Tag: GOP

The Vivek Ramaswamy I Know: He’s a good guy who wants to help save America for all the right reasons

It’s tough to be a front-runner, which is where Vivek Ramaswamy finds himself among the second-place contenders for President of the United States. As much as I like Vivek, I’m a Trump guy, and from the beginning, it has always been for me Trump, Trump, and more Trump when it comes to the White House. It’s Trump, or something much harsher, that does not consider civility. Trump was treated wrong during his first four years and has been treated wrong since he left office. And to set things right in America, Trump must be back in the White House. So, I have not covered Vivek Ramaswamy’s presidential campaign because he has been running against Trump. However, now that the smoke is starting to clear, and Vivek has shown that he’s never betrayed Trump and has adopted a very MAGA platform in the running for president, there are some things that we can talk about that have come up regarding his character. Now that the world has come to know Vivek Ramaswamy, there are concerns that he’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing, the picked insurgent from Wall Street. After all, he is worth nearly a billion dollars, so he doesn’t exactly fit the profile of “one of us.” But then again, Trump is a billionaire, and as I’ve said many times, the Trump of the 80s and 90s is not the kind of person I would have voted for President. And Vivek is still a very young person, not yet 40. But now that he has overcome DeSantis in most polling, and everyone else, all the presidential candidates likely running to be vice president, Vivek is getting more negative media attention, which requires some clarity.

Before there was a book there was a bright young man who wanted to do something good.

I don’t think Vivek Ramaswamy is anything but sincere in his efforts to run for president and have a political future to continue something good that Trump has started. I know Vivek to a degree and have met him several times. He’s from my area of Cincinnati, so our paths have crossed a lot. I remember very well when he launched his political career at the Middletown Republican Party headquarters, talking about a book he was about to release called Woke Inc, which has gone on to bring great awareness to the dangers of corporate Marxism run by people like Larry Fink from the World Economic Forum. Vivek is a person of magnificent intelligence, and I would look to him as the next great economic advisor in the Trump administration. Vivek Ramaswamy has started Strive Management as an offering to take on the prominent money managers in BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard, operating out of Columbus, Ohio, instead of Wall Street, New York. Strive Management, I think, is the solution to the monster that the Federal Reserve has created. So, Vivek Ramaswamy isn’t just some dreamy Republican looking for attention. His heart is undoubtedly in the right place, and I can say that because of my interactions with him. Vivek came to an event that I was a part of organizing, and as he explained to me, it was there at that point in his life that he began to see the other side of things, and it inspired him to step away from being a CEO of biotech companies and instead do his part to save America. So, just because people are wealthy and successful, it doesn’t mean they have sold their souls away and are useless for the rest of their lives. People are always on a journey; they seldom stay the same throughout their lives. They evolve as they learn, and Vivek is still a young man and learning who he is.

I like Vivek quite a lot

Vivek Ramaswamy is a great talent, and I am not surprised he’s getting much serious attention as a presidential candidate.  I hope he is in that kind of position for many years.  As much as I support President Trump, it is time to start thinking about 2028 and beyond.  And I believe Vivek Ramaswamy is there to continue a MAGA platform that can help correct America’s severe problem with international finance, where America’s real problems start.  It’s not some faraway country that is the next military threat to American interests; it’s the local bank and the money manager of our 401K plans, and few people in the world understand that better than Vivek Ramaswamy.  And that will be just as much of a problem four years from now as it is currently.  So, I am very supportive of Vivek Ramaswamy, and I want him to succeed in this presidential venture so that he continues to offer his talents to politics to carry a MAGA platform well into the future.  And I have enough personal information about him by knowing him and talking to him to give my opinion on his motives in all this.  I think he’s a young person who has had great success and realized it wasn’t enough.  He has a gift for communication and wants to use it to save a country he loves.  I know the event that he told me about helped shape that moment for him in stepping away from being a wealthy CEO and becoming a political figure that could extend the Trump platform for the Republican Party well into the future.  With a wink and a nod, I would say to everyone, that’s why we have events like the one I’m alluding to.  Because you never know how many Vivek Ramaswamys are out there asking questions about their lives and looking for something meaningful to do next. 

I think Kari Lake is the leading vice-presidential candidate. But for many reasons, I believe Vivek Ramaswamy would be better. The more he talks, the better things get, and as a political party of Republicans, we want Vivek to speak as much as possible. I would love to have four years of Vivek as a vice president, getting on-the-job training for eight solid years as a president. The Vivek I know is a guy who made it big, and it wasn’t enough. Like Trump, he has independent wealth and wants to use his skills to help his country. His political activity has nothing to do with a desire to be near corruption and be recognized as necessary. He already is. But due to his financial independence, like Trump, he is turning to politics to give something back that few people in the world ever get. So, I think Vivek is running for president, not as a controlled asset of Wall Street. But as a person who has stepped over from the dark side of finance and can help fix a very broken problem with his unique skills. I don’t think Vivek ever meant to be on the dark side; he left college and stepped into the world to be successful for all the right reasons, the way society measures it. But these days, he’s more than that; he has grown. And that is why he’s running for office, and he should be a positive contributor to positive political efforts for many years. There are good guys out there, even in the world of politics. Trump came to this good guy desire late in life. And when it comes to Vivek Ramaswamy, it has come early, and perhaps just in time to help save the world.

Warriors and sell-outs, they are not the same.

Rich Hoffman

How to Make a Good Team in Sports and Politics: The point of everything is to give voters options

It will continue to be one of the universe’s great mysteries why people can look at sports teams and have opinions about what they should be doing, but they can’t apply those same methods to their lives.  This is a prominent issue every year in pre-season football with the mini camps as teams figure out which players they will cut and which will make their final roster.  Good teams figure out the right players and get them all pointed in the right direction for the success or failure of a season.  If the players are allowed to pick their fellow players, teams tend not to do so well.  It takes good leadership to figure it out and put people together who likely wouldn’t figure it out for themselves.  Good teams tend to have players playing together who wouldn’t otherwise be friends.  One of the mysterious qualities of leadership is to see things of value beyond the choice of friendships, and when it comes to sports, most people get it.  They understand what makes success and have many opinions about it.  But they can’t do it when it comes time to utilize those same skills in their lives.  That is certainly the situation in business.  And it is undoubtedly the case in politics.  The goal of all these endeavors is to figure out what success looks like, whether it be winning a Super Bowl, having a great business quarter, or providing a great political party to the voting public; once success is understood, then leadership needs to do what it must to give that result.  It’s not complicated.  Yet, it remains one of the least utilized factors in human interaction. 

There is only one correct measure to winning in politics; it is in a political party providing the voting public with good people they can vote for.  Any other action is missing the point.  If a political party is not focused on those attributes, then they aren’t trying to be a good political party.  I would say this is a problem all over America, in every aspect of county politics, no matter where we talk about it.  And that is certainly the case with the Butler County Republican Party in Ohio, where I live.  I can say that I know many people at that party, and I personally liked them all in some way or another.  If you sit down and talk to people, I can usually find something I like about just about anybody.  But the problem is, do they make an excellent political party just because you want them?  And in most cases, that is not the reality.  Politics should only aim to provide voters and taxpayers with good people to represent them best.  When political parties lose sight of that strategy, things go wrong.  And that is how RINOs in the Republican Party come to be.  Most people get into politics for ideological reasons.  However, the concessions they make to get along with other people become detrimental to their representation of the voter base, which is the value of the party brand.  If people have good representation in politics, then the brand of the party could be said to be good.  If voters don’t, they start to lose faith in the system, voter engagement lowers, and the direction of victory in politics changes dramatically.  When voters feel that the people they elect don’t represent them, we could say that politics has failed.

It’s just like the comparison with the sports team that desires to put a winning team on the field so people come to the games and feel good about the chances for a victory, so they buy beer and overpriced hot dogs at the concessions, which is really how the team makes their money, how they measure their value to the customer base.  If the team isn’t winning, there are fewer fans to buy hot dogs, to put it simply.  The same holds in politics.  I know many people who want to run for office within the Butler County Republican Party.  But, they do not feel they can remain people of integrity because of the restrictions of party politics.  So, we end up with the wrong people running for office while much better candidates that the public would love to have representing them are sitting on the sidelines.  This is a case where the players on the field pick people they like and are comfortable with, not the leadership of the voting public deciding how that team would shape out.  Too often, and this year of 2023 is undoubtedly a good example, many good people are not participating in the political process because they have learned that they aren’t in the cool kids club and will never be invited.  Because the party is picking the members, not the voters.  And instead of letting the voters shape the party, the players are forming the team; then they wonder why many fans are not supporting their losing effort.

Not everyone gets into politics for the same reasons.  I understand that some feel that getting into politics protects their business interests from a corrosive government and provides a barrier to their efforts to keep their businesses healthy.  These are not ideological people but practical ones who see government as dangerous to their interests in business, so they get involved in politics to protect their efforts.  And those people are trying to play nice in the sandbox with ideologically based people who enter politics for reasons of genuine philosophy.  And those kinds of people are scary to those looking for political stability.  I get it.  Just like a wide receiver on a football team being upset that a new tight end is playing the slot receiver role, the wide receiver might feel like the coaching staff is trampling on their turf.  But so what? Maybe that is the best way to become a winning team.  That doesn’t mean that the tight end should be run off the team to make the wide receiver feel like they have job security and aren’t threatened by challengers.  Challenges make the team better.  But then better for whom?  For the players or the fans?  That is what must be decided, and what I have seen from the GOP in general, especially since Trump has been out of office, is a party for the players, not for the voters.  It’s the players making the teams they want to play with.  They are not trying to give the voting public the best representatives they can get.  And if a political party isn’t doing that, they aren’t trying to be the best they can be for their communities.  While such a concept may not be complicated, it remains the biggest stumbling block to any successful venture within human endeavor.   And that is certainly the case in politics.  Some great people want to participate, but they have been told in so many words or less that politics is about maintaining friendships and that everyone needs to stay in their lane and behave.  But that is not what voters want, and until political parties listen, the public will continue to be let down by the result.

Rich Hoffman

Of Course, There Will Be Revenge: The Government crossed the line and justice must be utilized

What did they think was going to happen? Did they feel a criminal government of thugs would take over America as communists did in Russia, China, Cuba, and many other places without a fight?  Apparently, they aren’t brilliant in government, which was evident by the actions of Jack Smith and the Biden Department of Justice hit team.  Just because Trump said in a statement that if they came after him, he would go after them.  That’s a fair statement.  They won’t be able to hold power forever, especially illegally acquired power.  People still trust elections, and if elections don’t work, they will turn to something more brutal.  But accepting the dominance of some centralized government power isn’t part of the discussion.  It’s not going to happen.  And no, to answer many people’s daily questions, “Don’t you worry about being assassinated?”  No, I don’t worry about that kind of thing.  I see those types of events as opportunities for that kind of behavior to flow the other way.  Much the way Trump views it.  And that’s fair.  Intentions don’t equal results, and these loser leftists have many ideas about how the world should work.  But they cannot perform those intentions.  Their only success has been hiding their true strategies, which more people can now see for what they always were.  I’ve warned about them for many decades, and now people realize what I have been saying is more accurate than they wanted to believe.  But that’s OK.  I’m good; however, they all want to play in the sandbox.  But accepting tyranny and communism is not one of the outcomes.  And they should have done their homework and realized that before they went down this very dark path.  If they wanted a fight, which they do, they have one now. 

Of course, there is going to be revenge.  It can come from a second Trump term where the Democrats and their minions in the FBI take their long-deserved licks, or it will come in another form.  But punishment is coming, and it must.  Otherwise, there is no country.  There is no more significant threat to national security than the Democrat Party, filled with communists who want to take over America.  There is no threat in China from any world power that is more a threat to America than these insurgents in the American government who openly support communism.  Think of all the poor young people who have fought in wars in Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, and Afghanistan.  Any of them, wars where people have died and had their arms and legs blown off for some fight for freedom only to find out that the Biden administration represents a global insurrection toward communism that was planned all along, under the disguise of fighting for freedom.  Ukraine was finally the war that revealed the plan and the international money laundering operation it is.  Meanwhile, there are members of the House and Senate who are still cheerleading more war for all the same dumb reasons when everyone knows it’s not freedom we are fighting for.  It’s tyranny.  Then we peacefully elected President Trump to fix this government disconnect and see what they are doing to him now, using court cases to keep him from being on the campaign trail during the primary season starting on January 2nd, 2024.  That is a bit too obvious, but that’s what we are dealing with.  And they think they will get away with these massive abuses of power.  No way.  They have crossed the line with some truly nasty stuff. 

Hey, conservatives didn’t start it.  For way too long, we have been playing nice, getting pushed around by these losers in the Democrat party, getting suckered by the stupid Saul Alinsky book, apply mobster tactics to politics in genuinely destructive ways.  Communists have been backdooring our American government unchecked for many decades now, really over 100 years, and now it’s time to put a stop to it.  We weren’t the ones who started any of this.  But it is our task to finish it and to send a message to future generations.  When Mitch McConnell said that he didn’t think it was good for the country to impeach Biden, where was that sentiment when Congress was impeaching Trump twice?  But when it’s his partner in the Swamp from the senate, they’ve all taken money, much of it from the enemy itself, China.  It’s a kind of Senate club, so suddenly McConnell thinks it’s terrible to impeach a president because he would be exposed as a crook.  Many of them would be.  Likely, most of the Beltway culture is all in on the bad stuff, and they all have it coming.  They must be punished for their terrible actions, and they hope desperately to kick the can down the road just a bit longer.  They forget that the government is not in charge in America.  They are representatives.  They represent us.  They don’t rule over us.  And they certainly don’t get to come to our homes and assassinate people who disagree with them or arrest them in violation of the Bill of Rights.  No, no, no, the government is not in charge, and they aren’t going to be.  They have overplayed their hand, and Trump is the result.  And that is as good as it will ever get for them.

The essence of the ridiculous case against Trump on this latest Washington D.C. indictment involving January 6th, 2021, is that President Trump and everyone else has a legal obligation to accept what the government tells us about its election results and that we had a duty to get those results without question, or we run the risk of persecution.  The Marxist prosecutors intend for a liberal D.C. court to provide a caselaw as a continuation of the Alex Jones Sandy Hook case that went against the media personality last year, a clear violation of free speech.  And if it were to go against Trump, it would indeed be overturned in the Supreme Court.  But by then, the communists of the Biden administration hope to eradicate that court in the next rigged election of Joe Biden.  So these guys are playing for keeps, but our side has not matched their aggressiveness out of kindness.  But there certainly isn’t anything wrong with what Trump said about getting revenge.  Trump is the revenge candidate, and many Americans want it.  And if they can strike back against these corrupt government officials through a peaceful election, they certainly will.  But as I did say, after January 6th, I did not see what the rest of the world did, an insurrection.  To my eyes, the government got off lucky.  People were generally well-behaved.  What did they think people would do when a corrupt government stoked the fires of injustice?  And what do they think will happen in the future with continued abuse?  People have a right to be upset, and they are.  The miscalculation that people in America will fall into a docile state is another miscalculation by some dumb people who have mistaken kindness for complicity.  Revenge is on many American minds, and they will get it, one way or another.  The government needs to come clean if they want to sit at the table in the future.  It is a privilege for the government.  Not a divine right.  And understand the game, especially regarding the special counselor assigned to Hunter Biden.  They know they went too far and are looking for a slow walk to show fairness.  But they have no intention of doing anything about it.  They only intend to hide their activism through a mask of fairness because they know how angry people are. 

Rich Hoffman

It’s Not About Unity in the Community or the Power of a Vocal Minority: But entirely a standard of right and wrong

This will be a nice yard sign for Trump supporters who can’t wait for next year to vote for, or against some anti-American political enemy.

Because I, like many people involved, I must at least provide fair warning. Enjoying people is one thing; agreeing with them is an entirely different matter. This was grotesquely obvious while driving by Lakota West in West Chester, Ohio, on August 8th, 2023, where the special election was a significant focus. As far as the eye could see from the road were Vote No signs, a blatant reminder that the progressive government school there is a factory of liberal politics intent to convert confiscated wealth from property owners and to turn it into Democrat activism. And many Republican-leaning people have been suckered into the game, even to support it against conservative, traditional values. Even on issues like Issue 1, which would have made it more difficult to change the Ohio Constitution, Lakota schools are aggressive in favor of change. That’s the purpose of their existence, to change our traditional American culture into some monstrosity of liberalism. And that election day was just a reminder of that sentiment and the genuine catastrophe of the upcoming fall election in November. Lynda O’Conner is up for re-election, and many people close to the matter have been hoping that she wouldn’t run because the opposition against her is on a crusade that has not been seen at Lakota in all the years of its existence. Before things get too messy here, I would call to mind a few monumental memories of the past, such as when the Tea Party had to take a stand against John Kasich after he turned into a progressive after his loss with the state labor unions. They turned him into a progressive pretzel, and many of us worked hard to destroy him because we had to. In a few short years, you don’t see him around anymore. And many of the people who are now pushing for Lynda O’Conner to be re-elected this fall, after all that’s happened, went after Speaker of the House John Boehner and essentially knocked him out of the Republican Party because he was too much of a RINO.

The plan is for these to be everywhere

It’s an old game; we all get it. Friendships are made with people who are politically dangerous so that they can be controlled and perhaps worked against their original positions. And that certainly has been the case with the Butler County Republican Party. It’s always tempting to be invited to the cool kids’ table just so they can control you, not because they really like you. I just spoke about an excellent event with Nancy Nix where some of us have had some cantankerous hostilities toward each other. But at that event, we put a lot of that aside and had a nice evening together and enjoyed the comedians who were performing. It was a nice story. But all that is about to go sideways with Lynda O’Conner, which is fine. But the belief that friendships and private meetings would turn the resistance against her into captured assets of compliance with party sentiments was ill-advised and has only stirred up the hornet’s nest. The people involved with this next generation’s fight against the progressive objectives of Lakota schools will not be enamored with the shiny keys of friendship and gaining a seat at the table with the cool kids of power. The people I know standing against Lynda O’Conner for this upcoming election have a moral problem with her. It goes far beyond even calling her a RINO. They are not interested in Unity for the Community or coming together as a Republican party; this is all about right and wrong and standing up to the intrusions of a progressive political machine that works against conservative values in every way possible. And the passion is much greater than in those days of Governor Kasich and John Boehner. Many of the people involved in those old battles are now part of the cool kid’s club, and they like it, and they are supporting Lynda for the upcoming election and have been whispering in her ear and thinking that little secret meetings and emails of consensus building might work as it had on them in the past. I heard about some of these attempts while driving by Lakota West on that August election day, and I feel compelled to warn everyone that this is different, and there will be severe brand damage in the aftermath. This is unlike anything yet experienced in politics, which says a lot. And I don’t think many people understand.

There is a really graphic version of this one that will be used later

The advice that I have been giving to people is that this is a throw-away election. If a new school board will not work with a three to two majority to eliminate excessive administrators to save runaway cost losses at the government schools, then what’s the point of any of it? Cutting 20 or 30 equity and inclusion administrative hires could save many millions of dollars, which Lakota needs to do. But there are a lot of soft-shelled tacos out there, some in the GOP who would be running as Democrats if it wasn’t Butler County who want to feel good about themselves by supporting a big government school. The trans issue has been a challenge forcing people’s real politics to emerge along those lines. I would say that because of the way everyone has treated Darbi Boddy as a school board member to let them choke on it. Let the rope go and let Lakota destroy itself; let the liberals have their way. Let them do what Biden has done to the country because then and only then will people wake up. The campaign to fight them will become more apparent when people see what they are about and can’t focus their union efforts of progressivism against someone like Darbi. And for the soft-shelled types who want to support Lakota under Lynda’s leadership, the tax levy they have in mind will change their sentiments quickly. And we’ll be back to fighting tax increases instead of legitimately trying to control the costs.

The people I have been talking to who are thinking of running and don’t think they have much of a chance, I have told them the same thing I’ve said to Lynda in the past. The union threshold is around 7000 voters. That is a baked-in number. If you want to beat them, you must get over 8000 voters, however possible. Lynda hopes to blend that a bit with GOP support, and enough RINO types are willing to cross that line because they don’t want more of a fight than what we have seen so far with Darbi on the board. Yet Lynda’s role against Darbi has woken up something new in the Lakota school district that goes far beyond typical political disagreements. Something that traditional politics has no way of dealing with. This is a battle over ethics and the essence of right and wrong, and the way Lynda handled the superintendent issue and the protection of children at Lakota is a deeply emotional issue that there is no compromise on. This isn’t like the days when the Tea Party wanted John Boehner out, and a more Tea Party type like Warren Davidson was put in, and everyone shook hands and ate a sandwich together. This is more of a civil war, casualties included. Many Lyin’ Lynda types have been waiting for this opportunity, and it’s only fair to warn everyone involved. Because I generally like everyone involved. But right and wrong are not negotiable. That’s certainly always been my position. If people wanted to be friends, okay, I’ve been willing. But I’ve never been willing to compromise right and wrong as determined by conservative, Republican politics. I’ve never been some dope-smoking libertarian. I’ve always been a traditional Republican party supporter. However, some of this new generation are perfectly willing to abandon any pretense of friendship to defend traditional, conservative values. And they are far more interested in doing what is suitable than compromising with what’s wrong to have unity in the community and an intact Republican party. And I provide that warning with sincerity for the good things in the past that have been done and the good memory of them.

These are the kind of teachers Lynda, Julie and Doug want teaching your kids at Lakota. Here is a recently hired teacher at Endeavor Elementary

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

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It’s a Wonderful Life in Butler County, Ohio: Because Nancy Nix is in it

I don’t usually talk about the social life that goes on at fundraisers for the GOP, but there were so many interesting stories at the latest Nancy Nix event at the Elks Club in Hamilton, Ohio, in Liberty Township. But there was a moment of absolute truth that was worth recognition. At this event, some hilarious comedians told great jokes that made the audience laugh hard. But hidden in those exchanges was talk about the movie It’s a Wonderful Life that was applied to the life of Nancy Nix and was very accurate. Like all comedy, the truest things are often the funniest because of their roots in the things many people hope to remain secret. But in talking about them in a comic setting, the mass exposure to truth sets off the relief valve, and people bond due to the shared experience. And ironically, then, while people are sharing those unique moments of honesty, it opens the door to profound truths, and that was the comparison of Nancy Nix to the character from that excellent Christmas movie to George Baily, the honest banker from the fictional town of Bedford Falls. Nancy is now the auditor for Butler County, Ohio, as she has been the treasurer for many years. And the people in the room at her fundraiser were all influencers to a vast degree, and it was a moment where your life flashes in front of everyone, and a potent truth becomes apparent, what would the world be like without you and in the case of Nancy, how much better is Butler County, Ohio because she is in it. And the answer is cinematically evident in the ways that happy endings to movies are most hoped for. Only this was reality.

Things have been contentious in the Butler County Republican Party this past year. You can tell that without a Republican in the White House to set the temperature in the room of politics; people have drifted. When Trump was president, more Republicans were unified toward an America First agenda than they have been in the year of indictments, now that Covid has been over and another election year was coming up. Biden has been a massive but predictable failure, and Republicans, through federal, state, and local elections, were finding themselves lost a bit, and there have been some significant disagreements. There was nothing so wrong that they couldn’t shake hands at the next event, such as the Nancy Nix fundraiser. But some of them were very serious and contentious within local party politics. And in some cases, there were very emotional disagreements, politics as a blood sport was messy, and people were hurt in the process, which brings up the entire problem of whether or not people should even get along if they’ve done terrible things to each other. Is it even honest, moral, or proper to think such things? In many ways, the problems that George Baily had at the end of It’s a Wonderful Life, the entire premise of the movie was that he wanted to commit suicide because he was being crushed by the immense evil in the world, and his good sensibilities just couldn’t hold up to the pressure. For a dramatic comedy, that is a severe way to start or end the movie. And those same themes were undoubtedly in the air at Nancy’s fundraiser. What was the purpose of party politics if so many people disagreed with each other within their party? Was it more important to be authentic to your beliefs or to find a way to get along?

Ironically, the solution to George Baily’s condition was to see how the world would be without him, to be shown how much his impact on his community was better because he was in it.  And if he had committed suicide, so many lives would fall apart, and much evil would be unleashed.  But authentically, that was what happened at the fundraiser for Nancy Nix; through the comedy of some very talented people, the life of Nancy Nix was put into a sharp focus by how the room had united behind her, and people put aside their differences, if just for a few hours because she is a genuinely good person who makes Butler County so much better. After all, she is in it.  And the comedy of the evening was essentially a celebration of her life, even if moment to moment it doesn’t feel like it, or it doesn’t seem as though anybody ever cares to do the right thing.  When someone like Nancy Nix is being celebrated, it all comes into focus, and the best in people finds its way to the surface.  And the world is indeed a much better place.  It is a wonderful life, and when many talented people find focus through friendships, it makes life better for everyone else, especially Butler County. 

I enjoyed talking to some people I hadn’t seen in a while, primarily because of all the contentious issues.  I stay pretty busy anyway, and my wife and I have been traveling for most of the summer.  So it was good to see so many people again in one place and to see them generally happy and unified.  That is what politics is all about, managing community resources and nothing more.  All the personal needs don’t mean anything because the entire effort is about ensuring people get what they need out of government.  It gets complicated because politics is a popularity contest, and you have to raise money, work with other people, and find a way to work with others who are all doing the same things.  Maintaining authenticity can be difficult under the best circumstances, so I’m pretty forgiving of mistakes because there is often so much pressure, and things go wrong.  But often, good intent does improve the world positively for people in general.  And I couldn’t think of anybody in that room, which is most of the major players of Butler County, who weren’t doing what they did with the best of intent, from their perspective.  When we talk about the path to Hell being paved with good intentions, that is often how everyone arrives there.  But what prevents hell from happening is when those good intentions are focused behind the efforts of a genuinely good person, such as Nancy Nix.  And she is the real deal.  Whatever preferences other people have, like in the famous Jimmy Stewart movie, their efforts are made better when a good person is the glue that holds them all together.  And that is the role Nancy Nix has in Butler County politics.  It’s why Butler County is one of the best Republican Parties in the nation and continues to do great work for the people who vote.  Butler County has many talents, which is always apparent when they find themselves in one place together.  The difference in leadership is when it becomes evident that Nancy Nix, like the fictional character of George Baily, is not such a fantasy but a reality in Butler County after all.  And sometimes, we do get happy endings, and everyone is better for it, which was evident at the Nancy Nix fundraiser.  We have much to be proud of regarding the Butler County Republican Party and that life is worth living, rather than jumping off a bridge because it doesn’t always feel that way.  

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Another Rally for Issue 1 in Ohio: The first one was so successful we are doing it again

The West Chester Tea Party rally was held to protect the Ohio Constitution, with a particular focus on Issue 1. This was a critical event, and many people turned out to voice their concerns and show their support. The rally was a chance for people to come together and stand up for what they believe in, and it was a powerful demonstration of the power of people in action.

Regardless of where people stood on the issue, there was no denying the passion and dedication of those who attended the rally. They came from all walks of life, united in their desire to protect the Ohio Constitution and ensure that their voices were heard with the message: that the people of Ohio would not stand idly by while their rights were threatened.

If you missed the first rally at the corner of Cox Rd and Tylersville Rd, it was quite a spectacle.  As the rally continued, it became clear that this was not just a local issue but a national one as the eyes of many are watching what steps we are taking in Ohio to protect our Constitution from radical Democrats who want to take over the world by destroying the laws of our civilization. People from all over the country were watching and listening, and many were inspired to act in their communities. The West Chester Tea Party rally was a powerful reminder that people can make a difference when they come together.  So they are doing it again, on August 5th, from noon to – 1:30 PM. 

In the end, the rally brought attention to the issue and helped to mobilize a movement that would continue to fight for the rights of Ohioans for years to come. It was a testament to the power of conservative politics and the importance of standing up for what you believe in. The West Chester Tea Party rally will always be remembered for how people came together to protect their Constitution and way of life.

Rich Hoffman

I Had A Vision of the Destruction of the World Economic Forum: The collision of reality and American property ownership

Prizer Point is a great place to see things clearly

It has been one of those unique times where I have been away from home more than I have been home. My wife and I have been traveling extensively throughout the United States, living out of our RV. Some trips have been just she and I, some with immediate family members, and some with extended family. We have been seeing much of the country and interacting with many people. We have not lived in a bubble, and I have not seen any Joe Biden signs. But we have seen a lot of Trump support, even in areas considered otherwise liberal. And it was during one of these trips, I found myself reading Glenn Beck’s new book ‘Dark Future’ for the third time in over two weeks, and it was in the chapter “In the Future, You Will Own Nothing” that I made some important observations about the state of the world. This was ironic because we were at Prizer Point at Land Between the Lakes way down by Paducah, Kentucky, and I was surrounded at our luxury campsite with lots of property ownership. Prizer Point is one of the better marinas I’ve ever seen, and it had some luxurious houseboats docked there within view of our camp. I, of course, was reading my book next to my RV with our outside kitchen next to my mobile reading chair. Next to our site, mostly surrounded by water on a narrow peninsula, was several million dollars in various rig outfits by very committed RVers who had their own golf cars, jet skis, and boats of all kinds. Our kayak was parked next to our car, so I took a picture of where I was for emphasis. Everything about camping in America is about celebrating property ownership, even to the extent that people never really wanted to leave their homes where properties were secure. So, I tried to capture the irony with a photo.

Being off the grid for this type of camping, which is very popular in America, is about something other than roughing it. It’s not about denying yourself of the luxuries of the modern world; it’s about taking those luxuries into nature and enjoying it with all the comforts of home. When you want a shower, you get all cleaned up in your own space. You don’t have to share it with other people. You bring your food. You sleep in your bed. You watch TV when you aren’t listening to all the woodpeckers working on trees in the canopy overhead. You live well, exceptionally well. And it is pretty nice to travel with all your stuff to many different places and still have the same bed, refrigerator, stove, and bathroom. My wife and I have become so in love with this life that we dislike using public restrooms at gas stops. We like to go in our RV and have everything nice and clean. It is the American way of enjoying nature. But when you go to these campsites, one thing is prominent; nature is not in charge; the people are. RV campers love nature, but nature is not in control. Property ownership is, and I found it particularly interesting to be reading the material I was in such an area where property ownership was on full display to such a large extent. Behind my campsite was the boat ramp where people were putting their boats in and out of the lake all day, and it was enjoyable to see all the different kinds of crafts that people had.

Of course, I have been talking about Glenn Beck’s new book a lot. He did a great job with it; it is full of excellent information, which is undoubtedly what most news media needs to cover. ‘Dark Future’ is essentially pulling back the veil of the Klaus Schwab Great Narrative that the World Economic Forum has been planning behind the scenes of the United Nations and the European Union to incorporate the United States into their schemes of full Marxism and China-style communism through a nefarious attack of the global financial institutions. These people have lost touch with reality, but they have convinced enough people who have also lost touch with reality that they are predicting the future and forming the end reality. And that the end was inevitable. Well, I professionally talk to people who think like these World Economic Forum people a lot. There is a reason my wife and I have traveled so much. It’s our way of keeping it real, of not losing touch with reality, by interacting with reality abundantly. Immediately after we spent a week at Prizer’s Point, we traveled over 300 miles up to Darke County, Ohio, for the Annie Oakley competitions. So it was one thing after another for us, never stopping for air but always having the consistency of our mobile life living out of our RV. That kind of life would have helped the World Economic Forum types not lose touch with their liberal reality, which they have done. And most Americans blow them off as irrelevant. But as Beck’s book explains, they are under the assumption that they will rule the world; they will take all our property and force us to rent from them. And they believe that they already possess the power. But they believe it because they don’t know Americans like I do.

Our camp is in the foreground, some of my kids are in the background along the lake.

Prizer Point has a nice floating restaurant and general store on the lake connected to our campsite by only a thin little bridge. The staff at the camp was all very nice; it was a very well-managed place. But it felt like being off the grid, away from the world just enough to see everything very clearly. We had been to other nice campsites this year, and the general theme was evident, and I found it very reassuring. People were willing to live and let live so long as nobody messed with them. People were not taking Klaus Schwab and Bill Gates very seriously because they had lots of private property that allowed them to get away from their vile little clutches. But the minute they felt threatened by those kinds of people, that was another story. My wife and I went to the store several times to get ice cream and enjoyed eating it while watching all the boats come and go. And I could see that Klaus and the gang were facing some outraged Americans shortly, far more angry and hostile than they were prepared to deal with. And that was what I was looking for while spending most of the summer of 2023 on vacation. We’re not done with traveling for the year, not by a long shot. We have some vast trips coming up on the horizon with our various RV rigs. But everything became very clear somewhere between Prizer Point, the Darke County fairgrounds, and some wonderful books, especially that Glenn Beck book. I saw in a vision the end of the World Economic Forum crashing and burning under their misguided assumptions. And that made it a wonderful vacation season. Private property in America would be the straw that breaks the back of the World Economic Forum. And it would be a pleasure to watch.

Rich Hoffman

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The Way to Beat Secret Societies: Hidden power gained through hidden rules to create the illusion of knowledge

Usually, when people talk about secret societies, there is a level of dread that is associated. Secret societies seem ominous because, as human beings, we think of the things we don’t know about as being powerful and godly, which is part of the appeal that drives people into secret society membership. And this is a problem when you are trying to run a transparent society where you understand the characters and their motives. In an honest world, there shouldn’t be any desire for secret societies. There shouldn’t be any secrets. But as we have learned over the last several years, many secret societies work in the background and are attached to many of the messes that are part of our modern problems. The quest for secret knowledge to leverage power over others is a strong aphrodisiac to the kind of personalities who want to rule over others. That has made secret society membership a menace to society because it keeps people from dealing squarely with one another. If so many secret societies ask for supernatural, occult aid, how should a straightforward, election-based culture operate? And that is where we currently find ourselves, especially in Europe and America–those who want to be like Europe. I know of many secret societies, and I know the kind of people who are members, and they aren’t very secret, especially in a society that has as much information access as we do these days. Secret societies aren’t so secret anymore because everyone knows where everyone else is and what they’re doing. Which leaves the question pending, why join one in the first place? What could they possibly do for anybody? 

Well, I have a very different take on secret societies that I have formed over a long period of time. And what helps that perspective is that I have never wanted to be in one. I tend to like to be in charge. I was like that as a little kid, so working my way up in a secret society, like the Masons, or some other group, was never for me. I never liked being told what to do, and I always required full autonomy for my independence. So, it was easy for me to say no to those kinds of membership offers. I once had quite a fight with an entire fraternity because I went there to see a friend of mine with my wife, which apparently there were all kinds of rules against. And on our way up to the fraternity house, she walked across the seal on the sidewalk for their membership. There were house rules on how to serve that seal best, and not knowing anything about those rules as a visitor, she didn’t know she wasn’t supposed to walk over it. The entire house rallied to assault us, but I have an unyielding personality, so a stalemate ensued because they really didn’t want to fight. They were obligated by the fraternity charter to conduct themselves in such a way, but they were all wimps who really didn’t want to fight that they were forced to stew; as I visited my friend, he toured me around the house, and we left uneventfully. My friend was removed from the fraternity after we left, which is a common passive-aggressive action that low-conflict threshold people perform when faced with a challenge to their invisible authority. 

This is what the weakness of all secret societies have, whether it’s just a college fraternity or the Skull and Bones Society that the Bush and Kerry families were members of. The training for this way of thinking often starts early for people so that by the time they are fully functioning adults, they are largely governed by secret social rules that aren’t openly expressed, which then makes managing a stable society a challenge because you have people worshipping lots of rules that are not part of the ethics of a social construct. And I have found all such people to be weak and easy to beat in whatever the engagement is, whether it’s physical, legal, or purely social. People drawn to secret societies want secret rules and power to protect them from their insecurities, which is why they are attracted to such powers in the first place. The power is an illusion because other people can’t know what those powers are. And this little shift in social engagement gives the illusion of power. In some ancient cultures, a high priest might acquire such power by understanding when an eclipse would occur and might point at the sky and declare power over the heavens. And because the information about how eclipses occur was secret to the society, who did not have access to that information because of some tyrannical regime, the high priest appears to have a secret power over the heavens. But the whole gag is about a lack of knowledge, not in full disclosure. And this is what draws people into secret societies, invisible rules to create the illusion of secret power. 

There is also a strong desire for weak people to hide in the herd to not be independent. They fear being singled out in society, so they seek membership in groups to hide in the safety of the masses. Group membership tells the world that people value them enough to be associated with a secret handshake and an exchange of some fundamental shared values. One of the most insecure things for people is to grow up and away from their parents; most people never develop that ability. So to fill that void, they seek a brotherhood and create a new family out of secret society membership, such as the Masons. Companionship is one of human beings’ most primal needs, so group consensus associated with limited access is a very persuasive motivator. And that is all innocent enough until those mentalities are brought into elected politics, where you expect representatives to perform on a job based on a platform they were elected to. Not following some rules of the secret handshake in the Skull and Bones Society which dominates Beltway politics within the intelligence agencies and operates to social practices that the rest of society that pays for their government through taxes has no idea about, like my story about the fraternity seal. To the outside world, the seal meant nothing. But to the fraternity brothers, it was everything; it represented their secret fears glazed over by symbols and rules only they knew about, which gave them the illusion of security in a scary world. And that is the key to beating such groups. If they were secure people, they wouldn’t seek group membership. But they do because they aren’t powerful people. They depend on numbers to hide their timidity as individuals. Once that is known and exploited, they fall apart quickly. Just as the scam of the high priest predicting an eclipse. If other members of the society understand how to read star alignments and know the cause of eclipses, the phony power of the high priest will lose all its influence. Because the power is based on ignorance and group association to maintain that illusion, but once that curtain falls, the power of the secret society is gone, which is where we find ourselves in the modern world. Many high priests are making their livings off secret society membership to rules only they know about. But the public isn’t as ignorant as they once were, because of the vast amounts of available shared information. And because of that and the need for independence in people who are not timid, the powers that have ruled the world in secrecy are desperately vulnerable and not nearly as scary as they once were.

Rich Hoffman

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Does The CIA Use Mind Control: How our thoughts work and for what purpose

Don’t you ever wonder where your thoughts come from, those random little ideas that pop into your head like, “Why don’t you jump” while standing next to a high space? Or “Why don’t you just punch that guy in the face.” How are such thoughts produced, and where do they come from? Are they from demons who reside in the background and jump from body to body, depending on their flavor of the moment? Or are those thoughts of some deep subconscious production? Or even yet, are they productions of the CIA who have found a way to implant thoughts into a mind much the way a radio receives information from a radio wave? We tend to think of our minds as off limits to the outside world, as our ultimate safe place. Nobody can read our thoughts; if we want to shut out the world, our minds are our last refuse. Nobody has a right to our thoughts, so we have built up a false sense of security over time regarding our minds, what they can do, and how secure they are. But the CIA has displayed an over-interest in mind control in the distant past, during the 1960s, and we should not just assume they weren’t successful. Instead, I think their lack of publication of results says that they were all too successful and that mind control is much easier than we have been led, on purpose, to believe. This idea of mind control often arises when we wonder about false flag events and other mass shootings. A radical government looking for someone to blame for something would find it safest to use people in ways that mass society has not yet accepted as a reality. So, of course, they would use such a method, and as we have seen in all aspects of their lives, they will abuse any power given to them because it’s a temptation beyond their ability to control.

Now when we talk about mind control, that doesn’t mean we lose self-control. But people most susceptible to mind control from some third-party government hostility are those less in control of their thought processes, like drug users, dumb people, highly emotional people, and people without a strong resolve. People who are intoxicated are particularly vulnerable to outside influences on their minds. So controlling people’s minds isn’t as easy as just turning on a radio or speaking into a microphone to broadcast a message. Getting a message into a mind is only part of the battle. Getting people to act on it is quite another. That’s why it’s crucial to understand mass school shootings; for instance, most of the gunmen are from broken homes, have a history of drugs, and are likely taking medicine for depression. If you are a hostile government, for instance, and you want to inspire a false flag event through a mass shooting that will consume the news cycle to keep people from talking about other problems in the world, then such depleted, weak minds are the kind of people you’d be interested in influencing. But assuming that such a thing isn’t happening because we don’t believe the technology is there yet is preposterous. While people debate the feasibility, it provides easy cover for the malicious to perform their malice, which is all too common nowadays.

Every time you witness a magic show, you are seeing a form of mind control, a purposeful deception in a mass audience where mind manipulation is a shared experience. Most good salespeople are naturally good at mind control. And it used to be difficult to ask a girl out for a date before the Internet made things all too easy by turning a no or a shy opposition into a yes. Influencing the mind is a common practice among human beings, so naturally, the governments of the world would be very interested in developing mind control technology for their own survival. And from what we’ve witnessed from our government and other governments and their financial powers that prop them up, there is a strong desire to control people’s minds. Advertisers try to do it every minute of every day through mass media ads. And when government gets in trouble over some issue or another and needs a deflection, or they want to inspire gun confiscation legislation, then some drug-using menace to society might then find the thought of performing a mass killing popping into his mind, either through a direct message broadcast to his weak mind from a government agent seeking a cover from the shadows. Or perhaps some evil spirit is conjured up through some mass ritual of occult reverence, and that spiritual assassin fulfills the request by jumping into the seat of an unoccupied mind. Why else would there be government policy on marijuana, an obvious mind-altering drug where intoxication is so openly embraced? I would say that it makes it much easier to control a society that doesn’t have strong thoughts, and drug use makes it easy for governments to rule over weak people. But does it happen at all? Well, you bet it does. It happens much more often than we believe it does. The mind is a receiver of all kinds of information, and we still don’t understand well how thought is produced in the brain. So the ability to manipulate a thought is one of the most valuable traits a menacing government addicted to world domination would strive to utilize. 

With all the talk about 5G, our minds are constantly being bombed by radio waves, internet signals, signals bouncing all over the earth from satellite communications. Our cell phones are continually broadcasting and receiving information, and all those waves of information are passing through our minds. So, it should be obvious to conclude that those many random thoughts, like “punch that person” or “call that person a name,” or even worse, are coming from outside sources from our own minds and that our minds aren’t so secure. If you have noticed, when you pick up your phone, it knows when you are looking at it. Our mind broadcasts information that goes to our extremities, but do we think it stops there, within the confines of our bodies? I would think not. And as of yet, we have only assumed that our privacy is a priority based on biological science. Yet it’s time to think seriously that there are lots of influences out there that have cracked the code. And your best defense against those forces is to have sanity as your best defense. The ability to override those random messages that come into your mind to rationally discard them. But once that rationality is lost to stupidity or drunkenness, then the mind is fair game for all kinds of maniacal purposes. And don’t be silly; the CIA cracked the code to mind control many years ago. They use it for their needs, which, as we have seen recently, are not the domestic needs of national security, but the efforts of globalism among a drug-induced population of victims being used for sheer evil and purposes of global conquest. They may not be able actually to make people commit a crime, but they sure can push a button and make many think about it, which is the first step to action. And the less resolute a targeted mind is, the easier it is to get them to do what you want them to do.

Rich Hoffman

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In Politics Friends Come and Go: But why do political parties exist in the first place

When it comes to politics or anything in life, get a dog if you want a friend. Dogs are programmed to serve our human needs for friendship. But don’t expect friendships in politics ever to sustain some deep seeded need. There is only one purpose for politics, and that is the management of community resources. Finding meaning in it of some social value is a path in life that will obviously have many challenges, most of which will be unfulfilling. Even on the best day of political exchanges, there will be disappointments because it never works out how you might want it to. Yet one of the many traps that emerge in politics is when a person involved finds that they get to sit at the table with all the cool kids, which is how the lobby system works at the federal and state level. That appeal to be accepted by your peers can be very alluring. And all too often, it causes good people to go bad relative to what people think they voted for. This is how we end up with RINOs in the Republican Party. They may not start out that way, but they certainly turn out to be far off their original position over a number of years, and it’s at that point they have to figure out if they can still be useful to a voting public. But we are dealing with people here, and I can think of a few politicians that I have known for a long time and may personally like. But, due to life circumstances, they are not as conservative today as they were ten years ago or even five years ago. And when that happens, they have to figure out if they are in politics to serve some deep seeded need they have or if they are only doing it to gain some joy in social acceptance, presenting themselves one way, when ideologically, they have drifted into a more liberal view of the world. 

In politics, I still stand by former Speaker of the House Larry Householder, who was just sentenced to 20 years in prison over the FirstEnergy scandal. I found that case much like Sheriff Jones and Attorney General David Yost went after Roger Reynolds, the former Butler County Auditor. I feel sorry for the FirstEnergy people; they provide energy through a couple of nuclear power plants, and the political left is looking to destroy those companies and replace them with solar farms and wind power. I don’t think there was any justice in putting Householder in jail, I think its 100% politics, using rules to destroy your political rivals, and in that case, the FBI was weaponized just like it has been against Trump and the road to the start of the corruption leads to Mike DeWine’s door, the governor of Ohio who likely didn’t want a rival power in Columbus at the Speaker position. Look at the drama with the coup they had just this last year with the Speaker, so politics is a dirty game. People on the out go to jail, and millions of dollars get wasted in the name of acquiring power. I can say that as I just recently saw DeWine and his wife at a social event, and he’s turning back to his liberal ways again now that he’s in his last term and Trump hasn’t been in power for a while. And mentioning Sheriff Jones, you might remember all the drama between him and Representative Thomas Hall. They had been bitter enemies, but now they are getting along quite well. People move on positions all the time; the question always remains, can they actually do the public who votes for them any good, or is everything they show the public fake while what they do behind closed doors a different representation along the political spectrum? 

And that’s certainly the case of a few names within the Butler County Republican Party presently. Life happens, and people find that their political views of the world change, sometimes quite a lot. But when you hold leadership positions and hang on to those positions, why would they do it if they aren’t that conservative anymore? Politics is one thing, and it’s easy to have political opinions in a vacuum of reality, in an untested environment. But when you love your kids and the kids move in a direction that challenges those conservative beliefs, do you try to take the party to a hard left position, or do you give up the leadership roles to take care of your family? Loyalty isn’t the question, but it’s what is expected in public office that does matter. Because votes expect the brand of conservative opinion that reflects them, this is how the RINO problem began initially. I’ve been involved in many meetings where powerful politicians became upset with being called RINOs. Because they didn’t see that they had become more “liberal” in their political discourse. John Boehner, who lives in my neighborhood and is good friends with several people I know very well, comes to mind. He used to be Speaker of the House, but he had to resign due to heavy calls from people in the Tea Party who thought he was a RINO. It hurt him. I hurt for him, so I never really jumped all over him too much. The world wanted a more conservative representative, and he wasn’t it. So, he needed to step away. And that is certainly the case for other area Republicans who find themselves in a similar situation.

Doing the right thing is hard. But ultimately, politics isn’t for the representatives; it’s for the brand of the party, and the party exists for the people who vote. This fantasy that people have that Ron DeSantis might fill the void of Trump is ridiculous because the move toward Trump is because people have become frustrated with RINOs, and they are looking to purge them from their party. And the same thing will happen in the Butler County Republican Party if RINOs emerge and take leadership positions; the voters out there will work to get rid of them, just as they did John Boehner. There may be perfectly valid reasons that people become RINOs. John Boehner cries a lot, and once people learned that about him, it changed how they saw him. Voters want tough people, not compromised people who have lost their confidence socially, who have made mistakes that are embarrassing, and who seek to hide those things socially through party leadership. It ends up not helping anybody but worst of all; it weakens the voter impression of their Republican Party representation. The most important thing is to protect the brand, and forcing voters to accept more liberal leadership isn’t going to help engage voters in the polls. Telling Darbi Boddy to calm down and play nice with RINOs won’t help the party brand. It hurts it. Because people want more Darbi’s and fewer John Boehners. I’ve heard the complaints, and it’s a topic in need of perspective. Essentially, I do have friendships with people who have moved to the hard left. And I will still like them even if I disagree with them politically. But protecting the Republican brand should be something everyone can agree with. Sure, there will be political squabbles. But they come and go. In the end, what ultimately matters is whether voters have a party that represents them. And if they don’t, why does it exist in the first place?

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business