Tag: Free Will

War in Syria: The real cause of chemical weapons in control of terrorists and dictators

I am not a supporter of military engagement in Syria by America.  If “they” do so, “they” will do it without my backing.  If “my” military must engage in the long mismanaged debacle in Syria, it is due to the incompetence of our own government—driven by progressive politics that does not represent me—but has “progressed” along to do their own thing for global reasons.  By saying such a thing I understand that the “establishment” will attempt to label people like me as a radical for not supporting our military—but so what.  I could care less.  To understand why, watch and listen to every video on this article so that you too may come to understand the real intentions, and meaning of the Syrian military engagement and what is really behind it.

Few recently have even contemplated how Syria acquired the supposed “chemical weapons” to begin with, which has set off this whole debate.  As to the question as to why America must become involved in Syria the reason is that it is highly likely the weapons came from American CIA involvement to begin with.  Here’s why:

As reported in the New York Sun on January 26, 2006:

“‘There are weapons of mass destruction gone out from Iraq to Syria, and they must be found and returned to safe hands,’ Mr. Sada said. ‘I am confident they were taken over.’”

“Mr. Sada’s comments come just more than a month after Israel’s top general during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Moshe Yaalon, told the Sun that Saddam ‘transferred the chemical agents from Iraq to Syria.’

“Democrats have made the absence of stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq a theme in their criticism of the Bush administration’s decision to go to war in 2003…

“The discovery of the weapons in Syria could alter the American political debate on the Iraq war. And even the accusations that they are there could step up international pressure on the government in Damascus. That government, led by Bashar Assad, is already facing a UN investigation over its alleged role in the assassination of a former prime minister of Lebanon. The Bush administration has criticized Syria for its support of terrorism and its failure to cooperate with the UN investigation.”

In September of 2002, Reid is quoted as saying:

“Saddam Hussein has, in effect, thumbed his nose at the world community, and I think the President is approaching this in the right fashion.”

And then in October of 2002, he said:

“We stopped the fighting [in 1991] on an agreement that Iraq would take steps to assure the world that it would not engage in further aggression and that it would destroy its weapons of mass destruction. It has refused to take those steps. That refusal constitutes a breach of the armistice which renders it void and justifies resumption of the armed conflict.”

And then, finally, in 2008, said:

“Now I believe, myself, that the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense…and you have to make your own decisions about what the President knows…is that this war is lost and that the surge is not accomplishing anything, as is indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday.”

I would also be equally nervous if I were Nancy Pelosi, who in December of 1998,said on her congressional website:

“Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process.”

And who then said in May of 2004:

“I believe that the president’s leadership in the actions taken in Iraq demonstrate an incompetence in terms of knowledge, judgment and experience in making the decisions that would have been necessary to truly accomplish the mission without the deaths to our troops and the cost to our taxpayers…”

Read more details about this issue at the link below.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012/07/14/And-where-did-syrias-chemical-weapons

But how did the weapons get to Iraq?  Well, many have long forgotten that Saddam Hussein was put in place by American desire to send Iraq into war with Iran, and the weapons likely were given to him by America, directly or indirectly, to off-set the Iranians during the Iran, Iraq war.  From 1980 to 1988 Donald Rumsfeld could be seen shaking hands with Saddam Hussein openly showing support for Iraq.

Tensions between Iran and Iraq were fueled by Iran’s Islamic revolution and its appearance of being a Pan-Islamic force, in contrast to Iraq’s Arab nationalism. Despite Iraq’s goals of regaining the Shatt al-Arab,[note 2] the Iraqi government seemed to initially welcome Iran’s Revolution, which overthrew Iran’s Shah, who was seen as a common enemy.[4][25] It is difficult to pinpoint when tensions began to build, but there were some cross border skirmishes, including when Iraqi aircraft bombed an Iranian village that anti-Iraqi Kurds allegedly hid in on June 1979.[31]

After this incident, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called on Iraqis to overthrow the Ba’ath government, and it was received with considerable anger in Baghdad.[25] On 17 July 1979, despite Khomeini’s call, Saddam gave a speech praising the Iranian Revolution and called for an Iraqi-Iranian friendship based on non-interference in each other’s internal affairs.[25] When Khomeini rejected Saddam’s overture by calling for Islamic revolution [17] in Iraq, Saddam was alarmed.[25] Iran’s new Islamic administration was regarded in Baghdad as an irrational, existential threat to the Ba’ath government, especially because the Ba’ath party, having a secular nature, discriminated and posed a threat to the Shia movement in Iraq, whose clerics were Iran’s allies within Iraq and whom Khomeini saw as oppressed.[25] Some scholars have argued that Iranian-backed attacks and cross-border raids on Iraqi territory compelled Iraq to launch a preemptive invasion.[32]

However, Iraq’s regime was very politically secure, and in little danger of being overthrown by alleged plots of revolution-wracked Iran.[17] According to some sources, Khomeini’s hostility towards Saddam was actually milder than his Arab neighbors hostility towards Saddam.[33] Saddam’s primary interest in war stemmed from his desire to right the supposed “wrong” of the Algiers Agreement, in addition to finally achieving his desire of annexing Khuzestan and becoming the regional superpower.[17] Saddam’s goal was to replace Egypt as the “leader of the Arab world” and to achieve hegemony over the Persian Gulf.[34] He saw Iran’s increased weakness due to revolution, sanctions, and international isolation.[27] Saddam had heavily invested in Iraq’s military since his defeat against Iran in 1975, buying large amounts of weapons from the Soviet Union and France. By 1980, Iraq possessed 200,000 soldiers, 2,000 tanks and 450 aircraft.[4]:1 Watching the powerful Iranian army that frustrated him in 1974–1975 disintegrate, he saw an opportunity to attack, using the threat of Islamic Revolution as a pretext.[4][35]

Read all about that war at the link below, which also has a nice picture of Rumsfeld and Hussein warmly greeting one another.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War

It would appear that once the relationship disintegrated between America and Iraq leading to two wars in two subsequent decades, the Iraq’s chemical weapons were stored across the border in Syria so that UN inspectors would not discover them leading up to the war with Iraq during 2003.  America knew Iraq had the weapons because they allegedly supplied them, even if they couldn’t find them.  That was because Hussein’s buddy Assad was storing them in Syria.

But years later after America had finally removed Hussein from control of Iraq, the modern progressives went to work on Assad.  This is how John Kerry as a senator was seen dinning with Assad as their wives gathered to discuss all the fine shopping options in Syria.    A photo is going viral (GO AHEAD, CLICK ON THE LINK) showing the Kerrys and the Assads enjoying quite the intimate dinner in 2009.

Kerry was leading a delegation to Syria to discuss peace in the region at the time. According to French news agency AFP, Assad told Kerry during that visit that America needed a “proper understanding” of issues Syria faces.

Kerry has met with Assad on numerous occasions and once lauded Assad in 2011 as being a “very generous” man, according to the Weekly Standard.

“Well, I personally believe that — I mean, this is my belief, okay?” Kerry said. “But President Assad has been very generous with me in terms of the discussions we have had. And when I last went to — the last several trips to Syria — I asked President Assad to do certain things to build the relationship with the United States and sort of show the good faith that

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/08/28/john-kerry-wasnt-always-so-harsh-to-syrian-president-assad/

Now that all the progressive manipulation in the Middle East region has come to fruition it is time to cash in on the years of investment and wash everyone’s hands of the evidence.  That is the cause of most conflicts between nations, when governments have to clean up their mistakes from the past.  War is the great eraser which wipes away the sins of history—the manipulation of progressives in a region designed to advance their agenda.

The current situation in America is that Obama has a trail of scandals behind him and is falling in the polls.  The Republicans are terrified of getting stuck in a budget battle in September, so all the statists in the American government need something to avoid the justice seeking their careers.  War is the great unifier which often brings together members of all political parties under a common flag.  After all, that is the mantra of the Skull and Bones Society.  Military action of any kind is an attempt by the current government in America to erase years of mistakes they have made following interests that do not reflect The Constitution.  I do not trust the American government to do the right thing, so I certainly don’t trust them to spend lives and limb to erase their errors at a cost I provide with tax money.

I’m all for providing humanitarian aid, but the poor people of Syria are only a small group of people in the grand scheme of the world where millions upon millions of people suffer under governments not advocating capitalism.  Military engagements to help rebels who are built by terrorists to help former friends of Saddam Hussein is a no win situation that will not bring about justice, but only serve to allow the current government in America full of statists, progressives, and open socialists to cover the sins of their mismanagement of the Middle East region.  So I do not support military engagement in Syria.  If the U.N. wants to see justice there, let them use their own troops not supported by America do so, and see how far that goes.  I am not open to allowing the United Nations to believe they have authority over Syria by dragging America into a war so that they can take the credit for justice at our expense.  Syria is a mistake and will only serve to allow the bad guys to hide just a little while longer, and many of those bad guys, are in the American government.  They cannot be trusted to do the right things…………because if they could be, there wouldn’t be chemical weapons in Syria to begin with.

Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE.  CLICK HERE!  

Doc Thompson Blasts Public Education and Common Core: Entertainment and Education tag team children behind parents backs

The harsher reality to the presidency of Barack Obama is not just that he is a manipulative saboteur of American ideals who supports socialism over capitalism, but he was elected as a representative of a large number of the American public—people who enjoy welfare support, think the Miley Cyrus stunt at the recent MTV awards was cool, and loves intoxication, drug abuse, and alternative sexual practices.  The worse realization about the Obama administration is that it represents a growing number of Americans.  The origin of how those people came to be such a group of degenerates is harder to pin down because it forces an admission that is difficult to acknowledge.  The minds making up the typical modern progressive described started at the same point as everyone else, small children born of a mother and a father.  But the path that delivers such minds to fish net stocking wearing voters dressed in drag voting for Obama and his free government “stuff” is different from those who tend to find such personal philosophies repulsive.  Those differences of course start in a child’s home and are determined by their parents.  But beyond that, it is public education that destroys the minds of young people and corrupts them well into their adulthoods.  Public schools are breeding grounds for progressive philosophy and are dangerous.  They have been for a long time, but it has only been the last couple of years where such admissions have begun to be made.  Doc Thompson and his producer Skip on The Blaze Radio Network dedicated an entire hour and a half to the topic of public education corruption which can be heard at the clip below.  It is worth the time to listen to, because they cover Common Core instruction during the beginning then allow the discussion to evolve into the aim of public schools—which is to educate and create progressive citizens—who wishes to work against traditional America.  Have a listen! This is classic radio and you should take the time to listen to the whole thing.  

Public schools are incubators for social change—the kind of change that would rather see a child attend a Rocky Horror Picture Show screening at midnight in some dank college campus movie theater rather than attend church on Sunday to worship the teachings of Jesus Christ.  So it should come as no surprise that kids after twelve to thirteen years of public school education arrive at 18 years of age unprepared to do anything of any responsibly as an adult, because progressive education teaches personal irresponsibility.  Public school educations are destructive, and do ruin the minds of the attendees.

The tough admission is that almost every American comes from public schools and to arrive at the conclusion that it is there many of the stupid ideas which lead to presidents like Obama sitting in The White House are born.  Public schools are for most parents free baby sitting services which gives the illusion of positive social instruction, so it is hard for parents to blame the progressive tendencies of their children on “the baby sitter” because it forces acknowledging that they must take action to help save their children.  For many parents this means they have to make decisions that will likely cost them money…………..and time, which often they have neither.  So they are stuck sending their children to their local public school and they put on blinders to the faults of the institution because they do not have the mental or financial capacity to solve the problem.

Public schools consume enormous amounts of tax money which strip away the expendable cash that these same parents could use to send their children to a private conservative school—so to undo the progressive instruction otherwise given.  This leaves parents with no options but to hold their nose and support their local public school just because it’s near their home.  Parents do not have a choice because public education is a monopoly.  They suppress competition and openly destroy the minds of individual children leaving the consumers and suppliers with no choices.  When a child complains to their parent that the public school is a bad place, the parent has only one choice but to instruct the child that life is unfair, and that they need to learn to live with their displeasure.  This begins a chain reaction that slowly begins to destroy the lives of those children from that day on.

Three years ago Doc Thompson did not have a microphone that allowed him to discuss public education to such a degree as he has in the broadcast above.  Radio stations that employed him would have feared losing their FCC license—which further solidifies the public education government controlled monopoly.  Criticism of public education was nearly non-existent leaving millions of desperate souls to anguish over their unacknowledged fears regarding the intentions of public education.  But now, popular radio personalities like Doc Thompson are free to delve honestly into the evils of public education in several game changing broadcasts that are routine on The Blaze Radio Network.  It will take a while to change the culture of acceptance which public education has enjoyed using their monopoly to invoke on witless students the aptitude of a destructive progressive education.  But the start of such dismantling, and reinvigoration comes from the understanding that something is terribly wrong and should be corrected in order to save future generations.  A large portion of our modern youth are lost and will never recover.  They will continue to vote for politicians like Barack Obama because they have been trained in progressive statism.  Many of those same types were seen screaming after Miley Cyrus and her sexual antics on MTV that raised the eyebrows of many concerned parents.  Someday those former students will have children and life will beat their progressive educations out of them, and they will recover to some extent to live decent lives—if they are the fortunate few.  But their minds cannot be recovered fully as they were handicapped as children in public education.  However, if our society acts now, it may be possible that twenty years from now, public education and its impact on society will be greatly diminished allowing more people to rise to new emotional and intellectual heights.  At that time, the voting population will become better and vote for better representatives because the quality of their mind will be improved.

It is not enough to just proclaim the name of the problem.  Once known, it must be acted upon, and slowly over a fairly short period of time, radio broadcasts like the one Doc and Skip produced are changing minds, and forcing admissions.  Those admissions are difficult, but they are healthy.  Nobody said that doing the right things would be easy, or convenient.  But for the health of all our futures, we must do the right thing, and that is realize that public education is a corrosive endeavor that is laced with vile thoughts and teachings—which should be sanctioned from tax dollars.  Any group, even progressives should be allowed to compete equally in the battlefield of ideas, but citizens should not be forced to pay for such things with money extorted from them through taxation under force of a monopoly.  That is the greatest evil of public education, and the reason that it must be changed—options create competition and allows evil ideas like progressivism to be crushed out of existence in direct interaction with ideas which actually work.  Progressives claim that they have the superior mode of thinking, yet they can only convince others of such a claim through monopoly status by eliminating competing modes of thinking.  The first step in destroying such a tyrannical hold on the minds of our society’s youth is to destroy the monopoly that backs public education, and to introduce new ideas—ideas that are born out of the wreckage of the old—a public education system designed to put presidents like Obama into office for aims that are not American.

Now to explain a bit, “artistically” what was going on at the MTV event where Miley Cyrus was paraded about like a slut for the advancement of progressive causes.  Watching her performance I was reminded of two other events, the Janet Jackson Super Bowl stunt where she had her top ripped off to expose her breasts, then the famous kiss between Britney Spears and Madonna.   What all three women had in common was that the “public” thought of them as good girls.  Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears are graduates of the Disney Channel and were examples of nice wholesome teenage girls.  Progressive backed money was poured into entertainment, and it can make these girls do whatever the financiers’ desire like prostitutes working for an escort service.   Miley Cyrus was coached into performing the dance routine which was all very carefully designed.  Cyrus was placed on stage to rip from millions of youthful girls the innocent image of Cyrus as a Disney girl.  The dance routine was set up with the teddy bears looking not quite so innocent so to show on stage that Miley Cyrus had lost any resemblance of her youthful innocence and was no longer a little girl.  The act has been repeated for several decades now and is constructed by the same minds that stand behind Common Core education.  To understand what investors into Miley Cyrus’s record label believe, and MTV’s investment in the event, listen hard to the broadcast from Doc Thompson and his producer Skip shown above.  They have the answer.  Miley Cyrus is simply a paid spokesman for progressive causes, and she was established by an entertainment culture infused with “political progressive” money to unlock the teaching instructed to children in public schools.  Former Disney personalities are targeted because of their naturally high-profile, with foundations in family entertainment that Disney is known for.  This makes them very important in reaching the proper demographic groups with the ritual understanding of merging from childhood to adulthood through sexual practice.  Since the government profits off of misconduct through sexual recklessness, this is to their advantage.    

When people believe that Bill Gates is behind Common Core and is a good man, so Common Core must be good, consider again that Common Core computers only run on Window’s operated machines, Macintosh computers will not work.  So part of the implementation of Common Core in public schools is to support the sale of Windows operating systems over Macs.   That in itself isn’t bad, but the minds who shape the Common Core agenda for which Gates latches himself on to, in order to make a deal that will launch Microsoft driven computers into every school in America are the same minds who take the innocent greed of a young woman named Miley Cyrus and tell her that they’ll fund her record and image if she’ll dance half naked on stage with stoned looking teddy bears and sell herself to the public.  Bill Gates and Miley Cyrus think they are cleaver and astute business people taking advantage of the glories of capitalism to advance themselves.  But what they don’t see is the progressive puppet masters who have shaped the battlefield in both entertainment and education for the same intentions, to break down the traditional American family and revise the minds of youth to sexual deviancy which pushes them away from parental care and into the loving, manipulative arms of mother government, and the sinister plots of doom which were touched up in the classic novel Brave New World.   Now considering those things, listen to Doc Thompson recite the specifics of Common Core education to second and third grade students, and consider what the real intention of public education is in America.   The Miley Cyrus MTV event was the result, but the cause started in the classrooms of America’s government schools, and the plots of progressive politics that are behind nearly every single institution.

Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE.  CLICK HERE!  

‘For the Record’ On The Blaze TV: Hosted By Laurie Dhue, exploring the depth of the NSA

The Blaze Television is one of the most cutting edge programs produced today and is the latest project of Laurie Dhue.  She left Fox News to work for her new employer Glenn Beck.  Watch this stunning episode and share it with a friend on the extreme depth of the NSA and how it affects your life. 

The level of domestic surveillance in the United States has reached such shocking levels in the post-9/11 world that people will find it hard to fathom, said Laurie Dhue, host of TheBlaze TV’s new investigative series “For the Record.” The show’s first episode, “Surveillance State.”

“I think this is going to open a lot of people’s eyes…people will be absolutely shocked to know that things have gotten even less transparent in the last 10 years — there’s even more surveillance going on than ever before,” Dhue told Beck on his radio show.

The show reveals how the National Security Agency transformed from its stated purpose of foreign intelligence gathering into an arm to listen in on U.S. citizens — all on the taxpayer’s dime.

“After 9/11 the spigots just opened, money continued to flow in the NSA. The NSA got everything it wanted, and the taxpayers basically just got taken to the cleaners,” Dhue said.

What information the government collects, they keep — including in a massive Utah facility slated for completion earlier this year, Dhue said.

“This is all being done in the name of protection, in the name of keeping us safe. But it’s scary stuff when you think about it,” Dhue told Beck.

Read more here:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/13/people-will-be-absolutely-shocked-beck-interviews-the-host-of-for-the-record-ahead-of-tonights-premiere/

Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE.  CLICK HERE!  

The Lakota 2013 Report Card: More excuses from Superintendent Mantia

After reading the recent report card with explanations from the Lakota school district it instantly reminded me of a kid who had been goofing off that was expected to get straight “A’s” who needed to pad the results with explanations to justify too many “B’s” and a “C” in the outcome.  Like the unwitting teenagers they instruct, Lakota blamed their bad grades on the conditions the grades were formulated.  A teenage student might declare that their grades would have been better if only they had more time to study, or had better tools to study with.  Lakota, as a district declared that they could have done better, especially in performance if voters would have just passed their last levy.  Superintendent Mantia in a report seen below did exactly that blaming the poor grade in “performance” on having to make budget reductions.  Here’s what she said, “Our performance index went down after years of increases. The performance index measures the achievement of all students regardless of their level of proficiency. That’s one sign that the budget reductions we’ve had to make are affecting all students.”

No wonder with that attitude the report card came in with much lower grades than was expected.  Lakota plans to get “A’s” by throwing money at the teachers so that they can have more “resources” to teach children.  If Lakota dosen’t have the money they plan to do just as they’ve shown here, let their letter grade drop so to motivate their parents into buying them “better books,” a new computer, and other resources so that the student can get an “A.”  Rather than attack the cultural aspects of the letter grade as a student might buckle down to improve, Mantia immediately relegates her terminology toward the unsaid implications of the 2013 levy attempt which intends to raise taxes to throw money at their teacher base with an upcoming contract in 2014.  Mantia said a lot of things in her released statement on the report card for Lakota.  Her full report can be seen below:

A Letter from Superintendent Dr. Karen Mantia

Ohio’s New School District Report Cards

Report cards on the first day of school. It was just coincidence, but the Ohio Department of Education released its new school district report card Thursday, just as we were welcoming students back to school.

The report card is for the 2012-13 school year, the one that ended last spring. It’s completely different than the old report cards, where districts were rated “Excellent, Effective,” etc. Now, we get letter grades, A to F, just like students’ report cards.

In case you haven’t seen it yet, here’s what Lakota’s report card looks like:

Standards met
Performance index
Overall Value-Added
Gifted Value-Added
Disabled Value-Added
Lowest 20% Value-Added
Annual Measurable Objectives
4-year graduate rate 2012
5-year graduate rate 2011		 A
B
A
A
B
B
C
A
B

We could write whole chapters, whole books even, explaining all those categories and measurements, but we are still working on going over the data ourselves and preparing information we can share with parents and residents to help explain it all. But here’s some information straight from the Ohio Dept. of Education that offers an overview of the report card categories.

I’m pleased, of course, that our students met 100 percent of the state indicators. That’s what the first line, “Standards met,” refers to. That was the major component of the old report card system, the 24 standardized tests that are specific to a grade level and subject. I’m also pleased at our “A” in overall value-added, a measurement of how much progress all our students are making in a year.

But there are areas of concern, as well, and I’ve been talking about them for some time now. We track trend data internally all the time, so by the time the report card comes out there shouldn’t be any big surprises in it, and there weren’t. Our performance index went down after years of increases. The performance index measures the achievement of all students regardless of their level of proficiency. That’s one sign that the budget reductions we’ve had to make are affecting all students.

The one “C” on our report card is also a concern. That grade is for “annual measurable objectives.” You’ll also hear it called “gap closing.” It’s new with this report card, and measures achievement gaps between all students and student subgroups. We have no problem being accountable for the learning and progress of every student in our schools. So we need to do even more in that area.

It will require focused, increased resources in these high priority learning areas. We must ensure the district can continue to maintain its strengths in programming and instructional approach so that we can serve all students. Certainly no one test, letter grade, or rating captures the learning of thousands of students, but it does offer an overview of where we’re doing well and where we can do better.

Dr. Karen Mantia
Superintendent
Lakota Local School District

Spoken like a true levy addict.  When Mantia says, “increased resources in these high priority learning areas” she means that Lakota needs a levy passage so that she can lead her school district to improved grades.  It is equivalent to the teenage student who tells their parents that if they received a new computer, they’d have a better time at their studies and their grades would improve.  Of course everyone outside the school knows better than that.  They know that hard work and determination are what will improve those test scores—and leadership starting with Mantia.  But, when students see that the head of their school is blaming the mediocre report card grades on lost resources due to levy failures, then they will use the same excuse on their own report cards.  Education starts from the top, and Mantia just taught all of Lakota how to use excuses when the results are not favorable.  That is the reason for the poor “performance.”  It has nothing to do with money—but everything to do with attitude.

When Lakota had the previous grading system they essentially gained their Excellent with Distinction rating the way a mediocre student typically got an “A” in their class, by sucking up and becoming a teacher’s pet.  Excellent with Distinction rankings were mostly issued on the bases of political ass kissing, more than actual measured results.  This new system driven by public demanding actual measurements makes that ass kissing much more difficult—which it should be.  It will take more than money to improve the grades at Lakota.  It takes leadership from the top, and based on Mantia’s comments, that leadership is not there.  She intends to fail if the levy doesn’t pass in 2013.  If Lakota gets the money, she will pull whatever political strings she needs to in order to improve those grades in the future.  But if Lakota does not pass her levy, she has already planted the seeds that failure will continue.  They will continue because as a former teacher, she is aligned with her labor, and has their interests first, and she is making excuses for them which sends the message that the criteria for success is less about hard work, and more about getting what you want out of the deal.  Students are watching, and they know what everyone else knows, that the carefully worded statement from Lakota’s superintendent is simply a fancy way to demand more financial resources.  And that is not the way to lead an institution of any kind to improvements.  It becomes clear quickly why Lakota is dropping in their rating, and it has nothing to do with money—but everything to do with the leadership.  If Mantia wants to know why she received four “B’s” and one “C” on the Lakota report card she only has to look to one place—the mirror.

Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE.  CLICK HERE!  

What the Blue Indications Mean at Lakota: Home Foreclosures and the threat of high taxes

Lakota forclosuresAt Lakota and hundreds of other school districts all over Ohio school levies are on the fall ballot, and many people will find themselves torn between how they should vote.  The trouble with teachers and public education in general is that most voters know at least one person close to them who works for the industry.  Like any dedicated friend or loved one, it is typical to put blinders onto the reality of public education so not to betray those cherished members of our lives.  This has allowed the radical elements of the teaching profession to capture the message of statism and sell it as value to the communities from which they behave as raw parasites.  Lakota forclosures 6Because of the paralysis in judgment typical toward the teaching profession this has allowed complete falsehoods to be introduced into common language and social acceptance about public schools necessitating continuous higher taxes to substantiate levy requests.  Newspaper reporters, television newscasts, and neighbor to neighbor discussions about public schools tend to always focus on the same union bullet points without ever exploring the harsh realities.  Typically employees of such schools who speak in defense of their industry will say things like:

  • “Due to lack of money things are not well.”  “Of course there is waste and bad teachers, but they are the exception and not the norm, our children need our support.”
  • “If the schools are not supported, the community we are so proud of will end up in deterioration.”
  • “Because of the failed levies morale is low.   The excellent teachers and administrators are jumping ship.”
  • “With the latest cuts, elementary kids get one class of gym or music or art once a week on a rotating basis.  They used to get each one once a week.”Lakota forclosures 7

Such comments go on to infinity from there with the commentators never contemplating openly the causes.  There is a willingness to take the cause and effects of public education at the presented value allowing the radicals of government schools to get away with crimes of extortion driven by anti-trust violations.  So often the reason is because most people have somebody close to them who works in the business and nobody wants to hurt the feelings of those people.  This is how the crimes are committed, crimes of open looting of the public treasury for the solitary purpose of plunder by the state for the goal of statism.  The truth about school levies and higher taxes are easy to see for those with the courage to see them.  It has been proven that the best thing a community can do to maintain a healthy district is to vote down higher taxes, not cave into the emotional arguments provided by the employees of public education.  (CLICK HERE for more detailed explanations) The reason is that higher taxes destroy property investment, the higher the taxes, the less investment into business and residences.Lakota forclosures1

In my community of Lakota the result of a harsh economy is quite evident.  On the surface of course everything looks nice, there are well-kept homes, the roads are paved well, there are lots of consumer options, the schools are rated well—everything appears to be in order—and in relation to other places in America it is.  But if the façade is pulled back just a bit the reality can be seen for what it truly is.  The pictures shown here are from Zillow and display with red markers property that is for sale.  In the Lakota district there are quite a lot of homes for sale, some of which is normal.  Some of it is driven by occupational changes, and changes to household income.  But a lot of it is driven by taxes that are just simply too high.  The more alarming indicator shown in the included pictures are those marked in blue.  These are homes that are being foreclosed upon—meaning their owners could not keep up with their mortgage payments.Lakota forclosures2

When first checking, it would be assumed that there would be a few of these, but the actual number is quite shocking.  As shown, there are a lot of homeowners who have been barely hanging on through tough economic times who are finding themselves going through the disgrace of losing their properties to circumstance.  Because I have made myself a spokesman against higher taxes, pro tax advocates see me as being in the way of their goals, and get very angry with me.  This causes them to send all kinds of useful information out of anger.  One such note was from a typical levy cheerleader who has placed their own personal neurosis into the care of their children out of guilt for a series of other mistakes they’ve made in their life.  CLICK HERE TO REVIEW.   That particular person said to me, “I pay $5400/year in taxes. How much do you pay? $2800? If you don’t want to live in an affluent community with good schools, then move!”  What they were clearly attempting to do was make me feel like they had the upper hand because they pay a higher tax on a home that is over 300K in value.  The thinking is flawed because what they miss is that many of the people suffering foreclosures are people in the most affluent neighborhoods in the Lakota district–their neighbors.  Seen in the picture here, several foreclosures are occurring in the Four Bridges community and there are a few that are in the $1.1 million dollar range in other neighborhoods.  Because Lakota is on a downward trend with enrollment as only well-to-do families can afford to live in such an affluent district, there are fewer children to attend the schools, leaving many homeowners regulated to selling off their homes to move to areas of the country where taxes are not such a burden.  The only people who want to pay large taxes are the type of neurotic parents like that letter writer who are using the public schools to mask their deepest insecurities about their parenting ability.  Once that same type of parent has children leaving the public school they will typically pack up and move to some other district in the United States to carry out their social psychosis—their innate desire to be busy-bodies.Lakota forclosures3

The cost of allowing people like that to run a community into the ground uncontested is the unseen result of these Zillow pictures—too many people selling homes by choice flee the high taxes, or are forced out of their homes because they can’t keep up with the payment.  The frightening aspect is what is not shown on Zillow are the many thousands of homeowners who are just barely hanging on, where one more increase in taxes will either push them into the red indications, or worse yet—the blue.  When Lakota cheerleads the value that a school has on the community, they are speaking union bullet points that mean nothing.  The value of a community is in its ability to make people want to live there.  A school only attracts one kind of investor, people like the spoiled brat letter writer indicated above.  Those types come and go within a ten year span during their children’s upbringing.  They are not long term investors in a community unlike people such as myself who lived here before many of them were even born and will still be here long after they’ve bought up Florida condos and put those same children through college as empty-nesters. The way to ruin a community is to lure too many neurotic parents to a community to pay for homes they otherwise couldn’t afford if not for a strategic FHA loan from the government, or purchased with a variable interest rate that drive up their monthly payment quicker than the tax impositions of the public school.  Or fools who think paying $5400 a year in taxes gives them emotional leverage in an argument.  In discussions with their neighbors upon hearing such things nobody would reveal that they are struggling to pay their taxes, so they silently allow themselves to be foreclosed upon becoming one of the unfortunate blue indications on Zillow.  Not wanting to admit failure to their friends, family, and neighbors who utter such half-baked endorsements of public education monopolies, they quietly purchase lottery tickets hoping for a winner right up to the last day when the bank comes to reclaim their property for default.  Then and only then do they move and disappear from the earth and away from circles of Jabba the Hutt like socialites who think paying $5400 in personal property taxes is “good” for a community.  Zillow has the truth. Lakota Forclosures4

Being polite will not save a community from the destruction of parasites who think public education under the current funding model and anti-trust operation is sustainable.  But silence will destroy it, the kind of silence seen on these Zillow pictures.  Most people living near the blue indications have no idea that their neighbors are struggling because nobody takes the time to really get to know each other.  One week everything looks fine from the outside, the neighbor is mowing their lawn, wearing an Ohio State t-shirt while doing some minor landscaping, and the children are playing outside.  Nothing seems amiss.  Then the next week there is a bank owned paper stuck to the garage and the family is nowhere to be seen.  The home is empty overnight and an uncomfortable sensation engulfs the entire neighborhood as though a death just took place.   Lakota forclosures5In a lot of ways one did, a bit of the life that makes up a community died—the hopes and dreams of property ownership that was robbed from them by changes in finance.  Among those changes are the difficulties in keeping up with their taxes among all the other concerns they have in their lives.  Paying $3000 to $6000 a year in taxes just to send a bunch of spoiled brat kids raised by neurotic parents to a free education starts to wear on the mind when it is realized that having that money for personal needs is much greater.  Upon that realization, homes go up for sale or are lost because the admission that such properties cannot be afforded comes too late in the game.  Luckily for the Lakota district the residents have managed to fight off the corrosive public school since 2005.  It can only be imagined how many new blue indications will show up on Zillow if Lakota manages to raise taxes the way they desire.  But one thing is for sure, it will be a big number, and that is not conducive to a thriving community.    The value of a school district does not come from the school, the teachers, or the buildings themselves, but from the people who invest their money, and are motivated to continue due to financial incentive.  Higher taxes are not an incentive, they are detriments—ones that have a direct relationship to the blue indications on Zillow.

 

Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE.  CLICK HERE!  

The Lakota Levy of 2017: After they try the 2013 attempt

Lakota is currently trying to pass a 2013 tax increase so it probably will come as a shock that the school will be planning a 2017 levy attempt as soon as they can.  In the chart shown in the following video, I use another “bullwhip economic” trick to demonstrate how targeted cuts to the Lakota school district could maintain the profitable trend they have shown over the last couple of years.  Yet, the school apparently resents greatly their operation of maintaining a budget surplus and has very immediate intentions of escalating their spending as soon as they receive levy passage.  In the following chart, the red line represents the tax revenue that the Lakota communities of Liberty Township and West Chester Twp provide to the school.  The blue line is the budget for Lakota.  Watching this video it will be clear that the recent levy defeats have forced Lakota to bring their costs in line with the tax revenue supplied.  As explained, the teacher’s contract the district has with the Lakota Education Association has maintained a wage freeze lasting through 2014.  This is why the district has operated in a surplus.  However, it is also clear that the intention of the levy of 2013 is to throw money at the new teacher’s contract because the blue line spikes up dramatically and predictably until 2017.  The green line is the amount of funding the school intends to inject into their financial dynamics upon levy passage in 2013.  As it becomes terribly obvious, the green line and blue line intersect during the year 2017 meaning that Lakota will have to pursue another tax increase at that time.

It is terribly obvious that Lakota has been forced by the voting community to live within their budget with levy failures, which is good.  Yet they have been promising that the summer of 2014 would reap a payday to school employees because the blue line spikes sharply upward countering all the positive gains that have been made since 2010 to the present.  It was always my intention to bring Lakota’s operating costs in line with community revenue without raising taxes and this chart shows how well the effort has worked.  The NO votes have been the most useful tool in forcing the school district to operate the way they should have always functioned, with a keen focus on their expenditures and operating with a slight surplus.  But they seem to not have learned their lesson and have been promising their employees large raises in 2014.  Their spending projections reflect this as the numbers making up the data on the chart are generated by Lakota’s own statistics.  There is a reason they must disclose all their information to the tax paying public—it is for just this type of analysis.Historical & Projected Revenues & Expenditures

Lakota has been able to maintain a positive balance by making the forced targeted cuts due to the levy failures, which is also reflected on the chart, which is why I find my “bullwhip economic” demonstrations to be so effective.  It’s my own unique way of explaining such dry material that has a tendency to bore people to death when they are forced to attend the kind of meetings it takes to ascertain the data that makes up such charts.  So I like to put a little metaphorical zip on the information to present it in an entertaining way, otherwise the information goes in one ear and out the other.  But relevant to the Lakota levy of 2013 and all future levies, the information couldn’t be clearer.  The data speaks for itself.  Lakota plans to go on a spending binge in 2014 like pent-up sailors who have been at sea for many months approaching a whore house.  The projected numbers that make up the blue line can be obtained from Lakota’s treasurer or anybody involved in the financing structure at the school.

In October of 2013 Lakota will have to produce a new five-year forecast which will involve many of the same numbers seen in the chart discussed during the video.  However one thing that has not been yet included in Lakota’s blue line forecast is the grim reality that I have covered extensively which is that Lakota is set to lose another two thousands students between the present time and the year 2022.  This will force the layoff of around 80 teachers.  CLICK HERE FOR REVIEW.  It will be interesting to see if Lakota includes these declining enrollment numbers into their projections, which they will have to address at some point in time.  But for their pro-tax levy attempts, they will hope to bury that information deep in their forecast because it will clearly show that they do not need more money.  Instead of the blue line projecting upward, it needs to be in a further decline from where it currently resides.

The frustration, anger, and in-trench warfare that sometimes goes on behind the scenes with the pro levy crowd is predicated directly off their lack of desire to acknowledge the facts driven off numbers shown so clearly in charts like the example I used in the video.  I call them “levy addicts, “levy zombies,” and more derogatory “latte sipping prostitutes,” because of their destructive desire to hurt an entire community with corrosive taxation as they belong to a group of people who desire to throw large wages at employees who aren’t needed, but for emotional reasons.   The desire to increase taxes for the solitary reason of injecting money into a group of employees that have a perceived value which is too high, or are not needed is simply stupid.  Many times the only reason is because the levy supporters are friends with those employees, or hope that by throwing money at the school, the money will off-set their terrible parenting skills.  They hope the school will give their children what they can’t because they are plagued with so much self-doubt as individual people; they have nothing to offer their children but social connections and a big mouth that advocates bigger and better schools to teach them in.  The root cause of the problem is that those levy advocates do not have faith in their own parenting and hope that they can hide the fact behind their chants for higher taxes, and more community spirit, and they have no restraint in demanding the community fund perpetual increases in the blue line based strictly on emotional neuroses.

It is a shame that so many young reporters who work for the local papers cannot see the benefit of the numbers shown in charts like this example, because many of them are children themselves.  This is why they support school levies.  If they are under the age of 35, they are likely still new to the ways of the world and do not understand how things connect, so they make their decisions based on pure emotion—on the backs of children who are used by the levy addicts to hide the reality of the blue number—the desire to throw money at district labor based on an anti-trust criteria. (Click Here to Review)  Then of course many people find such information daunting, and beyond their grasp.  So rather than do the hard work of analyzing data, they choose to subscribe to the emotional position of the levy addicts.  That is why the Lakota administrators are working blindly toward a 2013 tax increase knowing full well that another attempt will have to be made in 2017, because they do not target cuts unless forced to with levy failures.  Beyond 2017 there is no question that there will be more levy attempts and that within 15 years of this current time Lakota plans to add at least 10 more mills of levy to the current rate of 33, pushing the rate of taxation to a level over 40 mills, which is very unattractive to long-term real-estate investment or business growth.  That is why it is reckless, and devastating to a community to insinuate uncontrolled taxation, which is what Lakota is guilty of.

So the tax increases will not end in 2013.  They will continue until the school is forced to cut their costs the proper way with controlled cuts made without emotion.  Since Lakota will not regulate themselves, they must be forced to with failed levies.  The Levy Zombies do not run the community.  They are often young people between the ages of 25 and 35 and are functioning from personal insecurities.  It is dangerous to allow them to dictate budgets, which is why Lakota believes that nobody will ever challenge their blue line projections well into 2017.  The same logic left unchecked will pillage the Lakota community until there is nothing left but a high tax zone of residents and empty business establishments driven away by the bottomless pit hunger of the levy addicts.  Against those specimens targeted cuts is the only defense and I use bullwhip economics to highlight the point.  But aside from the spectacle of my whip tricks the situation is actually quite serious, Lakota is a parasitic organization that is selling itself as the savior of community value when it is practicing the opposite effect.  Under the Lakota plan seen on the chart, the financial imposition that public school will place on the community will be devastating and end the thriving business culture that currently exists.  Anyone who supports a school levy is crazy, especially when given the facts that show the proof.  The best thing anybody could do for Lakota and the community that surrounds the school is to vote “NO” on the levy and force Lakota to live within its means, instead of their projected path of deficit spending toward a future resulting in economic collapse.  The data tells the story.  All anybody need do is look at the data to reach the same conclusion.

Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE.  CLICK HERE!  

Lakota Should Be Prosecuted for Anti-Trust: Public Education is exempt from monopoly status through “state action”

If Lakota as a public education institution were viewed with the same standards as Microsoft, Apple, or the railroads of the 1890s, they would be guilty of anti-trust violations according to the Sherman Act.  Lakota as all public education institutions backed by the federal government are monopolies, and the cost imposition that they inflict against communities is directly related to their anti-trust status.  Using logic, Lakota should be judged by the same standards that private industry has been prosecuted under.  CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE SHERMAN ACT of 1890.  Public schools are monopolies and they openly stand against competition which is why they cost so much in tax money.  The obvious solution to this dilemma is to prosecute public schools under the Sherman Act or something like it so that competition could be implemented.  Yet it would appear that all government entities under state control are exempt from The Sherman Act.  This means that government can prosecute private business behaving in an anti-competitive fashion, but private industry cannot prosecute government for performing in a same manner.

In 1943, the Supreme Court first created the “state action” exemption to federal antitrust law in a case called Parker v. Brown. The California Agricultural Prorate Act of 1933 had established special marketing programs for agricultural commodities to restrict competition and raise prices for producers. Porter Brown, a raisin packer, sued W.B. Parker, the California Director of Agriculture, charging, among other things, that the California statute violated the Sherman Antitrust Act. The Supreme Court disagreed: “We find nothing in the language of the Sherman Act or in its history which suggests that its purpose was to restrain a state or its officers or agents from activities directed by its legislature. . . . The Sherman Act makes no mention of the state as such, and gives no hint that it was intended to restrain state action or official action directed by a state.” States are thus exempt from federal antitrust law, even though California’s agricultural producers would certainly have been in violation had they made a private agreement to restrict production and increase prices.

The result of that 1943 Supreme Court case is that government has been allowed to monopolize as an anti-trust entity against the public without fear of ramifications.  In the case of public schools, property owners have no choice but to pay for the public school that happens to be in their district, as designated by government—the state.  The state created a monopoly status for these public education institutions to ensure their continued funding regardless of performance because there is little to no competition against them.  This allows public schools like Lakota to continue to raise the prices of their service as no other competition exists to drive down their per pupil costs except for other public schools also set up with monopoly status and protected by the state under the “state action” exemption.

In a just world where the courts pursued “fairness” this practice would be highly illegal.  But the courts are not intent on justice.  They are intent on protecting such monopolies for their own preservation as even the courts are part of the monopoly process.  They too are protected from cleaver lawyers by the “state action” exemption, and are free to provide support to the anti-trust practices of government—particularly public schools like Lakota.  Lakota and their fellow public schools are every bit as guilty of anti-trust practices as the railroads of 1890 provoking the creation of the Sherman Act in the first place, as statism philosophy in government desired to control the capitalism being unleashed by the industry tycoons of the era.

For the protection of private business and residents who pay the taxes there needs to be a version of the Sherman Act introduced that protects society from the monopolies of public education.  Personally, I don’t believe there should have ever been a Sherman Act—that the government overstepped it’s boundaries upon its creation.   But as the current Supreme Court looks upon the case-law of the like–1943 Parker v. Brown case, they provide a way out for prosecuting their fellow public workers with anti-trust.  Such excuses for statism need to be removed.  If the government can prosecute industry for anti-trust violations than private interests should be able to prosecute the government with the same intention—to influence competitive options and supposedly keep costs down to the consumer.

The solitary reason that costs are out-of-control in public education institutions like Lakota is because they are monopolies.  They are functioning anti-trusts protected by government to eliminate competition which drives up their costs against the communities they supposedly serve.  For the protection of all tax payers, anti-trust legislation should be brought to fruition protecting all against the violations of monopoly status in public education.  If the Sherman Act exists to prosecute businesses supposedly guilty of anti-trust, then a new act needs to be created so that future Supreme Courts do have the language to prosecute public sector interests that is operating as an anti-trust—such as public education.

Lakota in 2013 is seeking a new levy and they expect that nobody will question the merit of their tax demands.  They can issue any financial information to the public they wish and we are stuck with the results because there is no competition.  If a property owner has possession of a business or residence near the Lakota school system, they must pay taxes to the public school because of their monopoly status and lack of competition mandated by the school.  When Lakota states that they have done everything they can to save money and in order to continue being a good school, they must have more money; they make those kinds of comments knowing that they have no competition to prove otherwise.  Private schools and neighboring schools are not competition when they are not working to solicit the business of the same student base and when it comes to public education at Lakota it is not Lakota East against Lakota West regarding finances.  One does not try to outperform the other in a race to perform the best service for the lowest cost.  The reality is that Lakota as a district is under the control of a monopoly.  Their costs are driven by a labor union and that group does not want ANY competition.  Their mandates are created by politicians, not the free market.  They are the worst kind of anti-trust there is, and it is criminal that they are allowed to exist as monopolies under different rules than what the private sector witnesses.  If there were any justice, Lakota and all public schools would be prosecuted as monopolies by the federal government with the same fanfare that was shown against the railroads, Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, or Microsoft.   The trouble is the prosecutors would be the same people who built the current monopolies, the public workers who are the employees, lawyers and politicians who built the public education system.  With the same vigor that the government proved in court that Rockefeller and the other “monopolists” who fell victim to the Sherman Act would not do the right thing and allow fairness in the marketplace, the public workers will not regulate themselves—so they must be made to do so with law—or some other method.  To stand as an illegal entity with the backing of the federal government to impose their will against the tax payer as a monopoly is simply unconscionable.

For more on this issue read about it extensively at the links below:

http://apps.americanbar.org/dch/committee.cfm?com=AT320250

http://www.byupoliticalreview.com/?p=192

http://reason.org/news/show/1013238.html

Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE.  CLICK HERE!  

The Class of 2005: Rise of Adam Winrich and the majesticy of bullwhips

You know pivotal moments in life when you see them, especially in hind-sight, and for me the Class of 2005 at the Annie Oakley Western Showcase was one of them.  In the picture below, some of the best whip crackers, knife throwers and western performers in the world were gathered together in 2005 at the Darke County Fairgrounds in Ohio.  CLICK HERE TO SEE THIS LATEST YEAR.  Many of the people shown in that photograph are the people who mean the most to me.  I thought of that year while in Burbank, California not long after the picture was taken as I spoke with a stunt coordinator on a film production about whip work, and his fear of Anthony DeLongis discovering that he was working with me—who had taken over the whip work in Hollywood after the passing of Alex Green.  I didn’t understand the concern, even as the young actress I was teaching offered me a thousand dollar bill for our short half hour class on cracking a bullwhip.  I turned it away to her shock as she declared that Anthony would have never turned away money—who was a personal friend of hers.  As much as I loved bullwhip work, and the people in the business, there was a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that all was not right with the world.  I had just published the novel, The Symposium of Justice but for me it was not enough to write about the pursuit of justice, I had to carry out the traits of my characters in real life, and I expected myself to act and behave in much the same fashion of Fletcher Finnegan.  I didn’t want to be someone who just acted like a dynamic character from a writer’s imagination, I wanted to actually be one, and use my skills to that effect.  But that didn’t stop the need for people especially of the next generation from taking up the task and pushing the whip cracking sport to new limits.KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA

I didn’t think much of it at the time because he was so young, not much older than my own kids, but Adam Winrich was one of those guys who worked out with bullwhips with the intention to become one of the best that the world has ever seen.  Adam can be seen in the picture between my wife and children in 2005.  I was very happy with that group, but always felt people like Anthony should have been a part of the festivities.  There just aren’t many of us out there in the world.  However, reflected in my discussion with the Hollywood stunt coordinator, there aren’t many films being done with bullwhips in them, so the competition is fierce on who will get the jobs when they do come about.  KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERAI had no plan, or desire to challenge Delongis for a film coordination job as a master whip handler when I knew that people like my friends Gery Deer, and Chris Camp worked much harder at the technical aspects of whip work than I and should be doing those types of jobs over me.  My interest was in actually doing some of the things I was writing about, so my destiny trailed off and away a bit into the realm of politics—where real threats are actually happening.  Without giving away too much, I have spent my time since that Class of 2005 living life in much the same fashion as Don Diego did in one of my favorite films, Zorro’s Fighting Legion.  I lost touch with some of those members of the Class of 2005 in the process, and one of them was Adam.

I feel I have accomplished many of the political tasks I intended, and recently announced that I was going to put more of my personal emphasis back on the bullwhip as it has been such a large part of my life for over thirty years.  The yearly Annie Oakley event still takes place, and some of those faces from the Class of 2005 still return every year, to meet up and tell stories of their previous year.  But some of those faces have found it difficult to return as they are continuously busy working in the business.  Adam is one of those guys, which isn’t a surprise to me.  Adam worked very hard, and it shows.  Since the Class of 2005 Adam has done shows everywhere from The Conan O’Brien Show, to football halftime demonstrations and everything in between and I think he is one of the most technically proficient bullwhip artists that there is anywhere.  Many of the whip masters who learned from people like Alex Green and Mark Allen felt they had taken whip work to unforeseen heights and they had.  Young guys like Adam then took the work several steps further breaking records and delighting audiences in ways that have never been done before.

I am very proud of Adam Winrich who has taken the sport of whip work to new levels.  I knew there was something special about him when he was cracking his 100’ whip in the main path in front of the Darke County Fairgrounds Coliseum, only to get a reprimand by Gery because the activity was going on outside of the yellow tape danger indicators.  Gery was right; the whip was very dangerous and could have removed the head of a person who wasn’t paying attention walking by.  But Adam’s custom made whip couldn’t have been cracked anywhere else because it was so big and I enjoyed his constant enthusiasm to try new innovative ways to advance the sport.  So Adam and I had the big whip in the crowd trying to crack it which was very reckless, and very fun.

One thing that is different with me from virtually everyone seen in the picture of the Class of 2005 is that I am not nearly as campy as everyone else, especially Adam Winrich.  I am a serious person almost all the time and have to work hard to crack jokes when performing in front of people.  That is why I don’t do shows in the way that Gery and Adam do.  I’m much happier in my back yard working with my whips in private than touring around the country doing stage acts.  That’s also why I had no desire to cut into Anthony DeLongis gig in Hollywood.  I’d rather write stories and have a creative influence on producing material that gave those guys work, than sitting around waiting for some producer to come up with the idea on their own.  But that doesn’t stop me from enjoying good work when I see it, and Adam is simply one of the best that there is.  He has done remarkable things with a bullwhip and that innovation continues.

I hope that in the future he can align his very busy schedule to returning to Annie Oakley as a new class of young whip crackers is emerging and could use his mentorship.  The kind of enthusiasm that Adam brings to the world of bullwhip art is the type of thing that makes legends out of raw talent.  I am very proud of the Class of 2005 because of people like Paul Nolan, my own children, and especially Adam Winrich.  It is wonderful to see that the fire that burns deep inside a mind can translate to the end of a whip with antics that have never been done before by anybody.  And it is my hope that such innovation and technical skill will continue to advance in subsequent Classes of Annie Oakley graduates.

Nice job Adam.  I learned to do this trick from you.  Nothing against Mark Allen, but he would have never considered such a thing before some of your technical experiments.

Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE.  CLICK HERE!  

The Knoxville Tragedy: A clash over value in Eliot’s Wasteland

I’ve talked about it before; the opening chapter to my novel The Symposium of Justice was dedicated to the immense frustration that I feel every time I hear about cases like the one Glenn Beck revealed recently that had been buried since 2007 from media scrutiny.  If not for people like Glenn Beck and The Blaze Radio Network, stories like what happened to Christopher Newsom and Channon Christian from Knoxville, Tennessee would simply be swept under the rug forever, as many such stories are.  Hearing the story upset me so much that it took me a week to respond accordingly to it.  I feel very passionate about these kinds of cases.  But needless to say, I feel terrible that nobody was around who could have helped Christopher and Channon from being brutally raped and killed by five attackers Lemaricus Davidson, Letalvis Cobbins, George Thomas, Vanessa Coleman and Eric Boyd.   The crime committed was so malicious that it should have been a national story, but it wasn’t, most likely because the attackers were black and the victims were white.  The story didn’t fit the modern progressive agenda, so it was ignored.  I wish that someone would have been able to stop this crime before it happened.  For me, I think the worst aspect of the case was the fact that Channon Christian was a virgin, who had made a decision to avoid sexual activity due to her Christian beliefs for her future husband.  Channon thought enough of the act to make a day-to-day decision that would be a grand gift to her future husband meaning her entire life’s objective was savagely stolen from her by a gang of thugs.  When they dumped Channon’s broken body into a trash can later that night after hours and hours of torture, rape and severe mental abuse, it was more than just Channon’s life that left her body after slowly suffocating.  All her life decisions were simply stolen from her and cheapened by a group of people who completely lacked value of any human standard, and behaved like a pack of rampant animals to destroy the lives of a nice couple just because they could.  Virginity doesn’t mean much to a cheapened nation such as what we have today, but for people who are not progressive, who are not liberal malcontents, or products of modern government dependency, it still has value and that value was brutally taken from Channon Christian in an act that is terrible beyond the physical abuse.  The violence cuts through to the heart of what we are as people, as rational human beings.

As reported by Glenn Beck’s The Blaze, on January 6, 2007, the couple made plans to watch a movie at a friend’s apartment, but they never made it. They would never be seen alive again.

When Christian didn’t show up for work the next morning, family members immediately grew worried and reported them missing, Beck explained.

“It turns out that the couple had made it to dinner, but when they arrived at the apartment complex where Christian’s best friends lived, they were carjacked by multiple assailants,” he said. “What followed was one of the most heinous, gruesome, senseless hate crimes, ever.”

It was at this point in the program that Beck advised parents to have their children leave the room or pause the show and watch it at a later time due to the graphic details of the story.

Newsom was gagged with a sock in his mouth, his ankles were bound with his own belt, his hands were tied behind his back, his face was covered with a bandana and his head covered with a sweatshirt that his five assailants had tied around his neck with shoestrings.  He was than violently raped with an object and beaten.  “One can only imagine the horror Christopher experienced as he was then forced to walk barefoot to the nearby railroad tracks, where he was shot in the neck in the back,” Beck said solemnly. “But the shots didn’t kill him — he fell to the ground and was paralyzed.”

“That’s when the assailants stood over him, placed the gun against his head and fired, killing him execution style,” he added. Newsom was shot a total of three times.  But not even that was enough. The attackers then poured gasoline on his body and set him on fire.

Unfortunately, the horror of this tragic story is not over. Beck went on to speak of what also happened to Christian on that night.

The woman was forced into a back room of the house where she was hog-tied with a strips of fabric from a bedding set. She was brutally raped “in every possible way imaginable” for several hours as the assailants beat her viciously with several objects, including a broken chair leg.  By the time Christian was taken into the living room, the five attackers realized they had left their DNA on their victim. In an attempt to cover their tracks, they poured bleach down her throat and on her body before they wrapped her body in black garbage bags and covered her head in a plastic grocery bag.  “She was then placed in a garbage can in the kitchen of the house — all of this while she was still alive,” Beck noted.

“Channon Christian’s last minutes on earth were spent slowly suffocating in a garbage can after she had been savagely beaten and raped for hours,” he added.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/08/13/the-gruesome-story-of-a-murdered-tennessee-couple-you-may-have-never-heard-about-but-that-you-will-never-forget/

Could the police have stopped Lemaricus Davidson, Letalvis Cobbins, George Thomas, Vanessa Coleman and Eric Boyd from carjacking the poor couple on their way to the apartment complex?  No.  Would further taxation of a new police levy stop the violence?  No.  Would more welfare money dumped into the system prevent the vast evil exhibited by the attackers?  No.  Would more education about race differences stop the crime?  No, in fact it probably made it worse by giving the attackers the belief that they were “equalizing” themselves by destroying the life of a young white couple because of the hate that flows into their culture from music, from government, and all progressive outlets.  There are only two things that could have eliminated this dreadfully destructive incident………..a very large handgun that would have killed the attackers on the spot, or a society that advocates social value.  I prefer the later, but understand the former is more of an option in a valueless world.

Channon Christian was trying to live her life with some sense of value.  Her commitment to virginity was a step in that direction which is sorrowfully lacking in modern society.  It’s not so much the act of sex that virginity represents; it’s the commitment to placing value on it.  Millions of women give sex away cheaply, but Channon was attempting to set herself above such tawdriness by saving herself for her marriage and the children that would come out of such a union.  Women who make these kinds of commitments to families they don’t even have yet are the kind of women who become wonderful mothers, wonderful wives, and wonderful grandparents who inspire entire generations.  These punks took that from Channon and every child she would have produced from a loving husband conceived in a bed that only they shared through a union they believed to be pure and under the care of God.

It is not because of the color of their skin that these attackers are scum bags that belong to my temperament at the end of a vigilante’s justice.  Hearing this story makes me wish terribly that I could have been somewhere close by to lend a hand—to prevent the terror from even happening.  But the reality is that this isn’t the only crime like this that has happened.  It’s not the worst of these crimes to have been committed.  In fact, it is happening right now somewhere in somebody’s dark corner of the world and there isn’t a politician, a law, or an education institution that can stop it.  The more they try, the worse they make things.  The only combat there is against this kind of thing is a sense of value, a sense of goodness that is advocated and supported by society at large.  I cannot be in every spot of the globe, so I hope these words will reach people who are, and inspire them to change their communities for the better.  I spend all this effort on blog postings, articles and books because it is the best strategic option against the kind of parasites we are up against.

What was the real hate crime here?  Was it racism?  No.  It was a group of valueless thugs who wanted to steal value from someone else.  So they took it from a couple in love on their way to building a future together.  Since the thugs couldn’t give themselves value where they were lacking, they sought to steal it away from someone else.  Even though the murders couldn’t make the thugs suddenly become valuable people, it could break the measure of goodness against bad, and give the perception that everybody is just as tainted and corrupt as the twisted fools Lemaricus Davidson, Letalvis Cobbins, George Thomas, Vanessa Coleman and Eric Boyd.  In the much discussed Treyvon Martin case where a young kid of color was shot and killed by neighborhood watchman, George Zimmerman, was it a case of racism?  No.  Based on the evidence presented in the case, it would appear that young Treyvon thought about the world unfortunately that he had a right to travel through a gated community and not to be accosted by any neighborhood watchmen.  The community he was passing through had value, value for their yards, their landscaping, their cars, their homes, and this made an attractive target for people seeking to fill themselves with value others built.  The attack provocation is not one of racism but of differing values.  One party either wants to steal the value of another monetarily, or metaphorically.  Sometimes they just get a charge out of putting the fear of violence into those with value who feel frightened to shut themselves up behind think glass windows and locked doors.  Sometimes the next step is the preference to actually yank those of value from their cars in Knoxville, Tennessee and steal away everything they ever were and everything they would ever become with brutal, diabolical sex, then murder.  Where does the hate come from………….it’s not racism, it’s in hating those who have values making those who don’t feel like they can’t measure up in comparison, which they don’t.

My idea of justice on these kinds of matters are what I wrote about in The Symposium.  I do not think tax payers should continue to pay for the life of Lemaricus Davidson, Letalvis Cobbins, George Thomas, Vanessa Coleman and Eric Boyd with life in prison.  Tax payers should not have to feed those worthless criminals in jail for the rest of their lives, it is simply too expensive.  It’s not even an eye for an eye type of revenge thing; those criminals are parasites on society that have done more than enough damage.  They have robbed the world of a likely nice couple who would produce nice Christian children who would have raised them with nice southern family values, and that is a detrimental cost quite enough. The cost of one night of brutality is bad, heart wrenching, and terribly cold-blooded.  But the cost of the loss of such innocence is far worse, because it is increasingly becoming more and more difficult to find people in this world who actually have value and to preserve them from becoming victims of the valueless.  The cost of losing such people has a far greater impact on the social fabric of our civilization than anything else.  Good people are lost forever in such cases and it is happening every day.  Meanwhile the scum bags that do the crime get to sit in jail for the rest of their life fed like animals in a zoo off the tax payer.  They get to live out their days as productive contributors of nothing, while those who would have otherwise been productive find themselves brutalized and stuffed in a garbage can to die where the media placed the story because it didn’t fit their agenda.  The violence is not created by racism in its natural state, but by a media who seeks to advance a political agenda that pits the valueless against the valued in an attempt at social equality where nothing of worth is safe from the convicts of righteousness.

This story brings to my mind one of my favorite poems, T.S. Eliot’s Wasteland.  For all the obvious reasons, it is only there that it makes sense away from the politics of current events.  Click to read more. 

Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE.  CLICK HERE!  

Oprah Winfrey Used An Old Trick: Creating racial division to promote her new movie ‘The Butler’

Oprah Winfrey used the oldest trick in the book as far as promoting the latest “progressive” film containing her direct involvement.  Her film The Butler already has Oscar buzz as a surprising summer hit and tells the story of a White House butler who served eight American presidents over three decades. The film traces the dramatic changes that swept American society during this time, from the civil rights movement to Vietnam and beyond, and how those changes affected a man’s life and family. Forest Whitaker stars as the butler with Robin Williams as Dwight Eisenhower, John Cusack as Richard Nixon, Alan Rickman as Ronald Reagan, James Marsden as John F. Kennedy.  This is the same film where Jane Fonda played Nancy Reagan.  The cast is a who’s who of the extreme political left, and primary spokesman of modern progressive philosophy.  If Winfrey didn’t know how to use such tricks, she wouldn’t be one of the richest women in the world.  But she does, and she did—one week before The Butler hit theaters she managed to say something that angered half of America and empowered the other half putting her name in all the news outlets ahead of the movie’s release.  Her film which cost only $30 million to make pulled in nearly all that total during its opening weekend, an amount that was likely spiked 7% – 9% due to Oprah’s controversy.

 In case you missed the inflammatory statements, Oprah’s played the race card one week before The Butler hit theaters when a trip to a Zurich shop ended in a supposedly disturbing racial encounter for the billionaire media mogul — a national humiliation that forced the Swiss tourism board to issue a public apology.  Winfrey had said she was in town for Tina Turner’s wedding last month and stopped in the posh Trois Pommes boutique where she asked a clerk to see a $38,000 Tom Ford bag behind a glass case.  Oprah claims that the clerk looked down on her assuming that she couldn’t afford the bag because she was a black woman.  Pictures of all these characters and more about the story can be fond at the following link.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/oprah-winfrey-brush-racism-sparks-international-incident-article-1.1422325#ixzz2cJZ30FuD

Oprah Winfrey has also chosen this past week to break her silence on the controversy surrounding her friend Paula Deen, the disgraced television chef’s use of the N-word in the past.  “I think Paula Deen was sort of used as a symbol, but I think lots of people use the word inappropriately all the time,” Oprah said during a revealing interview on Entertainment Tonight Monday. The 59-year old television mogul says she’s very sensitive to racism — a major theme in her new movie, “Lee Daniels’ The Butler.” “I do not run in the circle of people who use the word loosely,” she told ET. “For me it’s out of respect to those people who it was the last word they heard while they were being hung, the last word they heard when they were being fired, the last word they heard when their house was being burned.  “It’s the word heard every day when they were walking down the street and they had to step off the side-walk to let other people pass.”

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/oprah-winfrey-breaks-silence-paula-deen-controversy-article-1.1419098#ixzz2cJaiWah3

I understand the use of playing such cards to promote works of entertainment, especially when in so doing it reveals what kind of person is really behind the image.  I’ve played similar cards for similar reasons such as before the release of my novel Tail of the Dragon.  I don’t see anything wrong with it so long as the advocate is being authentically revealing—standing up for what they truly believe in.  That’s why it’s easy to see what Oprah was up to.  She knew exactly what she was doing, and the results are in the box office of The Butler.  And I also believe that Oprah believes she was a victim of racism at the Swiss purse store.  I believe that Oprah also believes that when she heads a board room conference that the reason there are people jealous of her, as she claims, is because she’s a black woman—and that white men despise her for her role of authority.  So for me, it is not surprising that she said any of the things she has recently.  My sentiments about Winfrey reflect those of Glenn Beck in a recent radio broadcast that he gave on the matter declaring that Winfrey’s action disgusted him.

Behind the public image of Oprah Winfrey is a woman who was given a tremendous chance by Steven Spielberg after the release of the film, The Color Purple to launch a media empire, which she did.  The doors were opened for her to take the wheel and steer herself to an unfathomable destiny, and she did not hold back once given the chance.  Many “white guys” wanting to prove they were not racist or sexist were actively seeking a black woman to advocate progressive philosophy to mainstream America in the late 1980s, and Oprah was up for the challenge.  The media got behind the effort for the same reason they get behind Barack Obama.  Their public and college educations taught them that the civil rights issues of the 1960s were the most important historical aspects of America’s development and they all want to play a part in shaping that history for the better.

In spite of what public image Winfrey has been able to build for herself through aligning her career path with progressive politics, deep down inside she is still the same woman she was before she stared in The Color Purple, and that personality comes out when she is being candid.  With her new film The Butler, as conservatives were angry with Jane Fonda playing Nancy Reagan, Winfrey did what progressives have done for years and that was disarm the critics and raise awareness for her film project by soaking up all the media attention with a blind accusation that could never be proven as millions of Oprah fans went to the theater to see her new movie—who otherwise would have passed.  By choosing to see The Butler over other kinds of movies, like Kick Ass 2 or some other film, Americans felt that it would prove that “they” were not racist by going to see such a movie, a challenge that Oprah initiated with her statements about racism. 

I don’t see Oprah as a success even though she is one of the richest people on earth.  I see a highly paid progressive spokesman who has been given power to help re-shape the world—which she has done.  No matter how much you dress up someone, and prop them up with photo shoots, films, and enamoring articles, they are what they are, and Oprah revealed what she was to the world during her press tour for The Butler.   I don’t blame her for trying to boost her ticket sales with inflammatory remarks.  But I do for being a phony all other times of her life and only revealing her deepest, darkest beliefs when it is financially advantageous to do so.  She knows as well as anybody that she would not have gained so much global popularity uttering such things during her rise to the top in the 1990s where nearly every woman in America looks to Oprah as the tribal chief of their global village.  But I do blame Oprah for being an inflammatory phony and seeking to use race as a way to prop up ticket sales and a possible Oscar nomination for her new movie purely out of fear of being called a civil rights violator.  It’s not a free market of equal ideas that people like Oprah are after, it is in the use of guilt, fear, and scandal where advantage is gained through such methods and why people like her “are” the most powerful people in the world when they would otherwise be store sellers of used junk in a flea market.

Remember above everything, Oprah is an actress.  She is paid to say what other people write for her.  In her case, she is extremely well paid to act not only on the silver screen, but also in real life.

Rich Hoffman

 www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

Give yourself the gift of ADVENTURE.  CLICK HERE!