Tag: Butler County

The Good Government of Lakota Schools: Yes, elections do have consequences

Lakota is Off to a Great Start

Sometimes we get to talk about good things, which this article is one of them. The first Lakota school board meeting of 2022 was an excellent example of a good government. Over the years, I’ve watched thousands of hours of school board meetings, not just at Lakota, but from all over the states of Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana, and I will have to say that this particular meeting which is included below, is perhaps the best one that I have seen. It was good, of course, to see that Lynda O’Conner was again President of the Board. But what made the meeting so good, aside from how smoothly Lynda transitioned from topic to topic, was the additions of the newly elected Republican endorsed members, Isaac Adi, who was designated already as the Vice-President, and the freedom representative Darbi Boddy. I was very impressed with those two new additions and the kind of questions. As they learn the job, if they can keep up with that level of engagement, Lakota will be very successful in the years to come. That is precisely how government should work. Not everyone will get along. But I will say that the attention to everyone in the room was outstanding, constructive, and conducive to conversation that leads to problem-solving, and that is fantastic. In all these government schools, chaos has been ruling for a long time, and those elements of chaos are indeed circling the campfire of that Lakota board meeting, waiting for everyone to go to sleep so they can feast. But I have a feeling, especially knowing the personalities of these new school board members, that the chaos will wear out before they do. Good to see!

Of course, most of these meetings are never very sexy. For instance, a school board member like Darbi, that ran on a platform of national concern and parent transparency, will find that she might only get to spend 5% of her time on the topics she cares most about. Most of the meetings will be votes on boring issues, like application fees for substitute teachers or the latest call-offs of the bus drivers. These may seem like small, inconsequential things, but there is good work to be done on all of them, and that is usually where school board candidates get bored and start to tune out. But in watching Darbi and Isaac, it is clear that they are going into the job with the right frame of mind. They are keeping their important campaign promises in focus while they also indulge themselves in the job’s nuances and extract value out of the tiniest little bits. It’s not always the big sexy things that determine the success or failure of a school district; it’s the thousands of little things that lead up to the big things, and if those get dealt with, with the enthusiasm that Isaac and Darbi showed on this first meeting, the 20th meeting will be much, much better and so will Lakota and all the participants in the district. 

For instance, as an example of tiny details that are of paramount importance, Superintendent Matt Miller gave an update to the Covid situation, the bussing call-offs, and the general below-the-line problems of managing hundreds of employees, where generally 5% of any work culture will use any excuse to call off work, excused. Covid has created a situation where those types of people are empowered to call off perpetually, without any recourse. Of course, the teacher’s union loves this problem because it benefits them, and Matt gave his summary in a manner where he felt like a victim of circumstance. The district’s management had been taken out of the Board’s hands and placed at the alter of the  Butler County Department of Health, and the union had a free pass to call off work as much as they could. Obviously, the way to break up this labor impasse would be to have plenty of substitute teachers ready to call at a moment’s notice to keep classes moving. But as we learned, there is a government fee within the county of more than $125 just to apply to be a substitute teacher. This was revealed in the meeting by a bright personality named Alicia Davis, who wants to be part of a solution to the staffing shortages but needs help getting through the bureaucracy of government to get to where the need is. There are likely thousands of young women just like Alicia who are willing and able to cover that 5% call-off ratio. However, obviously, the fee is a problem, a discouraging one. If anybody wanted to solve the problem, it would be wise for Lakota to find a way to cover the fee, get the applicant, and ultimately the resource. That may seem like a little thing, but little things lead to big things. 

For instance, the next time a labor contract comes up for a vote. Teachers want to be collectively paid more money and are threatening to walk; if Lakota has a bunch of sharp-witted volunteers waiting to be called into class to teach to keep the schools open, then that network would already be established. When I talked about chaos ruling these schools, this is one of the ways it happens. A superintendent like Matt is trying to navigate all the rules and regulations and finds himself reacting to everything over time. The Board needs to give him proactive solutions to these problems that also pave the way for possible labor strikes from the teacher’s union at the slightest provocation. If they decide to leave work and management has the task of keeping the school open, what else could be done. The chaos is caused by the high cost and bureaucracy of becoming a substitute teacher; the $125 usually scares off most applicants because they couldn’t afford to pay it for a part-time job they may not get much return on the investment from. So, the vacancies go unfulfilled, and solutions are never presented to the labor problem leaving the school a victim to the labor force that can be very politically active at times.   I would say that Lakota is a great place to live because of people like Alicia, not because of any measure of labor that might be employed at any given time. Good parents make good kids, and good kids make a good school. The purpose of government, in this case, is to remove those barriers, not to throw $125 roadblocks up to feed chaos. But to remove chaos from the management process because in chaos is where many lost dollars disappear.

But there will be time for more of that kind of talk for later. For now, I’m just happy to see an actual, functioning school board that has the look and feel of real management. I’m sure there will be trouble, but the measure of good management is how well that trouble is handled, and by the looks of Lynda, Darbi, and Isaac, everything is off to a great start, and it is very encouraging to start the year off. This school board meeting was the kind of school board I have been hoping for, for over 30 years. And although it’s only one, the obvious signs of future success are there for all to see. There is an excellent reason to be excited, and I am. Perhaps things will get better, and that all starts with elections because they have consequences.   

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

The Show Business of Sheriff Jones: When it comes to H.B. 99, Thomas Hall offers a solution

Allowing Teachers to Carry Guns

At the heart of the problem, Sheriff Jones illustrated on his WLW November 18th diatribe against Representative Thomas Hall’s H.B. 99 was this long-established problem of whether or not more public sector employees are a solution to gun violence in schools or a hindrance. There are a lot of guns in Butler County, Ohio, so school shootings are pretty rare, and there is undoubtedly a direct correlation that liberal politics doesn’t want to admit to. Even Sheriff Jones himself is a supporter generally of concealed carry. He has told me that it’s great to have many first responders in the community to stop criminals at the point of a crime. But, Jones is also the head of a police union and symbolizes strength among all the public sector unions. And it is there that he politically turns left every time. He comes from a generation where they wanted to believe in the system of government that we have seen now has let us down time and time again. Yet, he is still a stubborn defender of labor unions even when they show themselves to be trouble. Saying all that, there haven’t been many school shootings in Butler County. There was one in Madison, Twp., not that long ago, and it was Thomas Hall’s father who was a school resource officer who ran the shooter off the scene only wounding four people, not getting a chance to kill them when the attacker fired into a cafeteria one day seemingly unprovoked. To say that Thomas Hall cares about school safety is an understatement. His bill H.B. 99 was meant to set basic training requirements for school boards to plan to so that they could allow teachers to be armed in the classroom, to be those critical first responders when and if a school shooter presented themselves as a menace to the public. For many mysterious reasons, Sheriff Jones was against the bill and made an absolute embarrassment on WLW attacking Thomas Hall for many reasons that no conservative would understand. But Jones has done that before. 

I was pretty disheartened to learn firsthand that Bill Cunningham was not a real conservative. My history with Cunningham goes back for several years, all the way back to 1996 when I had paid Cunningham to be the spokesman for our “Take An Axe to Our Tax” t-shirts that we were using to promote tax cuts during the Bob Dole campaign that year. I was supposed to come on WLW to talk about the promotion, but my segment got bumped because Willie decided to do a strip show that night, where he brought in live strippers to dance nude during the show. The producer offered me to do my segment during that mess, and I had to decline because it just wasn’t something I could be a part of. Later I learned that Bill Cunningham plays a conservative on his radio show, but he wasn’t very conservative. He was the Stephen Cobert of radio, playing a conservative in media, without really being one. I learned around this time that Sheriff Jones, who was frequently on with Cunningham, was much the same way. He played a conservative in public, but he has many big government ideas in private. He’s great if we are talking about law enforcement. But when it comes to social issues, he shows himself to be very liberal, which is why he and Bill Cunningham have always gotten along so well. I understood the show business aspect of the radio work, but I thought of these people as the real deal until I learned firsthand that they weren’t. 

Sheriff Jones Attacks Thomas Hall For Petty Reasons

In 2013 Sheriff Jones and Cunningham came out in favor of the Lakota Levy, which raised our taxes in monstrous ways. It caused so much trouble in our community that we haven’t had a levy since because we never needed it. We didn’t need it then, but Jones worked with the Democrat Kathy Wyenandt to pass the tax increase. We didn’t speak for about five years when finally we broke a little bread together in the middle of the Trump administration. I thought he had been doing an excellent job for Butler County and representing us to the Trump administration. But I wasn’t too shocked to hear him revert to the kind of liberalism that he uttered again with Bill Cunningham using Lakota as a kind of launching point for his resistance to arming teachers in the classroom and for disparaging the very conservative Thomas Hall personally for his position of empowering teachers to add another layer of protection. For Jones, he wants school resource officers or prohibitive training that would make it so difficult for anybody who wishes to even to carry a gun in a classroom that it might as well not even be a law. But Thomas’ bill empowered school boards to set the maximum limits themselves, depending on their need, and Jones felt he needed to sabotage the bill through the public airwaves and the political career of the young representative himself. 

My argument in favor of a more private-sector solution, as opposed to a unionized employee, is due to people like Jones himself. When it comes to the cosmetic stuff, Jones is a great Republican. But when it comes to legislation, he’s a big government guy that’s always talking about compromise with the other side that wants to bury us all. I think it’s an age thing, he and Cunningham are from the same generation, and they thought the big Democrat politics from the early 60s were going to work, and they never really changed their point of view. We have seen times where school resource officers like Thomas’ dad run off shooters while under fire. But we have also seen some who panic, as the resource officer in Florida did, never engaging the shooter and allowing lots of carnage in the meantime. People panic, and cops, even with their many hours of training, panic too. Sometimes they get so much training that they can’t adapt to a unique situation. Sometimes they lock up. They passed the test on paper but can’t apply it to reality. I like the idea of cops in schools. But I want a teacher armed with a gun to be the first responder. And I like the idea of a teacher being so comfortable with a gun that they accept it as part of their lifestyle, practicing every week for the rest of their lives. Not just some bureaucratic training period that may or may not be enough. 

I always wanted to believe in Bill Cunningham as a conservative, just as I always wanted to believe in Sheriff Jones. But with them, most of their public persona is a show. And that is the same with police in general. Having a cop in the hallways of our schools may look nice. It might scare away some potential shooters. But if a shooting actually happens, I don’t believe any public employees are full proof and will behave appropriately under pressure. I prefer mitigation to their service if they get scared or misstep themselves when danger presents itself. Sheriff Jones, the big government guy from Butler County, believes absolutely in public service. He has been a public servant all his life and always will be. I still think he’s generally good for our community so long as it’s mostly a show we are putting on, and things aren’t getting too real. Yet, after the way he treated Thomas Hall on WLW, where he turned to the show to attempt to destroy a person he endorsed just a year earlier, I would never trust an employee like him in a school without some extra measure of mitigation, a teacher comfortable with a gun, to protect kids when they are under an assault from bad people. That is, If we ever fully get back to school because all these lazy union employees don’t want to go to work using Covid as a cover for staying home.   And what will we do in the future when the school resource officer, unionized and terrified of Covid, calls off work the day there is a school shooting? If we rely too heavily on them, we are bound to get burnt by the general laziness of all government employees. 

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Old Yeller: The fight between Thomas Hall and Sheriff Jones

Why Is Sheriff Jones Going After Thomas Hall

Sheriff Jones decided to go on 700 WLW and speak disparagingly about Thomas Hall, the current House Representative of the 53rd District. I like Sheriff Jones, I hope he runs and wins a few more terms, but nobody in their right mind could support the way he attacked Thomas Hall on those radio waves to hundreds of thousands of people. Long-time readers here know that I used to be a frequent contributor on WLW, like Jones. Over time, many of my people who used to work there moved away, were fired, or otherwise changed their point of view. We separated like some kind of divorce, and I have not had much of an idea of reconciliation. I have more freedom in media with this site, so I have not returned in several years. But Jones does go on WLW quite a lot, so because I don’t pay much attention to what goes on there these days, I did not hear the original airing where Sheriff Jones disparaged Thomas Hall in many negative ways calling him a 12-year old “goof,” not just once, but many times. Still, I have often heard from many Republicans who want to defend Hall but are scared of retaliation from Jones, and I think that’s a shame. Hall certainly isn’t 12-years old. I said in the video that he was in his early thirties, but actually, he’s in his mid-twenties and is the youngest member of the current Ohio House. However, the young man is an overachiever by all measures, and his age certainly isn’t a hindrance. He has had two terms as a Madison Trustee, and now he’s in his first term as a congressman seeking a second term. 

Sheriff Jones Goes After Thomas Hall over H.B. 99

Another thing I said about Thomas is a couple of times in the video, I referred to him as Thomas More, because for a lot of reasons, I think of the writer of Utopia whenever I think of Thomas Hall. It’s been that way for a while just because of my own reading habits. There are a lot of Thomas’ in English literature; another is the character of Thomas Becket from The Canterbury Tales, who was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by his friend Henry the II. It’s one of my favorite books, and this story keeps coming to my mind when I think of Thomas Hall and his friend and mentor, Sheriff Jones. Jones had endorsed Thomas and was mentoring him until a few things happened. Apparently, Jones didn’t like Hall’s voting record. The Sheriff had a confirmed case of heartburn over H.B. 99, Hall’s bill in congress, which set definitions for minimal teacher training to carry firearms in public schools. Jones uncharacteristically turned on Thomas Hall and made quite an exhibition about it on WLW right before Thanksgiving in 2021. I hadn’t heard it until I did an endorsement video for Thomas Hall, and he mentioned it. I had heard from several very prominent Republicans, some very close to the Sheriff, that something had gone on really bad. As I said in the video, one of them was not Senator Lang. I never put people in positions where they get caught in crossfires with each other and given the mean streak that many fear in crossing Jones, many don’t want to be a part of it. Yet many more than ten contacted me to let me know what was going on between Hall and Jones, and they weren’t happy about it.

Thomas Hall Responds to Sheriff Jones

I listened to the Jones interview with Willie, included here; then I listened to the response from Thomas Hall the next day. I played them for my wife, who loves Sheriff Jones. We talked about the interviews and thought Thomas Hall did a fantastic job. He certainly won the argument. But Jones came across as petty and even childish. My wife offered that maybe he was hurting about something else, totally unrelated. Perhaps that’s true. Whatever it is, I would suggest a few thoughts regarding the excellent Sheriff. I’ve been sideways with him a few times over things, particularly school things and union business. I still blame him for the Lakota levy passing in 2013. He has a liberal streak in him that I can’t stand, but we have buried the hatchet since then. What he did for Butler County during the Trump years has been great. A person’s body of work can’t be defined by just a few years here and there or by the grumpy old dog that starts biting people who step on a porch to sell Girl Scout cookies. I hope that Jones runs and wins more terms for as long as possible. But perhaps my wife was right about him, that something else is bothering him. 

In my book The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, I deal with this very issue of an older generation coping with the young people biting their heels. The chapter is called “The Skill of Developed Intuition” on pg. 181. You spend your whole life getting somewhere, making yourself into the person people put on T.V. Getting invited to the White House. Where you can’t go into public without people wanting to get a picture taken with you. And suddenly, here is some 25-year-old whiz kid who suddenly does more in one year than most state reps do in a lifetime. And he’s confident and won’t kiss the ring. Deep down inside, nobody would want to see such a young person broken, but consciously, the older person wants respect because he gave it when he was younger. The aging process isn’t fair. When you can start to see the end of the tunnel, and you know it’s going to be over soon, it is painful to see intelligent young people with their whole lives in front of them getting the attention it took you a lifetime to build. Sometimes, you might be tempted to crush the young competition, show them all they don’t know yet and teach them obedience. But I would caution you not to do that. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is encourage the young people, not tear them down, but build them up. 

Old Yeller

Listening to Thomas talk about the WLW incident, I was amazed he wasn’t more upset. I would be. I carry grudges for a long time, for decades. I would not have been able to say all the nice things that Thomas said about Sheriff Jones when I did my endorsement video with him. I would have been plotting revenge and embarrassment. But obviously, Thomas Hall has had a lot of good mentors in his life, his father being one. But several other politicians for another, including Sheriff Jones. So, there are a lot of lessons here that should be observed. I would hope that Sheriff Jones wouldn’t spend all the years of his excellent branding on petty nonsense that will overshadow all the good things he has done. There are people concerned about just that very thing by many of the calls I received. But Thomas isn’t that way; he understands that politics is a blood sport, and he plays to win without getting hung up on stupid stuff. And in his mind, he already defended himself on WLW the next day. But people were confused as to why the Sheriff went after Thomas, and I would suggest that it shouldn’t ruin the reputation of the Sheriff. I don’t think we are dealing with an Old Yeller situation here. Maybe just an old dog that would love to run around like the youth do but can’t anymore. There is still good to do, and from the point of view of Thomas, he’s willing to do good wherever possible.    

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

How To Make a Two-Party System Work: We are a Republic, not a flea-bitten “democracy”

We are a Republic

Every time I hear some political ignoramus say that we need to “save our democracy,” it is like someone scratching a chalkboard. All this “dagger into democracy” talk is as stupid as stupid gets. We are not a “democracy” in America; we are a “republic.” We are a government “of” the people, not “by” the people. But we are taught in every way of life imaginable that everything is a popularity contest, especially in our public schools. That majority rule, and if you are not in the majority, then you will never rule. Well, when we talk about the majority, we are talking about every drug addict, every sex-starved lunatic, every illiterate fool, ever degenerate imaginable. If we only consider popular elections by a majority, then always the dumbest will rule the smartest, and our society will indeed be equal, equally deficient. So it is no wonder that people get frustrated with politics when they see the system not working. They show up once every four years and vote for some people, and ultimately, those people let them down, then they get discouraged with the two-party system. At the same time, the media drives home the point they learned in their public educations, that democracy is all about the popular rule and that the only way to achieve fairness is to punt everything to a much more centralized government to sort out. This is especially true now where people can see that the party system isn’t working for them, Democrats are off doing the work of outright communism, and Republicans seem to be fighting Trump, a natural outgrowth of the Tea Party movement. People who don’t pay much attention to politics are obviously frustrated because, for some reason or another, they thought they could show up and vote every so often, and that would be the end of it. The world would just carry on and work.

But what I say to all those who want to disparage the two-party system, or who get upset when parts of their chosen party look bad and don’t represent a majority of the people associated with that party, is that the time to work out those elements is always in the off-year elections. For instance, right now, in the early months of a New Year, 2022 is the time for the philosophy of the Republican Party to be worked out in the trenches. The primary season is upon us, and that is when candidates battle each other for the general philosophy of the party. I would say that the system works great as a two-party system so long as people participate. You may not get everything you want in the candidates. I’m hardly ever happy with where things are, but if you don’t participate, then your point of view will never get a seat at the table.   After all, this is what’s going on in the Republican Party right now and what Democrats have continued to fail to match. The news analysts think that Trump is an extreme version of the Republican Party when he is a natural outgrowth of the Tea Party movement that has become more involved in party politics starting at the central committee levels, voting in primaries, and other off-year activities. The establishment types aren’t happy about it, but that representation grew over time from the Tea Party into MAGA and the American First Policy Institute. Democrats have incorrectly assumed that Trump was just an extreme right-winged version of the establishment, so they have tried to counter with their own version, where the Biden administration is now, representing the radical progressives, giving them a voice they have never had before. The progressives took this admission as a mandate, and as a result, they have over-extended themselves.    

To a political outsider not participating in these processes, and looking at presidential elections as the only ones that matter, they will see disfunction because the system is not working the way they were taught, through popular vote, only every so often. But in a republic, we are a nation of laws, not the mob. And those laws are created during off-year elections, not presidential elections every four years. Right now is the prime time to work out the general philosophy of a political party, and if you are not engaged in that debate, you should never be surprised when you are not represented in the final product. But even if you do participate, there are other people involved, and their minds have their inputs, so what you end up with will ultimately not be 100% you.   But at that point, you can’t just pick up all your game pieces and cry like a baby and leave. You have to continue to fight it out, to push for your ideas, and let come what may. That is what a republic looks like. Politics is not supposed to be nice. It is supposed to be contentious so that only the best ideas survive into law and policy. The whims of mankind are meant to be tempered with time and a lack of tenacity. If you want a friend, get a dog. If you’re going to be the master of your own universe, stay at home and never go outside. But if you want your republic to function, participate. When people disagree with you, strengthen your argument to win them over or have your ideas crushed under the weight of analysis. But don’t think for a second that your vote is a one-and-done kind of relationship at the ballot box. There is a lot more to it, and our republic requires people to participate all the time. Not just when it comes time to vote. 

China keeps talking about how efficient they are, and of course, big bureaucrats in Washington D.C. culture want to have the same kind of control that communism gives to those countries. They want to rule by administrative state, so they throw gas on the fires all the time about the follies of our current political process.   Of course, when the government can just tell people what to do, it’s a lot less messy for them. China’s present argument is that “American Democracy” is too messy, too slow, and does not serve the “people’s” needs. They would love to see an end to the two-party system. They love to say things like, “we’re putting daggers into our democracy.” They want to plant that seed and watch it grow into a change state from a capitalist nation into a communist one. If they can convince voters that the system doesn’t work, they may be willing to throw it all away for something that does. But it’s not our republic that is failing; it’s the people participating. Because of their lack of effort, the strength of the two-party system doesn’t get fulfilled the way it should, and the people who end up in charge are the worst because they were the only ones who showed up.   That is clearly the problem with Democrats. Republicans had the Tea Party, and the establishment is very unhappy about their continued presence, but Republicans have a much better party as a result. But punting to default and saying that none of it works is just a falsehood. The only thing not working are people who have been taught wrong from the beginning what their proper role in government always was. And how much influence they really have for the future of our “republic.”

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Looking for Justin Nix: The Sheriff is looking for you, lets get this thing resolved

(An update to this story, shortly after the Sheriff made this announcement many 911 calls came in and Justin was picked up in Hamilton on a drug charge. Nice job, and this holds true in Butler County especially, no drugs, no killings, and no other crimes similar in nature. If you see something, say something. And remember, Ohio has Stand your Ground laws now. Keep your neighborhoods safe from criminals.) Its unfortunate that there was a homicide in Hanover Township. Sheriff Jones and the team are trying to get everything figured out. Justin Nix or someone who knows him needs to help out.

Sheriff Jones is looking for Justin Nix

Call the Butler County Sheriff’s Office at (513) 785-1209 with any information.

Rich Hoffman

Jennifer Edwards Baker Attacks Butler County Republicans: The keyboard assassins of Fox 19 in Cincinnati

How Media Tampers with Elections

Of course all 7 Butler County judges recused themselves from the bologna case in Ohio against the great auditor Roger Reynolds and two other elected officials in the heat of the political season. One thing that I can’t stand is a bully, especially when it comes to media.  It’s pretty clear now why so many in the media hate that many people elected Donald Trump for president.  They get it.  We see it in Joe Biden; a puppet administration ran essentially by media types who project their radical progressive agenda onto a caricature in the White House.  They have been doing it for years, but if we had not elected Trump to disrupt that process, we might never have seen it as clear as we do now.  That much was evident in Stephanie Grisham’s new book, I’ll Take Your Questions Now, just released.  Even though that book was intended to be a hit piece against the Trump family, as a whole, and to show how reckless and dangerous President Trump was, what it revealed was just how much the media wants to be in power and to run politics as unelected radicals who use the power of persuasion from the comfort of a nice, comfy desk to rule the world.  I hate it so much that is the primary reason I run this blog, The Gunfighter’s Guide, and have done so for over ten years and to millions of readers.  I do it to counter all the activism that occurs in the media world. A fine example of just what I’m talking about happened to several politicians in my home township of Liberty in Butler County, Ohio, which involves a lawsuit against Roger Reynolds, and two trustee candidates, Buck Rumpke and incumbent Tom Ferrell. 

Essentially, the lawsuit recently filed by a property owner over a proposed senior type center development project wants more money for their land.  They allege that Roger Reynolds was using politics to hold down the property’s price and keep other buyers away from the purchase process.  All the members of the lawsuit are alleged to be involved in some way or another.  Now on the surface, that sounds pretty nefarious.  But as you dig into the story a bit, you find out that most of the participants know each other from childhood. It affects families, elderly people, and cancer diagnosis with lots of emotion attached.  By the time the smoke clears, there will be hard feelings, there will be resolutions, and there will be a path forward that adults should be able to resolve on their own.  But then comes the media where Jennifer Edwards Baker from Fox 19 in Cincinnati inserted herself into the story as a political activist to take what is a pretty standard property dispute and turned it into a corruption scandal with the headline titled “Corruption-related allegations in lawsuit Against Butler County auditor, Liberty trustee.“ 

I’ve known Roger Reynolds for a long time, many, many years, and he’s always been a good guy.  Does he have some little bit of tyrant in him who would use zoning laws to squeeze a property owner to sell the property to only him and for half the price of its worth?  I would never think so based on what I know of Roger.  But then again, these people have known each other all their lives.  Can you know everything about somebody in every circumstance?  Of course not, so anything is possible.  The problem with the Channel 19 hit piece is the timing.  With the lawsuit filed at the end of September 2021 and Jennifer Edwards Baker putting quite a lot of effort into her article on it plastering the pictures of Roger and Ferrell on the cover rather dramatically, it doesn’t take much deduction to see that the effort is political and not some casual reporting of a legal situation.  Roger, Ferrell, and Buck Rumpke are all big names in the Butler County GOP, and I happen to know that Jennifer is not fond of Republicans. I’ve had to get after her and reporters at Channel 5 before using their media outlets to incite riotous conditions during 2020 as they were trying to lure Black Lives Matters rioters into West Chester to antagonize suburbanites into the fear of big city manipulations.

If Jennifer wanted to do a fair story on corruption, I could point her to dozens and dozens of similar stories all over Cincinnati.  The allegations over this Butler County land deal are common in properties where millions of dollars are involved, and generations of families are a part of the story.  There are many Democrats that are involved in these kinds of scandals.  Heck, we’ve seen a lot of scandals on the national stage, such as the DOJ being weaponized by the Biden administration to go after parents questioning their school boards over critical race theory.  There are such stories right now going on in Lakota. But we have to ask, “where’s Jennifer on those stories? Paging Jennifer Edwards Baker. Paging the Fox 19 News hyphenated activist looking for bottom feeder stories.” There are plenty of stories about corruption that Jennifer could have picked.  But this one targets Republicans right before a big election and pastes the good name that took a lifetime to build by Roger Reynolds all over the cover.  Of course, typically, what happens when a lawsuit is named forces the defenders to lay low and limit their speech to not corrupt their case.  By the time that all the dust settles and the case is over with everyone shaking hands in the end, the damage will already have been done.  When these Republicans should be out campaigning for their official positions, they have to answer corruption questions based on allocations.  Allegations can be made about anything.  Proving them is much harder to do and often falls short in the end. 

People asked me what I thought of the article by Jennifer Edwards Baker, and my reply was that it was typical Channel 19 activism.  A lazy reporter was looking to stir up gossip and trouble for Republicans.  If she cared about corruption, she’d have plenty of stories around Cincinnati to do them on, but she picked on prominent Republicans in Butler County for other reasons.  Allegations are not fact, and trying to play on the emotions of an 87-year-old man who wants to sell his land is not a story.  It’s bait to impede the election process of known and solid Republicans. I’m sure everyone involved in the lawsuit will declare that the timing was not a factor.  But there are a lot of months in a year.  Why now?  And Jennifer should have known better.  She stuck herself and Channel 19 into the story as political activism and nothing more. It’s a way to attempt to tarnish the reputation of Butler County as a whole by going after one of its best politicians and most respected.  It reminds me of the FBI case in going after the Speaker of the House over the FirstEnergy deal in Columbus.  Radical progressives went after an entire energy industry to force FirstEnergy to seek protection.  The FBI calls it bribery. I’d call it the survival of a company trying not to be shut down from political activism by the Obama administration’s energy policies.  The goal of the FBI investigation was to harm the Republican stronghold in the Ohio House.  It’s just another form of election tampering by Democrats, and Jennifer Edwards Baker is essentially doing the same thing in Butler County, Ohio.  During an election season, whenever a reporter puts “corruption” in their lead, they try to steer opinions negatively.  If it’s a conviction, that’s another matter, but when it’s just allegations, its activism, which most mainstream media has become.  They want to rule the world, not as officeholders, but as keyboard terrorists and assassins who operate in the shadows.

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Trent Emeneker is a Liberal in West Chester: Relative to Butler County, Ohio, the trustee challenger is a Democrat in disguise

Trent Emeneker Wants to Be a Liberal Trustee in West Chester, Ohio

Not a surprise; I’m a Mark Welch guy in West Chester.  Of course, I’m supporting Mark Welch for re-election to the West Chester trustees. He’s had that job for a while and has done a fantastic job.  West Chester, Ohio, is one of the greatest places to live in all of America.  As I said in the video above, I have recently returned from Jackson, Wyoming, which is per capita one of the wealthiest places in the United States.  I love Jackson Hole, Wyoming; I enjoyed shopping there with my family.  It was all very nice.  But it’s not nicer than West Chester, Ohio.  Not by a long shot.  I’ve been all over the United States and seen a lot of nice areas to live in.  When people vote for West Chester to be one of the best places anywhere to live, they aren’t kidding.  And Mark Welch gets a lot of credit for making it that way.  The process started long ago when Senator George Lang was a trustee and implemented a small-government philosophy, which the trustees still adhere to currently.  Small government anywhere, minimal, competent, government leads to prosperity.  A big, bloated government, especially filled by incompetent people, leads to corruption, disaster, and high costs to maintain that government.  In this upcoming race for re-election in November of 2021, Mark Welch is the small-government guy with a proven track record.  End of the story, vote for Mark and enjoy another term in office to keep West Chester great.

But there are always challenges to these kinds of positions, and this year is no different.  Liberals are always trying to replace conservatives as trustees, representatives, commissioners, everywhere.  And to do that, they have to pretend to be Republicans when, in fact, they are Democrats, relative to the kind of politics that we have in Butler County, Ohio.  The challenger this time is a guy by the name of Trent Emeneker, a recently laid-off employee at GE who needs something to do, so he decided to run for West Chester Trustee.  Now on paper, Trent will say that he’s a former Marine and a registered Republican.  However, the Democrats had a recent fundraiser for Trent hosted by the old Lakota school levy supporter Kathy Wyenandt at the AC Hotel at Liberty Center.  I was at the Roosevelt Room across the street around 5:30 PM on the Tuesday of that fundraiser and learned all about it from some little birdies who came to that back table complaining about the $10 drinks at the cash bar.  I didn’t know Trent much but thought it was strange that a so-called “fiscal” conservative was having a fundraiser with a Democrat, even if only a few people showed up.  I didn’t pay much attention to the guy until that point, but the fundraiser was enough of suspicion to inspire some research.  After all, who would question a former Marine?  Well, maybe people should ask those with a military record more often and not just assume they will be good officeholders.  That is how we ended up with General Milley.  In today’s military, many progressives are coming out of that system, so we can’t take anything for granted, which looks to be the case with Trent Emeneker.

The biggest problem with Trent is that he wants to hold a vote in West Chester to make the township into a city, which has long been a progressive plan wanted by people who attended Kathy Wyenandt’s fundraiser.  Do you know why they want to make West Chester into a city?  It’s not to better pay for roads and other social services.  We do well now with partnerships with Butler County to operate a great community with low crime, high service value, and without an income tax.  Liberals want to make West Chester a city to create more office positions for people who wish to sit in and get attention. I’m thinking of old-school levy supporters like Joan Powell, who has pushed for this city thing in West Chester for a long time.  With a city comes city council seats like what they have in Middletown and Mason.  Then, of course, there are significant positions such as mayors, vice mayors, and other offices.  Government expansion is what we are talking about, and for liberals, it’s a chance to do something progressive and raise taxes to pay for everything.   Right now, West Chester is run by essentially three trustees and a fiscal officer.  Parts of Butler County that are cities do not run better than West Chester.  The track record is unavoidable. 

Yet that is pretty much the campaign of Trent Emeneker.  Somebody that not even GE thought was worth having around since they let him go as part of their Covid-19 resizing. He wants to get on West Chester’s Board of Trustees and push to become a city so that more liberals can have some office to sit on and create more bureaucracy, such as what happens everywhere that government expands.  With West Chester interacting with hundreds of thousands of people in the residing area, providing services to them all efficiently and with a budget surplus most of the time, what else is there for Trent to do but complain about making government bigger?  This is where the “fiscal” conservative on his signs comes into play.  If he was a real conservative, not just somebody who might have voted for George Bush in the past or every other RINO like John Kasich, he does not think like a conservative.  It’s not enough to complain that the current Trustees spent millions of dollars on landscaping at the new exit off the highway.  Hey, when you manage your money, you can do that.  I like coming off that exit and seeing it look classy.  The amount of money that is generated off the Union Center exit in West Chester is enormous.  Planting a few flowers doesn’t make the current trustees fiscally reckless. Instead, they respect the great businesses camped out in West Chester because the trustees have protected them from the overly intrusive government Trent wants. 

These kinds of campaign theatrics used to work when people didn’t know better, but in West Chester, everyone can look at a track record of success.  Then to propose that government is what makes something great, which most liberals believe and what gives Trent away as a liberal, is to slap away everything successful in West Chester.  And that’s what would come with a vote for Trent Emeneker.  He can sell himself as Goose from Top Gun because he spent ten years in the Marines in the back of a Navy fighter.  I might like Top Gun, but I don’t know if I’d want Goose managing the money in my home township. I’d need more than that.  What matters to me is that he was so invaluable that he ended up on the lay-off list at GE when they decided they needed to reduce their workforce after Covid hit.  Why would he make a good trustee again if an employer didn’t even want him?  And when Democrats are pushing to get you elected, what does that say about the person running?  Yeah, I’m sure Trent is a nice fellow.  He probably is a nice husband and father.  But keep that guy away from money.  Because he’s a liberal in disguise, and he wants to expand government and change what has been working for us all very well already.

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Sheriff Jones: A National Treasure of Butler County

I really like what Joe Statzer and others are doing in Butler County to get some official media to cover all the good officeholders concentrated in the northern suburbs.  With their new YouTube channel True Spoken GOP, Joe has collected several interviews with stars of the GOP and future stars.  And yes, I think stars is the right word because it takes a lot of guts to put themselves out there and work the ropes in ways many people have no idea about to make the world a little bit better.  We work hard in Butler County, Ohio, to make its government-run well, and at the top of that star-driven pyramid is Sheriff Jones, who is world-famous.  I am very proud to have him as our sheriff because if he wasn’t, it’s likely that things would have been much worse during these Covid overreaches that we have seen out of the DeWine administration and, ultimately, the Biden administration.  Sheriff Jones has held firm, and recently, he gave an excellent speech at Big Bul’s in Ross, Ohio that was a lot of fun.  I recorded a few sections of it for my article, but I had wanted to hear it again.  Thankfully, Joe and the great people operating True Spoken GOP captured it pretty much intact and put it up, which I think is worth sharing. It’s people like Sheriff Jones who will stand up to any communist infusion first coming from the Biden administration.  But over our shores and beyond our borders, there are schemes and plots from the Davos crowd working with China to overthrow America’s influence worldwide.  And it can look pretty scary, that is until you go to one of these GOP events and Sheriff Jones speaks.  When he does, suddenly, the world makes a lot more sense. 

Sheriff Jones Speaking at Big Bul’s in Butler County

I can’t get to every event, but I try to go to as many as possible.  I have been participating in more GOP events lately because there is a real political need to help in some of these areas, and I do what I do to help.  I see it as a community thing, in helping shape the kind of government we want.  Sometimes money isn’t enough, nor is it just volunteering. Occasionally other items are needed, and with the way things are right now, people are required to help make things better.  We can’t just sit around and complain about how we’d like things to be.  We need to help make them better, and as I say often, politics is like a blood sport.  Competition makes it better, but sometimes even with the heat of the pressure, there needs to be some strategy that everyone can agree on.  And sometimes, like that event at Big Bul’s, it’s just nice to sit back and let other people talk and to show everyone that there is more of a fighting chance at surviving the problems of the present without losing ourselves along the way.  That night Sheriff Jones opened up for a speech by Corey Lewandowski, and for the audience, it was something they needed.  Both speakers are part of the inner workings of the Trump campaign.  Sheriff Jones has been to the White House a few times and worked directly with Trump, and that night, people wanted to be close to Trump, and Sheriff Jones was a suitable representative.  It was a good night.

I remember the night well when things looked bad for Trump, a few days after the Access Hollywood  blast from the mainstreamers sought to kill Trump’s campaign right before the election in 2016.  I was at the US Bank Arena in Cincinnati, which was filled to the top with about 19,000 people.  I had to do an overseas meeting with some people I work with at the same time that Sheriff Jones was speaking before Trump arrived, and he was so loud I had a hard time finishing the call.  There was no place in US Bank Arena that I could go to where I could hear the other people.  Sheriff Jones was so loud that night.  But I wasn’t mad.  I managed through it.  I was more grateful that Jones had the guts to stick with Trump during a tough week.  It looked like our hopes of getting Trump was going to fall short and that we’d be stuck with Hillary Clinton.  But Sheriff Jones showed up with Rudy Giuliani, and they lit up the audience before the arrival of Trump.  And once Trump did arrive, after that evening, I felt that he was still going to win, no matter what the media was telling us.

That’s how it felt at Big Bul’s during that speech that Sheriff Jones gave there.  He went around the audience beforehand and shook everyone’s hand.  I had a chance to talk to him a bit.  We both love our cowboy hats, and I had just picked up a new one from a recent trip out west to Jackson Hole, which he noticed.  And I just felt proud at that moment to have Jones in our corner within Butler County.  Some brutal battles have been fought over the years, and he’s always a reminder that good does beat evil. That’s how I felt before the speech.  After the speech, I felt even more confident than I did after the US Bank Arena speech that we would win this modern tragedy involving the Biden administration and a global cabal who wants to destroy everything it means to be American.  That night at Big Bul’s, the real Americans showed up on a steamy evening in August of 2021 and drew a line in the sand.  We weren’t going to be conquered by the progressive left.  We were going to stand up to them and do what we had to do.  But for a moment in time, we’d crack some jokes, shake hands with one another, then we’d pull down our hats and do what had to be done. 

Sheriff Jones has been a great warrior in Butler County.  I hope to have him for a sixth term, or perhaps even a seventh.  I hope we have him for sheriff for many more years.  But I am grateful for the times we have had.  It’s mainly because of him that we do have good officeholders in Butler County. He’s done an excellent job of leading by example and exerting influence leadership in the blood sport of politics.  Because in the end, we have won a lot more than we’ve lost, and we have survived to tell stories about it.  And I have a feeling even many years from now; there will still be stories of Sheriff Jones and the leadership he provided when the community needed it most, as hope looked like it was fading.  Only for us to realize that we were only a joke or two from beating back the progressive advances of a maleficent force of antagonists who want to destroy everything we stand for.  But not so fast, not at Big Bul’s in Ross, Ohio with our white-hatted sheriff, a direct connection to President Trump who has been exiled from the White House, only to return, with all our help, to retake our country and push out the thieves caught trying to steal it.  Revenge is coming, but that doesn’t mean we have to take things too seriously.  There will be time for that later.  Now, while the time comes near, it’s the mark of a good leader to know how to ease people’s minds with a bit of laughter and camaraderie.

Rich Hoffman

Gunfighter’s Guide to Business
Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Yes, Harsh Language Was Just the Right Tone: The Freedom Rally at Big Bul Roadhouse

Freedom at the Big Bul Roadhouse

I know it’s scary out there.  The news is one constant outpouring of crises every day.  With the debacle of Afghanistan, the threats from China, the power of our out-of-control government going complete tyrannical rule over mask mandates and vaccines, it looks pretty hopeless. But when you unplug from the television and go to places like the Freedom Rally we had in Butler County, Ohio at The Big Bul Roadhouse and listen to Sheriff Jones and Corey Lewandowski speak along with some good music, cold beer, and lots of American flags, you will find that our country is still there.  It’s just that the rest of the world doesn’t see it because our media won’t show it on TV.  But it’s there, and I saw it for myself.  I include above and below videos of the event to share.  I have many people from other countries who read here daily, so this is meant for them.  Especially in Taiwan, where there is some genuine terror that America will fall and not be there for them, China will gobble them up because that is what the media propaganda is saying there as we withdraw from Afghanistan.  For those in the United States, I’m sure you can find a similar Freedom Rally like this in your neighborhood.  Although Butler County, Ohio, is a special place, there are similar events all over the country.  But those in other countries like Serbia and the Netherlands, where I have several readers every day who turn to this site for hope and encouragement, I’m happy and proud to share how life is in Butler County, Ohio, where freedom and liberty are still very much alive. 

A night at Big Bul’s Roadhouse in Ross, Ohio

It’s always great to have our Sheriff Jones speak at these kinds of things.  He was hilarious.  I only filmed a portion of his comments, mainly because I was right up front with the camera, and I didn’t want to ruin his speech with a constant recording.  Sometimes with these kinds of things, you want to let the intimate setting between the speaker and the audience have its way, and Sheriff Jones was off the chain funny.  Even more so after I turned off the camera.  But in the clips here, you get the point.  And should he be talking like that, you might ask?  After all, he’s in his fifth term as Sheriff, and he has no plans to retire.  Well, yes, he should talk like that.  He is the last line of defense between the people of Butler County and the kind of tyranny that comes out of the federal and state governments.  Sheriff Jones, over the years, has earned my respect the way he stands up to governors and presidents, reminding them often before anybody else in the country that power flows from the counties up to the federal level, not the other way around.  In many ways, your local Sheriff is the most powerful office holding job in the country, even more so than the President of the United States.  We aren’t taught that in school, but in reality, that’s how it is.  And we certainly have a good one in Butler County, Ohio.  I am very proud to have him on my team!  He can say whatever he wants as far as I’m concerned because the situation warrants it.  We can’t play pattycake with the enemies of America.

Sheriff Jones of Butler County

Many of us who live in Butler County, Ohio, think of it as a small town, a northern suburb of Cincinnati that is off the national radar.  But in truth, it is the epicenter of conservative politics. I’ve been to most of the states this year, traveling extensively, and I can report that no place else is the politics and organization of the Republican Party better and more passionate.  Other cities have pockets of conservativism.  I am thinking of Cody, Wyoming, where I don’t think there is a Democrat anywhere.  They were very solid there, but in Butler County, there are over 400,000 residents, and things could be much more complicated.  Yet, it’s all pretty simple.  We have great office holders because we maintain them well in Butler County.  We have events like this freedom rally where officeholders and the people who put them in power can talk to each other and have fun. It’s a relationship that feeds both the politics and the community healthily and unusually.  And it’s always refreshing to experience.  Sheriff Jones is the perfect embodiment of all those needs, and he plays that role to the best of his abilities, which shows.

Sheriff Jones making fun of the Biden Administration

That’s how a prominent national figure like Corey Lewandowski from the Trump campaign found himself speaking that night at the Big Bul.  If there was Trump country anywhere in the world, Butler County was it.  And he probably needed to talk to us as much as we needed to hear from him.  Everything coming out of the news was negative these days for America, and we all needed to remind each other why we were still honoring our flag.  Because Woke politics was in full bloom, and everything has been attacked.  It was good to listen to good country music and gather in the heat to recalibrate our sentiments to the fight ahead.  And Corey showing up to tell stories about working with Trump was just the right thing at the right time.  He was the closest thing we had to Trump at a time when we were hungry for solutions.  I had been dragging my wife to many political events lately, all of them good and essential.  But she was looking for a night off.   When I told her Corey Lewandowski would speak at this Big Bul event, she was eager to go.  And there were a lot of people there who came for the same reasons.  Corey Lewandowski was a door to Trump, and people were looking for a rallying point to grab on to.  While he was on stage, they had found it.  Corey was great.  Again, the language was a bit harsh, but then, so are the circumstances.  People want to fight back against the wokeness, and Corey understood that and gave the crowd just what they were looking for.

Corey Lewandowski talks to Butler County

As I said in the video above, many diverse people were there; the Bikers for Trump were there in force.  There were big donor millionaires there, and at the same tables, people could barely wipe together two nickels to get a quart of oil to change in their cars.  Such people would never associate with each other equally anywhere globally, but they do in Butler County, Ohio, and certainly that night at the Big Bul.  Everyone agreed that they loved America; they love Trump because he’s willing to defend America, not attack it like most of our politics wanted to.  And we were wargaming for future elections where Trump types of Republicans would take office seats, and we would fight back against this invasion starting in our communities, then our states, then at the federal level.  We would put Trump back in the White House, and the world can’t see that yet.  But at the Big Bul in Ross, Ohio, deep within Butler County, it was apparent.  The words were strong, the applause even louder.  The beer was cold.  And the path forward is quite clear.  America wouldn’t lose this war; we would return even more significantly now that we see the cards on the table.  And we’re playing to win this time, not just trying to get along.

Corey Lewandowski tells stories about Trump

Rich Hoffman

The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business
Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

The Dream of Being Awake: Vivek Ramaswamy and his book ‘Woke, Inc’

Vivek Ramaswamy

I had an excellent opportunity to meet Vivek Ramaswamy, talking about his upcoming book, Woke, Inc., at a Butler County event sponsored by several great Republicans.  Butler County Treasurer Nancy Nix and her husband are a few of the best people anybody could imagine. They were responsible for setting up the event, which features a discussion on the problem of “wokeness” in American business and is a topic I am very concerned with.  I always appreciate when I have an opportunity to learn something new, and I did as Vivek spoke for an hour and a half at the Republican Victory Center in Middletown, Ohio.  He said that the definition of “woke” was waking up from the dream of being an American, which startled me as a metaphor.  I suppose it’s an obvious definition, but the way Vivek presented it was pretty alarming.  Ramaswamy, you might know from Fox Business and Fox News in general, he’s on several shows regularly, specifically Tucker Carlson.  So it was quite a treat to get him for an evening all to ourselves to discuss this critical issue as I talk about below.

Talking about Woke, Inc.

Cliffhanger the Overmanwarrior


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