for individual freedom and to force the scum and villainy out of our lives without killing the host. Not an easy thing to do, and that is what that book is about, a guide on how to tell good from bad, right from wrong, and unprofitable activity from the driver of all things, profit and value. And to perform that task well, especially in organized government, I find great value in disruptive forces like Jennifer Gross. She will uncomfortably keep everyone honest without turning the dispute into a personal fight. Playing along to get along is not what makes any republic form of government great. But asking the right questions, most often the ones you don’t even know you need to ask, is the key to keeping a government working correctly. And in the world we have today, where the bad guys have been hidden behind the rules and regulations of corporate America and international partnerships, there is a significant need for more disruptive Overton Window types like Jennifer Gross in our grand Statehouse. I am glad to have her there, and I feel proud to have such an engaged representative with plenty of fire to fight the forces at work in our state for duplicity and malice. The need for good government is genuine, more so now than ever. And Jennifer Gross keeps honesty at the front of all conversations for the betterment of everyone. 

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

The Lofty Expectations of the Ohio Statehouse: Senator George Lang is a politician it can be proud of

It was a great treat for me to get a day to visit the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus to see a good friend of mine, Senator George Lang. It was good for me to put things in perspective as some of the issues of the hour are intense and changing by the minute. The Ohio Statehouse is a grand vestige dedicated to a republic form of government, and it was built with love and ambition. I think all statehouses try to do the same thing. The Ohio Statehouse is a special place dedicated to intelligence, study, and the difficulties of a republic that spans thousands of years in the past. It’s a place of ambition and hope reflected in the Greek architecture, the various marble ornaments, and symbolic statues. Whenever I go there, I am reminded that much of the hard work that is done in politics, even when it often falls so short of expectations, is worth the effort. Even when people complain about the cesspool of politics and the corrosive elements of lobbyists, I see the work that goes on in places like the Ohio Statehouse as the best that there is in the world. I’ve been to the Parliament in London and other places where the work of politics is done, and I see the purity of the Ohio Statehouse as something special, unique. I am possessive that it exists to do the work all people in Ohio need done. Even if people disagree on what that work is, the place is there to make sure it has a chance to happen. 

Another friend of mine took a picture of me on the House floor, and that’s what I was thinking. I don’t usually get sentimental about those types of things, but I had just had a good meeting with Senator Lang with the door closed. I was very happy to hear what he was working on. But more than that, I saw the same eyes alive and well within him that I have known for many years as he was one of the original members of the West Chester Tea Party. George is still that same person who gives out copies of Atlas Shrugged at Christmas and believes in small government, fiscal responsibility, and a business-first political strategy which is the key to all wealth-building in any culture. George Lang is a good person, a very good person. And as I was thinking about the Ohio Statehouse and all its ambitions, most of the time, we resent politics because we give politicians all these great tools to work with, like the Ohio Statehouse.   Most of the time, the people we send to the congress and senate fall short of our expectations, leading to perpetual disappointment. But George Lang is one of those exceptions. He actually lives up to the lofty expectations. The building seems to have been built specifically for people like him.

I say all those nice things because I had an extended chance to watch him work with other members of the House and Senate. And to interact with Governor DeWine. George is friendly, engaging; he’s a great salesman. But while he is doing all those things, he’s also guarded and measured. He’s a hard nut to crack for a lobbyist because it’s hard to tell where to get a hook into him. What is the vice of George Lang? What makes him tick? Where is he vulnerable? It’s one thing to be sociable and even polite. George has been involved in Columbus politics for many years now. When our schedules match up, I speak to him quite a bit here and there, but he’s a busy guy. So, to be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect in his office with the door closed and talking about the business that needs to happen for the state. To talk about the upcoming primaries, his Business First Caucus, politics back home in Butler County, Ohio. But what I found was a person who loves doing a good job, that had not been swept away by any trace of corruption, and the same wide-eyed person I have known since he was a trustee in West Chester. And with all that has been going on, where the world presents us with disappointments at every juncture, especially in politics, that was refreshing. 

In that House chamber and its lofty contents, it was apparent that most of the members went to Columbus with big goals and that they were getting swept away by the ornate atmosphere. Just before that photograph, I had just heard from a politician who wanted me to know how smart he was and that he was reviewing the legal complications of a land purchase for a solar farm, filled with all kinds of rancid ESG requirements that he thought were great. He was a guy who had been chewed up and spit out of the meat grinder, and I could see that the chamber walls were almost ashamed of him. He did not live up to the expectations. But those big stone walls and finely carved woodwork would see many more like him over the years, as they had. But when George was in that room, the actual chamber seemed happy. There was a person worthy of the Statehouse. There was someone who would do the work and, when done, dash off to his wife and grown children at every opportunity. And I think that is the secret to George Lang working there. The Statehouse was built for people like him, who love their country, their state, and their communities, but more than anything, their families. When the rubber hits the road, that’s how he has managed to survive Columbus and live up to the lofty expectations that come with business there. 

It wasn’t just because I like George. Governor DeWine was walking around shaking hands and taking pictures. Most everyone he interacted with couldn’t wait to lick the shoes of DeWine and pander to him for the powerful seat he sat in. Those same people might badmouth DeWine the minute they were away from him, but when shaking hands and taking pictures, they were like little girls at a pop-rock concert backstage. Power was a seductive force, and they were undoubtedly under its influence when around the Governor. But not George Lang. While respectful, he stayed very true to himself and represented his district exceptionally well. And it wasn’t an act. I wasn’t always somewhere that George could see me. It was just how he was, and I was proud of him. It gave me hope that all the hard work in preserving our republic, first at the state level, then at the federal level, was worth it. That day at the Statehouse is how it’s supposed to be in politics. It’s an example of how to do it right. We build the temples to a republic that has taken us thousands of years to perfect. And our government in Ohio is supposed to be contentious. It’s not supposed to be a fraternity of consensus builders. The Statehouse was built to debate and flush out the best and brightest ideas from the weakest. And over the many decades that the Ohio Statehouse has been there, it has suffered many disappointments in the elected representatives who have gone there to do our work. But George Lang isn’t one of them. If the Statehouse could smile, it surely would when George walks into a room, for that is the reason the place exists.

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

The Best Option for Dry Fire Practice: Having a great relationship with your firearm

Not to take anything away from one of the most incredible people in the world, Tommie, the owner of Premier Shooting in West Chester, but I am excited to report on a great new dry fire technology that many people may not know about. I mention Tommie because she told me about her exciting new dry fire range at Premier, the latest craze in shooting, for a good reason. Much of the time, dry firing involves a laser in the gun instead of a bullet and can be measured against a target by some electronic method. It’s becoming more common to use a smartphone for dry fire action. More sophisticated dry fire can be utilized like they do at Premier. There is still nothing like live fire with a real bullet striking a real target. But dry fire can be a great way to stay proficient with a gun without all the expense of firing live ammunition and can be every bit as enjoyable. Well, I have found that practicing for my Cowboy Fast Draw events a wonderful invention sold by the Cowboy Fast Draw Association called the Gunslinger Mark IV laser targeting system that I finally treated myself to, and I’m in love with it. It has been around in the fast draw community for several years but has only recently been perfected to a near-perfect system, as shown in the video above. I can’t think of anything better than this as a dry fire option for people looking for a home dry fire solution to their shooting needs. Practicing with one of these dry fire systems makes the range time much more valuable. I’m certainly not saying gun enthusiasts should replace range time for dry fire time. But that dry fire will make that range time much more useful. 

As I say all the time, especially these days, it’s essential to have a relationship with our Constitution, specifically the Second Amendment. Some people lose touch with the Constitution because they live in areas where they get used to concessions to utilize Constitutional rights in favor of collective need. For instance, in urban areas where it’s almost impossible to shoot every day in the backyard, it’s hard to maintain a relationship with your favorite firearms because they stay locked up all the time. One of the things that I like most about Cowboy Fast Draw is that it allows me to have a wax firing range in my workshop that makes it possible to shoot every day. When I want to fire real lead bullets, I go down and see Tommie at the range. But it’s not possible to shoot every day for me, because of time really, so having a range in my home makes it that much more practical. For many years now, I have enjoyed going into my shop and shooting at my strike plate range. But, for me, that wasn’t enough. I want to shoot while sitting in my reading chair and watching movies and football games. So I had been looking to get one of these Mark IV laser targeting systems, which essentially does everything my strike plate range does, except fire actual primers. Firing live fire rounds in the house and having wax bullets explode all over the living room just was not possible. But with a laser, I can shoot all day and all night long, as much as I want without the expense of using up rounds of ammunition. 

This particular unit is unique because it was invented by the Cowboy Fast Draw Association for the specific problem of fast fire and the need to register the hit in thousands of a second. Much dry fire activity is specific to just hitting a target and seeing how you do from shot to shot. The added element of speed is something special. Whenever the laser hits within the 8″ circle on the target system, it picks up a hit and measures it within fractions of a second. The light blinks three times in practice mode to let you know that your shot is coming. Then the light comes on solid and counts the time it takes you to hit the target. I not only use my target system for fast draw for all types of target shooting. I shoot from 30′, 21′, 15′ down to 5′ like I did in the video, up close so that the camera could pick up the gun and the hit in the same frame and still see the indicator. Even better, the unit is free from an internet connection, so nobody is snooping around on you while you are target shooting. It’s free of internet control, leaving target shooting the personal relationship between you and the practice and nobody else. Other types of dry fire where the smartphone is involved are giving vast amounts of information on all of us to some data collection company. So while convenient and neat, there is a cost to the technology. The Cowboy Fast Draw Association people make the Mark IV advance the sport. So, it’s a trusted source of shooting applications that makes using the Mark IV a much better experience. 

Best yet, the Mark IV Laser system allows shooters to have that daily relationship with their guns. It takes away a lot of the taboo that politics has placed on guns over the years and will enable users to use their firearms more for sport than just self-defense. Practicing with dry fire lasers has the feel of shooting baskets in the driveway. Shooting is a sport just like basketball or football—even golf. But until dry fire technology evolved to the level it is now; it wasn’t possible to practice with firearms virtually anywhere at any time of day. With the Mark IV, as I showed I was using inside my RV, shooting can be done anywhere. Even in a McDonald’s parking lot in Vail, Colorado, while you are waiting for the grandkids to get a Happy Meal and use the restroom. And the system is so reliable that it works perfectly every time. Once you have one of the Laser Training Cartridges that ignite the laser and allow the shot to fire down the barrel, you can shoot all the time, with the only cost being batteries for the cartridge. The total cost of the whole setup is around $800 for the laser and the targeting system and can all be purchased from CowboyFastDraw.com. I buy from them all the time, and they are always good about delivering high-quality items. I even recently ordered from them on New Year’s Eve, and they fulfilled the order that very night. They are like dealing with the way America used to be, always attentive to the customer’s needs, and competent. So overall, I can’t recommend one of these dry fire units more for all the reasons I mentioned and more. The best thing about it is that it takes shooting into the realm of every day and allows shooters to become much more proficient with copious amounts of practice than they could get otherwise. And making better shooters with much more handling only helps everything, from Constitutional consideration to the advancement of shooting sports, because more people can now participate. There is no downside, and for shooters everywhere, knowing that something like this is out there is something that could be life-changing in a good way.

Rich Hoffman

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Justin Trudeau Runs and Hides: Socialists are easy to beat, all you have to do is confront them

I don’t know that it was a big secret, but if there was any doubt about how to defeat socialists in general, what has been going on in Canada is the recipe that will work everywhere. Truckers protesting the vaccine mandates of Justin Trudeau, the socialist prime minister there, gathered outside his home. It scared him so bad that he suddenly came down with Covid and fled to an undisclosed location to avoid the mob. At times, it had the feel of the French Revolution, even though it never descended into actual violence or even the January 6th incident in Washington D.C. One true thing about all socialists is that they became that way out of their timid natures. As liberals, they seek the protection of what they think of, like a big, parental government. And from behind the leg of that parent, they lash out at their siblings as if suddenly empowered with strength. But when they realize that the parental government can’t protect them, it is the scariest thing in the world to them. That is how American politicians reacted when they realized that President Trump was not the leader of the MAGA movement, he was the result of it, and that the people who protested their corrupt government on January 6th, 2021, were not shackled to the rules of society when angered, it was terrifying to them. That is the same kind of fear that Justin Trudeau was reacting to when a mob of protestors took their action to his front door. The Prime Minister got into politics as a form of protection from the real world, and this was not how the script was supposed to read. So he retreated and lashed out in predictable ways, which showed the world, just how little power these little tyrants really have when things start getting tough. Only through deceit can socialists have power; once people are on to them, the house of cards falls apart rather quickly.

I warned everyone about Justin Trudeau back in 2015 when he was first elected as Prime Minister of Canada. I told everyone here and everywhere that I spoke that the kid was a socialist and was part of this global script to remake the world into a socialist one, as indicated by Socialist International at the time. Over the years, of course, that group of globalists who have that script written in the Carroll Quiggly book Tragedy and Hope so blatantly has changed their names many times. These days that whole effort has migrated over into the World Economic Forum, which meets in Davos each year to plot the destruction of the world by controlling governments like Wild West train robbers from beyond a country of their own, all to bring them down into the control of the United Nations, which they manipulate through banking. At the time, Barack Obama was their guy in America, and Justin Trudeau was the outright member of the socialist party in Canada who was put there to do their deeds. I pointed it out; many thought it was a vast conspiracy unrooted in reality. But of course, it turned out to be all true.

Additionally, most of the similar leadership positions in all of Europe were like the socialist Justin Trudeau. Justin’s hook was that he was a nice-looking young man who made women feel safe supporting him. Men had to go along if they didn’t want to alienate their women, and in that way, Canada adopted socialism ever so subtly. I immediately noticed the turn toward authoritarian government behind the smiling face at the border at Niagra Falls, which I like to visit every so often. Suddenly the border went from a popular tourist spot to a pretty cold check of authoritarian control, a preview of what was to come when the United Nations and the Great Reset crowd unleashed Covid to the world for the purpose of a complete socialist takeover of the world behind the shared threat of a virus outbreak, hatched by Dr. Fauci through the Department of Defense in direct partnership with the Chinese government. 

Yet, you won’t hear me talking about how scary any of these losers are. Socialists become socialists because they are weak. They are timid people, which is why they were so quick to adopt mask mandates from out-of-control governments. As liberals, they are conflict-averse and always look for that big parental leg to shield them from their actions in the world. And it’s straightforward to defeat them. Just confront them and watch them wither away like the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz. The real secret to stopping socialism and communism in the world is to confront the bullies hiding behind those parental legs of government. Once socialists like Justin Trudeau realize that government can’t protect them from bad decisions and people angry at authority, they can do nothing. There will come the point where the Chinese people figure this out about their communist government, the overly parental figures there where the few rule the many quite tyrannically. It is not like the Chinese to think for themselves. Still, once unemployment can’t overcome the nanny state problems of an economy built entirely on looted wealth, people will be mad, just as they were in Canada, Washington D.C. and many other places in the world erupting in anger over an authoritarian government more interested in telling people what to do than actually solving problems. When people realize this, the socialists and communists always fall. Because that delicate balance between fear and lack of opportunity quickly takes over reason, social collapse is always imminent. 

What is happening in Canada can and will happen everywhere. I wish people would have listened to me six or seven years ago about Trudeau. It was about that time that I put my support behind Trump because I could see how things were stacking up. Many people like me saw what the socialists and communists in the world were doing, and we wanted to make our own declaration in defense of capitalism; what better way to do it than to elect a guy who fully embraced capitalism and lived in a golden tower that he built in New York City with a beautiful supermodel wife. That was who we wanted to run our government; we didn’t want these Barack Obama, Justin Trudeau socialists that the world wanted to give us. Looking back on it now, isn’t it obvious why they had to get rid of President Trump? He wasn’t part of their script. The world didn’t recognize the American concept of self-government. They had it in their mind that they’d give us someone, and we would like it, just as they did in Canada. But when things don’t go well, and people want recourse for the injustice done to them, like the vaccine mandates in Canada, then when people do rise up, and Trudeau doesn’t have a script that tells him how to solve that problem, the great fear emerges for everyone involved. Socialists and communists do not know what to do. And it is there that they always fail, time and time again, and always will. People always have leverage over the administrative masses, and when the socialists realize that there is no parental leg to hide behind, it is the worst thing in the world. 

Rich Hoffman

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Old Yeller: The fight between Thomas Hall and Sheriff Jones

Why Is Sheriff Jones Going After Thomas Hall

Sheriff Jones decided to go on 700 WLW and speak disparagingly about Thomas Hall, the current House Representative of the 53rd District. I like Sheriff Jones, I hope he runs and wins a few more terms, but nobody in their right mind could support the way he attacked Thomas Hall on those radio waves to hundreds of thousands of people. Long-time readers here know that I used to be a frequent contributor on WLW, like Jones. Over time, many of my people who used to work there moved away, were fired, or otherwise changed their point of view. We separated like some kind of divorce, and I have not had much of an idea of reconciliation. I have more freedom in media with this site, so I have not returned in several years. But Jones does go on WLW quite a lot, so because I don’t pay much attention to what goes on there these days, I did not hear the original airing where Sheriff Jones disparaged Thomas Hall in many negative ways calling him a 12-year old “goof,” not just once, but many times. Still, I have often heard from many Republicans who want to defend Hall but are scared of retaliation from Jones, and I think that’s a shame. Hall certainly isn’t 12-years old. I said in the video that he was in his early thirties, but actually, he’s in his mid-twenties and is the youngest member of the current Ohio House. However, the young man is an overachiever by all measures, and his age certainly isn’t a hindrance. He has had two terms as a Madison Trustee, and now he’s in his first term as a congressman seeking a second term. 

Sheriff Jones Goes After Thomas Hall over H.B. 99

Another thing I said about Thomas is a couple of times in the video, I referred to him as Thomas More, because for a lot of reasons, I think of the writer of Utopia whenever I think of Thomas Hall. It’s been that way for a while just because of my own reading habits. There are a lot of Thomas’ in English literature; another is the character of Thomas Becket from The Canterbury Tales, who was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by his friend Henry the II. It’s one of my favorite books, and this story keeps coming to my mind when I think of Thomas Hall and his friend and mentor, Sheriff Jones. Jones had endorsed Thomas and was mentoring him until a few things happened. Apparently, Jones didn’t like Hall’s voting record. The Sheriff had a confirmed case of heartburn over H.B. 99, Hall’s bill in congress, which set definitions for minimal teacher training to carry firearms in public schools. Jones uncharacteristically turned on Thomas Hall and made quite an exhibition about it on WLW right before Thanksgiving in 2021. I hadn’t heard it until I did an endorsement video for Thomas Hall, and he mentioned it. I had heard from several very prominent Republicans, some very close to the Sheriff, that something had gone on really bad. As I said in the video, one of them was not Senator Lang. I never put people in positions where they get caught in crossfires with each other and given the mean streak that many fear in crossing Jones, many don’t want to be a part of it. Yet many more than ten contacted me to let me know what was going on between Hall and Jones, and they weren’t happy about it.

Thomas Hall Responds to Sheriff Jones

I listened to the Jones interview with Willie, included here; then I listened to the response from Thomas Hall the next day. I played them for my wife, who loves Sheriff Jones. We talked about the interviews and thought Thomas Hall did a fantastic job. He certainly won the argument. But Jones came across as petty and even childish. My wife offered that maybe he was hurting about something else, totally unrelated. Perhaps that’s true. Whatever it is, I would suggest a few thoughts regarding the excellent Sheriff. I’ve been sideways with him a few times over things, particularly school things and union business. I still blame him for the Lakota levy passing in 2013. He has a liberal streak in him that I can’t stand, but we have buried the hatchet since then. What he did for Butler County during the Trump years has been great. A person’s body of work can’t be defined by just a few years here and there or by the grumpy old dog that starts biting people who step on a porch to sell Girl Scout cookies. I hope that Jones runs and wins more terms for as long as possible. But perhaps my wife was right about him, that something else is bothering him. 

In my book The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, I deal with this very issue of an older generation coping with the young people biting their heels. The chapter is called “The Skill of Developed Intuition” on pg. 181. You spend your whole life getting somewhere, making yourself into the person people put on T.V. Getting invited to the White House. Where you can’t go into public without people wanting to get a picture taken with you. And suddenly, here is some 25-year-old whiz kid who suddenly does more in one year than most state reps do in a lifetime. And he’s confident and won’t kiss the ring. Deep down inside, nobody would want to see such a young person broken, but consciously, the older person wants respect because he gave it when he was younger. The aging process isn’t fair. When you can start to see the end of the tunnel, and you know it’s going to be over soon, it is painful to see intelligent young people with their whole lives in front of them getting the attention it took you a lifetime to build. Sometimes, you might be tempted to crush the young competition, show them all they don’t know yet and teach them obedience. But I would caution you not to do that. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is encourage the young people, not tear them down, but build them up. 

Old Yeller

Listening to Thomas talk about the WLW incident, I was amazed he wasn’t more upset. I would be. I carry grudges for a long time, for decades. I would not have been able to say all the nice things that Thomas said about Sheriff Jones when I did my endorsement video with him. I would have been plotting revenge and embarrassment. But obviously, Thomas Hall has had a lot of good mentors in his life, his father being one. But several other politicians for another, including Sheriff Jones. So, there are a lot of lessons here that should be observed. I would hope that Sheriff Jones wouldn’t spend all the years of his excellent branding on petty nonsense that will overshadow all the good things he has done. There are people concerned about just that very thing by many of the calls I received. But Thomas isn’t that way; he understands that politics is a blood sport, and he plays to win without getting hung up on stupid stuff. And in his mind, he already defended himself on WLW the next day. But people were confused as to why the Sheriff went after Thomas, and I would suggest that it shouldn’t ruin the reputation of the Sheriff. I don’t think we are dealing with an Old Yeller situation here. Maybe just an old dog that would love to run around like the youth do but can’t anymore. There is still good to do, and from the point of view of Thomas, he’s willing to do good wherever possible.    

Rich Hoffman

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The Ohio Jim and Joe Show: For governor, in the May 2022 primary it’s all about Trump

Jim Renacci picks Joe Knopp as a Running Mate in Ohio

I didn’t know much about Joe Knopp when I attended the special press conference of Jim Renacci on Thursday, December 2nd, 2021.  I knew I liked Jim Renacci and supported him emphatically to run for governor of Ohio.  The current governor, Mike DeWine, had not shown that he was a conservative during his first term, and his Covid response was a disaster against the Constitution.  He was the first governor in all of the nation to attempt to alter election laws and shut down our economy, and we have all seen enough.  He had to go, and Jim was the best replacement.  But this particular event was a bit of a surprise.  Jim was going to announce his Lt. Governor.  Naturally, I was thinking of the apparent picks; it would have to be a conservative woman of some kind because that’s what everyone does these days.  But no, instead, Jim was thinking outside the box when he announced that he was putting Joe Knopp on the ticket, another privately successful person.  The more I thought about it and got a chance to meet Joe, the more I liked him.  He was, after all, the producer of the Trump movie, The Trump I Know.    

About halfway through the Joe Knopp introduction, I started putting everything together.  Joe was the guy who produced the movie showing all the great Trump women who came out right before the election in 2020.  It told the story that nobody covered about Trump, all the little things he does behind the scenes that made him such a great president, and how he treated women in his campaign and organizations.  It all came to an excellent little focus during the press conference, especially during the question and answer session where reporters asked what Renacci planned to do about Ohio being the number 1 state in all of America for corruption.  Sometimes we all start accepting dysfunction to such an extent that we think of it as reality.  But the reason the media hated Trump, as the Swamp itself does, was because of these independent business guys, people like Trump, and his friend Jim Renacci.  Joe Knopp wanted to eliminate the dark money cookies that all the Swamp creatures get to eat off of.  Columbus, Ohio was every bit as much of a swamp as Washington D.C., Just on a different scale, and essentially, Governor DeWine is like the Joe Biden in the executive branch.  A deeply compromised person who has become rich off dark money hated people who challenged that structure.  From the media to the politicians, it was all an addiction to dark money that they considered such a threat.  So much so that they would have destroyed President Trump if they could.  But the Trump women that Joe Knopp captured in his film so beautifully told the absolute truth, which is what voters saw.  And in Ohio, we were going to get to make the same kind of decision in favor of the Jim and Joe Show. 

This is a different kind of race for the governor.  As Renacci will say, he’s not running against Mike DeWine; he’s running for Ohio.  But this is a primary race that would generally be protected from challengers because they are typically low turnout elections. The people who show up are usually inspired by dark money. That’s how people like Mike DeWine get power and keep it.  And it’s everything that’s wrong with Ohio.  So to run against Mike DeWine is running for Ohio.  But we’re talking about swamp creatures who are the only benefactors.  We need in Ohio essentially what Trump was able to do at the federal level, and it takes people who are independent of that dark money to make it happen.  Playing a conventional game of politics that sets up a specific media narrative would not make Ohio any less corrupt.  It’s essentially the media that is in on it all, they set the parameters of the dark money game, and they all feed off each other.  No, what we want in Ohio is freedom from those kinds of people.  Jim Renacci is independently successful and is personal friends with President Trump.  And so is Jim’s pick for Lt. Governor. 

Of course, the media narrative of the Joe Knopp announcement was that he was a Christian filmmaker, which is true.  But that doesn’t begin to tell the whole story of who Joe Knopp is.  It’s like saying that Steven Spielberg is a liberal film director.  That may be an aspect of who Steven Spielberg is, but it can’t be argued that Spielberg films generally reach out to all audiences.  And that was certainly the case with Joe’s movie, The Trump I Know.  The media doesn’t like people who make Christian movies that are every bit as good as Academy Award-winning films made in Hollywood.  Joe is very much a product of Hollywood and a realization that the political left has, which makes them very uncomfortable, that they don’t control the entire movie-making industry.  So to emphasize that Joe is a Christian for them is an attempt to limit his reach not only in the primary but also in the general election.  Yet, all this conventional thinking forgets is that for the first time in the history of America, especially under the DeWine administration, churches were closed while abortion clinics were open.  And DeWine put the abortion activist Amy Acton on his staff to essentially run Ohio for an entire year.  Voters have had some cold water thrown in their faces, where the government interrupted their religion and showed the fangs of the state’s power.  Ohio voters are primed to vote for an honest Christian crusader who loves President Trump and pledges to attack corruption without becoming consumed himself.  Yes, picking Joe Knopp was an intelligent move for Jim Renacci.  It’s not business as usual, and that’s the point. 

I left the Renacci event happy.  Finally, we would have a positive choice in Ohio by a few really good people who were independently successful and beyond the corruption of dark money.  And to have a chance to remove DeWine and replace him with Renacci with such staff, people like Joe Knopp start to repair what has been broken in Ohio after the Covid shutdowns by DeWine.  The best justice for all the bad things DeWine did would be to replace his place in the Swamp with the drain of Renacci and Knopp.  These are people that real conservatives in Ohio can truly cheer for and feel good about voting for.  Many of the years in the past when the voter turnout has been low, partly because the candidates are always swamp creatures like DeWine, which nobody gets excited about, options like these didn’t seem possible.  But Renacci and Knopp, well, there’s something that people can get excited about.  It’s great to have a choice finally, and in meeting Knopp, I can only say that he is one of the nicest people I have met this year.  Such a good person, and such a nice family.  To have people like that to vote for in an election is truly a treasure, and I think Ohio will enjoy the option.  True, the dark money monster is out there, but I think these guys have a good chance of getting new voter turnout activated.  And for that to be an option is a huge opportunity that will make 2022 a year of justice to remember.

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Vote No by Saying Yes: How Great Issac Adi and Darbi Boddy are for Lakota

Issac Adi and Darbi Boddy for Lakota School Board

I could tell you many stories about politics that are dire and would make you want to climb under a rock and never get involved again.  But sometimes, some stories are fantastic, and that is the case with the two endorsed Lakota school board candidates, Issac Adi and Darbi Boddy, who are running to replace incumbent Democrats in November of 2021.  Every event I have been to with these two has been good; a few examples are shown below.  The video might be a little rough, but it’s what they say that matters.  Darbi and Issac work well together and are as unselfish as I’ve ever seen in politics, in any position. I’ve said from the beginning that I supported four candidates for the school board, but in this race this year, the Republican endorsement is what matters.  In the past, liberals have infected the school board, so critical race theory and transexual policies became part of the dominant conversation. They have managed to hide their intentions by calling the school board “nonpartisan.” Well, we know that nothing in politics is “nonpartisan,” especially the Lakota school board.  But when this idea of supporting school board members for Lakota came up, I never thought that two of them who would win the endorsement would like each other so well. That’s when the “can you imagines” started coming to my mind, where the school board represented the conservatives of Butler County, Ohio truly, and that they worked well together.  It’s one thing to have conservative votes on the board to manage things the way voters expect, but that they would perform functional management is a bonus that didn’t seem possible. 

Vote for Darbi Boddy

For instance, Issac Adi went door to door in my precinct, letting people know who he was and when to vote for him.  My wife noticed him in our neighborhood, and they struck up a conversation at the end of my driveway.  Issac recognized her immediately, which I thought was remarkable considering the number of people he has met over several months, including big names like Jim Jordan.  I would imagine his head is spinning with all the people he’s had to shake hands with, so it did impress me that he remembered my wife.  That is one thing about Issac Adi; he is one of the most sincere people I’ve ever met in politics.  He truly cares and is a good person.  So he remembers people and cares about them long after the handshake.  Of course, he wanted to know where I was which my wife told him I was babysitting my grandkids inside the house.  So he came up to see me and talk for a bit. 

After talking and catching up, I noticed that Issac wore Darbi’s campaign sticker on his shirt.  He was doing the hard work of going door to door on a pretty hot day, full of enthusiasm after talking to many hundreds of people personally, and he was promoting Darbi along the way.  Now I know that they are both endorsed and are part of the same team.  But the way the vote occurs, they very much have to run individually.   The top vote-getters are the ones who win in these kinds of elections, and it’s always hard to beat an incumbent.  The union vote and latte-sipping liberals always show up on election night, making it hard for conservatives to get a lot of votes.  But here was Issac promoting Darbi just as much as he was promoting himself.  And as I understand it, Darbi has been doing the same.  She was out promoting her and Issac as a team, not just individual candidates.  For any election, that is a pretty unique concept that doesn’t have a lot of historical precedents. 

Adding their votes to that of the current Lynda O’Conner would be a game-changer at Lakota.  I have been to other events where I have seen the three of them talking, and the chemistry is just there.  You can see it from a long way off. I’ve been dealing with school board issues in many districts around Ohio for twenty years, and I have never seen such a good combo.  Seeing Issac that day took some of my natural cynicism toward politics into a place it had never been before.  It seemed possible that at Lakota, something good had a chance to happen.  They are both so much better than the other alternatives, and if people had an opportunity to see that for themselves, these two could get elected.   There are still very significant obstacles, but as hard as they have worked throughout September and into October, it seemed like more than a fantasy and more of an eventual reality.  Usually, when I think of the Lakota school board, I typically think of severe dysfunction and people who do not know what they are doing with the money.  But here were genuinely competent and hard-working people who actually liked each other, at least as much as I’ve ever seen in politics, and there was a chance for great things to happen at Lakota for the first time in forever. 

Vote for Issac Adi for Lakota School Board

Issac had to eventually leave and return to the campaign trail from my house, but it took a while.  I enjoyed his company so much that it took us a long time to say goodbye that day.  I can say that I have been talking actively with many of the old No Lakota Levy people preparing ourselves for levy fights in the years to come.  The current school board has been trying to find the time to put one up for a vote to satisfy the out-of-control spending the teacher’s union expects.  This was an election year. Otherwise, the current board would have proposed a tax increase this year.  Likely, they’ll wait until next year now that they’ve agreed to give all those teachers sitting home on Covid excuses a raise that they’ll have to pay for next year.  But a levy fight is so damaging.  It’s much better to support a new school board that would manage the money that we already give them, which is a massive 200 million-plus budget.  If you can’t teach 17,000 kids on that, you have problems.  But the school board has never listened. Instead, they have attacked businesses for more money, like trolls always looking for a shakedown of tax revenue to pay for their reckless and infinite spending ultimately. Lakota’s school board has been deficit spending for their entire existence; no matter how much money we’ve given them, they never find a way not to spend more than they take in.  When they did have a surplus for a bit because of declining enrollment, they couldn’t wait to waste it on something new.  With this prospect of an actual conservative school board to replace the majority of liberals, great things can happen.  Issac and Darbi have done the work to get people to know who they are.  Now it will be up to the voters.  For the first time in many of their lifetimes, they have a great choice as the Lakota school district residents.  They can vote for the same old tax and spend liberals that have screwed up so much at Lakota.  Or, they can vote for Issac Adi and Darbi Boddy, who enjoy each other, work hard, and care to give the board a conservative majority for the first time.  If voters don’t vote for them, then when the tax increases come, people won’t be able to complain about it because they had a chance to say no to those tax increases by saying yes to Darbi Boddy and Issac Adi. 

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Trent Emeneker is a Liberal in West Chester: Relative to Butler County, Ohio, the trustee challenger is a Democrat in disguise

Trent Emeneker Wants to Be a Liberal Trustee in West Chester, Ohio

Not a surprise; I’m a Mark Welch guy in West Chester.  Of course, I’m supporting Mark Welch for re-election to the West Chester trustees. He’s had that job for a while and has done a fantastic job.  West Chester, Ohio, is one of the greatest places to live in all of America.  As I said in the video above, I have recently returned from Jackson, Wyoming, which is per capita one of the wealthiest places in the United States.  I love Jackson Hole, Wyoming; I enjoyed shopping there with my family.  It was all very nice.  But it’s not nicer than West Chester, Ohio.  Not by a long shot.  I’ve been all over the United States and seen a lot of nice areas to live in.  When people vote for West Chester to be one of the best places anywhere to live, they aren’t kidding.  And Mark Welch gets a lot of credit for making it that way.  The process started long ago when Senator George Lang was a trustee and implemented a small-government philosophy, which the trustees still adhere to currently.  Small government anywhere, minimal, competent, government leads to prosperity.  A big, bloated government, especially filled by incompetent people, leads to corruption, disaster, and high costs to maintain that government.  In this upcoming race for re-election in November of 2021, Mark Welch is the small-government guy with a proven track record.  End of the story, vote for Mark and enjoy another term in office to keep West Chester great.

But there are always challenges to these kinds of positions, and this year is no different.  Liberals are always trying to replace conservatives as trustees, representatives, commissioners, everywhere.  And to do that, they have to pretend to be Republicans when, in fact, they are Democrats, relative to the kind of politics that we have in Butler County, Ohio.  The challenger this time is a guy by the name of Trent Emeneker, a recently laid-off employee at GE who needs something to do, so he decided to run for West Chester Trustee.  Now on paper, Trent will say that he’s a former Marine and a registered Republican.  However, the Democrats had a recent fundraiser for Trent hosted by the old Lakota school levy supporter Kathy Wyenandt at the AC Hotel at Liberty Center.  I was at the Roosevelt Room across the street around 5:30 PM on the Tuesday of that fundraiser and learned all about it from some little birdies who came to that back table complaining about the $10 drinks at the cash bar.  I didn’t know Trent much but thought it was strange that a so-called “fiscal” conservative was having a fundraiser with a Democrat, even if only a few people showed up.  I didn’t pay much attention to the guy until that point, but the fundraiser was enough of suspicion to inspire some research.  After all, who would question a former Marine?  Well, maybe people should ask those with a military record more often and not just assume they will be good officeholders.  That is how we ended up with General Milley.  In today’s military, many progressives are coming out of that system, so we can’t take anything for granted, which looks to be the case with Trent Emeneker.

The biggest problem with Trent is that he wants to hold a vote in West Chester to make the township into a city, which has long been a progressive plan wanted by people who attended Kathy Wyenandt’s fundraiser.  Do you know why they want to make West Chester into a city?  It’s not to better pay for roads and other social services.  We do well now with partnerships with Butler County to operate a great community with low crime, high service value, and without an income tax.  Liberals want to make West Chester a city to create more office positions for people who wish to sit in and get attention. I’m thinking of old-school levy supporters like Joan Powell, who has pushed for this city thing in West Chester for a long time.  With a city comes city council seats like what they have in Middletown and Mason.  Then, of course, there are significant positions such as mayors, vice mayors, and other offices.  Government expansion is what we are talking about, and for liberals, it’s a chance to do something progressive and raise taxes to pay for everything.   Right now, West Chester is run by essentially three trustees and a fiscal officer.  Parts of Butler County that are cities do not run better than West Chester.  The track record is unavoidable. 

Yet that is pretty much the campaign of Trent Emeneker.  Somebody that not even GE thought was worth having around since they let him go as part of their Covid-19 resizing. He wants to get on West Chester’s Board of Trustees and push to become a city so that more liberals can have some office to sit on and create more bureaucracy, such as what happens everywhere that government expands.  With West Chester interacting with hundreds of thousands of people in the residing area, providing services to them all efficiently and with a budget surplus most of the time, what else is there for Trent to do but complain about making government bigger?  This is where the “fiscal” conservative on his signs comes into play.  If he was a real conservative, not just somebody who might have voted for George Bush in the past or every other RINO like John Kasich, he does not think like a conservative.  It’s not enough to complain that the current Trustees spent millions of dollars on landscaping at the new exit off the highway.  Hey, when you manage your money, you can do that.  I like coming off that exit and seeing it look classy.  The amount of money that is generated off the Union Center exit in West Chester is enormous.  Planting a few flowers doesn’t make the current trustees fiscally reckless. Instead, they respect the great businesses camped out in West Chester because the trustees have protected them from the overly intrusive government Trent wants. 

These kinds of campaign theatrics used to work when people didn’t know better, but in West Chester, everyone can look at a track record of success.  Then to propose that government is what makes something great, which most liberals believe and what gives Trent away as a liberal, is to slap away everything successful in West Chester.  And that’s what would come with a vote for Trent Emeneker.  He can sell himself as Goose from Top Gun because he spent ten years in the Marines in the back of a Navy fighter.  I might like Top Gun, but I don’t know if I’d want Goose managing the money in my home township. I’d need more than that.  What matters to me is that he was so invaluable that he ended up on the lay-off list at GE when they decided they needed to reduce their workforce after Covid hit.  Why would he make a good trustee again if an employer didn’t even want him?  And when Democrats are pushing to get you elected, what does that say about the person running?  Yeah, I’m sure Trent is a nice fellow.  He probably is a nice husband and father.  But keep that guy away from money.  Because he’s a liberal in disguise, and he wants to expand government and change what has been working for us all very well already.

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business