Rich Hoffman's Blog, page 287

The Modern Notion of Good Management in Politics: Out with Bob Corker and Jeff Flake–in with Donald Trump–and many others

I guess it’s just sinking in to the mainstreamers, but a takeover has been afoot for a long time. How can I put this, let’s see, I come from a management background. The best managers if they are taking over a previous culture’s problems must approach the situation differently than if they were going to start from scratch. Building something from the ground up is much more fun than inheriting someone else’s mess. When you take something over you need to kind of sit back and see who does what for you—who’s loyal, who’s a problem and figure out how you can replace the bad people with good people following all the crazy rules that are out there these days in order to provide a positive margin index. In many ways that is what happens every time we elect someone new, we hope to put a manager in place who will fix the legacy failures of the previous administrations. Often however we find that the candidates who offer themselves don’t have much management experience, their backgrounds are more aligned with attorney skills, not management so they are clueless in how to solve the problems that we need them to tackle. Starting way back, people like me have been pushing the notion in politics of replacing candidates with an emphasis in legal opinion with people who are business savvy. That’s how people like Eric Canter were knocked out of their entrenched federal House seats and replaced with more value driven representatives. That is how Donald Trump ended up president. People know what needs to be done, and they are now voting with that knowledge intact. We don’t want someone to tell us everything is fine like some clawless CEO speaking to their panicky board of directors. We want someone who can get in there and take charge and actually change the culture using advanced management skills for the furtherance of the traditional American idea.

Understanding that trajectory of thought, Donald Trump is not splitting up the Republican Party threatening the House and Senate majorities. He is cleaning house of the losers and positioning winners to take over strengthening that majority. The Democrats have no threats out there of beating Republicans in their races and Trump knows it. So to get the right kind of Republicans to vote for his agenda Trump is removing the bad Republicans like Bob Corker and Jeff Flake from the mix. That is a great thing which is all part of the difficulties of management. The “Party” is not more important than the “individual” and currently Trump has been elected to “manage” the country’s affairs and specifically the do-nothing Republican Party. Like any good manager he started off nicely, treated everyone fair to get a feel for them. He watched and was patient, and he took notes. Once he realized who the bad Republicans were, he went to work to pressure them off the team—and that is exactly what he should do.

When this happens in business it always hurts somebody’s feelings. People always think they are worth the most of anybody, so being a manager is difficult because many times you must deflate the impression people have about themselves. But before you can see it, you have to let them be themselves around you so that they can reveal themselves as part of the problem. Once you know that, you then must take action to remove them from your “team.” This is often not easy because there are many laws which do not favor management and protect bad people. As a skilled manager you must discover some creative way to follow all the rules, but still get rid of the bad people so that good people can thrive.

Really bad managers let the power of their position go to their heads. Their first reaction is to let everyone know who the boss is regardless of the talent level of the people they are dealing with. They assume that all people are equal and thus can be interchanged easily with each other like Lego bricks. This is the typical approach of traditional politicians. They come into office as lawyers looking for a steady income—but they don’t really understand how people work, so they can’t manage the people around them and make good decisions. That leads them to following the previous administration for guidance who also made all the same mistakes and eventually you end up with just another idiot barking out orders and using the power of institutionalism to scare everyone into following those orders. In companies, that is when they start to die. In politics, that’s when lobbyists get the ear of the politician. Since voters often don’t respect such people, the politicians find the seductive respect given by the lobbyists validating, so that becomes their new influences and that’s when you end up with losers like Jeff Flake and Bob Corker. The reason those guys have such bad polling is because now people see they have a choice and they aren’t just voting for the guy with the “R” next to their name. Voters are looking for managers like Trump—and that will only increase the seats that Republicans hold. It won’t lessen them.

Of course all the insiders know this already, but they hope that the media will sell to Republicans the notion that there is a risk of losing the majority in 2018. Nothing could be further from the truth. After the tax reform passes and the stock market goes into the Near Year at previously unfathomable highs—nobody is going back to the Democrats. People aren’t stupid. They know how to solve these modern problems, they were just looking for the right people vote into office. The moment they get them, they are putting them in place—and they will be more traditional Republicans who have an understanding of management—not the kind who have failed us in the past.

Good managers are almost always hated, and they are used to that. People are always nice to your face of course because they wish to hide what they are really about. But good managers understand that trait and are able to function well without the approval of their peers. Being a good manager is a very lonely path—there are very few people out there who can tell you that you’re doing things right—because they don’t know. Often times they are either part of the problem or unwittingly helping the problem be successful, so they have no advice to give that is worth anything. Good managers function best alone taking in as much information as possible and making decisions based on their experience, and natural instincts which cannot be plotted on a Six Sigma graph or taught in college. You either have it or you don’t. You may be able to develop it with experience, but nobody can give it to you. You couldn’t buy good management ability for millions of dollars of education—don’t let anybody fool you. It comes from someplace beyond our terrestrial understanding and the only access to it is very hard work. Trump certainly has those traits. Many other people do as well, and those are the new fashion in politics.

Without question the old politicians are looking at these new politicians who are coming in as skilled managers in some cases, and they hate them. They will whisper to the media the way workers in a place of business might whisper gossip hoping to stop a head slicer from discovering how useless they really are and ending their jobs. People hate Trump because he’s good at his job, not because he’s bad. Smart people understand why there is gossip and anger about Trump. Stupid people listen to the gossip, and they show themselves to be part of the problem. That is why good managers are needed, so they can act independently of the noise to do the work they were assigned to do. We tried the other way, and maybe the political class thought it would go on forever. But that was never the plan. Like good managers, the voters waited and watched and when they had their chance, they acted. And that trend isn’t going to stop—it’s going to grow.

Rich Hoffman

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The Morality of being a Gunfighter: How guns make America a more intellectual culture–and improve lives

From the anti-gun people, especially after the Vegas mass shooting there has been this constant term they use “you don’t need so many guns.” They say it as if they were the authority on living and had the complications of life all figured out as a superior philosophic matrix. Yet I look at their lives, the losers on Saturday Night Live, the Hollywood industry, the open criminals like Hillary Clinton and the DNC workers of 2016 and I must conclude, who on earth would take advice from people so messed up? Who are these people to give us advice about anything? I wouldn’t trust them to tell me where the corner deli is in New York city that could sell me a pack of gum, let alone advise me on how many guns I should have or even why I should have them. Even worse, their declarations that guns should be made illegal in any form indicates a complete lack of respect for the kind of living we have in the Midwest of the country—essentially the Red State middle of the entire country. Essentially only the coastal regions have these liberal losers driving policy. Guns for everyone else is a fact of life. They are certainly a big part of my life. Here is video of what I do almost every night for exercise. It’s how I practice Cowboy Fast Draw in my private range. The goal of this activity is to draw and fire my Ruger Vaquero as fast as I can once the target light blinks on solid. Once the target blinks three times it lets me know that the next time the light comes on that I need to draw and fire. My time is registered on a display on my workbench. It’s a fun activity that really sharpens your mind, and I enjoy doing it almost every night at least for 15 to 30 minutes.

When people say that we don’t need guns, well I’d say, we don’t need footballs, golf clubs, or baseball bats either. All of those things could be used as weapons if people were so inclined, but in a civil society nobody would even think of such a problem. Most of the people I know have guns and nobody goes out on a killing spree after dinner. When shooting in my private range I never think to use those guns on other people. Always my use of them is to increase my speed and accuracy in shooting a target under conditions of duress. The process of doing that helps me in other parts of my life. Now to the pot smoking loser on Saturday Night Live who does things during the after party that they’d never want to tell their parents, I wouldn’t expect them to understand my love of guns. Because they are still looking for mechanisms in life to help them manage all the pressures they experience. I look at their lives where they smoke, drink or have too much sex and would say that those are all factors contributing to the problems they have in their lives. I don’t have those problems. Instead I shoot and spend time in my range working out solutions to very complicated problems. Shooting helps me and many others live a better life.

If you visit England presently you will find everywhere some visage to their Norman period where knights were part of their national identity. It doesn’t mean that people want to go cut off the heads of their enemies when they hold a wooden sword from a gift shop in London—it’s just means that people are paying regional respect to an order which built the identity of the nation. If you go to Japan you find much of the same, everywhere is some visage to the samurai culture and behind that is the constant symbol of the sword. Even going to a hibachi grill to get some very expensive Kobe Beef you will see the cooks emulating the ghosts of their samurai heritage as they prepare food in front of you. It is very important to them and is a huge part of their national character. You don’t see radical leftists attacking these countries for their history of violence and the modern respect that is still given regarding the weapons which forged their nations.

In America it is the cowboy which created the nature of our country. And behind the cowboy was the six-gun and the mythology of dueling. The reason that dueling is still such a romantic idea in the period of the Old West is that it is respectable that people would face off against each other to settle a value judgment. To have a value that people were willing to defend to the death is actually a noble idea—especially in these complicated days of leftist interpretation into the events that leave people always feeling empty. In that emptiness they seek to fill the void with bad habits—such as the smoking, drinking and over charged sex. Regarding sex, if you spend more than a half hour per day thinking about sex—you are wasting your time. When you are young and always looking for some flower to pollinate, maybe you spend more time thinking about it if you are a male. If you are a female you likely won’t because you are in charge of the sexual experience and can decide when and how often, but nobody should spend more time on average than a half an hour per day. Anything more is an obsessive activity that degrades the experience. People who do think about it more than that allotted time need to develop more hobbies.

I view shooting in America as a deeply philosophic experience. The political left has successfully painted an opposite picture, that gun users in America are a bunch of dumb hillbillies who can’t speak in words longer than two syllables. Yet the opposite is true, liberals who criticize the gun culture are the dumb people, they are ones who can’t change their own oil, or fix a leak in their sink. They are the ones who fall apart whenever there is a death in the family or run to substance abuse when they feel insecure about something. People I know who shoot guns, especially people in the Cowboy Fast Draw Association, or in SASS are some of the nicest and well-rounded people I’ve met anywhere—including in those European and Asian countries that people think have so much “rich” culture. I would argue that in America we have our own rich culture built on westward expansion—which was a very “moral” enterprise in the scope of history—and guns were the backbone of that culture that we should all be proud of.

In the video the times I was recording were in the .450 range. I’m not happy with those numbers and the purpose of the slow motion is to show myself that I need to fire the gun much sooner out of the holster instead of pushing the gun forward. That is what makes that kind of training so satisfying, and worth pursuing. Shown in regular speed everything happens very fast. But when you slow it down, I can see where I need to improve, and that requires training my mind to think that much faster. In applying those techniques to my life that I learn at the gun range, it makes me a much better person in my day to day life. I think much faster when there are problems to solve and my thinking is much more accurate. After all, the brain doesn’t know if you are trying to solve the problem of hitting a target or trying to solve global economic problems. It sees everything in context, so by practicing something productive like “shooting” it helps the mind solve other problems not directly connected to the shooting sports. That is why shooting is a good thing for all Americans to do, and if more people did, especially the coastal liberals, they’d find that they could lead better lives and would have a lot fewer problems.

I’m not personally going to allow people who are broken intellectually—which most liberals are—and have them beat on gun owners anymore. My experience with guns is a very positive one and violence has nothing to do with it. Guns may have been invented to expedite the experience of death, or make people more efficient in killing others—but as tools of intellect, they are more useful in making a respectful class of people who think independently, and can manage their affairs in a superior way over their liberal protestors. I see nothing negative about my experiences on my private gun range in the sport of Cowboy Fast Draw. The practice of it makes me more efficient as a person and gives me an outlet for the stresses in my life that shooting baskets in my driveway or playing golf don’t quite reach. People who speak against guns just don’t understand why they are important culturally, and there are likely a lot of reasons for it. Maybe they had crappy parents. Maybe they didn’t have grandparents around to teach them important lessons when they were younger. Maybe they are just losers in life. Whatever it is, it’s not the problem of gun owners to bend their habits to these broken people. Broken people are not allowed to create the standard for what America is. And gun owners are not the broken people. It’s the people who criticize that culture who are in true need of a different way of thinking. A trip to the gun range would help a lot of them. But for the rest, they need a lot more.

I am proud to call myself a gunfighter. For me it’s no different from training to be a boxer, a martial artist or an MMA fighter—it’s a sport. And becoming good at that sport has a carryover effect into other things in life that are more important to good living. That is why the anti-gun people are so wrong on the gun culture in America. They don’t like America even though they try to sell their ideas by saying they are part of our culture—they clearly aren’t and seek to change it in everything they do. For them it starts by pissing on a bar wall outside drunk off their young asses and it ends with them becoming radical progressives in congress, or heads of major networks. They are all equally wrong. To speak against guns is to speak against the concept and intentions of American life. Part of that life is displayed in the sports we use to articulate our culture. Being a gunfighter isn’t the same as being a killer. These days it means a person is building foundation skills to become more precise and quicker in their life—and it’s a personal challenge worth the undertaking. It’s certainly not something to be outlawed because the more sensitive and less intellectual people on the west and east coasts are afraid of guns. What they really fear is what they might learn about themselves if they were to embark on a journey where they had to become better at something and challenge themselves. What they might learn in that process is what they are running from—and that is all the reason why guns should be more prevalent in America, instead of less.

Rich Hoffman

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Trump’s Draft Deferments: Military service doesn’t always make for the best patriots–why sacrifice is a stupid value system

I don’t think it’s very American to die for one’s country. That is actually a very stupid thing to even suggest. To even say such a thing indicates that the state is superior to the individual and that institutionalism is to have more merit than personal sovereignty, and that’s just not right. I have never been willing to “die” for my country. My life is worth way too much. But, ask me to kill for my country and turn me loose to do so, and I’d have no problem facing down a 1000 villains if I could eliminate them without getting into trouble legally. But I would never engage an enemy and expect to die. I would expect to kill, but not to personally die—that’s just not in my thinking. Sacrifice is a stupid thing because the essence of human life is creation, and the villains of our existence are those who wish to deter creation in favor of stagnant barbarism—which has always been a force for evil the entire span of human evolution. If there were a military draft today, I would do everything I could to defer from it, because I just am not the kind of person who follows orders—from anybody. I’m happy to give them, but being drafted into the military to take orders from some institutional representative who has been instructed to break me into an order taking soldier was never an option for me.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/donald-trump-john-mccains-war-words-military-service/story?id=50657588

The news media seeking everything they can to defer the unfolding scandal involving the Clintons and the Uranium One deal with Russia has made a lot about President Trump’s call with the widow of a slain soldier killed recently in Niger, and even Senator John McCain’s comments about the days of the draft and eluding to the 5 deferments that Donald Trump had as a young man. The draft was a terrible period in American history, it was a very un-American thing to do, and for those who think we should have compulsory service of our young people into the military as the Israelis do, that would be a bad idea too. I would say that the most optimal path a young person could take is to develop themselves individually as much as possible, and avoid the college and military route if they are smart enough, and self-disciplined to carry themselves to success without yielding to institutional influence. The reason is that once a young mind is chained to some form of institutionalism, their minds are altered forever. Now of course that path isn’t for everyone, but often the best and brightest Americans who emerge from genius evolve without the guidance of institutionalism. As Americans we should always be looking for our brightest and best and should not be so willing to sacrifice them to the fires of evil wherever such threats arise. The expectation that lives lost are good for fueling America is just stupid.

I understand the position President Trump is in, and even General Kelly. When you are in charge of an institutional order, you have to protect the function of it, and the American military is a very important element to global politics. When soldiers die, it is good to respect their lives in the scope of a higher cause. But in reality, the notion of sacrifice for one’s country implies that what matters most is not the individual life of the soldier, but the sacrifice they make for the sake of everyone—and that is an old way of human thinking that is grossly outdated and is specifically very European. As I said, if I were given the task by my country to kill as many bad guys as possible, I’d do it in a second if I could be free of prosecution for the task. If I had to engage a 1000 losers on some strip of sand in the Middle East and it was only me or perhaps a few other similar people, I’d formulate a plan and would expect to be successful without losing my life. Embracing death is no way to live life. Some people might say that they are not Superman, so such expectations are unrealistic. I would say that being American means you should always think that way, or support people who do.

There is a lot of talk right now about the Battle of New Orleans, because President Trump reminds a lot of people of Andrew Jackson, and there is a new book out about Jackson and the famous American saving battle from the War of 1812. That battle along with many in the Revolutionary War, and even many in the Civil War, most of the most heroic acts were conducted by people with very limited military experience. Even the famous pirates of the Caribbean, the real ones like Henry Morgan and many others had great strategic victories against multiple odds of fearless institutionalism—soldiers perfectly willing to die for their various countries were often easily slaughtered by the loose acting pirates—so I would argue that being a soldier or having a regimented military is not the best thing in military victory. There are a lot of good people who served in the various armed forces, and I tend to like those people because they learn values in their service that is conducive to patriotism. But I would also argue that learning to take orders not based on merit, but on rank is a major problem in American thinking, making those people drags on our economic development instead of assets. I would also argue that the ability to think outside the box from one individual is more powerful than a whole army of compliant soldiers. Again, the value should always be in creation, never in sacrifice.

I listened to General Kelly defend Trump’s handling of the widow suffering from the ambush in Niger and while I admired his determined resolve—his constant talk about “dying for his country and the soldier knowing what he was getting into” disturbed me. I am all for an all-volunteer army where knowing what you are getting into is an option. I never did sign up for military service even thought I thought about it a lot. I wouldn’t have minded the aggressive parts of military life, but the structure was something I couldn’t have done. Even in sports I was like that, I always wanted to be the head coach, never just a player—and I wasn’t one that coaches found they could teach—because I was a know it all. I always have been. In that regard I didn’t play sports either in a structured organized way. But should our nation institute a draft where I didn’t have a choice, I would look for a way to defer any way possible. I could not surrender my life to the institution of military command under any circumstances. I would expect in any American system a better way to find soldiers for fighting than a draft. Just the concept of it is so European. Being compelled into service with the threat of imprisonment just isn’t motivating to a self-directed individual functioning from their own inner compass. The military is not built for such people.

Ironically this year my wife and I were both picked for jury duty, and I had a hard time with the language of the letter they sent me telling me the dates I was scheduled for. I’m the kind of person who would love to help on a jury to judge my peers. But I was instantly turned off by the way the letter started, “YOU ARE COMMANDED TO APPEAR.” Excuse me, I thought, who are these fools who think they can command me to do anything? I don’t bow to the flag waving merits of any institution. But if you thought my reaction was bad you should have heard my wife who called the Clerk of Courts office to complain about that first sentence. She and I didn’t plan it, or really talk about it, but when she opened her letter she immediately picked up the phone and unloaded on the people working at the court. I’m sure those people thought they had heard every excuse for why people wanted to get out of jury duty, and that is why they threaten people the way they do—to get people to participate in the system with the threat of imprisonment. That’s essentially what the draft was, which turned out to be a massive mistake. Our military went from an all voluntary affair to one of compulsion. My wife is like me, she would love to help a court with their cases, but the moment she learned that she could be imprisoned for not appearing she was PISSED OFF. It took away her natural enthusiasm for doing a community service and replaced it with a threat from the state that assumed ultimate power over the individual. Many people just assume that this is acceptable, because they have integrated John McCain’s soldier’s sacrifice creed into their daily life, that the whole is greater than the unit and that everything should subject itself to the authority of institutionalism. That’s not how it’s supposed to be, it never was. So this idea that patriotism is equal to self-sacrifice for the state is idiotic, and preposterous. There is no greater good than the merit of individual action and an adherence to the values exhibited by the morality of productive thought. None of that comes from any form of institutionalism, and therefore not by any work with the armed services. While they are valuable, and often good for young minds seeking direction in life, work as a veteran is not an automatic ticket toward lifelong merit status. Only good conduct can demand such a thing, and that conduct only comes from judgment on individual behavior within the context of performance.

Just because John McCain was a veteran captured and tortured during the Vietnam War, it doesn’t make him beyond judgment. The media that hates Trump and wishes that institutionalism could forever rule the minds of mankind—because that is what they need to survive—hopes that McCain will be the example that all should follow in sacrificing themselves to bigger causes—relative to their view-point. Trump has always been a self-absorbed person so being drafted into service where unfocused young people were expected to throw away their lives at the command of their “superior” just wasn’t an option. It would never be an option for me because I don’t acknowledge anyone as my superior. My life means more to me than surrendering it to the state for the causes of the state. To expect to die for my country is an unrealistic line of thought because honestly, I could do a better job on my own. Give me the weapons and let me kill the enemy, and I could do so and still be home for dinner. But to be told to run into gunfire and to be blown up on a landmine under orders given by some ranking leader just isn’t my bag—and it wasn’t Trump’s either. I don’t blame him at all from deferring. Choosing to do something isn’t the same as doing it under the duress of the state.

I would gladly run into a firefight if I could be free to win. I would always expect myself to be successful no matter what the odds were. But to be a pawn to the politics of statism is not a value system that should be attributed to Americanism. It is currently and that is leading to all kinds of confusing emotions. But the bottom line is that not serving as in the military forces is not a liability. The only people who think in such a way are those who need the structure of institutionalism to function responsibly in life—and many people are that way. But a gifted few do best on their own, and they are the ones you want to take orders from if you were so inclined. John McCain isn’t considered a better leader because he served in the armed forces and was tortured by the enemy. It was Trump who won the presidency because he took a different path in life—one driven by his own merit and if he had been drafted and accepted authority in any way—he wouldn’t be the kind of person who would eventually win the presidency. Trump doesn’t need to have been a soldier to oversee soldiers. He just needs to have a good mind—which he does. But better yet, a mind forged from his own unique individuality—which is what makes the best leaders known to mankind.

Rich Hoffman

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Jimmy Kimmel the big liberal Pussy: How guns are important to American morality

 

Who is this Jimmy Kimmel pussy crying about things in front of his audience of what’s supposed to be a nightly comedy show?  I was so angry about his monologue right after the Las Vegas shooting demanding more gun control legislation that I waited to respond just to keep my volatile thoughts about him in check.   Kimmel is one of those west coast softies who have obviously been coddled through life and had the fortune to be put into a high platform in the entertainment culture—and he feels he has the right to lecture the rest of America about guns going so far to say that “no American should be able to own an M-16,” and he further went on to berate the NRA for supporting efforts to knock back more legislation from panicky politicians screaming for some short-term fix to a long-term problem.  I think I’ve had enough of these east and west coast liberal losers inflicting on my American culture a value system that is as foreign to this country as an alien visiting here from Mars might be.  Guns in America are important and are at the core of our independence—and every bit as important as any other Amendment, especially the First.  Americans should be able to own anything they want, and when bad guys do bad things with guns, more laws won’t do the trick.  The problem is much more complicated than what Jimmy Kimmel the pussy is advocating.

I had an extraordinarily bad week of last where hundreds of people I have been dealing with and millions of dollars in investment were on a razor’s edge of peril and it took every skill I had in the tool box to keep everything on track.  It was a brutal life that could easily crush anybody’s resolve.  But one thing I do to manage all that stress is to balance it out with things I enjoy and to that effect I had a chance to visit with my family the Neiderman Family Farm down the road from my house in Liberty Township.  I shot guns all through the week on my Cowboy Fast Draw target range.

Then on the weekend we visited a family retreat in central Kentucky where I had the opportunity to do some four wheeling and some shooting of the big guns to blow off some steam.   All those places added up to a lot of good sanity maintenance for me—they reminded me what was important as the storm clouds swirled around me professionally and as usual, I had everything sorted out by Monday morning—because of the way I manage my stress.  Guns are a huge part of that personal maintenance.

Having a little fun this weekend. pic.twitter.com/EeYDDKVAWz

— Rich Hoffman (@overmanwarrior) October 22, 2017

When I talk about the big guns, I am specifically talking about my favorite gun, my Smith & Wesson .500 Magnum.  I brought the 500 grain cartridges which are getting close to the top load you can fire out of a handgun.  The S&W .500 is the most powerful handgun manufactured in the world.   With the smell of a campfire blowing my way as a spectacular sunset cast it’s gaze upon my shooting position on a hilltop the punishing satisfaction of firing such a massive bullet at a steel plate target from 30 yards away is something specifically American and uniquely manly.  I wasn’t with a bunch of drunken heathens the way Hollywood might paint that picture

I just described, nearby the women were sitting around a campfire eating camp food and talking about domestic concerns.  My niece was there with me shooting a new gun for her concealed carry endeavors.  Her husband was shooting with me also while my brother-in-law was showing me his new collection of guns.  It was very much a family event and everyone was having a good time.  When I fired my big .500 it hit the steel plate so hard that it broke the chain that was hanging the target and we all marveled at the tremendous impact and firepower of the S&W .500.  For me holding that big gun I think about the great engineering that went into making something that powerful so safe.  Aside from the fact that you need to be pretty strong to hold the gun because of the massive recoil, holding that much power in the palm of your hand to me is a miracle of modern industry—and that’s what I think about when using that marvelous gun.

But some idiot like Jimmy Kimmel would never understand what that moment was like, or those methods of personal management.  They’d say that no civilian human being should be able to own such a magnificent weapon.  Why should I be allowed to have something so powerful—according to the same culture that produces monsters like Harvey Weinstein and the Hollywood pedophiles?   Two days earlier at the Niederman Farm where my family attended the Fall Festival it was all about country living, big barns, lots of animals, tractors, and homemade jellies and apple ciders.  On the way to the family retreat down in Kentucky we stopped by Dry Ridge to eat at the Cracker Barrel there and of course the place was packed.  All the people there were similar to the people at the Niederman Farm.

They were Christian people happy with the simple things in life.  Most of them were gun advocates to some degree or another, and of course in the Cracker Barrel are signs and homage’s to the Second Amendment, from antique rifles displayed on the wall to paraphernalia sold in their famous gift shops.  It was one of the best breakfasts I’ve had in a while, and after such a rough week it really calmed me down.  But honestly it was the environment and the people who did it—it was the southern hospitality that people like Jimmy Kimmel make fun of as vigorously as the they do the gun culture that emerges from it.  Let’s face it; the NRA doesn’t have many impassioned members in Los Angeles.  But at the Cracker Barrel in Dry Ridge, Kentucky I could have stood on a table and read from the latest American Rifleman magazine and the customers would have been enthusiastically supportive.

Did I need to own and fire such a huge weapon which was right there with me while I was at the Cracker Barrel, because we were on our way down to the family retreat?  According to Jimmy Kimmel and the cast of Saturday Night Live I didn’t.  In their west and east coast viewpoints it is more moral to piss in the alley of a bar at 3 AM in New York City and to have sex with strange women which are part of their culture than to go shooting with close family members in the middle of God’s country in the American south.  I could easily look at Jimmy Kimmel’s personal life and pick it to pieces.  I’m sure I could declare a lot of things he likes to do illegal and destructive to a good American life.  At any time I could use that big gun to cause all kinds of damage, but it never crossed my mind because in having such a huge weapon it requires responsibility.  Once you act responsibly with a firearm people find that they act responsibly with other things in their lives as well.   That’s the way you find most people who are huge NRA supporters and concealed carry permit holders—they are some of the nicest people there are in the world—and they are honest.  Owning guns tends to bring out the best in people because the foundation of owning firearms is in responsibility.  Once people accept responsibility for something like a gun, they find they can apply the same values to other things and it makes them vastly better people as a result.

The problems that caused that liberal loser in Vegas to shoot up all those people are more systemic than in the right to own firearms.  Kimmel completely missed the point of the Second Amendment and it was painful to listen to him articulate all the stupid Hollywood dinner party talking points without knowing the reality of what the gun culture is.  I would argue that liberalism is the cause of such breakdowns, and that if we really wanted to solve the problems in our society—then we’d make liberalism illegal, not the physical firearms.  I shoot a lot and I love my guns—they are very therapeutic to me.   I like owning large, powerful weapons because they exercise a level of control that makes people better because of that responsibility.   I know and deal with people all over the world and I can report honestly that there isn’t anywhere quite like a gun range or a Cracker Barrel.  It’s not just I grew up with these ideas around me from my home in Liberty Township to the many times I’ve been shooting with family members.  I routinely deal with people of Hindu faith, people who are devote Buddhists—many people from every corner of the globe and I get along well with all of them.  But what’s missing from their various cultures is the kind of independence and positive American spirit that you find in places like that Dry Ridge Cracker Barrel.

The Niederman Family Farm is an expensive ticket, but it is in Liberty Township where most of the homes these days are well over a quarter million dollars.  It’s not uncommon anymore for a home in my neck of the woods to be close to a million dollars—and for the people who move to Liberty Township they want the best of both worlds.  They want access to the great industry that is common to the area in very capitalist friendly political zones, and they like being able to take their families to the Niederman Farm on holidays.  With the money they make at the Niederman Farm they pay their taxes and they improve the property every year so everyone wins.  As I ate a hot dog there during a setting sun with my grandchildren and sipped on drink I thought of Jimmy Kimmel and realized that he was a lost guy who was stuck in a bubble of Hollywood culture that didn’t like people who eat at the Cracker Barrel.  They didn’t like NRA members because guns are beyond their experience.  They are big government socialists who want to mold the world into the image of the rest of the world, which is in a lot of trouble.  I would rather eat at the Cracker Barrel in Dry Ridge or shoot my big .500 Magnum against a setting sun with the smell of wood smoke fresh from a raging camp fire than to eat noodles in Tokyo or sip wine in Venice.  That is what these gun grabbing cry babies are really scared of.  It’s not the guns, but the attitude and independence of the people who use guns to maintain a philosophy that is rooted in individualism instead of collectivism.  Jimmy Kimmel is a pussy because the weight and sorrow of the collective tragedy of Las Vegas was just too much for him.  He had no mechanisms of intellect to deal with his feelings of despair that he felt in realizing that the institution of Americanism couldn’t keep people from harm—and he wants even more laws to support his false belief in the merits of institutionalism.  But for me, and many people who carry and use guns a lot, especially big guns—it is in the focus on personal responsibility in having such things that make us hold the door open for ladies at the Dry Ridge Cracker Barrel while everyone waits in line to just be seated—and they are happy to do it, because they are generally happy people treating their fellow Americans with reverence and respect.  What drives liberals’ crazy is that the respect starts with gun ownership and is the backbone of a civil society—and that is why they cry like a bunch of dwindling pussies on a quest for their own destruction every chance they get, which is why liberalism should be illegal well before guns ever are.

Oh, and remember when I said I practiced Cowboy Fast Draw in my private range?  Well, this is what it looks like.  To me it’s like practicing a golf swing–it’s a sport–a way to test yourself against the forces of nature.  And its pretty cool and a lot better than anything liberals like Jimmy Kimmel do for fun.

Rich Hoffman

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Ann Becker for West Chester Trustee: Likely, the best candidate voters will ever vote for in their entire lives

Ann Becker and I don’t always agree on everything.  For instance she is a lot more libertarian than I am—politically.  She has supported school levies in the past whereas I likely never will.  And Ann Becker is not a big fan of guns—where I am.  Guns are a big part of my life—if I don’t have the smell of gun powder on my hands at some point in a day, that day is not a good one for me.  I shoot like some people golf—it’s all about ballistics, velocity and technique to take something carefully machined and crafted to perfection then launching a bullet toward a target successfully.  And that’s before the discussion of the Second Amendment.  Ann understands the right to bear arms, and she’s certainly no gun grabber, but she just isn’t a fan in using them.  She’d rather do other things.  Yet, Ann Becker is the most conservative and politically pure person I know, and I know quite a few people at different levels of occupation.  She is a real treasure in political thought and even with the differences I mentioned, Ann and I have never had a fight we couldn’t work out with a little talking—and that is what makes her such a wonderful candidate for the West Chester Trustee seat that needs filled from the exiting George Lang.  Here are some highlights of Ann’s debate performance at the West Chester Tea Party Candidate Forum conducted on October 17th 2017.

I wouldn’t support Ann just because I consider her a dear friend.  I also have a lot of friends and I wouldn’t recommend most of them for any kind of political office where the sanctity of the people were at risk.  So I’m not just talking Ann up because I like her.  She is just simply the best person for the job.  I would trust Ann with a pot of gold during a hurricane, and would be certain when I returned that all of it would still be there.  Ann is the kind of person who is sincere to her very core and she functions from those beliefs—and is extraordinarily ethical.  Perhaps her best skill is in her ability to coral people together who have incredibly different points of view and to get them to do what needs to be done.  While she always has great emotion in the things she does, she is remarkably able to keep the emotion out of her decisions and to allow the facts of a matter to evolve into a logical conclusion.

For those who are fans of the Brian Thomas radio show each weekday morning on 55KRC you already know Ann as “Lady Liberty” where she does regular radio segments talking about all the local happenings in the Cincinnati area regarding Constitutional studies and Tea Party oriented events.  She was not just president of the West Chester Tea Party for a while, but she was the President of the Cincinnati Tea Party as well. Over the years she has successfully been involved in many political activities extending from southern Ohio all the way north of Columbus.  Ann Becker is one of the most politically influential people in this part of the Midwest and she does it without pretentiousness or zeal.  She gets involved in so many activities because she functions from passion.  West Chester would be very lucky to have a person of her caliber as a trustee.  It takes a sometimes very patient voice to listen to all the different members of a community and try to bring everyone together toward a satisfactory conclusion—which is often not possible.  But Ann always tries and doesn’t let discouragement taint her optimism—and that is a very special trait.  Her vast experience at managing so many different personalities within the Liberty Movement, from the hard-core Constitutionalists, to the casual free speech supporter—Ann has routinely walked that fine line between success and failure successfully—so this West Chester Trustee seat is her next logical transition.   Currently Ann is the State Central Committee representative for the West Chester area which has proven to be an extremely important endeavor.  It’s also the reason she is able to be one of two candidates officially endorsed by the Republican Party.

I’ve worked with Ann on a number of things over the years and our relationship has always been productive.  As I said, we don’t always agree.  I am good at dealing with people of opposing views in spite of what many think, and Ann is also very good at corralling ideological differences without losing her moral compass.  In spite of being on different sides of a number of issues within the spectrum of conservatism, she and I have never left each other’s company mad.  So I am 100% certain she has what it takes to deal with the most complaining voices that a township trustee would have to listen to, all the while preparing for the most extravagant Republican fundraisers with all the powerhouses ready to write checks because Ann is sincere with everyone.  There is no fakeness to her, she can sit down with the guy who is upset about traffic patterns on Cincinnati Dayton Road and be completely fair and caring to him, then get on the phone to the area socialites to coordinate the more communal aspects of GOP occurrences and never lose a beat.   As simple as that might sound it’s incredibly difficult for most of our adult population to be good at those extreme tasks and still function from a place of sincerity.  When dealing with people everyone thinks there concerns are the most important things in the world—so it takes incredible skill to make the people you deal with feel as though you are giving them all of your attention, even though you may be pulled in a million different directions.  The more people in your life the harder it is to give everyone individual attention with complete sincerity.  A lot of times politicians may be so enamored that the socialites call them for help and they forget about the guy worried about traffic issues.  To the public those politicians become just another out-of-touch aristocrat.   Yet Ann is that unique type of person who can give everyone equal attention and leave them thinking that she really cares—because in all reality—she does.

Sometimes voters go to the booth to punch the name of someone they don’t know, and they can feel like they are taking a chance on someone just because they have an “R” next to their name and figure they don’t have any other options.  But finally with Ann Becker they do have an option for someone who is uniquely more qualified than anybody they may vote for in their entire lives.  Ann Becker is the most trustworthy person to maybe ever run for office.  While she was very successful in running the Trump campaign from within Butler County she started off that 2016 election supporting Ted Cruz.   She wasn’t a big fan of Trump at the start of the campaign, but as the facts came out of what kind of person Donald Trump would be Ann put aside her differences with his personality and focused on the policy improvements that would come from a Trump White House.  Ann played a big part in why Ohio averaged 10% over Hillary Clinton in the whole state when the final votes were counted—the ground game was good and the right Republicans were involved in helping Trump while the Kasich Republicans rebelled.  When the smoke cleared Ann Becker was still friends with everyone—and that is a remarkable achievement these days.   Not only does it show that Ann can work with anybody, but she is also able to amend her ideological position based on the facts as she comes to know them, and that is unique.  It’s precisely what any voter would want in a representative of any kind.  And that’s what you get with Ann Becker.  Voters may never vote for a better person for the job of West Chester Trustee in their lives but on November 5th 2017, when they get to punch the ticket for Ann Becker.

Rich Hoffman

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All the Reasons to vote for Mark Welch for Trustee: The “invisible hand” of West Chester

With all the talk about education and how much money should be spent on it, and has been within America, there are a lot of people who are in dire need of a vast education.  Most of the people needing it are those functioning as pundits and news reporters—especially politicians who are doing important jobs but don’t have the intellect to do that job correctly.  That has been the case so far during Donald Trump’s entire time spent in the White House. People who should know better are surprised that he has done such a good job so far and has led an economic approach that is breaking records in the stock market—as I write this the Dow Jones is currently 300 points about 23,000!  And the reason is basic economics.  Trump is providing a hands off approach to government allowing investment to prosper and for our capitalist exchanges to be trustful, so people are putting their money to work instead of hiding it away to protect it from radical politicians who want to redistribute it to their voter base essentially to buy elections.   Trump’s approach works and it always has for those bold enough to utilize a less restrictive business environment and we know that because Trump hasn’t been the first to try such things.  In West Chester, Ohio Mark Welch has been utilizing a very pro business strategy that has been very successful and now four years after he was first elected West Chester is booming in similar ways that the Dow Jones is currently.  It’s all about a pro business strategy that allows for growth, and now that Mark is up for re-election of his seat the facts are there for all to witness.  Below is a collection of video segments from a West Chester Tea Party forum conducted to feature the candidates for this year’s election.  Mark as expected, performed very well, and gave great answers to the questions provided to him which should put everyone’s mind at ease about electing him for a second term to continue the good job he has been doing.

I suppose where the education failure starts it is that most people just don’t understand the basic concepts of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations.  I mean, modern advocates for thought—and that includes everyone from the most highly paid attorney working for Beltway politics to the NFL player protesting on one knee during the National Anthem should understand well the idea of the “invisible hand” described in Smith’s epic work on economics.  The basic premise that self-interest regulates behavior far better than authoritative Theory X oriented fear of government—such as what occurred under Mark Welch when he first became a trustee in regards to zoning regulations.   Before Mark came along zoning was a radicalized venture in West Chester.  I can recall a case where a business was destroyed by West Chester zoning because they hosted Tea Party events on Tuesday nights and the rules of zoning were used to push it out of existence.  The heavy hand of government penalized this place of business for some signage displays on Sunday’s where a similar business right across the street was given a free pass—because it was a popular meeting place for Lakota school levy supporters.  It only took a few months once there was bad publicity unleashed for that place of business to close its doors—and that is just one example that government can destroy businesses by limiting the movement of Adam Smith’s free hand.   That building is still sitting empty years later, destroyed by government essentially.  The same story could be told all across America and when Mark talks in the video about beating an entrenched incumbent in the 2013 election, that’s why he won.  He has not disappointed West Chester, he’s made it much better over the last four years.

When self-interest goes from a focus on profitability and instead resides purely on survival it is then clear that we are living in a restrictive society confined to the artificial barriers imposed by government for the purpose of ideological control rooted in poor philosophic thinking.  It is hard enough to be in business competing in an industry without the hand of government sticking its nose into every little aspect of strategic implementation.  To an extent government is there to make sure that the game of business is played fairly, but they should not impose themselves on that climate, otherwise you destroy the “invisible hand.”  When government is too involved, that invisible hand stays in a pocket and doesn’t do what it should and that’s a bad thing.  Mark Welch certainly understands the concept of “the invisible hand” and West Chester is thriving in 2017 beyond anybody’s expectations.  Donald Trump is doing the same on a large national level.  Anybody who understood how these things work could do the same, but unfortunately such people are hard to find.

Maybe it’s because liberals—especially academic liberals, are inherently lazy in their thinking.  The works of Karl Marx is much smaller than Adam Smith’s works so perhaps it’s because it’s easier to read that liberals gravitate to Marxism and cower in fear of Smith. Most liberals that I have known love to smoke pot, have reckless sex with dirty unwashed people covered in tattoos and body piercings, and are weak people who like to hide in the safety of a crowd—so Adam Smith’s invisible hand is pretty scary to them—because they are scared people to begin with.   But that doesn’t mean you can build your society around their thinking.  Anybody who is in public office needs to understand the basics of Adam Smith’s concepts.  Under Trump’s presidency we can now all see how the Wealth of Nations is built.  It goes from concept in a large volume beautiful book to actual practice as represented by the Dow Jones records currently being broken by the day.  But before Donald Trump was Mark Welch in West Chester, Ohio who understood the invisible hand of Adam Smith from day one of his election during the first term.  The wealth of West Chester has exploded, and it’s not a mystery.  It’s all very predictable.  But Wes Chester is unique because it has had politicians like Mark who knew when to leave things alone—which is harder than a lot of people think.

Many years ago and up to very recently, in leadership training of people who need to learn those skills a common practice is to have a person stand on an elevated platform and to allow themselves to fall backwards into a group of waiting arms from your teammates to teach trust to the subconscious.  The thinking is to trust that the invisible hands of your team to know that they won’t let you fall because it’s in their self-interest not to let you.  For instance, if you are a smart person who holds the keys to their strategic success in life, you don’t have to worry about them backstabbing you from all types of success in life, because they need you for their own fulfillment.  So they won’t tend to let things happen to you if they find you falling.  Building that trust is one of those elementary practices in leadership training.  The people who are always terrible at this exercise are those cowering liberals who are afraid of their own shadows in life, so it is very difficult to fall back and trust other people because they don’t naturally trust anything—because of what they know about themselves if you really want to break it down correctly.  Let alone trust some invisible hand that is not controlled by government.  But their dysfunction cannot be the standard we all live with as a nation, or a community, because what they are experiencing is a psychosis not a healthy deduction of reason.  So when you get someone like Mark Welch, you grab on tight, because he is unique in the political world.  Hopefully with Trump’s successes on the larger stage more people like Mark will emerge.  But currently, people should be very grateful that Mark Welch is running for such an important trustee position, because he understands innately the nature of Adam Smith’s invisible hand, and it has been that hand which has loaded West Chester, Ohio with such magnificent options toward the enjoyment of life.

I was at Cabela’s in West Chester just yesterday buying up ammunition for some weekend shooting and I had to marvel at the work of the invisible hand that has been doing a good job in West Chester.  To have the option of visiting Cabela’s on a wonderful October day then heading down to Jags for a nice steak lunch with important people to make decisions that would increase the fortunes of many people.  Then to top off the night at Top Golf and enjoy the sunset of a fall evening—but before leaving to walk over to Barnes and Noble for some new books to read are all miracles of the invisible hand of Adam Smith’s capitalism.  Everyone should read Adam Smith’s work because they would find such things much better miracles for which they are.  They’d also understand that much of that lifestyle I mentioned is a result of Mark Welch’s proper management of West Chester as a trustee—to build the trust that investors need to fall back into the waiting arms of West Chester’s government to protect them without meddling into their work.  The trust goes both ways, government has to trust business to catch it when they fall back into their arms, and the same for the businesses who must take a leap of faith with their investments to make magical things happen in the realm of capitalism.  It sounds easy, but unfortunately most people just don’t get it.  Mark Welch does, and that is the primary reason that people should vote for him on November 7th 2017. The invisible hand of Adam Smith is alive in West Chester, and it’s beautiful to look at when you can see what it leaves behind.  But trusting that hand is hard, and lucky for West Chester, Mark Welch does, and the results have been explosively delightful, and something everyone—even  loser liberals—can benefit from.

Rich Hoffman

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Joan Powell Comes Out Anti-Union as a West Chester Trustee Candidate: The difference between good management and being a suck-ass

 

One of the things that most shocked me from the recent West Chester Trustee Candidate Forum at Indiana Wesleyan College sponsored by the West Chester Tea party was that Joan Powell stated quite emphatically that she was anti-union and would like to see Ohio become a right-to-work state.  Who would have ever thought she’d say such a thing because it was Joan who sat on the Lakota school board for so many years caving into the union demands wrecking the budget with increased payroll with no management in sight.  Now that Joan is running for trustee in West Chester she has come out against labor unions which is interesting given the fact that many union radicals have targeted the trustees with their themes of dissidence exclusively because Mark Welch and George Lang had been exploring ideas to bring right-to-work legislation to West Chester specifically because Ohio’s governor Kasich has been soft on the labor unions due to his defeat of Issue 5 several years ago. Because of her friendly attitude toward labor unions in the past, strategists would have thought that Joan would seek the Lakota union votes in this trustee race but oddly she tossed that away with the statement seen below.

This may be the first time I’ve ever agreed with Joan Powell.  When I was heading the effort to make Ohio a right-to-work state in 2012 Joan turned her political guns on me and did whatever she could to erase me from what she was doing as president of the Lakota School Board.  At the time Joan was trying hard to give the teachers who worked for Lakota a raise when I had been showing that the exclusive cause of the operating levy she had been seeking was to add more to the wage rates which were already well over the average household income.  Joan’s position was extremely friendly to the labor union at Lakota, and her track record is her track record.  There isn’t anybody who can assume based on her history that Joan would do anything but lay down in future negotiations with the various unions that are in West Chester’s wheelhouse, like the police and fire departments.  I mean it’s easy to say that we value school teachers, fire fighters and police officers—and to give them all the money they are asking for.  It’s hard to tell them no, and that they already make too much money.  In the case of fire and police officers they always give you the speech about how they run into danger while everyone else runs away, so when their contracts come up public support usually favors the unions but as trustees elected to manage the finances, sometimes you have to do the hard things then explain it to people even when its unpopular.   The easy thing is to do as Joan has done in the past and that is to just give the union what they want to keep them from going on strike, then seek tax increases to cover the costs.  That’s why her statement here is so surprising.

If this Joan Powell had revealed herself 10 years ago we might have avoided a lot of bloodshed in the Lakota school district.  I might have gotten along with her!  But, my experience with her says that she knew what kind of crowd she was speaking to and she formulated her comments specifically to her audience.  What she really believes is something else entirely.  Nobody can look at the record of Joan Powell over the years as a president of the Lakota school board and determine that she was anything but excessively friendly to the public union effort.  Yet you can hear with your own ears her declaration that she is against labor unions so who could really know what to believe.

I personally think public sector unions should be illegal.  If you have a job funded by tax payers you should not be able to organize against tax payers or their representatives for more money.   In private business competition can help bring reality to labor union activism so the free market does the job of helping to manage the situation.  But in government, we are talking about monopoly status over the tax dollars in question so labor unions have unfettered access to the funds of the communities they are supposed to serve.  It’s easy to obtain the funds they desire because often the only people who stand in their way are politicians like Joan Powell who never want any bloody conflicts with their labor unions, just peace.  Elected politicians find the temptation to throw vast amounts of money at these public sector unions too easy.  It’s far easier for them to ask for tax increases from a faceless community hiding the effort behind children or the safety of our citizens.  That makes those types of people terrible managers and Joan Powell is certainly guilty of that.

Yet for the record in 2017 Joan has declared that she is against labor unions so as a note to the police, the firefighters and the public school teachers who might think that they might vote for Joan Powell looking for an easy run over politician to engage in future negotiations with—she has indicated that she is anti-union.   I mean perhaps she has learned some lessons over the years.  I wouldn’t vote for her as a trustee, the only people I think have a chance of doing good work as a West Chester trustee are Mark Welch and Ann Becker.  Lynda O’Conner may be a good pick for that third seat because Lee Wong is a disaster and Joan Powell has a terrible track record at managing big budgets.  But in regard to her statements on labor unions, I actually agree with Joan Powell on something.

In actuality Joan was likely just telling the audience what they want to hear, which is worse than being an open liberal because as a voter you can never be sure what the person you are considering really stands for.  Knowing a bit about Joan Powell I think she is very malleable—her thoughts always go to the path of least resistance and that’s fine if you are a grandma handing out cookies to your grand kids—but when you are supposed to protect millions of dollars from the greedy hands of public employees who want the most money for doing the least work—you want someone who will manage that money with some valor.  Labor unions may want to vote for Joan because they smell the blood in the water, but one thing they won’t be able to rectify is that she did come out against labor unions in the 2017 election.   Her comments are now part of the public record and they will be used against her in the future.  That’s why we have these forums, so that we can test the candidates in the forges of reality to see how they hold up to a little scrutiny.  Obviously Joan Powell says whatever she needs to in order to appease the people she is addressing.  If it’s labor unions, she gives them what they want.  If it’s the Tea Party, she does the same.  So there is nothing about Joan Powell that indicates she would ever do anything but tell people what they want to hear.  The damage she has always done, and obviously seems committed to in the future, is that she is more in love with the popularity of being a public official than in doing the hard work of management.  And that is what deciding this election of 2017 is all about.  If people want good management, Joan Powell is not their person.

Rich Hoffman

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Ernest Gause for Lakota School Board: Bringing Lean ideas and lower taxes to a district screaming for improvments

Many people over the years have asked me what would it take to support a school levy at Lakota—as if the decision to spend more money were the problem. I have always said that good management is what I want to see at Lakota and to that effect I think Jenni Logan has done a really remarkable job as the treasurer—she is a first-class talent that has been very impressive over the years. Her addition and the reality of declining enrollment within the Lakota school district due to a peak in real estate growth, have resulted in a budget at Lakota that has been operating at a surplus, which is how it should be. Even if the 2013 levy which Joan Powell and Linda O’Conner supported had failed, Lakota would still be sitting pretty today with a surplus because of the fiscal management starting at the treasurer position. But other things have declined since, the old superintendent became sick and left the district, and many of the board members indicated they wanted off the train opening up a number of seats for this election year—and the report card has declined—which isn’t acceptable. So there is a lot at stake in this 2017 election. Lakota’s success will have a lot to do with the kind of school board we elect and without question the best candidate on my radar is Earnest Gause. I think he is the kind of improvement for Lakota as far as out-front thinking that is equitable to the impact Jenni Logan has had on the accounting side.

Ernest is a good guy, I’ve talked to him on several occasions and most recently at the School Board Forum of the West Chester Tea Party where he was a clear stand out with Todd Parnell during the debate. Ernest has a lot of new ideas that reflects his very impressive background which can be seen below from source material on his newly opened website, also linked below. As you read through the following information I am most excited to potentially see Ernest apply Lean techniques to the business of school board, because that would go a really long way to solving many of the over bloated problems that have been associated with such a big district in Ohio functioning as a government school crippled under imposing political standards and a selfish labor union. Lean manufacturing techniques would force all that garbage to the surface just like it does in every place of business that it’s applied to, and that would add much to the overall performance standards of Lakota. In public schools for too long labor unions run everything and politicians run everything else. I’ve always said that if business practices were applied to education that not only would children be better prepared for the real world, but many of the villains that drive up the cost of education would be exposed, and I am certain that with Ernest Gause at least good logical people would finally have their representative on the school board. Earnest is someone I could get behind and trust. Here is the background of Earnest Gause as indicated on his website:

Ernest Gause is a business consultant and owner of Source Consultant that specializes in HR Benefits, Diversity and Inclusion and HR Operation as well as an Executive Coach with over 25 years of experience. Mr. Gause is a Six Sigma Black Belt with a history of success working with Fortune 500 Companies in many different industries to include Retail, Banking, Manufacturing, and Call Centers. He has supported operationally over 40,000 employees across the United States and Canada to drive innovation, creativity, accountability, and revenue to achieve operational goals and objectives.

As a calculated risk-taker with deep human resources and operational knowledge, Mr. Gause has championed innovation and creativity in the organizations he has supported to streamlined IT systems to drive operations to increase customer satisfaction and employee engagement. Mr. Gause has put in place employment pipelines and recruiting efforts to support and promote key talent to build organizations business models to driving profitability to the bottom line.

Mr. Gause has 4 degrees, 2 masters and 2 bachelors in business and technology. Attending and graduating from the University of Nebraska and Bellevue University in pursuing master’s degree at the same time. It was pursuing his dream of mastering business and technology that he realized that we are a part of an evolving society and world that is getting smaller and smaller every day. After graduation, Mr. Gause began his career working in the financial industry for fortune 500 companies where he was to work a national product release, strategies and assist in developing the strategic direction of the organization.

With his business successes, Mr. Gause realized that you have to give back to the community that has been vested and invested in your success. Mr. Gause achieves this philanthropic work by partnering with school systems, private and public institutions to build educational, employment and technology pipelines to support the next generation of leaders in our community. To further support the next generation of leaders he has built consortiums of businesses, colleges and universities to drive that entrepreneur spirit to support, motivate, inspire and drive our future leaders to be the best version of themselves.

http://gauseforlakota.com/

Earnest is obviously very competent, and he’s a different kind of candidate than we’ve had in the past. For people who really want to solve the problems that I’ve complained about at Lakota for years, electing someone different is a step in the right direction. I think Earnest has some great ideas on a number of topics and that Lakota could score higher on future report cards just because of him setting higher priorities. I think he’d find a friend in Todd Parnell that would get a lot of good things done for a change. But the best thing that Earnest is talking about is an actual strategy for having a replacement levy to reduce taxes at Lakota. That is certainly a step in the right direction, and at Lakota it is possible. Because of the quality of the people who are already in the district and the declining enrollment that we are experiencing, a levy reduction strategy is a great thing to pursue. Earnest is thinking right about the matter!

Of course the real problem has always been the increased wage demands from the union each year, so at some point even with the surplus at Lakota, the union will seek more and more money until they force another levy on the community—when it’s all completely unnecessary with good management. Earnest brings that solution with him by way of personal experience. Lean manufacturing application to a public-school system is exactly what would bring all the ugly stuff Lakota likes to hide to the surface ultimately making it a much better district value wise at a reduced cost—just like it does in the business world. Anybody with a $200 million dollar a year budget like Lakota would be insane not to apply some version of Lean economics—and that is why the budgets are always so bloated. The way to correct that insanity is to put people on the school board who understand those types of things—and Earnest Gause does. I’ve spoken to him personally several times now and he impresses me each time. He’s the real deal and would be an instant improvement to the Lakota School Board. And he is the guy I’m voting for enthusiastically on November 7th 2017. I wish there were five Earnest Gause candidates that I could vote for this year. But there’s only one—and I’m happy to finally have a choice. Because Lakota is long overdue for someone of such a quality. He’s the best option on the ticket—and will be a real asset to the Lakota school system.

Rich Hoffman

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What We Learned about the West Chester Trustee Candidates for the 2017 Election: Ann Becker and Mark Welch are clearly the best picks

There weren’t really any second-place candidates who touched the levels of competency toward the open trustee seats in West Chester, Ohio than Mark Welch and Ann Becker as displayed during the West Chester Tea Party candidate forum at Indiana Wesleyan University on October 17th 2018. I mean there were other candidates there speaking that night, but Mark is the incumbent and the guy with the very successful track record—so much so that Democrats are rightfully terrified by him and have pulled out all the stops in an attempt to knock him off his seat. Then there is Ann Becker, Ms. Lady Liberty herself as she can be heard often on her 55 KRC radio segments on the very popular Brian Thomas show—who has been involved in just about every kind of politics in Butler County that there is. She is leaps and bounds above everyone else so she and Mark make a great team for two of the three trustee seats that are coming available. Of course, the focus for the purposes of preserving conservativism in West Chester relies on at least two conservatives being elected on November 7th and out of all the candidates running—many of them are good people—only Mark Welch and Ann Becker have the official backing of the Republican Party—and this year, that means a lot.

I think after watching all the other candidates speak if I had to pick a third person for those very important West Chester trustee seats it would be anybody but Lee or Powell. That third seat currently has belonged to the incumbent Lee Wong, but after his support of the Chinese spy scandal involving a Sherry Chen and her termination at the National Weather Service for alleged espionage, Lee has since dropped off the map. He embarrassingly protested on her behalf recently to help her get her job back and his defense of his friend revealed many disturbing traits about Lee Wong that many people hadn’t seen before. He tends to be aloof and disengaged when it comes to complicated issues, and he obviously has sided with organized labor locally—so he has lost his mask of Republican Party affiliation showing himself to be a lopsided liberal on almost every topic.

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2017/03/14/disgraced-chinese-american-scientist-fights-get-her-job-back/99171480/

The other person running who is obviously not a conservative is Joan Powell who came to the West Chester forum knowing that the audience was very constitutionally minded, so she attempted to talk their language, and everything ended up coming out phony. I’ll give her credit for trying, but she clearly wasn’t the right candidate. After all, she had been supportive of West Chester becoming a city some years back which means a lot more government to manage things and always has in her thoughts and actions big government approaches to everything. I thought it was particularly interesting that she tried to distance herself from the terrible labor union negotiations she had been involved in over the years at Lakota by saying that she was supportive of Right to Work. That was odd because most of the reasonable conservatives of West Chester remember her for her tax increases as president of the Lakota Board of Education. By alienating the leftist union members who might otherwise vote for her in memory of her Lakota failures, who did she think was going to support her for trustee? There aren’t enough of the “girls” getting their hair done with Joan to put her over the top. She came across grossly out of touch and adhering to the politics of another century in the past. She certainly didn’t project herself as part of the future.

Everyone else falls below the prospect of viability. In the coming days I’ll put up specific videos from this West Chester event to paint a more articulate picture of the proceedings. But for the high-level viability of the two primary candidates, Ann Becker and Mark Welch they did a good job and the little ad displayed above indicates my feelings on their candidacy. I have a lot of hope for the two of them. For Mark I’d like to see him continue to do the great job he has done. With Cathy Stoker out-of-the-way and Lee Wong put on ice over the last several years West Chester has prospered dramatically. It was kind of like the effect Donald Trump has had on the stock market. There’s a reason the Dow is pushing up over 23,000 for the first time ever. Many investors who had been looking toward West Chester to build a business, or even to start a family felt inclined to move once Mark was elected and from there hotels have exploded on the scene, along with many new restaurants, shopping, shooting ranges and many other options that have improved the lifestyle choices of the West Chester community.

There were some interesting conversations at the trustee forum that represent distinct philosophical differences. For instance, Joan Powell espoused her view that schools are what make a community great—which is clearly not the case. You can spend all the money on education that you want and the quality of a school will not help it at all. Rather, schools tend to be great based on the quality of the people who live in an area. Good people produce good kids and therefore, good students. Mark clearly understands that formula and most everything he does centers on those basic philosophies. That’s why Democrats hate him so much, because revealing that formula is something they are absolutely terrified of. That’s also how you can know that people like Lee Wong and Joan Powell are not Republicans but are in fact liberal Democrats—because they miss the basic concept of foundational government as a representative management device of the public. A government school does not make kids great, their parents do. If you want a great community you need to have an environment conducive to the lifestyle of good people—good in this case being people who have jobs, raise their children with parameters of expectation—and do things as a family unit. For instance, if you go to the VOA Park in West Chester, the people you meet there are generally all good to each other, and conduct themselves well. Respect for themselves and each other is a prevalent theme and that reflects the general demographic of the region which tends to attract good people to it. West Chester has great access to good jobs. Great access to interesting things to do, and it has low taxation—all which attracts good families with values. When those kids go to school they are naturally good kids. If you spend the same money on communities where the parents are terrible, the school system will obviously reflect that. The idea that a school makes a community is a liberal organized labor myth built to inflate wages and benefits for the government employees—not to fulfill the necessities of the community. Mark and Ann understand that delicate balance. Liberals like Joan Powell and Lee Wong don’t.

It was good to see such a large crowd at this event. People care very much about this outcome and that is wonderful, that is what makes our country great—at the local level. That is also the role that the Tea Party has always had, educating the public about the matters that matter most to them. In that regard I’d say the only serious candidates running for those three seats were present in the video above. If candidates aren’t willing to go before the West Chester Tea Party, they really aren’t serious about running for office. Hopefully this article helps you sort out the names from all the confusion—and that really only two names essentially top out the first two seats, Ann Becker and Mark Welch.

Rich Hoffman

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‘Baby Driver’ isn’t just about Fast Cars: A great film about touching the magnificence of life

It won’t save Hollywood from itself, but I was quite surprised by how good the movie Baby Driver was. The Edger Wright directed film was a remarkably good film for a heist movie with great car stunts. Personally, I’m a sucker for car stunts in movies and I had said that I could tell that I’d most relate to the main character of Baby—because when I was younger, I lived a very similar life. I made those comments from just the previews, but after finally seeing the movie over this past weekend on my home theater system, I am astonished by the work. I didn’t just like the movie because it reminded me of my teenage years, it was just a fabulous—well thought out movie that had some very bad characters in it, but was essentially about loving life and being a good person. I give Baby Driver two big thumbs up. For a business enterprise, it had a good budget and it made more domestically than it cost—which is always a good thing. The numbers shown below are the breakdown of the profitability of the movie which is important because it should be a lesson to Hollywood about what works and what doesn’t, What set this movie apart from everything else out there was the unabashed sense of hope that it displayed throughout the film. The main character, Baby was a good kid and the viewer found themselves rooting for some way that he could find a happy life with his incredible talent. If I didn’t know better I’d almost say that Edger Wright took sections of my book Tail of the Dragon and changed the scenes a little bit, but that’s OK. I would have never ended the movie the way he did, but it was satisfying all the same.

Baby Driver

Domestic Total as of Oct. 12, 2017: $107,796,728

Distributor: TriStar

Release Date: June 28, 2017

Genre: Action / Crime Runtime: 1 hrs. 52 min.

MPAA Rating: R Production Budget: $34 million

Total Lifetime Grosses

Domestic: $107,796,728 47.6%

Foreign:

$118,526,768 52.4%

________________________________________

= Worldwide: $226,323,496

Domestic Summary

Opening Weekend:

$20,553,320

(#2 rank, 3,226 theaters, $6,371 average)

% of Total Gross: 19.1%

> View All 15 Weekends

Widest Release: 3,226 theaters

In Release: 107 days / 15.3 weeks

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=babydriver.htm

Even the villain played by Kevin Spacey had redeeming qualities. This was a story oozing with hope and the kind of valor only professional thieves understand who are driven by their enormous genius to live unconventional lives just because the world is otherwise too boring for them. Most of the bad guys in Baby Driver are overachievers who have fallen in the cracks of an overly institutionalized human existence. Maybe it’s just me and the kind of life I’ve had, I could relate to every character, even the deaf guy who was the godfather of Baby. But even so, the movie is great even if nobody has had those types of experiences.

At this point a lot of people have written reviews about this movie so one more by me won’t do much to help it. But I can say that it is movies like this that will help Hollywood in the future—movies without huge budgets that touch people’s lives in an honest way. Nobody with a beating heart could help but not cheer for Baby toward the end of the film and people rewarded the movie with a decent box office reception. Baby was a kid pulled into crime by losing his parents early in life. He didn’t know fear in the traditional respect until he met a girl that he loved and had the same kind of innocent passion toward life that he did. At the start of the movie I recognized in Baby a young man who had not had his childish imagination turned off and it was that which made him so extraordinarily good, and creative in driving cars for professional bank robbers.

My life was a bit different, I didn’t lose my parents so there was no reason for me to find myself in similar situations with similar people but for the fact that I loved to drive fast. I still do in fact. Baby in the movie was a natural driver where his car and his vast imagination made him into a superman behind the wheel—he was virtually unstoppable so long as he had a car. For me it was always that I resented that by the nature of driving I was constrained behind normal people—and was forced to live by their restrictions in life. Driving fast for me was an open declaration that I was not like those other people—that I was living an exceptional life. And if anybody had a problem with it, they could take a hike.

I was in constant trouble, I went to court a lot and was threatened with jail almost every three months. And with such attitudes of course a criminal element would be attracted to such a rebellious character. So that made for some interesting experiences. However when the rubber hit the road, literally, I was always a good person. I had a good family and good grandparents and my foundations were always solid, so no matter how murky things became, my moral compass was always able to show me the right way. So I really felt for the kid in Baby Driver, his mom was obviously a good one and he lost her too early in life, but she had made an impact on him that lasted a lifetime.

Baby’s love of life at the very beginning of the movie was a fascinating examination into human behavior. Baby was boyishly optimistic about everything so that made him an intriguing character—something you really don’t see much these days in movies. Some critics might think that his depiction of life was unrealistic, but I can say that it was pretty spot on in relation to my own experience. Ultimately it was that goodness which kept Baby from rotting in jail at the end. He was just too good of a person to be thrown to the wolves of society and people know and respect that when they see it. I had a very similar experience at many court appearances and more than a few judges told me that they didn’t have room in their jails for kids who were just too good. Jails are meant for menaces of society, not people who are genuinely good in every aspect. Being fearless is not a reason to put people in jail, or being overly imaginative. It can be unfortunate if the criminal element gets a hold of such people, but goodness tends to rise to the top in spite of the efforts of evil.

If you haven’t seen the movie do yourself a favor and do so. It’s a real treasure. It was unusual and optimistic in the ways we want our movies to be—and Hollywood would do a lot better to make a lot more of these kinds of films. Critics might say that Baby came from a broken home and had suffered terrible tragedies that would have prevented him from becoming such a person—but I know better. What the critics don’t know is that a good parent can produce similar young geniuses—just through the love that they give them. That is after all what makes people what they are in life—institutions certainly don’t. People who love to drive fast do so for usually some psychological reason that has great merit. I always knew why I did it in real life. Baby in the fictional sense was discovering it. And we who watch movies understand how those relationships work, because we understand people like Baby—even if we can’t relate so strongly to the character as I might. That’s because what’s in us as human beings desires so much to be loved and to flee from institutional mechanisms designed to artificially manipulate our lives toward service to a system. We don’t all have to be geniuses to feel that yearning for individual freedom—and that’s all Baby wanted in this movie. And that’s what we all can relate to.

Rich Hoffman

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