Category: Transportation

I Love Jimmy McMillian: Gas Prices are TOO DAMN HIGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When gas prices are too high, one of the first things people will give up are luxury items. That’s what’s happening to the Liz Claiborne facility in West Chester, Ohio. High gas prices which are ruining the economy are having an impact on businesses like this tremendous distribution center.

President Obama is now in his third year and while he did inherit a bad economic situation, he has now shown that his economic plan was only to perpetuate the negative economic conditions to advance his green jobs agenda, which has only exacerbated the economy in even more negative ways. As of June 7, 2011 a poll in the Washington post reveals that only 40% of respondents approve of Obama’s handling of the economy, and only 33% approve of his handling of the deficit.

At the start of last summer, in 2010 gas prices were over a dollar less than they are now, as they were just shy of $3 per gallon. In fact, over the winter I wrote an article here about how preposterous gas prices breaking the $3 per gallon mark truly were and how any amount of money over $3 would cut into America’s disposable income, and would cause devastating economic conditions.

Now gas is flirting with $4 per gallon and going up. The fault rests exclusively on the green freaks, progressives, and wealth redistribution advocates. Obama is directly guilty. He has openly discouraged oil drilling in the United States, but has openly embraced it in Brazil, helping that country with a collaborative effort to get their feet in the international economy at the expense of the United States. The blue print for all this activity is exactly the plot line out of the book Atlas Shrugged.

The progressive power grabbers however, while they are working the strategy implemented by Cass Sunstein discussed in his book “Nudge” they seek to sidetrack America on silly stories like racism, and plights in favor of the poor, which only achieves their bloc voting goals, while the cost of their strategy is showing up in the increasing gas prices.

Many of us see through the scam though, and Jimmy McMillian is one of them. Jimmy is the guy who ran for Governor of New York under the mantra, “The Rent is Too Damn High.” I love Mr. McMillian. He is what a great American looks like. I have no idea what his political affiliation is, and I don’t care. All I know is that he speaks the truth, and he does so with passion. For America to be great, it needs people like Jimmy McMillian to be in the majority, not the extreme minority. But if you want to know what a great modern American looks like, then watch Jimmy McMillian go to Washington to announce his “The Gas is Too Damn High” campaign.

Here is Jimmy’s website where you can visit and send him your pictures of fuel costs that are too high.

http://www.gasolineistoodamnhigh.com/

There is only one reason that gas is so high, and that’s because of the mismanagement of our resources by our government. It’s a lack of drilling for shale oil, it’s a lack of drilling for off shore reserves, and the lack of energy exploration in Alaska, all of this resistance is purely political. Click here to read a great article about this topic.

The Obama administration now and Al Gore all during the 2000’s kept pressure on oil developers to stop drilling citing environmental concerns. Yet those same politicians are embracing the same drilling techniques in China and Brazil. The reason is because the United States energy policy has nothing to do with the environment. It’s about wealth redistribution. It’s about helping the economy of Brazil and other South American countries, and China so wealth redistribution can be implemented. American’s are forced to swallow this pill with the glass full of bull-shit called “environmental concerns.” The green movement is purely about money, money for developing countries, and disarming the United States so to give those countries a head start on the economic play ground.

The high gas prices are also in place to “nudge” American’s into buying “green tech” vehicles. That’s those stupid little glorified golf carts that we’re starting to see on the roads these days. The cars are small, underpowered, and pathetic, they are not what America is about. They have little place in our culture, but the Obama administration has hung it’s hat on this technology, this is what Barack Obama wants to be remembered for in the context of history, which is a pathetically short-sighted goal.

I stand with Jimmy, and you should too. Send your pictures into Jimmy’s website and learn the truth of why the “Gas is too damn high.” It’s not to help America. It’s not even to help the Earth. It’s all about some pathetically short sighted politicians that want to be remembered for forcing green technology jobs which force Americans to drive slower, embrace public transportation like high speed rail and trolley cars, and robbing the wealth of America and giving it to other countries.

But why would “Americans” like Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and Cass Sunstein do such a thing? They are Americans too……..because they are more loyal to the United Nations than the United States, and they are hedging their bets that in the future, a position in the UN will have more prominence than even being President of the United States. In their view, a president in the future will simply be another governor of just another country equal to Brazil, China, Germany and all the others. The real power, and the real prestige will be to lead the United Nations, and they’ll gain their reputations, and votes by robbing from the United States it’s wealth, because the whole world is jealous of America anyway, and giving it to the voters of the New World government who will elect them to rule the entire world.

That’s why gas prices are “TOO DAMN HIGH.” It’s a grab for power at our expense and it should make every American very angry. And it does Jimmy McMillian which swells me with American pride. So what about the rest of you? Where’s your outrage and what are you going to do about it!

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Charlotte Iserbyt: DO YOU HAVE THE GUTS TO LISTEN TO HER? (or would you rather go back to sleep)

Unfortunately much of the world lives like what you’ll find in the video below of a village in Kenya. I have been to such places, and the images in this video reflect accurately what I’ve seen for myself. I chose a village in Kenya because it is my belief that Barack Obama is more loyal to the country of Kenya than he is of the United States. I believe that based on his actions, because his world view reflects the kind of ideas that can be simply reduced to village life.

It was Hillary Clinton that said “It take a village.” Progressives at every level all seem to have in common this village style ideal of community value that they build their politics around. And even though the idea of a village goes back well before there was ever a Karl Marx, or a Barack Obama, it is an entirely different philosophy from what American was founded upon. However, progressives, socialists, Marxists and all other variations of communism look at the great wealth created in America and feel compelled to help the rest of the world with wealth redistribution, to places like this village. So they openly seek to take from America, and give to places like Kenya. Unions in the United States were founded by communists and their core leadership supports these types of activities and it’s been that way for over 100 years now. Anyone currently in a union or who supports a union is a supporter of a form of communism established by Karl Marx. Progressives and other liberals openly embrace these communist ideals in deed but not by name, because the goal is to over time, remove America’s love of individualism, replace that individualism with collectivism so that redistribution of America’s wealth can be implemented to other countries and their villages.

SEIU is a fundamentally communist organization. They stand for The Ten Planks of Communism. (Click here to read those) The National Education Association is also a communist organization. It is the aim of the NEA to perform the erosion of American individualism and embrace the strategy of social collectivism. The members at the ground level, the teachers may not be aware of this, or may not look too deeply into their leaders, but the evidence is unmistakable to anyone with eyes. Teachers, often very idealistic and well paid, don’t wish to know what their leaders are up to, because the money is good. This strategy goes on well before there was a Barack Obama, in fact way back when the NEA put tremendous pressure on President Carter to create The Department of Education. The push by that union was to put in place a government department financed with tax payer funds to create policies of social engineering that openly embraced communism. This was happening during the years of 1978 and 1979 well into the 1980’s.

Oh…….you want proof? Ok, well, let me introduce you to Charlotte Iserbyt. Charlotte was second in command at the Department of Education during the Reagan administration and she’ll tell you all you need to know about the whole story about the goal of modern education. Do you have the guts to listen to her, to know the truth?

Many of the NEA and SEIU members will tell you that Charlotte is a kook. They’ll tell you that all this talk about engineering the youth is complete conspiracy theory and crazy. The hope is that by the time the kids from the 60’s and 70’s hit retirement age and the kids of the 80’s and 90’s are too old to care, the desire for capitalism, and individualism will have been removed from our society. By the time American civilization figures out what’s going on, America will be transformed slowly and smoothly without weapons or bloodshed. It’s that simple. No conspiracy…………fact. The evidence is everywhere.

Charlotte would have never been given a top job at the Department of Education if she were crazy, or even the least bit kooky. The following documentary is over an hour-long. So if you really want to be educated, have a listen to Charlotte. In fact, make sure you take the time to watch each of these videos because what you’re hearing is the truth. This is what public unions have done with your tax money, they have erected a structure designed to undermine the country we all know and love.

Charlotte has been talking about this kind of thing for a long time. She is one of the few insiders out there who have turned her back on the spoils of the tax payer occupation which comes from jobs in public service, decided to live an honest life, and tell the American people what has really been going on. One of the reasons nobody has listened to Charlotte is because she has spent many years traveling the country and speaking to people who know about her, but without a mainstream media to cover her, people didn’t know about her work, until now. Until the internet came along, and the media became irrelevant, a whole new audience has the opportunity to hear Charlotte speak. Consider yourself fortunate to see and hear these interviews now. Just a decade ago it cost a lot to travel halfway across the country to hear her speak. Now all you have to do is go grab a snack out of your refrigerator, sit down in your comfy chair, sit down and relax and learn what has been going on behind your back for over 4 decades now while you went to work every day to pay your taxes so you could fund your own destruction. Doesn’t that make you feel good?

Secrete Societies aren’t really any different from a labor union. They gather together to achieve a collective strategy. The Skull and Bones Societies aren’t any different. The Skull and Bones must be studied because so many presidents have been Skull and Bones members. Now I personally don’t care if a bunch of college boys want to get together and walk around with their pants down smacking each other on the butt with a paddle, and drink Kool-aid out of a skull. But I do care if these groups, like Skull and Bones members, SEIU or NEA members want to subvert the Constitution of the United States in order to garner more power for themselves. All those organizations require taking tax money from us like thieves and funneling that money to serve their silly plans, so ultimately it is the tax payer that is in charge. They just need to understand how their money has been spent.

While many people will find it difficult to believe what Charlotte is bringing to light, the facts cannot be ignored. Critics of Charlotte can be angry that she is messing up their plans by educating Americans to the scheme they are trying to pull over American society, but they cannot call her a liar. She is telling the story as she experienced it, and her experience is uniquely vast. She has a right to tell that story, a constitutional obligation. It is the thieves of these groups, which have attached themselves like leeches to the American ideas to reshape those ideas into their image.
So as the discussion of “collective bargaining,” or “health care,” or “Medicare,” or progressive taxation,” “public education,” evolves in the coming months it is important to know what we’re either fighting, or evolving in to. My primary arguments about public education is simply the cost of it doesn’t make sense. Teachers as a labor force are incredibly expensive. But if you think about it, this is part of the strategy. The unions must secure good wages for its members to buy them away from capitalism and gain their support like mindless mercenaries to fight the battle against social individualism in order to advance the plight of collectivism, which goes against everything traditional America stands for.

So now, if you’ve taken the time to watch all these videos, you are armed with knowledge that will help you see through the smoke and mirrors such as the video above from Obama. The next question is what are you going to do about it? Are you going to allow your country to be taken from you and your family without a fight, using the tax money you’ve supplied through your hard work to undermine everything you’ve ever believed in, or thought you believed in?

I suppose the answer to that question is in what do you actually believe. Are you someone who wants someone like Barack Obama to give you something like some village leader? Or do you still believe in self-reliance and Americanism. If it’s the later than you better start thinking what you plan to do to save it, before it’s too late, if it isn’t too late already.

And while you’re answering that question consider why so many places in the world are so poor that they look like that village in Kenya. Why is the United States so rich? Wouldn’t it be better to help other countries become more like the America, functioning from capitalism, rather than destroying capitalism so everyone in the world can live like a big village of complacency? Because that’s what will happen, the planet Earth will become a globe of mediocrity and there will still be poor people. But there won’t be a United States of America in the future to help them, because the looters destroyed it like the fools they are, leaving nothing for tomorrow because while they did all this scheming for equality, and social justice, they forgot to learn where wealth comes from. It doesn’t come out of the ground, or from a college professor. It comes from an entrepreneur, a person of ideas that is hungry to get rich and offer jobs to people to help them become rich. That’s why there are sky scrapers in New York, and thatched huts in Kenya. Choose, but choose wisely.

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

STAR WARS NEW RIDE: Star Tours and the discovery of a building on planet Mars!

Google Mars is a fascinating program. David Martines ran across a structure on the surface of Mars that makes no sense, yet it’s there. Did NASA build it? Did China build it? What about the Soviet Union? If not them, then perhaps another civilization all together, one that does not call Earth its home.

There are a number of unexplained phenomena that defy conventional explanation. Because some college professor with government grant money hasn’t yet discovered them, does not mean they don’t exist. In my opinion, I have seen human culture actually revert backward in this last century because of the stigmas of progressivism, so human invention is most often found best in science fiction and adventure films and books. Those are the realms the mind can comfortably explore possibilities beyond current human understanding.

I personally believe there are a number of archeological features on Mars that must be studied and when we go there, we’ll find out. I also believe that because of religious prejudice there are many eyes that have seen the same images that Mr. Martines has seen, but their belief system will not allow them to see truly what is there. It happens here on earth. We can’t even figure out if human’s have an impact on our own planet, or if the whole green movement is actually a socialist conspiracy, and this is happening on our home planet, let alone some plant next to us in the solar system, or even in another solar system, galaxy, or god forbid, a whole other universe.

It’s easy to get wrapped up in all the drama of all the important issues imposed upon us in these perilous times we are living in. But………………………………….all work and no play does not make an efficient human being. It is very, very good to take a minute and play from time to time.

For me, I have made my love of pirates well-known and I have wrote extensively about them here. But I’ve also wrote about Star Wars a lot also for virtually the same reasons. In such fiction there is a passionate love for freedom and an extreme dislike for tyranny. Tyranny to quote my teacher Joseph Campbell is all the “thou shalt not’s” in our life. It is in the realm of myth to become a dragon slayer to the “thou shalt not’s” and kill them boldly so that ideas may live and thrive without fear. Tyranny is anything that imposes itself on the free mind with intent to control, manipulate or engineer movement that is not authentic to an individual.

Star Wars is a wonderful invention of George Lucas that is a vacation for the mind. It doesn’t even take place in this in this Galaxy. So it is appropriate on the heels of this discovery by Mr. Martines, that George Lucas was in Florida to open the new ride, Star Tours 2, which closed last fall much to my displeasure. But I have been very eager to see the reopening which has just occurred over the last couple of weeks at Disney Hollywood Studios while news broke about the Mars discovery.

Among all the people on this planet, the hope I have for the human race comes from people like this. I go to events like this from time to time, and I adore the passion that is present. Every time Star Wars does something new, whether it’s a new book, video game, film, TV show, Fan Event, or a new ride like Star Tours, politics, prejudices, age stereotypes and gender affiliations are no longer a concern.

It is not an accident that people of all ages from all places love Star Wars. Star Wars is about all the purest notions present in the minds of humanity.

I’ve also talked a lot about this guy, George Lucas. Lucas is the creator of Star Wars, and has been on the forefront of most of the great innovations over the last 30 years. Our world is far better because of him. When Lucas says that his company, Lucasfilm started by a rebel from Modesto California and Disney, created by a guy that dropped out of high school are two of the most innovative companies of their kind in the world, he’s right, when those two companies get together, magic happens.

Whenever there is a big Star Wars event, such as this latest one at Hollywood Studios fans from all over the country show up in costume to celebrate unbridled creativity and the spirit of adventure.

As for the ride itself, here is a sneak peek at the actual ride itself.

During the opening ceremony officially commissioning the ride, George Lucas and Bob Iger join onstage to launch the ride. It was a grand spectacle worthy of the very best that the human imagination can produce.

Without question there are those out there that look at such events with bewilderment. I know such people and I feel sorry for them, because the magic of youth has left them. When I was young, I collected Star Wars toys, and I played with them even into my teens. Many of the young people growing up with me started to make fun of that kind of activity as they became interested in members of the opposite sex.

As a boy I was without question the fastest kid in my entire school. Nobody could run faster than me, in dodge ball I was always the last kid standing and I was one of the strongest. I won the pull-up contest in the winter Olympics event in the fifth grade; in fact I won the school equivalent of a gold medal. I was always really good at sports, all sports especially basketball and hockey, so of course a very pretty, very popular girl wanted to “go steady” with me, in the fifth grade. Now to the adults in my life, it looked as though I was headed in the right direction, cute girlfriend, the gym teacher was telling my parents that scholarships were in my future from any school of my choice because my physical abilities were unusually proficient, and aside from being very combative with my teachers, my future looked bright, except for that one small problem, I spent hours and hours and hours in the basement of my home playing Star Wars with my brother. My family couldn’t afford all the toys that Kenner was producing, so my brother and I built our own, all inspired from the Star Wars galaxy.

A very pretty girl who rode my bus was persistently letting me know she was interested in me. Under pressure from all the other “popular” girls that rode my school bus, and the boys that would soon become the “jocks” in later years, I told the little girl I’d go steady with her. Such a girl promised to be very adventurous. It was well-known that she would probably take off her clothes for me and let me do pretty much whatever I wanted, because she had said so to her girl friends intending me to find out. So I said yes.

At home that night I was doing the usual thing, eating my dinner as fast as possible so I could go downstairs and play Star Wars. During dinner that girl called me.

“Hello,” I said to her as my mom handed me the phone. My parents looked proudly at one another.

“Hey sweetie, what are you doing? I heard you said you’d go steady with me?” the little girl said.

I was looking at the clock. It was about 6:15 PM and I wanted to build a spaceship with some shoe boxes my mom had left in my room. I didn’t want to hang on the phone with some stupid girl. “Auh, yes.”

“So, can you get your mom to bring you over?”

“Tonight? To your house?” I said looking at my mom. I was thinking of the possibilities. This girl was one of those girls back then that had both parents with full occuapations so she was home by herself most of the time. In fact, during the summer, in her neighborhood most of the kids were home by themselves all summer because their parents were always working or too tired to pay attention to what the kids were doing.

“Yes silly, to my house. My mom is going to be gone till 9 and my dad is on a business trip. I’m here by myself and I want you to come over.”

I looked at my mom, my dad, and my brother who was ready to go downstairs and play Star Wars. “What are we going to do?”

The girl giggled on the other end of the phone. “We’ll think of something.”

I knew what that meant. This little girl had let quite a few of the boys she had “gone steady” with, see her naked, so that was what the girl had in mind. She figured that would seal the deal with me.

My life flashed before me. I realized that if I went to that girl’s house once, she’d want to do it again, and again. She’d also want to talk on the phone all the time like a lot of the girls from that time were doing. I did not want to spend my time talking to some stupid girl on the phone. I just wanted to see her naked, but not to get wrapped up in wasting my time. My heart’s desire was to go into the basement and play Star Wars.

“I don’t think I want to go out with you,” I said to the girl.

“What?”

“It’s a school night, and I’m busy.”

The girl started crying. My dad’s face dropped and my brother went downstairs knowing I was going to be off the phone soon. He was younger than me, in kindergarten at the time, so wanting to see a girl naked wasn’t even a relevant thought.

“Nobody has ever broke-up with me before. We’ve only been going out for a couple of hours. Is it because I’m ugly? I’ll do anything you want.”

“It’s not because you’re ugly. It’s just that I……..I’m busy.”

The girl hung up, I went downstairs and played Star Wars. The next day at school, all the girls’ friends were angry at me for breaking up with their friend. One girl who knew me very well because her brother played with my brother and I said, “You broke up with her so you could play that stupid, gay, little Star Wars thing you guys do. Isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said honestly.

“I thought so. Well, I’m going to tell her why.”

She did, and from that day on, that girl and all her popular friends shut the door to me out of that rejection. She never really got over it, until we were seniors in high school and my friend and I had a ghastly reputation for excessive speeding, violent fights and other aggressive behavior, and were getting ready to leave school for the day when she came running across the parking lot to stop me. She asked me for a ride home from school.

I looked at the girl; she looked old at only 17. She had been having sex for many years, and virtually every popular boy in school had either seen her naked, or had sex with her in some form or another. She figured because of my reputation I’d want to spend time with her. I think she really needed a ride home, but she was looking for a chance I think. I instantly felt bad for her. She had been very attractive just a couple of years before, but now her skin was blotchy from where she went to the tanning bed too much. She actually had wrinkles around her eyes. Looking at her I couldn’t help but think she reminded me of a sperm suppository that had semen oozing out of the pores of her body.

“No, I can’t.”

I was surprised that her eyes actually welled up with tears. “Why, are you going to go and play Star Wars again?”

I looked at her to assess her pain. It was obvious she was trying to go back in time to fix something in her life, and I felt compelled to help her. But not compelled to stop doing what my friend and I were about to do.

“Sorry, but we’re getting ready to catch Rambo II. The movie starts in 45 minutes.”

I started up my car and skidded out of the school parking lot as was usual. That was the last time I ever saw or spoke to that girl.

The people who grew up successful and happy had little things like Star Wars in their life to help them through tough times. People like that girl, that filled the empty moments in her life with the penis of a young boy, in an attempt to steer that boy where she wanted ended up sick, diseased and terribly broken before they even hit 20 years old.

Mythology like Star Wars touches the mind beyond the animal hungers for sex, food, or the desire for acceptance, which is the first step toward tyranny. This is why I would rather shake hands with a Star Wars fan than any politician, or power player. The people who love Star Wars are creating, if only in their minds. They are creating costumes, they are collecting items, they are reading books and this makes them valuable people.


It is the child in all of us that must be kept alive, and not destroyed in some mindless pursuit of some perceived economic, or social value. The truth of mankind can be found in events like Star Tours.

Because there are many, many more discoveries that must be made for the human race to advance forward, we are a long way from completing the human adventure. So complacency of thought in the mundane realm of food and sex is not enough. When the entire world has the tools of academia at their disposal, it still takes the wondering adventurer, the outcast, the geek, to see what was always there.

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Eric Deters Terminated: Now he is playing the smear game

When Eric Deters left 700 WLW early this past week, I didn’t comment on it even though many expected me to since I always feature WLW very highly in my own work. I had my suspicions with The Bulldog but kept my opinion to myself regarding the kind of material he put on the air. His termination from WLW did not come as a surprise to me. However, after I received an email from Eric which talks about people I like beyond just the realm of professionalism it is appropriate to comment now that the facts from that murky incident are cleared up.

What got the Bulldog into trouble at 700 WLW were videos like this one.

For those who don’t know who the Bulldog is here he is with Tracy Jones while on the air.

I have had the misfortune of terminating a lot of employees and it’s never fun. But you can often tell as an employer, even if you like the employee that must be terminated, that the day will come when you will have to do the deed. It’s hard to look a person in the face when you are their source of income, and tell them they are no longer needed by you. It is a rejection very similar to breaking up with someone that is in love with you. It is very hard to do.

For a long time I’ve known that this day was coming for Eric Deters at 700 WLW. In the email I received from the Bull Dog he indicated that he intended to bring financial hardship to the station, he spilled secrets on just about every host that works at the station, and he was very disrespectful to the management at the station. Worst of all, he called my buddy, Doc Thompson a dork. Since I know that I’m not the only person he sent this email to, context must be established. He reminded me of a woman that had just been dumped by a man she loves for another woman or worse yet, for no woman at all.

Here is the Bulldog in his famous cage fight. People that crave constant attention can be good personalities for something like radio, but at the same time be destructive to the employees around them because to them anyone that isn’t over-the-top flamboyant is boring, or otherwise, a dork.

Out of all the terminations I’ve been involved in, and it’s so many that I can’t count them on the hands, and toes of four people, there is a small percentage that become violent, because those employees build the illusion in their minds that they are the greatest employee to ever grace your presence. There are traits that you, as the employer can readily see while they are in your employment that indicates trouble ahead. The sooner you can deal with that trouble, the better. The longer it goes on, the worse it will be later.

Here Eric Deters does his stand-up comedy act at the Funnybone Comedy Club down at Newport on the Levee. There is a line between being ambitious, and arrogant that is difficult for a person of many talents to navigate. Eric has been struggling with that thin line and it was obvious to everyone but him.

It was only a couple of months ago that I ended up in a physical altercation with a former employee in the parking lot of a courthouse broken up by attorneys and court house appointed police. I was furious with this employee because I had extended a long rope of trust because like Eric Deters, he made himself very available and helped fill the gaps everyone in management must deal with, he was always there for the staffing problems in the odd hours, and even when he showed signs of trouble, in getting along with other employees, I was tempted to overlook those problems because he helped cover all my problematic staffing deficiencies. The conflict was over the crushing understanding that he wasn’t as good of an employee as he thought he was. It was all in his mind, and there was no place to go with that anger but to lash out. Conflict is the usual result, and the need for this extends beyond the fear of the law.

The employee in question took this reluctance by me to mean that he was invaluable. In his mind, he convinced himself that he is doing me a favor and his tasks were irreplaceable. I knew I had a problem with this employee based on how he interacted with other employees, and when I noticed he was taking liberties with the rules because he had developed a sense of entitlement that I would have to act soon. I didn’t address those problems as I would other employees because in my mind I was waiting for him to make that terrible error which would allow me to cleanly terminate his employment. This provides a clean separation that stands legal scrutiny and is necessary in this day and age with all the legal maneuvering that goes on. You hope as the employer that the employee will see that you haven’t taken an interest in the actions of their obligations because it is a kind of warning sign to them that they are on the cusp. But in some of these people, their egos take that kind hearted warning as an act of endorsement and they fail to see the truth because they build up in their minds an image of themselves that is of much higher value than reality reflects.

I could tell even from a distance that Eric was in one of those types of situations. In his email to me, he complained about management and how he had been overlooked for the 9-12 night spot and how he had been overlooked for the 3-6 spot with Tracy Jones. Eric was very upset that he was always ready on a dime to come in and cover for the hosts when they were off, so he felt that just by his work ethic he should have had a chance. In his anger he knocked the station for their ratings, their management decisions over the last year, a year when he had received many opportunities at the station he wouldn’t have gotten otherwise, and in general made a real butt of himself. He was shameful to say the least. Yet it was obvious to everyone that something was wrong with Eric Deters.

On June 1st, a few days after WLW surprisingly pulled Deters from the weekend spots, this video was put up. It tells the story of Eric Deters putting up the controversial video called “White Women and Pot” then realizing he went too far, called this guy and asked him to take the video down. Eric made several bad errors here, he crossed the line in the first place with the original video, but then he made it worse by calling up this guy and leaving a message on an answering machine that would end up being used against him. So as a radio personality on the powerful 700 WLW this was the kind of act that sealed the Bulldogs fate with management. It would have done it for me, even though I like Eric, this kind of behavior just pulls down the image of the radio station. I would have fired him too. There is that fine line of controversy, and putting into the hands of a predator, ammunition that can damage everything a radio station builds as a reputation, costs more than money, it costs credibility.

In this video, Eric made himself vulnerable by committing one error on top of another which snowballed into a tragedy. Ironically, in these tape recorded messages, Eric makes the case for himself why he can no longer work for 700 WLW, because it was just a matter of time before he stuck his foot in his mouth and he really did in this recorded message. WLW would not have been responsible if they hadn’t acted, even if they had to do so with a heavy heart.

I have listened to WLW for decades now. I have seen many radio personalities come and go. From what I can see, 700 WLW was doing their best to find a home for Eric out of pure loyalty. WLW as a business is first about the news, then about Reds baseball, and just behind those things is talk radio where hosts must fill the mind of the listener in that delicate art form of mind theater. Eric was a natural self-promoter, but lacked credibility, which a talk show host needs. Bill Cunningham for years walked that fine line carefully; his role is now a comedian. Nobody takes Cunningham very serious, and that’s the path he chose. He is the Jerry Springer of WLW. Doc Thompson has the difficult act of being the straight man for the station. Doc works hard to get to the facts, and he calls things as they are. In this next video, Doc gives a review of the Bulldog comedy routine while ironically doing an interview with an author who wrote a book about why celebrities crash and burn.

Speaking from experience, any time an employee that lacks natural talent but is rich in ambition confronts another employee of genuine talent, the first employee will seek to undermine the second with various forms of ass-kissing. That ass-kissing will win employment opportunities but it will not win respect. Shooting straight may not get the instant, easy ratings, but it will build the audience over time, and this is the path Doc Thompson has chosen. He spent most of his career in Cleveland but has also worked full-time in Lincoln, Las Vegas, and Albuquerque. He is a 5 time Marconi Award (the Academy Award of radio) winner for radio excellence. He’s at 700 WLW because he has to fill the role of Mike McConnell who played the straight man for a long time in Cincinnati. Doc is the real deal and a guy of genuine talent.

A man like Eric Deters made his bed and it is disgusting to attempt to bring down other radio personalities like Doc Thompson to cover the sins of his own doing. Doc’s criticism of Eric’s actions reflected my own opinion, that Eric was crossing the line in so many ways that he was embarrassing, not only to the station, but to himself. But the Bulldog was such a hard worker, and a guy that was always available for any shift of coverage which made it difficult for them to part ways with the Bulldog sooner. They did what they could to give Deters all the support they could afford to give. Behind the scenes they were probably doing what I was doing and that was scratching their heads wondering if Deters was even a stable enough individual to handle 50,000 Watts of responsibility.

In the end, Eric proved he couldn’t handle it. What every self promoter must understand is that you can sometimes cross the line, and when you realize it, you step back across it. What you don’t do is cross the line, then claim that there isn’t a line. And when you realize that you can’t convince people that the line isn’t there then try to back-track and erase the evidence. Bill Cunningham crossed that line often, but when he noticed it, he quickly corrected himself and would cover the flaw with humor. Because Deters was completely copying the extreme behavior of Bill Cunningham without the sense and humanity, the Bulldog wasn’t sure how to deal with the deeper and deeper grave he was digging for himself with his wild antics. The ultimate ending to living life over-the-top is you eventually go over.

But to call Doc Thompson names because he’s working on not just one station but two stations, 6 hours a day every day of the week and is very successful in the radio business, is preposterous. Doc’s ratings will be fine as he overcomes the shadow of Mike McConnell, whom he will surpass, because he’s more talented. The criticism of Doc is not justified. I wouldn’t spend as much time rendering Doc’s recordings at this site if I thought he was anything but excellent, and a credible, reliable personality that will not embarrass me with my loyalty at some future time, as the Bulldog has done with his fans.

Getting fired when the world was laid at a man’s feet for continued embarrassments is an incredible disservice to the fans that invest their time into that personality, and that is the unfortunate circumstance here. That station gave Eric Deters a platform that he wouldn’t have had otherwise, and he pays them back with ill-will due to actions of his own making. And that is sad.

I’ve had to fire employees for less than what Eric did. I’m sure it’s with a heavy heart, and without doubt the people I’ve fired spoke the same way to their family and friends, attempting to make me out to be the bad guy. But in the end, the guy who is still getting the checks is the one who knows best. Opinions are……………………well everyone has them. Only results matter and results come from the heart. Antics are like shots of caffeine. They may give you a boost, but you have to sustain the boost with an equal heart, otherwise it ends up becoming just another phony stunt on the back of a laugh less, thankless, comedian.

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Just Earn Less Money: The history of progressive insurance and power grabs

One of the things that has come up over the Obama Care debate, particularly in Ohio is that since the state requires mandatory automobile insurance for drivers in the state, than isn’t it natural for the state, and the government to force residents to purchase health care.

Anyone who wishes to argue the merit of Ayn Rand’s classic novel Atlas Shrugged will feel betrayed when the representative for the government arguing the constitutionality of Obama Care in front of Ohio’s 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati will find the shocking revelation admitted confidently that the way to get out of the mandate of buying insurance is to simply make less money. Doc Thompson explores this devastating view into the minds of a government looter in these action packed clips from the floor of the debate. Listen to that clip here:

The looters of the government, and to my view, most every employee in government is a looter, because they take from producers, so their entire value is contingent upon those of the producers, including those in law enforcement, have progressively robbed us all of freedoms in order to fill themselves over a long period of time. When in the late 1980’s Ohio made it mandatory to have automotive insurance in order to drive a car, people didn’t understand why I was so upset.

Making it a law to have every driver in Ohio have insurance seemed like a good idea. After all, it made sense from a legal point of view. If you wanted to drive a car, then you must show responsibility for the damage you could do on the road. This was an idea that started in Massachusetts in 1927 and progressively moved to most every state in the nation. To date, New Hampshire is the only state to not have compulsory auto liability insurance. Every other state has adopted the mandate.

The reason this was a bad thing is it created an oligopoly in the insurance industry, meaning insurance companies were guaranteed that out of every driver in the state of Ohio, the insurance companies were assured that all they’d have to do by way of competition was simply divide up all the residents in the state and compete with each other for those people. All drivers had to have insurance so choice was no longer an option. This of course drove up costs and was the intended goal of the insurance lobby in the state and nation. Under the umbrella of safety, a powerful organization used law enforcement to obtain for the insurance industry revenue literally under the force of law. The power behind the force of the law is imprisonment or the barrel of the gun so this was quite tyrannical legislation, which is why it upset me so much.

A few years later it became mandatory to wear a seat belt. At first it was only a finable offense if a driver were pulled over for another driving violation. But just a few years later, it became law that all an officer had to do was pull over a driver for not wearing a seat belt. It’s called the “Click it or ticket,” campaign. I discussed this in great detail in an article I wrote about Memorial Day weekend where there were driving check points that were citing specifically for seat belt violations.

It takes time, but since the very first person in the nation purchased auto insurance in Dayton Ohio in 1897 progressives and government looters have used such devices as insurance to propel their grabs for power.

Now, we see the same thing happening with Obama Care where the government is making a huge grab for power in dictating what people must and must not do. It is the ultimate first step to a complete loss of any kind of freedom envisioned by the architects of America. Obama Care was created on the backs of all the other progressive legal movements, such as the auto insurance mandates. And it’s all summed up in the words spoke on the floor of the testimony. “If you don’t want the manadate, then make less money.” In other words, produce less so you can qualify for assistance.

It’s no wonder welfare doesn’t work because like all government programs the philosophy is just the same, make everything affordable for the poor and do nothing to reward the producers. And if the government imposition is too great, then become a dependent. The failure is that government never seems to consider that if they create a society of dependents, who will do the producing?

Obama Care is laced with these infantile thinkers and looters of productive resources, and the truth is difficult to hear even among those with ears experienced enough to hear it. It is truly shocking to consider that the very people we employee to run the government are so devastatingly stupid that it is contemptible to even fathom as relevant behavior, yet it is.

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Revenue Enhancement Equation: The Great Police Scam, safety = money + POWER

I heard a story this morning that was deeply disturbing, a guy I know was harassed by a cop from Trenton last night because that particular cop is in a fight with his brother-in-law. The cop came to the home of this guy I know, walked into his garage and flashed his flashlight into the eyes of the guy and his wife, openly harassing them, but walking the thin blue line of the law. The harassment is that the brother-in-law had told the cop the night before, “don’t you have anything to do but harass us for a speeding ticket my wife got. Last week you pulled over an ice cream truck that rolled through a stop sign. Why don’t you arrest those drug dealers over by the factory? We all know what is going on over there. You know it, we know it, yet here you are, harassing the very people who pay your salary, because you know you can.”

Apparently the brother-in-law hit too close to the mark, so the cop chose to step up his harassment, instead of doing less of it, and now he chose to harass members of the brother-in-law’s family, to put peer pressure on the brother-in-law to cease the behavior of resistance. After all, in the eyes of the law, resistance is futile.

Darryl Parks of 700 WLW deals with a bit of this police tyranny during the Memorial Day weekend when police all around Cincinnati make the announcement of the “Click it or tick it” campaign. The only reason for those cops to pull over drivers for the seat belt campaign is to raise money. Listen to that broadcast here:

There is much evil in the world that is done under the disguise of “safety.” There are DUI checkpoints set up to make the rest of us “safe.” There are cops stationed along road ways all across this country to keep speed down, so we will all be “safe.” This is the same mentality we see in our schools where teachers proclaim that they are needed to keep our kids, “safe.” Administrators are needed to keep teachers “safe,” so that teachers can keep our kids, “safe.” Safety is the key word for tyranny. Give up your freedom for the safety we provide.

When you question this process, especially with police officers, they get very angry. Stories like the one this brother-in-law tells are not uncommon. There are officers like this dirty cop in every single community. Their superiors are very limited in what they can do because just like in the teachers union, the Fraternal Order of Police protects its members with a mob like presence. Not every cop is bad, but the bad ones just like in any group tend to be the leaders. It’s always the most aggressive that set the policies for the group, and aggressive cops set the standard.

I know personally two officers in Hamilton that were demanding sexual favors from women they pulled over. They offered the girls and women a warning in exchange for getting out of the ticket. The cops resigned before the investigation got underway which is a standard FOP trick which allows the officer to get another job later once the stories cool down. How do I know about it? I know one of the guys. After he resigned he called me to ask me for a job, hoping I didn’t know why he left the force. These are not isolated stories. They are epidemic. The power of the position invites corruption of that power. And when you have too many police, which politicians prop up and pander to so they can get the support of the powerful FOP for elections, the police are bored while on the job, so the weak ones tend to abuse their power. They pull over attractive woman because they can. They pull over speeders, especially speeders in nice cars, because they have nothing else to do, and they have to raise the proper amount of revenue to justify their existence. And they exist for purely political reasons, because the sheer numbers of officers provide the FOP with the political clout to influence elections. It’s a big scam, and just one more imposition on the tax payer. Again, we pay for our own demise, harassment, and erosion of freedom.

Every time I see a check-point set up by police officers I achieve new levels of rage. For the most part, DUI laws were created by politicians under the guise of “protection” to prop up the insurance industry and to give their FOP supporters something to do. It provides business for the courts and all the employees of the court. Meanwhile, DUI incidents still occur, because we have a drinking culture. Politicians know it. News reporters know it, we all know it, but yet we don’t do anything about it, because they are the “authority.”

The cops know it too, that’s why they think it OK to walk into a man’s garage and harass him and his wife only because they are related to a man the cop has a personal issue with. That’s abuse of power and it’s time to call it what it is. Not to hide the contemptible behavior behind the guise of “safety,” “protection,” and “public well-being.”

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Giant Spiders and other Parasites: Repealing Obama Care in Ohio

I am proud of the many who have gathered nearly enough signatures to put the Obama Care issue on the fall ballot. Obama Care is one of the most sinister power grabs the government has attempted in many years. Disguised as a well-intentioned program to help all people everywhere achieve affordable health care, the reality of it is a massive government expansion that takes America several steps away from the principles of our country.

Doc Thompson interviews a supporter of government health care on 700 WLW. It is interesting to listen to what supporters of government health care think. Doc tackles the tough topic with boldness. Listen to that interview here:

The end result of Obama Care is corruption. Every bureaucrat at every step of the process in the health care industry will look for every opportunity to pocket some extra funds because the money comes from the government, so no direct person will be responsible. It happens in public school. It happens in the military. It happens in the IRS. It happens in every single government body large and small across this nation, corruption breeds like algae behind the nameplate on a desk. The more government, the more the corruption, because there will be less direct responsibility.

It is a relief that Ohio has taken a lead in repealing Obama Care. Getting that issue on the ballot is important for two reasons. First, it will separate Ohio from this tyrannical government mandate from a run-a-way progressive administration in what Barack Obama has presented in freedom’s worst nightmare. But the other issue of concern is that when the union interest in this state puts S.B.5 on the ballot, which they have a deep reserve to on the ballot for November will get the voters from our side out for more than one issue that they feel passionate about.

This November Ohioans will be able to show up to get the federal government out of their pocket with Obama Care, which is a direct violation of the 10th Amendment. And their second is Ohioans will have the opportunity to get the national union interest out of their pocket books with S.B.5. Both bills are an opportunity to set Ohio on a course of freedom that is essential to the move toward smaller government that many who support the Tea Party movement crave so strongly. Anyone that wishes to turn the tide of all the tax culture that we have all inherited will have the opportunity to turn those tides this coming November.

Health care is one of those topics that innovation is changing quickly. If government gets more involved in health care, where they adopt the model of Europe, the innovations under development right now, will cease. Human beings are on the brink of completely rebuilding the human body using its own genetic material. The current topics that health care embodies, such as high blood pressure, all the various diseases, illnesses directly attributed to calcium reduction, all are preventable. But government is in the way of that innovation, because their goal is not to make it possible for human beings to be free of the services they offer. Government wants nothing more than to survive, and will do anything they can to do so.

Over the weekend I opened our swimming pool. As I was taking the cover off, the water was rich with algae growth from all the leaves that had blown into the water over the long winter. This created an environment that many insects had sought as a refuge. Wading through the water was like wading through a slimy swamp. As I pulled the cover off and my wife drug it across the edge of the pool, a very large wolf spider jumped off the cover into the water and was swimming toward me seeking dry refuge. Swarms of insects that had their nests destroyed by my removal of the cover swarmed all around my head. Several other smaller wolf spiders also jumped into the water and started crawling over my arms.

By the way, if you want to see what a wolf spider looks like, this one is almost as big.

It was shocking to see such large creatures swimming around me in my swimming pool, especially when the water was so thick with green that I couldn’t see what lurked beneath the surface of the water. I helped the spiders out of the pool. It was obvious they had taken up residence there to feed off all the insects about to hatch for the summer. The spiders were visibly upset that their easy supply of food was now destroyed.

For a minute I felt bad that I destroyed the spider’s food. I also felt bad for the food of the spiders, all the poor little insects they were eating in massive droves. But, I want to swim in my pool, so to preserve the spider’s environment, I’d have to sacrifice my pool, and that’s not going to happen. As I poured the chemicals into the pool I realized that I was killing millions of small algae plants and other various insects that were living in the water, and would soon be scooped up by the filtration system.

The government is no different from the algae, the insects or the spiders. They have set up shop living off our tax dollars as their source of food. And the more they can eat, the bigger and scarier they’ll get. That wolf spider was as big as my hand, easily. She was so large because the food was easy and plentiful. It not only supported this very large spider, but about 10 others that were of normal size.

Government is a parasite to our intuitions as free loving citizens. Sure, we created them, just as I created the pool that the spiders resided in. I created the whole environment, including putting the water into the pool. But it was a neglected environment due to the hard winter, and that neglect breeds these parasites. It is also our neglect of our political environment that has bred all these parasites that just want to consume our taxes and get bigger.

When Ohio gets to go to the polls in November to protect Senate Bill 5, and repeal Obama Care it gets to reclaim what has always belonged to Ohio, its sovereignty. It has the opportunity to drive the parasites from its water and to clean the pool so we can all swim once again in the clear waters of freedom.

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Laura Sanders: My answer to your waltz of words in The Pulse Journal

Just like many people didn’t want to believe that anything was wrong with Ohio State football, Jim Tressel resigned amid a wave of controversy.  Our statewide school funding issue isn’t far off from the Jim Tressel controversy where little white lies that is in the context of the program, insignificant, the evil is in the cover-up.  And with school budgets, the cover-up is in the contracts extorted by the teachers unions. 

The apologists were out again in this past week’s Pulse Journal.  Another letter attacking me was placed in that paper proving the vast intellectual deficiencies of a certain percentage of the population.  When reading these things I almost feel sorry for those people.  I mean how do they live?  How do they make decisions?  Surely they aren’t so mentally challenged, because if you read letters from apologists like the author of the editorial below, that is the only conclusion a person that can actually think would conclude. 

Before I tear this letter to pieces, read it for yourself.  It isn’t my intention to make these people feel bad, but they do it to themselves.  They vote after all, and it is through apologists like the author of this letter that the teachers union uses to propel their strategy, which has worked because people like me couldn’t believe that there are actually people who can’t think critically enough to see through the façade of deceit. 

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Teachers aren’t just educators

Dear Richard Hoffman: You can rejoice now that Lakota’s teachers have agreed to a three-year freeze in step raises and a much less comprehensive health care plan. Or, is that not going far enough? Oh, that’s right…you believe our teachers are overpaid, even though 100 percent have bachelor’s degrees, and 68 percent of those have master’s degrees. I guess with six-hour workdays and summers off, they really aren’t deserving, huh? Those daily lesson plans and graded papers must magically appear on their desks each morning. 

I have friends who are teachers, and let me tell you, they are worth every penny they earn. Not only are they educators; they are counselors, role models, mediators, chaperones and disciplinarians. They perform a balancing act every day in the classroom, having to be assertive yet compassionate; formidable yet sensitive; strict yet respectful.

Instead of recognizing the commitments to our children put forth by Lakota staff members, you, Mr. Hoffman, are spending all of your time blaming unions, threatening school board members and charging “overpaid” teachers with taxpayer abuse. Your arguments are weak at best, accusing school administrators and board members of mismanaging school funds when it is well-documented that Lakota only spent $9,806 per pupil during the 2009-10 school year — less than most other comparable statewide districts. As a matter of fact,Westervilleschool Superintendent Dan Good was quoted in a February 2011 article as saying, “We’re going to be looking at what’s going on in those communities (Lakota and Fairfield) that’s allowing them to keep those high ratings along with such a low-cost per pupil.”

Our school system relies solely on levies being passed so that our teachers can be compensated. The reason for Lakota’s continued success is because of our teachers. They should be lauded, not punished.    

Laura Sanders

LibertyTwp.

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Ok, where to start? There are so many problems with this letter.  First off, I am not spending all my time blaming the unions.  I spend about 2% of my time fighting taxes, which began about 9 months ago.  The other 98% percent of my time is quite productive.  Of the 2% of my time I do spend on fighting higher taxes, it is the reasonable conclusion that unions are to blame for the overall funding problems.  They didn’t give themselves any budget limits.  Unions aren’t any different from teenagers, if you give them a $100 dollars, they’ll want $200.  You can never give enough because the teenager hasn’t learned the value of money. They don’t value what comes easily.  And neither do union members.  As a producer, and a capitalist, I don’t like unions.  I don’t want my money supporting them.  I’m fine if they can exist in the free market, but they can’t.  They have succeeded in driving up wages to the point that China,India, and Indonesia are now doing jobs that used to be done in the United States.  I blame the unions for that.  Labor costs are the unifying factor in the overall manufacturing problems our country is facing.  I think people should be paid a fair wage, but if it’s excessive, and drives up the cost of the product to where the consumer won’t buy it, or simply can’t afford it, then the victor of that wage level negotiation is not the union that extorted the higher wage, because the union killed the job in the long run. 

This is what the teachers union has done to the cost of education.  They have driven up the cost without a care in the world to the end result.  Their solution to everything is simply to raise more taxes, which isn’t a successful formula for prosperity.  That mentality has run the Norwood General Motors plant out-of-town, it shut down Fisher Body in Hamilton.  In fact it has practically decimated the economy of Hamilton.  It drove up the costs at Cincinnati Milacron down in Oakley.  The list goes on and on and on.  Those were all production jobs, and most of that work is now out of the county. 

I’ve employed people who worked for AK Steel in Middletown, several of them that wanted jobs while they were on strike during their labor dispute that went on for over a year back in 2006-2007.  I learned a great deal about the hard union mentality from those employees, since AK Steel is one of those mob type unions where they actually beat-up people who crossed the picket line during labor disputes.  A lot of my local motorcycle friends in and around town are big time union types.  I have made my feelings known to these guys.  I have told them, “You wouldn’t have a boat, and you wouldn’t have a Harley Davidson parked in the garage if not for the union, because you guys are too stupid to earn that kind of money on your own.”

“We ain’t got those head smarts like you do, brother,” is what they say to me.  “Thank God for the union.”

“You’re working yourself out of a job with the wages you guys demand.”

“Just so long as it don’t happen till after I retire.”  (they typically laugh at this point.)

Teachers are absolutely no different.  They are like anyone else.  They believe their job is the most important job on the face of the planet.  It’s up to someone like me, (in management) to let them know that their job isn’t quite so important, that someone else can do their job, and the show will go on without them if need be.  It’s my job in management to not be liked, because nobody likes to be told they aren’t that valuable. 

But for a manager to know the value of a job, they need to know something about the job.  I’ve worked in just about every endeavor someone could imagine and I know how difficult teaching is.  To me, teaching is worth a range of about 40K to 60K tops, because it is a degree position.  But a master’s degree has no value to me.  A doctorate has no value to me, not in public education.  I just want kids to be able to read, write and be productive citizens.  If parents want all that other stuff they can hire a private tutor, or a private school, and make sure that kid gets to college.  It’s an insane law to pay 68% of the teachers at Lakota more money because they have a master’s degree.  What’s the value in that?  Does it make them better?  The union will tell you it does, so where are the results?  Where are the test results that prove otherwise?  There aren’t any, its pure speculation.  What do a master’s and doctorate degree do to justify higher labor costs? 

I know a woman who is going for her doctorate.  I asked her, “why is that so important to you?” 

She said to me, “I’m a professional student.”  At least she was honest.  This particular woman is the really cautious type.  She is the kind that will put her kids in a helmet when they are riding their bicycles, and in her professional life, she doesn’t care much for competition, so she enjoys the security and pace of academia.  I know personally, as I look down the list of the top 625 highly paid teachers at Lakota that many of those teachers fit the same description.  Only in government does their vision for reality work, because the tax payer picks up the bill. 

The only reason a lot of the laws that school boards are constrained with regarding school budgets exists, like the run-a-way labor costs mentioned with the master’s degree ratio are because the OEA lobbied to get laws passed that completely benefited them. 

It is insane to create policies that drive up your labor costs then turn around and continue to ask for more money from tax payers to fund them.  With as much money as I spend in taxes, I expect Lakota to be the greatest districts in the state.  But don’t be a fool and ask me to pay for infinite amounts of money for it.  That doesn’t make any sense.  At some point there’s a diminishing marginal return and we’ve hit that point. 

As to grading papers, what?  A teacher is under contract for 7.5 hours.  Grading papers if a teacher has to do it every single day shouldn’t take more than 4 hours per day.  So that’s a 11.5 hour day.  So what.  Why was such a statement spoke about as though it were something special?  I average a lot more than that per day. I’m on call 24 hours a day, and most of the time 6 days a week, or 7 if I have people working all weekend.  And I don’t have summers off.  I would expect any employee that I hired for over 40K per year to do everything said in that letter and more.  I don’t understand the emotion.  Is all that money needed to pay these employees and a pat on the back too required?  What kind of fragile people are these teachers that think such talking points even dictate special merit?  It’s expected! 

It is well-documented that Lakota only spent $9,806 per pupil, but so what.  That’s too high. How do I know it’s too high?  What criteria?  Well, if the district asks for more money for a levy, that means they aren’t working within their budget.  When the average tax bill in the Lakota School District is between $3000 to $4000 per year and the district is still asking for more money which does not mean Lakota has done a good job.  It doesn’t change anything if another district in the state thinks Lakota is doing well.  All that tells me is that education costs everywhere are too high.  The teachers union and the school board need to find a way to bring that number down to $8,000 per student, or even $6,000 per student.  If it were up to me, and I were running the district I wouldn’t be happy till the cost per pupil was under $5000.  We’re talking simply about labor costs here.  Not helping children. 

The union is solely responsible for pricing themselves out of the market.  It is unreasonable to ask tax payers to fund this ridiculous perception that these radical teachers union members have about their value.  Are teachers valuable, sure.  But they aren’t more important than the kid’s parents, and many of the traits listed are not the job of the teacher.   If they wish to be mentors, that’s the teacher’s choice.  If they chose to be counselors, role models, mediators, chaperones and disciplinarians, that’s fine. But they are paid to teach the basics.  I don’t want to hear about all those other traits, because those are the aspects of living that kids should be getting from their parents.  The union types will say that the parents are not doing the job.  Well, who are they to say?  Who are they to take it upon themselves?  Who are they to impose on the sanctity of a family?  Is it their job to impose on every parent the policing that only a fraction of truly bad parents deserve?  Is it justice to extend those traits outside the classroom, which is what a lot of teachers mistakenly believe they have an obligation to indulge in.  No, because all those tasks cost money, money that is inflated for a role that is overly dramatized in order to justify the money spent. 

So to answer the question, am I happy?  No, because the contract was a ploy to gain an edge with the public to over-turn Senate Bill 5.  It was not genuine; otherwise the union would look at the financial situation with more intelligence.  It would have advised its members to reduce their cost to the district.  They would have sought to make themselves more marketable. 

I was happy to see the superintendent and school board members happy for a change.  It was nice to see them feeling good about their jobs.  I did like that.  But I know what they don’t want to admit to themselves, because they are stuck dealing with that crazy union every day, that this concession is just another manipulative scheme orchestrated by the union. 

I see through this labor debate.  I have employees that constantly lobby for more overtime, raises, less work hours, you name it.  I’ve heard every over dramatized excuse in the human vocabulary for why an employee thinks they are valuable.  The trick is knowing which ones are telling the truth, and which ones aren’t. 

I hope to God that the author of this letter about me is not a teacher, but is in fact just another neurotic mother that is overly emotional about all topics in her life.  I really hope that’s the case.  Because if this person represents the kind of employees that we are paying over 60K per year, which is the average wage at Lakota, then we are wasting our money much worse than even I have pointed out. 

 I see from experience that the labor situation at Lakota needs to be dealt with, in order for Lakota to remain excellent.  Labor does not make a school great.  Management of resources does.  Lakota has shown that it can manage resources better than other schools, but that’s not enough if it is asking for more money.  If the state cuts it’s funding, if the federal government cuts its money, and there’s less money to go around, then the school needs to find a way to do more with even less.  It’s insane, and highly ignorant to assume that the tax payer will shoulder that responsibility directly.  I’ve heard it said that Lakota needs new sources of revenue.  Well, how’s it going to do that when it doesn’t produce anything?  The product is the education of children, and the results of that education have not placed the United States in first place in the world, so why would we spend more than what we’ve spent at this point?  Why should personal property taxes go up over $4000 per property, what is the value?  So a public teacher can take a 5K vacation on their 3 months off?  Isn’t that what it really comes down to?  Because if it wasn’t, the union would have been more responsible in what they demanded, and we are where we are because of the demands on the community.  When the school levy passed, it wasn’t asked for, it was demanded. 

In 2005 I fought the school levy back then too.  For all the same reasons.  The money kicked in during 2006.  As soon as the money hit the district, and the union knew the receipts were in from assessed property value, after owners paid their taxes, they threatened to strike in 2008.  The teachers union pushed its members to strike, to walk off the job.  I will never forget that.  The strike was over money.  As soon as positive cash flow was shown to the district because of the levy passing, the union went after the excess money.  That is the path that brought us to the financial situation we’re currently in.  It’s my money they want, and it’s my money they squandered away like drunken sailors. 

Unlike a lot of people who live in the district, I have lived in the Lakota district for a long time, and I plan to stick around.  And I have a great memory.  I know that these are people who are attempting to scam my neighbors and children that I genuinely care for.  And that’s bullying, it makes me very, very angry.  And I will not stand for it!

So you apologists can figure out where you want to be on this position, but remember, there isn’t any negotiation.  There is right and wrong.  I’m right, and those asking for more money are wrong.  And that’s the end of the story.  Live with it……get an education and learn a couple of things, then talk to me when you figure out that you agree with me.

 

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Kelli Kohls of the Springboro School Board: How to solve the education riddle

These are the kind of people who have created a dysfunctional public school system. Yet here is the Treasurer of the Springboro Education Association making a speech on how valuable she is, to justify why she should have tenure, and why she should be so highly paid. This woman is a union lobbyist, the kind of person that routinely pushes law makers to create laws just to shut them up. These are the type of people who Kelli Kohls of the Springboro School Board have to deal with on a routine bases.

People can say what they want about Doc Thompson, but anyone that says he doesn’t look at every side of a story to arrive at the truth is doing themselves a disservice to fallacy. Doc is a guy that asks questions and invites all sides to present their arguments. The invitation has been extended to school board members and superintendents all across Ohio to come on his show and dispute the accusations people like myself have leveled at the education industry and very few people have taken advantage of the offer.

That is till today, May 27, 2011. Kelli Kohls on the eve of a large vote in Springboro with their teachers union which occurs at 6:30 pm, came on 700 WLW to offer an insiders opinion of where public school is failing. The interview is particularly telling since it comes from a woman who is actively pursuing proper management of a school system, so her insight is magnificently portrayed in this hard-hitting interview, which is one of the first of its kind.

As Kelli stated in the interview, her school board can only really control approximately 15% of the total school budget. This is because of state laws and union negotiations that take the other 85% completely off the table. Kelli is noticeably frustrated because she genuinely wants to help her district. She wants kids to learn, and she wants the parents of those kids to get a good value for their tax money. But her hands are tied from every direction. She tells the story that so many ambitious community members tell that end up running for the school board, to help their community, only to discover that there is a giant political machine in place that makes all their efforts worthless.

I know several good people like Kelli that are current school board members, or former school board members. We’ve all discussed the process and how it’s broken. We all know the political games that are tied up into politics and the aspiring school board member must make a decision once they are elected by the community. Do they play ball with the unions, in exchange for financial benefits in indirect ways, discounted trips to Columbus where they are treated well and brought under the umbrella of the union syndicate. Or do they retain their values and continue to fight on behalf of the kids and the tax payers? If they do, it is a certainty that they will be singled out and hunted down by members of that syndicate.

Kelli is the school board member that I mentioned in another article, (click here to review) that the OEA was actively pursing harassment. That’s because she is one of the board members that is continuing to vote against their control of her district. She has a right to vote against them, because she is representing the interests of the tax payer. It’s not to the tax payer interest to have their taxes increase and still receive the same level of mediocre service. So she pushes back with her vote, and the OEA has singled her out.

I watched what happened to another friend of mine, Jennifer Miller formerly of the Mason School Board. (Click here to see the video Jennifer appeared with me in for an I-Team report by Brendon Keefe.) Jennifer was one of those lone voters that had the guts to go against the union syndicate and she was punished to no end. Watch this video where she had a confrontation with another board member. It’s not a position that avoids conflict. To do the job right, such confrontations are a necessity, sadly.

Many people have been pushing me to run for the Lakota School Board, which I have no interest. I’m used to having my way, and I would be enemy number one for the teachers union because they are openly extorting the public and I’d point that out publicly. I would bring constant combat to a school board because I don’t bend on anything. Negotiation to me is making people see things my way, because I work very hard to figure out the truth of a matter so negotiation is pointless, because all you’re doing in such negotiations is compromising to accept the other party’s feelings. In this case the other party is the union syndicate. But the truth is that public education has become too much about money and far too little about children, so feelings are irrelevant.

My vision for school boards is to have several people like Kelli on the board, people who will stand up to the union syndicate on behalf of the tax payer. I’ve seen personally that only one or two board members are not enough. There needs to be three or four such personalities that can actually garner a majority vote. That’s the only way to get these school systems under control, at least the start of it. But for now it eases my mind to know there are board members like Kelli out there fighting the good fight for all the right reasons, and there are people like Doc Thompson that will give equal voice where in the past there has only been silence.

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

 

End the Department of Education Now: The march to a smaller government should start there

The videos shown on this article I find repulsive. The Department of Education is populated with these types of people, which equates to a lot of talk about collaboration, caring for children, and test scores. The reality is that they are just adults spending a lot of money to pretend they are actually doing something that justifies the incredible amounts of money they expect to be paid. They are good at sounding important but when watching these videos consider if there is any authority, or truth in anything they are saying. There is a disconnect between these people and reality. They collectively believe that “outsiders” shouldn’t tell them how to behave, yet they forget that the “outsiders” are the people who pay the bill, and are therefore their bosses.

The Department of Education is one of those government creations that have no place at all in education.  It shouldn’t exist.  It costs too much, and has lost its way over the years. It has a budget roughly of $107 Billion dollars and has a jaw-dropping 4,800 employees.  By the governments own estimates in preparing for a government shut-down recently roughly 89.4 percent of the employees were deemed non-essential to operations. Yes, you heard that right, 89.4 percent…….non-essential.  That means only 10.1% of the employees at the DOE are needed to operate that whole branch of government. 

In 2009 the average federal employee earned $81,258 where the average private –industry employee made $50,462.  The private-industry employee then garners approximately $10,500 per year in benefits.  The federal employee receives a staggering $42,000 or more for benefits. That means the cost per federal employee at the Department of Education is $123,258. 

Reagan immediately tried to get rid of the DOE, as he promised, but he couldn’t get the democrats in the senate to go along with him, after all, they had already taken money from the NEA, and that was the last chance we had to rid ourselves of this giant government behemoth. 

We have created a government department that costs a lot of money, and is dedicated on taking the country in a direction that is against traditional American values. It’s a progressive branch that does nothing, staffed by non-essential employees, and it is formed to solidify the political power of a strong union, and we pay for it completely with tax money. 

Locally, school boards everywhere blame the DOE for compliance, which takes the anger away from the local districts.  The bureaucracy is created to make the system so large it can never be criticized because problems are too large for any one person to ever deal with.  It’s an organization built to maintain control of the NEA.  As school funding comes crashing down, and more parents are being forced to pay for sports programs, electives, and other extra-curricular activity, teachers won’t sacrifice any of their excessive wages as they stand quietly in the corner and watch parents struggle to give their children options.  Many parents are not only paying for their tax bill, which in my neighborhood is $3000 to $5000 dollars per home per year, but now parents are trying to come up with the extra money to pay for the stuff that used to be free, included in the price of their tax bill that supports the school.  Now parents must include the cost of transportation twice a day in many schools where a bus used to pick up the child.  Now the bill to teach a child has went up because school systems led by the example of the Department of Education have extorted massive amounts of money from the tax payer.  In fact, since the Department of Education was implemented, in just the last two decades the average spending per pupil has went up 44%.  That average salary for a teacher just since 2001 has jumped up 26%.  The cost of education isn’t increasing because the cost of actual education such as books and school buildings is going up.  It’s going up because the teaching profession is unionized and unlike in the private sector when costs go up we can go to Walmart, or buy a car from Japan, in education they have a monopoly, no competition, and therefore no mechanism to bring costs down. 

In many states Medicaid costs have increased and tax revenue is decreasing as industry moves over seas to avoid higher costs of doing business in the United States.  To deal with these financial realities states have decreased education funding by 17 billion dollars over the past two fiscal years.  Funding won’t be increasing, not unless the United States creates more product and exports goods instead of importing them.  So schools rather than change their funding model which is tied up in labor costs are resorting to passing the cost increases off onto the customer, the taxpayer.  In Medina, Ohio school costs have risen 23% over the last 5 years to $75 million in 2010, most of it is wage increases.  To shave costs the Medina school board eliminated 106 teaching position, otherwise 20% of their teaching staff over two years.  Class sizes increased from 25 kids per teacher to 31.  The teachers union agreed to $1 million in concessions taking just a 2.45% pay raise instead of the scheduled 3.45%.  The average cost per teacher with salary plus benefits is about $68,000 per year. 

Medina has tried to close the revenue gap by asking for levies which voters have rejected for three consecutive years.  So the district began charging $660 to play a high-school sport, $200 to join the concert choir and $50 to act in the spring play.  Local tax payer and senior citizen 70-year-old Joyce Harris said, “We can’t afford our teeth fixed because it’s too expensive.  If we have our taxes go up to pay for little Joey’s football, that’s not exactly fair.”

Notice that Arnie says “it will not become a competitive program,” as if that were a bad thing somehow.

So the Department of Education is worthless.  Their education standards have pushed America out of first place.  Click here to see my article on Waiting for Superman.  They are too expensive, and they have paved the way for the expectation that teachers should be making six figures.  And because the Department of Education is really a front organization that provides legitimacy for the teachers union, it has only exceeded in driving up the cost of education, eliminating competition by imposing on tax payers a monopoly that is arrogant, selfish, and grossly out of touch.

Now, this is a video that pulls back the curtain on the rest of the videos from above. This is a video that I have learned is the truth over years of personal experience.

I spend a lot of time talking about these education issues because our future is being raised in this public school system and I see an organization that I am paying good money for, teaching them all the wrong things and it disgusts me.  And because of the scam I am forced to support a union that I find un-American, corrupt, and destructive to the kind of country I want to live in.  So eliminating the Department of Education is something that should have happened the day Ronald Reagan took office.  In fact, it should have never happened to begin with.  It’s unconstitutional, violates numerous issues revolving around the 10th Amendment and is just something that should be removed immediately.  It has no place in American society.  It can’t even justify itself with results.  It’s just a waste of money that stands in the way of reforming our education system to something that is more effective, and it needs to go away.

 

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com