Category: Hero

Fear, Fertility, and Ancient Instincts: An Observational Study from the Kings Island Haunt

In my view, ideological pressures have shaped scholarship and made certain questions difficult to examine openly. This is not a new problem. When I visited the Museum of the Bible and spent time with the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition and related high-level books on the formation of the biblical canon, the transition from earlier Near Eastern traditions to the exclusive worship of Yahweh, and the pre-Israelite cultures of Canaan, I kept encountering the same pattern: ritual practices involving fertility, sacrifice, and the role of women were either minimized or reframed in ways that avoided uncomfortable historical realities.  The same tendency appears in discussions of pre-Columbian copper-working cultures around Lake Superior, where evidence of large-scale indigenous mining dating back thousands of years is accepted, yet contemporary academic assumptions often constrain questions about broader cultural contacts, religious practices, or the nature of those societies.

I wanted to test one specific question with direct observation rather than theory alone. The question concerned how women, particularly those in childbearing years, respond under sudden fear, and whether that response retains traces of older cultural and biological patterns. Ancient Near Eastern sources, including biblical condemnations of Canaanite practices, describe fertility cults associated with deities such as Baal and Asherah/Astarte. These involved sexual rites intended to stimulate agricultural and human fertility through sympathetic magic. While modern scholarship has become more cautious about the precise scale of “sacred prostitution,” the biblical texts themselves (Deuteronomy 23, Hosea 4, 2 Kings 23) treat the practices as real and objectionable enough to prohibit.  Parallel patterns appear in accounts of other cultures that used sexual signaling or ritualized access to women as a means of managing powerful or dangerous forces.

An Observational Method: Playing Jason at Kings Island

In the fall of 2026, I auditioned for and worked as Jason Voorhees in the Jason: Blood Reign attraction at Kings Island’s Halloween Haunt. The role placed me in a controlled environment where thousands of guests moved through a maze under strobe lights, timed sound effects, and deliberate jump scares. I was often at the curtain, where timing and speed produced consistent reactions. Over multiple eight-hour shifts, I observed a broad cross-section of Cincinnati and southern Ohio residents. The hockey mask created a psychological barrier that made sustained observation easier than face-to-face interaction.

Men and women reacted differently under the same stimulus. Men often stiffened, tried to project toughness, or positioned themselves protectively. A noticeable subset of women in the approximate age range of the late teens through the early fifties—the years when sexual signaling capacity is highest—responded by flashing, winking, sticking out their tongues, making explicit sexual gestures, or saying some version of “Jason, I love you.” I estimated this at roughly five percent of the women who passed through under direct scare conditions, with a larger group showing subtler eye contact or flirtatious recovery behaviors once the immediate fright subsided. These were not isolated incidents. They repeated night after night across a large sample.

Historical and Biological Context

The pattern is consistent with both historical fertility practices and with findings in evolutionary psychology. Anne Campbell’s work on sex differences in fear, and the broader “staying alive” literature, documents that women on average exhibit stronger fear responses and more self-protective strategies than men. Self-protection carries higher fitness value for women because of the demands of pregnancy and dependent offspring.  Sexual signaling is one available tool for reducing threat or securing protection in unstable conditions. In a modern haunted attraction, the threat is theatrical, yet the first-order physiological reaction appears to draw on older circuitry.

The same logic appears in non-theatrical settings. Women at rock concerts and at Mardi Gras flash as a status display and a way to seek access from high-status males in the room. The behavior is not random. It is a calculated or semi-automatic use of a resource historically exchanged for security, resources, or reduced danger. Ancient temple practices formalized a version of the same exchange. Contemporary culture has largely removed the religious framing while retaining the underlying bargaining pattern.

Why the Observation Matters

I do not claim that five percent of women will behave this way under every form of stress, nor that the behavior defines women as a class. I do claim that the frequency is high enough, and consistent enough across a large public sample, that it cannot be dismissed as noise. It also cannot be fully explained by “just having fun in a haunted house.” The guests knew they were in a commercial attraction. The response still emerged when fear was suddenly activated. Evolutionary and historical accounts predict exactly this kind of residual pattern; much current academic and political discourse treats the pattern as either nonexistent or unmentionable.

The biblical narrative of Eve and the serpent is one ancient attempt to describe a recurring vulnerability: a point of entry through which external influence can operate by appealing to desire rather than force. Cultures that later restricted women’s formal political or economic roles often cited long observation of this dynamic, not abstract misogyny. Whether those restrictions were justified in every case is a separate question. The observational record, both ancient and modern, shows that a non-trivial minority of women will use sexual access as a primary tool for securing safety or advantage when other tools feel unavailable. Pretending the pattern does not exist does not make the underlying incentives disappear.

This short account is the observational core of a longer project. The data come from repeated, structured exposure to the same stimulus across thousands of people in a single season. Further controlled work would be useful. What I observed at Kings Island in October 2026 is not an outlier. It is a visible remainder of patterns that ancient texts, archaeological records, and evolutionary psychology have all described from different directions. The question is whether contemporary scholarship is willing to look at the remainder directly.

Footnotes

1.  Museum of the Bible hosted an authenticated Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition in partnership with the Israel Antiquities Authority beginning in November 2025, distinct from earlier forged fragments previously associated with the museum.

2.  Lake Superior copper mining by indigenous groups is documented from roughly 9,500–6,000 years ago onward, with thousands of pits and cold-hammered artifacts recovered from Isle Royale and the Keweenaw Peninsula.

3.  Biblical prohibitions on cultic sexual practices appear in Deuteronomy 23:17–18, Hosea 4:14, and the Josiah reforms in 2 Kings 23:7. Scholarly debate continues over the precise institutional form of these practices, but the texts treat them as real and objectionable.

4.  Anne Campbell and subsequent work on the “staying alive” hypothesis document consistent sex differences in fear intensity and self-protective behavior across multiple threat domains.

5.  The five-percent figure is an observational estimate based on repeated shifts in the Jason: Blood Rain attraction; it is not a formal statistical sample but reflects consistent patterning across a large public throughput.

Bibliography

•  Campbell, Anne. Sex Differences in Fear Response: An Evolutionary Perspective. Springer, 2021.

•  Benenson, Joyce F., et al. “Self-protection as an adaptive female strategy.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2021.

•  Lipiński, Edward. “Cult Prostitution and Passage Rites in the Biblical World.” The Biblical Annals, 2019.

•  Pompeani, David P., et al. “Copper mining on Isle Royale 6500–5400 years ago.” The Holocene, 2015.

•  Scientific American reporting on lead-isotope evidence for Archaic copper production in the Lake Superior basin.

•  Museum of the Bible / Israel Antiquities Authority materials on the 2025–2026 Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition.

•  Biblical texts: Deuteronomy 23, Hosea 4, 2 Kings 23; Ugaritic mythological texts on Baal and Anat.

•  Herodotus, Histories (on Babylonian temple practices); comparative ancient Near Eastern sources collected in Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament.

•  Buss, David M. and related evolutionary psychology literature on female threat management and sexual signaling.

•  Hoffman, Rich. Prior essays and podcast material on the politics of fear, institutional incentives, and the limits of contemporary academic framing.

Rich Hoffman

More about me

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

About the Author: Rich Hoffman

Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly by email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com.  If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.

Why the Lakota Levy Passed: Property Taxes, Free Services, and the Psychology of the Renewal

People constantly complain that property taxes are too high. They see the bill, feel the squeeze, and then, when they are handed a clear chance to lower it, a critical number still votes to keep paying. The Lakota bond was the textbook case. An existing set of bonds totaling roughly 2.23 mills was set to expire at the end of 2028. The replacement on the ballot was framed at 2.20 mills, with collection delayed until 2029 so that, on paper, the bond portion of the school tax rate would not rise. District materials and officials repeated “no anticipated increase in the bond tax rate.” That language is true in a narrow sense and misleading in the practical one. A “no” vote would have allowed the old millage to roll off. Homeowners would have seen a reduction once the prior debt was paid. Enough voters could not get their minds around the idea of giving themselves that money back. They had been paying it. They assumed they would keep paying it. The renewal looked safer than the unknown of a lower bill. That is the calculated risk school boards have run for decades. Offer a large prior ask, come back with a “reasonable” number, call it a renewal or replacement, and count on the confusion.

Across southwest Ohio, the pattern held elsewhere. Fairfield’s 1.25 percent earned income tax failed, roughly 52–48 against. Other operating and income-tax measures went down. Only three of twelve school funding questions in the broader region passed. Lakota’s was one of them, and it was the one that could be sold as not raising the current bond rate. The board knew the psychology. A larger request had already failed in 2025. They adjusted the ask, timed the collection after the old bonds expired, secured state construction money that required local approval, and ran the classic public-education play. Statistically, renewals of existing taxes pass more often than brand-new ones for exactly this reason. People treat the status quo as the default. They do not sit down and calculate what happens when the revenue is about to disappear.

Free Babysitting, Public Education, and the Vote for the Status Quo

Many voters want the free service. They want a free place to drop the kids off so they don’t have to pay for it themselves. They want the public education system to keep operating at the scale they have grown used to, even while many of the same people say they resist the ideological content that has crept into it. That tension is real. Plenty of parents do not want their children taught to be losers or to absorb every progressive fashion, yet they still treat the buildings, the bus routes, and the daily childcare as a non-negotiable entitlement. When the choice is presented as “keep paying what you already pay and keep the system running” versus “vote no and the system has to adjust,” enough of them choose the first option. The Lakota resistance made a strong argument for tax reduction. That wasn’t enough to counter the free-stuff instinct and the confusion about how renewals actually work. The liberal-leaning elements that run many of these boards understand the math. They put a number on the ballot that looks more reasonable than the last one, they emphasize that it is a replacement, and they let the statistical confusion do the rest. It is not an accident. It is the mechanism that keeps property-tax revenue flowing so the school system and the related government services continue.

Amy Acton as Governor and the Broader Free-Stuff Message

That local pattern sat inside a larger statewide result. Amy Acton is now the governor-elect. She is the former Ohio Department of Health director who led the early COVID lockdowns. Many people still associate her with those restrictions. Some successfully painted her as the lockdown lady. At the same time, she and the Democratic ticket ran on the language of free stuff, affordability relief, and government services. Plenty of voters, including some who had supported Trump in prior cycles, wanted the free babysitting, the free or reduced costs, and the sense that someone else would absorb the expense. They did not want to hear the detailed argument about what public education actually costs or how a different administration might have constrained those costs. Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign was associated with Trump and with wealth. Democrats successfully painted him as a rich guy who did not care about the cost of bread. The oil-refinery capacity issues, the price effects of the Iranian conflict that began in late February 2026, and the failure to put sustained public pressure on energy companies never became the dominant message. Gas prices stayed high. People felt it. The media complex that wanted to preserve a hostile Islamic regime in Iran for its own reasons, and that had no interest in a quick resolution that would have undercut the narrative, did not cover the story the way it needed to be covered. Trump’s administration had the war; the war did not resolve as quickly as some hoped because the Iranian people, facing a regime that arrives at night and removes dissidents, did not take the final step of overthrow. The costs lingered. Republicans at the state level did not get a simple, repeated message across that they would preserve services while reducing the burden. Acton slid in on the free-stuff and affordability language while the more complicated defense of results never landed.

Liberty Township, Coastal Habits, and the Tax-as-Default Mindset

Look at the precinct patterns, and you see the same psychology in concentrated form. Liberty Township comes in early in the reporting, and it is not the hard-core Republican stronghold some expect. Coastal transplants, apartment complexes, and people who moved from places where high taxes and big-government services are simply the way of life. They support tax increases or renewals because that is what they know. The idea that they can vote to give themselves savings on an expiring tax does not compute for many of them. They assume the government will take the money and they will live under it. That is the impression of a tyrannical, or at least inevitable, state they carry with them. They stick themselves with the cost even when the logic of the ballot says they can choose otherwise. The same voters who complain about property taxes or the cost of living still vote to keep free services and a free place to drop the kids. They have been trained that way. When Acton put the broader version of that bargain on the ballot, enough of them took it.

Statewide Tax Measures and the Limits of the Anti-Tax Argument

Across the state, the same dynamic appeared in other forms. Property-tax and income-tax proposals faced resistance in some places and still passed where they could be framed as renewals or as necessary to preserve services. Government types who want the services, and the voters who want the free stuff, outnumber or out-motivate the people who want to confiscate less from those who produce. That is why the socialist-populist platform was on the ballot in 2026 and why it benefited from the confusion and the desire for someone else to pay. Republicans talked about reducing property taxes. When the concrete chance arrived in places like Lakota, the message did not break through the habit of renewal. People who don’t want to give out the free stuff often stay home or vote less intensely because they have lost faith in the larger system. The people who want the free stuff show up. That is why local resistance can make a strong case and still lose by a couple of points. It is also why the school-board calculated risk works year after year.

What the Iranian Conflict and Media Coverage Had to Do With It

None of this local tax psychology exists in isolation from the larger economic pressure. The Iranian war drove energy prices higher. National averages rose substantially after the late-February 2026 actions and the Strait of Hormuz disruptions. Ohio saw large increases as well. Households felt it at the pump and in the cost of goods. The administration had tools—refinery capacity explanations, public pressure on oil companies, a clear defense of why the action against a terrorist, Marxist, Muslim-fundamentalist regime was necessary—but those points did not dominate the conversation. Media that preferred stability under the prior Iranian order, or that opposed Trump, did not amplify the counter-narrative. People blamed the war for price gouging and supply constraints, and they blamed the administration for the war. Voters who were already broke did not reward the side that had failed to deliver lower prices, even when the alternative was the lockdown figure offering free stuff. The same voters who could not figure out how to give themselves a property-tax reduction on a local bond also could not figure out, or did not want to hear, the more complicated story about energy. They wanted the immediate relief of someone else paying.

Conclusion: People Get What They Vote For

The Lakota bond passed because enough people could not or would not treat the expiring tax as money they could reclaim. They voted to keep free babysitting and free public education. Amy Acton’s statewide victory reflected the same preference for free stuff and the opposing side’s failure to make the cost-and-results argument stick. Liberty Township and similar pockets voted like coastal transplants who treat high taxes as normal. The school board ran a calculated risk with a renewal number and won by a narrow margin. Across the state, many other levies failed, but the ones that could be sold as “already paying this” had a built-in advantage. It is a shame in the sense that voters had a clear chance to lower their own burden, and a critical number of them did not take it. It is also the ordinary result of the incentives. People who want free stuff vote for it. People who do not want to fund it often stay home or split their tickets when they have lost faith. The public-education system and the related government services know how to present the renewal so that the confusion works in their favor. That mechanism is not going to disappear. The 2026 results, locally and statewide, confirmed that the psychology still holds.

Footnotes

1.  Unofficial Butler County results and Journal-News reporting (Nov. 3–4, 2026): Lakota Local Schools Issue 2, 37-year 2.20-mill replacement bond for approximately $223 million, passed 51% to 49%. Collection begins in 2029 after existing bonds (roughly 2.23 mills) expire at the end of 2028. The district said it doesn’t anticipate increasing the bond tax rate. Opponents noted a “no” vote would reduce taxes once prior debt rolled off.

2.  FOX19 and local reporting: Only three of twelve school funding measures in southwest Ohio passed. Fairfield’s 1.25% earned income tax failed, with 52–48% of voters. Lakota’s bond was one of the three that passed.

3.  Lakota enrollment figures reported in the 17,000–17,300 range with projected growth; state construction funding of about $77 million contingent on local approval. A prior larger request failed in 2025.

4.  Butler County MHARS mental-health levy (1-mill renewal, 10 years) passed 61–39 according to Journal-News and related tallies.

5.  Statewide Ohio results (Secretary of State and major outlets as of Nov. 4, 2026): Amy Acton (D) defeated Vivek Ramaswamy (R) for governor, approximately 52% to 44%. Acton is the former Ohio Department of Health director associated with early COVID restrictions.

6.  Energy and affordability context: Post-late-February 2026 Iran-related conflict and Strait of Hormuz disruptions drove national gas-price increases of roughly 40% or more; Ohio increases reported in the 35–48% range in various analyses. CPI inflation near 3.7% year-over-year in recent data. Multiple outlets linked pocketbook pressure to midterm outcomes.

7.  Precinct and demographic notes drawn from local reporting patterns and consistent voter-behavior observations in Liberty Township and similar areas.

Selected Bibliography / Further Reading

•  Journal-News coverage of Lakota Schools bond results and related Butler County election reporting (November 3–4, 2026).

•  Butler County Board of Elections unofficial results and Ohio Secretary of State feeds.

•  FOX19, Cincinnati Enquirer, and local12 summaries of southwest Ohio school levy outcomes.

•  Statewide election summaries (AP, Dispatch, WKRC, Ballotpedia) on the Acton–Ramaswamy race and other Ohio contests.

•  Energy-price and inflation reporting from AAA/EIA data, NBC, Fox, Reuters, and related analyses of 2026 midterm affordability issues.

•  District materials and treasurer explanations on bond versus operating-levy distinctions and the timing of collection relative to expiring debt.

Rich Hoffman

More about me

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

About the Author: Rich Hoffman

Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly by email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com.  If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.

How a Ramaswamy Administration Could Make Ohio the Leader in Affordable Cancer Treatments — and Give Republicans a Winning Healthcare Story for 2028

I picked up one of my favorite shirts at the White House. I love that place, and I love what the Trump administration has done and continues to do. It makes me think about continuity, about practical people who get results, and about the kind of energy we need in the states. I’m excited about Vivek Ramaswamy in Ohio. The race is competitive—recent polls have shown leads within the margin of error and prediction markets have favored his opponent more strongly—but I look at the internals, the trajectory, and the opportunity, and I believe he can win. Assuming that path, Ohio has a unique chance to lead the country on something that matters more to ordinary families than almost anything else: the crushing cost of healthcare, starting with cancer treatments.

I’ve been thinking about this for years. Friends have faced cancer. I’ve watched the bills, the delays, the sense that the system is designed more to manage disease than to fix people. The way for Republicans to win on healthcare in 2028 is not another tax credit or block grant that sounds like accounting. It is a concrete story: we cut the price of the most expensive treatments by attacking the cost-plus culture that has defined medicine the same way it once defined aerospace. We make advanced care available faster and cheaper. We fix people.

SpaceX is the right frame. Elon Musk and his team did not invent rockets. They applied vertical integration, rapid iteration, and a ruthless attack on cost-plus assumptions that had been baked into the industry for decades. NASA’s Shuttle delivered payload to low Earth orbit at something like $54,500 per kilogram. Falcon 9 brought that down toward $2,720 per kilogram—an order-of-magnitude improvement driven by reusability, in-house manufacturing of critical components, and a culture that squeezed suppliers and eliminated layers of markup. Roughly 80 percent of Falcon hardware was built in-house at Hawthorne. The “idiot index”—raw materials representing only a tiny fraction of final cost—forced first-principles thinking. That is the model. Cancer care is stuck in the opposite posture: academic timelines, slow FDA pathways, venture capital that demands multi-year runways before it moves, and pricing that treats every new therapy as a custom, high-margin product.

Ohio already has the raw material. Two weeks ago the James Cancer Center at Ohio State published a Phase 1 trial in Blood Cancer Discovery. Researchers tested a point-of-care manufactured trispecific CAR-T product targeting CD19, CD20, and CD22, enhanced with an OX40 costimulatory domain. Sixteen patients (median age 64) who had already burned through a median of three prior therapies received the cells. In the B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma subset, the complete response rate was 83 percent. There was no severe cytokine release syndrome and no neurotoxicity. Median vein-to-vein time was about seven days. That is not incremental. That is the kind of result that can rewrite parts of the treatment algorithm when it scales.

Around the same time, Ohio State licensed next-generation dual-payload antibody-drug conjugate technology to BiFormyx BioPharma. The company is moving its headquarters to Columbus and is targeting an Investigational New Drug filing in early 2028 for programs aimed at aggressive solid tumors such as triple-negative breast cancer. The entrepreneurs are not hypothetical. They are already in the state, building on James Center infrastructure that no pure startup can match.

A Ramaswamy administration would not need to invent cancer research. It would need to do three practical things. First, treat the James Center and Cincinnati Children’s as anchor tenants the way SpaceX treated Hawthorne—build the surrounding ecosystem of suppliers, manufacturers, and trial capacity around them instead of scattering small grants. Second, compress the state’s role in clinical trial siting and IRB approvals so Ohio becomes the fastest place in America to run a first-in-human study. A state-level regulatory sandbox that allows expanded access for therapies that have cleared Phase 1 while the national FDA process continues would put desperate patients on a plane to Columbus instead of Europe or Mexico. That builds both the clinical data and the political testimony at the same time. Third, use the governor’s office and the congressional delegation to push FDA pathway reform specifically for cell and gene therapies, while launching a manufacturing initiative so advanced therapies are built here. That sounds like jobs. It is jobs. It also happens to cure people.

The honest political caveat is that a pure “cure for cancer” message carries risk. Joe Biden’s moonshot language ran into the reality that many trials exist but the system is slow and expensive. Pharma has incentives to protect high-margin models. The safer, stronger 2028 pitch is not “we cured cancer.” It is “we cut the price by a large fraction and made advanced care available in county hospitals.” Direct medical costs of cancer care were already estimated above $200 billion annually and are projected to climb further; oncology drug spending alone is on a path toward hundreds of billions more by 2030. Families feel the $200 syringe and the six-figure episode. A SpaceX-style attack on the manufacturing and process costs of CAR-T and next-generation ADCs—point-of-care production, standardized platforms, elimination of custom-build markups—turns that into a diner-table number a voter in Dayton can understand.

Day one is not a task force. It is one connector with no ego and a mandate: get the founder, the family office, the hospital executive, and one skeptical journalist in a room every month. I know people who would make powerful patient testimony—friends who have lived the system. Put one of them on camera early. The three-month runway is to assemble the core group, file the sandbox concept, and open conversations with the Trump administration for continuity on FDA reform. The durability beyond any single administration is the real prize. Healthcare is the issue that does not care about team colors. Every cycle Republicans are asked what they will do, and the answer has usually been accounting. “We fix the thing that costs you more than your mortgage” is a different animal. It turns a defensive issue into an offensive one and gives the party a story about results rather than a man.

I have said for years that the person who can talk to anyone, get the money people and the operators in a room, and handle the public relations against the entrenched interests is more valuable than another PhD on staff. That is the SpaceX culture applied to medicine. Ohio can lead it. The technology is further along than most people realize. The politics have been the bottleneck. A friendly administration that treats this like a campaign—speed, visibility, manufacturing, and patient stories—can change the cost structure of healthcare by making advanced treatments practical instead of perpetually expensive.

If you are interested in the kind of first-principles thinking that produced The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, this is the same mindset applied to the largest cost problem in American life. Ohio has the anchors. A Ramaswamy administration can put the right people in the rooms. The rest is execution.

Footnotes

1.  Ohio governor race polling and prediction markets as of late October 2026 (Cleveland.com, State of the Odds / Kalshi-Polymarket data).

2.  Vasu S, et al. Safety and Clinical Outcomes of a First-in-Human Trial of Point-of-Care Manufactured Trispecific CAR T Cells Targeting CD19, CD20, and CD22. Blood Cancer Discovery. 2026;7(5). DOI: 10.1158/2643-3230.BCD-26-0186. OSUCCC–James lead.

3.  CancerNetwork summary of the same trial: 83% complete responses in the B-NHL subset; no severe CRS or neurotoxicity.

4.  Ohio State licensing of next-generation dual-payload ADC technology to BiFormyx BioPharma (October 2026 announcement); IND target early 2028.

5.  AACR Cancer Progress Report 2026 and related estimates of direct cancer care costs exceeding $200 billion (2020 baseline figures, ongoing growth).

6.  Milliman analysis of oncology drug spending trajectory toward $400 billion by 2030.

7.  NASA Shuttle ~$54,500/kg vs. Falcon 9 ~$2,720/kg (various aerospace analyses, including Harry Jones / NASA Ames references); SpaceX vertical integration figures from company and independent reporting.

8.  JAMA Oncology viewpoint on rising median monthly launch prices for systemic therapies (2023–2025 data).

Selected Bibliography

•  Vasu S, Denlinger N, Song NJ, et al. “Safety and Clinical Outcomes of a First-in-Human Trial of Point-of-Care Manufactured Trispecific CAR T Cells Targeting CD19, CD20, and CD22.” Blood Cancer Discovery 7, no. 5 (2026).

•  American Association for Cancer Research. Cancer Progress Report 2026.

•  Milliman. “The oncology drug landscape: Spend trends, market dynamics, and the road to 2030” (2026).

•  Shah C. “Rethinking Value in Cancer Care in the US.” JAMA Oncology (October 2026).

•  Ohio State University Office of Enterprise for Research, Innovation and Knowledge. Licensing announcements for BiFormyx BioPharma dual-payload ADC platform (2025–2026).

•  SpaceX and independent analyses of Falcon 9 reusability and vertical integration (Hawthorne manufacturing, cost-per-kilogram comparisons versus Shuttle).

•  Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker and related national health expenditure data.

•  American Cancer Society and National Cancer Institute studies on cancer-attributable medical costs by phase of care.

Rich Hoffman

More about me

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

About the Author: Rich Hoffman

Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly by email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com.  If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.

The Tool Belt Life: Why a Superior Existence Still Starts with Tools, Calloused Hands, and the Refusal of the Administrative State

In the age of disclosure, you must understand the Politics of Heaven. The administrative state has failed. It produces bureaucrats, form-fillers, and people trained to manage decline rather than fix anything. Meanwhile, the people who still know how to put a tool belt on and make something work again are the ones quietly holding the real economy together. I have learned this the hard way, across decades of executive work, competitive shooting, gunsmithing, and long hours in machine shops. The happiest version of my life has always involved tools.

A Tool Belt Full of Useful Things

I was at O’Reilly’s recently, talking with the counter guy, and he showed me a small 3/8-inch drive universal joint with a spring in it. Most of those joints flop around the moment you get them into a tight spot. This one has a spring that lets it stand up and stay put until you apply force. Titan Tools. Simple, clever, and exactly the kind of thing that makes a working day better. It went straight into the belt.

That belt already carries a telescopic magnet for fishing dropped fasteners out of engine bays and dashboards, a selection of screwdrivers, O-ring picks that actually work, a half-inch drive ratchet, and a pair of DeWalt pliers I genuinely like. The grips on the pliers are supposed to be bright yellow. They are now dark with oil and use, which is how I prefer them. There is nothing ornamental about any of it. Every item has been chosen because it solves a recurring problem.

When I strap that belt on to work on a car in the driveway, or when I used to carry one every day, the day feels correctly ordered. You have the tools you need. You can see the problem, isolate it, and correct it. That is a form of competence the administrative world almost never delivers.

Machine Shop Days and the Double-Stack Toolbox

In my late teens and early twenties I worked in a machine shop attached to a metal-stamping operation. It was a rough place. People got hurt. The work was loud, dirty, and unforgiving. They called it a “sitter” in the older language of the trade—an operation that chewed through equipment and required constant attention. I learned to set dies, make dies, troubleshoot production lines, and keep machines running. I also learned how to work alongside people who had no interest in office politics or motivational posters. They cared whether the part was good and whether the press kept cycling.

Later I refurbished old machinery for a living. We would bring in worn-out equipment, tear it down to the last nut and bolt, and rebuild it. I kept a double-stacked toolbox in the shop. In the 1990s that box held roughly a thousand dollars’ worth of tools, many of them custom or modified for specific jobs. I looked forward to work because the tools were there and the problems were concrete. When I moved into more executive roles, that daily contact with tools largely disappeared. The satisfaction did not transfer automatically to meetings and spreadsheets.

Gunsmithing, Competitive Shooting, and the Real Pleasure

Early in my marriage I set up a gunsmithing shop behind the house. I studied the craft because I wanted to work for myself and because the tools are specialized and satisfying: spring compressors, sear jigs, headspace gauges, bolt-face tools, and the particular screwdrivers and punches required for Ruger, Browning, and other actions. The guns themselves were interesting, but the tools and the process of diagnosing and correcting problems were what I enjoyed most.

Competitive fast shooting later gave me an outlet on weekends. From roughly 2018 through 2025 I shot a lot, won a lot of first-place trophies, and filled part of the office with them. The shooting itself was enjoyable—drawing, presenting, and hitting plates in a quarter or half second is a pure skill. What I came to realize, though, was that the part I looked forward to most was the workbench. Before one of the last events, in Cleveland, a gun had developed a tick. The mechanism was catching on the frame. We took the gun apart, identified the interference, and dressed it. I intended to replace the part properly once I got home. Standing there with the gun disassembled, the right tools laid out, and a clear mechanical problem in front of me, I recognized the pattern again. The shooting was the excuse. The tools and the troubleshooting were the pleasure.

Every serious competitor ends up with a small collection of specialized items: the correct bit for the screw that loosens under recoil, the fixture that holds a slide while you stone a surface, the gauge that tells you whether the timing is still correct. Building that kit, and using it under time pressure before a match, felt like the same work I had done in the machine shop decades earlier. It was crew-chief work, not spectator work.

Public Education, the Administrative Class, and What Young People Actually Need

Public education has spent decades training people to become members of the administrative bureaucracy. It has done this systematically and with considerable success. The result is a surplus of people who can navigate forms, attend meetings, and manage processes, and a shortage of people who can diagnose a hydraulic leak, set a die, pull a wiring harness, or rebuild a transmission. We talk about college as the default path while the skilled trades remain under-taught and, in many places, socially discouraged.

I have no interest in romanticizing hard physical work for its own sake. The point is narrower and more practical: a society that cannot produce and retain people who know how to fix things will not remain productive. The administrative state can write regulations. It cannot keep the machines running. When the machines stop, the regulations become irrelevant.

Young men in particular have been steered away from this path for a generation. Many of them now reach their mid-twenties without basic mechanical competence. Women notice. A man who cannot change a tire, change the oil, or diagnose a simple electrical problem is less useful as a partner and less useful as a citizen. This is not a complicated observation, and it does not require hostility toward anyone. It is simply a description of what has happened when schools stopped teaching shop, when parents stopped requiring basic mechanical literacy, and when culture began treating hands-on work as a fallback rather than a respectable primary path.

Home-improvement television and the tool aisles at places like O’Reilly’s exist for a reason. People still want to solve physical problems. The gadgets keep improving—better ratchets, magnetic trays, spring-loaded universals, compact torque wrenches, inspection cameras—because the underlying need has not gone away.

The Economic Case for the Tool Belt

The next wave of American productivity will not be led exclusively by people who write code or manage brand narratives. Space launch, electric vehicles, robotics, data-center construction, and advanced manufacturing all require large numbers of technicians who can work with tools, read drawings, troubleshoot in real time, and keep complex systems operating. Tesla-style manufacturing, reusable rocketry, and the supporting industrial base will need people who treat a tool belt as normal daily equipment rather than a costume.

Companies such as Carvana have tried to reorganize automotive retail around logistics and software. Some of those experiments will succeed in pieces; others will discover that physical goods still require physical maintenance. The firms that scale will be the ones that can recruit and retain people who already know how to use tools and who take satisfaction in the work. Those people are currently in short supply.

I am not arguing that everyone should abandon white-collar work. I am arguing that the cultural hierarchy which treats skilled trades as inferior has been a mistake, and that the economic consequences of that mistake are becoming visible. A person who can make a living with a tool belt, who owns the tools, and who looks forward to using them is in a stronger position than many people with higher formal credentials and less practical capability. The work is measurable. The customer either gets a running machine or does not. There is less room for the kind of ambiguity that administrative roles often reward.

Personal Conclusion

Across machine-shop work in my twenties, gunsmithing in the early years of marriage, competitive shooting on weekends, and the ordinary maintenance of cars and equipment at home, the pattern has been consistent. The periods in which I used tools every day were the periods I looked forward to most. Executive work has its own satisfactions and its own necessities, but it has never replaced the direct feedback of diagnosing a problem, selecting the right tool, and correcting the fault.

If a young person can learn a trade, acquire good tools, and make a living while wearing a tool belt, that person has a realistic chance at a high-quality life. The marriage, the family stability, and the personal satisfaction tend to follow the competence rather than the other way around. Public education has spent too many years teaching the opposite lesson. The correction will not come from another round of administrative reforms. It will come from people who simply decide to learn how to fix things and who refuse to treat that skill as second-class.

The future economy will reward them. In the meantime, a well-stocked tool belt remains one of the more reliable sources of ordinary happiness available.

Footnotes

1.  The spring-loaded 3/8-inch universal joint is a small but representative example of incremental tool improvement. Older flex-joint designs required constant manual positioning; the spring returns the joint to a usable attitude, reducing frustration in confined spaces.

2.  “Sitter” was shop-floor language for certain stamping or forming operations that demanded continuous operator or maintenance attention because of wear rates, material variability, or tooling sensitivity. Injury rates in older metal-stamping environments were high by modern standards.

3.  The double-stacked toolbox from the 1990s refurbishing work contained both standard and job-specific tooling. Custom ground punches, modified wrenches, and dedicated fixtures were common because production machinery of that era was not designed for rapid field service.

4.  Competitive practical shooting requires ongoing gunsmith-level maintenance. Recoil, fouling, and high round counts loosen fasteners, alter timing, and reveal small dimensional problems that range guns rarely expose. Most serious competitors maintain a traveling tool kit for exactly this reason.

5.  Matthew B. Crawford’s Shop Class as Soulcraft (2009) remains one of the clearer modern arguments that manual competence produces a distinct form of cognitive and moral satisfaction largely absent from many administrative and symbolic-analytic jobs.

6.  Public high-school shop programs declined sharply after the 1970s–1980s in most U.S. districts. The shift coincided with rising college-enrollment targets and a cultural redefinition of “good” jobs as those requiring bachelor’s degrees. Skilled-trade shortages in construction, manufacturing maintenance, and automotive repair have been widely documented since the mid-2010s.

7.  Basic mechanical literacy (tire changes, oil changes, simple electrical diagnosis, plumbing and electrical fundamentals) functions as a practical filter in household and community life. Its absence is frequently noted in discussions of partner selection and household stability, independent of broader ideological framing.

8.  Advanced manufacturing, commercial space, electric-vehicle production, and data-center build-out all increase demand for technicians who combine traditional mechanical skills with newer diagnostic tools (thermal imaging, borescopes, precision torque, digital multimeters, and basic programmable-logic troubleshooting). The tool belt evolves; it does not disappear.

Bibliography & Further Reading

•  Hoffman, Rich. The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business. (Personal framework connecting competitive shooting, tool use, executive decision-making, and individual agency.)

•  Crawford, Matthew B. Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work. Penguin, 2009.

•  Rowe, Mike. Profoundly Disconnected (various essays and talks on skilled trades and cultural attitudes toward manual work).

•  Pirsig, Robert M. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. (Classic exploration of quality, tools, and the relationship between mechanic and machine.)

•  Sennett, Richard. The Craftsman. Yale University Press, 2008.

•  Industry reporting on skilled-trade shortages: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics occupational outlooks for industrial machinery mechanics, automotive technicians, electricians, and millwrights (ongoing).

•  Historical context on the decline of vocational education: various state and federal reports from the 1980s–2000s documenting the reduction of shop programs in public secondary schools.

The tools remain available. The work remains necessary. The satisfaction, for those willing to acquire the skill, has not been repealed by any administrative decree.

Rich Hoffman

More about me

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

About the Author: Rich Hoffman

Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com.  If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.

Jason at Kings Island and the Rules of the Haunted House: Why Darbi Boddy Is Right About Islam Using American Freedoms to Undo Christian Culture in West Chester

The Window Needs Moving, and Someone Has to Pull It

I have known Ann Becker for a long time. She knows what it takes to stand in a public meeting, take the heat, and keep talking when the institutional machinery wants to shut down the conversation. That is why I listen when Darbi Boddy speaks. She has spent years crossing the state, appearing at school board meetings, and putting uncomfortable realities on the record about how certain Islamic communities in Western countries treat the American premises of free speech, free exercise of religion, and separation of church and state. A Christian people built those premises for a Christian culture. They were never designed as a one-way shield for a competing civilizational order whose own foundational texts and majority opinion in many of its societies reject the same liberties when the roles reverse.

West Chester needs people willing to say this out loud. Mark Welch is no longer a township trustee. The current board is Ann Becker as chair, Lee Wong, and Amanda Ortiz. The board needs clear-eyed leadership that doesn’t treat every demand for religious accommodation as automatically benign. Darbi has done the preparatory public-comment work candidates used to do before seeking office. She earned a seat once. The lawyers and the process found a way to remove her from the Lakota board after a civil protection order kept her from meetings for ninety days. I do not see that removal as a victory for order. I see it as a successful effort to silence the person who kept forcing the discussion the rest of the board preferred not to have.

Darbi Boddy’s Record and the Price of Speaking Plainly

Darbi was elected to the Lakota Local Schools Board of Education in 2021 on a platform of teaching the greatness of America and opposing critical race theory and related ideological imports. Lakota serves West Chester and Liberty Townships and is one of the largest suburban districts in southwest Ohio. Her tenure was contentious. She criticized suicide-prevention mandates she believed separated parents from children, questioned curriculum, and clashed repeatedly with colleagues. A civil stalking protection order fellow board member Isaac Adi obtained in 2023 prevented her from attending meetings with him present. After 90 days of absences, the remaining members declared them insufficient and voted her off in March 2024. She has continued speaking at other boards, including Xenia, and has faced lawsuits and counterclaims over public comment and First Amendment issues. She now leads Access Ohio, focused on parent rights and traditional American values.

People call her a bull in a China shop. Aggressive clarity is often required when institutions have already accepted the progressive framing that any scrutiny of Islamic political theology is bigotry. The same institutions treat Christian residual culture as the problem to be managed. Darbi keeps pointing at the asymmetry. Islamic leadership in many Western settings has stated, in plain language or through institutional practice, the goal of replacing Christian cultural dominance with Islamic norms. She refuses to let local politicians, including those in West Chester, pretend the observation is out of bounds.

The Legal Gambit: Freedom of Religion as a One-Way Shield

Lawyers are skilled at reinterpreting English and case law to fit the argument of the moment. The modern reading of “separation of church and state” is a prime example. The Founders intended to prevent the federal government from establishing a national church or interfering with the free exercise of existing Christian denominations. They did not intend a neutrality so absolute that a competing theocratic system could use the First Amendment as cover while its own doctrines prescribe death for apostasy, second-class status for non-believers, and legal supremacy for sharia.

Pew Research Center’s 2013 survey of Muslims in thirty-nine countries found overwhelming majorities in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, Southeast Asia, and parts of sub-Saharan Africa favoring sharia as the official law of the land, at least for Muslims. In Afghanistan, Egypt, Pakistan, and Jordan, large shares of those who favored sharia also favored the death penalty for leaving Islam. Later Pew work has shown Islam as the world’s fastest-growing major religion between 2010 and 2020, driven primarily by higher fertility and a younger median age rather than mass conversion. In Europe, the Muslim share reached roughly 6 percent by 2020; projections with continued migration put it near 10 percent by mid-century. In the United States, the absolute numbers remain smaller, but the growth rate is among the highest of any region. West Chester is home to the Islamic Center of Greater Cincinnati, a large campus with a prominent golden dome visible from I-75, which has grown to serve tens of thousands of families since it opened in the mid-1990s.

None of this is a conspiracy theory. It is demography plus doctrine. When a community whose median opinion in many source countries rejects the equal status of other religions uses the American guarantee of free exercise to expand its institutional footprint, while simultaneously pressing for speech restrictions on “Islamophobia,” the constitutional premise is being used against the culture that created it. Lawyers can draft the accommodation language. Politicians can call the resulting pressure “tolerance.” The practical result is the gradual displacement of the prior order.

My Experiment at Kings Island’s Jason: Blood Reign

I spent the 2026 Halloween season working as Jason Voorhees in the new “Jason: Blood Reign” maze at Kings Island’s Halloween Haunt. Before guests enter, they are told the rule: the monsters will not touch you. You have complete safety. Do not touch the monsters. Thousands of people waited, sometimes for hours, for the thrill of being scared while knowing they were protected.

The parallel to the political debate is direct. In the haunted house, guests know the rules protect them. Some guests, once they understand the protection is absolute, become rambunctious. They test the boundary. A few try to punch or kick the actor. They know the performer is forbidden from retaliating. The same dynamic appears when a radical religious order treats American free-speech and free-exercise rules as a shield while advancing practices and political goals incompatible with those rules. The aggressor is told he cannot be touched. He then lashes out, confident the defender is constrained.

Out of the tens of thousands of people I scared during the season, I turned every negative or hostile encounter into a positive, and that is consistent with most things that I get involved with.  It was fun and rewarding to do it on a large scale; I tested what I wanted to challenge myself with.

I read body language—shoulders, facial expressions, the way a group clustered—before they reached my position. I used the strobe, the sound, the timing of the jump. People who knew exactly where I was still jumped. Some laughed afterward and admitted they had been gotten anyway. The aggressive ones still got the scare because the common purpose of the attraction was shared: they came to be frightened. The rules constrained my physical response, but they did not constrain psychological effectiveness.

That is the practical lesson. You do not have to break the Fourteenth Amendment or the First Amendment to defend the culture. You do have to understand the strategy of the other side and refuse to pretend the asymmetry does not exist. Darbi is doing that work in public meetings. The institutional response has been to use process and protection orders to remove her from the conversation. The lawyers did their job of reinterpreting the rules. The result is that the discussion she forced is harder to have.

The Psychology of the Protected Aggressor and What the Numbers Show

The people who waited in the long line outside Blood Reign wanted the experience. They did not want to be harmed. Some still behaved poorly once they believed the rules gave them impunity. That is ordinary human behavior under asymmetric constraint. Scale it to civilizational level and the pattern is recognizable. Groups that retain high in-group preference, higher fertility, and doctrinal rejection of equal religious liberty can expand under a host culture’s free-exercise rules while the host culture is told that reciprocal scrutiny violates its own principles.

The data do not require exotic interpretation. Pew’s global religious landscape work shows Muslim population growth outpacing every other major group from 2010 to 2020. Fertility differentials, not adult conversion, drive most of the increase. In many Muslim-majority societies, majorities continue to favor legal systems in which sharia has official status. Western polling of Muslim populations shows greater moderation on average, particularly among those born in the West, yet the institutional organizations and the source-country norms travel with the migration. Local officials who treat every request for accommodation as self-evidently compatible with American order are choosing not to examine the long-term trajectory.

Ann Becker has been on the other side of contentious meetings. She knows the difference between an ideology held in a living room and the same ideology defended under public scrutiny and procedural attack. Darbi’s style is more confrontational. That style is sometimes necessary to move the Overton window back toward the place where Christian cultural continuity is treated as the default rather than the problem. The progressive platform

Rich Hoffman

More about me

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

About the Author: Rich Hoffman

Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com.  If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.and the legal class have made adherence to the rules nearly impossible for a civil society that wishes to remain itself. The rules were written by people who assumed a shared civilizational premise. When that premise is rejected by one of the parties using the rules, the defender must name the rejection.

Moving the Window Without Breaking the Rules

I am proud of the season I spent as Jason. The work was physically demanding. It required reading people under pressure and finding a way to deliver the intended experience even when some guests tried to weaponize the safety rules. The political parallel is not perfect, but it is close enough to be useful. The guests who behaved worst still left having been scared, because the shared purpose of the attraction overrode the temporary abuse of the rules. A society that still possesses a shared purpose—constitutional loyalty, individual responsibility, and the cultural inheritance that produced those things—can do the same. It requires people willing to speak the obvious asymmetries in public, to accept the personal cost, and to keep the discussion alive after the lawyers and the process have done their best to end it.

Darbi Boddy has been doing that. West Chester has the institutional space for it now that the prior trustee arrangement has changed. The argument matters more than the personalities. Voters ultimately decide whether the community remains American in more than name or whether it continues to treat every use of its own freedoms as equally legitimate even when the user does not reciprocate. I have seen the dynamic up close, under the mask, with a large sample of ordinary people. The rules can be used against you. You can still win the encounter if you refuse to pretend the rules were written for a different game.

Bibliography

Bat Ye’or. Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2005.

Hirsi Ali, Ayaan. Infidel. Free Press, 2007.

Hirsi Ali, Ayaan. Nomad: From Islam to America. Free Press, 2010.

Hoffman, Rich. The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business. (and related works on individual responsibility and cultural continuity).

Ibrahim, Raymond. Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West. Da Capo, 2018.

Lewis, Bernard. What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response. Oxford University Press, 2002.

Lewis, Bernard. The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror. Modern Library, 2003.

Pew Research Center. “The World’s Muslims: Religion, Politics and Society.” April 30, 2013.

Pew Research Center. “The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010–2050.” April 2, 2015.

Pew Research Center. “How the Global Religious Landscape Changed From 2010 to 2020.” June 9, 2025.

Spencer, Robert. The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS. Bombardier Books, 2018.

Spencer, Robert. The Critical Qur’an: Explained from Key Islamic Commentaries and Contemporary Historical Research. Bombardier Books, 2022.

Warraq, Ibn. Why I Am Not a Muslim. Prometheus Books, 1995.

Local reporting on Lakota Local Schools Board actions regarding Darbi Boddy (Cincinnati Enquirer, Dayton Daily News, FOX19, WXIX, 2021–2025).

West Chester Township Board of Trustees meeting records and official site, 2025–2026.

Kings Island Halloween Haunt 2026 materials on “Jason: Blood Reign.”

Footnotes

1.  Darbi Boddy elected 2021; removed March 2024 after protection order produced ninety-day absence under Ohio Revised Code provisions allowing removal when absences are declared insufficient by two-thirds of the remaining board. See Cincinnati Enquirer, March–April 2024 coverage.

2.  Pew Research Center, “The World’s Muslims: Religion, Politics and Society,” 2013. Regional medians for support of sharia as official law: South Asia 84 %, Middle East-North Africa 74 %, Southeast Asia 77 %, sub-Saharan Africa 64 %. Support for death penalty for apostasy among those favoring sharia reached 78 % in Afghanistan and was high in Egypt and Pakistan.

3.  Pew Research Center, “How the Global Religious Landscape Changed From 2010 to 2020,” June 2025. Muslims increased by 347 million; share of world population rose to 25.6 %. Growth driven primarily by fertility and age structure.

4.  Islamic Center of Greater Cincinnati, West Chester Township, opened mid-1990s; large campus visible from I-75. Contemporary reporting describes service to tens of thousands of families.

5.  Kings Island Halloween Haunt 2026 featured the licensed “Jason: Blood Reign” maze. Guest instructions explicitly prohibit contact with actors; actors are constrained from physical retaliation.

6.  West Chester Township Board of Trustees as of 2026: Ann Becker (Chair), Lee Wong, Amanda Ortiz. Mark Welch, longtime trustee, did not continue after the 2025 election cycle.supplies the footnotes

Rich Hoffman

More about me

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

About the Author: Rich Hoffman

Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com.  If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.

Martin Luther, Renegade and Prophet: A Canterbury Find, a Put-in-Bay Vacation, and the Pattern of the Uncompromising Voice

I found Lyndal Roper’s Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet in a bookstore in Canterbury, a few feet from the cathedral. It was sitting out front, high-quality English paper and binding, the kind of production that assumes people still sit with a serious book. It was not an American edition I could have easily pulled off a Barnes & Noble shelf or ordered in the usual way. I bought it, read it, and have returned to it because Luther remains one of the figures I feel an affiliation with, even while recognizing he was far more rigid than I am. The book does not sanitize him. It presents a medieval monk whose temper, inner conflicts, and absolute refusal to yield altered the course of Western Christianity. That combination of brilliance and destructiveness is worth sitting with.

The Man Behind the Theses

Roper begins with Luther’s upbringing in Mansfeld, a rough mining town. His father, Hans, was an ambitious entrepreneur who had risen in the copper trade and wanted his son to become a lawyer. Luther abandoned those studies after a thunderstorm terrified him into an Augustinian monastery. The decision was a betrayal of his father’s plans. Roper treats the psychological pattern seriously without reducing theology to therapy: the breakthrough on the righteousness of God was, in part, an attempt to resolve anxiety about a demanding father. At Luther’s first mass in 1507, his father attended the feast afterward and publicly questioned whether the storm had been a voice from heaven or an illusion of the devil. Luther carried that rejection for decades.

The posting of the Ninety-five Theses on October 31, 1517, is the moment everyone knows. Roper notes that the theatrical image of Luther hammering the document to the Castle Church door in Wittenberg is likely a later Protestant myth. The actual step was more bureaucratic—an invitation to scholarly debate, standard at the time, sent to his archbishop. What changed everything was the printing press. Within weeks the Latin arguments were translated into German and spread. Luther proved a master of the new medium. He wrote short vernacular pamphlets that spoke directly to ordinary people, bypassing the slow Latin channels of the church hierarchy. It was the sixteenth-century equivalent of going viral. I have made a similar observation about writing and distribution in my own work. The technology changes; the effect of reaching a mass audience that then acts on the information does not.

Christian Freedom and the Peasants

Luther unleashed a language of individual conscience and rebellion against certain authorities. When others applied that language more broadly, his reaction was hostile. During the German Peasants’ War of 1524–1525, peasants used his ideas of Christian freedom to demand relief from oppressive obligations. Luther did not champion them. He wrote Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants, urging the princes to stab and slay without mercy. Roper treats this as one of the darkest chapters and explains the distinction Luther drew: Christian freedom was strictly spiritual. A Christian was free before God but bodily subject to secular rulers whom God had ordained to maintain order. Merging spiritual equality with social equality was, to him, a blasphemous distortion and a recipe for chaos. He was terrified of disorder and needed to distance himself from radical reformers such as Thomas Müntzer. His reformation was not to be a threat to the established political order. Political conservatism became a defining feature of much of subsequent Lutheranism, reinforcing the power of the German princes.

I see the longer pattern. Reformers and rebels appear, some seeking to purify or recover what they believe has been lost, others seeking to dismantle. Luther strengthened certain structures even as he broke others. Later figures, including those in the Marxist line, would try to make their mark by attacking the Christian inheritance more thoroughly. The evolution of those ideas is visible in our own election cycles. Luther wanted to stabilize, not dissolve, the social order under a corrected theology. Replacing the authority of the pope with the authority of the local prince was not a general liberation.

Marriage, Household, and the Limits of Accommodation

In 1525 Luther married Katharina von Bora, a former nun who had escaped her convent. The marriage was unprecedented for a man who had lived as a celibate monk. Roper tracks how it transformed his daily life. The former Augustinian house in Wittenberg became a bustling, chaotic household filled with children, students, servants, and guests. Katharina managed the finances, brewery, cattle, and overall solvency. Luther’s letters show real affection and respect; he sometimes called her his lord or boss. He came to argue that marriage and family life were the highest calling for a Christian, rejecting the medieval elevation of celibacy. I share that valuation of the household. At the same time, his view of women remained traditional and patriarchal. He expected obedience within the boundaries he defined. Liberation, where it occurred, occurred on his terms.

I have written elsewhere about the household division of labor and the pressures that later sought to redefine it. Luther’s position was shaped by his reading of scripture, including the account of Eve. He was not constructing a modern liberal society. He was preparing people for what he believed was the imminent end of the world. That apocalyptic urgency produced absolute intolerance of compromise. Modern readers who judge him solely by contemporary standards of gender roles miss the context and the purpose of the attack that has been directed at the traditional household for a long time.

Antisemitism, Language, and the Cost of Certainty

As Luther aged, his writings against the Jews became increasingly venomous. Roper does not treat this as a minor late-life prejudice that can be set aside. Early on he had hoped that once the gospel was clearly preached, Jews who had rejected a corrupt Catholic Church would convert. When they did not, disappointment turned to obsessive hatred. On the Jews and Their Lies advocated burning synagogues, destroying homes, confiscating books, and forced labor. Their existence as a community that read the same texts but rejected Christ was an intolerable threat to his certainty. The later consequences in Germany are well known and devastating. The same man produced the German Bible translation, widely regarded as a masterpiece that helped forge modern German. Working in the Wartburg after the Diet of Worms, he rendered the New Testament from Greek into German in eleven weeks, aiming for the cadence of ordinary speech—mothers at home, children in the street, men in the marketplace. His hymns, including “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” were memorable, emotional, and participatory. The communicator and the uncompromising polemicist were the same person.

At Marburg in 1529 he and Zwingli could not agree on the nature of Christ’s presence in the Lord’s Supper. Luther carved “This is my body” into the table and refused to yield. That refusal fractured the Protestant movement even as it had been the engine that kept the Reformation from being crushed or reabsorbed. Without the obstinacy, the challenge to Rome would likely have failed. With it, broad coalition became impossible. Anyone who disagreed even slightly was doing the work of the devil.

My Own Difference with Luther, and a Conversation with Edwards

I feel an affiliation with Luther’s firmness and his willingness to stand on what he believed scripture required. I also recognize that I am more accommodating in practice. I have no expectation that people will convert to my view in any lasting way. They will agree to your face and do what they intend behind your back. I do not waste time trying to force the conversion. I state what I take to be the right answer and leave the rest to them. Luther went out of his way to demonstrate that he would not compromise, in part, I suspect, to resolve the old question of the demanding father and to prove the purity of his obedience to God rather than to men. I do not carry that particular burden in the same way. The result is that I can appear to compromise more than I do. The private calculation is different.

In thinking about these questions I have imagined a conversation with Jonathan Edwards, another figure who paid a price for refusing to adjust his convictions to the preferences of his congregation. Edwards was dismissed from Northampton in 1750 after opposing the halfway covenant practices that had grown up under his grandfather Solomon Stoddard. He spent his final years in Stockbridge. The pattern is familiar: the generation that benefits from the disturbance often rejects the person who caused it; later generations build the monument. Edwards, in the exchange I constructed, respected Luther’s boldness on justification and scripture while refusing to defend the writings against the Jews. He noted that rejecting human constructs is not the same as rejecting all order, and that the test remains whether a teaching agrees with the word of God. He also observed that the Anabaptists took Luther’s principle of scripture and conscience further than Luther himself would allow—believers’ baptism only, a voluntary church, no state coercion—and were drowned, burned, or crushed by both Catholic and Protestant authorities, including Lutheran princes. Their descendants include the Mennonites and Amish. The people who suppressed them are mostly forgotten. Edwards added that suffering proves sincerity, not correctness. A prophet who prospers in his own lifetime has usually told the crowd what it wanted to hear.

The Canterbury Book and the Put-in-Bay Recommendation

The physical book I bought in Canterbury still feels different from most American productions. England has its own political leanings, and I have no interest in monarchy, but the culture of serious reading and careful bookmaking remains visible in places. Finding Roper’s biography a few feet from the cathedral, in a bargain bin for five pounds, was a small pleasure. It is the kind of volume that rewards slow reading.

If I could arrange the time, my ideal use of the book would be a ferry to Put-in-Bay on South Bass Island in Lake Erie. An Airbnb or similar place with a porch, two weeks, the book, mornings with coffee or Mello Yello, afternoons with a basket of shrimp at one of the restaurants along the water, and nothing else scheduled. The island is reachable by ferry from the Ohio mainland. The setting is quiet enough for sustained attention. I am envious of anyone who can actually do it. For those who can, I recommend it without hesitation. Take Roper’s Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet, shut out the noise, and sit with the contradictions. The questions it raises—about authority, conscience, the household, the cost of certainty, and why some voices are rejected in their own time—are still live. They connect directly to the longer argument I have been making about how ideas are gated, how comfort is protected, and how the politics of heaven repeatedly collides with the politics of the crowd.

Footnotes

1.  Lyndal Roper, Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet (Bodley Head / Random House). Contemporary reviews in The Guardian, The New York Times, and elsewhere describe the biography’s focus on Luther’s inner life, contradictions, childhood in Mansfeld, use of print, response to the Peasants’ War, marriage to Katharina von Bora, German Bible, and late antisemitic writings.

2.  Jonathan Edwards was dismissed by the Northampton congregation in June 1750 after prolonged conflict over communion and church membership standards. He spent his remaining years at the Stockbridge mission and died in 1758.

3.  Put-in-Bay (South Bass Island, Ohio) is accessible by ferry from mainland ports including Catawba, Port Clinton, and Sandusky. The island supports short-term lodging and waterfront dining.

Bibliography for Further Reading

•  Lyndal Roper, Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet (2016).

•  Lyndal Roper, Living I Was Your Plague: Martin Luther’s World and Legacy.

•  Jonathan Edwards, Farewell Sermon (1750) and accounts of the Northampton dismissal (Dwight’s Life, contemporary council records).

•  Standard histories of the German Peasants’ War, the Marburg Colloquy, and Anabaptist persecution in the 1520s.

•  Accounts of the transmission of Aristotle through Islamic commentators into medieval Europe and the subsequent use by Aquinas.

•  Council of Nicaea and later creedal developments on the Trinity (primary texts and standard church histories).

•  Rich Hoffman, The Politics of Heaven (forthcoming) and The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business.

Rich Hoffman

More about me

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

About the Author: Rich Hoffman

Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com.  If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.

Vote Yes on Ohio Issue 3: Lock Voter ID into the Constitution Before the Whisper Campaigns Confuse Enough People

Early voting is already underway in Ohio, and from what I am hearing on the ground, shenanigans and whisper campaigns are moving through the lines and the mailboxes. I just got off an important call with someone who is a major mover and shaker in Ohio politics—he is everywhere, he sees everything, and he does not want his name attached to this. What he told me matches what I have been picking up from the ground troops in Butler County, Warren County, and Hamilton County. Democrats know voter ID is popular. They know they cannot openly oppose it without looking like they want loose rules. So they are trying to play it both ways: smile and nod that identification is fine while quietly telling confused voters not to bother with Issue 3, or to vote no because “it is already the law.” That is the classic whisper campaign, and it is active right now.¹

What Issue 3 Actually Does

Issue 3 is a legislatively referred constitutional amendment on the November 3, 2026 ballot. It would add a new Section 5 to Article V of the Ohio Constitution requiring voters to present an approved form of government-issued photo identification to vote in person. Acceptable documents match current law: an unexpired Ohio driver’s license or state ID card, a U.S. passport or passport card, a U.S. military ID, an Ohio National Guard ID, or a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs ID. There is an allowance for an alternative verification method if someone has a sincere religious objection to being photographed. For non-in-person voting, it sets a minimum standard—photo ID or, if authorized by law, a signature plus one other unique identifier.²

Ohio already requires photo ID for in-person voting under House Bill 458, which Governor Mike DeWine signed in January 2023 and which took effect that April. Issue 3 does not invent a new requirement for Election Day. It constitutionalizes the existing one. A future legislature could not simply repeal or water it down with a simple majority vote. Changing it would require another constitutional amendment and a statewide vote. That is the entire point.³

Why Identification for Voting Is Not Extreme

I have had to use my passport and driver’s license for things far less important than choosing who runs the state. Cross an ocean for work or family and the authorities want to know who you are. Get a job, board a plane, cash a check, buy a beer, rent an apartment—identification is routine. Yet when it comes to the franchise that decides taxes, schools, and Ohio’s direction, some people treat the same basic requirement as an attack. Democrats have spent years arguing that requiring proof of identity suppresses votes. The practical reality is simpler: they have structural problems winning without loose rules, non-citizen voting risks, and the ability to litigate or legislate the standards downward later. If you already need a government-issued photo ID to drive to the polls, the idea that you should not need one to cast a ballot does not survive ordinary scrutiny.⁴

Leaving It to the Legislature Is Not Good Enough

The next General Assembly can change current law. That is why the old moderate Republican approach of “trust the process and the statutes” is not sufficient. For decades, we have watched election rules become battlefields of lawsuits, emergency orders, and administrative discretion. Ambiguous statutes get stretched. Provisional ballots, signature mismatches, and mail procedures create friction that favors the side with better lawyers and more patience. Putting the core identification requirement into the Constitution raises the bar permanently. It is not radical; it is the same logic that put other foundational rules into the document so they cannot be quietly reversed when political winds shift.⁵

The Whisper Campaigns and the Ground Game

The person who called me said the effort is particularly active in the southwest counties. Democrats know Issue 3 polls well—recent surveys have shown support in the 60 percent range. They cannot run a loud “vote no” campaign without looking like they oppose basic election security. Instead, they are working the lines and the early-vote sites with the quiet message that it is unnecessary, that you should vote for the candidates and skip the issue, or that a yes vote somehow hurts something else. That is deliberate confusion. I have seen this pattern before. When an idea is popular with ordinary people and inconvenient for the institutional left, the response is rarely a straight argument. It is noise, procedural objections, and selective silence.⁶

I am not claiming every Democrat is coordinating a formal operation. I am reporting what reliable sources on the ground are seeing in Butler, Warren, and Hamilton counties right now. Early voting numbers are already moving. Some of the same people who spent years expanding mail and early voting procedures now hope low-information voters will not notice Issue 3 or will treat it as optional. It is not optional if you want the requirement locked in.

The Rest of the Ballot

While you are there, the usual local priorities still apply. In the Lakota area, vote no on the school levy. Higher taxes on the same system that hasn’t delivered better results aren’t the answer. Vote for Republican candidates aligned with the direction Ohio has been moving. And make sure you vote yes on Issue 3. Whether you vote early in person, by mail with proper identification, or on Election Day, the identification question protects the integrity of all the others going forward.

Why This Matters Beyond One Election

Democrats have treated election administration as a growth industry for three decades. The more moving parts—provisional ballots, extended cure periods, expansive mail rules—the more opportunities for friction that can be litigated or exploited. Ohio tightened the rules in 2023 precisely because the previous non-photo options and longer windows created unnecessary risk. Constitutionalizing the photo ID standard is the logical next step so that a temporary legislative majority cannot unwind it. I do not want the next set of “reformers” treating basic identity verification as optional again.⁷

Show up. Vote yes on Issue 3. Do not let the whisper campaign talk you out of the one item on the ballot that makes it harder for the usual games to continue. The constitution is where permanent rules belong. Everything else is negotiable. This should not be.

Bibliography / Further Reading

• Ballotpedia, “Ohio Issue 3, Require Voter Identification Amendment (2026)” and related 2026 ballot measure pages.

• Official Ohio Secretary of State ballot language, explanation, and arguments for and against Issue 3.

• Substitute Senate Joint Resolution 10 (2026) and the enrolled text of the proposed Section 5 of Article V.

• House Bill 458 (134th General Assembly), signed January 6, 2023; effective April 7, 2023—text, fiscal notes, and contemporary news coverage of the photo ID requirement.

• Suffolk University/USA TODAY Network Ohio poll (September 23–27, 2026) showing approximately 61 percent support for Issue 3.

• Ohio Republican Party materials supporting Issue 3 and contemporaneous statements from legislative sponsors (Theresa Gavarone, Jane Timken, and others).

• Analyses of photo ID laws and election administration from the Heritage Foundation, Honest Elections Project, and academic reviews of HB 458’s implementation.

• Historical context on Ohio election law changes, including drop-box limits, provisional ballot cure periods, and absentee deadlines under HB 458.

• Broader works on election integrity and administrative discretion (for example, studies of non-citizen voting risks, signature verification error rates, and the political economy of mail balloting).

• Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead—useful for the larger contrast between systems that reward clarity and responsibility versus those that thrive on ambiguity and managed outcomes.

Rich Hoffman is an aerospace executive, writer, and host of the Overman Warrior Podcast / Executive Warrior Podcast, based in the Cincinnati / Butler County area of Ohio. He has written extensively on local and national politics, individual responsibility, and the cultural and institutional costs of managerial governance.

Footnotes

¹ Ground reports from Butler, Warren, and Hamilton counties during early voting (began October 6, 2026) describing selective messaging on Issue 3; consistent with the low-profile nature of organized “no” efforts noted in contemporaneous coverage.

² Ballotpedia, “Ohio Issue 3, Require Voter Identification Amendment (2026)”; official ballot language certified by the Ohio Ballot Board (August 2026); Signal Ohio and other explainers confirming the measure enshrines existing in-person photo ID rules and sets minimum standards for other methods.

³ House Bill 458 (signed January 6, 2023; effective April 7, 2023) established the current photo ID requirement for in-person voting and related absentee procedures. Issue 3 constitutionalizes the core in-person standard so that future statutory repeal would require another statewide vote.

⁴ Everyday identification requirements (driver’s license, passport, employment, travel) are routinely accepted; the same logic applies to the franchise. Ohio already issues free state IDs to those who need them.

⁵ Legislative referral via SJR 10 (passed Senate 22–9 on June 3, 2026; House 62–30 on June 10, 2026). Constitutional placement raises the amendment threshold compared with ordinary statute.

⁶ Suffolk University/USA TODAY Network poll (September 23–27, 2026) of 500 likely voters: 61 percent support, 31 percent oppose, 8 percent undecided. Coverage notes limited high-profile Democratic opposition and the measure’s popularity.

⁷ Contemporary reporting on HB 458 (AP, Cleveland.com, Democracy Docket, ACLU of Ohio analyses) details the shift from non-photo options to photo ID, shortened cure and return windows, and single drop-box limits. These changes reduced administrative discretion; constitutional entrenchment continues in that direction.

Rich Hoffman

More about me

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

About the Author: Rich Hoffman

Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com.  If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.

The Jonathan Edwards Study Bible, the Corruption of Character, and Why Good Government Requires Good People

I have been saying this more and more lately: if you have not yet picked up a copy of the new Jonathan Edwards Study Bible: Experience Abiding Joy in Christ (NKJV), get one. Thomas Nelson released it on August 18, 2026, with Dr. Matthew Everhard as general editor, and it is one of the best things to happen this year. The paper smells wonderful. The binding, the Comfort Print type, the two-color printing, the inclusion of Edwards’ own Resolutions, and the study notes drawn straight from his sermons, treatises, and “Blank Bible”—everything about it invites serious engagement. I already had a solid Bible, but this one is different. It is a tool for the kind of long, disciplined conversations about Christian values and biblical order that I expect to keep having for hundreds of hours in the years ahead.¹

Biblical Foundations for Healthy Families, Churches, and Government

What is really at stake is not merely personal piety. The Bible records how a particular people, and then a wider civilization, survived more than a thousand years of human turmoil by clinging to values capable of building a healthy society. Translation history—from Hebrew and Greek through the Reformation and Martin Luther’s work into new European standards—matters, but the deeper point is functional: those values produce good families, good churches that help form good families, and, from among those people, a portion willing and able to serve in political office.² Good government does not appear by magic or by bureaucratic decree. It is downstream of character. Without good people formed by good families and churches, the supply of those fit for limited, constitutional office shrinks.

I have a granddaughter just over one year old. Watching her, and remembering the same stages with the other grandchildren, sharpens the contrast. Content aimed at children under two is still largely constructive: language, association, positive voices, basic formation. By the time a child reaches eight, nine, or ten, and especially the 10-to-13 and 13-to-16 windows, the cultural message shifts. “Adult” content is coded as sexually charged, reckless, and liberally sprinkled with cuss words. Children who want to be treated as grown-ups learn to associate maturity with those markers. We are careful what we pour into toddlers’ brains; we become careless, or even actively destructive, once they hit double digits. Then we express surprise when people in their twenties, thirties, and forties remain stuck in the same patterns—never growing up, treating foul language and sexualized recklessness as signs of sophistication.³

From Educational Under-Twos to Sexualized Teens: The Cultural Pipeline

This is not abstract. I watch the YouTube videos my teenage grandson (turning 15) chooses when he visits. I pay attention because culture follows what marketers push to each age cohort. Research confirms the scale. A 2025 report from the Children’s Commissioner for England found that 70 percent of young people had seen pornography before age 18, with more than a quarter first exposed by age 11 and some as young as six; social media platforms, not dedicated adult sites, were the dominant source. Common Sense Media, Thorn, and Ofcom data show substantial rates of sexual content and interactions among minors on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and related apps. Ofcom has repeatedly flagged TikTok and YouTube for feeding harmful content to large majorities of teens via recommendation systems.⁴ Algorithms do not merely reflect demand; they amplify it. Creators who want reach—and I know many of them—alter content toward whatever is trending. When the trend is sexualized, vulgar, or adversarial, that is what gets pushed.⁵

Algorithms as the Modern Adversary: Rewarding the Bad

Who controls the algorithm controls the content. TikTok (Chinese-owned), YouTube (Alphabet/Google), and similar platforms systematically reward material that maximizes engagement: outrage, sexualization, cussing, laziness framed as authenticity. Positive, formative, or explicitly “good” content is rarely the algorithmic winner. Internal evidence from whistleblowers and external audits (Center for Countering Digital Hate, academic studies of recommendation systems) shows platforms have repeatedly prioritized borderline or harmful material because it drives time-on-site and revenue. The result is a pipeline that takes children from constructive early programming and, within a few years, immerses them in the opposite. We then wonder why so many adults never exit the pattern.⁶

This is the modern version of an old story. In the Book of Job, the adversary (Satan) is granted permission to test Job’s loyalty. The figure is not a cartoon; the biblical picture includes a divine council and adversarial spiritual powers that operate through deception, cultural capture, and the redefinition of good. Today’s adversaries—whether understood spiritually, institutionally, or both—do the same work through media, education, and policy. Public schools teach compliance with whatever the current policy defines as good. When that definition rewards sexual openness, foul language, and mediocrity while punishing high standards or traditional formation, the output is predictable. “Good” becomes relative, socially managed, and hostile to excellence. People learn that being too good makes others look bad, so they stay mediocre or worse. Corruption, fraud, and waste in public office become rational strategies for advancement rather than moral failures.⁷

The Shortage of Good People and the Case for Small Government

My wife and I hear it constantly during election seasons: we need good people in office who will uphold the Constitution. The practical question is where those people come from. A society that has deliberately removed character formation from schools, rewarded the opposite through media algorithms, and redefined good according to the manipulators’ interests will not produce a deep bench of people capable of limited, constitutional government. Good people still emerge—statistical anomalies of family, church, and personal resolve—but they are scarce. Not everyone is interchangeable. Attributes differ. When we pretend otherwise and lower the standard so that bad people can hold power, the results are devastating.⁸

This is one of the strongest practical arguments for small government. Large government requires a continuous supply of competent, character-bound people to staff it. When that supply shrinks by design, expanding the state simply multiplies failure. The corporate-state complex has spent decades treating people as interchangeable inputs; the results show declining literacy and numeracy (NAEP data showing large shares of students below basic proficiency), eroded character metrics reported by teachers, and a persistent inability to reduce fraud and waste. We taught the next generation that corruption is how you get ahead, then wondered why public office is hard to staff with anyone who will actually fight it.⁹

Political Parties as Sorters of Character

Political parties exist, among other reasons, to sort. A party that attracts and elevates people of genuine character—and refuses to authorize the opposite—will outperform one that does not. I affiliate with the Republican Party in my county precisely because its stated goals still include sorting for better rather than worse. That sorting is imperfect and always under pressure, but the alternative is worse. When “good” is redefined by adversarial forces, the people who remain resolute become rarer and more identifiable. Everyone who is paying attention already knows who they are.

I do not believe God is stupid or passively all-seeing in a way that removes human responsibility. The biblical picture allows for adversarial powers that test, deceive, and exploit the desire to fit in more than the desire to be good. Most people prefer belonging to excellence. The result is a thinner stock of people ready for the duties of self-government. The remedy begins where Edwards began: with deliberate resolve, steady engagement with Scripture, and the formation of families and churches that still know the difference between good and its counterfeit. The new Study Bible is a practical aid to that work. Without returning to making good people on purpose, the vacancies, corruption, and cultural pipeline will continue. The plot to destroy good families, good people, and therefore good government has always been there. The difference now is how efficiently the tools of the age execute it—and how clearly the results are visible.

Notes

1.  Thomas Nelson, The Jonathan Edwards Study Bible: Experience Abiding Joy in Christ (NKJV), general editor Dr. Matthew Everhard (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, August 18, 2026). Features include study notes drawn from Edwards’ works (with source citations to the Yale edition), Edwards’ seventy Resolutions, full-page essays on his theology and the First Great Awakening, and his miscellanies note-taking system. See also Matthew Everhard’s discussions of the project on the Unashamed Truth channel.

2.  On the historical transmission of biblical values and their role in social order, see standard treatments such as Diarmaid MacCulloch, Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (New York: Viking, 2010), and earlier works on the Reformation’s impact on European moral and political standards. Edwards himself argued that true religion produces the highest happiness and ordered life; see his Religious Affections and the Resolutions (1722–1723).

3.  Personal observation of age-graded media targeting is consistent with long-term content analyses such as UCLA’s Center for Scholars and Storytellers longitudinal survey of values in children’s television (fame and image rising relative to community and benevolence across decades).

4.  Children’s Commissioner for England, reports on children’s exposure to pornography (2023 and 2025 updates); Common Sense Media, research on teens and explicit/AI-generated material (2026); Thorn, Youth Perspectives on Online Safety (2025); Ofcom, findings on harmful content exposure via recommendation feeds for UK teens.

5.  Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) reports on algorithmic amplification of harmful content; academic audits of TikTok and YouTube Shorts recommendation systems (e.g., studies showing rapid increase in toxic or misogynistic content after minimal engagement); BBC and other reporting on whistleblower accounts of platforms prioritizing engagement over safety.

6.  Same sources as note 5; additional context in Ofcom regulatory findings and ISD Global analyses of search and recommendation bias on TikTok.

7.  The Job narrative (Job 1–2) provides the classic biblical example of adversarial testing within the framework of divine sovereignty and a heavenly council. Edwards’ theology of spiritual conflict and the necessity of resolve appears throughout his writings and the new Study Bible notes.

8.  Teacher surveys on declining student character (e.g., 2026 data showing majority of educators reporting behavioral and ethical decline); NAEP reading and math trends showing rising shares of students below basic proficiency; historical analyses of the retreat of deliberate character education from public schools after the mid-20th century.

9.  On the removal of character and moral formation from public education and associated social trends, see B. Edward McClellan, Moral Education in America, and later data on literacy, civic knowledge, and ethical attitudes among youth (Josephson Institute reports and similar).

Bibliography

Everhard, Matthew D. Holy Living: Jonathan Edwards’s Seventy Resolutions for Living the Christian Life. Hendrickson, 2019 (and related lectures/videos on the Resolutions).

Edwards, Jonathan. The Works of Jonathan Edwards. Yale University Press edition (edwards.yale.edu). Especially Religious Affections, sermons, and the Resolutions (1722–1723).

The Jonathan Edwards Study Bible: Experience Abiding Joy in Christ (NKJV). General editor Matthew Everhard. Thomas Nelson, 2026.

MacCulloch, Diarmaid. Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. Viking, 2010.

Children’s Commissioner for England. Reports on children’s exposure to pornography and online harm (2023–2025).

Common Sense Media. Research on teens, pornography, and AI-generated explicit material (2026).

Thorn. Youth Perspectives on Online Safety (2025).

Ofcom. Regulatory findings on harmful content recommendation to UK teens (multiple reports).

Center for Countering Digital Hate. Reports on algorithmic amplification of harmful and polarizing content.

National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Long-term trends in reading and mathematics proficiency.

UCLA Center for Scholars and Storytellers. Longitudinal studies of values conveyed in children’s and teen media.

McClellan, B. Edward. Moral Education in America: Schools and the Shaping of Character from Colonial Times to the Present.

Josephson Institute. Reports on the ethics of American youth.

Additional recommended reading: works on the divine council motif in biblical studies (e.g., Michael Heiser), studies of recommendation-system design and engagement incentives, and historical accounts of the First Great Awakening and Puritan moral formation.

Rich Hoffman

More about me

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

About the Author: Rich Hoffman

Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com.  If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.

Amy Acton’s Mother Calls Her a Liar: The Death Nail in a Campaign Built on Overdramatization

I think it was always going to be Vivek Ramaswamy. Ohio has moved, and the people who still believe they can turn the clock back to some polite, managed Republicanism are going to be disappointed. But when Amy Acton’s own mother steps forward just weeks before Election Day and calls her daughter a liar—disputing the very childhood story Acton has used to shape her public image—and Vivek’s campaign turns that into an ad, it is not a minor footnote. It is the final stake through a campaign that was already built on overdramatization, emotional appeals, and a refusal to confront reality.¹

The Mother’s Words and Why They Matter

Donna Arthur, identifying herself as Amy Acton’s mother and noting her past work in child and family services, said she loves her daughter but that Acton “has a serious problem. She is a liar. She lies about her past. She says she grew up living in a tent. None of that is true. She’s lied her entire life.” She urged Ohioans not to elect her, warning that life would only get worse.¹

Acton’s campaign and her brother, Philip Stearns, responded by highlighting the long estrangement—dating to 1978 when Acton was twelve—and the fact that her stepfather was indicted for sexually abusing her. Court records and earlier reporting, including Acton’s own 2019 interviews, support key elements of hardship and removal from the home. The mother stayed with the man until his death. That is a tragic family story, and I am not minimizing childhood trauma. But the mother is speaking now, as an adult, about the adult candidate’s character and truthfulness. When your own mother says you have been a liar your whole life and that the tent story is not true, conventional political wisdom says that is a disaster for the candidate. Why would any campaign lean into it if the basic facts were unassailable? It is awkward Thanksgiving material, and it is the kind of thing that sticks with undecided voters who already sense something is off.²

A Pattern of Overdramatization

This is not an isolated episode. During COVID, Acton, as Ohio’s health director under Mike DeWine, was the face of the lockdowns, school closures (Ohio was among the first), and business restrictions that crushed small operators while she and others projected certainty. She became emotional, pushed back against reopening, and ultimately resigned amid protests and legislative pushback, citing pressure to sign orders she opposed. Staff accounts described sensitivity to criticism and emotional reactions. She made a big deal out of everything, turning public health into a personal drama that made insecure people feel temporarily safe while the economic and educational costs piled up.

More recently, at the Canfield Fair in early September, an armed man pushed through a crowd toward her, knocking people over. He had pistols, a Taser, and brass knuckles but was holding a phone or camera; weapons were not brandished. The campaign’s initial framing was of an armed individual lunging at her. It turned out to be a man who wanted to get closer—possibly for a picture or confrontation—but the overstatement fit the pattern. She has a history of elevating ordinary or mixed situations into crises that serve a narrative.³ ⁴

The Moderate Republicans and the Old Handbook

There are still Republicans in Ohio who wanted a return to the managed, polite version of the party—the Amy Acton types cite the George W. Bush-era playbook and claim Acton was simply following the established pandemic plan. They hoped the post-Trump world would settle back into something familiar where they retained more control. They are wrong. People rejected that approach years ago. They want the clarity and results orientation that Trump represents, not more of the same managerial caution that allowed problems to fester. Vivek Ramaswamy is an extension of that Trump-aligned direction for Ohio’s governorship. The old guard’s preference for continuity was never going to hold.

Democrats, by contrast, often select and elevate candidates who carry significant personal and psychological baggage. Acton is not unique in that regard. The party’s base has long rewarded emotional performance and narratives of victimhood over steady competence. When the candidate’s own mother is on record saying she needs help and cannot help others until she tells the truth, it confirms what many already observe: too many Democrat standard-bearers are not in a position to lead.⁶

What This Means Weeks Before Election Day

The race is close on paper. Some polls have Acton ahead by a few points; others are tighter or show Ramaswamy edges. Betting markets and conventional wisdom have shifted at times, but the fundamentals of Ohio—Trump’s repeated wins and the desire for a break from lockdown-style governance—favor the Republican. This mother’s intervention does not invent new information so much as it crystallizes existing doubts. For voters who were on the fence or who simply do not want another round of overdramatized governance, it provides a clear signal from the person who raised her.⁵

I am not unhappy to hear it. It is rare for a family member to speak so directly, and when she does—even under the complicated circumstances of long estrangement and documented abuse—it carries weight. Acton has overdramatized her past and her present. As governor she would do the same with the state’s problems. Ohio does not need more of that. We need someone who will impose discipline, expand opportunity, and stop treating every challenge as a personal emotional event. Vivek was always the stronger bet. The mother’s words simply make the choice clearer for anyone still paying attention.

Bibliography / Further Reading

• Contemporary reporting on the Acton-Ramaswamy race and the October 2026 ad (Newsweek, Forbes, CNN, Washington Post, PolitiFact, Ohio Capital Journal, and local Ohio outlets).

• Acton’s own prior interviews and official records concerning her childhood and 2020 public health tenure (Youngstown Vindicator 2019; Ohio Department of Health orders; DeWine administration records).

• Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead — for the contrast between producers and those who live through narrative and emotion.

• Works on political psychology and the modern left’s preference for emotional framing (e.g., analyses of victimhood culture and institutional capture).

• Ohio political history and the post-2016 realignment of the Republican Party toward Trump-aligned priorities.

Rich Hoffman is an aerospace executive, writer, and host of the Overman Warrior Podcast / Executive Warrior Podcast, based in the Cincinnati / Butler County area of Ohio. He has written extensively on local and national politics, individual responsibility, and the cultural costs of managerial governance.

Footnotes

¹ Newsweek, “Amy Acton’s mother calls her ‘liar’ in brutal ad as Ohio race tightens,” October 20, 2026; Forbes, CNN, Washington Post, and multiple other outlets confirmed the video and subsequent Ramaswamy campaign acknowledgment of responsibility and $4 million promotion commitment.

² Court records from Mahoning County (1978) and contemporaneous reporting, including Acton’s 2019 Youngstown Vindicator interview and statements from her brother Philip Stearns, document the stepfather’s indictment on rape charges, removal from custody, and estrangement since age 12. See also PolitiFact and Ohio Capital Journal coverage, October 20–21, 2026.

³ Fox News, ABC News, and local Mahoning County reporting on the September 6, 2026 Canfield Fair incident involving Patrick Havas, who was armed with two pistols, a Taser, and brass knuckles but holding a phone/camera; campaign initially described it as an armed individual lunging at Acton.

⁴ Amy Acton served as Ohio Department of Health Director from 2019 to June 11, 2020, under Gov. Mike DeWine. Ohio was among the first states to close schools (March 2020). Stay-at-home orders, business closures, and the postponement of the March 17 primary (via Acton’s signed order) drew significant backlash, protests, and legislative efforts to limit her powers. Acton resigned citing political pressure on certain orders. See POLITICO, Washington Examiner staffer accounts, and contemporaneous Ohio news.

⁵ Recent polling (Marist October 15–18, 2026: Acton 50–43; BGSU/YouGov: 50–44; mixed with some Ramaswamy leads) shows a close race. Election Day is November 3, 2026. Ramaswamy is the Republican nominee, endorsed by President Trump; Acton is the Democratic nominee.

Rich Hoffman

More about me

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

About the Author: Rich Hoffman

Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com.  If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.

When the Lights Go Out: The Volynt Vyper and the Power Gap Hurricane Isaias Just Proved

Three weeks ago, on September 21, I stood in a room at Miami University with people who matter in Ohio manufacturing, aerospace, and the emerging unmanned systems business. We were talking about the Volynt Vyper—the hybrid unmanned eVTOL some of us have been calling the Viper—and why it should be built and staged right here in Ohio for exactly the kind of problem that just hit the Florida Panhandle.

I said we were in hurricane season. I said the real issue after these storms is rarely that the buildings fall down. Category 2 storms like the one that just made landfall near Destin do not usually level towns. The buildings stay up. What fails is the power. Nursing homes, dialysis clinics, and people on oxygen concentrators cannot wait three or four days while line crews clear trees and string new wire. I said the Vyper could deliver power into those areas the first night. The market is wide open. Nobody else is flying a hybrid platform that can land and put usable AC power on the ground where it is needed.

Hurricane Isaias made landfall Friday night near Destin as a Category 2 with sustained winds around 105 mph and gusts over 110–116 mph in places. By early Saturday the statewide Florida outage count was near 448,000 customer accounts according to Governor DeSantis, part of a broader regional peak that approached 900,000 across Florida, Alabama, and Georgia. As of Sunday afternoon, hundreds of thousands were still without power, concentrated in Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, and neighboring counties. Florida Power & Light has said it expects to restore 95 percent of customers who can safely accept power by the end of the day Monday. That is the current system working as well as it can: more than 16,000 linemen and restoration personnel from dozens of states, staged in advance, drones and helicopters already doing damage assessment, major roads and bridges reopened quickly. It is impressive work. It is also not fast enough for the people who need continuous power to stay alive.[1][2][3]

The Last 5 Percent Is the Real Problem

Most towns can absorb a Category 2. The buildings hold. The problem is the multi-day loss of electricity. Of the roughly 300,000 Florida customers still dark or only recently restored as of Sunday, a small but critical percentage—call it 5 percent or so—are elderly, medically dependent, or in facilities that cannot simply ride it out. Oxygen concentrators are the clearest example. A typical home stationary 5-liter unit draws roughly 300–400 watts continuous, with a startup surge that can approach 600 watts. Run that for 24 hours and you are looking at about 7–10 kWh just for one machine. Multiply that by the number of residents in a nursing home who need continuous oxygen, add medical equipment, emergency lighting, and the minimum HVAC required to keep temperatures safe, and the load climbs fast.[4]

A nursing home with half a dozen concentrators plus supporting medical gear and basic environmental control can easily sit in the several-kilowatt range for critical loads. Full building HVAC and lighting push it higher still—into the 10–11 kW territory for some facilities, which is roughly 260 kWh for a full day. That is not a job for a handful of truck batteries. It is a job for something that can get there when roads are blocked and then either deliver charged batteries or, better, land and generate power on site.

The federal Office of Inspector General looked at this problem earlier this year. Their audit of nursing homes participating in Medicare and Medicaid estimated that 73 percent of the roughly 15,000 facilities nationwide have inadequate or unreliable emergency power systems. The deficiencies include poor generator maintenance, incomplete circuit coverage, and equipment that is decades old. The report exists because people have died in past storms when power failed and backup systems did not hold. Hurricane Ida in Louisiana and Winter Storm Uri in Texas are the recent examples the OIG cited. Those numbers did not change because Isaias was “only” a Category 2.[5]

What the Vyper Actually Does

Volynt Aero, based in Oxford, Ohio, and spun out of the Miami University ecosystem, is building the Vyper as a hybrid-electric unmanned aircraft specifically for contested logistics, disaster response, and mobile power. Public specifications list a 500-pound cargo capacity and a range of about 150 nautical miles. The important part for this use case is that it is designed to land and provide 110, 240, or 480 VAC plug-in power on the ground for equipment or tactical microgrids. It runs on standard JP-8 or Jet A, so it does not require a high-voltage charging network to turn around quickly. It is remote-operated or autonomous. The mission set is dull, dirty, dangerous, and distant—exactly the description of a post-hurricane nursing home that still has no grid power on night one or night two.[6]

A realistic early mission profile is not trying to power an entire 120-bed facility at full load. It is the critical load: the concentrators, the medical equipment that must stay online, emergency lighting, and enough environmental control to keep residents safe overnight. One aircraft, one night, one nursing home is the starting point. Battery payload delivery is part of the picture as well. A 50 kg battery package is already meaningful for concentrators and medical gear. Multiple flights or a landed generator configuration scales from there. The point is not that the Vyper replaces the 16,000 linemen. It covers the gap between landfall and the moment the grid is back for the people who cannot wait.

Escambia County alone has on the order of 2,000 nursing home beds. Santa Rosa has well over 1,000. Okaloosa has several hundred more. Dozens of facilities sit inside the hardest-hit outage zones. Some of them have generators that work. Many do not have generators that cover the loads that actually matter once the power is out for more than a few hours. The nurses, the residents, and the families already know what those nights look like. The current restoration system prioritizes hospitals, 911 centers, and the greatest number of customers. It does not fly a power source to a specific nursing home at 2 a.m. on night one.

Ohio Manufacturing and the Open Market

The question after Isaias is not whether the power need exists. It is whether enough of these aircraft will be manufactured and staged before the next storm season. The market is empty. There is no competing hybrid unmanned platform already delivering AC power into disaster zones at this scale. It will take any competitor two or three years and substantial capital just to reach the starting line. That window belongs to whoever builds and fields the capability first.

Manufacturing in Ohio makes sense for the same reasons we discussed on September 21. The technical talent is here. The supply base for aerospace and unmanned systems is here. The university partnership is already in place. The product is dual-use: the same airframe that can support military contested logistics can support civilian disaster response. State emergency management agencies, utilities, and federal partners already buy staged assets. They stage 16,000 linemen and thousands of trucks. Adding a layer of prepositioned aircraft and trained operators is an incremental procurement item, not a new invention.

Governor DeSantis and Florida’s emergency management structure have shown they will stage resources aggressively. A memorandum of understanding with Florida utilities and the Division of Emergency Management, followed by a procurement vehicle, is the practical path. Preposition aircraft and batteries in Pensacola and Tallahassee before the next named storm. Train the operators. Write the contracts so the capability is already funded and sitting on the ramp when the cone of uncertainty locks in. The alternative is asking nursing homes and oxygen-dependent residents to hope their generators hold or that the last 5 percent gets restored before something goes wrong.

Next Year Is the Test

Hurricanes will hit the Gulf Coast and the Atlantic coast again. North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Florida will lose power for days. Category 2 storms will continue to leave the buildings standing and the lights out. The people who need oxygen, dialysis, or temperature control will still be waiting on the traditional restoration timeline.

The prototype is close enough that the conversation should no longer be about whether the idea works. It should be about how many airframes can be built, staged, and under contract before the 2027 season. One aircraft proving the concept on the first night after landfall is valuable. A fleet sized to the critical facilities in the hardest-hit counties is the actual requirement. The investment is not theoretical. It is lithium batteries, hybrid powerplants, airframes, operators, and the contracts that put them in position before the storm arrives instead of after the bodies have been counted.

I said on September 21 that this is what the Vyper is for. Isaias just spent the weekend making the case. The buildings held. The power did not. The people who cannot wait are still in the dark tonight. Next year we should not be asking the same question.

Notes

1.  Landfall details, wind speeds, and early outage counts drawn from statements by Governor Ron DeSantis and contemporaneous reporting from the Associated Press, CBS, and Florida outlets, October 9–10, 2026.

2.  Florida Power & Light restoration targets (95 percent of customers who can safely accept power by end of day Monday) and workforce size (more than 16,000 from 29 states) from FPL updates issued October 10–11, 2026.

3.  Peak regional outages approaching 900,000 and continuing Sunday figures in the 300,000–400,000 range for Florida and Alabama from PowerOutage.us tracking and national reporting, October 10–11, 2026.

4.  Oxygen concentrator power consumption ranges (approximately 300–600 W continuous for stationary home units, with higher startup surges) are standard published specifications for common 5-liter models such as Philips Respironics EverFlo and DeVilbiss units.

5.  U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, “Most Nursing Homes Throughout the United States Do Not Have Adequate or Reliable Emergency Power Systems,” report issued April 2026. Estimate of 73 percent based on sample of 100 facilities extrapolated to approximately 15,115 Medicare/Medicaid nursing homes.

6.  Volynt Aero public descriptions of the Vyper: 500 lb cargo, ~150 NM range, hybrid JP-8/Jet A powerplant, capability to land and supply 110/240/480 VAC power. Company materials and capability statements, 2024–2026. Oxford, Ohio; Miami University spinout connection.

Bibliography / Further Reading

•  U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General. Most Nursing Homes Throughout the United States Do Not Have Adequate or Reliable Emergency Power Systems. April 2026.

•  Florida Power & Light newsroom updates on Hurricane Isaias restoration, October 10–11, 2026.

•  National Hurricane Center advisories and post-landfall reporting on Hurricane Isaias, October 9–11, 2026.

•  Volynt Aero company materials and capability statements describing the Vyper hybrid unmanned aircraft (payload, range, on-ground power generation).

•  PowerOutage.us and Florida Public Service Commission outage tracking data for Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, and surrounding counties, October 9–11, 2026.

•  Published technical specifications for common stationary oxygen concentrators (Philips Respironics, DeVilbiss, and similar 5 L models) regarding continuous and startup wattage.

•  Prior storm case studies referenced in the OIG report: Hurricane Ida (Louisiana nursing home deaths) and Winter Storm Uri (Texas nursing home power loss and evacuations).

Rich Hoffman

More about me

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

About the Author: Rich Hoffman

Rich Hoffman is an author, political consultant, and strategic advisor based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the creator of The Politics of Heaven—a unique framework that connects biblical theology, ancient history, and modern power structures to explain how moral alignment and spiritual forces shape global events. Blending real-world political experience with deep research into archaeology, UFO phenomena, and suppressed historical narratives, Hoffman offers compelling commentary on topics ranging from ancient civilizations and the Dead Sea Scrolls to modern populist movements, paranormal continuity, and leadership strategy in chaotic environments. As the author of The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business and the forthcoming Politics of Heaven, he brings a grounded yet provocative voice to media discussions, supported by firsthand experiences and a cross-disciplinary approach that bridges science, history, and theology. For interviews, speaking engagements, or expert analysis, visit richhoffmanbooks.com or contact directly via phone at 513-307-5815 or email at rhoffman@richhoffmanbooks.com.  If you’ve seen the movie, Disclosure Day and want to talk about it and the implications of Presidnet Trump’s UAP disclosures, let me know and we can bring some color to your coverage. https://richhoffmanbooks.com/media-inquiries-broadcast-topics-and-contact-info/?frame-nonce=ad51e7ecba I do have a firsthand UFO encounter to discuss.