Tag: Butler County

The Political Assassination of Roger Reynolds: How courts are used to hide the real corruption

There is much more to the Roger Reynolds story than just that he was found guilty of a 4th-degree felony on the fifth count against him in a court case just a few weeks before Christmas 2022. That doesn’t begin to tell the story. The truth is that the corruption wasn’t what Roger Reynolds did, but it’s how the political machine works to get rid of people they don’t want in office, even after voters put them there with a popular vote, even knowing the facts. Ultimately it was the office of David Yost, the Attorney General of Ohio, who was doing a favor for a buddy in Butler County, Sheriff Jones, who personally prosecuted the case for one primary reason. Not to fight corruption but to push Roger out of his Butler County Auditor Office, likely for a few reasons that have been revealed over the last year. First, for revenge, Roger had terminated the employment of one of Sheriff Jones’ relatives who had stopped coming to work due to Covid protocols that has become a practice everywhere and is out of control. Roger did what I would have done; the employee stopped coming to work, so he let them go, and Jones wasn’t happy about it. The other thing was that as Butler County Auditor, Roger Reynolds had been pushing for complete transparency in the disclosure of budgets. And that made a lot of people mad. That set the table; then Fox 19 news came to Butler County and did a hit piece in the Republican stronghold, trying to pave the way for Democrats to do better in an upcoming election. Hence, they targeted a complaint leveled at Roger by a property owner that dragged a couple of Butler County Trustees into the mess to attempt to shape public opinion with a negative story.

Sheriff Jones then used that story to launch an investigation into his political enemies, leading to a six-count indictment against Roger Reynolds over an abuse of power case involved in that land deal. But just before this case was set to go to court in August of 2022, there was an additional charge that the Sheriff’s department leveled at Roger. They wanted Roger to step down from his auditor role and put Bruce Jones there instead, the fiscal officer of West Chester. And when Roger refused because he felt he had done nothing wrong, they turned up the heat, and David Yost got involved himself in the campaign to remove Roger from his job. It all amounted to a human resource scam between competing factions of employees who were trying to bend the rules to their advantage to get rid of a rival, in essence. I know all the characters involved and generally like them. But like most companies, employees don’t always get along; that was certainly the case here. But instead of human resources, these matters end up in court in front of a jury. In August, after Jenni Logan, the treasurer of Lakota schools, stepped down, obviously knowing that a lot was about to hit the fan over the Matt Miller case, she spilled the beans on a Lakota issue with Roger from back in 2019. Some tax money was returning to Lakota, and Roger suggested that the money be spent in a partnership with Four Bridges Country Club’s golf academy. Jenni checked it out, and the lawyers said it would look bad. So, they didn’t make a deal. And for just asking the question of Jenni Logan, that was the 4th-degree felony that the jury found Roger Reynolds guilty of, which wasn’t even the original charge. It was a fishing expedition to keep throwing charges at Roger Reynolds until something stuck. And keep in mind that these are all the same characters who decided not to prosecute Matt Miller, the superintendent of Lakota schools, for the revelations that he had sexual fantasies about three specific kids who went to Lakota and that he asked his wife to drug them, molest them, and video record it for him, according to police testimony. So, in that case, the police used the rationale that the well-liked superintendent was participating in consensual adult sex, even though minors who went to a school he had the authority over were involved. But all those same people found Roger Reynolds asking Lakota to invest in a golf academy which he thought would give kids an elevated social experience, was a felony. Not exactly a consistent presumption of the law. It involved all the same characters, but the standards were radically different regarding law and its enforcement.

In other words, he wants dumb people in the auditor job, so nobody is smart enough to audit him

By the time Roger won his re-election in November, the court case had been moved to December simply as a backstop in case they needed it to get Roger out of office. And by then, the indictments against Roger had been reduced to just five instead of the original seven. Roger’s lawyers did an excellent job procedurally; it’s not easy doing these kinds of things; there’s a lot that goes on in the filing process. And to get the charges reduced by the start of the trial was a considerable obstacle which they did well. Then regarding the original case, Roger was found innocent by the jury on all those accounts. The accusations made by Channel 19 at the beginning have cost Roger Reynolds many thousands and thousands of dollars in legal bills just for the accusation. But the additional charge involving Jenni Logan after she left Lakota and was in new positions directly involving Butler County and a relationship with Sheriff Jones facilitated was one that the legal team of Roger was much less prepared for because it came late in the process. It was harder to argue due to the ambiguity of the matter. Here was a bunch of political people in the six-figure income club talking about giving millions of dollars to a country club to contribute to a golf academy to which Roger belonged to. I cringed as I watched Roger’s lawyers try to argue these merits to the jury. You could tell that the legal team did not have their mind wrapped around that part of the case, and the jury could tell. In the end, Roger’s attorney didn’t explain it well; his task was to overcome the built-in prejudice that people have toward rich people and elite sports, and they didn’t do that. 

After an entire day of deliberation, the jury found Roger guilty on that last charge, essentially for asking a question that had the look of using his political authority to show an interest in a public contract. Jail time had been a real risk all through this process which is no easy thing to deal with, especially for a good person like Roger Reynolds, who has been a respected member of the community for many decades. And it looks like just over this 4th-degree felony conviction, he won’t have to do any jail time but will serve out the sentence with probation. But the bad guys got what they wanted, Roger will have to step down from his elected position, and the people who were afraid of transparency will now be able to appoint their choice rather than the voters picking. And that is what this case was about from the start, getting rid of Roger Reynolds from his auditor job.   If Roger is guilty of anything, it’s setting the bar too high, that his political rivals didn’t want to live up to that high bar, so they conspired to get rid of him, which they did through the court process. And if Roger’s lawyers had been able to argue the Lakota case correctly, he would have been found innocent on all counts. The critical thing to remember is that the original case that Sheriff Jones tried to build against Roger fell apart, and Roger was found innocent of all those counts. The real corruption is in using the legal system to destroy political rivals and in choosing enforceable or not laws depending on the people involved. With Roger’s talent, I’m sure he can make three times the money he was making as an auditor in the private sector. But it’s the point of the matter, he has had to deal with this expensive nonsense for a long time, and the abuse of authority isn’t in what he did. But instead, what was done to him to get rid of him and to fight to keep that bar very low for public employees so that they can have plenty of wiggle room for the real corruption that takes place. 

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

“Escapades of Doom”: Kristi Ertel’s Interview with Brian Thomas on 55 KRC

I’m very proud of Kristi Ertel of Protect Lakota Kids.com for her really good interview on 55 KRC with Brian Thomas. She was there to talk about the latest information on Matt Miller, the controversial superintendent from Lakota, and the trouble he has put himself into with his reckless personal life. Many in the Lakota district, over 800 people, have signed the petition to force Miller to resign. Miller and his radical union members at Lakota did the same thing to the new school board member Darbi Boddy just a few months before, having a petition to force her to resign essentially because they didn’t like her. Supporters of a conservative school board took exception and found out what kind of crazy sexual lifestyle Miller thought was normal, and it became public information at that point. So now the shoe is on the other foot, and I thought Kristi did an exceptional job representing the many people in the Lakota school district who have found how the school board has dealt with the issue reprehensible. And some people like Kristi, who is a fantastic Christian woman with very high standards, can’t deal with the level of morality exhibited by the Lakota administration and its school board. Even with the threats of lawsuits that the superintendent has lashed out at toward his critics, Kristi is the type of person who can’t turn away from a dilemma, which is asking the community to look the other way when reprehensible moral circumstances are imposed on everyone. And she’s not alone. But good for her to stand up for what’s right even when so much is wrong and horrible, and that has been threatened by the public employees as if they were ultimately in charge. When I read the cease-and-desist letter from Matt Miller’s attorney, and Kristi talked about this on the radio interview, I thought some alien from another planet had written it. It clearly didn’t consider any Constitutional provisions regarding free speech. And to the point discussed on 55 KRC, all the information was based on Matt Miller’s own words. But my conclusion reflects the microcosm that is essentially the macrocosm of global politics these days. 

It wasn’t just this interview with Kristi that had spawned a lot of attention on this story over the past week; Libs of TikTok was talking about it, which cascaded into it being covered by the very popular Louder with Crowder show, and Charlie Kirk. The story was always going to get out; when a very public employee exhibits such bad behavior, it was bound to. As if that weren’t bad enough, it’s the cover-up of that information that has presented itself as far worse, as if all the participants involved, the media, the school board, the police, the prosecutor’s office, a whole bunch of lawyers, its as if they believed that if they denied that anything happened, then sent out threatening letters to harass the public into submission, that they could somehow change the nature of reality itself. And if they believed that, then no wonder they thought they could do anything and get away with it. That is, after all, what we are seeing in international and national politics, that characters like Nancy Pelosi, Hunter Biden, or even the fact that Covid was made in a lab in Wuhan, China, and so long as the communist country pretended that nothing happened, then they could literally get away with murder. Or that election fraud never occurred in 2020 or 2022, even though Katie Hobbs in Arizona was caught certifying her own election by pushing all the complaints of voter irregularities past the certification date forcing constitutionally protected fraud in the process. What we saw happening at Lakota was essentially the same type of crazy, extremely liberal behavior. 

Yet the thing that gets missed in all these cases is that no matter what the administrative state does to contain information with public relations officials, lawyers, or open harassment through violence or other means, people are still going to have an opinion on the matter. Unlike in China, where they control every aspect of people’s lives, people in America still have free will and the ability to think independently. Just because authority figures say something is red or yellow when we can see it’s blue, we are not obligated to accept what those authority figures say just because they are authority figures. What’s fascinating about this Lakota cult of liberalism is that they really thought they were going to be able to contain the bad behavior of their superintendent and force good people like Kristi Ertel to act against her conscience, her strong belief system in goodness and the good of God, and accept evil right in front of her face, and that there was nothing she, or anybody could do about it. It’s as if Matt Miller and his army of wife-swapping administrators thought they were in charge of the whole community or something instead of employees within it. And that they could literally do anything, say anything, and push any kind of agenda onto the taxpayers, and they would be obligated to accept their reality without question. It was essentially the China Model but without the controls of a totalitarian regime controlling over a billion people in every way, shape, and form, upon fear of death.  It has been a head-scratcher because I know many of the characters involved. It has been bizarre to see them so consumed with the process and willing to accept outright evil because of some misplaced fear that the law was working against us all and that the big bad administrative state could destroy us at any time. Hey, read a book sometime, and get smart. Lakota schools, their public employees, lawyers, PR people, and the media tag alongs who have helped cover some really detrimental behavior have all contributed to making our community worse, making things more dangerous for children, and thumbing their noses at the community in general.  Lakota was already declining in quality before Matt Miller came along, and since he stepped into that superintendent role, the grades for Lakota have continued to drop. So why all these people would seek to protect a bad employee with a bad track record is beyond logic. But yet, what we have seen come out of all these liberal institutions is an assumption that so long as they control information and how people perceive it, they can hide their poor performance behind this strange veil of corruption. And that people wouldn’t form their own opinions on things. Well, people do have opinions on things, and free minds have arrived at the opinion that what has been going on at Lakota and public schools, in general, does not reflect what taxpayers want. And they are angry about it. I am very happy to know that many people like Kristi Ertel are free-thinking enough to form their own opinions and defend them when challenged by such nonsense as we have witnessed in this Lakota case. If not for free speech and people like Kristi, there would be a lot more corruption in the world, and now we see why things are so screwed up everywhere because there haven’t been enough Kristi Ertels in the world standing up for what’s right, and teaching children how adults should behave by condemning bad behavior when we do see it. And if more people did call out such bad behavior, it would at least force the perpetrators to keep it hidden from public view. But when bad people don’t fear the judgment of the public because they think the system will hide them from the guilt of their actions, well, then you get what we have seen at Lakota, and other places, wherever liberalism is out of control, and a war against God and goodness has been unleashed as if the pages of the Book of Revelations were manifest on the earth and the Devil himself were in charge of everything, and everybody. 

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Atlantis Giants in Butler County Ohio: The Hilltop Earthwork of the Constellation Aries at Pyramid Hill, from 5000 years ago

I can’t tell you how happy I was to walk into the office at Pyramid Hill as I was asking about the status of the project that has been going on for a few years now and to get the look of concealment that I did. The workers that day were young people who weren’t sure how to answer the question, so they referred me to the Ancient Sculpture Museum, which is concealed deep in the woods down a large hill in a place that feels like it’s not even on this earth. It’s one of those little secrets in Butler County, Ohio, and is a treasure within a treasure. Noticing their cryptic reference, my wife and I proceeded to the museum and stepped into the first room and noticed immediately that finally, since 1836, when the site was first surveyed, finally the Butler County Hilltop Work was getting the attention it has always deserved. I’ve looked at that strange mound, which is around 250 ft tall and sits across from Joe Nuxhall Way on the west side of the Great Miami River, about 3 miles from downtown Hamilton, and always marveled at it. The museum staff already had an excellent display set up for an early 2023 opening that will connect the Pyramid Hill complex to this new massive ancient mound they plan to call the Fortified Hill. Sounds better than Butler County Hilltop Work. The staff person on hand that day told my wife and me that they were planning to open everything in January of 2023 if everything went well, which explained the cryptic looks at the main office when I mentioned it. There are very few people in the world who even know that the strange hill that looms large in Butler County, with thousands and thousands of people living around it, and driving by it every day, that it’s one of the most mysterious lost, ancient works of an advanced culture on earth. And yet, it’s been there before Christ was born as if dated celestially; it’s around 5000 years old. 

What makes it so exceptional in the world is that it essentially is dedicated to the constellation Aries that through stellar precession, shows a specific movement from the constellation Taurus through the Pleiades and into the age of Aries at a time when we have previously thought only of Indians marching in a steady stream toward civilization from hunters and gatherers and into city dwelling humans. I’m not one to disparage scientists, even the bureaucratic nonsense that often trails behind academia like the tail of a doomsday comet, because if not for them, there wouldn’t have been an attempt to preserve the Butler County Hilltop Work and opening it as a park would never have been possible. But science has been slow to acknowledge who these people really were who settled in Ohio as the center of a very advanced culture, who had an obsession with the stars and built all over southwestern Ohio many copies of earthworks that mimicked the constellations in the heavens on earth. These works are every bit as mysterious as the Nazca lines from Peru or even the Pyramids of Giza. Primarily, the reason for the big mystery is that they didn’t just build one of these sites that so accurately reflects an advanced knowledge of astrology. Still, the evidence is pointing increasingly to this same region, and that specific mound location, along with Serpent Mound off to the east, as the basket of an advanced culture that was eradicated likely during the Younger Dryas cataclysm, around 11,600 years ago. And what was left of these people who were interacting globally with all countries before the cataclysm is what we see during this late archaic presence in the Ohio Valley, which ended up a larger part of the Mississippi culture. These were the survivors of that cataclysm, and they marked the ground with a star map of the heavens with these massive depictions of, in this case, a wild boar, which they associated with the Aries constellation. 

Further, on top of the hill is where things get really interesting because the entrance to the effigy, to the north, has a maze that forces the participant to navigate it much the way that the spring equinox had to navigate the Pleiades constellation on its journey from the constellation Taurus into Aries. While on top of the earthwork, which you can see for miles in every direction, it becomes very obvious how difficult it was to shape that natural hill into the shape of a boar to match their celestial observations of the zodiac character of Aries. This was no small effort by any means. It was a massive undertaking, and for what purpose? Well, as I say a lot, remember Plato’s references to Atlantis, where the first god/king of their land was Atlas. And we all know from myth and mystery that Atlas was the creator of Astrology. And here was an obviously advanced culture that had enough leisure time not just to hunt, gather, and reproduce but to build all these magnificent earthworks all over Ohio. They seemed to connect into one grand mythology meant to be seen from the sky. A society obsessed with astrology, obsessed with an equatorial procession along the heavenly zodiacal belt where ages move by overhead every 2,160 years for a total zodiac year of 25,920 years. Society would have to be around for a long time to understand those kinds of time movements of the stars in a reliable way, to understand that their movements were not just coincidental, but over that length of time, were as reliable as a clock. These people did not spend their entire day trying to hunt a deer so they could eat by dinner time.  We have all had an image given to us by Hollywood and the progressive history of what an Indian is, a Native American or even an “indigenous person.” In truth, the reality is far more complicated, and by referencing the many books on Atlantis by Lewis Spence, a respected commentator on such things, or Giambittisto Vico of the great Vico Cycle, or the Bible, we know that very large people that smaller people called giants roamed the earth everywhere. We know Norse mythology had them, the Greeks called them Titans, the Bible referenced to them often living in the land of Canaan, and large people were everywhere dating back to the precise period of the earthworks in Ohio, precisely the one in Butler County formerly known as the Butler County Hilltop Works. Burial mounds all up and down the Great Miami River have reported the bones of people from 7 feet tall up to 10 feet many times, which can be found in Ross Hamilton’s outstanding academic paper called A Tradition of Giants: The Elite Social Hierarchy of American Prehistory which is available for free online. Just look up that title and print it out for yourself. It’s well researched and corresponds to the reports mentioned above about large people buried in the earthworks of Ohio, not just occasionally, but abundantly. I know of a case of a 7-foot person buried in a mound in downtown Hamilton as it was being built. It has been said in many of Spence’s reports on Atlantis that they were a large people and that once the Greeks and Egyptians inherited many of the myths of the lost Atlantis, their concept of the gods was forged in their cultures. Yet, those myths also talk of the Atlanteans coming from the west, and with them, they brought the pagan gods of astrology. There are mounds on the Butler County Hilltop Work site, just off from the top. In them, indeed, just as there is in the Middletown Mound up the river a few miles, then again at Miamisburg, even a few miles more up the same river, there are giant skeletons in them, and science has had a tough time dealing with the knowledge. Because it doesn’t fit our perceptions of who lived in America before America was what it is today. Instead, it looks like those who did live here moved all over the earth and took with them a massive religion of astrology to the far corners of the planet. And they did so long before Europeans were even thinking about building boats. And the natives of America that we call them today were likely global citizens 10,000 years ago, and the proof of their culture is there looming over Butler County like a ghost that is no longer invisible to the casual spectator, thanks to the great scientists and volunteer efforts to open it to the public with a great spectacle finally. 

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Protect Lakota Kids.com and the Public Records that Show all the Evidence: Defending children from the extreme liberalism of Lakota schools

It’s not like the bad behavior at Lakota schools happened overnight. It took place over a long period of time. For those who have been wanting to see all the evidence from the Matt Miller divorce and the crazy sexual lifestyle of the superintendent of Lakota that has been much talked about, you can see it all down to the last public document at the excellent website Protect Lakota Kids.com.  CLICK TO Visit for yourself. I am proud of the great people who put that site together, and you better believe it; it was not an enterprise of a few lonely people. It’s a community effort; even better, over 600 people have signed the petition to protect Lakota Kids from the diabolical exploits of the radical progressives who work for all these government schools. This particular school is in our neighborhood, and it is challenging our values as a community, so it’s great to see people coming together to stand up to the vile behavior that has been on full display for quite a while now. The evidence of that behavior is reflected in the meeting segment shown below. A parent gave a very nice speech about the bad behavior of the superintendent, but additionally on the behavior of the school board members and other administrators. No wonder they didn’t see anything wrong with the superintendent’s sexual behavior because they are just as bad in many cases. What does that say about the people who run Lakota schools, especially when you can see for yourself just how bad that behavior has been for the superintendent? 

When the upset parent’s speech was given, I was working on getting new school board members elected. For me, that was the solution: to get better management on the board who would take the job a lot more seriously, not drink so much, and find themselves in compromising situations when they went to social events around town and out of town. The stories from some of these events have been horrendous and embarrassing to me. I like my community; I think there are a lot of good people who live in Butler County. I’ve been associated with Butler County most of my life. I could have lived anywhere in the world that I wanted, but I loved Butler County so much that I stayed in the area by choice. But these extreme leftist types who always come with more government expansion, especially in the public schools, do not represent the values of the community I have known for five decades. Many people moved to the area to be part of that kind of community. They did not move to Butler County to be embarrassed by the extreme liberalism of Lakota schools. For too long, they have put up with it to go along to get along. But after learning more about just how liberal and sexually reckless the people who run Lakota schools really are, there has been a very steady chorus of anger that has been building for several years now. To say the least, when Matt Miller was hired to be the superintendent in 2017, he reflected the values obviously of the people who hired him. And to understand what those values were, just read the voluminous public records on the Protect Lakota Kids website. We know the school board knew in 2020 just how bad things were, and instead of fixing the problem, they moved to cover everything up, which everyone should find alarming.

I had hopes that good management might fix some of these problems, but instantly the governing board gave the new school board members a fruit basket of friendship and worked to either bring them into the fold or to get rid of them. One of the newly elected board members seemed to like the fruit basket. The other one could care less, and instantly, Matt Miller and his partners on the school board worked quickly to get rid of her. And at that point, it was apparent that I had wasted my time trying to work with the board to have proper management at Lakota. Because the sexual deviants, the swingers, and the radical left loons who make up Lakota management wanted to protect their racket from the outside eyes of the holy rollers in the community and their pesky “Christian values.” They had no desire to listen to voters; they simply wanted to hide bad behavior from the public, and by reviewing the public documents at Protect Lakota Kids, it’s obvious that this was a common assumption, not an isolated behavior. With our tax money, we were funding the kind of behavior among the adults at Lakota that we wouldn’t endorse in our community otherwise except behind the innocent faces of our children. 

Yes, the title of that website, Protect Lakota Kids.com, is appropriate because if we don’t do it, who will? The school board certainly isn’t interested in helping kids find their moral compass in life. And if we aren’t teaching kids the basics of living a good, productive life, then what are we teaching them to be? If you leave it to the school, the role model they have in mind is Matt Miller. Obviously, the Lakota superintendent has serious sexual issues, as chronicled by the public records listed on the Protect Lakota Kids website. And you don’t have to live in Lakota to have an opinion about this matter. This is a problem in all public schools. Everywhere there are government schools, we see the same essential issues.

What is different about the school district of Lakota is that parents are taking control of their community. We have tried to elect good school board members. But the progressive types have rebelled against that notion. So, if parents can’t control their school board, they will create awareness with their own media, with websites like Protect Lakota Kids.com.   At that site, they are doing the job that the media should have been doing all along. But it’s not as if good people didn’t try to do things the traditional way. Speeches like the frustrated parent shown here have been going on for a long time. And it proves that the school board chose not to listen and to act to defend the bad behavior from the judgment of the public at all costs. And that isn’t acceptable. We aren’t paying all the money that we do in taxes to fuel this level of liberal politics. Butler County is a very conservative place in the world, and Lakota schools are a playground of liberalism that has embedded itself into our community in extremely unhealthy ways. It’s a fight worth having because, in the end, the product of the community is the children. Left to their own devices, the leadership of Lakota is intent on making kids into reflections of their own impoverished lifestyles, into the train wrecks spoken about by that concerned parent. I know that parent, and when she was talking about handpicking people from the GOP for the school board, she was talking about my work. She was frustrated with the results; she was ready to give up on the school way back then. I would say that it’s always good to try to fix something. But to her point, Lakota has been beyond gone for a long time now. And it will never get better if we allow them to govern themselves. Because given a choice, Lakota management will always pick the wrong thing.

Rich Hoffman

Protect Our Lakota Kids

The People I Hang Out With: Many people consider Steve Bannon to be the most dangerous person in the America

Before I go into a full-throated defense of Steve Bannon, the Trump strategist who recently was sentenced to 4 months in prison for defying the January 6th crooked court and the illegitimate Department of Justice put in place by Joe Biden and his plans to destroy America, I need to answer a question that the Butler County Sheriff’s department asked the Lakota school superintendent. While being interviewed by the police for his bizarre sexual lifestyle, the school superintendent was looking for help from his friend, the Sheriff, so he name-dropped me to remind him of a political rivalry within the Republican Party. It appeared to work because the police did not take further action even though the charge involved children; they blew it all off as “pillow talk” among “consenting adults.”  That is a subject all its own, but during the questioning, the police asked the superintendent, “who does this Rich Hoffman run around with” where the answer came back, “far-right winged” (people.)  As if I was hanging out in my spare time with lunatics who wear half-shirt tank tops in their backyard while cooking a dog to eat over an open fire with confederate flags flying over the house. (for people concerned with history, the Confederate enslavers were all Democrats, while the people freeing the enslaved people were all Republicans. Just a tiny little detail)  I usually don’t talk about my “behind the scenes life,” but since I saw that question posed by the police, I’ve meant to address it adequately because the Steve Bannon case reminded me of a dinner I was at that involved the prosecuted voice of the War Room that the Liberal World Order wanted so much to shut down. I’m proud of him, and I think this action against him will only help his cause.

Also involved in that police interview was the new Lakota school board member, Darbi Boddy, so her involvement with me in a posh dinner a few months ago where we were at the VIP table together has relevance. Darbi was sitting next to me; actually, her sister was next to me, and Darbi was next to her. In front of me was a senator. Next to him was a big-time political influencer. Next to him was a judge. Next to him was a political activist. Next to me at the following table was a State Representative. And next to her was other political bigwigs. The food was excellent.

The conversation was heavy. I was set to speak at this event, so we were in the center of the room. And you might say it was an event very much concerned about the affairs of our political order. It was hardly an event that contained a bunch of crazy right-winged loons. And as our conversations were focused on lofty concerns, I received a text message. As I saw it, I showed it to Darbi, and it caused even more discussion with a bit more weight added to the subject matter. It was a text from Steve Bannon, continuing a conversation we had been having all day, and as happens from time to time. I usually don’t think much about these things, but in the context of the police interview where the question came up, what kind of people do I “hang” around with? Well, that would be a good example. And I’m proud to include Steve Bannon’s name among them.

I figured out my role in the freedom movement a long time ago. I have a bedside manner that solves problems, whereas, on shows like the War Room and the old AM radio broadcasts that I used to participate in, the focus was on addressing an issue, but there never seemed to be much time to talk about the solution. For Steve Bannon, that is how the War Room works, talk about a problem and get people activated to help answer it with community activism. He and I had talked about this because there had been times when he was obviously considering me as one of his contributors. I shy away from those kinds of engagements because my gig is to give people the confidence that they need to take action with my bedside manner. For me, there is never a time to panic. There is never a bad guy who can’t be beaten in whatever way is needed. I am an optimist in every sense of the word. While my blog has millions of visitors, I consider what I do to be more of a slow burn than the urgent discussions that often make up talk radio content. People read and watch my stuff and think about it for a long time. And I like to keep the money out of the First Amendment business as much as possible because being small and nimble is more important than attracting an audience that advertisers would want. To do what I do, I need to remove as many woke influences as possible, so lean and agile are essential to my task, and I need the autonomy to work to my own schedule and subject matter. 

While Steve Bannon is on every day from 10 AM to noon, then from 5 PM to 7 PM to do his War Room podcast, he even works on Saturday from 10 AM to noon; my schedule is that my published content goes up at prime time, 8 PM each night, every night all days of the year, but I produce that content at my leisure. I have a busy life, so I usually do my work on these matters between 2 AM and 5 AM in the morning while the rest of the world sleeps. I have a very tight schedule during the waking hours that has something new going on every 15 minutes and lasts until well into the evening, past 8 PM. So, part of my thing is being able to control my time to do it instead of working toward a fixed schedule. I need that extra freedom to perform my task, whereas Steve Bannon is like a clock; he’s always on time and doing his work, even when the FBI is raiding him for harassment. So to additionally answer the question by the police about who I run around with, and some of the names I’ve mentioned, and talking about my daily schedule, it concludes with the obvious answer, I’m not this busy and spending time around those kinds of people because what I do isn’t heavily sought after. 

Suppose you don’t have a track record built over three decades of being right about things and having information that influential people find extremely valuable. In that case, you don’t find yourself talking to the kind of people I mentioned at that table. The political enemy wants to believe that everyone has the same problems that they do, so they imagine that people like Darbi and I are all about one political topic and that we spend the rest of our time waiting for someone to tell us what to do next, such is the life of the typical liberal. Rather, in my case, it is hard to give everyone the kind of time they want from me, and for me to do what I do, it requires vast amounts of flexibility to perform the task. But the need to perform those tasks is heavily sought after, and if I didn’t have a track record of truth and cutting through the fog so reliably, then I wouldn’t be at events like the one mentioned. And the only reason that I say it here is its relevance to Steve Bannon, who is considered by many to be the most dangerous person in the world. I don’t think he is. But I sure am proud of him and how he has stood up under heavy intimidation by an insurgent force in the White House. He has been tough. Darbi Boddy has been tough. And so have many thousands that I can think of off the top of my head who are fighting back against liberal tyranny wherever it shows itself. When I go to events like that VIP event, I think of how the people involved are answering a call that started with the Progressive Movement, and specifically Saul Alinsky. The radical left punched America first, and it took about 80 years for the America First movement to punch back. But that’s what we are doing now, and I would say I’m proudly “heavily” involved on many, many, many fronts. And I wouldn’t call any of the people I’m interested in as “fringe” or radical. They only have in common that they don’t like bullies, and they aren’t going to take it. And fighting back is the only answer, which is the kind of people I hang out with. Hopefully, that answers the question that the police were seeking. 

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

The Men of Butler County, Ohio Are Too Busy Getting Their Nails Done to Stand up to Bullies: Republican Party endorses Roger Reynolds for Auditor, Thomas Hall is found innocent of any ethics violations

The number one question I get asked lately is, “where are the men of Butler County, Ohio?” People see what happened to Roger Reynolds, the auditor of Butler County, who is running for re-election but has seven indictments against him pushed by Sheriff Jones. They wonder why nobody has stood up for Roger. The indictments are apparent abuses of power coming out of the Sheriff’s office, yet few people have stood up to the Sheriff to defend Roger, and many don’t understand why. The ethics investigation into Thomas Hall has resulted in him being found not guilty of any trouble, even though Sheriff Jones pushed hard to find something to bust the young man on. The Sheriff even went way out of his way to try to primary a replacement candidate during the re-election of the State Representative of the 46th District. Thomas had to hire a lawyer to help clear his name, which is part of the abuse of power game. These public employees love power because it gives them leverage over people to quell their thirst for the abuse of it, and it costs money to defend against that power in courts that are essentially run by the same forces. I backed Thomas when it wasn’t popular to do so, and Jones backed Matt King and put many of his resources behind the young challenger. But Thomas won anyway, despite all the dirty politics. Recently while the Lakota superintendent was being interviewed by police he sent a message to his friend, Sheriff Jones, hoping for help in the matter of him being caught having “pillow talk” about three kids who go to his school where he wanted his wife to “drug them, molest them, and video them” for his sexual gratification, he reminded Jones that I was the same person who supported Thomas Hall in the election that was an embarrassing loss for the Sheriff, implying that law enforcement should look the other way on his issue because of it. There is a whole heap of dirty politics to go around in just those few examples, and you better believe it, there are many more cases not even talked about. This is why many are asking where the men are these days, and I say they are out getting their nails done, filling out their Fantasy Football picks, and being nice little compliant progressives that the modern world told them to be, while crime, bullying, and evil go unmolested in county politics. 

I’ve talked to people involved on the inside of the dispute between Roger Reynolds and Sheriff Jones. They used to get along just fine until a couple of things happened, which we have to talk about because Jones is the one who decided to abuse his authority behind the law to try and destroy Roger Reynolds over ridiculous conditions. I saw an ad the other day asking the question ahead of the election, “would you support Roger Reynolds with your money even though he has seven indictments against him and is facing jail time?” Well, YES! I know why there are seven indictments against Roger Reynolds, and I think they are bogus charges by a rigged system by a political enemy who has sought power and position to use government to control people, and I don’t like it one bit. Roger Reynolds knowing what I know about the case, is an innocent man being prosecuted by a system of bullies who have used politics to destroy people for personal reasons. And with Roger, one of those issues was that he let go of a family member of Sheriff Jones because they had worked in the auditor’s office and stopped coming to work because of Covid. We have all seen many employees abusing the Covid protocols set up by the out-of-control CDC, and this was a person who needed to be at work. But they were following the government nonsense regarding Covid, so Roger let them go as a non-essential worker. Nobody can say what Sheriff Jones thinks or doesn’t but judging by his behavior and what he has said to others, he then used his power and position to destroy Roger Reynolds and teach him a lesson for not keeping his family member employed. But logic would say that Roger Reynolds did the right thing. 

Then there was the incident over disclosure where Roger and Sheriff Jones were talking about maintaining records for the public. Roger Reynolds is a full-disclosure kind of guy, but Sherrif Jones wasn’t. As he said to Roger, “I don’t want someone sitting on their toilet to know how I’m spending my money. If you do it, I’ll have to do it too,” or something to that effect, according to the witnesses. Well, Roger Reynolds pushed for it anyway, so it’s at that point that the political war between them moved into all the ugliness that led to those seven phony indictments that were led by Channel 19, who started the story. (they’ll do a phony story for the Sheriff but not a legitimate story about Lakota schools, how about that)  Then Sheriff Jones pulled all his strings to set the indictments into motion to get rid of Roger Reynolds and put Bruce Jones in his place, the current fiscal officer of West Chester. I know Bruce Jones quite well. He was the campaign manager for Venessa Wells, who was running for the Lakota school board before she got so sick of the politics and wanted to drop off the slate card with party endorsement.

Venessa also received all the divorce information that led to the trouble with Matt Miller, the Lakota superintendent and the pillow talk about children that have him in so much trouble. Do you see how all this connects? Yet we don’t see Sheriff Jones indicting Miller. The law is used as a weapon to protect public employees from public management, not as an instrument of justice, and that is what has people so upset. I like Venessa; I like Bruce; I even like Sheriff Jones. In my experience, Sheriff Jones respects masculinity and tough people. But if he thinks he can get by with pushing people around, he certainly will. I’ve never had a problem with him, but I hear about all these terrible stories from just about everyone leaving people to wonder where the men are to defend against such bullies.                                                   

I am happy to report that the great Butler County Republican Party has endorsed Roger Reynolds for the upcoming election despite the seven Sheriff Jones indictments. This is even with Sheriff Jones being in the leadership of the Republican Party. The thing about politics is that people aren’t supposed to always get along. There are supposed to be fights and testing of the resolve for it to work, and Roger Reynolds has certainly shown himself to be tough and not back down from a fight.   It shouldn’t have cost him many thousands of dollars as he has to defend himself in court. At some point, Sheriff Jones owes Reynolds a lot of money to compensate him for the political hit job he has endeavored to utilize as an abuse of office to inflict catastrophic political damage to an innocent man. Nobody trusts the law when they indict Roger Reynolds but lets someone like Matt Miller go free. People see what’s going on. Despite trying to destroy Roger Reynolds out of political revenge, the Butler County Republican Party’s Central Committee did the right thing and voted to endorse Roger Reynolds anyway. So, there is good in the world. Sheriff Jones might not like it, but who cares.   He has put himself on the wrong side of history and obviously acted in ways that were not on the side of right. In public life, all kinds of people abuse their power to control and ruin other people’s lives. Roger Reynolds certainly isn’t one of them. And when it comes to standing up for what’s right, voting for Roger Reynolds on November 8th is undoubtedly a step in that direction. I’ll be voting for him proudly.  As to standing for what’s right, it’s not people who fail to defend innocent children, yet prosecute public officials who promote full disclosure who anybody should fear. There is no reason for men to hide from such bullies behind the skirts of their women while trying to impress them with talk of nail polish and feminine napkins on sale at Walgreens. It’s the bullies who should fear the men of Butler County. And as things stand now, it’s mainly the women who are the only ones standing up for anything.

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

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Sheriff Jones, The R.A.T.: When Trump comes to town, he will have very clean shoes

Well, you could see why people would be concerned, and they are. Now that there have been whistleblowers who have pointed out things that Matt Miller has been involved in, the superintendent of Lakota schools, of extremely bad character, those whistleblowers are now worried about retaliation from the superintendent’s friend Sheriff Jones. During the transcript of the police investigation into Matt Miller’s very controversial sex life, the scraggly, overpaid, online dating addict name-dropped Sheriff Jones to the investigators to let them know about me and my role in a few recent political campaigns purely to garner favor with the police to support him in the matter. And in all likelihood, it worked. It was out of context to the rest of the investigation when Miller brought up my name in connection to the recent election of Thomas Hall over the Sheriff Jones-supported Matt King.  Sheriff Jones had paraded King around purely out of spite against Hall, and I worked to help the very good incumbent Hall as Sheriff Jones went about to utterly destroy the very nice young man, purely out of vengeance. Well, everyone knows when I support a candidate, they usually win. And Jones has found his brand to be much less influential in these post-Tea Party years. There has been a similar rift between the Sheriff and me over Roger Reynolds, the Butler County auditor. The Sheriff wants him out and to replace him with another friend of mine, Bruce Jones. Why, well, Bruce isn’t as radically transparent as Roger is with the books, and Jones wants to send a message, complete with seven indictments, including jail time. So clearly, for his defense with the police, Mat Miller was doing a little name-dropping from information he would have from behind-the-scenes activity. And people worry that now that Sheriff Jones is helping Matt Miller perceptually with his major social problems, people assume that the wrath of Sheriff Jones and the power of the Butler County Sheriff’s Department will be turned toward them for a destiny of misfortune. 

I would say, fear not. I have known Sheriff Jones for over 20 years. While he might be vengeful, he’s generally a good man, and I would vote for him again for Sheriff. I’ve had these kinds of rifts with him over that entire span of time, and my impression is that he’s been a good sheriff. We’ve worked together on things like immigration issues during the early days of the Tea Party. Then we’ve been enemies regarding public sector unions. I’m against unions altogether, while he thinks they are the greatest thing in the world. People can have disagreements without things getting out of hand. What is going on with Matt Miller has been an investigation into criminal wrongdoing. So far, the evidence points to bizarre sexual practices with adults who think about kids. And that’s for the public to figure out if they are comfortable with. But for the police to suddenly become Matt Miller’s personal hit squad led by Sheriff Jones, that’s not going to happen. People should not worry about the fear of political wrath in the aftermath of all the events of 2022.

Many people say that Sheriff Jones is the biggest RINO in Butler County. (Republican in Name Only). I wouldn’t say that. I think Sheriff Jones is a Democrat most of the time, that he plays a Republican on stage when he gives a speech or is on WLW radio with his friend Bill Cunningham, a fellow Democrat also. When there are Democrats in the White House, Sheriff Jones is a Democrat in public. But I can say that when Trump was in office, Sheriff Jones was very much a Republican. He was one of the early supporters of Trump. And from 2015, there was great harmony in the Butler County Republican Party for the first time in years because of Trump. And during that time, Sheriff Jones and I were even friendly with each other in public. I even saw him at Ace Hardware in Liberty Township and said hi.

So if Jones isn’t a RINO, then what is he? I would say he’s a R.A.T.  (Republican Around Trump). When Trump makes his announcement soon that he is running for president again, then Sheriff Jones will start acting like a Republican again. And Republicans aren’t known for abusing their authority to use the power of their office to fulfill political hits like Matt Miller is obviously hoping to cover up his bad behavior from public opinion. So even if today Sheriff Jones is acting like a vindictive Democrat with all the power of the police at his disposal, fear not, Trump will be running for president again soon, and Sheriff Jones being the very political creature that he is, will want to be on the right side of history. After all, Trump used to be a Democrat, so moderates who spend most of their lives on the fence between liberalism and conservatism find Trump very appealing. And the Republican Party of Butler County will be united again. I certainly didn’t spike the football when it came to Thomas Hall. Sheriff Jones put his personal brand all in behind Matt King. I thought Matt was a nice young man, but I supported Hall, who worked like a saint amongst sinners in Hell to redeem their very souls before an apocalypse to win that election. And Thomas won despite all the wrath of Sheriff Jones. And the same thing will happen when it comes to Roger Reynolds and any other character Jones has taken aim at for purely political reasons. Once Trump announced that he was running again, which he will do because the FBI has raided Trump’s home and gone through the personal clothes of his wife, Melania. Sheriff Jones will rediscover his Republican nature, and the world will be much better off.

And when Trump comes to Butler County the next time, he will have very clean shoes from all the bootlickers who want a picture next to him. People who today are denying that there was election fraud and have been saying that Trump is too mean to be president. I’ve seen Sheriff Jones around Trump, and when he is, the Sheriff starts glowing like a little boy. The bootlickers do line up to be near real power, and Trump has that real power that comes from inner self-confidence and a sense of purpose in life. The top of the food chain in political sentiment. It’s very interesting to watch. But by the time Trump returns to Butler County, Ohio, for future political events, many of these fears about Matt Miller will long be over. People don’t have to worry about the police following them home and harassing them to no end. Just put a Trump sticker on your car, or wear a MAGA hat, and you will be fine. Because when Trump is running for office, and when he’s in town, Sheriff Jones the R.A.T. will be a valuable ally. He will be less inclined to support scandalous characters and will quickly adapt to the Trump agenda. A lot of the trouble mentioned here has come from the power vacuum of Trump not being in office and the thought that progressive politics would be making a comeback under Joe Biden in the wake of the Covid lockdowns. But that is not the future. Trump is the future, and when he is in Butler County, Ohio, his shoes will be clean, and the personal vendettas will be directed elsewhere for the good of the Republican Party. 

Rich Hoffman

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The Police Report: Zero tolerance for liars and bullies

As I said in the video, the two things I have zero tolerance for are liars and bullies, whether individually or through institutions. And this whole case with Matt Miller, the superintendent of Lakota schools, is the result of both. And since trouble was first announced in August of 2022, the worst in people and those traits has only escalated the problem to the result of this police report, which is available through a public record request with the Butler County Sheriff’s Department. And given the pressure and emotion of a situation like this, I am impressed with the investigation and report. I wanted Matt Miller to be innocent; I didn’t want to believe what kind of information that a small army of friends connected to his ex-wife was reporting about his behavior during his marriage to her. They had all been triggered by watching how Matt was treating the school board member Darbi Boddy and what came from them to a friend of mine, Vennessa Wells, a former Lakota school board candidate, which I explain in detail in the video, were things that nobody wants to think about. When I saw it, because of the seriousness of it, I instantly recommended sending it to the police because this wasn’t tabloid stuff about who was sleeping with whom and for what salacious reason. This is an admission that sent their marriage into counseling and eventual termination because of its audaciousness. And when it comes to public employees, like Matt Miller is, who is the spokesperson for Lakota schools as a public figure, and everything is paid for with public money, the behavior in a bedroom when it deviates from standard husband/wife activities becomes everyone’s business, especially when it involves the kind of behavior that the officers interviewing both his ex-wife and Matt Miller himself revealed. 

The whole report is bad for the way I see things. It shows a history of a reckless sexual lifestyle that culminated in the point of the entire report, which the Lakota school board chose not to discuss with the public. They received this report on September 9th and have been reporting to the public that it cleared Matt Miller of any wrongdoing. When referring to the activities reported during an interview with the Lakota superintendent, initially, he said to the investigators that the activities he participated in did not involve minors but that they, as a couple, did participate in sexual encounters, as alluded to elsewhere in the report. Then, as the investigation continued, he admitted that they had “pillow talk” about role-playing, drugging, molesting, and recording on video sex acts with three juveniles. The police report also references the possession of images of underage nude children that could easily be obtained by correlating his phone at the time or through the carrier. This part of the report was odd because Matt Miller admitted to talking about sex with underage children with his wife as if “pillow talk” gave him the excuse of any liability. But as all child pornography tends to assume, the downloading of it, the planning of it, or the act of it tends to inspire very severe penalties. Yet under pressure from the investigators, he rationalized this behavior as acceptable social conduct, behavior we wouldn’t have known if his ex-wife and her friends had not come forward with information that they were inspired to through the treatment of the board of current school board member Darbi Boddy. It’s not like people were looking for dirt on Matt Miller’s lifestyle. It came forward through his social interactions and the power of his position.

When I first read all the Craigslist information and the many text messages between Miller and his wife, as she was feeling bad about everything, and he was not denying that anything she was saying had happened, I saw it immediately as a case for the authorities. They needed a chance to do the right thing and provide a proper investigation. I wanted this case to be about a messy divorce where an ex-spouse wanted to bring down her husband out of further vengeance for a marriage gone wrong. With the mention of children and their own child involved in “pillow talk,” I was hoping it all just to be salacious nonsense. But during the interview, Matt Miller admitted that they had talked about it as part of their fantasy talk in the bedroom, and that was it for me. All this occurred in 2019, and as of this writing, this is 2022. The only reason we know any of this is because of his ex-wife and her many friends who feel she was an abused person and wanted to defend her publicly. The superintendent’s actions against Darbi Boddy were their trigger mechanism to do so. But now we have to question what don’t we know. I would certainly hope that sexual fantasies with underage children are not common. A mind that allows itself to think such things are broken and needs help. They certainly don’t need to be in charge of 17,000 students behind locked security from the outside world that the superintendent controls exclusively. That doesn’t sound like a very “safe” environment. If little kids are the subject of “pillow talk,” Matt Miller probably shouldn’t have eyes on children under his care. 

Even worse is the school board’s reaction to this report. They read the same thing, yet they punted everything to a third-party investigation, just as they have for CRT. And from the teacher’s union at Lakota came a steady stream of denials that there was any evidence, even as everyone had this police report in their hands. They claimed that anything said against Matt Miller was unsubstantiated before they even knew that there was a police report. I received lots of hate mail from community activists who attacked Venessa and me and continued to spread all kinds of misinformation on various social media platforms trying to do damage control without knowing anything about the facts. I was bewildered as I saw some of these while holding pages and pages of evidence in my hand. I considered much of that evidence hearsay until the police did their investigation. I expected Matt Miller, when interviewed, to say something to the effect, even if he was lying, “no, no, I would never think of doing anything sexual to children.” I may not care much for the guy, but on a level of basic human decency, I would hope that he would at least not cross that line. But instead, he said it was “pillow talk.” For the police, is pillow talk illegal when it involves children? Possession of nude photos of children certainly is, and that would seem easy enough to get. We just saw that the Butler County Prosecutor’s Office had a family member sent to prison for the rest of his life because of child pornography, so we can only speculate why the words “at this time” concluded this report. I would agree with Lindsey Sheehan on the evidence; so far, it was a one-sided conversation that would need cross-referencing with carrier data, an inspection of Matt Miller’s computer, and further interviews with more witnesses. And who has the stomach for all that, especially on such a large and public case? And who needs all that when you have the superintendent himself admitting to what he did to the officers? That was bad enough. But worse, so many adults supposed to care anything for children were more concerned about protecting Matt Miller than what might be best for children. That certainly wasn’t their first priority, as shown by their actions.

Rich Hoffman

The Lakota School Board Has Always Been Political: So why do they want peace now?

Wait a minute, why was Julie Shaffer crying at the Lakota school board meeting on September 12th? After all, she has been one of the most vicious political activists on the school board over the years. She has come after me before, quite viciously. In 2012, after Lakota had suffered its third levy defeat and figured that the only way they would ever win a tax increase from the community was to get rid of me, they came after me in a very public way, not in a softball manner. So since they couldn’t beat me in debate, Julie worked with several school board members and the Cincinnati media to destroy me viciously, which has been well chronicled. For most people, what she and the Lakota school board did to me would have destroyed them, and they didn’t care what it did to my family, life, or reputation in the community. They just wanted me gone, and they took the kill shot, and so did the Cincinnati media, which was hooked in lockstep with them, just as they are today. I have recently watched them do the same thing to Darbi Boddy. After voters elected her, the Lakota school board decided they didn’t want her, so they conspired to get rid of her viciously, with fangs out, and ruthlessly, blowing on the fires of liberal activism throughout the community. They didn’t care one bit what it might do to Darbi, her family, or her reputation. They simply wanted to destroy her in any way possible. 

But then, at the school board meeting’s closing comments, it came time for Julie to provide her’s; fighting back the tears, she said, “that I wish that people could remember that this is more than political theater and that these are people’s lives and future and what they worked for their entire career, and there are more people involved and that these are more than people’s points on a score card.” Well, isn’t that an astonishing statement? Who would have figured that she would say such a thing, given her track record? But then that opens up a whole new can of worms. Suppose she has such a public double standard depending on the political situation. How much bad behavior has she been willing to explain away in the past, knowing what this information tells us about her? I already know the answer, but for you, dear reader, let’s just have a little fun with it. For many years, I have heard of many cover-up stories that the Lakota school board has whitewashed. My hope was that with the current school board candidates that maybe that would change. But as soon as Darbi was elected, the knives came out, and surprisingly, Lynda did not come to her defense like I expected that she would and should. I have not been a fan of public education for many years now. I think teaching kids a progressive, liberal education is a huge waste of money. But I have worked with school board members like Lynda over the years to try and save the system. I have come to the defense of many who found themselves without a voice where the media did not want to tell their stories of bad conduct inflicted upon them to improve the school. I didn’t let my feelings toward people like Julie Shaffer inspire a campaign of complete destruction of the public school system in my district. I’ve held back a lot to make the thing work because I knew there were people like Lynda there trying to make it better. 

But then I heard at that same meeting Lynda gave a strange interpretation of the police report, which is available from the Sheriff’s Department as a public record’s request. Anybody can see it and read it, yet Lynda had a strange interpretation of it. She said, “there are no credible allegations against Mr. Miller. The Sheriff’s Office completed its investigation and found there was ‘no probable cause to initiate criminal charges.'” Well, actually, what the police report says at the end of a description of really extraordinary allegations and a police investigation that seems unreal is that the prosecutor said, “at this time,” as in to mean there wasn’t enough evidence at that point to further criminal charges. It does not “clear” Matt Miller as the media and Lynda said it did. Rather, it eludes to much more, suggesting that there may be more to come. What is implied, knowing some of the inside information from the various witnesses, is that it is hoped that this police report will shut down the investigation unless the public demands more. If the public does, then the prosecutor’s behind would be covered to further the investigation. What is astonishing is that Lynda establishes herself as the judge as to whether or not witnesses are credible or not. So what does that say about the school board that she leads? If someone comes forward with information that the school board doesn’t like, does that mean that the school board doesn’t take it seriously? If the Board is anti-Darbi, anti-Tea Party, anti-Republican, does that mean they will disregard the information if it comes from those sources? I have known Lynda O’Conner for a fifth of my life and think of her as a smart woman. A well-intentioned woman. These statements by her seem strange, not her. But then again, maybe the only reason I’ve ever had a relationship with her was for her to keep her enemies close. Nothing would surprise me. Like I say, always judge people based on what they do, not what they say. 

The hypocrisy of it all is that, on the one hand, the school board is all about politics so long as they are destroying the people they don’t want around. But, they will rally to their own people even if those people are guilty as can be, which everyone should find alarming. This isn’t some conspiracy theory; we see this publicly at school board meetings. Compare the police report with what the Board said at the meeting, and everything becomes very clear. Matt Miller created his own problems. Yes, people have a problem with his behavior and are making their opposition known. But people like Julie Shaffer and her school board accomplices set the ground rules for bloodthirsty politics long ago. They take public money to function, and I wouldn’t say I like paying it for the garbage we get from each graduating class. Lynda knows how I felt, but we still worked together to assemble a nice school board that represented the public more than we had. I am surprised that she turned on Darbi as she did. I was also surprised to hear her say the things she did at the latest school board meeting. But then again, maybe not. You never really find out about people until you go through the pressure cooker with them. If Matt hadn’t done what he did to Darbi with the help of the Board led by Lynda and people like Julie to destroy her completely, then the witnesses against Matt Miller would have probably never had the strength to speak out for themselves and go public with the information that has the Lakota superintendent in so much trouble now. He did it to himself. People are only willing to take so much, and because of what those antagonists did at Lakota toward conservatives in the community, over a long period of time, they have asked for what is happening now. And if Lynda doesn’t think the person who was married to Matt, and her many friends wasn’t a credible witness even after the police did their interviews, maybe she is having trouble with definitions these days, just as she obviously has with the police report.

Rich Hoffman

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It’s All About Intent: Throwing stones is important to a civil society, so is living without sin as much as possible

After years of covering these public education issues, I arrived at my saturation point long ago. I like to think about positive things, and government schools do very little that is good in the world. If you are a person who still thinks there is some benefit to them, you likely need to redefine what you consider good. And that has certainly been my thought about this latest issue in Lakota schools, the district where I live, where the superintendent has gotten himself into all kinds of trouble due to a failed marriage that has certainly leaked out of the bedroom and into his very public position as a school superintendent. I have wanted to be wrong about him and the case in general. There are lots of people who are concerned about the case, who have kids going to the school, and due to the nature of the accusations that were mentioned against Matt Miller, the person who identified himself as a public figure on his Facebook page, he has brought the taxpayers quite a list of problems that he could have easily have avoided if only he took more caution in his personal affairs. The result has been a disgusting exhibition of bad judgment and reckless disregard for basic decency. Unfortunately, the police report is in, and it didn’t say that the evidence that told this horrible story wasn’t discredited. The sexual deviancy was true. But at this time, they didn’t have enough evidence to move forward with the criminal part of the story, which is what has concerned me the most.

The trouble I have with it all is that if the evidence hasn’t been discredited from its source, in this case, an ex-wife, then that means it could be corresponded with cell phone data that the cell phone carrier could provide, and at this point, there is very little will to perform that task. Based on what I know of the case after talking to lawyers, police officials, and several politicians, the reason is that this has major political ramifications that would be too much for everyone involved. Nobody wants to subject themselves to that level of pain. I would add that all this evidence is available upon a document request, including the text messages. At this time, to get that evidence, I would refer you to inquire about it through the official channels of the Lakota school board. There is a meeting on 9.12.22 where these questions could be asked, and I’d suggest that be the place to get answers to your questions. The media knows all about this story and have been sitting on it for many of the same reasons described. The school board has been waiting for this police report, and now they have it. So using the official channels of communication is the way to perform these inquiries. 

What bothers me most about this case is the behavior of the surrounding cast of characters. I always think more information is better than not having enough. But I asked a school board member three years ago specifically about Matt Miller’s sexual relationships because I had noticed a change in him over time. He had looked a lot more disheveled in recent years, to the point where when I shook his hand in public events, he was noticeably different. So I asked about it because there was a lot about him to be suspicious about regarding his personal behavior, outside of the role he performed for the school as a superintendent. And yes, it’s the public business when taxpayers pay him $200K per year. A public role expects that he will maintain a positive public profile, and he clearly was showing signs of something going wrong in his life. I thought it might be sexual in nature or maybe substance abuse. Things happen to people, but I remember specifically asking about it because it was a noticeable change. Now that I have seen the contents of the divorce records, the Craigslist ads, and the revelations of pillow talk between him and his wife at the time, it all makes sense. And I hate to say it, but I was very right about it. 

Knowing all this about himself, it is bewildering why he went after the new school board member Darbi Boddy the way he did because the hypocrisy of it is what provoked his ex-wife to go public with the contents of their divorce. She saw a pattern of behavior that reminded her of their marriage, and she thought it was unfair treatment toward Darbi. Darbi didn’t seek out the information; the information came out as a result of Matt Miller going after Darbi Boddy over the trespass charge he leveled against her. It bothered the ex-wife, so she sought out people who would tell her story. When I saw the contents of this information, I thought it was on the serious side and that the police needed to be involved, and that is how things have arrived where they are now. Now that the police have done their work, up to the current status, my hopes of all this being just political or inflammatory have been abandoned. So for all those who wanted to believe that it’s all hearsay, out of convenience for what the school system does for the community, or to protect whatever perceived value there was in it, the facts are the facts. They are available as public documents, and you can see them for yourself. There has already been a lot talked about it on social media. Much of the worst of it has been discussed on Facebook. It bothers me so much that I am simply telling people to get that information from the school board. The superintendent is their employee, and he’s their problem. They had an opportunity to get rid of him a few years ago when they obviously knew a lot of this bad behavior but determined that he could still perform his job in a public capacity. Yet that turned out not to be the case because if these kinds of things are out there, it limits his ability to manage anything because the ghosts come out of the closet when provoked. 

The behavior of so many people has been disappointing; in many cases, people I know and have known well. This problem occurs when compromised people have to pass moral judgments. I would say that this is why it’s good to live a clean life. Because morally, you may be called upon to make decisions that either make society better or worse. And if you get caught trying to explain away bad behavior because you are also guilty of the same kind of stuff, then you will not be able to call balls and strikes when it’s required of you. Even if you want to participate in “adult” behavior, you probably shouldn’t because when the time comes like this and moral opinions are essential to protecting children and taxpayer dollars; you won’t be so equipped. And that is obviously part of the anger at new school board members like Darbi Boddy and others who the ex-wife sought out to tell her story due to the public spectacle the superintendent blew out of proportion for purely political reasons. The political opponents to the board, the Tea Party conservatives, and the Holy Rollers of evangelical sentiment are throwing stones because they are not sinning. When the assumption is that nobody should pass judgment if they are not without sin, well, not everyone is doing the kinds of things that Matt Miller and his wife were up to sexually. And when it comes to sexual addiction or lifestyles that have an unhealthy relationship to sex, it’s a bottomless pit where fantasies migrate over into the intent to do something terrible outside the bedroom. And in many legal circumstances, not those as politically charged as this case, “intent” is all that is required. 

Rich Hoffman

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