The Police of Butler County, Ohio: One of the most important jobs in the world

Many excellent experiences came from my grand jury tenure during the summer of 2024.  As the foreman, I had the additional benefit of swearing in all the witnesses, and because of that, I was able to get to know a lot of the police officers of Butler County, Ohio, and pick up on a few trends that are not so obvious unless you get a chance to talk to a lot of them at the same time.  I’ve known a lot of cops in the past, but it’s a different perspective when they are in their professional capacity and providing evidence and testimony under oath.  And there’s that radical concept again, an “oath” where a person’s integrity is weighed against the judgment of eternity and God’s wrath.  Without that, what worth is a swearing-in?  After doing it hundreds of times now, it made it pretty clear to me that the true value of our culture resides in the ability to derive honesty out of a temptation to provide fiction.  Yet, it was good to see police officers from all different backgrounds and working shifts show who they really are, and in the case of Butler County, I felt a lot of pride seeing that admirable traits among them were not unusual.  My feelings about police don’t mean that we can spend infinite amounts of money on their jobs through police levies and other increased taxes.  If society throws its values into bed with the teaching profession, I’ll have to take a pass because they are different.  Police work is dangerous and complicated.  It takes a special kind of person to do it.  Many would say that is the same argument for public school teachers, but I wouldn’t.  I value police in a much different way than teachers.  There are alternatives to public schools that can provide a child with a much better education method.  But with police, if you don’t have them, and good police at that, then society quickly drops into the gutter as the riff-raff becomes emboldened and strives to consume society with crime.

One undeniable thing is that most of the police officers I met in Butler County, Ohio, were under thirty and had a lot of tattoos, especially on their arms.  That was surprising, as it’s an obvious war code among cops, even with women.  All of them spoke very well while providing testimony.  People who want to be cops are wired differently; we should be thankful they are.  Whatever their private behavior has been when they let their hair down and converse among friends, their professional demeanor is more than respectable, and it gives hope that with such people maintaining that thin blue line, there is hope for social reform that is productive, normally when we experience police officers, it’s under some sort of tragedy.  It’s probably under the circumstances of one of the worst things to ever happen to us, even if it’s a minor traffic infraction.  But from the perspective of a grand jury, where the top sentiments of law and order are presented to be reviewed by civilian oversight, the value of a reasonable police force is unmistakably apparent.  You can appreciate that the world is much better because we have law enforcement as a job.  Without law enforcement, who is there to ensure a community’s laws are followed?  From the legislature that writes the law under civilian elections and representation to the prosecutor’s office, which has to take legal infractions and prosecute them in court.  Without the police there to do the work and separate the lawbreakers from the multitudes trying to function freely under the rule of law, chaos is quickly the outcome. 

I felt sorry for many police officers I heard that presented testimony and evidence.  The legal system has become a very fussy occupation due to an abundance of lawyers and political pressures that have migrated into the Bar Association, which is tied to many hostile political forces.  Police officers put themselves at risk when engaging with a public on the fringes of sanity and social order.  And under those conditions, they (the police) have to tiptoe around the individual rights of every citizen when it would be much easier to bust people because you know they are up to no good.  It’s a slippery slope in how evidence and cases go to court, and if a police officer slips up while collecting and witnessing proof, the case will be tossed out by a prosecutor’s office for lack of evidence.  Most prosecutors are people who get jaded about what can survive a jury trial, and crafty con artists’ defense attorneys will punch holes into any evidence gathered, even if it’s obvious.  I was able to deal with some cases where the police were put in danger of functioning as cops, only to have the prosecutors dispute how the evidence collected was submitted for further processing.  Maybe there was a glitch in the body cam footage. Perhaps the police officer didn’t think to pull the street cameras that verified a timestamp on criminal activity.  You quickly get a sense that there is a lot of crime out there, but the only stuff that makes it to a grand jury and the result of a lot of police work is the terrible cases where the evidence is obvious. 

I was able to meet a lot of investigators as well, people who are older and have been around a while.  A pattern quickly emerges: anybody over 40 is a bit tired; they have presented evidence to many prosecutors over the years, and there is a lot of civilian oversight that often has a lot of trouble separating emotion from the law.  And they are skeptical of the process. Yet they are very well-spoken and generally love the idea of an American Constitution protecting individual rights.  But, from their perspective, at what expense are those rights protected?  Why should a child molester, a drug dealer, or a murderer be given individual rights when it is obvious to the officer that people are up to no good?  People who don’t respect their authority should be punished. When people don’t respect the rule of police, additional charges of failure to respect a lawful investigation can put the case center stage. A prosecutor will be reluctant to move a case forward because it is obvious the police officer was upset at the lack of respect they were getting while interacting with the criminal community.  After seeing all that, I was glad to see we had enough people in society who wanted to do the job because it was crucial.  It may not pay that much, and they work many erratic hours.  And you don’t see too many old cops on the beat these days because it’s a young person’s game.  It takes a lot of tenacity not to become disgruntled with the process.  But it is a process we need, and police are crucial to maintaining a civil society.  And I can say now that I’ve met so many of them in Butler County, Ohio, that we have a lot of good ones.  And I am glad they do what they do. 

Rich Hoffman

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

Trump is the Best Salesman in the World: Unless the President is back in the White House, people will not accept the results of the election

So, to answer the question that I have been asked by many people, including people who work on the inside of several campaigns, including Trump’s, what can Trump do to beat the machine?  How does he answer the campaign of keep away that Harris is playing, knowing that the election is rigged and that the media is in the tank for the Democrats?  Should Trump put together the old 2016 team?  How should he answer the challenge, assuming free elections are still possible?  I would add to all that the essential problem is that the Deep State cannot afford to lose this election.  And what they are doing with Kamala is not enough to win.  The polling with rigged elements is trying to keep it close, but in reality, it’s not close.  I think Trump could walk to the finish line doing nothing and win this election.  But what can be done by Trump to help ensure he can win?  Well, my response is to dig back to his roots, at the Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale, and turn all the negatives into positives.  Kamala Harris is such an evil character who is trying to be overtly positive; their only option since they have such a terrible record comes out as phony.  And people are naturally repulsed by her.  The goal of the bad guys is to try and make it look close so they can cheat, which Merrick Garland has already started alluding to.  Unless it’s Trump winning the White House, people are not going to accept the results of this government-counted election where the Deep State is trying to protect itself from the massive reforms that are coming, whether they like it or not.  Those reforms will happen through peace, preferably an election, or force.  But they will happen.  The Deep State of global communism, which Kamala Harris represents, is only hanging on by a thread at this point.  People are not choosing them by default as they have in the past.  Now, people are on to the game.

Trump is one of the best salespeople in the world and is certainly the best in terms of his massive social brand.  When people talk about Trump as a con man and not an astute businessman, they are talking about his ability, which is a skill, to turn negatives into positives.  One thing that is very evident in Trump’s books, which I have collected for years, especially these new ones, such as Our Journey Together from Winning Team Publishing and this new one coming out, Save America, is the quality of everything that Trump does.  The Trump Organization, well before they were ever in politics, knew how to sell a good experience, which showed in their products.  Going through some of those Trump books recently, mainly Our Journey Together, sells American exceptionalism independently.  Trump doesn’t have to work very hard at it.  What this election will come down to, as they usually do, is the economy.  Do people have money to work with? In this case, everyone attached to the Biden administration in some way or another has been suppressing a depression, not just a recession.  Driving down gas prices here at the last minute isn’t enough to put juice back into people’s pockets.  The cost of inflation has already done the damage, and there is no way to hide it from people.  When it comes to voting, people want a change primarily due to money and the lack of it in people’s pockets. 

Trump knows how to sell the brand of a better America through the Power of Positive Thinking.  He doesn’t have to answer Kamala Harris on anything.  Trump has set the stage and controls the message, which are all the key points any campaign wants.  The only question remains whether we can still choose representatives through our elections.  Trump knows the key to that is too big to rig approach where even with the manipulations of voting machine data and drop box stuffing, people know how they voted and they aren’t going to put up with a spike in the middle of the night of Biden drops while people were sleeping, then say, “presto, Biden won,” as they continued to count for weeks after that.  It’s kind of the situation at the end of Beetlejuice where he stole the number for the line wait from the shrunken head witch doctor.  Only for the doctor to notice and shrink Beetlejuice’s own head.  The criminal elements of our government do think we are all stupid, and like that Beetlejuice character, they are going to try to take advantage of us any way they think they can get by with.  But people are now looking out for the trouble in ways they never have before.  So, Trump doesn’t need to run a negative campaign.  He has his core base, and they get it.  Trump doesn’t need to be negative in any way possible.  He does not need to play the victim card.  All he needs to do is peel away the middle grounders, which is happening already with Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy, known democrats who are now joining Trump for a big-tent Republican Party. 

I am looking forward to Trump’s new book Save America, which features him being shot in the head on the cover and pumping his fist to the sky in defiance with blood running down his face, and it comes out on the first of September 2024.  As I said, Trump and his team understand what they are doing, and these books during his presidency are very high quality and have an extremely positive message.  These are the same Trumps that had Melania selling jewelry on late-night infomercials before any of them got involved in politics.  Selling a positive message as to how America can be Great Again is something they know how to do.  These books alone will not put Trump over the top in this election.  Melania Trump has a book coming out in October, which I will undoubtedly be one of the first to get and read, and I think it will sell her in a way she doesn’t usually give people access to.   What’s happening here is that Democrats who see the writing on the wall, such as Musk and Kennedy, are stepping toward Trump, as many others are also.  This is what was happening to the Trump administration during its last days before the Deep State launched COVID-19 to stop the bleeding.  Democrats were stepping over and joining Trump’s positive message.  So, Covid was released as a bioweapon.  Hey, don’t take my word for it; Bobby Kennedy and Rand Paul will tell you all about it.  It was the biggest crime in the world’s history, and many people still have to pay for it.  But Trump doesn’t need to cry and whine about it.  He has to stay positive, and that will make it too big for the bad guys to rig this election.   I didn’t just start loving Democrats, but we’re looking at a big picture here, and Trump gets it.  It’s in his books that he is bringing America together again no matter what the skin color, sex, or political affiliation is.  And it’s all about the Power of Positive Thinking.  The platform is in Trump’s books.  People are jumping on for their own self-preservation.  This is something Kamala Harris and her Deep State controllers could never do with any amount of money and propped up polling if they wanted to.  They just can’t, and people know it, which is why Trump is poised to win, even beyond the controls of cheating that are looming in the background.

Rich Hoffman

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

RFK Jr. Endorses President Trump: Never Forget, COVID was a created bioweapon, and we have to fix what happened

They killed innocent people. We can’t just move on.

Notice for the first time since Trump started in politics that nobody is talking about Never Trumpers?  I saw this coming long ago; I could tell by reading his books.  However, the RFK Jr. speech endorsing President Trump was a history-making dream come true for me.  Not because the big tent party of the Republicans was opening the door to more liberals in it, but that there was a lot of good with Kennedy that perhaps only President Trump could unlock.  The ability to work with people who do not think exactly like you is a powerful skill.  One of the things that Trump has been able to do over the years that made him the most successful was getting people who don’t think like him to do what he wants them to do.  Usually, when rival presidential candidates step away and endorse someone, we never hear from them again, but in the case of RFK Jr., that would be a shame because he has done so much good with the Children’s Defense Health network.  Trump is not a micromanager and in many ways; under the Trump Administration umbrella, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will get the opportunity to do more good that he has dedicated his life to than he would have ever imagined otherwise.  For a radical Democrat to come into the Republican tent and endorse President Trump on the first Friday after the DNC convention was quite bold and a magnificent strategic move.  And one that makes it very easy for other Democrats to support Trump, too.  After the Kennedy endorsement, several actors and sports figures have done the same, which is good.  But any fear that Never Trumpers were not going to vote for Trump and that they would empower Harris by some other means is now long gone.  There are plenty of Democrats who are crossing over and voting for Trump.  In every category, Trump is winning and bringing the country together for a common cause in a way that has not been seen since Lincoln and reconstruction after the Civil War. 

Kennedy’s books, The Real Anthony Fauci and The Wuhan Cover-up are serious legal arguments for creating the bioweapon Covid and how it was unleashed upon the world, and they deserve severe public policy scrutiny.  Trump sees the need to include Kennedy in his administration which says everything about what’s possible with this upcoming White House, which is the exact opposite of what we have been experiencing.  I have talked about those two books extensively over the past few years, and I proposed that Kennedy join Trump as a VP in the future because of them.  But at that time, nobody knew what was going to happen to Trump, let alone Kennedy who positioned himself as a severe threat to the established order, especially with his resistance to vaccinations.  For all the people who feared Big Pharma running our government, which was obviously a problem with the Biden administration when they mandated vaccines for Covid, or that the World Economic Forum already had America divided up and the assets sold off to banking interests, suddenly things look a whole lot different on the battlefield.  We have not forgotten about what they did with COVID-19 to us all.  But it’s a much larger problem than even that.  To have Kennedy in the Trump administration as the head of Health and Human Services would be a significant step in correcting severe issues that have been occurring for many years and it’s harming people in terrible ways.  I’m a supporter of capitalism, and I generally like corporations, but I don’t like what happens to them under government partnerships and a lack of competition.  And to that point, that’s the problem.  If they poison our food and give people too many drugs without competitive alternatives, they have too much power over our lives, which is what we have been seeing, and it’s making people miserable. 

Think of some of these dream team participants coming into the Trump administration, not just to mention Kennedy but Elon Musk.  Vivek Ramaswamy could also be involved in economic recovery.  And a Vice President in J.D. Vance and all that comes with that.  And some of these senators who are replacing the old guard, specifically Kari Lake, and in Ohio Bernie Moreno, we are looking at an optimistic administration and other branches of government that can support it and give people something we have never had in America.  It will be the opposite of what we’ve been experiencing, which has been dismal.   But first, we have to get rid of the resistance of the Administrative State, which has been working for a global Deep State for a long time.  We have to have the guts to cut them off and put them out of control over our government. We certainly know that Trump is willing to do that, but now, with people like Bobby Kennedy in on the effort with Elon Musk, all former Democrats, we are talking about a process that we likely had to go through in America to get to the good stuff.  Until people realized just how bad it was, this combination of forces that we see behind Trump would never have happened.  People needed to see all this for themselves before there was ever any serious consideration of joining together to solve real American problems. 

It was never an option to walk away after all the bad things that were done in 2020 to Trump and the rest of us.  Just as I called the need for Robert F. Kennedy to be involved with the Trump team years ago, especially after reading The Real Anthoney Fauci, I said on day one of the COVID crisis that it was a fake bioweapon.  Nobody else wanted to admit to it, so I compared it to an attack on America similar to Pearl Harbor.  It was an act of terrorism like the Oklahoma City Bombing and 9/11.  It was an overt assault of globalism against us all, and our government got hoodwinked.  Trump was in office when it happened, and he certainly learned his lesson.  And few people have worked as hard to expose the invasion as RFK Jr.  So yeah, there are a lot of bad guys who are going to be very worried about Trump joining forces with RFK Jr. and other Democrats who are stepping away from Kamala Harris and stepping into the big tent of the Republican Party.  Trump is the kind of executive who can work with people who don’t agree with him on everything but do great work in their specified fields.  And under no other circumstances would a partnership like this be possible.  In a lot of ways, a spell is being broken that has hindered our nation for many years, and the poverty hostilities we have seen by Democrats and global communists over the past decade have set the table for these extraordinary events.  Before people could understand it, they had to see how bad it was out there, and we have now.  People have seen what the world would look like under the rule of globalists at the World Economic Forum.  And they are ready to reject that world.  And they are also bolder than ever to embrace a much more productive world that is coming together under the Trump administration for history as it has never been seen before.  And there is a lot to be excited about.

Rich Hoffman

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

Roger Reynolds is Found Not Guilty Again: But What’s Next, managing a big tent party

Yes, I am happy that the Ohio Supreme Court declined the state’s request to appeal former Butler County auditor Roger Reynolds’ appeal of the utterly unfair conviction thrown his way for the improper interest in a government contract.  What it all amounted to was a political squabble imposed on Reynolds, who was doing a great job as an auditor, and despite the charges tossed against him, he was still popularly elected.  However, while there was a conviction initially in court that had to be overturned, Roger Reynolds had to resign from his position.  It looked like he might have had to spend jail time over the charge at that time.  But Roger won his appeal, as I said he would.  I knew the facts of the case and the personalities involved, and my thoughts toward Roger’s innocence never wavered.  And neither did our mutual friend Nancy Nix, who had been treasurer and resigned from her position to fill the auditor position, being left open by Roger as he dealt with all these legal issues.  Nancy came to court most days while Roger was going through his ordeal to support her friend.  Her first thought about the whole matter was to ensure that the good policies utilized for the county’s people under Roger’s direction could be maintained in his honor, which she has done.  However, Nancy Nix is a good person for that job in her own right, and now, some time has passed since she has been doing the auditor job very well.  Her old treasurer’s job has been filled by another person doing an excellent job also.  Butler County, Ohio, is one of the few places in the world where the budget operates in the black, above water.   And that is a trend we want to continue now that Roger can serve again in a public office.  The most important thing is the quality of the government given to the people who need it and the viability of the big tent party of the Butler County GOP. 

I have been reminded how much I have liked Sheriff Jones recently, as we have talked on several occasions.  We’ve been on opposite sides on several issues, most recently this whole prosecution of Roger Reynolds, which cost Reynolds a lot of money and lost reputation over what I would consider a purely political issue that happens in the background more than it should.  It’s tough to run races in primaries and between presidential years, where a party tends to come together nicely if there is a strong personality at the top of the ticket.  And a few years ago, when the Butler County GOP was going through an identity crisis, nobody knew what was going to happen to Trump, if he’d even be back; a lot of Republicans strayed back to their corners of influence and placed their bets toward the political direction they thought would set priorities.  So everyone entered a kind of primary mode where Republicans battled Republicans for public attention, and brand damage to those candidates and the party in general occurred and, at times, got out of control.  Well, I knew where the politics were going, and I said so all along, and it’s shaping up just as I thought and said it would.  I wish more people listened.  But here we are, and people did what they did to each other. I want everyone to thrive.  I was happy to hear that Roger’s appeal on his conviction was held up under Supreme Court scrutiny.  I am proud and glad that Nancy Nix has been running Butler County as an auditor.  And I was thrilled to see Sheriff Jones with Hulk Hogan at the Liberty Township Kroger, bringing a lot of joy to people in Butler County who desperately needed it. 

The can was kicked down the road for a long time, and Nancy has had to deal with the hard stuff.

While all this was happening, I watched the speech at the Trump rally in Arizona, where Robert F. Kennedy Jr. endorsed Trump in what I thought was a jaw-dropping speech.  But, again, I called that one almost two to three years ago when nobody in the nation saw that coming.  (I did!)  And I was enormously proud of Trump, who just survived an assassin’s bullet just a few weeks ago, making the Republican Party such a big tent that even an ultra-liberal Bobby Kennedy Jr could join our fight for what’s right.  Because I do like Bobby Kennedy, even though my typical position on Democrats is to destroy them, hook, line, and sinker.  Bobby Kennedy would be great for Trump’s administration in many ways, and it took guts to join Trump and for Trump to open up that tent to accommodate him.  Polling-wise, Trump didn’t need to.  However, Trump did what was best for the party and sought to bring in as many people as possible who could fit into the GOP tent, which is what the game should be about.  Thinking of a big tent, I couldn’t help but think of Nancy Nix, who I have watched go through the same challenge in Butler County.  It is hard to deal with so many strong personalities and be sincere to them all.  And while Roger was going through his horrible ordeal, Nancy never left his side.  She was genuinely loyal when, politically, it would have been better for her not to be.  It took real guts and sincerity. 

So what happens now, with Roger Reynolds able to run for public office again, is that he wants to be vindicated and restore his name to righteousness.  And I have wanted to see that happen for several years now.  I want to help him do that personally.  As I have talked to everyone about these issues privately, to me, it comes out as the kind of family scabbles that have to be resolved ahead of a Thanksgiving dinner where everyone is arguing about the football teams playing between the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers, who is better, who should go to the playoffs, and which team will win that day.  It’s all the NFL as far as I’m concerned, and nobody should try to kill each other over the outcome.  But those kinds of conversations get heated when people start arguing, especially when millions of dollars are at stake and the personal reputations of so many people.  Ultimately, what matters in politics is that people get good government from people willing to do the job.  I see a path for Roger going forward, but he can’t reset the table and have Nancy move back to the treasurer job, and he just slides back into his old auditor job.  There must be a primary process where he could challenge Nancy for that seat in the next term.  The people of Butler County are getting excellent work out of that auditor position, and Nancy made a productive tag team effort to make sure they didn’t miss a beat.  But we don’t need more personal destruction, especially with the great opportunities coming from a second Trump term.  I would encourage everyone to look at the big picture and play the cards they have, and not the ones you wished you had.  Play the hand you’re dealt and do good things with them.  And in the scheme of things, I love Nancy Nix.  Especially when things are not hunky dory, Nancy has shown that she is a good person even when it doesn’t pay to be, and I like that in people.  In my way of thinking, she is the kind of person around whom you build a political party.  Everyone needs to find their way to the kitchen table she sets and get along for the good of Butler County, Ohio, and an excellent Republican Party that people can and should be very proud of.  And it would be my advice not to fall in love with job titles.  But in the good work that needs to be done, no matter what it is.

Rich Hoffman

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

Visiting the Butler County Jail: What it takes to maintain a free society

It was great for me to get a chance to tour the Butler County Jail.  I have had a lot of questions about it and its use, how much it costs, and what its helpful role in society is.  The Butler County Jail is one of the most expensive in the state, and it’s certainly significant, with around 1000 inmates being held at any particular time.  As part of the obligation of a grand jury where I was the foreman, the prosecutor’s office in Butler County arranges for everyone to see where the people in the cases considered for indictment are going or being released.  For me, it was important to have context on several fronts.  And, of course, you can’t go to the jail without seeing Sheriff Jones.  Overall, my experience was very good, and I think in regards to Sheriff Jones, it has been a rough couple of years.  But I have seen in him a lot of seriousness in establishing himself as one of the biggest MAGA supporters in Southern Ohio.  We might have disagreements that have significant consequences on people we mutually know.  But I have seen him work hard to establish himself as an unquestioned supporter of justice and order.  Seeing him in his natural habitat, the jail, was also good for me.  And get a sense of what it’s like living in his shoes.  And why his appearance with Hulk Hogan at the Liberty Township Kroger significantly benefited the big picture of law and order in Butler County.  I’ve had a chance recently to see Sheriff Jones at his best, and I certainly have an appreciation for good work, which he has displayed with seriousness.  The whole experience was very beneficial in that I have an excellent understanding of what it takes to run a prosecutor’s office, what their challenges are, how it relates to the inmate system, and what it takes to essentially maintain the criminal conduct of a small percentage of a population of over 400,000 people.  Competition is good for everyone, and some people step into the challenge while others crumble under pressure.  And to that point, I am glad that Butler County, Ohio, hasn’t lost its way and has some of the country’s best people when the pressure is applied.  Politics is a blood sport.  It’s good to never get to a point where you can’t at least be friendly with people.  Because, in the end, it’s all about serving a public need.  And once the rubber hits the road, we can all be proud of our Butler County Jail.

The reality of any free society, especially when there are so many people in it, is that there will always be 1-2% who fall off the rocker and can’t live in a free society.  For whatever reason, they can’t function in a world where free people need to be free.  Crime threatens that freedom and has to be dealt with.  This means you either have capital punishment and get rid of those people, or you lock them up so they can’t hurt anybody and perhaps hope to reform them.  But if you do that, you must feed and house them.  And doing that with other people who are also on the fringe of society is difficult.  I’ve been to the Butler County Jail several times but only seen Sheriff Jones’ office, the conference room, and their press conference area.  I’ve never been past those front office areas into the booking area and the general population, which is a vast complex.  It doesn’t look like a county jail; it resembles a prison system on a large scale.  After visiting the jail, it is easy to see why the federal grants are essential and why the operation would cost over 80 million dollars.  It’s a prominent place with a lot of moving parts.  And you have to have it.  Police work is not like a school where you can debate the merits of education and what it provides to society.  When you have criminals who can’t be roaming around causing trouble, you must put them somewhere.

So, as I was walking around with the jail staff, I was thinking about how many people it takes to staff a place like that, three shifts a day, seven days a week.  I did tour the cell pods, specifically a cell within the pod where a couple of inmates were removed from their daily routine and placed in the laundry room to see how they lived.  Their cell was not much larger than a closet.  It had a little sink and a toilet, with a bunk bed beside it.  There was a tiny television and a little table where two people could sit and play a game or talk.  There is little room to walk around and do anything else.  And to imagine being in there for more than a few hours would be devastating to a human mind.  And there are many cell pods for as far as the eye can see.  Each of them has to have at least one officer to maintain the population of that triangular pod.  In each pod is a shower, a rec room, and a place where they can make phone calls to the outside world or receive visitors, all of which must be monitored by jail staff.  One thing that surprised me, and I was curious about, was the recreational areas attached to the jail pod.  They have a little screen window that allows fresh air into a half-court basketball court.  But there isn’t any accurate indicator as to the outside world.  An inmate could go for a long time without seeing if the sun was out or the day was sunny. 

Touring the jail, you could feel the hatred of the inmates.  They see you coming and going, but they have lost that freedom and hate you for it.  While I was touring, the inmates were placed in their cells, and they gazed out at the inspection with ruthless hunger.  It’s hard not to feel sorry for them, for everyone, even the jail employees.  It’s a rough job, but yes, somebody has to do it, and for the staff there, everyone I talked to, it takes a unique person even to want to do a job like that.  It’s not like they can call off work.  Somebody has to be there to deal with so many inmates, who are always just a fringe moment away from chaos and mayhem.  It does help that Sheriff Jones has such a big personality because it does take that to pull all those elements together.  Human beings and emotions can be messy, but intent goes a long way.  And to run the Butler County Jail and the criminal justice system so that ordinary people, the rest of the 400,000 people of Butler County who expect to roam about freely without impediment, without the Butler County Jail and a system of prosecution, there is no mechanism to have a free society.  If anything, the jail should be more prominent and have more employees because running a place like that takes a lot of time to hold so many people who have fallen off the rocker in society.  I spent a lot of time talking to the guards and getting my mind into their shoes, and I appreciate their work.  It takes money and personality to bring attention to these things.  I would like to see a lot more people going to jail.  But you can’t put everyone there.  And I’m glad people who want to do it work at the jail.  It’s essential work that is taken for granted all too often.

Rich Hoffman

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

Elon Musk’s Highly “Unscientific Poll”: Deregulating the world under a new Trump administration

Let’s talk about Elon Musk’s highly unscientific poll on his “X” platform, which had nearly 6 million real people voting for President Trump or Kamala Harris.  This is why the Democrats at their convention are obsessed with beating President Trump because the internals, the cross tabs of all the national polling are pointing in the same direction.  However, this is the power of Elon Musk’s endorsement and his support of Trump on “X,” formally known as Twitter.  The poll showed that 73% of “X” users wanted Trump as President instead of Kamala Harris.  Now, I would not call “X” a right-wing platform.   And I would not call Elon Musk a right-wing guy.  Only a few years ago, he was the face of the World Economic Forum and a spokesman for globalism and climate science concerns.  Heck, his main revenue stream is in making electric cars.  He wants to power the earth with solar panels.  Well, something incredible is happening that is worth taking note of.  And it all started with that assassination attempt on Trump.  Elon Musk has been leaning toward Trump, especially after all his experiences with the Biden administration’s regulatory burdens.  Even a few months ago, when I was reviewing Elon Musk’s most recent book, it seemed unfathomable that Musk would endorse Trump for president.  Musk was a DeSantis guy, a recent development for one of the wealthiest people on earth.  So for Musk to buy Twitter and turn it into an actual free speech machine, essentially destroying the long-held gains of media control by a centralized government, a lot more than just a political stunt happened, and it came unleashed during a “Spaces” interview that Musk did with Trump that was spectacular.  When the smoke clears from this 2024 election, it will be “X” as a platform that shows the natural way of the world with true consumer sentiment.  The government propaganda that is the push behind Kamala Harris never had a chance. 

I thought the “Spaces” interview that Elon Musk had with Trump was one of the most important things to happen in the world at any point in history.  If you’ve ever been to Hyde Park in London, England, there is a tiny part of the park called Speaker’s Corner, where open debate and free speech are somewhat encouraged to take the edge off protestors and social discontent.  But most of the world is under the thumb of some bully administration of government that suppresses the expression of free ideas.  Not so suddenly, Musk bought Twitter and turned it into “X” to solve many of the problems of tyranny in the world.  Twitter was an asset to the various intelligence agencies seeking to control free speech and gather information on people who might cause them trouble.  I am still heavily shadow-banned on the “X” platform, even with Elon Musk owning it.  But listening to that 2-hour interview with Musk and Trump just talking to each other was remarkable, and it was shattering many thousands of years of oppressive government regulation in multiple cultures.  And the beauty of the American Constitution played out in how it was designed.  Having that conversation, unregulated and free of burden, was remarkable.  And it was the game-changer in this election.  Yes, it started with Truth Social.  If Trump hadn’t built that social media platform from the ground up, it’s highly likely that Elon Musk never would have bought Twitter and turned it into “X.”  But now that he has, the world’s governments have lost control of their gains by controlling free speech in a way that the world has never seen.  And those polling results are precisely what terrifies them and have Democrats horrified of President Trump, which, after all they have done, they should be. 

There is no more powerful news media company now than Elon Musk, who controls the “X” social media platform.  And as I’ve been saying for a long time, this conversion of Musk to Trump didn’t happen overnight.  Elon Musk didn’t just decide yesterday to become a conservative.  This is a transition that has come over time and experience.  Out of necessity, Musk dedicated his life to taking humans to Mars, and there was only one way to get there.  And I’m not talking about rockets.  Humans can build just about anything.  Invention is not the problem.  The problem is that humans also penalize themselves with timidity, so we give governments too much power by default.  And we allow them to create too much regulation, which is currently the world’s biggest threat.  Elon Musk sees through Trump a path to solving that problem by making himself the head of the Department of Government Efficiency with a President Trump appointment.  Under Trump, the thing that has to happen is massive deregulation and a shrinking of government in every way possible.  All those ridiculous government jobs that are out there need to be private sector positions, so a massive transition has to occur, and Trump is the best way to get there.  And Musk knows it’s in his best interest, given his dedication to the cause, to help Trump. 

We’re seeing the same thing going on with RFK supporting Trump.  When Democrats are moving into the GOP tent, that’s a good thing.  We may not be all ideologically aligned.  There is a lot with Elon Musk that I would say is way too progressive for my way of thinking.  But I can deal with people who disagree with me.  What I can’t deal with are people trying to destroy my country and attempting to kill or control the entire human race.  We have seen just such characters at the World Economic Forum.  Thinking back to an old friend at Clear Channel Radio in Cincinnati, Darryl Parks, he predicted that someone like Elon Musk would come along and change how radio broadcasts were done.  Through “X,” radio has changed forever through its “Spaces” utilization.  That interview between Musk and Trump reached over a billion people 24 hours after it happened, which is phenomenal.  But it’s also the way of the future.  As humans colonize space, it’s through communication through “X” that people will keep up with media and exchange ideas.  It won’t be the traditional print and FCC-controlled wave broadcasts.  Hosting a podcast on “X” is far more potent than being booked as a guest on a cable news station.  I learned that myself years ago after I did a stint on CNN.  My blog platform reached many more people over a long period than the bits you can do on traditional television.  Now, Musk owns that formula for perpetuating the human race into a change state that will make human beings interplanetary.  Musk has spent billions of dollars making his vision for humans migrating into space possible.  And at this point, the only thing standing in his way is the Democrat party and their governments of global communism and stifling regulatory burdens.  And with Trump back in the White House, Musk can play a substantial massive role in making the government less intrusive, as he has done with his management style at Tesla and “X.”  And I think it’s inspiring and fascinating, the complete opposite of what we have been seeing out of government.  And it is more than within reach, according to that “unscientific” poll, which looks far more accurate than anything else.

Rich Hoffman

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

The Anti-Woke Message of Deadpool: It’s all about regeneration and healing

I always have learned a lot from young people.  Yes, adults have lived long lives and have much to teach based on experience.  But kids are freshly created and don’t have assumptions yet baked into their thought process.  So I listened when one of my grandsons wanted to see the new Deadpool & Wolverine movie doing big business at the theater.  It’s one of the rare movies these days to hit over one billion dollars, so that’s a significant financial triumph that is at least good for theater owners.  I want theater owners to survive all this World Economic Forum wokeness, so I was interested in why so many people liked Deadpool.  I’m not a Deadpool fan. I don’t want to see Marvel characters cursing and talking about sex and drugs, and the Deadpool movies are R-rated experiences filled with a lot of bad stuff.  So, up to now, I have had zero interest in anything Deadpool.  However, my policy with my children and grandchildren is to take the edge away of any forbidden fruits in society with guidance.  So when he asked me to take him to the movie theater to see the movie, I didn’t hesitate.  We made it a somewhat family affair, with my daughters going along to watch the film with us and make any commentary about it that needed to be made from an adult leadership perspective.  All the world needs is another kid out there speaking in a trashy way with F-bombs and drug references.  And this was a Disney production now, so here was Disney, who used to get criticized for making too many G-rated movies, putting out an R-rated horror of sin and indulgence.  However, after watching the movie, I noticed much worth seeing, which became apparent quickly.  And I could understand why my grandson liked Deadpool so much.   I have always liked Wolverine from the X-Men, so I thought I could at least like that much of it.  But in the end, I liked Deadpool & Wolverine for many unexpected reasons.

So here’s the lowdown I have talked about extensively throughout the previous decade: Disney is dead.  They have mismanaged the company and are only surviving now because they are too big to fail.  But they have lost their core audience.  They enjoy decades of brand building, and roughly 50% of all adults are willing to go into serious debt to take their kids to Disney World for a vacation.  That trend will not pass to the next generation, so once these current kids grow up and become adults themselves, they will not follow that path.  I am happy I could take my kids, their kids, and their husbands to Disney World last year, which was extraordinarily expensive.  At least my family had a chance to see Disney before it declined into oblivion, and the Deadpool character is very much a cultural symbol of that. Part of what makes Deadpool movies so funny is that Disney is aware of its decline, and that’s part of the strange joke in the film.  Deadpool used to be a 20th Century Fox thing, but after Bob Iger, as the CEO, bought up that media property, they acquired several Marvel characters, such as Spiderman, the X men, and, of course, Deadpool, among other things.  But it was like bringing in Kamala Harris for president over Joe Biden for Disney.  It was a sugar high at best and only delayed the inevitable decline of a media company that had gone global woke and lost its domestic audience toward family value.  It’s hard to become a leader of the global citizen movement as an anti-family provocateur of sexual grooming of children and still be the bastion of family values that it’s known for.  That is why theme parks still get so much respect from parents who want to give their children a good life and think a vacation there will do the trick.  But it can’t; once you lose that reputation, it’s gone forever. 

Yet that is the theme of the new Deadpool & Wolverine movie.  Both characters are about regeneration; when wounded, they heal almost like reptiles.  So, the movie and the characters are more about second chances than anything else.  And in a social context, that is the same thing the nation and world are going through.  Most people can relate to Deadpool and all his mistakes because, at his heart, he is a person who wants to do good and be respected.  Ultimately, Deadpool wants to become a respected Avenger and to be one of the good guys, which I found surprising given the R-rated nature of the content.  However, the movie is very self-aware of its situation in society; it is essentially an anti-woke movie in the style of an old 80s film that checks all the boxes of the World Economic Forum investors who require excessive wokeness to be produced.  There are a lot of gay references in the film and discussions about drugs, but not in a way that promotes them as much as Deadpool has to overcome them to be who he wants to be.  But yet, the plot is filled with overt references, which, of course, the wokesters out there love.  I don’t support any of that, but as a running commentary on our current social status and the position of Disney as a media company that is undoubtedly headed on hard times ahead, it is an interesting observation of itself. 

The Marvel films had a plan that started with a series of movies in the last decade that were very traditional heroic enterprises.  I loved the Captain America movies, and the Civil War between Captain America and Iron Man, with all the tag-alongs, was terrific cinema.  But then we entered the overt woke era of the most recent movies, and there are a lot of horrible decisions made, starting with Captain Marvel and moving into The Eternals, which I thought was a horrendously lousy movie with overt gay characters in it that just made the whole thing no fun to watch.  Disney continues to make horrible decisions, such as what they are doing with their Land of the Villains announcement for Disney World, their closing of Tom Sawyer’s Island, which is my favorite part, and embracing villains in their family offerings because these days, so many people see themselves as Deadpool sees himself.  They can’t relate with the good guys anymore.  But at least with Deadpool, he wants to be a good guy, even though he’s been essentially a bad guy.  Marvel is trying to do as the characters in Deadpool & Wolverine: regenerate themselves and heal.  Their new Marvel movies are trying to get back to the basics.  As America tries to make itself Great Again as a country, media companies are also trying to do the same.  Everyone is looking in the mirror and asking if this is where we want to be.  That is what the new Deadpool movie is all about, asking those essential questions.  So it was pretty good.  Too late to save Disney.  But it’s a good thing to talk about as a patient lays dying on an operating table as a last thought and sentiment.  There is a humanity in Deadpool that people are clinging to, which surprised me.  And I certainly understand why young people would be attracted to that message.  They want to have hope that their future can be better than the past.  Because for them, they don’t have any memory of the good ol’ days.  Just the days of woke losers and political hacks who have ruined the world with bad decisions and tried to sell the mess as redemption.

Rich Hoffman

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

Why Thomas Hall is so Great: If only everyone was so lucky

Fight, fight, fight was the theme of the evening at the GOP tent at the VOA Country Music Festival, where several officeholders and some running for the first time gathered together ahead of the upcoming elections.  It was an excellent time to catch up with everyone. I could speak to many people in a way that I hadn’t done for a long time, which was good.  But what do we mean by fighting and winning in politics?  When I think of such a thing, I think of the young man Thomas Hall, who is the Ohio Representative in my district and is running to hold the seat he currently has.  But he wasn’t always in my district; he used to have the Middletown area, but now, in District 46, he represents Liberty Township and the surrounding areas, which I’m thrilled with.  I’ve seen Thomas Hall in the pressure cooker for a while now, and I supposed he’s not as much of a young man as when he first started in politics.  But I think a lot of him, and for good reason.  I have been meaning, and we didn’t quite get there during this event, to talk to him about his recent trip to Israel, which I am very interested in.  But behind the politics, Thomas Hall is just a good person, one of those cases where he’s better than the package you see.  He’s just a promising young man who has survived the fires of Hell and come out on top, and he looks poised to stay there.  This is a good thing for anybody he represents in the Ohio Statehouse.  He takes his job very seriously, and it shows.  I’ve seen him in Columbus work a room, and if he didn’t have a great foundation to work with, it would be easy to be swept away by lobbyists and other scandalous characters.  But with Thomas, you get the feeling with him that he’s always savvy and under control.  And that any malicious intent that comes his way can easily be handled. 

I’ve met his parents several times at some of these events, but we had more time to talk in August of 2024 than we have in the past.  In some of those previous times, things looked so dire that nobody was sure what would happen next.  Politics, as I have said, is a blood sport; things can and do get pretty wild.  Many people who came to the Country Music Festival at the VOA needed to talk to each other.  It’s been a tough four years since Trump left office, and people have lost focus in some respects.  It’s tough when you are trying to grow the tent of the party to accommodate more people, but those people don’t have the same foundations and strength; when the pressure of politics emerges and moral necessities come into play, it’s easy to drift into decay.  And as a political party, Southern Ohio Republicans needed to break some bread together.  A lot of people get into politics for different reasons, and it’s up to each person to find some reason to have common ground with others for the sake of party politics.  Authenticity can often get abused in such cases, but that was never the case with Thomas Hall, and in some of those times, I referred to his parents as good people who made a good kid.  Thomas’ dad was a former police officer, now a firefighter chief.  His mom is a wonderful enthusiast of the men in her life, her husband and son, and when I see them all together, it’s usually a big family affair.  Thomas has, of course, a love interest who I see around town a lot, and she is always supportive and doing the extra work it takes to run successful campaigns.  When you speak with them, you can tell that they all have good foundations that give them firm ground to stand on no matter what is happening in the world. 

So Thomas always tells me he’s grateful to me for getting through some of these tough times of turmoil where rough campaigns got very heated.  My help pushed him over the top and put him in office so he could do the excellent work he is doing presently and, I hope, well into the future.  And I tell him that he’s the one who did all the hard work, and indeed, there are very few people who work as hard at politics as Thomas Hall.  He gets out and knocks on doors and is very tenacious.  And I’ve seen him working directly with Governor DeWine on legislation that was difficult to make happen, so the elbow-twisting part of politics takes a hard worker, and he has deserved all the success he has had and more.  He doesn’t have to throw appreciation my way.  What I have done for him, I do for many people. He’s referring to a lot that goes on behind the scenes, but I’m happy to do it because I like seeing good people get a chance to do good things in the world.  Like a gardener who pulls up the weeds of a garden to protect the good plants, you are trying to grow while preventing the parasites from destroying everything.  I do what I do because I like seeing the good stuff grow.  And Thomas Hall has grown into a lot of good things. 

So when his parents thanked me for all I have done for their son, I had to tell them what I thought of them, which shows up in Thomas, and I think about it a lot.  They were good parents to him.  Thomas Hall has a great foundation that other people in the world don’t have because they, as parents, gave him a great place to start.  If things get too hot, at least Thomas has a nice family that cares for him.  And it shows.  So, while they intended to thank me, which they did, I would give the credit to all of them.  Thomas is a sincerely good person who is not wasting his talent.  But to his parents for raising a good kid who has grown into a good man, a lot of people would love to be so lucky.  The sense of service that Thomas has picked up from his dad is being applied to Ohio positively.  I’m happy to defend and support anybody like that, and there are others.  Perhaps not as good as Thomas, but in my experience with these kinds of things, a lot of similar personality traits emerge in these kinds of people who get involved in politics and want to represent people in government.  Not everyone has the advantage of a good family on which they can rely.  But Thomas Hall does, and as I told his parents, if anybody should be thanking anybody, the world should be thanking them for producing such a nice young and honest man in the world.  I am personally very proud of Thomas Hall.  But I’m also very proud of his parents.  I wish there were more people in the world like them.  And maybe in the future, there will be.  There is hope in the world that people will follow their example and do better for themselves and others.  Usually, when you meet people who are as well put together as Thomas Hall, good parents at the foundation make it all possible.

Rich Hoffman

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

Anna Paulina Luna is onto Something: Using sex to destroy global communism

I think it is wonderful that someone tried to resurrect an older video of Anna Paulina Luna wearing a Make America Great Again swimsuit that shows her “assets” in a very sexy way.  And it has gone viral.  However, the result is not favorable to the communist left.  They are trying to do the same thing in Chicago, where President Trump has a Trump Tower building; they have projected a Project 2025 HQ on it, trying to associate it with some scandalous enterprise.  All these attempts are aligned with the political platform of global communism and direct attacks on symbols of capitalism.  As I’ve pointed out often, as I have traveled the world, America is unique in its freedoms and associations with sexiness.  Most of the world has a much more submissive role for women, especially in Asian cultures, starting in the Near East.  Women who are ostentatiously sexy, advertising their blooming flowers for the pollination of some select male ruins overtly the plans the world has had for America.  So when they tried to shame Anna Paulina Luna, who is a seriously good congresswoman from Florida, as she modeled a bathing suit saying “Make America Great Again” and turned to show her thonged rear end to the camera, then winked, the faces of the left melted when she did not apologize for it.  And it became even worse when other conservative women joined her in posting their own pictures in bikinis.  I think it’s excellent and healthy to see the reaction of conservative women to the controversy because by doing what they are doing, a spell is being broken that was not the plan.  The plan was shame and compliance.  Not rebellion and boldness.  The way to beat the communist left that is global in their intentions is to stop saying we’re sorry for hurting their feelings. Instead, we would do much better to seek to insult them in every way possible because words do hurt them, and we should seek to hurt them often.

A person who likes herself makes it easy for others to like her. And by that look, Anna likes herself.
Great to have congressional confidence. It’s not specifically how things look. But how the person emits pride in themselves.

Just a lesson on the birds and the bees for those who are insulted by the sexiness of women displaying themselves provocatively.  Some women get upset and very jealous of other women who they feel are prettier than they are.  It is just that kind of insecurity that opens the door to socialism and communism, which is why the radical left political movements seek sameness and group consensus when it comes to sexiness.  Women are supposed to be sexualized; it’s the way human beings are designed.  Just as a bee seeks a beautiful flower to advance pollination, men will work very hard to have the best-looking woman they can get for reproduction rights and rights to sexual exclusivity.  In America, you can’t be a slug and expect a pretty woman to stay interested in you.  In so doing, God has designed the world to inspire the hardest-working men to produce kids with the most beautiful women.  Left unmanaged in this way, if sexual exclusivity is given to every loser and scumbag smoking dope to numb the pain, then society falls into a disaster which global communists then hope will provide them with the power to sweep in and take over the mess from a power perspective.  So, in our capitalist culture, if women dress themselves up to feature their sexy nature, they are then making themselves the prize of the best efforts of civilization.  If you make a lot of money like President Trump did, then maybe you could earn the right to associate with a supermodel like Melania Trump.  Women who don’t want to play this game, of course, are drawn to a managed society of socialism that will insulate them from judgment.  If all women are equally unattractive, they don’t have to worry about competition.  And let’s face it: most people find a mate, have a few kids, and then let themselves go.  The last thing they want is to go to the beach and see some woman walking around in a thong to gain the attention of their husbands, who are still wired to notice such things. 

It’s ok to have fun with life .

It’s one thing to be wired toward biological mechanisms that produce favorable behavior in an economic system where merit is the key to success.  It’s quite another to notice such things and acknowledge the beauty of an attractive flower but to resist intellectually the urge to pollinate it because logic is the guiding light.  Just because a man notices a beautiful woman, that doesn’t mean that a society of sexual recklessness is permissible.  But for the communist left, it is a perfect way to destroy them to have the ethics of a religious society meeting the productivity of a merit-based society where the women are proud of their beauty and ability to inspire men to do great things to associate with them.  The plan was always to lead America into submission to the rules of global order, where all forms of merit were abandoned, and the behavior of all human beings would be set by centralized state control.  When you travel around the world, you see that most women live under this umbrella to a large extent.  You get a few rebellious women here and there who overtly display their sexuality, but usually, it’s not with the same enthusiasm that you see in America because there are no economic conditions to justify the extra effort.  When people are barely getting by in life, and it’s challenging to raise children, people aren’t thinking about the kind of independence that the video of Anna Paulina Luna shows off, a distinctly American lifestyle of freedom built off merit.

Andrea is the Chair for the Manhattan Republican Party. I think we need our own Butler County Chair Todd Hall to accept her challenge. She sets a high bar.
It’s been a plan for a long time. They don’t plan for people to tell them no.

The way to start Making America Great Again is to break this spell of control that the communist left has used to manipulate human behavior in the same psychological ways that large, powerful animals such as elephants are manipulated with shackles trained from youth to be controlled essentially with a little piece of rope that they could easily break if they wanted to.  Humans so shackled with elements of shame learned as children spend their whole lives often contained in ways they could easily break free of if only they knew they could.  Sexuality is a powerful motivator because it’s one of the prime elements of existence.  Control the rules of sex, and you can control the rules of all civilization because men will do just about anything for it, and women control who does what and when.  So controlling the behavior of women is the key to the global communist movement, and the worst thing for them is independent women like Anna Paulina Luna, showing that a centralized society and their opinions do not control her.  If other women are offended, the best thing to do is not to eat those bags of Doritos that end up on their hips.  Work hard and compete with other beautiful women for the attention of men.  Don’t think that just because you’re married and having children, you can let yourself go and turn into a wilted flower, and that centralized government will take away the guilt.  There are so many women of all kinds; all can be beautiful in their own way, just as many different types of flowers are beautiful in full bloom, with lots of colors and shapes.  Natural beauty is the merit of hard work.  When a woman works hard to be attractive, it is good to see them elevating society.  It drives the world to do better.  And for those who want to control that world, they have been trying to destroy that incentive for a long time now.  But the way to break that trend is easy.  Just don’t let them shame you into compliance. Instead, take joy in insulting them.  Because better than any weapon of war, not giving them your guilt will destroy their intentions at their root and obliterate their political movement.  Anna Paulina Luna and the conservative women who have joined her are on to something.  And conservatives would do well to do a lot more of it.

Rich Hoffman

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

The Epic Vision of George Lang: What government can and do best

The Country Music Festival at the Voice of America Park in West Chester, Ohio, in August of 2024, turned out well.  Obviously, many people had a lot of fun, and it was a very positive experience for tens of thousands of people.  I have a special relationship with that park that goes back a long way because of Senator George Lang, which is worth discussing.  I appreciated the use of that particular park for a lot of sentimental reasons, and it was a very nice evening on the Friday night that Jason Aldean and other country music acts were performing from the vantage point of the Butler County GOP tent.  I had a rare moment to consider that all was right in the world as I looked out over the vast crowd enjoying themselves under a setting sun and a wonderful evening under the stars as the moon peaked out and hung in the sky to listen to the music.  I reflected on similar events around the country, and few could come close to the benefits of the VOA Park in West Chester, Ohio, because of its amenities and commercial access to the outside world.  It’s a huge space to set up something like that Country Music Festival, but still close to the highway and major commercial enterprises, complete with double lane roads and a well-managed civilian population.  I considered it the best that a society could offer and was a great example of what the world everywhere should be like.  But what a lot of people don’t know is the history of the park, and I’m not talking about its location being the site of the Voice of America, which would broadcast anti-communist propaganda to every corner of the world and bring down many authoritarian regimes.  Hitler referred to the site as the Cincinnati Liars because of the effectiveness of the VOA broadcasting station, which is still there and was part of the festival environment all these years later.  It was an excellent place to have a nice night for a community that deserves nice things to happen to it.  It’s been a rough couple of years, so there were plenty of reasons to celebrate. 

One thing about my life is that there aren’t many moments to enjoy a few hours of anything.  Usually, I have packed into every moment of every day many lifetimes of events.  So I don’t leave much time to enjoy life for a few hours.  But under the invite of George Lang and his lovely wife Debbie, my wife and I had a nice date night at the Country Music Festival under the added comforts of the Butler County Republican Party tent that was right off the main stage and had a great view of all the events of the weekend.  Many people tell me that I’m burning the candle at both ends and that I should take more time to do things like that, which I wouldn’t have done without the invite.  But I don’t think so. I do what I do, and I enjoy doing it, including long days of work where my life has a lot going on.  While my wife could complain, she doesn’t.  She understands.  But with all that said, the chance to take a deep breath and have some well-catered food in an air-conditioned tent with so many friends was very well received by my family. 

And speaking about George Lang, as I’ve said before, well, after he’s done with politics, I will likely still be friends with him and his wife.  We’ve all known each other for many years now, starting during his trial, where he was a target of Democrat activism as they were making a move to harm the GOP in Butler County over essentially a turf war.  Can you indict a ham sandwich in grand juries?  Yes, I have much experience with that side of the fence now and will have much to say about it.  Regardless, I thought what Democrats tried to do to George Lang over his relationship with the future Speaker of the House, John Boehner, at that time was horrible.  It was a window into what the courts have been trying to do to Trump now; only George was an early victim of it, and it was scary as he went through it in court.  I tend to like to help people like that in any way I can when they are being picked on by some cruel elements of the outside world, which, at this point, I have done for many people over the years.  But with George and his family, we have stayed friends ever since and have developed some great respect over a long period.  All this occurred when George was a trustee in West Chester before he ever went to Columbus as a state representative.  So, I remember the conditions that helped build the foundation for the VOA Park because the nice park where the Country Music Festival was happening was not always there. 

The decision to let Metoparks manage the property started with George Lang as a trustee, who had in mind a minimal government approach, which is why that particular park is so unique in the world. Typically, a large park with such a significant footprint in the community would be run by the city nearest it.  But George and several other local politicians have fought to keep West Chester as big as it is, as small of a government as it can be, which is a lesson that every community, not just in America, should learn from.  As George and I watched the setting sun over the festivities of that evening and remembered all the years, I had to remind him of his role in all this from a policy standpoint.  If he weren’t such a small government guy, the VOA Park would be another over-managed failure.  However, the decision to let the best at park maintenance manage the park paved the way for its current use.  Which, for me, is a continuation of it being the Voice of America.  I run this blog site essentially from there as a tip of the hat to its historic use as the Voice of America.  I have written many millions of words and read many, many books from that park over the years because it’s where I like to visit to get my thoughts about lofty concepts worked out.  Essentially, that’s because of my friendship with George and his wife, knowing the backstory of the park and how it could only exist with a small government approach to big things.  And that’s what made that Country Music Festival so unusual, something you could drive all over the country and not see so well done as it was in West Chester, Ohio, one of the best places to live anywhere.  And that’s not just me saying that.  It’s known throughout the real estate world.  And that is because it has stayed a small government and resisted the temptation to become a city with mayors and city council members screwing everything up with too much bureaucracy.  It took vision to have the view of government that George Lang has expressed, and what a lot of people don’t know is that his epic vision that helped create that magnificent park is being applied to the state of Ohio right now in ways that will benefit it for many decades to come.  For all those reasons and more, being at that festival that evening, I could only think of how proud I am of him and all the excellent work that goes on behind the scenes that nobody will ever know or understand.  But that ultimately makes the world a much, much, better place.  Good government is the kind of government you never see, but that makes all the possibilities of human existence happen under its power by removing the barriers that would otherwise prevent it.  George Lang is a master of that, and many millions of people are enjoying the efforts he has put forward for their benefit, which was on full display at the Country Music Festival at the VOA Park in West Chester, Ohio, during the exciting year of 2024.

Rich Hoffman

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