Tag: 700 WLW

Wayne Allyn Root Speaks about Scott Walker: Diana Fray goes to jail

I would have loved to hear from the Bill Cunningham speaking with Wayne Allyn Root on the day after the historic Wisconsin recall election of Governor Scott Walker, as opposed to the same Bill Cunningham who campaigned against Issue 2 in Ohio working against his friend, Governor Kasich who faced a similar battle in Ohio. The good Bill Cunningham had a wonderful conversation with Root on 700 WLW relishing the first major victory against the mobs of public sector unions and the tyranny those groups have inflicted upon America, as Walker emerged victorious with a 53-47 victory.

The big difference between the Scott Walker situation in Wisconsin and the John Kasich situation in Ohio is that Kasich had a law to defend, Walker had to defend himself. The unions targeted the Republican reforms on collective-bargaining in Ohio by seeking to repeal the entire law. The unions spent millions of dollars and collected more than enough signatures to attack the collective bargaining reform law to keep it out of their lives. The cost has been just as predicted, many schools, police, and fire departments have had to layoff workers to meet their budgets, because Issue 2 was repealed in Ohio during the November 2011 election. The unions were fighting on two fronts, as they also had to spend their national time and money fighting in Wisconsin gathering signatures to recall the governorship of Scott Walker removing him from office entirely, just because the unions didn’t like him.

The audacity of this attempt says everything about what union politics represents. Their attempt to remove a sitting governor not for corruption, or unethical violations against the state constitution, but for reforming collective-bargaining and being too aggressive for their liking was the primary motive. The public unions tried to do against Scott Walker what they have done to every governing body for more than 80 years, and that is impose their collective will upon politics to shape legislation to their liking. But Walker stood strong during the entire attempt to remove him from office, and the Republican Party stood with him firmly, which led to the first major victory against the union mob in union history.

Kasich was not so lucky. Republicans did not stand behind Governor Kasich the way they did with Scott Walker because too many Republicans had climbed into bed with the unions over the years, and could not pick a side in the modern civil war going on between public and private sector jobs. When Issue 2 was defeated, it was a sign that the labor unions advocating open communism could not be beat, so the situation looked grim for Scott Walker.

When Bill Cunningham was growing up, unions seemed to be an unstoppable force. My own dad is about the same age as Cunningham and told me before the first time I went on WLW to speak with Scott Sloan about the tyranny of the teachers unions, “The unions will get you. You have to watch what you say.” My dad, like Cunningham saw firsthand all through the 60’s and 70’s how labor unions driven by communist leaders would destroy the lives of people who stood in their way. To speak out against the unions meant conflict, and many people wish to avoid conflict, so they yielded to the unions for many years which resulted in disproportionate budgets favoring the public unions. Politicians seeking to hide their part in the scam promoted tax increases to hide their fear of the unions.

All public unions function in virtually the same way. Whenever a union president faced a city council, township trustees, or a school board, the standard behavior is to use their union members to protest ANY wage reductions, or insurance premium increases with radical displays and public threats. Most recently, it was Diana Fray who just received 51 months in prison for her theft of a quarter million dollars from her union to take vacations and purchase real estate. She went from being a crusader for the collective mob of her union to a criminal within only weeks of being discovered for her crimes. The only thing that changed was a slight shift in public acceptance. Labor union presidents steal money all the time from their employers with the threat of force. They do not earn pay increases based on merit, but upon coercion. This is how unions have managed to extort so much money from the companies they work for, and from the tax payers, is through threats and intimidation. The only difference for Diana Fray is she didn’t just steal the money from the tax payers, but from her own union too, which in a world of twisted reality, finally crossed the line.

The unions threatened Scott Walker with even death during his first year and a half of office, attempting every trick of thug manipulation used since unions began. They chanted, they attempted violence, the issued death threats, they attempted public humiliation and finally they attempted to use the force of law to batter Walker out of office.

But what Walker has been the first to do on a large-scale is to show the formula for beating these collectivists which every state and local government can now see for their own eyes, and that is to show that the power of the individual is more powerful than the collective mob if the individual simply does not care what the mob thinks, feels, or considers. Walker like Kasich was hired to do a job through an election and if people didn’t like the results of that job, they can vote him out in the next election. Kasich had his efforts cut out from under him as a result of the union referendum. Many voters simply did not vote in favor of keeping Issue 2 because they lacked the courage to show up at the polls, which yielded Ohio to the power of collective force represented by the unions. The unions attempted to remove Walker from office because they wanted to stop the reforms he initiated, and did not allow him to run his full term because they knew that Walker’s reforms would solve many budget problems. They knew if people saw this secret for themselves, they would no longer support public labor unions. So the unions attempted to do what they know best and that’s force a man from office because he went against their wishes.

Scott Walker showed as Hank Rearden did in the book Atlas Shrugged, that the coercion of the labor unions, like the coercion of the law, did not have any real power that they did not steal from someone else. The unions do not have better ideas, they are not the best employees, they are not the most efficient–they fail in every conceivable way. They only succeed when they can force others to act against themselves by coercion. Scott Walker did not yield, and because of it, the unions have been exposed for not having any legitimate power or claim to greater portions of the public treasury. All the unions have is the threat of force, of being a potential menace to those who are in love with peace. This has been a profitable formula against conservatives who would rather make money than fight, and would rather appease than argue. In the mind of the conservative, they can always make more money, so they give away their treasures hoping the looting mobs of the public unions will leave them alone, but it only made the situation worse. Each time the mob came, they asked for more and more money until the public had simply had enough.

Now that it has been seen, this resistance to the mob rule of the labor unions will begin to escalate, and organized labor will continue to fail in pockets all over the country, and it should. Taken as individuals, the union members are just the same as the rest of society. They are not evil incarnate. But in the collective body of a public sector union, the mob becomes the most evil entity on the face of the earth. They exist only to rob, and pillage anyone they can so they can secure wonderful communist lifestyles for themselves exhibited so well by Wayne Allyn Root in the broadcast above. The life of the union member requires the looting of others to survive, which is why they are one of the most corrosive forces in politics today. Finally, people are starting to stand up to them, and have realized that the greatest power there is in the entire world that is more powerful than any gun, any protest, any public display against the mob is to simply learn to say “NO.” Saying “no” takes away the power of the union and everything they represent. It stops the ability of the collectivist parasites from further extracting from the taxpayers any more money without revealing that they are actually functioning as a gang of thugs with one purpose, to loot and destroy everything until there is nothing left—and thus fulfill the life of a treacherous parasite.

Yes, it has been a good week, Scott Walker will remain governor of Wisconsin, and Diana Fray will go to jail for several years to live with the other criminals of existence, which is where she and every union member deserves to go who attempts to live off the work of others without a care to the lives they destroy in the process. The only sadness I have is that Ohio had a chance to be the first, but in the final hour, they blinked and the unions prolonged the inevitable for just a few more months until Walker finally beat them. Most of the time the only difference between victory and loss is in the courage of other individuals to rally to the cause of courage. In Wisconsin, there was courage—but in Ohio, there was not—and because of that, many people will lose their jobs in the long run and the misery will be extended because people did not have the guts to make the right call at the right time and instead played politics at the expense of honor.

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This is what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

“Just finished the book and am sweating profusely. Wow, what a ride !!!  Fasten your seat belts for one of the most thrilling rides ever in print.“

Visit the NEW Tail of the Dragon WEBSITE!  CLICK HERE!

Visit and friend us on Facebook!

http://www.facebook.com/tailofthedragonbook

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

Police State in Ohio: “Tail of the Dragon” cover is revealed!

There are 88 counties in the State of Ohio, yet there are 900 police departments all who participate in the “Click it or Ticket” campaign over the Memorial Day weekend for one reason—revenue enhancement! This “Click it or Ticket” initiative is a nationwide endeavor and the federal government is spending millions of dollars promoting it with expensive ads and marketing. It is sold to the public as a “protective” measure from big daddy government, but is in fact a diabolical infringement of the freedoms Americans enjoy and over time gradually deprive liberty from drivers everywhere with small increments of advancing the construction of a complete police state. Darryl Parks of 700 WLW covered this issue in the video below as I joined him to reiterate the amount of police departments there are in Ohio that have only one purpose—to tax motorists in another scheme to pay for the increases of government by giving all those police department employees working something to do.

In my generation I have watched the gradual erosion of resistance that has taken place in respect to “The Law.” These days’ young people think nothing of DUI check points, or “Click it or Ticket” fines because they’ve always seen them, and were recently indoctrinated in their government schools to blindly follow orders. So when ODOT puts out an ad stating that the fines they are collecting for violations are for the safety of society, it is failed to recognize that a cleaver scam has just been perpetuated. Police departments have managed to sell “nothing” to the public by charging society a fee to keep them “safe.” Gradually year after year more police departments have been created and to pay all those employees states have had to rely on more regulations so they can fine motorists to pay the salaries of so many police officers.

The police unions have done a good job helping this process along by vigorously promoting themselves as useful advocates of “safety” and attacking any politician who does not “support law enforcement.” This has led to tremendous amounts of pandering from public personalities, particularly those in the legal profession because these increases in regulations created by comb-over politicians, enforced by cops, and processed by the courts have made great livings for lawyers who need revenue from the massive amounts of DUI cases, traffic infringements, and safety violations like “Click it or Ticket.” Then once those court cases have concluded the parasitic insurance companies can then raise their rates since they have a non competitive oligopoly granted by the politics of their state through mandatory purchase. If you want to drive, you must have insurance, which guarantees insurance companies in states a share of business for every driver on the road, so there is little incentive to keep their rates low to meet the needs of their customers. Government guaranteed these companies income from every motorist on the roadways, and it is the cops who help drive up the rates through regulation enforcement.

What has happened is that so many regulations have been passed over the last 20 years that were disguised as “safety” for the public, but were in actuality funding mechanisms for the public employees and the parasites who feed off misery—such as lawyers, insurance agencies, and ad companies doing work for ODOT. Darryl is 100% correct; the American people let it happen. On Memorial Day, and coming up on July 4th we celebrate our fights for freedom in America but right in front of our faces these freedoms have been eroded away into tyranny. We should not be pulled over at check points to verify that we have on our seat belts. Government is not our parent and we are certainly not their children—their loyal subjects. When a person considers that there are 900 police departments in only 88 counties in Ohio, it must be questioned why so many cops are needed. Of course the Fraternal Order of Police will say that it is for public safety. They use the same type of line that the teachers unions use to protect their members, which kids deserve a chance to succeed, so more teachers are needed—as if parents had nothing to do with the process of raising a child. Cops are sold as protectors of our safety, but they are actually tax collectors and they have full authority to carry out the whims and back room deals made by corrupt politicians who pander to the mobs of lobby power in order to soak from the American citizen every last dime that can be taken without actually squeezing the life out of the victim.

I feel so passionate about this issue that I wrote a novel about it, because I recognized as Darryl stated that we have allowed it to happen, we stood by idly and allowed a police state to grow right under our feet. To me the most alarming aspect of those 900 police departments in Ohio is that under the NDAA Act President Obama signed into law on New Year’s Eve this last year, those departments actually represent a military force that can become activated under martial law, which is declared by the president just by his whim, so the situation is rather serious, and I don’t wish to just sit by and let it happen with a whimper. So I wrote a book that has a story exploring all these aspects mentioned above and what would happen if a person decided enough was enough, and decided to “fight back.” After three years of writing and securing a publisher, the book is about to be released and it was just the other day that I signed off on the cover designed which you can see below.

It is healthy to push back and question the law and the legal systems tendency to soak citizens for everything they have. Violence is not the answer, because the power is already in all our hands. All we have to do is learn to say “NO” to all these gradual increases in government expansion and make no mistake about it, police forces are government expansion. They are not your friends, or your parents when they pull you over to make sure you’re “behaving safely.” They are arms of corrupt politicians. The community cop in your neighborhood is only as good as the laws they enforce. Do you dear reader think that the politician who made all the laws these COPS are enforcing are good people, or are themselves thieves who use those 900 police departments as their personal sledgehammer of extortive revenue enhancement to embark on their diabolical schemes?

I think you know where I stand and if my readers here think that I dislike the manipulation that goes on in our public schools, they haven’t seen anything of the anger that I feel for the tyranny I see in our police departments and their tendency toward terror disguised as safe keeping. “Click it or Ticket” as a campaign is the symbol of a freedom that is evaporating from American life-like a puddle of water on a hot July morning before the sun has hit it. The water disappears slowly, not even perceptible to the mind’s eye, but a person who has looked at the puddle at 8 AM then leaves, and comes back again at 9 AM will find that the puddle is gone, evaporated before our very eyes, consumed by the heat of the sun and the elements of earth. And our freedom is no different, it is evaporating one cop at a time, one ticket at a time, one lawyer at a time, one judge, one insurance agent, one PR spokesman, one politician at a time till eventually there will be nothing left, and the people of America will wonder how the “Police State” came to be and why they let it happen. At that time, everyone will have forgotten the “Click it or Ticket” campaign because that will seem mild compared to what’s coming.

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This is what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

“Just finished the book and am sweating profusely. Wow, what a ride !!!  Fasten your seat belts for one of the most thrilling rides ever in print.“

While you wait for Tail of the Dragon, read my first book at Barnes and Nobel.com as they are now offering The Symposium of Justice .

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

Lakota East Teacher Charged in Prom Ticket Theft: Report from FOX News

I published my story Saturday about the Lakota East teacher who stole the prom ticket money after the Cincinnati Enquirer decided to run it and Darryl Parks covered it on 700 WLW that morning.  You can read that  story by CLICKING HERE.  But I’d like to congratulate the Lakota administration and their fine staff of tax addicted advocates for making Fox News, The Huffington Post, and The Washington Post.  Bravo………very good.  You did a lot of my campaign work for me.  Now the entire nation knows what kind of employees Lakota spends the hard-earned tax payer’s money on.  Check the links below to see for yourself:

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/05/15/ex-teacher-charged-with-stealing-ohio-prom-money/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/15/exteacher-charged-with-st_n_1517525.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ex-teacher-charged-with-theft-of-school-prom-money-in-cash-strapped-southwest-ohio-district/2012/05/15/gIQA9OwzQU_story.html

I wonder who tipped off the AP Wire to get that story out?  Can’t imagine how that happened………………..Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.  I wonder if any of the school board members will put this story on their Facebook pages?

If you want the latest and greatest of this story, Channel 9 has some great coverage of the details.  You can view that here:

http://www.wcpo.com/dpp/news/former-lakota-teacher-charged-with-theft-of-prom-money

More to come!

____________________________________________________________

This is what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

“Just finished the book and am sweating profusely. Wow, what a ride !!!  Fasten your seat belts for one of the most thrilling rides ever in print.“

While you wait for Tail of the Dragon, read my first book at Barnes and Nobel.com as they are now offering The Symposium of Justice at a discount which is the current lowest price available.

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

New Novel Set in the Great Smoky Mountains: The Famous Matt Clark interview on “Tail of the Dragon” with Rich Hoffman

On Sunday May 6, 2012 I spent some time with Matt Clark of the Clarkcast Radio Network to talk about my new novel Tail of the Dragon which is about to hit book stores everywhere. Matt had read an early version of the novel before I signed with my publisher and enjoyed it so much he called me personally to say just how much he loved the story prompting us to discuss it well in advance of its release to the public. When the book was close to release, we spoke about doing the interview heard and seen below as it aired on Talk 1600 WAAM in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  Check it out!

On a special note, during the interview, I say “WE” quite a bit. This is in reference to either my wife who has been on many adventures with me and has been a big part of the writing process–or its in reference to my publisher and the team who has worked with me to bring this book to life. Its a process that involves a lot of people, so saying “WE” seemed appropriate.

Even though Matt and I spoke about a lot of topics that make Tail of the Dragon a unique and timely novel, where the events of this intense story are paralleling the tensions of our current nation, a lot of what we wanted to discuss didn’t make it into our interview. If it had, our talk might have gone on for hours. So to further elaborate the content of the Tail of the Dragon I have a longer version of the interview to enjoy while the final stages of production are completed prior to the release of the book in The United States and International markets. 

Enjoy!!!!!!

Q: What is your new book Tail of the Dragon all about?

A: I set out to write the book I’ve wanted to see written for a number of years, an action packed good ol’ car chase that was filled with excitement. They used to make lots of those films in Hollywood years ago, and of late, even with the strong video game market from the Need for Speed series and the popularity of the Fast and Furious films, studios have been shy about tackling those types of projects.

When I was growing up it was films like Smokey and the Bandit and The Dukes of Hazzard that dominated movie and TV sets and I always felt that those types of entertainment mediums were healthy for American culture since questioning the merit of the law is important to our checks and balances as a society. And for me, it is kind of sad that one of the greatest car chase films of all time is The Blues Brothers which was made back in the 70’s. So I set out to write a story to contribute to this starving deficiency, and I purposely set out to write the most exciting, and intense car chase story in the history of car chase stories. If early readings of the book are any indication, I’d say that mission was accomplished.

Q: After reading this novel it seems that there is more to it than just a car chase. These characters are in deep peril. The politics of the novel seem to be a very direct commentary to real life.

A: I think of this story as a modern pirate story, where the main character Rick Stevens has been hired as a privateer much the way England and France hired privateers to harass the Spanish Main during the 17th century leading to the golden age of piracy. This gave rise to the great privateer/pirate called Henry Morgan. In a way I see Rick Stevens as the modern counterpart to that historic character. Stevens has been hired by political interests to harass the Highway Patrol in Tennessee for political reasons—to prevent a presidential run to the White House of the current Tennessee governor. So in that respect, there is a contemporary storyline.

Q: But you don’t deal with party politics, you keep it neutral.

A: That’s right. I make no mention of Republicans or Democrats because to me they are all kind of the same thing. If there is a political meaning to be taken from this particular story it’s that the political system is broken beyond repair and a small number of characters are intent to correct that system with a rebellious upheaval which causes this grand car chase.

Q: Isn’t it a hot dog that starts all this in motion?

A: Yes, Rick Stevens accepts the bet of a hot dog in a race that triggers off the chain reaction of events that lead to the next civil war in America. This time the battle lines are drawn between those who want government to continue to expand, and those who want to see it withdrawal from their lives. But yes, the whole thing starts over a bet for a simple hot dog.

Q: But this isn’t just a tough guy car chase; you have romance in it too.

A: Yes, Rick Stevens and his wife are on a trip to Gatlinburg to shake the dust off their marriage, which is a very popular destination for that kind of thing, and while there Rick wants to run his new motorcycle on the Tail of the Dragon which is a road on the western frontier of the Great Smoky Mountains that has 318 curves in just 11 miles. It’s considered one of the most extraordinary roads in the world, so it’s a very popular destination for high performance bikers and automobiles. In the novel this is the destination for this middle-aged couple as they reconnect romantically now that their oldest son is off and married.

Q: Ok, so that brings up the question, how much of this story is real? How much of Rich Hoffman is there in Rick Stevens?

A: There’s a bit there, especially in the first couple of chapters where the couple is traveling on their way to The Dragon for the first time. I’d say those chapters are a bit autobiographical. When my wife and I traveled to the actual Dragon I was amazed by the culture that was there. There was a real hunger for personal freedom that I found refreshing so I knew I had to make my next book about that extraordinary place. That same summer my wife and I traveled over 10,000 miles on our motorcycle as I started writing this book so that I could get my head into the mind of a character like Rick Stevens. We traveled from the shores of Lake Erie to the tip of Key West by motorcycle and many places in between. On those trips this story was born in every aspect. When you travel by motorcycle and speak with other motorcyclists at gas pumps and rest stops there is a respect that is undeniable. Where Rick Stevens and I part ways is that Rick does not have the same outlets as I do. I write, and read a lot, but Rick invests his time in cars and engines and doesn’t have mechanisms to relieve the stresses he feels in his life. I would never snap the way Rick Stevens does, but there is a part of me that really understands his reasons and motives for the behavior that becomes the greatest car chase in human history.

Q: So you and your wife rode 10,000 miles on a motorcycle all over The United States to research this novel?

A: Yes, but our riding stayed on the eastern side of the Mississippi River because most of the traveling was on long weekend trips that were close to our hometown of Cincinnati. But yes, our trips to The Dragon being some of the most interesting experiences I have had on a motorcycle. While on the road you meet a lot of people who want pretty much the same thing that you do, a sense of freedom, which is the appeal of traveling by motorcycle, and are the reason that motorcyclists wave to each other when they pass on the road.

The character of Rick Stevens is such a freedom loving person and to understand him correctly I found that he came to life for me somewhere between the Smoky Mountains and Key Largo, Florida. In fact, my wife and I stopped by a McDonalds in between Key Largo and Key West after several days on the road with our tent and a weeks worth of supplies stacked our motorcycle luggage rack and there was a profound sense of freedom that I felt at that moment that I used to create the character of Rick Stevens. I had to ask the question, what if a person lived like this every day? What would happen if a man who had such a profound sense of freedom and a determination to stay that way found himself pulled into a political whirlpool involving a presidential run to the White House. The result is this novel, Tail of the Dragon.

Q: Didn’t you have a lot of trouble with the law yourself, so isn’t there more of Rick Stevens in you than you’re admitting?

A: It’s true I grew up in trouble with the law quite a bit. I’ve received about every type of speeding ticket, and reckless operation citation a person can get, and I’ve been to court more times than I can even remember. Like Rick Stevens I had lost my driver’s license under state mandated suspension till my late 20’s. I do love speed, which is very obvious by the pace of this novel. But after I started raising a family and was driving family type cars, I drove just as fast–I never did slow down—even today. But I stopped getting tickets because the police do pull over a certain kind of driver, and certain types of cars. This is what confirmed my suspicions that the law was crooked in selective enforcement, and that traffic violations have nothing to do with safety, and everything to do with “revenue enhancement,” which is one of the central themes of this novel.

But Rick Stevens unlike me expects the world to be fair and he refuses to budge off the line of what is right and wrong. He’s a very determined character who expects logic in the law, and when he doesn’t get it—watch out.

Q: That brings us to another compelling character in Tail of the Dragon. We’ve talked about motorcycles, but this isn’t a motorcycle chase with the police, it’s a car chase. The car in this novel is unlike anything ever created.

A: That it is. In the story Rick Stevens has been trying to save up the money to fix up an old 1977 Firebird he has from his youth, but he could never come up with the money to restore it, since he was raising a family. So the car was in the garage collecting dust waiting for Rick to come up with the money. He gets it from a political enemy of the Governor of Tennessee who gives him $20 million to fix up his old car and turn it into the supercar that’s in the book.

Q: And it truly is a supercar.

A: Well, it had to be. Again, I think of it as the ultimate pirate ship for the ultimate pirate. Stevens takes the $20 million dollars and converts his old Firebird into an armored tank that can travel at speeds of over 200 MPH, which would be needed if he was going to pick a fight with the state of Tennessee and their highway patrol. He knew that the police would use lethal force to stop him once the chase got started so he put so many gadgets into the car that it would make James Bond jealous.

As a kid I always loved the car in Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang, where the car could do just about anything, including fly, so in that spirit the old Firebird in Tail of the Dragon is a tribute to those great cars designed by Ian Flemming in his literary works that became the early James Bond films and set a level of expectation that hasn’t been matched. So with this story, I wanted to top it. I kept imagining how cool the Hot Wheel car of this Firebird would be in the toy aisle for a 10 year-old-boy, and I designed the car to appeal to all the children under 12 and adults over 30 who have old cars in their garages that they are trying to restore for all the reasons that Rick is, and are finding that money is hard to come by. This is the kind of story that fathers can share with their children in equal joy because both young and old love a cool car that is a strong character of its own.

Q: But what’s most unique about this car is that it’s the first hot rod of its kind that’s “environmentally friendly.” It doesn’t run off fossil fuel, but off of “vegetable oil.” Is that right?

A: Yes, the car has had a Lemans race car engine installed that is based on real technology from Puguet where they have had great success in developing diesel racing engines that can run on biodiesel. They have one engine that they currently use that produces 700 HP, so that gave me the idea to use that technology to solve a unique problem that always comes up in car chase stories—how do the bandits get gas, because in long, involved, and violent car chases, the last option of the police would be to shut down all the fuel stations along the chase route to starve the bandits of gas? So if a bandit/runaway pirate like Rick Stevens wishes to survive a massive car chase, he has to solve the problem of how he can refuel, otherwise he will simply run out of gas and he’d be gunned down with no place to go.

One thing that is very common, especially in the American South are lots of free-standing fast food restaurants that have plenty of waste veggie oil they keep in large containers behind their buildings. Rick hopes that by resurrecting his beloved car to a diesel engine power plant with a vegetable oil conversion kit, which is actually technologically feasible, then he can solve his refueling problems no matter what the police do, because law enforcement won’t be able to deny him of that source of fuel while on the run.

Q: So this is the first car chase in history that is “environmentally friendly.”

A: You could say that. Veggie oil is an alternative fuel that makes no sense to me why we don’t explore it as an alternative to diesel fuel. If I were a truck driver in America, I’d be pretty upset by the cost of diesel fuel, and I’d be looking for alternatives. So I wanted to make that technology known to a wider audience by making it a central story point in this novel, so people could learn that there are options to traditional fossil fuel available right now. Using those alternative fuel sources will help drive costs down by relieving demand and creating a more competitive market in the fuel processing businesses. So it only makes sense as an option that I think people should be utilizing. In Tail of the Dragon Rick Stevens uses veggie fuel to stay one step ahead of the law.

Q: I don’t want to give anything away, but I will have to say that I didn’t know how this story would end. It’s intense right up to the very last paragraph and I couldn’t put it down, especially the last 80 pages. There was just one cliffhanger after another and the story didn’t stop. There were action scenes that were just incredible, that’s the only way I know to describe them.

A: Well, I’m glad to hear it, because that was my intention. When I was a kid I played with a lot of toy cars, and I imagined every imaginable chase sequence possible by the human mind, so when I sat down to write Tail of the Dragon, I was able to go back and relive those childhood moments with the wisdom and reality of being an adult that has spent over 20 years traveling at a high rate of speed. So the car chase in this novel is a culmination of 44 years of playing on my behalf with the idea of the car chases that are in it. I wrote the scenes the way I’ve always wanted to see them, but so far every other story ever made has fallen short in some way.

I’ve read a lot of books, and car chases don’t typically play out well in literature, but as a tribute to my favorite car chases from movies, I wanted to apply one to literature as a mechanism to advance a very intense plot. So I thought of the great car chase stories like Road Warrior, Thunder Road, Vantage Point, Smokey and the Bandit, Hooper and many others and wanted to bring them into the modern world of advanced police tactics and superior technology. I didn’t want the police to be stumbling buffoons like they are typically in the old 70’s car chases, but worthy adversaries, which greatly increased the level of tension and made this story one of a kind. I’m very proud of what ended up on the printed page and the images it congers up in the mind.

Q: And that brings us to the point of the book. Without giving anything away, what is the point, because to me this novel works on many different levels? I mean you can blast through this novel in one sitting, or over a weekend. And you can read it several times and still take away more on the third and fourth reading. There are messages in it that seem to resonate to a much deeper philosophical yearning.

A: For me the point of the book is to get to the final pages, literally the last four pages. All the billions of dollars of destruction, the carnage, the audacious disregard for the law is to take the characters and the readers on a journey to a place beyond the law of mortal human beings to a place I believe all of humanity is clamoring for, but they just don’t know how to get there. We have a culture that is addicted to safety, to laws; too many chains we willingly place upon ourselves in a grand scheme to have an advanced and fair society. But that’s not what we’re getting; we’re finding our freedoms being eroded away slowly and beyond our control, and the common cause is in our tendency to be driven by our fears by politicians and social do-gooders.

So the characters in Tail of the Dragon decide that life is moving by too quickly and they have a shot to pull those chains off for the first time in their lives, and they make the leap for freedom even if it means their death. This is why the planned provocation of the highway patrol takes place on the Fourth of July because the characters are declaring their freedom, even though they are fully aware they probably won’t live to see a sun set. The yearning for freedom is that important to them.

As a literary device I used many mythological symbols to take the characters to the edge of social acceptance to arrive at a life beyond the laws of mankind to learn the meaning of their existence, to touch the face of what they were meant to be. To step beyond the limits that all the social devices of our age place upon us as shackles, the characters had to break all the rules and reach for their human potential beyond the reach of the law to truly understand. The point of the chase is actually a metaphor for how society as a whole seeks to hold individuals to the limits of the law. And to the point of Tail of the Dragon, the law is made up primarily of social reformers who have control and manipulation in mind, and not the needs of the people in general. So the conflict works at many levels, and the characters are both running to it and from it so they can smash through some invisible social barrier they have no way to understand, until it’s too late.

Of course if everyone in society acted on these impulses, there would be chaos. But in the name of art, we can explore these emotions through these characters so that the reader can break free like Rick Stevens into the world beyond politicians, legal manipulation, and guilt ridden morality to a place where the human being can be everything that it was meant to be. And in Tail of the Dragon, even though the results are tragic, the hero quest is in the pursuit of this freedom that is uniquely American, a freedom I touched on so often during my motorcycle trips, that exists just out of our reach.

Q: So when does it come out and what’s in the future for Tail of the Dragon? What about a sequel, or a series? This has to become a movie.

A: Well, again, not to give anything away, I don’t think there could be a sequel. That’s all I can say about that. But the book should be out within months. The publisher has not given me a firm release date yet, which was pushed out in the last-minute because of a change by me to the manuscript during my final reading approval. But it will be very soon. As to a movie, I think that may be a possibility. But for now, I mean for it to be a literary experience that is very personal to the reader. This is a journey that is intended in a language only a book can provide. I envision that there will be many readers clamoring for a taste of freedom on long motorcycle trips like the ones my wife and I enjoy going on that will pack this book in their side bags and pull off at that McDonalds between Key West and Key Largo and just rest for a while and cool off while reading Tail of the Dragon over a Big Mac like I’ve enjoyed doing over the years on many occasions. I have no doubt that the visitors to the mountain cabins around the actual Dragon will buy the book and enjoy reading it in the early morning mist that hovers around the mountains and contemplate the grand adventure of Rick Stevens and his epic car chase. A book is a personal journey that is deeply intimate for the reader, and as a lover of books, I put everything the written word can articulate into Tail of the Dragon to provide for readers an adventure they will never forget and yearn for again and again.

Stay tuned!!!! –And pass this on to a friend!

For more information and video about the actual Tail of the Dragon from The Discovery Channel and Good Morning America, CLICK HERE.

This is what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

“Just finished the book and am sweating profusely. Wow, what a ride !!!  Fasten your seat belts for one of the most thrilling rides ever in print.“

Check out more by CLICKING HERE!

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

The Magic 100: The controversial Scott Sloan interview with Rich Hoffman

I was so angry with so many people over the attempt to eliminate me from the political scene by the progressive education funding apologists that I had made a decision to turn up the heat even more and get personal in the levy fights at Lakota–so I called my political enemies “latte sipping prostitutes” and described how and why which became all the rage in Cincinnati.  (CLICK HERE TO REVIEW). I had made a decision to break away from the orthodox approach and get even nastier since it became evident that the Lakota school system did not respect the wishes of the voting public and were positioning themselves for a fourth levy attempt, so I didn’t even listen to the interview I did for Scott Sloan’s show on 700 WLW during his morning program, which was very controversial, and difficult for me personally. It was strange to be referred  to as a sexist, a woman-hater, and an activist on the same rhetorical level as a “Wall Street Occupier” making the interview shown below one of the most difficult I’ve ever given. In the interview at one point Scott stated that I had weakened my argument by yelling louder than the pro levy factions. But I didn’t agree. I yelled louder than my political enemies for the same reason a parent yells over screaming, disrespectful children—to get their attention and let them know that their behavior is intolerable. The pro levy people attempted to take my very targeted comments and apply them to all women of the world—especially Lakota, because it diffuses the attention away from the groups I had in mind. It’s an old strategy that has worked to advance many radical agendas over the years, and it was surreal to find myself involved in the middle one. But deep inside I knew I was saying what everyone was already thinking—but dared not speak for fear of ridicule—such as what I experienced during this very difficult interview. Click the video to listen.

I knew as I hung up the phone that most people understood what was happening by the way the Enquirer article was quoted, the way that it aligned itself as a paper with the public relations intentions of the Lakota school system.  I knew my supporters would see this event as the political assassination attempt that it was. I knew such an attempt had been in the works for quite a long time, and that it was initiated by a sitting school board member to eliminate me from the political scene. I knew that other school board members were attempting to break bread with my friends at No Lakota Levy to soften our resolve against their reckless financial proposals. And I also knew that financially strong community advocates were putting serious pressure on several business owners through the Lakota school district to weaken their stance supporting No Lakota Levy. That pressure gave rise to the scholarship foundation mentioned in the interview which was not expected by the pro levy groups at Lakota and set off a violent reaction which prompted this character assassination attempt against me. The hard-core levy supporters who were the targets of my comments knew that if I were involved in taking away their extortion measures with a positive community campaign that they would lose their stranglehold on the district so they came after me with all guns blazing.

But you never quite know who is on your side until you face a crisis, and as Scott and I parted ways after that interview I had a sense of where the weak links were on my side quickly, and I had to decide to completely rebuild my efforts alone. Given the way the Cincinnati media quickly piled up against me biting down on the hook cast into the water by the pro levy, pro union, progressive feminists, it appeared that I would be fighting in the future differently—which I was prepared to do. So I didn’t listen to the interview, or read the paper, and haven’t now for over a month.

But something unexpected happened almost immediately following my interview with Scott Sloan. People were pulling me aside, men and women, and were—thanking me. At first it was just a couple of bold personalities who I thought were just trying to encourage me not to give up the fight, which was never in danger anyway. But from their perspective, they were concerned. In the days after, leading all the way up to yesterday—at gas pumps, restaurants, meetings, community events—there have been many people who have personally came up to me and thanked me for speaking on their behalf against “the mob” as they termed it. So many people approached me in the weeks that followed with such statements that I decided if 100 people came to me and thanked me for my very aggressive comments lambasting the pro levy government education supporters then I’d go back and listen to the Scott Sloan broadcast and post it here on Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom.

Yesterday I heard from my 100th person, a man who told me that it was about time that someone stand up to those cackling hens who think they can cheerlead all of society right down the crapper. I will admit that these comments were relieving, because you just never know. I knew my comments would get attention, which is why I made them, but I wasn’t sure they would be successful solidifying how many people really feel about being openly scammed by progressive social engineers attempting to do to our communities what they do on the national stage.

In fact it was a woman who told me just a few hours after my interview with Scott Sloan that I said 90% of what everyone already thought and that she knew I didn’t mean all women when I made my statements. She recognized that the targets of my comments had no other defense but to attempt to pull all women into their quicksand just as they’ve done over the entire feminist movement. The man yesterday told me that the “bitches had it coming” and he hoped that I would continue to call those progressive terrorists out by name as I did in the interview above.

What these pro levy people, and progressive activists don’t know is something that I only suspected at the beginning of that Scott Sloan interview—was that millions upon millions of people are frustrated and tired of the crying diatribes that many progressive activists use to advance their cause. In the case at Lakota it’s the radical mothers who are in the minority but seem unable to isolate their protective instincts from the logic of reason regarding funding decisions that affect the entire community—young and old alike. The radicals of my community are not unlike the racial radicals in Florida who want Zimmerman crucified to solve some social ill they are trying to advance in yet another progressive platform using the unfortunate death of a black child as their launch pad. Nobody in the media calls them progressives parasites for using a grieving family as a key to manipulating an entire society, but most reasonable Americans can see the sham for what it is—but they are taught by society to keep their comments to themselves otherwise they will be attacked—like I was.

I have spoken to many more hundreds, if not thousands of anti-levy supporters who are truly scared to speak out in public because they do not want the wrath of the activists to publicly humiliate them or their children. In the last campaign there were a lot of emails and personal correspondence where people showed their support of No Lakota Levy but did not want a sign in their yard because they were afraid they’d become targets by the radicals in our community who will stop at nothing to extort more money from the public to satisfy their unrelenting appetites for safety, security, and as much money as possible to throw at their children hoping it will overcompensate for their parental inadequacies. And a selfish labor force of union employees is all too willing to exploit this naive group of activists to loot more money for themselves. The rest of the community is far more experienced in business and in raising families and we can only shake our heads at the sheer stupidity of the whole scam. So when a person like me says what everyone is already thinking, it’s a feeling of relief, not shame that is the dominate emotion.

I had been keeping a count since March 15th of these people who thanked me, and the best one was last week, number 94. I was getting gas and a car pulled up across the pump from me. It was a Lexus and a businessman got out, someone who looked to me like he had children in the district and was a pro levy type of supporter. I noticed he kept looking at me as he pumped his gas–as if he were working up the courage to speak to me. As I finished up and was getting back on my bike, he stopped pumping and approached me. “Excuse me, but are you Rich Hoffman?”

“Yes I am,” I replied.

He smiled as though relieved. “I have wanted to contact you for a while now—I just want to say—thank you.”

I smiled as he shook my hand. “For what?”

“For putting those God damn, bitches in their place. For striking back at those Lakota Fu**kers and standing up for the rest of us the way you do. What you said took serious balls.”

I was shocked to hear him talk this way at a gas pump in the early morning before most people even had a cup of coffee. And he didn’t look like the type of person who would use such language. He was very animated. “Thanks,” was the only thing I could think to say. I looked at his hand and saw he wore a wedding band. “Does your wife share your beliefs?”

“She was the one who told me about you. She reads your blog every single night before she comes to bed. She’s very much a fan.”

“Well, that’s good to hear. You have no idea,” I replied.

Our conversation evolved into many other topics centering on his family and Lakota. He railed on about how high the taxes were and how dangerous it was for a small group of levy supporters to have so much manipulative power over a community of over 100,000 residents. We both agreed that it is done through extortion and force.

He left in his Lexus as I put my weather gear back on for my motorcycle ride feeling good inside. It is always good to hear when people see through the games being played to the essence of a situation. In this case, I had thought the man would be a levy supporter, not a guy on my side of politics. So he surprised me. In the wake of the March 15th broadcast on 700 WLW I learned that my frustration spoke on behalf of many thousands if the sample of 100 could be such an indicator. If 100 people went out of their way to tell me how they felt, there are no doubt 10 for every one of them who thought about approaching me, but didn’t. I like that math, and more than that, it is nice to see people finding their courage and beginning to call these progressive terrorists what they really are.

For too long we’ve all been too polite, too sensitive, too lack-luster. We admire characters in movies and TV shows that act boldly in their lives, but we find often we chastise the behavior in real life. And the enemies of America know we have this tendency, so they openly exploit our weakness with social terrorism. The way to counter that terrorism is with doses of it back in their direction. If the weapons they use are peer pressure manipulation through name calling and attacks on social and economic status in an effort to control political behavior, then it can work against them also. After trying everything else but that strategy I decided to turn up the heat and throw back at the social terrorists of my community the type of rhetoric they had been dishing out using my own special flare. I told those levy supporters what I thought about them. I was honest. And honesty is not something that we should ever apologize for. Sometimes it might hurt what we say and think, sometimes we might feel the situation wrongly, but the exchange of dialogue is necessary and when reason is not the governing factor, then fire must be fought with fire. In a raging inferno, water just evaporates to mist. That is what happens to the facts we present in the school levy fights. They come out of the hose cool, but the raging tempers of the estrogen driven radicals confusing biological protection for their young with endless financial justification for ever higher taxes becomes nullified at the point of attack—so a new strategy must be utilized.

For those 100 supporters over the last month who have given me that much-needed support, I thank you. It is hard to do anything that goes against the norm, especially when the strategy of your political enemies is to handcuff criticism of their actions with political correctness. This has taken away the ability of people to call things what they actually are. So when I decided to call the situation as I saw it, there was a risk that I might do what Scott Sloan suggested and that is lose supporters and validity in my arguments. And on that day as I hung up the phone I wondered if I had crossed the line. But over the last month, I realized that I hadn’t—that my descriptive terms were deserved, and appreciated by many people who feel run over by a process that can only be described as tyrannical. Fights like this one are not won by playing nicely while the other party kicks at your knees or groin. To win these fights you have to be willing to play every bit as dirty as they are—even harder. Because they have shown that they will not listen to reason, that they do not respect the opinions of the community majority, and will stop at nothing to satisfy their internal neurosis. So to the magic 100, thank you for letting me know you thought I did the right thing. It means a lot.

This is what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

“Just finished the book and am sweating profusely. Wow, what a ride !!!  Fasten your seat belts for one of the most thrilling rides ever in print.“

Check out more by CLICKING HERE!

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

The Rest of the Story: Who thought I was going away?

As progressive minded collectivists and pro tax advocates celebrated what they thought was my fiery end in the school levy fights around town on that carefully planned March 15th assault, there are aspects to that story that I have not revealed–until now. While the strategy I discussed in calling the levy supporters of Lakota “latté sipping prostitutes” is true, and the results were predictable, but at the same time terribly disappointing, there is as the late, great Paul Harvey used to say—the rest of the story.

In September of 2011 at a No Lakota Levy group meeting I told our members that after this next campaign they should search among themselves for another spokesman who could change up the message if Lakota decided to go for fourth levy attempt in 2012. I suggested this for two reasons—first Doc Thompson and I had covered about every aspect of public school funding issues on 700 WLW, and had gathered nearly 20 hours of audio recordings featured here at my Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom site and the message was feeling tired. My hope was that a new face might be able to recharge the campaign efforts to match the musical chairs the Lakota school system utilizes in their campaign efforts. It makes me very proud to see that over the fall of 2011 into the winter of 2012 that No Lakota Levy has three such fresh minded spokesman to pick from on the next campaign. Second—I told our group at No Lakota Levy that I had a new book coming out in the summer of 2012, and that it would require most of my attention. While I would be doing national media events and press obligations, I did not want to be distracted with local political issues, and that I needed a break. Like I told them, writing is how I make a living, and my last book was in 2004, so it was time for me to pay some more bills with my next book that had been three years in the making, which of course they all understood.

A few weeks later I was speaking at a Lakota event with school board members Linda O’Conner and Ray Murray and I told them about my plans in 2012 involving my book. I told them that if this fall levy goes down that they better not think of putting on another one because I would be busy in 2012. When indications from Lakota were the same old games leaning toward a new school levy attempt, I decided to end my spokesman position with No Lakota Levy with a bang, instead of a whimper, because a whimper might send the wrong message to the community if I just backed out and let someone else from No Lakota Levy take over while I went to work promoting my new book. So having a much more colorful ending as spokesman fulfilled many of the strategy needs I had and more importantly allowed me to put my energy into the release of my new novel, Tail of the Dragon. (CLICK HERE)

My political enemies assumed that No Lakota Levy was paying me to be some sort of lobbyist and that if we were separated, then my work at this site would go away, and I would be removed from the political scene. However, what my political enemies didn’t know was that I always operated Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom as a news feed for not just No Lakota Levy, but levy fighting groups all over America. In fact I have daily readers in Europe and Australia, so my levy work has always been separate from my spokesman role for No Lakota Levy. Also, once 700 WLW decided to take more of a middle of the road approach to their broadcasts, there wasn’t as much need for my work in that fashion. And like Doc Thompson and I joked about just the other day—how much more could we say? People by now realize that the public school funding situation is a complete joke that is dominated by labor unions who are clearly not out for the “children.” So it was time to change things around a bit, and it was my chance to make some fireworks.

But that does not mean that I won’t fight the next levy attempts. I will still do as I have below, write and contribute articles exposing what is wrong with the situations surrounding public education, and I’ll do it in the same fashion as I have before. What I needed freedom from regarding No Lakota Levy was the straight jacket of being spokesman for a larger group. I found I could not maintain that confining position while at the same time putting on my sales hat to promote my novel. The two roles are just too opposed to one another that I didn’t feel I could commit myself in the same fashion as I had on the previous three levy attempts.

But rest assured, there will still be daily articles here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom, and I will give media interviews when needed. No Lakota Levy should be able to perform those tasks without me, but if I need to I will happily contribute to the next public debate over school levies as I have in the past. In fact the letter below is just an example of such contributions that appeared in the April 19th Pulse Journal. So levy fighters don’t worry, there is more resistance now than there was before and I will not stop doing what I’ve done all along. But while I am working on a national campaign for my new novel, it is disingenuous and overly confining to represent a group of people who simply want to keep themselves from being raked over the coals with tax increases. And also, I need the ability to call my political enemies latté sipping prostitutes. That’s important to me………………..I get tired of all that touchy, feely hand-shaking crap.

Now, enjoy my latest Letter to the Editor as it appeared in the Pulse Journal.

Another graduating class at Lakota will be leaving as the school year comes to a close. Doing a bit of math, it appears that Lakota will have nearly 1000 students leaving our facilities this year and in the years to come. That means Lakota will have declining enrollment for possibly the next two decades since the real estate growth has peaked in our community. That should take the pressure off the budget deficit considerably. That is good news.

But there are still calls by some to push another school levy even with this knowledge of declining enrollment. And to pave the way for a new levy there have been calls for me to apologize to the various PTA groups over things I said about them as evidence of this new levy push emerged. But what hasn’t been discussed was the reason for the anger.

If Lakota had proposed a tax and respected the votes of the people the first couple of attempts, the tension now wouldn’t be so high. But when there are members of the PTA groups and other pro levy factions who actively sought to boycott businesses and bring coercion to individuals they know voted against the school levies to “persuade” them to vote differently on the next attempt, then we’re not talking about simple politics anymore, we’re talking about something much more serious. If an election can’t be won without vandalism, coercion and media domination, then someone should probably check to see if they’re on the right side of things. Yet the only avenue explored besides drastic, punishing cuts, has been tax increases disrespecting the will of the voters over three elections so far.

Lakota should be able to balance its budget with fewer enrollments unless they do something reckless like give all their employees raises just for breathing air, which they might actually try, but not until 2014. If they do attempt another levy, I can promise a much more “colorful” campaign against them than they’ve seen up to this point, because this is getting ridiculous. The path of Little Miami is not the correct one.

This is what people are saying about my new book–Tail of the Dragon

“Just finished the book and am sweating profusely. Wow, what a ride !!!  Fasten your seat belts for one of the most thrilling rides ever in print.”

Check out more by CLICKING HERE!

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

Julie Shaffer’s Facebook: My response to the salacious Enquirer article

It’s true; when I was with No Lakota Levy we did approach Patti Alderson at the Community Foundation to partnership with them to attempt to heal the community. We had a plan to give substantial amounts of money to help kids and the community as a whole, but within a week of making the announcement public, Patti decided that it wouldn’t be a good idea and pulled away from the community unifying idea. Disappointed our guys went to work to begin our own foundation to be able to help the community in some way.

(To review this story as it personaly affected me CLICK HERE.)

The maneuver to me appeared to be completely motivated by community politics. Word from within the Lakota front who inform me of many things, let me know that a group that fights tax levies cannot be seen helping children, because to their minds the only thing that can help children was passing tax increases. Now, my opinion of Patti is that she does a lot of good in the community for what I see, but she stuck her name on my personal situation, and since her name appeared in probably the most salacious article the Cincinnati Enquirer has ever produced, I have to address her involvement and what led up to the demise of something that was intended to be very good.  (You can review that article here)

Shortly after this collapse of the No Lakota Levy reaching out to help heal the community while the levy fights continue I attended one of the large school board meetings at Lakota East and was shocked at the amount of parents who urged the board to attempt to pass yet another levy for the fourth time, instead of asking the union to take a 5% wage cut to balance the budget. I reported my findings at this article, CLICK HERE.

The more I thought about the situation, the refusal of the pro levy people to work with the anti levy people for the good of the community, and the push by a handful of parents to advance another tax increase on a community that already has high taxes, the short sightedness of it all stirred me into a rage. While all this was going on I was getting comments and messages along with information from my “feelers” within the school that I was anti child, anti education, and bad for the community in an effort to paint me negatively in front of their next campaign. Yet it was the group I was associated with that was reaching across the aisle to bring peace. And that peace was refused because the pro levy factions needed to maintain the public image that No Lakota Levy was a group bad for the community.  Because their message was that if you want to do “good” for the community then a new levy needed to be passed.

This blog site of Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom has become over time to be something like a newspaper that many people come to for information. Its numbers compete with small press newspapers daily, so I decided to take advantage of my site to stir the pot a bit and paint the picture of the situation as I saw it using a graphic metaphor. I didn’t hold back, for one, a blog site has an expectation to be a different news source than a traditional newspaper. So my readers like to see passion when I exhibit it, which was genuine. But I also wanted to see if I could smoke out some of these pro levy people who worked behind the scenes to make it so good things couldn’t happen, so the illusion that it was Lakota Schools who held all the cards in doing good things for the community could be exposed.

When I put up the controversial articles, I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get much reaction from the pro levy people. I shrugged it off and moved on. Approximately two weeks later the No Lakota Levy group had our press conference announcing the new foundation to help kids and it felt good to do something positive. The press enjoyed it. But ironically, the pro levy people seemed to become infuriated in a way that I wouldn’t have guessed. You can see some of their comments about me personally here upon this announcement.  (CLICK HERE)  And as you can see when reading those things, people used far worse language than I did in the bit I wrote and it was personalized where my wasn’t.

Within three days of our big press conference, Julie Shaffer went to my articles and took out sections of them and put them on her Facebook as seen below. Keep in mind that Julie has worked on previous levy attempts and she is now a school board member. Her intention here is to fan the flames of her supporters obviously against me. I wanted to see her do this, but what is most telling is that she waited until I was involved in something very good to take the shot.

I didn’t get all the screen shots from the posting, but down the page a bit was Pam Parino urging Julie to send this information to her “friends” at WLW, which she apparently did. Pam is a long time levy activist; you can see how she attempted to extort WLW a few years ago at this link. Now I still get along with people at WLW, but I was surprised at how they turned on me during the broadcasts of March 15th 2012, especially considering how they chose to broadcast. But I was told by Scott Sloan that I am a public figure and that I couldn’t say these kinds of things even if similar statements were made on their very shows. I disagree. I may be a public figure, but I am not a public servant. I can say whatever I want and it’s up to me to decide if voters will reject or embrace it. Not any social standard. It’s my risk to take.

My feelers at Lakota told me that the superintendent was personally sending out links to Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom to “community leaders.” My initial response was, “good, maybe they’ll learn something.” Then some of my friends asked me to take out some of the things I said which might affect the good work they were trying to do, which was fair enough, so I put the articles that might cause such trouble on password protect not to protect me, but to protect them. The entire time I saw no reason to not stand by my statements.

Within days the anger mounted and I was getting very heated messages like, “Rich Hoffman, you’re going down!” I knew the pro levy people were mounting an offensive, which I anticipated two weeks prior, so I wasn’t surprised. But once the Enquirer article came out, I was a bit surprised. It was way over the top and made me realize I should have just kept the article up so people could have seen the context of the metaphors I was using to describe the situation. Because the way that Mike Clark assembled his article painted me in such a bad way that there was no way to explain it without a tremendous back-story, which there wasn’t time for. I agreed to do the Scott Sloan show and I didn’t have a problem with the hard nature of that interview, but I was surprised at how he inflamed the situation after our interview, which again was fair play. Their ratings at my expense. When WLW called me later in the day to see if I would do a spot on Eddie and Tracy’s show I said no, because they had put me in a really bad position. Eddie and Tracy tried to call me out on the air knowing I almost said yes to the interview, so they attempted to push me over the edge to get me to come on. But they only had a piece of the story, and openly calling me a sexist all day long broke friendships that I felt for some of those guys, who have used worse language than I did on many occasions. So I elected not to blow my top on the air for 200,000 people to hear, and to calm down. Yet the blood was in the water, and I put it there to learn the lay of the battlefield. When I wrote that quote I wanted to see if Julie would take the bait, I wanted to see how Mantia would react, and who was in the pro levy network so I could figure out how to fight them. Because taking a passive approach wasn’t working. After three levy failures, it was still the minority who sought to impose on the majority their intentions for a levy increase and they had a network that was vast enough to prevent our work with an independent foundation headed by a powerful local personality in Patti Alderson. So I needed to see how these people were connected. When they thought they had me on the fence they emerged with bold words. Patty felt strongly enough about me to speak before the Lakota school board. She wanted to clarify that her group, which also raises money for needy Lakota students, has no affiliation with Yes to Lakota Kids. Alderson told the board audience of more than 200 people, that No Lakota officials had approached the foundation last month but that “we refused to accept their funds.” She said that with a pride that I found fascinating. She also said, “We refuse to accept funds where political statements are attached.” What she should have said is that she refuses to accept funds that had political statements that she didn’t agree with, because by endorsing the pro levy faction she is supporting the political position of the school, and not the entire community.

Out of all the terrible news that came from the Enquirer article the parts that actually made me laugh that day were from West Chester Township Trustee Catherine Stoker who said “the language used by Mr. Hoffman is not only egregiously offensive, but reflects badly on the No Lakota group that Mr. Hoffman supports.” So does that mean the No Lakota group had a good name before all this? If so, then why was our help turned down? And who in the world is Catherine Stoker? She’s a public servant. She should have shut her mouth and done some work instead of trying to grandstand on my head, which is what she was doing as a favor to Superintendent Mantia and the pro levy people. And who decides what’s egregiously offensive? Her? The pro levy people? Or these next two pretentious specimens.

Lakota school mother Kim Hesselgesser said “I was very disgusted by the blog Rich Hoffman posted.” I was also very saddened for this extremely disturbed man. To me it is evident that he has some agenda that goes far beyond increased school taxes. Although I hate the fact that he is getting exactly what he wants – a lot of media attention. I feel it is worthwhile to make the public aware of who they are truly supporting when placing No Lakota signs in their yards. Pro levy or no levy…is that the type of person you want leading a group in our community?” Well, Kim, if you don’t like my blog postings—don’t read them. You refuse to see what’s right in front of your face. You have no right to say that I’m an extremely disturbed man. You have no authority to speak from. You read one thing I said because Julie Shaffer put it in front of your face and you cast a judgment without any thought, just like you do when you support a school levy. If someone like Julie, or Catherine tells you to pass a levy because it’s for the kids, then you do what they tell you without further consideration. And that’s the problem. We will still be paying off the debts your type of people bring to our community decades in the future because you can’t get your mind around the truth. You just listen to what people tell you to do, and you make statements about which you know nothing. I’d respect your opinion if it was yours, but it’s not. You have no right to tell all of Cincinnati that I’m an extremely disturbed man. Based on what? Because I don’t agree with you? You made that comment as a fact, not an opinion, and I’m considering in the back of my mind of what to about it next. I’m waiting to calm down before acting. I can see such things being said in online forums, blogs, blog comments, but it surprised me that The Enquirer printed that quote. That’s very dangerous stuff and yes, I am deeply pissed off about it. If that’s what you wanted, then you succeeded.

And Laura Sanders who has personally emailed me with what I consider to be messages way outside her level of expertise and who I personally addressed at this link (CLICK HERE) said “Mr. Hoffman uses misogynistic and vile language when addressing women and mothers because most teachers are in fact, women and mothers. He wants the public to think that he is merely attempting to rein in public school spending, but his underlying mission is really one of hatred and fear of women earning decent salaries. He alone is the destructive force behind the last three levy failures, and I hope this … convinces the women in our community that he is not a rational or credible source for the counterpoint argument.” Laura—you are out of your mind to paint me in such a fashion. While I am certainly not one who supports feminism, mainly because I think it has destroyed the modern family, it does not give you the right to paint me with the broad brush of stating what I think and making the high salary issue all about hating women. That is a pathetic argument and I can’t believe you said it. Just like Kim you used generalities to explain aspects of me that you know nothing about. If you did just a little research you would know what my number 1 Rule is on my Ten Rules to Live By. You can see those rules for yourself at the bottom of every signature at the end of every post I make. The number one rule is to honor women, because they are the pillars of our society. I believe in it so much that I wrote a book about it, and I made boys who dated my daughters read that book so they’d know my position. Those Ten Rules to Live By are in the back of that book published in 2004! Everyone and I mean EVERYONE who knows me, particularly women, knows how much I love them. I have daughters, I have been married for over24 years to the same person, and I have a lot of women friends. I help women carry heavy objects—always! I hold the door for them when they come in behind me—always! In fact I do a lot every day that doesn’t even begin to articulate the kind of person you and your pro levy friends have attempted to paint me as. And for what, so you could try to destroy me, and get me out-of-the-way so you could have your money!!!!!!! IS THAT WHAT YOU THOUGHT GAVE YOU THE RIGHT TO MAKE STUFF UP AND PUT IT IN THE PAPER ABOUT ME WHEN I’VE WENT TO GREAT TROUBLE TO BE OPEN HERE AND SHOW EXACTLY WHAT I AM! That’s what you have told the world through your actions!!!!!! You spoke about nothing of which you had an understanding. You smelled my blood in the water and you crossed the line with made up assumptions!

I had a conversation about you with a man the other day who attends your church. He told me you are just the sweetest girl there is and he tried to calm me down after that email that you sent me which I was still mad over a week after you sent it. I listened to him and took your actions as just political rhetoric and blew it off. But what you said in the paper was not just inflammatory, it was personal, and your type of people believe you have a right to step all over me to get what you want. My comments might have been audacious, but they were left obscure on purpose. I wanted badly to reveal the names I was thinking of when I wrote the salacious blog posting, but I didn’t because that would make it personal, and even if I want to bring my enemies down, that is not the way to do it. There is a difference between political rhetoric and personal attacks and what you, and your pro levy friends did to me on Thursday was a personal attack designed to hurt me in every single way possible, and I had planned for you to do it. But I was disappointed to be right once again. I will tell all of you something. There will be payment given to me in one fashion or another for what happened on Thursday. You can decide for yourselves what that is and I expect at a bare minimum a public apology. Failure to act will dictate action on my part.

This isn’t just about name calling anymore. I am happy to argue back and forth, and even debate on the radio as we have in the past in friendly competition. And when you make yourself a public official you make yourself prone to attacks. And when you work in a government job, you are prone to tax payer scrutiny. But I have made a choice to never be involved in an elected position because I want the freedom to be able to speak my thoughts, even when they are outlandish to get my point across, because sometimes that’s what it takes. But what the people mentioned in this article attempted to do was destroy me for standing in their way, and that WILL not be tolerated or left unresolved!

I stand by my comments that I posted. I wrote it as a metaphor to the type of woman who just don’t grasp fiscal concepts, and their opinions should therefore be discarded in political theater. I spoke in generalities to protect the real people I was thinking of even though I was very angry with them for desiring to drag our community through a fourth levy attempt. But what the women above did was turn me personally into the poster child for progressive politics to attempt to remove me the way they have for many years any barrier that stood in their path. If I had to guess, 80% of all legislation that gets discussed daily in any governmental body has it’s start with these same radical types who came after me so aggressively, so the same blind pro levy supporters who refuse to look at any facts and vote purely on emotion are the same who lobby members of the house and senate to pass all types of ungodly legislation, and pass more rules of every kind in every neighborhood across America. It’s these pro levy types who have made it so a kid can’t just go out and ride a bicycle anymore, but have to arm themselves from head to toe with padding and helmets. I see these radical progressive agenda driven pro levy supporters as being a huge problem on not just our communities but our human race, and I said what I said to call them out on it, to let them know that they aren’t fooling anyone—maybe themselves. I used a metaphor that was taken literally to use against me as a political maneuver which was fine, but everyone mentioned here took it several steps further and for all different reasons. Some of those reasons were strictly economic. Some were political. But mostly it was pure hatred for anyone who thinks different from the pretentious pro levy supporters. And these people felt they had a right to “destroy” me and everything I have ever been, or will be.

And it all started on Julie Shaffer’s Facebook. See what happens when you elect a levy activist onto your school board. And do you see now what kind of school board we have? She’s the Vice-President. What does that say about how wrong the entire situation is and what we have been fighting against? And since they can’t win the arguments against me with facts, they sought with every gun available to them to destroy the mouth piece.

It’s not Lakota as a school that I am fighting. The school will still be there if every employee were removed, and the kids would still be successful because the parents in general of Lakota, as I’ve said many times, will make sure it stays good. I’m fighting the radicalism that has embedded itself into our tax dollars. And to continue that fight, I have to do it my way using my network of Overmanwarrior’s to help get under the covers. This group has always been the force that supplied No Lakota Levy with information, so the attempt to separate me from No Lakota Levy was a lot of energy spent on nothing. I know there is a lot of disappointment because the assumption was that the members of No Lakota Levy were funding me, and if I were cut off from them, I’d be rudderless. But my funding comes from my professional writing endeavors and exemplified by my The Symposium of Justice where my Ten Rules are published.  I wouldn’t bring it up if my integrity had not come into question. It’s my personal projects that allow me to fight like this. That’s also why at the bottom of the book on the front cover it says, “Tyranny has a new enemy.” Did you just think it was silly words on the cover? I meant it literally! So nothing that happened Thursday was unforeseen. I knew what to expect. But my disappointment is in being right and to witness firsthand the destructive nature of my neighbors and the manipulation that can be employed to advance an agenda even if it costs lives.

And if you want to know who I am and what I believe, look at my Ten Rules to Live By. I don’t talk about my books during levy discussions because I don’t want to confuse any messages with the selling of books. So I just put the link out for those interested, and never mention it otherwise. But those are my beliefs and I live by those every single day. I should know them, because in this case—I wrote the book on the subject—so I know the material well. The person that I am and what these reckless characters described in this article tried to paint me as are not even close to the same thing.  The words used to describe me by these people mentioned here are as far from the truth as one could get.  They took small little bits of information because they didn’t want to work for the truth even though I placed it here for all to see.  They did with me what they do with the funding problems at Lakota, saw what they wanted to see and assassinated the characters of anyone who stood in the way of what they wanted. 

 Here are the rules I live by:

1. To honor women, they are the pillars of society.
2. Stand as an example of the highest moral order.
3. Avoid mental depletion such as intoxication, and ignorance.
4. Pursue learning like a person on fire pursues water.
5. Live with integrity, where values are in line with behavior.
6. Live the given life, not the dreams of others.
7. In a crisis handle everything calmly and without confusion.
8. Be capable of firmness in the heart.
9. Sorrow is everywhere, accept it with a smile.
10. Resist hiding in numbers, stand as an individual contributor.

And to add a bit to that, I consider telling the truth even if the names are ugly to be of the highest moral order. That’s why I stand behind my comments.  The truth does not live behind political correctness.  It lives in the facts.

 

To understand the truth it helps to view the world through Hoffman Lenses.  To understand what those are CLICK THE LINK.  If you can’t handle the truth, then don’t read here.

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/socialists-live-hoffman-lenses-on-urban-meyer/

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

A Woolly Mammoth in Siberia: Attacks, Mystery and Obama sings

Early in the morning as the Archie Wilson story was breaking my imagination was temporarily sparked by the urgent news that a Woolly mammoth was spotted in Siberia. Being personally interested in cryptozoology such a discovery ignited my imagination in the cold morning hours of February 8, 2012.

However, the source of the news drew my skepticism, it was from The Sun, a tabloid newspaper and as I watched the video featured on the article below, I became more and more disappointed. Have a look for yourself.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4116326/Woolly-mammoth-spotted-in-Siberia.html

The trouble I have with the video, and this comes from a great deal of experience, is that it is too blurry, and the cameraman doesn’t attempt to cut the animal off as it leaves the river. If I had been shooting this video I would have at least moved in for a closer look. There is no way I would have let that animal out of my sight with a short shot of it crossing a waterway.

I believe that such creatures still roam the earth. A Woolly mammoth in the extremely large land mass of Siberia is entirely believable. But footage gathered up from a paranormal investigator should be expected to be heavily scrutinized. So the cameraman owes it to his investigation to get the best shot possible. These days video cameras are more than capable of getting a better, much less fuzzy shot than the one seen in this Woolly mammoth video. So it must be concluded that the poor film quality is on purpose, to mislead the viewer into believing they are seeing something they aren’t.

Visual effects are both fortunately and unfortunately much easier for even low tech equipment to produce these days so a video confirming a Woolly mammoth requires much higher quality video. In fact, I wouldn’t believe it unless I saw the cameraman actually touch the animal. Standing at a safe difference with a fixed location just won’t cut it these days.

This Woolly mammoth video reminds me of another hoax video of a killer whale attacking a kid on a Mexican beach. This video is actually quite good as it replicates accurately how killer whales attack and eat seals. They do slide on shore and grab unsuspecting mammals in this fashion. Have a look for yourself.

Special effects are a part of our lives and we can no longer trust what we see at face value. In this whale video everything about it is accurate as it would happen in nature. The waves actually break against the victim’s feet and the whale’s body as it eats the human with arms flailing about. We are inclined to believe it. Yet we don’t. The problem with the video is that it violates the rules of cognitive recognition.

Cognitive recognition is the ability to learn the meaning of words and develop the ability to combine those words so that images can be formed in the mind as the words are read. In order for this to happen a mind has to accept the meaning of the words. We do this in life also, we accept the meaning of certain events, the way rain falls from the sky, or how the sun feels on a summer day. Our collections of these cognitive recognition patterns help us determine reality. They might tell us that a politician is lying to us even if what they say sounds and looks good to our eyes. Our experience might tell us that something is amiss if the cognitive recognition of a given experience does not add up to our understanding of reality. In the case of the whale video the biggest problem is that the cameraman would have naturally ran to help the victim in some way. The victim waves to the camera then within seconds is eaten. All the while, the camera remains steady. This behavior violates what we know through cognitive recognition to represent reality.

Here’s another video that is even stranger than the Woolly mammoth or the whale, it’s the President of the United States trying to convince the crowd that he is a good, and legitimate president. When watching this video the cognitive recognition patterns bring about pleasant memories of experiences we might have had as the president smiles, and even sings to a crowd. Everything about this video says that this president is a good man—yet there is something wrong.

Vacant from this video are the facts that the behavior avoids. Like the Woolly mammoth that was filmed from a distance and not captured leaving the water, or the whale being betrayed by the calmness of the cameraman, the Obama video says more about what is missing than what it shows. In this case there is no resemblance of the 6 trillion dollars in debt that has been added during his three years as president, or the multiple infractions he has committed against the United States Constitution. These things are known in our cognitive understanding of the world, yet they are noticeably missing in the Obama video leaving us with the feeling that something isn’t quite right when we watch the President sing to a screaming crowd. We enjoy what we see, but understand that something I wrong.

With all three videos we can prove that they are fakes based on our cognitive recognition patterns. Even when our eyes want to believe what we see through special effects, sound, or even camera lightning, blurriness, or distance, the fraud is revealed when the behavior seen betrays our understanding of how things truly behave.

It looks like the search for a Woolly mammoth will continue on. The video from Siberia does not prove that any have survived to our modern age. I will still have fun looking for these creatures from the campsites of remote locations. And when I find one, I will not let the camera betray the reality of the situation. I will film plenty of footage that is perfectly clear. And I will get so close that I could crawl on its back if need be. Because seeing is not always believing when there are tricks available to manipulate our senses into what we are seeing. At times like that, we must rely on our cognitive recognition to help us discover the elusive truths based on our experience and not what we desire. I might want to see a Woolly mammoth, but just having the wish is not enough. Reality must be measured by our cognitive recognition.

Click here to see the TAIL OF THE DRAGON press release for an update on my most recent project:

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

Watch Rich Hoffman’s favorite T.V. show:

http://www.foxnews.com/freedomwatch/

Doc Thompson Still Lives: You can catch him on WXYT Detroit

JOB UPDATE:  Doc is now at WXYT Radio in Detroit, in the #11 radio market in the country.  He has afternoons between Glenn Beck and Laura Ingram which will fit him perfectly.  His job there will begin on Monday, March 12th.   You can listen live at this link.

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/station/talk-radio-1270-am-wxyt/

The rest of this article is as it was during the first announcment that Doc was leaving Clear Channel Radio.

Everyone in Cincinnati knows how much I love Doc Thompson. And without question when the sun rises at WLW on Monday, January 30, 2012 people will wonder what happened to Doc Thompson at 9 A.M.

The answer is, Doc had a wonderful wedding in Richmond, Virginia with his wife last week and like a romance novel things sometimes change under the lights on a dance floor. Richmond is the town of their courtship.

Doc is a straight shooter and sometimes changes are needed for everyone’s benefit. So for those who miss Doc Thompson in Cincinnati, you will be able to hear him at WRVA in Richmond, Virginia. And I will still feature his work on this web site. All that has changed is his studio location and the demographic audience.

http://www.1140wrva.com/pages/docthompson.html

It’s easy to listen, all you have to do is click on the live feed at WRVA, or catch his podcasts. But rest assured, Doc Thompson is alive and well, and is in a better position to pursue his brand of radio in a time slot that is more appropriate for his changing circumstances.

To learn what a Overmanwarrior is CLICK HERE:

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/the-overmanwarriors-eating-fighting-and-philosophizing-the-keys-to-a-good-life/

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

Watch Rich Hoffman’s favorite T.V. show:

http://www.foxnews.com/freedomwatch/