Tag: Butler County

The Lakota Levy of 2025 is Just the First Step: Until there are conservatives on the school board, public schools will seek tax increases

I’m really proud of the interview I did with Senator George Lang just ahead of the election of 2025.  George, first and foremost, is a friend of mine, so I tend not to drag him into things I’m involved in, and when it comes to politics, he and I agree on most everything.  The only significant difference is that he tends to be more considerate of people than I am.  He gives the other side more of a voice than I think they deserve, because he’s a nice guy.  During our interview, when he said that he thinks of Lakota school board members Julie Shaffer and Kelly Casper as friendly people, I disagreed with him.  I think between the two of them at a drunken school board meeting out of town, you couldn’t find enough clothes to half-dress one mannequin in the back of a Dillard’s.  Lakota’s school board is very liberal, and those two individuals lead it, which is embarrassing.  And expensive.  But George is good to everyone.  He has his opinions, but he gives everyone a fair shake, and I often don’t get to show that to people.  Neither does he, as the Majority Whip of Ohio’s Senate, a significant position with considerable influence.  He knows that around me, he can be himself and that I won’t run off and talk about anything that we discuss privately.  It was pretty unique that I got to put him on camera and talk for an hour about everything, from the upcoming Lakota levy to his battles with stage 4 cancer.  However, to clear up some misconceptions people had about George and a donation he was shown giving for the pro-Lakota levy efforts, we conducted an interview together that I think was better than he could have achieved anywhere, by any modern media method, news outlet, or podcaster. 

The only people who do the level of interview at the level of what George and I did were someone like Tucker Carlson or Joe Rogan, and I don’t think either of them could have done a better job.  George and I have known each other for several decades, but we had never sat down and just talked in front of the camera like that. What was captured was very useful to many people who wonder about various things.  I even asked George before the interview, “What’s off limits?  Is there anything you don’t want to talk about?”  He said quickly, “No, nothing, anything, and everything is on the table.”  So, we just talked like a couple of people and let others in to observe, and I was able to show them why I like George so much, even though he has evolved into a powerful politician and a prominent figure in Butler County politics.   And over the course of that interview, which was mainly about the upcoming Lakota levy, the most significant tax increase in the history of Ohio, I think he said a mouthful, which I completely agree with.  We all believe that the Lakota levy is going to crash and burn.  But don’t assume that this wasn’t their plan all along: to give the public a considerable blowout number and lose badly in an election.  Then, to say in the spring or summer that they listened to the public and came back with a reduced number.  Just because we defeated this levy in the 2025 election, it doesn’t mean it won’t come back in some form or another.  These public schools are only known for one thing: wasting tax money and asking the public for more, often on the back of property tax increases, to fund an overly progressive society. 

As George said, he thinks that the Lakota school board and its satellites, which include the treasurer and superintendent, are smart people.  I think what he calls “smart” is very maliciously manipulative, even evil.  But Genghis Khan was considered intelligent too, and so were most of the mass murderers of the world.  People thought that Jeffrey Dahmer was smart, even as he dismembered people in his kitchen and stored their remains in his refrigerator.  I would say that the Lakota school board members are very manipulative, which they have to be, given their liberal leanings.  Because people on the left often have to figure out how to get others to do things for them that they can’t do for themselves, they become pretty skilled at it over time.  However, as George and I reflected, this levy attempt is merely them dipping their toe in the water to see how the public reacts.  The details of that kind of election scope are why I think that interview is better than any other outlet could have pulled off, because we covered a lot of ground that most people would blank out after 15 minutes.  However, what we covered was essential to nearly every living, breathing human being, especially those residing in Butler County, Ohio.  It’s encouraging that in Butler County, an effective resistance to the Lakota tax increases has emerged in the No More Taxes group, which is fighting the Lakota levy.  And there are some really good people involved, and they have raised money not just for this levy, but for several upcoming ones as well.  However, for voters who have to show up and vote, they really need context on the scope of the problem.

So, how do we prevent more tax increases from being imposed in the future?  Well, don’t put liberals on the school board, and right now, there are four solid Democrats.  They call themselves other things to avoid the stigma of not being conservative in Butler County, but they are hard leftists on most policies.  And lefties love to waste money.  So, to stop wasting money, which Lakota already has a quarter of a billion dollar budget for a school, which I argue is just a dressed-up babysitting service, elect conservative school board members.  For this election, Ben Nguyen is the guy.  But in future elections, we need more people like Ben.  You need at least a three-vote majority, which we had for a while at Lakota.  And as soon as we didn’t, Lakota went for a tax increase.  That’s all they know to do—because they are liberals, and because liberals are never smart with money.  They might be manipulative, deceitful, scandalous, or monstrously unprincipled.  But they are spendthrifts who want to live off the efforts of others, starting with the real estate of Butler County.  Once Vivek Ramaswamy is the governor of Ohio next year, and Trump continues to dismantle the Department of Education and unleash the power of School Choice, all the public schools will have to change and do a lot more with less.  Their cost structure is significantly inflated due to their collective bargaining agreements, which stem from their union membership. We are all aware that unions often disrupt cost structures wherever they emerge, as they allow the mediocre to receive disproportionately high incomes.  And that is certainly the case at Lakota schools.  So, yes, the levy will likely fail in a big way on election day, provided people don’t sit on their hands and watch Netflix instead of voting.  People need to go out and vote.  But this is only step one.  People are going to have to dig in and fight to keep our taxes reasonably low until there is a new school board with conservatives on it.  Because, as sure as you are reading this, Lakota is planning the next levy, once the smoke clears from this one, because they have spent themselves into oblivion.  And only higher taxes can satisfy their never-ending hunger for more money to waste.

Rich Hoffman

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

Meet the Candidates for Butler County Commissioner: Why Michael Ryan is the best

So, why Michael Ryan over the other two people running for the same Butler County Commissioner seat?  Well, a nice walk down High Street in Hamilton, Ohio, makes it all very clear.  Cindy Carpenter is the incumbent in this race, and she has held that seat for about 15 years.  The other is Roger Reynolds, who used to be the auditor of Butler County.  Before getting into any of the negative stuff, let’s just say that Michael Ryan is a good fresh start for the Butler County Republican Party, and he is coming into the race highly endorsed by a lot of very important people.  And he has great donors who are supporting him early in this process, which was quite evident at his October fundraiser.  Michael Ryan doesn’t have any baggage; he and his wife are a really good couple, and what he has done as vice-mayor of Hamilton has been very enterprising.  The good job that he and the city council have done for Hamilton is obvious just by walking down the streets of the West Side.  I was born in Hamilton.  I’ve lived in and around it most of my life.  And I have traveled all over the world and have an excellent idea of what good is, and the Hamilton of today is fantastic.  And Michael Ryan has a lot to do with its recovery from a not-so-good place.  Ryan has been optimistic and shown a remarkable ability to work with others to make things that seem impossible happen.  And there really aren’t many people anywhere better for the Butler County Commissioner job than Michael Ryan.  Butler County is lucky to have him, and I think he could do great things for the County over the next decade. I’m very excited to vote for him. 

But why not Cindy Carpenter?  Well, Cindy has always been thought of as a RINO.  Most of the time, she has run unopposed.  She has been a yes vote on police budgets.  But she has essentially been a Democrat socially, and recently proved it by campaigning for the Democrat mayor of Middletown, Ohio, Elizabeth Slamka.  Cindy was caught at a voting location openly pushing for the Democrat, and it was all caught on camera, which was very embarrassing for her.  Of course, when Cindy was caught, there wasn’t much she could say; she was the Republican endorsed candidate openly pushing for a Democrat mayor in a town that needs a lot of help, Middletown.  Simply put, after all these years, that’s the best Cindy can do, and she will never be a spectacular success.  She has had her chance; we know what she is, and we know she supports Democrats and doesn’t respect the endorsement process.  It’s not like the Elizabeth Slamka issue was in the past; it was very recent, and I think it ruined her forever.  She’ll never be able to live it down.  We’re in a period of party politics that wants more MAGA representatives, and Cindy isn’t one of them.  She’s too much of the kind of politics that people want to run away from.  Not to sign up for another term, especially when they openly support Democrats who have proven to be really detrimental to cities and counties where they gain a majority.  Hamilton didn’t improve because of people like Cindy Carpenter.  It improved despite her.  Michael Ryan gets much of the credit, and we want a lot more of his kind of presence.  I’m sure Ryan will support police budgets, even as tax cuts become a higher priority for him.  In a one-for-one comparison, all the positives go to Michael Ryan, and there are none for Cindy Carpenter.  She did her thing, it wasn’t perfect, and she is a closet Democrat.  So let’s dump her and move on to someone better.

The other candidate is someone I’ve supported in the past.  I would have preferred that he not run until he got his life back together after a rough trial he just went through, which cost him well over a million dollars.  I was very supportive of him during all that, so people are wondering why I’m not supporting him for commissioner.  Well, through the trial, I got to know him better.  I’ve known him for a long time, and I like him.  But he tends to get combative with people, and you learn a lot about them by how they handle pressure.  And under pressure, Roger Reynolds showed he’s someone people want to fight.  And that’s how he ended up in court to begin with.  As a commissioner, you need to be able to work with people and build relationships.  And Roger has a hard time with relationships.  So I might like the guy.  But he’s not ready for a public office.  He has had relationship problems with his wives, and in my book, if you can’t handle a marriage, you are going to struggle with a lot of other things in your life.  And after listening to the testimony of the former Lakota treasurer, Jenni Logan, there was a lot of poor judgment that gave early indications of spousal commitments.  Most of those are private problems, but he’s the one who decided to run for office, even though there are a lot of red flags about him personally that have only muddied this race for what I think are really selfish reasons. 

I would have said the same thing about President Trump’s marriages, and it took me a while to start taking him seriously.  I’ve met Trump several times, especially during the early Tea Party and Reform Party years.  And I’ve met Melania Trump, too, and I’ll say she’s been good for Trump and has made him better for the public office he’s now doing so well in.  Maybe Roger will find someone who will help him improve as a person, like Trump did.  But right now, he has a lot of digging to do to get out of a hole he put himself in.  And, unfortunately, he is seeking redemption through public office, even though a much better person is running for the job.  Roger is damaged goods, and he needs to present himself undamaged.  And it’s not just marriages that Roger has destroyed.  He has relationship problems, which raise major red flags for a job like this commissioner position.  Again, Roger has been around for a long time, and everyone knows what they are getting.  He’s not going to do anything significant.  But Michael Ryan has a chance to, so it’s really not a hard decision for voters.  Because of the way the world is changing toward better MAGA options at these positions, Michael Ryan is the only reasonable choice.  That’s why I am happy to support him over these other candidates.  If Roger wants to return to public office, he needs to fix some things about himself first.  Seeking redemption by voter validation isn’t healthy.  And Butler County needs to do good things for itself, not provide a platform for personal growth at the expense of progress.  And that is what anybody but Michael Ryan would be for the Republican Party, Hamilton, Ohio, in general, and Butler County as a whole.  People deserve the best person for the office, and for me, nobody would be better than Michael Ryan.     

Rich Hoffman

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

Ethics in Politics: Holding grudges won’t help win races, or maintain political management

Social interactions are at the heart of human discourse, and I speak from the perspective of someone who has spent a long time building relationships—not always easily, and certainly not always with universal approval. People often talk about love and unity, but I wouldn’t say I’m universally loved. In fact, I’m probably excessively hated by many, and I understand why. It’s not something I wake up hoping to change. I don’t start my day thinking, “I want people to love me today.” That’s not the goal. The goal is to make things work, and sometimes that means doing things others aren’t willing to accept. That’s when people get mad.

Recently, I’ve been vocal about supporting Ben Nguyen for the Lakota School Board. That’s stirred up some discussion. Lynda O’Connor has supported him, the former Lakota school board member who a lot of people are still very angry with.  I was at Ben’s fundraiser at Nancy Nix’s house, and Isaac Adi, another Lakota school board member was there too. I’ve seen Isaac at a few events, and we’ve had the opportunity to talk a bit. There has been tension between us, especially with the way his relationship with Darbi Boddy evolved, and how our policies got tangled up. That situation has many layers behind the scenes. If you want to talk ethics, you can justify being mad at people for what they do to each other.  I’ve been married for 37 years and have learned a lot about dealing with other people. I’ve dealt with all kinds of people—kids, grandkids, colleagues—and not everyone aligns with your goals. You have to find a way to make it work.

If you draw a hard line and say, “It’s my way or the highway,” you might be ethically correct, but you’ll lose people. And if you’re trying to influence something, losing people means losing effectiveness. Politics isn’t about making friends. When you’re trying to bring groups together, you can’t fall into the trap of friendship-based peer pressure. You have to rely on the strength of your ideas in a competitive environment. Politics isn’t a branding exercise. You can either withdraw from society or face the challenge of building teams to accomplish a task. It becomes dicey when political affiliations are based on relationships rather than ideas.

You want the best ideas to emerge. You want a competitive atmosphere where ideas collide. That’s the way you get an authentic system. You have to trust people to vote correctly, but only if you articulate your ideas properly. Sheriff Jones and I have supported other candidates within the Republican Party, and recently we have talked about the things we have in common. We want to help the Trump administration achieve its goals, even if there’s controversy—like the situation at the county jail over immigration policy. We agree on some things and disagree on others. We joke about it when we see each other to stay on ground we can work with. But ultimately, it’s not about building friendships or consensus. It’s about who can make the best argument.

Politics should be about argument, not popularity. If feelings get hurt in the process, that’s part of the election cycle. Politicians often use likability as a tool—they kiss babies, shake hands, and make themselves accessible to the public. But that’s just the first layer. You have to be confident in your ability to articulate a message. Many politicians get elected but don’t raise money or debate effectively. If you can’t engage with people who disagree with you, things fall apart. People get mad. I’ve had people mad at me just for being in a picture with Isaac. They say, “You know what he did to Darbi Boddy?” and assume that by being seen with him, I’m supporting him over her.

That kind of division doesn’t help a party win. There are all kinds of people with different thoughts. Isaac and I are not going to the movies together any time soon, but he represents a vote on the school board. He has opinions about how things should be done. I think he cares about kids and schools, even if I disagree with his methods. That’s what political faith is—believing in the process. If you base everything on popularity—“If you like me, vote my way”—you’re not making a real argument. You have to go further. If you can’t, things fall apart.

It’s essential to communicate with one another. Political candidates need to engage, not isolate. You don’t have to be best friends, but you need common ground. On immigration enforcement, for example, we can sit down and have a great discussion. It’s about positioning your statement and believing in what you’re saying. If you can’t win people over with your argument, people often fall back on popularity. That’s dangerous. You’re using your elected position to steer people through peer pressure, not persuasion.

That’s not sustainable. It’s why political parties struggle to work together. If you do that in your family, you’ll have a broken Thanksgiving dinner where people show up, but nobody likes each other. You might have money, but no real friends, they just hang around you for what they can get out of you. How you handle relationships determines your success in politics. Shared opinion has to go through the funnel of the party system. You can’t have 30% of people on one side and expect unity. You need at least 50% alignment. Even if you’re 40% apart on issues, you can still be on the same side of the line. Democrats are on the other side, and you have to be willing to work with people of different opinions.  Republicans might be at the center line of 50% and others are at 90%.  But their Democrat opposition might be at 40% on the other side of the line, and those kinds of Democrats and Republicans are closer together ideologically than the hard-core Republican at 90%.  But Republicans have to find a way to work with other Republicans if the party is going to do the work voters need. 

That doesn’t mean you abandon ethics or break promises. But you can’t get caught in “It’s either me or them.” That’s not a good place to make articulate arguments. Politics should be about fulfilling voter objectives. That’s the goal. I’ve disagreed strongly with how Isaac and Darbi’s relationship on the school board collapsed. It made me reluctant to get involved in school board issues again. But it’s not fair to someone like Ben Nguyen—a good young man who wants to make a difference. He’s trying to partner with other people to build something positive.

Looking at Isaac during Ben’s fundraiser, I  thought, “Maybe we can get another vote. Maybe we have a chance.” Not right away, but in the near future, we can build something. That’s how I’ve survived—by staying true to myself, relying on my ability to make an argument, and letting public debate shape opinion. It’s good to stay away from popularity contests. Fights don’t help anyone. They create a disjointed approach, and then Democrats win their spots because they unify—even if their ideas are really far apart.

Republicans need to figure this out, especially in school board races. When people see me in pictures with other political people they don’t like, they hold grudges. But that doesn’t solve problems. I want progress. I don’t care if people want to get a corn dog with me. What matters is whether they consider the arguments and make informed decisions. That’s what we’re trying to do—get the correct arguments into the public arena and give voters choices that reflect their lives.

Most people have excuses and fights along the way. However, it’s all aimed at uncovering the truth about what the public wants in representation. You have to trust that process. Make your case with confidence. Don’t rely on popularity. Don’t expect people to vote your way just because they like you. Win the argument. Let the best ideas rise. Let people make their own choices. That’s how things work out for the better and you get a civil society.  And much better political teamwork.

Rich Hoffman

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

The Line in the Sand: Sheriff Jones holding Ayman Soliman in the Butler County Jail

It is probably the most crucial topic in the world at the moment: the question of police and their impact on a prosperous society.  It just so happens that I had an excellent example of the effects of good police work in my own backyard with Sheriff Jones and the Butler County Sheriff’s department, as they were the center of controversy, as the very controversial inmate, Ayman Soliman, was being held at the Butler County Jail awaiting his trial date for his asylum case.  Radical groups have pressured Governor DeWine to have Soliman released from the Butler County jail.  Soliman has been the cause of considerable controversy, and it’s interesting to see who has rallied to his cause.  Rioters tried to shut down a bridge in downtown Cincinnati over Soliman’s arrest.  And at the Butler County jail, there have been protestors attempting to block roads, which has led to the arrest of several stringy-haired socialist types from the radical left.  Soliman himself, as Sheriff Jones told me when I sat down with him to discuss this case, indicated that a significant amount of pretension about Ayman Soliman has emerged while he has been in jail, a self-importance that has led to trouble, inspiring disciplinary action.  Soliman had been a Muslim chaplain from Egypt at the Children’s Hospital in Cincinnati, where he was arrested during a routine check-in.  Soliman had his asylum revoked in early June 2025, and on July 9th, after 3 hours of questioning by ICE officials, he was arrested and put into the Butler County Jail under an ICE contract.  Homeland Security, under the new enforcement guidelines of Kristi Noem, confirmed that Soliman was on the FBI terror watchlist for a direct connection to the Muslim Brotherhood.  And that this background was triggered years earlier when he tried to get a job at the Oregon Department of Corrections in Umatilla. 

When Sheriff Jones and I spoke, his understanding of his job is to follow the law, not to make it.  And based on Soliman’s past, there was a lot in it that was very sketchy.  He might be innocent.  It might be unfair.  At best, the case looks to be that the Obama administration and that of Biden were very loose on crime and allowed for controversial immigrants like Ayman Soliman to live in America illegally as a Muslim religious leader, where he holds an MA in Islamic Studies from Egypt and has pursued advanced degrees, including an MDiv in Islamic studies and Muslim Chaplaincy and a PhD in Islamic Studies.  During the 2011 Arab Spring uprising, Soliman participated in student protests and worked as a freelance journalist, during which he was arrested multiple times by the Egyptian authorities.  After being beaten and tortured in custody in Egypt, he fled to America seeking asylum and had been living in the background for many years, leading up to that questioning in Blue Ash, Ohio, before landing in the Butler County Jail.  The point of the matter is that under Trump’s administration, specifically the much-improved Homeland Security under Kristi Noem and the ICE enforcement of Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar,  Ayman Soliman was high on the list of cases to deal with for a reason.  And from Sheriff Jones’ perspective, he has to trust the federal law that put that inmate in his jail.  He can’t allow a mob to persuade him in his police work, and since the arrest of Ayman Soliman, that has been the clear intention of the radical left to lobby Governor DeWine in the hopes of putting pressure on Sheriff Jones to release the Muslim spiritual leader. 

So, the topic is why good police work is important.  Why federalizing the police in Washington, D.C. was a good thing and why Chicago needs to do the same.  Why is it great that the Trump administration blew up a drug trafficking boat from Venezuela?  And why Sheriff Jones was all that stood between chaos and law at the Butler County Jail in holding this suspicious person that the Trump administration flagged on a terror watch list because of his background with the Muslim Brotherhood front group Al-Gam’iyya al-Shar’iyya, an Egyptian nonprofit providing medical aid and charity services.  Recently, a letter was presented to Governor DeWine with 1,100 signatures on July 25, 2025, urging his intervention in the Butler County jail. However, Jones was quick to dismiss any executive orders that DeWine might attempt to initiate, with an open refusal to listen to the governor.  Jones instead stated that he worked for the people of Butler County, who could re-hire or fire him at their discretion.  And that they were the highest authority, not a state governor, which has shocked many people.  But Sheriff Jones, and this isn’t the only occasion, has stood firm under tremendous pressure.  So this was indeed a powerful story that needed to be examined.  And why was Butler County at the center of this international incident?  I personally attribute this to the six terms in office that Sheriff Jones has had, as well as the stability of law enforcement that has existed under his leadership.  The Butler County Sheriff’s department, I think, is one of the best in the country, and Sheriff Jones is undoubtedly one of the best that there is anywhere, and because of that fabulous police presence, Butler County as a region has thrived in ways that are unique in the world. 

I consider the Butler County Jail to be a well-run business.  I’ve visited there several times, I’ve toured the jail, eaten the food, and observed the booking process.  It’s undoubtedly one of the best jail systems in the state of Ohio and is clearly one of the best in the country.  And saying all that, it’s one of the best in the world.  Ayman Soliman should consider himself fortunate that he’s in the Butler County Jail until his next immigration court date set for December 15, 2025, and there are other legal challenges to be pursued in October.  There are numerous complications, but what it has all revealed is the kind of people working in the background to undermine U.S. law. If not for strong figures like Sheriff Jones, chaos would be running rampant.  Having him at the center of this international story is very beneficial for the overall Trump administration’s objectives of cleaning up America from the kind of people trying to destroy it in the background.  Seeing the liberal groups and the communist organizations that have rallied to the defense of an Islamic holy man attached to a third-tier terror watch list has been unnerving because Sheriff Jones’ adherence to law and order has forced those voices to reveal too much about themselves.  And to show the rest of the world how hostile to peace and Western civilization that they really are, including popular publications as Rolling Stone magazine.  Knowing Sheriff Jones as I do, I know he shares with me a genuine desire to have a law-and-order society, especially on the topic of illegal immigration.  He and I have been advocates for better border security for over 20 years.  And finally, with the Trump administration, there is someone committed to the cause.  And Sheriff Jones is undoubtedly ready to step in and do what he can to make that border security successful.  And it was great that he drew that line in the sand under tremendous pressure from the Governor’s office in Ohio to push chaos away and hold the line.  This has a lot to do with why so many people enjoy success in Butler County, because there are great police officers there who keep the evil people hiding in the shadows.  And under the Trump administration, they are finally willing to enter those shadows and arrest the characters hiding there.  And there will be a lot more good to come.  However, for now, Sheriff Jones has Ayman Soliman in the Butler County Jail, which is beneficial for all of us, including him. It’s much better than the treatment he will get in Egypt for reasons they understand best.

Rich Hoffman

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

The Innovations of Michael V. Ryan: Forming an important relationship with Joby Aviation that is the gateway to the future

The plan is for Joby Aviation to conduct some flight tests soon, as early as 2026, in the Miami Valley, where it has a new manufacturing plant in Dayton.  And the Vice Mayor of Hamilton, Ohio, Michael Ryan, wants Butler County to be part of it, as a member of the Hamilton City Council who has done a commendable job of restoring commercial viability to the historic city.  And he has some bigger ideas about helping Butler County as a whole by running for commissioner in an upcoming election, which coincides with the release of Joby Aviation’s new air taxis from its Dayton facility.  Michael recently met with the people involved in this expansion and reported some results to me as part of his campaign platform, which is quite ambitious.  I love the topic of sky taxis, or as they are known to President Trump, eVTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) vehicles.  Joby is headquartered in Santa Cruz, California, and currently has five sky taxis that they are delivering to Dubai as the first flight destination.  As I’ve covered this topic extensively, I believe this is one of the most significant transportation trends to emerge from the human race.  Essentially, these eVTOL vehicles are personal vehicles, much like the Jetsons’ or the flying cars from Back to the Future.  But the technology is real, and it’s happening now, in 2025.  In Dubai, they have already built the infrastructure, which consists of four vertiports: one at the airport and three others located around the city.  They will essentially serve as an Uber experience, but instead of getting into a car and having a driver take you somewhere, you will get into one of these very advanced drones.  Initially, they will be piloted by a real operator.  However, they will soon be completely automated, and you will interact with the experience through your phone. 

In America, there are only three places seriously considering entering the eVTOL market: New York, Los Angeles, and the Bay Area in San Francisco.  However, Michael Ryan is trying to make Butler County the most obvious starting point, as Ohio is the birthplace of aviation, and the new Joby plant is just up the road along the Aviation Corridor.  There are few places in America as aviation-focused as the span of I-75 from Dayton to CVG in Kentucky, and making Hamilton and Butler County, in general, a hub for Joby interaction would be a tremendous commercial opportunity.  All Joby is waiting for is the FAA to complete their review and for some testing flights to occur around Dayton International Airport.  The Trump administration is ready to support this new opportunity, and it won’t take long for everyone to clamor for their own vertiports.  It’s good to see that Michael Ryan isn’t even the commissioner of Butler County yet, and he’s already trying to create opportunities that few in the world have seen yet.  The timeline will be fast; the Dayton facility plans to produce 500 air taxis per year, and it won’t take long for them to become as common as routine airplanes. However, eVTOL vehicles will operate under the flight levels of current commercial airlines and personal planes.  Traffic problems will be significantly reduced because traffic can be stacked in the air.  Infrastructure is relatively simple compared to railroads and highways.  Vertiports typically require an investment of $100,000-$ 200,000 for the pad to operate from, and a few million dollars for a multi-level stack terminal.  However, eVTOL vehicles can operate almost anywhere, including in dense cities, which will be demonstrated in Dubai before 2025 comes to a close. 

Speed is the wave of the future in communication, so the amount of time that people spend interacting with each other will need to increase.  The experimental trend that had been emerging during the COVID-19 pandemic has turned out to be a bust: the work-from-home crowd did not turn out well.  Economic activity, aside from all the socialist experiments, occurs when people who can invest and produce manufacturing can communicate with each other easily, which is why so much industry ends up clustering along highway access.  It used to be railroads.  Starting in 2025 and beyond, access to vertiports will be available, and ultimately, person-to-person travel will be possible from your driveway to your employer.  Ground traffic will become a second-level option.  It will be like riding a horse as compared to a car.  When you can get anywhere within a city in 10 to 15 minutes, that speeds up human interaction, which emerging AI and a new space economy currently are constrained by traditional infrastructure that is much slower than it needs to be.  Many people aren’t thinking about these things yet, but Michael Ryan is.  He is a refreshing new Republican who fits in very nicely with the J.D. Vance generation, as well as Vivek Ramaswamy, who will soon be the governor of Ohio.  As Elon Musk develops Starship to emerge into this new commercial space economy, where SpaceX has just had a very successful test of their flight 10 Starship, things are going to move very fast, not years from now, but within the year.  Therefore, a political vision will become increasingly important in meeting those emerging market trends.  As a city council member, Michael Ryan and his team in Hamilton have been effective at staving off further taxation of a legacy economy that has largely shifted away.

One of the most impressive renovations to Hamilton is part of the good work that Michael Ryan and the Hamilton City Council have brought forth, namely the Spooky Nook Sports Champion Mill, which is America’s largest indoor sports complex.  It’s a fantastic facility right on the river, across from downtown Hamilton, and is a testament to what is possible when an old space is historically preserved and transformed into something that everyone enjoys.  The Joby Aviation air taxi technology would be ideal for this specific site, as it would enable people to get in and out of the area much faster than with a car.  It would take a one- to two-hour trip by car from the surrounding area, making it about 15 minutes, as Joby vehicles can travel at speeds of up to 200 miles per hour.  And they are now safe enough to consider them more reliable than traditional cars.  They will quickly prove to be the safest way to travel.  As Michael pointed out to me during our conversation, personalized sky travel won’t even be the most lucrative market.  Logistics will be revolutionized as drone technology soon delivers to our doors, as Amazon has been promising for a long time.  The technology is now here, making it viable to have distribution centers far away from congested traffic corridors.  Because the drones can fly over these areas, Joby technology will enable drop-offs from airports to these centers to occur much faster and more efficiently.  Things are about to get a lot faster, and Michael Ryan is looking to make Butler County the most attractive destination for this new Joby Aviation opportunity.  Michael Ryan has been a city council member in Hamilton since 2017, and it didn’t take long for great things like the Spooky Nook complex to emerge with new economic viability that is bringing new opportunities to the city of Hamilton, which is the best way to keep taxes down, to pay for infrastructure with financial viability, not personal property taxes.  And what Michael Ryan is doing with forming partnerships with Joby Aviation shows an opportunity on a much larger scale.  And he is far ahead of any other politician in the country, which is something to be very proud of. 

Rich Hoffman

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

More Rumors to Address: Do Lakota school board members dance on table tops drunk and naked

We’ve already discussed what is on the Rumor Has It website that Lakota schools produce to address a narrative they’d like to control.  But when it comes to public relations, which is what that official website of the school intends, you can learn a lot more about the people behind the website from what they don’t want to talk about, as opposed to what they do.  And in that regard, there is a big rumor running around out there about the school board itself, and how they behave at out-of-town education conferences that come up every time I speak to people in public about Lakota schools.  When the Lakota school board comes up, one particular incident instantly comes to mind, and it permeates the conversation for the duration.  I happen to know that this incident is not a rumor, as I have been informed about it by another school board member with direct knowledge.  But I was also told about it by the wife of the former superintendent, as she was explaining in great detail the crazy sexual exploits of her husband, for which this same school board knew about, and participated in a very destructive cover-up that involved police reports and all kinds of public debate.  While this isn’t a new story, as it involves members of the current school board, many of these individuals have survived several election cycles since.  Their supporters don’t care about any bad behavior exhibited at these social events. I might care about it and think it’s reprehensible.  However, voters who were aware of the trouble voted for these school board members anyway, and as far as I’m concerned, that sets the record straight regarding the kind of people on the school board and how they represent the community. 

https://www.lakotaonline.com/resources/community-resources/rumor-has-it

The incident we are talking about involved a lot of drinking to the point of severe intoxication and dancing on tabletops in full view of the public.  There is some cell phone footage circulating, but these are not pretty people.  It’s not appealing footage.  And the whole evening collapsed into a puking session, face down next to a toilet with clothes missing.  So if the Rumor Has It page wants to address rumors in the community and put a different spin on the kind of people who find that behavior reprehensible, there is a lot they could say to get a positive narrative.  Such as an argument that these same school board members tried to make about the superintendent, who was found to have an excessive sexual lifestyle that they declared was private.  Because they thought his public job was worth the cost of his private faults.  When I hear that kind of thing, I hear dollar signs because it costs a lot of money for people to hide private faults from public opinion.  Which I would argue is the whole reason behind this facility’s plan; it was conceived by people with major private frailties to hide from the public a title of respect gained through the building of new schools.  It is not uncommon for people who have experienced significant personal failures to seek public acceptance through titles and accreditation, in an attempt to hide them from the world.  It happens all the time, and would undoubtedly be something to talk about on the Rumor Has It webpage.  They could say on it that school board members at Lakota are only human and have human needs for drunkenness and sexual repression that need to be expressed through dancing and the removal of clothes, and what they do in their private life is their private business, even though they are on the road representing the Lakota School District.  What happens at education conventions stays at education conventions. 

However, that’s not what’s happening here. The purpose of the Rumor Has It website is to control the narrative, and that incident is one that they would like the public to forget.  They already have their supporters, who don’t see anything wrong with the behavior.  However, for those who find that behavior devastating, they may not have heard much about it unless the school addressed the issue on its website.  Because the local media certainly didn’t cover the story.  But you can’t keep something like that quiet, and among the kind of conservative voters I speak with, the church goers, the family-first GOP types, this whole incident is all the rage.  They certainly didn’t vote for these current school board members. Instead, they worked to replace them with new board members, only to have them resign amid great controversy.  And oddly enough, during all these news stories, this drinking incident that was on the tips of everyone’s tongues never made it into the newspaper or television coverage.  So, people shake their heads, and the story takes on a life of its own, permeating the background of every social gathering.  Because the school’s strategy isn’t transparent, it’s only talking about the kinds of things it wants, even listing the topics it has on the Rumor Has It website as a diversion from the real problems.  It’s not CRT that is the problem, at Lakota, even though that is one problem.  It’s not the policy of public comments.  The transgender bathroom debates.  It’s the quality of the school board members themselves and how they lead other adult employees.  And when stories like the drunken binge are floating around out there, of course the other unionized employees are going to point to it to justify their bad behavior, such as dating other students, getting caught with porn addictions, and other human resource disasters that come from a culture that says, “I’m only human, so don’t judge me.” 

When they don’t talk about it, more is said than what could otherwise be because the point of the page is to direct people’s attention to the topics they want to talk about, and to rally their progressive base.  Not to address serious issues.  A typical PR firm could easily make a statement about the pressures of running a school, noting that while out of town and away from their families, everyone deserves to let off a little steam, even if it involves a bit of indulgence, such as puking, and the clothes end up missing.  Everyone is just trying to do a good job, and what they do during their private time is their own business.  But saying that indicates bad judgment, and how can people who make those bad judgments also be held credible when it comes to asking the community to spend half a billion dollars on new taxes to pay to tear down old buildings and build new ones?  How can people trust those individuals with the quote process, given that they are prone to poor judgment in their private lives?  Why wouldn’t that same bad judgment carry over into their public roles as school board members?  So, to avoid all that, the Rumor Has It page simply avoids addressing it, which tells you everything you need to know about their intentions with the page.  It’s not about finding the truth or clarifying rumors.  It’s about controlling the narrative, and they seem to think so little of the public that they expect to get away with it.  This only makes people angrier and destroys the brand of the school because of the liberal nature of the people who run it and what they expect their roles to be in the process.  And to avoid the opinions of a public that sees such social behavior as expensive camouflage to social causes meant to hide private failures.  To avoid that can of worms, the topic is not mentioned, even though it’s the only thing people care about.

I will never vote for any more money to public schools, I think they are a broken mess that teaches all the wrong things to kids.  I believe government schools are detrimental to our society, so I’m always a hard ‘no’ on any tax increases.  I despise the socialist nature of the way the public education system was created.  However, as a community issue, many voters support or oppose various aspects for a multitude of reasons.  As long as these school board members remain on the board, I don’t see the public supporting any tax increases. If they truly want a chance to pass any levies, they should resign for the good of the school.  If they want to be competitive in a voucher environment, people will take their kids to places that don’t have stories like the one mentioned here hanging in the background all the time.  The mistakes of the past are what will hold back any passage of a levy request and are part of the reason it has been over a decade since a levy has passed.  People have strong feelings about these stories that emerge when a school district requests more funding, and because many people are aware of the issues, even if they don’t mention them on the Rumor Has It website, they still have knowledge and will vote accordingly.  And even if they have gotten away with much, as long as these school board members are running the show, people aren’t going to give them more money off their property taxes.  Because there are just too many damaged relationships with the community to support a tax increase, I think they will probably have to learn that with a few tax attempts that will be very bloody and embarrassing before they learn the hard lesson.  And by then, we’ll have a new governor in Ohio, and School Choice will expand significantly.  And parents aren’t going to want to send their kids to a school where the school board is so messed up.  And the Lakota school will learn all too late that the rumors they didn’t talk about destroyed their economic viability, and they’ll only have themselves to blame.

Rich Hoffman

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

I Missed the Lincoln Day Dinner for a Ghost Hunt: Strange creatures from beyond time and space

I didn’t make the Lincoln Day Dinner for the Butler County GOP this year because my family and I have been traveling all over the place, particularly in Eastern Ohio and West Virginia going to paranormal sites in a research project for my new book, The Politics of Heaven, and it’s all coming along very well.  I wanted to go to the dinner and do appreciate the offers to attend with people I know.  But almost to the moment, I was on a ghost hunt with my kids and grandkids that turned out to be pretty interesting, so I’m sharing it here for more than a bit of fun.  Both of my daughters are tuned in to ghostly encounters, and one is so interested in it that she makes a living painting about it, for which she travels all over the country, appearing at conventions, selling her art.  And my wife has had contact with all kinds of paranormal activity all her life; they chase her around like hungry cats looking to be fed after a hard night outside in the rain.  She’s kind, and disembodied spirits in whatever form they exist look for her, and she never fails to attract their attention.  So for my birthday this year, as research for the new book, I thought it might be fun to go to one of the most haunted places on planet Earth, the Moonville Tunnel in Vinton County, and do a ghost hunt.  The kids would get a kick out of it, and I was curious about several things that worked exactly as I thought they would.  So we went there during the day to warm the kids up to it.  Then we went back at night.  And while we were filming, we didn’t get much.  But after I turned off all the equipment, a green orb appeared, which was more than a little strange.  Made even more that way by the very remote location that Moonville is.

The Moonville Tunnel, one of the most haunted places on Earth

I tend to approach these subjects from the point of view of disproving paranormal activity.  We had gone to several locations during the past week, but I knew that the Moonville Tunnel was a prime location since something always happened every time we went over the years.  And that was the case when we walked back to the car after a reasonably detailed investigation.  When we turned off our ghost hunting equipment, my wife felt something next to her and told my grandson about it.  He took several flash photos with an iPhone, and sure enough, he was pretty freaked out by the green orb that appeared and was headed away from us back down a hill to Raccoon Creek.  I saw the image from the screen as I looked at those spots in real time, and there was nothing we could see there physically.  And I was ensuring there was no lens flair with our flashlights causing problems on the camera lens, or that light was bouncing off some bug.  It was as black as black night with no other light sources but our flashlights for many miles.  There were no homes nearby and indeed no porch lights.  The Moonville Tunnel is as far from other people as possible in Zeleski National Forest.  These kinds of woods are so remote that they have frequent bigfoot sightings, and other things, just because of the area’s nature.  The spirit world always spooked the Indians from the region.  The place feels haunted because of its lack of other human beings.  It stays that way because there is a single-lane gravel road that provides the only access to the area for miles and miles that runs deep into the hills. 

Green orbs are supposed to indicate a healing nature of the ghostly encounter, so who knows what kind of lifeform it was trying to emerge and interact with us?  I have seen this kind of thing before, so I wasn’t surprised as much as I was a little shocked at the repeatability of it.  Almost the same thing has happened to us several times over the years we have been to Moonville.  We do a ghost hunt, thinking that nothing happened.  We might have felt uncomfortable feeling that other people were around us, but we could see nothing we could physically see.  Sometimes, shadow people appear in the corners of our eyes, but disappear when we focus hard on them.  But later, especially when using cameras with a flash, because digital cameras mess up the color palette of the visual spectrum, things appear just outside the visual range of human eyes, and the cameras pick it up.  Because of this, I avoid flying bugs and light tricks while we are filming.  Or even moisture from breathing, so they don’t taint our experiments.  I would have been happy to do that ghost hunt with my kids and grandkids for my birthday and family time.  But what showed up in our photos was pretty good, especially since I was trying not to have anything like that happen.  But sure enough, my wife could feel something next to her.  We took a picture.  And something was there and leaving, which, given that area, was more than a little spooky and made for a long walk back to the car, knowing that these things were all around us but we couldn’t see them with our physical eyes.

Needless to say, I did get good material for my book.  I explained to everyone that the spirit, whatever it was, should be looked at as a stray cat that once you pet it, it won’t go away.  If you think about the nature of spirits living in such a place, lost in time and space, having us there was an extraordinary occurrence.  We were talking to it and giving it attention, which was probably the highlight of its existence, and you can start to feel sorry for these things when viewed that way.  I don’t think ghosts like that can do any harm; likely, they are stuck and probably aren’t very smart.  What makes them interesting is that they exist, but not in a way we understand, and the need to communicate with elements outside our perceived reality cuts through the limitations.  And I was happy that something like that happened while introducing my grandchildren to ghosts and the spirit world.  They see and hear so much on television and the internet, it was good for them to have their own experience and to approach the subject logically.  It was a long way to go to come back with nothing, and like I said, I gave up a chance to go to the Lincoln Day Dinner for the Republican Party of Butler County because of it.  And I was glad that something happened that deserved a lot of talk after.  I thought overcoming the fear of such a scary place would be good for my family, and I would have been happy if nothing happened.  But it did, leaving me scratching my head even more, but in a good way.  The spirit world is real; some creatures live in it, want to interact with us, and do much more than we’d like to admit.  But that doesn’t mean they have more power because they exist in a way that hides them from our knowing eyes.  They only have the power of concealment.  They don’t have the power of superior intelligence. 

Rich Hoffman

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

The Michael Ryan Solution: Why its great that he is running for Butler County Commissioner

Out of my most recent articles, the one that has received the most attention is the one I did on sky taxis, specifically the products that Joby Aviation, right up the road in Dayton, Ohio, has ready to go straight from the concept of the Jetsons to practical applications now in 2025.  There are places in the world right now, within a few months of this writing, that will take delivery of these sky cars and make them part of their expanding economy as a new transportation option.  This is not science fiction, but indeed the next generation in personal transportation, and I have proposed that it should be Butler County, Ohio, the home of perhaps two future presidents very shortly, that should be leading the way on this exciting new technology, because honestly, someone in the United States is going to do it, and do it soon leaving everyone else to catch up later.  It is much better to be a leader in something new than to be a come-lately, especially in the way that Butler County, Ohio, is evolving as one of the tremendous technical centers of the world.  I talked to Vivek Ramaswamy recently about his plans as governor, and these eVTOL aircraft concepts will be a natural extension of what he wants to do in the state.  New economies form around new technology, and probably there is nothing newer than these air taxis.  Soon, they will be everywhere; most people will use them just as commonly as people use cell phones, and the world will be much more interesting and faster.  At the State of the State speech from Governor Mike DeWine this year, 2025, even he mentioned what Joby Aviation was doing in Dayton, so this is very much a technical reality waiting for some bold people to be the first, and I have been trying to encourage people in Butler County to be those first bold people.

While I was at a recent fundraiser for Nancy Nix, I was carrying around a plate of food, looking for somewhere to sit down.  I had been talking too much and didn’t have a place to sit as Nancy was trying to prepare everyone for some entertainment she had for the evening.  My wife couldn’t attend that event, so I was alone and didn’t consider taking a seat.  So I was in a pickle now that everyone was sitting down.  So there I was with my plate full of food, needing a seat when Vice Mayor of Hamilton Michael Ryan and his very nice wife Amanda encouraged me to sit with them.  So, I did, and for dinner conversation, we had an excellent talk where I learned that he was planning to run for commissioner of Butler County, which is good because recently, Cindy Carpenter had been caught campaigning for Democrats in Middletown, leaving many people very angry.  So, for the upcoming Republican primary ahead of the 2026 election cycle, people were looking for alternatives, and it sounded like Michael Ryan could be it.  I have come to know him somewhat well; we pass each other at many events, and he has enjoyed my social media over the years. I have seen him stand tough in the pocket on more than one occasion, even for a pretty young person, young to my eyes.  He’s over 40 now, but I have a habit of referring to people in his age group as young, which I do to many people I deal with who are his exact age.  But when it comes to some of these new political positions, I would love to see someone with a good 20 years of work history in front of them, with lots of fresh ideas and ambition to do them.  So it didn’t take me long to get interested in his statement about running for county commissioner.

But he wanted me to sit with them mainly because he was interested in my articles on new transportation methods like Elon Musk’s Hyperloop system, which I proposed should be built in Monroe, Ohio.  Then, this Joby Aviation alliance I was talking about for West Chester, Ohio.  While Michael has been on the Hamilton City Council and has been doing a great job there, which has plenty of challenges, running for commissioner of one of the three seats requires a much larger vision for a community like Butler County, which comes with some lofty expectations.  We have had pretty good commissioners, and I had been thinking for a while that there is great potential if only we could get T.C. Rogers a second vote.  T.C. is a free market advocate, thinks right about many things, and could use a good partner as a commissioner.  Don Dixon has been pretty good, too.  They know how to make the spaghetti in the kitchen but could benefit from a fresh, youthful vibrancy.  Cindy Carpenter is listed as a Republican with the other two, but she behaves like a Democrat and has for a long time, leaving people hungry for an option.  So, Michael Ryan came across to me during this discussion as someone who might fit perfectly into the needs of Butler County.  So, given all the elements, it seemed like an opportunity to talk about some of the exciting things that could be possible if we put someone like Michael Ryan onto the seat of Butler County commissioner.

Michael and I met at a spot I think is the perfect property for a Joby air taxi service port.  There are lots of places in Butler County for something like this as a hub, where people visiting at CVG downtown could fly straight to Butler County to shop at Ikea for the day or to conduct business and stay at one of the many hotels that are within walking distance to this proposed location.  However, even within Butler County’s 400,000 residents, it is a quick way to get to Miami University, downtown Hamilton, and even Butler Regional and Middletown airports.  An air taxi service would see immediate good business and be economically viable right out of the box.  So Michael Ryan and I talked, and I filmed it so people could listen in and get to know him a bit.  It would take investors with vision to make anything happen.  It would take technical expertise to set it all up.  There are plenty of achievable challenges.  However, the most important thing to me is setting up the political infrastructure to achieve it.  Given where the Trump administration is on these kinds of things, I am confident that there would be lots of encouragement at the federal level.  This economic boon could help Middletown a lot, and J.D. Vance would like to see that happen.  His personal friend, Vivek Ramaswamy, will be the next governor of Ohio, and I know he’s excited about it.  The proposed location of Butler County, Ohio is mainly in Senator George Lang’s district, the current Majority Whip at the Statehouse.  I know a friendly trustee in Mark Welch in West Chester who could get on board with something like this.  What was missing was a county commissioner who could connect all the dots and remove the barriers so the business people could make the investments.  And after the talk Michael Ryan and I had, it should be obvious why I’m endorsing him and why I was so happy that he invited me to sit with him and his wife at the Nancy Nix fundraiser.  We had a great discussion that could grow into something truly special, which is very exciting. 

Rich Hoffman

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

The Story of the Card: When people do good things for all the right reasons

Interestingly, just a few weeks after Vivek Ramaswamy announced he was running for Governor of Ohio at CTL Aerospace in West Chester, we both found ourselves at the Library of Congress, for different reasons, on the same day.  Vivek is all in and doing media interviews every day on the prime-time Fox News shows and other places, and he was at the Library of Congress to celebrate Ohio’s birthday for statehood, which is a pretty interesting story.  And that, too, is interesting: since President Trump has returned to the White House, where he was rightfully supposed to be, many of my close friends have suddenly had a lot of business in Washington, D.C.  But one of the aspects of all this that I get asked about the most is that when Vivek came to West Chester to make his big announcement, people wondered why Vivek and I seemed to know each other and what was it with that card I showed him when he arrived.  The truth is, I didn’t know if he would remember me after all he had been through since the last time I saw him.  But he seemed to upon sight once he arrived and met with a small group of people responsible for the event at CTL Aerospace.  When it came time for him to greet me, his wife was already speaking with me. I wanted an ice breaker.  After all, he has met many people over the last couple of years and spent his time helping campaign for Trump, hanging out at Mar-a-Lago, and creating D.O.G.E. with Elon Musk.  So, to start our conversation, I showed him a card he gave me four years ago, which everyone has been asking about.  And when he saw it, he laughed.  He and his wife instantly knew what it was, and it kicked off a nice conversation about his personal political journey, which started at CTL Aerospace five years earlier. 

The card in question was a little promo thing he did for his book Woke Inc, which went on to be a game-changing bestseller, as I thought it would at the time.  Vivek was really one of the first in the country to figure out just how dangerous woke politics was, and the great Butler County Auditor Nancy Nix invited me to come to a special launch of his new book at the Middletown Republican Party Headquarters.  Vivek was trying out his messaging for a national campaign that would encompass Fox News, specifically Tucker Carlson, so he was trying out his platform to a kind of test showing in his hometown of Butler County, Ohio.  But that isn’t where the story started, as Vivek told me the same story he said at the governor’s announcement and why he wanted to return to CTL Aerospace to make his big pitch.  A year earlier, from the book launch, where all he had to give out was that card, because the book hadn’t officially come out for another three months at that point, I had set up a rally in support of President Trump.  He was in his last year in office and was starting to run again for a second term.  And Democrats were entrenched in impeaching him and trying to use the Russian story to knock him off.  So I, along with several other prominent Butler County Republicans set up a rally to support Trump during a very dark period, and the rally was at CTL Aerospace which many thought was bold, to politically stick their necks out to show open support for President Trump when everyeone else in the world was running away.

J.D. Vance was still coming off his popular book The Hillbilly Elegy and was getting attention wherever he went, and he already knew Nancy Nix, who of course was coming to the rally I was putting on.  And as the story goes, the future Vice President wanted Nancy to introduce a friend of his, Vivek Ramaswamy, to the world of politics because he was stepping away from a CEO job he had been doing at the time and was looking for something new to wrap his brilliant mind into next.  So he came to the rally, got a good taste of politics, and saw an anti-woke company that was not afraid to tell the world at the time.  Vivek told me a year later that the rally helped him define a virus he and his wife had been considering curing.  Not a disease of the body, but one of the mind, wokeness.  After that CTL rally, he sat down and refined those ideas into the now famous book, Woke Inc. There were many people in the audience that day at that rally, so I didn’t know Vivek from any other face in the crowd.  But a year later, as he explained, he had written his book and was pitching it to a hometown crowd before going nationwide with a more extensive campaign.  But my joke to him then was that he was doing a book launch without a book because it wasn’t out yet.  But he did bring little cards with the cover printed on it.  I sat in the front row, because I love new books, and he gave me one of those cards and signed it.  And I looked at it and joked, “Is that it?”  Because I wanted an actual book to read, not just a silly little card. 

Well, it was a pretty good story, and I kept that card as a bookmark in some of my other books in my library.  A year after the Middletown event, I saw Vivek again at a Lincoln Dinner, and we were all in the VIP section as he was scheduled to speak that night.  Mike Pompeo was back there too, with a bunch of my personal friends, so it was a festive environment.  But I didn’t forget about the joke between Vivek and me, so I brought a copy of his book, Woke Inc, that I had long since read.  I got it for him to sign, which he did, and we joked about that card.  So now fast forward to three years after that, and Vivek was coming back to CTL Aerospace to make his governor announcement, and I pulled out that card for our greeting, curious as to whether he would remember all those events.  I didn’t want it to be weird for him to wonder, after seeing so many faces on his journey of running for President and traveling all over the United States, to see me and wonder how he knew me.  So I showed him that card before we even shook hands, and our conversation picked up exactly where it had last resided, and we had a lot of fun with the topic.  People watching and seeing all the pictures have been wondering what the story of the card was, how Vivek Ramaswamy stepped into politics to contribute his massive brain to the cause of freedom along the trajectory of the MAGA movement.  But I was there initially and played a part in his journey and was happy to see him doing good things with it.  You never know who might be in the audience when you host a rally or write articles like these daily.  But I have found many Vivek Ramaswamys out there thinking about doing something significant with their lives; sometimes, they need someone to hold the flashlight in the right direction so they can find their way to it.  And things cascade from there, so doing things is always important.  Vivek will be a great governor in Ohio and, undoubtedly, a great president after that.  He will do a lot of great things in the years to come.  And it will be because he is good and is willing to do all the hard work.  But sometimes great things happen just because of a little card and a story that grows with it.  That is the story of the card I have kept and the movement it launched, with the efforts of many people brought together with the common bond of just wanting to do the right thing. I’m very proud of Vivek Ramaswamy; he’s the right guy at the right time for all the right reasons and when you see things like this you can see the hidden hand of God working from behind a veil with a yearning for good things to happen with little miracles that make no sense under any other condition.  And I wouldn’t say that anything in this story is a miracle.  But what it is only happens when people refuse to bend the knee to darkness, and people so inclined to resist come together under a common cause and change the world, one little card at a time.

Rich Hoffman

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

I Endorse Michael Ryan for Butler County Commissioner: A wonderful future if only we have the courage to embrace it

I thought it was going to be a secret for a while, but it was announced at the Nancy Nix fundraiser on February 21st, 2025, that Michael Ryan, the Hamilton City Council member and Vice Mayor, was planning to run for one of the commissioner openings that were coming up in November of 2026.  I have felt for a long time that if only T.C. Rogers, one of the current commissioners in Butler County, had another friendly vote, lots of good things could happen for a community that has over 400,000 people and has the potential for some of the best economic output anywhere in the United States, or even the world for that matter.  If another commissioner could help with the critical free market philosophy, lots of upward mobility for a lot of people would be created.  Upon hearing this news, I first thought that Michael would be a perfect replacement for the current commissioner, Cindy Carpenter.  I haven’t been a fan of hers since she started, but her career path fell off the road last year when she was caught campaigning for a Democrat in Middletown, Ohio.   There is a lot of talk about Cindy winning eight straight elections even though she has a lot of detractors in the Republican Party.  I would argue that the reason she holds up so well to Democrat challengers is because she is essentially a Democrat who puts an “R” next to her name to win elections in a very conservative county.  I think this campaigning in Middletown for Democrats thing will hurt her now in ways she’s not used to, so I think she’s very vulnerable.   We’re in a new day of politics, and putting up with these RINOs has been something that Central Committees have not been willing to do, especially when they have an opportunity to get a MAGA type of officeholder.  And that is precisely what Michael V. Ryan is.

My wife has been very busy with family business lately.  To run a family well takes a massive commitment sometimes, and my wife is the kind of person who will drop everything at the drop of a hat to help my two daughters with life as it’s happening.  This leaves me going to some of these vital community functions by myself a lot.  And at Nancy’s fundraiser, I talked too much to too many people to find a seat in the vast crowd.  Nancy Nix always does a great job with these events, which are always well-attended.  On this particular evening, it was being held at the Elks Club in Liberty Township, which is a favorite venue of mine.  It holds a lot of people, and she always brings in big-time comedy acts to entertain people during a nice dinner provided by the Spinning Fork restaurant that facilitates the club.  The comedians were Jeff Jena, Dave Dugan, and Lou Santini, so they were not second-rate acts, so seating had some priority.  If my wife had been with me, we would have found a seat and held it near people we usually associate with.  But Jeff Jena was acting as the master of ceremonies, and he was getting impatient. People were still talking as it was time to serve dinner and start the show.  So I needed to stop shindigging and get to a seat.  I had been talking to Michael Ryan about several county and city topics, and he saw my dilemma and said that I could sit with him and his wife, along with others from city councils in not just Hamilton but also nearby Middletown. 

Michael and I have had a lot of discussions over the years about the potential of Butler County, and as a younger guy, he has reminded me of a lot of up-and-coming political people who are formulating the MAGA movement that is emerging behind Trump’s leadership in the Executive Branch, which includes J.D. Vance, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Bernie Moreno.  These are different kinds of brilliant people who could be successful in any field they want to be in.  However, a personality type is emerging that is quite noticeable, and Michael Ryan, who I call “young” at 41 years old, has a lot of good stuff to give.  Once I heard that he was planning to run for that Butler County Commissioner seat that Cindy Carpenter occupied, I got excited and decided to get behind his campaign and help however I could.  As he and I were talking about his upcoming campaign, shortly after Nancy Nix gave him a full endorsement in front of the crowd that caused a little controversy, in a good way, he kept reminding me of a different version of Vivek Ramaswamy. I met Vivek years ago through Nancy Nix and a few other places at VIP events, such as a time with Mike Pompeo and again as he prepared to announce his race for Governor of Ohio.  Leading up to Nancy’s fundraiser, I was coordinating that big announcement with Vivek at CTL Aerospace, and I noted how different this new generation of politicians was as opposed to the past before Trump changed politics forever.  Michael Ryan fits this new, young, ambitious type of politician who runs toward capitalism, not away from it as Cindy Carpenter has all these years. 

So I appreciated Michael and his very nice wife Amanda letting me share in their date night as a third wheel.  We talked about many incredible opportunities for Butler County if only someone like him could fill that critical seat.  We spent a lot of time discussing the vertical taxi market, which I have been talking about with everyone with a mind to listen.  A lot of people haven’t yet put all the dots together, but Joby Aviation is right up the road of the aviation corridor of I-75 that Vivek Ramaswamy is planning to talk a lot about as his run for governor, and they are building eVTOL aircraft that are ready to go right now.  I told everyone months ago how it was going to go down. They are only waiting for regulation approval and can start shipping these air taxi vehicles worldwide.  China and Abu Dhabi are the first to market as they have much fewer regulatory environments to slow them down.  However, under the Trump administration, I’m just saying that those barriers to the United States will be removed.  And someone like Michael Ryan is just the kind of person with the vision to put their arms around it and bring top tech innovation to Butler County as a leader of this emerging new technology.  He understands the value of that kind of innovation, but that’s not the only reason I like Michael.  He’s just a good person who wants to do good things, and I enjoyed spending time with him and his wife, along with the table of fellow council members and community managers.  Michael and Amanda are the kind of people you want to see providing leadership and opportunity to people hungry for it, and Butler County is a prime place to have the most vibrant economy in a state that is going to be Trump’s example of turning a rust belt into a tech giant.  From my experience with the Vivek Ramaswamy campaign for governor, I know his plans for the state.  And to cascade off that, Butler County can be the leader of the state to have the best opportunities that many people can’t yet possibly imagine.  And with a commissioner like Michael Ryan, even the wildest dreams of the most optimistic people can’t even be imagined because such greatness has never yet been seen among the human race. But that opportunity is coming at us very soon, with Vivek Ramaswamy as Ohio Governor and Michael Ryan as Butler County Commissioner. 

Oh, and regarding Joby Aviation and why Abu Dhabi is the current leader in the eVTOL market. Joby’s S4 aircraft, which hauls a pilot and four passengers at 200 mph with a 100-mile range, could slash the two-hour car slog from Abu Dhabi to Dubai to a breezy 30 minutes—no emissions, and much less noise than a chopper. They’re tying this into Abu Dhabi’s Smart and Autonomous Vehicles Industry (SAVI) cluster, a big local initiative to lead in next-gen transport. Joby’s already got exclusive rights to operate in Dubai starting as early as 2025, and this Abu Dhabi move opens the door for zippy inter-emirate trips. They’ve been showing off the aircraft at events like DRIFTx in Yas Marina, flexing their tech to seal the deal.  This is not science fiction.  The only thing stopping us in the United States is having the kind of politicians who can take away the barriers to market saturation currently held up to the speed of slow government left to us by Joe Biden and Obama’s years of bureaucratic infrastructure. The eVTOL is the future of transportation, much more important than building any new highway or railroad.  And Butler County, Ohio can lead America if only it has the right politicians who can make it happen.  The money and investment are just waiting for the pin-headed politicians like Cindy Carpenter to get out of the way.

Rich Hoffman

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