Category: Taxes

Nobody Should Care About China’s Box Office: Reaching a market of over a billion people can’t justify surrendering to communism

What I have always loved about Star Wars, aside from the obvious creativity that it takes to make the movies, is that they are in and of themselves positive stories that don’t get hung up on negativity. Yet the theme of our day is negativity, because if people are in a state of discontent they may be open to the offerings of some political class. It was probably always this way to some extent, but its really bad now, where negativity is insisted upon by certain sectors of the world, as a culture. Yet, its not always easy to see, but when something like a new Star Wars film comes out, the pop culture reaction to it is an obvious measure that we can all see and touch. And it was never clearer as to what the intentions for our society is than in reporting on the new Star Wars film, which was probably the most positive film I’ve seen by anybody in a long time, and one that certainly stands for goodness. Clearly the intent of the characters in the movie were to make clear choices about good and bad behavior. So of course the focus on the reviews was that this latest movie, The Rise of Skywalker is that it is the most poorly reviewed film since The Phantom Menace, and that it has bombed in China at that box office, see the Variety article below:

https://variety.com/2019/film/news/star-wars-the-rise-of-skywalker-flops-debut-china-1203449672/’

This is why I write so much about Star Wars, the movies are very positive and defined about what good and evil should be—as any kid’s fairy tale would. That makes them as a work of art a wonderful measure about social values and the motivations of our cultural forces. Further, I would offer that communism has been the functioning plan for many years, especially those college trained as all media people are to some extent, certainly in the case of writers of these types of articles like Patrick Frater a defense of China and its communism is baked into their view of the world, and by attacking films that are distinctly American points of view, China continues on with the mission they’ve had all along and is constantly assisted by universities and their products to advocate for and against certain types of cultures. The effort becomes grossly obvious when entertainment trades make it so obvious such as trying to slam a movie as successful as The Rise of Skywalker which made over $177 million domestically over its opening weekend and will continue to do well at the box office over the long Christmas week. Especially when the news around the world that in just a few days it made $376 million globally. That is hardly anything to sneeze at, or to ignore, culturally.

The problem is one that I have pointed out often, especially coming out of Hollywood for more than a couple decades now, where Chinese companies have been buying up interests in film studios and even trade magazines. They have been trying to do to American markets what they do internally in China as communists, and that is to control everything at every level. I mean give me a break, Star Wars was beat at the box office in China by Ip Man 4: The Finale, and that is very fishy. Instead of making the story about the Chinese box office being a failure of Star Wars to reach an audience, the story is really about how China as a government controls such box office numbers so that they can protest against western ideas influencing their country, especially when the protests in Hong Kong are fueled by those same western ideas. The box office numbers themselves do not tell the story, but our media which has been heavily influenced by the Chinese even from such a far reach uses the known measurements that China controls to attempt to shape the kind of stories that are told in our culture—which the rest of the world obviously loves as they were.

I admired Disney, which is a big global company that wants to please everyone, because they allowed the filmmakers of Star Wars to get back to what made the films popular with fans and The Rise of Skywalker is a love letter back to them full of very positive storylines that don’t get hung up on negativity. The previous installment The Last Jedi was taking a turn to the dark side in all aspects and critics loved it. But the fans didn’t. As I said at the start of this article, one way to control people is to take away from them hope, disconnect them from options so that they will be forced to embrace a way of life that the controller wishes to impose. When Star Wars looked to be taking a negative “realistic” tone with this modern trilogy, critics loved the film, but when the box office diminishing returns started showing that fans were leaving, Disney had to make some decisions and listen to the fans, and return to the kind of storytelling that Star Wars has always been for people—which is not the trend of the world full of communists in China that still have global plans.

I doubt that Patrick Frater from Variety is an open communist, but I would bet that he’s likely an anti-Trump political personality and that the whispers of his college days speak to him in copious amounts, and that the roots of those whispers were sympathetic to the type of society that China has been trying to export for decades. Star Wars obviously stands against that sentiment. While in the states, Variety has been very supportive of Star Wars so long as they could view the Resistance as being anti-Trump and liberal. However, the reality is that Star Wars has always been a small government love letter and few stories in the history of storytelling has ever shown how a government can be great one day, and on the next turn into a mass manufacturer of dystopia and scandal. The enemies of American ideas I would offer are those who have also been giving bad reviews to The Rise of Skywalker. While Disney has tried to make everyone happy, especially with the ridiculous lesbian kiss at the end of the movie as if to throw a bone to the dogs, ultimately there is no way to shut out the negativity that comes from the press because the goal is to attempt to keep people from being enchanted by the positive messages of Star Wars, since it is control over mankind that is at stake.

This movie is just one more example of why China is ultimately irrelevant. Nobody can make movies culturally that China and America will enjoy together. If a film studio tries to make movies that China will like, American audiences will push it away. And if the story is too “western” then China will shut it down in their markets. This is the nature of this entire battle yet I don’t see any evidence from the trades in dealing with the issue properly. That is because they are part of the problem and when they can, such as in this Variety article, they must take down any challenges to China as a communist culture. To save Star Wars, Disney had to choose, and they went with traditional western storytelling as they should. Nobody cares about China’s stupid contributions. Its worth dropping a $100 million at the box office, which is likely what it cost. But that money will be made up many times over in the other markets before its all said and done, and Disney will be rewarded for their choice, even if the trades like Variety are rooting against it for all the reasons stated.

Rich Hoffman

Candice Keller Should Know Better: George Lang is the most honest and toughest opportunity for the 4th District Senate seat

I must admit to being extremely disappointed in Candice Keller as she has been stoking her supporters against George Lang by bringing up the Dynus scandal that moved through Butler County politics a decade ago or so. That event which involved the company Dynus trying to win a business alignment to bring in high speed networks into the I-75 corridor, which involved many politicians from John Boehner, Bill Coley and Butler County auditor Kay Rogers, who was sentenced to two years in prison for her role in the effort, was a tough period for area Republicans. A very aggressive prosecutor for the Justice Department wanted to go after people close to John Boehner because he was poised at the time to be the next Speaker of the House, so the prosecution meant to take a stab at Butler County politics which was, and remains a hot seat of Republicans throughout the country. It was crazy lunatic assistant U.S. Prosecutor Jennifer Barry who wanted to go after George Lang for testimony he gave in relation to the prosecution of Orlando Carter from Dynus on eight different accusations. She tried to make the case that he lied in that testimony on those eight accounts and she was pushing 5 years of prison. George was found not guilty on all accounts, even with the FBI and Barry going after him with all the power the government had, and the jury deliberated for a short time and found him not guilty. I would expect that Keller would see how closely this case was just like that modern one against Trump, and that it wasn’t a scandal at all, but a hit job going after one of John Boehner’s good friends, and a hot target for higher office himself, and the government was poised to take George out at all costs.

I have supported Candice Keller, even when Sheriff Jones showed a lack of support for her. There is a lot I agree with her on, she is likely one of the types of people who are readers of my blog site. But she should know better than to take a cheap shot at George Lang as she has on her Facebook page. She knows the Dynus case was completely a hit job which involved a measly little payment of $100,000 that the prosecutors wanted to call a “kickback” which is equable to the many attempts to twist the Ukrainian phone call into an impeachable offense against Trump. Its all the same game and she knows it. To try to rip down Lang to prop herself up is not a good idea, especially if she wants a crack at one of those higher offices in the future. I understand that its politics, but George isn’t the kind of guy to target, let me tell you why.

I met George during this period where he was worried as hell about getting dinged jail time if a jury of his peers would have decided otherwise. It was costing him a personal fortune to defend himself, which was the point. He knew he was innocent, but it was terrible to be in such a position where his life and fate were not in his hands, it was in the hands of the court. He had a couple of kids getting ready to go to college and there was a lot of uncertainty at that time about what would happen in his life. His wife Debbie was so solid that she and he earned my respect for the rest of all of our lives. She was so graceful under pressure, and so was he, really. I admired how well they handled all that tremendous pressure. You can really judge a person’s character by how well they are under pressure, and I saw the guts of the Lang family up close during that trial and will always admire them for it.

At that time I was pulled into the IRS scandal as one of my personal friends became a direct target of the Obama White House due to his Tea Party leadership. I was looked at due to my connection and it was quite insulting, and an obvious hoax against all of us who were supporting the Tea Party movement. For me it was my part in supporting the Liberty Township Tea Party that caused them to dig into my life. Then a year after George’s perjury trial, after the FBI essentially turned him inside and out looking for anything and everything they could think of to bust him on, I went through an experience of my own after all my successful WLW radio broadcasts had been keeping the Lakota levy addicts from passing a tax increase on property owners in both Liberty Townships and West Chester. I went through a smear campaign organized by Joan Powell and many others from Lakota and executed by Michael Clark from the Cincinnati Enquirer. Now, to be honest, I expected them to take a shot and I was ready for it. But to see the bullet come for your head confirming what you think will happen was a different matter.

I was angry, I’m still mad about it. I will never get over it because the attempt by them was so obvious. What they went after was different than what George went through, but instead of jail time, they were targeting my reputation which of course has financial implications and other things. They went after me in a very personal way and they didn’t care what it did to me. It was another example of a political hit job to take out opposition to the plans of government whether it’s a public school looking for unlimited taxes to pay their labor unions, or it’s a shot at John Boehner through his friends to curb his enthusiasm for reform as Speaker of the House of Representatives, the third most powerful public office in the country. It’s all politics, and it is ruthless. Not for the weak, that’s for sure.

For those who remember my name was on the front page of all the newspapers at the time and on all the radio broadcasts trying to paint me as a crazy Republican sexist. My event was a counter punch no different than what Trump does now on Twitter only then it was new. Nobody had seen anything like that before, so they didn’t know what to do with it. I bounced back with no problem but right after the event I held a super-secret meeting with my Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom supporters who work a lot of issues behind the scenes. Our meeting was at a local LaRosa’s and it met a lot to me to see that everyone believed in the effort as much, if not more than ever. Well, one person came and he didn’t need to, because at the time, I was politically toxic—the way that regular people measure such things. That person was George Lang. I had a picture taken at the time to reflect on it in the years to come and guess who took the picture—it was George. I thought it was best that he not be in the picture because he was still building up his reputation after his own perjury case. George didn’t care though, he was happy to be in the picture if I wanted him to be, and that told me a lot about George Lang. Sure, he has always wanted to be in a higher office. But in the trenches, to his very gut, he stands by people through thick and thin and is one of the most honest people I know—which is why I call him a friend to this very day. So I’m not happy about Candice Keller trying to prop herself up at his expense. George may be the guy to beat, but you can’t lie about him. George may be the most honest and vigilant politician I’ve ever known, and I’ve known a lot of them.

I haven’t told these stories before, not to this detail because people didn’t really have context to understand just how dishonest our government is. The hit job against George, an attempt to put him in jail and drain his finances to let John Boehner know that no matter how much power he gained in the House of Representatives, that the government would know where his friends lived, and they would suffer. Look at all the people around President Trump, they are going to jail or being harassed in precisely the same manner. And I got my own taste of that scandal and felt the sting of it up close. I will forever be angry about it, and George was hit much harder than I was, and his attitude is far more forgiving. I would expect Candice to play fair because she should understand how the game is played, and she says she does. But if she did, she wouldn’t have tried to use the Dynus scandal against Lang. Because that’s no different than trying to impeach Trump over the Ukrainian phone call, or the phony Russian case with the FBI actually planting evidence to prosecute him with. What the Department of Justice tried to do to George Lang was no different. And because George and his wonderful wife Debbie held up so well under the pressure is exactly why he should be the next senator of Ohio in the 4th District. I can speak to his character which I would challenge is at the top of any public office, even when politics was ugliest and jail time was hung over his head just as Roger Stone, George Papadopoulos, and Michael Flynn have had to endure, just for knowing the President. George Lang didn’t waver, didn’t let his knees buckle, and he came out of it stronger than ever and when he calls you a friend, he does not play politics. He is just an honest person who can walk through the fires of hell and never even frown when the pressure is greatest. That’s what we should all expect in a senator anywhere, especially in Ohio.

Rich Hoffman

Lee Wong Supports Communist China: As a boot-licker he has proposed danger to our economy

Like I said previously, Lee Wong should not be running for the 4th District Senate seat in Ohio let alone polluting the streets of West Chester with his signs four months before the primary. But since he is, he’s more than open to criticism. I make no attempts to hide my support for George Lang for that same position. It’s not just because I’ve known him for a long time, but its due mainly to George knows how the game is played and he can play it without losing himself. Lee does not, he has no idea what he’s doing and it is reasons like his support of that ridiculous Chinese trade trip that he and Mayor of Cincinnati John Cranley went on under the umbrella of economic expansion with China that make me a George Lang fan in that race for the Senate of Ohio in the upcoming primary.

The game with China is one that all those representatives mentioned, especially the universities have missed the mark on. I doubt that they openly support the communist regime in China, but philosophically they are aligned at the hip and that makes all of them dangerous, domestically. Thank goodness President Trump understood the situation and he has played the leverage game against the Chinese very well, a trade deal with them will be signed very soon and our Dow Jones will shoot up to over 30,000 in the very near future. But to get there we couldn’t do as Lee Wong and his liberal partners wanted to do. I say liberal because Lee has listed himself as a Republican because he must in Butler County. If he were in Hamilton County with John Cranley, he’d be a registered Democrat, just for context. People who don’t understand business and the game of leverage believed even a year ago that because China has over a billion people in it, that they were all ripe for a new customer market. But, unfortunately, most of those billion people don’t have much money and all of them are tightly controlled by the communist government in China. So to get access to that market, American companies had to do a lot of boot-licking led by our inept politicians who were guilty of propping up the communist government with false power and appeasement.

Although the effort to reach out to China’s city of Jiaozhou as a sister city to Cincinnati with a trade agreement looks nice, its purely political and a not so disguised appeasement to the power of communism which with Lee’s often very vocal support of Chinese-American relationships, he is clearly not on the side of capitalist free market decision making. Whenever pressed on this topic the usual thing for Lee to do is cite his military service which he mistakenly believes is a trump card to any questioning of his patriotism. He even goes on the attack to suggest that he’s the only patriotic politician in the region because of his military service. But as we know, there are many circumstances where military people go bad and are less than patriotic, so Lee’s military service does not omit him from discussions about supporting communists. In short, if you support China in its current form, you are supporting communism. Until the Chinese overthrow their communist government and replace it with something better, they are a tyrannical regime that is a threat to the world. They are not our friends and they do not have leverage of our future—as Lee and many liberal economists would like you to believe. A good question for Lee in the upcoming debates would be for him to denounce China as a communist manipulator in the world markets, something that will reveal his true intentions and economic beliefs.

Fortunately, we are now looking at this issue in hindsight. I know George Lang stood with President Trump on the trade standoff that has been going on for a long time. The President is going to come out on top in that exchange. He of course understands the nature of economics and knew that China was a paper tiger looking important in theatrics only. Their population that is over 1 billion people are largely poor and unimaginative due to their communist rule, so they are not effective in marketplace competition, only when the rest of the world fears their population. Once that fear is removed, or any debt holdings they may have on assets to gain leverage in a negotiation, it becomes clear quickly what China is and has always been about, the ultimate spread of communism to the world and world domination by putting everyone in debt to the Chinese. It was always the plan and leftists in America know it, which is why nearly every university in North America have been kissing the ass of the communists for decades. It is what they wanted for America until Donald Trump came along and proved otherwise.

Trump called the Chinese bluff and once he did that, and he was very alone in doing so—China was exposed for what they were, looters who steal ideas and wealth from other countries by fluffing their feathers like peacocks to look bigger and badder than they really were. In the end, without America to loot off of, their economic leverage tanked in a big way and it forced them to the negotiating table with Trump and he knew it all along. He could wait them out, they couldn’t survive long without American imports and jobs to carry them along. That was the secret of the trade deal that’s coming. America had all the cards; China only had a massive population of potential consumers to dangle out there as a potential market expansion lure. But the truth in the end was that to gain market access our companies had to bend to the rules of communism, which Google, Nike, and the NBA were more than willing to do. And politicians like Lee Wong were there to pave the way for the embarrassments.

A basic rule in politics and in business that is true around the world, those who have the gold, rule. When negotiating with China, America had all the gold. China wanted some of it, so they are the ones who must bend in the negotiations. Not America. But if anybody had listened to all the dumb universities, John Cranley and Lee Wong, America would still be licking the boots of China. Lucky for us, Trump put an end to it, and I can say that there isn’t a more pro business Trump supporter in the Midwest than George Lang, the obvious best choice for the upcoming Ohio senate seat. Lee’s blind support of an obvious sentimental favorite of China leads to bad decisions and a very poor political philosophy. This is nothing new for those who know Lee best, the people who work with him. Having screwed up political beliefs doesn’t make a person bad. But it makes them dangerous in leadership positions and is just another reason why nobody should vote for Lee Wong, I would say for anything. Certainly not for Senate, but not for any public position. He uses the mask of being a Republican to stay in office, but his sentiments have and will always be with communist China.

Rich Hoffman

Another Way To Know Why Lee Wong is not a Republican: The cars we drive say everything about us

Another way that you can tell that Lee Wong, the West Chester trustee who is a clear Democrat pretending to be a Republican so he can get some votes in the 4th Senate District in Ohio, is by the car he drives. I didn’t know myself until I saw a video from a protestor confronting Lee while walking around his neighborhood. Under pressure from the protestor Lee went to his car as seen below and it was one of those ridiculous Fortwo cars that are considered “smart” cars and healthy for the environment. Those stupid little cars are nonsense and dangerous and should be illegal on our roads at only 70 HP with a 1.0L 3-cyl engine. No real Republican would be caught dead in one of those greenie weenie cars. The only people who have them are those who have allowed themselves to be caught up in the fiction of global warming, which is shorthand for the spread of communism around the world using environmental concerns as the change agent. You can’t be a pro capitalist Republican and drive one of these stupid cars—it’s just an un-American thing to do. Yet, I was not surprised knowing what I do about him to see that he was one of “those guys.”

Of course, whenever Lee gets pinned down with such statements his first thing to say is that he was in the military and that if you didn’t serve, then he is more of a patriot than you are for being in the armed services. So before going on about cars and what they say about the kind of person you are, let’s cover this little issue. I don’t begrudge anybody who serves in the military. I think it’s a great place to train tomorrow’s talent. I like having the best in the world, but I am not a yes sir, no sir kind of person. Its just not in me to follow orders from anybody. My life is far more valuable than the so-called “higher calling” they teach in the military, so I don’t feel a need to thank every veteran. Good for them for whatever duty they have done for God and country, but I view them as people far behind on their personal journeys. Anybody somewhat healthy can join the military and learn to follow orders. Learning to follow orders is not how you get the next great leaders, so in my mind, if that is not the objective, it’s a wasted effort, and the military isn’t about creating leaders, it creates people who learn to follow orders, which creates problems later in life when we have to teach veterans to think for themselves. So, I’m not a fan of veterans who promote themselves as the next political leaders managing our communities. I can see that even President Trump has had to learn this harsh reality, most of the big generals he brought into his administration have turned out to be Democrats, because by their nature, they are just other versions of government employees. My two favorite generals of all time were Claire Lee Chennault and Patton, and both of those guys were in trouble with the military all the time. I am far more rebellious than those guys, so Lee’s military service is just another blight on his record in my opinion. He didn’t lay down his life for me, he did what many do, he hid from responsibility by joining up to become just another government employee, which he never got over after all these years.

But we must talk about this stupid car, this little eco friendly piece of crap that should never be on a public road with much, much larger vehicles that Lee Wong drives. First of all he shows bad judgment in falling for the communist green movement dialogue that we should all do the responsible thing and surrender our desire for big SUVs and reduce our environmental footprint by driving smaller cars. Well, no, we shouldn’t. Rather we should drive the biggest and most powerful cars we can get our hands on because it says about us that we value our individualism in a capitalist culture and that our vehicles are extensions of ourselves in the grand scheme of things, which is why at any stop light in America that is double-laned in all directions, you’d be hard pressed to see any two cars lined up in the multitudes that are the same make and model—or even color. As American’s we like choice, and we like power and our cars reflect that. The greenie weenies who produced that ridiculous piece of crap, the Smart Fortwos were attacking the nature of American life by going as far to the opposite extreme as the SUV market was pushing for to make a political statement against American values. Pure and simple.

The car in an American market, which you don’t see elsewhere in the world, except a bit in Japan who have adopted our love of cars to some extent, is a statement and an extension of our homes. You don’t work hard in life to have a quarter million-dollar home and drive around a piece of crap–the car should be an extension of our life in general. If you are young, we understand you are working your way up in life, but your goal should be something bigger and better—always. You should never sacrifice your pleasures for the benefit of some climate change fiction made up by Democrats to control people through fear. You should get the best car you can get to go with the best house, the best clothes—the best of everything you can manage for yourself because that fuel drives capitalism and our American life that is the envy of the world. With Lee driving one of those stupid cars he’s announcing to the world that he is one of “those” anti-American forces working in the world to change the way we do things. And when he gets pressed on it he quickly retreats to his service in the armed forces as a defense. Yet obvious to me is that Lee is hiding behind his military service, to mask his tendency to follow the orders of whatever mass movement is happening at the time. In this case, its submission to the global warming communists. He is so enchanted with their message that he actually spent money on one of those stupid Smart Fortwo cars that could be toppled over easily with a strong wind.

What you drive says a lot about who you are in American cultures. Many people when they meet me wonder why I’m not driving around in a sports car, which I’d love to. Only I’m a big family person who often finds myself hauling around lots of people, so mini vans and SUVs are necessary for my life. I have a hot rod car in the garage waiting for a clear schedule and that keeps me appeased. But people just reading this blog site think I would have something more ostentatious, but reality has a way of sifting through an image to the heart of a person, and that usually ends up being the case. We drive our cars in my family for a long time, but we always buy them new, and as big as possible for the reasons described. People who make a choice to buy a smaller car, especially when they are older and have the means to do anything they want financially, are making a political statement contrary to the nature of American life, and that isn’t just villainous, its anti-Republican.

Rich Hoffman

Lee Wong is Wrong for Ohio’s 4th Senate Seat: He’s only qualified to be “maybe” a Wal-Mart greeter

Alright, the primary isn’t until March where Ohio’s 4th State Senate District will pick their next candidate for that seat on the Republican side of the slate, yet going to Jags the other evening, and elsewhere around West Chester Lee Wong, has already put out his signs for the campaign, just as signs from the previous November campaign are still littered throughout the region. In that little act, which may appear to be inauspicious, Lee says a lot about why he is just the wrong Wong for any political office, especially a senate seat. He is not a good trustee in West Chester, and is an obvious liberal with his voting record and he believes that if he is the first to get his signs out, and that he puts on them that he’s a veteran, that it will get him enough coverage to win some votes in that primary.

Lee is a nice guy, but so are a lot of idiots, they have to be so they don’t get their butts kicked by people more capable. People like Lee know that they trend toward Democrat, but they live in hard Republican areas, so they must go along to get along, which is in itself dishonest. I’ve been at the Sushi Monk when Lee has tried to come in the back door looking for some free food using his position as a trustee to “make friends” and enjoy the benefits of being a big shot in the community imposing himself on the good spirit of the hosts, uncomfortably. At Trustee meetings Lee usually, if not always goes around the room and introduces himself to the public and makes them feel hospital to their local government. Visually he does a lot of things that look nice and seem sincere, but under the veil is a person who is always what he’s not showing and he governs in the ways of a Democrat and is a wolf clearly in sheep’s clothing. He uses his niceness and his willingness to engage the public early and often as that sheep’s clothing yet the true merit of his actions, such as him putting his signs out before any other candidates shows his true nature. As a West Chester trustee he knows the townships policy on liter and signage in general, and he’s ignoring the policy for his own gain, and that is precisely how he governs, and is the core reason why he would be bad for a senate seat—because he’s never who he says he is.

I’ve met and known Lee for a long time, and since clear Republicans—at least they used to be—were running the township, I didn’t pay much mind to Lee. They had two votes to his one for sidewalks, and every other Agenda 21 feel good zoning pitch, so it wasn’t necessary to expose Lee in a harsh campaign. But a fair warning to him. Since he is running for a senate seat, one that I am very concerned with due to the kind of pro Second Amendment legislation that needs to get done in 2020 and after the Trump win in November, the first quarter of 2021, the last thing I want to see is some Democrat posing as a Republican in a Senate seat causing the kind of trouble that he often does as a West Chester trustee, such as when he brought in a bunch of union radicals to sabotage Mark Welch not very long ago. I didn’t ask him to stick his head up out of the ground, especially this early, so the treatment of him is going to be ruthless. Let me just say that for his own benefit. I think he’s a nice neighbor, but the political seats are important and we can’t afford the wrong people in them.

I’ll also say the same about the Democrats who plan to run for that same seat after the primary is over. Being a nice person isn’t enough. Just as in the Lakota school board election from the last time, and coming up again when Brad Lovell’s seat will come open, ruthlessness should be expected, because it is a kind of war for the hearts and minds of voters, and to be properly vetted, and since our local newspapers are too weak to do the job themselves, I can assure everyone that every dirty little secret, every little tryst to a local hotel or prostitutes on East Avenue will be exposed. I want to see the right people in the right jobs, not people hiding behind a façade of goodness who intend to do all the wrong things based on the direction needed in our own state government. Mike DeWine is about as liberal as I’m personally willing to put up with. Even that I would say is too far, but he serves as an adequate warning and benchmark of what is expected.

Since Lee has already put out his signs to get a jump on his competition then he is opening himself up to analysis as well as to his behavior and voting record which points straight back to the kind of philosophy which governs his voting pattern which is critical to the senate position he is seeking, and invites all the criticism available to display why Wong is Wrong for the job. I think he’s a terrible trustee in West Chester, but he’s even worse for a state seat of any kind. I wouldn’t trust him to be a bus driver to take senators to Columbus for a vote, I think he is that incompetent. To understand why, you must know more than what he shows through a handshake, it’s in what he believes that is the problem. And when pinned down, how he reacts and manipulates things to his advantage.

I’m not going to say that politics is not a harsh business and that games are part of the chess game, such as what he played in West Chester with the union debate orchestrated so deceptively against his fellow trustees at the time, one of which he is running against for that same senate seat now. People like Lee sell their scandal by using niceness to disarm their opposition, and they believe that being early to the worm will get the meal of the day, and in times past, that might have worked. But not anymore, and certainly not in the Trump circles of Ohio politics. I would say that for any seat in Ohio, but especially this senate seat. There is a lot at stake and dirt, scandal and everything imaginable are targets worth their salt in this one, so he better be ready for the crushing effects of sticking his head up so early. Because in so doing he reveals a lot about himself, even as a trustee who should know better. He is littering up the countryside during Christmas with his early signs ignoring West Chester’s policy on such things because in the end Lee doesn’t care so long as what he does serves his political ambitions and he will do the same and more with a higher position. And that is precisely why Lee Wong, is wrong for not only the 4th State Senate District seat that is coming up in the primary, he’s wrong for everything that involves public trust. He may be qualified to be a Wal-Mart greeter with is good demeanor, but that’s about it, keep him away from money or anything of responsibility—because he can’t be trusted.

Rich Hoffman

A Review of ‘The Rise of Skywalker’: Star Wars is back and has a lot in common with the Trump impeachment

Sometimes things happen that are very good and you have an experience that was much better than you thought it would be and that was certainly the case of the latest Rise of Skywalker Star Wars film. I know a lot of my readers are perplexed as to why I write so much about Star Wars, and to understand why, I would point to this movie. It has a lot in common with the Donald Trump impeachment by the press, a desired narrative designed to shape a social argument. While the president represents in people a desire to push back against oppressive institutions—which is a continuous theme of all Star Wars movies and shows, the media itself has become one of those oppressive institutions where there trained minds within it find Star Wars ideas threatening, not just childish, but dangerous. So I read with interest hundreds and hundreds of reviews this week about the Rise of Skywalker while many of the same publications framed similar opinions about the presidency of Donald Trump. The common statement was that this new Star Wars film wasn’t very good, it didn’t take the needed chances, and lets face it, it steered away from the progressive politics of the last film, which caused a lot of trouble in the fan community. The Rise of Skywalker was a damn, good movie and a real love letter from the filmmakers to the fan base and it left me feeling very good about it and extremely hopeful for the future.

What Star Wars means to our society I cannot understate enough, the magic it has on our culture is invaluable. I think its very powerful, and important. As a kid’s movie it has the potential to set high goals in the minds of viewers, especially young ones and this Rise of Skywalker film understood that responsibility. These are not movies about reality, or progressive politics, plot points that film school losers studied were important, the Star Wars movies, all of them are about creativity and thinking beyond the scope of your present circumstances. They are also about overcoming impossible odds when faced with dire circumstances. In that fashion, there were parts of Rise of Skywalker that reminded me a lot of the original Wizard of Oz, particularly when the heroes of the story were trying to rescue Chewbacca from a First Order star destroyer. The themes were light on their feet and fun. Reality wasn’t the goal but the flow of optimism was and that made parts of this movie pure magic.

The reason the reviewers choose not to like movies like this and why they don’t like President Trump is that they wish to live their lives in a victimized status, to have something to blame for why they are losers in life. President Trump is about overcoming loser status, and so are Star Wars films at their heart. They are all about using creative tools and technology to help the viewers of the films unlock optimism in their lives hopefully well beyond the time that the lights come back up and the movie is over. The Rise of Skywalker was an optimistic love letter to the audience. Obviously, Lucasfilm has listened to the complaints of the previous films. And I will have to give credit to Bob Iger at Disney, he listened too. There was a lot going on in The Rise of Skywalker that was optimistic, ambitious and a real throwback to the Saturday morning serials that caused George Lucas to make these films so long ago. The opening credits complete with what was likely one of John Williams’ final musical scores was wonderful and set the stage the way these kinds of stories have for hundreds of years, and have been the key to why they are so beloved by so many generations of audiences.

Rather than give away the movie, I’d rather cover the spirit of the film and encourage everyone to go see the movie and reward Disney with a big box office score. I’d like to see this one break some records, because it deserves to. I keep hearing from critics that The Rise of Skywalker didn’t take any chances, the way people have become accustomed to in other theatrical releases, like a Tarantino film, or some movie that advances the political ideologies of the left where women rights are the dominate objectives. Let me tell you about risk, try taking a very private story telling film that Star Wars started out as in 1977 and hold its creative looseness intact as it transitions over to corporate media while still telling stories of individual input and sustenance as the pressures otherwise push down on the attempt. I never said it would be easy for Disney to make these movies, only that they should respect the fans that have stayed with the franchise for over 40 years of storytelling. There was a couple sitting next to me who were older than I was, probably by over ten years and they were sitting there at the end of the credits with me with tears streaming down their faces and a smile from ear to ear. I asked them if they liked the film and of course they were beyond words with approval.

I met similar people in line at Disney World just a week before The Rise of Skywalker was released. They like me had spent thousands and thousands of dollars to take a vacation to Disney World and ride the new Rise of the Resistance at Galaxy’s Edge at Hollywood Studios. There were little kids in the line that took over four hours to get through, and there were people who were likely in their 20s in 1977 when the first movie came out and they were happy to participate in this mythology that had grown all these decades into these modern miracles of ride technology. What’s risky is in serving those types of fans while continuing to growth the business needs and take care of the corporate expectations, and Disney certainly put their best foot forward with this one. It may have taken them most of the last decade to get there, but from what I saw, they have finally found their footing. The results of The Rise of Skywalker were obviously good.

The most notable improvement was the return of romance to Star Wars, which had been avoided due to the political upheavals of our modern world. All the main characters ended up with love interests by the end of the film which was very satisfying intellectually, because lets face it, that’s how people think about things. It is unnatural to have passionate stories told in the refrigerator of modern politically correct politics. Yet Disney listened to the fans and gave Fin his third girlfriend of the series. I don’t want to make too much of it, only to note that the writers of the film obviously understood why the previous Star Wars films were missing the mark with fans, and this movie set out to correct that situation rather boldly. Hurray for good ol’ fashioned filmmaking and a turn for Hollywood to correct its course with this obvious attempt to appease the fans. Not the critics, but the people who actually buy a ticket, pay for their popcorns with a king’s ransom, and just want to think about something bigger than everyday life, instead of the restrictions of the unimaginative. Hurray for us all, Star Wars is back!

Rich Hoffman

REVENGE: Before we talk about violance against Democrats, let’s vote

It took me a while to cool down enough to even talk about the congressional impeachment vote they held on December 18th, a few decades to the exact day that Bill Clinton was impeached. The date and precise timing of the effort was obvious revenge for that vote which was then held by Republicans, only for a much more justified reason. Bill Clinton had actually perjured himself and broke the law. For this one against Trump, and all those of us who voted for him, this impeachment vote was a shit shot in the dark for a losing party on their heels falling out of bounds. Sure, sometimes the ball does go in the basket, only these idiots weren’t even on the right basketball court where the game was being played, so their shot had no chance of scoring any points. It was in all aspects a resolution to a prediction I had made many years ago on WAAM radio in Ann Arbor, Michigan where I predicted the end of the Democrat Party as we knew it. Well, this was the end for them, and for that, perspective took some time to come to.

To be fair I watched the debates prior to the impeachment vote just as I did two decades ago for the Clinton hearing, and for the truth of it, the intellect of the Democrats has dropped considerably. They were always bad, Dick Gephardt was never a vestige of intellect. Back then they did a much better job of hiding their socialism for which is at the heart of all their party philosophy. But at least there was an assumption of law and order, and of fairness. We all had much higher expectations of congresspeople and senators at that time. Well, not anymore. The people talking for the Trump impeachment were lost, mindless, blind ideologues of a failed philosophy who really didn’t know what to do next. Impeaching the president was a political move meant to put a black mark on his resume prior to the next election hoping that it would cost him voters. Their short-sighted virtue meant that they had lowered the bar on impeachment to anything. When another Obama type was president in the future, this case provided a means of swift removal the next time Republicans held the House and Senate as they did in 2012 and could have ripped Barack Obama from the White House rather easily for the scandals that were obvious, not to mention the ones that weren’t.

Then more reality came into a clearer focus for me. I had recently vacationed in Disney World and stepped out of my daily grind to see how normal people live, who don’t pay so much attention to politics like you and I do dear reader. As I watched those idiots talk it was clear that they didn’t know that the latest episode of The Mandalorian was released on Disney+ and that a new Star Wars film was being released this week and that pop culture was entirely focused on these events. Nobody cared about impeachment of the president. All they cared about was whether they had money in their wallets and enough credit to buy a new car. Congress had lost its credibility a long time ago with most people and Trump understood that as he took the stage in Michigan to an overflow crowd in Battlecreek to berate the attempts made against him.

And on cue, the same losers who thought the new Star Wars film didn’t have enough lesbian sex in it, or progressive political stances, because Disney did listen and wanted to fix things with the fans, so they rated the film poorly hoping to hurt its financial success, they had up the impeachment articles hoping to shape the narrative against Trump, as they had planned with the Democrat Party for years. Only Baby Yoda was still trending higher than impeachment perplexing those on the left who for the life of them couldn’t understand why. The Democrats and their supporters were just out of ideas and the world has moved on without them, and for all the reasons that they feel they have to cheat to win elections, such as tampering with the 2020 one to even have a shot with this impeachment attempt, they are completely disconnected as to what people want in a president or their elected representatives. Most people have already moved on from them and don’t pay them any attention, at all. I think that is dangerous for a republic, but it’s a grim reality.

My first thoughts during the impeachment vote was to inflict violence against them and overtake our government back into reasonable hands. It wouldn’t take much for a person like me to organize and I spent much of the 18th thinking in just such a fashion, until it became obvious that these idiots didn’t have the slightest clue as to what they were doing. They were pretentious and disconnected from reality, and in the long game, that was a good thing. Their vote essentially sealed their own fate as a party, because for those who did care, and were watching and not thinking about the latest iTunes download from Tayler Swift, the next election would be hell for them because the Democrats had just pissed off all the people who still do care, and they were failing to bring people over into their cause. There were fewer stars from Hollywood willing to make political stands in 2020 than there were even in 2016 and this impeachment effort wasn’t rallying people toward their side, it was pushing them away.

Most people only have time for so much in their lives, and people these days don’t have time or energy for this impeachment attempt by loser Democrats who they can see can’t compete with Donald Trump in the upcoming election. The writing is quite clear on the wall, and apparently everyone can see it but the Democrats who are still stuck on the impeachment revenge of December 18th, 1998 of Clinton, their knight in shining armor. And if they have been upset about that very justified event, what do they think is going to happen over the next 30 years after this Trump attempt? Do they think we’ll just all go to sleep and forget about it? Hell no, people like me will want to paint our homes in their blood for many years to come, they will never get off the hook and that is something they seem to never have considered. Perhaps they are just too stupid to think about it, but whatever it is, they have stamped themselves to it forever, and to their own detriment.

So I would offer that the best revenge is to activate the votes for all Republicans in the next election and to show up in droves to put them in office and knock out the Democrats from every position up and down the line. It is better to take them out of office than to think about putting bullets in their heads with a bloody rebellion. Why get all dirty when all you have to do is show up and vote? Now if we find out that the Democrats find a way to massively tamper with the elections, which I wouldn’t put it past them to try, then we can talk about violence. But for now, we have all the cards to play with and they have nothing. The best thing is to beat them in elections, which at this point should be easy. Then lets talk about the future.

Rich Hoffman

How to Improve Oga’s Cantina at Galaxy’s Edge: Where creativity and a vastly expanding mythology can improve life dramatically

Obviously, my recent trip to Disney World had a positive impact on me, and I thought it would. It had been decades since I was really able to take a trip like that and just enjoy it without a whole lot of tag along projects. I could write a lot about all the positive experiences I had the week I was in Orlando at Disney World visiting all the parks and Disney Springs in general. But specifically I observed in the context of creativity some jaw dropping elements put forth by the new Star Wars land they call Galaxy’s Edge and I had a kind of moment after it all soaked in where I was in the Oga’s Cantina, a kind of recreation of the popular spaceport bar that was seen in the very first Star Wars movie way back in 1977, and I was awe struck. It was 2019, I was 51 years old and remember seeing that place for the first time in the movie and buying the album of the soundtrack and listening to the music over and over again on a record player. That popular cantina song was the gateway for my generation to science fiction and adventure, and here was the real thing, and they were selling drinks to an adult audience with barely standing room only around the bar. I included a few video clips of my point of view from the cantina that night here for reference, but it was really quite ostentatious that I could leave where I was having a couple of drinks with my wife and go outside to see the Millennium Falcon sitting there in a setting that belonged in a movie of the most fantastic type. It was quite an achievement to build, let alone experience and I couldn’t help but feel that something very important was happening to our human species.

Imagination had stepped over a kind of intellectual barrier and a new reality had been created born from a new kind of thinking driven by myth. Before visiting the cantina that night I had purchased from the marketplace just around the corner a much-desired deck of Sabacc cards which I had been waiting for really all of my life. After hundreds of books that I had read on that popular intergalactic poker game, finally Disney’s Galaxy’s Edge had invented a real game with real cards that could only be bought at that location and I was having quite a time with them. It was all a bit overwhelming and I had a lot of thoughts about what should come next to such an experience. Since a new reality has been born there at Galaxy’s Edge, and from the looks of the crowd, that cantina wasn’t big enough, nor would it be in the future I am offering my thoughts to help the story advance based on my observations. Granted, I never thought such a place would have ever been possible. But since it is, we should talk about improvements.

I’m not much of a drinker, so going to the cantina at Galaxy’s Edge was more out of curiosity than anything else. I’m not into the drinking songs and other things that go on in bars. But I do think the cantina should be more of a social destination, a place to meet people, get away from the heat of the day, and to freshen up. Since that cantina has the reservations booked for the whole day before you can even enter the park, its not a relaxing place to go. It’s certainly cool, but not relaxing. If I were program managing Galaxy’s Edge, I would offer some free advice to them–they need to build several more cantinas around the complex. The one they have isn’t enough. They need at least two more, and both of those need to be larger. They can be in the designs of other locations in the movies, but it is very obvious that Star Wars fans going to Galaxy’s Edge want to hang out and talk to other fans without a time limit, so more cantina space is required.

Also, the cantina management need to give happy hour prices to fans who cosplay, so that there are more people in the cantina who look like people from all over the Star Wars galaxy. Many people would willingly dress up in creature costumes if they could get significant costs knocked off their drinks and that would solve the environment problem of having the place full of non-Star Wars looking tourists. I would be surprised to learn that this wasn’t already happening, but I must suggest it because it’s the most logical thing to consider. That was really the only thing missing is the atmosphere full of strange creatures. Everything else looked great.

Additionally, as I had my drinks watching the crowds feeling like the best thing to do would be to have a good Sabacc game at the bar or in one of the booths. The booths around the outside parameter were full of families so such a game wouldn’t be possible. The cantina staff wanted quick turnover inside to make room for the lines of people outside, so playing Sabacc in the cantina just wasn’t an option and it should be. In fact, Disney I think has done such a good job marketing their new Sabacc game, that I think in a year or so there will be so many people playing it that they should host Sabacc tournaments at Galaxy’s Edge the way that poker tournaments are held in Vegas. I would go, I love the game. In a lot of ways I think it is much better than poker or black jack and it is otherworldly enough to allow participants to embroil themselves into the Star Wars mythology. Fantasy Flight Games has had great success with their X-Wing games and other Star Wars games. This Sabacc game would be the perfect meeting game in Galaxy’s Edge for years to come and would really enhance the cantina feel that you should experience when you enter those types of places. That would make the cantina more of a function than just a novelty act.

Going even further, I would think a cantina like Oga’s, except much, much, larger should be build at Disney Springs and it is there that yearly Sabacc championships should be played from players all over the country. The stakes could be simple, a week vacation package for four to the parks and hotels, that way it wouldn’t be gambling where money is exchanged, but still the prize would be in the tens of thousands and worth practicing all year to have a chance to win. And the tournaments could be broadcast on Disney+ the way poker games are broadcast on cable networks currently. I’ve been playing the game since I picked it up that day and it would be very good for television, and for cantina events.

All things come from imagination, even the games of our past like poker. When film and literature create in the imaginations of people the kind of demand I saw at Oga’s Cantina in Galaxy’s Edge at Hollywood Studios, we are on the frontier of some new kind of thinking, and that is very exciting. I can see future engineers for space stations on Mars and beyond playing Sabacc to pass the time on those long space voyages that they started learning to play at Galaxy’s Edge in one of these cantinas. Its more appropriate for the future than the games of the past, and that is something that is astonishing to see, how intellect is inspiring creations not born of rigid societies, but of creativity and vastly expanding mythology.

Rich Hoffman

Anger and Revenge: Democrats impeachment vote is a shot at us all

The only thing that comes to my mind regarding the current congress of Democrats voting to impeach President Trump is anger and a necessity for revenge. When I think back to when Republicans had both the House and Senate and could have impeached President Obama on many more accounts, now that this ridiculous standard against Trump has been set, it is clear that we should have. We could have impeached Obama over Benghazi, Fast and Furious, the IRS scandal, the off the mic promises to the Russians that he’d give them more support after the election, we could have thrown Obama out of office before the end of his first term.

Instead of calling for violence against our government for participating in this coup, I’m going to think about more pleasant things for a few days while I cool down. Its not enough to call this impeachment vote a joke, because at the heart of it is aggression against everyone who voted for Trump, and that isn’t OK.

Rich Hoffman

What Disney Calls Magic is what Chick Fil A Calls Competency: Taking away the excusses to happiness

People have been wondering why as a grown man who could go anywhere in the world why my wife and I went to Disney World for vacation, without any kids. Well, there were a lot of reasons, but one of the main ones is something I don’t hear a lot of people talking about, but its at the core of their theme park business model, and its very similar to Chick Fil A. What Disney sells is happiness, its in their mission statement which is clear the moment you enter the property in Orlando welcoming you to the happiest place on earth. Obviously the first thing that cynical people think of in Disney are the huge expenses and the long lines, but there is a reason everything costs so much yet is so extraordinarily crowded. Its essentially for the same reason that Chick Fil A is crowded every afternoon just for selling chicken, it’s because as a company, they don’t make excuses for failure and have a can do spirit on everything, and that is precisely what people are looking for at the Disney Parks, and why I specifically wanted to vacation there. I’m a very positive person and professionally everywhere I have turned over the last year and a half was some drag asser looking for every little excuse not to do something, and it was driving me crazy. It had been time for a Disney vacation.

That doesn’t mean that what you get at Disney is happiness. I watched carefully during my vacation the other people who were looking for the same thing as me, but obviously were not so inclined to experience such a product as Disney calls “magic.” Magic is the word for it, because in reality, its only the performance of illusions, not some mystical energy created to manipulate the impossible. Magic to create happiness is a series of tricks designed to evoke in the user a feeling they couldn’t get anywhere else, but not all people are prepared to experience it. So they can go to Disney World and spend many tens of thousands of dollars, they can have their magic bands and take the shuttle from the airport to the parks without paying all the tolls on the highways between the two, and all they’ll see are long lines and misery. They’ll complain later that Disney World is all about just making a buck and is for kids as they seek some psychological distance between their present reality and any future attempt at happiness. For many people, they do not want to be happy, because there is responsibility in it, so even going to Disney World can’t do it for them. But on this trip, I wanted particularly to study Disney as a company and how they maintained their brand so I was watching with different eyes than I normally would in times past.

One thing that was obvious, and likely the key to their success at Disney was that all of their employees were taught to buy into the philosophy, like Chick Fil A. You don’t go to Disney to hear excuses about why this or that can’t or won’t happen. With them anything is possible. Any request from a customer is entertained, and it’s done so with a smile on their faces. As I went everywhere and asked lots of questions of what they call “cast members” a personality trait emerged that was part of their employee development. The customer was always right, and the employees of Disney were taught never to complain, or to let it out that they disagreed with those very valuable customers. Everything was on time; no rides or attractions were shut down because they didn’t have enough employees to operate the activities. Nothing stopped at Disney World due to massive call offs of a weak labor pool to draw from. To make the parks work magically each day, it literally took tens of thousands of park employees to make the massive operation run. If 10% of their work force didn’t show up for work on time there would be big problems in selling that happiness, yet Disney didn’t have that problem at all. The reason why is the key to the answer.

To conduct my experiments my wife and I stayed in Kissimmee and spent some time out of the park interacting with the various work cultures there to draw some long-held conclusions that I have had. In years past, whenever we went to central Florida, we would meet at the family condo over in Cape Canaveral, and a fair amount of socializing was always part of the trip. This time, we didn’t talk to anybody, we just conducted my experiment spending a lot of time at all four Disney Parks, eating and interacting with their various resorts, and crawling over every inch of their Disney Springs development. We used all their various transportation systems and even talked to the janitors who walked around the park cleaning up the trash. I purposely looked for the ugly side of Disney, any peeled paint, any decaying wood, any sign of shortcuts toward the magic illusions that Disney was so obsessed with creating. Then once the parks closed, or before they opened, we would eat and shop down in Kissimmee and the differences in culture were obvious.

We were staying only two miles from the entrance to Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios the entire time along RT 192 which had a lot of great Gatlinburg types of tourist traps that I love so much. Only the employees almost everywhere we went sucked, and I mean, they sucked big time. We went to Joe’s Crab Shack which was just a stone’s throw to the south of Animal Kingdom, off the Disney property and it was obviously mismanaged in a terrible way. It took 15 minutes for someone to even ask to seat us, even with most of the place full of empty tables. Then we were told it would take an additional 15 minutes to seat us. When I asked why, they told us that they had a few call-offs and that they were running behind. Disney operates hundreds of restaurants, hotels, rides, and other vendors and I don’t think they would permit any of their employees from making such a ridiculous statement. Why would a business make their mismanagement problems the problems of the paying customer? Its an absurd concept, so we left Joe’s Crab Shack and looked for other options. And we found the same behavior everywhere else, including a Cracker Barrel

Our hotel had half dead slugs running the place, the room cleaners kept forgetting to give us new towels, coffee packs and whatever we asked for because they were not engaged in maintaining our happiness. They were just going through the motions like the rest of the world. Disney by contrast didn’t permit such excuses and that was obviously part of what they called magic. From the airport in Orlando to the surrounding establishments around the Disney World property, the contrasts were obvious, and a key to the success story. It really came down to a management decision to take away the excuses of unhappiness. If people wanted to see the strings and hidden chambers of the magic show, they could. But Disney would not be responsible for it. Their whole thing was to take away the excuses to be miserable. If people chose to be miserable anyway, that was on them.

I am one who likes to be happy, so it didn’t take much for me to enjoy that level of competency. In such a “can do” culture it doesn’t take much for me to respect such a thing. The cast members no matter how important their roles were in the customer experience held to the company motto and it was obviously successful. It shows what can be done when a company has expectations from their employees to behave a certain way and to ensure that the customer experience from their side is positive and excuse free. And in that, there are lots of lessons for the outside world to come to grips with, which is precisely why I chose this vacation over other options, which I’m glad I did.

Rich Hoffman