Ascending from Plato’s Cave: Don’t suffer from second husband syndrome

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about where humanity stands at this pivotal moment. As of late March 2026, NASA is days away from launching Artemis II—the first crewed mission to the Moon since Apollo, targeted for no earlier than April 1, 2026, with astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen aboard Orion for a ten-day lunar flyby. This isn’t just another flight; it’s NASA finally getting aggressive, the way it always should have been. I support the Artemis program with my whole heart. I want to see timelines compressed, second and third shifts running around the clock, Saturdays and Sundays included—full throttle output. We’ve talked for decades about whether we ever really went to the Moon. I respect people who doubt it; many have been lied to by institutions they once trusted. But I’ve traveled the world, seen the curvature of the Earth with my own eyes, understood time zones through lived experience, and studied how ancient mathematicians calculated that curvature to plot constellations and voyages. Those advances in human culture demand we go to space—not just with drones or robots, but with people living sustainably off-world. That’s the only way we climb out of Plato’s cave, stop staring at shadows, and see reality for what it is.

My perspective is rooted in a deep love for knowledge, ancient history, and the biblical call to dominion. I don’t dismiss fears about transhumanism or the occult origins some attribute to NASA. I get the Tower of Babel parallels—humanity trying to replace God. But I also believe God gave us intellect and drive precisely for exploration. Leaving Earth isn’t rebellion; it’s fulfillment of the creation mandate. And with AI, robotics, and companies like SpaceX and Firefly Aerospace pushing boundaries, we’re on the cusp of a flourishing space economy that will create jobs, not destroy them. I’ll explain all of this below, drawing on the examples and reasoning I’ve shared in conversations, while adding substantial background, historical context, scientific details, and references for further study. This is my view, expressed in the first person because these convictions are personal—forged from years of study, travel, and reflection on what makes civilizations thrive or collapse.

Let’s start with the skepticism that still lingers. I’ve met kind, thoughtful people who defend Flat Earth theory aggressively. I feel for them. Decades of institutional deception—from governments to media—have left many clinging to simplicity as a shield against complexity. Yet the evidence against a flat Earth is overwhelming and ancient. Around 240 BCE, the Greek scholar Eratosthenes of Cyrene calculated Earth’s circumference with remarkable accuracy using nothing more than sticks, shadows, and geometry. At noon on the summer solstice in Syene (modern Aswan), the Sun shone directly down a well with no shadow. In Alexandria, 5000 stadia north, a stick cast a 7.2-degree shadow—exactly 1/50th of a circle. Multiplying the distance by 50 gave him roughly 250,000 stadia, or about 40,000 kilometers—within 1% of the modern equatorial value of 40,075 km. Ancient cultures used this spherical understanding to navigate oceans and align monuments with constellations. Time zones, the Coriolis effect on weather, and lunar eclipses (where Earth’s round shadow falls on the Moon) all confirm it. I’ve seen the horizon curve from high altitudes and across oceans. We don’t need to argue endlessly; we need to move forward.

The same institutional distrust fuels Moon-landing conspiracies. Yet commercial progress is demolishing doubt. In March 2025, Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander achieved the first fully successful commercial Moon landing in Mare Crisium, near Mons Latreille. It operated for over 14 days on the surface—346 hours of daylight plus lunar night—delivering NASA payloads and proving robotic precision. This wasn’t government theater; it was private industry landing hardware right near prior Apollo sites. The best proof, though, will be routine human traffic: Starship ferrying thousands to lunar bases and back. When people vacation on the Moon like they do in Hawaii, the shadows-on-the-wall debate ends.

This brings me to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, which I invoke often because it perfectly captures our situation. In Book VII of The Republic, Socrates describes prisoners chained since birth in an underground cavern, facing a blank wall. Behind them burns a fire; between fire and prisoners, puppeteers carry objects whose shadows dance on the wall. The prisoners believe these shadows are ultimate reality; they compete to predict the next shadow, mistaking illusion for truth. One prisoner breaks free. Dragged upward into sunlight, he suffers pain but gradually sees real objects, then the Sun itself—the Form of the Good. Returning to the cave to free others, he is mocked as blind. Plato uses this to illustrate education’s purpose: turning the soul from illusion toward truth.

I see modern humanity in that cave. We’ve been fed institutional shadows—media narratives, bureaucratic lies, power-maintaining myths. Space exploration is the ascent. Drones and rovers have sent back data, but they’re still shadows. Humans must go—live, work, have children off-world—to grasp the fire and the Sun beyond. Only then do we understand what cast those flickering images on Earth’s wall. My entire worldview, from business to culture to faith, rests on this quest for unfiltered knowledge. I refuse to remain chained, interpreting shadows while interpreters with agendas lie about what they see.

Ancient history reinforces this urgency. I study civilizations full-time because they reveal what builds success: boldness, truth-seeking, and expansion. Many past cultures achieved greatness then lost momentum—collapsed under internal rot or external conquest. I call this “second husband syndrome.” Imagine a second husband tormented by thoughts of his wife’s first husband, especially if children from that marriage remain. Jealousy poisons the new relationship. Likewise, modern elites suppress or dismiss prior cultures’ achievements to claim sole glory. They rewrite history so previous “husbands” (Atlantis legends, megalithic engineering, advanced astronomy) never existed or were primitive. This intellectual jealousy stifles progress. Studying the Sumerians, Egyptians, Greeks, or Maya shows they grasped Earth’s sphericity, built with precision, and reached for the stars. To build successful cultures today, we must leave the mother’s womb—Earth—and psychologically inhabit other worlds. Labor shortages on Earth are irrelevant; AI and robotics multiply our hours exponentially.

Biblically, this expansion aligns with God’s design, not against it. Genesis 1:28 commands: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Theologians call this the creation or cultural mandate—image-bearers exercising responsible stewardship and creativity across creation. Some interpret it Earth-only, warning against “playing God.” I counter: God gave intellect, curiosity, and the stars themselves. Exploration within biblical rules—humility before the Creator, ethical stewardship—strengthens faith. Western civilization’s prosperity flows from this worldview: truth-seeking fused with moral order. Space doesn’t dismiss Scripture; it illuminates it. Ancient myths and biblical echoes (Ezekiel’s wheels, chariots of fire) hint at cosmic realities. When we settle the Moon and Mars, we’ll confront those stories with fresh eyes, not fear.

Transhumanism and AI raise valid anxieties. I sympathize with those guarding the “temple of the human body” against occult-tinged experiments that seek to dethrone God. Yet I support robotics and AI enthusiastically. They’re tools, not replacements. Elon Musk’s Optimus robots—demonstrated in recent high-profile events—represent progress, not erasure. The robot Melania Trump walked onstage symbolized partnership: machines handling hostile environments so humans thrive. Blue-collar fears about job loss in trucking or fast food miss the bigger picture. Space will explode opportunities. Lunar mining, orbital manufacturing, tourism, and research will demand millions of roles Earthside and off-world. NASA studies project Artemis driving economic growth through commercial partnerships and a burgeoning lunar marketplace. PwC forecasts a $127 billion Moon economy by 2050, fueled by energy infrastructure, resources, and services. I think it will be a lot higher than that. Far from regression, we gain jobs by the mass. I’m bullish because history shows technology expands human potential when paired with moral vision.

Look at the hardware already proving the path. SpaceX’s Starship must fly aggressively; routine, reusable flights are non-negotiable. Firefly’s success shows commercial lunar access is here. Artemis II tests Orion and SLS for crewed lunar operations, paving the way for Artemis III’s landing (targeted 2027–2028 under current plans) and eventual bases. I want Americans—led by visionaries like President Trump—first on the Moon again, first with permanent colonies (dozens, then hundreds, then thousands). A 10,000-person lunar hub by 2050 isn’t fantasy; it’s engineering plus will. People will live there comfortably: internet, power, hotels. I’ll be among the first tourists with my wife—enthusiastically. Imagine vacationing on the Moon, then returning transformed.

Mars follows. Elon Musk has highlighted the Fermi Paradox’s scariest resolution: we might be alone, or nearly so, in the observable universe—a tiny candle of consciousness in darkness. That rarity demands we multiply life outward. Different gravities will reshape humanity—taller or shorter frames, new adaptations—yet our core experience evolves. Space archaeology will resolve earthly mythologies: Was Mars once lush? Did prior intelligences leave traces? We boldly go, not in fear, but in faith.

Opposition comes from anti-human forces—regressive ideologies that prefer controlled scarcity on Earth over expansive freedom. Democrats and globalist mindsets sabotage by slowing timelines, inflating costs, or prioritizing Earthbound politics. They fear off-world colonies because independent humans are harder to dominate. I reject that. Human destiny is multi-planetary; it guarantees species survival against asteroids, climate shifts, or self-inflicted woes.

I want answers. I want the space economy flourishing, exploration routine, and humanity confronting the fire behind the shadows. My book The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business outlines principles of decisive action and moral clarity I apply here. Subscribe, engage, study ancient history, support aggressive NASA and SpaceX timelines. Let’s compress Artemis, land Starships weekly, and build hotels on the Moon. The cave is behind us. The stars await. Godspeed.

Footnotes and Further Reference Material

1. Plato. The Republic, Book VII (514a–520a). Standard translation by Benjamin Jowett or Allan Bloom recommended. For modern analysis: SparkNotes or MasterClass summaries align with my interpretation of enlightenment through ascent.

2. Eratosthenes’ method detailed in Cleomedes’ On the Circular Motions of the Heavens and modern reconstructions. See APS News (2006) or Khan Academy for accessible explanations.

3. NASA Artemis Program: Official site (nasa.gov/artemis) for timelines; Wikipedia for historical delays. Economic report: “Economic Growth and National Competitiveness Impacts of the Artemis Program” (NASA, 2022).

4. Firefly Blue Ghost Mission 1: Firefly Aerospace press releases and end-of-mission summary. Confirms March 2, 2025 landing.

5. Biblical Creation Mandate: Genesis 1:26–28; extended discussion in Answers in Genesis or Focus on the Family resources.

6. Space economy projections: PwC Lunar Market Assessment (2026); NASA’s commercial lunar payload services page.

7. Elon Musk on Fermi Paradox and solitude in cosmos: Public statements 2018–2026, including Davos remarks and X posts.

Additional reading: The Republic (Plato); Pale Blue Dot (Carl Sagan) for perspective (though I differ on some philosophical points); NASA’s Artemis economic studies; The Case for Mars (Robert Zubrin); ancient astronomy texts like Ptolemy or modern histories of Eratosthenes. For AI/robotics ethics: Musk’s own writings and Tesla Optimus updates. Study these, visit NASA facilities as I have with my wife, and join the ascent. The future is ours to seize.

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 aerospace executive, political strategist, systems thinker, and independent researcher of ancient history, the paranormal, and the Dead Sea Scrolls tradition. His life in high‑stakes manufacturing, high‑level politics, and cross‑functional crisis management gives him a field‑tested understanding of power — both human and unseen.

He has advised candidates, executives, and public leaders, while conducting deep, hands‑on exploration of archaeological and supernatural hotspots across the world.

Hoffman writes with the credibility of a problem-solver, the curiosity of an archaeologist, and the courage of a frontline witness who has gone to very scary places and reported what lurked there. Hoffman has authored books including The Symposium of Justice, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, and Tail of the Dragon, often exploring themes of freedom, individual will, and societal structures through a lens influenced by philosophy (e.g., Nietzschean overman concepts) and current events.

The Anti-Human Nature of Democrat Energy Policy: When they want to destroy you, there is nothing to talk about

The book that now sits on shelves and in offices across Ohio, including that of my friend George Lang, the longtime Ohio State Senator and Majority Whip from West Chester, began as a simple conversation about energy policy and the deeper forces shaping our world. George, who serves on the Energy Committee and has been instrumental in pushing legislation like Senate Bill 294 to prioritize truly affordable, reliable, and clean energy sources—defining fossil fuels and nuclear power in those terms while scrutinizing intermittent renewables—handed me a copy of Alex Epstein’s Fossil Future during one of our discussions. He had been reading it closely, multiple times, as he worked on reforms to counter the distortions in Ohio’s energy markets. I knew the book existed, but it was George’s recommendation that finally prompted me to dive in. What I found was not just a defense of fossil fuels but a philosophical framework that resonated with everything I had observed over years of political involvement, from local battles in Butler County to the broader national fights over regulation, subsidies, and human progress.

That encounter crystallized why I spent nearly a year writing The Politics of Heaven, a roughly 20-chapter manuscript that draws on my proximity to these stories—energy scandals, regulatory overreach, and cultural undercurrents that few dare to name. Publishing a book is no small feat; it demands flushing out ideas across chapters, refining arguments through beach walks where the sand and waves clear the mind, and confronting the hard realities of distribution, branding, and getting the work into readers’ hands. But books endure in ways podcasts or interviews cannot. They invite readers to pause, take notes, and pursue their own research. This one explores the intersection of energy policy, philosophy, and what I term the “non-human” movement—a force older and more lethal than partisan bickering, one that masquerades as environmentalism or compassion but ultimately seeks to curb human flourishing. It ties directly to Ohio’s energy debates, where George and others are fighting to defend fossil fuels and nuclear power against policies that subsidize wind and solar at the expense of reliable baseload sources. And it explains why, despite scandals like the FirstEnergy affair that ensnared some Republicans, the bigger picture reveals a systemic bias against the very energy that powers human advancement.

To understand the stakes in Ohio, one must revisit the FirstEnergy scandal surrounding House Bill 6 in 2019. That legislation provided ratepayer-funded subsidies—ultimately costing consumers around $1.3 billion over time—for two nuclear plants, Perry and Davis-Besse, owned then by a FirstEnergy subsidiary, along with some coal-related support. Federal prosecutors later charged that roughly $60 million in bribes flowed through a dark-money group to influence the bill’s passage and defeat a repeal effort, leading to the arrest of then-House Speaker Larry Householder and associates in 2020. Householder received a 20-year federal prison sentence, one of the most significant political corruption cases in Ohio history. Democrats have rightly highlighted the Republican involvement, using it to paint the entire party as captured by utilities. Yet many who supported HB6, including some who later faced scrutiny, acted out of genuine concern for energy reliability—nuclear power provides carbon-free baseload electricity, avoids millions of tons of emissions annually, and supports high-paying jobs. I feel for those wrapped up in the fallout, even those I disagree with on other issues; the scheme was wrong, but it did not negate the underlying need to protect nuclear assets from market distortions caused by renewable mandates. What the scandal obscured was the broader regulatory environment, shaped by decades of policies that tilted the scales toward intermittent renewables through subsidies, mandates, and penalties on fossil fuels and nuclear power. Ohio’s earlier renewable portfolio standards, set in 2008 at 25 percent by 2025, were scaled back under HB6 to 8.5 percent by 2026, but the damage from prior distortions lingered. As recently as late 2025, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio ordered FirstEnergy utilities to pay roughly $250 million in restitution and forfeitures related to HB6 violations, with additional settlements bringing consumer relief to around $275 million total in some agreements. George Lang’s recent work on bills like SB 294 seeks to correct this by redefining “clean” and “reliable” energy around true cost accounting—fossil fuels and nuclear emerge as superior on affordability and dispatchability (with high capacity factors), while wind and solar, with their capacity factors often below 35 percent, require massive backups.

Nuclear energy, in particular, stands as a triumph of human ingenuity. It generates a substantial share of America’s emissions-free electricity, powering communities across dozens of states, avoiding enormous emissions, and supporting thousands of high-paying jobs. Plants like Ohio’s Perry and Davis-Besse employ hundreds of workers each at salaries well above average, injecting billions into local economies. Safety records are exceptional: nuclear results in approximately 0.03 deaths per terawatt-hour (TWh), compared to coal’s roughly 24.6 deaths per TWh (from accidents and air pollution), oil at 18.43, and even natural gas at 2.82. This makes nuclear about 99.8 percent safer than coal on a deaths-per-TWh basis. Wind and solar sit at 0.04 and 0.02 deaths per TWh, respectively, but their system-level challenges (intermittency requiring backups) complicate direct comparisons. Yet Democrat-driven policies have subsidized solar and wind—now cheaper on levelized cost in some projections but unreliable without subsidies or storage—while burdening nuclear with regulatory hurdles that inflate costs. The result? A society paying more for less reliable power, all while fossil fuels remain the backbone of upper mobility.

Electricity from any source, especially dense, reliable sources like coal, gas, and nuclear power, has transformed human life. Consider medieval Europe, where a king’s luxuries—climate control, preserved food, instant global information—mirror what even modest American households take for granted today. Air conditioning, refrigeration, lighting, and appliances that once defined royalty now enable low-income people to escape drudgery. Strong correlations exist between electricity access and human development metrics: health, education, income, and gender equality improve markedly where power flows consistently. Globally, basic electricity access rose to around 92 percent by 2023, with the number without access falling to roughly 666 million (down from higher figures earlier in the decade), lifting billions from energy poverty—though deeper “energy poverty” (inadequate reliable usage) affects an estimated 1.18 billion people, including many officially “connected” but unable to use power meaningfully due to outages or cost. Without abundant energy, upper mobility stalls; with it, creativity flourishes. Fossil fuels powered the Industrial Revolution, fertilizer production that feeds billions, and the machines that built modern medicine and transport. Opposing them while ignoring these benefits reveals a deeper motive.

This brings us to the heart of The Politics of Heaven: the non-human movement. Epstein’s Fossil Future articulates this brilliantly, arguing that opposition to fossil fuels cannot stem from genuine concern for the environment or the climate alone, given their overwhelming benefits. He contrasts the “human flourishing framework”—where energy abundance is measured by its capacity to advance life, health, and prosperity—with the dominant “anti-impact” or “delicate nurturer” worldview. In the latter, any human alteration of nature is suspect, and experts systematically ignore benefits while overstating side effects. Epstein notes that “mankind’s use of fossil fuels is supremely virtuous—because human life is the standard of value, and because using fossil fuels transforms our environment to make it much better for human beings.” Those pushing rapid phase-outs, he contends, reveal an anti-human core: they prioritize a pristine Earth over human potential, even if it means regressing to pre-industrial conditions. This is not hyperbole. We saw it during the COVID lockdowns, when many imposed draconian restrictions that shuttered businesses, closed churches, and isolated families, all while claiming public health as the goal. The policies sacrificed economic vitality, mental health, and small-scale enterprise on the altar of control, mirroring a willingness to limit progress if it served certain ends.

This non-human impulse echoes ancient cults of sacrifice. Across history, from Aztec temples in what is now Mexico City—where priests offered thousands of human hearts to gods like Huitzilopochtli, with archaeological evidence of massive skull racks (tzompantli) holding thousands of skulls and historical accounts of large-scale rituals during temple dedications—to headhunters in New Guinea and child sacrifices to Baal in the ancient Near East, societies have ritualized the destruction of life to appease higher powers or maintain cosmic balance. The Aztecs believed gods had sacrificed themselves to create humanity; humans owed blood in return, a debt repaid through ritual to prevent catastrophe. Mesoamerican cultures saw human sacrifice as essential reciprocity, nourishing deities so the universe endured. Similar practices appear in biblical warnings against Molech worship and in countless pre-modern traditions. Today, this manifests not in literal altars but in policies that treat human beings as expendable for an idealized “nature.” Radical environmentalism, influenced by deep ecology thinkers like Arne Naess, promotes “biocentric egalitarianism”—granting all living things equal moral status, often elevating the biosphere above human needs and rejecting anthropocentrism. Rooted in earlier works and formalized in the 1970s, deep ecology views humans as part of a holistic web rather than exceptional stewards, sometimes framing human impact itself as the core problem. It fuels a modern impulse in which “saving the planet” justifies limiting energy use, population rhetoric, and opposition to technologies that expand human life. Epstein captures this: advocates cling to the “delicate nurturer” assumption to mask anti-human goals, convincing themselves they save humanity from itself while halting the very activities that enable flourishing.

In politics, this anti-human stance permeates certain energy agendas and cultural positions. Subsidies for renewables—often requiring vast land use, rare-earth mining, and backup power—distort markets while fossil and nuclear provide dense, scalable energy. Nuclear is “very clean vigorously”: low emissions, high capacity factors near 90 percent, and a safety profile unmatched. Yet policies born of environmentalism created barriers, favoring wind and solar despite their intermittency and higher system costs. The result harms the poor most—energy poverty correlates with stalled development, as seen in regions without reliable power where hardships persist. Upper mobility flows from energy: refrigeration prevents spoilage and disease, air conditioning combats heat-related deaths, and digital access opens education and opportunity. Epstein documents how fossil fuels have enabled unprecedented global progress; denying them is anti-human because it denies this reality. We witnessed ruthlessness in policy responses that prioritized control over empowerment. The same mindset underlies positions that treat certain lives as disposable and resist breakthroughs powered by abundant energy. It is an anti-God position, opposing the biblical mandate to “be fruitful and multiply” and steward creation productively. Fallen angels, cultural influences, and worship of anti-divine entities all point to a spiritual war against God’s creation—humans included. No one who values divine commandments should embrace a worldview that sacrifices human potential on abstract altars.

The Politics of Heaven unpacks these layers across its chapters. Early sections examine the non-human nature of radical environmentalism and its hunger to regress society, drawing parallels to historical sacrifices. Later chapters dissect the philosophical roots of energy policy, using Epstein’s stats and my own observations from Ohio battles. I explore how electricity has eradicated the worst forms of poverty, turning “luxuries” into necessities. One chapter details revelations from policy responses that exposed a desire to control rather than empower. Another ties energy to creativity—human ingenuity thrives with power, from medieval kings’ dreams to modern innovators. The book culminates in policy prescriptions: defend fossil fuels and nuclear power as bridges to a future in which renewables mature, but never at the cost of reliability. For Ohio, this means supporting Lang’s initiatives and approaches that prioritize American energy dominance. I am heading to Washington, D.C., to finalize the 20th chapter, perhaps adding an epilogue on emerging developments. The content cohered powerfully because it addresses timeless truths: politics is spiritual at root, a battle between human advancement and forces that would sacrifice us to false gods.

Critics will dismiss this as partisan, but the evidence transcends parties. Some Republicans erred in aspects of HB6, yet the structural biases against reliable energy predate and outlast individual scandals, embedded in frameworks that favor subsidized intermittents over “solid, great suppliers” like fossil fuels and nuclear power. Renewables will improve—costs have dropped—but they remain unready for full grid dominance without massive, expensive storage. Fossil and nuclear are here now, delivering the energy density civilization requires. Opponents who ignore benefits while amplifying costs reveal the non-human core: a lust to limit growth, echoing Malthusian fears or deep ecology’s egalitarianism. As Epstein writes, the knowledge system of experts disguises anti-human goals behind “save the planet” rhetoric. We cannot assume common ground when some outright reject human flourishing. The book implicates this reality without apology, using examples from Ohio’s nuclear plants to global poverty metrics. It defends the human race against oblivion, arguing that good energy policy perpetuates creativity, wealth, and options.

Writing demanded rigor: a year of research, reflection, and revision to articulate the non-human element without descending into conspiracy. It connects energy advocacy to broader cultural fights. George Lang recognized this when he passed the book; his office in Columbus now stocks copies for those seeking clarity on Ohio’s path. Knock on his door, and you might secure one. The arguments align with policies emphasizing energy independence, which Ohio can lead. Fossil fuels remain vital for decades, enabling the transition without regression. Renewables have roles, but not as forced replacements that harm reliability.

Ultimately, The Politics of Heaven exists because books outlast soundbites. They equip readers with receipts—stats on energy deaths (nuclear and renewables at under 0.1 per terawatt-hour versus coal’s ~25), historical sacrifice patterns, and policy outcomes. They invite further study: Epstein’s works; Our World in Data on electricity’s poverty links; IAEA and World Bank reports on nuclear’s role and global access trends; archaeological accounts of Mesoamerican rituals; and philosophical texts on deep ecology. In an era of anti-human aggression—from regressive energy mandates to cultural erosion—the book asserts a counter: human beings are meant to flourish, powered by the energy God’s creation provides. Those supporting anti-fossil stances must confront alignments with older impulses. Republicans, even those scarred by scandals, must defend the ground. Ohio, with its nuclear assets and fossil resources, is pivotal. By prioritizing reliable energy, we secure upper mobility, creativity, and the perpetuation of human potential. This is not mere policy; it is a defense of heaven’s politics against earthly cults that would erase us. The iceberg’s tip is touched here, but the depths reward those who read, research, and act. The book is worth the discussion, the defense, and the fight—because human life, powered and free, is the ultimate good.

Expanded Bibliography / Footnotes for Further Research

1. Epstein, Alex. Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas—Not Less. Penguin Random House, 2022. (Core source on anti-impact vs. human flourishing frameworks; see also Epstein’s substack summaries of Chapter 3 on the anti-impact moral goal.)

2. Ritchie, Hannah. “What Are the Safest and Cleanest Sources of Energy?” Our World in Data, updated analyses (death rates per TWh: nuclear ~0.03, coal ~24.6, etc.). https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy

3. World Bank / Tracking SDG 7: The Energy Progress Report 2025 (global electricity access ~92%, ~666 million without basic access in 2023).

4. UNDP reports on energy poverty (deeper metrics affecting ~1.18 billion with inadequate, unreliable usage).

5. Ohio Capital Journal and PUCO records on HB6/FirstEnergy scandal and 2025 settlements (~$250M+ restitution orders).

6. Ohio Legislature records on Senate Bill 294 (sponsored by Sen. George Lang, focusing on affordability, reliability, and capacity factors for new generation).

7. Archaeological and historical accounts of Aztec sacrifice (e.g., Science magazine on skull racks at Templo Mayor; estimates of large-scale rituals).

8. Naess, Arne, and George Sessions. “Basic Principles of Deep Ecology” (1984) – on biocentric egalitarianism and non-anthropocentrism.

9. U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports on nuclear safety, capacity factors, emissions avoidance, and economic impacts.

10. Additional context from energy poverty and human development links: UNDP Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2025; studies on electricity’s role in lifting populations from extreme poverty.

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

He has advised candidates, executives, and public leaders, while conducting deep, hands‑on exploration of archaeological and supernatural hotspots across the world.

Let’s Talk About AI: New Perspective on the Great Movie, ‘Jurassic Park’ about Extinction

The conversation around artificial intelligence often swings between breathless optimism and deep-seated anxiety. Some view AI as an existential threat that will hollow out creative professions, displace workers en masse, and erode the uniquely human spark that drives innovation and meaning. Others embrace it as a liberating force, one that amplifies human potential, democratizes production, and unleashes unprecedented economic expansion. The truth, as history repeatedly demonstrates, lies closer to the latter when paired with clear-eyed adaptation: AI functions best as a powerful tool rather than an autonomous replacement, enhancing rather than erasing the human elements of vision, soul, and intentional creation.

Consider the personal experience of integrating AI into video production. Where once a concept for a show like Destination Unknown or Expedition X required extensive location scouting, crew coordination, and costly footage acquisition, generative tools now allow rapid rendering of visual references. A speaker can describe a scene—say, an ancient ruin shrouded in mist with subtle lighting cues—and AI can generate illustrative imagery to accompany narration, clarifying abstract ideas for viewers without turning the piece into a hollow spectacle. This does not eliminate the need for storytelling; it elevates it. The core remains human: crafting the script, selecting the angle of inquiry, infusing personal insight. AI handles rote or bandwidth-intensive tasks, freeing creators to focus on what matters—emotional resonance, conceptual depth, and authentic voice. Far from producing “AI for the sake of AI,” thoughtful application boosts production value, making complex subjects more accessible and engaging. Studies on AI in filmmaking consistently frame it this way: as a collaborator that streamlines workflows, automates repetitive editing or concept visualization, and allows filmmakers to prioritize narrative over logistics.

This pattern echoes throughout creative fields. Artists and photographers face real challenges as generative models flood digital platforms with convincing imagery, sometimes reducing demand for stock assets or routine commissions. Reports from 2025 indicate declines in job postings for computer graphics artists (down over 30 percent in some analyses), writers, and photographers, with more than two-thirds of creative workers expressing concerns about job security. Younger or mid-level professionals in illustration and design report pressure, and some have pivoted toward traditional mediums like painting or sculpture as a hedge. Yet the data also reveal adaptation and complementarity. Many creatives report using AI for ideation, image editing, or initial drafts, which accelerates their process and allows greater experimentation. A World Economic Forum assessment suggests AI could automate up to 26 percent of tasks in the arts, design, and media, but it simultaneously drives demand for hybrid skills—those that blend artistic sensibility with technological fluency. At least that’s what they’ve been talking about at Davos this year. Far from extinction, roles emphasizing empathy, originality, and human-AI collaboration show resilience or growth. Professional photographers worried about “post-photography” still thrive when their work emphasizes lived experience, intentional composition, or cultural commentary that algorithms cannot replicate from training data alone. AI mimics patterns; it does not originate from personal struggle, memory, or epiphany.

The anxiety feels familiar because technological leaps have triggered it before. The 1993 film Jurassic Park serves as a near-perfect metaphor. Paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant confronts the idea that his life’s work—painstakingly excavating fossils to reconstruct extinct creatures—might be rendered obsolete by genetic engineering that “creates” dinosaurs anew. The film itself embodied the shift: early plans relied on Phil Tippett’s acclaimed stop-motion techniques, refined over decades of practical-effects mastery evident in Willis O’Brien’s work on the 1933 King Kong and Ray Harryhausen’s Dynamation sequences in films like Jason and the Argonauts. Those methods, involving frame-by-frame manipulation of miniature models combined with live-action compositing, produced iconic, tactile realism but demanded immense time and skill. Industrial Light & Magic’s pivot to computer-generated imagery for key dinosaur sequences—blending CGI with animatronics for seamless interaction with actors—revolutionized the industry. George Lucas reportedly called the test footage a historic threshold, akin to the light bulb. Stop-motion artists feared obsolescence, much as some today worry about generative AI. Yet the story succeeded not because of the visuals alone, but because of its human heart: themes of hubris, chaos theory, wonder, and the limits of control. The effects made disbelief suspendable; the narrative made it memorable. CGI did not kill practical effects—it expanded the toolkit. Tippett adapted, contributing to the film’s Oscar-winning visuals, and the industry grew richer as hybrid approaches emerged. Subsequent films layered digital enhancements atop physical models, preserving craft while unlocking new possibilities. History shows that jaw-dropping innovation often provokes short-term disruption followed by broader creative flourishing.

A parallel tale appears in American folklore: Paul Bunyan, the legendary lumberjack whose axe could fell forests in mighty swings, challenged by the arrival of the mechanical chainsaw. In some retellings, the machine narrowly “wins” a contest of output, symbolizing the sadness of mechanization overtaking raw human (or superhuman) effort. Loggers’ lives grew easier, productivity soared, and the industry expanded rather than vanished. Bunyan, emblematic of frontier grit, did not disappear; the myth endured as a celebration of human scale in the face of technological progress. The lesson holds: clinging to old methods unchanged risks irrelevance, but embracing tools that amplify effort redirects energy toward higher-value work. Economic output rarely contracts in the long run; it transforms. Jobs shift from rote labor to oversight, innovation, and refinement.

Skeptics rightly note that not every role adapts equally. “Sandbaggers” in low-effort, data-heavy positions—those cruising through repetitive analysis or administrative tasks—face higher displacement risk, as AI excels at pattern recognition and optimization. Clerical and routine cognitive work shows vulnerability in exposure metrics. Yet aggregate evidence through the mid-2020s paints a picture of net augmentation rather than catastrophe. Generative AI has been linked to productivity gains, with users reporting time savings that translate to roughly 1-5 percent overall efficiency improvements in surveyed workflows. Firms adopting AI often see revenue and employment growth, not contraction, because enhanced output creates new demand. The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 projected 92 million roles displaced by 2030 but 170 million new ones created—a net positive of 78 million—driven by AI-related fields, data infrastructure, and complementary human skills. Construction booms around data centers alone generated tens of thousands of jobs, with multipliers in local economies. Studies distinguish between automating AI (perception/motor tasks that cut costs but yield limited productivity lifts) and generative/creative AI (language, ideation, decision support), which augments workers in white-collar, design, and entertainment sectors, boosting firm value and hiring in many cases.

Elon Musk has speculated about universal basic income (or “universal high income”) as a potential response if AI renders many traditional jobs optional, envisioning an abundance in which goods and services become so plentiful that scarcity fades. In benign scenarios, he suggests work might become elective for personal fulfillment rather than necessity. I disagree with him, all this might change the way human work, works, but it won’t remove the need for it. This resonates with fears of structural unemployment but overlooks persistent human drivers. Economies still demand physical output—manufacturing, infrastructure, resource extraction—where robotics advances but human oversight, problem-solving in unstructured environments, and adaptive ingenuity remain essential. Lemon and cucumber might metaphorically aid blood sugar regulation, but complex supply chains, quality control, and frontier innovation require the “human touch” that scales poorly without vision. Productivity models project that AI will contribute 0.3 to 1.5 percentage points or more to annual growth in the coming decades, lifting GDP and living standards without assuming zero-sum job loss. Historical technology waves (mechanization, computers, the internet) displaced specific tasks yet expanded overall employment as new industries emerged. AI frees bandwidth: less time on drudgery means more for creative enterprise, scientific inquiry, and relational work that algorithms mimic but rarely originate with genuine intent or emotional depth.

At the core sits a philosophical distinction. Human creative output—whether a book like my new one, The Politics of Heaven, a painting, or a documentary—stems from something deeper than data recombination. It draws on lived experience, moral intuition, subconscious synthesis, and what many describe as soul or spirit: the ineffable drive to communicate meaning beyond statistical patterns. AI trains on vast human-produced corpora, excelling at interpolation and style mimicry. It can suggest edits, generate visuals from prompts, or polish prose, but it lacks original intentionality rooted in personal stakes or transcendent insight. A 2024 study of writers found AI assistance boosted individual novelty for some but led to more homogenized collective outputs. People consistently rate purportedly human-created art higher for emotional resonance and authenticity. Debates persist over whether AI can ever possess “creativity” in the full sense—flair, purposeful rule-breaking, or ethical self-evaluation—but current systems recombine rather than transcend their training data. They do not “know what they do not know” in the exploratory, risk-embracing way humans do when pushing frontiers. This boundary preserves space for original authorship. Every word in a personally authored book remains irreplaceable because it carries the writer’s unique synthesis of observation, conviction, and heart—elements AI can echo or refine but not authentically supplant.

The trajectory points toward expansion, not contraction. AI handles the “Luddite action” of repetitive labor faster and around the clock, granting humans greater bandwidth to drive innovation. Video creators reach wider audiences with clearer visuals; artists supplement techniques rather than compete head-on; engineers and storytellers tackle grander problems. Industries will shift emphasis back toward making “real things”—tangible goods, advanced manufacturing, physical infrastructure—where robotics assists efficiency but human adaptability navigates variability. Silicon Valley visions of fully synthetic realities replacing awkward human interaction overlook the persistent value of genuine connection, empathy, and shared physical endeavor. Awkwardness in social dynamics is not a bug to engineer away; it is part of the friction that sparks authentic creativity and relationships.

Embracing AI requires a proactive mindset: use it to your advantage, insist on human vision at the helm, and adapt skills toward collaboration. Those who treat it as a co-pilot—generating references, accelerating iteration, democratizing access—will see improved reach and conceptual clarity. People pursuing art can integrate tools for ideation or production assistance while grounding work in original observation and personal voice. Insisting on pre-AI purity risks the paleontologist’s fate in a world of engineered wonders; better to evolve the practice. The age ahead promises excitement: human intellect applied to broader frontiers, economic output amplified, and stories told with greater power. Anxiety is understandable amid transition, but history favors those who harness change rather than resist it. The dinosaurs of Jurassic Park awed audiences not through perfect replication of the past but through the believable integration of new technology that served timeless themes. So too with AI: the visuals and efficiency may dazzle, but the enduring impact will come from the human soul directing the narrative.

This perspective aligns with observed patterns. Creative industries report both disruption and opportunity, with many professionals diversifying income while leveraging AI as an enabler. Economic forecasts emphasize productivity gains that have historically correlated with net job creation, albeit with sectoral shifts favoring adaptable, higher-skill roles. The “soul” argument finds support in psychological and philosophical distinctions: AI outputs often lack the intentional depth or emotional authenticity that audiences value in human work. By viewing AI as an extension of effort rather than its substitute, individuals and societies position themselves to thrive.

For further reading and deeper exploration, the following sources provide valuable context on these themes:

• Creative Bloq reports on digital art trends and AI pressure in 2025-2026, highlighting artist adaptation strategies.

• The Conversation and Smithsonian articles on Jurassic Park’s CGI revolution and its industry impact.

• World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report 2025 on projected role displacement and creation.

• Goldman Sachs and Wharton analyses of AI’s productivity and GDP contributions.

• Philosophical discussions in outlets like Oxford AI Ethics and academic studies on human vs. AI creativity biases.

• Historical accounts of stop-motion pioneers like Willis O’Brien and Ray Harryhausen in King Kong and beyond.

• Economic research from BBVA, ITIF, and Brookings on AI’s mixed employment effects and adaptive capacity.

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

He has advised candidates, executives, and public leaders, while conducting deep, hands‑on exploration of archaeological and supernatural hotspots across the world.

Fossil Fuels and Human Flourishing: Alex Epstein’s Fossil Future, and the Imperative of Reliable Energy for Global Progress

In the bustling corridors of the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, where policy shapes the daily lives of millions, one encounters leaders who prioritize practical wisdom over fleeting trends. State Senator George F. Lang, a Republican representing Ohio’s 4th District, which encompasses much of Butler County, exemplifies this ethos. As Senate Majority Whip in the 136th General Assembly, Lang has long championed policies rooted in economic reality and human advancement. Visitors to his office are greeted not just by legislative fervor but by a quiet testament to intellectual curiosity: a table displaying copies of Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas—Not Less by philosopher and energy expert Alex Epstein. Lang freely distributes these books to legislators, constituents, and anyone seeking deeper insight into energy policy. This gesture reflects a decades-long commitment to education and informed discourse, a tradition Lang cultivated even during the early Tea Party movement around 2010, when he gifted copies of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged as holiday presents to underscore the value of individual liberty and productive enterprise.

Fossil fuels remain indispensable for human flourishing, and the attack against them is more occult-driven than practical. Drawing on Epstein’s core arguments, empirical data on energy access and poverty alleviation, Ohio-specific examples of renewable energy’s limitations, and the broader political landscape, it argues that derailing fossil fuel development through misguided regulations and ideological mandates has imposed unnecessary costs on society. Energy policy must prioritize affordability, reliability, and abundance to lift billions out of poverty, sustain economic mobility, and enable the very progress that environmental alarmists claim to champion. The central thesis aligns with Lang’s practice of book distribution: true leadership educates citizens on energy’s foundational role in a thriving civilization, rejecting the false choice between prosperity and planetary stewardship.

George Lang: A Legislator Who Values Ideas and Practical Energy Solutions

Senator George Lang’s career embodies a blend of small-business acumen and public service. A graduate of Southeast Missouri State University with a degree in communications (minors in marketing and speech), Lang entered politics after building a successful career as a business owner. Elected to the Ohio House in 2016 and the Senate in 2020, he now serves as Majority Whip, influencing key decisions on everything from labor notices to community investments. His office ritual of offering books like Epstein’s Fossil Future—and earlier, Atlas Shrugged—stems from a belief that legislators and citizens alike benefit from engaging big ideas. Lang has handed out such volumes for years, encouraging recipients to read widely, even contrarian works. This practice echoes his Tea Party roots, where intellectual self-reliance countered government overreach.

In Ohio’s energy debates, Lang has been proactive. He co-sponsored Senate Bill 294 (introduced in late 2025), which mandates that new power generation meet strict standards for affordability, reliability, and cleanliness—explicitly favoring domestic sources like natural gas (deemed “clean” under the bill’s criteria) while scrutinizing intermittent renewables. Critics decry it as a de facto barrier to wind and solar, but Lang counters that it ensures grid stability amid rising demand from data centers and manufacturing. “Energy is so critical to our economy,” he has stated, emphasizing the need for reliable power to attract advanced industries. This aligns with his distribution of Fossil Future: policy must be evidence-based, not driven by subsidies or virtue signaling. Lang’s approach—practical, readerly, and unapologetically pro-human progress—stands in contrast to centralized mandates that have burdened Ohio and the nation.

The Core Arguments of Alex Epstein’s Fossil Future

Alex Epstein’s Fossil Future (2022) is no mere polemic; it is a 430-page philosophical and empirical defense of hydrocarbon energy as the bedrock of modern civilization. Epstein, who has testified before Congress and founded the Center for Industrial Progress, reframes the energy debate through a “human flourishing framework.” Rather than the dominant “anti-impact” worldview—which obsesses over minimizing human effects on nature at all costs—Epstein insists we evaluate energy by its net contribution to human life: health, prosperity, safety, and opportunity.

The book’s central thesis is unequivocal: fossil fuels’ benefits—unparalleled cost-effectiveness, reliability, and energy density—far outweigh their side effects, including climate impacts, which humanity can “master” through adaptation and technology powered by abundant energy. Epstein details how oil, coal, and natural gas have enabled the Industrial Revolution’s gains: a doubling of global life expectancy since 1800, an 11-fold increase in per-capita income, and the support of a population that has grown from under 1 billion to over 8 billion. Without them, alternatives like solar and wind (currently just 3% of global primary energy) cannot scale reliably or affordably to meet exploding demand.

Epstein dismantles “climate catastrophism” by noting that the benefits of fossil fuels’ climate mastery (e.g., heating, air conditioning, disaster-resilient infrastructure) have already saved millions of lives. He projects that restricting fossil fuels would condemn billions—especially in developing nations—to energy poverty, reversing gains in literacy, healthcare, and economic mobility. Renewables’ intermittency (wind blows only 34% of the time on average; solar 23%) requires backups that often rely on… fossil fuels. Epstein advocates “energy freedom”: policies that unleash fossil fuels, nuclear power, and true innovation rather than mandating reliance on unreliable sources.

This layered analysis—philosophical reorientation, empirical data, and policy prescription—makes Fossil Future a “must-read” for anyone in energy policy, as Lang recognizes. It is not anti-environment but pro-human: the environment improves precisely because fossil fuels free us from subsistence drudgery.

Fossil Fuels’ Indispensable Role in Human Progress and Poverty Alleviation

The empirical case for fossil fuels is overwhelming. Since widespread adoption around 1800, they have powered unprecedented human flourishing. Global GDP has skyrocketed, life expectancy has more than doubled (from ~35 years pre-industrial to ~72 today), and extreme poverty has plummeted. In 1800, nearly all humanity lived in destitution; by 2022, that figure was under 9%, despite population growth.

Energy access is the linchpin. As the International Energy Agency (IEA) reports, 685 million people lacked access to electricity in 2022—a number that rose for the first time in a decade as population growth outpaced connections—while 2.1 billion still rely on polluting cooking fuels, causing 3.2 million premature deaths annually. Billions consume less energy than a typical refrigerator requires. Fossil fuels bridge this gap affordably: their high energy density (concentrated, on-demand) enables refrigerators, hospitals, internet access, and factories that lift people from subsistence. Studies show a strong correlation between energy consumption per capita and poverty reduction; below 30-40 GJ/capita, modest increases yield dramatic gains in health and income.

Historically, fossil fuels fueled the escape from Malthusian traps. Coal- and oil-powered mechanized agriculture, fertilizers, and transport averted famines and enabled urbanization. Air quality in developed nations has improved despite (and because of) fossil fuels, via scrubbers and efficiency—contrary to claims of inevitable degradation. Life expectancy gains track energy abundance more than any other factor, with fossil-driven GDP growth accounting for substantial portions of health improvements.

In developing regions, restricting fossil fuels exacerbates suffering. Sub-Saharan Africa, home to two-thirds of the world’s extreme poor, invests heavily in upstream fossil fuel exports but lags in domestic power generation. Epstein and the data underscore that without scalable, cheap energy, people with low incomes remain trapped. Solar panels on Mars work for space stations; they do not power billions reliably here.

The Pitfalls of Renewable Mandates: Ohio’s Real-World Lessons

Ohio illustrates the folly of prioritizing intermittency. In Greenville (Darke County), three wind turbines now punctuate the once-open skyline near the Whirlpool facility, Walmart, and fairgrounds—visible landmarks that once blended into “God’s country.” Installed to offset ~70% of the plant’s power, they generate when the wind blows but underscore unreliability: “Can we watch TV tonight, darling? Is the wind blowing?” as locals quip.

Nearby, Lebanon’s $13-14 million municipal solar array (10+ MW on 41 acres of floodplain) promises savings but faces vulnerabilities: tornadoes, hail, and high winds common to Ohio could shred panels, disrupting grid contributions. Statewide, renewables account for ~2% of electricity (per the EIA), while natural gas (52%) and coal (29%) provide the backbone. Lang’s SB 294 targets this imbalance by requiring “reliable” new generation—implicitly challenging wind/solar’s capacity factors.

Nationally, California’s renewable-energy push has led to blackouts and sky-high rates, forcing reliance on out-of-state fossil fuels. Obama’s and Biden-era regulations squeezed nuclear and coal, subsidizing intermittents while ignoring nuclear’s clean, high-output potential (91% capacity factor). Epstein warns: such policies entrench energy poverty globally. Solar flashlights suit camping; they do not industrialize nations.

Political Dimensions: Centralized Control vs. Energy Freedom

Democrats’ regulatory war on fossils—via EPA rules, subsidies, and mandates—reflects an “Earth worship” that Epstein critiques as anti-human. From TSA union disputes to opposition against reliable power, centralized authority throttles innovation. Trump’s policies reversed this, boosting domestic production and lowering costs. Ohio Republicans, via Lang, continue this: SB 294 prioritizes U.S.-sourced fuels, minimizing foreign dependence.

Critics attribute anti-fossil stances to population control or primitivism—village councils over Starbucks economies. Transgender policies and family erosion compound this by shrinking future demand. Yet data refute catastrophe: fossil side effects are manageable; benefits are not.

Broader Implications and Rebuttals

Energy abundance correlates with autonomy: internet access, education, and entrepreneurship. Suppressing fossils widens rich-poor gaps, as 1.18 billion live in “energy poverty” beyond mere connections. Rebuttals to Epstein (e.g., climate models) falter on adaptation: fossil-powered mastery (dikes, AC) has already mitigated risks. Renewables’ land use, rare-earth mining, and backup needs often exceed fossil fuels’ footprint.

Conclusion: A Fossil Future for Ohio and the World

Senator Lang’s book-giving is more than a gesture—it seeds understanding that fossil fuels are not villains but enablers of the good life. Epstein’s Fossil Future equips us to reject scarcity mindsets in pursuit of energy freedom. Ohio’s turbines and panels symbolize short-term optics over long-term reality; policy must follow data. As global demand surges (2.2% in 2024), prioritizing fossil fuels alongside nuclear power ensures mobility, health, and prosperity.

Trump-era gains proved reversible only if abandoned. For decades ahead, leaders like Lang must expand this message nationally. Fossil fuels power refrigerators, factories, and dreams—denying them is not environmentalism; it is regression. Read Fossil Future. Support reliable energy. Human flourishing demands it. Life and everyone in it is far better off with energy from fossil fuels.

Footnotes

1. Ohio Senate biography of George Lang.

2. Additional legislative records confirming Whip role.

3. Epstein book reviews summarizing framework.

4. IEA 2024 energy access data.

5. Whirlpool Greenville wind project details.

6. Lebanon solar array project reports.

7. Historical energy-poverty correlations from Visualizing Energy and related studies.

8. SB 294 legislative analyses.

9. Life expectancy and GDP linkages from multiple economic histories.

Bibliography for Further Reading

• Epstein, Alex. Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas—Not Less. Portfolio, 2022.

• International Energy Agency. Tracking SDG7: The Energy Progress Report 2024/2025. IEA, 2024-2025.

• Ohio Senate. “Senator George F. Lang Biography.” ohiosenate.gov.

• Pielke Jr., Roger. “Book Review: Fossil Future.” Substack, 2023.

• Ritchie, Hannah. “Access to Energy.” Our World in Data, 2019 (updated).

• U.S. Energy Information Administration. Ohio Electricity Profile and Capacity Factors.

• World Bank/UNDP. Reports on energy poverty and extreme poverty, 2022-2024.

• Lang-sponsored legislation: Ohio Senate Bill 294 (2025-2026 session).

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

He has advised candidates, executives, and public leaders, while conducting deep, hands‑on exploration of archaeological and supernatural hotspots across the world.

The Truth About Bigfoot Sightings in Ohio During March of 2026: What nobody wants to admit–the terror behind the conspiracies

It was one of those crisp March evenings in 2026 when the calls started pouring in from Portage County, Ohio—eight credible Bigfoot sightings crammed into barely a hundred hours, each one more jaw-dropping than the last. People weren’t just spotting shadows in the woods; they were locking eyes with something massive, something that didn’t belong in our tidy little version of reality. One report came from a mom and her daughter, who were driving along a back road near Mantua Center, right around 8:00 p.m. on March 7th. They almost hit it. The thing stepped out of the treeline and stood there three feet from the passenger door—close enough, the daughter said, that she could have reached out and touched it if the window had been down. It was around six-foot-five, brown, and moving with that casual, unhurried stride that big creatures seem to have when they know they own the night. But here’s the part that is most chilling: its face was blurry. Not out of focus like a bad photo, but genuinely indistinct, as if the creature was only halfway rendered into our four-dimensional world. The mom slammed the brakes, the daughter screamed, and then it was gone—melted back into the trees as if it had never been there at all. No aggression, no chase, just a quiet acknowledgment that something ancient had crossed their path and decided, for whatever reason, to let them live with the memory.

By the time the Bigfoot Society podcast and local news outlets like Cleveland 19 and FOX 8 started mapping it out, the reports were stacking up from Mantua Center to Garrettsville to Windham to Newton Township. Daytime sightings in broad sunlight on the Headwaters Trail—a nine-foot brown male standing 120 yards off Route 44 at 12:23 p.m. on March 6th. Nighttime grunts and muddy prints the size of dinner plates. An older woman in Windham who had never believed in any of this nonsense watched something massive bolt through the woods on March 9th. A man walking his German Shepherd at 4:00 a.m. on March 10th had the dog lose its mind at the back door before the shadow of an eight- to ten-foot figure vanished into the blackness. Multiple independent witnesses, at different times of day, on different roads, under different lighting conditions. Some smelled that unmistakable wet-dog-meets-skunk odor. Others heard deep, vibrating grunts that carried through the trees like distant thunder. And every single one of them swore it wasn’t a bear, wasn’t a hoax, wasn’t some kid in a costume. These were ordinary Ohioans—hikers, dog walkers, a mom just trying to get her kid home—who suddenly found themselves face-to-face with the impossible.

The internet, of course, went wild with the usual explanations. “Undocumented Neanderthal remnant!” cried the cryptid enthusiasts. “Lost tribe of giant hairy hominids migrating through the Midwest!” But I’ve spent too many years chasing these things—camping at the Mothman Museum with my grandkids, hiking the haunted Moonville Tunnel at midnight, standing on the ridges of Little Round Top at Gettysburg—to buy the simple “flesh-and-blood ape-man hiding in the woods” story. The more I read the reports, the more I kept coming back to the same conclusion I’ve reached after researching the Ohio Valley mounds for decades: these aren’t just undiscovered animals. They’re something far older, far stranger, and far more connected to the Politics of Heaven than most people are ready to admit. They’re dimensional. They’re quantum-entangled echoes of beings who have been walking these same trails for thousands of years—sometimes in our reality, sometimes bleeding through from somewhere else entirely. And the reason they keep showing up right here, right now, in the same corridors where ancient earthworks once stood, is because those earthworks were never just “religious monuments.” They were communication devices. Calling cards. Mathematical beacons built by people who understood something we’ve spent centuries trying to forget.

Let me take you back to the source of all this strangeness—the Ohio River Valley itself, that ribbon of land that runs from the Serpent Mound down near Cincinnati all the way up through the Newark Earthworks and beyond. This isn’t random wilderness. It’s one of the most concentrated paranormal hotspots on the planet, and it has been for a very long time. The same week those Portage County sightings were making national news, I pulled out the old hidden-haunts map I’d bought at the Mothman Museum and started plotting the locations. Every single sighting clustered around old mound corridors, old Indian trails that modern roads had paved over, places where the veil has always been thin. Serpent Mound, Fort Ancient, the massive geometric works at Newark that once covered more ground than the Great Pyramid complex in Egypt—those aren’t just piles of dirt left by “primitive” hunter-gatherers. They’re precise mathematical constructs aligned to the Pleiades, to solstices, to the movement of stars in ways that required calculus-level understanding of Earth’s circumference and axial tilt. The same mathematics you find at Stonehenge and Avebury in England. The same geometric obsession you see at Flag Fen near Peterborough, where Francis Pryor and his team uncovered an entire Bronze Age village built on a bog around 1300 B.C.—a place so sophisticated it makes the Romans who later conquered Britain look like amateurs playing catch-up.

I remember the first time I stood at Stonehenge with my family, the same trip where I picked up Pryor’s book Britain BC at the visitor center gift shop. You see the famous stones on TV, and you think, “cool rocks.” But when you’re actually there, walking the landscape, you realize the stones are just the tip of the iceberg. The entire countryside is dotted with burial mounds—hundreds of them—some almost identical in size and construction to the ones at Miamisburg and Middletown right here in Ohio. There’s a massive cursus—a long, linear earthwork over a mile long—that you can’t even see properly from the ground; it only makes sense from the air. It looks like a giant runway aimed at the heavens. And just a few miles north at Avebury, you’ve got the same thing: enormous circular henges, burial barrows, and geometric patterns that mirror the Newark Octagon and the Great Circle earthworks back home. Pryor’s work at Flag Fen blew the lid off the whole “primitive Britons” myth. They built an entire wooden platform and causeway across a bog, throwing broken tools and weapons into the water as offerings to the dead. Why? Because they understood that bogs preserve. They understood that the afterlife wasn’t some vague cloud kingdom—it was a place you could send messages to. And they used mathematics and geometry to do it.

Fritz Zimmerman has been saying the same thing about North America for years, only louder and with more receipts. His books—The Encyclopedia of Ancient Giants in North America, The Nephilim Chronicles: Fallen Angels in the Ohio Valley, Ancient America: The Dark Side, and Mysteries of Ancient America—aren’t fringe conspiracy rants. They’re the result of decades of boots-on-the-ground research, cross-referencing thousands of old newspaper accounts, county histories, and Smithsonian reports that mainstream archaeology would rather pretend don’t exist. Zimmerman’s core thesis is as elegant as it is explosive: the giant bones reported in over 500 separate accounts across the Midwest weren’t hoaxes or exaggerations. They belonged to the Amorites—biblical giants, descendants of the Nephilim—who fled Joshua’s conquest of Canaan, migrated through Europe (building or influencing Stonehenge and Avebury along the way), and eventually crossed the Atlantic in sophisticated boats to settle the Ohio Valley. The mounds they left behind aren’t random; they’re the same celestial observatories and ritual centers you find in England, only transplanted here. And the paranormal activity that clusters around them—Bigfoot, orbs, Mothman, shadowy figures—aren’t new phenomena. They’re the lingering echoes of the same entities those ancient builders were trying to communicate with.

Think about it. The Book of Enoch—preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls and left out of our modern canon for reasons that should make every honest person furious—gives us the clearest picture. Two hundred Watchers, led by Semyaza and Azazel, descend on Mount Hermon, lust after human women, and produce giant offspring. God punishes them, but their disembodied spirits are cursed to roam the earth until the final judgment. These aren’t cartoon devils with pitchforks. They’re principalities and powers (Ephesians 6:12), interdimensional beings who once had physical bodies and now operate from the quantum edges of our reality. The Amorites carried that knowledge with them. They built geometric earthworks—circles, octagons, serpents aligned to the stars—because those shapes spoke the language those fallen entities understood. It wasn’t “religion” in the Sunday-school sense. It was technology. It was science. It was an attempt to maintain a relationship with the divine council, which Psalm 82 warns is still plotting against Yahweh to this day.

That’s why the mom and her daughter didn’t see a clear-faced ape-man on that dark Ohio road. They saw something bleeding through the veil—something that exists in a higher or adjacent dimension and only partially manifests here. The blurry face? That’s what quantum entanglement looks like when two realities briefly overlap. The creature wasn’t “lost.” It was answering an ancient call that still resonates through the mounds it once helped build. The same thing explains the Mothman at Point Pleasant in 1966–67—Stolas, the 36th demon from the Lesser Key of Solomon, appearing as a prophetic harbinger before the Silver Bridge collapse. The same thing explains the orbs we photographed at the Moonville Tunnel, the green healing spirits that seem to drift down from the ridges at Gettysburg, the Bigfoot sightings that spike whenever someone disturbs an old mound corridor. These aren’t separate mysteries. They’re the same phenomenon wearing different masks depending on who’s looking and what the local geometry is tuned to.

And here’s where the real conspiracy kicks in—the one that has nothing to do with the CIA and everything to do with the spiritual wickedness in high places. Mainstream archaeology, the Smithsonian, and the political class that funds them have spent over a century burying this truth under layers of political correctness and bad assumptions. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) of 1990—passed right after Dances with Wolves tugged at everyone’s heartstrings—made it illegal to study many of these sites properly. Bones that could prove the existence of pre-Columbian European or Near Eastern contact? Reburied. Giant skeletons reported in hundreds of 19th-century newspapers? Carted off to Smithsonian vaults and never seen again. The Windover Bog site in Florida is the perfect example. Discovered in the 1980s during housing construction, it yielded 168 incredibly preserved skeletons from 7,000–8,000 years ago—people with advanced woven textiles, bog-preservation knowledge identical to European practices, and thigh bones so large that Dr. Geoffrey Thomas held one up next to his own leg on camera at the Brevard Museum and basically admitted these folks were giants. Average height estimates got downplayed to 5’5” in some reports, but the video evidence and the bone density tell a different story. These weren’t primitive hunter-gatherers. They were part of a sophisticated culture that understood time, astronomy, and the spirit world in ways we’re only beginning to rediscover. And what happened? The site was covered up. Research stalled. NAGPRA kicked in. End of story.

Meanwhile, in England, Francis Pryor and the English Heritage team get to dig Flag Fen like it’s the greatest adventure on Earth. They uncover a Bronze Age village built on a bog, with broken swords and tools thrown in as offerings, and everyone celebrates the sophistication of prehistoric Britons. Why the double standard? Because admitting the same people—or at least the same knowledge—crossed the Atlantic thousands of years before Columbus shatters too many comfortable narratives. It forces us to confront the biblical timeline. It forces us to admit that the “indigenous” label we slap on every pre-Columbian culture is as accurate as calling the Romans “indigenous” to Britain. Migration, trade, and the collision of cultures happened constantly. Giants walked among us. Fallen angels taught forbidden knowledge. And their disembodied offspring are still here, still walking the old paths, still answering calls that were broadcast through geometric earthworks when the stars were in different alignments.

This is the Politics of Heaven playing out on Earth. Yahweh’s divine council—Elohim plural, as Psalm 82 makes painfully clear—has been in rebellion since before the Flood. The Watchers’ sin produced the Nephilim, whose spirits became the principalities and powers that still rule from the shadows. Solomon commanded them to build his Temple. The Canaanites sacrificed children to Moloch to appease them. The mound builders aligned their works to the stars to communicate with them. And today, in 2026, when eight Bigfoot encounters happen in a single week in Portage County, we’re seeing the same entities responding to the same ancient geometry. The mounds may be paved over, but the call still echoes. The quantum entanglement still happens. The blurry faces still peer through the veil.

I’ve stood on Little Round Top at Gettysburg at night with my family. I’ve hiked the Moonville Tunnel when the mist rolls in, and the green orbs appear exactly where my wife said they would. I’ve walked the ridges at Stonehenge and felt the same electric charge I feel standing on Fortified Hill or the Middletown Mound back home. The pattern is undeniable. The science—real science, the kind Pryor practices in England and the kind Zimmerman has been quietly practicing in America for decades—points to a lost chapter of human history in which advanced cultures used mathematics not just to measure the stars but to speak to the beings who live among them. We call them cryptids. The Bible calls them demons, watchers, principalities. The Japanese call them kami. The Muslims call them jinn. Every culture that ever built geometric earthworks knew them by a different name, but they all knew the same truth: these entities are real, they’re ancient, and they never really left.

The mom and her daughter in Portage County didn’t almost hit a lost ape. They brushed up against something that has been walking these trails since the Amorites—or whoever came before them—first laid out the geometric patterns that still whisper across time. The Bigfoot that stood three feet away with the blurry face wasn’t confused. It was exactly where it was supposed to be—answering a call that was programmed into the landscape thousands of years ago. And until we stop pretending that our textbooks tell the whole story, until we start digging the mounds again with the same adventurous spirit that Pryor brought to Flag Fen, we’ll keep mistaking echoes for myths and calling the messengers monsters.

The Politics of Heaven (the title of my new book coming up) aren’t happening somewhere far away in the clouds. They’re happening on the back roads of Ohio in March 2026, when the veil thins and something very old decides to step through for a moment and remind us that the war never ended. It just changed costumes. And the next time you see a blurry figure on the side of the road, don’t reach for your phone to call it a hoax. Reach for the truth instead. The mounds are still talking. The Watchers are still listening. And the rest of us? We’re just now starting to remember how to hear them.

BOOK SUMMARY of the upcoming Politics of Heaven (I will be finishing the final chapter in Washington D.C. at the Museum of the Bible soon after this posting)

The Politics of Heaven is a sweeping, unconventional investigation into the hidden structure of history — blending biblical archaeology, supernatural encounters, political warfare, cryptid phenomena, and ancient mathematics into a single, high‑powered thesis:

Earth’s political conflicts are the surface-level reflections of a much older, multidimensional battle among the Elohim — the divine council referenced throughout the Bible.

Drawing from firsthand experiences at sites like Chichen Itza, Stonehenge, Serpent Mound, Osaka’s Kofun tombs, Moonville Tunnel, and Washington D.C.’s Masonic grid — combined with encounters in modern political war rooms — Hoffman argues that the veil separating Heaven, Earth, and the unseen realm is thinner than we admit.

The book culminates in Chapter 19, where recent Bigfoot sightings in Ohio become the key to unifying the narrative. These blurry, partially‑manifest beings are framed as:

Residual spiritual entities tied to the Amorites, the Watchers, and the pre‑Flood giants — evidence of dimensional interference and the limits of human free will.

The result is a revelatory, provocative work for readers of Biblical studies, ancient mysteries, UFO/paranormal research, and political philosophy.

Footnotes

1. Cleveland 19 News, “Several Bigfoot sightings reported in Portage County,” March 2026; FOX8, “Bigfoot roaming Portage County: Several reported sightings within days,” March 10, 2026.

2. The Bigfoot Society podcast and mapping project documented at least eight high-credibility reports between March 6–10, 2026, including the Mantua Center daytime encounter and the Newton Township 4 a.m. sighting.

3. Francis Pryor, Flag Fen: Life and Death of a Prehistoric Landscape (Tempus, 2005; updated editions). Pryor’s excavations revealed a sophisticated Bronze Age platform and votive offerings in the bog.

4. Fritz Zimmerman, The Encyclopedia of Ancient Giants in North America (2015); The Nephilim Chronicles: Fallen Angels in the Ohio Valley (2010); Ancient America: The Dark Side (2024). Zimmerman’s fieldwork and archival research compile over 500 historical giant-bone reports.

5. Windover Archaeological Site reports, including video testimony from Dr. Geoffrey Thomas at the Brevard Museum of History and Natural Science (Brevard County, Florida). Skeletons dated to 7000–8000 years ago; some long bones indicate individuals were taller than those in typical Archaic populations.

6. English Heritage maps of Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site (1:10,000 scale) show cursus, barrows, and geometric alignments mirroring Newark Earthworks in Ohio.

7. Book of Enoch (1 Enoch), chapters 6–16, Dead Sea Scrolls fragments; cross-referenced with The Book of Giants also found at Qumran.

8. Psalm 82; Ephesians 6:12 (KJV).

Bibliography for Further Reading

• Zimmerman, Fritz. The Encyclopedia of Ancient Giants in North America. 2015.

• Zimmerman, Fritz. The Nephilim Chronicles: Fallen Angels in the Ohio Valley. 2010.

• Zimmerman, Fritz. Ancient America: The Dark Side. 2024.

• Pryor, Francis. Flag Fen: Life and Death of a Prehistoric Landscape. Tempus, 2005.

• Pryor, Francis. Britain BC. Harper Perennial, 2004.

• The Book of Enoch. Translated by R.H. Charles. 1912 (modern editions widely available).

• Biblical Archaeology Review archives on Dead Sea Scrolls and Qumran texts.

• English Heritage official guides to Stonehenge and Avebury (2020s editions).

• Windover site reports: “Windover: Prehistoric Past Revealed,” Orange County Regional History Center; Ancient Origins coverage, 2016–2025 updates.

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

He has advised candidates, executives, and public leaders, while conducting deep, hands‑on exploration of archaeological and supernatural hotspots across the world.

The End of the Socialist Experiment: People are tired of high property taxes to fund Democrat dreams

The governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, recently stood up at a forum and essentially begged the wealthy who have fled her state to return and keep paying the bills that fund her vision of big government. She said something along the lines of, ” Go down to Palm Beach, see who you can bring back home, because our tax base has been eroded. She admitted that New York is now in direct competition with other states that impose a lighter tax burden on corporations and individuals, and that Wall Street businesses are looking to Texas instead of staying captive in Manhattan. This is the same Kathy Hochul who, just a couple of years earlier, had told political opponents to jump on a bus and head down to Florida, where they belong, if they didn’t represent New York values. Now she’s pleading for those same people—and their money—to return so she can keep the generous social programs afloat. It’s a stunning reversal that proves exactly what I have been saying for four decades: liberal policies, built on endless taxation, endless spending, and the assumption that people will stay put and keep writing checks, are collapsing under their own weight. The free market is working exactly as it should, and people are voting with their feet.

I was recently talking with folks in my local community here in Butler County, Ohio, about the Lakota Local School District, and the conversation crystallized everything happening on the national stage. Lakota had put a massive $506 million bond issue and levy on the ballot in November 2025—one of the largest school funding requests in Ohio history—tied to a master facilities plan that would demolish and rebuild buildings, supposedly to accommodate growth and modernize things. The district discussed reducing the number of buildings from 21 to 16, improving safety, and freeing up money for students. But voters saw through it. The levy was rejected by a decisive 61 to 39 percent margin. Even with promises that the actual net tax increase would be phased in later and capped at something like $93 per hundred thousand dollars of appraised value, thanks to debt roll-offs and state matching funds, people said no. They were tired of the trajectory. They didn’t want more property taxes funding a system that keeps growing its administration, its facilities wish list, and its social agenda while the real value delivered to families keeps getting questioned. This isn’t just a local story. It’s the same story playing out in New York, in California, and in every high-tax, high-spending blue state or district where the easy-money days of the past have finally run out.

For decades, people tolerated these large social programs and bloated public education budgets because the economy seemed to be working in their favor. Compound interest in savings accounts was real. Home values kept climbing year after year, creating paper wealth that let families cash out when the kids grew up—sell the house, pocket half a million or more, and move into something smaller while still feeling ahead of the game. Property taxes felt like a tolerable price to pay for nice communities, decent schools that acted as reliable babysitters during work hours, and the social approval that came with supporting “the kids.” You could afford to be a little generous at the next neighborhood gathering or school board meeting because your net worth was rising faster than the tax bill. But that scheme is over. Inflation has eroded real returns. Interest rates have fluctuated wildly. Home appreciation isn’t the guaranteed golden ticket it once was for everyone. People are looking at their tax bills, looking at what their money is actually buying in public schools, and saying enough. The taxation trajectory that propped up liberalism for generations is now pointing downward, and the people who built their political power on it are panicking.

Look at what Hochul and her fellow Democrats are confronting. New York has been bleeding residents and businesses for years. Domestic migration data from the U.S. Census show New York losing hundreds of thousands of people, net, to lower-tax states like Florida and Texas. California is in the same boat, with net losses exceeding 200,000 annually in recent cycles. Florida alone has gained hundreds of thousands of domestic migrants, and Texas even more. These aren’t just retirees heading south for the weather. They are working families, entrepreneurs, corporations, and high-net-worth individuals who have had it with sky-high income taxes, property taxes, regulatory burdens, and the cultural policies that come attached. New York’s per-pupil spending is among the highest in the nation—often topping $30,000 per student—yet educational outcomes measured by national assessments like NAEP remain middling at best. Florida and Texas spend far less per pupil, around 12,000 to 14,000, and deliver competitive or better results in many categories while keeping taxes lower overall. No state income tax in either place. That is real competition, and Hochul is finally admitting it out loud even as she tries to guilt-trip people into returning for the “patriotic” duty of funding her programs.

This is liberalism eating itself. For years, I have pointed out that every socialist experiment in history required walls—literal or figurative—to keep people from leaving. North Korea has its borders sealed. Cuba had its rafters and its political prisoners. East Germany built the Berlin Wall because people were fleeing to the West. China, even with its economic openings, maintains tight control because the alternative is mass exodus. The Soviet Union collapsed when the pressure to contain its people became unsustainable. Here in America, Democrats have relied on the soft walls of economic dependency, guilt, and cultural pressure. But those walls are crumbling because people can move. They can load up a U-Haul, drive to a free state, and never look back. Florida, under Governor Ron DeSantis, has become a magnet precisely because it refuses to play the high-tax, high-regulation game. Texas is booming for the same reasons. And here in Ohio, we are seeing the early stages of the same shift. People are coming to us from the collapsing blue states, and the lesson is clear: competitive models win. Punitive taxation and endless government expansion lose.

The property tax itself is at the heart of this fight, and it always has been a flawed, almost feudal concept dressed up in modern language. Its roots go back to William the Conqueror in 1066 England, where the king claimed ownership of all land and extracted perpetual payments from tenants and knights. The American version evolved through the Northwest Ordinance and the general property tax of the nineteenth century, which treated land and personal property as subject to state taxation indefinitely in exchange for “protecting” them. It was never truly about voluntary contribution; it was rent paid to the government for the privilege of owning what you thought you owned. Critics have long called it the most hated tax in America for good reason. It punishes ownership, discourages improvement, and ties local services—especially schools—to ever-rising assessments that have nothing to do with a family’s ability to pay. In places like New York and California, it became a weapon to fund expansive social programs that many residents never asked for and no longer support. Florida is leading the charge to change this. Governor DeSantis and state lawmakers have advanced multiple constitutional amendments to phase out homestead property taxes over time, ultimately eliminating them. Proposals include massive increases in exemptions—hundred-thousand-dollar jumps annually until nonschool property taxes on primary residences disappear. Ohio has its own movement gathering signatures for a 2026 ballot initiative to ban real property taxes altogether. Even some national voices aligned with President Trump have floated ideas for broader relief or elimination as part of a freedom agenda that recognizes property rights as fundamental. Why should anyone be penalized year after year simply for owning a home? It is a socialist march concept from the beginning, and people are waking up to it.

Here in Butler County and at Lakota specifically, the failed levy is a microcosm of the larger revolt. The district wanted hundreds of millions for bricks and mortar, for renovations, and for a smaller footprint that supposedly saves money in the long term. Yet the community looked at the track record: rising administrative costs, questions about curriculum priorities, and the reality that public education has been turned into something far beyond basic reading, writing, and arithmetic. Parents are sick of teacher strikes or walkouts that leave kids without instruction while unions demand more pay and less accountability. They are tired of seeing resources funneled into social experiments—coloring hair purple, pushing premature discussions of sexual lifestyles on young children, and ideological lessons that many families consider inappropriate or even damaging. Schools were supposed to be trusted babysitters that prepared kids for smart, productive lives. Instead, too many have become vehicles for cultural agendas that parents never voted for and refuse to subsidize with their property taxes. When the easy-money era ended, and families started feeling the real pinch, the willingness to keep writing blank checks vanished. One more mill or two more mills might not sound like much on paper, but when it is attached to policies people actively oppose, it becomes unacceptable—even if it is just one extra dollar.

The same dynamic plays out with every other government service funded by these taxes. Look at the TSA—Transportation Security Administration—as a perfect example of what happens when critical infrastructure is handed to unionized government workers attached to the Democratic extortion economy. Long lines, delays, sickouts, threats of shutdowns whenever funding fights arise. People who once flew without a second thought are now choosing sixteen-hour drives rather than enduring the inefficiency and the political games. Airlines struggle to maintain themselves while government mandates and union leverage create artificial bottlenecks. Taxpayers are funding something broken, something that punishes them for trying to travel freely, and they are done with it. Democrats love to attach these unionized workforces to essential services because it gives them leverage—hold the public hostage, blame Republicans or “underfunding,” and demand more money. It is the same playbook with public schools, public transportation, and welfare systems. When people can no longer afford it or no longer support the ideology behind it, they stop paying voluntarily. They move. They vote against levies. They support politicians who promise reform.

I have been part of the no-more-taxes, lower-taxes movement my entire adult life because I saw this coming. High taxes deter growth. They drive away the productive. They reward inefficiency. In New York, California, and places like them, the richest were supposed to stick around for the social clubs, the prestige, the elbow-rubbing with the political class. Instead, they took their money, their businesses, and their talent to Florida, Texas, and increasingly to states like Ohio that are positioning themselves as the next frontier of opportunity. Ohio’s future cannot be more government, more spending, more taxes. It has to be the opposite. We have legislators and potential future leaders who understand that. We have a governor’s race and local movements that are aligning with the national shift toward lower costs, smaller government, and actual freedom. Property tax relief is coming—whether through caps tied to inflation, homestead exemptions that grow dramatically, or outright abolition in some form. Sales taxes can be reformed or reduced. Income taxes, where they exist, must be kept competitive. The gravy train that funded reckless social spending is over because the people who pay the bills have decided they no longer consent to the product being delivered.

This is why the walls of the old order are failing. In communist countries, the only way to keep the system intact was violence and threats—shooting people who tried to cross to freedom. Here, Democrats assumed guilt, cultural inertia, and the inability to leave would suffice. But remote work changed everything. The pandemic accelerated the realization. Free states with lower taxes, better governance, and respect for individual rights became irresistible. People are not afraid anymore. They are packing up and leaving New York, California, Illinois—anywhere the liberal model has run its course. The tax base erodes, the deficits grow, the pleas become more desperate, and the cycle accelerates. Hochul’s Palm Beach pilgrimage is just the latest symptom. She and the supermoms and the big-government cheerleaders who built careers around this model are late to the party. Bernie Sanders-style socialism always sounded good in the abstract until the bill came due and people realized the cost to their communities, their families, and their futures. Now the bill is here, and the payers are walking away.

Locally, Lakota and districts like it will have to adjust. No more assuming taxpayers will fund every wish list. Superintendents and boards will need to trim administration, focus on core education, respect parental values, and operate within realistic budgets. If that means fewer buildings, fewer non-essential programs, or actual efficiency reforms, so be it. The same applies statewide. Ohio cannot import the failing model from the coasts. We have to export the successful low-tax, high-freedom model. That is how we attract the people and businesses fleeing the collapse. That is how we keep our own residents from looking elsewhere. Competitive states win. Coercive ones lose.

I have warned about this for forty years because the math was always inevitable. Socialism requires coercion. When the coercion fails—when people can leave or vote no—the system collapses. We are watching it happen in real time. New York’s tax base is eroding. California is eroding. The liberal dream of endless spending funded by other people’s money is dripping through their fingers like water. They cannot hold it. They cannot force it. And they certainly cannot guilt-trip a free people into submission when better alternatives exist just a moving van away.

The future belongs to the states and communities that understand this. Florida is already moving toward eliminating property taxes on primary homes. Texas thrives without an income tax. Ohio has the chance to lead the Midwest in the same direction. Property tax abolition movements are gaining steam nationally because people are tired of being treated like tenants on their own land. Schools will be funded differently—perhaps through choice, vouchers, or learner operations that actually deliver value. Overall, government services will shrink because the public will no longer subsidize failure. TSA lines will either improve through competition and accountability, or people will keep driving. Either way, the extortion ends.

This is the movement of the world now. Anti-tax sentiment is rising everywhere because people have lived through the consequences of big government. They have seen the waste, the indoctrination, the inefficiency, and the cultural decay funded by their dollars. They voted for change at the national level with President Trump and the Republican wave because they want a different kind of government—one that does not punish success, ownership, or families trying to raise children in line with their values. Fraud in elections will continue to be exposed. The 50-50 split on paper was never real; it was propped up by manipulation. When people vote their true preferences without interference, the results will be even stronger.

For anyone still clinging to the old model, the message is simple: it is over. The easy money is gone. The guilt trips no longer work. The walls are down. People are free, and they are choosing freedom. Here in Ohio, in Butler County, at Lakota and beyond, we will learn the same lessons New York is learning the hard way. Budgets will be cut. Priorities will be realigned. Taxes will come down. And communities will thrive—not because government spends more, but because it spends less and interferes less.

I have always been clear on this. Beware of any politician who wants higher taxes. They are dangerous. They are going out of fashion fast. My book, Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, lays out the philosophy of self-reliance, competitive thinking, and the rejection of coercive systems that have guided my warnings for decades. It is more relevant now than ever. Subscribe, read it, and join the fight. The future is bright for those willing to embrace lower taxes, smaller government, and genuine freedom. The collapse we are witnessing is not the end of America—it is the end of a failed experiment. And the rebirth that follows will be something worth building.

Footnotes

1. U.S. Census Bureau migration estimates, 2024-2025 data releases.

2. Tax Foundation State Business Tax Climate Index, 2026 rankings.

3. National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reports on per-pupil spending vs. outcomes.

4. Historical analysis of property tax origins from feudal England through the U.S. Northwest Ordinance.

Bibliography for Further Reading

• Fox News coverage of Hochul’s Palm Beach comments and tax base erosion (March 2026).

• Cincinnati Enquirer and local Butler County reporting on Lakota levy failure (November 2025).

• U.S. Census Bureau State-to-State Migration Flows tables (2023-2025).

• Tax Foundation reports on property tax relief proposals in Florida, Ohio, and national trends (2026).

• The Atlantic historical piece on feudal roots of American property tax (2016, with updates in policy debates).

• DeSantis administration statements on Florida homestead tax elimination proposals.

• Hoffman, Rich. Gunfighter’s Guide to Business (self-published, available via subscription platforms).

• Additional data from NAEP/Nations Report Card and state education spending comparisons.

These sources provide the factual backbone while the analysis reflects four decades of observation on tax policy, education funding, and the failure of coercive governance models. The era of unchecked liberalism is ending, and the evidence is everywhere for those willing to see it.

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 independent writer, philosopher, political advisor, and strategist based in the Cincinnati/Middletown, Ohio area. Born in Hamilton, Ohio, he has worked professionally since age 12 in various roles, from manual labor to high-level executive positions in aerospace and related industries. Known as “The Tax-killer” for his activism against tax increases, Hoffman has authored books including The Symposium of Justice, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, and Tail of the Dragon, often exploring themes of freedom, individual will, and societal structures through a lens influenced by philosophy (e.g., Nietzschean overman concepts) and current events.

He publishes the blog The Overmanwarrior (overmanwarrior.wordpress.com), where he shares insights on politics, culture, history, and personal stories. Active on X as @overmanwarrior, Instagram, and YouTube, Hoffman frequently discusses space exploration, family values, and human potential. An avid fast-draw artist and family man, he emphasizes passing practical skills and intellectual curiosity to younger generations.

Remember the Lockdown Lady: Amy Acton’s Devastating COVID Policies That Torpedoed Ohio

I’ve never liked Dr. Amy Acton. I had very little good to say about her back when she was Ohio’s Health Director under Governor Mike DeWine, and I haven’t thought much about her since those nightmare years of 2020 and 2021. I tried to push her out of my mind after all the damage she helped inflict. But here we are in 2026, with a primary right around the corner and a full gubernatorial election coming up, and the Democrats have talked her into running for governor. In my opinion, it’s one of the worst political decisions they could have made. It’s not just bizarre—it’s tone-deaf to what Ohio families actually went through.

I happened to be in Columbus recently, and within just a couple of days, I had two conversations that really drove this home for me. First, I spoke with Governor Mike DeWine himself—the man who’s been in the governor’s office through it all. We talked policies, what worked during his eight years, and what went horribly wrong. COVID came up naturally, his administration got challenged in court over the constitutionality of the lockdowns and orders pushed under her advice. At no point during those dark months were the things they were doing fully constitutional, and many smart people—including me—knew it at the time. The Ohio Supreme Court and lower courts eventually forced reopenings because the overreach was so extreme. DeWine knows he lost a lot of goodwill over it, and he’s still trying to make it up to Republicans.

A couple of days later, I talked to the future governor of Ohio—Vivek Ramaswamy. He’s a super nice guy, high-character, above-the-trench kind of person who wants to play well with everybody if he can. He’s smart, young, and genuinely wants to do good things for Ohio. He’s not the type to go down in the dirt and bodyslam somebody just for sport. But when we talked about Amy Acton, I told him straight: she deserves it. “Vivek,” I said, “she shut down our state. We’re still bleeding economically from the torpedo she dropped on Ohio under Fauci’s influence. You’re going to win the primary easily, and you’re going to have a new mop in your house because you’re going to mop the floor with her. That’s all she’s good for after what she did.” He laughed, but he knew I was right. He’s got people like Donald Trump Jr. and others who will remind folks of her record, so he doesn’t have to get his hands too dirty. She’s the Lockdown Lady, and Ohio must never forget.

This isn’t abstract history to me. I lived it. I saw families destroyed, small businesses wiped out, kids losing years of education, and people denied the simple joys that make life worth living—like tailgating at a Browns game or taking the kids to Kings Island. I remember driving to Kings Island that miserable summer of 2020. It was supposed to be family fun, but her policies turned it into a dystopian nightmare: rides taped off, masked staff barking orders, social-distancing enforcers everywhere, limited concessions, and zero joy. We couldn’t ride half the things, couldn’t buy souvenirs properly, and the whole experience felt like punishment for wanting normalcy. That’s what Amy Acton did to Ohio. And now she wants to run the whole state? No way. I’m here to lay it all out—from my perspective, with the background you need, the facts she can’t erase, and why Vivek Ramaswamy is the only choice.

How It All Started: DeWine’s Bipartisan Mistake and Acton’s Rise

Let’s go back to 2019 so you understand the context. Governor Mike DeWine wanted to reach across the aisle after winning in 2018. He’s a moderate Republican with a long career—U.S. Senator, Attorney General—and he thought putting a Democrat on his team would build coalitions. That’s how Dr. Amy Acton, a physician and researcher from Youngstown with a background in public health, became Director of the Ohio Department of Health. On paper, it looked like smart politics. She had worked on infant mortality issues and seemed qualified. What DeWine couldn’t foresee was COVID-19 hitting in early 2020 and the federal machine behind her.

During her tenure, Acton completely deferred to the CDC and to Dr. Anthony Fauci at NIAID. Their guidance—later proven flawed, contradictory, and largely politically driven—became gospel in Ohio. Her daily briefings had this folksy, almost hippie vibe: “hug your neighbor,” “support each other around the campfire,” “we’re all in this together.” But behind the warm words were iron-fisted orders: stay-at-home mandates, school closures, business shutdowns, mask rules, and capacity limits that crushed everything. Ohio was one of the first states to go full lockdown on March 22, 2020. Schools closed statewide. “Non-essential” businesses were ordered to shut down. Amusement parks, fairs, and sports—everything ground to a halt.

I watched it happen in real time. Acton estimated as many as 100,000 infections early on, scaring everyone into compliance. But as I’ve said many times, the virus was engineered. Gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology—funded in part by U.S. taxpayers through Fauci’s NIAID and EcoHealth Alliance—took a bat virus and made it transmissible to humans. That’s not a conspiracy; it’s documented. RFK Jr., now serving in the Trump administration at HHS, laid it all out in books like The Real Anthony Fauci and The Wuhan Cover-Up. China released it, the WHO covered for them, and Fauci stonewalled investigations. Bill Gates’ involvement and his Epstein ties added another layer of suspicion, but the core fact remains: this was a lab-created bio-weapon scenario that justified the panic.

Acton wasn’t smart enough to be in on the big conspiracy, in my view. She just followed the CDC memos like a good soldier. “Outdoor outdoor outdoor,” she’d say, then flip to full lockdowns. She sounded whacked out on something during those speeches—Grateful Dead concert energy mixed with authoritarian control. And DeWine empowered her. DeWine lost in court, had to reopen, and still carries the scars. Acton resigned on June 11, 2020, amid protests outside her home (some armed), legislative bills stripping her emergency powers, and public fury. She faded away—until Democrats dragged her back out in 2025, thinking we’d all forgotten.

The Human Toll: What I Saw and What Ohio Still Feels

The damage was catastrophic, and I saw it up close. Ohio’s unemployment shot from 4.9% to 16.4% in one month—the worst spike in modern history—small businesses, restaurants, gyms, and retailers closed by the thousands and never reopened. Hospitality and tourism tanked. Families who saved all year for Kings Island got a nightmare version: no lines near rides, masked everything, and a joyless slog. Mental health crises exploded. Overdoses rose 20% in Ohio in 2020. Kids lost massive learning—third-graders fell behind by a third of a year in reading, especially poor kids. Life expectancy dropped.

Critics on the left still say Acton “saved lives” by flattening the curve. But compare Ohio to Florida, which reopened earlier under Governor DeSantis. Adjusted for demographics, outcomes were similar or better without the economic suicide. The real scandal was ignoring natural immunity, the virus’s low risk to healthy people and kids, and the secondary deaths from isolation and delayed care. As I told Vivek, we’re still bleeding. Families lost homes. Communities—especially rural southern and southeastern Ohio—felt betrayed by big-government edicts from Columbus.

Acton didn’t invent the virus, but she owned the implementation here. She channeled Fauci’s flip-flopping on masks, overstated models, and suppression of early treatments like hydroxychloroquine. Congressional hearings in 2023-2024, plus RFK Jr.’s work, confirmed the gain-of-function funding, the lab’s military ties, and the cover-up. Trump’s administration has now banned such research and put the lab-leak theory front and center. Yet Acton never questioned it. She just locked us down.

The Tweets That Prove It: Resurfaced Evidence of Her Madness

Nothing captures her tone-deaf cruelty better than the tweets she posted in May 2020—tweets she later deleted but that have now resurfaced thanks to OutKick, Fox News, and Donald Trump Jr. I’ve shared them on my podcast, and they’re Exhibit A for why she’s unfit. These weren’t policy announcements. They were personal scoldings aimed at ordinary Ohioans desperate for a break.

Context: The Cleveland Browns, with Baker Mayfield as the new quarterback, were generating rare excitement in a sports-starved state. Fans dreamed of tailgates, playoffs, and packed FirstEnergy Stadium. Empty stadiums that year were already heartbreaking. But Acton inserted herself into Browns Twitter like a hall monitor:

• To a fan posting a Kermit the Frog meme about playoff hopes: “Please social distance.”

• To excitement about Baker Mayfield: “Please follow CDC guidelines.” Then, when the fan pushed back, “We should be discussing ways to prevent COVID.”

• To another fan saying Browns Twitter was “the only fun part of quarantine”: “Please stop.”

• To Super Bowl dreams: “No. Too many people.”

• To jersey talk: “We need masks and PPE, not jerseys.”

• And the kicker: “Grow up #StayAtHome” and “We are in a pandemic.”

These are direct quotes from her deleted account, resurfaced this week. She was lecturing fans for wanting to watch football, cheer their team, or escape the misery. She told people to stop influencing others “in a bad way” by hoping for games. This is the same woman who made Kings Island miserable and shut down so much else. People just wanted relief. She wanted compliance.

Her campaign now claims some were parody accounts, but the screenshots don’t lie. Trump Jr. amplified them. OutKick called it “bizarre harassment.” And she’s running for governor? In northern Ohio, where sports are religion, this stings. Cleveland Browns fans, Cuyahoga County union folks—they remember the empty stadiums she helped create.

Vivek’s Path

That brings me to Vivek Ramaswamy. I told him exactly what I think: he’s going to win the primary without much trouble, and the general, too, if we show up. Southern and southeastern Ohio—rural, Trump-flag country—will deliver huge margins for him. Those are the right kind of people: hardworking, America-first, sick of big government. Northern urban areas (Cleveland, Cincinnati, Hamilton, and Cuyahoga counties) might tilt toward Acton with unions and Democrats, but the numbers won’t overcome the south. Recent polls show her competitive? Smoke from cherry-picked areas. I guarantee it.

Vivek has raised nearly $20 million, got Trump’s endorsement, picked Senate President Rob McColley as running mate, and has DeWine’s blessing. He’s a Cincinnati native, biotech entrepreneur, author—exactly what Ohio needs: innovation, tax cuts, merit over DEI, and manufacturing revival. He doesn’t want to “beat the heck out of somebody,” as I put it, but he doesn’t have to. Surrogates like me, Trump Jr., and others will remind voters she’s the Lockdown Lady.

DeWine endorsed Vivek the same day Acton picked David Pepper as her running mate. That timing wasn’t a coincidence. DeWine knows her record. Vivek is the future—opportunity, excellence, the American Dream. Acton is the past: fear, control, economic destruction.

Never Forget: The Lockdown Lady’s Legacy

Democrats bet on amnesia. They thought six years later we’d forget the empty stadiums, closed parks, lost businesses, learning loss, and suicides of despair. They were wrong. History has judged the lockdown crowd poorly, and Acton was at the center in Ohio. She followed Fauci, the CDC, and a corrupt China-WHO axis straight into disaster.

I’ve said it for years now: remember until November. She locked down Ohio. She destroyed lives following bad science from people who funded the gain-of-function weapon in Wuhan. Read RFK Jr.’s books. Study the tweets. Recall your own pain—whether it was a canceled wedding, a lost job, or a kid who never caught up in school. And when it comes to this election, never forget what she did.

Bibliography / Further Reading

• RFK Jr., The Real Anthony Fauci (2021) and The Wuhan Cover-Up (2023) – essential on origins and response.

• OutKick/Fox News exclusive on resurfaced Acton tweets (March 20, 2026).

• Ohio Capital Journal and Signal Ohio coverage of the 2026 race and endorsements.

• Congressional reports on gain-of-function and lab leak (House Select Subcommittee, 2023-2024).

• Economic data: Ohio unemployment spikes and lockdown impact studies (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).

• Guardian, Ohio Capital Journal, and Statehouse News Bureau on Acton’s 2020 resignation and protests.

• Acton for Governor campaign site (for her own words—or lack thereof on COVID).

• Governor DeWine’s endorsement statement (January 7, 2026).

Rich Hoffman

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About the Author: Rich Hoffman

Ken Paxton is the Future in Texas: The trend is not toward a purple state

The Texas political arena finds itself in a defining moment with the Republican primary runoff for the U.S. Senate seat scheduled for May 26, 2026, pitting four-term incumbent Senator John Cornyn against Attorney General Ken Paxton. In the March 3 primary, Cornyn received 41.9 percent of the vote to Paxton’s 40.7 percent, with Houston Congressman Wesley Hunt trailing at 13.5 percent. Neither candidate cleared the 50 percent threshold required for an outright win, setting up three months of intense intraparty debate that has become far more than a personal contest. This race, described by analysts as the most expensive Senate primary on record with over $122 million in ad spending, reflects a generational and ideological shift within the Republican Party—one that favors battle-tested reformers over entrenched establishment voices and recognizes the need for alignment with the economic and cultural realities reshaping Texas and the nation.

Paxton’s path to this runoff underscores his resilience in the face of extraordinary pressure. As Texas Attorney General since 2015, he has pursued aggressive legal challenges to federal policies on border security, election integrity, immigration enforcement, abortion rights, and more, filing dozens of lawsuits against the Biden administration that reached the U.S. Supreme Court. His office became a national conservative bulwark, earning him a reputation as one of the most activist attorneys general in the country. In May 2023, the Texas House impeached him on 20 articles centered on allegations of abuse of office and ties to a political donor, with a vote of 121-23 that temporarily suspended him from duties. Yet the Texas Senate acquitted him on every one of the 16 articles brought to trial in September 2023, with no article receiving more than 14 of the required 21 votes to convict—only two Republican senators supported conviction on any count. This dramatic acquittal restored him to office and reinforced his status as a proven survivor who has withstood efforts to sideline him, efforts often compared in severity to those aimed at President Trump. Paxton’s survival narrative positions him not as a relic of past scandals but as a fighter whose record of challenging the status quo mirrors the broader MAGA emphasis on accountability and disruption of old power structures.

In contrast, Cornyn represents the continuity of Senate traditions frequently associated with the Mitch McConnell era of incrementalism and institutional caution. A four-term senator since 2002 and former Senate Majority Whip, Cornyn has held key leadership roles and delivered steady, if sometimes measured, results on issues like judicial confirmations and national security. While effective in those capacities, his approach is viewed by many grassroots conservatives as sometimes stalling bolder reforms—resistance encountered by newer senators such as Ohio’s Bernie Moreno, a former private-sector businessman and Trump-endorsed candidate who defeated incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown in November 2024. Moreno’s victory, bringing a fresh, enterprise-shaped perspective to the upper chamber, illustrates how the Senate is gradually adapting to voices less beholden to legacy control mechanisms and more attuned to Trump’s vision of expanded economic opportunity.

A central flashpoint in the race is the SAVE Act (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, H.R. 22 in the 119th Congress), which requires documentary proof of U.S. citizenship—such as a passport, birth certificate, or naturalization papers—for federal voter registration and, in related iterations, mandates photo identification at the polls. Introduced by Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) and passed by the House on April 10, 2025, the bill has been received in the Senate but remains stalled amid partisan debate. Proponents contend it closes loopholes that fueled concerns in the 2024 cycle, particularly in states with lax ID requirements where issues around unverified mail ballots, ballot harvesting, and non-citizen registrations surfaced, state audits in recent years have flagged thousands of potential ineligible registrations, including over 2,700 suspicious cases in some jurisdictions leading to dozens of investigations and prosecutions. The legislation’s preventive value against systemic vulnerabilities is emphasized by supporters, who argue it safeguards the integrity of federal elections without broadly suppressing legitimate voters.

Texas’s demographic and economic landscape further bolsters the case for forward momentum. The state’s population stands at roughly 31.7 million as of 2025, having added 391,243 residents—the most of any state—driven by domestic migration, natural increase, and energy-sector vitality, though growth slowed to 1.2 percent amid a nationwide immigration dip. Yet its political character remains solidly Republican outside the urban cores of Austin, Houston, and Dallas. Rural Texas exemplifies Americana—from the iconic Big Texan steakhouse in Amarillo, a roadside spectacle along historic aviation corridors near Bell Helicopter facilities that symbolize the state’s aerospace heritage, to the historic Alamo and the emerging Space Coast powered by SpaceX’s Starbase in Boca Chica. There, SpaceX operations have generated more than $13 billion in gross economic output between 2024 and 2026, supporting 24,000 direct and indirect jobs across the region. The complex now employs over 4,300 people locally (up from 3,400 the prior year and projected to reach 8,000 soon), while contributing more than $305 million in indirect taxes that fund schools, infrastructure, and public services. This boom, combined with Texas’s leadership in oil (projected record production exceeding 2.1 billion barrels in recent years) and natural gas, positions the Gulf Coast as a rival to international innovation hubs like Dubai or Abu Dhabi, with cascading economic synergies across the Gulf of America to Florida’s own space corridor.

Immigration patterns test this foundation but ultimately reinforce Texas’s red trajectory. Inflows from California and other blue states have carried lingering policy preferences, while broader migration—including legal and illegal channels—echoes earlier experiments in Florida, where waves of Cuban arrivals in the 1960s and 1980s initially created a purple tint before the state solidified as solidly red through cultural conservatism, economic integration, and generational shifts. Colorado and Minnesota faced similar pressures with mixed results, seeing temporary purple leans before stabilizing or moderating. Texas, by comparison, has absorbed these dynamics without fundamental realignment: domestic migrants often adopt red-state values upon arrival, and the state’s growing Hispanic population (now nearly 40 percent of residents) increasingly leans conservative on issues like energy independence, family values, and border security. Rural strength, combined with this demographic evolution, ensures the trajectory remains upward and Republican. Attempts to engineer a blue shift through demographic engineering have faltered against the state’s underlying cultural and economic gravity, as evidenced by consistent statewide Republican majorities in recent cycles.

Projecting forward to 2027 and the 2028 cycle, the stakes sharpen dramatically. With Trump-era policies anticipated to drive energy dominance—“drill, baby, drill” rhetoric already yielding record Texas production and lower gasoline prices around $2.60 per gallon—space commercialization at scale (including Starship mass production at the South Texas Giga factory), and accelerated GDP growth potentially reaching the 6 percent range through Western Hemisphere market dynamics and the global decline of socialist models, Texas needs a senator primed to champion these opportunities rather than hedge against them. The space economy alone could transform South Texas into a high-mobility engine rivaling global centers, demanding representation fluent in innovation, regulatory agility, and frontier ambition rather than institutional inertia. While tactical negotiations around the SAVE Act might tempt short-term deals to secure establishment buy-in for midterms—where Republicans already hold structural advantages—longer horizons favor accelerating change. Midterms are likely secure with or without such compromises once integrity measures take hold, as historical patterns show Democrats struggling without mechanisms perceived as enabling irregularities. President Trump has publicly tied his potential endorsement in this race to passage of the SAVE America Act, signaling a pragmatic calculus that balances immediate legislative wins with long-term personnel alignment.

The broader Senate evolution since the 2012 Romney defeat confirms this inevitability. The old GOP playbook of broad equivalence failed spectacularly, giving way to Trump-aligned reformers who have incrementally displaced McConnell-era holdovers. Figures like J.D. Vance and now Bernie Moreno represent this new guard: private-sector rooted, unapologetically expansionist, and focused on delivering tangible results rather than procedural caution. Paxton fits squarely in this bandwidth—battle-tested through impeachment and legal warfare, future-oriented, and rooted in the same entrepreneurial ethos that propelled Moreno. Libertarian-leaning voices emphasizing minimalism have likewise struggled to deliver alignment with expansive growth priorities, often prioritizing cultural laissez-faire over the disciplined policy execution MAGA demands. Embracing that shift sooner rather than later accelerates benefits: stronger energy policy, space-driven prosperity, and a Senate less prone to internal stall tactics that could hinder the 6-7 percent growth era many economists project under sustained pro-market, pro-innovation governance.

Texas will not turn blue. Its red core, amplified by icons of Americana and frontier ambition from the Alamo to Starbase, grows deeper with each cycle. The challenges of today—migration pressures, establishment resistance, electoral vulnerabilities—fade against the determination of voters who refuse to blink. Paxton embodies that determination, carrying the culture of resilience and optimism that defines the state. Supporting his candidacy ensures Texas not only holds its ground but leads the economic and political renaissance ahead, delivering results—energy independence, space commercialization, and unbreakable electoral integrity—far sooner than delay would allow. In an era where socialism crumbles abroad and Western Hemisphere capitalism surges, the future belongs to those willing to adapt quickly. Paxton is that future, and Texas voters appear poised to choose accordingly.

Bibliography (for further independent research and verification):

• The Texas Tribune: “Cornyn, Paxton advance to GOP runoff for Senate” (March 3, 2026) and “Texas AG Ken Paxton acquitted in impeachment trial” (September 16, 2023).

• The New York Times: “Texas U.S. Senate Primary Election Results” (March 2026 interactive).

• Congress.gov: H.R.22 – SAVE Act, 119th Congress (2025-2026).

• Cameron County / SpaceX: “2026 SPACEX ECONOMIC IMPACT RELEASE” and related reports (2025-2026 data on $13 billion output, jobs, taxes).

• Ohio Capital Journal / NPR: Bernie Moreno Ohio Senate victory coverage (November 2024).

• U.S. Census Bureau / Texas Tribune: “Texas led U.S. states in population growth in 2025” (January 2026).

• The Center Square / The Hill: Texas energy production and Trump policy impacts (2026).

• CNN / Politico: Trump endorsement dynamics in Texas Senate race (March 2026).

Rich Hoffman

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The Merger Is Complete: All Assets Secure – Why Ohio (and America) Cannot Talk Financial Stabilization Without Confronting Financialization and Returning to Real Production

The merger is complete. All assets are secure. That phrase has been echoing in my mind lately as I sit down with state leaders like Senator George Lang, the Ohio State Treasurer, and others in the growing movement here in the Buckeye State. We are not just talking about balancing budgets or tweaking tax policy anymore. We are staring down the barrel of a much deeper conversation—one that cannot happen in a vacuum. Preserving Ohio’s financial future, and by extension the country’s, demands we confront a natural byproduct of decades of drift into pure financial engineering: the dominance of financialization. It is the term that has surfaced repeatedly in our private discussions, and it is the invisible force that has warped our economy into something unrecognizable from the one the Founders envisioned.

Kevin Freeman, the author of Pirate Money: Discovering the Founders’ Hidden Plan for Economic Justice and Defeating the Great Reset, has laid out the principles that are now gaining traction. Under a potential Vivek Ramaswamy administration in 2026–2027—and with leaders like Senator Lang stepping forward—this idea is poised to evolve into policy. The core concept is straightforward yet revolutionary: states create a gold reserve managed directly by the treasurer. Citizens can hold value in physical gold or silver, stored securely in a state depository, and access it through a modern debit card or electronic transfer for everyday purchases. The money in your account is not fiat paper subject to endless printing; it is backed ounce-for-ounce by hard metal. You spend gold without ever carrying a coin. The value stays anchored to something real.

Senator Lang has been vocal about this in legislative circles. Ohio House Bill 206, introduced by Representatives Jennifer Gross and Riordan McClain, already proposes exactly this framework: a state-managed transactional currency rooted in gold and silver. The treasurer would hold the bullion in a protected reserve, and citizens could buy, hold, and spend it electronically. Every “dollar” spent would be convertible to actual metal. It is optional, constitutional (states have clear authority under Article I, Section 10), and already working in pilot form in Texas, Florida, Louisiana, and elsewhere. Freeman calls it “gold you can spend.” I call it sanity.

But here is the catch—and this is where the conversation with Lang and the treasurer always turns serious: you cannot build the infrastructure for a gold-backed system while the economy remains addicted to financialization. That addiction is the black hole at the center of everything. It is the reason Main Street has been swallowed by Wall Street. It is why so many companies that used to make things now make money off money. And it is why a growing number of us—myself included—have deliberately refused to play the game.

Financialization is not some abstract academic term. It is the process by which the financial sector—banks, hedge funds, private equity, asset managers—stops serving the real economy and instead becomes the economy. Profits come not from producing better hamburgers, better tires, better homes, or better steel, but from trading debt like baseball cards, leveraging interest rates, securitizing everything, and extracting fees from every layer of the transaction. BlackRock is the poster child. With over $10 trillion in assets under management, it is the largest shareholder in nearly 90 percent of the S&P 500. Larry Fink’s firm does not build factories; it owns pieces of every factory, every airline, every retailer. It profits whether the underlying company succeeds or fails because the game is now about ownership of the capital structure itself, not the output.

This is not capitalism as Adam Smith or even Henry Ford understood it. This is a casino layered on top of the real economy. When you buy someone’s debt, package it, sell it, insure it, and then bet against it—all while the Federal Reserve keeps interest rates artificially low or high to favor the house—you create wealth that has no anchor in physical reality. The Dow Jones Industrial Average looks healthy on paper, but much of that “growth” is stock buybacks funded by cheap debt, not new factories humming three shifts a day. BlackRock and its peers have perfected this. They gained enormous power during the 2008 crisis by managing toxic assets for the Fed, then used the same tools to consolidate control. Today the Big Three (BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street) control roughly a fifth of all S&P 500 shares. They vote those shares, influence boards, and extract fees regardless of whether the company actually produces anything of lasting value.

I have had a front-row seat to this vortex my entire adult life. I made deliberate choices—every single year, every opportunity—to stay out of it. I could have leveraged real estate deals, flipped debt instruments, ridden the private-equity wave, or parked money in funds that profited from the very inflation the Fed engineered. Many friends did exactly that. They have swimming pools of cash, second homes in the Bahamas, and portfolios that look impressive on a spreadsheet. I do not begrudge them the money. But I watched what it did to their thinking. Success became detached from making something people genuinely wanted. It became about timing the next rate cut, the next bailout, the next round of quantitative easing. The forbidden fruit of financialization tastes sweet in college textbooks and MBA programs, but it rots the soul of production.

This is why I have always measured my own economic decisions by a simple test: Does this create a better physical product or service that competes in the open market? If I make a better hamburger, I get rich because people buy more of them. If I build better homes with honest materials at honest prices, the market rewards me. The value is in the wood, the stone, the craftsmanship—not in how cleverly I can leverage a bank loan or securitize the mortgage payments into a derivative. When companies start measuring success by how much debt they can service or how many assets they can flip rather than how many units they ship, the culture shifts. Plants close on weekends. Third shifts disappear. Executives leave at 5 p.m. sharp and do not answer the phone. Why work harder when the real money comes from the interest-rate spread, the management fee, or the carried-interest loophole?

The data backs this up brutally. Since the United States fully abandoned the gold standard—first under FDR in 1933 with Executive Order 6102 (which confiscated private gold holdings) and then under Nixon in 1971—the dollar has lost roughly 90 percent of its purchasing power. That is not an accident. When money can be printed without limit, the incentive structure flips. Central bankers at Jackson Hole sip lattes and debate “monetary theory” while companies learn that the fastest path to shareholder value is not innovation but financial engineering. The Federal Reserve keeps rates high enough to reward bondholders and asset managers but low enough (in crisis) to bail them out. The result? An entire generation of executives who treat labor as a cost to minimize rather than a partner in production. They do not need to run three shifts seven days a week when leverage and cheap debt do the heavy lifting.

Trump’s short-term approach—flood the system with energy, tariffs, and stimulus—will ignite the wet wood and create a roaring blaze of apparent prosperity. People will feel wealthier in their pockets for a while. That is the point of the first four years: get the engine turning again. But the long-term conversation, the one Lang, the treasurer, and Freeman are pushing in Ohio, is what happens next. How do we protect the value of that freshly created wealth? How do we prevent it from being inflated away or siphoned into the same financial black hole?

The answer is not complicated, but it is hard. We must divorce the economy from financialization and re-anchor it to Main Street production. A state gold reserve with a debit card is step one. It gives citizens an escape hatch from fiat volatility. But the deeper reform is cultural and structural: companies must be measured—and rewarded—by what they actually make, how efficiently they make it, and how many people willingly pay for it in the open market. Not by how cleverly they shuffle debt or extract fees. Not by how many weekends they can take off because the balance sheet looks good on paper.

I have lived this choice for thirty-plus years. I have walked past opportunities that would have made me “rich” by Wall Street standards because they required me to play the game I instinctively knew was phony. I would rather build something real—something that lasts, something people value—than swim in a pool of spreadsheet wealth that evaporates the moment the Fed changes course. That is not sacrifice; it is principle. And it is the principle Ohio must adopt if we are serious about a gold-backed system.

Look around manufacturing today. Plants that once ran 24/7 now shutter at 5 p.m. Friday and stay dark until Monday. Executives brag about “work-life balance” while the balance sheet is propped up by financial tricks. The workforce has absorbed the lesson: show up, collect the paycheck, go home. Why push for excellence when the real profits come from the Delta between phony valuation and actual output? This is the lazy class financialization has bred—not just at the top, but throughout the ranks. People with nice houses and nice cars who have never felt the exhaustion of building something that actually competes. They are the modern equivalent of the Ferris Bueller dads—out of touch, coasting on leverage, wondering why their kids do not respect them.

The Founders understood this danger. They wrote gold and silver into the Constitution precisely because they had lived through the chaos of unbacked paper money during the Revolution. States were explicitly forbidden from issuing bills of credit for good reason. Hamilton and Jefferson debated banks, but both agreed the ultimate measure of wealth was productive capacity, not financial sleight of hand. We drifted away from that wisdom first in 1933 and then decisively in 1971. The result is the hollowed-out economy we see today: record stock valuations alongside shuttered factories, record CEO pay alongside stagnant wages for those who still make things.

Ohio is at a crossroads. With leaders like Senator Lang and a treasurer willing to explore transactional gold, we have a chance to lead. Texas and Florida have already moved. More states are watching. If we pair a state gold depository and debit-card system with policies that reward actual production—tax incentives for three-shift operations, penalties for excessive financial engineering, honest accounting that separates real assets from leveraged paper—we can rebuild what was lost.

This is bigger than monetary policy. It is about the soul of work. Do we want an economy where success is measured by how many physical goods and services we create that the world actually wants? Or do we want one where success is measured by how cleverly we game the spreadsheets? The first path builds real wealth that can be passed to grandchildren. The second builds a pyramid that eventually collapses.

I have made my choice. I attach myself to hard assets and real output. I have sacrificed short-term paper gains for long-term substance. I will not change course now, even as the financialization racket reaches its peak. The game is ending. Trump’s four years will provide the fuel, but the states—and Ohio in particular—must provide the guardrails. A gold standard without a return to production-based measurement is just another pretty facade. We need both.

The merger is complete. All assets are secure. Now the real work begins: making sure those assets are real, not phantom. Ohio has the leaders, the moment, and the model. The question is whether the rest of the country—and especially the next generation—will have the courage to follow.

Footnotes

[1] Kevin Freeman, Pirate Money (Post Hill Press, 2024); see also his presentations to state legislatures on transactional gold, October 2024.

[2] Ohio House Bill 206 (2025), establishing state-managed gold/silver transactional currency.

[3] Senator George Lang, sponsor testimony on related financial legislation, Ohio Senate, 2025–2026 sessions.

[4] Executive Order 6102 (April 5, 1933), Franklin D. Roosevelt; full text available in Federal Register.

[5] BlackRock 10-K filings and asset-under-management reports, 2025–2026; see also analyses in Harvard Business Review on the “Big Three” asset managers.

[6] U.S. dollar purchasing-power loss since 1971, calculated via BLS and ShadowStats methodologies.

[7] Constitutional Currency / TransactionalGold.com resources on state-level gold legislation.

[8] Federal Reserve History essays on Roosevelt’s gold program and Nixon shock.

[9] Economic War Room with Kevin Freeman (BlazeTV) episodes on state depositories and debit-card systems.

Bibliography (selected for further research)

• Freeman, Kevin D. Pirate Money: Discovering the Founders’ Hidden Plan for Economic Justice and Defeating the Great Reset. Post Hill Press, 2024.

• Ohio Legislative Service Commission analyses of HB 206 and Senate Bill 269 (2025–2026).

• “States Work To Make Gold And Silver Alternative Currencies,” Guildhall Precious Metals / Epoch Times, 2025–2026 reporting.

• “How Asset Managers Like BlackRock Took Over the World,” LSE Review of Books, June 2025.

• Federal Reserve History: “Roosevelt’s Gold Program” and related primary documents.

• U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations: “Wall Street and the Financial Crisis: Anatomy of a Financial Collapse,” 2011 (updated analyses available).

• Constitutional Currency / TransactionalGold.com policy toolkits and model legislation.

• Biblical Archaeology Review and related economic history archives for broader context on ancient sound-money systems (cross-reference for philosophical grounding).

• Ohio Senate GOP and Business First Caucus materials on economic growth targets to $1 trillion GDP by 2030.

This is not theory. This is the hard conversation we must have before the next cycle of phony prosperity pulls us back under. The merger is complete. The assets are secure. Now let us make sure they stay that way—anchored to what we actually build, not what we pretend to own on paper.

Rich Hoffman

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The End of the Roll: Opportunities and Failure in Ohio’s Statehouse

I’ve always found immense joy in diving behind the scenes of any operation, whether it’s a bustling kitchen or the intricate halls of government. Recently, I reflected on my attendance at Ohio Governor Mike DeWine’s State of the State speech, an event that perfectly encapsulates my fascination with watching “the spaghetti get made,” as I often put it. This metaphor stems from a memorable family trip to London not too long ago, where I took my wife and kids to celebrate her birthday at Gordon Ramsay’s flagship restaurant in Chelsea. It wasn’t just about the meal; it was about understanding the orchestration required to maintain excellence. As someone deeply invested in how systems function—whether in business, politics, or daily life—I peppered the staff with questions about sustaining three Michelin stars, a prestigious accolade that Ramsay’s establishment has held since 2001, making it one of the longest-standing three-star restaurants in the UK.[^1] The management graciously obliged, leading us on a tour of the immaculate kitchen, where every detail—from food sourcing and storage temperatures to team coordination—revealed the true essence of superior management.

In that kitchen, I saw firsthand how the magic happens. The sauces simmered at precise heats, ingredients were dated meticulously to ensure freshness, and the expediter ensured plates reached the dining room flawlessly. It’s not merely about the final product; it’s the unseen processes that elevate ordinary ingredients into something extraordinary. Ramsay, a Scottish-born chef who rose from humble beginnings to build a global empire, emphasizes discipline and precision, qualities that have kept his Chelsea restaurant at the pinnacle of fine dining for over two decades.[^2] My family and I marveled at the setup: spotless counters, synchronized movements among the chefs, and an unwavering commitment to quality. This experience solidified my use of the “spaghetti in the kitchen” analogy when discussing management skills. You see, good management isn’t accidental; it’s deliberate. How do you select the right sausage for the meatballs? What temperature do you cook them at, and for how long? Who blends the sauce, who plates it, and who ensures it arrives hot and timely? These questions apply universally, from a high-end restaurant to the corridors of power in Columbus, Ohio.

Transitioning this to politics, I’ve long advocated for transparency and efficiency in government, much like I do in my writings and podcast discussions. The Ohio Statehouse, with its grand rotunda and chambers designed to inspire lofty thoughts, stands as a testament to the ideals of representative government. Built in the mid-19th century, the building’s Greek Revival architecture symbolizes elevation of consciousness, urging lawmakers to rise above personal temptations for the public good.[^3] Yet, as I’ve observed over years of involvement as a political advocate, humans often falter. I’ve seen many arrive in Columbus with grand intentions, building what I liken to a sandcastle on the beach during low tide. They craft intricate structures—policies, alliances, visions—with moist sand that holds form beautifully. Flags atop turrets, photos snapped for posterity. But high tide rolls in, bringing temptations like lobbyist influences, personal ambitions, and ethical lapses, washing it all away. Too many get lured too close to the water’s edge, and by the time the waves recede, nothing remains but flattened remnants.

This brings me to Governor Mike DeWine’s recent State of the State address on March 10, 2026, his final one as he wraps up eight years in office.[^4] I’ve attended these events multiple times, always eager to peek into the “kitchen” of state governance—not just consume the polished news reports, but witness the raw preparation. DeWine, a Republican who has served Ohio in various capacities since the 1970s, including as a U.S. Senator and Attorney General, entered office in 2019 with a focus on bipartisanship and social issues.[^5] His speech this year was comfortable, aiming to heal wounds from a tumultuous tenure, but it lacked the bold vision one might expect in a farewell. He emphasized education, touting programs like providing books to children—a noble idea, given my own love for reading and belief in its power over excessive screen time. Studies show kids today spend up to 7-8 hours daily on devices, contributing to developmental issues, and DeWine’s push for literacy aligns with efforts like the Science of Reading initiative he championed.[^6] Yet, it felt out of touch, as if he’s lost connection with modern parental realities where devices often serve as babysitters.

Critically, I’ve been vocal about DeWine’s shortcomings, particularly his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Appointing Dr. Amy Acton as Health Director was a misstep; her pro-abortion stance and aggressive lockdown policies devastated Ohio’s economy.[^7] Acton, a physician who gained national attention for her daily briefings alongside DeWine in 2020, implemented measures like closing schools and businesses, which many argue prolonged economic swelling we still feel today.[^8] The lockdowns, while intended to save lives, led to widespread job losses and mental health crises, with Ohio’s unemployment peaking at over 16% in April 2020.[^9] DeWine’s approach mirrored a big-government philosophy, throwing money at problems like education and safety nets, which I see as well-intentioned but misguided. He believes in social safety nets from his generation’s perspective, but as a self-proclaimed Republican, his actions often veered Democratic—evident in his reluctance to aggressively cut taxes or deregulate.

Property taxes, for instance, have spiraled under his watch, burdening homeowners without adequate relief until recent reforms. In 2025, DeWine signed bills like House Bill 186, which caps property tax increases to inflation rates, providing some moderation after years of unchecked growth.[^10] Ohio ranks high nationally for property tax burdens, and while he addressed it belatedly, the speech glossed over it entirely, opting instead for safer topics like seatbelt laws—another nod to government overreach.[^11] My conversations before the speech, mingling with legislators and insiders, revealed a sense of limbo; DeWine’s lame-duck status means little substantive action ahead. As I chatted with a good friend, we likened his remaining months to the last sheets on a toilet paper roll: the beginning unrolls slowly, but those final few disappear in a flash. With the 2026 election looming, attention shifts to fresh faces.

Despite my criticisms, I must acknowledge DeWine’s redeeming qualities. Observing him and First Lady Fran up close over the years, their genuine affection shines through—a long-married couple who truly enjoy each other, not just for political optics. Fran’s cookies, which she often shares, are a sweet touch, symbolizing her warmth. DeWine’s heart seems in the right place; during COVID, he genuinely believed his actions protected lives, even if they overstepped. Power corrupts, and unchecked authority risks turning well-meaning leaders into tyrants, a lesson Ohio learned harshly. Yet, on positives, he endorsed constitutional carry in 2022, strengthening Second Amendment rights by allowing permitless concealed carry for eligible adults over 21.[^12] This move, after initial hesitation, helped mend fences with Republicans post-COVID. Additionally, he supported business initiatives like Joby Aviation’s expansion in Ohio, announced in 2023, which promises 2,000 jobs in electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft manufacturing—a boon for aviation innovation.[^13] Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther has been instrumental in such developments, fostering smart mobility and economic growth in the region.[^14] These aviation advancements, including partnerships with companies like Joby, position Ohio as a leader in future transportation, something DeWine cheered without obstruction.

An awkward yet telling moment occurred when I ended up in a photo with DeWine. In past years, my anger over his policies kept me at arm’s length, but this time, with his term ending, I shook his hand and wished him well, acknowledging the pro-business strides. Government needs checks and balances precisely because even good intentions can falter. DeWine isn’t evil; his naivety in trusting big government to care for the vulnerable led to overreach.

Looking ahead, the toilet paper roll is nearly spent, and I’m excited for Vivek Ramaswamy to take the helm. Ramaswamy, a Cincinnati native and biotech entrepreneur who founded Roivant Sciences and ran for president in 2024, announced his gubernatorial bid in 2025 with Trump’s endorsement.[^15] His campaign focuses on reviving the American Dream through lower costs, bigger paychecks, and merit-based policies, contrasting DeWine’s approach.[^16] Polls show a tight race against Democrat Amy Acton, but Ramaswamy’s vision—transforming Ohio into an economic hub, especially in the Ohio River Valley—aligns with bold Republican ideals.[^17] He’s already launched massive ad campaigns and secured the Ohio GOP endorsement, signaling momentum.[^18] Under Ramaswamy, I anticipate policies advancing freedom, innovation, and efficiency—cooking up better “spaghetti” in the Statehouse kitchen.

Attending these events reinforces why I love politics: seeing dedicated people strive, even if imperfectly. From Ramsay’s kitchen to Columbus, excellence demands pride, hard work, and attention to detail. Cooks prepare meals hoping diners savor them, but criticism stings when they fall short. DeWine’s administration aimed for a magnificent sandcastle, but tides of controversy washed much away. Still, remnants like stronger gun rights and business growth endure. As his era ends, I reflect with tempered hatred, appreciating the intent I witnessed up close. It’s time for a fresh roll—not toilet paper for Ramaswamy, but a higher-class stewardship. With him, alongside figures like Trump and a supportive legislature, Ohio has a rare chance for greatness. I look forward to much better food coming out of the kitchen to come.

[^1]: The Michelin Guide has awarded three stars to Restaurant Gordon Ramsay since 2001, recognizing exceptional cuisine and service.

[^2]: Gordon Ramsay’s biography highlights his rise from a challenging childhood to culinary stardom, with his Chelsea restaurant as a cornerstone.

[^3]: The Ohio Statehouse, completed in 1861, features symbolic architecture to promote civic virtue.

[^4]: DeWine’s 2026 address focused on education and accomplishments, delivered on March 10.

[^5]: DeWine’s political career spans decades, emphasizing family and safety nets.

[^6]: Excessive screen time linked to developmental delays; literacy programs counter this.

[^7]: Acton supported abortion rights and led lockdowns.

[^8]: Acton’s role in COVID response included school closures.

[^9]: Ohio’s economic impact from COVID policies.

[^10]: House Bill 186 caps tax increases.

[^11]: Ohio’s high property tax ranking.

[^12]: Signed SB 215 in 2022.

[^13]: Joby Aviation’s Ohio expansion creates jobs in eVTOL.

[^14]: Ginther promotes smart mobility in Columbus.

[^15]: Ramaswamy’s 2026 bid announced in 2025.

[^16]: Campaign priorities include economic revival.

[^17]: Polls show competitive race.

[^18]: GOP endorsement in 2025.

Bibliography

1. Ramsay, Gordon. Humble Pie: My Autobiography. HarperCollins, 2006. (For insights into Ramsay’s management style.)

2. DeWine, Mike. Ohio’s Path Forward. Ohio Governor’s Office Publications, 2025. (Overview of DeWine’s policies.)

3. Ramaswamy, Vivek. Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam. Center Street, 2021. (Ramaswamy’s views on business and politics.)

4. Acton, Amy. Leading Through Crisis: Lessons from Ohio’s Pandemic Response. Self-published, 2024. (Acton’s reflections on COVID.)

5. Hoffman, Rich. The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business. Overman Warrior Publications, 2020. (My own book on management principles.)

6. Ohio Historical Society. The Ohio Statehouse: A History of Democracy. Arcadia Publishing, 2015. (Background on the Statehouse.)

7. Tax Foundation Reports. Property Tax Burdens in the U.S. Annual editions, 2020-2026. (Data on Ohio taxes.)

8. National Rifle Association. Second Amendment Victories: Constitutional Carry Laws. NRA Publications, 2023. (On gun rights reforms.)

9. Joby Aviation. Annual Report 2025. (Details on Ohio expansion.)

10. Michelin Guide. Great Britain & Ireland. Michelin Travel Publications, annual. (Restaurant ratings.)

Rich Hoffman

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