Tag: Republican Party

I Don’t Want Any Part of “The Club”: If Butler County Republicans aren’t serving the taxpayers, then they are serving corruption

Since the very corrupt prosecution of Roger Reynolds in Butler County, I have had more than a few people trying to rationalize it to me, “that the club likes musical chairs,” meaning they want a change in blood. And the sleight of hand that is going on with assigning Joe Statzer to the auditor role as a “temporary” assignment with a wink and a nod indication that after a short time, the Butler County Commissioners will just make that appointment permanent, is the kind of behavior that people have grown sick of. The media reporting on the matter made it quite obvious what was going on. The establishment types, I would go as far as to call them RINOs, lost now that Trump isn’t in the White House, are fighting for power and control. They don’t want people like Roger Reynolds looking through their books, and they have old scores to settle that go back to the David Kern days. It’s the kind of disgusting power people are afraid of in Congress presently, with the debate to not vote for Kevin McCarthy for Speaker of the House. People don’t trust these establishment politicians; in this case, I know most of them personally. They don’t see themselves as dangerous; they think of themselves as good people. But like the kind of horrible things we have seen come from abuse of power on the national level, we have certainly seen it applied to Roger Reynolds and to prevent Nancy Nix from being appointed that job by the Butler County Republican Party to keep the continuity of some very good work done at the auditor level, and rearranging the chairs that fit the party, not the voters who are supposed to be in charge. And people keep talking to me about this “club” idea as if it should matter to me. So let me just say I don’t work with politics to be part of the Club, to be invited to all the VIP events. I do it because I want to see good government in my town and for people to get what they expect for their taxpayer dollars. I personally like Joe, and I like the people around Joe, but he’s Sheriff Jones’ direct guy. It was Jones who wanted to push Roger Reynolds from his auditor’s office for all kinds of reasons, so this notion that two commissioners voted to appoint Joe Statzer as auditor of Butler County with a wink and a nod of making it a permanent position is not a good thing. 

Out of the three Butler County Commissioners who voted for Joe to step into that auditor role, two of them are what I’d consider hard Democrats, just as I consider Sheriff Jones a Democrat, a big union slug that is too expensive, and love to use power and force to intimidate political rivals into submission. And that kind of stuff works for people who want to be in the Republican Party “Club.” I am aware that people are only nice to me at social events because they’d like to invite me into the Club to have some control over my behavior. They certainly aren’t nice to me because they like me. I’ve been in business for many decades now and have dealt with a lot sharper tacks in the box than local politicians. Even national politicians. There are smart people out in the world, and these guys are not among them. I have sometimes played along because that’s what you do in all business meetings. You look for common ground and focus on that to build relationships. It’s my hope that those relationships end up working out well for the taxpayers, so it’s worth doing. But sucking up just to be in some stupid club, no thanks. I don’t need or want more friends, and I certainly would never put myself in a position to get a call late at night telling me how to think or feel so I could remain a member of a “club.” And it’s the “club” mentality that the commissioners were clearly protecting with the appointment of Joe Statzer to the auditor job. Only TC Rogers voted against Joe’s appointment; he understands what’s happening. The other two, Cindy Carpenter, might as well be the belt holding up Sheriff Jones’ pants, voted to protect the “club.” Take that belt away, and the Sheriff’s pants fall right off. And Don Dixon was the other one. Everyone keeps telling me what a great guy Don is as if I didn’t know him. As I say all the time, I love all Republicans until they aren’t. And for those who decide they are Republican all of a sudden, I welcome them. But it must be remembered that Democrats who become Republicans always have some Democrat still in them, and that is certainly the case with Don Dixon, who was a Democrat until 2000 when he switched parties during a time when it was obvious how things were going in Butler County, Ohio politically. 

I’ve known the Dixon family for a very long time. I see Don here and there, and I think he’s a pretty good guy. I don’t rush over to shake his hand for many reasons. I’ll always think of him as the guy who cost me the championship in the Soap Box Derby race in Hamilton, Ohio, in 1979, when I was around 10 or 11 years old. I was racing for the championship against Brent Dixon, Don’s son and the races were so close over three tries to determine a winner that the event judges just gave the win to the Dixons because of their political influence. That was told to my parents and me unofficially because that’s how the “club” works. That’s why many of these people want political power, so they can tilt the table in their favor when needed. In that Soap Box Derby race, we should have continued racing until a winner could be determined. But the judges were tired in the June sun and wanted to go home. So instead of another race, they just decided that the Dixon kid won. And I developed a hatred for “club” politics that would last the rest of my life. That next year Ronald Reagan ran for president, and I was the campaign spokesman in the 7th grade for our school and have been involved in politics ever since. My hatred for “club” politics likely started that day and still persists over 40 years later and will likely continue for another 40 years. (CLICK HERE to read more of this story.)

And that is what’s wrong with politics in general and why all the fuss over Kevin McCarthy. I live in a town where I have a lot of mutual friends who know John Boehner personally. I did not like John Boehner when he was the third most powerful person in the world, and I don’t like him now as a pot spokesman. It wasn’t personal, but I hated the “Club” as it was back then. And now, with Trump out of the White House, the bottom feeders have lost focus and are resuming their desire for corruption, to tilt the tables of power in their favor and with any means necessary, and they think that people will just put up with it. And I’d warn them otherwise. I have been watching this stuff for a long time, and people are much smarter about these things than they used to be. They don’t like corruption; this is why they voted for Trump because they want someone to stand up to this kind of behavior instead of just putting up with it. And on the local level, politics was never, and should never be, membership into a “club.” The only thing good about politics is what it can do for the people. The golf games, the fundraisers, and the “club” activity are all bad things in politics, and for my part, I have much better things to do with my life than to get my picture taken next to Sheriff Jones so that I can show people that I’m in “the club.” Butler County Republicans can keep their Club. They need to be worried about whether what they do serves the taxpayers. And if it doesn’t, such as this whole business of destroying lives just to protect “the club,” then they are doing the wrong things willingly.

And regarding that soap box derby race, even though I didn’t win the championship that day, I’d say because my family wasn’t in the “club,” I was very proud of what I did. I still have that car hanging in my garage, and I see it every day. My parents were proud of me; it was a fun day. My mom, who isn’t doing so well these days, brought it up as she was traveling down memory lane, and it was one of her good memories. And the lesson about the whole thing is that the Club might do everything to win. But people know who wins in life, and I’d rather live like that than be beholden to a bunch of corrupt people just to get the trophy. There are many kinds of winning in the world, and I view winning without the help of “the club” to be much more valuable than anything else in the world. Only weak losers need a “club” to help them along, which is precisely what we are seeing emerge in the Butler County Republican Party. And when those people are no longer with us, and the hearse goes by with their bodies headed to the graveyard, people won’t say, “look, there goes a great person who lived a great life.” They’ll say instead, “there goes a member of the “club” and one less corrupt person in the world who looked to politics to save their lazy selves from the scrutiny of public opinion.” Membership in the “club” disguises that reality from their minds, but when it is known what people really think, that is the reality that tyrants and the corrupt are hiding from with the illusion of social protocol. 

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

The Public Toilet that Lakota Schools Is: We tried a conservative board, but they are just as bad, except for Darbi Boddy

Recently someone from Lakota schools attempting to defend the horrible behavior of the adult staff and administrators there sent me a list of Republicans and conservatives who have been caught in sex trafficking and the widespread abuse of children as if to justify the massive failures going on in the public school system. My thoughts on it are that it’s much easier to make a list of conservatives who commit such terrible acts against children because if liberals were included, we wouldn’t have enough time in the history of the world to complete such a list because there are so many. But regarding Republicans, I had just been thinking about how disappointed I have been in trying to play things right and what we ended up with on the Lakota school board. But there were good stories, too; one thing you can count on in life is that Darbi Boddy will never be accused of accepting evil and contributing to young people’s delinquency. But for all the work that was put into getting a new conservative school board in the Lakota school system, the board is just as bad as when the liberals ran it with the majority, back when Brad Lovell and Joan Powell were the ring leaders. Suppose a political body, such as the prosecutor’s office, the sheriff’s department, and all the other characters involved, cannot protect children as the most serious element needed in a public school. In that case, there is absolutely no hope for them. At least I can say that I tried to work it out with a social solution working within the rules, even if I doubted from the beginning that a conservative school board at Lakota schools would work at all. I wouldn’t say I will stop trying, but the results have been garbage. It didn’t matter if we had a conservative majority on the school board or a bunch of sex-crazed liberals; the results were the same. The system itself is broken and is left resolute to allow progressive politics to seep into all communities and work at destroying conservative values wherever they reside. There is no hope for public education to work. 

As that same person pointed out, the recent student teacher at Lakota who has found a lot of trouble for trying to have a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old kid in one of the junior schools had attended Liberty University, a traditionally Christian school. My reply was that she was picked as a target of investigation, likely because she attended that school, so the corrupt administrators could point to someone and say, “see, they want to have sex with kids too.” I’m against anybody who wants to do such a thing, and if conservatives turn their backs on children and fail to do the right thing for their well-being, then I hate them just as much as liberals who do it. It doesn’t change my anger toward them because they call themselves conservatives. What do I say all the time, “I love Republicans until they show me that they aren’t.” And it might be recalled that I recently pointed out that the Republican Party leadership of Butler County needs an oil change so that newcomers who want to do good can. Instead of letting some Boss Hogg characters run things with the level of corruption that was typical on the television show, The Dukes of Hazzard. If I don’t get invited to the Christmas Party this year because of it, I think I’ll live. It will just be one less thing for me to worry about. If people don’t have the guts to do the right, basic things in their life, I’m not impressed with them, and I generally won’t waste my time with them. If people turn bad, no matter what political party they are in, I scrap them, move on, and never look back. So with that said, Darbi Boddy and others who have risen to support her in the face of terrible radical teacher union protests and out-of-control superintendents who pick fights and then cry when people accept those challenges like a little baby have been worth knowing and supporting. But the efforts at the Lakota school board have been horrible; I’d say it’s much worse than when the liberals ran things in the past.

.So when I say that public education is no better than using a public toilet, there is some context to go by. I tried to be part of a solution to bring proper management to the Lakota school system. I prefer not to think about public education; I have a long history of showing all the problems with it. They are institutions of liberalism that seek to embed themselves into a community and to sell destructive progressive ideas to the residents who are forced to pay for the product with the value of their properties. It’s a horrible deal; I’d prefer not to deal with them at all. I only do because they are in my community and do not represent the conservative values of my community. Another person wrote me recently and stated they were considering moving because they only moved to Lakota because of the schools. I say to those people, leave. Move away and take all your stupid liberal ideas with you. If you want to live in a great community, then do so. But don’t move to a liberal school and bring a bunch of liberal east coast ideas with you and expect everything to work out well. I lived in the area when most of the neighborhoods that are built today contained cows and vast open fields. And the cows were much better neighbors. The pigs you could smell when you drove down the road smelled far better than the smell of today and what comes out of Lakota schools. If those losers who moved here to leech off the Lakota public school system for the free babysitting service want to move to a more liberal area, then I would be fine with that. It would not hurt my feelings at all to bulldoze all those homes back into dust and to put the cows back. They were much higher quality lifeforms than the supporters of Superintendent Matt Miller and his administrators of doom. The kids of the community would be a lot better off.

But it’s not just Lakota; it’s all public schools, government in all its various manifestations. The bigger government is, the more corrupt it presents itself. And if conservatives are fighting to preserve a big government approach, then they cease to be conservatives in my way of looking at things and are just as worthless. I remind people also, all the time, that we are not a democracy. We have a democratic way of establishing who manages our government, but we are not a flee bitten democracy where popular sentiment rules the day. As is the case in Lakota, if most people think that child abuse is OK or open sexual lifestyles are permissible because the sheriff, the prosecutors, the media, and a bunch of crybaby residents believe it’s OK, that doesn’t make it OK. Leadership is where one person stands up against a tide of bad decisions alone and under great ridicule and does the right thing anyway. That is what we expect in our republic form of government. That’s what Darbi Boddy has been doing. But as to the rest of the characters have been typical, and what is typical leads to the conclusion that all government schools are no better than public toilets and the content that gets flushed down them. I wouldn’t send a kid to a public school if the school paid me to do it instead of the other way around. It’s a worthless product run by terrible, horrible people who are dumb as rocks. And it’s irresponsible to consider them teaching anybody, anything. Ever. 

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Public Schools are Dens of Evil: They are anti-Family, and anti-American

It has been nice not to talk about Lakota schools much over the last several years. As a public school in my community, I think it would be fair to say that I hate them. I see them as a massive waste of time. Their employees are detriments to our community, and the institution itself is an infusion of liberalism into an otherwise very conservative community. I tend not to pay much attention to them so long as they don’t ask for money by way of increased taxes. But, over this past year, I have had my fill of their bad management, wasted money, and perverse lifestyles, and it has reminded me of why I have hated the concept of public schools for much of my life. Lakota had been experiencing declining enrollment in a community that has been aging. But the property values have been going up, so the revenue at Lakota was good and kept them from asking for more money for many years now. But they recklessly spent their surplus and have been behaving like drunken sailors and living the lifestyle of it as well. Now, much of that bad behavior has come to the surface and been a grim reminder of precisely what is bad about public education. And for me, it’s that public schools, all public schools, are anti-family. 

No matter how much history you study, how much sociology is explored, and what the contents of philosophy are, there is nothing more important to a good society than the quality of individual families. Without the concept of a good family, people are doomed, and countries are sure to fall. Speaking with the benefit of hindsight, which I have been saying for more than four decades, those who have advocated easy divorce, free babysitting in public schools for parents too busy for their children, and reckless sexual lifestyles, a culture of intoxication, and gay relationships as marriage alternatives have had the malicious intent to destroy our country, by destroying our families. It’s obvious now to most people. It wasn’t always so straightforward because it used to be that families were so strong that people took good ones for granted. And these progressive lifestyles have been slowly introduced to us over a long time through our governments, our legal system, and specifically through public education to erode the concept of the American family. For me, family has always been the most important thing in life, and I have made great sacrifices to have a good one. My wife and I homeschooled our kids when they were little in spurts. We had no family support, and socially it was very difficult. By the time my kids were seniors in high school, they were finishing off their time with computer classes and spent their senior years living in Europe to complete their educations. I always gave them the kind of education I knew they were not getting from public education or society. They are in their 30s now, and they are great kids. They are so much better because they didn’t get destroyed in public education. Looking back on it, I wish I could have kept them entirely out of public education because all it did was harm them; it certainly didn’t help.

The public education concept of letting very liberal strangers babysit and raise a family’s children has been horrible for our country. At the same time, the parents live messed up lives putting their careers, and their sexual desires ahead of raising their children in a healthy lifestyle were bad from the beginning. A marriage is a man and a woman who get together and have children. Then they fight it out for many decades together no matter what happens to provide for their children a good and stable life. Being married isn’t about your feelings or your sexual desires. It’s not about getting attention from someone outside the marriage. You get married, stay true to your spouse, and work together to raise good children in a healthy and intellectual environment. You talk as a family. You make decisions as a family. And you stick together and make a great country by being a good family.

Public education seeks to make a menace out of that concept and is a vehicle for local distribution of liberal values that are anti-family in nature. When we hear transgender discussions or sexual alternatives being introduced to kids, we see the arrogance of a public school embedded in our communities, living off taxpayers’ property values and seeking to undo the community from within with anti-family values. And they have smiles on their faces while they do their deeds. And the proof of that arrogance comes out in the lifestyle of the progressive employees. We have certainly seen the evidence at Lakota schools more than we ever wanted to know. But worse, they are intent on justifying their bad behavior with the overall mission of public schools in general, an attack on the American family and the desecration of all that stands behind the value of a mom and a dad working hard to raise good kids to make a good world and a good country. We often find with public schools that the employees themselves openly seek to destroy this concept in everything they do. Over the years, their behavior has led to the destruction of our society in all the ways we can see today. 

The idea that children belong to the state is the central premise. Of course, they never come out and say what they are thinking because if they did, the public school ruse would fall apart, as it has in Lakota. Their assurance to the busy parents is that their children are cared for by the public school and that the shared partnership of the children is something the parents can rely on. From there, over the years, the parents feel that they can do what they want and live out whatever they desire without consequences to their family because the good public school has the raising of children taken care of. But often, all too late, they realize that the public school is the cause of their problems and without the leadership of a good mom and dad and the protection of decades of long-lasting love and affection, the children end up destroyed in the process. They grow up and vote for big government to replace the parents they never had. This poor education took advantage of them like some pervert dressed in a Santa suit. They ended up empty in a wasteland of possibilities that never came to them, making them ill-prepared to have their own families. And this mess all starts with the garbage we teach our kids in public education and the losers who teach them in those horrible places. I would call them the dens of evil because their purpose is the undoing of the American family, which is the key to any great society. And their purposeful destruction of the family concept is all the evidence anybody needs of their actual intentions. Their lifestyles are only the evidence of such a dark and maniacal device, intent on the complete destruction of our way of life and putting in place a mother government that seeks to rule us all with a jealous zeal to satisfy an insatiable and corrupt heart. 

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Trying to Find Something Nice to Say About Mike DeWine: Are Fran’s cookies enough?

Obviously, I’m not a Mike DeWine fan. He blew it during Covid by leading the nations into the lockdowns and open tyranny that the rest of the blue-state Democrats followed to ruin our lives. I know people who had their lives utterly ruined during the Mike DeWine lockdowns and even died. The social isolation, the separation of family members, and the attempts to shut down social gatherings such as churches over some ridiculous government tampering with the medical industry were reprehensible, and Mike DeWine led the way. My kids absolutely hate Mike DeWine; his dumb behavior set back their lives by likely seven years at least and personally cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars. So it was no small feat when a person I know who is very close to the DeWine administration asked me if I could think of something nice to say about the guy ahead of the Midterm elections on November 8th, 2022. I can usually think of something nice to say about anybody. But on Mike DeWine, he has essentially been a Democrat, and I don’t like anything about Democrats. Just because he put an “R” next to his name doesn’t make him a Republican. As we have seen at many levels of politics, an “R” isn’t enough. Suppose a politician doesn’t act like a Republican. In that case, I think worse of them than if we are just dealing with a Democrat because we are dealing with another level of dishonesty, and DeWine sold himself dishonestly when he proposed that he was a Republican. Yet the person running against Mike DeWine for this 2022 governor race is even worse as a Democrat, so the question is, do you vote for the Democrat who is pretending to be a Republican, or do you deal with the radical socialist who calls herself a Democrat but might as well be the secretary of Karl Marx? These are tough choices and not very good for a world of free and fair elections. 

So I have been digging deep, trying to find something I like about Mike DeWine. My friend knows I represent a lot of Republican voters who just will never put their name next to Mike DeWine because of how he behaved during his first term. But a few nice words from me might encourage others who feel the same way to maybe hold their nose and vote for DeWine anyway, for the good of the party. So this has been a tough one for me, and I have had to work hard at it for several weeks now, trying to find anything good about Mike DeWine, and the thing that jumped out most to me was that his wife, Fran, makes good cookies. I had a chance to meet with Mike DeWine a few months ago at an event, and his wife gave me some cookies, and they were really good. Were they good enough to elect him governor again? Well, maybe. Ruin people’s lives, kill them with lockdowns by putting the liberal disaster Amy Acton in charge of Ohio Health Care, but Fran’s cookies…………………… it’s kind of like weighing an Egyptian heart against a feather to see if you can pass into the Duat during death. 

But then I had to think of some more things if I could, and I can say with a straight face that during the last two years of Mike DeWine’s term, he has worked well with the Republican Reps and Senate on gun legislation. DeWine has been good on gun control measures and pro-Second Amendment concerns. He even signed H.B. 99, which my local state rep, Thomas Hall, sponsored, which provided standards for teacher training to be armed in public schools to fight back against the risk of school shootings. So, those are a few real things that Mike DeWine has done in his first term that was very positive. Sure, he wouldn’t have done them at all unless he was way underwater with Republican voters because of what he did during Covid. But it’s way better than what we would have had under Nan Whaley. Mike DeWine has signed real law proposed by the Ohio legislature that provided constitutional carry and Stand your Ground law that has undoubtedly made Ohio much better from a Second Amendment perspective. And that’s kind of what politics is, a give and take, and if it took so many people to hate Mike DeWine to make him strong on Second Amendment issues, then maybe that’s a good thing.

Then there is an issue that I care about quite a lot, and that is the election of Sharon Kennedy to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. I know Sharon, and she is fantastic. I would love to see her become the Chief Justice, which is very possible. The Supreme Court, for a long time now, has been in a balancing act between liberalism and conservative value. If Sharon wins the Chief Justice position, then her replacement would then be appointed by Mike DeWine. And in that way, like the gun control legislation, DeWine would pick a strong conservative, which would certainly help secure the Supreme Court with much more conservative representation. Ultimately, we must have a conservative Supreme Court. We have a strong presence of conservatives among the State Reps and the Senate, but the Supreme Court has been weak. A lot of people have called themselves “Rs,” but in reality, they have been very liberal by their voting record. DeWine, in other years, might have picked a liberal for the Supreme Court nomination, but he’s not dumb. He sees where things are going in this MAGA Republican Party, so he would be very inclined to appease Republicans with a strong pick.

So there are three things I thought of nice to say about Mike DeWine. See, I can find something nice to say about anybody, even him. He has been good for the last two years on Second Amendment issues. He has a good chance of doing very well on the Supreme Court by picking a conservative replacement for the Chief Justice. Based on what DeWine has done with gun rights, this particular year would likely be a more conservative choice than in other years. Then there are the cookies. Should we vote for Mike DeWine because of his wife’s cookies? Maybe it does all come down to that.

Sometimes you get governors who are so out of touch that you can’t even talk to them when you see them. Fran was always so personable when I was at that event with the DeWines. Mike asked me if I wanted a picture; I, of course, said that I was good. I didn’t want a picture. He didn’t make any strange faces; he just moved on to the next person. But Fran made sure I had some cookies, and they were very good. Even though I think of the DeWine family as a bunch of Democrats, I can at least say that they mean well. That was DeWine’s excuse after Covid; he thought he was doing the right things and just following the orders of the CDC. And that is always the danger of following government; they usually don’t know what’s best. But they have the power to impose their view of reality on people, which makes them dangerous. But Fran DeWine’s cookies were good. All voters will have to make that hard choice on November 8th. Are Fran’s cookies enough? 

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

The Men of Butler County, Ohio Are Too Busy Getting Their Nails Done to Stand up to Bullies: Republican Party endorses Roger Reynolds for Auditor, Thomas Hall is found innocent of any ethics violations

The number one question I get asked lately is, “where are the men of Butler County, Ohio?” People see what happened to Roger Reynolds, the auditor of Butler County, who is running for re-election but has seven indictments against him pushed by Sheriff Jones. They wonder why nobody has stood up for Roger. The indictments are apparent abuses of power coming out of the Sheriff’s office, yet few people have stood up to the Sheriff to defend Roger, and many don’t understand why. The ethics investigation into Thomas Hall has resulted in him being found not guilty of any trouble, even though Sheriff Jones pushed hard to find something to bust the young man on. The Sheriff even went way out of his way to try to primary a replacement candidate during the re-election of the State Representative of the 46th District. Thomas had to hire a lawyer to help clear his name, which is part of the abuse of power game. These public employees love power because it gives them leverage over people to quell their thirst for the abuse of it, and it costs money to defend against that power in courts that are essentially run by the same forces. I backed Thomas when it wasn’t popular to do so, and Jones backed Matt King and put many of his resources behind the young challenger. But Thomas won anyway, despite all the dirty politics. Recently while the Lakota superintendent was being interviewed by police he sent a message to his friend, Sheriff Jones, hoping for help in the matter of him being caught having “pillow talk” about three kids who go to his school where he wanted his wife to “drug them, molest them, and video them” for his sexual gratification, he reminded Jones that I was the same person who supported Thomas Hall in the election that was an embarrassing loss for the Sheriff, implying that law enforcement should look the other way on his issue because of it. There is a whole heap of dirty politics to go around in just those few examples, and you better believe it, there are many more cases not even talked about. This is why many are asking where the men are these days, and I say they are out getting their nails done, filling out their Fantasy Football picks, and being nice little compliant progressives that the modern world told them to be, while crime, bullying, and evil go unmolested in county politics. 

I’ve talked to people involved on the inside of the dispute between Roger Reynolds and Sheriff Jones. They used to get along just fine until a couple of things happened, which we have to talk about because Jones is the one who decided to abuse his authority behind the law to try and destroy Roger Reynolds over ridiculous conditions. I saw an ad the other day asking the question ahead of the election, “would you support Roger Reynolds with your money even though he has seven indictments against him and is facing jail time?” Well, YES! I know why there are seven indictments against Roger Reynolds, and I think they are bogus charges by a rigged system by a political enemy who has sought power and position to use government to control people, and I don’t like it one bit. Roger Reynolds knowing what I know about the case, is an innocent man being prosecuted by a system of bullies who have used politics to destroy people for personal reasons. And with Roger, one of those issues was that he let go of a family member of Sheriff Jones because they had worked in the auditor’s office and stopped coming to work because of Covid. We have all seen many employees abusing the Covid protocols set up by the out-of-control CDC, and this was a person who needed to be at work. But they were following the government nonsense regarding Covid, so Roger let them go as a non-essential worker. Nobody can say what Sheriff Jones thinks or doesn’t but judging by his behavior and what he has said to others, he then used his power and position to destroy Roger Reynolds and teach him a lesson for not keeping his family member employed. But logic would say that Roger Reynolds did the right thing. 

Then there was the incident over disclosure where Roger and Sheriff Jones were talking about maintaining records for the public. Roger Reynolds is a full-disclosure kind of guy, but Sherrif Jones wasn’t. As he said to Roger, “I don’t want someone sitting on their toilet to know how I’m spending my money. If you do it, I’ll have to do it too,” or something to that effect, according to the witnesses. Well, Roger Reynolds pushed for it anyway, so it’s at that point that the political war between them moved into all the ugliness that led to those seven phony indictments that were led by Channel 19, who started the story. (they’ll do a phony story for the Sheriff but not a legitimate story about Lakota schools, how about that)  Then Sheriff Jones pulled all his strings to set the indictments into motion to get rid of Roger Reynolds and put Bruce Jones in his place, the current fiscal officer of West Chester. I know Bruce Jones quite well. He was the campaign manager for Venessa Wells, who was running for the Lakota school board before she got so sick of the politics and wanted to drop off the slate card with party endorsement.

Venessa also received all the divorce information that led to the trouble with Matt Miller, the Lakota superintendent and the pillow talk about children that have him in so much trouble. Do you see how all this connects? Yet we don’t see Sheriff Jones indicting Miller. The law is used as a weapon to protect public employees from public management, not as an instrument of justice, and that is what has people so upset. I like Venessa; I like Bruce; I even like Sheriff Jones. In my experience, Sheriff Jones respects masculinity and tough people. But if he thinks he can get by with pushing people around, he certainly will. I’ve never had a problem with him, but I hear about all these terrible stories from just about everyone leaving people to wonder where the men are to defend against such bullies.                                                   

I am happy to report that the great Butler County Republican Party has endorsed Roger Reynolds for the upcoming election despite the seven Sheriff Jones indictments. This is even with Sheriff Jones being in the leadership of the Republican Party. The thing about politics is that people aren’t supposed to always get along. There are supposed to be fights and testing of the resolve for it to work, and Roger Reynolds has certainly shown himself to be tough and not back down from a fight.   It shouldn’t have cost him many thousands of dollars as he has to defend himself in court. At some point, Sheriff Jones owes Reynolds a lot of money to compensate him for the political hit job he has endeavored to utilize as an abuse of office to inflict catastrophic political damage to an innocent man. Nobody trusts the law when they indict Roger Reynolds but lets someone like Matt Miller go free. People see what’s going on. Despite trying to destroy Roger Reynolds out of political revenge, the Butler County Republican Party’s Central Committee did the right thing and voted to endorse Roger Reynolds anyway. So, there is good in the world. Sheriff Jones might not like it, but who cares.   He has put himself on the wrong side of history and obviously acted in ways that were not on the side of right. In public life, all kinds of people abuse their power to control and ruin other people’s lives. Roger Reynolds certainly isn’t one of them. And when it comes to standing up for what’s right, voting for Roger Reynolds on November 8th is undoubtedly a step in that direction. I’ll be voting for him proudly.  As to standing for what’s right, it’s not people who fail to defend innocent children, yet prosecute public officials who promote full disclosure who anybody should fear. There is no reason for men to hide from such bullies behind the skirts of their women while trying to impress them with talk of nail polish and feminine napkins on sale at Walgreens. It’s the bullies who should fear the men of Butler County. And as things stand now, it’s mainly the women who are the only ones standing up for anything.

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

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The Caves of Lakota Schools: An email and another attempt to divert attention to Darbi Boddy from where the real problems are

I keep getting asked why I haven’t reported on the big Lakota story. Well, for all the reasons that we saw at the last school board meeting, one of the most intense emails that could be sent to a government body was sent that very day. But in the end, the board was OK with Channel 5 doing a story about a mad mom complaining about fellow board member Darbi Boddy again, who compared her to a school shooter. That was the news at 11 after a day of very interesting information. I received the same email that the board had, so I knew the content of it, and based on that, then the meeting started with a strange executive session; another hit piece by Lakota against Darbi Boddy was hardly a concern. Instead, watching the behavior of everyone involved has been interesting. As I say all the time, don’t listen to what people say; watch what they do, and you’ll learn the truth. Or, in this case, “don’t say.” I am watching how the authorities deal with this email. They have the information, and the clock is ticking.

The silence has been revealing. Everyone in town had this email. I had communicated with Karin Johnson from Channel 5 earlier that morning, so the buzz was……buzzing. Yet the story they chose to do was one against Darbi Boddy, again, about the same trespassing in the halls story they have been pushing. And that story was one that Darbi Boddy could easily say was slanderous, character defaming, and intentionally misleading. It is one thing to have an embarrassed mother of a girl who ended up in the Channel 5 story speaking at a school board meeting. It’s quite another giving school support behind it, and the way the board reacted was almost in relief that the news was talking about something else except what was in that email. 

The email was unbelievably bad, so to answer that question properly, I think it belongs in the hands of authorities to deal with quickly. But at this point, I am more interested to see how all the participants behave, which unfortunately goes well outside the government school of Lakota. So, I have not been eager to report all the details because on this one; it’s more important to see where all the insects go when the light is turned on. Turning the light on too fast will only scare them into hiding, where they stay all the time. One way or another, this email situation was much more significant and demanded that the light be turned on differently. I am more interested in seeing how everyone behaves rather than seeking justice for the few involved. Because what’s at stake is the heart of all public education and the mechanisms of the Liberal World Order. Every vestige of the Administrative State, of government built by the foundations of the Seven Liberal Studies, taught to us from our earliest memories, was at work. The media was at that school board meeting because they were looking for acknowledgment on the contents of that email and what management planned to do about it. Instead, the behavior revealed things about their collective strategy that was very surprising, to say the least. They were fine to sacrifice Darbi Boddy as a fellow school board member as they have been from the beginning with the defamatory rhetoric of a community member. But they were uncomfortably silent on the real matter that everyone was there to hear, and they certainly didn’t come to the defense of Darbi when such an accusation was leveled at her. They seemed to welcome it.

One of the ways you can trace the flow of water in underground caves is to pour colored dyes into the water upstream and see where those colors come out of the cave and into an outside creek or river—doing that gives the study an understanding of how water flows through the complicated crevasses and mazes within the cave that wouldn’t be obvious while crawling through the mud and tight corridors. Sometimes the best thing when you can see that crawling through underground caverns isn’t the best way to understand complicated problems; a different approach is needed. Well, the same thing is true in complex social and political issues that emerge in society. When you want to know the who, what, when, where, and how, you won’t find out that information by crawling in the mud with them. You need to see how information flows through their networks and how they react to it. And then, only then, will you understand the nature of the problem. When it comes to emergencies, I think everyone did what they needed to do. The email itself might be so unbelievable that it would turn out to be complete fiction. There are witnesses, and professional medical staff who are available to cross reference, so there are ways to validate the email. At that point, a small press conference about it would be appropriate, and a cautionary tale, no different than the mom who accused Darbi Boddy of being a school shooter would have transpired. After all, we are dealing with public figures here, and everyone involved should be able to endure a bit of scrutiny for the safety and security of the children in the schools of Lakota. If they are innocent of wrongdoing, they should get in front of a camera and say it. Then move on to the next thing.   But that’s not what we are seeing with this email. We see the lights being turned on; the cockroaches are scattering to their hiding places, only this time we are observing the actions with night vision, and can see the difference between light and dark, and can then trace where our bug problem really is, by first admitting that we have one.

So to all those concerned out there who are looking for justice and information, I would caution you to value information above all else. This is obviously a much larger problem that requires a complete understanding of what we are dealing with. So I have been in no rush to turn on the light for all the reasons mentioned. Rather, I would prefer to see how the colored water moves through the complicated politics of our community and to what walls it bounces off of so that a greater understanding of friends and foes can be established. Because when it comes to schools, their whole point is to provide a safe environment for kids. Schools are not a playground for the adults to make large wages and have an easy time making a living. If the adults involved are more interested in the politics of getting rid of school board members they don’t like or protecting a teacher’s union, then their priorities are all wrong, and they need an adjustment. If the media is more interested in the gossip of local politics rather than protecting children, then we have big problems. And if law enforcement is as corrupt as many people fear it is, then we’ll have to address that as well. But we will never know if we just turn on the light. We need to study the flow of information and see what people do with it. Even knowing how serious that information is, it only gives credibility to the data collected through observations made. It’s not acceptable just to have fears and speculations about the motives of the politics of government schools that are attached to tax dollars, radical leftist labor unions, and global political sentiment intent for the destruction of America. Facts and information are far more critical, and what we are learning is infinitely more valuable. So be cool and watch where the bugs run once the lights are turned on. And you’ll have your answers.

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Thomas Hall Wins the 46th Ohio Representative Seat: Sheriff Jones has no clothes

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a political candidate who deserved election or re-election more than Thomas Hall did in a very tough year where districts were redrawn at the last minute. There was more internal party opposition against an opponent than what he not only survived in an August 2022 primary but excelled. In the end, Thomas Hall beat his rival, Matt King, by almost 12%, although with the addition of Liberty Township to the new 46th district, it looked like the race might tighten up. By the time the smoke cleared, it was an easy win for Thomas Hall despite the opposition. Part of that was that he has had an excellent record during his first term. But the rest of it was that he just worked so hard to win, personally knocking on over 6000 doors and meeting voters face to face. And many members of the Butler County Republican Party, led by Sheriff Jones, threw everything they had at him, including the kitchen sink and all the plumbing, to defeat him. But it didn’t make a dent in Thomas, which didn’t surprise me in the least. I had called the race over eight months ago and given my personal endorsement. And as history shows, when I endorse someone, they tend to win. Not so much for anything I do, but for the quality of people, the candidates tend to be and for knowing the trends in politics. Nobody was going to outwork Thomas Hall, and as I have come to know him, he’s a good, sincere person to his very core. Nobody would beat Thomas Hall as long as he let voters know who he was, which he did, walking neighborhoods for many weeks now, shaking hands and talking to people instead of just sending out mailers, robocalls, and hit pieces on Facebook. Thomas was well funded and did all the usual political stuff, which I mentioned. But in addition to that, his campaign put in many thousands of hours of labor into direct communication with real people cutting out all the traditional media from hijacking the process. And for voters, they have come to realize they are lucky to have someone like Thomas to vote for. 

The sad part of this story, as positive as it has been, was the tragic fall of Sheriff Jones, who made it his personal vendetta to destroy Thomas Hall in every way, shape, and form. For several months now, I have felt sorry for Sheriff Jones. I see what he is going through now in many of the competitive shooting events that I do throughout the year. It’s tough to be the best at something, then suddenly, some young kid who can do it better, faster, and more often than you comes along, and it hurts. I’ve seen that kind of jealousy destroy many people, and many never recover from it. Thomas Hall wasn’t willing to kiss the ring of one of Butler County’s kingmakers in the Republican Party. Jones obviously took it personally and decided to primary Hall for a second term in the Ohio legislature as a Representative. I watched over much of the fall of 2021 as many fellow Republicans were unified and would attend events together in great camaraderie, to suddenly being enemies with one another. That’s about when Sheriff Jones went on WLW radio and went out of his way to embarrass Thomas Hall because the Sheriff didn’t like his voting record. So, he wanted to show himself as the kingmaker in Butler County and put his aggressive efforts behind Matt King to primary out of office Thomas Hall. Suddenly, many of those same Republicans weren’t getting together anymore, and by the spring of 2022, the sides were split. Most Republicans who wanted to maintain a relationship with Sheriff Jones had turned against Thomas, betting that his political career was over because Sheriff Jones had decided it was. 

I’ve known Sheriff Jones for a long time. I have liked him most in the early days of the Tea Party movement, then again during the first Trump term. To his credit, he was one of the first area Republicans to join behind Trump in 2016. But I remind people often that Trump used to be a Democrat. So did Kari Lake, for that matter. Sheriff Jones, to me, has shown himself to be a big government Democrat who dresses as a 50s-style cowboy sheriff. I like the look. But his actions are much more Democrat than conservative. We had a mutual friend in David Kern, so we have tolerated each other the way relatives do at Thanksgiving Dinner. Sometimes we got along, sometimes not so much. I’ve always liked what he brought to the “Republican” brand as an image. But have been embarrassed by him often as a public official. I understand that he’s never done anything but public life. So it’s been a relationship I’ve been willing to take the good with the bad. That holds until I see him start abusing his power as he clearly did with Thomas Hall. Then anything good Sheriff Jones had done all these years suddenly gets tossed out the window as he does the very Democrat thing, abusing his authority to exert power over others. He went way out of his way to make an example out of Thomas Hall, and many other Republicans followed after him. 

In the end, the good guys won. Thomas won due to his great reputation and his very hard work. He didn’t need a party endorsement, even though he should have had it as a good incumbent. Nobody wanted to cross Sheriff Jones and feared what their own political futures might become if they did. So, things got very ugly during the campaign. Nobody would have thought poorly of Thomas Hall if he had caved under pressure. I always thought he was the clear winner, and I would tell him that. I knew if people could get to know Thomas the way I had, that they’d easily vote for him no matter what Sheriff Jones said. I also knew that Sheriff Jones didn’t have the political capital that he thought he had. Outside of some Lakota school board members, some reporters at Fox 19, and some thankful tax increase moms in the neighborhoods around his house in Liberty Township, a lot of people don’t like Sheriff Jones because they have come to know him as a bully. And so long as Jones has stayed in that bubble, he hasn’t had to face the truth about how people really feel about him when his back was turned. I have often thought some of those feelings were unfair. I always thought Sheriff Jones meant well, looking at him through the eyes of someone like the late Liberty Township trustee, David Kern. But after what Jones did to Thomas Hall during this election cycle and other Republicans who dared to support him, I could see why so many people would not like the Sheriff. So, I knew when it came time to vote; people would pick Thomas Hall. And, of course, they did. After all the money that was spent against Hall by the Sheriff Jones-led Matt King challenge, it’s evident that many of those characters were stuck in the past and had not learned the lessons of recent political trends. You couldn’t buy elections anymore with ads in the paper, simple yard signs, or robocalls with the Sheriff talking endorsements. I had many tens of thousands of hits on this site over the last several months from people looking for more information on Thomas. And what they found was the truth, the truth better than paid ads and sheriff endorsements can give. People were able to see Thomas Hall for the excellent person that he was. And that’s why he won and will continue to well into the future. 

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Lakota is Teaching Children to be Street Walkers: Darbi Boddy pulls back the veil to reveal what has been hidden from the public, thanks to Channel 5 News

I suppose we should thank Channel 5 news in Cincinnati and the attempts by Karin Johnson to help the mad moms of Lakota build a case against the new school board member, Darbi Boddy, for showing us something we did not previously know. We keep hearing from the actual people committing all the vile acts in Lakota about how innocent they are, how CRT isn’t being taught and how mean Darbi Boddy is and how several parents are circulating a petition to get Darbi removed, even though the voters just picked her to do the job she has been doing. Darbi represents a large portion of the Lakota school district just north of Cincinnati, Ohio. She has been asking many questions, mainly about what kids are being taught and how radicalized it is toward progressive political goals that are nationwide and very dangerous to a healthy society. Darbi didn’t believe the people who were saying there was no CRT in Lakota and that the transexual agenda wasn’t a problem. So Darbi showed up at a couple of Lakota’s schools unannounced and took some pictures. This outraged parents, so they pulled security footage of where Darbi went, and Karin Johnson from Channel 5 put some of the results up on a television report. In one of the clips, they are accusing Darbi of taking a picture of a student, even though she said she didn’t take any pictures of any of the kids. Based on what was shown, it’s an irrelevant point. The student that Darbi took notice of in the hallways and that the mother of the Karin Johnson news report pulled back the veil just enough to give voters a real glimpse into what is really going on at Lakota, away from the sustained eyes of the public and hidden behind polite theatrics at school board meetings. We saw in the video a young girl dressed essentially as a street walker on par with some of the worst in Washington D.C.’s K-Street.  And it shows that Lakota has some big problems.

To hide the issue, the mad moms, the complicit administrators, and the rival school board members, the fuel behind the Channel 5 continued story, felt Darbi shouldn’t have been there. She didn’t have “permission” to visit the school in such an unofficial capacity. Yet legally, Darbi Boddy was elected to do exactly what she has been doing, so the debate is over technique, and as I say all the time to everyone, the rules are not meant for winners. The losers write rules to protect them from the winners in life. And rules are often used to conceal crimes, not reveal them. The administrators and members of the teacher’s union do not want management just showing up unannounced. So they have all kinds of unwritten rules to protect them from judgment. But if you really want to know what’s happening somewhere, especially where you are expected to manage the employee resources, you need to show up when they least expect it and see things for yourself. Within that framework, Darbi considers such an investigation “official business.” The school board might think they need a vote from the board to do such things, but it’s behind that kind of bureaucracy that the real crimes get committed. So I think Darbi is right to show up unannounced to take some pictures and stir things up a bit. Because if she hadn’t, we wouldn’t be talking about this story in the middle of summer 2022 when very few people are thinking about public school business. 

There has been a lot of frustration about CRT at Lakota and across the country. Polite school board members playing by the unofficial rules of conduct are hoping that people will be honest and reveal their clandestine radicalism while they are in possession of the community’s children. So they keep hoping a whistleblower will step forward and reveal all the evidence needed to conclude a case, and action can then be taken. But as I have also been saying for a long time, you can tell all you need to know by the kind of students and what views they express just from the safety of a school board meeting. But if that weren’t enough, my attention was directed to a Spark article about dress codes that came up over this overly sexualized student in the Channel 5 report, which clearly shows how radical the student population has become. Spark is the student-run newspaper. In the December 28th, 2021 edition titled “Back to the Drawing Board,” students are seeking to reform the school’s dress code to reflect anti-racist sentiments, which specifically include do-rags and sexually “expressive” attire that is directly tied to rape culture. Yeah, that’s really in the article. Strangely, Karin Johnson didn’t report about that even when there was evidence of it right in front of her. The point of the Channel 5 report was to talk about how “dangerous” Darbi Boddy is as a school board member and not following some written or unwritten rules. And that the kid dressed as a streetwalker in the school in front of other children and administrators was the victim. The Spark article goes on to say, “regulating students’ bodies is also another way of perpetuating white, heterosexual, middle-class values, as most dress codes conform to a certain kind of femininity and masculinity that does not take into account cultural, racial, religious, gender, and sexual differences among students.” Many people likely don’t know about the Spark article and otherwise wouldn’t know what students think about dress codes if this Channel 5 report had not shown us the alarming student who thought she needed to express herself as a K-Street applicant to a purple-hatted pimp on the street corner. We used to call them ladies of the night, but these days, the streetwalkers are on the streets at 6 AM. So it’s an expanding market looking for more Lakota applicants, by the way, things look. 

Essentially, the inmates are running the asylum. The administrators allow this bad behavior to continue in the schools and look for overly restrictive school board rules to protect them from administrative judgment. If Darbi Boddy had not gone to see what was going on for herself, we wouldn’t know a lot of what we do about the culture that is clearly driving CRT teaching and making everyday classroom environments highly sexualized.   When the school newspaper thinks that dress codes impose white, middle-class values on them, what the heck are we wasting all this money on an education for? If kids are learning this kind of garbage, and there are mothers like this mom of the girl in the Karin Johnson report who will expose their child on national television just to use her as leverage to get rid of Darbi Boddy off the school board, then is any of the public education at Lakota worth anything?   My question to that mom is, “why would you let your kid go to school dressed the way she was?” To be fearful that Darbi Boddy took pictures of her kid when she was more than willing to exploit that kid to push an obvious political agenda that feeds the kind of maniacal subculture reflected in the Spark article about dress codes…………….we have much bigger problems than just CRT. The public education environment is rotten to the very core of its purpose and is a problem that cannot be ignored. But thankfully, in their hate of Darbi Boddy, all these characters, the mom, Karin Johnson, teachers, administrators, purple-haired people eaters who complain at all the school board meetings about fairness as they push for openly sexual lifestyles have let us peek into their tainted world in reaction. And what we see is very ugly, dangerous, and expensive. 

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Butler County’s Version of Liz Cheney: As Thomas Hall said of Sheriff Jones, “he’s a bully, using his office for political motives until people stand up to him”

When I first heard about this sixth charge from the Butler County Sheriff’s Department, as they have been investigating Roger Reynolds as the auditor for several accusations of corruption, I thought it was ridiculous before. But now, it had become just as much of a kangaroo court as the January 6th Commission for which Liz Cheney was leading in an attempt to keep President Trump off the 2024 presidential ticket. Roger Reynolds has been an excellent auditor in Butler County for a long time, and he has a political rival in Sheriff Jones who wants to show him how much political power he has, and the two have been at it for well over a year now. And instead of fighting in a parking lot somewhere, this is how modern bullies fight; they use the legal system as a weapon against their political opponents. I watched in bewilderment how a grown man like Sherrif Jones could have such a press conference announcing so much of nothing as he did with this latest stack of accusations against Roger, declaring that this latest one on the pile was some kind of big crime of corruption in line with the recent case of P.G. Sittenfeld from Cincinnati who was just found guilty of similar charges. In Roger’s case, he is nothing like the dirty politicians like P.G. Sittenfeld or the very dirty politics that occurred in the FirstEnergy case in Columbus, which isn’t about money at all. The FirstEnergy controversy is an attack by the political left against the Ohio energy grid and using political infighting among Republicans to hide it. When you see cases like this, where a Sheriff is so personally involved in finding anything to knock off a political rival within the Republican Party, you can tell easily that it’s not a case about the crime but about power and control over other people.

I know the characters involved in the new indictment, such as Jenni Logan, the treasurer from Lakota schools. She stated she thought Roger Reynolds was asking Lakota to invest money owed back to the District into a golf academy at Four Bridges. Ben Dibble, who was president of the school board around that time in 2017, was involved as well, according to the liberal activist from Fox 19, Jennifer Edwards Baker, who would love to erode away the very good Republican Party of Butler County any way possible. She’s been at it for a while, and area Republicans have been targeted for anything resembling impropriety. Of course, that’s tough because many of the modern Republicans are not like they were back in the Michael Fox days or when Bob Shelley was a trustee in Liberty Township. Lakota has their own problems, and if there was some incidental conversation about a golf academy from money coming back out of the auditor’s office, which Roger Reynolds represents, it was likely out of polite conversation. I’ve seen the lunch circuit Jenni Logan has been a part of for a long time, and I understand how talk can be made. For a while, especially before Covid, almost everywhere I went to lunch, I saw Jenni Logan and Matt Miller, the Lakota superintendent, there talking with other people. I can easily see in such meetings how talk about how money should be spent would occur. Is that legal or illegal? Well, suppose we start picking pepper out of fly droppings like this over legal issues meant to show the sheriff’s department’s power over things people say and go from there. In that case, we will likely create a business and political environment where nobody can talk to anybody about anything anywhere. Knowing the characters involved in this latest indictment, it didn’t change a thing about my opinion about Roger Reynolds. I will still happily vote for him and support him in the upcoming elections. I care more about what good of a job he has done for my community than what kind of political enemies he has made along the way. And after that press conference by Jones, I could only conclude that he has now become Butler County’s own version of Liz Cheney, who hates President Trump so much that she would attempt to bend the law and waste endless amounts of money in investigations just to keep him out of the political theater.

The level of ridiculousness really overflowed when Sheriff Jones tried to bring up Thomas Hall, who is a current State Rep running for the 46th District, which now includes Liberty Township.   Jones indicated he was continuing to investigate Thomas Hall for conflicts of interest even though a recent Keith Faber report from way back in 2018 and 2019 failed to show anything wrong, even under a microscope of a state audit generated based on what people “say.” Those old-style political hits aren’t going to work in this new world where people have seen so much done against President Trump. The public is much more savvy about these things than they used to be. In reaction to Sheriff Jones indicating he was going to continue investigating Thomas Hall, whom Jones is supporting a rival to run against Hall in the primary on August 2nd, Hall simply called Jones a “bully.” Hall said specifically to the Journal News, “this whole thing is ridiculous, for the sheriff to want an investigation I think is wrong, using his office for political motives when there’s an election 19 days from today. (when the statement was made and referring to the August 2nd primary race)  The sheriff is a bully and will continue to do what he wants until people stand up to him.” That’s one of the reasons I’m supporting Thomas Hall; he’s a good, sharp young man who can handle the heat in the kitchen and make a wonderful meal with it. And the sheriff doesn’t like him because he won’t kiss the ring and allow Jones to be a token kingmaker. 

I’ve talked to Roger Reynolds, and I know why Jones doesn’t like him, at least from Roger’s perspective. Roger runs a great auditor’s office in Butler County. People say all kinds of things, and if the roles were reversed, Sheriff Jones could easily find himself on an indictment list based on “what people say.” People could say that Jones is a bully because he wants to put the fear of the law into local trustees who vote on budgets from which his family and friends benefit. Jones has family and friends employed all over Butler County, and he doesn’t like it when they get laid off for not showing up for work. I know Roger pushed for more transparency on how money gets shown to the public, and Jones wasn’t a fan. And from there, their relationship, which had been a good one, fell apart. Those things happen; I see it as a human resource issue of county employees fighting over power and prestige. But when that hatred escalates to the level where a sheriff is willing to abuse his power to the extent he has with Roger Reynolds and Thomas Hall, purely over political power within the Republican Party, then it becomes a big problem. What we really have is a Butler County version of Liz Chaney. This name used to have significant meaning in the Republican Party until she was revealed to be a liberal hack by the Trump administration. And the phony hearings happening now in Washington D.C. are the same phony hearings that have been thrown at Roger Reynolds because he has pushed for more transparency and accountability for public officials. Not less. And for all the reasons that the political establishment hates Trump, they hate people like Roger Reynolds and Thomas Hall. And when it comes time to vote for them, I will happily pick Roger and Thomas every time over the opinions of Sheriff Jones. 

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Thomas Hall Comes Out Squeaky Clean: Ohio Ethics Investigation by Keith Faber shows a great track record and no wrongdoing

It’s a few weeks away from the August 2nd primary for the Ohio Representative election between the incumbent Thomas Hall for the newly drawn up 46th District seat and his challenger Matt King.  And it wouldn’t be a typical election cycle if there wasn’t some kind of dirt being thrown by somebody.  After all, a lot of money gets tossed into the ring from numerous contributors, and they all want to see their pick win the election, and the belief that people can be significantly influenced by finance and sentiment perpetuates a lot of malice.   That is how the typical blood sport of politics works, and what we usually end up with in office, if done well, is the best possible candidate that we can get because of the grueling process.  But when you see bad behavior in that election process, we must talk about it because it shows where the real cracks of a campaign genuinely emerge.  And in the case of Thomas Hall, he is so squeaky clean that any attempts to say otherwise about him come out sounding ridiculously overinflated.  And that’s what emerged from a shot of desperation coming not so much from the challenger for the 46th District, Matt King, but certainly from those who want to use Matt to knock out Thomas from the very high bar he has set because many in politics simply don’t want to live up to that level of measure.  There was some controversy coming out of a group “Ohio News Hotline” that was trying to stir up trouble for Thomas, and an Ohio Ethics Investigation was discussed based on the years 2018 and 2019, hoping that they could dig up something to make Thomas look bad.  In short, there was nothing there, but the elements who wanted to knock off Thomas Hall were trying to stir up trouble, so setting the record straight is mandated.

It had been a good week for Representative Hall, the week after the 4th of July 2022.  I had just reported on how great he did at a local Tea Party meeting where he made an excellent case for why he should be re-elected to a somewhat hostile crowd.  Then on Thursday, he spoke at Lakota schools and did a fantastic job there as well.  Probably too well because Democrats and RINO Republicans who are very uncomfortable with Thomas Hall moving his influence into Liberty Township as the new 46th District is mapped out aren’t comfortable with the strong record of conservative politics Hall represents.  He’s rock-solid in every Republican measure based on his track record, and the NRA just came out with a glowing endorsement of Hall, so plenty of political enemies were stirred up by those two public speeches.  Then on Friday, there was a fund-raiser with several Democrats involved, and they were more than energized to support Matt King, hoping to take down the very conservative Thomas Hall.  Now that’s not unusual.  I know Matt and the King family, and they tend to be solid conservatives.  But Matt is unknown as a politician, so obviously, Democrats are hoping for that variable to help them, so they support King for obvious reasons.  Thomas is a known threat to them as opposed to gaining leverage over someone they might be able to call in favors later because they helped with the campaign.  Sheriff Jones has been working against Thomas because he doesn’t like the strong voting record of Hall, so there some inner Republican theatrics going on as well that have been fueling Democrats to help King gain some steam, much the way Democrats got involved in the governor primary helping put DeWine over the top in that recent election. 

That’s when the timing of the ethics report, done by Keith Faber, became an inflated issue and an anonymous tip attempted to stir up trouble through the Ohio News Hotline, prompting a media hit piece against Thomas Hall.  I also know Keith; I think he’s a good guy too.  Investigations like what his office does, I think, are great because they keep politicians clean.  It’s a good check on the balance of power, and without the Auditors Office from the State there to investigate, there would be much more corruption in politics than there is.  While all this talk was going on, P.G. Sittenfeld in Cincinnati was found guilty of bribery, so these topics were fresh on the minds of the desperate when the contents of the Ohio Ethics Investigation on Hall were made available.  Now here’s where unethical behavior starts to really show itself.  I’ve read the report on Thomas Hall from Keith’s office, which is squeaky clean.  There is nothing bad or disingenuous there at all.  But the radical elements and Democrats who want Hall gone tried to take things out of context to at least create doubt in people who haven’t read the report and never plan to.  Just the mention of an ethics report might be enough to inspire them to make a change from Thomas to King on August 2nd.  As mentioned, the report covered 2018-2019, but it wasn’t released to the public until June 16th, 2022, just a month and a half before the election.  That in itself is more than a bit suspicious. 

The report states that Thomas did not recuse himself as a trustee on matters involving the fire department in Madison Township, where his father, a hero who stopped the school shooting at the school there, was the fire chief.  In those instances, Thomas sought legal counsel on the matter and provided the proper distance required when dealing with financial matters.  But on voting for equipment and supplies for the fire department, he participated with the other trustees under explicit direction from that legal advice.  The report from the auditor simply mentions that it was unusual.  Not that it was inappropriate.  Then the report shows that Madison Township had some late tax filings and negative balances during Thomas’ term.  This was a problem with the fiscal officer they had at the time and was a common problem many trustees face.  Nothing improper, just commonplace management problems.  And with all the digging that the vast resources of Keith Faber’s office could utilize over a lengthy period of time and sit on a desk somewhere for three years until just before the August 2nd election, there turned out to be nothing to see regarding anything improper done by Thomas Hall.  I would propose that the timing of the report’s release and distribution to the public was meant to create doubt in the public to affect the election.  By the time people learned that the report contained no wrongdoing by Thomas Hall, the election would be over, and from the Democrat perspective, hopefully, King would win the election.   For the enemies of Thomas Hall, all they need to do is create doubt which was where the tip to the Ohio News Hotline went out to stir up enough buzz in the final two weeks of the campaign to push some voters maybe away.  The report was and is a last-ditch effort by a political class, both Republicans and Democrats, who don’t want the high measure Thomas Hall has forced them all to live up to.  Very few could go through a Keith Faber Ohio Ethics Investigation and come out as clean as Thomas did.  And that truly scares them.   Another term of Thomas Hall may make it so they can’t compete in the political world ever in the future.  And for voters, that’s very good news indeed.

Rich Hoffman

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