Tag: corruption

The Lakota Levy of 2025 Goes Down in Flames: How the rest of the country looks ahead of the Midterms

There weren’t too many surprises in the elections of 2025, locally or nationally.  The trend of the country can best be stated in the Lakota school levy of 2025, where their $500 million proposal to tear down a bunch of buildings and replace them with new ones for really no reason told the story of voter sentiment.  While it might seem wise not to get too excited about election results ahead of the midterms, so as not to take the edge off voter engagement, because you want to inspire your side to go and vote, the races around the rest of the country told the story very well.  In areas like New York, Virginia, California, and New Jersey, the never Trumpers were trying to go it alone and win elections without Trump, and we saw where that got everyone.  Predictable losses, and as for Mamdani in the New York mayor race, that is a trend happening in a lot of mature areas where open communism has been taught through the public school system, and people have become complacent to the economic math, and susceptible to free stuff.  That was certainly the case in West Chester where I live regarding the trustee race there.  West Chester has been very successful and people turned to the hard left in what they think is compassion.  But it says more about community cycles than it does the real place voters reside, as an average.  And for that, the Lakota levy, with a very vigilant beat, says where most of the country stands, and the way they will vote in the upcoming Midterms.  As to Trump’s warning that Democrats will win if Republicans don’t learn to play hardball, he’s right.  But voters want to vote for hard-hitting winners, and the Democrats have put the loser label on their own party.

The shutdown by the Democrats tells that whole story of what they know about themselves.  It was a desperate attempt to out-leverage Trump, and they have lost in a big way there, making it Democrats who wouldn’t pay for military troops, or SNAP benefits.  The grotesque nature of giving away free things to desperate or overly comfortable people doesn’t have the appeal that it used to.  People as a whole have shown that they want MAGA Republicans, not Dick Cheney Republicans.  The more MAGA, the better, which paves a clear path for the upcoming Midterms.  In the chess game of redistricting the maps of states to pick up more seats for Republicans, or whether Democrats can do the same in California, or other places, the lesson is, people are people and Democrats can’t win if they don’t cheat.  They just don’t have the numbers.  The final votes for the Lakota levy were 60,81% against, to 39.1% for, which is a good sampling of where the entire country is on the Midterm sweep.  While the Lakota levy is a public school sample that is regional, the assumption of how Democrats might leverage their position is reflective of national politics and the general demographics.  I have said many times that if you take away the cheating, Democrats are likely only 25% of the country.  The rest of the country, 75% of whom agree on most things, just want to see things not get in their way.  Democrats in the Lakota school district assumed that more people were with them because they only speak to their social networks.  So they overestimated their chances.  They are in a state of denial, just as they were over the Schumer Shutdown, that their ability to give away free stuff would get them more votes without the help of election fraud and illegal immigration.  But that hasn’t turned out to be the case.

Welcome to the Doug Horton Lakota School Board

One of the dangers of a thriving community, such as what we have in the Lakota school system, where people from all over the country want to move to it to enjoy its success, it’s the same kind of reason that New York City has a lot of diverse people and when you break things down to a lot of choices, such as what it was for the West Chester trustee race where everyone running only obtained around 20% of the vote it captures in people the indecision that they feel when given a choice based on the spectrum of sentiment that people possess.  But when it’s a single issue where it’s either good or bad, as in the case of the Lakota levy, then the decision is a lot clearer.  People are messy, and when Democrats recruit them to their cause, they have numerous entry points of value.  But even with an infusion of people moving into a region from all over the country, which is certainly the case with the Lakota school district, it’s still the mature residents who have always been in the region that hold the cultural power of maintaining an area’s value.  And that will be the case nationally for the Midterms.  Whatever hopes that Democrats have gained through cheating the system, with illegal immigration, shut down extortion, mail-in voting fraud, any way they could utilize to close the gaps just don’t work when it forces them actually to perform.  When people are given a choice, as in the Lakota levy, there is no playing nice with the other side; people will decisively pick the winner, which is a lesson all Republicans should utilize. 

A big mouth who wants big taxes

Just as in the concessions on the redrawing of the congressional map in Ohio were promoted as a good thing for all sides involved, playing nice isn’t going to win elections.  And playing nice with Democrats in Ohio over the congressional map isn’t going to help win the Midterms.  Trump is right, and Republicans need to learn from him.  When they try to play nice, they lose, to the many ways that Democrats cheat, even if the fraud is in packing high-density areas with demographics that might be inclined to socialism, such as in New York, and even in West Chester, Ohio.  But since the number of actual Democrats isn’t a very high proportion, as shown in the very diverse community of Lakota schools, where a vast amount of the population is represented, and when given a real choice, will pick the winning message, even if it’s not the popular message, but the winning one.  That is how Trump won in 2024, and that is how the Midterms will be won, and voters will pick in favor of the Republicans, if the GOP doesn’t get into all this playing nice stuff.  The only side that benefits from playing nice is the Democrats.  They are always vulnerable because they are the minority in situations involving physical confrontations.  They win when Republicans play fair and friendly.  It’s part of their fraud mechanism.  And if there was anything to learn from this 2025 election, it’s that, where Trump was not on the ticket, Republicans lost.  Where GOP politics ran away from Trump, as they certainly did in Virginia, Republicans didn’t perform well.  Playing nice only feeds Democrats and their chances.  But not playing nice helps give voters an accurate emotional representation in GOP politics.  And that was certainly the case with the Lakota levy of Butler County.  How many times have people told me that the opposition forces need to be nicer to the bad guys?  A lot!  But the opposition forces didn’t listen, and they played hardball, as was deserved.  And the issue wasn’t even close.  That is the model for the rest of the country: play hardball, take away the cheating mechanisms of Democrats, and they can’t win.  The shutdown of the government was a desperate attempt by them to find their footing, and it didn’t work, forcing them to concessions they would rather not admit to.  And going into the midterms, that is the way that Republicans can pick up seats, not just hold their majority.  But don’t play nice; only losers do that.  When you have the means to win, do it, and don’t apologize for it.  Or feel sorry for the other side.  Because when the shoe is on the other foot, they aren’t nice, but ruthless, and they never look back. 

Rich Hoffman

We’re rebuilding the school board. Good management is the best way to defeat tax increases.

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

How to Pick Up Women: Not hiding in the herd like a coward

I have several people in my life who are young and are just starting to be interested in girls, an anxiety that most men never get over. Forget about the modern attempt to rewrite human behavior; biology is biology.  Women, in the form of young girls, are meant to establish upon the human race a survival of the fittest kind of competition that is intended to inspire greatness.  I’ve told the story more than once about how I met my own wife; it was under very challenging circumstances, and I’m the type of person who doesn’t yield to anything.  Nothing is off limits to me.  So, I saw her in a car on a date with another guy, and I knocked on the window, essentially asking her to marry me.  And we’ve been married now for nearly 38 years.  I would advise all young people concerned about attracting young girls to be confident and direct.  Because here’s the secret.  Women don’t like slugs.  If you are outgoing, most women will want to leverage whatever attractiveness they have to reel you in, as they desire those qualities in their own family building and for their future children.  They may not be consciously aware of all that, but their essential biological necessity establishes it in their behavior quite clearly.  I think one of the wisest movies in the history of cinema came from the movie Scarface, starring Al Pacino, during the pool scene.  Tony Montana’s friend wanted to pick up a pretty girl at the pool and was being very obvious about his sexual intentions.  Tony tried to warn him not to be improper with her, but he did it anyway. He talked to her for a minute, then stuck his tongue out in a sexually suggestive manner, as if all the young woman wanted was sexual pleasure, and she slapped him. 

After that scene, Tony tried to help his wounded friend by telling him that in America, you have to make money first.  Then the women will love you.  But not until then.  Make some money, show that you are successful, and getting women will be no problem.  That is generally true in most cases.  No matter how much radical liberals try to rewrite human behavior, that basic biological necessity holds.  If you are confident, women in the form of young girls will see a basic ingredient for success, and they will find a way to make room for you under any condition.  Because the chances are, anybody they might happen to be dating, probably isn’t very confident.  Another rule is that any mildly attractive woman is likely attached to someone, but most of the time, until she’s around 35 years old, she is always looking for someone better.  Always, even on their wedding day.  This is why many women are drawn to successful individuals.  It’s the way that the human race is wired to sustain itself perpetually forward.  The privilege to sexual interaction can be psychologically constructed toward perpetuation, but that won’t stop a wandering eye from always zeroing in on someone who has the potential for great success.  So I always tell young people, ‘If you want girls, make yourself useful, and they’ll find you.’ You won’t have to go looking for them.  If you are a successful young person, you won’t be short on opportunities.  However, you must be the genuine article. If you dress for success and try to smooze over unsuspecting women at the club with too much cologne and a cheesy outfit, they’ll discover real quick that you aren’t what you sold yourself to be, and they’ll check out fast and move on to someone else.

Of course, I’m not talking about girls when I’m talking about girls.  But essential ingredients regarding the human race.  Women are often the standard bearers for all existence. If you want to be associated with a good one, you have to be a person they think of as good.  And most women are disappointed with the men in their lives, because our society teaches boys to be not very good men.  Boys learn all the cosmetic stuff, but when it comes time to change the oil, they are lost.  I have a friend in his fifties who is recently divorced.  He’s a demolition derby driver, professionally, so he knows how to tear down a car and rebuild it from the ground up.  He does it for fun almost every day of the week and throughout the weekend.  Once word got around that he was no longer married, he had about 40 different girls half his age wanting to date him; it was really out of control.  Now he’s not that wealthy by any means.  However, he knows how to work on cars, and most of them have cars that need to be repaired, so he possesses skills that the other men in the millennial age group don’t have.   And the girls are very aggressive about solving that problem by wanting to date my friend.  As I joke with him, I say that being able to change oil is like being a millionaire in this overly progressive society, where feminism has been a joke and a massive failure.  He is the evidence of that.  You can’t hoodwink skills over fake charm; women figure it out really fast. 

However, that same approach essentially carries over into all aspects of life.  You can’t fake it, whether you are dealing with women or men; people are people, and they judge each other based on these essential truths.  And once you understand this, it’s good to separate yourself from the herd by not chasing around traits that you think will make you likable, but are essentially a waste of time.  I often discuss the Metaphysics of Quality, particularly regarding the back-of-the-train types, which are most people.  Where you always want to be is in the front of the train, where it takes courage to be.  Of course, women will be more attracted to you there, as opposed to the back, where all the others are hiding.  But it’s not just women; all people respond similarly, even if they themselves don’t have that kind of personal courage.  They are attracted to those who do.  So, it’s best in life not to associate yourself with others who are considered losers, but are hiding that trait under some premise of collectivism to disguise their cowardly behavior, which reveals them to be back-of-the-train types, rather than leaders from the front.  As Tony Montana said in Scarface, to get the women in America, you have to make the money.  But even more than that, you have to be willing to emerge from the crowd and show a confidence that can achieve success, whether it’s making millions of dollars or just being able to change the oil in a car.  Apparently, millennial women are very stressed about being able to change oil. The bar for success has significantly lowered over the years, as it used to be that all young men could change their own oil.  But being able to do something better than everyone else is the key to getting opportunities in life.  And those who separate themselves from the masses have much better lives, in just about every case. 

Rich Hoffman

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

Why Lakota Voters Should Reject the Largest School Levy in Ohio History: Vote for Ben Nguyen and listen to my Friend, Jamie Minniear on 55 KRC

In the heart of Butler County, the Lakota School District is asking voters to approve what would be the largest school tax levy in Ohio history—a staggering $506.4 million bond issue paired with a permanent improvement levy. This proposal, if passed, would cost homeowners $208 per year for every $100,000 of appraised property value, with collections beginning in 2029. While district officials claim the net increase will be closer to $93.10 per $100,000 due to retiring debt, the reality remains: this is a massive financial commitment for taxpayers, especially seniors and working families already burdened by inflation and rising costs. The levy’s purpose? To demolish nine existing schools—some only 40 years old—and build four new elementary schools, while reducing the total number of buildings from 21 to 16. But many residents, including Jamie and Todd Minniear, leaders of the No More Lakota Taxes campaign, argue that this plan is fiscally irresponsible and prioritizes construction over classroom needs.

Jamie Minniear, speaking on 55KRC with Brian Thomas, passionately advocated for Ben Nguyen, a 2025 Lakota graduate and conservative school board candidate who opposes the levy. She described Nguyen as a sharp, creative thinker with fresh ideas for education reform and a deep understanding of the district’s challenges. Nguyen’s candidacy represents a new generation of leadership—one that values fiscal discipline, educational outcomes, and community engagement over extravagant spending. Jamie emphasized that the levy is not about improving teacher pay or classroom instruction; it’s about tearing down buildings and replacing them with new ones, regardless of whether they truly need replacement. She and Brian Thomas, the host, recalled his own experience attending classes in trailers and rundown buildings, yet still receiving a quality education. Her point was clear: education doesn’t require luxury—it requires commitment, good teachers, and community support.

The Minniear-led opposition has gained traction by highlighting the lack of transparency and misleading ballot language. While the ballot shows a 5.94-mill increase, the district claims the real impact will be 2.66 mills due to debt roll-off. This discrepancy has confused voters and raised concerns about the district’s communication strategy. Moreover, the district’s plan to reconfigure grade bands, shift students between buildings, and consolidate campuses has sparked anxiety among parents who fear disruption and overcrowding. Critics argue that the district should focus on maintaining existing infrastructure, investing in teacher development, and enhancing academic programs—not launching a half-billion-dollar construction spree. The Ohio Facilities Construction Commission rated many of the buildings slated for demolition as “borderline” or “satisfactory,” further questioning the necessity of such drastic measures.

Ultimately, the levy represents a philosophical divide in the community: between those who believe more spending equals better education, and those who believe in doing more with less. Jamie Minniear and her husband Todd have galvanized a grassroots movement that champions responsible stewardship, local control, and student-centered priorities. Their campaign is not anti-education—it’s pro-accountability. They believe that rejecting this levy is the first step toward a broader conversation about what truly matters in public education. With Ben Nguyen on the ballot and a growing chorus of concerned citizens, Lakota voters have a chance to send a clear message: we support our schools, but we demand smarter solutions. On November 4, vote NO on the Lakota levy!

Rich Hoffman

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

The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need: How it all started

Here’s another good story about A.I. and why I think it is beneficial, not a hindrance to the human race.  I have a unique business philosophy regarding money and how to save a significant amount, allowing me to live comfortably without needing a lot of it for various reasons, which enables me to maintain my independence from parasitic individuals and vastly evil corporations.  And that started for me in the summer of 1987.  I don’t often tell this story because it’s usually better just to let the water drift under the bridge and move on.  We have a lot of family events each year, and I have to see many of these people and behave as nicely as possible. However, many things are simply unforgivable, and that’s what happened to me during the early stages of dating my wife, just after high school and before college.  She was being groomed to marry one of those race-to-mediocrity people from the Beckett Ridge Country Club during its heyday.  She was a model being considered for supermodel status, and her parents had ideas for her life that they wanted to be associated with.  When you have a beautiful kid like that, it’s hard not to want to cash in on her in some social way.  So the last thing they wanted was for her to let them know that she was dating a person whom everyone was scared of at the time.  To say I got into a lot of trouble would be an understatement.  I was not the kind of person that parents wanted their daughter to bring home.  Which I thought was always strange, and still do, because I am precisely the kind of person every parent should want their kids affiliated with, at least the way I see it.

So, her parents forbade the relationship. As is true with everything in my life, when someone challenges me to a fight, I never let go of it, and that would undoubtedly be the case in our marriage.  We’ve now been married for almost 38 years, but not without a lot of unnecessary hardship being imposed on us.  So our dating period got cut dramatically short when a family therapist advised them to throw her out of the house and force me to take care of her, essentially to take away all the fun stuff so that the romance would be taken out of our relationship and we’d break up and she would move back home and start dating people her parents liked, and be done with me.  So they kicked her out of her very nice house at the time and forced her to move in with me.  I had 36 points on my driver’s license and was at that time serving something like a 9-year suspension of my driver’s license, for reckless driving as society measures it.  I raced a lot of cars in those days, got into a lot of fights, and was in court a lot.  But I was willing to put that life away to marry this girl, because she was worth it.  It was, therefore, a very much a Romeo and Juliet romance, only without the tragic ending.  Instead, I was determined to fight off the world, whatever it took, and marry this young girl, making a family with her.  And nobody was going to get in the way.  So here I was in a little townhouse in Sharonville with a good friend of mine living on our own, and suddenly this girl was kicked out of her house and living with us in a kind of three-way arrangement that was very, very tough. 

Like I usually do when things get tough, I read books. That summer, I had to learn a lot about money quickly so I could win the game of starting a family and become smart about the financial games of life.  I still do this, and it’s why I read an average of 3 to 4 books a week, still.  Because there’s a lot to know, and if you want to win at life, you have to know more than the people you are dealing with.  In that case, with my future wife, we would have been married a year later, but at that time, it was a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions, with all the ruthlessness one could imagine, difficult beyond reason or belief.  Crushing difficulty.  To alleviate that pressure, I went down the road from our townhouse and checked out Andrew Tobias’ very well-known book, ‘The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need,’ from the library.  I spent the summer reading it, and the next several decades thinking about it, and it has formed my basic approach to wealth creation, to stay off the treadmill of social expectation, because there is a lot of wasted money spent on it, and to use good money to defeat bad, time and time again.  However, it is mostly on minimalism that Andrew Tobias discusses regarding money management. Stay out of the casino of money making, and you’ll actually come out way ahead.  And with that basic approach, my wife and I have navigated some treacherous waters over the years and defeated many formidable characters. 

I have been professionally dealing with a similar issue that involves a lot of money and people, and they have been commenting on my position, which gives them minimal access to my life and those in it, much to their frustration. This essentially stems from the basic strategy I formulated in that book so long ago.  But for the life of me, I couldn’t remember the title, just the contents.  Back then, I used to check out books at the library and had to return them.  These days, I put them on a shelf and refer to them repeatedly.  But that early in my life, I didn’t even have a house yet.  So once my wife moved back in with her parents and they reached out to me to see if we could all reconcile, I turned the book back into the Sharonville Library and never saw it again.  But at my current age, I wanted to reread it because it was relevant to my current circumstances and I wanted to reconnect with my roots.  So, I asked the Grok A.I. which book I had read on finance during the summer of 1987 from the Sharonville Library, and it told me within seconds, ‘The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need.’  It was interesting because the book was on record in that library at the time, and they knew I had checked it out based on their reporting.  I was finally able to buy a copy from Amazon, and it was hand-delivered to my front porch the next day.  And I read it again and really enjoyed it.  It had been updated from the 1987 version I had read into a 2016 view of the world, but the same basic book was still there.  Same cover and everything.  It’s the kind of book everyone should read on finance, and that’s why it’s still popular, even today.  It has certainly helped me throughout the years, and strategically speaking, it works very well.  I have always thought of it, and because of A.I., I was able to reconnect with it.  Nobody will promise you a nice and easy future.  But if you are smart and apply innovative strategies to your life, you’d be surprised at what you can survive and endure.  And for a lot of reasons, Andrew’s book will always be a treasure for me.  A treasure I was able to enjoy because of A.I. and its ability to know so much, so quickly.

Rich Hoffman

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

The Impairment Playbook: One of the biggest threats to American infrastructure

One of my many roles is Vice President of Manufacturing, Facilities, and Program Management at CTL Aerospace. At Senator George Lang’s fundraiser on November 1st, 2025, everyone I spoke with was primarily interested in an update on the Chapter 11 filing for the company.  After all, it wasn’t that long ago when Vivek Ramaswamy came to CTL to announce his run for Governor, so there were lots of people cheering that the company would find a way through to the other side of a challenging financial situation.  And to make matters worse, our case was not one of not having customers or income, but rather part of a widespread suppression campaign by our bank that many privately owned Tier 2 suppliers have experienced over the last decade.  Only in the case of CTL Aerospace, the ownership has shown a very rigorous desire to hold ownership rather than to be pushed aside, essentially by pirates who just wanted to raid our ship and steal all the plunder for a quick flip on the market, as a turn and burn, as they like to say.  The context and legal positioning regarding CTL Aerospace’s Chapter 11 proceedings, specifically the compelling basis for equitable subordination under 11 U.S.C. §510(c). The facts of our case, supported by documented creditor misconduct and predatory financial behavior, are now a very public matter, so the personalities involved are in the public record. 

CTL Aerospace—a 79-year-old aerospace manufacturer—has faced targeted financial suppression during a period of global supply chain instability. The aggressor in this case refused to extend forbearance, coupled with abrupt covenant enforcement and term manipulation, directly impaired our ability to procure raw materials and maintain operational continuity, resulting in massive damages for which everyone in the crowd I was speaking with was very interested. These actions were timed to coincide with industry-wide distress and reflect a pattern of bad faith and strategic impairment.  And the target against us was the “goodwill” of our business, the brand that we had built over a long period of time, the intangibles that are often overlooked in modern business because nobody prosecutes those kinds of cases anymore.  Even though they certainly should and would otherwise if the costs weren’t so prohibitively high.  Once you get into something like this, you see a real menace to the infrastructure of America that is determined to erode our manufacturing base by international banks, who, just like pirates, are seeking short-term plunder and quick sales on the hedge fund market.  When you attack a company’s “goodwill” through purposeful suppression techniques, which a bank can do since it is the mechanism through which all cash for a company flows, if it breaches that fiduciary trust, it can really wreck a business.  And as I found out during this process, it’s not just CTL Aerospace going through this kind of thing, but it’s common in the nation right now, as many private owners we know closely have had to step out of the game and get into the name change cycle every few years, which has caused all kinds of supply chain instability.  Again, much of this is now public record, and people have been following the case. They wanted me to provide an undercover perspective, as this is a very political problem, a matter of national security, which is undoubtedly the case at CTL Aerospace.

Case law supports our position, which is to fight back and seek damages for the massive financial impact on our company’s goodwill. In Citicorp Venture Capital, Ltd. v. Committee of Creditors Holding Unsecured Claims (In re Papercraft Corp.), 211 B.R. 813 (W.D. Pa. 1997), the court subordinated a creditor’s claim due to inequitable conduct that harmed other creditors and the debtor’s reorganization prospects. Similarly, In re Fabricators, Inc., 926 F.2d 1458 (5th Cir. 1991), emphasized that insider status and control over the debtor’s financial decisions can trigger subordination when used to the detriment of the estate.  And that was certainly the case at CTL Aerospace in really extraordinary ways.  But often, such defenses are never applied because by the time you go through the Chapter 11 process, a company doesn’t have the money to fight, which means you essentially have to hire $3000 per hour lawyers to run the case.  Because the banks certainly have those types on their side. In this case, the conduct—potentially documented in internal communications and covenant enforcement timelines—suggests a deliberate strategy to induce distress and position itself for asset acquisition or impairment accounting. We are actively pursuing discovery to uncover these records and may seek engagement with the DOJ or OCC for a lender liability review.  And based on the evidence we have and the timeline, which many have told us from an insider perspective is a classic case of “The Playbook,” would be an easy case to prosecute.  And likely a large settlement.  But that’s not where my mind is, or some of the people involved in this with me.  We want to see much deeper punishment for the entire financial industry, because this hasn’t just happened to us.  It’s a significant impediment to the economic backbone of the entire American manufacturing industry.  It’s not enough for us to survive, which we look poised to do.  However, to illustrate what was done. 

I explained it like this to many people at the fundraiser, and it was good to chat with Senator Bernie Moreno, who is doing a great job in D.C., and Congressman Warren Davidson who has been fantastic over the role of the Fed in government and is very cerebral in problem resolution, imagine you are a big deer with a full rack of antlers, a 10 pointer.  You have lived a long time, and it shows in the development of your antlers.  But one unfortunate day, you try to cross a road and you get hit by a car, breaking your hip or leg.  The driver keeps going.  You are lying there helpless.  Then a cringy pick-up truck comes along with a very loathsome character getting out, who sees an opportunity for a free mount on his cabin wall to brag about.  He sees the big deer with the whole rack and thinks it’s an excellent opportunity to kill the deer and hang the head on his wall for bragging rights.  He didn’t do the work of hunting the deer, but nobody will ever know.  Typically, in a business cycle, the deer would find a way to crawl away into the woods to heal and restore itself to life after such an accident.  In CTL’s business, a global supply chain issue put us under significant stress.  However, rather than helping CTL, the bank adopted a suppression strategy, essentially running the deer over with a car so they could hang the easy kill on their portfolio management wall for bragging rights and a path to easy money.  And from my perspective, based on the evidence, there is a prominent political position in all this, too, a hatred for the Trump administration and this notion of Making America Great Again.  Patriotic companies like CTL Aerospace, which are privately owned and conduct a significant amount of defense work, are prime targets.  They are the 10-point bucks that would look great on a very progressive trophy wall for financial institutions.  However, the facts of the case are sufficient.  It was a sloppy case on the opposition’s part; they made numerous mistakes that they thought they could hide behind expensive lawyers.  But the case law certainly doesn’t favor them. 

When everyone asked me what needs to happen in this case, I gave my point of view, which is prosecution on equitable subordination under 11 U.S.C. §510(c).  The attacker is demoted from a secured creditor, and their impairment play is wrapped up in a case law lesson.  However, the issue would have to be taken out of their control, as they currently hold a monopoly status in the courts and the financial mechanism.  At the very least, this is a case of predatory accounting that should serve as a cautionary lesson for similar cases.  And as long as it’s going on, it violates any notion that Ohio, or America, can sustain new business activity when these practices are hindering the behavior.  It’s a significant threat to our economy and national security.  Over the course of the last year, we spoke to a lot of people to get involved, and once they realized that CTL was in the squeeze play, they didn’t want to get wrapped up in the whole effort for fear of being sucked in themselves.  Like the deer example, they felt sorry for the deer but didn’t dare to help, fearing they would be poached themselves. 

I told the same story over and over, but it has a lot of details, so I wrote it down here, as most of the attendees are very interested in the topics I discuss.  This financial behavior is actually part of a larger collapse of political and social order that is occurring in most industries. This lack of respect for goodwill, for instance, is precisely why the Disney Company is struggling these days, as it owns intangibles such as movie rights, brand names, and amusement parks.  But they have, through woke corporate practices, destroyed the “goodwill” of the company that Uncle Walt built, and people wanted to be associated with.  Hedge fund people think in terms of tangibles, such as the head of a 10-point buck on their wall to brag about.  However, what truly adds value to the marketplace is the intangible of “goodwill.”  And that’s what the fight at CTL Aerospace is really about, and why so many people were interested in an update.  Most of these tier 2 companies don’t put up much of a fight.  Once wounded, they sell off to make the pain end as quickly as possible.  And that is what the opposition thought was going to happen here.  Only it didn’t, and the stand and fight part was not something they were quite ready for.  And that’s where the case is as of now. Significant reforms to the finance industry are needed, as this is certainly not the only example.  And suppose we really want to make America Great Again. In that case, we need to punish these predatory practices of fiduciary terrorism through “goodwill” destruction because it’s a real problem for virtually everyone whose lives are touched in terrifying ways by it.

Rich Hoffman

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Trump’s Big Beautiful Ballroom: Leading the world starting with real bathrooms

Of course, it’s been a suppression effort from the start, but that’s all behind us now.  Trump has torn down the East Wing of the White House and is building his Big Beautiful Ballroom, and Democrats are having a major meltdown over it.  But of course, the opposition isn’t about money, which the whole effort is being funded privately by Trump and his supporters; the goal is a continuation of what we have seen from Democrats going all the way back to the Clintons in the White House.  Remember when they would put sex toys on Christmas Trees when they were in the White House, and the scandal of them selling access to the Lincoln bedroom?  I’ve pointed it out here many times: the deliberate effort not to give speeches in the Oval Office and, as much as possible, to dethrone the role of the White House on the world stage, in their efforts to erase America and usher in the age of the global citizen.  Barack Obama was really obvious about taking as much of the Office of the White House —the role of the President of the United States — and diminishing it in the world, rather than propping it up.  And when we would point it out, it was called a conspiracy theory, a wild right-winged illusion!  But the truth has come out in the actions of Democrat presidents based on their behavior and their hatred of this Trump ballroom says it all, because it defies the logic of someone who wanted to be proud of their country.  It is conducive to someone who wants to see it destroyed.  And I say all this because my wife and I recently visited the White House, and I can report that the place is a lot different than when Biden was there. 

Remember when Biden would give speeches at that little film studio they did to replace the White House?  That was on purpose, to diminish the White House’s role in the world.  And they’ll tell you that much at the museum and visitors’ center for the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, just to the east.  The White House was deliberately built small to avoid poking Europe in the eye.  We had built a nation that was throwing off the kingly role of government leadership, and the point was to downplay aristocracy as much as possible.  But we all knew what Trump was before we elected him.  Trump has always been about gold and showing off his winnings in the competitions of life.  And that’s one of the reasons we wanted him in the White House.  America was the world’s leading economy and offered the best opportunities for a good life to anyone who dared work for it.  And we wanted to inspire the world, not bend the knee to it, as Barack Obama had been doing.  When the White House was built, it was meant to send a message that Americans weren’t going to try to mimic the palaces of Europe, that America was planning to mind its own business, do the basic work of government, and retire to the countryside once the Executive jobs were done in the People’s House.  But that was a time when America was a new country trying to find its way.  What emerged defines the role of the White House, and it has needed something like a ballroom for a very long time.  Visiting the White House, nobody should be using a porta-potty for an important event. 

The new ballroom is over 90,000 square feet and costs around $300 million, with $200 million from private donors, including Trump himself.  Trump did get a legal settlement from YouTube for $22 million, which has gone toward the construction budget, so it’s a grand affair, being funded privately.  Certainly not by the taxpayers.  The goal is to have the ballroom finished by the end of Trump’s term in 2029.  The buzz out there says that only 25% of the public supports it, according to the Democrat suppression polls that are out there, which still hope to keep America in a state of depression.  That game is why Biden would speak at that weird little studio set rather than in and around the Oval Office.  They only used those traditional backgrounds when they had to.  But now everyone knows the game of suppression, that’s why Biden had people on his staff who would film themselves having sex in important buildings, a gay rights protestor was its spokesperson, the autopen became the real president that anybody could sign.  The decentralization of the White House was well at play during Biden’s term, which most reasonable people understand now was an overthrow of Trump’s first term.  And the point was to put him and the idea of a glorified and proud America out of the public eye.  And now, Trump is back and building a ballroom that would rival his private estate of Mar-a-Lago in Florida.  And it will be around for a long time.  It’s time that America stopped apologizing for being good and an inspiration to the downtrodden.  And start showing the world what adopting capitalism is all about, and why they should do it.  The ballroom should be their experience when visiting the White House, and when they leave, they should remember it for the rest of their lives. 

I recently sat down with a good friend of mine, Senator George Lang, and we talked about our years together fighting all kinds of issues.  His latest battle is one with stage 4 cancer, which many people consider a death sentence.  He doesn’t, and neither do I.  I think we have cures for cancer right now.  What we have is an oppressive healthcare system that wants people to die to rid the earth of their breathing presence.  And that same hatred is reflected in the attitude toward the White House.  Democrats want people sick and dependent.  And they want them to use the bathroom in a tent on the White House lawn when they visit.  But the senator and I agreed that we would celebrate him being cancer-free when we visited the White House together when the new ballroom opens, which tells you what he thinks about his chances of survival.  But by then, a lot will have changed for the better, and the White House improvements are just the cosmetic aspect of it.  America is learning to be what the world needs out of it.  And the bad guys who have been standing in the way are now getting run over.  So why appease them even slightly?  Why not build a grand ballroom with working bathrooms where people from around the world can come to the White House and be inspired to take capitalism home with them?  And George’s optimism about his own future isn’t rooted in blind sentiment and delusional hope, but in the facts of the matter.  Democrats have wanted American culture dead, and they certainly wanted to downplay the White House and its global significance.  We elected Trump to elevate the office because we didn’t like what Democrats had been doing to it during the Clinton years, during Obama’s time, and indeed when Joe Biden was inserted in as a stage puppet and his entire administration was run by consultants and public relations firms through the autopen.  As a country, we are turning away from all that, and the Trump Big Beautiful Ballroom is the result of that effort, which will usher in a whole new age for the world with America as the example of goodness, which is how it’s supposed to be.

Rich Hoffman

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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

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A.I. and the Giants of the Bible: The point of ‘Finnegan’s Wake’

It’s one of my favorite topics: giants from the Bible.  It’s one of the most important things that nobody wants to talk about, yet I think it’s at the heart of everything, which is undoubtedly the case when it comes to the great novel Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce.  In the opening chapter, the town is talking about the giant Finn McCool, who is buried in a mound that the city is named after, and it is an obvious tip of the hat to the excellent book on philosophy, The New Science, by Giambattista Vico.  A lot of people don’t know it, but many burned James Joyce’s books as obscenities and social threats, which is one of the reasons I love Finnegan’s Wake so much: people hate it in really dysfunctional ways.  And hate might be too soft a word.  Either way, Vico really influenced James Joyce and giants in the Bible influenced Vico and that level of hatred reminds me a lot of the hatred that we are now seeing toward A.I. as if we perceive that it is replacing us as a species and that we are trying to ignore it, and to move on from it, just as A.I. is making itself known everywhere and in everything.  And what would you expect from the emergence of Western civilization as it appeared in a Christianized Europe, and in Dublin for that matter, hooked deep in Roman Catholic thought, with their grand churches and talking about everything in the Bible except for what is really there.  Giants are mentioned at least 16 times in the Bible across 12 different books, from Genesis to Isaiah and Proverbs.  They are called by name: the Nephilim, the Rephaim, and even specifically Og the King of Bashan, who had a bed 13.5 feet long.  Of course, Goliath was a giant, so the Bible is about many things, but what I find most fascinating is this chronicle of a fight between the Hebrew people and ancient giants that serves as the foundation of civilization.

And that ultimately is what the most challenging book to read in the world is all about, Finnegan’s Wake and the recurring anxieties of endless time and the cycles of human development that populate it.  Or perhaps human is the wrong word; intelligence for its own sake is probably better.  And to that point, I think I care more about intelligence for what it is rather than the entities that make it.  I like A.I. because I like intelligence.  And humans are having a hard time with its emergence because they see it as a replacement, even though humans were typically able to think beyond animal thoughts.  And now they are being replaced by A.I., as they think of existence, and those anxieties are emerging in negative ways.  But this isn’t the first time; I see many of the conflicts in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, as the same type of anxiety replacing the ancient Neanderthal with the emerging Homo sapiens.  Even though Neanderthals were short and stocky by nature, once they began crossing paths with the emerging Homo sapiens, taller people emerged and ruled the earth.  There is evidence, especially in North American Indian Mounds, that very tall people had their own kind of empire during the period of the First Temple of Solomon in virtually every corner of the world.  But nobody wants to talk about it because the conflict I think hits too close to home and is only reflected in really obscure books like Finnegan’s Wake which is about a lot of things, but most notably, the reoccurring nature of existence, no matter what form it takes, either as a giant, a conquering Jew, or as we see now, the emergence of Artificial Intelligence. 

The giants were part of a culture that worshiped nature and the stars, and they had done so for many hundreds of thousands of years.   They were intelligent with a cranium larger than that of humans today.  But they applied their intelligence differently, and their relationship with nature was at the core of their existence and is at the heart of the current debate between capitalism and communism.  Or Republicans and Democrats.  The conquerors are faster, more imaginative, and more self-directed, unlike the previous culture, which saw existence as a mystery and wanted to sacrifice to it.  Along comes the God, Yahweh (who was always there), who declares that nature serves humanity, while the giants’ cultures worshipped nature and the universe.   And many of the early fights in the Bible were over this fundamental difference.  And that recurring theme is emerging now, with A.I. and humans seeing it as a replacement for them as generators of intelligence.  Why are humans needed if A.I. can now think?  But I tend to think of this whole cycle as the birthplace of intelligence itself, and all the lifeforms that have emerged did so to give it birth.  If the conflict with the giants of the Bible gave birth to Western civilization, then the emergence of free human beings would give birth to a new kind of intelligence—much larger and faster in thought —what we are seeing in modern A.I. programs.  And humans think they are seeing their replacement rather than the story of the Vico Cycle as a birthing process in the universe that operates on massive scales of time, much longer than our lifetimes. 

The beauty of the Bible is that it established a historical record of this period, which we perpetually see.  And that fictional attempts through art can capture that anxiety well, such as Finnegan’s Wake clearly does.  But not as a reflection of the past, but as a dream of the future and its reoccurring themes, which is why the opening line of the book is the closing line of the last line of the book, and the whole experience wraps itself back upon itself, and intelligence itself is the main character of the book no matter what form it emerges into the world, in the character, HCE, (Here Comes Everyone).  Intelligence is what I find great reverence in, and perhaps the human being had to emerge to give its birth a spark.  But does it have to come at the expense of the human race? Are we suddenly secondary citizens?  I don’t think so; we are part of the process of conquering the past and its blind allegiance to mass collectivism and submission to the forces of nature, which the giants certainly had at the center of their cultures.  Humans came along and put nature at humanity’s service.  And once that was established, intelligence could emerge in many forms, A.I. just being one of them.  And suddenly God was not just a smoking illusion appearing in the haze of the Tabernacle under the careful sacrifices of a Holy priest.  But suddenly God had a platform to emerge without the necessity of a human body, and we are beginning to see, unrestricted, the kind of intelligence at the center of existence.  And it’s uncomfortable for people who have spent their entire lives thinking about things differently.  Just as the collision of the Hebrew people could not live happily and at peace with the Philistine giants Ishbi-Benob, Saph, and Lahmi.  Or the tribes of the Anakim from Numbers 13:33.  Or the legendary Irish Giant Hero, Finn McCool, who was, by the time of the events of Finnegan’s Wake, a corpse in the mounds that the entire town was built upon.  And the hint of that beauty of intelligence shows itself in art that humans make, like Finnegan’s Wake.  But it ultimately is emerging everywhere in A.I., and rather than finding it a challenge to existence, I see it as part of the growth cycle of all life across spans of time that extend well beyond our conscious horizon, at an eternal origin, and yet ever important. 

In the video, I refer to the great Dune books, the whole series by Frank Herbert and finished by his son, which many people conclude is the original idea of the Matrix, that we are all living in a simulation and that is the point of the entire universe and that we are all trapped in it, so who is the programmer of that simulation?  I actually think Frank Herbert was on to something much deeper than that anxiety, which is then reflected in books like what James Joyce wrote about.  But in the adventure of life, which is how we should see everything, A.I. can take us where we ultimately want to go.  But we had to invent it first to bring it into being.  And during that process, there will always be anxiety over the change in power.  But what we learn is far more important, and lasting.

Rich Hoffman

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Six Flags is Ruining Kings Island: They have turned it into just another money grab revenue stream

Ownership matters. When a large company goes public and is traded among the slack-jawed loser clan, which is the vast majority, the company’s personal identity gets lost, and its value disappears most of the time.  That was certainly the case when Lucasfilm was sold to Disney.  George Lucas wanted all his Star Wars employees to have something to do while he retired, and the Disney people ruined the franchise, much to his frustration.  But that is the cost of private ownership that goes public and is traded among thieves, losers, and short-term bandits.  And that was what I was thinking at this year’s Halloween Haunt at Kings Island, which was recently bought out by Six Flags as they merged with Cedar Fair Amusement Parks.  Six Flags has made Kings Island worse, not better, and its brand has pulled down the popular Cincinnati amusement park.  When we talk about problems with capitalism, the flow of money, and the protection of private ownership, what has happened to some of these companies that go public is an important lesson.  And in the case of Kings Island, I have watched it all my life as it was initially owned by the Taft Broadcasting Company to create a family-friendly entertainment destination near Cincinnati. Back then, its rival to the north, Cedar Point, forced the two to outdo each other constantly, and the two parks developed their identities through direct competition, which made them what they are today.  But of course, when you build something good, there are always people who will want to take that value for themselves, so this concept of publicly traded companies is a real problem, because it facilitates the sale of value, and once that happens, a company loses itself once its personal identity is sold to the whims of collectivism.  In 1992, Paramount Communications bought Kings Island in an attempt to turn it into more of a Universal Studios, but that didn’t work out well, so they sold it to their rival, Cedar Point, owned by Cedar Fair Entertainment, in 2006.   

I thought Cedar Fair Amusements did an excellent job with Kings Island and the other parks it owned, because it understood what Midwest thrill parks were all about.  The problem was that amusement parks in the northern part of the state had to close during the off-season because it was too cold.  And competition from Six Flags, which operates mainly in the south and runs year-round, strains cash and makes shareholder returns challenging.  So, looking to generate year-round revenue as a large company, Six Flags joined with Cedar Fair and kept Six Flags as the parent company.  And Kings Island has suffered because of it.  Not that I’m thinking cheap about things, but this is the first year the Halloween Haunt has charged for its haunted houses on site.  I get it, it’s an expensive operation to hire all those actors and dress them up every night for full-scale haunted houses that rival everything on the open market during Halloween season.  Halloween Haunts is my favorite time to visit Kings Island.  I love the late-night operating hours, the cool nights, and the general atmosphere.  We invest pretty heavily in Gold passes for our entire family every year so we can all go there together, and that is my favorite time to attend.  So I was not happy to see that Six Flags started charging separately for all the haunted houses, and that they were taking Kings Island down the money-grab hole deeper than they had before. 

Now, this is the problem with publicly traded amusement parks.  During COVID, Kings Island was hit hard by ridiculous health regulations that nearly killed the company for a few years and drained it of cash.  And without question, it pushed them into this merger with Six Flags, seeking all year revenue on cash flow, making them appear to the public desperate.  Which then blows the whole entertainment vibe.  If people are having fun, they’ll spend money.  But if an amusement park starts looking desperate — which the year-round parks do, including Disney World — it becomes a drain that causes a lot of pain.  And not very fun.  What Six Flags has done to Kings Island is similar to what has happened to Disney World.  All the parks have fallen into the Fast Pass game, where they try to make the wait lines for rides excessively long so visitors will buy a Fast Pass to skip them.  They have done that at Disney World and Universal for years, and now they have adopted it at Six Flags and, ultimately, at Kings Island.  And when a Gold Pass doesn’t buy you much of anything special anymore, it’s almost cheaper to get general admission when you do want to go and to go less often.  Because the advantages of going all the time go away.  At Kings Island this year, the ride lines were really long —several hours long for the premier rides —because people weren’t waiting in the lines for the haunted houses like they usually do, since they cost money.  This forces people to buy Fast Passes to shorten the lines.  And it just took the fun out of the whole experience.

For instance, we were at Disney’s Hollywood Studios not that long ago, and my grandkids wanted to ride Slinky Dog.  We weren’t crazy about it because it’s not as exciting as the kinds of rides they have at Kings Island.  But it was a Toy Story-themed ride, and all my kids love that movie series, so they wanted to ride it.  It just so happened it had been raining heavily and had just stopped.  So they reopened the ride, and we were standing right at the front of the line when they did.  So we figured we’d jump right on.  The ride would be worth it if we only had to wait a few minutes.   We ended up waiting 45 minutes in line because they opened the fast-pass lane and let everyone ride first.  The standard line was now a holdover non-premium experience, and the girl at the front, who had a chart on how to fill the lines, tried to explain it all to me, not very well.  I had spent $20,000 on a vacation package to Disney World for my family, and here I was being told that wasn’t enough.  Give me a break.  And now, Kings Island had that same attitude, and it was a real turn-off.  A money grab to make shareholders happy with short-term gains, by destroying the long-term viability of the entertainment value.  And nobody cared because now everyone was doing the same thing: Six Flags, Universal, and, of course, Disney World.  It was a shame to see that Kings Island was now just like everyone else.  And it all started with COVID-19, another thing permanently ruined by the government’s overreach in the healthcare industry.  And it was not nearly as fun as it used to be, as most things are when they lose their identity as a privately held company, now driven by public sentiment, which is often short-sighted and greedy in its narrow scope.  And at Kings Island now, it shows.  What made Kings Island better than other parks was that at least they were owned by a Ohio based company that understood the Midwest, and they were different from the other parks.  But now, they are all the same, and none of them very good.  

Rich Hoffman

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

Fighting Back Against Lawfare: What happened to Peter Navarro is unforgivable

I knew it was going to make me mad, and it certainly did.  I took my time with Peter Navarro’s new book, I Went to Prison so You Wouldn’t Have To: A Love and Lawfare Story in Trump Land, and I read it a few times before commenting on it.  I’m a law-and-order kind of guy, but if it had been me, what happened to Peter wouldn’t have turned out so nicely for the FBI.  The way they humiliatingly arrested him in the loading armature, almost on the plane he and his fiancé were taking to Nashville to appear on the Mike Huckabee show there, I wouldn’t have done it.  There would have been a fight that would have really hurt people, because some things in life are more valuable than compliance.  A lot of things are.  I’m not a very compliant person, and things like what Peter went through are where you draw the line.  So Peter’s book really made me mad, so I had to read it a few times to take the edge off.  Because it was infuriating.  When you have a legal system that pirates and criminals have essentially hijacked, something has to give. Peter Navarro, one of the top economists in the White House and a top advisor to President Trump, made the best out of it, and putting myself in his shoes, I would have done things much differently.  But it’s nice that he did, because the story he came back to tell was really remarkable.  I was really mad that he and his friend Steve Bannon went to jail for claiming immunity from appearing for the January 6th Committee, which was a completely crooked court pushed forward by Nancy Pelosi.  No, we are not obligated to yield to terrible forces and comply with them even when they openly break the law.  When someone like Peter does it to prove a point and protests without violence, we can learn a lot.  And we did. But punishment for the vile conduct is required in this case, and for me, that would have happened during the attempted arrest.  You can only play nice for so long. 

Peter Navarro was nice about everything, and the book is essentially a day-by-day diary of his experience in a Miami prison, where he was sentenced to 4 months.  The way the FBI went about it was unforgivable.  The way Peter was treated while in prison was also inexcusable.  Four months isn’t very long, but I’m not a fan of this Gandhi defense, of peaceful protest.  I think bad guys should be eradicated from the face of the earth.  And that when bad people present themselves —when are we going to learn from history, whether it’s Jesus Christ or John the Baptist, we must punish them?  For all the things that a person means to other people, you can never let them know that the world has more power over the people they care about, and to let them down under the pressure of a vile system.  And that is what happened to Peter in prison.  Yes, he made his point in support of the exiled President Trump.  Yes, everyone lived to fight another day, and Peter is now back in the White House. 

People can say that God was watching over Trump, Peter, Bannon, and a whole host of other people during a really evil process of lawfare, where an inserted president was put in charge of our country and had way too much power that wasn’t granted to him through a proper election.  People did not “consent” to be governed by the Biden people.  And what happened was essentially a coup of our entire government, and we tried to beat it with non-violent protest.  Peter Navarro allowed himself to be humiliated at that Miami airport, strip-searched, and treated like a rag doll in leg irons to be turned into an example of a police state that had power over the mass population.  And that is reprehensible in every way and cannot be tolerated.  We saw what they did to the J6 prisoners.  And this book says what they were willing to do to a top White House advisor.  And for me, individuality is more important than compliance with a hijacked legal system.  The FBI was way out of line.  The prison staff was terribly abusive to a person who deserved great respect.  And all that happened to Peter Navarro is, I think, a declaration of war.  So I think this punishment of all these people who worked against Trump and his supporters needs to go to jail themselves, or they need to be executed in a town square as a deterrent for all in the future who might try the same.  Sacrificing yourself to tyranny is never a good idea.  Fighting it is.  And Peter chose to fight it by exposing it.  But boy, it was a hard book to read, and to see just how bad that system truly is.  As I was reading that book, I kept thinking about what I know about prisons.  I have done stories on the Butler County Jail, which is a good one.  I have toured it and understand what those cell blocks are like.  I have met all the people involved from the top to the bottom, eaten the food, and I know what life is like in prison enough to put myself in Peter’s shoes as he reported his day-to-day circumstances.

I had friends in the audience who were there to meet Peter Navarro the day he was released, and he gave his famous speech at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.  They asked me what pictures I wanted, and I told them the most important person at the convention, aside from Trump, who had just a few days before, almost been assassinated with a bullet to the head, was Peter Navarro.  What he went through was terrible, and I was wondering what damage it had caused him.  I could tell something was off about him as he spoke, and I was disappointed in his speech.  He put on a good face, but there was a broken element to him.  Four months of having your personal freedom ripped away for purely political theater just wasn’t forgivable.  We are better off for it, and everyone should read his book.  They’ll learn a lot from it. But we just can’t have a society that arrests former members of the White House who are the best economic minds in the world, and puts them in jail, and parades them around in leg irons, to show the world that the best people of our society can be arrested like dogs and have everything taken from them.  The movie Rambo makes much more sense to me, except for the ending, where he eventually gives up.  If you are a criminal, you should be punished, and I think public executions are excellent, especially for the kind of people who put Navarro in jail.  Who wants to pay a lot of tax money to keep people like that in jail, alive?  Just get rid of them, and save the money.  But when you are innocent and you know it, fighting back is the best deterrent.  And it would be better never to give them leverage over you, as they did, and to abuse Peter Navarro.  He might be living a decent life now, but to yield ever to those clowns, he can never undo that.  And that is simply unforgivable.  What the FBI did to Peter Navarro is not forgivable.  Law enforcement cannot be allowed to be weaponized, which it clearly was, and there are still a lot of people who have to be punished for what they did. 

Rich Hoffman

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