There was a lot of dispute about the removal of Senator Bill Seitz from a key committee during the final days of the vote on Senate Bill 5 which would become Issue 2. See an interview from Seitz with Channel 9 who is from the Cincinnati area.
I’ve known a lot of attorneys, and one of the common tactics they use when they have a weak case is to drag their feet and extend out a case. And Seitz obviously blindly loyal to labor interests even though he sells himself as a conservative was not able to see Senate Bill 5 for what it was, a good healthy culture change for public sector employment. Seitz, the labor attorney, listed as one of the best in America, as you can see at the link below, looks to have sabotaged and watered down the impact of Issue 2 from the very beginning by loading it down with unnecessary politics, which went against the kind of reform Kasich and many in the house and senate were looking for.
And this explains the behavior of Bill Cunningham on 700 WLW as well. In the brotherhood of attorneys, it is the mask of conservatism that they use for their act, but in reality when the make-up is taken off to who the individual truly is, the union of attorney brotherhood speaks of the true actions and now that Issue 2 for the first time in my adult life attempts REAL reform, it scares the people who have built their lives around the chaos of litigation.
Brian and Shannon have a wonderful conversation about this very important bill. Be sure to listen to the entire broadcast especially the callers after the interview.
“Hi!” the man said enthusiastically. “I wanted to talk to you about Issue 2.”
I smiled as he handed me the literature which was in favor of the repeal attempt. My wife had come out behind me and grabbed her forehead when she heard that a spokesman from the “other side” was in our driveway. “You came to the wrong house” she said.
The man’s smile disappeared as he studied our faces. “Why’s that?”
My wife gently pointed at me, “that’s Rich Hoffman.”
“Crap………..Well, you never know who’s door you’re going to knock on.”
I put my arm around the guy and said, “Dude, it’s alright. We’re definitely on opposite sides of this situation, but we can still get along…..even if you’re wrong.”
The man was holding out the literature for the repeal attempt, which I took. “Thanks,” I said, “I was wondering what you guys were handing out to people.”
The man smiled slightly and shook my hand. “Well, thanks for your time, and have a good day.”
“You too,” I said as the man turned and headed back to his car. I could feel my wife burning a hole in my back with her gaze.“What? I was nice.”
“Suspiciously nice,” she said. “What are you up to?”
I feigned surprise. “Now what makes you think I’m up to something?”
“Because I’ve been married to you for over 20 years.”
I held up the literature from We Are Ohio. “Because it’s nice to have the other side bring you information and place it on your doorstep. It saves me some research time. I’m grateful to the fellow, as time is a precious commodity.”
• Issue 2 strips away important Collective Bargaining Rights. This was hilarious since there isn’t anything anywhere which states that collective bargaining is a “right.” It is a privilege that has been abused. Click on this article to see how.
• Issue 2 Endangers us All. This is another one that brings about laughter. It’s the old “panic” trick which schools use to trick people into more tax money spent. “You’ll be safer if you pay us more money.” This behavior actually equates to mob type extortion, because the only real danger comes from the public employees themselves, because if they walk off the job, homes could burn down, criminals might roam with impunity, and kids would be in a classroom that has no teacher because they are on strike. The only danger is that if Issue 2, the public employees in a fit might retaliate by laying down on the job. It’s even documented that some public employees have actually burned down the homes of their tax opponents in the past or encouraged violence in other “indirect” ways.
• Issue 2 Hurts our Economy. This comes from people who most probably have difficulty balancing their check book if they didn’t have a 43.4% wage and benefit advantage over the private sector. They are people who have little knowledge of production, but are simply service oriented employees who think they know the miracle of money and production. It is these types of individuals who think that “job creation” is done by government and not the wealthy.
• Issue 2 is an Unfair Political Giveaway. Here comes the classic class warfare ploy. It’s “us (the worker) against them (the management).” In the minds of the radicalized public worker “management” is always against them and they treat negotiations like a football game, where you gain yards against the defense which is management. It doesn’t matter who is on management’s side, they are all villains to the radicalized union member, and this especially true of public workers represented by a union.
We finished our dinner with our stomachs sore from the laughter and again contemplated the public employees who have grown over time to become entitled, to expect everything in their lives to move forward, but to never give anything up. Their idea of giving back to the community is to take wage freezes and giving back personal days, which many in the private sector don’t get and never will. Giving back things you have not yet received is not giving back. But to the public employee, it is! As a group the public employee is desperately out of touch and they have no plan on what to do with the day after the election if they succeed in a repeal attempt. Their plan is to raise taxes to deal with the budget deficits, and that’s why we laughed so hard over our dinner. The idea of just how out-of-touch these people are is something that might be unbelievable on a stand-up comedy act. Yet, with a straight face, they hand out literature and protest with silly signs in the back of pickup truck to “repeal Issue 2, so we can keep everything the same for us, the public employee.” But they have no plan other than taxing the rich. Their argument is one of shallow water in a jagged stream filled with a dye that discolors the water which they applied so that nobody can see just how shallow their water is, and what they hide just under the surface. The answers to most of the reasons we need Issue 2 is articulated in the Brian Thomas, Shannon Jones interview. But also, all the reasons we should vote for Issue 2 also comes from the literature of We Are Ohio. Upon examination it is clear there is no helping these people since their perspective is tinted with extremely high expectations. And only time will heal them while we must help them put their feet upon the ground of reality once again after decades of neglect and pay-offs.
In the meantime all we can do is laugh and vote YES for Issue 2 on November 8, 2011.
For the answer to everything click the link below!
In the middle of the night I received a message from Laura Sanders who is working on the Move Forward Lakota campaign, a group that is advocating the passage of a new levy at the Lakota School District. She wanted to show me her new video, which is nice and I think well-edited. But like I wrote her, where in the video does it say “WHY is more money required?” We know teachers are valuable to the community. But Lakota is not underfunded. It’s a district with $165 million dollar budget that we know about, and in all reality is closer to $250 million in total revenue. Yet it is the average pay rate of the employees in the district that hovers just over $63K per year that is driving up those costs, so how much is too much?
Like I said to Laura, having money to put on a glitzy show does not provide justification for the expenses. We cannot manage our district if teacher pay is simply a bottomless pit. Lakota has at least $30,000 to start their levy campaign with and I’m sure they will receive more over this next campaign. To see who gives money to them and what their campaign finances look like read this article which breaks down how much they spent last year, how much they have to spend this year, and who gave them money by clicking on the link below:
The belief from the Move Forward Campaign is that if they spend money, they will automatically convince people of their need. And that’s what they’ve done with their new ad. In the heading Laura titled it “Creative Battle” I suppose in response to the No Lakota Levy’s latest video which you can see here:
You can see our website at www.NOLAKOTALEVY.com where that video launches upon your visit.
I have heard some of the most foolish comments in my adult life regarding Issue 2, which is the ultimate fix for these budget problems, especially at Lakota. I know for a fact that there are teachers at the top of the pay scale that aren’t worth 45K per year let alone 80K and 90K. Only in a union under collective bargaining could weak people earn so much. But then there are some teachers that are worth that much money. But if the Lakota Levy fails and cuts are made, it will be the newer teachers who cost the least and generally have the most ambition that we’ll lose, unless Issue 2 holds. The argument the public workers are making is similar to me telling my editor that, “the book will be terrible if we lose these characters. I refuse to make revisions to my 110,000 word manuscript!” They would then say, “Ok, thank you for the opportunity to work with you Mr. Hoffman, but we can’t afford the publishing cost of a book that large. Such a large book has limited market value because statistics show that most people are intimidated by large books, so we would never recover our initial investment, so good luck on finding another publisher.” The Issue 2 group does not understand that by trimming down a manuscript or a school district we make them stronger.
While all this discussion over Issue 2 is percolating and unions are dug in deep with their rhetoric and talking points, Lakota is after more money to supplement a contract with it’s union that is excessively high, the Cincinnati Reds are floating offers for their star player in Joey Votto, who is currently the gem of our local baseball team. He’s the ideal baseball player and we’d all like to see him stay in Cincinnati for his entire career. But in reality, Joey will most likely decline in production over the coming years, and he is set to make more than 20 million a year, because his contract dictates that much. So the Reds should follow the formula of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and dump him for a fresh young player that costs much less but can give comparable numbers. The Reds would have to do this because to keep Votto means they couldn’t afford other players that will be needed to create a valuable franchise. So at some point in the near future, the Reds will have to cut Votto, which will be painful, just like editing a book, or managing a school district. It’s painful, and emotional, but we are REQUIRED to do what is right for the organization we are representing. What dictates the Reds cut Votto is that they don’t have a budget which allows for him in the future. Public workers don’t understand this. They simply believe that tax increases will allow for them to have everything, job security and all employees making healthy wages without competition driving costs down. They believe this because a budget limit has never been established, which is what we are doing with the No Lakota Levy group, helping to manage costs by setting a limit.
I recently did an article about Issue 2 where I compared the details of that very good bill to the aerospace company Boeing, building its new manufacturing plant in South Carolina. To see that article click the link:
There are those of us who function outside of the normal static patterns of society, and do so on purpose, because it is clear to us what is behind this “Occupy Movement.” Glenn Beck is one of those people and you will see his videos here explaining this situation, along with the other active parties. Much of the source material for this article comes from Glenn Beck in one way or another, because as progressives have outlets like Russia Today, the RT Network, the Huffington Post and many others, those of us who don’t care for progressivism have Glenn Beck’s work, and Talk Radio and we are late to this game, because for too long, we trusted the system while progressives embedded themselves under our noses. To understand fully, I suggest watching these videos completely, which I’m providing to compliment my text. It is extremely important to have a full understanding of this very complicated situation that is actually a military maneuver without the use of weapons. So take your time and absorb all this information, and be sure to send it to a friend. To understand what the intent behind the military maneuver is, read this article:
To understand what is wrong in America, which none of the progressive groups seem to understand, but people like George Soros is exploiting for his own ends, watch this video. Here Robert Kiyosaki author of Rich Dad Poor Dad explains the mystery that everyone is so confused about. He breaks down our entire society into four groups in a diagram he calls The Quadrant. First are the “E’s,” which are employees then come “S’s,” who are the “Smart Guys,” then the “B’s” which are big business, and then the “I’s” are the investors. I’ve been saying the same as Kiyosakis that our society makes entirely too many “E’s,” and it s the “Employees” who make up these protestors. America was designed to create “B’s,” and “I’s” and an abundance of “S’s.” But the socialist movement brought to the United States by progressives during the years of Teddy Roosevelt seeks to make lots of “E’s” through public education. So when everyone is trained in the same place, they think the same, and can then be used to march like soldiers when commanded.
The strategy from people like George Soros, and he’s not the only one, but is simply the guy who is on the camera most, and provides video for us to observe, is to use progressive groups, like labor unions, to drive up costs, bankrupt the economic system of the United States to the point of collapse, then bring the United States into a weakened position under the global order of the United Nations. That is the plan. (“Call it crazy today, but tomorrow you’ll wish you listened.”)
If your wife asks you, “Honey, does this dress make me look fat?” Then you, the husband answer as you can see the skin dimples pushing through the fine surface of the dress as it hugs her hips, “No, no, you look beautiful.” The husband has committed a sin. You told her she was beautiful when you know in your mind that the correct answer was, “Hell, no, you’re fat. You have let yourself go over the last ten years and I’m embarrassed to be seen in public with you.” The husband answers the way he does out of a duty to his wife that goes beyond truth. He is forced to put on blinders to the truth in order to share a life with this woman, who has gained 40 extra pounds, wants the ability to eat, and eat and eat, but still expects her husband to lust after her for sex.The man, to avoid fighting with his over-weight wife will tell her anything to shut her up and get her off his back, so he tells her, “No, the dress looks great………..dear.”
Parents who have kids in those delicate years of childhood, who are in their school years, are an insecure lot. They of course want what’s best for their children, and desire every opportunity for them. So they tend to trust the opinions of others over their own knowledge because after all, being a good parent takes experience, and how do you get experience but by raising kids. So during that process, parents tend to believe they can throw money at a “professional” to give them the added security that those professionals will be there to pick-up whatever they miss as parents.
The parents both working jobs and paying a lot of money for a house they bought just so they could send their child to Lakota is no different from the husband who is just trying to keep the peace with his wife. “Yes, you look good to me. How much do you need to do your job better?”
The obese professionals caring for our children then take that money given by the enabler and buy more junk food so they can become even more obese. And when the food runs out, they will come back and say, “I need more! I am a ‘big boned’ entity and I need to maintain this large body. I’m hungry. We need a new levy.” The enabler, the typical tax advocate will then say as the woman in the video said, “We need to pass this levy so we can have good schools, so we can maintain our excellence.” But the eyes don’t lie. The public can witness the dishonesty which resides there seemingly hidden. They can see what the enabler is really thinking. “Wouldn’t it be better if the school system wasn’t so obese? Wouldn’t the school be better if it was much thinner?” The enabler is just as guilty as the husband who tells his wife, “Yes honey, you look good. You’re not fat at all.” The husband knows that if he doesn’t tell his wife something to that effect then sex will come with difficulty, and it will be a pain-in-the ass to pass his wife in the bathroom or in the hallways of his home. And thus the levy advocates are in the same boat. They must pass these inflated professionals in the halls of the school their children attend and communicate with others in social events, so they put on the blinders so that they can endure the experience with some resemblance of sanity.
I would look at the woman with her body attempting to bust out of her dress and ask, “Do you really want to know?”
The woman expecting praise as she fans her hands down her thighs to straighten out her dress doing her best to look sexy, “Of course, darling.”
I would then say, “My dear, your ass is fat and you are a pain to all the eyes of this room for you should have worn a potato sack rather than do that dress injustice by asking it to hide your blob-like body. There isn’t any amount of perfume, make-up, or cosmetic accessories that can hide the fact that you have visited the potato chip bag about 100 times too many!”
Many of my current friends are about 30 to 40 years older than I am, because it is during this phase once the body has withered away, and sexual fulfillment is not the primary objective of the adult mind followed by a sense of sacrifice to a child. (I’d put the order of necessity for women the other way around, for men, it is as I listed it) It is these older minds who finally begin to see things as they are, unfortunately death is breathing down the necks of these fine people, so it’s often too little too late. They contributed their share of madness into the fabric of social existence confusing necessity with their biological urges and now in their later years they wish to fix what they helped to wreck through the ignorance of their youth. To my way of thinking, “youth” extends well into the late 50’s of some of these people. Some people don’t get “wise” until their 60’s or 70’s. But most do get there eventually because as the strength of their bodies leaves them, their minds increase to compensate.
She wasn’t the first to make such a proclamation. Over the years people would say to me, “You are just like Thoreau.” They seemed astonished when I’d reveal to them that I had never read him, at least until fairly recently, after the encouragement of my daughter. The reason I never gave Thoreau a chance early in my life was because I partially blamed him for the Hippie Movement. It was high school English that taught me that Civil Disobedience was the model of the Civil Rights Movement and it was enjoyed by Ghandi also. Well, I thought Ghandi was a pacifist who should have led India to a violent conquest of his enemies, and this whole starvation thing never made any sense to me. The idea of self-sacrifice for a greater caused always seemed immature. Just as the idea that Christ died on the cross to relieve me of my sins never made sense either. I spotted a long time ago in those Christian studies a series of looters who sought to place themselves between the people and their God as a kind of toll keeper, and they use Jesus, the pacifist as a gate to collect the toll. Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience wreaked all these elements and I refused to read it in high school for that reason, again in college, and in my adult life until my daughter told me my rebellion was misplaced.
Below is a message I received from a teacher who is attempting to play a little game that is now all too familiar. In the debate I had recently with the Pro Lakota Levy group, you could hear the same type of fear based placement of a core argument, resembling the message below.(CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THAT DEBATE)
The example of Somalia is a preposterous one. It is obvious that the creators of that little (anti-libertarian) film does not understand the greater aspects of social relationships. The real trouble in Somalia is due exclusively to their tendency toward collectivism as can be seen in this short documentary.It was on the back of collectivism that socialism was brought to that country, then when that fell, as it always does it paved the way for the clan Civil War that is currently taking place. Somalia is the direct result of government meddling at many levels, not the other way around, as the video obviously produced by some New Age Leftists, only able to see a small part of the overall picture interpreted.
The threats by these collectivists are utterances that aren’t worth the wind which carries the sound wave of discontent. Anyone who believes as collectivists do can be replaced by a superior mind quickly and efficiently, because it is the superior mind who avoids such occupations in order to avoid the fools who are currently employed there.The superior mind doesn’t waste their time on the quandary of collectivism. The apocalypse predicted by those employed by government as that body of collectivism is reduced by the tax dollar are unfounded, completely, the world will still turn tomorrow, kids will still be taught by a teacher, there will still be police and firefighters and many others. The term phrased, “the squeaky wheel gets the grease,” has been true. But my solution to the squeaky wheel is not to just put more grease on it; it is to replace the wheel all together with one that doesn’t make any noise, and might even work better. It is in such thinking that permanent fixes reside.
For those who believe that all is right in the world, the video below is something you should see. I recently had a debate on 700 WLW with Julie Shaffer over school levies and how much she believes people outside the “education bubble” make as a wage, which far off the true mark and goes far to explain why educators are out-of-touch in asking the public to increase taxes to maintain their lifestyles even when the CPI index says those same teachers are extremely overpaid. It is that same “education bubble” of academia where they view the world with rose-colored lenses darkened even more with tenure that they cannot, or will not see that in their typically leftist viewpoint of global unity and focus on “world peace” that our enemies stir. (CLICK THIS HOTLINK TO HEAR MY DEBATE WITH JULIE)
And they plot like sinister manipulators, walking among us like the wolf in sheep’s clothing, climbing under the fence to get behind that bubble to eat. Meanwhile the academic looks at the predator and says, “look there at the poor, the downtrodden, the oppressed and offer them your hand, your help, your charity! I say to you my young students to beckon your wealth in their direction, to assist them for they are our brothers and sisters of this world, and deem our respect and understanding.”In this way the teacher leads the students straight into the mouth of the predator to be consumed uneventfully.
So as the teachers and sympathizers of the “education bubble” continue to beat a drum of distraction to preserve their right to shop at Nordstrom’s, an enemy gathers outside of their vision. And as people like me point and say, “there is your end,” they gallantly shrug off the warning.
“Oh, that Mr. Hoffman just hates teachers and so anti-education. You can’t believe anything he says, because he chooses not to join us in the “education bubble.”
Rich Hoffman
