Tag: George Lang

Mike DeWine has Created in Ohio a Dangerious Situation: Why Stand your Ground legislation led by George Lang is the only way out

George Lang is one of the biggest advocates of gun rights in Ohio, without question. But he’s not stupid, he knows that the first thing Ohio needs for a good economy is jobs, so he has a really monumental focus as a legislator on his Business First, Small Business Caucus in Columbus, which is gaining momentum even as Covid-19 under the guidance of Governor Mike DeWine has destroyed much of the economic gains made recently. George understands that people need jobs and the best way to get those jobs is through small business, so its his plan to make business investment into Ohio conducive to investors—because that’s where everything starts. From a good, successful life, people then can acquire property and it is there that the needs for “stand your ground” laws need to be strengthened as a natural extension of the business first process. Recently, Stand Your Ground legislation was re-introduced in the Ohio House where George Lang was the chairman of the bill’s committee where several opponents came forward to speak against it within a 24-hour notification period. For the news, that was a big story because outside the Statehouse were protests guided by Black Lives Matter, and Antifa who truly want to destabilize the natural order of things. And still daily are the antics of Mike DeWine who has made Ohio a much more dangerous place by the day by bending the knee to lawlessness and the fearful antics of Covid-19.

There was a lot of controversy about George Lang stating during the primary that he didn’t want to do the heavy lifting on a gun bill supporting Stand Your Ground, because for him that is putting the cart before the horse. There needs to be a vibrant economy and that is the first need we have in Ohio for pro-growth in the future. His rival in the primary, Candice Keller sponsored a strong Stand Your Ground effort that saw a lot of support from the gun rights community, but it was introduced on the same day that Governor DeWine put out his own legislative suggestions to go the exact other way, to support the gun grabbers using the Dayton shooting last year as a platform to create more restrictive gun laws. So the Keller bill had no chance in that emotional climate. And that was the excuse given when George did act as chairman of this new Stand Your Ground effort, that the climate was wrong, people were still scared over Covid-19, which was the direct fault of Governor DeWine, and now there were riots in Columbus defacing the Statehouse nearly every night, which again was the fault of the Republican Governor Mike DeWine. The problem is that we thought of DeWine as a Republican, but he is anti-gun, he is pro-abortion because he picked Amy Acton as his Director of Health who was an Obama activist, and he has behaved like a typical Blue State legislator on a wide range of topics from taxation, to health care. The result of all these failures has made Ohio a much more destabilized place to live and empowered the rioters making gun legislation like Stand Your Ground much more needed to attract business investment back to Ohio. So that is the story of how George came to be the chairman of that committee. He’d like to think about other things, but really, there isn’t anybody else who will stand up for individual rights who have the political horsepower of Lang in Columbus. There are the usual legislators who punch first and talk second, but something like this needs the touch of George Lang to build up support, so he has stepped up to provide that leadership.

The trouble is there is never a good time to deal with Stand Your Ground. Somebody is always going to be angry at something. It is part of the strategy of chaos to keep us all on our heels so that we can never talk about the real things we need to discuss. The victimization groups always want to think of everything as below the line, so there will never be a good time to defend bills strengthening Stand Your Ground. The activists against gun rights are the same people who want to steal from our businesses and have chaos in the streets which we can all now say we are seeing in live time. We have seen what happens when we get a governor who is weak on law and order, and is willing to bend the knee to the mob, and now we see when there are efforts to defund the police, that there may not be anybody to answer a 911 call. So what are we supposed to do? The day is coming where it will only be the personal use of guns that will keep any semblance of order on our streets.

Stand Your Ground is important as a basic legal philosophy, which would put gun rights in proper alignment with the Ohio Constitution #4 of Article I: The Bill of Rights written in 1851. Its not an outdated notion, no more than any passage of the Bible is outdated in respect to the Ten Commandments. The wording in the Ohio Constitution is as such, Bearing Arms; Standing Armies; Military Power—“The people have the right to bear arms for their defense and security; but standing armies, in times of peace, are dangerous to liberty, and shall not be kept up; and the military shall be in strict subordination to the civil power.” Its pretty clear and no activist Supreme Court Judge can make case law otherwise, even though they have tried. As it stands now, case law says that there is a duty to retreat in an engagement. That is how Mike DeWine has approached Covid-19 and the radical protestors, and the Ohio Statehouse is the evidence of that failure. And our economy is evidence of DeWine’s subjugation to Marxist health “experts” by hiding in our homes until the virus goes away, which has destroyed our economy. In both cases, DeWine’s approach to trouble has led to failure, so that is why Stand Your Ground is being discussed once again, and it needs to be, and needs to be passed. Because in the world of George Lang, and every other state rep in Columbus who cares about business investment in Ohio, guns create a platform of law and order when government fails to create that stabilized consistency.

Mike DeWine’s idea of gun control is the same as his position on riots and Covid-19, to retreat, to bend the knee, and to beg for the bad guys to yield. And we see where that has taken us as a state. Under that climate a business investor would be crazy to look at Ohio and all its government interference, and placating of mobs as a place to bring their jobs and efforts. So that is the reason that Stand Your Ground is important. It brings the Ohio Constitution back to the condition it should be, which gives investors the reassurance they need to re-invest in Ohio after Mike DeWine destroyed the efforts of decades to build trust with the business community within a few short months of failure over Covid-19 and Black Lives Matter protests. To appease any mob of people with the promise to bend the knee to the aggressors, DeWine has made Ohio a much more dangerous place and people will have to defend themselves as a result. And that failure has really harmed the efforts of George Lang to create a business-friendly climate in Ohio, so its no wonder he chaired that Stand Your Ground effort. But it will take more than him to defend the Ohio Constitution especially as it relates to gun rights. And for that, we have a tough fight ahead, but one that will make or break us as a state, and that’s no light matter.

Cliffhanger the Overmanwarrior

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Why George Lang Spent so Much Money to Win: The scam in the media by reporters like Michael Pitman of the Journal News

As if there weren’t enough examples recently of blatant activism coming out of the media, where they assert that they are “reporting” the news, rather than making the news that they want to report, such as has been the case over Covid-19 and the Black Lives Matter protests, this little local article in the Journal News in Hamilton over the George Lang senate seat is a great example. On the surface the reporter, Michael Pitman can say that he reported honestly that George Lang spent more than $450,000 since July 1st 2019 to secure the GOP nomination for the 4th Ohio Senate District seat. But within the framing of that article is the activism that is designed to inspire in the readers a mistrust toward George because in the world of the media, money equals corruption and it is a dog whistle to their activist base which is understood clearly by all. Because after that statement is made, Pitman goes on to say that George’s rival in the upcoming election, the Democrat Kathy Wyenandt is sitting on $35,000 in cash, yet George is $13,000 in the hole going into the summer. In the way that the media works, that is a #METOO setup for the fall where readers are supposed to not trust the big money George Lang over the woman, “one of us” candidate who is ahead but is in threat to be knocked down by all that big money.

Here’s the truth of the matter, and the reason George needed to raise so much money and spent it to win the GOP nomination. There were two rivals going for that seat making the primary an expensive one. Kathy Wyenandt as the Democrat had no rival so she could afford to sit back and save her money going into the summer where George had some very aggressive politicians challenging him, and when it comes to elections a person has to protect their brand, especially when the media is intent to help shape the results with emotional activism. For instance, one of George’s rivals was Lee Wong, an Asian military veteran who has been quite an activist for Chinese causes. Lee ran as a Republican, but his behavior is pretty much a politician straight out of communist China, which the media of course wants to see. So Lee gets good coverage on whatever he does. He was never really a threat in the primary from the GOP perspective, but he does do “brand” damage to other candidates which was his role, to play the spoiler in this past primary election that was grossly interrupted by Mike DeWine’s fumbling of the election by cancelling it due to Covid-19 and then ordering a corrupt mail in ballot system that was conducted in April of this year, extending the original dates by over a month of campaigning.

Lang’s other rival in the primary was the very fiery Candice Keller, who was looking to go after the Tea Party vote, and whatever GOP supporters who wanted to show they would bend the knee to the #METOO movement. She was poised and certainly did try to hurt George’s brand enormously as she was the underdog and had to tear Lang down to have a shot at closing the gaps between her and him within voters minds. Between Lee and Candice there was a lot of attacking going on toward George, and of course behind those candidates are lots of GOP types who want a shot at some positions in the future and they want to sink George so they can get him out of the way for some future opportunity for them, so they also work to chip away at George’s brand when they think nobody is looking. So as a frontrunner who wants to stay that way, George Lang had to out raise and outspend to maintain his brand through a tough primary where a not so butt ugly #METOO candidate from the Democrats was waiting fresh and poised to be the media darling for reporters like Pitman.

Branding is important in all endeavors, whether it’s a business, a family, or a politician. A brand is the reputation you have, what people think of when they hear your name. So George protected his brand by raising a lot of money and spending it to overcome his opposition, which was vast, and considerable. Unfortunately, what nobody talks about these days is the reverse discrimination that any middle-aged man, especially a white man has with all the media out there driving activism in branding potential candidates. You can see the results all across this country now with the riots where incompetent people from these various sentiment groups were elected because of #METOO, or Black Lives Matter, and they aren’t the best people for the job, and it shows. Yet people are supposed to vote for candidates because they are people of color or because they are women, not because they have years of experience, run three or four businesses in the private sector—like George does—or have demonstrated great skill at building teams in a legislature. We are supposed to vote for them because they have the brand of a minority group, and in this upcoming race after George has survived all he had to in the primary, that is what George is up against.

As sure as you are reading this, George Lang is in no danger of being “in the hole” as Michael Pitman wrote in his Journal News article on the topic. The strength of George is that people like him and trust him, and he will be able to raise all the money he needs to run a proper campaign. He doesn’t need the radicals and the insurgents to give him money the way that Kathy does trying to win a Democrat seat in a very Republican district. You can almost feel the oozing hope from Pitman that Kathy might have a chance in Hell at winning the senate seat if only people might think that George blew all his money and is now going to lose to a girl. And without question, that is what many normal readers will think when they read Pitman’s article. They’ll think of George as a big money corrupt politician who only has a shot at winning by spending a lot of money while poor little Kathy is ahead, yet behind to the massive deep pockets of the GOP. Pitman says both things in his article without saying them specifically, but by simply telling the story of how we arrived, without talking about why.

The real story is that George Lang as the frontrunner must protect his brand to stay vibrant for winning that senate seat among a public that elects brands when they vote. And George can spend half a million dollars on Fox News ads to win the primary and he can do it again to beat Kathy Wyenandt in the fall. He could raise and spend a million dollars, because people trust George and they understand the game, and they are willing to invest in him to protect their interests from the vile misdeeds of sentiment politics which are often conducted in the media to destroy brands and the people behind them. Everyone knows the game who are smart and have money in their pockets, they understand that the media wants to rob them of their money, of their very lives for some socialist utopia that they read about in college, or talked about with a buddy while they smoked pot a time or two. The real story is that George Lang is so well trusted that he can raise so much money and use it in the election, which is an election of its own kind. Because people know that without someone like George out there protecting them from all the enemy forces of America, many who operate behind a media badge without consequences, then those forces will turn on them and destroy everything they’ve worked so hard for in their lives only to have it taken away like the poor store owners of downtowns in blue state regions where the mob takes what they want and leave the rest to ruin. That is the real story behind the money, which of course the media never reports as their activism continues to be the true cause of why good guys like George Lang have to spend so much money to gain a seat anyway. Not to mention, where that money gets spent—in the media. The whole process is a kind of shakedown, and the money must be spent to overcome the negative branding which that same media tears down so that they can get paid in the end.

And that is how the game is played and why George Lang raised and will spend so much money for a senate seat in Ohio.

Cliffhanger the Overmanwarrior

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The Amateur of Butler County: Kathy Wyenandt shows why she’s a long way from ready with Amy Acton comment

I think Kathy Wyenandt is a nice person who is well intentioned, but we just can’t let it go that she attacked George Lang after he voted to support Senate Bill 1 which is meant to reign in the powers of the out-of-control liberal Amy Acton. Kathy is a Democrat after all so of course she is going to come to the defense of other liberals and attempt to make it some kind of “girl power” thing so that she can have a remote chance of beating George Lang in the upcoming fall election where they are both fighting for the 4th District Senate Seat in Ohio. After some nice discussions with her I was planning to treat the race like I did between Mark Welch and Jennifer Gross. I liked Mark, but both were good candidates so I let the thing play out without a lot of opinion from me. I don’t go out of my way to pillage people as much as that might seem to be, and I personally like Kathy. When I see her I always ask her if she’s ready to be a Republican. But truly she is a classic liberal and that comes out in her behavior especially when pressed and sticking herself into the Amy Acton business is all the evidence anybody needs to ensure that she doesn’t get a vote for that senate race.

What bothers me about Kathy Wyenandt’s comment about Amy Acton, George Lang and Senate Bill 1 the most is that it shows what an amateur she truly is running for a big senate race. It shows how little respect she has for the effort. I mean, I shouldn’t be surprised, her only real previous experience is as a Lakota school levy supporter, which is a pretty small game that is very one sided. As a senator, she needs to be able to represent a lot of voters of all kinds of backgrounds, even if it is her choice to be a Democrat, she has to understand that she needs a larger platform than to just say, “I’m a mom and I support Amy Acton” who is a liberal Obama nightmare of a mistake by Mike DeWine for appointing her in the first place as an abortion activist in a pro-life administration. What a mess, and you’d think Kathy would be politically savvy enough to see the minefields there and to navigate them better than she did. However, because she’s so one dimensional, she has nothing else on her platform but to essentially agree with George Lang on just about everything because she has nothing else to run off of. With only a property tax increase as her calling card, she is clearly well above her experience level with this race, and it makes me angry that I considered her higher than that.

Yet that’s what pressure does to people, it shows what they are really made of and its good to see what she has to offer so early in the race. That she proposed that we were just supposed to accept Amy Acton’s mistakes in running Ohio economically, off what will prove to be a very overblown government response to Covid-19 that is going to be embarrassing for many people for many years to come, is the same kind of stupidity that pro levy supporters typically endorse for schools where the labor is too high for what they give students in government schools. People like Kathy just want to believe in the system, so they sign up without question to the bullet points, and then put their support behind it. That clearly shows that Kathy isn’t able to represent anybody at the level of the senate where lobbyists and all types of corrosive character is out for the vote of a senator at every turn. You must have a pretty strong character to endure all that without getting sucked into a scam, and that is exactly how history will remember Covid-19. Forget about what the phony polls conducted by media are right now about the coronavirus, 6 months from now when people have their minds on the election and the Covid-19 lockdowns are something they want to forget, everything about the coronavirus will be something that nobody will want to remember, especially in politics.

To play the big game of a senate seat a candidate needs to have much better political instincts than what Kathy has shown. The scope of the effort must be more than people over politics, which is Kathy’s slogan for this election. Its too similar to Teachers for Kids, when trying to pass school levies tricking people into paying more in property taxes to cover the gross mismanagement of school boards who just cave into every labor agreement without any pushback which causes the budget problems. In this race George Lang isn’t like me where he wants to bust up everyone on the political left and make a belt out of them, he’s a pretty nice guy. What he and I have always agreed with is that government should get out of the way of individual rights and everything flows from there. But as a person, George will sit down and talk to anybody. I don’t know that George has any real political enemies. He tends to always look to make a friend out of anybody which is a good trait in someone representing a lot of people in an important senate seat. Butler County has over 400,000 people in it and most of them are not as liberty minded as me, and George represents them well. I think Amy Acton should be strung up and blasted out of a cannon into space only to return as a meteor shower. George is willing to blame Mike DeWine for her, and he’s willing to give the Governor the benefit of doubt. Hindsight is always 20/20. I saw it all in foresight, but how could anybody know what to believe? George is a very balanced person, so what does Kathy have in the tank for the race if her opposition is actually more of a people person than she is?

The evidence is already quite clear for her, in the primary with no competition George Lang still had more votes than she did. And George had two other rivals competing with him for votes. Kathy would have to raise a lot of money, which she’s trying to do with George’s support of Senate Bill 1 to even move the needle a percentage or two. She could put her face on all the billboards in town, buy up YouTube ads. Do the street walking. She may work her ass off and at best she’s going to get a very minor gain for the effort, because George will at least match her efforts. The guy works hard and is very sincere in his efforts. Even at her best, George will match her. And if she falls short of his efforts, which is highly likely, she won’t stand a chance of even getting those few percentage points. So what she was thinking with her comments about Amy Acton showed gross misunderstanding of what it will take to compete in this election and personally, I don’t want to see her embarrassed.

Its not that I have any real love for her, she’s a rival from the old Lakota levy campaigns and she thinks that 2013 levy won because of her. Nope, it passed because of Sheriff Jones getting behind the effort which pulled away just enough No Lakota Levy people to give a very, slight, marginal victory in an off-year election after a lot of money was spent even trying to consult people into a yes vote. And that same naivety is at work with this attack of George over Amy Acton. Right now people don’t know who to believe and Acton has been on television everyday sounding very motherly, and making people feel safe. But in the months to come, she is going to be ridiculed to no end and the politics of Covid-19 will be crushing. Anybody not part of the solution of getting people back to work and putting coronavirus in the rearview mirror will be viewed with the same anger that is coming out of these lockdowns. And for Kathy, she was already on a major uphill climb. I didn’t want to see her win that seat as George is my pick naturally. But I don’t really want to see her destroyed as a person, and that is where she is headed. Which is a shame.

Rich Hoffman

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Open Ohio Rally in Hamilton: George Lang, Mark Welch, and Nancy Nix join others with a hard truth

It was great to see so many friends in one place as was at the Open Ohio Rally on the steps of the Hamilton Court House on 5/9/20. I wasn’t sure what to expect, there was a similar rally in West Chester at the Voice of America Park, but I wanted to hear George Lang talk, so I went to the one in Hamilton. These freedom events were actually happening all across the state upset at the draconian measures that occurred under the Mike DeWine administration over its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. Additionally, I was impressed with the media coverage. Most of the television media was there to cover the event as was the various newspapers and it appears they gave it a fair shake, as was obvious by the Channel 5 broadcast. But I really thought Mark Welch, Nancy Nix and George Lang did a great job speaking about why the lockdown measures needed to be lifted faster than they were and what the true impact of the government reaction to the coronavirus locally truly has been.

Even more impressive to me were the many people who drove by and honked in support. If you believe the polling most people are terrified to return to normal after two months of nothing but coronavirus discussion everyday on the news. Government has used these polls to justify this slow reopening of Ohio and other states around the country and the point of this rally was to demand that government move faster. I was moving around a lot and didn’t get much coverage of Nancy’s speech and Mark’s but I did get all of George’s and you can hear a lady in the background getting pretty rambunctious. She was mad at George because as a member of government she didn’t feel he was doing enough to get things moving, and she was even angrier that he wasn’t ready to cut off Amy Acton’s head and stick it on a pike. After his speech George did seek the woman out to talk to her. As it turned out, she wasn’t even in George’s district, she had a different rep whom she didn’t know. What she did know was that she was angry and she wanted someone to pay for what had happened to her and her country.

But it was in the little acts of rebellion that caught my attention, the many burnouts that were occurring there in front of the courthouse, the revved up engines, the hollering that was emitting from many open car windows as they drove by, people were pretty upset and it got the attention of the news. Going to the event I wasn’t sure how many people would turn out on a chilly May day, but it was an impressive gathering even though Governor DeWine had already announced the reopening schedule of Ohio—for many people it wasn’t fast enough. The main problem was that government had stuck itself in between people and their lives to a point where very uncomfortable truths were obvious, and the protesters at the rally understood those truths. They were an educated group who understood what was at stake and the politicians there to give their speeches were smarter than the average bear.

Normally at these kinds of things, the protestors are viewed as a little too extreme, but that wasn’t the case this time. If anything, the feeling was “why didn’t we do this sooner?” Well, people want to trust their government and part of the hurt in the protestors at this event was that they felt let down by people they wanted to trust, but found out they couldn’t. Its kind of like finding out that a spouse cheated on you. You still love them but they broke your heart and you’ll never feel the same way about them again. That was what was obvious at this Hamilton rally that I hadn’t seen before. These were established Butler County politicians who are very much mainstream Republicans who were heartbroken that the DeWine administration had screwed up so badly with the coronavirus outbreak that personal liberties were not respected in any context and that subtle disappointment was the theme of the day. The protestors understood that Amy Acton and her boss, Mike DeWine had really screwed the pooch on Ohio’s lockdowns, and had led the country to their own version of doom. DeWine’s Ohio went well beyond where Trump had started under the CDC guidelines and it went on for way too long, and now people were ready for a fight. By the way it looked to me, the people at that event were nice, normal people who would rather be thinking about baseball and backyard cookouts for Mother’s Day. Instead, they were a few weeks away from creating a militia and taking over Ohio government at gunpoint. The lockdowns couldn’t end any faster.

I wasn’t sure how people would feel about masks, social distancing, and other CDC countermeasures that had been talked about everyday for the last several months, but I’ll say it was nice to shake hands with people again. Most of the people didn’t bring masks, had no regard for social distancing at all and were more than ready to get back to a normal life. Professionally I have to be very aware of people’s feelings about those kinds of things since the government has scared everyone to death daily about the Covid-19 being a death sentence. But at the rally, people were done with that garbage and that was the best part of the day. The voodoo science of Doctor Doom Fauci from the CDC was in the rear-view mirror for those participants and they aren’t stupid people just being reckless. They are sick of the government lying to them to save their own ass from the terrible decisions they made to shut down our economy and ruin our lives these past several months. It was good to hear so many people utter common sense once again and regain their courage in the light of day.

Regardless of the intentions, the answer was never more clear. Government doesn’t work when it tries to rule the world through collective aristocracy and kingdom rule, which is what Mike DeWine naturally assumed under a crisis. He being a timid person himself put our state, nation, and culture under care based on his level of comfort regarding risk, and that was a disaster. Mark Welch, Nancy Nix, and George Lang all understand how dangerous that is and the results were all around us, and they were able to articulate the problem with clarity, which is a new thing in this age of Trump. Even with all the problems, the best thing about all this is that it has given people a real appreciation for their freedoms which they might have overlooked if not for the lockdowns. And now they were far more vigilant. This crowd at the Open Ohio Rally was not an anti-government Tea Party crowd, they were normal people pissed off at the intrusion of their personal liberties and that is a change. These were people who would have rather been doing anything else but attending a political rally, yet there they were. The DeWine lockdowns had inspired in them a new appreciation for their freedoms and a yearning for liberty that had otherwise been stuck in a closet like an unused toy, only rediscovered after years of neglect. And the results were inspiring and showed a hope for the future that otherwise might have never been.

Rich Hoffman

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George Lang on the Scott Sloan Show on WLW Radio: Defending Senate Bill 1

It was great to hear George Lang, who is running for the 4th District senate seat in Ohio as the Republican representative give an update to House Bill 1 on the Scott Sloan Show on WLW. Currently George is the 52nd representative of the House in Ohio so he was part of the instigation of that bill which intends to put some shackles on the lunatic health director of Ohio, Amy Acton who has essentially led all states in America with her draconian lockdowns. You can hear that great interview on that show below at the 18:30 mark of the 5/6/20 broadcast. The interview was actually on the 7th but whoever set up the podcast put in the date for the previous day. Now a word of warning to my longtime readers, this is not the same Scott Sloan that used to put me on all the time over school levy issues. That guy is long gone, and he left when Darryl Parks lost his key position as the program manager for the station. The physical guy is the same, but people do change over time and this Scott Sloan is a much softer version. Hearing him tell the story, it has something to do with his wife who is on Clear Channel radio often these days. But the interview is still good and worth listening to in order to understand what needs to happen to Ohio government in the wake of the lockdowns that we have all experienced which have destroyed the economy.

Its also no secret that I like George Lang an awful lot. But we are not carbon copies of each other. George clearly has his own thoughts about things. It is my mind that Governor DeWine should be impeached for what he did under the Covid-19 CDC mandated pandemic, especially how he let a liberal Obama health director in Amy Acton take over and run our state straight into the ground with all the terrifying liberal activism that was straight out of that previous president’s administration. George is much more willing to give people a fair shake and to assume the best in people, which is why he is a fantastic politician who represents Butler County, Ohio wonderfully. What George and I agree on is the fundamentals of governance, which was on clear display during the interview, people don’t need government to tell them how to wipe their ass, how to buy food, and to act like their mom every day telling them to wash their hands. Government should not micromanage people, even in a crisis. And George is one of the most articulate members of the Ohio House in that regard, he gets “it” philosophically and is a real treasure in Butler County.

Of course Scott Sloan is all about fairness these days and he questioned the political motives for why the Ohio House moved forward this past week with the bill that became Senate Bill 1, to pull back on the draconian powers that give Amy Acton so much abusive power during a health crises. Sloan wanted to believe the move was purely political particularly since Governor DeWine has promised to veto the bill the moment it hits his desk. That is a fight that will now rage quite long and this is just the start of it. Under emergency powers in Ohio the law gives someone like Amy Acton way too much power, it goes back to legislation that is over 100 years old when representatives couldn’t move to the capital to vote so easily. What Senate Bill 1 does is cut down the time of those emergency powers to 14 days instead of the infinite time that is currently allotted. Nobody in their right mind would ever figure there would be an Obama abortion/climate activist on the administration of a Republican governor, but there’s a first time for everything and now that we’ve seen it, we have to act on it. To answer Sloan’s question, why now, well, this was the first opportunity for the House to convene since the emergency health directive locked everyone in their homes for months, and much of that was Mike DeWine playing politics with the matter. So long as he held emergency powers, he was safe from these kinds of reprimands from congress, he is not eager to give back that power, because there will be lots of hell to pay for many years to come because of the bad decisions he has made which led to this point.

Also from Sloan’s point of view, he represents a large part of the population that doesn’t know what to think about the Covid-19 virus. People like me are way too far in front of it to talk about how people feel about it, which Sloan is one of those members. Most people out there want to believe in “leaders” to tell them things. They don’t want to be leaders in their life, so they put a disproportionate trust in authority figures and it is quite a shock to them that someone like Amy Acton might have had malicious intentions behind her lockdown measures. George of course gives her the benefit of doubt just as he does the Governor. The biggest crime Acton committed was that she’s a liberal, she thinks like one, acts like one and solves problems like one. George blames DeWine for putting her in that seat to begin with, especially knowing her manner of thinking. Scott Sloan looks at her as doing the best job possible under the difficult circumstances. I look at it all as a vast scheme from China to destroy our American economy. That is a platform of thought that is well beyond where WLW is willing to go these days. To accept that is a bridge too far for most people’s daily lives, and most people just can’t handle that lack of trust for any authority figure.

But that comes back to the heart of why Senate Bill 1 is so important. We just can’t have health directors running our economy for longer than 14 days. If a governor can’t articulate a state of emergency in that period of time, then there are bigger problems. The worst part of the coronavirus was that nobody in leadership anywhere in the world could put a timetable to when the virus was going to be contained. Once they had a taste of the power, few governors wanted to give it back. This bill forces a legislative evaluation to renew those powers which is why DeWine is against it. It’s a check on his power that he doesn’t want. Hopefully there are enough votes from Democrats to override his veto, because if there was ever clear evidence that there needs to be checks on power, it comes out of this whole Covid-19 mess. And that should be something that everyone can agree on. Senate Bill 1 is not a political stunt, it was the first opportunity for the legislature to stick up for themselves and get Ohio moving back in the right direction after clearly bad decisions by the DeWine administration. Sure we know now in hindsight that the reaction to Covid-19 was overblown. Yet DeWine needed help in making decisions that could have saved more lives and minimized greatly the impact to the budget that are about to become far worse than the Covid-19 virus. As George put the blame for Amy Acton on Mike DeWine’s shoulders, we must all prevent such single points of failure in the future, especially when liberals get so much power so quickly and end up running all our lives. And that is what this whole story is all about no matter where people are on the political spectrum. In the future, someone needs to hit the brakes faster, and Senate Bill 1 is all about that, and the House couldn’t have introduced it faster.

Rich Hoffman

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George Lang Proposes a 20% Cut in Politician Pay Until Economy Returns: Why should government be paid for a bad job, until they fix it?

Just as a reminder, make sure to get your vote in by April 27 to be counted for the Ohio primary, and if you are voting in the 4th Senate District, make sure to vote for George Lang. The contents of this article will easily explain why he should be the best, and only pick for the upcoming election on November 3rd. In thinking about that election George would like to remind everyone, especially in the wake of the government’s reaction to Covid-19 that Governor DeWine offered to formally endorse George for his new senate seat as Lang makes the transition from the House to the Senate once he wins. But George told him thanks, but no thanks. “Your endorsement won’t help me in Butler County.” That was before the many tragic government mistakes that were made before Covid-19 became all any of us could think about, due to its ruinous nature of our state and federal economy and global sources as an intrusion.

George recently offered some much needed leadership now that Governor DeWine sees the writing on the wall, that Covid-19 is coming to an end, whether he wants it to or not, and that George as a representative in congress offered some advice to get Ohio back open for business and how to get our economy moving again. I thought the letter was fantastic and I share it with all who would like to read it below. There are three main points to this letter that should tell any voter why they should vote for George Lang. Many of his rivals in this primary election have pointed to George as too much of a political insider, and something of a silhouette of the Republican Party. Well, as I say, I have known George for a very long time and I wouldn’t waste my time being friends or even knowing someone as long as I have with George if he wasn’t the real deal and a genuinely good person. And as is obvious by this letter to the Governor over a post Covid-19 life in Ohio, George is far from some insidious, complacent insider. Rather he makes three points that were rather powerful and would be very helpful if only the rest of the House, Senate, and the Governor himself had the courage to implement them. First is that all the politicians involved in restoring the Ohio economy should take a 20% cut in pay. The 2nd thing is that Ohio should enact some very creative tax laws to help rebuild confidence in businesses to invest their time and money back into their previous endeavors because government has eroded that confidence due to the overly nanny state infusion they enacted out of panic to the coronavirus. And third Ohio should enact a Constitutional amendment that gives state legislators veto power over any governor’s executive order with a super majority vote by both houses as a safety net if under future emergencies, a governor like DeWine, meaning well, but has lost their mind over the pressure, can’t destroy our state with a massive lack of leadership. We have a House and Senate for a reason and in the future, we should use them to help governors not make the kind of mistakes that DeWine did over Covid-19. Here are the contents of the letter in a few different forms to make it easier to consume its contents.

Governor DeWine,

This requests you open all Ohio businesses on May 1st and offers ideas for how to do it.

I am reaching out to you to express my deep concern about the continued closure of so called “non-essential” businesses in Ohio.

BACKGROUND
It has become clear to me that despite the nature of COVID-19 and its seriousness – we cannot allow the cost to be more expensive than the cure. While I applaud your effort to save lives, our economy is now suffering greatly. Thousands of small businesses simply will not survive this assault. As small businesses fail, this will lead to a significant decrease in tax collections and have a negative impact on all levels of government.

Our citizens have expressed frustrations as liberties were taken from them without a vote, destroying lives and livelihoods. It is already too late for some companies to recover; it will now take years for other companies to recover from the damage done by the wholesale shutdown of our state. These actions do not bode well for the confidence in our medical experts and elected officials.

We can no longer justify the continued closure of businesses across this state when supermarkets, Liquor Stores, hardware stores and other businesses that draw people can be open. For every day that passes, businesses will die reducing jobs, income, tax dollars and our states ability to fund many things, including infrastructure that need to be done. It is important that leaders throughout our state develop a plan to assist our businesses to help them return to high productivity and profitability for our region. Furthermore, we should be prepared to weather the next crisis, whether it be financial in nature, natural disaster, or attack.

We need to provide businesses with a road map. Now, more than ever, Ohio employers need a sense of predictability. As much as possible, impacted industries need a mapped-out process of what their re-entry into more normal operations will look like and how long it will take. Time is of the essence because many business owners are barely hanging on – we need to give them as much clarity as we can about what is coming soon.
RECOMMENDATIONS
We should allow businesses to reopen with as few restrictions as possible – businesses know best how to protect their employees, customers, and vendors. If we do put any restrictions on, the state should offer a dollar for dollar tax credit so the business can accommodate state requirements (no unfunded mandates).

In the spirit of “We are all in this together” – All state legislators, the Governor and Lt. Governor should take a 20% pay cut until Ohio GDP returns to pre COVID-19 levels. Several legislator’s have already recommended this.

State budget cuts made during the pandemic will remain in place until Ohio GDP exceeds 10% of pre COVID-19 standards.

We have already adopted that Unemployment Claims during the COVID-19 pandemic will not count against an employer’s experience. Thank you. Two more unemployment issues to be adopted:

If an individual is on and receiving unemployment benefits because of the COVID-19, as soon as their former job is available, their COVID-19 will end.

No employee can be terminated for refusing to come back to work until they feel it is safe – If they choose not to return to work following the full opening of their businesses work sector – they will not be paid (unless an employer chooses to pay them), and they will become ineligible to receive continued unemployment compensation. Further, the employer at his/her discretion, can eliminate or replace any position within 12 months of the business sector being opened by the Governor, without the business bearing any unemployment impact by those choosing not to return to their job.

All state license and renewal fees should be prorated to account for the days the business/individual was not able to work.

If a business is collecting an escrow account on behalf of a borrower, they are not required to pay the bills associated with the account if the borrower is behind on paying – example, a mortgage lender will not be liable for paying income tax or insurance on a residential loan if the funds are not in the account.

Commercial Activity Tax (CAT): The upcoming May 11th filing and payment deadline should be extended. In addition, CAT liability should be based off an estimate of this year’s gross receipts instead of the prior year’s gross receipts as is current practice. Numerous businesses are currently not operating so to gather the information to file and pay the taxes is also going to be difficult, not to mention the strain on cash flow. We can have a “true up” at the end of 2021.
Net operating losses (NOLs): Ohio should model what the federal government enacted under the CARES Act. For losses arising in tax years 2018, 2019 and 2020, a five-year carryback is allowed (taxpayers can elect to forgo the carryback). This law also applies to pass-through businesses and sole proprietorships. Consideration should also be given to making similar changes at the municipal level.
Other Regulatory relief suggestions:
• Extension of additional state reporting deadlines.

• Declare a moratorium on state tax audits currently underway for a reasonable period, and halt additional audits.

• Consider some way to prevent or provide relief from the lawsuits that almost certainly will be coming after the pandemic is over, such as work stoppage due to inability to meet social distancing mandates.

• Consider a meaningful sales tax holiday period for industries that were particularly hard hit due to forced closures, such as the entertainment and restaurant industries, to entice Ohioans to support those entities.

Sales Tax
Give all retailers that were forced to close because of the pandemic a 30-day sales tax holiday. Allow them to keep the tax money for 30 days. Could be a full month. For instance, if we can open on May 15, allow the tax holiday to be the full month of June.

We should offer a sales tax holiday for all PPE equipment purchased by businesses, combined with a 100% tax credit for the purchasers.

We should encourage local governments to offer a property tax reduction commensurate with the number of days non-essential business were shut down.

We should push for a Constitutional amendment giving the state legislators veto power over any Governor executive order with a super majority vote in both houses.

Warmest Regards,

George F. Lang Craig Riedel
State Representative State Representative
House District House District

Paul Zeltwanger Mark Romanchuk
State Representative State Representative
House District House District

It’s one thing to complain about a situation, it’s quite another to put your name next to your mouth and make it part of the debate record and these suggestions by George Lang let the larger world see what kind of guy he really is. Why shouldn’t the politicians involved in the economic recovery of the state of Ohio, or of the federal nation take a pay cut until everyone is back to work and the world is functioning from pre-covid impacts? They should feel the sting of financial impact more than everyone else, they should not be insulated as they have from the realities of their bad decisions, and still have a full bank account. It takes a lot of guts to make a statement like that yet George has. There should be hundreds of names signing this letter to the Governor, yet as is obvious, there are only 4. Politicians like to complain and posture themselves, but few are like George Lang and really mean things when they say them. And even fewer are willing to lead. They want the title of a leader, but they don’t want the responsibility. Obviously, George has no problem with leadership, even when he’s in the minority opinion.

As a reminder for this primary vote, it’s happening by mail because Mike DeWine screwed it up with a bad decision to overrule a judge just hours before the primary election was to be held back in March. First you must request a ballot from the board of elections, then you fill out the information and send it in. They then mail you the actual ballot. You fill it out with colored circles then put that inside an envelope that goes into another envelope that you then must get back to the board of elections by April 27th. So, if you haven’t taken all those steps yet, you likely won’t make the window. But you should still try, or if you are stuck in the middle of the “pain in the ass” mode of actually filling out the mail-in ballot, you should plow through it and complete the process. Voting for George Lang is important. We need a guy like him out there fighting some of this mindless stupidity on our behalf. So make sure to vote. And also, share this with a friend so they can also make a good election decision. Government has not yet taken away our right to vote, although Governor DeWine has come pretty damn close. We certainly don’t want to see this trend continue, so vote to ensure that they don’t take it from us. Let them know who’s really in charge, and certainly don’t surrender your rights and liberty to a bunch of panicky politicians. Vote for good guys like George Lang to go fight them on your behalf so we can all do the work of rebuilding the world with government out of our way, not sticking their fat asses right in the middle of our business as they have with Covid-19.

Rich Hoffman

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Covid-19 was predicted in the great novel, ‘Atlas Shrugged’: George Lang is placed on the OHIO 2020 Task Force

With the election put off, and the only method to vote is by way of mail-in ballot which was a disaster perpetrated by our government’s panic over the coronavirus induced by scientists who read all the wrong data for models that never came to be, it is good to see that George Lang who is currently running for the senate has been appointed to the OHIO 2020 Task Force to lay a foundation back to economic recovery in Ohio. George is a good guy to have on that 24-member task force which is bipartisan and geographically diverse representing urban, suburban and rural communities across Ohio. It drives home the importance of having good representation on these kinds of boards because when government gets in the way of people and their business, if the wrong kind of people are on these task forces, a lot more can get screwed up. What we have seen in Ohio as a result of scientists putting up the alarm of inaccurate modeling is absolute economic devastation completely self-imposed. So the danger to us all has already happened, but without someone like George on this task force who understands the necessity of economic activity, the pain would otherwise just be starting.

As much as I hate to say it to those who don’t like Ayn Rand, the author, but this entire Covid-19 virus was predicted nearly page for page in the great American novel, Atlas Shrugged. The book was written over half a century ago, and some of the scenarios were changed in reality from the fictional concepts spelled out in the book, but the day by day happenings and rather rapid decline of our society globally happened in precisely the way Ayn Rand predicted. And it wasn’t by some luck, she had seen it before in the Soviet Union as her father and family were tossed out of their life into becoming fugitives from the mob of communism. When Ayn Rand started writing in America her novels were faced with sharp criticism as the trend toward socialism was just trickling in during the 30s from the progressive movement and the conservatives were too wrapped up in Bible studies to see what was coming. So, Ayn Rand was thought of as a bit of a kook, and a wild mind seeing boogiemen everywhere. There was a desire to trust centralized government and she was saying the opposite.

We could point back in history, particularly during World War II, but also the other wars, the Korean and Vietnamese conflict to study the need of governments to enforce compulsion for a greater good coming into conflict with a free society, such as nationalizing industry at times and invoking the draft—compelling private people to join and possibly die for the state and the reckless mandates of inferior government minds who deem our lives expendable if only the banner of nationalism might survive. It was just that kind of outrage that communists infiltrated American society in the 50s and 60s to take advantage of the terrified people who didn’t want to be drafted into a war with communism in Southeast Asia. Instead, communism was in our universities, and seeping into our labor unions at an alarming pace and offered all those terrified people afraid of the draft an umbrella of safety in the herd. Either way, communism was entering America with either the bullets and bombs of Vietnam or the pot smoke of the hippie movement.

Ayn Rand had the problem figured out as the news of the day was taking place over the subsequent decades. Again, it’s because she saw the fast fuse of communism in Russia where she had to flee to avoid its destructive force. Her great book We the Living should be required reading for every human being on planet earth because it serves as a warning about how these things arise in cultures. The plan for communism in America was a much slower boil and to this day there are many radicals who join into government and have very communist and socialist ideas about things, and they are so ingrained in their thinking that they don’t even realize where those thoughts came from. And every time there is a government task force like the one George Lang is on anywhere in the country, those minds come forward and start setting policy that even more changes the way we do things in America from a capitalist state to more of a socialist one. So, its not always an emergency which destroys constitutional liberties like what we have experienced with Covid-19 and then government’s reaction to it, it’s what happens during the reconstruction period. Because destroying and rebuilding is always part of the way communists work their way into any economic system.

Even in the book Atlas Shrugged, the villains thought they were doing the right thing. They thought what they were doing was for the “greater good,” and to them it was selfish for the “engines of the world” the business leaders and other entrepreneurs to insist to keep the profits of their work and not share with the rest of the world, so the intention of the villains was to compel them to do so against their will. We clearly saw this happening in truly alarming ways during the Covid-19 outbreak, government was very quick to take away liberties for their version of the greater good, because they thought they knew better what the greater good was. To make that compulsion less violent the villains of Atlas Shrugged and of this updated government induced crises used fear to unify people toward a common goal which eventually led to tying every person in the world to the safety and security of everyone else, which essentially froze private action through thought. It was a paralysis of action that the world had never seen before all at one time and was astonishing to witness on such a scale. Except that Ayn Rand had predicted it in her great novel, Atlas Shrugged.

I’ve known George Lang for a very long time. He is a very balanced thinker, he can speak to a guy like me whose always ready for a fight over Constitutional grounds and five minutes later speak with Governor DeWine without getting wrapped up in the emotions of the moment, and that is one of his most valuable traits. People wonder why I trust him so much because he’s not calling for impeachment every five seconds or is willing to sit on task forces like this Covid-19 one peacefully. Well, its because every year for Christmas George gives out free copies of Atlas Shrugged to people as presents, and he’s done this for a very long time, longer than he’s know me. George understands what makes markets tick and why business is the tock of a state’s lifeblood. Without business, there is no state, only pent up angry people looking for a job. At the center of all civilization is the notion of producing something of value and then developing a means to get that value to people who need it, which is what we term a “job.” Now that so much has been destroyed of our jobs, I can’t think of a better person to help fight to get them created again, and in helping to shape the economic development of Ohio. Without him the villains of Atlas Shrugged would have no challenge to their collectivist intentions. But with George, we have a fighting chance, and most of the time, that’s all we need.

Rich Hoffman

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A Saturday at Premier Shooting; Training in West Chester: There are few more Pro Second Amendment than George Lang and Mark Welch

It was really irritating me over this past weekend that everywhere people were overacting to the coronavirus. All the stores were being ransacked for toilet paper and people were already too far gone to think logically. The media scares had soaked into their thoughts and they were in survival mode and unable to come out of it. Since there wasn’t anything on television worth watching and I had a free Saturday more or less, I signed up for a Tactical 88 class at Premier Shooting & Training Center in West Chester and spent the day at the gun range stepping away from the panic for a bit and enjoyed being around people who had not gone crazy. And much to my relief, they had toilet paper on the shelf, and all was right with the world. But much to my surprise, they were very busy on a Saturday (much more than usual) and they reported more gun sales that weekend than they had on Black Friday. People were coming in and buying guns and ammunition like the world was coming to an end, and for those who were watching the news, it would be easy to think why they would think that. It didn’t take long for me to realize that going to Premier Shooting & Training during the coronavirus outbreak was a good decision, it was a good day to get away from the insanity of the world and a very hard reminder how lucky we are to have such a great facility in West Chester, Ohio.

I never go to Premier without thinking of George Lang, who as a trustee was instrumental in attracting the investment of a top tier gun range into West Chester just a few years ago. I was invited to tour the facility before it opened with Mark Welch—both men are now in position after the Tuesday primary to move on politically to state seats. But few know them as I do, as shooters who were active in the opening days of Premier Shooting & Training. I go there to shoot when I have time, its my favorite range in the Cincinnati area and I think one of the best in the country. But the store and gun range is only part of the story, what they do very well at the West Chester gun range is teach people firearms handling and some of the more advanced aspects of tactical training. With the Tactical 88 instructions that are done at that facility, participants get a chance to learn the same types of things that only advance police and military officers get by way of training. And they certainly have the classrooms for that level of participation.

I spent about 10 hours there on Saturday, had lunch, shot a bit, took the classes, but mostly observed behavior. It was obvious that the people coming there were looking for some sense of normalcy to their life, or some level of empowerment. Buying a gun for them was a punch back at the victimization that they were feeling from the news reports that virtually everything was shut down out of panic over the coronavirus. Even Disney World was shut down, so there was nothing much going on television, the NCAA March Madness brackets were gone this year, baseball season is being pushed out, even James Bond’s new movie coming up has been pushed out as Hollywood looks to lose around 20 billion dollars due to coronavirus. What was happening around the world smelled a lot like an attack on the American economy and people wanted to take action, so they came to Premier Shooting to get control of things from their perspective, and buying a new gun and hitting the range to learn how to use it was the most proactive thing they could do. But it was a running joke at Premier that day for everyone who saw the display of toilet paper that at least the gun range was stocked where Kroger, Walmart and Walgreens were ransacked by panic driven customers to stock their shelves at home for the apocalypse that was to come next.

Spending that extra time there Saturday I was able to work with much of the staff on hand that day and I can only say that I am really happy they are there. They do such a good job at every level at Premier that even as I think often how wonderful it is that they are in West Chester, many people take it for granted just how much. They are top notch on a good day, but on a day where the stock market was on course for depression like numbers and the entertainment world was shut down over panic, it was good to see that Butler County residents had somewhere to go that wasn’t terrified of the coronavirus, and they could feel empowered to participate in something instead of hiding in their homes waiting for the news reports to tell them how next they might die. The staff at Premier was under control and ready for anything, and people could feel that coming into the door, which is likely why they were swarming there to begin with, to go someplace where they could still see America and enjoy the freedom to gather without fear of death. No wonder gun sales were up. Perhaps with the economic hit that losing all the sports and entertainment venues this spring will bring, toilet paper sales and the sale of guns and ammo will offset those losses. Watching the cash register at Premier gave me great hope that the same thing was happening all over the country and it said a lot about the resolution of the human race when a crises had pushed people to the brink. They didn’t run to hide in some cave, they went to the gun store and took action to protect themselves and others.

Yet with the primary election looming, I thought of George Lang and Mark Welch all day, as they were a part of the early days of Premier coming to West Chester to begin with, and few know to what degree they support the Second Amendment as mainstream politicians very loyal to the Trump administration in Butler County. I was at the announcement ceremony for George Lang this past summer when he declared himself to run for the 4th District Senate Seat in Ohio that was coming up this year and I saw many people there who I have also seen often at Premier Shooting & Training in West Chester at various events, especially at their own grand opening where Mark Welch and I were given a private tour before one shot had ever been fired there.

I’ll admit, I went to Premier for the same reasons as everyone else that rainy Saturday. I sat at the window and looked out at the lake on breaks in our training schedule and enjoyed the warm blanket of Americana as only a gun range can tell the story while the world outside was in a panicked heap. Guns have a way of calming people down and letting them know they can still defend themselves when the governments of the world get it wrong and let loose a panic like the coronavirus. But as the primary election comes on Tuesday remember that it was George Lang and Mark Welch who were there in the beginning of it all, and it is one of the best reasons to vote for them, which is barely something that has come up during the election season. Very few mainstream politicians are as pro Second Amendment as those two, and voters need to remember that as they vote on Tuesday March 17th.

Rich Hoffman

Vote For George Lang and Mark Welch for the March 17th Primary: Meet the candidates from the West Chester Tea Party Forum

If George Lang and Mark Welch had not started out in the West Chester Tea Party, they likely wouldn’t have accepted the invite to the Candidates Forum that was held recently for the March 17th Primary. That they did come helped the event tremendously, otherwise there would have been 4 unendorsed Republican candidates for a Republican primary up on the stage talking into an audience that had lost is luster over the years to a very small, and inconsequential group of people. In the video clip below are the introductions to most of them for the reader to decide for themselves the merit of the exchange. I thought it was a good event, it certainly showed why George and Mark are the endorsed candidates, they were clearly the best picks for the Republican ticket for the primary. For the convenience of the readers here I am also including the voter card for the upcoming vote. Just print it off and use that to pick the correct candidates. But out of the six shown on the debate stage only two are on the list and that list matters.

Out of the four not on the list clearly Candice Keller and Lee Wong are out of their element. That crowd was a Tea Party crowd, one that I know extremely well. As the night turned out, she was a mixed bag of disasters. As with most Tea Party groups there is a bit of libertarianism mixed into the soup with the spices of conservatism. Candice talks like a Republican but her views on EMS services were troubling for what should be a small government conservative. I went to the event firmly supporting George Lang and Mark Welch, but I was open to Candice for some other office in some future time, but after hearing her talk, I’m not sure I could ever do that. While I like her position on the Second Amendment, she is a big government type when it comes to social services and that was a huge red flag.

Ding Dong Lee Wong was playing to the audience and talking like he’s been a firm 2nd Amendment supporter all his life, and a Donald Trump fan. That guy is a ding dong because just like a pendulum on a clock he ding dongs back and forth depending on his audience. He is a chameleon of the ultimate type; he is whatever people want him to be which always leaves you wondering who he really is. Rather than explain away all his personal discrepancies, its just much more narrative to refer to him as a ding dong who was clearly not a conservative relative to the others. If we were in Hamilton County, Ding Dong would be running as a Democrat, and he struggled all evening to pander to what he thought was a conservative Tea Party crowd.

The truth about the Tea Party is that religion was never far from the movement. And while I have always considered myself a Tea Party type, I have not been a big church guy, because I see in church a lot of socialism that has always made me uncomfortable. I believe in the potential for mankind not the fall of it. I do not accept that I am a victim of original sin and owe anybody anything, which has always set me apart from the Christian conservative crowd. Although I am quite comfortable with the values of those people, that doesn’t mean I want them in government regulating our lifestyles. I may not mind a dinner with them, but that’s as far as I go on philosophic utterances. Clearly Candice and Ding Dong were playing to that type of crowd and so long as people thought of George Lang as some venomous establishment type that needed to be hung on a cross for sacrifice, the crowd responded as such. But by the end of the evening even though Candice took her shots in the dark at George and Ding Dong clapped like one of those windup toy monkeys to everything she said, the clear frontrunners of endorsed Republicans were clearly winners on their way to a solid primary victory.

But no voter should take anything for granted. Use the voter card to take out the noise of the election and make sure the right people come out victorious as a result of the primary. The vetting process is that a candidate needs to be able to show all the skills to get an endorsement and those who didn’t this year need to ask themselves the question why. Its good to challenge the status quo, but the politics where that can continue to introduce chaos and mayhem into the political system, are over for now. So long as there is a Trump in the White House, I would expect that I’ll feel this way. I want to see Republicans winning and I want Democrats to lose, and to lose so big that it completely destroys their party. While I considered the Tea Party movement needed, and I appreciate the prayers at the beginning of their meetings, they were for a long time the most conservative option in the field of politics. The Republicans of today, after Trump’s 2016 election are to the right of the Tea Party and those clinging to it are sounding more and more like a bunch of libertarian loons. They are conservative about this and that, but liberal about those things and them. I’m not happy with that settlement.

Mark Welch and George Lang are my kind of conservatives and were clearly the best options on that debate stage. But looking over that voter card, at names like Warren Davidson, Donald Trump, Nancy Nix, Mary Swain, TC Rogers, even Justice Sharon Kennedy, that is a pretty solid group of people. I could name a lot more, but for a party in Butler County, I know most of those people well, and that is a list I’d liked to see built upon with even more good, solid names that have shown they can work together as a fantastic management team. George Lang and Mark Welch are two of those names and are certainly heads and shoulders above all the other options.

You should always be cautious of candidates who claim to be fiscally conservative but socially liberal, like libertarians are, or conservative here and liberal there on anything. I like people who are conservative 24 hours a day 7 days a week and whether or not they think God is looking. And knowing many of these conservative Republicans on this voter card personally, I feel comfortable that none of them will end up in some scandal or send nude pictures of themselves to some kid in high school. These names are upright people who are in it for all the right reasons and they were vetted by that party which I trust, which is how their name ended up on that list to begin with. And it is clear that the Butler County Republicans know what they are doing because they picked George and Mark to endorse and given this small sampling of otherwise Tea Party options, we can all be thankful for it.

Rich Hoffman

The Misleading Candice Keller: There is no stronger politician on the 2nd Amendment than George Lang

I kept wondering all during this campaign in Ohio for the 4th Senate District seat why disgraced Candice Keller would say so emphatically, and so often, that George Lang, her political rival was such a liar. I’ve known George Lang for a very long time, and through all kinds of times, good and bad, and I’ve never known him to be any kind of liar. So I was happy to hear Candice on stage at a debate with George at the Tea Party Candidate Forum that was held at the Life Church just outside of Mason, Ohio to get context to her thought process and she spilled it during a questioning session over support of the Second Amendment. Its hard to imagine a stronger pro Second Amendment candidate anywhere in the world than George Lang, even the cowboy hat wearing politicians from the northern plain states. Lang is very pro-gun, especially for what people like Crazy Candice Keller calls, “establishment types.” I was pretty surprised that Keller tried to sell in a church of all places that George Lang had supported red flag laws in Ohio, and that it was those kinds of statements she had been trying to paint on him to punch holes in his credibility and call him “Lyin’ Lang.” I was curious how she could even suggest such a thing and I received my answer during the clip shown below.

What Crazy Keller does with information that is long in the wake of a big time politician like George Lang who is involved in all types of discussions with literally hundreds if not thousands of people every week is take things out of context and try to shape them into something supportive to her world view. In the case of the red flag laws support that she says George had written down, she’s talking about a Toledo reporter who knew Lang was as pro-gun as anybody in the Ohio Statehouse and she tried to paint him in a corner shortly after the Dayton mass shooting, the way many in the media were trying to play “gotcha” with pro Second Amendment supporters as an act of liberal activism on their part. George first gave her a blow off scenario which she took and ran with, which was completely fake news, in the same way that the media treats the Trump Administration. George Lang would never support red flag laws, so I knew as soon as Crazy Candice Keller said what she did, she was manipulating information to try to cast doubt in voter’s minds about George. But taking that same assumption, Candice should know all about how the media plays that game because they essentially destroyed her with her response to the Dayton shooting. What she said has destroyed her within the Republican Party. It is literally “crazy” that she would expect people to understand her situation, but wants to use fake news media reports as the voice of record when it comes to George Lang. The liar certainly wasn’t Lang, it was Candice Keller and it shocked me that as she has sold herself as the “church lady” that she would from a stage in a church openly lie about Lang and expect it to stick.

When I bought my .50 Desert Eagle carry gun a few years ago George was the first person I called to go shoot it with me. As I have said, I’ve known George Lang for a very long time, well before he was running for senate. I called him because I knew he would appreciate the gun for the work of art that it is, and he understood why that was an exciting moment for me to have, so it was he whom I called. We went to Premier Shooting in West Chester which is a place we both enjoy and spent a lunch hour shooting the new gun and just enjoying the atmosphere. He is as pure of a Second Amendment supporter at a political level that anybody will ever find and as he shot that big gun he was as at home with it as any seasoned veteran. So, it was quite insulting to me to hear Candice Keller try to paint George Lang as some greasy politician in bed with lobbyists and was wishy washy on red flag laws. To suggest Lang was anything close was an open lie stated consciously which was reprehensible.

In fact, it pissed me off so much that I had to ask George about it after the debate. I was wondering if maybe he floated supporting red flag laws to the Governor in order to strengthen the stand your ground bill floating around Columbus and that maybe having such a conversation might lead to a misinterpretation. As it turned out, it was just fake news from another liberal reporter/activist trying to put media pressure on politicians to take a stand against gun ownership. When you talk to as many people as George does, its easy for a reporter to take pot shots and be forgotten, which was clearly the case in Toledo. Candice Keller during that same debate was proud to announce that she didn’t know the name of a single lobbyist which is to say that she really hasn’t put in enough time into her job as a congresswoman to really know anybody. She should know the names of lobbyists, not to get money from them, but to actually know who to look out for. What she has done was demonize everyone, so anybody actually doing work in Columbus is some kind of devil up to no good, at least that’s how she presents herself. But she should know the difference about what a radicalized reporter might do to a pro-gun politician, or even how negotiations over bills can be taken out of context. Anybody who really does political work at any level knows that negotiations are not beliefs. They are positions you take to get something you want in a strategic fashion. President Trump does it all the time, throws out a position he may not want or believe in at all to learn what the other side values so he can whittle away at that to bring the negotiations to where he wants them.

The good thing is that I was at least able to get context into how Crazy Candice thinks. When this whole senate race started, I thought I might like some of Keller’s positions, as a conservative. But I’m not so sure she’s a conservative after other things she said at that debate, which I’ll get into with more articles. Sure, she says she’s pro Second Amendment, she seems pretty pro-life, but she is strangely pro big government especially when it comes to what role the EMS and firefighters in general play in budgets. And the way she distorted the Toledo reporter who was obviously an anti-gun activist trying to paint George Lang in a corner to force red flag laws on weak Republicans in Columbus, Keller should be ashamed of herself. She should have joined George in that fight if she was really a pro Second Amendment supporter. But I think she is using it as a mask to hide some deep closet liberalism she is afraid of getting out to the public. That doesn’t give her a right to lie about people then to attempt to paint them as the liars when it was she all along doing the deed.

Rich Hoffman