Tag: George Lang

The Epic Vision of George Lang: What government can and do best

The Country Music Festival at the Voice of America Park in West Chester, Ohio, in August of 2024, turned out well.  Obviously, many people had a lot of fun, and it was a very positive experience for tens of thousands of people.  I have a special relationship with that park that goes back a long way because of Senator George Lang, which is worth discussing.  I appreciated the use of that particular park for a lot of sentimental reasons, and it was a very nice evening on the Friday night that Jason Aldean and other country music acts were performing from the vantage point of the Butler County GOP tent.  I had a rare moment to consider that all was right in the world as I looked out over the vast crowd enjoying themselves under a setting sun and a wonderful evening under the stars as the moon peaked out and hung in the sky to listen to the music.  I reflected on similar events around the country, and few could come close to the benefits of the VOA Park in West Chester, Ohio, because of its amenities and commercial access to the outside world.  It’s a huge space to set up something like that Country Music Festival, but still close to the highway and major commercial enterprises, complete with double lane roads and a well-managed civilian population.  I considered it the best that a society could offer and was a great example of what the world everywhere should be like.  But what a lot of people don’t know is the history of the park, and I’m not talking about its location being the site of the Voice of America, which would broadcast anti-communist propaganda to every corner of the world and bring down many authoritarian regimes.  Hitler referred to the site as the Cincinnati Liars because of the effectiveness of the VOA broadcasting station, which is still there and was part of the festival environment all these years later.  It was an excellent place to have a nice night for a community that deserves nice things to happen to it.  It’s been a rough couple of years, so there were plenty of reasons to celebrate. 

One thing about my life is that there aren’t many moments to enjoy a few hours of anything.  Usually, I have packed into every moment of every day many lifetimes of events.  So I don’t leave much time to enjoy life for a few hours.  But under the invite of George Lang and his lovely wife Debbie, my wife and I had a nice date night at the Country Music Festival under the added comforts of the Butler County Republican Party tent that was right off the main stage and had a great view of all the events of the weekend.  Many people tell me that I’m burning the candle at both ends and that I should take more time to do things like that, which I wouldn’t have done without the invite.  But I don’t think so. I do what I do, and I enjoy doing it, including long days of work where my life has a lot going on.  While my wife could complain, she doesn’t.  She understands.  But with all that said, the chance to take a deep breath and have some well-catered food in an air-conditioned tent with so many friends was very well received by my family. 

And speaking about George Lang, as I’ve said before, well, after he’s done with politics, I will likely still be friends with him and his wife.  We’ve all known each other for many years now, starting during his trial, where he was a target of Democrat activism as they were making a move to harm the GOP in Butler County over essentially a turf war.  Can you indict a ham sandwich in grand juries?  Yes, I have much experience with that side of the fence now and will have much to say about it.  Regardless, I thought what Democrats tried to do to George Lang over his relationship with the future Speaker of the House, John Boehner, at that time was horrible.  It was a window into what the courts have been trying to do to Trump now; only George was an early victim of it, and it was scary as he went through it in court.  I tend to like to help people like that in any way I can when they are being picked on by some cruel elements of the outside world, which, at this point, I have done for many people over the years.  But with George and his family, we have stayed friends ever since and have developed some great respect over a long period.  All this occurred when George was a trustee in West Chester before he ever went to Columbus as a state representative.  So, I remember the conditions that helped build the foundation for the VOA Park because the nice park where the Country Music Festival was happening was not always there. 

The decision to let Metoparks manage the property started with George Lang as a trustee, who had in mind a minimal government approach, which is why that particular park is so unique in the world. Typically, a large park with such a significant footprint in the community would be run by the city nearest it.  But George and several other local politicians have fought to keep West Chester as big as it is, as small of a government as it can be, which is a lesson that every community, not just in America, should learn from.  As George and I watched the setting sun over the festivities of that evening and remembered all the years, I had to remind him of his role in all this from a policy standpoint.  If he weren’t such a small government guy, the VOA Park would be another over-managed failure.  However, the decision to let the best at park maintenance manage the park paved the way for its current use.  Which, for me, is a continuation of it being the Voice of America.  I run this blog site essentially from there as a tip of the hat to its historic use as the Voice of America.  I have written many millions of words and read many, many books from that park over the years because it’s where I like to visit to get my thoughts about lofty concepts worked out.  Essentially, that’s because of my friendship with George and his wife, knowing the backstory of the park and how it could only exist with a small government approach to big things.  And that’s what made that Country Music Festival so unusual, something you could drive all over the country and not see so well done as it was in West Chester, Ohio, one of the best places to live anywhere.  And that’s not just me saying that.  It’s known throughout the real estate world.  And that is because it has stayed a small government and resisted the temptation to become a city with mayors and city council members screwing everything up with too much bureaucracy.  It took vision to have the view of government that George Lang has expressed, and what a lot of people don’t know is that his epic vision that helped create that magnificent park is being applied to the state of Ohio right now in ways that will benefit it for many decades to come.  For all those reasons and more, being at that festival that evening, I could only think of how proud I am of him and all the excellent work that goes on behind the scenes that nobody will ever know or understand.  But that ultimately makes the world a much, much, better place.  Good government is the kind of government you never see, but that makes all the possibilities of human existence happen under its power by removing the barriers that would otherwise prevent it.  George Lang is a master of that, and many millions of people are enjoying the efforts he has put forward for their benefit, which was on full display at the Country Music Festival at the VOA Park in West Chester, Ohio, during the exciting year of 2024.

Rich Hoffman

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

The Gift of Debbie Lang: Americana to fill the hearts of free people crawling across the finish line of a tough political period

The flag at the GOP tent during the VOA Country Music Festival of 2024
Big stuff at a wonderfully patriotic night in Butler County, Ohio
This is the map of the election as it stands in August of 2024. The media wants everyone to think Harris has a better chance. She doesn’t have a path to victory.

I know there are a lot of scared people out there, and they are apprehensive about Kamala Harris and the Democrats of Doom.  And I keep telling people the truth behind the scenes so they don’t have to worry.  Yet, there is danger in that because while you’re trying to make everyone feel assured, you might take the energy out of the need we all have for them to show up and vote, to make this upcoming election too big to rig.  Most people live their lives daily and hope some decent people end up in the office to tend to their affairs.  But I am more than just a little involved in how things go on behind the scenes, and even I get a little tired of the constant pressure always to overcome some tyrant trying to take over the world, or as we have in the case of the Kamala Harris campaign, many tyrants who want communist all over the world to destroy our country and everything it stands for.  So I get a lot out of events like in West Chester, Ohio, in August of 2024 because it was undoubtedly a recharge as we head into these final days of the 2024 season.  Politics is complex, and it is a blood sport.  It’s tough to go out and raise money for all it takes to run for office and still be authentic to yourself and your promises to voters.  And it’s even more challenging when you have Central Committee appeasements to make, and you are in a primary with other Republicans running for the same office.  Things can get a little hot.  But let me just say this: it has been a challenging period from the time that Trump left the White House and the terror of a communist invasion into all our lives from the impending Biden administration, which Kamala Harris was a created sleeper cell terrorist nurtured along in that environment.  But I was very proud to see so many Butler County Republicans, several from Warren County, and many other places from all over the state, come together under a giant American flag to lead the way during the VOA Country Music Festival, where the entire weekend was packed with top musical artists putting on their best show to a massive crowd hungry for patriotism under the flag of the red, white and blue.

Thomas Hall, Matt Huffman, and Adam Mathews
The front of the GOP tent for Butler County. A foundation for the entire country.

I am unusually patriotic regarding the VOA park, where the Voice of America radio towers once stood.  As a kid, I could see them from my front yard about five or six miles west, and I loved that they broadcast American ideas to the world meant to topple communism and tyranny wherever they put their initiative forth.  Still, if truth be told, I go to the VOA Park almost every day for lunch and have read countless books on its park benches.  It has been my base of operations for this blog site for many years now, including right after Trump was removed from office, and I read from the Cleon Skousen book The Naked Communist the plots of what was happening in the world from a bench there in the park.  Running this blog from the VOA Park essentially was my way of keeping the spirit of that place alive for continued vigilance.  So I did not need much convincing to be invited to attend a GOP event under a nice airconditioned tent in the VIP area of such a magnificent occurrence.  At one end of a massive concert venue was the old broadcast building, which is now a wonderful museum where people can learn all there is to know about the magnificent Voice of America.  However, at the other end, where over 20,000 people had filled the space, was a large stage for several top country music acts that turned out to be an extraordinary reverence of Americana at its absolute best.  And I had a glimpse of what Making America Great Again could look like after these last several decades of political hell. 

The GOP tent attached to VIP access to the main stage
A great way to see everything behind the scenes and good people hard at work
Sheriff Jones working the crowd
Bernie Moreno, taking a much needed break

To get a feel for the quality of the event, I have included lots of videos and pictures for those who didn’t get that opportunity to give people an idea of just how good the Butler County Republican Party is and the people in it who make everything happen.  Any disputes that we may have had during the primary season are now behind everyone.  The GOP tent was under a giant American flag hanging high with a spotlight on it all night.  I was there well past midnight, and that flag never stopped flying, and in the end, that’s what everyone at that event, and specifically under that flag in the Butler County GOP tent, were fighting for and fighting in every way that people have fought for that flag since its creation.  And I can say to everyone who is wondering.  Are the members of the GOP as committed to the cause of preserving American freedom as the people outside that VIP area who were there to watch great country music performances under a setting sun umbrellaed by a magnificent starry sky?  The answer is yes.  I spent the entire evening talking to almost everyone, and I can report that their heart is in it to win it, and the goal of their existence is to Make America Great Again with a second Trump presidency that is right there for us to win and benefit from. 

A very large crowd under a setting sun
MAGA America is growing. These are not Kamala voters

I’m not going to lie; I certainly do love George and Debbie Lang, who were the hosts of the Butler County GOP experience at the VOA Country Music Festival.  If Debbie asked me to be a part of anything, I would do it because it’s her and I think a lot of her family.  They are just good people, and the public doesn’t get to see them the way I do.  So, the public might not understand.  Our friendship started when George was going through a phony perjury trial due to his relationship with John Boehner during his Speaker of the House period.  George was targeted as a way to get to Boehner, and I thought George was tough through the whole experience.  He stood tough when most Republicans hadn’t learned how to yet.  So, I have had a great relationship with the Langs out of that respect for many years now.  And George gave an excellent speech at the tent that I think people will benefit from and I wanted to share it.  I included many others from people many voters may not get a chance to see without the fancy politics masking who they are, as everyday people are just as concerned about tomorrow as everyone else.  George wasn’t lost on the significance of the Voice of America, and his wife Debbie understood it, too.  And they put on a fantastic event that restored the spirit of many people as they were struggling to gasp for a bit more air ahead of a finish line in Ohio that would set a course for the rest of the country in the years to come.  I took a minute in the ambitions of the evening to stand under that big flag in the comfort of the VIP area because you could get away from the crowd a bit to think, and I could see clearly what we had all been fighting for.  Sheriff Jones was there and feeling it, too, and I had a chance to catch up to him before he went onto the big stage to address the crowd with some patriotic flair that everyone was hungry for.  And I could see victory for everyone coming in a way that we could only dream of a few years ago.  Yet there it was, right in front of our face, for us to grab and take to preserve the future.  And it took a lot of vision and tenacity to capture it in a bottle for all to see, which is a unique gift that Debbie Lang has.  She has been through a lot with her husband, and that they can host such an event with all that stood in the way was truly magnificent and worth the most challenging endeavors that could only be unleashed under a free people fighting to keep that American flag held high, for all to see as it was epically at the VOA Country Music Festival in Butler County, Ohio in August of 2024—a benchmark in American history.

We went on until after midnight. Talked to a lot of good people about many positive things coming in the months to come

Rich Hoffman

Debbie Lang, Speaker Johnson, and Senator Lang

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

What Senator Lang Means by a Modern Civil War: American isolationism is a great thing, but the thieves and looters of the world want to steal our lives

We’re not done talking about what Senator Lang said in Middletown, Ohio when he was introducing J.D. Vance to the crowd, where even the Biden White House has taken notice and tried to exploit it for their purposes.  When Lang spoke about a civil war in America, he was not talking about a race war or a war between the haves and the have-nots.  He’s talking about a war that has continuously been operating in the background of American life, as a natural production of capitalism, the desire to remain an isolationist nation or part of the collectivist world order.  And that temptation toward globalism was never more alluring than in the last 100 years when thieves from around the world looked toward the wealth of America and wanted a piece of it.  And most of the wars over that same period were to pull America into world affairs, to create a League of Nations, then a United Nations and put all of us into the global room with people we’d rather not deal with, and steal our money through our political sell-outs.  Modern civil war is essentially playing out now, and it is unclear whether America can make itself great again and tend toward its isolationist tendencies or be turned toward collectivism and be part of a global community.  Or, as Bob Iger has said, as the CEO of Disney, part of the global citizen movement.  We’re all in this together; it’s a small world.  These temptations have always been with us, and Americans, at their heart, have always been isolationists, like most people with value are.  A person with a nice, big house does not open their front door to every migrant on the street. Otherwise, something nice will stop being nice.  So our entire society is built around the premise of value and property rights and protecting those rights from the greedy hands of a desperate mob, which is precisely what the world is offering through global collectivism.  The fight is upon us now: Can we protect the value of our property rights, or should we surrender everything to the global citizen movement?

I have some perspective on this that I think about a lot as I travel around the world.  When I go to Japan, there is a hotel I stay at that caters specifically to Western tastes because Japanese culture can be a bit overwhelming, especially for extended stays.  This hotel is very American in that it has big rooms, big beds, huge bathrooms, and access to abundant Western-style food.  It has comforted me to write, read, and think about the differences between the Western world and the vast perspectives of Asia and East Asia, along with Africa and Central and South America, which are overwhelmingly collectivist, when I stay there.  If you walk into a movie theater in America, people will sit as far from others as possible.  However, in other countries, people do not have the same expectations of personal space and possession of individual integrity.  A crowded bus is typical in Asian countries; they do not have precise expectations for personal enjoyment.  And that is what globalism has always been offering, to convert the American range dweller who fled Europe for independence in distant lands, at significant cost to themselves in the process, and to once and for all wrap them up into the parental blanket of global government, removing from those people any sense of isolationism.  It has, after all, been since the war with Mexico with President Polk pushing for ever more expanding US borders southward that this crisis hit a melting point.  America was best when it moved its borders against global collectivism and preserved individual integrity over the village life of shared resources of communist thought.  After the Mexican War for establishing a southern border to the Rio Grande, Marxist ideas began to infect the world with ideas of abolishing private property that could reach all ears in every region of the world.  And they were always eyeing America as a prosperous nation to steal from and rot from the inside out as they have in all their countries of origin.

This is important to know because just as was the case during both World Wars, American presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt did just as Polk had done with Mexico, and that was to push the buttons of other nations, provoking them to attack America, which would make Americans angry, and drag them into the global war effort through a sense of patriotism, to overcome their natural trend toward isolationism.  We have seen this strategy most recently between Ukraine and Russia for much the same purposes.  Then, in the wake, we would all be thrown together with Americans carrying the bills for building the political platform of globalism.  Americans never wanted it, but European-loving politicians who saw no problem with selling out America toward globalism put us in debt to international banking and Marxist interests of all kinds recklessly, leaving us over time in the condition we are in now, with a world telling us we can’t have property rights or a sense of self.  And that we must adopt a more globalist view.  I often think of this with the obvious example of IKEA, where I often meet my family for a meatball lunch.  The products they sell at IKEA can be excellent for an apartment or flat in a busy city with limited space and very constrained incomes.  IKEA is what globalism offers the world: a lack of space, cheap furniture, and a severe loss of personal freedom.  I have always liked the taste of the food at IKEA.  But I am always weary of the cafeteria dining accommodations.  I’d rather have a private room at Jags myself. 

And that’s the Civil War that Senator Lang is talking about; it’s always been in the background of American life, and we have fought every war since the Civil War.  People think that the Civil War was about slavery, and on one level, it was.  But under the economy of it was the European economy that had its hooks in southern cotton and a North that had its industry that was divorcing itself from European aristocracy.  European practices had inherited slavery, and the abolitionists in America from the north were seeking to put an end to all forms of enslavement to individual lives, no matter what color they were.  So, our Civil War in history, just a few years after the war with Mexico, was about establishing American borders, preserving individual rights, and removing foreign fingers from tampering with our daily expectations.  And that is the war we are in now, preserving American isolationism from the plundering of a desperate, hungry world jealous of America’s space and expectations.  Even people with low incomes in America have a much higher standard of living than most of the world.  There will never be enough resources to make everyone in the world happy, so American isolationism is critical to advancing any human culture because wealth, space, and comfort are necessary for productive thought and an independent perspective from the chaos of globalism.  And the world right now expects to have relief by globalism, to take our wealth and plunder it among their needs.  And we are tired of having our country stripped away from us for the efforts of globalism that have long resided in the background of our lives.  And we want to stop it, once and for all.  We are talking about this when we say we are on the brink of another Civil War.  That war is being fought by those who support individual American rights against those who want to steal those rights for collective Marxism and the lack of privacy that comes with being a global citizen infected with plots of doom for the good of nobody.  And that sets the stage for why there must be a Make America Great Again movement, and who is standing in the way, and why.

Rich Hoffman

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

J.D. Vance for Vice President: They tried to kill Trump, fight, fight, fight–what the hell does anybody expect–anything less?

Obviously, this isn’t from Joe, but one of his 25 year old interns at Chipotle’s

Personally, I think Senator Lang was too nice. After all, he is a nice guy. But he’s not immune to human emotions, for sure. For some context, there was quite a lot of controversy when Senator George Lang came to the Middletown High School, where J.D. Vance was making his first solo speech in his hometown once President Trump picked him for Vice President, and George spoke about civil war.  All the big media outlets picked it up and ran with it as if George said something wrong, indicating that if Trump and Vance were not elected this November, there would be a civil war in this country.  Immediately, as George is a political representative who endeavors to represent as many constituents in his district as possible, many people are just not up to current events and thought George had said too much in the heat of the moment.  They are more worried about picking their kids up from soccer practice than their country’s fate.  But when people think there is something wrong with me because I like George Lang so much as a personal friend, well, as I say to them, I know George.  I know what’s in his heart.  He is a good politician.  I don’t think he needed to send out an apology for what he said.  We aren’t living in that woke world anymore.  The communist left doesn’t get to regulate us like cattle through violations of our free speech, where we get in trouble for saying outlandish things while they do much, much worse and get away with it. That is part of why President Trump picked J.D. Vance as his vice president. He is a young man we have all come to know well, and we were proud of him for giving his speech in Middletown.  He’s a Butler County Republican, and our emotions are encouraged by his involvement in high office.  But George is right about the civil war.  People, now that they know what the game is, are not going to sit around being dictated to by a bunch of globalists who run our media and our elections and strive to manipulate every part of our lives. 

J.D. Vance alluded to what George was talking about in a special interview with Jesse Watters, where he stated that if that assassin’s bullet had struck Trump in Pennsylvania, it would have taken our country half a century to get over.  God stepped in, and Trump is OK, but the intent cannot be ignored.  The radical communist left is lucky that we are a nation of laws and that we have hope that Trump can fix everything without violence and bloodshed.  But as I have been saying for years now, take that hope away, as the communist left has been trying to do, and bad things are going to happen.  The intentions of Democrats in political America, if that hope in Trump is removed, then we will end up with a much worse situation than anything that happened on January 6th.  Trying to shame people into some controlled speech that favors the position of domestic enemies in America is water well under the bridge.  George Lang had a right to be passionate when he spoke to the crowd to warm them up for J.D. Vance.  And he didn’t need to apologize for anything.  If anything, he was probably too accomidating. The panic from the left on comments like that is the realization that they don’t have control over the mass population the way they fantasize they do.  And if Senator Lang is talking about civil war, then what are people not so well connected thinking?  That scares them and, why they tried to make a big deal out of what George said.  I’ve known George for a few decades now, and I would call him a very good friend, along with his family.  And I know most of the people in the audience that were behind J.D. Vance that day.  I know what they are thinking, too.  And I’ll just say it: Americans expect personal freedom that a globalist insurrection has violated, and there is a thin line between outright violence and properly held elections.  People are hoping to resolve the issue through elections and without violence.  But if the elections don’t work, then it won’t be a favorable outcome for the radical, communist left who work on behalf of international globalism.  And shaming people into correct speech won’t make the sentiment go away.  Communists worldwide should be very happy that Trump is ahead in the polls and that he picked a nice young man to be his vice president, who is very level-headed and intellectual.  Most people have difficulty containing their emotions and are preparing their minds for war.  Trust me…………….

I remember when I was first talked into supporting J.D. Vance in the backyard of another friend, the very wonderful Nancy Nix.  She had been telling me about this great young kid who wrote the Hillbilly Elegy and that he was running for senate.  I wasn’t keen on him then, but she insisted I give him a chance and meet him at an event she was hosting.  So I did, and J.D. Vance impressed me as the future of the MAGA movement.  He has been a great senator, and I have met him many times since then.  And all this was talk we had in that same backyard with the same people as we were working on getting Bernie Moreno elected into the other senate seat, fresh off everyone coming back from the Republican National Convention in Wisconsin where J.D. Vance had just been named as Trump’s VP.  I told hundreds of people over the past several days that I don’t see the situation as desperate.  But everyone comes to me and asks what I think about a potential civil war, a war between the assumption of personal freedom in America as opposed to the financial monsters of international globalism.  And I say the best way to fight that battle is to put Trump in office and set up the future with someone like J.D. Vance.  When we say fight, fight, fight, we have a right because we’re not going to sit around and take the crap we have been taking from the communist left.   And it was only a week ago that radicals, from what the evidence indicates from within our own government, tried to kill President Trump.  The assassin wasn’t just some transgender kid who decided to shoot the president one day.  He missed, so let’s return to picking our kids up from soccer practice and forget about it.  No, we almost had our hopes for a peaceful resolution to this mess removed from us, and I don’t think the communist media understands that there is no negotiation on the personal freedom front.  Shaming people with January 6th, or something that Senator Lang had said, is a tactic that created this mess, and people have regrets about being too nice to our domestic enemies.  But the communist left is our enemy, and we are transparent about that now.  We are not all in this together.  We are going to Make America Great Again, and we are going to defeat globalism now that we have seen the game plan displayed to us over the last four or five years.  Surrendering our country so that we can have peace with our attackers is not on the menu.  And it’s not just George Lang feeling it.  It’s everyone.  Much, much more than anyone in the media wants to admit. 

I don’t want to get too in the weeds, but this past week, I was at court when the John Carter sentencing was happening.  I had a break from my work there and went across the street from the Hamilton courthouse to grab a Big Mac from McDonald’s.  But in so doing, I had to go through the media that was set up outside to report on the fate of the murderer who killed Katelyn Markham.  I saw many media people I have known over the years, so I know the type of people who tried to make a big deal out of George’s comments.  They are friendly people, but they are clueless about what’s going on in people’s minds.  That Carter case is old, and yet they were stuck on it as if people out there were still clinging to a sense of justice that allowed a young person like Katelyn to be murdered, then expending a decade to see that murderer get three additional years in prison on a plea deal.  Many media personalities outside the courthouse, as I was eating my Big Mac and talking to them about the case, have no idea what’s happening in the world.  The old rules of name-shaming high school politics of international communism are criteria that America is abandoning.  And everyone should be very grateful that a local guy in J.D. Vance is headed to the White House to bring a peaceful transition of power and sanity to our system of government because polite society has had enough of Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Klaus Schwab to last a lifetime.  And if votes don’t work, then fighting it is.

They have to prove they can do the job. If they can’t, they have to explain, why.

Rich Hoffman

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

Ding Dongs in Columbus: A Review of Governor DeWine’s State of the State speech

Before I get into the obvious homeless guy on 3rd Street in Columbus who was standing on the corner a block south of the Statehouse, completely nude, with his ding dong and buttocks clear for all the world to see, as if he were getting ready to shower at a YMCA, I have to talk about the fantastic book I bought from the Statehouse gift shop that I have had my eye on for several years now, The Art and Artistry of the Ohio Statehouse by Dayna Jalkanen.  Every time I go to the Statehouse, I think about getting it, but time is always short, so I never do.  I love the Statehouse and the intentions of the work that is supposed to be done there, of republic-style representative government, and I had just told a story to similar people about my thoughts on Governor DeWine’s speech where I stood in the rotunda with DeWine giving out pictures with a lunch buffet set up in the middle of the room where senators, representatives, lawyers, lobbyists, cutthroats and even media personalities were at work saving the world from their perspective.  Even the “Rooster” was there dressed in his backpack and poorly attired shorts, deliberately showing disrespect for the process as he runs a government blog checking the antics of the powerful with a kind of Marxist mentality of “bringing them all down.  During this visit, I had a little more time to make it to the bookstore, where I was there with Jennifer Gross, the Ohio Representative from the 47th District, and her son, a brilliant young man.  I explained to many people that DeWine’s speech this year was horrible, worse than usual, and uninspiring.  And there was a thick blanket over the whole State of the State address as Columbus conspiracies were awash in speculation and scandal.  But as I have said before, the Statehouse is there, grand and has deep roots in history.  It intends to inspire people to greatness even if they fall short, as was apparent under this current flock of politicians.  So, I wanted to get the book to remind myself of the worth of it all.

As I checked out the book at the counter and spoke to Jennifer about all the perils of progress during legislative proceedings, I reflected on what I had just said about DeWine’s speech and why it was so bad.  Governor DeWine was clearly in a lame-duck stage of his term.  He was on the outs with the Trump campaign over several controversies.  But the biggest one is that DeWine isn’t a Republican, especially not a Trump Republican.  He’s a product of FDR’s New Deal and some Johnson version of a Great Society where the government was there to do what parents couldn’t or wouldn’t.  And that was the entirety of DeWine’s speech on the State of the State on 4.10.24.  The whole thing was about how the state of Ohio could take care of children in ways their parents would fall short of, and everything he mentioned required more legislation and tax money spent without scrutiny on the next generation without any real expectation of success.  As I had just said in the rotunda, everyone in that room thought they were doing the right things, including DeWine.  They all had the best of intentions.  Nobody thought of themselves as evil.  Yet there was evil everywhere, and why?  It’s a challenging game where you must go to Columbus to work with others to make things happen.  You have to build relationships and get things done.  But in compromising with other people to get things passed, most people find themselves changed forever in the process, and they aren’t the same people who were elected, and they don’t survive the meat grinder of politics intact. 

Whenever I attend a State of the State speech, I always like to sit in the gallery where all the lawyers, aides, and lobbyists sit because I want to hear how they talk to each other.  They all have some specific thing that concerns them most about the government.  It might be renewable energy, social programs, or even Rob Portman’s retirement status, and how many boards he is sitting on for advice.  I was sitting next to one of his former aides who went on and on about how much influence the former senator still had in the business world, which I had to snicker about.  I’ve known Rob Portman for a long time, especially at the beginning of his political career when he was in his 20s.  Rob Portman shouldn’t be advising businesses about anything; he doesn’t have the horsepower to understand the field or how it works.  But in that gallery, I heard many stories about things those people wanted to impress upon each other as they were caught up in the moment.  All dressed up to listen to the Governor give a speech about saving children from their parents.  I explained it later by identifying the problem for what it is: all those people at the speech had the power of government at their fingertips, and they had to decide how to use it to help people.  And that’s where the evil comes in: when people don’t have the right thoughts about things, how can they decide to use government the way it’s supposed to, not how their feeble minds interpret it?  DeWine intended his speech well, as everyone listening did.  But where can they apply government power to the right purposes?  That’s what I wanted to think about as I bought that book and why I took a little extra time talking with Jennifer about those kinds of challenges this time. 

But the answer to that question was at the corner of 3rd Street, just one block south of the Statehouse as I was leaving.  There was security everywhere around the Statehouse because of the governor.  I was leaving the Senate, and there were plenty of police.  But then there was this 6’ 6 man of color standing there with his pants pulled down around his ankles, underwear, and all oblivious to the world around him.  I don’t think he knew his ding dong was hanging out in full view to all the cars and pedestrians moving by him.  I’ve seen homeless people all over the world, and they are caused by too much government destroying the personal initiative of individual people.  And here was this guy, an apparent creation of a nanny state government rotting away in full view of everyone just a block from where all the rules of Ohio were made.  And nobody was doing anything about it.  He was violating public decency standards.  He was probably violating many drug laws.  But he was a person of color, and nobody wanted to be called a racist for pointing out his bad behavior.  So, everyone just ignored him and went about their way.   No doubt, several children that day had their lives ruined by seeing that naked guy on the street corner on a sunny April day in 2024.  With all the grand ideas proposed by many governors over the years, the reality is that the quality of life for people only gets worse the more that the government tries to replace good personal conduct with more laws, which aren’t even enforced a block from where DeWine gave his speech.  And all the people talking about big, fancy ideas in the gallery were already in their cars on their way home, driving past all the problems none had the guts to deal with.  Which is how evil works in those kinds of gatherings.  Well-intended people who use the power of government to do what they lack as people, and it migrated into society to show itself in that homeless guy so disconnected from reality he was nude on a street corner in the capital of Ohio, which should be a showpiece of excellence.  The Statehouse certainly lives up to the lofty expectations.  But the people in it, inhabiting it, don’t.  And they hide their lack of courage behind procedures and fancy speeches.  Yet they always fall short because their minds aren’t up to the task, and they don’t have the guts to increase their intellect where they can help people like that guy instead of making more of them by default. 

Rich Hoffman

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

Sara Carruthers Loses to Diane Mullins in the 47th District: Don’t work against the Central Committees and new media

It was wonderful to see Diane Mullins win the Representative seat for the 47th District, beating out Sara Carruthers in the primary who had held that seat.  I think Diane will do a great job, bring some fresh perspective to that seat, and represent the people of Hamilton and the surrounding area very well.  But this is a cautionary tale that deserves some thought because it was Sara Carruthers who had come out after the election of November 2023 and referred to Tea Party types in the Republican Party as radicals, as she was alluding to the assumption that party politics existed in some moderate relationship with communism and that she knew better than everyone else how to navigate those choppy waters.  Her crime was one of the Blue 22 coalition to put the moderate Speaker Stephens into power and undercut the much more Republican presence that had been planned.  So she was a declared RINO and made herself known to everyone as such, leaving the Central Committee to pull her endorsement and support Diane Mullins as a replacement, a much more conservative Republican.  And I said so much then and put my support behind the Republican slate card.  In that same exchange, Sheriff Jones became frustrated and went out on his own not seeking a party endorsement.  Things are getting hot in politics, and for good reason.  Who needs Democrats when our representatives are like Sara Carruthers?  Or Cindy Carpenter, for that matter.  And like Sara, many in Ohio went on to support Matt Dolan over the party pick of Bernie Moreno for the senate seat.  Even after the Central Committee of Ohio had put their support behind Bernie, there were many establishment Republican types who refused to deal with reality and instead supported Matt Dolan. 

More views on this site than most any other media platform. The power of new media. This stat from 3/25/24. That is much more than most best selling novels and cable news programs.

The approach was arrogant, and the money people continued to support Sara Carruthers even after she was rejected by the Central Committee, which carried over into several state races, most notably with Moreno.  Arrogance comes from an assumption that they have more of a right to pick people who are good for them than the average voter because they put more money into politics and deserve it.  Sara Carruthers had much more money to win in the 47th District than Diane Mullins.  I also heard a lot from people during this campaign that George Lang was just like Sara Carruthers and had donated money to each other’s campaign.  They were both RINOs, so how could I support George, not Sara?  Once a RINO, always a RINO, according to these opinions.  However, my distinction falls under the actual representation of voters and how a candidate views that role.  Obviously, with Carruthers, she was not happy with the political tide from the MAGA movement, and she was not pleased to see Lynda O’Conner lose her seat on the Lakota school board in November of 2023.  Many manipulations went on with the Central Committee in that case where Lynda received a party endorsement by tampering with the vote.  There were some games going on between West Chester and Liberty Township that forced Lynda through her endorsement process, and people responded by not voting for her, defeating her soundly at that next election.  So perhaps Sara Carruthers thought that money would win out in her election and that the party endorsement wouldn’t matter much.  And Sheriff Jones went through a similar process.  He was vulnerable if someone wanted to run against him.  However, the respect between the Central Committee and Party Establishment types had been tested, and there was apparent ambiguity on the matter, which was quite simple. 

I think it’s great that Pastor Diane has been so widely endorsed. As to the church and state separations, that has been a terrible experiment. It’s against the law to conduct election fraud, have open borders. And to traffic drugs. If the churches support Diane, the world is a better place for it.

Money does not buy what people think it does.  Traditional media is not the way to win campaigns, and disrespecting Central Committees is a bad trait in state politics, especially in Ohio.  More donors providing a larger war chest does not work like it used to, with new media being the primary way people get their news.  Some of my articles for endorsed candidates saw individually more than 35,000 hits in the week leading up to the primary election in March, which is typical for me.  The newspapers never say much about political candidates, so as voters are curious about the names they see on yard signs, they look them up and usually find my articles because they are longer and are more opinionated than what they get from traditional media.  As a result, my endorsements usually impact my pick because it is one of the best information platforms for people who don’t already have a firm pick in mind during elections.  And I knew when I did my piece against Sara Carruthers that it would offset the money she had in her war chest because radio ads, television, and yard signs didn’t work.  That’s not where voters are getting their information anymore.  It might be a launching point, but it isn’t the destination.  Voters want opinions about their candidates, and vlogs, blogs, and podcasts are the best ways to inform voters who they are voting for.  And those are much less expensive ways to communicate, but they also demand more personal authenticity than just a static one-page ad in the newspaper used to provide.  This has made it harder for RINOs to hide their liberalism, which ultimately was the downfall of Sara Carruthers.

At the heart of the matter was respect.  Chairman Todd Hall addressed that issue to the Butler County Republican Party with an obvious tone that supported Trump’s nomination for 2024 to run for president.  Any fantasies that RINOs would have had in dumping party endorsements in favor of donor sentiment or shoving through endorsements that the Central Committee did not adequately pick had diminished, as they should.  Plotting and scheming against the voters is not a good way for a political party to validate themselves because if that’s how it is, then they aren’t worth the trouble.  Over these past few elections, new media and the power of the Central Committee had been tested, but the results were noticeable.  The political parties were not in charge.  Donors couldn’t buy support with unfair leverage as they had in the past.  And Republicans who acted like Democrats were going to be punished and cast aside.  No matter how long they had been in office or how well-liked they were by the establishment.  All the schemes to eliminate Trump are based on the same logic.  And back to George Lang, he never betrayed Trump.  He might associate with people like Matt Dolan and others who are obvious RINOs.  But he never stepped away from MAGA’s ideas of making America First.  But Sara Carruthers did, and her sin was in being one of the Blue 22, which set Republicans back severely in Ohio from the Speaker seat.  And she had to pay.  Just as others who join her in deceit and betrayal, thinking they know better than the average voter what needs to happen in politics and to mask it, can spend money on more yard signs to stay in power.  That’s not what happened with Sara; her story should be a lesson to all.  Don’t betray the Central Committee by playing games.  Representing their wishes will make things a lot better for everyone involved.  And that’s how the ball bounces in politics from now on.   

Rich Hoffman

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

Lessons From George Lang’s Primary Win in Butler County: Political terrorism isn’t the way to win people over

It was not surprising to me that George Lang won in the primary for the 4th District Senate seat.  He was the best person for the job and is an integral part of the MAGA movement in Ohio politics.  And I like the guy quite a lot.  However, some things happened in this primary that need to be discussed, particularly concerning Candice Keller, who ran against him.  I thought it was a huge mistake when I first heard that she would.  I personally like Candice, her husband, and her supporters.  However, my relationship with George was founded on years of built-up trust, so everyone should know where my support would go.  But I did get some nasty campaign utterances against George, which I could care less about.  But I heard from people who questioned me because they wanted to say that George Lang was a RINO just because they lacked the extra gear he has in politics.  I think there are all kinds of people needed in political efforts; there are people who throw rocks.  And some people make deals, and all sorts of people in between.  Just because a politician like George has skills that other people don’t have, it doesn’t make him a RINO.  As I said on election day, George Lang never ran away from Trump, where many people in Ohio did; he even put a picture of himself next to Trump on the slate card in Butler County.  I have known George for a long time, and his support of Trump goes back as long as mine does, well before many of the modern tag-alongs saw the light.  I’ve been involved in many scenarios with George Lang where I know better than most what kind of person he is, so my endorsement of him came with that knowledge, which should have been the end of the story.

Always stand by your people, and never let the mob impact your opinions

Yet, right before the election, another friend of mine, Jennifer Gross, a representative from the 45th District, had called George to let him know that she couldn’t publicly endorse him because all the Candice Keller people were giving her a rough time.  In general, some kid running against her got ahold of the recording and published it to embarrass her.  Jennifer is of the rock thrower variety in Columbus and tends to have much of the same support as Candice Keller.  By talking in a friendly way to George and not being antagonistic toward him, she somehow betrayed Candice.  By default, if you wanted to prove you weren’t a RINO, you had to support Candice Keller.  Jennifer should have been able to help George Lang with an endorsement and to do so without fear.  But that she did fear the Candice Keller people says a lot about what’s wrong in politics.  If one politician has a better platform than another, then that is a free market appeal toward politics.  But forcing people to vote for someone else is the same kind of garbage that the radical left communists do.  That came from the Candice Keller people, mainly as it was applied to Jennifer Gross.  This is precisely why Candice Keller lost her previous seat where she was in the State House.  It takes guts to get into the arena but more skills than that to stay in it.  She got into trouble and didn’t work to build the right alliances, and she soon found herself on the out.  Which is her fault, and hers alone. 

George Lang never turned away from Trump, while many others have

I like the kind of trouble Candice Keller gets herself into as a rock thrower.  She was the one who caught Cindy Carpenter campaigning for Democrats in Middletown, so her brand of politics has its place, which keeps everyone healthy.  Regarding George Lang, she doesn’t know him like I do.  And it was her choice to run against him, and if she wanted to be in the arena of politics, there were other positions she could have picked.  Instead, she tends to want to run against George Lang and see how much power she has within the evangelical community to pull votes away from one of the top Republicans in Southern Ohio.  That’s a choice she made that isn’t rooted in good tactics.  It might be interesting.  But the effort isn’t serious beyond rock throwing, with all things considered.  If we didn’t have George Lang to pick from, I would happily vote for Candice.  But when there is a George Lang in a race, George is better in many categories and would get the vote and public support.  Jennifer Gross should have felt she could publicly support anyone without harassment.  But she was harassed, which led to that phone call to George, and was recorded by political rivals trying to make a name for themselves.  When it comes to party politics, everyone either wants to win, or they want to make noise.  In this case, support for President Trump should be the establishing criteria.  Everyone should be able to agree on that as a baseline in politics and work from there. 

Just because someone is successful or has more skills in a field than other people doesn’t mean they are wrong.  George Lang, in my experience with him, is far from a RINO.  He might be able to work with RINOs and Chamber people.  But he’s always the same guy at the end of the day, and I know his politics.  Making deals and getting along with people is only bad if you compromise who you are, and George doesn’t.  There is a lot of evil in the world, and just taking a hard line about a progressive topic such as transgenderism might make sense from a biblical perspective, but in general politics, not everyone is driven by such motivations.  And at that point, politics is not an evangelical enterprise.  If the goal is to use politics to enforce scripture, then you will lose support from the public, not gain it.  Whereas, if you are accommodating people’s viewpoints, even if they are evil, you might end up with a few more people in the pews on Sunday looking for leadership in their otherwise rudderless lives.  Trying to intimidate people into submission isn’t going to do the work for God.  God sells himself.  Doing an excellent job for people who need it, politically, is the way to go, and we should always pick the best people to perform those tasks.  And not try to intimidate people into support through fear of peer pressure.  There were a lot of primary positions that didn’t have challenges, such as Sheriff Jones’ seat, which I think he’s very vulnerable.  It was a choice to go after George Lang, so there will always be costs in the aftermath.  However, people should be able to express their opinions for or against candidates in a free market way.  Otherwise, the tactics are the same as the terrorists from the Karl Marx left.  And we should all be able to agree on how we feel about them.  Yet the harassment of Jennifer Gross shows a deeper problem that, until fixed, will continue to keep us from winning the way we need to, where the evil truly resides, in collectivism that both sides utilize to cover a lack of political skill whenever they are at wit’s end. 

Rich Hoffman

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

George Lang’s Business Ratio: The New Bass Pro in West Chester, Ohio

Over the last several weeks, it has been interesting to hear from so many people upset that I support George Lang, the current State Senator in the 4th District in Ohio, and will continue to do so.  They think he is a RINO and that somehow I can’t tell the difference between a rhino and an elephant.  And the concern continues because I know many politicians, and I like many of them, and I’ve been very open about it.  People new to politics or who don’t have an excellent understanding of what the government is supposed to do for all of us get wrapped up in the horse race criteria that the media creates for them, so supporting candidates for various positions becomes a kind of football game where some people in Ohio support the Cincinnati Bengals because they happen to live south of Columbus while people in the north support the Cleveland Browns.  Those in Columbus fight over which is the better, depending on the record.  But in the end, it’s all rigged, and they are all the same guys and corporate products designed to sell advertising to people.  Politics is much the same kind of thing, and what we usually end up with are people who don’t do a very good job once in office.  They talk the talk but never walk the walk.  And the people I tend to support do so on merit-based standards.  I judge them more on what they actually do than what they say, and when it comes to George Lang, who doesn’t say much about himself too often, he does a lot in the background that is very successful.  And one of these, there was undoubtedly a topic of conversation ahead of the March primary; I had the good fortune to attend the opening of Bass Pro for a unique sneak peek ahead of the crowds with George.  And we geeked out by what we saw.  But as we enjoyed a private tour and I did a scouting report on some of my hard-to-find .500 magnum ammunition and acquire much-needed 209 shotgun primers, I was reminded of why I like George so much.  Not that it’s a struggle, but when I say he’s a great politician and has done all of us such a great job, I look at Bass Pro moving to West Chester as part of the great free enterprise initiatives that George Lang has built over the years, things that operate in the background, and the case for George Lang makes itself quite clear. 

I remember when George and I were friends as he was a trustee in West Chester 15 years ago, and he struggled to fight to keep the trend of the area toward small government and generate much economic wealth, as a township instead of a city.  I have a rule I talk about all the time, which I discuss in great detail in my book, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, which people worldwide have been enjoying because the balance of government is the key to a country’s success.  Just as it was set up to do in America, the government needs to be big enough to support the needs of a country or a community but not too big to become authority figures, which is tricky business among anybody in the human race, anywhere in the world.  But few places have done it better than West Chester, Ohio.  I have been a part of it since the beginning, starting when we used to call it Union Township, and it was mostly farmland and open fields.  It was strange to stand in the new Bass Pro parking lot with my wife a few days later during the grand opening when she remembered me racing cars against other rival people in that area.  Things have changed quite a lot.  However, the form of government formed around the growth of West Chester Township is a success story that traces back to George Lang.  To have such a community run by three trustees is unusual in the world, where so much wealth is generated among so many people, and to have such a high standard of living is almost unheard of.  But George established much of that in those early days, and the trustees there now have continued those policies and resisted the temptation to turn West Chester into a city with a mayor and city councils running everything.  The success in West Chester is that George Lang and future trustees have embraced the capitalist concept of free enterprise and kept government as small as possible to allow businesses to grow, and as a result, West Chester has been, and continues to be, one of the best places in the world, not just the country.  I’ve been all over the world several times.  And I’ve been all over the United States and seen a lot of very nice communities.  There are few places as good as West Chester, Ohio.  I would argue that no place is better.  The reasoning is that the government ratio has been figured out and maintained in West Chester mainly because of George Lang’s precedent.

The Bass Pro story is a good one.  We have been fortunate to have a Bass Pro in Forest Park and a Cabela’s in West Chester by Liberty Center.  Since Bass Pro bought Cabela’s over the last decade, I have mixed feelings about them combining resources to make this new Bass Pro in West Chester, which opened on February 21st, 2024.  I liked both previous stores and hated to see them go.  But the property for the new one was established over a decade ago, and once they were planning to move to the new location, Forest Park made them an excellent deal on their lease, so they stuck around while the market settled down and the agreement with Cabela’s matured.  The giant outdoor store market has found its balancing act, as Field and Stream have discovered.  How big can you be and still be small enough to survive?    I tend to judge all Bass Pro stores based on my favorite, the one in Springfield, Missouri, the headquarters of a vast store, as I have discussed before.  As George and I stepped into the new Bass Pro, it was more Cabela’s in its presentation than Bass Pro, but it’s a fantastic size and filled with everything anybody could ever hope to have regarding outdoor life.  My family spends a lot of time exploring and traveling, so a store like this is a wonderful addition to our life.  The new West Chester store is enormous.  It is noticeably different from the one in Forest Park, but it is right-sized to fill the needs of the current outdoor market.  Having the ground on the Streets of West Chester is far better for them than in any of the other two previous locations. 

And that’s the trick: why did Bass Pro select that location in West Chester instead of other regional places?   The Forest Park site was failing because the community failed, as has Fairfield, Springdale, and Sharonville around the area.  All those places have moved in the city direction and have added government in the form of mayors and city councils that slowed down the growth rate because they started looting off their businesses to support the government.  West Chester is very business-friendly, and the tax structure is not penalizing.  If you keep your government small, they don’t have the ability to loot off the community.  And additionally, we have kept the government school of Lakota under check for well over a decade now, so they haven’t been able to suck the life out of West Chester and Liberty Township the way the schools do in other parts of the world.  The result is that investments like those that take a Bass Pro Shop to build and develop can happen, where different communities would choke off the opportunity at the development phase.  Working in the background as one of Ohio’s most powerful senators, George Lang is bringing those same sensibilities to the entire state of Ohio.  And he’s doing a great job.  Whenever I go to Columbus to talk politics, the word about George is that he stays focused on his Business First Caucus and doesn’t get wrapped up in much else.  He is applying the West Chester model, which he helped to build from the start to Ohio in general.  The Ohio Senate listens to him, as does the House, and he has the ear of the governor in a healthy way.  You don’t see George running for every microphone to broadcast everything he does.  When I took a few pictures of him at the opening of the new Bass Pro, he was a little shy about taking credit.  But I know the details behind the scenes, and he deserves much credit.  And that’s also why I’m so supportive of him over these many years and continue to be.  George understands how to support just enough government to make it functional.  And takes away the flash of temptation for it to grow into a monster.  And everywhere George has been, his fight has been to keep government small and manageable.  Bass Pro is just a recent but obvious example.  And it was great to see it happen.

Rich Hoffman

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

I Support George Lang Emphatically for Senate in the 4th District of Ohio: Staying strong under intense fire in 2024

With George Lang’s term as an Ohio senator coming up this year, he’s up for re-election in 2024, I happily endorse him for another term.  George Lang has done a great job in the 4th District of Ohio, and I wish every politician were like him.  If they were, we’d be a lot better off as a country.  Yet, many people, especially my readers, have developed a healthy distrust of politicians of all kinds, and I know many wonder why I like George Lang so much, even though he is considered a mainstream politician.  After all, Candace Keller had filed to run against George, which she had done before when it was for a representative seat, and the campaign took a turn for the worse in the mudslinging.  I personally like Candice, her husband, and her family.  I tend to get along best in the world with people like her.  On most things, our politics are very much aligned.  But because she has filed and intends to run against George, I must talk about a few things as to why I am such a supporter of the very powerful senator for the 4th District and explain why he’s not a RINO as is so common a designation for a mainstream politician.  While I am certainly no fan of RINOs, I must set the record straight going into this election year as to why I have always supported George, which sometimes mystifies people.  But from my perspective, it’s an easy decision, because George Lang is a very good person from the ground up and I have known that side of him for a very long time now, around 15 years.  And he’s very much the same person now that I have known all that time, which brings to mind three examples that would put some rationality behind the decision-making process.

Yes, George Lang associates with compelling people and has for many years; John Boehner comes to mind as he was marching toward the Speaker of the House role in Congress.  Along the way, George and I formed a friendship as fellow Tea Party members who were very upset by the direction Barack Obama was taking our country, which goes all the way back to 2009.  Well, all this was before President Trump came along, but in 2012, I had a significant negative news story designed to push everyone away from me.  I was okay with it, but there were a lot of Judas types who were perfectly willing to kiss my cheek in public to be thrown to the wolves, to say it nicely.  We had an event in the back room of a local LaRosa’s restaurant to rally support for me in the wake of intense fire.  Guess who stood with me under the fierce fire in public.  There is a picture of us all at this event, but guess who took the picture?  George Lang came, probably on the same afternoon he was having lunch with John Boehner, Speaker of the House at the time.  My name was all over the media, on all the primary sources so he had a lot to lose.  But he came anyway and was even willing to be in the picture.  It was my suggestion that he take the picture and that we keep him out of it.  So we took the picture, and I learned a lot about George Lang that day, which has lasted for over a decade.  He’s the real deal and he will stand with you under intense fire.  He had much to lose being associated with me, especially by the donors.  But as I have seen many more times than once, George is strongly inclined to do the right things, especially under great fire.

I can also say that I have seen George work with Governor DeWine with the door closed and the pressure very hot.  My thoughts on any management, especially politics, is that you get much more done with the door shut than with dueling press conferences.  And George has been highly influential in these kinds of meetings. A lot goes on in the senate in Columbus, Ohio, that has George Lang’s name all over it, but he never seeks the credit.  And I’ve witnessed it several times personally with Governor DeWine, where just a few people were in the room, and George had to make his point.  These are no powder puff conversations; George is stern when he needs to be and knows what to say and when.  And as professionals should be, George and the Governor were able to shake hands and get things done at the end of the conversation.  I would point to the recent flip-flop by DeWine on the transgender surgery ban for kids as one such example.  DeWine does listen to people when he steps in it.  And George has been one who can shut the door and talk to him without compromising who he is politically.  This is a skill that many people never develop in their lives.  It comes easily to George.  Many people in his position get washed away by the giant waves when you spend time with some of these prominent personalities; it’s easy to happen.  But George can play at a very high level and never lose himself in becoming a RINO.

George has such an excellent personal foundation and can do the things I am talking about because he sincerely loves his wife.  I have known that side of them, and I can say that one of the reasons George and I have maintained a friendship all this time is because he has a great relationship with his wife, which I respect.  I don’t know many people who love their wives and kids like George Lang.  And it has been my observation that this is the key to George’s success.  When you can love a spouse the way George does of his wife Debbie and your kids the way he does, then you can love your country, your political party, your Constitution, your commitment to business, everything with that strong foundation.  And that’s ultimately why I like George so much.  I know a lot of politicians, but I don’t know of many who have such strong foundations as George Lang does.  If you can love a wife the way he does her, and she does him, then you are doing something fundamentally right at the start.  And that can then translate into many good things you do in life.  So, when it comes to other politicians, it may not be their fault that they aren’t as skilled as George Lang is.  And people frustrated that they don’t have those skills might assume that he possesses some voodoo magic in his associations with the very powerful.  But I know him very personally and know that his secret sauce is the love of his family, which allows him to play big ball without losing himself along the way.  Because at the end of the day, no matter what happens, he has his family, which is really all George wants in life.  And that makes him very good as a senator and someone we are lucky to have in the 4th District in Ohio.  I wish we could have him forever, but for now, at least one more term.

Rich Hoffman

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

Senator George Lang and SB 132: Ohio is open for business, and the marketplace will reflect value

I have been getting a lot of questions about Senator George Lang’s support of a bill moving around in Columbus, SB 132, which involves all the gender neutrality talk that is so prevalent in politics these days, and why I still support him because of it. While I have strong ideas about social responsibility and behavior, I have known George Lang for a long time and know his mind and family. And I know his politics. I reached out to talk to George about this controversial bill and understand where he’s at on it, which I can sympathize with. Because when you deal with a lot of people and are functioning from a broad base, you go into it knowing that there are lots of people from lots of different backgrounds and beliefs that you are going to work with, and you must be secure enough in your integrity not to become corrupted by the exchange. And to understand George Lang, and this is kind of a running joke in Columbus in a good way, George is all about business first. His second concern is business first. His third concern is business first, etc. I certainly understand that George Lang is primarily concerned about bringing more business opportunities to Ohio. Having an excellent economy allows us to have deeper conversations about political discourse. And to attract businesses, you must address all their concerns, which presently are formulated by BlackRock and many other progressive influences. And when you are dealing with businesspeople, you are dealing with Chamber of Commerce types.

Chamber of Commerce people are different than other people, and when you are working to bring business into Ohio, you will deal with them.  Most members of the Chamber are not the kind of people writing philosophy books; they have room in their lives for how they make a living and maybe two other things: raising their families and a hobby, like golf.  They do not have the time, mental capacity, or even a remote desire to deal with political philosophy.  They want employees, they want to be in legal compliance, and they are interested in checking all their BlackRock boxes.  That is George Lang’s interest in SB 132, to stay consistent with his Business First Caucus and address the concerns of the Chamber types.  The SB 132 Ohio Fairness Act aims to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of protected classes under Ohio’s anti-discrimination laws, which employers are concerned about.  If Ohio has restrictions along these lines, investing the money it takes to bring business into Ohio is not attractive since people who run companies come from all kinds of political backgrounds. 

This move has been met with mixed reactions from both sides of the political spectrum. Supporters argue that this is a necessary step towards equality and fairness for all Ohioans, while opponents claim that it infringes religious freedom and could lead to legal battles.  The Ohio Fairness Act would provide legal protections for these individuals in areas such as employment, housing, and public accommodations.

The bill has also been endorsed by several prominent organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Human Rights Campaign. These organizations argue that protecting LGBTQ+ individuals from discrimination is a matter of fundamental human rights and dignity.

On the other hand, opponents of the bill have raised concerns about the potential impact on religious organizations and small businesses. They argue that these groups could be forced to violate their beliefs or face legal action.

However, the Ohio Fairness Act includes provisions that protect religious organizations and small businesses from being forced to violate their beliefs. The bill also has exemptions for religious schools and organizations, allowing them to continue operating according to their ideas.

I think the marketplace will determine the value of a product or service, such as Chick-fil-A, which maintains Christian values in its business model, such as not being open on Sunday.  People value those types of positions, and they tend to support businesses that reflect their values.  But it is up to the company to figure out its way; it is the government’s job, in this case, to remove the barriers so that the discussion can occur.  I’m certainly the type who would want the government to regulate sexually oriented businesses and businesses that embrace drug abuse.  I’d even support bans on alcohol because I see very little good that comes from a culture that seeks intoxication.  But some people like that, so I respect what people want to do within reason, so long as they don’t drag me into it.  Which is the balancing act on SB 132.  George is certainly a conservative, but as a legislator, he tells the world that Ohio is open for business.  And we may not like the kind of businesses wanting to come to Ohio.  Yet, we are opening the door to investment and the variety of projects people want to invest in while trusting that the marketplace will sort out the good from the bad.  I don’t want government to get into the business of deciding morality.  I like the government to remove barriers, even if walls might be desirable to my philosophy. 

Which is essentially what SB 132 does.  It will be the marketplace that determines the kind of culture we have.  If a potential business has employees or plans to hire employees from all sorts of diverse backgrounds, then that concern must be addressed at the point of investment, which is George’s interest in this bill.  Suppose a company is concerned about its ESG score, which those of us who are politically astute find objectionable and know that those ESG scores will not be in the future of American politics. In that case, most Chamber of Commerce people have already accepted that they will be a forever concern.  And if Ohio is not accommodating, they won’t get the opportunity to give a business ground to sink roots into.  And that’s the trick: how much compromise is appropriate in politics, a little, a lot?  And how do you not get lost in settlement to where you are just another political hack?  The George Lang I know stays out of those debates, even though people are concerned that he is losing his way, by staying focused on business first in Ohio and letting the morality of the marketplace determine success and failure, which I agree with.  We are free to debate the matter which will ultimately influence market share.  And to my eyes, and knowing enough about George to know his conservative feelings on these things in ways many people haven’t had the opportunity to, I can say that he hasn’t lost his way.  I would have much harder lines, but I also have the freedom to express my opinion more than he does, who needs to reach a broad base as a representative.  President Trump would have similar thoughts as George’s as a businessman.  You never want to create artificial limits for productive endeavors.  The philosophy and ethics will be worked out every time by the morality of the marketplace, which is where this discussion resides. 

Rich Hoffman