Tag: education funding

Ann Becker for West Chester Trustee: Likely, the best candidate voters will ever vote for in their entire lives

Ann Becker and I don’t always agree on everything.  For instance she is a lot more libertarian than I am—politically.  She has supported school levies in the past whereas I likely never will.  And Ann Becker is not a big fan of guns—where I am.  Guns are a big part of my life—if I don’t have the smell of gun powder on my hands at some point in a day, that day is not a good one for me.  I shoot like some people golf—it’s all about ballistics, velocity and technique to take something carefully machined and crafted to perfection then launching a bullet toward a target successfully.  And that’s before the discussion of the Second Amendment.  Ann understands the right to bear arms, and she’s certainly no gun grabber, but she just isn’t a fan in using them.  She’d rather do other things.  Yet, Ann Becker is the most conservative and politically pure person I know, and I know quite a few people at different levels of occupation.  She is a real treasure in political thought and even with the differences I mentioned, Ann and I have never had a fight we couldn’t work out with a little talking—and that is what makes her such a wonderful candidate for the West Chester Trustee seat that needs filled from the exiting George Lang.  Here are some highlights of Ann’s debate performance at the West Chester Tea Party Candidate Forum conducted on October 17th 2017.

I wouldn’t support Ann just because I consider her a dear friend.  I also have a lot of friends and I wouldn’t recommend most of them for any kind of political office where the sanctity of the people were at risk.  So I’m not just talking Ann up because I like her.  She is just simply the best person for the job.  I would trust Ann with a pot of gold during a hurricane, and would be certain when I returned that all of it would still be there.  Ann is the kind of person who is sincere to her very core and she functions from those beliefs—and is extraordinarily ethical.  Perhaps her best skill is in her ability to coral people together who have incredibly different points of view and to get them to do what needs to be done.  While she always has great emotion in the things she does, she is remarkably able to keep the emotion out of her decisions and to allow the facts of a matter to evolve into a logical conclusion.

For those who are fans of the Brian Thomas radio show each weekday morning on 55KRC you already know Ann as “Lady Liberty” where she does regular radio segments talking about all the local happenings in the Cincinnati area regarding Constitutional studies and Tea Party oriented events.  She was not just president of the West Chester Tea Party for a while, but she was the President of the Cincinnati Tea Party as well. Over the years she has successfully been involved in many political activities extending from southern Ohio all the way north of Columbus.  Ann Becker is one of the most politically influential people in this part of the Midwest and she does it without pretentiousness or zeal.  She gets involved in so many activities because she functions from passion.  West Chester would be very lucky to have a person of her caliber as a trustee.  It takes a sometimes very patient voice to listen to all the different members of a community and try to bring everyone together toward a satisfactory conclusion—which is often not possible.  But Ann always tries and doesn’t let discouragement taint her optimism—and that is a very special trait.  Her vast experience at managing so many different personalities within the Liberty Movement, from the hard-core Constitutionalists, to the casual free speech supporter—Ann has routinely walked that fine line between success and failure successfully—so this West Chester Trustee seat is her next logical transition.   Currently Ann is the State Central Committee representative for the West Chester area which has proven to be an extremely important endeavor.  It’s also the reason she is able to be one of two candidates officially endorsed by the Republican Party.

I’ve worked with Ann on a number of things over the years and our relationship has always been productive.  As I said, we don’t always agree.  I am good at dealing with people of opposing views in spite of what many think, and Ann is also very good at corralling ideological differences without losing her moral compass.  In spite of being on different sides of a number of issues within the spectrum of conservatism, she and I have never left each other’s company mad.  So I am 100% certain she has what it takes to deal with the most complaining voices that a township trustee would have to listen to, all the while preparing for the most extravagant Republican fundraisers with all the powerhouses ready to write checks because Ann is sincere with everyone.  There is no fakeness to her, she can sit down with the guy who is upset about traffic patterns on Cincinnati Dayton Road and be completely fair and caring to him, then get on the phone to the area socialites to coordinate the more communal aspects of GOP occurrences and never lose a beat.   As simple as that might sound it’s incredibly difficult for most of our adult population to be good at those extreme tasks and still function from a place of sincerity.  When dealing with people everyone thinks there concerns are the most important things in the world—so it takes incredible skill to make the people you deal with feel as though you are giving them all of your attention, even though you may be pulled in a million different directions.  The more people in your life the harder it is to give everyone individual attention with complete sincerity.  A lot of times politicians may be so enamored that the socialites call them for help and they forget about the guy worried about traffic issues.  To the public those politicians become just another out-of-touch aristocrat.   Yet Ann is that unique type of person who can give everyone equal attention and leave them thinking that she really cares—because in all reality—she does.

Sometimes voters go to the booth to punch the name of someone they don’t know, and they can feel like they are taking a chance on someone just because they have an “R” next to their name and figure they don’t have any other options.  But finally with Ann Becker they do have an option for someone who is uniquely more qualified than anybody they may vote for in their entire lives.  Ann Becker is the most trustworthy person to maybe ever run for office.  While she was very successful in running the Trump campaign from within Butler County she started off that 2016 election supporting Ted Cruz.   She wasn’t a big fan of Trump at the start of the campaign, but as the facts came out of what kind of person Donald Trump would be Ann put aside her differences with his personality and focused on the policy improvements that would come from a Trump White House.  Ann played a big part in why Ohio averaged 10% over Hillary Clinton in the whole state when the final votes were counted—the ground game was good and the right Republicans were involved in helping Trump while the Kasich Republicans rebelled.  When the smoke cleared Ann Becker was still friends with everyone—and that is a remarkable achievement these days.   Not only does it show that Ann can work with anybody, but she is also able to amend her ideological position based on the facts as she comes to know them, and that is unique.  It’s precisely what any voter would want in a representative of any kind.  And that’s what you get with Ann Becker.  Voters may never vote for a better person for the job of West Chester Trustee in their lives but on November 5th 2017, when they get to punch the ticket for Ann Becker.

Rich Hoffman

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Ernest Gause for Lakota School Board: Bringing Lean ideas and lower taxes to a district screaming for improvments

Many people over the years have asked me what would it take to support a school levy at Lakota—as if the decision to spend more money were the problem. I have always said that good management is what I want to see at Lakota and to that effect I think Jenni Logan has done a really remarkable job as the treasurer—she is a first-class talent that has been very impressive over the years. Her addition and the reality of declining enrollment within the Lakota school district due to a peak in real estate growth, have resulted in a budget at Lakota that has been operating at a surplus, which is how it should be. Even if the 2013 levy which Joan Powell and Linda O’Conner supported had failed, Lakota would still be sitting pretty today with a surplus because of the fiscal management starting at the treasurer position. But other things have declined since, the old superintendent became sick and left the district, and many of the board members indicated they wanted off the train opening up a number of seats for this election year—and the report card has declined—which isn’t acceptable. So there is a lot at stake in this 2017 election. Lakota’s success will have a lot to do with the kind of school board we elect and without question the best candidate on my radar is Earnest Gause. I think he is the kind of improvement for Lakota as far as out-front thinking that is equitable to the impact Jenni Logan has had on the accounting side.

Ernest is a good guy, I’ve talked to him on several occasions and most recently at the School Board Forum of the West Chester Tea Party where he was a clear stand out with Todd Parnell during the debate. Ernest has a lot of new ideas that reflects his very impressive background which can be seen below from source material on his newly opened website, also linked below. As you read through the following information I am most excited to potentially see Ernest apply Lean techniques to the business of school board, because that would go a really long way to solving many of the over bloated problems that have been associated with such a big district in Ohio functioning as a government school crippled under imposing political standards and a selfish labor union. Lean manufacturing techniques would force all that garbage to the surface just like it does in every place of business that it’s applied to, and that would add much to the overall performance standards of Lakota. In public schools for too long labor unions run everything and politicians run everything else. I’ve always said that if business practices were applied to education that not only would children be better prepared for the real world, but many of the villains that drive up the cost of education would be exposed, and I am certain that with Ernest Gause at least good logical people would finally have their representative on the school board. Earnest is someone I could get behind and trust. Here is the background of Earnest Gause as indicated on his website:

Ernest Gause is a business consultant and owner of Source Consultant that specializes in HR Benefits, Diversity and Inclusion and HR Operation as well as an Executive Coach with over 25 years of experience. Mr. Gause is a Six Sigma Black Belt with a history of success working with Fortune 500 Companies in many different industries to include Retail, Banking, Manufacturing, and Call Centers. He has supported operationally over 40,000 employees across the United States and Canada to drive innovation, creativity, accountability, and revenue to achieve operational goals and objectives.

As a calculated risk-taker with deep human resources and operational knowledge, Mr. Gause has championed innovation and creativity in the organizations he has supported to streamlined IT systems to drive operations to increase customer satisfaction and employee engagement. Mr. Gause has put in place employment pipelines and recruiting efforts to support and promote key talent to build organizations business models to driving profitability to the bottom line.

Mr. Gause has 4 degrees, 2 masters and 2 bachelors in business and technology. Attending and graduating from the University of Nebraska and Bellevue University in pursuing master’s degree at the same time. It was pursuing his dream of mastering business and technology that he realized that we are a part of an evolving society and world that is getting smaller and smaller every day. After graduation, Mr. Gause began his career working in the financial industry for fortune 500 companies where he was to work a national product release, strategies and assist in developing the strategic direction of the organization.

With his business successes, Mr. Gause realized that you have to give back to the community that has been vested and invested in your success. Mr. Gause achieves this philanthropic work by partnering with school systems, private and public institutions to build educational, employment and technology pipelines to support the next generation of leaders in our community. To further support the next generation of leaders he has built consortiums of businesses, colleges and universities to drive that entrepreneur spirit to support, motivate, inspire and drive our future leaders to be the best version of themselves.

http://gauseforlakota.com/

Earnest is obviously very competent, and he’s a different kind of candidate than we’ve had in the past. For people who really want to solve the problems that I’ve complained about at Lakota for years, electing someone different is a step in the right direction. I think Earnest has some great ideas on a number of topics and that Lakota could score higher on future report cards just because of him setting higher priorities. I think he’d find a friend in Todd Parnell that would get a lot of good things done for a change. But the best thing that Earnest is talking about is an actual strategy for having a replacement levy to reduce taxes at Lakota. That is certainly a step in the right direction, and at Lakota it is possible. Because of the quality of the people who are already in the district and the declining enrollment that we are experiencing, a levy reduction strategy is a great thing to pursue. Earnest is thinking right about the matter!

Of course the real problem has always been the increased wage demands from the union each year, so at some point even with the surplus at Lakota, the union will seek more and more money until they force another levy on the community—when it’s all completely unnecessary with good management. Earnest brings that solution with him by way of personal experience. Lean manufacturing application to a public-school system is exactly what would bring all the ugly stuff Lakota likes to hide to the surface ultimately making it a much better district value wise at a reduced cost—just like it does in the business world. Anybody with a $200 million dollar a year budget like Lakota would be insane not to apply some version of Lean economics—and that is why the budgets are always so bloated. The way to correct that insanity is to put people on the school board who understand those types of things—and Earnest Gause does. I’ve spoken to him personally several times now and he impresses me each time. He’s the real deal and would be an instant improvement to the Lakota School Board. And he is the guy I’m voting for enthusiastically on November 7th 2017. I wish there were five Earnest Gause candidates that I could vote for this year. But there’s only one—and I’m happy to finally have a choice. Because Lakota is long overdue for someone of such a quality. He’s the best option on the ticket—and will be a real asset to the Lakota school system.

Rich Hoffman

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The Four Stages of Change: How ‘Saturday Night Live’ is showing where Democrats are on that path

Clearly as we track this culture war that the United States is involved with currently, one year after the great election of 2016, where the political left learned harshly that a majority of the people were not behind their movement, we have entered the third phase of the four stages of change.  At first of course there was denial which we have witnessed, followed closely by resistance.  With the ANTIFA movement and various leftists groups like Black Lives Matters threatening to overthrow the new establishment that resistance has now migrated into exploration.  That much was clear on the October 14th airing of Saturday Night Live where they did two skits attempting to rectify this exploration idea.  It was a fascinating exchange to conceive of the writers and the producers at Saturday Night Live in the wake of the NFL and Harvey Weinstein controversies to look at the Trump presidency and explore the ways they can live within these new value assessments.

The first one shown here about Kellyanne Conway acting as the clown in the recent retread movie IT was very revealing in how the political left sees the world.   Their hero, Anderson Cooper is terrorized by Kellyanne Conway trying to get on television to represent the White House point of view as she has successfully done over the last year.   The political left, represented by the SNL writing team metaphorically views Kellyanne as the scary IT clown.  They are terrorized by her ability to always come out on top on her conversations with Anderson Cooper to the point where he doesn’t want to put her on television anymore.   While their depiction of Pennywise the Dancing Clown from IT is an insult to Kellyanne Conway who is hardly a terrible person—her effect on the media has been truly scary because they are overwhelmingly liberal—and are losing.  The change they had been resisting they are now exploring ways to rectify, so from a psychological point of view, it was a fascinating skit.

The second skit that was very revealing was the assumption that Melania Trump—whom the writers obviously aren’t sure how to deal with the feelings of respect they have for her, would call a Pakistani call center for spiritual advice.  Beneath the writers assumptions are the beliefs that capitalism is a hollow endeavor and that in her quest as a gold digger with a heart, Melania finds life in the White House so lacking fulfillment that she would confide herself into the ears of a perfect stranger on the other side of the world.   Of course the premise is blown out of proportion based on a faulty idea of capitalism.  But the revelation of how they think of Melania is quite intriguing.  I’m certain that Melania is a huge part of the strength behind Donald Trump from day-to-day, and that she doesn’t need the spiritual advice from some Pakistani call center worker, but the ponderings of the political left into what makes the Trump White House tick in an interesting observation.

The political left is obviously watching the efforts of their candidate Barack Obama come undone under Trump even though they have created a monstrosity of bureaucratic intention in our federal government to prevent reform once they start the wheels in motion.     Yes our federal government is designed to move slowly, and the insurgents counted on a congress to protect their extreme implements such as Obamacare to take effect before action could be taken to reverse the trends.  Trump with his recent executive orders undid that effort essentially by reversing the nature of the game the Democrats and Republicans had been playing with Obamacare.  While the Republicans pretended to work against the Democrats and all of them took money from the insurance lobby socialist insurgents like Obama could steer our society toward a single payer option and everyone could get what they wanted—except the American people.  The Saturday Night Live writers assumed that America was lock step with them, but since they lived in New York they were isolated from the sentiments of the rest of the country.   Now all of them involved in these little tyrannies are learning how out-of-step they really were all along.  So they are “exploring” their role in this new world of thinking.

The next phase of course is commitment and from here the political left will find themselves divided.  Some will merge with the president and his thinking because they’ll realize that behind Trump is a vast American population that he represents in this great republic.  Democracy is not what they thought it was, and the nature of Republicanism is showing them how a representative republic truly functions.  After all, before now there weren’t many examples to follow.  There was a lot of theory that looked good on paper and in philosophical testimonials from Aristotle to Ayn Rand, but not much history to build with.  Those who can’t commit to this course change will be destroyed by their own inflexibility.  This is what Trump knows is coming and why he is so confident that unlike Obama who abused his executive orders, Trump will get his signed into law because the political landscape will change over the coming months enormously.

As we’ve watched these four stages of change occur along very predictable lines of ascension, it is easy to plot out where we’ll be in the early stages of 2018, and beyond.  Obviously the SNL writers are beginning to see that ascension for the true value that has been obvious all along for those who view the world without political lenses.  The hate and vitriol are still there but people are survivors and they will adapt to the changing world due to their own self-interest.  That is why business people are good for politics—instead of contributing to the funds of lesser people known as politicians, the wise minds of business should just do it themselves.  They do after all understand these cycles of change because they go through the four steps every time they need to implement some strategic change in their places of business.  The difference is that in corporate America, culture building is the responsibility of the CEO or president.  In politics it comes from the know nothing losers who usually go to public office because the private sector has scared them and that has left us all vulnerable to these socialist insurgents, like the writers at SNL.  So the better experience at changing a culture come from those who have been successful in corporate America, like Trump.  And the results are predictably on schedule—and everyone knows it.

A good leader understands these four stages of change and they know how to weather the complaints and bitching that often come each time a new idea is put forth.  A good leader also understands that most of those people will come around to the right way to think out of their own needs to survive—and that is where the real reform from Trump comes from.  I’m sure it’s been hard for him, since day one, the political left has made his life a living hell in the White House.  But Trump is a good leader and he knows how to use the four stages of change to his advantage and the first sign of his success is what we saw this week on SNL.  They may not want to admit it, and they’ll deny it if asked directly.  But SNL is now in stage three—and that means that the storm is breaking and they have no choice but to figure out their place in a changing world—for which we are the ones deciding how that world looks.  That is something everyone reading here should consider as a good thing.

Rich Hoffman

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The HBO ‘Spielberg’ Documentary: What used to be good about Hollywood

I eagerly awaiting the time when HBO released its newest documentary titled simply as Spielberg. It was a Saturday night on October 7th when I was finally able to see it after waiting months for it to air, and I enjoyed it immensely. With all the recent discussion about Harvey Weinstein and the current decline of Hollywood, this Spielberg documentary was an interesting looking into everything that has been good about the movie industry. Clearly, and I’ve always felt this way, without Steven Spielberg as a great producer and writer, all of our lives would be much less optimistic. What the HBO documentary did that most DVD interviews have failed to do is pin point what drove Steven Spielberg and how that raw ambition touched the lives of so many people. It’s hard to watch anything on television or at the movies that Steven Spielberg has not touched in a good way. I always loved that filmmaker’s natural optimism and enjoyed how he could take incredibly dark topics like Schindler’s List and find the good in such a terrible story. Personally, 1993 was a year of really intense emotions. I was being sued many times over for a business deal that went south. Bill Clinton had just become president when I campaigned hard for Ross Perot and I literally felt like the world was coming to an end in everything that was going on around me. Then I saw Jurassic Park where several brilliant shots in that movie by Spielberg blew the doors off the future of visual effects—namely the attack at the T-Rex paddock in a downpour of rain in a lush tropical jungle to a booming symphonic musical score that I have never forgotten. Then just a few months later Schindler’s List was released and it became one of my favorite movies. As a very young person I was ready to be a filmmaker myself because Spielberg inspired me to do so. But what I learned harshly over the next 15 years was that I was more intended to the subject of movies rather than the maker of them. Some people are meant to be behind the camera, others are meant to be in front of them. Steven Spielberg was uniquely gifted in life to be behind the camera where everything made much more sense to him, and we are all better for it.

http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/news/10-things-we-learned-from-hbos-spielberg-documentary-w506623

What made Spielberg tick was his overly optimistic approach to life mixed with his natural fears that were more defined than most people were aware of. Spielberg used movies as his natural therapy to work out things in life that were beating him down. The only time Steven Spielberg was a fearless human being was when he was behind the camera where he was able to work things out in a way that allowed them to be captured on film. I learned about myself much later that I didn’t like the collaborative process of making movies the way Spielberg did and that I didn’t live my life like he did his. I wasn’t insecure about anything and that doesn’t make for very compelling stories—only the characters within stories as they interact with the outside world. Understanding that made me appreciate what Steven Spielberg did that much more over his lifetime.

I have enjoyed Spielberg’s movies since that magical year of 1993, but never to the same extent as before that date and I think he’s happy with things that way. Hollywood beat up on him for being such a Peter Pan type of personality and they wouldn’t give him credit for being the best director in film history until he made more “adult” dramas which he has. With a new wife to support him, Steven Spielberg went on to make a number of very serious and ambitious movies that many respect, but never tickled the box office quite the same. The Hollywood communists were happy, but the movie industry as a whole wasn’t but who could be mad at Spielberg. He certainly did his part to invent the industry from virtually nothing in the 1970s with a handful of other filmmakers including George Lucas. I’ve always known it but the HBO documentary really captured how unique the movie brats for which Spielberg was a member truly was. I’m glad to have grown up in a time when those types of filmmakers were making movies in Hollywood. I thought it might go on for a long time, but it really only lasted about 20 years. As I was working to get into that business it was obvious the door had closed and people like Harvey Weinstein were in charge of Hollywood and the doors to the next generation of movie brats were not open to conservatives.

Filmmakers like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas are not what we’d consider today to be conservative, but they came from a time when father was supposed to know best and rectifying that disappointment took their characters in film to great places. But the foundation of conservativism was there because they grew up in small towns and had fathers who worked hard and were successful in their own ways. They came from intact families and those foundations are present in their movies, from Star Wars to E.T. The magic of those types of movies from those types of filmmakers are so rare now. I thought it was amazing the way the world stopped for a moment just to watch the preview to the new Star Wars movie The Last Jedi during Monday Night Football on October 9th just a few days after the Spielberg documentary was released on HBO. Star Wars is all about family or the lack of it and people are so desperate for a sense of family these days, because liberalism has essentially crushed the notion. That is what separates Spielberg’s movie brats from the lost kids of today. There are no filmmakers like Spielberg out there or coming up, because the American family has essentially been destroyed. If you really want to breakdown what’s sick in Hollywood it is that they don’t tell stories about families anymore. They tell stories about why families are so messed up which robs the viewers of their products of the sanctification they are seeking with the price of a movie ticket.

Even Brian DePalma’s film Scarface which I was surprised to learn Spielberg actually worked on, was about family. Without the family element Tony Montana was just a thug. But in the context of his actions, we could sympathize and like the cocaine mogul because he was in essence a guy who wanted to take care of his family and start one of his own crawling out from under the communist regime in Cuba. Becoming a cocaine dealer was his only real path—a premise that was elaborated on later with the Breaking Bad series. But to come up with these stories from scratch the original movie brats for which Spielberg was the undisputed leader is something we may never see again. I’m glad to have seen it once, but it really is sad that we likely will never get it again for a long time. The conditions that make someone like Steven Spielberg just aren’t there for a new generation of movie makers. The material that young people have to work with now are the products of people like Weinstein where with Spielberg and Lucas it was John Ford and Alfred Hitchcock. The idea of a young Spielberg camping out illegally on the Universal lot just to learn how to make movies is something that the institution of filmmaking today just wouldn’t allow with their obsession with rules and regulations—and that is truly sad.

But the documentary was a marvelous look into one of the most fascinating people in human history, Steve Spielberg who was able to take his natural optimism, massive creative intellect and disappointments toward the nature of family life and put them into a series of marvelous movies that have lasted for decades and will stand the tests of time. I will always have a soft spot for Steven Spielberg even though later in life he has become more of a Democrat and supported politicians like Barack Obama. I’m sure if I sat down at lunch with him I’d have far more in common than not. What has always made Spielberg great is that he understood the American family and refused to be tainted by the disappointments of our times. And instead he put up on the big silver screen all the optimism his vast imagination could conceive and it made our world far better off.

Rich Hoffman

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‘Battlefront II’ Impressions after the Beta Test: I can’t wait for November 14th

I always feel that I must apologize for covering a light topic especially when there is so much going on in the world around us, but we do have to live. We do have to manage our stresses. And we must find the things in life that make us happy, and for me Star Wars is something that works—especially when we are talking about a new video game. Then regarding that topic, I think much of the world that’s coming, the politics, the structure, the science can be seen with each new video game update from the industry because most of the engineers and designers of the future out there are playing these massive online games. While it’s true that ratings are down in the NFL and some of that is certainly due to the politics surrounding the flag, most of the change in attitude toward football in general is because of this new age of entertainment where people can live entire secondary lives online in their video game avatars. I find it all extremely fascinating, and optimistic and it helps me fight through some of the most complex problems that any one human being could be expected to fight through. With all that said, I have been very excited for the next generation Star Wars: Battlefront II which comes out in November. For a long time there was talk of a beta run in early October so I did my pre-order and signed up for the top version of the game and had marked on my calendar October 4th because that’s when the beta opened for the new game by Electronic Arts/Dice.

My first impression of the beta compared to the full game of the original Battlefront with its bright white backgrounds was that it was missing an optimism that made the original very THX-1138 fun and futuristic. The menu boards on Battlefront II were mostly all in blacks and that made it seem like a lesser quality experience to me. Because of this I was disappointed, but once I started playing the various modes I quickly forgave the game because it was a lot of fun. From October 4th to October 9th I played as much as I could and leveled up to somewhere around 10 or 11. I didn’t pay much attention as I was mostly trying to get a feel for everything. A large part of the weekend my grandson was over and we played the new arcade mode a lot. It was clearly his favorite mode and I thought was a big addition to the overall game, a way to learn the maps and get a feel for the various builds in the game. I also thought the Star Card system was much improved, it reminded me a lot of the Fantasy Flight Games board games in this way, which makes those games infinitely interesting. Bringing that Star Card aspect to a video game made for a very compelling experience and I could see quickly that I would soon spend many hours playing with different cards to figure out the best combination, and then trying them out in the Arcade Mode to learn to use them. From just what the game developers showed on their beta test, there are endless opportunities for variety in Battlefront II once the game is released in November.

Before I get too far into this you do know dear reader about the cultural significance of all this, don’t you? After all, the new Star Wars: The Last Jedi trailer was released during halftime on Monday Night Football. And the moment that the beta ended for Battlefront II Forbes had a nice little article seen below about their criticism of the loot box system. The whole play to win debate in the video game community is a big deal because it brings many people into the realities of capitalism in ways their public educations never did. To be good at these games you must put in the hours, and the money. You can get by only doing one of those things, but to be great, you have to spend time, money and diligence to get the most out of the game. People who are from the ANTIFA crowd of course are out there playing these games and their basic philosophy is confronted with the realities of such a big business as Battlefront II is tapping into. Star Wars is just the entry point to these kinds of experiences. They become a lifestyle for many people in a similar way that adults have traditionally been in bowling leagues or played golf. It is not uncommon in the spirit of competition to get a new bowling ball or a set of titanium clubs for golf to get an edge over your rivals and that is what the loot box system does in Battlefront II. The writer for the Forbes article obviously didn’t like it. I did, my grandson and I had a lot of fun with the loot boxes. It was like gambling in Vegas, you never really knew what you were going to get and it was fun working toward an opportunity to have a chance at something cool. Games like this are all about the proper risk rewards system.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2017/10/08/star-wars-battlefront-2s-loot-boxes-seem-like-theyre-going-to-be-a-serious-problem/#1707a80a6323

For me the best part of the new Battlefront II game was the Starfighter Assault modes. It took me a minute to get used to things because they changed the mechanics quite a lot. On the previous edition of Battlefront I was one of those 50 kills per game people. I was very good at it and it was a dream come true for me to fly those ships around in space in combat situations. I can tell that I will be spending many hours playing just that mode. I would say that the new game is worth it just for the Starfighter Assault modes. As readers here know I love the Fantasy Flight Games offerings of X-Wing and Armada so putting a pilot into a scenario that is objective based around giant capital ships and individualized dog fighting is an incredible experience. Even for a beta test the frame rates were high and the details were amazing. Some of the cut-scenes were sloppy on my giant 4K television but I’m sure the final release of the game will be a major improvement on that. As I seem to say with each of these big video game releases, whether it is Uncharted 4 for the Playstation, or Zelda for the Nintendo Switch, this Battlefront II game is the next technical evolution that turns living rooms into combat zones and works our minds in ways we couldn’t duplicate under any other situation.

Probably the best improvement however on Battlefront II is the class system where there are four different categories of player. I found due to my aggressive style the Heavy Class to be most to my liking. But what’s better is that you aren’t stuck to that class for the whole round of play. If you need to lighten things up for more stealth or sniper ability you can during a round, and those strategic options are like gold raining from heaven to a guy like me who literally spends all my down time thinking of strategic options. I think of strategic options even when it comes to what grocery store to go to, so a game like this with all these random elements playing against each other is just food for my brain. So I’m really looking forward to November 14th when the whole game is released to the public. Like I said, I held nothing back on this version. I did preorder the game so I could play it with the early access. And I did by the deluxe version of it so I could get every little benefit. On the first one I came late to the game because I was made at The Force Awakens for killing Han Solo and not respecting the continuity of the previous novels. It took me a year to finally give it a shot after radio host Matt Clark bugged me about it every week for that entire year. Once I did start playing however I exploded and quickly maxed out my level at 100. There were a few weekends around last Christmas where I was off work and I played the starfighter modes for 48 straight hours—because it was that fun. With Battlefront II being noticeably an improvement on the game play mechanics, I will likely go even deeper into the game, so I am starting with the deluxe package and from there I will support the game in whatever fashion they come up with. It’s not only a work of art and technical marvel, but it’s just some of the best fun you can have from a top end entertainment system. I can’t think of a better way to live life than to blow stuff up and hear all the wonderful sounds from a Bose sound system that puts you in the middle of the most intense battles a mind could think of. I am really, really, really looking forward to November 14th. Battlefront II will be a winner and the beta was just a taste of the great things to come.

Rich Hoffman

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The Democrat John Kasich: How ‘The Big Lie’ and State Central Committee have changed the political landscape

 

I don’t think John Kasich knows where he is or what’s going on.  I think he’s become a complete idiot.  Over this past week he threatened to leave the Republican Party if they didn’t get their act together…………………………..he left the Republican Party on his own when he signed the Medicaid expansion for Obamacare exchanges going against the Tea Party sponsored Health Care Freedom Amendment.  He also left the Party once he came under fire for the way he dealt with a tornado that tore through Eastern Ohio.  How is he the go-to guy in the Republican Party for how Puerto Rico should be dealt with?  And as far as getting things done, Kasich never regained his footing after he lost the SB5 fight.  Looking back on it now, even though I met the guy during all that and he looked me in the eye promising he was doing everything he could to support the Tea Party movement, I think he never was a reform minded person. He and his friend on 700 WLW Bill Cunningham was never Tea Party supporters—they were just actors playing the part to get elected.  The guy we see today still crying over how he lost the nomination of the Republican Party to Donald Trump is not the same guy I heard at VOA Park back in 2010 speaking to Tea Party groups.  Nor was he  the same guy who spoke in my back yard at the Carriage Hill Barn the night before the election of 2012 where so many critical issues were decided the next day.  He was likely always a loser saying whatever to get elected, but what he is today is clearly a Democrat.  He’s no Republican.  That is clear.

Because of people like John Kasich, once the warning signs were obvious, the Tea Party that everyone has always been so unhappy about in the establishment made a very key, strategic decision.  Yes they attacked candidates like John Boehner openly and it had an effect.  Eric Canter lost his seat to a more reform minded candidate and John Boehner left his speaker job to become a lobbyists and make some money while he still could.  Many other candidates of traditional establishment have found themselves now looking in from the outside.  But that’s not the only success the Tea Party had—the real success was much more permanent.  Tea Party leaders ran for State Central Committee seats and started challenging the establishment from the inside out, and after a few years of that they are now running the Party in a way that the newspapers still don’t udnerstand.   John Kasich for a lot of us was the last straw.  When he went bad people pulled together and made some decisions.  That is why Kasich was unable to keep Donald Trump from winning Ohio, because the Party kicked Kasich to the side, even though he was the sitting governor.   Kasich lost his power because he turned away from the people who put him in office.  He’s not going to leave the Republican Party.  He was already removed during the election period of 2016 based on his horrendous performance as a Republican governor.  Progressives like him, conservatives do not.  The Party moved on without John Kasich.

Now Kasich is the go-to guy on all the liberal network stations.  Progressives are hoping with all their chips on the table that John can make a comeback, but there is no chance of that happening.  Once Kasich lost people like me, he lost the only people who could give him a platform into politics in the future.  He’s done and he won’t be coming back in 2020 as an independent.  The world was poised to change, and he pretended he wanted to be a part of that change.  When he showed that he wasn’t, we found people who would and that’s the end of the story on Kasich.

When those same Tea Party supporters told me their plan I wasn’t sure it could be done at the time, but the people doing it were ambitious and smart.  It took real discipline and tenacity to win all those Central Committee seats.   I was asked to be one of them, but I just couldn’t put the time in, but I have been really impressed by how well their plan worked.  And it has made a difference in the nature of politics within the Republican Party.  This is just the start.  Now that it has been successful more people who are of the Tea Party mind are putting themselves in these Central Committee seats and voting with the reformers.  Kasich will have even a less chance in two years of doing anything in the Republican Party than he does now, because he is a liar, a cheat, and a wimp.  The Party was taken away from Kasich.  He didn’t leave it willingly.  They aren’t telling people that on CNN.

This is also why Democrats are all flipped out with these radicalized groups they have, like ANTIFA.  The old games aren’t working.  I’m just going to spell it out for those who don’t keep track of the inner workings of politics, Dinesh  D’Souza’s recent book, The Big Lie has obliterated the political left’s foundational tactics.  Currently only smart people have read the book and are acting on what has been presented, but over the next eight years the contents will spread into the Democratic playbook and literally destroy all the avenues they’ve used to recruit interest to the Party over the last 100 years.  Of course this isn’t D’Souza’s first entry into this kind of thing, but I think The Big Lie is the most damaging to the Democrats.  Coming out when it did while Trump is in the White House is a game changer in politics.  The book is that good, and that influential.  Just like with the Central Committee efforts I spoke about in Ohio, once the smart people get their teeth into something, the change that follows is inevitable.  Democrats don’t have similar smart people on their side; all they have ever had is fear to invoke political passions.  In this ever-increasing information based society, fear is beaten by knowledge.  And people without knowledge cannot beat people with it—even though they may currently outnumber them—stupid people know how to march in the street, but they don’t know how to get themselves organized into something like a State Central Committee takeover.  That’s where real party decisions are made and Democrats have stacks of very emotional people who are willing to join together for a fight, but to fight what?  They need someone to tell them that and nobody can articulate the issue.  Emotional efforts aren’t aren’t working anymore, so they have no more plan B.

That’s why Kasich is now on the outside.  It is embarrassing to watch him attempt to position himself for a 2020 run as an independent, or perhaps even as a Democrat.  Looking at the Democrats there really isn’t anybody who can challenge Trump in 2020, so Kasich being the kind of guy he is—certainly not a Republican—just a hired gun that turned out to not have any bullets metaphorically speaking, might try to run as a Democrat and he’s setting the stage on CNN.  He wants to be president so badly, he is likely considering it.  But he doesn’t have the heart to win that fight.  He’s a weak person who has made so many people angry that he can’t run from it forever.  It’s already caught up to him which is why he looks so oblivious to the reality around him.  He’s already a man without a Party.  He didn’t make that decision.  It was made for him by those who previously supported him.

Rich Hoffman

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West Chester is on Money Magazine’s Top 100 List: Who to vote for in 2017’s trustee election

I know I I’m very proud of West Chester for remaining one of the top places to live in the entire United States yet again by Money Magazine.  Since George Lang has been a trustee he has contributed greatly to this rise in national profile and he is now moving to become a state rep in Columbus so he can do the same thing for Ohio on a much larger scale, and don’t doubt for a moment that he will be successful.  George knows how to work “it,” and I look forward to his results quickly in the next few years.  Things in West Chester have really improved over the last several years since George and Mark Welch have been running things as the one, two vote for the West Chester trustees.  A quick look at the history of the Money Magazine rankings below will show just how much success they’ve had.  The consistency ranging from this year all the way back to 2014, the first full year after Mark’s election, provides the unrequited testimony to the success the two have had in spite of Lee Wong’s efforts at community socialism to make West Chester such a destination of success and opportunity.

WEST CHESTER TWP. — West Chester Twp. is, once again, named among the best places to live in America.

That’s according to Money Magazine, which today released its list of “100 Best Place to Live in America” with the growing Butler County township as No. 56 on that list.

West Chester Twp. was previously ranked No. 49 in 2016’s “America’s Top 50 Places to Live,” No. 30 in 2014, No. 97 in a list of “Top 100 Places to Live” in 2012, No. 32 in 2010 and No. 45 in 2005, according to Money Magazine.

Released on Monday, this year’s list focuses on communities with populations from 10,000 to 100,000.

http://www.whio.com/news/west-chester-lands-best-places-live-america/WHFDzYMsBOyP5j2KEnpkxJ/

For perspective there are 267 cities currently in America that feature populations less than 100,000 people, so to be in the top 100 is quite impressive.  There are many more small towns and localities, but for a managed population with such a great number of residents that have to balance out tax burdens, zoning, livability, future outlook and day-to-day management, West Chester is a fine example of how it should be done. Of course with all that success there are lots of coat-tail riders who want to make a name for themselves as the next generation of West Chester trustees.  This particular year is unique because not only is George’s seat up for candidates because he is moving to the state position, but Mark Welch’s seat is up for re-election as well.  Lee Wong is the third seat and it is also up to be challenged.  Under a normal year to keep things running the way they have been in West Chester, only one of those seats would need to be defended from the incumbent personalities seeking to make a name for themselves.  This year, two seats must be defended.  It would be nice to get all three with conservative minded people, but looking at the list of people running there are a lot of liberals running as Republicans but are in fact major RINOs so we need to clear things up for the voters who don’t know the difference between the people with all the big signs so that they can know who they need to elect to keep West Chester in that top ranking with Money Magazine.  After all, what it comes down to is investments and for people who want to protect their investments in their community they must elect the right people this time around to maintain stability otherwise everything could go to hell quickly.

My picks for the West Chester trustee race is to re-elect Mark Welch.  He’s most responsible of all the candidates for the great Money Magazine reviews that have been unleashed during his term in office.  Ann Becker is my second pick; she is clearly the best next person to work with Mark to keep West Chester running correctly.  I’d like to see Lee Wong lose, because he’s an idiot, and a socialist.  His third vote isn’t too damaging so long as two real conservatives are on the other side.  It would be good to try out a new name to replace Lee and see if someone can emerge.  A new name would be best, not the tax and spend names from the old Lakota school board.  If I had to pick my poison Lynda O’Conner would beat out Joan the Hutt, (Joan Powell)  Both women have election experience and access to some money which is why they have some big signs, but neither one of them are conservatives.  They have both supported high taxes in the past but of the two Lynda is clearly far better than Joan.  Honestly voters would do better to elect the lady who makes sushi at Kroger before trying either of the Lakota school board people.  At least she knows how to make something good for a decent price.  But she’s not running unfortunately.  Everyone else running is a gamble.

Mark and Ann are the sure money to maintaining West Chester’s high profile and country-wide expectation.  If both of them are not elected together than anything can happen.  Money Magazine likely won’t be including West Chester on their future lists.  A lot of people take for granted good management when they have it, but miss it desperately once it’s gone.  Mark’s track record is stout and needs no explanation.  Ann Becker for those who don’t know her can easily make up for experience with her thinking.  I’ve known her for years and she is at the center of almost everything political in Southern Ohio.  She like George Lang knows how to “work” things behind the scenes without going negative.  She is a naturally gifted personality and I think being a woman helps her tremendously in perhaps even improving the Money Magazine ranking in the future.  She knows how to sell conservative ideas without the typical defensive posture that most business oriented conservative men do.  Not that it matters, but most people who have been successful in business have been taught that they have to apologize for their success so they get defensive with the media when they talk, or they avoid talking at all.  Ann is great with the media, she’s on 55 KRC every week speaking with Brian Thomas and she’s done a lot of television.  She has connections to CNN and many other major national networks, so she brings a lot to the table and is the best opportunity for West Chester to either maintain the Money Magazine ranking, or improve on it.  Nobody else running has a chance.

It is a tremendous honor to have such a large community like West Chester continuously ranked on that list. I love West Chester.  I have traveled a lot and have been to some of the most far-reaching places on earth and there isn’t anywhere that I can think of that’s better than West Chester.  From all the offerings along Cox Road to the Union Central Blvd exit, West Chester is a very dynamic place.  You can do just about anything in West Chester.  From Entertrainment Junction to the great VOA Park, people could live in West Chester every day and never go anywhere else and still have more to do then in resort cities like Orlando Florida, or Las Vegas—and would never miss an opportunity.  That is saying a lot.  I consider most of my Saturday’s and Sundays to be like a vacation, but it’s all within my home town.  Between IKEA where my mother-in-law comes in from out-of-town to shop at, like a lot of people do, to Top Golf where it’s a dream destination for business clients visiting from far off places, West Chester has it all.  But it needs to continue to have good management—we can’t take these things for granted.  It’s a delicate balance, so be sure to vote in November for Mark and Ann—and take your chances on that third name.  But make sure two of them are the people I mentioned.

Rich Hoffman

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Las Vegas wasn’t a Terrorist Act, it’s a Battlefield: What’s missing determins the guilt of the Deep State

 

My view of the Las Vegas massacre is not one of terrorism or even derangement syndrome from Stephen Paddock—the millionaire who shot at people from a hotel window into a crowd of country music concert participants. It’s that of a battlefield in this ideological civil war that our country is now locked in. We are clearly not one country of one people focused on a future we can all share together, but a divided country of left and right-thinking philosophies which are not cohesive. One side will win and one side will lose and will be forced to retreat. The calls for peace for which the political left is so well-known for are only to disarm us all for their social incursions. They do not intend to live in peace with conservative Americans, and mean to destroy us, and it is there for which we must begin this discussion. The Las Vegas massacre is a battlefield, not a murder. It is obviously about destroying part of an ideology not in just randomly killing people for a personal objective and this is the reason authorities have not been so forthright about the killer’s motives.
I think the most telling evidence of this assumption is that we actually pause when the FBI says that this was not a terrorist incident, yet we are inclined to believe the ISIS claims that it was responsible—even though this guy was white, older, and affluent. Stephen Paddock doesn’t fit any of our assumptions about terrorism, yet he just committed the largest shooting incident in American history and he went to great effort to buy himself enough time to kill as many people as possible. His hotel suit was strategically selected. He had advanced cameras stationed to give him warning of incoming officers—the whole effort looked more like the ending of the movie Fight Club than anything else. There was an ideological story present that was not being revealed early in the investigation. In a time of massive media footprints from Facebook to Twitter—there is surprisingly nothing known at this point about Stephen Paddock except that he was a retired accountant who was a high rolling gambler that had an Asian girlfriend.

So what we have to go on is to examine what has been erased to draw our conclusions. The attack was against supposed Trump supporters. The gun grabbers were quick to exploit the tragedy and some members of the media actually showed hostility toward the victims because they were believed to be Trump voters. We have seen the Deep State react very violently toward the Trump presidency and even if conspiracy theories are not entertained, we must look at what President Trump has had to endure over the last 9 months and wonder how many of the most farfetched thoughts really are. Some people believe that there are means to control the weather with advanced scientific mechanisms. Three major hurricanes in just a few weeks when we’ve never seen anything like that before have hit the United States. Unprecedented investigations into the affairs of the Trump family when the Obamas and Clintons have been given a free pass—even in the face of great evidence. War being stoked by all the villains of the world, close calls with Russia, North Korea, Syria, Iran and constant pressure from every regime to lash out at the United States at the slightest provocation. Trump has had to terminate more employees than any previous administration at a faster rate than at any point in history due to the constant leaks to the press—some of which have come from the ex-FBI director himself. And now on Trump’s watch is the deadliest shooting ever when the President ran on a pro-gun platform. If only one of those things could be tied to the Deep State control of our government and the shadow instigators who hide there, we have an obvious problem. These are not random occurrences, they are deliberately solicited to evoke social change—at least some of them. They are being unleashed to overload this president and the sentiment of his voters into not making such bold assertions in the future. They have declared war against America—these Deep State activists and I don’t think I’m going out on a limb here in saying it, but I bet this investigation into Stephen Paddock leads straight to the door of the Deep State itself. The bread crumbs have been deliberately picked up too obviously. It’s what we don’t see that tells us most about what’s really there. Nobody goes to that much trouble to kill so many people unless there is an ideological purpose, and that ideology was obviously against Trump and his supporters, and that to me means war.

No, this is not the time to consider gun restrictions—not by any means. The first reason would be that we can’t trust our centralized authorities. If the Deep State has so much power that they can so openly harass a rightfully elected president, then they can harass the rest of us at will. They don’t care about laws, they certainly don’t care about respect and obviously collateral damage is something they are willing to utilize to keep their grip on power. The only thing that stands between their complete takeover of American life is our rights to own guns—to stop such a thing from happening. If they were successful in making America a gun free zone then there would be nothing to stop them from running the country. All they need is to make people shake their heads yes to obvious evil such as this Las Vegas shooting to start the ball rolling. They don’t care how many people they must kill to get us to say yes—and that tells us everything we need to know.

Was Stephen Paddock insane—maybe. Maybe he did it for the girlfriend. But he had enough thought in his mind to prepare the battlefield for a game changing moment and we must understand why he would spend so much time, money and even give his life to such a thing. Those reasons don’t point to insanity, they point to warfare and ideological activism that obviously leads to the Deep State. How do we know, well, the evidence has been erased leading there, because the floor is too clean to the door of that Deep State. And that means we need more guns, not less. You don’t give your weapons over to the enemy, and yes, that is how we must view these insurgents.

After Trump was elected many people thought that they didn’t need to buy as many guns, and that they might let their support of the NRA drift in neglect—but trust me dear reader, the time for that support has never been stronger. We need guns now more than ever and we need the NRA. We are not living in a civil society. We are in a time of civil war and in moments like those in Las Vegas the bullets became real more than just ideological. The fuel that cast them into the bodies of so many people was not the guns themselves, but the thoughts behind them. And there is no law for addressing a broken ideology which seeks to destroy people to make a point. Until that war is won by us in the conservative movement, then we must have plenty of guns and the desire to use them to defend ourselves from the villains of our society. And that includes the members of the Deep State—because it’s obvious that they are in a killing mood—and the only way to rectify that is with force of our own—which is sadly the only language they understand.

Rich Hoffman

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Everything We Need to Know about the NFL’s Inevitable Death: The Global Citizen movement is attacking America through entertainment unions

Many aren’t aware of it, but there is a lot more to the NFL controversy about players taking a knee during the National Anthem. Many think that Trump shouldn’t be dealing with the issue, but then again, they clearly don’t understand the strategies of the anti-American forces invading our sovereignty. For those who don’t know the story visit the website linked below to the Global Citizen movement. That is the latest Socialist International effort to spread global communism to every reach of the globe. They simply changed the name to make it more inviting and stuck it to a bunch of stupid NFL players who think they are civil rights heroes. The NFL players are just uneducated participants easily pulled into the global events of our times as unsuspecting fools selling poison to an audience the NFL has come to take for granted. Trump was right to highlight the issue as a top priority. It may very well be the biggest issue of our day, more so than war with North Korea, our $20 trillion-dollar debt, or the three major hurricanes that have destroyed American cities over the last few weeks.

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/

After what I saw this past weekend from the NFL, with many players taking a knee during the Nation Anthem, then watching Jerry Jones cave to the player’s movement by kneeling in the center of the field of the Monday Night game in Arizona locked arm and arm—I’m done. As many know, I have been a fan of the NFL during the whole duration of this blog site—but not anymore. What I see happening is a poplar game being exploited by a greedy socialist trade union that is working in conjunction with the other entertainment unions, SAG, DGA and many others to spread this Global Citizen movement and expecting unaware NFL lovers to go along with it because they love the game so much. Well, I think the NFL assumes too much. Fans are willing to put up with players who beat their wives, do drugs, and even kill people—but they won’t stand for a lack of patriotism. The National Anthem is part of the NFL experience and it allows people to feel good about the event—and without it, the game is a weakened exchange.

My wife and I were planning a trip to Tampa Bay on the weekend of November 12th for a long weekend, as we have in the past—to visit Raymond James Stadium, enjoy the beach, and have a great time at the Buccaneers football game against the Jets. After I saw Mike Evens take a knee at the Vikings game Sunday I cancelled all our plans in that moment. That was before they lost to the Vikings by the way. I don’t care how good Mike Evens is as a football player, he’s not so good he can’t stand for the National Anthem. If he’s not going to do that, I’m not spending my money on the team he plays on, and people who read here often know how much I love the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. But I don’t love them that much, not enough to put up with spoiled brat kids who are more willing to be cheer leaders of the Global Citizen movement than of the country for which the game of football is a spokesman. Without that game to play people like Mike Evens wouldn’t be a multimillion-dollar player to begin with—he’d be doing some regular job like everyone else, so the kid needs to learn his place in the world, and my money won’t contribute to his ignorance.

We budgeted around $5000 dollars for our trip and that would have covered the plane tickets, the hotel—a nice hotel suite, the game tickets, food for the weekend, a little shopping at the International Mall which we like to visit when we travel to that region, and of course spending money at the stadium—around a $1000 just for that. Some people might not think that’s much money, but I think it’s a tremendous amount of money just for a weekend football game. Now I don’t think I’ll even watch the game on television. Forget about the NFL pass on cable, I’m not going to pay that either. I’m not going to spend any money on the NFL this year because of all this. Normally through the year I might spend several thousand dollars. In years like this one where we plan out of state trips to watch the Buccaneers play, it might be $7000 per year spent during the whole season—including merchandise. Not this year, and maybe never again. I love football, but I don’t love it enough to put up with this kind of crap. If I can’t feel good about the money I’m spending, I’m not going to spend it. After all, Battlefront II comes out just a few days later and I’m very excited for that new video game release. Who needs football for entertainment when you have a Playstation? One is a passive experience, the other is an active one.

This is where the NFL has sided with the wrong groups. Obviously, they are backing their players union support of this Global Citizen movement because they want to expand the NFL market. A “flag first” policy does not help the strategic objectives of their global reach, and in order to get that, the NFL needs to accept more socialism—because let’s face it, the rest of the world is a very socialist place. All this solidarity crap is socialist speak to the leftists of the world whom the NFL is trying to reach. NFL executives figured they already had saturated the American market so there isn’t much left to acquire. To keep up with escalating payrolls for which the players union demands—especially with all the concussion protocols–the NFL must seek oversea markets so that is why they are supporting this anti flag movement.

The Global Citizen movement aims to remove sovereignty from all countries, especially the United States so that their objectives of a one world government can be met. Trump knows this better than anybody right now because he gets to talk to these people every day—which is why I’m sure he unleased this debate right after his United Nations speech. Global Citizenship is a buzz word right now in all progressive communities and if the president is trying to instill an American first message, then he has to attack the global movement where they are festering utterly undetected—behind America’s game of football.

This is where the NFL is going wrong—their American base of fan support isn’t as strong as it used to be. The new generation of young people won’t spend money on the games like my generation did, or the people of the generation that came before me. They won’t buy season tickets and commit to eight games per season, and they certainly won’t waste $5000 per game like I have from time to time to have a fun weekend out of town for a favorite football team in another city’s market. I’m 50 years old and honestly, I’d rather spend my Sundays playing Battlefront II where I get to be at the center of the action instead of watching millionaire players have all the fun. People younger than I am most certainly feel that way. There are far more things to do on a Sunday than watch NFL football. You can binge watch shows on Netflix or Amazon Prime, you can lose yourself in video games playing with people all over the world which is a lot more exciting than watching a football game. What the NFL doesn’t seem to realize through arrogance entirely of their own, is that once they lose their fans—they won’t be back. Once people turn off to football, they are gone forever. My generation will care some, but they’ll find something else to do. The next generations, they’re playing video games—by the millions. They don’t need the NFL.

I almost feel sorry for the NFL players for getting themselves wrapped up in this mess. They are cutting their own throats and they don’t even know it. They are destroying the game for future generations, and utterly cutting off their own revenue stream. Their NFL owners won’t be able to pay their gigantic payrolls soon, because the money simply won’t be there. To sustain what they currently are accustom to, the beer needs to flow, and be very overpriced, people need to buy lots of jerseys, and they need to fill those stadium seats. TV ratings have to be great, not good—but GREAT! That’s the only way advertisers will pay premium to market their products. If people turn off the game and revert to Playstation—which they were already doing before this controversy—then the NFL as a business dies. It won’t take long for it to happen—just a few years from now. Even under optimal conditions the NFL was going to have to adjust, but now they may lose their game forever to a public that has their entertainment appetites stimulated by other things. Nobody wants to watch flag football—and they certainly won’t plop down 5K for it not with all the other things out there to entertain us.

The players and the media should have listened to Trump. They are the ones who politicized the game and once the president called them out on it, they dug down deeper—and damaged themselves to a far greater magnitude. I am surprised that more smart people have not yet drawn these conclusions and connected these complicated dots, but perhaps that is because there is too much emotion associated with the NFL which has been with us for a long time. But to be honest, it’s a pretty young game in the scheme of things—something that has essentially lived and died during my generation. And when its gone forever, nobody will miss it—few will ever remember that it ever was.

Rich Hoffman

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The NFL isn’t for the Players: Why Donald Trump is right–as usual

Part of making America great again is to give everyone something to be proud of.  Even in the case of the NFL the infusion of socialist thought has drowned out the respect we should all have for our flag, which is only a symbol, but largely distinguishes us as a people from the rubble of global awareness.  The forces that have wanted to destroy our sovereignty and turned us from Americans into some “global citizen” are the same that have desired to destroy the game of football which is unique to America and represents so much more to our culture than just scoring touchdowns.  Football is a game of capitalism, as I’ve said many times before in hundreds of articles.  Soccer as we think of it in America is a game that is very popular in countries corrupted with socialism—and represents that political philosophy dramatically—most obviously in the way the offside’s rule is established.  In football a player is offside’s when the defense jumps the snap count.  In soccer it happens when an offensive player gets behind the deepest player on a defense.  It’s as plain as anybody could make it, soccer favors regulatory constraints which is why the score is always so low, where football puts the burden on the defense—on regulatory resistance to stop an offense if they can.  The offense is meant to find creative ways to dominate a defense—and it is that basic essence which has made the world target American football as a game meant to be destroyed, and to have soccer replace it.

I would go so far to say that as spectators we don’t care about concussion protocols.  It’s not that we don’t care about the players lives, it’s just that we love the game of football more and we figure as fans that the trade-off to be able to shorten your life to play in the great arena of an American gladiator sport is worth it.  I can say that I have had the opportunity to deal with NFL players off the field and have liked them.  What I have personally witnessed at the Penthouse Club in Tampa Bay where players from the Seattle Seahawks and of course the hometown Buccaneers went to have a little fun after a big Sunday night game revealed why many of these young kids play such a dangerous game.  My wife and I were staying at the same hotel as the Seahawks were so we had an interesting behind the scenes look at life off the field in the NFL and I can’t think of a better time for young men to be treated like kings in the fast lane of life than what I saw happening to those NFL players.  Yes, it was a situation of depravity and all those players were living the life by choice—and they were being rewarded that night.  I had to shake my head knowing they would never live the kind of life that my wife and I did—but they didn’t care at the time.  They were millionaires in most cases and they had women climbing all over them willing to do anything just to get a little bit of it.  The Penthouse Club actually makes a pretty good steak and it was very close to our hotel so we had a front row seat to all the activity and from the vantage point of the NFL players, I could see they were having the time of their lives.  How many people would trade 30 to 40 years off their life to go through the experiences those guys was having?  Perhaps 99% of the population would if they were big enough, strong enough, and charismatic enough to have the opportunity to play in the NFL.  Knowing about all the potential for injury–they’d give up their arms and legs to have women crawl all over them like that just once in their life—not to mention for 3 to 5 years as a professional athlete—maybe longer for the lucky ones.

Payton Manning was always the good guy of the NFL, the guy who we most liked and respected.  He conducted himself as a great all American Boy Scout who was at the top of his field.  He was respected, lawful, and professional, the best that there was—which is why he became the spokesman for the NFL.  Payton was just vulnerable enough to be likeable, unlike Tom Brady who is just inconceivably clean, but professionally dominate.  But life in the NFL quickly degenerates once you get past those types of professional players.  The lifestyles they lead in the NFL are far more dangerous than ramming into other 270 pound men with their heads—from the conditioning, the diets, the stress of making the team each year for a chance to become a millionaire—they are expected to give up their health to play such a gladiator sport.  And most people if they could would trade those players in a minute for their long 70 to 80 year lives to live the NFL life for just 1 year.  To be loved and admired by a city, to have women on speed dial anywhere in the world who would do anything you wanted, and to have a press eating out of your hand everywhere you went.  To have access to the very best that life has to offer—so long as you are playing “the game.”   Most people would do it if they knew they’d die by age 30—and they’d die happy.  That is some of what we mean in America when we say live hard, die free.  It is a trait that comes from tasting freedom, and in the NFL nobody tastes it greater than those players.  In exchange we expect them to give us a good show.  We don’t expect to see a hard hit between two warriors on the field of battle only to have both put into a concussion protocol tent for examination, and a removal from the game.

It wasn’t Donald Trump who brought the politics into the game of football; it was all these progressive groups who have been year by year increasing their infection of attaching social causes to the fast life of the typical NFL player.   Now the concussion protocol standards have taken away our love of the game by softening it into nearly a game of flag football that could be played by girls, which is where all this is headed.  The critics of the NFL want to destroy the game and replace it with soccer, or to have women playing on the field with men, so they are trying to slow boil away the danger while hoping to retain the interest and it’s just not happening.  Trump was right to point it out; people want to see NFL players hitting each other.  We don’t want to see concussion protocols.  We don’t want to see players hurt necessarily, or ruined for life—but many of us understand what’s going on.  Most people would trade their boring lives in a second if they could walk into the Penthouse Club in Tampa and have some of the most attractive women in the world jump all over them such as what typical NFL players’ experience.  And for the girls, where else on earth could they make so much money but in a place like that.  Many of them come from areas around the world drowning in debt.  Beautiful girls from east European countries with exotic accents would have to sell themselves on the sex market anyway just to feed themselves due to the lack of economic activity in their home towns—due to the socialism that has destroyed their economies.  Who could blame them for coming to America to work at the Penthouse Clubs in Tampa, or New Orleans, or even in Vegas?  They have something that the millionaire NFL players want so the exchange is mutual.  It’s better for them that it’s not some middle-aged loser who is fat and disgusting buying their time than some young stud at the peak of physical condition that is willing to blow $50K per night on satisfying his fantasies.  Let’s face it, that’s what young men play the game for, and why we as parents have always signed them up for it—to live the dream even if it means a shorter life.  And we certainly don’t expect them to bitch about it.

What we are seeing is the player’s unions trying to soften up the game for reasons that are un-American, which we should expect from a socialist organization.  Football isn’t for the players—as I’ve said, they get the money and the wild life in exchange for their services.  Football is for the fans and it is the owners of these teams who are tasked with satisfying the market need.  They control the business of the NFL—not the players, not the lawyers, and certainly not the networks.  Without the owners nothing happens—and without the fans—nobody makes any money, and the girls at the Penthouse Club in Tampa have to live off tips from people who want to cheat on their wives, business people who are so stressed out and unhappy that they are miserable to spend time around, and married couples looking to spice up their lives a bit—then feeling guilty afterwards.  Nobody comes out well by softening up the NFL—except for the socialists who want to destroy it and thus to remove an American pastime from the concerns of a world that can’t compete with it.  Those people do want to destroy America—especially symbols of American capitalism such as what the NFL represents.  Believe me; they don’t care about concussion protocol either.  They aren’t doing it to save the players lives—they simply use that as the cover story to destroying the game itself and what it means to American society.  As is typically the case with Donald Trump—he is right in every point, and was correct to address the issue in a bold fashion.  Football is America’s game, and it is part of making America great again.  To do that we have to understand what it is we like about it.  And concussion protocols are not something we care about as fans-or the social causes of the players.  We just want to see them beat the hell out of each other to justify the high-priced beers and hot dogs on a wonderful October afternoon in America.

Rich Hoffman

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