Tag: Sheriff Jones

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 Dumb Idea Lakota Had to Crush Public Comments: We need more school board members like Darbi Boddy

Everyone knows that I’m always available to help. I could have given far better legal advice to Lakota schools than what they have been getting from these bottom-feeder lawyers the last couple of years. Lakota is quick to hire $300 to $400 an hour of legal advice but slowly makes decisions on everything because they make everything too litigious, which comes from the fact that the board members themselves aren’t very competent. Board members Julie Shaffer and Kelly Casper were around when they had all that information on superintendent Matt Miller’s bizarre sexual lifestyles back in 2020. Instead of dealing with it, they spent a lot of money to put a fence around it. They can only blame themselves now that the public has discovered what they wanted to cover up. And it was they who played politics with everything. Remember how board member Darbi Boddy accidentally put a link to pornography when she was trying to point out what kind of sexual grooming was going on in the schools to the exposure of children? The board, Matt Miller himself, and all the labor union communists blew a gasket and tried to run her out of town and force her to resign. What did they think was going to happen? We had just elected Darbi to the board, and so far, in 2022, she has done a great job. The radical progressive elements that run the school don’t like her, and that is a massive credit to Darbi. She is what people have been looking for for a long time and the more those people hate her, the more the conservative voices of our community love her.   So the ill advice of legal counsel to have less public disclosure in the first place caused many of the problems that there are now. Matt Miller should have been fired in 2020 for violations of his contract. And all these legal bottom feeders have only allowed the school board to dig the hole deeper than they are currently burying themselves in. It sounds like they should have continued to ask me what to do. I certainly wouldn’t have advised them to do what they did on Monday the 10th of October, 2022, where the attorney for Lakota was the only person allowed to give public comments where he motioned to suspend comments by the public until things cooled down. That was a big mistake.

Lakota’s attorney was referring to several lawsuits that have gone against the school by private residents due to public disclosure needs. Lakota has been slow to reveal anything when pressed, especially once they had massive amounts of evidence about the sexual lifestyle of their superintendent Matt Miller, which they should have dealt with well before now. Essentially the lawyer for Lakota was playing games with the public, which was voiced through the mouths of Julie Shaffer and Kelly Casper to refer to the court cases as taking away money from the “children” as if to punish the public for wanting to see the public records, and by punishing them by taking away their right to public comment. News flash on a school board’s ability to take away the public’s right to provide public comment. The lawyer is going to lose that case. No judge in the country will side with Lakota because it’s a clear violation of the First Amendment. I know that progressive superintendents who are so highly honored by Mark Zuckerberg and other big progressives don’t understand that the Bill of Rights is the law of the land in America, and we aren’t going to erase it or “progress” beyond it. (CLICK HERE TO READ THE MARK ZUCKERBUCKS CONNECTION) What’s going to happen is that Lakota will have to rewrite their policy to allow no ambiguity for public comment, and the ability of the public to speak will be restored quickly. People are tired of all these legal games that have been played for a long time and are very expensive to restrict them from the proper management of their district by the public. And now they see what many have been saying for a long time. They voted for Darbi and look poised to vote for more like her in the future. But the school board and the radical leftist elements which have been in charge of the school worked hard to get rid of her. And now that people have come to support her, they are trying to remove the public’s voice, which has only made people more angry. And now that there is so much dirt on the superintendent Matt Miller, that Lakota as a board has worked to cover up, people are righteously angry. 

And this is typical of the kind of people who have been on the Lakota school board for a while; this was going to be the year where they started working toward another levy. You could hear it in many of the meetings so far in 2022. The liberals on the school board had gone out and given the teacher’s union raises when they shouldn’t have and spent themselves into oblivion. And they were counting on Matt Miller as the superintendent to sell it to the public. I mentioned Mark Zuckerberg because Matt Miller has been identified nationally as one of the biggest progressive superintendents in the country, and he is supposed to be at a Mark Zuckerberg event in April of 2023 in San Diago. So using that national profile, Lakota was hoping to win over voters with a new tax increase. But the people putting on that event are the same losers who are trying to destroy our country, so it’s unclear why anybody would think that would be a good idea. And knowing now what we do about Matt Miller’s sex life, which he admits involves fantasies of children, I wonder if that Zuckerberg event is still on the calendar. Well, given that they are all devil-worshiping liberals, they are likely to give Matt Miller more awards for such bad behavior. So I’m sure Miller is still good with the progressive community. But the conservative community of Lakota, not so much.

It was all avoidable, the public pays for the school, and they need to be a part of its management, including having opinions about the kind of employees Lakota has on the payroll. Matt Miller is the one who acted poorly and, once caught, tried to claim that he was a victim of political character assassination. Then when people became angry over that, the board cut public comments as if to punish the public for having an opinion. Then further stated that if people were going to continue to take action against the district legally, they were just stealing money away from the children. No, this is what cover-ups cost and a lack of public disclosure. This is also what it costs when you play politics and try to destroy people whom the public clearly supports. I am very proud of Darbi Boddy for standing tough against all these hostile progressive forces. I don’t want my money going to such people of low character, so Darbi has been representing me very well. I would love to have several more people like her on the board. The next election will have a couple of seats opening up. Trump will be running for a second term, so that the voter turnout will be very high that year. It would be easier than normal to put a few more people who would work better with Darbi on the board and start getting Lakota pointed in the right direction, which will be the next trend in public education where the tax money follows the child, not the zip code. The teacher union model is dead. And it has been expensive with legal gymnastics to attempt to keep it alive on life support. But any school board member not embracing the inevitable is only doing long-term damage to the reputation of Lakota. And that failure is the worst of all.

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

“The Bald Guy With The Bullwhip”: Master manipulators who think they are in charge

After reading the transcript of the police interview many times, it is quite clear what happened toward the end of the document, which is available to the public upon request at the Sheriff’s department of Butler County. And again, this is the reason for public disclosure. Not enough people utilize it to keep runaway public employees in check, everything from scandalous school superintendents to cops drunk with power so they can have leverage in a political party and destroy all rivals with paper clips and social backstabbing. Without question, the intention at the end of the interview for the police report that showed what kind of sexual lifestyle the Lakota school superintendent has, the public employees were out of control. They had forgotten that they work for the taxpayers. At one point in the interview, Matt Miller refers to Darbi Boddy as a source of trouble, provoking the investigation as “my school board member” as if he was in charge of everything, and not that he reported to her as a superior in the chain of command. And when he felt compelled to refer to me as the “bald guy with a bullwhip” and remind the interviewing officers that in politics, my guys (Rich Hoffman) have beat Sheriff Jones’s guys, knowing full well that the Sheriff was going to have the final say on whether the investigation into the Lakota superintendent continued, or was stalled with the rationalization that everything that was investigated and deemed “pillow talk” between consensual adults. It couldn’t be more clear that the intention was to influence the direction of the investigation with the kind of manipulation that creates dangerous people in the world. There was no reason to bring up that the guy I supported for the 46th Representative seat in Ohio, Thomas Hall, had just beat the guy that Sheriff Jones supported, Matt King, but to provoke anger in the Sheriff, the ultimate boss of all the employees conducting the interview. I would recommend people read the whole document for context, but it’s clear to me that was what was going on. 

Really, since August 2022, I have heard from so many people of bad quality who were firmly in the Matt Miller support camp, and I found them disgusting. I can often avoid people like that, who I would say are way behind the curb of learning. They are essentially grown-up 15-year-olds in 40-year-old bodies who are over-sexed, not very smart about the ways of the world, and very selfish.   They are often a long way away from knowing how the world works and are the kind of people you don’t want to speak to while in a crowded movie theater. Or when you are running behind to a home Bengals game in the B Lot, and you have a parking pass, they won’t get out of the way because they are too drunk to move and are tailgating, taking up three or four parking spaces as if they own the place. They act that way about Lakota schools too, and the police arrangement to entangle themselves with the labor union element. They all forget that the taxpayers are the boss, they are the employees, and they are not in charge. I was generally happy with the police report by itself. I had no desire to read the whole transcript. But once I heard I was in it, I had to check it out. And leading up to the publication of the police report itself, which I wanted it not to say what it did about the sex practices of Matt Miller, I had a parade of Matt Miller labor union radicals from the far-left who thought they were in charge and had a right to harass me over the stacks and stacks of “dirt” I had on Matt Miller. As I saw their ridiculous comments and emails, I’d look at all that material and wonder what they were thinking. They reminded me of those drunk losers at Bengal games in the B Lot who just wouldn’t get out of the way even though you had a parking pass to the lot that was rather valuable. But their drunk antics took precedence in their minds, and they had to forcibly be removed from a parking spot so that you could park before the game started. 

When Matt Miller brought up to the police that I was a bald bullwhip guy from the far-right and that my guy had beat Sheriff Jones’ guy in the last election, he was hoping to tick off Jones, which is easy to do, and hide the terrible things Miller had done in his personal life behind the politics of Butler County.   I think the police investigators did a good job of interviewing Matt Miller, even though it was one of them who was clearly leading the questioning at the end to shape the report that would eventually come out into one that would stop with “adult consensual sex” rather than “school superintendent who plots drugging, molesting and videotaping children in the school for sexual fantasies.” After all, as Matt Miller admitted, it was just that “one time.” I wanted all those stacks of emails, text messages, craigslist advertisements for sex, and many other things to be political shenanigans. Before I mentioned them in public, I recommended sending them to the police for an investigation, and I’m now very glad that the police did what they did. Even if there was a wink and a nod from all the public employees into believing they are in charge, not the taxpayers. To them, anyone with any expectations about anything is far right, and they rebel like children against their bosses at every opportunity. And those public employees were clearly winking and nodding to each other to evoke the wrath of Sheriff Jones into making the case political instead of one that might be dangerous to children in the school district and their parents. 

What special talents do they have, getting divorced, sex addiction, pandering to their superiors? Here is the Right-Winged Bald Guy with the Whip.
Bullwhips are very useful. Not for sexual reasons of any kind, but many other things

All the employees and their apologists from Lakota schools and Butler County, in general, showed very ugly sides of themselves in defending Matt Miller before they knew the whole story, which is the typical labor union mentality of all the public employees, from the cops to the teachers and administrators. And that same level of manipulation by the school superintendent who thinks he’s some kind of celebrity because he and his friends live in the vacuum of a progressive think tank of public education that is far removed from the outside world where real people live. You can see that same level of activism coming from the apologists he utilized in that police report, reminding Jones that he had lost in that last election.   And that my guy had beaten his guy. And that they thought nobody would notice what they were up to. As far as I’m concerned, the police got the most important parts in the transcript. If the school system itself isn’t alarmed, and if the police aren’t, they think all this behavior is among consensual adults, that’s a burden they will have to carry. They want to believe everyone does these things; that responsibility is on them. I still have my stacks of material. They were warned. Their hypocrisy and behavior, in general, have only confirmed what many conservative community members have been most concerned about. I was sad to find out that Matt Miller is actually as bad as everyone was saying he was, and as I had on occasion to wonder about myself when dealing with him. The transcript of the police investigation makes it clear just how bad the situation really is, and the important things did get revealed. But if that’s not enough for the school board or the community, then no wonder people are so worried about sexual grooming in schools and the lack of safety behind the police security that keeps people from investigating too closely what goes on behind the labor union veil. The inmates are running the asylum, and they think they are entitled to do so with all the arrogance of spoiled brats who don’t know otherwise. You get this when you let public sector labor unions put most of their energy into covering up bad behavior. You get a lot more of it, such as certainly the case with the superintendent of Lakota schools.  And just for clarification, we are just talking about his version of the story. The ex-wife’s version is also available as a public record and its much, much, worse.

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Sheriff Jones, The R.A.T.: When Trump comes to town, he will have very clean shoes

Well, you could see why people would be concerned, and they are. Now that there have been whistleblowers who have pointed out things that Matt Miller has been involved in, the superintendent of Lakota schools, of extremely bad character, those whistleblowers are now worried about retaliation from the superintendent’s friend Sheriff Jones. During the transcript of the police investigation into Matt Miller’s very controversial sex life, the scraggly, overpaid, online dating addict name-dropped Sheriff Jones to the investigators to let them know about me and my role in a few recent political campaigns purely to garner favor with the police to support him in the matter. And in all likelihood, it worked. It was out of context to the rest of the investigation when Miller brought up my name in connection to the recent election of Thomas Hall over the Sheriff Jones-supported Matt King.  Sheriff Jones had paraded King around purely out of spite against Hall, and I worked to help the very good incumbent Hall as Sheriff Jones went about to utterly destroy the very nice young man, purely out of vengeance. Well, everyone knows when I support a candidate, they usually win. And Jones has found his brand to be much less influential in these post-Tea Party years. There has been a similar rift between the Sheriff and me over Roger Reynolds, the Butler County auditor. The Sheriff wants him out and to replace him with another friend of mine, Bruce Jones. Why, well, Bruce isn’t as radically transparent as Roger is with the books, and Jones wants to send a message, complete with seven indictments, including jail time. So clearly, for his defense with the police, Mat Miller was doing a little name-dropping from information he would have from behind-the-scenes activity. And people worry that now that Sheriff Jones is helping Matt Miller perceptually with his major social problems, people assume that the wrath of Sheriff Jones and the power of the Butler County Sheriff’s Department will be turned toward them for a destiny of misfortune. 

I would say, fear not. I have known Sheriff Jones for over 20 years. While he might be vengeful, he’s generally a good man, and I would vote for him again for Sheriff. I’ve had these kinds of rifts with him over that entire span of time, and my impression is that he’s been a good sheriff. We’ve worked together on things like immigration issues during the early days of the Tea Party. Then we’ve been enemies regarding public sector unions. I’m against unions altogether, while he thinks they are the greatest thing in the world. People can have disagreements without things getting out of hand. What is going on with Matt Miller has been an investigation into criminal wrongdoing. So far, the evidence points to bizarre sexual practices with adults who think about kids. And that’s for the public to figure out if they are comfortable with. But for the police to suddenly become Matt Miller’s personal hit squad led by Sheriff Jones, that’s not going to happen. People should not worry about the fear of political wrath in the aftermath of all the events of 2022.

Many people say that Sheriff Jones is the biggest RINO in Butler County. (Republican in Name Only). I wouldn’t say that. I think Sheriff Jones is a Democrat most of the time, that he plays a Republican on stage when he gives a speech or is on WLW radio with his friend Bill Cunningham, a fellow Democrat also. When there are Democrats in the White House, Sheriff Jones is a Democrat in public. But I can say that when Trump was in office, Sheriff Jones was very much a Republican. He was one of the early supporters of Trump. And from 2015, there was great harmony in the Butler County Republican Party for the first time in years because of Trump. And during that time, Sheriff Jones and I were even friendly with each other in public. I even saw him at Ace Hardware in Liberty Township and said hi.

So if Jones isn’t a RINO, then what is he? I would say he’s a R.A.T.  (Republican Around Trump). When Trump makes his announcement soon that he is running for president again, then Sheriff Jones will start acting like a Republican again. And Republicans aren’t known for abusing their authority to use the power of their office to fulfill political hits like Matt Miller is obviously hoping to cover up his bad behavior from public opinion. So even if today Sheriff Jones is acting like a vindictive Democrat with all the power of the police at his disposal, fear not, Trump will be running for president again soon, and Sheriff Jones being the very political creature that he is, will want to be on the right side of history. After all, Trump used to be a Democrat, so moderates who spend most of their lives on the fence between liberalism and conservatism find Trump very appealing. And the Republican Party of Butler County will be united again. I certainly didn’t spike the football when it came to Thomas Hall. Sheriff Jones put his personal brand all in behind Matt King. I thought Matt was a nice young man, but I supported Hall, who worked like a saint amongst sinners in Hell to redeem their very souls before an apocalypse to win that election. And Thomas won despite all the wrath of Sheriff Jones. And the same thing will happen when it comes to Roger Reynolds and any other character Jones has taken aim at for purely political reasons. Once Trump announced that he was running again, which he will do because the FBI has raided Trump’s home and gone through the personal clothes of his wife, Melania. Sheriff Jones will rediscover his Republican nature, and the world will be much better off.

And when Trump comes to Butler County the next time, he will have very clean shoes from all the bootlickers who want a picture next to him. People who today are denying that there was election fraud and have been saying that Trump is too mean to be president. I’ve seen Sheriff Jones around Trump, and when he is, the Sheriff starts glowing like a little boy. The bootlickers do line up to be near real power, and Trump has that real power that comes from inner self-confidence and a sense of purpose in life. The top of the food chain in political sentiment. It’s very interesting to watch. But by the time Trump returns to Butler County, Ohio, for future political events, many of these fears about Matt Miller will long be over. People don’t have to worry about the police following them home and harassing them to no end. Just put a Trump sticker on your car, or wear a MAGA hat, and you will be fine. Because when Trump is running for office, and when he’s in town, Sheriff Jones the R.A.T. will be a valuable ally. He will be less inclined to support scandalous characters and will quickly adapt to the Trump agenda. A lot of the trouble mentioned here has come from the power vacuum of Trump not being in office and the thought that progressive politics would be making a comeback under Joe Biden in the wake of the Covid lockdowns. But that is not the future. Trump is the future, and when he is in Butler County, Ohio, his shoes will be clean, and the personal vendettas will be directed elsewhere for the good of the Republican Party. 

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Government Schools are All About the Employees: The kids are used as a means to expand easy jobs and administrative nonsense

Everyone wants to know what’s going on with Lakota schools and why there has not been any mainstream news regarding the very serious allegation against the public school administration. Given the nature of the offense, as indicated in the official police report from the Butler County Sheriff’s Department, many were expecting at least an arrest or a leave of absence. But there has been nothing but an acknowledgment of documents, one from the police indicating that on August 8th, 2022, the complainant responded to the Butler County Sheriff’s Office to report that she had received and compiled information from a third party of potential criminal wrongdoing by the suspect regarding juveniles. Then there is a short email from the president of the Lakota School Board speaking on behalf of the entire Board, saying, ” Ms. (former candidate for Lakota school board), The Board has reviewed your email and attachments. The safety and security of the district’s students is the Board’s highest priority. As noted in your email, this issue has already been escalated to law enforcement and is now in the capable hands of the Butler County Sheriff’s Office. When the Sheriff’s Office concludes its investigation, the Board will review its findings and determine if any further action is warranted. On behalf of the Board. ”  I thought all that pretty interesting, especially after the press conference Sheriff Jones held recently stating that he was investigating wrongdoing in the direction of Ohio Representative Thomas Hall, because years ago, when he was a trustee for Madison Township, there were questions as to whether or not he recused himself on Fire Department matters since his father was the Fire Chief. As discussed before, Thomas sought legal advice on when to recuse himself and when not to, so he was clean. But, with a Sheriff talking tough like that, you would think that a Lakota school administrator with an ex-wife putting in writing some really charged content would inspire more action on behalf of the “safety” of all. But after a month of tranquil activity on the matter from the administrative perspective, there hasn’t been anything to satisfy people’s fears.

I was wondering myself, knowing all the characters involved. When I first saw the material, I could have published it and beat the rest of the media to a really salacious story. But I was more concerned about the criminal side of the story and wanted to know how much some of the people in charge cared about what was happening in the school. Unfortunately, we have our answer, and it’s one I thought we would have from the beginning. Over the years, I have witnessed too many of these stories to think anything else. But I thought it was worth a try. We trusted the system and hoped for a reasonable outcome. With a case like this, it would be expected to have at least a note from the Board to the parents, much like they have on other things in the past. I remember when someone left a threatening note in a bathroom during a levy campaign, and a lot of drama was made about it. Lakota always seems to send home notes to the parents, letting them know when something is wrong and that the administration is all over the issue so they won’t have to worry. But on this issue, they have been oddly silent. They might say that it’s purely political, the entire escapade. But then again, what hasn’t been political? The moment that new school board member Darbi Boddy was voted in as a new school board member, many board members and the administration have been trying to remove her in any technical way they could, using every excuse possible to make a media story out of her, to put pressure on her to resign. So why wouldn’t there be political opposition flowing in the opposite direction? They should expect it; they created that atmosphere. 

The truth is that all public schools, Lakota being just one of them, are all about filling the needs of the employees. They could care less about the kids involved. This is the case today, and it has been the case over the many decades that I have been involved in these public school issues. Government schools like Lakota use children as a playground for the adults, making these schools some of the largest employers in the region. Yet they expect to never get in trouble for bad behavior. If what was happening at Lakota were happening at any large corporation, there would be, at a bare minimum, paid administrative leave while everyone sorted out the matter. There would be press conferences updating the taxpayers on what was being done to investigate the matter and assuring the public that good people were doing good work. I wanted to think differently of Lakota, knowing some people the way I do. I really didn’t think they would be willing to put up with bad behavior when they saw it and knew about it. Even if it was just the remnants of a bad marriage, when a personal life starts to impact the public life of someone, that is a factor in work performance that can be very negative. But there was just a case the other night where a person was caught regionally just downloading child porn, and the police were all over them with arrests and significant news coverage. Why, with this case, did everyone suddenly want to show a benefit of the doubt toward the evidence presented, even as crazy as much of that evidence has been? 

A Message from Lakota Local Schools May 5, 2022

Dear Lakota Staff, Parents and Guardians, The end of the school year is a time to celebrate our students and staff and all that we have achieved since August. This year, we have even more to celebrate as we have been able to lift our COVID protocols and return to a much more normal school experience for our students. It is unfortunate that, over recent weeks, instead of this being our focus, district leaders have been forced to respond to baseless allegations and escalating threatening behavior by an elected member of our school board.As a result of a school board member’s blatant disregard for policy and procedures that are in place to help ensure the safety of our students and staff and a productive learning environment, this morning, Lakota Local Schools was forced to issue a notice of trespassing to Mrs. Darbi Boddy. As such, Mrs. Boddy will no longer be allowed on district property without prior authorization and unless invited for official Board business.Yesterday morning, Mrs. Boddy violated Board Policy and Administrative Guidelines 9150 by visiting two schools without first notifying the building principal – a requirement of all visitors to our schools. Entering through the main offices, she then proceeded to ignore staff requests to remain there until the principals met her. Instead, she left the offices and proceeded to walk the hallways, violating safety protocols and causing a disruption in learning at both Lakota East High School and Liberty Early Childhood School. While some may question why such a seemingly steep action was taken against Mrs. Boddy, let me explain. We welcome our parents into our schools; we welcome our community into our schools; and we certainly welcome our school board members into our schools – as long as they follow safety procedures and policy. These are not difficult. They involve alerting building administrators of the interest in visiting and setting up a time that is convenient for all involved. Yesterday, this did not happen. This is also not the first time that Mrs. Boddy has ignored board policy, nor is it the first time she has disrupted learning in our schools. Our decision was not made lightly and was done in consultation with law enforcement. It is my hope that by sharing this information with you, I am able to stop rumors from circulating and reassure you of our commitment to safety. The safety of our students and staff is always my first priority and a responsibility I take very seriously. I will do everything I can to ensure that our students and staff feel safe, welcome and included when they walk through our doors.

Sincerely,

Matthew J. Miller
​​​​​​​Superintendent

Of course, we all know the answer, which is the painful part. Many people knew the answer from the beginning but didn’t want to believe it. I was very skeptical about everything. As things have transpired over the last month, it became an apparent human resource problem without consistent standards, which is a tremendous management problem. I didn’t care much about Lakota at the start of this process. My hope was that by electing better school board members, the proper management of the district’s largest government school might improve. I have seen complaints about her since Darbi Boddy was elected and sworn in because she’s a conservative. It has become grossly apparent that the only thing the teachers and administrators care about at Lakota is not the kids but their easy jobs with high pay rates. As bad as the accusations are in the police report, I know that there is far worse going on behind the scenes that nobody is even talking about because they are either scared or don’t trust anybody to say anything. Not even the police. With the kind of threats that have been tossed at this whistleblower occurs, the message is clear, don’t mess with the breadbasket and playground of the adults who work at the school. The community and the children of the community are there to serve them and them only. That’s not what they say, of course. But that’s the message they convey. To say I’m disappointed would be a misplaced description. I had optimistic hope that I might be wrong. Government schools are all about politics, liberal politics at that, and they waste money on a garbage product while they treat the place like their personal Tinder app. And the way the public employees behave is reprehensible. But why wouldn’t they be when management allows them to behave that way? 

Rich Hoffman

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

People are innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around: The media often helps the real villains get away with crime while the innocent are prosecuted

One thing I have no tolerance for is bullies. I’ve never looked away from bullies when they show their ugliness in the world, and I’m not going to start now. When people wonder why I get up at 4:30 AM in the morning every day to write on this site and do the number of news stories I do, its because I have a lot of experience with the courts, I have known a lot of judges, lawyers, and media people, and I know how the game of law and order works from all sides of it. So to answer the question that I have heard from dozens of people over the last few weeks when they say that they have noticed that I have been supporting a lot of people who are accused of pretty serious crimes, I say to them, I don’t support criminal activity or law-breaking. If I come out in support of someone in some way, it is because I think them to be good people who are victims of bullying, and when I see it or even hear about it, I will help them at every opportunity. Not to the point where it leads to a trap, but where applicable. And when it comes to Steve Bannon from the Warroom and the false prosecution against him from the Biden Department of Justice, or the Darbi Boddy drama at Lakota schools in my neighborhood, or the Roger Reynolds case of corruption in Butler County, Ohio by the Sheriff’s department, if I come out in support of them, its because I think they are victims of abuse of authority by political bullies, and that is not something I am willing to tolerate. That is the reason I run my own news service in the form of this blog. I have learned over the years that the media is too lazy or lacks the philosophical parameters to explain things the way they need to be stated for the general public to understand, so I just do the job myself. So if I come out in support of some controversy, there is a really good reason why. 

The Steve Bannon case is self-explanatory. I know firsthand how the law can be used as a weapon to destroy people, and that’s clearly what is happening with Bannon. I like Steve; I have corresponded with him on occasion. We both have busy lives and work in different spheres of influence, but I greatly sympathize with him. The Biden DOJ is clearly abusing its authority in prosecuting him, just as Congress has abused its authority in the two impeachments of Trump, and this phony January 6th commission to attack Trump allies on popular podcasts to attempt to scare off a second Trump term. The law is being manipulated and used purely for political theater, and people’s lives are being threatened to be destroyed because of it. I would point to the local George Lang case of purgery several years ago where the very good man in the now Senator Lang was drug through the courts purely to attack him for knowing John Boehner. The target was Boehner, who was poised to be Speaker of the House in the not too distant future, and his political enemies wanted to get to him through his friends. It was one of the most disgusting court cases I had ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of them. If I live another hundred years, I still would not have exceeded my many personal court appearances and ridiculous entanglements with the law. Just because you are accused of something doesn’t make you guilty. We are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, but in cases like the one against Steve Bannon, and others like him over the years, who are convicted just because they know someone who is the real target, political assassinations through twisted concepts of law and order are not acceptable and must be punished. In the end, that will be what happens coming from Steve Bannon. The bad guys will get it in the end because tolerating the kind of society that would convict him is not acceptable. 

Darbi Boddy at my home school district of Lakota has made national news over essentially being attacked as soon as she was sworn in after she had just won an election. I understand that not all the school members like her or like each other. I get that the administrators did not like the newly elected school board member who asked too many questions and didn’t seem to respect the administrative red tape that they hide so many bad things behind. For instance, the attempt to vote her off the board over a minor incident and to make a media circus out of it was reprehensible. It showed a willingness by the board to undo a person the voters had just assigned to do a job. Then to make matters worse, the school superintendent added fuel to the fire by citing her with trespassing in two of the schools as Darbi went to them unannounced as part of an official investigation into CRT, which other board members were dragging their feet on. What makes this case so bad is that the superintendent, Matt Miller is not a person of high moral integrity. Based on things he has done, he should not have a job, and he only does because other school board members have helped him keep it. I haven’t said much about it because I have not wanted to destroy Lakota schools. I have wanted to see this new school board work. But some people are really afraid of Matt Miller and what he did to Darbi Boddy; based on what I know about him was a classic case of transference, where a guilty party will assign blame to other people for actions for which they are really guilty of. That kind of behavior is a classic problem of liberalism when they abuse law and order to hide crimes they are actually guilty of. But Darbi is not a danger to student populations. There are many more accusers of Matt Miller who would say that he is the dangerous one. I have been willing to look beyond accusations in his case for the benefit of the school and the school board in general. But it disgusts me to see someone attempt to put crimes of trespassing and other bad conduct out to a predatory media intent to destroy Darbi just to protect all the other bad things that I know are going on behind the scenes; that probably should be the focus of everyone’s attention. With all that said, I am very happy with Darbi Boddy and would like to see many more like her on the school board at Lakota. She is doing a great job.

Then there is the case of corruption thrown at Roger Reynolds. I’ve known Roger for a long time. I think he and I both love Liberty Township and remember how it used to be. I think Roger, an auditor for Butler County, has done a great job. I’d go on to say that I think he is one of the best auditors in the country for any county. I think the charges against him are politically motivated, and the Sheriff’s office could not hold up to the same scrutiny they have put on Roger. When evidence is presented to a grand jury the way it has been, they have no choice but to advance the cause. But if the tables were turned, I could think of dozens and dozens and dozens of people who would happily come forward and accuse Sheriff Jones of abuse of authority and unlawful interest in public contracts. That wouldn’t mean he’s guilty of those accusations, but there are plenty of people who would accuse him of it, and that would be enough to present to a grand jury. The media has pretty much thrown Roger Reynolds to the wolves with a play-by-play narrative that clearly is trying to destroy him as a person. I haven’t wanted to see the same applied to Jones; he’s been a good sheriff. Ending a career with so many black marks would not be good. It wouldn’t be good for Butler County. But the case would be much worse if the same investigations leveled at Roger Reynolds were applied to Sheriff Jones. So in that context, I support Roger Reynolds, he is being bullied for personal reasons, and the law is being used as a weapon to make it happen. If the law were equally applied, we’d lose a lot of public servants. Maybe it should be. But this picking and choosing of law and order to take out political rivals, there is no place for that in any society. And it’s a case of bullying that is reprehensible whenever it’s done and is unforgivable. 

Just because people are accused of something doesn’t make them guilty. Often, what it means is that the accusers are up to far worse and hope to divert their crimes to the innocent. Unfortunately, this is a common practice dramatically under-covered by a complicit media that has helped perpetuate it to the doom of our culture ostentatiously. And when I see it, I have never accepted it and never will. We have a very corrupt society because law and order are not respected by those most in their care. And if we ever want that to change, we must see through the smoke screens and the media hype at the real villains who are often the most vicious accusers because what they are attempting to hide is often far worse.

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Abuse of Power in Butler County: And it’s not Roger Reynolds doing it

I’ve talked about it before; I sympathize with the Steve Bannon contempt of congress case that is happening at the end of July 2022 more than other cases because it’s personal for me. I don’t communicate with him a lot, be we occasionally do. He has shared some of my articles on social media, and we have exchanged text messages on occasion, so it’s more personal to me to see what is happening to him than it would be if I didn’t know something about the person himself. As I watch him go to federal court every day and the judge lecture the defense about not making a circus out of the case, it is bewildering to think that Eric Holder was found in contempt of Congress in 2012, yet no punishment ever came his way. But because Bannon is a member of the Trump White House, he is being treated like a criminal, guilty before proven innocent, just by association. And all this has made me think of the case of George Lang several years ago, who was facing jail time just for knowing John Boehner, who was poised to be speaker of the house, and the Democrats wanted to sink him through his friends. George, of course, was found innocent, but it was scary for sure. We could all point to misconduct in court proceedings that were purely politically motivated and shake our heads. But we often don’t say much about it because we fear that injustice being turned in our own direction, so we just move along and try to ignore it. Yet, I see the same thing happening to Roger Reynolds in Butler County, where political rivals are accusing him of corruption in his office. And I just don’t see it in any of the indictments, for which a 6th came out just recently to add to the pile, intent on knocking him out of office. It’s an election year, some rivals want Roger out as a political character, and they’ll do what they must do to sink him. 

Believe me; I’d rather talk about a million other things than this case, which I’ve discussed in detail. I’d prefer to leave all this mess to the courts to decide but based on a ridiculous article by Jennifer Edwards Baker from Fox 19 about the details of the 6th indictment against Roger Reynolds, which now involves Lakota schools, the issue is so preposterous that we just can’t ignore it. Obviously, the prosecution in the case against Roger, much like the case against Steve Bannon, doesn’t have much to go on, so they are prosecuting the case in the court of public opinion through reporters who might sway public sentiment ahead of upcoming elections. And that is the entire goal of the proceedings. And we can’t ignore the case because it could be any of us falsely accused. It’s not that I love Roger Reynolds. I think he has been an excellent auditor. But he’s made political enemies over the years, which is all part of the blood sport of politics. I think he could handle many things better regarding social interactions, but I recognize that he’s an A-Type personality, as is Sheriff Jones, and a clash among those types of people is bound to happen. I see it as more of a human resource problem than a legal one. If those two people have problems, they should resolve them in some other way than in political tricks ahead of elections and wasting the time of courts for personal vendettas, which is clearly the case with this indictment against Roger involving Lakota schools.   

The Fox 19 article says many things that could easily be misconstrued, leaving out all the relevant factors, such as all the axes to grind among public employees, especially those who handle money. The indictment indicates that Lakota schools were due to get back $750,000 from the auditor’s office. Roger suggested to the treasurer Jenni Logan that they spend that money on the Four Bridges Golf Course in a partnership. A whole series of emails between Jenni and the school attorney show an interest in Roger’s proposal. Ultimately, they decided it probably wasn’t a good idea, so the concept was rejected. That was back in 2017, a long time ago. So why is this story coming out now? Jenni is retiring on August 1st, 2022, and this is something for the road that fits into the motivations of Sheriff Jones and his political needs regarding putting someone else in the seat of the Butler County Auditor. So, they completely made up the word “coercion” in the indictment and tried to build a case that forced Roger to prove he wasn’t guilty of it due to pressure from public opinion, rather than proving that Roger actually used coercion in any way during the proposed spending of the money. When people see $750,000, they might think that’s a lot of money, but in reality, within the budget of Lakota, it’s much less than 1% of their expenditures and is actually about 11 or 12 teachers. Teachers make a lot of money, despite what the unions say about compensation. I can easily see how Roger would suggest that Jenni spend the money on something more useful, like an elevated lifestyle for the students of Lakota, rather than just blowing it on more activist teachers. Jenni must have thought the idea a good one because she pursued it through emails which are part of the case. But she did so voluntarily. That is not coercion; it’s a discussion among professional adults. 

All this doesn’t change my opinion of Roger Reynolds. As I indicated, I could tell stories all day long about court cases that were purely intended to destroy a political rival and had nothing to do with actual justice. I mentioned a few here based on personal experience. But it’s quite common as a practice. I’m all for law and order, but justice should be blind. What is going on with Roger Reynolds is that laws are being applied against a political rival instead of uniformly applied. It’s an abuse of authority, but it’s not Roger doing the abuse. It’s the accusers, not the recipient. I’ll still be voting for Roger Reynolds in the upcoming election. All the people participating in the investigation against him should be trying to work with Roger instead of getting rid of him over their personal problems they might have. Destroying people’s lives is not the way to solve a problem. It might be common, but it’s certainly not right.

The courts are not private playgrounds to bully people into fight resolution that might have been settled on a playground when everyone was kids. As adults, judges, attorneys, and media bottom feeders are not replacements for fists to the face. When the courts are abused, as they are clearly being abused in this Roger Reynolds case and the case of Steve Bannon, that gives politics and our justice system a bad name, and everyone involved should be ashamed of themselves, as far as I’m concerned, all six of these indictments against Roger Reynolds are political witch hunts. If I had been Roger, I would have handled things differently, where there was no question as to blurred lines. But social mistakes aren’t against the law. Intent to commit a crime is, and to assume intent where there clearly isn’t any evidence, just for the political theater of altering an election is despicable at best and gross abuse of authority at the very least. 

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

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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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